Chapter I: Front Matter (1)

BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCII. APRIL, 1849. VOL. LXV.

CONTENTS.

MACAULAY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 383
JOHNSTON'S PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, 406
THE CAXTONS. PART XII., 420
ANCIENT PRACTICE OF PAINTING, 436
TENNYSON'S POEMS, 453
ARISTOCRATIC ANNALS, 468
THE LIFE OF THE SEA. BY B. SIMMONS, 482
LONDON CRIES. BY B. SIMMONS, 484
CLAUDIA AND PUDENS, 487
SIR ASTLEY COOPER. PART I. 491

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PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, EDINBURGH.

BLACKWOOD'S
EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

NO. CCCCII. APRIL, 1849. VOL. LXV.

MACAULAY'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

The historical and critical essay is a species of literary composition which has arisen, and been brought to perfection, in the lifetime of a single generation. Preceding writers, indeed, had excelled in detached pieces of a lighter and briefer kind; and in the whole annals of thought there is nothing more charming than some of those which graced the age of Queen Anne, and the reigns of the first Georges. But though these delightful essays remain, and will ever remain, models of the purest and most elegant composition, and are always distinguished by just and moral reflections, yet their influence has sensibly declined; and they are turned to, now, rather from the felicity of the expression by which they are graced, than either the information which they contain, the originality by which they are distinguished, or the depth of the views which they unfold. It is still true that "he who would attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant without being ostentatious, must give his days and his nights to the study of Addison." It is not less true, that he who would appreciate the force of which the English language is capable, and acquire the condensed vigour of expression which enters so largely into the highest kind of composition, will ever study the prose of Johnson; as much as the poet, for similar excellencies, will recur to the Vanity of Human Wishes, or the epistles and satires of Pope.

But, with the advent of the French Revolution, the rise of fiercer passions, and the collision of dearer interests, the elegant and amusing class of essays rendered so popular by Addison and his followers passed away. The incessant recurrence of moralising, the frequent use of allegory, the constant straining after conceits, which appear even in the pages of the _Spectator_ and the _Rambler_, are scarcely redeemed by the taste of Addison, the fancy of Steele, or the vigour of Johnson. In inferior hands they became insupportable. Men whose minds were stimulated by the Rights of Man--who were entranced by the eloquence of Pitt--who followed the career of Wellington--who were stunned by the thunderbolts of Nelson--could not recur to the Delias, the Chloes, or the Phillises of a slumbering and pacific age. The proclamation of war to the palace, and peace to the cottage, sent the stories of the coquette, the prude, and the woman of sense to the right-about. What was now required was something which could minister to the cravings of an excited and enthusiastic age; which should support or combat the new ideas generally prevalent; which should bring the experience of the past to bear on the visions of the present, and tell men, from the recorded events of history, what they had to hope, and what to fear, from the passion for innovation which had seized possession of so large a portion of the active part of mankind.

The _Edinburgh Review_ was the first journal which gave a decided indication of this change in the temper of the public mind. From the very outset it exhibited that vigour of thought, fearlessness of discussion, and raciness of expression, which bespoke the prevalence of independent feeling, novel yearnings, and original ideas, among the people. There was something refreshing and exhilarating in the change. Its success was immediate and immense. The long-slumbering dominion of the monthly and other reviews, which then had possession of the sceptre of criticism, was at once destroyed. Mediocrity fell into the shade when the light of genius appeared; criticism assumed a bolder and more decided character. Men rejoiced to see the pretensions of authors levelled, their vanity mortified, their errors exposed, their pride pulled down, by the stern hand of the merciless reviewer. The practical application of the maxim, "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur," gave universal satisfaction. Every one felt his own consequence increased, his personal feelings soothed, his vanity flattered, when the self-constituted teachers of mankind were pulled down from their lofty pinnacle.

But it was not merely in literary criticism that the _Edinburgh Review_ opened a new era in our periodical literature. To its early supporters we owe the introduction of the CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAY, which was an entirely new species of composition, and to the frequent use of which the rapid success of that journal is mainly to be ascribed. The essay always had the name of a book prefixed to it: it professed to be a review. But it was generally a review only in name. The author was frequently never once mentioned in its whole extent. His work was made use of merely as a peg on which to hang a long disquisition on the subject of which it treated. This disquisition was not, like the essays of Addison or Johnson, the work of a few hours' writing, and drawn chiefly from the fancy or imagination of the author: it was the elaborate production of a mind imbued with the subject, and the fruit of weeks or months of careful composition. It was sometimes founded on years of previous and laborious study. Thence its great and obvious value. It not only enlarged the circle of our ideas; it added to the stock of our knowledge. Men came to study a paper on a subject in a review, as carefully as they did a regular work of a known and respectable author: they looked to it not only for amusement, but for information. It had this immense advantage--it was shorter than a book, and often contained its essence. It was distilled thought; it was abbreviated knowledge. To say that many of these elaborate and attractive treatises were founded in error--that they were directed to objects of the moment, not of durable interest, and that their authors too often

"To party gave up what was meant for mankind"--

is no impeachment either of the ability with which they were executed, or denial of the beneficial ends to which they ultimately became subservient. What though great part of the talents with which they were written is now seen to have been misdirected--of the views they contained to have been erroneous. It was that talent which raised the counter spirit that righted the public mind; it was those views which ultimately led to their own correction. In an age of intelligence and mental activity, no dread need be entertained of the ultimate sway of error. Experience, the great assertor of truth, is ever at hand to scatter its assailants. It is in an age of mental torpor and inactivity that the chains of falsehood, whether in religion or politics, are abidingly thrown over the human mind.

