University of Virginia Library

“The Life of Lord Eldon is an important addition to public biography. Written by a
lawyer, it has the advantage of professional knowledge—by a man of a certain experience
in public and even in official life, it exhibits that practical knowledge of affairs which
nothing but practice can gain The three volumes exhibit a research which does
credit to the intelligence and industry of Mr Twiss Their anecdotes, but few of which
we have been able to give, possess passages of very effective writing, and form a work which
ought to be in the library of every lawyer, statesman and English gentleman.”

“Miss Halsted deserves great credit for her laborious attempt to vindicate
Richard's character, and for the patient care with which she has sought out and
marshalled her authorities. Although we may not believe Richard to have been
quite so blameless as she attempts to prove him, we willingly allow that his real
character was widely different from that which tradition and Tudor history has
assigned to him.”

“One of the most intensely interesting volumes ever published.”

Uniform with “Macaulay's Miscellaneous Writings.”
“Although wit is the great predominating characteristic of the writings of Sydney Smith,
the finest and most original humour is not unfrequently displayed.”

“Sydney Smith in hostility is an overwheiming antagonist, his arguments are glittering
with laughter and well balanced with good sense: they flow on ward with the ease and certainty
of a current above a bright cascade: he piles up his merriment like a grotesque mausoleum
over his enemy, and so compactly and regularly that we feel no fear of its toppling
over by any retort.”