THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800-1859).

Macaulay's life is a remarkable story of successful endeavor. The son of a well-known philanthropist and anti-slavery agitator, he was a precocious boy, with a natural aptitude for literary composition and a phenomenal memory; he began a compendium of universal history at the age of seven, and repeated after a lapse of forty years a scrap of poetry he had read as a youth in a country newspaper and had not recalled in the interval; he knew Paradise Lost and Pilgrim's Progress by heart. He went in 1818 to Trinity College, Cambridge, and left with a fellowship which secured him a sufficient income for his personal wants for the next seven years. An essay on Milton he contributed to the Edinburgh Review in 1825 attracted the attention of the editor, Jeffrey, who said to him, 'The more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that style.' In 1830 he entered the House of Commons as member for Calne, and at once made his mark by a speech on the Reform Bill. The termination of his fellowship in 1831 put him in somewhat straitened circumstances, and he was obliged to sell the gold medals he had won at the university; but a way out of all financial difficulties was found in 1833 by his appointment as a member of the Supreme Council of India for five years at a salary of £10,000 a year. He did valuable work in India, reconstructing the educational system and drawing up a criminal code, beside doing an enormous amount of private reading. On his return home, he began his History of England, and published a collection of his essays, which at once obtained a very large sale. He was elected member for Edinburgh, and became Secretary for War, with a seat in the cabinet. The ministry fell in 1841, and in 1847 Macaulay was rejected by his constituency. He wrote a poem to the effect that literature had been his consolation under all the trials of life, of which,' says one biographer, it was rather difficult to make a respectable list.' The Edinburgh seat again becoming vacant, he was re-elected without any exertion on his part, but he adhered to his determination to give the rest of his life to literature. The first two volumes of his History were published in 1848, the third and fourth in 1855; from the first it enjoyed very great popularity, and his publishers sent him a check for £20,000. He was raised to the peerage, and buried in Westminster Abbey. He never married, but was devoted to his sisters and their children; his nephew, Sir G. O. Trevelyan, wrote his life, and has attained a considerable reputation as a politician and man of letters.

Macaulay has not Lamb's delicate humor, or De Quincey's philosophical imagination. He disliked speculation, and his idea of history was to present accumulated facts with the attractiveness of fiction. His worst fault is a tendency to emphasize the commonplace blackening the chimney,' Sir Leslie Stephen calls it - but his judgment is generally sound, as far as it goes. His style has no subtle harmonies, but is admirable for mechanical excellences — orderly arrangement of material, careful paragraphing, and absolute clearness of statement. In these points he offers a better model for young writers than De Quincey, Carlyle, Ruskin, and other masters of a more elaborate style.

THE ROMANCE OF HISTORY The best historians of later times have been seduced from truth, not by their imagination, but by their reason. They far excel their predecessors in the art of deducing general principles from facts. But unhappily they have fallen into the error of distorting facts to suit general principles. They arrive at a theory from looking at Some of the phenomena; and the remaining phenomena they strain or curtail to suit the theory. For this purpose it is

and evil: a little exaggeration, a little suppression, a judicious use of epithets, a watchful and searching scepticism with respect to the evidence on one side, a convenient credulity with respect to every report or tradition on the other, may easily make a saint of Laud, or a tyrant of Henry IV.

This species of misrepresentation

composed a philosophic romance for a society which had in the interval undergone a complete change. It was all Greek, and all true! The centuries! which separated Plutarch from Thucydides seemed as nothing to men who lived: in an age so remote. The distance of time produced an error similar to that which is sometimes produced by distance of place. There are many good ladies who think that all the people in India live together, and who charge a friend setting out for Calcutta with kind messages to Bombay. To Rollin and Bar

abounds in the most valuable works of 10 ent and him who five hundred years after modern historians. Herodotus tells his story like a slovenly witness, who, heated by partialities and prejudices, unacquainted with the established rules of evidence, and uninstructed as to the 15 obligations of his oath, confounds what he imagines with what he has seen and heard, and brings out facts, reports, conjectures, and fancies, in one mass. Hume is an accomplished advocate. 20 Without positively asserting much more than he can prove, he gives prominence to all the circumstances which support his case; he glides lightly over those which are unfavorable to it; his own 25 thelemi, in the same manner, all the, witnesses are applauded and encouraged; the statements which seem to throw discredit on them are controverted; the contradictions into which they fall are

classics were contemporaries.

