Part 4 (2/2)

which began at the year 1701, and thus served as a connecting link between Macaulay's history and his own larger work--the ”History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht down to the Peace of Versailles (1713-1783).” The continuation of Earl Stanhope's narrative may be found either in Mr Lecky's ”Eighteenth Century,” or in =William Nathaniel Ma.s.sey's (1809-1881)= ”History of England under George III.” Mr Ma.s.sey brings us down to the Peace of Amiens in 1801, from which date Harriet Martineau leads us to 1846 in a work (”History of the Peace”) which is quite unworthy of her abilities. The reign of Victoria has been written by many hands, not the least successful being the ”History of England, 1830-1873” of the =Rev. William Na.s.sau Molesworth (1816-1890)= of Rochdale, the author also of a ”History of the Church of England.”

Equally popular is the ”History of Our Own Time, 1830-1897,” of =Justin MacCarthy (1830- )=, who has also written a ”History of the Four Georges,” and many popular novels. Nor must we forget the brilliant literary effort of =Alexander William Kinglake (1811-1891)= who, in his ”History of the War in the Crimea,” has made a younger generation familiar with a struggle in which their fathers took so brave a part. Mr Kinglake was for some years the Liberal member for Bridgewater. His first literary effort, ”Eothen,” a volume of travels, is scarcely less popular than his history. By far the most important work, however, on English history, in a period subsequent to that dealt with by Macaulay, is Lecky's ”History of England in the Eighteenth Century,” a work of great thoroughness and thoughtfulness, the eighth and concluding volume of which was published in 1890. =William Edward Hartpole Lecky (1838- )=, who was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, which he now represents in Parliament, is one of the most brilliant and suggestive writers of our age. His ”Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism,” and ”European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne,” as well as the ”History of the Eighteenth Century,” are justly popular.

It is impossible to enumerate all the important contributions to historical study of the past few years, but the ”History of Scotland, from the Invasion of Agricola to the Revolution of 1688,” by =John Hill Burton (1809-1881)=, and the ”Life and Reign of Richard III.,” by James Gairdner must not be forgotten, nor the ”History of the War in the Peninsula,” by Sir Charles Napier (1786-1860). Many writers have embodied the main conclusions of the historians we have named, in brief, but useful, histories for the use of the more advanced schools. The more successful of these are the Rev. James Franck Bright and the late John Richard Green. =James Franck Bright (1832- )= is master of University College, Oxford, and his ”English History for the use of Public Schools”

is a work so lucidly and carefully written, that it is ent.i.tled to be lifted out of the category of mere text-books, and to take rank as good literature. Still more is this true of Green's ”Short History of the English People.” =John Richard Green (1837-1883)= was born at Oxford, and educated at Magdalen College School and at Jesus College. For some time he was vicar of St Philip's, Stepney. His ”Short History,”

published in 1874, was speedily adopted in schools, and had an enormous sale among general readers. It was immediately recognised that a brilliant writer had appeared, one who had a.s.similated all that was worthy in the work of laborious contemporary historians, had himself made much study of original doc.u.ments, and had welded all together by the power of real genius. A critic here and there devoted himself to discovering the errors, mainly of dates, which, owing to the illness of the author, disfigured the first edition. But the popular instinct which declared this to be a great work, was a sound one. In the main its conclusions are just. There is not a line of cheap sentiment or rhetorical clap-trap in the book. Mr Green soon afterwards enlarged his work, and published it in four handsome volumes, which he dedicated to his friends--”My Masters in the Study of English History,”--Bishop Stubbs and Professor Freeman. Later on appeared ”The Making of England,”

and, after his decease, another volume, ”The Conquest of England,”

written on his deathbed, was published by his widow, Alice Stopford Green, who has written ”Town Life in the Fifteenth Century.” Sir Archibald Geikie, the geologist, once rendered a tribute to Green for endeavouring to bring geological science to the aid of historical research; but on the question of the Teutonic element in our nation, it has been urged that Green follows his friends, Stubbs and Freeman, all too readily, and ignores the evidence from anthropology in favour of the very great prevalence of Celtic blood in the English-speaking race.

