Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 4.djvu/287

Rh the fourth in 1781, and the fifth in 1785. The method of treating the subject was original and bold, and one the assumption of which left the author no excuse for ignorance on any subject which had the slightest connexion with the customs, intellects, and history of our forefathers, or the constitution of the kingdom. The subject was in the first place divided into periods, which were considered separately, each period occupying a volume. The volume was divided into seven chapters, each containing a distinct subject, linked to the corresponding subject in the next volume by continuance of narrative, and to the other chapters of the same volume by identity of the period discussed. The subjects thus separated were 1st, The simple narrative of the civil and military transactions of the country 2d, The ecclesiastical history 3d, The information which is generally called constitutional, narrating and accounting for the rise of the peculiarities in the form of government, the laws, and the courts of justice 4th, The state of learning, or rather the state of literature which may be called purely scholastic, excluding the fine arts, and constitutional and political information 5th, The history and state of arts and manufactures 6th, A history of commerce, including the state of shipping, coin, and the prices of commodities ; and lastly, The history of the manners, customs, amusements, and costumes of the people. The writer of a book on any subject on which he is well informed, will generally choose that manner of explaining his ideas best suited to his information and comprehension. It may be questioned whether the plan pursued by Henry was adapted for the highest class of historical composition, and if the other great historians who flourished along with him, would have improved their works by following his complicated and elaborate system. It is true that mere narrative, uninterwoven with reflection, and such information as allows us to look into the hearts of the actors, is a gift entirely divested of the qualities which make it useful ; but there are various means of qualifying the narrative some have given their constitutional information in notes, or detached passages ; others have woven it beautifully into the narrative, and presenting us with the full picture of the times broadly and truly coloured, have prevented the mind from distracting itself by searching for the motives of actions through bare narrative in one part of the work, and a variety of influencing motives to be found scattered through another. The plan, which we may say was invented by Dr Henry, has only been once imitated, (unless it can be said that the acute and laborious Hallam has partly followed his arrangement.) The imitator was a Scotsman, the subject he encountered still more extensive than that of Henry, and the ignorance the author displayed in some of its minute branches excited ridicule. This is an instance of the chief danger of the system. The acquisition of a sufficient amount of information, and regularity in the arrangement, are the matters most to be attended to ; Henry's good sense taught him the latter, his perseverance accomplished the former, and the author made a complete and useful work, inferior, certainly, as a great literary production, to the works of those more gifted historians who mingled reflection with the current of their narrative, but better suited to an intellect which did not soar above the trammels of such a division of subject, and which might have fallen into confusion without them.

The circumstances of the first appearance of the earlier volumes of this useful book are interesting to the world, from their having raised against the author a storm of hostility and deadly animosity almost unmatched in the annals of literary warfare. The chief persecutor, and grand master of this inquisition on reputation, was the irascible Dr Gilbert Stuart. The cause of his animosity against a worthy and inoffensive man, can only be accounted for by those whose penetration may find its way to the depths of literary jealousy.