rrangement, he
gives to truth those attractions which have been usurped by fiction.
In his narrative a due subordination is observed: some transactions are
prominent; others retire. But the scale on which he represents them is
increased or diminished, not according to the dignity of the persons
concerned in them, but according to the degree in which they elucidate
the condition of society and the nature of man. He shows us the court,
the camp, and the senate. But he shows us also the nation. He considers
no anecdote, no peculiarity of manner, no familiar saying, as too
insignificant for his notice which is not too insignificant to
illustrate the operation of laws, of religion, and of education, and to
mark the progress of the human mind. Men will not merely be described,
but will be made intimately known to us. The changes of manners will be
indicated, not merely by a few general phrases or a few extracts from
statistical documents, but by appropriate images presented in every
line.

If a man, such as we are supposing, should write the history of England,
he would assuredly not omit the battles, the sieges, the negotiations,
the seditions, the ministerial changes. But with these he would
intersperse the details which are the charm of historical romances. At
Lincoln Cathedral there is a beautiful painted window, which was made by
an apprentice out of the pieces of glass which had been rejected by
his master. It is so far superior to every other in the church, that,
according to the tradition, the vanquished artist killed himself from
mortification. Sir Walter Scott, in the same manner, has used those
fragments of truth which historians have scornfully thrown behind them
in a manner which may well excite their envy. He has constructed out of
their gleanings works which, even considered as histories, are scarcely
less valuable than theirs. But a truly great historian would reclaim
those materials which the novelist has appropriated. The history of the
government, and the history of the people, would be exhibited in
that mode in which alone they can be exhibited justly, in inseparable
conjunction and intermixture. We should not then have to look for the
wars and votes of the Puritans in Clarendon, and for their phraseology
in Old Mortality; for one half of King James in Hume, and for the other
half in the Fortunes of Nigel.

The early part of our imaginary history would be rich with colouring
from romance, ballad, and chr