e particular cases, with the points in debate, and the
characteristics of the prominent leaders in each party. To estimate
the position of the clergy as a body, and to show, as Walpole
undertakes to do, that in the middle of the nineteenth century they
were losing caste as a class, and that between the middle and end of
that century they had fallen in social status, was a much more
difficult and delicate problem. All generalisations upon the condition
of society in times that have passed away, however recently, are of
doubtful value, because the evidence of documents must always be
incomplete, and even personal recollections are partial and become
indistinct; they are all seen in a fading and uncertain light.
Moreover the chronicler of disputations over ritual and articles, and
of matters concerning churches and the clergy, may be said to move
over the surface of the spiritual waters; and Walpole draws nearer to
the deeper undercurrents when he appeals to the higher literature for
signs of alternating tendencies of religious thought in that
generation; though the famous stanzas from Tennyson's 'In Memoriam,'
which he quotes at the end of his chapter, represent rather the poetic
than the philosophic conclusions of thinkers in the nineteenth
century.

But Walpole was quite aware of the difficulties that beset any writer
who endeavours to relate the history of a very recent period,
especially of that part to which his own lifetime belongs, and to pass
judgments on the conduct or opinions of statesmen and writers who may
be still living, or have only lately departed. Yet, as Lord Acton has
said, the secrets of our own time cannot be learnt from books, but
from men; and Walpole's social relations, his personal popularity, his
familiarity with official business, and his literary culture, provided
him with valuable opportunities for composing his last four volumes
from direct impressions of his subject, for preserving the right
atmosphere. His studies in biography show an aptitude for personal
delineation; and in one of his earlier volumes there is a full-length
portrait of Sir Robert Peel, executed with much skill and
comprehension. Therein lay the artistic quality of his work; he aimed
at the presentation of individual character and action; he laid stress
on the influence of remarkable men on their country's fortunes; for
true historical art is concerned with bringing prominent figures into
formal relief, and with arranging