The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-12-14
COSMOS MEETS.
Mr.. John A. Walker Reads
a Paper On Lord Ma
cauley and His
Writings.
BRILLIANT EssAYlsT ANALYzED
Justice Collins and Rev. DR.. Brett
Say the Historian Was Not
Accurate-Many Men and
Many Opinions.
BRILLIANT EssAYlsT ANALYzED

The Cosmos Club met last night in the
/ Hotel washington and returned to its old
plan of enjoying the intellectual treat first
and the gastronomic last. The first por-
ton of the exercises, as President Major
u. x. Pangborn put it. was a paper on
Lord Macauley, read by Mr.. John A..
Walker, who had for an audience Justice
Gilbert Collins, Rev. DR.. Cornelius Brett,
Rev. Mr.. Goodman and Rev. Mr.. Buck
hardt of Brooklyn, Messrs. Charles w.
Hartshorne, H. v. Condict, Andrew j.
Corcoran. William Corcoran, Philip Brett,
Prof. w. Waters of West Hobolzen, J.
Creveling Brown and L. Ames. When
some routine matters of business had been
swept aside. Mr.. Walker began his essay.
1t was in part as follows:-
Lord Macauley is one of the brightest
names in the Victorian era. Little need
be said in the way of biography. he was
born in 1900, and died in 1859, in his SIX
day he was one of the most fortunate OF
mortals, one of natures favorites.
He was well born, his parents oelng
people Of DISTINGUISHED enaracf t ,fod 1ls
Except IN his last year or two MS nealtn
was always fine. He was precocleus, yes
his precocity. as SO often happens. ola
not dwarf his maturer years. He was a
writer, a historian. 4 poet, an orator, q
man of affairs, a Statesman. of the higher
type-a member of the English
later of the House of Lords. a Cabinet
officer, a member of the East India Coun-
ell, and at the end was buried in West
minister Abbey. In every function ne was
extraordinary In some styles OF writing
he has never been surpassed, ana as an
orator he is said to have cclipsed ms
writings. His memory for learning was
unparalleled, in either ancient or modern
time. AS a historian his work struck a
new note. His personality was wonder
fully charming.
digious, and his marvellous memory held
for instant use all he ever ead-as a
student no painstaking was too much-his
essays and the history employ a wealth
of Illustration not elsewhere surpassed.
In literature he is one OF the soyerelgns
of the century. and for contemporaries
he had the vast array az Of notable c Viet4rlan
Carlyle, Browning, Tennyson, stuart
Mill, Froude and others. Dying in 1853.
in his sixtieth year, his personality has
been forgotten, his career as a statesman
Is hardly more than memory-passing
away with the occasion-but, out from the
past, undiminished in lustre, shining ana
imperishable are the essays and the His
tory"
Edinburgh Review the first one in 1925,
the last in 1874, covering a period OF TWEEN
ty years, and twenty-seven notable es-
SAYS in number. With me these essays
have always been favorites not only, but,
as one mas D1raSSQ 1t, Wncn Oll0 > pllSl-
lectual light burns low, ] return to them
with freshness and zeal. They begin
with the essay on Milton, written Just as
he left Cambridge. and end with that on
Lord Chataam-published in the maturity
of his great powers.
The essay on Milton. written when he
was twenty-four, bristles with .quotabie
sentences-note these: the Puritans he
characterizes as 1.-THE most remarkable
body of men the world has ever pro-
duced''; ''the odious and ridiculous parts
- +IAs 11,a r,a 40 n c1y - 6nTs IT
know and serve God. to enjoy him, was
with them the great end of existence. In
stead of catching occasional glimpses
through an obscuring veil, they asplred
to gaze on his intolerable brightness, and
to converse with him face to face. THE
Puritan was made up of two different
gratitude, passion; the other proud. calm,
in1eXible, Sagacious." And SO on through
twenty-eight pages we have history
sharp characterization, luminous rhetorlcs
terse phrases, and a clear-cut exhibit OF
Milton the man, the Puritan, he friend
OF Cromwell. the poet.
In 1910, when he was forty years OF age,
appeared his famous essay on Ranke's
History of the Popes,' which, while
nominally a review of Ranke's book, ven-
lures into the broad sea of discussion as
to the varying fortunes of the RomiSh and
Protestant faiths. This essay contains the
world-famous quotation, ~eulogistic OF the
human polity of the Roman Catholic
Church., beginning: mo other institution
is left standing which carries the mind
back to the time when the smoke of
sacrifice rose from the Pantheon, and
in the Flavian OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
with: 'sShe was great and respected be-
fore the Saxon had set foot On Britain,
before the Frank had passed the Rhine,
when greed eloauence still fourished at
Antioch, when idols We're still Worshipped
in the temple of Mecca"
The two East Indian essays, one on
Lord Give, A pages long, the second on
Warren Hastings. of 63 pages nave a
quality of perspicacious narrative, clear,
vivid, picturesque, terse--that | DO not
know where to match elsewhere. They
are full of quotable sketches, did time
permit. The Hastings essay contains the
notable description of the trial OF Hast
ings, grouping the man., the place, the
time. the counsel. in a matchless picture.
indeed, all his historical works are vivid,
sharp. clear pictures. with breadth, scope;
perspective, and full OF personality ana
touching feeling.
The Lord Bacon essay has been the
subject of much controversy It was
written when he was thirty-seven, and is
GO pages long, and every line worth read
ing, even Thoughts do many-you differ
from him. It goes over Bacon's career,
and participates in the old veyed question
as to Bacon's character, and then comes
to his philosophy, expressing his sym
pathy with the Baconian as against the
The Addison essay is in a different vein.
AS ono critic says: Macauley in his
youth wrote of Milton in a strain that
would have lindied the eye OF the prineely
bard: and in the fullness Of his years he
wrote of Addison in a strain. of such g
softened beauty that the mild author of
the Spectator would have approved and
in the Burleigh essay, a poor one, we
get pictures of Elizabethan times, in the
Ha1npden essay of Cromwell's days.
The Sir William Temple essay is by
some classed as one of his best-one writer
calls 1t a masterpiece. Temples biography
is, as was Macauley's wont, used to draw