You can tell him what Freeman was, for you used to be one of his ardent admirers and closest henchmen.’ ‘Yes, indeed,’ said Middleman ‘he was a noble scholar, and I read and re-read every line he wrote.

But there is a good deal to be said for the other method of work.’ ‘Just so,’ said Phil, much relieved. ‘I have been sticking up for Froude’s pictures of Henry vm., Elizabeth and Mary of Scots, the Reformation and the Armada. I won’t believe that literary history is quite done yet.’ ‘ Literary history! ’ laughed Wessex, who had recovered his good humour ‘ why not say melodious science!- delicious philosophy!-graceful law! or any other paradoxical confusion of metaphors? “ Literary history” is a contradiction in terms, is it not, Middleman? ’ Well,’ said the lawyer, who was great at Nisi priiis, ‘let us know what we mean by literary history. History in which the narrative of events is made subservient to literary effect is an impudent swindle. But the history which has no quality of literature at all, neither power of expression nor imaginative insight, is nothing but materials, the bricks and stones out of which some one one day might build a house. If “literary history” means Lamartine’s History of the Girondists, it is a sneaking form of the historical novel. But if literary history means Tacitus and Gibbon, it is the highest and the true form of history.

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