The Northern Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1856-01-08 00:00:00

thousands of volumes filled with garbled state.
ments of the leading incidents of the most impor-
tant periods, and with the fulsome adulation of
what Mr. MACAULAY thinks deserving of praise,
put into the hands of the public.

No man will pretend to question the brilliancy
of Mr. MAcAuLsv's style of composition ; no
one will dispute his eloquence, his untiring
industry, and depth of research; but we put it to
any of his cool and dispassionate readers, whether
he deals honestly and impartially with the leading
incidents in the history of England ? The his-
torical writers who had gone before him, having
exhausted all the recognised archives and official
sources of information, he was driven to the
shelves of the British Museum, for the opinions of
men who had embodied their thoughts in sonnets,
and who sang the praise of faction, just as Mr.
COBDEN would deal with the resources and general
condition of Russia, and Mr. BRIGHT with the
question of peace or war ! And, hence, we have,
in Mr. MecAuLAv's :volumes, an endless succession
of spirited panegyrics, gorgeous eulogiums, bitter
rebukes, and an indelible trace of the maw-worm ;
but nothing really of history, that was not known
before, except the revival of forgotten anecdotes,
and a redundance of small proofs, to confirm
generally admitted matters of fact. With all this
we should not feel disposed to quarrel, had Mr.
MACAULAY kept his temper, and tuned the
torrent of his pen to the wants and taste of his
times. History is the leading rudiment in the
education of a nation ; and all it should contain is
a simple narrative of facts, strung together so as
to enable the reader to draw clear and impartial
inferences on every subject brought before him.
The people of this country do not want to
be alt BABINGTON MACAULAY'S.

Those who advocate popular education, look upon
it as the great meansby which the divisions and abor-
tions of society may be removed, and the people of
these islands brought to think, reason, and act as
one nation having a common destiny. We view,
therefore, all that appertains to the education of
the people with the utmost jealousy, and we
cannot help lamenting that, at the commencement
of the great and sacred task, the Whigs should have
thrust on the country their own champions and
partizan views of great historical events, which,
from being unique as a piece of composition, and
possessing all the characteristics of a master pen,
are rendered more luscious to the palate, and,
therefore, more dangerous to the cause of solid
enlightenment. Were Mr. MAOAULAY'S history of
England to be universally employed as a standard
educational work in this country, every school-room
would become a battle ground, every library the
arena of violent discussion, and where English,
Irish and Scotch-men met together, they would be
ready to fasten on each other like so many bulldogs,
or tigers, wolves, and vultures falling upon their
natural enemy, or their ordinary prey. Each of
the belligerents might cite MACAULAY in justifica-
tion of striking the first blow, and drawing the first
blood ! Had our Author confined himself to
writing historical essays, all his partisan vociferc-
cities and anathematical exuberance would have
been pardonable enough ; but where a man
ventures to give a factious colouring to history,
which, though a temporal record, should, never-
theless, be the Gospel of a nation, he does an
irreparable injury to society, and exposes all those
who come after him to the charge of being the
emissaries of darkness and discord, instead of the
precursors of enlightenment and mutual goodwill
among Luankind.