30 DECEMBER 1876, Page 3

Lord Beaconsfield has done a graceful thing in bestowing a

pension of 150 a year on the Banff naturalist, Thomas Edward, whose remarkable biography by Mr. Smiles we so recently re- viewed. The pension will bestow all the more gratification that it comes to Mr. Edward associated with the assurance that the Queen has been deeply interested in reading the story of his heroic struggle to indulge his natural genius, in spite of grind- ing poverty and the necessity for constant toil, so that her Majesty was herself, in all probability, the real prompter of her Minister's kindly and kindly-expressed acknowledgment of Mr. Edward's title to this honourable distinction.