A course of English literature

Front matter

Qass-i.

Book__

SI

Contents

I. — The Introduction. — Literary History .

II.— English History and English Historians

III.— English Historians — continued

II. English History And English Historians

E give history the place of honour in our work — first, because every other study must connect itself with it; and, secondly, because we have already recommended historical order and grouping to the student of all other branches whatever. What we now propose to do is to begin with some general cautions and directions as to the way in which history ought to be approached by the reader ; and then to offer some criticisms on our best historians, preparatory to showing how to conduct one's course of reading according to the system of Epochs promulgated in our first chapter.

History is a branch of literature which has gone through the most remarkable changes, and which is changing, now-a-days, even before our eyes. It is the most comprehensive branch, too; for there is no quality any other great writer can have which will not be of use to the historian, or which has not been shown by some historian. Philosophy? — What will the narrator of great public events be without philosophy, or the power of dealing with causes, and discerning law where others see only confusion? Poetry? — No poetical genius can find nobler employment than in delineating the great scenes with which history has to deal. And if it be the chief quality for which we honour the writer of fiction that he can create character, how could that quality be better shown than in creating portraits, equally interesting, of persons that are real, and whose characters have affected the fortunes of mankind ! Considerations like these should induce the man who reads at all, to make history (in the largest sense) his chief object ; for it is the thread, so to speak, on which all the pearls of literature hang.

There is no doubt, however, that there is an impression abroad that history is dull reading, and, unhappily, there are good reasons why this opinion should prevail. While saying a few words on this topic, we shall endeavour to show how the student can manage to make his task more interesting than he perhaps thinks. But, at the same time, we must premise that we do not profess to address those who expect all literature to be amusing, or every page of the book of knowledge to be either pungent or picturesque. Literature, like life itself, is an affair partly of serious hard work and partly of excitement and amusement, of fine days and rainy days, headaches and high spirits, and must be faced with sobriety and seriousness accordingly. The "great passages " which fill the fancy and stir the blood, only come now and then in the best writers ; and though the deepest and highest are also the most readable authors, in the long-run, still we must discard the notion that any of them are to be approached in a mere spirit of levity. Few, we dare say, can honestly assert with Horner

(in his " Diary"), that after a good spell of metaphysics, they " take up Livy to refresh themselves;" and it would be better never to open such an author at all than to pretend to enjoy him in this way. But still there is a medium in things. The real Waterloo was not Astley's Waterloo; and he who would know anything well must spend long days in labours not much less severe or more amusing than the work of a bricklayer.

The way, as we think, of approaching the study of history with the greatest certainty of catching its real spirit (and this is the interesting way, too, of reading), is to enter into each epoch, making up your mind to look at it, for the time, from its own point of view. They were not lay-figures, our ancestors — engaged in manufacturing results for heavy gentlemen to lecture upon, but real men of flesh and blood, like ourselves, in whom (however indistinctly) the germs of all that we have become are to be seen. Be careful, therefore, not to trust to " philosophical historians " only, as they are called; for, first, they differ amoDgst themselves so seriously, that you will not know which to believe, and also, you can only get faint notions of the past out of them. The evil of reading about past times instead of in past times is seen every day in conversation, where you will find people holding forth " views " who have very vague notions of the facts on which they are formed. These views they get at second-hand, and the very air of completeness about them is misleading. There is nothing for it, to correct this, but the study of events in their original sources, which, even done on a slight scale, is more instructive than the study of many a pretentious history, assuming to show how and why the events happened, and (more presumptuously) labelling the actors in these events as decidedly as one hangs round decanters such labels as "port" and " sherry." Is it so easy to understand character ? Do you find it so in the case of living persons? Confess that history has seemed to you dull reading, chiefly from the ponderous reflections of many of its writers, who tell us that the "tendency" of the age was so-and-so — that such-and-such a king had

" firmness without temerity " — " modesty without bashfulness " — and " decision without rigour," &c. If our historians are now acquiring a greater reality, more human sympathy, and more dramatic force, it is chiefly because, since the great French revolution, Europe has had a succession of mighty events and memorable persons, and our historians have felt that kind of stir of which history is the record. The reader may not have engaged in political excitement or served a campaign, yet may still be able to realise to himself that the men who in all ages have done such things have been men with pluck, and heart, and fancy, about them, and have deserved a better fate than to be preached over in a kind of historical funeral sermons by bores.

