Critics entitled to respect, while estimating Gardiner's accuracy and impartiality at their real value, complained of the defects of his exposition. His narrative, they said, had neither the large, easy flow of Gibbon's, nor the rapid march of Macaulay's. It was too much broken by episodes and digressions, and its progress was slow and circuitous. The arrangement also was faulty, and some events of subordinate importance were treated too fully. Gardiner admitted the truth of this last criticism. 'I have become aware' (he said in 1883) of a certain want of artistic proportion in the book as a whole, and can perceive that some incidents have been treated of at a greater length than they deserve.' The defect was owing rather to the inherent difficulties of Gardiner's task than to the fact that he was himself lacking in a sense of proportion. In his smaller books, such as the two little volumes on the Thirty Years' War and the Puritan Revolution, which he contributed to the Epochs of Modern History,' the subordination of the parts to the whole is admirably maintained. But it was more difficult for him to maintain it when he was dealing with events which previous historians had ignored, and with masses of evidence hitherto unknown. He was naturally tempted to state the results of his discoveries in full detail; and there were times when it seemed absolutely necessary to do so. 'This very abundance of information is not without its drawbacks' (he writes in the preface to 'Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage'). 'It has necessitated my going at greater length into many matters than would have been sufficient if I had been traversing a better known period, where a hint would have been enough to call up a more or less complete picture before the reader.' Such difficulties are an inevitable result of the conflict between the requirements of the two functions which the historian has to perform. The scientific side of history demands one thing, the artistic another. Again and again the historian must face the question whether he shall spend his limited space in the statement of that * Preface to the History of England from 1603 to 1642' (ed. 1882-83). which was hitherto unknown or in the recapitulation of that which is known already. Again and again he must decide whether he shall spend his limited time in the search for fresh facts or in the better presentation of the facts he has already accumulated. His choice is determined by his conception of the relative importance of the two duties imposed upon him. A comparison between Gardiner and Macaulay will illustrate the point under discussion. It is a legitimate parallel, for they had at their disposal the same kind of materials, dealt with similar subjects, and treated them upon much the same scale. Both produced their histories at much the same rate. In the fourteen years, from December 1841 to December 1855, Macaulay covered the period from 1685 to 1697, and between about 1860 and 1901 Gardiner carried his narrative from 1603 to 1656. But here the resemblance ends and the contrast begins. Macaulay devoted the greater part of his time and energy to the work of exposition; he wrote and rewrote, arranged and rearranged, until he produced the masterpiece of narrative skill that is one of the glories of English literature. The process was slow and laborious, as it always must be. His biographer aptly quotes the words of Chaucer : "There is na workeman That can both worken wel and hastilie ; But the time was well spent, for nothing but patient and unremitting industry could achieve the end he had in view. 'The materials for an amusing narrative are immense' (wrote Macaulay). I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the table of young ladies.' It would be unfair to interpret a casual expression too literally, but these words do express the fact that the paramount aim of Macaulay was to make his story readable, and that, without neglecting the work of investigation, he subordinated it to that object. Gardiner took the opposite course. The work of investigation absorbed the greater part of his time and energy. His researches were far wider and more prolonged than those of Macaulay, and he weighed the evidence which he collected with greater care. Without neglecting the lucid and orderly statement of his results, he regarded the business of discovering the truth as of paramount importance. He had less time therefore to devote to the turning of his periods, the management of his transitions, and the construction of a perfect narrative. His natural gifts, too, lay in a different direction, and he wisely devoted himself more to the scientific than to the artistic part of the historian's task. He attained his object, and left us the most exact and impartial account which we possess of any period in the annals of the British race. After all, what is the practical value of the truest history to the people for whom it was written? Like other scholars, the historian, labouring in his vocation, cheers himself with the thought that he too does the State some service. Gardiner's own estimate of the political value of history deserves consideration. Its value, he says, is rather indirect than direct. The problems of the present are never quite the same as the problems of the past; the conditions always vary; and historical parallels are mostly political pitfalls. On the other hand, it is impossible to over-estimate the indirect assistance which the historian can give the statesman. Though he cannot advise, he can enlighten both the statesman himself and the people whom the statesman represents. 