THE EARL OF CARDIGAN. 



The storm of angry controversy which once raged round 

 the name of Lord Cardigan, the leader of the immortal 

 Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, has died away, 

 and hardly even its faintest echoes have reached the ears 

 of the present generation. It is possible, therefore, to 

 review with something like judicial calmness a career 

 which, forty years ago, one dared not have touched upon 

 without rousing feelings of the fiercest and bitterest 

 partisanship. It is, of course, mainly with Lord Cardigan 

 as a sportsman that I am concerned here, and his con- 

 duct and character as a soldier may seem outside my 

 mHier. But at the same time I feel that any sketch of 

 his life would be incomplete and unsatisfactory which 

 avoided all reference to the incidents which have invested 

 his name with a peculiar, if not always agreeable, 

 interest. 



James Thomas Brudenell, seventh Earl of Cardigan, was 

 born on the i6th of October 1797 at Hambledon, in 

 Hampshire, a place famous in the annals both of cricket 

 and hunting. Harrow was ^his school, and Oxford his 

 university. He took no degree, however, but, like the 

 bulk of young artistocrats of his day, made the ' Grand 

 Tour.' On his return, Lord Brudenell entered Par- 

 liament as member for Marlborough, and sat for that 



