Professor Chester New's Life of Lord Durham, published in 1929
is, and must long remain, the standard work on the subject
(modern jargon would call it the 'definitive' Life, a word which
I cannot bring myself to tolerate). I have made constant use of
it and to it, for a bibliography, I can only refer any reader of my
own book. Like Professor New, I have had the good fortune to
have the use of all the Lambton MSS., a collection consisting, as
he feelingly says, of 'several thousands of letters and other manu-
scripts', which were also used by Mr. Stuart Reid for his earlier
Life. No writer can include by quotation more than a fragment
of that immense store and he can only choose what seems to him
essential for his purpose. Professor New, an eminent historian,
naturally used much which I have omitted. I, working on a
smaller scale and being absorbed by Lord Durham's home and
family life and the strange complexity of his nature, have
relied more on the personal letters and on nearly everything
which Lady Durham left. If I cannot claim to have added much
to the general store of knowledge of Lord Durham's career, I
believe that I am the only man who has worked out his batting
average.

It would be presumptuous for me to reproduce Professor
New's bibliography and the only books which I ought to
mention are those which, by reason of the date of their publica-
tion, he could not have seen when he was writing. The most
valuable, to me, of all these, was Sir Reginald Coupland
The Durham Report, an admirably concise summary and
appreciation, published in 1945.

I ought not to omit Mr. St. John Packe's life of John Stuart
Mill or Miss Frances Hawes' of Lord Brougham, nor the
pleasure and profit which I have derived from all the writings
of the late Sir Philip Guedalla, especially Palmerston and The
Duke, and those of Mr. Michael Sadleir and Sir A. Bryant. For
getting the political atmosphere of the time I know nothing to
compare with the novels of Lord Beaconsfield and Anthony
Trollopews and surely one of the best elections in all fiction is in
Stanley Weyman Chippinge.

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