Chapter XVII (3)

Othman, the eponymous hero of the Othoman empire, entered the Seljouk empire of Roum with his father, who was the chieftain of a small tribe consisting of four hundred families. In the year 1289 he was appointed governor of the town of Karady-hissar by Aladdin III., the last Seljouk Sultan of Iconium. The market held on Friday at Karady-hissar was a trading mart of great local importance. A judge sat in the centre of the people to decide every question that arose without delay, and without appeal. Othman frequently occupied the judicial seat. It happened that, as he was presiding, an important dispute was brought before him for decision, in which a Christian of Belokoma in the Greek empire complained of the injustice of a Seljouk noble of Kermian. Othman decided in favour of the Christian, and the equity of the sentence extended his fame, and gave additional importance to his government. Years rolled on. Many emirs established themselves as independent princes, and have given their names to several provinces in Asia. Sultan Aladdin III. died in the year 1307, and Othman secured to himself a position as independent as any of the Seljouk emirs. Just before his death, he conquered Brusa from the Greeks, and laid the foundation-stone of the Othoman empire.

This new Turkish empire is remarkable for its rapid progress and firm consolidation, but still more so for the singular fact that it never reposed on a national basis. The four hundred families who accompanied Othman’s father into the Seljouk empire never became the nucleus even of an Othoman tribe. The Othoman empire threatened Europe with conquest; the Othoman armies were long invincible; the Othoman administration was superior to every contemporary government on the European continent; but, during the period of Othoman greatness and power, there was no such thing as an Othoman nation. Of the forty-eight grand-viziers who conducted the administration from the taking of Constantinople to the death of Sultan Achmet I. in 1617, only three or four were of Othoman or Seljouk families, while more than thirty were either renegades or children of Christian parents brought up in the Mohammedan religion. The other born Mussulmans were not even of Turkish race. Few absolute monarchies have preserved their pristine vigour with the same unimpaired energy as the Othoman, and none have passed triumphantly through greater disasters. Few national governments, indeed, could have survived the fearful ordeal of the defeat at Angora, and the conquest of Asia Minor by Timor. Neither Timor nor any of his contemporaries supposed that it was possible to re-constitute the Othoman government; and, indeed, the ease with which it regained its power over the Greek Christians and the Seljouk emirs, is a singular political phenomenon.

This vitality was due to the institutions implanted in the government as the very breath of its life, by Orkhan the son of Othman, the greatest legislator of modern times. As a lawgiver, Orkhan was something between a Lycurgus and a Loyola. At all events, he puts the modern constitution-makers of Europe to shame. They strive to improve the rotten fabric of their political institutions by patching the old despotic garment of Roman law with the new cloth of representative institutions, forgetting that the rabid appetite of centralisation swallows the old garment and the new patches far more easily than the boa-constrictor can swallow a blanket. The institutions of Orkhan were superior to the Code Napoleon and its progeny, in as far as they were framed on the exigencies of the time, and modelled on the demands of a progressive state of society—not borrowed from an extinct people in a different social and political condition.

We have no space to enumerate Orkhan’s institutions. It is sufficient for our purpose to notice the keystone of the fabric which raised a small band of emigrants from Mesopotamia, before three generations had elapsed, into the founders of one of the great empires of the earth. A tribute of Christian children, imposed by Orkhan on the people he conquered, was the basis, the cement, and the keystone of the Othoman empire. Never before were the laws of humanity and the principles of justice so systematically violated for so long a period with such success. The Othoman empire really dates from the year 1329, for it was in that year that Orkhan assumed the power of coining money, placed his name in the public prayers, and promulgated his laws. From that time he was regarded as the founder and the legislator of a new state, and not as the ruler of a Seljouk emirat. Orkhan made his household the nucleus of his empire. The strength of his dominions was, by his legislation and policy, concentrated within his palace walls. Under his roof was united a college, conducted with all the order and talent of a college of Jesuits, and a range of barrack-rooms, in which a discipline prevailed as severe as that of Lycurgus.

