It would be redundant to press the point. Most readers know well enough
what labour the just writing of history involves, and how excellent a
type it is of that "making of a book" which art is, as I have said,
imperilled by apathy at the present day.
Consider for a moment who were those that purchased historical works in
this country in the past. There were, first of all, the landed gentry.
In almost every great country-house you will find a good old library,
and that good old library you will discover to be, as a rule, most
valuable and most complete in what concerns the end of the eighteenth
and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. A very large proportion
of history, and history of the best sort, is to be found upon those
shelves. The standard dwindles, though it is fairly well maintained
during the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. Then--as a
rule--it abruptly comes to an end. One may take as a sort of bourne, the
two great books Macaulay's _History_ and Kinglake's, for an earlier
and a later limit. Most of these libraries contain Macaulay; some few
Kinglake; hardly one possesses later works of value.
It may be urged in defence of the buyer that no later works of value
exist. Put so broadly, the statement is erroneous; but the truth which
it contains is in itself dependent upon the lack of public support for
good historical work.
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