Now-a-days, the " original sources " have become more accessible than they were. Translations of many of the old monkish chroniclers have been published in cheap, or tolerably cheap, issues — accessible to people who could not have ventured on the obscure original Latin text of the old folios ; the knowledge of which, however, is indispensable to historians and critics. The chief interest of these writers just is, that in their simplicity they never ventured on the " philosophy " of events at all, but narrated them as simply as they received them from the knights, barons, or priests who (staying at the monasteries for a day or two) told them over the fire. They did not suppose that there was anything in history more " dignified" than life itself, and therefore they give us anecdotes and sayings which Mr. Carlyle's friend, Dr. Dryasdust, would not introduce without an apology. But then it is just these apparently small things which constitute the very life of history, and the popular notions, even now, of old half-forgotten personages are generally formed in such anecdotes, &c, which have been transmitted from the old chroniclers from hand to hand. With a chronicler you form a kind of personal acquaintance. When he tells you (as Ordericus Vitalis does) that it is now getting cold, that winter is coming on, and that he means to postpone continuing his history till next spring, it is impossible not to feel that such, simplicity is a kind of guarantee for the genuineness of other parts of the book. And as for the absurd or legendary portions of such books, your own sense is a quite sufficient protection against credulity about them. You are sure not to believe Matthew of Westminster very literally, when he tells you that Kollo was descended' from Japhet through Magog ; nor does that the least affect his veracity when he informs us that on Hollo's besieging Chartres, the people beld out over the wall against him the sacred chemise of the Virgin, at which the old Norwegian heathen u laughed." Yet that trifling story is worth a volume of prosing about the superstitions of the " Middle Ages " and the savageness of the " Danes."

Take an instance or two (after our precedent in Chapter First) of the application of the doctrine we are now urging. The other day, a grave historical writer — -a doctor, too — had occasion to mention those Danish, incursions, which in the ninth and tenth centuries vexed England and France, and, in their consequences, profoundly affected the history of both countries. How did the excellent man put the fact ? " The Scandinavians" says he, u frequently disturbed the public tranquillity of all Britain" What a picture of that fierce old barbarous life! The chronicles bring it before you bodily. The wild sea-kings landing in their boats ; the monks sinking the gold plate belonging to the altar in the well of the convent for safety ; monasteries blazing ; orchards torn up ; and so on. How would you like contemporary history told in this doctor's way ? for instance, the Crimean "War celebrated in such a style ?

Or take the case of the history of Oliver Cromwell. His character was not understood till his " Letters and Speeches" were fairly dug out, put in order, and studied for their own sake as the real sources of the story of his life. The old theories were then knocked to bits, and now those who will not accept him as a great Puritan hero, honest from the beginning, are, at least, compelled to form new theories. Nobody calls him a mere hypocrite ; nobody calls him a mere fanatic. Those who do not like him have to spin out a new philosophy — weaving the hypocrisy theory and the honest theory together somehow — and making what they can out of it. This should be a warning to us not to form a positive and final opinion of any man in history till we have examined him, as near as we can get, at first hand. A person who decides on great characters without such examination is a mere parrot — a pretender. When he rounds off great generalisations — shying, meanwhile, all personal detail — it is almost invariably safe to bawl out " Pinnock ! " Indeed, we trust that you will be some considerable time before you make decisions upon anything. We assume that some time will be required, in fact, before you are fit for it ; and generally speaking, you will learn the faster for not talking about subjects of which you are only learning the elements-.

Well, then, assuming that you incline to seek " original sources " as much as possible, we will further show how such a resolution ought to be beneficial. It will especially aid in placing a student in those times which he is studying by inducing him to catch (as before advised) something of their own spirit and own point of view. The Abbe Hue learned China by learning Chinese, dressing like a native, and eating and drinking like one. Try a little of this plan with a period ; your own position as a modern is quite sufficient ballast to keep you from soaring too high in imitation of a past age. Try and feel why and how such a man came to act in such and such a way, and whether you would not have acted similarly in the same position. The result will probably strike you that every age has a standard of conduct by which it is fair to try its own men. And hence the absurdity of measuring men or institutions in one age by the standard of another. Monks would be a nuisance in England now, without doubt ; but there was a time * when a monastery was the focus of whatever civilisation there was in the country. From it proceeded horticulture and agriculture, fishing, a gleam or two of literature, some leech-craft, some encouragement of art. Forests to the extent which they once occupied would be great inflictions — especially with their stringent game laws — nowa-days. But when people built almost everything of wood, and fed great herds of swine, and had no coal, and when game was a staple article of food, and not (as with us) a luxury only, it was a very different story. The hunting then, too, was partly for necessity, but also it was an exercise absolutely necessary to keep men in fit order for war. When things are studied in their connection in this way, they become more intelligible. A tournament seems a singular amusement, but it was partly at tournaments that we learned to ride down the French at Cressy and Agincourt. Long before those ages, our Danish ancestors pursued " piracy." But it does not follow that an old viking was the same kind of man as a nautical Bill Sykes of our age. Havelock would have been a "pirate" in the ninth century, while Bill might equally have been hanged for vulgar robbery. The explanation is, that piracy was their war : but by using the names of things without attention to the history of language, we con-

