not bear to be tried by ar y principle, sound or unsound. The sound principle undoubtedly is, that mere theological error ought not to be punished by the civil magistrate. This principle the Toleration Act not only does not recognise, but positively disclaims. Not a single one of the cruel laws enacted against nonconformists by the Tudors or the Stuarts is repealed, Persecution continues to be the genral rule. Toleration is the exception. Nor Is this all. The freedom which is given to conscience is given in the most capricious manner. A Ouaker, by making a declaration of faith in general terms, obtains the full benefit of the Act without signing one of the thirtynine Articles. An Independent minister, who is perfectly willing to make the declaration required from the Quaker, but who has doubts about six or seven of the Articles, remains still subject to the penal laws. Howe is liable to punishment if he preaches before he has solemnly declared his assent to the Anglican doctrine touching the Eucharist. Penn, who altogether rejects the Eucharist, is at perfect liberty to preach without making any declaration whatever on the subject. "These are some of the obvious faults which must strike every person who examines the Toleration Act by that standard of just reason which is the same in all countries and in all ages. But these very faults may perhaps appear to be merits, when we take into consideration the passions and prejudices of those for whom the Toleration Act was framed. This law, abounding with contradictions which every smatterer in political philosophy can detect, did what a law framed by the utmost skill of the greatest masters of political philosophy might have failed to do. That the provisions which have been recapitulated are cumbrous, puerile, inconsistent with each other, inconsistent with the true theory of religious liberty, must be acknowledged. All that can be said in their defence is this; that they removed a vast mass of evil without shocking a vast mass of prejudice; that they put an end, at once and for ever, without one division in either House of Parliament, without one riot in the streets, with scarcely one audible murmur even from the classes most deeply tainted with bigotry, to a persecution which had raged during four genwhich had made innumerable firesides desoerations, which had broken innumerable hearts, late, which had filled the prisons with men of whom the world was not worthy, which had driven thousands of those honest, diligent and god-fearing yoeman and artisans, who are the true strength of a nation, to seek a refuge beyond the ocean among the wigwams of red Indians and the lairs of panthers. Such a defence, however weak it may appear to some shallow speculators, will probably be thought complete by statesmen." What I find complete in this, is the art of developing. This antithesis of ideas, sustained by the antithesis of words, the symmetrical periods, the expressions designedly repeated to attract attention, the exhaustion of * Macaulav, ü. 465, History of England, proof, set before our eyes the special pleader's and oratorical talent, which we just before encountered in the art of pleading all causes, of employing an infinite number of methods, of mastering them all and always, during every incident of the lawsuit. The final manifestation of a mind of this sort are the faults into which its talent draws it. By dint of development, he protracts. More than once his explications are commonplace. He proves what all allow. He makes clear what is already clear. In one of his works there is a passage on the necessity of reactions which reads like the verbosity of a clever schoolboy. Other passages, excellent and novel, can only be read On the second with pleasure once. reading they appear too true; we have seen it all at a glance, and are wearied. I have omitted one-third of the passage on the Act of Toleration, and acute minds will think that I ought to have omitted another third. The last feature, the most singular, the least English of this History, is, that it is interesting. Macaulay wrote, in the Edinburgh Review, several volumes of Essays; and every one knows that the first merit of a reviewer or a journalist is to make himself readable. A thick volume naturally bores us; it is not thick for nothing; its bulk demands at the outset the attention of him who opens it. The solid binding, the table of contents, the preface, the substantial chapters, drawn up like soldiers in battle-array, all bid us take an armchair, put on a dressing-gown, we owe no less to the grave man who place our feet on the fender, and study; presents himself to us, armed with 600 pages of text and three years of reflec tion. But a newspaper which we glance at in a club, a review which we finger in a drawing-room in the evening, be fore sitting down to dinner, must needs attract the eyes, overcome absence of mind, conquer readers. Macaulay at tained, through practice, this gift of readableness, and he retains in his History the habits which he acquired in periodicals. He employs every means of keeping up attention, good or indif ferent, worthy or unworthy of his great talents; amongst others, allusion to actual circumstances. You may have : Here is a detached narrative which shows very well, and in the abstract, the means of interesting which he employs, and the great interest which he excites. The subject is the Massacie of Glencoe. Macaulay begins by de scribing the spot like a traveller who has seen it, and points it out to the bands of tourists and dilettanti, histo rians and antiquarians, who every year start from London: heard the saying of an editor, to whom' of Lingard or Robertsor; we should Pierre Leroux offered an article on | have hard work not to fir.ish a volume God. "God! there is no actuality of Macaulay. about it!" Macaulay profits by this remark. He never forgets the actual. If he mentions