od and honest books; his brief history on the Thirty
Years' War has received the praise of scholars. Recognition brought him
money rewards. In 1882 Mr. Gladstone bestowed upon him a civil list
pension of L150 a year. Two years later All Souls College, Oxford,
elected him to a research fellowship; when this expired Merton made him
a fellow. Academic honors came late. Not until 1884, when he was
fifty-five, did he take his degree of M.A. Edinburgh conferred upon him
an LL.D., and Goettingen a Ph.D.; but he was sixty-six when he received
the coveted D.C.L. from his own university. The year previous Lord
Rosebery offered him the Regius Professorship of History at Oxford, but
he declined it because the prosecution of his great work required him to
be near the British Museum. It is worthy of mention that in 1874, nine
years before he was generally appreciated in England, the Massachusetts
Historical Society elected him a corresponding member.[157]

During the latter part of his life Gardiner resided in the country near
London, whence it took him about an hour to reach the British Museum,
where he did his work. He labored on his history from eleven o'clock to
half-past four, with an intermission of half an hour for luncheon. He
did not dictate to a stenographer, but wrote everything out. Totally
unaccustomed to collaboration, he never employed a secretary or
assistant of any kind. In his evenings he did no serious labor; he spent
them with his family, attended to his correspondence, or read a novel.
Thus he wrought five hours daily. What a brain, and what a splendid
training he had given himself to accomplish such results in so short a
working day!

In the preface to his first volume of the "History of the Commonwealth,"
published in 1894, Gardiner said that he was "entering upon the third
and last stage of a task the accomplishment of which seemed to me many
years ago to be within the bounds of possibility." One more volume
bringing the history down to the death of Cromwell would have completed
the work, and then Mr. Charles H. Firth, a fellow of All Souls College,
Oxford, was to take up the story. Firth now purposes to begin his
narrative with the year 1656. Gardiner's mantle has fallen on worthy
shoulders.

Where historical scholars congregate in England and America, Gardiner is
highly esteemed. But the critics must have their day. They cannot attack
him for lack of diligence and accuracy, which according to Gibbon, the