XXIV 



statesmen and ambassadors ; he must search into, he must make 

 himself familiar with the lowest, the most ephemeral, the most 

 contemptible of the writings of the day. There is no trash which 

 he must not digest ; nothing so dull and wearisome that he must 

 not wade through. Nor are books all ; much is to be learned from 

 observation ; and Macaulay delighted in rambling over England, to 

 visit the scenes of historic events, the residences of remarkable men : 

 the siege of Derry was described from Derry and its neighbourhood ; 

 the exquisitely true and vivid epithets with which he paints the 

 old Italian towns in his Roman ballads owe their life and reality to 

 his travels in Italy. Finally, to order, dispose, work into a flowing 

 and uninterrupted narrative, the whole of this matter demanded no- 

 thing less than his prodigious memory, ever at the command of his 

 imagination ; to arrange it without confusion, to distribute it accord- 

 ing to the laws of historic perspective, to make it, in short, a history, 

 as difficult to lay down as the most stirring and engrossing romance. 

 Alas! that all this matchless power and skill should end in a 

 torso, yet a torso if, as we fairly may, we take the Revolution and 

 the reign of William III. as a whole, nearly complete in its stature, 

 and in all its limbs ! It is deeply to be lamented that Macaulay 

 allowed himself to be called off by generous and grateful friendship 

 to write the lives in the Encyclopaedia. All of these, even that of 

 Pitt (as far as it goes, a perfect biography), we would willingly sa- 

 crifice if we could fill up the few chasms in his history. And what 

 would we not give for his Queen Anne? William III., to whom he 

 first did justice, and not more than justice, when looked upon from 

 a European, not from an English point of view, was a labour of love : 

 but what would have been the more congenial age of Anne, in which 

 he knew every one, the Queen and her Court, Harley, St. John, Swift, 

 Pope, Arbuthnot, as if he had lived with them on the most intimate 

 terms ? That in the main Macaulay possessed the still higher quali- 

 ties of a historian, truth and impartiality, we hesitate not to avow 

 our opinion ; of this posterity will judge, we quietly and confidently 

 await its award. lie spoke out too freely, too strongly, not to en- 

 counter some prejudices, some no doubt very honest political or 

 religious feelings. He did not perhaps always nicely measure the 

 strength of his own language; and he so abhorred meanness and 

 dishonesty, that they appeared doubly mean and dishonest in men 



