ease, nay, condescends to nod, the better to prepare his reader, and breathe himself for a grand gallop; and though he has not the art to conceal his art, yet he has the skill always to fix his reader-always to write, as he himself says of Horace Walpole, "what everybody will like to read." Still further, and finally, he has a quality different from and superior to all these-he has a genuine literary enthusiasm, which public life has not yet been able to chill. He is not an inspired child, but he is still an ardent schoolboy, and what many count and call his literary vice we count his literary salvation. It is this unfeigned love of letters and genius which (dexterously managed, indeed) is the animating and inspiring element of Macaulay's better criticisms, and the redeeming point in his worse. It is a love which many waters have been unable to destroy, and which shall burn till death. When he retires from public life, like Lord Grenville, he may say, "I return to Plato and the Iliad."

something more agreeable than history, and more veracious than fiction. It is a very waltz of facts that he witnesses; and yet how consoling to reflect that they are facts after all! Again, Macaulay, as we have repeatedly hinted, is given to paradoxes. But then these paradoxes are so harmless, so respectable, so well-behaved -his originalities are so orthodox-and his mode of expressing them is at once so strong and so measured-that people feel both the tickling sensation of novelty and a perfect sense of safety, and are slow to admit that the author, instead of being a bold, is a timorous thinker, one of the literary as well as political juste-milieu. Again, his manner and style are thoroughly English. As his sympathies are, to a great degree, with English modes of thought and habits of action, so his language is a stream of English undefiled. All the territories which it has traversed have enriched, without coloring its waters. Even the most valuable of German refinements-such as that common one of subjective and objective—are We must be permitted, ere we close, a sternly shyed. That philosophic diction few remarks on some of his leading papers. which has been from Germany so generally Milton was his "Reuben-his first-born— transplanted, is denied admittance into the beginning of his strength; and thought Macaulay's grounds, exciting a shrewd by many "the excellency of dignity, and suspicion that he does not often require it the excelleney of power." It was gorgeous for philosophical purposes. Scarcely a as an eastern tale. He threw such a glare phrase or word is introduced which Swift about Milton, that at times you could not would not have sanctioned. In anxiety to see him. The article came clashing down avoid a barbarous and Mosaic diction, he on the floor of our literature like a gauntlet goes to the other extreme, and practises of defiance, and all wondered what young purism and elaborate simplicity. Perhaps Titan could have launched it. Many inunder a weightier burden, like Charon's quired, "Starting at such a rate, whither skiff, such a style might break down; but, is he likely to go?" Meanwhile the wiser, as it is, it floats on, and carries the reader while admiring, quietly smiled, and whiswith it, in all safety, rapidity, and ease. pered in reply, "At such a rate no man Again, this writer has-apart from his can or ought to advance." Meanwhile, clearness, his bridled paradox, and his too, a tribute to Milton from across the English style-a power of interesting his waters, less brilliant, but springing from a readers, which we may call, for want of a more complete and mellow sympathy with more definite term, tact. This art he has him, though at first overpowered, began taught himself gradually; for in his earlier steadily and slowly to gain the superior articles, such as that on "Milton," and suffrage of the age, and from that pride of the "Present Administration," there were place has not yet receded. On the contrary, a prodigality and a recklessness-a prodi- Macaulay's paper he himself now treats as gality of image, and a recklessness of state- the brilliant bastard of his mind. Of such ment-which argued an impulsive nature, splendida vitia he need not be ashamed. not likely so soon to subside into a tacti- We linger as we remember the wild decian. Long ago, however, has he changé light with which we first read his picture of tout cela. Now he can set his elaborate the Puritans, ere it was hackneyed by quopassages at proper distances from each tation, and ere we thought it a rhetorical other; he peppers his page more sparingly bravura. How burning his print of Dante! with the condiments of metaphor and image; The best frontispiece to this paper on Milhe interposes anecdotes to break the blaze ton would be the figure of Robert Hall, at of his splendor; he consciously stands at the age of sixty, lying on his back, and

learning Italian, in order to verify Macaulay's description of the "Man that had been in Hell."