Mr. Mitford certainly introduced great improvements; he showed us that men who wrote in Greek and Latin sometimes

explained away; a clear and connected 30 told lies; he showed us that ancient

history might be related in such a manner as to furnish not only allusions to! schoolboys, but important lessons to; statesmen. From that love of theatrical!

abstract of their evidence is given. Everything that is offered on the other side is scrutinized with the utmost severity; every suspicious circumstance is a ground for comment and invective; what 35 effect and high-flown sentiment which cannot be denied is extenuated, or passed by without notice; concessions even are sometimes made: but this insidious candor only increases the effect of the vast mass of sophistry.

had poisoned almost every other work on the same subject his book is perfectly free. But his passion for a theory as false, and far more ungenerous, led him 40 substantially to violate truth in every! page. Statements unfavorable to democracy are made with unhesitating confidence, and with the utmost bitterness of language. Every charge brought against a monarch or an aristocracy is sifted with the utmost care. If it cannot be denied, some palliating supposition is suggested; or we are at least reminded that some circumstances now unknown may have justified what at present appears unjustifiable. Two events are reported by the same author in the same sentence; their truth rests on the same testimony, but the one supports the darling hypothesis, and the other seems inconsistent with it. The one is taken and the other is left.

We have mentioned Hume as the ablest and most popular writer of his class; but the charge which we have brought against him is one to which all our most distinguished historians are in some degree 45 obnoxious. Gibbon, in particular, deserves very severe censure. Of all the numerous culprits, however, none is more deeply guilty than Mr. Mitford. We willingly acknowledge the obligations which 50 are due to his talents and industry. The modern historians of Greece had been in the habit of writing as if the world had learned nothing new during the last sixteen hundred years. Instead of illus-55 trating the events which they narrated by the philosophy of a more enlightened

of eminent ability, lie unread on the shelves of ostentatious libraries.

The practice of distorting narrative into a conformity with theory is a vice not so unfavorable as at first sight it may appear to the interests of political science. We have compared the writers who in- 5 dulge in it to advocates; and we may add that their conflicting fallacies, like those of advocates, correct each other. It has always been held, in the most enlightened nations, that a tribunal will de- 10 selves a code of conventional decencies

cide a judicial question most fairly when
it has heard two able men argue, as un-
fairly as possible, on the two opposite
sides of it; and we are inclined to think
that this opinion is just. Sometimes, it 15
is true, superior eloquence and dexterity
wil make the worse appear the better
reason; but it is at least certain that the
judge will be compelled to contemplate
the case under two different aspects. It 20
is certain that no important considera-
tion will altogether escape notice.

This is at present the state of history. The poet laureate appears for the Church of England, Lingard for the Church of 25 Rome. Brodie has moved to set aside the verdicts obtained by Hume; and the cause in which Mitford succeeded is, we understand, about to be reheard. In the midst of these disputes, however, history 30 proper, if we may use the term, is disappearing. The high, grave, impartial summing up of Thucydides is nowhere to be found.

The writers of history seem to entertain an aristocratical contempt for the writers of memoirs. They think it beneath the dignity of men who describe the revolutions of nations to dwell on the details which constitute the charm of biography. They have imposed on them

as absurd as that which has been the bane of the French drama. The most characteristic and interesting circumstances are omitted or softened down, because, as we are told, they are too trivial for the majesty of history. The majesty of history seems to resemble the majesty of the poor King of Spain, who died a martyr to ceremony because the proper dignitaries were not at hand to render him assistance.

That history would be more amusing if this etiquette were relaxed will, we suppose, be acknowledged. But would it be less dignified or less useful? What do we mean when we say that one past event is important and another insignificant? No past event has any intrinsic importance. The knowledge of it is valuable only as it leads us to form just calculations with respect to the future. A history which does not serve this purpose, though it may be filled with battles, treaties, and commotions, is as useless as the series of turnpike tickets collected by Sir Matthew Mite.

