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    LORD MACAULAY: THE'AUTHOR.

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    Untitled Article

    should certainly like to see paid in full , at the next parliamentary dividend meeting , if the state of the slender finances and the rules of the Court will allow it , which we can scarcely hope will be the case We allude to Lady Franklin . The late Arctic expedition ( as everybody knows ) was organised and carried but by the heroic energy and persevering determination of this lady ; and brought to so successful , though so melancholy a termination ( as far as the intelligence it brings us is concerned ) by the judgment and seamanship of Captain McClintock . Every penny that lias been paid for this expedition ought to come out of our national purse , without delay , without murmur , and without stint . Without pledging ourselves .

    by saying that Sir Joirx Franklin ' s expedition was wise or p ractical , we merely take it up on the broad ground that it was national in its origin , and . design ,-and-that no individual or individuals , however nearly related to or interested in the lost explorers , should be allowed , for one -moment ; , to step between the country and . the performance of its duty . Successful as Captain McCltntock ' s voyage of discovery has been , it has not accomplished all , and while any volunteers are ready to go out again , and while any member of Sir John Franklin ' s expedition , however humble , is missing or unaccounted for , the most bankrupt and penurious nation ought to squeeze but public funds to stimulate further search .

    Unfortunately for Lady Franklin and Captain McClintock , their . work is eminently peaceful work , and the Court has little sympathy with that . Their work has no connection with wars and riot , with , injustice and bloodshed , with annexation and national trespassing , and the sympathies of the Coiu-t are all engaged in these directions . . Pensions , decorations , banquets j and promotion , are all reserved for gun-shooters and sword-wielders , while the conductors of useful and humane enterprises are left to ., bury their heads un ^

    noticed in sorrow and neglect . If the Hon . Mr . Bruce ( of China ) or any other notoriety of the diplomatic gang , had arrived in London on the same day as Captain McCLiNTOCKai-rived with the " Fox , "" his ship ( if he came in a ship ) , would not have been left rain-beaten in an obscure corner of a Thames dockyard ; nor his crew ( if lie had a crew ) have been scattered no man can tell where . The thousands who have visited this little Arctic vessel from motives . pf idlecuriosity , have looked upou a monument of private heroism which is also a monument of national disgrace . .

    Whatever may be the state of the national finances ( and we know that we are very poor ) , whatever may be feeling of the financial officers ( arid we know how uniformly careful they now are ) , the unobtiiisive claims of Lady Fran klin , and those who worked with her , should be the first obligations satisfied in the session that is nearly here . Economy , in this instance , should make us hold down our heads in shame ; especially when the long financial list of " Special and Temporary Objects " has exhibited —of course , in the ' dark ages , —so many melancholy records of folly , jobbery , and waste .

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    T ORP MACAULAT was almost born an author . He was an J- ' author before lie left college . The use of words was his vocation . He was a great master of language , and spoke and wrote equally well , When not speaking to others , he was generally speaking to himself . His writings have delighted the multitude and instructed the learned . They ave admired wherever our language is understood—abroad , as well as in our colonies and at home . He began his career as a poet ; he then became an essayist , and , concluded as an historian .. In each walk ho was firstrate ; but his essays are superior to his poems , and his history is superior to his essays . Ho improved as he wont on , but in the opposite direction to Burjce , whose first work was the least . florid

    of his writings , while the last was " ungracefully gorgeous . Lord Macaulay's style was less ornate in his history than in his essays . It gained in conciseness , vigour , simplicity , and ease as he advanced in life ; mid the diffusoness wo find in his history is more of mnttor than of manner . He had inquired too closely , lie knew too much , and remembered too well . Our brief quqtatiows last week would suJKco to romind our readers of the stylo of his essays , and one quotation will show them the clear , sueoinct , business-like style of his history . It will show , too , the defective philosophy with which ho is deservedly ropronched . The merest tyro in political science now knows that the increase of wealth is the consequence , not the cause , of division of labour ; which , in its turn , is the consequenco of increase of population ;—

    " In the rojgn of William old xnon wore still living who oovddremoinboi : the daya whon there waa nob a single bunking-houso in 'th ' o o \ ty of London . So Jato tie the Aiwio of-tho Restoration ovory trader hud hie own strong , box in his own house ; and whon an acceptance waa prosontqd to him , told down the crowns and the Ouroluaas on his own counter . But the inaroa ^ o of wealth had jproduaod Its natural < r ( faat , the sulxUvialon of labour . Before the ond of the reign of Charles the Sooond a now modo of paying and

