this; and it would then be his task to bring into sharp relief the principal features of the great movement, such as the Reformation or the Revolution, or of the period, such as the eighteenth century, which is the subject of the particular volume in hand. Such a series of critical articles would enable us to understand European history better; and, besides, it might clear up certain obscure points in respect to the "Cambridge Modern History" itself—as, for example, why the work is more often commended in public reference than it is in private conversation, or why the execution of the work falls so far short of Lord Acton's ideal of it, or how it is possible for Englishmen to write so learnedly about the Revolution without being aware that there was a Revolution.
The great books, however, are not the only ones that enlist the attention of the critical reviewer. It sometimes happens that a slight book is significant for what it points to. I have in mind, for example, the little volume of Mr. A. M. Simons, entitled "Social Forces in American History;" not perhaps a very wise performance; written, it must be confessed, without fear and without research; written nevertheless with profound conviction, and significant because it is representative of what probably passes for history among militant socialists, but significant above all because in the next 50 years many histories of the United States, and better ones than this, will doubtless be written from the same point of view.
Critical reviewing, at its best, doubtless requires particular qualities: grasp and breadth of view as well as erudition; information meditated as well as catalogued; something of originality and constructive literary power. These are precisely the qualities which, in our talks to teachers, we are apt to say the study of history will develop. It would seem, therefore, that historians should be pre eminent in this species of writing. But the fact is they are little given to it, and when they attempt it not infrequently just fall short of something first rate. It sometimes happens, indeed, that the very historian who exhibits breadth of view and originality, sound judgment, and a certain constructive power in his own work fails in just these respects when he is concerned to estimate critically the work of another. There is a notable example of this, and I bring it forward in order to show more clearly what I mean by critical reviewing, and as a means of suggesting the reason why historians are less successful in this rôle than one might expect them to be.
A quarter of a century ago Taine published the second part of his "Origins of Contemporary France"—the part dealing more particularly with the French Revolution. Few histories have been more widely read or more passionately discussed. After so many years one might reasonably expect to find some comprehensive estimate of the work, some dispassionate yet profound and searching criticism of
