ery. Indeed, an eye for a
defensive position marks Edward's plan most strongly, and is, quite apart
from the successful result of his action, his best title to repute in
military history.

* * * * *

At the close of this section the plainest duty of an historian, as
well as the satisfaction of common humour, compels me to allude to a
characteristic production of the University of Oxford. There has
proceeded from this university a school-book, perhaps the most
universally used in the public schools of this country, known as
_Bright's History of England_. I was myself brought up on it. It is
taken, I suppose (like much other Oxford matter), as something
hall-marked and official. This text-book has upon page 226 of its
first volume a full-page map of the Battle of Crecy. It is fair to
say that such a production could not have proceeded, I do not say
from any university upon the Continent of Europe, but from the
humblest schoolmaster in a French, Swiss, or German village. The
features marked upon it are wholly and unreservedly imaginary. There
is not even the pretence of a remote similarity between this
grotesque thing and the terrain of the famous battle: it is a pure
invention. It is almost impossible to express in words the difference
between this product of fancy, and even the most inaccurate map
sketched from memory, or the merest jottings set down by someone who
had no more to guide him than some vague recollection of an account
of the battle. There is nothing in it bearing the remotest
resemblance to any hill, river, road, wood, village, or point of the
compass concerned with the field of Crecy, and to this astonishing
abortion is modestly added in the left-hand bottom corner, "From
Spruener." I have not by me as I write Spruener's collection of
historical maps which were given us at the University, but if that
eminent authority was the model for such a masterpiece, it is a
sufficient commentary upon the rest of his work. I _have_ before me
as I write the flabbergasting plan in _Bright's History_ which I have
treasured ever since my boyhood, and I trust that this note may be
read by many who still believe that the function of our universities
is to train the governing class of the nation, not so much in
learning as in "character