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006 - Chapter III The Historians Part 1 · Victorian Literature

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Speaker 1: Chapter three, Part one of Victorian Literature. This is a
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: For more information of a volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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Speaker 1: Recording by Lynn Thompson. Victorian Literature by Clement Shorter. Chapter three,
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Speaker 1: The Historians, Part one. The reign of Victoria has been
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Speaker 1: pre eminently the reign of the historian in our literature.
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Speaker 1: Greater poets we had seen in the reigns of the Georges,
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Speaker 1: greater essayists in the reign of Anne, but Grote and Carlyle,
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Speaker 1: Macaulay and Gardner, Bishop Stubbs and doctor Freeman had no
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Speaker 1: counterparts in an earlier age, always excepting the one great
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Speaker 1: name of Gibbon. Before them there were chroniclers of contemporary
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Speaker 1: events and pamphleteers under the guise of historians, but little more.
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Speaker 1: Goldsmith's histories are the laughing stock of those to whom
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Speaker 1: the modern methods of research are familiar, and even Hume
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Speaker 1: had little of the spirit of the genuine student. Hallam
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Speaker 1: and Lingard were the pioneers of this branch of literature,
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Speaker 1: although both of them had done their work before Queen
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Speaker 1: Victoria came to the throne seventeen seventy seven to eighteen
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Speaker 1: fifty nine. Henry Hallam was born at Windsor, where his
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Speaker 1: father held a cannonry. His first great work, entitled View
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Speaker 1: of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages, was
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Speaker 1: published in eighteen eighteen, and his Constitutional History of England
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Speaker 1: from the accession of Henry the Seventh to the death
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Speaker 1: of George the Second in eighteen twenty seven. In eighteen
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Speaker 1: thirty eight he produced his Introduction to the Literature of
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Speaker 1: Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. Of these
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Speaker 1: three works, the first and the last are valuable mainly
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Speaker 1: for their stimulus to the more philosophical and imaginative work
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Speaker 1: of later writers, but the Constitutional History remains a textbook
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Speaker 1: for the period which it covers. Macauley praised it highly,
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Speaker 1: possibly because of the Whigism which undoubtedly underlies some of
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Speaker 1: the more debatable propositions in the book, but McCauley and
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Speaker 1: many other writers have disputed the correctness of many of
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Speaker 1: Hallam's judgments. To write the Constitutional History of England from
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Speaker 1: the earliest period to the fourteen eighty five, where Hallam begins,
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Speaker 1: was a far more difficult undertaking than to deal with
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Speaker 1: the reigns of the Tudors and the Stuarts. This work
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Speaker 1: devolved on doctor Stubbs eighteen twenty five onwards. William Stubbs,
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Speaker 1: who was appointed Bishop of Oxford in eighteen eighty nine,
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Speaker 1: was born at Naresborough and was educated at Rippengrammar School
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Speaker 1: and at Christ Church, Oxford. In eighteen fifty he became
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Speaker 1: vicar of Knavestock in Essex, and in eighteen sixty two
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Speaker 1: he was made librarian at Klambeth Palace. His editions of
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Speaker 1: medieval chronicles were well calculated to smooth the path of
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Speaker 1: any future historian, and the critical introduction showed the profound
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Speaker 1: scholarship of the editor. Probably no one man has done
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Speaker 1: so much to throw light on the obscure byways of history.
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Speaker 1: As the Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, a
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Speaker 1: post he accepted in eighteen sixty six, he gave so
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Speaker 1: great a simulus to historical study that many brilliant writers
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Speaker 1: have since been proud to call him master. In eighteen
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Speaker 1: seventy he published his Select Charters, of which the introductions
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Speaker 1: are also invaluable, and between eighteen seventy four and eighteen
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Speaker 1: seventy eight he wrote his great work, The Constitutional History
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Speaker 1: of England in its Origin and Development, the three volumes
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Speaker 1: of which carry us down to the death of Richard
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Speaker 1: the Third. The book is profoundly scientific in its method,
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Speaker 1: but it is a mistaken although popular belief, which class
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Speaker 1: Doctor Stubbs among dry as dust investigators. The work glows
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Speaker 1: with life and interest, and is full of suggestive parallels
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Speaker 1: for modern political society. Eighteen fifteen to eighteen eighty six,
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Speaker 1: the work of tracing the growth of the English Constitution,
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Speaker 1: which had been so worthily begun by Hallam, and continued
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Speaker 1: in so wise and scholarly a fashion by Bishop Stubbs,
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Speaker 1: was carried on by Sir Thomas Erskine May, who, a
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Speaker 1: few days before his death was created Baron Farnborough. After
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Speaker 1: a long official career in connection with the House of Commons,
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Speaker 1: he was appointed Clerk to the House in eighteen seventy one.
