Algernon Cecil (1879–1953)

1799 Queen Victoria and her Prime Ministers, by Algernon Cecil (read 8 Oct 1983) Back in January of 1954 I read a review of this book in The Commonweal and noted that I should read the book. I saw this note recently and decided to finally do so. It is a series of essays on the ten men who served as Queen Victoria's prime ministers: Melbourne, Peel, Russell, Derby, Aberdeen, Palmerston, Disraeli, Gladstone, Roseberry, and Salisbury. Palmerston said re Schleswig-Holstein "only three men in England had ever understood the . . .question: the Prince Consort, who is dead; Mellish, who was mad; and himself, who had forgotten it." These essays are full of shrewd insights, though Cecil is very opinionated and very conservative. The book was well worth reading, but I should have read it in 1954.… (més)