Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/69

 seen the production of Mr. Freeman's Norman Conquest, which I believe is well known to us all, and is a monument of critical erudition and genius in the recreation of historical life of which Oxford may well be proud. We have seen too the conclusion, premature and abrupt, of Mr. Froude's great work, a book to which even those who differ in principle from the writer will not refuse the tribute of praise as a work of great industry, power and importance: the conclusion scarcely less abrupt, though not premature, of the great work of one of the best and greatest men that Oxford has ever produced, the Lives of the archbishops of Canterbury by Dr. Hook. Two out of the three most valuable contributions of Mr. Samuel Gardiner to the Jacobean and Caroline period, the earnests as we hope of still. greater contributions yet to be looked for: the studies of Mr. Brewer on the reign of Henry VIII included in his volumes of Calendars of Public documents, but rivalling in bulk and more than rivalling in interest the documents themselves; Mr. Pocock's labour's on the same age in his edition of Burnet and of the early documentary history of the Reformation; Professor Rogers's great work, or beginning of a great work, on medieval economy, the History of Prices; these are but a portion of the history work done for England by men trained in the old Liters Humaniores School of Oxford; how long will it be before the new school will have something of the sort to show? To the facile pen of an Oxford man we owe the production of the most popular manual of our history that has ever appeared, the Short History of the English People. To the Oxford Press and the labour's self-denyingly and generously tendered of hard-worked tutors we owe the translation of Ranke's History of England.

Of this, as one of the original suggesters and promoters of the undertaking, I may say a word more; for, curiously enough, the boon conferred by this translation has not been adequately recognised. Leopold von Ranke is not only beyond all comparison the greatest historical scholar alive, but one of the very greatest historians that ever lived. Unrivalled stores of knowledge, depth of research, intimate acquaintance with the most recondite sources, have been, in his case, supplemented by