Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/242



Gilda Mercatoria of 1883 has become the Gild Merchant of 1890; the little German tract published at Göttingen has grown into two noble volumes equipped with appendixes, glossary, index, bibliography, 'proofs and illustrations,' 'supplementary proofs and illustrations,' and every device for the ease and contentment of readers that the Clarendon Press can command. As a secondary title for his book, Dr. Gross has chosen A Contribution to British Municipal History; and if his English critics do not at once say that this is the largest contribution of new and authentic raw material that has been made by any one man to this unfortunate and neglected subject, he will not take this ill of them, when he knows what, in all probability, is the only exception present to their minds. ' Madox ist ein Forscher ersten Ranges. ' Dr. Gross, when seven years ago he wrote this sentence, gave not the least among the many proofs that he was on the right track. No one is likely to make much of a 'contribution to British municipal history' who does not know and admire his Madox; and yet, in a very popular history of England, a list of the authorities for the tale of our boroughs spoke of Merewether and Stephens, of Brady and Brentano, and said nothing of the Firma Burgi. Our boroughs have not been very happy in their historians; few have been able to approach the story of their early adventures without some lamentable bias towards edificatory doctrine, or some desire to prove a narrow and inadequate thesis. Madox was one of the few. 'In truth, writing of history is in some sort a religious act.' Coming from some people we should resent such words as cant: we do not resent them when they come from Madox. And now on our bookshelf we can place The Gild Merchant next to the Firma Burgi, and know that each of them is where it should be. Like his illustrious predecessor, Dr. Gross has perceived that a very laborious induction is the one method that can deal with the complex subject-matter, and that if the theorist is to persuade such of his readers as are really worth persuading, he must give them not merely his theories, but the evidence which proves those