ABSTRACT
George Edward Bateman Saintsbury was born on 23 October, 1845, at Southampton. After a stay in Southampton he settled with sound instinct in Bath, in the stately Circus, and spent his last years in seclusion there. He presented himself unsuccessfully at Wadham, Corpus, and Lincoln, and twice in his own College. Meanwhile he consoled himself in his last year by reading for second Schools in Law and History, which, however, he did not take; became a member of the Inner Temple and went up to eat his dinners; became engaged and wished to marry. Biographically he depended on the few inferior notices that had appeared, and had no access to unpublished sources. Saintsbury wrote to the Academy: "Having been for ten years a rival of des Grieux, I do not wish it to be thought I have been guilty of the crime of slighting Manon".
