characteristic manner. 'The warm grasp of the hand, the hearty tone of the greeting, made one always feel at home again in Oxford.' It was the same thing in his own house. 'It was impossible to be shy or stiff: he would tell some ridiculous story that made one feel at home in a moment.'

His sense of humour was keen and delicate, and often, by some witty remark, he would give an unexpected turn to a conversation that threatened to become too serious. He told anecdotes well, having a retentive memory, and a knack of reproducing other people's gestures and intonation. His naturally buoyant elastic temperament, which showed itself in a certain childlike lightheartedness, enabled him quickly to throw off depression or fatigue, and then he would invent rhymes or pour out a torrent of puns and jokes, till every one was infected with his high spirits. He wrote a good many parodies and jeux d'esprit in prose and verse, some of which were privately printed, but the secret of their authorship never divulged.

It is difficult to write of his devotion to his own home, which he so seldom cared to leave, of which he was the very life and centre, or of the wealth of affection he lavished on his children. He was their playfellow and friend from their earliest years, sharing in every feeling of joy or sorrow, entering into the simplest pleasures with the keenest enjoyment, and putting spirit into every undertaking. He was gifted with that rare unselfishness, which, while preferring the needs of others, made it appear that he was gratifying his own. His clear moral perception and directness of purpose made his advice valuable; and his intense power of sympathy gave him an instinctive insight into the troubles and perplexities of others.

In the words of his old pupil, colleague, and friend, Prof. Dill:-'After all, the Nettleship one loves to remember is not so much the great scholar, the man of delicate literary tastes, the idealist, as the generous and tolerant friend, the delightful companion, who so readily recognized what was

good in others, who had the most critical and fastidious intellect, combined with a profound reverence for noble character or great gifts, who saw the littleness of ordinary life without contempt, and realized the possibilities of the future with untroubled faith.'

M. NETTLESHIP.

I.

JOHAN NICOLAI MADVIG1.

(PUBLIC LECTURE, MAY 21, 1887.)

THE death of a great master in scholarship is an event which invites those whose calling imposes upon them the duty of following, at however great a distance, along the path of advance in which he has led the way, to pause and recall with gratitude his tokens of command. A remarkably long life, passed, to all appearance, in good health and even fortune, and during the greater part of it with every circumstance to favour the vigorous development of his great gifts,— such was Madvig's allotted course, ending in a peaceful death on December 12, 1886. So long a career bridges over the interval between the learning of the beginning and that of the end of the nineteenth century. The two periods have different characteristics. Madvig's mind was, if ever there was one, a mind independent of its surroundings. But in ex

amining the character of his work we shall probably be led to confess that he belonged on the whole to the earlier rather than to the late period; that his strength lay rather in power of combination, in massive penetrating intelligence, and

1

[In a preliminary paragraph, here omitted, Mr. Nettleship acknowledged obligations to articles on Madvig contributed to the Berliner Philologische Wochenschrift (Feb. 5 and 12, 1887) by M. C. Gertz, formerly pupil of Madvig and now Professor of Classics at Copenhagen, and to the late Mr. Vigfusson, Reader in Icelandic, who was personally acquainted with Madvig.]

inexorable logical acumen, than in the patient inexhaustible industry, spending itself on the collection of facts, with which we are familiar as the main literary feature of our own time.

Johan Nicolai Madvig was born at the little town of Svaneke in the island of Bornholm, on August 7, 1804. Mr. Vigfusson tells me that in speaking he never lost his Bornholm accent. His father, like his grandfather and greatgrandfather, was clerk to the court of the town and district. The profits of the office were small, and the child had to work for his living. From his eleventh year he used to help his father with the law-books. It is curious that, in the case both of Madvig and of Mommsen, a certain amount-in Mommsen's case a considerable amount of legal study should have been the introduction to an illustrious philological career. The influence of this study on Mommsen, who carried it a great way, is, I need hardly say, strongly marked. It must have early implanted that belief, which it is his signal merit to have justified and enforced, that to understand a nation's history you must have mastered its law. It must have encouraged him to form his characteristic method of basing Roman institutions upon logically developed legal ideas. It would be absurd to say that the solidity and clearness of Madvig's understanding was the offspring of his boyish familiarity with law but that it was nourished by it-for he was a very precocious boy-there can be little doubt. And Prof. Gertz remarks that Madvig always retained a strong interest in law, besides exhibiting in his writings, and still more in practical life, a good deal of legal acumen.

His father's wish had been that Johan should succeed him in his office, and the education of the child for this purpose had begun, when his father died in 1816. He was then, by the assistance of private friends, sent to the school of Friedriksborg in Seeland, where he soon outstripped his companions. In 1820, at the age of sixteen, he went up to the University of Copenhagen, and took his degree in 1825. A month afterwards there appeared an edition of Garatoni's notes on the