No More Learning

These undoubtedly offered un-
conscious studies to the future novelist.
Like many of his guild he began writing on a newspaper, rising
by degrees from the position of reporter to that of editor. The drill
and discipline taught him to make the most
of time and opportunity, and he contrived
leisure enough to write two or three long
stories. Working at journalism in Utica,
Albany, and New York, in 1884 he became
chief foreign correspondent of the New
York Times, making his headquarters in
London, where he has since lived.
Mr. Frederic's reputation rests on journal-
istic correspondence of the higher class, and
on his novels, of which he has published six.
His stories are distinctively American. He
has caught up contrasting elements of lo-
cal life in the eastern part of the United
States, and grouped them with ingenuity
and power.
His first important story was 'Seth's Brother's Wife,'
originally appearing as a serial in Scribner's Magazine. Following
this came 'The Lawton Girl,' a study of rustic life; 'In the Valley,'
a semi-historical novel, turning on aspects of colonial times along the
Mohawk River; The Copperhead,' a tale of the Civil War; 'Mukena
and Other Stories,' graphic character sketches, displaying humor and
insight; The Damnation of Theron Ware,' the most serious and
carefully studied of his books; and March Hares,' a sketch of con-
temporary society.

HAROLD FREDERIC
A student of the life about him, possessing a dramatic sense and
a saving grace of humor, Mr. Frederic in his fiction is often photo-
graphic and minute in detail, while he does not forget the import-
ance of the mass which the detail is to explain or embellish. He
likes to deal with types of that mixed population peculiar to the


## p. 5972 (#560) ###########################################

HAROLD FREDERIC
5972
farming valleys of Central New York,-German, Irish, and American,
- bringing out by contrast their marked social and individual traits.
Not a disciple of realism, his books are emphatically "human docu-
ments. "
There is always moreover a definite plot, often a dramatic de-
velopment. But it is the attrition of character against character
that really interests him. 'Seth's Brother's Wife' and 'The Lawton
Girl' leave a definite ethical intention. In the 'Damnation of Theron
Ware' is depicted the tragedy of a weak and crude character sud-
denly put in touch with a higher intellectual and emotional life,
which it is too meagre and too untrained to adopt, and through
which it suffers shipwreck. In 'In the Valley' the gayety and seri-
ousness of homely life stand out against a savage and martial back-
ground.
Mr. Frederic profoundly respects his art, is never careless, and
never unconscientious. Of his constructive instinct a distinguished
English critic has said that it "ignores nothing that is significant;
makes use of nothing that is not significant; and binds every ele-
ment of character and every incident together in a consistent, co-
herent, dramatic whole. "
THE LAST RITE
From The Damnation of Theron Ware. ' Copyright 1896, by Stone &
Kimball
ALKING homeward briskly now, with his eyes on the side-
W walk, and his mind all aglow with crowding suggestions
for the new work and impatience to be at it, Theron
Ware came abruptly upon a group of men and boys who occu-
pied the whole path, and were moving forward so noiselessly that
he had not heard them coming. He almost ran into the leader
of this little procession, and began a stammering apology, the
final words of which were left unspoken, so solemnly heedless of
him and his talk were all the faces he saw.
In the centre of the group were four workingmen, bearing be-
tween them an extemporized litter of two poles and a blanket
hastily secured across them with spikes. Most of what this litter
held was covered by another blanket, rounded in coarse folds
over a shapeless bulk. From beneath its farther end protruded
a big broom-like black beard, thrown upward at such an angle
as to hide everything beyond those in front.
The tall young
minister, stepping aside and standing tiptoe, could see sloping


## p. 5973 (#561) ###########################################

HAROLD FREDERIC
5973
downward, behind this hedge of beard, a pinched and chalk-like
face, with wide-open, staring eyes. Its lips, of a dull lilac hue,
were moving ceaselessly, and made a dry, clicking sound.
Theron instinctively joined himself to those who followed the
litter, a motley dozen of street idlers, chiefly boys. One of
these in whispers explained to him that the man was one of Jerry
Madden's workmen in the wagon-shops, who had been deployed
to trim an elm-tree in front of his employer's house, and being
unused to such work, had fallen from the top and broken all
his bones. They would have cared for him at Madden's house,
but he insisted upon being taken home. His name was Mac-
Evoy, and he was Joey MacEvoy's father, and likewise Jim's
and Hughey's and Martin's. After a pause, the lad, a bright-
eyed, freckled, barefooted wee Irishman, volunteered the further
information that his big brother had run to bring
to bring Father
Forbess," on the chance that he might be in time to administer
"extry munction. "
«<
―――――
The way of the silent little procession led through back streets,
- where women hanging up clothes in the yards hurried to the
gates, their aprons full of clothes-pins, to stare open-mouthed at
the passers-by,- and came to a halt at last in an irregular and
muddy lane, before one of a half-dozen shanties reared among
the ash-heaps and débris of the town's most bedraggled outskirts.
A stout, middle-aged, red-armed woman, already warned by
some messenger of calamity, stood waiting on the roadside bank.
There were whimpering children clinging to her skirts, and a
surrounding cluster of women of the neighborhood; some of
the more elderly of whom, shriveled little crones in tidy caps,
and with their aprons to their eyes, were beginning in a low-
murmured minor the wail which presently should rise into the
keen of death. Mrs. MacEvoy herself made no moan, and her
broad ruddy face was stern in expression rather than sorrowful.
When the litter stopped beside her, she laid a hand for an instant
on her husband's wet brow, and looked- one could have sworn
impassively into his staring eyes. Then, still without a word,
she waved the bearers toward the door, and led the way herself.
Theron, somewhat wonderingly, found himself a minute later
inside a dark and ill-smelling room, the air of which was humid
with the steam from a boiler of clothes on the stove, and not in
other ways improved by the presence of a jostling score of
women, all straining their gaze upon the open door of the only
—
O


