Mr. Fronde writes to Tuesday's Times, in reply to the
criticisms of Mr. Charles Norton on the way he has discharged his task of writing Carlyle's biography, that he never desired the duty, that he accepted it on Carlyle's urgent solicitation, and that he was entrusted by Carlyle with full discretion, all Carlyle's former conditions having been expressly withdrawn for the purpose of leaving his discretion unfettered. He further declares that the errors in transcribing the "Reminiscences" were due partly to Carlyle's small, difficult handwriting (in old age), and that he was in haste to return the MSS. to Carlyle's niece (Mrs. Alexander Carlyle), to whom they belonged, and that therefore she was bound, in courtesy, to have informed him of the errors made, especially as "she was herself receiving the profits of this book as a gift from myself." In Thursday's Times, Mrs. Alexander Carlyle replies that she was in no hurry for the MSS., and never pressed for them ; she peremptorily denies that she has received the profits of the " Reminiscences" " as a gift from Mr. Fronde," and this, she says, she can prove by producing her lawyer's statement. She maintains that the blunders are as numerous in Carlyle's "Life,"—and in that period when he wrote a hand pronounced by Mr. Froude " beautiful " and " exceptionally excellent,"—as in the " Re. miuiscences ;" and that even in a quotation from " Sartor Resartus," "there are in the first eight lines over twenty deviations from the printed text." These are not statements which it is easy to reconcile.
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