had passed the little remainder of his life in condensing and arranging his stores of knowledge, whether the results of observation or of reading, on the subject of the intellectual glory of modern Europe.

In this supposition there is great dramatic propriety; for the idea was natural and classical that, when Italy was swarming with Greeks, one of that keen and inquisitive race should wish to extend the sphere of his observation, and mark the state of letters and art in other countries. Something similar to Mr. Mills's work had been projected by the Abbé Barthelemi; but he deserted the thought for the "Travels of Anacharsis," and in the crude idea the resemblance ended. Ducas became, in comparison with Anacharsis, what an old English play is to a French tragedy. It offered no pompous ornate descriptions, no feeble wire-drawn declamations; but the colouring was rendered as simple, modest, and natural, as the historical matter was accurate and valuable. Elegance and refinement of taste were infused into every page, while the accessories were admirably managed. Ducas, as a man of letters, traced, with his Boccaccio in his hand, the various landscapes that extended before the windows of the Franciscan convent, which Cosmo de' Medici built on the top of Fesole, and admired both the beauties of the scenery, and their picturesque delineation in the pages of the father of Italian prose. He crossed the solemn and gloomy Apennines in order to reach Bologna, and the sternness of the mountain scenery prepared his mind for the serious cast of the Bolognese intellectual character. With equal propriety, he enters Ferrara, happy in the feeling that he was breathing the same air with a poet, whom Dante and Petrarca would have selected as a brother, and reflecting at the same time on the singular prophecy of Dante, that no poet would ever arise in Ferrara.

But this mere machinery of the fiction was not suffered by Mr. Mills to engross any large share, either of his own attention, or of the contents of his volumes. His far higher objects were, in the first portion of his plan, to discuss the

literature of Italy in the 16th century, as represented in her historians, and poets, and novelists; and the fine arts of that country, as displayed in her works of sculpture and painting. If he had continued his design, he would have led his traveller to other divisions of Europe at the same epoch; but Italy, and the productions of the Italian mind, exclusively occupied the only part of the undertaking which he ever completed. In that, he exhibited a full and graceful picture of the dawn, the ascent, and the meridian splendour of Italian letters and art.

The "Travels of Ducas" have become a text-book for the scholar, and a manual for the lettered dilettante; and while, all the enchantments of its poetry and art are elegantly woven around the subject, the severer characteristics of its philosophy and criticism are vigorously maintained. Among the strictly literary part of society, not one of Mr. Mills's works gave so large an increase to his reputation as the "Travels of Ducas." But, by the world in general, the machinery of the fiction was imperfectly understood; nor were there wanting some worthy persons who read the book, as a bishop read the fictitious travels of Swift, with sagacious doubts on the authenticity of the narrative. To the fiction also it was, perhaps justly, objected that the interest of the reader is not sufficiently excited in the personal adventures of the traveller; and though we are introduced to him with pleasure, we sympathize little with his fortunes, and dismiss him with indifference. But the author was above all things unwilling that his work should be mistaken for a novel. He carefully avoided mingling with the real object of his Greek's travels any incongruous circumstances of fictitious interest; and hence, in his care to preserve the chasteness of his composition, he detracted from the interest demanded by a numerous order of readers. Hence, too, it is not altogether surprising that, while the "Travels of Ducas were received as a master-piece of elegant learning and graceful composition, the work has obtained less universal popularity than the "History of the Crusades."

His

The activity of Mr. Mills's mind was never satisfied except in the excitement of intellectual occupation; and the "Travels of Ducas " were no sooner published, than he began once more to feel the want of some subject of literary engagement. thoughts now reverted to a proposal which his publishers had formerly submitted to him, of writing a general history of Rome; and after some hesitation, he resolved on undertaking such a work, to extend "ab urbe conditá to the termination of the empire." A year's application to his subject carried him through its introductory difficulties; he had reached the authentic ages of the Roman annals, and had just entered upon the delineation of one of the most interesting periods in all history the fierce struggle of factions which overthrew the mighty republic —when he was, perhaps too easily, induced to relinquish the greatest of his literary enterprises. He was given to understand that another gentleman had been long engaged in a similar design, and had made much more progress in it than himself; and expressing his "dislike of any mere work of competition," he at once resolved to abandon, or at least to suspend, his own project. Yet he certainly did not come to this decision without some regret; for, to use his own expression, he "was already warming into his subject," and had completed the first draught of his history as far as the dictatorship of Sylla.

