Pages from the Past

Abstract

THIS delightful book may easily become the most popular of Mr. Fisher's writings. It is wholesome medicine for the times in which we live because it takes our minds away from them. The longest essay is one dealing with the “Whig Historians”, and, of course, for the most part defending them. Macaulay, Mackintosh and Sir George Trevelyan are the most prominent figures in it, and Macaulay never found a more stalwart- yet withal a discriminating-admirer. The cleverest paper is a sketch of what might have happened had Napoleon made his escape to North America and afterwards attempted the setting up of a new empire in the New World, which was at that time disturbed by many revolutions, centring round the figure-rather more heroic than Mr. Fisher presents him-of Simon Bolivar. There are charming pictures of the “Beauty of England”, and a very curious account of a New College ‘progress' when the Warden, accompanied by his junior outrider, used to drive round visiting all the neighbouring College farms, taking the homage of the respectful tenants and being solemnly entertained by the dependent folk of the holding. It is to be feared that this picturesque custom has now fallen into disuse, and we are the more obliged to Mr. Fisher for putting it on record. He says quite truly that the public-even the College public-are not aware of the extent of the agricultural interests of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. In our days the picturesqueness has been worn off by the motor-car, but science has come in to improve the agricultural methods by which the bursars guide the operations of the college tenants. Pages from the Past By H. A. L. Fisher. Pp. viii + 238. (Oxford: Clarendon Press; London: Oxford University Press, 1939.) 10s. net.