Lord Aberdare, who died at his London residence on Monday
last, was one of the few Liberal Peers who steadily adhered to Home-rule for Ireland after Mr. Gladstone had announced the great conversion of the Liberal party to that brand-new creed. As Mr. Henry Austin Bruce—a nephew of the once famous and witty Lord Justice Knight Bruce—he accepted the office of Home Secretary in Mr. Gladstone's first Cabinet of 1869, but found it hardly suited to his amiable but rather too easy character. In 1871 he had to deal with the difficult licensing question, and as one of "the range of extinct volcanoes," as Mr. Disraeli nicknamed that Cabinet. he was obliged to endure a good deal of very unfavourable criticism. In 1873, after the defeat of the Catholic University Bill and Mr. Gladstone's resignation and return to office, Mr. Lowe was removed from the Exchequer and placed in the Home Office, while Mr. Bruce was raised to the peerage as Lord Aberdare, and made (for the few months which remained before Mr. Gladstone's defeat at the polls) Lord President of the Council of Education. That was the last time he held office under the Government. He was an assiduous, sensible, and very courteous Minister, but he had hardly enough combativeness in him, either for the purpose of anticipating all the attacks to which he would be exposed, or for defending himself against them with the vivacity which makes a Minister's personality felt and feared.
