INTRODUCTORY LECTURE

TO THE

COURSES ON ANCIENT AND MODERN HISTORY AND THE HISTORY OF LITERATURE.

IT had been my original intention to have deferred the address which I am now about to deliver, till the commencement of the course of Lectures to which it is introductory; that is, till the middle of next March. It was thought, however, by those with whose judgment I willingly comply, to be important that the plans of the Professors for the conduct of their respective classes should be brought before the public in a complete series of preliminary discourses; and I have therefore now to lay before you a sketch of the mode in which instruction will be carried on in the department of History,— the only one which I have retained of the more complicated duties which devolved upon me in the former arrangements of the College.

The University of London, with which this College is connected, has at length done justice to the study of history, by making it an essential part of those literary attainments which the candidate for its degrees and honours must possess. It is a striking proof of the difference which there may be between the spirit of those public institutions which are practically subject to no regulations but their own, and the spirit of the nation in the bosom of which they exist,-that, while

the historical literature of Great Britain was admired and imitated throughout Europe, little, if any thing, was done in the universities of the south for the encouragement of historical study, either by public instruction or the stimulus of ambition. Cambridge, indeed, has, for the greater part of a century, had its professorship of modern history; and, for thirty years past, not only a professor but a teacher,* whose instructions, now happily no longer confined to his immediate pupils, have been admirably adapted to form their taste, their judgment, and their moral feelings. But Cambridge has no professorship of ancient history, and no direct provision to enforce its study. Oxford has a Camden professorship of ancient history, and a separate one of modern history; but the names of those who have filled them are associated with no reputation gained as teachers of the science which they professed, however great in other respects may have been the merits of such men as Elmsley, and Warton, and Spence. Nor has this inactivity in oral instruction been compensated by literary fame; for, until the recent labours of Thirlwall and Arnold, no standard work of historical literature has appeared, in the production of which either University could claim even a remote and indirect influence. These facts are mentioned with no purpose of invidious contrast, but to show the necessity that some more direct encouragement should be given to historical study than it has hitherto received in the academical education of England, and in the hope that the older institutions will not disdain to profit by the example which has been given them, and adapt their instructions to the demands of the nineteenth century.

As the enactments of the University of London have given to history a leading place among the branches of knowledge which must be cultivated in all the establishments of education which depend upon it, I am released from the necessity of proving to this audience that it deserves the rank which * Professor Smyth.

everywhere but in England it has enjoyed. Indeed, without the power of appealing to this sanction, I should have thought it a waste of your time to attempt to show that the records of the human race must be a subject of deep interest and practical instruction to man. History keeps pace with the growth of the human understanding: at first, undistinguished from poetry; then a half epic mixture of fact and fable; and passing through every successive stage, till it justifies the description of Cicero,* and becomes "Testis temporum, lux veritatis, magistra vitæ." No works of literature afford delight to a wider range of readers than those of history, or more certainly confer upon the authors of their first-rate productions the rank of classics in the language in which they have written. And if it be one of the privileges obtained by the study of books, that we strengthen and enlarge our own minds by bringing them into contact and communion with the minds of men of the most masculine force and comprehensive grasp of intellect, where shall we find these qualities more strikingly displayed than in the great authors of history, -in Thucydides and Tacitus, in Sismondi and Niebuhr ? The curiosity which leads us to turn back to past ages is irrepressible; the business of the instructor is to guide it into the channels in which it may be most usefully exercised; and therefore, instead of undertaking the encomium of history, I shall proceed to lay before you the plan according to which I propose to conduct the studies of the department which has been committed to my charge.

There are two modes which the academical teacher of this science may adopt. He may presume in his pupils a general knowledge of the facts of ancient and modern history, and select a certain number of remarkable events or periods on which to dilate, marking the progress or retrogradation of the human mind in the interval which separates them; the new political combinations into which the world has been

*De Orat. 2. 9.

thrown; the change in the predominant character of the age; the diffusion of commerce, and the improvement of literature and art. Or, he may make his lectures consist chiefly of an outline of the great facts of history, twining with the chronological thread which he thus draws out unbroken through successive centuries the series of collateral facts respecting the progress of mankind, which is necessary to complete the chain of historical causation. It cannot be denied, that the former method has great attractions both for the teacher and the pupil. It enables the teacher to present a few highly-finished pictures, instead of a number of meagre sketches; and to assume a loftier place than that of a mere chronicler of events, by opening wide and philosophical views of history. The hearer, on his part, is more easily excited to that enthusiasm which makes study a delight rather than an obligation, and is pleased to be taken by the hand, and wafted through the air in a moment from one verdant Oasis in history to another, without a laborious march through the dreary and barren desert which intervenes. But experience has convinced me of two things: first, that the minds of youth, at the age at which our academical course begins, are not in general prepared for those comprehensive views which might be beneficially presented to them at its conclusion; and, secondly, that we cannot safely trust to their constructing for themselves the chain which binds all together in its true order, and prevents confusion. The time may perhaps arrive when scholastic education shall be better adapted than it now is to serve as a preliminary to the academical; when the study of education as a science and an art shall produce a voluntary uniformity in the course of preparatory instruction, and the professor shall receive his pupil from the hands of the schoolmaster so trained and furnished, that he shall have no need to begin by laying a foundation, but may proceed at once to build upon it. The present state of things is widely different, and imposes the necessity of adopting the humbler course of

teaching what ancient and modern history are, before attempting to draw lessons from them, or to unfold general principles. Could there have been any doubt upon this point, it would have been removed by the regulations of the University of London, which are imperative upon us in what regards the literary and scientific studies of this place. An inspection of the published examinations, as far as they relate to history, will be sufficient to show, that, to pass through them with credit, it is necessary to be possessed of the great series of facts which constitutes the histories of Greece, Rome, and England, as well as to give proof that reflection and combination have been exercised upon the facts thus brought before the mind. But it does not follow, that because order and accurate arrangement are the first points to be secured, we should rest content with these. On the contrary, I believe it to be practicable to interweave with the narrative of facts the enunciation of principles, and to deduce lessons from history, even in the rapid progress which a chronological survey of its events compels us to make.

race.

I shall now proceed briefly to describe the great divisions into which the extensive province assigned to me will naturally distribute itself. In beginning ANCIENT HISTORY, I have sometimes been tempted to wish, that it were allowable to invert the order of communication, and reserve to the last part of the course the commencement of the history of the human There is nothing so obscure in itself, so embarrassed with difficulties arising from the want of real evidence and the substitution of false, from the multitude and variety of theories, and the authority which in the lapse of time they have been allowed to usurp, as the primitive condition of mankind, and the origin of letters, arts, and institutions. It is impossible to place the first step anywhere with the certainty that we are treading upon historical ground. How, indeed, should the infancy of mankind, any more than the infancy of the individual, preserve a record of the years in