But, from this very cause, the political essays of the _Edinburgh Review_ have been left behind by the march of the world; they have been stranded on the shoals of time; they have almost all been disproved by the event. Open one of the political essays in the Blue-and-yellow, which were read and admired by all the world thirty or forty years ago, and what do you find? Loud declamations against the continuance of the war, and emphatic assertions of the inability of England to contend at land with the conqueror of continental Europe; continual reproaches of incapacity against the ministry, who were preparing the liberation of Spain and the battle of Waterloo; ceaseless assertions that the misery of Ireland was entirely owing to misgovernment--that nothing but Catholic emancipation, and the curtailment of the Protestant church, were required to make that island the most happy, loyal, and contented realm, and its Celtic inhabitants the most industrious and well-conditioned in Europe; loud denunciations that the power of the crown "had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished;" lamentations on the evidently approaching extinction of the liberties of England, under the combined action of a gigantic war expenditure and a corrupt selfish oligarchy; strong recommendations of the speedy abolition of slavery in our West India colonies, as the only mode of enabling our planters to compete with the efforts of the slave-sugar states. Time has enabled the world to estimate these doctrines at their true value. It is not surprising that the _political_ essays of a journal, professing such principles, have, amidst great efforts towards bolstering up, and ceaseless strains of party laudation, been quietly consigned by subsequent times to the vault of all the Capulets.

It is on its literary, critical, and historical essays, therefore, that the reputation of the journal now almost entirely rests. No bookseller has yet ventured on the hazardous step of publishing its political essays together. They will not supplant those of Burke. But it is otherwise with its literary lucubrations. The publication of the collected works of its leading contributors, in a separate form, has enabled the world to form a tolerably correct opinion of their respective merits and deficiencies. Without taking upon ourselves the office of critics, and fully aware of the delicacy which one periodical should feel in discussing the merits of another, we may be permitted to present, in a few words, what appear to us to be the leading characteristics of the principal and well-known contributors to that far-famed journal. This is the more allowable, as some of them have paid the debt of nature, while others are reposing under the shadow of their well-earned laurels, far removed from the heat and bustle of the day. Their names are familiar to every reader; their works have taken a lasting place in English as well as American literature; and their qualities and excellencies are so different as at once to invite and suggest critical discrimination.

The great characteristic of LORD JEFFREY is, with some striking exceptions, the fairness and general justice of the criticism which his works exhibit, the kindly feeling which they evince, and the lively illustrations with which they abound. He had vast powers of application. When in great practice at the bar, and deservedly a leading counsel in jury cases, he contrived to find time to conduct the _Edinburgh Review_, and to enrich its pages by above a hundred contributions. There is no great extent of learning in them, few original ideas, and little of that earnestness of expression which springs from strong internal conviction, and is the chief fountain of eloquent and overpowering oratory. He rarely quotes classical or Italian literature, and his writings give no token of a mind stored with their imagery. He seldom gives you the feeling that he is serious, or deeply impressed with his subject. He seldom strikes with force, but very often touches with felicity. The feeling which pervades his writings is always excellent, often generous; his taste is correct, his criticism in general just; and it is impossible not to admire the light and airy hand with which he treats of the most difficult subjects, and the happy expressions with which he often illustrates the most abstruse ideas. He deals more in Scotch metaphysics than suits the present age: he made some signal and well-known mistakes in the estimation of contemporary poetry; and laboured, without effect, to _write up_ Ford, Massinger, and the old dramatists, whom their inveterate indecency has justly banished from general popularity. But these faults are amply redeemed by the attractions of his essays in other respects. There are no more charming reviews in our language than some which his collected papers contain: and no one can rise from their perusal with any surprise that the accomplished author of works containing so much just and kindly criticism should deservedly be a most popular and respected judge.

