Victorian Literature: Sixty Years of Books and Bookmen

by Clement King Shorter

The reign of Victoria has been pre-eminently the reign of the historian in our literature. Greater poets we had seen in the reigns of the Georges, greater essayists in the reign of Anne. But Grote and Carlyle, Macaulay and Gardiner, Bishop Stubbs and Dr Freeman, had no counterparts in an earlier age—always excepting the one great name of Gibbon. Before them there were chroniclers of contemporary events and pamphleteers under the guise of historians, but little more. Goldsmith's histories are the laughing-stock of those to whom the modern methods of research are familiar, and even Hume had little of the spirit of the genuine student. Hallam and Lingard were the pioneers in this branch of literature, although both of them had done their work before Queen Victoria came to the throne.

Henry Hallam1777-1859 was born at Windsor, where his father held a canonry. His first great work, entitled "View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages," was published in 1818, and his "Constitutional History of England, from the Accession of Henry VII. to the Death of George II.," in 1827. In 1838 he produced his "Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries." Of these three works the first and the last are valuable mainly for their stimulus to the more philosophical and imaginative work of later writers, but the "Constitutional History" remains the text-book for the period which it covers. Macaulay praised it highly, possibly because of the Whiggism which undoubtedly underlies some of the more debatable propositions in the book; but Macaulay and many other writers have disputed the correctness of many of Hallam's judgments. To write the constitutional history of England from the earliest period to the year 1485, where Hallam begins, was a far more difficult undertaking than to deal with the reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts. This work devolved on Dr Stubbs.

William Stubbs1825-, who was appointed Bishop of Oxford in 1889, was born at Knaresborough, and was educated at Ripon Grammar School and at Christ Church, Oxford. In 1850 he became vicar of Navestock, in Essex, and in 1862 he was made librarian at Lambeth Palace. His editions of mediæval chronicles were well calculated to smooth the path of any future historian, and the critical introductions showed the profound scholarship of the editor. Probably no one man has done so much to throw light on the obscure by-ways of history, and as Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, a post he accepted in 1866, he gave so great a stimulus to historical study that many brilliant writers have since been proud to call him "master." In 1870 he published his "Select Charters," of which the "Introductions" are also invaluable, and between 1874 and 1878 he wrote his great work, "The Constitutional History of England in its Origin and Development," the three volumes of which carry us down to the death of Richard III. The book is profoundly scientific in its method, but it is a mistaken, although popular, belief which classes Dr Stubbs among Dryasdust investigators. The work glows with life and interest, and is full of suggestive parallels for modern political society.

The work of tracing the growth of the English constitution, which had been so worthily begun by Hallam, and continued in so wise and scholarly a fashion by Bishop Stubbs, was carried on by Sir Thomas Erskine May 1815-1886, who, a few days before his death, was created Baron Farnborough. After a long official career in connection with the House of Commons, he was appointed Clerk to the House in 1871. In addition to several publications dealing with Parliamentary forms, and a book on "Democracy in Europe," he wrote a "Constitutional History since the Accession of George III.," thus continuing the work from the point at which Hallam had dropped it, and completing a continuous history of the English Constitution.

When we turn to what is more popularly understood by the history of a country, the political and social life of peoples, and the wars and conquests of nations, we are not less fortunate in the results attained. John Lingard 1771-1851 had, it is true, written his great work before 1837. "The History of England, from the First Invasion by the Romans to the Commencement of the Reign of William III.," appeared in eight volumes between 1819 and 1830. Lingard was the son of a Winchester carpenter. He was for some time the Professor of Moral Philosophy at a Roman Catholic College. His religious views doubtless affected, in considerable measure, his judgment of events, especially in the reign of Henry VIII., but he is a fairly impartial historian. He confesses that he has been more anxious to arrive at the facts than troubled as to the garb in which those facts were presented to the public, and his work is really very dull in consequence. A contemporary of Lingard, who covered much of the same historic ground, was Sharon Turner (1768-1847), and yet another was John Mitchell Kemble 1807-1857, whose "Saxons in England" (1849) still fills a useful place. Another distinguished writer, of what we may term the earlier school of historical research, was Sir Francis Palgrave 1788-1861, one of whose accomplished sons, Francis Turner Palgrave, is still living (born 1824), whilom Professor of Poetry at Oxford and the friend of Tennyson, the author of excellent verse, and, moreover, the editor of that incomparable volume, the "Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics." Sir Francis was the son of a Jewish stockbroker named Cohen, and changed his name on becoming a Christian. His best book, the "History of Normandy and of England," lost much of its value by the publication of Freeman's monumental work, "The History of the Norman Conquest."

