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opposed to all the trials of his various and eventful life.

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With all his faults, — and they were neither few nor small, only one cemetery was worthy to contain his remains. In that temple of silence and reconciliation 5 where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried, in the Great Abbey which has during many ages afforded a quiet resting-place to those whose minds and bodies have been shattered by the contentions of the Great Hall, the dust of the illustrious accused 10 should have mingled with the dust of the illustrious accusers. This was not to be. Yet the place of interment was not ill chosen. Behind the chancel of the parish church of Daylesford, in earth which already held the bones of many chiefs of the house of Hast- 15 ings, was laid the coffin of the greatest man who has ever borne that ancient and widely extended name. On that very spot probably, fourscore years before, the little Warren, meanly clad and scantily fed, had played with the children of ploughmen. Even then 20 his young mind had revolved plans which might be called romantic. Yet, however romantic, it is not likely that they had been so strange as the truth. Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the fallen fortunes of his line. Not only had he repurchased 25

202 MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON WARREN HASTINGS

He had

the old lands, and rebuilt the old dwelling. preserved and extended an empire. He had founded a polity. He had administered government and war with more than the capacity of Richelieu. He had 5 patronized learning with the judicious liberality of Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most formidable combination of enemies that ever sought the destruction of a single victim; and over that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He I had at length gone down to his grave in the fulness of age, in peace, after so many troubles, in honor, after so much obloquy.

Those who look on his character without favor or malevolence will pronounce that, in the two great 15 elements of all social virtue, in respect for the rights of others, and in sympathy for the sufferings of others, he was deficient. His principles were somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. But though we cannot with truth describe him either as a righteous or as a 20 merciful ruler, we cannot regard without admiration the amplitude and fertility of his intellect, his rare talents for command, for administration, and for controversy, his dauntless courage, his honorable poverty, his fervent zeal for the interests of the state, his noble 25 equanimity, tried by both extremes of fortune, and never disturbed by either.

NOTES

THIS essay was first published in the Edinburgh Review in October, 1841, three years after Macaulay's return from India. It is nominally a review of a book that had appeared, Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings, first Governor General of Bengal. Compiled from Original Papers by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M.A. 3 vols. London, 1841. Macaulay's opinion of Mr. Gleig's book, written to the editor of the Review, is, "I think the new Life of Hastings the worst book that I ever saw."

Throughout the essay, this opinion of Mr. Gleig's history keeps cropping out, in such passages as, "everybody believes, idiots and biographers excepted."

Macaulay's estimate of the importance of Warren Hastings as a subject was expressed to the editors of the Review when he was preparing to write the article. He said he thought the subject would bear two articles. He evidently decided when he began to write that the two parts would be better if combined. His original plan was to lay the first scene in India; this he said would include the Rohilla war, disputes between Hastings and his council, the character of Francis, death of Nuncomar, rise of Hyder Ali, seizure of Benares, and so on. The second scene would shift to Westminster; this would take in the Coalition, 203

the India Bill, and characters of all the noted men of the time from "Burke to Tony Pasquin."

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Page 1, line 8. uncovered. Members of the House of Commons sit with their hats on; to“ uncover, or remove the hat, is a mark of honor.

Page 3, line 8. renowned Chamberlain.

William, Lord Hast

ings, adherent of Edward IV., beheaded by Richard III.

66 Come, lead me to the block; bear him my head:
They smile at me, who shortly shall be dead."

SHAKESPEARE. - Richard III. III. 4. 107.

Line 21. The Hastings. Does not this sentence tell all the facts? What do we gain by Macaulay's adding the following sentence?

Line 23. mint at Oxford. At the time of the Civil War, Parliament held London. Oxford being in sympathy with the Cavaliers was made their headquarters. To Oxford, therefore, those who could not send money for the cause sent their plate to be converted into money.

Page 4, lines 8-11. Living, tithes. See Dictionary.

Page 6, line 16. Churchill, Colman, Lloyd, Cumberland, Cowper, all literary men of Hastings' time. Cowper is the only one of them whose work is still read.

Page 7, line 6. Ouse. Cowper lived with the Unwins at Olney on the Ouse. No life, in its environments, could form a stronger contrast with that of Hastings than his does.

Line 9. Temptations. Why does Macaulay tell us what Cowper was not called upon to withstand?

Line 13. innocence and greatness. Is there anything unusual in the arrangement of the four nouns, "innocence and greatness," etc.?

Page 8, line 3. foundation. A scholarship.

Line 7. studentship. At Christ Church College in Oxford, three scholars are elected each year from Westminster School. The scholarships are of the annual value of $400, and are to be held for two years.

Line 20. hexameters and pentameters. In England, the study of Latin is begun at eight years of age, and the boy of twelve must write as well as read in Latin. Proficiency in the language is judged, largely, by the ability to write Latin verse.

Line 21. writership in the service of the East India Company. In carrying on the business of the company, the merchants, senior and junior, conducted the trade; the factors ordered the goods and attended to shipping them off; the writers were the clerks and bookkeepers. By a kind of civil service, depending on worth and years in office, the writers could rise to merchants. The places where the company had their seats of trade were called factories, as the factories of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta.

Line 22. East India Company. See Introduction.

Page 9, line 10. Dupleix. French governor of Pondicherry. In the Introduction there is bare mention of the events alluded to here because it is presupposed that Macaulay's Lord Clive has been read. Half of the interest of Warren Hastings will be lost unless Lord Clive is read first.

Line 12. War of the Succession. Succession to the authority

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