Page:Seventeen lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred subjects.djvu/82

 an Englishman cannot write without prejudice about the Rebellion and the Commonwealth, much less can an American. But it is, I take it, a misfortune that the earlier English History has not received its share of attention in the United States. Very much of English life was ripe when it was transplanted thither, and belongs as much almost to them as to ourselves. Judging from the letters of friends and the American reviews of English books, I conceive that this is being amended, and that we may soon have reason to rejoice that American acuteness and industry are applying themselves to this region in which they will find so much to profit both themselves and us. The wonderful and successful labours of Colonel Chester in the minuter department of genealogical research, which have produced so noble a book as his Register of Westminster Abbey, may be another earnest of co-operation that will produce good fruits both here and there. We know that we are kinsfolk, that we have thirteen centuries of common Christian History and culture, and a remoter past common to a much larger family: we may hope that with a fair acquaintance with one another we may diverge no more widely, and never have to be ashamed of our connexion.

I must ask you to pardon me for making these remarks so desultory and so discursive, on the solemn occasion of a public lecture. I need hardly repeat that such solemn occasions are not the most congenial portion of my work here. But I have had somewhat to say, and you must take it as I could say it. If another ten years should see me here, solemnly lecturing from this desk, I shall have no doubt to look back on some anticipations frustrated, and to welcome fuller new opportunities which will have presented themselves. But neither occasional disappointment, nor distaste for peculiar parts of my work, will, I may venture to say, damp the ardour of my hopes for the future of historical study here, or my faith in the permanence and development of a great historical school in England, which will look to Oxford as an 'Alma Mater' and 'Fons Scientiarum.'