In what a different light does the review of Croker's Boswell exhibit our author? He sets out like Shenstone, by saying "I will, I will be witty ;" and like him, the will and the power are equal. Macaulay's wit is always sarcasm-sarcasm embittered by indignation, and yet performing its minute dissections with judicial gravity. Here he catches his Radamanthus of the Shades, in the upper air of literature, and his vengeance is more ferocious than his wont. He first flays, then kills, then tramples, and then hangs his victim in chains. It is the onset of one whose time is short, and who expects reprisals in another region. Nor will his sarcastic vein, once awakened against Croker, sleep till it has scorched poor Bozzy to ashes, and even singed the awful wig of Johnson. We cannot comprehend Macaulay's fury at Boswell, whom he crushes with a most disproportionate expenditure of power and anger. Nor can we coincide with his eloquent enforcement of the opinion, first propounded by Burke, then seconded by Mackintosh, and which seems to have become general, that Johnson is greater in Boswell's book than in his own works. To this we demur. Boswell's book gives us little idea of Johnson's eloquence, or power of grappling with higher subjects "Rasselas" and the "Lives of the Poets" do. Boswell's book does justice to Johnson's wit, readiness, and fertility; but if we would see the full force of his fancy, the full energy of his invective, and his full sensibility to, and command over, the moral sublime, we must consult such papers in the "Idler" as that wonderful one on the Vultures, or in the "Rambler," as Anningait and Ajut, his London, and his Vanity of Human Wishes. Boswell, we venture to assert, has not saved one great sentence of his Idol-such as we may find profusely scattered in his own writingsnor has recorded fully any of those conversations, in which, pitted against Parr or Burke, he talked his best. If Macaulay merely means that Boswell, through what he has preserved, and through his own unceasing admiration, gives us a higher conception of Johnson's every day powers of mind than his writings supply, he is right; but in expressly claiming the immortality for the "careless table-talk," which he denies to the works, and forgetting that

the works discover higher faculties in special display, we deem him mistaken.

In attacking Johnson's style, Macaulay is, unconsciously, a suicide--not that his style is modelied upon Johnson's, or that he abounds in sesquipedalia verba-he has never needed large or new words, either to cloak up mere common-place, or to express absolute originality--but many of the faults he charges against Johnson belong to himself. Uniformity of march-want of flexibility and ease-consequent difficulty in adapting itself to common subjects-perpetual and artfully balanced antithesis, were, at any rate, once peculiarities of Macaulay's writing, as well as of Johnson's, nor are they yet entirely relinquished. After all, such faults are only the awkward steps of the clephant, which only the monkey can deride. Or we may compare them to the unwieldy, but sublime, movements of a giant telescope, which turns slowly and solemnly, as if in time and tune with the stately steps of majesty with which the great objects it contemplates are revolving.

The article on Byron, for light and sparkling brilliancy, is Macaulay's finest paper. Perhaps it is not sufficiently grave or profound for the subject. There are, we think, but two modes of properly writing about Byron-the one is the Monody, the other the Impeachment; this paper is neither. Mere criticism over such dread dust is impertinent; mere panegyric impossible. Either with condemnation melting down in irrepressible tears, or with tears drying up in strong censure, should we approach the memory of Byron, if, indeed, eternal silence were not better still.

He

Over one little paper we are apt to pause with a peculiar fondness-the paper on Bunyan. As no one has greater sympathy with the spirit of the Puritans without having any with their peculiar sentiments than Carlyle, so no one sympathizes more with the literature of that period, without much else in common (unless we except Southey), than Macaulay. The "Pilgrim's Progress" is to him, as to many, almost a craze. cannot speak calmly about it. It continues to shine in the purple light of youth; and, amid all the paths he has traversed, he has never forgotten that immortal path which Bunyan's genius has so boldly mapped out, so variously peopled, and so richly adorned. How can it be forgotten, since it is at once the miniature of the entire world, and a type of the progress of every

earnest soul? The City of Destruction, | rary sketches are unequalled, garnished as the Slough of Despond, the Delectable they are with select scandal, and surrounded Mountains, the Valley of the Shadow of with all the accompaniments of dramatic Death, Beulah, and the Black River, are still extant, unchangeable realities, as long as man continues to be tried and to triumph. But it is less in this typical aspect than as an interesting tale that Macaulay seems to admire it. Were we to look at it in this light alone, we should vastly prefer "Turpin's Ride to York," or " Tam O'Shanter's Progress to Alloway Kirk." But as an unconscious mythic history of man's moral and spiritual advance, its immortality is secure, though its merits are as yet in this point little appreciated. Bunyan, indeed, knew not what he did; but then he spake inspired; his deep heart prompted him to say that to which all deep hearts in all ages should respond; and we may confidently predict that never shall that road be shut up or deserted. As soon stop the current or change the course of the black and bridgeless river.

