Some Books of the Week
THAT wonderful old man, the first Lord Halsbury, who died in 1921 at the age of ninety-eight, has been fortunate in his biographer. For Mr. A. Wilson-Fox, instead of filling two or three. volumes in the accustomed manner of official bio- graphers, has written a concise memoir in a single handy volume which may be read with interest from beginning to end. The Earl of Halsbury, Lord High Chancellor (1823- 1921) (Chapman and Hall, 30s.) is indeed a most engaging book. Ilardinge Giffard, after leaving Oxford, helped his father for five years to edit the Standard. In 1850 he was called to the Bar and within four years had acquired a large practice. Disraeli made him Solicitor-General in 1875, but he could not find a seat till 1877. He became Lord Chancellor in 1885 and held that office in successive_Cotiservative Cabinets till 1905. At eighty-seven, courageously, though very., unwisely, he led the " Die-hards " against the Parliament Bill in 1911, and at ninety-three he sat with the Law Lords to decide an important appeal. Mr. Wilson-Fox rightly gives much space to Lord Halsbury's legal career and relates many entertaining anecdotes.
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