herited a small independent fortune, which, by the rules of the University of Oxford, made him what is there called a Grand Compounder, and would have raised the fees on his Bachelor's degree up to something near 1007. This was a larger sum than at the time he could conveniently spare from his income. But he very much regretted his inability to comply with the regulations of the University, utterly unreasonable as they appear; he maintained his connexion with it by keeping his name upon the books of his College; he interested himself keenly in all University questions; and I know intended, if God had spared his life, and he could prudently have found the money, to take his degree, and acquire the right of voting in the Oxford Convocation. The well-informed writer in the Atlas, whoever he may be, will forgive, I am sure, my correcting almost the only mistake of fact I have been able to detect in his notice of my cousin's character.

1 I do not know if it is still the practice of the University; but in my time I believe the son of a man with 100,000l. a year could take his degree for almost a quarter of the sum which it cost a man who happened to have

When he left Oxford, he chose the Law for his profession, and flung himself into the study of it with his habitual energy. He obtained a certificate of honour in 1853, and in 1854 he was called to the bar by Lincoln's Inn. He chose the Court of Chancery, and more especially conveyancing, as the field for his practice. My own practice, lying chiefly in the Courts of Common Law, very seldom gave me the means of testing the extent and character of my cousin's legal knowledge. More than once, however, the opportunity did occur; and, so far as I can form an opinion, I entirely agree with that formed and expressed by others who saw more of him as a lawyer, and are far better qualified to pronounce a judgment; that he was a very sound and accurate lawyer, and an excellent conveyancer. That, if his health had permitted it, he would have had great success at the bar, I do not doubt. While his health lasted, he had that moderate success which is all which the Law generally accords for many years to her most devoted followers. But, as was not unnatural in a somewhat over-confident man, he was a little unreasonably discouraged because success did not come to him so rapidly as he had hoped, perhaps had expected, that it would.

Meanwhile he turned his attention to philology, a subject in which he had always taken great interest, and in which his large knowledge of languages, his accurate and rapid reading, and his powerful memory fitted him to excel. The facts connected with his philological labours cannot be better stated than in the words of the writer in the Atlas before referred to; and, as many of them are not within my own knowledge, I will extract a paragraph from his notice.

"In November, 1857, he heard the "Dean of Westminster read before the "Philological Society (of which he was

an active member) papers 'On the De"ficiencies in our English Dictionaries,' "and he was induced to read Sylvester's "Du Bartas' for words omitted by

"his hand, he proposed to Mr. FJ. "Furnivall (Honorary Secretary to the "Philological Society) that a committee "should be formed to make a supple"ment to these dictionaries; and of this "committee of three he was the secre

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tary and chief workman, the other "two being the Dean and Mr. Furnivall. "A circular for help in reading books was issued, and so many volunteers 66 came forward that a new English dic"tionary was resolved on; of the lite66 rary and historical portion of which Mr. Coleridge was appointed editor. With "the help of numerous coadjutors, "he produced his 'Glossarial Index to "the Printed English Literature of the "Thirteenth Century' (1859), and a list "of modern words, A.D. 1861, while "all the time he was steadily arranging "the contributions of readers for the "Dictionary. His papers read before "the Philological Society were 'On the "Scandinavian Elements in the English "Language' (exploding Mr. Thomas Wright's assertion that there were no "Danish words in our language); "the verb Ploro and its Compounds;' "On the word Culorum;' 'On the "Exclusion of several Words from a "Dictionary;' and 'A Report of some "Hard Words and Passages in Early "English Writers'-besides two papers,

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On

we believe, in Macmillan's Magazine,

one being a review of Mr. Hensleigh "Wedgwood's English Etymology. The progress made in the Philological Society's dictionary is stated by him. "in a letter to Dean Trench, dated May "3d, 1860, published in the appendix "to the second edition of the Dean's

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Essays on the Deficiencies in our Dic❝tionaries. Before his death he ob"tained from his friend and colleague, "Mr. Furnivall, a promise that he would "fill his place as editor, so that the "work he so desired to complete might "not fall to the ground."

Of the extent and value of his -services to philology, and especially to the projected English dictionary, I am not competent to speak; but I have been told by those who are competent, that

very high capacity for such studies. To the energy and enthusiasm with which he devoted himself to them, I can bear witness. He was always at work, to the serious injury, as I could not but think, of his bodily health. When not at his chamber she was working hard at home; and, even during the short vacation he allowed himself, and when away from London, books were always with him, and his mind and his pen were always labouring. A small drawing-room he turned into a literary workshop; and there, with the floor, the chairs, and the tables covered with books, a large deal frame by his side with its multitude of compartments filled full of extracts, he went on working long after he was a dying man, in such intervals as his determined energy won from the progress of a wasting disease, and as long as his failing frame could be propped up by pillows and his fingers had strength to hold a pen.