While our historians are practising all 35 the arts of controversy, they miserably neglect the art of narration, the art of interesting the affections and presenting pictures to the imagination. That a writer may produce these effects without 40 violating truth is sufficiently proved by many excellent biographical works. The immense popularity which well-written books of this kind have acquired deserves the serious consideration of historians. 45 us the wise and lofty self-government of

Let us suppose that Lord Clarendon, instead of filling hundreds of folio pages with copies of state papers in which the same assertions and contradictions are repeated till the reader is overpowered with weariness, had condescended to be the Boswell of the Long Parliament. Let us suppose that he had exhibited to

Hampden, leading while he seemed to follow, and propounding unanswerable arguments in the strongest forms with the modest air of an inquirer anxious for information; the delusions which misled the noble spirit of Vane; the coarse fanaticism which concealed the yet loftier genius of Cromwell, destined to control a mutinous army and a factious people,

Voltaire's Charles the Twelfth, Marmontel's Memoirs, Boswell's life of Johnson, Southey's account of Nelson, are perused with delight by the most frivolous and indolent. Whenever any tolerable 50 book of the same description makes its appearance, the circulating libraries are mobbed; the book societies are in commotion; the new novel lies uncut; the magazines and newspapers fill their col- 55 to abase the flag of Holland, to arrest

unins with extracts. In the meantime histories of great empires, written by men

the victorious arms of Sweden, and to hold the balance firm between the rival

(= BIAS)

monarchies of France and Spain. Let us
suppose that he had made his Cavaliers
and Roundheads talk in their own style;
that he had reported some of the ribaldry
of Rupert's pages, and some of the cant
of Harrison and Fleetwood. Would not
his work in that case have been more
interesting? Would it not have been
more accurate?

as rich, as well governed, and as well educated at the latter period as at the former. We have read books called Histories of England, under the reign of 5 George the Second, in which the rise of Methodism is not even mentioned. A hundred years hence this breed of authors will, we hope, be extinct. If it should still exist, the late ministerial interregnum will be described in terms which will seem to imply that all government was at end; that the social contract was annulled; and that the hand of every man, was against his neighbor until the wisdom! and virtue of the new cabinet educed order out of the chaos of anarchy. Wel are quite certain that misconceptions as gross prevail at this moment respecting many important parts of our annals.

A history in which every particular 10
incident may be true may on the whole
be false. The circumstances which have
most influence on the happiness of man-
kind, the changes of manners and morals,
the transition of communities from pov- 15
erty to wealth, from knowledge to igno-
rance, from ferocity to humanity - these
are, for the most part, noiseless revolu-
tions. Their progress is rarely indicated
by what historians are pleased to call 20
important events. They are not achieved
by armies, or enacted by senates. They
are sanctioned by no treaties, and re-
corded in no archives. They are carried
on in every school, in every church, be- 25
hind ten thousand counters, at ten thou-
sand firesides. The upper current of
society presents no certain criterion by
which we can judge of the direction in
which the under current flows. We read 30
of defeats and victories. But we know
that nations may be miserable amidst
victories and prosperous amidst defeats.
We read of the fall of wise ministers and
of the rise of profligate favorites. But 35
we must remember how small a propor-
tion the good or evil effected by a single
statesman can bear to the good or evil
of a great social system.

The effect of historical reading is analogous, in many respects, to that produced by foreign travel. The student, like the tourist, is transported into a new state of society. He sees new fashions. He hears new modes of expression. His mind is enlarged by contemplating the wide diversities of laws, of morals and of manners. But men may travell far, and return with minds as contracted as if they had never stirred from their own market-town. In the same manner. men may know the dates of many battlesi and the genealogies of many royal houses. and yet be no wiser. Most people look at past times as princes look at foreign countries. More than one illustrious stranger has landed on our island amidst the shouts of a mob, has dined with the King, has hunted with the master of the

Bishop Watson compares a geologist to 4° stag-hounds, has seen the Guards rea gnat mounted on an elephant, and laying down theories as to the whole internal structure of the vast animal, from the phenomena of the hide. The comparison is unjust to the geologists; but is 45 very applicable to those historians who write as if the body politic were homogeneous, who look only on the surface of affairs, and never think of the mighty and various organization which lies deep 50 below.

