I

then fashioning itself in his brain, took thirteen years to complete, and was actually published before the Political Economy . In 1844 appeared the article on Michelet, which its author anticipated would cause some discussion, but which did not create the sensation he expected. Next year there were the “Claims of Labour” and “Guizot,” and in 1847 his articles on Irish affairs in the Morning Chronicle . These years were very much influenced by his friendship and correspondence with Comte, a curious comradeship between men of such different temperament. In 1848 Mill published his Political Economy , to which he had given his serious study since the completion of his Logic . His articles and reviews, though they involved a good deal of work⁠—as, for instance, the re-perusal of the Iliad and the Odyssey in the original before reviewing Grote’s Greece ⁠—were recreation to the student. The year 1856 saw him head of the Examiners’ Office in the India House, and another two years brought the end of his official work, owing to the transfer of India to the Crown. In the same year his wife died. Liberty was published shortly after, as well as the Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform , and no year passed without Mill making important contributions on the political, philosophical, and ethical questions of the day.

Seven years after the death of his wife, Mill was invited to contest Westminster. His feeling on the conduct of elections made him refuse to take any personal action in the matter, and he gave the frankest expression to his political views, but nevertheless he was elected by a large majority. He was not a conventional success in the House; as a speaker he lacked magnetism. But his influence was widely felt. “For the sake of the House of Commons at large,” said Mr. Gladstone, “I rejoiced in his advent and deplored his disappearance. He did us all good.” After only three years in Parliament, he was defeated at the next General Election by Mr. W. H. Smith. He retired to Avignon, to the pleasant little house where the happiest years of his life had been spent in the companionship of his wife, and continued his disinterested labours. He completed his