[Illustration: SAMUEL JOHNSON, LL.D.
From a photograph of the painting by John Opie, R.A., in the National
Portrait Gallery]
MACAULAY'S
LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON
_WITH A SELECTION FROM HIS
ESSAY ON JOHNSON_
EDITED
WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES
BY
CHARLES LANE HANSON
INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH, MECHANIC ARTS HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON
EDITOR OF CARLYLE'S "ESSAY ON BURNS," "REPRESENTATIVE
POEMS OF BURNS," ETC.
[Illustration]
GINN AND COMPANY
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COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY
CHARLES LANE HANSON
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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PREFATORY NOTE
The editor explains the difference between Macaulay's _Life of Johnson_
and Macaulay's _Essay on Johnson_ in the Introduction, IV, p. xxviii,
and gives his reason for printing only a portion of the _Essay_.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION:
PAGE
I. AN INTRODUCTION TO MACAULAY ix
II. MACAULAY AND HIS LITERARY CONTEMPORARIES xxiii
III. THE STUDY OF MACAULAY xxv
IV. MACAULAY ON JOHNSON xxviii
V. REFERENCE BOOKS xxix
VI. CHRONOLOGY OF MACAULAY'S LIFE AND WORKS xxxii
VII. CHRONOLOGY OF JOHNSON'S LIFE AND WORKS xxxiv
LIFE OF SAMUEL JOHNSON 1
SELECTION FROM MACAULAY'S ESSAY ON CROKER'S EDITION
OF BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON 45
NOTES 77
INTRODUCTION
I. AN INTRODUCTION TO MACAULAY
(1800-1859)
Before Thomas Babington Macaulay was big enough to hold a large
volume he used to lie on the rug by the open fire, with his book on
the floor and a piece of bread and butter in his hand. Apparently the
three-year-old boy was as fond of reading as of eating, and even at
this time he showed that he was no mere bookworm by sharing with the
maid what he had learned from "a volume as big as himself." He never
tired of telling the stories that he read, and as he easily remembered
the words of the book he rapidly acquired a somewhat astonishing
vocabulary for a boy of his years. One afternoon when the little
fellow, then aged four, was visiting, a servant spilled some hot coffee
on his legs. The hostess, who was very sympathetic, soon afterward
asked how he was feeling. He looked up in her face and replied, "Thank
you, madam, the agony is abated." It was at this same period of his
infancy that he had a little plot of ground of his own, marked out by a
row of oyster shells, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish. "He
went straight to the drawing-room, where his mother was entertaining
some visitors, walked into the circle, and said, very solemnly, 'Cursed
be Sally; for it is written, Cursed is he that removeth his neighbor's
landmark.'"[1]
As these incidents indicate, the youngster was precocious. When he was
seven, his mother writes, he wrote a compendium of universal history,
and "really contrived to give a tolerably connected view of the leading
events from the Creation to the present time, filling about a quire
of paper." Yet, fond as he was of reading, he was "as playful as a
kitten." Although he made wonderful progress in all branches of his
education, he had to be driven to school. Again and again his entreaty
to be allowed to stay at home met his mother's "No, Tom, if it rains
cats and dogs, you shall go." The boy thought he was too busy with his
literary activities to waste time in school; but the father and mother
looked upon his productions merely as schoolboy amusements. He was to
be treated like other boys, and no suspicion was to come to him, if
they could help it, that he was superior to other children.
The wise parents had set themselves no easy task in their determination
to pay little attention to the unusual gifts of this lad. One
afternoon, when a child, he went with his father to make a social call,
and found on the table the _Lay of the Last Minstrel_, which he had
never before seen. While the others talked he quietly read, and on
reaching home recited as many stanzas as his mother had the patience or
the strength to hear. Clearly a boy who had read incessantly from the
time he was three years old, who committed to memory as rapidly as most
boys read, and who was eager to declaim poetry by the hour, or to tell
interminable stories of his own, would attract somebody's attention.
Fortunately for all concerned the lady who was particularly interested
in him, and who had him at her house for weeks at a time, Mrs. Hannah
More, encouraged without spoiling him, and rewarded him by buying books
to increase his library. When he was six or eight years old, she gave
him a small sum with which to lay "a corner-stone" for his library, and
a year or two afterward she wrote that he was entitled to another book:
"What say you to a little good prose? Johnson's 'Hebrides,' or Walton's
'Lives,' unless you would like a neat edition of 'Cowper's Poems,' or
'Paradise Lost,' for your own eating?" Whether he began at once to eat
Milton's great epic we are not told, but at a later period he said that
"if by some miracle of vandalism all copies of 'Paradise Lost' and 'The
Pilgrim's Progress' were destroyed off the face of the earth, he would
undertake to reproduce them both from recollection."[2]
Prodigy though he was, Thomas was more than a reader and reciter of
books. Much as he cared for them he cared more for his home,--that
simple, thrifty, comfortable home,--and his three brothers and five
sisters. His father, Zachary, did a large business as an African
merchant. This earnest, precise, austere man was so anxious for his
eldest son to have a thoroughly trained mind that he expected a
deliberation and a maturity of judgment that are not natural to an
impetuous lad. The good-natured, open-hearted boy reasoned with him
and pleaded with him, and whether successful or not in persuading his
father, loved him just the same. The mother, with all her love and
ambition for him, took the utmost pains to teach him to do thoroughly
whatever he undertook, in order that he might attain the perfect
development of character that comes alone from the most vigorous
training. His sister, Lady Trevelyan, writes: "His unruffled sweetness
of temper, his unfailing flow of spirits, his amusing talk, all made
his presence so delightful that his wishes and his tastes were our law.
