DANIEL.-LINGARD.

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to find out truth, or to get, as Samuel Daniel says, in his History of England, "as neare Truth's likenesse as hee possibly can." Although his style is rigid, dry, and unpleasant, Dr. Lingard possesses calmness, great controversial ability, much more fairness than his opponents credit him with, acute discrimination of character, and much descriptive power. And in addition to all this, like Sharon Turner, he has, beyond Hume, the rare merit of industry, and has gone to original documents and sources of information, so that his work is very valuable. 'But," adds a critic-and we quite agree with the censure-"it is undeniable that he has palliated the atrocious murders of St. Bartholomew, blackened the characters of Cranmer, Anne Boleyn, and Queen Elizabeth, and generally been severe in his judgments, not to say unjust, upon all concerned in the Reformation. The reason is not far to seek he considers the Reformation a folly and a crime, and its authors as blunderers, sinful, or wicked and designing wretches." Nor is Dr. Lingard very fond of the Commonwealth or Parliament; still he gives the great men of the seventeenth century this praise-"They governed only four years; yet under their auspices the conquests of Ireland and Scotland were achieved, and a navy was created the rival of that of Holland, and the terror of the rest of Europe; but there existed an essential error in their form of government. Deliberative assemblies are always slow in their proceedings; yet the pleasure of Parliament, as the supreme power, was to be taken on every subject. To this habit of procrastination was perhaps owing the extinction of its authority. It disappointed the hopes of the country."

How a deliberative assembly could be called slow,

which in four years had conquered and settled two countries, had raised England to be the equal if not the superior of the greatest Power in Europe, and had yet preserved the liberty of the subject, and the freedom of religious opinion, it would perhaps be difficult for even Dr. Lingard to explain. However, there is no doubt that his elaborate "History of England" is a valuable work, displaying great erudition, calm research, and as much fairness as one can reasonably expect.

Mr. Godwin's "History of the Commonwealth of England," published in 1824-27, which is written with great force and power, has too much the spirit of the republican partisan; but it has brought to light certain valuable facts in illustration of one of the most important, if not the most important of periods of English history. Indeed, after the student has thoroughly mastered the "History of England," and checked that history by comparing the opinions of one partisan with those of another, he will do well to devote himself to the study of particular periods, or of particular characters, as his taste may suggest.

In the previous chapter I particularly advised the study of the characters of great men, because those men, by their innate force and character, always mould and form the thoughts of the leading minds in their generation, and that succeeding them. Presuming then that we clearly understand the man, we shall have a great light thrown upon the character of the age in which he lives; it may be that of contrast, it may be that of similarity, but one way or another we shall get that light. It has been said that a very great man has three periods: in the first, he is

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regarded as a rogue or a dupe; in the second, as a martyr; in the third, as a hero. But this is not always true; it is true of those who oppose, but not of those who lead peoples, in their emergencies, and political or social revolutions.

This second way of studying history-that is, taking the period which may be most attractive to the taste of the student-will resolve itself into the study of groups of men and characters, and of political and religious opinion. For both these methods, books of historical biography are not merely useful but essential; and these should be supplemented by public records, documents of the period, county and family histories. Lest the reader should be driven too much a-field, it will be best to point out to him certain books in which he will find almost all that he wants. I will begin with "The History of the Anglo-Saxons," by Sir Francis Palgrave; and "The History of the Anglo-Saxons," by Mr. Sharon Turner, a London solicitor, and the father of the present Rev. Sidney Turner, Inspector of Her Majesty's Reformatories. Mr. Turner has an intricate style, and a certain ambitious pomp and parade, which is sometimes most unsatisfactory; but the early volumes of his "History of England to the Death of Queen Elizabeth," published in six volumes quarto and twelve volumes octavo, are very valuable, and are thoroughly well compiled. Sir Francis Palgrave has also written "The Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth in the Anglo-Saxon Period," which is a truly able work, and which introduces us to the founders of English character, laws, and liberty. Mr. Charles Mills has published a history of an important movement, "The History of Chivalry and the Crusades ;"

and Mr. G. P. R. James, better known as a novelist, has also written a picturesque "History of Chivalry,” a "History of Charlemagne," which may be studied. side by side with the History of England at the same period, and a "History of Richard Coeur-de-lion." Although these last-named works hardly reach, perhaps, the dignity of fine historical productions, there is a realization of the temporal and local truth, a picturesqueness of narrative, a vigour and vividness, which will especially interest the student; nor is Mr. James at all deficient in industry or research. Among picturesque histories may be mentioned Miss Agnes Strickland's "Lives of the Queens of England," and those of her imitator, Mrs. Green. Miss Strickland is picturesque, clear, and always interesting. She has not much mental grasp, and always writes like a woman, which is no more than was to be expected; but she has this merit, that she realizes the home feelings, the costume, and the domestic life of the period. To draw a simile from the stage, she dresses her characters extremely well; and the reader does grasp a certain amount of suggestive information from her pages.

Of a much higher standard, calm and clear, yet brilliant and logical, is Mr. John Forster, the historian of "Statesmen of the Commonwealth," "The Arrest of the Five Members by Charles the First," and various historical and biographical essays, all of which are profound and careful studies, elaborated and most conscientiously finished, so that of Pym, Hampden, Vane, and the great statesmen who surrounded the Protector, one manages to get a very clear and sufficient view, hardly indeed to be obtained elsewhere. But the most valuable contribution of its kind to historical biography

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is "Carlyle's Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, with Elucidations;" a great but fragmentary work, consisting of all the letters recoverable, or, it may be. extant, of the great Protector, with elucidations, as Carlyle modestly calls his valuable notes, which explain and connect these letters. By them we are enabled to view the great man as he lived, thought, and prayed. We find him a thoroughly earnest, unselfish, devout man, living continually, as it were, in the presence of God, with a thorough belief in His personal help, with a tender love for his wife, children, and friends, an honest care for his soldiers, a reverent appreciation of his own work and duty, and a wide and somewhat pitying love for the nation and people under him. Had David Hume seen these letters, it would have been impossible for him to tax Cromwell with hypocrisy ; a fanatic he might have been in Hume's view, but certainly no hypocrite. The value of these personal studies of great men is seen in the repeated attempt, often successful, to rehabilitate, as it is termed, some historical character. One of the earliest of these useful and necessary studies is a view of Richard III. by Horace Walpole, afterwards Lord Orford, in which a great deal is done to remove from Richard “Crookback" the character of an odious and bloodthirsty tyrant, as painted by Shakespeare, who followed Holinshed. Mr. J. A. Froude, an admirable writer and painstaking historian, has proceeded in this way with the character of Henry the Eighth, in his "History of England from the Fall of Wolsey," and afterwards with the history of the reign of Elizabeth. This great queen perhaps loses somewhat of her height in Mr. Froude's pictures, and appears more in the light of a natural,