"The harvests of Arretium, The force and beauty of the last line are incomparable: it is both key and climax to the whole stanza; while we yet glance on the boys at the shearing, and the girls in the wine-press, we hear the tramp of the sturdy patriots lessening on our ear. Another passage will show the great capabilities of the old ballad measure, in the hands of a great minstrel. The warriors have now come to the bridge which is to be the chief point of contention: "But now no sound of laughter And for a space no man came forth "But hark! the cry is, Astur: Clangs loud the four-fold shield, And in his hand he shakes the brand Which none but he can wield. "He smiled on those bold Romans "Then whirling up his broadsword The blow, though turned, came yet too nigh; We forbear to continue a quotation which the reader's memory probably suppics. For the same reason we omit an extract of some length from the lay of Virginia, with which we had intended to show what variety of power, and what familiarity of Roman knowledge, concur to make these ancient popular songs the most perfect compositions of their class. We come now to the most important event in our author's career—the publication of the History of England. With all the sterling merit of the Lays-enough to make the reputation of any other writer, and to place him next in poetic rank to the Laureate himself-they were produced by Mr. Macaulay in a mood of comparative relaxation, and must be counted only as an interlude dividing the Essays from the History. Upon the latter work he was just about to enter, after twenty years of public service and of private study had made his whole life one course of preparation for the task. The point chosen for the commencement of the History was the accession of James II.; and the choice was probably determined by two reasons-a conviction that grace of style would have the effect of long preserving the defective narrative of Mr. Hume, and a special desire to narrate the settlement of the English Constitution, as the starting-point of national prosperity, and the index pointing towards improvement in the future. The work appears to have been prosecuted by the author with steady diligence. An interval occurring in his parliamentary life was welcomed as an advantage, and improved with care; and though he was afterwards induced to resume once more the functions of a representative, his failing health warned him that he could not serve the public in the double capacity of author and senator, and he resigned his seat in the House of Commons. The fruits of his literary seclusion soon appeared. The first two volumes of the History of England were issued in the autumn of 1848; and these were followed by two more, after an interval of six years, at the season of Christmas, 1854. On both occasions, as our readers can not fail to remember, the publication was attended by the ut most excitement and enthusiasm, such as the mere issue of a new book perhaps never before aroused in the people of this country. Though the price was necessarily high, the sale was unprecedentedly large. It was eagerly received, reprinted, sold, and circulated in America and the English Colonies; and now it is found under the most humble and most distant roofs which shelter any of the sons and daughters of Anglo-Saxon race. The character of a work destined to such influence in the world is of the utmost moment. We believe it is too well known and appreciated to need either description or defense. Some critics will never join in praises offered by the people. Some students have a sincere and natural preference for works of a more unequal character, for statements of a curious or a disputable kind, for a style that often creeps, and an author that sometimes nods. By both of these classes our historian has yet to be forgiven. Happily he can wait; for his literary immortality is just begun. When the flood of popularity subsides, it will leave his ark still high above the plain. When the History of England ceases to be a wonder, it will begin to be a classic. It is said that a strong political bias disqualified Mr. Macaulay for the historian's office. To the false maxim implied in this remark we ascribe much of the vague and foolish depreciation which his volumes have encountered. No reflecting person will object to the existence of such bias, though some few may regret its particular direction. It was, in our judgment, the most necessary preparation of all, without which learning and industry and taste would have been virtually thrown away. What should we say of a church history whose author was neither Roman nor Protestant, and who looked with pure and equal indifference on the sacramental and the evangelical theories? We should say at least that the writer had mistaken his vocation, and that he had better have applied his historic talents to some institution or system or event which he could appreciate and describe on definite principles. But political indifference is quite as disqualifying in the one case as religious indifference in the other. To have no preferences is to have no principles; and to have no principles is to have no qualification for systematic and judicial w It is just by this defect that the nnalist or chronicler falls by and responsibility of one of the huthe faculties of and intellectman will nevictions as a ible, and it is ns of the past should be ground out by a cosmopolitan machine. It is not