HISTORICAL RESEAROFIES.*
Paris volume of the transactions of the Historical Society contains twelve articles, all conveying interesting and valu- able information, among which the Presidential Address by Sir M. E. Grant Daft must be deemed facile princeps, both from the importance of the historian reviewed and from the truly philosophic manner in which he has displayed the per- fections of the father, not merely of history, but of historical research. The most noteworthy feature in the intellectual character of Herodotus was what the President rightly terms credulity, but which may be traced to humility, a peculiarly Christian virtue rarely exhibited in heathenism. This feel- ing, ceupled with his excessive desire for information, led • Tron.action. of the Sorg Historical Society. New Series, Vol. IX. Lou Ion: Lorganu e, Green, and
him to recognise the interference of Providence in mun- dane affairs, and also to accept, though often with hesita- tion, the facts stated by those whom he met in his travels and whom he deemed worthy of credence. He anticipated, apparently, the rule of later moralists, that credit should be given as a jest debt to those whom we have never detected in falsehood, and also the maxim of Aristotle, that there is nothing more probable than that many improbable things have happened. Not only in the Roman period, but after the Renaissance, and even in our own day, he has been thought untrustworthy, partly from his credulity and partly from love of effect and inaccurate habits of thought, —imputations we deem altogether unfounded. Being conversant with the earlier and, in the main, poetic literature of Hellas, his narra- tive easily assumes a picturesque form, his simplicity of character, evidenced in almost every page, vindicates him from the charge of seeking effect, and his reflections on the fortunes of rulers and States prove that he could think soundly and acutely. That he was impartial is clear from his fearless exposure of the selfish municipal feeling of the Hellenic race, their unblushing venality and mendacity, and the malignant hostility of tribe against tribe,—vices which ultimately led to the loss of their independence. Is Herodotus, then, entitled to rank as a philosophic historian P The Presi- dent of the Society has learnedly and cogently proved that he is, though in a different sense from Thucydides, who has hitherto borne the palm as the chief in this species of narra- tive composition ; and every candid reader must readily adopt his view. If the main end of philosophy be to make men wiser and better, this Herodotns can effect beyond any writer devoid of the light of revelation, save perhaps Cicero ; while Thucydides, though imparting many useful lessons of strategy and state-craft, can hardly be consulted on questions of con- science or honour. But the former was nearly a contemporary of Aristides, the latter had to live with Ephialtes and Cleon. All honour then to Herodotus, and no less to the able exponent of his merits.
In his address on the occasion of the Gibbon Centenary, Mr. F. Harrison has thrown but little additional light on the moral or intellectual character of England's greatest historian. This, it is true, could not justly be expected, the life of Mr. Gibbon having been singularly unevent- ful ; and we concur with Mr. Harrison in his hope that the publication of his minor compositions may bring to light some suggestive facts regarding his plan of study, the society he frequented, and his various changes of opinion on religions belief. The present writer is unable to accept the mode in which Mr. Harrison accounts for his so-called scepticism, and holds that he never was a sceptic in any proper sense of the term. " Sceptic " properly means one who con- siders, inquires, or investigates, and as this mental procees implies doubt and sometimes ignorance, the term can be rightly applied only to one who doubts regarding some doctrine generally held by the community. Now we have no proof that Gibbon ever investigated seriously any of the doctrines of Christianity, his adoption of the Romish creed and his sub- sequent return to Protestantism being caused by inquiries of a quite different kind, for both Churches must assume the Divine origin of Christianity. Can we then term him an agnostic ? Apparently not, for this term can be justly assigned only to one professing that he knows not whether the Christian system be true or false, or holding the so-called philosophic doctrine that man is unable to arrive at truth on any topic whatever, thus rejecting in theory, while he is compelled to accept in practice, the maxim that "Probability is the very guide of life." But he certainly was well versed in ecclesiastical history and patristic literature, and must therefore have wished to declare that he knew the Christian system to be not only erroneous and merely of human invention, but immoral in its teaching and opposed to the best interests of humanity, and on no other hypothesis can we account for the aggressive tone of his in other respi cts truly noble work. When we also see that the context will often show that his sarcastic remarks are irrelevant, and add nothing to our information, we are forced to believe that he not only dis- believed—which might have been his misfortune, not his fault —but actually hated Christianity. We do not see the force of his apology for the scoffing character of his remarks, especially in the notes, on the ground that they are couched in the learned languages, too many of them being in plain English, and he could not have supposed that no one understood Latin, Greek, or French but himself and a cultivated few of equally scornful minds. And while agreeing with Mr. Harrison that the torpid state of religion in the Universities and in England generally may have exerted a peculiar—Mr. Harrison would object to our saying prejudicial—effect on the great historian's mind, we are unable to accept it as an adequate reason, re- membering that Wesley, Whitfield, Butler, Law, Romaine, and Cowper were his contemporaries, and that we have no evidence of his ever having sought instruction from any Christian theologian. For these reasons we shall designate Gibbon as neither sceptic nor agnostic, but as anti-Christian, and, while yielding to none in our admiration for his magnifi- cent work, we have no wish to see his memory honoured by the University of Oxford. "Honour to whom honour is due" is a just and incontrovertible maxim, but so too is " Ne quid The paper on the English Nouveaux Riches in the four- teenth century gives some facts and suggestions often unnoticed by students of history. This country, from its insular position, always had some commerce ; but whether the Celtic race ever took kindly to this pursuit, or to nautical adventure, is open to doubt; nor do we find much of these tastes among the Anglo-Saxons, save in the direction of slave-dealing. The favour of the Confessor brought Norman traders to London, to be