ARTICLE IV. The History of England from the Accession of James II. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. York. Harpers, 1856. Vols. III. and IV. New The same. Vols. I. II. III. and IV. Complete in one volume. Philadelphia. E. H. Butler & Co. "The real medium of rectitude is not to be attained by geometrical measurement. Any one who studies to keep himself in every point just halfway between two contending parties, will probably be as often in the wrong as either of them." Archbishop Whately. The same great man to whom we are indebted for our motto remarks, that "the pursuit of religious truth is the noblest, as it is the most important pursuit, in which any human being can be engaged." We are constrained to remark, that Mr. Macaulay in his History of England, has been engaged in any thing else but this pursuit. We do not mean, of course, that he should have written a Church History. But if history be valuable at all, it is valuable because of the truth it contains. If the author treat upon anything, be it science, manners or religion, he should do it truthfully. Mr. Bancroft's History of the United States is greatly superior to Mr. Macaulay's History of England, in depth and consequently in truth. In saying this, we do not mean to commend Mr. Bancroft's great work unconditionally. No doubt it is ultra in its passion for the masses, and in its opinion that all is well if men only act from a position near to nature." But in its philosophy it is immeasurably the superior. Mr. Macaulay's theory is the infertile one of the doctrinaires, the Girondists, the opponents to all strong movement, the soi disant "respectable" and "golden mean" men, the antagonists to all "enthusiasm" and new ideas; in a word, the theory of the English Whig party, which takes a high aristocratic position in Church and State, and instead of governing for the good of the whole, skilfully ascertains the minimum of concession that will satisfy the rising demands of the people. It buys up by pensions, places and titles, the most dangerous, that is, the ablest men of the people, and absorbs them into its own substance, and so keeping its own elevated position, its boons of Reform are doled out to the people-when they can no longer be refused. There is much talent in this party and more cunning, but its distinguishing characteristic may be said to be its sneering opposition to all warm-hearted earnestness for the welfare of the whole people, for man as man, and above all, for the souls of men. It may be said in reply to this, that the Whig party has been par excellence, that of Reform, while the Tories have opposed improvement. The word Tory is an ugly one in America, and it is almost worth the reputation of any man to say a word in its favor; but this at least may be said, that with all its conservative ignorance and obstinacy, it has had characteristically a heart. Its love for the institutions of the country, in Church and State, has been sincere; its opinion that there ought to be, of divine right, classes, each of which should keep its place, and in so doing, while preserving order, render kind offices each to the other, honest; its loyalty has at least not been a cool calculation of expediency, but an out-gush from the affections. The English Whig of modern times takes his nil admirari position, half-way between the high church Tory and the Puritan, and considers both of them extremists and enthusiasts. But he is, after all, a barren creature. He can criticise. He can put into shape what the high Churchman, or the Puritan has created; but he produces nothing himself, for he has none of the conditions of creation in him, and if Providence gave a country up to the exclusive dominion of such men for centuries, it would become utterly intolerable for its frigidity. For it is wonderful how essential and everlasting truth makes itself felt, in its necessity, in the working of all things. The worst possible fault in man or woman, is want of heart. It is precisely so with parties, with churches, with nations. The prophet was dumb until his lips had been touched with a live coal from off the altar; a party with no great idea, loved and worshipped, will go to pieces; a nation when it ceases to be passionate, ceases to be valuable. When the Spirit broods upon the face of the waters, he begins his creative work by inVOL. V.-4. fusing heat; cold in the extremities, and making its way to the heart, is the sure sign that life is departing. Mr. Bancroft's history is full of living fire; it matters not so much if, as the exponent of a young nation, it be somewhat extravagant. The reader remembers the Hindoo-mentioned by Carlyle, in his exquisite essay on Burns, when the grim man was yet genial, and had not given himself up to mere growling-who said that no one was a true prophet, unless he had fire in his body to burn up the sins of mankind. Mr. Bancroft understands that from ideas and passions come everything valuable to mankind, and that though everlasting balancing and pruning is useful in its way, it is a smaller kind of usefulness. His manner, accordingly, of analyzing religions, is exceedingly noble. His theory is that ordinarily strong religious earnestness will not take possession of masses of men and keep that possession, will not found nations, or change or strongly color their character, unless there is something in the religion. He never dismisses a great and profound movement with contempt, because it is grotesque on the surface, or mixed up with many rude or absurd customs or notions. He understands that it is not the absurdity or falsehood in the movement but