BAGEHOT, bilyot, \VALTER (1826-77). An English economist and publicist. He was born at Langport, Somersetshire, February 23, 1826, and was educated at University College, London, where he won distinction by his work in mathe matics and in intellectual and moral philosophy and political economy. Ile began to read law, but never practiced the profession. After a stay of some months in Paris in 1851, where he lived through the coup d'Otat of December, he returned to England to take part ill his father's ship-own ing and banking business. In IS:58 he married the eldest daughter of the Right Hon. James Wilson, founder of the Economist, had been established during the Corn-Law agitation to advocate free-trade principles. In 1860, on the departure of his father-in-law for India, Bagehot became the editor of the Economist and retained that position until his death in 1877.
Bagehot's principal works. which were widely translated and passed through several editions. were: The English Constitution (I Sea) ; Phys ics and Politics (1872) ; and Lombard Street (1873). The first work, which has been widely used in England and the United States as a text book, is a keen analysis of the English system of government. It is striking in its distinction between the 'ornamental or theatrical' part and the practical parts. the Crown and the House of Lords constituting the first, the House of Com mons and the Cabinet the second. The vigor of his language would imply that the theatrical parts were useless; but, on the contrary, Bage hot holds them in high honor, despite proposals for reforming the House of Lords. They seem to assure confidence in the stability of government. and inculcate a respect for superiority and tra dition which is the saving grace of English democracy. In his discussion of the practical
parts he brings out strongly the essence of par liamentary government in the blending of execu tive and legislative authority in the Cabinet, He was among the first to point out the excel knees of the cabinet system. His work, Physics and Politics, expands the thesis that rule and tradition, awakening the spirit of collperation, is the keynote of political progress. Without this habit of pulling together, nations of brilliant intellectual parts have failed to maintain them selves.
His Lombard Street, which is a description of the role that the Bank of England plays in the English financial system, lies in quite another field of thought, for which, however, his training as vice-chairman of the Langport Bank and his position as editor of England's financial organ gave him special facilities of knowledge. The work is a masterly analysis of the English credit system, and its lucidity of statement has gained for it a wide reading and a permanent place in the literature of political economy.
Bagehot was a man of great versatility, whose reputation as one of the best conversationalists of his day will more readily be understood by those who read his Literary Studies and Bio graphical Studies, republished after his death in his collected writings, in which his vivacity and humor find greater scope than in the larger works already noted. For a memoir of Bagehot consult the prefatory notice to Literary Studies, edited by R. I]. Hutton (London, 1879).