Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 19.pdf/230

 The

Vol. XIX.

Green

No. 4

Bag

BOSTON

FREDERIC

WILLIAM

April, 1907

MAITLAND

By Gaillard Thomas Lapsley Tile magnus magnum de magno dixit, ego parvus parvum de magno dicebo, the artless Latin of the Cluniac monk cannot conceal or disfigure the true feeling that moved his words which may yet serve to express the veneration which men of all ages pay to one who is a master among them. And it is indeed a master that we have lost in the per son of Frederic William Maitland. No one who read his work could doubt that, still less those who knew him, or had ever so little a glimpse of the ideals by which he measured his work, his deep and true mod esty, his delicate and generous considera tion for others. It is not only the learned world of law, history, and political philoso phy that is bereaved by his death, it is not only the university which he loved and served well — it is rather every man who cares for learning and truth, for honest, tireless work and high-minded gentle living. The story of Maitland's life, in so far as it was made up of events, is soon told, but it will be long before one can penetrate even a little way into the movement of his strong and subtle thought. He was- born in Lon don in 1850, in Guilford street, as many Americans, for whom London chiefly means the Record Office and the parts about the Museum, will like to know. But although the accident of birth made him a Londoner he was in fact of Gloucester stock, and he passed a good part of his youth in that county where he later inherited a property. He was the grandson of that S. R. Maitland who was the first in England to put mediae val studies in their true light and to tell the world that it is not enough to qualify the Dark Ages as unimportant because your

own foolish heart is darkened with igno rance of them. Maitland was sent to Eton where, it seems, he left little memory either of brilliance or deficiency. Certain it is that he was an oppidan and not on the founda tion. He was not a good classic, not good enough that is to obtain a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he came in due course. Indeed he has been known to say in later life that he had only just enough Latin to work with the documents that came under his notice. Those who have studied his work most closely will best know what scant justice he did himself in this matter. At Cambridge he addressed himself to the study of philosophy and came into relation with the late Henry Sidgwick, whose teaching was the deepest and most abiding influence in his life. His first con siderable publication, it will be remembered, was dedicated to Sidgwick, and he always spoke of him with reverence and gratitude. In 1873 Maitland took the Moral Science Tripos and shared the distinction of heading the first class with a scholar almost as well known in America as he is in England, the Rev. Dr. William Cunningham. Maitland now turned to one phase of the study which was destined to absorb in one way or an other his whole life, and in 1873 obtained one of the Whewell scholarships for interna tional law. Meanwhile he was preparing himself for what is no doubt the severest struggle in English academic life, the com petition for a fellowship. His real interest was in philosophy, and it was his desire to remain at the university and devote himself to philosophical studies. As it happened there was but a single fellowship available,