o- - d -—. ESSAYS, CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. T.BAB1NGTON MAOAULAY. lXtm Age talt'al CH 1tL BOSTON: PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, AND COMPANY 1856. PUBLISHERS' NOTICE..THEI very general and high commendation, bestowed by the pres and the comnmity tu'poln'the Amerioan edition oit Mac tlayr2s Miscellaneous Writings, has induced the publishers to issue a new arnd cheap edition embracing the remainder of the articles in the Edinburgh Review, and several articles written and published while the autho} was at college. CONTENTS MLToN-.............. I Edinburgh Review. 1825. MACHIAVELLI............. 19 Edinburgh Review. 1827. DRYDEN. -.............. Edinburgh Review. 1828. HISTORY............ 51 Edinburgh Review. 1828. HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY..... - - 67._dinburgh Review. 1828. SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUJES ON SOCIETY....... 99 Edinburgh Review. 1830.,&OORE'S LIFEx OF LORD BYRON1....... 116 Edinburgh Review. 1831. IOUTHEY'S EDITION OF THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS -...... -. 2 Edinburgh Review. 1831. CROKER'S EDITION OF BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. - -. 136 Edinburgh Review. 1831.,LORD NUGENT'S MEMORIALS OF HAMPDEN.... 151 Edinburgh Review. 1831. N&RES'S- MZMOIRS OF LORD BURGHLEY.-.... 171 Edinburgh Review. 1832. DUtXONT'S RFGOLLECTIONS OF MIRABEAU......,. 182 Edinburgh Review. 1832. LORD MAHON'S WAR OF THE SUCCESSION.- -.. -.-192 Edinburgh Review. 1333. WALPOLE'S LETTERS TO SIR HORACE.ANN...- 211 Edinburgh Review. 1833. THACKERAY'S HI1STORY OF THE EARL OF CHATHAM..... - 22 Edinburgh Review. 1834. LORD BACON -.. -.. -.. - 243 Edinburgh Review. 1837. MACKINTOSH'S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION IN EnGLAND, IN 1688-.. Edinburkh Review. 1885.-t;Cq, Iv CONTENT& SIR JOHN MALCOLM'S LIFE'OF LORD CLIVE..... - 315 Edinburgh Review. 1840. LIFE AND WRITINGS OF SIR WILLIAM TEMPLE.-. - -3 Edinburgh Review. 1838. CHURCH AND STATE- - - -. 3 - *.. *78 Edinburgh Review. 1839. RANKE'S HISTORY OF TILE POPES - - - -..1 Edinburgh Review. 1840. COWLEY AND MILTON -. - -. - - 416 ON MITFORD'S HISTORY OF GREECE.. - 424 ON tHE ATHENIAN ORATORS.......- 433 COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION..... 438 Edinburgh Review. 1841. THE LATE LORD HOLLAND......456 Edinburgh Review. 1841. WARREN HASTINGS... -..460 Edinburgh Review. 1841. FkEDERIC THE GREAT. -02 Edinburgh Review. 1842. LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME.. - - - - 531 Preface - - -....533 Horatius -....540 The Battle of the Lake Regillus...- - - - 547 Virginia -......556 The Prophecy of Capys -..... 3 APPENDIX.... - - -.. 6... MADAME D'ARBLAY --... 573 Edinburgh Review., January, 1843. LIFE AND WRITINOS OF ADDISON5 -.. 94 Edinburgh Review. July, 1843. EARERE'S MEMOIRS - -. -,. 6- -.-'.624 Edinburgh Review. April, 1844. MIR. ROBERT MONTGOMERY'S POEMS.6 667 Edinburgh Review. April, 1830. CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE JEWS...... 6 MILL'S ESSAY ON GOVERNMENT... - - * - 670 Edinburgh Review. March, 1829. BENTHAM'S DEFENCE OF MILL -..- 684 Edinburgh Review. June, 1829. UTILITARIAN THEORY OF GOVERNMENT - * 690 ~Edinburgh Review. October, 1829. THE EARL OF CHATHAM - -..... 709 Edinburgh Review. October, 1844. SPEECH ON INSTALLATION AS LORD RECTOR or GLAUOW UNrMrrr* - - 740 SPEECH ON RETIRING FROM POLITICAL LIE m ~ -..... e - 748 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANIES. MILTON.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1825.] TOWARDS the close of the year 1823, Mr. Le- antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none of the mon, Deputy Keeper of the State Papers, in the ceremonial cleanness which characterize: he course of his researches among the presses of diction of our academical Pharisees. Ile does his office, met with a large Latin manuscript. not attempt to polish and brighten his composiWith it were found corrected copies of the tion into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. foreign despatches written by Milton, while he He does not, in short, sacrifice sense and spirit filled the office of Secretary, and several papers to pedantic refinements. The nature of his relating to the Popish Trials and the Rye-house subject compelled him to use many words Plot. -uThe whole was wrapped up in an enve- "That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp." lope, superscribed "To Mr. Skinner, Merchant." On examination, the large manuscript proved But he writes with as much ease and freedom to be the long lost lissay on the Doctrines of as if Latin were his mother tongue; and Christianity, which, according to Wood and where he is least happy, his failure seems to Toland, Milton finished after the Restoration, arise from the carelessness of a native, not and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, from the ignorance of a foreigner. What Denit is well known, held the same political opi- ham with great felicity says of Cowley, may be nions with his illustrious friend. It is therefore applied to him. He wears the garb, but not probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he the clothes, of the ancients. may have fallen under the suspicions of the Throughout the volume are discernible the. government during that persecution of the traces of a powerful and independent mind, Whigs which followed the dissolution of the emancipated from the influence of authority, Oxford Parliatnent, and that, in consequence and devoted to the search of truth. He proof a general seizure of his papers, this work fesses to form his system from the Bible alone* may have been brought to the office in which and his digest of Scriptural texts is certainly it had been found. But whatever the adven- among the best that have appeared. But he is tures of the manuscript may have been, no not always so happy in his inferences as in his doubt can exist, that it is a genuine relic of the citations. great poet. Some of the heterodox opinions which he Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by his avows seem to have excited considerable majesty to edit and translate the treatise, has amazement: particularly his Arianism, and. acquitted himself of this task in a manner his notions on the subject of polygamy. Yet honourable to his talents and to his character. we can scarcely conceive that any person His version is not indeed very easy or elegant; could have read the Paradise Lost without but it is entitled to the praise of clearness and suspecting him of the former, nor do we think fidelity. His notes abound with interesting that any reader, acquainted with the history ci, quotations, and have the rare merit of really his life, ought to be much startled at the latter. elucidating the text. The preface is'evidently The opinions which he has expressed respect. the work of a sensible and candid man, firm in ing the nature of the Deity, the eternity of ma.his own religious opinions, and tolerant to ter, and the observation of the Sabbath, might, wards those of others. we think, have caused more just surprise. The book itself will not add much to the But we will not go into the discussion of fame of Milton, It is, like all his Latin works, these points. The book, were it far more or. well written-though not exactly in the style thodox, or far more heretical than it is, would of the Prize Ess&;L ~s of Oxford and Cambridge. not much edify or corrupt the present generaThere is r.l age imitation of classical tion. The men of our time are not to be con verted or perverted by quartos. A few more *Joans.Miltoei, Angli, de Doctrina Christiana libri days, and this Essay will follow the Defensss duo posthumi. A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, corm- Popli to the dust and silence of the upper piled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By JOHX MILTON, shelf. The name of its author, and' the ze translated from the original by Charles R. Sumner, M. A., &c. tc. 1825. markable circumstances attending its pubia, VOL. I. —I A I MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. ion, will secure to it a certain degree of atten- do not admire them the more because they tion. For a month or two it will occupy a few have appeared in dark ages. On the contrary, minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a we hold that the most wonderful and splendid few columns in every magazine; and it will proof of genius is a great poem produced imna then, to borrow the elegant language of the civilized age. We cannot understand why play-bills, be withdrawn, to make room for the those who believe in that most orthodox article forthcoming novelties. of literary faith, that the earliest poets are We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the generally the best, should wonder at the rule interest, transient as it may be, which this as if it were the exception. Surely the uni work has excited. The dexterous Capuchins formity of the phenomenon indicates a corres never choose to preach on the life and mira- ponding uniformity in the cause. cles of a saint, till they have awakened the The fact is, that common observers reason devotional feelings of their auditors, by exhi- from the progress of the experimental sciences biting some relic of him-a thread of his gar- to that of the imitative arts. The improve. ment, a lock of his hair, or a drop of his blood. ment of the former is gradual and slow. Ages On the same principle, we intend to take ad- are spent in collecting materials, ages more in vantage of the late interesting discovery, and, separating and combining them. Even when while this memorial of a great and good man a system has been formed, there is still some. is still in the hands of all, to say something of thing to add, to alter, or to reject. Every genehis moral and intellectual qualities. Nor, we ration enjoys the use of a vast hoard be. are convinced, will the severest of our readers queathed to it by antiquity, and transmits it, blame us if, on an occasion like the present, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future we turn for a short time from the topics of the ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the first day to commemorate, in all love and reve- speculators lie under great disaavantages, and, rence, the genius and virtues of John Milton, even when they fail, are entitled to praise. the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the Their pupils, with far inferior intellectual glory of English literature, the champion and powers, speedily surpass them in actual aLtain. the martyr of English liberty. ments. Every girl, who has read Mrs. Ma cet's It is by his poetry that Milton is best known; little Dialogues on Political Economy, could and it is of his poetry that we wish first to teach Montague or Walpole many lessons in speak. By the general suffrage of the civilized finance. Any intelligent man may now, by world, his place has been assigned among the resolutely applying himself for a few years to greatest masters of the art. His detractors, mathematics, learn more than the great Newhowever, though out-voted, have not been ton knew after half a century of study and silenced. There are many critics, and some meditation. ot great name, who contrive, in the same But it is not thus with music, with painting, breath, to extol the poems and to decry the poet. or with sculpture. Still less is it thus with poThe works, they acknowledge, considered in etry. The progress of refinement rarely supthemselves, may be classed among the noblest' plies these arts with better objects of imitation. productions of the human mind. But they will It may, indeed, improve the instruments which not allow the author to rank with those great are necessary to the mechanical operations of men who, born in the infancy of civilization, the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. supplied, by their own powers, the want of in- But language, the machine of the poet, is best struction, and, though destitute of models them- fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Naselves, bequeathed to posterity models which tions, like individuals, first perceive, and then defy. imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited abstract. They advance from particular im. what his predecessors created; he lived in an ages to general terms. Hence, the vocabulary enlightened age; he received a finished edu- of an enlightened society is philosophical, that cation; and we must therefore, if we would of a half-civilized people is poetical. form a just estimate of his powers, make large This change in the language of men is partdeductions for these advantages. ly the cause, and partly the effect of a corresWe venture to say, on the contrary, para- ponding change in the nature of their intellecdoxical as the remark may appear, that no tual operations, a change by which science poet has ever had to struggle with more un- gains, and poetry loses. Generalization is nefavourable circumstances than Milton. He cessary to the advancement of knowledge, but doubted, as he has himself owned, whether particularly in the creations of the imagination. he had not been born "an age too late." For In proportion'as men know more, and think this notion Johnson has thought fit to make more, they look less at individuals and more him the butt of his clumsy ridicule. The poet, at classes. They therefore make better theo. we believe, understood the nature of his art ries and worse poems. They give us vague better than the critic. He knew that his poeti- phrases instead of images, and' personified cal genius derived no advantage from the qualities instead of men. They may be better civiliiation which surrounded him, or from able to analyze human nature than their pre. the learning which he had acquired: and he decessors. But analysis is not the business looked back with something like regret to the of the poet. His office is to portray, not to dis-:xuder age of simple words and vivid impres- sect. He may believe in a moral sense, like sions. S haftesbury. He may refer all human actions We think that, as civilization advances, po- to self interest, like Helvetius, or he may never etry almost necessarily declines. Therefore, think about the matter at all. His creed on though'we admire'those greatwor lrks ofiagi- such subjects will no more influence his nation which have appeared in dark ages, we poetry, properly so called. than the na'!nme MIILTON. S rhich a painter may have conceived respecting good ones —but little poetry. Men will judge the lachrymal glands, or the circulation of the and compare; but they will not create. They blood will affect the tears of his Niobe, or the will talk about the old poets, and comment on blushes' of his Aurora. If Shakspeare had them, and to a certain degree enjoy them. written a book on the motives of human ac- But they will scarcely be able to conceive the tions, it is by no means certain that it would effect which poetry produced on their ruder have been a good one. It is extremely impro- ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude bable that it would have -contained half so of belief. The Greek Rhapsodists, according to much able reasoning on the subject as is to be Plato, could not recite Homer without almost found in the "Fable of the Bees." But could falling into convulsions.* The Mohawk hardly Mandeville have created an Iago. Well as he feels the scalping-knife while he shouts his knew how to resolve characters into their ele- death-song. The power which the ancient ments, would he have been able to combine bards of Wales and Germany exercised over those elements in such a manner as to make their auditors seems to modern readers almost up a man-a real, living, individual man? miraculous. Such feelings are very rare in a k Perhaps no man can be a poet, or can even civilized community, and most rare among et~joy poetry, without a certain unsoundness those who participate most in its improveor mind, if any thing which gives so much ments. They linger longest among the peapleasure ought to be called unsoundness. By santry.,poetry we mean, not of course all writing in Poetry produces an illusion on the eye of the verse, nor even all good writing in verse. mind, as a magic lantern produces an illusion Our definition excludes many metrical compo- on the eye of the body. And, as the magic sitions which, on other grounds, deserve' the lantern acts best in a dark room, poetry effects highest praise. By poetrywe mean, the art of its purpose most completely in a dark age. employing words in such a manner as to pro- As the light of knowledge breaks in upon its duce an illusion on the imagination: the art of exhibitions, as the outlines of certainty bedoing by means of words what the painter does come more and more definite, and the shades by means of colours. Thus the greatest of of probability more and more distinct, the poets has described it, in lines universally ad- hues and lineaments of the phantoms which it mired for the vigour and felicity of their dic- calls up grow fainter and fainter. We cannot tion, and still more valuable on account of the unite the incompatible'advantages of reality just notion which they convey of the art in and deception, the clear discernment of tru'lh which he excelled. and the exquisite enjoyment of fiction. "As imagination bodies forth He who, in an enlightened and literary The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen society, aspires to be a great poet, must first Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing become a little child. He must take to pieces A local habitation and a name." the whole web of his mind. He must unlearn These are the fruits of the "fine frenzy" which much of that knowledge which has perhaps he ascribes to the poet —a fine frenzy doubtless, constituted hitherto his chief title of supebut still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential riority. His very talents will be a hinderance to poetry; but it is the truth of madness. The to him. His difficulties will be proportioned reasonings are just; but the premises are false. to his proficiency in the pursuits which are After the first suppositions have been made, fashionable among his contemporaries; and every thing ought to be consistent; but those that proficiency'will in general be proportioned first suppositions require a degree of credulity to the vigour and activity of his mind. And which almost amounts to a partial and tempo- it is well, if, after all his sacrifices and exerrary derangement of the intellect. Hence, of tions, his works do not resemble a lisping all people, children are the most imaginative. man, or a modern ruin. We have seen in our They abandon themselves without reserve to own time, great talents, intense labour, and every illusion. Every image which is strongly long meditation, employed in this struggle presented to their mental eye produces on against the spirit of the age, and employed, them the effect of reality. No man, whatever we will not say, absolutely in vain, but with his sensibility may be, is ever affected by dubious success and feeble applause. Hamlet or Lear, as a little girl is affected by If these reasonings be just, no poet has the story of poor Red Riding-hood. She knows ever triumphed over greater difficulties than that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, Milton. He received a learned education. that there are no wolves in England. Yet in He was a profound and elegant classical spite of her knowledge she believes; she scholar: he had studied all the mysteries of weeps, she trembles; she dares not go into a Rabbinical literature: he was intimately acdark room lest she should feel the teeth of the quainted with every language of modern Eumonster at her throat. Such is the despotism rope, from which either pleasure or information of the, imagination over uncultivated minds. was then to be derived. He was perhaps the In a rude state of society, men are children only great poet of later times who has been -with a greater variety of ideas. It is there- distinguished by the excellence of his Litin fore in such a state of society that we may verse. The genius of Petrarch was scarcely expect to find the poetical temperament in its of the first order; and his poems in the ancient highest perfection. In an enlightened age language, though much praised by those who there will be much intelligence, much science, have never read them, are wretched corn much philosophy, abundance of just classifica- positions. Cowley, with all hid admirable wit tion: and subtle analysis, abundance of wit and, - eloquenCe:t-ndaneCe e of verses, and even of * see the Dialogue between Socrates and To MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. and ingenul:y, had little imagination; nor nected with them. He electrifies the mind indeed do we think his classical diction com- through conductors. The most unimaginative parable to that of Milton. The authority of man must understand the Iliad. Homer gives Johnson is against us on this point. But him no choice, and requires from him no txerJohnson had studied the bad writers of the tion; but takes the whole upon himself, and middle ages till he had become utterly insen- sets his images in so clear a light that it is sible to.the Augustan elegance, and was as ill impossible to be blind to them. The works qualified to judge between two Latin styles of Milton cannot be comprehended or enjoyed, as an habitual drunkard to set up for a wine- unless the mind of the reader co-operate with taster. that of the writer. He does not paint a finished Versification in a dead language is an exotic, picture, or play for a mere passive listener. a far-fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the which elsewhere may be found in healthful outline. He strikes the key-note, and expects and spontaneous perfection. The soils on his hearer to make out the melody. which this rarity flourishes are in general as We often hear of the magical influence ill suited to the production of vigorous native,of poetry. The expression in general means poetry, as the flower-pots of a hot-house to the nothing; but, applied to the writings of Milton, growth of oaks. That the author of the Para- it is most appropriate. His poetry acts like dise Lost should have written the Epistle to an incantation. Its merit lies less in its Manso, was truly wonderful. Never before obvious meaning than in its occult power. were such marked originality and such ex- There would seem, at first sight, to be no more quisite mimicry found together. Indeed, in all in his words than in other words. But they the Latin poems of Milton, the artificial manner are words of enchantment; no sooner are they indispensable to such works is admirably pre- pronounced than the past is present, and the served, while, at the same time, the -richness distant near. New forms of beauty start at of his fancy and the elevation of his senti- once into existence, and all the burial places ments give to them a peculiar charm, an air of the memory give up their dead. Change of nobleness and freedom, which distinguishes the structure of the sentence, substitute one them from all other writings of the same class. synonyme for another, and the whole effect is They remind us of the amusements of those destroyed. The spell loses its power: and he angelic warriors who composed the cohort of wvho should then hope to conjure with it, would Gabriel: find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in A' About him exercised heroic games the Arabian tale, when he stood crying, " Open The unarmed youth of heaven. But o'er their heads Wheat," "Open Barley," to the door which Celestial armory, shield, helm, and spear, obeyed no sound but "Open Sesame!" The Hung bright, with diamond flaming and with gold." miserable failure of Dryden, in his attempt to We cannot look upon the sportive exercises rewrite some parts of the Paradise Lost, is a for which the genius of Milton ungirds itself, remarkable instance of this. without catching a glimpse of the gorgeous In support of these observations we may and terrible panoply which it is accustomed remark, that scarcely any passages in the to wear. The strength of his imagination poems of Milton are more generally known, triumphed over every obstacle. So intense or more frequently repeated, than those which and ardent was the fire of his mind, that it not are little more than muster rolls of names. only was not suffocated beneath the weight They are not always more appropriate or of its fuel, but penetrated the whole super- more melodious than other names. But.they incumbent mass with its own heat and ra- are charmed names. Every one of them is diance. the first link, in a long chain of associated It is not our intention to attempt any thing ideas. Like the dwelling-place of our infancy like a complete examination of the poetry of revisited in manhood, like the song of our Miiton. The public has long been agreed as country heard in a strange land, they produce to the merit of the most remarkable passages, upon us an effect wholly independent of their the incomparable harmony of the numbers, intrinsic value. One transports us back to a and the excellence of that style which no rival remote period of history. Another places us has been able to equal, and no parodist to among the moral scenery and manners of a degrade, which displays in their highest per- distant country. A third evokes all the dear fection the idiomatic powers of the English classical recollections of childhood, the school. tongue, and to which every ancient and every room, the dog-eared Virgil, the holiday, and modern language has contributed something the prize. -A fourth brings before us the of grace, of energy, or of music. In the vast splendid phantoms of chivalrous romance, field of criticism in which we are entering, the trophied lists, the embroidered housings, innumerable reapers have already put their the quaint devices, the haunted forests, the sickles. Yet the harvest is so abundant that enchanted. gardens, the achievements of ena. the negligent search of a straggling gleaner moured knights, and the smiles of rescued may be rewarded with a sheaf. princesses. The most striking characteristic of the poetry In none of the works of Milton is his pecu.of Milton is the extreme remoteness of the liar manner more happily displayed than in as:ociations, by means of which it acts on the the Allegro and the Penseroso. It is impossi. reader. Its effect is produced, not so much ble to conceive that the mechanism of language by what it expresses, as by what it suggests, can be brought to a more exquisite degree of not so much by the ideas which it directly perfection. These poems differ from others conveys, as by other ideas which are con- as ottar of roses differs from ordinary row, MILTON. water, the close packed essence from the thin surpassed in energy and magnificeice. 8o. diluted mixture. They are indeed not so much phocles made the Greek drama as dramatic as poems, as collections of hints, from each of was consistent with its original form. His which the reader is to make out a poem for portraits of men have a sort of similarity; but himself. Every.epithet is a text for a canto. it is the similarity not of a painting, but of a The Comus and the Samson Agonistes are bas-relief. It suggests a resemblance; but it works, which, though of very different merit, does not produce an illusion, Euripides atoffer some marked points of resemblance. tempted to carry the reform further. But it They are both Lyric poems in the form of was a task far beyond his powers, perhaps l:ePlays. There are perhaps no two kinds of yond any powers. Instead of correcting what composition so essentially dissimilar as the was bad, he destroyed what was excellent. He drama and the ode. The business of the dra- substituted crutches for stilts, bad seirmons for matist is to keep himself out of sight, and to good odes. let nothing appear but his characters. As Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides soon as he attracts notice to his personal feel- highly; much more highly than, in our opinion, ings, the illusion is broken. The effect is as he deserved. Indeed, the caresses, which this unpleasant as that which is produced on the partiality leads him to bestow on "sad Elecstage by the voice of a prompter, or the en- tra's poet," sometimes reminds us of the beau.. trance of a scene-shifter. Hence it was that tiful Queen of Fairy-land lissing the long ears the tragedies of Byron were his least success- of Bottom. At all events, there can be no ful performances. They resemble those paste- doubt that this veneration for the Atpenian, board pictures invented by the friend of child- whether just or not, was injurious to the Samren, Mr. Newberry, in which a single movable son Agonistes. Had he taken AEschylus for head goes around twenty different bodies; so his model, he would have given himself up to that the same face looks out upon us succes- the lyric'inspiration, and poured out profusely sively, from the uniform of a hussar, the furs all the treasures of his mind, without bestowof a judge, and the rags of a beggar. In all ing a thought on those dramatic proprieties the characters, patriots and tyrants, haters and which the nature of the work rendered it imlovers, the frown and sneer of Harold were possible to preserve. In the attempt to recondiscernible in an instant. But this species of cile things in their own nature inconsistent, he egotism, though fatal to the drama, is the inspi- has failed, as every one must have failed. We ration of the ode. It is the part of the lyric cannot identify ourselves with the characters, poet to abandon himself, without reserve, to his as in a good play. We. cannot identify ourown emotions. selves with the poet, as in a good ode. The Between these hostile elements many great conflicting ingredients, like an acid and an men have endeavoured to effect an amalgama- alkali mixed, neutralize each other. We are tion, but never with complete success. The by no means insensible to the merits of this Greek drama, on the model of which the Sam- celebrated piece, to the severe dignity of the son was written, sprung from the Ode. The style, the graceful and pathetic.solemnity of dialogue was ingrafted on the chorus, and the opening speech, or the wild and barbaric naturally partook of its character. The genius melody which gives so striking an effect to the of the greatest of the Athenian dramatists co- choral passages. But we think it, we confess, operated with the circumstances under which the least successful effort of the gem is of tragedy made its first appearance. ZEschylus Milton. was) head and heart, a lyric poet. In his time, The Comus is framed on the model'of the the Greeks had far more intercourse with the Italian Masque, as the Samson is framed on East than in the days of Homer; and they had the model of the Greek Tragedy. It is, cernot yet acquired that immense superiority in tainly, the noblest performance of the kind war, in sciehce, and in the arts, which, in the which exists in any language. It is as far sufollowing generation, led them to treat the perior to the Faithful Shepherdess, as the Asiatics with contempt. From the narrative Faithful Shepherdess is to the Aminta, or the of Herodotus, it should seem that they still Aminta to the Pastor Fido. It was well for looked up, with the veneration of disciples, to Milton that he had here no Euripides to misEgypt and Assyria. At this period, accord- lead him. He understood and loved the literaingly, it was natural that the literature of ture of modern Italy. But he did not feel for Greece should be tinctured with the Oriental it the same veneration which he entertaired style. And that style, we think, is clearly for the remains of Athenian and Roman poetry, discernible in the works of Pindar and /Eschy- consecrated by so many lofty and endearing lus. The latter often reminds us of the He- recollections. The faults, moreover, of his brew writers. The book of Job, indeed, in Italian predecessors were of a kind to which conduct and diction, bears a considerable re- his mind had a deadly antipathy. He could semblance to some of his dramas. Considered stoop to a plain style, sometimes even to a bald as plays, his works are absurd: considered as style; but false brilliancy was his utter averchoruses, they are above all praise. If, for sion. His Muse had. no objection to a russet instance, we examine the address of Clytem- attire; but she turned with disgust from the nestra to Agamemnon on his return, or the de- finery of Guarini, as tawdry, and as paltry as scription of the seven Argive chiefs, by the the rags of a chimney-sweeper on May-day. principles of dramatic writing, we shall in- Whatever ornaments she wears are of massive stantly condemn them as monstrous. But, if gold, not only dazzling to the sight, but capable we forget the characters, and think only of the of standing the severest test of the crucible. poetry we shall admit that it has never been Milton attended in the Comus to the distinc * 2 6 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. don which he neglected in the Samson. He be compared with the Paradise Lost, is the made it what it ought to be, essentially lyrical, Divine Comedy. The subject of Milton, in and dramatic only in semblance. He has not some points, resembled that of Dante; but he attempted a fruitless struggle against a defect has treated it in a widely different manner. inherent in the nature of that species of com- We cannot, we think, better illustrate out position; and he has, therefore, succeeded, opinion respecting our own great poet, than wherever success was not impossible. The by contrasting him with the father of Tuscan speeches must Ae read as majestic soliloquies; literature. and he wno so leads them will be enraptured The poetry of Milton differs from that of with their eloquence, their sublimity, and their Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed music. The interruptions of the dialogue, from the picture-writing of Mexico. The however, impose a constraint upon the writer, images which Dante employs speak for them. and break the illusion of the readet. The selves:-they stand simply for what they are. finest passages are those which are lyric in Those of Milton have a signification which is form as well as in spirit. "I should much often discernible only to the initiated. Their commend," says the excellent Sir Henry Wot- value depends less on what they directly reton, in a letter to Milton, "the tragical part, if present, than on what they remotely suggest the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain However strange, however grotesque, may be dorique delicacy in your songs and odes, where- the appearance which Dante undertakes to deunto, I most plainly confess to you, I have seen scribe, he never shrinks from describing it. yet nothing parallel in our language." The He gives us the shape, the colour, the sound, criticism was just. It is when Milton escapes the smell, the taste; he counts the numbers; from the shackles of the dialogue, when he is he measures the size. His similes are the ildischarged from the labour of uniting two in- lustrations of a traveller. Unlike those of other congruous styles, when he is at liberty to in- poets, and especially of Milton, they are introdulge his choral raptures without reserve, that duced in a plain, business-like manner; not he rises even above himself. Then, like his for the sake of any beauty in the objects from own Good Genius, bursting from the earthly which they are drawn, not for the sake of any form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands forth in ornament which they may impart to the poem, celestial freedom and beauty; he seems to cry but simply in order to make the meaning of the exultingly, writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself, "Now my task is smoothly done, The ruins of the precipice which led from the ILcan fly; or I can run," sixth to the seventh circle of hell, were like to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to those of the rock which fell into the Adige on bathe in the Elysian dew of the rainbow, and the south of Trent. The cataract of Phlege to inhale the balmy smells of nard and cassia, thon was like that of Aqua Cheta at the mo which the musky winds of the zephyr scatter nastery of St. Benedict. The place where the through the cedared alleys of the Hesperides.*'heretics were confined in burning tombs reThere are several of the minor poems of sembled the vast cemetery of Arles! Milton on which we would willingly make a Now, let us compare with the exact details few remarks. Still more willingly would we of Dante the dim intimations of Milton. We enter into a detailed examination of that ad- will cite a few examples. The English poet mirable poem, the Paradise Regained, which, has never thought of taking the measure of strangely enough, is scarcely ever mentioned, Satan. He gives us merely a vague idea of except' as an instance of the blindness of that vast bulk. In one passage the fiend lies parental affection which men of letters bear stretched out, huge in length, floating many a towards the offspring of their intellects. That rood, equal in size to the earth-bdrn enemies Milton was mistaken in preferring this work, of Jove, or to the sea-monster whith the mariexcellent as it is, to the Paradise Lost, we ner mistakes for an island. When he admust readily admit. But we are sure that the dresses himself to battle against the guardian superiority of the Paradise Lost to the Para- angels, he stands like Teneriffe or Atlas; his dise Regained is not more decided than the stature reaches the sky. Contrast with these superiority of the Paradise Regained to. every descriptions the lines in which Dante has dfepoem which has since made its appearance. scribed the gigantic spectre of Nimrod. "His But our limits prevent us from discussing the face seemed to me as long and as broad as the point at length. We hasten on to that extraor- ball of St. Peter's at Rome; and his other limbs dinary production, which the general suffrage were in proportion; so that the bank, which of critics has placed in the highest class of concealed him from the waist downwards, numan compositions. nevertheless showed so much of him, that The only poem of modern times which can:three tall Germans would in vain have attempted to reach his hair." We are sensible oft'There eternal summer dwells,:that we do no justice to the admirable style of And west winds with musky wing, the Florentiie Poet. But Mr. Cary's transla. About the cedared alleys fling -tion is not at hand, and our version, however Nard and cassia's balmy smells: Iri, there with humid bow rude, is sufficient to illu trate our meaning. We.ers the odorous banks, that blow Once more, compare the lazar-house, in the Flowers of more mingled hue Thanlower pured scarf can show, eleventh book of the Paradise Lost, with the And dlenctles with Elysian dew, last ward of Malebolge in Dante. Milton avoidan (List, mortals, if your ears be true,) the loathsome details, and takes refuge in inheds of hyaAdnis anofd reposes, distinct, but solemn and tremendous imagery — Waxing well of hisdeep wound." Despair hurrying-from: couch to:couch, to mock XMItTON. T the wretches with his attendance: Death shak- portion of spirit with which we are best ae ing his dart over them, but in spite of suppli- quainted. We observe certain phenomena, cations, delaying to strike. What says Dante? We cannot explain them into material causes, "There was such a moan there as there would We therefore infer that there exists something be if all the sick, whb, between July and Sep- which is not material.. But of this something tember, are in the hospitals of Valdichiana, we have no'idea. We can define it only by and of the Tuscan swamps, and of Sardinia, negatives. We can reason about it only by. were in one pit together; and such a stench symbols. We use the word, but we have no was issuing forth as is wont to issue from de- image of the thing: and the business of poetry eayed limbs." is with images, ana not with words. The poet We will not take upon ourselves the invi- uses words indeed; but they are merely the dious office of settling precedency between two instruments of his. art, not its objeots. They such writers. Each in his own department is are the materials which he is to dispose in incomparable; and each, we may remark, has, such a manner as to prenent a picture to the wisely or fortunately, taken a subject adayted mental eye. And, if they are net so disposed, to exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest they are no more entitled to be called poetry, advantage. The Divine Comedy is a personal than a bale of canvass and a box of colours narrative. Dante is the eye-witness and ear- are to be called a painting. witness of that which he relates. He is the Logicians may reason about abstractions, very man who has heard the tormented spirits but the great mass of mankind can never feel crying out for the second death; who has read an interest in them. They must have images. the dusky characters on the portal, within The strong tendency of the multitude in all which there is no hope; who has hidden his ages and nations to idolatry can be explained face from the terrors of. the Gorgon; who has on no other principle. The first inhabitants fled from the hooks and the seething pitch of of Greece, there is every reason to believe, Barbaricciaand Diaghignazzo. His own hands worshipped one invisible Deity. But the nehave grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. His cessity of having something more definite to own feet have climbed the mountain of expia- adore produced, in a few centuries, the innution. His own brow has been marked by the merable crowd of gods and goddesses. In like purifying angel. The reader would throw aside manner the ancient Persians thought it imsuch a tale in incredulous disgust, unless it pious to exhibit the Creator under a human were told with the strongest air of veracity, form. Yet even these transferred to the sun with a sobriety even in its horrors, with the the worship which, speculatively, they consigreatest precision and multiplicity in its de- dered due only to the Supreme mind. The tails. The narrative of Milton in this respect history of the Jews is the record of a continua, differs from that of Dante, as the adventures struggle between pure Theism, supported by of Amidas differ from those of Gulliver. The the most terrible sanctions, and the strangely author of Amidas would have made his book fascinating desire of having some visible ani ridiculous if he had introduced those minute tangible object of adoration. Perhaps none particulars which give such a charm to the of the secondary causes which Gibbon hasn aswork of Swift, the nautical observations, the signed for the rapidity with which Christianity affected delicacy about namnes, the official do- spread over the world, while Judaism scarcely cuments transcribed at full length, and all the ever acquired a proselyte, operated more powerunmeaning gossip and scandal-rof the court, fully than this feeling. God, the uncreated, springing out of nothing, and tending to no- the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted thing. We are not shocked at being told that few worshippers. A philosopher might admire a man who lived, nobody knows when, saw so noble a conception; but the crowd turned many very strange sights, and we can easily away in disgust from Words which presented abandon ourselves to the illusion of the ro- no image to their minds. It was before Deity, mance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon, embodied in a human form, walking among now actually resident at Rotherhithe, tells us men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning on of pigmies and giants, flying islands and phi- their bosoms, weeping over their graves, surmlosophizing horses, nothing but such circum- bering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, stantial touches could produce, for a single that the prejudices of the Synagogue, and the moment, a deception on the imagination. doubts of the Academy, and the pride of the Of all the poets who have introduced into Portico, and the fasces of the lictor, and the their works the agency of supernatural beings, swords of thirty legions, were humbled in the Milton has succeeded best. Here Dabte de- dust! Soon after Christianity had achieved its cidedly yields to him. And as this is a point triumph, the principle which had assisted it on which many rash and ill-considered judg- began to corrupt. It became a new paganism ments have been pronounced, we feel inclined Patron saints assumed the offices of household to dwell on it a little longer. The most fatal gods. St. George took the place of Mars. St. error which a poet oan possibly commit in the Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of Cas managementof his nachinery,is that of attempt- tor and Pohux, The Virgin Mother and Cicilia mg to philosophize too much. Milton has been succeeded to Venus and the Muses. The fasoften censured for ascribing to spirits many cination of sex and loveliness was again joined' functions of which spirits must be incapable. to that of celestial dignity; and the homage of But these objections, though sanctioned by chivalry was blended with that of religion. eminent names, originate, we venture to say, Reformers have often made a. stand againstin profound ignorance of the art of poetry. these feelings; but never with more: than apWhat is spirit? What are our own minds, the parent and partial success. T'he men who d& a* MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, Polishel the images in cathedrals have not proper to supernatural agents. We feel tha always been able to demolish thosewhichwere we could talk with his ghosts and demons, enshrined in their minds. It would not be diffi- without any emotions of unearthly awe. We cult to show, that in politics the same rule could, like Don Juan, ask them to supper, and holds good. Doctrines, we are afraid, must eat heartily in their company His angels are generally be embodied before they can excite good men with wings. His devils are spiteful, strong public feeling. The multitude is more ugly executioners. His dead men are merely easily interested for the most unmeaning badge, living men in strange situations. The scene or the most insignificant name, than for the which passes between the poet and Facinata most important principle. is justly celebrated. Still, Facinata in the From these considerations, we infer, that no. burning tomb is exactly what Facinata would poet who should affect that metaphysical accu- have been at an auto da fe. Nothing can be racy for the want of which Milton has been more touching than the first interview of Dante blamed, would escape a disgraceful failure. and Beatrice. Yet what is it, but a lovely woStill, however, there was another extreme, man chiding, with sweet austere composure, which, though far less dangerous, was also to the lover for whcse affections she is grateful, be avoided. The imaginations of men are in but whose vices she reprobates? The feelings a great measure under the control of their which give the passage its charm would suit opinions. The most exquisite art of a poetical the streets of Florence, as well as the summit colouring can produce no illusion when it is of the Mount of Purgatory. employed to represent that which is at once The Spirits of Milton are unlike those of perceived to be incongruous and absurd. Mil- almost all other writers. His fiends, in partiton wrote in an age of philosophers and theo- cular, are wonderful creations. They are not logians. It was necessary therefore for him to metaphysical abstractions. They are not abstain from giving such a shock to their un- wicked men. They are not ugly beasts. They derstandings, as might break the charm which have no horns, no tails, none of the fee-faw. it was his object to throw over their imagina- fum of Tasso and Klopstock. They have just tions. This is the real explanation of the enough in common with human nature to be indistinctness and inconsistency with which intelligible to human beings. Their characters he has often been reproached. Dr. Johnson are, like their forms, marked by a certain dim acknowledges, that it was absolutely neces- resemblance to those of men, but exaggerated sary for him to clothe his spirits with ma- to gigantic dimensions and veiled in myste. terial forms. "'But," says he, "he should rious,gloom. have secured the consistency of his system, Perhaps the gods and demons of Eschylus by keeping immateriality out of sight, and se- may best bear a comparison with the angels ducing the reader to drop it from his thoughts." and devils of Milton. The style of the AtheThis is easily said; but what if he could not nian had, as we have remarked, something of seduce the reader to drop it from his thoughts 1 the vagueness and tenor of the Oriental chaWhat if the contrary opinion had taken so full racter; and the same peculiarity may be traced a poss on of the minds of men, as to leave in his mythology. It has nothing of the ameno room even for the quasi-belief which poetry nity and elegance which we generally find in requires? Such we suspect to have been the the superstitions of Greece. All is rugged, case. It was impossible for the poet to adopt barbaric, and colossal. His legends seem to altogether the material or the immaterial sys- harmonize les-, with the fragrant groves and tem. He therefore took his stand on the graceful porticos, in which his countrymen debatable ground. He left the whole in am- paid their vows to the God of Light and Godbiguity. He has doubtless by so doing laid dess of Desire, than with those huge and grohimself open to the charge of inconsistency. tesque labyrinths of eternal granite, in which But, though philosophically in the wrong, we Egypt enshrined her mystic Osiris, or in which cannot but believe that he was poetically in Hindostan still bows down to her seven-headed the right. This task, which almost any other idols. His favourite gods are those of the writer would have found impracticable, was elder generations,-the sons of heaven and easy to him. The peculiar art which he pos- earth, compared with whom Jupiter himself sessed of communicating his meaning circuit- was a stripling and an upstart, —the gigantic ously, through a long succession of associated Titans and the inexorable Furies. Foremost ideas, and of intimating more than he ex- among his creations of this class stands Propressed, enabled him to disguise those incon- metheus, half fiend, half redeemer, the friend gruities which he could not avoid. of man, the sullen and implacable enemy of Poetry, which relates to the beings of another heaven. He bearsitndoubtedly a considerable world, ought to be at once mysterious and resemblance to the Satan of Milton. In both picturesque. That of Milton is so. That of we find the same' vPatience of control, the Dante is picturesque, indeed, beyond any that same ferocity, the same unconrauerable pride. was ever written. Its effect approaches to that In both characters also are mingled,.though in produced by the pencil or the chisel. But it is very different proportions, some kind and picturesq& to the exclusion of all mystery. generous feelings. Prometheus, however, is his is lt indeed on the right side, a fault hardly superhuman enough. Je talks too iasepara efrom the plan of his poem, which, much of his chains and his uneasy posture as we haie already observed, rendered the ut- He is rather too much depressed and agitated. ost accuracy of description necessary. Still His resolution seems to depend on the know. it is a fault. His supernatural agents excite ledge which he possesses, that he holds the fate an interest; but it is not the interest which is of his torturer in his hands, and that the hout MILTON. of his release will surely come. But Satan is forth their blood on scaffolds. That hateful a creature of another sphere. The might of proscription, facetiously termed the Act of In. his intellectual nature is victorious over the ex- demnity and Oblivion, had set a mark on the tremity of pain. Amidst agonies which cannot poor, blind, deserted poet, and held him up by be conceived without horror, he deliberates, name to the hatred of a profligate court and resolves, and even exults. Against the sword an inconstant people! Venal and licentious of Michael, against the thunder of Jehovah, scribblers, with just sufficient talent to clothe against the flaming lake and the marl burning the thoughts of a pander in the style of a bell. with solid fire, against the prospect of an eter- man, were now the favourite writers of the nity of unintermittent misery, his spirit bears sovereign and the public. It was a loathsome up unbroken, resting on its own innate ener- herd-which could be compared to nothing so gies, requiring no support from any thing ex- fitly as to the rabble of Comus, grotesque monternal, nor even from hope itself! sters, half bestial, half human, dropping with To return for a moment to the parallel which wine, bloated with gluttony, and reeling in obwe have been attempting to draw between Mil- scene dances. Amidst these his Muse was ton and Dante, we would add, that the poetry placed, like the chaste lady of the Masque, of these great men has in a considerable degree lofty, spotless, and serene —to be chatted at, taken its character from their moral qualities. and pointed at, and grinned at, by the whole They are not egotists. They rarely obtrude rabble of Satyrs and Goblins. If ever despondtheir idiosyncrasies on their readers. They ency and asperity could be excused in any have nothing in common with those modern man, it might have been excused in Miltqn. beggars for fame, who extort a pittance from But the strength of his mind overcame every the compassion of the inexperienced, by ex- calamity. Neither blindness, nor gout, nor posing the nakedness and sores of their minds. age, nor penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor Yet it would be difficult to name two writers political disappointments, nor abuse, nor pro. whose works have been more completely, scription, nor neglect, had power to disturb though undesignedly, coloured by their per- his sedate and majestic patience. His spirits sonal feelings. do not seem to have been high, but they were The character of Milton was peculiarly dis- singularly equable. His temper was serious, tinguished by loftiness of thought; that of perhaps stern; but it was a temper which no Dante by intensity of feeling. In every line sufferings could render sullen or fretful. Such of the Divine Comedy we discern the asperity as it was, when, on the eve of great events, he which is produced by pride struggling with. returned from his travels, in the prime of health misery. There is perhaps no work in the and manly beauty, loaded with literary distinc. world so deeply and uniformly sorrowful. The tions and glowing with patriotic hopes, such melancholy of Dante was no fantastic caprice. it continued to be-when, after having experi. It was not, as far as at this distance of time enced every calamity which is incident to our,an be judged, the effect of external circum- nature, old, poor, sightless, and disgraced, he stances. It was from within. Neither love retired to his hovel to die! nor glory, neither the conflicts of the earth nor Hence it was, that though he wrote the the hope of heaven could dispel it. It twined Paradise Lost at a time of life when images every consolation and every pleasure into its of beauty and tenderness are in general beown nature. It resembled that noxious Sardi- ginning to fade, even from those minds in nian soil of which the intense bitterness is said which they have not been effaced by anxiety to have been perceptible even in its honey. and disappointment, he adorned it with all His mind was, in the noble language of the He. that is most lovely and delightful in the phy. brew poet, "a land of darkness, as darkness sical and in the moral world. Neither Theo. itself, and where the light was as darkness!" critus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more health. The gloom of his character discolours all the ful sense of the pleasantness of external passions of men and all the face of nature, objects, or loved better to luxuriate amidst and tinges with its own livid hue the flowers sunbeams and flowers, the songs of nightinof Paradise and the glories of the Eternal gales, the juice of summer fruits, and the Throne! All the portraits of him are singu- coolness of shady fountains. His conception larly characteristic. No person can look on of love unites all the voluptuousness of the the features, noble even to ruggedness, the Oriental harem, and all the gallantry of the dark furrows of the cheek, the haggard and chivalric tournament, with all the pure and woful stare of the eye, the sullen and contemp- quiet affection of an English fireside. His tuous curve of the lip, and doubt that they be- poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine longed to a man too proud and too sensitive to scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairybe happy. land, are embosomed in its most rugged and Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles lover; and, like Dante, he had been unfortu- bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche nate in ambition and in love. He had sur- Traces, indeed, of the peculiar character of vived his health and his sight, the comforts of Milton may be found in all his works; but it his home and the prosperity of his party. Of is most strongly displayed in thgaonnets, the great men, by whom he had been distin- Those remarkable poems have under. guished at his entrance into life, some had valued by critics, who have not rstood been taken away from the evil to come; some their nature. They have no e _ matic had carried into foreign climates their un- point. There is none of the ingen of Fill conquerable hatred of oppression; some were caji in the thought, none of the ha and bril. pining in dungeons; and some had poured liant enamel of Petrarch in the s le Th, 1' nL. I.-2 D1nB MACAULAY S MISL4LWANEOUS WRITINGS. are simple but majestic recordsof the feelings is goodl; btt-it itr;ltks'gof:7 a t the eost iv:tergs of the. poet; as little tricked out for the public ing crisis of the stiiggle; The performanet eye as his diary would have been. A victory, of Ludlow is very foolish and- violent; aid an expected attack upon the dity, a momentary most of the later writers who have espousC-d fit of depression or exultation, a jest thrown the same cause, Oldrmixon, for instance, arid: out against one of his books, a dream, which Catherine Macaiulay, have, to say the least,for a short time restored to him that beautiful been more distinguished by zeal than either face over which the grave had closed forever, by candour or by skill. On the other side are led him to musings which, without effort, the most authoritative and the most popular shaped themselves into verse. The unity of historical works in our language, that of Clasentiment and severity of style, which charac- rendon, and that of Hume. The former is not terize these little pieces, remind us of the only, ably written and full of valuable informaGreek Anthology; or perhaps still more of the tion, but has also an air of dignity and sinCollects of the English Liturgy-the noble cerity which makes even the prejudices and poem on the Massacres of Piedmont is strictly errors with which it abounds respectable. a collect in verse. Hume, from whose fascinating narrative the The Sonnets are more or less striking, ac- great mass of the reading public are still concording as the occasions which gave birth to tented to take their opinions, hated religion so them are more or less interesting. But they -much, that he hated liberty for having been are, almost without exception, dignified by a allied with religion-and has pleaded the cause sobriety and greatness of mind to which we of tyranny with the dexterity of an advocate, know not where to look for a parallel. It would while affecting the impartiality of a judge. indeed be scarcely safe to draw any decided The public conduct of Milton must be apinferences, as to the character of a writer, proved or condemnned, according as the resistfrom passages directly egotistical. But the ance of the people to Charles I. shall appear qualities which we have ascribed to Milton, to be justifiable or criminal. We shall therei. though perhaps most strongly marked in those fore make no apology for dedicating a few parts of his works which treat of his personal pages to the discussion of that interesting feelings, are distinguishable in every page, and, and most important question. We shall not impart to all his writings, prose and poetry, argue it on general grounds, we shall not recur English, Latin, and Italian, a strong family to those primary principles from which the Hkeness. claim of any government to the obedience of His public conduct was such as was to be its subjects is to be deduced; it is a vantageexpected from a man of a spirit so high, and ground to which we are entitled; but we will an intellect so powerful. He lived at one of relinquish it. We are, on this point, so confi-;hetmost memorable eras in the history of man- dent of superiority, that we have no objection bind; at the very crisis of the great conflict to imitate the ostentatious generosity of those wtween Oromasdes and Arimanes-liberty ancient knights, who vowed to joust without and despotism, reason and prejudice. That helmet or shield against all enemies, and to great battle was fought for no single genera- give their antagonist the advantage of sun and tion, for no single land. The destinies of the wind. We will take the naked, constitutional human race were staked on the same cast question. We confidently affirm, that every with the freedom of the English people. Then reason, which can be urged in favour of the were first proclaimed those mighty principles, Revolution of 1688, may be urged with at least which have since worked their way into the equal force in favour of what is called the depths of the American forests, which have great rebellion. roused Greece from the slavery and degrada- In one respect only, we think, can the tion of two thousand years, and which, from warmest admirers of Charles venture to say one end of Europe to the other, have kindled that he was a better sovereign than his son. an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the op- He was not, in name and profession, a papist; pressed, and loosed the knees of the oppressors we say in name and profession, because both with a strange and unwonted fear! Charles himself and his miserable creature, Of those principles, then struggling for their Laud, while they abjured the innocent badges infant existence, Milton was the most devoted of popery, retained all its worst vices, a comrn and eloquent literary champion. We need plete subjection of reason to authority, a weak tiot say how much we admire his public con- preference of form to substance, a childish duct. But we cannot disguise from ourselves, passion for mummeries, an idolatrous venerathat a large portion of his countrymen still tion for the priestly character, and, above all, a think it unjustifiable. The civil war, indeed, stupid and ferocious intolerance. This, how.d has beenr more discussed, and is less under- ever, we waive. We will concede that Charles stood, than any event in English history. The was a good protestant; but we say that his Roundheads laboured under the disadvantage protestantism does not make the slightest disof which the lion in the fable complained' so tinction between his case and that of James. bitterly. Though they were the conquerors, The principles of the Revolution have often their e es were the painters. As a body, been grossly misrepresented, and never more they haie their utmost to decry and ruin than in the course of the present year. There literatun n d literature was even with them, is a certain class of men, who, while they u, in thr g run, it always is with its ene- profess to hold in reverence the great names mies. T5best book, on their side of the and great actions of former times, never look question, l~ the charming memoir of Mrs. at them for any other purpose than in order to UIchinson. May's History of the Parliament find in them some excuse for existing almuset MhILTON & In every venerable precedent, tl ey pass by catholics from the crcwn, because they thought what is essential, and take only 9hat is acci- them likely to be tyrants. The ground on dental: they keep out of sight what is benefi- which they, in their famous resolution, decial, and hold up to public imitation all that is clhred the throne'vacant, was this, "that defective. If, in any part of any great exam- James had broken the fundamental laws of the ple, there be any thing unsound, these flesh-flies kingdom." Every man, therefore, who apdetect it with an unerring instinct, and dart proves of the Revolution of 1688, must hold upon it with a ravenous delight. They cannot that the breach off fdanmental laws-on the part ef always prevent the advocates of a good mea- the sovereign justifies resistance. The question sure from compassing their end; but they feel, then is this: Had Charles I. broken the fundas with their prototype, that mental laws of England? "Their labours must be to pervert that end, No person can answer in the negative, urAnd out of good still to find means of evil." less he refuses credit; not merely to all the accusations brought against Charles by his To the blessings' which England has de-,opponents, but to the narratives of the warmest rived from the Revolution these people are royalists, and to the confessions of the king utterly insensible. The expulsion of a tyrant, himself. If there be any historian of any party the solemn recognition of popular rights, who has related the events of that reign, the liberty, security, toleration, all go for nothing conduct of Charles, from his accession to the with them. One sect there was, which, from meeting of the Long Parliament, had been a unfortunate temporary causes, it was thought continued course of oppression and treachery. necessary to keep under close restraint. One Let those who applaud the Revolution and con. part of the empire there was so unhappily cir- demn the rebellion, mention one act of James cumstanced, that at that time its misery was, II., to which a parallel is not to be found in the necessary to our happiness, and its slavery to history of his father. Let them lay their finour freedom! These are the parts of the Re- gers on a single article in the Declaration of volution which the politicians of whom we Right, presented by the two Houses to William speak love to contemplate, and which seem to and Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged them, not indeed to vindicate, but in some de- to have violated. He had, according to the gree to palliate the good which it has produced. testimony of his own friends, usurped the Talk to them of Naples, of Spain, or of South functions of the legislature, raised taxes without America. They stand forth, zealots for the the consent of parliament, and quartered doctrine of Divine Right, which has now come troops on the people in the most illegal and back to us, like a thief from transportation, vexatious manner. Not a single session of under the alias of Legitimacy. But mention parliament had passed without some unconsti. the miseries of Ireland! Then William is a tiona.1l attack on the freedom of debate.: The hero. Then Somers and Shrewsbury are great right of petition was grossly violated. Arbi, men. Then the Revolution is a glorious era! trary judgments, exorbitant fines, and unwarThe very same persons, who, in this country, ranted imprisonments, were grievances of daily never omit an opportunity of reviving every and hourly occurrence. If these things do not wretched Jacobite slander respecting the whigs justify resistance, the Revolution was treason; of that period, have no sooner crossed St. if they do, the Great Rebellion was laudable. George's channel, than they begin to fill their But, it is said, why not adopt milder me, bumpers to the glorious and immortal memory. sures? Why, after the king had consented t, They may truly boast that they look not at men so many reforms, and renounced so many op. but measures. So that evil be done, they care pressive prerogatives, did the parliament con. not who does it-the arbitrary Charles or the tinue to rise in their demands, at the risk of liberal William, Ferdinand the catholic or provoking a civil war! The ship-money had Frederick the protestant! On such occasions been given up. The star-chamber had been their deadliest opponents may reckon upon abolished. Provision had been made for the their candid construction. The bold assertions frequent convocation and secure deliberation of these people have of late impressed a large of parliaments. Why not pursue an end con.s portion of the public with an opinion that fessedly good, by peaceable and regular meansl James II. was expelled simply because he was We recur again to the analogy of the Revolua catholic, and that the Revolution was essen- tion. Why was James driven from the throne I tially a protestant revolution. Why was he not retained upon conditions I But this certainly'was not the case. Nor He too had offered to call a free parliament, can any person, who has acquired more know- and to submit to its decision all the matters in ledge of the history of those times than is to be dispute. Yet we praise our forefathers, who found in Goldsmith's Abridgment, believe that, preferred a revolution, a disputed succession, if James had held his own religious opinions a dynasty of strangers, twenty years of foreign withoht wishing to make proselytes; or if, and intestine war, a standing army, anti a nawishing even to make proselytes, he had enn- tional debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a tented himself with exerting only his conb.-.a- tried and proved tyrant. The Long P'arlia tional influence for that purpose, the Prince of ment acted on the same principle, and is enti. Orange would ever have been invited over. tled to the same praise. They comiil not trust Our ancestors, we suppose, knew their own the king. He had no doubt passed sarylaws, meaning. And, if we may believe them, their But what assurance had they that;he would hostility was primarily not to popery, but to not break them?- He had renosd oppres tyranny. They did not drive out a tyrant be- sive prerogatives. But where was the security cause he was a catholic; but they excluded that he would not resume them? They had t 12 MACAULAY S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. leal with a man whom no tie could bind, a man accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in who made and broke promises with equal faci- the morning! It is to such considerations as lity, a man whose honour had been a hundred these, together with his Vandyke dress, his times pawned-and never redeemed. handsome face, and his peaked beard, that he Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity on still stronger ground than the Convention with the present generation. of 1688. No action of James can be compared For ourselves, we own that we do not underfor wickedness and impudence to the-conduct stand the common phrase-a good man, but a of Charles with respect to the Petition of Right. bad king. We can as easily conceive a good The lords and commons present him with a man and an unnatural father, or a good man bill in which the constitutional limits of his and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in esti. power are marked out. He hesitates; he evades; mating the character of an individual, leave at last he bargains to give his assent, for five out of our consideration his conduct in the subsidies. The bill receives his solemn assent. most important of all human relations. And The subsidies are voted. But no sooner is the if in that relation we find him to have been tyrant relieved, than he returns at once to all selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall take the the arbitrary measures which he had bound liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of all himself to abandon, and violates all the his temperance at table, and all his regularity clauses of the very act which he had been at chapel. paid to pass. We cannot refrain from adding a few words For more than ten years, the people had respecting a topic on which the defenders of seen the rights, which were theirs by a double Charles are fond of dwelling. Ift they say, he claim, by immemorial inheritance and by re- governed his people ill, lie at least governed cent purchase, infringed by the perfidious king them after the example of his predecessors. If who had recognised them. At length circum- he violated their privileges, itwas because those stances compelled Charles to summon another privileges had not been accurately defined. No parliament; another chance was given them act of oppression has ever been imputed to for liberty. Were they to throw it away as him which has not a parallel in the annals of they had thrown away the former Were the Tudors. This point Hume has laboured they again to be cozened by le Roi le vent? with an art which is as discreditable in an hisWere they again to advance their money on torical work as it would be admirable in a pledges, which had been forfeited over and forensic address. The answer is short, clear, over again Were they to lay a second Peti- and decisive. Charles had assented to the tion of Right at the foot of the throne, to grant Petition of Right. He had renounced the op. another lavish aid in exchange for another un- pressive powers said to have been exercised meaning ceremony, and then take their de- by his predecessors, and he had renounced parture, till, after ten years' more of fraud and them for money. He was not entitled to set oppression, their prince should again require up his antiquated claims against his own rea supply, and again repay it with a perjury? cent release. They were compelled to choose whether they These arguments are so obvious that it may would trust a tyrant or conquer him. We think seem superfluous to dwell upon them. But that they chose wisely and nobly. those who have observed how much the events The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of that time are misrepresented and misunderof other malefactors against whom overwhelm- stood, will not blame us for stating the case ing evidence is produced, generally decline all simply. It is a case of which the simplest controversy about the facts, and content them- statement is the strongest. selves with calling testimony to character. He The enemies of the parliament, indeed, rarehad so many private virtues! And had James ly choose to take issue on the great points of II. no private virtues? Was even Oliver the question. They content themselves with Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves exposing some of'the crimes and follies of being judges, destitute of private virtues? which public commotions necessarily gave And what, after all, are the virtues ascribed to birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of Charles 1 A religious zeal, not more sincere Strafford. They execrate the lawless violence than that of his son, and fully as weak and of the army. They laugh at the scriptural narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary names of the preachers. Major-generals fleechousehold decencies, which half the tomb- ing their districts; soldiers revelling on the stones in England claim for those who lie be- spoils of a ruined peasantry; upstarts, enrich. neath them. A good father! A good husband! ed by the public plunder, taking possession of -Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees persecution, tyranny, and falsehood. of the old gentry; boys smashing the beautifu: We charge him with having broken his ce- windows of cathedrals; Quakers riding nake/. ronation oath-and we are told that he kept through the market-place; Fifth-monarchyhis marriage-vow! We accuse him of having men shouting for King Jesus; agitators lecgiven up his people to the merciless inflictions turing from the tops of tubs on the fate of of the.most hot-headed and hard-hearted of Agag;-all these, they tell us, were the off. prelates —and the defence is, that he took his spring of the Great Rebellion. littlc son on his knee and kissed him! We Be it so. We are not careful to answer in censure him for having violated the articles this matter. These charges, were they infiniteof the Petition of Right, after having, for good ly more important, would not alter our opinion and valuable consideration, promised to ob- of an event, which alone has made us to differ eru- them-and we are informed that he was from the slaves who cronch beneath the scep. MILTON. 1i tres of Brandenburg and Braganza. Many form of a foul and poisonous snake. Those evils, no doubt, were produced by the civil war. who injured her during the period of her dis. They were the price- of our liberty. Has the guise, were forever excluded from participaacquisition been worth the sacrifice! It is the tion in the blessings which she bestowed. But nature of the devil of tyranny to tear and rend to those who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, the body which he leaves. Are the miseries pitied. and protected her, she afterwards re. of continued possession less horrible than the vealed herself in the beautiful and celestial struggles of the tremendous exorcism? form which was natural to her, accompanied If it were possible that a people, brought up their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their under an intolerant and arbitrary system, could houses with wealth, made them happy in love, subvert that system without acts of cruelty and and victorious in war.* Such a spirit is folly, half the objections to despotic power Liberty. At times she takes the form of a would be removed. We should, in that case, hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she be compelled to acknowledge that it at least stings. But wo to those who in disgust shall produces no pernicious effects on the intellec- venture to crush her! And happy are those tual and moral character of a people. We de- who, having dared to receive her in her de. plore the outrages which accompany revolu- graded and frightful shape, shall at length be tions. But the more violent the outrages, the rewarded by her in the time of her beauty and more assured we feel that a revolution was ne- her glory. cessary. The violence of those outrages will There is only one cure for the evils which always be proportioned to the ferocity and ig- newly acquired freedom produces-and that norance of the people: and the ferocity and cure is freedom Y When a prisoner leaves his ignorance of the people will be proportioned cell, he cannot bear the light of day;-he is to the oppression and degradation under which unable to discriminate colours, or recognise they have been accustomed to live. Thus it faces. But th-e remedy is not to remand him was in our civil war. The rulers in the church into his dungeon, but to accustom him to the and state reaped only that which they had rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty sown. They had prohibited free discussion- may at first dazzle and bewilder nations which they had done their best to keep the people un- have become half blind in the house of bondage acquainted with their duties and their rights. But let them gaze on, and they will soon be able The retribution was just and natural. If they to bear it. In a few years men learn to reason. suffered from popular ignorance, it was be- The extreme violence of opinion subsides. cause they had themselves taken away the key Hostile theories correct each other. The scat. of knowledge. If they were assailed with blind tered elements of truth cease to conflict, and fury, it was because they had exacted an begin to coalesce. And at length a system of equally blind submission. justice and order is educed out of the chaos. It is the character of such revolutions that Many politicians of our time are in the habit we always see the worst of them at first. Till of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, men have been for some time free, they know that no people ought to be free till they are fi; not how to use their freedom. The natives of to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy wine countries are always sober. In climates of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to where wine is a rarity, intemperance abounds. go into the water till he had learnt to swim! A newly liberated people may be compared to If men are to wait for liberty till they become a northern army encamped on the Rhine or wise and good in slavery, they may indeed the Xeres. It is said that, when soldiers in wait forever. such a situation first iind themselves able to Therefore it is that we decidedly approve indulge without restraint in such a rare and of the conduct of Milton and the other wise expensive luxury, nothing is to be seen but in- and good men who, in spite of much that was toxication. Soon, however, plenty teaches dis- ridiculous and hateful in the conduct of their cretion; and after wine has been for a few associates, stood firmly by the cause of public months their daily fare, they become more liberty. We are not aware that th? poet has temperate than they had ever been in their been charged with personal participation in own country. In the same manner the final any of the blamable excesses of that time. and permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, The favourite topic of his enelnies is the line moderation, and mercy. Its immediate effects of conduct which he pursued with regard to are often atrocious crimes, conflicting errors, the execution of the king. Of that celebrated scepticism on points the most clear, dogma. proceeding we by no means approve. Still tism on points the most mysterious. It is just we must say, in justice to the many eminent at this crisis that its enemies love to exhibit persons who concurred in it, and in justice it. They pull down the scaffolding from the more particularly to the eminent person who half-finished edifice; they point to the flying defended it, that nothing can be more absurd dust, the falling bricks, the comfortless rooms, than the imputations which, for the last hun the frightful irregularity of the whole appear- dred and sixty years, it has been the fashion to ance; and then ask in scorn where the pro- cast upon the regicides. We have throughout mised splendour and comfort are to be found 1 abstained from appealing to first principlesIf such miserable sophisms were to prevail, we will not appeal to them now. We recur there would never be a good house or a good again to the parallel case of the Revolution. government in the world. What essential distinction can be drawn be. Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, tween the execution of the father and the by some mysterious law of her nature, was eondepnned to appear at certain seasons in the ~ Orlando Furloso, Canto 43 B ~14;b MACAUILAY'S MISCEL.LANEOUS WRITINGS. deposition of the son What constitutional had not been done, while the people dis. maxim is there, which applies to the former approved of it. But, for the sake of public and not to the latter 1 The king can do no liberty, we should also have wished the people wrong. If so, James was as innocent as, to approve of it when it was done. If any Charles could have been. The minister only thing more were wanting to the justification ought to be responsible for the acts df the of Milton, the book of Salmasius would furnish sovereign. If so, why not impeach Jeffries it. That miserable performance is now with and retain James. The person of a king is ju'stice considered only as a beacon to word. sacred. Was the person of James considered catchers who wish to become statesmen. The sacred at the Boyne To discharge cannon celebrity of the man who refuted it, the ".Enoee against an army in which a king is known to magni dextra," gives it all its fame with the be posted, is to approach pretty near to regi- present generation. In that age the state of cide. Charles too, it should always be re- things was different. It was not then fully membered, was put to death by men who had understood how vast an interval separates the been exasperated by the hostilities of several mere classical scholar from the political philoyears, and who had never been bound to him sopher. Nor can it be doubted, that a treatise by any other tie than that which was common which, bearing the name of so eminent a to them with all their fellow-citizens. Those critic, attacked the fundamental principles of whp drove James from his throne, who seduced all free governments, must, if suffered to rehis army, who alienated his friends, who first main unanswered, have produced a most perimprisoned him in his palace, and then turned nicious effect on the public mind. him out of it, who broke in upon his very We wish to add a few words relative to slumbers by imperious messages, who pursued another subject on which the enemies of him with fire and.sword from one part of the Milton delight to dwell-his conduct during empire to another, who hanged, drew, and the administration of the Protector. That an quartered His adherents, and attainted his enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept innocent heir, were his nephew and his two office under a military usurper, seems, no daughters! When we reflect on all these doubt, at first sight, extraordinary. But all the things, we are at a loss to conceive how the circumstances in which the country was then same persons who, on the fifth of November, placed were extraordinary. The ambition of thank God for wonderfully conducting his ser- Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never seems vant King William, and for making all opposi- to have coveted despotic power. lie at first tion fall before him until he became our King fought sincerely and manfully for the parliaand Governor, can, on the thirtieth of January, ment, and never deserted it, till it had deserted contrive to be afraid that the blood of the Royal its duty. If he dissolved it by force, it was Martyr may be visited on themselves and their not till he found that the few members, who children. remained after so many deaths, secessions, We do not, we repeat, approve of the execu- and expulsions, were desirous to appropriate ion of Charles; not because the constitution to themselves a power which they held only exempts the king from responsibility, for we in trust, and to inflict upon England the' know that all such maxims, however excellent, curse of a Venetian oligarchy. But even have their exceptions; nor because we feel when thus placed by violence at the head any peculiar interest in his character, for we of affairs, he did not assume unlimited power. think that his. sentence describes him with He gave the country a constitution far more perfect justice as a "tyrant, a traitor, a mur- perfect than any which had at that time been derer, and a public enemy;" but because we known in the world. He reformed the repreare convinced that the measure was most in- sentative system in a manner which has exjutrious to the cause of freedom. He whom it torted praise even from Lord Clarendon. For removed was a captive and a hostage. His himself, he demanded indeed the first place in heir, to whom the allegiance of every royalist the commonwealth; but with powers scarcely was instantly transferred, was at large. The so great as those of a Dutch stadtholder, or an Presbyterians could never have been perfectly American president. He gave the parliament reconciled to the father. They had no such root- a voice in the appointment of ministers, and ed enmity to the son. The great body of the left to it the whole legislative authority-not people, also, contemplated that proceeding with even reserving to himself a veto on its enactfeelings which, however unreasonable, no go- ments. And he did not require that the chief vernment could safely venture to outrage. magistracy should be hereditary in his family. But, though we think the conduct of the Thus far, we think, if the circumstances of the regicides blamable, that of Milton appears to time, and the opportunities which he had of us in a very different light. The deed was aggrandizing himself, be fairly considered, he done. It could not be undone. The evil was will not lose by comparison with Washington incurred; and the object was to render it as or Bolivar. Had his moderation been met bsmall as possible. We censure the chiefs corresponding moderation, there is no reason of the army for not yielding to the popular to think that he would have overstepped tne opinion: but we cannot censure Milton for line which he had traced for himself. But wishing to change that opinion. The very when he found that his parliaments questioned feeling, which would have restrained us from the authority under which they met, and that he committing the act, would have led us, after it was in danger of being deprived of the restricthad been committed, to defend it against the ed power which was absolutely necessary to his ravings of servility and superstition. For the personal safety, then, it must be acknowledgedt sake of public liberty, we wish that the thing he adopted a more arbitrary policy. MILThON. i xet, though we believe that the intentions vernment, which had just ability enough b of Cromwell were at first honest, though we deceive, and just religion enough to persecute. believe that he was driven from the noble The principles of liberty were the scoff of every course which he had marked out for himself grinning courtier, and the Anathema Maranaby the almost irresistible force of circum- tha of every fawning dean. In every high stances, though we admire, in common with place, worship was paid to Charles and James all men of all parties, the ability and energy -Belial and Moloch; and England propitiated of his splendid administration, we are not those obscene and cruel idols with the blood pleading for arbitrary and lawless power, even of her best and bravest children. Crime sucin his hands. We know that a good constitu- ceeded to crime, and disgrace to disgrace, till tion is infinitely better than the best despot. the race, accursed of God and man, was a But we suspect, that, at the time of which we second time driven forth, to wander on the speak, the violence of religious and political face of the earth, and to be a by-word and a enmities rendered a stable and happy settle- shaking of the head to the nations. ment next to impossible. The choice lay, not Most of the remarks which we have hitherto between Cromwell and liberty, but between made on the public character of Milton, apply Cromwell and the Stuarts. That Milton chose to him only as one of a large body. We shall well, no man can doubt, who fairly compares proceed to notice some of the peculiarities the events of the protectorate with those of the which distinguished him from his contempo. thirty years which succeeded it-the darkest raries. And, for that purpose, it is necessary and most disgraceful in the English annals. to take a short survey of the parties into which Cromwell was evidently laying, though in an the political world was at that time divided. irregular manner, the foundations of an ad- We must premise, that our observations are mirable system. Never before had religious intended to apply only to those who adhered, liberty and the freedom of discussion. been from a sincere preference, to one or to the enjoyed in a greater degree. Never had the other side. At a period of public commotion, national honour been better upheld abroad, or every faction, like an Oriental army, is attended the seat of justice better filled at home. Ard by a crowd of camp followers, a useless and it was rarely that any opposition, which stopped heartless rabble, who prowl round its line of short of open rebellion, provoked the resent- march in the hope of picking up something ment of the liberal and magnanimous usurper. under its protection, but desert it in the day of The institutions which he had established, as battle, and often join to exterminate it after a set down in the Instrument of Government, defeat. England, at the time of which we are and the Humble Petition and Advice, were treating, abounded with such fickle and selfish excellent. His practice, it is true, too often politicians, who transferred their support to Reparted from the theory of these institutions. every government as it rose,-who kissed the But, had he lived a few years longer, it is hand of the king in 1640, and spit in his face probable that his institutions would have sur- in 1649,-who shouted with equal glee when vived him, and that his arbitrary practice Cromwell was inaugurated in Westminster would have died with him. His power had Hall, and when he was dug up to be hanged at not been consecrated by any ancient preju- Tyburn-who dined on calve's' heads or on dices. It was upheld only by his great per- broiled rumps, and cut down oak branches or sonal qualities. Little, therefore, was to be stuck them up as circumstances altered, withdreaded from a,second Protector, unless he out the slightestshame orrepugnance. Thesewere also a second Oliver Cromwell. The we leave out of the account. We tale our events which followed his decease are the estimate of parties from those who really most' complete vindication of those who exert- deserved to be called partisans. ed themselves to uphold his authority. For We would speak first of the Puritans, the his death dissolved the whole frame of society. most remarkable body of men, perhaps, which The army rose against the Parliament, the the world has ever produced. The odious and different corps of the army against each other. ridiculous parts of their character lie on the Sect raved against sect. Partyplotted against surface. He that runs may read them; nor party. The Presbyterians, in their eagerness have there been wanting attentive and malito be revenged on the Independents, sacrificed cious observers to point them out. For many their own liberty, and deserted all their old years after the Restoration, they were the theme principles. Without casting one glance on the of unmeasured invective and derision. They past, or requiring one stipulation for the future, were exposed to the utmost licentiousness of they threw down their freedom at the feet of the press and of the stage, at the time when the most frivolous and heartless of tyrants. the press and the stage were most licentious. Then came those days, never to be recalled They were not men of letters; they were, as a without a blush-the days of servitude without body, unpopular; they could not defend them. loyalty, and sensuality without love, of dwarf- selves; and the public would not take them ish talents and gigantic vices, the paradise of under its protection. They were therefore cold hearts and narrow minds, the golden age abandoned, without reserve, to the tender merof -the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The cies of the satirists and dramatists. The king cringed to his rival that he might trample ostentatious simplicity bf their dress, their on his people, sunk into a viceroy of France, sour aspect, their nasal twang, their stiff posand pocketed, with complacent infamy, her ture, their long graces, their Hebrew names degrading insults and her more degrading the Scriptural phrases which'they introduced gold. The caresses of harlots and the jests on every occasion, their contempt of human of buffoons regulated the measures of a go- learning, their detestation of polite amrnus e6 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. ments, were indeed fair game for the laughers. with hands: their diadems crowns of glory But it is not from the laughers alone that the which should never fade away! On the rich philosophy of history is to be learnt. And he and the'eloquent, on nobles and priests, they who approaches this subject should carefully looked down with contempt: for they esteemed guard against the influence of that potent ridi- themselves rich in a more precious treasure, cule, which has already misled so many excel- and eloquent in a more sublime language, lent writers. nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and " Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. Che mortali perigli in se contiene: The very meanest of them was a being to Hor qui tener a fren nostro a desio, whose fate a mysterious and terrible import Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene " whose fate a mysterious and terrible importThose who roused the people to resistance-_ ance belonged-on whose slightest actions the w wh directed their measures through a long spirits of light and darkness looked with series of eventful years —who formed, out of anxious interest-who had been destined, bethe most unpromising materials, the finest fore heaven and earth were created, to enjoy army that Europe had ever seen-who tram- a felicityh should havontinue pass whe n heaven pled' down King, Church, and Aristocracy- whiand earth should have passed away. Events who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition which short-sighted politicians ascribed to and rebellion, made the name of England ter- earthly causes had been ordained on his acrible to every nation on the face of the earth, count. For his sake empires had risen, and were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their ab- flourished, and decayed. For his sake the surdities were mere external badges, like the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen signs of freemasonry or the dresses of friarsthe prophet We regret that these badges were not more He had been rescued by no common deliverer W e regret that badges were n ot more from the grasp of no common foe. He had attractive. We regret that a body, to whose courage and talents mankind has owed inesti- been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar mable obligations had not the lofty elegance agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. mable obligations, had not the lofty elegance It was for him that the sun had been darkened, which distinguished some of the adherents of that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had Charles I., or the easy good breeding for which arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufthe court of Charles II. was celebrated. But, arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufif we must make our choice, we shall, like ferings of her expiring God! Basani inst the playoturn frome, e specioe.Thus the Puritan was made up of two differ. Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious ent men, the one all self-abasement, penitence, caskets which contand only the Death's head gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, inand the Fool's head, and fix our choice on the flexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure. the dust before his Maker; but he set his foot The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and contemplation of superior beings and external groans, and tears. He was halfaddened by interests. Not conent with acknowledging, in groans, and tears. He was half maddened by i.nterests. Not contentwith acknowledging, in glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the general terms, an overruling Providence, they lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of habitually ascribed every event to the will of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific the Great Being, for whose power nothing was Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of too rva, t, for whose inspection nothing was too everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought him. minute To know hm to serve hm to enjoyfire. minute To know him, to serve him, to enjoy self intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial him, was with them the great end of existence. year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitter. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious ness of his soul that God had hid his face from homag which other sects substituted fo ness of his soul that God had hid his face from homage which other sects substituted for the him. But when he took his seat in the counpure worship of the soul. Instead of catching cil, or girt on his sword for war, these temrn occasional glimpses of the Deity through an pestuous workings of the soul had left no obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on the perceptible trace behind them. People who intolerable brightness, and to commune with saw nothing of the godly but their uncout him face to face. Hence originated their con- sag nothing from them b ut their tempt for terrestrial distinctions. The differ- visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh ence between the greatest and meanest of man- at thosehad littlereason tolaugh, kind seemed to vanish, when compared with at them. But those had little reason to laugh, kind seemed to vanish, when compared with who encountered them in the hall of debate or the boundltss interval which separated the in the field of battle. These fanatics brought whole race from him on whom their own eyes whole race from him on whom their own eyes to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgwere constantly fixed. They recognised no ment and an immutability of purpose which title to superiority but his favour; and, confi- some writers have thought inconsistent with dent of that favour, they despised all the ac- their religious zeal, but which were in fact the complishments and all the dignities of the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their world. If they were unacquainted with the feelings on one subject made them tranquil on works of philosophers and poets, they were every other. One overpowering sentiment had deeply read in the oracles of God. If their subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition names were not found in the registers of he- and fear. Death had lost its terrors and plearaids, they felt assured that they were recorded sure its charms. They had their smiles, and in the Book of Life. If their steps were not their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, accompanied by a splendid train of menials, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm legions of ministering angels had charge over had made them stoics, had cleared their minds d.em Their palaces were houses not made from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and * Gerusalemme Liberata, xv. 57. raised them above the influence of danger ai MILTON.' of corruption. It sometimes might lead them machines for destruction dressed up in uni. to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose un- forms, caned into skill, intoxicated into valour, wise means. They went through the world defending without love, destroying without like Sir Artegale's iron man Talus with his hatred. There was a freedom in their subserflail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, viency, a nobleness in their very degradation. mingling with human beings, but having nei- The'sentiment of individual independence was ther part nor lot in human infirmities; insensi- strong within them. They were indeed misble to fatigue, to pleasure, and to pain; not to led, but by no base or selfish motive. Combe pierced by any weapon, not to be withstood passion and romantic honour, the prejudices by any barrier. of childhood, and the venerable names of hisSuch we believe to have been the character tory, threw over them a spell potent as that of of the Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of Duessa; and, like the Red-Cross Knight, they their manners. We dislike the sullen gloom thought that they were doing battle for an inof their domestic habits. We ackn6wledge jured beauty, while they defended a false and that the tone of their minds was often injured loathsome sorceress. In truth, they scarcely,by straining after things too high for mortal entered at all into the merits of the political reach. And we know that, in spite of their question. It was not for a treacherous king hatred of Popery, they too often fell into the or an intolerant church that they fought; but worst vices of that bad system, intolerance and for the old banner which had waved in so extravagant austerity-that they had their an- many battles over the heads of their fathers, chorites and their crusades, their Dunstans and and for the altars at which they had received their De Montforts, their Dominics and their the hands of their brides. Though nothing Escobars. Yet when all circumstances are could be more erroneous than their political taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to opinions, they possessed, in a far greater depronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, and gree than their adversaries, those qualities a useful body. which are the grace of private life. With f The Puritans espoused the cause of civil many of the vices of the Round Table, they liberty, mainly because it was the cause of re- had also manpr of its.virtues, courtesy, gene. igion. There was another party, by no means rosity, veracity, tenderness, and respect for woe aumerous, but distinguished by learning and man. They had far more both of profound and ability, which co-operated with them on very of polite learning than the Puritans. Their Aifferent principles. We speak of those whom manners were more engaging, their tempers Cromwell was accustomed to call the Heathens, more amiable, their tastes more elegant, and men who were, in the phraseology of that time, their households more cheerful. ldoubting Thomases or careless Gallios with Miltop did not strictly belong to any of the regard to religious subjects, but passionate classes which we have described. He was not worshippers of freedom. Heated by the study a Puritan. He was not a Freetninker, He of ancient literature, they set up their country was not a Cavalier. In his character the noas their idol, and proposed to themselves the blest qualities of every party were combined heroes of Plutarch as their examples. They in harmonious union. From the parliament seem to have borne some resemblance to the and from the court, from the conventicle and Brissotines of the French Revolution. But it from the Gbthic cloister, from the gloomy and is not very easy to draw the line of distinction sepulchral circles of the Roundheads and from between them and their devout associates, the Christmas revel of the hospitable Cavalier, whose tone and manner they sometimes found his nature selected and drew to itself whatever it convenient to affect, and sometimes, it is was great and good, while it rejected all the probable, imperceptibly adopted. base and pernicious ingredients bywhich those We now come to the Royalists. We shall fine elements were defiled. Like the Puritans, attempt to speak of them, as we have spoken he lived of their antagonists, with perfect candour.'We "As ever in his great Taukmaster's eye.' shall not charge upon a whole party the profligacy' and baseness of the horseboys, gamblers, Like them, he kept his mrind continually fixed and bravoes, whom the hope of license and on an Almighty Judge and an eternal reward. plunder attracted from all the dens of White- And hence he acquired their contempt of exfriars to the standard of Charles, and who dis- ternal circumstances, their fortitude, their graced their associates by excesses'which, tranquillity, their inflexible resolution. But under the stricter discipline of the Parliament- not the coolest sceptic or the most profane ary armies, were never tolerated. We will scoffer was more perfectly free from the conselect a more favourable specimen. Thinking, tagion of their frantic delusions, their savage as we do, that the cause of the king was the manners, their ludicrous jargon, their scorn of cause of bigotry and tyranny, we yet cannot science, and their aversion to pleasure. Hating. refrain from looking with complacency on the tyranny with a perfect hatred, he had nevercharacter of the honest old Cavaliers. We feel theless all the estimable and ornamental qualia nationl pride in comparing them with the ties, which were almost entirely monopolized instruments which the despots of other coun- by the party of the tyrant. There was none tries are compelled to employ, with the mutes who had a stronger sense of the value of litewho throng their antechambers, alnd the Janis- rature, a finer relish for every elegant amusesaries who mount guard at their gates. Our ment, or a more chivalrous delicacy of honour royalist countrymen were not heartless, dan- and love. Though his opinions were demo. gling courtiers, bowing at every step, and sim- cratic, his tastes and his associates were suc8 pering at every word. They were not mere as harmonize best with monarchy and airite, VoL. L-3 -2 If~g8 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. cracy. He was under the influence of all the Presbyterians-for this he forsook them. He feelings by which the gallant cavaliers were fought their perilous battle; but he turned misled. But of those feelings he was the mas- away with disdain from their insolent triumph. ter and not the slave. Like the hero of Homer, He saw that they, like those whom they had he enjoyed all the pleasures of fascination; vanquished, were hostile to the liberty of but he was not fascinated. He listened to the thought. He therefore joined the Independents, song of the Sirens; yet he glided by without and called upon Cromwell to break the secular being seduced to their fatal shore. He tasted chain, and to save free conscience from the the cup of Circe; but he bore about him a sure paw of the Presbyterian wolf.