Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/38

 ON THE PRESENT STATE AND PROSPECTS OF HISTORICAL STUDY.

(May 17, 1876.)

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FEW days ago, in turning over the contents of my old lecture drawer, I came upon two newspaper cuttings, which a vanity, pardonable I hope after the lapse of ten years, had conserved in company with even more perishable matter. The slips contained the reviews, of the Pall Mall Gazette and the Saturday Review, of my inaugural lecture as Regius Professor of Modern History. The latter of the two critiques was in itself worth preserving, for it was an early effort of a dear friend who has since made himself a great name in the region of historical study. It was an article full of blessing and good omen, with a sufficient amount of dogmatism to prove that the writer believed himself entitled to criticise; and it contained, with all its precious balm, enough of the element of blister to produce a wholesome irritation: for the one or two points in the lecture on which I had bestowed especial pains were described as praiseworthy but illusory. The Pall Mall review, the authorship of which I never learned, was a kindly article also, giving a fair résumé of what I had said, and ending with the remark that, although it was clear from the tone of my lecture that I should take a somewhat clerical view of history, still that