with some due allowance of course for the frailties of human nature, might have been accepted. But when he tells us that, _because_ he was a guest at the table of the late Lord Holland, and admitted, as he insinuates, to his intimacy, his prepossessions are disadvantageous to the author, he is either writing egregious nonsense, or conveying the reverse of a compliment. "Had the work," says he, "been anonymous, or had it proceeded--like many of those innumerable books miscalled histories--from the Palais Royal or the quays of Paris, we are inclined to think that a more favourable judgment might have been formed of it, than when every sentence, nay, almost every line, is weighed against the high reputation of the author, and the anticipations of readers _like ourselves_." The majority of the reading public, however, are by no means in the exalted position of the critic, who, by the way, was under no obligation whatever to review the book, if, on perusal, he found its contents fall greatly short of his expectations. What he means by talking about publications issuing "from the Palais Royal or the quays of Paris" we cannot exactly divine, unless he wishes us to understand that the _Foreign Reminiscences_ intrinsically belong to the same class of writings--an opinion in which we thoroughly agree. Such twaddle as this is altogether superfluous. The public generally has no prepossession either the one way or the other. The name of Lord Holland is known to them as that of a man who moved in a distinguished sphere of society, and who must, in his own day, have seen much which was worth narrating. They have no means of weighing his conversation against his writings; they accept the latter when laid before them, and will judge of them strictly according to their actual value. It appears that the present volume constitutes but a small part of Lord Holland's written Memoirs. The reason why it is given to us at the present time is set forth in the Preface, which, being short, we transcribe entire. "The recent events on the Continent have induced the editor to publish the following pages on foreign politics. The time of which this volume treats has already acquired the interest of a long past age; and the public will read with pleasure, and perhaps with profit, the observations on passing events of a contemporary who, if not wholly impartial, is acknowledged by all who knew him to have been as candid as he was benevolent. "The editor has scrupulously abstained from making the slightest verbal alteration in the text or notes. The omission of four insignificant sentences is all that he has deemed necessary for the immediate publication of what was probably written with the intention of not seeing the light so soon."