Beacon Lights of History, Volume 13: Great Writers

It surprises me that Macaulay's intercourse with eminent authors was so constrained. He saw very little of them; but while he did not avoid talking with them when thrown among them, and keeping up the courtesies of life even with those he thoroughly disliked, I cannot see any evidence that he sought the society of those who were regarded as his equals in genius. He liked Milman and Mackintosh and Napier and Jeffrey and Rogers, and a few others; but his intimate intercourse was confined chiefly to these and to his family.

Macaulay's fame, however, was substantially founded and built. Sydney Smith's witty characterization of him is worth recalling:–

"I always prophesied his greatness from the first moment I saw him, then a very young and unknown man on the Northern Circuit. There are no limits to his knowledge, on small subjects as well as great; he is like a book in breeches.

"Yes, I agree, he is certainly more agreeable since his return from India. His enemies might have said before (though I never did so) that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful. But what is far better and more important than all this is, that I believe Macaulay to be incorruptible. You might lay ribbons, stars, garters, wealth, title, before him in vain. He has an honest, genuine love of his country; and the world could not bribe him to neglect her interests."

Macaulay now devoted several weeks of every year to travel, visiting different parts of England and the Continent as the mood took him. In the autumn of 1838 he visited Italy, it would seem for the first time, and was, of course, enchanted. He appreciated natural scenery, but was not enthusiastic over it; nor did it make a very deep impression on him except for the moment. He loved best to visit cities and places consecrated by classical associations.

While at Rome, Macaulay received from Lord Melbourne the offer of the office of Judge Advocate; but he unhesitatingly declined it. The salary of £2500 was nothing to a scholar who already had a comfortable independence; and the duties the situation imposed were not only uncongenial, but would interfere with his literary labors.

In February, 1839, he returned to London; and now the pressure on him by his political friends to re-enter public life was greater than he could resist. He was elected to Parliament as one of the members from Edinburgh, and gave his usual support to his party. In September he became War Secretary, with a seat in the Whig Cabinet under Lord Melbourne. Consequently he suspended for a while his literary tasks, conducting the business of his department with commendable industry, but without enthusiasm. In the session of 1840 and 1841, during the angry discussions pertaining to the registration of votes in Ireland, he gave proof of having profited by the severe legal training he had received from his labors in India. During these years he found time to write a few reviews, the one on Lord Olive being the most prominent.

The great subject of political agitation at this period was the repeal of the Corn Laws. The Whig leaders had lost the earnestness which had marked their grand efforts when they carried the Reform Bill of 1832, and were more indifferent to further reforms than suited their constituents; so that, at a dangerous financial crisis in 1841, the direction of public affairs fell into the hands of the Tories, under Sir Robert Peel. This great man not only rescued the nation from its fiscal embarrassments, but having been convinced by the arguments of Cobden of the necessity of repealing the Corn Laws, he carried through that great reform, to the disgust of his party and to his own undying fame. I have treated of this period more at large in another volume of this series.2

Macaulay was not much moved by the fall of the ministry to which he belonged, and gladly resumed his literary labors,–the first fruits of his leisure being an essay on Warren Hastings, a companion piece to the one on Clive.

These East Indian essays constitute the most picturesque and graphic account of British conquests in that ancient land that has been given to the public. Macaulay's intimate knowledge of the ground, and his literary resources, enabled him to picture the dazzling successes of Clive and Hastings; so that the careers of those superb military chieftains and commercial robber-statesmen, in securing for their country the control of a distant province larger than France, and in enriching the British Empire and themselves beyond all precedent in conquest, stand splendidly portrayed forever.

Macaulay had now taken apartments in The Albany, on the second floor, to which he removed his large library, and in which he comfortably lived for fifteen years. His article on Warren Hastings was followed by that on Frederic the Great. His numerous articles in the Edinburgh Review had now become so popular that there was a great demand for them in a separate form. Curiously enough, as in the case of Carlyle, it was in America that the public appreciation of these essays first took the form of book publication; and Macaulay's "Miscellanies" were published in Boston in 1840, and in Philadelphia in 1842. As these volumes began to go to England, for Macaulay's own protection they were republished by Longman, revised by the author, in 1843, and obtained an immediate and immense sale,–reaching one hundred and twenty thousand copies in England,–which added to the fame and income of Macaulay. But he was never satisfied with the finish of his own productions; the only thing which seemed to comfort him was that the last essays were better than the first. In addition to his labors for the Edinburgh, was the publication of a volume of his poems in 1842, which was also enthusiastically received by his admirers. His last notable essays were a chivalrous article on Madame D'Arblay (January, 1843); an entirely charming account of Addison and the wits of Queen Anne's reign (July, 1843); an interesting review of the Memoirs of Barère, the French revolutionist and writer (April, 1844); and finally a second article on Lord Chatham (October, 1844), which is considered finer than the first one written twenty years earlier. More and more, however, the project of writing a History of England had taken possession of him, and he began now to forego all other literary occupation, and to devote all his leisure time to that great work.

