of the Irish church, and (with some reservations) the Irish Land Act of 1870. Meanwhile he was working hard at his 'History of European Morals,' which appeared, in two volumes, in the spring of 1869. The book was attacked by both the utilitarians and the orthodox, but achieved a success no less great than its predecessor, with which it was so closely connected as to be in some sense a sequel or an expansion in a particular direction. Lecky himself, in a letter, indicates this connection by saying that both books 'are an attempt to examine the merits of certain theological opinions according to the historical method.... The "Morals" is a history of the imposition of those opinions upon the world, and attempts to show how far their success may be accounted for by natural causes.... The "Rationalism" is a history of the decay of those opinions.' The author was always an 'intuitional' moralist, but held strongly to the belief that moral intuitions are susceptible of development, and that history shows a continuous advance in moral concepts. This is the main thesis of the book. 'The path of truth (he says) is over the corpses of the enthusiasms of our past.' The treatment, however, is not entirely historical. The author begins with a long discussion, not altogether in place, of the dispute between the intuitionists and the utilitarians, and decides in favour of the former. He then proceeds to show the progressive character of moral intuitions, and the gradual changes in the standard and mode of action of human morality. These he traces through the later periods of the Pagan empire and the Völkerwanderung, down to the reestablishment of the empire of the west. He covers no little of the same ground which he covered in his previous book; and there is some repetition, notably in the treatment of religious persecution. He concludes with an examination of the position of women under the Roman empire and in the later Middle Ages.
In the following year (1870) Lecky first met, at Dean Stanley's, Queen Sophia of the Netherlands and her maid-of-honour, Elizabeth, eldest daughter of General Baron van Dedem and his first wife. Baroness Sloet van Hagensdorp. He subsequently visited Queen Sophia at the House in the Wood, and became engaged to her lady-in-waiting, Elizabeth van Dedem. Meanwhile the Franco-German war had broken out. Lecky inclined at the outset to favour Germany, believing that the conflict had arisen from unprovoked aggression on the part of France; but as the war proceeded his opinion changed, and he strongly condemned the terms of peace. In June 1871 he married, and shortly afterwards settled down at 38 Onslow Gardens, which was thenceforward his home. The Leckys had a wide circle of distinguished friends, among whom may be mentioned, in addition to those named above. Sir Henry and Lady Taylor, Froude, Sir Henry Holland, Sir Leslie Stephen, Browning, Tennyson, Lord and Lady Derby, Lady Stanley of Alderley, Kinglake, Huxley, Tyndall, and Herbert Spencer—in fact all that was best in the literary and scientific society of the day. In 1873 he was elected a member of the 'Literary Society,' and in 1874 of 'The Club,' which Dr. Johnson had founded—an event which gave him much gratification.
But social claims did not abate his ardour for work. In December 1871 he brought out a revised edition of his 'Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland,' but was disappointed at its reception. Meanwhile he was collecting materials for his magnum opus, the 'History of England in the Eighteenth Century.' For this purpose he paid several visits to Ireland, and made extensive researches in Dublin. These visits resulted in many discoveries and rectifications, which give his chapters on Ireland a special value. The first two volumes of the book appeared in January 1878, and achieved immediate success. His aim, as he himself explains in his preface, was not to write a detailed or personal history, but 'to disengage from the great mass of facts those which relate to the permanent forces of the nation, or which indicate some of the more enduring features of national life.' But an immediate object, very near his heart, was (as he also says in a letter) to refute what he held to be the calumnies of Froude against the Irish people. This explains the otherwise disproportionate amount of space allotted to Ireland in the book. In the subsequent (cabinet) edition Irish history occupies five volumes, as compared with seven devoted to that of England. The work occupied Lecky for nineteen years. The third and fourth volumes were published in 1882, the fifth and sixth in 1887, the seventh and eighth in 1890. Each successive instalment heightened and confirmed the author's fame. Lord Acton, writing of vols. iii. and iv., said that they were 'fuller of political instruction than anything that had appeared for a long time.' American critics
