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Vol. VI.

No. 2.

BOSTON.

February, 1894.

SIR HORACE DAVEY. SIR HORACE DAVEY is the son of the late Mr. Peter I)ave>- of West Molesey, Surrey, and was born in 1833. He was educated first at Rugby and afterwards at University College, Oxford. Nature had made him for the Bar, and happily both for himself and for the innumerable clients whose causes he conducts with conspicuous ability and success, inclination turned his thoughts in this direction. He was ad mitted to Lincoln's Inn on 19th January, 1857, and was called to the Bar of that so ciety on 26th January, 1861. Davey had the good fortune to become " devil " to W„ afterwards Vice-Chancellor, Wickens, and that learned gentleman, than whom no shrewder judge of character and merit ever lived, had such confidence in Davey's pro bity and ability that he used simply to sign the papers drafted by him without revising them. Mr. Justice Day is reported to have given the same token of esteem to his quondam "devil," Mr. R. B. Finlay, now an eminent Queen's Counsel and politician. The reputation of so able and diligent a "devil " as Mr. Davey was could not long be confined to the narrow sphere of his prin cipal's chambers. Solicitors soon found him out and vied with each other in send ing him work. He did it in such a way as amply to justify the extraordinary regard which Mr. Wickens had shown for him, and from the moment of his first independent debut in professional life, his future was as sured. From 1871 to 1873 he acted as secretary to Mr. Wickens, who had then been raised to a vice-chancellorship. From

1873 to 1874 he discharged the same duties for Vice-Chancellor Hall. On 23d June, 1875, Mr. Davey was made a Queen's Coun sel. In 1877 he received the honorable appointment of standing counsel to the University of Cambridge. On 4th No vember, 1878, he was made a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn. At the general election of 1880 Mr. Davey was elected Member of Parliament for Christ Church — a constitu ency which he continued to represent in the Liberal interest till the general election of 1885, when he was defeated by Mr. Young. Mr. Gladstone was, however, re turned to power, though his follower was defeated, and Davey, who had now been raised to the honor of knighthood and to the solicitor-generalship, continued to hold his law officership till the general election of 1886, when his party was completely van quished at the polls. Sir Horace Davey's subsequent Parliamentary experiences must have tried his patience severely. He wan dered from constituency to constituency, making fruitless efforts to secure his adop tion as the official Gladstonian candidate. At last, however, Stockton took pity on him and sent him to St. Stephen's as its mem ber. Sir Horace Davey is not, and never will be, a great politician. His intellect is both too academic and too legal in its fibre to admit of his becoming a keen partisan, and he has none of that " free delivery" (as it is called in Scotland) which is almost es sential to Parliamentary success. But he has not failed to secure a unique position in English public life. Now that Cairns and