followed by many more at the Con- quest, by Angevins with the Plantagenete, and by Provencals and Lombards under Henry III.; and these far surpassed the natives in habits of business, perhaps too of chicanery. But the insecurity of property caused by civil wars and the scarcity of capital, which was either hoarded by the owners or deposited in the care of the Church or of the Knights Templars, impeded the growth of com- merce until the reign of Edward I. The authoress of this paper holds that the Anglo-Saxon was not well qualified by nature for commercial life, owing to what she gently terms his "bluntness," but which we should call "rudeness," a failing too often perceptible even now in certain trades, and in the humbler class of shop- keepers, as well as owing to his propensity to isolation and dislike not only of foreigners, but of natives of the very next shire, or even township. Suspicion, the besetting sin of the needy and ignorant, was opposed to speculation, nor did the Englishman become a sound man of business till after a long and painful apprenticeship to the Italian and the Easterling. The expulsion of the Jews and suppression of the Templara led to confiscations which, diffused by royal profusion, spread capital over the land to be utilised partly in the coal and wool trades, and partly in supplying, on rather usurious terms, the military expenses of the martial Plantagenets. The Hundred Years' War gave rise to a class of contractors and money-lenders, some of whom did no credit to the character for integrity of the British merchant. The failure of the great Florentine firms of the Bardi and Peruzzi, though causing a temporary panic, yet cleared the way for English speculation, which was aided by loans from the Corporations and by the protests of the Legislature against the privileges granted to foreign merchants. Had it not been for the rivalry of Flanders, and the war of York and Lancaster, the mercantile class would have risen much sooner to a high political and social position. This paper will give much satisfaction to those who are interested in the antiquities of commerce.
Mr. Giuseppes paper on Alien Merchants in England in the Fifteenth Century, displays the vacillation of our Kings, and the jealousy of the trading and working classes on the subject of foreign immigrants. Various restrictive laws were enacted, easily evaded and very frequently, through necessity, dispensed with. But the merchants of Italy and the Hanse towns re- tained their purchased privileges, and the English traders soon learned to rely on their own energy rather than on royal favour or legislative enactments. As however laws, though useless and unjust, must be obeyed, in appearance at least, the curious practice of "hosting," as it was called, was revived, by which every immigrant was obliged to reside in the house of a native who was held responsible for his guest's proceedings,—a rule very soon evaded, for we find aliens possessing houses and residing in them while nominally under the tutelage of their hosts. The present writer ventures to express the opinion that the conduct of our people to foreigners has been, and is, to use a phrase of Aristotle, "consistently inconsistent," for it is strange that a peaceable alien, practising some useful calling, and disposed to adhere to it, being also a native of a country with which we have never had a quarrel, should be exposed to obloquy and persecution, while a political exile as hostile to our institutions as to those of his own country whose laws he has broken, perhaps not even professing any religious belief, is gladly received into very elevated society, fked, lionised, invited to expound his sentiments to public) meetings, and frequently entrusted with that all-important duty, the education of our youth.
In his account of explorations under Elizabeth, Mr. Beazley shows that not only in its literary, but in its adventurous, spirit the reign of this Queen was more conducive to English progress than any other period. If it be true that "Waterloo was won in the hunting-field," or, as others quote it, "in the cricket-ground," it is no less so that the Armada was first vanquished off the cliffs of Labrador and the African head- lands, amid the shoals of the Spanish Main and the shores of Patagonia, for many of our naval warriors who chased the invaders up the Channel had learned their trade among- " Adventurous hearts who bartered bold Their English steel 'gainst Spanish gold."
In 1562 Baker explored the coast of Guinea, and has given us a rhyming chronicle of his adventures, which is somewhat of a literary curiosity. Fenner, one of the heroes of the great chase in the Channel, failed to get beyond Cape Verde ; but in 1583 Newberie made his way from the Syrian coast to Goa, then the capital of the Portuguese Settlements. Lan- caster doubled the Cape of Good Hope in 1591, and few are Ignorant of Grenville's dauntless combat off the Azores, celebrated in lasting song by Lord Tennyson. But several years previously, Chancellor and Willoughby had explored the North-east Sea, and the unwearied Antony Jenkinson had opened diplomatic relations with the Czar Ivan the Terrible. Mr. Beazley has entered very fully and attractively into the adventures of this really eminent traveller, whose narrative in extenso would, we think, be well worthy of publication. He has also given an interesting account of the attempts to colonise Virginia, and an accurate and luminous abstract of the exploits and struggles of Drake, Raleigh, Frobisher, and the ill-fated Oxenham, and his essay is well worth the careful study of all who can appreciate the valour and persistency of our modern Vikings, but on the Little England politicians it would be quite thrown away.
The journey through England and Scotland made by Lupold von Wedel in 1534 contains but few facts of any importance. He does not seem to have been a man of expanded intellect or education, though possessing some power of observation, and his taste seems rather to have lain in the direction of shows, processions, and magnificent enter- tainments. He took, apparently, some interest in zoology and occasionally manifests a good deal of credulity. We find, as might be expected, many errors in the orthography of local and personal names, some of which are rather amusing, but why the German for " York " should be " Jericho " is to us incomprehensible. Save as a literary curiosity this paper is of no great value.
The Report on the Progress of Historical Research will prove of great utility to students and intending authors, many important subjects of inquiry being pointed out, and the best and most recent writers specified. The French occupation of Madagascar, the struggles of Italy in Abyssinia, and the increasing importance of Japan, all of which countries have for long been closed to European inquiry, promise wide fields for historical and antiquarian investigation.
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