Walter Yonge's
"Diary." The letters and works of Bacon, now fully edited by Mr.
Spedding, are necessary for any true understanding of the period.
Hacket's "Life of Williams" and Harrington's "Nugae Antiquae" throw
valuable side-light on the politics of the time. But the Stuart system,
both at home and abroad, can only fairly be read by the light of the
state-papers of this and the following reign, calendars of which are now
being published by the Master of the Rolls. It is his employment of
these, as well as his own fairness and good sense, which gives value to
the series of works which Mr. Gardiner has devoted to this period; his
"History of England from the Accession of James the First," his "Prince
Charles and the Spanish Marriage," "England under the Duke of
Buckingham," and "The Personal Government of Charles the First." The
series has as yet been carried to 1637. To Mr. Gardiner also we owe the
publication, through the Camden Society, of reports of some of the
earlier Stuart Parliaments. Ranke's "History of England during the
Seventeenth Century" has the same documentary value as embodying the
substance of state-papers in both English and foreign archives, which
throw great light on the foreign politics of the Stuart kings. It covers
the whole period of Stuart rule. With the reign of Charles the First our
historical materials increase. For Laud we have his remarkable "Diary";
for Strafford the "Strafford Letters." Hallam has justly characterized
Clarendon's "History of the Rebellion" as belonging "rather to the class
of memoirs" than of histories; and the rigorous analysis of it by Ranke
shows the very different value of its various parts. Though the work
will always retain a literary interest from its nobleness of style and
the grand series of character-portraits which it embodies, the worth of
its account of all that preceded the war is almost destroyed by the
contrast between its author's conduct at the time and his later
description of the Parliament's proceedings, as well as by the
deliberate and malignant falsehood with which he has perverted the whole
action of his parliamentary opponents. With the outbreak of the war he
becomes of greater value, and he gives a good account of the Cornish
rising; but from the close of the first struggle his work becomes
tedious and unimportant. May's "History of the Long Parliament" is
fairly accurate and impartial; but the basis of any real account of it
must be found in i