The history of the institution of the tribute children, and the formation of the corps of janissaries, is this: The Mohammedan law authorises—and, indeed, commands—every Mussulman to educate unbelieving children who have fallen into his power as orphans, in the Mohammedan faith. As the military usages of the Seljouk empire gave the Sultan a fifth of all the spoil taken in war, Orkhan soon became possessed of a numerous household of Christian slaves, whom he might have sold like the other Seljouk emirs, and hired mercenary troops with the produce, or filled his palace with concubines and poets, and devoted himself to the pursuit of pleasure and fame. Orkhan sought instruments to gratify his ambition, and to extend the dominion of the Koran. His wars as the ally of the rebel emperor and hypocritical historian Cantacuzenus, furnished him with a large supply of slaves from the Greek empire. The base ambition and rapacity of the rival emperors of Constantinople, induced them to allow Orkhan to insert a clause in his treaties, authorising him to transport Christian captives to Asia through the Greek territory. But it was difficult, by means of war, to secure a constant supply of healthy and intelligent children of the tender age required for their conversion, since the Mohammedan law strictly prohibits the forced conversion of prisoners who have attained the age of twelve. Orkhan’s great object, however, was to obtain a constant and regular addition to the young neophytes in his household. Either from his own impulse, or at the suggestion of his brother, Aladdin, who acted as his prime minister, or of his relation, Kara Khalil, who was his most intimate counsellor, he at last resolved to impose a fixed tribute of children on every Christian district he conquered. The measure was highly approved by all pious Mussulmans, and, strange to say, it met with little opposition from the Greek Christians. The empire of Constantinople had been so long the scene of civil war, and its provinces were so desolated by the fiscal oppression of the imperial administration, that famine prevailed among the Greek population in Asia and Europe for several years; and many parents saw no mode of saving their children from starvation but by sending them to the serai of Orkhan. The tribute of Christian children established by Orkhan was extended and systematised by his son, Murad I., and formed the keystone of the political and military power of the Othoman empire, until the corruption of the corps of janissaries by the introduction of other elements. The tribute of Christian children, however, continued until the year 1685, when it was formally abolished.

The tribute children were generally collected between the ages of seven and nine. They were at first lodged in the Sultan’s palace, and carefully instructed in the principles and forms of the Mohammedan religion under the ablest teachers, selected by Orkhan, who studied their dispositions and mental capacities. They then entered on a course of elementary knowledge and gymnastics. As their mental capacities were developed, and their physical strength increased, they were divided into several classes. Some, destined to become “men of the pen,” were educated in legal and administrative knowledge, and from them the officials in the civil and financial administration were usually selected. Many became secretaries of state, judges and viziers. Another division was disciplined as “men of the sword,” and the celebrated corps of janissaries was at first composed of select individuals from this body. This college of conquering missionaries, when formed by Orkhan, consisted of only one thousand, but before the end of his reign it had increased to three thousand; and when Mohammed II. took Constantinople, the number had attained twelve thousand. The tribute children were also numerous in the ranks of the cavalry, artillery, and police soldiers of the empire. Never, indeed, was so terrible an instrument of absolute power created so rapidly and so completely beyond all external influence as that which Orkhan formed. The tribute children were all members of the household of the Othoman Sultan. They had no ties of family or country, and felt no responsibility but what they owed to the prophet and the Sultan. At the beck of the Sultan, and with a fetva of the mufti, they were ready to strike down the proudest noble of the Seljouks, to shed the purest blood of the Arabs, and to trample on all the hereditary feelings and prejudices of the courts of the Caliphs. Against the Christian nations they were animated with the most fervent zeal; for it was a principal part of their education to infuse an enthusiastic wish to extend the empire of Islam. Thus Orkhan made Christian parents the most active agents in destroying the Christian religion. It is impossible to reflect on this lamentable occurrence without feeling that, had the Greek emperors and the orthodox priests of the period given their subjects and their parishioners as good an education as Orkhan gave his slaves, the attacks of the Turks might have been triumphantly repulsed.

That the system of education pursued in the palace of Orkhan must have derived some of its excellent qualities from the family system of Othman’s household, cannot be doubted. The Othoman tribe was not morally corrupted, like the society of the Seljouk Turks; the history of their empire bears strong testimony to the fact during several generations. The Othoman sultans were, during the early period of the empire, educated on the same system, and in the same manner, as the tribute children, and no state can show such a long succession of hereditary sovereigns remarkable for great talent. The Othoman institutions testify the sagacity of Orkhan and Murad I. more than their rapid conquests. Bayezid the Thunderbolt, though his rash pride caused the defeat of Angora and the ruin of the empire for a time, was liberal and generous to his Christian subjects, whom he admitted freely to his society. Mohammed I., who restored the empire ruined by his father’s ambition, was a staunch friend and a kind master, though, in his hostilities, as old Phrantzes says, he was as obstinately persevering as a camel. Murad II. distinguished himself by his attention to the administration of justice, and swept away many of the abuses which, under the Greek emperors, had exhausted the fortunes of the Christians. If any of his pashas or judges oppressed the Christians in his dominions they were severely punished. Mohammed II., the conqueror of Constantinople, united the activity of youth with the sagacity of age, both as a warrior and a statesman. He possessed considerable literary and scientific knowledge, and had made great progress in astrology, then the fashionable science both among Christians and Mussulmans. He was fond of reading, and spoke the Turkish, Arabic, Persian, Greek, Latin, and Sclavonian languages with fluency. Such is the character of the early sultans for six generations, as transmitted to us in the pages of their mortal enemies, the Byzantine Greeks. Other authorities tell us that these infidels were ready to receive suggestions for the improvement of their army and their civil administration, and that they were indefatigably engaged in submitting new ideas in the civil administration, and new inventions in the art of war, to the most rigorous examination. Activity and intelligence were stimulated in every branch of the public service by the example of the prince. The consequences form the staple of early Othoman history. New combinations in war and politics presented themselves daily to every Turkish pasha, which called for a prompt decision; and as it was incumbent on him to transmit a report of the reasons which had determined his conduct to an able and despotic master, he soon learned prudence in counsel as well as promptitude in action. For two centuries we find nothing vague and indefinite in the operations of the Othoman sultans, or of the pashas intrusted with the command of their armies. The first modern school of generals and statesmen was formed in the Othoman empire.

