when a statesman comes forward to assert that it is a mutual blunder, he ought to be provided with some intelligible arguments which we can follow, and some facts on which we can rely. Yet this speech is, down to the present time, the most important one which has been made against the war, and there is absolutely nothing in it. The public, as a rule, repudiate Mr Morley's view; but numbers reluctantly support the war, believing that it ought never to have occurred. The belief is founded on this, that the Boers had good reason to expect, and therefore to anticipate, hostilities. Undoubtedly they had, for their misgovernment and armed preparations to support it precluded any modus vivendi with them. It is this body which will be the nucleus of any opposition which may arise. We may expect that organised attempts will be made, as Lord Roberts' victories proceed, to interfere in favour of Boer independencethat is, to hand the Boers, or some of them, back to that tyrannous oligarchy from which Bloemfontein has celebrated its emancipation. Sir H. Campbell - Bannerman, on the first night of the session, showed his foresight on this point, and wished as a party leader to keep his hands free, but was not allowed. In an elaborately prepared sentence he pledged his party to support the war, so that "the integrity of the Queen's dominions may be vindicated, and a successful issue attained." It was a pledge which could be construed hereafter to mean that he was in favour of peace as soon as invasion was repelled. Mr Balfour immediately challenged his support "until we make ourselves absolutely supreme over the whole region of South Africa.” The Opposition leader impliedly assented, and Sir E. Grey emphatically repudiated, without any dissent from his leader, the narrow construction put upon the pledge. The invasion has been repelled so much more speedily than was then anticipated, that no opposition to the war has sprung up of which a party leader can avail himself. The incident, however, was worth noting, and probably has been noted, by all pro-Boers. Both parties for the present remain pledged to a policy of annexation and supremacy, or, as we should prefer to phrase it, that Boer domination shall cease, as inconsistent with the peace, prosperity, and liberty of Boer and Briton, black and white. We are not annexing territory which does not belong to us. We are revoking a grant of selfgovernment which has been flagrantly abused and forfeited by declaration of war. If that resolution is persisted in, and Great Britain shows by her reorganisation of the country that it is immovable, it will cancel the painful memories of the past and inaugurate an era of prosperity. Printed by William Blackwood and Sons. LAST August Mr Andrew Lang contributed a paper to 'Maga entitled "History as she ought to be wrote," sounding therein the coronach over the last readable historian. He complained, with only too much truth, that the modern school sacrifices all go and grace upon the insatiable altar of accuracy, and maintained that history needed only proper handling to compete in popularity with "problem" novels. "The style and touch," quoth he, "of Professor Maitland, as in 'Domesday Book and Beyond,' are charming and buoyantly light in comparison with those of certain authors of modern romance. The public, in short, can undertake very hard and heavy reading, where some applauded novels are concerned; yet history, as now written, is neglected." Now, it was known at the time this paper appeared that Mr Lang had put hands to a heavy task. He had undertaken a new history of Scotland, and it may be imagined that serious students set themselves to watch how he would carry his principles into practice. "What manner of man is this," they said among themselves, "who reproveth the elders? Go to! is he not a weaver of essays and a maker of lyrics? Who is this that should teach us how to be precise without being prosy?" Well, the first volume is before us, and a very notable addition to historical literature it proves to be. It will not supersede the priceless studies of limited periods by Hailes, A History of Scotland from the Roman Occupation. By Andrew Lang. Vol. I. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1900. VOL. CLXVII.-NO. MXV. 2 R and the like; but the evidence upon which these relied is weighed and their conclusions collated, confirmed, modified, or refuted in the light of documents exhumed since they passed away, and the long narrative flows forward, occasionally fretful but never sluggish, ruffled on the surface here and there but never obscure. Had not the title 'Flores Historiarum' been appropriated six hundred years ago, it might have been given most fittingly to this work; for here we have the flowers of history, not sapless, trim, and brown, as in the sheets of a herbarium, but with much of their wild fragrance and native colour restored to them. Cosmo Innes, Skene, Robertson, more remains to be told than Mr Lang has condensed in his opening chapters. New manuscripts lie beyond the limit of reasonable hope. Ninian of Galloway performed his mission in Scotland during the last days of the legions. More than seven centuries after his death, a Gaelic biography of the saint, probably contemporary, came into the hands of Ailred of Rievaux, who, with destructive zeal, rendered it into Latin, and doubtless expunged much local colour that would be simply priceless at this day. We shall never recover the original; we can only mourn over the good bishop's eagerness to be genteel, and the cost we have to pay for his diligence in what he complacently describes as "the task of rescuing from a rustic style, as from darkness, and of bring. ing forth into the clear light of Latin diction the life of this most renowned man; a a life which had been told by those who came before me, truly indeed, but in too barbarous a style." Ecclesiastical translators are the better of a watchful eye upon their work: Ailred naturally set more store by miracles than by references to Insight into ró ȧveρóπeιovhuman motive and circumstance-preserves the chronicle from conventionality: if a Scot's natural prepossession sometimes hardens the author's judgment against the enemies of his country, he never burkes the evidence in their favour: the main facts and arguments are stated or indicated with perfect fairness. More than that can be asked of no historian; we should not be satisfied with less than his own conclusion upon them. As long as human passions endure and every question has two sides to it, so long must controversy be inseparable from history: he who writes it, even in the