Trevor-Roper is an historical essayist rather than a constructive historian like Trevelyan, creatively building book upon book with big significant subjects, and with the proper organic structure a book should have. Nearly all these essays have been published before; but I am grateful to have them conveniently gathered together.

The essay on Robert Burton is the best thing ever written about him; it makes good sense of the amorphous mass of The Anatomy of Melancholy, a difficult job brilliantly executed. Not everybody finds that classic work readable: Trevor-Roper makes it sound quite sympathetic, and even that crusty old don,