Principles of Biography. By Sir Sidney Lee. (Cambridge University Press.
Is. 6d. net.)—Sir Sidney Lee, giving the "Leslie Stephen Lecture" on the "Principles of Biography," shows a wholly admirable combination of lecturer, occasion, and subject. The lecture begins with a tribute to Stephen and pro- ceeds to lay down excellent principles of guidance for the writer of biographies. Much of what is said is virtually implied in the lecturer's ingenious similitude in which he compares history to mechanics, the science which determines the power of bodies in the man, and biography to chemistry, which analyses substances. Your substance must be of value, to begin with, otherwise who will care how it is constituted ? Your analysis must be accurate, complete, and scientific in its remoteness from personal considera- tions. The lecturer disapproves, we see, of biographies of the living ; he does not favour " Life and Times " books, a disposition in which he has our sincere sympathy. Incidentally he makes some excellent criticisms on books. Boswell's Johnson has never been better appreciated.
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