The glowing phoenix
Peter Quennell
The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain Edited by Kenneth 0. Morgan (Oxford University Press £15) Afull-scale history of any great country is apt to resemble either a Byzantine mosaic or a huge Renaissance fresco. On the one hand, it may be a learn- ed assemblage of facts that, in combina- tion, form a significant pattern; on the other, a sweeping imaginative survey of a gifted people's exploits, as, following many of the same objects and often displaying much the same character, they have travel- led through the centuries.
The Oxford Illustrated History of Bri- tain belongs to the first category. It is made up of ten essays, each a separate unit, that vary considerably in approach and style. All the authorities enlisted have an academic background, and are inclined, now and then, to exhibit points of view and employ phrases that might attract an undergraduate audience. Thus, when we come to the 18th century and the 'cultural developments' of the mid-Georgian period, we learn that, by contrast with 'the triumphs of the Augustan arts', Adam fireplaces and Wedgwood pot- tery 'show a distinctly new and even anti- aristocratic spirit'; while, as for literature, 'the specifically bourgeois nature of the novel...needs little emphasis'.
I must admit that I fail to understand why an Adam fireplace should be said to reflect an anti-aristocratic tendency Adam's most appreciative clients were the upper classes — just as I cannot agree that, unlike the triumphs of earlier decades, those of 'the mid-century required neither sophistication nor subtlety'; while the essayist's bold assertion that, only 20 years after Pope had published his satires and Burlington designed his gardens, 'few pragmatic products of a middle-class educa- tion would have appreciated the linguistic nuances of a satire, or identified with the Venetian Renaissance', seems especially far-fetched. English readers, wherever they had been at school, though they may perhaps have rejected Palladian standards of taste, continued to enjoy Pope's splendid satirical poems at least until the Romantic Movement had begun.
In other essays, certain contributors' use of the language is occasionally somewhat jarring. 'The Age of the Tudors', writes one, 'has left its impact on Anglo-American minds as a water-shed in British history. Hallowed tradition, native patriotism and post-imperial gloom have united to swell our appreciation of the period...Names alone evoke a phoenix-glow...'
On the part of an historical period, it is surely an uncommon feat to leave an im- pact, create a watershed and, simultaneous- ly, evoke a phoenix-glow. But then, the essayist proceeds to remind us that 'reality is inevitably more complex, less glamorous and more interesting than myth... If the period became a golden age, it was primari- ly because the considerable growth in population that occurred between 1500 and the death of Elizabeth I did not so dangerously exceed the capacity of available resources, particularly food sup- plies, as to precipitate a Malthusian crisis'. Was Shakespeare able to develop his genius chiefly because the citizens of populous Stratford-on-Avon were, at the time, excep- tionally well-fed?
In his foreword, the editor, Dr Kenneth Morgan, announces that 'the purpose of this book is to isolate and uncover the main elements' in our national experience; but it is 'not concerned with the protean concept of "national character" ', which would be 'a difficult and perhaps unrewarding enter- prise'. 'These chapters', he adds, 'help to show how old cliches have dissolved in the searching light of modern research and scholarship. The "anarchy" of the mid- twelfth century, the chaos of the Wars of the Roses, the inevitability of the Civil wars, the serenity of Victorian England... tend to disappear like the autumn leaves at Vallombrosa.'
Similarly, our picture of Roman Britain needs some drastic alteration. It was a period 'marked by constant, alternating phases of social upheaval and readjust- ment, long before the final retreat of the Romans in the early fifth century.' The chapter Dr Morgan cites is one that I have found myself especially illuminating. Here, Peter Salway, a member of the Open University, provides some important new evidence.
Both in Britain itself and in neighbouring Gaul — the latter a province where, at the start of the fifth century, the cultivated patrician Symmachus, who owned 15 huge Gallic estates, in a letter referred to recent barbarian invasions, which had already wiped out several prosperous cities, as mere outbreaks of rural 'brigandage' that made travelling temporarily unsafe — there was no sudden breakdown of Roman civilisa- tion. The collapse was very gradual; the Modern archaeologists have discovered that fourth-century Britain had still an im- pressive array of Roman villas, built at the Command of a rich Romano-British gentry, decorated by skilful artists, and, of course, equipped with baths and central heating. The great age of villa-building, which had opened about 270, was 'at its peak', Mr Salway tells us, during the century that followed; and into the tessellated Pavements, beneath which the heating-flues ran, among classical devices, once Chris- tianity had become the official faith of the Empire, Christian symbols often held a pro- minent position.
Although readers may, here and there, quarrel with the text, regarded simply as a picture-book The Oxford Illustrated History is an admirable production. The 24 colour-plates are well-chosen and, on the whole, well-reproduced; and they are ac- companied by a catholic selection of por- traits, landscapes, prints and photographs, together with some extremely useful maps. Eighteenth-century caricatures are always entertaining, even if the subject happens to be scatalogical; Gillray was a splendid com- ic draughtsman; and I was delighted to see two fine works from the studio of the lesser-known artist John Collet.
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