Quarterly." There are several historical | ballads written in youth by the future author of the "Lays of Ancient Rome," which earned a more enduring celebrity than is generally accorded to the poetry of magazines and reviewers. Two of these, "The Armada," and "The Battle of Ivry," have been republished by the author, together with "The Lays of Ancient Rome," in the later editions of that work. They well deserve the honor. The description in "The Armada" of the transmission by the beacon fires throughout England of the news of the approach of the Spanish fleet, is full of the martial spirit of Eschylus; and may stand comparison with its prototype, the celebrated passage in "The Agamemnon," that paints the chain of fire signals from Mount Ida to Argos, which announced to Clytemnestra the fall of Troy. The prowess of the chivalrous Henri Quatre is glowingly placed before us in the ballad on the Battle of Ivry. Probably the study of Lockhart's Spanish Ballads, which appeared about the time when he was at Cambridge, may have done much towards leading Macaulay to compose these much admired stanzas. Not that he is a mere imitator of the Spanish martial romances. He adds elements that are all his own. He has a power of grouping and concentrating images, and of potraying masses, and the movements of masses, which cannot be found in the Spanish Romanceros, who deal chiefly with the passions, and the deeds of individuals.

The foundation of Mr. Macaulay's fame as a prose writer was laid by his essay on Milton, which appeared in the "Edinburgh Review" in 1825; and was followed by other contributions to that periodical during the succeeding twenty-two years. When, in 1843, Mr. Macaulay published a collection of these papers, he spoke in the preface to it, of the criticism on Milton, as "written when the author was fresh from College, and containg scarcely a paragraph such as his matured judgment approved," and as "overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful ornament." Authors are seldom good judges of their own works; and we totally except to Mr. Macaulay's condemnation of this long celebrated essay. Had it been so faulty as he now represents it to be, it never would have pleased the taste of one so classically correct as Jeffrey, or have been admitted into the pages of the Edinburgh while under the management of that great critic. We will take Jeffrey's judgment in preference to Macaulay's, when Macaulay himself is in question, and unhesitatingly profess our be

lief that the paper on Milton stands deservedly first in the volumes of critical and historical essays with which Mr. Macaulay has enriched our literature.

This collection of essays is so well known, both in England and in Anglo-America, that any detailed comment on it would be superfluous. Perhaps the single paper in which most originality and vigor of thought are displayed, is that on Machiavelli. The author's marvellous power of bringing gorgeous groups of imagery together, and of concentrating the striking points of long historic annals into a single page, are most remarkably shown in the essays on Clive and Warren Hastings, which ought to be read together, as forming one magnificent picture of the leading characters and decisive scenes in Anglo-Indian history, during its most eventful period. The description of the trial of Warren Hastings surpasses any other scene of the kind, with which we are acquainted in either ancient or modern literature; and nothing can be more artistic than the solemn pathos of the conclusion, where, after the mind has been excited by the fierce vicissitudes of the strife of statesmen, we are dismissed with a majestic allusion to "that temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, the great Abbey, which has, during so many ages, afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the great Hall."

Mr. Macaulay has, himself, borne no mean part among "the chiefs of the eloquent war." He entered Parliament in 1831, as member for Calne, under the auspices of Lord Landsdowne; and rapidly signalized himself in the debates that accompanied the introduction of the first Reform Bill. We will quote a portion of his first speech, in which the reader will observe the same characteristics which have marked his writings.

"We talk of the wisdom of our ancestors -and in one respect, at least they were wiser than we. They legislated for their own times. They looked at the England which was before them. They did not think it necessary to give twice as many members to York as they gave to London, because York had been the capital of England in the time of Constantius Chlorus. And they would have been amazed indeed, if they had foreseen, that a city of more than a hundred thousand inhabitants would be left without representatives in the nineteenth century, merely because it stood on ground which, in the thirteenth century, had been occupied by a few huts. They