The general causes of the decline of the Othoman empire are well known. The janissaries, instead of being tribute children, were transformed into a _garde nationale_, like what we have seen flourish and disappear at Paris. But the logical principles of a paternal monarchy still exist at Constantinople. The Sultan is connected with his people, but can have no ties of family. He ought not to be the son of a free woman, but the child of a slave, destitute of every family tie, in order that no personal attachments and family sympathies may interfere with the cares of administration.

At the present moment we hear it asserted on all sides, that the Othoman administration is making great progress in restoring energy and intelligence in the government. Yet there are some who insist that the progress is small; that it is an empire without roads, and a government without a people; a central administration which every subject, be he Christian or Mussulman, detests for its financial rapacity and systematic contempt for justice. Inshallah! there is some truth on both sides, but it is not exactly our clue to separate the wheat from the tares, as they resemble one another so much at Stamboul as to confound the skill of European diplomatists. We know to our cost that there is no road either to Brusa or Adrianople fit for a French diligence, and that an abortive attempt was made to form a road from Trebizond to Erzeroum.

The great feature of the Othoman empire at the present day is this, that capital cannot be profitably employed in the improvement of the soil, and, strange to say, this peculiar feature of its social condition is common to the new-created monarchy of Greece, and to no other European state. Trade often flourishes, cities increase in population and wealth, gardens, vineyards, and orchards grow up round the towns from the overflow of commercial profits, but the canker is in the heart of the agricultural population; a yoke of land receives the same quantity of seed it did a hundred years ago, and the same number of families cultivate the same fields. This is the most favourable view of the case; but the fact is, that many of the richest plains of Thrace, Macedonia, and Asia Minor, are uncultivated, and have only the wolf and the jackal for their tenants. In Greece, too, under the scientific administration of King Otho, and with a representative government _à la Française_, we see the plains of Thebes, Messenia, and Tripolitza, present the same agricultural system which they did under the Othoman government, and agriculture in general quite as much neglected and more despised. Now the line of demarcation between civilisation and barbarism really consists in the profitable investment of capital in the soil. The agricultural population is the basis of a national existence, and unless the soil produce two bushels of wheat from the same surface where one formerly grew, and fatten two sheep where one merely gathered a subsistence, a nation gains little in strength and wellbeing though its cities double their population. The political and social problem, with regard to the governments of Constantinople and Athens, which now requires a solution, is, to determine the causes that prevent the cultivation of wheat on the European and Asiatic coasts of the Archipelago, and in the fertile island of Cyprus. The provinces between the Danube and the Don were in a similar condition when Akerman, Okzakoff, and Azof, were Turkish pashaliks; under the Russian government, they supply France and England with grain. Now, the grain-growers of Turkey could furnish half the grain exported at present from the Black Sea, and they could obtain much higher prices for their produce in consequence of the great saving of freight to consumers. Even the fertile districts of Bithynia and Thrace, bordering on the Sea of Marmora, than which there are no finer corn-districts in the world, cannot furnish Constantinople with a regular supply of wheat; and the Osmanlees would often suffer famine in the capital of their empire, unless they were provisioned from the provinces taken from them by the _Moskof gaiour_.

For our part, we must say that it is not unreasonable to entertain some doubts of the improvement which has manifested itself in the Othoman administration proving permanent, until we see some increase of the agricultural population. When the citizens of Stamboul and Athens begin to colonise the country, it will be time enough to talk of the regeneration of the Othoman power. And unless the population of the kingdom of Otho of Bavaria, which possess all the advantages to be derived from universal suffrage, joined to the inestimable liberty of walking about the streets with pistols and Turkish knives stuck in the belt, begin to abandon its passion for coffeehouses, and find pleasure and profit in the cultivation of the fields, the improvement of the Greek nation will not be generally admitted, even though Athens become a clean, elegant, and flourishing city. There must be an evident increase in the amount of the produce of the soil from a given number of acres, before those who study the political history of nations can be persuaded of the feasibility of the project of restoring a Greek empire.