    yoceivirig money had come into fashion amongst the merchants of the capital . A class of agents arose , whose office was to keep the cash of commercial houses . The new branch o £ business naturally fell into the hands of the goldsmiths , who were accustomed to traffic largely in the precious metals , and who had vaults in which great masses pf bullion could be secure from fire and from rohbers . It - Was . at the shops of the goldsmiths in- Lombardstreet that all 4 he payments in coin were made . Other traders gave and received nothing but paper . This great change did not take place without much opposition and clamour . Old-fashioned merchants complained bitterly that a class pf men who , thirty years before , had confined themselves , to their proper functions , and had made a fair profit by embossing silver bowls and chargers , by setting jewels for fine ladies , and selling pistoles and dollars to gentlemen setting out for the Continent , had become the treasurers and were fast becoming the masters of the whole city . These usurers , it was said > played at hazard ' with what had been earned by the industry and hoarded by the thrift of other men . If the dice turned up well , the knave who kept the cash became an alderman :. if they turned up ill , the dupe who furnished the cash became a bankrupt . On the other side , the conveniences of the modern practice were set forth in animated language . * The new system * it was said , saved both labour and money . Two clerks seated in one counting-house did what under the old system must have beeii done by twenty clerks , in twenty different establishments . A goldsmith ' s note might be transferred ten times in a morning ; and thus a hundred guineas locked in his safe , close to the Exchange , did what would formerly have required a thousand guineas dispersed through many tills , some on Ludgate Hill , some in Austin Friars , and some in Tower Street *" It must be noticed that , for such minute description , authorities on both sides are quoted , exemplifying Lord Macaulay ' s great diligence in examining all . the pamphlets and other writings of the day , on every subject which he thought worth a place in his history . . In s \ ich clear and graphic descriptions lies one of the great charms of his writings . Another is a vast number of biographical sketches , every one of which is a distinct gem ; and , bound together , they make the most gorgeous chaplet ever woven by the hand of a literary man . His style charms , too , especially the educated ,, by the fulness of knowledge apparent in every line . His metaphors and illustrations are drawn from innumerable sources , and are all equally pregnant with instruction . He tells us that " he frequently wrote at a distance from all books and all advisers ;" that "he trusted to his memory for facts , dates , and quotations , " and that " he sent his manuscripts to the press without reading them over . " As his after-dinner discourse . was said to be '" ¦ print , " they must have been without erasure or amendment . None of his works have any marks of defect or any appearance of haying been written in haste . Apparently , lie never took a pen in his hand till he was quite sure of every word lie meant to . say ; and from the moment of beginning , he rushed on like a conqueror . His style is clear , because he is always certain , of his thoughts . He never doubts , and is never vague . He goes straight to his object , and writes as though he were giving the word of command . He is never affected , is untainted by conr ventional cant , and gives things their proper names . He speaks even bluntly , and sometimes verges on coarseness . ' His writing resembles the rush of cavahy , not the ambling of a gentle lady's steed . It is dogmatic , positive , overwhelming . Withal , it is very musical , and never tires . It is always fresh . He was perhaps the best read , the most learned Englishman of the age , after the death of Sir James Mackintosh , and he was one of the greatest masters of the English language that ever used it . He died comparatively young , , bxit he had done a great deal of work . True , he lived three years longer than Shakespeare , but in quantity the result of his labour is far greater than that of the most illustrious of our poets . He started into public lifea thoroughly educated man , and seems to have taken nothing in hand which did not succeqd . Forty years nearly ho worked continuously and , successfully , and , combining qxiantity . with quality , we doubt whether any man ever wrote so nuieh and so well . He was one of the most remarkable men of letters who have appeared in our country . All the Subjects on which ho wrote were important , and chiefly political . His ballads were not of love nor of individual adventure , but of the great events and battles of ancient and modern times . He delighted in writing of famous men : Milton , Machiavelli , Cromwell , Clive , Hastings , Bacon , are only a very few of those whose characters he elaboratel y described . His themes were all worthy of his noble language . The modern history of his own country was the one great work to which all his other writings appear to have been preparatory ; and it was commenced , having probably been planned while he was yot young , on a scale that would roquiro the life of the longest-lived man to complete it . We cannot , however , regret its minuteness , though peculiarly adapted for speoial histories , since it has made us better acquainted than over with the conduct and character of our ancestors . It has set an examplo , too , of how history shpuld be written , which will nevor again become a were account of misruling princes . When wo have asoribed to him an , adinirnble style , an' oxoollent choice of worthy subjects , a clear method of treating whatever ho undertook , great diligence in . Jus preparations , and the acquisition of knowledge beyond , that of other won , wo have

    Untitled Article

    36 The header and Saturday Analyst . [ Jan . 14 , 1860 .

    Lord Macaulay: The'author.

    LORD MACAULAY : THE ' AUTHOR .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 14, 1860, page 36, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2329/page/8/