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HALLAM

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Originally appearing in Volume V12, Page 852 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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HALLAM . See also:

HENRY (1777-1859), See also:English historian, was the only son of See also:John Hallam, See also:canon of See also:Windsor and See also:dean of See also:Bristol, and was See also:born on the gth of See also:July 1777. He was educated at See also:Eton and See also:Christ See also:Church, See also:Oxford, where he graduated in 1799. Called to the See also:bar, he practised for some years on the Oxford See also:circuit; but his tastes were See also:literary, and when, on the See also:death of his See also:father in 1812, he inherited a small See also:estate in See also:Lincolnshire, he gave himself up wholly to the studies of his See also:life. He had See also:early beconte connected with the brilliant See also:band of authors and politicians who then led the Whig party, a connexion to which he owed his See also:appointment to the well-paid and easy See also:post of See also:commissioner of stamps; but in See also:practical politics, for which he was by nature unsuited, he took no active See also:share. But he was an active sup-See also:porter of many popular movements—particularly of that which ended in the abolition of the slave See also:trade; and he was throughouthis entire life sincerely and profoundly attached to the See also:political principles of the Whigs, both in their popular and in their aristocratic aspect. - Hallam's earliest literary See also:work was undertaken in connexion with the See also:great See also:organ of the Whig party, the See also:Edinburgh See also:Review, where his review of See also:Scott's See also:Dryden attracted much See also:notice. His first great work, The View of the See also:State of See also:Europe during the See also:Middle Ages, was produced in 1818, and was followed nine years later by the Constitutional See also:History of See also:England. In 1838–1839 appeared the Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th and 17th Centuries. These are the three See also:works on which the fame of Hallam rests. They at once took a See also:place in English literature which has never been seriously challenged. A See also:volume of supplemental notes to his Middle Ages was published in 1848.

These facts and See also:

dates represent nearly all the events of Hallam's career. The strongest See also:personal See also:interest in his life was the affliction which befell him in the loss of his See also:children, one after another. His eldest son, See also:Arthur Henry Hallam,—the " A.H.H." of See also:Tennyson's In Memoriam, and by the testimony of his See also:con-temporaries a See also:man of the most brilliant promise,—died in 1833 at the See also:age of twenty-two. Seventeen years later, his second son, Henry Fitzmaurice Hallam, was cut off like his See also:brother at the very See also:threshold of what might have been a great career. The premature death and high talents of these See also:young men, and the association of one of them with the most popular poem of the age, have made Hallam's See also:family afflictions better known than any other incidents of his life. He survived wife, daughter and sons by many years. In 1834 Hallam published The Remains in See also:Prose and See also:Verse of Arthur Henry Hallam, with a See also:Sketch of his Life. In 1852 a selection of Literary Essays and Characters from the Literature of Europe was published. Hallam was a See also:fellow of the Royal Society, and a trustee of the See also:British Museum, and enjoyed many other appropriate distinctions. In 183o he received the See also:gold See also:medal for history, founded by See also:George IV. He died on the 21st of See also:January 1859. The Middle Ages is described by Hallam himself as a See also:series of See also:historical See also:dissertations, a comprehensive survey of the See also:chief circumstances that can interest a philosophical inquirer during the See also:period from the 5th to the 15th See also:century.

The work consists of nine See also:

long chapters, each of which is a See also:complete See also:treatise in itself. The history of See also:France, of See also:Italy, of See also:Spain, of See also:Germany, and of the See also:Greek and Saracenic empires, sketched in rapid and See also:general terms, is the subject of five See also:separate chapters. Others See also:deal with the great institutional features of See also:medieval society—the development of the feudal See also:system, of the ecclesiastical system, and of the See also:free political system of England. The last See also:chapter sketches the general state of society, the growth of See also:commerce, See also:manners, and literature in the middle ages. The See also:book may be regarded as a general view of early See also:modern history, preparatory to the more detailed treatment of See also:special lines of inquiry carried out in his subsequent works, although Hallam's See also:original intention was to continue the work on the See also:scale on which it had been begun. The Constitutional History of England takes up the subject at the point at which it had been dropped in the View of the Middle Ages, viz. the See also:accession of Henry VII.,' and carries it down to the accession of George III. Hallam stopped here for a characteristic See also:reason, which it is impossible not to respect and to regret. He was unwilling to excite the prejudices of modern politics which seemed to him to run back through the whole period of the reign of George III. As a See also:matter of fact they ran back much farther, as Hallam soon found. The sensitive impartiality which withheld him from touching perhaps the most interesting period in the history of the constitution did not See also:save him from the See also:charge of partisanship. The Quarterly Review for 1828 contains an See also:article on the Constitutional History, written by See also:Southey, full of railing and reproach. The work, he says, is the " See also:production of a decided See also:partisan," who " rakes in the ashes of long-forgotten and a thousand times buried slanders, r See also:Lord See also:Brougham, overlooking the constitutional chapter in the Middle Ages, censured Hallam for making an arbitrary beginning at this point, and proposed to write a more complete history himself.

