Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/72

 higher still during the age of Lewis XIV, deep called unto deep in the upheaval of the French Revolution, and the European wars of 1866 and 1870 have proved that the storms grow wilder as the world grows older. But the results are not, so far as we can see, much more permanent, the rapidity of action keeps pace with the growth of the contending influences, and events which centuries ago would have been regarded as striking the knell of Christendom, form the subject of a hasty telegram which we read and say. It is no more than we expected. But I am not going to philosophise; μὴ γένοιτο. When I say that such books as these are not history, but rather the materials of history, I do not mean to undervalue them, but simply to point by them to the fact that until events have come to be seen in due proportion and in their relative bearing, their full history cannot be written; and the most perfect memoirs will need reduction and review. But at the risk of seeming to pass over even more important matters I must pass on.

It is unfortunate, I think, that English writers confine their attention too much to English and French History; and that the History of farther Europe, that of Italy being a partial exception only, is seldom made the subject of research. Carlyle's Frederick II is really the only great work on German or European History which has appeared in England, for nearly half a century, on its merits as a work of History. It will scarcely be claimed for Sir Archibald Alison's valuable works on the period immediately following that of Frederick, that they owe their importance to their character as works of historical research. They were read and are read as any other very interesting book on a very interesting subject, but they do not reach even to the stature of Von Sybel's French Revolution or Lanfrey's work on Napoleon. Carlyle's Frederick is primarily a work of a different sort; although, in the prophetic sight of the writer, that most remarkable book may, at the moment it was written, have borne a conscious reference to events which were still future, but have since most wonderfully illustrated its great theme, the world in general recognised nothing of the sort in it. The author, if he knew himself to