first and at
all times its chief purpose in England was to show to later ages what
kind of men had directed the affairs and shaped the fortunes of
the nation. In France it was to be practised as a mere pastime; to
sketch well-known figures in society, or to sketch oneself, was for
some years the fashionable occupation of the salons. In England the
character never wholly lost the qualities of its origin. It might be
used on occasion as a record of affection, or as a weapon of political
satire; but our chief character writers are our historians. At the
beginning of the seventeenth century England was recognized to be
deficient in historical writings. Poetry looked back to Chaucer as its
father, was proud of its long tradition, and had proved its right to
sing the glories of Elizabeth's reign. The drama, in the full vigour
of its youth, challenged comparison with the drama of Greece and Rome.
Prose was conscious of its power in exposition and controversy. But in
every review of our literature's great achievement and greater promise
there was one cause of serious misgivings. England could not yet rank
with other countries in its histories. Many large volumes had been
printed, some of them containing matter that is invaluable to the
modern student, but there was no single work that was thought to
be worthy of England's greatness. The prevailing type was still the
chronicle. Even Camden, 'the glory and light of the kingdom', as Ben
Jonson called him, was an antiquary, a collector, and an annalist.
History had yet to be practised as one of the great literary arts.

Bacon pointed out the 'unworthiness' and 'deficiences' of English
history in his _Advancement of Learning_.[1] 'Some few very worthy,
but the greater part beneath mediocrity' was his verdict on modern
histories in general. He was not the first to express these views.
Sir Henry Savile had been more emphatic in his dedication to Queen
Elizabeth of his collection of early chronicles, _Rerum Anglicarum
Scriptores post Bedam_, published in 1596.[2] And after Bacon,
somewhere about 1618, these views were again expressed by Edmund
Bolton in his _Hypercritica, or a Rule of Judgement for writing or
reading our Histories_.[3] 'The vast vulgar Tomes', he said, 'procured
for the most part by the husbandry of Printers, and not by appointment
of the Prince or Authority of the Common-weal, in their tumultuary and
centonical Writings do seem to resemble some huge disproportionable