Walter Bagehot
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THE WORKS AND LIFE OF WALTER BAGEHOT VOL. I. By Mrs. RUSSELL BARRINGTON. THE LIFE OF WALTER BAGEHOT. With Portraits and other Illl/stratiolls. 8vo, 12S. 6d. net. ESSAYS ON THE PURPOSE OF ART: PAST AND PRESENT CREEDS OF ENGLISH PAINTERS. 8vo, 75. 6d. net, LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY,CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS THE WORKS- AND LIFE OF WALTER BAGEHOT BDITE.D BY MRS. RUSSELL BARRINGTON THE WORKS IN NINE VOLUMES THE LIFE IN ONE VOLUME VOL. I. OF THE WORKS v LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & 30THSTREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS 1 Jl ) \ ,., PREFACE UNTIL now the only uniform edition of Walter Bagehot's writings in existence, was one published in America in 1889 by The Travellers Insurance Company, Hartford, Conn., "as a souvenir of itself "-to quote from its advertisement. This work was compiled and edited with exceptional care and completeness by Mr. Forrest Morgan, at considerable personal sacrifice. His ex- haustive notes have been used with advantage in subsequent issues of the separate works published in England, and also in the preparation of the present uniform edition. A debt of gratitude is clearly owing to Mr. Forrest Morgan from all those interested in the study of Walter Bagehot's writings. The American uniform edition comprised the writings previously selected by Mr. Hutton for re- publication. To these are now added the first two articles written by Bagehot which appeared in the Prospectioe Review,in 1848, namely "The Currency Monopoly" and "Principles of Political Economy"; .. The Monetary Crisis," Natz'onal Review, January, 1858; .. The American Constitution," National Re- view, October, 1861; II Matthew Arnold on the London University," Fortnt'ghtly Review, June, 1868; II Senior's Journals," Fortnt'ghtly Review, August, 1871 ; .. Count your Enemies and Economise your Expen- diture," a pamphlet written during a two days' visit to Bognor in the spring of 1862; seventeen articles VOL. I. v vi PREFACE on "The Depreciation of Silver," written for The Eco- nomist in 1876;1 and three short early essays printed for the first time as examples of Bagehot's writings in early youth: .. Essay on the Comparative Advantages of the Study of Ancient and Modern Languages," written at the age of sixteen; II Thoughts on Democracy," and II Essay on the Character of Mirabeau and his Influence on his Age." The most important matter republished for the first time will be found in the ninth volume, which contains articles reprinted from The Economist, The Saturday Review, and one article from The Spectator. Bagehot wrote, as a rule, at least two articles each week for The Economist during the last eighteen years of his life, during the period therefore when his mind was fully matured and while he was living in the centre of all that was best in the political and intellectual interests of his time. Hence these articles contain many utter- ances quite as valuable as any to be found in his more deliberate writings. All are interesting and written in Bagehot's unmistakable style, a style intrinsically his own, wherewith he contrives to make dry subjects lively, intricate questions simple, and every matter vital with a sense of reality. Out of the many hundred articles Bagehot wrote while directing The Economist, a selection had to be made for re-publication. In making this selection the main object has been to choose those whose subjects are likely to retain a permanent interest for the general public. I am greatly indebted to Sir William Robertson Nicoll for his most kind and able assistance in making this choice. Walter Bagehot wrote on many subjects. In his case, perhaps more even than in that of other great 1 Bagehot had 2,000 copies of these printed in pamphlet form, with Preface and Appendix by himself. The 2,000 copies were all sold at the time and till now the articles have not been reprinted. PREFACE Vll authors, it is desirable to collect all his wntmgs in one edition; to have within easy reach together with "the English Constitution," "Physics and Politics," II Lom- bard Street" and the II Economic Studies," essays such as "Hartley Coleridge," "Beranger," II Thomas Babington Macaulay," "Bishop Butler ", The great versatility which characterised Bagehot's mind during the whole period of his life, can only be fully gauged, the essential trend of his creeds only rightly grasped by a study of his works as a whole. Below the play of his frolicsome humour, below the stability of his intellectual powers, below the wealth of his imagi- nation, lay natural instincts which welded his gifts into the very individual form in which they found expression. II Deep under the surface of the intel- lect lies the stratum of the passions, of the intense, peculiar, simple impulses which constitute the heart of man; there is the eager essence, the primitive, desiring being," 1 and in this primitive, desiring being is found the initiative impulse which directed all else in Walter Bagehot. At the age of