MACAULAY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1061, 25 February 1911, Page 9

MACAULAY.

' In-' the -.''Moraine Post" a. . writer, signing himself,"Cadenus," recently had '* three articles; on Jlacaulay. We givo : Wmo .extracts .'from his' "summing up":—'■"! •' , ' What;"then ; will' be' his final place .in tlio hierarchy l of English letters, and what claims will his advocate put for- ■ ward in favour of,'his canonisation? Let us' take 'the/last' question' first,L do not is_on ; the His; -' 'tory- that his fame will ever rest.' Ono - of■his qualities, indeed, a tireless and ex- . liaustivo accuracy, .that work; exhibits ■ to' perfection; nor aro tliero.' wanting ; passages of great eloquence and of , descriptivo.power sufficient to make the ■' fortunes of a hundred war corrcspon-V-'dents'.. -. But.*tho work is planned on too big 1 a scalo to suit his peculiar ! genius: it js liko setting a great impres- ' sionist to paint an onicial .Coronation ■ picture,, or turning the aptitudes .of Peterborough to'-tno. task of evolving '! tho plans'of ■ a Von Moltke. - Tlio essay :on Hallam's Constitutional History is ,tho ground plan of tho later, more colossal scheme, and most of'us will tliink ■itliO'minute but finished sketch is bet.'tor worth having than tho unfinished canvas on which wcro to bo thrown tho thousand details of a Titanic painting. ■Did not tho' author himself indulge his, •< sonso of humour and perspective'at tho of Dr. Nares and the size ot liis: Memoirs-on .Burleigh?; o - ' '5 ■ ilt.is precisely in' a criticism, of the v' History that 0110 gets nearest, to': Jiae*:.«ulay,B transcendent merits., A writer : .'who can describo'in 'a few paces'tho ■salient features of.an-epoch.seen in tho .flash of; eye; throws away: his strongest sweapon when he come 6 to elaboration. What .is the use of presenting 'a blank ,-quarto volumo to a man who can tell Syou his stofy'biSttfer, ojjcertainlytbettcr Jjthan Gibbon or Mnmmsesf eSuldj.-m '■ thirty 1 pages' of; print ?-,-Nor, is that.other, great, quality of Macaulay, a power of synthetic analogy, which by, a .mere passing •ieforoncc»to* some name or opisodo. exhibits "tho history of • all the, .epochs of civilisation as periods following 0110 on thS' other, in an ; incvital)!q and; in- '„ telligible sequence,' best exhibited in a longer work devoted to .' h special sub-, jeet.: In the Essays tho genius of Mac- ■ anlay moves, freely like.a great runner finishing his course', over a distanco which both limits; his powers and exhibits them ill; tho highest perfection. As ho comes in amid tho shouts of tho spectators easily outdistancing his competitors, ho has himself well in hand, as though ho could 1 kcop .up the race, for ever. ' "But. tliero are . other' distances over which 1 his Apriority may vanish. There are spheres inhabited by tho , intellectual. giauts ;of history wbero a sterner competition must bo faced, aiid wheVotho bright; bow of_ wit amf cloguenee flashes 1 with 'a': dimmer lustre, et the Essays and'tho'History side by side and,ono is; reminded of the courso of Matthow'Arriold's river. "Oxus forgetting",tho bright spoed ho had had m his mountain cradlo in Paraere" has indeed gono near to becoming ."a foiled 'circuitous; wanderer." \ '

