The Romance of a Pro-Consul. By James Mllne. (Chatto and
Windua. 6s.)—George Grey was gazetted to the 83rd Foot in 1829, served in Ireland, where he did not like the process of tithe-colleoting —if you invoke the Sermon on the Mount against one obligation you must invoke it against all—and for various reasons was delighted to go in 1836 as a leader of an expedition to explore North-West Australia. This brought him to the work of his life. In 1841 he was made Governor of South Australia, which he may be said to have started on a course of prosperity. Four years afterwards he was transferred to New Zealand, where he had to grapple with the first Maori War. Then came a period of service at the Cape, where it was not his least service that, on his own responsibility, he sent off to India the troops that were intended for Singapore. After this came another period of office in New Zealand, two years in England (where he contended manfully against the Little Englanders of the day), and then nearly a quarter of a century in AuStralia. At the age of eighty-four he came back to England, which he left for the first time on the day of the Queen's accession. He was summoned to Windsor to be sworn in as a Privy Councillor, a dis- tinction which had been conferred upon him some years before. The Queen, with characteristic thoughtfulness, told him that he was not to kneel ; he would not obey, though it was indeed true that his limbs were somewhat stiff. " I want a minute or two to get in motion," he said that very evening. We cannot help wishing that Mr. Milne had told the story of this great life in.a somewhat more businesslike way, It does not need dramatie effects and positions to make it irapressive.
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