Under the old regime they never had an editor above
mediocrity, except Masson (? Musson); there was a want of unity among
the proprietors as to the aims and objects of the journal; and there was
a want of capital to secure the services of good writers. This seems to
me to be now all changed for the better, and I only hope the rumour of
that _bete noire_, the Anthropological Society, having anything to do
with it may not cause our best men of science to withdraw their support
and contributions.
I have read Tylor, and am reading Lecky. I found the former somewhat
disconnected and unsatisfactory from the absence of any definite result
or any decided opinion on most of the matters treated of.
Lecky I like much, though he is rather tedious and obscure at times.
Most of what he says has been said so much more forcibly by Buckle,
whose work I have read for the second time with increased admiration,
although with a clear view of some of his errors. Nevertheless, his is I
think unapproachably the grandest work of the present century, and the
one most likely to liberalise opinion.
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