sk of the historian,
as here explained, is not merely to tell us the story of the past, and
thus gratify our curiosity, but, pursuing a practical object, to seek to
modify our views of the present and help us in our forecasts of the
future, and this the historian is to do, not unconsciously and
incidentally, but deliberately and of set purpose. One can well
understand how history, so written, will usually begin with a maxim, and
invariably end with a moral.

What we are afterwards told in the same book follows in logical sequence
upon our first quotation--namely, that 'history fades into _mere
literature_ (the italics are ours), when it loses sight of its relation
to practical politics.' In this grim sentence we read the dethronement
of Clio. The poor thing must forswear her father's house, her tuneful
sisters, the invocation of the poet, the worship of the dramatist, and
keep her terms at the University, where, if she is really studious and
steady, and avoids literary companions (which ought not to be difficult),
she may hope some day to be received into the Royal Society as a second-
rate science. The people who do not usually go to the Royal Society will
miss their old playmate from her accustomed slopes, but, even were they
to succeed in tracing her to her new home, access would be denied them;
for Professor Seeley, that stern custodian, has his answer ready for all
such seekers. 'If you want recreation, you must find it in Poetry,
particularly Lyrical Poetry. Try Shelley. We can no longer allow you to
disport yourselves in the Fields of History as if they were a mere
playground. Clio is enclosed.'

At present, however, this is not quite the case; for the old literary
traditions are still alive, and prove somewhat irritating to Professor
Seeley, who, though one of the most even-tempered of writers, is to be
found on p. 173 almost angry with Thackeray, a charming person, who, as
we all know, had, after his lazy literary fashion, made an especial study
of Queen Anne's time, and who cherished the pleasant fancy that a man
might lie in the heather with a pipe in his mouth, and yet, if he had
only an odd volume of the _Spectator_ or the _Tatler_ in his hand, be
learning history all the time. 'As we read in these delightful pages,'
says the author of _Esmond_, 'the past age returns; the England of our
ancestors is revivified; the Maypole rises in the Strand; the beaux are
gathering in the coffee-houses;' and so