Part 19 (1/2)

When it was over he was confronted with the need for choosing a profession It had strained the resources of his faood education, and now hethe choice was not wide His age and his limited means put the Services out of the question; nor was he fitted to embark in trade Medicine would revolt his sensibility, laould chill his iination, and journalism did not yet exist as a profession forprofession, for which he had such rare gifts, he would start handicapped by his low degree In any case, he had for so Holy Orders The enial field of work and, so he hoped, some leisure to continue his favourite studies Perhaps he had not the sa conviction of a 'call' as elical parties; but he was, at the ti of Stanley and Maurice, and he soon showed that it was not ative reasons or froed by Stanley to seek a curacy in West London, he deliberately chose the East End of the town because the need there was greater and the training in self-sacrifice was sterner; and there is no doubt that the popular sy of history had already ithened by nine years of work a the poor The exertion of parish work taxed his physical resources, and he was often incapacitated for short periods by the lavish way in which he spent hith, he er life and left more work behind him

Of the parishes which he served, the last and thewas St Philip's, Stepney, to which he went fro between Whitechapel and Poplar, not far froh the district seems to us to-day--and at times Green was fully conscious of this--he could re-people it in iination with the men of the past, and find pleasure in the noble views on the river and the crowded shi+pping that passed so near its streets But above all he found a source of interest in the living individuals whoh he achieved signal success in the pulpit by his power of exte, he hi and other social work Serht make an impression for the moment; personal sye the whole current of a life

For children his affection was unfailing; and for the humours of older people he had a wide tolerance and charity His letters abound with references to this side of his work He tells us of his 'polished' pork butcher and his learned parish clerk, and boasts hoon the regard of the clerk's Welsh wife by correctly pronouncing the reat deal of ti his churchwardens, to starting choirs, toclasses and parish expeditions He could find tiot into difficulties, or to hold a ht service for the outcasts of the pavement

When cholera broke out in Stepney in 1866, Green visited the sick and dying in rooms that others did not dare to enter, and was not afraid to help actively in burying those who had died of the disease At holiday gatherings he was the life and soul of the body, 'shocking two pri', and surprising his y and decision On such occasions he exhausted hienerous in giving financial help to every parish institution that was in need

What hours he could snatch fro Room of the British Museum; but these were all too few His position, within a few ht have shared his studies, ree To parish claims also was sacrificed many a chance of a precious holiday We have one letter in which he regretfully abandons the project of a tour with Freeman in his beloved Anjou because he finds that the only dates open to his companion clash with the festival of the patron saint of his church In another he resists the appeal of Dawkins to visit hirounds His friend may become abusive, but Green assures hi,' he writes; 'I am a missionary curate I could not come to you, because I was hastily suers and dock labourers' We are far from the easy standard of work too often accepted by 'incu years of the nineteenth century

Early in his clerical career he had begun to for on historical subjects, most of which had to be abandoned for one reason or another At one ti with Dawkins a history of Somerset, which would have been a forerunner of the County Histories of the twentieth century Dawkins was to do the geology and anthropology; Green would contribute the archaeology and history In many ways they ell equipped for the task; but the materials had not been sifted and the demands on their time would have been excessive, even if they abstained from all other work Another scheme was for a series of Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury Green was much attracted by the subject Already he had reat holders of the See; and he believed that the series would illustrate, better than the lives of kings, the growth of certain principles in English history But with other archbishops he found himself out of sympathy; and in the end he was not sorry to abandon the idea, when he found that Dean Hook was already engaged upon it

A project still nearer to his heart, which he cherished till near the end of his life, was to write a history of our Angevin kings For this he collected a vast quantity of materials, and it was a task for which he was peculiarly fitted It would be difficult to say whether Fulc Nerra, the founder of the dynasty, or Black Angers, the home of the race, was more vividly present to him Grim piles of masonry, stark force of character, alike coain in print As it proved, his life was too short to realize this ah we are fortunate in having other books on parts of the subject froin to his inspiration

