We record with deep regret the death, after a short
illness, of the Duke of Westminster in his seventy-fifth year. Born in 1825, and educated at Eton and Balliol, he sat for Chester for twenty-one years before succeeding to the title of Marquis of Westminster in 1869. As a politician he was a most loyal supporter of Mr. Gladstone who had conferred the dukedom on him in 1874—until the disruption of the Liberal party in 1886. The Duke of Westminster resented Mr. Gladstone's action most bitterly, and broke off all com- munication with his old chief for several years. But after Mr. Gladstone's retirement, a complete reconciliation took place. Without possessing a commanding intellect, the late Duke consistently applied the maxim Noblesse oblige alike as a man of business, a patron of art, a sportsman, and a philanthropist. Perhaps the greatest tribute to his worth is the admission of a writer in an advanced Radical paper that, while future legislation would probably render the accumulation of such riches in the hands of one person impossible, no man could have done less harm with such colossal wealth than the late Duke. The Socialist critic, in short, finds himself much in the same position as that described by Dr. Johnson in his eulogy of Sir Joshua Reynolds "Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir, is the most invulnerable man I know; the man with whom, if you should quarrel, you would find the most difficulty how to abuse."
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