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JAMES AUGUSTUS COTTER MORISON (1832-1...

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 838 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JAMES See also:AUGUSTUS See also:COTTER See also:MORISON (1832-1888)  , See also:British author, was See also:born in See also:London on the 20th of See also:April 1832 . His See also:father, who had made a large See also:fortune as the inventor and proprietor of " See also:Morison's Pills," settled in See also:Paris till his See also:death in 184o, and See also:Cotter Morison thus acquired not only an acquaintance with the See also:French See also:language, but a profound sympathy with See also:France and French institutions . In later See also:life he resided for some years in Paris, where his See also:house was a See also:meeting-See also:place for eminent men of all shades of See also:opinion . He was educated at See also:Highgate See also:grammar school and See also:Lincoln See also:College, See also:Oxford . Here he See also:fell under the See also:influence of See also:Mark See also:Pattison, to whom his impressionable nature perhaps owed a certain over-fastidiousness that characterized his whole career . He also made the acquaintance of the leading See also:English Positivists, to whose opinions he became an ardent convert . Yet he retained a strong sympathy with the See also:Roman See also:Catholic See also:religion, and at one See also:time spent several See also:weeks in a Catholic monastery . One other See also:great influence appears in the admirable Life of St See also:Bernard, which he published in 1863—that of his friend See also:Carlyle, to whom the See also:work is dedicated, and with whose See also:style it is strongly coloured . Meanwhile he had been a See also:regular contributor, first to the See also:Literary See also:Gazette, edited by his friend See also:John See also:Morley, and then to the Saturday See also:Review at its most brilliant See also:epoch . In 1868 he published a pamphlet entitled Irish Grievances shortly stated . In 1878 he published a See also:volume on See also:Gibbon in the " Men of Letters " See also:series, marked by See also:sound See also:judgment and wide See also:reading . This he followed up in 1882 with his See also:Macaulay in the same series .

It exhibits, more clearly perhapsthan any other of Morison's See also:

works, both his merits and his defects . Macaulay's See also:bluff and strenuous See also:character, his rhetorical style, his unphilosophical conception of See also:history, were entirely out of See also:harmony with Morison's prepossessions . Yet in his anxiety to do See also:justice to his subject he steeped himself in Macau-See also:lay till his style often recalls that which he is censuring . His brief See also:sketch, Mme de See also:Maintenon: une etude (1885), and some See also:magazine articles, were the only fruits of his labours in French history . Towards the See also:close of his life he meditated a work showing the application of Positivist principles to conduct . Unfortunately, failing See also:health compelled him to abandon the second or constructive See also:part: the first, a brilliant piece of See also:writing which attempts to show the ethical inadequacy of revealed religion and is marked in parts by much bitterness, was published in 1887 under the See also:title of The Service of See also:Man . He died in London on the 26th of See also:February 1888 .

End of Article: JAMES AUGUSTUS COTTER MORISON (1832-1888)
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