It is impossible to imagine a more thorough contrast to Lord Jeffrey than the writings of SIDNEY SMITH exhibit. Though a reverend and pious divine, the prebendary of St Paul's had very little of the sacerdotal character in him. His conversational talents were great, his success in the highest London society unbounded; but this intoxicating course neither relaxed the vigour of his application, nor deadened the warmth of his feelings. His powers, and they were of no ordinary kind, were always directed, though sometimes with mistaken zeal, to the interests of humanity. His sayings, like those of Talleyrand, were repeated from one end of the empire to the other. These brilliant and sparkling qualities are conspicuous in his writings, and have mainly contributed to their remarkable success both in this country and America. There is scarcely any scholarship, and little information, to be met with in his works. Few take them up to be instructed; many to be amused. He has little of the equanimity of the judge about him, but a great deal of the wit and jocularity of the pleader. He would have made a first-rate jury counsel, for he would alternately have driven them by the force of his arguments, and amused them by the brilliancy of his expressions. There is no more vigorous and forcible diatribe in our language than his celebrated letter on North American repudiation, which roused the attention, and excited the admiration, of the repudiators themselves. He has expressed in a single line a great truth, applicable, it is to be feared, to other nations besides the Americans: "They preferred any load of infamy, however great, to any burden of taxation, however light." But Sidney Smith's blows were expended, and wit lavished, in general, on subjects of passing or ephemeral interest: they were not, like the strokes of Johnson, levelled at the universal frailties and characteristics of human nature. On this account, though their success hitherto has been greater, it is doubtful whether his essays will take so high a lasting place in English literature as those of Lord Jeffrey, which in general treat of works of permanent interest.

SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH differs as widely from the original pillars of the _Edinburgh Review_ as they do from each other. The publication of his collected essays, with the historical sketch and fragment which he has left, enables us now to form a fair estimate of his powers. That they were great, no one can doubt; but they are of a different kind from what was at first anticipated. Not a shadow of a doubt can now remain, that, though his noble mind had not been in a great degree swallowed up as it was in the bottomless gulf of London society, and he had spent his whole forenoons for the last fifteen years of his life in writing his history, instead of conversing with fashionable or literary ladies, his labours would have terminated in disappointment. The beginning of a history which he has left, is a sufficient proof of this: it is learned, minute, and elaborate, but dull. The Whigs, according to their usual practice with all writers of their own party, hailed its appearance with a flourish of trumpets; but we doubt whether many of them have yet read it through. He had little dramatic power; his writings exhibit no traces of a pictorial eye, and though he had much poetry in his mind, they are not imbued with the poetic character. These deficiencies are fatal to the _popularity_ of any historian: no amount of learning or philosophical acuteness can supply their want in the _narrative_ of events. Guizot is a proof of this: he is, perhaps, one of the greatest writers on the philosophy of history that ever lived; but his history of the English Revolution is lifeless beside the pages of Livy or Gibbon. Sir James Mackintosh was fitted to have been the Guizot of English history. His mind was essentially didactic. Reflection, not action, was both the bent of his disposition and the theatre of his glory. His History of England, written for Lardner's _Encyclopedia_, can scarcely be called a history; it is rather a series of essays on history. It treats so largely of some events, so scantily of others, that a reader not previously acquainted with the subject, might rise from its perusal with scarcely any idea of the thread of English story. But no one who was already informed on it can do so, without feeling his mind stored with original and valuable reflection, just and profound views. His collected essays from the _Edinburgh Review_, lately put together, are not so discursive as those of Lord Jeffrey, nor so amusing as those of Sidney Smith; but they are much more profound than either, and treat of subjects more permanently interesting to the human race. Many of them, particularly that on representative governments, abound with views equally just and original. It is impossible not to regret, that a mind so richly stored with historical knowledge, and so largely endowed with philosophic penetration, should have left so few lasting monuments of its great and varied powers.

Much as these very eminent men differ from each other, Mr MACAULAY is, perhaps, still more clearly distinguished from either. Both his turn of mind and style of writing are peculiar, and exhibit a combination rarely if ever before witnessed in English, or even modern literature. Unlike Lord Jeffrey, he is deeply learned in ancient and modern lore; his mind is richly stored with the poetry and history both of classical and Continental literature. Unlike Mackintosh, he is eminently dramatic and pictorial; he alternately speaks poetry to the soul and pictures to the eye. Unlike Sidney Smith, he has avoided subjects of party contention and passing interest, and grappled with the great questions, the immortal names, which will for ever attract the interest and command the attention of man. Milton, Bacon, Machiavelli, first awakened his discriminating and critical taste; Clive, Warren Hastings, Frederick the Great, called forth his dramatic and historic powers. He has treated of the Reformation and the Catholic reaction in his review of Ranke; of the splendid despotism of the Popedom in that of Hildebrand; of the French Revolution in that of Barère. There is no danger of his essays being forgotten, like many of those of Addison; nor of pompous uniformity of style being complained of, as in most of those of Johnson. His learning is prodigious; and perhaps the chief defects of his composition arise from the exuberant riches of the stores from which they are drawn. When warmed in his subject he is thoroughly in earnest, and his language, in consequence, goes direct to the heart. In many of his writings--and especially the first volume of his history, and his essay on the Reformation--there are reflections equally just and original, which never were surpassed in the philosophy of history. That he is imbued with the soul of poetry need be told to none who have read his Battle of the Lake Regillus; that he is a great biographer will be disputed by none who are acquainted with the splendid biographies of Clive and Hastings, by much the finest productions of the kind in the English language.

