IT is said by one of the biographers of Sir Archibald Alison that between 1842, when his “History of Europe” was completed, and 1867, five hundred and forty-seven thousand volumes of the work had been sold in versions representing the principal languages of Europe as well as Arabic and Hindustani. If his essays, of which three volumes were collected in 1859, do not fully explain this popularity of his history, they show that with his strong conservative prejudices he had an intellect which no prejudice could confine. Though himself an opponent of Democracy for England, his prophecy of its results in America, published in 1835 as a review of De Tocqueville, can be read in the last year of the nineteenth century with admiration for the clearness of its foresight. Alison was willing to concede limitless possibilities to “democratic vigor duly coerced by patrician power,” and in his own edition of the essay he italicized the qualifying clause.

  He was born December 29th, 1792, from a distinguished Scottish family, his father, Rev. Archibald Alison, author of “The Nature and Principles of Taste,” being an author of wide reputation in his own generation. Educated at Edinburgh University, the younger Alison showed there the taste for the great Greek poets which appears in his essay on “Homer, Dante, and Michael Angelo.” He was admitted to the bar, and in 1822 became one of the four “advocates depute” for Scotland. His essays on the “Criminal Law of Scotland” won him the admiration and patronage of Sir Robert Peel. After the appearance of his history Lord Derby made him a baronet. He died May 23d, 1867. Besides his essays and his “History of Europe,” he published “The Principles of Population,” in opposition to Malthus, and other works on historical and political subjects.