MACAULAY’S SPEECHES.[9]

As we never had the good fortune of moving in that circle of society to which the power of retailing anecdote, with minute circumstantiality, was considered as the proper passport—as we never were invited to listen to the small scandals of the group collected at Holland House, or the smaller delivery of the contents of commonplace books, which, in less renowned Whig coteries, is considered the perfection of sprightly converse—we are not ashamed to acknowledge our momentary oblivion of the party, who, in the sonorous verse and rounded periods of a brother dramatist, recognised his own thunder. We cannot at this moment accurately remember whether it was the figurative Puff or Plagiary, or the real Cumberland, who preferred that accusation; and, therefore, we frankly admit, that we lie at the mercy of those gentlemen who consider a slip in an anecdote, or an erroneous name and date in a fragment of gossip, as the evidence of deficient education, and the token of unpolished intercourse. We allude to the story in question merely because the preface to Mr Macaulay’s collected speeches exhibits a curious specimen of the wrath which may be excited by another method of conveyance. It is not the appropriation of his thunder, but the non-appropriation of it, which seems to have roused Mr Macaulay to a point of very vehement indignation. It appears that a London publisher, Mr Vizetelly, availing himself of a licence which the law permits—namely, that of reprinting speeches which have been publicly delivered—conceived that the issue of a collection of Mr Macaulay’s speeches might possibly prove a paying speculation. He reprinted, as we are given to understand, from “Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates,” a number of these orations; but, in his preliminary advertisement he appears to have announced that he did so “by special permission.” That phrase ought not to have been used; or if used, it should have been accompanied by a distinct reference to the party who granted the permission. Nine out of ten of the reading public would certainly conclude, from the terms employed, that Mr Macaulay, not the proprietor of Hansard, had authorised the publication; and, so far, there is just ground for complaint. It was not only natural, but proper, and due to himself, that Mr Macaulay should have taken steps to disavow any connection with, or any countenance given to the enterprise of the enigmatical publication. But he has not contented himself with a broad disclaimer. Stung to the quick by some absurd blunders which the self-constituted editor has committed, and which are specially referred to in the preface, in terms of vehement indignation, he has thought it necessary for his own fame to suspend “a work which is the business and the pleasure of my life, in order to prepare these speeches for publication.” It is no compliment to Mr Macaulay to say that the public will not thank him for having done so. The desire and eagerness, on the part of the public, to receive a new instalment of his History, is only equalled by their repugnance to peruse speeches upon subjects the interest of which has long gone by—a repugnance not lessened by the impression that, even when new, the speeches were not of a superlative degree of merit. We are sorry that because Vizetelly—whom Mr Macaulay supposes to be actuated by a desire of attaining the same distinction which was formerly enjoyed by Curll—should have mistaken Pundits for Pandects, and magnified the city of Benares into an oriental nation—because he has made the gifted orator “give an utterly false history of Lord Nottingham’s Occasional Conformity Bill”—or because he has represented him as saying “that Whitfield held and taught that the connection between Church and State was sinful,” whereas Whitfield never said anything of the kind, nor was Mr Macaulay so ignorant as to have averred that he did,—we say we are sorry that because Vizetelly did these things, our brilliant, though tardy historian, should have considered his reputation so dangerously imperilled, as to depart from his legitimate and most interesting labours, for the purpose of presenting us with a mediocre and uninspiring volume of speeches. It is true that he avers reluctance, nay, even disinclination to the task. If that were his real feeling, he need not have troubled himself much about the speculations of Vizetelly. During the last twenty years, many public speakers—nay, some men who may be classed as real orators—all of them far more distinguished than Mr Macaulay, for power, energy, pathos, wit, and influence, have gone to their graves; and yet no attempt has been made, though the absence of copyright in speeches might have encouraged the speculation, to publish their works in a collected form. If we want to form an idea of the styles of the late Earl Grey, or Lord Durham, or Sir Francis Burdett, we must necessarily have recourse to the Mirror of Parliament. The filial piety of their relatives, great as it was, did not lead them to the generous error of supposing that their speeches would hereafter rank with those of Demosthenes or Cicero. In our own day no man, as a popular orator, equalled Daniel O’Connell; yet where are his collected speeches?