temporary contest between Romanists and transaction affords as to the way in which Protestants, depicted in a way that shows an good or evil may hereafter be produced. The intimate familiarity with the principles, prej- poisoning of an emperor is in one sense a udices, and policy of the period. In Bacon, far more serious matter than the poisonwe obtain not only a just and authentic viewing of a rat. But the poisoning of a rat of his personal acts and character, but a clear may be an era in chemistry; and an emand intelligible insight into the general aspects peror may be poisoned by such ordinary means, of the age, as manifested in the culture and and with such ordinary symptoms, that no prevalent morality of courtiers and public scientific journal would notice the occurrence. men, along with a comprehensive survey of An action for a hundred thousand pounds is the state of science and opinion. A paper on in one sense a more momentous affair than an the Comic Dramatists of the Restoration, in- action for fifty pounds. But it by no means troduces us, as it were, bodily into the society follows, that the learned gentlemen who rein which Wycherley and Congreve lived and port the proceedings of the courts of law, moved and had their being, and which they ought to give a fuller account of an action for have so wittily and licentiously represented in a hundred thousand pounds, than of an action their comedies. And so on, throughout these for fifty pounds. For a cause in which a large criticisms generally, we have the persons of sum is at stake, may be important only to the whom they treat, and the circumstances and particular plaintiff and the particular defendenvironment in which they flourished, repro-ant. A cause, on the other hand, in which a duced and brought vividly before us, in bril- small sum is at stake, may establish some liant and picturesque descriptions, as pleasant great principle interesting to half the families and entertaining as any in the novels of Sir in the kingdom. The case is exactly the same Walter Scott. The liveliness and grace with with that class of subjects of which historians which Macaulay represents reality, is almost treat. To an Athenian, in the time of the as fascinating and perfect in its way, as is Peloponnesian war, the result of the battle of the admirable" imitation of reality" in the Delium was far more important than the fate fictions of the novelist. of the comedy of The Knights. But to us, the Another prominent quality of Macaulay's fact that the comedy of The Knights was writing is his adroit use of facts in support brought on the Athenian stage with success, of his conclusions. A fact in his hands is not is far more important than the fact that the a mere isolated piece of information, but is Athenian phalanx gave way at Delium. made to serve for the illustration of great Neither the one event nor the other has now truths, or for the enforcement of particular any intrinsic importance. We are in no danacts of duty. He often conducts an argument ger of being speared by the Thebans. We are almost wholly by a judicious marshalling of not quizzed in The Knights. To us, the imfacts, throwing in scarcely any additional re-portance of both events consists in the value mark, beyond such as may be needed to link of the general truth which is to be learned them logically together. Of their proper val- from them. What general truth do we learn ue and application, he entertains a very clear from the accounts which have come down to conception. In treating of any subject, he us of the battle of Delium? Very little more perceives at a glance what particular facts than this: that when two armies fight, it is possess importance, and how they can be most not improbable that one of them will be very effectively embodied in a description, or made soundly beaten - a truth which it would not, available for the ends of a discussion. In this we apprehend, be difficult to establish, even if respect, he shows himself one of the finest lit- all memory of the battle of Delium were lost erary artists of the age; no one can have a among men. But a man who becomes acclearer recognition of what a fact is worth, or quainted with the comedy of The Knights, more appropriately apply it to his purposes. and with the history of that comedy, at once It has not escaped him, that ordinary writers feels his mind enlarged. Society is presented are very defective in this useful qualification. to him under a new aspect. He may have "Many writers," says he, "seem never to read and travelled much; he may have visited have considered on what the historical impor-all the countries of Europe, and the civilized tance of an event depends. They seem not to be aware that the importance of a fact, when that fact is considered with reference to its immediate effects, and the importance of the same fact, when that fact is considered as part of the materials for the construction of a science, are two very different things. The quantity of good or evil which a transaction produces, is by no means necessarily proportioned to the quantity of light which that nations of the East; he may have observed qualities of his writing, and contributes largely to give both weight and entertainment to his productions. chaff, for the purpose of gathering the chaff into the garner, and flinging the corn into the fire."