Fox did more than any other statesman in the dull reign of George II. to prepare the way for the epoch of Reform, and it was therefore fitting that the statesman who more than any other bore the brunt of the battle in 1830-32 should write his biography. Lord Russell's biography of Fox, though by no means so skilfully written as Sir George Otto Trevelyan's vivacious description of 'The Early History of Charles James Fox,' is on a more extended scale than the latter. Students of the political annals of the eighteenth century are aware of its value as an original and suggestive contribution to the facts and forces which have shaped the relations of the Crown and the Cabinet in modern history. Fox, in Lord John's opinion, gave his life to the defence of English freedom, and hastened his death by his exertion to abolish the African Slave Trade. He lays stress, not only on the great qualities which Fox displayed in public life, but also on the simplicity and kindness of his nature, and the spell which, in spite of grievous faults, he seemed able to cast, without effort, alike over friends and foes. One of the earliest, and certainly one of the closest, friendships of Lord John Russell's life was with Thomas Moore. They saw much of each other for the space of nearly forty years in London society, and were also drawn together in the more familiar intercourse of foreign travel. It was with Lord John that the poet went to Italy in 1819 to avoid arrest for debt, after his deputy at Bermuda had embezzled 6,000_l._ Moore lived, more or less, all his days from hand to mouth, and Lord John Russell, who was always ready in a quiet fashion, in Kingsley's phrase, to help lame dogs over stiles, frequently displayed towards the light-hearted poet throughout their long friendship delicate and generous kindness. He it was who, in conjunction with Lord Lansdowne, obtained for Moore in 1835 a pension of 300_l._ a year, and announced the fact as one which was 'due from any Government, but much more from one some of the members of which are proud to think themselves your friends.' Moore died in 1852, and when his will was read--it had been made when Lord John was still comparatively unknown--it was discovered that he had, to give his own words, 'confided to my valued friend, Lord John Russell (having obtained his kind promise to undertake the service for me), the task of looking over whatever papers, letters, or journals I may leave behind me, for the purpose of forming from them some kind of publication, whether in the shape of memoirs or otherwise, which may afford the means of making some provision for my wife and family.' Although Lord John was sixty, and burdened with the cares of State, if not with the cares of office, he cheerfully accepted the task. Though it must be admitted that he performed some parts of it in rather a perfunctory manner, the eight volumes which appeared between 1853 and 1856 of the 'Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas Moore'