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    Jan. 14, 1860.J The Leade-. ^nd Saturday...

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    reform:.—the claim of chelsea. WE do not...

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    Lord Macatjlay: The Authoe. T Ob.D Macau...

    nearly exhausted his merits . It is the boast of his admirers that he walked by the constitution . He stood by the practices ^ of our ancient monarchy , instead of consulting " natural rights . " He honoured old barbarism more than new civilization . Than other enlightened men , he served , whig government more and God lessf "He did not wa £ te his powers" on the barren subtleties of metaphysics . " He was therefore not a philosopher , not a profound thinker , riot a guide for the future , however clearly he might have known and described the past . He was in this respect far inferior to Bukke , who , if a worse apostate than Lord Ma . ca . ulay , was a great political improver , and has been , and is yet ia guide to statesmen .

    The early provision acquired by the noble lord , his connexion with the Whigs , which we have already said was a misfortune for him , injured his literary character . It could riot give him a taste for the drudgery of business ; it did not make him an administrator , — -it debased him into a party writer . It is quite true , as a contemporary reriiarks , that a unity characterizes the whole of his life and writings , but it is the unity of whig principles . He was too well informed to sink below whig professionsand he dare not soar above whig practice . At

    col-, lege , probably , he discarded what is ordinarily called faith ; and faith in constitutions or political parties is an unknown sentiment . Men may hope for reward from them—they can only have faith in nature or revelation . For an educated and literary man to disregard metaphysics , and turn aside from abstractions , to believe only in constitutions and administrations , is to fall into scepr ticism of the worst kind , andhave no hope but of political advancement or pecuniary greatness . Lord Macaulay had a wonderful intellect , but he had not faith even in that , and he had no

    enthusiasm . . We have little knowledge of Lord MacaulaY's pr ivate life . He was a rich bachelor * and the world does riot teem with stories of his generosity . He gave a few b 6 oks to a philosophical , society in Edinburgh , of which he had been chosen president . He is said to have rendered a great service to his friend Mr , Black . He did nothing that we ever heard of to promote , like Lord Brougham , self-education amongst the people . From first to . last he appears to-have been eminently self-seeking , and even took a peerage less as a means , of serving his country than as giving him dignity with ease . The Atheiiaum says , that "his kindness to men of letters was above price . His gifts of money in beneficence were on a scale far beyond that of his fortune . " There is the greater merit in this , * as neither the noble lord nor any other person has informed the public of his good deeds . We at least have never heard of them , and mention them with satisfaction on

    the authority of our contemporary . His eaiiy and his continued success obviously increased the arrogance which seems-to have been part of his nature . Instead of recognising in the loss of his seat for Edinburgh a just punishment for his tergiversation ; he regarded it as an insult , and was angry , not convicted and humbled . He was not even impressed with a sense of his own fallibility by an admission of error . He treated Mr . Mill , the historian of British India , with an " acrimony" of which he became so sensible that he refused to republish the essays in . which it was infused . He wrote so virulently against the editor of Mackintosh's History of the Revolution , that on republishing that essay he softened many passages , and some he wholly omitted . He applied to what he supposed to be literary offences " language which should be reserved for crimes . " This did not prevent

    the first . He was not a philosopher , nor an inventor , nor a great poet , in all of whom : the true essence of greatness is identical . They are all discoverers , and all make discoveries , some of mind arid , others of matter , by means of reflection . They receive approbation for making known something new and good . Every subject Lor ^ d MacatjLay wrote about was known before . He has not even the merit of Niebuhk ,, or other diligent pokers into antiquity , of turning up the evidence of a forgotten condition of mankind .. He has reproduced , repaired , and beautified the recently passed ; brought again before this generation images of their immediate predecessors , which implies , the absence of discovery . He originated nothing grand , nor good . : He has fixed his name on no memorable change . His improvements are confined to the instrument he used . He polished our language .

    Some of his novel readings of history are of doubtful truth . We acquit him of being actuated by anything worse _ than party motives when he dethroned two or three popular idols . He diligently consulted records , and believed what he said of , Maryborough andPENN . For a man who wrote so much on events and individ uals his errors are marvellously few . Even these , as it has been admitted by one of his impugners , it required a combination of talents to detect . He did not confess his . errors . What party writer or what politician ever did ? © id Lord

    Macaulay ever bring Mr . Ceokek , another party writer , to ^ a confession ? We are not disposed to exaggerate Lord Maca-ulay's errors ; but we know that on political subjects his party predilections continually led him astray . May we not say as much for Mr . Ceokeu ' s aberrations ? That we can ask such questions , and for one moment place Mr . Crokeii in the same category as Lord Macaulay , shows that his kind is not the foremost . He was a capital literary artist ; he was not . a first-rate man . If he might have been , he was not one of the heroic race .

