servatism which fancied that the old
order could be preserved in all its fossil institutions and
corresponding dogmas.

What was the philosophy congenial to Conservatism? There is, of
course, the simple answer, None. Toryism was a 'reaction' due to the
great struggle of the war and the excesses of the revolution. A
'reaction' is a very convenient phrase. We are like our fathers; then
the resemblance is only natural. We differ; then the phrase 'reaction'
makes the alteration explain itself. No doubt, however, there was in
some sense a reaction. Many people changed their minds as the
revolutionary movement failed to fulfil their hopes. I need not argue
now that such men were not necessarily corrupt renegades. I can only
try to indicate the process by which they were led towards certain
philosophical doctrines. Scott, Wordsworth, and Coleridge represent it
enough for my purpose. When Mill was reproaching Englishmen for their
want of interest in history, he pointed out that Thierry, 'the
earliest of the three great French historians' (Guizot and Michelet
are the two others), ascribed his interest in his subject to
_Ivanhoe_.[631] Englishmen read _Ivanhoe_ simply for amusement.
Frenchmen could see that it threw a light upon history, or at least
suggested a great historical problem. Scott, it is often said, was the
first person to teach us that our ancestors were once as much alive as
ourselves. Scott, indeed, the one English writer whose fame upon the
Continent could be compared to Byron's, had clearly no interest in, or
capacity for, abstract speculations. An imaginative power, just
falling short of the higher poetical gift, and a masculine
common-sense were his most conspicuous faculties. The two qualities
were occasionally at issue; his judgment struggled with his
prejudices, and he sympathised too keenly with the active leaders and
concrete causes to care much for any abstract theory. Yet his
influence upon thought, though indirect, was remarkable. The vividness
of his historical painting--inaccurate, no doubt, and delightfully
reckless of dates and facts--stimulated the growing interest in
historical inquiries even in England. His influence in one direction
is recognised by Newman, who was perhaps thinking chiefly of his
mediaevalism.[632] But the historical novels are only one side of
Scott. Patriotic to the core, he lived at a time when patriotic
feeling was stimulated to the utmost, and when Scotland in particular