CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS, CONTRIBUTED TO THE EDINBURGH REVIEW. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON : LONGMAN, BROWN. GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 1856. FROM LIB. OF Moncure D. C ju ./ay Nov. 17 1939 London : A.. and G. A. Cpottis'.poodl;, New-streec-Square. TO FRANCIS JEFFRET / THESE ESSAYS ARE DEDICATED, IN TOKEN OF THE ESTEEM, ADMIRATION, AND AFFECTION OF HIS FRIEND THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. PREFACE. The author of these Essays is so sensible of their defects that he has repeatedly refused to let them appear in a form which might seem to indicate that he thought them worthy of a permanent place in English literature. Nor would he now give his consent to the republication of pieces so imperfect, if, by withholding his consent, he could make republication impossible. But, as they have been reprinted more than once in the United States, as many American copies have been imported into this country, and as a still larger importation is expected, he conceives that he cannot, in justice to the publishers of the Edinburgh Review, longer object to a measure which they consider as neces- sary to the protection of their rights, and that he cannot be accused of pre- sumption for wishing that his writings, if they are read, may be read in an edition freed at least from errors of the press and from slips of the pen. This volume contains the Reviews which have been reprinted in the United States, with a very few exceptions, which the most partial reader will not regret. The author has been strongly urged to insert three papers on the Utilitarian Philosophy, which, when they first appeared, attracted some notice, but which are not in the American editions. He has, however, determined to omit these papers, not because he is disposed to retract a single doctrine which they contain ; but because he is unwilling to offer what might be regarded as an affront to the memory of one from whose opinions he still widely dissents, but to whose talents and virtues he admits that he formerly did not do justice. Serious as are the faults of the Essay on Government, a critic, while noticing those faults, should have abstained from using contemptuous language respect- ing the historian of British India. It ought to be known that Mr. Mill had the generosity, not only to forgive, but to fo rget the unbecoming acrimony with which he had been assailed, and was, when his valuable life closed, on terms of cordial friendship with his assailant. No attempt has been made to remodel any of the pieces which are contained in this volume. Even the criticism on Milton, which was written when the author was fresh from college, and which contains scarcely a paragraph such as his matured judgment approves, still remains overloaded with gaudy and vi PREFACE. ungraceful ornament. The blemishes which have been removed were, for the most part, blemishes caused by unavoidable haste. The author has some- times, like other contributors to periodical works, been under the necessity of writing at a distance from all books and from all advisers ; of trusting to his memory for facts, dates, and quotations ; and of sending manuscripts to the post without reading them over. What he has composed thus rapidly has often been as rapidly printed. His object has been that every Essay should now appear as it probably would have appeared when it was first published, if he had then been allowed an additional day or two to revise the proof-sheets, with the assistance of a good library. CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME. Milton Machiavelli Hallam’s Constitutional History Southey’s Colloquies on Society Mr. Robert Montgomery’s Poems *■ . Southey’s Edition of the Pilgrim’s Progress Civil Disabilities of the Jews . Moore’s Life of Lord Byron Croker’s Edition of Boswell’s Life of Johnson Lord Nugent’s Memorials of Hampden Burleigh and his Times . War of the Succession in Spain . Horace Walpole .... William Pitt, Earl of Chatham Sir James Mackintosh Lord Bacon . „ . • Page 1 . 28 . 51 . 98 . 122 . 132 . 140 . 147 . 165 . 190 . 220 . 235 . 264 . 286 . 310 . 346 CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS CONTRIBUTED TO THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, MILTON. (August, 1825.) j i Joannis Miltoni, Angli, de Doetrind Chris- ' tiand libri duo posthumi. A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone. By J ohn Milton, translated from the Original by Charles R. Sumner, M.A. &c. &c. 1825. Towards the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon, deputy keeper of the state papers, in the course of his researches among the presses of his office, met with a large Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected copies of the foreign despatches written by Milton while he filled the office of Secretary, and several papers relating to the Po- 1 pish Trials and the Rye-house Plot. The whole was wrapped up in an en- velope, superscribed To Mr. Skinner , | Merchant On examination, the large manuscript proved to be the long lost Essay on the Doctrines of Christianity, which, according to Wood and Toland, Milton finished after the Restoration, and deposited with Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, it is v r ell know r n, held the in w r hich it has been found. But what- ever the adventures of the manuscript may have been, no doubt can exist that it is a genuine relic of the great poet. Mr. Sumner, who v r as commanded by his Majesty to edite and translate the treatise, has acquitted himself of his task in a manner honourable to his talents and to his character. His ver- sion is not indeed very easy or elegant ; but it is entitled to the praise of clear- . ness and fidelity. His notes abound with interesting quotations, and have the rare merit of really elucidating the text. The preface is evidently the woik of a sensible and candid man, firm in his own religious opinions, and tole- rant towards those of others. The book itself will not add much to the fame of Milton. It is, like all his Latin works, well written, though ■ not exactly in the style of the prize essays of Oxford and Cambridge. • There is no elaborate imitation of j classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, | none of the ceremonial cleanness which same political opinions with his illus- j trious friend. It is therefore probable, ! as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he | may have fallen under the suspicions of the government during that perse- , cution of the Whigs which followed the dissolution of the Oxford parlia- ment, and that, in consequence of a general seizure of his papers, this work may have been brought to the office Vol. I. characterises the diction of our aca- demical Pharisees. The author does not attempt to polish and brighten his composition into the Ciceronian gloss and brilliancy. He does not in shot t sacrifice sense and spirit to pedantic refinements. The nature of his subject compelled him to use many words “ That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.” B MILTON. But he writes with as much ease and freedom as if Latin were his mother tongue ; and, where he is least happy, his failure seems to arise from the care- lessness of a native, not from the igno- rance of a foreigner. We may apply to him what Denham with great felicity gays of Cowley. He wears the garb, but not the clothes of the ancients. Throughout the volume are discern- ible the traces of a powerful and inde- pendent mind, emancipated from the influence of authority, and devoted to the search of truth. Milton professes to form his system from the Bible alone; and his digest of scriptural texts is cer- tainly among the best that have ap- peared. But he is not always so happy in his inferences as in his citations. Some of the heterodox doctrines which he avows seemed to have ex- cited considerable amazement, parti- cularly his Arianism, and his theory on the subject of polygamy. Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person could have read the Paradise Lost with- out suspecting him of the former ; nor do we think that any reader, acquainted with the history of his life, ought to be much startled at the latter. The opi- nions which he has expressed respect- ing the nature of the Deity, the eternity of matter, and the observation of the Sabbath, might, we think, have caused more just surprise. But we will not go into the discus- sion of these points. The book, were it far more orthodox or far more here- tical than it is, would not much edify or corrupt the present generation. The men of our time are not to be con- verted or perverted by quartos. A few more days, and this essay will follow the Defensio Poputi to the dust and silence of the upper shelf. The name of its author, and the remarkable cir- cumstances attending its publication, will secure to it a certain degree of attention. Eor a month or two it will occupy a few minutes of chat in every drawing-room, and a few columns in every magazine; and it will then, to borrow the elegant language of the play-bills, be withdrawn to make room for the forthcoming novelties. We wish however to avail ourselves of the interest, transient as it may be, which this work has excited. The dexterous Capuchins never choose to preach on the life and miracles of a saint, until they have awakened the de- votional feelings of their auditors by exhibiting some relic of him, a thread of his garment, a lock of his hair, or a drop of his blood. On the same prin- ciple, we intend to take advantage of the late interesting discovery, and, while this memorial of a great and good man is still in the hands of all, to say something of his moral and intellectual qualities. Nor, we are convinced, will the severest of our readers blame us if, on an occasion like the present, we turn for a short time from the topics of the day, to commemorate, in all love and reverence, the genius and vir- tues of John Milton, the poet, the statesman, the philosopher, the glory of English literature, the champion and the martyr of English liberty. It is by his poetry that Milton is best known; and it is of his poetry that we wish first to speak. By the general suffrage of the civilised world, his place has been assigned among the greatest masters of the art. His detractors, how- ever, though outvoted, have not been silenced. There are many critics, and some of great name, who contrive in the same breath to extol the poems and to decry the poet. The works they ac- knowledge, considered in themselves, may be classed among the noblest pro- ductions of the human mind. But they will not allow the author to rank with those great men who, born in the in- fancy of civilisation, supplied, by their own powers, the want of instruction, and, though destitute of models them- selves, bequeathed to posterity models which defy imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited what his predecessors created ; he lived in an enlightened age ; he re- ceived afinished education, and we must therefore, if we would form a just esti- mate of hispowers, make large deductions in consideration of these advantages. We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the remark may appear, that no poet has ever had to struggle with more unfavourable circumstances than Milton. He doubted, as he has MILTON. himself owned, whether he had not been born “ an age too late.” For this no- tion Johnson has thought fit to make him the butt of much clumsy ridicule. The poet, we believe, understood the nature of his art better than the critic. He knew that his poetical genius de- rived no advantage from the civilisa- tion which surrounded him, or from the learning which he had acquired ; and he looked back with something like regret to the ruder age of simple words and vivid impressions. We think that, as civilisation ad- vances, poetry almost necessarily de- clines. Therefore, though we fervently admire those great works of imagina- tion which have appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them the more be- cause they have appeared in dark ages. On the contrary, we hold that the most wonderful and splendid proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilised age. We cannot understand why those who believe in that most orthodox article of literary faith, that the earliest poets are generally the best, should wonder at the rule as if it were the exception. Surely the uniformity of the phenomenon indicates a corre- sponding uniformity in the cause. The fact is, that common observers reason from the progress of the expe- rimental sciences to that of the imitative arts. The improvement of the former is gradual and slow. Ages are spent in collecting materials, ages more in separating and combining them. Even when a system has been formed, there is still something to add, to alter, or to reject. Every generation enjoys the use