ing it each time with the definite questions which would naturally be asked by an opponent, until he finds that they are all represented in the narrative, he will secure the form required. It needs little to convince one that the reader is more likely to yield assent to the truth when presented in this form, than when repeated challenges to his pre-conceived opinions are flaunted in his face, in the shape of bald arguments.

UNFAVORABLE ASPECTS OF THE "LITERARY SIDE."

There is, however, something to be said as to the limitations and dangers of the literary point of view, as well as its strong points. One of these is the failure to be sure that verification shall always follow the exercise of the imagination. A writer who should habituate himself to this faulty method will come in time to be unaware that anything is wrong with his reasoning or his conclusions. But this will inevitably lead to reckless, uncritical, and seriously misleading statements. Some luxuriant specimens of this unbridled use of the imagination will be found in newspapers, and more of them in "prospectuses" and real estate advertisements.

The "literary" point of view is sometimes also found associated with extreme negligence in quoting a statement, simply through underestimating the importance of the manner as compared with the matter. It has sometimes. been claimed that a chronic tendency to mis-statement is a disease; and it certainly is found repeatedly where there is no deliberate attempt to deceive. And yet, even if it is a disease, it is a misfortune that our history should be written by men who are afflicted with it. There is scarcely one of the Nineteenth Century historians in whom this tendency has been so glaringly exemplified, as the late James Anthony Froude.1

'The fact that a volume bearing the expressive title, "Froudacity," by J. J. Thomas, should have been put in print, in 1889, in order to confute Mr. Froude, is in itself significant.

One of the failings of excessive leaning towards the "literary" view is the failing for picturesqueness. To quote the expressive phrase already cited above, this leads to a feeling that the narrative must be "dressed up." What could be more picturesque than Weems's George Washington story: "I can't tell a lie, Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. I did cut it with my hatchet." Or the "cabbage story" in which Washington's name was spelled out by the growing plants? And yet even Jared Sparks, whose position in regard to some questions of editing would be regarded as somewhat uncritical, in our day, strongly protested that he had "very little confidence in the genuineness or accuracy" of the statements of this flighty Virginia parson. He regarded this and other books by Weems, not as biographies, but as "novels, founded in some parts on facts, and in others on the suggestions of a fertile imagination."

Mischief is also sometimes caused by a mistaken seeking after symmetry, or consistency; and sometimes also by a tendency to resort to analogy unduly. It may be said of analogy, as of fire, that it is a good servant, but a bad master. The principal objection to be brought against this tendency is that it saddles a man with "a fixed idea." At present, for instance, the whole civilized world is looking on with breathless interest, at the upheavals in Russia; and some of us are re-reading our Carlyle's "French Revo

"The Life of George Washington," by Mason Lock Weems, Philadelphia, 1800. Later edition published by Joseph Allen, 1837, p. 14.

Ibid., p. 15-18.

Somewhat full opportunities for reviewing the voluminous literature connected with the discussion of Sparks's methods will be found in the references given in Herbert B. Adams's" The life and writings of Jared Sparks," Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 2 v., 1893, particularly at p. 479-506 and 612-13 of v. 2, and at p. xxvii-xlvii of v. 1; and also in Justin Winsor's "Narrative and critical history of America," Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., v. 8, (1889), p. 417-20.

'The modern or current point of view is well embodied in the four-page leaflet ssued in 1906 by the American Historical Association, comprising "Suggestions for the printing of documents relating to American history," prepared by Edward G. Bourne, Chairman of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Worthington C. Ford, of the Library of Congress, and J. Franklin Jameson, of the Carnegie Institute at Washington.

Adams's "Jared Sparks," v. 2, p. 517.

Ibid., p. 519.

lution." It is all very well to read this study of revolution in a country like France, provided that we do not go to the length of looking for the re-appearance of all the successive stages in the drama now enacting in this other country. It is doubtless true that more than one of the various traits, events, and circumstances observed in the French experience, either has been reproduced in the Russian experience, or may be at some time in the near future. And yet, because of this very fact, that the analogy seems to hold in these few instances, it is all the more the duty of the historian to guard against hasty generalizations as to the remainder of the instances. Suppose, for example, that some leader in the Russian government should lend an ear to advisers who should dwell upon the analogy of the former great catastrophe to the present experiences. Suppose, moreover, that they should not only base predictions and inferences on these analogies, but also definite measures of repression. The probability is by no means a remote one, that in this way, injury and suffering might be inflicted on many entirely innocent men and women.