The convincing test is tho manner in which most of his, judgments havo stood the trial of' timo—might indeed havo been .written tp-day ,had t hc been born three-quarters of a century later. Lord Rosebery said last month, and 110 voice ; has been raised in protest, that Maeaulay, even, with the .information then, at his disposal, liad fixed tho main outlines of Chatham's character so well and firmly that posterity will nover dispute . his reading; Tho famous concluding verdict of tho Essayist will only • dio, with tho, languago and tho. race; nor will tho. memory of tho statesman survive that of his most splendid epitaph. 4 Nor can thcroj be. much cause . to quarrel with liis criticism of Cromwell. Again, his treatment of Warren' Hastings and Burko is wonderful as an exhibition of fairness from a. man • who theoretically was not prepared to ' recogniso tho validity of a raison d'etat. Clivo and Hastings lived their lives and did their work in! tho light of a principlo which is.uttorly antithetic to Liberalism. That fact did not deprive, them of their duo meed of jiraiso and justico at ,tho hands of the stern ' but not unbending Whig.' Elizabeth and Strafford alono aro beyond extenuation or mercy. Strafford ono can understand, but tho utter disregard of the situation the Queen had to. faco is alien to Slacaulay's ; wholo method 'and tempcranent. "Tho,raison d'etat on tho. banks of tlio Ganges is reeognisod, it has. 110 validity on the hanks of tho Thames.- Yct'tho mistake is duo to a generous, impulse—a fierce • revolt against persecution in England 'which overwhelms judgment tho saner car.uni ol puliYical f.jitieisin thc author himself has laid down.

How marvellous on tlio whole his sanity is. and how. littlo posterity has seen fit to differ'from liis judgment 1 The Essays were written not for all timo, but to_ ticklo tho palate of a generation which has long passed away. " That they succeeded in their-object thero is no dispute. .Their author leapt into" fame ns suddenly as did livron. Nor is thcro nny very perceptible differ-" dice in tono between tlio early and the later Essays; 1832 always marked for jfacauiay 'tho wliito stone of his politico! career. Tlio newer Radicalism of Bcntbam not merely left him sold, hut threw him into n violent hostility. Tho intellectual aristocrat of Yt'liis&ism looked backwards rather than forwards. These, then, who toll nr. tint all ideas pass must faco tlio fnct ilint after the lapse of vastly moro than half n century tho (jrcat bulk of liis judgments remain intact. Yet nt tho cprly.zenith | of liis career, when his'oninions.finally ' hardened, n state cf affair's existed \ which can hardly he conceived by tlio modern mind. Mnraulay chose literature and in n sense lie choso its moat fugitive afiKct. Jn spite of tho contempt which lie onco expressed for nny- , ono vile enough to write for the "Sforn- ! Ini! Post," he was a nrcat journalist ;nnd th(r legitimate successor of Swift. T.iko Swift, he wrote for tho needs of J day things which will last for ever. Tint though, like Swift, he. wrote for his party, a prnront anil his own sanity of judgment saved him

from tho defects of that bitterly disappointed niurirasciblo genius, and earned on into tlio Nineteenth Century tho tradition of a type, net yet extinct ill' politics, which preferred liurko to Fox and Palmerston to Gladstone.

' His descriptive powers would bo. a gold mine to modern editors. Even tho stylo is "hardly antiquated, though it stands midway between Gibbon and .t'no shorter sentences of to-day, «s Gibbon himself was the half-way honso between Jolinson's turbid utterances and Macaulay's rolling periods. • . If Macaulay's sentences sometimos resemblo tho great rollers which surge continually olf tlio Horn nnd tho Cap:.-, his concise judgments nnd epigrams represent at vi'J, tho shorter cliope of tho Channel. .Who, at least, would bo willing to miss tlio sceno in .'Westminster Hall when Hastings was brought out to faeo tho invective of Burke "and tlio grey old walls wero lmnr;,in scarlet," or tho passage when "the club-room is beforo us - and tlio tabio on which .stands tho omelet for Nugent and tho lemons for Johnson" Theso .and all tho other descriptions of lifo and manners, whether of tlio Eighteenth Century or of tho Court of Charles tho Second, rocrcato for us without prudery or priggislmess tho manners of tho past and the sources "from which Enclish life has sprung. - They remain a heritage which oven tho present generation cannot afford to nclect. .