A letter from Mr. Goldwin Smith has been published in
the New York Tribune, in which he mentions his intention of residing some years in the United States, in order to write a history of America. He would be much more usefully employed in Parlia- ment than in attempting an almost impracticable task. Mr. Smith has great qualifications, but we doubt if it is in the power of genius to give clearness or interest to a history in which every- thing accomplished has been accomplished by masses, and not by individuals. The specialty of American history is the absence of leaders—Washington, perhaps, excepted—of any men who have stamped themselves upon society. Even the Civil War was begun, waged, and won by the people, and no historian has ever yet made a crowd, however great its object or successful its work, interesting to human minds. A grain of sand under the microscope may charm the highest mind, but none but a superhuman one can individualize the grains in a sand-storm.
Previous page
