GEORGE GROTE was the son of an English banker, and after leaving the Charterhouse school at the age of sixteen, he entered his father’s bank and devoted himself to a business career,—with a reservation, however, which soon appeared in a course of private study, systematically pursued in the early morning and late evening. He studied Greek and Roman history and philosophy, metaphysics, and political economy. One of his early friends was David Ricardo, the celebrated economist, who seems to have done much to stimulate his energies and confirm him in his hopes of literary usefulness. His first writing consisted largely of political essays and criticisms of such strength that he was drawn into public life and elected to Parliament, where he served three terms. Retiring from politics at the age of forty-six, he spent the next fifteen years of his life in writing his “History of Greece,” the last volume of which appeared in 1856. “Plato and the Other Companions of Socrates,” which appeared in 1865, was intended as a sequel to the “History.” His “Minor Works,” including a number of important essays, were collected and published in 1873, two years after his death, which occurred at London, June 18th, 1871. He was a man of the most elevated moral character, and it was in keeping with it that when Gladstone offered him a peerage, he paid a worthy tribute to the dignity of the historian’s office by declining it.