He hated strangers and his notion of perfect happiness was to see us
all working round him while he read aloud a novel, and then to walk
all together on the Common, or, if it rained, to have a frightfully
noisy game of hide-and-seek." It was a habit in the family to read
aloud every evening from such writers as Shakspere, Clarendon, Miss
Edgeworth, Scott, and Crabbe; and, as a standing dish, the _Quarterly_
and the _Edinburgh Review_.
From this home, in which he was wisely loved, Thomas was sent to
a private school near Cambridge. Then his troubles began. The
twelve-year-old boy longed for the one attraction that would tempt him
from his books--home life--and months ahead he counted the days which
must pass before he could again see the home "which absence renders
still dearer." In August, 1813, he urged his mother for permission to
go home on his birthday, October 25: "If your approbation of my request
depends upon my advancing in study, I will work like a cart-horse. If
you should refuse it, you will deprive me of the most pleasing illusion
which I ever experienced in my life."[3] But the father shook his head
and the boy toiled on with his Greek and Latin. He wrote of learning
the Greek grammar by heart, he tried his hand at Latin verses, and he
read what he pleased, with a preference for prose fiction and poetry.
When eighteen years old (in October, 1818), Macaulay entered Trinity
College, Cambridge. But for mathematics he would have been made happy.
He writes to his mother: "Oh for words to express my abomination of
that science, if a name sacred to the useful and embellishing arts may
be applied to the perception and recollection of certain properties
in numbers and figures!... 'Discipline' of the mind! Say rather
starvation, confinement, torture, annihilation!"[4] There were prizes,
but Macaulay was not a prize winner. He was an excellent declaimer and
an excellent debater, and undoubtedly might have won more honors had
he been willing to work hard on the subjects prescribed, whether he
liked them or not. But he was eager to avoid the sciences, and he was
not content to be a mere struggler for honors. He was sensible enough
to enjoy the companionships the place afforded. He knew something of
the value of choosing comrades after his own heart, who were thoroughly
genuine and sincere, natural and manly. Even if, as Mr. Morison says,
the result of his college course was that "those faculties which were
naturally strong were made stronger, and those which were naturally
weak received little or no exercise," he wisely spent much time with
a remarkable group of young men, among whom Charles Austin was king.
Of Austin, John Stuart Mill says, "The impression he gave was that of
boundless strength, together with talents which, combined with such
apparent force of will and character, seemed capable of dominating the
world." And Trevelyan adds, "He certainly was the only man who ever
succeeded in dominating Macaulay." Austin it was who turned Zachary
Macaulay's eldest son from a Tory into a Whig. The boy had always
been interested in the political discussions held in his father's
house, a center of consultation for suburban members of Parliament,
and had learned to look at public affairs with no thought of ambition
or jealous self-seeking. This sort of training, supplemented by his
discussions at college, where he soon became a vigorous politician,
developed a patriotic, disinterested man.
In the midst of his inexpressible delight in the freedom the college
course gave him to indulge his fondness for literature and to spend
his days and nights walking and talking with his mates, he continued
to remember his family with affection, and did not neglect to write
home. On March 25, 1821, he wrote his mother: "I am sure that it is
well worth while being sick to be nursed by a mother. There is nothing
which I remember with such pleasure as the time when you nursed me
at Aspenden. The other night, when I lay on my sofa very ill and
hypochondriac, I was told that you were come! How well I remember with
what an ecstasy of joy I saw that face approaching me, in the middle of
people that did not care if I died that night, except for the trouble
of burying me! The sound of your voice, the touch of your hand, are
present to me now, and will be, I trust in God, to my last hour."[5]
On the first of October, 1824, two years after he had received the
degree of Bachelor of Arts, he wrote his father that he was that
morning elected Fellow, and that the position would make him almost
independent financially for the next seven years.
In 1824, too, he made his first address before a public assembly,--an
antislavery address that probably gave Zachary Macaulay the happiest
half hour of his life, that called out a "whirlwind of cheers" from the
audience, and enthusiastic commendation from the _Edinburgh Review_.
The next year Macaulay was asked to write for that famous periodical,
then at the height of its political, social, and literary power. He
contributed the essay on Milton and "like Lord Byron he awoke one
morning and found himself famous." The compliment for which he cared
most--"the only commendation of his literary talent which even in
the innermost domestic circle he was ever known to repeat"--came
from Jeffrey, the editor, when he acknowledged the receipt of the
manuscript: "The more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked
up that style."
When Macaulay entered college, his father considered himself worth at
least a hundred thousand pounds; but soon afterward he lost his money
and the eldest son found the other children looking to him for guidance
and support. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he
drew freely on his income from the fellowship and his occasional
contributions to the _Edinburgh_. He was the sunshine of the home, and
apparently only those who knew him there got the best of his brilliancy
and wit.
