4 MAY 1861, Page 19

B 0.0 K S.

EARLY AND MIDDLE AGES OF ENGLAND.*

Ix 18554 the Times, in commenting on an educational speech of Lord John Russell, drew attention to the fact that when a young man of eighteen asked for a History of England, we had still nothing to give has except Mime. Six years have passed, and the remark_is as tree as when it was made, for it is not, in our opinion, affected by the fact that Mr. Charles Knight's history has since that time been written. The reason, however, does not lie so much in the short- comings of any particular work, as in the immense mass of materials which is constantly accumulating, and with which no one person is able to deal on a scale likely to supersede the old-established historian. We have now plenty of original documents, and we have also several valuable modern works on special periods ; and anyone who really wishes for as thorough an acquaintance with the history of his coun- try as can be enjoyed by a person who has other things to do, would best accomplish hisp■ I • se by going through the chief of these, and making an "annotated : ume" for himself, instead of waiting for the ideal and probably impossible work which has been so often deside- rated. For such a taste, however, pursued with greater or leas ardour, some guide is indispensable, to show the nature and extent of the resources which modern research has placed at the student's disposaL Pdrioda which the writers of the last century would dis- miss with a few brief or contemptuous sentences, are now found pregnant with interest, and full of particulars absolutely necessary for the understanding of later times. Documentary evidence has modified, if not wholly changed, the estimate of many characters, and science and antiquarianism have been of scarcely more value in increasing knowledge than in -forcing us to an honest confession that of some subjects with which they deal nothing certain can be really known. In dealing with the earliest times, the splendid style of history which Macaulay has made fashionable is less in place than in those later epochs, when En,,,land, having become a single and united nation, felt her strength, and fashioned her history for and by herself alone. It is right that the achievements and the struggles of those who obtained for us all that we most value should be as magnificently set forth as the resources of literature will allow. But in times of which our knowledge is often meagre, often pieced out by conjecture, sometimes disproportionately full,—dealing with much selfishness in the rulers, little responsibility or clearness of purpose in the people— with transitional institutions and a constant intermixture of conti- nental influence, what the historian most requires is a cool head, a great variety of knowledge to elucidate his researches, with enough enthusiasm to qualify him for doing justice to individual instances of merit, or to institutions which modern prejudice has unfairly con- demned.

Professor Pearson's work, which shows that he unites many of the qualifications for such a task, is intended to give the last results of inquiry into the early history of England, with a view to the wants of that large class who have not time to read and compare for them- selves the voluminous and elaborate books which contain all that is known on the subject. He appears to have bestowed most attention on the points which popular historians treat slightly, or pass by al- together, and though we have not observed that any event of impor- tauce is omitted by him, we should not seek in his pages for minute details of battles, sieges, or campaigns. For these, he no doubt trusts that his readers, if they require them, will rely on other and. equally accessible sources of information. The task he has proposed to himself has been to trace the gradual development of laws, institu- tions, ideas, and social progress, the latter phrase being taken, not in the sense of "more to eat and wear," in which it is sometimes used, bat in that of a respect for religion and morality. He has also done much to show the connexion of British with that of earlier forms of civilization, such as the Roman, at the same time being careful not to attribute too much weight to any merely exotic introduction of such elements of national life. A Fellow of Oriel and a Professor at King's College must necessarily show many differences from the school of Robertson and Hume. The point of difference on which Mr. Pearson himself lays the most stress is, that he recognizes in history the fact which in physics is expressed by the aphorism, Na- tura non agit per saltum. In the last century there was a tendency to represent one set of customs or institutions as completely swept away by some other, and the outlines of these changes—if such an expression may be used—were imagined as strong and clearly defined. We were once brought up to fancy England as overran at various times, and on each occasion conquered with almost equal complete- ness, though not always with equal rapidity. The tendency of mo- dern investigation has been to show that everything is shaded off by soft gradations into that which succeeds; to regard the one system not as supplanting, but as grafted upon the other, and as drawing its nutriment from the soil through a common trunk. This spirit is shown all through Mr. Pearson's work, and especially in what be says of the Roman and Norman conquests.

