The Express.
London, England, 1848-12-26 00:00:00

a task which ly belongs to men of public 1 blica;oar: ads, ,
nem and i The remark is tree enough. r. usteer,elroi7,--ovte.'; tit.. 4
English hietories, at least in this century and the Z. Meer, Ode., Raw. J. R. J. ;
an
aft. J. R. Veers.. Ot. 1411, Co/4,
have been written by lookowa and phnosophers r,,,,fite, ramie& hay. J. 0,
the public for whisk tbsy wrote bet/ select and aria- Dv ea,:e Bogue co LINCOLN. AT lame. Die. IL.. se
there rum ibeenigh all an etninaoy and an Lull!. ;a
et.. 11_. pylon. Lim, onmp,?!es. L
which ORIIIIIO, allies well with Wiriest, g.. 74, 0,c„,, • *,u, i.J,tato
but via* dies eat either: suit or represent the Eng- others, ohne.; J. 0. anew, 'rria., ci="2,tt;
.1. •
lids Wadi. Doodah Cows Wed. Comb. Rev. IL • 11/”.
awl* Owe.; Rev. R. P. otia
Ases politicians Mr. Macaulay is no doubt a Lome, IR. Pee" Cava. ; Berm Mothay, wa,,b1,1“.
men at Istaws ; but sea man of letters, he has also LI-2.-kria. rtses.,swide. ; arc T. C. floateep,
w.
oao
tesoltedisamiwanadabsenunpreimjudiesdbuedten::hgthorliehethesoriouspanab:realtiveitiiiesa:czlsm,,
oh.
t.ta.
Fc.t.ow
ise.reakinlaA.44.;
iu.).
03;_uutnit.
c.J 1:4.413i
polities. And although here and there throughout his BT TUN &MOP OT BODO. AND BAN CT BOMA& th.r
wi
ttta,
im
pages tbwe betake forth the digressive and some
Rev. 3. Barks, BIM J. Karen, aid him
conwhatrovertht trivialsiepist,iristueofhtho literaryare
sansseptd ofsssthe;resslittothuss ton.spesdia:W‘wamy
°ewe
=sae and sir r swim
, not to sects or coteries, but to the mingled, o. & t.
Historians have of late been clawed by their critics iT,te:44: t=adikLUidollo.-1“. cu4rnsokk,
into the philosoaossiand the pietureeque, into those ides to anstertes—iast.t.--se.---.li-f. gptikasinatimnv:.-1" C T 14.14"&„
who trace and caws, and those who strike gr. o.smite,4l-I°'• j* PrpOt___chtvarteCia,,...%
forth pictures. The most successful historical efforts er.; sot. • pat., N. of Nellse•.—Rev. C. 6). ol
ressatly have been by men who rendered their philo- !!ovii W. it. Wrot.l.l, ~,t.a Keefe
sophy subservient to their imagination, and who 172.41! test.; feet, w. • who'
have conveyed their opinions as Ossian and HMOr redden; pat., sir s.loarvon, tart •no "M.
; 317 L.
did theirs, by poetry and myth. Of these writers
the pictures are very vivid, and their design has the
originality and forma not the truth of Michael Angelo.
But for the philosophy which is supposed to lurk
beneath, and which the professor undertakes to ex-
pound, we cannot say much. And, we fear, that were
it clearly and nakedly laid before us, instead of being
doled out in parables, and eked out in phrase, we
should find it very poor trash. Miehelet, for exam-
ple, is a very forcible And picturesque historian, but
we are inclined to think that the ground, the sub-
stratum of all his phrameologic embroidery is—non-
sense.
Mr. Macaulay's style is a very good admixture of
the philosophic and the picturesque. He does not over-
load us with the one, or overstretch our fantasy with
the other. Neither does his philosophy affect the
profound or the transcendental. It is that of the every-
day world of common sense and sane judgment. And
another characteristic is, that it is English. Most of
our historians, indeed, have been decidedly foreign in
spirit. They have been French, or German, or ultra-
, montane, or, what is just as bad, they have been
anti•Gallican. Mr. Macaulay is thoroughly English,
sometimes, indeed, narrowly so. But the tault is a
good one, nd a rare one.
Some of the finest things in the language are Mr.
Macaulay's sketches of persons. We allude not
I merely to those in the present history, but to those in
the Edin'urgh Reniew—the brilliant cartoons of
Clive and Warren flutings, which Raphael in his
art has no more than Nestled. Who shall
forget the portraiture of Nuncotnar ? That of
Jeffries, in the present volume, is almost as good.
Titus Gates requires a little more finish to take its
place beside them. The noblest effort of the work,
indeed, is the bold and unsparing truth with which
Mr. Macaulay has gibbeted James the Second, with
his Chief Justice, his courtiers, nay, the " maids of
honour," strung around him. A more disgusting
picture of humanity, or a more forcible one, was never
drawn than of this king and his satellites by Mr.
Macaulay.
With his own limning before his eyes, how could
Mr. Macaulay exclaim, in one of those little bursts of
conventional morality, which blemish his pagee, and
which seem to ask pardon of " high life for so
pitilessly exposing it—how could Mr. Macaulay
write :
" In every age the vilest specimens of human nature
are to be found &monist demagogues r'
Why, Mr. Macaulay disproves his own assertion.
Where, in the annals of demagogues, are characters of
such corrupt, disgusting, and cold•blooded villany to
I be found as Mr. Macaulay has sketched from a court ?
I Is not Fouquier4inville • lamb, compared with Chief-
Justice Jeffries ? Is not Robespierre after all a man
of more character and principle than James the
Second?
Mr. Macaulay is, however, too fond of portraiture.
And his history is often made to descend to that
secondary class of painting, which Copley
and others excelled in, that in which excellence
of the portraits is the chief merit, and where, conse-
quently, the historic interest of the canvas or its
subject is null. What do we want with full-length
portraits of Penn and Dangerfield, and of others
whom three intEstinct lines could very well indicate
in the back ground, but whom Mr. Maminlay thrusts
into the very front of the canvas, sparing us not a
fold or a haw. Nay, even great even's, such as the
expeditions of Argyle and Monmouth, though replete
with all the interest of romance, are too minutely
'old. They trench upon the memoir, and trivialise
history. If two volumes are thus to be spent on five
years, when, and through how many volumes are we
to arrive at events still "in the memory of men now
living?"
Whilst engaged in mentioning faults, let us observe
that the third chapter of the first volume is not at all
to our taste. It is that devoted to • sketch of the
lighter characteristics of the age. There is not a man
in England that could have written any one of Mr.
Macaulay's other chapters. There are • hundred men
in London that could have written Mr. Macaulay's
third chapter better than he. It is what is called light
writing ; in this Mr. Macaulay is no adept. And
the whole thing is like the gallop of a good stout
Flanders horse ever the course at Newmarket.
Much and generally as we admire Mr. Macaulay's
philosophy, there are many points on which we would
willingly break a lance with him. He gives, we
think, far too much credit to the church in the middle
ages. For instance, he attributes to the church the
raising of the lower orders from villeinage. Now we
rather think that the church tightened the bonds of
villeinage. The church certainly sided in raising the
lower class throughout Europe from downright
slavery to the superior state of serfdom. But the
church laboured then and since to keep the peasantry
in a permanent state of serfdom or villeinage. And
when the military aristocracy sought to raise the
villeins, by making warriors of them, the church
resisted, and passed laws to the effect that serfs
should remain serfs, and should not become freemen.
Pages, that will probably give many readers pain,
are those which describe the low social condition of
the clergy (p. 327, &c.). We cannot think this owing
either to the rebellion or the reformation. In fact, it
is one of the principles of the catholic religion, to
have ecclesiastics of all ranks, Dome of the claw; of
peasants and on a level with them. To have eccle-
siastical leaders, and men who by their lives and
examples might influence the lower classes,
and have more influence by being of the same class
and having sympathy with them, was one of the
necessities of the age, in which th" population were
broken into castes. But how surround this inferior
order of ecclesiastics with respect ? This was a pro-
blem attempted to be solved by enjoining the :ell=
the clergy, and by the encounigement of ms
These instentions were devised preeieely to prevent
that state of things described in the pages to which
we have alluded, in which during the then pre-
valence of feudalism. the lower order of seas-
elastics were so likely to merge in that
of the upper class of domestics. The Church of
England still savours of the old anomaly. It has got
rid of the lower order of ecclesiastics, and thus lost
its bold of the humbler classes. It requires that
every clergyman should be a gentlemsa, with a =ally
education. And yet it still retains the old diatribe,-
lion of emoluments, as if the inferior order of clergy '
still existed. It allots 401. a year to • curate, who is
by caste and education removed from the people,
atd by his means segregated from the gentry, which
produces the decirunt, but loses all the nets and in-
fluence of the religions office. On thie point, Mr.
Macaulay's philosophy either goes too far, or does not
go far eeough.
We must here, however, interrupt our remarks,
to resume them at a future opportunity.