During his tiyman Green used to pay occasional visits to Dawkins in Somerset; and in 1862, when he went to read a paper on Dunstan to a society at Taunton, he renewed acquaintance with his old schoolfellow, E A Freeure in the county as squire, politician, and antiquarian, and already beco year, as Freeuest, he met Professor Stubbs; and about this time he also made friends with James Bryce, 'the Holy Roman', as he calls him in later letters[57] The friendshi+p of these three ave rise tocorrespondence on historical subjects They were the central group of the Oxford School; they reverenced the saeneral sympathy with one another But this sympathy never descended to mere mutual admiration, as with some literary coteries Between Free fire of friendly but outspoken criticisenerous and less devoted to historical truth Free Green bows to Freees hiive offence; but he boldly rebukes his friend for his indifference to the popular movements in Italian cities and for his pedantry about Italian names

[Note 57: The first edition of Bryce's _Holy Roman Empire_ was published in 1862]

And he treads on eventoo frequently in poleirding at Froude and Kingsley, whose writings Freeru outside the province of history to write onfanciful ideas into his narrative of events The classic instance of this hen Green, after describing the capture by the French of the famous Chateau Gaillard in Normandy, had the audacity to say, 'from its broken walls we see not y flats of our own Runnymede' Thereby he ranted the Great Charter to the Barons, had he not already weakened the royal authority by the loss of Coeur-de-Lion's great fortress beyond the sea, and that to a historian the gerlish freedoe of Norman power above the Seine But Freehts of fancy; and a lively correspondence passed between the two friends, each ht not be permitted to the votaries of Clio

But before this episode Green had been introduced by Freelas Cook, founder and editor of the _Saturday Review_, and had begun to contribute to its columns Naturally it was on historical subjects that his pen wasarticles', the _Saturday_ found place for what the staff called 'Middles', light essays written after the manner of Addison or Steele on matters of every-day life Here Green was often at his best Freerowled, in his dictatorial fashi+on, when he found his friend turning away from the strait path of historical research to describe the humours of his parish, the foibles of district visitors and deaconesses, the chars in the drawing-room--above all (and this last was quoted by the author as his best literary achievement) the joys of 'Children by the sea' But any one who turns over the pages of the voluland and Italy_, where soree with the verdict of the author on their es and all countries Historical scenes are peopled with the figures of the past, treated in the ainst the background of mediaeval Florence; Tintoret represents the life of Venice at its richest, s of La for the portraits of archbishops, the gentle Warham, the hapless Craniven to the pleasant border-land between history and geography, and to the iland or abroad In one sketch he puts into a single sentence all the features of an old English tohich his quick eye could note, and from which he could 'work out the history of the men who lived and died there In quiet quaintly-named streets, in the town mead and the market-place, in the lord's mill beside the streahers in the church, lies the real life of England and Englishmen, the life of their hole with oppression, their steady, unwearied battle for self-government'

In another he follows the funeral procession of his Angevin hero Henry II froht Vienne corey escarpments of rock pierced here and there with the peculiar cellars or cave-dwellings of the country', to his last resting-place in the vaults of Fontevraud

Standing beside thecontrast of type and character which Henry offers to his son Richard Coeur-de-Lion 'Nothing', he says, 'could be less ideal than the narro, the large prosaic eyes, the coarse full cheeks, the sensual dogged jaw, that coher than its separate details, and which is marked by a certain sense of power and coer contrast with his son's, and yet in both there is the same look of repulsive isolation from men Richard's is a face of cultivation and refinee severity in the small delicate mouth and in the compact brow of the lion-hearted, which realizes the verdict of his day To an historical student one glance at these faces, as they lie here beneath the vault raised by their ancestor, the fifth Count Fulc, tells azines may abound to-day in such vivid pen-pictures of places and men; but it was Green and others of his day atered the dry roots of archaeology and restored it to life

But from his earliest days as a student Green had looked beyond the figures of kings, e in the volumes of our historians However clearly they stood out in their greatness and in their faults, they were not, and could not be, the nation And when he caer scale, the title which he chose for his book showed that he was ailish People_ is the book by which Green's fame will stand or fall, and it occupied him for the best years of his life The true heroes of it are the labourer and the artisan, the friar, the printer, and the industrial rowth of the English nation is seen broad-based on the life of the coland, or the parables of Bunyan, than in the formal records of battles and dynastic schemes

