Temple, Most Rev. Frederick (Archbishop of Canterbury). Memoirs of Archbishop Temple by seven friends; ed. by E. G. Sandford. *$9. Macmillan.
The life story of a man who “seemed cast in a heroic mould, more than life-size,—colossal ... good and simple, of uncommon force of mind, and power of acquiring knowledge.” (Spec.) The sketch is in seven parts, commented upon in the preface as follows: “Its different divisions are clearly marked and defined; the mental characteristic of the man was breadth, and the fact that different types of mind are represented in the writers may help to preserve this feature of breadth in the general portrait. The subject of it was many-sided, and a mistake would be made if the view presented were contracted.... These memoirs accordingly regard his life as far as possible under its more public aspects; they are not a biography, but records of a career.”
“The seven contributors as well as the editor, have been perhaps too industrious. They have, no doubt, given the salient features of Archbishop Temple’s life but they have also added many that are insignificant, and the two large volumes would, if they had been boiled down into one, have presented a biography more likely to endure.”
+ – Acad. 70: 157. F. 17, ’06. 1150w.
“Unless compounded expressly for clerical consumption, the book lacks proportion.”
+ – Ath. 1906, 1: 351. Mr. 24. 2940w.
Reviewed by H. W. Boynton.
Atlan. 98: 281. Ag. ’06. 740w. + – Edinburgh R. 203: 429. Ap ’06. 11010w.
“Remembering the difficult conditions under which these volumes have been prepared, I think that the editor and his helpers are to be congratulated upon their success in having subordinated the individual portions of the work into such just proportion that the personal force, characteristic energy, and life-story of Archbishop Temple are felt to constitute the real interest of these volumes.” W. B. Ripon.