who in the heat of triumph shewed no touch of mercy. At length night, more pitiful than man, threw her friendly mantle over the fugitives, and the scattered troops of Pizarro rallied once more at the sound of the trumpet in the bloody square of Caxamalca.

Another proof of what Mr Lockhart called the creditable desire felt by one great section, at least of America, to discharge the debt due to Spain, her first discoverer,' is afforded by MR TICKNOR's History of Spanish Literature, three volumes, 1849. Mr Ticknor is professor of modern literature in Harvard College. He states that he devoted more than thirty years to his history.

LORD MACAULAY.

The Lays of Ancient Rome were published, as already stated, in 1842. In the following year, Lord Macaulay published a selection of Critical and Historical Essays, contributed to the Edinburgh Review, which are still unrivalled among productions of this kind. The reading and knowledge of the essayist are immense. In questions of classical learning and criticism-in English poetry, philosophy, and history-in all the minutiae of biography and literary anecdote in the principles and details of government-in the revolutions of parties and opinionsin all these he seems equally versant and equally felicitous as a critic. Perhaps he is most striking and original in his historical articles, which present pictures of the times of which he treats, with portraits of the principal actors, and illustrations drawn from contemporary events and characters in other countries. His reviews of Hallam's Constitutional History, and the Memoirs of Burleigh, Hampden, Sir Robert Walpole, Chatham, Sir William Temple, Clive, and Warren Hastings, form a series of brilliant and complete historical retrospects or summaries unequalled in our literature. His eloquent papers on Lord Bacon, Horace Walpole, Boswell's Johnson, Addison, Byron, &c., have equal literary value; and recent additions have been made to this rich collection in the Encyclopædia Britannica, to which Lord Macaulay has contributed biographies of Atterbury, Bunyan, Goldsmith, Johnson, and the second William Pitt.

In 1848 appeared the first two volumes of Lord Macaulay's great historical work, The History of England from the Accession of James II. In his opening chapter, in a few magnificent sentences, he explains the nature and scope of his work.

[Exordium to History of England.]

her martial glory grew together; how, by wise and resolute good faith, was gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels, which to the statesmen of any former age would have seemed incredible; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power, compared with which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance; how Scotland, after ages of enmity, was at length united to England, not merely by legal bonds, but by indissoluble ties of interest and affection; how in America, the British colonies rapidly became far mightier and wealthier than the realms which Cortes and Pizarro had added to the dominions of Charles V.; how in Asia, British adventurers founded an empire not less splendid and more durable than that of Alexander.

Nor will it be less my duty faithfully to record disasters mingled with triumphs, with great national crimes and follies far more humiliating than any disaster. It will be seen that what we justly account our chief blessings were not without alloy. It will be seen that the system which effectually secured our liberties against the encroachments of kingly power, gave birth to a new class of abuses from which absolute monarchies are exempt. It will be seen that in consequence partly of unwise interference, and partly of unwise neglect, the increase of wealth and the extension of trade produced, together with immense good, some evils from which poor and rude societies are free. It will be seen how, in two important dependencies of the crown, wrong was followed by just retribution; how imprudence and obstinacy broke the ties which bound the North American colonies to the parent state; how Ireland, cursed by the domination of race over race, and of religion over religion, remained indeed a member of the empire, but a withered and distorted member, adding no strength to the body politic, and reproachfully pointed at by all who feared or envied the greatness of England. of this checkered narrative will be to excite thankfulYet, unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect all patriots. For the history of our country during the ness in all religious minds, and hope in the breasts of last hundred and sixty years is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement. Those who compare the age on which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in their imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the

present.

I should very imperfectly execute the task which I have undertaken, if I were merely to treat of battles and sieges, of the rise and fall of administrations, of intrigues in the palace, and of debates in the parliament. It will be my endeavour to relate the history of the people as well as the history of the government, to trace the progress of useful and ornamental arts, to describe the rise of religious sects and the changes of literary taste, to portray the manners of successive generations, and not to pass by with neglect even the revolutions which have taken place in dress, furniture, repasts, and public entertainments. I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity of history, if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors.

