I address myself to his editor.

If the editor will select any part of my volumes, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred pages, wherever he pleases, I am willing to subject them to a formal examination by two experts, to be chosen--if Sir Thomas Hardy will kindly undertake it--by the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records.

They shall go through my references, line for line.

They shall examine every document to which I have alluded, and shall judge whether I have dealt with it fairly.

I lay no claim to be free from mistakes.