During much of the time that Macaulay had continued writing his reviews, at the rate of about two in a year, he was an active member of Parliament, frequently addressing the House of Commons, and earning the gratitude of the country by his liberal and enlightened views,–especially those in reference to the right of Unitarians to their chapels, to the enlarged money-grant given to the Irish Roman Catholic Maynooth College, and to the extension of copyrights. He rarely spoke without careful preparation. His speeches were forcible and fine. In the higher field of debate, however, as we have already intimated, he was not successful. In 1845 Sir Robert Peel retired, the Whigs again coming into power; and in 1846 Macaulay accepted the office of Paymaster of the Forces, because its duties were comparatively light and would not much interfere with his literary labors, while it added £2000 a year to his income. During the session of 1846 and 1847, while still in Parliament, he spoke only five times, although the House was ever ready to listen to him.

In the year 1847 the disruption of the Scotch Church was effected, and in the bitterness engendered by that movement Macaulay lost his popularity with his Edinburgh constituents. He seemed indifferent to their affairs; he answered their letters irregularly and with almost contemptuous brevity. He had no sympathy with the radicals who at that time controlled a large number of votes, and he refused to contribute towards electioneering expenses. Above all, he was absorbed in his History, and had lost much of his interest in politics. In consequence he failed to be re-elected, and not unwillingly retired to private life.

Macaulay now concentrated all his energies on the History, which occupied his thoughts, his studies, and his pen for the most part during the remainder of his life. The first two volumes were published in the latter part of 1848; and the sale was immense, surpassing that of any historical work in the history of literature, and coming near to the sale of the novels of Sir Walter Scott. The popularity of the work was not confined to scholars and statesmen and critics, but it was equally admired by ordinary readers; and not in England and Scotland alone, but in the United States, in France, in Holland, in Germany, and other countries.

The labor expended on these books was prodigious. The author visited in person nearly all the localities in England and Ireland where the events he narrated took place. He ransacked the archives of most of the governments of Europe, and all the libraries to which he could gain access, public and private. He worked twelve hours a day, and yet produced on an average only two printed pages daily,–so careful was he in verifying his facts and in arranging his materials, writing and rewriting until no further improvement could be made.

This book was not merely the result of his researches for the last fifteen years of his life, but of his general reading for nearly fifty years, when everything he read he remembered. Says Thackeray, "He reads twenty books to write a sentence; he travels one hundred miles to make a line of description." The extent and exactness of his knowledge were not only marvellous, but almost incredible. Mr. Buckle declared that Macaulay was perfectly accurate in all the facts which Buckle had himself investigated to write his "History of Civilization;" and so particular was he in the selection of words that he never allowed a sentence to pass muster until it was as good as he could make it. "He thought little of reconstructing a paragraph," says his biographer, "for the sake of one happy illustration." He submitted to the most tiresome mechanical drudgery in the correction of his proof-sheets. The clearness of his thought amid the profusion of his knowledge was represented in his writing by a remarkable conciseness of expression. His short, vigorous sentences are compact with details of fact, yet rich with color. His terseness has been compared to that of Tacitus. His power of condensation, aptness of phrase and epithet, and indomitable industry made him a master of rhetorical effect, in the use of his multifarious learning for the illustration of his themes.

As soon as his last proof-sheet had been despatched to the printers, Macaulay at once fell to reading a series of historians from Herodotus downward, to measure his writings with theirs. Thucydides especially utterly destroyed all the conceit which naturally would arise from his unbounded popularity, as expressed in every social and literary circle, as well as in the Reviews. Like Michael Angelo, this Englishman was never satisfied with his own productions; and the only comfort he took in the impossibility of realizing his ideal was in the comparison he made of his own works with similar ones by contemporary authors. Then he was content; and then only appeared in his letters and diary that good-natured, self-satisfied feeling which arose from the consciousness that he was one of the most fortunate authors who had ever lived. There was nothing cynical in his sense of superiority, but an amiable self-assertion and self-confidence that only made men smile,–as when Lord Palmerston remarked that "he wished he was as certain of any one thing as Tom Macaulay was of everything." This self-confidence rarely provoked opposition, except when he was positive as to things outside his sphere. He wrote and talked sensibly and luminously on financial and social questions, on art, on poetry and the drama, on philosophy and theology; but on these subjects he was not an authority with specialists. In other words, he did not, so to speak, know everything profoundly, but only superficially; yet in history, especially English history, he was profound in analysis as well as brilliant in the narration of facts, even when there was disagreement between himself and others as to inductions he drew from those facts,–inductions colored by his strong prejudices and aristocratic surroundings.