I purpose to write the history of England from the accession of King James II., down to a time which is within the memory of men still living. I shall recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the house of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution which terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments, and bound up together the rights of the people, and the title of the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new settlement was, during many troubled years, successfully defended against foreign Volumes III. and IV. appeared in 1855, and it is and domestic enemies; how, under that settlement, the hopeless to expect that the historian will live to authority of law and the security of property were realise his intention of bringing down his history to found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and a time within the memory of men still living,' or of individual action never before known; how, from living in 1848. The anticipated period we may the auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a assume to be the close of the last century; and prosperity of which the annals of human affairs had between 1685-the date of the accession of James II. furnished no example; how our country, from a state-and 1800, we have one hundred and fifteen years, of ignominious vassalage, rapidly rose to the place of of which Lord Macaulay has as yet only travelled umpire among European powers; how her opulence and over twelve. His fourth volume concludes with the

ible.

[The Revolution of 1688-9.]

Both Houses approached, bowing low. William and Mary advanced a few steps. Halifax on the right, and Powle on the left stood forth, and Halifax spoke. The Convention, he said, had agreed to a resolution which their assent; and the clerk of the House of Lords read, he prayed their highnesses to hear. They signified had concluded, Halifax, in the name of all the estates in a loud voice, the Declaration of Right. When he of the realm, requested the prince and princess to accept the crown.

Peace of Ryswick in 1697. No historical work in modern times has excited the same amount of interest and anxiety, or, we may add, of admiration, On the morning of Wednesday the 13th of February as Lord Macaulay's history. Robertson and Gibbon | [1689] the court of Whitehall and all the neighbourwere astonished at their own success; it greatly ing streets were filled with gazers. The magnificent exceeded their most daring and sanguine hopes; Banqueting House, the master-piece of Inigo, embellished but the number of readers was then limited, and by master-pieces of Rubens, had been prepared for a quarto volumes travelled slowly. Compared with great ceremony. The walls were lined by the yeomen Macaulay, it was as the old mail-coach drawn up of the guard. Near the northern door, on the right with the railway express. Before the second por- hand, a large number of peers had assembled. On the tion of Macaulay's history was ready, eleven large left were the Commons with their Speaker, attended editions of the first had been disposed of. It had by the mace. The southern door opened; and the been read with the eagerness and avidity of a Prince and Princess of Orange, side by side, entered, romance. Its fascinating style, its portraits of and took their place under the canopy of state. historical personages-all brought before us in life and action-and its descriptions of public events, scenery, and the progress of society, were irresistThe colouring might at times appear too high, almost coarse, but there were no obscure or misty passages. Highly embellished as was the style, it was as clear and intelligible as that of Swift or Defoe. It was the pre-Raphaelite painting without its littleness. Whether drawing a landscape or portrait, evolving the nice distinctions and subtle traits of character or motives, stating a legal argument, or disentangling a complicated party question, this virtue of perspicacity never forsakes the historian. It is no doubt a homely virtue, but here it is united to vivid imagination and rhetorical brilliance. So much ornament with so much strong sense, logical clearness, and easy adaptation of style to every purpose of the historian, was never before seen in combination. In producing his distinct and striking impressions, the historian is charged with painting too strongly and exaggerating his portraits. He has his likes and dislikes-his moral sympathies and antipathies. Marlborough is undoubtedly portrayed in too dark colours, and William Penn also suffers injustice. The outline in each case is correct. Marlborough was treacherous and avaricious, and Penn was too much of a courtier in a bad court. But the historian magnifies their defects. He does not make allowance for the character and habits of the times in which they lived, and he seizes upon doubtful and obscure incidents or statements by unscrupulous adversaries as pregnant and infallible proofs of guilt. In his pictures of social life and manners there is also a tendency to caricature; exceptional and accidental cases are made general; and the vivid fancy of the historian sports among startling contrasts and moral incongruities. Blemishes of this kind have been pointed out by laborious critics and political opponents; the critical telescope' has been incessantly levelled at the great luminary, yet nearly all will subscribe to the opinion that a writer of more passionless and judicial mind would not have produced a work of half so intense and deep an interest; that if Macaulay had been more minutely scrupulous, he would not have been nearly as picturesque; and that if he had been less picturesque, we should not have retained nearly so much of his delineations, and should, therefore, have been losers of so much knowledge which is substantially, if not always circumstantially, correct.'* His History is altogether one of the glories of our country and

literature.