twenty-one he wrote the essay on John Stuart Mill's .. Principles of Political Economy" wherein he classes Mill as belonging to "an Aristotelic, or unspiritual order of great thinkers. The light of his inteIlect is exactly what Bacon calls 'dry light' ; it is 'unsteeped in the humours of the affections'; it disregards what Butler calls the 'presages of Con- science • and attends only to the senses and the induc- tive intellect. The extreme opposite to this school of thinkers is to be found in the school of Plato, and Butler and Kant, who practically make the conscience the ultimate basis of all certainty from whose principles it may be deduced that the ground for trusting our other 1 "Thomas Babington Macaulay," National Review, Jan., 1856. Vlll PREFACE faculties is the duty revealed by conscience, of trusting those of them essential to the performance of the task assigned by God to Man-thinkers, in short, whose peculiar function it is to establish in the minds of thoughtful persons that primitive theology which is the necessary basis of all positive Revelation." These, his own words, describe the school of thinkers to which Bagehot himself belonged-the school of Plato, Butler and Kant. The work that had fallen to him in life, owing to family circumstances, and also as that which satisfied II the impulse to busy ourselves with the affairs of men "-an impulse very strongly possessed by Bagehot-was not of a nature to disclose to the outer world the essential and most important characteristics of his nature. But from his writings these can be traced, more especially when his writings are taken as a whole. Through these, whatever might be the subject on which he wrote, runs the same con- necting link, one which in these days it is especially important to discern. II The light of his intellect" was not II dry light, unsteeped in the humours of the affec- tions," but was that light which practically makes II the conscience the ultimate basis of all certainty," the true wisdom which looks II unto the Rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole whence ye are digged." The original intention in arranging Walter Bagehot's works in this uniform edition was to place the writings in chronological order. It was not, however, found possible to carry out this intention in every instance. Eight volumes of the works had already been printed before it was contemplated that a life of Walter Bagehot should be written as a precursor to the issue of this edition.' While collecting material for this life, I came across several articles which had never been reprinted. 1 The Lif« oj Waller Ba$eleot forms the tenth volume of this edition. PREFACE IX These obviously were entitled to find a place in any edition which professed to be a complete collection of \Valter Bagehot's works. But. as far as was found possible under these circumstances, the new matter has been inserted so as to carry out the original idea of a chronological sequence. E. I. B. HERO'S HILL. CONTENTS OF VOLUME I. PAGE MEMOIR, by Richard Holt Hutton I SECOND MEMOIR, by Richard Holt Hutton (from Dictionary of National Biography) • 47 EDITOR'S PREFACE (Portion of a Preface written by Forrest Morgan for an edition of Walter Bagehot's works which was published in America) • 55 LETTERS ON THE FRENCH Coup D'ETAT OF 1851 (addressed to the editor of The Inqttirer) • 77 OXFORD (Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to inquire into the State, Discipline, and Studies of the University of Oxford, together with the Evidence, and an Appendix. London, 1852) HARTLEY COLERIDGE (1852) SHAKESPEARE-THE MAN (1853) • 218 BISHOP BUTLER (1854) xi MEMOIR BY RICHARD HOLT HUTTON. IT is inevitable, I suppose, that the world should judge of a man chiefly by what it has gained in him, and lost by his death, even though a very little reflection might sometimes show that the special qualities which made him so useful to the world implied others of a yet higher order, in which, to those who knew him well, these more conspicuous character- istics must have been well-nigh merged. And while, of course, it has given me great pleasure, as it must have given pleasure to all Bagehot's friends, to hear the Chancellor of the Ex- chequer's evidently genuine tribute to his financial sagacity in the Budget speech of 1877, and Lord Granville's eloquent acknowledgments of the value of Bagehot's political counsels as Editor of the Economist, in the speech delivered at the London University on May 9, 1877, I have sometimes felt somewhat unreasonably vexed that those who appreciated so well what I may almost call the smallest part of him, appeared to know so little of the essence of him,-of the high-spirited, buoyant, subtle, speculative nature in which the imaginative qualities were even more remarkable than the judgment, and were, indeed, at the root of all that was strongest in the judg- ment,-of the gay and dashing humour which was the life of every conversation in which he joined,-and of the visionary nature to which the commonest things often seemed the most marvellous, and the marvellous things the most intrinsically probable.