Item 66 - Letter from J.R. Seeley to Henry Sidgwick

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Announces that he has been working on an edition of the '1st Decade' [of Livy] for two years and hopes to have it published soon. Asks Sidgwick if he does not try getting up candidates of his own. Reports that he has heard from Hepworth Dixon 'that the author is [Walword] [or some such name] Secretary to the Civil Service Commission.' Does not think that Sidgwick makes out a case for Grote, and his criticisms of Seeley's work. Asks if there is no criticism 'but of the [Strauss] and [Renan] kind'. Comments that he found them dealing too much in conjecture; that they should 'let alone' the discrepancies of the Gospel, 'and stick to that in which they agree.' Announces that he is writing a preface, which he intends to send to Sidgwick for criticisms. Of the poems, observes that they were 'good in metre and showy in style, but crude in [theory] and nothing in imagination - as E[cce] H[omo] is in spite of [Seeley's] admirers.'