Chapter XXII: Section II: Historical Literature of the Nineteenth Century

The nineteenth century has been remarkable for an increasing interest in all departments of historical literature; for more thorough research, critical examination of evidence, more exhaustive treatment, and withal a perceptible broadening and deepening of historic conceptions. The methods of investigating historical subjects, and social phenomena, have undergone a marked change within the present century; and, as a consequence, the opinions and the convictions of the people have also been greatly modified.

Dr. Thomas M‘Crie¹ is best known as the author of the _Life of John Knox_, and the _Life of Andrew Melville_. The first appeared in 1813, and has passed through many editions; the second has not been so popular, though it is an able work. He also wrote _Memoirs of Veitch and Brysson_, two Scottish ministers and supporters of the Covenant. He composed able and valuable Histories of the Reformation in Italy and in Spain, and various other sketches and papers. Dr. M‘Crie was gifted with a vigorous intellect, and all his writings display much varied and careful research, and a masterly literary ability. His style is clear, animated, and easy; and his works are highly esteemed by all students of history.

¹ Born 1772; died 1835.

Mr. James Mill attained distinction as a historian as well as a philosopher and a political writer; he was a man of great intellectual power.¹ His _History of British India_, which was begun in 1806, was published in 1817‒18, in five volumes, and is probably the ablest work on our Indian Empire which has yet appeared. His analytic powers and grasp of principles enabled him to master social phenomena, which less gifted minds fail to see or to seize.

¹ An excellent account of his life and writings, by Dr. Bain,
has been published.

John Dunlop, Esquire, a Scottish advocate and sheriff of Renfrewshire, wrote a _History of Fiction_, which appeared in 1814, in three volumes. It is a work of much merit and value. He also wrote a _History of Roman Literature_, from the earliest period to the close of the Augustan age, in three volumes. His latest work was _Memoirs of Spain during the Reigns of Philip IV. and Charles II._, which was published in 1834, in two volumes. He died in 1842.

Patrick F. Tytler¹ was the author of a _History of Scotland_, and other works――chiefly of a biographical character. His _History of Scotland_ embraces the period from the accession of Alexander III. to the union of the Crowns of England and Scotland in 1603. The first volume was published in 1828, and the others followed at intervals till the work was completed in nine volumes. It is a work of high historical value. His pages evince the results of much original research and great industry. Many documents and State papers were printed for the first time in the appendices to the volumes. His style is plain and animated, but somewhat diffuse and redundant.

¹ Tytler belonged to the family of Woodhouselee, whom I have
already mentioned in a preceding section. In the latter
years of his life be enjoyed a pension of £200 per annum.
He died in December, 1849; and an interesting account of his
life has been published by the Rev. John Burgon, M.A., in
1859.

Sir Archibald Alison was a son of the Rev. Archibald Alison, as already incidentally mentioned, and was born in 1792. He was educated in Edinburgh, studied law, and was called to the Scottish bar in 1814. He was appointed sheriff of Lanarkshire in 1832, and was created a baronet in 1852. The idea of his _History of Europe_ was conceived when on a visit to Paris in the eventful year of 1814; and henceforth he devoted much research and study to its preparation.

The work covers the period from the commencement of the French Revolution in 1789 to the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815. Its first instalment appeared in 1833, and the concluding volumes in 1844. It has since gone through nine or ten editions. It contains a vast store of facts and details relating to a very important and memorable period of modern history. In the later years of his active life, he produced a continuation of his _History_ to the accession of Louis Napoleon in 1852, in eight volumes, which appeared at intervals from 1852 to 1859. But the continuation is not equal in accuracy and merit to the earlier history, and some of his peculiar opinions are pushed to greater extremes. In politics he was a firm Conservative, and a strong opponent of Free Trade. Sir Archibald died in May, 1867.

Alison’s _History of Europe_, as might be expected in so wide and great a subject, has merits and defects. His exertions in personal observation of many of the localities of the events and scenes which he described, his industry in collecting available materials, and his patient and careful researches, are great merits, which imparted a freshness to his narrative and an animation to his descriptions rarely met with in any history. His mastery of method and arrangement was also creditable; but on the other hand, his style has often been severely animadverted on――he has been charged with verbosity and excessive pomp, with being careless, turgid, and obscure. On the whole, the work has been exceedingly popular, it has been translated into all European languages; this, however, may be partly accounted for by the intensely absorbing interest of the period and the events of which it treats. Although Alison cannot be called a great historian, still he has produced an interesting work.