I regret that my s.p.a.ce will not permit me to write at length of the men who have studied so thoroughly sciences which have so much bearing upon history, and who have written delightful books upon them. I must be content merely to mention the names of William Boyd Dawkins, who has written ”Cave-hunting” and ”Early Man in Britain;” and Sir John Lubbock, banker and member of Parliament, who has written ”Pre-historic Times”

and ”The Origin of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man,”

also various books on natural science, and some very inadequate literary essays. Nor must I forget Edward Burnett Tylor's ”Primitive Culture” and ”Anthropology,” Grant Allen's ”Anglo-Saxon Britain,” and Edward Clodd's ”Childhood of the World,” ”Childhood of Religion,” and ”Pioneers of Evolution.” From such works as these it is but a very short step to the writings of Max Muller. =Friedrich Max Muller (1823- )=, son of the German poet, Wilhelm Muller, was educated at the University of Leipzig, and made a special study of philosophy in Germany for many years before he came to the land of his adoption, in 1846. Appointed an Oxford professor, first of modern languages and later of comparative philology, a science which he may almost be said to have created, he has become an Englishman both in speech and in writing. Max Muller's most popular works are his interesting ”Lectures on the Science of Language,” and his ”Chips from a German Workshop,” in which he deals not only with the common origin of the world's leading languages, but in a skilful and almost startling manner reconstructs, by the aid of language alone, the conditions out of which have risen the various religious and social systems of the early nations. The writers who have most prominently followed in Max Muller's footsteps, as elucidators of primitive religious belief, are Professor Sayce and the Rev. Sir George c.o.x.

=Archibald Henry Sayce (1846- )=, who succeeded Max Muller in the chair of comparative philology at Oxford, has written numerous books and treatises dealing with the Chaldean and other ancient nations, and has also published an annotated edition of Herodotus, noticeable chiefly for its unfavourable verdict on the ”Father of History.” =Sir George c.o.x (1827- )=, whose ”Mythology of the Aryan Nations” has provoked much adverse criticism from its extreme application of the ”Solar” theory to the interpretation of myth, epic, and romance, has also written an interesting ”History of Greece” in two volumes.

The ”History of Greece” which may be considered one of the most satisfactory achievements of the Victorian era, is that by Grote, published in twelve volumes. =George Grote (1794-1871)= was born at Clay Hill, near Beckenham, and was educated at the Charterhouse School.

He early went into the banking-house in Threadneedle Street, of which his father was one of the partners, but found time to devote himself to philosophy and history, and to write for the _Westminster Review_, the organ of philosophical Radicalism. It was as a representative of this phase of thought that he was returned as member of Parliament for the city of London in 1833. He sat in the House as one of a small body of philosophical Radicals until 1841, bringing forward annually a resolution in favour of the ballot. He retired from Parliamentary life to devote himself more energetically to his ”History of Greece,” the first two volumes of which appeared in 1846; the twelfth, and last, which takes us to the death of Alexander the Great, was published in 1856. During the same years, but unknown to Grote, =Connop Thirlwall (1797-1875)=, Bishop of St David's, a former schoolfellow of his, was engaged upon the same task. Each acknowledged the superiority of his rival's work, and Grote said that he should never have written his had Thirlwall's book appeared a few years earlier; but there can be little hesitation in a.s.signing the higher place to Grote. Of Thirlwall it may be said, however, that but for Grote his history would have taken high rank, and would have been a welcome relief from the foolish but once popular work of William Mitford. Thirlwall is also interesting for having translated, in 1825, Schleiermacher's ”Essay on St Luke,” and thus first introduced German theology into England. Grote's history is a book of high educational value. In it we have all that is best in Herodotus, Thucydides, and the other ancient historians, added to the sound and weighty judgment of a clear-sighted modern critic, exceptionally free from prejudice. It was Grote's great destiny to free the English mind from the erroneous impressions which had so long prevailed as to the real character of the Athenian democracy, and we cannot find elsewhere a truer or juster picture of Athens at the height of her power. A great work on Greek history in later aspects than those of Grote and Thirlwall is ”A History of Greece, from its Conquest by the Romans to the Present Time,” by =George Finlay (1799-1875)=. Finlay fought in the Greek War of Independence, and lived for the greater part of his life in Athens.

A number of clergymen besides Dr Thirlwall have shown an able grasp of cla.s.sical history. Dr Arnold wrote a ”History of Rome,” based on Niebuhr, which, although interesting, is scarcely worthy of so great a man. =Charles Merivale (1808-1893)=, Dean of Ely, wrote an admirable summary of Roman history from the foundation of the city in B.C. 753 to the fall of Augustulus in A.D. 476; but his great work is the ”History of the Romans under the Empire,” which is indispensable for a thorough appreciation of Gibbon. =Henry Hart Milman (1791-1868)=, Dean of St Paul's, did good service to historical scholars.h.i.+p by his edition of Gibbon's pre-eminent work, and by his own ”History of the Jews,”

”History of Christianity under the Empire,” and ”Latin Christianity.”

The nine volumes of this last were called by Dean Stanley ”a complete epic and philosophy of mediaeval Christianity.” Milman is said to have described himself as ”the last learned man in the Church,” but in the presence of so eminent a scholar as =Mandell Creighton (1843- )=, Bishop of London, the statement is meaningless. Dr Creighton's great work, ”A History of the Papacy From the Great Schism to the Sack of Rome,” is of the highest value in the consecutive study of European history; and so also is the work of another clergyman, =George William Kitchin (1827- )=, Dean of Durham, whose ”History of France previous to the Revolution,” is very attractively written.

