The second Earl of Rosebery died in 1755. Nine years earlier his unhappy kinsman, Sir Archibald Primrose, suffered death at Carlisle for his adhesion to the cause of the Pretender. The Primroses had from the first been devoted adherents of the Stuarts, and followed their fortunes in adversity as in honour. Lord Rosebery's recent visit to Carlisle revived the memory of this tragic event. Sir Archibald was buried in St. Cuthbert's Churchyard; but his grave cannot now be identified, as a new church has been built, and the position of the older burial places is unknown. Lady Mary, widow of Sir Archibald, died within a month of her husband. Lord Rosebery has reason to be proud of this heroic ancestor, who sacrificed everything for the cause he believed to be right, and said, in the crisis of his fate, “I am to suffer for my religion, my Prince, and my country. For each of these I wish I had a thousand lives to spend."

The third Earl, Neil, after whom Lord Rosebery's second son is named, sat in Parliament as a Scottish representative peer from 1768 till his death in 1814. His successor, Archibald John, grandfather of the future Premier, was a member of the Privy Council, and a wellknown Liberal politician, who acted as

political manager for Earl Grey. In his younger days he was member for Helston and Cashel. He was a favourite with Her Majesty, and the ladies of the family were often about the Court in the earlier years of the reign. Baroness Bunsen, writing in March, 1847, says: "We dined at Buckingham Palace on Monday, where there was a ball in the evening; that is, a small dancing party, only Lady Rosebery and the Ladies Primrose coming in the evening in addition to those at dinner. The Queen danced with her usual spirit and activity, and that obliged other people to do their best."

in

In the House of Lords the fourth Earl spoke from time to time on Scottish questions. His speeches, though never eloquent, are full of good sense and of sturdy Liberalism. One wonders whether he was not even a keener Liberal than his son, Lord Dalmeny, who represented the Stirling Burghs Parliament from 1832 to 1847. Lord Dalmeny, who was one of the Lords of the Admiralty under the Melbourne Government, rarely addressed the House, but his contributions to debate have a marked flavour of originality. He opposed the Ballot Act and the principle of secret voting, and argued strongly against the imposition of an Income Tax in 1842. His abilities were well brought out in a pamphlet he wrote in 1848, under the title "An Address to the Middle Classes upon the subject of Gymnastic Exercises." It runs to fifty-three pages, and was published by James Ridgeway, of Piccadilly. Nothing I have ever read shows more strikingly the change that has come over the habits of the English people

son. He urges that health cannot be secured by Act of Parliament: Such are the habits of the middle classes that they would be far

from possessing it, if they enjoyed the air of the Grampians. It is not so much additional air

as additional

exercise that

of the inhabitants." Lord Dalmeny thinks that the aristocracy need his injunctions less than the commercial classes. Although "there are many gentlemen whose sole exercise consists in crawling from their sofa to their dinner-table, and from their dinner-table

sani

they require. Their defective tary condition may be ascribed less to the atmosphere they breathe than to the physical inaction in which they indulge. In this metropolis the revenues of the physician and the profits of the druggist are not derived from any circumstances which the law can control, but from the intemperance and indolence

business. By business he is engrossed till two, when he swallows a beefsteak, and again returns to business. At five he withdraws from business for a brief interval for tea, when, having gulped down some cups of Souchong, he returns again to business. He continues immersed in business till eight or nine, when he be

gins to think that business may yield the place to relaxation or amusement. What is the nature of this relaxation or amusement? Does he brace his nerves, reanimate his spirits, or circulate his blood by any gymnastic exercise, any invigorating game? Nothing of the

spent in active exercise. The pamphlet is picturesquely written, and deserves a better fate than to be buried between two musty German treatises in the British Museum. Lord Dalmeny recommends fencing for those who have little time for recreation.

kind. If fond of literature or politics, he retires to read the last review, or study the leading article in the Times. If he be convivial, he strives, with a few boon companions, to relieve the pressure of anxiety and escape the persecution of care. If he be domestic, he seeks on the household hearth the solace of conversation and repose." His lordship urges that the hours of leisure should be

"I have brought down the heathcock in Braemar, I have stalked the deer on Ben Macdhui, I have trod the Alpine solitudes of Switzerland, but never have I felt greater exhilaration of spirits or a more genial glow of health, more. buoyancy of mind or greater vigour of body, than after an animated set-to with the foils at Messrs. Angelo's or Hamon's."

and a journal which is by no means too friendly to Lord Rosebery remarked that those who saw how he left the care of the Prince of Wales to others that he might look after his mother, fitting his steps to hers and anticipating her slightest wish, could well understand how he has won his enormous popularity. Turning back to the early forties, we find that the wedding of Lord Rosebery's parents took place in September, 1843. Their two elder children were daughters, Lady Mary (married in 1885 to Mr. Hope, of Luffness) and Lady Constance, who at the age of 21 became the wife of Lord Leconfield, and who has now a married daughter of her own. The fourth and youngest child, the Hon. Everard Henry Primrose, whose untimely death occurred in Egypt in 1885, inherited in a remarkable degree his mother's literary and artistic gifts. When a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, he delivered a charming and very lively address on "The History, Progress, and Recent State of Art Education in England." It is full of out-of-the-way information, and might have come from a Slade Professor.

Lord Rosebery was born on Friday, May 7th, 1847, at No. 20, Charles Street, Berkeley Square. Charles Street is on the west side of the square, and runs parallel with Hill Street and Mount Street. Lansdowne House, the palace which Bute began and Shelburne completed, and which Lord Rosebery rented for some years while Lord Lansdowne was in Canada, occupies, with its gardens, the south of the square, from the point where Charles Street ends. There are quaint streets in Mayfair-long and rambling, with houses of

all shapes and sizes, some wedged narrowly between tall buildings, others low and spacious—streets that twist, and wind, and lose themselves at last in a dark passage or in mews. Charles Street is a typical specimen of the class. By its irregularities you can tell that it belongs to Georgian London. A few doors from No. 20 is Berkeley Chapel, one of the most fashionable of West End churches. The street contracts to a mere alley, and seems to taper away into nothing; but an opening gives access to Hill Street and Park Lane.

The birth was announced in a single line in the Times of Saturday, May 8th:

"On the 7th inst., in Charles Street, Lady Dalmeny of a son and heir.”

Exactly the same announcement appeared in the Morning Post and the Scotch papers. The number of the house was not given. A few days later there was a further bulletin :

"Lady Dalmeny and her infant son and heir are progressing as favourably as could be desired."

It is interesting to glance over the Times for the week of Lord Rosebery's birth. Irish debates occupied both Houses on Friday, the 7th. In the House of Lords there was a long and acrimonious discussion on the Irish Poor Law; in the Commons the subject was the importation and sale of firearms in Ireland. One of the members whom the Times reported rather fully was Mr. Labouchere; not, of course, the editor of Truth, who was sixteen at this time, and did not enter Parliament till 1865, but his uncle, afterwards Lord Taunton. On the same day, the Times