BOOKS.
MACAULAY'S ESSAYS.* THE time has only just come when it is possible to arrive at a fair judgment of Macaulay's indubitable talent. He was so vastly overpraised in his own day, he so successfully won the suffrages both of the erudite and the unlettered, that a change of opinion was inevitable. Reaction is as potent in literature as in politics, and no popular author is fortunate enough to avoid paying the debt which popularity exacts. And so after his death Macaulay was condemned with far too great a ferocity. His style was ridiculed as a mere tinkling of cymbals, his learning was dismissed as a parade, his judgments were pro- nounced superficial or erroneous. But the time of reaction is past, and we can approach Macaulay without the adulation of his contemporaries, or the rancour of their immediate successors.
We may best define his excellences by making open con- fession of his faults. He was always a bad critic of literature, as he himself allows. And he was a bad critic, in the first place, because be was a violent partisan. In his day party spirit ran high. Whigs and Tories slaughtered each other in the Edinburgh and Quarterly in the firm conviction that no good could come out of the opposite camp. They either could not or would not separate literature and politics. To the Tory Reviewer aWhig poet epitomised all that was dangerous and sub- versive,while the Whig in revenge was quite sure that the noblest Tory was but an ogre thirsting for the blood of the people. Macaulay's onslaught upon Croker, for instance, was unjustified of its severity. It should be remembered, however, that Macaulay had made up his mind to "dust the varlet's jacket," as he said himself, before the book appeared. But there is another reason why Macaulay, despite his great gifts, was a bad critic: he was curiously insensitive to aesthetic impressions, which to his bluff nature seemed little better than humbug. It is not fair to quote his essay on Milton as an instance of bad criticism, for he confessed- that it "contained scarcely a paragraph such as his maturer judgment approved." But turn to his essay on Byron, and see how the critic mis- understands or misses the poet's genius. Or, again, turn to his "Horace Walpole," and note the complete absence of humour which mars the picture. Even worse are the paradoxical pages in which Macaulay attempts to prove that Boswell's greatness was the logical result of his folly. It is true that Macaulay was unacquainted with Boswell's letters to William Temple, inwhich the biographer reveals himself as a conscious and deliberate artist, who knew precisely the effect he would produce upon the world. But knowledge would not have changed his judgment, for Macaulay's merits are not those of the critic; and in saying this we would not depreciate, but merely attempt to define, his obvious talent.
• Critical and Historical Essays, Contrilutod to the "Edinburgh Review" by Lord Macaulay. Edited, with Introduction. Notes, and Index, by F. C. Montague, M.A. S vole. London: Methuen and Co. [18e.] As Professor Montague, his latest and wisest editor, points out, "it is above all as a narrator that Macaulay has gained a high place in English literature." He -knew perfectly well that he could tell a story, and the best of his essays are neither more nor less than excellent narratives. Where history was the subject this is easily intelligible. But Macaulay could turn literature to his purpose with a light hand, and his "Madame d'Arblay," to give but one instance, is less a criticism of the lady's writings than a pleasant story concerning herself and her circle. Few men have ever loved letters with a more constant heart than Macaulay. He was always a writer first, a politician afterwards; and no man of his time had read more profoundly, or profited more abundantly by what he read, than the author of these essays. Even 'specialists allow his erudition in their own branch. Signor Villari, for instance, was astonished, not only at Macaulay's deep knowledge of Machiavelli, but at his just appreciation of the Florentine's style. And yet literature was to Macaulay chiefly a mine of information. His temperament was pictorial rather than aesthetic or philosophic. He did not care to pierce below the surface, or to reveal to himself and his readers the hidden springs of action. He preferred to look upon history as a pageant unfolding itself before his eyes, and his mind was so richly stored, his memory responded so quickly to suggestion, that one image always called up another, and he was able to illustrate his pages with an endless succession of splendid pictures. It was this faculty of visualisation which made Macaulay the best reviewer of his time. He was seldom interested in the author whom he reviewed, and who was generally unworthy his regard. But it amused him to take a bad book as a peg whereon to hang a brilliant article. No one will ever again read Mr. Gleig's ponderous biography of Warren Hastings. But Macaulay's essay, for which this indifferent book was an excuse, is imperishable. Indeed, this essay is as good an example as can be found of Macaulay's method. It is unjust and inaccura`e. The research of Sir James Stephen, Sir John Strachey, and Sir Alfred Lyall has revealed to the world Macaulay's many faults. But the essay remains a masterpiece of picturesque history, splendid, if mis- leading. The description of the scene in Westminster Hall when Hastings met his judges is a model of clear-cut elo- quence. But even in this clear-cut eloquence there seems something lacking. The style is so vivid, the trick of expression is so easy, that it almost fatigues the reader. While it gives you a keen impression of Westminster Hall, it still lacks atmosphere. It is the impersonal style exaggerated to a fault, and though we would not have a writer expose his own soul in a history, Macaulay's complete suppression of self cannot but seem a trifle inhuman. He is at his best when he deals with the history of his own country. His two essays on the elder Pitt are not only as good as anything he ever wrote; they remain the best biography we have of the great statesman, and we do not believe that even the ingenuity of Lord Rosebery will supersede them. In these essays Macaulay's prejudices, literary and political, are asleep. He writes as an historian, not as a Whig, and though modern research may have increased our knowledge, Macaulay, by his amazing talent of presentation, has achieved that which will ever lie beyond the reach of the scientific historian.
Professor Montague has performed the duties of an editor with erudition and restraint. It is no easy matter to explain the innumerable references with which Macaulay, the most allusive of writers, embellished his pages. But, while nothing has escaped Professor Montague's vigilance, he has known better than to overload his author with superfluity of explanation. His notes on the essays are uniformly excellent ; they set forth in no carping spirit the errors of the essayist, and are incidentally the best commentary upon Macaulay's method. In his intro- duction he neither overpraises nor depreciates his author. His eyes are open both to his strength and weakness, and he has achieved that rare result,—a portrait which is neither all black nor all white. As to the essays themselves, he pro- nounces them "admirable specimens of popular writing in the noblest acceptation." And we shall go far before we find a. juster and more appropriate definition.
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