*' With a view antidote against the effects of its bewitching to the same great object, he attacked the sweetness. The illusions which captivated licensing system in that sublime treatise which his imagination never impaired his reasoning every statesman should wear as a sign upon powers. The statesman was a proof against his hand, and as frontlets between his eyes. the splendour, the solemnity, and the romance His attacks were, in general, directed less which enchanted the poet. Any person who against particular abuses than against those will contrast the sentiments expressed in his deeply-seated errors on which almost all abuses Treatises on Prelacy, with the exquisite'lines are founded, the servile worship of eminent on ecclesiastical architecture and music in the men and the irrational dread of innovation. Penseroso, which were published about the That he might shake the foundations of same time, will understand our meaning. these debasing sentiments more effectually, he This is an inconsistency which, more than any always selected for himself the boldest literary thing else, raises his character in our estima- services. He never came up to the rear when tion; because it shows how many private the outworks had been carried and the breach tastes and'feelings he sacrificed, in order to do entered. He pressed into the forlorn hope. what he considered his duty to mankind. It is At'the beginning of the changes, he wrote with the very struggle of the noble Othello. His incomparable energy and eloquence against heart relents; but his hand is firm. He does the bishops. But, when his opinion seemed naught in hate, but all in honour. He kisses likely to prevail, he passed on to other sub. the beautiful deceiver before he destroys her. jects, and abandoned prelacy to the crowd of That from which the public character of writers who now hastened to insult a falling Milton derives its great and peculiar splendour party. There is no more hazardous enterprise still remains to be mentioned. If he exerted than that of bearing the torch of truth into himself to overthrow a foresworn king and a those dark and infected recesses in which no persecuting hierarchy, he exerted himself in light has ever shone. But it was the choice conjunction with others. But the glory of the and the pleasure of Milton to penetrate the battle, which he fought for that species of free- noisome vapours and to brave the terrible ex dom which is the most valuable, and which plosion. Those who most disapprove of his was then the least understood, the freedom of opinions must respect the hardihood with the human mind, is all his own. Thousands which he maintained them. He, in general, and tens of thousands among his contempora- left to others the credit of expounding and de. ries raised their voices against ship-money fending the popular parts of his religious and and the star-chamber. But there were few in- political creed. He took his own stand upon deed who discerned the more fearful evils of those which the great body of his countrymen moral and intellectual slavery, and the bene- reprobated as criminal, or derided as para. fits which would result from the liberty of the doxical. He stood up for divorce and regicide. press and the unfettered exercise of private He ridiculed the Eikon. He attacked the pre. judgment. These were the objects which'Mil- vailing systems of education. His radiant and ton justly conceived to be the most important. beneficent career resembled that of the god of He was desirous that the people should think light and fertility, for themselves as well as tax themselves, and "Nitor in adversum; nec me, qui cetera, vincit be emancipated from the dominion of preju- Impetus, et rapido contrarius evehor orbi." dice as well as from that of Charles. He It is to be regretted that the prose writings knew that those who, with the best intentions, of Milton should, in our time, be so little read. overlooked these schemes of reform, and con- As compositions, they deserve the attention of tented themselves with pulling down the king. every man who wishes to become acquainted and imprisoning the malignants, acted like the with the full power of the English language. heedless brothers in his own poem, who, in They abound with passages compared with their eagerness to disperse the train of the sor- which the finest declamations of Burke sink into cerer, neglected the means of liberating the insignificance. They are a perfect field of cloth captive. They thought only of conquering of gold. The s/yle is stiff, with gorgeous emwhen they should have thought of disenchant- broidery. Not even in the earlier books of the'ing. Paradise Lost has he ever risen higher than in "Oh,,ye mistook! You should have snatchb:sthe wand! those parts of his controversial works in which Without the rod reversed, his feelings, excited by conflict, find a vent in And backward mutters of dissevering power, bursts of devotional and rapture. It'We cannot free the lady that sits here bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It is Bound in. strong fetters fixed and motionless." to borrow his own majestic language, "a To reverse the rod, to spell the charm back- sevenfold chorus of- hallelujahs and harping ward, to break the ties which bound a stupe- symphonies."t Aed people to the- seat of enchantment, vwas the nbtle aim of'Milton.:o this -all' iis Ipublic h.*isonaet o cr wsatl,:ondtct was directdF'Forthis he jofined the h Go'Prelacy, nhokt udIl as direett r ild ~joined thoPrelacy, Book IL MACHIAVELLL Is We had intended to look more closely at These are perhaps foolish feelings. Yet we their performances, to analyze the peculiari- cannot be ashamed of them; nor shall we be ties of their diction, to dwell at some length sorry if what we have written shall in any deon the sublime wisdom of the Areopagitica, gree excite them in other minds. We are not and the nervous rhetoric of the Iconoclast, and much in the habit of idolizing either the living to point out some of those magnificent pas-. or the dead. And we think that there is no sages which occur in the Treatise of Reforma- more certain indication of a weak and ill-regution and the Animadversions on the Remon- lated intellect than that propensity which, for strant. But the length to which our remarks want of a better name, we will venture to have already extended renders this impossible. christen Boswellism. But there are a few chaWe must conclude. And yet we can scarce- racters which have stood the closest scrutiny ly tear ourselves away from the subject. The and the severest tests, which have been tried days immediately following the publication of in the furnace and have proved pure, which this relic of Milton appear to be peculiarly set have been weighed in the balance and have apart and consecrated to his memory. And not been found wanting, which have been de. we shall scarcely be censured if, on this his clared sterling by the general consent of manfestival, we be found lingering near his shrine, kind, and which are visibly stamped with the how worthless soever may be the offering image and superscription of the Most High. which we bring to it. While this book lies These great men we'trust that we know how on our table, we seem to be contemporaries to prize; and of these was Milton. The sight of the great poet. We are transported a hun- of his books, the sound of his name, are redred and fifty years back. We can almost freshing to us. His thoughts resemble those fancy that we are visiting him in his small celestial fruits and' flowers which the Virgin lodging; that we see him sitting at the old or- Martyr of Massinger sent down from the gargan beneath the faded green hangings; that dens of Paradise to the earth, distinguished we can catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, from the productions of other soils, not only -rolling in vain to find the day; that we are by their superior bloom and sweetness, but by reading in the lines of his noble countenance their miraculous efficacy to invigorate and to the proud and mournful history of his glory heal. They are powerful, not only to delight, and his affliction! We image to ourselves the but to elevate and purify. Nor do we envy breathless silence in which we should listen the man who can study either the life or the to his slightest word; the passionate venera- writings of the great Poet and Patriot without tion with which we should kneel to kiss his aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sublime hand and weep upon it; the earnestness with works with which his genius has enriched our which we should endeavour to console him, if literature, but the zeal with which he laboured indeed such a spirit could need consolation, for for the public good, the fortitude with which the neglect of an age unworthy of his talents he endured every private calamity, the lofty and his virtues; the eagerness with which we disdain with which he looked down on temptashould contest with his daughters, or with his tion and dangers, the deadly hatred which he Quaker friend, Elwood, the privilege of read- bore to bigots and tyrants, and the faith which ing Homer to him, or of taking down the im- he so sternly kept with his country and with mortal accents which flowed from his lips. his fame. MACGHIAVELLI.' [EDIN]URGH REvIEw, 1827.] THOSE who have attended to the practice of monly described would seem to import that he our literary tribunal are well aware that, by was the Tempter, the Evil Principle, the dis. means of certain legal fictions similar to those coverer of ambition and revenge, the original of Westminster Hall, we are frequently en- inventor of perjury; that, before the publicaabled to take cognisance of cases lying beyond tion of his fatal Prince, there had never been a the sphere of our original jurisdiction. We hypocrite, a tyrant, or a traitor, a simulated need hardly say, therefore, that, in the present virtue or a convenient crime. One writer instance, M. P6rier is merely a Richard Roe- gravely assures us, that Maurice of Saxony that his name is used for the sole purpose of learned all his fraudulent policy from that ex bringing Machiavelli into court-and that he ecrable volume. Another remarks, that since will not be mentioned in any subsequent stage it was translated into Turkish, the Sultans of the proceedings. have been more addicted than formerly to the We doubt whether any name in literary his- custom of strangling their brothers. Outrowa tory be so generally odious as that of the man foolish Lord Lyttleton charges the poor Floren whose character and writings we now propose tine with the manifold treasons of the House to consider. The terms in which he is com- of Guise,,and the massacre of St. Bartholomew Several authors have hinted that the Gunpow * Eupvre eopUkt doe 3Naeksl, trsduites par J. V. der Plot;is to be,piararily attributed to W1 frxi, Par., lS. doctrines. and seem to think that his effEy 20 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. ought to be substituted for that of Guy Fawkes, covered-in his Comedies, designed for the in those processions by which the ingenuous entertainment of the multitude-in his Comr youth of England annually commemorate the ments on Livy, intended for the perusal of the preservation of the Three Estates. The Church most enthusiastic patriots of Florence-in his of Rome has pronounced his works accursed History, inscribed to one of the most amiable things. Nor have our own countrymen been and estimable of the Popes-in his Public backward in testifying their opinion of his Despatches-in his private Memoranda, the merits. Out of his surname they have coined same obliquity of moral principle for which an epithet for a knave-and out of his Chris- the Prince is so severely censured is more or tian name a synonyme for the Devil.* less discernible. We doubt whether it would It is indeed scarcely possible for any person, be possible to find, in all the many volumes not well acquainted with the history and litera- of his compositions, a single expression inditure of Italy, to read, without horror and cating that dissimulation and treachery had amazement, the celebrated treatise which has ever struck him as discreditable. brought so much obloquy on the name of Ma- After this it may seem ridiculous to say, that chiavelli. Such adisplay of wickedness, naked, we are acquainted with few writings which yet not ashamed, such cool, judicious, scientific exhibit so much elevation of sentiment, so atrocity, seem rather to belong to a fiend than pure and warm a zeal for the public good, or to the most depraved of men. Principles so just a view of the duties and rights of citiwhich the most hardened ruffian would zens, as those of Machiavelli. Yet so it is. scarcely hint to his most trustectraccomplice, And even from the Prince itself we could select or avow, without the disguise of some palliat- many passages in support of this remark. To ing sophism, even to his own mind, are pro- a reader of our age and country this inconfessed without the slightest circumlocution, sistency is, at first, perfectly bewildering. The and assumed as the fundamental axioms of all whole man seems to be an enigma —a gropolitical science. tesque assemblage of incongruous qualitiesIt is not strange that ordinary readers should selfishness and generosity, cruelty and benevoregard the author of such a book as the most lence, craft and simplicity, abject villany and depraved and shameless of human beings. romantic heroism. One sentence is such as a Wise men, however, have always been in- veteran diplomatist would scarcely write in dined to look with great suspicion on the an- cipher for the direction of his most confidengels and demons of the multitude; and in the tial' spy: the next seems to be extracted from present instance, several circumstances have a theme composed by an ardent schoolboy on led even superficial observers to question the the death of Leonidas. An act of dexterous justice of the vulgar decision. It is notorious perfidy, and an act of patriotic self-devotion, that Machiavelli was, through life, a zealous call forth the same kind and the same degree republican. In the same year in which he of respectful admiration. The moral sensi composed his manual of Kingcraft, he suffered bility of the writer seems at once to be imprisonment and torture in the cause of morbidly obtuse and morbidly acute. Two public liberty. It seems inconceivable that characters altogether dissimilar are united in the martyr of freedom should have design- him. They are not merely joined, but inter edly acted as the apostle of tyranny. Several woven. They are the warp and the woof of eminent writers have, therefore, endeavoured his mind; and their combination, like that of to detect, in this unfortunate performance, the variegated threads in shot silk, gives to the some concealed meaning more consistent with whole texture a glancing and ever-changing the character and conduct of the author than appearance. The explanation might have that which appears at the first glance. been easy, if he had been a very weak or a One hypothesis is, that Machiavelli intended very affected man. But he was evidently nei. to practice on the young Lorenzo de Medici a ther the one nor the other. His works prove fraud, similar to that which Sunderland is said beyond all contradiction, that his understand to have, employed against our James the ing was strong, his taste pure, and his sense Second,-that he urged his pupil to violent and of the ridiculous exquisitely keen. perfidious measures, as the surest means of This is strarnge-and yet the strangest is beaccelerating the moment of deliverance and hind. There is no reason whatever to think, revenge. Another supposition, which Lord that those amongst whom he lived saw any Bacon seems to countenance, is, that the trea- thing shocking or incongruous in his writings. tise was merely a piece of grave irony, in- Abundant proofs remain of the high estimation tended to warn nations against the arts of' in which both his works and his person were ambitious men. It would be easy to show that held by the most respectable among his con. neither of these solutions is consistent with temporaries. Clement the Seventh patronised many passages in the Prince itself. But the the publication of those very books which the most decisive refutation is that which is fur- council of Trent, in the following generation, nished by the other works of Machiavelli. In pronounced unfit for the perusal of Christians. alU the writings which he gave to the public, Some members of the democratical party cen. and in all those which the research of editors sured the secretary for dedicating the Prince to a has, in the course of three centuries, dis- patron who bore the unpopular name of Medici. But to those immoral doctrines, which have * Nick Machiavel had ne'er a trick, since called forth such severe reprehensions, Tho' he gave his name to our Old Nick. no exception appears to have been taken. The Hudibras, Part 1if. Canto. But, we believe, there is a schism on this subject among cry against them was rst raised beyond th dm.antieuaries. Alps-and seems to have been heard with MACHIAVELLL S1! amazement in Italy. The earliest assailant, as been to substitute h moral for a political servifar as we are awaY'e, was a countryman of our tude, to exalt the Popes at the expense of the own, Cardinal Pole. The author of the Anti- Cesars. Happily the public mind of Italy had Machiavelli was a French Protestant. long contained the seeds of free opinions, It is, therefore, in the state of moral feeling which were now rapidly developed by the geamong the Italians of those times, that we nial influence of free institutions. The people must seek for the real explanation of what of that country had observed the whole maseems most mysterious in the life and writings chinery of the church, its saints and its mira. of this remarkable man. As this is a subject cles, its lofty pretensions arid its splendid cerewhich suggests many interesting considera- monial, its worthless blessings and its harmless tions,'oth political and metaphysical, we shall curses, too long and too closely to be duped. make no apology for discussing it at some They stood behind the scenes on which others length. were gazing with childish awe and interest. During the gloomy and disastrous centuries They witnessed the arrangement of the pul which followed the downfall of the Roman Em- leys, and the manufacture of the thunders, pire, Italy had preserved, in a far greater de- They saw the natural faces and heard the nagree than any other part of Western Europe, tural voices of the actors. Distant nations the traces of ancient civilization. The night looked on the Pope as the vicegerent of the which descended upon her was the night of an Almighty, the oracle of the All-wise, the urn arctic summer:-the dawn began to reappear pire from whose decisions, in the disputes before the last reflection of the preceding sun- either of theblogians or of kings, no Christian set had faded from the hqrizon. It was in the ought to appeal. The Italians were acquaint time of the French Merovingians, and of the ed with all the follies of his youth, and with Saxon Heptarchy, that ignorance and ferocity all the dishonest arts by which he had attained seemed to have done their worst. Yet even power. They knew how often he had em then the Neapolitan provinces, recognising the ployed the keys of the church to release him authority of the Eastern'Empire, preserved self from the most sacred engagements, and its something of Eastern knowledge and refine. wealth to pamper his mistresses and nephews. ment. Rome, protected by the sacred charac- The doctrines and rites of the established reter of its Pontiffs, enjoyed at least comparative ligion they treated with decent reverence. But security and repose. Even in those regions though they still called themselves Catholics, where the sanguinary Lombards had fixed they had ceased to bet Papists. Those spiritual their monarchy, there was incomparably more arms which carried terror into the palaces and of wealth, of information, of physical comfort, camps of the proudest sovereibns excited only and of social order, than could be found in their contempt. When Alexander commanded Gaul, Britain, or Germany. our Henry the Second to' submit to the lash That which most distinguished Italy from before the tomb of a rebellious subject, he was the neighbouring countries was the importance himself an exile. The Romans, apprehending which the population of the towns, from a very that he entertained designs against their liberearly period, began to acquire. Some cities ties, had driven him from their city; asnd, founded in' wild and remote situations, by fu- though he solemnly promised to confine him. gitives who had escaped from the rage of the self for the future to his spiritual functions, barbarians, preserved their freedom by their they still refused to re-admit him. obscurity, till they became able to preserve it In every other part of Europe, a large and by. their power. Others seemed to have re- powerful privileged class trampled on the peotained, under all the changing dynasties of ple and defied the government. But in the invaders, under Odoacer and Theodoric,Narses most flourishing parts of Italy the feudal noand Alboin, the municipal institutions which bles were reduced to comparative insignifi. had been conferred on them by the liberal cance. In some districts they took shelter policy of the Great Republic. In provinces under the protection of the powerful commonwhich the central government was too feeble wealths which they were unable to oppose, either to protect or to oppress, these institu- and gradually sunk into the mass of burghers. tions first acquired stability and vigour. The In others they possessed great influence; but citizens, defended by their walls and governed it was an influence widely different from that by their own magistrates and their own by- which was exercised by the chieftains of the laws, enjoyed a considerable share of republi- Transalpine kingdoms. They were not petcan independence. Thus a strong democratic ty princes, but eminent citizens. Instead spirit was called into action. The Carlovingian of strengthening their fastnesses among the sovereigns were too imbecile to subdue it. mountains, they embellished their places in The generous policy of Otho encouraged it. the market-place. The state of society in the It might perhaps have been suppressed by a Neapolitan dominions, and in some parts of close coalition between the Church and the the Eccle6iastical State, more nearly resembled.Empire. It was fostered and invigorated by that which existed in the great monarchies of their disputes. In the twelfth century it Europe. But the governments of Lombardy attained its full vigour, and, after a long and and Tuscany, through all their revolutions, doubtful conflict, it triumphed over the abili- preserved a different character. A people, ties and courage of the Swabian'Princes. when assembled in a town, is far more formiThe assistance of the ecclesiastical power dable to its rulers than when dispersed over a had greatly contributed to the success of the wide extent of country. The most arbitrary Guelfs.'That success would, however, have of the Cesars found it necessary to feed and been a doubtful good, if its only effect had divert the inhabitants of their u.nweldy capil 22 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. Sal at the expense of the provinces. The citi- I a hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants zens of Madrid have more than once besieged In the various schools about ten thousand;heir sovereign in his own palace, and extorted children were taught to read; twelve hundred from him the most humiliating concessions. studied arithmetic; six hundred received a The sultans have often been compelled to pro- learned education. The progress of elegant pitiate the furious rabble of Constantinople literature and of the fine arts was proportioned with the head of an unpopular vizier. From to that of the public prosperity. Under the the same cause there was a certain tinge of despotic successors of Augustus, all the fields democracy in the monarchies and aristocracies of the intellect had been turned into arid of Northern Italy. wastes, still marked out by formal boundaries, Thus liberty, partially, indeed, and transient- still retaining the traces of old cultivation, but ly, revisited Italy; and with liberty came com- yielding neither flowers nor fruit. The deluge merce and empire, science and taste, all the of barbarism came. It swept away all the comforts and all the ornaments of life. The landmarks. It obliterated all the signs of fororusades, from which the inhabitants of other mer tillage. But it fertilized while it devas countries gained nothing but relics and tated. When it receded, the wilderness was wounds, brought the rising commonwealths as the garden of God, rejoicing on every side, of the Adriatic and Tyrrhene seas a large in- laughing, clapping its hands, pouring forth in crease of wealth, dominion, and knowledge. spontaneous abundance every thing brilliant, Their moral and their geographical position or fragrant, or nourishing. A new language, enabled them to profit alike by the barbarism characterized by simple sweetness and simple of the West and the civilization of the East. energy, had attained its perfection. No tongue Their ships covered every sea. Their fac- ever furnished more gorgeous and vivid tints tories rose on every shore. Their money- to poetry; nor was it long before a poet ap. changers set their tables in every city. Manu- peared who knew how to employ them. Early factures flourished. Banks were established. in the fourteenth century came forth the DiThe operations of the commercial machine vine Comedy, beyond comparison the greatest were facilitated by many useful and beautiful work of imagination which had appeared since inventions. We doubt *hether any country the poems of Homer. The following genera. of Europe, our own perhaps excepted, have at tion produced, indeed, no second Dante; but the present time reached so high a point of it was eminently distinguished by general inwealth and civilization as some parts of Italy tellectual activity. The study of the Latin had attained four hundred years ago. Histo- writers had never been wholly neglected in rians rarely descend to those details from Italy. But Petrarch introduced a more pro. which alone the real state of a community found, liberal, and elegant scholarship; and can be collected. Hence posterity is too often communicated to his countrymen that enthudeceived by the vague hyperboles of poets and siasm for the literature, the history, and the rhetoricians, who mistake the splendour of a antiquities of Rome, which' divided his own court for the happiness of a people. Fortu- heart with a frigid mistress and a more frigid nately John Villani has given us an ample and muse. Boccaccio turned their attention to the precise account of the state of Florence in the more sublime and graceful models of Greece. earlier part of the fourteenth century. The From this time the admiration of learning revenue of the republic amounted to three and genius became almost an idolatry among hundred thousand florins, a sum which, allow- the people of Italy. Kings and republics, caring for the depreciation of the precious metals, dinals and doges, vied with each other in h.owas at least equivalent to six hundred thou- nouring and- flattering Petrarch. Embassies wand pounds sterling; a larger sum than Eng- from rival states solicited the honour of his inland and Ireland, two centuries ago, yielded an- structions. His coronation agitated the court nually to Elizabeth-a larger sum than, accord- of Naples and the people of Rome as much as ing to any computation which we have seen, the the most important political transactions could Grand-duke of Tuscany now derives from a have done. To collect books and antiques, to territory of much greater extent. The manu- found professorships, to patronise men of facture of wool alone employed two hundred learning, became almost universal fashions factories and thirty thousand workmen. The among the great. The spirit of literary reclothi annually produced sold, at an average, search allied itself to that of commercial en. for twelve hundred thousand florins; a sum terprise. Every place to which the merchant. fairly equal, in exchangeable value, to two princes of Florence extended' their gigantic millions and a half of our money. Four hun- traffic, from the bazaars of the Tigris to the dred thousand florins were annually coined. monasteries of the Clyde, was ransacked for Eighty banks conducted the commercial ope- medals and manuscripts. Architecture, paint. rations, not of Florence only, but of all Europe. ing, and sculpture were munificently encout rhe transactions of these establishments were raged. Indeed it would be difficult to name an sometimes of a magnitude which may surprise Italian of eminence during the period of which even the contemporaries of the Barings and we speak, who, whatever may have been his the Rothschilds. Two houses advanced to general character, did not at least affect a love Edward the Third of England upwards of of letters and of the arts. three hundred thousand marks, at a time whenI Knowledge and public prosperity continued the mark contained more silver than fifty shil- to advance together. Both attained their merin lings of the present day, and when the value dian in the age of Lorenzo the Magnificent. of silver was more than quadruple of whdt it We cannot refrain from quoting the- splendid oow is; The city and its environs contained passage, in which the Tuscan Thucydides de MACHIAVELLL at scribes the state of Italy at that period: —Ri- of society which facilitated the gigantic con. dotta tutta in somma pace e tranquillitA, colti- quests of Attila and Timour. vPta non meno ne' luoghi piuc montuosi e pit! But a people which subsists by the cultiva. sterili che nelle pianure e regioni pill fertili, tion of the earth is in. a very different situation. na sottoposta ad altro imperio che de'suoi me- The husbandman is bound to the soil on which desimi, non solo era abbondantissima d'abita- he labours. A long campaign would be ruintsri e di ricchezze; ma illustrata sommamente ous to him. Still his pursuits are such as give dilla magnificenza di molti principi, dallo to!his frame both the active and the passive splendore di molte nobilissime e bellissime strength necessary to a soldier. Nor do they, citta, dalla sedia e maesta delle religione, fiori- at least in the infancy of agricultural science, va d'uomini prestantissimi nell' amministra- demand his uninterrupted attention. At par. zione delle cose pubbliche, e d'ingegnii molto ticular times of the year he is almost wholly nobili in tutte le scienze, ed in qualunque arte unemployed, and can, without injury to him preclara ed industriosa."* When we peruse self, afford the time necessary for a shcrt expe. this just and splendid description, we can dition. Thus, the legions of Rome were sup. scarcely persuade ourselves that we are read- plied during its earlier wars. The season, ing of times, in which the annals of England during which the farms did not require the and France present us only with a frightful presence of the cultivators, sufficed for a short spectacle of poverty, barbarity, and ignorance. inroad and a battle. These operations, too From the oppressions of illiterate masters, and frequently interrupted to produce decisive rethe sufferings of a brutalized peasantry, it is sults, yet served to keep up among the people a delightful to turn to the opulent and enlighten- degree of discipline and courage which render. ed States of Italy-to the vast and magnificent ed them, not only secure, but formidable. The cities, the ports, the arsenals, the villas, the archers and billmen of the middle ages, who, museums, the libraries, the marts filled with with provisions for forty days at their backs, every article of comfort and luxury, the manu- left the fields for the camp, were troops of the factories swarming with artisans, the Apen- same description. nines covered with rich cultivation up to their put, when commerce and manufactures very summits, the Po wafting the harvests of begin to flourish, a great change takes place. Lombardy to the granaries of Venice, and car- The sedentary habits of the desk and the loom rying back the silks of Bengal and the firs of render the exertions and hardships of war in. Siberia to the palaces of Milan. With pecu- supportable. The occupations of traders and liar pleasure, every cultivated mind must re- artisans require their constant presence and pose on the fair, the happy, the glorious Flo- attention. In such a community, there-is little rence —on the halls which rung with the mnirth superfluous time; but there is generally much of Pulci-the cell where twinkled the midnight superfluous money. Some members of the so. lamp of Politian-the statues on which the ciety are, therefore, hired to relieve the rest young eye of Michel Angelo glared with the from a task inconsistent with their habits and frenzy of a kindred inspiration-the gardens engagements. in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling The history of Greece is, in this, -as in many song for the May-day dance of the Etrurian other respects, the best commentary on the virgins. Alas, for the beautiful city! Alas, history of Italy, Five hundred years before for the wit and the learning, the genius and the Christian era, the citizens of the republics the love! round the Aegean Sea formed perhaps the finest militia that ever existed. As wealth and re"Le donne, e cavalier, gli affanni, gli agi, finement advanced, the system underwent a Che ne'nvogliav' amore e cortesia, La dove i cuor' son fatti ei malvagi."t gradual alteration. The Ionian'States were the first in which commerce and'he arts were A time was at hand, when all the seven vials cultivated,-and the -first in which the ancient of the Apocalypse were to be poured forth and discipline decayed. Within eighty years after shaken out over those pleasant countries —a the battle of Platiea, mercenary troops were time for slaughter, famine, beggary, infamy, everywhere plying for battles and sieges. In slavery, despair. the time of Demosthenes, it was scarcely pos. In the Italian States, as in many natural bo- sible to persuade or compel the Athenians to dies, untimely decrepitude was the penalty of enlist for foreign service. The laws of Lycurprecocious maturity. Their early greatness, gus prohibited trade and manufactures. The and their early decline, are principally to be at- Spartans,therefore, continued to form a national tributed to the same oause-the preponderance force, long after their neighbou s had begun to which the towns acquired in the political sys- hire soldiers. But their military spirit declined tem. with their singular institutions. In the second In a community of hunters or of shepherds, century, Greece contained only one nation of every man easily and necessarily becomes a warriors, the savage highlanders of AEtolias soldier. His ordinary avocations are perfectly who were at least ten generations behind their compatible with all the duties of military ser- countrymen in civilization and intelligence. vice. However remote may be the expedition All the causes which produced these effects on which he is bound, he finds it easy to trans-'among the Greeks acted still more strongly on port with him the stock from which he derives the modern Italians. Instead of a power like is- subsistence. The whole people is an army; Sparta, in its nature warlike, they had amongst the whole year a march. Such was the state them an ecclesiastical state, in its nature pa. cific. Where there are numerous slaves, every * Gicciardini, lib.. t Dante Purgatorio, uiv. freeman is induced by the strongest motives to 1Psb MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. familiarize himself with the use of arms. The the King of Naples or the Duke of Milan, the commonwealths of Italy did not, like those of Pope or the Signory of Florence, struck the Greece, swarm with thousands of these house- bargain, was to him a matter of perfect indlif hold enemies. Lastly, the mode in which mi- ference. He was for the highest wages and litary operations were conducted, during the the longest term. When the campaign for prosperous times of Italy, was peculiarly un- which he had contracted was finished, there favourable to the formation of an efficient mili- was neither law nor punctilio to prevent him tia. Men covered with iron from head to foot, from instantly turning his arms against his armed with ponderous lances, and mounted on late masters. The soldier was altogether dishorses of the largest breed, were considered as joined from the citizen and from the subject. composing the strength of an army. The in- The natural consequences followed. Left to fantry was regarded as comparatively worth- the conduct of men who neither loved those less, and was neglected till it became really so. whom they defended, nor hated those whom These tactics maintained their ground for cen- they opposed-who were often bound by, turies in most parts of Europe. That foot sol- stronger ties to the army against which they diers could withstand the charge of heavy ca- fought than the state which they served-who valry was thought utterly impossible, till, to- lost by the termination of the conflict, andwards the close of the fifteenth century, the gained by its prolongation, war completely rude mountaineers of Switzerland dissolved changed its character. Every man came into the spell, and astounded the most experienced the field of battle impressed with the knowgenerals, by receiving the dreaded shock on ledge that, in a few days, he might be taking an impenetrable forest of pikes. the pay of the power against which he was The use of the Grecianr spear, the Roman then employed, and fighting by the side of his sword, or the modern bayonet, might be acquir- enemies against his associates. The strongest ed with comparative ease. But nothing short interest and the strongest feelings concurred to of the daily exercise of years could train the mitigate the hostility of those who had lately man at arms to support his ponderous panoply been brethren in arms, and who might soon be and manage his unwieldy weapon. Through- brethren in arms once more. Their common out Europe, this most important branch of war profession was a bond of union not to be forbecame a separate profession. Beyond the gotten,'even when they were engaged in the Alps, indeed, though a profession, it was not service of contending parties. Hence it was generally a trade. It was the duty and the that operations, languid and indecisive beyond amusement of a large class of country gentle- any recorded in history, marches and countermen. It was the service by which they held marches, pillaging expeditions and blockades, their lands, and the diversion by which, in the bloodless capitulations and equally bloodless absence of mental resources, they beguiled combats, make up the military history df Italy their leisure. But, in the Northern States of during the course of nearly two centuries. Italy, as we have already remarked, the grow- Mighty armies fight from sunrise to sunset. A ing power of the cities, where it had not exter- great victory is won. Thousands of prisoners minated this order of men, had completely are taken; and hardly a life is lost! A pitched changed their habits. Here, therefore, the prac- battle seems to have been really less dangerous tice of employing mercenaries became univer- than an ordinary civil tumult. sal, at a time when it was almost unknown in Courage was now no longer necessary even other countries. to the military character. Men grew old in When war becomes the trade of a separate camps, and'acquired the highest renown by class, the least dangerous course left to a their warlike achievements, without being government is to form that class into a stand- once required to face serious danger. The ing army. It is scarcely possible, that men political consequences are too well known. can pass their lives in the service of a single The ribhest and most enlightened part of the state, without feeling some interest in its world was left undefended, to the assaults of greatness. Its victories are their victories. every barbarous invader —to the brutality of Its defeats are their defeats. The contract Switzerland, the insolence of France, and the loses something of its mercantile character. fierce rapacity of Arragon. The moral effects The services of the soldier are considered as which followed from this state of things were the effects of patriotic zeal, his pay as the tri- still more remarkable. bute of national gratitude. To betray the power Among the rude nations which lay beyond which employs him, to be even remiss in its the Alps, valour was'absolutely indispensable service, are in his eyes the most atrocious and Without it;none could be eminent; few could degrading of crimes. be secure. Cowardice was, therefore, naturally When the princes and commonwealths of considered as the foulest reproach. Among Italy began to use hired troops, their wisest the polished Italians, enriched by commerce, course would have been to form separate mili- governed by law, and passionately attached to tary establishments. Unhappily this was not literature, every thing was done by superiority done. The mercenary warriors of the Penin- of intelligence. Their very wars, more pacific sula, instead of being attached to the service than the peace of their neighbours, required of different powers, were regarded as the com- rather civil than military qualifications. Hence, mon property of all. The connection between while courage was the point of honour in the state and its defenders was reduced to the other countries, ingenuity became the point of most simple naked traffic. The adventurer honour in Italy. brought his horse, his weapons, his strength, Frorm these principles were deduced, by pro. and his experience into the market! Whether cesses strictly analogous, two opposite say. MACHIAVELLIU. m rems of fashionable morality.-Through the of his victim. Something of interest and re. greater part of Europe, the vices which pecu- spect would have mingled with their disapliarly belong to timid dispositions, and which probation. The readiness of his wit, the are the natural defence of weakness, fraud, clearness of his judgment, the skill with which and hypocrisy, have always been most disre- he penetrates the dispositions of others and putable. On the other hand, the excesses of conceals his own, would have insured to him Kaughty and daring spirits have been treated a certain portion of their esteem. with indulgence, and even with respect. The So widle was the difference between the Italians regarded with corresponding lenity Italians and their neighbours. A similar if.. those crimes which require self-command, ference existed between the Greeks of the se. address, quick observation, fertile invention, cond century before Christ, and their masters and profound knowledge of human nature. the Romans. The conquerors, brave and Such a prince as our Henry the Fifth would resolute, faithful to their engagements, and have been the idol of the North. The follies strongly influenced by religious feelings, were, of his youth, the selfish and desolating ambi- at the same time, ignorant, arbitrary, and tion of his manhood, the Lollards roasted at cruel. With the vanquished people were deslow fires, the prisoners massacred on the field posited all the art, the science, and the litera. of battle, the expiring lease of priestcraft re- ture of the Western world. In poetry, in newed for another century, the dreadful legacy philosophy, in painting, in architecture, in of a causeless and hopeless war, bequeathed to sculpture, they had no rivals.. Their manners a people who had no interest in its event, were polished, their perceptions acute, their every thing is forgotten, but the victory of invention ready; they were tolerant, affable, Agincourt! Francis Sforza, on the other hand, humane. But of courage and sincerity they was the model of the Italian hero. He made were almost utterly destitute. The rude warhis employers and his rivals alike his tools. riors who had subdued them consoled them.He first overpowered his open enemies by the selves for their intellectual inferiority, by help of faithless allies; he then armed himself remarking that knowledge and taste seemed against his allies with the spoils taken from only to make men atheists,'cowards, and his enemies. By his incomparable dexterity, slaves. The distinction long continued to be he raised himself from the precarious and de- strongly marked, and furnished an admirable pendent situation of a military adventurer to subject for the fierce sarcasm of Juvenal. the first throne of Italy. To such a man much The citizen of an Italian commonwealth was was forgiven-hollow friendship, ungenerous the Greek of the time of Juvenal, and the Greek enmity, violated faith. Such are the opposite of the time of Pericles, joined in one. Like errors which men commit, when their morality the former, he was timid and pliable, artful and is not a science, but a taste; when they abandon unscrupulous. But, like the latter, he had a eternal principles for accidental associations. country. Its independence and prosperity We have illustrated our meaning by an in- were dear to him. If his character were de. stance taken from history. We will select graded by some mean crimes, it was, on the another from fiction. Othello murders his other hand, ennobled by public spirit and by an wife; he gives orders for the murder of his honourable ambition. lieutenant; he ends by murdering himself. A vice sanctioned by the general opinion ha Yet he never loses the esteem and affection of merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. a North6rn reader-his intrepid and ardent A vice condemned by the general opinion pro. spirit redeeming every thing. The unsuspect. duces a pernicious effect on the whole characing confidence with which he listens to his ter. The former is a local malady, the latter a adviser, the agony with which he shrinks from constitutional taint. When the reputation of the thought of shame, the tempest of passion the offender is lost, he too often flings the rewith which he commits his crimes, and the mains of his virtue after it in despair. The haughty fearlessness with which he avows Highland gentleman, who, a century ago, lived them, give an extraordinary interest to his by taking black mail from his neighbours, character. Iago, on the contrary, is the object committed the same crime for which Wild of universal loathing. Many are inclined to was accompanied to Tyburn by the huizzas of suspect that Shalrspeare has been seduced into two hundred thousand people. But there cat an exaggeration unusual with him, and has be no tloubt that he was a much less depraved drawn a monster who has no archetype in man than Wild. The deed for which Mrs. human nature. Now we suspect, that an Brownrigg was hanged sinks into nothing, Italian audience, in the fifteenth century, would when compared with the conduct of the Roman have felt very differently. Othello would have who treated the public to a hundred pair of inspired nothing but detestation and contempt. gladiators. Yet we should probably wrong The folly with which he trusts to the friendly such a Roman if we supposed that his disposiprofessions of a man whose promotion he had tion was so cruel as that of Mrs. Brownrigg. obstructed-the credulity with which he takes In our own country, a woman forfeits her unsupported assertions, and trivial circum- place in society, by what, in a man, is too stances, for unanswerable proofs-.-the violence commonly considered as an honourable diswith which he silences the exculpation till the tinction, and, at worst, as a venial error. The exculpation can only aggravate his misery, consequence is notorious. The moral prinm would have excited the abhorrence and disgust ciple of a woman is frequently more impaired of the spectators. The conduct of Iago they by a single lapse from virtue, than that of a would assuredly have condemned;, but they man by twenty years of intrigue. Classical would have condemned it as we condemn that antiquity would furnish us with instances 4 C Ov*r MACAULAY'S MISCE ELANEOUS WRITINGS. sttonger, if possible, than- those to; which we is iihsengsibl~eto- saneiebut.bcause; inthe so have referred. ciety in which he lives,. timidity,-has ceased.to We: must apply this principle to the case be — be shameful. To do an injury openly is, inai& fore us. Habits of dissimulation and falsehood, estimation, as wicked as to do it-secretly, amd no doubt, mark a man of our age and country far less profitable. With him the most honour. as utterly worthless and abandoned. But it by able means are —the surest,, the speediest, aad no means follows that a similar judgment the darkest;. He cannot comprehend how a would be just in the case of an Italian of the man should scruple to deceive him whom he middle ages. On the contrary, we frequently does not scruple to destroy. He would think find those faults, which we are accustomed to it madness to declare open hostilities against consider as certain indications of a mind alto- a rival whom he might stab in a friendly emgether depraved, in company with great and brace, or poison in a consecrated wafer. good qualities, with generosity, with benevo- Yet this man, black with the vices which we lence, with disinterestedness. From such a consider as mostloathsome-traitor, hypocrite, state of society, Palamedes, in the admirable coward, assassin-was by no means destitute dialogue of Hume, might have drawn illustra- even of those virtues which we generally con. tions of his theory as striking as any of those sider as indicating superior elevation of charace with which Fourli furnished him. These are ter. In civil courage, in perseverance, in prenot, we well know, the lessons which historians sence of mind, those barbarous warriors who. are generally most careful to teach, or readers were foremost in the battle or the breach, were. most willing to learn. But they are not there- far his inferiors. Even the dangers which he fore useless. How Philip disposed his troops avoided, with a caution almost pusillanimous, at Choeronea, where Hannibal crossed the Alps, never confused his perceptions, never para. whether Mary blew up Darnley, or Siquier shot lyzed his inventive faculties, never wrung out Charles the Twelfth, and ten thousand other one secret from his ready tongue and his inquestions of the same description, are in them- scrutable brow. Though a dangerous enemy, selves unimportant. The inquiry may amuse and a still more dangerous accomplice, he was us; but the decision leaves us no wiser. He a just and beneficent ruler. With so much unalone reads history aright, who, observing how fairness in his policy, there was an extraordipowerfully circumstances influence the feel- nary degree of fairness in his intellect. Indif. ings and opinions of men, how often vices pass ferent to truth in the transactions of life, he into virtues, and paradoxes into axioms, learns was honestly devoted to the pursuit of truth in to distinguish what is accidental and transitory the researches of speculation. Wanton cru. fii human nature, from what is essential and elty was not in his nature. On the contrary, immutable. where no political object was at stake, his dis. In this respect no history suggests more im- position was soft and humane. The suscepti. portant reflections than that of the Tuscan and bility of his nerves, and the activity of his Lombard commonwealths. The character of imagination, inclined him to sympathize with the Italian statesman seems, at first sight, a the feelings of others, and to delight in the cha collection of contradictions, a phantom, as rities and courtesies of social life. Perpetually monstrous as the portress of hell in Milton, half descending to actions which might seem to divinity, half snake, majestic and, beautiful mark a mind diseased through all its faculties, above, grovelling and poisonous- below. We he had nevertheless an exquisite sensibility both see a man, whose thoughts and words have no for the natural and the moral- sublime, for connection with each other; who never hesi- every graceful and every lofty conception. tates at an oath when he wishes to seduce, who Habits of petty intrigue and dissimulation never wants a pretext- when he is inclined to might have rendered him incapable of great betray. His cruelties spring, not from the heat general views; but that the expanding effect of blood, or the insanity of uncontrolled power, of his philosophical studies counteracted the but from deep and cool meditation. His pas- narrowing tendency. He had the keenest ensions, like well-trained troops, are impetuous joyment of wit, eloquence, and poetry. The by rule, and in their most headstrong fury fine arts profited alike by the severity of his never forget the discipline to which they have judgment, and the liberality of his patronage, been accustomed. His.whole soul is occupied The portraits of some of the remarkable with vast and complicated schemes of"ambi- Italians of those times are perfectly in harmotion. Yet his aspect and language exhibit no- ny with this description. Ample and majestic thing but philosophic moderation. Hatred and foreheads; brows strong and dark, but not revenge eat into his heart: yet every look is a frowning; eyes of which the calm full gaze, cordial smile, every gesture a familiar caress. while it expresses nothing, seems to discern He never excites the suspicion of his adver- every thing; cheeks pale with thought and seo sary by petty provocations. His purpose is dentaryhabits; lips formed with feminine deli. disclosed only when it is accomplished. His cacy, but compressed with more than mascuface is unruffled, his speech is courteous, till line decision, mark out men at once enterpris. vigilance is laid asieep, till a vital point is ex- ing and apprehensive; men equally skilled in posed, till a sure aim is taken; and then he detecting the purposes of others, and in con. strikes-for the first and last time. Military cealing their own; men who must have been Courage, the boast of the sottish German, the formidable enemies and unsafe allies; but men, frivolous and prating Frenchman, the roman- at the same time, whose tempers were mild and tic and arrogant Spaniard, he neither possesses equable, and who possessed an amplitude and nor values. He shuns danger, not because he subtlety of mind, which would have rendered MACHIA~ t, W them eminent either in active or in contempla — from it. But they no lmnger produce their tive life, and fitted them: either: to govern or to: wonted effect. Virgil advises the husbandmeel instruct mankind. who removes a plant from one spot to another Every age and every nation has certain to mark its bearings on the cork, and to place characteristic vices, which prevail almost uni- it in the same position with regard to the dim versally, which scarcely any person scruples ferent points of the heaven in which it for. to avow, and which even rigid moralists but merly stood. A similar care is necessary in faintly censure. Succeeding generations poetical transplantation. Where it is neglecot change the fashion of their morals, with their ed, we perpetually see the flowers of language, hats and their coaches; take some other kind which have bloomed on one soil, wither on of wickedness under their patronage, and win- another. Yet the Golden Ass is not altogether der at the depravity of their ancestors. Nor is destitute of merit. There is considerable inthis all. Posterity, that high court of appeal genuity in the allegory, and some vivid colourwhich is never tired of eulogizing its own jus- ing in the descriptions. tice and discernment, acts, on such occasions, The Comedies deserve more attention. The like a Roman dictator after a general mutiny. Mandragola, in particular, is superior to the Finding the delinquents too numerous to be all best of Goldoni, and inferior only to the best: 3unished, it selects some of them at hazard to of Moliere. It is the work of a man who, if tear the whole penalty of an offence in which he had devoted himself to the drama, would they are not more deeply implicated than those probably have attained the highest eminence, who escape. Whether decimation be a con- and produced a permanent and salutary effect venient mode of military execution, we know on the national taste. This we infer, not so not: but we solemnly protest against the intro- much from the degree, as from the kind of its: duction of such a principle into the philoso- excellence. There are compositions which phy of history. indicate still greater talent, and which are In the present instance, the lot has fallen on perused with still greater delight, from which' Machiavelli: a man whose public conduct was we should have drawn very different conclu upright and honourable, whose views of mo- sions. Books quite worthless are quite harm rality, where they differed from those of the less. The sure sign of the general decline of persons around him, seem to have differed for an art is the frequent occurrence, not of de the better, and whose only fault was, that, hav- formity, but of misplaced beauty. In general, ing adopted some of the maxims then generally tragedy is corrupted by eloquence, and comedyreceived, he arranged them more luminously, by wit. and expressed them more forcibly than any The real object of the drama is the exhibiother writer. tion of the human character. This, we con;Ylaving now, we hope, in some degree ceive, is no arbitrary canon, originating in: cleared the personal character of Machiavelli, local and temporary associations, like those we come to the consideration of his works. which regulate the number of acts in a play,As a poet, he is not entitled to a very high or syllables in a line. It is the very essence place. The Decennali are merely abstracts of of a species of composition, in which every the history of his own times in rhyme. The idea is coloured by passing through the mestyle and versification are sedulously modelled dium of an imagined mind. To this fundaon those of Dante. But the manner of Dante, mental law every other regulation is suborn: like that of every other great original poet, was dinate. The situations which most signally suited only to his own genius, and to his own develope character form the best plot. The subject. The distorted and rugged diction mother tongue of the passions is the best style, which gives to his unearthly imagery a yet The principle, rightly understood, does not more unearthly character, and seems to pro- debar the poet from any grace of composition. ceed from a. man labouring to express that There is no style in which some man may not, which is inexpressible, is at once mean and under same circumstances, express himself; extravagant when misemployed by an imitator. There is therefore no style which the drama The moral poems are in every point superior. rejects, none which it does not occasionally That on Fortune, in particular, and that on Op- require. It is in the discernment of place, of portunity exhibit both justness of thought and time, and of person, that the inferior artists fertility of fancy. The Golden Ass has no- fail. the brilliant rodomontade of Mercutio, thing but the name in common with the Ro- the elaborate declamation of Antony, are, mance of Apuleius, a book which, in spite of where Shakspeare has placed them, natura! its irregular plan and its detestable style, is and pleasing. But Dryden would have made among the most fascinating in the Latin lan- Mercutio challenge Tybalt, in hyperboles as guage, and in which the merits of Le Sage and fanciful as those in which he describes the Radcliffe, Bunyan and Crdbillon, are singularly chariot of Mab.-Corneille would have repreunited. The Poem of Machiavelli, which is sented Antony as scolding and coaxing Cleo. evidently unfinished, is carefully copied from patra with all the measured rhetoric of a fune the earlier Cantos of the Inferno. The writer rat oration. loses himself in a wood. He is terrified by No writers have injured the Comedy of Eng monsters, and relieved by a beautiful damsel. land so deeply as Congreve and Sheridaii His protectress conducts him to a large mena- Both were men of splendid wit and polished gerie of emblematical beasts, whose peculiari- taste. Unhappily they made all their charaeties are described at length. The manner as ters in their own likeness. Their works bear well as the plan of the Divine Comedy is care- the same relation to the legitimate drama fully imitated. Whole lines are transferred which a transparency bears to a paintirg ho * MMACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS delicate touches; no hues imperceptibly fad- Nicias is, as Thersites says of Patroclus, a ing into each other; the whole is lighted up fool positive. His mind is occupied by no with an universal glare. Outlines and tints strong feeling; it takes every character, and are forgotten, in the common blaze which retains none; its aspect is diversified, not by illuminates all. The flowers and fruits of the passions, but by faint and transitory semblances intellect abound; but it is the abundance of a of passion, a mock joy, a mock fear, a mock jungle, not of a garden-unwholesome, be- love, a mock pride, which chase each others wildering, unprofitable from its very plenty, like shadows over its surface, and vanish as rank from its very fragrance. Every fop, soon as they appear. He is just idiot enough every boor, every valet, is a man of wit. The to be an object, not of pity or horror, but of very butts and dupes, Tattle, Urkwould, Puff, ridicule. He bears some resemblance to poor Acres, outshine the whole H6tel de Rambouil- Calandrino, whose mishaps, as recounted by let. To prove the whole system of this school Boccaccio, have made all Europe merry for absurd, it is only necessary to apply the test more than four centuries. He perhaps resemwhich dissolved the enchanted Florimel-to bles still more closely Simon de Villa, to whom place the true by the false Thalia, to contrast Bruno and Buffulmacco promised the love of the most celebrated characters which have the Countess Civillari.0 Nicias is, like Simon, been drawn by the writers of whom we speak, of a learned profession; and the dignity with with the Bastard in King John, or the Nurse in which he wears the doctoral fur renders his Romeo and Juliet. It was not surely from absurdities infinitely more grotesque. The want of wit that Shakspeare adopted so differ- old Tuscan is the very language for such a ent a manner. Benedick and Beatrice throw being. Its peculiar simplicity gives even to Mirabel and Millamant into the shade. All the most forcible reasoning and the most brilthe good sayings of the facetious hours of Ab- liant wit an infantine air, generally delightful, solute and Surface might have been clipped but to a foreign reader sometimes a little ludifrom the single character of Falstaff without crous. Heroes and statesmen seem to lisp being missed. It would have been easy for when they use it. It becomes Nicias incormthat fertile mind to have given Bardolph and parably, and renders all his silliness infinitely Shallow as much wit jts Prince Hal, and to more silly. have made Dogberry and Verges retort on We may add, that the verses, with which each other in sparkling'epigrams. But he the Mandragola is interspersed, appear to us knew, to use his own'admirable language, that to be the most spirited and correct of all that such indiscriminate prodigality was "from the Machiavelli has written in metre. He seems purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first to have entertained the same.opinion; for he and now, was, and is, to hold, as it were, the has introduced some of them in other.places. mirror up to Nature." The contemporaries of the author were iot This digression will enable our readers to blind to the merits of this striking piece. It understand what we mean when we say that, was acted at Florence with the greatest sucin the Mandragola, Machiavelli has proved cess. Leo the Tenth was among its admirers, that he completely understood the nature of and by his order it was represented at Rome.t the dramatic art, and possessed talents which The Clizia is an imitation of the Casina of wrould have enabled him to excel in it. By the Plautus, which is itself an imitation of the lost correct and vigorous delineation of human na- Ksnpoviuvot of Diphilus. Plautus was, unques; ture, it produces interest without a pleasing or tionably, one of the best Latin writers. His skilful plot, and laughter without the least am- works are copies; but they have in an extrabition of wit. The loyer, not a very delicate ordinary degree the air of originals. We inor generous lover, and his adviser the parasite, finitely prefer the slovenly exuberance of his are drawn with spirit. The hypocritical con- fancy, and the clumsy vigour of his diction, to fessoF is an admirable portrait. He is, if we the artfully disguised poverty and elegant lanmistake not, the original of Father Dominic, guor of Terence. But the Casina is by no the best comic character of Dryden. But old means one of his best plays; nor is it one Nicias is the glory of the piece. We cannot which offers great facilities to an imitator. call to mind any thing that resembles him. The The story is as alien from modern habits of follies which Moliere ridicules are those of life, as the manner in which it is developed affectation, not those of fatuity. Coxgombs from the modern fashion of composition. The and pedants, not simpletons, are his game. lover remains in the country, and the heroine Shakspeare has indeed a vast assortment of is locked up in her chamber during the whole fools; but the precise species of which we action, leaving their fate to be'decided by a speak is not, if we remember right, to be found foolish father, a cunning mother, and two kna. there. Shallow is a fool. But his animal spi- vish servants. Machiavelli has executed his rits supply, to a certain degree, the place of task with judgment and taste. He has accomcleverness. His talk is to that of Sir John modated the plot to a different state of society, what soda-water is to champagne. It has the and'has very dexterously connected it with effervescence, though not the body or the fla- the, history of his own times. The relation vour. Slender and Sir Andrew Aguecheek of the trick put on the doating old lover is ex are fools, troubled with an uneasy consciousness of their folly, which, in the latter, pro- * Decameron, Giorn.,viii. Nov. 9. t Nothing can be more evident than that Paulus Joduces a. most edifying meekness and docility, vius designates the Mandragola under the name of the ani in the former, awkwardness, obstinacy, Nicias. We should not have noticed what is so per. and confusion. Cloten is an arrZogant fool' fectly obvious, were it not that this natural and palpable misnomer has led the sagacious and industrious Bayle Osric a foppish fool, Ajax a savage fool; but into a gross error. MACHIAVELLI. 29 quisitely humorous. It is far superior to the conduct of those who were intrusted with the corresponding passage in the Latin comedy, domestic administration. The ambassador had and scarcely yields to the account which Fal- to discharge functions far more delicate than staff gives of his ducking. transmitting orders of knighthood, introducing Two other comedies without titles, the one tourists, or presenting his brethren with the in prose, the other in verse, appear among the homage of his high consideration. He was an works of Machiavelli. The former is very advocate, to whose management the dearest inshort, lively enough, but of no great value. terests of his clients were intrusted; a spy, clothThe latter we can scarcely believe to be ed with an inviolable character. Instead of genuine. Neither its merits nor its defects re- consulting the dignity of those whom he repremind us of the reputed author. It was first sented by a reserved manner and an ambiguprinted in 1796, from a manuscript discovered ous style, he was to plunge into all the inin the celebrated library of the Strozzi. Its trigues of the court at which he resided, to disgenuineness, if we have been rightly informed, cover and flatter every weakness of the prince is established solely by the comparison of who governed his employers, of the favourite hands. Our suspicions are strengthened by the who governed the prince, and of the lacquey circumstance, that the same manuscript con- who governed the favourite. He was to comtained a description of the plague of 1527, pliment the mistress and bribe the confessor, which has also, in consequence, been added to to panegyrize or supplicate, to laugh or weep, the works of Machiavelli. Of this last compo- to accommodate himself to every caprice, to sition the strongest external evidence would lull every suspicion, to treasure every hint, to scarcely induce us to believe him guilty. No- be every thing, to observe every thing,to endure thing was ever written more detestable, in mat- every thing. High as the art of political inter and manner. The narrations, the reflec- trigue had been carried in Italy, these were tions, the jokes, the lamentations, are all the times which required it all. very worst of their respective kinds, at once On these arduous errands Machiavelli was trite and affected-threadbare tinsel from the frequently employed. He was sent to treat Ragfairs and Monmouth-streets of literature. with the King of the Romans and with the A foolish school-boy might perhaps write it, Duke of Valentinois. He was twice ambassa. and, after he had written it, think it much finer dor at the court of Rome, and thrice at that of than the incomparable introduction of the De- France. In these missions, and in several cameron. But that a shrewd statesman, whose others of inferior importance, he acquitted himearliest works are characterized by manliness self with great dexterity. His despatches form of thought and language, should at nearly sixty one of the most amusing and instructive colyears of age, descend to such puerility, is ut- lections extant. We meet -with none of the terly inconceivable. mysterious jargon so common in modern state The little Novel of Belphegor is pleasantly papers, the flash-language of political robbers conceived and pleasantly told. But the extra- and sharpers. The narratives are clear and vagance of the satire in some measure injures agreeably written; the remarks on men and its effect. Machiavelli was unhappily married; things clever and judicious. The conversa and his wish to avenge his own cause and that tions are reported in a spirited and characterof his brethren in misfortune, carried him be- istic manner. We find ourselves introduced yond even the license of fiction. Jonson seems into the presence of the men who, during to have combined some hints taking from this twenty eventful years, swayed the destinies of tale with others from Boccaccio, in the plot of Europe. Their wit and their folly, their fretThe Devil is an Ass-a play which, though not fulitess and their merriment are exposed to us. the most highly finished of his compositions, We are admitted to overhear their chat, and to is perhaps that which exhibits the strongest watch their familiar gestures. It is interesting proofs of geniu3. and curious to recognise, in circumstances The political correspondence of Machiavelli, which elude the notice of historians, the feeble first published in 1767, is unquestionably violence and shallow cunning of Louls the genuine and highly valuable. The unhappy Twelfth; the bustling insignificance of Maxi. circumstances in which his country was placed, milian, cursed with an impotent pruriency for during the greater part of his public life, gave renown, rash yet timid, obstinate yet fickle, alextraordinary encouragement to diplomatic ways in a hurry, yet always too late;-the talents. From the moment that Charles the fierce and haughty energy which gave dignity Eighth descended from the Alps, the whole to the eccentricities of Julius;-the soft and character of Italian politics was changed. The graceful manners which masked the insatiable governments of the Peninsula cease to form an ambition and the implacable hatred of Borgia. independent system. Drawn from their old We have mentioned Borgia. It is impossiorbit by the attraction of the larger bodies.ble not to pause for a moment on the name of which now approached them, they became a man in whom the political morality of Italy mere satellites of France and Spain. All their was so strongly personified, partially blended disputes, internal and external, were decided with the sterner lineaments of the Spanish by foreign influence. The contests of oppo- character. On two important occasions Ma. site factions were carried on, not as formerly chiavelli was admitted to his society: once, at in the Senate-house, or in the market-place, the moment when his splendid villany achievbut in the antechambers of Louis and Ferdi- ed its most.signal triumph, when he caught in nand. Under these circumstances, the pros- one snare and crushed at one blow all his most perity of the Italian States depended far more on formidable rivals, and again when, exhausted Ike ability of their foreign agents than on the by disease and overwhelmed by misfortunes, c2 so MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. which n6 human prudence could have averted, as a stimulant. They turned with'oathing he was the prisoner of the deadliest enemy of from the atrocity of the strangers whc seemed his house. These interviews, between the to love blood for its own sake, who, not con. greatest speculative and the greatest practical tent with subjugating, were impatient to destatesmen of the age, are fully described in the stroy; who found a fiendish pleasure in razing correspondence, and form perhaps the most in- magnificent cities, cutting the throats of eneteresting part of it. From some passages in the mies who cried for quarter, or suffocating an Prince, and perhaps also from some indistinct unarmed people by thousands in the caverns traditions, several writers have supposed a con- to which they had fled for safety. Such were nection between those remarkable men much the scenes which daily excited the terror and closer than ever existed. The Envoy has even disgust of a people, amongst whom, till lately, been accused of promoting the crimes of the art- the worst that a soldier had to fear in a pitched ful and merciless tyrant. But from the official battle was the loss of his horse, and the ex. documents it is clear that their intercourse, pense of his ransom. The swinish intemperthough ostensibly amicable, was in reality hos- ance of Switzerland, the wolfish avarice of tile. It cannot be doubted, however, that the Spain, the gross licentiousness of the French, imagination of Machiavelli was strongly im- indulged in violation of hospitality, of decency, pressed and his speculations on government of love itself, the wanton inhumanity which coloured, by the observations which he made was common to all the invaders, had rendered on the singular character, and equally singular them subjects of deadly hatred to the inhabifortunes, of a man who, under such disadvan- tants of the Peninsula.* The wealth which tages, had achieved such exploits; who, when had been accumulated during centuries of sensuality, varied through innumerable forms, prosperity and repose was rapidly melting could no longer stimulate his sated mind, away. The intellectual superiority of the opfound a more powerful and durable excitement pressed people only rendered them more in the intense thirst of empire and revenge;- keenly sensible of their political degradation. who emerged from the sloth and luxury of the Literature and taste, indeed, still disguised, Roman purple, the first prince and general of with a flush of hectic loveliness and brilliancy, the age;-who, trained in an unwarlike profes- the ravages of an incurable decay. The iron sion, formed a gallant army out of the dregs of had not yet entered into the soul. The time an unwarlike people: —who, after acquiring was not yet come when eloquence was to be sovereignty by destroying his enemies, ac- gagged and reason to be hoodwinked-when quired popularity by destroying his tools; — the harp of the poet was to be hung on the who had begun to employ for the most saluta- willows of Arno, and the right hand of the ry ends the powerI which he had attained by the painter to forget its cunning. Yet a discerning most atrocious means; who tolerated within eye might even then have seen that genius the sphere of his iron despotism no plunderer and learning would not long survive the state or oppressor but himself; —and who fell at last of things from which they had sprung; —that amidst the mingled curses and regrets of a the great men whose talents gave lustre to that people, of whom-his genius had been the won- melancholy period had been formed under the der, and might have been the salvation. Some of influence of happier days, and would leave no those crimes of Borgia, which.to us appear the successors behind them. The times which most odious, would not, from causes which we shine with the greatest splenidour in literary have already considered, have struck an Italian history are not always those to which the of the fifteenth century with equal horror. Pa- human mind is most indebted. Of this we may triotic feeling also might induce Machiavelli be convinced, by comparing the generation to look, with some indulgence and regret, on which follows them with that which preceded the memory of the only leader who could have them. The first fruits which are reaped under defended the independence of Italy against the a bad system often spring from seed sown confederate spoilers of Cambray. under a good one. Thus it was, in some meaOn this subject Machiavelli felt most sure, with the Augustan age. Thus it was strongly. Indeed the expulsion of the foreign with the age of Raphael and Ariosto, of Aldus tyrants, and the restoration of that golden age and Vida. which had preceded the irruption of Charles Machiavelli deeply regretted the misfortunes the Eighth, were projects which, at that time, of his country, and clearly discerned the cause fascirated all the master-spirits of Italy. The and the remedy. It was the military system magnificent vision delighted the great but ill- of the Italian people which had extinguishes regulated mind of Julius. It divided with their valour and discipline, and rendered their manuscripts and sauces, painters and falcons, wealth an easy prey to every foreign plunthe attention of the frivolous Leo. It prompted derer. The Secretary projected a scheme alike the generous treason of Morone. It imparted honourable to his heart and to his intellect, for a transient energy to the feeble mind and body abolishing the use of mercenary troops, and of the last Sforza. It excited for one moment organizing a national militia. an honest ambition in the false heart of Pes- The exertions which he made to effect this cara. Ferocity and insolence were not among. great object ought,alone to rescue his name the vices of the national character. To the from obloquy. Though his situation and his discriminating cruelties of politicians, committed for great ends on select victims, the * The opening stanzas of the Fourteenth Canto of th moral code of the Italians was too indulgent. Orlando Furioso give a frightful picture of the state of But though they might have recourse to bar- Italy in those times. Yet, strange to say, Ariento X baritv as an exhedenh they did not hreoquire ito a speaking of the conduct of those.who called themselvm baritv as an exDedient~ they did not require it "Ulies. MACHIEAVELLI. habits were pacific, he studied with intense amiable and accomplished young man, whose assiduity the theory of war. He made himself early death Machiavelli feelingly ceplores. master of all its details. The Florentine go- After partaking of an elegant entertainment, vernment entered into his views. A council they retire from the heat into the most shady of war was appointed. Levies were decreed. recesses of the garden. Fabrizio is struck by The indefatigable minister flew from place to the sight of some uncommon plants. His host place in order to superintend the execution of informs him that, though rare in modern days, his design. The times were, in some respects, they are frequently mentioned by the classical favourable to the experiment. The system of authors, and that his grandfather, like many military tactics had undergone a great revolu- other Italians, amused himself with practising tion. The cavalry was no longer considered the ancient methods of gardening. Fabrizio as forming the strength of an army. The hours expresses his regret that those who, in later which a citizen could spare from his ordinary times, affected the manners of the old Romans, employments, though by no means sufficient to should select for -imitation their most trifling familiarize him with the exercise of a man-at- pursuits. This leads to a conversation on the arms, might render him a useful foot-soldier. decline of military discipline, and on the best The dread of a foreign yoke, of plunder, mas- means of restoring it. The institution of the sacre, and conflagration, might have conquered Florentine militia is ably defended; and sethat repugnance to military pursuits, which veral improvements are suggested in the both the industry and the idleness of great details.towns commonly generate. For a time the The Swiss and the Spaniards were, at that scheme promised well. The new troops ac- time, regarded as the best soldiers in Europe. quitted themselves respectably in the field. The Swiss battalion consisted of pikemen, and Machiavelli looked with parental rapture on bore a close resemblance to the Greek phalanx. the success of his plan; and began to hope The Spaniards, like the soldiers of Rome, were that the arms of Italy might once more be for- armed with the sword and the shield. The midable to the barbarians of the Tagus and the victories of Flaminius and AEmilius over the Rhine. But the tide of misfortune came on Macedonian kings seem to prove the superibefore the barriers which should have with- ority of the weapons used by the legions. stood it were prepared. For a time, indeed, The same experiments had been recently Florence might be considered as peculiarly tried with the same result at the battle of fortunate. Famine and sword and pestilence Ravenna, one of those tremendous days into had devastated the fertile plains and stately which human folly and wickedness compress cities of the Po. All the curses denounced of the whole devastation of a famine or a plague. old against Tyre seemed to have fallen on In that memorable conflict, the infantry of Venice. Her merchants already stood afar Arragon, the old companions of Gonsalvo, off, lamenting for their great city. The time deserted by all their allies, hewed a passage seemed near when the sea-weed should over- through the thickest of the imperial pikes, and grow her silent Rialto, and the fisherman wash effected an unbroken retreat, in the face of the his nets in her deserted arsenal. Naples had gendarmerie of De Foix, and the renowned been four times conquered and reconquered, artillery of Este. Fabrizio, or rather Machiaby tyrants equally indifferent to its welfare, velli, proposes to combine the two systems, to and equally greedy for its spoils. *Florence, arm the foremost lines with the pike, for the as yet, had only to endure degradation and ex- purpose of repulsing cavalry, and those in the tortion, to submit to the mandate of foreign rear with the sword, as being a weapon better powers, to buy over and over again, at an adapted for every purpose. Throughout the enormous price, what was already justly her work, the author expresses the highest admiraown, to return thanks for being wronged, and tion of the military science of the ancient to ask pardon for being in the right. She was Romans, and the greatest contempt for the at length deprived of the blessings even of this maxims which had been in vogue amongst the infamous and servile repose. Her military Italian commanders of the preceding generaand political institutions were swept away tion. He prefers infantry to cavalry; and fortogether. The Medici returned, in the train tified camps to fortified towns. He is inclined of foreign invaders, from their long exile. to substitute rapid movements, and decisive The policy of Machiavelli was abandoned; engagements, for the languid and dilatory and his public services were requited with operations of his countrymen. He attaches poverty, imprisonment, and torture. very little importance to the invention of gunThe fallen statesman still clung to his pro- powder. Indeed he seems to think that it ject with unabated ardour. With the,view of ought scarcely to produce any change in the vindicating it from some popular objections, mode of arming or of disposing troops. The and of refuting some prevailing errors on the general testimony of historians, it must be subject of military science, he wrote his seven allowed, seems to prove, that the ill-construct-books on the Art of War. This excellent work ed and ill-served artillery of those times, -is in the form of a dialogue. The opinions of though useful in a siege, was of little value on the writer are put into the! mouth of Fabrizio the field of battle. Colonna, a powerful nobleman of the Ecclesi- Of the tactics of Machiavelli we will not astical State, and an officer of distinguished venture to give an opinion; but we are cer merit in the service of the King of Spain. He tain that his book is most able and interesting; visits Florence on his way from Lombardy to As a commentary on the history of his times his own domains. He is invited to meet some it is invaluable. The ingenuity, the grace, and friends at the house of Cosimo Rucellui, an the perspicuity of the style, and the eloquenee MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. and animation of particular passages, must impart to them that vivid and practical cha. give pleasure even to readers who take no in- racter which so widely distinguishes them from terest in the subject. the vague theories of most political philoso.' The Prince and the Discourses on Livy were phers. written after the fall of the republican govern- Every man who has seen the world knows ment. The former was dedicated to the young that nothing is so useless as a general maxim. Lorenzo de Medici. This circumstance seems If it be very moral and very true, it may serve to have disgusted the contemporaries of the for a copy to a charity-boy. If, like those of writer far more than the doctrines which have Rochefoucauld, it be sparkling and whimsirendered the name of the work odious in later cal, it may make an excellent motto for an times. It was considered as an indication of essay. But few, indeed, of the many wise political apostasy. The fact, however, seems -apophthegms which have been uttered, from to have been, that Machiavelli, despairing of the time of the Seven Sages of Greece to that the liberty of Florence, was inclined to support of Poor Richard, have prevented a single fool any government which might preserve her ish action. We give the highest and the most independence. The interval which separated a peculiar praise to the precepts Qf Machiavelli, democracy and a despotism, Soderini and Lo- when we say that they may frequently be of renzo, seemed to vanish when compared with real use in regulating the conduct, not so much the difference between the former and the pre- because they are more just or more profound sent state of Italy; between the security, the than those which might be culled from other opulence, and the.repose which it had enjoyed authors, as because they can be more readily under its native rulers, and the misery in which applied to the problems of real life. it had been plunged since the fatal year in There are errors in these works. But they which the first foreign tyrant had descended are errors which a writer situated like Machia. from the Alps. The noble and pathetic ex- velli could scarcely avoid. They arise, for the hortation with which the Prince concludes, most part, from a single defect which appears shows how strongly the writer felt upon this to us to pervade his whole system. In his posubject. litical scheme the means had been more deepThe Prince traces the progress of an ambi- ly considered than the ends. The great prin. tious man, the Discourses the progress of an ciple, that societies and laws exist only for the ambitious people. The same principles on purpose of increasing the sum of frivate hapwhich in the former work the elevation of an piness, is not recognised with sufficient clearindividual are explained, are applied in the ness. The good of the body, distinct from the latter to the longer duration and more complex goocd of the members, and sometimes hardly interests of society. To a modern statesman compatible with it, seems to be the object the form of the Discourses may appear to be which he proposes to himself. Of all politipuerile. In truth, Livy is not a historian on cal fallacies, this has had the widest and the whom much reliance can be placed, even in most mischievous operation. The state of socases where he must have possessed consider- ciety in the little commonwealths of Greece, able means of information. And his first De- the close connection and mutual dependence cade, to which Machiavelli has confined him- of the citizens, and the severity of the laws of self, is scarcely entitled to more credit than war, tended to encourage an opinion which, our chronicle of British kings who reigned be- under such circumstances, could hardly be fore the Roman invasion. But his commenta- called erroneous. The interests of every intor is indebted to him for little more than a dividual were inseparably bound up with those few texts, which he might as easily have ex- of the state. An invasion destroyed his corntracted from the Vulgate or the Decameron. fields and vineyards, drove him from his home, The whole train of thought is original. and compelled him to encounter all the hardOn the peculiar immorality which has ren- ships of a military life. A peace restored him dered the Prince unpopular, and which is al- to security and comfort. A victory doubled most equally discernible in the Discourses, we the number of his slaves. A defeat perhaps have already given our opinion at length. We made him a slave himself. When Pericles, in have attempted to show that it belonged rather the Peloponnesian war, told the Athenians that to the age than to the man; that it was a par- if their country triumphed their private losses tial taint, and by no means implied general would speedily be repaired, but that if their depravity. We cannot, however, deny that it arms failed of success, every individual is a great blemish, and that it considerably amongst them would probably be ruined,* he diminishes the pleasure which, in other re- spoke no more than the truth. He spoke to spects, those works must afford to every in- men whom the tribute of vanquished cities telligent mind. supplied with food and clothing, with the luxuIt is, indeed, impossible to conceive a more ry of the bath and the amusements of the healthful and vigorous constittion of the un- theatre, on whom the greatness of their counderstanding than that which these works indi- try conferred rank, and before whom the memcate. The qualities of the active and the con- bers of less prosperous communities trembled; templative statesman appear to have been and to men who, in case of a change in the blended, in the mind of the writer, into a rare public fortunes, would at least be deprived of and exquisite harmony. His skill in the de- every comfort and every distinction which they tatis of business had not been acquired at the enjoyed. To be butchered on the smoking expense of his general powers. It had not ruins of -hetr city, to be dragged in chains to tendered his mind less comprehensive, but it ~ had served to correct his speculations, and to * Thucydides, ii. 2 MACHIAVELLL a a slave-market, to see one child torn from them I constructed theories as rapidly and as slghtly t 4ig in the quarries of Sicily, and another to as card-houses-no sooner projected than come guard the harems of Persepolis; those were pleted-no sooner completed than blown away the frequent and probable consequences of na- -no sooner blown away than forgotten. Mational calamities. Hence, among the Greeks, chia'velli errs only because his experience, acpatriotism became a governing principle, or quired in a very peculiar state of society, could rather an ungovernable passion. Both their not always enable him to calculate the effect legislators and their philosophers took it for of institutions differing from those of which he granted that, in providing for the strength and had observed the operation. Montesquieu errs greatness of the state, they sufficiently provid- because he has a fine thing to say and is reed for the happiness of the people. The writ, solved to say it. If the phenomena which lie ers of the Roman empire lived under despots ~efore him will not suit his purpose, all history into whose dominion a hundred nations were must be ransacked. If nothing established by melted down, and'whose gardens would have authentic testimony can be raked or chipped covered the little commonwealths of Phlius to suit his Procrustean hypothesis, he puts up and Platea. Yet they continued to employ the with some monstrous fable about Siam, or same language, and to cant about the duty of Bantam, or Japan, told by writers compared sacrificing every thing to a country to which with whom Lucian and Gulliver were verathey owed nothing. cious-liars by a double right, as travellers Causes similar to those which had influ- and as Jesuits. enced the disposition of the Greeks, operated Propriety of thought and propriety of diction powerfully on the less vigorous and daring are commonly found together. Obscurity and character of the Italians. They, too, were affectation are the two greatest faults of style. members of small communities. Every man Obscurity of expression generally spring,: from was deeply interested in the welfare of the so- confusion of ideas; and the same wish to dazciety to which he belonged-a partaker in its zle, at any cost, which produces affectation in wealth and its poverty, in its glory and its the manner of a writer, is likely to produce shame. In the age of Machiavelli this was pe- sophistry in his reasonings. The judicious culiarly the case., Public events had produced and candid mind of Machiavelli shows itself an immense sum of money to private citizens. in his luminous, manly, and polished language. The northern invaders had brought want to The style of Montesquieu, on the other hand, their boards, infamy to their beds, fire to their indicates in every page a lively and ingenious, roofs, and the knife to their throats. It was but an unsound mind. Every trick of express natural that a man who lived in times like sion, frqm the mysterious conciseness of an the3e should overrate the importance of those oracle to the flippancy of a Parisian coxcomb, measures by which a nation is rendered formi- is employed to disguise the fallacy of some dable to its neighbours, and undervalue those positions, and the triteness of others. Absurdiwhich make it prosperous within itself. ties are brightened into epigrams; truisms are Nothing is rore remarkable in the political darkened into enigmas. It is with difficulty treatises of Machiavelli than the fairness of that the strongest eye can sustain the glare mind which they indicate. It appears where with which some parts are illuminated, or the author is in the wrong almost as strongly penetrate the shade in which others are conas where he is in the right. He never ad- cealed. vances a false opinion because it is new or The political works of Machiavelli derive a. splendid, because he can clothe it in a happy peculiar interest from the mournful earnestness phrase or defend it by an ingenious sophism. which he manifests, whenever he touches on His errors are at once explained by a reference topics connected with the calamities of his na. to the circumstances in which he was placed. tive land. It is difficult to conceive any situa. They evidently were not sought out; they lay tion more painful than that of a great man, con, in his way and could scarcely be avoided. demned to watch the lingering agony of an ex. Such mistakes must necessarily be committed hausted country, to tend it during the alternate by early speculators in every science. fits of stupefaction and raving which precede In this respect it is amusing to compare the its dissolution, to see the. symptoms of vitality Prince and the Discourses with the Spirit of dissappear one by one, till nothing is left but Laws. Montesquieu enjoys, perhaps, a wider coldness, darkness, and corruption. To this celebrity than any political writer of modern joyless and thankless duty was Machiavelli Europe. Something he doubtless owes to his called. In the energetic language of the promerit, but much more to his fortune. He had phet, he was " mad for the sight of his eyes the good luck of a valentine. He caught the which he saw,"-, disunion in the council, effeeye of the French nation at the moment when minacy in the camp, liberty extinguished, comit was waking from the long,sleep of political merce decaying, national honour sullied; an and religious bigotry, and in consequence he enlightened and flourishing people given cver became a favourite. The English at that time to the ferocity of ignorant savages. Though considered a Frenchman who talked about his opinions had not escaped the contagion of' constitutional checks and fundamental laws, that political immorality which was common as a prodigy not less astonishing than' the among his countrymen, his natural disposiuao learned pig or the musical infant. Specious seems to have been rather stern and impetbut shallow, studious of effect, indifferent to ous than pliant and artful. When the miser$y truth, eager to build a system, but careless of aad degradation of Florence, and the foul onu collecting those materials out of which alone rage which he had himself sustained roused a sound and. durable, system -a be built, he his:mind, toemooth.crAft of his professioaair Vo. I.