It is much to be regretted that Lord Houghton did not write his own biography. Those who know his delightful _Monographs, Social and Personal_, can form some idea of how he would have treated it. From his early years he lived in society—not merely the society to which his birth naturally opened the door, but a varied society of his own creating. He had an insatiable curiosity. It is hardly too much to say that in his long life he was present at every ceremony of importance, from the Eglinton Tournament to the Œcumenical Council; he knew everybody who was worth knowing, both at home and abroad—not merely as chance acquaintances, but as friends with whom he maintained a correspondence; he was both a politician and a man of letters, a friend of the unwashed and the associate of princes. What a book might have been written by such a man on such a subject! But, alas! though he often spoke of writing his own life, he died before he had leisure even to begin it; and, instead, we have to content ourselves with the volumes before us. They are good—unquestionably good; they abound with amusing stories and brilliant witticisms; but we confess that we laid them down with a sense of disappointment which it is hard to define. Perhaps it was beyond the writer’s ability to draw so complex a character—a man of many moods, a creature of contradictions, a master of what _not_ to do and _not_ to say, as a lady of fashion told him to his face; perhaps he was overweighted by a wish to bring into prominence those solid qualities in his hero which society often failed to discover, while judging only ‘the man of fashion, whose unconventional originality had so far impressed itself upon the popular mind that there was hardly any eccentricity too audacious to be attributed to him by those who knew him only by repute[78].’ We are not so presumptuous as to suppose that we can paint a portrait of Lord Houghton that will satisfy those who were his intimate friends; but we hope to present to our readers at least a faithful sketch of one for whom we had a most sincere admiration and respect.