The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-18 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Macaulay's History of England. People'a Edition.

Part 111. Longman and Co.

Another instalment of this wonderfully cheap
and beautifully printed edition of Macaulay's great
fragment of a history, carries the narrative down
far into the fifth chapter, to the 304th page of the
first of the four volumes to which the edition will
extend, deep into the year 1685, down to that
dreadful epoch of judicial severity known as the
Bloody Assizes, when the infamous Jeffries reigned
supreme upon the bench as our English Rhada-
manthus. The more frequently our attention iR
recalled to an examination of " Macaulay's History I
of England," the more profoundly are we impressed
with a sense of the great genius manfested so lumi-
nously throughout—the more fatly do we realise
the marvellous beauty of its rhetoric—the more
completely ere wo satisfied with the justice of the
conclusion at which we have long arrived, in regard
to Macaulay as an author, that he is the
most perfect writer of prose, that be is the most
perfect master of style in the English lan-
guage. Yet all the while, too, are we more and
more firmly impressed with a painful consciousness
that this exquisitely accomplished rhetorician, that
this author, in some respects, of incomparable elo-
quence, that this man of encyclopm,lic knowledge,
is so far to be read with jealous care in his charac-
ter as a historical teacher that, to put it in the
mildest form, he lacks impartiality. He is per-
petually agitated by passion, either in the way of
stubboin prejudice or of eager predilection. Of
him, too, it might be said, as Goldsmith said of a
kindred genius, the genius also of a great writer,
a great orator, a scholar, a statesman, and a
philosopher, that—

" He gave up to party what was meant for mankind."
Yet,while we are under the glamour of his eloquence,
how willingly, for the time, we yield ourselves up
to its witcheries! How dark, on the magic mirror
of his page, appear the lineaments of those he
loathe ! How radiant and how godlike the aspect of
such as chance to have won the splendid weed of
his approbation, some of them even receiving, as for
example William of Orange, the literary apotheosis
of his superb and already classic eulogiums! Un-
convinced—we cannot but admire, and admire, too,
with an unstinted admiration.

Luttrell of Arran. By Charles Lever, Part 11.
Chapman and Hall.

In this instalment the dramatis persona who are
to figure hereafter in these pages are introduced.
In the opening chapter the relations of the recluse's
deceased wife are described with the author's cha-
racteristic ability. They have been summoned to
pay the last rites and honours to their departed re-
lative, and the orgies of the wake concluded, the
husband who has refused ever to see them, sends his
wife's personal effects to them, that they may
choose each one any token to take home as a me-
morial. But the poor relations are so pleased
with these articles that they insist on appropriating
the whole, much to the indignation of the house-
keeper, and hence ensues a native Irish con-
tention such as few but Charles Lever
can describe. Vyner, who will evidently
figure conspicuously in future events, accidentally
meets his old friend before departing from Arran,
and an interesting dialogue ensues. We are fur-
ther introduced to Spier's wife and sister-in•law,
and a few other characters, among whom is an
American. We think that Mr. Lever has but one
type of transatlantic character for all his works,
and that, the individual herein introduced, the
pugnacious " Quackinboss." We trust that, in
justice to the better class of Americans, he will
possess some of their virtues. Several smart
sketches of English country life, and of tourists
generally, are given, and the tale begins to be
interesting.

BOOKS RECEIVED.

Wildfire : A Novel. 3 vols. By Walter Thornbury.

Hurst and Blackett.
A Box for the Season. By Charles Clarke. 2 vola.
Chapman and Hall.
uan to Beersheba; or, Northern and Southern Friends.
Chapman and Hall.
Christmas at Old Court. By the author of "Richelieu in

Love." Bentley.
The Pearl of the Rhone, and Other Poems. By William

Duthie. Robert Hardwicke.
The Story of The Guns. By Sir James Emerson Tennent.
Longman and Co.
Household Education. By Harriet Martineau. Smith,
Elder, and Co.
Historic Odes, &c. By R. W. Dixon. Smith, Elder, and

. . .
Co. -
Horrors of the Virginian Slave Trade. A. W. Bennett.
Quarterly Journal of Science. No. I. Churchill and Sons.
Quarterly Review : for January, 1864. John Murray.