A writer who generalises freely from the facts of history, and whose generalisations were once very popular, and, according to Sir Mackenzie Wallace, are still widely read in Russia, was =Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862)=, who published in 1857 the first volume of the ”History of Civilisation in England;” a second volume appeared in 1861, but the author died before he had completed his intended undertaking. Buckle unduly emphasises the influence of national and moral laws upon the progress of civilisation, minimises the influence of individuals, and overlooks the momentous action of heredity. A writer of equal importance with Buckle was =John Addington Symonds (1840-1893)=, whose ”Renaissance in Italy” is a work of great literary merit, and whose translation of Cellini's ”Autobiography” has superseded Roscoe's.

Pa.s.sing from historic Italy to Germany we may note that ”The Holy Roman Empire” of =James Bryce (1838- )= created quite a _furore_ as a prize essay at Oxford, and, in its enlarged shape, forms the only English sketch of German history of great literary merit. Mr Bryce was, some years ago, announced to write a ”History of Germany” of more formidable dimensions, but the glamour of parliamentary life and a seat in the Cabinet have robbed us of a capable historian. Although we are without a satisfactory German history we possess two very solid contributions to such a work. With one of these, Carlyle's ”Frederick II.,” I shall deal later; the other is =Sir John Robert Seeley's (1834-1895)= ”Life and Times of Stein; or, Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age.” When this work appeared it was received with high commendation in Germany, but in England with the qualification that it had none of the literary charm of the author's earlier efforts. To such criticism Professor Seeley--he received the professors.h.i.+p of modern history at Cambridge on Kingsley's resignation in 1869--replied in a series of papers ent.i.tled ”History and Politics,” wherein he practically contended that it was the business of historians to be dull, and that brilliant history-writing was, as a matter of fact, little other than fiction. Still, in his lectures on ”The Expansion of England” (1883) and ”A Short History of Napoleon” (1886) he succeeded in making himself entirely interesting.

The books which gave Sir John Seeley his greatest fame--he received a knighthood in 1893--were not, however, historical, but, in a sense, theological; and with him we find ourselves in the midst of the great religious controversies of the reign. ”Ecce h.o.m.o; a Survey of the Life and Work of Jesus Christ,” was published anonymously in 1865. While censured on many sides on account of its alleged heterodoxy, it drew from opponents unstinted admiration on account of its perfect literary workmans.h.i.+p. One of these opponents was Mr Gladstone, who ventured the prophecy that the author would at a later period write something from a more orthodox standpoint. The prediction was not verified, for in 1882 a further work, ”Natural Religion,” by the Author of ”Ecce h.o.m.o,” showed still less sympathy with the supernatural side of religion.

Mr Gladstone, who flung himself into this as into so many other controversies, has a fame quite apart from any literary achievement. But whatever posterity may say of his influence on the destinies of the nation which he has helped for so many years to rule, it is certain that his powers as an author would have made the reputation of a man of less versatility.

=William Ewart Gladstone (1809- )=, the son of a Lancas.h.i.+re merchant, was born at Liverpool. Into his political career it is not my province to enter. His first literary work, ”The State in its Relations with the Church,” was made famous through a review by Macaulay. Later in life he indulged in theological controversy, publis.h.i.+ng an ”Essay on Ritualism”

and ”The Vatican Decrees.” Mr Gladstone's chief work is, however, his ”Studies in Homer,” in which he argues for the unity of the poem, for the foundation in fact of its main incidents, and for the definite personality of the author. His contributions to periodical literature have been innumerable, and only a few--and those non-controversial and non-cla.s.sical--have been republished in his five volumes of ”Gleanings.”

Mr Gladstone's chief opponent in theological controversy, Cardinal Newman, has profoundly influenced his religious views. ”In my opinion,”

wrote Mr Gladstone many years after Newman had become a Roman Catholic, ”his secession from the Church of England has never yet been estimated among us at anything like the full amount of its calamitous importance.

It has been said that the world does not know its greatest men; neither, I will add, is it aware of the power and weight carried by the words and the acts of those among its greatest men whom it does know. The ecclesiastical historian will perhaps hereafter judge that this secession was a much greater event even than the partial secession of John Wesley, the only case of personal loss suffered by the Church of England since the Reformation which can be at all compared with it in magnitude.”