—and be it remembered that popular oratory is essentially Demosthenic, and that O’Connell could produce a greater effect upon a mixed audience—which is the test of oratory—than any other man of our time. Where are Shiel’s speeches? In Hansard—where, we hesitate not to say, the speeches of every man of the slightest eminence in public life ought to be allowed to remain, without separate collection, at least during his own lifetime, and until his career is accomplished. Indeed, there are many prudential reasons, at the present day, against the collection of senatorial speeches. No one has proposed to issue those of the late Sir Robert Peel, although there can be no doubt that such a publication would afford some curious subjects for commentary. It would serve the same purpose as the ancient collections of commonplaces—_loci communes_, _loci rerum_, &c.—from which the tyro in rhetoric might draw arguments adapted for immediate use on either side of a question. In such a collection all possible _pros_ and _contras_ would be found, not drily stated, but set forth with elaborate ingenuity. One speech would give the Protestant, and another the Catholic side of the question—one while we should find the orator supporting agriculture against manufactures—another, manufactures against agriculture; the zeal and sincerity being in both cases the same. Then, what a charming miscellany Sir James Graham has it in his power to offer to the public! What deftness—what dexterity—what amazing complexity of tergiversation would be exhibited by a collection of his Parliamentary speeches! We feel almost inclined to advise Mr Vizetelly to ransack Hansard for the Netherby harangues; the more so because Mr Macaulay, in his own edition, has taken care to insert nothing calculated to irritate Sir James. That is not altogether fair, and it is certainly the reverse of valorous. Mr Macaulay had occasion, in his place in Parliament, to direct vigorous speeches both against Sir Robert Peel and against Sir James Graham. He tells us now in his preface that “it was especially painful to me to find myself under the necessity of recalling to my own recollection, and to the recollection of others, the keen encounters which took place between the late Sir Robert Peel and myself;” and he pays a very handsome compliment to the memory of the deceased statesman. That is graceful, amiable, and, we doubt not, entirely sincere. Nevertheless he publishes _verbatim_, what he said in debate against Sir Robert Peel, who is no more; whereas we find no trace of his famous speech in the letter-opening case, directed against Sir James Graham, who is the living colleague of Lord John Russell. The omission may be accidental; or Mr Macaulay may think the speech in question not so felicitous as to be worth recording. If the latter, we differ from him. It was a spirited speech—much more nettlesome and pungent than threefourths of those which he has included in the present volume; and we have no doubt that Sir James Graham, if appealed to, will corroborate our opinion. Be it observed, however, that we do not by any means maintain that Mr Macaulay was bound to reprint his diatribe against Sir James. We make these remarks for the purpose of showing how unwise it is for any man to become the editor of his own speeches; seeing that he must either give huge offence to the living, or let them escape scot-free, whilst he repeats his strictures on the dead. After all, we think he would have acted prudently in submitting to the “great wrong,” which Mr Vizetelly, under the tacit sanction of the law, which in theory is held to countenance no wrong, has found it his interest to inflict. We rather fear that he has been too hasty in intermitting his historical labours. Had some excessively imprudent speculator in literature chosen to risk his capital by reprinting from Hansard the speeches of Lord John Russell or of Lord Aberdeen, we are certain that Mr Macaulay, if consulted on the subject, would have advised these eminent statesmen—even although the ignoramus of an editor had distorted the nature of their arguments, and substituted Pandects for Pundits—to abstain from putting forth their lucubrations in a collected form. We have that confidence in his judgment and discretion, when called upon to advise others in matters of a literary nature, that we cannot doubt such would have been the tenor of his recommendation. But, unfortunately, in regarding matters personal to themselves, the great majority of mankind use glasses materially differing in focus from those which they assume when investigating the affairs of others; and it is painful to remark that, on this occasion, Mr Macaulay has acted as his own optician. It would have been much wiser in him to have allowed Mr Vizetelly to have disposed of as many copies as the public would take, without more remonstrance than a simple disclaimer, than to have fastened upon the blunders about Benares, and Whitfield, and Lord Nottingham’s Bill, as so many apologies for bringing forward a revised and collected series of his speeches.

