"From first to last he [Lord Acton] seems to have recognised that, behind this whole aspect of the historical movement, there stands the figure of Edmund Burke; and if, in his youth he found Burke the ideal political teacher (especially for a Catholic) and the ideal expositor of the British constitution, he was equally prepared to say that "he would have been the first of our historians". The student of the history of historiography who reads Burke's early work entitled The Abridgement of English History can hardly fail to realise the significance it possesses in view of its place in the chronological series; and it is doubtful whether the student of the general thought of Burke has paid sufficient attention to this work, when one considers to what a degree the historical views which it embodies must actually entail the characteristic features of the man's political outlook."