In 1826 he was called to the bar, but he was becoming more and more
interested in public affairs and longed to be in Parliament. In 1830
Lord Lansdowne, who had been much impressed by Macaulay's articles
on Mill, and by his high moral and private character, gave him the
opportunity to represent Calne--"on the eve of the most momentous
conflict," says Trevelyan, "that ever was fought out by speech and
vote within the walls of a senate-house."[6] When the Reform Bill was
introduced, the opposition laughed contemptuously at the impossibility
of disfranchising, wholly or in part, a hundred and ten boroughs for
the sake of securing a fair representation of the United Kingdom in the
House of Commons. Two days later Macaulay made the first of his Reform
speeches, and "when he sat down, the Speaker sent for him, and told
him that, in all his prolonged experience, he had never seen the House
in such a state of excitement." That not only unsettled the House of
Commons but put an end to the question whether he should give his time
to law or to politics. During the next three years he devoted himself
to Parliament. Entering with his whole soul into the thickest of the
fight for reform, he made a speech on the second reading of the Reform
Bill which no less a critic than Jeffrey said put him "clearly at the
head of the great speakers, if not the debaters, of the House."[7]
Naturally the social advantages of the position appealed to Macaulay.
He appreciated the freedom, the good fellowship, the spirit of equality
among the members. "For the space of three seasons he dined out almost
nightly"; and for a man who at a time when his parliamentary fame
was highest, was so reduced that he sold the gold medals he had won
at Cambridge,--though "he was never for a moment in debt,"--it was
sometimes convenient to be a lion. Yet this "sitting up in the House
of Commons till three o'clock five days in the week, and getting an
indigestion at great dinners the remaining two," would not have been
the first choice of a man whose greatest joy "in the midst of all this
praise" was to think of the pleasure which his success would give to
his father and his sisters.
In June, 1832, the bill which Macaulay had supported so zealously and
so eloquently at every stage of the fight, finally became an act. As
a reward the great orator was appointed a commissioner of the Board
of Control, which represented the crown in its relations to the East
Indian directors. He held this commissionership only eighteen months,
however, for as a means of reducing expenses the Whig Government
suppressed it. It is to Macaulay's everlasting credit that he voted for
this economic measure at a time when his Trinity fellowship was about
to expire, and when the removal from office left him penniless.
Impatient to choose the first Reformed Parliament, the great cities
were looking about that autumn for worthy representatives. The Whigs
of Leeds got Macaulay's promise to stand for that town as soon as it
became a parliamentary borough. His attitude toward the electors whose
votes meant bread to him was as refreshing as it was striking. His
frank opinions they should have at all times, but pledges never. They
should choose their representative cautiously and then confide in him
liberally. Such independence was not relished in many quarters, but
Macaulay answered the remonstrants with even more vigor: "It is not
necessary to my happiness that I should sit in Parliament; but it is
necessary to my happiness that I should possess, in Parliament or out
of Parliament, the consciousness of having done what is right."[8]
His appointment as Secretary to the Board of Control was a help
financially, and his return to Parliament by Leeds proved to be of
very great assistance. Matters were going smoothly when the Government
introduced their Slavery Bill. To Zachary Macaulay, who had always been
a zealous abolitionist, the measure was not satisfactory. To please him
the son opposed it. In order that he might be free to criticise the
bill, simply as a member of Parliament, he resigned his position in the
Cabinet, although both he and his father thought this course of action
would be fatal to his career. A son whose devotion to his father leads
him to such lengths is not always so promptly rewarded as Macaulay was
in this instance, for the resignation was not accepted, the bill was
amended, and the Ministers were as friendly as ever.
Up to this time he had earned little money by his writing. After
giving his days to India and his nights to improving the condition of
the Treasury, he could get only snatches of time for turning off the
essays which we read with so much care. With a family depending on him
he now realized fully the need not of riches but of a competence. He
could live by his pen or by office; but he could not think seriously
of writing to "relieve the emptiness of the pocket" rather than "the
fullness of the mind," and if he must earn this competence through
office, the sooner he was through with the business the better. So it
was largely for the sake of his aged father, his younger brother, and
his dearly loved sisters, that he accepted an appointment as legal
adviser to the Supreme Council of India.
He and his sister Hannah sailed for India in February, 1834. He tells
us that he read during the whole voyage: the _Iliad_ and _Odyssey_,
Virgil, Horace, Cæsar's _Commentaries_, Bacon's _De Augmentis_, Dante,
Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, _Don Quixote_, Gibbon's _Rome_, Mill's
_India_, all the seventy volumes of Voltaire, Sismondi's _History of
France_, and the seven thick folios of the _Biographia Britannica_.
On his arrival he plunged into the new work. Not satisfied with the
immense amount already assigned him, he saw two large opportunities to
do more by serving on two committees. As president of the Committee
of Public Instruction he substituted for Oriental learning the
introduction and promotion of European literature and science among the
natives; as president of the Law Commission he took the initiative in
framing the famous Penal Code, the value of which must be judged from
the facts that "hardly any questions have arisen upon it which have had
to be determined by the courts, and that few and slight amendments
have had to be made by the Legislature."[9] He worked patiently, yet he
longed to be back in England, and it was a great relief when in 1838,
his work done, his competence saved, he was able to return. He was too
late to see his father again, for Zachary Macaulay had died while the
son was on the way home.
