NATURE 



437 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 30, 1906. 



THE LATE DLKIC OF ARGYLL. 

 Oeorge Douglas, Eighth Duke of Argyll, K.G., K.T. 

 (1823-1900). Autobiography and Memoirs. Edited 

 by tlie Dowager Duchess of Argyll. Vol. i., pp. 

 xi + 602; Vol. ii., pp. vii + 63S. (London: John 

 Murray, 1906.) Price 36^. net. 



THE last Duke of Argyll was unquestionably one of 

 the most conspicuous and interesting men of his 

 time. Inheritor of an ancient peerage, chief of a great 

 Highland clan, head of an illustrious house that had 

 played a prominent part in the history of his country, 

 possessor of wide estates and surrounded by a 

 numerous and thriving tenantry, he had every 

 ndv.Tntage which worldly position and hereditary dis- 

 tinction could confer. That he owed much to these 

 gifts of fortune he himself was well aware, and fitly 

 acknowledged. Yet even without them his strong 

 character and vigorous intellect would have assuredly 

 made him a prominent figure in any walk of life that 

 he might have chosen. It will be for ever recorded 

 to his honour that he turned his social advantages to 

 the highest uses. The most accomplished orator of 

 his day in the House of Lords, he held successively 

 various posts as Cabinet Minister, took an active 

 share in the political life of the country, both inside 

 and outside of Parliament, and gained the respect and 

 esteem of all parties in the State. Possessing literary 

 tastes, he became the personal friend of many of the 

 best writers of his time, and having, as he says of 

 himself, " an inborn tendency to write," he showed by 

 the vigour and elegance of his style that he had solid 

 claims to literary eminence. From early youth he 

 was an attentive observer of nature, so that he was 

 led to follow with the keenest interest the develop- 

 ments of modern science, and having ample self- 

 confidence he did not hesitate to take part in the 

 scientific discussions of his day. Whether on public 

 platforms, in periodical literature, or in separate 

 volumes, his tongue and his pen were always busy, 

 either in trenchantly denouncing assertions which he 

 believed to be erroneous or in standing up stoutly for 

 opinions and interests which he felt sure were just and 

 true. But he was ever the high-bred gentleman, who, 

 though a keen controversialist, did not lose sight of 

 the dignity of his order. 



The biography of such a man could not fail to be 

 full of interest. It has been edited by his widow, the 

 Dowager Duchess of Argyll, and is comprised in two 

 volumes, whereof the first and about a sixth part of 

 the second consist of an autobiographical fragment. 

 Only begun so late as 1897, this autobiography 

 occupied the writer's leisure hours during the last 

 three years of his life. At his death in 1900, he had 

 ■brought his narrative no farther than the close of 

 i857> ^vhen he was thirty-four years of age, so that 

 the story of the longest and most active part of his 

 •career remained untold. The great blank thus re- 

 NO. 1922, VOL. 74] 



maining has been to some extent supplied by means 

 of extracts from his speeches, letters, and published 

 writings, but these naturally lack much of the per- 

 sonal revelation which gives a charm to the Duke's 

 own tale. The extracts, as well as a large part of the 

 later chapters of the autobiography, deal in great 

 measure with politics, any reference to which would 

 be out of place here. We shall therefore confine this 

 notice of the book to the scientific side of the Duke's 

 career. 



No parts of the autobiography are more delightful 

 than those wherein the writer reveals the intensity of 

 his love of nature. Even to those readers who have 

 had most acquaintance with his published writings, 

 but who never came into personal contact with him, 

 this revelation may perhaps be a surprise. His child- 

 hood and youth were spent amid country surroundings 

 on the shores of the Firth of Clyde, and being much 

 alone he was brought face to face with birds .nnd 

 trees and flowers, and the ever-changing aspects of 

 sea and sky and mountain. All through life he was 

 delighted to escape from the din and turmoil of 

 politics to find rest and refreshment among his own 

 Highland hills and glens, the ever varying mood of 

 which under sunshine or cloud, from hour to hour, 

 and from season to season, he watched with the most 

 ardent devotion. Nor did he confine himself to the 

 manifold attractions of his environment at Inveraray. 

 For many years he spent a part of each summer 

 yachting among the Western Isles, with most of the 

 rocks and bays of which he became familiar, and over 

 the endless beauties of form and colour of which he 

 lingered with enthusiastic admiration. He had a 

 keen artistic sense, which found expression in manv 

 a coloured sketch of the scenes that fascinated him, 

 and has manifested itself in many passages of vivid 

 description in his autobiography. His poetic tempera- 

 ment likewise received constant stimulus from the 

 same marvellous panorama of sea and sky, mountain, 

 islet, and cliff. He had steeped his mind first in the 

 poetry of Wordsworth and then in that of Tennyson, 

 and from time to time the exuberance of his feelings 

 found relief in verse. 



From his earliest years the Duke was passionately 

 fond of birds, watching- them in their haunts, noting 

 their habits, and in this way acquiring an intimate 

 knowledge of the bird-life of his native country. .As 

 an instance of the hold which this pursuit had upon 

 him, he tells how, when he first looked out for a 

 house of his own in London, he went to see one on 

 Campden Hill, with some four acres of land about it. 

 There were various objections to the place, but when 

 he saw a flock of starlings on the lawn, nuthatches 

 climbing the trees, fly-catchers and warblers darting 

 around, "all doubts and difliculties vanished; the birds 

 settled everything"; and he returned to town to in- 

 struct his agent to make the purchase. In this way 

 he chose the charming residence which became his 

 London home up to the end of his life. Besides 

 observing the forms and ways of birds, he speciallv 

 studied their various kinds of flight as a scientific 



