annalist. His fame was due to the perfection of a single book; he
ranked as a potentate in STYLE. But literary perfection, whether
in prose or poetry, is a fragile quality, an afflatus irregular,
independent, unamenable to orders; the official tributes of a
Laureate we compliment at their best with the northern farmer's
verdict on the pulpit performances of his parson:


"An' I niver knaw'd wot a mean'd but I thow't a 'ad summut to saay,
And I thowt a said wot a owt to 'a said an' I comed awaay."


Set to compile a biography from thirty years of "Moniteurs," the
author of Waverley, like Lord Chesterfield's diamond pencil,
produced one miracle of dulness; it might well be feared that
Kinglake's volatile pen, when linked with forceful feeling and
bound to rigid task-work, might lose the charm of casual epigram,
easy luxuriance, playful egotism, vagrant allusion, which
established "Eothen" as a classic. On the other hand, he had been
for twenty years conversant with Eastern history, geography,
politics; was, more than most professional soldiers, an adept in
military science; had sate in the centre of the campaign as its
general's guest and comrade; was intrusted, above all, by Lady
Raglan with the entire collection of her husband's papers: her
wish, implied though not expressed, that they should be utilized
for the vindication of the great field-marshal's fame, he accepted
as a sacred charge; her confidence not only governed his decision
to become the historian of the war, but imparted a personal
character to the narrative.