Personalities.
The later eighteenth century teems with personalities, so that it is difficult not to crowd the canvas and to nullify all individual impression by the force of numbers. George III himself, much blackened by American semi-traditions of thought is not as uninteresting or as stupid or as objectionable as your pupil probably thought him. A just view of King George is a worthy aim to set up for at least one lesson. Lord North, too, always has an interest for Americans. But far above these are Pitt and Burke and Fox. O for the chance to deal with these men as we ought in the class room; to read what they said and to examine what they did! Green has drawn William Pitt the younger in his best style, pp. 790-791. For Burke one should go to Augustine Birrell’s “Obiter Dicta” for an essay that is light in its touch but keen. Trevelyan gives us Fox, though at too great length for busy men, and Macaulay—well, no class has entirely received its due unless it has heard the passage from “The Impeachment of Warren Hastings,” beginning “The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of William Rufus,” etc.
Time and space fail us, and the age of reform must wait for discussion until next number, as well as the methods of review pertinent to the otherwise pleasant month of May.