Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/57

 metropolis, he displayed mathematical talent; and in due course he matriculated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, with the intention of pursuing with assiduity his favorite study, in which he obtained a scholarship. He soon, however, changed his mind, and betook himself to law, as calculated to bear more directly on a parliamentary career, for which he very early determined to qualify himself. He worked hard, and was easily senior in the Law Tripos for 1865.

In 1866 he was called to the bar by the Honorable Society of the Middle Temple. Shortly afterwards he started on a "round the world" journey of two years' duration. The trip bore excellent fruit in the well-known work "Greater Britain," which, in the first year of its publication, ran through four editions. In 1868 he was returned to Parliament for Chelsea by a majority of nearly two to one; and again in 1874 he headed the poll, notwithstanding an opposition of unexampled violence.

Sprung from a race of journalists and littérateurs, his pen is never long idle. Since the publication of "Greater Britain" he has found time to publish the "Fall of Prince Florestan of Monaco," and to edit, under the title "Papers of a Critic," his grandfather's chief contributions to the pages of "The Athenæum," which paper he owns and occasionally edits.

Since his former travels he has been "round the world" a second time, his chief object being to acquaint himself with the state and prospects of Japan. He has visited every English-speaking corner of the globe, is thoroughly conversant with the condition of our Indian Empire, and is better acquainted with the language, literature, people, and government of Russia than any man in the House.