Thomas Carlyle was a noted man of genius and a voluminous writer. He was a son of a farmer, and born on the 4th of December, 1795, at the village of Ecclefechan, in Annandale, a beautiful pastoral district, rich in Border traditions, old castles, and historic associations. He was educated at the Grammar School of Annan, and the University of Edinburgh. At the University he was distinguished in mathematics, and subsequently he acted as teacher of mathematics in Annan, and afterwards in Kirkcaldy. In 1818 he went to Edinburgh, where he had the use of the University Library, and he then wrote a number of short biographies and other articles for the _Edinburgh Encyclopædia_. He wrote a _Life of Schiller_, and also commenced to translate German works. In 1824 he translated Goethe’s _Wilhelm Meister_, which was favourably received. He married Miss Jane Welsh in 1825. She was a descendent of John Knox, a daughter of Dr. Welsh, Haddington; and through her Carlyle acquired the small property of Craigenputtoch, in Dumfriesshire, at which he resided for eight years. In this retired residence he wrote articles for the _Foreign Review_, and his _Sartor Resartus_, which first appeared in _Fraser’s Magazine_ in 1833‒34. Carlyle left Craigenputtoch in 1834 and went to London, and finally settled in the famous House, Number 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea. In 1837 he delivered a series of lectures on German Literature in London, and in the following year another course on the Successive Periods of European Culture. Again in 1839 he delivered a course of lectures on the Revolutions of Modern Europe, and another on Heroes and Hero Worship in 1840. These lectures greatly extended his popularity. The lectures on Heroes and Hero Worship were published in book form, and widely read.

Carlyle wrote on many branches of literature, embracing critical essays, political and satirical pamphlets in various forms, and biography and history. His critical and miscellaneous essays extend to seven volumes, and treat on many subjects. Some of them are exceedingly good, such as those on Burns, Edward Irving, Voltaire, Goethe, and others; and the whole of his essays are characteristic and interesting. His political views were presented in a pamphlet entitled “Chartism,” published in 1839, and in another, “Past and Present,” which appeared in 1843. In these he enunciated some important truths, and made scathing observations against all shams, cant, formulas, and so on; yet he has very little to offer in the form of constructive remedies for the existing evils of society, either political or social. He issued another series of political tracts in 1850, entitled “Latter-day Pamphlets,” and in these he appeared as the vehement and irate Censor, with all the exaggerating peculiarities of his style in greater profusion. He assumed the characteristics of a mere worshipper of force, and an ardent advocate of all coercive measures. Improved prisons and schools for the reform of criminals, poor laws, the churches, the aristocracy, Parliament, and other institutions, as then constituted, were all attacked and ridiculed in a scathing style. On some political points and administrative abuses, however, his bold and stinging satire was quite justifiable.

It was chiefly in biography and history that Carlyle attained distinction and fame as a writer. In 1837 his famous work, _The French Revolution, a History_, was published. It is the best of all Carlyle’s works, and is a very remarkable book. It presents a masterly and vivid panoramic view of the Revolution. He exerted his great powers of description in this work with striking effect.¹ As a specimen of his style, I will quote the passage on the death of Marie Antoinette:――

¹ A very fair analysis and criticism of Carlyle’s style is
given in the late Professor Minto’s _Manual of English Prose
Literature_.

“Is there a man’s heart that thinks without pity of those long months and years of slow-wasting ignominy; of thy birth, self-cradled in imperial Schonbrunn, the winds of heaven not to visit thy face too roughly, thy feet to light on softness, thy eye on splendour; and then of thy death, or hundred deaths, to which the guillotine and ♦Fouquier-Tinville’s Judgment-bar was but the merciful end? Look there, O man born of woman! The bloom of that fair face is wasted, the hair is gray with care; the brightness of those eyes are quenched, their lids hang drooping, the face is stony pale, as of one living in death. Mean weeds, which her own hand has mended, attire the Queen of the World. The death-hurdle where thou sittest pale, motionless, which only curses environ, has to stop; a people, drunk with vengeance, will drink it again in full draught, looking at thee there. Far as the eye reaches a multitudinous sea of maniac heads, the air deaf with their triumph yell! The living-dead must shudder with yet one other pang; her startled blood yet again suffuses with the hue of agony that pale face which she hides with her hands! There is there no heart to say, God pity thee! O think not of these; think of Him whom thou worshippest, the crucified――who also treaded the wine-press alone, fronted sorrow still deeper; and triumphed over it and made it holy, and built of it a sanctuary of sorrow for thee and all the wretched! Thy path of thorns is nigh ended, one long last look at the Tuilleries, where thy step was once so light, where thy children shall not dwell. The head is on the block, the axe rushes――dumb lies the world; the wild yelling world and all its madness is behind thee.”

