gy; of the
untrustworthy character of Jewish chronology and Jewish figures; of
the grave doubts that hang over the authorship and the date of some of
the books; of the necessity of making full allowance, when reading
them, for human fallibility and inaccuracy. At the same time, his
admiration for the German critics was by no means unqualified. While
fully admitting their extraordinary learning, industry, and ingenuity,
he complained that their too common infirmity was 'a passion for
making history without historical materials,' basing the most dogmatic
and positive statements upon faint indications, or upon ingenious
conjectures that could not legitimately go beyond a very low degree of
probability. The assurance with which these writers undertook by
internal evidence to decompose ancient documents, assigning each
paragraph to an independent source; the decisive weight they were
accustomed to give to slight improbabilities or coincidences, and to
small variations of style and phraseology; the confidence with which
they put forward solutions or conjectures which, however ingenious or
plausible, were based on no external evidence as if they were proved
facts, appeared to him profoundly unhistorical.

It must have been somewhat irritating to one who clung so closely to
University life, and who had been justly regarded as one of the most
brilliant of Oxford scholars, to find that his own University was
prominent in the condemnation of the 'History of the Jews.' Only two
years before he had preached with general approbation the Bampton
Lectures in defence of Christianity. His new work was again and again
condemned from the University pulpits, and among others by the
Margaret Professor of Divinity and by the Hulsean lecturer for 1832.
The clamour was naturally taken up in many other quarters, and
especially by the religious newspapers. It was noticed that 'Milman's
History' appeared in the window of Carlisle, the infidel bookseller.

'I only wish,' wrote Milman, when the fact was brought to his notice,
'all Carlisle's customers would read it. A noble lord once wrote to
the bishop of a certain diocese to complain that a baronet who lived
in the same parish brought his mistress to church, which sorely
shocked his regular family. The bishop gravely assured him that he was
very glad to hear that Sir ---- brought his naughty lady to church,
and hoped that she would profit by what she heard there and amend her
ways. So say I of C