Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/455

 obtained its most distinguished editor. In 1862 he was a candidate for the Chichele professorship of modern history at Oxford, but the electors preferred Montagu Burrows [q. v. Suppl. II]. In 1863 he was a candidate for the professorship of ecclesiastical history, when Walter Waddington Shirley [q. v.] was chosen. In 1866 he sought to become principal librarian of the British Museum, but the trustees appointed John Winter Jones [q. v.]. Though sometimes rather restive, he continued steadily at his work. In 1864-5 the two volumes of the 'Chronicles and Memorials of Richard I,' edited for the Master of the Rolls, showed that he was a consummate editor and a true historian. Yet when Goldwin Smith [q. v. Suppl. II] resigned the regius professorship of history at Oxford, he was too discouraged to avow himself a candidate. 'I am not,' he wrote to Freeman, 'going to stand for any more things. If I am not worth looking up, I am not ambitious enough to like to be beaten!' (, p. 102). However, Lord Derby ascertained from Longley that Stubbs would accept the post, and made him an offer on 2 Aug. 1866, which was joyfully accepted. Before the end of the year Stubbs left Navestock for Oxford, which remained his home until 1884. After 1870 he lived at Kettel Hall, a roomy and interesting old house in Broad Street, which belonged to Trinity College, and is now part of the college buildings. He was the first regius professor to be an ex-officio fellow of Oriel College.

On 7 Feb. 1867 Stubbs introduced himself in his inaugural lecture, 'not as a philosopher, nor as a politician, but as a worker at history,' and anticipated 'the prospect of being instrumental, and able to assist in the founding of an historical school in England.' He soon, however, found that there were great difficulties in his path in Oxford itself. He took immense pains in preparing his lectures. He not only set before his pupils a great deal of the best that he afterwards published in his books, but put together elaborate courses on mediaeval German history and foreign history from the Reformation to the Treaty of Westphalia. In later years he sometimes took his 'Select Charters' as a text-book, and made them the starting-point of illuminative, informal talks on mediæval constitutional history. He was compelled by statute to produce, as he said, 'something twice a year which might attract an idle audience without seeming to trifle with a deeply loved study.' This was the only side of his professorial work that he actively disliked, yet the only lectures which he himself thought fit to publish were some of these popular discourses contained in the 'Seventeen lectures on the study of mediæval and modern history and kindred subjects' which he issued in 1886 (3rd edit., with additions, 1900), soon after he resigned the professorship. After his death four volumes of his more formal lectures were published. These were 'Lectures on European History' (1904), 'Lectures on Early English History' (1906), 'Germany in the Early Middle Ages, 476–1250' (1908), 'Germany in the Later Middle Ages, 1250–1500' (1908). The editing of these volumes is perfunctory, and the attempt made in the English volume to weave together lectures delivered at various times and to various audiences is not successful.

Stubbs's lectures never attracted a large audience. During his professorship the number of undergraduates who read for honours in the school of modern history enormously increased, but his hearers, if anything, diminished in numbers. Between 1869 and 1874 arose an organised system of 'combined lectures,' largely the work of his friend Mandell Creighton [q. v. Suppl. I], which satisfied the wants of those who read history for examinations, and there were few who required what he had to give. Even Creighton 'convinced himself that the only real function which remains for professors to accomphsh is that of research' (Life of Mandell Creighton, i. 62). This doctrine Stubbs could not accept. In after years he described rather bitterly how he 'revolted against the treatment which he had to undergo,' and that after 1874 he had 'scarcely a good class or any of the better men,' and that 'the historical teaching of history has been practically left out in favour of the class-getting system of training' (, pp. 264, 270). In the end he renounced the idea, if he had ever entertained it, of organising a school of history such as had been set up by his colleagues in Germany. He refused to impose on others the fetters of an organisation which he himself resented. Closely associated with the strongest school of conservatism in all other matters, he had no fellow-workers in carrying out ideals that would have involved a radical recasting of the prevailing methods of historical teaching. He disliked controversy, and always remained friendly with the tutors.