## p. 5973 (#562) ###########################################

HAROLD FREDERIC
5972
farming valleys of Central New York,-C
- bringing out by contrast their mark
Not a disciple of realism, his boo¹-
ments. "
Mr. Fre
There is always moreover
velopment. But it is the
that really interests him.
Girl' leave a definite eth
Ware' is depicted the
denly put in touch
which it is too m
which it suffers
ousness of hom
ground.
never un
English
makes
men'
her
Lov
to
**C
this they could see
ed, and standing awk-
way of the wife and old
ove the garments from his
watched what could be seen of
d among themselves eulogies of
good temper, his habit of bring-
ife, and the way he kept his Father
ed to his religious duties. They ad-
light of his example, their own hus-
to be desired; and from this wandered
ic digressions of their own. But all the
bent upon the bedroom door; and Theron
had grown accustomed to the gloom and the
of them were telling their beads even while
muttered conversation alive. None of them paid
him, or seemed to regard his presence there as
Bibl
he saw enter through the sunlit street doorway a
different class. The bright light shone for a passing
you a fashionable, flowered hat, and upon some remark-
Presently
person of a
ably brilliant shade of red hair beneath it.
there had edged along through the throng, to almost within
touch of him,
a tall young woman, the owner of this hat and won-
In another moment
derful hair. She was clad in light and pleasing spring attire, and
carried a parasol with a long oxidized silver handle of a quaint
pattern.
She looked at him, and he saw that her face was of a
lengthened oval, with a luminous rose-tinted skin, full red lips,
and big brown, frank eyes with heavy auburn lashes. She made.
a grave little inclination of her head toward him, and he bowed
in response. Since her arrival, he noted, the chattering of the
others had entirely ceased.
"I followed the others in, in the hope that I might be of some
assistance," he ventured to explain to her in a low murmur, feel-
ing that at last here was some one to whom an explanation of
his presence in this Romish house was due. "I hope they won't
feel that I have intruded. "
She nodded her head as if she quite understood.
"They'll take the will for the deed," she whispered back.
"Father Forbes will be here in a minute. Do you know, is it
too late? »


## p. 5973 (#563) ###########################################

HAROLD FREDERIC
5975
as she spoke, the outer doorway was darkened by the
? bulk of a new-comer's figure. The flash of a silk
deferential way in which the assembled neighbors
ar a passage, made his identity clear. Theron
tingle in an unaccustomed way as this priest of a
urch advanced across the room,-a broad-shouldered,
an of more than middle height, with a shapely, strong-
ace of almost waxen pallor, and a firm, commanding tread.
carried in his hands, besides his hat, a small leather-bound
use. To this and to him the women curtsied and bowed their
heads as he passed.
Come with me," whispered the tall girl with the parasol, to
Theron; and he found himself pushing along in her wake until
they intercepted the priest just outside the bedroom door. She
touched Father Forbes on the arm.
"Just to tell you that I am here," she said. The priest nodded
with a grave face, and passed into the other room. In a minute
or two the workmen, Mrs. MacEvoy, and her helper came out,
and the door was shut behind them.
"He is making his confession," explained the young lady.
"Stay here for a minute. "
She moved over to where the woman of the house stood,
glum-faced and tearless, and whispered something to her. A
confused movement among the crowd followed, and out of it
presently resulted a small table, covered with a white cloth, and
bearing on it two unlighted candles, a basin of water, and a
spoon, which was brought forward and placed in readiness before
the closed door. Some of those nearest this cleared space were
kneeling now, and murmuring a low buzz of prayer to the click
of beads on their rosaries.
The door opened, and Theron saw the priest standing in the
doorway with an uplifted hand. He wore now a surplice, with a
purple band over his shoulders, and on his pale face there shone
a tranquil and tender light.
One of the workmen fetched from the stove a brand, lighted
the two candles, and bore the table with its contents into the
bedroom. The young woman plucked Theron's sleeve, and he
dumbly followed her into the chamber of death, making one of
the group of a dozen, headed by Mrs. MacEvoy and her children,
which filled the little room, and overflowed now outward to the
street door. He found himself bowing with the others to receive


## p. 5974 (#564) ###########################################

5974
HAROLD FREDERIC
other apartment, the bedchamber. Through this they could see
the workmen laying MacEvoy on the bed, and standing awk-
wardly about thereafter, getting in the way of the wife and old
Maggie Quirk as they strove to remove the garments from his
crushed limbs. As the neighbors watched what could be seen of
these proceedings, they whispered among themselves eulogies of
the injured man's industry and good temper, his habit of bring-
ing his money home to his wife, and the way he kept his Father
Mathew pledge and attended to his religious duties. They ad-
mitted freely that by the light of his example, their own hus-
bands and sons left much to be desired; and from this wandered
easily off into domestic digressions of their own. But all the
while their eyes were bent upon the bedroom door; and Theron
made out, after he had grown accustomed to the gloom and the
smell, that many of them were telling their beads even while
they kept the muttered conversation alive. None of them paid
any attention to him, or seemed to regard his presence there as
unusual.
Presently he saw enter through the sunlit street doorway a
person of a different class. The bright light shone for a passing
instant upon a fashionable, flowered hat, and upon some remark-
ably brilliant shade of red hair beneath it. In another moment
there had edged along through the throng, to almost within
touch of him, a tall young woman, the owner of this hat and won-
derful hair. She was clad in light and pleasing spring attire, and
carried a parasol with a long oxidized silver handle of a quaint
pattern.
She looked at him, and he saw that her face was of a
lengthened oval, with a luminous rose-tinted skin, full red lips,
and big brown, frank eyes with heavy auburn lashes. She made
a grave little inclination of her head toward him, and he bowed
in response. Since her arrival, he noted, the chattering of the
others had entirely ceased.
"I followed the others in, in the hope that I might be of some
assistance," he ventured to explain to her in a low murmur, feel-
ing that at last here was some one to whom an explanation of
his presence in this Romish house was due. "I hope they won't
feel that I have intruded. "
She nodded her head as if she quite understood.
"They'll take the will for the deed," she whispered back.
"Father Forbes will be here in a minute. Do you know, is it
too late? "


