FROUDE'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND {1}

by Charles Kingsley




There appeared a few years since a 'Comic History of England,' duly
caricaturing and falsifying all our great national events, and
representing the English people, for many centuries back, as a mob of
fools and knaves, led by the nose in each generation by a few arch-
fools and arch-knaves. Some thoughtful persons regarded the book
with utter contempt and indignation; it seemed to them a crime to
have written it; a proof of 'banausia,' as Aristotle would have
called it, only to be outdone by the writing a 'Comic Bible.' After
a while, however, their indignation began to subside; their second
thoughts, as usual, were more charitable than their first; they were
not surprised to hear that the author was an honest, just, and able
magistrate; they saw that the publication of such a book involved no
moral turpitude; that it was merely meant as a jest on a subject on
which jesting was permissible, and as a money speculation in a field
of which men had a right to make money; while all which seemed
offensive in it was merely the outcome, and as it were apotheosis, of
that method of writing English history which has been popular for
nearly a hundred years. 'Which of our modern historians,' they asked
themselves, 'has had any real feeling of the importance, the
sacredness, of his subject?--any real trust in, or respect for, the
characters with whom he dealt? Has not the belief of each and all of
them been the same--that on the whole, the many always have been
fools and knaves; foolish and knavish enough, at least, to become the