34 LORD MACAULAY. 



domestic lite which we find described in his history. It is said that on 

 one occasion when returning from a shop where he had been purchasing 

 ballads, he was mistaken for a ballad singer and was called upon to sing 

 by the passers by. He had too the faculty of embuing himself with the 

 feelings and passions of others — even Avith those he had no sympathy 

 with, and of reproducing them in language so fervid, lively, and forcible 

 that at first sight the sentiments appear to have sprung from his own heart. 

 His song of the Radical, and the march of the Caviller to London are 

 instances of this. Macaulay was further fitted as a writer of ballads by 

 the magnificent power of word-painting. Above all ballad poetry requires 

 life — life well sustained — vigorous life — words which strike home and 

 rivet themselves on the heart and memory. 



But it is as the historian that Macaulay will be longest remembered. 

 The first volume of his history appeared in 1849. In 1828 we find him 

 stating that " good histories we have none. But we have good historical 

 romances and good essays. Then he thus describes what a good history 

 should be " To make the j^ast present, to bring the distant near, to place 

 us in the society of great men, or on the eminence which overlooks the 

 field of a mighty battle, to invest with the reality of human flesh and 

 blood beings whom we are too much inclined to consider as personified 

 qualities in an allegory, to call up our ancestors before us with all their 

 peculiarities of language, manners and garb, to shew us over their houses, to 

 seat us at their tables, to rummage their old-fashioned wardrobes, these parts 

 of the duty which properly belong to the historian have been appropriated 

 by the historical novelist. On the other hand to extract the philosophy 

 of history, to direct our judgments of events and men, to trace the con- 

 nection of causes and effects ; and to draw from the occurrences of former 

 times general lessons of moral and political wisdom has become the busi- 

 ness of a distinct class of A^Titers." 



That he has succeeded in imiting these tAvo parts of history is best 

 known to those who have read his history. Macaulay has at least made 

 history a popular and interesting study — his magic genius has given life to 

 the details of past events — his historical jiages charm and entrance the 

 reader like a romance. But it is impossible to tell the amount of labour he 

 bestowed on his history to produce this. The number of old, forgotten books , 

 pamphlets and ballads he must have consulted must have been enormous. 

 Nothing has surprised and delighted the student of history as the vividness 

 with which he has described historical characters. From the most scanty 



