In the midst of dusty records in long-forgotten corners of history one sometimes comes pleasantly upon personalities which have all the freshness and charm of present-day acquaintances. At once they become such real friends that one wonders how they have escaped more general notice. One feels that it must have been untoward circumstances only which veiled their light and kept its radiance from shining down the centuries to reveal them at least to their spiritual kin of later times.

Such a one was John Hales of Eton College, called curiously enough by his own generation and that following the “ever memorable.”