I have therefore modified as far as possible any expressions which appeared to be of too censorious a character; but it is impossible to avoid condemning a mistaken book because the author is a personal friend. _Judex damnatur si nocens absolvitur_ is our motto. Froude does not like Mr. Gardiner's book. He says, 'It's a menagerie of tame beasts.' I think very highly of the book; and as we differ, I have yielded to his wish to be released from the engagement. Nobody can regret more than I do any differences between old friends; but my duty is to look solely to the consistency and integrity of the 'Review,' without which criticism is worthless; and this consideration leaves me no other course. Another point, of a similar nature, I can illustrate by my own experience. I had undertaken, at Reeve's request, to review a rather important historical work published by Longmans, but on reading it was so unfavourably impressed by it that I wrote to say that the best thing I could do would be to return the volumes; that the book was bad, and if I reviewed it I must say so; but that doing this in the publisher's own Review would have a certain resemblance to seething a kid in its mother's milk, and might probably be objected to. 'Not a bit of it,' was the sense of the reply I received by return of post: 'a bad book may be the text for an interesting article, and we have nothing to do with who published it.' So I expressed my opinion of the book in very plain terms; the review was printed exactly as I wrote it, and the editor thanked me warmly for what he was pleased to speak of as an 'excellent article.' It may, perhaps, be assumed that this was not an isolated case; but written evidence of any others is not before me. After returning from Oxford, Reeve spent the rest of the year at Foxholes, He had intended going to London and possibly to Scotland in October, but an accidental stumble in his library over a heavy despatch box made a nasty wound on the left shin, which took many weeks in healing and prevented his travelling till the middle of December. On the 19th he went to town, where, with the exception of some short visits to Bath or to Foxholes, he remained till June, dining several times at The Club, entertaining at home in his customary manner, and keeping up a constant--almost daily--correspondence, such as has been indicated, with the Longmans, for the most part with the head of the firm, whom he had known from childhood and habitually addressed by his Christian name.