New-York tribune., 1868-05-07

often audacious handling of literary controversies
attract readers from all sides once more III ehioIs
the field against MacanIay with an an tton alticie
which collects into single thunderbolt the scatter
ing fire of many assaiants. The style OF the historian
is dissected and it's purely mechanical structure IT'S
conventional trick and the variety OF It's rhetoric
ore mercilessly laid bare Whatever person Of
celebrity has uttered an epigram against Macaulay
il quoted with relish; whether easy-gOlng Lord
Melbourne's complaint that Macaulay was so cock
sure of everything, or Sir George Comewall
Lewis's remark on the description OF the Warren
Hastings trial, with the catalogue rdiSoRRe of the
company that il smacked strongly OF the Snowman
and the auctioneer. Worse than glitterng defects
of style is that intellectual d0gmatism which made
mpartiality impossible to the historian recOllect
hearing mot OF Mitchell, VINO cohVulSsa ms audi
enCe by describing the great work Of Macaulay as
that NOPOpery Pamphlet which he calls History OF
England. 1t seems not less Vulnerable to Tory than
to Popish attack. In the present article the
old points of controversy are caught mp and
their aTuuments restated and reinforced. The his
tOrians elaborate carlcatuTe OF the highlands
is shown TO depend on total misrepresentation of
the very evidence cited IN support OF ITS thfulness
We long since learned that no act of William was
black that the brush of his eulogst could not give
a neutral tint nor any deed of Marlborough so nnO-
cent that ii could not be surrounded with suspicion
and made to furnish occasion for nYectiYe. The Quar-
teTly urges that even if William signed the order to
eXtrpate the clan of Glencoe without reading it. or
even if eXtirpati0n meant only dispersion, the re-
spOnsibility for the massacre is nevertheless
fixed on William by his subsequent APP
proyal of it, and by the rewards conferred
The defense of Marlborough in the betrayal of the
BreSt expedition will hardly be deemed satisfactory.
That he sent the news TO the French king. even the
writer in The Quarterly admits, and his only excuse
is that he sent it too late to be of service. Even
more gTOtesqueis the apology for MarlborOughs ac-
ceptance of 900 from the Duchess of Cleveland IN
the character her paTamour on the ground that the
hero of Fieldings romance received ESQ from Lady
BellaStOn for similar service The ISLANDERS OF Ma
caulay upon William Penn are much more thoroughly
dealt with. 1t is pointed out - and 20 tins
/ am aware of no possible answer-that although
every presumption is in favor of believing the letter
of Sunderland to have been addressed to George
Penne, and not to William Penn the friends OF the
latter can afford to admit the contrary. Grant that
the offer was made to Penn what evidence is there
that he accepted it The whole Of Macaulays elabo-
rate note in the later editions of the history turns on
the name merely; he neither wthdraws nor JuStl1es
his statement that Penn accepted the commission.
must refer my readers to The Quarterly itself for
the reviewers expOstiOns on the johnson and Junius
questions and his demonstration of tue unsoqndness
of Macaulay's argument in support of the claim OF
Sir Philip Francis. As 10 the authorship of the artl,
Gle cannot speak positively. 1t is kept profound
secret and therefore to out sooner or later
But conjecture that more than one hand may be
traced in It-that part is Mr.. Hayward's, and that
the editor wrote another part. e. W. o.