My note of last week on the half-dozen best biographies
in' the English language has elicited a number of suggestions. The first two places go by common consent to Boswell's " Johnson " and Lockhart's "Scott ": the third, less certainly, to Sir George Trevelyan's "Macaulay." For the remaining places are suggested, in addition to Mr. Churchill's "Lord Randolph Churchill" (out of which the whole discussion arose), Monk's "Bentley," Lord Newton's "Lord Lyons," the Bishop of Chichester's "Archbishop Davidson," "Lord Rayleigh" by his son, Izaak Walton's "George Herbert," Johnson's "Richard Savage," Carlyle's "John Sterling," Moorc's " Byron " and Froude's "Carlyle." On these I would only comment that I put the Lord Lyons very high and Archbishop Davidson higher still. Whether they are on a level with the two certainties, or with Mr. Churchill's book, I am not quite prepared to say. For the rest I think a really great biography should be on a certain scale for that reason the Savage, the Sterling and. the George Herbert would hardly qualify.
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