LORD ROSEBERY ON BOOKS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1348, 27 January 1912, Page 9

LORD ROSEBERY ON BOOKS.

Lord Rosebery presided at the annual meeting of the Scottish History Society 'and delivered a characteristic address on books. His Lordship, .in:jnovipg.-. the.-adoption n of the Society's rejiorf, said (liat one pub-

lieation of theirs possessed an extraordinary interest, Tnat was "Lady Orisell Liaillic's Household Hook." The publication of that book made up for a great many other deficiencies. (Applause.) One of the great features of (he volume was that it filled up n gap between their other household books, and it began aib a most interesting period. No period of household accounting could bo quite as interesting (o lis as the period which began in the year of the tnion—the beginning of the great transformation, when Scotland ceased to bo separated by a sort, of Chine.se wall from England. Any household book, or indeed any document nu tho life of Edinburgh in the year of Union, was one of quite exceptional intcre.-t. Now the people who were dealt with in this book were also people of exceptional interest. Perhaps the husband, Mr. Baillie, and the wife were both of the extremist type, but the husband was uot, lie thought, in any great sense a very ardent politician, and perhaps the most interesting part of his political career, and one wliich might furnish a precedent to our own Government, was that after having been over six or seven years the Lord of the Treasury at JCIIiPO n year he retired on a jiension of full pay for the rest of his life. (Laughter.) tie thought they might ask themselves whv it was that household books which were generally most repulsive to read should be so extraordinarily interesting when they dealt with the past. The answer was'not difficult, lie did not think our monthly books would bo so interesting to our' descendants, but perhaps we did not keep them so closely. Tie was inclined to think that future historians wculd deal more with books of this kind. At a Inter stage of the proceedings Lord Koseborv said that when be observed the voracious propensities of librarians and collectors —and there was no limit to what: a-collector might do—lie was a little dismayed to think that tlicy considered anv book good enough fo find a place in a' library. Mr. Frasor, the librarian at Aberdeen, had stated that no book could be considered quite extinct.