Of Professor Saintsbury’s indifference to exactness and accuracy in details and facts we need go no further for illustrations than to his dates. Such things cannot be regarded as trifles in a book designed to be a book of reference. We will give a few instances. We are informed on page 238 that Ascham’s _Schoolmaster_ was published in 1568; it was published, as its title-page shows, in 1570. Hume’s _Dissertations_ were first published, not in 1762, but in 1757. Bale’s flight to Germany was not in 1547, when such a step would have been unnecessary, but in 1540. Pecock was, we are told, translated to Chichester in 1550, exactly ninety years after his death! As if to perplex the readers of this book, two series of dates are given; we have the dates in the narrative and the dates in the index, and no attempt is made to reconcile the discrepancies. Accordingly we find in the narrative that Caxton was probably born in 1415--in the index that he was born in 1422; in the narrative that Latimer, Fisher, Gascoign and Atterbury were born respectively in 1489, in 1465, about 1537 and in 1672--in the index that they were born respectively in 1485, 1459, 1525 and 1662; in the narrative Gay was born in 1688--in the index he was born in 1685. In the narrative Collins dies in 1756, and Mrs. Browning is born in 1806--in the index Collins dies in 1759, and Mrs. Browning is born in 1809. The narrative tells us that Aubrey was born in 1626, and John Dyer _circa_ 1688--in the index that Aubrey was born in 1624 and Dyer _circa_ 1700. In the index Mark Pattison dies in 1884--in the narrative he dies in 1889. In Professor Saintsbury’s eyes such indifference to accuracy may be venial: in our opinion it is nothing less than scandalous. It is assuredly most unfair to those who will naturally expect to find in a book of reference trustworthy information. We must now conclude, though we have very far from exhausted the list of errors and misstatements, of absurdities in criticism and absurdities in theory, which we have noted. Bacon has observed that the best part of beauty is that which a picture cannot express. It may be said, with equal truth, of a bad book, that what is worst in it is precisely that which it is most difficult to submit to tangible tests. In other words, it lies not so much in its errors and inaccuracies, which, after all, may be mere trifles and excrescences, but it lies in its tone and colour, its flavour, its accent. Professor Saintsbury appears to be constitutionally incapable of distinguishing vulgarity and coarseness from liveliness and vigour. So far from having any pretension to the finer qualities of the critic, he seems to take a boisterous pride in exhibiting his grossness.