Macaulay was not always consistent with his own theories, however. For instance, he was a firm believer in the progress of society and of civilization. He saw the enormous gulf between the ninth and the nineteenth centuries, and the unmistakable advance which, since the times of Hildebrand, the world had made in knowledge, in the arts, in liberty, and in the comforts of life, although the tide of progress had its ebb and flow in different ages and countries. Yet when he cast his eye on America, where perhaps the greatest progress had been made in the world's history within fifty years, he saw nothing but melancholy signs of anarchy and decay,–signs portending the collapse of liberty and the triumph of ignorance and crime. Thus he writes in 1857 to an American correspondent:–

"As long as you have a boundless extent of fertile and unoccupied land, your laboring population will be far more at ease than the laboring population of the Old World; but the time will come when wages will be as low, and will fluctuate as much, with you as with us. Then your institutions will fairly be brought to the test. Distress everywhere makes the laborer mutinous and discontented, and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agitators who tell him that it is a monstrous iniquity that one man should have a million, while another cannot get a full meal. In bad years there is plenty of grumbling here, and sometimes a little rioting; but it matters little, for here the sufferers are not the rulers. The supreme power is in the hands of a class deeply interested in the security of property and the maintenance of order; accordingly the malcontents are restrained. But with you the majority is the government, and has the rich, who are always in a minority, absolutely at its mercy. The day will come when the multitude of people, none of whom has had more than a half a breakfast, or expects to have more than a half a dinner, will choose a legislature. Is it possible to doubt what sort of legislature will be chosen? On the one side is a statesman preaching patience, respect for vested rights, strict observance of the public faith; and on the other a demagogue ranting about the tyranny of capitalists and usurers, and asking why anybody should be permitted to drink champagne and ride in a carriage, while thousands of honest folks are in want of necessaries: which of the two candidates is likely to be preferred by a working-man who hears his children cry for more bread? There will be, I fear, spoliation. The spoliation will increase the distress; the distress will produce fresh spoliation. There is nothing to stop you; your Constitution is all sail and no anchor. Either civilization or liberty will perish. Either some Caesar or Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand, or your republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the twentieth century as the Roman Empire was in the fifth."

I do not deny that there is great force in Macaulay's reasoning and prophecy. History points to decline and ruin when public virtue has fled and government is in the hands of demagogues; for their reign has ever been succeeded by military usurpers who have preserved civilization indeed, but at the expense of liberty. Yet this reasoning applies not only to America but to England as well,–especially since, by the Reform Bill and subsequent enactments of Parliament, she has opened the gates to an increase of suffrage, which now threatens to become universal. The enfranchisement of the people–the enlarged powers of the individual under the protection and control of the commonwealth–is the Anglo-Saxon contribution to progress. It is dangerous. So is all power until its use is learned. But there is no backward step possible; the tremendous experiment must go forward, for England and America alike.

Macaulay himself was one of the most prominent of English statesmen and orators, in 1830, 1831, and 1832, to advocate the extension of the right of suffrage and the increase of popular liberties. All his writings are on the side of liberty in England; and all are in opposition to the Toryism which was so triumphant during the reign of George III. Why did he have faith in the English people of England, and yet show so little in the English people of America? He believed in political and social progress for his own countrymen; why should he doubt the utility of the same in other countries? If vandalism is to be the fate of America, where education, the only truly conservative element, is more diffused than in England, why should it not equally triumph in that country when the masses have gained political power, as they surely will at some time, and even speedily, if the policy inaugurated by Gladstone is to triumph? For England Macaulay had unbounded hope, because he believed in progress,–in liberty, in education, in the civilizing influence of machinery, in the increasing comforts of life through the constant increase of wealth among the middle classes, and especially through the power of Christianity, in spite of the dissensions of sects, the attacks of crude philosophers, socialists, anarchists, scientists, and atheists, from one end of Christendom to the other. Why should he not have equal faith in American civilization, which, in spite of wars and strikes and commercial distresses and political corruption, has yet made a marked progress from the time of Jefferson, the apostle of equality, down to our day,–as seen especially in the multiplication of schools and colleges, in an untrammelled and watchful press, and in the active benevolence of the rich in the foundation of every kind of institution to relieve misery and want? The truth is that he, in common with most educated Englishmen of his day,–and of too many even of our own day,–cherished a silent contempt for Americans, for their literature and their institutions; and hence he was not only inconsistent in the principles which he advocated, but showed that he was not emancipated, with all his learning, from prejudices of which he ought to have been ashamed.

