George Croom Robertson

“ Grote's business-experience contributed to the great success in raising money for the undertaking at its first start; while he ably seconded Mill, who led the education-committee, in planning a professoriate of unexampled width of range, and in securing men of real distinction to fill the numerous chairs. One only of the appointments led to a difference between master and disciple. There were to be two philosophical chairs, one of 'moral and political philosophy' and another of 'philosophy of mind and logic,' according to a scheme that bears evident traces of Mill's hand. ”

“ Another schoolfellow, who turned like himself to Greek history, Connop Thirlwall, was also an attached friend in later life; but, Grote being elder by some three years, they were not thrown together as boys. The school-work was wholly classical, except for an English theme; mathematics not being introduced till some time after Grote had left (private letter from Thirlwall to Professor Bain, 1872) . It sufficed, however, to beget a genuine love of learning, which survived the plunge into business-life at the bank imposed on him by his father at the age of sixteen. ”

“ It stands in truth without a rival in its class, not only for varied interest and philosophic breadth of view, but also for positive scientific insight into some, at least, of the aspects of music. Gurney's own feeling was stronger for melody than for anything else in music; and as melodic charm is that which most directly appeals to the common people, who were to be refined, it was in melody most of all that he sought the secret of its unique power. Of melody, no one else has written with the same penetration. ”

“ Above all he was impressed by the fact that the Greek thinker appeared often to be more concerned in Socratic fashion about mere exercise of the dialectical faculty than about any particular conclusions at all. The 'Plato' brings out aspects of Greek thought in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. which philosophical historians have generally thrust into the background, and is thus not likely to lose its importance. Before it was out the aged scholar had betaken himself without a moment's pause to his more congenial occupation with Aristotle. ”

“ Grote, in spite of renewed denunciations, decided to maintain silence and work resolutely for a lay appointment. Curiously enough, he acted in complete forgetfulness that he had taken up the very same position on the first election. Not till some two years later was the old struggle brought to his recollection by the reading of a diary-note of Mrs. Grote's (in presence of the writer of this account) , and great was the aged man's surprise at his lapse of memory. ”

“ Dr. Southwood Smith, a Benthamite, recommended in committee for the chair of morals, was not elected. For the chair of mental philosophy and logic a dissenting minister, the Rev. John Hoppus, had been seriously considered, but no recommendation was made, in face of Grote's urgent contention, adhered to by Mill and Brougham, that in a professedly unsectarian institution no minister of religion could fitly occupy a philosophical chair. The 'university' consequently opened in 1828 with neither of its philosophical chairs filled. ”

“ It is difficult now to imagine the labour and anxiety undergone at that time by the pioneers of a movement that has had the effect of transforming the whole higher instruction of the country. The records of the self-styled 'university' prove the astonishing ardour displayed by the three men, Mill, Grote, and Brougham (Campbell very soon fell out) , who took the lead in all that was done, with earnest helpers like Z. Macaulay, H. Warburton, W. Tooke, and others. ”

“ All that Grote wrote in the succeeding years (till 1832) proved in the end to be merely preparatory; but in 1826 he contributed a powerful article on the tory Mitford's 'History of Greece' to the April number of the 'Westminster Review,' which shows that he had already attained his main positions regarding Greek life and thought.
Classical, joined with philosophical, culture helped to give Grote, still a young man, his great influence in determining the character of the new 'university,' of which Thomas Campbell, James Mill, and Henry Brougham were the first projectors. ”

“ Business had left him time for continuous and fruitful study; but the addition of parliamentary labours had turned the student into a mere desultory reader, who yet could not forget the high satisfaction of his former estate. Already in 1838 he had begun to 'look wistfully back' to his unfinished Greek 'History,' and the feeling grew stronger as the Melbourne ministry tottered on to its fall in 1841. By that time Grote's mind was made up to return to his books. Aristotle had laid hold of him in the winter of 1840-1 ”

“ In 1864 they settled finally at Shiere, Surrey, in 'The Ridgeway' as it was called by Mrs. Grote, after the place of her birth. At all these houses she exercised a hospitality which was of great benefit to Grote, distracting him from too close application to work and developing the exquisite courtesy of his nature. Herself an accomplished musician (while Grote also had trained musical tastes) , she cultivated friendly relations with Mendelssohn and others whether composers or performers, and undertook a certain charge of Jenny Lind in the early days of that great singer. ”

“ Gurney's undergraduate course had been lengthened by broken residence, caused by a depression of body and mind which was apt with him to follow upon moods of high enthusiasm and consuming activity. As soon as he took his bachelor's degree in 1871, being in moderately easy circumstances, he was free to follow his natural bent. This now turned him to philosophy, though he always retained the keenest interest in letters and poetry. Strongest, however, remained his passion for music. ”

“ Here, besides delivering himself on a number of philosophical questions that had long possessed him, he took occasion to acknowledge with fine gratitude the intellectual debt of his life to Mill's father; as later, in 1868, he was ready to join in supplying the desirable annotations to a second edition of his old master's 'Analysis.' Fearing that he might not live to complete the exposition of his favourite thinker, he anticipated one part of his task in an account of the 'Psychology of Aristotle,' appended to a third edition of Professor Bain's 'Senses and Intellect' in 1868. ”

“ If apt to be drawn out with an earnestness and explicitness open to criticism from the literary point of view, the political lessons and ethical judgments so characteristic of the book render it the most instructive of histories. ”