On the abandonment of his unfinished history of Rome, Mr. Mills's usual anxiety for employment was evinced more strongly than ever. Immediately afterwards, he observed in one of his letters, "I am quite lonely for want of a book to write. There is no joy in idleness, except it be stolen from work. But Shakspeare has illustrated this far better than I can." At this juncture, the subject of his "History of the Crusades" prompted the idea of a "History of Chivalry," as a "companion-work" to that most successful of his writings; and from the instant that the project suggested itself, he embraced it with evident delight.

The "History of Chivalry" was finished in May, 1825, and published in the following September. Its reception by

the world was such as to equal the most sanguine expectations of the author: a large impression was immediately sold; and a second edition was demanded before the close of the year. Until the appearance of this work, inquiries into the history and institutions of chivalry had been abandoned to dull antiquaries; and representations of chivalric manners had been employed only for the embellishment of romantic fiction: it was reserved for Mr. Mills to clothe the historical truth of the subject in the vivid colouring of a pictorial imagination. No man was ever more punctilious in the rigid investigation and statement of facts: but the accurate learning and minute research which he threw into his undertaking were relieved, without being injured, by all the graces of elegant composition; and while he seemed to have infused his mind in the very language and spirit of chivalry, he preserved his judgment free from the romantic allurements of his topic, and forgot neither the scrupulous veracity nor the philosophical reflection which constituted the severer duties of his office.

By the brilliant success of the "History of Chivalry," every anticipation of increased celebrity which Mr. Mills could ardently have indulged in the progress of a favourite undertaking, was fully realized; and he might seem, since the rapid attainment of his enthusiastic purposes of literary distinction, to be now but entering on the brightest and most auspicious epoch of his life. Alas, for the bitter mockery of hope! The event came only to swell the melancholy catalogue of earthly disappointment. A fit of illness, slight and transient as indeed it appeared, which attacked Mr. Mills in the spring of 1825, at the very moment when he was putting the last touches to his book, should have broken with an ominous foreboding upon the blind security of his too sanguine friends. But the circumstance provoked no suspicion of danger: all visible signs of indisposition were subdued for a time; and Mr. Mills wore his usual appearance of health, and his usual gaiety of spirit, until the end of August, when, but within a week before the publication of his work, he was seized with a low fever, the immediate precursor of that cruel

disease which was to bow him with lingering suffering to his untimely grave.

His disorder was probably in some measure constitutional, and had certainly displayed itself so far back as upon that occasion in the year 1814, when he was compelled to quit England, and to seek relief in the milder climate of the Continent. But the last fatal relapse or return of the disease was hastened and aggravated, if not altogether produced, by the intense and almost incredible excitement under which his latest work was written. The characteristic ardour of spirit which he had all his life thrown into his literary pursuits, was never before too much for him, but had been allayable at will, and compatible with other enjoyments. Latterly, during the composition of his "History of Chivalry," it overmastered him, and, acting upon a febrile and irritable temperament, became an exhausting and consuming fire. His mind never wandered from its occupation; nor could any one, not acquainted with his circumstances, have possibly believed that he had nothing at stake but literary fame, and that for this alone he laboured. Whilst under the strong impulse of his dearly-cherished employment, he bore up against the secret fever that was wasting his vital energies; but the moment that the stimulus was relaxed, on the completion of his work, he sank under the long and too-highly wrought excitation.

A painful and hopeless struggle against the progress of his disorder was protracted for nearly fourteen months, during which, to the last, Mr. Mills retained the full vigour of his mind, and bore his sufferings with manly and characteristic fortitude. Early in the summer of 1826 he removed to Southampton, accompanied by his sister, whose affectionate devotion to him throughout his illness had known no intermission, and whose gentle offices solaced the last hours of his existence. These, too, were alleviated by the presence and the medical skill of his friend Jago, who still watched over his death-bed with an anxious solicitude, that had clung to the latest shadow of hope, and now soothed the parting agonies of dissolution. Upon this faithful friend was turned the