xiv 



dent circumstances, as they had placed him above following the Law, 

 so also raised him above following literature as a profession. He 

 was in the enviable position that, while he sought and obtained the 

 fame, he could disdain the drudgery of authorship ; and there was 

 no fear that such a mind would degenerate into indolence, or indulge 

 in the serene voluptuousness of literary leisure. He was a man of 

 books, but not of books only ; he took great delight in society, in 

 which he mingled freely ; and his own house was open not only to 

 many attached friends, and to his legal contemporaries, but to states- 

 men, men of letters, of art, and of science, and to cultivated foreigners, 

 whom he received with easy hospitality. There were few distin- 

 guished men in England, or even in Europe, who were not proud 

 of his acquaintance ; with many he lived on terms of the most 

 intimate friendship. 



Mr. Hallam became early a Member of the Royal Society. Though 

 not strictly to be called a man of science, yet his active and com- 

 prehensive mind was sufficiently grounded in the principles of most 

 of the exact sciences, especially of mathematics, to follow out their 

 progress with intelligent judgment, and to watch their rapid advance 

 with the utmost interest. In the proceedings of this, and of other 

 kindred societies, particularly the Antiquarian, as well as in the 

 administration of the British Museum, of which he was an elected 

 Trustee, he took part ; and always, from his remarkable range of 

 knowledge and sound practical habits, with great advantage. 



But though Mr. Hallam had thus early taken up his position as a 

 man of letters, he did not come forward as an author till of mature 

 age, and then, with a publication which had demanded years of 

 industrious research and of multifarious inquiry. It was the grave 

 and deliberate work of a man conscious of great powers, one also 

 (which is more rare) fully conscious of the responsibility attached to 

 such powers, and who well knew that the best faculties and attain- 

 ments may be wasted, as to permanent usefulness and enduring 

 fame, by that hasty ambition which grasps too eagerly after popular 

 applause, and wearies the public mind by incessant demands on its 

 attention. Till this time Mr. Hallam was only known by his general 

 reputation as a well-read and accomplished scholar, and by some 

 articles in the ' Edinburgh Review.' The conductor of that journal, 

 then at its height of power and fame (as appears from recent publi- 



