At the time of the last visit to London of the Shah there was some talk of his authorising missionary enterprise in Persia. This suggested to Lockwood's vivid imagination a picture of Sir Richard Webster led captive by his businesslike Majesty en route for Teheran.

Another pair of sketches commemorates a famous sentence in a speech by Mr. Robert Spencer, delivered in debate on a Bill affecting the agricultural labourer.

In one

sketch we have "Bobby," as the sometime member for MidNorthamptonshire was affectionately called, standing at the table of the House of Commons arrayed in the last resources of civilisation as provided in the tailor's shop, diffidently deprecating the possible assumption that he was an agricultural labourer. In the other we see him got up as he probably would have ordered matters had he been born to the estate of Hodge, instead of to that of the Spencer earldom.

In another sketch that bears no date, but evidently was circulated about the time of a Lobby incident, in which an Irish M.P. and a well-known artist in black-and-white figured, Lockwood illustrated the following extract from a leading article which appeared in the pages of the Daily Telegraph:

If one could imagine so untoward a proceeding as, say, Mr. Henry Lucy slapping the face of Mr. Frank Lockwood in the Lobby of the House of Commons, the issue would be very different. It

would not be the insulted M.P. who would be ordered to move on, but the brawling journalist who would be removed. The gigantic personality of Mr. Inspector Horsley would intervene with neatness and dispatch.

He sent the sketch to me with the injunction, " Brawler, Beware!"

In a letter dated from Lennox Gardens, 21st July 1894, he writes:

MY DEAR LUCY-Don't you think that when Haldane and I spoke on Thursday night it was something like Preachers on probation—the calm and philosophical and the fire and fury?—Yours ever,

FRANK LOCKWOOD.

The note enclosed the two sketches next reproduced, illustrating the theme. As a portrait, Mr. Haldane's is not

so successful as some. But Lockwood's own is capital, and shows how freely he extended to himself that measure of humorous exaggeration he was accustomed to bestow upon others.

The late Lord Chief Justice was another tempting subject. Lord Coleridge, dining one evening at Lennox Gardens, was much interested in the overflowing gallery of portraits of contemporaries at the Bar and on the Bench, drawn by this facile pen. "But, Mr. Lockwood," said Lord Coleridge, "you don't seem to have attempted me."

"The

fact is," said Lockwood, relating the story, "I had come home early from the Courts, and spent an hour hiding away, in anticipation of his visit, innumerable portraits I had done of the Chief."

His first important pictorial work is bound up in the volumes of evidence taken when he sat as Commissioner in an election inquiry heard at Chester nearly twenty years ago. With the red and blue pencils supplied by a confiding

with Sir Frank & Lazy Lockwood's

best wishes

Imas 1896.

Time travels quickly

From a Sketch by the late Sir Frank Lockwood.

State, Lockwood illustrated the broad margins of the printed evidence with an illimitable procession of witnesses and scenes in court. As far as I know, that is the only case where he used other media than pen and ink for his sketches. For many years he superseded the ordinary Christmas card by sending to his friends a sketch drawn with his own hand. Here is a reproduction of the last one designed, in serene unconsciousness of the shadow hanging over the happy household and the far-reaching circle of friends and acquaintances.

In conversation with his friends, Lockwood did not hide the desire of his heart. He wanted to be a judge. Although a diligent attendant at the House of Commons,

His Last

and always ready to serve his party with a Aspiration. speech in the country, he was by no means a keen politician. When a man of his native ability becomes Solicitor-General, there is no reason why he should not look forward to steadily walking up the ladder till he reaches the Woolsack. Lockwood would have been content at any time during the last two years of his life to step aside to the quiet dignity of the Bench.

The estimation in which he was held in the House of Commons was testified to on the retirement of Mr. Peel from the Chair by his name being prominently mentioned in succession to the Speakership. He would have admirably filled the Chair, and was, I have reason to know, ready to take it had acceptance been pressed upon him. But the project blew over, and through a curious avenue of chances, his old friend, Mr. Gully, came to the opportunity, modestly accepted, splendidly utilised.