XXVI1 MEMOIR appearance of his ‘ Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah ; ’ and though he always looked back with pleasure on his six years of country life, the step now taken was never regretted. Already, in 1881, the University of Oxford had conferred upon him the degree of M.A. honoris causa; in 1883 this was confirmed by decree of Convocation ; and in 1884-5 he was appointed Select Preacher to the University. In 1885 his Warburton Lectures were published, under the title of ‘Prophecy and History in relation to the Messiah,’ and at the same time he was busy with his article on ‘ Philo’ (Smith and Wace’s Dictionary of Christian Biography), with further important contributions to the Edinburgh Review, Studia Buiblica, and other periodicals, and with review work (for the Saturday Review, the Guardian, the Churchman, the Expositor, the Church Quarterly, the Sunday School Times (U.S.A.), &c.). In 1886 he was appointed Grinfield Lecturer on the Septuagint in the University of Oxford, an office to which in 1888 he was re-elected. In Oxford also he completed his ‘ Bible History,’ and in 1886 he under- took his ‘Commentary on KEcclesiasticus,’ for the ‘Speaker’s Commentary on the Apocrypha,’ a work in which he was assisted by Prof. Margoliouth. The