as High Sheriff of Glamorgan
more than 150 years ago; and, further, that he himself has been twice
married, his first wife (to whom he was married in 1846, but who died in
1852) being Annabella, the only daughter of Richard Beadon, Esq., of
Clifton, Gloucestershire; and his second wife, to whom he was married in
1854, being Norah, the youngest daughter of the late Lieutenant-General
Sir William Napier, K.C.B., the author of that matchless military
narrative, the "History of the Peninsular War," and distinguished also
as the brother of the heroic conqueror of Scinde. The reader will thus
perceive that the Member for Renfrewshire, who might be supposed from
his patronymic to be a Scotchman, is not even connected closely by
family ties with this part of the Island. His position, however, as the
member for Renfrewshire, and his consequent intimate connection with the
West of Scotland, may excuse his appearance in these pages.

In 1837, when he was only 22 years of age, Mr. Bruce was called to the
bar. He practised at the Chancery bar, and attended the Oxford Circuit
for two years. He withdrew from practice in 1843, but still retained his
name on the rolls of Lincoln's Inn. In 1847, four years after this
withdrawal, he received the appointment of Stipendiary Magistrate at
Merthyr-Tydvil and Aberdare, the office previously held by his father,
and for a period of more than five years he presided at the Police
Courts of those towns. From this office he retired in the December of
1852, when he was elected Member for the Merthyr boroughs, the seat
having become vacant by the death of that Sir John Guest whom his father
had unsuccessfully opposed many years previously. Mr. Bruce has all
along manifested a deep interest in the affairs of his own
neighbourhood. He was Deputy-Chairman of Quarter Sessions in his native
county of Glamorganshire, and he was also Chairman of the Vale of Neath
Railway, Captain of the Glamorganshire Rifle Volunteers, and fourth
Charity Commissioner of England and Wales.

Mr. Bruce retained his seat for Merthyr without interruption for a
period of seventeen years. He had been ten years in the House of Commons
when, in the November of 1862, he was nominated to office by Lord
Palmerston; and it is worthy of remark that he was then appointed
Under-Secretary of the very department over which he now presides--the
post which was conferred the other day by Mr. Gladstone on the young and
promising Member for Strou