FY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARt Y IF CUIFIRaU /^' '■: ^^^ ^^'^3(9 LORD MACAULAY.* The biography of Lord Macaulay belongs rather to the history of Literature than to that of Natural Philo- sojDhy : he takes his proper place among the statesmen, orators^ poets,- essayists, historians of England, not among her men of science. With a mind so active and mde-ranging, he could not but take deep interest in the progress and in the marvellous discoveries of modern science; but he was content to accept those results on the authority of others, and to dwell on their political and social consequences, rather than him- self to follow out their slow and laborious processes, for which, indefatigable as he was, he had no time, probably no inclination. Yet the annals of the Koyal Society, which has ever been proud to enrol among its members statesmen and men of letters of the highest eminence, cannot pass over in silence a name so illus- trious as that of Lord Macaulay. * This memoir was written at the request of the President (Sir B. Brodie) and some members of the Council, for the Annual Journal of the Royal Society. Should a more full and copious biogi-aphy of Lord Macaulay, at any future time, be thought advisable, this brief sketcli Avill at once cede its place. In the meantime, it may be acceptable to the readers of Lord Macaulay's works, Avho will be naturally desirous to knoAv something of his public and his private life. a3 b A MEMOm OF TnoxrAS Babington Macaulay was bom October 25, 1800, at Rothley Temple in Leicestershire, the seat of his paternal uncle, Thomas Bal3inn;ton. His fother, Zachary ]\lacaulay, resided at Clapham, one of those earnest and zealous men avIio, with j\Ir. Wilberforce, led the way in the strong religious reaction which fol- lowed the French Revolution, and whom posterity will honour as among the earliest and most steady adver- saries of the African Slave Trade, the advocates of the Emancipation of the Negroes in our Colonies. The perjietual agitation of such questions, invohdng the most sacred principles of human liberty, could not be without its effect on the precocious mind of the young ]\Iacaulay. Perhaps to his birth and training in that school he OAved in some degree his command of biblical illustration, which, however, his strong sense and sober judgement always kept within the limits of serious and resjDectful reverence. Family traditions, happily only traditions, of his carl}^ promise, of his childish attempts at composition in^rose and verse, were not lilvcly to bo lost among a strong religious party, bound together by common sympathies, and mamtaining an active corre- s])ondence throughout the country. The fame of young Macaulay reached the ears of Hannah j\[ore, and, after receiving a visit from him, the High Priestess of the brotherhood, in an agreeable letter, still extant, uttered an oracle predictive of his future greatness. After a few yeai"s of instruction at a small school in Clapham, at the age of twelve he was placed under the care of the Rev. Mr. Preston, first at Shelford, afterwards near Buntingford, in the neighljourhood of Cambridge. Mr. Preston seems to have. been a man of attainments and LORD MACAULAY. jiidgcment. He must have taught the Latin and Greek authors extremely Avell, for under his instruction Macaulay became a sound and good scholar. He did more, lie fostered that love for the great classical writers^ without which all study is barren and without durable impression. He respected too that great maxim, that no one is so well taught as by himself. Having given or strengthened the impulse, he left the young scholar to his own insatiable avidity for learning, and for books of all kinds. The schoolboy sent an anonymous defence of novel reading to the serious journal of his father's friends, the " Christian Observer," ^vhich was inserted. This passion for novel reading adhered to him to the last ; he swept the whole range, not only of English but of foreign fiction, not without great profit to the future historian. The higher tastes which he then imbibed were equally indelible; his admiration of the unrivalled writers of Greece and Kome grew deeper to the close of his life. Homer and Thucydides, aud Tacitus, remained among his constant and familiar studies, and no doubt, without controlling him to servile unitation, exercised a powerful influence on his mode of composition and on his style. Among his father's friends holding the same religious opinions, was Isaac Milner, Dean of Carlisle, and Master of Queen's College, a man with a singular union of j)ro- found mathematical acquirements, strong eva-ngelical views, and a peculiar broad humour. During liis ^dsits to Milner at Cambridge, Macaulay acquired that strong attachment to the University, which, like his other attachments, seemed to become more strong and fervent Avith the progress of years. a 4 8 A MEMOIR OF Tn liis nineteenth year ho began his residence at Trinity College, Cambndgc. His career at Cnnibridge "svas not quite so brilliant as the sanguine expectations of his friends had foretold. He