Roman and the Teuton | Page 3

truth, thought it their duty to withhold their assent from many of the commonly received statements of mediaeval chroniclers.
But for all that, let us see what these Lectures are, and whether there is not room for them by the side of other works. First of all, according to the unanimous testimony of those who heard them delivered at Cambridge, they stirred up the interest of young men, and made them ask for books which Undergraduates had never asked for before at the University libraries. They made many people who read them afterwards, take a new interest in old and half-forgotten kings and battles, and they extorted even from unfriendly critics the admission that certain chapters, such as, for instance, 'The Monk as a Civiliser,' displayed in an unexpected way his power of appreciating the good points in characters, otherwise most antipathic to the apostle of Manly Christianity. They contain, in fact, the thoughts of a poet, a moralist, a politician, a theologian, and, before all, of a friend and counsellor of young men, while reading for them and with them one of the most awful periods in the history of mankind, the agonies of a dying Empire and the birth of new nationalities. History was but his text, his chief aim was that of the teacher and preacher, and as an eloquent interpreter of the purposes of history before an audience of young men to whom history is but too often a mere succession of events to be learnt by heart, and to be ready against periodical examinations, he achieved what he wished to achieve. Historians by profession would naturally be incensed at some portions of this book, but even they would probably admit by this time, that there are in it whole chapters full of excellence, telling passages, happy delineations, shrewd remarks, powerful outbreaks of real eloquence, which could not possibly be consigned to oblivion.
Nor would it have been possible to attempt to introduce any alterations, or to correct what may seem to be mistakes. The book is not meant as a text-book or as an authority, any more than Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War; it should be read in future, as what it was meant to be from the first, Kingsley's thoughts on some of the moral problems presented by the conflict between the Roman and the Teuton. One cannot help wishing that, instead of lectures, Kingsley had given us another novel, like Hypatia, or a real historical tragedy, a Dietrich von Bern, embodying in living characters one of the fiercest struggles of humanity, the death of the Roman, the birth of the German world. Let me quote here what Bunsen said of Kingsley's dramatic power many years ago:
'I do not hesitate (he writes) to call these two works, the Saint's Tragedy and Hypatia, by far the most important and perfect of this genial writer. In these more particularly I find the justification of a hope which I beg to be allowed to express--that Kingsley might continue Shakspeare's historical plays. I have for several years made no secret of it, that Kingsley seems to me the genius of our century, called to place by the side of that sublime dramatic series from King John to Henry VIII, another series of equal rank, from Edward VI to the Landing of William of Orange. This is the only historical development of Europe which unites in itself all vital elements, and which we might look upon without overpowering pain. The tragedy of St. Elizabeth shows that Kingsley can grapple, not only with the novel, but with the more severe rules of dramatic art. And Hypatia proves, on the largest scale, that he can discover in the picture of the historical past, the truly human, the deep, the permanent, and that he knows how to represent it. How, with all this, he can hit the fresh tone of popular life, and draw humourous characters and complications with Shakspearian energy, is proved by all his works. And why should he not undertake this great task? There is a time when the true poet, the prophet of the present, must bid farewell to the questions of the day, which seem so great because they are so near, but are, in truth, but small and unpoetical. He must say to himself, "Let the dead bury their dead"--and the time has come that Kingsley should do so.'
A great deal has been written on mistakes which Kingsley was supposed to have made in these Lectures, but I doubt whether these criticisms were always perfectly judicial and fair. For instance, Kingsley's using the name of Dietrich, instead of Theodoric, was represented as the very gem of a blunder, and some critics went so far as to hint that he had taken Theodoric for a Greek word,