## p. 5975 (#565) ###########################################

HAROLD FREDERIC
5975
Even as she spoke, the outer doorway was darkened by the
commanding bulk of a new-comer's figure. The flash of a silk
hat, and the deferential way in which the assembled neighbors
fell back to clear a passage, made his identity clear. Theron
felt his blood tingle in an unaccustomed way as this priest of a
strange Church advanced across the room,-a broad-shouldered,
portly man of more than middle height, with a shapely, strong-
lined face of almost waxen pallor, and a firm, commanding tread.
He carried in his hands, besides his hat, a small leather-bound
case. To this and to him the women curtsied and bowed their
heads as he passed.
Come with me," whispered the tall girl with the parasol, to
Theron; and he found himself pushing along in her wake until
they intercepted the priest just outside the bedroom door. She
touched Father Forbes on the arm.
"Just to tell you that I am here," she said. The priest nodded
with a grave face, and passed into the other room. In a minute
or two the workmen, Mrs. MacEvoy, and her helper came out,
and the door was shut behind them.
"He is making his confession," explained the young lady.
"Stay here for a minute. "
She moved over to where the woman of the house stood,
glum-faced and tearless, and whispered something to her. A
confused movement among the crowd followed, and out of it
presently resulted a small table, covered with a white cloth, and
bearing on it two unlighted candles, a basin of water, and a
spoon, which was brought forward and placed in readiness before
the closed door. Some of those nearest this cleared space were
kneeling now, and murmuring a low buzz of prayer to the click
of beads on their rosaries.
The door opened, and Theron saw the priest standing in the
doorway with an uplifted hand. He wore now a surplice, with a
purple band over his shoulders, and on his pale face there shone
a tranquil and tender light.
One of the workmen fetched from the stove a brand, lighted
the two candles, and bore the table with its contents into the
bedroom. The young woman plucked Theron's sleeve, and he
dumbly followed her into the chamber of death, making one of
the group of a dozen, headed by Mrs. MacEvoy and her children,
which filled the little room, and overflowed now outward to the
street door. He found himself bowing with the others to receive


## p. 5976 (#566) ###########################################

5976
HAROLD FREDERIC
the sprinkled holy water from the priest's white fingers; kneeling
with the others for the prayers; following in impressed silence
with the others the strange ceremonial by which the priest traced
crosses of holy oil with his thumb upon the eyes, ears, nostrils,
lips, hands, and feet of the dying man, wiping off the oil with a
piece of cotton-batting each time after he had repeated the invo-
cation to forgiveness for that particular sense. But most of all
he was moved by the rich, novel sound of the Latin as the
priest rolled it forth in the 'Asperges me, Domine,' and 'Mis-
ereatur vestri omnipotens Deus,' with its soft Continental vowels
and liquid r's. It seemed to him that he had never really heard
Latin before. Then the astonishing young woman with the red
hair declaimed the 'Confiteor' vigorously and with a resonant
distinctness of enunciation. It was a different Latin, harsher
and more sonorous; and while it still dominated the murmured
undertone of the other's prayers the last moment came.
Theron had stood face to face with death at many other bed-
sides; no other final scene had stirred him like this. It must
have been the girl's Latin chant, with its clanging reiteration of
the great names,-'beatum Michaelem Archangelum,' 'beatum
Joannem Baptistam,' 'sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum,'—
invoked with such proud confidence in this squalid little shanty,
which so strangely affected him.
He came out with the others at last,- the candles and the
folded hands over the crucifix left behind, and walked as one
in a dream. Even by the time that he had gained the outer
doorway, and stood blinking at the bright light and filling his
lungs with honest air once more, it had begun to seem incredi-
ble to him that he had seen and done all this.
――――――


## p. 5977 (#567) ###########################################

5977
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
(1823-1892)
BY JOHN BACH MCMASTER
DWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN, one of the most prolific of recent
English historians, was born at Harborne in Staffordshire,
England, on August 2d, 1823. His early education was re-
ceived at home and in private schools, from which at the age of
eighteen he went up to Oxford, where he was elected a scholar of
Trinity College. Four years later (1845) he took his degree and was
elected a Fellow of Trinity, an honor which he held till his marriage
in 1847 forced him to relinquish it.
Long before this event, Freeman was
deep in historical study. His fortune was
easy. The injunction that he should eat
bread in the sweat of his face had not
been laid on him. His time was his own,
and was devoted with characteristic zeal
and energy to labor in the field of history,
which in the course of fifty years was made
to yield him a goodly crop.
EDWARD A. FREEMAN
Year after year he poured forth a steady
stream of Essays, Thoughts, Remarks, Sug-
gestions, Lectures, Short Histories on mat-
ters of current interest, little monographs
on great events or great men,-all covering
a range of subjects which bear evidence to most astonishing ver-
satility and learning. Sometimes his topic was a cathedral church,
as that of Wells or Leominster Priory; or a cathedral city, as Ely or
Norwich. At others it was a grave historical theme, as the Unity
of History'; or 'Comparative Politics'; or the Growth of the English
Constitution from the Earliest Times'; or 'Old English History for
Children. ' His 'General Sketch of European History' is still a stand-
ard text book in our high schools and colleges. His 'William the
Conqueror in Macmillan's Twelve English Statesmen'; his 'Short
History of the Norman Conquest of England' in the Clarendon Press
Series; his studies of Godwin, Harold, and the Normans, in the 'En-
cyclopædia Britannica,' are the best of their kind.