'If the aims and objects of men at different periods are different, the laws inherent in human society are the same. In the nineteenth, as well as in the seventeenth century, existing evils are slowly felt, and still more slowly remedied. In the nineteenth as well as in the seventeenth century, efforts to discover the true remedy end for a long time in failure, or at least in very partial success; till at last the true remedy appears almost by accident, and takes root because it alone will give relief. He, therefore, who studies the society of the past will be of the greater service to the society of the present in proportion as he leaves it out of account. If the exceptional statesman can get on without much help from the historian, the historian can contribute much to the arousing of a statesmanlike temper in the happily increasing mass of educated persons, without whose support the statesman is powerless. He can teach them to regard society as ever evolving new wants and new diseases, and therefore requiring new remedies. He can teach them the true tolerance of mistakes and follies which is perfectly consistent with an ardent love of truth and wisdom. He can teach them to be hopeful of the future, because the evil of the present evolves a demand for a remedy which sooner or later is discovered by the intelligence of mankind, though it may sometimes happen that the whole existing organisation of society is overthrown in the process. He can teach them also not to be too sanguine of the future, because each remedy brings with it fresh evils which have in their turn to be faced. These, it may be said, are old and commonplace lessons enough. It may be so, but the world has not yet become so wise as to be able to dispense with them.' Such, according to Gardiner, was the kind of instruction which the story of the past gives to those who rightly understand it, and such were the special lessons which his book was designed to convey. He does not confine himself to telling a story in his reflections on men and things a didactic purpose is constantly apparent. The spirit of the great movement which he relates seems to influence its historian. He has the seriousness and enthusiasm of the Puritan, and the same constant preoccupation with the moral aspect of worldly events. Seeking truth as the one thing needful, he disregards the picturesque externals of history, as the Puritan disdained the pomps and the fripperies of life. But his Puritanism is purged of all harshness and narrowness, tempered by the largest knowledge, restrained by sympathy with the faith of others, and softened by charity for men. It is not the militant Puritanism of the Civil Wars. Only that which was best in it has passed into his book, as the best in it passed into the life of the English people after its brief reign ended. History of England from the Accession of James I' (1884), vol. x, preface, p. viii. Art. XI. THE LIBERAL DÉBÂCLE. FOR the second time in sixteen years we seem to be confronted with the disruption of a great historic party. That alone is a remarkable fact, having regard to the strongly cohesive power of old-established political ties, especially among Anglo-Saxon peoples; but that is only half the wonder in the present instance. The other half lies in the fact that the grounds of the split are in essence, and even to a very large extent in form, identical with those which resulted in the great schism of 1886. In the letter to the Times' (February 21st), in which Lord Rosebery announced his definite separation' from Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, he referred to the fact that the Liberal leader in the House of Commons had 'anathematised my declarations on the "clean slate" and Home Rule,' and added, 'it is obvious that our views on the war and its methods are not less discordant.' But, according to Lord Rosebery's own opinion, as expressed in his speech at the City Liberal Club on July 19th, 1901, foreign and Imperial questions had really quite as much to do with the disruption of 1886 as Home Rule had, and even more. The more or the less need not now be considered. The Irish question, of course, seemed to engross men's thoughts at the time; but it may well be that members of the Cabinet, upon whom had fallen the staggering humiliation of the betrayal of Gordon at Khartoum, coupled with the Majuba peace, felt convinced that continued association with the leader of the Liberal party would involve risks of participation in national calamity abroad, as well as at home, which they dared not face. Lord Rosebery himself, not having been in the Cabinet of 1880-85, clung, we gather, to the hope that the flag need not suffer under another Gladstone Government; and it will ever stand to his credit that he justified this hope by his own discharge of the responsibilities of the Foreign Office during the brief life of the Home Rule Ministry of 1886, and again in that which enjoyed office, but not power, as the result of the elections of 1892. To him, as no patriotic Englishman can ever forget, we owe the happy re-establishment of the principle of continuity in Vol. 195.-No. 390. 2 Q |