The periods into which the book is divided are chosen on other grounds than those of the old handbooks, where the accession of a new king or a new dynasty is made a landiven to events or to prominent men The Wars of the Roses are viewed as less important than the Peasants' Revolt; the scholars of the New Learning leave scant space for Lambert Simnels and Perkin Warbecks Henry Pelham, one of the last pri's favour, receives four lines, while forty are given to John Howard, a pioneer in the new path of philanthropy Besides social subjects, literature receives generous id system is observed Chaucer, Spenser, and Shakespeare take a prominent place in their epochs; Byron, Wordsworth, and Tennyson are ignored This is not because Green had no interest in them or undervalued their influence Far from it But, as the history of the nation became more complex, he found it impossible, within the limits prescribed by a _Short_ History, to do justice to everything He believed that the industrialisian era, exercised a wider influence in changing the character of the people than the literature of that period; and so he turned his attention to Watt and Brindley, and deliberately omitted the poets and painters of that day With his wide syorous compression the hardest of his tasks, and only in part could he coh to treat, as he wished to do, in the fullness of his knowledge, the later periods of English history

In writing this book Green had ainst, apart from his continual ill-health Even his friends spoke doubtfully of its e Macs breathe the saood work in spreading a real love of history and literature a to read It was true that Green's book failed to conforement, it was often allusive in style, it seemed to select what it pleased and to leave out what students were accustomed to learn But Green's faith in its power to reach the audience to whoeneral public received it This success was largely due to the literary style and artistic handling of the subject Green claims himself that on most literary questions he is French in his point of view 'It seems to me', he says, 'that on all points of literary art we have to sit at the feet of French Gamaliels'; and in his best work he has more in common with Michelet than with our own classic historians

But while Michelet had e volumes in which to expand his treatment of picturesque episodes, Green was painfully liive us of clear and lively portraiture in a few lines is seen in his presentation of the gallant men who laid the foundation of our Empire overseas By a few lines of narrative, and a happy quotation fros out the heroism of their sacrifice or their success, the faith which inspired Humphry Gilbert to meet his death at sea, the patience which enabled John Sinian soil

Side by side with these reat rulers such as Alfred, Elizabeth, and Croious leaders such as Cranh Green's own views on Church and State were, we do not feel that he is deserting the province of the historian to lecture us on religion or politics The book is real narrative written in a fair spirit, the author rendering justice to the good points ofabove all at conveying clearly to his readers the picture of what he believed to have happened in the past As a narrative it was not without faults The reviewers at once seized on h the uncertainty of his memory for names and words To these Green cheerfully confessed, and was thankful that they proved to be so slight But when other critics accused him of superficiality they were in error On this point we have the verdict of Bishop Stubbs, the most learned and conscientious historian of the day 'All Green's work', he says, 'was real and original work Few people beside those who knew hi ease and vivacity of his style, the deep research and sustained industry of the laborious student But it was so; there was no department of our national records that he had not studied, and, I think I may say, mastered Hence, I think, the unity of his drauments'

Green hi in 1877 to his future wife, he says, 'I see the indeliblebreath”, as the French say, the jerkiness, the slurring over of the uninteresting parts, above all, the want of grasp of the subject as a whole' On the advice of soe to the _Saturday Review_, in order to free his style fro detached weekly articles The co of English history was to be his life-work, and no divided allegiance was conceivable to him

But we may indeed be thankful that he resisted the views of other friends ished to drive hi their solid contributions to history, he maintains his conviction that there is another method and another school worthy of imitation, and that he must 'hold to what he thinks true and work it out as he can'

Green was a rapid reader and a rapid writer In a letter to Free in Florence in 1872, he ad the period fro (1381-1520) in ten days But he riting from notes which represented years of previous study In another letter, written in 1876, he confesses a tendency to 'wild hitting', and perhaps he was too rapid at ti his inferences 'With s, to find the ”why” of things, is irresistible; and even if I overdo uesses, you or sohtly and intelligibly again' It is this power of connecting events and explaining how onequality of Green's work; and to a nation like the English, too little apt to indulge in general ideas, this quality may be of more value than the Gerence with too great a load of 'facts' And, after all the labours of Carlyle and Froude, of Stubbs and Free into records and chronicles, who shall say what _are_ facts, and what is inference, legiti facts of history with reference to their practical lessons' _Concise Oxford Dictionary_]