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Speaker 1: In addition to several publications dealing with parliamentary forms and
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Speaker 1: a book on democracy in Europe, he wrote a Constitutional
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Speaker 1: History since the Accession of George the Third, thus continuing
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Speaker 1: the work from the point at which Hallam had dropped
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Speaker 1: it and completing a Continuous History of the English Constitution
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Speaker 1: seventeen seventy one to eighteen fifty one. When we turn
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Speaker 1: to what is more popularly understood by the history of
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Speaker 1: a country, the political and social life of peoples, and
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Speaker 1: the wars and conquests of nations, we are not less
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Speaker 1: fortunate in the results attained. John Lingard had, it is true,
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Speaker 1: written his great work before eighteen thirty seven. The History
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Speaker 1: of England from the first invasion by the Romans to
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Speaker 1: the commencement of the reign of William the Third, appeared
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Speaker 1: in eight volumes between eighteen nineteen and eighteen thirty Lingard
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Speaker 1: was the son of a Winchester carpenter. He was for
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Speaker 1: some time the professor of moral philosophy at a Roman
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Speaker 1: Catholic college. His religious views doubtless affected in considerable measure
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Speaker 1: his judgment of events, especially in the reign of Henry
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Speaker 1: the Eighth, But he is a fairly impartial historian. He
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Speaker 1: confesses that he has been more anxious to arrive at
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Speaker 1: the facts than troubled as to the garb in which
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Speaker 1: those facts were presented to the public, and his work
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Speaker 1: is really very dull. In consequence, a contemporary of Lingard,
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Speaker 1: who covered much of the same historic ground was Sharon
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Speaker 1: Turner seventeen sixty eight to eighteen forty seven, and yet
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Speaker 1: another was John Mitchell Kemble eighteen o seven to eighteen
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Speaker 1: fifty seven, whose Saxons in England eighteen forty nine still
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Speaker 1: fills a useful place. Another distinguished writer of what we
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Speaker 1: may term an earlier school of historical research was Sir
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Speaker 1: Francis Palgrave seventeen eighty eight to eighteen sixty one, one
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Speaker 1: of whose accomplished sons, Francis Turner paul Grave, is still living.
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Speaker 1: Born eighteen twenty four, while a professor of poetry at
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Speaker 1: Oxford and the friend of Tennyson, the author of Excellent Verse,
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Speaker 1: and moreover the editor of that incomparable volume, The Golden
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Speaker 1: Treasury of Songs and Lyrics. Sir Francis was the son
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Speaker 1: of a Jewish stockbroker named Cohen, and changed his name
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Speaker 1: on becoming a Christian. His best book, The History of
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Speaker 1: Normandy and of England, lost much of its value by
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Speaker 1: the publication of Freeman's monumental work, The History of the
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Speaker 1: Norman Conquest eighteen twenty three to eighteen ninety two. Edward
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Speaker 1: Augustus Freeman was born at Harbourne in Staffordshire and educated
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Speaker 1: at Trinity College, Oxford. His first work was the History
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Speaker 1: of Architecture, published in eighteen forty nine. In eighteen sixty
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Speaker 1: three he issued the first volume of a history of
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Speaker 1: federal government. The History of the Norman Conquest in five
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Speaker 1: large volumes appeared between eighteen sixty seven and eighteen seventy six,
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Speaker 1: and The reign of William Rufus and Accession of Henry
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Speaker 1: first in eighteen eighty two. His Old English History was
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Speaker 1: a most delightful collection of the primitive stories which have
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Speaker 1: always had a great fascination for beginners in history. There
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Speaker 1: was scarcely any period of European history with which the
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Speaker 1: author of the Norman Conquests did not show a thorough familiarity.
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Speaker 1: No historian has had a keener grasp of hard, solid facts,
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Speaker 1: or is more able to make common sense deductions from them.
