222 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK or. 



to have some sort of historical frame to set the pictures 

 in. But if it is indispensable in some form or other, 

 why not pick out at least a few specimens of the best 

 types of history, — perhaps even a few types which show 

 what should be avoided ? Gibbon's Decline and Fall 

 may be as faulty as you please, — but how grand ! 

 Hume, Clarendon, Sismondi, Grote, and so forth, and 

 even the untrustworthy brilliance of Macaulay, are 

 masters who have established at least the same kind of 

 right to exhibit their works in the World's great library 

 that Rafaelle, or Leonardo, or Turner, or Landseer 

 have gained for their pictures in the world's great 

 galleries. That they look at their subject from different 

 points of view, and treat it on different principles, is not 

 a reason for excluding, but for including them. And 

 see how you violate your own rule by admitting such 

 books as Macaulay's Essays, — very one-sided history. 



Please forgive this rude and crude string of observa- 

 tions, which I have not time to reduce to shape. — Believe 

 me, yours very faithfully, Iddesleigh. 



Sir John Lubbock, Bart, M.P. 



It is indeed remarkable that so distinguished 

 a classical scholar should not have read Marcus 

 Aurelius. Sir John urged him to do so, and his 

 opinion of the book is expressed in a note from 

 Lady Iddesleigh, saying that she had asked 

 Lord Iddesleigh to let her answer Sir John's note. 

 Lord Iddesleigh was " enchanted with Marcus 

 Aurelius," and had already read some of it with 

 the greatest pleasure. 



On November 25 came the unwelcome news 

 of the defeat of Mr. Sydney Buxton at Peter- 

 borough, quickly followed by that of many others 

 on the Government side. 



When the new Government was formed, some 

 of the papers discussed the probability of the 

 offering of the Chancellorship of the Exchequer 

 to Sir John, but I do not know whether the offer 



