• but our critics must submit to be told that they should not meddle with matters above them. They treat all alike; they test the racer by the pack horse, and deny merit to an Eclipse or a Cymba, because it is not like a brewer's drayhorse. We shall now proceed to illustrate Mr. Macaulay's mind, by extracts from his last, and greatest work, requesting in return that when he sits in judgment. on any poet, he will extend a like generosity to him.

Our readers must not suppose, because we commence our quotations with the first paragraph of his history, that we are going to reprint it all. The following passage is so characteristic that we give it entire. It reminds us of the simplicity of Herodotus' opening sentence.

"I propose to write the history of England from the accession of king James II, down to a time which is within the memory of men still living.

"I shall recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a legal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution which terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their parliament, and bound up together the rights of the people and the title of the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new settlement was, during many troubled years, successfully defended against foreign and domestic enemies; how under that settlement the authority of law and the security of property were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and of individual action never before known; how from the auspicious union of order and freedom sprang a prosperity of which the annals of human affairs had furnished no example; how our country, from a state of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to the place of umpire among the European powers. How her opulence and her martial glory grew together; how by wise and resolute good faith, was gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels which to the statesmen of any former age would have seemed incredible; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power compared with which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance; how Scotland, after ages of enmity, was at length united to England, not merely by legal bonds, but by the indissoluble ties of interest and affection. How in America the British colonies rapidly became far mightier and wealthier, than the realms which Cortez and Pizarro had added to the dominions of Charles V: How in Asia British adventurers founded an empire not less splendid, and more durable than that of Alexander.

How clearly a fine writer sketches roughly before he begins the plan of his work, without in any way anticipating the interest or weakening the effort.

As a contrast to the simplicity of the foregoing passage, we transcribe the death of Charles II.

"His palace had seldom presented a gayer or more scandalous appearance than on the evening of Sunday the 1st of February, 1685. Some grave persons who had gone thither, after the fashion of the times, to pay their duty to their sovereign, and who had expected on such a day his court would wear a decent aspect, were struck with astonishment and horror. The great gallery of Whitehall, an admirable relic of the magnificence of the Tudors, was crowded with revellers and gamblers. The king sat there chatting and toying with three women, whose charms were the boast, and whose vices were the disgrace, of three nations.

"Barbara Palmer, duchess of Cleveland, was there, no longer young, but still retaining some traces of that superb and voluptuous loveliness which twenty years before overcame the hearts of all men. There too was the duchess of Portsmouth, whose soft and infantine features were lighted up with the vivacity of France. Hortensia Mancini, duchess of Mazarin, and niece of the great Cardinal, completed the group. She had been early removed from ⚫her native Italy, to the court where her uncle was supreme. His power and her attractions had drawn a crowd of illustrious suiters round her. Charles himself, during his exile, had sought her hand in vain. No gift of virtue or fortune seemed to be wanting to her. Her face was beautiful with the rich beauty of the South; her understanding was quick, her manners graceful, her rank exalted, her possessions immense, but her ungovernable passions had turned all these blessings into curses. "While Charles flirted with his three sultanas, Hortensius' French page warbled some amorous verses.

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"A party of twenty courtiers was seated at cards round a large table on which gold was heaped in mountains. Even then the king had complained that he did not feel quite well. He had no appetite for his supper; his rest that night was broken, but on the following morning he rose, as usual, early.

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Scarcely had Charles risen from his bed, when his attendants perceived that his utterance was indistinct, and that his thoughts seemed to be wandering. "Several men of rank had, as usual, assembled to see their sovereign shaved and dressed.

"He made an effort to converse with them in his usual gay style, but his

ghastly look surprised and alarmed them. Soon his face grew black; his eyes turned in his head; he uttered a cry, staggered and fell into the arms of Thomas Lord Bruce, eldest son of the Earl of Ailesbury. A physician who had charge of the royal retorts and crucibles, happened to be present. He had no lancet, but he opened a vein with a penknife. The blood flowed freely, but the king was still insensible.

"He was laid on his bed, where, during a short time, the duchess of Portsmouth hung over him with the familiarity of a wife. But the alarm had been given. The queen and the Duchess of York were hastening to the room. The favorite concubine was forced to retire to her own apartments. Those apartments had been thrice pulled down, and thrice rebuilt by her lover to gratify her caprice. The very furniture of the chimney was massive silver. Several fine paintings, which properly belonged to the queen, had been transferred to the dwelling of the mistress. The sideboards were piled with richly wrought plate. In the niches stood cabinets, the master-pieces of Japanese art. On the hangings, fresh from the looms of Paris, were depicted, in tints which no English tapestry could rival, birds of gorgeous plumage, landscapes and hunting matches. In the midst of this splendor, purchased by guilt and shame, the unhappy woman gave herself up to an agony of grief, which, to do her justice, was not wholly selfish.