Macaulay's style, like other original things, has already produced a school of imitators. Its influence may distinctly be traced, both in the periodical and daily literature of the day. Its great characteristic is the shortness of the sentences, which often equals that of Tacitus himself, and the rapidity with which new and distinct ideas or facts succeed each other in his richly-stored pages. He is the Pope of English prose: he often gives two sentiments and facts in a single line. No preceding writer in prose, in any modern language with which we are acquainted, has carried this art of abbreviation, or rather cramming of ideas, to such a length; and to its felicitous use much of the celebrity which he has acquired is to be ascribed. There is no doubt that it is a most powerful engine for the stirring of the mind, and when not repeated too often, or carried too far, has a surprising effect. Its introduction forms an era in historical composition. To illustrate our meaning, and at the same time adorn our pages with passages of exquisite, almost redundant beauty, we gladly transcribe two well-known ones, taken from the most perfect of his historical essays. Of Lord Clive he says--

"From Clive's second visit to India dates the political
ascendency of the English in that country. His dexterity and
resolution realised, in the course of a few months, more
than all the gorgeous visions which had floated before the
imagination of Dupleix. Such an extent of cultivated territory,
such an amount of revenue, such a multitude of subjects, was
never added to the dominion of Rome by the most successful
proconsul. Nor were such wealthy spoils ever borne under arches
of triumph, down the Sacred Way, and through the crowded
forum, to the threshold of Tarpeian Jove. The fame of those
who subdued Antiochus and Tigranes grows dim, when compared
with the splendour of the exploits which the young English
adventurer achieved, at the head of an army not equal in
numbers to one-half of a Roman legion. From Clive's third visit
to India, dates the purity of the administration of our eastern
empire. He first made dauntless and unsparing war on that
gigantic system of oppression, extortion, and corruption, which
had previously prevailed in India. In that war he manfully put
to hazard his ease, his fame, and his splendid fortune. The
same sense of justice which forbids us to conceal or extenuate
the faults of his earlier days, compels us to admit that those
faults were nobly repaired. If the reproach of the Company
and its servants has been taken away; if in India the yoke
of foreign masters, elsewhere the heaviest of all yokes, has
been found lighter than that of any native dynasty; if to that
gang of public robbers which formerly spread terror through
the whole of Bengal, has succeeded a body of functionaries not
more highly distinguished by ability and diligence, than by
integrity, disinterestedness, and public spirit; if we now see
such men as Munro, Elphinstone, and Metcalfe, after leading
victorious armies, after making and deposing kings, return
proud of their honourable poverty from a land which once held
to every greedy factor the hope of boundless wealth,--the
praise is in no small degree due to Clive. His name stands high
on the roll of conquerors; but it is found in a better list--in
the list of those who have done and suffered much in the cause
of mankind. To the warrior, history will assign a place in the
same rank with Lucullus and Trajan; nor will she deny to the
reformer a share of that veneration with which France cherishes
the memory of Turgot, and with which the latest generation
of Hindoos will contemplate the statue of Lord William
Bentinck."[1]

[1] _Critical and Miscellaneous Essays_, iii. 205, 206.

The well-known description of Hastings' trial is as follows:--

"The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great hall of
William Rufus--the hall which had resounded with acclamations
at the inauguration of thirty kings; the hall which had
witnessed the just sentence of Bacon, and the just absolution
of Somers; the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for
a moment awed and melted a victorious party, inflamed with
just resentment; the hall where Charles had confronted the
High Court of Justice with the placid courage which has half
redeemed his fame. Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting.
The avenues were lined with grenadiers; the streets were kept
clear by cavalry; the peers, robed in gold and ermine, were
marshalled by the heralds, under the Garter king-at-arms. The
judges, in their vestments of state, attended to give advice on
points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three-fourths
of the Upper House, as the Upper House then was, walked in
solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the
tribunal. The junior baron present led the way--George Eliott,
Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memorable defence
of Gibraltar against the fleets and armies of France and
Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk,
earl-marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the
brothers and sons of the king. Last of all came the Prince of
Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing. The
gray old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were
crowded by an audience, such as has rarely excited the fears
or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together,
from all parts of a great, free, enlightened, and prosperous
empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the
representatives of every science and of every art. There were
seated round the queen the fair-haired young daughters of the
house of Brunswick. There the ambassadors of great kings and
commonwealths gazed with admiration on a spectacle which no
other country in the world could present. There Siddons, in the
prime of her majestic beauty, looked with emotion on a scene
surpassing all the imitations of the stage. There the historian
of the Roman Empire thought of the days when Cicero pleaded
the cause of Sicily against Verres, and when, before a senate
which still retained some show of freedom, Tacitus thundered
against the oppressor of Africa. There were seen, side by side,
the greatest painter and the greatest scholar of the age.
The spectacle had allured Reynolds from that easel which has
preserved to us the thoughtful foreheads of so many writers
and statesmen, and the sweet smiles of so many noble matrons.
It had induced Parr to suspend his labours in that dark and
profound mine from which he had extracted a vast treasure of
erudition--a treasure too often buried in the earth, too often
paraded with injudicious and inelegant ostentation, but still
precious, massive, and splendid. There appeared the voluptuous
charms of her to whom the heir of the throne had in secret
plighted his faith. There, too, was she, the beautiful mother
of a beautiful race,the Saint Cecilia whose delicate features,
lighted up by love and music, art has rescued from the common
decay. There were the members of that brilliant society which
quoted, criticised, and exchanged repartees under the rich
peacock hangings of Mrs Montague. And there the ladies, whose
lips, more persuasive than those of Fox himself, had carried
Westminster against Palace and Treasury, shone round Georgiana
Duchess of Devonshire."[2]

