archivist himself #57. Towards 1830 the documentary studies began on
a large scale, Austria leading the way. Michelet, who claims,
towards 1836, to have been the pioneer #58, was preceded by such
rivals as Mackintosh, Bucholtz, and Mignet. A new and more
productive period began thirty years later, when the war of 1859
laid open the spoils of Italy. Every country in succession has
now been allowed the exploration of its records, and there is
more fear of drowning than of drought. The result has been that
a lifetime spent in the largest collection of printed books would
not suffice to train a real master of modern history. After he
had turned from literature to sources, from Burner to Pocock,
from Macaulay to Madame Campana, from Thiers to the interminable
correspondence of the Bonapartes, he would still feel instant
need of inquiry at Venice or Naples, in the Ossuna library or at
the Hermitage #59.

These matters do not now concern us. For our purpose, the main thing
to learn is not the art of accumulating material, but the sublimer art
of investigating it, of discerning truth from falsehood and certainty
from doubt. It is by solidity of criticism more than by the plenitude
of erudition, that the study of history strengthens, and straightens,
and extends the mind #60. And the accession of the critic in the place
of the indefatigable compiler, of the artist in coloured narrative,
the skilled limner of character, the persuasive advocate of good, or
other, causes, amounts to a transfer of government, to a change of
dynasty, in the historic realm. For the critic is one who, when he
lights on an interesting statement, begins by suspecting it. He
remains in suspense until he has subjected his authority to three
operations. First, he asks whether he has read the passage as the
author wrote it. For the transcriber, and the editor, and the