had a repugnance for mathematics, or rather lie was under the jealous and absorbing spell of more congenial studies. That repug- nance in after life was a subject of much regret ; he fully recognised the importance, almost the necessity, of such studies for perfect education. Even his scholar- ship, probably far more extensive, wanted tliat exquisite polish and nicety acquired only at our great public schools, from which came his chief rivals. He carried awa}", however, the Craven Scholarship, two prizes for English verse, and finally, the object of his highest ambition, a Fellowship of Trinity College. On this success he dwelt to the close of his life with pride. It gratified two of his strongest feeluigs, — attachment to Cambiidge, and the desire of some independent pro- vision which should enable him to enter on his profes- sional career. On the inestimable advantages of such fellowships to young men of high promise and ability but of scanty means, he always insisted with great earnestness, and deprecated any change in the acade- mical system whicli should diminish the number of such foundations, held, as he would recount with his unfail- ing memory, by so many of our first public men. The Law was the profession he chose ; he was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Lm, February 1826 ; he took chambers, he I'cad, he joined the Northern Circuit. But literature was too strong for law. His legal studies were no doubt of infinite value ; they were in truth indispensable for his historical writings, and were here- LORD IHACAULAY. 9 after to bear fruit in a sphere which his wildest imagi- nation could not anticipate. He had received, indeed, from the discerning judgment of Lord Lpidhurst, a Commissionership of Bankrupts, 1827. No doubt his Cambridge fame and general promise recommended him for that office. But it was to letters that he was to owe his first opening to public life. In letters he had begun Avith modest contributions to a magazine, " Knight's Quarterly," of no great circulation, but which was mamly supported by some of his • Cambridge friends : in this appeared some of his finest ballads. On a sudden he broke out with an article on Milton in the "Edinburgh Review," which perhaps excited greater attention than any article Avhich had ever appeared, not immediately connected with the politics of the day. Taking the field in the same pages mth the brilliant copiousness of Jeffrey, the vigorous and caustic versa- tility of Brougham, the inimitable wit and drollery and sound sense of Sydney Smith, to say nothing of the writers in the rival " Quarterly Journal," the young reviewer had struck out his own path. In compre- hensiveness of knowledge, in the originality and boldness of his views, in mastery over the whole history and the life of the eventful times of Milton, in variety and felicity of illustration, in vigour, fulness, and vivacity of style, he seemed to make an epoch and a revolution in review- writing. Up to this time, with some excellent excep- tions, the articles in reviews had confined themselves to notices, more or less excursive, of new books, and to discussions of the political or polemic questions of the day. The article now aspired to be a full dissertation on the history of any great period, on the life of any a 5 10 A MEMOIR OF great man of any time, on the writings, on the influence, on the merits of authors of the highest fame. From a re\^ew it became an historical, biographical, philo- sophical essay. This paper was followed by others of equal, some perhaps of superior excellence, each opening a new \ievf into the vast range of the author's reading, showing his boldness and independence of judgement, the wonderful stores of his memory, his prodigality, sometimes per- haps uncontrolled, of allusion, illustration, similitude. A young Wliig, of high and blameless character, popular with his friends, with the reputation of oratorical power in the debating rooms at Cambridge (he delivered one speech in London, we believe, at an Anti- Slavery Meeting, which made some noise), and the acknowledged author of such articles in one of the two popular journals of the day, could not but command the attention, and awaken the hopes of his party. If ever there was a nobleman a patron of letters from a deep and genuine and discriminating love of letters, it was Lord Lans- downe. Lord Lansdowne offered a seat in Parliament to the author of the admirable articles in the "Edinburgh Review." On the acceptance of this offer there could be no hesitation ; his political opinions were in the strictest unison with Lord LansdoAvne's. Few public men have been so calmly, deliberately true to their first political opinions as ]\Iacaulay. Unquestionably, change of political opmions, on full unselfish conviction, accord- ing to change of circumstances, may be the noblest act of moral courage, especially in the face of obloquy and misrepresentation. The best men may become ^viser as they grow older. But to this trial Macaulay was never LORD MACAULAY. 