comparatively bloodless form of the 'Annual Register,' must let his opinion appear, or he will be merely insignificant. About the dim antiquity of Scotland probably not much Roman governors and soldiers, or by descriptions of country society. Indefatigable antiquaries will continue to exhume scraps and shards, adding to our acquaintance with primitive social details; but the main facts are tolerably well settled already. Even the origin of the Picts, claimed as Celtic by Skene - as non - Aryan by Stokes and Rhys-would retain more interest as a "gangin' plea" could one point out an individual Pict with as much certainty as a Gael or a Lothian Scot. Mr Lang is the reverse of pusillanimous; he glories in the clash of steel (witness his onset upon Professor Goldwin Smith in last month's 'Maga'); therefore it must be in sheer weariness and indifference that, after reviewing the arguments upon every side of the Pictish problem, he abruptly leaves the decision "to the judgment or taste of the reader. It is essentially a matter for specialists in ethnology, and really has little bearing upon the general course of Scottish history. the conquerors has been more fleeting, their influence more slight, in Scotland than in any other land brought under their dominion. Barbour describes Robert Bruce beguiling the tedium of his hiding in the borders of Lorn by reciting to his followers, not the gests of Julius Agricola and Severus, but of Scipio and Hannibal, of "worthy Ferambrace and doughty Oliver." of the English of Scotland to Eng"The record of the long resistance land, of the long resistance of the Celts of Scotland to the English of Scotland, of the attempts at union, often defeated, much disputed, and finally successful, is the history of the country. On this history the Roman occupation, so potent in other lands, made scarcely a mark. A few camps and other material relics reScottish history, the Roman law came main, but by one of the paradoxes of later to affect the law of a state on which the arms and civilisation of Rome had left hardly a trace; while Southern Britain, so long a regular Roman province, is singularly uninfluenced by Roman law." In like manner as astronomy grew out of astrology, so the science of archæology has been evolved out of the blundering but praiseworthy industry of the early antiquaries. Having passed through successive phases of credulity and scepticism, and working now upon sound comparative lines, archæologists are indispensable guides to the historian, nor does Mr Lang despise their aid. It was not Mr Lang deals as we should very long ago that almost all expect he would with the relics of the distant past were miracles of the early saintsset down to the score of the tenderly, to wit, and curiously. Romans. As lately as 1873, In some respects Cuthbert disHill Burton wrote extrava- appoints him. He was a sucgantly that "there are more cessful missionary, no doubt, known and recognised Roman but as a rule his miracles were camps in Scotland than in all deplorably utilitarian. He is the rest of the world." Then miraculously fed; he predicts followed a period of excessive the weather and heals the sick; scepticism, in which the Roman "but," adds the author with origin even of such works as a sigh, "only rare cases of those at Birrens and Ardoch telepathy or second-sight are was called in question. Here recorded.” Columba was far the spade confirmed popular more satisfactory in regard to tradition-Birrens and Ardoch the supra-normal. "Friends, have lately been established very properly, kept tablets on beyond all doubt as stative which they wrote down the camps; yet remembrance of saint's premonitions, so that there might be documentary evidence that they were actually made before the event." Nevertheless, how insidious is the sceptic spirit! It is sad to find the natural man opposing the evidence of his material senses even to the testimony of the tablets. One day Columba miraculously informed some fishermen that the next draught of their net would take a very large salmon; and of course it did so, or the tablet would have remained blank. Unluckily Mr Lang knows at least as much about fishing as about second-sight; hence his comment upon the incident is wanting in reverence. "This occurred on the Shiel, which, even in spate, is as clear as a chalkstream: you can see your fish and cast over him. "The power of miracles here appears accompanied by prophetic fore-knowledge,' says Adamnan, who, perhaps, had never fished the Shiel." Now, it may be objected that this is all very entertaining, only it is not history. Possibly, but it is stuff without which history cannot be understood. The infancy of nations their beliefs, their myths, their simple hopes and nameless fears-bear as real a part in their history as the childhood of a great man does in his subsequent accomplishment. It is far more important to know what our early fathers believed and how they worshipped than to remember the exact succession of kings or the precise dates of battles. For our own part, we greatly prefer to learn about these things from a writer who is not ashamed of his frank sympathy with and enjoyment in them rather than from the superior person who deals apologetically with them as mere superstitions. But let us pass forward to firmer ground, and examine this author's handing of later stages of the national story. The making of Scotland was a long process: it was not until the reign of Alexander III. that the overthrow of King Hako of Norway at the battle of Largs in 1263 put an end to Norse dominion upon the mainland and Western Isles, and Scotland at last became something more than what Metternich once called Italy-"a geographical expression. Mr Lang, we submit, does not give King Alexander his due share of He has no credit for this. praise for his diligence in government and justice, for his sagacity in foreign relations, especially with Henry of England, for his encouragement of industry and commerce, for his incessant activity in visiting all parts of his realm, teaching the people to recognise in their ruler a real promoter of their welfare, and in his government something more than a machinery for exacting tribute and service. Patriotism is a fine plant, but it soon withers upon a soil in which self-interest is no ingredient. Wallace reaped and Bruce threshed the harvest which Alexander III. sowed; and the historian who finds space for the friar of Lanercost's tittletattle about Alexander's excursions par amours might have devoted a paragraph to his excellence as a monarch. "Let no one," says the more generous Fordun, "question the salvation |