He has done so, however; and we have now to consider him as a man, who, by no means verging towards the end of his career—for we trust he may long be spared to delight the public by the elaborate compositions of a mind naturally highly gifted, greatly improved by exercise, and prodigiously stored with information—has deliberately chosen to set forth his claims to be ranked in the scale of orators. Whether Mr Macaulay may choose to believe that we are sincere, or not, in the opinion we are about to express, is, to us, of little consequence. Politically, of course, we differ from him in many respects. We cannot even challenge, what is generally understood to be the opinion of his own party, that he is not qualified to act in the capacity of a leading statesman, or member of the Cabinet. We believe his mind to be of that cast, that it does not readily and aptly conform itself to present exigencies. It is too much wedded to the past, and to mere party traditions and intrigues. Let a crisis arrive, demanding immediate and decided action, and Mr Macaulay will be found puzzling back to the Revolution Settlement of 1688, or some other event of lesser consequence about the same date; and descanting on the conduct of the leading Whig Lords of that period, and the way in which they managed to juggle and forswear themselves; and from these premises he would form conclusions applicable to the present times. The Whig party leaders are notoriously addicted to tradition, but Mr Macaulay’s ideas go back a great deal farther than is convenient even for their purpose. They, naturally enough, do not want the aid of history farther than concerns their immediate guidance; and they would be glad to sink altogether the memory of dynastical questions, and begin with Fox, who is the proper god of their idolatry. Mr Macaulay, by resolutely harking back to forgotten eras, frightfully embarrassed his colleagues in the Cabinet, when he ranked as a minister. It _was_ an excessive bore to be told what Danby did or would have done, or what Halifax meditated, or William of Orange proposed, when the point at issue was something referring to our own day, arising out of entirely novel circumstances, and having nothing whatever in common with the policy that actuated statesmen at a time when rival dynasties placed in dispute the true succession to the crown. In reality, however, it is no disparagement to Mr Macaulay to say that, from the peculiar turn of his mind, the nature of his pursuits, and the intenseness of his literary habits, he has failed in acquiring even a moderate reputation as a statesman. To the public, his withdrawal or exclusion from office ought to be anything but matter of regret; since it is better, both for his own fame and for the literary reputation of our country, that he should be employed in illustrating its annals according to his own views and conviction, than if he were participating in the labours of Molesworth, Wood, and the other eminent individuals who drone away their time in the Cabinet. As an historian, he has already made himself a name far more enduring than that of any mere politician, and he can very well afford to abandon the honours and responsibilities of office to inferior men who regard that alone as the summit of earthly ambition. And we know, and are pleased to know, from his own statement and from the assurance of his friends, that he feels anything but regret at having exchanged the harassments of office for the literary leisure, which he knows so well and so effectively to employ. We are only sorry that he has thought fit, in this very marked and unusual manner, to invite public discussion of his claims to be considered as an orator. As an historian, and historical writer, he has already received, in the pages of the Magazine, a warm and deserved tribute. Without acknowledging the soundness of all his views—indeed, while questioning many, and decidedly objecting to some, both as regards facts and conclusion—we have been, and are ready to bear testimony to his talent, his research, the vigour of his style, and the occasional brilliancy of his pictures. That he is a literary artist of high rank and position, we have admitted most cheerfully, and, we know, have said so cordially. But he now comes before us in another character. The historian requests—nay, demands—that we shall regard him as a public speaker, and assign him his proper place in the roll of orators. In doing so, he certainly departs from his own familiar walk, challenges comparison, which it would have been wise to have avoided—and provokes criticism which otherwise would not have been exerted. When men play many parts, it is inevitable, unless in the case of such a phœnix as the Admirable Crichton, that some one part must be vastly inferior to the others. As an historian, an essayist, and a vivid versifier, we are inclined to rank Mr Macaulay high. We cannot admit that he is an orator in the strict sense of the term. As a public speaker, he has almost invariably failed in realising the expectations excited by his literary renown.

