made a serious subject. Remote history he could regard with respect, for the reader of Grote or of Stubbs is conscious of some healthy tension of the mind; but who is the better for floating at ease down those delightful smooth narrations in which recent history is recorded, not for students at all, but for the general public, which must on no account be fatigued? How can you put into the hands of any student the urbane pages of Lord Stanhope, or the inexhaustible verbiage of Alison? As a practical man, our head-master contented himself with noting the fact, and did not trouble himself with the explanation of it. And so he frankly blurted out what many people-perhaps most peoplesecretly think, that the difference is not in the books, but that some change has taken place in human affairs, so that there is no longer any history in the old sense of the word.

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What a singular illusion is this which possesses the popular mind on the subject, for example, of English history! As a teacher I have occasion continually to remark it. About the time of the accession of the House of Brunswick a change is supposed to have passed over affairs. kind of winding-up took place, it is thought; all questions were settled, and history came to an end. Life settled down into uniform, comfortable prose; and from that time, though there is still politics such as one reads in the newspapers, there is no more history. There are indeed certain occurrences, events which it is useful to know, nothing grand and classical-nothing the knowledge of which is learning, the acquiring of which is education. Such I find to be the prevalent view, and the effect of it is that the whole modern period is in the general mind a dark age, a subject almost entirely unknown. How mischievous and contemptible this ignorance is I do not here pause to consider; it is as contemptible as the misconception which causes it. But both alike are inevitable so long as these modern periods are not recognised in the organisation

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of study, so long as they are abandoned to mere popular literature.

In the rage for popularising knowledge it seems really to be forgotten that science is essentially difficultsometimes very difficult indeed. There are indeed two kinds of books which are radically different, and both in objects and character as wide asunder as the poles. There is literature pure and simple of all varieties, from the most trivial story up to the grandest and profoundest poem. But wholly apart from this is the literature of science, of which a great part is never called by the name of literature, though it includes some of the greatest books in the world. When we speak for instance of the literature of our country, who thinks of including in it Newton's Principia? "The object of a book "-I saw this aphorism in the preface to a charming volume of travels" the object of a book is to amuse." Just so; and does it not follow from this that the Principia is one of the worst books ever written? There are then two sorts of books; and corresponding to these, there are two distinct publics-one large and general, the other small and select; and the distinction is so radical, that to the large public books written for the smaller public are as though they did not exist. Books such as the Principia are to the general reader, and even to the elegant scholar, absolutely sealed; he does not think of them as books, and of many of the best of them he would not read a line and could not understand a page. Yet these are the books-these biblia abiblia, as Charles Lamb saysby which science is advanced and the sum of human knowledge increased. It is rarely possible-nay, in some departments it is quite impossible-that a book scientifically important should be at the same time generally interesting; though, no doubt, when a discovery is once made, or a theory elaborated, it may often be explained in a popular way to the general public. Hence arises the necessity of that organisation of study; from the loose

democracy of readers who read only for amusement or excitement appeal must be made to the aristocracy of students, to those who make a business of knowledge, and have patience to master what is difficult, and to give attention to tedious details.

Imagine what would be the condition of one of the recognised subjects of serious study if this organisation were wanting. Picture the mathematician or physiologist condemned to lay his researches directly before the general public, his books placed in competition with the last new novel, and judged by precisely the same standard. What would he answer, even were he Newton himself, to an indignant public asking whether he calls that amusing; whether they are expected in their few hours of leisure to gnaw dry bones of that sort? Would not the Principia itself be pronounced, as, in fact, the poet Gray does pronounce a work of D'Alembert's, "dry as a bone, hard as a stone, and cold as a cucumber?" At any rate, we may be sure that the public would most unanimously pass Newton by; they would prefer some writer who should explain the planetary motions in a more genial, a more impressive way, with more eloquence, with more pathos and earnestness, or, as no doubt the phrase would run, with the poetic and sympathetic warmth of true genius! And in that case, what would become of the mathematicians themselves? Derided by the public as pedants and bores, and without any aristocracy of students to appeal to, they would be paralysed. Either they would do nothing, or, as is more likely, a kind of bastard mathematics would spring up, wholly unprogressive, and loitering for ever about the rudiments of the subject, which it would study to make palatable to the public by the relishes so well known to literary

men.