viewed, and a knight of the garter in-1 stalled, has cantered along Regent Street., has visited Saint Paul's, and noted down its dimensions; and has then departed, thinking that he has seen England. He has, in fact, seen a few public buildings, public men, and public ceremonies. But of the vast and complex system of society, of the fine shades of national character, of the practical operation of government and laws, he knows nothing. In the works of such writers as these, He who would understand these things England, at the close of the Seven Years' rightly must not confine his observations War, is in the highest state of prosperity: to palaces and solemn days. He must see at the close of the American war she 55 ordinary men as they appear in their is in a miserable and degraded condition; ordinary business and in their ordinary as if the people were not on the whole pleasures. He must mingle in the crowds

He

of the exchange and the coffee-house. He must obtain admittance to the convivial table and the domestic hearth. must bear with vulgar expressions. He must not shrink from exploring even the retreats of misery. He who wishes to understand the condition of mankind in former ages must proceed on the same principle. If he attends only to public transactions, to wars, congresses, and de- ro Scornfully thrown behind them in a man

painted window, which was made by an apprentice out of the pieces of glass which had been rejected by his master. It is so far superior to every other in 5 the church, that, according to the tradition, the vanquished artist killed himself from mortification. Sir Walter Scott, in the same manner, has used those fragments of truth which historians have

bates, his studies will be as unprofitable as the travels of those imperial, royal and serene sovereigns who form their judgment of our island from having gone in state to a few fine sights, and from 15 having held formal conferences with a few great officers.

The perfect historian is he in whose work the character and spirit of an age

ner which may well excite their envy. He has constructed out of their gleanings works which, even considered as histories, are scarcely less valuable than theirs. But a truly great historian would reclaim those materials which the novelist has appropriated. The history of the government, and the history of the people, would be exhibited in that mode in which

is exhibited in miniature. He relates no 20 alone they can be exhibited justly, in

inseparable conjunction and intermixture. We should not then have to look for the wars and votes of the Puritans in Clarendon, and for their phraseology in Old Mortality; for one half of King James in Hume, and for the other half in the Fortunes of Nigel.

fact, he attributes no expression to his characters, which is not authenticated by sufficient testimony. But, by judicious selection, rejection, and arrangement, he gives to truth those attractions which 25 have been usurped by fiction. In his narrative a due subordination is observed: some transactions are prominent; others The early part of our imaginary history retire. But the scale on which he repre- would be rich with coloring from rosents them is increased or diminished, not 3o mance, ballad, and chronicle. We should according to the dignity of the persons find ourselves in the company of knights concerned in them, but according to the such as those of Froissart, and of pildegree in which they elucidate the con- grims such as those who rode with dition of society and the nature of man. Chaucer from the Tabard. Society He shows us the court, the camp, and the 35 would be shown from the highest to the senate. But he shows us also the nation. lowest,- from the royal cloth of state to He considers no anecdote, no peculiarity the den of the outlaw; from the throne of manner, no familiar saying, as too of the Legate to the chimney-corner insignificant for his notice which is not where the begging friar regaled himtoo insignificant to illustrate the opera- 40 self. Palmers, minstrels, crusaders, the tion of laws, of religion, and of educa- stately monastery, with the good cheer in tion, and to mark the progress of the its refectory and the high-mass in its human mind. Men will not merely be de- chapel,- the manor-house, with its huntscribed, but will be made intimately ing and hawking,- the tournament, with known to us. The changes of manners 45 the heralds and ladies, the trumpets and will be indicated, not merely by a few the cloth of gold,-would give truth and general phrases or a few extracts from life to the representation. We should statistical documents, but by appropriate perceive, in a thousand slight touches, the images presented in every line. importance of the privileged burgher, and the fierce and haughty spirit which swelled under the collar of the degraded villain. The revival of letters would not merely be described in a few magnificent periods. We should discern, in innumerable particulars, the fermentation mind, the eager appetite for knowledge, which distinguished the sixteenth from

If a man, such as we are supposing, 50 should write the history of England, he would assuredly not omit the battles, the sieges, the negotiations, the seditions, the ministerial changes. But with these he would intersperse the details which are 55 the charm of historical romances. At Lincoln Cathedral there is a beautiful

of