-5 34 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. his nation is exchanged for the honest bitter- of Piero, and of Lorenzo, are, however, treated ness of scorn and anger. He speaks like one with a freedom and impartiality equally honoursick of the calamitous times and abject people abre to the writer and to the patron. The miseamong whom his lot is cast. He pines for the ries and humiliations of dependence, the bread strength and glory of ancient Rome, for the which is more bitter than every other food, the fasces of Brutus and the sword of Scipio, the stairs which are more painful than every other gravity of the curule chair, and the bloody pomp assent,* had not broken the spirit of Machi. of the triumphal sacrifice. He seems to be avelli. The most corruptingpost in a corrupt. transported back to the days, when eight hun- ing profession had not depraved the generous dred thousand Italian warriors sprung to arms heart of Clement. at the rumour of a Gallic invasion. He breathes The history does not appear to be the fruit all the spirit of those intrepid and haughty pa- of much industry or research. It is unquestricians, who forgot the dearest ties of nature tionably inaccurate. But it is elegant, lively, in the claims of public duty, who looked with and picturesque, beyond any other in the Itadisdain on the elephants and on the gold of lian language. The reader, we believe, carries Pyrrhus, and listened with unaltered compo- away from it a more vivid and a more faithful sure to the tremendous tidings of Cannae. Like impression of the national character and manan ancient temple deformed by the barbarous ners, than from more correct accounts. The architecture of a later age, his character ac- truth is, that the book belongs rather to ancient quires an interest from the very circumstances than to modern literature. It is in the style, which debase it. The original proportions are not of Davila and Clarendon, but of Herodotus rendered more striking, by the contrast which and Tacitus; and the classical histories may they present to the mean and incongruous addi- almost be called romances founded in fact. tions. The relation is, no doubt, in all its principal The influence of the sentiments which we points, strictly true. But the numerous little have described was not apparent in his writ- incidents which heighten the interest, the words, ings alone. His enthusiasm, barred from the the gestures, the looks, are evidently furnishcareer which it would have selected for itself, ed by the imagination of the author. The fashseems to have found a vent in desperate levity. ion of later times is different. A more exact He enjoyed a vindictive pleasure in outraging narrative is given by the writer. It may be the opinions of a society which he despised. doubted whether more exact notions are conHe became careless of those decencies which veyed to the reader. The best portraits are were expected from a man so highly distin- those in which there is a slight mixture of cariguished in the literary and political world. The cature; and we are not aware, that the best sarcastic bitterness of his conversation disgust- histories are not those in which a little of the ed those who were more inclined to accuse his exaggeration of fictitious narrative is judiciouslicentiousness than their own degeneracy, and ly employed. Something is lost in accuracy; who were unable to conceive the strength of but much is gained in effect. The fainter lines those emotions which are concealed by the are neglected; but the great characteristic jests of the wretched, and by the follies of the features are imprinted on the mind forever. wise. The history terminates with the death of LoThe historical works of Machiavelli still re- renzo de Medici. Machiavelli had, it seems, main to be considered. The life of Castruccio intended to continue it to a later period. But Castracani will occupy us for a very short his death prevented the execution of his detime, and would scarcely have demanded our sign; and the'melancholy task of rocording notice, had it not attracted a much greater the desolation and shame of Italy devolved on share of public attention than it deserves. Few Guicciardini. books, indeed, could be more interesting than Machiavelli lived long enough to see the coma careful and judicious account, from such a mencement of the last struggle for Florentine pen, of the illustrious Prince of Lucca, the most liberty. Soon after his death, monarchy was eminent of those Italian chiefs, who, like Pisis- finally established-not such a monarchy as tratus and Gelon, acquired a power felt rather that of which Cosmo had laid the foundations than seer, and resting, not on law or on pre- deep in the constitution and feelings of his scription, but on the public favour and on their countrymen, and which Lorenzo had embelgreat personal qualities. Such a work would lished with the trophies of every science and exhibit to us the real nature of that species of every art; but a loathsome tyranny, proud sovereignty, so singular and so often misunder- and mean, cruel and feeble, bigoteJ and lasci.. stood, which the Greeks denominated tyranny, vious. The character of Machiavelli was hatse and which modified in some degree by the feu- ful to the new masters of Italy; and those parts dal system, re-appeared in the commonwealths of his theory, which were in strict accordance of Lombardv and Tuscany. But this little with their own daily practice, afforded a precomposition of Machiavelli is in no sense a text for blackening his memory. His works history. It has no pretensions to fidelity. It is were misrepresented by the learned, miscona trifle, and not a very successful trifle. It is strued by the ignorant, censured by the scarcely more authentic than the novel of Bel- church, abused, with all, the rancour of simu. phegor, and is very much duller. lated virtue, by the minions of a base despotThe last great work of this illustrious man ism, and the priests of a baser superstition, was the history of his native city. It was writ- The name of the man whose genius had illaten by the command of the Pope, who, as chief minated all the dark places of policy, and to of the house of Medici, was at that time soveeign of -Florence. The characters of Cosmo, * Dante Paradiste, Canto Xvii. DRYDEN.K so whose patriotic wisdom an oppressed people of a great mind through' the corruptions of a had owed their last chance of emancipation degenerate age; and which will be approached and revenge, passed into a proverb of in- with still deeper homage, when the object to famy which his public life was devoted shall be For more than two hundred years his bones attained, when the foreign yoke shall be prolay undistinguished, At length, an English ken, when a second Prdccita shall avenge the nobleman paid the last honours to the greatest wrongs of Naples, when a happier Rienzi shall statesman of Florence. In the Church of restore the good estate of Rome, when the Santa Croce, a monument was erected to his streets of Florence and Bologna shall again memory, which is contemplated, with reve- resound with their ancient-war cry —Popolo; rence by all who can distinguish the virtues popolo; muoiano i tirannil DRYDEN.* [EDINBURGH REVIEw, 1828.] Tas public voice has assigned to Dryden though there may be no person to whom our the first place in the second rank of our poets mnisery or our happiness can be ascribed. -no mean station in a table of intellectual'I'he peevishness of an invalid vents itself precedency so rich in illustrious names. It is even on those who alleviate his pain. The allowed that, even of the few who were his good-humour of a man elated by success often superiors in genius, none has exercised a displays itself towards enemies. In the same more extensive or permanent influence on the manner, the feelings of pleasure and admiranational habits of thought and expression. tion, to which the contemplation of great events His life was commensurate with the period gives birth, make an object where they do not during which a great revolhtion in the public find it. Thus, nations descend to the absurdi. taste was effected; and in that revolution he ties of Egyptian idolatry, and worship stocks played the part of Cromwell. By unscrupu- and reptiles - Sacheverells and Wilkeses. lously taking the lead in its wildest excesses, They even fall prostrate before a deity to he obtained the absolute guidance of it. By which they have themselves given the form trampling on laws, he acquired the authority which commands their veneration, and which, of a legislator. By signalizing himself as the unless fashioned by them, would have remained most daring and irreverent of rebels, he raised a shapeless block. They persuade themselves himself to the dignity of a recognised prince. that they are the creatures of what they have He commenced his career by the most frantic themselves created. For, in fact, it is the age outrages. He terminated it in the repose of that forms the man, not the man that forms established sovereignty-the author of a nrew the age. Great minds do indeed react on the code, the root of a new dynasty. society which has made them what they are; Of Dryden, however, as of almost every but they only pay with interest what they have man who has been distinguished either in the received. We extol Bacon, and sneer at Aqui. literary or in the political world, it may be nas. But if their situations had been changed, said that the course which he pursued, and the Bacon might have been the Angelical Doctor, effect which he produced, depended less on his the most subtle Aristotelian of the schools; personal qualities than on the circumstances the Dominican might have led forth the sciin which he was placed. Those who have ences from their house of bondage. If Luther read history with discrimination know the fal- had been born in the tenth century, he would lacy of th9se panegyrics and invectives, which have effected no reformation. If he had never represent individuals as effecting great moral been born at all, it is evident that the sixteenth and intellectual revolutions, subverting esta- century could not have elapsed without a great blished systems, and imprinting a new cha- schism in the church. Voltaire, in the days racter on their age. The difference between of Lewis the Fourteenth, would probably have one man and another is by no means so great been, like most of the literary men of thai as the superstitious crowd supposes. But the time, a zealouis Jansenist, eminent among the same feelings which, in ancient Rome, pro- defenders of efficacious grace, a bitter assail duced the apotheosis of a popular emperor, ant of thelax morality of the Jesuits and the and, in modern Rome, the canonization of a unreasonable decisions of the Sorbonne. If devout prelate, lead men to cherish an illusion Pascal had entered on his literary career, which furnishes them with something to adore. when intelligence was more general, and By a law of association, from the operation of abuses at the same time more flagrant, when Which even minds the most strictly regulated the church was polluted by the Iscariot Duboi*, by reason are not wholly exempt, misery dis- the court disgraced by the orgies of Canillac, poses us to hatred, and happiness to love, al- and the nation sacrificed to: the juggles of Law; if he had lived to see a dynasty of:ar- Th/e Poe'tiWc Work of JOHN DRyB!)s. In to vo- lota, an empty.treasury and a: crowded harem, louia: I niveRltyt Edio0n. Iordoiun 18262.. aa army forn idable only to t hose nom is so MACAULAY'S MISOMiLLANEOUS WRITINGS. should have protected, a Ipriesthood just rEei. It is true that the man who -is -best able t gious ennough to be intolerant, he might possiT take a machine to pieces, and who. most clearbly, like every man of genius'in France, have ly comprehends the mainner in which all its imbibed extravagant prejudices against mo- wheels and springs conduce to its general efi narchy and Christianity. The'wit which fect, will-be the man most competent to form blasted the sophisms'of Escobar, the impas- another machine of similar power. In all thd Sioned eloquence which defended the sisters branches of physical and moral science which of Port Royal, the intellectual hardihood which admit of perfect analysis, he who can resolve was not beaten down even by Papal autho- will be able to combine. But the analysirity, might have raised him to the Patriarchate which criticism can effect of poetry is necesof the Philosophical Church. It was long dis- sarily imperfect. One element must forever puted whether the honour of inventing the elude its researches; and that is the very elemethod of Fluxions belonged to Newton or to ment by which poetry is poetry. In the deLeibnitz. It is now generally allowed that scription of nature, for example, a judicious these great men made the same discovery at reader will easily detect an incongruous imthe same time. Mathematical science, indeed, age. But he will find it impossible to explain had then reached such a point, that if neither_ in what consists the art of a writer who, in a of them had ever existed, the principle must few words, brings some spot before him so inevitably have occurred to some person within vividly that he shall know it as if he had lived a few years. So in our own time the doctrine there from childhood; while another, employof rent now universally received by political ing the same materials, the same verdure, the economists, was propounded almost at the same water, and the same flowers, committing same moment, by two writers unconnected no'inaccuracy, introducing nothing which can with each other. Preceding speculators had be positively pronounced superfluous, omitting long been blundering round about it; and it nothing which can be positively pronounced could not possibly have been missed much necessary, shall produce no more effect than longer by the most heedless inquirer. We an advertisement of a capital residence and;a are inclined to think that, with respect to every desirable pleasure-ground. To take another great addition which has been made tc the example, the great features of the character of stock of human knowledge, the case has been Hotspur are obvious to' the most superficial similar; that without Copernicus we should reader. We at once perceive that his courage have been Copernicans, that without Colum- is'splendid, his thirst of glory intense, his anibus America -would have been discovered, mal spirits high, his temper careless, arbitrary, that without Locke we should have possessed and petulant; that he indulges his own humoui a just theory of the origin of human ideas. without caring whose feelings he may woundSociety indeed has its great men and its or whose enmity he may provoke, by his levilittle men, as the earth has its mountains ty. Thus far criticism will go. But soemand its valleys. But the inequalities of in- thing is still wanting. A man might have all tellect, like the inequalities of the surface those qualities, and -every other quality which of our globe, bear so small a proportion to the most minute examiner can introduce into the mass, that, in calculating its great revo- his catalogue of the virtues and faults of Hot Jutions, they may safely be neglected. The spur, and yet he would. not be iotspur. Al sun illuminates the hills, while it is still below most every thing that we have said of him ap the horizon; and truth is discovered by the plies equally to Falconbridge. Yet in the highest minds a little before it becomes mani- mouth of Falconbridge, most uf. his speeches rest to the multitude. This is the extent of would seem out'of place.' lt real life, this pertheir superiority. They are the first to catch petually occurs. We art sensible of wide di.e and reflect a light, which, without their assist. ferences between men whum, if we are required ance, must, in a short time, be visible to those tordescribe them, we should describe in almost who lie far beneath them, the same terms. If we were; attempting to draw The same remark will apply equally to the elaborate characters of dem, we should scarceine arts.' The laws on'which depend the pro- ly be able to point out an y strong distinction i yet gress and decline of poetry, painting, and we approach them with feelings altogether dissculpture, operate with little less certainty than similar. We cannot conceive of them as using those which regulate the periodical returns of the expressions or gestures of each other. Let heat and cold, of fertility and barrenness. us suppose that a zoologist should attempt to ThoSe who seem to lead the public taste, are, give an account of some animal, a porcupine in general, merely outrunning it in the direc- for instance, to people who:had never seen it. tion which itis spontaneously pursuing.'With- The porcupine, he might say, is of the genus out a just apprehension of the'laws to which mammalia, and the order gliris. There are we have alluded, the merits and defects of whiskers on its face'; it is two feet long; it DLryden can be'but imperfectly understood. has four toes before, five behind, two foreteeth,.We will, therefore, state what we conceive and eight grinders. Its body is covered with them to be hair and quills. And when all this had been The ages in which the masterpieces of ima- said, woide any one of the auditors have ginatibn:have been produced, have by no fornied a jiust idea of a porcupine? Would means been those in which taste has been any two of them have formed the same idea? most correct. It seems' that the creative fa- There might exist innumerable races of ani. culty and the critical faculty cannot eisrt toge- mals, possessing all the characteristics which ther. their higheit sperfection. The causes beep r.eined, ye. altgethQ r uli $o of this phenomenon i is not difficult to assign. each other. W'hatte tiesicription of our at DRYDEN. 3( ralist is to a real porcupine, the remarks of greatest of human calamities, without once vio criticism are to. the images of poetry. What lating the reverence due to it; at that discrimiit so imperfectly decomposes, it cannot per- nating delicacy of touch which makes a characfectly reconstruct. It is evidently as impossi- ter exquisitely ridiculous without impairing its ble to produce an Othello or a Macbeth by re- worth, its grace, or its dignity. In Don Quixote versing an analytical process so defective as are several dissertations on the principles of it would be for an anatomist to form a living poetic and dramatic writing. No passages in man out of the fragments of his dissecting thewholeworkexhibit strongermarks of labour room. In both cases, the vital principle eludes and attention; and no passages in any work the finest instruments, and vanishes in the with which we are acquainted are more worthvery instant in which its seat is touched. less and puerile. Inourtimetheywouldscarcely Hence those who, trusting to their critical obtain admittance into the literary department skill, attempt to write poems, give us not im- of the Morning Post. Every reader of the Diages of things, but catalogues of qualities. vine Comedy must be struck by the veneration Their characters are allegories; not good men which Dante expresses for writers far inferior and bad men, but cardinal virtues and deadly to himself. He will not lift up his eyes from sins. We seem to have fallen among the ac- the ground in the presence of Brunetto, all quaintances of our old friend Christian: some- whose works are not worth the worst of his times we meet Mistrust and Timorous: some- own hundred cantos. He does not venture to times Mr. Hate-good and Mr. Love-lust; and walk in the same line with the bombastic Stathen again Prudence, Piety, and Charity. tius. His admiration of Virgil is absolute That critical discernment is not sufficient to idolatry. If indeed it had been excited by the make men poets is generally allowed. Why elegant, splendid and harmonious diction of it should keep them from becoming poets, is the Roman poet, it would not have been alto. not perhaps equally evident. But the fact is, gether unreasonable; but it is rather as an authat poetry requires not an examining, but a thority on all points of philosophy, than as a believing. frame of mind. Those feel it most, work of imagination, that he values the 2Eneid. and write it best, who forget that it is a work The most trivial passages he regards as oraof art; to whom its imitations, like the reali- cles of the highest authority, and of the most ties from which they are taken, are subjects recondite meaning. He describes his connot for connoisseurship, but for tears and ductor as the sea of all wisdom, the sun which laughter, resentment and affection, who are too heals every disordered sight. As he judged of much under the influence of the illusion to ad- Virgil, the Italians of the fourteenth century mire the genius which has produced it; who judged of him; they were proud of him; they are too much frightened for Ulysses in the praised him; they struck medals bearing his cave of Polyphemus, to care whether the pun head; they quarrelled for the honour of posabout Outis be good or bad; who forget that sessing his remains; they maintained professuch a person as Shakspeare ever existed, sors to expound his writings. But what they while they weep and curse with Lear. It is admired was not that mighty imagination by giving faith to the creations of the imagina- which called a new world into existence, and tion that a man becomes a poet. It is by treat- made all its sights and sounds familiar to the ing those creations as deceptions, and by re- eye and ear of the mind. They said little of solving them, as neaily as possible, into their those awful and lovely creations on which laelements, that he becomes a critic. In the ter critics delight to dwell-Farinata lifting moment in which the skill of the artist is per- his haughty and tranquil brow from his couch ceived, the spell of the art is broken. of everlasting fire-the lion-like repose of SorThese considerations account for the absurd- dello-or the light which shone from the celes. ities into which the greatest writers have fal- tial smile of Beatrice. They extolled their len, when they have attempted to give general great poet for his smattering of ancient literarules for composition, or to pronounce judg- ture and history; for his logic and his divinity; ment on the works of others. They are unac- for his absurd physics, and his more absurd customed to analyze what they feel; they, metaphysics; for every thing but that in which therefore, perpetually refer their emotions to. he pre-eminently excelled. Like the fool in causes which have not in the slightest degree the story, who ruined his dwelling by digging tended to produce them. They feel pleasure for gold, which, as he had dreamed, was conin reading a book. They never consider that cealed under its foundations, they laid waste this pleasure may be the effect of ideas, which one of the noblest works of human genius, by some unmeaning expression, striking on the seekingsin it for buried treasures of wisdom, first link or a chain of associations, may have which existed only in their own wild reveries, called up in their own minds-that they have The finest passages were little valued till they themselves furnished to the author the beauties had been debased into some monstrous allewhich they admire. gory. Louder applause was given to the lecCervantes is the delight of all classes of ture on fate and free-will, or to the ridiculous readers. Every schoolboy thumbs to pieces astronomical theories, than to those erementhe most wretched translations of his romance, dous lines which disclose the secrets of the and knows the lantern jaws of the Knight- tower of hunger; or to that half-told tale cf errant, and the broad cheeks of the Squire, guilty love, so passionate and so full of tears. as well as the faces of his own playfellows. We do not mean to say that the contempo. The most experienced and fastidious judges raries of Dante read, with less emotion than are amazed at the perfection of that art which their descendants, of Ugolino groping among extracts inextinguishable laughter "from the the wasted corpses of his children, or of Fran as MACAULAY'S MISEILLANEOUS WRITINGS. cesca starting at the tremulous kiss, and drop- "Little more worth remembering oecurred ping the fatal volume. Far from it. We be- during the play. at the end of which Jones asked iieve that they admired these things less than him which of the players he liked best. To ourselves, but that they felt them more. We this he answered, with some appearance of in. should perhaps say, that they felt them too much dignation at the question,' the King, without to admire them. The progress of a nation from doubt.'-' Indeed, Mr. Partridge,' says Mrs. Milbarbarism to civilization produces a change )er,'you gre not of the same opinion with the similar to that which takes place during the town; for they are all agreed that Hamlet is progress of an individual from infancy to ma- acted by the best player who was ever on the tire age. What man does not remember with stage.'-' He the best player!' cries Partridge, regret the first time that he read Robinson Cru- with a contemptuous sneer;' why I could act soe? Then, indeed, he was unable to appreci- as well as he myself. I am sure, if I had seen ate the powers of the writer; or rather, he nei- a ghost, I should have looked in the very same ther knew nor cared whether the book had a manner, and done just as he did. And then, writer at all. He probably thought it not half to be sure, in that scene, as you called it, beso fine as some rant of Macpherson about dark- tween him and his mother, where you told me browed Foldath, and white-bosomed Strina- he acted so fine, why, any man, that is any dona. He now values Fingal and Temora good man, that had such a mother, would have only as showing with how little evidence a done exactly the same. I know you are only story may be believed, and with how little merit joking with me; but indeed, madam, though I a book may be popular. Of the romance of never was at a play in London, yet I have seen Defoe he entertains the highest opinion. He acting before in the country, and the King for perceives the'hand of a master in ten thousand my money; he speaks all his words distinctly, touches, which formerly he passed by without and half as loud again as the other. Anybody notioe. But though he understands the merits may see he is an actor."' of the narrative better than formerly, he is far. In this excellent passage Partridge is repreless interested by it. Xury, and Friday, and sented as a very bad theatrical critic. But pretty Poll, the boat with the shoulder-of-mut- none of those who laugh at him possess the ton sail, and the canoe which could not be tithe of his sensibility to theatrical excellence.'brought down to the water's edge, the tent with He admires in the wrong place; but he trem its hedge and ladders, the preserve of kids, and bles in the right place. It is indeed because he the den where the old goat died, can never is so much excited by the acting of Garrick, again be to him the realities which they were. that he ranks him below the strutting, mouthThe days when his favourite volume set him ing performer, who personates the King. So, upon making wheel-barrows and chairs, upon we have heard it said, that in some parts of digging caves and fencing huts in the garden, Spain and Portugal, an actor who should recan never return. Such is the law of our na- present a depraved character finely, instead of ture. Our judgment ripens, our imagination calling down the applauses of the audience, is decays. We cannot at once enjoy the flowers hissed and pelted without mercy. It would be of the spring of life and the fruits of its autumn, the same in England, if we, for one moment, the pleasures of close investigation and those thought that Shylock or Iago was standing beof agreeable error. We cannot sit at once in fore us. While the dramatic art was in its the front of the stage and behind the scenes. infancy at Athens, it produced similar effects We cannot be under the illusion of the specta- on the ardent and imaginative spectators. It is cle, while we are watching the movements of said that they blamed.Eschylus for frightening the ropes and pulleys which dispose it. them into fits with his Furies. Herodotus tells The chapter in which Fielding describes the as, that when Phrynichus produced his tragebehaviour of Partridge at the theatre, affords so dy on the fall of Miletus, they fined him in a complete an illustration of our proposition, that penalty of a thousand drachmas, for torturing we cannot refrain from quoting some parts of it. their feelings by so pathetic an exhibition. "Partridge gave that credit to Mr. Garrick They did not regard him as a great artist, but which he had denied to Jones, and fell into so merely as a man who had given them pain. violent a trembling that his knees knocked When they woke from the distressing illusion, against each other. Jones asked him what they treated the author of it as they would was the matter, and whether he was afraid of have treated a messenger who should have the warrior upon the stage?-' O, la, sir,' said brought them fatal and alarming tidings, which ne,' Iperceive now it is what you told me. I turned out to be false. In the same manner, a am not afraid of any thing, for I know it is but child screams with terror at the sight of a per. a play; and if it was really a ghost, it could do son in an ugly mask. Fie has perhaps seen the one no harm at such a distance and in so much mask put on. But his imagination is too strong company; and yet if I was frightened, I am not for his reason, and he entreats that it may be the only person.'-' Why, who,' cries Jones, taken off.'dost thou take to be such a coward here besides We should act in the same manner, if the thyself' —' Nay, you may call me a coward if grief and horror produced in us by works of you will; but if that little man there upon the the imagination amounted to real torture. stage is not frightened, I never saw any man But in us these emotions are comparatively frightencd in my life.'... He sat with his eyes languid. They rarely affect our appetite or our fixed partly on the Ghost and partly on Hamlet, sleep. They leave us sufficiently at ease to tand with his mouth open; the same passions trace them to their causes, and to estimate-the which succeeded each other in Hamlet, suc- powers which produce them. Our attention is ceeded likewise in him. speedily diverted from the images whieh VaV DRYDEN. 39 forth our tears, to the art by which those images the heart only knoweth, a joy with which a have been selected and combined. We applaud I stranger intermeddleth not. The machinery, the genius of the writer. We applaud our own by which ideas are to be conveyed from one sagacity and sensibility, and we are comforted. person to another, is as yet rude and defective. Yet, though we think that, in the progress of Between mind and mind there is a great gulf. nations towards refinement, the reasoning The imitative arts do not exist, or are in their powers are improved at the expense of the ima- lowest state. But the actions of men amply gination, we acknowledge, that to this rule prove that the faculty which gives birth to there are many apparent exceptions. We are those arts is morbidly active. It is not yet the not, however, quite satisfied that they are more inspiration of poets and sculptors; but it is the than apparent. Men reasoned better, for ex- amusement of the day, the terror of the night amptl, in the time of Elizabeth than in the the fertile source of wild superstitions. It time of Egbert; and they also wrote better turns the clouds into gigantic shapes, and the poetry. But we must distinguish between poetry winds into doleful voices. The belief which and a mental act, and poetry as a species of springs from it is more absolute and undoubtcomposition. If we take it in the latter sense, ing than any which can be derived from eviits excellence depends, not solely on the vigour dence. It resembles the faith which we reof the imagination, but partly also on the in- pose in our own sensations. Thus, the Arab, [truments which the imagination employs. when covered with wounds, saw nothing but Within certain limits, therefore, poetry may be the dark eyes and the green kerchief of a beckimproving, while the poetical faculty is decay- oning Houri. The Northern warrior laughed ing. The vividness of the picture presented in the pangs of death, when he thought of the to the reader is not necessarily proportioned to mead of Valhalla. the vividness of the prototype which exists in The first works of the imagination are, as the mind of the writer. In the other arts we we have said, poor and rude, not from the want see this clearly. Should a man, gifted by na- of genius, but from the want of materials. ture with all the genius of Canova, attempt to Phidias could have done nothing with an old carve a statue without instruction as to the tree and a fish bone, or Homer with the lanmanagement of his chisel, or attention to the guage of New Holland. anatomy of the human body, he would produce Yet the effect of these early performances,' something compared with'which the High- imperfect as they must necessarily be, is imlander at the door of the snuff-shop would de- *mense. All deficiencies are to be supplied serve admiration. If an uninitiated Raphael by the susceptibility of those to whom they are were to attempt a painting, it would be a mere addressed. We all know what pleasure a daub; indeed, the connoisseurs say, that the wooden doll, which may be bought for sixearly works of Raphael are little better. Yet, pence, will afford to a little girl. She will rewho can attribute this to want of imagination? quire no other company. She will nurse it, Who can doubt that the youth of that great ar- dress it, and talk to it all day. No grown-up tist was passed amidst an ideal world of beauti- man takes half so much delight in one of the ful and majestic forms? Or, who will attribute incomparable babies of Chantrey. In the same the difference which appears between his first manner, savages are more affected by the rude rude essays and his magnificent Transfigura- compositions of their bards than nations more tion, to a change in the constitution of his advanced in civilization by the greatest masmind? In poetry, as in painting and sculpture, terpieces of poetry. it is necessary that the imitator should be well In process of time, the instruments by which acquainted with that which he undertakes to the imagination works are brought to perfecimitate, and expert in the mechanical part of tion. Men have not more imagination than his art. Genius will not furnish him with a their rude ancestors. We strongly suspect vocabulary: it will not teach him what word that they have much less. - But they produce most exactly corresponds to his idea, and will better works of imagination. Thus, up to a inost fully convey it to others: it will not make certain period, the diminution of the poetical him a great descriptive poet, till he has looked powers is far more than compensated by the with attention on the face of nature; or a great improvement of all the appliances and means dramatist, till he has felt and witnessed much of which those powers stand in need. Then of the influence of the passions. Information comes the short period of splendid and con and experience are, therefore, necessary; not summate excellence. And then, from causes for the purpose of strengthening the imagina- against which it is vain to struggle, poetry betion, which is never so strong as in people in- gins to decline. The progress of language, capable of reasoning-savages, children, mad- which was at first favourable, becomes fatal to men, and dreamers; but for the purpose of en- it, and, instead of compensating for the decay abling the artist to communicate his concep- of the imagination, accelerates that decay, and tions to others. renders it more obvious. When the advenIn a barbarous age the imagination exercises turer in the Arabian tale anointed one of his a despotic power. So strong is the perception eyes with the contents of the magical box, all of what is unreal, that it often overpowers all the riches of the earth, however widely dis the passions of the mind, and all the sensations persed, however sacredly concealed, became of the body. At first, indeed, the phantasm re- visible to him. But when he tried the experimains undivulged, a hidden treasure, a word- ment on both eyes, he was struck with blind less poetry, an invisible painting, a silent mu- ness. What the enchanted elixir was to the sic, a dream of which the pains and pleasures sight of the body, language is to the sight of exist to the dreomer alone, a bitterness which the imagination. At first it calls up a world 40 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. of glorious illusions, but when it becomes too wonderful models of former times are justly copious, it altogether destroys the visual power. appreciated. The frigid productions of a later As the development of the mind proceeds, age are rated at no more than their proper symbols, instead of being employed to convey value. Pleasing and ingenious imitations of images, are substituted for them. Civilized the manner of the great masters appear. Poetmen think as they trade, not in kind, but by ry has a partial revival, a St. Martin's Sum. means of a circulating medium. In these cir- mer, which, after a period of dreariness and cumstances the sciences improve rapidly, and decay, agreeably reminds us of the splendour criticism among the rest; but poetry, in the of its June. A second harvest is gathered in; highest sense of the word, disappears. Then though, growing on a spent soil, it has not the comes the dotage of the fine arts, a second heart of the former. Thus, in the present age, childhood, as feeble as the former, and far Monti has successfully imitated the style of more hopeless. This is the age of critical Dante; and something of the Elizabethan inpoetry, of poetry by courtesy, of poetry to spiration has been caught by several eminent which the memory, the judgment, and the wit countrymen of our own. But never will Italy contribute far more than the imagination. We produce another Inferno, or England another readily allow that many works of this descrip- Hamlet. We look on the beauties of the motion are excellent; we will not contend with dern imitations with feelings similar to those those who think them more valuable than the with which we see flowers disposed in vases great poems of an earlier period. We only to ornament the drawing-rooms of a capital. maintain that they belong to a different species We doubtless regard them with pleasure, with of composition, and are produced by a differ- greater pleasure, perhaps, because, in the midst ent faculty. of a place ungenial to them, they remind us It is some consolation to reflect that this of the distant spQts on which they flourish in critical school of poetry improves as the sci- spontaneous exuberance. But we miss the ence of criticism improves; and that the science sap, the freshness, and the bloom. Or, if we of criticism, like every other science, is con- may borrow another illustration from Queen stantly tending towards perfection. As experi- Scheherezade, we would compare the writers ments are multiplied, principles are better un- of this school to the jewellers who were emderstood. ployed to complete the unfinished window of In some countries, in our own, for example, the palace of Aladdin. Whatever skill or cost there has been an interval between the down- could do was done. Palace and bazaar were fall of the creative school and the rise of the'ransacked for precious stones. Yet the artists, critical, a period during which imagination has with all their dexterity, with all their assiduity, been in its decrepitude, and taste in its infancy. and with all their vast means, were unable to Such a revolutionary interregnum as this will produce any thing comparable to the wonders be deformed by every species of extravagance. which a spirit of a higher order had wrought The first victory of good taste is over the in a single night. bombast and conceits which deform such times The history of every literature with which as these. But criticism is still in a very im- we are acquainted confirms, we think, the perfect state. What is accidental is for.a long principles which we have laid down. In time confounded with what is essential. Ge- Greece we see the imaginative school of poetnIeral theories are drawn from detached facts. ry gradually fading into the critical. AEschyHow many hours the action of a play may be lus and Pindar were succeeded by Sophocles; allowed to occupy —how many similes an epic Sophocles by Euripides; Euripides by the poet may introduce into his first book-whe- Alexandrian versifiers. Of these last, Theother a piece which is acknowledged to have a critus alone has left compositions which debeginning and end may not be without a mid- serve to be read. The splendid and grotesque dle, and other questions as puerile as these, fairy-land of the Old Comedy, rich with such formerly occupied the attention of men of let- gorgeous hues, peopled with such fantastic ters in France, and even in this country. shapes, and vocal alternately with the sweetPoets, in such circumstances as these, exhibit est peals of music and the loudest bursts of all the narrowness and feebleness of the criti- elvish laughter, disappeared forever. The cism by which their manner has been fashion- masterpieces of the New Comedy are known ed. From outrageous absurdity they are pre- to us by Latin translations of extraordinary served indeed by their timidity. But they merit. From these translations, and from the perpetually sacrifice nature and reason to ar- expressions of the ancient critics, it is clear bitrary canons of taste. In their eagerness to that the original compositions were distinavoid the mala prohibita of a foolish code, they guished by grace and sweetness, that they are perpetually rushing on the mala in se. sparkled with wit and abounded with pleasing Their great predecessors, it is true, were as sentiments, but that the creative power was bad critics as themselves, or perhaps worse; gone. Julius Caesar called Terence a half but those predecessors, as we have attempted Menander-a sure proof that Menander was to show, were inspired by a faculty indepen- not a quarter Aristophanes. dent of criticism, and therefore wrote well The literature of the Romans was merely a while they judged ill. continuation of the literature of the Greeks. In time men begin to take more rational and The pupils started from the point at which comprehensive views of literature. The ana- their masters had in the course of many gene. lysis of poetry, which, as we have remarked, rations arrived. They thus almost wholly mnust at best be imperfect, approaches nearer missed the period of original invention. The anr nearer to exactness. The merits of the only Latin poets whose writings exhibit much DRYDEN 4A rigour of imagination are Lucretius and Ca- cious, was utterly unconscious of their value, tullus. The Augustan age produced nothing and gave up treasures more valuable than the equal. to their finer passages. imperial crowns of other countries, to secure In France,. that licensed jester, whose jin- some gaudy and far-fetched but worthless bau gling cap and motley coat concealed more ge- ble, a plated button, or a necklace of coloured nius than ever mustered in the saloon of Ninon glass. or of Madame Geoffrin, was succeeded by writ- We have attempted to show that, as knowers as decorous and as tiresome as gentlemen- ledge is extended, and as the reason developes ushers. itself, the imitative arts decay. We should, The poetry of Italy and of Spain has under- therefore, expect that the corruption of poetry gone the same change. But nowhere has the would commence in the educated classes of revolution been more complete and violent society. And this, in fact, is almost constantly than in England. The same person who, when the case. The few great works of imagination a boy, had clapped his thrilling hands at the which appear in a critical age are, almost first representation of the Tempest, might, with- without exception, the works of uneducated out attaining to a marvellous longevity, have men. Thus, at a time when persons of quality lived to read the earlier works of Prior and Ad- translated French romances, and when the dison. The change, we believe, must, sooner Universities celebrated royal deaths in verses or later, have taken place. But its progress about Tritons and Fauns, a preaching tinker was accelerated and its character modified by produced the Pilgrim's Progress. And thus a the political occurrences of the times, and par- ploughman startled a generation, which had ticularly by two events, the closing of the thea- thought Hayley and Beattie great poets, with tres under the Commonwealth, and the resto- the adventures of Tam O'Shanter. Even in ration of the house of Stuart. the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth the We have said that the critical and poetical fashionable poetry had degenerated. It refaculties are not only distinct, but almost in- tained few vestiges of the imagination of compatible. The state of our literature during earlier times. It had not yet been subjected the reigns of Elizabeth and James the First is to the rules of good taste. Affectation had a strong confirmation of this remark. The completely tainted madrigals and sonnets. greatest works of imagination that the world The grotesque conceits and the tuneless nutihas ever seen were produced at that period. bers of Donne were, in the time of James, the The national taste, in the mean time, was to favourite models of composition at Whitehall the last degree detestable. Alliterations, puns, and at the Temple. But though the literature antithetical forms of expression lavishly em- of the Court was in its decay, the literature of ployed where no corresponding opposition the people was in its perfection. The Muses existed between the thoughts expressed, strain- had taken sanctuary in the theatres, the haunts ed allegories, pedantic allusions, every thing, of a class whose taste was not better than that in short, quaint and affected in matter and of the Right Honourables and singular good tnanner, made up what was then considered as Lords who admired metaphysical love-verses, fine writing. The eloquence of the bar, the but whose imagination retained all its freshpulpit, and the council-board was deformed by ness and vigour; whose censure and approbaconceits which would have disgraced the rhym- tion might be erroneously bestowed, but whose ing shepherds of an Italian academy. The tears and laughter were never in the wrong. king quibbled on the throne. We might, in- The infection which had tainted lyric and deed, console ourselves by reflecting that his didactic poetry had but slightly and partially majesty was a fool. But the chancellor quib- touched the drama. While the noble and the bled in concert from the woolsack, and the learned were comparing eyes to burning. chancellor was Francis Bacon. It is needless glasses, and tears to terrestrial globes, coyness to mention Sidney and the whole tribe of Eu- to an enthymeme, absence to a pair of comphuists. For Shakspeare himself, the greatest passes, and an unrequited passion to the forpoet that ever lived, falls into the same fault tieth remainderman in an entail, Juliet leaning whenever he means to be particularly fine. from the balcony, and Miranda smiling over While he abandons himself to the impulse of the chess-board, sent home many spectators, his imagination, his compositions are not only as kind and simple-hearted as the master and the sweetest and the most sublime, but also mistress of Fletcher's Ralpho, to cry them.. the most faultless that the world has ever seen. selves to sleep. But as soon as his critical powers come into No species of fiction is so delightful to us as play, he sinks to the level of Cowley, or rather the old English drama. Even its inferior pro he does ill what Coxrley did well. All that is ductions possess a charm not to be found in bad in his works is bad elaborately, and of any other kind of poetry. It is the most lulcid malice aforethought. The only thing wanting mirror that ever was held up to nature. The to make them perfect was, that he should creations of the great dramatists of Athens never have troubled himself with thinking produce the effect of magnificent sculptures, whether they were good or-not. Like the an- conceived by a mighty imagination, polished gels in Milton, he sinks "with compulsion and with the utmost delicacy, imbodying ideas of labori as flight." His natural tendency is up. ineffable majesty and beauty, but cold, pale, wards. That he may soar it is only necessary and rigid, with no bloom on the cheek, and nc that he should not struggle to fall. He resem- speculation in the eye. In all the draperies, bled the American cacique who, possessing in the figures, and the faces, in the lovers ans,, unnieasured abundance the metals which in the tyrants, the Bacchanals and the Furies polished societies are esteemed the most pre-I there is the same marble chillness and frePA VOL. I. —- D 2 42 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. ness. Most of the characters of the French terval between the age of sublime invention stage resemble the waxen gentlemen and ladies and that of agreeable imitation. The works in the window of a perfumer, rouged, curled, of Shakspeare, which were not appreciated and bedizened, but fixed in such stiff attitudes, with any degree of justice before the middle and staring with eyes expressive of such utter of the eighteenth century, might then have unmeaningness, that they cannot produce an been the recognised standards of excellence illusion for a single moment. In the English during the latter part of the seventeenth; and plays alone is to be found the warmth, the he and the great Elizabethan writers might mellowness, and the reality of painting. We have been almost immediately succeeded by a know the minds of the men and women, as we generation of poets, similar to those who adorn know the faces of the men and women of Van- our own times..dyke. But the Puritans drove imagination from its The excellence of these works is in a great last asylum. They prohibited theatrical repre. measure the result of two peculiarities, which sentations, and stigmatized the whole race of the critics of the French school consider as dramatists as enemies of morality and relidefects-from the mixture of tragedy and co- gion. Much that is objectionable may be found medy, and from the length and extent of the in the writers whom they reprobated; but action. The former is necessary to render the whether they took the best measures for stopdrama a just representation of a world, in ping the evil, appears to us very doubtful, and which the laughers and the weepers are per- must, we think,.have appeared doubtful to petually jostling each other-in whicn every themselves, when, after the lapse of a few event has its serious and its ludicrous side. years, they saw the unclean spirit whom they The latter enables us to form an intimate ac- had cast out, return to his old haunts, with quaintance with characters, with which we seven others fouler than himself. could not possibly become familiar during the By the extinction of the drama, the fashion. few hours to which the unities restrict the able school of poetry-a school without truth poet. In this respect the works of Shakspeare, of sentiment or harmony of versification — in particular, are miracles of art. In a piece, without the powers of an earlier or the corwhich may be read aloud in three hours, we rectness of a later age —was left to enjoy unsee a character gradually unfold all its re- disputed ascendency. A vicious ingenuity, a cesses to us. We see it change with the morbid quickness to perc&ive resemblances change of circumstances. The petulant youth and analogies between things apparently hete. rises into the politic and warlike sovereign. rogeneous, constituted almost its only claim to The profuse and courteous philanthropist admiration. Suckling was dead. Milton was sours into a hater and, scorner of his kind. absorbed in political and theological contro. The tyrant is altered, by the chastening of af- versy. If Waller differed from the Cowleian fiction, into a pensive moralist. The veteran sect of writers, he differed for the worse. He general, distinguished by coolness, sagacity, had as little poetry as they, and much less witt and self-command, sinks under a conflict be- nor is the languor of his verses less offensive tween love, strong as death, and jealousy, cruel than the ruggedness of theirs. In Denhamas the grave. The brave and loyal subject alone the faint dawn of a better manner was passes, step by step, to the extremities of hu- discernible. man depravity. We trace his progress from But, low as was the state of our poetry the first dawnings of unlawful ambition, to the during the civil war and the Protectorate, a cynical melancholy of his impenitent remorse. still deeper fall was at hand. Hitherto our Yet, in these pieces, there are no unnatural literature had been idiomatic. In mind as in transitions. Nothing is omitted: nothing is situation, we had been islanders. The revolucrowded. Great as are the changes, narrow tions in our taste, like the revolutions in our as is the compass within which they are exhi- government, had been settled without the in. bited, they shock us as little as the gradual terference of strangers. Had this state of things alterations of those familiar faces which we continued, the same just principles of reasonsee every evening and every morning. The ing, which, about this time, were applied with magical skill of the poet resembles that of the unprecedented success to every part of phi. Dervise in the Spectator, who condensed all losophy, would soon have conducted our the events of seven years into the single mo- ancestors to a sounder code of criticism. ment during which the king held his head There were already strong signs of improve. under the water. ment. Our prose had at length worked itself It is deserving of remark, that at the time of clear from those quaint conceits which still which we speak, the plays even of men not deformed almost every metrical composition. eminently distinguished by genius —such, for The parliamentary debates and the diplomatic example, as.Jonson-were far superior to the correspondence of that eventful period had best works of imagination in other depart- contributed much to this reform. In such ments. Therefore, though we conceive that, bustling times, it was absolutely necessary to from causes which we have already investi- speak and write to the purpose. The absurdi. gated, our poetry must necessarily have de- ties of Puritanism had, perhaps, done more. clined, we think that, unless its fate had been At the time when that odious style, which accelerated by external attacks, it might have deforms the writings of Hall and of Lord Ba. enjoyed an euthanasia-that genius might have con, was almost universal, had appeared that been kept alive by the drama till its place stupendous work, the English Bible-a book could, in some degree, be supplied by taste- which, if every thing else in our language tnat there would have been scarcely any in- should perish, would alone suffice to show the DRYDEN. 43 whole extent of its beauty and power. The I against their will, been forced t flatter-of respect which the translators felt for the origi- I which the tragedy of Bayes is a very favour. nal prevented them from adding any of the able specimen. What Lord Dorset observed hideous decorations then in fashion. The to Edward Howard, might have been addressgroundwork of the version, indeed, was of an ed to almost all his contemporaries:earlier age. The familiarity with which the "As skilful divers to the bottom fall, Puritans, on almost every occasion, used the Swifter than those who cannot swim at all; scriptural phrases, was no doubt very ridicu- So. in this way of writing without thinking, lous; but it produced good efects. It was a Thou hast a strange alacrity in sinking." bous; but at produced good effects. It was a cant; but it drove out a cant far more offen- From this reproach some clever men of the sive. world must be expected, and among them The highest kind of poetry is, in a great Dorset himself. Though by no means great measure, independent of those circumstances poets, or even good versifiers, they always which regulate the style of composition in wrote with meaning, and sometimes with wit. prose. But with that inferior species of poe- Nothing indeed more strongly shows to what try which succeeds to it, the case is widely a miserable state literature had fallen, than different. In a few years, the good sense and the immense superiority which the occasional good taste which had weeded out affectation rhymes, carelessly thrown on paper by men from moral and political treatises would, in of this class, possess over the elaborate prothe natural course of things, have effected a ductions of almost all the professed authors. simiiar reform in the sonnet and the ode. The The reigning taste was so bad, that the success rigour of the victorious sectaries had relaxed. of a writer was in inverse proportion to his A dominant religion is never ascetic. The labour, and to his desire of excellence. An government connived at theatrical representa- exception must be made for Butler, who had as tions. The influence of Shakspeare was once much wit and learning as Cowley, and who more felt. But darker days were approaching. knew, what Cowley never knew, how to use A foreign yoke was to be imposed on our lite- them. A great command of good homely rature. Charles, surrounded by the compa- English distinguishes him still more from the nions of his long exile, returned to govern a other writers of the time. As for Gondibert, nation which ought never to have cast him out, those may criticise it who can read it. Imaor never to have received him back. Every gination was extinct. Taste was depraved. year which he had passed among strangers Poetry, driven from palaces, colleges, and the had rendered him more unfit to rule his coun- atres, had found an asylum in the obscure trymen. In France he had seen the refractory dwelling, where a great man, born out of due magistracy humbled, and royal prerogative. season, in disgrace, penury, pain, and blind though exercised by a foreign priest in the ness, still kept uncontaminated a character name of a child, victorious over all opposition. and a genius worthy of a better age. This spectacle naturally gratified a prince to Every thing about Milton is wonderful; but whose family the opposition of parliaments nothing is so wonderful as that, in an age se had been so fatal. Politeness was hiS solitary unfavourable to poetry, he should have pro good quality. The insults which he had suf- duced the greatest of modern epic poems fered in Scotland had taught him to prize it. We are not sure that this is not in some dcThe effeminacy and apathy of his disposition gree to be attributed to his want of sight. Tho fitted him to excel in it. The elegance and imagination is notoriously most active when vivacity of the French manners fascinated the external world is shut out. In sleep its him. With the political maxims and the so- illusions are perfect. They produce all'the cial habits of his favourite people, he adopted effect of realities. In darkness its visions are their taste in composition; and, when seated always more distinct than in the light. Every on the throne, soon rendered it fashionable, person who amuses himself with what is called partly.by direct patronage, but still more by building castles in the air, must have expe. that contemptible policy which, for a time, rienced this. We know artists, who, before made England the last of the nations, and they attempt to draw a face from memory, raised Louis the Fourteenth to a height of close their eyes, that they may recall a more power and fame, such as no French sovereign perfect image of the features and the expres. had ever before attained. sion. We are therefore inclined to be'ieve, It was to please Charles that rhyme was that the genius of Milton may have been pre-.tirst introduced into our plays. Thus, a rising served from the influence of times sc unfat blow, which would at any time have been vourable to it, by his infirmity. Be this as it maortal, was dealt to-the English drama, then may, his works at first enjoyed a very small just recovering from its languishing condition. share of popularity. To be neglected by his Two detestable manners, the indigenous and contemporaries was the penalty which he paid the imported, were now in a state of alternate for surpassing them. His great poem was conflict and amalgamation. The bombastic not generally studied or admired, till writers meanness of the new style was blended with the far inferior to him had, by cbsequiously cringe ingenious absurdity of the old; and the mix- ing to the public taste, acquired sufficient fature produced something which the world had vour to reform it. never before seen, and which, we hope, it will Of these Dryden was the mtst eminent. never see again-something, by the side of Amidst the crowd of authors, who, during the which the worst nonsense of all other ages earlier years of Charles the Second, courted appears to advantage-something, which those notoriety by every species of absurdity and who have attempted to caricature it, have, affectation, he speedily became conspicuous 44 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. No man exercised so much influence on the and his versification were already far supe. age. The reason is obvious. On no man did rior to theirs. the age exercise so much influence. He was The Annus Mirabilis shows great command perhaps the greatest of those whom we have of expression and a fine ear for heroic rhyme. designated as the critical poets; and his lite- Here its merits end. Not only has it no claim, rary career exhibited, on a reduced scale, the to be called poetry; but it seems to be the work whole history of the school to which he be- of a man who could never, by any possibility, longed, the rudeness and extravagance of its write poetry. Its affected similes are the best infancy, the propriety, the grace, the dignified part of it. Gaudy weeds present a more ens good sense, the temperate splendour of its couraging spectacle than utter barrenness. maturity. His imagination was torpid, till it There is scarcely a single stanza in this long was awakened by his judgment. He began work, to which the imagination seems to have with quaint parallels and empty mouthing. contributed any thing. It is produced, not by He gradually acquired the energy of the sa- creation, but by construction. It is made up, tirist, the gravity of the moralist, the rapture not of pictures, but of inferences. We will of the lyric poet. The revolution through give a single instance, and certainly a favour. which English literature has been passing, able instance-a quatrain which Johnson has from the time of Cowley to that of Scott, may praised. Dryden is describing the sea-fight be seen in miniature within the compass of with the Dutch. his volumes. His life divides itself into two parts. There Amdst now thle hodoeaprs ofrmed against them fly is some debatable ground on the common Some preciously by shattered porcelain fall, frontier; but the line may be drawn with tole- And some by aromatic splinters die." rable accuracy. The year 1678 is that on The poet should place his readers, as nearly as which we should be inclined to fix as the date possible, in the situation of the sufferers or the of a great change in his manner. During the spectators. His narration ought to produce preceding period appeared some of his courtly feelings similar to those which would be excited panegyrics-his Annus Mirabilis, and most of by the event itself. Is this the case here? his plays; indeed, all his rhyming tragedies. Who, in a sea-fight, ever thought of the price To the subsequent period belong his best dra- of the china which beats out the brains of a mas-All for Love, The Spanish Friar, and sailor; or of the odour of the splinter which Sebastian-his satires, his translations, his shatters his leg? It is not by an act of the didactic poems, his fables, and his odes. imagination, at once calling up the scene be. Of the small pieces which were presented fore the interior eye, but by painful meditation to chancellors and princes, it would scarcely — by turning the subject round and round-by be fair to speak. The greatest advantage tracing out facts into remote consequences, which the fine arts derive from the extension that these incongruous topics are introduced of knowledge is, that the patronage of indivi- into the description. Homer, it is true, per. duals becomes unnecessary. Some writers petually uses epithets which are not peculiarly still affect to regret the age of patronage. appropriate. Achilles is the swift-footed, when None but bad writers have reason to regret it. he is sitting still. Ulysses is the much-endurIt is always an age of general ignorance. ing, when he has nothing to endure. Every Where ten thousand readers are eager for the spear casts a long shadow; every ox has appearance of a book, a small contribution crooked horns; and every woman a high bosom, from each makes up a splendid remuneration though these particulars may be quite beside for the author. Where literature is a luxury, the purpose. In our old ballads a similar confined to few, each of them must pay high. practice prevails. The gold is always red, and If the Empress Catherine, for example, wanted the ladies always gay, though nothing whatever an epic poem, she must have wholly supported may depend on the hue of gold, or the temper the poet; —just as, in a remote country village. of the ladies. But these adjectives are mere a man who wants a mutton-chop is sometimes customary additions. They merge in the sub forced to take the whole sheep;-a thing which stantives to which they are attached. If thenever happens where the demand is large. at all colour the idea, it is with a tinge so sligh But men who pay largely for the gratification as in no respect to alter the general effect. In of their taste, will expect to have it united the passage which we have quoted from Drywith some gratification to their vanity. Flat- den, the case is very different. Preciously and tery is carried to a shameless extent; and the aromatic divert our whole attention to themhabit of flattery almost inevitably introduces. selves, and dissolve the image of the battle in a false taste into composition. Its language a moment. The whole poem reminds us of is made up of hyperbolical commonplaces- Lucan, and of the- worst parts of Lucan, the offensive from their triteness-and still more sea-fight in the bay of Marseilles, for example. offensive from their extravagance. In no The description of the two fleets during the school is the trick of overstepping the modesty night is perhaps the only passage which ought of nature so speedily acquired. The writer, to be exempted from this' censure. If it was accustomed to find exaggeration acceptable from the Annus Mirabilis that Milton formed and necessary on one subject, uses it on all. his opinion, when he pronounced Dryden a It is not strange, therefore, that the early pane- good rhymer, but no poet, he certainly judged gyrical verses of Drydlen should be made up correctly. But Dryden was, as we have said, of meanness and bombast. They abound with one of those writers, in whom the period of the conceits which his immediate predecessors imagination does not precede, but follow, the had brought into fashion. But his language I period of observation and reflection. DRYDEN. 4 His plays, his rhyming plays in particular, rested emotion-a loyalty extending to rassive are admirable subjects for those who wish to obedience-a religion like that of the Quietists, study the morbid anatomy of the drama. He unsupported by any sanction of hope or fear. was utterly destitute of the power of exhibiting We see nothing but despotism without power, real human beings. Even in the far inferior and sacrifices without compensation. talent of composing characters out of those ele- We will give a few instances:-In Aurengments into which the imperfect process of our zebe, Arimant, governor of Agra, falls in love reason can resolve them, he was very deficient. with his prisoner Indamora. She rejects his suit His men are not even good personifications; with scorn; but assures him that she shall make they are not well-assorted assemblages of quali- great use of her power over him. He threatens ties. Now and then, indeed, he seizes a very to be angry. She answers, very coolly: coarse and marked distinction; and gives up, not a likeness, but a strong caricature, in which WheDo not: your anger, like your love, is vagain:'.hene'er I please, you must be pleased again. a single peculiarity is protruded, and every Knowing what power I have your will to bend, thing else neglected; like the Marquis of Gran- 1'11 use it; for I need just such a friend." by at an inndoor, whom we know by nothing but This is no idle menace. She soon brings a his baldness; or Wilkes, who is Wilkes only letter, addressed to his rival, orders him to read in his squint. These are the best specimens it, asks him whether he thinks it sufficiently of his skill. For most of his pictures seem, tender, and finally commands him to carry it like Turkey carpets, to have been expressly himself. Such tyranny as this, it may be designed not to resemble any thing in the hea- thought, would justify resistance. Arimant vens above, in the earth beneath, or in the wa- does indeed venture to remonstrate ters under the earth. The latter manner he practises most fre- "This fatal paper rather let me tear, quently in his tragedies, the former in his Than, like Bellerophon, my sentence bear." comedies. The comic characters are, without The answer of the lady is incomparable: mixture, loathsome and despicable. The men of Etherege and Vanbrugh are bad enough. "You may; but'twill not be your best advice; Those of Smollet are perhaps worse. But they'Twill only give me pains of writing twice. do not approach to the Celadons, the Wild- You know you must obey me, soon or late. do not approach to the Celadons, the Wild- Why should you vainly struggle with your fate'" bloods, the Woodalls, and the Rhodophils of Dryden. The vices of these last are set off by Poor Arimant seems to be of the same a certain fierce, hard impudence, to which we opinion. He mutters something about fate andl know nothing comparable. Their love is the freewill, and walks off with the billet-doux. appetite of beasts; their friendship the con- In the Indian Emperor, Montezuraa presents federacy of knaves. The ladies seem to have Almeria with a garland as a token of his love, been expressly created to form helps meet for and offers to make her his queen. She replies: such gentlemen. In deceiving and insulting their old fathers, they do not perhaps exceed But as my merit's and my beauty's due the license which, by immemorial prescription, As for the crown which you, my slave, possess, has been allowed to heroines. But they also To share it with you would but make me less." cheat at cards, rob strong boxes, put up their In return for such proofs of tenderness as favours to auction, betray their friends, abuse these, her admirer consents to murder his two their rivals in a style of Billingsgate, and invite, their lovers in the language of the Piazza. warmest gratitude. Lyndaraxa, in the ConThese, it must be remembered, are not the These, it mquest ofbe rememberedGranada, assumes not the same lofty tone valets and waiting-women, the Mascarilles and quest of Granada, ae same lofty tone Ot..., 1 with Abdelmelech. He complains that shG Nerines, but the recognised heroes and hero- smiles upon his rival. ines, who appear as the representatives of good society, and who, at the end of the fifth act, 1"Lynd..And when did I my power so far resign, marry and live very happily ever after. The That you should regulate each look of mine} baseness, and malice of their na bd Then, when you gave your love, you gave that sensuality, baseness, and malice of their na- power. tures are unredeemed by any quality of a differ- Lynd.'Twas during pleasure-'tis revoked this hour. eut description, by any touch of kindness, or qbdel. I'll hate you, and this visitis my last. ven byeanrhotie, byst y h ours of kre, ad Lynd. Do, if you can; you know I hold you fast." even by an honest -burst of hearty hatred and revenge. We are in a world where there is That these passages violate all historical no humanity, no veracity, no sense of shame propriety; that sentiments, to which nothing -a world for which any good-natured man similar was ever even affected except by the would glaOly take in exchange the society of cavaliers of Europe, are transferred to Mexico Milton's devils. But as soon as we enter the and Agra, is a light accusation. We have no regions of Tragedy, we find a great change. objection to a conventional -world, an Illyrian Thes, Is no lack of the fine sentiment there. puritan, or a Bohemian seaport. While the Metastasio is surpassed in his own department. faces are good, we care little about the backScuderi is out-scuderied. We are introduced ground. Sir Joshua Reynolds says, that the to people whose proceedings we can trace to curtains and hangings in an historical painting no motive -of whose feelings we can form no ought to be, not velvet or cotton, but merely more idea than of a sixth sense. We have drapery. The same principle should be apeft a race of creatures, whose love is as deli- plied to poetry and romance. The truth of sate and affectionate as the passion which an character is the first object; the truth of place alderman feels for a turtle. We find ourselves and time is to be considered only in the second among beings, whose love is purely disinte- place. Puff himself could tell the actor to turn 46 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. out his toes, and remind him that Keeper Hat- considered as his best, are-in blank verse. Ng ton was a great dancer. We wish that, in our experiment can be more decisive. own time, a writer of a very different order It must be allowed, that the worst even of from Puff had not too often forgotten human the rhyming tragedies contains good descripnature in the niceties of upholstery, millinery, tion and magnificent rhetoric. But, even when and cookery. we forget that they are plays, and, passing by We blame Dryden, not because the persons their dramatic improprieties, consider them of his dramas are not Moors or Americans, with reference to the language, we are perpebut because they are not men and women; tually disgusted by passages which it is diffinot because love, such as he represents it, cult to conceive how any author could have could not exist in a harem or in a wigwam, written, or any audience have tolerated; rants but because it could not exist anywhere. As in which the raving violence of the manner is the love of his heroes, such are all their forms a strange contrast with the abject tameother emotions. All their qualities, their cou- ness of the thought. The author laid the whole rage, their generosity, their pride, are on the fault on the audience, and declared, that when same colossal scale. Justice and prudence he wrote them, he considered them bad enough are virtues which can exist only in a moderate to please. This defence is unworthy of a man degree, and which change their nature and of genius, and, after all, is no defence. Ottheir name if pushed to excess. Of justice and way pleased without rant; and so might Dry. prudence, therefore, Dryden leaves his favour- den have done, if he had possessed the powels ites destitute. He did not care to give them of Otway. The fact is, that he had a tendency what he could not give without measure. The to bombast, which, though subsequently cortyrants and ruffians are merely the heroes al- rected by time and thought, was never wholly tered by a few touches, similar to those which removed, and which showed itself in performtransformed the honest face of Sir Roger de ances not designed to please the rude mob of Coverley into the Saracen's head. Through the theatre. the grin and frown, the original features are Some indulgent critics have represented this still perceptible. failing as an indication of genius, as the proIt is in the tragicomedies that these absurdi- fusion of unlimited wealth, the wantonness of ties strike us most. The two races of men, or exuberant vigour. To us it seems to bear a rather the angels and the baboons, are there nearer affinity to the tawdriness of poverty, or presented to us together. We meet in one the spasms and convulsionsof weakness. Dryscene with nothing but gross, selfish, unblush- den surely had not more imagination than ing, lying libertines of both sexes, who, as a Homer, Dante, or Milton, who never fall into punishment, we suppose, for their depravity, this vice. The swelling diction of _Aschylus are condemned to talk nothing but prose. But and Isaiah resembles that of Almanzor and as soon as we meet with people who speak in Maximin no more than the tumidity of a musverse, we know that we are in society which cle resembles the tumidity of a boil. The would have enraptured the Cathos and Made- former is symptomatic of health and strength, Ion of Moliere, in society for which Oroon- the latter of debility and disease. If ever dates would have too little of the lover, Clelia Shakspeare rants, it is not when his imaginatoo much of the coquette. tion is hurrying him along, but when he is hurAs Dryden was unable to render his plays rying his imagination along-when his mind interesting by means of that which is the pecu- is for a moment jaded —when, as was said of liar and appropriate excellence of the drama, Euripides, he resembles a lion, who excites it was necessary that he should find some his own fury by lashing himself with his tail. substitute for it. In his comedies he supplied What happened to Shakspeare from the occaits place, sometimes by wit, but more fre- sional suspension of his powers, happened to quently by intrigue, by disguises, mistakes of Dryden from constant impotence. He, like persons, dialogues at cross purposes, hair- his confederate Lee, had judgment enough to breadth escapes, perplexing concealments, and appreciate the great poets of the preceding surprising disclosures. He thus succeeded at age, but not judgment enough to shun compeleast in making these pieces very amusing. tition with them. He felt and admired their In his tragedies he trusted, and not alto- wild and daring sublimity. That it belonged gether uwithoult reason, to his diction and his to another age than that in which he lrived, and versification. It was on this account, in all required other talents than those which he probability, that he so eagerly adopted, and so possessed; that, in aspiring to emulate it, he reluctantly abandoned, the practice of rhym- was wasting, in a hopeless attempt, powers ing in his plays. What is unnatural appears which might render him pre-eminent in a difless unnatural in that species of verse, than in ferent career, was a lesson which he did not lines which approach more nearly to common learn till late. As those knavish enthusiasts, conversation; and in the management of the the French prophets, courted inspiration, by heroic couplet, Dryden has never been equal]ed. mimicking the writhings, swoonings, and gaspIt is unnecessary to urge any arguments against ings, which they considered as its symptoms, a fashion now universally condemned. But he attempted, by affected fits of poetical fury, is is,worthy of observation, that though Dry- to bring on a real paroxysm; and, like them, den was deficient in that talent which blank he got nothing but his distortions for his pains. verse exhibits to the greatest advantage, and Horace very happily compares those who, was certainly the best writer of heroic rhyme in his time, imitated Pindar, to the youth who in our language, yet the plays which have, attempted to fly to heaven on waxen wings, from the time of their first appearance, been and who experienced so fatal and ignominious DRYDEN. 47 a fall. His own admirable good sense pre- flowers with the bee; or the little bower-women served him from this error, and taught him to of Titania, driving the spiders from the couci cultivate a style in which excellence was of the Queen! Dryden truly said, that within his reach. Dryden had not the same self-knowledge. He saw that the greatest Shakipe tes maioncoudurst walk but he." "raithin tie circle none durst walk but he." poets were never so successful as when they/ rushed beyond the ordinary bounds, and that It would have been well if he had not himself some inexplicable good fortune preserved dared to step within the enchanted line, and them from tripping even when they staggered drawn on himself a fate similar to that which, on the brink of nonsense. He did not per- according to the old superstition, punished ceive that they were guided' and sustained by such presumptuous interferences. The follow. a power denied to himself. They wrote from ing lines are parts of the song of his fairies: the dictation of the imagination, and they Merry, erry, merry, we sail from the East, found a response in the imaginations of others. Half-tippled at a rainbow feast. He, on the contrary, sat down to work him- In the bright moonshine, while winds whistle loud, self, by reflection and argument, into a deli- Tivy, tivy, tivy, we mount and we fly, All racking along in a downy white cloud; berate wildness, a rational frenzy. And lest our leap front the sky prove too far, In looking over the admirable designs which We slide on the back of a new falling star, accompany the Faust, we have always been In a jelly of love." much struck by one which represents the wizard and the tempter riding at full speed. The These are very favourable instances. Those demon sits on his furious horse as heedlessly who wish for a bad one may read the dying as if he were reposing on a chair. That he speeches of Maximin, and may oompare them should keep his saddle in such a posture, with the last scenes of Othello and Lear. would seem impossible to any who did not If Dryden had died before the expiration of know that he was secure in the privileges of the first of the periods into which we have dia superhuman nature. T'he attitude of Faust, vided his literary life, he would have left a reon the contrary, is the perfection of horseman- putation, at best, little higher than that of Lee ship. Poets of the first order might safely or Davenant. He would have been known only write as desperately as Mephistopheles rode. to men of letters; and by them he would have But Dryden, though admitted to communion been mentioned as a writer who threw away, with higher spirits, though armed with a por- on subjects which he was incompetent to treat, tion of their power, and intrusted with some powers which, judiciously employed, might of their secrets, was of another race. What have raised him to eminence; whose diction they might securely venture to do, it was mad- and whose numbers had sometimes very high ness in him to attempt. It was necessary that merit, but all whose works were blemished by taste and critical science should supply its a false taste and by errors of gross negligence. deficiencies. A few'of his prologues and epilogues might per. WVe will give a few examples. Nothing can haps still have been remembered and quoted. be finer than the description of Hector at the In these little pieces, he early showed all the Grecian wall. powers which afterwards rendered him the o 6' ap' ESoopc OatdJtos EKTWP, greatest of modern satirists. But during the f1iCKrt aO,7 araavroeg vircO7rart Xaglr 6e XaXKc latter part of his life, he gradually abandoned 2pLepdauXo, rov eoaro 7rept Xpos' 60oa e Xeo'av the drama. His plays appeared at longer inAOpo' ~Xtv Owv ay rl I PtV CpvKatot avrtL%0Xqaao, tervals. He renounced rhyme in tragedy. His Noae(pt swv, or' ctaXro 7rvXags asp3 6' eaoe d'dogs language became less turgid, his characters Aa-t1Kta' st pry rES(os wrepfpaaar, ot Ka at' avorSa less exaggerated. He did not indeed produce [lourlsag coEXvvro 7rvag. oAavaot 6' cE00,31Ev correct representations of human nature; but Nrlag ava yXaq~paS opaboS 6d' aXitarog crv3aq. he ceased to daub such monstrous chimeras as those which abound in his earlier pieces. Here What daring expressions! Yet how signi- and there passages occur worthy of the best fieant! How picturesque! Hector seems to ages of the British stage. The style which the rise up in his strength and fury. The gloom drama requires changes with every change of of night in his frowh-the fire burning in his character and situation. He who can vary his eyes-the javelins and the blazing armour- manner to suit the variation is the great dramathe mighty rush through the gates and down tist; but he who excels in one manner only, the battlemlents-the trampling and the infinite will, when that manner happens to be appro. roar of the multitude-every thing is with us; priate, appear to be a great dramatist; as the every thing is real. every *ilng is real. hands of a watch, which does not go, point Dryden has described a very similar event right once in the twelve hours. Sometimes in Maximin; and has done his best to be sub- there is a scene of solemn debate. This a mere lime, as follows: rhetorician may write as well as the greatest " There with a forest of their darts he strove, tragedian that ever lived. We confess that to And stood like Capaneus defying Jove; us the speech of Setpronius in Cato seems With his broad sword the boldest beating down, Till Fate grew pale, lest he should win the town, very nearly as good as Shakspeare could have And turned the iron leaves of its dark book made it. But when the senate breaks up, and' To tmake new dooms, or mend what it mistook." we find that the lovers and their mistresses, the How exquisite is the imagery of the fairy- hero, the villain, and the deputy-villain, all songs in the Tempest and the Midsummer continue to harangue in the same style, Night's Dream; Ariel riding through the twi- we perceive the difference between a man light on the bat, or sucking in the bells of who can write a play and a man w4t, can (8 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. write a speech. In the same manner, wit, a fell into natural and pleasing verse. In this talent for description, or a talent for narration, department, he succeeded as completely as his may, for a time, pass for dramatic genius. contemporary Gibbons succeeded in the similar Dryden was an incomparable reasoner in verse. enterprise of carving the most delicate flowers He was conscious of his power; he was proud from heart of oak. The toughest and most of it; and the authors of the Rehearsal justly knotty parts of language became ductile at his charged him with abusing it. His warriors and touch. His versification in the same manner, princesses are fond of discussing points of while it gave the first model of that neatness amorous casuistry, such as would have de- and precision which the following generation lighted a Parliament of Love. They frequently esteemed so highly, exhibited, at the same go still deeper, and speculate on philosophical time, the last examples of nobleness, freedom, necessity and the origin of evil. variety of pause and cadence. His tragedies There were, however, some occasions which in rhyme, however worthless in themselves, absolutely required this peculiar talent. Then had at least served the purpose of nonsenseDryden was indeed at home. All his best verses: they had taught him all the arts of mescenes are of this description. They are all lody which the heroic couplet admits. For between men; for the heroes of Dryden, like bombast, his prevailing vice, his new subjects many other gentlemen, can never talk sense gave little opportunity; his better taste grawhen ladies are in company. They are all dually discarded it. intended to exhibit the empire of reason over He possessed, as we have said, in a previolent passion. We have two interlocutors, eminent degree, the power of reasoning in the one eager and impassioned, the other high, verse; and this power was now peculiarly usecool, and judicious. The composed and ra- ful to him. His logic is by no means unitional character gradually acquires the ascend- foramly sound. On points of criticism, he alency. His fierce companion is first inflamed ways reasons ingeniously; and, when he is to rage by his reproaches, then overawed by disposed to be honest, correctly. But the theohis equanimity, convinced by his arguments, logical and political questions, which he underand soothed by his persuasions. This is the took to treat in verse, were precisely those case in the scene between Hector and Troilus, which he understood least. His arguments, in that between Antony and Ventidius, and in therefore, are often worthless. But the manthat between Sebastian and Dorax. Nothing ner in which they are stated is beyond all of the same kind in Shakspeare is equal to praise. The style is transparent. The topics them, except the quarrel between Brutus and follow each other in the happiest order. The Cassius, which is worth them all three. objections are drawn up in such a manner, Some years before his death, Dryden alto- that the whole fire of the reply maybe brought gether ceased to write for the stage. He had to bear on them. The circumlocutions which turned his powers in a new direction, with are substituted for technical phrases, are clear, success the most splendid and decisive. His neat, and exact. The illustraticns at once taste had gradually awakened his creative fa- adorn and elucidate the reasoning. The sparkculties. The first rank in poetry was beyond ling epigrams of Cowley, and the simple garruhis reach, but he challenged and secured the lity of the burlesque poets of Italy, are altermost honourable place in the second. His nately employed, in the happiest manner, to imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. give effect to what is obvious; or clearness to It enabled him to run, though not to soar. what is obscure. When he attempted the highest flights, he be- His literary creed was catholic, even to laticame ridiculous; but while he remained in a tudinarianism; not from any want of acutelower region, he outstripped all competitors. ness, but from a disposition to be easily satisAll his natural and all his acquired powers fled. He was quick to discern the smallest fitted hint to found a good critical school of glimpse of merit; he was indulgent even to poetry. Indeed, he carried his reforms too far gross improprieties, when accompanied by any for his age. After his death, our literature re- redeeming talent. When he said a severe trograded; and a century was necessary to bring' thing, it was to serve a temporary purpose,it back to the point at which he left it. The to support an argument, or to tease a rival. general soundness and healthfulness of his Never was so able a critic so free from fastidimental constitution; his information, of vast ousness. He loved the old poets, especially superficies, though of small volume; his wit, Shakspeare. He admired the ingenuity which scarcely inferior to that of the most distinguish- Donne and Cowley had so wildly abused. He ed followers of Donne; his eloquence, grave, did justice, amidst the general silence, to the deliberate, and commanding, could not save memory of Milton. He praised to the skies him from disgraceful failure as a rival of the schoolboy lines of Addison. Always lookShakspeare, but raised him far above the level ing on the fair side of every object, he admired of Boileau. His command of language was extravagance on account of the invention immense. With him died the secret of the old which he supposed it to indicate; he excused poetical diction of England-the art of pro- affectation in favour of wit; he tolerated even ducing rich effects by familiar words. In the tameness for the sake of the correctness which following century, it was as completely lost as was its concomitant. the Gothic method of painting glass, and was It was probably to this turn of mind, rather,ttt po,ury supplied by the laborious and tesse- than to the more disgraceful causes which fated imitations of Mason and Gray. On the Johnson has assigned, that we are to attribute other hand, he was the first writer under whose the exaggeration which disfigures the paneskitful management the scientific vocabulary gyrics of Dryden. No writer, it must be DRYDEN. 41,wned, has carried the flattery of dedication to his writings exhibit the sluggish magnifcence a greater length. But this was not, we sus- of a Russian noble, all vermin and diamonds, pect, merely interested servility; it was the dirty linen and inestimable sables. Those overflowing of a mind singularly disposed to faults which spring from affectation, t me and admiration,-of a mind which diminished thought in a great measure removed from his vices, and magnified virtues and obligations. poems. But his carelessness he retained to The most adulatory of his addresses is that in the last. If towards the close of his life h which he dedicates the State of Innocence to less frequently went wrong from negligence, Mary of Modena. Johnson thinks it strange it was only because long habits of composition that any man should use such language with- rendered it more easy to go right. In his best out self-detestation. But he has not re- pieces, we find false rhymes-triplets, in which marked that to the very same work is pre- the third line appears to be a mere intruder, fixed an eulogium on Milton, which certainly and, while it breaks the music, adds nothing to could not have been acceptable at the court the meaning-gigantic Alexandrines of fourof Charles'the Second. Many years later, teen and sixteen syllables, and truncated verses when Whig principles were in a great mea- for which he never troubled himself to find a sure triumphant, Sprat refused to admit a mo- termination or a partner. nument of John Philips into Westminster Ab- Such are the beauties and the faults which bey, because, in the epitaph, the name of Mil- may be found in profusion throughout the later ton incidentally occurred. The walls of his works of Dryden. A more just and complete church, he declared, should not be polluted by estimate of his natural and acquired powers, the name of a republican! Dryden was at- of the merits of his style and of its blemishes, tached, both by principle and interest to the may be formed from the Hind and Panther, court. But nothing could deaden his sensibi- than from any of his other writings. As a lity to excellence. We are unwilling to accuse didactic poem, it is far superior to the Religio him severely, because the same disposition, Laici. The satirical parts, particularly the which prompted him to pay so generous a character of Burnet, are scarcely inferior to tribute to the memory of a poet whom his pa- the best passages in Absalom and AchitopheL trons detested, hurried him into extravagance There are, moreover, occasional touches of a when he described a princess, distinguished by tenderness which affects us more, because it the splendour of her beauty, and the gracious- is decent, rational, and manly, and reminds us ness of her manners. of the best scenes in his tragedies. His versiThis is an amiable temper; but it is not the fication sinks and swells in happy unison with temper of great men. Where there is eleva- the subject; and his wealth of language seems tion of character, there will be fastidiousness. to be unlimited. Yet the carelessness with It is only in novels, and on tombstones, that which he has constructed his plot, and the inwe meet with people who are indulgent to the numerable inconsistencies into which he is faults of. others, and unmerciful to their own; every moment falling, detract much from the and Dryden, at all events, was not one of pleasure which such raried excellence affords. these paragons. His charity was extended In Absalom and Achitophel he hit upon a new most liberally to others, but it certainly began and rich vein, which he worked with signal at home. In taste he was by no means defi- success. The ancient satirists were the subcient. His critical works are, beyond all com- jects of a despotic government. They were parison, superior to any which had, till then, compelled to abstain from political topics, and appeared in England. They were generally to confine their attention to the frailties of priintended as apologies for his own poems, ra- vate life. They might, indeed, sometimes venther than as expositions of general principles; ture to take liberties with public men, he, therefore, often attempts to deceive the "Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina." reader by sophistry, which could scarcely have deceived himself. His dicta are the dicta, not Thus Juvenal immortalized the obsequious of a judge, but of an advocate; often of an senators, who met to decide the fate of the advocate in an unsound cause. Yet, in the memorable turbot. His fourth satire frequently very act of misrepresenting the laws of com- reminds us of the great political poem of Dryposition, he shows how well he understands den; but it was not written till Domitian had them. But he was perpetually acting against fallen, and it wants something of the peculiar his betterknowledge. His sins were sins against flavour which belongs to contemporary invec light. He trusted, that what was bad would tive alone. His anger has stood so long, that, be pardoned for the sake of what was good. though the body is not impaired, the effervesWhat was gocdl, he took no pains to make bet- cence, the first cream, is gone. Boileau lay ter. He was not, like most persons who rise under similar restraints; and, if he had been to eminence, dissatisfied even with his best free from all restraint, would have been no productions. He had set up no unattainable match for our countryman. standard of perfection, the contemplation of The advantages which Dryden derived from which might at once improve and mortify him. the nature of his subject he improved to the His path was not attended by an unapproach- very utmost. His manner is almost perfect. able mirage of excellence, forever receding The style of Horace and Boileau is fit only for and forever pursued. He was not disgusted light subjects. The Frenchman did indeed by thy negligence of others, and he extended attempt to turn the theological reasonings of the same toleration to himself. His mind was the Provincial Letters into verse, but with of a slovenly character-fond of splendour, very indifferent success. The glitter of Pope but indifferent to neatness. Hence most of is cold. The ardour of Persius is without VoL.. 7 E 60 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. brilllancy. Magnificent versification and in- parterres and the rectangular walks. He genious combinations rarely harmonize with rather resembled our Kents and Browns, the expression of deep feeling. In Juvenal and who, imitating the great features of landDryden alone we have the sparkle and the heat scape without emulating them, consulting the together. Those great satirists succeeded in genius of the place, assisting nature and carecommunicating the fervour of their feelings fully disguising their art, produced, not a to materials the most incombustible, and kin- Chamouni nor a Niagara, but a Stowe or a died the whole mass into a blaze at once Hagley. dazzling and destructive. We cannot, indeed, We are, on the whole, inclined to regret tha: think, without regret, of the part which so emi- Dryden did not accomplish his purpose of nent a writer as Dryden took in the disputes writing an epic poem. It certainly would not of that period. There was, no doubt, madness have been a work of the highest rank. It and wickedness on both sides. But there was would not have rivalled the Iliad, the Odyssey, liberty on the one, and despotism on the other. or the Paradise Lost; but it would have been On this point, however, we will not dwell. At superior to the productions of Apollonius, Talavera the English and French troops for a Lucan, or Statius, and not inferior to the Jerumoment suspended their conflict, to drink of a salem Delivered. It would probably have been stream which flowed between them. The a vigorous narrative, animated with something shells were passed across from enemy to ene- of the spirit of the old romances, enriched with my without apprehension or molestation. We, much splendid description, and interspersed in the same manner, would rather assist our with fine declamations and disquisitions. The political adversaries to drink with us of that danger of Dryden would have been from aimfountain of intellectual pleasure which should ing too high; from dwelling too much, for ex be the common refreshment of both parties, ample, on his angels of kingdoms, and attemptthan disturb and pollute it with the havoc of ing a competition with that great writer, who unseasonable hostilities. in his own time had so incomparably succeedMacflecnoe is inferior to Absalom and ed in representing to us the sights and sounds Achitophel, only in the subject. In the execu- of another world. To Milton, and to Milton tion it is even superior. But the greatest work alone, belonged the secrets of the great deep, of Dryden was the last, the Ode on Saint Ce- the beach of sulphur, the ocean of fire; the cilia's day. It is the masterpiece of the second palaces of the fallen dominations, glimmer. class of poetry, and ranks but just below the ing through the everlasting shade, the silent great models of the first. It reminds us of the wilderness of verdure and fragrance where Pedasus of Achilles, armed angels kept watch over the sleep of the Vo~?Onr) SvXtoro sups g' *r a~ a ~aTOEa first lovers, the portico of diamqnd, the sea of jasper, the sapphire pavement empurpled with By comparing it with the impotent ravings celestial roses, and the infinite ranks of the of the heroic tragedies, we may measure the Cherubim, blazing with adamant and gold. progress which the mind of Dryden had made. The council, the tournament, the procession, HIe had learned to avoid a too audacious com- the crowded cathedral, the camp, the guardpetition with higher natures, to keep at a dis- room, the chase, were the proper scenes for tance from the verge of bombast or nonsense, Dryden. to venture on no expression which did not But we have not space to pass in review all convey a distinct idea to his own mind. the works which Dryden wrote. We, there. There is none of that "darkness visible" of fore, will not speculate longer on those which style which he had formerly affected, and in he might possibly have written. He may, on which the greatest poets only can succeed. the whole, be pronounced to have been a man Every thing is definite, significant, and pic- possessed of splendid talents, which he often turesque. His early writings resembled the abused, and of a sound judgment, the admonigigantic works of those Chinese gardeners tions of which he often neglected; a man who who attempt to rival nature herself, to form succeeded only in an inferior department of cataracts of terrific height and sound, to raise his art, but who, in that department, succeeded precipitous ridges of mountains, and to imi- pre-eminently; and who, with a mor) inde. tate in artificial plantations the vastness and pendent spirit, a more anxious desire -?f excel the gloom of some primeval forest. This man- lence, and more respect for hims';lf, would, in ner he abandoned; nor did he ever adopt the his own walk, have attained to a.,son'Jte v Dutch taste which Pope affected, the trim fection HISTORY. 