Edward Augustus Freeman 1823-1892 was born at Harborne, in Staffordshire, and educated at Trinity College, Oxford. His first work was a "History of Architecture," published in 1849. In 1863 he issued the first volume of a "History of Federal Government." The "History of the Norman Conquest," in five large volumes, appeared between 1867 and 1876, and the "Reign of William Rufus, and Accession of Henry I.," in 1882. His "Old English History" was a most delightful collection of the primitive stories which have always had a great fascination for beginners in history. There was scarcely any period of European history with which the author of the "Norman Conquest" did not show a thorough familiarity. No historian has had a keener grasp of hard solid facts, or is more able to make common-sense deductions from them. "I am quite unable," he candidly confessed, "to appreciate physical or metaphysical works in any language," and he hated literary discussion, which he contemptuously termed "Chatter about Harriet," in reference to the debatable question of Shelley's treatment of his wife. Perhaps this lack of breadth did not materially spoil him for his work. Of his many volumes of histories and essays, those on the "Norman Conquest" must be given the first place. It has been said, indeed, that the work takes as long to read as the event took to achieve, but it is worth reading nevertheless. The battle of Hastings, or, as Mr Freeman would say, of Senlac, was a turning-point in our national history, and we have here the most complete description of that great struggle. Since Freeman's death some attempt has been made to question his accuracy and his scholarship; but it has not amounted to very much. When Dr Stubbs, with whom difference of political views has in no way impaired a lifelong friendship, was appointed Bishop of Chester in 1884, Mr Freeman succeeded him as Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, where he was followed on his death by Mr Froude.

It would be hard to find a greater contrast, both in method and in manner, than between Edward Freeman and James Anthony Froude. Freeman's style, though clear and trenchant, was never brilliant; Froude's language compares with that of the best artists in literature. Freeman was always scrupulously exact, never at fault in a fact or a date; Froude was notoriously careless, and slipped at every turn. Freeman cared nothing for theories; Froude was never so happy as when he stopped abruptly in a description to discourse on the mysteries of Providence or the follies of mankind. Between men of such opposite natures no friendship was possible, and in the Saturday Review and other periodicals Freeman commented vigorously, and not always fairly, on the other's inaccuracy.

James Anthony Froude 1818-1894 was one of three gifted brothers, another being William Froude (1810-1879), the mathematician and engineer; and the third, Richard Hurrell Froude (1803-1836), a leader of the Tractarian movement, whose "Literary Remains" were published after his death by Keble and Newman. Froude was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, and for a time came under the influence of the movement of which his elder brother was a leading spirit, but ultimately he abandoned supernatural Christianity altogether, substituting for it a kind of poetic Theism which he partly adopted from Carlyle. In 1847 he published anonymously two novels, "The Spirit's Trials" and "The Lieutenant's Daughter," which contained some not very generous criticisms on his brother and former friends. His "Nemesis of Faith," which appeared in 1848, was a further criticism of the doctrines which he had abandoned. Between the years 1856 and 1869 he published the twelve volumes of his great work, "The History of England, from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada," which achieved a great and, in many respects, a well-deserved popularity. Rarely indeed has history been written with so much brilliancy and picturesque power. The earlier volumes have been much discredited among historical students: yet we would not willingly miss such delightful word-painting as his description of the Pilgrimage of Grace and other scenes in the career of the Eighth Henry, whom he selected for rehabilitation. It was, of course, a vain and impossible task to remove the odium which has settled upon the name of Henry VIII.; but it was as well that the attempt should be made. Henry had appeared to the mass of modern Englishmen as an old-world ogre, and Mr Froude has at least enabled them to see that he was after all a man. Mr Freeman, himself the most conscientious and laborious of writers, expressed his hearty contempt for an author who professed in the preface to his history that he took up the subject because he had "nothing better to do." As, however, Froude warmed to his work his book increased in value, and there are few who will deny the most sterling worth to his "Edward VI.," "Mary," and "Elizabeth." His escape from Tractarianism had made him unfriendly to all kindred movements, and his views of the struggle between Catholicism and Evangelicalism in the sixteenth century are more worthy of a Puritan divine than of an academic writer of our own day. But we can forgive all this, and much more, to one who has described with so much delicate fancy the adventurous life of Drake and Hawkins, the intrigues of the Scottish Queen, and the restless fickleness and untruthfulness of Elizabeth. His exquisite literary style and general breadth of sympathy are shown in such passages as his sketch of the rise of Protestantism and the execution of More and Fisher:—

"Whilst we exult in that chivalry with which the Smithfield martyrs bought England's freedom with their blood, so we will not refuse our admiration to those other gallant men whose high forms, in the sunset of the old faith, stand transfigured on the horizon, tinged with the light of its dying glory."[11]