OBITUARY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue 7397, 21 December 1898, Page 4

OBITUARY.

(BY TEr-rarum TJOJMHUJPH —Col"nU3&T-) fPKR UjmSm 7BOS 4HOGUSOS) Received December 21,' at 9.5 wn. Loxdojt, December 20. Obituary—Lord Napier and Ettrick, jetat TSfc [Lord Francis Napier and Ettrick was t«n. in 1829. Succeeding as tenth baron in 1831, when he wss only fifteen, Lord Napier the diplomatic service in 1840. In 1546, while King Bomba still sat on his mteaflV throne. Lord Napier was Secretary of Legation in Naples. From 1852 he watched at St. Petersburg the development of the War from its obscure begin- | and from there he went to Constantinople in 1854, when that dire campaign was at its direst epoch. Minister at Washington in 1857, he witnessed the completion of she first Atlantic telegraph, and felt the ramblings of the approaching catastrophe which shook the united States to th*ir foundations. After a short sojourn at the Hague, he went back to St. Petersburg as Ambassador, and was there when Czar Alexander I- issued his momentous decree declaring the emancipation of the serfs. (Transferred to Berlin in 1884, he was brought into c'oae personal contact with the Prussian King, who was some six years later to be hai'ed German ifmperor in the Palace of Versailles, and with the ironwilled diplomatist who brought it all about. For " T years he was Governor of Madras, where he won the hearts of Indian princes by his urbanity and consideration ; while his personal efforts to assuage the terrors ot the great famine endeared him to the wretched people as few Governors have ever W, After Lord Maya's assassination he was for a brief periwl acting GovernorGeneral of India, oince then, except for a short period when he presided over the first of the ever-recurring and ever-fntile Crofter Commissions, Lord Napier haa filled the rote of Laird of Thirlestane, content to occupy in the affairs of parish or county a mind that for a quarter of a century was familiar with the highest concerns of State an<l for a time ruled a population of nearly three hundred millions. Putting diplomacy aside, Lord Napier's prevailing affinity is undoubtedly with literature and art. He can join his sons on the moor (and it is an experience to hear him describe that terrible Twelfth when his brother peer of Lauderdale, owner of another Thirlestane Castle, was struck dead by lightning); bnt he is never more himself than when discussing some book in the MgW realm of letters—poetry, philosophy, art v or history. With tho exception of a booklet, entitled "Modern Painters at Naples," written in 1851 and published in 1855, Lord Napier has sent nothing through the press, and thereby the world i 3 a loser. Of delicate veiled sarcasm there can be few examples equal to his satire of Ferdinand If. as a patron of arts j and nothing cin be more charming than the half-apologetic introduction, in which the younx diplomat describes himself shadowed as «. spy of * >a j" meraton's while wandering about the ruined purlieus of Naples, seeking in their history and ancient art a relaxation no longer provided by the treason-haunted capital. There was a great gathering of the Scotts at in 1896, when Lord Napier and Ettrick was presented with his portrait as a sonvenir of his golden wedding. The Duke of Buccleuch and Lord Polwarth united in doing honor to Lord Napier, who may be regarded as the chief of the clan For though its is generally assumed than the Duke of Buccleuch is the head of the Scot's, he is really nothing of the kind. He is a Scott only in the female line, descended from the heiress of Buccleuch who in the seventeenth century married the Duke of Monmouth, Charles IL's unfortunate son. Lord Napier on the other hand, is descended from Scott of Thirlestane, the youngest cadet of the house of Buccleuch, who in 1699 married the heiress of the Napiers. Lord Polwarth again represents the Scott 3 of Harden—from whom Sir Walter Scott was descended —a very ancient branch of the famous Border family. Honors. —P.C, K.T., LL. v'.