When the announcement first appeared that a biography of the late Sir Howard Douglas was in progress, the impression made upon our minds was anything but favourable to the enterprise. Of the good and gifted man himself, as he mixed in general society, our recollections were indeed of the most pleasurable kind. He stood before us with his kindly manner, his noble appearance, his high bearing, his generous nature, the perfect model of what an English officer and gentleman ought to be. And casting our eyes across the room to the shelf on which his ‘Naval Gunnery’ and ‘Military Bridges’ were ranged, we thought of him as a man of science more than ordinarily well read in his profession. But not all our desire to find in connection with him materials for a consecutive history, helped us to any other conclusion than this, that the story of his life, if told at length, must be a dull one. We acknowledge, less with shame than with satisfaction and some surprise, that we were quite mistaken. Sir Howard Douglas’s career had more of romance about it than that of many a man who has filled a much larger space in the world’s observation. It was successful as far as it carried him, because a sound judgment controlled good abilities, and directed them to a wise end. And, above all, it reads this lesson to coming generations, that he who honestly seeks the wellbeing of others rarely fails, sooner or later, to secure his own. Nor must we omit to render to Sir Howard’s biographer the commendation which he deserves. Mr Fullom has executed his task well; neither overlaying his narrative with details, which sometimes weary, nor keeping back anything which might conduce to its completeness, he has given us one of the pleasantest books which, for some time past, has come under our notice. The house of Douglas has from the earliest times been renowned in Scottish story. Its alliance with the royal family began in the fourteenth century, when the Lord of Dalkeith took to wife Mary the fifth daughter of James I. On this same Lord of Dalkeith the earldom of Morton was not long afterwards conferred by his brother-in-law, James II. From father to son, or from uncle to nephew, the earldom passed through twelve generations, and narrowly escaped coming in the thirteenth to the father of Sir Howard. But Charles Douglas, if he missed a coronet, won for himself a baronetcy and great distinction as a British sailor. He it was who, when Arnold and Montgomery besieged Quebec, forced his squadron through the ice on the St Lawrence and relieved the place. He it was who first of all constructed a flotilla for himself, and then swept the Canadian lakes of the rebel gunboats; and by-and-by, on the 12th of April 1782, he caught, as if by inspiration, that idea, the application of which enabled Admiral Rodney to break the enemy’s line, and to save at a critical moment the honour of the British fleet.