nded an Athenian squadron, and Tacitus
filled the offices of praetor and consul. Xenophon, Polybius, and
Sallust, were all men of affairs and public adventure. Guicciardini
was an ambassador, a ruler, and the counsellor of rulers; and
Machiavel was all these things and more. Voltaire was the keen-eyed
friend of the greatest princes and statesmen of his time, and was
more than once engaged in diplomatic transactions. Robertson was a
powerful party chief in the Assembly of the Scotch Church. Grote and
Macaulay were active members of parliament, and Hallam and Milman
were confidential members of circles where affairs of State were the
staple of daily discussion among the men who were responsible for
conducting them to successful issues. Guizot was a prime minister,
Finlay was a farmer of the Greek revenue. The most learned of
contemporary English historians a few years ago contested a county,
and is habitually inspired in his researches into the past by his
interest in the politics of the present. The German historians,
whose gifts in reconstructing the past are so valuable and so
singular, have for the most part been as actively interested in the
public movements of to-day, as in those of any century before or
since the Christian era. Niebuhr held more than one political post
of dignity and importance; and of historical writers in our time,
one has sat in several Prussian parliaments; another, once the tutor
of a Prussian prince, has lived in the atmosphere of high politics;
while all the best of them have taken their share in the preparation
of the political spirit and ideas that have restored Germany to all
the fulness and exaltation of national life.

It is hardly necessary to extend the list. It is indeed plain on the
least reflection that close contact with political business, however
modest in its pretensions, is the best possible element in the
training of any one who aspires to understand and reproduce
political history. Political preparation is as necessary as literary
preparation. There is no necessity that the business should be on
any majestic and imperial scale. To be a guardian of the poor in an
East-End parish, to be behind the scenes of some great strike of
labour, to be an active member of the parliamentary committee of a
Trades Council or of the executive committee of a Union or a League,
may be quite as instructive discipline as participation in mightier
scenes. Those who write concrete history, withou