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Speaker 1: I am quite unable. He candidly confessed to appreciate physical
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Speaker 1: or metaphysical works in any language, and he hated literary discussion,
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Speaker 1: which he contemptuously termed chatter about Harriet in reference to
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Speaker 1: the debatable question of Shelley's treatment of his wife. Perhaps
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Speaker 1: this lack of Breath did not materially spoil him for
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Speaker 1: his work. Of his many volumes of histories and essays,
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Speaker 1: those on the Norman Conquest must be given the first place.
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Speaker 1: It has been said, indeed, that the work takes as
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Speaker 1: long to read as the event took to achieve, but
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Speaker 1: it is worth reading. Nevertheless, the Battle of Hastings, or
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Speaker 1: as mister Freeman would say, of Senlac, was a turning
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Speaker 1: point in our national history, and we have here the
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Speaker 1: most complete description of that great struggle. Since Freeman's death,
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Speaker 1: some attempt has been made to question his accuracy and
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Speaker 1: his scholarship, but it has not amounted to very much.
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Speaker 1: When Doctor Stubbs, with whom difference of political views has
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Speaker 1: in no way impaired a lifelong friendship, was appointed Bishop
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Speaker 1: of Chester in eighteen eighty four. Mister Freeman succeeded him
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Speaker 1: as Regi's professor of Modern History at Oxford, where he
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Speaker 1: was followed on his death by mister Froud. It would
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Speaker 1: be hard to find a greater contrast, both in method
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Speaker 1: and in manner, than between Edward Freeman and James Anthony Froud.
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Speaker 1: Freeman's style, though clear and trenchiant, was never brilliant. Froud's
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Speaker 1: language compares with that of the best artists in literature.
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Speaker 1: Freeman was always scrupulously exact, never at fault in a
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Speaker 1: fact or a date, was notoriously careless and slipped at
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Speaker 1: every turn. Freeman cared nothing for theories. Fraud was never
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Speaker 1: so happy as when he stopped abruptly in a subscription
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Speaker 1: to discourse on the mysteries of Providence or the follies
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Speaker 1: of mankind. Between men of such opposite natures, no friendship
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Speaker 1: was possible, and in the Saturday Review and other periodicals
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Speaker 1: Freeman commented vigorously and not always fairly, on the other's inaccuracy.
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Speaker 1: Eighteen eighteen to eighteen ninety four James Anthony Froud was
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Speaker 1: one of three Gifted brothers, another being William Froud eighteen
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Speaker 1: ten to eighteen seventy nine, the mathematician and engineer, and
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Speaker 1: the third Richard Hurrelfraud eighteen o three to eighteen thirty six,
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Speaker 1: a leader of the tractarian movement, whose literary remains were
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Speaker 1: published after his death by Keeble and Newman. Froud was
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Speaker 1: educated at Oriel College, Oxford, and for a time came
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Speaker 1: under the influence of the movement of which his elder
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Speaker 1: brother was a leading spirit, but ultimately he abandoned supernatural Christianity,
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Speaker 1: altogether substituting for it a kind of poetic theism which
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Speaker 1: he partly adopted from Carlyle. In eighteen forty seven he
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Speaker 1: published anonymously two novels, The Spirit's Trials and The Lieutenant's Daughter,
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Speaker 1: which contained some not very generous criticisms on his brother
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Speaker 1: and former friends. His Nemesis of Faith, which appeared in
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Speaker 1: eighteen forty eight, was a further criticism of the doctrines
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Speaker 1: which he had abandoned. Between the years eighteen fifty six
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Speaker 1: and eighteen sixty nine he published the twelve volumes of
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Speaker 1: his great work, The History of England from the Fall
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Speaker 1: of Walsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, which
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Speaker 1: achieved a great and in many respects a well deserved popularity. Rarely, indeed,
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Speaker 1: has history been written with so much brilliancy and picturesque power.
