By the same Author. REVIEWS AND DISCUSSIONS, Literary, Political, and Historical, not relating to Bacon. Demy 8vo. Cloth, price 128. 6d. "Mr. Spedding shows real insight and critical acumen, and one reads with pleasure the very genial notice of poor Hartley Coleridge. . . . It is not necessary to particularize the other essays and articles; but the reader may feel sure, whichever of the number he selects, that he is in the hands of a thoroughly competent and careful critic, who has bestowed trouble in looking for his facts, and who marshals them in the lucid order which is a second nature to a logical mind.”—British Quarterly Review. LONDON: KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUAre. EVENINGS WITH A REVIEWER OR MACAULAY AND BACON BY JAMES SPEDDING WITH A PREFATORY NOTICE BY G. S. VENABLES "Nam isti homines, stylo acres, judicio impares, et partis suæ memores, KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., 1, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 1881 270.2.466. PREFACE. IT has been thought desirable to publish one of the most characteristic writings of a man of letters who made no effort to acquire popular reputation. In the opinion of competent judges, Mr. Spedding was second to none of his contemporaries in power of reasoning, in critical sagacity, or in graceful purity of style; nor had he any superior in conscientious industry. No one has hitherto possessed so complete a knowledge of the subject to which his life was chiefly devoted; and it is improbable that future students should throw additional light on the career and character of Bacon. In the course of his indefatigable researches, Mr. Spedding deduced many independent and original conclusions from the profound familiarity which he had acquired with the history of the time. The relation of the Evenings with a Reviewer" to Spedding's exhaustive "Life of Bacon " will be noticed hereafter. It may be convenient, in the first instance, to give a short account of his own quiet and laborious life. 66 James Spedding was born at his father's residence, Mirehouse, in Cumberland, in June, 1808. |