and that the writer shall show both that he is worthy of the great task he has undertaken, and that he has solid grounds for the hostile comments he makes.

These remarks apply especially to the second of the two works which stand at the head of this article. Mr. Cotter Morison is undoubtedly an able critic, and has probably persuaded himself that he has good grounds for his adverse comments, but what induced Mr. Canning to rush into print on the subject of Macaulay passes comprehension. The book is a sort of faint outline of the chief points of the Essays and History, and, we should think, must rather resemble the attempt of Miss Braddon to condense Sir Walter Scott, though we confess we have never perused that recent achievement in literary mutilation. If Mr. Canning had contented himself with giving a short sketch of the plan of the History and Essays, it would at least have been a harmless amusement, and would not necessarily have repelled any one from reading them; but the temptation to criticise is too much for him, and the value of his remarks in this line may be judged from one instance. It occurs to him as a sudden inspiration that Macaulay notices very shortly the fact of Cromwell's cruelties in Ireland, and narrates at length the persecutions of the Covenanters by Claverhouse in Scotland. This, he considers, shows partiality to Cromwell and injustice to James under whose authority Dundee was acting; and he is so proud of the discovery, that the remark is repeated almost word for word in three distinct places. As so much prominence is given to the observation, we almost think the revelation of this awful piece of partiality must have been the object of the book. If so, we can only regret that Mr. Canning before commencing his work did not read the title-page of Macaulay's History, when he would have seen it described as From the Accession of James II.,' and it would perhaps have then dawned upon him that the chapter in which Cromwell's cruelties in Ireland are mentioned is merely an introductory and rapid sketch meant to gradually launch the reader into the full tide of the narrative at the ac

* Pages 146, 239, and 270.

cession of James, and that, as the persecutions of the Covenanters by Claverhouse occurred after that date, they are naturally and properly given by the historian in full detail, and with all his vivid powers of picturesque description; whereas the treatment of the Irish by Cromwell, being not properly a part of the history is not much more than mentioned.

6

Mr. Cotter Morison's book is a much more ambitious effort of criticism, and is in many respects an able work; but it exhibits such a remarkable hostility against its subject, that one fails to see the object for which it was written. We had thought that the object of the English Men of Letters' series was to give a short sketch of the life, character, and work of standard authors; to review their writings in a friendly spirit, dwelling on their merits rather than their shortcomings; and so to diffuse a wider knowledge of their works, and prompt more readers to study them. for themselves. But if Men of Letters' are to be treated in the same fashion as Macaulay, the series is likely to do much more harm than good. Is it desirable to take a great author as widely read, enjoyed, and admired by all classes of readers as Macaulay, and to endeavour to prove to his devotees that their idol is made of sawdust, and that they are, like the admirers of Mr. Robert Montgomery in Macaulay's fable, mistaking an unclean beast' for a 'fine sheep?' This merit of being widely read, however, which we venture to think a very great one, Mr. Morison utterly despises. Nothing appears to irritate him so much as Macaulay's aspiration that his history should supersede for a few days the latest fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.' This, then, was Macaulay's Pole Star,' remarks Mr. Cotter Morrison, in sarcastic indignation, young ladies for readers, laying down the novel of the season to take up his History of England' (p. 162). The same lofty contempt for the pleasure and edification of the multitude. occurs (p. 126) in speaking of the Lays, where he maintains that Macaulay would have been better employed in writing 'a scholarlike essay on early Roman history.' But this,' continues Mr. Morison, would have been to write for a few score readers in the English and German universities: his biographer would not have been able to inform us of anything so impos

6

ing as this "Eighteen thousand of the Lays of Ancient Rome were sold in ten years, forty thousand in twenty years, and by June, 1875, upwards of a hundred thousand copies had passed into the hands of readers." In spite of Mr. Morison's contemptuous disdain, we submit that one of the chief objects of a book is to be read, and that it is considerably better to benefit and instruct a hundred thousand students than a few score. No one, in truth, would have been more impatient of such selfish pedantry as this, than the great Whig leader himself, and the fact that he is as popular as any of the greatest writers of fiction, and has succeeded to an extent unknown before in the difficult task of combining instruction with amusement,' seems to us one of his greatest claims to the favourable consideration even of scholars of universities.' It is probable that no other writer ever succeeded in attracting such a wide class of readers, extending from the man who never opens a novel to the man who never opens anything else; and, assuming that his books contain matter worth reading-which even Mr. Morison will hardly deny-this is no small merit.