We must, as we are aware, assign sufficient reasons for that opinion; and we shall be met, at the outset, by the fact, that a speech from Macaulay is considered as an event. So it is; and so, too, in the House of Commons, would be deemed a speech from Sir Charles Wood, did that parody of a statesman confine himself to a single harangue in the year. Mr Macaulay, we know, will not suspect us of any intention of comparing him with the present President of the Board of Control. We are in no danger of mistaking Hyperion for a satyr. But the truth is, that men who have been thrust, whether by interest or not, into high official situations, are as likely, if they practise general reticence, to be listened to in the House of Commons, as are men of exalted intellect; and that an elderly proser, who speaks only once in each session, has a better chance of an audience than the glib and voluble orator who starts up in every debate. In public life Mr Macaulay has shown great discretion. During the last twenty years he has spoken but seldom, and never without careful and elaborate preparation; therefore, when it becomes known that he is about to address the House, he is sure to meet with a large, respectful, and attentive audience. Nor is this to be wondered at, on other grounds; for, independently of his high celebrity, Mr Macaulay’s speeches are much better worth listening to than the majority of those now delivered in the House of Commons. The language is correct and well-chosen, the arguments are carefully arranged, and there is none of that hesitation, repetition, and digression, which frequently disfigures the efforts of those who have less leisure beforehand to prepare and adjust their speeches. The curiosity of the audience is excited by the eminence of the speaker, and they are well assured that what he is about to lay before them will bear the peculiar and unmistakable impress of his style. And so it does; but then the genius of Mr Macaulay is not of the oratorical kind. He can impart information—that is, he can summon to the aid of his arguments whole lists of precedents, some of them not very applicable, and countless parallels, or instances which he alleges to be such. These give, at all events, an air of profundity to his discourse, and cannot be called inappropriate to the mouth of an historian. But upon a mixed audience they can produce very little effect, for this reason, that they are not familiar with one out of ten of the cases which he cites, or the incidents to which he refers; and, consequently, they must either receive them on trust, or disregard them altogether. We do not think, as some of his associates have alleged, that Mr Macaulay intends to make a parade of his acquired learning. We rather incline to hold that, as is common with men who addict themselves greatly to any particular branch of study, he takes it for granted that the whole world is studying in the same direction, and is not conscious that he is throwing an extravagant quantity of historical pearls—or, it may be, paste—before his audience. Such at least is our belief; for we are not willing to suppose that Mr Macaulay would condescend to that very low kind of pedantry, not unusual among country preachers and schoolmasters, which seeks to astonish by the assumption of superior learning. “It was in this way,” said Mr Macaulay, in one of his earlier speeches, “that Charles II. was forced to part with Oropesa, and that Charles III. was forced to part with Squillacci.” Very likely it was; but how many of the House of Commons had ever heard of Oropesa or Squillacci? How many were familiar with the events he referred to? Probably not one. He would have produced the same effect upon their reason and understanding, have influenced their convictions quite as powerfully, if he had told his audience that Mumbo-jumbo and Arimaspes had been dismissed by Don John, or Peter of Portugal. Let us refer to that passage in his speech on the Dissenters’ Chapels Bill, which the ignorant Vizetelly mangled. The speech is evidently a favourite with Mr Macaulay, and we presume he has restored it in its integrity. Addressing himself to the point, that prescription constitutes a good title to property, he brings into the compass of one page such a mass of illustration from all ages, nations, and institutions, that we cease to be shocked at the barbarism of the Vizetellian blunder, especially when we observe that the Jurists who framed the Code of Justinian are referred to in the same sentence with the Pundits of Benares. Indeed, we think that Mr Vizetelly is fairly entitled to stand upon the very excuse which the legally-inclined Mr Bartoline Saddletree proponed, when challenged by Reuben Butler for an error on the same subject.