“ He had a character as open and winning as it was upright and high-principled, with a lively humour that in youth was apt to brim over and later was sometimes rather caustic but which grew mellow with age. Through life he was an omnivorous reader, and amid the greatest press of work he always found time for the pursuits and interests of a highly cultivated mind. He married Caroline, fourth daughter of Thomas Fletcher, a Liverpool merchant, in 1832, and left four sons and three daughters. ”

“ In 1868, when the headship of the college was vacated by the death of Brougham, there was a unanimous determination, initiated by the vice-president, Grote's old friend Lord Belper, that it should be assumed by the one survivor on the council from among the fathers of the old 'university.' As president he continued his active superintendence of every department of the college work, and within a few weeks of his death he was holding committee-meetings in his study. ”

“ In the summer of the same year he succeeded to the college living of Trumpington, close to Cambridge, where he lived ever afterwards. His parochial preaching aimed chiefly at edification, and was simple and direct in expression. The native bent towards reflective thought which, alone in a large family, he shared with his famous elder brother, declared itself from his undergraduate days. In philosophy he never was a very wide reader, as he was in general literature ”

“ Of a discourse on magic, recommended by James Mill in 1821 for insertion in the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' as 'truly philosophical' in character, the work of 'a young City banker ... a very extraordinary person, in his circumstances, both for knowledge and clear vigorous thinking,' nothing more is known (Bain, James Mill, p.193) . Mrs. Grote, in 1823 (Posth. Papers,p. 29) , reports fresh purchase of works of Kant, and speaks of him as 'prepared for a furious onset of Kantism,' which is remarkable enough at that time in a follower of James Mill. ”

“ Many hours were accordingly spent day by day over piano or violin. In 1873 he even achieved the composition of what another member of the school describes as ‘a really pretty violin sonatine;’ but the net result of years spent for the most part at Harrow till 1875 was failure to come in any way near to the satisfaction of his personal longings, or the ability to fulfil what he regarded as his social purpose. He next settled in London, and still for several years continued his musical practice under different direction before he lost hope. ”

“ He does not appear to have been a member of the Utilitarian Society, founded by J. S. Mill in 1822-3; but when this gave place, after two or three years, to a new association for discussion on a basis of systematic readings, he lent the young men a room at the bank for their meetings, and before long joined them on their turning from political economy to logic. They met on two mornings of the week from 8.30 to 10 a.m., before the regular business of the day, and Grote, then living at Stoke Newington (Paradise Place) , had to be early astir to get to Threadneedle Street in time. ”

“ This report, adopted in the end only by his own casting-vote in the chair, led, in 1857, to the final determination of the question by the new charter of 1858. He took a like decisive part in the protracted deliberations that ensued before the reformed scheme of examinations was launched, advocating in particular the claims of classical learning and of philosophy. ”

“ Then, in the spring of 1829, if not earlier, Grote put forward for the chair of moral and political philosophy his friend Charles Cameron. Cameron was formally recommended by the education-committee in June, but the council in July, at the instance of Z. Macaulay and others who would have no teaching of morals without a religious basis, passed the recommendation by with a resolution not to elect 'at present.' In the vacation some of the party proceeded to seek out a clerical candidate ”

“ After many failures to reach a definite conclusion, partly, as it seemed, because a few individuals could hardly make the inquiry sufficiently continuous and comprehensive, a plan was formed in 1882 of a regular ‘Society for Psychical Research.’ This was to bring together for careful testing a large variety of human experiences, real or imagined, not taken into account by any of the accepted sciences. ”

“ An 'Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind, by Philip Beauchamp,' issued in 1822 by Richard Carlile [q. v.] , then safe in Dorchester gaol, was the work of Grote, founded upon a mass of written material committed to him by Bentham. The manuscripts, upon which Bentham had worked in his irregular fashion from 1815, were, with his covering letter of suggestions as to the use to be made of them, given by Mrs. Grote to the British Museum after her husband's death. ”

“ She had always been a diligent keeper of diaries and notebooks, as well as a sprightly letter-writer, and having thus an abundance of materials began to write a biographical account of her husband while he was still alive. ”

“ The work was rapidly pushed forward on his death in 1871, though she had already reached her eightieth year, and was published in 1873 as 'The Personal Life of George Grote:' more lively and piquant as a composition than always quite accurate in its statements of fact. She had previously (in 1866) printed for private circulation a sketch entitled 'The Philosophical Radicals of 1832, comprising the Life of Sir William Molesworth and some Incidents connected with the Reform Movement from 1832 to 1842;' this sketch has special interest and value as regards Molesworth. ”

“ Practice came to him, if not very quickly, on the whole steadily, and he acquired in time the reputation of a learned and thoroughly sound lawyer, becoming an authority especially in mercantile cases and in questions arising out of the Municipal Corporation Reform Act. ”

“ He published a 'Commemoration Sermon' in 1849, and 'A Few Remarks on a Pamphlet by Mr. Shilleto, entitled "Thucydides or Grote?"' in 1851, forcibly repelling an unworthy attack upon his brother. Otherwise he had printed nothing except a classical article or two, though he had written much, when he was elected to succeed Whewell as Knightbridge professor of moral philosophy in 1855. ”

“ Hopes of obtaining men of the general standing of Thomas Chalmers, Robert Hall, or Sir J. Mackintosh for morals, and of Whately for logic, were disappointed, The actual candidates, when the chairs were first advertised in the spring of 1827, were men of no mark. ”

“ Lushington's Judgment' in cases arising out of 'Essays and Reviews,' 1862. 4. 'A Few Words on the New Education Code, 1862. Mr. Mayor has published since his death: 5. 'What is Materialism?' ('Macmillan's Mag.,' 1867) . ”