    As he is now entombed in : Westminster Abbey , why should not Mr . Croker have had alike honour ? Why should it not be decerned in due time , though we hope not for a long- time , to Mr . Dickens and Mr . Thackeray , and Mr . Carlyle ? That they have held up official humbug , and kingly knavery to just execration ; thought a heavy disqualification in the eyes of whigs nnd tories , will be a recommewkition in the eyes of the advancing democracy . Where Caxnixg lies—the heartless tory jester ,.

    who through his life mocked at degradation and suftemigs caused by tory misrule— Lord Macaulay may , indeed , deservo a niche of honour . It has been remarked ( not quite correctly ) that no conservative was present at his funeral . But it may , be asked , would any whig have done a like honour to Mr . Croker ? At the end of their lives the two men stood nearly on the same political platform , and the right-minded public will probably think the unscrupulous consistent tory ism of the one quite as honourable as the apostasy of the other .

    • That Lord Macaulay was raised to the peerage . merely for literary labour is less a proof of great merit , thaii of the progress of the democracy to whose pleasure he ministered . But if Westminster Abbey be opened to all who hereafter gain applause by exquisite writing , the qualification is becoming , now that all can write , so widely spread , that the area of the Abbey must be greatly enlarged . Otherwise it may fall under the notice of the ltight Hon . Secretary for the Home Department , and ,-like any overcrowded churchyard in the heart of the metropolis , be shut up by his authority as a lmipnnce . ,

    him , however , from attacking very furiously in the preface to his speeches in 185-1 the editors and reporters of them , who had ( the misfortune , to . commit errors quite venial compared to his acrimonious abuse of two distinguished authors . " He seems to suffer , " was said of him at that period , « the arrogance of success , and to be enamoured of the instrument that has produced it . He hns a prodigious admiration of words , and a vivid detestation of small errors . He speaks jocularly of a man ' being allowed s \ fair time to choke before the hangman began to grabble in his entrails ; ' and he sets no bound to his indignation against a printer who had misprinted Bennet for Burnett , and against the editor who defaced the fragment by Mackintosh . What remains of his rejnwks show an irritation far beyond reason ; l > . ut originally they must have been terrific . They were so violent that ho was himself ashamed of them , and cancelled them .

    Deeply in lovo with mere style , Mr . Macaulat sometimes ¦ sacrifices , as in this case , truth and generosity tota vindictive and arrogant vanity . " In two instances , at ; least , his arrogance got ihe bettor of liis judgment , and , had ho lived a few years longer , ihe might have boon as much ashamed of the acrimonious , prclaeo to his speeohes- —a proof of excessive vanity , wounded by a trifle —as ho was of his attack on Mr . Mill and the editor of Mackintosh . Ho was undoubtedly first of his kind , but his kind is not

    Jan. 14, 1860.J The Leade-. ^Nd Saturday...

    Jan . 14 , 1860 . J The Leade-. ^ nd Saturday Analyst . 37

    Reform:.—The Claim Of Chelsea. We Do Not...

    reform :. —the claim of chelsea . WE do not think the question of the Borough Franchise will be , after all , that on which parties will probably come to issue before Easter . Mr . Benson , instructed by the Onvlton , we presume , told the people of Heading the other day , thnfc the Tories were prepared to bid an £ 8 occupation suffrage in towns , which would be equivalent to the rating recommended by Mr . " W AL-, polk and Mr . JL jg >' m ; y last year . The Whigs , on the other hand , arc committed to a JBG occupation franchise ; and to'this they will be hold , as a matter of good faith , by the ltwljcmla who

    helped to hurry them into power , and whoso defection ( not to name hostility ) would leave them to the mercy of their hereditary rivals . Sooner thim accept the responsibility , fatal -to . them , of attempting again to deal with the Reform quostion , the followers of Lord Dbuwy would yield at the eleventh hour on the-point > . referred to ; or they would ondonvour to get tho House of Lords to propound some schenio of compromise whereby the matter would bo settled . As for the £ U ) county suffrage , there i * about that no long ™ « ny dispute j and the ballot , by genonil consentis to bo sull ' orcd to stiund over till n < pioro convenient tf ¦

    , ^ * w v »^ * r ^ ~ — j — ~ r •^ onson * * * There remains , however , tho serious question of the ro-clistribution of seats . TJio anomalies that were pen-milted to survive

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 14, 1860, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14011860/page/9/