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Speaker 1: The earlier volumes have been much discredited among historical students,
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Speaker 1: yet we would not willingly miss such delightful word painting
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Speaker 1: as his description of the Pilgrimage of Grace and other
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Speaker 1: scenes in the career of the Eighth Henry whom he
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Speaker 1: selected from rehabilitation. It was, of course a vain and
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Speaker 1: impossible task to remove the odium which has settled upon
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Speaker 1: the name of Henry the eighth. But it was as
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Speaker 1: well that the attempt should be made. Henry had appeared
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Speaker 1: to the mass of modern Englishmen as an old world ogre,
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Speaker 1: and mister Frowd has at least enabled them to see
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Speaker 1: that he was, after all a man. Mister Freeman, himself,
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Speaker 1: the most conscientious and laborious of writers, expressed his hearty
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Speaker 1: contempt for an author who professed in the preface to
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Speaker 1: his history that he took up the subject because he
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Speaker 1: had nothing better to do. As however, Frowd warmed to
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Speaker 1: his work, his book increased in value, and there are
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Speaker 1: few who will deny the most sterling worth to his
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Speaker 1: Edward the sixth, Mary and Elizabeth. His escape from tractarianism
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Speaker 1: had made him unfriendly to all kindred movements, and his
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Speaker 1: views of the struggle between Catholicism and Evangelicalism in the
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Speaker 1: sixteenth century are more worthy of a Puritan divine than
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Speaker 1: of an academic writer of our own day. But we
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Speaker 1: can forgive all this and much more to one who
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Speaker 1: has described with so much delicate fancy, the adventurous life
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Speaker 1: of Drake and Hawkins, the intrigues of the Scottish Queen,
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Speaker 1: and the restless fickleness and untruthfulness of Elizabeth. His exquisite
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Speaker 1: literary style and general breadth of sympathy are shown in
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Speaker 1: such passages as his sketch of the Rise of Protestantism
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Speaker 1: and the Execution of Moore and Fisher. Quote, Whilst we
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Speaker 1: exult in that chivalry with which the Smithfield Martyrs brought
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Speaker 1: England's freedom with their blood, so we will not refuse
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Speaker 1: our admiration to those other gallant men whose high forms
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Speaker 1: in the sunset of the old Faith stand transfigured on
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Speaker 1: the horizon, tinged with the light of its dying glory.
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Speaker 1: End inaccuracy and tactlessness, however, seemed to haunt mister Frowd
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Speaker 1: like evil spirits. He wrote a series of articles on
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Speaker 1: Thomas A. Beckett, but the numerous mistakes and misstatements brought
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Speaker 1: down on him once again the strictures of mister Freeman.
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Speaker 1: He wrote a biography of Carlyle, to whom he acted
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Speaker 1: as literary executor, and the whole of the literary world
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Speaker 1: was in arms at the revelations of Carlyle's somewhat unamiable
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Speaker 1: relations with his wife, and of his two contemptuous sentiments
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Speaker 1: about many personal friends. Still, mister Frowd's great literary faculty
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Speaker 1: will secure to this biography a far greater permanence than
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Speaker 1: will fall to the lot of the thousand and one
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Speaker 1: memoirs which have appeared during the reign. Even should Carlyle's
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Speaker 1: writings cease to be generally studied, it is not improbable
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Speaker 1: that Fraud's Life of Carlyle will always be read as
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Speaker 1: an important chapter in literary history. In this connection, I
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Speaker 1: cannot do better than quote from an unpublished letter from
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Speaker 1: Sir Fitz James Stephen, mister Frowd's co executor to mister Froud.
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Speaker 1: Quote For about fifteen years, I was the intimate friend
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Speaker 1: and constant companion of both you and mister Carlyle. And
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Speaker 1: never in my life did I see any one man
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Speaker 1: so much devoted to any other as you were to
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Speaker 1: him during the whole of that period of time. The
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Speaker 1: most affectionate son could not have acted better to the
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Speaker 1: most venerated father. You cared for him, soothed him, protected
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Speaker 1: him as a guide might protect a weak old man
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Speaker 1: down a steep and painful path. The admiration you habitually
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Speaker 1: expressed for him, both morally and intellectually, was unqualified. You
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Speaker 1: never said to me one ill natured word about him.
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Speaker 1: Down to this day. It is to me wholly incredible
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Speaker 1: that anything but a severe regard for truth, learned to
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Speaker 1: a great extent from his teaching, could ever have led
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Speaker 1: you to embody in your portrait of him, a delineation
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Speaker 1: of the faults and weaknesses which mixed with his great qualities.
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Speaker 1: Of him, I will make only one remark in justice
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Speaker 1: to you. He did not use you well. He threw
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Speaker 1: upon you the responsibility of a decision which he ought
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Speaker 1: to have taken himself. In a a plain, unmistakable way,
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Speaker 1: he considered himself bound to expiate the wrongs which he
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Speaker 1: had done to his wife. If he had done this himself,
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Speaker 1: it would have been a courageous thing. But he did
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Speaker 1: not do it himself. He did not even decide for
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Speaker 1: himself that it should be done. After his death. If
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Speaker 1: any courage was shown in the matter, it was shown
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Speaker 1: by you and not by him. You took the responsibility
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Speaker 1: of deciding for him that it ought to be done.
