A ROGUE'S MEMOIRS.
One is often tempted of the Devil to forswear the study of history altogether as the pursuit of the Unknowable. 'How is it possible,' he whispers in our ear, as we stand gloomily regarding the portly calf-bound volumes without which no gentleman's library is complete, 'how is it possible to suppose that you have there, on your shelves—the actual facts of history—a true record of what men, dead long ago, felt and thought?' Yet, if we have not, I for one, though of a literary turn, would sooner spend my leisure playing skittles with boors than in reading sonorous lies in stout volumes.
'It is not so much,' wilily insinuates the Tempter, 'that these renowned authors lack knowledge. Their habit of giving an occasional reference (though the verification of these is usually left to the malignancy of a rival and less popular historian) argues at least some reading. No; what is wanting is ignorance, carefully acquired and studiously maintained. This is no paradox. To carry the truisms, theories, laws, language of to-day, along with you in your historical pursuits, is to turn the muse of history upside down—a most disrespectful proceeding—and yet to ignore them—to forget all about them—to hang them up with your hat and coat in the hall, to remain there whilst you sit in the library composing your immortal work, which is so happily to combine all that is best in Gibbon and Macaulay—a sneerless Gibbon and an impartial Macaulay—is a task which, if it be not impossible is, at all events, of huge difficulty.
Another blemish in English historical work has been noticed by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, and may therefore be referred to by me without offence. Your standard historians, having no unnatural regard for their most indefatigable readers, the wives and daughters of England, feel it incumbent upon them to pass over, as unfit for dainty ears and dulcet tones, facts, and rumours of facts, which none the less often determined events by stirring the strong feelings of your ancestors, whose conduct, unless explained by this light, must remain enigmatical.
When, to these anachronisms of thought and omissions of fact, you have added the dishonesty of the partisan historian and the false glamour of the picturesque one, you will be so good as to proceed to find the present value of history!'
Thus far the Enemy of Mankind:
An admirable lady orator is reported lately to have 'brought down' Exeter Hall by observing, 'in a low but penetrating voice,' that the Devil was a very stupid person. It is true that Ben Jonson is on the side of the lady, but I am far too orthodox to entertain any such opinion; and though I have, in this instance of history, so far resisted him as to have refrained from sending my standard historians to the auction mart—where, indeed, with the almost single exception of Mr. Grote's History of Greece (the octavo edition in twelve volumes), prices rule so low as to make cartage a consideration—I have still of late found myself turning off the turnpike of history to loiter down the primrose paths of men's memoirs of themselves and their times.
Here at least, so we argue, we are comparatively safe. Anachronisms of thought are impossible; omissions out of regard for female posterity unlikely, and as for party spirit, if found, it forms part of what lawyers call the res gestae, and has therefore a value of its own. Against the perils of the picturesque, who will insure us?
But when we have said all this, and, sick of prosing, would begin reading, the number of really readable memoirs is soon found to be but few. This is, indeed, unfortunate; for it launches us off on another prose-journey by provoking the question, What makes memoirs interesting?
Is it necessary that they should be the record of a noble character? Certainly not. We remember Pepys, who—well, never mind what he does. We call to mind Cellini; he runs behind a fellow-creature, and with 'admirable address' sticks a dagger in the nape of his neck, and long afterwards records the fact, almost with reverence, in his life's story. Can anything be more revolting than some portions of the revelation Benjamin Franklin was pleased to make of himself in writing? And what about Rousseau? Yet, when we have pleaded guilty for these men, a modern Savonarola, who had persuaded us to make a bonfire of their works, would do well to keep a sharp look-out, lest at the last moment we should be found substituting 'Pearson on the Creed' for Pepys, Coleridge's 'Friend' for Cellini, John Foster's Essays for Franklin, and Roget's Bridgewater Treatise for Rousseau.