No apology is needed for the appearance of a biography of such a man as Lord Houghton. For more than half a century Monckton Milnes was one of the conspicuous figures in European society, and during the whole of that long period he played a distinctive part in contemporary life. Recognised so far back as the beginning of the present reign as one of the ornaments of English society, a wit and a humorist who could bold his own among the best men and women of his time, he quickly secured recognition for other and more sterling qualities. His poetry gained the ear of the public, even though Tennyson was one of his contemporaries; his prose-writing - though lacking in that continuous effort which is now-a-days essential to permanent fame - charmed his own generation, and must long remain a delight to all lovers of good English. His political career, though it failed to satisfy both his own aspirations and the hopes of his friends, was brightened by one notable and unselfish triumph, his share in the establishment of reformatories for children who had been born or driven by force of circumstances into the criminal classes.