LIFE AT THE ZOO. _C. J. Cornish._ THE FOUR MEN. _Hilaire Belloc._ CRUISE OF THE "ALERTE." _E. F. Knight._ FOUR FRENCH ADVENTURERS. _Stoddard Dewey._ A REAPING. _E. F. Benson._ _Etc., etc._ _Others to follow._ * * * * * Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography BY THE RIGHT HON. GEORGE W. E. RUSSELL [Illustration: Publisher's logo] THOMAS NELSON AND SONS LONDON, EDINBURGH, DUBLIN AND NEW YORK _NOTE._ _This book was originally published under the title of "One Look Back."_ TO HENRY SCOTT HOLLAND IN HONOUR OF THE BEST GIFT WHICH OXFORD GAVE ME CONTENTS I. BEGINNINGS 9 II. HARROW 35 III. HARROVIANA 56 IV. OXFORD 82 V. OXONIANA 102 VI. HOME 125 VII. LONDON 143 VIII. HOSPITALITY 171 IX. ELECTIONEERING 195 X. PARLIAMENT 222 XI. POLITICS 246 XII. ORATORY 283 XIII. LITERATURE 309 XIV. SERVICE 338 XV. ECCLESIASTICA 365 FIFTEEN CHAPTERS OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY. I BEGINNINGS One look back--as we hurry o'er the plain, Man's years speeding us along-- One look back! From the hollow past again, Youth, come flooding into song! Tell how once, in the breath of summer air, Winds blew fresher than they blow; Times long hid, with their triumph and their care, Yesterday--many years ago! E. E. BOWEN. The wayfarer who crosses Lincoln's Inn Fields perceives in the midst of them a kind of wooden temple, and passes by it unmoved. But, if his curiosity tempts him to enter it, he sees, through an aperture in the boarded floor, a slab of stone bearing this inscription: "On this spot was beheaded William Lord Russell, A lover of constitutional liberty, 21st July, A.D. 1683."[1] Of the martyr thus temperately eulogized I am the great-great-great-great-grandson, and I agree with The Antiquary, that "it's a shame to the English language that we have not a less clumsy way of expressing a relationship of which we have occasion to think and speak so frequently."