Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/30

20 20 H ] the drama a few tentative and experimental essays soon led to the master works of ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and Aristo phanes, so a few precursors were sufficient to direct Herodotus to the main outlines of historical composition. By one of those mysterious accidents, not to be accounted for, which produce genius, Herodotus was closely followed by the greatest mind that ever applied itself to history. Thucydides remains the unsurpassed ideal of artistic history. As the famous statue of Polycletus, called the Doryphorus, represented the proportions of the human body in such complete beauty &quot; that it was regarded by the ancient artists as a canon of the rules on this point,&quot; so the history of the Peloponnesian War may serve, as its author seemed to know it would, as a model which all may copy but none may equal. Art, differing from science, allows of something like final perfection. Scientific work, however admirable, is always speedily superseded. Great artistic works remain perfect in their kind, and such was the work of Thucydides. History never deviated from the lines laid down by the Greeks till the advent of the modern school towards the end of the last and the beginning of this century. Between Thucydides and Gibbon there is no change of the ideal plan on which history should be written, though of course there is every degree of success and failure in striving after its realization. A history of history is a desideratum in literature. The merit of such a work, if properly done, would consist, not only in the criticism of particular authors, but in a compari son of their epochs and social surroundings, and a pointing out how these influenced the character and quality of their historical writing. It is, for instance, worthy of notice that history is far more sensitive and dependent on public freedom than either poetry, science, philosophy, or juris prudence. All these have flourished under governments more or less despotic, but history never. Tacitus seems to have felt this in the depth of his heart when he said that he was able to write as he did because of the &quot; rara temporum felicitas ubi sentire qutc velis et qute sentias clicere licet.&quot; Again, certain epochs are favourable to great historians, as periods of war are favourable to great soldiers. Rating the genius of the Greek historians as high as we please, and it is difficult to rate it too high, it is still manifest that they enjoyed exceptional advantages. The political condition of the Greek world in the 4th and 5th centuries B.C. was beyond measure stimulating to men of genuine historical power. That extraordinary collection of small states, full of the most active political life, full of wars, alliances, and brusque revolutions, was a scene of interest, of which no subsequent historian has ever seen the like. In this respect the Greek historians had a privi lege similar to that enjoyed by the Greek sculptors. As the gymnasia displayed the finest type of manly beauty and strength ever seen, so the fervent energy and activity of the Greek states presented in unparalleled variety and fulness the features of political life most capable of inter esting an historical mind. And it is perhaps hardly too much to say that what the pakvstra was to Phidias, that the Peloponnesian War was to Thucydides. Continuing this vein of reflexion, we might remark that it is a noteworthy fact that in history aloue the Romans came nearest to their Greek models. Copyists in every thing else, and inferior copyists, in history they equalled if they did not excel their masters. It is a moot point with many whether Tacitus should not be placed above Thucydides. In any case that steep inferiority which marked Roman imitation of Greek models in every other department was excepted in the case of history. Why was this so 1 Obviously because the Romans possessed a robust national life in many respects more lofty and inspir ing even than that of the Greeks. The genius of individual men was kindled by the propitious milieu. And a dis astrous milieu, injurious to all productions of the mind, is peculiarly fatal to history. The decay of historical writing in the later period of the declining Roman empire is a sufficient proof. Nothing so debased as the Augustan History can be found in any other province of Latin litera ture, and when a man of real power like Ainmianus Marcellinus appears, if we compare him with Claudian in another department, we perceive that the muse of history is more austere than her sisters. The Middle Ages would offer the historian of history ample scope for connecting the quality of historical writing with the social surroundings of the authors. The great monastic houses, such as Malmes- bury, St Albans, Eu, and many more, would be shown to have been such schools of history as they were, for very efficient reasons. The appearance of the modern Herodotus, Froissart, would seem meant expressly to show the union of opportunity and genius needed to produce great historical work. It was no accident which gave us the immortal chronicles. The first instalment of the Hundred Years War between France and England, the grand but abortive outburst of Parisian democracy under Etienne Marcel, the energetic action of the first serious States- General of France these were subjects to arrest a real historical eye, such as Froissart had, in spite of his many shortcomings. The dramatic struggle between feudalism and monarchy in the 15th century found a competent if somewhat rustic Tacitus in Comines, more friendly but on the whole not less severe to his bourgeois Tiberius, Loui;&amp;gt; XL In the stirring times of the 16th century historians abound Italians, Frenchmen, Dutchmen too numerous to mention and too distinguished to be passed over with perfunctory notice here. But how much would an historian of history have to say of Fra Paolo, Davila, De Thou, Grotius, to name only the chief? And then occurs a really surprising phenomenon. History disappears from the con tinent of Europe for a century and a half. Between the Thirty Years War and the Seven Years War the Continent produced no historians whom the world cares to remember, for Me zeray is remembered, though hardly read, on account of his quaint and occasionally graphic style. Yet this was the great age of Louis XIV., the classic age of French literature and philosophy, and the commencement of French science. But history withered under the blight of the Catholic and monarchical reaction. History was indeed being written in France, the most witty, profound, and graphic since the days of Tacitus ; but it was history which the author kept for himself and a remote posterity ; not for a hundred years was the world to be permitted to gaze with wonder and admiration on the incomparable memoirs of St Simon. But Rebellious and Revolutionary England gives us Clarendon and Burnett cause and effect as usual. A review of the 18th century and its performances in history would conclude this interesting retrospect. But it is time to return from this digression to our more immediate subject. The old type of history, one might say, was a species of portrait-painting which had often every merit except that of close likeness to the original. Whether it is quite just to say this will be presently considered. But it cannot be denied that the old writers generally thought more of the brilliancy of their colours and the effectiveness of their pictures than of their exact truth. &quot; My siege is finished,&quot; said Vertot, when offered new documents which stultified his narrative. Tlie old masters of history resembled, it is to be feared (if so honourable a comparison can be considered derogatory), the old masters of painting. Both thought little of what we call &quot; local colour, &quot; of close conformity to the scene or object delineated, provided they produced