XLbc Barls of Xonsbalc 427 



dealers in such wares. Apart from that, he was a man 

 of sound common sense and considerable ability. His 

 tenants found him a generous landlord. He spent vast 

 sums in the drainage of his estates, was one of the first 

 and staunchest supporters of John Loudon Macadam, 

 the great revolutioniser of roads, and was Chairman of 

 the Metropolitan Roads Committee. Benjamin Disraeli 

 took him as the original of Lord Eskdale in Tancred, 

 but I think the brilliant novelist was hardly just to the 

 prototype of his fictitious character when he described 

 him as ' a man with every ability except the ability to 

 make his powers useful to mankind.' 



The third earl never married, and when he died 

 in 1872 the title passed to his nephew, Henry Lowther, 

 whose father, Colonel Henry Cecil Lowther, served with 

 distinction in the Peninsular War, under both Sir John 

 Moore and the Great Duke. During the terrible retreat 

 to Corunna, Colonel Lowther, then in the 7th Hussars, 

 was with the guard protecting the rear of the army, 

 and for sixteen days was exposed to the ceaseless sleet 

 and snow and icy winds of an exceptionally bitter winter, 

 without any better shelter day or night than the lee-side 

 of a rock. On another occasion he proved his powers 

 of endurance by riding eighty miles with despatches 

 over a rugged and practically roadless country, without 

 change or rest from start to finish. On his retirement 

 from the army Colonel Lowther obtained some notoriety 

 as a politician, and represented the Lowther interest in 

 Parliament. Sir James Graham once described him as 

 ' a genuine old Tory of the long-horned kind.' He 

 never, I believe, opened his mouth in the House of 

 Commons except to say ' Hear, hear ' in support of the 

 orators of his party, but one brief and pithy jpeech of 