a regiment, he points out in a few lines the splendid deeds which it has done since its formation up to our own day: thus the officers of this regiment, encamped in the Crimea, stationed at Malta, or at Calcutta, are obliged to read his History. He relates the reception of Schomberg in the House: who is interested in Schomberg? Forthwith he adds that Wellington, a hundred years later, was received, under like circumstances, with a ceremony copied from the first what Englishman is not interested in Wellington? He relates the siege of Londonderry, he points out the spot which the ancient bastions occupy in the present town, the field which was covered by the Irish camp, the well at which the besiegers drank: what citizen of Londonderry can help buying his book? Whatever town he comes upon, he notes the changes which it has undergone, the new streets added, the buildings repaired or constructed, the increase of commerce, the introduction of new industries: hence all the aldermen and merchants are constrained to subscribe to his work, Elsewhere we find an anecdote of an actor and actress as the superlative degree is interesting, he begins by saying that William Mountford was the most agreeable comedian, that Anne Bracegirdle was the most popular actress of the time. If he introduces a statesman, he always announces him by some great word: he was the most insinuating, or the most equitable, or the best informed, or the most inveterately debauched, of all the politicians of the day. But Macaulay's great qualities serve him as well in this mater as his literary machinery, a little too manifest, a little too copious, a little too coarse. The astonishing number of details, the medley of psychological and moral dissertations, descriptions, relations, opinions, pleadings, portraits, beyond all, good composition and the continuous stream of eloquence, seize "Mac Ian dwelt in the mouth of a ravine situated not far from the southern shore of Loch Leven, an arm of the sea which deeply indents the western coast of Scotland, and separates Argyleshire from Inverness-shire. Near his house were two or three small hamlets inhabited by his tribe. The whole population which he governed was not supposed to exceed two hundred souls. In the neighbour. hood of the little cluster of villages was some copsewood and some pasture land: but a little further up the defile no sign of population or of fruitfulness was to be seen. In the Gaelic tongue, Glencoe signifies the Glen of Weep ing: and, in truth, that pass is the most dreary and melancholy of all the Scottish passes, the very Valley of the Shadow of Death. Mists and storms brood over it through the greater part of the finest summer; and even on those rare days when the sun is bright, and when there is no cloud in the sky, the impression made by the landscape is sad and awful. The path lies along a stream which issues from the most sullen and gloomy of mountain pools. Huge precipices of naked stone frown on both sides. Even in July the streaks of snow may often be discerned in the rifts near the summits. All down the sides of the crags heaps of ruin mark the headlong paths of the torvain for the smoke of one hut, or for one human form wrapped in a plaid, and listens in vain for the bark of a shepherd's dog or the bleat of a lamb. Mile after mile the only sound that indicates life is the faint cry of a bird of prey from some storm-beaten pinnacle of rock. The progress of civilisation, which has turned so many wastes into fields yellow only made Glencoe more desolate. with harvests or gay with apple blossoms, has All the science and industry of a peaceful age can extract nothing valuable from that wilderness : but, in an age of violence and rapine, the wil rents. Mile after mile the traveller looks in derness itself was valued on account of the The description, though very beautiful, and retain the attention to the end. were the greatest brigands of the country. The Master of Stair, who represented William III. in Scotland, relying on the fact that Mac Ian had not taken the oath of allegiance on the appointed day, determined to destroy the chief and his clan. He was not urged by hereditary hate nor by private interest; he was a man of taste, polished and amiable. He did this crime out of humanity, persuaded that there was no other way of pacifying the Highlands. Thereupon Macaulay inserts a dissertation of four pages, very well written, full of interest and knowledge, whose diversity affords us rest, which leads us over all kinds of historical examples, and moral lessons: "We daily see men do for their party, for their sect, for their country, for their favourite schemes of political and social reform, what they would not do to enrich or to avenge themselves. At a temptation directly addressed to our private cupidity or to our private animos ity, whatever virtue we have takes the alarm. But virtue itself may contribute to the fall of him who imagines that it is in his power, by violating some general rule of morality, to confer an important benefit on a church, on a commonwealth, on mankind. He silences the remonstrances of conscience, and hardens his heart against the most touching spectacles of misery, by repeating to himself that his intentions are pure, that his objects are noble, that he is doing a little evil for the sake of a great good. By degrees he comes altogether to forget the turpitude of the means in the excellence of the end, and at length perpetrates without one internal twinge acts which would shock a buccaneer. There is no reason to believe that Dominic would, for the best archbishopric in Christendom, have incited ferocious marauders to plunder and slaughter a peaceful and industrious population, that Everard Digby would, for a dukedom, have blown a large assembly of people into the air, or that Robespierre would have murdered for hire one of the thousands whom he murdered