In the last eighteen months of his life, when he knew that he was dying, he began and made considerable progress in the study of Sanscrit. A book given him by the Dean of Westminster, but four days before his death, had been read nearly through by him, and contained many careful notes in his handwriting. On his writing table, when he died, was an unfinished review of Dr. Dasent's "Story of Burnt Njal," which he had been writing less than a week before he died. I was with him twelve hours before his death; and not only were his interests as keen, his affections as warm, and his mind as clear as I ever saw them, but he had actually done some literary work only a few minutes before

my visit. Consumption, which had brought his frame almost to dissolution, had had no power upon the energies of his mind.

I think it was in 1857 that, in common with others who loved him, I became aware that his lungs were affected. He struggled gallantly with his disease; and in 1858, after a bad hæmorrhage, and with a confirmed cough, in hope of benefiting himself by a few weeks of

spring circuit as marshal, with Sir John Coleridge, his uncle. He returned worse, and he never really rallied, although the progress of his disease was slow. He tried Whitby, Sidmouth, Blackpool, and Hampstead, all equally in vain, giving up very reluctantly, and only a few months before his death, his regular work at Lincoln's Inn, and never giving up, as I have said, such work as he could do at home. I cannot pretend to say whether the south of Europe or Madeira might not have saved his life; but it was useless to suggest it to him. He clung passionately to his studious habits of life, to his home, to his books, to his friends-to one dearest friend of all, who lives to mourn him, for whose sake chiefly, indeed, he ever left London at all. Supported by her, with his only sister kneeling by his bedside, and while his friend, Mr. H. Burrows, was administering the Blessed Sacrament to them, he fell asleep.

Such was the life and such the death of Herbert Coleridge. His life was uneventful; and, if measured by the actual results of his labour, he seems to have left but little behind him to justify the strong impression of power and promise he made upon all who knew him well. But all who knew him well received

this impression, and think with a certain sad regret on the unfufilled renown which was all he achieved here. For such only, probably, will these few lines have any serious interest, but they will admit that a cousin's hand has here dealt out to him in very straitened measure the honour he deserved. They, too, will treasure the memory of his warm heart and the affectionate disposition; of his character and temper, softened from any harshness, and refined and purified from any selfishness into considerate and almost tender gentleness, by the affliction which he took as it becomes a Christian to take what it pleases God to send; of his religion, sincere and deep-thoughtful as might be expected in the grandson and profound admirer of S. T. Coleridge -but remarkably free from pretence or display; of a man careless, perhaps too careless, about general society and ordinary acquaintance, but giving his whole heart where he gave it at all, and giving it stedfastly. To their kindness I venture to commend this fading record of a common love and a common sorrow. I most sincerely wish it were worthier of both. I am, sir,

Your obedient servant, JOHN DUKE COLERIDGE. To the Editor of MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE.

WITHIN sight of the Landsend, and overlooked by bluff Cape Cornwall, with its ambitious ascent from a low contracted neck of green to a high rounded slope widening out into the sea until it is abruptly terminated by rough rockpeaks standing precipitously in the surf, lie two pointed rocks some sixty feet above the waves that dash against them. At low water a narrow ledge of rocks unites the lonely sisters-for "Sisters" their name of Brissons is said to have signified in the perished tongue of the Cornishman; but with the swelling tide

the broken waters, rising bleak and desolate more than a mile from the shore, the resort of wild sea-birds, who do well to choose themselves a home offering barely resting-place for the foot of man, and sometimes, when tempests have stirred the waters along that dangerous western coast, unapproachable for weeks together.

A wild wind stormed on them from the south-west one gloomy morning of January, 1851; a black fog gathered round them. A merchant brig on her way to the Spanish main, gale-driven

uniting ledge. The sea dashed mercilessly against her, and almost immediately she was a shapeless confusion of planks and spars floating away piecemeal, never to breast the waves a tidy brig again. But her crew had escaped her fate nine men and one woman, the master's wife, stood shivering under the tossing spray on the strip of rocks that had been their deadly enemy, and was now for a while their safety. At length the daylight dawned, and they were seen from the shore, and they could see the shore, with a crowd gathering and gathering on it, and knew, as surely as if they had heard, that help for them was the thought and the talk of every man in that great throng. There was hope now.

But in vain; no help could be rendered; and the waves dashed higher and higher round them, and the ledge sank lower and lower into the foaming waste. It was full morning now, about nine o'clock; nothing had been done, nothing could be done, though more than two thousand were watching their nearing fate. A fierce white wave plunged over them, and they were drawn into the great water-grave. Seven souls gasped into death. The sea threw one man against the smaller Brisson; it was the master of the lost vessel. He clung to a jutting rock, and clambered into safety. A great billow rolled by him, bearing along his struggling wife; seizing her floating dress he was able to drag her towards him and assist her to gain a footing on the rock. Together they climbed high out of the reach of the waves, and were free from instant peril of death, but that was all.

