appeared-without intimation of the phenomenal run the book was destined to have. He left an unfinished novel entitled "The Teller," which, with a brief memoir, was published in 1901. In this fragment is also discoverable the background of banking experiences with which the author was familiar. A XVI THOMAS HODGKIN 1881 MONG the stronger literary lights of our own time that first shone from the windows of a banking-house is Thomas Hodgkin, born in 1831, educated in University College, London, and from 1859 to 1902 a partner in the banking-house of Hodgkin, Barnett and Company, Newcastle-on-Tyne, now amalgamated with Lloyd's Bank. In 1874 Mr. Hodgkin retired from active part in the banking business that he might devote more leisure time to historical research and composition, and in 1902 he retired from business altogether. His principal work is "Italy and Her Invaders," in several volumes. He has also written several standard biographies, including studies of Theodoric, Charlemagne, Charles the Great, and George Fox. His latest historical work is the first volume of a twelve-volume "Political History of England," the most notable series of the kind ever issued. The editors of the series, Messrs. Hunt and Poole, selected Mr. Hodgkin for the initial volume because in their judgment he was "specially capable of dealing with the period un dertaken," a period extending down to the Norman Conquest. This banker-historian has been honored with several fellowships and titles which indicate the high estimate put upon his scholarship and the enduring character of his contributions to history. The clear, incisive style of this author-now well on in the seventies-finds ample illustration in the closing words of his latest work. "With the battle of Hastings," he says, "ends the story of England as ruled by Anglo-Saxon kings. It is enough to say that a great and grievous transformation had come over the Anglo-Saxon character since the days of Oswald and ever since the days of Alfred. The splendid dawn of English and especially of Northumbrian Christianity in the seventh century had been early obscured. The nation had lost some of the virtues of heathendom and had not retained all that it had acquired of the virtues of Christianity. . . . A tendency to swinish self-indulgence, and the sins of the flesh, in some of their most degrading forms, had marred the national character. There was still in it much good metal, but if the AngloSaxon was to do anything worth doing in the world, it was necessary that it should be passed through the fire and hammered on the anvil. The fire, the anvil and the hammer were about to be supplied with unsparing hand by the Norman conquerors. Richard Garnett in his “Universal Anthology" pronounces Thomas Hodgkin "one of the ablest historical writers of the century," and associates him with Grote, Lubbock, Bagehot, Rogers, and other bankers who have won world-wide recognition as literary men. XVII EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN A MONG American bankers of our day no one has reflected upon literature so much of dignity and glory as Edmund Clarence Stedman, whose life closed on the 18th of January, 1908. Stedman is one of the few eternally great poets of America. He is, at the same time, the foremost of America's literary critics. Stedman's literary appreciations are as much a part of the prose literature of our time as were those of the elder Hazlitt in his time. His "Victorian Poets," published in 1875, is as much alive as it was a year after its appearance. On this much be-written theme he has left us by far the most keenly critical and at the same time most kindly appreciative work that has found its way into print. This was followed in 1886 by his equally able, and, for him-because of his lack of ample perspective-more difficult work, "The American Poets." The third of his great critical works, "The Nature and Elements of Poetry," appeared in 1892. Of the many library collections of English verse of the last century, Stedman's "Anthology" |