Mr. Helps had been acquainted with Mr. Brassey, and had once received a visit from him on official business of difficulty and importance. He expected, he says, to see a hard, stern, soldierly sort of person, accustomed to sway armies of working-men in an imperious fashion. Instead of this he saw an elderly gentleman of very dignified appearance and singularly graceful manners--"a gentleman of the old school." "He stated his case, no, I express myself wrongly; he did _not_ state his case, he _understated_ it; and there are few things more attractive in a man than that he should be inclined to understate rather than overstate his own case." Mr. Brassey was also very brief, and when he went away, Mr. Helps, knowing well the matter in respect to which his visitor had a grievance, thought that, if it had been his own case, he should hardly have been able to restrain himself so well, and speak with so little regard to self-interest, as Mr. Brassey had done. Of all the persons whom Mr. Helps had known, he thought Mr. Brassey most resembled that perfect gentleman and excellent public man, Lord Herbert of Lea. Mr. Helps commences his work with a general portrait. According to this portrait, the most striking feature in Mr. Brassey's character was trustfulness, which he carried to what might appear an extreme. He chose his agents with care, but, having chosen them, placed implicit confidence in them, trusting them for all details, and judging by results. He was very liberal in the conduct of business. His temperament was singularly calm and equable, not to be discomposed by success or failure, easily throwing off the burden of care, and, when all had been done that could be done, awaiting the result with perfect equanimity. He was very delicate in blaming, his censure being always of the gentlest kind, evidently reluctant, and on that account going more to the heart. His generosity made him exceedingly popular with his subordinates and work-men, who looked forward to his coming among them as a festive event; and, when any disaster occurred in the works, the usual parts of employer and employed were reversed--the employer it was who framed the excuses and comforted the employed. He was singularly courteous, and listened to everybody with respect; so that it was a marked thing when he went so far as to say of a voluble and empty chatterer, that "the peas were overgrowing the stick." His presence of mind was great; he had in an eminent degree, as his biographer remarks, what Napoleon called "two o'clock in the morning courage," being always ready, if called up in the middle of the night, to meet any urgent peril; and his faculties were stimulated, not overcome, by danger. He had a perfect hatred of contention, and would not only refuse to take any questionable advantage, but would rather even submit to be taken advantage of--a generosity which turned to his account. In the execution of any