teresting series of documents-the grants from the Crown, enrolled on the Patent Rolls, or recorded by the Signed Bills and Privy Seals. No progress could possibly have been made with this Calendar without very frequent reference to this class of documents, and brief notices of the whole series, chronologised along with the letters, were accordingly incorporated in the work. The contents of the French Rolls and of the Rolls of Parliament were treated in the same manner. In short, it was Mr. Brewer's design to include in this Calendar every known source of contemporary information regarding the reign of Henry VIII. ; and upon this plan the work has been hitherto pursued from the commencement.'

But even this, though the most laborious and learned, was not the most remarkable result of Mr. Brewer's labours at the Record Office. It is the custom of the editors of the successive volumes to prefix introductions giving some account of their contents. These, as a rule, cannot well be long, nor can they enter into much detail. But Mr. Brewer was sensible that the subject assigned him possessed a unique and independent interest. He had before him, as described by Mr. Gairdner, the whole of the existing materials for the reign of Henry VIII., and he was therefore in a position such as no one had yet enjoyed for writing a complete history of that reign. It was a subject pre-eminently suited to him; for it needed, in greater measure perhaps than any other portion of English history, his remarkable knowledge of both the old and the new periods of European life.

At the time of Henry VIII.'s reign, the old and the new influences are seen in mortal struggle for the mastery, and to do justice to the drama it is essential for the historian to be in sympathy with both sides. Nothing was more remarkable in Mr. Brewer's mind than its capacity in this respect. He was a distinguished Aristotelian scholar, and thoroughly appreciated the grandeur of the vast logical structures which were raised by the theologians of the Middle Ages; but at the same time he was a devoted disciple of Lord Bacon, read his chief works incessantly, and endeavoured to follow the Baconian methods in all his studies and thoughts. Similarly, although deeply read in patristic theology, and, in accordance with his Oxford training, an appreciative disciple of the Caroline divines, he became an enthusiastic admirer of Luther, and, as is proved by the notes in his copy of the Jena edition of Luther's works, had studied him minutely. He regarded him as holding in theology a somewhat similar position to that of Bacon in philosophyequally the author of an Instauratio Magna.1 Add to this that he was a thorough Englishman in all his sympathies and tastes, and it will be seen what rare qualifications he possessed for the task he undertook.

His labours over the materials of his work gave him, moreover, one other advantage which, in all probability, will never be enjoyed by any one again.

His admiration for Bacon as a philosopher and for Luther as a divine seemed to increase year by year. He prepared a very useful edition of Bacon's Novum Organum for the use of students at King's College, with a most interesting introduction. It was not published, but can still be obtained in the Secretary's Office at King's College.

The Calendars he edited contain an analysis, in chronological order, of every known document relating to Henry VIII.'s reign; and for this purpose he himself read them all through. Now that they have been analysed, it is most unlikely that any one else will go through the same labour. Yet the actual perusal of such documents is like the personal examination of witnesses, and must afford a more vivid, living, and accurate perception of their purport than can possibly be obtained at second hand. For years Mr. Brewer lived in daily intercourse, as it were, with the chief actors in the reign of Henry VIII. He read their private letters, and followed them into numberless details of their daily lives. He had a special gift for reading character; and the impressions of the men and of the events of the reign which such a man received amidst such exceptional opportunities must needs possess an unique value.

These impressions he communicated to the public in a series of prefaces to the Calendars, which constitute, when combined, a complete history of the reign to the death of Wolsey. He entered with too much enthusiasm into the work to be content with a mere prefatory sketch of the contents of each volume. He cast into the form of a finished historical narrative the results of his tedious research, and upon the composition of this narrative he bestowed an immense amount of time and labour which were in no way required of him in the discharge of his official duty. The preface to the first volume of

the Calendar contains 122 pages, that to the second volume 279 pages, that to the third 435 pages, and that to the fourth 666 pages. Other volumes which he edited in the series of Record Office publications have introductions of considerable interest prefixed to them, particularly the volume entitled 'Monumenta Franciscana.' But the prefaces to Henry VIII.'s papers rise in all respects to the dignity of an historical work of the first order. They are written, like the essays which are here reprinted, in a singularly graceful and scholarly English style. They are full of animation and dramatic power; and they have been justly described as at once the most faithful and the most interesting account yet produced of the momentous period they treat. For the reasons already mentioned, they are never likely to be superseded. Unfortunately, they are attached to ponderous and expensive quarto volumes, so as to be practically inaccessible to the public. Mr. Murray, however, has offered to reprint them in convenient form at his own risk, and although some official difficulties have hitherto stood in the way, it is to be hoped that the consent of the Treasury to the production in a popular form of literary works of such unique character will not be finally withheld. Meanwhile, the most valuable and finished of Mr. Brewer's works, possessing a permanent and general interest, remain buried on the shelves of a few great libraries.1

A very interesting review of the fourth volume of these Calendars and Prefaces will be found in the Quarterly Review for October 1877, and the following judgment of their value ought to be quoted:-'If,' says the writer, 'the Calendar does not utterly supersede all previous collections,

But, as has been mentioned, in addition to his work at the Rolls Office, Mr. Brewer was for the long period of thirty-eight years, from 1839 till 1877, engaged as a lecturer and professor at King's College, London. In 1839 he was appointed Lecturer in Classical Literature. In 1855 he became Professor of the English Language and Literature, and Lecturer in Modern History; and the latter two subjects being for a time combined, he became, in 1865, Professor of English Literature and Modern History. It illustrates the wide range and versatility of his mind, that he should thus have passed from Classics to Modern History and English Literature, and that he should have been equally successful in giving instruction in each subject. The transition corresponded very much with a change in his own intellectual interests, and with the increasing concentration of his attention on modern history and modern literature. He retained, indeed, to the last his affection for the classics, always maintaining that as a means of training for the mind English was not equal to Latin and Greek. When

the introduction in which Mr. Brewer has gathered up the innumerable threads, and has woven them into a consistent picture, so far surpasses all former narratives of the same events as to cause regret that he has not chosen rather to write a life of Wolsey, which everybody would have read, than to bury the fruit of so much study in prefaces to bulky and not very accessible volumes. With little additional labour he would have enjoyed greater freedom in the management of materials and in the use of colour, and literature would have been endowed with a popular masterpiece. Mr. Brewer has thought it a duty to devote the whole of his accumulated knowledge and power to the public work which has occupied so large a portion of his life. So few men are capable of extracting for themselves and digesting all the information his Calendar contains, that the elaborate introductions by the editor add immeasurably to its permanent utility and value. But it is impossible not to feel and to regret the generosity of so great a sacrifice.