7 DECEMBER 1912, Page 45

One Welshman: a Glance at a Great Career. By Whitelaw

Reid. (Macmillan and Co. Is. not.)—In his inaugural address of the autumn session of the new University College of Wales at Aberystwyth, Mr. Whitelaw Reid gave a deeply interesting account of the life and character of Thomas Jefferson. This address is now reprinted, and will serve as a permanent reminder of tke remarkable, if somewhat self-contradictory, qualities of the author of the Declaration of Independence. There seems to be no question of his Welsh ancestry, and it is easy to find in him many of the characteristics of his nation. Some of them he lacked ; but the typical Celt is to be seen in much of Mr. Whitelaw Reid's description : "He was not an orator, not a soldier, not a good executive, least of all a well-balanced statesman. But he was a philosophic thinker, or dreamer, and yet with a wonderfully practical gift for reading the tendencies of the populace, and for putting their wishes into persuasive and stately language." Mr. Whitelaw Reid's paper gives us a vivid portrait of an arresting personality.