The English statesman and diplomat Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, 3d Marquess of Salisbury (1830-1903), was prime minister of Great Britain in 1885-1886, 1886-1892, and 1895-1902. His life spanned the period of England's greatest affluence and power.

Lord Robert Cecil was born at Hatfield on Feb. 3, 1830, the second son of James Brownlow William Gascoyne-Cecil, 2d Marquess of Salisbury, Lord Privy Seal and Lord President of the Council, and of his wife, Frances Gascoyne, an heiress. Educated at Eton and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he received a fourthclass in mathematics, he was elected in 1853 to a fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, and in the same year was elected unopposed to the House of Commons for Stamford.

In July 1857 Cecil married Georgina Alderson, a woman of great ability. His father, however, objected to the marriage and cut off funds, so Cecil became partly dependent on his pen. He wrote...