51 HISTORY.' [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1828.] To write history respectably-that is, to ab- talent for description and dialogue, and the breviate despatches, and make extracts from pure sweet flow of his language, place him at speeches, to intersperse in due proportion the head of narrators. He reminds us of a epithets of praise and abhorrence, to draw up delightful child. There is a grace beyond the antithetical characters of great men, setting reach of affectation in his awkwardness, a forth how many contradictory virtues and malice in his innocence, an intelligence in his vices they united, and abounding in withs and nonsense, an insinuating eloquence in his lisp. withouts; all this is very easy. But to be a We know of no writer who makes such inreally great historian is perhaps the rarest of terest for himself and his book in the heart of intellectual distinctions. ManyScientificworks the reader. At the distance of three-and-twenty are, in their kind, absolutely perfect. There centuries, we feel for him the same sort of are Poems which we should be inclined to pitying fondness which Fontaine and Gay are designate as faultless, or as disfigured only by said to have inspired in society. He has blemishes which pass unnoticed in the general written an incomparable book. He has writblaze of excellence. There are Speeches, ten something better perhaps than the best some speeches of Demosthenes particularly, history; but he has not written a good history; in which it would be impossible to alter a he is, from the first to the last chapter, an inword, without altering it for the worse. But ventor. We do not here refer merely to those we are acquainted with no History which ap- gross fictions with which he has been reproachproaches to our notion of what a history ought ed by the critics of later times. We speak of to be; with no history which does not widely that colouring which is equally diffused over depart, either on the right hand or on the left, his whole narrative, and which perpetually from the exact line. leaves the most sagacious reader in doubt The cause may easily be assigned. This what to reject and what to receive. The most province of literature is a debatable land. It authentic parts of his work bear the same relies on the confines of two distinct territories. lation to his wildest legends, which Henry the It is under the jurisdiction of two hostile Fifth bears to the Tempest. There was an powers; and, like other districts similarly expedition undertaken by Xerxes against situated, it is ill defined, ill cultivated, and ill Greece; and there was an invasion of France. regulated. Instead of being equally shared There was a battle at Platina; and there was between its two rulers, the Reason and the a battle at Agincourt. Cambridge and Exeter, Imagination, it falls alternately under the sole the Constable and the Dauphin, were persons and absolute dominion of each. It is some- as real as Demaratus and Pausanias. The times fiction. It is sometimes theory. harangue of the Archbishop on the Salic Law History,, it has been said, is philosophy and the Book of Numbers differs much less teaching by examples. Unhappily what the from the orations which have in all ages prophilosophy gains in soundness and depth, the ceeded from the Right Reverend bench, than examples generally lose in vividness. A per- the speeches of Mardonius and Artabanus, feet historian must possess an imagination from those which were delivered at the Counsufficiently powerful to make his narrative cil-board of Susa. Shakspeare gives us enuaffecting and picturesque. Yet lie must con- merations of armies, and returns of killed and trol it so absolutely as to content himself with wounded, which are not, we suspect, much the materials which he finds, and to refrain less accurate than those of Herodotus. There from supplying deficiencies by additions of his are passages in Herodotus nearly as long as own. He must be a profound and ingenious acts of Shakspeare, in which every thing is reasoner. Yet he must possess sufficient self- told dramatically, and in which the narrative command to abstain from casting his facts in serves only the purpose of stage-directions. It the mould of his hypothesis. Those who can is possible, no doubt, that the substance of some justly estimate these almost insuperable diffi- real conversations may have been reported culties will not think it strange that every to the historian. But events which, if they writer should have failed, either in the narra- ever happened, happened in ages and nations tive or in the speculative department of his- so remote that the particulars could never tory. have been known to him, are related with the It may be laid down as a general rule, though greatest minuteness of detail. We have all tubject to considerab'e qualifications and ex- that Candaules said to Gyges, and all that ceptions, tlat history oegins in Novel and ends passed between Astyages and Harpagus. We in Essay. Of the romantic historians Herodo- are, therefore, unable to judge whether, in the tus is the earliest and the best. His animation, account which he gives of transactions, rehis simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful specting which he might possibly have been well informed, we can trust to any thing be * The Romance of History. England. By ITENRY yond the naked outline; whether, for example, NZELE. London, 1828. the answer of Gelon to the ambassadors of he k40! nlMACAULAY'S MISCEL-LANJEOUS WRITINGS. Grecian confederacy, or the expressions which thority, but in itself not improbat:, it was passed between Aristides and Themistocles at composed not to be read, but to be heard. It their famous interview, have been correctly was not to the slow circulation of a few copies, transmitted to us. The great events are, no which the rich only could possess, that the asdoubt, faithfully related. So, probably, ate piring author looked for his reward. The many of the slighter circumstances; but which great Olympian festival —the solemnity which of them it is impossible to ascertain. The ftic- collected multitudes, proud of the Grecian tions are so much like the facts, and the facts name, from the wildest mountains of Doris so much like the fictions, that, with respect to and the remotest colonies of Italy and Lybiamany most interesting particulars, our belief was to witness his triumph. The interest of is neither given nor withheld, but remains in the narrative and the beauty of the style were an uneasy and interminable state of abeyance. aided by the imposing effect of recitation-by We know that there is truth, but we cannot the splendour of the spectacle-by the powerful exactly decide where it lies. influence of sympathy. A critic who could have Tne faults of Herodotus are the faults of a asked for authorities in the midst of such a scene simple and imaginative mind. Children and must have been of a cold and sceptical nature, servants are remarkably Herodotean in their and few such critics were there. As was the style of narration. They tell every thing dra- historian, such were the auditors-inquisitive, matically. Their says hes and says shes are credulous, easily moved by religious awe or proverbial. Every person who has had to patriotic enthusiasm. They were the very men settle their disputes knows that, even when to hear with delight of strange beasts, and they have no intention to deceive, their reports birds, and trees; of dwarfs, and giants, and of conversation always require to be carefully cannibals; of gods whose very names it was sifted. If an educated man were giving an impiety to utter; of ancient dynasties which account of the late change of administration, had left behind them monuments surpassing he would say, "Lord Goderich resigned; and all the works of later times; of towns like prothe king in consequence sent for the Duke of vinces; of rivers like seas; of stupendous Wellington." A porter tells the story as if he walls, and temples, and pyramids; of the rites had been hid behind the curtains of the royal which the Magi performed at daybreak on the bad at Windsor. " So Lord Goderich says,' I tops of the mountains; of the secrets inscribed cannot manage this business; I must go out.' on the eternal obelisks of Memphis. With So the king says, says he,' Well, then, I must equal delight they would have listened to the send for the Duke of Wellington, that's all."' graceful romances of their own country. They This is the very manner of the father of his- now heard of the exact accomplishment of obtory. scure predictions; of the punishment of crimes Herodotus wrote as it was natural that he over which the justice of Heaven had seemed should write. He wrote for a nation suscepti- to slumber; of dreams, omens, warnings from ble, curious, lively, insatiably desirous of no- the dead; of princesses for whom noble suitvelty and excitement; for a nation in which ors contended in every generous exercise of the fine arts had attained their highest excel- strenrgth and skill; of infants strangely pre. lence, but in which philosophy was still in its served from the dagger of the assassin to fulfil infancy. His countrymen had but recently high destinies. begun to cultivate prose composition. Public As the narrative approached their own times transactions had generally been recorded in the interest became still more absorbing. The verse. The first historians might therefore in- chronicler had now to tell the story of that dulge, without fear of censure, in the license great conflict from which Europe dates its inallowed to their predecessors the bards. Books tellectual and political supremacy —a story were few. The events of former times were which, even at this distance of time, is the learned from tradition and from popular bal- most marvellous and the most touching in the lads; the manners of foreign countries from annals of the human race-a story abounding the reports of travellers. It is well known that with all that is wild and wonderful, with all the mystery which overhangs what is distant, that is pathetic and animating; with the gigan either in space or time, frequently prevents us tic caprices of infinite wealth and despotic from censuring as unnatural what we perceive power; with the mightier miracles of wisdom, to be impossible. We stare at-a dragoon who of virtue, and of courage. He told them of has killed three French cuirassiers as a pro- rivers dried up in a day, of provinces famished digy; yet we read, without the least disgust, for a meal; of a passage for ships hewn through how Godfrey slew his thousands, and Rinaldo the mountains; of a road for armies spread upon his ten thousands. Within the last, hundred the waves; of monarchies and commonwealths years stories, about China and Bantam, which swept away; of anxiety, of terror, of confusion, ough:; not to have imposed on an old nurse, of despair!-and then of proud and stubborn were gravely laid down as foundations of po- hearts tried in that extremity of evil and not litical theories by eminent philosophers. What found wanting.;. of resistance long maintained the time of the Crusades is to us, the genera- against desperate odds; of lives dearly sold tion of Croesus and Solon was to the Greeks when resistance could be maintained no more; of the time of Herodotus. Babylon was to of signal deliverance, and of unsparing re. lhem what Pekin was to the French academi- venge. Whatever gave a stronger air of reality cians of the last century. to a narrative so well calculated to inflame the For such a people was the book of Herodo- passions and to flatter national pride was cer. Tns composed; and if we may trust to a report, tain to be favourably received. uot sanctioned, indeed, by writers of high au- Between the time at which Herodotus is said HISTORY. 63 to have composed his history and the close I Henrce, though nothing can be more admirable of the Peloponnesian war about forty years than the skill which Socrates displays in the elapsed-forty years crowded with great mtli- conversations which Plato has reported or in. tary and political events. The circumstances vented, his victories for the most part seem to of that period produced a great effect on the us unprofitable. A trophy is set up, but no Grecian character; and nowhere was this effect new province is added to the dominions of the so remarkable as in the illustrious democracy human mind. of Athens. An Athenian, indeed, even in the Still, where thousands of keen and ready time of Herodotus, wculd scarcely have writ- intellects were constantly employed in specu. ten a book so romantic and garrulous as that of lating on the qualities of actions and' on the Herodotus. As civilization advanced, the citi- principles of government, it was impossible zens of that famous republic became still less that history should retain its old character. It visionary and still less simple-hearted. They became less gossipping and less picturesque; aspired to know where their ancestors had but much more accurate, and somewhat more been content to doubt; they began to doubt scientific. where their ancestors had thought it their duty The history of Thucydides differs from that to believe. Aristophanes is fond of alluding of Herodotus as a portrait differs from the reto this change in the temper of his country- presentation of an imaginary scene; as the men. The father and son, in the Clouds, are Burke or Fox of Reynolds differs from his evidently representatives of the generations to Ugolino or his Beaufort. In the former case, which they respectively belonged. Nothing the archetype is given: in the latter it is cremore clearly illustrates the nature of this mo- ated. The faculties which are required for the ral revolution than the change which passed latter purpose are of a higher and rarer order upon tragedy. The wild sublimity of XEschy- than those which suffice for the former, and lus became the scoff of every young Phidippi- indeed necessarily comprise them. He who des. Lectures on abstruse points of philoso- is able to paint what he sees with the eye of phy, the fine distinctions of casuistry, and the the mind, will surely be able to paint what he dazzling fence of rhetoric, were substituted for sees with the eye of the body. He who can poetry. The language lost something of that invent a story and tell it well, will also be able infantine sweetness which had characterized to tell, in an interesting manner, a story which it. It became less like the ancient Tuscan, and he has not invented. If, in practice, some of more like the modern French. the best writers of fiction have been among The fashionable logic of the Greeks was, the worst writers of history, it has been beindeed, far from strict. Logic never can be cause one of their talents had merged in strict where books are scarce, and where in- another so completely, that it could not be formation is conveyed orally. We are all severed; because, having long been habituated aware how frequently fallacies which, when to invent and narrate at the same time, they set down on paper, are at once detected, pass found it impossible to narrate without inventing. for unanswerable arguments when dexterously Some capricious and discontented artists and volubly urged in parliament, at the bar, or have affected to consider portrait-painting as in private conversation. The reason is evi- unworthy of a man of genius. Some critics dent. We cannot inspect them closely enough have spoken in the same contemptuous manto perceive their inaccuracy. We cannot rea- ner of history. Johnson puts the case thus: dily compare them with each other. We lose The historian tells either what is false or what sight of one part of the subject before another, is true. In the former case he is no historian. which ought to be received in connection with In the latter, he has no opportunity for displayit, comes before us; and as there is no im- ing his abilities. For truth is one: and all mutable record of what has been admitted and who tell the truth must tell it alike. of what has been denied, direct contradictions It is not difficult to elude both the horns of pass muster with little difficulty. Almost all this dilemma. We will recur to the analothe education of a Greek consisted in talking gous art of portrait-painting. Any man with and listening. His opinions on governments eyes and hands may be taught to take a likewere picked up in the debates of the assembly. ness. The process, up to a certain point, is If he wished to study metaphysics, instead of merely mechanical. If this were all, a man shutting himself up with a book, he walked of talents might justly despise the occupation. down to the market-place to look for a sophist. But we could mention portraits which are reSo completely were men formed to these ha- semblances, but not mere resemblances; faith. bits, that even writing acquired a conversa- ful, but much more than faithful; portraits tional air. The philosophers adopted the form which condense into one point of time, and of dialogue as the most natural mode of com- exhibit, at a single glance, the whole history municating knowledge. Their reasonings have of turbid and eventful lives-in which the eye the merits and the defects which belong to that seems to scrutinize us, and the mourn to comspecies of composition; and are characterized mand us-in which the brow menaces, and the rather by qui:kness and subtilty than by depth lip almost quivers with scorn-in which every and precisiorzn Truth is exhibited in parts and wrinkle is a comment on some important by glimpses. Innumerable clever hints are transaction. The account which Thucydides given; but n m. sound and durable system is has given of the retreat from Syracuse is, erected. The argunmentum ad hominem, a kind among narratives, what Vandyck's Lcrd Straf. of argument most efficacious in debate, but ford is among paintings. utterly useless for the investigation of general Diversity, it is said, implies error; truth B principles, is among their favourite resources. one, and admits of no degree. We answer. Z 2 84 MACATULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. that this principle holds good only in abstract sented on a large scale, others diminished reasonings. When we talk of the truth of the great majority will be lost in the dimness imitation in the fine arts, we mean an imper- of the horizon; and a general i ea of their fect and a graduated truth. No picture is ex- joint effect will be given by a few slight actly like the original: nor is a picture good touches. in proportion as it is like the original. When In this respect no writer has ever equalled Sir Thomas Lawrence paints a handsome Thucydides. He was a perfect master of the peeress, he does not contemplate her through art of gradual diminution. His history is some, a powerful microscope, and transfer to the times as concise as a chronological chart; yet canvass the pores of the skin, the blood-vessels it is always perspicuous. It is sometimes as of the eye, and all the other beauties which minute as one of Lovelace's letters; yet it is Gulliver discovered in the Brobdignaggian never prolix. He never fails to contract and maids of honour. If he were to do this, the to expand it in the right place. effect would not merely be unpleasant, but Thucydides borrowed from Herodotus the unless the scale of the picture were propor- practice of putting speeches of his own into tionably enlarged, would be absolutely false. the mouths of his characters. In Herodotus And, after all, a microscope of greater power this usage is scarcely censurable. It is of a than that which he had employed would con- piece with his whole manner. But it is alvict him of innumerable omissions. The same together incongruous in the work of his sucmay be said of history. Perfectly and abso- cessor; and violates, not only the accuracy of lutely true, it cannot be; for, to be perfectly history, but the decencies of fiction. When and absolutely true, it ought to record all the once we enter into the spirit of Herodotus, we slightest particulars of the slightest transac- find no inconsistency. The conventional pro. tions-all the things done, and all the words bability of his drama is preserved from the uttered, during the time of which it treats. beginning to the end. The deliberate orations The omission of any circumstance, how- and the familiar dialogues are in strict keeping ever insignificant, would be a defect. If his- with each other. But the speeches of Thucy. tory were written thus, the Bodleian library dides are neither preceded nor followed by would not contain the occurrences of a week. any thing with which they harmonize. They What is told in the fullest and most accurate give to the whole book something of the groannals bears an infinitely small proportion to tesque character of those Chinese pleasure. what is suppressed. The difference between grounds, in which perpendicular rocks of the copious work of Clarendon, and the ac- granite start up in the midst of a soft green count of the civil wars in the abridgment of plain. Invention is shocking, where truth is Goldsmith, vanishes, when compared with the in such close juxtaposition with it. immense mass of facts respecting which both Thucydides honestly tells us that some of are equally silent. these discourses are purely fictitious. He No picture, then, and no history, can present may have reported the substance of others us with the whole truth: but those are the best correctly. But it is clear from the internal pictures and the best histories which exhibit evidence that he has preserved no more than such parts of the truth as most nearly produce the substance. His own peculiar habits of the effect of the whole. He who is deficient thought and expression are everywhere dis. in the art of selection may, by showing no- cernible. Individual and national peculiarities thing but the truth, produce all the effect of the are seldom to be traced in the sentiments, and grossest falsehood. It perpetually happens never in the diction. The oratory of the Co. that one writer tells less truth than another, rinthians and Thebans is not less Attic, either merely because he tells more truths. In the in matter or in manner, than that of the imitative arts we constantly see this. There Athenians. The style of Cleon is as pure, as are lines in the human face, and objects in austere, as terse, and as significant, as that landscape, which stand in such relations to of Pericles. each other, that they ought either to be all in- In spite of this great fault, it must be allow. troduced into a painting together, or all omitted ed that Thucydides has surpassed all his rivals together. A sketch'into which none of them in the art of historical narration, in the art of enters may be excellent; but if some are given producing an effect on the imagination, by and others left out, though there are more skilful selection and disposition, without inpoints of likeness, there is less likeness. An dulging in the license of invention. But naroutline scrawled with a pen, which seizes the ration, though an important part of the busimarked features of a countenance, will give ness of an historian, is not the whole. To a much stronger idea of it than a bad painting append a moral to a work of fiction, is either in oils. Yet the worst painting in oils that useless or superfluous. A fiction may give a ever hung in Somerset House resembles the more impressive effect to what is already original in many more particulars. A bust known, but it can teach nothing new. If it of white marble may give an excellent idea presents to us characters and trains of events of a blooming face. Colour the lips and to which our experience furnishes us with nocheeks of the bust, leaving the hair and eyes thing similar, instead of deriving instruction unaltered, and the similarity, instead of being'from it, we pronounce it unnatural. We do mors striking, will be less so. not form our opinions from it; but we try it History has its foreground and its back- by our preconceived opinions. Fiction, there. ground. and it is principally in the manage- fore, is essentially imitative. Its merit con. ment of its perspective, that one artist differs sists in its resemblance to a model with which froma another. Some events must be repre- we are already familiar, or to which at least HISTORY. 66 we can instantly refer. Hence it is that the sagacity, their insight into motives, their skill anecdotes, which interest us most strongly in in devising means for the attainment of their authentic narrative, are offensive when intro- ends. A state of society in which the rich duced into novels; that what is called the ro- were constantly planning the oppression of mantic part of history is in fact the least the poor, and the poor the spoliation of the romantic. It is delightful as history, because rich, in which the ties of party had superseded it contradicts our previous notions of human those of country, in which revolutions and nature, andt of the connection of causes and counter-revolutions were events of daily oceffects. It is, on that very account, shocking currence, was naturally prolific in desperate and incongruous in fiction. In fiction, the and crafty political adventurers. This was principles are given to find the facts; in his- the very school in which men were likely to tory, the facts are given to find the principles; acquire the dissimulation of Mazarine, the judiand the writer who does not explain the phe- cious temerity of Richelieu, the penetration, nomena as well as state them, performs only the exquisite tact, the almost instinctive preone-half of his office. Facts are the mere dross sentiment of approaching events, which gave of history. It is from the abstract truth which so much authority to the counsel of Shaftesinterpenetrates them, and lies latent among bury, that " it was as if a man had inquired of them, like gold- in the ore, that the mass de- the oracle of God." In this school Thucydides rives its whole value; and the precious parti- studied; and his wisdom is that which such a cles are generally combined with the baser in school would naturally afford. He judges betsuch a manner that the separation is a task of ter of circumstances than of principles. The the utmost difficulty. more a question is narrowed, the better he reaHere Thucydides is deficient. The defi- sons upon it. His work suggests many most ciency, indeed, is not discreditable to him. It important considerations respecting the first was the inevitable effect of circumstances. It principles of government and morals, the was in the nature of things necessary that, in growth of factions, the organization of armies, some part of its progress'through political and the mutual relations of communities. Yet science, the human mind should reach that all his general observations on these subjects point which it attained in his time. Know- are very superficial. His most judicious reledge advances by;teps, and not by leaps. marks differ from the remarks of a really phiThe axioms of an English debating club would losophical historian, as a sum correctly cast up have been startling and mysterious paradoxes by a book-keeper, from a general expression to the most enlightened statesman of Athens. discovered by an algebraist. T4e formrer is But it would be as absurb to speak contempt- useful only in a single transaction; the latter uously of the Athenian on this account, as to may be applied to an infinite number of ridicule Strabo for not having given us an ac- cases. count of Chili, or to talk of Ptolemy as we This opinion will, we fear, be considered as talk of Sir Richard Phillips. Still, when we heterodox. For, not to speak of the illusion wish for solid geographical information, we which the sight of a Greek type, or the sound must prefer the solemn coxcombry of Pinker- a Greek diphthong, often produces, there are ton to the noble work of Strabo. If we wanted some peculiarities in the manner of Thuyciinstruction respecting the solar system, we dides, which in no small degree have tended should consult the silliest girl from a board- to secure to him the reputation of profundity. ing-school rather than Ptolemy. His book is evidently the book of a man and a Thucydides was undoubtedly a sagacious statesman; and in this respect presents a reand reflecting man. This clearly appears markable contrast to the delightful childishfrom the ability with which he discusses prac- ness of Herodotus. Throughout it there is an tical questions. But the talent of deciding on air of matured power, of grave and melanthe circumstances of a particular case is often choly reflection, of impartiality and habitual possessed in the highest perfection by persons self-command. His feelings are rarely indestitute of the power of generalization. Men, dulged, and speedily repressed. Vulgar preskilled in the military tactics of civilized na- judices of every kind, and particularly vulgar tions, have been amazed at the far-sightedness superstitions, he treats with a cold and sober and penetration which a Mohawk displays in disdain peculiar to himself. His style is concerting his stratagems, or in discerning weighty, condensed, antithetical, and not unthose of his enemies. In England, no class frequently obscure. But when we look at his possesses so much of that peculiar ability political philosophy. Wiithout regard to these which is required for constructing ingenious circumlstances, we find him to have been, what schemes, and for obviating remote difficulties, indeed it would have been a miracle if he had as the thieves and the thief-takers. Women not been, simply an Athenian of the fifth cenhave more of this dexterity than men. Law- fury before Christ. yers have more of it than statesmen states- Xenophon is commonly placed, out we think men have more of it than philosophers. Monk without much reason, in the same rank with had more of it than Ilarrington and all his Herodotus and Thucydides. He resembles club. Walpole had more of it than Adam them, indeed, in the purity and sweetness of Smith or Beccaria. Indeed, the species of his style; but in spirit, he rather resembles discipline by which this dexterity is acquired that later school of historians, whose works tends to contract the mind, and to render it in- seem to be fables, composed for a moral, and capable of abstract reasoning. who, in their eagerness to give us warnings The Grecian statesmen of the age of Thu- and example, forget to give us men and wo. eydides were distinguished by their practical men. The life of Cyrus, whether we look upon 56 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. it as a history or as a romance, seems to us a head. For the historians of this class we muF very wretched performance. The Expedition confess that we entertain a peculiar aversion; of the Ten Thousand, and the History of Gre- They seem to have been pedants, who, though cian Affairs, are certainly pleasant reading; destitute of those valuable qualities which are but they indicate no great power of mind. In frequently found in conjunction with pedantry, truth, Xenophon, though his taste was elegant, thoughtthemselves great philosophers and great his dispositions amiable, and his intercourse politicians. They not only mislead their readwith the world extensive, had, we suspect, ra- ers in every page, as to particular facts, but ther a weak head. Such was evidently the they appear to have altogether misconceived opinion of that extraordinary man to whoni he the whole character of the times of which they early attached himself, and for whose memory write. They were inhabitants of an empire he entertained an idolatrous veneration. He bounded by the Atlantic Ocean and the Euphracame in only for the milk with which Socrates tes, by the ice of Scythia and the sands of Mau. nourished his babes in philosophy. A few ritania; composed of nations whose manners, saws of morality, and a few of the simplest whose languages, whose religion, whose coundoctrines of natural religion, were enough for tenances and complexions, were widely differthe good young man. The strong meat, the ent, governed by one mighty despotism, which bold speculations on physical and metaphysi- had risen on the ruins of a thousand commoncal science, were reserved for auditors of a wealths and kingdoms. Of liberty, such as it different description. Even the lawless habits is in small democracies, of patriotism, such as of a captain of mercenary troops, could not it is in small independent communities of any change the tendency which the character of kind, they had, and they could have, no experi. Xenophon early acquired. To the last, he mental knowledge. But they had read of men seems to have retained a sort of heathen Pu- who exerted themselves in the cause of their ritanism. The sentiments of piety and virtue, country, with an energy unknown in later which abound in his works, are those of a times, who had violated the dearest of domestic well-meaning man, somewhat timid and nar- charities, or voluntarily devoted themselves to row-minded, devout from constitution rather death for the public good; and they wondered than from rational conviction. He was as at the degeneracy of their contemporaries. It superstitious as Herodotus, but in a way far never occurred to them, that the feelings which more offensive. The very peculiarities which they so greatly admired sprung from local and charm us in an infant, the toothless mumbling, occasional causes; that they will always grow the stammering, the tottering, the helplessness, up spontaneously in small societies; and that, the causeless tears and laughter, are disgust- in large empires, though they may be forced ing in old age. In the same manner, the ab- into existence for a short time by peculiar cirsurdity which precedes a period of general cumstances, they cannot be general or permaintelligence, is often pleasing; that which fol- nent. It is impossible that any man should feel lows it is contemptible. The nonsense of for a fortress on a remote frontier, as he feels Herodotus is that of a baby. The nonsense for his own house; that he should grieve for a of Xenophon is that of a dotard. His stories defeat in which ten thousand people whom he about dreams, omens, and prophecies, present never saw have fallen, as he grieves for a dea strange contrast to the passages in which feat which has half unpeopled the street in the shrewd and incredulous Thucydides men- which he lives; that he should leave his home tions the popular superstitions. It is not quite for a military expedition, in order to preserve clear that Xenophon was honest in his credu- the balance of power, as cheerfully as he would lity; his fanaticism was in some degree politic. leave it to repel invaders who had begun to He would have made an excellent member of burn all the cornfields in his neighbourhood. the Apostolic Comarilla. An alarmist by na- The writers of whom we speak should have ture, ar aristocrat by party, he carried to an considered this. They should have considered unreasonable excess his horror of popular that, in patriotism, such as it existed amongst turbulence. The quiet atrocity of Sparta did the Greeks, there was nothing essentially and not shock him in the same manner; for he eternally good; that an exclusive attachment to hated tumult more tha; crimes. He was de- aparticular society,though anatural, and, under sirous to find restraints which might curb the certain restrictions, a most useful sentiment, passions of the multitude; and he absurdly implies no extraordinary attainments in wisfancied that he had found them in a religion dom or virtue; that where it has existed in an without evidences or sanction, precepts or intense degree, it has turned states into gangs example, in a frigid system of Theophilan- of robbers, whom their mutual fidelity has renthropy, supported by nursery tales. dered more dangerous, has given a character Polybius and Arrian have given us authen- of peculiar atrocity to war, and has generated tic accounts of facts, and here their merit ends. that worst of all political evils, the tyranny of They were not men of comprehensive minds; nations over natibns. they had not the art of telling a story in an in- Enthusiastically attached to the name of literesting rhanner. They have in consequence berty, these historians troubled themselves litbeen thrown into the shade by writers, who, tle about its definition. The Spartans, torthough less studious of truth than themselves, mented by ten thousand absurd restraints, ununderstood far better the art of producing ef- able to please themselves in the choice of their fect, by Livy and Quintus Curtius. wives, their suppers, or their company, comYet Polybius and Arrian deserve high praise, pelled to assume a peculiar manner, and to when compared with the writers of that school talk in a peculiar style, gloried in their liberty cf which Plutarch may be considered as the The aristocracy of Rome repeatedly made Li. HISTORY. bY berty a plea for cutting off the favourites of the lament that, from the frailty of human nature, people. In almost all the little commonwealths a man who could perform so great an exploit of antiquity, liberty was used as a pretext for could repent of it. measures directed against every thing which The writings of these men, and of their momakes liberty valuable, for measures which dern imitators, have produced effects which stifled discussion, corrupted the administration deserve some notice. The English have been of justice, and discouraged the accumulation so long accustomed to political speculation, of property. The writers,,whose works we and have enjoyed so large a measure of- pracare considering, confounded the sound with the tical liberty, that such works have produced substance, and the means with the end. Their little effect on their minds. We have classical imaginations were inflamed by mystery. They associations and great names of our own, conceived of liberty as monks conceive of love, which we can confidently oppose to the most as Cockneys conceive of the happiness and in- splendid of ancient times. Senate has not to nocence of rural life, as novel-reading semp- our ears a sound so venerable as Parliament. stresses conceive of Almack's and Grosvenor We respect the Great Charter more than the Square, accomplished Marquesses and hand- laws of Solon. The Capitol and the Forum some Colonels of the Guards. In the relation impress us with less awe than our own Westof events, and the delineation of characters, minster Hall and Westminster Abbey, the they have paid little attention to facts, to the place where the great men of twenty generacostume of the times of which they pretend to tions have contended, the place where they treat, or to the general principles of human na- sleep together! The list of warriors and ture. They have been faithful only to their statesmen by whom our constitution was foundown puerile and extravagant doctrines. Gene- ed or preserved, from De Monfort down to Fox, rals and Statesmen are metamorphosed into may well stand a comparison with the Fasti magnanimous coxcombs, from whose fulsome of Rome. The dying thanksgiving of Sidney virtues we turn away with disgust. The fine is as noble as the libation which Thrasea sayings and exploits of their heroes reminds poured to Liberating Jove: and we think with us of the insufferable perfections of Sir Charles far less pleasure of Cato tearing out his entrails, Grandison, and affect us with a nausea similar than of Russel saying, as he turned away from to that which we feel when an actor, in one of his wife, that the bitterness of death was past. Morton's or Kotzebue's plays, lays his hand on -Even those parts of our history, over which, his heart, advances to the ground-lights, and on some accounts, we would gladly throw a mouths a moral sentence for the edification of veil, may be proudly opposed to those on which the gods. the moralists of antiquity loved most to dwell. These writers, men who knew not what it The enemy of English liberty was not murwas to have a country, men who had never en- dered by men whom he had pardoned and joyed political rights, brought into fashion an loaded with benefits. He was not stabbed in offensive cant about patriotism and zeal for the back by those who smiled and cringed freedom. What the English Puritans did for before his face. He was vanquished on fields the language of Christianity, what Scuderi did of stricken battle; he was arraigned, senfor the language of love, they did for the lan- tenced, and executed in the face of heaven guage of public spirit. By habitual exaggera- and earth. Our liberty is neither Greek nor tion they made it mean. By monotonous em- Roman; but essentially English. It has a phasis they made it feeble. They abused it character of its own-a character which has till it became scarcely possible to use it with taken a tinge from the sentiments of the chieffect. valrous ages, and which accords with the Their ordinary rules of morality are deduced peculiarities of our manners and of our insufrom extreme cases. The common regimen lar situation. It has a language, too, of its which they prescribe for society is made up of own, and a language singularly idiomatic, full those desperate remedies, which only its most of meaning to ourselves, scarcely intelligible desperate distempers require. They look with to strangers. peculiar complacency on actions, which even Here, therefore, the effect of books, such as those who approve them consider as excep- those which we have been considering, has tions to laws of almost universal application- been harmless. They have, indeed, given cur which bear so close an affinity to the most atro- rency to many very erroneous opinions with cious crimes, that even where it may be unjust respect to ancient history. They have heated to censure them, it is unsafe to praise them. It the imagination of boys. They have misled is not strange, therefore, that some flagitious the judgment, and corrupted the taste of some instances of perfidy and cruelty should have menof letters, such as Akenside and Sir Wilbeen passe(l unchallenged in such company, liam Jones. But on persons engaged in pub that grave moralists, with no personal interest lie affairs they have had very little influence. at stake, should have extolled, in the highest The foundations of our constitution were laid terms, deeds of which the atrocity appalled by men who knew nothing of the Greeks, but even the infuriated factions in whose cause that they denied the orthodox procession, and they were perpetrated. The part which Timo- cheated the Crusaders; and nothing of Rome, leon took in the assassination of his brother but that the Pope lived there. Those who folshocked many of his own partisans. The re- lowed, contented themselves with improving collection of it preyed long on his own mind. on the original plan. They found ndels at But it was reserved for historians who lived home; and therefore they did not look for them F-me centuries later to discover that his con- abroad, But when enlightened men on the duet was a glorious display of virtue, and to I continent began to think about nolitical re Vot.- 8 a8 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRI rINGS. formation, having no patterns before their "is laid in moral paradoxes. All those int eyes in their domestic history, they naturally stances to be found in history, whether real or had recourse to those remains of antiquity, fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which the study of which is considered throughout morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and Europe as an important part of education. from which affrighted nature recoils, are their The historians of whom we have been speak- chosen and almost sole examples for the ining had been members of large communities, struction of their youth." This evil, we beand subjects of absolute sovereigns. Hence lieve, is to be directly ascribed to the influence i; is, as we have already said, that they com- of the historians whom we have mentioLed, mit such gross errors in speaking of the little and their modern imitators. republics of antiquity. Their works were now Livy had some faults in common with these read in the spirit in which they had been writ- writers.,But on the whole he must be consiten. They were read by men placed in cir- dered as forming a class by himself. No hiscumstances closely resembling their own, un- torian with whom we are acquainted has acquainted with the real nature of liberty, but shown so complete an indifference to truth. inclined to believe every thing good which He seems to have cared only about the pictucould be told respecting it. How powerfully resque effect of his book and the honour of his these books impressed these speculative re- country. On the other hand, we do not know, formers, is well known to all who have paid in the whole range of literature, an instance any attention to the French literature of the of a bad thing so well done. The painting of last century. But, perhaps, the writer on the narrative is beyond description vivid and whom they produced the greatest effect, was graceful. The abundance of interesting senti. Vittorio Alfieri. In some of his plays, particu- ments and splendid imagery in the speeches is larly in Virginia, Timoleon, and Brutus the almost miraculous. His mind is a soil which Younger, he has even caricatured the extrava- is never overteemed, a fountain which never gance of his masters. seems to trickle. It pours forth profusely; yet It was not strange that the blind, thus led it gives no sign of exhaustion. It was proba. by the blind, should stumble. The transactions bly to this exhuberance of thought and lanof the French Revolution, in some measure, guage, always fresh, always sweet, always took their character from these works. With- pure, no sooner yielded than repaired, that the out the assistance of these works, indeed, a critics applied that expression which has been revolution would have taken place-a revolu- so much discussed, lactea,ubertas. tion productive of much good and much evil, All the merits and all the defects of Livy tremendous, but short-lived evil, dearly pur- take a colouring from the character of his na. chased, but durable good. But it would not tion. He was a writer peculiarly Roman; the have been exactly such a revolution. The proud citizen of a commonwealth which had style, the accessories, would have been in ma- indeed lost the reality of liberty, but which ny respects different. There would have been still sacredly preserved its forms-in fact the less of bombast in language, less of affectation subject of an arbitrary prince, but in his own in manner, less of solemn trifling and ostenta- estimation one of the masters of the world, tious simplicity. The acts of legislative as- with a hundred kings below him, and only the semblies, and the correspondence of diploma- gods above him. He, therefore, looked back tists, would not have been disgraced by rants on former times with feelings far different from worthy only of a college of declamation. The those which were naturally entertained by his government of a great and polished nation Greek contemporaries,'and which at a later would not have rendered itself ridiculous by period became general among men of letters attempting to revive the usages of a world throughout the Roman Empire. He contemwhich had long passed away, or rather of a plated the past with interest and delight, not world which had never existed except in the because it furnished a contrast to the present, description of a fantastic school of writers. but because it had led to the present. He reThese second-hand imitations resembled the curred to it, not to lose in proud recollections originals about as much as the classical feasts the sense of national degradation, but to trace with which the Doctor in Peregrine Pickle the progress of national glory. It is trae that turned the stomachs of all his guests, resem- his veneration for antiquity produced on him bled one of the suppers of Lucullus in the some of the effects which it produced on those Hall of Apollo. who arrived at it by a very different road. He These were mere follies. But the spirit ex- has something of their exaggeration, somecited ly these writers produced more serious thing of their cant, something of their fondness effects. The greater part of the crimes which for anomalies and lusus nature. in morality. disgraced the revolution, sprung indeed from Yet even here we perceive a difference. They the relaxation of law, from popular ignorance, talk rapturously of patriotism and liberty in from the remembrance of past oppression, the abstract. He'does not seem to think any from the fear of foreign conquest, from rapa- country but Rome deserving of love; nor is it city, from ambition, from party spirit. But for liberty, as liberty, but for liberty as a parn many atrocious proceedings must, doubtless, of the Roman institutions, that he is zealous. oe ascribed to heated imagination, to perverted Of the concise and elegant accounts of the principle, to a distaste for what was vulgar in campaigns of Caesar little can be said. They morals, and a passion for what was startling are incomparable models for military de. and dubious. Mr. Burke has touched on this spatches. But histories they are not, and dc subject with great felicity of expression: not pretend to be.'The gradation of their republic," says he, The ancient critics placed Sallust in the HISTORY 59 same rank with Livy; and unquestionably the speeches of Cicero sufficiently prove, that some small portion of his works which has come persons considered the shocking and atrocious down to us, is calculated to give a high opi- parts of the plot as mere inventions of the gonion of his talents. But his style is not very vernment, designed to excuse its unconstitupleasant; and his most powerful work, the ac- tional measures. We nust confess ourselves count of the Conspiracy of Catiline, has ra- to be of that opinion.' here was, undoubtedly, ther the air of a clever party pamphlet than a strong party desirous to change the adminis. that of a history. It abounds with strange in- tration. While Pompey held the command of consistencies, which, unexplained as they are, an army, they could not effect their purpose necessarily excite doubts as to the fairness of without preparing means for repelling force, the narrative. It is true, that many circum- if necessary, by force. In all this there is nostances now forgotten may have been familiar thing different from the ordinary practice of to his contemporaries, and may have rendered Roman factions. The other charges brought passages clear to them which to us appear du- against the conspirators are so inconsistent biolus and perplexing. But a great historian and improbable, that we give no credit whatshould remember that he writes for distant ever to them. If our readers think this skepgenerations, for men who will perceive the ap- ticism unreasonable, let them turn to the conparent contradictions, and will possess no temporary account of the Popish plot. Let means of reconciling them. We can only vin- them look over the votes of Parliament, and dicate the fidelity of Sallust at the expense of the speeches of the king; the charges of his, skill. But in fact all the information Scroggs, and the harangues of the managers which we have from contemporaries respect- employed against Strafford. A person, who ing this famous plot is liable to the same ob- should form his judgment from these pieces jection, and is read by discerning men with alone, would believe that London was set on the same incredulity. It is all on. one side. fire by the Papists, and that Sir Edmondbury No answer has reached our times. Yet, on the Godfrey was murdered for his religion. Yet showing of the accusers, the accused seem en- these stories are now altogether exploded. titled to acquittal. Catiline, we are told, in- They have been abandoned by statesmen to trigued with a Vestal virgin, and murdered his aldermen,.by aldermen to clergymen, by clerown son. His house was a den of gamblers gymen to old women, and by old women to and debauchees. No young man could cross Sir Harcourt Lees. his threshold without danger to his fortune and Of the Latin historians, Tacitus was cerreputation. Yet this is the man with whom tainly the greatest. His style indeed is not Cicero was willing to coalesce in a contest only faulty in itself, but is, in some respects, for the first magistracy of the republic; and peculiarly unfit for historical composition. He whom he described, long after the fatal termi- carries his love of effect far beyond the limits nation of the conspiracy, as an accomplished of moderation. He tells a fine story finely: hypocrite, by whom he had himself been de- but he cannot tell a plain story plainly. He ceived, and who had acted with consummate stimulates till all stimulants lose their power. skill the character of a good citizen and a good Thucydides, as we have' already observed, re. friend. We are told that the plot was the most lates ordinary transactions with the unprewicked and desperate ever known, and almost tending clearness and succinctness' of the in the same breath, that the great body of the gagette. His great powers of painting he people, and many of the nobles favoured it: reserves for events, of which the slightest that the richest citizens of Rome were eager details are interesting. The simplicity of the for the spoliation of all property, and its high- setting gives additional lustre to the brilliants. est functionaries for the destruction of all or- There are passages in the narrative of Tacitus der; that Crassus, Caesar, the praetor Lentulus, superior to the best which can be quoted from one of the consuls of the year, one of the con- Thucydides. But they are not enchased and suls elect, were proved or suspected to be en- relieved with the same skill. They are far gaged in a scheme for subverting institutions more striking when extracted from the body to which they owed the highest honours, and of the work to which they belong, than when introducing universal anarchy. We are told, they occur in their place, and are read in conthat a government which knew all this suffered nection with what precedes and follows. the conspirator, whose rank, talents, and cou- In the delineation of character,'Pacitus is rage rendered him most dangerous, to quit Rome unrivalled among historians, and has very few without molestation. We are told, that bond- superiors among dramatists and novelists. By men and gladiators were to be armed against the delineation of character, we do not. mean the citizens. Yet we find that Catiline rejected the practice of drawing up epigrammatic catathe slaves who crowded to enlist in his army, logues of good and bad qualities, and append,est, as Sallust himself expresses it, " he should ing them to the names of eminent men. No seem to identify their cause with that of the writer, indeed, has done this more skilfully citizens." Finally, we are told that the magis- than Tacitus; but this is not his peculiar Irate, who was universally allowed to have glory. All the persons who occupy a large saved all classes of his countrymen from con- space in his works have an individuality of flagration and massacre, rendered himself so character which seems to pervade all their unpopular by his conduct, that a marked in- words and actions. We know them as if we sult was offered to him at the expiration of his had lived with them. Claudius, Nero, Otho, office, and a severe punishment inflicted on both the Agrippinas, are masterpieces. But him shortly after. Tiberius is a still higher miracle of art. The Sallust tells us, what, indeed, the letters and historian undertook to make us intimatelry ac 60 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. quainted with a man singularly dark and library, to be tired with taking down books one inscrutable-with a man whose real disposi- after another for separate judgment, and feel tion long remained swathed up in intricate inclined to pass sentence on them m masses. folds of factitious virtues; and over whose We shall, therefore, instead of pointing out the actions the hypocrisy of his youth and the se- defects and merits of the different modern his. clusion of his old age threw a singular mys- torians, state generally in what particulars they tery. He was to exhibit the specious qualities have surpassed their predecessors, and in what of the tyrant in a light which might render we conceive them to have failed. them transparent, and enable us at once to They have certainly been, in one sense, far perceive the covering and the vices which it more strict in their adherence to truth than concealed. He was to trace the gradations by most of the Greek and Roman writers. They which the first magistrate of a republic, a do not think themselves entitled to render their senator mingling freely in debate, a noble as- narrative interesting by introducing descripsociating with his brother nobles, was trans- tions, conversations, and harangues, which formed into an Asiatic sultan; he was to have no existence but in their own imagina. exhibit a character distinguished by courage, tion. This improvement was gradually introself-command, and profound policy, yet defiled duced. History commenced among the modern by all nations of Europe, as it had commenced among "bth' extravagancy the Greeks, in romance. Froissart was our And crazy ribaldry of fancy." Herodotus. Italy was to Europe what Athens was to Greece. In Italy, therefore, a more ac. He was to mark the gradual effect of advanc- curate and manly mode of narration was early ing age and approaching death on this strange introduced. Machiavelli and Guicciardini, in compound of strength and weakness; to exhi- imitation of Livy and Thucydides, composed bit the old sovereign of the world sinking into speeches for their historical personrages. But a dotage which, though it rendered his appe- as the classical enthusiasm which distinguish. tites eccentric and his temper savage, never ed the age of Lorenzo and Leo gradually subimpaired the powers of his stern and penetrat- sided, this absurd practice was abandoned. In ing mind, conscious of failing strength, raging France, we fear, it still, in some degree, keeps with capricious sensuality, yet to the last the its ground. In our own country, a writer who keenest of observers, the most artful of dis- should venture on it would be laughed to semblers, and the most terrible of masters. scorn. Whether the historians of the last twc The task was one of extreme difficulty. The centuries tell more truth than those of anti execution is almost perfect. quity, may perhaps be doubted. But it is quite The talent which is required to write history certain that they tell fewer falsehoods. thus, bears a considerable affinity to the talent In the philosophy of history, the moderns of a great dramatist. There is one obvious have very far surpassed the ancients. It is distinction. The dramatist creates, the histo- not, indeed, strange that the Greeks and Ro. rian only disposes. The difference is not in mans should not have carried the science of the mode of execution, but in the mode of con- government, or any other experimental science, ception. Shakspeare is guided by a model so far as it has been carried in our time; for which exists in his imagination; Tacitus, by a the experimental sciences are generally in a model furnished from without. Hamlet is. to state of progression. They were better underTiberius what the Laocoon is to the Newton stood in the seventeenth century than in the of Roubilliac. sixteenth, and in the eighteenth century than In this part of his art Tacitus certainly had in the seventeenth. But this constant improvt; neither equal nor second among the ancient ment, this natural growth of knowledge, will historians. Herodotus, though he wrote in a not altogether account for the immense superi. dramatic form, had little of dramatic genius. ority of the modern writers. The difference is The frequent dialogues which he introduces a difference, not in degree, but of kind. It is give vivacity and movement to the narrative; not merely that new principles have been disbut are not strikingly characteristic. Xenophon covered, but that new faculties seem to be exis fond of telling his readers, at considerable erted. It is not that at one time the human inlength, whathe thought of the persons whose ad- tellect should have made but small piogress, ventures he relates. But he does not show and at another time have advanced far; but them the men, and enable them to judge for that. at one time it should have been station. themselves. The heroes of Livy are the most ary, and at another time constantly proceeding. insipi4 of all beings, real or imaginary, the In taste and imagination, in the graces of style, heroes of Plutarch always excepted. Indeed, in the arts of persuasion, in the magnificence the manner of Plutarch in this respect reminds of public works, the ancients were at least our us of the cookery of those continental inns, the equals. They reasoned as justly as ourselves horror of English travellers, in which a certain on subjects which required pure demonstra. nondescript broth is kept constantly boiling, tion. But in the moral sciences they made and copiously poured, without distinction, over scarcely any advance. During the long period every dish as it comes up to table. Thucy- which elapsed between the fifth century before dides, though at a wide interval, comes next to the Christian era and the fifth century after it, Tacitus. His Pericles, his Nicias, his Cleon, little perceptible progress was made. All the his Brasidas, are happily discriminated. The metaphysical discoveries of all the philosolines are few, the colouring faint; but the ge- phers, from the time of Socrates to the northern neral air and expression is caught. invasion, are not to be compared in importance We oegir, like the priest in Don Quixote's with those which have been made in England HISTORY Gl every fifty years since the time of Elizabeth. those which Boileau may have formed about There is not thie least reason to believe that the Shakspeare. Dionysius lived in the most principles of government, legislation, and po- splendid age of Latin poetry and eloquence. litical economy, were better understood in the He was a critic, and, after the manner of his time of Augustus Cmsar than in the time of age, an able critic. He studied the language Pericles. In our own country, the sound doc- of Rome, associated with its learned men, and trines of trade and jurisprudence have been, compiled its history. Yet he seems to have within the lifetime of a single generation, dimly thought its literature valuable only for the purhinted, boldly propounded, defended, systema- pose of illustrating its antiquities. His read. tized, adopted by all reflecting men of all ing appears to have been confined to its public parties, quoted in legislative assemblies, incor- records, and to a few old. annalists. Once, and porated into laws and treaties. but once, if we remember rightly, he quotes To what is this change to be attributed? Ennius, to solve a question of etymology. He Partly, no doubt, to the discovery of printing, has written much on the art of oratory; yet he -a discovery which has not only diffused has not mentioned the name of Cicero. knowledge widely, but, as we have already ob- The Romans submitted to the pretensions of served, has also introduced into reasoning a a race which they despised. Their epic poet, precision unknown in those ancient communi- while he claimed for them pre-eminence in the ties, in which information was, for the most arts of government and war, acknowledged part, ccnveyed orally. There was, we suspect, their inferiority in taste, eloquence, and science. another cause less obvious, but still more pow- Men of letters affected to understand the Greek erful. language better than their own. Pomponius The spirit of the two most famous nations preferred the honour of becoming an Athenian, of antiquity was remarkably exclusive. In the by intellectual naturalization, to all the distinctime of Homer, the Greeks had not begun to tions which were to be acquired in the politi. consider themselves as a distinct race. They cal contests of Rome. His great friend comstill looked with something of childish wonder posed Greek poems and memoirs. It is well and awe on the riches and wisdom of- Sidon known that Petrarch considered that beautiful and Egypt. From what causes, and by what language in which his sonnets are written, as gradations, their feelings underwent a change, a barbarous jargon, and intrusted his fame te it is not easy to determine. Their history, from those wretched Latin hexameters, which, durthe Trojan to the Persian war, is covered with ing the last four centuries, have scarcely found an obscurity broken only by dim and scattered four readers. Many eminent Romans appear gleams of truth. But it is certain that a great to have felt the same contempt for their native alteration took place. They regarded them- tongue as compared with the Greek. The preselves as a separate people. They had com- jqdice continued to a very late period. Julian mon religious rites, and common principles of was as partial to the Greek language as Fre. public law, in which foreigners had no part. derick the Great to the French; and it seems In all their political systems, monarchical, aris- that he could not express himself with eletocratical, and democratical, there was a strong gance in the dialect of the state which he ruled. family likeness. After the retreat of Xerxes Even those Latin writers, who did not carry and the fall of Mardonius, national pride ren- this affectation so far, lodked on Greece as the dered the separation between the Greeks and only fount of knowledge. From Greece they the Barbarians complete. The conquerors con- derive the measures of their poetry, and indeed, sidered themselves men of a superior breed, all of poetry that can be imported. From men who, in their intercourse with neighbour- Greece they borrowed the principles and the ing nations, were to teach, and not to learn. vocabulary of their philosophy. To the literaThey looked for nothing out of themselves. ture of other nations they do not seem to have They borrowed nothing. They translated no- paid the slightest attention. The sacred books thing. We cannot call to mind a single ex- of the Hebrews, for example, books which, conpression of any Greek writer earlier than the sidered merely as human compositions, are inage of Augustus, indicating an opinion that valuable to the critic, the antiquary, and the any thing worth reading could be written in philosopher, seem to have been utterly unnoany language except his own. The feelings ticed by them. The peculiarities of Judaism, which sprung from national glory were not and the rapid growth of Christianity, attracted altogether extinguished by national degrada- their notice. They made war against the Jews. tion. They were fondly cherished through They made laws against the Christians. But ages of slavery and shame. The literature of they never opened the books of Moses. JuveRome herself was regarded with contempt by nal quotes the Pentateuch with censure: The those who had fled before her arms, and who author of the treatise on the " Sublime" quotes bowed beneath her fasces. Voltaire says, in it with praise: but both of them quote it erroone of his six thousand pamphlets, that he was neously. When we consider what sublime the first person who told the French that Eng- poetry, what curious history, what striking and land had produced eminent men besides the peculiar views of the divine nature, and of the Duke of Marlborough. Down to a very late social duties of men, are to be found in the period, the Greeks seem to have stood in need Jewish Scriptures; when we consider the two of similar information with respect to their sects on which the attention of the government masters. With Paulus LEmilius, Sylla, and was constantly fixed; appealed to those ScripCwesar, they were well acquainted. But the tures as the rule of their faith and practice. notions which they entertained respecting Ci- this indifference is astonishing. The fact cero and Virgil were, probably, not unlike seems to be, that the Greeks admired only them-..1F 62 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. selves, and that the Romans admired only them- a stormy democracy in the quiet and listless selves and the Greeks. Literary men turned population of an overgrowr empire. The fear away with disgust from modes of thought and of heresy did what the sense of oppression expression so widely different from all' that could not do; it changed men, accustomed tt they had been accustomed to admire. The ef- be turned over like sheep from tyrant to tyrant, fect -was narrowness and sameness of thought. into devoted partisans and obstinate rebels. Their minds, if we may so express ourselves, The tones of an eloquence which had been bred in and in, and were accordingly cursed silent for ages resounded from the pulpit of with barrenness, and degeneracy. No extra- Gregory. A spirit which had been extinguished neous beauty or vigour was engrafted on the on the plains of Philippi revived in Athanasius decaying stock. By an exclusive attention to and Ambrose. one class of phenomena, by an exclusive taste Yet even this remedy was not sufficiently for one species of excellence, the human intel- violent for the disease. It did not prevent the lect was stunted. Occasional coincidences empire of Constantinople from relapsing, after were turned into general rules. Prejudices a short paroxysm of excitement, into a state of were confounded with instincts. On man, as stupefaction to which history furnishes scarcehe was found in a particular state of society, ly any parallel. We there find that a polished on government, as it had existed in a particu- society, a society in which a most intricate lar corner of the world, many just observations and elaborate system of jurisprudence was eswere made; but of man as man, or government tablished, in which the arts of luxury were as government, little was known. Philosophy, well understood, in which the works of the great remained stationary. Slight changes, some- ancient writers were preserved and studied, times for the worse and sometimes for the bet- existed for nearly a thousand years without ter, were made in the superstructure. But no- making one great discovery in science, or probody thought of examining the foundations. ducing one book which is read by any but The vast despotism of the Caesars, gradually curious inquirers. There were tumults, too, effacing all national peculiarities, and assimu- and controversies, and wars in abundance: lating the remotest provinces of the Empire to and these things, bad as they are in th.'m each other, augmented the evil. At the close selves; have generally been favourable to ihe of the third century after Christ, the. prospects progress of the intellect. But here they tcr of mankind were fearfully dreary. A system mented without stimulating. The waters were of etiquette, as pompously frivolous as that of troubled, but no healing influence descended. the Escurial, had been established. A sove- The agitations resembled the grinnings and reign almost invisible; a crowd of dignitaries writhings of a galvanized corpse, not the minutely distinguished by badges and titles; struggles of an athletic man. rhetoricians who said nothing but what had From this miserable state the Western Em been said ten thousand times; schools in which pire was saved by the fiercest and most denothing was taught but what had been known stroying visitation with which God has ever for ages-such was the machinery provided chastened his creatures-the invasion of the for.he government and instruction of the most northern nations. Such a cure was required enlightened part of the human race. That great for such a distemper. The Fire of London, it community was then in danger of experienc- has been observed, was a blessing. It burned ing a calamity far more terrible than any of down the city, but it burned out the plague. the quick, inflammatory, destroying maladies, to The same may be said of the tremendous dewhich nations are liable —atottering, drivelling, vastation of the Roman dominions. It anniparalytic longevity,the immortalityof the Struld- hilated the noisome recesses in which lurked brug,, a Chinese civilization. It would be the seeds of great moral maladies; it cleared easy to indicate many points of resemblance an atmosphere fatal to the health and vigouI between the subjects of Diocletian and the of the human mind. It cost Europe a thoupeople of that Celestial Empire, where, during sand years of barbarism to escape the fate of many centuries, nothing has been learned or China. unlearned; where government, where educa- At length the terrible purification was ac. tion, where the whole system of life is a cere- complished; and the second civilization of mony; where knowledge forgets to increase mankind commenced, under'circumstances and multiply, and, like the talent buried in the which afforded a strong security that it would earth, or the pound wrapped up in the napkin, never retrograde and never pause. Europe experiences neither waste nor augmentation. was now a great federal community. Her The torpor was broken by two great revolu- numerous states were united by the easy ties tions, the one moral, the other political; the of international law and a common religion. one from within, the other from without. The Their institutions, their languages, their manvictory of Christianity over Paganism, consi- ners, their tastes in literature, their modes of dered with relation to this subject only, was education, were widely different. Their conof great importance. It overthrew the old nection was close enough to allow of mutual system of morals, and with it much of the old observation and improvement, yet not so close system of metaphysics. It furnished the ora- as to destroy the idioms of natural opinion and tor with new topics of declamation, and the lo- feeling. gician with new points of controversy. Above The balance of moral and intellectual influall, it introduced a new principle, of which the ence, thus established between the nations of operation was constantly felt in every part of Europe, is far more important than the balance society. It stirred the stagnant mass from the of political power. Indeed, we are inclined to inmost depths. It excited all the passions of think that the latter is valuable principally be. HISTORY. 63 cause it tends to maintain the former. The saint of Laud, or a tyrant of Henry the civilized world has thus been preserved from Fourth. a uniformity of character fatal to all improve- This species of misrepresentation abounds ment. Every part of it has been illuminated in the most valuable works of modern histowith light reflected from every other. Compe- rians. Herodotus tells his story like a slovenly tition has produeed activity where monopoly witness, who, heated by partialities and prejuwould have produced sluggishness. The num- dices, unacquainted with the established rules ber of experiments in moral science which the of evidence, and uninstructed as to the obligaspeculator has an opportunity of witnessing tions of his oath, confounds what he imagines has been increased beyond all calculation. with what he has seen and heard, and brings Society and human nature, instead of being out facts, reports, conjectures, and fancies, in seen in a single point of view, are presented one mass. Hume is an accomplished advoto him under ten thousand different aspects. cate. Without positively asserting much more By observing the manners of surrounding na- than he can prove, he gives prominence to all tions, by studying their literature,'by compar- the circumstances which support his case; he ing it with that of his own country and of the glides lightly over those which are unfavourancient republics, he is enabled to correct able to it; his own witnesses are applauded those errors into which the most acute men must and encouraged; the statements which seem fall when they reason from a single species to to throw discredit oi them are controverted; a genus. He learns to distinguish what is the contradictions into which they fall are exlocal from what is universal; what is transi- plained away; a clear and connected abstract tory from what is eternal; to discriminate be- of their evidence is given. Every thing that tween exceptions and rules; to trace the ope- is offered on the other side is scrutinized with ration of disturbing causes; to separate those the utmost severity; every suspicious circumgeneral principles which are always true and stance is a ground for comment and invective; everywhere applicable, from the accidental what cannot be denied is extenuated or passed circumstances with which in every community by without notice; concessions even are somethey are blended, and with which, in an iso- times made; but this insidious candour only in. lated community, they are confounded by the creases the effect of the vast mass of sophistry. most philosophical mind. We have mentioned Hume as the ablest and Hence it is that, in generalization, the writ- most popular writer of his class; but the charge ers of modern times have far surpassed those which we have brought against him is one to of antiquity. The historians of our own coun-, which all our most distinguished historians are try are unequalled in depth and precision of in some degree obnoxious. Gibbon, in particureason; and even in the works of our mere lar, deserves very severe censure. Of all the nu.compilers we often meet with speculations be- merous culprits, however, none is more deeply yond the reach of Thucydides or Tacitus. guilty than Mr. Mitford. We willingly acknowBut it must at the same time be admitted ledge the obligations which are due to his tathat they have characteristic faults, so closely lents and industry. The modern historians of connected with their characteristic merits and Greece had been in the habit of writing as if of such magnitude that it may well be doubted the world had learned nothing new during the whether, on the whole, this department of lite- last sixteen hundred years. Instead of illus. rature has gained or lost during the last two- trating the events which they narrated by the and-twenty centuries. philosophy of a more enlightened age, they The best nistorians of later times have been judged of antiquity by itself alone. They seduced from truth, not by their imagination, seemed to think that notions, long driven from but by their reason. They far excel their pre- every other corner of literature, had a predecessors in the art of deducing general prin- scriptive right to occupy this last fastness. ciples from facts. But unhappily tney have They considered all the ancient historians as fallen into the error of distorting facts to suit equally authentic. They scarcely made any general principles. They arrive at a theory distinction between him who related events at from looking at some of the phenomena, and which he had himself been present, and him the remaining phenomena they strain or cur- who five hundred years after composed a phitail to suit the theory. For this purpose it is losophical romance, for a society which had not necessary that they should assert what is in the interval undergone a complete change. absolutely false, for all questions in morals It was all Greek, and all true! The centuries and politics are questions of comparison and which separated Plutarch from Thucydides degree. Any proposition which does not in- seemed as nothing to men who lived in an age vot e a contradiction in terms may, by possi- so remote. The distance of time produced an bility, be true; and if all the circumstances error similar to that which is sometimes prowhich raise a probability in its favour be stated duced by distance of place. There are mhany and enforced, and those which lead to an op- good ladies who think that a1 the people in posite conclusion be omitted or lightly passed India live together, and who charge a friend over, it may appear to be demonstrated. In setting out for Calcutta with kind messages to every human character and transaction there Bombay. To Rollin and Barthelemi, in the is a mixture of good and evil;-a little exagge- same manner, all the classics were conteasration, a little suppression, a judicious use of poraries. epithets, a watchful and searching skepticism Mr. Mitford cel tainly introduced great imr with respect to the evidence on one side, a con- provements; he showed us that men who venient credulity with respect to every report wrote in Greek and Latin.sometimes told lies; or tradition on the other, may easily make a he showed us that ancient history might be MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. related in such a manner as to furnisk not uncut; the magazines and newspapers fill their only allusions to schoolboys, but important columns with extracts. In the mean time hislessons to statesmen. From that love of the- tories of great empires,'written by men of atrical effect and high flown sentiment which eminent ability, lie unread on the shelves of had poisoned almost every other work on the ostentatious libraries. same subject, his book is perfectly free. But The writers of history seem to entertain an his passion for a theory as false, and far more aristocratical contempt for the writers of meungenerous, led him substantially to violate moirs. They think it beneath the dignity of truth in every page. Statements unfavour- men who describe the revolutions of nations, able to democracy are made with unhesitating to dwell on the details which constitute the confidence, and with the utmost bitterness of charm of biography. They have imposed on language. Every charge brought against a themselves a code of conventional decencies monarch, or an aristocracy, is sifted with the as absurd as that which has been the bane of utmost care. If it cannot be denied, some the French drama. The most characteristic palliating supposition is suggested, or we are and interesting circumstances are omitted or at least reminded that some circumstances softened down, because, as we are told, they now unknown may have justified what at pre- are too trivial for the majesty of history. The sent appears unjustifiable. Two events are majesty of history seems to resemble the mareported by the same author in the same sen- jesty of the poor King of Spain, who died a tence; their truth rests on the same testimony; martyr to ceremony, because the proper dignibut the one supports the darling hypothesis, taries were not at hand to render him assistand the other seems inconsistent with it.' The ance. cz.e is taken and the other is left. That history would be more amusing if this The practice of distorting narrative into a etiquette were relaxed, will, we suppose, be conformity with theory, is a vice not so unfa- acknowledged. But would it be less dignified, vourable, as at first sight it may appear, to or less useful? What do we mean, when we the interest of political science. \Ve have say that one past event is important, and ancompared the writers who indulge in it to other insignificant? No past event has any advocates; and we may add, that their con- intrinsic importance. The knowledge of it is flicting fallacies, like those of advocates, cor- valuable only as it leads us to form just calrect each other. It has always been held, in culations with respect to the future. A history the most enlightened nations, that a tribunal which does not serve this purpose, though it will decide a judicial question most fairly, may be filled with battles, treaties, and comwhen it has heard two able men argue, as un- motions, is as useless as the series of turnfairly as possible, on the two opposite sides of pike-tickets collected by Sir Mathew Mite. it; and we are inclined to think that this opi- Let us suppose that Lord Clarendon, instead nion is just. Sometimes, it is true, superior of filling hundreds of folio pages with copies eloquence and dexterity will make the worse of state papers, in which the same assertions appear the better reason; but it is at least and contradictions are repeated, till the reader certain that the judge will be compelled to is overpowered with weariness, had condecontemplate the case under two different scended to be the Boswell of the Long Parliaaspects. It is certain that no important con- ment. Let us suppose that he had exhibited sideration will altogether escape notice. to us the wise and lofty self-government of This is at present the state of history. The Hampden, leading while he seemed to follow, poet laureate appears for the Church of Eng- and propounding unanswerable arguments in land, Lingard for the Church of Rome. Brodie the strongest forms, with the modest air of an has moved to set aside the verdicts obtained inquirer anxious for information; the deluby Hume; and the cause in which Mitford sions which misled the noble spirit of Vane; succeeded is, we understand, about to be re- the coarse fanaticism which concealed the yet heard. In the midst of these disputes, how- loftier genius of Cromwell, destined to control ever, history proper, if we may use the term, a mutinous army and a factious people, to abase is disappearing. The high, grave, impartial the flag of Holland, to arrest the victorious summing up of Thucydides is nowhere to be arms of Sweden, and to hold the balance firm ound. between the rival monarchies of France and While our historians are practising all the Spain. Let us suppose that he had made his arts of controversy, they miserably neglect the Cavaliers and Roundheads talk in their own art of narration, the art of interesting the affec- style that he had reported some of the ribaltions, and presenting pictures to the imagina- dry of Rupert's pages, and some of the cant tion. That a writer may produce these effects of Harrison and Fleetwood. Would not his without violating truth is sufficiently proved work in that case have been more interesting! by many excellent biographical works. The Would it not have been more accurate. immense popularity which well-written books A history in which every particular incident of this kind have acquired, deserves the serious may be true, may on the whole be false. The consideration of historians. Voltaire's Charles circumstances which have most influence ol the Twelfth, Marmontel's Memoirs, Boswell's the happiness of mankind, the changes of Lite of Johnson, Southey's account of Nelson, manners and morals, the transition of comn are perused with delight by the most frivolous munities from poverty to wealth, from knowand indolent. Whenever any tolerable book ledge to ignorance, from ferocity to humanity of the same description makes its appearance, -these are, for the most part, noiseless revo Lhe circulating libraries are mobbed; the book lutions. Their progress is rarely indicated by mocieties are in commotion the new novel lies what historians are pleased to call important HISTORY. 65 events. They are not achieved by armies, or Its dimensions, and has then departed, think. enacted by senates. They are sanctioned by ing that he has seen England. He has, in fact, no treaties, and recorded in no archives. They seen a few public buildings, public men, and are carried on in every school, in every church, public ceremonies. But of the vast and combehind ten thousand counters, at ten thousand plex system of society, of the fine shades of firesides. The upper current of society pre- national character, of the practical operation sents no certain criterion by which we can of government and laws, he knows nothing. judge of the direction in which the under cur- He who would understand these things rightly rent flows. We read of defeats and victories. must not confine his observations to palaces But we know that nations may be miserable and solemn days. He must see ordinary men amidst victories, and prosperous amidst de- as they appear in their ordinary business and feats. We read of the fall of wise ministers, in their ordinary pleasures. He must mingle and of the rise of profligate favourites. But in the crowds of the exchange and the coffeewe must remember how small a proportion house. He must obtain admittance to the the good. or evil effected by a single statesman convivial table and the domestic hearth. He can bear to the good or evil of a great social must bear with vulgar expressions. He must system. not shrink from exploring even the'etreats of Bishop Watson compares a geologist to a misery. He who wishes to understand the gnat mounted on an elephant, and laying down condition of mankind in former ages, must theories as to the whole internal structure of proceed on the same principle. If he attends the vast animal, from the phenomena of the only to public transactions, to wars, conhide. The comparison is unjust to the geolo- gresses, and debates,his studies will be as ungists; but it is very applicable to those his- profitable as the travels of those imperial, torians who write as if the body politic were royal, and serene sovereigns, who form their homogeneous, who look only on the surface judgment of our island from having gone in of affairs, and never think of the mighty and state to a few fine sights, and from having held various organization which lies deep below. formal conferences with a few great officers. In the works of such writers as these, Eng- The perfect historian is he in whose work land, at the close of the Seven Years' War, is the character and spirit of an age is exhibited in the highest state of prosperity. At the in miniature. He relates no fact, he attributes close of the American War, she is in a mise- no expression to his characters, which is not rable and degraded condition; as if the people authenticated by sufficient testimony. But by were not on the whole as rich, as well go- judicious selection, rejection, and arrangeverned, and as well educated, at the latter ment, he gives to truth those attractions which period as at the former. We have read have been usurped by fiction. In his narrabooks called Histories of England, under the tive, a due subordination is observed; some reign of George the Second, in which the rise transactions are prominent, others retire. But of Methodism is not even mentioned. A hun- the scale on which he represents them is indred years hence this breed of authors will, we creased or diminished, not accol ding to the hope, be extinct. If it should still exist, the dignity of the persons concerned In them, but late ministerial interregnum will be described according to the degree in which they eluciin terms which will seem to imply that all go- date the condition of society and the nature of vernment was at an end; that the social con- man. He shows us the court, the camp, and tract was annulled, and that the hand of every the senate. But he shows us also the nation man was against his neighbour, until the wis- He considers no anecdote, no peculiarity of dom and virtue of the new cabinet educed manner, no familiar saying, as too insignifiorder out of the chaos of anarchy. We are cant for his notice, which is not too insigniquite certain that misconceptions as gross ficant to illustrate the operation of laws, of prevail at this moment, respecting many im-: religion, and of education, and to mark the portant parts of our annals. progress of the human mind. Men will not: The effect of historical reading is analogous, merely be described, but will be made inti-,n many respects, to that produced by:foreign mately known to us. The changes of mantravel. The student, like the tourist, is trans- ners will be indicated, not merely by a few ported into a new state of society. He sees general phrases, or a few extracts from stanew fashions. He hears new modes of ex- tistical documents, but by appropriate images pression. His mind is enlarged by contem- presented in every line. plating the wide diversities of laws, of morals, If a man, such as we are supposing, should, and of manners. But men may travel far, write the history of England, he would' asand return with minds as contracted as if they suredly not omit the battles, the sieges, the had never stirred from their own market-town. negotiations, the seditions, the ministerial In the same manner, men may know the dates changes. But with these he wc~uld intersperse of many battles, and the genealogies of many the details which are the charm of historical royal houses, and yet be no wiser. Most peo- romances. At Lincolk Cathedral there is a pie look at past times, as princes look at beautiful painted window, which was made by foreign countries. More than one illustrious an apprentice out of the pieces of glass which stranger has landed on our island amidst the had been rejected by his master. It is so far shouts of a mob, has dined with the King, has superior to every other in the church, that, hunted with the master of the stag-hounds, has according to the +radition, the vanquished seen the Guards reviewed, and a knight of the artist killed himselt from mortification. Sir garter installed; has cantered along Regent Walter Scott,-in the same manner, has used street; has visited St. Paul's, and ioted down those fragmentsof truth which historians- havr VOL. L —9 r 2 ^66 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. scornfully thrown behind them, in a manner a great artist might produce a portrait of this which may well excite their envy. He has remarkable woman, at least as striking as that constructed out of their gleanings works in the novel of Kenilworth, without employing which, even considered as histories, are scarce- a single trait not authenticated by ample tesly less valuable than theirs. But a truly great timony. In the mean time, we should see historian would reclaim those materials which arts cultivated, wealth accumulated, the convethe novelist has appropriated. The history niences of life improved. We should see the of the government and the history of the peo- keeps, where nobles, insecure themselves, pie would be exhibited in that mode in which spread insecurity around them, gradually alone they can be exhibited justly, in insepa- giving place to the halls of peaceful opulence, rable conjunction and intermixture. We should to the oriels of Longleat, and the stately pin. not then have to look for the wars and votes naeles of Burleigh. We should see towns exof the Puritans in Clarendon, and for their tended, deserts cultivated, the hamlets of fishphraseology in Old Mortality; for one half of ermen turned into wealthy havens, the meal King James in Hume, and for the other half of the peasant improved, and his hut more in the Fortunes of Nigel. commodiously furnished. We should see The early part of our imaginary history those opinions and feelings which produced would be rich with colouring from romance, the great struggle against the house of Stuart, ballad, and chronicle. We should find our- slowly growing up in the bosom of private selves in the company of knights such as families, before they manifested themselves in those of Froissart, and of pilgrims such as Parliamentary debates. Then would come those who rode with Chaucer from the Tabard. the Civil War. Those skirmishes, on which Society would be shown from the highest to Clarendon dwells so minutely, would be told, the lowest-from the royal cloth of state to the as Thucydides would have told them, with den of the outlaw; from the throne of the le- perspicuous conciseness. They are merely gate to the chimney-corner where the begging connecting links. But the great characterfriar regaled himself. Palmers, minstrels, istics of the age, the loyal enthusiasm of the crusaders -the stately monastery, with the brave English gentry, the fierce licentiousness good cheer in its refectory, and the high-mass of the swearing, dicing, drunken reprobates, in its chapel-the manor-house, with its hunt- whose excesses disgraced the royal causeing and hawking-the tournament, with the the austerity of the Presbyterian Sabbaths in heralds and ladies, the trumpets and the cloth the city, the extravagance of the Independent of gold —would give truth and life to the re- preachers in the camp, the precise garb, the presentation. We should perceive, in a thou- severe countenance, the petty scruples, the sand slight touches, the importance of the pri- affected accent, the absurd names and phrases vileged burgher, and the fierce and haughty which marked the Puritans-the valour, the spirit which swelled under the collar of the policy, the public spirit, which lurked beneath degraded villain. The revival of letters would these ungraceful disguises, the dreams of the not merely be described in a few magnificent raving Fifth Monarchyman, the dreams, scarce periods. We should discern, in innumerable ly less wild, of the philosophic republican-all particulars, the fermentation of mind, the eager these would enter into the representation, and appetite for knowledge, which distinguished render it at once more exact and more strik. the sixteenth from the fifteenth century. In ing. the Reformation we should see, not merely a The instruction derived from history thus schism which changed the ecclesiastical con- written wouild be of a vivid and practical cha. stitution of England, and the mutual relations racter. It would be received by the imaginaof the European powers, but a moral war tion as well as by the reason. It would be not which raged in every family, which set the merely traced on the mind, but branded into father against the son, and the son against the it. Many truths, too, would be learned, which father, the mother against the daughter, and can be learned in no other manner. As the the daughter against the mother. Henry history of states is generally written, the greatwould be painted with the skill of Tacitus. est and most momentous revolutions seem to We should have the change of his character come upon them like supernatural inflictions, from his profuse and joyous youth to his without warning or cause. But the fact is, that savage and imperious old age. We should such revolutions are almost always the conse. perceive the gradual progress of selfish and quences of moral changes, which have gra. tyrannical passions, in a mind not naturally dually passed on the mass of the community, insensible or ungenerous; and to the last we and which ordinarily proceed far, before their should detect some remains of that open and progress is indicated by any public measure. noble temper which endeared him to a people An intimate knowledge of the domestic history whom he oppressed, struggling with the hard- of nations is therefore absolutely necessary to ness of despotism and the irritability of dis- the prognosis of political events. A narrative, ease. We should see Elizabeth in all her defective in this respect, is as useless as a meweakness, and in all her strength, surrounded dical treatise which should pass by all the by the handsome favourites whomishe never symptoms attendant on the early stage of a trusted, and the wise old statesmen, whom she disease, and mention only what occurs whea never dismissed, uniting in herself the most the patient is beyond the reach of remedies. contradictory qualities of both her parents- An historian, such as we have been attempt. the coquetry, the caprice, the petty malice of ing to describe, would indeed be an intellectual?Anne —the haughty and resdlute spirit of prodigy. In his mind, powers, scarcely comrn Henry. We have no hesitation in saying, that patible with each other, must be tempered into HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 67 in exquisite harmony. We shall sooner see ment of the mind. It cannot indeed produce another Shakspeare or another Homer. The perfection, but it produces improvement, and highest excellence, to which any single faculty nourishes that generous and liberal fastidious can be brought, would be less surprising than ness, which is not inconsistent with the strong. such a happy and delicate combination of est sensibility to merit, and which, while it ex qualities. Yet the contemplation of imaginary alts our conceptions of the art, does not render models is not an unpleasant or useless employ- us unjust to the artist. HALLNAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1828.] HISTORY, at least in its state of imaginary companion to the traveller or the general than perfection, is a compound of poetry and philo- the painting could be, though it were the grand. sophy. It impresses general truths on the est that ever Rosa peopled with outlaws, or the mind by a vivid representation of particular sweetest over which Claude ever poured the characters and incidents. But, in fact, the two mellow effulgence of a setting sun. hostile elements of which it consists have It is remarkable that the practice of separat never been known to form a perfect amalgama- ing the two ingredients of which history is tion; and at length, in our own time, they have composed has become prevalent on the Contibeen completely and professedly separated. nent as well as in this country. Italy has alGood histories, in the proper sense of the word, ready produced an historical novel, of high merit we have not. But we have good historical ro- and of. still higher promise. In France, the mances and good historical essays. The ima- practice has been carried to a length somegination and the reason, if we may use a legal what whimsical. M. Sismondi publishes a metaphor, have made partition of a province grave and stately history, very valuable, and a of literature of which they were formerly little tedious. He then sends forth as a comseised per my et pour tout; and now they hold panion to it a novel, in which he attempts to their respective portions in severalty, instead give a lively representation of characters and of holding the whole in common. manners. This course, as it seems to us, has To make the past present, to bring the dis- all the disadvantages of a division of labour, tant near, to place us in the society of a great and none of its advantages. We understand man, or on the eminence which overlooks the the expediency of keeping the functions of field of a mighty battle, to invest with the reali- cook and coachman distinct-the dinner will ty of human flesh and blood beings whom we be better dressed, and the horses better maare too much inclined to consider as personi- naged. But where the two situations are united, fled qualities in an allegory, to call up our ances- as in the Maitre Jaques of Moliere, we do not tors before us with all their peculiarities of see that the matter is much mended by the solanguage, manners, and garb, to show us over lemn form with which the pluralist passes from their houses, to seat us at their tables, to rum- one of his employments to the other. mage their old-fashioned wardrobes, to explain We manage these things better in England. the uses of their ponderous furniture-these Sir Walter Scott gives us a novel; Mr.. Hallam parts of the duty which properly belongs to the a critical and argumentative history. Both are historian have been appropriated by the histo- occupied with the same matter. But the forrical novelist. On the other hand, to extract mer looks at it with the eye of a sculptor. His the philosophy of history-to direct our judg- intention is to give an express and lively ment of events and men-to trace the connec- image of its external form. The latter is an tion of causes and effects, and to draw from the anatomist. His task is to dissect the subject to occurrences of former times general lessons of its inmost recesses, and to lay bare before us all moral and political wisdom, has become the the springs of motion and all the causes of debusiness of a distinct class of writers. cay. Of the two kinds of composition;nto which Mr. Hallam is, on the whole, far better quali. history has been thus divided, the one may he flied than any other writer of our time for the compared to a map, the other to a painted land- office which he has undertaken. He has great scape. The picture, though it places the ob- industry and great acuteness. His knowledge ject before us, does not enable us to ascertain is extensive, various, and profound. His mind with accuracy the form and dimensions of its is equally distinguished by the amplitude of component parts, the distances, and the angles. its grasp and by the delicacy of its tact. His The map is not a work of imitative art. It speculations have none of that vagueness presents no scene to the imagination; but it which is the common fault of political philoso gives us exact information as to the bearings phy. On the contrary, they are strikingly of the various points, and is a more useful practical. They teach us not only the general...._- rule, but the mode of applying it to solve lar. * The Constitutional History of England, from the Ac- ticular cases. In this respect they often re. esstion of Henry In. to the Death of George II. BY mind us of the Discourses of Macbiavel' HENRY HALLAM. In 2'vl1s. 1827. 