11 subjected, lie was never called upon to this effort of self-sacriJSce. He was a liberal in the hiohest and widest sense ; some may think that he carried these views too far, some not far enough. But during life he was un- swerving, without vacillation. The line which he di'ew between constitutional liberty and democracy in his early speeches on Reform and on the Charter, was precisely the same with that which he drew late in life, in a remarkable letter on the prospects and probable destmy of the United States of America. Four years after he had been called to the bar, in 1830, Macaulay was returned to Parliament for Calne. His public life had now commenced. That public life it may be convenient briefly to survey in its several phases, as statesman, orator, poet, essayist, historian. Such was his remarkable variety and versatility. Very few men, indeed, have achieved great things in such dif- ferent kinds of excellence. In Parliament he had too much wisdom, too much self-respect, too much respect for his auditory (an au- ditory just in the main but severe, sometimes capricious in its justice, and jealous above all even of merit, if obtrusive, importunate, or too self-confident), to thrust himself forward at once mto the foremost ranks. Till the Reform Bill he was content to try his arms on rare occasions ; he would not waste his power on desultory skirmishes and on trivial subjects. Upon that mo- mentous question, the Reform of 1832, he first put forth his strength. But of his speeches hereafter. The re- putation acquired during these debates secured hhn a seat in Parliament, independent even on generous and unexacting friendship ; he was returned, December, a6 12 A RIEMOIR or 1832, for the wealthy and populous borough of Leeds, enfranchised by the Keform Bill. In the year 1834, a great, and no doubt unexpected change took place in his prospects, it might seem in his destination. In 1832 he had accepted the office of Secretary to the Board of Control. In his official capacity (in 1834) he made a speech on the renewal of the Indian Charter, a speech Avhich may be read in no unfavourable com- parison -with Burke's most splendid orations. In breadth and comprehensiveness of view it may compete, in ful- ness and accuracy surpass, in richness of diction rival the renowned orator ; of course, as the occasion was so different, it had nothing of the passion, the terrible picturesqueness, the vituperation; but it had calm statesmanship, and philosophical, or rather, perhaps, historical thought. This speech of itself might seem to designate him to the Government as a member of the New Council which was to legislate for India. The offer was made. The vast field of India was of itself likely to seize on his imagination ; he might aspire to be the legislator, as Heber the religious missionaiy, of that wonderful realm. He had many friends, the family of Grant especially (the present Lord Glenelg Avas the President of the Board of Control), closely connected with India ; how much he had read or thought on the subject, his papers on Clive and Hastmgs (written later) may, nevertheless, bear testunony. Still, no doubt, prudential motives, and those of no ungenerous jDru- dence, influenced his determination. By a few j^ears of economy, careful but not illiberal, he might make a provision for his future life (he was a man with no expensive or prodigal habits) which might place him LORD MACAULAY. 13 above dependence either on the servitude of office, or the servitude of literary labour. There was another incentive — his family had never been affluent. He might add to the comforts and assist in the advance- ment of those to whom he was attached by the strongest domestic affections, a duty which he discharged with unsparing generosity. In India he took his seat as Member of the Council and as President of the Law Commission. It has been supposed, and indeed as- serted, that this legislative mission was barren and without result ; now, however, it is bearing its mature fruits. After much, perhaps inevitable, delay and re- peated revisions, the Indian Crimmal Code, in the formation of which he took a leading part, and which he had enriched with most valuable explanatory notes, will, with some alterations, and those not substantial, from January 1862 have the force of law throughout British India. Macaulay's share in this great work, especially his notes, is declared by those who have a right to judge on such subjects, to have placed his reputation as a jurist on a solid foundation. It is the first, and therefore the most important, of a series of operations upon the judicial system of India, which will have a great effect upon the state of society in that country; and will not be without influence upon the jurisprudence of England. Soon after his return to England in 1838, in January 1840, he was elected by acclamation, representative of the city of Edinburgh ; that seat he fiUed undisturbed till July 1847. He had already been named on the Privy Council, and had accepted the office of Se- cretary at War. He was Secretary at War, with a seat a7 14 A MEMOIR OF ill tlie cabinet, aljout two years, from 1839 