THE extraordinary career of David Urquhart has recently
attracted considerable attention from historians. It is spiced
with melodrama and mystery and raises important problems con-
cerning Palmerston and his unorthodox but successful ambassador
at the Porte, Lord Ponsonby. There have always been British per-
sonalities like Urquhart, intelligent, active, brave but with an itch
for power and pretensions to grandeur that prevented them from
making the best use of their talents. The 'thirties of the nineteenth
century had a full crop of curious characters. But Urquhart went
farther than anyone of his time -- except Brougham in his old age.
His megalomania rose to such a pitch that it is extraordinary that
he remained even so long in public service. For this there are
special reasons, but neither Ponsonby nor Palmerston nor the
Under-Secretaries of the Foreign Office, Backhouse and Strang-
ways, can escape the responsibility for not repressing him sooner.
Allowance must be made for the remarkable qualities he displayed
as a young man which led many people to admire and trust him.
It was indeed something of a tragedy -- if often a tragi-comedy --
that a man so gifted should have so wasted his life.

David Urquhart's biographer ² is sometimes as emotional and
mystical as David Urquhart himself, but she enables us to realize
the abnormal nature of her subject. Her account of these years
adds but little to what we know from other sources. In addi-
tion to Urquhart's numerous publications there are large quanti-
ties of his letters and memoranda in the public and private
archives. ³ But it is impossible to believe anything that he wrote with-
out confirmation from other sources. He was constantly twisting

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