BRYCE, JAMES (183S-) An eminent Eng lish writer and legislator. Ile was born in Belfast, Ireland. studied at Glasgow University, and in 1862 graduated at Trinity College, and won a fellowship in Oriel College, oxford. In 1864 he published a monograph, The Holy Roman Empire, which. subsequently much enlarged, quickly gave him a reputation as an historical writer of unusual insight and ability. Scholarly, brilliant, and original in treatment, marked throughout by careful thought and painstaking research, a model of condensation and lucidity, this book has been widely read in England, in America, and on the Continent of Europe, has been translated into several European languages, and is still regarded as the standard compendious work on the subject. In 1867 Mr. Bryce became a barrister at Lincoln's Inn, and practiced until 1882. He was appointed regins professor of civil law at Oxford in 1870, but resigned in 1893, after twenty-three years of successful service. In 1880 lie entered political life as a member of Parlia ment for the Tower-Hamlets, and attained imme diate prominence as a Liberal and a follower of Gladstone. He became Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in Gladstone's Govern ment in 1886, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan caster. with a seat in Gladstone's Cabinet, in 1892, and president of the Board of Trade in 1894.
In 1894 he also served as chairman of the Royal Commission on Secondary Education, and was elected fellow of the Royal Society. As a poli tician, he has consistently taken the Liberal side in all the great controversies that have arisen since his election to the House of Commons, and has been especially conspicuous as an advocate of home rule for Ireland, of the abolition of university tests, of international copyright, and of the thorough revision of the statute law. Though thus prominent as a teacher and a politician. he is mach better known as a writer, and espe cially as the author of The American 0.1111111011 wealth (last ed. 1895), the material for which he collected during three visits to the United States in 1870, 1881, and 1SS3. In this work lie gives, with remarkable accuracy, sympathy, and insight. probably the best nceount ever written of the political institutions of the United States. considered in their relation to the history, the character. and the habits of the American people. Besides numerous essays and magazine articles, he has published two excellent books of travel: Transcaucasia and Ararat (4th ed. 1896), and Impressions of South Africa (1897), and a volume of Studies in History and Jurisprudence