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tiality than he would otherwise have done. He was, as it were, put upon his honour to show that he could be fair, and he knew perfectly well to what suspicion as a historian his public life would expose him. Even Mr. Morison admits his justice to the opposite party, and accuses him of no political partiality; but he takes care to make up for this concession by saying that his anxiety to make history like a novel caused him to paint his characters in exaggerated colours. No wellconstructed play or novel,' he remarks, in his usual vein of patronising superiority, can dispense with a villain whose vices throw up in brighter relief the virtues of the hero and heroine,'* and therefore he considers that, though Macaulay did not misrepresent the characters of his period from political prejudice, he exaggerated their virtues or their vices from his desire to make a good story. The latter would certainly be a more despicable and paltry proceeding than the former; but even his own opinion of what constitutes a good novel would have kept him from such a fault. It is only in bad novels,' he remarks in one of his essays, ' that men are either demons or angels.'

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It would not be very difficult to show that he deals out blame on the whole very evenly amongst the different characters and parties who rise up before him in his history. Take, for instance, his remarks upon the Scottish Covenanters. Dundee is one of those characters whom Mr. Morison no doubt considers he has turned into a villain of too deep a dye for the purposes of his novel,' yet the following admirable little picture is as true as it is graphic. It occurs in the 13th chapter:

'The Covenanters of the West were assuredly not wanting in courage, and they hated Dundee with deadly hatred. In their part of the country the memory of his cruelty was still fresh. Every village had its own tale of blood. The grey-headed father was missed in one dwelling, the hopeful stripling in another. It was remembered but too well how the dragoons had stalked into the peasant's cottage, damning him, themselves, and each other at every second word, pushing from the ingle-nook his grandmother of eighty, and thrusting their hands into the bosom of his daughter of sixteen; how the abjuration had been tendered to him; how he had folded

* Page 159.

his arms and said, “God's will be done ;” how the colonel had called for a file with loaded muskets; and how in three minutes the goodman of the house had been lying in a pool of blood at his own door. The seat of the martyr was still vacant at his fireside; and every child could point out his grave still green amidst the heath.'

Now, that events of this nature were of no uncommon occurrence is a simple fact, and it is probably only because the historian has told the story in his own exquisite language that the novel' theory is invented to disparage it. It is contrary to all precedent that dry facts should be made so attractive. and so vivid, and the scholastic pedant is so taken aback that he cannot get over the suspicion that there must be something

wrong.

On the other hand, Macaulay does not hesitate to point out with equal vigour the fanatical folly of the more extreme and bigoted Covenanters, who regarded religious toleration as a Laodicean snare of the devil, who would have retaliated by treating Episcopacy with even greater severity, who desired 'no halting between Jehovah and Baal,' and who would have cut off every unbeliever even as Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord.

If indeed James the Second is to be considered as representing the Tory party, and William of Orange the Whig, Lord Macaulay cannot be said to distribute praise or blame at all equally between them; but such a supposition would be unjust to the Tory party, many of whom were as anxious as the Whigs to see William seated on the throne. That Macaulay somewhat overrated his hero, and ascribed some virtues to him which he hardly possessed, may be admitted; but the truth is, without going into historical authorities at all, the mere facts of the case speak volumes for the ability, genius, and diplomacy of William. That he should have been able to land in England with no support but that of a small foreign army; that he should have succeeded in making his way to the capital without striking a blow, except a trifling skirmish; that he should have been requested by all the leading men of the day to assume the government; that he should then have been asked by a free Parliament, of its own free will, to accept the crown,

and that he should have been able to keep it in safety till the day of his death; that, on the other hand, James, the monarch in that possession, which is nine parts of the law, should have been constrained to fly without venturing a blow in his own defence; that even in Ireland, supported by French assistance and by all the Irish Catholics, be should have been as unable to hold his own against his great adversary in the field of battle as in the field of diplomacy; and that, though strenuously supported by the most powerful of French kings, he should have failed ever to catch William off his guard, and effect a landing in England-these facts surely are the clearest proofs of the stupidity and tyranny of James, and of the wisdom and magnanimity of William. Indeed, it seems almost impossible to go too far in delineating the folly and cruelty of James, when we consider what the course of events had been. At the Restoration, one would have thought the throne of the Stuarts was securely established for ever. The country was disgusted with the excesses of the Cromwellites, and found that it had only exchanged the tyranny of Charles I. to come under the despotism of the Rump' and the iron rule of the Protector. Then came the Restoration, and the whole country was in a paroxysm of loyalty. Charles II. was restored to the throne of his fathers with the most effusive demonstrations of joy, and probably with the sincere approbation of an enormous majority of his subjects. Yet James only succeeded in keeping his throne for three short years. What must not have been the misgovernment which produced such a mighty revulsion of feeling?

