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ART. II.-BLUNDERS OF HALLAM'S MIDDLE AGES.

1. Supplemental Notes to the Ages. By HENRY HALLAM. marl street; 1840, 8vo.

View of Europe in the Middle
London, John Murray, Alber-

2. View of the state of Europe during the Middle Ages. By HENRY HALLAM. Ninth Edition. London, John Murray, 1846. 2 vols., 8vo.

There may be a later edition of Mr. Hallam's History of the Middle Ages, than the Ninth, which we have specified in our rubric; but that number of editions would be sufficient to prove, if other and more direct evidence were wanting, that it had definitely taken its place in our libraries as a work of standard authority, and amongst the trade as one of the regular stock books. Its position may not be permanently assured, but it is fixed for the present. It is habitually regarded, and is sometimes read as a satisfactory exposition of the changes, the progress and the characteristics of mediæval times. It may thus appear both too late and too perilous to question its claims to the position accorded to it; and yet, it can never be too late to expose error, nor is that risk to be avoided, which is encountered in the cause of truth. It has been our settled intention, since the publication of this Supplementary volume, to bring to the examination and castigation of this accredited history of the Middle Ages the scanty and fragmentary information of that period, gathered in the course of our reading: for though perfectly aware of the insufficiency of our knowledge for a connected delineation of this important period, or even for the thorough detection and rectification of the numerous errors contained in the volumes under review, we feel equally assured that a limited acquaintance with the subject was competent to the exposure of Mr. Hallam's multifarious blunders, and in many instances to their correction. The mass of notes now before us, in which we have exhibited, criticised, explained or cor

rected only the more glaring mistakes, is so ample that we can incorporate but a very small portion of them in this notice. What we give from our gleanings will only afford a sample of the ample harvest which more diligent and learned industry might have obtained from the same field.

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The labor, therefore, on which we are about to enter, may be tardy, but it is rendered the more necessary by not having been performed before; and if imperfectly executed even now, it may perhaps serve to shake the undeserved and misplaced confidence bestowed upon a book entitled to no such consideration; and may also awaken more profound inquiry into the extent of the errors which have been credulously believed, and into the whole character of those ages which have been so grossly misconceived, in consequence of the ignorant misrepresentations which have been hitherto current in our language.

Thirty years have elapsed," said Mr. Hallam in the preface to his Supplemental Notes, " since the publication of the work to which the following Notes relate, and almost forty since the first chapter and part of the second were written. In the meantime, however, the long period of the Middle Ages had been investigated by many of my distinguished contemporaries with signal success, and I have been anxious to bring down my own volumes nearer to the boundaries of the historic domain, as it has been enlarged in our own age. My object has been, acordingly, to reconsider those portions of this work which relate to subjects discussed by eminent writers since its publication, to illustrate and enlarge some passages which have been imperfectly or obscurely treated, and to acknowledge my own errors." The pith and marrow of this vague explanation lie in the last member of the last sentence. The confession of former error is the main object of his later work; and without waiting as long as Mr. Hallam waited, before commencing the labor of correction, we shall take advantage of his discharge of a very necessary duty to reconsider the defective parts of a production, which, in default of a better, has become classical; to estimate the

extent of his errors, acknowledged or unperceived; and to examine briefly the value of those amplifications and corrections, which he has presented to the public as giving some appearance of perfection to his earliest undertaking of any magnitude. These Supplemental Notes, issued at the close of Mr. Hallam's long life, may be regarded as giving to his principal work a definitive form, and as purifying it for the acceptance of posterity, while they justify, write, and almost exact a renewed criticism of its most glaring defects. Had we been consulted, however, before their publication, we might have suggested a more thorough, expeditious, economical, and satisfactory method of attaining the same and by simply adding on the last page of his original work, Corrigendum. Dele from Vol. I, p. 1, to Vol. II, p. 560.

