PRAED, WISTHROP MACKWORTH, a talented writer and politician, was the son of Mr Sergeant Praed, and was born in 1802. His educational career from the very first was full of the richest promise. At Eton he wrote precocious essays in a magazine called The Etonian. At Trinity College, Cambridge, his genius continued to develop itself, and there was scarcely a learned accomplishment in which he did not outstrip his rivals. He carried off four prizes for
classical odes and epigrams, and three prizes for English poetry; he contested the leadership of the Union Debating Club with Thomas Babington Macaulay (now Lord Macaulay); and before he left the university he had produced poems in Knight's Quarterly Magazine which placed him among the very first of the rising literary men of that age. After practising for a short time at the bar, Praed began his parliamentary career by taking his seat in 1830 for St Germans. It is true that he failed to secure his return in 1832. But he entered Parliament again in 1835 as member for Great Yarmouth, and proved himself a great acquisition to the Tory party. Industrious in collecting his own arguments, wonderfully rapid in demolishing those of his opponents, and fervidly eloquent in enforcing his views, he became a very effective debater. A standing of great reputation and influence was already within his reach, when consumption cut him off in 1839.