like Hume, writing in the deistical temper of his own day, labours to make all history servile to the shallow skepticism of the eighteenth century; and though unable to conceal, that Christianity, or rather let me say more precisely, the Church of Christ, is the great distinguishing element of modern history, Hume never spares the pains to tempt the unwary reader to think, with him, that all religious feeling is either fraud or superstition, and that Christian earnestness is no more than a mockery or a delusion. But the dutiful culture of the Imagination, together with that of the practical understanding, saves us from many errors that else are apt to beset us in our narrow-mindedness. The historian, as he goes forth. into the past ages of the world, needs all the comprehensive spirit which the philosophic imagination gives,—the ample feeling with which a true poet, on beholding, in another region of Christendom, religious rites different from the familiar ones of his own land, exclaims

"Where'er we roam-along the brink

Of Rhine, or by the sweeping Po, .
Through Alpine vale or champaign wide,
Whate'er we look on—at our side

Be Charity, to bid us think

And feel if we would know."*

This spirit of capacious charity, which is one of the characteristics of the imaginative mind, brings with it this great gain, that it leads the historian to do justice to the better side of human nature as it is displayed in history. He will habitually seek out all that is good

* Wordsworth's Lines composed in one of the Catholic Cantons. Works, p. 280.

upon

and great in the annals of the world, and thus will feed the genial sense of admiration on which the health of our moral nature so much depends.. It is with admirable feeling that Arnold says, "If an historian be an unbeliever in all heroism-if he be a man who brings every thing down to the level of a common mediocrity, depend it the truth is not found in such a writer.”* The best truth of history, let me add, is last to that censorious, sneering, sarcastic temper, which is its own curse; for it can see only what is selfish, and mean, and vicious. There will, indeed, be found enough of evil passion and guilt upon the pages of history; but when sentence is pronounced, let it be with the tone of solemn judgment, and not of satire.† Clinging to the truth in all that is pure and elevated in our struggling human nature, we may do well to cherish the memory of the heroic deeds, the virtues, the self-devotion, and whatever else has given

Lectures on Modern History, p. 301.

I shall have occasion, at one part of this course, in connection with the career of Henry the Fifth, to see the tone of history alleviated by the inimitable comic element of the character of Falstaff; but, for the most part, we find that the historical drama carries us into the region of lofty passions-that its largest element is that of tragedy that it is by suffering that the characters of men and nations are formed and disciplined—that it is in the school of adversity that high virtues are engendered; for,

"Oh, Life! without thy chequered scene

Of right and wrong, of weal and wo,
Success and failure, could a ground
For magnanimity be found;

For faith, 'mid ruined hopes, serene?
Or whence could virtue flow?"

Wordsworth, p. 280.

H. R.

glory and dignity to the generations of mankind. This is the most permanent and the most precious portion of history, and it is that to which a well-cultivated imagination, and, indeed, the simplest good sense and good feeling, will turn instinctively. Remember how much it is a matter of choice and of habit with us, whether we will look upon things with a good or an evil eye; and remember, too, that the seat of the scoffer is not the seat of wisdom-that truth is vouchsafed to him who seeks it with a generous sympathy and a docile temper, and that it is denied to him who comes with suspicion, and pride, and a spirit of contempt.

Let me give a single illustration, to show how the selfsame occasion may be presented under very different aspects, in one of which there may be present that which disturbs and distracts our impressions of the truth, while in the other the imaginative view may be much more faithful to them. In a passage in his private diary, Sir Walter Scott has expressed an aversion to funerals, because so much of what is seen and heard at them is painfully discordant with the genuine grief, the depth of which can neither be seen nor heard. "I hate funerals," he writes; "there is such a mixture of mummery with real grief-the actual mourner, perhaps, heartbroken, and all the rest making solemn faces, and whispering observations on the weather or public news, and here and there a greedy fellow enjoying the cake and wine. But," he adds, "the funeral at a distance, the few mourners on horseback, with their plaids wrapped around them, the father heading the procession as they enter the river, and pointing out the ford by which his darling is to be carried—none

of the subordinate figures in discord with the general tone of the incident, but seeming just accessories and no more-the distant funeral is affecting."* The first of these scenes Scott saw with the keen, observing eye, with which he studied human nature in its weakness as well as its strength: the other he beheld with a poet's eye; and he gazed on it as it was idealized by the distance and by his own imagination. I ask you which of these views is the true one? It may be answered that each has a truth of its own. Well, then, which more truly expresses the real feeling of the occasion? If the purpose be to show the utter heartlessness of mourning, then Hogarth's picture of a funeral, at once comic and hideous, will best answer the purpose; but then, at best, it is only satire, and we feel the truth of that view which is harmonized by the imagination.†

* Lockhart's Scott, vol. viii. p. 322.

† Hogarth's Pictures, or rather the folio volume of engravings, was one of the picture-books of my boyhood; and now I am not ashamed to record the heresy, that no creation of art is in every way more repulsive to me. The fun is, to my eye, hideous. They may be historical pictures, (so Hazlitt dignifies them,) but they are historical of the most unpicturesque period of modern times-the first quarter or half of the eighteenth century-the early Georgian era. If Hogarth had illustrated such a ghastly book as Lord Hervey's Memoirs, what happy congeniality of art and letter-press it would have been!-and what man or woman of delicacy would care to open the volume!

W. B. R. A friend, to whom I have shown this note, calls my attention to a passage from Goethe, on the same subject:

"The third work formed for itself quite another circle of readers. The interest devoted to Lichtenberg's Hogarth was, in reality, a factitious interest: for how could the German feel any real enjoyment of whims and oddities that rarely occurred in the circumstances of the

The poetic faculty enables the historian or the historical poet to accomplish another important result in our knowledge of historical occurrences and characters. In the preface to the tragedy of "Richelieu," Bulwer speaks of the historic drama as "the concentration of historic events;" and Coleridge has described it as "a collection of events borrowed from history, but connected together, in respect of cause and time, poetically and by dramatic fiction; and thus, while the unity from mere succession may be destroyed, it is supplied by a unity of a higher order, which connects the events by reference to the workers, gives a reason for them in the motives, and presents men in their causative character."* Now, this "unity of a higher order" which Coleridge speaks of, brings to view that moral meaning, which, while it is the chief value of history, is so difficult to discover in the multitude and perplexity of historical events. Facts, which seem to stand wholly apart, are shown to have some moral association: a blessing, which actually followed, perhaps, afar off and obscurely, is brought near to the happy influence which produced it, and retribution comes manifestly to guilt, which brings suffering not only to itself, but to the innocent, according to the dark

simple and pure life of his own countrymen? It was only the tradition, which made current upon the Continent a name glorified by the English-it was only the singularity of being able to possess all of these whimsical representations complete in one body, and the convenient circumstance that there was no need of bringing to the study and admiration of these works any knowledge or feeling of art, but only a bad disposition and contempt for mankind-that favoured, in a very peculiar way, this remarkable success." Goethe's Works, (1840,) vol. xxvii. p. 511. (Annalen, oder Tag-und Jahres-Hefte.)

* Literary Remains. Works, vol. viii. p. 29.