Mr. Hallam's work on the Middle Ages has been already censured with much and just severity by many subsequent writers, who have enjoyed the opportunity of penetrating into the obscurities of that interesting but carelessly studied period of history. The late Mr. Legare, with most effective and well merited sarcasm, castigated the pretensions of an essay on Mediæval times, which affected to ignore the past influence and enduring importance of the Roman Law, and was grossly ignorant of the modern condition of that extensive branch of learning. We have, ourselves, on several previous occasions spoken of Mr. Hallam's labors in stronger terms of depreciation than we deem it proper to repeat; when instead of a passing animadversion, we have the opportunity of examining somewhat in detail the defects of one of his principal works. We are not disposed to cancel or modify any thing we may have heretofore said on the subject; for scarcely any rebuke would be too harsh for such slovenly investigations. We used strong language before, because we were compelled to compress our judgment into a sentence or a paragraph, without having the time to introduce the qualifications and modifications of the censure which might be appropriate in a more extended notice; and we were anxious, as we still are, to protest against the acceptance of Mr. Hal

lam's Historical Sketch of the Middle Ages as an ultimate authority in regard to the times and subjects which it so superficially and inaccurately represents. Engaging, as we now do, in a more detailed investigation, and a more extended criticism, and taking up the work to examine it chapter by chapter, and sometimes note by note, we shall purposely refrain from such sweeping condemnation and denunciation, as is not directly provoked by the blunders under consideration, and justified by the evidence adduced. As far as may be practicable, we shall leave our readers to form their own estimate of Mr. Hallam's performance from the results to which our inquiries may bring us. We shall state our objections in orderly succession, as they are suggested by the context of Mr. Hallam's volumes, and shall support them by such proof as is accessible to us; but at the same time, when the chance is presented, we shall candidly admit and exhibit the merits which they may actually possess.

Although contemplating a methodical exposition of such errors as we may be able to detect, as far as our limits may permit, we have no design of writing a formal essay on a book which has been so long before the public, but must content ourselves with simply taking the questionable passages as they occur, and appending our own criticism thereon. Thus we shall insure greater brevity of statement, and imitate the example of the author under review. Indeed, any other course is precluded by the objects of this notice, and by the endless blunders which require reprehension.

Before commencing this detail, however, it may be appropriate to remark that the whole work appears to have been originally undertaken with an inadequate conception of both the nature of the subject, and the duties of the historian. It was perfectly justifiable in Mr. Hallam to limit his labors as he thought proper, but they should have been complete and thorough within the prescribed range. It is not a legitimate objection that he proposed merely his composition of a sketch and not a history. But it is censurable that he should have made his sketch only a series of disconnected outlines

that he should have given fragmentary delineations of arbitrarily selected topics, and should have omitted every thing which did not suit his tastes, or was not illustrated by the loose collections of his note books. He is fairly obnoxious to blame for the absence of any true spirit of philosophy in his historical inquiries,-for the want of any enlarged appreciation of either the significance or the relations of the periods which he discusses-and for the inadequacy of his learning and his industry for the great task upon which he had ventured. Throughout the work there are numerous marks of haste, slovenliness, ignorance, disregard of the duties and responsibilities of an historian, and narrowness of view.

Of course, it would be unjust to try Mr. Hallam by reference to the discoveries which have been made in regard to mediæval times by subsequent explorers, unless their discoveries were attainable by himself by ordinary diligence and a proper examination of authorities then accessible. But this benevolent rule will not cover his offences, when they have been unnoticed or repeated in his Supplemental Notes, nor will it extend to any new blunders he may have committed. We shall endeavor to bear in mind this plea in mitigation of his guilt, but it will rarely affect the justice of the general censure just expressed.

With this general censure, which is abundantly confirmed by the necessity for the corrections contained in the supplementary volume, by their character, and still more by their new errors, and the evident anxiety to gloss over and conceal the extent and magnitude of the blunders which are confessed, we proceed to examine the mistakes which still remain, notwithstanding the tardy and insufficient effort at amendment. The principal inducement to our undertaking is, indeed, that the redress offered magnifies rather than expiates the crimes committed, and that it is an avoiddance in almost all cases even more than it is a confession. Criticism would have been completely disarmed if these Notes had been the simple, candid, humble confession of Mr. Hallam, in his old age, of his faults into which he had been betrayed by the haste and incompetency of his youth.

Mr. Hallam commences his work with the bare statement of the

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