Friedlich Christoph Schlosser, born at Jever, Germany, November 17, 1776; died at Heidelberg, September 23, 1861, the Nestor of German historians has been spoken of—not unjustly—as the German Tacitus. More than almost any other man, perhaps, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, he was influential in establishing the school of what may be called scientific history, not merely through his Writings but through his personal influence on a coterie of pupils who included many of the distinguished historians of the middle of the nineteenth century.
Professor Schlosser was a beautiful character as well as a scholarly mind. The historical sweep of his mind was of the widest, as evidenced in the subjects which he selected, while the force of his personality is equally demonstrated by the results that he achieved. His Universal History and his History of the Eighteenth Century immediately took place as the greatest authorities in the field at the time of their publication, and the latter work was early translated into English.
The work on Universal History was the first attempt of its kind, of anything like a corresponding comprehensiveness, in modern times. As originally written by Schlosser himself it had a largely technical character, yet it so clearly contained the elements of a great popular work that it was soon elaborated under Schlosser’s own direction by his pupil, Dr. G. L. Kriegk, and in this popularised form, though a bulky work of nineteen volumes, it soon achieved a wide circulation throughout Germany. This was about the middle of the century. Since then there have been numerous new editions of Schlosser’s popular history, and, even to-day, its sale probably exceeds in Germany that of any other similar work. It occupies, indeed, a place of its own which no other universal history exactly rivals. It has fullest authority, yet it is essentially popular in character. It is the narrative of the sweep of world-historic events. Its style, though less eloquent than that of Weber, is reasonably lucid, and the sentiments which actuate it throughout are those of which every reader in the main approves. We shall have occasion to recur again and again to its pages, and each such recurrence will tend to increase one’s surprise that a work of such comprehensive merit should never, hitherto, have been made accessible to the reader of English.
Schneider, E., Les Pélasges et leurs descendants, Paris, 1884.—Schorn, W., Geschichte Griechenlands von der Entstehung des ätol. und achäischen Bundes bis auf die Zerstörung von Korinth.—Schrader, O., Die älteste Zeitteilung des indogerman. Volks, Berlin, 1878.—Schrammen, T., Tales of the Gods of Ancient Greece, London, 1894.—Schuchardt, C., Schliemann’s Excavations (trans. by E. Sellers), London, 1891 (an admirable summary of archæological results).—Seignobos, C., Hist. narrative et descriptive de la Grèce ancienne, Paris, 1891.—Sergeant, L., Greece, London, 1880.—Serre, P., Études sur l’histoire militaire et maritime des Grecs, Paris, 1885.—Simpson, W., Mycenæ, Troy and Ephesus, London, 1878.—Sittl, C., Gesch. der griechischen Litteratur, Munich, 1884.—Smith, A., The Wealth of Nations, London, 1891.—Smith, George, The Gentile Nations.—Smith, J., Voyage and Shipwreck of St. Paul, London, 1848.—Smyth, W., History of Greece, London, 1854.—Stengel, P. (in Müller’s Handbuch der Classischen Alterthumswissenschaft, Nördlingen, 1876-1888).—Strabo, Γεωγραφικά, Venice, 1516, The Geography of Strabo (trans. from the Greek by H. C. Hamilton and W. Falconer), London, 1854, 3 vols.—Stern, E. von, Gesch. d. Spart. Hegemonie, Dorpat, 1884.—Symonds, J. A., The Greek Poets, London, 1893.
Taine, H., The Philosophy of Art in Greece, New York, 1889; Lectures on Art, New York, 1889.—Tarbell, F. B., A History of Greek Art, London, 1896.—Taylor, T., The Eleusinian and Bacchic Mysteries, New York, 1891.—Terxetti, A., La Grèce ancienne et moderne considerée sous l’aspect religieux, Paris, 1884.—Theognis, Ἐλέγεια (Poems), Venice, 1495; edited by Bekker, Leipsic, 1815.—Theopompus, Φιλιππικά (Philippica), Theopompi Chii fragmenta, collegit, disposicit et explicavit, R. H. E. Wichers, Leyden, 1829.—Thiers, L. A., Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire, Paris, 1845-1862, 20 vols.—Thirlwall, C., A History of Greece, London, 1845.
Connop Thirlwall was born at Stepney, London, January 11, 1797; died at Bath, July 27, 1875. Bishop Thirlwall was one of those extraordinary men who are, perhaps, much more numerous than the world generally imagines, of whom it may be justly said that he never accomplished half that he might have done had he focalised his energies, and more persistently applied his capabilities. He was almost a prodigy of learning as a child, and in adult life he showed how the capacity to acquire knowledge was still retained by making himself master of the Welsh tongue, and preaching in that language when called to a Welsh pulpit. But his efforts were never focalised for a long period on any particular field, and it was almost by accident, and certainly by outside influence, that he was led to produce the one work which will transmit his name to posterity. This work of course is his history of Greece.
Such criticism as this is not intended in any sense to be a disparagement of that history, nor indeed of Thirlwall’s accomplishments as a whole. Applied in that sense criticism would be absurd, for it may be doubted, even to this day, whether Thirlwall’s is not the best general history of Greece that has ever been written. Certainly, for the general reader, it combines in a larger measure authority with a popular interest of presentation than any other in the English language. But the work was written to meet a popular demand, and while it was in no sense a hurried or careless production, the friends of Thirlwall always thought that it might have been given a somewhat more authoritative cast, had it been undertaken through different motives.
After all, however, perhaps the world is better for the work as it stands. Ponderous histories of Greece are no novelty, whereas readable histories of any country are never a drug on the market. The frequency with which we have had occasion to recur to the pages of Thirlwall in treating the history of Greece has been an earnest of our estimate of the position which his history holds after two or three generations of workers have searched for fresh material in the same field.
Thouvenal, E. A., La Grèce du Roi Othou, Paris, 1890.—Thucydides, Συγγραφή, Venice, 1502; The History of the Grecian War (trans. by Henry Dale), London, 1852; Of the Peloponnesian Wars, London, 1856, 2 vols.—Timayenis, T. T., Greece in the Times of Homer, New York, 1885; A History of Greece from Earliest Times to Present, New York, 1881.—Tozer, H. F., The Islands of the Ægean, Oxford, 1890; Researches in the Highlands of Turkey, 1869.—Tsountas, C., and J. I. Manatt, The Mycenæan Age, Boston and New York, 1897.—Tyrtaeus, Εὐνομία, edited by Klotz. Bremæ, 1764, Fragments 5, 6.
Virchow, R. (in Schliemann’s Ilios, Leipsic, 1881).