MORLEY 



SS33 



to popularise literature, and was Jerome Cardan, 1854 ; Cornelius 



author of a scries of volumes on Agrippa, 1856, and Clement Marot, 



Ijijii-h \\ritors down to Shake- 1871 ; Journal of a London Play- 



, 1887-95 ; A First Sketch of goer, 1866 ; and Memoirs of Bar- 



Kndish Lid-ratlin-. IsT.'i. m u id. tholomew Fair, 4th ed. 1892. See 



1912 ; Lives of Palissy, 1852 ; Life, H. 8. Solly, 1898. 



VISCOUNT MORLEY 



John Derry. Editor fc Journalist 



See the articles on Morley' s contemporaries in both politics and 

 literature, e.g. A squith ; Campbell-Bannerman ; Gladstone; Green- 

 wood ; Stead. See also Home Rule ; Journalism ; Liberalism ; 

 Mill; Rousseau; Voltaire 



John Morley was born at Black- 

 burn. Dec. 24, 1838, the son of a 

 surgeon. Educated at Cheltenham 

 mid Lincoln College, Oxford, by 

 the time he was in his twenty- 

 second year he had taken his de- 

 gree and was editing a dying lite- 

 rary journal, The Literary Gazette, 

 in London, and studying for the 

 bar. In due time he was called, but 

 never practised. For seven or eight 

 years he had a miscellaneous ex- 

 perience of literary life in London, 

 and then, in 1867, made his mark 

 by publishing his first book, Burke : 

 A Historical Study, showing his 

 interest at once in literature and 

 politics, and Burke remained one 

 of the ruling influences of his life. 

 In that year, too, he succeeded 

 George Henry Lewes as editor of 

 The Fortnightly Review, a position 

 he retained for more than sixteen 

 years. From 1868-70 he edited 

 The Morning Star. 



In the 'seventies, between his 

 editorship of The Morning Star and 

 his editorship of The Pall Mall 

 Gazette, Morley made his way into 

 the first rank of the writers 

 of the period by his finely bal- 

 anced studies of the great lite- 

 rary Frenchmen who immediately 

 preceded the Revolution Voltaire 

 1872, Rousseau 1873, and Dide- 

 rot and the Encyclopaedists 1878. 

 During this period he was writing 

 for The Fortnightly brilliant studies 

 of French statesmen, such as Robes- 

 pierre and Turgot, and also of 

 English writers Carlyle, Macau- 

 lay, Emerson. Mill, George Eliot, 

 and others and these well-weighed 

 estimates, published as Critical 

 Miscellanies, were supplemented 

 until they filled four volumes. 

 On Compromise 



During the same fruitful ten 

 years an essay, On Compromise 

 (1874). won definitely for the 

 writer a place among English 

 philosophers, a form of distinction 

 strongly supported by the tone of 

 his historical studies, which always 

 suggested a search for the funda- 

 mental principles of public policy. 

 Late in the 'seventies Morley was 

 engaged on a Life of Cobden, pub- 

 lished in 1881, and had projected 

 and was editing the invaluable, if 



unequal, series of critical sketches, 

 English Men of Letters, published 

 by Macmillan and Co., wnose lite- 

 rary adviser he had become. His 

 own volume in the series, Burke, 

 was published in 1879. His studies, 

 in the same firm's Statesmen 



Series, have had as their subjects 

 Walpole, 1889, and Cromwell, 1900. 



From 1880-83 Morley undertook 

 the editorship of The Pall Mall 

 Gazette as a Liberal organ, his 

 chief assistant being W. T. Stead, 

 and his second assistant Alfred 

 Milner, afterwards Viscount Milner. 

 It may be questioned whether any 

 newspaper has ever exercised so 

 great an influence over leaders of 

 opinion as The Pall Mall exercised 

 during this period. The conse- 

 quence was the entry of Morley 

 into parliamentary life as member 

 for Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1883. He 

 then severed his connexion with 

 The Fortnightly and The Pall Mall. 



In three years he was a member 

 of the cabinet as chief secretary 

 for Ireland, and he continued to 

 hold cabinet rank, whenever the 

 Liberals were in power, until his 



MORLEY 



final retirement in 1914 on the eve 

 of the Great War. AH the moot 

 trusted lieutenant of Gladstone, he 

 was again Irish secretary, 1892- 

 96. From 1896-1908, when he was 

 created VUcount Morley of Black- 

 burn, he represented Montroae 

 Burghs in Parliament. On the 

 return of the Liberals to power, he 

 was secretary of state for India, 

 1905-10, and lord president of the 

 council, 1910-14. 



When the Order of Merit was 

 instituted in 1902, Morley was 

 made one of the original holders of 

 the distinction, and from 1908 waa 

 the chancellor of the Victoria Uni- 

 versity of Manchester. From 1895 

 he was engaged on the most monu- 

 mental of his works, the Life of 

 Gladstone, 1903 a great historical, 

 biographical, and popular success. 

 Besides the Order of Merit, Morley 

 received many and varied honours. 

 Many of the universities conferred 

 honorary degrees upon him, and 

 Oxford made him an honorary 

 fellow of All Souls. In 1894 he 

 was appointed a trustee of the 

 British Museum, and in 1891 a 

 bencher of Lincoln's Inn. In 1902 

 Andrew Carnegie presented to him 

 the valuable library he had bought 

 from Lord Acton's executors, and 

 this Morley handed over to Acton's 

 own university, Cambridge. His 

 Recollections, published in 1917, 

 was avowedly his Nunc Dimittis. 

 By the glimpses it gave of confi- 

 dential politics, and its undimin- 

 ished literary grace, it charmed all 

 readers. He died Sept. 23, 1923. 



9 Statesman and Speaker 



AS journalist, author, and states- 

 man Viscount Morley won and 

 kept universal regard and personal 

 trust, even when he was an advo- 

 cate of unpopular causes. A critic 

 of imperial expansion, particularly 

 in Egypt and South Africa, in an 

 age of expansion, when the British 

 hold on both Egypt and South 

 Africa became consolidated, he was 

 heard with respect by those who 

 differed from him most ; a con- 

 stant supporter of Irish self- 

 government, he was never sub- 

 jected to the bitterness of feeling 

 that so long surged around that 

 question. That was because his 

 reasoned sincerity defied misunder- 

 standing. The commonest criticism 

 of him was that his doctrinaire atti- 

 tude, received from John Stuart 

 Mill, lacked the adaptability which 

 must accompany practical action. 



As a speaker Morley never had 

 the casual ease of the glib platform 

 orator, but his personality was 

 always impressive ; and in the 

 rare moments when he spoke his 

 most intimate thoughts, he moved 

 his audiences perhaps more deeply 

 than they were moved by any man 



