Kinglake

Kinglake, ALEXANDER WILLIAM, historian, was born at Wilton House, near Taunton, in 1809, and was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1837, and speedily acquired a lucrative practice; but he retired from the profession in 1856, in order to devote himself to literature and politics. He had already published, in 1844, Eöthen, a work of eastern travel, written in a graphic and poetic vein, yet with great truthfulness to nature, which has always remained one of the most popular books of English travel. He was returned for Bridgewater in the Liberal interest in 1857, took a prominent part against Lord Palmerston's Conspiracy Bill in 1859, and in 1860 warnly denounced the annexation of Savoy and Nice by France. In 1854 he went out with Lord Raglan to the Crimea, where he had every facility for watching the progress of the war. After his return he undertook the defence of the British commander in his History of the War in the Crimea (8 vols. 1863-87). As the history was very largely based upon Lord Raglan's papers, it has been regarded by some as a prejudiced narrative of the war; but from the literary point of view opinion is practically unanimous that it is one of the finest historical works of the 19th century. The criticism of Napoleon III. and the second empire was so searching that the work gave great offence at the Tuileries, and its circulation was prohibited in France during the Empire. Replies have been made to strictures upon other actors in the war, and occasionally with success. But the history remains on the whole a wonderfully accurate, brilliant, and minute record of the great struggle with Russia. In 1868 Kinglake was again returned for Bridgewater, but was unseated on petition. He died 2d January 1891. See Life by Innes Sand prefixed to the new edition of Eöthen (1896).