d 2 fuse and misunderstand the characters of periods. For example, let us suppose that we begin to discuss the Druids. When we read of their superstitions, and sway over the Celtic peoples, we naturally feel an extreme satisfaction that Britain has outlived such a state of religious organisation. But it by no means follows that the Druids were as great scoundrels as a set of men would be who should recommend Druidism now; or as the Mormon elders are, who have access to a higher morality than they preach. An age, in fact, ought to be studied like a phase in any growth, whether of an animal or a tree ; the ages have each their own mark, indeed, like the rings on an old tree. And the way to learn them distinctly is to learn them both at first hand, and with a certain sympathy. When a man hastily stigmatises an age as "dark," and leaves it, he acts unwisely. A wise man waits patiently, and strikes a light.

With these preliminary warnings as to how the study of history should be approached, which, also, will be further illustrated by-and-by, we come to the second topic prescribed above for this chapter — a review of some of our best historians.

Probably our readers will recollect that the question, how we are provided with historians ? was opened some years ago by Earl Russell, and led to a good deal of discussion. It was then decided pretty generally, that Hume still remained our foremost man ; and that by persons who well knew, and openly recognised, Hume's deficiencies. Our earliest task, therefore, will be to offer some criticisms on Hume's History of England.

And, first of all, we do not wonder at this supremacy of David Hume. He was, as nobody doubts, a great thinker — a man who had read and thought for many years before he began his history at all ; and it is equally certain that he writes a fine style — lucid, flowing, stately, and comprehensive. And Hume has a distinct view. His history is a whole. He everywhere traces the laws which were working under the surface of the events he narrates ; and when we remember his long habits of reflection on the principles of human nature and human character, it would be absurd not to acknowledge that his insight is profound. Anybody, therefore, reading Hume, finds a perfectly intelligible theory of English history communicated to him in a very charming and impressive form. Nothing, it is obvious, can supersede this — as a work of Art — except a greater work of Art. But though it is easy to show that Hume was, in certain parts of his book, wrong and mistaken, it is quite a different thing to write a greater history than Hume did. He was a very great man — and unfortunately our history is not often written by very great men. So that Hume will only be permanently superseded when we get somebody who is as great as Hume in all respects, and knows the history of England much better. There stands his history, complete in itself, like a marble temple. One man finds fault with one part, one with another, but nobody has yet built so noble a building for the same purposes.

Accordingly, there is nothing for it, but to remember what Hume's faults were; and when one reads him to read other writers, for the sake of the advantages they may have over him. What, then, were his faults ?

With all his greatness and clearness of intelligence there was a defect in Hume, vitally serious as a historian. He lacked sympathy. With some of the most important manifestations of human nature and human character he had no feeling in common. Long before he undertook history, he had, in his capacity of philosopher, formed for himself a system of thinking, which had the effect of fortifying impregnably his natural want of the sympathy of which we speak. The religious spirit, for instance, he regarded with a kind of pity, at the best ; and, in certain combinations, with profound contempt. This at once shut him out from feeling with, or even understanding, some of the most important men and movements of modern times. The force exerted by religion he was sensible of externally — as a scientific man whose business it was to calculate forces. But that was all. He did not love it ; and hence he was impressed, not so much by its good as by its bad side. All early ages were to him mere scenes of darkness and turmoil, when the real gods of his idolatry — philosophy and letters — were unknown. He applied the standard of the accomplished and luxurious eighteenth century to every other period, and never could feel for an age when there were no quartos published, no academies, no pleasant little free-thinking suppers, no snug " Advocate's Libraries " to sprawl in, with books lying round you on the floor. It was a kind of good-humoured narrowness, a philosophic bigotry, Hume's way of looking at things. Not that there was anything ungenerous about it. Personally, he was a most agreeable, benevolent, homely philosopher, rather fat, fond of a game of backgammon or a glass of port ; and would no more have persecuted anybody for his opinions than he would have turned cannibal. Indeed, his History of England is as much a record of progress, and a canonisation of progress, as the sturdiest Radical could require. But then it was from his peculiar standing-point that he regarded progress. He was glad that the feudal times had passed away, and a baron in chain-mail was a figure whom he loved not very much more (except for his own descent from such barons) than does Mr. Bright. Yet, his real creed was in a kind of intellectual aristocracy, at least as exclusive as any kind that ever breathed. For the vast, aspiring, uncultivated masses — as far, at least, as their aspirations for power went — he had no sympathy whatever. Had he lived to see the French revolution, he would infallibly have been against it as decidedly as Gibbon was ; while, from the half-indiiferent way in which he speaks of Shakspeare, it is doubtful whether he would have cared for the literary revival of Wordsworth, Scott, and Byron at all.