William, on the other hand, had everything except his own. abilities against him. He was essentially a foreigner, and his heart was in Holland, rather than in England; his manners were dry and ungracious, and he took little pains to conceal his dislike to the land of his adoption; while he had a habit of cynically ignoring the faults of traitors, which was no doubt politic, but which alienated and offended some of his best supporters. One blot indeed there is-and a serious one-on the reputation for justice and humanity acquired by William in his government of this country, and that is the Massacre of Glencoe. It

is true it is the only one we have to put against the innumerable cruelties of James; against the torturing, shooting, drowning of Scottish Covenanters; against the countless hangings, burnings, and transportations of Jeffreys in his bloody circuit; against such a hideous perversion of justice as sentencing a man to flogging once a fortnight for seven years; against the burning of Elizabeth Gaunt and the execution of Alice Lisle for sheltering a hunted rebel; against the wanton persecution of the seven Bishops, and the ejectment of the Fellows of Magdalen College for refusing to elect a Papist. Yet the Massacre of Glencoe, though a solitary instance, is a sufficiently grave

one.

How does Macaulay deal with it? He proves that an order was undoubtedly signed by William for the pacification of the Highlands, in which it was stated with reference to the Macdonalds of Glencoe that it would be expedient to extirpate that set of thieves.' He points out that William probably did not read it, and that even if he did, the order certainly did not imply such an outrage on humanity as the Master of Stair construed it to mean. On him the responsibility rested, and to him William should have meted out condign punishment. The following extract from Macaulay will show that he does not spare his favourite in the matter:—

'Nor is it possible to acquit the King of a great breach of duty. To visit the guilt of the Master of Stair with exemplary punishment was the sacred duty of a sovereign who had sworn, with his hand lifted up to heaven, that he would "in his kingdom of Scotland repress in all estates and degrees all oppression, and would do justice without acceptance of persons, as he hoped for mercy from the Father of all Mercies." William contented himself with dismissing the Master from office. For this fault-a fault amounting to a crime-Burnet tries to frame a defence, but it must ever remain a blemish on the fame of William.'

Such is the emphatic condemnation awarded by Macaulay to his hero. Indeed, it may be doubted if he is not too severe. Great allowance must be made for the difficulties of a ruler at a time when public virtue was at the lowest point, when nearly all the statesmen who surrounded and apparently supported William, took care to make themselves safe in any event, by carrying on a treacherous correspondence with St. Germains, and when it was almost impossible to find upright men of suf

ficient capability to undertake the guidance of public affairs. It was probably the knowledge that in the government of Scotland Stair had been of the utmost service to him, by his advice and counsel, that induced William to refuse to do more than dismiss him from office.

*

The truth is, the excellence of Macaulay's history has been the cause of its meeting with an amount of criticism not bestowed upon a less illustrious production. The same fierce light which beats upon a throne' strikes also upon the highest works of literary art. Many a volume not a hundredth part as admirable has excited much less hostile comment, for it has rapidly sunk into a suitable obscurity. Take even standard histories of such high merit as Mr. Hallam's or Dr. Hill Burton's. No one, to be sure, has accused them of partiality, but how many people have read them? Mr. Morison, of course, considers this a matter of no moment; but, in these days of universal education and untiring philanthropy, few people will agree with him. For one reader of either Hallam or Burton, a hundred will be found who know Macaulay. Carlyle and Froude probably rank next to Macaulay in popularity, but neither of them is gifted with much impartiality. Both are largely endowed with what Mr. Carlyle openly defends as hero-worship, and the result is that under his treatment a cruel tyrant like Frederick becomes an admirable sovereign, while under Mr. Froude we are almost brought to regard Henry the Eighth as a model husband, who had the misfortune to have six wives. Yet even so, it is surely better to have histories which are read, and which will attract readers so long as the English language lasts, rather than to have strictly impartial productions which are as a sealed book to the majority of mankind, and as little cared for as the dusty manuscripts from which their information is derived. If a slight element of exaggeration is unavoidable in painting a graphic picture and in expressing dry facts in vivid narrative, let us rather put up with this disadvantage for the sake of the lasting effect of the picture produced. It is

* We of course refer here only to the historical writings of Mr. Carlyle.

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