necessary that domestic history should be written by a foreigner, the History of England by a littérateur of France. Then if our historian may have the preferences of an Englishman, he may have some views determined by his political philosophy. To write a history at all he must adopt some general but consistent theory of social order; the more liberal and expansive indeed the better, but still a theory consistent with itself. He is to come as near to the truth as possible, wresting no fact, omitting no material point; and, since selection is necessary, to subordinate features according to their insignificance. All this supposes the work to be the History of England according to one man's reading and interpretation; and of course in its origin it can be nothing more. It only becomes of public character and importance by the adoption of a large or smaller public. Thus individual members of the community make their election of that which comes nearest to their idea of English History. If Macaulay does not meet their views, they have an alternative in Lingard or in Froude. If they are disposed to be eclectic, they will read all three. If they incline to be absurd, they will expect a historian to arise who shall make them all at one. The general character and influence of this History - or rather this historical fragment-will then be differently determined and prized, according to different political convictions. But surely we may all go far together. Every candid reader, for example, will acquit the author of unfairness. For our own part, we have arrived at this conclusion: the historian betrays a decided preference for certain political principles, but exercises a rigorous impartiality in respect of public characters. In fact, he has thus in detail offended many who in the main approve of his performance. He will call no man perfect, since he does not find perfection. Where his love of constitutional freedom attaches him to the agent of such blessing, his praise will be awarded upon that account. His duty is with public and not private virtues. Thus he has more to approve in William and more to condemn in Charles; but at the same time he allows that Charles was a faithful husband, and admits the "vices of the cold and stern William." But his impartiality might be 1 proved by a thousand instances, in which | ing equal, the historian and critic who is he points out the faults of those whom most familiar with the past will approve every personal feeling would lead him to himself the best instructor and guide of protect. The most striking instance we remember is not of a political description, but is quite as strong a testimony to his love of truth. We allude to the servility and corruption of Lord Bacon. No man could more admire, because none could better appreciate, the genius of this great philosopher. No man was so jealous of the dignity of arts and learning, or so conscious of the honor due to genius. Yet the same hand with equal firmness wrote the tribute of admiration and the sentence of disgrace. A weaker mind-a biographer more concerned for his protégé than for truth-a man, for instance, like Basil Montagu-makes lame and even dishonest apologies. But Macaulay was made of different material, or rather he was animated by a loftier motive. Who can say what pain he felt when the sacrifice was made, and like all others now to the end of time, he turned with a sickened heart "from the chequered spectacle of so much glory and so much shame ?" It has long been a disputed point whether the highest order of genius is more profited, or more encumbered and depressed, by great store of ancient learning. We may leave that question to be settled by the idle and the curious. It is certainly not much affected either way by the fact that the scholastic training of Mr. Macaulay was turned to the utmost advantage in his subsequent career. The fact itself is beyond dispute. It might be conjectured from the order of his mind; it may be proved by the character of his pursuits and the peculiar texture of his works. His intellect was one of the finest of the second order. He was born, not to create, but to arbitrate and arrange in the sphere of literary and historic truth. It may suffice for the poet to have the beauties of nature and the promptings of his human heart; but the critic, the historian, the political philosopher, needs material of another kind. The more he knows of what men and nations have said, and done, and suffered, and believed, the better. His judgment will still depend for value on the measure of his reason, the quickness of his intuitions, and the integrity of his purpose; no amount of learning will supply the place of these more personal gifts; but other things be his own and future generations. Mr. Macaulay was qualified for his undertaking by a thorough education and great store of acquired knowledge. He was learned in the common acceptation of the word, as well as in its larger and truer sense. His general acquisitions were reared upon a sound scholastic basis. His scholarship was nice and critical, like all the mental furniture of this eminent man; for his mind was delicate as well as powerful, and he set no value on the loose and vague and every way imperfect information with which for the most part even educated men rest satisfied. What he thought worth knowing, he thought worth knowing accurately; with the same precision he communicated what he knew, and