the critical year before the final examination for his degree. James succeeded to the courtesy title as eldest son, and at the same time found himself involved in many family duties. He returned to Oxford and took the ordinary degree in 1833. But the examiners recognised his claims to something higher than a pass, and the exceptional circumstances of the case, by giving him an Honorary Fourth — then regarded as equivalent to a Second Class.
In 1833, Lord Ramsay came of age, and in 1835 he contested Edinburgh at the general election. The candidature of the scarcely fledged patrician against two veterans like Campbell the future Lord Chancellor, and Abercromby the future Speaker, (afterwards created Baron Dunfermline), was almost hopeless from the outset. It is chiefly memorable from his vigorous speeches at the hustings, the unexpected force of will with which he put down his own views on his committee, and the self-confident but prescient words in which he thanked his supporters after his defeat.
'I return,' he said, 'to my own pursuits with the sensation common to every man who feels that he has not to reproach himself that he has buried his talents in the earth; that so far as in him lay, he has done his duty to his country, his fellows and himself: and that, having cast his bread upon the waters, he has only to await in patient confidence the day