The volume consists of thirty-six chapters, twenty-two of which are concerned with what may be called the dynamics, the others

with the statics of the subject. In the farmer he narrates .events ; in the latter, which are interspersed, he describes institutions, characteristics, or states of society. Of the whole, the first chapter

is perhaps the least satisfactory, not from any want of knowledge on the author's part, but from his having compressed his views on the ethnology of Britain, and the Druidical system into a space of less

• The Early and Middle Ages of England. By Charles H. Pearson, 3LA. Bell and Deady. than nine pages. Though ethnology on an extended scale is generally attractive, nothing can well be dnerlor more repulsive than a small quantity of it, and where the introduction of something of the kind is deemed absolutely necessary, the author ought not to take the knowledge of his readers too much for granted. Mr. Pearson has presumed upon more elementary information of this sort than we imagine the average of people can possess, although it is, on the other hand, probable that no chapter of the kind can be wholly satis- factory until popular information DU the questions of which it treats is more generally diffused than at present.

On the subject of the Roman dominion in Britain, Mr. Pearson's views are intermediate between those which look upon it as a mere military occupation, and those which attempt to establish the fact of a more than considerable fusion between the conqueror and the con- quered. The former opinion was once the popular one, and the latter has found an able exponent in Mr. Wright, whose work on "The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon" we reviewed a few weeks since. Mr. Pearson compares the Roman occupation of Britain, in all but duration of time, to the French colonization of Algeria. The corpo- rate life which the Roman towns enjoyed he characterizes as execu- tive and not political, and the numerous fortified cities, and the nature of the roads, which were primarily for military purposes, show that this aspect of their stay was always the prominent one. Mr. Pearson attaches less importance than Mr. Wright to the remains of Roman villas and other buildings, which he thinks had only stone foundations, and were built of wood above, and imagines that few who had experienced the climate of Italy would think of choosiug Britain as a permanent residence, unless obliged by official duties. The gradual nature which he attributes to all historic changes is ex- emplified by his account of the early British Church, which appears to him neither to have been introduced so early, or in so complete a form as is sometimes thought. He points out, in a very interesting and original passage, the different position which Christianity would naturally occupy among the subject nations of Rome, as compared with the Romans themselves: To the latter it was an object of con- tempt; it was possessed by races whom they despised, and it had nothing in common with the glories of literature and history which shed a golden glow over their expiring civilization. Philosophy on the one hand, and mere worldliness on the other, agreed in dis- countenancing an historical religion and an ascetic ideal of life. But with the subject nations of the great empire the case was different. They had no traditions which linked them to a splendid system like that by which they were overshadowed ; while the misery it caused drew them to a faith which promised to redress the balance of evil elsewhere. Equality could not be enjoyed before man, but it might be felt before God ; and the Druid and Kelt who had seen his own faith extinguished in blood and fire, would not be indisposed to accept a creed which set at nought all that his conquerors had most prized and venerated. Mr. Pearson thinks the British Church under the Romans must have existed in the fourth century, and may have existed long before, but that it "was throughout a missionary establishment, chiefly working among the native tribes, having little influence among the B.omanized populations of the towns, perhaps not even derived from a Roman original." We must. leave it to better antiquarians than ourselves to determine whether there is sufficient foundation for his theory that the remarkable structures of stone found in England and Brittany are due to a reaction, some- where about the fifth century, in favour of British paganism. He imagines their erection to have depended upon an acquaintance with Roman mechanics and their forms, and as expressing ideas derived from some amalgamation of Roman architectural notions with the symbolism of native superstition.

