g are the portions of Mr. Dixon's letters referred to:--

"Well, I am now busy with Frederick the Great; I am not now astonished
that Carlyle calls him Great, neither that this work of his should
have had such a sad effect upon him in producing it, when I see the
number of volumes he must have had to wade through to produce such a
clear terse set of utterances; and yet I do not feel the work as a
book likely to do a reader of it the good that some of his other books
will do. It is truly awful to read these battles after battles, lies
after lies, called Diplomacy; it's fearful to read all this, and one
wonders how he that set himself to this--He, of all men--could have
the rare patience to produce such a labored, heart-rending piece of
work. Again, when one reads of the stupidity, the shameful waste of
our moneys by our forefathers, to see our National Debt (the curse to
our labor now, the millstone to our commerce, to our fair chance of
competition in our day) thus created, and for what? Even Carlyle
cannot tell; then how are we to tell? Now, who will deliver us? that
is the question; who will help us in these days of _idle or no work_,
while our foreign neighbors have plenty and are actually selling their
produce to our men of capital cheaper than we can make it? House-rent
getting dearer, taxes getting dearer, rates, clothing, food, etc. Sad
times, my master, do seem to have fallen upon us. And the cause of
nearly all this lies embedded in that Frederick; and yet, so far as I
know of it, no critic has yet given an exposition of such laying
there. For our behoof, is there no one that will take this, that there
lies so woven in with much other stuff so sad to read, to any man that
does not believe man was made to fight alone, to be a butcher of his
fellow-man? Who will do this work, or piece of work, so that all who
care may know how it is that our debt grew so large, and a great deal
more that we ought to know?--that clearly is one great reason why the
book was written and was printed. Well, I hope some day all this will
be clear to our people, and some man or men will arise and sweep us
clear of these hindrances, these sad drawbacks to the vitality of our
work in this world."

"57, Nile Street, Sunderland, Feb. 7, 1867.

"DEAR SIR,--

"I beg to acknowledge the receipt of two letters as additions to your
books, which I have read with deep interest, and shall take care of
them, and read th