his painstaking investigations into, and midnight studies of, what are termed, for want of a better name, 'Irish affairs.' He was given the United Kingdom peerage of Winton--an earldom--on his retirement from Ireland, the grateful ministry thus acknowledging his popularity as a sportsman, and helping us to remember that he won the St. Leger three times and the Derby once. Political affairs having terminated Lord Eglinton's first viceroyalty towards the close of 1852, Lord Aberdeen, the Prime Minister, appointed the Earl of St. Germans to Ireland. It was yet another attempt to meet the criticism that English statesmen and Irish viceroys were absolutely ignorant of and indifferent to Irish problems. Lord St. Germans was fifty-four, and for some years--1841 to 1845--had been Chief Secretary for Ireland. He was a man of ability and courage, and as the author of the Eliot Convention taught the participants in the Carlist rising in Spain something of the decencies of warfare. As Chief Secretary for Ireland, his time had been spent in dealing with the numerous petty rebellions and their leaders; he introduced a Bill to restrict the sale of firearms and the importation of ammunition; the Government found it unacceptable, and Eliot went out of office to be given the {258} Postmaster-Generalship by Peel, and later the Lord-Lieutenancy of Ireland. Lord St. Germans married in 1824 a grand-daughter of the first Marquis Cornwallis, and both became intimate friends of the royal family. In 1853 Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort visited Dublin to open the great International Exhibition, and, of course, they were enthusiastically welcomed by the whole of the country. Lord and Lady St. Germans took the lead in a splendid series of festivities that celebrated the visit of the queen. Political motives may have suggested the visit, but in all probability the anxiety of Her Majesty to see Ireland again was not lessened by the fact that her friend was the viceroy. [Sidenote: The Earl of Carlisle]