* The distinction here indicated respecting the significancy of facts, and their dependency The amount of instruction to be gathered and relations, is one which Mr. Macaulay ap- from Mr. Macaulay's criticisms is very conpears to have studiously observed in his own siderable, though their value in this respect writings. In all his biographical delineations, will depend on the previous intelligence of he seizes, as we said, upon whatsoever is in- the reader. To persons already conversant trinsically essential to the portraiture of the with literature, and the lives and actions of individual; and on whatever, in the way of men of note connected with our history, they event or circumstance, contributed to the do not present much that is new in the way formation of his character, or the advance-of information; while to such as are but inment or diversification of his fortunes. In differently acquainted with these topics, they his historical criticisms, he aims, in like man-may seem to make too great a demand upon ner, at presenting an image of the times to the reader's knowledge, in the multiplicity of which his inquiries belong-regarding not their allusions, and in the implied assumption 80 much what is styled "the dignity of his- of the author, that the matters he is treating tory," as what tends to exhibit the actual of are more or less matters of familiarity. form and features of society. Thus, the love- They are, indeed, addressed to persons of libletters of Lady Temple are, in his estimation, eral education, and presuppose or take for of more importance than the government dis- granted such an extent of general knowledge patches, or the records of parliamentary de- as is usually to be found among people of that bates, belonging to the era; inasmuch as, description. They aim, however, at present"of that information for the sake of which ing more accurate and complete views of the alone it is worth while to study remote events," subjects handled than are to be found genera great deal more is to be derived from such a ally prevailing. They are aids for the formaset of letters, than could ever be extracted tion of opinion on questions more or less open from ten times their bulk of ordinary state- to discussion, or which were so at the time papers. "To us, surely," says he, "it is as when the writer drew attention to them. We useful to know how the young ladies of Eng- cannot say that in his literary criticisms he has land employed themselves a hundred and anywhere expounded the principles of literary eighty years ago, how far their minds were art, the essential nature of poetry, or any of cultivated, what were their favorite studies, those abstruse æsthetical difficulties with which what degree of liberty was allowed to them, scientific critics have of late years been conwhat use they made of that liberty, what ac- cerned. No such collection of critical maxims complishments they most valued in men, and could be gathered from his works as might be what proofs of tenderness delicacy permitted collected from the conversations, the autobiog them to give to favored suitors -as to know raphy, and general writings of the German poet all about the seizure of Franche Comté, and Goethe. It is in the purity of his taste, and the treaty of Nimeguen. The mutual rela- in the clearness of his understanding, that his tions of the two sexes seem to us to be at critical strength is most apparent; and it is least as important as the mutual relations of mainly on these that he relies in forming his any two governments in the world; and a judgments of an author's talents and performseries of letters, written by a virtuous, amia- ances. The shape which his judgments often ble, and sensible girl, and intended for the take is simply that of an opinion; such and eye of her lover alone, can scarcely fail to such a thing is indicated as being in accordthrow some light on the relations of the sexes; ance with, or opposed to, his individual nowhereas it is perfectly possible, as all who tions of what is fitting or appropriate, and have made any historical researches can at- sentence is pronounced without a reference test, to read bale after bale of dispatches and to any profounder reasons. But he displays, protocols, without catching any glimpse of at the same time, so natural an appreciation fight about the relations of governments." of what is excellent, and so ready a perception We might point to many passages in these of what is false or overstrained, that the judgessays, illustrative of the tact and ingenuity ment given is generally one which cannot be with which the author selects and reproduces set aside, or at least will be only open to some the facts he has to deal with, and of the in-moderate qualification. This apprehension of variable felicity with which he turns them to whatever is true or beautiful, and the instineaccount, whether in the construction of a narrative or in the development of an argument; but, for present purposes, it may be sufficient to state, generally, that a skilful adaptation of matters of fact is one of the prominent Essay on Sir William Temple. tive distaste for the contrary, is by no means peculiar to Macaulay; but in no English writer is it more marked or palpable, and in few has it been cultivated to a state of such perfection. The instructiveness of his writings is as much apparent in the influence they are calculated to exert on the intellectual perceptions, as in the amount of information | his lively talent; above all, of his love and they convey, or the service to be derived from childlike open-mindedness. His sneaking