Like dew descending from the leaf
The dropping of Love’s tears.
The volume is most exquisitely printed and bound—one of the most beautiful books of the season.
The History of England, from the Accession of James II. By Thomas Babington Macaulay. New York: Harper & Brothers. Vols. 1 and 2. 8vo.
No person, of whig or tory politics, could in the present age, propose to himself the task of writing the history of England, without feeling the delicacy and responsibility of his undertaking, and the necessity of exercising a different class of powers from those which may have given sparkle and point to his partisan efforts. The importance of the principles involved in the events and characters coming under his view, and their wide applications to contemporary controversies, would be sure to bring down upon the unlucky advocate a storm of moral and immoral indignation. It would seem on the first blush that Macaulay, with all his vast and vivified erudition, was not a writer calculated to experience the full force of a historian’s duties, or to display in the analysis and judgment of events that intellectual conscientiousness which is a rare quality even in powerful minds. His historical essays bear as unmistakable marks of partisanship as ability, and are especially characterized by a merciless severity, which, in the name of justice, too often loses the insight us well as the toleration which come from charity. Sir James Macintosh, toward the commencement of his career, referred to him as “a writer of consummate ability, who has failed in little but in the respect due to the abilities and character of his opponents.” Though as a partisan, Macaulay was a partisan on the right side, on the side of liberty and truth, the unmeasured scorn he poured, hot from his heart, on tyrants and bigots, and the fierce, swift sweep of his generalizations, often made his cooler readers suspicious of his accuracy when most dazzled and delighted by his brilliancy. In the present history a great change is manifest. The petulance, the flippancy, the dogmatism of the essayist, are hardly observable, and in their place we have the solid judgment of the historian. There is a general lowering of the tone in which persons and principles are considered, consequent upon the change in the writer’s position from an antagonist to a judge. The style, while it has no lack of the force, richness, variety, directness and brilliancy, which characterized the diction of the essayist, has likewise a sweetness, gravity and composure which the essayist never displayed. Though the writer’s opinions are radically the same as ever, they are somewhat modified by being seen through a less extravagant expression, and by being restored to their proper relations. In fact, the history presents Macaulay as a wiser and more comprehensive man than his essays, and if we sometimes miss the generous warmth and intensity, and the daring sweep of his earlier compositions, we also miss their declamatory contemptuousness and mental bombast.
The volumes which the Harpers have given to us in so elegant a form, (vulgarized a little by Dr. Webster’s ortho-graphical crotchets,) close with the proceedings of the Convention which gave the crown to William and Mary. A long historical introduction, containing a view of English history previous to the reign of James II., and a view of England, in its manners, customs, literature and people at the time of his accession, occupy the larger portion of the first volume, and are almost unmatched, certainly unexcelled, in historical literature, for the combination of condensed richness of matter with popularity of style. Then follows the narrative of the three years of folly and madness which produced the revolution of 1688, and hurled James II. from his throne. This narrative is detailed with a minuteness which leaves nothing untold necessary to the complete apprehension of the subject in all its bearings, and it evinces on almost every page not only singular felicity in narration, but great power of original and striking observation. Masterly generalization, and sagacity in seizing and luminousness in unfolding the principles of events. The whole history has the interest of a grand dramatic poem, in which the movement of the story and delineation of the characters are managed with consummate skill. The portraits of Charles II., James II., Danby, Rochester, Sunderland, Godolphin, Halifax, Churchill, and especially William of Orange, are altogether superior to any which have previously appeared. Halifax and King William seem to be Macaulay’s favorites, and he has surprised many of his readers by his comparative coolness to Russell, Sydney, and the whig patriots generally.
The history closes with an eloquent passage on the “glorious” Revolution of 1688. It appears to us that the meanness and lowness which Macaulay has developed in the actors in the event, impress the reader with a different notion of it. The whole thing has a jobby air, in which no commanding genius is observable, and no sacrifices seem to have been made. Indeed Macaulay himself, in one of his essays, remarks truly that the only sacrifices made in the Revolution, “was the sacrifice which Churchill made of honor and Anne of natural affection.” That the Revolution, in its results, was one of the most glorious recorded in human annals, there can be little doubt, but it had its birth in such odious treachery, and was conducted by men so deficient in elevation of mind or even common honesty, that its story is little calculated to kindle sympathy, or awaken admiration.
The History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Paris. By Lord Mahon. Edited by Henry Reed, Professor of English Literature in the University of Pennsylvania. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 2 vols. 8vo.