♦ “Forquier” replaced with “Fouquier”

Carlyle’s collection of Oliver Cromwell’s _Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations_, appeared in 1845, in two volumes. It is an excellent work, and a valuable contribution to the historical materials of the seventeenth century. His own additional Elucidations, historic and descriptive, are important, and often very characteristic and interesting.

His _Life of John Stirling_ was published in 1851. It is a warm tribute by Carlyle to the memory of a personal friend. Stirling was an amiable and accomplished man, and his friends were much attached to him. He had written some attractive volumes in prose and verse; and he died in 1844, in his thirty-eighth year.

Carlyle had been long working on his _History of Friedrich the Great of Prussia_, and in 1858 the first and second volumes of it appeared, the third and fourth in 1862, and the fifth and sixth completing the work in 1865. It is a work evincing great research, admirable descriptions of battle-fields and historic scenes, vivid and sage remarks on men and things, and touches of pathos and humour. Yet, viewed according to a recognised standard, it fails to reach the higher and genuine characteristics of history; and in truth, it is rather a personal biography and a glorification of the hero, Friedrich II., enlivened and widely varied by the writer’s rare genius. If Carlyle was not a pure worshipper of mere force and might, he had, at least, an excessive veneration of individual great men――heroism; so he made them the central conception and wove events and movements around them for their special glorification, treating other men with scorn, and ignoring many important historic influences. He scouted the idea of tracing the relation of causes and effects in history, or the gradual development of political institutions. For the sake of the central hero, he sums up an estimate of the eighteenth century thus:――“What little it did, we must call Friedrich; what little it thought, Voltaire.”

In spite of his veneration of might, and some unreasoned impulses, he was a great historical biographer. His fine power of description, insight of character, and the power of seizing reality, the faculty of discerning and selecting appropriate facts and incidents, and weaving these into a stirring narrative, enabled him to attain a marked distinction in this branch of literature. He had many readers and admirers, and his influence has been widely felt.

He was elected Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh, and on the 2nd of April 1866, delivered his installation address. Before he returned home, his wife died at London, on the 21st of April. His subsequent writings mostly consisted of short addresses and articles on the topics of the day; and a _History of the Early Kings of Norway_, published in 1875. He died on the 4th of February, 1881.¹

¹ His _Reminiscences_, edited by Mr. Froude, were published in
1881, in two volumes.

Dr. John Hill Burton, a native of Aberdeen, was born in 1809; and having studied law, was called to the bar in 1833. He was a hard working student, and at an early period of his life, produced a work on the _Scottish Bankruptcy Law_, and a _Manual of the Law of Scotland_. He was also the author of a small volume, now much sought after, _On Political and Social Economy_, published in 1849. He was an exceedingly industrious writer, chiefly in the field of Scottish history and biography.

In 1846, his _Life and Correspondence of David Hume_ was published in two volumes; and the following year, his _Lives of Lord Lovat_ and _Duncan Forbes of Culloden_ appeared. Both works are valuable contributions to the historic literature of Scotland. In 1864, his work entitled _The Scot Abroad_ appeared in two volumes; it consists of an account of the relations of Scotland and Scotsmen to foreign countries, and contains many interesting sketches and anecdotes.

His longest work is _The History of Scotland, from Agricola’s Invasion to the Revolution of 1688_, which appeared in 1867‒70; he had before written a _History of Scotland from the Revolution to the extinction of the last Jacobite Insurrection_, which was published in 1853. Thus, presumably following the example of Hume, he wrote and published the latest part of his history first.¹ This History is much marred by the author’s prejudice against the Celtic people of Scotland. A revised edition of the whole work has been published.

¹ One of Hume’s opponents, who had a waggish turn, once said
that he had written his history backwards.

