"More crimes and blunders," declared John Bright of the room in which the Cabinet meets, "have been committed within ite wails than in any other place in these islands." If any person wants to te convinced of the truth of that obiter dictum, he has only to read "The Life of George, Fourth Earl of Aberdeen," by Lady Frances Balfour, which is just published. One of these blunders specially affects Scotland. Lord Aberdeen was member of the Cabinet presided over by Lord Melbourne, who before receiving a deputation from the Church of Scotland, expressed a wish that "that d—d fellow Chalmers was not amongst them," and whose treatment of the Scottish Church's claims to redress caused the Disruption. It is a heavy burden to bear.
The impression made by the story, as now re-told from the point of view of a Cabinet Minister, is that of the utter stupidity and ignorance of the Cabinet. "You may believe," writes Aberdeen, "that no human being in this part of the world (Westminster) cares sixpence for the Scottish Church... or even troubles his head about it." And later he writes:—''Beyond a passing joke, it is scarcely ever mentioned." ago. When Lord Aberdeen took possession of his estates in 1805, he had never visited the home of his an-cesters since he left Scotland as a child of eight. It is plain that Aberdeenshire struck him as a barbarous country, and that "the half-savage habits of the people, the drinking and coarseness of the gentry," inspired him with such disgust that he thought of selling is property and leaving the trecless "Siberian waste." But happily, having realized that Sparta was his lot, he set himself to adorn it, He planted trees and, introduced umbrellas! But the Anglicizing of the young nobleman did not commend itself to all. "The Earl would have been @ fine man," de-flared the old huntsman of the family, "gin they hadna taken him to England, and spoiled his education.""
A lover of peace, it was Lord Aberdeen's misfortune that ne woged a disastrous war—the Crimea, In his lifetime, Aberdeen improved his estate—everything but the parish church, which ¥as old and dilapidated. "TI leave that for George," said he, and among his papers was found this "Thou shalt not build an louse unto My name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in My sight." A strange World this, in which the bloodstained Crimea prevented the re-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.