8b8 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUJS WRITINGS. The st yle is sometimes harsh, and.sometimes bend the meaning latent under the emblems of obscure. We have also here and there remark- their faith, can resist the contagion of the:ed a little of that unpleasant trick which Gib- popular superstition. Often, when they flatter -bon brought into fashion-the trick, we mean, themselves that they are merely feigning a of narrating by implication and allusion. Mr. compliance with the prejudices of the vulgar, Brallam, however, has an excuse which Gib- they are themselves tiunder the influence of bon had not. His work is designed for readers those very prejudices. It probably was not who are already acquainted with the ordinary altogether on grounds of expediency, that So. books on English history, and who can there- crates taught his followers to honour the gods fore unriddle these little enigmas without dif- whom the state honoured, and bequeathed a ficulty. The manner of the book is, on the cock to Esculapius with his dying breath. So whole, not unworthy of the matter. The lan- there is often a portion of willing crednlity and guage, even where most faulty, is weighty and enthusiasm in the veneration which the most massive, and indicates strong sense in every discerning men pay to their political idols. line. It often rises to an eloquence, not florid From the very nature of man it must be so. or impassioned, but high, grave, and' sober; The faculty by which we inseparably associate such as would become a state paper, or a judg- ideas which have often been presented to us ment delivered by a great magistrate, a Somers, in conjunction, is not under the absolute con.or a D'Aguesseau. trol of the will. It may be quickened into In this respect the character of Mr. Hallam's morbid activity. It may be reasoned into mind corresponds strikingly with that of his sluggishness. But in a certain degree it will style. His work is eminently judicial. Its always exist. The almost absolute mastery whole spirit is that of the bench, not of the which Mr. Hallam has obtained over feelings bar. He sums up with a calm, steady impar- of this class, is perfectly astonishing to us; tiality, turning neither to the right nor to the and will, we believe, be not only astonishing, left, glossing over nothing, exaggerating no- but offensive to many of his readers. It must thing, while the advocates on both sides are al- particularly disgust those people who, in their ternately biting their lips to hear their conflict- speculations on politics, are not reasoners, but ing mis-statements and sophisms exposed. On fanciers; whose opinions, even when sincere, a general survey, we do not scruple to pro- are not produced, according to the ordinary n'ounce the Constitutional History the most law of intellectual births, by induction and inimpartial book that we ever read. We think ference, but are equivocally generated by the it the more incumbent on us to bear this testi- heat of fervid tempers out of the overflowings mony strongly at first setting out, because, in of tumid imaginations. A man of this class is the course of our remarks, we shall think it always in extremes. He cannot be a friend tc right to dwell principally on those parts of it liberty without calling for a community of from which we dissent. goods, or a friend to order without taking under There is one peculiarity about Mr. Hallam, his protection the foulest excesses of tyranny. which, while it adds to the value of his writings, His admiration oscillates between the most will, we fear, take away something from their worthless of rebels and the most worthless of popularity. He is less of a worshipper than oppressors; between Marten, the scandal of any historian whom we can call to mind. the High Court of Justice, and, Laud, the scanEvery political sect has its esoteric and its dal of the Star-Chamber. He can forgive any exoteric school; its abstract doctrines for the thing but temperance and impartiality. He initiated, its visible symbols, its imposing has a certain sympathy with the violence of forms, its mythological fables for the vulgar. his opponents, as well as with that of his asIt assists the devotion of those who are unable sociates. In every furious partisan he sees to raise- themselves to the contemplation of either his present self or his former self, the pure truths, by all the devices of Pagan or pensioner that is or the Jacobin that has been. Papal superstition. It has its altars and its But he is unable to comprehend a writer who,'deified heroes, its relics and pilgrimages, its steadily attached to principles, is indifferent canonized martyrs and confessors, its festivals about names and badges; who judges of chatnd its legendary miracles. Our pious ances- racters with equable severity, not altogether tors, we are told, deserted the High Altar of untinctured with cynicism, but free from the Canterbury, to lay all their oblations on the slightest touch of passion, party spirit, or cashrine of St. Thomas. In the same manner the price. great and comfortable doctrines of the Tory We should probably like Mr. Hallam's book creed, those particularly which relate to re- more, if instead of pointing out, with strict strictions on worship and on trade, are adored fidelity, the bright points and the dark spots by squires and rectors, in Pitt Clubs, under the of both parties, he had exerted himself to name of a minister, who was as bad a repre- whitewash the one and to blacken the other. sntative of the system which has been chris- But we should certainly prize it far legss #ned after him, as Becket of the spirit of the Eulogy and invective may be had for the Gospel. And, on the other hand, the cause for asking. Hut for cold rigid justice-the one which Hampden bled on the field, and Sidney weight and the one measure-4we know not on the scaffold, is enthusiastically toasted by where else we can look. many an honest radical, who would be puzzled No portion of our annals has been more per io explain the difference between Ship-money plexed and misrepresented by writers of dif end the Habeas Corpus act. It may be added, ferent parties, than the history of the Reforms fihat, as in' religion, so in politics, few, evend of tion. In this labyrinth of falsehood and so B"e* who are enighi~tied eanough to compre- phistry, the guidance of Mr. Hallam is pec HALLA' S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 69 liarly valuable. It is impossible not to admire that if any Catholic shall coqvert a Protestant the evenhanded justice with which he deals to the Romish church, they shall both suffer out castigation to right and left on the rival death, as'for high treason. persecutors. We believe that we might safely content It is vehemently maintained by some writers ourselves with stating the fact, and leaving it of the present day, that the government of to the judgment of every plain Englishman. Elizabeth persecuted neither Papists nor Puri- Recent controversies have, however, given so tans as such; and occasionally that the severe much importance to this subject, that we will measures which it adopted were dictated, not offer a few remarks on it. by religious intolerance, but by political ne- In the first place, the arguments which are cessity. Even the excellent account of those urged in favour of Elizabeth, apply with much times, which Mr. Hallam has given, has not greater force to the case of her sister Mary. altogether imposed silence on the authors of The Catholics did not, at the time of Eliza. this fallacy. The title of the Queen, they say, beth's accession, rise in arms to seat a Prewas annulled by the Pope; her throne was tender on her throne. But before Mary had given to another; her subjects were incited to given, or could give provocation, the most dis. rebellion; her life was menaced; every Ca- tinguished Protestants attempted to set aside tholic was bound in conscience to be a traitor; her rights in favour of the Lady Jane. That it was therefore against traitors, not against attempt, and the subsequent insurrection of Catholics, that the penal laws were enacted. Wyatt, furnished at least as good a plea for That our readers may be the better able to the burning of Protestants as the conspiracies appreciate the merits of this defence, we will against Elizabeth furnish for the hanging and state, as concisely as possible, the substance embowelling of Papists. of some of these laws. The fact is, that both pleas are worthless As soon as Elizabeth ascended the throne, alike. If such arguments are to pass current, and before the least hostility to her govern- it will be easy to prove that there was never ment had been shown by the Catholic popula- such a thing as religious persecution since tion, an act passed, prohibiting the celebration the creation. For there never was a religious of the rites of the Romish church, on pain of persecution, in which some odious crime was forfeiture for the first offence, a year's impri- not justly or unjustly staid to be obviously desonment for the second, and perpetual impri- ducible from the doctrines of the persecuted sonment for the third. party. We might say that the Caesars did' not A law was next made, in 1562, enacting, that persecute the Christians; that they only puall who had ever graduated at the Universities, nished men who were charged, rightly or or received holy orders, all lawyers, and all ma- wrongly, with burning Rome, and with corn gistrates, should take the oath of supremacy mitting the foulest abominations in their aswhen tendered to them, on pain of forfeiture, semblies; that the refusal to throw frankinand imprisonment during the royal pleasure. cence on the altar of Jupiter was not the After the lapse of three months, it might again be crime, but only evidence of the crime. We tendered to them; and, if it were again refu3ed, might say that the massacre of St. Bartholemew the recusant was guilty of high treason. A was intended to extirpate, not a religious sect, prospective law, however severe, framed to but a political party. For, beyond all doubt, exclude Catholics from the liberal professions, the proceedings of the Huguenots, from the would have been mercy itself compared with conspiracy of Amboise to the battle of Meonthis odious act. It is a retrospective statute; coutour, had given much mort trouble to the it is a retrospective penal statute; it is a retro- French monarchy than the Ciatholics have spective penal statute against a large class. ever given to England since the Reformation; We will not positively affirm that a law of this and that too with much less excuse. description must always, and under all circum- The true distinction is perfectly obvious. stances, be unjustifiable. But the presumption To punish a man because he has committed a against it is most violent; nor do we remem- crime, or is believed, though unjustly, to have ber any crisis, either in our own history, or in committed a crime, is not persecution. To the history of any other country, which would punish a man because we infer from the nahave rendered such a provision necessary. ture of some doctrine which he holds, or from But in the present, what circumstances called the conduct of other persons who hold the same for extraordinary rigour 1 There might be doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, disaffection among the Catholics. The prohi- is persecution; and is, in every case, foolish bition of their worship would naturally pro- and wicked. duce it. But it is from their situation, not from When Elizabeth put Ballard and Babington their conduct; from the wrongs which they to death, she was not persecuting. Nor should had suffered, not from those which they had we have accused her government of persecu. committed, that the existence of discontent tion for passing any law, however severe, among them must be inferred. There were against overt acts of sedition. But to argue libels, no doubt, and prophecies, and rumours, that because a man is a Catholic he must and suspicions; strange grounds for a law in- think it right to murder an heretical sovereign, flicting capital penalties, ex post facto, on a and that because he thinks it right he will at.. large order of men. tempt to do it, and then to found on this con. Eight years later, the bull of Pius deposing elusion a law for punishing him as if he had Elizabeth produced a third law. This law, to done it, is plain persecution. which alone, as we conceive, the defence now If, indeed, all men reasoned in the same under our consideration can apply, provides, manner on the same data, ad lhvtays did whai 7(0 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. they thought it their duty to do, this mode of who would have admitted in theorSthe deposdispensing punishment might be extremely ing power of the Pope, but who would not have judicious. But as people who agree about been ambitious to be stretched on the rack, premises often disagree about conclusions, and even though it were to be used, according to as no man in the world acts up to his own the benevolent proviso of Lord Burleigh, "as standard of right, there are two enormous gaps charitably as such a thing can be;" or to be in the logic by whichalone penalties for opi- hanged, drawn, and quartered, ever though, by nions can be defended. The doctrine of repro- that rare indulgence which the queen, of her bation, in the judgment of many very able especial grace, certain knowledge, and mere men, follows by syllogistic necessity from the motion, sometimes extended to very mitigated doctrine of election. Others conceive that the cases, he were allowed a fair time to choke Antinomian and Manichean heresies directly before the hangman began to grabble in his follow from the doctrine of reprobation; and entrails. it is very generally thought that licentiousness But the laws passed against the Puritans and cruelty of the worst description are likely had not even the wretched excuse which we to be the fruits, as they often have been the have been considering. In their case the cruelfruits, of Antinomian and Manichean opinions. ty was equal, the danger infinitely less. In fact This chain of reasoning, we think, is as per- the danger was created solely by the cruelty. fect in all its parts as that which makes out But it is superfluous to press the argument. By a Papist to be necessarily a traitor. Yet it no artifice of ingenuity can the stigmaof persewould be rather a strong measure to hang the cution, the worst blemish of the English church, Calvinists, on the ground that if they were be effaced or patched over. Her doctrines we spared they would infallibly commit all the well know do not tend to intolerance. She atrocities of Matthias and Knipperdoling. For, admits the possibility of salvation out of her reason the matter as we may, experience shows own pale. But this circumstance, in itself hous that a man may believe in election without nourable to her, aggravates the sin and the believing in reprobation, that he may-believe shame of those who persecuted in her name. in reprobation without being an Antinomian, Dominic and De Monfort did not at least murand that he may be an Antinomian without der and torture for differences of opinion which being a bad citizen. Man, in short, is so in-.they considered as trifling. It was to stop an consistent a creature, that it is impossible to infection which, as they believed, hurried to reason from his belief to his conduct, or from perdition every soul which it seized that they one part of his belief to another. employed their fire and steel. The measures We do not believe that every Englishman of the English government with respect to the who was reconciled to the Catholic church Papists and Puritans sprang from a widely would, as a necessary consequence, have different principle. If those who deny that the thought himself justified in deposing or assas- supporters of the Established Church were sinating Elizabeth. It is not sufficient to say guilty of religious persecution mean only that that the convert must have acknowledged the they were not influenced by religious motives, authority of the Pope, and that the Pope had we perfectly agree with them. Neither the issued a bull against the queen. We know penal code of Elizabeth, nor the more hateful through what strange loopholes the human system by which Charles the Second attempt. mind contrives to escape, when it wishes to ed to force Episcopacy on the Scotch, had an avoid a disagreeable inference from an admit- origin so noble. Their cause is to be sought ted propositiqn. We know how long the Jan- in some, circumstances which attended the Re. senists contrived to believe the Pope infallible formation in England-circumstances of which in matters of doctrine, and at the same time to the effects long continued to be felt, and may believe doctrines which he pronounced to be in some degree be traced even at the present heretical. Let it pass, however, that every day. Catholic in the kingdom thought that Eliza- In Germany, in France, in Switzerland, and beth might be lawfully murdered. Still the in Scotland, the contest against the Papal old maxim, that what is the business of every power was essentially a religious contest. In body is the business of nobody, is particularly all these countries, indeed, the cause of the likely to hold good in a case in which a cruel Reformation, like every other great cause, atdeath is the almost inevitable consequence of tracted tozitself many supporters influenced by making any attempt. no conscientious principle, many who quitted Of the ten thousand clergymen of the Church the Established Church only because they of England, there is scarcely one who would thought her in danger, many who were weary not say that a man who should leave his qoun- of her restraints, and many who were greedy try and friends to preach the gospel among for her spoils. But it was not by these adsavages, and who should, after labouring inde- herents that the separation was there conductfatigably without any hope of reward, termi- ed. They were welcome auxiliaries; their sup. nate his life by martyrdom, would deserve the port was too often purchased by unworthy warmest admiration. Yet we doubt whether compliances; but, however exalted in rank or ten of the ten thousand ever thought of going power, they were not the leaders in the enteron such an expedition. Why should.we sup- prise. Men of a widely different description, pose that conscientious motives, feeble as they men who redeemed great infirmities and errors are constantly found to be in a good cause, by sincerity, disinterestedness, energy, and cou. should be omnipotent for evil? Doubtless rage; men who, with many of the vices of rethere was many a jolly Popish priest in the volutionary chiefs and of polemic divines, unit. old manor -houses of the northern counties, ed some of the highest Qualities of apostles, HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 71 were the real directors. They might be vio- the sense of Mr. Hallam, and to comment on ent in innovation, and scurrilous in contro- it thus: If we consider Cranmer merely as a versy. They might sometimes act with inex- statesman, he will not appear a much worse cusable severity towards opponents, and some- man than Wolsey, Gardiner, Cromwell, or Solimes connive disreputably at the vices of merset. But when an attempt is made to set powerful allies. But fear was not in them, him up as a saint, it is scarcely possible for nor hypocrisy, nor avarice, nor any petty self- any man of sense, who knows the history of ishness. Their one great object was the de- the times well, to preserve his gravity. If the molition of the idols, and the purification of the memory of the archbishop had been left to sanctuary. If they were too indulgent to the find its own place, he would soon have been failings of eminent men, from whose patronage lost among the crowd which is mingled they expected advantage to the church, they "A quel cattivo coro never flinched before persecuting tyrants and Degli' angeli, che non furon ribelli, hostile armies. If they set the lives of others N0 fur fedeli a Dio, ma per se furo." at nought in comparison of their doctrines, And the only notice which it would'have been they were equally ready to throw away their necessary to take of his name, would have own. Such were the authors of the great been schism on the continent and in the northern part of this island. The Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of Hesse, the Prince of But when his admirers challenge for him a CondG and the King of Navarre, Moray and place in the noble army of martyrs, his claims Morton, might espouse the Protestant opinions, require fuller discussion. or might pretend to espouse them; but it was The shameful origin of his history, common from Luther, from Calvin, from Knox, that the enough in the scandalous chronicles of courts, Reformation took its character. seems strangely out of place in a hagiology. England has no such names to show; not Cranmer rose into favour by serving Henry in that she wanted men of sincere piety, of deep a disgraceful affair of his first divorce. He learning, of steady and adventurous courage. promoted the marriage of Anne Boleyn with But these were thrown into the back-ground. the king. On a frivolous pretence he proElsewhere men of this character Were the prin- nounced it null and void. On a pretence, if cipals. Here they acted a secondary part. possible, still more frivolous, he dissolved the Elsewhere worldliness was the tool of zeal. ties which bound the shameless tvrant to Here zeal was the tool of worldliness. A king, Anne of Cleves. He attached himself to whose character may be best described by say- Cromwell, while the fortunes of Cromwell ing that he was despotism itself personified, flourished. He voted for cutting off his head unprincipled ministers, a rapacious aristocra- without a trial, when the tide of royal favour cy, a servile parliament-such were the instru- turned. He conformed backwards, and forments by which England was delivered from wards as the king changed his mind. While the yoke of Rome. The work which had been Henry lived, he assisted in condemning to the begun by Henry, the murderer of his wives, flames those who denied the doctrine of tranwas continued by Somerset, the murderer of substantiation. When Henry died, he found his brother, and completed by Elizabeth, the out that the doctrine was false. He was, howmurderer of her guest. Sprung from brutal ever, not at a loss for people to burn. The passion, nurtured by selfish policy, the Refor- authority of his station, and of his gray hairs, mation in England displayed little of what had was employed to overcome the disgust with in other countries distinguished it —unflinch- which an intelligent and virtuous child reing and unsparing devotion, boldness of speech, garded persecution. and singleness of eye. These were indeed to Intolerance is always bad. But the sanbe found; but it was in the lower ranks of the guinary intolerance of a man who thus waparty which opposed the authority of Rome, in vered in his creed, excites a loathing to which such men as iHooper, Latimer, Rogers, and it is difficult to give vent without calling foul Taylor. Of those who had any important names. Equally false to political and to reshare in bringing the alteration about, the ex- ligious obligations, he was first the tool of cellent Ridley was perhaps the only person Somerset, and then the tool of NorthumEer. who did not consider it as a mere political job. land. When the former wished to put his Even Ridleydid not play a very prominent own brother to death, without even the form part. Among the statesmen and prelates who of a trial, he found a ready instrument in principally give the tone to the religious Cranmer. In spite of the canon law, which changes there is one, and one only, whose forbade a churchman to take any part in mat. conduct partiality itself can attribute to any ters of blood, the archbishop signed the warother than interested motives. It is not strange, rant for the atrocious sentence. When So therefore, that his character should have been merset had been in his turn destroyed, his d-. the subject of fierce controversy. We need not stroyer received the support of Cranmer in his say that we speak of Cranmer. attempt to change the course of the succesMr. Hallam has been severely censured for sion. saying, with his usual placid severity, that "if The apology made for him by his admirers we weigh the character of this prelate in an only renders his conduct more contemptible. equal balance, he will appear far indeed re- He complied, it is said, against his better judg. moved from the turpitude imputed to him by i ment, because he could not resist the entreahis enemies; yet not entitled to any extraordi- i ties of Edward! A holy prelate of sixty, one sary veneration." We will venture to expand! would think, might be better emploved by the 72 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. bedside of a dying child, than committing and have nothing to hope or to fear on earth. crimes at the request of his disciple. If he If Mary had suffered him to live, we suspect had shown half as much firmness when Ed- that he would have heard mass, and received ward requested him to commit treason, as he absolution, like a good Catholic, till the acces had before shown when Edward requested him sion of Elizabeth; and that he would then not to commit murder, he might have saved have purchased, by another apostasy, the power the country from one of the greatest misfor- of burning men better and braver than him. tunes that it ever underwent. He became, self. from whatever motive, the accomplice of the We do not mean, however, to represent him worthless Dudley. The virtuous scruples of as a monster of wickedness. He was not another young and amiable mind were to be wantonly cruel or treacherous. He was mereovercome. As Edward had been forced into ly a supple, timid, interested courtier, in times persecution, Jane was to seduced into usurpa- of frequent and violent change. That which tion. No transaction in our annals is more has always been represented as his distinguishunjustifiable than this. If a hereditary title ing virtue, the facility with which he forgave were to be respected, Mary possessed it. If a his enemies, belongs to the character. Those parliamentary title were preferable, Mary pos- of his class are never vindictive, and never sessed that also. If the interest of the Pro- grateful. A present interest effaces past ser. testant religion required a departure from the vices and past injuries from their minds toordinary rule of succession, that interest would gether. Their only object is self-preservation; have been best served by raising Elizabeth to and for this they conciliate those who wrong the throne. If the foreign relations of the them, just as they abandon those who serve kingdom were considered, still stronger rea- them. Before we extol a man for his forgivsons might be found for preferring Elizabeth ing temper, we should inquire whether he is to Jane. There was great doubt whether Jane above revenge, or below it. or the Queen of Scotland had the better claim; Somerset, with as little principle as his coand that doubt would, in all probability, have adjutor, had a firmer and more commanding produced a war, both with Scotland and with mind. Of Henry, an orthodox Catholic, ex. France, if the project of Northumberland had cepting that he chose to be his own Pope, and not been blasted in its infancy. That Eliza- of Elizabeth, who certainly had no objection beth had a better claim than the Queen of to the theology of Rome, we need say nothing. Scotland was indisputable. To the part which But these four persons were the great authors Cranmer, and unfortunately some better men of the English Reformation. Three of them than Cranmer, took in this most reprehensible had a direct interest in the extension of the scheme, much of the severity, with which the royal prerogative. The fourth was the ready Protestants were afterwards treated, must in tool of any who could frighten him. It is not fairness be ascribed. difficult to see from what motives, and on what The plot failed; popery triumphed; and plan, such persons would be inclined to remo. Cranmer recanted. Most people look on his del the Church. The scheme was merely to recantation as a single blemish on an honour- rob the Babylonian enchantress of her ornaable life, the frailty of an unguarded moment. ments, to transfer the full cup of her sorceries But, in fact, it was in strict accordance with to other hands, spilling as little as possible by the system on which he had constantly acted. the way. The Catholic doctrines and rites It was part of a regular habit. It was not the were to be retained in the Church of England, first recantation that he had made; and, in all But the king was to exercise the control which probability, if it had answered its purpose it formerly belonged to the Roman Pontiff. In would not have been the last. We do not this Henry for a time succeeded. The extra. blame him for not choosing to be burned alive. ordinary force of his character, the fortunate It is no very severe reproach to any person, situation in which he stood with respect to that he dees not possess heroic fortitude. But foreign powers, and the vast resources which surely a man who liked the fire so little, should the suppression of the monasteries placed at have had some sympathy for others. A per- his disposal, enabled him to oppress both the secutor who inflicts nothing which he is not religious factions equally. He punished with ready to endure deserves some respect. But impartial severity those who renounced the when a man, who loves his doctrines more doctrines of Rome, and those who acknowthan the lives of his neighbours, loves his own ledged her jurisdiction. The basis, however, little finger better than his doctrines, a very on which he attempted to establish his power, simple argument, a fortiori, will enable us to was too narrow. It would have been impossi. estimate the amount of his benevolence. ble even for him long to persecute both persuaBut his martyrdom, it is said, redeemed sions. Even under his reign there had been every thing. It is extraordinary that so much insurrections on the part of the Catholics, and ignorance should exist on this subject. The signs of a spirit which was likely soon to profact is, that if a martyr be a man who chooses duce insurrection on the part of the Protestto die rather than to renounce his opinions, ants. It was plainly necessary therefore that Cranmer was no more a martyr than Dr. Dodd. the government should form an alliance with He died solely because he could not help it. one or the other side. To recognise the Papal He never retracted his recantation, till he found supremacy, would have been to abandon its he had made it in vain. The queen was fully whole design. Reluctantly and sullenly it at resolved that, Catholic or Protestant, he should last joined the Protestants. In forming this burn. Then he spoke out, as people generally junction, its object was to procure as much Asp'rk out when they are at the point of death, aid as possible for its selfish undertaking, aa44 HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 1W to make the smallest possible concessions to- was determined to he even with them in Eng. the spirit of religious innovation. land, where he was powerful. Persecution From this compromise the Church of England gradually changed a sect into a faction. That sprung. In many respects,.ndeed, it has been there was any thing in the religious opinions well for her, that in an age of exuberant zeal, of the Puritans, which rendered them hostile her principal founders were mere politicians. to monarchy, has never been proved to our To this circumstance she owes her moderate satisfaction. After our civil contests, it be. articles, her decent ceremonies, her noble and came the fashion to say that Presbyterianisma pathetic liturgy. Her worship is not disfigured was connected with Republicanism; just as by mummery. Yet she has preserved, in a it has been the fashion to say, since the time far greater degree than any of her Protestant of the French Revolution, that Infidelity is consisters, that art of striking the senses, and fill- nected with Republicanism. It is perfectly ing the imagination, in which the Catholic true, that a church constituted on the Calvin. Church so eminently excels. But on the other istic model will not strengthen the hands of hand, she continued to be, for more than a the sovereign so much as a hierarchy, which hundred and fifty years, the servile handmaid consists of several ranks, differing in dignity of monarchy, the steady enemy of public liber- and emolument, and of which all the members ty. The divine rights of -kings, and the duty are constantly looking to the government for of passively obeying all their commands, were promotion. But experience has clearly shown her favourite tenets. She held them firmly that a Calvinistic church, like every other through times of oppression, persecution, and church, is disaffected when it is persecuted, licentiousness; while law was trampled down; quiet when it is tolerated, and actively loyal while judgment was perverted; while the peo- when it is favoured and cherished. Scotland pie were eaten as though they were bread. has had a Presbyterian establishment during Once and but once —for a moment, and but for a century and a half. Yet her General'As. a moment-when her own dignity and property sembly has not, during that period, given half were touched, she forgot to practise the sub- so much trouble to the government as the mission which she had taught. Convocation of the Church of England gave Elizabeth clearly discerned the advantages to it during the thirty years which followed the which were to be derived from a close connec- Revolution. That James and Charles should tion between the monarchy and the priesthood. have been mistaken on this point, is not sur. At the time of her accession, indeed, she evi- prising. But we are astonished, we must condently meditated a partial reconciliation with fess, when writers of our own time, men who Rome. And throughout her whole life, she have before them the proof of what toleration leaned strongly to some of the most obnoxious can effect, men who may see with their own parts of the Catholic system. But her impe- eyes that the Presbyterians are no such monrious temper, her keen sagacity, and her pecu- sters, when government is wise enough to let liar situation, soon led her to attach herself them alone, should defend the old persecutions, completely to a church which was all her own. on the ground that they were indispensable On the same principle on which she joined it, to the safety of the church and the throne. she attempted to drive all her people within How persecution protects churches anit its pale by persecution. She supported it by thrones was soon made manifest. A systemsevere penal laws, not because she thought atic political opposition, vehement, daring, and conformity to its discipline necessary to salva- inflexible, sprang from a schism about trifles, tion, but because it was the fastness which ar- altogether unconnected with the real interests bitrary power was making strong for itself; of religion or of the state. Before the close because she expected a more profound obedi- of the reign of Elizabeth it'began to show ence from those who saw in her both their itself. It broke forth on the question of the civil and their ecclesiastical head, than from monopolies. Evqn the imperial Lioness was those who, like the Papists, ascribed spiritual compelled to abandon her prey, and slowly and authority to the Pope, or from those who, like fiercely to recede before the assailants. The some of the Puritans, ascribed it only to Hea- spirit of liberty grew with the growing wealth ven. To dissent from her establishment was and intelligence of the people. The feeble to dissent from an institution founded with an struggles and insults of James irritated instead expres, view to the maintenance and extension of suppressing it. And the events which imof the royal prerogative. mediately followed the accession of his son, This great queen and her successors, by portended a contest of no common severity, considering conformity and loyalty as identi- between a king resolved to be absolute, and a cal, at length made them so. With respect to people resolved to be free. the Catholics, indeed, the rigour of persecu- The famous proceedings of the third Parliationl abated after her death. James soon found ment of Charles, and the tyrannical measures that they were unable to injure him; and that which followed its dissolution, are extremely the animosity which the Puritan party felt well described by Mr. Hallam. No writer, we towards them, drove them of necessity to take think, has shown, in so clear and satisfactory refuge under his throne. During the subse- a manner, that at that time the government enquent conflict, their fault was any thing but tertained a fixed purpose of destroying the old disloyalty. On the other hand, James hated parliamentary Constitution of England, or aS the Puritans with far more than the hatred of least of reducing it to a mere shadow. We Elizabeth. Her aversion to them was politii hasten, however, to a part of his work, which, cal; his was personal. The sect had plagued though it abounds in valuable information, ani him in Scotland, where he was weak: and he' in remarks well deserving to be attentively VOL. I.-10 G 74 MACAULAY'S MISCEL LANEOUS WRITINGS. considered; and though it is, like the rest, evi- right in the point of law, is now universally dently written in a spirit of perfect imparti- admitted. Even had it been otherwise, he had ality, appears to us, in many points, objection- a fair case. Five of the judges, servile as our able. courts then were, pronounced in his favour. We pass to the year 1640. The fate of the The majority against him was the smallest short Parliament held in that year already in- possible. In no country retaining the slightest dicated the views of the king. That a parlia- vestige of constitutional liberty, can a modest ment so moderate in feeling should have met and decent appeal to the laws be treated as a after so many years of oppression, is truly crime. Strafford, however, recommends that, wonderful Hyde extols its loyal and concili- for taking the sense of a legal tribunal on a atory spirit. Its conduct, we are told, made legal question, Hampden should be punished, the excellent Falkland in love with the very and punished severely —"whipt," says the inname of parliament. We think, indeed, with solent apostate, " whipt into his senses. If the Oliver St. John, that its moderation was carried rod," he adds, "be so used that it smarts not, too far, and that the times required sharper I am the more sorry." This is the maintenance and more decided councils. It was fortunate, of just authority. however, that the king had another opportunity In civilized nations, the most arbitrary goof showing that hatred of the liberties of his vernments have generally suffered justice to subjects, which was the ruling principle of all have a free course in private suits. Strafford his conduct. The sole crime of this assembly wished to make every cause in every court was that, meeting after a long intermission of subject to the royal prerogative. He comparliaments, and after a long series of cruelties plained, that in Ireland he was not permitted and illegal imposts, they seemed inclined to to meddle in cases between party and party. examine grievances before they would vote "1 know very well," says he, " that the common supplies. For this insolence, they were dis- lawyers will be passionately against it, who solved almost as soon as they met. are wont to put such a prejudice upon all Defeat, universal agitation, financial embar- other professions, as if none were to be trusted, rassments, disorganization in every part of the or capable to administer justice but themselves: government, compelled Charles again to con- yet how well this suits with monarchy, when vene the Houses before the close of the same they monopolize all to be governed by their year. Their meeting was one of the great eras year-books, you in England have a costly exin the history of the civilized world. What- ample." We are really curious to know by ever of political freedom exists either in Eu- what arguments it is to be proved, that the rope or in America, has sprung, directly or in- power of interfering in the lawsuits of indi. directly, from those institutions which they se- viduals is part of the just authority of the exe. cured and reformed. We never turn to the cutive government. annals of those times, without feeling increased It is not strange that a man so careless of admiration of the patriotism, the energy, the de- the common civil rights, which even despots cision, the consummate wisdom, which marked have generally respected, should treat with the measures of that great parliament, from the scorn the limitations which the constitution day on which it met, to the commencement of imposes on the royal perogative. We might civil hostilities. quote pages: but we will content ourselves The impeachment of Strafford was the first, with a single specimen: "The debts of the and perhaps the greatest blow. The whole con- crown being taken off, you may govern as s you duct of that celebrated man proved that he had please: and most resolute I am that may be formed adeliberate schemeto subvert the funda- done without borrowing any help forth of the mental laws of England. Those parts of his cor- king's lodgings." respondence which have been brought to light Such was the theory of that thorough reform since his death, place the matter beyond a in the state which Strafford meditated. His doubt. One of his admirers has, indeed, offer- whole practice, from the day on which he sold ed to show, "that the passages which Mr. himself to the court, was in strict conformity Hallam has invidiously extracted from the cor- to his theory. For his accomplices various respondence between Laud and Strafford, as excuses may be urged; ignorance, imbecility, proving their design to introduce a thorough religious bigotry. But Wentworth had no tyranny, refer not to any such design, but to a such plea. His intellect was capacious. His thorough reform in the affairs of state, and the early prepossessions were on the side of poputhorough maintenance of just authority!" We lar rights. He knew the whole beauty and will recommend two or three of these passages value of the system which he attempted to deto the especial notice of our readers. face. He was the first of the Rats; the first All who know any thing of those times, know of those statesmen whose patriotism has been that the conduct of Hampden in the affair of only the coquetry of political prostitution; the ship-money met with the warm approbation whose profligacy has taught governments to of every respectable royalist in England. It adopt the old maxim of the slave-market, that drew forth the ardent eulogies of the cham- it is cheaper to buy than to breed, to import pions of the prerogative, and even of the crown defenders from an opposition, than to rear lawyers themselves. Clarendon allows his de- them in a ministry. He was the first English. meanour through the whole proceeding to have man to whom a peerage was not an addition been such, that even those whki watched for an of honour, but a sacrament of infamy —a bap occasion against the defender of the people, tism into the communion of corruption. As were compelled to acknowledge themselves he was the earliest of the hateful list, so was unable to find any fault in hia. That he was he also by far the greatest-eloquent, saga. HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 76 cious, adventurous, intrepid, ready of inven- for his life, took that ground of defence. The tion, immutable of purpose, in every talent Journals of the Lords show that the Judges which exalts or destroys nations, pre-eminent, were consulted. They answered with one acthe lost Archangel, the Satan of the apostasy. cord, that the articles on which the earl was The title for which, at the time of his deser- convicted amounted to high treason. This tion, he exchanged a name honourably distin- judicial opinion, even if we suppose it to have guished in the cause of the people, reminds us been erroneous, goes far to justify the Parliaof the appellation which, from the moment of ment. The judgment pronounced in the Exthe first treason, fixed itself on the fallen Son chequer Chamber has always been urged by of the Morning- the apologists of Charles in defence of his conduct.respecting ship-money. Yet on that oc"So call him now.-flis former name Is heard no more in heaven." casion there was but a bare majority in favour of the party, at whose pleasure all the magisThe defection of Strafford from the popular trates composing the tribunal were removable. party contributed mainly to draw on him the The decision in the case of Strafford was hatred of his contemporaries. It has since unanimous; as far as we can judge, it was unmade him an object of peculiar interest to those biassed; and though there may be room for whose lives have been spent, like his, in prov- hesitation, we think, on the whole, that it was ing that there is no malice like the malice of reasonable. "It may be remarked," says Mr. a renegade. Nothing can be more natural or Hallam, "that the fifteenth article of the imbecoming, than that one turn-coat should eulo- peachment charging Strafford with raising mogize another. ney by his own authority, and quartering troops Many enemies of public liberty have been on the people of Ireland, in order to compel distinguished by their private virtues. But their obedience to his unlawful requisitions, Strafford was the same throughout. As was upon which, and upon one other arLcle, not the statesman, such was the kinsman and such upon the whole matter, the Peers voted him the lover. His conduct towards Lord Mount- guilty, does, at least, approach very nearly, if morris is recorded by Clarendon. For-a word we may not say more, to a substantive treason which can scarcely be called rash, which within the statute of Edward III., as a levying could not have been made the subject of an of war against the king." This most sound.rdinary civil action, he dragged a man of high and just exposition has provoked a very ridicu. rank, married to a relative of that saint about lous reply. "It should seem to be an Irish whom he whimpered to the Peers, before a tri- construction this," says an assailant of Mr bunal of his slaves. Sentence of death was Hallam, "which makes the raising money for passed. Every thing but death was inflicted. the king's service, with his knowledge, and by Yet the treatment which Lord Ely experienced his approbation, to. come under the head of was still more disgusting. That nobleman levying war on the king, and therefore to be was thrown into prison, in order to compel him high treason." Now, people who undertake to to settle his estate in a manner agreeable to write on points of constitutional law should his daughter-in-law, whom, as there is every know, what every attorney's clerk and every reason to believe, Strafford had debauched. forward schoolboy on an upper form knows, These stories do not rest on vague report. that, by a fundamental maxim of our polity, The historians most partial to the minister ad- the king can do no wrong; that every court mit their truth, and censure them in terms is bound to suppose his conduct and his sentiwhich, though too lenient for the occasion, are ments to be, on every occasion, such as they still severe. These facts. are alone sufficient ought to be; and that no evidence can be reto justify the appellation with which Pym ceived for the purpose of setting aside this branded him —"the wicked earl." loyal and salutary presumption. The Lords, In spite of all his vices, in spite of all his therefore, were bound to take it for granted, dangerous projects, Strafford was certainly en- that the king considered arms which were untitled to the benefit of the law; but of the law lawfully directed against his people, as directed in all its rigour; of the law according to the against his own throne. utmost strictness of the letter which killeth. The remarks of Mr. Hallam on the bill of at. He was not to be torn in pieces by a mob, or tainder, though, as usual, weighty and acute~ stabbed in the back by an assassin. He was do not perfectly satisfy us. He defends the not to have punishment meted out to him from principle, but objects to the severity of the his own iniquitous measure. But if justice, punishment. That, on great emergencies, the in the whole range of its wide armory, con- state may justifiably pass a retrospective act tained one weapon which could pierce him, against an offender, we have no doubt whatthat weapon his pursuers were bound, before ever. We are acquainted with only one argu God and man, to employ. ment on the other side, which has in it enough -"If he may of reason to bear an answer. Warning, it is Find mercy in the law,'tis his; if none, said, is the end of punishment. But a punish Let him not seek't of ns." ment inflicted, not by a general rule, but by an Such was the language which the Parliament arbitrary discretion; cannot serve the purpose might justly use. of a warning; it is therefore useless; and use. Did then the articles against Strafford strict- less pain ought not to be inflicted. This soly amount to high treason? Many people who phism has found its way into several books on know neither what the articles were, nor what penal legislation. It admits, however, of a very high treason is, will answer in the negative, simple refutation. In the first place, punish. Simjpy because the accused person, speaking ments ex postfacto are not altogether useless 76 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. even as warnings. They are warnings to a If there be any universal objection to retro. particular class, which stands in great need of spective punishment, there is no more to be warnings-to favourites and ministers. They said. But such is not the opinion of Mr. Halremind persons of this description, that there lam. He approves of the mode of proceeding. may be a day of reckoning for those who ruin He thinks that a punishment not previously and enslave their country in all the forms of affixed by law to the offences of Strafford, law. But this is not all. Warning is, in or- should have been inflicted; that he should have dinary cases, the principal end of punishment; been degraded from his rank, and condemned but it is not the only end. To remove the of- to perpetual banishment, by act of Parliament; fender, to preserve society from those dangers but he sees strong objections to the taking which are to be apprehended from his incorri- away of his life. Our difficulty would have gible depravity, is often one of the ends. In the been at the first step, and there only. Indeed, case of such a knave as Wild, or such a ruffian we can scarcely conceive that any case, which as Thurtell, it is a very important end. In the does not call for capital punishment, can call case of a powerful and wicked statesmen, it is for retrospective punishment. We can scarceinfinitely more important; so important, as ly conceive a man so wicked and so dangerous, alone to justify the utmost severity, even that the whole course of law must be disturbthough it were certain that his fate would not ed in order to reach him; yet not so wicked as deter others from imitating his example. At to deserve the severest sentence, nor so dangerpresent, indeed, we should think it extremely ous as to require the last and surest custodypernicious to take such a course, even with a that of the grave. If we had thought that Strafworse minister than Strafford, if a worse could ford might be safely suffered to live in France, exist; for, at present, Parliament has only to we should have thought it better that he should withhold its support from a cabinet, to produce continue to live in England, than that he should an immediate change of hands. The case was be exiled by a special act. As to degradation, it widely different in the reign of Charles the First. was not the earl, but the general and the statesThat prince had governed for eleven years man, whom the people had to fear. Essex said, without any Parliament; and even when Par- on that occasion, with more truth than eloliament was sitting, had supported Bucking- quence, "Stone-dead hath no fellow." And ham against its most violent remonstrances. often during the civil wars the Parliament had Mr. Hallam is of opinion that a bill of pains reason to rejoice, that an irreversible law and and penalties ought to have been passed an impassable barrier protected them from the against Strafford; but he draws a distinction valour and capacity of Strafford. less just, we think, than his distinctions usual- It is remarkable that neither Hyde nor Falkly are. His opinion, so far as we can collect land voted against the bill of attainder. There it, is this; that there are almost insurmounta- is, indeed, reason to believe that Falkland ble objections to retrospective laws for capital spoke in favour of it. In one respect, as Mr. punishment; but that where the punishment Hallam has observed, the proceeding was hostops short of death, the objections are compa- nourably distinguished from others of the same ratively trifling. Now the practice of taking kind. An act was passed to relieve the childthe severity of the penalty into consideration, ren of Strafford from the forfeiture and corwhen the question is about the mode of proce- ruption of blood, which were the legal consedure and the rules of evidence, is no doubt suf- quences of the sentence. The crown had never ficiently common. We often see a man con- shown equal generosity in a case of treason. victed of a simple larceny, on evidence on The liberal conduct of the Commons has been which he would not be convicted of a burglary. fully and most appropriately repaid. The house It sometimes happens that a jury, when there of Wentworth has since been as much distinis strong suspicion, but not absolute demon- guished by public spirit as by power and splen. stration, that an act, unquestionably amounting dour; and may at the present time boast of to murder, was committed by the prisoner be- members, with whom Say and Hampden would fore them, will find him guilty of manslaughter; have been proud to act. but this is surely very irrational. The rules It is somewhat curious that the admirers of of ev:idence no more depends on the magnitude Strafford should also be, without a single exof the interests at stake than the rules of ception, the admirers of Charles; for whatever arithmetic. We might as well say, that we have we may think of the conduct of the Parliament a greater chance of throwing a size when we are towards the unhappy favourite, there can be no playing for a penny than when we are playing doubt that the treatment which he received for a thousand pounds, as that a form of trial from his master was disgraceful. Faithless which is sufficient for the purposes of justice, alike to his people and his tools, the king did in a matter affecting liberty and property, is in- not scruple to play the part of the cowardly ap. sufficient in a matter affecting life. Nay, if a prover, who hangs his accomplice. It is good mode of proceeding be too lax for capital that there should be such men as Charles in cases,, is, a fortiori, to,' lax for all others; for, every league of villany. It is for such men in capital cases, the principles of human na- that the offers of pardon and reward, which ap. ture will always afford considerable security. pear after a murder, are intended. They are No judge is so cruel as he who indemnifies indemnified, remunerated, and despised. The himself for scrupulosity in cases of blood, by very magistrate who avails himself of their aslicense in affairs cf smaller importance. The sistance looks on them as wretches more de. difference in tale on the one side far more than graded than the criminal whom they betray. makes up for the difference in weight on the Was Strafford innocent was he a. meritorious.ther. sereant of the crown X If so, what shall we HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 77 think of the prince, who, having solemnly pro- to attain his ends; the readiness with which mised him that not a hair of his head should he gave promises; the impudence with which be hurt, and possessing an unquestioned con- he broke them; the cruel indifference with stitutional right to save him, gave him up to which he threw away his useless or damaged the vengeance of his enemies 1 There were tools, rendered him, at least till his character some points which we know that Charles was fully exposed, and his power shaken to its would not concede, and for which he was will- foundations, a more dangerous enemy to the ing to risk the chances of civil war. Ought constitution than a man of far greater talents not a king, who will make a stand for any and resolution might have been. Such princes thing, to make a stand for the innocent blood? may still be seen-the scandals of the southWas Strafford guilty! Even on this supposi- ern thrones of Europe; princes false alike to tion, it is difficult not to feel disdain for the the accomplices who have served them, and partner of his guilt-the tempter turned pun- to the opponents who have spared them; isher. If, indeed, from that time forth, the con- princes who, in the hour of danger, concede duct of Charles had been blameless, it might every thing, swear every thing, hold out their have been said that his eyes were at last open- cheeks to every smiter, give up to punishment ed to the errors of his former conduct, and that every minister of their tyranny, and await in sacrificing to the wishes of his Parliament, with meek and smiling implacability the blessa minister whose crime had been a devotion too ed day of perjury and proscription. zealous to the interests of his prerogative, he We will pass by the instances of oppression gave a painful and deeply humiliating proof and falsehood which disgraced the early years of the sincerity of his repentance. We may of the reign of Charles. We will leave out describe his behaviour on this occasion in of the question the whole history of his third terms resembling those which Hume has em- Parliament, the price which he exacted for ployed, when speaking of the conduct of assenting to the Petition of Right, the perfidy Churchill at the Revolution. It required ever with which he violated his engagements, the after the most rigid justice and sincerity in his death of Eliot-rthe barbarous punishments indealings with his people to vindicate it. His flicted by the Star Chamber, the ship-money, subsequent dealings with his people, however, and all the measures, now universally con clearly showed, that it was not from any re- demned, which disgraced his administration spect for the constitution, or from any sense of from 1630 to 1640. We will admit, that it the deep criminalty of the plans in which Straf- might be the duty of the Parliament, after ford and himself had been engaged, that he gave punishing the most guilty of his creatures, up his minister to the axe. It became evident after abolishing the inquisitorial tribunals, that he had abandoned a servant who, deeply which had been the instruments of his tyguilty as to all others, was guiltless to him ranny, after reversing the unjust sentences of alone, solely in order to gain time for maturing his victims, to pause in tts course. The conother schemes of tyranny, and purchasing the cessions which had been mnade were great, the aid of other Wentworths. He who would not evils of civil war obvious, the advantages even avail himself of the power which the laws gave of victory doubtful. The former errors of the him to save a friend, to whom his honour was king might be imputed to youth, to the prespledged, soon showed that he did not scruple to sure of circumstances, to the influence of evil break every law and forfeit every pledge, in counsel, to the undefined state of the law. order to work the ruin of his opponents. We firmly believe, that if, even at this eleventh "Put not your trust in princes!" was the hour, Charles had acted fairly towards his expression of the fallen minister, when he people, if he had even acted fairly towards his neard that Charles had consented to his death. own partisans, the House of Commons would The whole history of the times is a sermon on have given him a fair chance of retrieving the that bitter text. The defence of the Long Par- public confidence. Such was the opinion of liament is comprised in the dying words of its Clarendon. He distinctly states, that the fury victim. of opposition had abated; that a reaction had The early measures of that Parliament, Mr. begun to take place; that the majority of those Hallam in general approves. But he consi- who had taken part against the king were deders the proceedings which took place after sirous of an honourable and complete reconthe recess in the summer of 1641, as mischie- ciliation; and that the more violent, or, as it vous and violent. He thinks, that from that soon appeared, the more judicious members time, the demands of the Houses were not war- of the party were fast declining in credit. The ranted by any imminent danger to the consti- remonstrance had been carried with great diftution, and that in the war which ensued they ficulty. The uncompromising antagonists of were clearly the aggressors. As this is one- the court, such as Cromwell, had begun to of the most interesting questions in our his- talk of selling their estates and leaving Engtory, we will venture to state, at some length, land. The event soon showed that they were the reasons which have led us to form an opi- the only men who really understood how much nion on it contrary to that of a writer whose inhumanity and fraud lay hid under the conjudgment we so highly respect. stitutional language and gracious demeanour We will premise, that we think worse of of the king. King Charles the First than even Mr. Hallam The attempt to seize the five members was appears to do. The fixed hatred of liberty, undoubtedly the real cause of the war. Front which was the principle of all his public con- that moment, the loyal confidence with which duct; the unscrupulousness with which he most of the popular party were beginning tc,,diopted any means which might enable him regard the king, was turned into hatred aud Af '78 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. incurable suspicion. From that moment, the most extended ministry that ever existed, into Parliament was compelled to surround itself a feeble opposition, and raised a king who was with defensive arms; from that moment, the talking of retiring to Hanover, to a height of city assumed the appearance of a garrison; power which none of his predecessors had enfrom that moment, it was that, in the phrase joyed since the Revolution. A crisis of this of Clarendon, the carriage of Hampden became description was evidently approaching in 1642. fiercer, that he drew the sword and threw away At such a crisis, a prince of a really honest the scabbard. For, from that moment, it must and generous nature, who had erred, who had have been evident to every impartial obser- seen his error, who had regretted the lost afver, that in the midst of professions, oaths, and fections of his people, who rejoiced in the smiles, the tyrant was constantly looking for- dawning hope of regaining them, would be ward to an absolute sway, and to bloody re- peculiarly careful to take no step which could venge. give occasion of offence, even to the unreason. The advocates of Charles have very dex- able. On the other hand, a tyrant, whose terously contrived to conceal from their read- whole life was a lie, who hated the constitution ers the real nature of this transaction. By the more because he had been compelled to making concessions apparently candid and feign respect for it, to whom his honolur and ample, they elhide the great accusation. They the love of his people were as nothing, would allow that the measure was weak, and even select such a crisis for some appalling violafrantic, an'absurd caprice of Lord Digby, ab- tion of law, for some stroke which might resurdlly adopted by the king. And thus they move the chiefs of an opposition, and intimi. save their client from the full penalty of his date the herd. This Charles attempted. He transgression, by entering a plea of guilty to missed his blow: but so narrowly, that it the minor offence. To us his conduct appears would have been mere madness in those at at this day, as at the time it appeared to the whomn it was aimed to trust him again. Parliament and the city. We think it by no It deserves to be remarked, that the king means so foolish as it pleases his friends to had, a short time before, promised the most represent it, and far more wicked. respectable royalists in the House of Commons, In the first place, the transaction was illegal Falkland, Colepepper, and Hyde, that he would from beginning to end. The impeachment take no measure in which that House was was illegal. The process was illegal. The concerned, without consulting them. On this service was illegal. If Charles wished to pro- occasion he did not consult them. His consecute the five members for treason, a bill duct astonished them more than any other against them should have been sent to a grand members of the assembly. Clarendon says jury. That a commoner cannot be tried for that they were deeply hurt by this want of high treason by the Lords at the suit of the confidence, and the more hurt, because, if crown, is part of the very alphabet of our law. they had been consulted, they would have done That no man can be arrested by a message or their utmost to dissuade Charles from so imna verbal summons of the king, with or without proper a proceeding. Did it never occur to a warrant from a responsible magistrate, is Clarendon, will it not at least occur to men less equally clear. This was an established maxim partial, that there was good reason for this? of our jurisprudence in the time of Edward the When the danger to the throne seemed immiFourth. " A subject," said Chief Justice nent, the king was ready to put himself for a Markham to that prince, "may arrest for trea- time into the hands of those who, though they son: the king cannot; for if the arrest be il. had disapproved of his past conduct, thought legal, the party has no remedy against the that the remedies had now become worse than king." the distempers. But we believe, that in heart The time at which Charles took this step he regarded both the parties in the Parliament also deserves consideration. We have already with feelings of aversion, which differed only said, that the ardour which the parliament had in the degree of their intensity; and that the displayed at the time of its first meeting hard lawful warning which he proposed to give by considerably abated; that the leading oppo- immolating the principal supporters of the nents of the court were desponding, and that remonstrance, was partly intended for the intheir followers were in general inclined to mild- struction of those who had concurred in cent er and more temperate measures than those suring the ship-money, and in abolishing the which had hitherto been pursued. In every Star Chamber. country, and in none more than in England, The Commons informed the king that their there is a disposition to take the part of those members should be forthcoming to answer who are unmercifully run down, and who seem any charge legally brought against them. The destitute of all means of defence. Every man Lords refused to assume the unconstitutional who has observed the ebb and flow of public offices with which he attempted to invest them. feeling in our own time, will easily recall ex- And what then was his conduct? Hie went, amples to illustrate this remark. An English attended by hundreds of armed men, to seize statesman ought to pay assiduous worship to the objects of his hatred in the House itself! Nemesis, to be most apprehensive of ruin when The party opposed to him more than insinu. he is at the height of power and popularity, ated that his purpose was of the most atrocious and to dread his enemy most, when most com- kind. We will not condemn him merely on their petely pr',,,trated. The fate of the Coalition suspicions; we will not hold him answerable Ministry, In 1784, is perhaps the strongest in- I for the sanguinary expressions of the loose stance in our history of the operation of this brawlers who composed his train. We will,rinciple. A',w weeks turned the ablest and judge of his conduct by itself alone. And we HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 7 say, without hesitation, that it is impossible to damental laws, and representative assemblies acquit him of having meditated violence, and In the fifteenth century, the government of violence which might probably end in blood. Castile seems to have been as free as that of He knew that the legality of his proceedings our own country. That of Arragon was beyond was denied; he must have known that some all question far more so. In France, the sove. of the accused members were not men likely reign was more absolute. Yet, even in France, to submit peaceably to an illegal arrest. There the States-general alone could constitutionally was every reason to expect that he would find impose taxes; and at the very time when the them in their places, that they would refuse to authority of those assemblies was beginning obey his summons, and that the House would to languish, the Parliament of Paris received support them in their refusal. What course such an accession of strength, as enabled it, would then have been left to him? Unless we in some measure, to perform the functions of suppose that he went on this expedition for the a legislative assembly. Sweden and Denmark sole purpose of making himself ridiculous, had constitutions of a similar description. we must believe that he would have had re- Let us overleap two or three hundred years, course to force. There would have been a and contemplate Europe at the commencement scuffle; and it might not, under such circum- of the eighteenth century. Every free constistances, have been in his power, even if it tltion, save one, had gone down. Trhat of were in his inclination, to prevent a scuffle England had weathered the danger; and was from ending in a massacre. Fortunately for his riding in full security. In Denmark and fame, unfortunately, perhaps,for what he prized Sweden, the kings had availed themselves of far more, the interests of his hatred and his am- the disputes which raged between the nobles bition, the affair ended differently. The birds, and the commons, to unite all the powers of as he said, were flown, and his plan was dis- government in their own hands. In France concerted. Posterity is not extreme to mark the institution of the states was only mainabortive crimes. And thus his advocates have tained by lawyers, as a part of the ancient found it easy to represent a step which, but for theory of their government. It slept a deep a trivial accident, might have filled England sleep-destined to be broken by a tremen. ~with mourning and dismay, as a mere error dous waking. No person remembered the sitof judgment, wild and foolish, but perfectly tings of the three orders, or expected ever to innocent. Such was not, however, at the time, see them renewed. Louis the Fourteenth had the opinion of any party. The most zealous imposed on his Parliament a patient silence royalists were so much disgusted and ashamed, of sixty years. His grandson, after the war that they suspended their opposition to the po- of the Spanish succession, assimilated the pular party, and, silently, at least, concurred constitution of Arragon to that of Castile, and in measures of precaution so strong as almost extinguished the last feeble remains of liberty to amount to resistance. in the Peninsula. In England, on the other Fromt that day, whatever of confidence and hand, the Parliament was infinitely more pow loyal attachment had survived the misrule of erful than it had ever been. Not only was its seventeen years, was, in the great body of the legislative authority fully established, but its people, extinguished, and extinguished forever. right to interfere, by advice almost equivalent As soon as the outrage had failed, the hypo- to command, in every department of the excrisy recommenced. Down to the very eve ecutive government, was recognised. The of his flagitious attempt, Charles had been appointment of ministers, the relations with talking of his respect for the privileges of foreign powers, the conduct of a war or a neParliament and the liberties of his people. gotiation, depended less on the pleasure of the He began again in the same style on the mor- prince than on that of the two Houses. row; but it was too late. To trust him now What then made us to differ? Why was it would have been, not moderation, but insanity. that, in that epidemic malady of constitutions, What common security would suffice against ours escaped the destroying influence; or ra. a prince who was evidently watching his sea- ther that, at the very crisis of the disease, a son with that cold and patient hatred which, fivourable turn took place in England, and in in the long run, tires out every other pas- England alone? It was not surely'Withont a sion? cause that so many kindred systems of govern. It is certainly from no admiration of Charles ment, having flourished together so long, lan. that Mr. Hallam disapproves of the conduct guished and expired at almost the same litne, of the House in resorting to arms. But he It is the fashion to say, that the progress thinks, that any attempt on the part of that of civilization is favourable to liberty. The prince to establish a despotism would have maxim, though on the' whole true, must be bern as strongly opposed by his adherents as limited by many qualifications and exceptions. by his enemies; that the constitution might Wherever a poor and rude nation, in which be considered as out of danger; or, at least, the form of government is a limited monarchy, that it had more to apprehend from war than receives a great accession of wealth and from the king. On this subject Mr. Hallam knowledge, it is in imminent danger of falling dilates at length; and with conspicuous ability. under arbitrary power. We will offer a few considerations, which lead In such a state of society as that which exus to,incline to a different opinion. isted all over Europe during the middle ages, The constitution of England was only one it was not from the king, but from the nobles, of a large family. In all the monarchies of that there was danger. Very slight checks western Europe, during the middle ages, there sufficed to keep the sovereign in order. His existed restraints on the royal authority, fun- means of corruption and intimidation -.erpr t8O MACAULAYS MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. very scanty. He had little money, little pa- jealousy, and resent with prompt indignation, tronage, no military establishment. His armies every violation of the laws which the sovereign resembled juries. They were draughted out might commit. They were so strong, that they of the mass of the people; they soon returned might safely be careless. He was so feeble, to it again; and the character which was ha- that he might safely be suffered to encroach. bitual prevailed over that which was occa- If he ventured too far, chastisement and ruin' sional. A campaign of forty days was too were at hand. In fact, the people suffered more short, the discipline of a national militia too from his weakness than from his authority. lax, to efface from their minds the feelings of The tyranny of wealthy and powerful subjects civil life. As they carried to the camp the was the characteristic evil of the times. The sentiments and intefrests of the farm and the royal prerogatives were not even sufficient for shop, so they carried back to the farm and the the defence of property and the maintenance shop the military accomplishments which they of police. had acquired in the camp. At home they The progress of civilization introduced a learned how to value their rights-abroad how great change. War became a science; and, to defend them. as a necessary consequence, a separate trade. Such a military force as this was a far The great body of the people grew every day stronger restraint on the regal power thanthe more reluctant to undergo the inconveniences legislative assemblies. Resistance to an esta- of military service, and better able to pay blished government, in modern times so diffi- others for undergoing them. A new class of cult and perilous an enterprise, was, in the men, therefore-dependent on the crown alone; fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the simplest natural enemies of those popular rights, and easiest matter in the world. Indeed, it which are to them as the dew to the fleece of was far too simple and easy. An insurrection Gideon; slaves among freemen; freemen was got up then almost as easily as a petition among slaves-grew into importance. That is got up now. In a popular cause, or even in physical force, which in the dark ages had bean unpopular cause favoured by a few great longed to the nobles and the commons, and nobles, an army was raised in a week. If the had, far more than any charter or any assemking were, like our Edward the Second and bly, been the safeguard of their privileges, was Richard the Second, generally odious, he could transferred entire to the king. Monarchy not procure a single bow or halbert. He fell gained in two ways. The sovereign was at once and without an effort. In such times strengthened, the subjects weakened. The a sovereign like Louis the Fifteenth, or the great mass of the population, destitute of all Emperor Paul, would have been pulled down military discipline and organization, ceased to before his misgovernment had lasted for a exercise any influence by force on political month. We find that all the fame and influ- transactions. There have, indeed, during the ence of our Edward the Third could not save last hundred and fifty years, been many popuhis Madame de Pompadour from the effects of lar insurrections in Europe: but all have the public hatred. failed, except those in which the regular army Hume, and many other writers, have hastily has been induced to join the disaffected. concluded, that in the fifteenth century the Those legal checks, which had been adeEnglish Parliament was altogether servile, quate to the purpose for which they were because it recognised, without opposition, designed while the sovereign remained deevery successful usurper. That it was not pendent on his subjects, were now found servile, its conduct on many occasions of in- wanting. The dykes, which had been sufficient ferior importance is sufficient to prove. But while the waters were low, were not high surely it was not strange, that the majority of enough to keep out the spring lide. The deluge the nobles, and of the deputies chosen by the passed over them; and, according to the excommons, should approve of revolutions which quisite illustration of Butler, the formal boundthe nobles and commons had effected. The aries which had excluded it now held it in. Parliament did not blindly follow the event of The old constitutions fared like the old shields war; but participated in those changes of pub- and coats of mail. They were the defences of lic sentiment, on which the event of war de- a rude age; and they did well enough against pended. The legal check was secondary and the weapons of a rude age. But new and more auxiliary to that which the nation held in its formidable means of destruction were inventown hands. There have always been mo- ed. The ancient panoply became useless; narchies in Asia, in which the royal authority and it was thrown aside to rust in lumberhas been tempered by fundamental laws, rooms, or exhibited only as part of an idle though no legislative body exists to watch over pageant. them. The guarantee is the opinion of a com- Thus absolute monarchy was established on mlunity, of which every individual is a soldier. the Continent. England escaped; but she es. Thus the king of Caubul, as Mr. Elphinstone caped very narrowly. Happily, our insular informs us, cannot augment the land revenue, situation and the pacific policy of James ren. or interfere with the jurisdiction of the ordinary dered standing armies unnecessary here, till tribunals. they had been for some time kept up in the In the European kingdoms of this descrip- neighbouring kingdoms. Our public men had iion, there were representative assemblies. therefore an opportunity of watching the effects But it was not necessary that those assemblies produced by this momentous change, in forms snould meet very frequently, that they should of government which bore a close analogy to incerfer, with all the operations of the execu- that established in England. Everywhere tive government, that they should watch with they saw the power of the monarch increasing, HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 8I the resistance of assemblies, which were no always going backward and forward; but i longer supported by a national force, gradually should be remembered to his honour, that it becoming more and more feeble, and at length was always from the stronger to the weaker altogether ceasing. The friends and the ene- side that he deserted. While Charles was opmies of liberty perceived with equal clearness pressing the people, Falkland was a resolute the causes of this general decay. It is the champion of liberty. He attacked Strafford. favourite theme of Strafford. He advises the He even concurred in strong measures against king to procure from the judges a recognition Episcopacy. But the violence of his party of his right to raise an army at his pleasure. annoyed him, and drove him to the other party, "This piece, well fortified," says he, "forever to be equally annoyed there. Dreading the vindicates the monarchy at home from under success of the cause which he had espoused, the conditions and restraints of subjects." We sickened by the courtiers of Oxford, as he had firmly believe that he was in the right. Nay; been sickened by the patriots of Westminster, we believe that, even if no deliberate scheme yet bound by honour not to abandon them, he of arbitrary government had been formed by pined away, neglected his person, went about the sovereign and his ministers, there was moaning for peace, and at last rushed despegreat reason to apprehend a natural extinction rately on death as the best refuge in such miof the constitution. If, for example, Charles serable times. If he had lived through the had played the part of Gustavus Adolphus; if scenes that followed, we have little doubt that he had carried on a popular war for the de- he would have condemned himself to share the fence of the Protestant cause in Germany; if exile and beggary of the royal family; that he he had gratified the national pride by a series would then have returned to oppose all their of victories; if he had formed an army of forty measures; that he would have been sent to the or fifty thousand devoted soldiers, we do not Tower by the Commons as a disbeliever in the see what chance the nation would have had Popish Plot, and by the king as an accomplice of escaping from despotism. The judges in the Rye-House Plot; and that, if he had eswould have given as strong a decision in caped being hanged, first by Scroggs, and then favour of camp-money as they gave in favour by Jeffries, he would, after manfully opposing of ship-money. If they had scrupled, it James the Second through his whole reign, would have made little difference. An indivi- have been seized with a fit of compassion at dual who resisted would have been treated as the very moment of the Revolution, have voted Charles treated Eliot, and as Strafford wished to for a regency, and died a nonjuror. treat Hampden. The Parliament might have We do not dispute that the royal party con. been summoned once in twenty years, to con- tained many excellent men and excellent citigratulate a king on his accession, or to give zens. But this we say-that they did not dis. solemnity to some great measure of state. cern those times. The peculiar glory of the Such had been the fate of legislative assem- Houses of Parliament is, that, in the great blies as powerful, as much respected, as high- plague and mortality of constitutions, they spirited, as the English Lords and Commons. took their stand between the living and the The two Houses, surrounded by the ruins of dead. At the very crisis of our destiny, at the ao many free constitutions, overthrown or very moment when the fate which had passed sapped by the new military system, were re- on every other nation was about to pass on quired to intrust the command of an army, and England, they arrested the danger. the conduct of the Irish war, to a king who Those who conceive that the parliamentary had proposed to himself the destruction of leaders were desirous merely to maintain the liberty as the great end of his policy. We are old constitution, and those who represent them decidedly of opinion that it would have been as conspiring to subvert it, are equally in error. fatal to comply. Many of those who took the The old constitution, as we have attempted to side of the king on this question would have show, could not be maintained. The progress cursed their own loyalty if they had seen him of time, the increase of wealth, the diffusion return from war at the head of twenty thou- of knowledge, the great change in the Eurosand troops, accustomed to carnage and free pean system of war, rendered it impossible quarters in Ireland. that any of the monarchies of the middle ages We think with Mr. Hallam, that many of the should continue'to exist on the old footing. royalist nobility and gentry were true friends The prerogative of the crown was constantly to the constitution; and that, but for the solemn advancing. If the privileges of the people protestations by which the king bound himself were to remain absolutely stationary, they to govern according to the law for the future, would relatively retrograde. The monarchical they never would have joined his standard. and democratical parts of the government were But surely they underrated the public danger. placed in a situation not unlike that of the two Falkland is commonly selected as the most re- brothers in the Fairy Queen, one of whom saw spectable specimen of this class. He was the soil of his inheritance daily washed away indeed a man of great talents, and of great by the tide, and joined to that of his rival. virtues; but, we apprehend, infinitely too fas- The portions had at first been fairly meted out: tidious for public life. He did not perceive by a natural and constant transfer, the one had that in such times as those on which his lot been extended; the other had dwindled to no. had fallen, the duty of a statesman is to choose thing. A new partition or a compensation the better cause, and to stand by it, in spite of was necessary to restore the original equality. those excesses by which every cause, however It was now absolutely necessary to violate good in itself, will be disgraced. The present the formal part of the constitution, in order te evil always seemed to him the worst. He was preserve its spirit. This might have been VOL. I.-11 82 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. done, as it was done at the Revolution, by ex- Little as we are disposed to join in the vulgar pelling the reigning family, and calling to the clamour on this subject, we think that such an throne princes, who, relying solely on an elect- event ought to be, if possible, averted; and ive title, would find it necessary to respect the this could only be done, if Charles was to be privileges and follow the advice of the assem- left on the throne, by placing his domestic arblies to which they owed every thing, to pass rangements under the control of Parliament. every bill which the legislature strongly A veto on the appointment of ministers was pressed upon them, and to fill the offices of demanded. But this veto Parliament had vir. state with men in whom it confided. But as tually possessed ever since the Revolution. It the two Houses did not choose to change the is no doubt very far better that this power of dynasty, it was necessary that they should do the legislature should be exercised, as it is now directly what at the Revolution was done indi- exercised, when any great occasion calls for in. rectly. Nothing is more usual than to hear it terference, than that at every change it should said, that if the Long Parliament had content- have to signify its approbation or disapprobaed itself with making such a reform in the tion in form. But, unless a new family had government under Charles as was afterwards been placed on the throne,we do not see how this made under William, it would have had the power could have been exercised as it is now highest claim to national gratitude; and that exercised. We again repeat, that no restraints in its violence it overshot the mark. But how which could be imposed on the princes who was it possible to make such a settlement un- reigned after the Revolution could have added der Charles? Charles was not, like William to the security which their title afforded. They and the princes of the Hanoverian line, bound were compelled to court their parliaments. by community of interests and dangers to the But from Charles nothing was to be expected two Houses. It was therefore necessary that which was not set down in the bond. they should bind him by treaty and statute. It was not stipulated that the king should Mr. Hallam reprobates, in language which give up his negative on acts of Parliament. has a little surprised us, the nineteen proposi- But the Commons had certainly shown a tions into which the Parliament has digested strong disposition to exact this security also. its scheme. We will ask him whether he does "Such a doctrine," says Mr. Hallam, "was in not think that, if James the Second had re- this country as repugnant to the whole history mained in the island, and had been suffered, as of our laws as it was incompatible with the he probably would in that case have been suf- subsistence of the monarchy in anly thing more fered, to keep his crown, conditions to the full than a nominal pre-eminence." Now this aras hard would have been imposed on him ticle has been as completely carried into effect On the other hand, if the Long Parliament had by the Revolution, as if it had been formally pronounced the departure of Charles from inserted in the Bill of Rights and the Act of London an abdication, and had called Essex Settlement. We are surprised, we confess, or Northumberland to the throne, the new that Mr. Hallam should attach so mnuch importprince might have safely been suffered to reign ance to a prerogative which has not been exerwithout such restrictions; his situation would cised for a hundred and thirty years, which have been a sufficient guarantee. ln the nine- probably will never be exercised again, and teen propositions, we see very little to blame which can scarcely, in any conceivable case, except the articles against the Catholics. be exercised for a salutary purpose. These, however, were in the spirit of that age; But the great security, that without which and to some sturdy churchmen in our own, every other would have been ins-ufficient, was that may seem to palliate even the good which the power of the sword. This both parties the Long Parliament effected. The regulation thoroughly understood. The Parliament inwith respect to new creations of Peers is the sisted on having the command of the militia, only other article about which we entertain and the direction of the Irish war. " By God, any doubt. not for an hour!" exclaimed the king. " Keep One of the propositions is, that the judges the militia," said the queen after the defeat shall hold their offices during good behaviour. of the royal party, "keep the militia; that To this surely no exception will be taken. will bring back every thing." That, by The right of directing the education and mar- the old constitution, no military authority was riage of the princes was most properly claimed lodged in the Parliament, Mr. Hallam has by the Parliament on the same ground on clearly shown. That it is a species of power which, after the Revolution, it was enacted, which ought not to be permanently lodged in that no king, on pain of forfeiting his throne, large and divided assemblies, must, we think, should espouse a papist. Unless we condemn in akirness be conceded. Opposition, publicity, the statesmen of the Revolution, who conceived long discussion, frequent compromise, these that England could not safely be governed by are the characteristics of the proceedings in a sovereign married to a Catholic queen, we such bodies. Unity, secrecy, decision, are the can scarcely condemn the Long Parliament, qualities which military arrangements require. because, having a sovereign so situated, they This undoubtedly was an evil. But, on the thought it necessary to place him under strict other hand, at such a crisis to trust such a king restraints. The influence of Henrietta Maria with the very weapon which, in hands less had already been deeply felt in political affairs. dangerous, had destroyed so many free consti In the regulation of her family, in the educa- tutions, would have been the extreme of rash tion and marriage of her children, it was still ness. The jealousy with which the oligarchy more likely to be felt. There might be another of Venice and the States of Holland regarded Catholic queen; possibly, a Catholic king. their generals and armies induced them per HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 83 petually to interfere in matters of which they collects round it a vast retinue, composed of were incompetent to judge. This policy se- people who thrive by its custom, or are amused cured them against military usurpation, but by its display, who may be sometimes reckonplaced them under great disadvantages in war. ed, in an ostentatious enumeration, as forming The uncontrolled power which the king of a part of it, but who give no aid to its operaFrance exercised over his troops enabled him tions, and take but a languid interest in its to conquer his enemies, but enabled him also success: who relax its discipline and dishoto oppress his people. Was there any interme- nour its flag, by their irregularities; and who, diate course? None, we confess, altogether after a disaster, are perfectly ready to cut the free from objection. But, on the whole, we throats and rifle the baggage of their comrnconceive that the best measure would have panions. been that which the Parliament over and over Thus it is in every great division: and thus proposed; that for a limited time the power of it was in our civil war. On both sides there the sword should be left to the two Houses, and was, undoubtedly, enough of crime and enough that it should revert to the crown when the of error, to disgust any man who did not reconstitution should be firmly established; when fleet that the whole history of the species is the new securities of freedom should be so far nothing but a comparison of crimes and errors. strengthened by prescription, that it would be Misanthropy is not the temper which qualifies difficult to employ even a standing army for a man to act in great affairs, or to judge of the purpose of subverting them. them. Mr. Hallam thinks that the dispute might "Of the Parliament," says Mr. Hallam, "it easily have been compromised, by enacting may be said, I think, with nlot greater severity that the king should have no power to keep a than truth, that scarce two or three public acts standing army on foot without the consent of of justice, humanity, or generosity, and very Parliament. He reasons as if the question had few of political wisdom or courage, are recordbeen merely theoretical-as if at that time no ed of them, from their quarrel with the king to army had been wanted. "The kingdom," he their expulsion by Cromwell." Those who says, "might have well dispensed, in that age, may agree with us in the opinion which we with any military organization." Now, we have expressed as to the original demands of think that Mr. Hallam overlooks the most im- the Parliament, will scarcely concur in this portant circumstance in the whole case. Ire- strong censure. The propositions which the land was at that moment in rebellion; and a Houses made at Oxford, at Uxbridge, and at great expedition would obviously be necessary Newcastle, were in strict accordance with to reduce that kingdom to obedience. The these demands. In the darkest period of the Houses had, therefore, to consider, not an ab- war, they showed no disposition to concede stract question of law, but an urgent practical any vital principle. In the fulness of their question, directly involving the safety of the success, they showed no disposition to enstate. They had to consider the expediency croach beyond these limits. In this respect of immediately giving a great army to a king, we cannot but think that they showed justice who was at least as desirous to put down the and generosity, as well as political wisdom and Parliament of England as to conquer the insur- courage. gents of Ireland. The Parliament was certainly far from faultOf course, we do not mean to defend all their less. We fully agree with Mr. Hallam in remeasures. Far from it. There never was a probating their treatment of Laud. For the perfect man; it would, therefore, be the height individual, indeed, we entertain a more unmiof absurdity to expect a perfect party or a per- tigated contempt than for any other character fect assembly. For large bodies are far more in our history. The fondness with which a likely to err than individuals. The passions portion of the church regards his memory, can are inflamed by sympathy; the fear of punish- be compared only to that perversity of affection ment and the sense of shame are diminished which sometimes leads a mother to select the by partition. Every day we see men do for monster or the idiot of the family as the object their faction what they would die rather than of her especial favour. Mr. Hallam has incido for themselves. dentally observed, that in the correspondence No private quarrel ever happens, in which of Laud with Strafford, there are no indicathe right and wrong are so exquisitely divid- tions of a sense of duty towards God or man. ed, that all the right lies on one side, and all The admirers of the archbishop have, in conthe wrong on the other. But here was a schism sequence, inflicted upon the public a crowd of which separated a great nation into two parties. extracts, designed to prove the contrary. Now, Of these parties, each was composed of many in all those passages, we see nothing which a smaller parties. Each contained many mem- prelate as wicked as Pope Alexander or Carbers, who differed far less from their moderate dinal Dubois might not have written. They opponents than from their violent allies. Each indicate no sense of duty to God or mnan; but reckoned among its supporters many who simply a strong interest in the prosperity and were determined in their choice, by some acci- dignity of the order to which the writer be dent of birth, of connection, or of local situa- longed; an interest which, when kept within tion. Each of them attracted to itself in multi- certain limits, does not deserve censure, but tudes those fierce and turbid spirits, to whom which can never be considered as a virtue. the clouds and whirlwinds of the political hur- Laud is anxious to accommodate satisfactorily ricane are the atmosphere of life. A party, the disputes in the University of Dublin. He like a camp, has its sutlers and camp-follow- regrets to hear that a church is used as a stable, ers., as well as its soldiers. In its progress it and that the benefices of Irelan I are very poor, 84 MACAUTAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. He is desirous that, however small a congre- themselves in the lower ranks of the party. gation may be, service should be regularly The war was, therefore, conducted in a languid performed. He expresses a wish that the and inefficient manner. A resolute leader judges of the court before which questions of might have brought it to a close in a month. tithe are generally brought, should be selected At the end of three campaigns, however, the with a view to the interest of the clergy. All event was still dubious; and that it had not this may be very proper; and it may be very been decidedly unfavourable to the cause of proper that an alderman should stand up for liberty, was principally owing to the skill the tolls of his borough, and an East Indian and energy which the more violent Rounddirector for the charter of his company. But heads had displayed in subordinate situations. it is ridiculous to say that these things indicate The conduct of Fairfax and Cromwell at piety and benevolence. No primate, though Marston had exhibited a remarkable contrast he were the most abandoned of mankind, to that of Essex at Edgehill, and Waller at would wish to see the body, with the conse- Lansdown. quence of which his own consequence was If there be any truth established by the uniidentical, degraded in the public estimation by versal experience of nations, it is this; that to internal dissensions, by the ruinous state of its carry the spirit of peace into war is a weak edifices, and the slovenly performance of its and cruel policy. The time of negotiation is rites. We willingly acknowledge that the par- the time for deliberation and delay. But when ticular letters in question have very little harm an extreme case calls for that remedy, which in them;-a compliment which cannot often is in its own nature most violent, and which, in be paid either to the writings or to the actions such cases, is a remedy only because it is vio. of Laud. lent, it is idle to think of mitigating and dilutBad as the archbishop was, however, he ing. Languid war can do nothing which was not a traitor within the statute. Nor was negotiation or submission will not do better: he by any means so formidable as to be a pro- and to act on any other principle is not to save per subject for a retrospective ordinance of the blood and money, but to squander them. legislature. His mind had not expansion This the Parliamentary leaders found. The enough to comprehend a great scheme, good or third year of hostilities was drawing to a close: bad. His oppressive acts were not, like those and they had not conquered the king. They of the Earl of Strafford, parts of an extensive had not obtained even those advantages which system. They were the luxuries in which a they had expected, from a policy obviously mean and irritable disposition indulges itself erroneous in a military point of view. They from day to day-the excesses natural to a had wished to husband their resources. They little mind in a great place. The severest now found that, in enterprises like theirs, par. punishment which the two Houses could have simony is the worst profusion. They had inflicted on him would have been to set him at hoped to effect a reconciliation. The even' liberty, and send him to Oxford. There he taught them that the best way to conciliate it might have stayed, tortured by his own diaboli- to bring the work of destruction to a speed] cal temper, hungering for Puritans to pillory termination. By their moderation many liver and mangle, plaguing the Cavaliers, for want and much property had been wasted. Tht of somebody else to plague, with his peevish- angry passions which, if the contest had berf ness and absurdity, performing grimaces and short, would have died away almost as soor, a antics in the cathedral, continuing that incom- they appeared, had fixed themselves in the parable diary, which we never see without for- form of deep and lasting hatred. A military getting the vices of his heart in the abject caste had grown up. Those who ha.4 been imbecility of his intellect; minuting down his induced to take up arms by the patriotic feel. dreams, counting the drops of blood which fell ings of citizens, had begun to entertain the from his nose, watching the direction of the professional feelings of soldiers. Above all, salt, and listening for the note of the screech- the leaders of the party had forfeited its confiowl! Contemptuous mercy was the only dence. If they had, by their valokr and abilivengeance which it became the Parliament to ties, gained a complete victory, tiheir influence take on such a ridiculous old bigot. might have been sufficient to prevent their The Houses, it must be acknowledged, com- associates from abusing it. It is now neces mitted great errors in the conduct of the war; sary to choose more resolute and uncomproor rather one great error, which brought their mising commanders. Unhappily the illustrious affairs into a condition requiring the most man who alone united in himself all the talents perilous expedients. The Parliamentary lead- and virtues which the crisis required, who ers of what may be called the first generation, alone could have saved his country from the EsSex, Manchester, Northumberland, Hollis, present dangers without plunging her into even Pym-all the most eminent men, in short, others, who alone could have united all the Hampden excepted, were inclined to half-mea- friends of liberty in obedience to his comsures. They dreaded a decisive victory manding genius and his venerable name, was almost as much as a decisive overthrow. no more. Something might still be done. The They wished to bring the king into a situation Houses might still avert that worst of all evils, which might render it necessary for him to the triumphant return of an imperious and ungrant their just and wrise demands; but not to principled master. They might still preserve subvert the constitution or to change the dy- London from all the horrors of rapine, masnasty. They were afraid of serving the pur- sacre, and lust. But their hopes of a victory poses of those fiercer and more determined as spotless as their cause, of a reconciliation enemies of monarchy, who now began to show which might knit together the hearts of all HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 85 honest Englishmen for the defence of the pub- reach them. Here his own case differed widely lie good, of durable tranquillity, of temperate from theirs. Not only was his condemnation freedom, were buried in the grave of Hamp- in itself a measure which only the strongest den. necessity could vindicate, but it could not be The self-denying ordinance was passed, and procured without taking several previou., the army was remodelled. These measures steps, every one of which would have rewere undoubtedly full of danger. But all that quired the strongest necessity to vindicate it. was left to the Parliament was to take the less It could not be procured without dissolving of two dangers. And we think that, even if the government by military force, without esthey could have accurately foreseen all that tablishing precedents of the most dangerous followed, their decision ought to have been the description, without creating difficulties which same. Under any circumstances, we should the next ten years were spent in removing, have preferred Cromwell to Charles. But without pulling down institutions which it there could be no comparison between Crom- soon became necessary to reconstruct, and well and Charles victorious-Charles restored, setting up others which almost every man was Charles enabled to feed fat all the hungry soon impatient to destroy. It was necessary grudges of his smiling rancour, and his cringing to strike the House of Lords out of the constipride. The next visit of his majesty to his tution, to exclude members of the House of faithful Commons would have been more se- Commons by force, to make a new crime, a rious than that with which he last honoured new tribunal, a new mode of procedure. The them; more serious than that which their own whole legislative and judicial systems were general paid them some years after. The trampled down for the purpose of taking a sinking would scarce have been content with col- gle head. Not only those parts of the constilaring Marten, and praying that the Lord would tution which the republicans were desirous to deliver him from Vane. If, by fatal misman- destroy, but those which they wished to retain agement, nothing was left to England but a and exalt, were deeply injured by these transchoice of tyrants, the last tyrant whom she actions. High courts.of justice began to usurp should have chosen was Charles. the functions of juries. The remaining dele. From the apprehension of this worst evil the gates of the people were soon driven from Houses were soon delivered by their new lead- their seats, by the same military violence ers. The armies of Charles were everywhere which had enabled them to exclude their colrouted; his fastnesses stormed; his party hum- leagues. bled and subjugated. The king himself fell If Charles had been the last of his line, there into the hands of the Parliament; and both the would have been an intelligible reason for putking and the Parliament soon fell into the ting him to death. But the blow which termihands of the army. The fate of both the cap- nated his life, at once transferred the allegiance ives was the same. Both were treated alter- of every royalist to an heir, and an heir who nately with respect and with insult. At length was at liberty. To kill the individual, was the natural life of the one, and the political truly, under such circumstances, not to delife of the other, were terminated by violence; stroy, but to release the king. and the power for which both had struggled We detest the character of Charles; but a was united in a single hand. Men naturally man ought not to be removed by a law ex post sympathize with the calamities of individuals; facto, even constitutionally procured, merely but they are inclined to look on a fallen party because he is detestable. He must also be with contempt rather than with pity. Thus very dangerous. We can scarcely conceive misfortune turned the greatest of Parliaments that any danger which a state can apprehend into the despised Rump, and the worst of kings from any individual, could justify the violent into the Blessed Martyr. measures which were necessary to procure a Mr. Hallam decidedly condemns the execu- sentence against Charles. But in fact the tion of Charles; and in all that he says on danger amounted to nothing. There was inthat subject, we heartily agree. We fully con- deed danger from the attachment of a large cur with him in thinking that a great social party to his office. But this danger, his execuschism, such as the civil war, is not to be con- tion only increased. His personal influence founded with an ordinary treason; and that was little indeed. He had lost the confidence the vanquished ought to be treated according of every party. Churchmen, Catholics, Presbyto the rules, not of municipal, but of interna- terians, Independents, his enemies, his friends, tional law. In this case the distinction is of his tools, English, Scotch, Irish, all divisions the less importance, because both international and subdivisions of his people had been deand municipal law were in favour of Charles. ceived by him. His most attached councillors ~He was a prisoner of war by the former, a turned away with shame and anguish from his king by the latter. By neither was he a trai- false and hollow policy; plot intertwined with tor. If he had been successful, and had put plot, mine sprung beneath mine, agents dishis leading opponents to death, he would have owned, promises evaded, one pledge given in deserved severe censure; and this without re- private, another in public.