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Macaulay.

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley Tèmpley, Leicestershire, on the 25th October, 1800. his grandfather was the Rev. John Macaulay, a Prebiterian minister in the West of Scotland, and he was the son of Zachary Macaulay, a Wet India merchant who, having made a moderate fortune in his business, has retired in 1799 to Clapham, then separated from London by position, and therefore by life and by interests.

A youth of enormous reading and of acquirements almost abnormal, he passed, in his nineteenth year, from the hands of an Evangelical clergyman at Shelford, with whom he had stayed seven years, into Trinity College Cambridge; and of this college he was made a fellow in 1824. Brilliant as a debater, still mere as a scholar and as a poet, he won a Latin scholarship twice, and twice gained the Chancellor’s medal. And here it is worthy of notice that in the bent of his mind at Cambridge this young man already differs from that author placed beside him in the history of nineteenth century literature. Macaulay felt little attracted by the mathematical studies then so extensive at Cambridge; on the other hand, it was in these very studies that Thomas Carlyle excelled. And yet this is but of passing interest. Nothing, in truth, can be less mathematic and less precise than Carlyle’s manner of writing. We feel an immense commotion in reading him, in his electrical attraction for us, and in his majestic sky-disturbance: we now are astonished by a period of breathless calm, and now are dazzled and bewildered by a lurid outburst of chaotic force; we either linger in expectancy or, though expectant, are surprised by the sudden horrors of a spasmodic day – a day enlightening, but with a gleam too short for our sight, the labyrinths and the caverns of indefinable mortality; we transgress, in hearing, our senses and for ever are held enraptured and attentive by that expressive swaying of a terrific thunder march.

But enthusiasm for an author – and that author too not the one I speak of – cannot in any way atone for a digression. I return therefore to Macaulay. He began to devote himself seriously to literature in 1822, when he took the degree of B.A.; that of M.A. he gained in 1825. He had contributed to “knight’s Quaterly Magazine” essays, reviews, and some sof his best known ballads, the “Armada”, “Ivry” and “Moncontour” among them; but the real appearance of Macaulay before the critic and the public was made in the year he became M.A. by his famous essay on Milton, published in the month of August in the “Edinburgh Review”. In this essay we see already Macaulay’s virtues and faults. We note his initial grasp upon the subject and his subsequent lack of depth and of breadth and even of a certain constraint. And yet the insight of it and the discrimination are everywhere evident, as are its enthusiasm and its modest glow, as indeed are the studied abruptness of the style and the occasional felicity of the paragraph.

In 1826 Macaulay was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, but, as it appears, never practised. Not much need be said of his political life. Sufficient is it to note that he believed sincerely in Whiggism and that he was most skilful in presenting the ground for his belief. In 1830 Macaulay entered Parliament for the pocketborough of Calne, and, taking an honourable part in the Reform debates, was returned to Leeds in 1832. To be able to help his family, now in straitened circumstances, he went out to India as legal adviser to the Supreme Council, and his chief labour in that country when drawn up, showed so much consideration and humanity for the natives, that its author gained the hatred of the Anglo-Indians. Macaulay returned in 1838, and represented Edinburgh in the Commons, with five year’s interval, till 1856.

In 1842, while holding the office of War Secretary, Macaulay most appropriately produced the “Lays of Ancient Rome”. In 1843 the “Essays” appeared, in three volumes, and, two years after, our author ceased writing for the “Edinburgh Review”; he was working hard at his “History”. The first two volumes of this famous work appeared in 1848 and their success was enormous. In the next year Macaulay was made Lord Rector of Glasgow University and received the freedom of that city. The third and fourth volumes of the “History” saw the light in 1855 and were greeted by no less enthusiasm than their precursors had been. In 1857 Macaulay was distinguished by the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, as well as by many other institutions, and in the same year was raised to the peerage as Baron Macaulay of Rothley. But his work has been too strenuous, his health failed him and on the 28th of December, 1859, he died suddenly at his London residence, being afterwards buried in Westminster Abbey.

The fifth and fragmentary volume of his “History” was published in 1861, and in 1876 a biography of him by his nephew gave us the most interesting particulars about his life and his character.

The character of Macaulay was indeed such as might well endear him to posterity. He never married, whence in part that lack of ethics for which he has ever been censured. But we see that he was the best and the tenderest of sons, of brothers and uncles, while of his generous feelings for humanity we have evidence in the penal code he drew up, referred to above as having brought upon him the enmity of the Anglo-Indians.

The works of Macaulay are now to be considered, and the consideration of them must be hurried. Looking first over his essays, we find there are varied in merit: that on Walpole is unjust through lack of insight, and the one on Johnson marred by the faulty appreciation of Boswell. But the essay on Temple is magnificent, that on Pitt inferior to the “Life” afterwards written, while that on Hallam’s “Constitutional History” is held, almost unanimously, to be the best of them all. The essays on Clive and on Hastings are among the best, that on Clive being without doubt a masterpiece. But even in this the back-ground of general historical facts is weak, the character of Dupleix misinterpreted. Some historical facts, moreover, are distorted. But as an example of Macaulay’s talent and style there are few essays better than this.

In his conception of history Macaulay agrees with Carlyle. Both Macaulay and Carlyle held that history should by no means be a mere record of battle-field and of court intrigue, of the rivalry of states or of pure internal dissension, in fine, of these outward events, which, through being outward, are obtrusive. They sought the sources of these events in the unseen currents of national sentiment, of conditions then existing, in the state of the masses at that time. But Carlyle differs from Macaulay in that, while Macaulay gives us a picture and leaves us to gather from it what we may. Macaulay did not wish to study the history of a time in parchment: to him it was rather to be studied in silk and in velvet: that is to say, instead of relying or troubling to consult, historical documents, he found his information in the character, in the manners, and in the popular opinion of a time.