framed a representative system which was not, indeed, without defects and irregularities, but which was well adapted to the state of England in their time. But a great revolution took place. The character of the old corporations changed; new forms of property came into existence,-new portions of society rose into importance. There were in our rural districts rich cultivators who were not freeholders. There were in our capital rich traders, who were not liverymen. Towns shrank into villages. Villages swelled into cities larger than the London of the Plantagenets. Unhappily, while the natural growth of society went on, the artificial polity continued unchanged. The ancient form of representation remained, and precisely be cause the form remained, the spirit departed. Then came that pressure almost to burstingthe new wine in the old bottles-the new people under the old institutions. It is now time for us to pay a decent, a rational, a manly reverence to our ancestors,-not by superstiously adhering to what they, under other circumstances, did,-but by doing what they, in our circumstances, would have done. All history is full of revolutions, produced by causes similiar to those which are now operating in England. A portion of the community, which had been of no account, expands and becomes strong. It demands a place in the system, suited, not to its former weakness, but to its present power. If this is granted, all is well. If this is refused, then comes the struggle between the young energy of one class, and the ancient privileges of another. Such was the struggle between the plebians and the patricians of Rome! Such was the struggle of the Italian allies for admission to the full rights of Roman citizens. Such was the struggle of our North American colonists against the mother country. Such was the struggle which the Tiers Etat of France maintained against the arirtocracy of birth. Such was the struggle which the catholics of Ireland maintained against the aristocracy of creed. Such is the struggle which the free people of color in Jamaica are now maintaining against the aristocracy of skin. Such, finally, is the struggle which the middle classes in England are maintaining against the aristocracy of mere locality; against the aristocracy, the principle of which is to invest one hundred drunken pot-wallopers in one place, or the owner of a ruined hovel in another, with powers which are withheld from cities renowned to the furthest, ends of the earth, for the marvels of their wealth, and of their industry."

"My hon. friend, the member for the University of Oxford, tells us, that if we pass this law England will soon be a republic. The reformed House of Commons will, according to him, before it has sat ten years, depose the king, and expel the lords from their house. Sir, if my hon. friend could prove this, he would have succeeded in bringing an argument for democracy, infinitely stronger than any that is to be found in the works of Paine. His proposition is, in fact, this,-that our monarchical and aristocratical institutions have no hold on the public mind of England; that those institutions are regarded with aversion by a decided majority of the middle class. This, sir, I say, is plainly deducible from his proposition; for he tells us that the representatives of the middle class will inevitably abolish royalty and nobility within ten years; and there is surely no reason to think that the representatives of the middle class will be more inclined to a democratic revolution than their constituents. Now, sir, if I were convinced that the great body of the middle class in England look with aversion on monarchy and aristocracy, I should be forced, much against my will, to come to this conclusion, that monarchical and aristocratical institutions are unsuited to this country. Monarchy and aristocracy, valuable and useful as I think them, are still valuable and useful as means, and not as ends. The end of government is the happiness of the people; and I do not conceive that, in a country like this, the happiness of the people can be promoted by a form of government in which the middle classes place no confidence, and which exists only because the middle have no organ by which to make their sentiments known."

He was equally conspicuous by the fearlessness and brilliancy of his oratory port of the second Reform Bill, in the next session. Perhaps his sense of the perilous excitement of that crisis can best be expressed by quoting a passage from one of his essays, where he is evidently referring to the reform agitation of 1831-32.

"There are terrible conjunctures when the discontents of a nation, not light and capricious discontents, but discontents that have been steadily increasing during a long series of years have attained their full maturity. The discerning few predict the approach of these conjunctures, but predict in vain. To the many the evil season comes as a total eclipse of the sun at noon comes to a people of savages. Society, which but a short time before was in a state of perfect repose, is on

a sudden agitated with the most fearful convulsions, and seems to be on the verge of dissolution; and the rulers who, till the mischief was beyond the reach of all ordinary remedies, had never bestowed one thought on its existence, stands bewildered and panicstricken, without hope or resource, in the midst of the confusion. One such conjuncture this generation has seen. God grant that we may never see another!"

When the Reform Bill was carried, Mr. Macaulay shared in the full harvest of popularity which, for a time, was enjoyed by the Whigs. He was chosen by the populous and important town of Leeds to be one of its representatives in the parliament of 1833, but, fortunately for him, he was now withdrawn for a time from the great arena of English politics, in consequence of his accepting an important appointment in India.