## p. 5978 (#568) ###########################################

5978
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
His contributions to the reviews and magazines make a small
library, encyclopædic in character. Thirty-one essays were published
in the Fortnightly Review; thirty in the Contemporary Review;
twenty-seven in Macmillan's Magazine; twelve in the British Quar-
terly, and as many more in the National Review; while such as are
scattered through the other periodicals of Great Britain and the
United States swell the list to one hundred and fifty-seven titles.
Every conceivable subject is treated,-politics, government, history,
field sports, architecture, archæology, books, linguistics, finance, great
men living and dead, questions of the day. But even this list does
not comprise all of Freeman's writings, for regularly every week, for
more than twenty years, he contributed two long articles to the Sat-
urday Review.
Taken as a whole, this array of publications represents an indus-
try which was simply enormous, and a learning as varied as it was
immense. If classified according to their subjects, they fall naturally
into six groups.
The antiquarian and architectural sketches and ad-
dresses are the least valuable and instructive. They are of interest
because they exhibit a strong bent of mind which appears constantly
in Freeman's works, and because it was by the aid of such remains
that he studied the early history of nations. Then come the studies
in politics and government, such as the essays on presidential gov-
ernment; on American institutional history; on the House of Lords;
the growth of commonwealths, and such elaborate treatises as the six
lectures on Comparative Politics,' and the History of Federal Gov-
ernment,'—all notable because of the liberal spirit and breadth of
view that mark them, and because of a positiveness of statement
and confidence in the correctness of the author's judgments. Then
come the historical essays; then the lectures and addresses; then his
occasional pieces, written at the request of publishers or editors to
fill some long-felt want; and finally the series of histories on which,
in the long run, the reputation of Freeman must rest. These, in the
order of merit and value, are the 'Norman Conquest'; the 'Reign of
William Rufus,' which is really a supplement to the 'Conquest'; the
"History of Sicily,' which the author did not live to finish.
The roll of his works is enough to show that the kind of history
which appealed to Freeman was that of the distant past, and that
which dealt with politics rather than with social life. Of ancient his-
tory he had a good mastery; English history from its dawn to the
thirteenth century he knew minutely; European history of the same
period he knew profoundly. After the thirteenth century his interest
grew less and less as modern times were approached, and his knowl-
edge smaller and smaller till it became that of a man very well read
in history and no more.


## p. 5979 (#569) ###########################################

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5979
Freeman was therefore essentially a historian of the far past; and
as such had, it is safe to say, no living superior in England. But in
his treatment of the past he presents a small part of the picture.
He is concerned with great conquerors, with military leaders, with
battles and sieges and systems of government. The mass of the
people have no interest for him at all. His books abound in battle-
pieces of the age of the long-bow and the javelin, of the battle-axe,
the mace, and the spear; of the age when brain went for little and
when brawn counted for much; and when the fate of nations de-
pended less on the skill of individual commanders than on the per-
sonal prowess of those who met in hand-to-hand encounters. He
delights in descriptions of historic buildings; he is never weary of
drawing long analogies between one kind of government and another;
but for the customs, the manner, the usages, the daily life of the
people, he has never a word. "History," said he on one occasion,
"is past politics; politics is present history," and to this epigram he
is strictly faithful. The England of the serf and the villein, the cur-
few and the monastery, is brushed aside to leave room for the story
of the way in which William of Normandy conquered the Saxons,
and of the way in which William Rufus conducted his quarrels with
Bishop Anselm.
With all of this no fault is to be found. It was his cast of mind,
his point of view; and the questions which alone concern us in any
estimate of his work are: Did he do it well? What is its value?
Did he make a real contribution to historical knowledge? What are
its merits and defects? Judged by the standard he himself set up,
Freeman's chief merits, the qualities which mark him out as a great
historian, are an intense love of truth and a determination to dis
cover it at any cost; a sincere desire to mete out an even-handed
justice to each and every man; unflagging industry, common-sense,
broad views, and the power to reproduce the past most graphically.
From these merits comes Freeman's chief defect,-prolixity. His
earnest desire to be accurate made him not only say the same thing
over and over again, but say it with an unnecessary and useless full-
ness of detail, and back up his statement with a profusion of notes,
which in many cases amount to more than half the text. Indeed,
were they printed in the same type as the text, the space they
occupy would often exceed it. Thus in the first volume of the
'Norman Conquest' there are 528 pages of text, with foot-notes occu-
pying from a third to a half of almost every page, and an appendix
of notes of 244 pages; in the second volume, the text and foot-notes
amount to 512, and the appendix 179; in the third, the text covers
562 and the appendix 206 pages. These notes are always interesting
and always instructive. But the end of a volume is not the place for


## p. 5980 (#570) ###########################################

5980
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
an exhibition of the doubts and fears that have tormented the his-
torian, for a statement of the reasons which have led him to one
conclusion rather than another, nor for the denunciation or reputa-
tion of the opinions of his predecessors. When the building is fin-
ished, we do not want to see the lumber used as the scaffolding piled
in the back yard. Mr. Freeman's histories would be all the better
for a condensation of the text and an elimination of the long appen-
dices.
With these exceptions, the workmanship is excellent. He entered
so thoroughly into the past that it became to him more real and
understandable than the present. He was not merely the contem-
porary but the companion of the men he had to deal with. He
knew every spot of ground, every Roman ruin, every mediæval
castle, that came in any way to be connected with his story, as well
as he knew the topography of the country that stretched beneath his
study window, or the arrangement of the house in which he lived.
In his histories, therefore, we are presented at every turn with
life-like portraits of the illustrious dead, bearing all the marks of
having been taken from life; with descriptions of castles and towers,
minsters and abbeys, and of the scenes that have made them memo-
rable; with comparisons of one ruler with another, always sane and
just; and with graphic pictures of coronations, of battles, sieges,
burnings, and all the havoc and pomp of war.
The essays and studies in politics show Mr. Freeman in a yet
more interesting light; many are elaborate reviews of historical
works, and therefore cover a wide range of topics, both ancient and
of the present time. Now his subject is Mr. Bryce's 'Holy Roman
Empire'; now the Flavian Cæsars; now Mr. Gladstone's 'Homer and
the Homeric Age'; now Kirk's 'Charles the Bold'; now presidential
government; now Athenian democracy; now the Byzantine Empire;
now the Eastern Church; now the growth of commonwealths; now
the geographical aspects of the Eastern Question.
By so wide a range of topics, an opportunity is afforded for a
variety of remarks, analogies, judgments of men and times, far greater
than the histories could give. In the main, these judgments may be
accepted; but so thoroughly was Freeman a historian of the past, that
some of his estimates of contemporary men and things were singu-
larly erroneous. While our Civil War was still raging he began a
'History of Federal Government,' which was to extend from the
Achæan League "to the disruption of the United States. " A prudent
historian would not have taken up the rôle of prophet. He would
have waited for the end of the struggle. But absolute self-confidence
in his own good judgment was one of Freeman's most conspicuous
traits. His estimate of Lincoln is another instance of inability to


