altered by the editor. I express no opinion as to the
wisdom of that course; but I think that, as a matter of fact, it
alienated this contributor in particular. Meanwhile, the father in whose
steps he was treading was constantly giving him advice or taking counsel
with him during these years. He praised warmly, but with discrimination.
The first article in the 'Edinburgh Review' was upon Cavallier, the
leader of the Protestant revolt in the Cevennes. The subject, suggested,
I fancy, by a trip to the country taken in 1852, was selected less with
a view to his own knowledge or aptitudes than by the natural impulse of
a young writer to follow the models accepted in his organ. He had
selected a picturesque bit of history, capable of treatment after the
manner of Macaulay. 'I have read it,' says my father, in words meant to
be read to Fitzjames, 'with the pleasure which it always gives me to
read his vigorous sense, clear and manly style, right-minded and
substantially kind-hearted writings. My respect for his understanding
has been for a long time steadily increasing, and is very unlikely to be
ever diminished.... But I shall best prove that respect by saying
plainly that I do not like this paper as well as those in which he
writes argumentatively, speculatively, and from the resources of his own
mind. His power consists in reasoning, in the exposition of truth and
fallacies. I will not say, for I do not know, that he wants the art of
story-telling, but, taking this as a specimen, it seems to me deficient
in the great art of linking together a series of facts in such a manner
that the connection between them shall be at once perceptible to the
most ignorant and inattentive reader, and shall take easy and
irresistible possession of the mind. That is Macaulay's pre-eminent
gift.' He goes on to apply this in detail. It may be useful to point out
faults now; though his criticisms upon anything which Fitzjames may
publish in 1890 shall be 'all saccharine.'

In a letter of April 27, 1856, he shows an alarm which was certainly not
unnatural. Fitzjames has been writing in the 'Saturday Review,' in
'Fraser,' the 'National Review,' and elsewhere, besides having on hand a
projected law-book. Is he not undertaking too much? 'No variety of
intemperance is more evidently doomed to work out its own ill-reward
than that which is practised by a bookseller's drudge of the higher
order.' He appeals to various precedents, such as Southey, whos