It has evidently been a labour of love for Dr.
Albert Pell to edit the Letters to -a Victorian Editor : Henry Allon (Independent Press, 12s. 6d.), and it is through no fault of his that the correspondence is on the whole disappointing. Allon, who was the minister of Union Chapel, Islington, from 1844 to 1892, was highly respected by men of all parties, and the British Quarterly Review, under his editorship, had a considerable reputation. But too many of the letters here printed refer to the day-to-day dealings of the editor with contributors. One of these was R. H. Hutton, who, it seems; was much occupied in evading Dr. Allon's requests for articles. There is a characteristic remark of Hutton's, in reference to a proposed review of Lecky's European Morals, that "John Morley scolds like a vixen or a pope, but he is much Lecky's superior in closeness of analysis, though he is wrong and Leeky right " ; the virtues and failings of the two adversaries could not have been more concisely expressed.
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