for the means of heaping obloquy on all who supported the noticed in their immediate connexion ' with literary results; but Hallam had little See also:

taste for the spacious generalization which such subjects suggest. The great qualities displayed in this work have been universally acknowledged—conscientiousness, accuracy, See also:judgment and enormous See also:reading. Not the least styiking testimony to Hallam's See also:powers is his mastery over so many diverse forms of intellectual activity. In See also:science and See also:theology, See also:mathematics and See also:poetry, See also:metaphysics and See also:law, he is a competent and always a See also:fair if not a profound critic. The See also:bent of his own mind is See also:manifest in his treatment of pure literature and of political See also:speculation—which seems to be inspired with stronger personal interest and a higher sense of See also:power than other parts of his work display. Not less worthy of notice in a literary history is the See also:good sense by which both his learning and his tastes have been held in See also:control. Probably no writer ever possessed a juster view of the relative importance of men and things. The labour devoted to an investigation is with Hallam no excuse for dwelling on the result, unless that is in itself important. He turns away contemptuously from the See also:mere curiosities of literature, and is never tempted to make a display of trivial erudition. Nor do we find that his interest in special studies leads him to assign them a disproportionate place in his general view of the literature of a period. ' Hallam is generally described as a " philosophical historian.", The description is justified not so much by any philosophical quality in his method as by the nature of his subject and his own See also:temper. Hallam is a philosopher to this extent that both in political and in literary history he fixed his See also:attention on results rather than on persons.

His conception of history embraced the whole See also:

movement of society. Beside that conception the issue of battles and the See also:fate of See also:kings fall into See also:comparative insignificance. " We can trace the See also:pedigree of princes," he reflects, " fill up the See also:catalogue of towns besieged and provinces desolated, describe even the whole pageantry of coronations and festivals, but we cannot recover the genuine history of mankind." But, on the other See also:hand, there is no trace in Hallam of anything like a See also:philosophy of history or society. See also:Wise and generally See also:melancholy reflections on human nature and political society are not infrequent in his writings, and they arise naturally and incidentally out of the subject he is discussing. His See also:object is the attainment of truth in matters of fact. Sweeping theories of the movement of society, and broad characterizations of particular periods of history seem to have no attraction for him. The view of mankind on which such generalizations are usually based, taking little See also:account of individual See also:character, was highly distasteful to him. Thus he See also:objects to the use of See also:statistics because they favour that tendency to regard all men as mentally and morally equal which is so unhappily strong in modern times. At the same See also:time Hallam by no means assumes the See also:tone of the mere See also:scholar. He is even solicitous to show that his point of view is that of the cultivated See also:gentleman and not of the specialist of any See also:order. Thus he tells us that See also:Montaigne is the first See also:French author whom an English gentleman is ashamed not to have read. In fact, allusions to the necessary studies of a gentleman meet us constantly, reminding us of the unlikely erudition of the schoolboy in See also:Macaulay.

Hallam's prejudices, so far as he had any, belong to the same character. His See also:

criticism is See also:apt to assume a tone of moral censure when he has to deal with certain extremes of human thought—See also:scepticism in philosophy, See also:atheism in See also:religion and See also:democracy in politics. Hallam's See also:style is singularly See also:uniform throughout all his writings. It is sincere and straightforward, and obviously See also:innocent of any See also:motive beyond that of clearly expressing the writer's meaning. In the Literature of Europe there are many passages of great imaginative beauty. (E.

End of Article: HALLAM

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