art. Hastings' trial is a picture to which that of Lord Erskine, highly wrought though it be, is vague and forced, and which, in its thick and crude magnificence, reminds you of the descriptions of Tacitus, or (singular connexion!) of the paintings of Hogarth. As in Hogarth, the variety of figures and circumstances is prodigious, and each and all bear upon the main object, to which they point like fingers; so from every face, figure, aspect, and attitude, in the crowded hall of Westminster, light rushes on the brow of Hastings, who seems a fallen god in the centre of the god-like radiance. Even Fox's "sword" becomes significant, and seems to thirst for the pro-consul's destruction. But Macaulay, though equal to descriptions of men in all difficult and even sublime postures, never describes scenery well. His landscapes are too artificial and elaborate. When, for example, he paints We might have dwelt, partly in praise Paradise in Byron or Pandemonium in and partly in blame, on some of his other Dryden, it is all by parts and parcels, and articles-might, for instance, have combat- you see him pausing and rubbing his brows ed his slump and summary condemnation, between each lovely or each terrible item. in "Dryden," of Ossian's poems-poems The scene reluctantly comes or rather is which, striking, as they did, all Europe to pulled into view, in slow and painful series. the soul, must have had some merit, and It does not rush over his eye, and require which, laid for years to the burning heart of to be detained in its giddy passage. Hence Napoleon, must have had some correspond- his picture of India in Hastings is an ading fire. That, said Coleridge, of Thom- mirable picture of an Indian village, but son's Seasons," lying on the cottage not of India, the country. You have the window-sill, is true fame; but was there" old oaks"-the graceful maiden with the no true fame in the fact that Napoleon, pitcher on her head-the courier shaking as he bridged the Alps, and made at his bunch of iron rings to scare away the Lodi impossibility itself the slave of his genius, had these poems in his travelling carriage? Could the chosen companion of such a soul, in such moments, be altogether false and worthless? Ossian's Poems we regard as a ruder "Robbers" a real though clouded voice of poetry, rising in a low age, prophesying and preparing the way for the miracles which followed; and we doubt if Macaulay himself has ever equalled some of the nobler flights of Macpherson. We may search his writings long ere we find anything so sublime, though we may find many passages equally ambitious, as the Address to the Sun.

He closes his collected articles with his Warren Hastings, as with a grand finale. This we read with the more interest, as we fancy it a chapter extracted from his forthcoming history. As such it justifies our criticism by anticipation. Its personal and lite

hyenas--but where are the eternal bloom, the immemorial temples, the vast bloodspangled mists of superstition, idolatry, and caste, which brood over the sweltering land--the Scotlands of jungle, lighted up by the eyes of tigers as with infernal stars

the Ganges, the lazy deity of the land, creeping down reluctantly to the sea-the heat, encompassing the country like a sullen sleepy hell-the swift steps of tropical Death, heard amid the sulphury silencethe ancient monumental look, proclaiming that all things here continue as they were from the foundation of the world, or seen in the hazy distance as the girdle of the land-the highest peaks of earth soaring up toward the sun-Sirius, the throne of God? Macaulay too much separates the material from the moral aspects of the scene, instead of blending them together as exponents of the one great fact, India.

"Pursue the triumph and partake the gale."

But we must stop. Ere closing, how-ishments of society could not weaken. ever, we are tempted to add, as preachers Society did not-in spite of our author-do, a solid inference or two from our pre- spoil him by its favor, though it infuriated vious remarks. First, we think we can in- him by its resentment. But he has been dicate the field on which Mr. Macaulay is the favored and petted child of good forlikely yet to gain his truest and permanent tune. There has been no 66 crook," till of fame. It is in writing the Literary History late, either in his political or literary of his country. Such a work is still a de- "lot." If he has not altogether inherited sideratum; and no living writer is so well he has approached the verge of the curse, qualified by his learning and peculiar gifts" Wo to you, when all men shall speak by his powers and prejudices-by his well of you.' No storms have unbared strength and his weakness, to supply it. In his mind to its depths. It has been his this he is far more assured of success than uniformly toin any political or philosophical history. With what confidence and delight would the public follow his guidance, from the times of Chaucer to those of Cowper, when our literature ceased to be entirely natural, and even a stage or two further! Of such progress" we proclaim him worthy to be the Great-heart! Secondly, we infer from a retrospect of his whole career, the evils of a too easy and a too early success. It is by an early Achillean baptism alone that men can secure Achillean invulnerability, or confirm Achillean strength. This was the redeeming point in Byron's history. Though a lord, he had to undergo a stern training, which indurated and strengthened him to a pitch, which all the after bland

a

Better all this for his own peace than for his power, or for the permanent effect of his writings.

Let us congratulate him, finally, on his temporary defeat. A few more such victories as he had formerly gained, and he had been undone. A few more such defeats; and if he be, as we believe, essentially a man, he may yet, in the "strength of the lonely," in the consciousness and terrible self-satisfaction of those who deem themselves injuriously assailed, perform such deeds of derring-do as shall abash his adversaries and astonish even himself.

From the British Quarterly Review.

LIFE AND WRITINGS OF HOBBES OF MALMESBURY.

The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury. Now first Collected and Edited by SIR WILLIAM MOLESWORTH, Bart. 11 vols. Longman and Co.