“‘It’s owre true, Mr Butler,’ answered Bartoline, with a sigh; ‘if I had had the luck—or rather, if my father had had the sense to send me to Leyden and Utrecht to learn the Substitutes and Pandex’——

“‘You mean the Institutes—Justinian’s Institutes, Mr Saddletree?’ said Butler.

“‘Institutes and substitutes are synonymous words, Mr Butler, and used indifferently as such in deeds of tailzie, as you may see in Balfour’s Practiques, or Dallas of St Martin’s Styles. _I understand these things pretty weel, I thank God; but I own I should have studied in Holland._’”

Such far-fetched illustrations necessarily tend to diminish the force of Mr Macaulay’s speeches, which is the more unfortunate, because he is peculiarly addicted to that kind of argument which the old rhetoricians styled the παράδειγμα, being that which is drawn from Example. Even when he does not pass into ground altogether unknown to his audience, when he refers in support of his position to some passages in British history, he avoids those which are most familiar, and selects the remoter and more obscure. Hence it is that he so often fails in exciting and maintaining enthusiasm. No sympathy can be roused by references to Sir George Savile, Hugh Peters, or Praise-God-Barebones; nor is the substitution of a political essay for a speech the best means of commanding the admiration or influencing the will of an audience. We are inclined to think that Mr Macaulay’s early oratorical training has exercised a prejudicial rather than a salutary influence over his subsequent style. He was, we believe, a member of the Union Debating Society at Cambridge, in which arena questions of immediate political interest were discussed quite as keenly as on the floor of the House of Commons. Without pronouncing an opinion hostile to the institution of debating societies, we may be allowed to remark, that the too frequent introduction of politics as the subject of discussion among the young can hardly receive the approbation of any thinking man of maturer years. The arguments employed on such occasions must be, and are, the spent weapons of politicians who are engaged in real warfare; and these are used by the juvenile enthusiasts without any examination as to their soundness or propriety. There is, in truth, little sense, and no advantage in this mimic warfare. Young men are thereby induced, not to reason, but to dogmatise—not to argue, but to declaim; and the opposition which they encounter to their borrowed views only serves to strengthen them in prejudice. The leader of a political debating society is usually an insufferable specimen of the juvenile prig. He can prate for the hour on such generalities as the constitution, the liberty of the subject, the rights of the people, and so forth; but, if you bring him to book, and demand a distinct explanation of what he has been saying, you will immediately discover that he is neither in possession of fixed notions nor of intelligible ideas. There is a kind of frothy rhetoric, very much used in debating societies, which serves to disguise commonplaces, and helps to make them appear almost brilliant to an inexperienced audience; and in that sort of rhetoric Mr Macaulay early became an adept. Most men who have acquired this style in public are compelled to get rid of it. At the bar it would not be tolerated; and it is worthy of remark that the most shining lights in debating societies usually pale their ineffectual fires when brought into the legal profession. In the senate, where less precision is required, they succeed better; but even there it requires an immense deal of attrition and wear before they can become expert masters of debate. Now it seems to us, after a diligent perusal of his speeches, that Mr Macaulay has never been able to emancipate himself from the bondage of the debating society. He speaks now, just as he might have spoken more than thirty years ago; only that his language is more select, his range of illustration larger, and his perorations more artificial, and therefore more frigid than before. In point of confidence, we do not believe that he has either gained or lost. Some men begin their public career with diffidence and trembling, and end by becoming remarkably self-possessed. Others, who had a fine stock of assurance to begin with, are so cowed by the buffets they receive, as actually to have modesty forced upon them; and we have known more than one instance of a young Boanerges who, by dint of constant punishment, has been brought to see the error of his ways, and the exaggerated estimate he had formed of his own natural powers. Mr Macaulay, however, belongs to neither category. He believed himself an oracle as a boy: he believes himself an oracle as a man. And, if justified in the one belief, who shall venture to say that he is erroneous in the other? Certain it is that, in 1826, when he penned his essay on Milton, he displayed as much power, taste, and vigour, as are exhibited in the volumes of his History given to the public in 1849. He spoke with more animation, clearness, and effect, on the subject of the Reform Bill in 1831, than on any subsequent occasion, though some of his later speeches may have been more highly elaborated. He is, of course, better informed now on points of history, science, and literature, than when he emerged from Cambridge; but we question whether he has gained much additional knowledge of the world, or of the motives which actuate mankind. Never, perhaps, did a man attain so high a point of literary distinction without possessing in a moderate degree the power of affecting the passions. We can scarcely refer to a single passage out of his whole writings, whether in prose or verse, which is likely to have drawn a tear. His speeches, as we now read them, are remarkably frigid. They may satisfy the understanding, but they never could influence the will. We are well aware that, in the House of Commons, as presently constituted, no speech, however eloquent, can be supposed to affect the votes of any considerable section; but the peculiarity of Mr Macaulay’s speaking is this, that we can hardly conceive the possibility of his making a convert. This is owing, we think, in a great measure, to a somewhat singular disregard—for we cannot suppose it ignorance—of the means which the chief orators, both of ancient and modern times have deemed it their duty to employ. In the first place, Mr Macaulay never seems to think it necessary to take the slightest pains to conciliate his audience. Of course there are many cases when such introductory conciliation is not required—for example, when addressing an entirely sympathetic meeting, or when retorting upon the direct attack of an antagonist—but in very few instances indeed does Mr Macaulay introduce himself, upon a debated point, otherwise than as a determined partisan. There can be no doubt that introductions of a conciliatory nature require the utmost delicacy of handling. They are made for the purpose of showing that the speaker comes to the consideration of the question at issue, with as much fairness, deliberation, and candour, as can be expected from man of mortal mould; and further, that he does not intend to dictate to his audience, but rather, by impressing them with his own views, to induce them to consider calmly whether his conclusions are true or false. This does not imply the abandonment of the strongest argument, or the most forcible illustration in the after-part of the speech. It is an arrangement dictated by nature; because in every case, when a man rises to address an assembly, his first care ought to be to dispel, if possible, personal suspicion if that should exist, and to secure a willing auditory. Of this art Cicero was an entire master; and it is no exaggeration to say, that his most remarkable forensic triumphs were achieved rather by the effect of his introductions, than by the subsequent ingenuity of his arguments, and his unrivalled skill in the disposition of narrative. We are quite aware that introductions of this kind, when badly framed, have exactly the opposite effect from that which was intended. There probably never was a worse one than that attempted by the late Sir Robert Peel, in his memorable speech delivered in the House of Commons on 27th January 1846, in which he beat about the bush so long, that he entirely destroyed the effect which he intended to produce. But, whether as regards the immediate impression on the House, or the subsequent effect on the country, we must hold that a speaker ought to endeavour, in the first instance, to divest himself of the appearance of being actuated by mere party motives. Such men as the late Duke of Wellington, or the present Marquis of Lansdowne, whose long and unblemished public lives have been accepted as full evidence of the purity of their motives, might indeed dispense with any such protestation; but there are not many who, from age and public confidence, have acquired a similar privilege. Now, it is rather curious to observe that Mr Macaulay seems, throughout his whole career, to have disdained any kind of conciliation. He has approached every question, not only with his mind made up upon it, but in the spirit of the strongest contempt and depreciation towards all who disagreed with him. He never, like Themistocles, volunteered to receive a buffet in order to gain a hearing. He rather, in imitation of Dares, walked into the arena with the gauntlets buckled round his wrists,

“And dealt in empty air his whistling blows.”

It is no business of ours to recount how often he has met with an Entellus, who has doled out severe punishment; we are now simply referring to what we consider to be his oratorical deficiencies or omissions.