the truth and reality that is in it, that has accomplished the results. No one can listen to his account of the Puritans, of the Quakers, of the Presbyterians, of the Cavaliers, of the Huguenots, of the Baptists, without perceiving with admiration, that a clear-minded philosopher, and a warm-hearted man is reading to us the lessons that history should teach us. The historian should be a seer. We cannot refrain from remarking at this point, that in the production of men like Mr. Bancroft, the value of Americanism is seen. Our young men who go to Europe two or three times, gradually become assimilated to its artificial character, and begin to look with something very like contempt upon their plain, homely mother. One Bancroft is worth a legion of these dandies, who to secure a little exclusive rose-colored circle of their own, with pictures and statues and "refined" evolutions, would undo the American Revolution, and destroy our Constitution, the work of heroes and statesmen of whom the world was not worthy. An American can be Baconian without being Epicurean, he can read men without becoming cynic; he can labor hopefully and wisely to make every individual of a nation intelligent and virtuous, in the face of the failures of the old world. Sheer intellect is, it is true, a noble thing, and it is this which saves Mr. Macaulay. It is this, informed as it is by fancy which gleams its own glorious hue over his intellectual structures, that gives its surpassing interest to his history. In spite of our indignation, we are held captive. The truth and the error are so interfused, that we demand time to think it all over and see how it is that what we are sure must be wrong, seems to be right. Many receive the whole as simply true. That these volumes are a great improvement upon any other civil history of England, it would be extreme folly to deny, and for what has been done to enable us to arrive at the truth, we are duly thankful. Americans have an interest in this matter, almost as deep as Englishmen. In fact it is our own history. We have indicated the grand vice of Mr. Macaulay's mode of thinking. While its taint is upon the whole history, it is especially shown in that which lies particularly within the province of this Review, in its handlings of all matters appertaining to religion. As this is its most flagrant application, an exposure of it there, may serve to neutralize its influence wherever it appears. Mr. Macaulay is altogether too sharp-sighted a man not to perceive that, in all the period over which his history has yet passed, religion mingles in an extraordinary degree as a moulding power. If we should entitle his work, An Attempt, by a keen and learned Philosopher and Statesman, to write the History of England during the Reigns of James II and William III, giving to Religion its Minimum of Virtue and Influence,—we should give at least one true view of the book. How grievously this has disappointed those who remember the magnificent sketch of the Puritans in the Edinburgh Review, we need not say. We will venture, indeed, to state an impression, which we have not facts to verify, an impression drawn from internal evidence alone, that since the appearance of Mr. Macaulay's early Reviews, some influences of an external nature relating to fame, fortune, or position, have come in, possibly unknown in some measure to himself, to modify the finer, more earnest and truthful prepossessions and opinions of his earlier life. Certainly our disappointment at the whole method of treating religion, especially every thing relating to "dissenters;" the positively vulgar clinging to churchism merely because established; the mere "flunkey" flings, and mere courtier contempt of Quakers and Presbyterians, are as much below our hope of Thomas Babington Macaulay, as Nero the philosopher and poet, and Nero the fiddler, are unlike each other. And if one more ingredient were wanting to sour us into something which grows more like contempt than we wish, it is the treatment of Scotland by a descendant of Scottish men. Walter Scott spared us this pain, always. He was High Church and Tory, Episcopal and worldly, loving splendor and rank; yet not even Burns labored with a more heartfelt love "for puir auld Scotia's sake." It would have gone very hard with Scott to have cut down a thistle. And for this, myriads forgive him for forsaking the politics and religion of his fathers. But there is hardly a line in this History of England, touching Scotland, that we have not read with pain. Dr. Johnson, it seems to us, scarcely put more virulence into his dislike. But in Johnson we care not for it. It was natural in a man intensely English and Tory. We may as well begin our specifications with this point. If we can convict Mr. Macaulay of this-we had almost said-crime, our readers will be disabused of their disposition to receive his statements as infallible on other points. "Wherever," says Bancroft, "the stern creed of Calvin has prevailed, in Geneva, Holland, Scotland, Puritan New England, it has spread intelligence, severity of morals, love of freedom, and courage."* What is it that ennobles a country? Certainly it is not merely a rich soil, or a large population; not a splendid court or aristocratic institutions. A narrow country, with a small population, a rough climate and an ungenial soil, has filled the world with its fame, and all lands with intelligence, virtue and piety. From Scotland has come the most acute of metaphysicians, the most elegant of historians; while the whole world makes pilgrimage to the land, every one of whose rugged features has become romantic |