thoughtful men.  He had nothing of insular narrowness, and none of the hereditary prejudices which too often interfere with the capacity of English travellers or residents among us to sympathize with and justly understand habits of life and of thought so different from those to which they have been accustomed.  His liberal sentiments and his independence of thought harmonized with the new social conditions in which he found himself, and with the essential spirit of American life.  The intellectual freedom and animation of this country were congenial to his disposition.  From the beginning he took a large share in the interests of his new friends.  He contributed several remarkable articles to the pages of the “North American Review” and of “Putnam’s Magazine,” and he undertook a work which was to occupy his scanty leisure for several years, the revision of the so-called Dryden’s Translation of Plutarch’s Lives.  Although the work was undertaken simply as a revision, it turned out to involve little less labor than a complete new translation, and it was so accomplished that henceforth it must remain the standard version of this most popular of the ancient authors.

But all that made the presence of such a man a great gain to his new friends made his absence felt by his old ones as a great loss.  In July, 1853, he received the announcement that a place had been obtained for him by their efforts in the Education Department of the Privy Council, and he was so strenuously urged to return to England, that, although unwilling to give up the prospect of a final settlement in America, he felt that it was best to go home for a time.  Some months after his return he was married to the granddaughter of the late Mr. William Smith, M.P. for Norwich.  He established himself in a house in London, and settled down to the hard routine-work of his office.  In a private letter written not long after his return, he said,—­“As for myself, whom you ask about, there is nothing to tell about me.  I live on contentedly enough, but feel rather unwilling to be re-Englished, after once attaining that higher transatlantic development.  However, il faut s’y soumettre, I presume,—­though I fear I am embarked in the foundering ship.  I hope to Heaven you’ll get rid of slavery, and then I shouldn’t fear but you would really ‘go ahead’ in the long run.  As for us and our inveterate feudalism, it is not hopeful.”

In another letter about this time, he wrote,—­“I like America all the better for the comparison with England on my return.  Certainly I think you are more right than I was willing to admit, about the position of the poorer classes here.  Such is my first reimpression.  However, it will wear off soon enough, I dare say; so you must make the most of my admissions.”

Again, a little later, he wrote,—­“I do truly hope that you will get the North erelong thoroughly united against any further encroachments.  I don’t by any means feel that the slave-system is an intolerable crime, nor do I think that our system here is so much better; but it is clear to me that the only safe ground to go upon is that of your Northern States.  I suppose the rich-and-poor difficulties must be creeping in at New York, but one would fain hope that European analogies will not be quite accepted even there.”