HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS 161 



Have any histories yet been written, apart from works similar to 

 L'Art de Verifier les Dates, which do not contain a distinct deliverance 

 on points where there is room for difference of opinion. It has been 

 said of Ranke that he had the disinterestedness of the dead, and 

 regarding the nature of his standards there can be no manner of 

 doubt. Just before writing this passage I opened the first volume of 

 his History of England at random and came upon the following allu- 

 sion to the Casket Letters. " Who does not know the sonnets and 

 the love-intoxicated letters she is believed to have addressed to him? 

 I would not say that every word of the latter is genuine; through 

 the several translations from the French original (which is lost) 

 into the Scotch idiom, from this into Latin, and then back into 

 French as we now have them they may have suffered much 

 alteration; we have no right to lay stress on every expression and 

 interpret it by the light of later events; but in the main they are 

 without doubt genuine; they contain circumstances which no one 

 else could then know and which have since been proved to be true; 

 no human being could have invented them." Here the judicial tone 

 is maintained, and we can see the historian endeavoring dispassion- 

 ately to state the truth about an intricate and difficult case. Yet 

 were Ranke writing on the Casket Letters at this moment and in the 

 light of the fullest knowledge which can be had, one may doubt 

 whether he would say so positively, "No human being could have 

 invented them." 1 I am not trying to exonerate the Queen or to 

 vindicate the sentiments of the Revue des Questions Historiques: but 

 unless I am mistaken a jury of Scottish experts would return a verdict 

 of Not Proven, while Mr. R. S. Rait goes so far as to say in reviewing 

 Mr. Lang's Mystery of Mary Stuart for the English Historical Review : 

 "The Mystery of Mary Stuart remains a mystery. There is a doubt, 

 and while the question remains in suspense the Queen should have 

 the benefit of it." 



Were it necessary one might collect a large number of obiter dicta 

 from the pages of Ranke, including some passages which assuredly 

 will not stand the test of time. And if the master does not always 

 reach the goal he aimed at, what shall be said of others? At this 

 time of day it is either banal or insulting to praise the erudition of 

 Germany, and in history the great objective of German scholarship 

 is scientific accuracy. Yet virtue itself 'scapes not calumnious 

 strokes, and Droysen, whose essay on the elevation of history to the 

 rank of a science is justly famous, incurs along with others the severe 

 censure of MM. Langlois and Seignobos. In the chapter on exposition 

 which these strict exponents of historical science have written 

 conjointly, occurs an unsparing castigation of the careless vulgarizer. 

 "On the other hand," the text continues, "men whose information 



1 History of England, English translation. Clarendon Press, 1875, vol. r, p. 273. 