In the fall he went to Italy with his mind full of associations and
traditions. His biographer says that every line of good poetry which
the fame or the beauty of this country had inspired "rose almost
involuntarily to his lips." On this occasion he gave some of those
geographical and topographical touches to the _Lays of Ancient Rome_
"which set his spirited stanzas ringing in the ear of a traveller in
Rome at every turn." Much as he enjoyed Italy, he soon began to long
for his regular work, and the following February found him in London
again. In March he was unanimously elected to _the_ Club, and he was
making the most of his leisure for books when he felt it his duty to
enter Parliament for Edinburgh. "Office was never, within my memory,
so little attractive," he writes, "and therefore, I fear, I cannot,
as a man of spirit, flinch, if it is offered to me." Without any show
of reluctance he was made Secretary at War and given a seat in the
Cabinet. To this position the man who had begun life "without rank,
fortune, or private interest" had risen before his fortieth birthday.
On March 14, 1840, he wrote his intimate friend, Mr. Ellis, a good
account of his life at that time.[10]
"I have got through my estimates [for army expenses] with flying
colors; made a long speech of figures and details without hesitation
or mistake of any sort; stood catechising on all sorts of questions;
and got six millions of public money in the course of an hour or two. I
rather like the sort of work, and I have some aptitude for it. I find
business pretty nearly enough to occupy all my time; and if I have a
few minutes to myself, I spend them with my sister and niece; so that,
except while I am dressing and undressing, I get no reading at all. I
do not know but that it is as well for me to live thus for a time. I
became too mere a bookworm in India, and on my voyage home. Exercise,
they say, assists digestion; and it may be that some months of hard
official and Parliamentary work may make my studies more nourishing."
But the Queen's advisers did not have the confidence of the country,
there was a change of government, and Macaulay lost his office. How
the loss affected him we may gather from a part of his letter to Mr.
Napier, at that time the editor of the _Edinburgh Review_.
"I can truly say that I have not, for many years, been so happy as I
am at present.... I am free. I am independent. I am in Parliament,
as honorably seated as man can be. My family is comfortably off. I
have leisure for literature, yet I am not reduced to the necessity of
writing for money. If I had to choose a lot from all that there are in
human life, I am not sure that I should prefer any to that which has
fallen to me. I am sincerely and thoroughly contented."[11]
Carlyle says that a biography should answer two questions: (1) what
and how produced was the effect of society on the man; and (2) what
and how produced was his effect on society.[12] To the careful reader
of Trevelyan's _Life_ the words just quoted from Macaulay will give
a pretty fair notion of what, up to this time, Macaulay had got from
society. The other question, what he gave to society, is perhaps
best answered in the account of the remaining years of his life.
In Parliament, in society, and in literary and political circles
throughout the country there was the feeling that he had won the
respect and good will of all, and that he was to do something still
greater. What this greater thing was to be was the question that
confronted Macaulay for the next few years. Certainly it was not the
publishing of his _Lays_, although one hundred thousand copies of them
were sold by the year 1875. Nor was it the collecting and reprinting of
his _Essays_, although they have given hundreds of thousands of minds
a taste for letters and a desire for knowledge. One could hardly call
it the delivery of those vehement and effective parliamentary speeches
with which he held his audience spellbound, even if one of them did
secure the passing of the Copyright Bill in 1842 in practically its
present form. But while attending to these other matters, Macaulay had
on his mind an undertaking which was destined to satisfy, as far as
he carried it toward completion, the hopes of his most enthusiastic
admirers. In 1841 he had written to Napier, "I shall not be satisfied
unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the
last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies."[13] In order
that he might give all his attention to this one project he soon
stopped writing for the _Edinburgh Review_; he denied himself no
little of the pleasure he had been getting from society; he gave up
more parliamentary honors than most others could ever hope to win. At
last, in 1848, he published the first volumes of a work that met with
a heartier welcome than the English-speaking world had given to any
historical work since the coming of Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire_. That these volumes of _The History of England_ were
the result of a very different kind of effort from that with which
Macaulay had dashed off the essays, may be inferred from a sentence
of Thackeray's, which Trevelyan says is no exaggeration: "He reads
twenty books to write a sentence; he travels a hundred miles to make a
line of description."[14] After all critics may say for or against the
_History_, it remains to note that Macaulay did what he undertook: he
wrote a history that is more readable than most novels.
In other ways we can trace his "effect on society." He was chosen Lord
Rector of the University of Glasgow in 1848. Prince Albert tried,
but in vain, to induce him to become Professor of Modern History at
Cambridge in 1849. He was asked, but declined--urging the plea that
he was not a debater--to join the Cabinet in 1852. The same year the
people of Edinburgh, ashamed of their failure to reëlect him five years
before, chose him to represent them in Parliament. Meantime he had
been well and happy. In his journal for October 25, 1850, he wrote:
"My birthday. I am fifty. Well, I have had a happy life. I do not know
that anybody, whom I have seen close, has had a happier. Some things I
regret; but, on the whole, who is better off? I have not children of
my own, it is true; but I have children whom I love as if they were my
own, and who, I believe, love me. I wish that the next ten years may be
as happy as the last ten. But I rather wish it than hope it."[15]
Macaulay may have surmised that the good health which had been such an
important factor in keeping him happy would not last much longer. At
any rate his last election to the House of Commons was followed by an
illness from which he never fully recovered, but through which, for
seven years, "he maintained his industry, his courage, his patience,
and his benevolence." Occasionally he treated the House to a "torrent
of words," but he understood that he must husband his powers for
work on books. To protect himself from a bookseller who advertised
an edition of his speeches, he made and published a selection of his
own, many of which he had to write from memory. Then he continued his
work on the _History_. Some of the time he had to "be resolute and
work doggedly," as Johnson said. "He almost gave up letter-writing;
he quite gave up society; and at last he had not leisure even for his
diary."[16] Yet of this immense labor he said, "It is the business and
the pleasure of my life."
