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    12 £ 2 THE ' LEADER . [ No 301 , Saturda y

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    Their ulace is not supplied by the story of the siege of Londonderry , or the battle ^ f Killiecrankie , admirable as these are . The fault does not lie at the author ' s door . He has taken enormous pains , and lavished all the resources of his peculiar talent , but his subject is less attractive . William is the central figure of the whole . Macaulay has a passionate admiration for the Deliverer , unlike anything he has yet shown for any character in history , and almost as powerful as his intimate enmity towards James . If James had ordered his ears to be cropped for writing seditious Edinburgh Review articles , Macaulay could not have pilloried him with more savage triumph . This gives a certain " animation" to his work , but grave readers will note with some regret that a work which is certain to be , and deserves to be , so popular , should be animated by such intense partisanship . Not that Macaulay can justly be taxed with wanting impartiality in his narrative of events . He is as impartial as historians usually are , perhaps somewhat more so . Certain political leanings must be granted to him ; yet he is not blind to the errors of bis own party , nor to the characters of that party ' s chiefs . But both the men he admires and the men he hates are represented in colours no cautious reader will accept . In fact , one can scarcely name a portrait in the whole gallery which has much appearance of being like . The most ignorant reader can decide thus far . We do not require to see the originals of those " portraits of gentlemen" hung up every year on the walls of the Academy to- decide upon their resemblance : we know they are not likenesses , for we see that they are not men . Macaulay paints with epithets and antitheses ; Tie seems to care much more for the effect of his sentence then for the fidelity of his expressions ; and after a page of epithets and generalities , a hazy bewilderment steals over the reader ' s tnindj which he in vain tries to condense into something like the image of a character . If we open Carlyle ' s " French Revolution , " or his " Cromwell , " after reading a volume of Macaulay , it is like opening a volume of a poet after reading some very clever verses by one who has all the qualities except " the vision and the faculty divine . " Of genius , indeed , Macaulay has none . His talents are great—indisputable ; we should be sorry if any word of ours seemed to imply a want of respectful recognition of powers which are assuredly rare in such a combination as he presents ; but it would be an abnse of terms to apply the word genius to anything he has done . The measure of his powers may be seen in his style . It is assui-edly a remarkable style : clear , graceful , at times brilliant , but always mannered , and never rising to that climax of perfection which distinguishes great writers . He is often very picturesque , often very happy in the epigrammatic turn which makes a sentence memorable ; but there are none of those surprised secrets of language which are never refused to the happy ardour of genius , none of those supreme graces and startling felicities of expression with which every genius enriches the thought and language of his country . His style is like Wedgewood ' s crockery ; good , serviceable , cheap , fit for common use , better than what is elsewhere brought into the market ; but the excellences of Sevres and Dresden are never met with in it . He never thinks otherwise than as thousands have thought before him ; he never expresses himself in language not used by thousands before him .. This is a merit , and a defect . It shows that he has no individuality ; or , if individuality be assigned to his peculiar manner , it is an individual ! ty ^ which has no depth . While touching , thus briefly , on his style , we ought not to overlook a certain negligence in these volumes which we do not remember to have noticed before . He is fond of praising " the diction" of men in whom diction must surely be a quite minor merit . And indeed it is evident throughout that he is a purist in language , which in a man of letters cannot be considered a fault . But we observe him dropping into the penny-a-liner style oftener than could be expected from so elaborate a writer . He is fond of such phrases as " the city holds no mean place , " or " the nation rose as one man ; " nor is he . de- , terred from using such a word as " hypothecate ; " nay , he even conde- scends to the barbarism " it should seem" for " it seems , " a phrase in frequent use , indeed , like its fellow " it would appear , " but which is only excusable in the hurry of newspaper writing . The phrase " it seems " expresses conditionality , and when " should " is added to " seem" the conditionality is rendered conditional ; it is like talking of wet water ( which the Greeks , by the way , did without remorse ) . These are " trifles light as air , " and scarcely worth mentioning , did not j Macaulay ' s reputation as a stylist give them importance . We shall make no extracts from a work which will assuredly be in the t hands of all our readers ere long , nor need we pause to point out its manifold ( excellencies , since no one will be blind to them . In concluding these brief , remarks , however , which have been almost exclusively directed against < defects , we wish to convey as emphatically as possible our sense of its value . < Its slightest recommendation is that it will be read like a novel . The per- i manent good it- will effect is one which rises superior to all minor merits or > defects , and which all liberal minds will recognise as important , namely the < striking lesson throughout inculcated of the immense advantage the nation * hao derived from being stedfast to law and justice even in its most perilous j hours ; and the ^ demonstration which runs through every chapter of the steady progress which has been made in every departmeut , political and moral . } tie lie es te ty Is is re r e d > . is » s ; > f e n > f t y e a a !• f f " ~ a s s 1 r 5 2 s f I ' ' ' ^ i - [ v \ ' I ! • i ' ¦ . > ' '

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    ESSAYS FOE THE AGE . Ea&ayafor the Age . By Charles F . Howard ,. author of "Perseus and his Philosophies , " " Olympus , " &c . J . K . Chapman and Co . Wb have not seen the former works of this writer , and confess that we sat down to read the present with a strong prepossession against it—a prepossession derived from the fact that he has printed at the end of his volume a list of " opinions of the press , " all of a very dithyrambie tone * whjph announce to the world that the author is a phoenix . Publishers may , in the way of business , quote flattering testimonies of the wares they want to sell ; but when an author does bo , we almost invariabl y find hint to be one whom " the papers" pronounce a marvel , and the public a noodle . Such terrible discrepancy exists between " opinions of the press" and the opinions of readers ! In spite of our prepossession , however , the' " Essays for the Age" carried us . from Prologue to . Epilogue ; and if we did not discover in them qualities /

    ! ! j which could make us dithyrambie , we at any rate discovered an amount of caustic independence , and vivacious originality , which stamped these Essays as the production of what detestable writers call " a mind of no mean order . " They are paradoxical , outspoken , terse , and often felicitous ; a little slapdash , and a little crude now and then—essays and essayings . The subjects are various enough : Public Opinion—Routine—Samaritanisra—the Moral of a Book—Property—Religion—Authorship- ^ Solomon ' s Satires—Wordsworth ' s Philosophy—the Royal Roads—the Purpose of Life—Right and Wrong . None of them are without suggestive matter , none of them filled with the idle twaddle commonly supposed to be inseparable from the dignity of the Essay , Without bearing comparison with the Essays of Helps or Emerson , some of their best pages remind us of both . Mr . Howard hates cant , and says so . He does not admire Wordsworth , and says so . He is little awed by Respectability , and says so . He has but a mitigated respect for Holy Church , and says so . He thinks the Duke of Wellington a common-place man , and says so . He believes there are royal roads to learning , to virtue , to fortune—and says so . Now a man who will say what he thinks , or will utter even paradoxes which he only half thinks , is worth reading , for he provokes thought , even when he exasperates his reader . The tone of Mr . Howard's " Essays" may be heard in the following extracts : —Here is one on THE TYRANNY OF BOARDS . It is probable that nine out often men would be in favour of what is politely called a Free Constitution , or in other words , a democracy in disguise . Under certain conditions , and among certain people , this may be as good a form as any other . But it is the most intolerant of all . Its head and fountain is Public Opinion , and its means are Parliaments , Commissions , Congresses , and Boards . Probably more cruelty , injustice , and tyranny have been perpetrated ynder democracies , than under the sceptres of all the monarehs who have ever reigned . A body of men called a Board ( can Mr . Trench tell us tlie origin of that horrid word ?) , aid and abet each other in decisions of iniquity , which any one man separately would shrink from . A Board is always void of responsibility—it is a phantom , and has no personality . Its Creator is P u blic Opinion—another phantorn . Is it the voice of the masses , or of the gentry , or of the shopkeepers , or of all and each compounded ? Is it the best insight , which , when men have once discovered , they instantly rejoice in advocating ? Whence does it spring , and of what is it composed ? Is it always right ? Is it ever right ? Is it ever wrong , and when ? If wrong , how is it to be convinced of its wrong , and