## p. 5981 (#571) ###########################################

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5981
understand the times in which he lived. In the Essay on Presiden-
tial Government,' published in the National Review in 1864 and re-
published in the first series of 'Historical Essays' in 1871, the greatest
President and the grandest public character the United States has
yet produced is declared inferior to each and all the Presidents from
Washington to John Quincy Adams. A comparison of Lincoln with
Monroe or Madison or Jefferson by Freeman would have been enter-
taining.
Two views of history as set forth in the essays are especially de-
serving of notice. He is never weary of insisting on the unity and
the continuity of history in general and that of England in particular,
and he attaches unreasonable importance to the influence of the Teu-
tonic element in English history. This latter was the inevitable re-
sult of his method of studying the past along the lines of philology
and ethnology, and has carried him to extremes which taken by any-
body else he would have been quick to see.
An examination of Freeman's minor contributions to the reviews
- such essays, sketches, and discussions as he did not think important
enough to republish in book form - is indicative of his interest in
current affairs. They made little draft on his learning, yet the point
of view is generally the result of his learning. He believed, for in-
stance, that a sound judgment on the Franco-Prussian War could not
be found save in the light of history. "The present war," he wrote
to the Pall Mall Gazette, "has largely risen out of a misconception
of history, out of the dream of a frontier of the Rhine which never
existed. The war on the part of Germany is in truth a vigorous set-
ting forth of the historical truth that the Rhine is, and always has
been, a German river. "
Freeman was still busy with his History of Sicily' from the ear-
liest times, and had just finished the preface to the third volume,
when he died at Alicante in Spain, March 16th, 1892. Since his death
a fourth volume, prepared from his notes, has been published.
But one biography of Freeman has yet appeared, 'The Life and
Letters of Edward A. Freeman,' by W. R. W. Stephens, 2 vols. , 1895.
Johns
he Bach Melartin


## p. 5982 (#572) ###########################################

5982
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
THE ALTERED ASPECTS OF ROME
From Historical Essays of Edward A. Freeman, Third Series. London,
Macmillan & Co. , 1879
ness.
HE two great phenomena, then, of the general appearance of
Rome, are the utter abandonment of so large a part of the
ancient city and the general lack of buildings of the Middle
Ages. Both of these facts are fully accounted for by the pecul-
iar history of Rome. It may be that the sack and fire under
Robert Wiscard -a sack and fire done in the cause of a pope in
warfare against an emperor - was the immediate cause of the
desolation of a large part of Rome; but if so, the destruction
which was then wrought only gave a helping hand to causes
which were at work both before and after. A city could not do
otherwise than dwindle away, in which neither emperor nor pope
nor commonwealth could keep up any lasting form of regular
government; a city which had no resources of its own, and which
lived, as a place of pilgrimage, on the shadow of its own great-
Another idea which is sure to suggest itself at Rome is
rather a delusion. The amazing extent of ancient ruins at Rome
unavoidably fills us with the notion that an unusual amount of
destruction has gone on there. When we cannot walk without
seeing, besides the more perfect monuments, gigantic masses of
ancient wall on every side,-when we stumble at every step on
fragments of marble columns or on richly adorned tombs,— we are
apt to think that they must have perished in some special havoc
unknown in other places. The truth is really the other way.
The abundance of ruins and fragments-again setting aside the
more perfect monuments proves that destruction has been much
less thorough in Rome than in almost any other Roman city.
Elsewhere the ancient buildings have been utterly swept away;
at Rome they survive, though mainly in a state of ruin.
by surviving in a state of ruin they remind us of their former
existence, which in other places we are inclined to forget. Cer-
tainly Rome is, even in proportion to its greatness above all other
Roman cities, rich in ancient remains above all other Roman
cities. Compare those cities of the West which at one time or
another supplanted Rome as the dwelling-places of her own
Cæsars,― Milan, Ravenna, York, Trier itself. York may be looked
upon as lucky in having kept a tower and some pieces of wall


## p. 5983 (#573) ###########################################

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5983
through the havoc of the English conquest. Trier is rich above
all the rest, and she has, in her Porta Nigra, one monument of
Roman power which Rome herself cannot outdo. But rich as
Trier-the second Rome-is, she is certainly not richer in pro-
portion than Rome herself. The Roman remains at Milan hardly.
extend beyond a single range of columns, and it may be thought
that that alone is something, when we remember the overthrow
of the city under Frederick Barbarossa. But compare Rome and
Ravenna: no city is richer than Ravenna in monuments of its
own special class,-Christian Roman, Gothic, Byzantine, but of
works of the days of heathen Rome there is no trace - -no walls,
no gates, no triumphal arch, no temple, no amphitheatre. The
city of Placidia and Theodoric is there; but of the city which
Augustus made one of the two great maritime stations of Italy
there is hardly a trace. Verona, as never being an imperial resi-
dence, was not on our list; but rich as Verona is, Rome is-even
proportionally-far richer. Provence is probably richer in Roman
remains than Italy herself; but even the Provençal cities are
hardly so full of Roman remains as Rome herself. The truth is,
that there is nothing so destructive to the antiquities of a city as
its continued prosperity. A city which has always gone on flour-
ishing according to the standard of each age, which has been
always building and rebuilding and spreading itself beyond its
ancient bounds, works a gradual destruction of its ancient remains
beyond anything that the havoc of any barbarians on earth can
work. In such a city a few special monuments may be kept in
a perfect or nearly perfect state; but it is impossible that large
tracts of ground can be left covered with ruins as they are at
Rome. Now, it is the ruins, rather than the perfect buildings,
which form the most characteristic feature of Roman scenery and
topography, and they have been preserved by the decay of the
city; while in other cities they have been swept away by their
prosperity. As Rome became Christian, several ancient buildings,
temples and others, were turned into churches, and a greater
number were destroyed to employ their materials, especially their
marble columns, in the building of churches. But though this
cause led to the loss of a great many ancient buildings, it had
very little to do with the creation of the vast mass of the Roman
ruins. The desolation of the Flavian amphitheatre and of the
baths of Antoninus Caracalla comes from another cause. As the
buildings became disused,— and if we rejoice at the disuse of the