As a result of this steady toil the writer secured an enviable
influence abroad. He was made a member of several foreign academies,
and translations have turned the _History_ into a dozen tongues. At
home, among the numerous honors, he was presented with the degree of
Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford, and made a peer--Baron of Rothley.
Naturally before receiving this last honor he had withdrawn from
Parliament, and from 1856 to the end of his life he enjoyed a retired
home, with a fine garden. He had plenty of time to cash the famous
check for twenty thousand pounds which the first edition of the
_History_ brought him, and to invest and spend it as he pleased. On
his fifty-seventh birthday he wrote in his diary, "What is much more
important to my happiness than wealth, titles, and even fame, those
whom I love are well and happy, and very kind and affectionate to me."
One of the chief sources of his happiness, one to which he was
particularly indebted these last days, was his love of reading. He
could no longer read fourteen books of the _Odyssey_ at a stretch
while out for a walk, but in the quiet of his library he enjoyed the
companionship of the author he happened to be reading as perhaps few
men could. He who could command any society in London failed to find
any that he preferred, at breakfast or at dinner, to the company of
Boswell; and it seems natural and fitting that he should be found
on that last December day, in 1859, "in the library, seated in his
easy-chair, and dressed as usual, with his book on the table beside
him."
Equally fitting is it that in Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, the
resting place of Johnson, Garrick, Goldsmith, and Addison, there should
lie a stone with this inscription:
THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY,
BORN AT ROTHLEY TEMPLE, LEICESTERSHIRE,
OCTOBER 25TH, 1800.
DIED AT HOLLY LODGE, CAMPDEN HILL.
DECEMBER 28TH, 1859.
"His body is buried in peace,
but his name liveth for evermore."
For he left behind him a great and honorable name, and every action of
his life was "as clear and transparent as one of his own sentences."
His biography reveals the dutiful son, the affectionate brother, the
true friend, the honorable politician, the practical legislator, the
eloquent speaker, the brilliant author. It shows unmistakably that
greater than all his works was the man.
II. MACAULAY AND HIS LITERARY CONTEMPORARIES
The very year in which the last volumes of Johnson's _Lives of the
Poets_ were published, 1781, Burns began to do his best work. In 1796
Burns died. In 1798, two years before Macaulay was born, Wordsworth and
Coleridge published the first of the _Lyrical Ballads_, which included
_The Rime of the Ancient Mariner_. Like Burns, yet in a way entirely
his own, Wordsworth was the poet of Nature and of Man, and this little
volume was the beginning of much spontaneous poetry which in the
following years proved a refreshing change from the polished couplets
which had been in fashion. Instead of Pope and Addison and Johnson, in
whose time literary men cared more for books than for social reforms,
more for manner than for matter, came Scott, Byron, Shelley, Coleridge,
Landor, and Southey with their irrepressible originality.
Before Macaulay's day Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, and Smollett had
each contributed something to the novel. During his lifetime came
practically all of the best work of Miss Austen, Scott, Cooper, Lytton,
Disraeli, Hawthorne, the Brontës, Dickens, Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell,
Trollope, and Kingsley. George Eliot's _Adam Bede_ appeared the year he
died.
Other prominent prose writers were Hallam, Grote, Milman, Froude, Mill,
Ruskin, and Carlyle. _In Memoriam_ and Mrs. Browning's _Sonnets from
the Portuguese_ were published in 1850, and Browning's _The Ring and
the Book_ came out in 1868.
As to Macaulay's relations with his literary contemporaries, it must
be understood that he gave practically his whole attention to the
times of which he read and wrote, and to the men who made those times
interesting. Scientists were making important discoveries day by
day, but his concern was not with them, even at a time when Darwin
was writing his _Origin of Species_. It was not clear to him that
philosophical speculations like Carlyle's might do much to better
the condition of humanity. He finished Wordsworth's _Prelude_ only
to be disgusted with "the old flimsy philosophy about the effect
of scenery on the mind" and "the endless wildernesses of dull,
flat, prosaic twaddle." Although he read an infinite variety of
contemporary literature he said he would not attempt to dissect works
of imagination. In 1838, when Napier wished him to review Lockhart's
_Life of Scott_ for the _Edinburgh Review_, he replied that he enjoyed
many of Scott's performances as keenly as anybody, but that many could
criticise them far better. He added: "Surely it would be desirable that
some person who knew Sir Walter, who had at least seen him and spoken
with him, should be charged with this article. Many people are living
who had a most intimate acquaintance with him. I know no more of him
than I know of Dryden or Addison, and not a tenth part so much as I
know of Swift, Cowper, or Johnson."[17] He turned instinctively to
the old books, the books that he had read again and again: to Homer,
Aristophanes, Horace, Herodotus, Addison, Swift, Fielding. There was at
least one writer of fiction in his time to whom he was always loyal.
