Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1860-01-21
The Character OF N1neau1ay.

The Character OF NIacaulay.
The London NcTS, in an elaborate Obit-
uary notice of Macaulay, the essayist.
makes these remarks upon his character
as writer and a man:
As n talkcr, his powers were perhaps
unrivallcd. Ii was there that he showed
what he could do without the preparation
which might, if it did not, ensure the
splcndor OF his essays and his orltOry. !
the dinner table he poured out his marve.
lous clogucnce with rapidity equalIcd
only by that of his friend iIallam's utter
ancc He talked much, if at all; and thus
it WAS found that it did rot answer very
well to invite him with Jeffrey aud sydney
Smith. Jeffrey could sit silent for ii mod
cr"tc time with serenity. Sydney Smith
could not without annoyance. Both had
had three years Of full liberty tfOr they
did not interfere with each otherj during
M.cGuiay's absence but he ccljpscd both
OF his return. After some years, when
his health and spirits were declining, and
his expectations beg to merge i'll con-
sciousncss of failure, he sometimes sat
quiet on such occ is!on, listening or lost in
thought, as might happen. 1t was then
that Sydney Smith uttered his celebrated
saying about his conversational rival
"Macaulay is approved Yes, MNcaulay is
improved have observed in him of late
fashcs-cf silence" Meantime,
IL was the saying genius of the EGnJ"ryh
Resietr, then otherwise likely to sink prone
after the retirement of Jeffrey, and during
the uupopularity of the whig government,
nil of whose acts it set itself indiscrmi-
nately to uphold. BrouSham, and his
brother William, Senior, and MGcaulay,
with some undcrlings, wrote up every vShig
act and design, and made virtue of every
success and failure; but it would not all
have done if Macaulsy's magnificent art:-
cles, in Il long and rich series rad not car
ried the ReVie,r everywhere. and infused
some life into what was clearly an expiring
organization. The splendid historical,
biographical and critical pTe>entiments Of
Macaulay were the most FoPulGr literature
of the day; and they raised TO the figncst
pitch the popular expectation from his his
Tory. A history Of England by Macnulmy
was anticipated as the richest conceivable
treat though some thoGghtfal, or expert
enced. or hostile person here and there
threw out the remark that as his ornlUry
was literature and his literature oTatory,
his history would probably be something
else than history-most likely cpigrnm-
matte criticism. There was some further
preparation for his failure as well as sue
con in the ENa5vrgL Rerie'r. That essay
diSabuscd the wiscst who expected services
of the first order from Macauluy. In that
article he not only betrayed his imcnpaCity
for philosophy and his radical ignorance of
the sThjcct nc undertook 20 treat. but he
shamclessly helped himself to the very ma
tr;aiS he was disparaging, and gave as his
own large excerpts frUm Mr.. Montagu,
while loading him with contempt and re-
huke. But those who were best aware of
Mncaulays faults were carried away by the
delight of reading him. AS an artist We
are under deep obligations to him; and in
his own walk of aTt-fresh, aud open to
the multitude-he was supreme. The mere
style, forceful and an;ithetical, becomes
tatiguing from its want of r9poSe, as well
Us its maHueriSm; hut his cumulative
method of illustration is unrivalled. 1t
has been, and will he, ubundHntly initiated,
but quite unsuccessfully; for this reason
that it requires Macaulay's cruditiou to
support Macauiays cumulative method:
and men of Mncaulays erudition are not
likely to have his electric turn: and if they
had. would make their own path, instead
OF following at his heels. In lS+3 he pub
IShed his Lays Of Ancient Rome" very
charming, but electric with vengeance.
He was no poet, il was clear. though he
had given us n book delightful to the uu-
learned. In lS47 be was excluded from
Parliament by his rejection at Edinburgh
on account merely of q theological qnarrc!
of the time. The citizens compensated
this slight, as far as they could, by promo
ting his election to such Scotch honors as
could be conferred upon him-such as
hcing chosen Lord Rector of Glasgow
University, and on the death of Profess
sor Wilson, in 1884, President of the
Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. He
was sore!y missed in the House, though
his speaking had become infrequent.-
When, al length, he returned with new
literary honors accumulated on him, the
eugerness to hear him showed what the
privatiou had been. From the courts, the
refreshment-rooms, the committee-roOms
from every corner to which the news
could spread that Macaulay was up the
rush was as if for matter of life or death.
Meantime, while he was in this raJli ,men-
tAry and official Ghcynucc, he brought out
what were called the first volumes of his
history; neither be nor any Que else having
any doubt that the rest, up to the reign of
George Ill. would follow regularly and
speedily The beauty ofthe hook exceed
ed expectation; and its popularity was
such as no book had met with since the
days Of the Waverly novels; and with re-
gard to some characteristics and some pOr-
tfOns of the book, the first enthusiastic
Judgment will stund. His portrait of
William ILL.,, and the portions which mas
be called the historical romance of the
work, will be read with delight by sue
ccssive generations. But the sober deci-
sion already awarded hy time is that the
work is not history and that it ought
never to have been so called while the