guide. To these intellectual gifts, Thierry joins, by a rare combination, the steady diligence of the archæologist. Hardly could a Benedictine monk have delved more diligently in the deep mines of mediæval antiquity. Animated, and yet steadily laborious, his invention is constantly stimulated by the monotonous chronicle and the mouldering charter.

But those who wish to appreciate Thierry's powers must judge him, not by the Conquête,' but by his recent Récits des Temps Merovingiens,' in which we have a narrative uniting Walter Scott's liveliness of detail and dramatic effect with the observance of historical truth. In the Considérations sur l'Histoire de France, an essay prefixed to the Récits, he furnishes the best general groundwork of French constitutional history which has yet appeared. This last-mentioned essay, which every historical student should consult, is a history of historians as well as a history of history. Whilst delineating the literary and political character of the French writers, he, at the same time, marks out the progress of opinion, the phases of policy, and the revolutions of the State. The character and worth of this book have been acknowledged in a singular manner. A few years since, the Baron Gobat left large funds to the French Institute, the annual proceeds whereof are to be applied, as a reward, to the author whom the Institute shall have declared to be the best writer upon French history, and the Laureate is to receive the income until some superior work is produced. The champion wears the garland until tilted out of the saddle in the tournament of literature, by a more gallant adventurer. Thierry, the first person who was honoured by the prize, still continues to retain his pre-eminence, no work having yet appeared possessing higher claims.

An examination of these last-mentioned compositions, important as they may be in mediæval history, would carry us too far away from our present object; and the task, so far as relates to the Considérations, has been already performed (Edinburgh Review, No. 147, Art. 5); but it is needful to say thus much, lest we should be blamed, and justly, for neglecting to pay the tribute due to the talents, the acquirements, and, let us also add, the amiable disposition and virtues of the author, heavily oppressed with bodily infirmity. But we must now be permitted to speak with equal freedom of the imperfections incident to the Histoire de la Conquête.' We cannot abstain from this discussion: so able and influential a writer must not be allowed to mislead us. Details we will not cavil at. We might charge M. Thierry with a deficiency in the due appreciation of the comparative value of the historical sources which he has employed. Many grave errors may be pointed out-many passages in which he has not seized either the sense or the spirit of

his originals; but the important, the misleading faults, lie deeper. Taking the work as a whole, we should say that, although Thierry furnishes lively and graphic descriptions of particular incidents, and that some of the historical deductions are both novel and accurate, still whoever follows Thierry's guidance, will never understand the true course of our English policy. Thierry does not give you English history, but the opinions which he chooses to engraft upon English history: always glancing, with more or less obliquity, upon the political feelings of the then mouvement party. It is this perverseness, of which he himself complains as the besetting sin of French constitutional writers, which gives to his work the character of a political romance; for although much is told by him with truth and accuracy, so far as the skeleton of facts is concerned, yet the whole impression, which remains in the reader's mind, is as far away from the real doctrine of the age as 'Brambletye House' is from Clarendon. Thierry gains the mastery over the general reader by his vigour, and by the absence of the conventionality which has usually deadened historical literaPartly from his researches, but far more from the spirit in which he employs those researches, the tale, an hundred times told, presents itself with the freshness of an unexpected discovery. This is a great merit, because the history of the Conquest is at once trite and obscure. There is hardly any other historical subject in which it is so difficult to determine what to say and what to leave unsaid. The theme is so familiarly known that at first it appears superfluous to multiply details, and yet whoever now attempts to investigate the period, so as to realize events and institutions, men and motives and things, will find himself often under the necessity of abridging what others have considered as the leading features of the history, and at the same time of investing, with apparently disproportionate importance, many subjects which his predecessors have neglected.

ture.

Some portions of Thierry's book are certainly executed with remarkable ability. Often as the history of the Conquest has been discussed amongst us, our most celebrated writers had failed to discern the process by which the immediate subjugation of England was effected; still less had our historians sufficiently adverted to the existence of the antagonism of races, united under one government, professing one religion, but severed by sentiments and interests. May it not even be asserted, that, from Thierry, we have learnt to appreciate the importance of investigating the internal stratification of society? We had, previously, been contented to walk upon the surface of history, unconscious of the successive formations of the moral world. Great acuteness also his early chapters of Anglo-Norman history. He seizes the

appears

in

true

In

true import of the battle of Hastings. The conflict is not the catastrophe upon which the curtain drops, and closes the AngloSaxon tragedy, but the first scene in a new act of the continuous drama. Other writers had some perception that the Conquest was not perfected by the death of Harold: still they did not, as Thierry has done, trace the Conqueror's progress, step by step, from the Channel to the furthest verge of the Northumbrian realms. Thierry gives us the geographical chronology of the Norman settlement. He metes and measures the expansion of Norman power-Anglo-Saxon England diminishing as the flood of conquest rises higher and higher, till the last summit disappears. Thus far, well-but in spite of these conceptions of truth, Thierry's history is not true: truth escapes him.-He places himself in a position by which the Englishman ought to be gratified. He speaks as if he wished to identify himself with the Anglo-Saxon nation. Of the conquered race, he presents himself, not merely as the historian, but the earnest defender. his impassioned narrative, he represents his sympathies as being entirely with the Anglo-Saxons. Their merits are exalted, their sufferings deplored, the loss of their national independence lamented with anguish. He puts on the garb of a Varangian, weeping his exile from the downs of Kent, amidst the porphyry columns and gilded mosaics of the Byzantine palace. In this assumed character of an Englishman, Thierry wages an implacable guerilla against the Norman enemy. Hence the merits, the charm, the defects of the work. Thierry acquires poetical unity at the expense of historical verity. He aims at interesting the feelings, rather than satisfying the critical inquirer. Grievous indeed are the miseries resulting from national subjugation; but he so overcharges the oppressions sustained by the English, that we fail to discern the compensations mercifully provided for such evils. His Anglo-Saxonism constantly tempts him to pass an unfair judgment upon individual characters amongst the conquerors. In his page they all assume the same grim aspect. Bad enough were many of the invaders, yet we cannot agree with him in denying them any possibility of possessing humanity or sincerity. This exaggeration, constantly inclining the balance, destroys that due equilibrium between fact and theory, upon which the merits of historical composition depend. Without theory, you may have an accurate historical chronicle of facts, which nobody can recollect; with a small proportion of fact, you may have a clever philosophical romance, containing nothing worth recollecting: but you must have both, wisely compounded, to produce philosophical history.