There is perhaps no more effective way of studying the limitations and tendencies of the "literary" view than in the person of a "literary historian." Macaulay, for example, is pre-eminently entitled to such a designation, for his place in English literature is well assured, whatever may be the ultimate decision as to his position as a historian. To an exceptionally wide range of knowledge, improved by a university education, he added an extraordinary range of reading, and a memory which was nothing short of phenomenal. That his work is not wholly free from inaccuracy1 is

1A novel reason is advanced by a recent essayist, to account for the criticism which has been directed, largely within the last thirty years, against the matter and the method of Macaulay's history, namely, the fact that it has come under the observation of a much wider circle of readers than is customary with historians. "That Stubbs, Freeman, Hallam, Gardiner, do not have as many fault-finders as Macaulay is due in a measure, at least, to the fact that they have not one fiftieth part of his readers; and the readers whom they have belong to certain general classes." ("The vitality of Macaulay," by Henry D. Sedgwick, Jr., in the Atlantic, Aug., 1899, v. 84, p. 167. Reprinted in his "Essays on great writers," Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1903, at p. 139-97, but with considerable additions and changes.)

perhaps not surprising, when this wide range, just mentioned, is considered. Yet the more serious fact is that he did not approach his task with an absolutely open mind, that his mental attitude sometimes shows not merely prejudice but malignity; and that he was not always magnanimous enough to correct an obvious error.2 In repeated instances also, more important considerations were sacrificed, in his narrative, to picturesqueness. And yet when all is said, the fact remains that he is a very great historian, and will always have a strong hold on the interest of the reader.3

An equally instructive instance is found in the case of James Anthony Froude. He resembles Macaulay in making a successful appeal to the interest of the reader. Moreover, if Macaulay is sometimes open to the charge of overloaded rhetoric, Froude was the master of an exquisite English style. There is, however, no other English historian against whom the charge of inaccuracy has lain so heavily. Examples are found in all of his writings, but perhaps an instance in his volume on "Erasmus" shows it in as striking a manner as any other. In a single paragraph of only eighteen lines, (in which there are sixteen statements), relating to Reuchlin, (says a writer in the

'As in the Mac Vey Napier "Correspondence," p. 110; also in Trevelyan's "Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay," v. 1, p. 218.

As in the William Penn instance, and other instances cited in John Paget's "The new examen, " Edinburgh: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1861.

"It has been objected to Macaulay that he is a stranger to the methods and the spirit of what has been called the critical school of history. He is a picturesque narrator, but not, in the sense of that school, a scientific historian." (Sir Richard C. Jebb's "Macaulay,-a lecture delivered at Cambridge on August 10, 1900," Cambridge: University Press, 1900, p. 12-13. One other important limitation is pointed out by Mr. James Cotter Morison. "Macaulay," he says, "never fully appreciated the force of moderation, the impressiveness of calm under-statement, the penetrating power of irony." Morison's "Macaulay", ("English Men of Letters") New York: Harper & Bros., 1882, p. 129.

'An interesting volume published within the last twelve months is devoted to an extended study of this historian, namely, "The life of Froude," by Herbert Paul, New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1905. Heretofore the most extended examination of his life and work had been the more than one hundred pages devoted to him in Sir John Skelton's "Table-talk of Shirley," Edinburgh: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1895, p. 119-24.

"Froude, James Anthony. Life and letters of Erasmus. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1894. See p. 182 of this edition.

377 Quarterly Review, in 1898),1 there is "one, and only one correct statement". The other fifteen are incorrect. "In the case of Mr. Froude", says the reviewer, "the problem ever is to discover whether he has deviated into truth." Mr. Harrison complains that "this severe judgment" is true not only of Mr. Froude's transcription of documents, but of his lack of precision in his use of language in general, and of his want of "minute fidelity of detail."

6

There is, however, this additional cause for apprehension, on the part of a reader of Mr. Froude, that in his case the inaccuracy was ingrained, if not constitutional.5 Still further, while this inaccuracy is acknowledged and even insisted on, by his most sympathetic biographers, Mr. Froude himself seemed scarcely aware of this limitation. Moreover, his inaccuracy has repeatedly taken the peculiarly dangerous form of confusing the references to his sources. "He had," says Mr. Lang, "an unfortunate habit of publishing, between marks of quotation, his own résumé of the contents of a document. In doing so he would leave

out, with no marks of omission (... ) passages which

he thought irrelevant, but which might be all-important

'Quarterly Review, July, 1898, v. 188, p. 1-30. Ibid., p. 3.

The historical method of J. A. Froude," by Frederic Harrison, Nineteenth Century, Sept., 1898, v. 44, p. 373-85; reprinted in his volume, "Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and other literary estimates." New York: The Macmillan Co., 1900, p. 221-41. See p. 240.

'An almost equally serious indictment of Froude, so far as regards details, is found in the article on " Modern historians and their methods," by H. A. L. Fisher, in the Fortnightly Review, Dec. 1, 1894, v. 62, p. 815. Compare also Langlois and Seignobos's "Introduction to the study of history," p. 125.

"This defect was intensified by the faulty methods of his early education. "The standard of scholarship," says Mr. Paul, "at Buckfastleigh was not high, and Froude's scholarship was inexact." (Paul's "Froude," p. 10.)

"Both Mr. Paul and Mr. Lang. See Paul's "Froude", p. 23, 93, 334; also p. 10. above cited.

Mr. Lang, in his keen examination of "Freeman versus Froude," pauses to remark sadly: "Next, Mr. Froude, with all his diligence and learning, really was inaccurate." (Cornhill Magazine, Feb., 1906, v. 92, p. 253.)

'Mr. Lang quotes Mr. Froude as having "acknowledged to five real mistakes in the whole book, twelve volumes," out of those attributed to him; and then adds: "But if the critics only found out 'five real mistakes,' they served the author very ill." (Cornhill Magazine, Feb., 1906, v. 92, p. 257-58.) Mr. Lang then goes on, (p. 258-63), to enumerate instance after instance.