to 1841. On the return of his friends to power, he became, July 1 2, 1846, Pa}nnaster of the Forces. But throughout this period of his life the great in- ward struggle was going on "svithm his mmd between the ambition of public usefuhiess, of parliamentary and official distinction, and the love of letters, which will rarely brook a rival on the throne, the still higher ambition, as he thought, of adding some great work to the treasures of English thought and English literature. In the office at Whitehall or the Horse Guards, on the benches of the House of Commons, amid the ap- plauses or admiring silence of the House, his heart was in his library, and among his books. He yearned for a place not so much among the great parliamentary leaders and the famous statesmen of the land, the Chathams, Burkes, Foxs, as among the immortal writers in verse and prose, the Miltons, Clarendons, Addisons, Gibbons. The auditory which he coveted was that vast expanding world throughout which the English language is spoken ; the fame, that which will only die with the death of English letters. Throughout the whole time of his absence from England, on his voyage to India and on his return, in India, as far as leisure would allow, and during his parliamentary and official career, he was still with his indefatigable industry heaping up stores of knowledge, stores which could not overload his capacious and retentive memory, — me- mory, whose grasp and self-command seemed to expand with its accumulating treasures, — memory which dis- dained nothing as beneath it, and was never perplexed or burdened by its incalculable possessions. As a cu» LORD MACAULAY. 15 rioiis instance of his range and activity of reading, among the books which he took with him to India, were the many huge volumes of St. Chrysostom's works. Tlieir still almost pure and harmonious Greek, and their importance in the history of religious opinion (always a subject of deep interest), carried him through a task which has been achieved hy few professional theologians. As an illustration of his powers of me- mory, he has said, and he was a most unboastful man, that if Milton's great poem were lost, he thought that he could accurately commit to writing at least all the first books of Paradise Lost. •■^This life-long inward strife, which perhaps might liaA'e remained unreconciled till towards the close of his days, came to a sudden and unexpected issue. At the election in 1847, Macaulay was the rejected candidate for the city of Edinburgh. Nor can it be denied, though those who admire Macaulay will not admire him the less, that he was accessory to his own failure. The event turned on a religious question, in which Edin- burgh, true to its old Scotch prejudices, adhered to the less liberal "view. Macaulay could not be persuaded to humour, to temporise, even to conciliate. He took the loftiest tone, boldly, indignantly rebuked the voters for their narrow, in his estimation, discreditable bigotry. He felt, there can be no doubt, this blow at the time bitterl3^ He was perhaps not suited for, he had never before been tried in the rough and coarse work of the popular canvass and the hustings ; he was distressed at the desertion or the lukewarmness of friends; he was ashamed, as he openly declared, of the disgrace which Edinburgh inflicted on herself. In a striking poem. in A MEMOIR OF recently published, in which are some of the finest stanzas in the language, he gave full vent to his feelings of indignation and sorrow. But at the same time, and in the same poem, he finds and expresses his lofty sense of consolation. The great debate was ended; he was released; he was emancipated from public, from par- liamentary life. He might retire with dignity and honour to the undisturbed, undistracted cultivation of letters ; henceforth his study was his scene of action ; literary fame was to be the undi^dded mistress of his aft'ections, his earthly exceeding great reward. Edin- burgh made a few years after noble amends by return- ing Macaulay (at the election in 1852) without soli- citation, without expense, even without the usual flattery of a personal canvass; he had but to appear, to accept, and return thanks for his ovation. He sat for Edinburgh from July 1852 to 1856. But he sat ^vith- out the trammels, Avithout the least desire of office : he spoke rarely, but never without effect. In 1856, failing liealth compelled him to resign that honourable post. Some other honours, but honours which belonged to a man of letters, awaited him and courted his acceptance. He was Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1848; Trustee of the British Museum, February 1847 (an office which he highly esteemed, and to which he attended with much assiduity, and -with great public juh'antage) ; Fellow of the Royal Society, November 1 849 ; Foreign Member of the French Academy, May 1857, and of the Prussian Order of Merit (1857); High Steward of Cambridge (1857). In the same year he was raised to the peerage, a tribute to his high and blameless character and transcendent literaiy dis- LORD MACAULAY. 