The nobleman who has been referred to simply as Lord Carlisle had many of the qualities that mark a leader of men.  He did not attain, however, to the eminence as a statesman, man of letters, or in society which had once been expected of him.

He succeeded to the earldom when ten years of age, following a father who had shown no disposition for any activities beyond those of a respectable country gentleman.  His grandfather, Charles, third Earl of Carlisle, had, however, filled an important place in his day.  His local influence in the North was great, and he’ was a man of sufficient capacity and ambition to become a personage of some position in politics and at court.

There was never a time in English history when the possession of an ancient name and wide estates gave greater opportunities for taking a large share in public affairs than when the fifth Earl attained his majority.  It was natural, therefore, that a young man who was recognised by his friends as above the average should be regarded as a person of unusual political promise.

In 1775 an offer was made to him of the sinecure post of Lord of the Bedchamber.  He declined it, on the openly declared ground that the position of an official at Court was such as “damps all views of ambition which might arise from that quarter.”  But in 1778 there came an opportunity of satisfying his public spirit and ambition by crossing the Atlantic as a peace commissioner to America.

It is a curious historical fact that this mission appears to have been partially, if not entirely, originated by Carlisle himself.  The story of its inception and the outlines of its progress are told by Carlisle in a letter preserved at Castle Howard, which he addressed to his friend and former tutor, Mr. Ekins.  It is doubtful if the King ever really hoped or intended that Carlisle’s mission should have a successful issue.  It ended, as history has told, in absolute failure.  Carlisle returned home with the barren honour of good intentions.

The trying work which he had undertaken entitled Carlisle, however, to posts of importance at home, and he subsequently filled the high office of Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, under the administration of Lord North.  When on the resignation of Lord Shelburne, in the year 1783 the memorable and short-lived coalition between Fox and North was formed, Carlisle became one of the Cabinet as Lord Privy Seal.  With the fall of the Ministry on Fox’s India Bill in the same year, Carlisle’s official life ended.  No public man who attains to Cabinet rank can be regarded as a failure, and it may be that he was satisfied with what he had achieved by the age of five-and-thirty.  With a versatility and serenity rare among those who have once felt the pleasure and excitement of political power and responsibility, he turned to literature, and at Castle Howard and Naworth he produced poems and dramas which, in spite of Byron’s sharp attack, who thus avenged himself for the inattention of his