Lord Lz):.(rt. By Sir Francis l_indley. (Hutchinson. 18s.)
Reviewed by The HON. R. ERSKINE OF MARR
" Of the Norman origin of the family of the Frasers it is impossible for a moment to entertain any doubt," says Skene, in his Highlanders.. For my part I am prepared to spend. quite a while doubting it. Skene was near as confident that the Stewarta also were Noonan. But he was wrong. They came from Brittany; whence, too, in all probability. came the Erasers also. The craze for Normandy in Scots history and peerages is something quite indecent.
The old Jacobite who lost his head on Tower Hill in 1747 is the most famous figure in history of this family. No one has yet written a sufficient account of him, and for my part I think it 'ought to he done. He used a very fascinating epistolary style. and as a politician his parts were considerable.
The late Lord Lovat lived his life in a very different way, and had interests, and entertained polities that had been small indeed with old Simon. He was for Hanover, and entered a service which the other did his best to overthrow.
Still, Sir Francis Lindley has written very well a very agreeable account of his friend, the late Lord Lovat. He tells us all about his different interests and activities (of both which, perhaps, he had too many), the great interest he took in forestry, in his soldiering, in his Canadian adventure, and in the details of the lesser forms of civil government. Perhaps if Lord Loyal had learned to restrict his talents to the one end of social improvement by town and country, instead of scattering it, much as the sower casts his seed. he had cut in life a more considerable figure than he did.
Sir Francis Lindley tells us that Lovat made up his mind to fight for Ulster, in the event of civil war breaking out in Ireland, and he says. too. that he thinks it was the Eenians that wrought in his hero this odd resolution. Possibly : there is no just knowing what strange pranks some men's reason may play them.