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Speaker 1: You took the odium of doing it, of avowing to
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Speaker 1: the world the faults and weaknesses of one whom you
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Speaker 1: regarded as your teacher and master, in order to present
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Speaker 1: the world a true picture of him as he really was. You,
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Speaker 1: well knowing what you were about, stepped into a pillory
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Speaker 1: in which you were charged with treachery, violation of confidence,
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Speaker 1: and every imaginable base motive, when you were, in fact
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Speaker 1: guilty of no other fault than of practicing mister Carlyle's
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Speaker 1: great doctrine that men ought to tell the truth end.
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Speaker 1: Mister Frowd has other claims to remembrance in his short
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Speaker 1: studies on great subjects, many of them essays written for
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Speaker 1: Fraser's Magazine, of which he was for a long time editor.
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Speaker 1: Are some very wise and thoughtful papers, particularly one on
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Speaker 1: the book of Job. His life of Bunyan is characteristic,
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Speaker 1: as is also his life of Caesar. Carlyle taught him
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Speaker 1: hero worship, and from Carlyle also he learned the disposition
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Speaker 1: which inspired his powerful book The English in Ireland in
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Speaker 1: the eighteenth century. He also wrote two picturesque books of
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Speaker 1: travel and three volumes of lectures delivered at Oxford during
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Speaker 1: his occupancy of the Chair of History, which had been
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Speaker 1: previously held in succession by his two great rivals, Bishop
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Speaker 1: Stubbs and Doctor Freeman eighteen ten to eighteen seventy nine.
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Speaker 1: The historian who devoted himself most earnestly to mister Froud's
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Speaker 1: chief historical period, and whose writings were, in some measure
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Speaker 1: a reply to his, was the Reverend John Charon Brewer,
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Speaker 1: who for many years was professor of English literature at
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Speaker 1: King's College, London. Brewer's chief work, A Calendar of Letters
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Speaker 1: and Papers foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry
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Speaker 1: the Eighth, comes down, however, to fifteen thirty, the year
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Speaker 1: in which mister Froud's history commences, and thus Brewer stands
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Speaker 1: alone as an authority on Henry's early life. A compressed
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Speaker 1: work in one volume, The Reign of Henry the Eighth,
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Speaker 1: was published after his death. Mister Frowd concludes his narrative
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Speaker 1: at the year fifteen eighty eight, the year of the
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Speaker 1: Spanish Armada. But no recent writer of Mark has treated
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Speaker 1: the closing years of Elizabeth's reign in any detail, although
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Speaker 1: we owe to Major Martin Hume a well written study
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Speaker 1: entitled The Year after the Armada. Major Hume, who is
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Speaker 1: the best living authority upon this period, has also written
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Speaker 1: upon the courtships of Queen Elizabeth, and has edited for
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Speaker 1: the Public Record Office the Calendar of Spanish State Papers
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Speaker 1: of Elizabeth. The next great period of English history, that
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Speaker 1: of the Stuart Kings, is dealt with by Professor Gardner.
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Speaker 1: Samuel Rawson Gardner eighteen twenty nine onwards was born at
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Speaker 1: Ropley in Hampshire, and was educated at Winchester and at
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Speaker 1: christ Church, Oxford. His whole life has been devoted to
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Speaker 1: the most laborious research in the annals of the reigns
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Speaker 1: of James the First, Charles the First and the Protectorate
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Speaker 1: of Cromwell. He has not, like mister Frowd, taken up
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Speaker 1: history as a pleasant literary recreation, but has given years
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Speaker 1: of unremitting labor to the production of each separate volume.
