His name is indeed familiar to everyone as the greatest living authority on "English Gilds." That book alone, by itself, is an invaluable gift to the nation. By that alone has he done so signal a service to his countrymen that no gratitude could repay it. It is true that, owing to ill-health, Mr. Toulmin Smith unavoidably left it unfinished at his death, but there is sufficient fulness of information in it as it is, to make it worth more than an infinity of other finished books of to-day. As Father Gasquet says in his _Parish Life in Medieval England_, of the universality of these "gilds" in this country: "Every account of a medieval parish must necessarily include some description of the work of fraternities and guilds.... Their existence dates from the earliest times." Mr. Toulmin Smith, indeed, says, "English Guilds are older than any kings of England.... They were associations of those living in the same neighbourhood, who remembered that they had, as neighbours, common obligations." But it was not only because of his _English Gilds_ that he is remembered. In 1854, when he was thirty-eight years of age, he published another very important volume, _The Parish: its Obligations and Powers, its Officers and their Duties_. This was also a book towards the making of which had gone many long years of the most incessant, careful research in old documents. It was one of those rare literary buildings, each stone of which was laid with infinite exactitude and care. There is too much "jerry-building" to-day, both in houses and books. To Mr. Toulmin Smith some of the shallow books of to-day would represent literary "pariahs." He would bar the very superficial method in which they were put together. In _The Parish_ and in many a pamphlet he set his face steadily against centralization. "The ruling passion, the guide of his life, the dream of his youth, the glory of his manhood and his later years, was the intelligent freedom of the people, based on 'the ancient ways.'" [Footnote: _Toulmin Smith, 1816 to 1869_, by the late Samuel Timmins, Esq., of Birmingham. From this pamphlet I have gained much information of his life.]