Now, if I say that this is actually the tragi-comical condition in which the whole more modern department of history lies, I shall perhaps be told that there can be no analogy between

a severe abstruse subject like mathematics or physiology and history. The historian, it will be said, is not a philosopher or reasoner, but a narrator. He has only to tell a story, and that being so, what other difference can there be between a bad and a good historian except that the one tells his story in a flat manner, and the other in the other in a brisk, lively, interesting style? Now this, in my opinion, is a fundamental error. In history the story is not an end, but only a means. The historian, I say, is a man of science, and his object, as much as that of the physiologist, is to discover laws, the laws of the great sociological phenomenon called the State. In the present phase of speculation, when we theorise so freely upon human phenomena, why should we think it out of the question that states too, with their growth, phases, disturbances, and revolutions, may yield great discoveries to science? But for my present purpose I need not enter upon this debatable ground. I need not ask you to take any new or unusual view of the object of history, or the function of the historian; for I am well enough satisfied with the present treatment of history in those divisions of it where it is serious, that is, where it is organised. I have no ambition to make historians more scientific than Grote, or more thorough than Mommsen, or more removed from the temptation of popularity than are Waitz or Stubbs. My complaint refers to one part of history only, to that division of it which is most neglected in the organisation of study. I ask why Macaulay is so glaringly unlike Grote, and why Carlyle differs completely both in style and spirit from all the historians I have just named? And I answer my own question by remarking that these historians of the recent centuries write for the loose democracy of general readers, while the others have felt themselves responsible to the aristocracy of students.

It would be quite unreasonable to make it a matter of accusation against the general public that they do not

keep the standard of history high enough. They cannot be expected to do so. It is much that they do read history, and read it with genuine interest; in no other European country, I think, is serious literature relished by so large a number as in England. But a mere public cannot do the work of a university or learned society. A subject like history, which is as difficult and intricate as any science, cannot be followed in its processes by busy people in their few hours of leisure; it is much that they should have intelligent curiosity enough to desire to learn the results of historical investigation. And if the ordinary Frenchman cannot even swallow his daily paper without the relish of a novel or two novels printed in instalments at the bottom of the columns, what wonder if the Englishman, when he attacks large historical volumes which the ordinary Frenchman would never open, expects at least that they shall have something of the style of a feuilleton; if he cannot put up with intricate investigations, bewildering uncertainty, insipid impartiality; if he must have a little excitement, a joke now and then to laugh at, here and there a tender sentimental passage, or gorgeous rolling rhetorical period or fiery rattling invective?

This is a craving which is quite natural, and which ought as far as possible to be satisfied. Popular histories should be written, in which justice should be done to the poetical aspects of the subject. But what if nothing more is done? What if original research stands still, the inquiry into general laws is neglected; what if the subject is stripped of all its difficulty and its seriousness, nay, the mere task of verifying facts scamped, the mere obvious duty of impartiality scorned, in order that the public may be duly supplied with the delightful and glowing narratives in which alone they can take interest? This is what happens. It happens from want of societies such as this. It happens because in the modern department there is absolutely no appeal from the

popular vote. Strange to say, when the subject is modern history there is no select circle which sees with other eyes than the vulgar! Individuals there may be, but they are without influence. In general the reading man is here on the same level with the illiterate crowd. As they are too busy with practical affairs, so he is too busy with the studies he calls serious-that is, Greek sculpture, or Egyptology, or the Bronze Age, or Sanscrit inflections-to give more than a passing glance at modern history; and therefore he too must have it served up to him hot and highly sauced. He too has here no time to discriminate or judge; he too on this subject is one of the vulgar!

In proof of this, consider in what estimation the original investigator in this department is held. In most departments indeed pure investigation is appreciated somewhat inadequately. It does not easily attract the public unless there is some literary or rhetorical skill to commend it. We at Cambridge felt this sadly the other day when we stood near the coffin of Clerk Maxwell. The public was nothing to him, and he accordingly was nothing to the public. But in departments which are properly organised, where the aristocracy of students is in its place, such popular injustice is redressed. By the side of the popular judgment there is a better judgment, which is not popular, resisting and gradually overcoming the mistake. By this means the real investigator and discoverer gets always a part and sometimes the whole of his rights. At worst there is no danger of the mere popular expositor intercepting all the credit and standing before the public as the sole representative of the science, or as if he alone had discovered the truths he expounds.

And so too in those departments of history which are properly organised. In ancient and medieval history we pay due respect to many men who have been simply investigators, and have never courted the applause of the public. Who does not honour the

names of Bentley, Wolf, Niebuhr, and the others who laid the foundation

of an exact knowledge of ancient history in treatises and investigations which for the most part are not easy reading, and in some cases are almost unreadable? We may not intend to read these treatises ourselves; for our own purposes we may greatly prefer some bright popular summary of results, but we do not on that account underrate the great historical critics, or dream of ranking the popular wordpainters above them. The Middle Ages are practically somewhat more remote from us; still here too we have a real respect for learning and profound research. We may at times say half in joke that after all Sir Walter Scott is the best historian of the Middle Ages; nevertheless when Waitz traces the history of German institutions, or John Allen the growth of the royal prerogative in England, we listen with hearty respect, we do not interrupt the investigator and tell him he is a bore. But we behave quite differently when the subject is some part of recent history. Here we can appreciate only the lively popular narrative, interesting to every one alike, and seem incapable of imagining that this subject too may be treated in another way which, though less popular, is intrinsically better and higher. For this subject has no organised body of students, and therefore we cannot conceive how students might regard it. In this department we can imagine only two sorts of writer, the dull writer, and the lively picturesque writer. The third class, that which in other periods ranks highest, the investigator and critic, who does not write for the people at all but for science, whose knowledge is thorough and trustworthy, whose imagination does not waste itself in idle word-painting, but makes novel and fruitful combinations, whose judgment is calm and impartial, and whose method is rigorous, this class, represented in different degrees by the Niebuhrs, Thirlwalls, and Grotes, is not recognised to exist for the modern No. 265.-VOL. XLV.

