A month later, however, on October 2nd, he wrote that, after seeing the book, he was of opinion that it would not stand translation. It was reviewed in the 'Edinburgh' of January 1890, but was not translated. _From Lord Derby_ _November 11th_.--I have only begun the Life of Lord John. It would be a very difficult one to write in a spirit at once of fairness and friendship. My impression of the man was and is that he was more thoroughly and essentially a partisan than anyone I have known; and sometimes open to the comment, that he seemed to consider the Universe as existing for the sake of the Whig party. Perhaps this would not strike anyone who was trained up in the same school, as strongly as it did me. On the other hand, I think he was more generally consistent, and had fewer of his own words to eat, than any politician of his time or of ours. His religious politics were his weak part; they were rather narrow and sectarian. I suppose he was forced by the Court into his quarrel with Palmerston; which was the trouble of his later official life, and caused these uneasy struggles to recover a lost position which did him harm. But with all drawbacks he has left an honoured and distinguished name. Do you think there is any ground for the idea which Lady Russell puts about that, if he had lived till now, he would have gone for Home Rule? CHAPTER XXIII THE ONE MORE CHANGE The very wide range of Reeve's studies has appeared from many indications scattered through these pages, and it has been seen how, at different times, he was occupying himself with various subjects far outside the ordinary course of reading. These were, however, connected by some general idea which pervaded the whole. Of natural science he knew little. As a boy, the study of mathematics was irksome to him and repulsive, nor was he at any later time more favourably inclined towards it. His acquaintance with astronomy, chemistry, physics, and the cognate sciences was very limited--not more, perhaps, than he picked up in his careful and intelligent study of the articles published in the 'Edinburgh Review' during the forty years of his editorship. His real knowledge was confined by a band of history, but of history in its very widest sense, including not only war and politics and law, but political economy, literature, religion, and superstition. Of military science he had read sufficient to take a technical interest in the details of battles and campaigns, and he was perhaps one of the first landsmen of this age to understand the 'influence of sea-power.' His attention had been called to this at a very early period in his career by the utter collapse of Mehemet Ali in Syria; and reasoning on that, he had learned that 'sea-power,' or, as he preferred to call it, 'maritime-power,' controlled and directed affairs with which, at first sight, it seemed to have absolutely nothing to do.