JOHN MORLEY, one of the leading English prose writers of the last quarter of the nineteenth century, was born in Lancashire, England, December 24th, 1838. He was graduated from Oxford in 1859 and called to the bar in the same year, but his life has been devoted chiefly to literature, diversified by politics. He has been editor of the Fortnightly, of the Pall Mall Gazette, and of Macmillan’s Magazine, as well as of various “series” of sketches and biographies of celebrated men. Among his own best-known works are biographies or character studies of Machiavelli, Cobden, Voltaire, Rousseau, Emerson, and Diderot. Since 1883 he has been a member of Parliament and one of the chief props of the Liberal party.