labouring mostly in vain, and it enables us to see only too clearly his inevitable defects. But if we look a little longer we see that it enlarges his personality, and exhibits him as the representative of his nation. This really sets him on a higher level, and gives him a greater dignity. He is bearing the burden of his country, and is fettered by her deficiencies. There are many things which might be done if he had the means to do them. He can only reckon on so much, and must make it go as far as he can. His projects are tentative, and he is often obliged to withdraw from much for want of a little. He is not really his own master, but serves a public which imperfectly understands its own position and grudges everything it gives. Whatever else picturesqueness may attempt to do, it must not seek to abolish the pathos of humble industry.
I have been speaking generally about picturesque ways of writing history, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. Let me attempt to go a little farther, and try to discover in what the picturesqueness of history consists. It is obvious that, if it lies in a series of vivid pictures of events and striking presentations of character, the historian cannot rival the writer of fiction, and historical novels are the proper mode of expressing picturesque presentation. Some historians have felt the need of a more imaginative treatment than their subject properly allowed, and have supplemented their serious histories by historical novels. But the point which I wish to consider is the sense in which history can be made picturesque, and the reason why some periods of history are more capable of picturesque treatment than others.
