novelty and variety to lovers of plain English; but it wearies in continuance, and one turns to French or German with relief. The Essays upon German Literature, Richter, and The Niebelungen Lied are of great value to the young student. Such tracts as Past and Present, and The Latter-Day Pamphlets, have caused him to be called the "Censor of the Age." He is too eccentric and prejudiced to deserve the name in its best meaning. If he fights shams, he sometimes mistakes windmills and wine-skins for monsters, and, what is worse, if he accost a shepherd or a milkmaid, they at once become Amadis de Gaul and Dulcinea del Toboso. In spite of these prejudices and peculiarities, Carlyle will always be esteemed for his arduous labors, his honest intentions, and his boldness in expressing his opinions. His likes and dislikes find ready vent in his written judgments, and he cares for neither friend nor foe, in setting forth his views of men and events. On many subjects it must be said his views are just. There are fields in which his word must be received with authority. OTHER HISTORIANS OF THE LATEST PERIOD. John Lingard, 1771-1851: a Roman Catholic priest. He was a man of great probity and worth. His chief work is A History of England, from the first invasion of the Romans to the accession of William and Mary. With a natural leaning to his own religious side in the great political questions, he displays great industry in collecting material, beauty of diction, and honesty of purpose. His history is of particular value, in that it stands among the many Protestant histories as the champion of the Roman Catholics, and gives an opportunity to "hear the other side," which could not have had a more respectable advocate. In all the great controversies, the student of English history must consult Lingard, and collate his facts and opinions with those of the other historians. He wrote, besides, numerous theological and controversial works. Patrick Fraser Tytler, 1791-1849: the author of A History of Scotland from Alexander III. to James VI. (James I. of England), and A History of England during the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary. His Universal History has been used as a text-book, and in style and construction has great merit, although he does not rise to the dignity of a philosophic historian, Sir William Francis Patrick Napier, 1785–1866: a distinguished soldier, and, like Cæsar, a historian of the war in which he took part. His History of the War in the Peninsula stands quite alone. It is clear in its strategy and tactics, just to the enemy, and peculiar but effective in style. It was assailed by several military men, but he defended all his positions in bold replies to their strictures, and the work remains as authority upon the great struggle which he relates. Lord Mahon, Earl of Stanhope, born 1805: his principal work is a History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles. He had access to much new material, and from the Stuart papers has drawn much of interest with reference to that unfortunate family. His view of the conduct of Washington towards Major André has been shown to be quite untenable. He also wrote a History of the War of Succession in Spain. Henry Thomas Buchle, 1822-1862: he was the author of a History of Civilization, of which he published two volumes, the work remaining unfinished at the time of his death. For bold assumptions, vigorous style, and great reading, this work must be greatly admired; but all his theories are based on second principles, and Christianity, as a divine institution, is ignored. It startled the world into admiration, but has not retained the place in popular esteem which it appeared at first to make for itself. He is the English Comte, without the eccentricity of his model. Sir Archibald Alison, 1792-1867: he is the author of The History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution to the Restoration of the Bourbons, and a continuation from 1815 to 1852. It may he doubted whether even the most dispassionate scholar can write the history of contemporary events. We may be thankful for the great mass of facts he has collated, but his work is tinctured with his high Tory principles; his material is not well digested, and his style is clumsy. Agnes Strickland, born 1806: after several early attempts Miss Strickland began her great task, which she executed nobly - The Queens of England. Accurate, philosophic, anecdotal, and entertaining, this work ranks among the most valuable histories in English. If the style is not so nervous as that of masculine writers, there is a ready intuition as to the rights and the motives of the queens, and a great delicacy combined with entire lack of prudery in her treatment of their crimes. The library of English history would be singularly incomplete without Miss Strickland's work. She also wrote The Queens of Scotland, and The Bachelor Kings of England. Henry Hallam, 1778-1859: the principal works of this judicious and learned writer are A View of Europe during the Middle Ages, The Constitutional History of England, and An Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. With the skill of an advocate he combines the calmness of a judge; and he has been justly called "the accurate Hallam," because his facts are in all cases to be depended on. By his clear and illustrative treatment of dry subjects, he has made them interesting; and his works have done as much to instruct his age as those of any writer. Later researches in literature and constitutional history may discover more than he has presented, but he taught the new explorers the way, and will always be consulted with profit, as the representative of this varied learning during the first half of the nineteenth century. James Anthony Froude, born 1818: an Oxford graduate, Mr. Froude represents the Low Church party in a respectable minority. His chief work is A History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. With great industry, and the style of a successful novelist in making his groups and painting his characters, he has written one of the most readable books published in this period. He claimed to take his authorities from unpublished papers, and from the statute-books, and has endeavored to show that Henry VIII. was by no means a bad king, and that Elizabeth had very few faults. His treatment of Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen of Scots is unjust and ignoble. Not content with publishing what has been written in their disfavor, with the omniscience of a romancer, he asserts their motives, and produces thoughts which they never uttered. A race of powerful critics has sprung forth in defence of Mary, and Mr. Froude's inaccuracies and injustice have been clearly shown. To novel readers who are fond of the sensational, we commend his work to those who desire historic facts and philosophies, we proclaim it to be inaccurate, illogical, and unjust in the highest degree. Sharon Turner, 1768–1847: among many historical efforts, principally concerning England in different periods, his History of the AngloSaxons stands out prominently as a great work. He was an eccentric scholar, and an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook that history. The style is not good-too epigrammatic and broken; but his research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the Anglo-Saxons, immense. The student of English history must read Turner for a knowledge of the Saxon period. Thomas Arnold, 1795-1832: widely known and revered as the Great Schoolmaster. He was head-master at Rugby, and influenced his pupils more than any modern English instructor. Accepting the views of Niebuhr, he wrote a work on Roman History up to the close of the second Punic war. But he is more generally known by his historical lectures delivered at Oxford, where he was Professor of Modern History. A man of original views and great honesty of purpose, his influence in England has been strengthened by the excellent biography written by his friend Dean Stanley. William Hepworth Dixon, born 1821: he was for some time editor of The to Gibbon, and displays a thorough grasp of the great epoch, varied scholarship, and excellent taste. His analyses of Roman literature are very valuable, and his pictures of social life so vivid that we seem to live in the times of the Cæsars as we read. CHAPTER XL. THE LATER NOVELISTS AS SOCIAL REFORMERS. Bulwer. Changes in Writing. Dickens's Novels. American Notes. THE HE great feature in the realm of prose fiction, since the appearance of the works of Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett, had been the Waverley novels of Sir Walter Scott; but these apart, the prose romance had not played a brilliant part in literature until the appearance of Bulwer, who began, in his youth, to write novels in the old style; but who underwent several organic changes in modes of thought and expression, and at last stood confessed as the founder of a new school. BULWER. Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer was a younger son of General Bulwer of Heydon Hall, Norfolk, England. He was born, in 1806, to wealth and ease, but was early and always a student. Educated at Cambridge, he took the Chancellor's prize for a poem on Sculpture. His first public effort was a volume of fugitive poems, called Weeds and Wild Flowers, of more promise than merit. In 1827 he published Falkland, and very soon after Pelham, or the Adventures of a Gentleman. The first was not received favorably; but Pelham was at once popular, neither for the skill of the plot nor for its morality, but because it describes the character, dissipations, and good qualities of a fashionable young man, which are always interesting to an English public. Those novels that immediately followed are so alike in general |