ld some hundreds of pages utterly contemptible
both in matter and manner, and prefixed my name to them. The least that
he should have done was to consult the files of The Times newspaper.
I have frequently done so, when I have noticed in his book any passage
more than ordinarily absurd; and I have almost invariably found that
in The Times newspaper, my meaning had been correctly reported, though
often in words different from those which I had used.

I could fill a volume with instances of the injustice with which I have
been treated. But I will confine myself to a single speech, the speech
on the Dissenters' Chapels Bill. I have selected that speech, not
because Mr Vizetelly's version of that speech is worse than his versions
of thirty or forty other speeches, but because I have before me a report
of that speech which an honest and diligent editor would have thought it
his first duty to consult. The report of which I speak was published by
the Unitarian Dissenters, who were naturally desirous that there should
be an accurate record of what had passed in a debate deeply interesting
to them. It was not corrected by me: but it generally, though not
uniformly, exhibits with fidelity the substance of what I said.

Mr Vizetelly makes me say that the principle of our Statutes of
Limitation was to be found in the legislation of the Mexicans and
Peruvians. That is a matter about which, as I know nothing, I certainly
said nothing. Neither in The Times nor in the Unitarian report is there
anything about Mexico or Peru.

Mr Vizetelly next makes me say that the principle of limitation is found
"amongst the Pandects of the Benares." Did my editor believe that I
uttered these words, and that the House of Commons listened patiently
to them? If he did, what must be thought of his understanding? If he did
not, was it the part of an honest man to publish such gibberish as mine?
The most charitable supposition, which I therefore gladly adopt, is
that Mr Vizetelly saw nothing absurd in the expression which he has
attributed to me. The Benares he probably supposes to be some Oriental
nation. What he supposes their Pandects to be I shall not presume to
guess. If he had examined The Times, he would have found no trace of the
passage. The reporter, probably, did not catch what I said, and, being
more veracious than Mr Vizetelly, did not choose to ascribe to me what
I did not say. If Mr Vizetelly had consulted the Unitarian report, he
would ha