[2] _Critical and Historical Essays_, iii. 446, 447.

As a contrast to these splendid pictures, we subjoin the portrait of the Black Hole of Calcutta, which proves that, if the author is in general endowed with the richness of Ariosto's imagination, he can, when necessary, exhibit the terrible powers of Dante.

"Then was committed that great crime--memorable for its
singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retribution
by which it was followed. The English captives were left at
the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure
them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber
known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single
European malefactor that dungeon would, in such a climate,
have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet
square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the
summer solstice--the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can
scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty
halls, and by the constant waving of fans. The number of the
prisoners was 146. When they were ordered to enter the cell,
they imagined that the soldiers were joking; and, being in high
spirits on account of the promise of the nabob to spare their
lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion.
They soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated, they
entreated, but in vain. The guards threatened to cut all down
who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the
point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked
upon them.

"Nothing in history or fiction--not even the story which
Ugolino told in the sea of everlasting ice, after he had wiped
his bloody lips on the scalp of his murderer--approaches the
horrors which were recounted by the few survivors of that
night. They cried for mercy; they strove to burst the door.
Holwell, who even in that extremity retained some presence of
mind, offered large bribes to the gaolers. But the answer was,
that nothing could be done without the nabob's orders; that the
nabob was asleep, and that he would be angry if anybody woke
him. Then the prisoners went mad with despair. They trampled
each other down, fought for the places at the windows--fought
for the pittance of water with which the cruel mercy of the
murderers mocked their agonies--raved, prayed, blasphemed,
implored the guards to fire among them. The gaolers, in the
meantime, held lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter
at the frantic struggles of the victims. At length the tumult
died away in low gaspings and moanings. The day broke. The
nabob had slept off his debauch, and permitted the door to be
opened; but it was some time before the soldiers could make a
lane for the survivors, by piling up on each side the heaps
of corpses on which the burning climate had already begun to
do its loathsome work. When, at length, a passage was made,
twenty-three ghastly figures, such as their own mothers would
not have known, came forth alive. A pit was instantly dug: the
dead bodies, a hundred and twenty-three in number, were flung
into it promiscuously, and covered up."[3]

[3] _Ibid._, iii. 144-146.

This style does admirably well for short biographies, such as those of Warren Hastings or Clive, in the _Edinburgh Review_, in which the object is to condense the important events of a whole lifetime into comparatively few pages, and fascinate the reader by as condensed and brilliant a picture as it is possible to present, of the most striking features of their character and story. But how will it answer for a lengthened history, such as Macaulay's great work promises to be, extending to twelve or fifteen volumes? How will it do to make the "extreme medicine of the constitution its daily bread?" Ragouts and French dishes are admirable at a feast, or on particular occasions, but what should we say to a diet prescribed of such highly seasoned food every day? It is true, there are not many such brilliant and striking passages as those we have quoted. The subject, of course, would not admit of, the mind of the reader would sink under, the frequent repetition of such powerful emotion. But the style is generally the same. It almost always indicates a crowd of separate ideas, facts, or assertions, in such close juxtaposition that they literally seem wedged together. Such is the extent of the magazine of reading and information from which they are drawn, that they come tumbling out, often without much order or arrangement, and generally so close together that it is difficult for a person not previously acquainted with the subject to tell which are of importance and which are immaterial.

