THE BIOGRAPHY OF MR. GLADSTONE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SpaorAros...] • :STR*—In the brief notice of my book—the Life of Mr. Glad- stone—which appeared in the Spectator of last Saturday, the reviewer says that I imagine that Mr. Gladstone is the author -of " Ecc,e Homo," and he draws the inference that my ignorance thus shown is a test of my unfitness for writing a biography of Mr. Gladstone. If my book had been looked at beyond the contents page, your reviewer would have seen that I devote nearly a whole chapter to Mr. Gladstone's criticisms on " Ecce Homo." The misstatements of your reviewer involves me in a charge of gross ignorance. In a paper like the Spectator, this can scarcely be considered a trifling matter, for besides damaging my book, the misstatement is nothing short of a stigma upon my intellectual character. Your reviewer is welcome to his opinion as to ray unfitness, but I can at least claim that I have not added supreme negligence to mental incapacity.—I am, Sir, &c., THE AUTHOR OF THE BIOGRAPHY.
[We owe a most complete apology to our correspondent for a very strange and inexplicable mistake,—one of a kind, we believe, unprecedented in our columns,—and which, we hope, is never likely to occur again.—ED. Spectator.]
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