On one occasion when he had been reading Dickens and Pliny and Miss
Austen at the same time, he declared that _Northanger Abbey_, although
"the work of a girl," was in his opinion "worth all Dickens and Pliny
together."
What he did for humanity he did as a practical man of affairs, at home
alike in the Cabinet and in popular assemblies. While Carlyle in the
midst of his gloomy life was toiling heroically to banish shams and
to get at the True, the Real, Macaulay, who was reasonably satisfied
with the past and the present, and hopeful of the future, was sifting
from his vast treasury of information about the past what he believed
to be significant in history and important in literature. He had none
of the feeling that Ruskin had, that it was his duty to turn reformer,
but what he did toward educating his readers he did in the way he most
enjoyed.
III. THE STUDY OF MACAULAY
Once for all it must be remembered that Macaulay had no intention of
being studied as a text-book, and we must deal with him fairly. First
we should read the _Life_ through at a sitting without consulting a
note, just as we read an article in the _Atlantic Monthly_ or the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_. We should rush on with the "torrent of
words" to the end to see what it is all about, and to get an impression
of the article as a whole. As Johnson says: "Let him that is yet
unacquainted with the powers of Shakespeare, and who desires to feel
the highest pleasure that the drama can give, read every play from the
first scene to the last with utter negligence of all his commentators.
When his fancy is once on the wing, let it not stoop at correction or
explanation. When his attention is strongly engaged let it disdain
alike to turn aside to the name of Theobald and of Pope. Let him read
on through brightness and obscurity, through integrity and corruption;
let him preserve his comprehension of the dialogue and his interest
in the fable. And when the pleasures of novelty have ceased let him
attempt exactness and read the commentators."
Macaulay attracts attention not only to what he says but also to the
way in which he says it. In examining his style it will be a good plan
to ask ourselves whether the writer ever wanders from the subject,
or whether every part of the _Life_ contributes something to the one
subject under discussion. Naturally we find ourselves making topics,
such for example as Johnson's Youth, His Father, At Oxford. A list of
these topics gives us a bird's-eye view of the whole field and enables
us to examine the composition more critically. Has the writer arranged
the topics in the natural order? Does he give too much space to the
treatment of any one topic? Might any of them be omitted to advantage?
Having examined the larger divisions, we may profitably turn our
attention to the parts which constitute these divisions, the
paragraphs. First let us see whether he goes easily from one paragraph
to the next. For example, is the first sentence of paragraph 2 a good
connecting link with what precedes? In looking through the _Life_ for
these links, we should make up our minds whether they are studied or
spontaneous.
Then let us test the unity of the paragraphs. Can each paragraph be
summed up in a single sentence? Does a combination of the opening and
the closing sentence ever serve the purpose? Does one or the other of
these ever answer of itself? Has every sentence some bearing on the
main thought, or might some sentences be omitted as well as not?
It will be equally profitable, at this point, to test the coherence
of half a dozen paragraphs. Does each sentence lead up naturally to
the next? Can the order of sentences be changed to advantage? When the
sentences in a paragraph hold together firmly, we should point out the
cause; when coherence is lacking, we should try to discover to what its
absence is due.
Then comes the question of emphasis. Let us see whether we can find
two or three paragraphs in which Macaulay succeeds particularly well
in emphasizing the main point. If we find three, let us see whether he
accomplishes his purpose in the same way each time.
For those of us who are still willing to learn something from
Macaulay's style, it is worth while to study the sentences. Selecting
two or three of the most interesting paragraphs, we may make the three
tests: (1) Is each sentence a unit? (2) Is the relation of every word
to the adjoining words absolutely clear? (3) Does the construction
emphasize what is important?
Then there is the vocabulary. Who does not enjoy the feeling that he
is enlarging his vocabulary? An easy way of doing it is to read two
or three times such a paragraph as the nineteenth, and then, with the
book closed, to write as much of it as possible from memory. As it is
not merely a large vocabulary that we wish, but a well chosen one, we
shall do well to compare our version with Macaulay's and see in how
many cases his word is better than ours. Have we, for example, equaled
"winning affability," or "London mud," or "inhospitable door"? Is his
word more effective than ours because it is more specific, or what is
the reason?
Before taking farewell of the _Life of Johnson_ there is another use to
which we may put the topics. We may use them as tests of our knowledge
of the essay. If we can write or talk fully and definitely on each of
the more important ones, we are sure to carry much food for thought
away with us. The value of a review of this sort is evident from a
glance at the following topics: Literary Life in London in Johnson's
Time, Johnson's Love Affair, The Dictionary, The Turning Point in
Johnson's Life, The Rambler, Rasselas, The Idler, His Shakspere,
The Club [His Conversation], Boswell, The Thrales, His Fleet Street
Establishment, The Lives of the Poets.
As we read Macaulay we should be particularly careful to think for
ourselves. Mr. Gladstone has said: "Wherever and whenever read, he will
be read with fascination, with delight, with wonder. And with copious
instruction too; but also with copious reserve, with questioning
scrutiny, with liberty to reject, and with much exercise of that
liberty."[18]
This means that we must follow him up, find out where he got his
information, see whether in his enthusiasm he has exaggerated. Then,
even if the critics do assure us that he is not one of the deep
thinkers, one of the very great writers, we may go on committing his
_Lays_ to heart, studying his _Essays_, and admiring those wonderfully
faithful pictures in his _History_. More than all else, as the years
go by, we are likely to find ourselves indebted to him for arousing
interest, for leading us to further reading.