-" Oh, Mr. Secreta.erence to the justice or injustice of his cause. ry," says Clarendon, in a letter to Nicholas Yet the opponents of Charles, it must be ad- "those stratagems have given me more sa, mitted were technically guilty of treason. He hours than all the misfortunes in war which might have sent them to the scaffold without have befallen the king; and look like the violating any established principle of jurispru- effects of God's anger towards us." dence. He would not have been compelled to The abilities of Charles were not form'da overturn the whole constitution in order to ble. His taste in the fine arts was indeed ex H 86 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. quisite. He was as good a writer and speaker ways taken off his hat when he went into a as any modern sovereign has been. But he i church! The character of Charles would was not fit for active life. In negotiation he scarcely rise in our estimation, if we believed was always trying to dupe others, and duping that he was pricked in conscience after the only himself. As a soldier, he was feeble, manner of this worthyloyalist; and that, while dilatory, and miserably wanting, not in perso- violating all the first rules of Christian moralinal courage, but in the presence of mind which ty, he was sincerely scrupulous about church. his station required. His delay at Gloucester government. But we acquit him of such weak. saved the parliamentary party from destruc- ness. In 1641, he deliberately confirmed the tion. At Naseby, in the very crisis of his for- Scotch declaration, which stated that the gotune, his want of self-possession spread a fatal vernment of the church by archbishops and panic through his army. The story which bishops was contrary to the word of God. In Clarendon tells of that affair, reminds us of 1645, he appears to have offered to set up the excuses by which Bessus and Bobadil ex- Popery in Ireland. That a king who had esplain their cudgellings. A Scotch nobleman, tablished the Presbyterian religion in one it seems, begged the king not to run upon his kingdom, and who was willing to establish the death, took hold of his bridle, and turned his Catholic religion in another, should have in. horse round. No man who had much value surmountable scruples about the ecclesiastifor his life would have tried to perform the cal constitution of the third, is altogether incresame friendly office on that day for Oliver dible. He himself says in his letters that he Cromwell. looks on Episcopacy as a stronger support One thing, and one alone, could make Charles of monarchical power than even the army. dangerous —aviolent death. His tyranny could From causes which we have already consinot break the high spirit of the English people. dered, the Established Church had been, since His arms could not conquer, his arts could not the Reformation, the great bulwark of the predeceive them; but his humiliation and his rogative. Charles wished, therefore, to preexecution melted them into a generous com- serve it. He thought himself necessary both passion. Men who die on a scaffold for politi- to the Parliament and to the army. He did cal offences almost always die well. The eyes not foresee, till too late, that by paltering with of thousands are fixed upon them. Enemies the Presbyterians he should put both them and and admirers are watching their demeanour. himself into the power of a fiercer and more dar. Every tone of voice, every change of colour, ing party If he had foreseen it, we suspect is to go down to posterity. Escape is impos- that the r:,yal blood, which still cries to Heaven sible. Supplication is vain. In such a situa- every thirtieth of January for judgments only tion pride and despair have often been known to be averted by salt fish and egg-sauce, would to nerve the weakest minds with fortitude ade- never have been shed. One who had swalquate to the occasion. Charles died patiently lowed the Scotch Declaration would scarcely and bravely; not more patiently or bravely, strain at the Covenant. indeed, than many other victims of political The death of Charles, and the strong mearage; not more patiently or bravely than his sures which led to it, raised Cromwell to a own judges, who were not only killed, but tor- height of power fatal to the infant common. tured; or than Vane, who had always been wealth. No men occupy so splendid a place considered as a timid man. However, his con- in history as those who have founded moduct during his trial and at his execution made narchies on the ruins of republican institua prodigious impression. His subjects began tions. Their glory, if not of the purest, is asto love his memory as heartily as they had suredly of the most seductive and dazzling hated his person; and posterity has estimated kind. In nations broken to the curb, in nahis character from his death rather than from tions long accustomed to be transferred from his life. one tyrant to another, a man without eminent To represent Charles as a martyr in the qualities may easily gain supreme power. The cause of Episcopacy is absurd. Those who defection of a troop of guards, a conspiracy of put him to death cared as little for the Assem- eunuchs, a popular tumult, might place an inbly of Divines as for the Convocation; and dolent senator or a brutal soldier on the throne would in all probability only have hated him of the Roman world. Similar revolutions have the more if he had agraed to set up the Pres- often occurred in the despotic states of Asia. byterian discipline; and, in spite of the opinion But a community which has heard the voice of Mr. Hallam, we are inclined to think that of truth and experienced the pleasures of liberthe attachment of Charles to the Church of ty, in which the merits of statesmen and of England was altogether political. Human na- systems are freely canvassed, in which obeture is indeed so capricious that there may be dience is paid not to persons but to laws, in a single sensitive point in a conscience which which magistrates are regarded not as the everywhere else is callous. A man without lords but as the servants of the public, in truth or humanity may have some strange which the excitement of party is a necessary scruples about a trifle. There was one devout of life, in which political warfare is reduced wvarrior in the royal camp whose piety bore a to a system of tactics;-such a community is great resemblance to that which is ascribed to not easily reduced to servitude. Beasts of burthe king. We mean Colonel Turner. That den may easily be managed by a new master; gallant cavalier w.as hanged after the Restora- but will the wild ass submit to the bonds? will tion for a flagitious burglary. At the gallows the unicorn serve and abide by the crib? will he told the crowd that his mind received great leviathan hold out his nostrils to the hook? consolation from one reflection —he had al- The mythological conqueror of the East, whose HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 87 enchantments reduced the wild beasts to the which rose on the ruins of the old system. tameness of domestic cattle, and who har- The admirers of Inigo Jones have always nessed lions and tigers to his chariot, is but maintained that his works are inferior to those an imperfect type of those extraordinary minds of Sir Christopher Wren only because the great which have thrown a spell on the fierce spirits fire of London gave to the latter such a field of nations unaccustomed to control, and have for the display of his powers as no architect compelled raging factions to obey their reins, in the history of the world ever possessed. and swell their triumph. The enterprise, be it Similar allowance must be made for Cromwell. good or bad, is one which requires a truly If he erected little that was new, it was because great man. It demands courage, activity, ener- there had been no general devastation to clear gy, wisdom, firmness, conspicuous virtues, or a space for him. As it was, he reformed the vices so splendid and alluring as to resemble representative system in a most judicious virtues. manner. He rendered the administration of Those who have succeeded in this arduous justice uniform throughout the island. We undertaking form a very small and a very re- will quote a passage from his speech to the markable class. Parents of tyranny, but heirs Parliament in September, 1656, which contains, of freedom, kings among citizens, citizens we think, stronger indications of a legislative among kings, they unite in themselves the mind than are to be found in the whole range characteristics of the system which springs of orations delivered on such occasions before from them, and of the system from which they or since. have sprung. Their reigns shine with a dou- "There is one general grievance in the nable light, the last and dearest rays of depart- tion. It is the law.... I think, I may say it, I ing freedom, mingled with the first and bright- have as eminent judges in this land as have est glories of empire in its dawn. Their high been had, or that the nation has had for these qualities lend to despotism itself a charm many years. Truly, I could be particular as to drawn from the institutions under which they the executive part, to the administration; but' were formed, and which they have destroyed. that would trouble you. But the truth of it is, They resemble Europeans who settle within there are wicked and abominable laws that will the tropics, and carry thither the strength and be in your power to alter. To hang a man for the energetic habits acquired in regions more sixpence, threepence, I know not what-to hang propitious to the constitution. They differ as for a trifle and pardon murder, is in the miniswidely from princes nursed in the purple of tration of the law through the ill-framing of it. imperial cradles as the companions of Gama I have known in my experience abominable from their dwarfish and imbecile progeny, murders quitted; and to see men lose their which, born in a climate unfavourable to its lives for petty matters! This is a thing that growth and beauty, degenerates more and more God will reckon for; and I wish it may not lie at every descent from the qualities of the ori- upon this nation a day longer than you have ginal conquerors. an opportunity to give a remedy; and I hope I In this class three men stand pre-eminent; shall cheerfully join with you in it." Caesar, Cromwell, and Bonaparte. The high- Mr. Hallam truly says, that though it is im est place in this remarkable triumvirate be- possible to rank Cromwell with Napoleon as a longs undoubtedly to Coesar. He united the general, yet "his exploits were as much above talents of Bonaparte to those of Cromwell; the level of his contemporaries, and more the and he possessed also what neither Cromwell effects of an original uneducated capacity." nor Bonaparte possessed, learning, taste, wit, Bonaparte was trained in the best military eloquence, the sentiments and the manners of schools; the army which he led to Italy was an accomplished gentleman. one of the finest that ever existed. Cromwell Between Cromwell and Napoleon Mr. Hal- passed his youth and the prime of his manhood lam has instituted a parallel scarcely less in- in a civil situation. He never looked on war, genious than that which Burke has drawn be- till he was more than forty years old. He had tween Richard Cmeur de Lion and Charles the first to form himself; and then to form his Twelfth of Sweden. In this parallel, however, troops. Out of raw levies he created an army, and indeed throughout his work, we think the bravest and the best disciplined, the most that he hardly gives Cromwell fair measure. orderly in peace, and the most terrible in war, "Cromwell," says he, "far unlike his anti- that Europe had seen. He called.his body type, never showed any signs of a legislative into existence. He led it to conquest. lie never mind, or any desire to place his renown on fought a battle without gaining a victory. He that noblest basis, the amelioration of social never gained a victory without annihilating the institutions." The difference in this respect, force opposed to him. Yet his triumphs wvere we conceive, was not in the characters of the not the highest glory of his military system. men, but in the characters of the revolutions The respect which his troops paid to property, by means of which they rose to power. The their attachment to the laws and religion of civil war in England had been undertaken to their country, their submission to the civil defend andrcestore; the republicans of France fpower, their temperance, their intelligence, set themselves to destroy. In England the their industry, are without parallel. It was principles of the common law had never been after the Restoration that the spirit which their disturbed, and most even of its forms had been great leader had infused into them was most held sacred. In France the law and its minis- signally displayed. At the command of the esters had been swept away together. In France, tablished government, a government which had therefore, legislation necessarily became the no means of enforcing obedience, fifty thou frst business of the first settled government sand soldiers, whose backs no enemy hlad evea 88 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. seen, either in domestic or continental war, ed, he was punctilious only for his countr). laid down their arms, and retired into the mass His own character he left to take care of itself; of the people; thenceforward to be distinguish- he left it to be defended by his victories in war ed only by superior diligence, sobriety, and and his reforms in peace. But he was a jealous regularity in the pursuits of peace, from the and implacable guardian of the public honour. other members of the community which they He suffered a crazy Quaker to insult him in the had saved. midst of Whitehall, and revenged himself only In the general spirit and character of his ad- by liberating him and giving him a dinner. But ministration we think Cromwell far superior he was prepared to risk the chances of war to to Napoleon. "In civil government," says Mr. avenge the blood of a private Englishman. Hallam, "there can be no adequate parallel be- No sovereign ever carried to the throne so tween one who had sucked only the dregs of large a portion of the best qualities of the mida besotted fanaticism, and one to whom the dling orders, so strong a sympathy with the stores of reason and philosophy were open." feelings and interests of his people. He was These expressions, it seems to us, convey the sometimes driven to arbitrary measures; but highest eulogium on our great countryman. he had a high, stout, honest, English heart. Reason and philosophy did not teach the con- Hence it was that he loved to surround his queror of Europe to command his passions, or throne with such men as Hale and Blake. to pursue, as a first object, the happiness of the Hence it was that he allowed so large a share people. They did not prevent him from risk- of political liberty to his subjects, and that, even ing his fame and his power in a frantic contest when an opposition, dangerous to his power against the principles of human nature and the and to his person, almost compelled him to golaws of the physical world, against the rage of vern by the sword, he was still anxious to leave the winter and the liberty of the sea. They did a germ from which, at a more favourable seanot exempt him from the influence of that most son, free institutions might spring. We firmly pernicious of superstitions, a presumptuous fa- believe, that if his first parliament had not comtalism. They did not preserve him from the menced its debates by disputing his title, his inebriation of prosperity, or restrain him from government would have been as mild at home indecent querulousness and violence in adver- as it was energetic and able abroad. He was sity. On the other hand, the fanaticism of a soldier-he had lisen by war. Had his amCromwell never urged him on impracticable bition been of an impure or selfish kind, it undertakings, or confused his perception of the would have been easy for him to plunge his public good. Inferior to Bonaparte in inven- country into continental hostilities on a large tion, he was far superior to him in wisdom. scale, and to dazzle the restless factions which The French Emperor is among conquerors he ruled by the splendour of his victories. what Voltaire is among writers, a miraculous Some of his enemies have sneeringly remarkchild. His splendid genius was frequently ed, that in the successes obtained under his clouded by fits of humour as absurdly perverse administration, he had no personal share; as as those of the pet of the nursery, who quar- if a man who had raised himself from obscurirels with his food, and dashes his playthings to ty to empire, solely by his military talents, pieces. Cromwell was emphatically a man. could have any unworthy reason for shrinking He possessed, in an eminent degree, that mas- from military enterprise. This reproach is his culine and full-grown robustness of mind, that highest glory. In the success of the English equally diffused intellectual health, which, if navy he could have no selfish interests. Its our national partiality does not mislead us, triumphs added nothing to his fame; its inhas peculiarly characterized the great men of crease added nothing to his means of overEngland. Never was any ruler so conspicu- awing his enemies; its great leader was not ously born for sovereignty. The cup which his friend. Yet he took a peculiar pleasure in has intoxicated almost all others, sobered him. encouraging that noble service, which, of all the His spirit, restless from its buoyancy in a lower instruments employed by an English governsphere, reposed in majestic placidity as soon ment, is the most impotent for mischief, and the as it had reached the level congenial to it. He most powerful for good. His administration had nothing in common with that large class was glorious, but with no vulgar glory. It was of men who distinguished themselves in lower not one of those periods of overstrained and pcts, and whose incapacity becomes obvious convulsive exertion which necessarily produce as soon as the public voice summons them to debility and languor. Its energy was natural, take the lead. Rapidly as his fortunes grew, healthful, temperate. He placed England at his mind expanded more rapidly still. Insigni- the head of the Protestant interest, and in the ficant as a private citizen, he was a great gene- first rank of Christian powers. He taught ral; he was a still greater prince. The manner every niation to value her friendship and to of Napoleon was a theatrical compound, in dread her enmity. But he did not squander her which the coarseness of a revolutionary guard- resources in a vain attempt to invest her with room was blended with the ceremony of the old that supremacy which no power, in the modem court of Versailles. Cromwell, by the confes- system of Europe, can safely affect, or can sion even of his enemies, exhibited in his de- long retain. neanour the simple and natural nobleness of a This noble and sober wisdom had its reman neither ashamed of his origin nor vain of ward. If he did not carry the banners of the his elevation; of a man who had found his pro- Commonwealth in triumph to distant capitals; Per place in society, and who felt secure that if he did not adorn Whitehall with the spoils lie was competent to fill it. Easy, even to fa- of the Stadthouse and the Louvre; if he did not miliarity, where his own dignity was concern- portion out Flanders and Germany into princi HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 89 palities for his kinsmen and his generals; he cuting fires of Rome. Even to the present day, did not, on the other hand, see his country his character, though constantly attacked, and overrun by the armies of nations which his scarcely ever defended, is popular with the ambition had provoked. He did not drag out great body of our countrymen. the last years of his life in exile and a prisoner, The most questionable act of his life was in an unhealthy climate and under an ungener- the execution of Charles. We have already ous jailor; raging with the impotent desire of strongly condemned that proceeding; but we vengeance, and brooding over visions of de- by no means consider it as one which attaches parted glory. He went down to his grave in any peculiar stigma of infamy to the names of the fulness of power and fame; and left to his those who participated in it. It was an unjust son an authority which any man of ordinary and injudicious display of violent party spirit; firmness and prudence would have retained. but it was not a cruel or perfidious measure. But for the weakness of that foolish Ish- It had all those features which distinguish the bosheth, the opinions which we have been ex- errors of magnanimous and intrepid spirits pressing would, we believe, now have formed from base and malignant crimes. the orthodox creed of good Englishmen. We We cannot quit this interesting topic withmnight now be writing under the government out saying a few words on a transaction, t' his Highness Oliver the Fifth, or Richard which Mr. Hallam has made the subjec'of a the Fourth, Protector, by the Grace of God, of severe accusation against Cromwe; and the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and which has been made by others the subject of Ireland, and the dominions thereto belonging. a severe accusation against Mr. Hallam. We The form of the great founder of the dynasty, conceive that both the Protector and the his. on horseback, as when he led the charge at torian may be vindicated. Mr. Hallam tells Naseby, or on foot, a. when he took the mace us that Cremwel.l sold fifty English gentlmtnen fromn the table of the Commons, would adorn as slaves in' BarbadJes. For making this all our squares, and overlook our public of- statement he has been charged with two high fices from Charing-Cross; and sermons in his literary crimes. The first accusation is, that, praise would be duly preached on his lucky from his violent prejudice against Oliver, he day, the third of September, by court-chaplains, has calumniated him falsely. The second, guiltless of the abominations of the surplice. preferred by the same accuser, is, that from But, though his memory has not been taken his violent fondness for the same Oliver, he under the patronage of any party, though every has hidden his calumnies against him at the device has been used to blacken it, though to fag end of a note, instead of putting them into praise him would long have been a punishable the text. Both these imputations cannot poscrime, yet truth and merit at last prevail. sibly be true, and it happens that neither is so Cowards, who had trembled at the very sound His censors will find, when they take the trouof his name, tools of office, who, like Downing, ble to read his book, that the story is mentioned had been proud of the honour of lacqueying his in the text as well as in the notes; and they coach, might insult him in loyal speeches and will also find, when they take the trouble to addresses. Venal poets might transfer to the read some other books, with which speculators king the same eulogies, little the worse for on English history ought to be acquainted, that wear, which they had bestowed on the Pro- the story is true. If there could have been tector. A fickle multitude might crowd to any doubt about the matter, Burton's Diary shout and scqff round the gibbeted remains of must have set it at rest. But, in truth, there the greatest Prince and Soldier of the age. was abundant and superabundant evidence, But when the Dutch cannon startled an effemi- before the appearance of that valuable publinate tyrant in his own palace, when the con- cation. Not to mention the authority to which quests which had been made by the armies of Mr. Hallam refers, and which alone is per. Cromwell were sold to pamper the harlots of fectly satisfactory, there is Slingsby Bethel's Charles, when Englishmen were sent to fight, account of the proceedings of Richard Cromjinder the banners of France, against the inde- well's Parliament, published immediately after pendence of Europe and the Protestant reli- its dissolution. He was a member: he must gion, many honest hearts swelled in secret at therefore have known what happened: and the thought of one who had never suffered his violent as his prejudices were, he never could country to be ill-used by any but himself. It have been such an idiot as to state positive must indeed have been difficult for any Eng- falsehoods with respect to public transactions lishman to see the salaried Viceroy of France, which had taken place only a few days before. at the most important crisis of his fate, saun- It will not be quite so easy to defend Cromtering through his harem, yawning and talking well against Mr. Hallam, as to defend Mr. nonsense over a despatch, or beslobbering his Hallam against those who attack his history, brothers and his courtiers in a fit of maudlin But the story is certainly by no means so bad affection,5 without a respectful and tender re- as he takes it to be. In the first place, this membrance of him, before whose genius the slavery was merely the compulsory labour to young pride of Louis, and the veteran craft of which every transported convict is liable. Mazarin, had stood rebuked; who had hum- Nobody acquainted with the language of the bled Spain on the land, and Holland on the last century can be ignorant that such con sea; and whose imperial voice had arrested victs were generally termed slaves; until dis the victorious arms of Sweden, and the perse- cussions about another species of slavery, far _ more miserable and altogether'fnmerited, ren * These particulars, and many more of the same kind, dered the word too odious to be applied even are recorded by Pepys. to felons of English origin. These persons VOL. I.-12 2 90 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. enjoyed the protection of the law during the war, even the bad cause had been rendered res. term of their service, which was only five years. pectable and amiable, by the purity and eleva. The punishment of transportation has been tionof mindwhich manyofits friends displayed. inflicted, by almost every government that Under Charles the Second, the best and noblest England has ever had, for political offences. of ends was disgraced by means the most After Monmouth's insurrection, and after the cruel and sordid. The rage of faction suorebellions in 1715 and 1745, great numbers ceeded to the love of liberty. Loyalty died of the prisoners were sent to America. These away into servility. We look in vain among considerations ought, we think, to free Crom- the leading politicians of either side for steadi. well from the imputation of having inflicted ness of principle, or even for that vulgar on his enemies any punishment which in it- fidelity to party, which, in our time, it is esself is of a shocking and atrocious character. teemed infamous to violate. The inconsistTo transport fifty men, however, without a ency, perfidy, and baseness, which the leaders trial, is bad enough. But let us consider, in constantly practised, which their followers dethe first place, that some of these men were fended, and which the great body of the people taken in arms against the government, and regarded, as it seems, with little disapprobathat it is not clear that they were not all so tion, appear in the present age almost increditaken. In that case, Cromwell or his officers ble. In the age of Charles the First, they might, according to the usages of those un- would, we believe, have excited as much as. happy times, have put them to the sword, or tonishment. turned them over to the provost-marshal at Man, however, is always the same. And once. This, we allow, is not a complete vin- when so marked a difference appears between dication; for execution by martial law ought two generations, it is certain that the solution never to take place but under circumstances may be found in their respective circumwhich admit of no delay; and, if there is time stances. The principal statesmen of the reign to transport men, there is time to try them. of Charles the Second were trained during the The defenders of the measure stated in the civil war, and the revolutions which followed House of Commons, that the persons thus it. Such a period is eminently favourable to transported not only consented to go, but went the growth of quick and active talents. It with remarkable cheerfulness. By this, we forms a class of men, shrewd, vigilant, insuppose, it is to be understood, not that they had ventive, of men whose dexterity triumphs over any very violent desire to be bound apprentices the most perplexing combinations of circumin Barbadoes, but that they considered them- stances, whose presaging instinct, no sign of selves as, on the whole, fortunately and leni- the times, no incipient change of public feelently treated, in the situation in which they ings, can elude. But it is an unpropitious had placed themselves. season for the firm and masculine virtues. When these considerations are fairly esti- The statesman who enters on his career at mated, it must, we think, be allowed, that this such a time, can form no permanent connecselling into slavery was not, as it seems at first tions-can make no accurate observations on sight, a barbarous outrage, unprecedented in the higher parts of political science. Before our annals, but merely a very arbitrary pro- he can attach himself to a party, it is scat. ceeding, which, like most of the arbitrary pro- tered; before he can study the nature of a ceedings of Cromwell, was rather a violation government, it is overturned. The oath of of positive law than of any great principle of abjuration comes close on the oath of nalejustice and mercy. When Mr. Hallam declares giance. The association which was subscribed it to have been more oppressive than any of yesterday, is burned by the hangmen to-day. the measures of Charles the Second, he forgets, In the midst of the constant eddy and change, we imagine, that under the reign of that prince, self-preservation becomes the first object of and during the administration of Lord Claren- the adventurer. It is a task too hard for the den, many of the Roundheads were, without strongest head, to keep itself from becoming any trial, imprisoned at a distance from Eng- giddy in the eternal whirl. Public spirit is land, merely in order to remove them beyond out of the question; a laxity of principle, the reach of the great liberating writ of our without which no public man can be eminent, law. But, in fact, it is not fair to compare the or even safe, becomes too common to be scancases. The government of Charles was per- dalous; and the whole nation looks coolly on fectly secure. The " res dura et regni novitas" instances of apostasy, which would startle the is the great apology of Cromwell, foulest turncoat of more settled times. From the moment that Cromwell is dead and The history of France since the revolution buried, we go on in almost perfect harmony affords some striking illustrations of these with Mr. Hallam to the end of his book. The remarks. The same man was minister of the times which followed the Restoration peculiarly republic, of Bonaparte, of Louis the Eight. require that unsparing impartiality which is eenth, of Bonaparte again after his return from his most distinguishing virtue. No part of Elba, of Louis again after his return from our history, during the last three centuries, Ghent. Yet all these manifold treasons by no presents a spectacle of such general dreari- means seemed to destroy his influence, or even ness. The whole breed of our statesmen seem to fix any peculiar stain of infamy on his chato have degenerated; and their moral and in- racter. We, to be sure, did not know what to tellectual littleness strikes us with the more make of him; but his countrymen did not disgust, because we see it placed in immediate seem to be shocked; and in truth they had contrast with the high and majestic qualities of little right to be shocked: for there was therace whch they succeeded. Inthe greatcivil scarcely one Frenchman distinguished in the HA1,LAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 91 state or in the army, who had not, according In a nation proud of its sturdy justice and to the best of his talents and opportunities, plain good sense, no party could be found to emulated the example. It was natural, too, take a firm middle stand between the worst of that this should be the case. The rapidity and oppositions and the worst of courts. When, violence with which change followed change on charges as wild as Mother Goose's tales, in the affairs of France towards the close of on the testimony of wretches who proclaimed the last century, had taken away the reproach themselves to be spies and traitors, and whom of inconsistency, unfixed the principles of everybody now believes to have been also public men, and produced in many minds a liars and murderers, the offal of jails and general skepticism and indifference about brothels, the leavings of the hangman's whip principles of government. and shears, Catholics guilty of nothing but No Englishman who has studied attentively their religion were led like sheep to the Pro. the reign of Charles the Second, will think testant shambles, where were the royal Tory himself entitled to indulge in any feelings of gentry and the passively obedient clergy I national superiority over the Dictionnaire des And where, when the time of retribution Girouettes. Shaftesbury was surely a far less came, when laws were strained and juries respectable man than Talleyrand; and it packed, to destroy the leaders of the Whigs, would be injustice even to Fouche to compare when charters were invaded, when Jeffries him with Lauderdale. Nothing, indeed, can and Kirke were making Somersetshire what more clearly show how low the standard of Lauderdale and Graham had made Scotland, political morality had fallen in this country where were the ten thousand brisk boys of than the fortunes of the men whom we have Shaftesbury, the members of ignoramus juries, named. The government wanted a ruffian to the wearers of the Polish medal? Allpowerful carry on the most atrocious system of misgo- to destroy others, unable to save themselves, vernment with which any nation was ever the members of the two parties oppressed cursed-to extirpate Presbyterianism by fire and were oppressed, murdered and were murand sword, the drowning of women, and the dered, in their turn. No lucid.interval occurred frightful torture of the boot. And they found between the frantic paroxysms of two contrahim among the chiefs of the rebellion, and the tradictory illusions. subscribers of the Covenant! The opposition To the frequent changes of the government looked for a chief to head them in the most during the twenty years which had preceded desperate attacks ever made, under the forms the revolution, this unsteadiness is in a great of the constitution, on any English administra- measure to be attributed. Other causes had tion: and they selected the minister who had also been at work. Even if the country had the deepest share in the worst parts of that been governed by the house of Cromwell, of administration; the soul of the cabal; the the remains of the Long Parliament, the ex. counsellor who had shut up the Exchequer, treme austerity of the Puritans would neces. and urged on the Dutch war. The whole sarily have produced a revulsion. Towards political drama was of the same cast. No the close of the Protectorate, many signs indi. unity of plan, no decent propriety of character cated that a time of license was at hand. But and costume, could be found in the wild and the restoration of Charles the Second rendered monstrous harlequinade. The whole was the change wonderfully rapid and violent. made up of extravagant transformations and Profligacy became a test of orthodoxy and burlesque contrasts; Atheists turned Puritals; loyalty, a qualification for rank and office. A Puritans turned Atheists; republicans defend- deep and general taint infected the morals of ing the divine right of kings; prostitute cour- the most influential classes, and spread itself tiers clamouringfor the liberties of the people; through every province of letters. Poetry judges inflaming the rage of mobs; patriots inflamed the passions; philosophy undermined pocketing bribes from foreign powers; a the principles; divinity itself, inculcating an popish prince torturing Presbyterians into an abject reverence for the court, gave addiEpiscopacy in one part of the island; Pres- tional effect to its licentious example. We byterians cutting off the heads of popish no- look in vain for those qualities which give a blemen and gentlemen in the other. Public charm to the errors of high and ardent natures, opinion has its natural flux and reflux. After for the generosity; the tenderness, the chivala violent burst, there is commonly a reaction. rous delicacy, which ennoble appetites into But vicissitudes as extraordinary as those passions and impart to vice itself a portion of which marked the reign of Charles the the majesty of virtue. The excesses of the Second, can only be explained by supposing age remind us of the humours of a gang of an utter want of principle in the political footpads, revelling with their favourite beauties world. On neither side was there fidelity at aflash-house. Inthe fashionable libertinism enough to face a reverse. Those honourable there is a hard, cold ferocity, an impudence, a retreats from power, which, in later days, par- lowness, a dirtiness, which can be paralleled ties have often made, with loss, but still in only among the heroes and heroines of that good order, in firm union, with unbroken spi- filthy and heartless literature which encourit and formidable means of annoyance, were raged it. One nobleman of great abilities utterly unknown. As soon as a check took wanders about as a Merry-Andrew. Another place, a total rout followed; arms and colours harangues the mob stark-naked f-om a win-:ere thrown away. The vanquished troops, dow. A third lays an ambush to cudgel a like the Italian mercenaries of the fourteenth man who has offended him. A knot of genand fifteenth centuries, enlisted, on the very tlemen of high rank and influence combine to field of battle, in the service of the conquerors. push their fortunes at court, by circulating 92 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. stories intended to ruin an innocent girl, sto- mer Halifax, the renegade Sunderland, were ries which had no foundation, and which, if all men of the same class. they had been true, would never have passed Where such was the political morality of the the lips of a man of honour.* A dead child noble and the wealthy, it may easily be conis found in the palace, the offspring of some ceived that those professions which, even in maid of honour, by some courtier, or perhaps the best times, are peculiarly liable to corrupby Charles himself. The whole flight of pan- tion, were in a frightful state. Such a bench ders and buffoons pounce upon it, and carry it and such a bar England has never seen. in triumph to the royal laboratory, where his Jones, Scroggs, Jeffries, North, Wright, Saw. majesty, after a brutal jest, dissects it for the yer, Williams, Shower, are to this day the spots amusement of the assembly, and probably of and blemishes of our legal chronicles. Differits father among the rest! The favourite ing in constitution and in situation, whether duchess stamps about Whitehall, cursing and blustering or cringing, whether persecuting swearing. The ministers employ their time Protestants or Catholics, they were equally at the courncil-board in making mouths at each unprincipled and inhuman. The part which other, and taking off each other's gestures for the church played was not equally atrocious; the amusement of the king. The peers at a but it must have been exquisitely diverting tc conference begin to pommel each other, and a scoffer. Never were principles so loudly to tear collars and periwigs. A speaker in professed, and so flagrantly abandoned. The the House of Commons gives offence to the royal prerogative had been magnified to the court. He is waylaid by a gang of bullies, skies in theological works; the doctrine of and his nose is cut to the bone. This igno- passive obedience had been preached from inminious dissoluteness, or rather, if we may numerable pulpits. The University of Oxford venture to designate it by the only proper had sentenced the works of the most moderate word, blackguardism of feelings and manners, constitutionalists to the flames. The accession could not but spread from private to public of a Catholic king, the frightful cruelties comlife. The cynical sneers, the epicurean so- mitted in the West of England, never shook phistry, which had driven honour and virtue the steady loyalty of the clergy. But did they from one part of the character, extended their serve the king for naught? He laid his hand influence over every other. The second ge- on them, and they cursed him to his face. He neration of the statesmen of this reign were touched the revenue of a college and the worthy pupils of the schools in which they liberty of some prelates, and the whole prohad been trained, of the gaming-table of fession set up a yell worthy of Hugh Peters Grammont, and the tiring-room of Nell. In himself. Oxford sent its plate to an invader no other age could such a trifler as Bucking- with more alacrity than she had shown when ham have exercised any political influence. Charles the First requested it. Nothing was In no other age could the path to power and said about the wickedness of resistance till glory have been thrown open to the manifold resistance had done its work, till the anointed infamies of Churchill. vicegerent of heaven had been driven away, The history of that celebrated man shows, and it had become plain that he would never more clearly perhaps than that of any other be restored, or would be restored at least individual, the malignity and extent of the cor- under strict limitations. The clergy went ruption which had eaten into the heart of the back, it must be owned, to their old theory, as public morality. An English gentleman of soon as they found that it would do them no family attaches himself to a prince who has harm. seduced his sister, and accepts rank and To the general baseness and profligacy of wealth as the price of her shame and his own. the times, Clarendon is principally indebted He then repays by ingratitude the benefits for his high reputation. He was, in every which he has purchased by ignominy, betrays respect, a man unfit for his age, at once too his patron in a manner which the best cause good for it and too bad for it. He seemed to cannot excuse, and commits an act, not only be one of the statesmen of Elizabeth, transof private treachery, but of distinct military planted at once to a state of society widely desertion. To his conduct at the crisis of the different from that in which the abilities of fate of James, no service in modern times has, such statesmen had been serviceable. In the as far as we remember, furnished any parallel. sixteenth century, the royal prerogative had The conduct of Ney, scandalous enough no scarcely been called in question. A minister doubt, is the very fastidiousness of honour in who held it high was in no danger, so long as comparison of it. The perfidy.of Arnold ap- he used it well. The attachment to the crown, proaches it most nearly. In our age and that extreme jealousy of popular encroachcountry no talents, no services, no party at- ments, that love, half religious, half political, tachments, could bear any man up under such for the church, which, from the beginning of mountains of infamy. Yet, even before the Long Parliament, showed itself in ClarenChurchili had performed those great actions, don, and which his sufferings, his long resiwhich in some degree redeem his character dence in France, and his high station in the with poslt erity, the load lay very lightly on him. government, served to strengthen, would, a He had others in abundance to keep him coun- hundred years earlier, have secured to him the tenance. Godolphin, Oxford, Danby, the trim- favour of his sovereign without rendering him odious to the people. His probity, his correct* The manner in which Hamilton relates the circun- ness in private life, his decency of deportment, slances of the atrocious plot against poor Ann Hyde is, and his general ability, would not have misbee 1 possible, more disgraceful to the court, of which he.a be considered as a specimen, than the plot itself. come a colleague of Walsingham and Bur. HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. n leigh. But in the timt. on which he was cast, or rather pirates. The strongest aversion his errors and his virtues were alike out of which he can feel to any foreign power is the place. He imprisoned men without trial. He ardour of friendship, compared with the loath. was accused of raising unlawful contributions ing which he entertains towards those domeson the people for the support of the army. The tic foes with whom he is cooped up in a narrow abolition of the Triennial Act was one of his space, with whom he lives in a constant interfavourite objects. He seems to have meditated change of petty injuries and insults, and from the revival of the Star-Chamber and the High whom, in the day of their success, he has to Commission Court. His zeal for the preroga- expect severities far beyond any that a contive made him unpopular; but it could not queror from a distant country would inflict. secure to him the favour of a master far more Thus, in Greece, it was a point of honour fcr a desirous of ease and pleasure than of power. man to leave his country and cleave to his Charles would rather have lived in exile and party. No aristocratical citizen of Samos or privacy, with abundance of money, a crowd Corcyra would have hesitated to call in the aid of mimics to amuse him, and a score of mis- of Lacedemon. The multitude, on the contresses, than have purchased the absolute trary, looked to Athens. In the Italian states dominion of the world by the privations and of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, from exertions to which Clarendon was constantly the same cause, no man was so much a Flourging him. A councillor who was always rentine or a Pisan, as a Ghibeline or a Guelf. bringing him papers and giving him advice, It may be doubted whether there was a single and who stoutly refused to compliment Lady individual who would have scrupled to raise Castlemaine and to carry messages to Miss his party from a state of depression, by open. Stewart, soon became more hateful to him ing the gates of his native city to a French or than ever Cromwell had been. Thus consi- an Arragonese force. The Reformation, di. dered by the people as an oppressor, by the viding almost every European country into court as a censor, the minister fell from his two parts, produced similar effects. The Ca. high office, with a ruin more violent and tholic was too strong for the Englishman: the destructive than could ever have been his fate, Huguenot for the Frenchman. The Protestant if he had either respected the principles of the statesmen of Scotland and France accordingly constitution, or flattered the vices of the king. called in the aid of Elizabeth; and the Papists Mr. Hallam has formed, we think, a most of the League brought a Spanish army into the correct estimate of the character and adminis- very heart of France. The commotions to tration of Clarendon. But he scarcely makes which the French Revolution gave rise have sufficient allowance for the wear and tear been followed by the same consequences. The which honesty almost necessarily sustains in republicans in every part of Europe were the friction of political life, and which, in eager to see the armies of the National Con. times so rough as those through which Claren- vention and the Directory appear among them; don passed, must be very considerable. When and exulted in defeats which distressed and these are fairly estimated, we think that his humbled those whom they considered as their integrity may be allowed to pass muster. A worst enemies, their own rulers. The princes highminded man he certainly was not, either and nobles of France, c n the other hand, did in public or in private affairs. His own ac- their utmost to bring foreign invaders to Paris, count of his conduct in the affair of his daugh- A very short time has elapsed since the Apos. ter is the most extraordinary passage in auto- tolical party in Spain invoked, too success. biography. We except nothing even in the fully, the support of strangers. Confessions of Rousseau. Several writers The great contest, which raged in England have taken a perverted and absurd pride in during the seventeenth century and the earlier representing themselves as detestable; but no part of the eighteenth, extinguished, not indeed other ever laboured hard to make himself des- in the body of the people, but in those classes picable and ridiculous. In one important which were most actively engaged in politics, particular, Clarendon showed as little regard almost all national feelings. Charles the Se. to the honour of his country as he had shown cond and many of his courtiers had passed a to that of his family. He accepted a subsidy large part of their lives in banishment, serv. from France for the relief of Portugal. But ing in foreign armies, living on the bounty this method of obtaining money was afterwards of foreign treasuries, soliciting foreign aid to practised to a much greater extent, and for re-establish monarchy in their native country. objects much less respectable, both by the The oppressed Cavaliers in England constant. Court and by the Opposition. ly looked to France and Spain for deliverance These pecuniary transactions are commonly and revenge. Clarendon censures the Ccnticonsidered as the most disgraceful part of the nental governments with great bitterness for history of those times; and they were no doubt not interfering in our internal dissensions. highly reprehensible. Yet, in justice'to the During the protectorate, not only the royalists, Whigs. and to Charles himself, we must admit but the disaffected of all parties, appear to have that they were not so shameful or atrocious been desirous of assistance from abroad. It as at the present day they appear. The effect is not strange, therefore, that amidst the fu. of violent animosities between parties has rious contests which followed the Restoration, always been an indifference to the general the violence of party feeling should produce welfare and honour of the state. A politician, effects, which would probably have attended where factions run high, is interested, not for it even in an age less distinguished by laxity the whole people, but for his own section of it. of principle and indelicacy of sentiment. It The rest are, in his view, strangers, enemies, I was not till a natural death had terminated the 94 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. paralytic old age of the Jacobite party, that the I tal laws of the country, who had attacked the evil was completely at an end. The WVhigs rights of its greatest corporations, who had looked to Holland; the High Tories to France. begun to persecute the established religion of The former concluded the Barrier Treaty; the state, who had never respected the law some of the latter entreated the court of Ver- either in his superstition or in his revenge, sailles to send an expedition to England. could not be pulled down without the aid of a Many men who, however erroneous their poli- foreign army, is a circumstance not very tical notions might be, were unquestionably grateful to our national pride. Yet this is the honourable in private life, accepted money least degrading part of the story. The shamewithout scruple from the foreign powers fa- less insincerity, the warm assurances of genevourable to the Pretender. ral support which James received down to Never was there less of national feeling the moment of general desertion, indicate a among the higher orders, than during the reign meanness of spirit and a looseness of moraliof Charles the Second. That prince, on the ty most disgraceful to the age. That the enone side, thought it better to be the deputy of terprise succeeded, at least that it succeeded an absolute king, than the king of a free peo- without bloodshed or commotion, was principle. Algernon Sydney, on the other hand, pally owing to an act of ungrateful perfidy, would gladly have aided France in all her such as no soldier had ever before committed, ambitious schemes, and have seen England and to those monstrous fictions respecting the reduced to the condition of a province, in the birth of the Prince of Wales, which persons of wild hope that a foreign despot would assist the highest rank were not ashamed to circuhim to establish his darling republic. The late. In all the proceedings of the Convenking took the money of France to assist him tion, in the conference particularly, we see in the enterprise which he meditated against that littleness of mind which is the chief chathe liberty of his subjects, with as little scru- racteristic of the times. The resolutions on ple as Frederic of Prussia or Alexander of which the two Houses at last agreed were as Russia accepted our subsidies in time of war. bad as any resolutions for so excellent a purThe leaders of the Opposition no more thought pose could be. Their feeble and contradictory themselves disgraced by the presents of Louis, language was evidently intended to save the than a gentleman of our own time thinks him- credit of the Tories, who were ashamed to self disgraced by the liberality of a powerful name what they were not ashamed to do. and wealthy member of his party who pays Through the whole transaction, no command. his election bill. The money which the king ing talents were displayed by any Englishman; received from France had been largely em- no extraordinary risks were run; no sacrifices ployed to corrupt members of Parliament. The were made, except the sacrifice which Churchenemies of the court might think it fair, or ill made of honour, and Anne of natural affeceven absolutely necessary, to encounter bribe- tion. ry with bribery. Thus they took the French It was in some sense fortunate, as we have gratuities, the needy among them for their already said, for the Church of Englanld, that own use, the rich probably for the general the Reformation in this country was effected purposes of the party, without any scruple. If by men who cared little about religion. And, we compare their conduct, not with that of in the same manner, it was fortunate for our English statesmen in our own time, but with civil government that the Revolution was in a that of persons in those foreign countries great measure effected by men who cared little which are now situated as England then was, about their political principles. At such a we shall probably see reason to abate some- crisis, splendid talents and strong passions thing of the severity of censure with which it might have done more harm than good. There has been the fashion to visit those proceed- was far greater reason to fear that too much ings. Yet, when every allowance is made, would be attempted, and that violent movethe transaction is sufficiently offensive. It is ments would produce an equally violent reacsatisfactory to find that Lord Russel stands free tion, than that too little would be done in the from any imputation of personal participation in way of change. But narrowness of intellect the spoil. An age, so miserably poor in all the and flexibility of principles, though they may moral qualities which render public characters be serviceable, can never be respectable. respectable, can ill spare the credit which it If in the Revolution itself there was little that derives from a man, not indeed conspicuous can properly be called glorious, there was still for talents or knowledge, but honest even in less in the events which followed. In a church his errors, respectable in every relation of life, which had as one man declared the doctrine rationally pious, steadily and placidly brave. of resistance unchristian, only four hundred The great improvement which took place in persons refused to take the oath of allegiance our breed of public men is principally to be to a government founded on resistance! In ascribed to the Revolution. Yet that memo- the preceding generation, both the Episcopal rable event, in a great measure, took its cha- and the Presbyterian clergy, rather than conracter from the very vices which it was the cede points of conscience not more important, means of reforming. It was, assuredly, a hap- had resigned their livings by thousands. py revalution, and a useful revolution; but it The churchmen, at the time of the Revolu. was not, what it has often been called, a glo- tion, justified their conduct by all those profli. rious revolution. William, and William alone, gate sophisms which are called jesuitical, and derived glory from it. The transaction was, which are commonly reckoned among the pe. in almost every part, discreditable to England. culiar sins of Popery; but which in fact are That a tyrant, who had violated the fundamen- everywhere the anodyries employed by minds HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 9 rather subtle than strong, to quiet those inter- Anne, treated some of those who had directed nal twinges which they cannot but feel, and public affairs during the war of the Grand Al. which they will not obey. As their oath was liance, and the retaliatory measures of the in the teeth of their principles, so was their Whigs after the accession of the house of IIa conduct in the teeth of their oath. Their con- nover, cannot be justified; but they were by stant machinations against the government to no means in the style of the infuriated parties which they had sworn fidelity, brought a re- whose alternate murders had disgraced our proach on their order, ard on Christianity history towards the close of the reign of Charles itself. A distinguished churchman has not the Second. At the fall of Walpole far greater scrupled to say, that the rapid increase of infi- moderation was displayed. And from that time delity at that time was principally produced by it has been the practice-a practice not strictthe disgust, which the faithless conduct of his ly according to the theory of our constitution brethren excited, in men not sufficiently can- but still most salutary-to consider the loss of, did or judicious, to discern the beauties of the office and the public disapprobation as punish. system amidst the vices of its ministers. ments sufficient for errors in the administration Buet the reproach was not confined to the not imputable to personal corruption. Nothing, church. In every political party, in the cabi- we believe, has contributed more than this lenet itself, duplicity and perfidy abounded. The nity to raise the character of public men. Am. very men whom William loaded with benefits, bition is of itself a game sufficiently hazardous and in whom he reposed most confidence, with and sufficiently deep to inflame the passions, his seals of office in their hands, kept up a without adding property, life, and liberty to the correspondence with the exiled family. Ox- stake. Where the play runs so desperately ford, Carmarthen, and Shrewsbury were guilty high as in the seventeenth century, honour is of this odious treachery. Even Devonshire is at an end. Statesmen, instead of being as they not altogether free from suspicion. It may should be, at once mild and steady, are at once well be conceived that at such a time such a ferocious and inconsistent. The axe is forever nature as that of Marlborough would riot in before their eyes. A popular Coutcry somethe very luxury of baseness. His former trea- times unnerves them, and sometimes makes son, thoroughly furnished with all that makes them desperate; it drives them to unworthy infavty exquisite, placed him indeed under the compliances, or to measures of vengeance as disadvantage which attends every artist from cruel as those which they have reason to expect. the time that he produces a masterpiece. Yet A minister in our times need not fear either to his second great stroke may excite wonder, be firm or to be merciful. Our old policy in even in those who appreciate all the merit of this respect was as absurd as that of the king the first. Lest his admirers should be able to in the Eastern Tales, who proclaimed that any say that at the time of the Revolution he had physician who pleased might come to court betrayed his king from any other than selfish and prescribe for his disease, but that if the motives, he proceeded to betray his country. remedies failed the adventurer should lose his He sent intelligence to the French court of a head. It is easy to conceive'how many able secret expedition intended to attack Brest. The men would refuse to undertake the cure on consequence was that the expedition failed, and such conditions; how much the sense of exthat eight hundred British soldiers lost their treme danger would confuse the perceptions lives from the abandoned villany of a British and cloud the intellect of the practitioner at general. Yet this man has been canonized by the very crisis which most called for self-posso many eminent writers, that to speak of him session, and how strong his temptation would as he deserves may seeim scarcely decent. To be, if he found that he had committed a blunus he seems to be the very San Ciappelletto der, to escape the consequences of it by poiof the political calendar. soning his patient. The reign of William the Third, as Mr. Hal- But in fact it would have been impossible, lam happily says, was the nadir of the nation- since the Revolution, to punish any minister al prosperity. It was also the nadir of the for the general course of his policy with the national character. During that period was slightest semblance of justice; for since that gathered in the rank harvest of vices sown time no minister has been able to pursue any during thirty years of licentiousness and con- general course of policy without the approbafusion; but it was also the seed-time of great tion of the Parliament. The most important efvirtues. fects of that great change were, as Mr. Hallam The press was emancipated from the cen- has most truly said and most ably shown, those sorship soon after the Revolution, and the go- which it indirectly produced. Thenceforward vernment fell immediately under the censor- it became the interest of the executive govPrnship of the, ress. Statesmen had a scrutiny ment to protect those very doctrines which an to endure wrich was every day becoming more executive government is in general inclined and more severe. The extreme violence of to persecute. The sovereign, the ministers, opinions abated. The Whigs learned modera- the courtiers, at last even the universities and tion in office; the Tories learned the principles the clergy, were changed into advocates of of liberty in opposition. The parties almost the right of resistance. In the theory of the constantly approximated, often met, sometimes Whigs, in the situation of the Tcries, lit the erossed each other. There were occasional common interest of all public men, the Parliabursts of violence; but from the time of the Re- mentary constitution of the country found per. volution those bursts were constantly becom- fect security. The power of the House of ing less and less terrible. The severities with Commons, in particular, has been steadily on which the Tories, at the close of the reign u,; the increase. By the practice of granting sup 96 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. plies for short terms, and appropriating them purchased so dearly, was on every side ex. to particular services, it has rendered its ap- tolled and worshipped. Even those distinc. probation as necessary in practice to all the tions of party, which must almost always be measures of the executive government as it is found in a free state, could scarcely be traced. in theory to a legislative act. The two great bodies which from the time of Mr. Hallam appears to have begun with the the Revolution had been gradually tending to reign of Henry the Seventh, as the period at approximation, were now united in emulous which what is called modern history, in con- support of that splendid administration which tradistinction to the history of the middle ages, smote to the dust both the branches of the is generally supposed to commence. He has house of Bourbon. The great battle for our stopped at the accession of George the Third, ecclesiastical and civil polity had been fought "from unwillingness," as he says, "to excite and won. The wounds had been healed. The the prejudices of modern politics, especially victors and the vanquished were rejoicing tothose connected with personal character." gether. Every person acquainted with the poThese two eras, we think, deserved the dis- litical writers of the last generation will recoltinction on other grounds. Our remote pos- lect the terms in which they generally speak terity, when looking back on our history in of that time. It was a glimpse of a golden age that comprehensive manner in which remote of union and glory-a short interval of rest posterity alone can without much danger of which had been preceded by centuries of agierror look back on it, will probably observe tation, and which centuries of agitation were those points with peculiar interest. They are, destined to follow. if we mistake not, the beginning and the end How soon faction again began to ferment, is of an entire and separate chapter in our an- well known. In the Letters of Junius, in nals. The period which lies between them Burke's Thoughts on the Cause of the Disconis a perfect cycle, a great year of the public tents, and in many other writings of less merit, mind. the violent dissensions, which speedily conIn the reign of Henry the Seventh, all the vulsed the country, are imputed to the system political differences which had agitated Eng- of favouritism which George the Third intro. land since the Norman conquest seemed to be duced, to the influence of Bute, or the profliset at rest. The long and fierce struggle be- gacy of those who called themselves the king's tween the crown and the barons had termi- friends. With all deference to the eminent nated. The grievances which had produced writers to whom we have referred, we may the rebellions of Tyler and Cade had disap- venture to say that they lived too near the peared. Villanage was scarcely known. The events of which they treated, to judge of them two royal houses whose conflicting claims had correctly. The schism which was then aplong convulsed the kingdom were at length pearing in the nation, and which has been united. The claimants whose pretensions, just from that time almost constantly widening, had or unjust, had disturbed the new settlement little in common with those which had divided were overthrown. In religion there was no open it during the reigns of the Tudors and the dissent, and probably very little secret heresy. Stuarts. The symptoms of popular feeling, The old subjects of contention, in short, had indeed, will always in a great measure be the vanished; those which were to succeed had same; but the principle which excited that not yet appeared. feeling was here new. The support which Soon, however, new principles were an- was given to Wilkes, the clamour for reform nounced; principles which were destined to during the American war, the disaffected conkeep Englalid during two centuries and a half duct of large classes of people at the time of in a state of commotion. The Reformation the French Revolution, no more resembled the divided the people into two great parties. The opposition which had been offered to the goProtestants were victorious. They again sub- vernment of Charles the Second, than that opdivided themselves. Political systems were position resembled the contest between' the engrafted on theological doctrines. The mu- Roses. tual animosities of the two parties gradually In the political as in the natural body, a senemerged into the light of public life. First sation is often referred to a part widely differ. came conflicts in Parliament; then civil war; ent from that in which it really resides. A then revolutions upcn revolutions, each at- man, whose leg is cut off, fancies that he feels tended by its appurtenance of proscriptions, a pain in his toe. And in the sametnanner the and persecutions, and tests; each followed by people, in the earlier part of the late reign, sinsevere measures on the part of the conquer- cerely attributed their discontent to grievances ors; each exciting a deadly and festering ha- which had been effectually lopped off. They tred in the conquered. During the reign of imagined that the prerogative was too strong George the Second things were evidently tend- for the constitution, that the principles of the ing to repose. At the close of it the nation Revolution were abandoned, and the system of had completed the great revolution which com- the Stuarts restored. Every impartial man menced in the early part of the sixteenth cen- must now acknowledge that these charges tury, and was again at rest. The fury of sects were groundless. The proceedings of the had died away. The Catholics themselves government with respect to the Middlesex practically enjoyed toleration; and more than election would have been contemplated with toleration they did not yet venture even to de- delight by the first generation of Whigs. They sire. Jacobitism was a mere name. Nobody would have thought it a splendid triumph of was left to fight for that wretched cause, and the cause of liberty, that the King and the very few to drink for it. The constitution, Lords should resign to the House of Commovs HALLAM'S CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY. 97 a portion of their legislative power, and allow tion in former days used to be the envy of the it to incapacitate without their consent. This, world; it was the pattern for politicians; the indeed, Mr. Burke clearly perceived. "When theme of the eloquent; the meditation of the the House of Commons," says he, " in an en- philosopher in every part of the world.-As to deavour to obtain new advantages at the ex- Englishmen, it was their pride, their consola pense of the other orders of the state, for the tion. By it they lived, and for it they were benefit of the commons at large, have pursued ready to die. Its defects, if it had any, were strong measures, if it were not just, it was at partly covered by partiality, and partly borne least natural, that the constituents should con- by prudence. Now all its excellencies are hive at all their proceedings; because we our- forgot, its faults are forcibly dragged into day, selves were ultimately to profit. But when this exaggerated by every artifice of misrepresentasubmissicn is urged to us in a contest between tion. It is despised and rejected of men; and the representatives and ourselves, and where no- every device and invention of ingenuity or thing can be put into their scale which is not idleness is set up in opposition, or in prefertaken from ours, they fancy us to be children ence to it." We neither adopt nor condemn when they tell us that they are our representa- the language of reprobation which the great tives, our own flesh and blood, and that all the orator here employs. We call him only as stripes they give us are for our good." These witness to the fact. That the revolution of sentences contain, in fact, the whole explana- public feeling which he described was then in tion of the mystery. The conflict of the seven- progress is indisputable; and it is equally inteenth century was maintained by the Parlia- disputable, we think, that it is in progress still. ment against the crown. The conflict which To investigate and classify the cause of so commenced in the middle of the eighteenth great a change, would require far more thought, century, which still remains undecided, and in and far more space, than we at present have to which our children and grandchildren will bestow. But some of them are obvious. Durprobably be called to act or suffer, is between ing the contest which the Parliament carried a large portion of the people on the one side, on against the Stuarts, it had only to check and and the crown and the Parliament united on complain. It has since had to govern. As an the other. attacking body, it could select its points of atThe privileges of the House of Commons, tack, and it naturally chose those on which it those privileges which, in 1642, all London was likely to receive public support. As a rose in arms to defend, which the people con- ruling body, it has neither the same liberty of sidered as synonymous with their own liberties, choice, nor the same interest to gratify the and in comparison with which they took no people. With the power of an executive goaccount of the most precious and sacred prin- vernment, it has drawn to itself some of the ciples of English jurisprudence, have now be- vices and all the unpopularity of an executive come nearly as odious as the rigours of mar government. On the House of Commons, tial law. That power of committing, which above all, possessed as it is of the public purse, the people anciently loved to see the House of and consequently of the public sword, the naCommons exercise, is now, at least, when em- tion throws all the blame of an ill-conducted ployed against libellers, the most unpopular war, of a blundering negotiation, of adisgracepower in the constitution. If the Commons ful treaty,ofanembarrassingcommercialcrisis. were to suffer the Lords to amend money-bills, The delays of the Court of Chancery, the miswe do not believe that the people would care conduct of a judge at Van Diemen's land, any one straw about the matter. If they were to thing, in short, which in any part of the admi suffer the Lords even to originate money-bills, nistration any person feels as a grievance, is we doubt whether such a surrender of their attributed to the tyranny, or at least to the constitutional rights would excite half so negligence, of that all-powerful body. Private much dissatisfaction as the exclusion of individuals pester it with their wrongs and strangers from a single important discussion. claims. A merchantappeals to it from the courts The gallery in which the reporters sit has be- of Rio Janeiro or St. Petersburg. A painter, come a fourth estate of the realm. The pub- who can find nobody to buy the acre of spoiled lication of the debates, a practice which canvass, which he calls an historical picture, seemed to the most liberal statesmen of the old pours into its sympathizing ear the whole story school full of danger to the great safeguards of his debts and his jealousies. Anciently the of public liberty, is now regarded by many Parliament resembled a member of opposition, persons as a safeguard, tantamount, and more from whom no places are expected, who is not than tantamount, to all the rest together. required to confer favours and propose meanBurke, ill a speech on parliamentary reform, sures, but merely to watch and censure; and which is the more remarkable because it was who may,-therefore, unless he is grossly injudelivered long before the French Revolution, dicious, be popular with the great body of the las described, in striking language, the change community. The Parliament now resembles in public feeling of which we speak. " It sug- the same person put into office, surrounded by gests melancholy reflections," says he, "in petitioners, whom twenty times his patronage consequence of the strange course we have would not satisfy, stunned with; tomplaints, long held, that we are now no longer quarrel- buried in memorials, compelled by the duties:ing about the character, or about the conduct of his station to bring forward measures Simiof men, or the tenour of measures; but we lar to those which he was formerly accustomed are grown out of humour with the English to observe and to check, and perpetuaily enconstitution itself; this is become the object of countered by objections similar to those Rhictb the animosity of Englishmen. This constitu- it was formerly his business to. raise. Vo. I.-13 I 98 ~ MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. Perhaps it may be laid'down as a general on the subject is loud and vehement. But it rule, that a legislative assembly, not constituted seems to us that, during the remissions, the on democratic principles, cannot be popular feeling gathers strength, and that every suelong after it ceases to be weak. Its zeal for cessive burst is more violent than that which what the people, rightly or wrongly, conceive preceded it. The public attention may be for to be their interest, its sympathy with their a time diverted to the Catholic claims or the mutable aRd violent passions, are merely the mercantile code; but it is probable that at no effects of the particular circumstances in which very distant period, perhaps in the lifetime of it is placed. As long as it depebnds for exist- the present generation, all other questions will ence on the public favour, it will employ all merge in that which is, in a certain degree, the means in its power to conciliate that favour. connected with them all. While this is the case, defects in its constitu- Already we seem to ourselves to perceive tion are of little consequence. But as the close the signs of unquiet times, the vague presentiunion of such a body with the nation is the ment of something great and strange which effect of an identity of interest, not essential, pervades the community; the restless and turbut accidental, it is in some measure dissolved bid hopes of those who have every thing to from the time at which the danger which pro- gain, the dimly-hinted forebodings of those wh) duced it ceases to exist. have every thing to lose. Mlany irtdi.c-tionn Hence, before the Revolution, the question might be mentioned, in themselves indeed as of parliamentary reform was of very little im- insignificant as straws; but even the direction portance. The friends of liberty had no very of a straw, to borrow the illustration of Bacon, ardent wish for it. The strongest Tories saw will show from what quarter the hurricane is no objections to it. It is remarkable that Cla- setting in. rendon loudly applauds the changes which A great statesman might, by judicious and Cromwell introduced, changes far stronger timely reformations, by reconciling the two than the Whigs of the present day would in great branches of the natural aristocracy, the general approve. There is no reason to think, capitalists and the landowr.ners, by so wit(ening however, that the reform effected by Cromwell the base of the government as to interest in its made any great difference in the conduct of defence the whole of the middling class, that the Parliament. Indeed, if the House of Com- -brave, honest, and sound-hearted ciass, which mons had, during the reign of Charles the Se- is as anxious for the maintenance of order and cond, been elected by universal suffrage, or if the security of property as it is hostile to corall the seats had been put up to sale, as in the ruption and oppression, succeed in averting a French Parliaments, it would, we suspect, have struggle to which no rational friend of liberty acted very much as it did. We know how or of law can look forward without great apstrongly the Parliament of Paris exerted itself prehensions. There are those who will be in favour of the people on many important contented with nothing but demolition; and occasions; and the reason is evident. Though there are those who shrink from,11 repair. it did not emanate from the people, its whole There are innovators who long for a President consequence depended on the support of the and a National Convention; and there are people. From the time of the Revolution the bigots who, while cities larger and richer than House of Commons was gradually becoming the capitals of many great kipgdoms are callwhat it now is-a great council of state, con- ing out for representatives to watch over their taining many members chosen freely by the interests, select some hackneyed jobber in bopeople, and many others anxious to acquire roughs, some peer of the narrowest and smallthe favour of the people; but, on the whole, est mind, as the fittest depositary of a forfeited aristocratical in its temper and interest. It is franchise. Between these extremes there lies very far from being an illiberal and stupid oli- a more excellent way. Time is bringing around garchy; but it is equally far from being an another crisis analogous to that which occurred express image of the general feeling. It is in the seventeenth century. We stand in a influenced by the opinion of the people, and situation similar to that in which our ancestors influenced powerfully, but slowly and circuit- stood under the reign of James the First. It ously. Instead of outrunning the public mind, will soon again be necessary to reform, that as before the Revolution it frequently did, it we may preserve; to save the fundamental now follows with slow steps and at a wide principles of the constitution, by alterations in distance. It is therefore necessarily unpopu- the subordinate parts. It will then be possible, lar; and the more so, because the good which as it was possible two hundred years ago, to it produces is much less evident to common protect vested rights, to secure every useful perception than the evil which it inflicts. It institution-every institution endeared by an. bears the blame of all the mischief 1which is tiquity and noble associations; and, at the done, or supposed to be done, by its authority same time, to introduce into the system imor by its connivance. It does not get the provements harmonizing with th- original credit, on the other hand, of having pre- plan. It remains to be seen whether two hunvented those innumerable abuses which do dred years have made us wiser. not exist solely because the House of Com- We know of no great revolution which might mons exists. not have been prevented by compromise early A large part of the nation is certainly de- and graciously made. Firmness is a grea strous of areform in the representative system. virtue in public affairs, but it has its proper How large that part may be, and how strong sphere. Conspiracies and insurrections in rts.desires on the subject may be, it is difficult which tmall minorities are engaged, the out. to say. It is only at intervals that the clamour breakings of popular violence unconnected SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 99 with any extensive project or any durable prin- contents which have agitated the country dur. ciple, are best repressed by vigour and decision. ing the late and the present reign, and which, To shrink from them is to make them formida- though not always noisy, are never wholly ble. But no wise ruler will confound the per- dormant, will again break forth with aggravated vading taint with the slight local irritation. symptoms, is almost as certain as that the tides No wise ruler will treat the deeply-seated dis- and seasons will follow their appointed course. coptents of a great party as he treats the con- But in all movements of the human mind duct of a mob which destroys mills and power- which tend to great revolutions, there is a crilooms. The neglect of this distinction has sis at which moderate concession may amend, been fatal even to governments strong in the conciliate, and preserve. Happy will it be for power of the sword. The present time is in- England if, at that crisis, her interests be condeed a time of peace and order. But it is at fided to men for whom history has not recorded such a time that fools are most thoughtless, the long series of human crimes and follies in and wise men most thoughtful. That the dis- vain. SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1830.] IT would be scarcely possible for a man of Part of this description might, perhaps, Mr. Southey's talents and acquirements to write apply to a much greater man, Mr. Burke. But two volumes so large as those before us, which Mr. Burke, assuredly possessed an understandshould be wholly destitute of information and ing admirably fitted for the investigation of amusement. Yet we do not remember to have truth-an understanding stronger than that of read with so little satisfaction any equal quan- any statesman, active or speculative, of the tity of matter, written by any man of real abili- eighteenth century —stronger than every thing, ties. We have, for some time past, observed except his own fierce and ungovernable sensiwith great regret the strange infatuation which bility. Hence, he generally chose his side like:eads the Poet-laureate to abandon those de- a fanatic, and defended it like a philosopher. partments of literature in which he might ex- His conduct, in the most important events of eel, and to lecture the public on sciences of his life, at the time of the impeachment of which he has still the very alphabet to learn. Hastings, for example, and at the time of the He has now, we think, done his worst. The sub- French Revolution, seems to have been prompt. ject, which he has at last undertaken to treat, is ed by those feelings and motives which Mr. one which demands all the highest intellectual Coleridge has so happily described: and moral qualities of a philosophical states- Stormy pity, and the cherish'd lure man-an understanding at once comprehen- Of pomp, and proud precipitance of soul." sive and acute- a heart at once upright and chsive and acute-a hey brings to the upright andsk two Hindostan, with its vast cities, its gorgeous charitable. Mr. Southey brings to the task two faculties which were never, we believe, vouch- pagodas, its infinite swarms of dusky popula, safed in measure so copious to any human be- tion, its long-descended dynasties, its stately ing; the faculty of believing without a reason, etiquette, excited in a mind so capacious, so and the faculty of hating without a provoca- imaginative, and so susceptible, the most intion. tense interest. The peculiarities of the costume, It is, indeed, most extraordinary that a mind of the manners, and of the laws, the very myslike Mr. Southey's, a mind richly endowed in tery which hung over the language and origin many respects by nature and highly cultivated of the people seized his imagination. To plead by study, a mind which has exercised con- in Westminster Hall, in the nameoftheEnglish siderable influence on the most enlightened people, at the bar of the English nobles, for generation of the most enlightened people that great nations and kings separated from him by ever existed, should be utterly destitute of the half the world, seemed to him the height of hupower of discerning truth from falsehood. Yet man glqry. Again, it is not difficult to perceive, such is the fact. Government is to Mr. Southey that his hostility to the French Revolution prinone of the fine arts. He judges of a theory or cipally arose from the vexation which he felt, a public measure, of a. religion, a political | at having all his old political associations disparty a peace or a war, as men judge of a pic- turbed, at seeing the well-known boundary pature or a statue, by the effect protuc on his marks of states obliterated, and the names and ture or a statue, by the effect producediations i on his distinctions with which the history of Europe imagination. A chain of as soiations is to him had been filled for ages, swept away. He felt what a chain of reasoning is to other men; l and what he calls his opinions, are in fact like an antiquary whose shield had been merely his tastes. $scoured, or a connoisseur who found his Ti tian retouched. But however he came ny an opinion, he had no sooner got it than he did his Sir Thomas.More; or olloi on the Progrss and best to make out a legitimate title to it. Hi. Prospects of Society. By ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq., LL.D. Poet Laureate. 2 vol. 8vo. London. 1829. reason, like a spirit in the service of an en, 100 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. chanter, though spell-bound, was still mighty. therefore an advantage to him to be furnished It did whatever work his passions and his with an outline of characters and events, and imagination might impose. But it did that to have no other task to perform than that of work, however arduous, with marvellous dex- touching the cold sketch into life. No writer, verity and vigour. His course was not de- perhaps, ever lived, whose talents so precisely.ermined by argument; but he could defend qualified him to write the history of the great the wildest course by arguments more plansi- naval warrior. There were no fine riddles of ble than those by which common men support the human heart to read, no theories to found, opinions which they have adopted, after the no hidden causes to develope, no remote confullest deliberation. Reason has scarcely ever sequences to predict. The character of the displayed, even in those well-constituted minds hero lay on the surface. The exploits were of which she occupies the throne, so much brilliant and picturesque. The necessity of power and energy as in the lowest offices of adhering to the real course of events saved Mr. that imperial servitude. Southey from those faults which deform the Now, in the mind of Mr. Southey, reason has original plan of almost every one of his poems, no place at all, as either leader or follower, as and which even his innumerable beauties of either sovereign or slave. He does not seem detail scarcely redeem. The subject did not reto know what an argument is. He never uses quire the exercise of those reasoning powers arguments himself. He never troubles himself the want of which is the blemish of his prose. to answer the arguments of his opponents. It It would not be easy to find, in all literary his. has never occurred to him, that a man ought tory, an instance of a more exact hit between to be able to give some better account of the wind and water. John Wesley, and the Peninway in which he has arrived at his opinions, sular War, were subjects of a very differeit than merely that it is his will and pleasure to kind, subjects which required all the qualities hold them, that there is a difference between of a philosophic historian. In Mr. Southey's assertion and demonstration, that a rumour works on these subjects, he has, on the whole, does not always prove a fact, that a fact does failed. Yet there are charming specimens of not always prove a theory, that two contradic- the art of narration in both of them. The Life tory propositions cannot be undeniable truths, of Wesley will probably live. Defective as it that to beg the question is not the way to set- is, it contains the only popular account of a tle it, or that when an objection is raised, it mostremarkable moral revolution, andofaman ought to met with something more convincing whose eloquence and logical acuteness might than "scoundrel" and "blockhead." have rendered him eminent in literature, whose It would be absurd to read the works of such genius for government was not inferior to that a writer for political instruction. The utmost of Richelieu, and who, whatever his errors may that can be expected from any system promul- have been, devoted all his powers, in defiance gated by him is, that it may be splendid and of obloquy and derision, to what he sincerely affecting, that it may suggest sublime and considered as the highest good of his species. pleasing images. His scheme of philosophy is The History of the Peninsular War is already a mere daydream, a poetical creation, like the dead: indeed the second volume was deadDomdaniel caverns, the Swerga, or Padalon; born. The glory of producing an imperishable and, indeed, it bears no inconsiderable resern- record of that great conflict seems to be re. blance to those gorgeous visions. Like them served for Colonel Napier. it has something of invention, grandeur, and The Book of the Church contains some sto. brilliancy. But, like them, it is grotesque and ries very prettily told. The rest is mere rubextravagant, and perpetually violates that con- bish. The adventure was manifestly one ventional probability which is essential to the which could be achieved only by a profound effect even of works of art. thinker, and in which even a profound thinker The warmest admirers of Mr. Southey will might have failed, unless his passions had scarcely, we think, deny that his success has been kept under strict control. In all those almost always borne an inverse proportion to works in which Mr. Southey has completely the degree in which his undertakings have re- abandoned narration, and undertaken to argue quired a logical head. His poems, taken in moral and political questions, his failure has the mass, stand far higher than his prose been complete and ignominious. On such works. The Laureate Odes, indeed, among occasions his writings are rescued from utter which the Vision of Judgment must be classed, contempt and derision, solely by the beauty are, for the most part, worse than Pye's and as and purity of the English. We find, we conbad as Cibber's; nor do we think him generally fess, so great a charm in Mr. Southey's style, happy in short pieces. But his longer poems, that, even when he writes nonsense, we ge. though full of faults, are nevertheless.very ex- nerally read it with pleasure, except indeed traordinary productions. We doubt greatly when he tries to be droll. A more insuffera. whether they will be read fifty years hence; ble jester never existed. He very often atbut that if they are read, they will be admired, tempts to be humorous, and yet we do not we have no doubt whatever. remember a single occasion on which he has But though in general we prefer Mr. Sou- succeeded farther than to be quaintly and flipthey's poetry to his prose, we must make one pantly dull. In one of his works, he tells us exception. The Life of Nelson is, beyond all that Bishop Sprat was very properly so called, doubt, the most perfect and the most delightful inasmuch as he was a very small poet. And of:his works. The fact is, as his poems most in the book now before us, he cannot quote lahindantly prove, that he is by no means so Francis Bugg without a remark on his unsa. -skilful in designing as filling up. It was vory name. A man might talk folly like tbis SOUTHtEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 101 lg his own fireside; but that any human being, Jew, delivered over to the secular arm after a after having made such a joke, should write it relapse. down, and copy it out, and transmit it to the We have always heard, and fully believe, printer, and correct the proof-sheets, and send that Mr. Southey is a very amiable and hu. it forth into the world, is enough to make us mane man; nor do we intend to apply to him ashamed of our species. personally any of the remarks which we have The extraordinary bitterness of spirit which made on the spirit of his writings. Such are Mr. Southey manifests towards his opponents the caprices of human nature. Even Uncle is, no doubt, in a great measure to be attri- Toby troubled himself very little abcout the buted to the manner in which he forms his opi- French grenadiers who fell on the glacis of nions. Differences of taste, it has often been Namur. And when Mr. Southey takes up his remarked, produce greater exasperation than pen, he changes his nature as much as Cap. differences on points of science. But this is tain Shandy when he girt Qn his sword. The not all. A peculiar austerity marks almost only opponents to whom he gives quarter are all Mr. Southey's judgments of men and ac- those in whom he finds something of his own tions. We are far from blaming him for fix- character reflected. He seems to have an ining on a high standard of morals, and for stinctive antipathy for calm, moderate menapplying that standard to every case. But for men who shun extremes, and who render rigour ought to be accompanied by discern- reasons. He has treated Mr. Owen of Lanark, meit, and of discernment Mr. Southey seems for example, with infinitely more respect than to be utterly destitute. His mode of judging he has shown to Mr. Hallam or to Dr. Linis monkish; it is exactly what we should ex- gard; and this for no reason than we can dispect from a stern old Benedictine, who had cover except that Mr. Owen is more unreabeen preserved from many ordinary frailties sonably and hopelessly in the wrong than any by the restraints of his situation. No man speculator of our time. out of a cloister ever wrote about love, for ex- Mr. Southey's political system is just what ample, so coldly and at the same time so we might expect from a man who regards po grossly. His descriptions of it are just what litics, not as a matter of science, but as a mat we should hear from a recluse, who knew the ter of taste and feeling. All his schemes of passion only from the details of the confes- government have been inconsistent with themsional. Almost all his heroes make love selves. In his youth he was a republican; either like seraphim or like cattle. He seems yet, as he tells us in his preface to these Colto have no notion of any thing between the loquies, he was even then opposed to the CaPlatonic passion of the Glendoveer, who gazes tholic claims. He is now a violent Ultrawith rapture on his mistress's leprosy, and the Tory. Yet while he maintains, with vehemence brutal appetite of Arvalan and Roderick. In approaching to ferocity, all the sterner and Roderick, indeed, the two characters are united. harsher parts of the Ultra-Tory theory of go He is first all clay, and then all spirit, he goes vernment, the baser and dirtier part of that forth a Tarquin, and comes back too ethereal theory disgusts him. Exclusion, persecution, to be married. The only love-scene, as far as severe punishments for libellers and demawe can recollect, in Madoc, consists of the gogues, proscriptions, massacres, civil war, if delicate attentions which a savage, who has necessary, rather than any concession to a drunk too much of the Prince's metheglin, discontented people-these are the measures offers to Goervyl. It would be the labour of a which he seems inclined to recommend. A week to find, in all the vast mass of Mr. Sou- severe and gloomy tyranny, crushing opposithey's poetry, a single passage indicating any tion, silencing remonstrance, drilling the minds sympathy with those feelings which have con- of the people into unreasoning obedience, has secrated the shades of Vaucluse and the rocks in it something of grandeur which delights his of Meillerie. imagination. But there is nothing fine in the Indeed, if we except some very pleasing shabby tricks and jobs of office. And Mr. images of paternal tenderness and filial duty, Southey, accordingly, has no toleration for there is scarcely any thing soft or humane in them. When a democrat, he did not perceive Mr. Southey's poetry. What theologians call that his system led logically, and would have the spiritual sins are his cardinal virtues- led practically, to the removal of religious dishatred, pride, and the insatiable thirst of ven- tinctions. He now commits a similar error. geance. These passions he disguises under He renounces the abject and paltry part of the the name of duties; he purifies them from the creed of his party, without perceiving that it is alloy of vulgar interests; he ennobles them by also an essential part of that creed. He woutld uniting them with energy, fortitude, and a have tyranny and purity together; though the severe sanctity of manners, and then holds most superficial observation might have shown them up to the admiration of mankind. This him that there can be no tyranny without coris the spirit of Thalaba, of Ladurlad, of Ado- ruption. sinda, of Roderick after his regeneration. It is It is high time, however, that we shotud prut the spirit which, in all his writings, Mr. Sou- ceed to the consideration of the work, which is they appears to effect. "I do well to be angry," our more immediate subject, and which, inseems to be the predominant feeling of his deed, illustrates in almost every page our mind. Almost the only mark of charity which general remarks on Mr. Southey's writings. he vouchsafes to his opponents is to pray for In the preface, we are informed that the author, their conversion, and this he does in terms not notwithstanding some statements to the con unlike those in which we can imagine a Por- trary, was always opposed to the Catholic tUguese priest interceding with Heaven for a claims. We fully believe this; both because V S 102 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. we are sure that Mr. Southey is incapable of is, and why he comes. The ghost turns out to publishing a deliberate falsehood, and because be Sir Thomas More. The traces of martyrhis averment is in itself probable. It is ex- dom, it seems, are worn in the other world, as actly what we should have expected that, even stars and ribands are worn in this. Sir Thomas in his wildest paroxysms of democratic enthu- shows the poet a red streak round his neck, siasm, Mr. Southey would have felt no wish to brighter than a ruby, and informs him that see a simple remedy applied to a great practical Cranmer wears a suit of flames in Paradi;e, evil; that the only measure, which all the great the right-hand glove, we suppose, of peculiar statesmen of two generations have agreed with brilliancy. each other in supporting, would be the only Sir Thomas pays but a short visit on this measure which Mr. Southey would have agreed occasion, but promises to cultivate the new with himself in opposing. He had passed acquaintance which he has formed, and, after from one extreme of political opinion to an- begging that his visit may be kept secret from other, as Satan in Milton went round the globe, Mrs. Southey, vanishes into air. contriving constantly to "ride with darkness." The rest of the book consists of conversaWherever the thickest shadow of the night tions between Mr. Southey and the spirit about may at any moment chance to fall, there is trade, currency, Catholic emancipation, periMr. Southey. It is not everybody who could odical literature, female nunneries, butchers, have so dexterously avoided blundering on the snuff, book-stalls, and a hundred other subjects. daylight in the course of a journey to the anti- Mr. Southey very hospitably takes an opportupodes. nity to lionize the ghost round the lakies, and Mr. Southey has not been fortunate in the directs his attention to the most beautiful points plan of any of his fictitious narratives. But he of view. Why a spirit was to be evoked for has never failed so conspicuously as in the the purpose of talking over such matters, and work before us; except, indeed, in the wretched seeing such sights, when the vicar of the parish, Vision of Judgment. In November, 1817, it a blue-stocking from London, or an Anmerican, seems, the laureate was sitting over his news- such as Mr. Southey supposed his aerial paper, and meditating about the death of the visiter to be, might not have done as well, we Princess Charlotte. An elderly person, of are unable to conceive. Sir Thomas tells very dignified aspect, makes his appearance, Mr. Southey noth;ng about future events, and announces himself as a stranger from a dis- indeed absolutely disclaims the gift of pretant country, and apologizes very politely for science. He has learned to talk modern English: not having provided himself with letters of in- he has read all the new publications, and loves troduction. Mr. Southey supposes his visiter a jest as well as when he jested with the executo be some American gentleman, who has tioner, though we cannot say that the quality come to see the lakes and the lake-poets, and of his wit has materially improved in Paradise. accordingly proceeds to perform, with that His powers of reasoning, too, are by no means grace which only long experience can give, in as great vigour as when he sate on the woolall the duties which authors owe to starers. sack; and though he boasts that he is "divested He assures his guest that some of the most of all those passions which cloud the intellects agreeable visits which he has received have and warp the understandings of men," we been from Americans, and that he knows men think him, we must confess, far less stoical among them whose talents and virtues would than formerly. As to revelations, he tells Mr. do honour to any country. In passing, we may Southey at the outset to expect none from him. observe, to the honour of Mr. Southey, that, The laureate expresses some doubts, whic:h though he evidently has no liking for the Ame- assuredly will not raise him in the opinion of rican institutions, he never speaks of the people our modern millenarians, as to the divine auof the United States with that pitiful affectation thority of the Apocalypse. But the ghost preof contempt, by which some members of his serves an impenetrable silence. As far as we party have done more than wars or tariffs can do remember, only one hint about the employto excite mutual enmity between two communi- ments of disembodied spirits escapes him. He ties formed for mutual friendship. Great as the encourages Mr. Southey to hope that there is a faults of his mind are, paltry spite like this has Paradise Press, at which all the valuable pubno place in it. Indeed, it is scarcely conceiv- lications of Mr. Murray and Mr. Colburn are able that a man of his sensibility and his ima- reprinted as regularly as at Philadelphia; and gination should look without pleasure and delicately insinuates, that Thalaba and the national pride on the vigorous and splendid Curse of Kehama are among the number. youth of a great people, whose veins are filled What a contrast does this absurd fiction prewith our blood, whose minds are nourished sent to those charming narratives which Plato with our literature, and on whom is entailed and Cicero prefix to their dialogues! What the rich inheritance of our civilization, our cost in machinery, yet what poverty of effect! freedom, and our glory. A ghost brought in to say what any man might But we must now return to Mr. Southey's study have said! The glorified spirit of a great at Keswick. The visiter informs the hospitable statesman and philosopher dawdling, like a poet that he is not an American, but a spirit. bilious old nabob at a watering-place, over Mr. Southey, with more frankness than civility, quarterly reviews and novels, dropping in to tells hipi that he is a very queer one. The pay long calls, making excursions in search btranger holds out his hand. It has neither of the picturesque! The scene of St. George weight nor substance. Mr. Southey upon this and St. Denys in the Pucelle is hardly more tecomea more serious; his hair stands on end: ridiculous. We know what Voltaire meant. and ihe adjures the spectre to tell him what he I Nobody, however, can suppose that Mr SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 103 Bouthey means to make game of the mysteries with special favour on a sodier. He seems of a higher state of existence. The fact is, highly to approve of the sentiment of General that in the work before us, in the Vision of Meadows, who swore that a grenadier was the Judgment, and in some of his other pieces, his highest character in this world or in the next; mode of treating the most solemn subjects and assures us, that a virtuous soldier is placed differs from that of open scoffers, only as the in the situation which most tends to his imextravagant representations of sacred persons provement, and will most promote his eternal and things in some grotesque Italian paintings interests. Human blood, indeed, is by no differ from the caricatures which Carlisle ex- means an object of so much loathing to Mr. poses in the front of his shop. We interpret Southey, as the hides and paunches of cattle. the particular act by the general character. In 1814, he poured forth poetical maledictiolas What in the window of a convicted blasphe- on all who talked of peace with Bonaparte. mer we call blasphemous, we call only absurd He went over the field of Waterloo, a field, beand ill-judged in an altar-piece. neath which twenty thousand of the stoutest We now come to the conversations which hearts that ever beat are mouldering, and came pass between Mr. Southek and Sir Thomas back in an ecstasy, which he mistook for poetore, or rather between two Southeys equally ical inspiration. In most of his poems, partieloquent, equally angry, equally unreasonable, cularly in his best poem, Roderick, and in most and equally given to talking about what they of his prose works, particularly in The History do not understand. Perhaps we could not se- of the Peninsular War, he shows a delight in lect a better instance of the spirit which per- snuffing up carnage, which would not have vades the whole book than the discussion misbecome a Scandinavian bard, but which ching butchers. These persons are repre- sometimes seems to harmonize ill with the ted( as castaways, as men whose employ- Christian morality. We do not, however, ent hebetates the faculties and hardens the blame Mr. Southey for exulting, even a little heart. Not that the poet has any scruples ferociously, in the brave deeds of his countryabout the use of animal food. He acknow- men, or for finding something "comely and ledges that it is for the good of the animals reviving" in the bloody vengeance inflicted by themselves that men should feed upon them. an oppressed people on its oppressors. Now, "Nevertheless," says he, "I cannot but ac- surely, if we find that a man whose business is knowledge, like good old John Fox, that the to kill Frenchmen may be humane, we may sight of a slaughter-house or shambles, if it hope that means may be found to render a does not disturb this clear conviction, excites man humane whose business is to kill sheep. in me uneasiness and pain, as well as loathing. If the brutalizing effect of such scenes as the And that they produce a worse effect upon the storm of St. Sebastian may be counteracted, persons employed in them, is a fact acknow- we may hope that in a Christian Utopia, some ledged by thd law or custom which excludes minds might be proof against the kennels and such persons from sitting on juries upon cases dresses of Aidgate. Mr. Southey's feeling, of life and death." however, is easily explained. A butcher's This is a fair specimen of Mr. Southey's knife is by no means so elegant as a sabre, mode of looking at all moral questions. Here and a calf does not bleed with half the grace is a body of men engaged in an employment, of a poor wounded hussar. which, by his own account, is beneficial, not It is in the same manner that Mr. Southey only to mankind, but to the very creatures on appears to have formed his opinions of the whom we feed. Yet he represents them as manufacturing system. There is nothing men rlwho are necessarily reprobates, as men which he hates so bitterly. It is, according to who must necessarily be reprobates, even in him, a system more tyrannical than that of the the most improved state of society, even, to feudal ages, a system of actual servitude, a use his own phrase, in a Christian Utopia. system which destroys the bodies and deAnd what reasons are given for a judgment so grades the minds of those who are engaged directly opposed to every principle of sound in it. He expresses a hope that the competiand manly morality? Merely this, that he can- tion of other nations may drive us out of the not abide the sight of their apparatus; that, field; that our foreign trade may decline, and from certain peculiar associations, he is that we may thus enjoy a restoration of naaffected with disgust when he passes by their tional sanity and strength. But he seems to shops. IHe gives, indeed, another reason; a think that the extermination of the who'e macertain law or custom, which never existed but nufacturing population would be a blessing, in the imaginations of old women, and which, if the evil could be-'emoved in no other way. if it had existed, would have proved just as Mr. Southey does not bring forward a single much against butchers as the ancient preju- fact in support of these views, and, as it seems dice against the practice of taking interest for to us, there are facts which lead to a very money proves against the merchants of Eng- different conclusion. In the first place, the land. Is a surgeon a castaway? We believe poor-rate is very decidedly lower in the manu that nurses, when they instruct children in that facturing than in the agricultural districts. venerable law or custom which Mr. Southey If Mr. Southey will look over the Parliamentso highly approves, generally join the surgeon ary returns on this subject, he will nnd that the to the butcher. A dissecting-room would, we amount of parish relief required by the lashould think, affect the nerves of most people bourers in the different counties of England, as much as a butcher's shambles. But the is almost exactly in inverse pioportion to the most amusing circumstance is, that Mr. degree in which the manufacturing systemn Southey, who detests a butcher, should look has been introduced into those counties. rhe 104 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. returns for the year ending in March, 1825, "We remained a while in silence, looking and in March, 1828, are now before us. In upon the assemblage of dwellings below. the former year, we find the poor-rates highest Here, and in the adjoining hamlet of Millbeck, in Sussex-about 20s. to every inhabitant. the effects of manufactures and of agriculture Then come Buckinghamshire, Essex, Suffolk, may be seen and compared. The old cottages Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, Kent and Nor- are such as the poet and the painter equally folk. In all these the rate is above 15s. a head. delight in beholding. Substantially built of We will not go through the whole. Even in the native stone without mortar, dirtied with Westmoreland, and the North Riding of York- no white lime, and their long, low roofs covered shire, the rate is at more than 8s. In Cumber- with slate; if they had been raised by the land and Monmouthshire, the most fortunate magic of some indigenous Amphion's music, of all the agricultural districts, it is at 6s. the materials could not have adjusted themBut in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is as selves more beautifully in accord with the low as 5s.; and when we come to Lancashire, surrounding scene; and time has still further we find it at 4s.