It is commonly said that he was a Tory ; and that his history favours the Tory view of the civil war, is certain. Old Johnson would not allow Hume any merit for his Toryism. " Sir," said he, "he was a Tory by chance." This is partly true. He was not a Tory from Johnson's own point of view, while for the " right divine " of the older school of Tories he had a supreme disdain.

The explanation of his Toryism, is, that if there was anything in the world which he despised heartily in his capacity of a philosopher, it was a fanatic. Now in the civil war, what Hume called the fanatics (and also the real fanatics) were against the king. He looked on the whole tribe as noisy unphilosophical persons, and this coloured his view of the entire movement of their age. He knew that Charles was an accomplished gentleman, whose religion never got the upper hand of his common sense ; and he also knew that the Puritans were in the habit of quoting the book of Revelations, which he probably ranked below the Koran. Accordingly, he was led insensibly to scrutinise the Puritan proceedings with great severity, the result of which is that leaning to the Cavalier side which places his history with " Toryism." But in fact, the real key to his political opinions is to be found in his general philosophy, and not in any decided political bent. He is for King Charles in narrating the civil war, but really that is all in which his Toryism consists. He approved the revolution settlement, and he cherished no more regard for the Pretender than any moderate Whig. Probably as a gentleman of a Jacobite county (Berwickshire), he may have had a little more sentiment on such subjects than a gentleman of Middlesex. Generally, however, no great writer ever had less sentiment of any kind ; a fact which squares with all that we have already remarked of the character of his mind.

Accordingly, his great history (for such, after all, Hume's History is) must be constantly read with a tacit reference to the point of view of the historian, as we have endeavoured to explain it. He is unconsciously unfair to all the earlier ages and more original men of the centuries which he reviews — especially to the heroic, martyrlike, or saint-like men, for whose sublime selfdevotion there was no place in the clear cold icepalace of his philosophy. This is his cardinal fault. And, as is always the case, the defects of his nature are seen in their influence on his style. It wants depth of music, picture, passion, and (speaking generally) grandeur. It raises no vivid emotion, nor haunts the memory with the echo of its greatness, like the roll of sea-waves. But it is translucently clear and fine j and in certain touches of a negligent dignity, it is even fascinating. Perhaps the best part of it, in a literary point of view, is the narrative of the campaigns in our Civil War, which is singularly comprehensive and perspicuous ; and the little isolated remarks on character and human nature are everywhere profound. There is an epigram in Macaulay which has been much admired, where he says that the Puritans were opposed to bearbaiting, not from sympathy with the bear, but from hatred of the sport. This remark (less neatly put) is in Hume. Sometimes, the philosopher has a brisk freak of real humour; as, indeed, in private life he frequently showed it. For instance, when speaking of the blasphemous ride of Naylor (during the Commonwealth times) into Bristol, in imitation of Christ's entry into Jerusalem, he tells us that Naylor rode on a horse — from the difficulty, no doubt, in that city, of finding an ass. This is scarcely becoming what is (often absurdly) called the " dignity of history." But the truth is, that Hume (who was a younger son) had once been placed in a commercial house in Bristol, and looked back with no great satisfaction to that period of his life.

We have not yet had a work fairly doing justice to the question of the degree to which Hume has, through carelessness or otherwise, mistaken or misrepresented historical events. It is obvious that few are capable of dealing with such a subject in detail, and we would rather see you run the risk of blundering with a great writer than making blunders in hasty attempts to put him right. It has been thought that his studies for some portions of the book (he wrote backwards,, be it observed — the Stuart reigns before the Plantagenet reigns, and so on) — were rather lazily conducted. He was somewhat of a gourmand, and very possibly a little lazy, as he got up in life, and may have been content with a passage in Carte, when he ought to have examined three or four of the old chroniclers instead. We say that he may have laid himself open to this charge, though such an opinion ought to be expressed modestly: and though every competent reader of his " Essays " sees that he must have studied very hard at one period of his life.

Any way, it is certain that the time for taking one's knowledge of English history from Hume alone is — if it ever existed — now gone by. His influence on small historians has been bad, by encouraging a sham-philosophical way of writing history — against which we have entered our protest above. And, though everybody must read him, and read him more than once, there are other and later historians whom we recommend to your general perusal ; and that before you commence the study by groups and epochs, which we shall presently expound in detail.

We have said already, that in freshly opening on any branch of reading, you should make yourself acquainted with what your best contemporaries have written on it, they having been the latest investigators of the whole subject, under the influence of that " spirit of the age," from the operation of which none of us are free. We shall, therefore, recommend the student of English history to acquire some knowledge of what has been written on his subject by such men as Mackintosh, Hallam, Carlyle, Macaulay, and others to be named — partly before entering on " original sources," and partly concurrently with the study of these. We gave Hume precedence for the sake of his great name and influence, and endeavoured to familiarise our readers with his point of view. This same office we shall endeavour to discharge with regard to other historical writers in the next chapter.