text:  Recently placed in a situation which gave his extraordinary faculties as a teacher still wider scope than they before possessed at an age when the vivacity and energy of a commanding intellect were matured not chilled by constant observation and long experience--gifted with industry to collect with sagacity to appreciate with skill to arrange the materials of history--master of a vivid and attractive style for their communication and display--eminent above all for a degree of candour and sincerity which gave additional value to all his other endowments--what but leisure did Dr Arnold require to qualify him for a place among our most illustrious authors? Under his auspices we might not unreasonably have hoped for works that would have rivalled those of the great continental writers in depth and variety of research; in which the light of original and contemporaneous documents would be steadily flung on the still unexplored portions of our history; and that Oxford would have balanced the fame of Schloesser and Thierry and Sismondi by the labours of a writer peculiarly and as this volume proves most affectionately her own