HENRY CHARLES LEA. vii 



Hunt ; two months later in a journal of natural history, a description 

 of '' Certain New Species of Marine Shells." But the literary 

 gradually predominated over the scientific. In the Southern Literary 

 Messenger of Richmond, \'a., in the year 1845 and early in 1846, he 

 published a series of six articles under the general heading " Remarks 

 on Various Late Poets." These are critical studies and appreciations 

 of Miss Barrett, long before she became Mrs. Browning; of ]\Iiss 

 Landon, while she was still disguised under the initials L. E. L. ; 

 of Tennyson, then publishing his earlier poems ; of Eliza Cook, 

 and several others. Interspersed with these in the same and other 

 journals, are reviews and articles with many quotations and transla- 

 tions on " The Greek Symposium and its ^Materials," " Anacreon," 

 " The Imagination and Fancy of Leigh Hunt," the Latin poet 

 " Festus," and " Menage," the poet of the French renaissance. 



To such activity there is usually but one end, and to Mr. Lea it 

 came in the year 1847, ^vhen a very serious breakdown in his health 

 put an end for a while to all efforts except those for its restoration. 

 Recuperation, travel, marriage, hard and well-remunerated mercan- 

 tile work, rather than studv and writing, filled in the remaining 

 years of early manhood. 



With improving health and increasing strength began what may 

 be considered a third period, marked by many activities, including 

 a resumption of written work, which had now been laid aside for 

 more than ten years. In the North American Rcvieiv of January, 

 1859, appeared what was ostensibly a review by Mr. Lea of a 

 volume published by a German historian some years before. But 

 the article was really not so much a review as a scholarly study 

 of two forms of mediaeval trial, compurgation and the wager of 

 battle. An article on judicial ordeals appeared six months later, 

 also in the form of a book review. These studies, revised and 

 enlarged and with an additional chapter on torture as a form of 

 trial, were gathered into a volume and issued in 1866 under the title 

 " Superstition and Force." This was ^Ir. Lea's first book. Others 

 followed on similar subjects. In 1867 appeared "The History of 

 Sacerdotal Celibacy," and in 1869 " Studies in Church History." 

 These works it will be observed are in a totally different field from 

 that of his early literary and scientific writing. His entrance upon it 