who is to convince it ? Surely -we should know somewhat of this power so vast , irresponsible , uncontrollable . The following is excellent : — It is , in fact , nothing more than a repetition . Repetition benumbs . The same law is apparent in the physical world : if you rub the skin with any hard substance , it grows irritated , but rub it again and again , and Nature provides a callosity strong enougb to resist it , or rather too dead to perceive it . And so it is with nuind : some man tells you a monstrous lie , which you at once laugh at , but he tells it to yoti again day after day with a grave face : you see it in the corner of every newspaper you take up , it stares you in the face as you walk along the street , and you find that many people have faith in it . Now this simple repetition has had a considerable influence on your mind also : the novelty which . at first provoked your merriment is all over , the outrage upon truth which called forth your censure is gone likewise , and there now arises a natural kind of aptitude between that fact and yourself : you grow weary of railing , and become reconciled to the imposition , however gross . It is thus with particular facts , and it is thus also with the general course of life . At eighteen all was novelty and delight but as the years roll on we find both those feelings become changed and deadened the joy , the rapture , the fresh-blown hope , the confidence of boyhood , the newness of young blood , the fancy , and the poetry of life , all are gone— "the beautiful is vanished , and returns not , " you say with Walleustein . And the dusky and sorrow-laden hours pass away in much the same manner . In either case manhood is tamed down , or brought up to a uniformly stupid and blunted mediocrity , wherein is no newness of joy , and no newness of sorrow . We grow accustomed , and therefore we grow benumbed . We begin to look upon men and events , upon women and opinions , upon principle and expediency , as things upon which we have troubled ourselves for many years very uselessly . Here these facts are . wo say , and here we suppose it is natural for them to exist . What ia that to us—see ye to that , and , like jesting Pilate , we live and grow fat , making a more respectable figure in the world than formerly , but entirely losing that first view of life—a perception which , being unworn , is more likely to be true than this latter . This is custom , and custom is second nature ; but I doubt very much whether second nature is in so close a conjunction -with truth as the first . It seeniB very questionable whether a man perceive a fact any the more clearly because he has seen it the more often . " A clear idea , " says Burke , " in a shallow idea , " and the more shallow we grow , tho more clear . It is by use , by exercise , by discipline alone that we are able to utter what we think , hut the pnmitive perceptions are altogether above utterance : there ia a haze and wonder overhanging all things , and this is inexplicable until it gets melted down by custom into sentiments almost unworthy of explanation . The vision is so full , that words fail to convey its meaning , and the oftener wo look upon if , the less it strikes us , whereby we are able to explain clearly , because wo see the fewer objects . At certain times the sight of the moon and the stars impress us vex-y strangely , but only stay and try to mould that feeling into words , and you nnci it directly evaporating , fio you talk about tho stars themselves . Evidently our feelings and untold ideas are of a higher and more actual stamp than those which can bo uttered , for which reason the great excellence of a writer is to have the facility of saying the most whilst he fools tho most , for if ho let tho fooling go , he has only imagination—or memory—to aid him , and wo all know how paltry a thing a man becomes , when he writes from imagination instead of teeilng ; it is showing us a waxen imago for a living man . We conclude with this caustic definition of niaiiT and wnoNa . The knowlodge of tho difference botweon Right and Wrong is supposed by jurists to constitute tho difference between lunacy and sanity . Indood , every child over fivo years of age is , it is thought , fully capable of making ho obvious a reflection , and so intuitive a distinction . The various synonymos and poraonmcations which these two small wordB have been made to boar , amply J ust 1 ^ supposition of tho boundless diatanco botweon thorn . Right is Virtue ; Wrong is Vice . Right is Dr . Cumming ; Wrong ia Dean Swift . Might is a clean sjurt , and tho Book of Common Prayer on a Sunday ; Wrong is beer , spirita , and hKhties . Right ia tho Sunday School , and the Religious Tract Society ; Wrong w tobaooo and pitoh-and-toss . Theae more particularly apply to tho poor man , but the rich are quite as amply and generously provided for . For the gentler

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 29, 1855, page 1252, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2121/page/16/