FREDERIC WILLIAM MAITLAND societies where he had received his educa tion and his training were proud to asso ciate his name with their history; and he became a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn (an honor very rarely conferred upon one who had not taken silk) and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College. The death of Lord Acton in 1902 left the Regius Professorship of Modern History vacant, and this post, as is now generally known, was offered to Maitland. He refused on the ground that the state of his health disqualified him for the work. But his activity was by no means con fined to the business of teaching and study. His connection with the Selden Society, both in its organization and the subsequent direction of its work, contributed perhaps more than any other factor to the distin guished success of that body. Its honor able history and the great services which it has rendered to the advancement of sound learning are largely due to Maitland's wise counsels and unflagging energy. Every work it published was passed by him in manuscript or proof and sometimes both. Then his college and the university made demands upon him which he never refused. He did his share — and it was a large one — of administrative work and college business, for which his professional knowledge pecu liarly qualified him. In university politics he was an ardent liberal. He took an active part in the two liberal — not to say radical — movements which in late years have most deeply agitated the academic world. That the proposals to grant degrees to women and to abolish compulsory Greek were both lost was not due to any want of effort on Maitland's part. His speeches in the course of these discussions are still vividly remembered when much good speak ing and clever writing are forgotten. He clothed his clear, strong thinking with a sarcasm that did not hurt, because it was never personal, and a wit and gayety to which even his strongest opponents could not refuse the tribute of honest laughter.
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In addition to his ordinary lecturing he was always ready to help students or scholars who applied to him. No question was too rudimentary, no explanation too trouble some for him; with high courtesy and infi nite consideration he opened his great store of learning to those who came to him. The demands upon his time and patience must have been heavy, but there are many on both sides of the Atlantic who can grate fully testify that his pains were not wasted. As early as 1892 he organized classes for instruction in the use of mediaeval charters, which presently developed into practical and systematic teaching of paleography and diplomatics. Probably there were few men in England, certainly there was no one in Cambridge, so well qualified as Maitland to do this work. He had seen and read an enormous number of documents, and the fruit of his experience was laid before his pupils in the long mornings that he devoted to their training. Perhaps the best evi dence of the success of his efforts in this direction is to be found in the high excel lence of the work of one who was no doubt his most distinguished pupil, that deeply lamented scholar, Mary Bateson. It is hard to realize that all this was the work of a man never physically vigorous and in later years positively broken in health. From 1898 onward he was never wholly free from illness. The damp, dark air of Cambridge oppressed him physically — indeed he used to say that he was a human hygrometer and could register to a fraction the humidity of the atmosphere on any given day. It became necessary for him to seek relief in a change of climate, and from 1899 onward he used to go abroad at the end of Michaelmas Term returning in time for the Easter Term. This enforced absence troubled his conscience in regard to his professorial work, and he presently began to lecture in the long vacation, for in Cambridge a considerable part of the university is in residence during July and August. The winter sojourns, generally in