If

If there be such a thing as historical science,' it mainly subsists in this equilibrium.

Neither does Thierry's philosophical romance produce conviction: a suspicion always arises in your mind that he espouses the Anglo-Saxon party for some purpose of his own-possibly a good purpose, or an honourable one, but not what it professes to be. Powerfully as he depicts the sufferings of the conquered races, however picturesque his delineations of their struggles and conflicts, he fails, hard as he tries, to excite any real concern on their behalf. And why?—The si vis me flere is wholly wanting. -He is not congenial to the Anglo-Saxons; he pleads their cause, but he does not think with them. An advocate for the Anglo-Saxons, he is not an Anglo-Saxon advocate; their griefs are not his griefs. What they most valued, is by him despised. Somehow or another, you do not mind him. He produces no more conviction than an American orator, patting his bloodhound, whilst he laments the extinction of his red brethren.' He is essentially a Parisian savant of the nineteenth century, and places the entire happiness of nations in the 'civilization' of modern society. We shall abstain from entering into any comparison between the different conditions to which human kind is subjected, either in mercy or in judgment; yet thus much must be observed, that Thierry's French 'civilization' is not compatible with any heartfelt support of nationality.

All the elements which are really beneficial in nationality are directly at variance with the French idea of civilization. Can we appeal to any higher authority than Guizot? What do we collect from his terse and philosophical development of this most important subject, beyond the proposition, that Paris, whether in policy or in intellect, in physique or morale, one and indivisible, is the acme of European civilization? It is through France only that the world is to become civilized :- Les idées, les institutions civilisantes, si je puis ainsi parler, qui ont pris naissance dans d'autres territoires, quand elles ont voulu se transplanter, devenir fécondes, et générales, agir au profit commun de la civilisation Européenne, on les a vues, en quelque sorte, obligées de subir en France une nouvelle préparation; et c'est de la France, comme d'une seconde patrie, plus féconde, plus riche, qu'elles se sont élancées à la conquête de l'Europe. Il n'est presque aucune grande idée, aucun grand principe de civilisation, qui, pour se répandre partout, n'ait passé d'abord par la France.' French civilization cannot amalgamate with Dr. Arnold's great distinguishing elements of nationality-national language, national institutions, national religion. All these are abominated by

French

French civilization.*-French civilization is fiercely hostile against national language. Had French dominion continued a quarter of a century longer in Italy, the 'bel parlar gentile' of Dante would have been completely supplanted by the nasals of Voltaire.French civilization totally suppresses all national institutions. Burgomaster and Podestà must disappear, and give way to a Préfet at Amsterdam, and a Préfet at Pistoia. The German is to be governed by the five codes: the waters of the Seine are to flow into the Elbe and the Tiber.-Above all, French civilization hates religion: a grudging acknowledgment of the statistical fact that a given religion is professed by the majority of the people is all it can obtain. National faith may be tolerated out of policy, or spared out of contempt; but active faith, in every shape, is discouraged as a nuisance- -a stain, to be obliterated, as the badge of intellectual degradation and barbarity.

Thierry is constantly at strife with himself. Can the historian of the Conquest be otherwise than in opposition to the Member of the Parisian Institute ?-Does not the philanthropist, who sorrows so eloquently for the solitary Razzia of Northumbria, exult in the monthly repetition of the Raid in Algeria? Can he glory in the achievements of the Maréchal, exterminating the swarthy Kabyles, and really lament the subjugation of the fair-haired Anglo-Saxon by the Conqueror? Are the tears which overflow for the contemporaries of Gurth and Harold compatible with the sympathiser's cry of implacable vengeance against the Hagarenes who dare to defend the chastity of their wives, the freedom of their children, the sanctity of their homes, the graves of their ancestors? Therefore you feel that M. Thierry does not wish to make any practical application of his doctrines, and there is no reason why they should be urged. That they should make any impression upon his public, is the last thing he wishes. His lessons of humanity and justice adorn the story. If the book were a professed work of fiction, the sentiments might impress us as real. Because it is a professed history, we reject them as the unreal fictions of a declaimer; they never were intended to reach the reader's heart. We look upon the history with suspicion from beginning to end.

Another defect in Thierry arises from the constant endeavour * Our questions respecting the meaning of the word 'civilization (Quart. Rev. vol. lxxii. p. 353), have received an able philological answer from Mr. G. C. Lewis (Classical Journal,' No. 3, Art. 30); but his examination of the moral import of the term is slight and perfunctory, and the main points which we had attempted to raise, remain open to discussion. So far, indeed, as concerns a large, perhaps the largest, portion of the human race, our second question- What are the benefits secured to the people, and particularly the "masses," by civilization?'-receives a reply from Mr. Monckton Milnes, who tells us, that in the East, European civilization has produced nothing but unmixed evil.

to