_INTRODUCTORY NOTE_
_Walter Bagehot, economist, journalist, and critic, was born at
Langport, Somersetshire, February 3, 1826. He was the son of a banker,
and after graduating at University College, London, and being called to
the bar, he joined his father in business. In 1851 he went to Paris,
and was there during the coup d'état of Louis Napoleon, of which he
gave a vivacious account in letters to an English journal. Soon after
his return he began to contribute Ids first series of biographical
studies to the "Prospective Review" and the "National Review," of which
latter he was for some time joint-editor. From 1860 to 1877 he was
editor of the "Economist," and during this period he published his
notable work on "The English Constitution," his "Physics and Politics,"
and his "Lombard Street: a Description of the Money Market." He died
March 24, 1877._
It is chiefly as one of the most brilliant and original of recent
writers on political philosophy that Bagehot is known, but he holds
also a distinct place as a critic of literature. He did not write
criticism like a professional man of letters, and his production in
this field is at times less fine in workmanship than that of some men
of much less ability. But, in compensation, he was free from the
tendency to the use of a technical literary dialect and to the
excessive self-consciousness in style which mars so much modern work in
this department. He wrote as a man of affairs with a vigorous mind and
a gift of picturesque speech, a robust taste and a genuine love of
letters. He always had something definite to say, and no one can read
his discussion of such a man as Milton without feeling braced and
stimulated by contact with an intellect of uncommon strength and
incisiveness.