to endure from him. As in the case of her 'Life of Irving,' she succeeded well in biography whenever she could feel sympathetic. Her lives of Count Montalembert (1872), the statesman and thinker she admired, and whose 'History of the Monks of the West' she translated (1867-79, 7 vols.) ; of her intimate friend, Principal Tulloch (1888) ; and of Dr. Chalmers (1893), the hero of her youth, are excellent ; while her life in the 'Men of Letters' series of Sheridan (1883), a character entirely alien to her own, is the least satisfactory of her writings.
The principal events of Mrs. Oliphant's later years were a visit to the Holy Land in 1890 to collect materials for her 'Memoir of Laurence Oliphant and Alice Oliphant, his Wife' (1892). She also produced 'Jerusalem, its History and Hope ' (1891), and her two sons died respectively in 1890 and 1894. Bowed down by grief, she was not prostrated; she continued to write as formerly; and although in the preface to her last book, 'The Ways of Life' (1897), she touchingly hints an apprehension that she may have written herself out, the pair of stories it contains not, indeed, quite her most recent productions are quite upon her usual level. She was less successful with a more important undertaking, the history of the publishing house of Blackwood (1897, 2 vols.). Either her heart was not in the work or the mass of material overwhelmed her ; a third volume, added by an authoress of far inferior celebrity, is in every way superior. Her health was failing when, early in 1897, she undertook a journey to Siena with the view of writing a book, one chapter of which actually appeared in 'Blackwood's Magazine' in July 1898. On her return she was evidently worse, and continued to sink until her death at Windsor on 25 June, retaining, however, such mental vigour to the last as to have written some spirited verses on the queen's jubilee a few days previously. She was buried at Eton on 29 June 1897. Her scattered tales were collected after her death, and published with a generous recognition of her supremacy as a delineator of Scottish life by a more modern master of the art, Mr. J. M. Barrie. Another posthumous publication, revealing her in a new light in many respects, was the melancholy autobiographic fragment, with its appendix of correspondence, published in 1899. Written under the influence of her sore bereavements, it naturally exhibits a depression which, considering the amount of work she performed, cannot have been habitual with her. It nevertheless shows what a hard life the brilliant and successful authoress had lived, and how severe the strain had been that had enabled her to meet the domestic and business obligations she had undertaken. It had been her destiny to live for and be lived upon by others, and, except as regarded the family she had so courageously adopted, to find disappointment in all the tenderest relations of life.
Most distinguished novelists who have not completely attained the highest rank have written themselves, so to speak, into form, passing through a period of apprenticeship before reaching a level which they have long retained, and ending by writing themselves out. Mrs. Oliphant's literary history is different. Totally inexperienced in composition, she began by a book which she never very greatly surpassed, and the end of her career found her almost as fresh as at the beginning. It seemed a natural criticism that she should have devoted herself to some concentrated effort of mind which would have placed herself in the front rank ; but the probability is that she made the best possible use of her powers. Her great gifts invention, humour, pathos, the power of bringing persons and scenes vividly before the eye could hardly have been augmented by any amount of study, and no study could have given her the incommunicable something that stamps the great author. She resembled the George Sand of George Sand's later period in her consummate ease of production, but she had never known the Frenchwoman's day of genius and enthusiasm. Her work as a biographer and compiler, which alone would have made a respectable reputation for many authors, was probably of service to her as a distraction from mental strain. Refreshed by a change of environment, she returned with new zest to 'my natural way of occupying myself,' as she described the composition of her fictions.
Mrs. Oliphant was the author of nearly a hundred separate publications, a full list of which and of her equally numerous contributions to 'Blackwood' is printed as an appendix to her 'Autobiography' (1899). The more important, besides those already mentioned, are: 1. 'Agnes Hopetoun's School,' 1859; new edits. 1872, 1880. 2. 'The House on the Moor,' 1860 ; new edit. 1876. 3. 'The Last of the Mortimers,' 1861 ; new edit. 1875. 4. 'Historical Sketches of the Reign of George the Second,' 1869 ; 3rd edit. 1875. 5. 'At His Gates,' 1872 ; new edit. 1885. 6. 'Whiteladies,' 1876; new edit. 1879. 7. 'Within the Precincts,' 1879; new edit. 1883. 8. 'The Literary History of England in the end of the Eighteenth and beginning of the Nineteenth Century,' 1882, 3 vols. 9. 'It was a Lover and his