of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and transmits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to future ages. In these pursuits, there- fore, the first speculators lie under great disadvantages, and, even when they fail, are entitled to praise. Their pupils, with far inferior intellectual powers, speedily surpass them in actual attainments. Every girl who has read Mrs. Marcet’s little dialogues on Poli- tical Economy could teach Montague or Walpole many lessons in finance. Any intelligent man may now, by re- solutely applying himself for a few S years to mathematics, learn more than the great Newton knew after half a century of study and meditation. But it is not thus with music, with painting, or with sculpture. Still less is it thus with poetry. The progress of refinement rarely supplies these arts with better objects of imitation. It may indeed improve the instruments which are necessary to the mechanical opera- tions of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. But language, the ma- chine of the poet, is best fitted for his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individuals, first perceive, and then abstract. They advance from particu- lar images to general terms. Hence the vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, that of a half-civilised people is poetical. ^ This change in the language of men is partly the cause and partly the effect of a corresponding change in the nature of their intellectual operations, of a change by which science gains and poetry loses. Generalisation is neces- sary to the advancement of knowledge; but particularity is indispensible to the creations of the imagination. In pro- portion as men know more and think more, they look less at individuals and more at classes. They therefore make better theories and worse poems. They give us vague phrases instead of images, and personified qualities instead of men. They may be better able to analyse human nature than their predecessors. But analysis is not the business of the poet. His office is to portray, not to dissect. He may believe in a moral sense, like Shaftesbury; he may refer all human actions to self-interest, like Helvetius ; or he may never think about the matter at all. His creed on such subjects will no more influence his poetry, properly so called, than the notions which a painter may have con- ceived respecting the lacrymal glands, or the circulation of the blood will affect the tears of his Niobe, or the blushes of his Aurora. If Shakespeare had written a book on the motives of human actions, it is by no means certain that it would have been a good one. It is extremely improbable that it would have contained half so much able rea- B 2 MILTON. soning on the subject as is to be found in the Fable of the Bees. But could Man- deville have created an Iago ? Well as he knew how to resolve characters into their elements, would he have been able to combine those elements in such a manner as to make up a man, a real, living, individual man ? Perhaps no person can be a poet, or can even enjoy poetry, without a cer- tain unsoundness of mind, if any thing which gives so much pleasure ought to be called unsoundness. By poetry we m6an not all writing in verse, nor even all good writing in verse. Our de- finition excludes many metrical com- positions which, on other grounds, de- serve the highest praise. By poetry we mean the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an illusion on the imagination, the art of doing by means of words what the painter does by means of colours. Thus the great- est of poets has described it, in lines universally admired for the vigour and felicity of their diction, and still more valuable on ac.count of the just notion which they convey of the art in which he excelled : ** As the imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy no- thing A local habitation and a name.” These are the fruits of the “fine frenzy ” which he ascribes to the poet, — a fine frenzy doubtless, but still a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry; but it is the truth of madness. The reasonings are just ; but the pre- mises are false. After the first suppo- sitions have been made, every thing ought to be consistent ; but those first suppositions require a degree of credu- lity which almost amounts to a partial and temporary derangement of the in- tellect. Hence of all people children are the most imaginative. They aban- don themselves without reserve to every illusion. Every image which is strongly presented to their mental eye produces on them the effect of reality. No man, whatever his sensibility may be, is ever affected by Hamlet or Lear, as a little girl is affected by the story of poor Red Riding-hood. She knows that it is all false, that wolves cannot speak, that there are no wolves in England. Yet in spite of her knowledge she believes ; she weeps ; she trembles ; she dares not go into a dark room lest she should feel the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such is the despotism of the imagina- tion over uncultivated minds. In a rude state of society men are children with a greater variety of ideas. It is therefore in such a state of society that we may expect to find the poetical temperament in its highest perfection. In an enlightened age there will be much intelligence, much science, much philosophy, abundance of just classifi- cation and subtle analysis, abundance of wit and eloquence, abundance of verses, and even of good ones ; but little poetry. Men will judge and com- pare ; but they will not create. They will talk about the old poets, and com- ment on them, and to a certain degree enjoy them. But they will scarcely be able to conceive the effect which poetry produced on their ruder ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the plenitude of be- lief. The Greek Rhapsodists, accord- ing to Plato, could scarce recite Homer without falling into convulsions. The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping knife while he shouts his death-song. The power which the ancient bards of Wales and Germany exercised over their au- ditors seems to modem readers almost miraculous. Such feelings are very rare in a civilised community, and most rare among those who participate most in its improvements. They linger longest among the peasantry. Poetry produces an illusion on the eye of the mind, as a magic lantern produces an illusion on the eye of the body. And, as the magic lantern acts b