When Lord Acton died on 19th June 1902, at Tegern See in Bavaria, England lost the most truly cosmopolitan of her children, and Europe lost one who was, by universal consent, in the foremost rank of her men of learning. He belonged to an old Roman Catholic family of Shropshire, a branch of which had gone to Southern Italy, where his grandfather, General Acton, had been chief minister of the King of Naples in the great war, at the time when the Bourbon dynasty maintained itself in Sicily by the help of the British fleet, while all Italy lay under the heel of Napoleon. His father, Sir Ferdinand Acton, married a German lady, heiress of the ancient and famous house of Dalberg, one of the great families of the middle Rhineland; so John Edward Emerich Dalberg-Acton was born half a German, and connected by blood with the highest aristocracy of Germany. He was educated at Oscott, one of the two chief Roman Catholic colleges of England, under Dr. Wiseman, afterwards Archbishop of Westminster and Cardinal; but the most powerful influence on the development of his mind and principles came from that glory of Catholic learning, a beautiful soul as well as a capacious intellect, Dr. von Doellinger, with whom Acton studied during some years at Munich. He sat for a short time in the House of Commons as member for Carlow (1859); and was afterwards elected for Bridgnorth (1865), but lost his seat (which he had gained by one vote only) on a scrutiny. In those days it was not easy for a Roman Catholic to find an English constituency, so in 1869 Mr. Gladstone procured his elevation to the peerage. He made a successful speech in the House of Lords in 1893, but took no prominent part in parliamentary life in either House, feeling himself too much of a student, and looking at current questions from a point of view unlike that of English politicians. Neither as a philosopher, nor as a historian, nor as a product of German training, could he find either Lords or Commons a congenial audience. When he was asked soon after he entered Parliament why he did not speak, he answered that he agreed with nobody and nobody agreed with him. But since he regarded politics as history in the course of making under his eyes, he continued to be all his life keenly interested in public affairs, watching and judging every move in the game. Mr. Gladstone, whose trusted friend he had been for many years, was believed to have on one occasion wished to place him in an important office; but political exigencies made this impossible, and the only public post he ever held was that of Lord-in-Waiting in the Ministry of 1892. In this capacity he was brought into frequent contact with Queen Victoria, who felt the warmest respect and admiration for him. He was one of the very few persons surrounding her who was familiar with most of the courts of Continental Europe, and could discuss with her from direct knowledge the men who figured in those courts. At Windsor he spent in the