## p. 5984 (#574) ###########################################

5984
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
amphitheatre, we must both mourn and wonder at the disuse of
the baths, they were sometimes turned into fortresses, some-
times used as quarries for the building of fortresses. Every turbu-
lent noble turned some fragment of the buildings of the ancient
city into a stronghold from which he might make war upon his
brother nobles, from which he might defy every power which had
the slightest shadow of lawful authority, be it emperor, pope, or
senator. Fresh havoc followed on every local struggle: destruc-
tion came whenever a lawful government was overthrown and
whenever a lawful government was restored; for one form of
revolution implied the building, the other implied the pulling
down, of these nests of robbers. The damage which a lying
prejudice attributes to Goths and Vandals was really done by the
Romans themselves, and in the Middle Ages mainly by the
Roman nobles. As for Goths and Vandals, Genseric undoubtedly
did some mischief in the way of carrying off precious objects,
but even he is not charged with the actual destruction of any build-
ings. And it would be hard to show that any Goth, from Alaric
to Totilas, ever did any mischief whatever to any of the monu-
ments of Rome, beyond what might happen through the unavoid-
able necessities and accidents of warfare. Theodoric of course
stands out among all the ages as the great preserver and repairer
of the monuments of Ancient Rome. The few marble columns
which Charles the Great carried away from Rome, as well as
from Ravenna, can have gone but a very little way towards
accounting for so vast a havoc. It was almost wholly by Roman
hands that buildings which might have defied time and the barba-
rian were brought to the ruined state in which we now find them.
But the barons of mediæval Rome, great and sad as was the
destruction which was wrought by them, were neither the most
destructive nor the basest of the enemies at whose hands the
buildings of ancient Rome have had to suffer. The mediæval
barons simply did according to their kind. Their one notion of
life was fighting, and they valued buildings or anything else.
simply as they might be made use of for that one purpose of
life. There is something more revolting in the systematic de-
struction, disfigurement, and robbery of the ancient monuments
of Rome, heathen and Christian, at the hands of her modern
rulers and their belongings. Bad as contending barons or invad-
ing Normans may have been, both were outdone by the fouler
brood of papal nephews. Who that looks on the ruined Coliseum,
-


## p. 5985 (#575) ###########################################

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5985
who that looks on the palace raised out of its ruins, can fail to
think of the famous line-
"Quod non fecere barbari, fecere Barberini »?
And well-nigh every other obscure or infamous name in the roll-
call of the mushroom nobility of modern Rome has tried its
hand at the same evil work. Nothing can be so ancient, nothing
so beautiful, nothing so sacred, as to be safe against their destroy-
ing hands. The boasted age of the Renaissance, the time when
men turned away from all reverence for their own forefathers
and professed to recall the forms and the feelings of ages which
are forever gone, was the time of all times when the monuments
of those very ages were most brutally destroyed. Barons and
Normans and Saracens destroyed what they did not understand
or care for; the artistic men of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and sev-
enteenth centuries destroyed the very things which they professed
to admire and imitate. And when they did not actually destroy,
as in the case of statues, sarcophagi, and the like, they did all
they could to efface their truest interest, their local and historical
association.
A museum or collection of any kind is a dreary place. For
some kinds of antiquities, for those which cannot be left in their
own places, and which need special scientific classification, such
collections are necessary. But surely a statue or a tomb should
be left in the spot where it is found, or in the nearest possible
place to it. How far nobler would be the associations of Pom-
pey's statue, if the hero had been set up in the nearest open
space to his own theatre; even if he had been set up with Mar-
cus and the Great Twin Brethren on the Capitol, instead of being
stowed away in an unmeaning corner of a private palace! It is
sadder still to wind our way through the recesses of the great
Cornelian sepulchre, and to find that sacrilegious hands have rifled
the resting-place of the mighty dead; that the real tombs, the
real inscriptions, have been stolen away, and that copies only are
left in their places. Far more speaking, far more instructive,
would it have been to grope out the antique letters of the first
of Roman inscriptions, to spell out the name and deeds of "Cor-
nelius Lucius Scipio Barbatus Gnaivod patre prognatus" by the
light of a flickering torch in the spot where his kinsfolk and gen-
tiles laid him, than to read it in the full light of the Vatican,
numbered as if it stood in a shop to be sold, and bearing a
X-375


