declined the task. It was in somewhat more hopeful cir cumstances that, after the defeat of Lord Falmerston on the Conspiracy Bill in February 1858, he assumed for the second time the reins of government. Though he still could not count upon a working majority, there was a possibility of carrying on affairs without sustaining defeat, which was realized for a full session, owing chiefly to the dexterous management of Mr Disraeli in the Commons. The one rock ahead was the question of Reform, on which the wishes of the country were being emphatically ex pressed, but it was not so pressing as to require to be immediately dealt with. During the session of 1858 the Government contrived to pass two measures of very considerable importance, one a bill to remove Jewish disabilities, and the other a bill to transfer the government of India fiom the East India Company to the Crown. Next year the question of parliamentary reform had to be faced, and, recognizing the necessity, the Government intro duced a bill at the opening of the session, which, in spite of, or rather in consequence of, its " fancy franchises," was rejected by the House, and, on a dissolution, rejected also by the country. A vote of no confidence having been passed in the new parliament on the 10th June, Lord Derby at once resigned. After resuming the leadership of the Opposition Lord Derby devoted much of the leisure the position afforded him to the classical studies that had always been con genial to him. It was his reputation for scholarship as well as his social position that had led in 1852 to his appointment to the chancellorship of the university of Oxford, in succession to the duke of Wellington ; and perhaps a desire to justify the possession of the honour on the former ground had something to do with his essays in the field of authorship. These were made at first with a diffidence that contrasted strongly with his boldness iu politics. His first venture was a poetical version of the 9th ode of the 3rd book of Horace, which appeared in Lord Ravensworth s collection of translations of the Odes. In 1862 he printed and circulated in influential quarters a volume entitled Translations of Poems Ancient and Modern, with a very modest dedicatory letter to Lord Stanhope, and the words "Not published" on the title-page. It contained, besides versions of Latin, Italian, French, and German poems, a translation of the first book of the Iliad. The reception of this volume was such as to encourage him to proceed with the task he had chosen as his magnum opus, the translation of the whole of the Iliad, which accordingly appeared in 1864. The fact that it speedily passed through six editioits is, of course, not so unequivocal a proof of its literary merit as would have been the case had the work proceeded from an author of less social distinction, but it has considerable significance. Tried on its merits, the most severe critic could not pronounce the work a failure. That it was not a complete success was due principally to the facts that the author had not caught the difficult secret of the management of the metre he chose blank verse, and that he as unable to divest himself of the diffuseness and of the modern cast of thought and style of expression natural to the parliamentary orator. During the seven years that elapsed between Lord Derby s second and third administrations an industrial crisis occurred in his native county, which brought out very conspicuously his public spirit and his philanthropy. The destitution in Lancashire, caused by the stoppage of the cotton-supply in consequence of the American civil war, was so great as to threaten to overtax the benevolence of the country. That it did not do so was probably due to Lord Derby more than to any other single man. From the first he vas the very life and soul of the movement for relief. His personal subscription, munificent though it was, represented the least part of his service. His noble speech at the meeting in Manchester in December 1872, where the movement was initiated, and his advice at the subsequent meetings of the committee, which he attended very regularly, were of the very highest value in stimulating and directing public sympathy. His relations with Lancashire had always been of the most cordial description, notwithstanding his early rejection by Preston; but it is not surprising that after the cotton famine period the cordiality passed into a warmer and deeper feeling, and that the name of Lord Derby is still cherished in most grateful remembrance by thousands of the factory opera tives. On the rejection of Eail Russell s Reform Bill in 18G6, Lord Derby was for the third time intrusted with the formation of a cabinet. Like those he had previously formed it was destined to be short-lived, but it lived long enough to settle on a permanent basis the question that had proved fatal to its predecessor. The " education " of the party that had so long opposed all reform to the point of granting household suffrage was the work of another ; but it is understood that Lord Derby fully concurred in, if he W9S not the first to suggest, the statesmanlike policy by which the question was disposed of in such a way as to take it once for all out of the region of controversy and agitation. The passing of the Reform Bill was the main business of the session 1867. The chief debates were, of course, in the Commons, and Lord Derby s failing powers prevented him from taking any large share in those which took place in the Lords. His description of the measure as a " leap in the dark," was eagerly caught up, because it exactly represented the common opinion at the time, the most experienced statesmen, while they admitted the granting of household suffrage to be a political necessity, being utterly unable to foresee what its effect might be on the constitution and government of the country. Finding himself unable, from declining health, to en counter the fatigues of another session, Lord Derby resigned office early in 18G8. The step he had taken was announced in both houses on the evening of the 25th February, and warm tributes of admiration and esteem were paid by the leaders of the two great parties. He was succeeded by Mr Disraeli, to whom he yielded the entire leadership of the party as well as the premiership. His subssquent appearances in public were few and unimportant. It was noted as a consistent close to his political life that his last speech in the House of Lords should have been a denunciation of Mr Gladstone s Irish Church Bill marked by much of his early fire and vehemence. A few months later, on the 23rd October 1869, he died at Knowsley. Lord Derby was one of the last and most brilliant repre sentatives of a class which seems to have become extinct, for the time at least, if the sharp differentiation of human pursuits that has now established itself has not rendered it impossible that it should ever again exist. Politics is now a distinct and exclusive profession ; the number of those to whom, like Lord Derby, it is the main without being the all-absorbing interest of life seems to become fewer year by year. There still remain one or two noted statesmen who are also noted authors, but of the life of many interests embracing public affairs, scholarship, litera ture, society, sportsmanship, and estate management, Lord Derby was almost the last specimen. Of another class, which will have ceased to exist when one or two more have passed away, he was also among the last and best ; he was a master of the all but lost art of parliamentary oratory. On this point it is enough to quote the testimony of two most competent witnesses. Sir Archibald Alison, writing of him when he was in the zenith of his powers, styles hira " by the admission of all parties the most per-
