It is a pity that The Huskisson Papers, edited by
Mr. Lewis Melville (Constable, 21s.) have not been more fully annotated, for these hitherto unpublished letters to and from William Huskisson might have been made to throw a somewhat shadowy figure into relief. Huskisson (1770- 1830) entered politics as a youth in the train of Pitt, who conferred on him a substantial pension. He was a close friend and associate of Canning. He served under Liverpool from 1814 at the Woods and Forests, went to the Board of Trade in 1823 and to the Colonial Office in 1827. He seems to have been respected as an economist and administrator, but the correspondence as presented leaves anything but a favourable or even a coherent impression of his character and actions. Too many of the letters detail his vexation at being passed over or offered some post which he did not think good enough. The best pages are those relating to the ridiculous brief Ministry of Goderich in the closing months of 1827 after Canning's death. The. absurd wrangles between George IV, Goderich and the rival nonentities who were proposed for the Chancellorship of the Exchequer are described at length. Huskisson stayed with Wellington, Goderich's successor, for a few months and then resigned. But for the railway accident of 1830 which cost him his life he might possibly have made his mark in Grey's Reform Cabinet.
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