The Press.
London, England, 1855-12-29 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

As for Mac lan of tilentioe and that tribe, if they can
be well distinguished from the other Highlanders, it will
be proper for the vindication of public justice to extirpate
that set of thieves.
Most readers will think the meaning of these
words perfectly plain, especially if taken in
connection with the previous instructions.
But what gloss does the reader suppose Mr.
Macaulay puts upon them? Here is his
comment :

These words naturally bear a sense perfectly innocent,
and would, but for the horrible event which followed, have
been universally understood in that sense. It is un-
doubtedly one of the first duties cf every Government to
extirpate gangs of thieves.
And the author goes on to say that, "if Wil-
" Liam had read and weighed the words which
" were submitted to him by his secretary,"
he would only have understood them to mean
that the clan was to be broken up, some sent
to the army in the Low Countries, and some be
made to give hostages for their good beha-
viour. This is a specimen of the style in
which Mr Macaulay habitually indulges when
facts tell against the view of any transaction
he thinks it proper to adopt. He writes with
his brief at his side, and peeps into it before
he decides what line he shall adopt. If any
proof were wanting of the complicity of the
King, it would be found in his efforts to
retard inquiry into this ruthless act, and
in his finally screening the Master from
punishment, when his guilt was established
beyond the possibility of doubt. Had the
massacre really been committed without the
knowledge of William, his anger would have
naturally fallen heavily on the Minister who
had dared to so foully abuse his trust and
bring such odium on his Government.
There are a hundred other points in the
history calling for comment. But we will
allude to but one other on a totally different
subject, the National Debt. In narrating the
past Mr. Macaulay does not forget the present,
and he is anxious to do his friends in office a
good turn. Mr. Macaulay prudently refrains
from entering very deeply into the funded
system, but he indicates that the prosperity
of the country has regularly increased with
every increase of the national burdens, and he
suggests a post hoc ergo propter hoe conclusion.
He writes positively :
A long experience justifies us in believing that England
may in the twentieth century be better able to bear a debt
of sixteen hundred millions than she is at the present
time to bear her present load.

This is bold, considering that we aro already
far advanced in the nineteenth century. The
purpose of the whole argument is obvious. We
can go on increasing the debt as fast as we please,
without the slightest apprehension of ill-con-
sequence. No doctrine more false or dan-
gerous can possibly be taught. One consi-
deration alone should make us hesitate to
receive this flippant folly. Our population
has nearly, if not quite, reached its limits ;
every addition to our taxation must be an
addition per bead, and must place our indus-
try at an immense disadvantage in competing
with that of other lands (and of America par.
ticularly) where the pressure of taxation is
comparatively unfelt.
It would be an endless task to mark the
rhetorical exaggerations of Mr. Macaulay, as
they are the most marked characteristic of his
composition. When William 111. leaves West-
minster for Hampton Court, there is a long
flourish on the desolation of Whitehall, " once
" the daily resort of the noble and the power-
" ful, the beautiful and the gay, the place to
" which fops came to show their new peruques,
" men of gallantry to exchange glances with
" fine ladies, politicians to push their for-
" tunes," and so forth, winding up with
" solitary sentinel paced the grass-grown
" pavement before that door which had once
" been too narrow for the opposite streams of
" entering and departing courtiers."
When, early in January, 1690, the Tory
members of the Commons wore summoned to
town to oppose the Whig attempt to purge
corporate bodies, we read :

The whole kingdom was moved from Northumberland
to Cornwall. A hundred knights and squires left their
halls hung with misletoe and holly, and their boards
groaning with brawn and plum-porridge, and rode up post
to town, cursing the short days, the cold weather, the miry
roads, and the villainous Whigs.
In a romaxce by Mr. G. P. B. James, we
should think such a passage appropriate, but

SATURDAY,

has it any place in history ? Why does not
Mr. Macaulay cite authorities hero? We
should like to see some credible testimony to
the hundred knights and squires (we are re-
minded of the opening of Scott's " Lay "),
carsing, as in a kind of chorus, " the short
" days, the cold weather, the miry roads, and
" the villainous Whigs." As a guard against
being pressed too closely for authorities, Mr.
Macaulay warns us in a note that if he does not
cite authorities, it is because they are too
numerous to cite, his statements being founded
on thousands of forgotten tracts, sermons, and
satires, moulding in old libraries.
For florid description of ceremonies and
rejoicings, these volumes far surpass any of
Mr. Macaulay's former productions. On every
occasion of festivity, " ale runs in gutters, and
" wine spouts from conduits." When Con-
vocation meets in St. Paul's, the suffragans of
Canterbury are described, "ranged in gorgeous_
" vestments of scarlet and minever.' When
William enters London after the peace, " all
" the companies provided new banners, ithe
" magistrates new robes."
Mr. Macaulay will miss no circumstance of
a spectacle; he records how the streets were
lined with gravel, how many coaches-and-six
were in the procession, what militia were
called out, and the exact number of tar-barrels
that the Dutch Ambassador had lighted for
a bonfire before his house, in St. James's-
square. The Jacobite faction is always at
hand to fill up Mr. Macaulay's tableaux with
any necessary amount of gloom and villany.
When the nation rejoices, the Jacobites are
filled with dismay; when public troubles are
felt, the Jacobites are seen to drink secret
healths, and heard to mutter threats over
their ale. The climax of their despair is of
course reached when William returns in
triumph. " One unfortunate zealot of Divine
right drowned himself." Another was held to
bail for libel. And some others less desperate
took the oaths of allegiance to William. The
fourth volume concludes with a blaze of fire-
works (twelve thousand pounds worth) accom-
panied by immense shouting and bell-ringing,
and a picture of universal festivity and con-
tentment. _ _

William is emphatically the author's hero ;
but his character does not rise from a fair
estimate of even Mr. Macaulay's narrative.
He fell from the time that he submitted him-
self to the control of the Whig junto; and that
peace of Ryswick which is here celebrated
with so much fervour denotes a deplorable
►•ant of statesmanlike ability, as it took no
care for the Spanish succession, which was at
the time the event calling most urgently for
settlement, and which speedily afterwards
necessitated a renewal of the war.

Mr. Macaulay's merits are great industry in
the collection of his materials, and great ani-
mation and clearness in his narrative ; and
these merits are so conspicuous in the volumes
before us, that, in spite of their Nisi Prius
spirit, their special pleading, their exaggera-
tion, and their rhetorical exuberance, we hope
we may receive from him, at least, a continua-
tion of his work down to the term when the
history of the Revolution of 1688 naturally
concludes.

Ths Politics of Aristotle. With English Notes.
By Richard Congreve, M.A. London :

J. W. Parker and Son.
DR. ARNOLD, we believe, was the first to point
out to the historical student the erroneous
nature of the ordinary division between
ancient and modern history. In his lectures
on the latter subject, and his invaluable
appendix to Thucydides, we are clearly shown
how the later stages of the Greek and Roman
commonwealths are, as far as their lesson is
concerned, more strictly modern history than
the reigns of our own Plantagenets or Tudor,
and how the struggles between the so-called
ancient factions are far more nearly related to
what is now going on before us than those of
the Edwards with their nobles, or the Charlases
with their Parliaments. It is needless, there-
fore, to say another word on the public utility
of such a work as Mr. Congreve's.
One of the most striking features in the
ancient writers, and one that cannot be toe
strongly impressed ou the minds of all who