This tendency, when as confirmed and general as it has now become, we consider by far the most serious fault in Mr Macaulay's style; and it is not less conspicuous in his general history than in his detached biographies. Indeed, its continuance in the former species of composition is mainly owing to the brilliant success with which it has been attended in the latter. In historical essays it is not a blemish, it is rather a beauty; because, in such miniature portraits or cabinet pieces, minuteness of finishing and crowding of incidents in a small space are among the principal requisites we desire, the chief charm we admire. But the style of painting which we justly admire in Albano and Vanderwerf, would be misplaced in the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or even the extended canvass of the Transfiguration. We do not object to such elaborate finishing, such brevity of sentences, such crowding of facts and ideas, in the delineation of the striking incidents or principal characters of the work; what we object to is its continuance on ordinary occasions, in the drawing of inconsiderable characters, and in what should be the simple thread of the story. Look how easy Hume is in his ordinary narrative--how unambitious Livy, in the greater part of his history. We desiderate such periods of relaxation and repose in Macaulay. We there always discover learning, genius, power; but the prodigal display of these powers often mars their effect. We see it not only in delineating the immortal deeds of heroes, or the virtues of princesses, but in portraying the habits of serving-women or the frailties of maids of honour. With all its elevated and poetical qualities, the mind of Macaulay occasionally gives token of its descent from our common ancestress, Eve, in an evident fondness for gossip. It would perhaps be well for him to remember that the scandal of our great great-grandmothers is not generally interesting, or permanently edifying; and that he is not to measure the gratification it will give to the world in general, by the avidity with which it is devoured among the titled descendants of the fair sinners in the Whig coteries. There is often a want of breadth and keeping in his pictures. To resume our pictorial metaphor, Macaulay's pages often remind us of the paintings of Bassano, in which warriors and pilgrims, horses and mules, dromedaries and camels, sheep and lambs, Arabs and Ethiopians, shining armour and glistening pans, spears and pruning-hooks, scimitars and shepherds' crooks, baskets, tents, and precious stuffs, are crammed together without mercy, and with an equal light thrown on the most insignificant as the most important parts of the piece.

When he is engaged in a subject, however, in which minute painting is not misplaced, and the condensation of striking images is a principal charm, Mr Macaulay's pictorial eye and poetical powers appear in their full lustre. We observe with pleasure that he has not forgotten the example and precept of Herodotus, who considered geography as a principal part of history; and that, in the description of countries, he has put forth the whole vigour of his mind with equal correctness of drawing and brilliancy of colouring. As a specimen, we subjoin the admirable picture of the plain of Bengal, in the life of Clive:--

"Of the provinces which had been subject to the house of
Tamerlane, the wealthiest was Bengal. No part of India
possessed such natural advantages, both for agriculture and for
commerce. The Ganges, rushing through a hundred channels to the
sea, has formed a vast plain of rich mould, which, even under
the tropical sky, rivals the verdure of an English April. The
rice-fields yield an increase such as is elsewhere unknown.
Spices, sugar, vegetable oils, are produced with marvellous
exuberance. The rivers afford an inexhaustible supply of fish.
The desolate islands along the sea-coast, overgrown by noxious
vegetation, and swarming with deer and tigers, supply the
cultivated districts with abundance of salt. The great stream
which fertilises the soil is, at the same time, the chief
highway of Eastern commerce. On its banks, and on those of its
tributary waters, are the wealthiest marts, the most splendid
capitals, and the most sacred shrines of India. The tyranny
of man had for ages struggled in vain against the overflowing
bounty of nature. In spite of the Mussulman despot, and of
the Mahratta freebooter, Bengal was known through the East
as the garden of Eden, as the rich kingdom. Its population
multiplied exceedingly. Distant provinces were nourished from
the overflowing of its granaries; and the noble ladies of
London and Paris were clothed in the delicate produce of its
looms. The race by whom this rich tract was peopled, enervated
by a soft climate, and accustomed to peaceful avocations,
bore the same relation to other Asiatics which the Asiatics
generally bear to the bold and energetic children of Europe.
The Castilians have a proverb, that in Valencia the earth is
water, and the men women; and the description is at least
equally applicable to the vast plain of the lower Ganges.
Whatever the Bengalee does he does languidly. His favourite
pursuits are sedentary. He shrinks from bold exertion; and
though voluble in dispute, and singularly pertinacious in the
war of chicane, he seldom engages in a personal conflict, and
scarcely ever enlists as a soldier. We doubt whether there be a
hundred Bengalees in the whole army of the East India Company.
There never, perhaps, existed a people so thoroughly fitted by
nature and by habit for a foreign yoke."[4]

[4] _Critical and Historical Essays_, iii. 141, 142.

The talent of military description, and the picture of battle, is one of a very peculiar kind, which is often wholly awanting in historians of a very high character in other respects. It is a common observation, that all battles in history are like each other--a sure proof that their authors did not understand the subject; for every battle, fought from the beginning of time, in reality differs from another as much as every countenance. In his previous writings, Mr Macaulay had enjoyed few opportunities of exhibiting his strength in this important particular; though it might have been anticipated, from the brilliancy of his imagination, and the powerful pictures in his _Lays of Rome_, that he would not be inferior in this respect to what he had proved himself to be in other parts of history. But the matter has now been put to the test; and it gives us the highest satisfaction to perceive, from the manner in which he has treated a comparatively trifling engagement, that he is fully qualified to portray the splendid victories of Marlborough, the bold intrepidity of Hawke, and the gallant daring of Peterborough. It would be difficult to find in history a more spirited and graphic description than he has given in his great work of the battle of Sedgemoor, with the scene of which he seems, from early acquaintance, to be peculiarly familiar:--

