Page "belles_lettres" Paragraph 893

The biography of Lord Grey is strictly speaking not a biography at all.

It is a Whig history of the `` Tory reaction '' which preceded the Reform Bill of 1832, and it uses the figure of Grey to give some unity to the narrative.

The volume is a piece of passionate special pleading, written with the heat -- and often with the wisdom, it must be said -- of a Liberal damning the shortsightedness of politicians from 1782 to 1832.

Characteristically, Trevelyan enjoyed writing the work.

The theme of glorious summer coming after a long winter of discontent and repression was, he has told us, congenial to his artistic sense.

And Grey's Northumberland background was close to Trevelyan's own.

But his concentration on personalities and his categorical assessment of their actions fail to convey the political complexities of a long generation harassed by world-wide war and confronted with the problem of adjustment to an unprecedented industrial and social transformation.

Some historians have found his point of view not to their taste, others have complained that he makes the Tory tradition appear `` contemptible rather than intelligible '', while a sympathetic critic has remarked that the `` intricate interplay of social dynamics and political activity of which, at times, politicians are the ignorant marionettes is not a field for the exercise of his talents ''.

The Liberal-Radical heritage which informs all of Trevelyan's interpretations of history here seems clearly to have distorted the issues and oversimplified the period.

For once his touch deserted him.