mitted into the church of Auguste Comte. In time he was followed by Beesly, Harrison, and Bridges; Beesly, as I have said, taking ten years to acquaint himself with the evangel of the Parisian before relinquishing that of the Nazarene. In 1854 Mr. Beesly graduated with honors, and was appointed an assistant master in Marlborough College. Subsequently he sought for and obtained the position of principal of University Hall, Gordon Square, London, in succession to Dr. Carpenter, who had been preceded by Mr. Hutton, now of "The Spectator," by the gifted Arthur Clough, and nominally by F. W. Newman, the first principal designate who had never acted. The hall is tenanted by students of all religious denominations, and no proselytizing is permitted. There is a complete pax ecclesiastica maintained at University Hall, almost unknown in similar institutions. In 1860 Mr. Beesly was appointed professor of history in University College,—an office the duties of which he was peculiarly fitted both by predilection and training to discharge.
The professor in his class-room is always interesting. He is unconventional without being familiar, and he has a happy knack of presenting the purely human aspect of his subject, however far it may appear to be removed from the domain of current interests, which seldom fails to leave the desired impression. The Comtian principle of the continuity of human life enables Mr. Beesly to irradiate the darkness of the past by the light of the present with no ordinary success. The last time I was in his class-room (the class is a mixed one of young ladies and gentlemen, the propriety of whose behavior is a standing disproof of the fears of timid moralists), he was comparing the
