rth, and Tennyson are
ignored. This is not because Green had no interest in them or
undervalued their influence. Far from it. But, as the history of the
nation became more complex, he found it impossible, within the limits
prescribed by a _Short_ History, to do justice to everything. He
believed that the industrialism, which grew up in the Georgian era,
exercised a wider influence in changing the character of the people than
the literature of that period; and so he turned his attention to Watt
and Brindley, and deliberately omitted the poets and painters of that
day. With his wide sympathies he must have found this rigorous
compression the hardest of his tasks, and only in part could he
compensate it later. He never lived long enough to treat, as he wished
to do, in the fullness of his knowledge, the later periods of English
history.

In writing this book Green had many discouragements to contend against,
apart from his continual ill-health. Even his friends spoke doubtfully
of its method and style, with the exception of his publisher, George
Macmillan, and of Stopford Brooke, whose own writings breathe the same
spirit as Green's, and who did equally good work in spreading a real
love of history and literature among the classes who were beginning to
read. It was true that Green's book failed to conform to the usual type
of manual; it was not orderly in arrangement, it was often allusive in
style, it seemed to select what it pleased and to leave out what
students were accustomed to learn. But Green's faith in its power to
reach the audience to whom he appealed was justified by the enthusiasm
with which the general public received it. This success was largely due
to the literary style and artistic handling of the subject. Green claims
himself that on most literary questions he is French in his point of
view. 'It seems to me', he says, 'that on all points of literary art we
have to sit at the feet of French Gamaliels'; and in his best work he
has more in common with Michelet than with our own classic historians.
But while Michelet had many large volumes in which to expand his
treatment of picturesque episodes, Green was painfully limited by space.

What he can give us of clear and lively portraiture in a few lines is
seen in his presentation of the gallant men who laid the foundation of
our Empire overseas. By a few lines of narrative, and a happy quotation
from their own words, Green brings out the heroism of their sacri