them in the way of developing the understand- sycophancies, his greediness and forwardness. ing. Indeed, in all these respects they are whatever was bestial and earthy in him, are eminently instructive, and can be confidently so many blemishes in his book, which still recommended to the notice of all persons de- disturb us in its clearness; wholly hindersirous of furthering their education. ances, not helps. Towards Johnson, however, his feeling was not sycophaney, which is the lowest, but reverence, which is the highest of human feelings. None but a reverent man A slight tendency to paradox is observable in some of the disquisitions of our author. For instance, in the review of Boswell's Life of Johnson, he says, that if Boswell" had which so unspeakably few are could have not been a great fool, he would never have found his way from Boswell's environment to been a great writer." This assertion he sup- Johnson's; if such worship for real God-made ports by such remarks as these: "Without superiors showed itself also as worship for all the qualities which made him the jest and apparent tailor-made superiors, even as the torment of those among whom he lived, hollow interested mouth-worship for such without the officiousness, the inquisitiveness, the case, in this composite human nature of the effrontery, the toad-eating, the insensi- ours, was not miraculous, the more the bility to all reproof, he never could have pro- pity! But for ourselves, let every one of us duced so excellent a book. .. Of the cling to this last article of faith, and know it talents which ordinarily raise men to eminence as the beginning of all knowledge worth the as writers, Boswell had absolutely none. name- that neither James Boswell's good There is not in all his books a single remark book, nor any other good thing, in any of his own on literature, politics, religion, or time or in any place, was, is, or can society, which is not either commonplace or be performed by any man in virtue of his absurd. He has reported innumerable badness, but always and solely in spite thereobservations made by himself in the course of of."* Carlyle and Macaulay quite agree in conversation. Of these observations, we do not their estimate of the work, both considering remember one which is above the intellectual it as being, upon the whole, the most incapacity of a boy of fifteen. He has printed teresting production of the eighteenth century. many of his own letters, and in these letters On its merits, however, it would here be out he is always ranting or twaddling. Logic, of place to dwell. We have referred to it for eloquence, wit, taste, all those things which are generally considered as making a book valuable, were utterly wanting to him. He had, indeed, a quick observation and a retentive memory. These qualities, if he had been a man of sense and virtue, would scarcely of themselves have sufficed to make him conspicuous; but because he was a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb, they have made him immortal." This is sufficiently smart writing, but it does not appear to us to be particularly good criticism. It could not be in virtue of his being a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb," that Boswell was qualified to write one of the best books in the language; this hypothesis carries its own refutation on the The quality of clearness is one which emiface of it. It is one of the plainest of all nently distinguishes Macaulay's compositions. truisms, that sheer badness cannot, by the It is this, perhaps, more than anything, that nature of it, produce anything that is good. makes them so acceptable to the popular unAs Mr. Carlyle has observed in relation to derstanding. There are no important diffithis matter: "Bad is by its nature nega-culties to master before they can be enjoyed; tive, and can do nothing; whatsoever enables us to do anything is by its very nature good." The power of doing may be perverted or misapplied; but in regard to Boswell's book, it is not admitted that this has been the case. On the contrary, the work is universally acknowledged to be excellent. We must hold, therefore, with Carlyle, that "Boswell wrote a good book because he had a heart and an eye to discern wisdom, and an utterance to render it forth; because of his free insight, the sake of adducing an example of that tendency to paradox which occasionally appears in Mr. Macaulay's writings. Having noticed such a tendency, it will be but fair to say, that, generally speaking, his paradoxes are very harmless. They rarely amount to an actual confounding of truth and error, and need never very far mislead an intelligent and open-minded reader. They have often the air of deliberate affectations, and may be regarded as the playful eccentricities of a lively mind, which, while consciously possessed of power to restrain and command the fancy, at times suffers it to wander into little tricks of waywardness. there is nothing perplexing or involved to hinder immediate comprehension. As somebody has said, you may read them as you run. It was not a bad notion of the publisher, to bring them out in a form suitable for railway entertainment. They are admirably adapted to the purpose - provided you happen to be one to whom reading on the railways is at all a possibility. At any rate, wherever read, * Carlyle's Miscellanies, vol. iv., p. 41–2. 