A great author, whose life we have been all lately reading with
delight, contemplates the year 3000 as a period at which his works may
still be studied. If any man might be led reasonably to form such an
anticipation for himself by the admiration of his contemporaries, Lord
Macaulay may be acquitted of vanity. The year 3000 is far away, much
will happen between now and then; all that we can say with certainty of
the year 3000 is that it will be something extremely different from what
any one expects. I will not predict that men will then be reading Lord
Macaulay's "History of England." I will not predict that they will then
be reading "Lothair." But this I will say, that if any statesman of the
age of Augustus or the Antonines had left us a picture of patrician
society at Rome, drawn with the same skill, and with the same delicate
irony with which Mr. Disraeli has described a part of English society
in "Lothair," no relic of antiquity would now be devoured with more
avidity and interest. Thus, sir, we are an anomalous body, with very
ill-defined limits. But, such as we are, we are heartily obliged to you
for wishing us well, and I give you our most sincere thanks.




LITERATURE AND POLITICS

BY JOHN MORLEY


Mr. President, Your Royal Highness, My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen:--I
feel that I am more unworthy now than I was eight years ago to figure as
the representative of literature before this brilliant gathering of all