As time made inroads on Macaulay's strong constitution, he gave up both politics and society in the absorbing interest which he took in his History, confining himself to his library, and sometimes allowing months to pass without accepting any invitation whatever to a social gathering. No man was ever more disenchanted with society. He begrudged his time even when tempted by the calls of friendship. When visitors penetrated to his den, he bowed them out with ironical politeness. He had no favors to ask from friends or foes, for he declined political office, and was as independent as wealth or fame could make him. In 1849 he was made Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and the acclamations following his address were prodigious. Lord John Russell gave to Macaulay's brother John a living worth £1100. Macaulay himself was offered the professorship of History at Cambridge. In one year he received for the first edition of his third and fourth volumes of the History, published in 1855, £20,000 in a single check from Longman. At the age of forty-nine, he writes in his diary: "I have no cause for complaint,–tolerable health, competence, liberty, leisure, dear relatives and friends, and a very great literary reputation."

With all this prosperity, Macaulay now naturally set up his carriage. He dined often with the Queen, and was a great man, according to English notions, more even from his wealth and social position than from his success in letters. Lord John Russell pressed him to accept a seat in his cabinet, but "I told him," Macaulay writes, "that I should be of no use,–that I was not a debater; that it was too late to become one; that my temper, taste, and literary habits alike prevented." He was, however, induced to become again a member of Parliament, and in 1852 was elected once more for Edinburgh, which had repented of its rejection of him in 1847. But he insisted on perfect independence to vote as he pleased. He regarded this re-entrance into public life as a great personal sacrifice, since it might postpone the appearance of his next two volumes of the History. His election, however, was received with great acclamation. Even Professor Wilson, the most conservative of Scotch Tories, voted for him. It was not a party victory, but purely a personal triumph.

A serious illness now follows,–a weakness of the heart, from the effects of which Macaulay died a few years afterwards. He retires to Clifton, and gives himself up to getting well, visiting Barley Wood, and driving in his private carriage among the most interesting scenery in the west of England. But he was never perfectly well again, although he continued to work on his History. His intimate friends saw the change in him with sadness, but he himself was serene and uncomplaining. Although he suffered from an oppression of the chest, he still on great occasions addressed the House. His mind was clear, but his voice was faint. The last speech he made was in behalf of the independence of the Scottish Church. The strain of the House of Commons proved to be too great for his now enfeebled constitution. "Nor could he conceal from himself and his friends," says Trevelyan, "that it was a grievous waste, while the reign of Anne still remained unwritten, for him to consume his scanty stock of vigor in the tedious and exhaustive routine of political existence; waiting whole evenings for the vote, and then … trudging home at three in the morning through the slush of a February thaw." He therefore spared himself as a member of Parliament, and carefully husbanded his powers in order to work upon his book. He gave himself more time for his annual vacation, yet would write when he could on the subjects which engrossed his life. His labors were too severe for his strength, but he worked on, and even harder and harder.

At length on the 25th of November, 1855, Macaulay sent to the printer the last twenty pages of his History, and an edition of twenty-five thousand was ordered. Within a generation one hundred and forty thousand copies of the work were sold in the United Kingdom alone. Six rival translators were engaged in turning it into German; and it was published in the Polish, the Danish, the Swedish, the Italian, the French, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Hungarian, the Russian, and the Bohemian languages, to say nothing of its immense circulation in the United States. Such extraordinary literary popularity was accompanied by great honors. In 1857 Macaulay was created a British Peer and elected Lord High Steward of the borough of Cambridge. The academies of Utrecht, Munich, and Turin elected him to honorary membership. The King of Prussia made him a member of the Order of Merit. Oxford conferred on him the degree of Doctor of Civil Law, and he was elected president of the Philosophical Institution of Edinburgh. He could have little more in the way of academic and governmental honors.

The failing health of Macaulay now compelled him to resign his seat in the House of Commons. It was also thought desirable for him to vacate his apartments at The Albany, which he had occupied for fifteen years, that he might be more retired and perhaps more comfortable. His friends, at the suggestion of Dean Milman, selected a house in Kensington, the rooms of which were small, except the library, which opened upon a beautiful lawn, adorned with flowers and shrubs; it was called Holly Lodge, and was very secluded and attractive. Here his latter days were spent, in the society of his nieces and a few devoted friends, and in dispensing simple hospitalities. His favorite form of entertainment was the breakfast, at which his guests would linger till twelve, enchanted by his conversation, for his mind showed no signs of decay.

From this charming retreat Lord Macaulay very seldom appeared in London society. Years passed without his even accepting invitations. An occasional night at a friend's house in the country, one or two nights at Windsor Castle, and one or two visits to Lord Stanhope's seat in Kent in order to consult his magnificent library, were the only visits which Macaulay made in the course of the year. He always had a dislike of visiting in private houses, much preferring hotels, where he could be free from conventional life.