And first we may note how swift and supple is the mind that has Greek grammar for its sustenance. It is not necessary for a classical scholar to read either the beginning or the end of the work with which he deals. It is not necessary to comprehend its aim and scope. He just takes up the part dealing with his classical knowledge—which is indeed the only knowledge that matters—and looks for mistakes or, what are really worse than mistakes, things he does not understand and opinions he does not share. And then he writes “Indeed!” or repeats a sentence with a note of interrogation and a grand air of refutation. If Mr. Gomme has looked at all at the end of _The Outline of History_ it was, I believe, to consult the list of errata and make sure that nothing in the way of a misspelling, a wrong date or misplaced title had been overlooked. Because he gives no quarter in that respect. He is determined to make the worst of things. He has just nosed through the few parts that matter to him, he has scored it heavily with pencil; one can almost see his notes of exclamation, his “No!” his “Did he _not_?” in the margin, and then he has written up these marginal comments and rushed into print with them. His aim was to accumulate as much apparent error as he could to discredit _The Outline of History_, and he has industriously done his best. This close-reading method of Mr. Gomme has made him, I hope, one of the most unteachable readers that the _Outline_ has had. I cannot complain of his failure to grasp the importance of print to the human mind and its bearing upon the political future of our race, nor of his foolish footnote on that matter (p. 85), because these are novel ideas for his type and his type is incapable of novel ideas; nor will I complain of the invincible ignorance of ethnology he has preserved, in spite of the clear and simple chapter I have given, but I do find it disappointing that he should repeat the vulgar error that the Roman Empire at the height of its power “united most of the known world.” I have been at particular pains in the _Outline_ to dispel this preposterous idea, so misleading and now so dangerous to Europeans. I have not merely stated the facts, but given a special map which I had imagined would bring home to the weakest intelligence the fact that, contemporary with this Roman Empire, there was in Asia an Empire greater in extent, better organised (as its drive against the Huns shows), and in very many respects more civilised. But manifestly I had not reckoned with Mr. Gomme. He took up the _Outline_ not to learn, but to carp; and he has learnt nothing.