Critics have always been generally agreed about what are the
best biographies in the English language. Boswell's 7ohnson is by general consent placed first ; Lockhart's Scott second ; and, with less unanimity, Sir George Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay third. But I had forgotten till the other day by how high an authority a pronouncement as to the worst biography had been made. William Pitt was, when a student at Cambridge, under the tutelage of a clergyman named Pretyman (who later changed his name to Tomline). Of their association Macaulay wrote: "The disciple was able, before he completed his twenty-eighth year, to make his preceptor Bishop of Lincoln and Dean of St. Paul's ; and the preceptor showed his gratitude by writing a Life of the disciple which enjoys the distinction of being the worst biographical work of its size in the world."
But that was written nearly a century ago. The record may well have been broken in the interval.
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