Mr. Morison, however, thoroughly despises any such humanitarian considerations as the above, and even Macaulay's virtues seem to irritate him. Thus, we are told (p. 54) that—

'He almost wholly lacked the stronger passions. He walked in the honourable path he had chosen with a certainty as unerring as if Minerva had been present at his side. . . . He was never in love. Ambition never got possession of his mind. We cannot imagine him doing anything wrong or even indecorous: an elopement, a duel, an esclandre of any kind cannot be associated even in imagination with his name. He is not to be blamed, but very much envied, for such a constitution of mind. But this is not the stuff of which great writers who stir men's hearts are made. He makes us esteem him so much that we can do little more: he cannot provoke our love, pity, or passionate sympathy. There is no romance, pathos, or ideality in his life or his writings. We never leave him conscious that we have been raised into a higher tone of feeling, chastened and subdued into humility, courage, and sacrifice. He never makes us feel "what shadows we are and what shadows we pursue." How should he? His own view of life was essentially flat and prosaic. Not an aspiration for the future no noble unrest and discontent with the present; no sympathetic tenderness for the past.'

:

Now, this is a fair specimen of the sort of contemptuous criticism which Mr. Cotter Morison thinks proper to indulge in repeatedly throughout his book against that great English Man of Letters' whom he has been kind enough to undertake to describe to the English public. E'en his virtues leaned to vice's side' seems to be Mr. Morison's opinion. He is indignant because he cannot imagine the historian eloping, or fighting a duel, and because he never wandered from the honourable path he had chosen. This is not the stuff of which great writers are made,' forsooth! We were not aware that an elopement, or a duel, or dishonourable conduct was a necessary qualification for being a great writer. If they are, many a distinguished modern author, such as, say, Mr. Tennyson or Mr. Ruskin, must be a great delusion. But presumably this is because they have no noble unrest,' or because their views of life are essentially flat and prosaic.' Really, if Mr. Morison has no better fault to find with Macaulay than this, he should give up the attempt. We presume, however, that he means to refer as much to defects in his writings as in his character; and this accusation of shallowness of thought, of 'not raising us into a higher tone of feeling,' of not making us feel what shadows we are,' &c., &c., occurs again and again throughout the book, and seems to us to be as absurd as it is irrelevant. Macaulay, with the exception of one or two minor essays, invariably wrote history, and never pretended to do anything more. His conception of history was not a philosophical treatise upon all things human and divine, which Mr. Morison seems to think it should have been, but simply an accurate narrative and graphic picture of the deeds of former times. In putting this idea into execution, he has succeeded as well, if not better, than any human being ever did before, and to blame him for not having made us feel what shadows we are,' for not having'chastened and subdued us into humility and sacrifice,' for not being a writer whom we seek when our light is low,' &c., &c., is just about as absurd as it would be to disparage Professor Tyndall for not writing poetry, or Mr. Tennyson for throwing no new light upon natural science. Macaulay was a historian pure and simple, and never aspired

to write either philosophy or poetry (for the Lays do not pretend to be more than excellent ballads). "Out of his millions of readers there has scarcely come one genuine disciple,' says Mr. Morison (p. 58). We can hardly imagine any form of literature less capable of producing disciples' than history. The poet, the philosopher, even the novelist, may impart new thoughts which alter for ever the current of our mind; but a historian who filled his pages with attempts to make us feel what shadows we are,' or to 'chasten us into humility,' &c., &c., would be both an intolerable nuisance and a complete failure. Even the greatest names in history, such as, Gibbon, Tacitus, Thucydides, cannot in any sense be said to have left disciples, or to have formed a school of thought. The same objection comes farther on (p. 163). 'It is not easy to retain any definite impression of what the book has taught us.' It is sufficient to reply that the book does not profess to teach anything, but that it conveys an impression' of past events which for definiteness' and vividness has never been surpassed.

But the climax of Mr. Morison's abuse is reached (at p. 59) when he permits himself to use the following language regarding Lord Macaulay :-Eschewing high thought on the one hand, and deep feeling on the other, he marched down a middle road of resonant commonplace, quite certain that where

"Bang, whang, whang goes the drum,
And tootle-tee-tootle the fife,"

the densest crowd marching in time will follow the music." Destitute of high thought and deep feeling, resonant with common-place, and worst of all, deliberately adopting these faults for the time-serving purpose of cringing to the densest crowd,—such, according to Mr. Morison are Macaulay's leading characteristics. After this we need not be surprised to find that though blamed in a passage quoted above for being ap