Of the numerous difficult questions connected with what is usually called the "Anglo-Saxon Conquest" Mr. Pearson does not give a decided solution not finding its events worthy of being called his- torical. He thinks there is no foundation whatever for the common belief that the Keltic population of Britain was exterminated or driven into Wales by the Saxons, who, though they made great havoc on their battle-fields, did not, except on one occasion, commit any massacre after the fight. He remarks also that, coming in small vessels, the conquerors could not have brought their families, and must have taken wives of the women of the country ; and lastly, that the movement, far from being an isolated one, continued for at least four generations. Of the position of the female sex in the .Anglo-Saxon community the author takes a lower view than has been usual with historians, not apparently attaching much weight to the testimony of Tacitus as to the Germanic veneration for them, or thinking it misunderstood. He seems to distinguish the considera- tion tvhich gave woman a sort of half-priestly character from that sympathy with weakness which was felt by the Keltic races, and which he considers to be the true-source of the sentiment of chivalry. Other interesting remarks are those on the effects of the Danish conquest, which, he considers, saved England from becoming a mere wheel in the great machine of empire which Charlemagne had tried to construct, and which would only have reproduced the Roman System, "at a lower level," without correcting its faults of mon- strous ubiquity and over-centralization. He has also an excellent chapter on Alfred, whom he looks upon as a thoroughly typical English king, embodying the national virtues of conservatism, prac- tical sagacity, religious and legal spirit, with the faults of illo- gicality, of want of system and forethought, of discounting the future, and of mixing up disparate obligations, like those of re- ligion and law, under a common sanction. His best chapters are perhaps the five on the Anglo-Saxon Police, Civil Law, Common- wealth, Literature, and Church. They contain a vast deal of

information, which in spite of its compressed nature is extremely readable ; the instances of the working of these institutions are well selected, and from original sources, and the account of such works as those of Ctedmon and Bede are executed with taste and judg- ment.

The freshest parts of the book, however, are those in which the author deals with individual character. Probably no one whose know- ledge of English history is drawn from the usual sources, has a very distinct personal idea even of the chief actors in our early annals. It is evident that Mr. Pearson has striven to acquire a thoroughly dis- tinct notion of the men as they moved across his field of inquiry, to try and enter into their nature and motives of action, and Judge them by the light they enjoyed, instead of by a harsh and unbending reference to modern standards. It is difficult to estimate how much greater is the interest thus given to history, but all who will look at the account of any of the kings, especially of William the Conqueror and Richard I., or those of Lanfranc, Anselm, or Becket, will be at once convinced of what we mean. There is none of the elaborate character-drawing, with its balance of merits and defects, which we find in histories of the "philosophical" school ; but we are brought into contact with the time and the people, and are able to estimate the real amount of their reciprocal influence with greater accuracy.

Mr. Pearson, as will have been seen from our remarks, belongs to the school of history, which, though recent, has nothing in common with that of Mr. Charles Knight or Mr. Buckle. In the Weight he gives to the biographic element, as well as in his favedrable estimate of the Middle Ages, we seem to perceive the influence of Mr. Car- lyle, and in a much slighter degree that of Michelet. Upon his opinions the views of Thierry have had their effect, though not to a greater extent than has been the case with many other recent writers. We have no desire, however, to affiliate his ideas upon any author or set of authors exclusively. He is evidently a man of very general cultivation, and is clearly writing within himself in most parts of the work. On all he seems to have bestowed original thought and re- search, and though many of his opinions may be unacceptable to those who look upon mere material well-being as synonymous with national progress, we are extremely glad to see a protest against views which have of late years become far too prevalent. The book, which is one to stimulate rather than to satisfy inquiry, may be re- garded as one of the first fruits of the documents published under the Master of the Rolls, and is a proof of the judicious use to which such materials may be turned. Its style is, in general, good and sound, though we object to such colloquialisms as "an intensely Biblical age,' and to an apparent and forced reference to Mr. Turn- bull's case at p. 221. But there is very little of this kind to find fault with, and the writing is generally clear, unaffected, strong and manly in tone, and free from anything like rhetorical exaggeration. Those who know the writings of Mr. Goldwin Smith will observe a likeness to it in that of the _London professor, which is probably due partly to natural similarity ot mind, partly to their common Oxford training. It has a certain sententiousness and severity, combined with the freedom of a lecturer who can talk to his class with a tacit reference to ideas and principles which they may be assumed to understand and believe, with occasionally a happy turn or allusion which lights it up with unexpected brilliancy. The book will not be cared for by those who never can read history except in the Macaulay or Motley form, but it will be welcome to very many who are dis- satisfied with their superficial knowledge, even if they do not follow up all the paths to which it leads.