"The patient was bled largely. Hot iron was applied to his head; a loathsome, volatile salt, extracted from human skulls, was forced into his mouth. He recovered his senses, but he was evidently in a situation of extreme danger. "The queen was for a time assiduous in her attendance,

"On the morning of Thursday the London Gazette announced that his majesty was going on well, and was thought by the physicians to be out of danger but in the evening it was known that a relapse had taken place.

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"The king was in great pain, and complained that he felt as if a fire were burning within him; yet he bore up with a fortitude which did not seem to belong to his selfish and luxurious nature. The sight of his misery affected his wife so much that she fainted, and was carried senseless to her chamber. The prelates who were in waiting had from the first exhorted him to prepare for his end. They now thought it their duty to address him in a still more urgent manner. William Sancroft, an honest and pious, though narrow-minded man, used great freedom. It is time,' said he, to speak out, for sure you are about to appear before a judge who is no respecter of persons.'

"Charles, however, was unmoved. He made no objection, indeed, when the service for the visitation of the sick was read, but nothing could induce him to take the Eucharist from the hands of the bishops. A table with bread and

wine was brought to his bedside, but in vain. Sometimes he said there was no hurry, and sometimes that he was too weak.

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"Charles had never been a sincere member of the Established Church. When his health was good and his spirits high he was a scoffer. In his few serious moments he was a Roman Catholic."

A life of frivolity and vice had not extinguished in the Duchess of Portsmouth all sentiments of religion, or all that vividness which is the glory of her sex.

She therefore tells Barillon, the French ambassador, that the king is really at heart a papist, and bids him hasten to the duke and urge him to give orders for the expulsion of the protestant divines in order for the due administration of extreme unction.

The duke went to the chamber of his brother, and having ascertained the sentiments of the king, resolved, whatever was the risk, to fulfil his dying wishes.

The charm of this narative is apparent all things fall into their proper places, and a perfect picture is presented to the mind. The mantle of romance is thrown over the forbidding form of history. She moves and talks with a grace that was supposed wholly to belong to fiction, and while she delights, she instructs. It is quite impossible, despite the solemnity of the occasion, not to smile at the courteous banter of the expiring king, uttered almost “in articulo mortis," apologizing for the trouble he is giving, and begging them to excuse the unconscionable time he is in dying.

It seems to be the opinion of many men that all that is requisite, for an historian is a plodding, impartial man.

The fallacy of this is apparent for although Byron asserts that "Truth is stranger than fiction," it yet requires a rare union of faculties to write it properly. Were history written as it ought to be it would take an author who comprised the patience and research of Bayle, the philosophical and logical powers of Bacon, the style of Burke, the political sagacity of Tallyrand, and Washington's pa

triotism and nobility of soul. Since these are somewhat out of human reach, we cannot be too thankful that a writer combining so many excellencies as Mr. Macaulay, sits down to the drudgery of exploring the past. History enables a man to exist from the first ages of the world: he becomes the fellow-citizen of Demosthenes ; assists in the expulsion of the tyrant Tarquin; stands beside Brutus as he plunges his dagger into Cæsar's heart, and is invested with a retrospective life: in a word, history presents every man with the freedom of the world, and gives to him a national interest in every country. It is not enough that a dramatist should give the plot and the costume, he must give his characters language and life. It must not be done in words, it must be done in deeds. Mr. Macaulay has accomplished this. He has clothed the skeletons of the past with flesh, and thrown blood into their veins: they become again animated with the bygone passions of olden days, and inoculate us with their feuds. But Mr. Macaulay has the awkward habit of looking at things with a liberal eye; hence Mr. Croker's indignation.

It is not our intention generally to enter into any dispute that may exist between an author and a critic, but the recent attack on the work now before us in the "Quarterly," is too marked to escape us. We shall not do the conducters of that Review the injustice of believing that personal motives had any influence in the criticism in question. We are willing to believe that Mr. Croker's indignation at outraged historical truth has impelled him to the rescue of his "beloved abuses," from the vigorous assault of the historian; but at the same time the Rigby of Coningsby should have some respect for the judgment of the readers of the periodical he is employed to write in. We quote the following as a specimen of the fairness of his attack on his ancient enemy.

"It may seem too epigrammatic, but it is in our serious judgment STRICTLY TRUE to say, that his history seems to be a kind of combination and exagge