present moment. These truths need by no means be unpleasant, though at
the present moment an unpleasant truth is undoubtedly more valuable than
a pleasant one. They could make as much or more for the glory of the
country; they could be at any rate of infinitely greater service, but
they would not be received, simply because they would compel close
attention and brain-work in the reader as well as in the writer of them.
An established groove would have to be abandoned; to use a strong
metaphor, the reader would have to get out of bed, and that is what the
modern reader will not do. Tell him that the men who fought on either
side at Hastings' plain cared nothing for national but everything for
feudal allegiance; that _lex terrae_ means the local custom of
ordeal and not the "law of the land"; tell him that _judicium
parium_ means the right of a noble to be judged by nobles, and has
nothing to do with the jury system; tell him that Magna Charta was
certainly drawn up before the meeting at Runnymede; that not until the
Lancastrians did English kings speak English; that Oliver Cromwell owed
his position to the enormous wealth of the Williamses, of whom had he
not been a cadet, he would never have been known; tell him that the
whole force of the Parliament resided in the squires and that the Civil
Wars turned England into an oligarchy; tell him the exact truth about
the infamy of Churchill; tell him what proportion of Englishmen during
the American War were taxed without being represented; tell him what
proportion of Washington's troops were of English blood; tell him any
one illuminating and true thing about the history of his country, and
the novelty will so offend him that a direct insult would have pleased
him better.

What is true of history is true of nearly all the rest, and the upshot
of the whole matter is that there is not, either in private patronage or
in popular demand, a chance for history in modern England.