would have scrupled as much to misspell an informer's name as to traduce a patriot's character. This habit of mind, this mutual propriety of thought and language, was doubtless contracted in his earliest studies; and may be traced in all his criticisms on Latin poetry and history. But all that he acquired in the strict course of collegiate study was as nothing to that which, with a genuine love of knowledge, and a rare appreciation of literature in all its forms, he eagerly pursued on every hand. Nothing seemed to escape his quiet and instinctive vigilance, and nothing came amiss to his omnivorous appetite and catholic taste. His knowledge extended to the small as well as to the great. He had none of that vulgar ignorance which despises vulgar knowledge and the knowledge of vulgar things. He drew many of his illustrations from the humblest source. He was familiar with the history of the obscurest sects. He understood the significance of trifles, and would sometimes quote a ballad as men throw up a straw, to show the direction of the popular feeling at a given time. In all this he had a serious object, a large and general design, to which the amusement of the reader was either subordinated or postponed. He did not lower the dignity of history, but imported into history the higher dignity of human nature. Both the admirers and depreciators of our author adduce the fact of his extraor dinary memory. With the one class, it is the meanest and lowest element of his intelligence; with the other, it is the secret of all his reputation and success. Forends in the disparagement of some useful ourselves, we attribute much to the prodi- member of the republic of letters; and no gious memory of Lord Macaulay; but we comparisons are so odious as those which have no hesitation in saying that in him it savor of ingratitude. For this reason we assumes the dignity of an intellectual shall rather indicate than act upon the faculty. His memory was the ready index opinion we have formed, that nothing of a capacious, well-stored, and well- would so tend to establish the great supeordered mind. The springs of such a riority of Lord Macaulay's writings as a memory the power that moves the comparison instituted betwixt them and finger of her dial-are in the wit and those of his most distinguished cotempowisdom of the mind itself. A fact, a raries. The reader may pursue this inparable, a verse, is always suggested on quiry by collating our author's History the right occasion, to illustrate a point or and Essays, with the analogous producto supply an apt and forcible analogy. tions of Southey, Mackintosh, and Hallam. Of course this is a very dangerous power; He may take respectively a page, an artibut he who has it in the highest degree cle, a volume of each. Let all superficial will be least disposed to abuse it. It is merits, all mere graces of style, go for noimpossible to demonstrate the measure of thing. Let him make no account of the fairness with which this striking faculty brilliance of the ore, but only of its quality was exercised by Lord Macaulay; for it and weight. He will then have to esti operates more or less in every page of his mate the amount of knowledge, of critical works, and affects even what is excluded discernment, of clear and full and honest as well as what is introduced. The appeal statement, of logical precision, of useful lies therefore to the works themselves, and and legitimate result. We will venture to the impression, as a whole, which they to say that a competent and candid judge leave upon the minds of competent and will admit that the Essays of Macaulay candid readers. may be safely weighed against all the works of Mr. Southey put together. We have no doubt that posterity will set a higher value upon the first volume of Macaulay's History than upon the whole historic writings of Mackintosh and Hallam. Upon our author's style we have already incidentally remarked. One secret of its charm is identical with the reason of its excessive and fatiguing brilliance. It abounds with special facts and details so disposed as to have the effect at once of truth and ornament. It is the extreme opposite to verbosity and diffuseness; and those who ascribe these qualities to our author's writings know not what they say. He employs rhetoric as auxiliary to logic, and illuminates his propositions by concrete examples. He has himself remarked (in the Essay on Addison) upon "the advantage which in rhetoric and poetry the particular has over the general," and his works bear witness that this maxim was always kept in mind. The effect of this brilliant and trenchant style is to leave the reader at the mercy of the author; and in so far it is highly dangerous and not quite legitimate. His defense must be that he has used an unlawful power to just and lawful ends. No man has put on record so many sound judgments, literary and political, in the same contracted limits. No writer has made over to the public the fruits of so much reading and so much reflection, on the mere condition that they receive and enjoy them. We do not altogether like the practice of drawing literary parallels. It mostly The critical and historical essay may be set down as the creation of Macaulay's genius. That which was purely critical had already attained great excellence in the hands of Jeffrey and of Smith, and that which was merely historical had been approved, if not admired, by the readers of