"Monmouth was startled at finding that a broad and profound
trench lay between him and the camp he had hoped to surprise.
The insurgents halted on the edge of the hollow, and fired.
Part of the royal infantry, on the opposite bank, returned the
fire. During three quarters of an hour the roar of musketry
was incessant. The Somersetshire peasants behaved as if they
had been veteran soldiers, save only that they levelled their
pieces too high. But now the other divisions of the royal
army were in motion. The Life Guards and Blues, came pricking
up from Weston Zoyland, and scattered, in an instant, some
of Grey's horse, who had attempted to rally. The fugitives
spread a panic among the fugitives in the rear, who had charge
of the ammunition. The waggoners drove off at full speed,
and never stopped till they were some miles from the field
of battle. Monmouth had hitherto done his part like a stout
and able warrior. He had been seen on foot, pike in hand,
encouraging his infantry by voice and example. But he was too
well acquainted with military affairs not to know that all
was over. His men had lost the advantage which surprise and
darkness had given them. They were deserted by the horse and
by the ammunition waggons. The king's forces were now united,
and in good order. Feversham had been awakened by the firing,
had adjusted his cravat, had looked himself well in the glass,
and had come to see what his men were doing. What was of much
more consequence, Churchill (Marlborough) had rapidly made
an entirely new disposition of the royal infantry. The day
had begun to break. The event of a conflict on an open plain
by broad sunlight could not be doubtful. Yet Monmouth should
have felt that it was not for him to fly, while thousands,
whom affection for him had hurried to destruction, were still
fighting manfully in his cause. But vain hopes, and the intense
love of life, prevailed. He saw that, if he tarried, the royal
cavalry would soon be in his rear: he mounted, and rode off
from the field.

Yet his foot, though deserted, made a gallant stand. The Life
Guards attacked them on the right, the Blues on the left; but
these Somerset clowns, with their scythes and the but-ends
of their muskets, faced the royal horse like old soldiers.
Oglethorpe made a vigorous attempt to break them, and was
manfully repulsed. Sarsfield, a brave Irish officer, whose name
afterwards obtained a melancholy celebrity, charged on the
other flank. His men were beaten back: he himself was struck to
the ground, and lay, for a time, as one dead. But the struggle
of the hardy rustics could not last; their powder and ball
were spent. Cries were heard of, "Ammunition! for God's sake,
ammunition!" But no ammunition was at hand. And now the king's
artillery came up. Even when the guns had arrived, there was
such a want of gunners, that a sergeant of Dumbarton's regiment
had to take upon himself the management of several pieces. The
cannon, however, though ill served, brought the engagement to
a speedy close. The pikes of the rebel battalions began to
shake--the ranks broke. The king's cavalry charged again, and
bore down everything before them. The king's infantry came
pouring across the ditch. Even in that extremity, the Mendip
miners stood bravely to their arms, and sold their lives
dearly. But the rout was in a few minutes complete; three
hundred of the soldiers had been killed or wounded. Of the
rebels, more than a thousand lay dead on the moor."[5]

[5] _History_, i. 610, 611.

We have dwelt so long on the general characteristics and peculiar excellencies of Mr Macaulay's compositions, that we have hardly left ourselves sufficient space to enter so fully as we could wish into the merits of the great work on which he has staked his reputation with future times. It was looked forward to with peculiar, and we may say unexampled interest, both from the known celebrity and talents of the author--not less as a parliamentary orator than a practised critic--and the importance of the blank which he was expected to fill up in English literature. He has contracted an engagement with the public, to give the _History of England_ during the last century; to fill up the void from the English to the French Revolution. He came after Hume, whose simple and undying narrative will be coeval with the long and eventful thread of English story. He has undertaken the history of the glorious age of Queen Anne, and the era of the first Georges--of the victories of Marlborough, and the disasters of North--of the energy of Chatham, and the brilliancy of Bolingbroke; he has to recount equally the chivalrous episode of Charles Edward and the heroic death of Wolfe--the inglorious capitulation of Cornwallis, and the matchless triumphs of Clive. That the two first volumes of his work have not disappointed the public expectation is proved by the fact, that, before two months had elapsed from publication, they had already reached a third edition.

We shall not, in treating of the merits of this very remarkable production, adopt the not uncommon practice of reviewers on such occasions. We shall not pretend to be better informed on the details of the subject than the author. We shall not set up the reading of a few weeks or months against the study of half a lifetime. We shall not imitate certain critics who look at the bottom of the pages for the authorities of the author, and, having got the clue to the requisite information, proceed to examine with the utmost minuteness every particular of his narrative, and make in consequence a vast display of knowledge wholly derived from the reading which he has suggested. We shall not be so deluded as to suppose we have made a great discovery in biography, because we have ascertained that some Lady Caroline of the last generation was born on the 7th October 1674, instead of the 8th February 1675, as the historian, with shameful negligence, has affirmed; nor shall we take credit to ourselves for a journey down to Hampshire to consult the parish register on the subject. As little shall we in future accuse Macaulay of inaccuracy in describing battles, because on referring, without mentioning it, to the military authorities he has quoted, and the page he has referred to, we have discovered that at some battle, as Malplaquet, Lottum's men stood on the right of the Prince of Orange, when he says they stood on the left; or that Marlborough dined on a certain day at one o'clock, when in point of fact he did not sit down, as is proved by incontestable authority, till half-past two. We shall leave such minute and Lilliputian criticisms to the minute and Lilliputian minds by whom alone they are ever made. Mr Macaulay can afford to smile at all reviewers who affect to possess more than his own gigantic stores of information.

