than any of those we have mentioned. To the ignorant a popular explanation of these marvels has always a particular interest which hardly needs the aid of good writing to increase it, but the profound works which contribute to the advancement of the science are usually too abstruse for the ordinary reader.. As we write these lines the news is brought to us of the death of one of the most distinguished Englishmen who followed this science, Sir George Biddell Airy (1801-92), who held for nearly fifty years the post of Astronomer-Royal. His work in many branches of science was highly valuable, but it would be hardly possible to treat his scientific labours from the point of view of literature. We may, however, mention among his best-known works the treatises on Errors of Observation, on Sound, and on Magnetism. Sir George was one of the last survivors of the great band of savants who shed lustre upon the earlier years of the present reign; Sir Joseph Hooker is perhaps now the only one. A younger writer, but one now numbered for many years among the workers of the past, was John Pringle Nichol (1804-59), one of the earliest upholders of the “nebular hypothesis" of the origin of all our universe. Nichol's views were laid before the public in 1837 in his Views of the Architecture of the Heavens, a work of considerable literary merit, clear and easy in style,

though with something of a pedagogic didactiveness which it is sometimes difficult to avoid in works of this class. Professor Nichol, who occupied the Chair of Astronomy at the University of Glasgow, also published a work on the Solar System and a Cyclopædia of Physical Science. His theories were in great measure founded on the observations of Sir John Herschel (1792-1871), — son of the great Sir William Herschel,-who himself was the author of many learned treatises and a useful manual published in 1850 under the title of Outlines of Astronomy. Among living writers of eminence on this subject we should mention Mr. Norman Lockyer and Sir Robert Stawell Ball, whose Story of the Heavens, published in 1885, and other works written in an eminently readable style, entitle their author to a high place in literature. Sir Robert Ball is also known as the author of the valuable London Science ClassBooks on Astronomy and Mechanics.

There are many branches of science into which it would be absurd for us to penetrate with our present object. Chemistry, for instance, brings before us the illustrious name of Michael Faraday, but Faraday, though one of the most charming of lecturers, wrote little, and was, in the little that he did write, too technical for our purpose. Nor would it be possible for us to venture into the immense field of medical literature. Of living

men of science, of whom we have already mentioned some, we have little to say. Yet a word may be given to Sir John Lubbock, as a man of a marked personality, whose scientific achievements are well known, and whose agreeable manner of writing has brought him perhaps more disciples than some profounder sages have found. Among his more valuable works we may mention Prehistoric Times, as illustrated by Ancient Remains and the Manners and Customs of Modern Savages, first published in 1865, the Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man (1870), and the Pleasures of Life, a collection of slight essays upon miscellaneous subjects which perhaps received more praise than was due to its intrinsic merits. A greater name in the world of science, though hardly better known to the world at large, is that of Professor John Tyndall, whose rank in the world of chemistry and whose researches, especially in the regions of light and heat, are too well known for us to insist upon. The unlearned remember with gratitude the pleasure and instruction they derived from his Fragments of Science, of which a fresh series has just been given to the world. Professor Tyndall's inquiries into the phenomena of glaciers have also given us some delightful reading concerning his own experiences in the mountain expeditions which he undertook, originally at least, for this purpose. It is not

easy to write heavily of Alpine exploits, yet few of such books are of as much interest as will be found in Professor Tyndall's Glaciers of the Alps, Mountaineering, and especially in the Hours of Exercise in the Alps.

CHAPTER III

OF SOME PHILOSOPHICAL WRITERS

If we were nervous of dealing with the question of science, we find even more difficulty in approaching the sphere of the metaphysical and psychological writers who have contributed their speculations to the history of thought in the reign of Queen Victoria. This is also to a great extent out of the sphere of literature, and we certainly cannot be expected to trace elaborately the course and variations of the different schools of thought. The most we can do is to give a simple chronicle of what the greatest writers in this department have done, and to calculate broadly their influence on the world of speculation. At the same time we must now as in many other cases declare, with all suitable apologies, that we cannot pretend to offer the reader an exhaustive catalogue of living writers on this subject. Nomen illis legio; there is too numerous a band of workers in this