The book I think to be a good little book. It is readable by all, old and young, and it gives, I believe accurately, both an account of Cæsar's Commentaries,--which of course was the primary intention,--and the chief circumstances of the great Roman's life. A well-educated girl who had read it and remembered it would perhaps know as much about Cæsar and his writings as she need know. Beyond the consolation of thinking as I do about it, I got very little gratification from the work. Nobody praised it. One very old and very learned friend to whom I sent it thanked me for my "comic Cæsar," but said no more. I do not suppose that he intended to run a dagger into me. Of any suffering from such wounds, I think, while living, I never showed a sign; but still I have suffered occasionally. There was, however, probably present to my friend's mind, and to that of others, a feeling that a man who had spent his life in writing English novels could not be fit to write about Cæsar. It was as when an amateur gets a picture hung on the walls of the Academy. What business had I there? _Ne sutor ultra crepidam_. In the press it was most faintly damned by most faint praise. Nevertheless, having read the book again within the last month or two, I make bold to say that it is a good book. The series, I believe, has done very well. I am sure that it ought to do well in years to come, for, putting aside Cæsar, the work has been done with infinite scholarship, and very generally with a light hand. With the leave of my sententious and sonorous friend, who had not endured that subjects which had been grave to him should be treated irreverently, I will say that such a work, unless it be light, cannot answer the purpose for which it is intended. It was not exactly a school-book that was wanted, but something that would carry the purposes of the school-room even into the leisure hours of adult pupils. Nothing was ever better suited for such a purpose than the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_, as done by Mr. Collins. The _Virgil_, also done by him, is very good; and so is the _Aristophanes_ by the same hand. CHAPTER XIX. _RALPH THE HEIR_--_THE EUSTACE DIAMONDS_--_LADY ANNA_--_AUSTRALIA_.