It is a most painful book on the whole.

Gradually it impresses you with considerable respect for the ability of the author, and especially for his skill both in logical and pathetic pleading; and throughout you cannot but pity him, and remember that he was placed in about the most terrible position that a human being, and especially a clergyman of wide celebrity, could occupy--placed there too by what would now be called an act of literary savagery, outraging all the modern proprieties of personal controversy.

Still the impression left finally is not satisfactory.

It is but fair, however, that he should speak for himself.

The book opens thus:-- "If I could acknowledge as true of me any of those things which you, by a wild and unbridled licence, have not only attributed to me, but have even, to your eternal disgrace, dared to publish, I should be angry with you to a greater degree than I am, you most foolish Milton: for let that be your not unfitting, though mild, designation in the outset, while that of liar and others will fashion themselves out of the sequel.