Let the erudition of the German, the genial animation of the French, the Saxon good sense, the Italian grace be enjoyed, and whatsoever of glamour or of inadequacy these charms hide be duly estimated; reflection and sympathy will often separate the gold of truth from the alloy of prejudice or fantasy. Above all, let this eclectic test be applied beyond nominal history,—to the geological data on the ancient rock,—the handwriting of the ages upon race, costume, language,—the incidental, but genuine history innate in all true literature, vivid elements whereof live in passages of Milton's controversial writings, in Petrarch's sonnets, De Foe's fictions, our Revolutionary correspondence, South's sermons, Swift's diaries, Burke's speeches, French memoirs, Walpole's letters, in the poems, plays, and epistles of the past, and every fact and person which society and life offer to our cognizance or sympathy.
"When we are much attached to our ideas, we endeavor to attach everything to them," says Madame de Staël. "The secret of writing well," observes a Scotch professor, "is to write from a full mind." These two maxims seem to us to illustrate the whole subject of historical composition; an earnest votary thereof will instinctively find material in every interest and influence that sways events or moulds character, and from the assimilation of all these will educe a vital and harmonious picture and philosophy. There is an historical as well as a judicial or poetic type of mind; and to such there is no object too trifling, no fact too remote, not directly or indirectly to minister to the unwritten history which vaguely shapes itself to his intelligence. In his reading and travel it is by no means to the ostensible monuments and trophies of the past that his observation and inquiry are confined: the Letters of Madame de Sévigné give him authentic hints for the social tendencies of France and their influence upon politics, as the blood-stains at Holyrood identify the place of Rizzio's murder; the "Edinburgh Review" reveals the spirit of the Reform movement as clearly as the Parliamentary records its letter; the South-Sea House and the Temple are as suggestive as Whitehall and the Abbey,—for trade and jurisprudence, in the retrospect, are as much a part of the by-gone life and present character of a nation, as the fate and the fame of her dead kings; and a Spanish ballad is as valuable an illustration as a Madrid state-paper; while the life of Harry Vane vindicates the Puritan nature as clearly as the letter of a Venetian ambassador exhibits the domestic life of a Pope.
The redeeming influence of strong personal sympathy and earnest conviction, both in the choice of a subject and the method of its treatment, has been signally illustrated by a countryman of our own. The interest of the general reader and the approbation of historical scholars were at once enlisted by Motley's "Rise and Fall of the Dutch Republic." That work differs from and is superior to any American historical composition by virtue of a certain fluent animation, a certain decided and sustained tone, such as can be derived only from an absolute relation between the author's mind and heart and his subject. Accordingly his record not only seizes upon the attention, but wins the sympathy of the reader, who recognizes a vital and genuine spirit in the work, which gives it unity, completeness, and a living style, whereby its incidents, characters, and philosophy are unfolded, not only with art, but with nature, and so made real, attractive, and significant. That we are right in ascribing these merits to the affinity between the author and his work is amply evidenced by his own confession in a letter called forth by the death of Prescott, in which he says,—
"It seems to me but as yesterday, though it must be now twelve years ago, that I was talking with our ever-lamented friend Stackpole about my intention of writing a history upon a subject to which I have since that time been devoting myself. I had then made already some general studies in reference to it, without being in the least aware that Prescott had the intention of writing the history of Philip II. Stackpole had heard the fact, and that large preparations had already been made for the work, although 'Peru' had not yet been published. I felt, naturally, much disappointed. I was conscious of the immense disadvantage to myself of making my appearance, probably at the same time, before the public, with a work not at all similar in plan to 'Philip II.,' but which must, of necessity, traverse a portion of the same ground. My first thought was, inevitably as it were, only of myself. It seemed to me that I had nothing to do but to abandon at once a cherished dream, and probably to renounce authorship. For I had not first made up my mind to write a history, and then cast about to take up a subject. My subject had taken up me, drawn me on, and absorbed me into itself. It was necessary for me, it seemed, to write the book I had been thinking much of,—even if it were destined to fall dead from the press,—and I had no inclination or interest to write any other."
The same inspiration is partially obvious in those portions of every history which come home to the writer's experience: as, for instance, some of the military episodes in Colletta's "History of Naples," he having been a soldier,—and the descriptive phases of Parkman's "History of Pontiac," the author having been a Prairie traveller, and familiar with the woods and the bivouac. In like manner, it is the idiosyncrasy of historians which gives original value to their labors: Botta's knowledge of American localities and civilization was meagre, but his sympathy with the patriots of the Revolution was strong, and this gave warmth and effect to his "Guerra Americana"; Niebuhr was specially gifted to develop what has been called the law of investigation, and hence he penetrates the Roman life, and lays bare much of its unapparent meaning and spirit. So apt and patient are the Germans in research, that they have been justly said to "quarry" out the past; while so native are rhetoric, theorizing, and fancifulness to the French, that they make history, as they do life and government, theatrical and picturesque, rather than gravely real and practically suggestive.
