Great Britain -- History; History; United States -- History
not as she should be sought, devoutly, tentatively, with the air of one
touching the hem of a sacred garment, but clutching her by the hair of
the head and dragging her after him in a kind of boisterous triumph, a
prisoner of war and not a goddess." It is, nevertheless, true that
Macaulay and Buckle imparted a new interest to history.
I have spoken of the impression we get of Macaulay through reading his
"Life and Letters." Of Carlyle, in reading the remarkable biography of
him, we get the notion of a great thinker as well as a great reader. He
was not as keen and diligent in the pursuit of material as Macaulay. He
did not like to work in libraries; he wanted every book he used in his
own study--padded as it was against the noises which drove him wild. H.
Morse Stephens relates that Carlyle would not use a collection of
documents relating to the French Revolution in the British Museum for
the reason that the museum authorities would not have a private room
reserved for him where he might study. Rather than work in a room with
other people, he neglected this valuable material. But Carlyle has
certainly digested and used his material well. His "French Revolution"
seems to approach the historical works of the classics in there being so
much in a little space. "With the gift of song," Lowell said, "Carlyle
would have been the greatest of epic poets since Homer;" and he also
wrote, Carlyle's historical compositions are no more history than the
historical plays of Shakespeare.
The contention between the scientific historians and those who hold to
the old models is interesting and profitable. One may enjoy the
controversy and derive benefit from it without taking sides. I suspect
that there is truth in the view of both. We may be sure that the
long-continued study and approval by scholars of many ages of the works
of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Tacitus implies historical merit on their
part in addition to literary art. It is, however, interesting to note
the profound difference between President Woolsey's opinion of
Thucydides and that of some of his late German critics. Woolsey said, "I
have such confidence in the absolute truthfulness of Thucydides that
were he really chargeable with folly, as Grote alleges [in the affair of
Amphipolis], I believe he would have avowed it." On the other hand, a
German critic, cited by Holm, says that Thucydides is a poet who invents
facts partly in order to teach people how things ought to be done and
partly because he liked to depict certain scenes of horror. He says
further, a narrative of certain occurrences is so full of
impossibilities that it must be pure invention on the part of the
historian. Another German maintains that Thucydides has indulged in "a
fanciful and half-romantic picture of events." But Holm, whom the
scientific historians claim as one of their own, says, "Thucydides
still remains a trustworthy historical authority;" and, "On the whole,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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