By Thomas Babbington Macaulay
By A. J. Grieve
A French student of English letters (M. Paul Oursel) has written the
following lines:
“Depuis deux siècles les Essais forment une branche importante de la
littérature anglaise; pour designer un écrivain de cette classe, nos
voisins emploient un mot qui n’a pas d’équivalent en francais; ils
disent: un essayiste. Quo’est-ce qu’un essayiste? L’essayiste se distingue
du moraliste, de l’historien, du critique littéraire, du biographe, de
l’écrivain politique; et pourtant il emprunte quelque trait a chacun
d’eux; il ressemble tour a tour a l’un ou a l’autre; il est aussi
philosophe, il est satirique, humoriste a ses heures; il remit en sa
personne des qualités multiples; il offre dans ses écrits un
spécimen de tous les genres. On voit qu’il n’est pas facile de définir
l’essayiste; mais l’exemple suppléera a la définition. On connaîtra
exactement le sens du mot quand on aura étudie l’écrivain qui, d’après
le jugement de ces compatriotes, est l’essayiste par excellence, ou,
comme on disait dans les anciens cours de littérature, le Prince des
essayistes.”
Macaulay is indeed the prince of essayists, and his reign is
unchallenged. “I still think--says Professor Saintsbury (Corrected
Impressions, p. 89 f.)--that on any subject which Macaulay has touched,
his survey is unsurpassable for giving a first bird’s-eye view, and
for creating interest in the matter.... And he certainly has not his
equal anywhere for covering his subject in the pointing-stick fashion.
You need not--you had much better not--pin your faith on his details,
but his Pisgah sights are admirable. Hole after hole has been picked
in the “Clive” and the “Hastings,” the “Johnson” and the “Addison,”
the “Frederick” and the “Horace Walpole,” yet every one of these papers
contains sketches, summaries, precis, which have not been made obsolete
or valueless by all the work of correction in detail.
Two other appreciations from among the mass of critical literature that
has accumulated round Macaulay’s work may be fitly cited, This from Mr.
Frederic Harrison:--
“How many men has Macaulay succeeded in reaching, to whom all other
history and criticism is a sealed book, or a book in an unknown tongue!
If he were a sciolist or a wrongheaded fanatic, this would be a serious
evil. But, as he is substantially right in his judgments, brimful of
saying common-sense and generous feeling, and profoundly well read in
his own periods and his favourite literature, Macaulay has conferred
most memorable services on the readers of English throughout the world.
He stands between philosophic historians and the public very much as
journals and periodicals stand between the masses and great libraries.
Macaulay is a glorified journalist and reviewer, who brings the matured
results of scholars to the man in the street in a form that he can
remember and enjoy, when he could not make use of a merely learned book.
He performs the office of the ballad-maker or story-teller in an age
before books were known or were common. And it is largely due to his
influence that the best journals and periodicals of our day are written
in a style so clear, so direct, so resonant.”