Beyond that occasional want of accuracy that makes a contrast between Macaulay (and between Carlyle) and the scholarly Gibbon, Macaulay has several faults, most prominent his lack of generalization and of grasp upon periods of moment, and his unwillingness, when he has an effect, to trace it back to its cause. But for this unwillingness to trace political phases of thought or institutions to their source he tries to atone by glowing and vivid description; he ought nevertheless to have remembered that lack of solidity and of truth can never be compensated by mere glitter or by a superabundance of imaginative adornment.

Macaulay, we must remember, is placed beside Carlyle in the prose literature if the Victorian age. Inferior to Carlyle in general scope of genius, and remarkably so in depth, he never rises to the real sublime in his rethorical periods. His acuteness of thought was great, as was his independence of moral conviction and he had a great power of original and lucid expression. He is to be regarded as a tense and logical writer, abounding in originality of thought and of views, with occasional proofs of sagaciousness. But if, besides this, we look upon him as profound and comprehensive in thought and but rarely falling into error we shall be utterly mistaken.

Macaulay is not only free from bias but even lacks modesty in his thinking. He proved his thesis not by iteration but by argument. And his cleverness of argument gives rise to some misunderstanding. For in reading him (and not him alone) the closeness of his logic, its clearness and power of being vividly understood make us suppose we agree with him, when very possibly we would not.

Macaulay was a greater scholar then Carlyle, and one hardly less strenuous. He strove, above all, to attain perfect clearness and simplicity in his style, and preserve, at the same time, its elegance. In this attempt, tremendous as it is, his success is marvellous, though he is often betrayed into tautology by wish for perfect lucidity. Philosophy he has none, save what Bacon and Locke has lent him, and his lack of ethics had been the subject of many an attack. But he is, let us remember, more humane than his coeval historian, and when Carlyle is abusive and vehement, Macaulay is distinguished by his caustic satire. But we cannot help feeling, in the end, that is that lack of ethics and of depth that make Macaulay a historian not so great as Carlyle, though their methods are almost similar.
We have yet to refer to Macaulay’s ballads. Of these Mrs. Browning wrote to Richard Hengist Horne that he was right in admiring Macaulay and that one could not read him and keep lying down. Many critics seem to think that not only is it possible to read them lying down, but also that is is possible to go to sleep in reading them. This is perhaps too harsh. And yet it is true that the mental eye of the critic can contemplate no other work of Macaulay with less enthusiasm or with less admiration. Macaulay, in writing poetry, was somewhat like Pope, and there are reasons, obvious or not, why he should be like Pope, or even like Gray. The strength and vigour of Macaulay’s stanzas are undeniable, as is his command over certain metres, but his imperfection of ear is woefully transparent. Macaulay, indeed, saw little more than Dr. Johnson into the real spirit of poetry; he never came to understand it: his criticism show it, and his poetry shows it in a greater degree. Otherwise the ballads are pleasing, we know they are popular; and yet let us never forget that, however great Macaulay’s perception of poetic style may have been, he never understood the true poetic spirit, he knew the mind, but not the soul, of the Muse.

It was this very same lack of the perception of harmony that led Macaulay to break up his style into short sentences, which he thought would be more impressive. So at first they are. But as we read more and more, and as we get nearer and nearer to the heart of him, the abruptness and snap of his sentences becomes painfully evident. Their rattle may be compared, and this, I hope, not inaptly, to the discharge of musketry which, when we are distant, does not seem to us very harsh or even unpleasing, but on our approaching nearer and nearer to the scene of action the rattle of the volleys becomes more and more unpleasant and abrupt, while on having arrived at the very spot of engagement we find it difficult to believe that this once could sound startling. But if Macaulay sentences are snappish and often disagreeable, we cannot make the same remark of all his paragraphs; nay, these are often sounding and impressive, for Macaulay as a much greater artist of paragraph than he was of sentence and of word.

We have one more word to say about Macaulay. There is one thing in him, or, rather, in the style of him, that might lead the cynic to doubt to whether he were worthy of being called a genius, or merely a man of enormous talents. Macaulay seems to have been sane. We have not, in truth, any evidence to the contrary: for evidence in favour we need but glance at the style. This we find to consist of short sentences, approximately of equal length, each of them equally impressive, and each contributing an equal amount to the total emphasis of the paragraph. Each paragraph in turn offers equal aid towards the total impressiveness of the whole. And it is interesting to note that the whole, the subdivisions, the paragraph and the sentence are each by themselves impressive and emphatic. “But”, the reader will ask, “is not this uniformity of strength and unvaried emphasis of phrase a device both tedious and unpleasant?” As a means of attaining harmony (if such were ever its designs) it is deserving of scorn; as an impressive device it is masterly. Let us but consider it, and in considering we shall find that Macaulay’s closeness of style, the clearness and the development of his logic and his impressive grip on our reason would never have been, had the dress of his thoughts been other. For by the steady sentences of his even style, each of them firm and emphatic, he succeeds in impressing upon our mind, little as we may feel it, every successive link of his logical chain: sometimes he illustrates , in nearly all cases most aptly: forcible and impressive he never allows us to lose sight of his argument. Macaulay knew quite well the effect he wished to produce, and knew aw well to avoid: therefore is it that he gives us no emotional undulations of style, which would affect the clearness and the logic, no climax to sink out the sight the logical links around, no bathos to make them prominent.

There is no more to be said of Macaulay – no more at least in this short paper. And if in the criticism above I have made Macaulay’s faults too clear, and said too little of his virtues, I ask the reader only to take up for a short time the works of this great man, when his virtues will all become evident.

F. A. Pessôa

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