The most attractive method
is apt to be that upon which least reliance can be placed. We seldom
consult Sir Walter's essays at serious history, while the novels he
created out of historic material are as familiar as they are endeared;
but their imaginative charm is in the inverse ratio of their
authenticity. With every new candidate for public favor in this sphere
of literature, there arises a "mooted question" whereon the historian
and his readers are irreconcilably divided. The character of Penn, of
Marlborough, and of the facts of the Massacre at Glencoe are still
vehemently discussed, whenever Macaulay's popular History is referred
to. Froude advances a new and plausible theory of the character of Henry
VIII.; few of Bancroft's American readers accept his estimate of John
Jay, Sam Adams, or Dr. Johnson, or of the political character of the
Virginia Colonists; and Palfrey and Arnold interpret quite diversely
the influence and career of Roger Williams. Nor are such discrepancies
surprising, when we remember how the history which transpires now and
here fails of harmonious report. Every battle, diplomatic arrangement,
political event, nay, each personal occurrence, which forms the staple
of to-day's journalism and talk, is regarded from so many different
points of view, and stated under so many modifying influences, that only
judicial minds have a prospect of reaching the exact truth. Hence the
true way to profit by History is eclectic.
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