_Saturday Review_.
1874. _Short History of the English People_ published.
1877. Marries Miss Alice Stopford.
1877-80. Four volumes of larger _History of the English People_ published.
1880-1. Winter in Egypt.
1882. January, _Making of England_ published.
1883. January, _Conquest of England_ finished (published posthumously).
Last illness. Death, March 7.

JOHN RICHARD GREEN

HISTORIAN

The eighteenth century did some things with a splendour and a
completeness which is the despair of later, more restlessly striving
generations. Barren though it was of poetry and high imagination, it
gave birth to our most famous works in political economy, in biography,
and in history; and it has set up for us classic models of imperishable
fame. But the wisdom of Adam Smith, the shrewd observation of Boswell,
the learning of Gibbon, did not readily find their way into the
market-place. Outside of the libraries and the booksellers' rows in
London and Edinburgh they were in slight demand. Even when the volumes
of Gibbon, Hume, and Robertson had been added to the library shelves,
where Clarendon and Burnet reigned before them, too often they only
passed to a state of dignified retirement and slumber. No hand disturbed
them save that of the conscientious housemaid who dusted them in due
season. They were part of the furnishings indispensable to the elegance
of a 'gentleman's seat'; and in many cases the guests, unless a Gibbon
were among them, remained ignorant whether the labels on their backs
told a truthful tale, or whether they disguised an ingenious box or
backgammon board, or formed a mere covering to the wall.

The fault was with the public more than with the authors. Those who
ventured on the quest would find noble eloquence in Clarendon, lively
narrative in Burnet, critical analysis in Hume; but the indolence of the
Universities and the ignorance of the general public unfitted them for
the effort required to value a knowledge of history or to take steps to
acquire it. It is true that the majestic style of Clarendon was puzzling
to a generation accustomed to prose of the fashion inaugurated by Dryden
and Addison; and that Hume and other historians, with all their
precision and clearness, were wanting in fervour and imagination. But
the record of English history was so glorious, so full of interest for
the patriot and for the politician, that it should have spoken for
itself, and the apathy of the educated classes was n