1838.] TYTLER AT THE STATE PAPER OFFICE. £63 CHAPTER XII. (1838-1839.) Personal recollections-England under Edward VI. and Queen Mary'-Death of Dr. Alison-Tour with Tytler in the Highlands-His keenness as a sportsman-Auchlunkart-Tomintoul-A night on Ben Muik Dhui-Scenery-A day at Aviemore-Aldourie-Moniack-Visit to Skye-Highland sceneryThe return to Moniack. I WOULD not interrupt Miss Tytler's narrative to introduce any reminiscences of my own: but there is a break in her story in this place, of which I avail myself to state that it was in the year 1838, that the acquaintance I had formed with her brother a few years before, ripened into such close friendship. Circumstances which it would very little interest the reader that I should narrate, led me in the beginning of that year to apply for permission to inspect the Domestic and Flemish Correspondence of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, preserved in the State Paper Office. Mr. Tytler was then the only person reading there; and it is needless to say that the bond of a common study, constantly pursued in the same room, drew us very much together. When the Office closed, we discussed as we walked home the questions on which we had been respectively engaged, and the papers which had passed under our eyes. Not unfrequently, at the office, one stole across to the desk of the other, document in hand; and many an interesting conversation ensued, by which it is needless to say that I was very much the gainer. Though but a novice in such studies, I was passionately fond of them; and, I suppose, made up somewhat in enthusiasm and application for what I wanted in knowledge. At all events, he was the last man to assume airs of any kind. We were acquaintances already, and we now became friends. He treated me like a younger brother; invited me often to his house, and admitted me freely to his confidence. I grew very fond of him indeed, and it made me happy to find that he was equally fond of me. "I have been a truant from the State Paper Office as well as yourself for a long time," (he wrote to me, in May,) "having collected materials with which (without daily attendance) I am slowly attempting to build my VIIth volume." * This shows what had been the progress of his History up to this time: but throughout the latter part of 1838, he was putting together the materials for a work which appeared in two octavo volumes in the spring of the following year. It bore the following title,-'England under the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, with the contemporary History of Europe, illustrated in a series of original letters never before printed, with historical introductions and biographical and critical notes.' His Scottish researches had brought him to that most interesting period of English History which begins with the latter part of Henry VIIIth's reign, or perhaps with the reign of his successor. Documents, at this period, become even embarrassingly abundant: the private letters of every actor in that bustling drama, (thanks in a great measure to Sir William Cecil's conservative habits,) have been preserved; and the student of history finds himself no longer left to the traditions of Chroniclers, or even to the one-sided reports of occasional observers. There is scarcely a transaction of importance on which it is not possible to hear the agents themselves discoursing to one another; and revealing, under their hand and seal, the share they severally had in bringing it about. To read with one object before the eye, and to be blind to * To myself, dated 26 Church Row, Hampstead, 21st May 1838. 1838.] METHOD OF ILLUSTRATING HISTORY. 265 all beside, is (or ought to be) impossible. As reasonably might it be expected of an artist that he will close his eyes on one class of scenery, because he travels in search of another. The student who has recourse to original documents, must make up his mind to read a vast deal more than he ever expects to make use of. My friend, in pursuing the track of Scotland's History had, in this manner, conned over many a document full of historical and biographical interest, many a letter which abounded in lively personal details, or threw unexpected light on the events of the period, -but for which he had no immediate use. It struck him that the letters would be well worthy of being edited in an independent form, as a contribution to English History. Accordingly, he selected from the entire mass about 190 of the most important. But then, (and this it is which constitutes the peculiar merit of his work, and gives it such singular interest,) he resolved to make his book readable, by prefixing short introductory sketches to his letters, or connecting them together by supplying the information necessary to make them intelligible. It will be perceived, that his object was not so much to accumulate stores for future Historians, as to contribute something to History himself. Our printed collections of Original Letters, invaluable as they are to the historian, are to the general reader all but useless. The link which binds one letter to another is wanting. The bearing of each on the History of the period is not perceived. It is impossible to plod through so much miscellaneous, and often trifling, matter. We prize those books very highly; but we consign them to the shelves where we keep our books of reference. Mr. Tytler conceived the happy thought of illustrating English History throughout a long period, by a selection from the unpublished MS. treasures in our great National repositories. Where original documents are scant, there he felt himself absolved from the necessity of saying a syllable; leaving the blank to be filled up hereafter, as opportunity might serve. But wherever a very curious document had newly come to light, or he had unexpectedly stumbled on an accumulation of fresh important evidence, there he proposed to be diffuse and particular, to present the agents in all their striking individuality, and to let them speak for themselves; only appending a few words of comment, or calling attention to some statement or allusion which might else have escaped notice, or been misunderstood. It was also a favourite tenet of his, that the ancient spelling of letters so published, ought to be modernized. This is not the right place to discuss such a question; on both sides of which, as usual, there is a good deal to be said. I used to remind him that certain Worthies who spelt like no other of their contemporaries, are deprived of a characteristic feature when their spelling comes to be thoroughly modernized. He would rejoin, that such a peculiarity may be adverted to, without inflicting the experience of it upon your reader: that anciently, no rules were observed even by the same persons, and therefore that their occasional vagaries do not deserve to be placed on eternal record; and that the praise of antiquarian accuracy is purchased at too dear a rate, if the effect of it is to repel ordinary readers, and indeed to render a book unreadable. We lived so near each other at that time, and met so often, that although I have preserved all his letters, I find little which would bear insertion in this place. The following passages however, are apposite to what goes before : "On returning from town late yesterday, I found your parcel and kind letter. The extract of the letter from Cecil to Windebank is certainly valuable, and completely confirms what I have said of Cecil's homely origin. I am glad you mean to give some extracts from the correspondence between 1838.] HISTORY AND ART. 267 Cecil and his son and Windebank. I remember it well, and remember thinking it characteristic. The more we get at Burleigh in his doublet and hose, or, to use his own phrase, the more we weigh him in his jacket,' the better. "Your Hentzner was most welcome. Some of the facsimiles from the red chalk drawings by Zuccaro in Hentzner and Naunton, are highly characteristic and spirited: especially Sir Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury. My dear father had amongst his pictures at Woodhouselee, a small head of him by Jansen (I think), which this drawing much resembles. As for old Winchester,-he does indeed 'imitate humanity most abominably;' but the etching is bad, and perhaps brutifies him too much. He was however I am afraid a mean, false, and selfish man.-I have been thinking often of that inimitable Holbein, since we parted. What a pity it is, that these same barber-surgeons, with the exception of Dr. Butts, were men of little note! To have had Henry's Court or Privy Council in such preservation by such an artist, would have indeed been precious. What a strange thing too, to print every barber's name, not below him, but on his body! This must surely have been the taste of the gentlemen themselves, not of Holbein,-it is so barbarous." * I find, from one of his pocket-books, that simultaneously with his Letters illustrative of the reigns of Edward VI. and Queen Mary, he was engaged on the Sketch of Scottish History for Mr. Napier which forms the article 'Scotland' in the seventh edition of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' and has since become a text-book for the use of schools. In April 1839, appeared the Letters, already noticed, which experienced a very favourable reception. The chief feature of novelty which they present is perhaps the light they throw on the character of one, whose 'bloody' times have somewhat unfairly supplied the epithet by which she is herself * To myself, dated 26 Church Row, Hampstead, 10th July 1838. |