## p. 5986 (#576) ###########################################

5986
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
fulsome inscription recording the "munificentia" of the triple-
crowned robber who wrought the deed of selfish desecration.
Scipio indeed was a heathen; but Christian holy places, places
which are the very homes of ecclesiastical history or legend, are
no safer than the monuments of heathendom against the desolat-
ing fury of ecclesiastical destroyers.
Saddest of all it is to visit the sepulchral church of St. Con-
stantia- be her legend true or false, it makes no difference-
to trace out the series of mosaics, where the old emblems of
Bacchanalian worship, the vintage and the treading of the wine-
press, are turned about to teach a double lesson of Christian
mysteries; and then to see the place of the tomb empty, and
to find that the tomb itself, the central point of the building,
with the series of images which is begun in the pictures and
continued in its sculpture, has been torn away from the place
where it had meaning and almost life, to stand as number
so-and-so among the curiosities of a dreary gallery. Such is
the reverence of modern pontiffs for the most sacred antiquities,
pagan and Christian, of the city where they have too long worked
their destroying will.
-
In one part however of the city, destruction has been, as in
other cities, the consequence of reviving prosperity on the part
of the city itself. One of the first lessons to be got by heart on
a visit to Rome is the way in which the city has shifted its site.
The inhabited parts of ancient and of modern Rome have but a
very small space of ground in common. While so large a space
within the walls both of Aurelius and of Servius lies desolate,
the modern city has spread itself beyond both. The Leonine city
beyond the Tiber, the Sixtine city on the Field of Mars- both
of them beyond the wall of Servius, the Leonine city largely
beyond the wall of Aurelian - together make up the greater part
of modern Rome. Here, in a thickly inhabited modern city,
there is no space for the ruins which form the main features of
the Palatine, Colian, and Aventine Hills. Such ancient buildings
as have been spared remain in a state far less pleasing than that
of their ruined fellows. The Pantheon was happily saved by its
consecration as a Christian church. But the degraded state in
which we see the theatre of Marcellus and the beautiful remains
of the portico of Octavia; above all, the still lower fate to which
the mighty sepulchre of Augustus has been brought down, — if
they enable the moralist to point a lesson, are far more offensive
-


## p. 5987 (#577) ###########################################

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5987
to the student of history than the utter desolation of the Coli-
seum and the imperial palace. The mole of Hadrian has under-
gone a somewhat different fate; its successive transformations.
and disfigurements are a direct part, and a most living and speak-
ing part, of the history of Rome. Such a building, at such a
point, could not fail to become a fortress, long before the days.
of contending Colonnas and Orsini; and if the statues which
adorned it were hurled down on the heads of Gothic besiegers,
that is a piece of destruction which can hardly be turned to the
charge of the Goths. It is in these parts of Rome that the
causes which have been at work have been more nearly the same
as those which have been at work in other cities. At the same
time, it must be remembered that it is only for a much shorter
period that they have been fully at work. And wretched as with
one great exception is their state, it must be allowed that the
actual amount of ancient remains preserved in the Leonine and
Sixtine cities is certainly above the average amount of such re-
mains in Roman cities elsewhere.
THE CONTINUITY OF ENGLISH HISTORY
From Historical Essays of Edward A. Freeman,' First Series. London,
Macmillan & Co. , 1871
A
COMPARISON between the histories of England, France, and
Germany, as regards their political development, would be
a subject well worth working out in detail. Each country
started with much that was common to all three, while the sep-
arate course of each has been wholly different. The distinctive
character of English history is its continuity. No broad gap sep-
arates the present from the past. If there is any point at which
a line between the present and the past is to be drawn, it is at
all events not to be drawn at the point where a superficial glance
might perhaps induce us to draw it, at the Norman invasion in
1066. At first sight, that event might seem to separate us from
all before it in a way to which there is no analogy in the his-
tory either of our own or of kindred lands. Neither France nor
Germany ever saw any event to be compared to the Norman
Conquest. Neither of them has ever received a permanent dy-
nasty of foreign kings; neither has seen its lands divided among
the soldiers of a foreign army, and its native sons shut out from


## p. 5988 (#578) ###########################################

5988
EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
every position of wealth or dignity. England, alone of the
three, has undergone a real and permanent foreign conquest.
One might have expected that the greatest of all possible histori-
cal chasms would have divided the ages before and the ages after
such an event. Yet in truth modern England has practically far
more to do with the England of the West-Saxon kings than mod-
ern France or Germany has to do with the Gaul and Germany
of Charles the Great, or even of much more recent times. The
England of the age before the Norman Conquest is indeed, in
all external respects, widely removed from us. But the England
of the age immediately succeeding the Norman Conquest is
something more widely removed still. The age when English-
men dwelt in their own land as a conquered race, when their
name and tongue were badges of contempt and slavery, when
England was counted for little more than an accession of power
to the Duke of Rouen in his struggle with the King of Paris, is
an age than which we can conceive none more alien to every
feeling and circumstance of our own.
When, then, did the England in which we still live and move
have its beginning? Where are we to draw the broad line, if
any line is to be drawn, between the present and the past? We
answer, In the great creative and destructive age of Europe and
of civilized Asia- the thirteenth century. The England of Rich-
ard Cœur de Lion is an England which is past forever; but the
England of Edward the First is essentially the still living Eng-
land in which we have our own being. Up to the thirteenth
century our history is the domain of antiquaries; from that point
it becomes the domain of lawyers. A law of King Alfred's
Witenagemót is a valuable link in the chain of our political
progress, but it could not have been alleged as any legal author-
ity by the accusers of Strafford or the defenders of the Seven
Bishops. A statute of Edward the First is quite another matter.
Unless can be shown to have been repealed by some later
statute, it is just as good to this day as a statute of Queen Vic-
toria. In the earlier period we may indeed trace the rudiments
of our laws, our language, our political institutions; but from
the thirteenth century onwards we see the things themselves, in
that very essence which we all agree in wishing to retain, though
successive generations have wrought improvement in many
points of detail and may have left many others capable of further
improvement still.