from philanthropy.' Do we not recognize here the Englishman brought up on psychological and moral essays and sermons, who involuntarily and every instant spreads one over the paper? This species of literature is known in French lecturerooms and reviews; this is why it is unknown in French histories. When we wish to enter English history, we have only to step down from the pulpit and the newspaper. I do not transcribe the sequel of the explanation, the examples of James V., Sixtus V., and so many others, whom Macaulay cites to find precedents for the Master of Stair. Then follows a very circumstantial and very solid discussion, to prove that William III. was not responsible for the massacre. It is clear that Macaulay's object here as else where, is less to draw a picture than to suggest a judgment. He desires tha we should have an opinion on the morality of the act, that we should at tribute it to its real authors, that each should bear exactly his own share, and no more. A little further, when the question of the punishment of the crime arises, and William, having severely chastised the executioners, contents himself with recalling the Master of Stair, Macaulay writes a dissertation of several pages to consider this injustice and to blame the king. Here, as elsewhere, he is still an orator and a moralist; nothing has more power to interest an English reader. Happily for us, he at length becomes once more a narrator; the petty details which he then selects fix the attention, and place the scene before our eyes : "The sight of the red coats approaching caused some anxiety among the population of the valley. John, the eldest son of the Chief, came, accompanied by twenty clansmen, to meet the strangers, and asked what this visit soldiers came as friends, and wanted nothing meant. Lieutenant Lindsay answered that the but quarters. They were kindly received, and were lodged under the thatched roofs of the little community. Glenlyon and several of his men were taken into the house of a tacksman who was named, from the cluster of cabins over which he exercised authority, Inverriggen. Lindsay was accommodated nearer to the abode of the old chief. Auchintriater, one of the principal men of the clan, who governed the small hamlet of Auchnaion, found room there for a party commanded by a serjeant named Barbour. Provisions were liberally supplied. There was no want of beef, which had probably fattened in distant pastures: not was any payment demanded: for in hospitality, as in thievery, the Gaelic marauders rivalled the Bedouins. During twelve days the glen. Old Mac Ian, who had before felt many soldiers lived familiarly with the people of the misgivings as to the relation in which he stood to the government, seems to have been pleased with the visit. The officers passed much of their time with him and his family. The long evenings were cheerfully spent by the peat fire with the help of some packs of cards which had found their way to that remote corner of the *Macaulay, iii. 519; History of England, world, and of some French brandy which was ch. xviii. probably part of James' farewell gift to hir highland supporters. Glenlyon appeared to be warmly attached to his niece and her husband Alexander. Every day he came to their house to take his morning draught. Meanwhile he observed with minute attention all the avenues by which, when the signal for the slaughter should be given, the Macdonalds might attempt to escape to the hills; and he reported the result of his observations to Hamilton. "The night was rough. Hamilton and his troops made slow progress, and were long after their time. While they were contending with the wind and snow, Glenlyon was supping and playing at cards with those whom he meant to butcher before daybreak. He and Lieutenant Lindsay had engaged themselves to dine with he old Chief on the morrow. seem so little English, bears throughout the mark of genuine English talent. Universal, connected, it embraces all the facts in its vast, undivided, and unbroken woof. Developed, abundant, it enlightmost ignorant the most complicated ens obscure facts, and opens up to the questions. Interesting, varied, it athas life, clearness, unity, qualities which tracts and preserves the attention. It appear to be wholly French. It seems as if the author were a popularizer like Thiers, a philospher_like Guizot, an artist like Thierry. The truth s that he is an orator, and that after the fashion of his country: but, as he pcssesses in the highest degree the oratorical faculties, and possesses them with a national tendency and instincts, he seems to supplement through them the faculties which he has not. He is no genuinely philosophical: the medioc rity of his earlier chapters on the an cient history of England proves this sufficiently; but his force of reasoning, his habits of classification and order, bestow unity upon his History. He is not a genuine artist; when he draws a picture, he is always thinking of proving something; he inserts dissertations in the most interesting and affecting places; he has neither charm, lightness, vivacity, nor finesse, but a On the next day, at five in the morning, marvellous memory, vast knowledge, the old chieftain was assassinated, his an ardent political passion, a great men shot in their beds or by the fire-legal talent for expounding and pleadside. Women were butchered; a boy, ing every cause, a precise knowledge of twelve years old, who begged his life precise and petty facts which rivet the on his knees, was slain; they who fled attention, charm, diversify, animate, He is not sim. half-naked, women and children, died and warm a narrative. of cold and hunger in the snow. ply a popularizer; he is too ardent, too eager to prove, to conquer belief, to beat down his foes, to have only the "Late in the evening a vague suspicion that some evil was intended crossed the mind of the Chief's eldest