Meanwhile a Mulatto seaman of the brig had contrived to place himself on a fragment of her wreck. The sea raged against him, and threatened every moment to drive him back among the fatal surges; but he battled calmly with it for his life. With a plank for oar, and a piece of canvass for sail, he guided his raft from the turmoil, and struggled towards the shore. For two or three hours he remained beaten to and fro by

helping him nearer land, the angry billows placing death between, his energy of mind and body remaining unshaken while he steadily pursued his attempt. Five stout fishermen at Sennen cove, a little nook close to the Landsend, watched his fate as they stood among their neighbours, and saw now a possibility of helping him if their boat could but be launched through the breakers. A possibility which, after all, was a bare possibility, beset with danger and difficulty; but let it be tried. Their boat was launched through the opposing breakers; she got to sea; now she seemed to disappear; now she rose again; she forced her way towards the undaunted mulatto. Oh! well done, brave boat Grace! She comes back triumphant through the raging waters, and lands in safety the rescued seaman and her noble crew. Three cheers for the five brave fishers of Sennen Cove, and their good boat Grace!

The sufferers on the rock have not been forgotten in the interval. On Cape Cornwall the Inspecting-Commander, his officers and men, are looking eagerly towards the Brissons, devising schemes of rescue. Round the storm-beaten Landsend the gallant little cutter he has sent is working her way bravely. Dear little Sylvia, the most beautiful cutter in her Majesty's Revenue Service! So, at least, think I, who have watched her in

every dress and in every weather till I grew to look on her as a familiar friend, and, in my child fancies, looking out at her on many a silver summer night as she lay in the bay in sight of my window, felt that, while all around me was sleeping, she and I awake were holding converse together across the quiet waters.

On she came victoriously round the point; and there, in the half hopeless hope that the approach to the rocks, which was impracticable from the Cape Cornwall shore, might be achieved from this less unfavourable quarter, her boat was launched, and her commanding officer with four of his men made the

spoken man he was, who had had his own way to make in the service, and made it. I should like to see him and shake hands with him again, though he would hardly recognise me now that eight years have separated me from the child who enjoyed so many and many a long summer day's cruise on board his cutter in the beautiful Mount's Bay.

It was a dangerous attempt he made, and a fruitless one. Nearing the Brissons was impossible; it seemed even impossible that his small boat could live in that furious sea. It must have given a sharp pang to the waiters on the rock to see the effort to reach them abandoned, and their would-be preservers turn back on their way, themselves in deadly peril. On shore there were fears that they would not make good their return; doubtless there were like fears in the boat too, and with alarming reason enough. But at length that danger was overcome, and the bold little crew regained the Sylvia, having risked their lives in vain.

And now the short winter day was over; all farther effort must be abandoned. Darkness began to gather over the waters; the crowd melted from the shore; the shore itself began to fade in the night shadows from the eyes of the hapless prisoners on the Little Brisson. They saw the Sylvia lie to for the night, taking her place in sight, and hoisting her colours to bid them hope still, for they were not deserted. It would be some comfort to them, as they looked out sadly through the gloom thickening over the fierce tumult of waters that prisoned them without shelter from the pitiless storm, without food in their exhaustion, without one drop of pure water in their fevered excitement, on a dreary rock through a long inclement night, to rest a look on the friendly vessel that gave them assurance of human sympathy-promise of coming efforts for their rescue, if not certainty of life hope at least.

It must have been a strange awful night for those two; a night of little sleep and much sorrow; doubtless-for

that threatening death must have been drawn very near in heart-of much love. People said there was unhappiness between them; she, the piously taught daughter of a dissenting minister, had married him, a rough, half-unbelieving man, against the wishes of her friends, and found that his ways were not her ways, and had a hard life of it, poor soul. They said she had gone on that voyage with him that her influence might "keep him steady," and so avert the menacing anger of his employers. Whether they said truly I do not know; but if so there must have been forgiveness and reconciliation, one would think, that night in the storm; they two together in the sight of God must have repented and forgiven all wrong that each had ever worked the other.

No doubt through the long dark hours they buoyed each other up with hope. Did either whisper to the other that dread which must have been ever present, that after that miserable night there might be another and another and another, and they should still be there -not they, but two mouldering corpses lying ghastly under the sky in the scabird's haunt till days of tempest had passed by, and a calm came too late? Perhaps each seemed not to fear it, not to think of it, lest the other should be roused to the horror of that possibility. They spoke no doubt trustfully of their coming safety; they must wait patiently through the blackness; the storm would be less by the dawn; to-morrow would put an end to their fears and their dangers! And the morrow did end the fears and the dangers of both, but not to both alike-to one for ever.

When morning broke the fury of the waves was somewhat lowered, the wind veering slightly to the south-east, so that it became possible, not to reach the Brissons, but to get nearer to them than could be done the day before. Still this improvement seemed but useless. What prospect was there of relieving the sufferers, when, after all the hazard of struggling as near as was feasible, there must still remain more than a hundred