-one-fifth of what it is in Sussex. harmonized them with weather-stains, lichens, The returns of the year ending in March, 1828, and moss, short grasses, and short fern, and are a little, and but a little, more unfavourable to stone-plants of various kinds. The ornathe manufacturing districts. Lancashire, even mented chimneys, round or square, less adornin that season of distress, required a smaller ed than those which, like little turrets, crest poor-rate than any other district, and little the houses of the Portuguese peasantry: and more than one-fourth of the poor-rate raised yet not less happily suited to their place, the in Sussex. Cumberland alone, of the agricul- hedge of clipt box beneath the windows, the tural districts, was as well off as the West rose bushes beside the door, the little patch of Riding of Yorkshire. These facts seem to in- flower ground, with its tall hollyhocks in dicate that the manufacturer is both in a more front; the garden beside, the bee-hives, and comfortable and in a less dependent situation the orchard with its bank of daffodils and than the agricultural labourer. snow-drops, the earliest and the profusest in As to the effect of the manufacturing system these parts, indicate in the owners some poron the bodily health, we must beg leave to tion of ease and leisure, some regard to neatestimate it by a standard far too low and vul- ness and comfort, some sense of natural, and gar for a mind so imaginative as that of Mr. innocent, and healthful enjoyment. The new Southey, the proportion of births and deaths. cottages of the manufacturers are upon the We know that, during the growth of this manufacturing pattern-naked, and in a row. atrocious system, this new misery, (we use "How is it, said I, that every thing which is the phrase of Mr. Southey,) this new enormity, connected with manufactures presents such this birth of an portentous age, this pest, which features of unqualified deformity? From the no man can approve whose heart is not seared, largest of Mammon's temples *down to the or whose understanding has not been darkened, poorest hovel in which his helotry are stalled, there has been a great diminution of mortality, these edifices have all one character. Time and that this diminution has been greater in will not mellow them; nature will never clothe the manufacturing towns than anywhere else. nor conceal them; and they will remain alThe mortality still is, as it always was, greater ways as offensive to the eye as to the mind." in towns than in the country. But the differ- Here is wisdom. Here are the principles ence has diminished in an extraordinary de- on which nations are to be governed. Rose gree. There is the best reason to believe, that bushes and poor-rates, rather than steam-enthe annual mortality of Manchester, about the gines and independence. Mortality and cotmiddle of the last century, was one in twenty- tages with weather-stains, rather than health eight. It is now reckoned at one in forty-five. and long life with edifices which time cannot In Glasgow and Leeds a similar improvement mellow. We are told, that our age has in. has taken place. Nay, the rate of mortality vented atrocities beyond the imagination of in those three great capitals of the manufac- our fathers; that society has been brought into turin, districts, is now considerably less than a state, compared with which extermination it was fifty years ago over England and Wales would be a blessing; and all because the taken together, open country and all. We dwellings of cotton-spinners are naked and might with solne plausibility maintain, that the rectangular. Mr. Southey has found out a people live longer because they are better fed, way, he tells us, in which the effects of manubetter lodged, better clothed, and better attend- factures and agriculture may be compared. ed in sickness; and that these improvements And what is this way? To stand on a hill, to are owing to that increase of national wealth look at a cottage and a manufactory, and to which the manufacturing system has produced. see which is the prettier. Does Mr. Southey Much more might be said on this subject. think that the body of the English peasantry But to what end? It is not from bills of mor- live, or ever lived, in substantial and ornatality and statistical tables that Mr. Southey mented cottages, with box hedges, flower gar has learned his political creed. He cannot dens, bee-hives, and orchards? If not, what is stoop to study the history of the system which his parallel worth? We despise those filoso. he abuses, to strike the balance betwcen the fastri, who think that they serve the cause of good and evil which it has produced, to com- science by depreciating literature and the fine paie district with district, or generation with arts. But if anything could excuse their nargeneration. We will give his own reason for rowness of mind, it would be such a book as hi., opinion, the only reason which he gives this. It is not strange that when one enthusi..or It, in his own words: ast makes the picturesque the test of political SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 10O good, another should feel inclined to proscribe creditor. Every man who sells goods for any altogether the pleasures of taste and imagina- thing but ready money, runs the risk of finding tion. that what he considered as part of his wealth Thus it is that Mr. Southey reasons about one day, is nothing at all the next day. Mr. matters with which he thinks himself perfectly Southey refers to the picture-galleries of Holconversant. We cannot,-therefore, be surprised land. The pictures were undoubtedly real and to find that he commits extraordinary blunders tangible possessions. But surely it might hap. when he writes on points of which he acknow- pen that a burgomaster might owe a picture. ledges himself to be ignorant. He confesses that dealer a thousand guilders for a Teniers. he is not versed in political economy, that he has What in this case corresponds to our paper. neither liking nor aptitude for it; and he then money is not the picture, which is tangible,'proceeds to read the public a lecture concern- but the claim of the picture-dealer on his cusing it, which fully bears out his confession. tomer for the price of the picture, which is not "All wealth," says Sir Thomas More, "in tangible. Now, would not the picture-dealer former times was tangible. I,t consisted in consider this claim as part of his wealth? land, money, or chattels, which were either of Would not a tradesman who knew of it give real or conventional value." credit to the picture-dealer the more readiiy on Montesinos, as Mr. Southey somewhat affect- account of it The burgomaster might be edly calls himself, answers: ruined. If so, would not those consequences "Jewels, for example, and pictures, as in follow which, as Mr. Southey tells us, were Holland —where indeed at one time tulip bulbs never heard of till paper-money came into use. answered the same purpose." Yesterday this claim was worth a thousand " That bubble," says Sir Thomas, " was one guilders. To-day what is it? The shadow of of those contagious insanities to which com- a shade. munities are subject. All wealth was real, till It is true, that the more readily claims of the extent of commerce rendered a paper cur- this sort are transferred from hand to hand, the rency necessary; which differed from precious more extensive will be the injury produced by stones and pictures in this important point, a single failure. The laws of all nations sancthat there was no limit to its production." tion, in certain cases, the transfer of rights not " We regard it," says Montesinos, i as the yet reduced into possession. Mr. Southey representative of real wealth, and, therefore, would scarcely wish, we should think, that all limited always to the amount of what it repre- endorsements of bills and notes should be desents." dared invalid. Yet even if this were done, the "Pursue that notion," answers the ghost, transfer of claims would imperceptibly take " and you will be in the dark presently. Your place to a very great extent. When the baker provincial bank-notes, which constitute almost trusts the butcher, for example, he is in fact, wholly the circulating medium of certain dis- though not in form, trusting the butcher's custricts, pass current to-day. To-morrow, tidings tomers. A man who owes large bills to trades. may come that the house which issued them men, and fails to pay them, almost always prohas stopped payment, and what do they repre- duces distress through a very wide circle of sent then? You will find them the shadow of people whom he never dealt with. a shade." In short, What Mr. Southey takes for a differ. We scarcely know at which end to begin to ence in kind, is only a difference of form and disentangle this knot of absurdities. We might degree. In every society men have claims on ask why it should be a greater proof of insanity the property of others. In every sociesty there in men to set a high value on rare tulips than on is a possibility that some debtors may not be rare stones, which are neither more useful nor able to fulfil their obligations. In every sociemore beautiful? We might ask how it can be ty, therefore, there is wealth which is not tansaid that there is no limit to the production of gible, and which may become the shadow of a paper-money, when a man is hanged if he shade. issues any in the name of another, and is forced Mr. Southey then proceeds to a dissertation to cash what he issues in his own? But Mr. on the national debt, which he considers in a Southey's error lies deeper still. " All wealth," new and most consolatory light, as a clear adsays he, " was tangible and real, till paper cur- dition to the income of the country. rency was introduced." Now, was there ever, "You can understand," says Sir Thomas, since man emerged from a state of utter bar- " that it constitutes a great part of the national barism, an age in which there were no debts? wealth." Is not a debt, while the solvency of the debtor "So large a part," answers Montesinos, " that is undoubted, always reckoned as part of the the interest amounted, during the prosperous wealth of the creditor? Yet is it tangible and time of agriculture, to as much as the rental real wealth 1 Does it cease to be wealth, be- of all the land in Great Britain; and at present cause there is the security of a written acknow- to the rental of all lands, all houses, and all ledgment for it? And what else is paper cur- other fixed property put together." rency? Did Mr. Southey ever read a bank- The ghost and the laureate agree that it is note? If he did, he would see that it is a writ- very desirable that there should be so secure ten acknowledgment of a debt, and a promise and advantageous a deposit for wealth as the to pay that debt. The promise may be violated, funds afford. Sir Thomas then proceeds: the debt may remain unpaid, those to whom it "Another and far more momentous benefit was due may suffer: but this is a risk not con- must not be overlooked: the expenditure of an fined to cases of paper currency; it is a risk annual interest, equalling, as you have stat4e, inseparable from the relation of debtor and the present rental of all fixed property." VOL. I.-14 106 hZMACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. "ThaL expenditure," quoth Montesinos, "Resaignare, repurgare, et rectysterizare." "gives employment to half the industry in the "A people," he tells us, "may be too lich. kingdom, and feeds half the mouths. Take, I but a government cannot be so." indeed, the weight of the national debt from I "A state," says he, "cannot have more this great and complicated social machine, wealth at its command than may be employed and the wheels must stop." i for the general good, a liberal expenditure in From this passage we should have been in- national works being one of the surest means dined to think that Mr. Southey supposes the for promoting national prosperity, andt the b'dividends to be a free gift periodically sent nefit being still more obvious of an expenditure down from heaven to the fundholders, as quails directed to the purposes of national improveand manna were sent to the Israelites, were it ment. But a people may be too rich." not that he has vouchsafed, in the following We fully admit that a state cannot have at question and answer, to give the public some its command more wealth than may be employ. information which, we believe, was very little ed for the general good. But neither can indineeded. viduals or bodies of individuals have at their "Whence comes the interestS " says Sir command more wealth than may be employed Thomas. for the general good. If there be no limit to "It is raised," answers Montesinos, "by tax- the sum which may be usefully laid out in -ation." public works and nationl improvement, then Now, has Mr. Southey ever considered what wealth, whether in the hands of private men would be done with this sum, if it were not or of the government, may always, if the pospaid as interest to the national creditor? If sessor choose to spend it usefilly, be usefully he would think over this matter for a short spent. The only ground, therefore, en which time, we suspect that the " momentous benefit" Mr. Southey can possibly maintain that a goof which he talks would appear to him to shrink vernment cannot be too rich, but that a people strangely in amount. A fundholder, we will may be too rich, must be this, that governments suppose, spends an income of five hundred are more likely to spend their money on good pounds a year, and his ten nearest neighbohtrs objects than private individuals. pay fifty pounds each to the tax-gatherer, for But what is useful expenditure? "A libethe purpose of discharging the interest of the ral expenditure in national works," says Mr. national debt. If the debt were wiped out, (a Southey, 1" is one of the surest means for promeasure, be it understood, which we by no moting national prosperity." What does he means recommend,) the fundholder would mean by national prosperity? Does he mean cease to spend his five hundred pounds a year. the wealth of the state? If so, his reasoning He would no longer give employment to indus- runs thus:- The more wealth a state has the try, or put food into the mouths of labourers. better; for the more wealth a state has the This Mr. Southey thinks a fearful evil. But is more wealth it will have. This is surely there no mitigating circumstance? Each of something like that fallacy which is ungalhis ten neighbours has fifty pounds more than lantly termed a lady's reason. If by national formerly. Each of them will, as it seems to prosperity he means the wealth of the people, our feeble understandings, employ more indus- of how gross a contradiction is he guilty! A try and feed more mouths than formerly. The people, he tells us, may be too rich; a governsum is exactly the same. It is in different ment cannot; for a government can employ hands. But on what grounds does Mr. Southey its riches in making the people richer. The call upon us to believe that it is in the hands wealth of the people is to be taken from them, of men who will spend less liberally or less because they have too much, and laid out in judiciously? He seems to think that nobody works which yield them more. but a fundholder can employ the poor; that if We are really at a loss to determine wrhe. a tax is remitted, those who formerly used to ther Mr. Southey's reason for recommending pay it proceed immediately to dig holes in the large taxation is that it will make the people earth, and bury the sum which the government rich, or that it will make them poor. But we had been accustomed to take; that no money are sure that if his object is to make them can set industry in motion till it has been taken rich, he takes the wrong course. There are by the tax-gatherer out of one man's pocket two or three principles respecting public and put into another man's. We really wish works, which, as an experience of vast extent that Mr. Southey would try to prove this prin- proves, may be trusted in almost every case. ciple, which is, indeed, the foundation of his It scarcely ever happens that any private whole theory of finance; for we think it right man, or body of men, will invest property ir to hint to him, that our hard-hearted and un- canal, a tunnel, or a bridge, but from an eximaginative generation will expect some more pectation that the outlay will be profitable to satisfactory reason than the only one with them. No work of this sort can be profitable which he has yet favoured it-a similitude to private speculators, unless the public be touching evaporation and dew. willing to pay for the use of it. The public Both the theory and the illustration, indeed, will not pay of their own accord for what are old friends of ours. In every season of yields no profit or convenience to them. There distress which we can remember, Mr. Southey is thus a direct and obvious connection be. has been proclaiming that it is not from eco- tween the motive which induces individuals nomy, bat from increased taxation, that the to undertake such a-work, and the utility of coun.try must expect relief; and he still, we the work. find, places the undoubting faith of a political Can we find any such connection in the Dlaitirus in his case of a public work executed by a govern SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 107 ment. If it is useful, are the individuals who " There are many," says Montesinos, "who rule the country richer? If it is useless, are know this, but believe that it is not in the they poorer? A public man may be solicitous power of human institutions to prevent this for his credit: but is not he likely to gain misery. They see the effect, but regard the more credit by a useless display of ostenta- causes as inseparable from the condition of tious architecture in a great town, than by the human nature." best road or the best canal in some remote "As surely as God is good," replies Sir province? The fame of public works is a Thomas, "so surely there is no such thing as much less certain test of their utility, than the necessary evil. For, by the rel.iious mind, amount of toll collected at them. In a corrupt sickness, and pain, and death are not to be acage, there will be a direct embezzlement. In counted evils." the purest age, there will be abundance of Now, if sickness, pain, and death are not jobbing. Never were the statesmen of any evils, we cannot understand why it should be country more sensitive to public opinion, and an evil that thousands should rise without more spotless in pecuniary transactions, than knowing how they are to subsist. The only those who have of late governed England. evil of hunger is, that it produces first pain, Yet we have only to look at the buildings re- then sickness, and finally death. If it (lid not cently erected in London for a proof of our produce these, it would be no calamity. If rule. In a bad age, the fate of the public is to these are not evils, it is no calamity. We be robbed. In a good age, it is much milder cannot conceive why it should be a greater -merely to have the dearest and the worst of impeachment of the Divine goodness, that every thing. some men should not be able to find food to Buildings for state purposes the state must eat, than that others should have stomachs erect. And here we think that, in general, the which derive no nourishment from food when state oight to stop. We firmly believe, that they have eaten it. Whatever physical efifects five hundred thousand pounds subscribed by want produces, may also be produced by individuals for railroads or canals, would pro- disease. Whatever salutary effects disease duce more advantage to the public than five may produce, may also be produced by want. millions voted by Parliament for the same If poverty makes men thieves, disease and purpose. There are certain old saws about pain often sour the temper and contract the the miaster's eye, and about everybody's busi- heart. ness, in which we place very great faith. We will propose a very plain dilemma: There is, we have said, no consistency in Either physical pain is an evil, or it is not an Mr. Southey's political system. But if there evil. If it is an evil, then there is necessary be in it any leading principle, if there be any evil in the universe: if it is not, why should one error which diverges more widely and the poor be delivered from it? variously than any other, it is that of which Mr. Southey entertains as exaggerated a his theory about national works is a rami- notion of the wisdom of governments as of fication. He conceives that the business of their power. He speaks with the greatest dis. the magistrate is, not merely to see that the gust of the respect now paid to public opinion. persons and property of the people are secure That opinion is, according to him, to be disfrom attack, but that he ought to be a perfect trusted and dreaded; its usurpation ought to be jack of all trades, architect, engineer, school- vigorously resisted; and the practice of yieldmaster, merchant, theologian, a Lady Boun- ing to it is likely to ruin the country. To tiful in every parish, a Paul Pry in every maintain.police is, according to him, onty uine house, spying, eaves-dropping, relieving, ad- of the ends of government. Its duties are pamonishilg, spending our money for us, and triarchal and paternal. It ought to consider choosing our opinions for us. His principle the moral discipline of the people as its first is, if we understand it rightly, that no man can object, to establish a religion, to train the do any thing so well for himself, as his rulers, whole community in that religion, and to conbe they who they may, can do it for him; that sider all dissenters as its own enemies. a government approaches nearer and nearer "Nothing," says Sir Thomas, " is more certo perfection, in proportion as it interferes tain than that religion is the basis upon which more and more with the habits and notions of civil government rests; that from religion individuals. power derives its authority, laws their efficacy, He seems to be fully convinced, that it is in and both their zeal and sanction; and it is nethe power of government to relieve the dis- cessary that this religion be established for tresses under which the lower orders labour. the security of the state and for the welfare of Nay, he considers doubt on this subject as im- the people, who would otherwise be moved to pious. We cannot refrain from quoting his and fro with every wind of doctrine. A state argument on this subject. It is a perfect jewel is secure in proportion as the people are atof logic. tached to its institutions; it is, therefore, the "Many thousands in your metropolis," says first and plainest rule of sound policy, that the Sir Thomas More, " rise every morning with- people be trained up in the way they should out knowing how they are to subsist during go. The state that neglects this prepares its bhe day; as many of therm, where they are to own destruction; and they who train them up lay their heads at night. All men, even the in any other way are undermining it. Nothing vicious themselves, know that wickedness in abstract science can be more certain than leads to misery; but many, even among the these positions are." good and the wise, have yet to learn that mise- "All of which," answers Montesinos, "are ly is almost as often the cause of wickedness." nevertheless denied by our professors -f'ke 108 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. arts Babblative and Scribblative, some in the train them in any other way, are undermining audacity of evil designs, and others in the the state. glorious assurance of impenetrable igno- Now it does not appear to us to be the first rance." object that people should always believe in the The greater part of the two volumes before established religion, and be attached to the us is merely an amplification of these absurd established government. A religion may be paragraphs. What does Mr. Southey mean false. A government maybeoppressive. And by saying, that religion is demonstrably the whatever support government gives to false basis of civil government? Hecannot surely religions, or religion to oppressive governmean that men have no motives, except those ments, we consider as a clear evil. derived from religion, for establishing and The maxim, that governments ought to train supporting civil government, that no temporal the people in the way in which they should go, advantage is derived from civil government, sounds well. But is there any reason for that man would experience no temporal incon- believing that a government is more likely to venience from living in a state of anarchy. lead the people in the right way, than the If he allows, as we think he must allow, that people to fall into the right way of themselves. it is for the good of mankind in this world Have there not been governments which were to have civil government, and that the great blind leaders of the blind? Are there not still majority of mankind have always thought it such governments? Can it be laid down as a for their good in this world to have civil go- general rule that the movement of political and vernment, we then have a basis for govern- religious truth is rather downwards from the ment quite distinct from religion. It is true, government to the people, than upwards from that the Christian religion sanctions govern- the people to the government! These are ment, as it sanctions every thing which pro- questions which it is of importance to have motes the happiness and virtue of our species. clearly resolved. Mr. Southey declaims against But we are at a loss to conceive in what sense public opinion, which is now, he tells us, religion can be said to be the basis of govern- usurping supreme power. Formerly, accordment, in which it is not also the basis of the ing to him, the laws governed; now public practices of eating, drinking, and lighting fires opinion governs. What are laws but expresin cold weather. Nothing in history is more sions of the opinion of some class which has certain than that government has existed, has power over the rest of the community? By received some obedience and given some pro- what was the world ever governed, but by the tection, in times in which it derived no sup- opinion of some person or persons. By what port from religion, in times in which there else can it ever be governed What are all was no religion that influenced the hearts and systems, religious, political, or scientific, but lives of men. It was not from dread of Tarta- opinions resting on evidence more or less sarus, or belief in the Elysian fields, that an tisfactory. The question is not between huAthenian wished to have some institutions man opinion, and some higher and more cerwhich might keep Orestes from filching his tain mode of arriving at truth, but between cloak, or Midias from breaking his head. "It opinion and opinion, between the opinion of is from religion," says Mr. Southey, "that one man and another, or of one class and power derives its authority, and laws their another, or of one generation and another efficacy." From what religion does our power Public opinion is not infallible; but can Mr over the Hindoos derive its authority, or the Southey construct any institutions which shall law in virtue of which we hang Brahmins, its secure to us the guidance of an infallible opiefficacy? For thousands of years civil go- nion? Can Mr. Southey select any family, vernment has existed in almost every corner any profession, any class in short,distinguished of the world, in ages of priestcraft, in ages of by any plain badge from the rest of the comfanaticism, in ages of epicurean indifference, munity, whose opinion is more likely to be in ages of enlightened piety. However pure just than this much abused public opinion? or impure the faith of the people might be, Would he choose the peers, for example? Or whether they adored a beneficent or malignant the two hundred tallest men in the country I power, whether they thought the soul mortal Or the poor Knights of Windsor? Or children or immortal, they have, as soon as they ceased who are born with cauls, seventh sons of seto be absolute savages, found out their need of venth sons? We cannot suppose that he civil government, and instituted it according- would recommend popular election: for that ly. It is as universal as the practice of cook- is merely an appeal to public opinion. And ery. Yet, it is as certain, says Mr. Southey, to say that society ought to be governed by the as any thing in abstract science, that govern- opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is ment is founded on religion. We should like useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are to know what notion Mr. Southey has of the the wisest and best? demonstrations of abstract science. But a Mr. Southey and many other respectable vague one, we suspect. people seem to think that when they have once The proof proceeds. As religion is the basis proved the moral and religious training of the of government, and as the state is secure in people to be a most important object, it folproportior, as the people are attached to its in- lows, of course, that it is an object which the stitutlons, it is, therefore, says Mr. Southey, the government ought to pursue. They forget that first rule of policy, that the government should we have to consider, not merely the goodness train the people in the way in which they of the end, but also the fitness of the means. should go; and it is plain, that those who Neither in the natural nor in the political bhcdy SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 109 have all members the same office. There is Men are never so likely to settle a question surely no contradiction in saying that a certain rightly as when they discuss it freely. A gosection of the community may be quite com- vernment can interfere int discussion, only by petent to protect the persons and property of making it less free than it would otherwise be. the rest, yet quite unfit to direct our opinions, Men are most likely to form just opinions or to superintend our private habits. when they have no other wish than to know So strong is the interest of a ruler to pro- the truth, and are exempt from all influence, cect his subjects against all depredations and either of hope or fear. Government, as gooutrages except his own, so clear and simple vernment, can bring nothing but the influence are the means by which this end is to be of hopes and fears to support its doctrines. It effected, that men are probably better off under carries on controversy, not with reasons. but the worst governments in the world than they with threats and bribes. If it employs reasons, would be in a state of anarchy. Even when it does so not in virtue of any powers which the appointment of magistrates has been left belong to it as a government. Thus, instead to chance, as in the Italian republics, things of a contest between argument and argument, have gone on better than they would have we have a contest between argumnent and done, if there had been no magistrates at all, force. Instead of a contest in which truth, and every man had done what seemed right in from the natural constitution of the human his own eyes. But we see no reason for think- mind, has a decided advantage over falsehood, ing that the opinions of the magistrate are we have a contest in which truth can be vicmore likely to be right than those of any other torious only by accident. man. None of the modes by which rulers are And what, after all, is the security which appointed, popular election, the accident of the this training gives to governments? Mr. Soulot, or the accident of birth, afford, as far as they would scarcely recommend that discuswe can perceive, much security for their being sion should be more effectually shackled, that wiser than any oftheirneighbours. The chance public opinion should be more strictly disciof their being wiser than all their neighbours plined into conformity with established institogether is still smaller. Now we cannot con- tutions, than in Spain and Italy. Yet we know ceive how it can be laid down, that it is the that the restraints which exist in Spain and duty and the right of one class to direct the Italy have not prevented atheism from spreadopinions of another, unless it can be proved ing among the educated classes, and especially that the former class is more likely to form among those whose office it is to minister at just opinions than the latter. the altars of God. All our readers know how, The duties of government would be, as Mr. at the time of the French Revolution, priest Southey says that they are, paternal, if a go- after priest came forward to declare that his vernment were necessarily as much superior doctrine, his ministry, his whole life, had been in wisdom to a people, as the most foolish a lie, a mummery during which he could father, for a time, is to the most intelligent scarcely compose his countenance sufficiently child, and if a government loved a people as to carry on the imposture. This was the case fathers generally love their children. But of a false, or at least a grossly corrupted relithere is no reason to believe, that a govern- gion. Let us take, then, the case of all others ment will either have the paternal warmth of the most favourable to Mr. Southey's arguaffection or the paternal superiority of intel- ment. Let us take that form of religion which lect. Mr. Southey might as well say, that the he holds to be the purest, the system of the Arduties of the shoemaker are paternal, and that minian part of the Church of England. Let us it is a usurpation in any man not of the craft take the form of government which he most to say that his shoes are bad, and to insist on admires and regrets, the government of Enghaving better. The division of labour would land in the time of Charles the First. Would be no blessing, if those by whom a thing is he wish to see a closer connection between done were to pay no attention to the opinion church and state than then existed? Would of those for whom it is done. The shoemaker, he wish for more powerful ecclesiastical triin the Relapse, tells Lord Foppington, that his bunals? for a more zealous king? for a more lordship is mistaken in supposing that his active primateS Would he wish to see a more shoe pinches. "It does not pinch, it cannot complete monopoly of public instruction given pinch; I know my business, and I never made to the Established Church? Could any gov erna better shoe." This is the way in which Mr. ment do more to train the people in the way Southey would have a government treat a in which he would have them go? And in people who usurp the privilege of thinking. what did all this training end?'rhe Report Nay, the shoemaker of Vanbrugh has the ad- of the state of the province of Canterbury, devantage in the comparison. lie contented livered by Laud to his Master at the close of himself with regulating his customer's shoes, 1639, represents the Church of England as in about which he knew something, and did not the highest and most palmy state. So effectupresume to dictate about the coat and hat. ally had the government pursued that policy But Mr. Southey would have the rulers of a which Mr. Southey wishes to see revived, that country prescribe opinions to the people, not there was scarcely the least appearance:,f disonly about politics, but about matters concern- sent. Most of the bishops stated that all was ing which a government has no peculiar well among their flocks. Seveti or eight persources of information, concerning which any sons of the diocese of Peterborough had seemman in the streets mav know as much, and ed refractory to the church, but had made amthink as justly, as a king —religion and mo- pl.e submission. In Norfolk and Suflblk all rals. whom there had been reason tL, suspect had K 110 MACAUILAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. made profession of conformity, and appeared tain many of the feelings and opinions of to observe it strictly. It is confessed that Charles and Laud, though in a mitigated form there was a little difficulty in bringing some nor is it difficult to see that the heirs of the of the vulgar in Suffolk to take the sacrament Puritans are still amongst us. It would be de, at the rails in the chancel. This is the only sirable that each of these parties should reopen instance of nonconformity which the member how little advantage or honour it for' vigilant eye of Ilaud could find in all the dio- merly derived from the closest alliance with ceses of his twenty-one suffragans, on the power; that it fell by the support of rulers, and very eve of a revolution in which primate and rose by their opposition; that of the two syschurch, and monarch and monarchy, were to tems, that in which the people were at any time perish together. being drilled was -always at that time the unAt which time would Mr. Southey pronounce popular system; that the training of the High the constitutionl more secure; in 1639, when Church ended in the reign of the Puritans, and Laud presented this report to Charles, or now, the training of the Puritans in the reign of the when thousands of meetings openly collect harlots. millions of dissenters, when designs against This was quite natural. Nothing is so gallthe tithes are openly avonved, when books at- ing and detestable to a people not broken in tacking not o(nly the Establishment, but the from the birth, as a paternal, or, in other words, first principles of' Christianity, are openly sold a meddling government —a government which in the streets? The signs of discontent, he tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and tells us, are stronger in England now than in drink, and wear. Our fathers could not bear France when the States-general met; and it two hundred years ago; and we are not more hence he would have us infer that a revolu- patient than they. Mr. Southey thinks that the tion like that of France may be at hand. Does yoke of the church is dropping off because it he not know that the danger of states is to be is loose. We feel convinced that it is borne estimated, not by what breaks out of the pub- only because it is easy, and that in the instant lic mindl, but by what stays in it! Can he in which an attempt is made to tigh.ten it, it conceive any thing more terrible than the situ- will be flung away. It will be neither the first ation of a government whitch rules without ap- nor the strongest yoke that has been broken prehension over a people of hypocrites; which asunder and trampled under foot in the day of is flattered by the press, and cursed in the in- the vengeance of England. ner chambers; which exults in the attachment How far Mr. Southey would have the govern. and obedience of its subjects, and knows not ment carry its measures for training the peothat those subjects are leagued against it in a ple in the doctrines of the church, we are unfreemasonry of hatred, the sign of which is able to discover. In one passage Sir Thomas every day conveyed in the glance of ten thou- More asks with great vehemence, sand eyes, the pressure of ten thousand hands, " Is it possible that your laws should suffer and the tone of ten thousand voices? Pro- the unbelievers to exist as a party? foun(t and ingenious policy! Instead of cur- " Vetitunr est adeo sceleris nihil a" ing the disease, to remove those symptoms by Montesinos answers. "They avow themwhich alone its nature can be known! To selves in defiance of the laws. The fashion. leave the serpent his deadly sting, and deprive able dodtrine which the press at this time him only of his warning rattle! maintains is, that this is a matter in which the When the people whom Charles had so as- laws ought not to interfere, every man having siduously trainedt in the good way had reward- a right both to form what opinion he pleases ed his paternal care by cutting off his head, a upon religious subjects and to promulgate that new kind of training came into fashion. An- opinion." other governnlent arose, which, like the for- It is clear, therefore, that Mr. Southey would mer, c(nsidlered religion as its surest basis, not give full and perfect toleration to infidelity. and the religious discipline of the people as In another passage, however, he observes with its first duty. Sanguinary laws were enacted some truth, though too sweepingly, that "any against libertinism; profane pictures were degree of intolerance, short of that full extent burned; drapery was put on indecorous sta- which the Papal church exercises where it has tues; the theatres were shut up; fast-days the power, acts upon the opinions which it is were numerous; and the Parliament resolved intended to suppress like pruning upon vigothat no person should be admitted into any rous plants, they grow the stronger for it." public emrployment unless the HIoase should These two passages, put together, would lead be first satisfied of his vital godliness. We us to the conclusion that, in Mr. Southey's know what &was the end of this training. We opinion, the utmost severity ever employed by know tha' it ended in impiety, in filthy and the Roman Catholic church in the days of its heartless sensuality,' n the dissolution of all greatest power ought to be employed against ties of honour and morality. We know that unbelievers in England; in plain words, that at this very day scriptural phrases, scriptural Carlile and his shopmen ought to be burned nanles, perhaps some scriptural doctrines, ex- in Smithfield, and that every person who when cite disgust and ridicule solely because they are called upon should decline to make a solemn associated with the austerity of that period. profession of Christianity, ought to sutiffer the Thus has the experiment of training the same fate. We do not, however, believe that tPeople in established forms of religion been Mr. Southey would recommend such a course, twice tried in Etgland on a large scale; once though his language would, in the case of any byv Charles and laud, and once by the Puri- other writer, justify us in supposing this to be tlas. The High Tories of our time still enter- his meaning. His opinions form no system at SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 111 all. He never sees at one glance more of a i any of those who have in this age directed question than will furnish matter for one flow- their attacks against the last restraint of the ing and well-turned sentence; so that it would powerful, and the last hope of the wretched. be the height of unfairness to charge him per- The whole history of the Christian religion sonally with holding a doctrine merely because shows, that she is in far greater danger of that doctrine is deducible, though by the closest being corrupted by the alliance of power than and nost accurate reasoning, from the pre- of being crushed by its opposition. Those mises which he has laid down. We are, theie- who thrust temporal sovereignty upon her fore,.eft completely in the dark as to Mr. treat her as their prototypes treated her author. Southey's opinion about toleration. Imme- They bow the knee, and spit upon her; they diately after censuring the government for not cry Hail! and smite her on the cheek; they punishing infidels, he proceeds to discuss the put a sceptre into her hand, but it is a fragile question of the Catholic disabilities, now, thank reed; they crown her, but it is with thorns; God, remov ed, and defends them on the ground they cover with purple the wounds which their that the Catholic doctrines tend to persecution, own hands have inflicted on her; and inscribe andl that the Catholics persecuted when they magnificent titles over the cross on which had power. they have fixed her to perish in ignominy and "They mnust persecute," says he, "-if they pain. believe their own creed, for conscience' sake; The general view which Mr. Southey takes and if they do not believe it, they must perse- of the prospects of society is very gloomy; but cute for policy; because it is only by intole- we comfort ourselves with the consideration rance that so corrupt and injurious a system that Mr. Southey is no prophet. He foretold, can be upheld." we remember, on the very eve of the abolition That unbelievers should not be persecuted, of the Test and Corporation Acts, that these is an instance of national depravity at which hateful laws were immortal, and that pious the glorified spirit stands aghast. Yet a sect minds would long be gratified by seeing the of Christians is to be excluded from power most solemn religious rite of the church pro. because those who formerly held the same faned, for the purpose of upholding her politi. opinions w-ere guilty of persecution. We have cal supremacy. In the book befire us, he says said that we do not very well know what Mr. that Catholics cannot possibly be admitted into Southey's opinion about toleration is. But, on Parliament, until those whom Johnson called the whole, we take it to be this, that every- "the bottomless Whigs" come into power. body is to tolerate him, and that he is to tole- While the book was in the press, the prophecy rate nobody. was falsified, and a Tory of the Tories, Mr. We will not be deterred by any fear of mis- Southey's own favourite hero, wron and wore representation from expressing our hearty that noblest wreath, "'Ob cives serwttlos." approbation of the mild, wise, and eminently The signs of the times, Mr. Southey tells us, Christiaa manner, in which the church and the are very threatening. His fears for the country government have lately acted with respect to would decidedly preponderate over his hopes, blasphemous publications. We praise them but for his firm reliance on the mercy of God. for not h:nving thought it necessary to encircle Now, as we know that God has once suffered a religion pure, merciful, and philosophical- the civilized world to be overrun by savages, a religi(n, to the evidences of which the and the Christian religion to be corrupted by highest intellects have yielded-with the de- doctrines which made it, for some ages, almost fences of a false and bloody superstition. The as bad as Paganism, we cannot think it inconark of Grod was never taken till it was sur- sistent with his attributes that similar calamiroundled by the arms of earthly defenders. In ties should again befall mankind. calptivity, its sanctity was sufficient to vindicate We look, however, on the state of the world, it from insult, and to lay the hostile fiend pros- and of this kingdom in particular, with much trate on the threshold of his own temple. greater satisfaction, and with better hopes. The real security of Christianity is to be found Mr. Southey speaks with contempt of those in its benevolent morality, in its exquisite who think the savage state happier than the adaptation to the human heart, in the facility social. On this subject, he says, Rousseau with {hig h its schelne accommodates itself to never imposed on him even in his youth. But the capacity of every human intellect, in the he conceives that a community which has ad. consolation whic h it bears to the house of vanced a little way in civilization is happier mourning, in the light with which it brightens than one which has made greater progress. the great mystery of the grave. To such a system The Britons in the time of Caesar were happier, it canI bring no addition of dignity or of he suspects, than the English of the nineteenth strength, that it is part and parcel of the com- century. On the whole, he selects the genera mon law. It is not now for the first time left tion which preceded the Reformation as that to rely on the force of its own evidences and in which the people of this. country were betthe attractions of its own beauty. Its sublime ter off than at any timne before or since. theology confounded the Grecian schools in the This opinion rests on nothing, as far as we fair conflict of reason with reason. The can see, except his own individual associabravest and wisest of the Cuesars found their tions. He is a man of letters; and a life des, arms and their policy unavailing, when op- titute of literary pleasures seeins insipid tc posed to the weapons that were not carnal, and him. Ile abhors the spirit of the present gene the kingdom that was not of this world. The ration, the severity of its studies, the uoldness victory which Porphyry and Diocletian failed of its inquiries, and the disdain. with wnich at to gain is not, to all appearance, reserved for regards some old prejudices by which his owrn t1s MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. mind is held in bondage. He dislikes an ut- many with bread maat eyther of beanes, pea terly unznlightened age; he dislikes an inves- son, or otes, or of altogether, and some acornes tigating and reforming age. The first twenty among. I will not say that this extremity is years of the sixteenth century would have ex- oft so well to be seen in time of plentie as of actly suited him. They furnished just the. dearth; but if I should I could easily bring quantity of intellectual excitement which he my trial; for albeit there be much more requires. The learned few read and wrote grounde eared nowe almost in everye place largely. A scholar was held in high estimna- then hath beene of late yeares, yet such a tion; but the rabble did not presume to think; price of corne continueth in each town and and even the most inquiring and independent markete, without any just cause, that the artiof the educated classes paid more reverence to ficer and poore labouring man is not able to authority, and less to reason, than is usual in reach unto it, but is driven to content himself our time. This is a state of things in which with horse-corne; I mean beanes, peason, otes, Mr. Southey would have found himself quite tares, and lintelles." We should like to see comfortable; and, accordingly, he pronounces what the effect would be of putting any parish it the happiest state of things ever known in in England now on allowance of "horsethe world. corne." The helotry of Mammon are not, in The savages were wretched, says Mr. Sou- our day, so easily enforced to content themthey; but the people in the time of Sir Thomas selves as the peasantry of that happy period, More were happier than either they or we. as Mr. Southey considers it, which elapsed Now, we think it quite certain, that we have between the fall of the feudal and the rise of the advantage over the contemporaries of Sir commercial tyranny. Thomas More, in every point in which they "The people," says Mr. Southey," are worse had any advantage over savages. fed than when they were fishers." And yet in Mr. Southey does not even pretend to main- another place he complains that they will not lain that the people in the sixteenth century eat fish. "They have contracted," says he, were better lodged or clothed than at present. "I know not how, some obstinate prejudice He seems to admit that in these respects there against a kind of food at once wholesome and has been some little improvement. It is indeed delicate, and everywhere to be obtained a matter about which scarcely any doubt can cheaply and in abundance, were the demand exist in the most perverse mind, that the im- for it as general as it ought to be." It is provements of machinery have lowered the true that the lower orders have an obstinate price of manufactured articles, and have brought prejudice against fish. But hunger has no within the reach of the poorest some conve- such obstinate prejudices. If what was forniences which Sir Thomas More or his master merly a common diet is now eaten only in times could not have obtained at any price. of severe pressure, the inference is plain. The labouring classes, however, were, ac- The people must be fed with what they at cordina to Mr. Southey, better fed three hun- least think better food than that of their andred years ago than at present. We believe cestors. that he is completely in error on this point. The advice and medicine which the poorest The condition of servants in noble and weal- labourer can now obtain, in disease or after thy families, and of scholars at the Universi- an accident, is far superior to what Henry the ties, must surely have been better in those Eighth could have commanded. Scarcely any times than that of common day-labourers; and part of the country is out of the reach of pracwe are sure that it was not better than that of titioners, who are probably not so far inferior our workhouse paupers. Fromn the house- to Sir Henry Halford as they are superior to hold book of the Northumberland family, we Sir Anthony Denny. That there has been a find that in one of the greatest establishments great improvement in this respect Mr. Southey of the kingdom, the servants lived almost en- allows. Indeed, he could not well have denied tirely on salt meat, without any bread at all. A it. "But," says he, "the evils for which the more unwholesome diet can scarcely be con- sciences are the palliative, have increased celved. In the reign of Edward the Sixth, the since the time of the Druids in a proportion state of the students at Cambridge is described that heavily outweighs the benefit of improved to us, on the very best authority, as most therapeutics.' We know nothing either of the wretched. Many of them dined on pottage diseases or the remedies of the Druids. But made of a farthing's worth of beef with a little we are quite sure that the improvement of salt and oatmeal, and literally nothing else. medicine has far more than kept pace with the This account we have from a contemporary increase of disease, during the last three cenmaster of St. John's. Our parish poor now turies. This is proved by the best possible eat wheaten bread. In the sixteenth century evidence. The term of human life is decidedthe labourer was glad to get barley, and was ly longer in England than in any former age, often forced to content himself with poorer respecting which we possess any information fare. In Harrison's introduction to Holinshed on which we can rely. All the rants in the we have an account of the state of our working world about picturesque cottages and temples population in the "golden days," as Mr. Southey of Mammon will not shake this argum ent. No calls them, of good Queen Bess. "The genti- test of the state of society can be named so litie," says he, "commonly provide themselves decisive as that which is furnished by bills of sufficiently of wheat for their own tables, mortality. That the lives of the people of this whvlest their household and poore neighbours country have been gradually lengthening durm some shires are inforced tocontent themselves ing the course of several generati ons, is as M ilh rice or barley; yea, and in t:ne of dearth, certain as anv fact in statistics, and that the SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 113 lires of men should become longer and longer, gence in what they thought an exquisite repast; while the physical condition, during life, is be- and that a dropsy of a peculiar description coming worse and worse, is utterly incredible. was produced by the hard fare of the year. Let our readers think over these circum- Dead bodies were found on the roads and in stances. Let them take into the account the the fields. A single surgeon dissected six of sweating sickness and the plague. Let them these, and found the stomachs shrunk, and take into the account that fearful disease whi-,h filled with the unwholesome aliments which first made its appearance in the generation to hunger had driven men to share with beasts. which Mr. Southey assigns the palm of feli- Such extremity of distress as this is nevei city, and raged through Europe with a fury at heard of in England, or even in Ireland which the physician stood aghast, and before We are, on the whole, inclined to think, thougl which the people were swept away by thou- we would speak with diffidence on a point on sands. Let them consider the state of the which it would be rash to pronounce a posi. northern counties, constantly the scene of rob- tive judgment, without a much longer and beries, rapes, massacres, and conflagrations. closer investigation than we have bestowed Let them add to all this the fact that seventy- upon it, that the labouring classes of this two thousand persons suffered death by the island, though they have their grievances and hands of the executioner during the reign of distresses, some produced by their own improHenry the Eighth, and judge between the nine- vidence, some by the errors of their rulers, are teenth and the sixteenth century. on the whole better off, as to physical comforts, We do not say that the lower orders in Eng- than the inhabitants of any equally extensive land do not suffer severe hardships. But, in district of the old world. On this very account, spite of Mr. Southey's assertions, and in spite suffering is more acutely felt and more loudly of the assertions of a class of politicians, who, bewailed here than elsewhere. We must take differing from Mr. Southey in every other into the account the liberty of discussion, and point, agree with him in this, we are inclined the strong interest which the opponents of a to doubt whether they really suffer greater ministry always have to exaggerate the extent physical distress than the labouring classes of of the public disasters. There are many parts the most flourishing countries of the Conti- of Europe in which the people quietly endure nent. distress that here would shake the foundations It will scarcely be maintained that the lazza- of the state; in which the inhabitants of a roni who sleep under the porticos of Naples, whole province turn out to eat grass, with less or the beggars who besiege the convents of clamour than one Spitalfields weaver would Spain, are in a happier situation than the Eng- make here, if the overseers were to put him lish commonalty. The distress which has on barley-bread. In those new countries in lately been experienced in the northern part of which a civilized population had at its comGermany, one of the best governed and most mand a boundless extent of the richest soil, prosperous districts of Europe, surpasses, if the condition of the labourer is probably hap. we have been correctly informed, any thing pier than in any society which has lasted for which has of late years been known among many centuries. But in the old world we must us. In Norway and Sweden the peasantry are confess ourselves unable to find any satisfacconstantly compelled to mix bark with their tory record of any great nation, past or prebread, and even this expedient has not always sent, in which the working classes have been preserved whole families and neighbourhoods in a more comfortable situation than in Engfrom perishing together of famine. An expe- land during the last thirty years. When this riment has lately been tried in the kingdom of island was thinly peopled, it was barbarous. the Netherlands, which has been cited to prove There was little capital; and that little was in. the possibility of establishing agricultural colo- secure. It is now the richest and the most nies on the waste-lands of England; but which highly civilized spot in the world; but the proves to our minds nothing so clearly as this, population is dense. Thus we have never that the rate of subsistence to which the labour- known that golden age which the lower orders ing classes are reduced in the Netherlands is in the United States are now enjoying. We have miserably low, and very far inferior to that of never known an age of liberty, of order, and of the English paupers. No distress which the education, an age in which the mechanical scipeople here have endured for centuries, ap- ences were carried to a great height, yet in proaches to that which has been felt by the which the people were not sufficiently numeFrench in our own time. The beginning of rous to cultivate even the most fertile valleys. the year 1817 was a time of great distress in But when we compare our own condition with this island. But the state of the lowest classes that of our ancestors, we think it clear that the here was luxury compared with that of the advantages arising from the progress of civilipeople of France. We find in Magendie's zation have far more than counterbalanced the Journal de Physiologie Experimentale, a paper on disadvantages arising from the progress of a point of physiology connected with the dis- population. While our numbers have intress of that season. It appears that the inha- creased tenfold, our wealth has increased a bitants of six departments, Aix, Jura, Doubs, hundredfold. Though there are so many more Haute Saone, Vosges, and Saone et Loire, people to share the wealth now existing in the were reduced first to oatmeal and potatoes, and country than there were in the sixteenth centuat last to nettles, bean-stalks, and other kind ry, it seems certain that a greater share falls to of herbage fit only for cattle; that when the almost every individual than fell to the shari next harvest enabled them to eat barley-bread, of any of the corresponding class in the six, many of them died from intemperate indul teenth century. The king keeps a mote splenVOL. L —15! 2 114 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. did court. The establishments of the nobles this is the state of society In which the great are more magnificent. The esquires are proprietors have devoured the smaller! richer, the merchants are richer, the shopkeep- The cure which Mr. Southey thinks that he ers are richer. The serving-man, the artisan, has discovered is worthy of the sagacity which and the husbandman have a more copious and he has shown in detecting the evil. The ca. palatable supply of food, better clothing, and lamities arising from the collection of wealth better furniture. This is no reason for tole- in the hands of a few capitalists are to be re. rating abuses, or for neglecting any means of medied by collecting it in the hands of one ameliorating the condition of our poorer coun- great capitalist, who has no conceivable motrymen. But it is a reason against telling tive to use it better than other capitalists,-the them, as some of our philosophers are con- all-devouring state. stantly telling them, that they are the most It is not strange that, differing so widely wretched people who ever existed on the face from Mr. Southey as to the past progress of of the earth. society, we should differ from him also as to We have already adverted to Mr. Southey's its probable destiny. He thinks, that to all amusing doctrine about national wealth. A outward appearance, the country is hastening state, says he, cannot be too rich; but a peo- to destruction; but he relies firmly on the ple may be too rich. His reason for thinking goodness of God. We do not see either the this, is extremely curious. piety or the rationality of thus confidently ex"A people may be too rich, because it is the pecting that the Supreme Being will interfere tendency of the commercial, and more espe- to disturb the common succession of causes cially, of the manufacturing system, to collect and effects. We, too, rely on his goodnesswealth rather than to diffuse it. Where wealth on his goodness as manifested, not in extrais necessarily employed in any of the specula- ordinary interpositions, but in those general tion$ of trade, its increase is in proportion to laws which it has pleased him to establish in its amount. Great capitalists become like the physical and in the moral world. We rely pikes in a fish-pond, who devour the weaker on the natural tendency of the human intelfish; and it is but too certain, that the poverty lect to truth, and on the natural tendency of of one part of the people seems to increase in society to improvement. We know no well the same ratio as the riches of another. There authenticated instance of a people which has are examples of this in history. In Portugal, decidedly retrograded in civilization and proswhen the high tide of wealth flowed in from perity, except from the influence of violent and the conquests in Africa and the East, the effect terrible calamities-such as those which laid of that great influx was notmore visible in the the Roman empire in ruins, or those which, augmented splendour of the court, and the about the beginning of the sixteenth century, luxury of the higher ranks, than in the distress desolated Italy. We know of no country of the people." which, at the end of fifty years of peace and Mr. Southey's instance is not a very fortu- tolerably good government, has been less pros. nate one. The wealth which did so little for perous than at the beginning of that period. the Portuguese was not the fruit either of The political importance of a state may demanufactures or of commerce carried on by cine, as the balance of power is disturbed by private individuals. It was the wealth, not of the introduction of new forces. Thus the the people, but of the government and its crea- influence of Holland and of Spain is much tures, of those who, as Mr. Southey thinks, diminished. But are Holland and Spain poornever can be too rich. The fact is, that Mr. er than formerly? We doubt it. Other counSo:ithey's proposition is opposed to all history, tries have outrun them. But we suspect that and to the phenomena which surround us on they had been positively, though not relatively, every side. England is the richest country in advancing. We suspect that Holland is richer Europe, the most commercial, and the most than when she sent her navies up the Thames; manufacturing. Russia and Poland are the that Spain is richer than when a French king poorest countries in Europe. They have was brought captive to the footstool of Charles scarcely any trade, and none but the rudest the Fifth' manufactures. Is wealth more diffused in History is full of the signs of. this natural Russia and Poland than in England? There progress of society. We see in almost every are individuals in Russia and Poland whose part of the annals of mankind how the indusincomes are probably equal to those of our try of individuals, struggling up against wars, richest countrymen. It may be doubted, whe- taxes, famines, conflagrations, mischievous ther there are not, in those countries, as many prohibitions, and more mischievous protec. fortunes of eighty thousand a year as here. tions, creates faster than governments can But are there as many fortunes of five thou- squander, and repairs whatever invaders can sand a year, or of one thousand a year 1 There destroy. We see the capital of nations increas. are parishes in England which contain more ing, and all the arts of life approaching nearer people of between five hundred and three and nearer to perfection, in spite of the grossest thousand pounds a year than could be found corruption and the wildest profusion on the in all the dominions of the Emperor Nicholas. part of rulers. The neat and commodious houses which have The present moment is one of great distress. been built in London and its vicinity, for peo- But how small will that distress appear when ple of this class, within the last thirty years, we think over the history of the last forty would of themselves form a city larger than years; —a war, compared with which all other Pbe capitals of some European kingdoms. And wars sink into insignificance; taxation, such SOUTHEY'S COLLOQUIES ON SOCIETY. 115 as the most heavily taxed people of former times what, in the time of Oliver Cromwell, times could not have conceived; a debt larger had been thought intolerably oppressive. To than all the public debts that ever existed in almost all men the state of things under which the world added together; the food of the peo- they have been used to live seems to be the ple studiously rendered dear; the currency necessary state of things. We have heard it imprudently debased, and imprudently restored. said that five per cent. is the natural interest Yet is the country poorer than in 1790? We of money, that twelve is the natural number fully believe that, in spite of all the misgo- of a jury, that forty shillings is the natural vernment of her rulers, she has been almost qualification of a county voter. Hence it is constantly becoming richer and richer. Now that, though in every age everybody knows and then there has been a stoppage, now and that up to his own time progressive improvethen a short retrogression; but as to the ge. ment has been taking place, nobody seems to neral tendency there can be no doubt. A sin- reckon on any improvement during the next gle breaker may recede, but the tide is evi- generation. We cannot absolutely prove that dently coming in. those are in error, who tell us that society has If we were to prophesy that in the year 1930, reached a turninig point,-that we have seen a population of fifty millions, better fed, clad, our best days. But so said all who came beand lodged than the English of our time, will fore us, and with just as much apparent reacover these islands; that Sussex and Hunting- son. " A million a year will beggar us," said donshire will be wealthier than the wealthiest the patriots of 1640. " Two millions a year parts of the West-Riding of Yorkshire now will grind the country to powder," was the cry are; that cultivation, rich as that of a flower- in 1660. " Six millions a year, and a debt of garden, will be carried up to the very tops of fifty millions!" exclaimed Swift; "1 the high Ben Nevis and Helvellyn; that machines, con- allies have been the ruin of us." " A hundred structed on principles yet undiscovered, will and forty millions of debt!" said Junius; be in every house; that there will be no high- " well may we say that we owe Lord Chatham ways but railroads, no travelling but by steam; more than we shall ever pay, if we owe him and our debt, vast as it seems to us, will ap- such a load as this." "Two hundred and pear to our great-grandchildren a trifling forty millions of debt!" cried all the statesencumbrance, which might easily be paid off men of 1783 in chorus; "what abilities, or in a year or two, many people would think us what economy on the part of a minister, can insane. We prophesy nothing; but this we save a country so burdened?" WVe know that say-If any person had told the Parliament if, since 1783, no fresh debt had been incurred, which met in perplexity and terror after the the increased resources of the country would crash in 1720, that in 1830 the wealth of Eng- have enabled us to defray that burden at which land would surpass all their wildest dreams; Pitt, Fox, and Burke stood aghast-to defray it that the annual revenue would equal the prin- over and over again, and that with much lighter cipal of that debt which they considered as taxation than what we have actually borne. an intolerable burden; that for one man of On what principle is it, that when we see no10,0001. then living, there would be five men thing but improvement behind us, we are to of 50,0001.; that London would be twice as large expect nothing but deterioration before us. and twice as populous, and that nevertheless the It is not by the intermeddling of Mr. Soumortality would have diminished to one-half they's idol. the omniscient and omnipotent what it then was; that the postoffice would bring State, but by the prudence and energy of the more into'the exchequer than the excise and cus- people, that England has hitherto been carried toms had brought in together under Charles II.; forward in civilization; and it is to the same that stage-coaches would run from London to prudence and the same energy that we now York in twenty-four hours; that men would look with comfort and good hope. Our rulers sail without wind, and would be beginning to will best promote the improvement of the ride without horses, our ancestors would have people by strictly confining themselves to their given as much credit to the prediction as they own legitimate duties; by leaving capital to gave to Gulliver's Travels. Yet the predic- find its most lucrative course, commodities' tion would have been true; and they would their fair price, industry and intelligence their have perceived that it was not altogether ab- natural reward, idleness and folly their natural surd if they had considered that the country punishment; by maintaining peace, by defendwas then raising every year a sum which ing property, by diminishing the price of law, would have purchased the fee-simple of the and by observing strict economy in every de. revenue of the Plantagenets, ten times what partment of the state. Let the government de supported the government of Elizabeth, three this —the people will assuredly do the rest 116 MACALLAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON.' [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1831.] WE have read this book with the greatest general epistles, meant to be read by a large pleasure. Considered merely as a composition, circle, we expected to find them clever and it deserves to be classed among the best spe- spirited, but deficient in ease. We looked cimens of English prose which our age has with vigilance for instances of stiffness in the produced. It contains, indeed, no single pas- language, and awkwardness in the transitions. sage equal to two or three which we could se- We have been agreeably disappointed; and lect from the Life of Sheridan. But, as a we must confess, that if the epistolary style of whole, it is immeasurably superior to that Lord Byron was artificial, it was a rare and work. The style is agreeable, clear, and manly; admirable instance of that highest art, which and when it rises into eloquence, rises without cannot be distinguished from nature. effort or ostentation. Nor is the matter inferior Of the deep and painful interest which this to the manner. book excites, no abstract can give a just no It would be difficult to name a book which tion. So sad and dark a story is scarcely to be exhibits more kindness, fairness, and modesty. found in any work of fiction; and we are littl It has evidently been written, not for the pur- disposed to envy the moralist who can read i pose of showing, what, however, it often shows, without being softened. how well its author can write; but for the pur- The pretty fable by which the Duchess of pose of vindicating, as far as truth will per- Orleans illustrates the character of her son the mit, the memory of a celebrated man who can regent, might, with little change, be applied to no longer vindicate himself. Mr. Moore never Byron. All the fairies, save one, had been bidthrusts himself' between Lord Byron and the den to his cradle. All the gossips had been public. With the strongest temptations to profuse of their gifts. One had bestowed noegotism, he has said no more about himself bility, another genius, a third beauty. The than the subject absolutely required. A great malignant elf who had been uninvited came part, indeed the greater part of these volumes, last, and, unable to reverse what her sisters had consists of extracts from the Letters and Jour- done for their favourite, had mixed up a curse nals of Lord Byron; and it is difficult to speak with every blessing. In the rank of Lord too highly of the skill which has been shown Byron, in his understanding, in his character, in the selection and arrangement. We will in his very person, there was a strange union not say that we have not occasionally remark- of opposite extremes. He was born to all that ed in these two large quartos an anecdote men covet and admire. But in every one of which should have been omitted, a letter those eminent advantages which he possessed which should have been suppressed, a name over others, there was mingled something of which should have been concealed by aste- misery and debasement. He was sprung from risks; or asterisks which do not answer the a house, ancient indeed and noble,, but de. purpose of concealing the name. But it is graded and impoverished by a series of crimes impossible, on a general survey, to deny that and follies, which had attained a scandalous the task has been executed with great judg- publicity. The kinsman whom he succeeded ment and great humanity. When we consider had died poor, and, but for merciful judges, the life which Lord Byron had led, his petu- would have died upon the gallows. The yaung lance, his irritability, and his communicative- peer had great intellectual powers; yet there ness, we cannot but admire the dexterity with was an unsound part in his mind. He had nawhich Mr. Moore has contrived to exhibit so turally a generous and tender heart; but his much of the character and opinions of his temper was wayward and irritable. He had friend, with so little pain to the feelings of the a head which statuaries loved to copy, and a living. foot the deformity of which the beggars in the The extracts from the journals and corres- streets mimicked. Distinguished at once by the pondence of Lord Byron are in the highest de- strength and by the weakness of his intellect, gree valuable —not merely on account of the affectionate yet perverse, a poor lord, and a information which they contain respecting the handsome cripple, he required, if ever man redistinguished man by whom they were written, quired, the firmest and the most judicious trainbut on account, also, of their rare merit as com- ing. But, capriciously as nature had dealt positions. The Letters, at least those which with him, the relative to whom the office of were sent from Italy, are among the best in our forming his character was intrusted was more language. They are less affected than those capricious still. She passed from paroxysms of Pope and Walpole; they have more matter of rage to paroxysms of fondness. At one time in them than those of Cowper. Knowing that she stifled him with her caresses, at another many of them were not written merely for the time she insulted his deformity. He came into person to whom they were directed, but were the world, and the world treated him as his mother treated him-sometimes with kind. * Letters and Journals of Lord Byron; with Notices of ness, sometimes with severity, never with lis Life. By ToOM&S MOOBE, Esq. 2 vols. 4to. Lon- i.don: 1830. justice. It indulged him without discrimina. MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 117 tion, and punished him without discrimination. form any judgment on a transaction which is He was truly a spoiled child; not merely the, so imperfectly known to us. It would have spoiled child of his parents, but the spoiled been well if, at the time of the separation, all child of nature, the spoiled child of fortune, the those who knew as little about the matter then spoiled child of fame, the spoiled child of so- as we know about it now, had shown that for. ciety. His first poems were received with a bearance, which, under such circumstances, is contempt which, feeble as they were, they did but common justice. not absolutely deserve. The poem which he We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the published on his return from his travels, was, British public in one of its periodical fits of on the other hand, extolled far above its merits. morality. In general, elopements, divorces, At twenty-four he found himself on the highest and family quarrels pass with little notice. pinnacle of literary fame, with Scott, Words- We read the scandal, talk about it for a day, worth, Southey, and a crowd of other distin- and forget it. But once in six or seven years, guished writers, beneath his feet. There is our virtue becomes outrageous. We cannot scarcely an instance in history of so sudden a suffer the laws of religion and decency to be rise to so dizzy an eminence. violated. We must make a stand against vice. Every thing that could stimulate, and evfery We must teach libertines, that the English thing that could gratify the strongest propensi- people appreciate the importance of domestic ties of our nature-the gaze of a hundred ties. Accordingly, some unfortunate man, in drawing-rooms, the acclamations of the whole no respect more depraved than hundreds whose nation, the applause of applauded men, the offences have been treated with lenity, is love of the loveliest women-all this world, singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he and all the glory of it, were at once offered to has children, they are to be taken from him. If a young man, to whom nature had given vio- he has a profession, he is to be driven from it. lent passions, and whom education had never He is cut by the higher orders, and hissed by taught to control them. He lived as many men the lower. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping live who have no similar excuses to plead boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other for their faults. But his countrymen and his transgressors of the same class are, it is sup. countrywomen would love him and admire posed, sufficiently chastised. We reflect very him. They were resolved to see in his ex- complacently on our own severity, and comcesses only the flash and outbreak of that same pare with great pride the high standard of mofiery mind which glowed in his poetry. He rals established in England, with the Parisian attacked religion; yet in religious circles his laxity. At length our anger is satiated. Our name was mentioned with fondness, and in victim is ruined and heart-broken. And our many religious publications his works were virtue goes quietly to sleep for seven years censured with singular tenderness. He lam- more. pooned the Prince Regent; yet he could not It is clear that those vices which destroy doalienate the Tories. Every thing, it seemed, mestic happiness ought to be as much as poswas to be forgiven to youth, rank, and genius. sible repressed. It is equally clear that they Then came the reaction. Sciety, capricious cannot be repressed by penal legislation. It is in its indignation as it had been capricious in therefore right and desirable that public opi. its fondness, flew into a rage with its froward nion should be directed against them. But it and petted darling. He had been worshipped should be directed against them uniformly, with an irrational idolatry. He was perse- steadily, and temperately, not by sudden fits cuted with an irrational fury. Much has been and starts. There should be one weight and written about those unhappy domestic occur- one measure. Decimation is always an obrences which decided the fate of his life. Yet jectionable mode of punishment. It is the nothing ever was positively known to the resource of judges too indolent and hasty to public, but this-that he quarrelled with his investigate facts, and to discriminate nicely lady, and that she refused to live with him. between shades of guilt. It is an irrational There have been hints in abundance, and practice, even when adopted by military tribushrugs and shakings of the head, and "Well, nals. When adopted by the tribunal of public well, wie know," and "We could an if we opinion, it is infinitely more irrational. It is would," and " If we list to speak," and "There good that a certain portion of disgrace should be that might an they list." But we are not constantly attend on certain bad actions. But aware that there is before the world, substan- it is not good that the offenders merely have to tiated by credible, bor even by tangible evi- stand the risks of a lottery of infamy; that dence, a single fact indicating that Lord Byron ninety-nine out of every hundred should was more to blame than any other man who is escape; and that the hundredth, perhaps the on Dad terms with his wife. The professional most innocent of the hundred, should pay for men whom Lady Byron consulted were un- all. We remember to have seen a mob assem doubtedly of opinion that she ought not to live bled in Lincoln's Inn to hoot a gentleman, with her husband. But it is to be remembered against whom the most oppressive proceeding that they formed that opinion without hearing known to the English law was then in proboth sides. We do not say, we do not mean gress. He was hooted because he had been an to insinuate that Lady Byron was in any re- indifferent and unfaithful husband, as if some spect to blame. We think that those who con- of the most popular men of the age, Lord Neldemn her on the evidence which is now before son, for example, had not been indifferent and the public, are as rash as those who condemn unfaithful husbands. We remember a still her husband. We will not pronounce any stronger case. Will posterity believe, that in judgment; we cannot, even in our own minds, an age in which men, whose gallantries were 118 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. universally known, and had been legally decay of nobler natures, hastened to their re proved, filled some of the highest offices in the past; and they were right; they did after their state, and in the army, presided at the meetings kind. It is not every day that the savage envy of religious and benevolent institutions, were of aspiring dunces is gratified by the agonies the delight of every society, and the favourites of such a spirit and the degradation of such a of the multitude, a crowd of moralists went to name. the theatre, in order to pelt a poor actor for The unhappy man left his country forever. disturbing the conjugal felicity of an alder- The howl of contumely followed him across man 1 What there was in the circumstances, the sea, up the Rhine, over the Alps; it gradu. either of the offender or of the sufferer, to vin- ally waxed fainter; it died away. Those who dicate the zeal of the audience, we could never had raised it began to ask each other, what, conceive. It has never been supposed that the after all, was the matter about which they had situation of an actor is peculiarly favourable been so clamorous; and wished to invite back to the rigid virtues, or that an alderman enjoys the criminal whom they had just chased from any special immunity from injuries such as them. His poetry became more popular than that which on this occasion roused the anger it had ever been; and his complaints were read of the public. But such is the justice of man- with tears by thousands and tens of thousands kind. who had never seen his face. In these cases, the punishment was exces- He had fixed his home on the shores of the sive; but the offence was known and proved. Adriatic, in the most picturesque and interestThe case of Lord Byron was harder. True ing of cities, beneath the brightest of skies, Jedwood justice was dealt out to him. First and by the brightest of seas. Censoriousness came the execution, then the investigation, and was not the vice of the neighbours whom he last of all, or rather not at all, the accusation. had chosen. They were a race corrupted by The public, without knowing any thing what- a bad government and a bad religion; long reever about the transactions in his family, flew nowned for skill in the arts of voluptuousness, into a violent passion with him, and proceeded and tolerant of all the caprices of sensuality. to invent stories which might justify its anger. From the public opinion of the country of his Ten or twenty different accounts of the sepa- adontion he had nothing to dread. With the ration, inconsistent with each other, with public opinion of the country of his birth he themselves, and with common sense, circu- was at open war. He plunged into wild and lated at the same time. What evidence there desperate excesses, ennobled by no generous might be for any one of these, the virtuous ortendersentiment. From hisVenetianharem people who repeated them neither knew nor he sent forth volume after volume, full of elocared. For in fact these stories were not the quence, of wit, of pathos, of ribaldry, and of causes, but the effects of the public indigna- bitter disdain. His health sank. under the tion. They resembled those loathsome slanders effects of his intemperance. His hair turned which Goldsmith, and other abject libellers of gray. His food ceased to nourish him. A the same class, were in the habit of publishing hectic fever withered him up. It seemed that about Bonaparte-how he poisoned a girl with his body and mind were about to perish to. arsenic, when he was at the military school — gether. how he hired a grenadier to shoot Dessaix at From this wretched degradation he was in Marengo-how he filled St. Cloud with all the some measure rescued by an attachment, pollutions of Caprein. There was a time when culpable indeed, yet such as, judged by the anecdotes like these obtained some credence standard of morality established in the country from persons, who, hating the French Emperor where he lived, might be called virtuous. But without knowing why, were eager to believe an imagination polluted by vice, a temper imany thing which might justify their hatred. bittered by misfortune, and a frame habituated Lord Byron fared in the same way. His to the fatal excitement of intoxication, precountrymen were in a bad humour with him. vented him from fully enjoying the happiness His writings and his character had lost the which he might have derived from the purest charm of novelty. He had been guilty of the and most tranquil of his many attachments. oflence which, of all offences, is punished more Midnight draughts of ardent spirits and Rhe. severely; he had been over-praised; he had nish wines had begun to work the ruin of his excited too warm an interest; and the public, fine intellect. His verse lost much of the with its usual justice, chastised him for its energy and condensation which had distinown folly. The attachments of the multitude guished it. But he would not resign, without bear no small resemblance to those of the a struggle, the empire which he had exercised wanton enchantress in the Arabian Tales, who, over the men of his generation. A flew dream when the forty days of her fondness were over, of ambition arose before him, to be the centre was not content with dismissing her lovers, of a literary party; the great mover of an inout condemned them to expiate, in loathsome tellectual revolution; to guide the public mind shapes, and under severe punishments, the of England from his Italian retreat, as Voltaire crime of having once pleased her too well. had guided the public mind of France. from The obloquy which Byron had to endure the villa of Ferney. With this hope, as it was such as might well have shaken a more should seem, he established The Liberal. But constant mind. The newspapers were filled powerfully as he had affected the imaginations with lampoons. The theatres shook with exe- of his contemporaries, he mistook his own orations. He was excluded from circles where powers, if he hoped to direct their opinions: be had lately been the observed of all observ- and he still more grossly mistook his own dis. irs All those creeping things that riot in the position, if he thought that he could long act MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 119 in concert with other men of letters. The of coaches, turn slowly northward, leaving be. plan failed, and failed ignominiously. Angry hind it that cemetery, which had been consewith himself, angry with his coadjutors, he re- crated by the dust of so many great poets, but linquished it: and turned to another project, of which the doors were closed against all the last and the noblest of his life. that remained of Byron. We well remember A nation, once the first among the nations, that, on that day, rigid moralists could not repre-eminent in knowledge, pre-eminent in mi- frain from weeping for one so young, so illuslitary glory, the cradle of philosophy, of elo- trious, so unhappy, gifted with such rare gifts, quence, and of the fine arts, had been for ages and tried by such strong temptations. It is bowed down under a cruel yoke. All the vices unnecessary to make any reflections. The which tyranny generates-the abject vices history carries its moran with it. Our age has which it generates in those who submit to it, indeed been fruitful of warnings to the emi. the ferocious vices which it generates in those nent, and of consolations to the obscure. Two who struggle against it-had deformed the men have died within our recollection, who a character of that miserable race. The valour a time of life at which few people have comwhich had won the great battle of human pleted their education, had raised themselves, civilization, which had saved Europe, and each in his own department, to the height of subjugated Asia, lingered only among pirates glory. One of them died at Longwood, the and robbers. The ingenuity, once so conspi- other at Missolonghi. cuously displayed in every department of phy- It is always difficult to separate the literary sical and moral science, had been depraved character of a man who lives in our own time into a timid and servile cunning. On a sudden from his personal character. It is peculiarly this degraded people had risen on their op- difficult to make this separation in the case of pressors. Discountenanced or betrayed by the Lord Byron. For it is scarcely too much to surrounding potentates, they had found in say, that Lord Byron never wrote without some themselves something of that which might reference, direct or indirect, to himself. The well supply the place of all foreign assistance interest excited by the events of his life mingles -something of the energy of their fathers. itself in our minds, and probably in the minds As a man of letters, Lord Byron could not of almost all our readers, with the interest but be interested in the event of this contest. which properly belongs to his works. A geHis political opinions, though, like all his opi- neration must pass away before it will be posnions, unsettled, leaned strongly towards the sible to form a fair judgment of his book;;, side of liberty. He had assisted the Italian considered merely as books. At present they insurgents with his purse; and if their struggle are not only books, but relics. We will, howagainst the Austrian government had been ever, venture, though with unfeigned diffidence, prolonged, would probably have assisted them to offer some desultory remarks on his poetry. with his sword. But to Greece he was at- His lot was cast in the time of a great litetached by peculiar ties. He had, when young, rary revolution. That poetical dynasty which resided in that country. Much of his most had dethroned the successors of Shakspeare splendid and popular poetry had been inspired and Spenser was, in its turn, dethroned by a by its scenery and by its history. Sick of in- race who represented themselves as heirs of action, degraded in his own eyes by his private the ancient line, so long dispossessed by usurpvices and by his literary failures, pining for ers. The real nature of this revolution has untried excitement and honourable distinction, not, we think, been comprehended by the great he carried his exhausted body and his wound- majority of those who concurred in it. ed spirit to the Grecian camp. If this question were proposed —wherein His conduct in his new situation showed so especially does the poetry of our times differ much vigour and good sense as to justify us from that of the last century 1 ninety-nine in believing, that, if his life had been pro- persons out of a hundred would answer, that longed, he might have distinguished himself the poetry of the last century was correct, but as a soldier and a politician. But pleasure cold and mechanical, and that the poetry of our and sorrow had done the work of seventy time, though wild and irregular, presented far years upon his delicate frame. The hand of more vivid images, and excited the passions death was on him; he knew it; and the only far more strongly, than that of Parnell, of Adwish which he uttered was that he might die dison, or of Pope. In the same mann r we sword in hand. constantly hear it said, that the poets of the This was denied to him. Anxiety, exertion, age of Elizabeth had far more genius, but far exposure, and those fatal stimulants which had less correctness, than those of the age of Anne. become indispensable to him, soon stretched It seems to be taken for granted, that there is him on a sick-bed, in a strange land, amidst some necessary incompatibility, some antithestrange faces, without one human being that sis, between correctness and creative power. he loved near him. There, at thirty-six, the We rather suspect that this notion arises meremost celebrated Englishman of the nineteenth ly from an abuse of words; and that it has century closed his brilliant and miserable been the parent of many of the fallacies which career. perplex the science of criticism. We cannot even now retrace those events What is meant by correctness in poetryt without feeling something of what was felt by If by correctness be meant the conforming to the nation, when it was first known that the rules which have their foundation in truth grave had closed over so much sorrow and so and in the principles of human nature, then much glory;-something of what was felt by correctness is only another name for excelthose whnD saw the hearse, with its long train lence. If by correctness be meant the con 120 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. forming to rules purely arbitrary, correctness ers. Watt Tinlinn and William of Deloraine may be another name for dulness and ab- are not, it is true, persons of so much digmity surdity. as Cato. But the dignity of the persons repre. A writer who describes visible objects false- sented has as little to do with the correctness Iy, and violates the propriety of character-a of poetry as with the correctness of painting. writer who makes the mountains " nod their We prefer a gipsy by Reynolds to his majes. drowsy heads" at night, or a dying man take ty's head on a signpost, and a borderer by leave of the world with a rant like that of Scott to a senator by Addison. Maximin, may be said, in the high and just In what sense, then, is the word correctness sense of the phrase, to write incorrectly. He used by those who say, with the author of the violates the first great law of his art. His Pursuits of Literature, that Pope was the most imitation is altogether unlike the thing imi- correct of English poets, and, that next to Pope, hated. The four poets who are most eminently came the late Mr. Gifford What is the nafree from incorrectness of this description are ture and value of that correctness, the praise Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. They of which is denied to Macbeth, to Lear, and te are, therefore, in one sense, and that the best Othello, and given to Hoole's translations and sense, the most correct of pbets. to all the Seatonian prize-poems? We can When it is said that Virgil, though he had discover no eternal rule, no rule founded in less genius than Homer, was a more correct reason and in the nature of things, which writer, what sense is attached to the word cor- Shakspeare does not observe much more rectness? Is it meant that the story of the strictly than Pope. But if by correctness be Eneid is developed more skilfully than that meant the conforming to a narrow legislation, Df the Odyssey? that the Ronan describes the which, while lenient to the mala in se, multiface of the external world, ol the emotions of plies, without the shadow of a reason, the mala the mind, more accurately tnan the Greelr? prohibita; if by correctness be meant a strict that the characters of Achates and Mnestheus attention to certain ceremonious observances, are more nicely discriminated, and more con- which are no more essential to poetry than sistently supported, than those of Achilles, of etiquette to good government, or than the Nestor, and of Ulysses 7 The fact incontesta- washings of a Pharisee to devotion; then, asbly is, that for every violation of the funda- suredly, Pope may be a more correct poet than mental laws of poetry, which can be found in Shakspeare; and, if the code were a little Homer, it would be easy to find twenty in altered, Colley Cibber might be a more correct Virgil. poet than Pope. But it may well be doubted Troilus and Cressida is perhaps of all the whether this kind of correctness be a merit; plays of Shakspeare that which is commonly nay, whether it be not an absolute fault. considered as the most incorrect. Yet it seems It would be amusing to make a digest of the to us infinitely more correct, in the sound irrational laws which bad critics have framed sense of the term, than what are called the for the government of poets. First in celebrity most correct plays of the most correct drama- and in absurdity stand the dramatic unities of tists. Compare it, for example, with the Iphi- place and time. No human being has ever genie of Racine. We are sure that the Greeks been able to find any thing that could, even by of Shakspeare bear a far greater resemblance courtesy, be called an argument for these unithan the Greeks of Racine, to the real Greeks ties, except that they have been deduced from who besieged Troy; and for this reason, that the general practice of the Greeks. It requires the Greeks of Shakspeare are human beings, no very profound examination to discover that and the Greeks of Racine mere names; —mere the Greek dramas, often admirable as compowords printed in capitals at the head of para- sitions, are, as exhibitions of human charac. graphs of declamation. Racine, it is true, ter and human life, far inferior to the English would have shuddered at the thought of plays of the age of Elizabeth. Every scholar making Agamemnon quote Aristotle. But of knows that the dramatic part of the Athenian what use is it to avoid a single anachronism, tragedies was at first subordinate to the lyrical when the whole play is one anachronism-the part. It would, therefore, have been little less topics and phrases of Versailles in the camp than a miracle if the laws of the Athenian of Auls? stage had been found to suit plays in which In the sense in which we are now using the there was no chorus. All the great masterword correctness, we think that Sir Walter pieces of the dramatic art have been comSco!, Mr. Wordsworth, Mr. Coleridge, are far posed in direct violation of the unities, and mc re correct writers than those who are com- could never have been composed if the unities monly extolled as the models of correctness- had not been violated. It is cl~ear, for examPope for example, and Addison. The single ple, that such a character as that of Hamlet description of a moonlight night in Pope's could never have been developed within the Iliad c'ontains more inaccuracies than can be limits to which Alfieri confined himself. Yet found in all the Excursion. There is not a such was the reverence of literary men during single scene in Cato in which every thing that the last century for these unities, that Johnson, conduces to poetical illusion-the propriety of who, much to his honour, took the opposite character, of language, of situation, is not side, was, as he says, "frighted at his own te. more grossly violated than in any part of the merity;" and " afraid to stand against the au. Lay of the Last Minstrel. No man can possi- thorities which might be produced against bly think that the Romans of Addison resem- him." b'e the real Romans so closely as the moss- There are other rules of the same kind trvo~ers of Scott resemble the real moss-troop- without end. "Shakspeare," says Rymer, MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 21. "ought not to have made Othello black; for see in old Bibles-an exact square, enclosed the hero of a tragedy ought always to be by the rivers Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel, and Euwhite." "Milton," says another critic, "ought phrates, each with a convenient bridge in the not to have taken Adam for his hero; for the centre-rectangular beds of flowers-a long hero of an epic poem ought always to be vic- canal neatly bricked and railed in-the tree of torious." "Milton," says another, "ought not knowledge, clipped like one of the limes beto have put so many similes into his first hind the Tuileries, standing in the centre of book; for the first book of an epic poem ought the grand alley-the snake twined round italways to be the most unadorned. There are the man on the right hand, the woman on the no similes in the first book of the Iliad." left, and the beasts drawn up in an exact cir"Milton," says another, " ought not to have cle round them. In one sense the picture is placed in an epic poem such lines as these: correct enough. That is to say, the squares I' aIso erred in overmuch admiring".'. are correct; the circles are correct; the mar and woman are in a most correct. e with the And why not? The critic is ready with a reason tree; and the snake forms a n:st correct — a lady's reason. " Such lines," says he, " are spiral. not, it must be allowed, unpleasing to the ear; But if there were a painter so gifted, that he but the redundant syllable ought to be confined should place in the canvass that glorious parato the drama, and not admitted into epic poetry." dise seen by the interior eye of him whose outAs to the redundant syllable in heroic rhyme, Wtard sight had failed with long watching and on serious subjects, it has been, from the time labouring for liberty and truth-if there were of Pope downward, proscribed by the general a painter who could set before us the mazes of consent of all the correct school. No maga- the sapphire brook, the lake with its fringe of zine would have admitted so incorrect a coup- myrtles, the flowery meadows, the grottoes iet as that of Dayton, overhung by vines, the forests shining with Hesperian fruit and with the plumage of gor"As when we lived untouched with these disgraces, geous birds, the massy shade of that nuptial When as our kingdom was our dear embraces." bower which showered down roses on the Another law of heroic poetry which, fifty years sleeping lovers-what should we think of a ago, was considered as fundamental, was, that connoisseur who should tell us that this paintthere should be a pause-a comma at least, at ing, though finer than the absurd picture of the the end of every couplet. It was also provided old Bible, was not so correct? Surely we that there should never be a full stop except should answer, It is both finer and more corat the end of a couplet. Well do we remem- rect; and it is finer because it is more correct. ber to have heard a most correct judge of poe- It is not made up of correctly drawn diagrams, try revile Mr. Rogers for the incorrectness of but it is a correct painting, a worthy representa5hat most sweet and graceful passage, tion of that which it is intended to represent. It is not in the fine arts alone that this false "'Twas thine, Maria, thine, without a sigh, correctness is prized by narrow-minded men, At midnight in a sister's arms to die, by men who cannot distinguish means from ends, or what is accidental from what is essen. Sir Roger Newdigate is fairly entitled, we tial. Mr. Jourdain admired correctness in think, to be ranked among the great critics of fencing. "You had no business to hit me then. this school. He made a law that none of the You must never thrust in quart till you have poems written for the prize which he estab- thrust in tierce." M. Tomes liked correctness lished at Oxford should exceed fifty lines. in medical practice. "I stand up for Artemius. This law seems to us to have at least as much That he killed his patient is plain enough. foundation in reason as any of those which But still he acted quite according to rule. A we have mentioned; nay, much more, for the man dead is a man dead, and there is an end world, we believe, is pretty well agreed in of the matter. But if rules are to be broken, thinking that the shorter a prize-poem is, the there is no saying what consequences may better. follow." We have heard of an old Germart We do not see why we should not make a officer, who was a great admirer of correctness few more rules of the same kind-why we in military operations. He used to revile Boshould not enact that the number of scenes in naparte for spoiling the science of war, which every act shall be three, or some multiple of had been carried to such an exq-aisite perfec. three; that the number of lines in every scene tion by Marshal Daun. " In my youth we used shall be an exact square; that the dramatis to march and countermarch all the summer, persona: shall never be more nor fewer than six- without gaining or losing a square league, and teen; and that, in heroic rhymes, every thirty- then we went into winter-quarters. And now sixth line shall have twelve syllables. If we comes an ignorant, hot-headed young manr., were to lay down these canons, and to call who flies about from Boulogne +o TUlm, and Pope, Goldsmi'h, and Addison incorrect wri- from Ulm to the middle of Moravia, and fights ters for not ham ing complied with our whims, battles in December. The whole system of we should act precisely as those critics act his tactics is monstrously incorrect." The who find incorrectness in the magnificent ima- world is of opinion, in spite of critics like these, gery and the varied music of Coleridge and that the end of fencing is to hit, that the end of Shelley. medicine is to cure, that the end ot war is t, The correctness which the last century conquer, and that those means are the mbii, prized so much resembled the correctness of correct which best accomplish the ends. those pictures of the garden of Eden which we And has poetry no end, no eternal and imn VOL. I.-.6 1L 122 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. mutable principles? Is poetry, like heraldry, flows into the gesture and the face-always an mere matter of arbitrary regulation? The imperfect, often a deceitful sign of that which heralds tell us that certain scutcheons and is within. The deeper and more complex parts bearingps denote certain conditions, and that to of human nature can be exhibited by means put colours on colours, or metals on metals, is of words alone. Thus the objects of the imifalse blazonry. If all this were reversed; if tation of poetry are the whole external and the every coat of arms in Europe were new-fash- whole internal universe, the face of nature, the ioned; if it were decreed that or should never vicissitudes of fortune, man as he is in himself, be placed but on argent, or argent but on or; man as he appears in society, all things of that illegitimacy should be denoted by a lozenge, which we can form an image in our minds, by and widowhood by a bend, the new science combining together parts of things which really would be just as good as the old science, be- exist. The domain of this imperial art is comrncause both the new and the old would be good mensurate with the imaginative faculty. for nothing. The mummery of Portcullis and An art essentially imitative ought not surely Rouge Dragon, as it has no other value than to be subjected to rules which tend to make its that which caprice has assigned to it, may well imitations less perfect than they would othersubmit to any laws which caprice may impose wise be; and those who obey such rules ought on it. But it is not so with that great imitative to be called, not correct, but incorrect artists. art, to the power of which all ages, the rudest The true way to judge of the rules by which and the most enlightened, bear witness. Since English poetry was governed during the last its first great masterpieces -were produced, century, is to look at the effects which they every thing t} at is changeable in this world produced. has been clanged. Civilization has been It was in 1780 that Johnson completed his gained, los*, gained again. Religions, and Lives of the Poets. He tells us in that work languages, and forms of government, and that since the time of Dryden, English poetry usages of 2rivate life, and the modes of think- had shown no tendency to relapse into its oring, all have undergone a succession of revo- ginal savageness; that its language had been lutions. Every thing has passed away but the refined, its numbers tuned, and its sentiments great features of nature, the heart of man, and improved. It may, perhaps, be doubted whether the miracles of that art of which it is the office the nation had any great reason to exult in the to reflect back the heart of man and the fea- refinements and improvements which gave it tures of nature. Those two strange old poems, Douglas for Othello, and the Triumphs of the wonder of ninety generations, still retain Temper for the Faerie Queen. all their freshness. They still command the It was during the thirty years which preceded veneration of minds enriched by the literature the appearance of Johnson's Lives, that the of many nations and ages. They are still, even diction and versification of English poetry in wretched translations, the delight of school- were, in the sense in which the word is com-;oys. Having survived ten thousand capri- monlyused, most correct. Those thirty years tious fashions, having seen successive codes form the most deplorable part of our literary of criticism become obsolete, they still remain, history. They have bequeathed to us scarcely Lmmortal with the immortality of truth, the any poetry which deserves to be remembered. same when perused in the study of an English Two or three hundred lines of Gray, twice as scholar as when they were first chanted at the many of Goldsmith, a few stanzas of Beattie banquets of the Ionian princes. and Collins, a few strophes of Mason, and a Poetry is, as that most acute of human few clever prologues and satires, were the beings, Aristotle, said, more than two thousand masterpieces of this age of consummate excelyears ago, imitation. It is an art analogous in lence. They may all be printed in one volume, many respects to the art of painting, sculpture, and that volume would be by no means a voand acting. The imitations of the painter, the lume of extraordinary merit. It would contain sculptor, and the actor are, indeed, within cer- no poetry of the highest class, and little which tain limits, more perfect than those of the poet. could be placed very high in the second class. The machinery which the poet employs con- The Paradise Regained, or Comus, would out. sists merely of words; and words cannot, even weigh it all. when employed by such an artist as Homer or At last, when poetry had fallen inte such Dante, present to the mind images of visible utter decay that Mr. Hayley was thought a great objects quite so lively and exact as those which poet, it began to appear that the excess of the we carry away from looking on the works of evil was about to work the cure. Men became the brush and the chisel. But, on the other tired of an insipid conformity to a standard hand, the range of poetry is infinitely wider which derived no authority from nature or reathan that of any other imitative art, or than son. A shallow criticism had taught them to that of all the other imitative arts together. ascribe a superstitious value to the spurious The sculptor can imitate only form; the painter correctness of poetasters. A deeper criticism only form and colour; the actor, until the poet brought them back to the free correctness of supplies him with words, only form, colour, the first great masters. The eternal laws of and motion. PoetFy holds the outer world in poetry regained their power, and the temporary common with the other arts. The heart of fashions which had superseded those laws man is the province of poetry, and or poetry went after the wig of Lovelace anid the hoop alone. The painter, the sculptor, and the of Clarissa. actor, when the actor is unassisted by the poet, It was in a cold and barren season that the can exhibit no more of human passion and seeds of that rich harvest which we have ebaracter than that small portion which over- reaped were first sown, While poetry was MOORiE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 123 every year becoming more feeble and more manliness of taste which approached to roughmechanical, while the monotonous versifica- ness. They did not deal in mechanical versition which Pope had introduced, no longer re- fication and conventional phrases. They wrote deemed by his brilliant wit and his compact- concerning things, the thought of which set ness of expression, palled on the ear of the their hearts on fire; and thus what they wrote, public, tole great works of the dead were every even when it wanted-every other grace, had that day attracting more and more of the admiration inimitable grace which sincerity and strong which they deserved. The plays of Shakspeare passion impart to the rudest and most homely were better acted, better edited, and better compositions. Each of them sought for inspiknown than they had ever been. Our noble ration in a noble and affecting subject, fertile old ballads were again read with pleasure, and of images, which had not yet been hackneyed. it became a fashion to imitate them. Many Liberty was the muse of Alfieri; religion was of the imitations were altogether contemptible. the muse of Cowper. The same truth is found But they showed that men had at least begun in their lighter pieces. They were not among to admire the excellence which they could not those who deprecated the severity, or deplored rival. A literary revolution was evidently at the absence of an unreal mistress in melodious hand. There was a ferment in the minds of commonplaces. Instead of raving about imamen, a vague craving for something new, a ginary Chloes and Sylvias, Cowper wrote of disposition to hail with delight any thing which Mrs. Unwin's knitting-needles. The only love might at first sight wear the appearance of verses of Alfieri were addressed to one whom originality. A reforming age is always fertile he truly and passionately loved. " Tutte le of impostors. The same excited state of pub- rime amorose che seguono," says he, "tutte lie feeling which produced the great separation sono per essa, e ben sue, e di lei solamente from the see of Rome, produced also the ex- poiche mai d'altra donna per certo non cantero." cesses of the Anabaptists. The same stir in These great men were not free from affectathe public mind of Europe which overthrew tion. But their affectation was directly opthe abuses of the old French government, pro- posed to the affectation which generally preduced the Jacobins and Theophilanthropists. vailed. Each of them has expressed, in strong Macpherson and the Della Cruscans were to and bitter language, the contempt which he the true reformers of English poetry what felt for the effeminate poetasters who were in Cnipperdoling was to Luther, or what Clootz fashion both in England and Italy. Cowper was to Turgot. The public was never more complains that disposed to believe stories without evidence, "Manner is all in all, whate'er is writ, and to admire books without merit. Anything The substitute for genius,taste, and wit." which could break the dull monotony of the He praised Pope; yet he regretted that Pap. correct school was acceptable. had The forerunner of the great restoration of "Made poetry a mere mechanic art, our literature was Cowper. His literary ca- And every warbler had his tune by heart." reer began and ended at nearly the same time Alfieri speaks with similar scorn of the trage with that of Alfieri. A parallel between Alfieri dies of his predecessors. "Mi cadevano dalle and Cowper may, at first sight, seem as un- mani per la languidezza, trivialta e prolissita promising as that which a loyal Presbyterian dei modi e del verso, senza parlare poi della minister is said to have drawn, in 1745, be- snervatezza dei pensieri. Or perche mai questa tweeil George the Second and Enoch. It may nostra divina lingua, si maschia anco, ed enerseem that the gentle, shy, melancholy Calvin- gica, e feroce, in bocca di Dante, dovra elle ist, whose spirit had been broken by fagging at farci cosi sbiadata ed eunuca nel dialogo traschool, who had not courage to earn a liveli- gico." hood by reading the titles of bills in the House To men thus sick of the languid manner of of Lords, and whose favourite associates were their contemporaries, ruggedness seemed a vea blind old lady and an evangelical divine, nial fault, or rather a positive merit. In their could have nothing in common with the hatred of meretricious ornament, and of what haughty, ardent, and voluptuous nobleman, the Cowper calls " creamy smoothness," they erred horse-jockey, the libertine, who fought Lord on the opposite side. Their style was too aus Ligonier in Hyde Park, and robbed the Preten- tere, their versification too harsh. It is not der of his queen. But though the private lives easy, however, to overrate the service which of these remarkable men present scarcely any they rendered to literature. Their merit is points of resemblance, their literary lives bear rather that of demolition than that of construe a close analogy to each other. They both tion. The intrinsic value of their poems is found poetry in its lowest state of degradation, considerable. But the example which they set feeble, artificial, and altogether nerveless. of mutiny against an absurd system was inThey both possessed precisely the talents valuable. The part which they performed was which fitted them for the task of raising it rather that of Moses than that of Joshua. They from that deep abasement. They cannot, in opened the house of bondage; but they did not strictness, be called great poets. They had enter the promised land. not in any very high degree the creative During the twenty years which followed the power, death of Cowper, the revolution in English The vision and the faculty divine poetry was fully consummated. None of the writers of this period, not even Sir Walter but they had great vigour of thought, great Scott, contributed so much to the consummawarmth of feeling, and what, in their circum- tion as Lord Byron. Yet he, Lord Byron, con stances, was above all things important, a tributed to it unwillingly, and with cotstant 124 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. self-reproach and shame. All his tastes and in- much of his contempt for men, and though he clinations led him to take part with the school boasted that amidst all the inconstancy of forof poetry which was going out, against the tune and of fame he was all-sufficient to himschool which was coming in. Of Pope him- self, his literary career indicated nothing of self he spoke with extravagant admiration. that lonely and unsocial pride which he affectHe did not venture directly to say that the little ed. We cannot conceive him, like Milton or man of Twickenham was a greater poet than Wordsworth, defying the criticisms of his conShakspeare or Milton. But he hinted pretty temporaries, retorting their scorn, and labourclearly that he thought so. Of his contempo- ing on a poem in the full assurance that it "aries, scarcely any had so much of his admi- would be unpopular, and in the full assurance ration as Mr. Gifford, who, considered as a that it would be immortal. He has said, l 7 the poet, was merely Pope, without Pope's wit and mouth of one of his heroes in speaking of polifancy; and whose satires are decidedly inferior tical greatness, that " he must serve who gain in vigour and poignancy to the very imperfect would sway;" and this he assigns as a reason juvenile performance of Lord Byron himself. for not entering into political life. He did not He now and then praised Mr. Wordsworth and consider that the sway which he exercised in Mr. Coleridge; but ungraciously and without literature had been purchased by servitudecordiality. When he attacked them, he brought by the sacrifice.of his own taste to the taste of his whole soul to the work. Of the most elabo- the public. rate of Mr. Wordsworth's poems he could find He was the creature of his age; and whernothing to say, but that it was "clumsy, and ever he had lived he would have been the frowsy, and his aversion." Peter Bell excited his creature of his age. Under Charles the First spleen to such a degree that he apostrophized he would have been more quaint than Donne. the shades of Pope and Dryden, and demanded Under Charles the Second the rants of his of them whether it were possible that such rhyming plays would have pitted it, boxed it, trash could evade contempt. In his heart, he and galleried it, with those of any Bayes or thought his own Pilgrimage of Harold inferior Bilboa. Under George the First the monototo his Imitation of Horace's Art of Poetry-a nous smoothness of his versification and the feeble echo of Pope and Johnson. This insipid terseness of his expression would have made performance he repeatedly designed to pub- Pope himself envious. lish, and was withheld only by the solicitations As it was, he was the man of the last thir. of his friends. He has distinctly declared his teen years of the eighteenth century and of the approbation of the unities; the most absurd first twenty-three years of the nineteenth cenlaws by which genius was ever held in servi- tury. He belonged half to the old and half to tude. In one of his works, we think in his the new school of poetry. His personal taste Letter to Mr. Bowles, he compares the poetry led him to the former, his thirst of fame to the of the eighteenth century to the Parthenon, and latter; his talents were equally suited to both. that of the nineteenth to a Turkish mosque; His fame was a common ground on which the and boasts that, though he had assisted his zealots of both sides-Gifford, for example, and contemporaries in building their grotesque and Shelley-might meet. He was the representabarbarous edifice, he had never joined them in tive, not of either literary party, but of both at defacing the remains of a chaster and more once, and of their conflict, and of the victory graceful architecture. In another letter, he by.which that conflict was terminated. His compares the change which had recently pass- poetry fills and measures the whole of the ed on English poetry, to the decay of Latin vast interval through which our literature has poetry after the Augustan age. In the time of,moved since the time of Johnson. It touches Pope, he tells his friend, it was all Horace with the Essay on Man at the one extremity and the us. It is all Claudian now. Excursion at the other. For the great old masters of the. art he had There are several parallel instances in liteno very enthusiastic veneration. In his Letter rary history. Voltaire, for example, was the to Mr. Bowles he uses expressions which connecting link between the France of Louis clearly indicate that he preferred Pope's Iliad the Fourteenth and the France of Louis the to the original. Mr. Moore confesses that his Sixteenth-between Racine and Boileau on the friend was no very fervent admirer of Shak- one side, and Condorcet and Beaumarchais on speare. Of all the poets of the first class, Lord the other. He, like Lord Byron, put himself at Byron seems to have admired Dante and Mil- the head of an intellectual revolution, dreadton most. Yet in the fourth canto of Childe ing it all the time, murnuring at it, sneering Harold he places Tasso, a writer not merely at it, yet choosing rather to move before his inferior to them, but of quite a different order age in any direction than to be left behind of mind, on at least a footing of equality with and forgotten. Dryden was the connectthem. Mr. Hunt is, we suspect, quite correct ing link between the literature of the age of in saying, that Lord Byron could see little or James the First and the literature of the age no merit-in Spenser. of Anne. Oromazdes and Arimanes fought for But Lord Byron the critic, and Lord Byron him-Arimanes carried him off. But his heart the poet, were two very different men. The ef- was to the last with Oromazdes. Lord Byron fects of his theory may indeed often be traced was in the same manner the mediator between in his practice. But his disposition led him two generations, between two hostile poetical to accommodate himself to the literary taste of sects. Though always sneering at Mr.'Words. the age in which he lived; and his talents worth, he was yet, though perhaps uncon would have enabled him to accommodate him- sciously, the interpreter between Mr. Words se!f to tile taste of any age. Though he said worth and the multitude. In the Lyric&. MOORE'S LIFE OF LORD BYRON. 126 Ballads and the Excursion, Air. Wordsworth ap- it is not the business of the dramatist to expeared as the high priest of a worship of which hibit characters in this sharp, antithetical way. Nature was the idol. No poems have ever in- It is not in this way that Shakspeare makes dicated so exquisite a perception of the beauty Prince Hal rise from the rake of Eastcheap of the outer world, or so passionate a love and into the hero of Shrewsbury, and sink again reverence for that beauty. Yet they were not into the rake of Eastcheap. It is not thus that popular; and it is not likely that they ever will Shakspeare has exhibited the union of effemibe popular as the works of Sir Walter Scott nacy and valour in Antony. A dramatist canare popular. The feeling which pervaded not commit a great error than that of followthem was too deep for general sympathy. ing those pointed descriptions of character in Their style was often too mysterious for gene- which satirists and historians indulge so much. ral comprehension. They made a few esote- It is by rejecting what is natural that satirists ric disciples, and many scoffers. Lord Byron and historians produce these striking charac1ounded what may be called an exoteric.Lake ters. Their great object generally is to ascribe school of poetry; and all the readers of poetry to every man as many contradictory qualities in England, we might say in Europe, hastened as possible; and this is an object easily atto sit at his feet. What Mr. Wordsworth had tained. By judicious selections and judicious said like a recluse, Lord Byron said like a man exaggeration, the intellect and the disposition of the world; with less profound feeling, but of any human being might be described as with more perspicuity, energy, and concise- being made up of nothing but startling conness. We would refer our readers to the last trasts. If the dramatist attempts to create a two cantos of Childe Harold and to Manfred in being answering to one of these descriptions, proof of these observations. he fails; because he reverses an imperfect Lord Byron, like Mr. Wordsworth, had no- analytical process. He produces, not a man, thing dramatic in his genius. He was, indeed, but a personified epigram. Very eminent writhe reverse of a great dramatist; the very an- ters have fallen into this snare. Ben Jonson tithesis to a great dramatist. All his charac- has given us an Hermogenes taken from the ters-Harold looking back on the western sky lively lines of Horace; but the inconsistency from which his country and the sun are reced- which is so amusing in the satire appears uning together; the Giaour, standing apart in the natural and disgusts us in the play. Sir Walgloom of the side-aisle, and casting a. haggard ter Scott has committed a far more glaring scowl from under his long hood at the crucifix error of the same kind in the novel of Peveril. and the censer; Conrad, leaning on his sword Admiring, as every reader must admire, the by the watch-tower; Lara, smiling on the keen and vigorous lines in which Dryden sadancers; Alp, gazing steadily on the fatal tirized the Duke of Buckingham, he attempted cloud as it passes before the moon; Manfred, to make a Duke of Buckingham to suit themwandering among the precipices of Berne; a real living Zimri; and he made, not a man, Azo, on the judgment-seat; Ugo, at the bar; but the most grotesque of all monsters. A Lambro, frowning on the siesta of his daughter writer who should attempt to introduce into a and Juan; Cain, presenting his unacceptable play or a novel such a Wharton as the Whar o.ffering-all are essentially the same. The ton of Pope, or a Lord Hervey answering to varieties are varieties merely of age, situation, Sporus, would fail in the same manner. and costume. If ever Lord Byron attempted But to return to Lorc Byron: his women, to exhibit men of a different kind, he always like his men, are all of one breed. Haidee is made them either insipid or unnatural. Selim a half-savage and girlish Julia; Julia is a civilis nothing. Bonnivart is nothing. Don Juan ized and matronly Haidee. Leila is a wedded in the first and best cantos is a feeble copy of Zuleika-Zuleika a virgin Leila. Gulnare and the Page in the Marriage of Figaro. Johnson, Medora appear to have been intentionally opthe man whom Juan meets in the slave-mar- posed to each other. Yet the difference is a ket, is a most striking failure. How differently difference of situation only. A slight change would Sir Walter Scott have drawn a bluff, of circumstance would, it should seem, have fearless Englishman in such a situation! The sent Gulnare to the lute of Medora, and armed portrait would have seemed to walk out of the Medora with the dagger of Gulnare. canvass. It is hardly too much to say that Lord Byron Sardanapalus is more hardly drawn than could exhibit only one man and only one woany dramatic personage that we can remem- man-a man proud, moody, cynical, with deber. His heroism and his effeminacy, his con- fiance on his brow, and misery in his heart; a tempt of death, and his dread of a weighty hel- scorner of his kind, implacable in revenge, yet met, his kingly resolution to be seen in the capable of deep and strong affection;-a woman foremost ranks, and the anxiety with which he all softness and gentleness, loving to caress and calls for a looking-glass that he may be seen to be caressed, but capable of being transformed to advantage, are contrasted with all the point by love into a tigress. of Juvenal. Indeed, the hint of the character Even these two characters, his only twa seems to have been taken from what Juvenal characters, he could not exhibit dramatically says of Otho,- He exhibited them in the manner, not of Shak " Spectillln civilis sarcina belli. speare, but of Clarendon. He analyzed them Nimirum summi ducis est occidere Galbam. He made them analyze themsel yes, but he did Et curare cutem; summi coristantia civis not make them show themselves. He tells us, Bebriaci campo spolium affiectare Palat", for example, in many lines of great force and spirit, that the speech of Lara was bitterly sar These are excellent lines in a satire. But castic, that he talked little of his travels. that L 2 126 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. if much questioned about them, his answers and the solutions, all belong to the same cha became short, and his brow gloomy. But we racter. have none of Lara's sarcastic speeches or A writer who showed so little of dramatic short answers. It is not thus that the great skill in works professedly dramatic was not masters of human nature have portrayed hu- likely to write narrative with dramatic effect. man beings. Homer never tells us that Nestor Nothing could indeed be more rude and careloved to tell long stories about his youth; less than the structure of his narrative poems. Shakspeare never tells us that in the mind of He seems to have thought, with the hero of Iago, every thing that is beautiful and endear- the Rehearsal, that the plot was good for no. ing was associated with some filthy and de- thing but to bring in fine things. His two basing idea. longest works, Childe Harold and Don Juan, It is curious to observe the tendency which have no plan whatever. Either of them might the dialogue of Lord Byron always has to lose have been extended to any length, or cut short its character of dialogue, and to become soli- at any point. The state in which the Giaour loquy. The scenes between Manfred and the appears illustrates the manner in which all Chamois-hunter, between Manfred and the his poems were constructed. They are all, Witch of the Alps, between Manfred and the like the Giaour, collections of fragments; and, Abbot, are instances of this tendency. Man- though there may be no empty spaces marked fred, after a few unimportant speeches, has by asterisks, it is still easy to perceive, by the all the talk to himself. The other interlocutors clumsiness of the joining, where the parts, for are nothing more than good listeners. They the sake of which the whole was composed, drop an occasional question, or ejaculation, end and begin. which sets Manfred off again on the inexhaust- It was in description and meditation that he ible topic of his personal feelings. If we ex- excelled. —" Description," as he said in Don amine the fine passages in Lord Byron's Juan, "was his forte." His manner is indeed dramas, the description of Rome, for example, peculiar, and is almost unequalled —rapid, in Manfred, the description of a Venetian revel sketchy, full of vigour; the selection happy; in Marino Faliero, the dying invective which the strokes few and bold. In spite of the revethe old Doge pronounces against Venice, we rence which we feel for the genius of Mr. shall find there is nothing dramatic in them; Wordsworth, we cannot but think that the that they derive none of their effect from the minuteness of his descriptions often diminishes character or situation of the speaker; and that their effect. He has accustomed himself to they would have been as fine, or finer, if they gaze on nature with the eye of a lover-to had been published as fragments of blank dwell on every feature, and to mark every verse by Lord Byron. There is scarcely a change of aspect. Those beauties which strike speech in Shakspeare of which the same could the most negligent observer, and those which be said. No skilful reader of the plays of only a close attention discovers, are equally Shakspeare can endure to see what are called familiar to him, and are equally prominent in the fine things taken out, under the name of his poetry. The proverb of old Hesiod, that "Beauties" or of "Elegant Extracts;" or to half is often more than the whole, is eminently hear any single passage-"To be or not to applicable to description. The policy of the be," for example, quoted as a sample of the Dutch, who cut down most of the precious great poet. "To be or not to be," has merit trees in the Spice Islands, in order to raise the undoubtedly as a composition. It would have value of what remained, was a policy which merit if put into the mouth of a chorus. But poets would do well to imitate. It was a policy its merit as a composition vanishes, when which no poet understood better than Lord compared with its merit as belonging to Ham- Byron. Whatever his faults might be, he was let. It is not too much to say that the great never, while his mind retained its vigour, acplays of Shakspeare would lose less by being cused of prolixity. deprived of all the passages which are com- His descriptions, great as was their intrinsic monly called the fine passages, than those pas- merit, derived their principal interest from the sages lose by being read separately from the feeling which always mingled with them. He play. This is perhaps the highest praise was himself the beginning, the middle, and which can be given to a dramatist. the end of all his own poetry, the hero of every On the other hand, it may be doubted whe- tale, the chief object in every landscape. I-a. ther there is, in all Lord Byron's plays, a sin- rold, Lara, Manfred, and a crowd of other gle remarkable passage which owes any por- characters, were universally considered meretion of its interest or effect to its connection ly as loose incognitos of Byron; and there is with the characters or the action. He has every reason to believe that he meant them to written only one scene, as far as we can re- be so considered. The wonders of the outer collect, which is dramatic even in manner- world, the Tagus, with the mighty fleets of the scene between Lucifer and Cain. The England riding on its bosom, the towers of conference in that scene is animated, and each Cintra overhanging the shaggy forest of cork. of the interlocutcrs has a fair share of it. But trees and willows, the glaring marble of Pen. this scene, when examined, will be found to be telicus, the banks of the Rhine, the glaciers of as confirmation of our remarks. It is a dia- Clarens, the sweet Lake of Leman, the dell of logue only in form. It is a soliloquy in es- Egeria, with its summer-birds and rustling sence. It is in reality a debate carried on lizards, the shapeless ruins of Rome, overwithin one single unquiet and skeptical mind. grown with ivy and wall-flowers, the stars, the The questions and the answers, the objections sea, the mountains-all were mere accessaries MOORE'S LIFE Of LORD BYRON. 127 tne background to one dark and melancholy fortunate in his domestic relations; the public figure. treated him with cruel injustice; hid health Never had any writer so vast a command and spirits suffered from his dissipated habits of the whole eloquence of scorn, misanthropy, of life; he was, on the whole, an unhappy and despair. That Marah was never dry. No man. He early discovered that, by parading art could sweeten, no draughts could exhaust, his unhappiness before the multitude, he exits perennial waters of bitterness. Never was cited an unrivalled interest. The world gave there such variety in monotony as that of By- him every encouragement to talk about his ron. From maniac laughter to piercing la- mental sufferings. The effect which his first mentation, there was not a single note of hu- confessions produced, induced him to affect man anguish of which he was rnot master. much that he did not feel; and the affectation Year after year, and month after month, he probably reacted on his feelings. How far continued to repeat that to be wretched is the the character in which he exhibited himself destiny of all; that to be eminently wretched, was- genuine, and how far theatrical, would is the destiny of the eminent; that all the de- probably have puzzled himself to say. sires by which we are cursed lead alike to There can be no doubt that this remarkable misery;-if they are not gratified, to the misery main owed the vast influence nwhich he exerof disappointment; if they are gratified, to the cised over his contemporaries, at least as misery of satiety. His principal heroes are much to his gloomy egotism as to the real men who have arrived by different roads at power of his poetry. We never could very the same goal of despair, who are sick of life, clearly understand how it is that egotism, so who are at war with society, who are support- unpopular in conversation, should be so popued in their anguish only by an unconquerable lar in writing; or how it is that men who afpride, resembling that of Prometheus on the feet in their compositions qualities and feelrock, or of Satan in the burning marl; who can ings which they have not, impose so much master their agonies by the force of their will, more easily on their contemporaries than on and who, to the last, defy the whole power of posterity. The interest which the loves of earth and heaven. He always described him- Petrarch excited in his own time, and the pityself as a man of the same kind with his fa- ing fondness with which half Europe looked vourite creations, as a man whose heart had upon Rousseau, are weil known. To readers been withered, whose capacity for. happiness of our time, the love of Petrarch seems to was gone, and could not be restored; but whose have been. love of that kind which breaks no invincible spirit dared the worst that could be- hearts; and the sufferings of Rousseau to have fall him here or hereafter. deserved laughter rather than pity-to have How much of this morbid feeling sprung been partly counterfeited, and partly the confrom an original disease of mind, how much sequences of his own perverseness and vanity. from real misfortune, how much from the W hat our grandchildren may think of the nervousness of dissipation, how much of it was character of Lord Byron, as exhibited in his fanciful, how much of it was merely affected, poetry, we will not pretend to guess. It is It is impossible for us, and would probably certain, that the interest which he excited durhave been impossible for the most intimate ing his life is without a parallel in literary friends of Lord Byron, to decide. Whether history. The feeling with which young readthere ever existed, or can ever exist, a person ers of poetry regarded him, can be conceived answering to the description which he gave of only by those who have experienced it. To himself, may be doubted: but that he was not people who are unacquainted with the real casuch a person is beyond all doubt. It is ri- lamity, " nothing is so dainty sweet as lovely diculous to imagine that a man whose mind melancholy." This faint image of sorrow has was really imbued with scorn of his fellow- in all ages been considered by young gentlecreatures, would have published three or four men as an agreeable excitement. Old gentlebooks every year in order to tell them so; or men and middle-aged gentlemen have so many that a man, who could say with truth that he real causes of sadness, that they are rarely neither sought sympathy nor needed it, would inclined "to be as sad as night only for wanhave admitted all Europe to hear his farewell tonness." Indeed they want the power almost to his wife, and his blessings on his child. In as much as the inclination. We know very the second canto of Childe Harold, he tells us few persons engaged in active life, who, even that'he is insensible to fame and obloquy: if they were to procure stools to be melancholy "Itll may such contest now the spirit move, upon, and were to sit down with all the pre Which heeds nor keen reproof nor partial praise." meditation of Master Stephen, would be able Yet we know, on the best evidence, that a day to enjoy much of what somebody calls the or two before he published these lines, he was "ecstasy of wo." greatly, indeed childishly, elated by the cornm- Among that large class of young persons pliments paid to his maiden speech in the whose reading is almost entirely confined to House of Lords. works of imagination, the popularity of Lord We are far, however, from thinking that has Byron was unbounded. They bought pictures sadness was altogether feigned. He was na- of him, they treasured up the smallest relics turally a man of great sensibility; he had been of him; they learned his poems by heart, and ill-educated; his feelings had been early ex- did their best to write like him, and to look posed to sharp trials; he had been crossed in like him. Many of them practised at the grass, his boyish love; he had been mortified by the in the hope of catching the curl of the upper failure of his first literary efforts; he was strait- lip, and the scowl of the brow, which appear ened in pecuniary circumstances; he was un- in some of his portraits. A few discarded 128 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. their neckeloths in imitation of their great were, to hate your neighbour, and to love your leader. For some years, the Minerva press neighbour's wife. sent forth no novel without a mysterious, un- This affectation has passed away; and a few happy, Lara-like peer. The number of hope- more years will destroy whatever yet remains ful undergraduates and medical students who of that magical potency which once belonged became things of dark imaginings, on whom to the name of Byron. To us he is still a man, the freshness of the heart ceased to fall like young, noble, and unhappy. To our children dew, whose passions had consumed themselves he will be merely a writer; and their imparto dust, and to whom the relief of tears was tial judgment will appoint his place among denied, passes all calculation. This was not writers, without regard to his rank or to his the worst. There was created in the minds of private history. That his poetry will undergo many of these enthusiasts, a pernicious and a severe sifting; that much of what has been absurd association between intellectual power admired by his contemporaries will be rejectand moral depravity. From the poetry of Lord ed as worthless, we have little doubt. But we Byron they drew a system of ethics, compound- have as little doubt, that, after the closest scrued of misanthropy and voluptuousness; a sys- tiny, there will still remain much that can only tem in which the two great commandments perish with the English language. SOUTHEY'S EDITION OF THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.' [EDINBURGH REVIEw, 1831.] TIns is an eminently beautiful and splendid in his choice of subjects. He should never edition of a book which well deserves all that have attempted to illustrate the Paradise Lost. the printer and the engraver can do for it. There can be no two manners more directly The life of Bunyan is, of course, not a per- opposed to each other, than the manner of his formance which can add much to the literary painting and the manner of Milton's poetry. reputation of such a writer as Mr. Southey. Those things which are mere accessaries in But it is written in excellent English, and, for the descriptions, become the principal objects the most part, in an excellent spirit. Mr. Sou- in the pictures; and those figures which they propounds, we need not say, many opi- are most prominent in the descriptions can be nions from which we altogether dissent; and detected in the pictures only by a very close his attempts to excuse the odious persecution scrutiny. Mr. Martin has succeeded perfectly to which Bunyan was'subjected, have some- in representing the pillars and candelabras of times moved our indignation. But we will Pandemonium. But he has forgotten that avoid this topic. We are at. present much Milton's Pandemonium is merely the backmore inclined to join in paying homage to the ground to Satan. In the picture, the Archangel genius of a great man, than to engage in a is scarcely visible amidst the endless coloncontroversy concerning church government nades of his infernal palace. Milton's Paraand toleration. dise, again, is merely the background to his We must not pass without notice the en- Adam and Eve. But in Mr. Martin's picture gravings with which this beautiful volume is the landscape is every thing. Adam, Eve, decorated. Some of Mr. Heath's woodcuts are and Raphael attract much less notice than the admirably designed and executed. Mr. Mar- lake and the mountains, the gigantic flowers, tin's illustrations do not please us quite so and the giraffes which feed upon them. We well. His Valley of the Shadow of Death is have.read, we forget where, that James the not that Valley of the Shadow of Death which Second sat to Verelst, the great flower-painter. Bunvan imagined. At all events, it is not that When the performance was finished, his madark and horrible glen which has from child- jesty appeared in the midst of sunflowers and hood been in our mind's eye. The valley is a tulips, which completely drew away all attencavern: the quagmire is a lake: the straight tion from the central figure. All who looked path runs zigzag: and Christian appears like at the portrait took it for a flower-piece. Mr. a speck in the darkness of the immense vault. Martin, we think, introduces his immeasurable We miss, too, those hideous forms which make spaces, his innumerable multitudes, his gorso striking a part of the description of Bunyan, geous prodigies of architecture and landscape, and which Salvator Rosa would have loved to almost as unseasonably as Verelst introduced draw. It is with unfeigned diffidence that we his flower-pots and nosegays. If Mr. Martin pronounce judgment on any question relating were to paint Lear in the storm, the blazing to the art of painting. But it appears to us sky, the sheets of rain, the swollen torrents, that Mr. Martin has not of late been fortunate and the tossing forest, would draw away all attention from the agonies of the insulted king * The Pilgrim's Progress, with a life of John Bunyan. and father. If he were to paint the death of }ly ROBERT SOUTHEY, Esq., LL.D., Poet Laureate. I1-.ustrated with Engravings. $vo. London. 1830. Lear the old man, asking the bystanders 1D SOUTHEY'S EDITION OF THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 129 undo his button, would be thrown into the are not should be as though they were, that the shade by a vast blaze of pavilions, standards, imaginations of one mind should become the armour, and herald's coats. He would illus- personal recollections of another. And this trate the Orlando Furioso well, the Orlando miracle the tinker has wrought. There is no Innamorato still better, the Arabian Nights ascent, no declivity, no resting-place, no turn. best of all. Fairy palaces and gardens, porti- stile, with which we are not perfectly acquaintcoes of agate, and groves flowering with eme- ed. The wicket gate, and the desolate swamp raids and rubies, inhabited by people for whom which separates it from the GCity of Destruc. nobody cares, these are his proper domain. tion; the longline of road, as straight as a rule He would succeed admirably in the enchanted can make it; the Interpreter's house, and all ground of Alcina, or the mansion of Aladdin. its fair shows; the prisoner in the iron cage; But he should avoid Milton and Bunyan. the palace, at the doors of which armed men The characteristic peculiarity of the Pil- kept guard, and on the battlements of which grim's Progress is, that it is the only work of walked persons clothed all in gold; the cross its kind which possesses a strong human in- and the sepulchre; the steep hill and the plea. terest. Other allegories only amuse the fancy. sant arbour; the stately front of the House The allegory of Bunyan has been read by many Beautiful by the wayside; the low green valley thousands with tears. There are some good of Humiliation, rich with grass and covered allegories in Johnson's works, and some of with flocks, all are as well known to us as the; still higher merit by Addison. In these per- sights of our own street. Then we come to the formances there is, perhaps, as much wit and narrow place where Apollyon strode right ingenuity as in the Pilgrim's Progress. But across the whole breadth of the way, to stop the pleasure which is produced by the Vision the journey of Christian, and where afterwards of Mirza, or the Vision of Theodore, the gene- the pillar was set up to testify how bravely the alogy of Wit, or the contest between Rest and pilgrim had fought the good fight. As we adLabour, is exactly similar to the pleasure vance, the valley becomes deeper and deeper. which we derive from one of Cowley's Odes, The shade of the precipices on both sides falls or from a Canto of Hudibras. It is a pleasure blacker and blacker. The clouds gather overwhich belongs wholly to the understanding, head. Doleful voices, the clanking of chains, and in which the feelings have no part what- and the rushing of many feet to and fro, are ever. Nay, even Spenser himself, though heard through the darkness. The way, hardly assuredly one of the greatest poets that ever discernible in gloom, runs close by the mouth lived, could not succeed in the attempt to make of the burning pit, which sefids forth its flames, allegory interesting. It was in vain that he its noisome smoke, and its hideous shapes, to lavished the riches of his mind on the House terrify the adventurer. Thence he goes on, of Pride, and the House of Temperance. One amidst the snares and pitfalls, with the mangled unpardonable fault, the fault of tediousness, bodies of those who have perished lying in the pervades the whole of the Faerie Queen. We ditch by his side. At the end of the long dark become sick of Cardinal Virtues and Deadly valley, he passes the dens in which the old Sins, and long for the society of plain men and giants dwelt, amidst the bones and ashes of women. Of the persons who read the first those whom they had slain. Canto, not one in ten reaches the end of the Then the road passes straight on through a First Book, and not one in a hundred perse- waste moor, till at length the towers of a disveres to the end of the poem. Very few and tant city appear before the traveller; and soon very weary are those who are in at the death he is in the midst of the innumerable multi. of the Blatant Beast. If the last six books, tudes of Vanity Fair. There are the jugglers which are said to have been destroyed in Ire- and the apes, the shops and the puppet-shows. land, had been preserved, we doubt whether There are Italian Row, and French Row, and any heart less stout than that of a commentator Spanish Row, and Britain Row, with their would have held out to the end. crowds of buyers, sellers, and loungers, jabIt is not so with the Pilgrim's Progress. bering all the languages of the earth. That wonderful book, while it obtains admira- Thence we go on by the little hi4l of the siltion from the most fastidious critics, is loved ver mine, and through the meadow of lilies, by those who are too simple to admire it. along the bank of that pleasant river which is Doctor Johnson, all whose studies were desul- bordered on both sides by fruit trees. On the tory, and who hated, as he said, to read books left side, branches off the path leading to that through, made an exception in favour of the horrible castle, the court-yard of which is Pilgrim's Progress. That work, he said, was paved with the skulls of pilgrims; and right one of the two or three works which he Wtished onward are the sheepfolds and orchards of the longer. It was by no common merit that the Delectable Mountains. illiterate sectary extracted praise like this from From the Delectable Mountains, the way lies the most pedantic of critics and the most through the fogs and briers of the Enchanted bigoted of Tories. In the wildest parts of' Ground, with here and there a bed of soft Scotlard the Pilgrim's Progress is the delight cushions spread under a green arbour. And of the peasantry. In every nursery the Pil- beyond is the landofBeulah, where the floweis, grim's Progress is a greater favourite than the grapes, and the songs of birds never cease, Jack the Giant-Killer. Every reader knows and where the sun shines night and day. the straight and narrow path, as well as he Thence are plainly seen the golden pavements knows a road in which he has gone backward and streets of pearl, on the other side of that and forward a hundred times. This is the black and cold river over which there is uo highest miracle of genius-that things which bridge. VOL. I.-17 130 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. All the stages of the journey, all the But we must return to Bunyan. The Pilforms which cross or overtake the pilgrims, grim's Progress undoubtedly is not a perfect — giants and hobgoblins, ill-favoured ones allegory. The types are often inconsistent and shining ones; the tall, comely, swarthy with each other; and sometimes the allegoriMadam Bubble, with her great purse by her cal disguise is altogether thrown off. The side, and her fingers playing with the money; river, for example, is emblematic of death, the black man in the bright vesture; Mr. and we are told that every human being must Worldly-Wiseman, and my Lord Hategood; pass through the river. But Faithful does not Mr. Talkative, and Mrs. Timorous-are all pass through it. He is martyred, not in shaactually existing beings to us. We follow the dow, but in reality, at Vanity Fair. Hopeful travellers through their allegorical progress talks to Christian about Esau's birthright, and with interest not inferior to that with which about his own convictions of sin, as Bunyan we follow Elizabeth from Siberia to Moscow, might have talked with one of his own con. or Jeanie Deans from Edinburgh to London. gregation. The damsels at the House BeautiBunyan is almost the only writer that ever ful catechise Christiana's boys, as any good gave to the abstract the interest of the con- ladies might catechise any boys at a Sunday. crete. In the works of many celebrated au- school. But we do not believe that any man, thors, men are mere personifications. We whatever might be his genius, and whatever have not an Othello, but jealousy; not an Iago, his good luck, could long continue a figurative but perfidy; not a Brutus, but patriotism. history without falling into many inconsist. The mind of Bunyan, on the contrary, was so encies. We are sure that inconsistencies, imaginative, that personifications, when he scarcely less gross than the worst into which dealt with them, became men. A dialogue Bunyan has fallen, may be found in the short. between two qualities in his dream, has more est and most elaborate allegories of the Specdramatic effect than a dialogue between two tator and the Rambler. The Tale of a Tub and human beings in most plays. In this respect the History of John Bull swarm with similar the genius of Bunyan bore a great resem- errors, if the name of error can be properly blance to that of a man who had very little applied to that which is unavoidable. It is not else in common with him, Percy Bysshe Shel- easy to make a simile go on all-fours. But ley. The strong imagination of Shelley made we believe that no human ingenuity could him an idolater in his own despite. Out of produce such a centipede as a long allegory, the most indefinite terms of a hard, cold, dark, in which the correspondence between the out, metaphysical system, he made a gorgeous ward sign and the thing signified should be Pantheon, full of beautiful, majestic, and life- exactly preserved. Certainly no writer, anlike forms. He turned atheism itself into a cient or modern, has yet achieved the advenmythology, rich with visions as glorious as the ture. The best thing, on the whole, that an gods that live in the marble of Phidias, or the allegorist can do, is to present to his readers a virgin saints that smile on us from the canvass succession of analogies, each of which may of Murillo. The Spirit of Beauty, the Prin- separately be striking and happy, without lookciple of Good, the Principle of Evil, when he ing very nicely to see whether they harmonize treated of them, ceased to be abstractions. with each other. This Bunyan has done; and, They took shape and colour. They were no though a minute scrutiny may detect inconlonger mere words; but "intelligible forms;" sistencies in every page of his tale, the general "fair humanities;" objects of love, of adora- effect which the tale produces on all persons, tion, or of fear. As there can be no stronger learned and unlearned, proves that he has done signs of a mind destitute of the poetical faculty well. The passages which it is most difficult than that tendency which was so common to defend, are those in which he altogether among the writers of the French school to turn drops the allegory, and puts into the mouth of images into abstractions-Venus, for example, his pilgrims religious ejaculations and disquiinto Love, Minerva into Wisdom, Mars into sitions, better suited to his own pulpit at BedWar, and Bacchus into Festivity-so there can ford or Reading, than to the Enchanted Ground be no stronger sign of a mind truly poetical, of the Interpreter's Garden. Yet even these than a disposition to reverse this abstracting passages, though we will not undertake to deprocess, and to make individuals out of gene- fend them against the objections of critics, ralities. Some of the metaphysical and ethical we feel that we could ill spare. We feel tha' theories of Shelley were certainly most absurd the story owes much of its charm to these o,.and pernicious. But we doubt whether any casional glimpses of solemn and affecting modern poet has possessed in an equal degree subjects, which will not be hidden, which force the highest qualities of the great ancient mas- themselves through the veil, and appear before term. The words bard and inspiration, which us in their native aspect. The effect is not seem ao cold and affected when applied to unlike that which is said to have been proother modern writers, have a perfect propriety duced on the ancient stage, when the eyes of.when applied to him. He was not an author, the actor were seen flaming through his mask, but a bard. His poetry seems not to have been and giving life and expression to what would an art, but an inspiration. Had he lived to the else have been inanimate and uninteresting full age of man, he might not improbably have disguise. given to the world some great work of the very It is very amusing and very instructive to highest rank ia design and execution. But, compare the Pilgrim's Progress with the Grace alas! Abounding. The latter work is indeed one of o Aamv cf eBa poo.' CeACT dl1Va the most remarkable pieces of autobiography rev Mcoatf; Otaov ivdpa, Tes, ov Nvpaav aortaX~, in the world. It is a full and open confession SOUTHEY'S EDITION OF THE PLAGRIM'S PROGRESS. 131 of the fancies which passed through the mind every tinker that ever lived has been a blackof an illiterate man, whose affections were guard. IndeedMr. Southey acknowledges this warm, whose nerves were irritable, whose "Such he might have been expected to be by imagination was ungovernable, and who was his birth, breeding, and vocation. Scarcely under the influence of the strongest religious indeed, by possibility, could he have been excitement. In whatever age Bunyan had otherwise." A man, whose manners and senlived, the history of his feelings would, in all timents are decidedly below those of his class, probability, have been very curious. But the deserves to be called a blackguard. But it is time in which his lot was cast was the time surely unfair to apply so strong a word of reof a great stirring of the human mind. A proach to one who is only what the great mass tremendous burst of public feeling, produced of every community must inevitably be. by the tyranny of the hierarchy, menaced the Those horrible internal conflicts which Bunold ecclesiastical institutions with destruction. yan has described with so much power of To the gloomy regularity of one intolerant language prove, not that he was a worse man church had succeeded the license of innume- than his neighbours, but that his mind was rable sects, drunk with the sweet and heady constantly occupied by religious considera-.r ist of their new liberty. Fanaticism, en- tions, that his fervour exceeded his knowledge, g: idered by persecution, and destined to en- and that his imagination exercised despotic gender fresh persecution in turn, spread rapid- power over his body and mind. He heard ly through society. Even the strongest and voices from heaven: he saw strange visions most commanding minds were not proof against of distant hills, pleasant and sunny as his own this strange taint. Any time might have pro- Delectable Mountains; from those seats he was duced George Fox and James Naylor. But to shut out, and placed in a dark and horrible one time alone belong the frantic delusions wilderness, where he wandered through ice of such a statesman as Vane, and the hyste- and snow, striving to make his way into the rical tears of such a soldier as Cromwell. happy region of light. At one time he was The history of Bunyan is the history of a seized with an inclination to work miracles. most excitable mind in an age of excitement. At another time he thought himself actually By most of his biographers he has been treated possessed by the devil. He could distinguish with gross injustice. They have understood the blasphemous whispers. He felt his inferin a popular sense all those strong terms of nal enemy pulling at his clothes behind him. self-condemnation which he employed in a He spurned with his feet, and struck with his theological sense. They have, therefore, re- hands, at the destroyer. Sometimes he was presented him as an abandoned wretch, re- tempted to sell his part in the salvation of manclaimed by means almost miraculous; or, to kind. Sometimes a violent impulse urged him use their favourite metaphor, "as a brand to start up from his food, to fall on his knees, plucked from the burning." Mr. Ivimey calls and break forth into prayer. At length he him the depraved Bunyan, and the wicked fancied that he had committed the unpardontinker of Elstow. Surely Mr. Ivimey ought able sin. His agony convulsed his robust to have been too familiar with the bitter accu- frame. He was, he says, as if his breastbone sations which the most pious people are in the would split; and this he took for a sign that habit of bringing against themselves, to under- he was destined to burst asunder like Judas. stand literally all the strong expressions which The agitation of his nerves made all his moveare to be found in the Grace Abounding. It is ments tremulous; and this trembling, he supquite clear, as Mr. Southey most justly re- posed, was a visible mark of his reprobation, marks, that Mr. Bunyan never was a vicious like that which had been set on Cain. At one man. He married very early; and he solemn- time, indeed, an encouraging voice seemed ly declares that he was strictly faithful to his to rush in at the window, like the noise of wife. He does not appear to have been a wind, but very pleasant, and commanded, as drunkard. He owns, indeed, that when a boy, he says, a great calm in his soul. At another he never spoke without an oath. But a single time, a word of comfort "was spoke loud admonition cured him of this bad habit for life; unto him; it showed a great word; it seemed and the cure must have been wrought early: to be writ in great letters." But these intervals for at eighteen he was in the army of the Par- of ease were short. His state, during two liament; and if he had carried the vice of years and a half, was generally the most horriprofaneness into that service, he would doubt- ble that the human mind can imagine. "I less have received something more than an walked," says he, with his own peculiar eloadmonition from Sergeant Bind-their-kings-in- quence, "to a neighbouring town; and sat chains, or Captain Hew-Agag-in-pieces-before- down upon a settle in the street, and fell into the-Lord. Bell-ringing, and playing at hockey a very deep pause about the most fearful state on Sundays, seem to have been the worst my sin had brought me to; and, after long vices of this depraved tinker. They would musing, I lifted up my head; but methought have passed for virtues with Archbishop Laud. saw as if the sun that shineth in the heavens It is quite clear that, from a very early age, did grudge to give me light; and as if the very Bunyan was a man of a strict life and of a stones in the streets and tiles upon the houses tender conscience. "He had been," says Mr. did band themselves against me. Methought Southey, " a blackguard." Even this we think that they all combined together to banish me too hard a censure. Bunyan was not, we ad- out of the world! I was abhorred of them, and mit, so fine a gentleman as Lord Digby; yet unfit to dwell among them, because I had sin. he was a blackguard no otherwise than as ned against the Saviour. Oh, how happy now 132 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. was every creature over I! for they stood fast, of Isaiah to the household. and guests of Gains and kept their station. But I was gone and and then sallies out to attack Slaygood, wh~ lost." Scarcely any madhouse could produce was of the nature of flesh-eaters, in his den, an instance of delusion so strong, or of misery There are inconsistencies; but they are inconso acute. sistencies which add, we think, to the interest It was through this Valley of the Shadow of of the narrative. We have not the'least doubt Death, overhung by darkness, peopled with that Bunyan had in view some stout old. Greatdevils, resounding with blasphemy and lamen- heart of Naseby and Worcester, who prayed -tation, and passing amidst quagmires, snares, with'his men before he drilled them; who and pitfalls, close by the very mouth of hell, knew the spiritual state of every dragoon in that Bunyan journeyed to that bright and his troop; and who, with the praises of God in fruitful land of Beulah, in which he sojourned his mouth, and a two-edged sword in his hand, during the latter days of his pilgrimage. The had turned to flight, on many fields of battle, only trace which his cruel sufferings and the swearing, drunken bravoes of Rupert and temptations seem to have left behind them, was Lunsford. an affectionate compassion for those who were Every age produces such men as By-ends. still in the state in which he had once been. But the middle of the seventeenth century was Religion has scarcely ever worn a form so eminently prolific of such men. Mr. Southey calm and soothing as in his allegory. The feel- thinks that the satire was aimed at some paring which predominates through the whole ticular individual; and this seems by no means book is a feeling of tenderness for weak, timid, improbable. At all events, Bunyan must have and harassed minds. The character of Mr: known many of those hypocrites who followed Fearing, of Mr. Feeble-Mind, of Mr. Despond- religion only when religion walked in silver ency and his daughter Miss Muchafraid; the slippers, when the sun shone, and when the account of poor Littlefaith, who was robbed people applauded. Indeed, he might have by the three thieves of his spending-money; easily found all the kindred of By-ends among the description of Christian's terror in the the public men of his time. He might have dungeons of Giant Despair, and in his passage found among the peers, my Lord Turn-about, through the river, all clearly show how strong my Lord Time-server, and my Lord Faira sympathy Bunyan felt, after his own mind speech; in the House of Commons, Mr. had become clear and cheerful, for persons Smooth,-man, Mr. Anything, and Mr. Facing. afflicted with religious melancholy. both-ways; nor would "the parson of the Mr. Southey, who has no love for the Cal- parish, Mr. Two-tongues," have been wanting. vinists, admits that, if -Calvinism had never The town of Bedford probably contained more worn a blacker appearance than in Bunyan's than one politician, who, after-contriving to works, it would never have become a term of raise an estate by seeking the Lord during the reproach. In fact, those works of Bunyan reign of the saints, contrived to keep what he with which we are acquainted, are by no had got by persecuting the saints during the means more Calvinistic than the homilies of reign of the strumpets; and more than one the Church of England. The moderation of priest who, during repeated changes in the his opinions on the subject of predestination, discipline and doctrines of the church, had gave offence to some zealous persons. We remained constant to nothing but his benehave seen an absurd allegory, the heroine of fice. which is named Hephzibah, written by some One of the most remarkable passages in the raving supralapsarian preacher, who was dis- Pilgrim's Progress, is that in which the prosatisfied with the mild theology of the Pilgrim's ceedings against Faithful are described. It is Progress. In this foolish book, if we recollect impossible to doubt that Bunyan intended to rightly, the Interpreter is called the Enlight- satirize the mode in which state trials were ener, and the House Beautiful is Castle conducted under Charles the Second. The Strength. Mr. Southey tells us that the Ca- license given to the witnesses for the prosecutholics had also their Pilgrim's Progress with- tion, the shameless partiality and ferocious inout a Giant Pope, in which the Interpreter is solence of the judge, the precipitancy and the the Director, and the House Beautiful Grace's blind rancour of the jury, remind us of those Hall. It is surely a remarkable proof of the odious mummeries which, from the Restoration power of Bunyan's genius, that two religious to the Revolution, were merely forms prelimiparties, both of which regarded his opinions as nary to hanging, drawing, and quartering.'eterodox, should have had recourse to him for Lord Hategood performs the office of counsel assistance. for the prisoners as well as Scroggs himself There are, we think, some characters and could have performed it. scenes in the Pilgrim's Progress, which can be "JunDE. Thou runagate, heretic, and traitor, ully comprehended and enjoyed only by per- hast thou heard what these honest gentlemen sons familiar with the history of the times have witnessed against thee? through which Bunyan lived. The character " FAITHFUL. May I speak a few words in my of Mr. Greatheart, the guide, is an example. own defence? HIis fighting is, of course, ailegorical; but the " JurDGE. Sirrah, Sirrah! thou deservest to allegory is not strictly preserved. He delivers live no longer, but to be slain immediately a sermon on imputed righteousness to his com- upon the place; yet, that all men may see our panions; and, soon after, he gives battle to gentleness to thee, let us hear what thou, vile Gian Grim, who had taken upon him to back runagate, hast to say." the lions He expounds the fifty-third chapter No person who knows the state trials coa b SOUTHEY'S EDITION OF THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. 133 at a loss for parallel cases. Indeed, write what divine, this homely dialect, the dialect of plain Buinyan would, the baseness and cruelty of the workingmen, was perfectly sufficient. There lawyers of those times " sinned up to it still," is no bo6k in our literature on which we could and even went beyond it. The imaginary trial so readily stake the fame of the old unpolluted of Faithful before a jury composed of personi- English language; no book which shows so fled vices, was just and merciful, when,com- well how rich that language is in its own propared with the real trial of Lady Alice Lisle per wealth, and how little it has been improved before that tribunal where all the vices sat in by all that it has borrowed. the person of Jeffries. Cowper said, forty or fifty years ago, that he The style of Bunyan is delightful to every dared not name John Bunyan in his verse, for reader, and invaluable as a study to every per- fear of moving a sneer. To our refined foreson who wishes to obtain a wide command fathers, we suppose, Lord Roscommon's Essay over the English language. The vocabulary on Translated Verse, and the Duke of Buckis the vocabulary of the common people. inghamshire's Essay on Poetry, appeared to There is not an expression, if we except a few be compositions infinitely superior to the alle technical terms of theology, which would puz- gory of the preaching tinker. We live in zle the rudest peasant. We have observed better times; and we are not afraid to say several pages which do not contain a single that, though there were many clever men in word of more than two syllables. Yet no wri- England during the latter half of the seven. ter has said more exactly what he meant to teenth century, there were only two great say. For magnificence, for pathos, for vehe- creative minds. One of those minds pro. ment exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for duced the Paradise Lost, the other the Pil every purpose of the poet, the orator, and the. grim's Progress. END OF VOL. L I BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 13. CROKER'S EDITION OF BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON.* [EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1831.] Tais work has greatly disappointed us. Beattie, died in 1816.* A Sir William Forbes Whatever faults we may have been prepared undoubtedly died in that year; but not the Sir to find in it, we fully expected that it would be William Forbes in question, whose death took a valuable addition to English literature, that place in 1806. It is notorious, indeed, that the it would contain many curious facts and many biographer of Beattie lived just long enough to judicious remarks; that the style of the notes complete the history of his friend. Eight or would be neat, clear, and precise; and that the nine years before the date which Mr. Croker typographical execution would be, as in new has assigned for Sir William's death. Sir Waleditions of classical works it ought to be, al- ter Scott lamented that event, in the introducmost faultless. We are sorry to be obliged to tion, we think, to the fourth canto of Marmion. say, that the merits of Mr. Croker's perform- Every school-girl knows the lines: ance are on a par with those of a certain leg "Scarce had lamented Forbes paid of mutton on which Dr. Johnson dined, while The tribute to his Minstrel's shade; travelling from London to Oxford, and which The tale of friendship scarce was told, he, with characteristic energy, pronounced to Fre the tearrator's heart was coldbe, "as bad as bad could be; ill-fed, ill-killed, A heart so manly and so kind!" ill-kept, and ill-dressed."t That part of the In one place, we are told, that Allan Ransay volumes before us, for which the editor is re- the painter, was born in 1709, and died in sponsible, is ill-compiled, ill-arranged, ill-ex- 1784;t in another, that he died in 1784, in the pressed, and ill-printed, seventy-first year of his age.t If the latter Nothing in the work had astonished us so statement be correct, he must have been born much as the ignorance or carelessness of Mr. in or about 1713. Croker with respect to facts and dates. Many In one place, Mr. Croker says, that at the of his blunders are such as we should be sur- commencement of the intimacy between Dr. prised to hear any well-educated gentleman Johnson and Mrs. Thrale, in 1765, the lady commit, even in conversation. The notes ab-was twenty-five years old.~ In other places solutely swarm with misstatements, into which he says, that Mrs. Thrale's thirty-fifth year co. the editor never would have fallen, if he had incided with Johnson's seventieth.l Johnson taken the slightest pains to investigate the was born in 1709. If, therefore, Mrs. Thrale's truth of his assertions, or if he had even been thirty-fifth year coincided with Johnson's se. well acquainted with the very book on which ventieth, she could have been only twenty-one he undertookto comment. We will give a few years old in 1765. This is not all. Mr. instances. Croker, in another place, assigns the year Mr. Croker tells us, in a note, that Derrick, 1777 as the date of the complimentary lines who was master of the ceremonies at Bath, which Johnson made on Mrs. Thrale's thirtydied very poor, in 1760.t We read on; and, a fifth birthday.~ If this date be correct, Mrs. few pages later, we find Dr. Johnson and Bos- Thrale must have been born in 1742, and could well talking of the same Derrick as still living have been only twenty-three when her acand reigning, as having retrieved his character, quaintance with Johnson commenced. Two as possessing so much power over his subjects of Mr. Croker's three statements must be false. at Bath, that his opposition might be fatal to We will not decide between them; we wilt Sheridan's lectures on oratory.~ And all this only say, that the reasons which he gives for in 1763. The fact is, that Derrick died in thinking that Mrs. Thrale was exactly thirty1769. five years old when Johnson was seventy, apIn one note we read, that Sir Herbert Croft, pear to us utterly frivolous. the author of that pompous and foolish account Again, Mr. Croker informs his readers that of Young, which appears among the Lives of "Lord Mansfield survived Johnson full ten the Poets, died in 1805.. Another note in the years."* Lord Mansfield survived Dr. John same volume states, that this same Sir Her- son just eight years and a quarter. bert Croft died at Paris, after residing abroad Johnson found in the library of a Frenc for fifteen years, on the 27th of April, 1816.~ lady, whom he visited during his short visit to Mr. Croker informs us, that Sir William Paris, some works which he regarded with Forbes of Pitsligo, the author of the life of great disdain. "I looked," says he, "into the books in the lady's closet, and, in contempt, * The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.; including a showed them to Mr. Thrale-Prince Titi; BiJsurnal of a Tour to the Hebrides. By James Boswell, blotheque des Fees and otherbooks."tt "The Esq. A1 JTew Edition, with numerous AJdditions and aNotes. By JOHN WILSON CROKER, LL.D., F.R.S. 5 vold. 8vo. London. 1831. t V. 184.: I. 394. a 1. 404. * II. 262. t IV. 105. t V. 281. ~ 1. 510. Iv. 321. ~ IV. 428. 11 IV. 271, 322. ~ III. 463. ** II. 151. -f III 271. MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. history of Prince Titi," observes Mr. Croker, i execution is one of the finest passages in Lord "was said to be the autobiography of Frederic Clarendon's History. We can scarcely sup. Prince of Wales, but was probably written by pose that Mr. Croker has never read that pasRalph, his secretary." A more absurd note sage; and yet we can scarcely suppose that never was penned. The history of Prince any person who has ever perused so noble and Titi, to which Mr. Croker refers, whether writ- pathetic a story can have utterly forgotten all ten by Prince Frederic or by Ralph, was cer- its most striking circumstances. tainly never published. If Mr. Croker had "Lord Townshend," says Mr. Croker, "was taken the trouble to read with attention the not secretary of state till 1720."* Can Mr. very passage in Park's Royal and Noble Au- Croker possibly be ignorant that Lord Townthors, which he cites as his authority, he shend was made secretary of state at the acwould have seen that the manuscript was cession of George the First, in 1714, that he given up to the government. Even if this continued to be secretary of state till he was memoir had been printed, it was not very likely displaced by the intrigues of Sunderland and to find its way into a French lady's bookcase. Stanhope at the close of 1716, and that he reAnd would any man in his senses speak con- turned to the office of secretary of state, not in temptuously of a French lady, for having in 1720, but in 1721? Mr. Croker, indeed, is geher possession an English work so curious nerally unfortunate in his statements respectand interesting as a Life of Prince Frederic, ing the Townshend family. He tells us tha' whether written by himself or by a confidential Charles Townshend, the chancellor of the ex secretary, must have been? The history at chequer, was "nephew of the prime minister, which Johnson laughed was a very proper and son of a peer who was secretary of state, companion to the Bibliotheque des Fees-a and leader of the House of Lords."t Charles fairy tale about good Prince Titi and naughty Townshend was not nephew, but grand-nePrince Violent. Mr. Croker may find it in the phew of the Duke of Newcastle-not son, Magasin des Enfans, the first French book but grandson of the Lord Townshend who was which the little girls of England read to their secretary of state and leader of the House of governesses. Lords. Mr. Croker states, that Mr. Henry Bate, who "General Burgoyne surrendered at Sarato. afterwards assumed the name of Dudley, was ga," says Mr. Croker, "in March, 1778."t Ge. proprietor of the Morning Herald, and fought neral Burgoyne surrendered on the 17th of a duel with George Robinson Stoney, in con- October, 1777. sequence of some attacks on Lady Strathmore, " Nothing," says Mr. Croker, "can be more which appeared in that paper.* Now Mr. unfounded than the assertion that Byng fell a Bate was connected, not with the Morning He- martyr to political party. By a strange coinciraid, but with the Morning Post, and the dis- dence of circumstances, it happened that there pute took place before the Morning Herald was a total change of administration between was in existence. The duel was fought in his condemnation and his death; so that one January, 1777. The Chronicle of the Annual party presided at his trial and another at his Register for that year contains an account of execution; there can be no stronger proof that the transaction, and distinctly states that Mr. he was not a political martyr."~ Now, what Bate was editor of the Morning Post. The will our readers think of this writer when we Morning Herald, as any person may see by assure them that this statement, so confidently looting at any number of it, was not establish- made respecting events so notorious, is absoed till some years after this affair. For this lutely untrue? One and the same administrablunder there is, we must acknowledge, some tion was in office when the court-martial on excuse: for it certainly seems almost incredi- Byng commenced its sittings, through the whole ble to a person living in our time, that any trial, at the condemnation, and at the execuhuman being should ever have stooped to tion. In the month of November, 1756, the fight with a writer in the Morning Post. Duke of Newcastle and Lord Hardwicke re"James de Duglas," says Mr. Croker, "was signed; the Duke of Devonshire became first requested by King Robert Bruce, in his last lord of the treasury, and Mr. Pitt secretary of hours, to repair with his heart to Jerusalem, state. This administration lasted till the month and humbly to deposit it at the sepulchre of of April, 1757. Byng's court-martial began to our Lord, which he did in 1329."t Now it is sit on the 28th of December, 1756. He was well known that he did no such thing, and for shot on the 14th of March, 1757. There is a very sufficient reason-because he was killed something at once diverting and provoking in by the way. Nor was it in 1329 that he set the cool and authoritative manner in which out. Robert Bruce died in 1329, and the ex- Mr. Croker makes these random assertions. pedition of Douglas took place in the follow- We do not suspect him of intentionally falsify. ing year,-" quaind le printerns vint et la saison," ing history. But of this high literary misdesays Froissart, - in June, 1330, says Lord meanor we do without hesitation accuse him Hailes, whom Mr. Croker cites as the author- -that he has no adequate sense of the obligaity for his statement. tion which a writer, who professes to relate Mr. CroKer teus us tnat tne great Marquis facts, owes to the public. We accuse him of of Montrose was beheaded in Edinburgh in a negligence and an ignorance analogous to 1650.4 There is not a forward boy at any that crassa negligentia and that crassa ignorantia s;cr.&o.n England who does not know that the on which the law animadverts in magistrates marquis was hanged. The account of the and surgeors even wnen malice and corrup. *Y. 16. t IV2. L n56. 111. 52. tIl. 368. $IV. M.. I.., BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 137 tion are not imputed. We accuse him of hav- Macpherson's Ossian. "Many men," he said, ing undertaken a work which, if not performed " many women, and many children might have with strict accuracy, must be very much worse written Douglas." Mr. Croker conceives that than useless, and of having performed it as he has detected an inaccuracy, and glories if the difference between an accurate and an over poor Sir-Joseph in a most characteristic inaccurate statement was not worth the trouble manner. " I have quoted this anecdote solely of looking into the most common book of re- with the view of showing to how little credit ference. hearsay anecdotes are in general entitled. But we must proceed. These volumes con- Here is a story published by Sir Joseph Maw. tain mistakes more gross, if possible, than any bey, a member of the House of Commons, and that we have yet mentioned. Boswell has re- a person every way worthy of credit, who says corded some observations made by Johnson on he had it from Garrick. Now mark: —Johnthe changes which took place in Gibbon's re- son's visit to Oxford, about the time of his docligious opinions. "It is said," cried the doe- tor's degree, was in 1754, the first time he had tor, laughing, "that he has been a Mahome- been there since he left the university. But tan." "This sarcasm," says the editor, "pro- Douglas was not acted till 1756, and Ossian bably alludes to the tenderness with which not published till 1760.'All, therefore, that is Gibbon's malevolence to Christianity induced new in Sir Joseph Mawbey's story is false.* him to treat Mahometanism in his history."` Assuredly we need not go far to find ample Now the sarcasm was uttered in 1776, and proof that a member of the House of Commons that part of the History of the Decline and may commit avery gross error." Now mark, Fall of the Roman Empire which relates to say we, in the language of Mr. Croker. The Mahometanism was not published till 1788, fact is, that Johnson took his MIeaster's degree twelve years after the date of this conversa- in 1754,t and his Doctor's degree in 17754 In tion, and nearly four years after the death of the spring of 1776~ he paid a visit to Oxford, Johnson. and at this visit a conversation respecting the "It was in the year 1761," says Mr. Croker, works of Home and Macpherson might have "that Goldsmith published his Vicar of Wake- taken place, and in all probability did take field. This leads the editor to observe a more place. The only real objection to the story Mr. serious inaccuracy of Mrs. Piozzi than Mr. Bos- Croker has missed. Boswell states, apparentwell notices, when he says Johnson left her ly on the best authority, that as early at least table to go and sell the Vicar of Wakefield for as the year 1763, Johnson, in conversation with Goldsmith. Now Dr. Johnson was not ac- Blair, used the same expressions respecting Osquainted with the Thrales till 1765, four years sian which Sir Joseph represents him as havafter the book had been published."t Mr. ing used respecting Douglas.ll Sir Joseph or Croker, in reprehending the fancied inaccu- Garrick confounded, we suspect, the two storacy of Mrs. Thrale, has himself shown a de- ries. But their error is venial compared with gree of inaccuracy, or, to speak more proper- that of Mr. Croker. ly, a degree of ignorance, hardly credible. The We will not multiply instances of this scan Traveller was not published till 1765; and it dalous inaccuracy. It is clear that a writer is a fact as notorious as any in literary his- who, even when warned by the text on which tory that the Vicar of Wakefield, though writ- he is commenting, falls into such mistakes as ten before the Traveller, was published after these, is entitled to no confidence whatever. it. It is a fact which Mr. Croker may find in Mr. Croker has committed an error of four any common life of Goldsmith; in that written years with respect to the publication of Goldby Mr. Chalmers, for example. It is a fact smith's novel; an error of twelve years with which, as Boswell tells us, was distinctly respect to the publication of Gibbon's history; stated by Johnson in a conversation with Sir an error of twenty-one years with respect to Joshua Reynolds.t It is therefore quite possi- one of the most remarkable events of Johnble and probable that the celebrated scene of son's life. Two of these three errors he has the landlady, the sheriff's officer, and the bottle committed while ostentatiously displaying his of Madeira, may have taken place in 1765. own accuracy, and correcting what he repreNow Mrs. Thrale expressly says that it was sents as the loose assertions of others. How can near the beginning of her acquaintance with his readers take on trust his statements concernJohnson, in 1765, or at all events not later than ing the births, marriages, divorces, and deaths 1766. that he left her table to succour his friend. of a crowd of people whose names are scarceHer accuracy is therefore completely vindi- ly known to this generation? It is not likely cated. that a person who is ignorant of what almost The very page which contains this mon- everybody knows can know that of which al9trous blunder contains another blunder, if most everybody is ignorant. We did not open possible, more monstrous still. Sir Joseph this hook with any wish to find blemishes it Mawbey, a foolish member of Parliament, at it. We have made no curious researches. whose speeches and whose pig-styes the wits The work itself, and a very common knowof Brookes's were fifty years ago in the habit ledge of literary and political history, have ein of laughing most unmercifully, stated, on the abled us to detect the mistakes which we have authrity cf Garrick, that Johnson. while sit- pointed out, and many other mistakes of the ting in a toffee-house at Oxford about the time same kind. We must say, and we say it with of his doctor's degree, used some contemptu- regret, that we do not consider the authority ous ~s:presri ias respecting Home's play and of Mr. Croker, unsupported by othei evidernice, I. 336. t V. 409. t IV. 180. * V. 409. t 1. 262. t III. 205. li. 3t6. 3 I 4X. VOL. II. -18. M 2 138 MACAULAY'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. as sufficient to justify any writer who may fol- happy term to express the paternal and kindly low him, in relating a single anecdote, or in as- authority of the head of the clan?"* The signing a date to a single event. composition of this eminent Latinist, short as Mr. Croker shows almost as much ignorance it is, contains several words that are just as and heedlessness in his criticisms as in his much Coptic as Latin, to say nothing of the statements concerning facts. Dr. Jbhnson said, incorrect structure of the sentence. The word very reasonably as it appears to us, that some Philarchus, even if it were a happy term exof the satires of Juvenal are too gross for imi- pressing a paternal and kindly authority, would tation. Mr. Croker, who, by the way, is angry prove nothing for the minister's Latin, what. with Johnson for defending Prior's tales against ever it might prove for his Greek. But it is the charge of indecency, resents this aspersion clear that the word Philarchus means, not a on Juvenal, and indeed refuses to believe that man who rules by love, but a man who loves the doctor can have said any thing so absurd. rule. The Attic writers of the best age use the "He probably said-some passages of them- word otagXs in the sense which we assign to for there are none of Juvenal's satires to which it. Wouid Mr. Croker translate