PALMER, ROENDELL, Lord SET.CORNE, n.c.t., b. Eng.. 1812; educated at Rugby and Winchester schools, and at Oxford; where lie gained the prize for Latin and for English verse. He was called to the bar in 1837, and soon attained a large practice in chancery. In 1849 he was made a queen's counsel, and elected a benches of Lincoln's inn. In 1847 be was returned to parliament for Plymouth, where he acted as a liberal conservative, opposing- the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy, and favoring the extension of free trade. Ile was defeated in the election of 1852, was returned in 1853. and held his seat till 1857. In 1861 he became solicitor-general in lord Palmemston's administration, and was soon afterward knighted, and made A.T.P. for Richmond. In MIL on the death of sir William Atherton, he was appointed attorney-general. He we ut out of office with lord John Russell's second administration in 1866. When Mr. Ginistone formed it cabinet in 1868, sir Roundell.Pahner was offered the chancellorship, but refused it on account of the divergence of his views on the Irish church question from those of the administration. He agreed with the cabinet as to the disestablish
ment of the Irish church, hut disagreed with them on the question of the disendowment. He supported Mr. Gladstone's government., however, on most other public questions. In 1871 he acted as counsel of time British government before the arbitration commission at Geneva. The next year he succeeded lord 'fatherly as lord chancell and was raised to the peerage as baron Selborne, of Selborne, Hants, He went out of office in 1874, taut i n returned in 1880. His attitude on the Irish land question is not entirely in accord ance with that of other members of the present (1881) Gladstone cabinet. He was chosen lord rector of the university of St. Andrews in 1877. He edited in 1862 the Book of Praise, from the best English, and published in 1878 Notes on Some Passages in the Liturgical History of the Reformed English Church. He has made a critical and historical study of hymns.