2110-6-9-9

WALLINGTON, CAMBO, MORPETH.

Nov. 16. 1934.

Dear Buchan,

"So shall his praise to after times increase

When truth shall be allowed, and factions cease."

You have indeed written a great book. Iwondered if you would have the needful approval to be a great biographer. For I knew a large measure of your sympathy would have been with Oliver's enemies. So it is, and thereby are your judgments strengthened. Sop, like Marvell, you can make much of "he nothing common did or mean" without detracting from the grandeur of the man who chiefly caused the axe to fall.

I think you have given us a sympathetic insight into Oliver's mind

which will not be surpassed, ever. It is the greatest thing you have done, because in the profounder sense more difficult. You have woven a picture of the times, and the mind, of Oliver playing on them, and they moulding him again, with exquisite skill. None but a great writer could have done it. None but a man living in times to ordinary men almost as tortuous and rudderless as Oliver's and practised in trying to find the just path in the affairs of his own day yet knowing how doubtful any line of action must be. Well, I didn't think anyone could have satisfied me in producing a book which I should

feel had given me more certainty in my confidence that he was king of men than I had already got. It is good to live when you and George are both writing.

Yours ever sincerely,

Charles Trevelyan.