Excepting Comines
and La Salle and Villon, I have read no author who did not
appal me by his torpor; and even the trial of Joan of Arc,
conducted as it was by chosen clerks, bears witness to a
dreary, sterile folly, - a twilight of the mind peopled with
childish phantoms. In relation to his contemporaries,
Charles seems quite a lively character.
It remains for me to acknowledge the kindness of Mr. Henry
Pyne, who, immediately on the appearance of the study, sent
me his edition of the Debate between the Heralds: a courtesy
from the expert to the amateur only too uncommon in these
days.
KNOX. - Knox, the second in order of interest among the
reformers, lies dead and buried in the works of the learned
and unreadable M'Crie. It remains for some one to break the
tomb and bring him forth, alive again and breathing, in a
human book. With the best intentions in the world, I have
only added two more flagstones, ponderous like their
predecessors, to the mass of obstruction that buries the
reformer from the world; I have touched him in my turn with
that "mace of death," which Carlyle has attributed to
Dryasdust; and my two dull papers are, in the matter of
dulness, worthy additions to the labours of M'Crie. Yet I
believe they are worth reprinting in the interest of the next
biographer of Knox. I trust his book may be a masterpiece;
and I indulge the hope that my two studies may lend him a
hint or perhaps spare him a delay in its composition.
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