A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLAND

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26123, 27 May 1950, Page 3

A NEW HISTORY OF ENGLAND

[Reviewed by J.J.S.] A History of England. By Keith Felling. Macmillan & Co. Ltd. .. “Great abilities,” said Dr. Johnson are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any high degree; only about as much as in the lower kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and colouring will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary- ’ The Sage’s dictum was no doubt received with due deference at the Literary Club; on a similar occasion even Mr Gibbon did not, we are told, step forward in defence of historical composition, yet one feels that the good Doctor might have revised his opinion had he himself ever experimented in a branch of literature which requires judicious blending of art and science. In his day, it is true, historians often wrote narratives that were artistic but far from scientific. Fifty years ago their descendants were writing history which they were sure was scientific but which they would have scorned to make artistic. To-day !5 e +^ uc^ ed public demands that the history it reads should possess both accuracy and style. The first

depends on a careful study and appraisal of the original sources or of the best secondary authorities: the second is, in Buffon’s phrase, the man himself. And with all due deference Johnson, no inconsiderable abilities are needed to produce a piece of first-rate historical writing. Professor Feiling’s book undoubtedly deserves this description. He has written an admirable survey of British history from Neolithic times to Munich, for the sub-title. “From the Coming of the English to 1918.” is not, strictly accurate. Inevitably it chai- | jenges comparison with Professor G M. Trevelyan’s famous “History of 1 England.” which first appeared in 1925.| Trevelyan’s book is shorter, a com- | mentary rather than a full narrative painted in broad strokes, a brilliant i and Whiggish volume. Professor Foiling s is much longer and more detailed , •it runs to over 1100 closely-printed i pages), and the attentive reader may l detect here and there a slight Con-! seryative tinge not unnatural in the i historian of the bld Tory Partv and Die biographer of Neville Chamberlain The specialists may perhaps find some things to cavil at in his incursions into their particular territories, for no man can claim to have mastered the whole available material of the history even of his own country, but he has embodied in his narrative the latest results of historical scholarship. and has brought to bear upon them a sound and ripe judgment. 4Je moves easily through the centuries

i and across the continents, and his ; style, though perhaps lacking the ■ verve and sparkle of Trevelyan, never nags or wearies the reader, and at times rises to a vivid eloquence, as in his picture of Britain at the time of the Anglo-Saxon invasions: Brown bears, wild cattle, and beavers roamed Northumbria and wale s The wolf, “grey ganger of the heath, haunted the Midlands, tenthcentury shepherds still guarding their flocks against his spring. Wild boars • were hunted within 10 miles of London. Golden and white-tailed eagles sailed over cape and fen. The island seemed to float on a waste of waters. Two qualities in particular stand °- ut .,? n this excellent picture of British civilisation through the ages One is the wholeness of it all; the political, social, religious, and economic factors are skilfully separated, and then as it were knit together again to produce the finished result. The other is . the freshness and originality of phrase ? r judgment with which so many long familiar themes or characters" have ° een treated. Thus in his account of the Reformation he acutely remarks • inat *he laity were as much to blame as the clergy for the condition of the Church, and the verdict on Cromwell. • coming as it does from a Conservative arrests the attention of the ‘ L? ader an< 3 gives him pause: “What i -. ls sword had wounded never rose to : its full life again, neither monarchy £°±. Lords ’ Scottish Kirk, nor Irish ■ catholics; while upon United Kingdom and Empire, sea power, toleration. and democracy the mark of the Protector is plain to see. In him were . concentrated and concluded the full I effects of the English Renaissance and . Reformation.’’ ; Professor Feiling has done for th a I a 1 st ? ry England what the late H A. L. Fisher did for the history of Europe. And that in itself is high