Sir Theodore's version of Faust,' which will easily bear comparison with the best of its rivals, and may be accepted as the closest echo in English of Goethe's masterpiece. Sir Theodore well knew the perils of his adventure. "You, too," he wrote in a dedicatory epistle to Froude- “You, too, can measure well how great His perils are, who would translate But he faced these perils cheerfully and with success. He was near enough in spirit and in time faithfully to represent the art and sentiment of Goethe. His version of Horace stands on a lower plane of merit. It possesses many admirable qualities. It is fluent, melodious, and vivid. It does no wrong to the poet's meaning. But it is not Horace. Sir Theodore essayed a task that will never be accomplished. The old wine of Latin poetry may not be put into the new bottles of our English verse. The most that can be done by the translator is to compose a fantasy upon the theme or themes of Horace. And this Sir Theodore has done, and done well. He has not been able to suggest in English Horace's compact style, splendid economy of phrase, and firm, even tight, handling of many metres. Wherever we look we find pleasant verses pleasantly turned, which dimly suggest the wise original. Here, for instance, is the beginning of Exegi Monumentum "I've reared a monument, my own, More durable than brass, Yea, kingly pyramids of stone Here is Horace's meaning. stern measure of his lines. Here are not his gravity and the Time was to prove that Sir Theodore Martin's real talent lay, not in the composition of verse, original or translated, but in the difficult, delicate art of biography. That great opportunity, which is said to come once to the most of men, came to him when he was asked by Queen Victoria to write the 'Life of the Prince Consort.' It was in 1866 that the suggestion was made, and Sir Theodore Martin accepted it on condition that he was given no payment but a free hand. That he should be entrusted with so difficult and important a work was the highest tribute that could be paid to his delicacy and tact, and the event proved how well the Queen's choice was justified. In some respects it might have seemed hazardous. Sir Theodore had But the not known-he had never seen-the Prince Consort. Queen trusted him without reserve, and his own excellent judgment and perfect knowledge of affairs came to his aid. In a little book, entitled 'Queen Victoria as I knew Her,' published but a year ago, Sir Theodore placed on record the confidence and generosity wherewith the Queen treated him. It is an intimate sketch, which bears in every line the stamp of authenticity. For instance, thus he describes the Queen's nervousness, which he noted at their first interview: " serene and full of quiet dignity as it was," he writes, "almost amounting to shyness, which, as I came to know afterwards, Her Majesty always seemed to feel in first meeting a stranger—a shyness so little to be expected in a Sovereign who had gone through so many exciting scenes, and had known nearly all the most distinguished men in Europe. To show no signs of embarrassment, but to be simple and self-possessed, I saw at once was my true policy." And this simplicity, this self-possession, perfectly characteristic of him, he preserved until the end. On the other hand, the Queen's warm reception and constant faith made the task of biography light, if long. Nothing was withheld from him. The most secret documents were submitted to his judgment, and he wrote the 'Life of the Prince Consort' out of a full knowledge and with a complete understanding. It remains, and will always remain, a work of the highest value and importance. It is more than a biography—it is the history of England for a quarter of a century; and future historians will attach to it the value of an original document. Its profound research, its fine sense of proportion, its candour, and its intellectual honesty will always ensure its fame. At its first publication, it was criticised as partial, because it did not follow the usual practice of English history and look at all men and all events from the standpoint of the Whigs. But this independence is now recognised as a great merit of the book, which not merely dissipated the mist of ignorance and prejudice in which the Prince Consort's name was enwrapt, but revealed for the first time something of the grandeur and pertinacity of temper which distinguished Queen Victoria. During the fourteen years which Sir Theodore devoted to the writing of the Prince Consort's Life, he became an informal friend and adviser of the Queen. Though he held no office at Court, she did not scruple to ask his counsel whenever she needed it. His position, one of great delicacy, could not be better defined than in a letter written to him by the Queen in 1869: "The Queen really is at a loss"-thus runs the letter "to say how much she feels his constant and invariable kindness to her, and how deeply grateful she is for it. In the Queen's position, though it might sound strange, as she has so many to serve her, she feels the assistance rendered her by others in private matters, in which her official servants, from one cause or another, seem to feel little interest and to be very helpless, is of immense value; and she considers it most fortunate, to say the least, to have found so kind a friend as Mr Martin. The Queen likewise feels that in him she has found an impartial friend, who can tell her many important things which her own unbiassed servants cannot hear or tell her." It is not often that a monarch pays so high and intimate a tribute to a subject. But there is no doubt that Sir Theodore, by his ready sympathy and fearless criticism, did much to make the Queen's isolation tolerable. Before she wrote the letter quoted above, he was already become her literary counsellor. He had given her what advice she asked concerning her 'Leaves from a Journal,' the reception of which book she watched with the anxiety of an unaccustomed author. To Sir Theodore she frankly reveals the pleasure which favourable criticism gave her. "The Queen would have liked to go to Mr Martin," she wrote on January 19, 1868, "but ever since she came in, at a quarter past five, she has done nothing but read the reviews in the newspapers. She is very much moved-deeply so-but not uplifted or 'puffed up' by so much kindness, so much praise." And she valued the kindness and the praise, because they came at a time when she was bitterly distressed by the gossips of newspapers, which complained most unjustly that she shut herself up to nurse her sorrow and neglected the affairs of State. In the trouble caused by this gossip, she turned to Sir Theodore as to a faithful friend. In the same pathetic letter she declares that there are still two things which she "wished Mr Martin could find means to get rectified and explained: 1, That the Queen wrote 'The Early Years.'1 Pray have that contradicted. 