Critical Miscellanies | Page 7

great material and still greater intangible possessions
had been first won, and then kept, against every hostile comer whether
domestic or foreign, sent through Macaulay a thrill, like that which the
thought of Paris and its heroisms moves in the great poet of France, or
sight of the dear city of the Violet Crown moved in an Athenian of old.
Thus habitually, with all sincerity of heart, to offer to one of the greater
popular prepossessions the incense due to any other idol of superstition,
sacred and of indisputable authority, and to let this adoration be seen
shining in every page, is one of the keys that every man must find, who
would make a quick and sure way into the temple of contemporary
fame.

It is one of the first things to be said about Macaulay, that he was in
exact accord with the common average sentiment of his day on every
subject on which he spoke. His superiority was not of that highest kind
which leads a man to march in thought on the outside margin of the
crowd, watching them, sympathising with them, hoping for them, but
apart. Macaulay was one of the middle-class crowd in his heart, and
only rose above it by splendid attainments and extraordinary gifts of
expression. He had none of that ambition which inflames some hardy
men, to make new beliefs and new passions enter the minds of their
neighbours; his ascendency is due to literary pomp, not to fecundity of
spirit. No one has ever surpassed him in the art of combining resolute
and ostentatious common sense of a slightly coarse sort in choosing his
point of view, with so considerable an appearance of dignity and
elevation in setting it forth and impressing it upon others. The
elaborateness of his style is very likely to mislead people into
imagining for him a corresponding elaborateness of thought and
sentiment. On the contrary, Macaulay's mind was really very simple,
strait, and with as few notes in its register, to borrow a phrase from the
language of vocal compass, as there are few notes, though they are very
loud, in the register of his written prose. When we look more closely
into it, what at first wore the air of dignity and elevation, in truth rather
disagreeably resembles the narrow assurance of a man who knows that
he has with him the great battalions of public opinion. We are always
quite sure that if Macaulay had been an Athenian citizen towards the
ninety-fifth Olympiad, he would have taken sides with Anytus and
Meletus in the impeachment of Socrates. A popular author must, in a
thorough-going way, take the accepted maxims for granted. He must
suppress any whimsical fancy for applying the Socratic elenchus, or
any other engine of criticism, scepticism, or verification, to those
sentiments or current precepts of morals, which may in truth be very
equivocal and may be much neglected in practice, but which the public
opinion of his time requires to be treated in theory and in literature as if
they had been cherished and held sacred semper, ubique, et ab
omnibus.
This is just what Macaulay does, and it is commonly supposed to be no
heavy fault in him or any other writer for the common public. Man

cannot live by analysis alone, nor nourish himself on the secret delights
of irony. And if Macaulay had only reflected the more generous of the
prejudices of mankind, it would have been well enough. Burke, for
instance, was a writer who revered the prejudices of a modern society
as deeply as Macaulay did; he believed society to be founded on
prejudices and held compact by them. Yet what size there is in Burke,
what fine perspective, what momentum, what edification! It may be
pleaded that there is the literature of edification, and there is the
literature of knowledge, and that the qualities proper to the one cannot
lawfully be expected from the other, and would only be very much out
of place if they should happen to be found there. But there are two
answers to this. First, Macaulay in the course of his varied writings
discusses all sorts of ethical and other matters, and is not simply a
chronicler of party and intrigue, of dynasties and campaigns. Second,
and more than this, even if he had never travelled beyond the
composition of historical record, he could still have sown his pages, as
does every truly great writer, no matter what his subject may be, with
those significant images or far-reaching suggestions, which suddenly
light up a whole range of distant thoughts and sympathies within us;
which in an instant affect the sensibilities of men with a something new
and unforeseen; and which awaken, if only for a passing moment, the
faculty and response