graphs to discuss the general problem of religious toleration, more interesting to the author and to his readers. The essay on "Hampden" is little more than a panegyric and not in Macaulay's best manner. Even the essay on "Hallam's Constitutional History," a more ambitious effort, betrays at every turn that the writer is not steeped in the thought and feeling of the time of Charles I. and the Commonwealth. Roundheads and Cavaliers are to him merely Whigs and Tories in old-fashioned garb and of old-fashioned speech. The essay on the "War of the Spanish Succession" belongs to that period which has been indicated as Macaulay's own, and is written with great spirit; but Macaulay, like all contemporary historians, seems to have been deluded by his trust in the Memoirs of Captain Carleton. The political half of the essay on "Walpole " is excellent although too highly coloured, and the first essay on "Pitt," despite some blemishes, is a powerful and instructive piece of historical writing.

The two very long essays which Macaulay wrote while in India are on different grounds unsatisfactory. The historical half of the essay on "Bacon," although not at all so poor a performance as Bacon's apologists would have us believe, still betrays the writer's imperfect sympathy with the men and the ideas of that age. The essay upon "Mackintosh's History of the Revolution" is spread over too undefined a field, and having no hero is not suited to display Macaulay's powers at their best. But the essays written after his return from India are for the most part admirable specimens of his peculiar talent. The essays upon subjects taken from foreign history are indeed inferior to the rest. The essay on "Barère" breathes, indeed, Macaulay's wholesome abhorrence of a rascal, but does not attest any remarkable insight into the French Revolution. The essay on "Ranke's History of the Popes" contains a few brilliant sketches, but fails, as we have already said, because the subject required a more serious and philosophic treatment. The essay on "Frederic the Great," lively and graphic as it is, is injured by mistakes which were the fault less of the writer than of the time, and by a defect of insight into continental politics which was the fault of the writer. But the essay on William Temple" is full of matter and most enjoyable to

"Sir

read. The essay on "Clive" is a masterpiece of biography in a small compass, correct in all essential particulars, singularly bold and impressive, and animated with an enthusiasm which yet does not ignore the laws of truth and integrity. The essay on "Warren Hastings," still finer as literature, has suffered irreparable injury from modern criticism. Yet the two remain even now the only popular studies of the history of the English in India, and whoever wishes to acquaint himself with that history must still be advised to read Macaulay by way of introduction. The second essay upon "Pitt," one of the most correct, impressive and dignified, worthily closes the series.

If, in conclusion, we ask what is the distinctive merit of Macaulay's historical essays, the merit which redeems imperfect knowledge, superficial philosophy and overheated eloquence, it might be answered that these essays are admirable specimens of popular writing in the noblest acceptation. Books which try to make history popular too often sink into silliness or vulgarity. But these essays, which have done more than any other book to kindle the desire for historical knowledge in myriads of young and untrained, or busy and preoccupied minds, are not written down to the nursery or the market-place. They are the free outflow of an active and richly stored intelligence. They maintain the dignity of their themes. They do not try to bring great men and great events within the reach of common minds by making them common. They are not stuck full of cant phrases and trite quotations or interlarded with vulgar pleasantry. It is the scholar and the statesman who speaks, and if the partisan too often speaks also, he is an orator who addresses a senate, not a ranter who amuses a crowd. To these merits much gratitude is due and many faults may be pardoned. As time goes on the imperfections of these essays will be more clearly seen and more generally recognised, but it is not likely that they will cease to be read. For we cannot name another book in all the wide range of English literature which displays their peculiar excellence in the same degree, and it is not freedom from faults, but the possession of unique qualities, which causes books as well as men to be held in living remembrance.

