Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/67

 were writing on History. Now and then we have contributions to contemporary history, either from the statesman of the day or from the industrious collector of the gossip of the last generation, which have a value, and will hereafter have a greater. Now and then we have a sound critique on new matter brought out in foreign countries, and careful, well-considered judgments on the re-reading of re- written history. Occasionally, very rarely, when a question of theological or political interest touches upon the more recondite stores of history, we have an industrious examination of ancient sources made subservient to the advocacy of some particular theory. But so far as reviews go, this age is one not of deep study; the articles are read by, and therefore written for, men who care just enough about such matters to induce them to read fifty pages of cleverly arranged not too exhausting argument. They share the ephemeral character of the rest of our popular literature, and, so long as that ephemeral character is a mark of such productions, it is only courting failure if we attempt to add to the list of competitors one which would find, in the very points which recommend it to the student, characteristics which would repel those whom, I think I may say, we ought to try to attract.

Still I do not despair of the plan; only it will require an amount of devotion as well as an affluence of means, which are not, it seems to me, at present forthcoming. The confession is, when we look at what is done in Germany, or even when we look at what is done by private societies in England, not a thing to be proud of: but the conditions of publishing and the estimation of literary labour in Germany are so different from what they are here, that the comparison is hardly fair, and the best English private and local societies have always made their publications a labour of love to both writer and editor, whilst by their subscriptions they are secured from serious loss. On the whole I think that if we were to make the effort, it might best be done at first by the agency of a publishing society. Five hundred subscribers, such as sustain the Camden and the Surtees Societies, would launch and keep afloat even a larger plan than has yet been contemplated.