Lord Rosebery, who with Lord Murray was enrolled on the
burgh roll of freemen of Peebles on Wednesday, made an amusing speech. After rendering homage to the qualities of patriotism and thrift associated with Peebles in two historic jokes, Lord Rosebery observed that he had spent his life in opening libraries; he lived in them, and when he came out of them to talk about them be despaired of saying anything =hackneyed on the subject. The best library for the forma- tion of character was to be found in the natural beauties of their county. Literature meant the standard books, but he was not prepared to say what they were. Lord Acton's list, to which everyone rushed on the strength of his great reputa- tion, proved to consist of books mostly German, almost entirely theological, "none of which I had ever heard of before," and as the list was posthumous, it inspired a lurking doubt whether it was not a joke bequeathed by the compiler. Lord Rosebery concluded by asserting his belief that if a man, in his honesty and conscience, proceeded to read the hundred best books in any list right through, he would never wish to read anything again.
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