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LEOPOLD VON RANKE 257

of the ancients, but have tried to approximate the phenome- non itself as something which is, on the outside, merely a particular thing, but in its essence is something general with a meaning and a spirit. "^

Four great works of Ranke's stand out above the others — the Histories of the Popes, of Germany during the Reforma- tion, of France in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, and of England chiefly in the Seventeenth Century. It is by these works mainly that he is and will be familiar to English and American readers. In each case those events are selected for treatment which are of importance in the development of European civilization. In each case the historian keeps the rest of Europe under his comprehensive gaze, and at every step illustrates the current of events from the history of the neighbor nations with unrivalled knowl- edge. It is the history of the world he is writing, of that European world the very bone and marrow of whose life came from Rome. The introduction to his English History is one of the finest examples of this characteristic. Com- parison with Macaulay's introductory chapter brings out clearly its peculiar quality. Macaulay's first chapter, like his whole work, is, as he said himself, insular; Ranke's is universal. Both are masterpieces, but they are utterly un- like.2

1 Page 664. Erwidermg auf Heinrich Leo's AngriJ^ (I82is). A penetrating and illuminating criticism of Ranke's attitude toward his material will be found in the letters of Strauss. Briefly summarized it is this: Herodotus is a prose epic, in Sallust's work are the characteristics of the epigram, in that of Tacitus those of the dramatist. In Ranke's work similarly there are the characteristics of the lyric poet. " His attitude toward historical material is not like Homer's, but, like Pindar's, toward the mythical. It is not his purpose first to make us acquainted with the subject, as is usually the intention of historical writers, but he assumes such an acquaintance; he does not himself outline the historical picture, but adds to it, as he presupposes it in the memory of his reader, only the last touches of color, and often in quite unexpected places. His style also corresponds to this : Short periods, which in the soul and imagination of the reader shall resound in a long echo." Zeller, Ausgewdhlte Briefe von David Friedrich Strauss, Bonn, 1895, 316-317. Pindar was Ranke's favorite poet.

2 For brief criticisms of Macaulay by Ranke, see History of England, I, xi.