When Sir George Grey died, twelve years ago, he left a message as well as a name to the English-speaking people. It was that their future rested in the Federal Idea of communion and government. He saw, vision-like, the form of this new age arise, because changed needs called it. As Pro- Consul he laboured for it unceasingly in our over-sea Commonwealths, and South Africa has most lately given answer. Now, at a historic turning in British Institutions, we hear of "Federal Home-Rule," and that may

'Perhaps there is something in old age that likes to have a young mind clinging to it.' Sir George Grey was speaking of the famous people he had known in his youth long, long before. He struck an inner note of nature which is surely equally valid the other way? Whenever I think of the remark, I am inclined to discover one reason why I came to know Sir George so well. I met him, as I have met other characters of English story in our own day. You go into these great waters, seeking that all who ca

Things call to each other after the great silence has fallen, scenes come together, and that is how it seems here. A ship, bound on a far voyage, lay in Plymouth waters the day that the Queen succeeded to the throne. It was laden with an expedition for the new wonderland of the Australias, whither it duly sailed. As leader, the expedition had a young lieutenant of the 83rd Foot Regiment, George Grey. On a spring afternoon, fifty-seven years later, there landed at the same port, from a New Zealan

One to whom the beyond is near, who has the kindled vision, probably best sees the life he has lived, in the beginnings—child, boy, and youth. There are no smudges on that mirror. The stage of being which we call childhood had an endless charm for Sir George Grey, and often that drew him back to his own early years. The little child, a bundle of prattling innocence, still on the banks of the world's highway, like a daisy nodding into the flying stream, was in his sight almost a divinity. Here wa

Ireland, which has sent so many of her own sons across the sea, was to exercise a real influence upon the going of Sir George Grey. He was, perhaps, in a special degree, kindly of thought and act towards Irishmen, fancying that as a race they had suffered, and liking their humour, buoyant against all odds. Several Irish political prisoners were released, after serving long sentences, and Sir George read an account, given by one of them, of the gaol experiences. Herein, complaint was made—of the

Now, the morrow called Sir George Grey, as it calls most, whether they hear it or no. In him, boyish meditation had ever been braided by melancholy, a legacy of the shock with which his father's death burst upon his mother. As he grew up, this became a deep-seated pity for the suffering, wide and bitter, among the common people. His mother's care, his step-father's converse, fostered that feeling, and the service in Ireland, with its lurid emphasis of the misery he had seen in England, determine

There never had been such a drama in that forest of North-West Australia. The noise of the white man's war fell upon the primeval silence, breaking it. This battle dwelt acutely with Sir George Grey as the single occasion, amid all his adventures, on which he had been the instrument of taking human life. He carried his own wounds to the grave, but only sorrowed for the bullet he sped, though sheer necessity drove it. The sacred light might burn in a savage, ignorant of its nobler gleams, yet it

'I always got what I wanted in life,' Sir George Grey made arch comment on himself, 'and many things, also, that I did not want.' His appointment as Governor of South Australia, with the steps leading up to it, he could group under the first head. His explorations had shown that no great river, no second Murray, drained the North-West area of Australia. This was information for geographers, and he had more, since, to quote his own words, 'We learned as much about the region, in a general way, as

There had been a reception in London, by Gladstone, following the usual dinners which ministers of the Queen give in honour of her birthday. To Sir George Grey, who was in the splendid crowd, came the wife of an eminent member of the Government, carrying to an old friend a woman's eager news of her own dinner. 'Oh,' she whispered in that still small voice which rises a clarion note above a general buzz, 'oh, everything went off admirably, and Bob's delighted. But the soup was just a little cold.