A peculiar feature in the labors of modern historians is the research expended upon what the elder annalists regarded as purely incidental and extraneous. The collation of archives, official correspondence, and state-papers is now but the rough basis of research; memoirs are equally consulted,—localities minutely examined,—the art and literature of a given era analyzed,—the geography, climate, and ethnology of the scene made to illustrate the life and polity,—social phases, educational facts estimated as not less valuable than statistics of armies and judicial enactments. Michelet has some charming rural pictures and female portraits in his History of France; Macaulay thinks no custom or economy of a reign insignificant in the great historical aggregate. Topography, botany, artistic knowledge are not less parts of the chronicler's equipment than philology, rhetoric, and philosophy; a newspaper is not beneath nor a traveller's gossip beyond his scope; architecture reveals somewhat which diplomacy conceals; an inscription is not more historical than the average temperature or the staple productions. Whatever affects national character and destiny, whatever accounts for national manners or confirms individual sway, is brought into the record. Diaries, like those of Pepys and Evelyn, the tithe-book of a county, the taste in portraiture, the costume and the play-bill yield authentic hints not less than the census, the parliamentary edicts, or the royal signatures; the popular poem, the social favorite, the cause célèbre, what pulpit, bar, peasant and beau, doctor and lady à la mode do, say, and are, then and there, must coalesce with the battle, the legislation, and the treaty,—or these last are but technical landmarks, instead of human interests.
Even our most generalized historical ideas are made emphatic only through association and observation. How the vague sense of Roman dominion is deepened as we trace the outline of a camp, the massive ranges of a theatre, or the mouldy effigy on a coin, in some region far distant from the Imperial centre,—as at Nismes or Chester! How complete becomes the idea of mediaeval life, contemplated from the ramparts of a castle, in the "dim, religious light" of an old monastic chapel, or amid the obsolete trappings and weapons of an armory! What a distinct and memorable revelation of ancient Greece is the Venus or Apollo, a Parthenon frieze or a fateful drama! The best political essays on the French Revolution are based on the economical and social facts recorded in the Travels of Arthur Young. The equivocal action of Massena, when he commanded Paris against the Allies, is explained in the recently published letter of Joseph Bonaparte, wherein we learn his deficiency of muskets. Humboldt accounted for the defects of Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico" by the fact that the historian had never visited that country. Napoleon gave a key to the misfortunes of Italy, when he said, "It is a peninsula too long for its breadth." And the significance of the Seven Years' War is expressed in a single phrase by Milton's last biographer, when he defines it as the "consummation politically and the attenuation spiritually of the movement begun in Europe by the Lutheran Reformation."
Indeed, so intimate is the connection between private life and public events, between political and social phenomena, that the historical mind finds material in all literature, and the very attempt to keep to a high strain and to bend facts to theory limits the authenticity of professed annalists. What Macaulay says of an eminent party-leader is modified to those who have studied the character through his memoirs or writings. The charming narrative of Robertson, the characterization of Hume, the stately periods of Gibbon, fail to win implicit confidence, when the scene, the age, or the personages described are known to the reader through original authorities. When Bancroft declares a treaty of Colonial governors against Indian ravages the germ of democratic government, we know that it is his attachment to a theory, and not the actual circumstances, which leads to such an inference; for the very authority he cites merely indicates a defensive alliance among rulers, not a coalition of the ruled. And so when to an account of the Battle of Lexington he appends a rhetorical argument connecting that event, so meagre and simple in itself and so wonderful in its consequences, with the progress of truth and humanity in political science and reformed religion, we feel that the reasoning is forced and irrelevant,—more an experiment in fine writing than an evolution of absolute truth.
Thus continually is the independent reader of history taught eclecticism: he makes allowance for the want of careful research in this writer, for the love of effect in that,—for the skepticism of one, and the credulity of another,—for enthusiasm here, and fastidiousness there,—and especially for the greater or less attachment to certain opinions, and the absence or presence of strong convictions and genuine sympathies. Hence, to read history aright, we must read human nature as well; we must bring the light of philosophy and of faith, the calmness of judgment and the insight of love, to the record; collateral revelations drawn from our own experience, modified acceptance of both statement and inference, superiority to the blandishments of style, are as needful for the right interpretation of a chronicle as of a scientific problem. Thus history is perpetually rewritten; fresh knowledge opens new vistas in the past as well as the future; the discovery of to-day may rectify, in important respects, the statement which has been unchallenged for centuries; one new truth leavens a thousand old formulas; and nothing is more gradual than the elucidation of historical events and characters. Even our own brief annals suggest how large must be the historian's faith in time: only within a year or two has it been possible to demonstrate the justice of Washington's estimate of Lee, and how completely the sagacious provision of Schuyler secured the capture of Burgoyne. Since the American Revolution, one of these men has been as much overrated as the other has failed of just appreciation—because the documentary wisdom requisite for an enlightened judgment has not until now been patent.[C]
[Footnote C: See Lossing's Life and Correspondence of General
Schuyler, and Professor Moore's paper on Charles Lee.]