The most splendid passages of the History-the character of William, the account of the Monmouth insurrection, the trial of the bishops, the siege of Derry, &c.-are too long for quotation, but a few extracts will illustrate the above remarks.

answered that the crown was, in their estimation, the William, in his own name, and in that of his wife, more valuable because it was presented to them as a token of the confidence of the nation. 'We thankfully accept,' he said, 'what you have offered us!' Then, for himself, he assured them that the laws of England, which he had once already vindicated, should be the rules of his conduct; that it should be his study to promote the welfare of the kingdom; and that, as to the means of doing so, he should constantly recur to the advice of the Houses, and should be disposed to trust their judgment rather than his own. These words were received with a shout of joy which was heard in the streets below, and was instantly answered by huzzas from many thousands of voices. The Lords and Commons then reverently retired from the Banqueting House, and went in procession to the great gate of Whitehall, where the heralds and pursuivants were waiting in their gorgeous tabards. All the space as far as Charing Cross was one sea of heads. The kettledrums struck up, the trumpets pealed, and Garter King at Arms, in a loud voice, proclaimed the Prince and Princess of Orange King and Queen of England; charged all Englishmen to pay, from that moment, faith and true allegiance to the new sovereigns; and besought God, who had already wrought so signal a deliverance for our church and nation, to bless William and Mary with a long and happy reign.

Thus was consummated the English Revolution. When we compare it with those revolutions which have during the last sixty years overthrown so many ancient governments, we cannot but be struck by its peculiar character. The continental revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took place in countries where all trace of the limited monarchy of the middle ages had long been effaced. The right of the prince to make laws and to levy money had, during many generations, been undisputed. His throne was His administration could not, without extreme peril, be blamed even in guarded by a great regular army. the mildest terms. His subjects held their personal liberty by no other tenure than his pleasure. Not a single institution was left which had, within the memory of the oldest man, afforded efficient protection to the subject against the utmost excess of tyranny. Those great councils which had once curbed the regal power had sunk into oblivion. Their composition and their privileges were known only to antiquaries. We cannot wonder, therefore, that, when men who had been thus ruled succeeded in wresting supreme power

* North British Review, No. 49, in which there is an able and from a government which they had long in secret hated, candid appreciation of Macaulay's History.

they should have been impatient to demolish and

* *

unable to construct; that they should have been ment of the Stuarts, and the troubles which that misfascinated by every specious novelty; that they should government had produced, sufficiently proved that there have proscribed every title, ceremony, and phrase asso- was somewhere a defect in our polity; and that defect ciated with the old system; and that, turning away it was the duty of the Convention to discover and to with disgust from their own national precedents and supply. The Convention had two great duties traditions, they should have sought for principles of to perform. The first was to clear the fundamental government in the writings of theorists, or aped, with laws of the realm from ambiguity; the second was to ignorant and ungraceful affectation, the patriots of eradicate from the minds, both of the governors and Athens and Rome. As little can we wonder that the the governed, the false and pernicious notion that the violent action of the revolutionary spirit should have royal prerogative was something more sublime and holy been followed by reaction equally violent, and that than those fundamental laws. The former object was confusion should speedily have engendered despotism attained by the solemn recital and claim with which sterner than that from which it had sprung. the Declaration of Right commences; the latter, by the resolution which pronounced the throne vacant, and invited William and Mary to fill it. The change seems small. Not a single flower of the crown was touched; not a single new right was given to the people. * The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the revolution of 1688 is this, that it was our last revolution. Several generations have now passed away since any wise and patriotic Englishman has meditated resistance to the established government. In all honest and reflecting minds there is a conviction, daily strengthened by experience, that the means of effecting every improvement which the constitution requires, may be found within the constitution itself.