In the first place, we must bestow the highest praise on the general sketch of English history which he has given down to the period of Charles. Such a _precis_ forms the most appropriate introduction to his work, and it is done with a penetration and justice which leaves nothing to be desired. Several of his remarks are equally original and profound, and applicable--not only to a right understanding of the thread of former events, but to the social questions with which the nation is engaged at the present moment. We allude in particular to the observations that the spread of the Reformation has been everywhere commensurate with that of the Teutonic race, and that it has never been able to take root among those of Celtic descent; that, in modern times, the spread of intelligence and the vigour of the human mind, has been coextensive with the establishment of the Reformed opinions, while despotism in governments, and slumber in their subjects, has characterised, with certain brilliant exceptions of infidel passion, those in which the ancient faith is still prevalent; and that the Romish belief and observances were the greatest blessing to humanity, during the violence and barbarism of the middle ages, but the reverse among enlightened nations of modern times. It is refreshing to see opinions of this obviously just and important kind advanced, and distinctions drawn, by a writer of the high celebrity and vast knowledge of Mr Macaulay. It is still more important when we have only just emerged from an age in which the admission of the Roman Catholics into parliament was so strenuously recommended, as the greatest boon which could possibly be conferred on society--and are entering on another, in which its ceremonies and excitements have become the refuge of so many even in this country, at least of the softer sex, and in the highest ranks, with whom the usual attractions of the world have begun to fail or become insipid--to see the evident tendency of the Romish faith characterised in a manner equally removed from the bigoted prejudices of the Puritans, and the blind passion of modern Catholic proselytism, by an author bred up amid the din of Roman Catholic Emancipation, and a distinguished contributor to the _Edinburgh Review_.

We wish we could bestow equal praise on the justice of the views, and impartiality of the delineation of character, in the critical period of the Great Rebellion, which Mr Macaulay treats more at length; and lest he should fear that our praise will be valueless, as being that of a panegyric, we shall be proud to give him fierce battle on that point. We thank God we are not only old Tories, but, as the Americans said of a contemporary historian, the "_oldest of Tories_;" and we are weak enough to be confirmed in our opinions by the evident fact that they are those of a small minority of the present age. It is not likely, therefore, that we should not find an opportunity to break a lance with our author in regard to Charles I. and the Great Rebellion. We must admit, however, that Mr Macaulay is much more impartial in his estimate of that event, than he was in some of his previous essays; that he gives with anxious fairness the arguments on the opposite side of the question; and that he no longer represents the royal victim as now a favourite only with women--and that because his countenance is pacific and handsome on the canvass of Vandyke, and he took his son often on his knee, and kissed him.

Mr Macaulay represents the Great Rebellion as a glorious and salutary struggle for the liberties of England;--a struggle to the success of which, against the tyranny of the Stuarts, the subsequent greatness of England is mainly to be ascribed. The trial and execution of Charles I. he describes as an event melancholy, and to be deplored; but unavoidable and necessary, in consequence of the perfidy and deceit of a "man whose whole life had been a series of attacks on the liberties of England." He does full justice to the courage and dignity with which he met his fate, but holds that he was deservedly destroyed, though in a most violent and illegal manner, in consequence of his flatteries and machinations.[6] "There never," says he, "was a politician to whom so many frauds and falsehoods were brought home by undeniable evidence." We take a directly opposite view of the question. We consider the resistance of the Long Parliament to Charles as a series of selfish and unprincipled acts of treason against a lawful sovereign; not less fatal to the liberties of the country at the time, than they were calculated in the end to have proved to its independence, and which would long ere this have worked out its ruin, if another event had not, in a way which its author did not intend, worked out a cure for the disease. We consider the civil war as commenced from blind selfishness, "ignorant impatience of taxation," and consummated under the combined influence of hypocritical zeal and guilty ambition. We regard the death of Charles as an atrocious and abominable murder, vindicated by no reasons of expedience, authorised by no principle of justice, which has lowered for ever England to the level of the adjoining nations in the scale of crime; and which, had it not been vindicated by subsequent loyalty and chivalrous feeling, in the better part of the people, would long since have extinguished alike its liberties and its independence. Even Hume has represented the conduct and motives of the leaders of the Long Parliament in too favourable a light--and it is no wonder he did so, for it is only since his time that the selfish Passions have been brought into play on the political theatre--which at once explains the difficulties with which Charles had to struggle, and put in a just light his tragic fate.

[6] Vol. i. p. 127, 128.