332 their easy and graceful perspicuity is pretty certain to lead you on pleasantly to the end, without fatigue or prostration of the faculties. Macaulay, among his various qualifications, possesses the highly popular art which he ascribes to Horace Walpole writing what people will like to read." He the art of understands, too, that if people are to be expected to read, with any satisfaction to themselves, it is requisite to give them as little trouble as possible in the process. This condition of successful writing he has carefully observed, by always presenting what he has to say in a form of perfect clearness and precision. Contrasting his bright and lucid pages with the cumbrous entanglements of many other writers of mark and reputation, but who are wanting in his felicity of method and expression, it may be seen how immeasurably superior is his manner to theirs, and how largely this one quality of clearness contributes to the pleasure there is in reading what he has written. exceedingly ingenious and beautiful, but yet one that does not spring from the sources of an impulsive inspiration. Macaulay is, nevertheless, a great writer; balanced powers, exquisitely cultivated; one man of finelyplishment are most successfully combined, and in whom original talent and acquired accomwhose literary achievements are accordingly among the finest and most perfect of his generation. In all the subtile graces and delicate felicities of style which depend on taste and training, he is unsurpassed. Many authors write a more imposing style, and there may be some who actually surpass him in particular characteristics, but we cannot mention one. in whom so many varied excellences are united; not one whose style presents so much force, brilliancy, and purity in such perfect combination. As an exam ple, however, of the polished simplicity and elegant elaboration distinguishing his manner when employed in picturesque and vivid representation, we subjoin an additional extract essays will serve to convey some notion of The passages already quoted from his the style, but they are not calculated to give There is a certain refinement in Macaulay's variety. This, indeed, could not be given by a fair impression of its general compass and style, which forms one of the principal at- any number of fragments such as we are able tractions of his writings. This style has to introduce into these pages. undergone some changes since the author began to write. At first elaborately ornamented, it has since become more simple, thereby improving in point of vigor, and being nowise diminished in its beauty. It may be said to be distinguished from the style of beautiful, and we doubt not will appear so to -one which, to ourselves, seems very other writers by a prevalent sententiousness, the reader. It is taken from a review of a sharp epigrammatic point, rendering it at Southey's edition of the Pilgrim's Progress, once lively and effective in impression. It and forms a sort of summary of the incidents has an air of naturalness, combined with a and scenes depicted in that most wonderful regular elegance and polish, which is the of allegories. Worthy old Bunyan -" the result of art. It is the style of a scholar who prince of dreamers," as Maginn called him has contracted no pedantries, and of a man of has never had a more enthusiastic and unthe world, who is a perfect master of the lan-qualified admirer than the scholarly and guage in which men of the world like to be accomplished critic, who thus speaks of the addressed. It is full of idiomatic turns and imperishable product of his genius phrases, such as are invariably pleasing to persons of strong sense, and of simple, unaffected tastes. Yet, upon occasion, it has a certain stateliness of march, and a glitter of antithesis, which impart to it an aspect of great splendor, and agreeably diversify the easy gracefulness of the less elaborate passages. It is a style of sufficient flexibility to serve for all the purposes of description, narrative, analysis, familiar illustration, or the eloquent expression of felicitous thoughts and fancies -indeed, for all the purposes to which a style can be applied, short of the finer kinds of humor, or the highest flights of poetry. Macaulay has abundance of wit and pleasantry, but nothing that can be properly called humor; and though many passages in his works are eminently poetical, he is not endowed with that creative imagination which is the distinction of the poet. His poetry, as we shall show presently, is the product of a less imposing set of faculties a product grim's Progress is, that it is the only work of "The characteristic peculiarity of the Pil its kind which possesses a strong human interest. while it obtains admiration from the most That wonderful book, fastidious critics, is loved by those who are too simple to admire it. Dr. Johnson, all whose studies were desultory, and who hated, as he said, to read books through, made an exception in favor of the Pilgrim's Progress. That work was one of the two or three works which he wished longer. It was by no common merit that the illiterate sectary extracted praise like this from the most pedantic of critics, and the most bigoted of tories. wildest parts of Scotland, the Pilgrim's Progress is the delight of the peasantry. every nursery, the Pilgrim's Progress is a greater favorite than Jack the Giant-Killer. Every reader knows the straight and narrow path as well as he knows a road in which he has gone backward and forward a hundred In the In times. This is the highest miracle of genius, that things which are not