that when, after England’s Prime Minister had declared that Englishmen were bound in honor to the Khedive to reconquer the Soudan, they, after the reconquest, forthwith began to administer it in the name of the Queen and the Khedive, thereby practically annexing it; and when, after promising through the mouths of two colonial Ministers not to interfere in the internal affairs of the Transvaal, the British Government proceeded to insist on certain electoral arrangements, and made resistance the excuse for a desolating war.  As to the transparent pretence that the Boers commenced the war, Mr. Spencer reminds us that in the far West of the United States, where every man carries his life in his hands and the usages of fighting are well understood, it is held that he is the real aggressor who first moves his hand toward his weapon.  The application to the South African contest is obvious.  In an essay on “Style,” Mr. Spencer tells us that his own diction has been, from the beginning, unpremeditated.  It has never occurred to him to take any author as a model.  Neither has he at any time examined the writing of this or that author with a view of observing its peculiarities.  The thought of style, considered as an end in itself, has rarely, if ever, been present with him, his sole purpose being to express ideas as clearly as possible, and, when the occasion called for it, with as much force as might be.  He has observed, however, he says, that some difference has been made in his style by the practice of dictation.  Up to 1860 his books and review articles were written with his own hand.  Since then they have all been dictated.  He thinks that there is foundation for the prevailing belief that dictation is apt to cause diffuseness.  The remark was once made to him, it seems, by two good judges—­George Henry Lewes and George Eliot—­that the style of “Social Statics” is better than the style of his later volumes; Mr. Spencer would ascribe the contrast to the deteriorating effect of dictation.  A recent experience has strengthened him in this conclusion.  When lately revising “First Principles,” which originally was dictated, the cutting out of superfluous words, clauses, sentences, and sometimes paragraphs, had the effect of abridging the work by about one-tenth.  Touching the style of other writers, Mr. Spencer points out the defects in some passages quoted from Matthew Arnold and Froude.  He says that he is repelled by the ponderous, involved structure of Milton’s prose, and he dissents from the applause of Ruskin’s style on the ground that it is too self-conscious, and implies too much thought of effect.  On the other hand, he has always been attracted by the finished naturalness of Thackeray.