The Portland daily press., 1885-11-12
History and Historians.

The new course of Wedne sday lectures
| by Rev. DR.. Dalton, was opened yesterday
afternoon in the hall of the Y. M. c. A.
There was a good audience, large
ly of those who have attended the Saturday
lectures of previous years, whom the lecturer
welcomed as the familiar faces of old friends
Accepting Bolngbroke's definition of history as
philosophy teaching by example," DR. Dalton
proceeded at once to Illustrate the origin and
growth of the idea which found its first classical
exponent in Herodotus of Hacarnassus, whom
Cicero Justly calls "the father of history as Ho-
mer is of poetry. Compared with ThucydideS,
who succeeded him. Herodotus is more copious,
flowing picturesque and animating, reading in
parts like pages from the Arabian Nights, andre
counting the events of the great Persian wars
with such animation and glow as only patriotic
Greek could impart to the narrative. Thucyddes'
history relates the varying fortunes of the Pelo-
penesian war, the great and disastrous civil war
which ragged many years between Athens and
Sparta supported by their allies the lesser States
The lesson taught by Herodotus is the inherent
power of free people to resist foreign aggression
even though greatly outnumbered. The lesson of
Thucyddes is the fatal consequences of civil dis
SenSiOnS
The third great historian of Greece is Keno
phon, whose AnabasiS describes the retreat of
the famous 'ten thousand" Greeks, whose peril
Gus march through hostile regions, under the
most critical and adverse circumstances made
them immortal.
Comparisons with these three leading Greek
historians were then made. First in order the
three corresponding Roman historians. viz: Liyy,
the Roman Herodotus Tactus, the Roman Thu
cydides; and Caesars Commentaries, which ans
Wer to Xenophon's AnabaSiS
Secondly, Of the Italian historians, mention was
made of VILLAIN, Machiavelli and Sismondi, the
Swiss historian of "the Italian republics" Ma
chiaveln represents Thucydides, and VILLAIN Her
odotus though far less graphic. Smondfs great
work, in thirteen volumes, is majestic in its
march and monumental in its proportions,-a
monument more enduring than brass or marble to
the learning and genius of Its author.
In France, we have the old chrOnclers De Com
mines and Froissart whose gossipping narratives
compel us to classify them with Herodotus, though
they are far inferior in genius. GulZot is the
Thucydides of France, for his history of European
civilization entities him to rank with Thucydides
as thinker and philosophical writer, while his
popular History of France continued by Martin,
rivals in interest the pages of the Father of Histo
ry Mignet, Michelet and Theirs contend for the
third place in the rank of French historians, and
their claims must be decided by each reader as
they are about equally deserving Of the place the
first two for their powers of reflection and impair
tial narration of facts the last (Thiers) for his
picturesque and popular style.
OF English historians, Hume, Macaulay and
Green are easily first and so entitled to the honor
of comparison with the immortal trio of Greek
historians. Macaulay is the HerOdotuS, Hume the
Thucydides, while Green combines the best quail
Finally OF American historians, Prescott, Ban
croft and Motley the three to be named as
worthy to wear the laurelS thus transmitted to a
trio of ilustrious historical writers in each histo
rcal race to which the succession of empire has
from Rome to Italy; from Italy to France; from
France to England; and from England to Ameri-
ca. For no truer lines were ever written than
those Of Berkeley in which with prophetic insight
he exclaimed
westward the star OF empire takes its way
The first four Acts already passed
The fifth shall close the drama with the day
Times noblest offspring is the last"
In this last comparison, then, we compare Pres
colt with HerOdOtus, Bancroft with Thucydides,
and Motley OF necessity with Xenophon as it is
his forte to describe, at once the extraordinary
dangers and miraculous escape of an heroic band
who fought for and founded the liberties of the
Dutch Republic.
If any think that McMasters' recent popular
"History of the American People, entitled him to
comparison with Herodotus as the representative
of popular and pictorial historians, the lecturer
declined according him this distinction. To begin
with, his style is mere parody of Macaulays.
Besides, lis often needlessly inaccurate, gener-
ally exaggerating and sometimes distorting, where
he has no excuse for his mistakes or misrepresen-
tations. 1t is superficial work, dd cartdndstn,
in tone and quite unworthy of so aspiring a title
as The History of the American People.