70 FISHER— MYTH-MAKING PROCESS IN [April i8, 



and proper when the essential principle is that the greater part of 

 the original evidence must be ignored. The habit of citation once 

 begun, might be carried too far. 



Fiske, whose volumes on the Revolution have been published 

 since the Civil War, makes no citations of the original evidence. 

 Possibly he has forestalled criticism in this respect by the statement 

 in the preface to his illustrated edition, that his work is a mere his- 

 torical sketch. But it is two volumes containing some seven hun- 

 dred pages, confident and positive in tone. For the sources of his 

 material he refers us to Winsor's " Hand Book of the Revolution," 

 and the notes of the " Narrative and Critical History of America." 

 But he might just as well have referred us to the card catalogues of 

 the public libraries. Such a general reference means nothing; and a 

 very large part of the material contained in Winsor's " Hand Book " 

 and in the " Narrative and Critical History " is made up of com- 

 mentaries on the Revolution, which are becoming more and more 

 numerous as time goes on. We have not yet learned in this country 

 to distinguish sharply between the original evidence and the subse- 

 quent commentaries. Our histories are usually written from the 

 commentaries which are numerous, more accessible, more full of 

 suggestion of all sorts, and easier to write from and understand than 

 the original evidence. 



Fiske's account of the Revolution was, however, superior to all 

 previous histories because it contains practically all that Bancroft 

 and the rest contain much better expressed. It would be difficult to 

 improve on Fiske's style of writing for clearness, beauty and read- 

 ableness. Bancroft attempted the old-fashioned rhetorical style, 

 which, in his hands, ran to turgidity and bombast. Oratorical dig- 

 nity, the style that has been so often applied with success to Greek 

 and Roman history, is probably inadequate, in any hands, to the 

 economical, legal and constitutional, the prosaic, plebeian and demo- 

 cratic struggle, which took place in America. Lord Mahon's style 

 was far better than the classic oratorical ; and Fiske's is the best of all. 



Fiske was an extreme admirer of Gladstone, the English liberal 

 party, its predecessor the whig party, and the whole system of the 

 British empire. At almost every step he brings in this admiration 



