'This book is brilliant and witty and iconoclastic enough, but it has also something in it which gives it greatness. Regarded as an example of the manner in which biography can be written, it is almost unparalleled in English; and many readers will be rejoiced if Mr. Strachey can be induced to become a Plutarch of the modern world.'--_Westminster Gazette_. 'It is impossible here even to outline the precise, vivid, and witty essays which Mr. Strachey has devoted to his four characters. But he has certainly done something to redeem English biography from the reproach under which it suffers when compared with the art as practised in France; and he comes close to the standard which he sets himself when he speaks of the "Fontenelles and Condorcets."'--_New Statesman_. 'Mr. Strachey's subtle and suggestive art.'--_Mr. Asquith's Romanes Lecture at Oxford_. LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS