In a letter to Mary Gladstone Lord Acton once wrote: "Don't mind coming to grief over parallels. A disposition to detect resemblances is one of the greatest sources of error." One is impelled, notwithstanding, to compare Lord Acton with the Sybil of Cumæ. Something of the oracular attaches itself inevitably to even the causal utterance of the most erudite man of his age; the cryptic character of his style, due to extreme condensation, increases the resemblance; and finally, the adjuration of Æneas is in point:

But oh! commit not thy prophetic mind
To flitting leaves, the sport of every wind,
Lest they disperse in air our empty fate!

Lord Acton has left behind him a reputation for learning which nearly touches the bounds of human achievement; the tradition of an historical conception of almost unparalleled grandeur: but the visible fruitage of his life is the existence of the English Historical Review, of which he was one of the founders; the Cambridge Modern History, of which he was the projector and organizer; a few printed lectures and scores of magazine articles, mostly unsigned-the fugitive leaves of the Sybil. In default of a systematic presentation of his vast stores of knowledge, Lord Acton stands in danger of becoming "the shadow of a mighty name."

It is therefore fortunate that under the auspices of the Royal Historical Society a bibliography of his writings has already been prepared; for it not only reveals the unsuspected number

and range of his publications, but identifies and rescues from oblivion his manifold anonymous productions. The bibliography fills twenty octavo pages, and includes upwards of four hundred and seventy titles.

John Emerich Edward Dalberg, Lord Acton, was born at Naples in 1834 and died at Tegernsee, in Bavaria, in 1902. His ancestry, like the course of his life, was cosmopolitan, and placed him in an incomparable position for surveying the wide range of modern history. His mastery of the French, German, Italian, and perhaps the Spanish, languages was as complete as his mastery of English; he lived in closest touch with the leading historians, politicians and churchmen of the states of western Europe. His political activities can here be indicated only, but were such as to admit him behind the scenes, not merely as passive observer, but as a determining force. His parliamentary career, whether as member for six years for the Irish borough of Carlow, or as spokesman, under a Liberal administration, for the Irish Office which he represented in the House of Lords by virtue of his official position as Lord-in-Waiting to the Queen, seems comparatively unimportant. Of greater moment are his constant relations with Mr. Gladstone. Acton was probably the indirect cause of Lowe's appointment as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1868; and it is possible that, as Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff was assured "by one who had the fullest opportunity of knowing the truth," Gladstone followed Acton into the movement for Home Rule, and not the reverse. Most important of all for Acton's own development was his championship of the anti-papal cause at the Council of 1869-1870, where the dogma of Papal Infallibility was promulgated. Acton looked upon religion as the greatest interest and force in history and life; the action of the Council was diametrically opposed to his cherished conception of the Church as an institution the law of whose life was progress; and it is quite possible that his mind may henceforth have been oversensitive in dealing with ecclesiastical matters. However this may be, it is certain that few writers have had ampler opportunities for seeing political and ecclesiastical history in the making,—and Acton might well say, as practical man of affairs no less than as student of historical method,

"It is puerile to write modern history from printed books." Lord Acton's public career in the field of scholarship may be summarized briefly. He was editor of The Rambler from 1859 to 1862, and of The Home and Foreign Review from 1862 to 1864; he was active in founding the English Historical Review in 1886; in the projection and internal organization of the Cambridge Modern History; and in 1895, probably at Lord Rosebery's instance, he became Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge.

Among the many productions of a biographical character which have appeared since Acton's death, the most elaborate is the Memoir by Herbert Paul, prefixed to his recently published edition of the "Letters of Lord Acton to Mary Gladstone." It contains substantive matter of importance and rarity— especially the summary of two lectures delivered by Lord Acton at Bridgnorth in 1877, which are notable as the sole approach in print to his celebrated History of Liberty.

Between 1877 and 1885 Acton is accredited with but one magazine article; it is therefore doubly fortunate that for (almost) exactly this period the innermost workings of his mind and thought should be revealed as they are in these Letters. Their substantive importance is great, for they cover a period marked by many great events in English history and are rich in intimate sketches of personal character and governmental policies. But they also contain Obiter Dicta which display his view of the nature of history, of the forces which work in history, and of historical method, more clearly here than elsewhere. His formal critiques are characterized by such indirectness of expression, such reticence and "detachment"—to use his own wordas to afford rather uncertain material for the discussion of these questions; the Inaugural Lecture deals with these specific topics, but is didactic in tone, a finished product to such an extent as to conceal as well as reveal its author's mind; the Letters, exhibiting his methods of destructive and constructive criticism in the making, contain much finer illustrative material than the copious notes appended to the Lecture. Lord Acton's formal writings are elusive; the Letters explain much that is obscure in them all.

I. Estimate of Human Nature.

"The science of character comes in with modern history," he declares. The features of medieval men are rarely seen save by reflected light, imperfectly; while "hundreds and even thousands of the moderns . . . may be studied in their private correspondence and sentenced on their own confession." On the whole, his opinion of human nature, as revealed in history, is low. In the Inaugural Lecture he cites with approval the dictum of Bayle: "It is more probable that the secret motives of an action externally indifferent are bad than good." There recurs in the Letters an even more explicit passage. "The experience of history teaches that the uncounted majority of those who get a place in its pages are bad. We have to deal chiefly, in life, with people who have no place in history, and escape the temptations that are on the road to it. But most assuredly, now as heretofore, the Men of the Time are, in most cases, unprincipled, and act from motives of interest, of passion, of prejudice, . . . of selfish hope or unworthy fear." Hence may logically be deduced the precepts of the Inaugural Lecture: no trusting without testing; assume no historical witness to be honest until his sincerity is proved; better excess of rigor than indulgence in your judgments.

In this matter the historian and the administrator are to be guided by the same presumptions and the same rules. Acton finds here, curiously enough, the greatest weakness of his two most intimate friends-Döllinger in the historical field, Gladstone in the political. Both err through excess of charity. Döllinger refuses to see all the evil there is in men, and "looks for the root of differences in speculative systems, in defect of knowledge, in everything but moral causes.” Gladstone hardly ever judges other men too severely and so does not always make bull's eyes. Objectively, however, with respect to purity of motive and the importation of high ethical principle into politics, he seems to be, in Acton's view, the exception which proves the rule. Gladstone is a statesman who does things because they are right, "from no motive more clever than duty," who believes "that politics is an affair of principle and morality, that it touches eternal interests as much as vices and virtues do in private life."

This, as will appear, illustrates a cardinal point in Acton's historical method.

II. Historical Method.

When the ever-suspicious critic of modern type displaced the compiler and "the artist in coloured narrative," there occurred a change of dynasty in the historic realm. The aim of criticism is that certainty of information which is far more useful than its mere abundance. In the mental development of the scholar, "solidity of criticism counts for more than plentitude of erudition."

Lord Acton draws a sharp distinction between the treatment to be accorded to actors in history and to those who write about them. It is expressed most clearly in his article on "German Schools of History," first of all articles in the English Historical Review. Historians are excluded "from the benefit of the common law that innocence must be assumed until guilt is proved. The presumption that is favorable to makers of history is adverse to writers of history. For history deals considerably with hanging matter, and nobody ought to hang on damaged testimony. The life of the witness must be subjected to closer scrutiny than the life of the culprit. He is condemned when he is suspected: doubt is decisive against him."

The most characteristic feature of Acton's historical method-apart from his determination to descry the root of political and ecclesiastical differences in moral causes is his view of historical impartiality, involving as it it does the judgment of men by standards not of their age. His impartiality is not the impartiality of Ranke's school (although Ranke was one of his masters), which presents facts in a colorless manner and shows its fairness by refraining from judgment, but rather that "more robust" impartiality which dares to pronounce the sentence that justice demands. Acton writes of Thiers that late in life he said of Napoleon, "Il faut convenir que c'était un scélérat et un fou;" as an historian he had concealed this fact in twenty volumes a method of which Acton disapproves. Further, Acton believes that "morality has fixed, not ambulatory standards." He has no sympathy with those who, to quote his own words from