17 tinctioii, and an act of royal favour, quite unexpected, but liiglily approved by all whose approbation was of real value. So for our imperfect sketch has exhibited Lord Macaulay as a public man, as a jurist, and as a states- man; some words must follow as to his rank as an orator. It is remarkable how rarely in this country the famous and commanding public speaker, either in parliament or even at the bar, and the great writer, have met in the same person. Bolingbroke, Burke, and Macaulay (the unrivalled comedies of Sheridan, the State Papers and exquisite political satires of Canning are hardly in point) stand perhaps alone. If all the writings of Chatham, Pit, Fox, Erskine, Peel, had been suppressed, the world would have suffered no great loss. Macaulay had no thought of resting his fame on his parliamentary speeches ; he would ivdllmgly have left them to the rarely visited cemetery of the parliamentary history. He was placed under compul- sion by the act of a piratical bookseller, who printed many of them (insinuating that he did so by authority) bristling with blunders, bad English, loose argument, errors and mistakes about events and persons, every- thing most abhorrent to Macaulay's taste and judge- ment. He was under the necessity of publishing a more trustworthy edition. We confess some gratitude for this bad act of the unprincipled Curll of our days, for some of these speeches appear to us oratorical compositions of the highest order. By all accounts Macaulay's delivery was far too rapid to be impressive ; it wanted also variety and flexibility of intonation. Even the most practised reporters panted after him in 18 A IvrEMOIR OF vain ; how much more the slower intellects of country gentlemen and the mass of the House ! This, however, only heightens our astonishment that s^^eeches so full, so profoundly meditated, yet with so much freedom, with no appearance of bemg got by heart, with such prodigality of illustration and allusion, should be poured forth with such unhesitating flow, with such beA\nlder- ing quickness of utterance. To read them Avith de- light and profit, we read them rather slowly; we can hardly conceive that they were spoken less delibe- rately. It may be questioned, and has been questioned, whether Macaulay was, or could have become, a masterly debater. This accomplishment, except in rare examples, is acquired only by long use and prac- tice. When Macaulay entered the House, the first places were filled by men of established influence and much parliamentary training. Even if he had felt called upon to make himself more prominent, it may be doubted whether he could have sufficiently curbed his impetuous energy, or checked his torrent of words. He would have found it difficult to assume the stately, prudent, reserved, compressed reply; he might have torn his adversaries' arguments to shreds, but he would not have been content without a host of other argu- ments, and so would have destroyed the effect of his own confutation. Still it is remarkable that on two occasions a speech of Macaulay's actually turned the vote of the House, and carried the question (a very rare event) in his o^Til wa}^, — the debate on the Copyright Act, and the question of Judges holding seats in the House of Commons. Though he took his seat. Lord Macaulay never spoke in the House of Peers ; he went LORD MACAULAY. 19 do^vTi, we believe, more than once, with the intention of speaking, but some unexpected turn in the debate deprived him of his opportunity ; his friends, who knew the feeble state of his health at that time, were almost rejoiced at their disappointment in not hearing him in that which would have been so congenial a field for his studied and matured eloquence. As a poet the fame of Macaulay rests, with the excep- tion of the stanzas above alluded to, and one or two small pieces, on his Ballads, his " Lays of Eome," his "Armada," his "Cavalier" and " Cromwellian," and his " Ivry," and " Moncontour." In other departments of poetry he might have been endangered by his affluence and prodigality ; his prize poems, and some of his early writings betray the danger. But the essence of the ballad, of popular poetry (for which in all its forms, from the Prince of ballad writers. Homer, to the common street ballad, which he caught up instan- taneously, and could repeat by the score, he had an absolute passion), is simplicity — simplicity not incon- sistent with the utmost picturesqueness, with the richest word-painting. Its whole excellence is in raj)idity of movement, short, sudden transition, sharp, emphatic touches of tenderness, or of the pathetic, in above all, life, unreposing, unflagging, vigorous, stirring life ; with words enough, but not an idle word, words which strike home to the heart, and rivet themselves on the memory ; a cadence which enthralls and will not die away from the ear. The popularity of Macaulay's ballads is the best proof of their excellence ; they have become the burden of a host of imitators. Popularity may be a bad test of some of the higher kinds of poetry. Dante, 20 A MEMOIR OF Milton, Shakespeare, to