the persons, circumstances, and problems of his time! how far less likely are these to be forgotten, how much more vividly must they come before us, if connected with the thoughts of a great man, than if learned in the bare lines of a history! Or, to come to a still more special example, the "Areopagitica" opens out into a world of inquiries respecting the growth of freedom of speech in England, to enter upon which is certainly no superficial thing. Milton is, no doubt, exceptional among authors for the closeness of his connection with the total life of his country. But Schiller, from his ardent patriotism, would not come far behind him; and even in the more artistic Goethe many links of the kind could be found.
By nothing which is said here is there intended to be implied the slightest disparagement of the examinations in law and philosophy at Oxford and Cambridge, or the least idea that it is possible to supply their place by a more general examination in modern literatures. Law and philosophy, like science, are subjects that cannot be studied otherwise than on their own basis; they demand a stringent rigidity of consecutive reasoning that is wholly alien from the wide knowledge and free play of the mind that deals with literatures, whether ancient or modern; moreover, the treatment of them cannot be limited to modern times, deriving, as they do, their origin, the one from Greece, the other from Rome. But history stands on a different ground; and that it is felt so to stand may be seen by the difficulty which has lately been experienced at Cambridge in assigning a place to modern history among the other studies. A few years ago it was united in an incongruous tie with metaphysics, political economy, and jurisprudence; now, by a decision which certainly cannot be thought unwise, it has dropped out of this connection; but, though it has sought admission in many quarters, it is up to this day excluded from the honor examinations of the university. And the reason is clear. Pure historical study does not try the intellect very deeply; the subjects with which it deals are so various that it cannot bestow on any of them more than a somewhat superficial glance. There are, of course, special kinds of history that may go deeply into special subjects, of which Hallam's work is an example; but these, by the very fact of their being special, are narrow; nor is it possible to make of any of them a backbone whereto the immense number of topics comprised in an ordinary history, geography, military service, the personal character of statesmen, theological disputes, artistic progress, etc., would naturally attach themselves. The authors of a nation are the natural centre of the history of the nation. To know a man it is necessary to hear what he says with his own mouth, as well as what others have to record about him; and in the same way the history of a nation is an insufficient means of getting acquainted with that nation, unless it be supplemented by that more intimate acquaintance implied in a knowledge of its authors.
