Sir James**, long a faithful servant of the Colonial Department of the British Government, and a successful essayist, was born in London in 1789. He was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he took his bachelor's degree in 1812. He subsequently adopted the legal profession, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. He had scarcely begun practice as a Chancery barrister when he received an appointment as counsel in the Colonial Department. He subsequently gave up his practice as a barrister, and became counsel to the Board of Trade, a situation which he soon after renounced for the assistant-under-secretaryship for the Colonies. Stephen afterwards became permanent under-secretary in the same office till 1847, when he resigned. During his long service he was, without question, one of the most efficient functionaries which the government possessed. In 1855 he published his views in a *Blue-book* regarding the reorganization of the civil service, when competitive examination was first broached as a means of determining the fitness of young men for public offices. On the whole, the opinion expressed by him of the public offices is not high. There are, however, he says, noble exceptions; and certainly the writer himself was one of the noblest. On his retiring he received the honour of knighthood, and he was appointed Regius-Professor of Modern History in the University of Cambridge in 1849. He was elevated to the latter post by reason of his extensive acquirements in history and in biography, prosecuted during the leisure hours of his official employment. He had contributed extensively to the *Edinburgh Review* on subjects pertaining to ecclesiastical history and general religious biography; and he issued in 1849 *Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography*, which have been well received by the public. He published likewise some very popular *Lectures on the History of France* in 1851; and, except an occasional lecture delivered before some popular institution, his publications close with this year. Sir James Stephen died at Coblenz on the 15th September 1859. His son, Fitzjames Stephen, who has likewise followed the law, is at present (March 1860) engaged on a Life of his father, which will appear prefixed to a new edition of his *Essays*.