work by being read to.  The result was that he was not a great reader; and a man ought to be a reader who is to be a writer.  But, besides this, there was a strongly marked feature in his character which told in the same direction.  There was a curious modesty about him which formed a contrast with other points; with a readiness and even eagerness to put forth and develop his thoughts on matters that interested him, with a perfect consciousness of his remarkable powers of statement and argument, with a constitutional impetuosity blended with caution which showed itself when anything appealed to his deeper feelings or called for his help; yet with all these impelling elements, his instinct was always to shrink from putting himself forward, except when it was a matter of duty.  He accepted recognition when it came, but he never claimed it.  And this reserve, which marked his social life, kept him back from saying in a permanent form much that he had to say, and that was really worth saying.  Like many of the distinguished men of his day, he was occasionally a journalist.  We have been reminded by the Times that he at one time wrote for that paper.  And he was one of the men to whose confidence and hope in the English Church the Guardian owes its existence.

His life was the uneventful one of a diligent and laborious public servant, and then of a landlord keenly alive to the responsibilities of his position.  He passed through various subordinate public employments, and finally succeeded Mr. Herman Merivale as permanent Under-Secretary for the Colonies.  It is a great post, but one of which the work is done for the most part out of sight.  Colonial Secretaries in Parliament come and go, and have the credit, often quite justly, of this or that policy.  But the public know little of the permanent official who keeps the traditions and experience of the department, whose judgment is always an element, often a preponderating element, in eventful decisions, and whose pen drafts the despatches which go forth in the name of the Government.  Sir Frederic Rogers, as he became in time, had to deal with some of the most serious colonial questions which arose and were settled while he was at the Colonial Office.  He took great pains, among other things, to remove, or at least diminish, the difficulties which beset the status of the Colonial Church and clergy, and to put its relations to the Church at home on a just and reasonable footing.  There is a general agreement as to the industry and conspicuous ability with which his part of the work was done.  Mr. Gladstone set an admirable example in recognising in an unexpected way faithful but unnoticed services, and at the same time paid a merited honour to the permanent staff of the public offices, when he named Sir Frederic Rogers for a peerage.