THE MARQUIS OF BUTE, K.T. (VICE-PRESIDENT, S.P.R.). _Magnus civis obît_. The death of the Marquis of Bute has removed from earth a great chieftain, a great magnate, a great proprietor, yet withal a figure, a character, which carried one back into the Ages of Faith. Many will mourn the close of that life,--magnificent at once and munificent; far-governing, and yet gently thoughtful in minute detail. Some will miss in more intimate fashion the massive simplicity of his presence; the look in his eyes of trustfulness at once and tenacity--that look which we call doglike, when we mean to imply that dogs are nobler than men. The youth whose vast wealth and eager religion suggested (it was said) to Lord Beaconsfield the idea of his "Lothair" had become constantly wealthier and more religious as years went on. Amid the palaces of his structure and of his inheritance he lived a life simple and almost solitary; a life of long walks and long conversations on the mysteries of the world unseen. To a fervent Roman Catholicism he joined a ready openness to the elements of a more Catholic faith. That same yearning for communion with the invisible which showed itself in his Prayer-books and Missals, his Byzantine Churches restored, his English Churches built, showed itself also in the great crystal hung in his chapel at St. John's Lodge; as it were the mystic focus of that green silence in the heart of London's roar; and in the horoscope of his nativity painted on the dome of his study at Mountstuart; and in that vaster, strange-illumined vault of Mountstuart's central hall. [Greek: _'En dé tà teírei pánta ta t' ou'ranos e'stephanôtai_] {246} Hardly had such a sight been seen since Hephæstus wrought in flaming gold the Signs of Heaven, and zoned the Shield of Achilles with the firmament and the sea. For in like manner at Lord Bute's bidding was that great vault encircled with a translucent zone which pictured the constellations of the Ecliptic; the starry lights represented by prisms inserted in that "dome of many-coloured glass." Therethrough, as through a fictive Zodiac, travelled the sun all day; with many a counterchange of azure stains or emerald on the broad floor below, and here and there the dazzling flash of a sudden-kindled star. It seemed the work of one who wished, by sign at least and symbol, to call down "an intermingling of heaven's pomp" upon that pavement which might have been traversed only by the pacings of earthly power and pride. Through such scenes their fashioner would walk; weary and weighted often with the encumbering flesh; but always in slow meditative brooding on the Spiritual City, and a house not made with hands. "A cruel superstition!" he said once of those who would presume to fetter or forbid our communication with beloved and blessed Souls behind the veil. A cruel superstition indeed! and hardly with any truer word upon his lips might a man pass from the company of those who listen, to those who speak.[1]