Besides the important works mentioned above, Dr. Burton occasionally contributed papers to the _Westminster Review_, _Blackwood’s Magazine_, and other literary journals, and sometimes articles to the _Scotsman_. Moreover, he edited several of the volumes of the _Records of the Scottish Privy Council of the Sixteenth Century_, and wrote a preface to the first volume. He also contributed many articles to biographical dictionaries. His last work was a _History of Britain in the Reign of Queen Anne_, in three volumes, published in 1880. He died in 1881.

The late Robert Blakey was the author of a number of works:――_History of the Philosophy of the Human Mind_, in four volumes, in which a pretty complete account of works on philosophy, especially British works in this department, is given down to about the middle of the present century. His _History of Political Literature_, published in 1855, in two volumes, is a very useful and interesting work, written in a clear, animated, and vigorous style.

Dr. William F. Skene was born on the 7th of June 1809. Having studied for the profession of law, he became a member of the Society of Writers to the Signet in 1831. After the death of Dr. John H. Burton, Dr. Skene was appointed Historiographer Royal for Scotland.

He edited a publication entitled _The Four Ancient Books of Wales_, which appeared in 1868. The work contains an English translation, rendered by two eminent Welsh scholars, of the Cymric poems, tales, and romances connected with the early history of Wales. The translation is from the oldest known Welsh manuscripts, and the work has considerable historical value. Dr. Skene edited another volume under the title of _The Chronicles of the Picts and Scots_, which consists of a number of short pieces, fragments, and some extracts from early Irish chronicles, to which he wrote a long and interesting preface. He also edited and wrote introductions to several of the series of volumes known by the title of _The Historians of Scotland_.

His chief work is the _History of Celtic Scotland_, published in 1876‒81, in three volumes, of which a second edition has been issued. He announced that this work was designed to ascertain all that could be extracted from the early authorities; and it may be granted that when he had written matter to work upon, his conclusions were fairly satisfactory. He was very industrious and painstaking; but his mind was narrow and glimmering. He had no philosophic grasp, and very little of the critical faculty. He shows lamentable defects in the discrimination and estimation of historical evidence, and seemed to be unconscious of the value of circumstantial evidence, and its use for limiting, correcting, or confirming, incomplete and erroneous statements of facts and events. Thus he often placed too much reliance on fragments of writings, old chronicles, and traditions. He introduced into his History a fanciful body, viz., “The Seven Earls of Scotland,” who enjoyed the privilege of controlling the Kings in early times. In truth, his _Celtic Scotland_ has been rather much praised. He died in August, 1892.

In a chapter on Scottish historical literature, it seems requisite to give some account of the Record scholars, and those who have worked in order to place important historical materials within the reach of historical students. The first who claims to be remembered is Mr. Thomas Thomson, the able and careful editor of the _Scots Acts of Parliament_, and other national records. For many years he worked hard in the General Register-house in Edinburgh, and under him others were trained and encouraged by his example in this branch of research. Space would fail to signalise all those who have followed in the footsteps of Mr. Thomson, and have rendered valuable service to their country in the wide field of national records and historical materials.

Mr. Cosmo Innes, a native of the parish of Durris, Kincardineshire, was an eminent Record scholar and an industrious historical student. He edited the first volume of the _Scots Acts of Parliament_, containing all the earliest laws and fragments of legislation of Scotland, several of the _Old Spalding Club_ publications, and a number of the volumes printed by the Clubs in the south, all containing valuable historical materials. He also edited the earlier volumes of the _Facsimiles of the National Manuscripts of Scotland_, a magnificent work, issued under the direction of the Record Commission, as well as the first volume issued by the Burgh Record Society; and spent years of labour in preparing an exhaustive index to the _Scots Acts_. Mr. Innes was also the author of three notable works: _Scotland in the Middle Ages_, 1860; _Sketches of Early Scottish History_, 1861; and _Legal Antiquities_; all these formed valuable contributions to the history of Scotland.

Another notable man of this class was Dr. John Stuart, a native of the parish of Forgue, in Aberdeenshire. He was an advocate in Aberdeen, and for many years acted as the secretary of the Old Spalding Club, of which he was one of the originators; but for a number of years before his death, which happened in the summer of 1877, he was employed in the General Register-house at Edinburgh.

