James Anthony Froude, born 1818:  an Oxford graduate, Mr. Froude represents the Low Church party in a respectable minority.  His chief work is A History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth.  With great industry, and the style of a successful novelist in making his groups and painting his characters, he has written one of the most readable books published in this period.  He claimed to take his authorities from unpublished papers, and from the statute-books, and has endeavored to show that Henry VIII. was by no means a bad king, and that Elizabeth had very few faults.  His treatment of Anne Boleyn and Mary Queen of Scots is unjust and ignoble.  Not content with publishing what has been written in their disfavor, with the omniscience of a romancer, he asserts their motives, and produces thoughts which they never uttered.  A race of powerful critics has sprung forth in defence of Mary, and Mr. Froude’s inaccuracies and injustice have been clearly shown.  To novel readers who are fond of the sensational, we commend his work:  to those who desire historic facts and philosophies, we proclaim it to be inaccurate, illogical, and unjust in the highest degree.

Sharon Turner, 1768-1847:  among many historical efforts, principally concerning England in different periods, his History of the Anglo-Saxons stands out prominently as a great work.  He was an eccentric scholar, and an antiquarian, and he found just the place to delve in when he undertook that history.  The style is not good—­too epigrammatic and broken; but his research is great, his speculations bold, and his information concerning the numbers, manners, arts, learning, and other characters of the Anglo-Saxons, immense.  The student of English history must read Turner for a knowledge of the Saxon period.

Thomas Arnold, 1795-1832:  widely known and revered as the Great Schoolmaster.  He was head-master at Rugby, and influenced his pupils more than any modern English instructor.  Accepting the views of Niebuhr, he wrote a work on Roman History up to the close of the second Punic war.  But he is more generally known by his historical lectures delivered at Oxford, where he was Professor of Modern History.  A man of original views and great honesty of purpose, his influence in England has been strengthened by the excellent biography written by his friend Dean Stanley.

William Hepworth Dixon, born 1821:  he was for some time editor of The Athenaeum.  In historic biography he appears as a champion of men who have been maligned by former writers.  He vindicates William Penn from the aspersions of Lord Macaulay, and Bacon from the charges of meanness and corruption.

Charles Merivale, born 1808:  he is a clergyman, and a late Fellow of Cambridge, and is favorably known by his admirable work entitled, The History of the Romans under the Empire.  It forms an introduction to Gibbon, and displays a thorough grasp of the great epoch, varied scholarship, and excellent taste.  His analyses of Roman literature are very valuable, and his pictures of social life so vivid that we seem to live in the times of the Caesars as we read.