Page:Eminent English liberals in and out of Parliament.djvu/292

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EMINENT LIBERALS OUT OF PARLIAMENT.

hoped will eventually sever his connection entirely with the unconstitutional party, and join the Liberal party, with which he is so much more in sympathy.

Mr. Herbert is married to Lady Florence Amabel, a daughter of the sixth Earl of Cowper. She is a woman as remarkable for simplicity of manners as for the vigor of her intellect and the kindness of her heart. If Mr. Herbert is speculative, she is the incarnation of common sense. Tennyson's daughter of a hundred earls was not one to be desired. It is different with Lady Florence. She has fewer airs than the opulent green-grocer's wife round the corner, who might learn much from her in domesticity. With her, as with her husband, noblesse oblige.

Mr. Herbert's early education was superintended by tutors, to the personal rather than to the scholastic influence of some of whom he was much indebted. In 1857 he proceeded to Oxford, where he became a student of St. John's College, but studied steeple-chasing and kindred pursuits more than the ancient classics or any other kind of literature. The spirit of adventure was strong within him, and after two years of desultory reading he determined to enter the army so as to see service abroad. Accordingly, in 1859, he joined the Seventh Hussars at Canterbury, and subsequently served in India for a period of six months, attaining the rank of lieutenant. Here, perversely enough, he was as studious as at Oxford he had been idle. He edited a little magazine called "The Crusader," and began to qualify himself for staff duties. With this object in view, he returned to Oxford to complete his university curriculum, and graduated B.C.L. in 1862. On taking his degree, not caring to resume his military