2, That it is the Queen's sorrow that keeps her secluded to a certain extent. Now, it is her overwhelming work, and her health, which is greatly shaken by her sorrow, and the totally overwhelming amount of work and responsibility-work which she feels really wears her out. . . From the hour she gets out of bed till she gets in to it again there is work, work, work,-letter-boxes, questions, &c., which are dreadfully exhausting, and if she had not comparative rest and quiet in the evening, she would most 1 General Grey's book. likely not be alive. Her brain is constantly overtaxed. Could not this truth be openly put before the people?" Sir Theodore, with his invariable tact, counselled silence. It was not for a Queen to explain, and the work of misrepresentation could be undone, as it was undone, only by the lapse of time. No sooner was the 'Life of the Prince Consort' finished than Sir Theodore was asked to vindicate the memory of that great lawyer and distinguished statesman, Lord Lyndhurst. Some vindication was necessary, because a hastily published manuscript by Lord Campbell had done a profound injustice to Lyndhurst's memory. And Sir Theodore, having replied to Campbell's aspersions, sketched a vivid portrait of the slandered Chancellor. The spirit in which he performed his task is clearly explained in a preface. "To clear the fair fame of Lord Lyndhurst," he wrote, "from the incrustation of direct misstatement and subtle innuendo with which it had been overlaid by Lord Campbell, was a task of which any man might be proud. That task the present writer undertook only after he had gone thoroughly into the whole facts of Lord Lyndhurst's life." The result is a masterpiece of political biography, which still holds a high place among the annals of our time. Nor did Sir Theodore indulge his taste for portraiture only in his graver works. He was an adept in the difficult craft of painting portraits in a few pages. A collection of "Monographs," published some three years ago, proves how sensitively he understood, how skilfully he could portray, the strength and weakness of actor or statesman. Above all, he had a profound knowledge of the stage. Of the old actors he knew whatever tradition could tell him. Of the new his appreciation was always right and sincere. And this understanding of the stage came from something more than a general predilection. In 1851 he had married Miss Helen Faucit, the distinguished actress, who had already won a conspicuous success as Juliet, Hermione, Rosalind, and Imogen. Henceforth his natural devotion to the theatre increased. He took a keener interest in his wife's art than in his own. His enthusiasm for her skill never flagged, his admiration never grew cool, and none that knew Sir Theodore in his last years will forget the simple sincerity with which he recalled his wife's triumphs on the stage, and expounded her wise theories of dramatic art. Her theories were his also. His study of Macready owes much, no doubt, to her influence, and his opinions on theatrical policy were shaped in part by her practical wisdom. "It is idle to talk of a national theatre," he wrote, "until we have trained actors wherewith to fill it," and the promoters of the ill-omened scheme will find the truth of his words, if ever they get beyond the point of discussion. And well as he knew the stage, perhaps because he knew it so well, he did not conceal from himself its weaknesses and its follies. He sketches in Macready the vain cabotin, whose great talent should have taught him a better way. He draws in Rachel the child of genius, compact of air and fire, who read no more of a play than her "own part and the answers," and yet could see, as in a flash of lightning, the dramatic possibilities of Racine's masterpieces. So wisely, indeed, did Sir Theodore write of the stage that his "Monographs" show as clearly as any of his works the wonderful adaptability of his mind and temper. He turned from politics to the stage, from the stage again to the heroic attempt to translate the untranslatable. His last essay in the difficult art of translation was made in 1896, when he turned the first six books of the 'Eneid' into English blank verse. Where a hundred intrepid men have failed, Sir Theodore did not succeed. In a sensible Preface, he argued that blank verse is the only proper medium for Virgil. But blank verse is infinite and changing like the sea. The Earl of Surrey as long ago as 1557 proved the truth of Sir Theodore's opinion in a matchless fragment, which Sir Theodore duly praises "for its closeness of interpretation, and for the beauty of many passages and individual lines." This fragment remains unchallenged, and despite the splendid vigour of Dryden, the ingenuity of Conington, the plain fidelity of Sir Theodore Martin, Virgil is still unassailed and unassailable in the native fastness of his Latin. Some day perhaps the perfect version will come, and it will come, we think, in the form of coloured and harmonious prose. Throughout his long life Sir Theodore contributed industriously to periodical literature. As readers of this Magazine will remember, and as we are bound in pleasant duty to record, he gave us constant and loyal support. In the pages of 'Maga' much may be found of his prose and verse. There he discoursed of the theatre-of Irving's policy at the Lyceum, and of the Meiningen Company in London. Thither he sent many of the translations which he afterwards gathered into volumes. And whatever he did added to the fulness and vigour of his life. As we look back upon his long career, it is this vigour and this fulness which most greatly astonish us. Any one of his activities would have been enough to fill the years of most men. controlled them all with an ease and industry which are rarely paralleled. The practice of the law, which he never renounced, He |