IV. MACAULAY ON JOHNSON
Among the "hasty and imperfect articles" which Macaulay wrote for
the _Edinburgh Review_ was one on Croker's Edition of Boswell's
Life of Johnson. It appeared in 1831 and gave the writer a welcome
opportunity to show the inaccuracy and unreliability of Croker, one
of his political opponents. Nearly one half of his space he gave to
criticising the editor, and that part it seems wise to omit in this
edition; for we care more about Boswell and Johnson. Twenty-five years
later, in 1856, when Macaulay had ceased to write for reviews, but
sent an occasional article to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, he wrote
what is generally called the _Life of Samuel Johnson_. The publisher
of the encyclopædia writes that it was entirely to Macaulay's friendly
feeling that he was "indebted for those literary gems, which could not
have been purchased with money"; that "he made it a stipulation of his
contributing that remuneration should not be so much as mentioned." The
other articles referred to are those on Atterbury, Bunyan, Goldsmith,
and William Pitt. One writer calls them "perfect models of artistic
condensation."
It is interesting to compare the later work with the earlier: to see
whether there is any evidence of improvement in Macaulay's use of
English, and whether he gives us a better notion of Boswell and Johnson.
V. REFERENCE BOOKS
The book to which we naturally turn first to see whether Macaulay
knows his subject is Boswell's _Life of Johnson_; not the edition
in six volumes by Dr. George B. Hill, scholarly as it is, but some
such edition as Mr. Mowbray Morris's, published by the Macmillan
Company in one volume. When we read Boswell the first time, to get his
conception of his hero, we do not care to loiter on every page for
notes, interesting and instructive as they may be after the first rapid
reading. This single volume is so cheap that no one need hesitate to
buy it; then he may mark it up as much as he pleases and enjoy his own
book. The conscientious student need not feel obliged to read every
word of every episode, but may feel perfectly free to skip whatever
does not appeal to him, perfectly certain that before he has turned ten
pages he will stumble on something worth while.
The book which will do more than all others to illuminate the life
and character of Macaulay is _The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay_,
written by his nephew, G. Otto Trevelyan. Harper & Brothers, the
publishers, have bound the two volumes in one which is so inexpensive
that every school library may easily afford it. Some critics think this
_Life_ ranks with Boswell's _Johnson_. It certainly is one of the most
readable biographies in the English language. Other useful books are
numerous, but among them all Carlyle's essay in reply to Macaulay's
_Essay on Boswell's Life of Johnson_ stands out first.
BOSWELL
ARBLAY, MADAME D'. Memoirs of Dr. Burney. (Contains "the most
vivid account of Boswell's manner when in company with
Dr. Johnson.")
Boswelliana: the Commonplace Book of James Boswell. London,
1874.
CARLYLE, THOMAS. Boswell's Life of Johnson.
FITZGERALD, PERCY, M.A., F.S.A. Life of James Boswell with four
portraits. 2 vols. London: 1891.
LEASK, W. KEITH. James Boswell. (Famous Scots Series.)
Edinburgh: 1897.
STEPHEN, LESLIE. James Boswell (in the Dictionary of National
Biography).
JOHNSON
BIRRELL, A. Dr. Johnson (in Obiter Dicta, Second Series).
BOSWELL, JAMES. Life of Johnson including Boswell's Journal of
a Tour to the Hebrides, etc., edited by George Birkbeck
Hill, D.C.L., Pembroke College, Oxford, in six volumes.
Oxford, 1897. ("Boswell's famous book has never before
been annotated with equal enthusiasm, learning, and
industry."--Austin Dobson.)
The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D., including a Journal
of his Tour to the Hebrides, by James Boswell, Esq.
New edition, with numerous additions and notes, by
The Right Hon. John Wilson Croker, M.P., to which
are added ... 50 engraved illustrations. In ten
volumes. London: 1839.
The Life of Johnson edited by Alexander Napier, M.A.,
London, 1884, also has several engravings.
Dr. Henry Morley's edition of Boswell's work is
illustrated with portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds.
George Routledge & Sons, London, 1885.
BROUGHAM, HENRY, LORD, F.R.S. Lives of Men of Letters of the
Time of George III. London: 1856.
GARDINER, S. R. A Student's History of England.
GOSSE, EDMUND W. History of Eighteenth Century Literature.
GREEN, J. R. A Short History of the English People.
HILL, GEORGE BIRKBECK, D.C.L. Dr. Johnson, His Friends and
His Critics. London: 1878.
HOSTE, J. W. Johnson and His Circle. London: Jarrold & Sons.
Johnson's Chief Lives of the Poets, Being those of Milton,
Dryden, Swift, Addison, Pope, Gray, and Macaulay's
Life of Johnson, with a Preface by Matthew Arnold, to
which are appended Macaulay's and Carlyle's Essays on
Boswell's Life of Johnson. Henry Holt & Company, New
York, 1879.
Johnson Club Papers by Various Hands. London: T. Fisher Unwin,
1899.
Johnsoniana: Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D., by
Mrs. Piozzi, Bishop Percy, and others, together with
the Diary of Dr. Campbell and extracts from that of
Madame D' Arblay, newly collected and edited by Robina
Napier. (Engravings and various autographs.) George
Bell and Sons, London, 1884.