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Speaker 1: He is now well into the study of the Protectorate,
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Speaker 1: the first volume of his history of which appeared in
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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety four. He has written many minor books, one
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Speaker 1: dealing with the Gunpowder plot and another with Cromwell's place
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Speaker 1: in history. Mister Gardner will not perhaps be counted a
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Speaker 1: brilliant writer. He gives us none of the fire and
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Speaker 1: eloquence almost bordering on poetry, which we find so abundantly
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Speaker 1: in Froud. But he has been described by Sir John
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Speaker 1: Seeley as the only historian who has trodden the controversial
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Speaker 1: ground of seventeenth century English political history with absolute fairness
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Speaker 1: and impartiality. James and Charles, Buckingham and Bristol, Strafford and
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Speaker 1: Pym stand out in clear and well defined lineaments. There
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Speaker 1: is no hero worship to blind us, no flowing rhetoric
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Speaker 1: to atone for insufficient knowledge. We see these men in
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Speaker 1: their weakness and in their strength, neither side monopolizing the
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Speaker 1: virtue and the patriotism, but each on occasion acting from
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Speaker 1: noble or ignoble motives. It may be urged that too
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Speaker 1: much attention is devoted to the follies of princes and
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Speaker 1: the intrigues of courtiers, and certainly of the inner life
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Speaker 1: of the nation. We get all too little in mister
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Speaker 1: Gardner's pages. But it may be fairly said that these
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Speaker 1: books are the safest and best of guides to one
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Speaker 1: of the most important and critical periods in our political history.
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Speaker 1: It is impossible to avoid contrasting mister Gardner with a
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Speaker 1: far more popular and more brilliant historian Lord McCaulay, and
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Speaker 1: the contrast is in some respects in faith of the former.
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Speaker 1: Mister Gardner sees that in dealing with the complexities of
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Speaker 1: human motives, we are on very uncertain and delicate ground.
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Speaker 1: We need to pause a step by step to weigh
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Speaker 1: probabilities and to qualify our every statement. Although such hesitancy
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Speaker 1: and qualification is not conducive to brilliant writing. The importance
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Speaker 1: of this rhetorical principle was fully grasped by Thomas Babington
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Speaker 1: McCauley eighteen hundred to eighteen fifty nine, and accordingly, in
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Speaker 1: his writings, a single, definite and distinct motive is seized
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Speaker 1: upon as the guiding principle of every action, and by
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Speaker 1: the simple plan of ignoring complexities in human character, we
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Speaker 1: are carried along in an easy manner to positive and
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Speaker 1: undoubting opinions. I wish, said Lord Melbourne, that I were
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Speaker 1: as cocksure of anything as Tom McCaulay is of everything,
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Speaker 1: and the remark hit off an undoubted failing, at least
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Speaker 1: from the stamp point of sound and trustworthy workmanship. Macauley,
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Speaker 1: whose father was a distinguished philanthropist and slavery abolitionists, was
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Speaker 1: born at Rothley Temple in Leicestershire. From a private school,
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Speaker 1: he went to Trinity College, Cambridge. His earliest efforts in
23:17
Speaker 1: literature were articles for Knight's Quarterly magazine and contributions to
23:22
Speaker 1: the Edinburgh Review, the first of which on Milton, drew
23:26
Speaker 1: from Lord Jeffrey the remark the more I think, the
23:29
Speaker 1: less I can conceive where you picked up that style.
23:33
Speaker 1: Perhaps McCauley's essays have been more popular even than his history.
23:38
Speaker 1: The extraordinary knowledge they display, the discursive familiarity with all
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Speaker 1: poetry and fiction, ancient and modern, and their enthusiastic interest
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Speaker 1: in historical events make them a kind of education to
23:51
Speaker 1: men whose reading has been slight, or who are beginners
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Speaker 1: in the art of reading, an art at which McCauley
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Speaker 1: was such an adept. In eighteen thirty McCauley entered Parliament
24:02
Speaker 1: as Member for Calm and four years later received the
24:06
Speaker 1: posts of Member for the Indian Council at Calcutta, with
24:10
Speaker 1: a salary of ten thousand pounds a year. He left
24:14
Speaker 1: India in eighteen thirty eight, having rendered great service to
24:16
Speaker 1: that country by assisting to frame the Indian penal Code.
24:21
Speaker 1: After his return to England, He sat in Parliament for
24:24
Speaker 1: many years as Member for Edinburgh, and for a short
24:27
Speaker 1: time held a seat in Lord Melbourne's cabinet. Some of
24:31
Speaker 1: his speeches in the House were among the most eloquent
24:34
Speaker 1: and successful to which that Assembly has listened. In eighteen
24:39
Speaker 1: forty nine the first two volumes of his History of
24:42
Speaker 1: England from the Accession of James the Second were published.
24:45
Speaker 1: The great success of these and the succeeding volumes made
24:49
Speaker 1: him one of the most popular authors of his day.