be fully appreciated, may re- quire a thoughtful, refined, enlightened constituency ; ballad poetry may be safely left to universal suffrage. Even in his famous Essays Macaulay had not satisfied his o^vn ambition, nor reached that place after which he aspired in English letters. He seemed disposed to leave them buried in the voluminous journal in which they had appeared. Here, however, it was the honest admi- ration of the public, not the base desire of a bookseller for gain, which suggested and mdeed compelled their separate publication. America set the example : the first collection was made to gratify the laudable curiosity of those who are spreading our language and our litera- ture over a continent to which our island is but a speck in the ocean. However flattering this homage, American editions are not to be implicitly depended upon, and are confined to their own use. It became necessaiy to answer the demand in England, and edition after edition has followed in rapid unexhausted succession. On these essays (not perhaps fitly so called, at least very unlike the short essays on religious, moral, social subjects, such as Bacon's, Cowley's, Addison's, Johnson's, Goldsmith's) we cannot of course speak at length. They are rather philosophical, or historical disquisitions, and are remarkable in the first place for their vast range and variety. Some grapple with the most profound questions, — the Baconian philosophy, the law of popu- lation against Mr. Sadler, and Avhat is called the Utili- tarian philosophy. This essay Macaulay himself, with noble moderation and self-respect, refused to include in his o^vn selection, not because he was disposed to retract one argument, or to recede from the severity of LORD MACAULAY. 21 liis judgement on the opinions wliicli lie nnclertook to refute, but because he had not done justice to the high character of his adversary, the late Mr. Mill. Some belong to literary criticism, in which he delighted to mingle singularly acute and original observations on the biographies of distinguished authors, their place in society; and the articles on Dryden, the Comic Dra- matists of Charles II., Temple, Addison, Johnson, Byron, are the most full, instructive, and amusing views of the literary life of their respective ages, as well as of their specific works. The greater number, however, and doubtless the most valuable of the essays, are those which belong to history ; a few to the history of Europe, — Machiavelli, Ranke's Lives of the Popes, Frederick the Great, Mirabeau, Barrere. In these two last, his judgements on the acts and on the men of the French Revolution are very strikmg. But the chief and the most important are those on English History. This was manifestly the subject which he had thought on most profoundly, investigated with the greatest industry, and studied down to what we may call the very dregs and lees of our political and social and religious life. There is hardly an important period, at least in our later history, which has not passed under his review. With the justly honoured exception of Hallam's " Constitutional History," Macaulay usually dismisses his author with a few words of respect or contempt, and draws almost altogether on his own resources. So Burleigh gives us the reign of Elizabeth ; Bacon that of James I. ; Milton and Hampden, of Charles I. and the Republic; Temple (with Mackintosh's History), Charles II. and the Revolution; Horace 22 A ME^[OIR OF AVnlpole, Chatliam, Pitt, the Georges ; Clive and Hastings, the rise of our Indian Empire. The variety of topics is almost as notliing to the variety of informa- tion on every topic ; he seemed to have read everything, and to recollect all that he had read. As to the style of these essays, of Macaulay's style in general, a few observations. It was eminently his own, but his own not by strange words, or strange collocation of words, by phrases of perpetual occurrence, or tlie straining after original and striking terms of expression. Its characteristics were vigour and animation, copious- ness, clearness, above all, sound English, now a rare excellence. The vigour and life were unabating; per- haps in that conscious strength which cost no exertion lie did not always gauge and measure the force of his o^vn Avords. Those who studied the progress of liis writuig might perhaps see that the full stream, though it never stagnated, might at first overflow its banks ; in later days it ran with a more direct undivided torrent. His copiousness had nothing tumid, diffuse, Asiatic ; no ornament for the sake of ornament. As to its clearness, one may read a sentence of Macaulay twice, to judge of its full force, never to comprehend its meaning. His Englisli was pure, both in idiom and in words, pure to fastidiousness; not tliat he discarded, or did not make free use of the plainest and most liomely terms (he had a sovereign contempt for what is called the dignity of history, which would keep itself above the vulgar tongue), but every word must be genuine l^nglisli, notliing that approached real vulgarity; notliing that had not the stamp of popular use, or the LORD MACAULAY. 