There is little to record respecting this period of his life; but a touching interest attaches to the following extracts from a letter written by his brother, Sir Frederick Bruce, in November, 1865.

’My recollections of Elgin’s early life are, owing to circumstances, almost nothing.  In the year 1820 he went abroad with my father and mother, and was away for two years.  From that time I recollect nothing until he went to Eton; and his holidays were then divided between Torquay, where my eldest brother was, and Broomhall;[1] and of them my memory has retained nothing but the assistance in his later holidays he used to give me in classical studies.

We were together for about a year and a half at Oxford.  But he was so far advanced in his studies, that we had very little in common to bring us together; and I hardly remember any striking fact connected with him, except one or two speeches at the Union Club, when in eloquence and originality he far outshone his competitors.[2]

’I do not know whether Mr. Welland is still alive:  he probably, better than anyone, could give some sketch of his intellectual growth, and of that beautiful trait in his character, the devotion and abnegation he showed o poor Bruce[3] in his long and painful illness.

’He was always reserved about his own feelings and aspirations.  Owing to the shortness of his stay at Oxford, he had to work very hard; and his friends, like Newcastle and Hamilton, were men who sought him for the soundness of his judgment, which led them to seek his advice in all matters.  He always stood to them in the relation of a much older man.  He had none of the frailties of youth, and, though very capable of enjoying its diversions, life with him from a very early date was “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.”  Its practical aspect to him was one of anxiety and difficulty, while his intellect was attracted to high and abstract speculation, and took little interest in the every-day routine which is sufficient occupation for ordinary minds.  Like all men of original mind, he lived a life apart from his fellows.

’He looked upon the family estate rather as a trust than as an inheritance—­as far more valuable than money on account of the family traditions, and the position which in our state of society is given to a family connected historically with the country.  Elgin felt this deeply, and he clung to it in spite of difficulties which would have deterred a man of more purely selfish views.’

‘It is melancholy to reflect,’ adds Sir F. Bruce, ’how those have disappeared who could have filled up this gap in his history.’  It is a reflection even more melancholy, that the loved and trusted brother, who shared so many of his labours and his aspirations, no longer lives to write that history, and to illustrate in his own person the spirit by which it was animated.