Acting on such distinguished advice I propose to attempt a slight account of the career and personality of this singularly attractive man, who was at the head of the War Office when Florence Nightingale and her staff of nurses were sent to the aid of the soldiers wounded in the Crimea. No _Life_ of Lord Herbert of Lea has at the time of writing been published, although one is, I understand, in course of preparation. The name of Sidney Herbert is distinguished as that of the War Minister who, in defiance of official tradition, enlisted the devotion and organising power of women on behalf of our soldiery perishing in the pestilential hospitals of the East. Sidney Herbert was born at Richmond in Surrey on September 16, 1810, and was the second son of George Augustus, eleventh Earl of Pembroke, by his second wife, Countess Catherine, only daughter of Count Woronzoff, Russian Ambassador to the British Court. His maternal uncle, Prince Michael Woronzoff, was a companion in arms of Wellington, and the founder of the prosperous era in the Crimea. Sidney Herbert’s mother, though of Russian birth, was chiefly brought up and educated in this country, and owing to her father’s official position, moved as a girl in the atmosphere of the Court. He owed much to her example and training. She is described as having been a woman of quick intelligence and sound judgment, of large generosity and noble bearing. Her husband, Lord Pembroke, died when their son Sidney was about seventeen, and her influence moulded his early manhood. He was educated at Harrow under Dr. Butler, and matriculated at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1828, where he was counted an elegant scholar and noted as a speaker at the Union Debating Society, when he matched his strength beside Gladstone, Roundell Palmer, and other distinguished young orators. Upon his entrance into public life, as M.P. for South Wiltshire in the first Reformed Parliament of 1832, Sidney Herbert was considered a graceful and accomplished young Tory. Sir Robert Peel on taking office in 1834 offered Sidney Herbert a post in the Government, and it was characteristic of him that he refused the Lordship of the Treasury because the duties were slight, and accepted the laborious post of Secretary to the Board of Control, which he held during Peel’s Administration. He returned to office with his old leader in 1841 as Secretary to the Admiralty. While holding that position Sidney Herbert set to work to reform the Naval School at Greenwich, which then contained some eight hundred boys and was the nursing-ground for the navy. While thus engaged he exhibited that administrative faculty which was later so conspicuously shown in his efforts on behalf of the sister service.