By the act which renewed the East India Company's charter in 1833, a commission was appointed to inquire into and amend the laws of that country, and Mr. Macaulay was placed at its head. His career in India was honorably marked by earnest and enlightened industry; and in particular he deserves high credit for the independence and courage which he displayed respecting one of the reforms which he introduced. We allude to the celebrated XIth Article of the Legislative Council, which placed all the subjects of the British crown in India on a footing of equality in the eye of the law, without respect to their being of European or of Asiatic birth. The exasperated Anglo-Indians called this the Black Act; and loud and long were the protests and complaints transmitted to England against this levelling of the dominant race with the native population in the administration of justice. Mr. Macaulay was unmoved by either clamor or obloquy. And he replied to the attacks of his numerous foes by a state paper, which is justly regarded as one of the ablest of the many able documents which have appeared from Indian officials.

We have said that Mr. Macaulay's Indian appointment was a fortunate event for him; and we meant to style it so, not merely on account of its lucrative character, but because it saved Mr. Macaulay from sharing in the decline and fall of Whig popularity, which took place during the five years that followed the passing of the Reform Bill. Mr. Macaulay only returned from India in time to participate in some of the final struggles of Lord Melbourne's Ministry. In 1839 he joined the cabinet as secretary at war, and made several vigorous oratorical charges

VOL XXV. NO. IV.

against the powerful enemy that was pressing hard on the retreating Whigs. In particular, his speech on the 29th of January, 1840, in the debate on the vote of want of confidence in the Ministry, was marked with all his fire; and the passage of it in which he reminded his then adversary, Sir James Graham, of their former joint triumphs during the reform struggle, is one of the finest that he ever uttered. After the accession of Sir Robert Peel to office, Mr. Macaulay was one of the most effective speakers on the opposition side of the House; but he did not suffer party spirit to lead him into blind and indiscrimi nating animosity against the victorious rivals. of his Whig friends; and his conduct on one memorable occasion during this period is deserving of the highest honor. We allude to his speech in favor of the increased grant to Maynooth, when proposed by the Peel ministry in 1845. Of course we are passing no opinion of our own as to the policy or impolicy of Maynooth endowments. We merely say that Mr. Macaulay, being conscientiously convinced that such an endowment was proper, acted most honorably in supporting it; though he knew that the people of Edinburgh (which city he then represented in the House) were fanatically opposed to it, though it was brought forward by the men who had bitterly reviled Mr. Macaulay's own party for favoring the Irish Catholics, and though there was a tempting opportunity for revenge, by combining with the ultra-Protestants headed by Sir Robert Inglis in the house, so as to leave the ministry in a minority.

Mr. Macaulay took little part in the CornLaw debates. He had spoken in 1842, on Mr. Villiers' motion in favor of the principle of Free Trade, but against any sudden withdrawal of the protection, which the agricultural interest had so long enjoyed. He refused to countenance the agitation of the Anti-Corn-Law League; and probably this increased the disfavor which his Maynooth speech had already procured for him with his Edinburgh constituents.

He lost his election in 1846; an event which, however much we may admire him as a statesman, we can hardly regret, inasmuch as it obtained for him the leisure requisite for the composition of his Opus Magnum, his History of England.

Before, however, we speak of this we must remind our readers of the glorious "Lays of Ancient Rome," which Mr. Macaulay gave the world in 1842, while still keenly bent on his parliamentary career. This book interest

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ed the scholar by the magnificent illustration which it gave of the intrinsic probability of Niebuhr's theory as to the origin of the current early history of Rome. It gratified and served the historian by its admirable introductory comments; and by its interspersed epitomes of some of the most stirring crises in the fortunes of the great Republic. But, above all, it has delighted hundreds of thousands, who were neither scholars nor historians, by the glowing spirit of true poetry which animates it in every line.

These "Lays" show in meridian fulness the powers of Objectivity, of which the early ballads of Mr. Macaulay gave promise. The rush of heady combat,-the mustering, the march, the chivalrous aspects, the picturesque garbs, and the bold gestures and words, and bolder deeds of warriors are brought with Homeric expressiveness before us. The descriptions of scenery also, are beautifully given. But Mr. Macaulay shows little Subjective power. He is comparatively weak, when he introduces single characters expressing their passions and feelings in the present tense and first person. This is particularly apparent in the Third Lay, which tells of Virginius,

"Who wrote his daughter's honor in her blood,"

to adopt the noble line in which Mr. Warren, in his " Lily and Bee," sums up that farfamed legend.