Southey and Hallam. But that which was eminently both-in which the historical events and sequences were first elicited by critical sagacity, and then depicted with consummate art; that admirable form of composition in which history wears the vivid features of biography, and biography acquires the breadth and purpose of history, was certainly originated by Babington Macaulay. By him, also, it was brought quickly to perfection. In this rare art he has had many followers, but as yet no rival; and it is not easy to conceive that our posterity may welcome his superior. Another Paul Veronese may arise to make pale the glories of the old Venetian masters; but no historian in the future will ever outmatch the noble portrait of "Chatham," or tame down the splendid picture of "Warren Hastings." tone. The life of the younger Pitt is a Their political value is equal to their pic- most admirable summary of a character torial power. We believe that one of the full of difficulty, and a career more than lost books of Livy would be too dearly usually complicated and involved. Bunbought at the price of one of these Essays. yan, too, who was a favorite of our author, We have no doubt that these Essays will is very nicely handled. form a precious text-book for students when the Discourses of Machiavelli have no other memorial. We must say a few words on the little volume of Biographies, reprinted from the Encyclopædia since Lord Macaulay's death. With the exception of a further brief installment of the History, it is the only performance of the author which remains to be welcomed for the first time. It is so choice and beautiful in itself, that the interest of novelty is quite superfluous. Many volumes are read to the end with pleasure; but how few are there which we put down with positive regret! Yet this is one of them. The author makes biography more touching and more charming than romance. The fastidious Gray is said to have exclaimed: "Be it mine to lie upon a sofa, and read all day eternal new romances of Marivaux and CrebilIf he had lived till now, he might have substituted this little work, and been pardoned the luxurious wish. His plea sure would, however, had been very brief. The volume contains only five biographies -those of Atterbury, of Bunyan, of Goldsmith, of Johnson, and of Pitt. These are names for Lord Macaulay to conjure with; and accordingly the enchantment is very perfect. The author's skill is at its best, and his spirit of the mellowest But the memoir of Dr. Johnson is certainly the best. It is a model of condensed and clear and just biography - a portrait in mosaics, skillfully inlaid. We can not help alluding to the account which it gives of the death of that great man, partly because it supplies an omission of Boswell, but still more because it is an indication of the religious sentiments of our author. Every one has admired the beautiful description of the death-bed of Addison, in the Essay on the Life of that accomplished writer; but many have observed with regret the almost studied absence of One Name. There was a grateful recognition of God as the author of his being and guide of all his steps; but no distinct mention of the Saviour of men as the ob ject of his devout and final trust. At the death-bed of a gloomier genius there is given a ray of stronger light. The Christian admirers of Johnson may now read, in the frank and voluntary language of Ma caulay: "He ceased to think with terror of death, and of that which lies beyond death; and he spoke much of the mercy of God, and of the propitiation of Christ." There ought to be nothing strange or remarkable in this language; but consider ing the tone of general biography, and the usual reserve of our author, we are led to attach to it a very welcome significance. A second series of Useful Information for Engineers, by William Fairbairn, F.R.S., F.G.S., President of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, is preparing for publication, uniform with the first series, of which a new edition is likewise nearly ready. The second series, like the first, consists principally of lectures delivered at various Institutions, on Popular Education, and comprises, amongst other subjects, the Rise and Progress of Civil and Mechanical Engineering; the Machinery of Agriculture, and Treatise on the Strength of Iron Ships; the Density, Volume and Pressure of Steam at different Temperatures; the Laws which govern the Collapse of Tubes in reference to the Flues of Boilers, etc. The publishers are the Messrs. Longman. THE Akbar of Algiers states that in pulling down an old Arab house at Constantina, a few days since, the following inscription was found: "Oikoc koinha Fonteiorum." Though part of the stone was brok en off, the inscription appears entire. In the first line, which is in Greek characters, it presents the peculiarity of the last stroke of the N, serving also as the first of the H, (Eta.) It is not uncommon to find at Constantina mixed inscriptions of Latin and Greek, but the phrases in each language are generally complete; whereas in the present instance the first two words are Greek in language and character, and the last word Latin. The meaning of the inscription is "Sleeping-house of the Fonteil." MR. J. F. BARNETT, the pianist, of whose musical IT is said that Mr. Charles Dickens has made talents the German Press speaks in high terms, is $350,000 in the last ten years. about to return to England. |