years to give him his due rank as the historian of England's foreign policy.
Of Seeley's work at his post in Cambridge I know but little. The Historical Tripos was his creation, but it has yet to win its spurs. I attended one of his professorial courses, and went to one or two of his 'Friday evenings,' at which Seeley played the rôle of Socrates. His lectures were clear, but cold; there was an air of the higher mathematics about them, congenial to the spot, perhaps, but hardly fascinating. There was a curious resemblance to Renan in his appearance, but Seeley had none of Renan' s wit, still less had he any of Renan's diablerie. Yet both men, as is well known, gained their greatest success by their treatment of the life of Jesus.
Ecce Homo was, above all, an historian's conception of Jesus. In fact, it was Seeley's answer to Gibbon's problem in the celebrated fifteenth chapter. Gibbon wished to explain the remarkable spread and success of the early Church; Seeley tried to trace it back to the personal influence of the Founder. In doing this he had naturally to lay stress on Jesus's personal influence as man upon men, and thereby raised the ire of the Evangelicals. Curiously enough, it was on the historical side of his work that Seeley was most wanting. He failed to show from the Gospel records
