8
Literature of Recent British Diplomacy
1. (a) Seeley, The Growth of British Policy.[1]
The work is of great value for its way of appreciating questions of international 'policy' in general, for an interpretation of the international policy of Britain from the accession of Elizabeth to the early years of the eighteenth century, and for the skill with which the author shows the historical background of modern Britain in its relation to foreign States. The work was needed.
'In France, where for a long time constitutional development, if it existed, escaped notice, still more in Germany, where it was petty and uninteresting, history leaned towards foreign affairs, But in England, the home of constitutionalism, history leaned just as decidedly in the opposite direction. English eyes are always bent upon Parliament, English history always tends to shrink into mere parliamentary history, and as Parliament itself never shines less than in the discussion of foreign affairs, so there is scarcely a great English historian who does not sink somewhat below himself in the treatment of English foreign relations.'[2]
- ↑ 2 vols., 1895
- ↑ Op. cit. i, pp. 1–2. Sir John Seeley commends the work of Gardiner and of Kinglake in remedying this defect of English historians 'since Ranke tried in his English History to supply those links between English and continental affairs' (especially, one may add, for the reign of Charles II) 'hich English historians had not troubled themselves to give'(p. 2). He pays a striking tribute to Kinglake in this connexion: 'In his book England always appears as a Power. He sees her always in the company of other great states, walking by the side of France or Austria, supporting Turkey, withstanding Russia. Her Parliament is in the background; in
