the materials necessary for a good one, which is saying a great deal. I have not read all the notes. In fact I believe they are all contained in the text. I should think that on a moderate computation, half the two volumes is a reprint of the other half, for if there are a few pages which are printed twice over, there are many half and quarter pages which are repeated four or five times. I should half like to review it. If he had acted on his own suggestion we might not have had Macaulay's _Essay_, and certainly should not have had the _Evenings with a Reviewer_. This is the first intimation of his interest in what was to be the work of his life. It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of Henry (afterwards Sir Henry) Taylor, the author of _Philip van Artevelde_, which influenced his occupation for the next six years. "At this time," says Sir Henry in his Autobiography, "I obtained another relief, and in obtaining it obtained a friend for life. James Spedding was the younger son of a Cumberland squire who had been a friend of my father's in former, though I think they had not met in latter days. In the notes to _Van Artevelde_ I had quoted a passage from an admirable speech of his spoken in a debating club at Cambridge when he was an undergraduate. This led to my making his acquaintance; and when some very laborious business of detail had to be executed, I obtained authority to offer him the employment with the remuneration of £150 a year. He was in a difficulty at the time as to the choice of a profession, and feeling that life without business and occupation of some kind was dangerous, was glad to accept this employment as one which might answer the purpose well enough, if he proved suited to it, and if not might be relinquished without difficulty and exchanged for some other. I wrote to Mr. Southey, 24th January 1836: "'Spedding has been and will be invaluable, and they owe me much for him. He is regarded on all hands, not only as a man of first-rate capacity, but as having quite a genius for business. I, for my part, have never seen anything like him in business on this side Stephen.... When I contemplate the easy labours of Stephen and one or two others I am disposed to think that there are giants in _these_ days.'