24:52
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty seven McCauley was made a peer, but
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Speaker 1: he never spoke in the House of Lords. He died
24:59
Speaker 1: in December eight teen fifty nine, before he had finished
25:01
Speaker 1: the reign of William the Third, and was buried in
25:04
Speaker 1: Westminster Abbey. During the later years of McCauley's life, and
25:09
Speaker 1: for many years after his death, he received the unstinted
25:13
Speaker 1: praise not only of the great massive readers, but even
25:16
Speaker 1: of cultured brother authors. Of late years, this has changed,
25:21
Speaker 1: a reaction has set in, and perhaps the time has
25:24
Speaker 1: not yet come to assign to him his true place
25:26
Speaker 1: in literature. When Sir George Trevellion's Admirable Life of his
25:31
Speaker 1: Uncle appeared in eighteen seventy six, a number of eminent
25:35
Speaker 1: writers based upon that book a criticism of McCauley's work.
25:39
Speaker 1: Mister Gladstone wrote in the Quarterly Review, mister Leslie Stephen
25:44
Speaker 1: in the Cornhill Magazine, and mister John Morley in the
25:47
Speaker 1: Fortnightly Review. In each separate case the review was unfavorable.
25:53
Speaker 1: All alike agreed as to his high qualities as a man,
25:57
Speaker 1: his sincerity, generosity, kliness and purity, his love of children,
26:02
Speaker 1: and his brotherly devotion. But each in turn found matter
26:06
Speaker 1: for censure in his work. One condemned his style, another
26:10
Speaker 1: his Whig partialities, another his boundless optimism, and another his
26:16
Speaker 1: errors of judgment or alleged misstatements of facts. It is
26:20
Speaker 1: true that macaulay is sometimes inaccurate, that he is not
26:24
Speaker 1: seldom unjust to the characters whom he paints so vividly.
26:28
Speaker 1: It is now a commonplace to say that his history
26:31
Speaker 1: was written, as Carlyle said, to prove that Providence was
26:34
Speaker 1: on the side of the Whigs. It is clear that
26:37
Speaker 1: he was a man of strong literary prejudices, and he
26:41
Speaker 1: undoubtedly owes much of his unpopularity to the fact that
26:44
Speaker 1: he expresses in grandly rhetorical language, the average sentiment of
26:48
Speaker 1: his day, its belief immateial prosperity, and its delight in
26:52
Speaker 1: being told that there has been no age of the
26:55
Speaker 1: world so happy as our own. All this is true,
26:59
Speaker 1: and yet it is also true that mccaulay's real services
27:02
Speaker 1: to literature are lost sight of when such an estimate
27:05
Speaker 1: is propounded too harshly. In spite of obvious deficiencies, Macaulay's
27:11
Speaker 1: history is a great work. It fills up a gap
27:14
Speaker 1: in historical literature, and such incidents as the Trial of
27:18
Speaker 1: the Seven Bishops and the Siege of Londonderry excel both
27:21
Speaker 1: in picturesqueness and inaccuracy. But McCaulay has claims far beyond
27:26
Speaker 1: his merits as a historian. The critics who condemn him
27:30
Speaker 1: so freely seem to have forgotten their own early years.
27:34
Speaker 1: If I am in the wrong, said McCauley, of his history,
27:37
Speaker 1: I shall at least have set the minds of others
27:39
Speaker 1: at work. He has set the minds of others at work.
27:43
Speaker 1: What cultivated man or woman lives with whom Macaulay's writings
27:47
Speaker 1: have not been among the first books read. Who has
27:50
Speaker 1: not been made to feel that all the great poetry
27:53
Speaker 1: and fiction and history to which he alludes so freely,
27:57
Speaker 1: must be well worth careful study. Matter if in after
28:01
Speaker 1: years we discover that Macaulay was unjust to Bacon the man,
28:05
Speaker 1: and was entirely ignorant of Bacon the philosopher, or understand
28:09
Speaker 1: clearly what he meant by saying that such critiques as
28:12
Speaker 1: Lessings Laocoon filled him with wonder and despair. If we
28:17
Speaker 1: have been encouraged by him to desire a wider knowledge,
28:20
Speaker 1: if we have learned from him to admire so many
28:23
Speaker 1: great writers, so many famous statesmen, we may surely forgive
28:27
Speaker 1: him much, if indeed there be anything to forgive. End
28:34
Speaker 1: of Chapter three, Part one,