We regret to record the death of the Duke of
Argyll, who died at Inverary on Tuesday in the seventy-eighth year of his age. He had been nearly sixty years in public life, and for forty-eight of them was regarded as of Cabinet rank, though the only first-class post he ever held was that of Secretary of State for India. He was made Lord Privy Seal before he was thirty, and but for his independence of character might have held the highest offices in every Liberal Administration. He had, however, opinions of his own, disliked popular Radicalism as much as Old Toryism, and when once convinced could not help fighting, even if the adversaries were his own colleagues. He resigned in disgust when Mr. Gladstone brought in the Irish Land Act of 1881, and when the great Liberal announced himself a convert to Home-rule the Duke finally quitted his party, and thence- forward was reckoned among Unionists. Though not a great orator, his lucid and definite speeches gave him great influence among the middle classes, and his opinion weighed heavily to the last both with the higher aristocracy and the Court, the Queen reckoning him among her most trusted friends. He was an able administrator of his vast though embarrassed property, and retained the deep respect of his clan, though they thought him, we believe, deficient in Highland feeling.
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