Mr. Macaulay's retirement from Parliament secured for him those two years of lettered ease, without which, as he rightly considered, no man can do justice to himself

The

or the public as a writer of history.* first fruits of that leisure were the first two volumes of his "History of England," which appeared in the autumn of 1848. We trust that many more are destined to follow. It would be unwarrantable in us to criticise the portion we possess, with such scant space at our command as the conclusion of this memoir can afford. The public of England and America have pronounced a verdict of enthusiastic approbation, to which individual critics could add little weight, and from which (even if we were so minded) we could detract still less. If we were to express a wish as to any change in the fashion of the work, it would be that passages of repose should be more frequently introduced. A history ought not to be a continuous excitement.

Upon Mr. Macaulay's features, as represented in the accompanying portrait

"The seal of Middle Age
Hath scarce been set,'

and we hope that a long career of active glory is still before him. But even if he were doomed to rest upon his present intellectual achievements, his name would rank among the highest of the nineteenth century. His works are read and admired wherever the Anglo-Saxon race has spread over the Old World and the New, and their fame will last as long as the language of that race endures.

* See his advice to Sir James Stephen, cited in the preface to that gentleman's "Lecture on French History."

CLARENDON AND HIS

Conspicuous amongst the public men who flourished in the time of the Civil War is Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. His life and works have been canvassed with a diligence and zeal extended to none of his contemporaries; and the result of all the criticism, hostile and defensive, that has been applied to him, conducts us to this conclusion, that, to judge of him truly and justly, he should be regarded under two separate and distinct aspects. No one man can differ from another in some respects more widely than Clarendon the historian differs from Clarendon the chancellor. He seems to have had two natures, two characters-one in his books, and one in his office. The contrast may, perhaps, be in some measure accounted for by the fact that his outer life, his activity, his passions were expended in his official and political capacity; while his books were the produce of retirement and leisure, liberated from the dangerous seductions of power, and reflecting the hived-up wisdom and subdued judgment of matured age looking out upon the world "through the loop-holes of retreat."

There is no name in English historical literature better known or more frequently referred to. The charm of a fluent style, sagacious observation, great talent for portraiture, a singularly tenacious memory, and a position in public affairs which brought him into relation, more or less direct, with the leading men of his age, combine to impart a value and an interest to his writings which no similar records possess in our own, or perhaps in any other language. Whatever difference of opinion may prevail as to the trust to be reposed in his facts and portraits, or rather in the coloring he flings over them, it is allowed on all hands that his industry and skill have laid the world under weighty obligations. To the information he collected

* Lives of the Friends and Contemporaries of Lord Chancellor Clarendon, illustrative of Portraits in his Gallery. By Lady Theresa Lewis. 3 vols. Murray. 1842.

with so much exactitude and assiduity, and to the life-like pictures he has given us of his contemporaries, we are all obliged to have recourse whenever the subject of the Civil Wars comes under consideration. To say that he is not chargeable with errors and prejudices would be in so many foolish words to claim for him an exemption from human infirmities. But it may be asserted with justice, on the whole, that, considering the difficulties and temptations of contemporary history, and the peculiar circumstances in which he was placed as a prominent actor in the scenes he describes, few men could have executed such an undertaking with greater moderation, candor, and independence. And this may be honestly asserted without compromising the exceptions which have been taken in detail to matters of fact and opinion. He himself frequently supplies the means by which his own accuracy and judgment may be put to the severest tests.

His personal reputation is another question. No man's public character has been more violently disputed. If it be a proof of thorough impartiality in the discharge of a high office (as some of his champions assume) to have incurred the bitterest hostility of all parties, then the Lord Chancellor Clarendon must have been the most impartial of men. No man was ever more cordially disliked, or industriously scandalized. And the fact is seized upon by his panegyrists as affording indisputable evidence of the integrity with which he discharged his functions. We confess we cannot subscribe to a doctrine which declares universal odium, or suspicion, or something very like it, to be an indispensable condition of official honesty. world knows how to deal more discriminately with the baseness of party than to accept its praise or censure as a final criterion either way; and we believe that the ultimate verdict of opinion on the actions of public men redresses the balance with tolerable accuracy in the long run. If we find, as in the case of Lord Clarendon, that grave doubts of the purity of a high functionary survive the in

The