He edited and wrote the prefaces to the well-known work, _The Sculptured Stones of Scotland_. His prefaces and notes to this work are admirable specimens of antiquarian research, clear and well reasoned exposition. To the _Book of Deer_, which he edited, he wrote a long and very valuable preface. He also edited and wrote prefaces to other volumes of the Old Spalding Club, including the _Burgh Records of Aberdeen_.

Joseph Robertson, a native of Aberdeen, born in 1810, also one of the original members of the Old Spalding Club, was a distinguished Record scholar; and edited a number of volumes for the Club. But it is in the work entitled _Statuta Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ_, a collection of the Canons of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland prior to the Reformation, that his Record scholarship is fully manifested. The painstaking labour which he devoted to this work is almost incredible, his research is both accurate and exhaustive to the minutest detail. His preface to the work is a monument of scholarship, sound judgment, and historic elucidation, while the body of notes and illustrations are of deep interest and great historic value. He is also the author of a history of the city of Aberdeen, entitled the _Book of Bon-accord_, which unfortunately he left unfinished. He died in 1866.

The late Dr. David Laing, a gifted and esteemed gentleman, who for long held the office of librarian to the Writers to the Signet, was a large contributor to the historic materials of Scottish history. Laing’s¹ efforts were specially directed to the culture and the elucidation of the literary history of Scotland in the early periods, and to the history of art. He published some collections of early poetry, and edited the poems of Hendryson, Dunbar, and Sir David Lindsay; and in many other ways endeavoured to advance the culture of history and art.²

¹ I have already noticed his service to the nation by his
edition of Knox’s works.――_History of Civilisation in
Scotland_, Volume II., page 346.

² It may be mentioned that Laing, after the death of Dr. David
Irving, edited his _History of Scottish Poetry_, which in
its first form was published in 1804; but Irving seems to
have worked and revised at it almost to the end of his life.
Laing published the work in its final form in 1861, with a
memoir of the author. Irving was also the author of a series
of biographical sketches of eminent Scotsmen.

_The Criminal Trials in Scotland from the end of the Fifteenth Century to 1624_, carefully edited and ably illustrated by Robert Pitcairn, W.S., form a valuable contribution to the history of domestic life and manners. He died in 1855. In this connection, _The Domestic Annals of Scotland_, by Dr. Robert Chambers, are well worthy of notice. Dr. R. Chambers was also the author of an excellent _History of the Rising of 1745_, which has passed through eight editions. It is an interesting and very valuable contribution to our historical literature.

Mr. E. W. Robertson was the author of a work entitled _Scotland under her early Kings_, published in 1862, in two volumes, which presents a history of the kingdom down to the close of the thirteenth century. It shows much research and industry, and commendable exactness of statement in matters of fact. Mr. Robertson also published a volume of historical essays in 1872.

Mr. William Mure, of Caldwell,¹ was the author of _A Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece_, published in 1850‒53, in four volumes. A fifth volume appeared in 1857, but the work was left incomplete when he died. He devoted a considerable portion of his history to an examination of the Iliad and Odyssey, and the conclusion which he arrived at is, that each of these poems was originally composed substantially as we now possess them. This is a subject which has engaged the attention of many able classical scholars. Mure presented an interesting account of the origin and the early history of Greek prose literature, and a long critical examination of Herodotus.

¹ Born in 1799; died 1860.

George Grub, LL.D., was born in Old Aberdeen in 1812. He was educated at King’s College, Aberdeen, and graduated in 1829. Having studied law, he was admitted a member of the Society of Advocates in 1836, and in 1843 he was appointed Lecturer on Scots Law and Conveyancing in Marischal College. At the union of the Colleges in 1860, Dr. Patrick Davidson became Professor of Law, and Dr. Grub was appointed his substitute. On the death of Dr. Davidson in 1881, Dr. Grub succeeded him in the Chair. He retired from the professorship in 1891; and died on the 23rd of September in 1892. He was a very considerate and kindly gentleman.¹

¹ Robbie’s _History of Aberdeen_, page 490. 1893.

He was one of the original members of the Old Spalding Club, and edited several of the works issued by it. He is the author of _The Ecclesiastical History of Scotland_, published in 1861, in four volumes. It is a work of much merit and research, and remarkable for its candour and impartiality. His style is plain and clear.

In conclusion, though perhaps all the historical writers have not been enumerated that might be named, still enough has been given to show that a considerable amount of effort and talent has been devoted to history during the last and present century, and that the taste for this branch of literature has been steadily spreading amongst the people.