=John Henry Newman (1801-1890)= was born in London, and educated at a private school at Ealing and at Trinity College, Oxford. Inclined at first to the liberal Christianity which men like Whately and Milman were furthering among churchmen, he was, he says, ”rudely awakened by two great blows--illness and bereavement”; and he devoted himself to a life-long opposition to what he has called ”the great apostasy--liberalism in religion.” ”My battle,” he writes, ”was with liberalism; by liberalism I mean the anti-dogmatic principle and its developments.” From 1828 to 1843 he held the inc.u.mbency of St Mary's Church, Oxford, and the influence which he then exerted was of the deepest moment for the future of religious life in England. ”Who,” says Matthew Arnold, himself, like his father before him, one of the leaders of the movement which Newman has hated so intensely, ”who could resist the charm of that spiritual apparition, gliding in the dim afternoon light through the aisles of St Mary's, rising into the pulpit, and then, in the most entrancing of voices, breaking the silence with words and thoughts which were a religious music--subtle, sweet, mournful? I seem to hear him still, saying: 'After the fever of life, after wearinesses and sicknesses, fightings and despondings, languor and fretfulness, struggling and succeeding; after all the changes and chances of this troubled, unhealthy state,--at length comes death, at length the white throne of G.o.d, at length the beatific vision.'” During these years at St Mary's what is called the Tractarian movement sprang to life--a movement, as we have said, against Broad-Churchism. It was at the beginning of the movement, on his way home from Sicily in 1833, whilst pondering over the difficulties of the task he had undertaken, that Newman wrote the hymn ”Lead, kindly Light,” which is now as popular in the most advanced and liberalized churches as it can be in those nearest to its author's religious standpoint. The ”Tracts for the Times,” whence Tractarians derived their name, were written by Newman, Hurrell Froude, Pusey, and others. Bishop Bloomfield said that the whole movement was nothing but Newmania. The writers argued now in short papers, now in elaborate treatises, for the Divine mission of the Anglican Church. Not till ”Tract XC.” was reached did the alarm of the Protestant party manifest itself in any practical form. In that Tract Newman declared that subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles was not inconsistent with the acceptance of Roman Catholic teaching on purgatory, on the invocation of saints, and on the ma.s.s. The Hebdomadal Council of the University condemned the Tract. Two years later Newman resigned his position at St Mary's, and in 1845 formally joined the Church of Rome. According to Disraeli, Anglicanism ”reeled under the shock,” and Dean Stanley remarked to a friend that the fortunes of the English Church might have been very different ”had Newman been able to read German.”[13]

In 1848 he was appointed head of the Birmingham Oratory, and there he resided--with one short break as rector of the Roman Catholic University at Dublin--for nearly forty years. In 1879 he was created a cardinal, and his visit to Rome and installation as a Prince of the Sacred College excited much attention in England. Although by temperament and inclination one of the least combative and most retiring of men, Cardinal Newman found himself again and again in the thick of the argumentative fray. At one time he was involved in a libel action by an ex-priest and ultra-Protestant lecturer named Father Achilli, and this cost Newman and his friends twelve thousand pounds; at another time he was arguing with the foremost English statesman, Mr Gladstone, as to the probable loyalty of English Roman Catholics if the Papacy and the English Government were brought into collision. In one great controversy of his life he was generally admitted to have achieved a success, and this success is a.s.sociated with an enduring literary work, the autobiography which he calls his ”Apologia pro Vita Sua.” Reviewing Froude's ”History of England” in _Macmillan's Magazine_ (January 1864), Charles Kingsley charged Newman with being careless about truth, and with teaching that cunning and not truth-seeking was the acceptable method of the Roman Catholic clergy. Brought to bay by Newman, Kingsley contradicted himself in an amazing fas.h.i.+on, and even the most enthusiastic Protestants were compelled to admit that the clever novelist was no match for the trained dialectician. Mrs Kingsley, in her charming life of her husband, practically admits that he was worsted in the conflict, and J. A. Froude, his brother-in-law, wrote: ”Kingsley entirely misunderstood Newman's character. Newman's whole life had been a struggle for truth. He had neglected his own interests; he had never thought of them at all. He had brought to bear a most powerful and subtle intellect to support the convictions of a conscience which was superst.i.tiously sensitive. His single object had been to discover what were the real relations between man and his Maker, and to shape his own conduct by the conclusions at which he arrived. To represent such a person as careless of truth was neither generous nor even reasonable.”

The final outcome of the controversy was the publication of the ”Apologia,” a work which, alike in beauty of style and devotion of spirit, must be a.s.signed a very high place in religious literature. My s.p.a.ce is too limited to pa.s.s in review, or even to name, the thirty-six volumes which contain the writings of this eloquent preacher and teacher. His ”Dream of Gerontius” and ”Verses on Various Occasions” show his high qualities as a poet; his ”Apologia,” ”Callista,” and ”Essay in aid of the Grammar of a.s.sent,” display his genius as a prose stylist. In ”Callista: a Sketch of the Third Century,” he pictures a beautiful Greek girl, who becomes a convert to Christianity after a severe struggle between human affection and religious faith. The ”Grammar of a.s.sent” is an apology for Christianity, far above the narrow controversies in which the author took so distinguished a part.

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