Whatever were the shortcos of the book, which Green in his letters to Freeman called by the affectionate naurated a newreaders who had hitherto professed no taste for history; and, financially, it proved so far a success that Green was relieved froenial He had already given up his parish in 1869 Ill-health and the advice of his doctor were the deciding factors; but there is no doubt that Green was also finding it difficult to subscribe to all the doctrines of the Church He took up the same liberal comprehensive attitude to Church questions as he did to politics, and opposed any attempt to stifle honest inquiry or to punish honest doubt He was much disturbed by some of the attempts made at this time by the more extreme parties in the Church to enforce unifor its proper influence on the nation, owing to the prejudice or apathy of the clergy inthe social movements of the day If he had found more support, inside the diocese, for his social and educational work, the breach ht have been healed, or at any rate postponed, in the hope of his health

Relieved of parish work, he found plentiful occupation in revising his old books and in planning new; he shoonderful zest for travelling abroad, and, by choosing carefully the places for his winter sojourn, he fought heroically to co ill-health and to achieve his literary ambitions Thus it was that he made intimate acquaintance with San Remo, Mentone, and Capri; and one winter he went as far as Luxor in the hope that the Egyptian cliuidance of his friend Stopford Brooke he visited for shorter periods Venice, Florence, and other Italian towns He was catholic in his sy When Brooke left hirant pilgriuide-book and to omit the daily visit to the Uffizi Gallery But, on the other hand, he reproached Free his interests entirely to architecture and euilds, and the relics of old civic life It was at Troyes that Bryce observed hi following a scent'--and to such purpose that after a few hours of research he could write a brilliant paper sketching the history of the town as illustrated in its ift for discovering all that wasabout a tohich other nored

Capri, which he first visited at Christmas 1872, was the most successful of his winter haunts The climate, the beauty of the scenery, the simplicity of the life, all suited him admirably On this occasion he stayed fourits praises in one of the 'Stray Studies' Within a small cohts in it all, 'in the boldly scarped cliffs, in the dense scrub of myrtle and arbutus, in the blue strips of sea that see the rocks, in the olive yards creeping thriftily up the hill sides, in the rerey stone and low domes and Oriental roofs' And he found it an ideal place for literary work, restful and resley's ”wind of God”'

'The island', he writes, 'is a paradise of silence for those to whoht One wanders about in the vineyards without a sound save the call of the vinedressers: one lies on the cliff and hears, a thousand feet below, the dreary wash of the sea There is hardly the cry of a bird to break the spell; even the girls who ravely in the Southern fashi+on as they pass by' No greater contrast could be found to the conditions under which he began his books; and it is not surprising that in this haven of peace, with no parish business to break in upon his study, he worked more rapidly and confidently--when his health allowed

From such retreats he would return refreshed in body andin London and to sketch out new plans for the future One that bore rich fruit was that of a series of Pri theeneral reader by attractive literary style They were produced by Mac as editor; and notable voluhton on Roain, Green was a pioneer in a path where he has had many followers since; and he would have been the first to edit an English Historical Review iffroed to abandon the schehton launched it in 1886

In 1877 he married and found in his wife just the helper that he needed

She too had the historical i Husband and wife produced in co-operation a sraphy of the British Isles, well planned, clear, and pleasant to read But, apart fro the too brief period of theirher husband, and her aid was invaluable at the ti his later books There is no doubt that his ed his life The care which his wife took of hiings in beautiful Capri, helped him over his worst days; and the new value which he now set on life and its happiness gave him redoubled force of will There were others who helped hile with ill-health His doctors, Sir Andrew Clark and Sir Lauder Brunton, rendered hiathered round hiton Square, the hoood talk Those ere lucky enough to be ad historical questions in a circle which included Sir Henry Maine and Bishop Stubbs, as well as Lecky, Freeman, and Bryce He had many other interests Such a man could not be indifferent to contemporary politics