23 authority of sound English writers, nothing unfamiliar to the common ear. The Essays, however, Avere but preparatory, subsi- diary to the great history, which- was the final aim, and the palmary ambition of Macaulay. On the function, on the proper rank, on the real province and use of his- tory, he had meditated long and profoundly. His ideal of the perfect historian, such as he asj)ired to be, may l)e found in an Essay, somewhat too excursive, in the " Edinburgh Review, " republished in the recent volumes. A perfect history, according to Macaulay, would combine the unr^^_and_order of the great classical historians, with the diversity and immense range of modern affairs. This was but one condition ; the his- tory would not be content with recording the wars and treaties, the revolutions and great constitutional changes, the lives of kings, statesmen, generals ; it would embrace ihe manners, usages, social habits, letters, arts, the whole life of the nation. It would cease to be haughtily aristocratic ; it would show the progress of the people in all its ranks and orders. There can be no doubt that, as to the actual life of certain periods, Shakespeare and Scott are more true and trustworthy historians than Hume or even Clarendon. Why should not romance surrender up the province which it had usurped ? Why should not all this, which is after all the instructive, not to say amusing part of the annals of mankind, be set in a framework of historic truth, instead of a framework of fiction ? If we would really know our ancestors, if we would really know mankind, and look to history for this knowledge, how can history, secluding itself in a kind of stately majesty, affect to disdain this most important 24 A MEMOIR or part of her office ? Nothing can he more clumsy than the devices to which the historian sometimes has re- course. It may be excusable in historic dissertations (the form Avhich Hallam's works assumed) to have the book half text, half notes, — broken, fragmentary, without continuity. Hume and Robertson took refuge in appendices, in which they sum up, with unsatisfac- tory brevity, what they wanted skill to inweave into their narrative. Henry's history may be read as con- taining: what Hume left out. If there is in notes much beyond citation of authorities, perhaps comparison of conflicting authorities (we may pardon in Gibbon some- tliing more), this can only show that the historian has an unworthy conception of his high art, or that he wants the real power and skill of an historian. But to this lofty view of the historian's function who is equal ? It required all Macaulay's indefatigable researcli. For tlie historian, the true historian, must not confine himself to the chronicles and annals, the puljlic records, the state papers, the political correspondence of statesmen and ambassadors ; he must search into, he must make himself familiar with the lowest, the most ephemeral, the most contemptible of the writings of the day. There is no trash which he must not digest ; nothing so dull and wearisome that he must not wade through. Nor are books all ; much is to be learned from observation ; and Macaulay delighted in rambling over England, to visit the scenes of historic events, the residences of remarkaT)le men : the siege of Deny was described from Derry and its nciglibourhood; the exquisitely true and vivid epithets witli wliich lie paints the old Italian to"\Ams in his Roman baUads owe their life and reality to LORD MACAULAY. . 25 his travels in Italy. Finally, to order, dispose, work into a flowing and uninterrupted narrative, the whole of this matter demanded nothing less than his prodigious memory, ever at the command of his imagination ; to arrange it without confusion, to distribute it according to the laws of historic perspective, to make it, in short, a history, as difficult to lay down as the most stirring and engrossing romance. Alas ! that all this matchless power and skill should end in a torso, — yet a torso if, as we fairly may, we take the Revolution and the reign of William III. as a whole, nearly complete in its stature, and in all its limbs! It is deeply to be lamented that Macaulay allowed himself to be called off by generous and grate- ful friendship to write the lives in the Encyclopaedia. All of these, even that of Pitt (as far as it goes, a perfect biography), we would willingly sacrifice if we could fill up the few chasms in his history. And what would we not give for his Queen Anne? William III., to whom he first did justice, and not more than justice, when looked upon from a European, not from an English point of view, was a labour of love : but what would have been the more congenial age of Anne, in which he knew every one, the Queen and her Court, Harley, St. John, Swift, Pope, Arbuthnot, as if he had lived with them on the most intimate terms ? That in the main Macaulay possessed the still higher qualities of an his- torian, truth and impartiality, we hesitate not to avow our opinion ; of this posterity will judge, we quietly and confidently await