3. His Prose Works. Before he left for India Macaulay had written twenty-two essays for The Edinburgh Review; he added three during his stay in India, and finished eleven others after he returned to England. With the five biographies that he contributed to The Encyclopedia Britannica, these include all his shorter prose works. The essays are of two kinds—those dealing with literary subjects, such as those on Milton, Byron, and Southey, and the historical studies, including the famous compositions on Warren Hastings and Lord Clive. His method of essay-writing was as follows: he brought under review a set of volumes that had already been published on the subject, then, after a survey, long or short as the case might be, of these volumes, gave his own views at great length. His opinions were often one-sided, and his great parade of knowledge was often flawed with actual error or distorted by his craving for antithesis and epigram; but the essays are clearly and ably written, and they disclose an eye for picturesque effect that in places is almost barbaric.
His History of England, the first volume of which was published in 1849, was unfinished at his death. After two long preliminary chapters, it began with the Whig revolution of 1688, and Macaulay intended to carry the story down to his own time. But he managed to compass within the three completed volumes only the events of a few years. His historical treatment is marked by the following features: (a) There are numerous and picturesque details, which retard his narrative while they add to the general interest. (b) The desire for brilliant effect resulted in a hard, self-confident manner, and in a lack of broader outlines and deeper views. These defects have deprived his History of much of its permanent value. (c) To this he added such a partiality for the Whig point of view that his statements, though they are always interesting and illuminating, are generally distrusted as statements of fact. To sum up, he said, “I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.” He had full reason to be satisfied; his book had an instant and enormous success, which, however, has been followed by distrust and neglect.
The extract given below gives some idea of his style. It is entirely direct and clear, and free from any shade of doubt and hesitancy. Observe the use of the short detached sentence, and the copious and expressive vocabulary:
Then was committed that great crime, memorable for its singular atrocity, memorable for the tremendous retribution by which it was followed. The English captives were left at the mercy of the guards, and the guards determined to secure them for the night in the prison of the garrison, a chamber known by the fearful name of the Black Hole. Even for a single European malefactor, that dungeon would, in such a climate, have been too close and narrow. The space was only twenty feet square. The air-holes were small and obstructed. It was the summer solstice, the season when the fierce heat of Bengal can scarcely be rendered tolerable to natives of England by lofty halls and by the constant waving of fans. The number of the prisoners was one hundred and forty-six. When they were ordered to enter the cell, they imagined that the soldiers were joking; and, being in high spirits on account of the promise of the Nabob to spare their lives, they laughed and jested at the absurdity of the notion. They soon discovered their mistake. They expostulated; they entreated; but in vain. The guards threatened to cut down all who hesitated. The captives were driven into the cell at the point of the sword, and the door was instantly shut and locked upon them.
Essay on Clive
JOHN RUSKIN (1819–1900)
1. His Life. Ruskin was born in London, of Scottish parentage, and was educated privately before he went to Oxford. During his boyhood he often traveled with his father, whose business activities involved journeys both in England and abroad. After leaving the university Ruskin, who did not need to earn a living, settled down to a literary career. He was not long in developing advanced notions on art, politics, economics, and other subjects. In art he was in particular devoted to the cause of the landscape-painter Turner, and in social and economic theories he was an advocate of an advanced form of socialism. To the present generation his ideas appear innocuous, or even inevitable, but by the public of his own day they were received with shocked dismay. At first the only notice he received was in the jeers of his adversaries; but gradually his fame spread as he freely expounded his opinions in lectures and pamphlets, as well as in his longer books. In 1869 he was appointed Slade Professor of Fine Arts at Oxford. Illness, however, which was aggravated by hard work and mental worries, led him to resign (1879) after a few years; and though shortly afterward (1883) he resumed the post, it had at last to be abandoned. He retired to Brantwood, on Coniston Water, in the Lake District, where he lived till his death, his later years being clouded by disease and despair.
2. His Works. Ruskin’s works are of immense volume and complexity. They were often issued in a haphazard fashion, and this makes it all the more difficult to follow the order of their publication. For a start he plunged into what turned out to be the longest of his books, Modern Painters, the first volume of which was issued in 1843 and the fifth and last in 1860. This work, beginning as a thesis in defense of the painting of Turner, develops Ruskin’s opinions on many other subjects. The first volume was not long in attracting notice, chiefly owing to its sumptuous style, which was of a kind unknown in English for centuries. The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849) is a shorter and more popular work, which once again expounds his views on artistic matters. The Stones of Venice (1851–53), in four volumes, is considered to be his masterpiece both in thought and style. It is less diffuse than Modern Painters; there is a little more plan in the immense array of discursive matter; and the luxuriance of the style is somewhat curtailed. His other writings are of a miscellaneous kind, and comprise The Two Paths (1859), a course of lectures; Unto this Last (1860), a series of articles on political economy which began to appear in The Cornhill Magazine, but were stopped owing to their hostile reception; Munera Pulveris (1862), also an unfinished series of articles on political economy, published in Fraser’s Magazine, and also withdrawn owing to their advanced views; The Crown of Wild Olive (1864), a series of addresses; Sesame and Lilies (1865), a course of three lectures, which is now the most popular of his shorter works; and Præterita, which first began to appear in 1855, and which is a kind of autobiography.
3. His Style. Ruskin himself often deplored the fact that people read him more for his style than for his creed. His views, which he argued with power and sincerity, must in time give way to others; many of them are now self-evident, so rapid sometimes is the progress of the human intellect; but his prose style, an art as delicate and beautiful as any of those he spent his life in supporting, will long remain a delectable study. For its like we must return to the prose of Milton and Clarendon, and refine and sweeten the manner of these early masters to reproduce the effect that Ruskin achieves. In its less ornate passages Ruskin’s diction is marked by a sweet and unforced simplicity; but his pages abound in purple passages, which are marked by sentences of immense length, carefully punctuated, by a gorgeous march of image and epithet, and by a sumptuous rhythm that sometimes grows into actual blank verse capable of scansion. In his later books Ruskin to a certain extent eschewed his grandiose manner, and wrote the language of the Bible, modernized and made supple; but to the very end he was always able to rise to the lyrical mood and fill a page with a strong and sonorous sentence.
The paragraph given below, it will be noticed, is one sentence. Observe the minute care given to the punctuation, the aptness of epithet, and the rhythm, which in several places is so regular that the matter can be scanned like poetry.