STATESMEN.—No. DLXXXVIII.

LORD ELCHO, M.P.

HUGO RICHARD, LORD ELCHO, being the eldest surviving son and heir of the ninth Earl of Wemyss and March, is, by consequence, own brother to the Elcho Shield and to the Liberty and Property Defence League. The five-and-thirty years that have passed over his head have left a tansorial deficiency which neither Art nor Nature can correct; yet he is gifted with a happy buoyancy of disposition, of which the circumstance of having had Edinburgh to his birthplace is inadequate explanation. Harrow and Balliol hardened his understanding and increased his solemnity; but his schoolmates and College friends found beneath the grave and venerable surface a boundless fund of that pleasantry, good humour, and better fellowship which have since made him as popular in the House of Commons as he is at the Carlton and at the Bachelors'. In his twenty-sixth year he took a wife and a seat in Parliament—the latter for that Haddingonshire wherefrom his father had floated, in due course, to the family Peerage. But at the Winter Election of 1885 he was untowardly turned adrift; yet lost no time, being a youth of some enterprise, in assaulting and capturing one of the seats at Ipswich which an Election Petition Judge conveniently reported as just then vacant. And Ipswich, blessed with a stolid but very genuine perception of what is good for it, still confides to him one-half of its political conscience, the other half being in the decorous custody of that other Scottish gentleman, Sir Charles Dalrymple; so that from his witty and persuasive tongue the House of Commons still asks an annual speech in favour of the Derby Day adjournment; and his words carry added authority on the subject since his confession that he has never been to Epsom.

He is a patriot; but being also a person of common-sense, he has taken public occasion to speak disrespectfully of the bagpipes, which he has described as weapons of offence. Yet he holds that the Scots are a social and convivial people: a truth which he illustrates, forcibly and well, in his own person. He loves the pastimes of his stern and wild Fatherland; he labours under grave suspicion of having sometimes worn a kilt; and he knows a grouse from a haggis when he meets one.

Despite his pleasant gift of speech, he is almost a silent Member; but he nevertheless enjoys the friendship of Mr. Balfour, with whom he plays golf, and he was once a Volunteer. He is much more clever than he looks. He is the father of three children and a Deputy-Lieutenant of Peebles-shire. He is also a good shot and a gentleman.

JEHU JUNIOR.