Had we been in the same situation; had Strafford succeeded in his favourite scheme of Thorough; had he formed an army as numerous and as well disciplined as that which, a few years later, was formed by Cromwell; had a series of judicial decisions similar to that which, a few years later, was pronounced by the Exchequer Chamber in the case of ship-money, transferred to the crown the right of taxing the people; had the Star Chamber and the High Commission continued to fine, mutilate, and imprison every man who dared to raise his voice against the government; had the press been as completely enslaved here as at Vienna or Naples; had our kings gradually drawn to themselves the whole legislative power; had six generations of Englishmen passed away without a single session of parliament; and had we then at length risen up in some moment of wild excitement against our masters, what an outbreak would that have been! With what a crash, heard and felt to the furthest ends of the world, would the whole vast fabric of society have fallen! How many thousands of exiles, once the most prosperous and the most refined members of this great community, would have begged their bread in continental cities, or have sheltered their heads under huts of bark in the uncleared forests of America! How often should we have seen the pavement of London piled up in barricades, the houses dinted with bullets, the gutters foaming with blood! How many times should we have rushed wildly from extreme to extreme, sought refuge from anarchy in despotism, and been again driven by despotism into anarchy! How many years of blood and confusion would it have cost us to learn the very rudiments of political science! How many childish theories would have duped us! How many rude and ill-poised constitutions should we have set up, only to see them tumble down! Happy would it have been for us if a sharp discipline of half a century had sufficed to educate us into a capacity of enjoying true freedom.

These calamities our Revolution averted. It was a revolution strictly defensive, and had prescription and legitimacy on its side. Here, and here only, a limited monarchy of the thirteenth century had come down unimpaired to the seventeenth century. Our parliamentary institutions were in full vigour. The main principles of our government were excellent. They were not, indeed, formally and exactly set forth in a single written instrument; but they were to be found scattered over our ancient and noble statutes; and, what was of far greater moment, they had been engraven on the hearts of Englishmen during four hundred years. That, without the consent of the representatives of the nation, no legislative act could be passed, no tax imposed, no regular soldiery kept up; that no man could be imprisoned, even for a day, by the arbitrary will of the sovereign; that no tool of power could plead the royal command as a justification for violating any right of the humblest subject, were held, both by Whigs and Tories, to be fundamental laws of the realm. A realm of which these were the fundamental laws stood in no need of a new constitution.

But, though a new constitution was not needed, it was plain that changes were required. The misgovern

[The Valley of Glencoe.]

*

Mac Ian dwelt in the mouth of a ravine situated not far from the southern shore of Lochleven, an arm of the sea which deeply indents the western coast of Scotland, and separates Argyleshire from Inverness-shire. Near his house were two or three small hamlets inhabited by his tribe. The whole population which he governed was not supposed to exceed two hundred souls. In the neighbourhood of the little cluster of villages was some copsewood and some pasture-land; but a little further up the defile, no sign of population or of fruitfulness was to be seen. In the Gaelic tongue, Glencoe signifies the Glen of Weeping; and in truth that pass is the most dreary and melancholy of all the Scottish passesthe very Valley of the Shadow of Death. Mists and storms brood over it through the greater part of the finest summer; and even on those rare days when the sun is bright, and when there is no cloud in the sky, the impression made by the landscape is sad and awful. The path lies along a stream which issues from the most sullen and gloomy of mountain-pools. Huge precipices of naked stone frown on both sides. Even in July the streaks of snow may often be discerned in the rifts near the summits. All down the sides of the crags heaps of ruin mark the headlong paths of the torrents. Mile after mile the traveller looks in vain for the smoke of one hut, or for one human form wrapped in a plaid, and listens in vain for the bark of a shepherd's dog, or the bleat of a lamb. Mile after mile the only sound that indicates life is the faint cry of a bird of prey from some storm-beaten pinnacle of rock. The progress of civilisation, which has turned so many wastes into fields yellow with harvests, or gay with apple blossoms, has only made Glencoe more desolate. All the science and industry of a peaceful age can extract nothing valuable from that wilderness; but in an age of violence and rapine, the wilderness itself was valued on account of the shelter it afforded to the plunderer and his plunder.

[The English Country Gentleman of 1688.]

A country gentleman who witnessed the revolution was probably in the receipt of about the fourth part of the rent which his acres now yield to his posterity; he was, therefore, as compared with his posterity, a poor man, and was generally under the necessity of residing, with little interruption, on his estate. To travel on