## p. 5989 (#579) ###########################################

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5989
Let us illustrate our meaning by the greatest of all examples.
Since the first Teutonic settlers landed on her shores, England
has never known full and complete submission to a single will.
Some Assembly, Witenagemót, Great Council, or Parliament, there
has always been, capable of checking the caprices of tyrants and
of speaking, with more or less of right, in the name of the na-
tion. From Hengest to Victoria, England has always had what
we may fairly call a parliamentary constitution. Normans, Tu-
dors, and Stewarts might suspend or weaken it, but they could
not wholly sweep it away. Our Old-English Witenagemóts, our
Norman Great Councils, are matters of antiquarian research,
whose exact constitution it puzzles our best antiquaries fully to
explain. But from the thirteenth century onwards we have a
veritable Parliament, essentially as we see it before our own
eyes. In the course of the fourteenth century every funda-
mental constitutional principle becomes fully recognized. The best
worthies of the seventeenth century struggled, not for the estab-
lishment of anything new, but for the preservation of what even
then was already old. It is on the Great Charter that we still
rest the foundation of all our rights. And no later parliament-
ary reformer has ever wrought or proposed so vast a change as
when Simon of Montfort, by a single writ, conferred their parlia-
mentary being upon the cities and boroughs of England.
This continuity of English history from the very beginning is
a point which cannot be too strongly insisted on, but it is its
special continuity from the thirteenth century onwards which
forms the most instructive part of the comparison between Eng-
lish history and the history of Germany and France. At the
time of the Norman Conquest the many small Teutonic king-
doms in Britain had grown into the one Teutonic kingdom of
England, rich in her barbaric greatness and barbaric freedom,
with the germs, but as yet only the germs, of every institution.
which we most dearly prize. At the close of the thirteenth cen-
tury we see the England with which we are still familiar, young
indeed and tender, but still possessing more than the germs,-
the very things themselves. She has already King, Lords, and
Commons; she has a King, mighty indeed and honored, but who
may neither ordain laws nor impose taxes against the will of his
people. She has Lords with high hereditary powers, but Lords
who are still only the foremost rank of the people, whose child-
ren sink into the general mass of Englishmen, and into whose


## p. 5990 (#580) ###########################################

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5990
order any Englishman may be raised. She has a Commons still
diffident in the exercise of new-born rights; but a Commons
whose constitution and whose powers we have altered only by
gradual changes of detail; a Commons which, if it sometimes
shrank from hard questions of State, was at least resolved that
no man should take their money without their leave. The courts
of justice, the great offices of State, the chief features of local
administration, have assumed, or are rapidly assuming, the form
whose essential character they still retain. The struggle with
Papal Rome has already begun; doctrines and ceremonies indeed.
remain as yet unchallenged, but statute after statute is passed to
restrain the abuses and exactions of the ever-hateful Roman
court. The great middle class of England is rapidly forming; a
middle class not, as elsewhere, confined to a few great cities, but
spread, in the form of a minor gentry and a wealthy yeomanry,
over the whole face of the land. Villanage still exists, but both
law and custom are paving the way for that gradual and silent
extinction of it, which without any formal abolition of the legal
status left, three centuries later, not a legal villain among us.
With this exception, there was in theory equal law for all
classes, and imperfectly as the theory may have been carried out,
it was at least far less imperfectly so than in any other king-
dom. Our language was fast taking its present shape; English,
in the main intelligible at the present day, was the speech of the
mass of the people, and it was soon to expel French from the
halls of princes and nobles. England at the close of the century
is, for the first time since the Conquest, ruled by a prince bear-
ing a purely English name, and following a purely English pol-
icy. Edward the First was no doubt as despotic as he could
be or dared to be; so was every prince of those days who could
not practice the superhuman righteousness of St. Lewis. But he
ruled over a people who knew how to keep even his despotism
within bounds. The legislator of England, the conqueror of
Wales and Scotland, seems truly like an old Bretwalda or West-
Saxon Basileus, sitting once more on the throne of Cerdic and
of Ælfred. The modern English nation is now fully formed; it
stands ready for those struggles for French dominion in the two
following centuries, which, utterly unjust and fruitless as they
were, still proved indirectly the confirmation of our liberties at
home, and which forever fixed the national character for good
and for evil.


## p. 5991 (#581) ###########################################

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5991
Let us here sketch out a comparison between the history and
institutions of England and those of France and Germany. As
we before said, our modern Parliament is traced up in an un-
broken line to the early Great Council, and to the still earlier
Witenagemót. The latter institution, widely different as it is
from the earlier, has not been substituted for the earlier, but has
grown out of it.
It would be ludicrous to look for any such
continuity between the Diet of ambassadors which meets at
Frankfurt and the Assemblies which met to obey Henry the Third
and to depose Henry the Fourth. And how stands the case in
France? France has tried constitutional government in all its
shapes; in its old Teutonic, in its mediæval, and in all its modern
forms Kings with one Chamber and Kings with two, Republics
without Presidents and Republics with, Conventions, Directories,
Consulates, and Empires. All of these have been separate ex-
periments; all have failed; there is no historical continuity be-
tween any of them. Charles the Great gathered his Great Council
around him year by year; his successors in the Eastern Francia,
the Kings of the Teutonic Kingdom, went on doing so long after-
wards. But in Gaul, in Western Francia, after it fell away from
the common centre, no such assembly could be gathered together.
The kingdom split into fragments; every province did what was
right in its own eyes; Aquitaine and Toulouse had neither fear
nor love enough for their nominal King to contribute any mem-
bers to a Council of his summoning. Philip the Fair, for his own
convenience, summoned the States-General. But the States-Gen-
eral were no historical continuation of the old Frankish Assem-
blies; they were a new institution of his own, devised, it may be,
in imitation of the English Parliament or of the Spanish Cortes.
From that time the French States-General ran a brilliant and a
fitful course. Very different indeed were they from the homely
Parliaments of England. Our stout knights and citizens were alto-
gether guiltless of political theories. They had no longing after
great and comprehensive measures. But if they saw any prac-
tical abuses in the land, the King could get no money out of
them till he set matters right again. If they saw a bad law, they
demanded its alteration; if they saw a wicked minister, they de-
manded his dismissal. It is this sort of bit-by-bit reform, going
on for six hundred years, which has saved us alike from mag-
nificent theories and from massacres in the cause of humanity.
Both were as familiar in France in the fourteenth and fifteenth
―


## p. 5992 (#582) ###########################################

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN
5992
centuries as ever they were at the close of the eighteenth. The
demands of the States-General, and of what we may call the lib-
eral party in France generally, throughout those two centuries, are
as wide in their extent, and as neatly expressed, as any modern
constitution from 1791 to 1848. But while the English Parlia-
ment, meeting year after year, made almost every year some small
addition or other to the mass of our liberties, the States-General,
meeting only now and then, effected nothing lasting, and gradu-
ally sank into as complete disuse as the old Frankish Assemblies.