f the
Catholic Apostolic Church, he became an Irvingite. Because he was an
Irvingite, his university,--he was a son of Oxford,--so it is commonly
said, would give him no position whereby he might gain his living.
Nevertheless, Gardiner studied and toiled, and in 1863 published two
volumes entitled "A History of England from the Accession of James I to
the Disgrace of Chief Justice Coke." Of this work only one hundred and
forty copies were sold. Still he struggled on. In 1869 two volumes
called "Prince Charles and the Spanish Marriage" were published and sold
five hundred copies. Six years later appeared two volumes entitled "A
History of England under the Duke of Buckingham and Charles I." This
installment paid expenses, but no profit. One is reminded of what
Carlyle said about the pecuniary rewards of literary men in England:
"Homer's Iliad would have brought the author, had he offered it to Mr.
Murray on the half-profit system, say five-and-twenty guineas. The
Prophecies of Isaiah would have made a small article in a review which
... could cheerfully enough have remunerated him with a five-pound
note." The first book from which Gardiner received any money was a
little volume for the Epochs of Modern History Series on the Thirty
Years' War, published in 1874. Two more installments of the history
appearing in 1877 and 1881 made up the first edition of what is now our
ten-volume history, but in the meantime some of the volumes went out of
print. It was not until 1883, the year of the publication of the revised
edition, that the value of his labors was generally recognized. During
this twenty-eight years, from the age of twenty-six to fifty-four,
Gardiner had his living to earn. He might have recalled the remark made,
I think, by either Goldsmith or Lamb, that the books which will live are
not those by which we ourselves can live. Therefore Gardiner got his
bread by teaching. He became a professor in King's College, London, and
he lectured on history for the London Society for the Extension of
University Teaching, having large audiences all over London, and being
well appreciated in the East End. He wrote schoolbooks on history.
Finally success came twenty-eight years after his glorious conception,
twenty years after the publication of his first volume. He had had a
hard struggle for a living with money coming in by driblets. Bread won
in such a way is come by hard, yet he remained true to his ideal. His
potboilers were go