LORD TWEEDMOUTH.
Edward Ma rjoribants, Lord Tircedmouth. (A. Constable and Co. 53. net.)—The subject of this memoir was a characteristic example of the system on which the government of this country is carried on. Ho was, so to speak, born in the purple. A political career came to him by inheritance, and he fortified his position by a great marriage. Ho began, it is true, with a failure, but to contest Mid-Kent in the Liberal interest was little other than a forlorn hope. Berwickshire, where his family was in high repute, offered a better prospect. The Liberal Association invited him to be a candidate. "Ho readily accepted the invitation, took a lease of Duns Castle, and settled down in the county." The path of politics is certainly smoothed for the man who can take a lease of a castle. He was returned after the Dissolution of 1880, and kept the seat till the death of his father removed him to "another place." Office came to him for the first time in 1886, when he was made Controller of the Queen's Household and Second Whip. In 1892 he became First Whip, with the difficult task of getting a Home-rule Bill through the House. He succeeded to the title in 1894, on the very day when Lord Rosebery was form- ing his Government. He took office as Lord Privy Seal and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. In some fifteen months' time the Liberals were defeated. Then followed ten years of the cold shades of opposition, not a little mitigated by the sport to which Lord Tweedmouth was devoted. In 1905 the Liberals came back to power and he was made First Lord of the Admiralty. This post he held till the Government was reconstituted by Mr. Asquith, when he exchanged it for the Lord Presidency of the Council. A few weeks after his health broke down. He resigned in September, 1908, and died a year later. This, it will be allowed, is an eminently British career, quite remote from that of the pro- fessional politician. Unquestionably he was more at home as Chief Whip than as First Lord of the Admiralty. Indeed, we find him na5vely expressing his regret at leaving a post where " two-and-a- half very happy years had taught him a great deal about the greatest service in the world." We must not forget to mention the delightful "Reminiscences by Duncan McLennan, for many years a Head Stalker in the Guisachan Deer Forest."
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