Popular quotes: The meaning an history behind "Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one."
"Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one." - Augustine Birrell
Augustine Birrell (1850-1933) was an English author and politician.
Having graduated from Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he qualified as a lawyer and,
after a short sojourn as a professor of law, entered parliament as a Liberal
representing Fife West in Scotland. His light but pointed sense of humor
when addressing The House of Commons and in his witty essays, coined the word
birrelling (a word which has not stood the test of time, at least not to the
point that it is still one of the 163,000 words in the Shorter Oxford English
Dictionary). In addition to a number of books of essays, he also penned
biographies of Charlotte Bronte, William Hazlitt and Andrew Marvell.
At the 1900 general election he chose to contest the Manchester North East seat
rather than Five, but was defeated. He was returned to parliament in 1906
as the member of parliament for Bristol North and became President of the Board
of Education; but prolonged controversy over an education bill caused him to
fall out of favor and he was transferred to the post of Chief Secretary for
Ireland where, in 1907, he introduced an Irish Councils bill which would have
been a step towards home rule. The bill was rejected by a Nationalist
convention and was promptly withdrawn.
He continued as Chief Secretary for Ireland for nine years, resigning in 1916
after failing to contain the plotting that ended in the Easter Uprising (the
most significant Irish uprising since 1798). He did not defend his seat in
the 1918 general election.
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