Thoma Hobbes, Malmesburiensis, Opera Philosophica, qua Latine scripsit omnia. In unum corpus nunc primum collecta, studio et labore GULIELMI MOLESWORTH. 5 tom. Apud Longman et Soc.

[An article of singular candor and ability, which does better, justice to the fame of the celebrated philosopher than he has usually received at the hands of the critics. The subjects incidentally discussed with such vigor and erudition, as well as the facts it groups together, entitle the essay to the reader's

attention.-ED.]

AMONG the pleasures of an author, who has sufficient vanity to think that his works will live, and yet never become common, we have no doubt that the anticipation of a complete edition, printed in elegant type, and enriched with copious notes, is one that affords peculiar gratification. In past

days, when there were fewer readers, and the press was slower in its operations, a sort of foreknowledge of the advancement of society must have given great vividness to the dream of posthumous renown. Nevertheless, when the author is no more, and his visions are realized, there is, in some cases, good reason for the inquiry, why they were not allowed to remain a shadow? Why he has been reanimated and brought again under the notice of the public? Is he introduced to us afresh, merely on the score of individual taste, or is there a large sympathy ready to welcome him, owing to the

profound interest which he has inspired on editor and his friend regard the publication the great questions of human existence of this edition not only as an act of justice Is he a writer who was over-rated or ill-ap- to the memory of Hobbes, but also to his preciated while living, and from whose fame" Views;" which, having been culpably posterity is, in the one case, to make the neglected by his countrymen, are now, under necessary deduction; in the other, to award the patronage of two members of a British him ample vindication? And further, House of Commons, submitted to us for among those who own his power and do re-consideration. This is, we confess, homage to his genius, is the main bond somewhat ominous; but, at the same time, which unites them to him, that full cordi- we are willing to ascribe it to a philosophi ality of head and heart which makes them cal temper, and to their stern sense of one with his principles; or, amidst the literary equity. A wide range of reading confession of his intellectual pre-eminence, in moral and political science befits the ledoes he revolt the better feelings of his gislative function, and no "reverence" that readers, and lead them to look upon his is due to Hobbes, is likely to diminish any doctrines with considerable detestation? If man's respect for the English constitution. he wrote on topics of permanent interest, And when we take into account the relation did he, or did he not, take those broad which the original publication of his works views of mankind, which, rising above the bore to the progress of speculative philosochanges of an age, are new in substance phy, and the clearness, energy, and systewhenever quoted, and are applicable to all matic perfection with which his views were generations? explained, instead of consigning the hoary sceptic to oblivion, or being satisfied for him to exist in fragments, we prefer that he should be viewed as a whole; and have, es far as his genius is concerned, a mouument worthy of himself, erected in every sanctuary of learning throughout the civilized world.

These are some of the questions which we have asked, while musing over the goodly volumes before us; and the most of them will necessarily receive an answer in the course of the present article.

truth.

With regard to the censures so freely thrown on Sir W. Molesworth, for becoming the editor of Hobbes, we may be allowed We are by no means insensible to the to express our regret that the tone of several danger which threatens minds of a peculiar of them is anything but Protestant; cast, if they take part in this work; or, if evincing little confidence in the best of they pay homage exclusively at the shrine causes, and much more fit for an assembly of one author, whose assaults on all truth engaged in the formation of an Index and piety they unhappily mistake for asExpurgatorius, than for men having com-saults on superstition, and, regarding the prehensive views of literature, liberty, and obloquy he has met with as a part of his fame, are prepared to bestow on him a phiThe motives which prompted the honor-losophic deification. But this is an evil inable baronet to engage in this work, are cident to the votaries of fiction and poetry, partly detailed in the dedication to George as well as to the worshippers of other diGrote, Esq., M. P. for the City of London. I am indebted," says he, "to you for my first acquaintance with the speculations of one of the greatest and most original thinkers in the English language. It gives me great satisfaction to gratify a wish you have frequently expressed, that some person, who had time and due reverence for that illustrious man, would undertake to edit his works, and bring his views again before his countrymen, who have so long and so unjustly neglected him."

We cannot suppose that either Mr. Grote or Sir W. Molesworth admires the political principles of the Leviathan, and we should be sorry to think that its moral principles were more to their taste.

We are, indeed, informed that both the

vinities. It is impossible to prevent prejudice and one-sidedness in the formation of opinions; and if, while the temple of Truth is visible, and its spacious courts stand open, we find one and another turning aside to lies, no effectual remedy for this evil can be found in shutting up every sanctuary but the true. It would be genuine Hobbism to do so. It would be taking upon ourselves the precise office which it confers on Leviathan, though wherever possessed it must be useless, as false keys would easily be obtained to unlock the recesses of those impure gods, who, until public sentiment be cleansed, will ever find a Pantheon to receive them, and priests to burn incense on their altars.

Believing, therefore, that nothing is more