GREEN, JOHN RICHARD. 



425 



among modern English historians. He took 

 his degree in 1860, received holy orders, and 

 through the influence of Stanley was made cu- 

 rate of St. Barnabas's, a poor and populous 

 parish in an eastern district of London, divid- 

 ing his time between parochial duties and his- 

 torical studies in the British Museum. 



In 1862 he was presented to the vicarage of 

 St. Stephen's, Stepney, a post which he re- 

 tained until 1869. His labors here were im- 

 mense. He not only brought his parish into a 

 high state of efficiency, but also carried his his- 

 torical studies to the remotest sources, some of 

 his favorite works being the huge folios of the 

 Bollandist " Acta Sanctorum." Nothing, how- 

 ever, came amiss to him. He had acquired a 

 facility for rapid reading, and possessed that 

 poetic imagination which enabled him to grasp 

 the vital characteristics of a past epoch, and 

 the corresponding faculty of combining these 

 features into a consistent whole. The results of 

 his studies became more apparent in numerous 

 historical essays which appeared in the weekly 

 newspapers ; and it grew clear to him that his 

 true vocation was not a clerical one, for which 

 indeed his feeble health unfitted him. He re- 

 signed his living, and the Archbishop of Can- 

 terbury appointed him librarian at Lambeth. 

 He undertook no further clerical work, and, as 

 his duties as librarian were little more than 

 nominal, he was able to set himself seriously 

 at work as an historian. 



His first formal work in this capacity was 

 the " Short History of the English People," the 

 success of which was immediate. It made its 

 way solely by its own merits, for the closely- 

 printed, thick little volume had no external at- 

 tractions for the general reader, to whom the 

 very name of the author was new. But com- 

 petent critics were not slow to make its merits 

 known. Prof. Edward A. Freeman wrote of 

 it: "The object of the book that of combin- 

 ing the history of the people with the history 

 of the kingdom is most successfully carried 

 out. It displays throughout a firm hold on the 

 subject, and a singularly wide range of thought 

 and sympathy. As a composition it is clear, 

 forcible, and brilliant. It is the most truly 

 original book of the kind that I ever saw." 

 Another reviewer averred that this "Short 

 History" contained "an amount of knowledge 

 which would have sufficed to furnish forth a 

 stately library-work in eight or ten volumes, 

 together with a comprehensiveness of view, a 

 novelty of method, and a power of bringing to- 

 gether all the scattered elements of history, 

 with a freshness of style of which no historian 

 since Macaulay had given an example." In 

 Great Britain nearly 100,000 copies have been 

 sold, and it is hardly less popular in the United 

 States. 



In 1870, after a severe illness, Mr. Green was 

 ordered to a southern climate by his physician, 

 and these " winter Sittings," to which he owed 

 the prolongation of his life for a dozen years, 

 were annually repeated, giving occasion to 



many pleasant papers, which have been col- 

 lected into a volume entitled u Stray Studies 

 from England and Italy." 



The history was published when the author 

 had just reached the age of thirty-seven. He 

 himself was sensible that he had only begun to 

 execute the task which it lay in him to per- 

 form, should a few more years be added to his 

 frail tenure of life. He at once set himself to 

 the task of writing an ample work upon the 

 same general lines, and with a like scope, but 

 essentially modified in form and manner. The 

 first volume of the " History of the English 

 People" appeared in 1877, and the fourth vol- 

 ume, bringing the history down to the final 

 overthrow of Napoleon at Waterloo, was con- 

 cluded in 1880. Of the first volume the Lon- 

 don " Saturday Review " said: "Three years 

 ago Mr. Green achieved a brilliant success. He 

 had the rare fortune to write a book that 

 everybody read; scholars acknowledged his 

 learning, his breadth of view, and his grasp ol 

 his subject ; all owned his narrative power and 

 charm of style. The ' History of the English 

 People' no longer wears the modest guise of a 

 school-book, but has become one of stately ap- 

 pearance. Though the materials of the earlier 

 book have been worked into it, and though we 

 recognize many of the most brilliant passages 

 as old friends, still the arrangement is so al- 

 tered, and the amount of fresh matter is so 

 large, that it is substantially a new work, 

 which, while retaining the life and sparkle of 

 its predecessor, is better proportioned, calmer 

 in tone, and altogether-a more ripe and com- 

 plete piece of work." 



In 1877 Mr. Green married the daughter of 

 Archdeacon Stopford, with whom he wrote a 

 " Short Geography of the British Isles," and 

 not long afterward projected a very successful 

 series of " History and Literature Primers," 

 edited by himself, but written by several emi- 

 nent English scholars. In the mean while his 

 high merits began to receive recognition. He 

 was elected a member of the Athen^um Club ; 

 Jesus College, where he had graduated, made 

 him an honorary fellow ; the University of 

 Edinburgh conferred upon him the degree of 

 LL. D. ; and he was chosen an examiner in the 

 School of Modern History at Oxford. He 

 found time to compile a selection of " Readings 

 from English History," so arranged as to illus- 

 trate the great periods from the Saxon con- 

 quest to the battle of Crecy, from Crecy to 

 the time of Oliver Cromwell, and from Crom- 

 well to the Crimean War, connected by appro- 

 priate threads of remark and explanation ne- 

 cessary to illustrate the series of events. The 

 three parts have been brought together in this- 

 country in one moderate volume. 



For several years, Mr. Green had usually 

 passed the winters at Capri, in Italy ; but in 

 1880 he went to Egypt. The change was un- 

 fortunate : the climate was not favorable ; he 

 caught a severe cold on his return voyage, and 

 was very ill during the summer of 1881. In 