JOHNSON, SAMUEL. The Idler. In the series of British Essayists.
Lives of the Poets. A New Edition, with Notes and
Introduction by Arthur Waugh, in six volumes.
Scribner's Sons, 1896.
London. In Hales's Longer English Poems.
The Rambler. In the series of British Essayists.
Rasselas. Leach, Shewell & Sanborn, or Henry Holt & Co.
The Vanity of Human Wishes. In Hales's Longer English
Poems and Syle's From Milton to Tennyson.
The Works of Samuel Johnson. In nine volumes. Oxford.
LECKY, W. E. H. History of England in the Eighteenth Century.
PIOZZI, MRS. Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson during the
Last Twenty Years of his Life. 1786.
Same, in the cheap National Series. The Cassell Company.
Letters to and from the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. 1788.
STEPHEN, LESLIE. History of English Thought in the Eighteenth
Century.
Dr. Johnson's Writings (in Hours in a Library, Vol. II).
Samuel Johnson. Dictionary of National Biography.
Samuel Johnson. English Men of Letters Series. Harper &
Brothers. (Cloth or paper.)
MACAULAY
BAGEHOT, WALTER. Thomas Babington Macaulay. (In Literary
Studies.)
BREWER, E. COBHAM, LL.D. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. The
Historic Note-book.
CLARK, J. SCOTT. Thomas Babington Macaulay. (In A Study of
English Prose Writers.)
GLADSTONE, W. E. Gleanings of Past Years.
HARRISON, FREDERIC. Lord Macaulay. (In Early Victorian
Literature.)
MACAULAY, THOMAS B. Critical and Historical Essays, contributed
to the _Edinburgh Review_. Trevelyan edition, in two
volumes. Longmans, Green, and Co.
The History of England from the Accession of James II.
Works. Complete edition, by Lady Trevelyan, in eight
volumes. Longmans, Green, and Co.
MINTO, WILLIAM. Manual of English Prose Literature.
MORISON, J. COTTER. Macaulay. (In English Men of Letters,
edited by John Morley.)
PATTISON, MARK. Macaulay. (In the Encyclopædia Britannica.)
STEPHEN, LESLIE. Macaulay. (In the Dictionary of National
Biography; in Hours in a Library.)
TREVELYAN, G. OTTO. The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, in
two volumes; also two volumes in one.
LONDON
BESANT, WALTER. London in the Eighteenth Century.
HARE, AUGUSTUS JOHN. Walks in London.
HUTTON, LAURENCE. Literary Landmarks of London.
WHEATLEY, HENRY B. London, Past and Present.
VI. CHRONOLOGY OF MACAULAY'S LIFE AND WORKS
1800. Born.
1814. Sent to boarding school.
1818. Entered Trinity College, Cambridge.
1822. Graduated as B.A.
1824. Degree of M.A. Elected Fellow. First public speech.
1825. First contribution to the _Edinburgh Review_: essay on
Milton.
1826. Called to the bar.
1828. Commissioner of Bankruptcy.
1830. Member of Parliament for Calne. First speech in
Parliament.
1831. Speeches on the Reform Bill. Essay on Boswell's Life of
Johnson.
1833. Member of Parliament for Leeds. Essay on Horace Walpole.
1834. Essay on William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Sailed for India
as legal adviser to the Supreme Council.
1837. Penal Code finished.
1838. His father died. Returned to England. Visited Italy.
1839. Elected to the Club. Member of Parliament for Edinburgh.
Secretary at War.
1840. Essay on Lord Clive.
1841. Reëlected to Parliament for Edinburgh. Essay on Warren
Hastings.
1842. Lays of Ancient Rome published.
1843. Essay on Madame d'Arblay. Essay on the Life and Writings
of Addison.
1844. Essay on the Earl of Chatham. (The second essay on this
subject, and his last contribution to the _Edinburgh
Review_.)
1846. Paymaster-General of the Army. Defeated in Edinburgh
election.
1848. First two volumes of his History of England.
1849. Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow.
1852. Again elected to Parliament from Edinburgh, although not
a candidate. Failing health.
1854. Life of John Bunyan.
1855. Third and fourth volumes of his History of England. (The
fifth volume appeared after his death.)
1856. Resigned his seat in Parliament. Life of Samuel Johnson.
Life of Oliver Goldsmith.
1857. Became Baron Macaulay of Rothley.
1859. Life of William Pitt. Died December 28.
VII. CHRONOLOGY OF JOHNSON'S LIFE AND WORKS
1709. Born September 18.
1728. Entered Pembroke College, Oxford. Turned Pope's Messiah
into Latin verse.
1731. Left Oxford. His father died.
1735. Married. Opened an academy at Edial.
1737. Went to London.
1738. His first important work: London. Began to write for _The
Gentleman's Magazine_.
1744. Life of Savage.
1747. Prospectus of the Dictionary.
1749. The Vanity of Human Wishes. Irene.
1750-1752. The Rambler.
1752. Death of his wife.
1755. Letter to Chesterfield. The Dictionary appeared.
1758-1760. The Idler.
1759. Death of his mother. Rasselas.
1762. Pensioned.
1763. Met Boswell for the first time.
1764. The Club founded.
1765. Made Doctor of Laws by Trinity College, Dublin.
Introduced to the Thrales. His edition of Shakspere
published.
1773. Spent three months in Scotland.