its award. He spoke out too freely, too strongly, not to encounter some prejudices, some no doubt very honest political or religious feelings. He ti() A MEMUIK OF (lid not, })erhups, always nicely measure the strength of Iiis own language; and he so abhorred meanness and dishonesty, that they appeared douljly mean and dis- honest in men of great lame and liigli pretensions. As to IMarlborough, we are content to place Mr. Hallam's e^•en more condenmatory verdict by the side of Ma- caulay's; and Macaulay had not reached the brighter part of Marlborough's career; in the last volume that great man is already shaking off the slough of his baser life. Penn's double and conflicting character (assuredly no rare occurrence in history) must be viewed on all sides. In Pennsylvania, the vnse, Christian legislator, worthy of all praise, he was, in England, a vain busy man, proud of his influence with the king, who found it his interest to flatter him, and unable to keep himself out of the miserable intrigues of that miserable court. A few sentences on Macaulay's conversational ^Jowers, on his private life still fcAver. There is a common im- pression that in society he Avas engrossing and over- powering. Every one has heard the witty saying of his old friend (no two men could appreciate each other mwe highly or more justly) about "flashes of silence." r>ut in the quiet intercourse with the single friend, no great talker was more free, easy and genial, than ^lacaulay. There was the most equable interchange of thought; he listened A\ith as nmcli courtesy, as lie spoke mth gentle and pleasant persuasiveness. In a laro-er circle, such as he deliiihted to meet and as- semble around him to the close of his life, a few chosen intimates, some accomplished ladies, foreigners of the highest distinction, who were eager to make his ac- quaintnnce, his manners were frank and open. In con- LORD MACAULAY. 27 versation in such a circle, a commanding voice, high animal spirits, unrivalled quickness of apprehension, a ilow of language as rapid as inexhaustible, gave him perhaps a larger share, but a share which few were not delighted to yield up to him. His thoughts were like lightning, and clothed themselves at once in Avords. Awhile other men were thinking what they should say, and how they should say it, Macaulay had said it all, and a great deal more. And the stores which his memory had at instantaneous command ! A wide rangcP of Greek and Latin history and literature, English, French, Italian, Spanish ; of German he had not so full a stock, but he knew the best works of the best authors ; Dutch he learned for the purpose of his History. With these came anecdote, touches of character, drollery, fun,' excellent stories excellently told. The hearer often longed for Macaulay's memory to carry off what he heard in a single morning, in an after-dinner colloquy, or in a few hours in a country house. Lord Macaulay Avas never married; his strong do- mestic affections were chiefly centred in his sister, happily married to his friend Sir Charles Trevelyan, and her family. Her children Avere to him as his OAvn, and cherished A\dth almost parental tenderness. As a friend, he AA^as singularly stedfast; he AA^as impatient of any- thing disparaging of one for AAdiom he entertained sin- cere esteem. In the Avar of political life, he made, Ave believe, no lasting enemy; he secured the unsAverA'ing attachment of his political friends, to AA'hoin he had been unsAvervingly true. ]So act inconsistent Avith the highest honour and integrity was CA^er Avhispered against him. In all his Avritings, hoAvcA^er his opinions, so 28 A MEMOIR OF LORD MACAULAY. strongly uttered, may have given offence to men of dif- ferent sentiments, no sentence has been impeached as jarring against the loftiest principles of honour, justice, pure morality, rational religion. In early life he was robust and active; and though his friends at a later period could not but perceive the progress of some mysterious malady (he was long harassed by a distressing cough), yet he rallied so fre- quently, and seemed to have so much buoyancy of constitution, that they hoped he might have life to achieve his great work. He himself felt inward mo- nitions ; his ambition receded from the hope of reaching the close of the first Bruns^vicks ; before his last illness he had reduced his plan to the reign of Queen Anne. His end, thou2:h not 'svithout warnino; to those who watched him with friendshij) and affection, was sudden and singularly quiet; on December 28, 1859, he fell asleep and woke not again. He was buried, January 9, 1860, in Westminster Abbey, in Poets' Corner, his favourite haunt; and he was knoAVTi to have ex2)ressed a modest hope that he might be thought Avorthy to repose there with the illus- trious dead. He lies at the foot of Addison's statue, near to Johnson, and among many other of our most famous statesmen and men of letters. H. H. M. ZC^OV THE >r^ ^TJSIVBRSI 'dllFOV^ rillXTEl) IIY SI'OTIISWOODE AND CO., NJiW-SIKBtT SQUAliE, LONDOK. VOLUME VIII. 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