Page:Historical Essays and Studies.djvu/511

Rh at the five volumes which carried the imperial history to the end of Frederic Barbarossa. It was the first time that the highest scholarship was united, in German history, with the lighter elements of popularity. In early life, when Ranke asked him what he meant to be, he had answered that he wished to become a dramatist. "Nonsense," said his master ; "you will be a historian." The literary taste and faculty survived the extinction of the poet ; and besides the literary faculty there was the warm patriotism, the afterglow of 1848, the notion of history, neither philosophic nor cosmopolitan, but national.

The first part established his reputation, but did not display him at his best. Beyond all scholars of his rank and resource he was averse from the mechanical parade of inanimate erudition. He would have liked to quote nothing, but to present a compact and convincing narrative, without tags of proof, to a contented public. By degrees he modified his plan, to the advantage of serious readers. When no evidence is required he offers none. We miss the familiar and obvious passages with which the followers of Waitz rejoice to load the foot of the page. He only annotates when he has something particular to tell, some difficulty to explain ; so that every note adds to the information in his narrative. When, as director of the Perthes collection of European histories, he invited Brewer to complete the work which Pauli had abandoned, he was bountiful as to space ; but while he allowed the continuator ten or a dozen volumes he desired to restrict the notes, and did not like to be reminded that his own fill two hundred pages in a volume. In truth, they contain the most penetrating and instructive discussion of authorities to be found anywhere in modern literature, and there are readers who hold them to be a richer prize than the text which they illustrate.

To exact learning, sound criticism, and real literary power Giesebrecht added the rarer virtue of sincerity. Born and bred at Berlin, he went from Königsberg to Munich, and there spent the effective evening of his honoured and prosperous life. Those who complained of