son. The soldiers were evidently in a restless state; and some of them uttered strange exclamations. Two men, it is said, were overheard whispering. I do not like this job,' one of them muttered; 'I should be glad to fight the Macdonalds. But to kill men in their beds-' 'We must do as we are bid,' answered another voice. If there is anything wrong, our officers must answer for it.' John Macdonald was so uneasy, that, soon after midnight, he went to Gle yon's quarters. Glenlyon and his men were a p, and seemed to be getting their arms ready for action. John, much alarmed, asked what these preparations meant. Glenlyon was profuse of friendly assurances. Some of Glengarry's people have been harrying the country. We are getting ready to march against them. You are quite safe. Do you think that, if you were .n any danger, I should not have given a hint to your brother Sandy and his wife?' John's suspicions were quieted. He returned to his house, and lay down to rest." * These precise details, these soldiers' conversations, this picture of evenings by the fireside, give to history the ani mation and life of a novel. And still the historian remains an orator: for he has chosen all these facts to exhibit the perfidy of the assassins and the horrible nature of the massacre; and he will make use of them later on, to demand, with all the power and passion of logic, the punishment of the crimi limpid talent of a man who explains and expounds, with no other end than to explain and expound, which spreads light throughout, and never spreads heat; but he is so well provided with details and reasons, so anxious to convince, so rich in his expositions, that breadth of knowledge, this power of he cannot fail to be popular. By this reasoning and passion, he has produced one of the finest books of the age whilst manifesting the genius of his nation. This solidity, this energy, this deep political passion, these mora. prepossessions, these oratrical habits, §1.-STYLE AND MIND. this limited philosophical power, this our opinion of the night before. We somewhat uniform style, without flex-discover at last that we are in pres ibility or sweetness, this eternal gravity, ence of a strange animal, a relic of a this geometrical progress to a settled lost family, a sort of mastodon, who end, announce in him the English has strayed in a world not made for mind. But if he is English to the him. We rejoice in this zoological French, he is not so to his nation. The good luck, and dissect him with minute animation, interest, clearness, unity of curiosity, telling ourselves that we shall is narrative, astonish them. They probably never find another like him. think him brilliant, rapid, bold; it is, they say, a French mind. Doubtless he is so in many respects: if he understands Racine badly, he admires Pascal and Bossuet; his friends say that he used daily to read Madame de Sévigné. Nay, more, by the structure of his mind, by his eloquence and netoric, he is Latin; so that the inner structure of his talent places him amongst the classics; it is only by his lively appreciation of special, complex and sensible facts, by his energy and fierceness, by the rather heavy richness of his imagination, by the depth of his coloring, that he belongs to his race. Like Addison and Burke, he resembles a strange graft, fed and transformed by the sap of the national stock. At all events, this judgment is the strongest mark of the difference between the two nations. To reach the English intellect, a Frenchman must make two voyages. When he has crossed the first interval, which is wide, he comes upon Macaulay. Let him re-embark; he must accomplish a second passage, just as long, to arrive at Carlyle for instance,-a mind fundamentally Germanic, on the genuine English soil. CHAPTER IV. Philosophy and History-Tarlyle. WHEN we ask Englishmen, especially those under forty, who amongst them are the great thinkers, they first mention Carlyle; but at the same time they advise us not to read him, warning us that we will not understand him at all. Then, of course, we hasten to get the twenty volumes of Carlyle-criticism, history, pamphlets, fantasies, philosophy; we read them with very strange emotions, contradicting every morning are We are at first put out. Al is new here-ideas, style, tone, the shape of the phrases, and the very vocabulary. He takes every thing in a contrary meaning, does violence to every thing, to expressions as well as to things. With him paradoxes are set down for principles; common sense takes the form of absurdity. We are, as it were, carried into an unknown world, whose inhabitants walk head downwards, feet in the air, dressed in motley, as great lords and maniacs, with contortions, jerks, and cries; we are grievously stunned by these extravagant and discordant sounds; we want to stop our ears, we have a headache, we obliged to decipher a new language. We see upon the table volumes which ought to be as clear as possible-The History of the French Revolution, for instance; and there we read these headings to the chapters: "Realized Ideals - Viaticum-Astræa ReduxPetition in Hieroglyphs-WindbagsMercury de Brézé-Broglie the WarGod." We ask ourselves what connection there can be between these riddles and such simple events as we all know. We then perceive that Carlyle always speaks in riddles "Logic-choppers "is the name he gives to the analysts of the eighteenth century; "Beaver science is his word for the catalogues and classifica. tions of our modern men of science; "Transcendental moonshine" signifies the philosophical and sentimental dreams imported from Germany. The religion of the "rotatory calabash means external and mechanical relig ion. He cannot be contented with a Because the Kalmucks put written prayert into a calabash turned by the wind, which in their opinion produces a perpetual adoration. In the same way are the prayer-mills of Thibel used. |