the result of applied science and industrial invention. The first railway car was drawn by a locomotive in 1829; the electric telegraph was first used in 1837; the first steamship crossed the Atlantic in 1838. Scientific study as applied to living things has opened to men broad and engrossing lines of thought and reacted profoundly on mental habits and even on fundamental theories of life. Geology, biology, and chemistry, in attempting to explain the world and natural forces as they really are, have swept away a vast amount of old-fashioned theorizing.

Parallel with the industrial advance the democratizing of society has proceeded until England has become a republic with some attractive monarchial and aristocratic ornaments. Compared with her European rivals she is emphatically a free country. Her government, pieced out in what seems a haphazard fashion, is truly a representative one. Successive laws have given the electoral franchise to classes heretofore excluded, and have protected the ballot, till public opinion now acts on the executive and the House of Commons efficiently and promptly.

This great, energetic, and free nation has produced a literature of immense volume. Essays, histories, novels, and verse reflect life in all parts of the world and among all classes of people, sometimes imaginatively, but usually with an attempt at realistic presentation. Magazines, reviews, and daily newspapers have multiplied and are among the recognized mediums of communication between a writer and the public. We shall refer to but some thirteen or fourteen names in accordance with our design of giving only an outline. Living writers will be omitted.

Macaulay, historian and essayist almost from his cradle, was born in Leicestershire. His father, Zachary Macaulay,

JOHNSON'S LIT.-24

was a merchant of note and a man of distinction among the early English agitators against the African slave trade. Thomas The son was educated at an excellent private Babington school, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, Macaulay, 1800 1860. at the age of eighteen. of eighteen. He was no mathematician, and excellence in pure mathematics was necessary for high honors in Cambridge at that time. He took all the literature prizes, however, and obtained a fellowship. He was called to the bar, but his bent was so decidedly toward politics and literature that he obtained no business. In 1825 his famous essay on Milton in the Edinburgh Review brought him into notice. He was given a seat in the House of Commons for one of the "pocket boroughs," and distinguished himself as a debater, or rather as an orator of set speeches. Commercial disaster fell on the house of Babington & Macaulay (his father), and in 1834 the young man was appointed to a lucrative office in India. Many of his essays were contributed to the Edinburgh and other magazines before this, and, indeed, he continued to write during his four years' absence. When he returned to England he again entered Parliament, but his interest was now in his History, and in 1847 he lost his seat for Edinburgh and retired from active public life. In 1852, his party having again come into office, he refused a seat in the Cabinet, but could not well decline the compliment of "History of a reëlection to the House for Edinburgh. The England." first two volumes of his "History of England," "from the accession of King James I. down to a time. which is within the memory of man still living," were published and met with great success. Volumes III. and IV. came out in 1855 and were equally well received. The check for $100,000 which he received has become historic. Volume V. is but a half volume, and shows

marks of flagging energies, but it brings the narrative down only to the death of William III., so that his task was far from completion.

As a writer Macaulay is marked by great excellence and by grave defects. He is absolutely lucid, his knowledge of detail is wonderful, he is picturesque and unfailingly interesting. His style possesses in an unexampled measure the rare and valuable quality of life, his paragraphs are units, and his descriptions vivid and striking. On the other hand, he makes so many positive Macaulay's Style. categorical assertions on points which we feel sure are always subject to modification that the reader comes to feel slightly distrustful, although he may have no partisan interest in English politics. In depicting historical characters, his colors are crude and violently contrasted, and he makes his heroes and villains rather melodramatic. His history has been called a "Whig pamphlet in four volumes," for his temper was rather that of the advocate than of the judge, though that of a very brilliant advocate. We go to John Richard Green for information and for impartial philosophic views, to Macaulay for entertainment. Nevertheless he did the world a service in making clear the true worth of the Puritan and the real character of the Stuart kings.

Much the same excellencies and shortcomings char

acterize his essays. Those on "Warren Hastings,"

His

66

"Clive," and "Boswell's Johnson" settle in Essays." an arbitrary, absolute way questions which from their nature must always be debatable. Macaulay's literary judgments are of little value and are usually based on the traditionary reputation or on the politics of the writer. But they are stated clearly and succinctly. If any exceptions are made to the sweeping condemnation

or approval, the exceptions are clear-cut and definitely stated. There are apparently but two classes of books in the world for him: unmitigated trash and works of lofty and dignified eloquence. Personally, Macaulay was an honorable, industrious, just, and worthy man. His memory was wonderful, and his conversational powers remarkable, though he was so fluent that Sydney Smith said that a "few brilliant flashes of silence" were needed. No young man should fail to read Macaulay's "Essays." Their construction is excellent, and the vigorous style holds the attention.

Macaulay wrote some verse: "Lays of Ancient Rome," and one or two other martial ballads. He lacked entirely the "poetic vision"; there was nothing dreamy or mysterious about the world as he saw it. The " Lays are vigorous, brass-band rhyming, and little more, and make us regret that the time spent over them was not given to the production of another volume of the "History."

Thomas
Carlyle,

Thomas Macaulay was a man of brilliant talent; Thomas Carlyle was a man of intense though limited genius. Though five years Macaulay's senior, Carlyle is not only more modern in tone of thought, but 1795-1881. he matured much later and lived much longer than his more successful contemporary. He was the son of a Scotch stone mason of Dumfriesshire, and was sent to the University of Edinburgh with the intention that he should enter the ministry; but religious doubts in a mind of utter sincerity caused him to forego qualifying for the profession. In college he distinguished himself in the study of mathematics, and after graduation he acted as private tutor for a few years and then resolved to devote himself to literature. He published a "Life of Schiller,” which