་ bon is the only one whose history preserves to this day its authority, on the score of such extensive research and deep learning as were required by his large theme. With regard to Hume and Robertson, the two most popular historians, the labours of later students of history have demonstrated that their works are of that indolent and superficial character which destroys their authority as trustworthy chroniclers. I do not suppose that any careful and conscientious inquirer after historic truth would at the present day consider a question of history determined by a statement in the histories of either Hume or Robertson.* Another and a very high merit may be claimed for history in the English literature of our times: I mean the religious element which has been developed in it, and most of all by Arnold. This is a noble contrast to the aggressive infidelity, and the low and false views attendant on it, which vitiates the histories of Gibbon and Hume, corrupting the learning of the former, and coupling a positive * As this volume is passing through the press, my eye has been attracted by two contemporary criticisms, though from very different sources, on Gibbon and Hume; the one by Lord John Russell, in a recent speech at Bristol, the other by Landor in a poetical contribution to the Examiner. The first I have not space to quote or to refer to, further than to say it is precisely in accord with Mr. Reed's criticism. Of the other, I can cite but a few lines. Of Gibbon the poet well says: "There are who blame them for too stately step, I listen to, nor venture to reprove, And he concludes: "History hath beheld no pile ascend So lofty, large, symmetrical as thine." W. B. R. evil with the defects of the latter; so that history was made a godless, infidel study, subservient to the shallow skepticism of the eighteenth century. With minds blinded to Christian truth, and tempers alien from all Christian earnestness, they looked upon religious feeling as either fraud or superstition, and so they spoke of it in the narrative of portions of the world's history in which the Christian church was leading the nations of Europe to the truth. It is not only in such offensive, assailant unbelief, as Gibbon's and Hume's, that history has been in fault, but there has also been the negative fault of the omission of all thought of a providential government and guidance of the nations of the earth. We are thus tempted to draw too broad a line between sacred and profane history, and to fancy that there was a providence over the one chosen people, but that all the kindred peoples of the earth were abandoned to chance, to fate, to any thing but the government of God. Now Arnold's great achievement in historical science is, that in treating the history of a pagan people, he gives to his reader a sense of a divine providence over the Roman nation, for the future service of Christian truth, at the same time that this religious element is not irreverently obtruded or mingled with incongruous subjects. When Hume, in his History, reaches the end of a splendid era in the English annals, he closes it with this meagre reflection, "that the study of the early institutions of the country is instructive as showing that a mighty fabric of government is built up by a great deal of accident, with a very little human foresight and wisdom." In our meek hours of faith we are taught that not a sparrow falls to the ground without God's providence; and then we turn to the infidel history, to be admonished beast 2. that the "kingly commonwealth" of England, that has swayed the happiness of millions of human beings, and from which sprang this vast Republic of the West, was "built up by accident;" that there was a little human foresight, and all the rest was chance. When Arnold was planning his history, he said, "My ighest ambition . . . is to make my history the very reverse of Gibbon in this respect, that whereas the whole spirit of his work, from its low morality, is hostile to religion, without speaking directly against it; so my greatest desire would be, in my history, by its high morals and its general tone, to be of use to the cause, without actually bringing it forward."* Besides this high quality, another merit of recent historical literature is, that it has modified what used to be called the "dignity of history," and has blended with it more of the lively interest of biography. An excellent specimen of such historical composition, an accurate, calmly-tempered, and attractive history, will be found in Lord Mahon's History of England during an important part of the last century.† In this department of literature the greatest power of attraction has been proved in the first volumes of Mr. Macaulay's History of England, for they have won a far larger number of readers, it is believed, than did any one of the Waverley novels in Scott's palmiest day. Such *Life and Correspondence, p. 139, Am. ed. †There is no work that can be more safely put in the hands of the American historical student than Lord Mahon's, not only for its tolerant and philosophic views of English affairs, but as enabling a reasonable American to feel and understand how his own history appears to a generous and friendly foreign observer. Such a process is very salutary in this self-complacent meridian. W. B. R. rapid and wide-spread popularity is proof of power, the measure of which will be taken more accurately after the lapse of some years than now, when it is new to us. Mr. Macaulay's aim, as an historian, is to bring into history a greater number and variety of the testimonies of the life of the past than history has been in the habit of taking cognizance of. With great powers of accumulating such multifarious memorials of former times, with a dexterous skill in combining them, and with a brilliant, effective style, he has gained such applause as, perhaps, was never given to historian before. It is most attractive and exciting reading the more delightful, if you can lull to sleep all questioning of truthfulness, and can bring your mind to a passive, submissive recipiency of Mr. Macaulay's absolute and contemptuous condemnation of characters you might otherwise have been inclined to honour or respect. There are few writers who exact from the reader such unquestioning obedience-obedience, too, to sarcasm and scorn. It has been justly said that an historian's first "great qualification is an earnest craving after truth, and utter impatience, not of falsehood merely, but of error."* I would ask any reader of this work, even with the fresh fascination on him, whether, on closing the volumes, he feels an assurance of the presence there of such an earnest craving after truth. Mr. Macaulay has another ambition, fostered, perhaps, by his habit of writing as a reviewer, and not yet duly disciplined in him—the ambition, or, as it may be more fitly called, the vanity of showy and startling display. Of the majestic beauty of quiet and simple truth he seems to have no conception. His moral and intellectual nature seem not to be justly balanced. *Arnold's Lectures on Modern History, p. 293. This appears in another form of intellectual pride-an absence of all genial appreciation of lofty character-heroic or saintly an unbelief in high and earnest moods of thought and feeling, and a pride of power in despoiling men of the sentiments of reverence and admiration they had been glad to bestow. The more habitual those sentiments have been, the greater the power displayed in scattering them. If Mr. Macaulay should carry his history on to that period when it will be necessary for him to treat of what he has not as yet thought it worth while to allude to, colonial America, as part of England's history, and when he will have occasion to speak of Washington and Franklin, I venture to predict that the temptation to bid the world abate their admiration will be irresistible; and that then some of Mr. Macaulay's American admirers, who are now rather intolerant of the least dissent, will fain recall some of their present praises. It is an easy transition from the historical literature to another department, scarce separable from it, and in which, also, this century is entitled to a pre-eminence. I refer to the "historic romance," especially as developed in the Waverley novels. Scott may be said to have created this new department of English letters. Never has the true idea of historic fiction been more happily seized -the calling up, in a living array, not merely the names, but the character, the manners, the thoughts and passions of past ages. Two of the finest historical minds of our times, Arnold in England and Thierry in France, have expressed their high admiration of Scott's remarkable historic sagacity. With studious and laborious habits of research, he had large-hearted sympathies, an acute instinct of historic truth, and, above all, the truthful creative R |
