Neo-classical History And English Culture: From Clarendon To Hume (studies In Modern History (macmillan Press))

In quotations, the capitalization, spelling, and punctuation have not been modernized, except in cases of block capitals, which have been put in lower case, and abbreviations for words such as 'the' and 'that,' which are spelled out. Misprints have not been corrected. All italics have been omitted except those used for special emphasis by their authors. Dates are 'Old Style,' except that the New Year will be taken to have begun on 1 January. viii Neoclassical History and English Culture and commissioned his trusted servant Clarendon to write it, but he had to worry more about preserving his kingdom in the first instance than preserving a record of that kingdom's history. His son, Charles II, perused and approved histories for publication, and like his father had contributed to Clarendon's History, but he never wrote his own. His brother, before becoming King James II, wrote some memoirs of his military campaigns in the 1650s,7° but took them no further. After the Glorious Revolution, James spent the first seven years of his exile in war and intrigue trying to recover his crown. From 1695 to 1701, the last six years of his life, he did not recast his memoirs into a history of the loss of his crown, because the attractions of prayer and meditation outweighed those of historical composition. Just as anyone beneath the rank of gentleman or nobleman was unfit for the role of neoclassical historian, so, apparently, was anyone above those ranks unfit. During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth century, no one above the rank of earl ever wrote an exemplary history: Clarendon was an earl, Bacon a viscount, Cherbury and Lyttelton barons, More, Hayward, and Raleigh knights. 71 Responsibility for writing history belonged to these servants of the crown, not to the monarch. And yet, qualified as they might be, these historians inhabited a modern world that seriously threatened the neoclassical project, a world that remains to be explored. ## Neoclassical History and • the Modern World ## Clarendon as the English Thucydides Visiting Moulins, France, in 1671, Laurence Hyde brought his father Edward, Earl of Clarendon, the trunk containing an unfinished history of the English Civil War. As advisor to King Charles I, Clarendon began the history in 1646, after a series of military defeats forced him to go to Scilly, then Jersey, a last royalist stronghold. Composition was interrupted in 1648, when the queen summoned him from Jersey to the Paris headquarters of the royalist camp. For the next dozen years he worked to restore the monarchy, which parliament had abolished, and the Prince of Wales, whose father King Charles had been executed. Both were restored in 1660, and Hyde served as chief royal counselor. After seven years of government, however, Clarendon ran afoul of both court and parliament, blamed for naval defeats at the hands of the Dutch. He was banished in 1667 and spent the next two years writing his life's story to vindicate himself from articles of impeachment. 1 He completed his History by adding passages from his autobiographical Life, written 1667-9, to the earlier History, written 1646-8 and delivered to him by Laurence in 1671. Clarendon proved that the victors do not always write history. Defeated in 1648, when parliament's triumph over the king was complete, and again in 1667, when he was disgraced, Clarendon created the most famous work of history to emerge from and about the turbulent age in which he lived. The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England was a massive narrative describing one of the greatest events in the nation's history, written by one of the tragedy's chief actors, from a lofty, impersonal perspective, in rolling, archaic periods. Clarendon was the first Englishman to be so widely acclaimed a peer of the classical historians. Thomas Sprat had prophesied his coming. In 1667 Sprat observed that the Civil War had devastated the English language, This Book Shows How Our Idea Of History Was Shaped By Historians And Their Readers In Eighteenth-century England. Philip Hicks Reinterprets The Historical Writing Of The Early-modern Era As A Vibrant Clash Between Ancient Models For Historical Composition And A Modernizing Culture Characterized By Party Politics, Print, Christianity And Antiquarian Erudition, And Traces The Social, Literary And Political Implications Of Neoclassical History For English Culture At Large. By Paying Unprecedented Attention To Historical Genres And Audiences, This Study Overturns The Orthodox View Of David Hume As Simply A 'philosophical Historian' And Portrays Him Instead As A Celebrated Peer Of Livy And Tacitus. By Resuscitating Neoclassical Historiography, Both Hume And The 1st Earl Of Clarendon Breathed Life Into Their Disparate Political Programs. By Failing To Come To Grips With Neoclassical Ideals, Jonathan Swift And Lord Bolingbroke Languished In The Coveted Role Of Thucydidean Historian Of One's Own Times. 1. The Weakness In English Historical Writing -- 2. Neoclassical History And The Modern World -- 3. Clarendon As The English Thucydides -- 4. Dr Brady And The History Of England -- 5. The Death Of Thucydidean History -- 6. General History In An Age Of Party -- 7. David Hume As A Neoclassical Historian. Philip Hicks. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 256-272) And Index. This book looks at neo-classicism as a context for understanding early-modern English historical writing, and traces the implications of neo-classical history for English political culture at large. By paying close attention to historical genres and audiences, it reassesses both the famous and lesser-known historians of this era, dramatizing them as engaged in a struggle to preserve ancient models of historical composition in the face of a rapidly modernizing society characterized by party politics, print, Christianity, and antiquarian erudition. Front Matter....Pages i-viii The Weakness in English Historical Writing....Pages 1-22 Neoclassical History and the Modern World....Pages 23-45 Clarendon as the English Thucydides....Pages 46-81 Dr Brady and the History of England....Pages 82-109 The Death of Thucydidean History....Pages 110-142 General History in an Age of Party....Pages 143-169 David Hume as a Neoclassical Historian....Pages 170-209 Conclusion....Pages 210-216 Back Matter....Pages 217-289