day, producing a roll of manuscript. It did interest me very much, and
when it comes to be published it will be read with no little emotion by
the men who formed the regular staff of the _Speaker_ under Sir
Wemyss Reid's editorship. He deals with us all in turn in a spirit of the
kindliest remembrance and simple goodwill; and as I read those pages, I
felt they were his farewell to some of the men who have good reason to
think of him as the staunchest of friends." I was in very close
association with my brother during the whole of the ten years in which he
retained control of the _Speaker_, and took my full share of the
work. They were for him years of strenuous and unremitting toil, but he
used to say that there were few greater rewards for a man of his
temperament than to be in the thick of the political movement, and to be
in the front rank of the fighters. He adopted as his motto in life
"Onwards"--the watchword of his old school at Newcastle, emblazoned on
the back of the prizes which he took in far-off days; and from first to
last he lived up to it. Brusque he sometimes was, decisive always;
perhaps he was too easily ruffled in little affairs, but he was
magnanimous to the point of self-sacrifice in great. After quitting,
under circumstances entirely honourable to himself, the editorial chair
of the _Speaker_, my brother, who for years previously had been an
occasional contributor to the pages of the _Nineteenth Century_,
contributed regularly to that review a political survey of the month.
Some of his best work was put into these articles, and the last of them
was written under great physical stress, and appeared almost
simultaneously with the announcement of his death. It was the last task
to which he put his hand, and the wish of his life was granted: he died
in harness.

It is not too much to say that neither his interest nor his influence in
political affairs suffered the least abatement in the six closing years