"[T]here is no English historian who has a right to be judged by a higher or severer test, for no one has spoken more deeply and truly on the character and dignity of history... He showed an intelligence of things which no other English historian has understood. He dwelt upon the invisible impersonal forces that act in history, and appreciated, often with rare sagacity, the true significance and sequence of events. But he was unable to follow the course he had pointed out, and failed even to maintain himself on the high ground he had reached. He could not distinguish in history what was unknown to him in religion: thus he fell to the exclusive contemplation of certain typical individuals, whose greatness appeared to supply what he wanted, an object of worship, and personified invisible elements in visible men. And now the belongings of his hero possess so great an importance that they distract his attention from him; he invests with an absurd dignity not only his relations, but their goods and chattels, and allows merely material things to eclipse the human interest of his subject. It is a history made up of eccentricities. This is the way that Mr. Dickens writes novels; for whom the spectacles of an elderly gentleman, a pair of mulberry coloured hose, or a wandering American pig, have greater attractions than any psychological problem."