should be as though they were, that the imaginations of one mind should become the personal recollections of another. And this miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, no turn-stile with which we are not perfectly acquainted. The wicketgate, and the desolate swamp which separates it from the City of Destruction; the long line of road, as straight as a rule can make it; the Interpreter's house and all its fair shows; the prisoner in the iron cage; the palace, at the doors of which armed men kept guard, and on the battlements of which walked persons clothed all in gold; the cross and the sepulchre; the steep hill and the pleasant arbor; the stately front of the House Beautiful by the wayside; the chained lions crouching in the porch; the low green Valley of Humiliation, rich with grass, and covered with flocks—all are as well known to us as the sights of our own streets. Then we come to the narrow place where Apollyon strode right across the whole breadth of the way, to stop the journey of Christian, and where afterwards the pillar was set up to testify how bravely the pilgrim had fought the good fight. As we advance, the valley becomes deeper and deeper; the shades of the precipices on both sides fall blacker and blacker; the clouds gather overhead; doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and the rushing of many feet to and fro, are heard through the darkness. The way, hardly discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth of the burning pit, which sends forth its flames, its noisome smoke, and its hideous shapes to terrify the adventurer. Thence he goes on, amidst the, snares and pitfalls, with the mangled bodies of those who have perished lying in the ditch by his side. At the end of the long dark valley, he passes the dens in which the old giants dwelt, amidst the bones of those whom they had slain. "Then the road passes straight on through a waste moor, till at length the towers of a distant city appear before the traveller; and soon he is in the midst of the innumerable multitudes of Vanity Fair. There are the jugglers and the apes, the shops and the puppetshows; there are Italian Row, and French Row, and Spanish Row, and British Row, with their crowds of buyers, sellers, and loungers, jabbering all the languages of the earth. "Thence we go on by the little hill of the silver mine, and through the meadow of lilies, along the bank of that pleasant river, which is bordered on both sides by fruit-trees. On the left, branches off the path leading to the horrible castle, the court-yard of which is paved with the skulls of pilgrims; and right onward are the sheepfolds and orchards of the Delectable Mountains. "From the Delectable Mountains, the way lies through the fogs and briers of the Enchanted Ground, with here and there a bed of soft cushions spread under a green arbor; and beyond is the land of Beulah, where the flowers, the grapes, and the songs of birds never cease, and where the sun shines night and day. Thence are plainly seen the golden pavements and streets of pearl, on the other side of that black and cold river, over which there is no bridge. "All the stages of the journey, all the forms which cross or overtake the pilgrims, giants, and hobgoblins, ill-favored ones and shining ones; the tall, comely, swarthy Madam Bubble, with her great purse by her side, and her fingers playing with the money; the black man in the bright vesture, Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and my Lord Hategood; Mr. Talkative, and Mrs. Timorous-all are actually existing beings to us. We follow the travellers through their allegorical progress with interest not inferior to that with which we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, or Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London. Bunyan is almost the only writer who ever gave to the abstract the interest of the concrete. In the works of many celebrated authors, men are mere personifications. We have not a jealous man, but jealousy; not a traitor, but perfidy; not a patriot, but patriotism. The mind of Bunyan, on the contrary, was so imaginative, that personifications, when he dealt with them, became men. dialogue between two qualities, in his dream, has more dramatic effect than a dialogue between two human beings in most plays. A "The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and invaluable as a study to every person who wishes to obtain a wide command over the English language. The vocabulary is the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an expression, if we except a few technical terms of theology, which would puzzle the rud est peasant. We have observed several pages which do not contain a single word of more than two syllables. Yet no writer has said more exactly what he meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehement exhortation, for subtile disquisition, for every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of plain working-men, was perfectly sufficient. There is no book in our literature on which we would so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted English language, no book which shows so well how rich that language is in its own proper wealth, and how little it has been improved by all that it has borrowed. Though there were many clever men in England during the latter half of the seventeenth century, there were only two minds which possessed the imaginative faculty in a very eminent degree. One of those minds produced |