THE WESTERN QUARTERLY REVIEW. APRIL, 1849. ART. XVI. THE REVOLUTION OF 1688 AND MACAULAY'S HISTORY. It has been thoughtfully said that Gon writes all history. We would, without irreverence, add that His characters require the fire of human genius to bring them out into intelligent view. God has been the author of but one volume directly; but even in that sacred book, His directness sought a medium through human language. The eye of reason can see in every incident-every vicissitude-every mutation--every revolution-His hand inscribing the tablets of time, and writing the history of mankind. In the world's history there are marked crises. Some eras-like our own, the eventful 1848, annus mirabilis—are replete with momentous events. The study of political and social science, becomes not only elegant and useful, but indispensable, in an era like ours. In France, more than in any other country, has history received the baptism of science. M. Compte and M. Guizot have applied their searching analysis; the former with rigid, yet somewhat speculative scrutiny; the latter with comprehensive grasp and practical results. It is however in our country, that the world must find that actual refinement in civil polity and social order, which others are aspiring to reach. In revolutionary eras we can best study history, as in the throes of passion we can best decipher character. Then disguises are cast off. Then, the "ugly vizors" which hide the features of our common humanity, are thrown aside to rust among the relics of barbarism. Then, the inherent lust for power and impatience of restraint burst forth in all their wantonness and rage with all their blindness. Then, long silent thoughts VOL. 1.-14. reach their climax in indignant remonstrance. Then, those long muttering principles which are the motives of irrepressible energy in the masses, find bold enunciations and unambiguous exposition. Then, the clouds which hide the mental mountains Rising nighest heaven, are full of finest lightning; and a breath suffices to give them power to strike and illumine, to devastate and purify. They are superficial tales, whose relation affects us as a village story on a grand scale. The capital defect in most of our historians, except Bancroft, Arnold and Macaulay, is, that in their works we do not find reason as well as reading, morals as well as dates, motives analysed as well as pageants described, principles investigated in the light of causes, as well as battles fought and kings dethroned. We When we remember that there is a universal mind, and that history can only record that mind, we marvel that historians have not written more for and of its operation. Every fact in history is but its husk. Every event hath an antecedent thought; and if we think of it, every thought lies embosomed in some central germ. "The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn; and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Britain, America lie folded already in the first man." have by virtue of our humanity, the secret spring of all revolutions. With a few unessential differences, we in America can become the Parisians of last February (1848)— the Exclusionists of 1680, or the Revolutionists of 1688. Thucydides did not fail, even in his day, to remark, that although political transactions varied from time to time in their external form and in the degree of the operation of principles; yet, that so long as human nature remained the same, the experience of one age would or should become the instruction of another. An example is for all time. The world is moved by exemplary mind. Not that history should become exclusively subjective. It should not be merged in biography. But there is a necessity for moral and metaphysical study in its pursuit. It must not be skimmed over to the fixation of principles. Human affairs can have but two types-the one is the circle, the other the trajectory; the one ending in itself, the other not returning into itself; the one a perpetual recurrence of the same series |