Within a few years after his marriage he fixed his abode at a short distance from London, where the sight of open fields, of trees and flowers, never failed to exercise its soothing and restorative influence upon him.  The love of Nature was a passion with him, and in the record of his journeys—­whether the few which he was able to make for the sole purpose of pleasure or his many professional tours—­his notices of the scenery show how large was the enjoyment he derived from this healthful source.  When, too, he withdrew from public life, it was to the neighborhood of a small town, remote from the former scenes of his struggles and triumphs, but commanding a wide view over a pleasing landscape.  Here, as the friend who has edited this volume tells us, “he devoted himself almost exclusively to labors of kindness and usefulness; his charity was so extensive that, although his left hand knew not what his right hand did, it was impossible that it should escape observation even beyond the sphere of the recipients of his bounty; and while thus engaged in relieving distress in the neighborhood of his new home, he continued to remit money to old pensioners elsewhere up to the day of his death....  But his great interest was in the cause of education, especially among the poorer classes, which he developed at the cost of incessant personal exertion, and mainly at his own expense.  He established a night-school, which he conducted himself, and in which he was assisted by voluntary teachers from among the gentlemen and tradesmen of the town, who attended in turns, but he was himself never absent from his post, except under very urgent necessity.  After a time some of his friends raised a subscription in order to relieve Macready of a part of the burden which his own zeal in the cause had brought upon himself.  Yet, although his own contribution to it had not been ever less than one hundred pounds a year [about a twelfth of his whole income], he was so fond of the night-school that he accepted this aid as a proof of the estimation in which his work was held, and as an additional fund, but not in ease of his own payments.”  Such a close to such a life will seem either a lame and impotent conclusion or a most fitting and harmonious cadence, according to the point of view.

We have spoken chiefly of Macready’s character as a man, which was so attractive in itself, and is so faithfully and lucidly mirrored in this record of his life, that the work may be commended to readers of every class and ranked with the choicest specimens of biography.  As the record of an artistic career its interest is of course more limited.  Yet in this respect also its excellence is very great, and if the art which Macready practiced with such assiduity and devotion, though with no undue estimate of its value or importance, held a higher place in the world’s regard, the light which is here thrown on its processes and requirements would be received as an inestimable boon.  But at least his example, the spirit in