expression in print, were entirely disregarded. In the first five
pages of the printed text there were more than a hundred and thirty
corrections to be made of words, punctuation, capitals, quotation
marks, and such like; and these pages are not exceptional."

This looks like a formidable indictment, and in the literal sense of
the words it may be true. I have compared the first five pages of
the two editions, and there are a good many changes in the use of
capitals and italics. But except one obvious misprint of a single
letter, "even" for "ever," there is nothing which does "grave wrong"
to the sense, or affects it in any way. "And these pages," as Mr.
Norton says, with another meaning, "are not exceptional." The later
reminiscences were not easy to decipher. Carlyle's handwriting was
seriously affected by age, he wrote upon both sides of very thin
paper, and I have seen several letters of his which bear out
Froude's assertion that, after his hand began to shake, "it became
harder to decipher than the worst manuscript which I have ever
examined." In preparing the book Froude had to use a magnifying
glass, and in many cases the true reading was a matter of opinion.
In one case, however, it was not. Sir Henry Taylor, the most serene
and dignified of men, found himself charged in Carlyle's sketch of
Southey with the unpleasant attribute of "morbid vivacity," and not
only with morbid vivacity simpliciter, or per se, but "in all senses
of that deep-reaching word." Mr. Norton restored the true reading,
which was "marked veracity," though, on the other hand, he replaced
the statement, omitted by Froude, that Taylor, who had died between
the two editions, was "not a well-read or wide-minded man." It must
be admitted that in this instance Froude allowed a proof which made
nonsense to pass, and that Mr. Norton did a public service by
correcting the phrase. Froude's occasional carelessness in revision
is a common failing enough. What made it remarkable in him was the
combination of liability to these lapses with intensely laborious
and methodical habits.

Although Froude's legal connection with Carlyle's family ceased with
the assignment to Carlyle's niece of the copyright in the
Reminiscences, the names of the two men are as inseparably
associated as Boswell's and Johnson's, Lockhart's and Scott's,
Macaulay's and Trevelyan's, Morley's and Gladstone's. Some readers,
such as Tennyson and Lecky, thought that Froude had revealed