NAVAL

Tang COIDIAND.IN-CIIIIP trr TSS
Is rated that Vies-Ades. Sir W. Parker will rettre sere sherd, ft*
the etanntandAn-ohlef of the Mediterranean, which Ite kr nnr htli
for sore than three reran and nbr mare.
DIVONFORT, DSC. 24.—Driver, et., Coen. Johd•ton,
rived We monger front Portrosont—Arnason, it, apt
bridge, oiled nabs last night far the Coast of Africa NIS the But

*lnt arts.
EXHIBITION OF PAINTING AND SCULPTUILE.•—
P•lllB.—The committee appoin•vd to examine the question
of the annual uhibition of paintings and sculpture of living
art .ste km um minion* decided that it shall henceforth take
place in the Pedals-Royal, and the Minister of Public Works
has been invited by lie colleagues to demand a credit front
the Matiourl Assembly for care, my oat that intention.

CLERICAL
ORDINATIONS.
BT TIIM BISROT Or OLotICISTRIt AND BRISTOL, B SIB-
TOL, Dee. 34.—Drsaosas ; R. W. Dartaell, hia, Dub.; W. C. De
Soinville, Trim, (nom, W. L. Peados, Ch. Ch., °IOU; I. P.. C.
oral., Won, (non; P. J. nom. Via, Dab. ; A. J. ftver,
(bie‘oe,Canab, W.
P.R. Train, Carpus Cb., Calab.; 3. Adams, Maid.
MR, (Moo ; W. IL Wham. Lino., Oxon; J. Lights% St. John%
Csrab.; T. U. Marsh, Peosb , Grub.; 0. Sharp, Marine and Chios,
Comb.; W. Siorges, ■ literate omen ; T. Hawke, Queens', Capita—
Pries's: Rev.!. Savorsioet, tb. Juba's, Carob.; Rev. L Du Buis.