And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified, Nor is he far astray who deems That every hope, which rises and grows broad In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams From the great heart of God. God wills, man hopes: in common souls Never did Poesy appear So full of heaven to me, as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men. It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century; But better far it is to speak One simple word, which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men ; To write some earnest verse or line,1 Which, seeking not the praise of art, Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine In the untutored heart. He who doth this, in verse or prose, But surely shall be crowned at last with those 1 Verse or line; i. e. verse or prose, as in the next stanza THE HERITAGE THE rich man's son inherits lands, And piles of brick and stone, and gold, And he inherits soft white hands, And tender flesh that fears the cold, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. The rich man's son inherits cares; . The bank may break, the factory burn, A breath may burst his bubble shares, And soft white hands could hardly earn A living that would serve his turn; A heritage, it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. The rich man's son inherits wants, His stomach craves for dainty fare; With sated heart, he hears the pants Of toiling hinds1 with brown arms bare, And wearies in his easy-chair; A heritage; it seems to me, One scarce would wish to hold in fee. What doth the poor man's son inherit? A hardy frame, a hardier spirit; A heritage, it seems to me, What doth the poor man's son inherit? 1 hinds, literally farm-servants; hence, laborers A rank adjudged by toil-won merit, A king might wish to hold in fee. What doth the poor man's son inherit? To make the outcast bless his door; A heritage, it seems to me, O rich man's son ! there is a toil, But only whiten, soft white hands,This is the best crop from thy lands; A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being rich to hold in fee. O poor man's son ! scorn not thy state; There is worse weariness than thine, In merely being rich and great; Toil only gives the soul to shine, And makes rest fragrant and benign; A heritage, it seems to me, Worth being poor to hold in fee. Both, heirs to some six feet of sod, Are equal in the earth at last; A heritage, it seems to me, IN preceding pages we have caught some passing glimpses of historical writing from the works of Gibbon and of Burke, though nothing that could give us any impressions beyond those of tone and style. No comparison that we could here make would suffice to show how completely History in our own day differs from all writing in the same department that has gone before it. Put in few words, the earlier historians nearly all set out with a purpose that was artistic in its nature. They sought, for the most part, to please the fancy and to excite the emotions. Of the laws of social progress they had scarcely any notion. For painstaking research their facilities were few and their inclination was slight. The historians of this century look upon society as an organism, governed, like all other organisms, by certain laws of development; and the methods they adopt are borrowed from the order of science. An account of the growth and development of this species of writing- a history, that is, of History — would show the several steps of the slow transition through which History has ceased to be an unreliable chronicle of dynastic events, and has become the truthful record of man's progress, and of the reasons of his progress, out of savagery and into conditions of ever-increasing enlightenment. Of Of the more recent British historians, none have had a wider influence than the two, Macaulay and Froude, from whose works are taken the selections which follow. their compeers in the same field, it must here suffice to mention some of the more influential, with the subjects of their principal works. 66 Lingard's "History of England," Sir Francis Palgrave's History of the Anglo-Saxons," Freeman's "History of the Norman Conquest," and Lecky's "History of England in the Eighteenth Century," are important contributions to our knowledge of the social and political development of the English people. Grote and Thirlwall gave to the world, in the same year, histories of Greece, and Merivale a "History of Rome." Sir William Napier's "Peninsular War" and Kinglake's "Crimean War" afford luminous pictures of warfare in modern Europe. James Mill's "History of British India" and Helps's "History of the Spanish Conquest in America" trace for us the spread of European civilization over opposite quarters of the globe. Lecky in his “History of European Morals," Green in his "History of the English People," and Buckle in his "History of Civilization in England" have brought to the historian's task the habits of mind of the sociologist. Two great histories of the English Constitution are those of Henry Hallam and Walter Bagehot. Among English lecturers on the general subject of History, Thomas Arnold of Rugby, Professor Goldwin Smith, and Rev. Charles Kingsley have given us works of lasting value. |