IT

MACAULAY'S ESSAYS

MILTON

AUGUST, 1825

NOTE ON THE ESSAY

T would be unfair to a great writer to take this essay too seriously when he has himself told us that it contains scarcely a paragraph such as his mature judgment approved. The essay on Milton is the work of a clever, eager, combative youth, full of enthusiasm for literature and liberty, but hardly yet comprehending that there are such excellences as measure and discrimination. "A reader," Arnold observes, "who only wants rhetoric, a reader who wants a panegyric on Milton, a panegyric on the Puritans, will find what he wants. A reader who wants criticism will be disappointed." Macaulay's curious want of subtlety is nowhere more fully exemplified than in his discussion of the influence of advancing civilisation upon poetic genius. His crude assertion that as civilisation progresses poetry almost necessarily declines would imply that the finest poetry can only be produced in a state of the lowest barbarism. This is certainly not the case. The people among whom the Homeric poems took shape were by no means savages. The Attic dramas were produced for the most civilised community of the ancient world. Lucretius and Virgil wrote in the capital of civilised Europe. The dark ages were comparatively unfruitful of poetry, which only bloomed again in the reviving civilisation of the eleventh and succeeding centuries. Dante's contemporaries were not barbarians. Shakespeare's contemporaries were almost as civilised as Milton's. We need not multiply later instances to prove that a great deal of exquisite poetry may be produced in periods of the highest civilisation. If we turn from the mere enumeration of instances to reasoning upon the nature of poetry we see that the problem is far more complex than Macaulay imagined. A national legend, indeed, can only be evolved in the youth of a nation. But the fulness of thought and feeling manifested by the greatest epic and tragic poets must be the outcome of a long experience requiring the lapse of many generations. Language is usually more direct and sensuous among semi-civilised than among civilised men. But the faultless elegance of Virgil, or the amazing compass and flexibility of VOL L-1

Shakespeare, could never be attained in the speech of genuine barbarians. Macaulay thinks the credulity of the child or the savage more favourable to poetry than the scepticism of the adult or of civilised people. But then it may be urged that implicit belief is altogether distinct from imaginative enjoyment, that we really enjoy poetry because we know that it is not a record of fact. To take all these objections is not to deny the possibility that civilisation may in some respects weaken, or in some cases destroy, the faculty of poetic creation; it only implies that Macaulay did not see how intricate the problem is, and therefore has left it unsolved.

Macaulay, we have said, had generally a true sense of what is great in literature. His wide classical reading and powerful memory enabled him to measure Milton's wonderful power of assimilation. His remarks upon the early poems and the sonnets contain much that is true and happily expressed. Perhaps the best critical remarks in the essay are those upon the singular suggestive power of Milton's language and rhythm. It is harder to follow Macaulay where he praises Milton's treatment of spiritual beings. Many will think that the frequent introduction of Omnipotence among the personages of an epic throws all inferior beings out of scale and paralyses action. In this respect we may feel that Milton was misled by his respect for the classical epics in which deities of very finite power and wisdom are such constant actors, and by the theological disposition to strip all mystery from Divine Providence. Satan, as at first introduced, is a grand conception, but the poet could not, or would not, keep him at the same altitude throughout. He begins as the heroic rebel against absolute power, with whom the poet unconsciously sympathises; he ends as the commonplace fiend, sufficiently employed in perverting weak and foolish mortals. Macaulay might have been more sensitive to these imperfections had he not been reared himself in a Puritan atmosphere. But for that circumstance he might have realised the most comprehensive objection to Paradise Lost, that notwithstanding its finished art throughout and the incomparable splendour of many passages, it is as a whole difficult and almost repellent to the majority even of those readers who have cultivated an appreciation of poetry.

What Macaulay says of Milton's prose writings is true so far as it goes, but it is only a portion of the truth. They do contain passages compared with which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insignificance, but these passages are usually outbreaks of the poetic soul, little connected with their context, which is too often wearisome and unprofitable. Milton's pamphlets display neither the lucid method and close argument of Swift nor the ample knowledge and varied reflection of Burke. Milton's zeal was pure, but his knowledge of the world was small, and his acquaintance with politics almost nothing. His learning, although less than Macaulay suggests, was far greater than a pamphleteer needs to make an impression, but it was sterilised by use in controversy. His fiery temper and the unseemly fashion of the learned world often misled him into an abusive style which disgusts the modern reader. For these reasons the simple-minded person who

turus from Macaulay's essay to Milton's pamphlets is likely to sustain some rude shocks of disappointment which may hinder his recognising the lofty purpose which redeems their faults and the superb genius which ever and anon breaking through common argument or invective, raises them into classics and renders them immortal.

As the political and historical opinions expressed in this essay are similar to those much better expressed in some of the later essays, we need not pause to discuss them here.

If we turn from the matter to the language of this essay we note that Macaulay had already formed his style. Although he himself described the essay on Milton as overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful ornament, the structure of the sentences and the choice of words are already such as we find them in the essay on Addison or in the History of England. Certainly the style is that of a young man, but Macaulay, for better or worse, remained a young man all his life. A certain unskilfulness in transitions from one topic to another and a disproportionate length in digressions are very noticeable here, but are sometimes found even in his latest essays.

In Professor Masson's monumental Life all that can be known concerning Milton has been collected and set forth with the utmost industry. Mark Pattison's volume in English Men of Letters is eminently acute and sympathetic in criticism. Among recent studies of Milton Professor Raleigh's is perhaps the most brilliant and attractive.