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periods. I believe, for my part, that no subject at this time affords wider scope for minds of that class, if we had them, than just these modern periods. I believe that the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Age, and all the great transition of recent times, is waiting to be investigated and judged in that high scientific way by writers who shall be neither romancers nor preachers, but investigators, critics, and philosophers. But the public has no conception of such a thing. As there are no students here to keep them right they simply speak out their own candid opinion, which is that the man who cannot or will not write just the bright, lively, jolly books which make history entertaining to them is a bore, and probably fool. In this department you may observe that the investigator commonly goes by the name of Dryasdust. He is rarely spoken of without contempt, and is indeed supposed to be little better than an idiot. This merely because he writes books which cannot be read in the easychair or in the railway-carriage! They are often bulky; well! in other departments we admire the thoroughness and laboriousness indicated by such bulky works. When we see the huge collections of the Benedictines or of Muratori, the huge dictionary of Forcellini, we feel nothing but admiration; we sigh perhaps, and say, "Ah! there were giants in those days!" But when the topic is recent history we think books cannot be too short. That we should think this is perhaps not so unnatural, but we say it out too with an unhesitating frankness which betrays that it has never once occurred to us to think of the subject as serious! We insist too that the historian must be careful what he inserts in that narrative of his. At the best we can scarcely tolerate him, and we do not at all intend that he shall take liberties. We have quite enough of politics in our daily paper; there must be as little as possible of that kind in his book. We cannot put up with anything intricate or puzzling; when we

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take up a book we expect to be entertained. But we are ready to admit that if the historian have true genius he will discover in the mass of rubbish which the past has left behind it here and there a pearl-that is, some incidents fit for a romance, some characters fit for a novel or a play. These it will be his business to select and deck out in proper costume; then if he has great skill and good fortune he may produce a story which shall be almost as well worth reading as a Waverley novel, or a humorous romance by Jean Paul.

Does it strike you that I am slipping into broad farce? I really think I exaggerate nothing. In like manner there might arise in astronomy a writer of "true genius" who should have the idea of suppressing all tiresome calculations and putting in place of them gorgeous pictures of the starry heaven of the tropics; or in botany we might omit all pedantic classifications and technical nomenclature while we revelled in description of the beauty of flowers and the loves of the plants. In this way we might popularise science! Why do not we do so? I suppose because we should destroy science at the same time. It unfortunately happens that the essence of astronomy and botany lies in those calculations and classifications which are so tedious. It unfortunately happens that when science is made thus delightfully easy it is also made useless, and that precisely when it ceases to fatigue the mind it ceases to improve and educate the mind. And thus our head-master could find nothing worth setting before his pupils in those delightful pages of modern history of modern history which had been written on this principle, and was obliged to go back to the Middle Ages, which had been treated in the other method, to find something reasonably solid and difficult. though the blunder is ludicrous it is not at all surprising. The explanation is that in those other departments the students, the specialists, are at hand to remind us of the more serious aspect of the subject, while in modern

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history there are no students and no specialists. Hence it is that the idea of what modern history should be is formed without assistance by those who start from the axiom that "the object of a book is to amuse." Naturally these cannot judge of the intrinsic value of a book of learning; on that point only specialists can speak; they can only say whether it is dull or lively. Accordingly, in the absence of specialists, all writers become alike to them except in the article of liveliness. And if you watch the tone of general conversation on this subject you will perceive with what quaint candour in judging of new books the question of their truth or falsehood is pushed on one side, and nothing but their readableness taken into account. "I was quite disappointed in that book," says one, "for I was told it was of first-rate infallible authority; but not at all. All I can say is, I found it so dull that I could not read fifty pages." "That book," says another, "

gave me quite a surprise. I had been warned against it as utterly untrustworthy and unsound, and did not intend to read it, but taking it up by accident I found it most delightful, really quite like a romance, and now I recommend it to every one I meet."

I trust I have sufficiently shown that a reform is needed. Now let me speak of the importance and urgent need of such a reform. What consequences follow from the abandonment of modern history to second-rate, half-serious writers? What consequences would follow if we placed it in the hands of first-rate investigators and critics? This is as much as to ask whether history is a purely speculative, curious pursuit, or whether it has a practical bearing. Now it is one result of our neglect of all recent periods in historical study that we entirely misconceive and underrate the uses of history. We regard it only as a delightful and liberal pursuit, particularly beneficial to the young because it kindles the imagination and puts before them great examples. That it is directly useful few of us, I