The war song of Lamech, father of Tubal Cain, called Sir George Grey hurriedly to New Zealand. The Maoris were exploiting the legacy of the first artificer in brass and iron.      Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;      Ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech:      For I have slain a man to my wounding,      And a young man to my hurt.      If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,      Truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold. In this genesis of verse, Sir George also found the noise of all combat with ski

Night and morning in the far south were vividly reflected to Sir George Grey in tales of Rauparaha and Rangihaeta, Maori chieftains, and of Siapo, Loyalty Islander. Before his arrival in New Zealand, the Maoris had been divorced from their cannibal practices. Yet, the horrid traffic was not remote, if he were to accept a lasting rumour of Rauparaha and Rangihaeta. The pair were making their own war stir for him, and must be tackled. It was earlier that, sitting on a hillside in friendly converse

Nothing is small in the making of an empire. It is the seeming trifles that often shape the way, fair or foul. This was a clear article of faith in Sir George Grey, and he would give it picturesque sittings. It had been with him wherever he carried the flag; it dotted Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa with milestones of policy. These might not be visible to others, but he knew, having planted them. They told of what had been done, by means of the little things; a bulwark against the undoi

The example of one gallant-minded, stout cadet, was maybe with Carlyle when he pictured the Queen in Council to pick out some other, still unoccupied, and adjure him in royal words: 'Young fellow, if there do be in you potentialities of governing, a gradual finding, leading, and coercing to a noble goal, how sad it is that that should be all lost. I have scores on scores of colonies. One of these you shall have. Go and grapple with it in the name of Heaven, and let us see what you will build of

Sir George Grey rode hard and far over the South African karoo, serving the Queen's writ in letters of gold. When he rode late, and the stars were ablaze, his saddle held a dreamer in dreamland. What a lightsome new world! The sun had bathed it in the day; night brought another radiance. Here was the emblem of all the New World should be to the Old. Not yet, perhaps, in the full, for there were things to do, but soon, when the outposts of empire, stretching to Australia, New Zealand, and beyond,

It touches the imagination to have a dark Africa put forward as light for a Bible scene; namely, that where Jacob, instructed by Rebekah, obtains the blessing which the blind Isaac thinks himself to be conferring on his eldest son Esau. 'This scene,' said Sir George Grey, 'did not live wholly to me, until I met with an incident while hunting in South Africa. Coming upon a young spring-buck, which had been exhausted by the pursuit, I lifted it into the saddle before me, and carried it home. All t

Carlyle and Sir George Grey, forgathered at Chelsea, walked up and down in the open, as they often did, discussing some religious question. Carlyle stopped, laid his hand on Sir George's shoulder, and, looking him in the face, exclaimed, 'Oh, that I could believe like you!' Well, no plank in the faith of Sir George was more firm than the one marked: 'Mission and destiny of the Anglo-Saxon people.' He had been planting the outposts of empire, and he saw these grow out towards each other. Then, he

A captain of the sea most proves himself that when it storms, and so a captain of empire. The danger signal was flying again in New Zealand, and Sir George Grey must needs be asked to get it down. Hardly had he been keel-hauled for his doings in one colony, when another required him. He must have been uncertain whether to despair or smile. It was like love-making. During his first rule in New Zealand, Sir George held a conference of Maori chiefs, Te-Whero-Whero being present. He had come along,

'Suppose,' urged Sir George Grey, 'that in my lifetime a hundred men have died from disappointment and chagrin—that is enough to condemn the whole system!' He was speaking of Disraeli's discovery, that the great colonial Governorships should go to those who had been 'born in the purple' or had married into it. It was, in a way, a matter personal to him, because the plan came into operation about the date his Pro-Consulship ceased. He felt that possibly it influenced the manner of his going, and,

Mr Gladstone and Sir George Grey ploughed different seas, under charter from the English-speaking race. One flew his pennant in the nearer waters, the other in the farther. Now and then they met, but briefly, as ships do which pass in the night. 'What I saw of Mr. Gladstone,' said Sir George, 'was mostly at official gatherings, or gatherings arising out of official life. One session, however, during which I was in England, we dined almost every Wednesday evening at the same London house. 'Mr. Gl

'I am just waiting my time to go, meanwhile doing what little I can that may be useful to my fellow-men.' These were the words of Sir George Grey, and none could better express the closing years of his life. If he might sow, in some wayside garden, an idea for the common happiness, he counted that a day on the active list. It made him feel young again, blowing the old fires red and rosy. Ever, he held to his tryst with Dean Stanley. 'One evening,' it had been made, 'the Dean and myself were walk