So far as modern literature is concerned, it may be said, that the Reviewers are, by their skill and experience, qualified to direct, and ever ready to aid the wayfarer; and in theory this is true. But, putting aside the few leading journals and periodicals, daily and weekly—of which we would only speak with the greatest respect—we fear that the reviewer's art is at a low ebb in these days. Often the side breezes of controversy, of private jealousy, or of personal interest, intervene to divert straightforward criticism; still more often does absolute incompetence render these guides worthless. A score of books may be seen, huddled together in an unbroken column of so-called criticism, with no other bond of union than their publication in course of the same week. The interested author, wading through this disconnected mass, suddenly stumbles on a few words extracted—possibly perverted—from his own preface, to which a line of commonplace commendation is affixed; and he then suddenly encounters a subject as far removed from his own as the 'Republic' of Plato is distant from 'Called Back.'
Among all these discordant voices, who shall help us to detect the true ring? Thrice happy are those privileged few who enjoy the loving care and supervision of some wise mentor to guide their choice and to watch their progress; but for the multitude, to whom such a privilege is denied, a good classified list, not excluding recent works, carefully sifted and added to by the most prominent men of the day, would be of inestimable value.
In the first place, a connected chain of histories, from the earliest times to the present day, with a selected list of contemporary memoirs and biographies, would throw a guiding gleam of light on thousands who are wandering, dark and aimless, in a labyrinth of 'masterpieces.' In this enquiry system is essential. Of desultory comments, charming and instructive in themselves and valuable in the formation of taste, we have abundant store. Who that has read Emerson's 'Essay on Books,' or Charles Lamb's 'Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading,' or Isaac Disraeli's 'Curiosities of Literature' and 'Literary Character,' or Byron's brilliant and impulsive criticisms on books and authors, can be without some kindling of enthusiasm and of desire to know more fully the great works thus passed in critical review? But the essential characteristics of such commentaries as these are snares to the student. The temptation to pass from one subject to another is inseparable from treatment of this kind, and so becomes a hindrance to more earnest application.
Dibdin's 'Library Companion' in some respects fulfils the requirements we have mentioned; but apart from the fact, that the information it contains is now in a great measure obsolete, too much space is devoted to the description and value of choice and rare editions. It is a book-buyer's rather than a reader's guide. Perkins's 'The Best Reading' is too bald a catalogue, and requires a vast amount of sifting, and the addition of a few words of running comment to render it serviceable. It lacks, in short, the characteristics of a catalogue raisonnée.
The Historical List which we have proposed should be prefaced by a chronological table, indicating the epochs into which the World's History divides itself, and the periods covered by each of the works recommended. This would give the student a bird's-eye view of the field which he is about to explore, and enable him, at any moment in his exploration, to take his reckonings and verify his position.
Careful distinction should be made between Chroniclers and Historians, between those who have provided the materials and those who have designed and reared the complete structure. Sometimes these chroniclers have furnished merely rough and unhewn stones, useful in themselves, but with no pretence to artistic finish or individuality of character; and these have been absorbed into the building. Other chronicles, again, are perfected in form, and are not merely integral, essential portions of the complicated structure, but become a source of endless pleasure from the merit of their workmanship. Thucydides and Clarendon are universally read, while Hecatæus has all but vanished; and Thomas May's 'History of the Long Parliament,' though pronounced by Lord Chatham to be a 'much honester and more instructive book of the same period than Lord Clarendon's,' is relegated to the shelves of the specialist or the bookworm.
Histories are scarcely less ephemeral than books of science; and the object of the list we are advocating is not to provide an exhaustive catalogue, a task which in these days would overtax the capacity of half-a-dozen Dr. Johnsons, but to select those works which will give the best continuous narrative of the period under discussion, and represent the most recent scholarship; omitting those which have been absorbed or superseded.
Mitford and Gillies have given place to Thirwall and Grote; and even the star of Hallam, outshining De Lolme, is beginning to wane before the searching light which, by the publication of State Papers and other archives, is being brought to bear on the History of England and of Modern Europe. But such materials, though ruthlessly relegating much of what we have hitherto regarded as the 'Pearls of History' to the category of 'Mock Pearls,' cannot immediately be made available for the ordinary student, or become absorbed into the popular histories of the day. We can ill spare from our list the names of those writers, who, from Livy to Lord Macaulay, have added a fascination to the study of history; though in their works most beautiful Mock Pearls abound. But the student should be warned against implicit reliance on their records.
To Clarendon has been ascribed the honor of being the first Englishman who wrote History, as we regard it; his predecessors having been in the main mere chroniclers or annalists. Clarendon elaborated the picture of which these annalists had merely supplied the materials; and the eighteenth century saw the development of this new method in the brilliant triad of contemporaries, Hume, Robertson, and Gibbon. Our own age has witnessed a further advance in the school of philosophical historians, who, without aiming at any connected narrative of events, present to us the profound lessons which history teaches; pointing out the far-reaching causes which have influenced and are influencing events occurring in widely distant countries; causes and events which to the superficial observer seem totally disconnected. This philosophical category would form one of the most interesting, and in these days, when political empiricism shows a growing tendency to supplant statesmanlike research, not the least important portion of our historical list. If to this main stem of History there be added the due complement of branches and leaves—memoirs and biographies—the Plutarchs and Pepyses, the Walpoles and St. Simons, the Crokers and Grevilles of each generation—we shall have a tree of knowledge which would yield to none in point of interest and utility.
We have dwelt at some length on this part of the subject, first, because of its almost unlimited extent; and secondly, because, owing to this extent, there is such difficulty in making a genuine and trustworthy selection. There is, besides, an apparently constant antagonism in history between the qualities of strict accuracy and literary brilliancy. The two are not incompatible, but the striving after literary merit is as great a snare to the writer as its attainment by the writer is, in too many cases, to the student.