In  so  far  as  veritable  history  is  narrative  rather  than
expository, — that  is,  in  so  far  as  history  is  a  chronicle  of
events  rather  than  an  attempt  to  extract  from  events
a  philosophy  of  historical  evolution  or  to  establish  sci-
entific generalizations,  —  to  that  extent  history,  like
fiction,  may  make  use  of  local  color.  It  will  strive  to
render  as  graphic  as  possible  the  time  and  the  place  of
past  events.  This  function  of  the  narrator  Macau  lay
has  set  forth  in  his  essay  on  Hallam's  Constitutional
History  of  England.  It  is,

to  make  the  past  present,  to  bring  the  distant  near,  to  place
us  in  the  society  of  a  great  man  or  on  the  eminence  which  over-
looks the  field  of  a  mighty  battle,  to  invest  with  the  reality  of
human  flesh  and  blood  beings  whom  we  are  too  much  inclined
to  consider  as  personified  qualities  in  an  allegory,  to  call  up  our
ancestors  before  us  with  all  their  peculiarities  of  language,
manners,  and  garb,  to  show  us  over  their  houses,  to  seat  us  at
their  tables,  to  rummage  their  old-fashioned  wardrobes,  to
explain  the  uses  of  their  ponderous  furniture.
