Coutts and Co., Bankers. By Ralph Richardson, (Elliot Stock. 7s.
(kl.)—Mr. Richardson, having written the Life of a dis- reputable artist (George Morland), gives us, we understand from his preface, by way of compensation or contrast, the history of a respectable banking firm. It is some time before we reach the Coutts family. Our author has some antiquarian material about old Edinburgh, and uses it up in his first two chapters. Chap. 3 gives us the "Coutts. Ancestry." The family, " Cotts of that ilk," according to our author, came from Aberdeenshire. The first to emerge into the light was John Coutts, a tradesman (Scottie?, " merchant ") of Montrose, where he was Provost in 1678. His fourth eon, Patrick, migrated to Edinburgh, and John, son of Patrick, began the banking business. John was Provost of Edinburgh from 1742.44, and it was his sons who vital). lished the London house. Thomas Coutts was the most distin- guished of the race. He married his brother's housemaid, Betty Starky by name. Of his three daughters, Susan, the eldest, married the third Earl of Guilford; the second, Frances, married John, first Marquis of Bute (her daughter, Frances, married the second Earl of Harrowby) ; and the youngest, Sophia, marrying Sir Francis Burdett, became the mother of the Baroness Burdett. Coutts. Mr. Richardson's book is of considerable interest, but there is not much in it about banking proper, or, indeed, about finance.
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