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of a brute, in his blood, but in his spirit, and all is the life of a man that he can embrace within the consciousness of his spirit. If a man's spirit had the range of the outward creation by sense, if human history were its memory, if its reason comprehended all known and possible truth, if its imagination were adorned with all that is lovely, if its character had all goodness, this, then, would be the range of its life. Though far from such perfection, yet the actual life of the most bounded consciousness spreads in its relations into unbounded being. Is the time ever to come when humanity shall be in full completeness and harmony? Is the time ever to come when humanity in the individual shall be strong and independent, in the family, wise and gracious, in the state, just and disinterested, in the church, believing, charitable, tolerant, when the savage shall be raised, when the heathen shall be converted, when the grossest shall be civilized, and the worst restored, when every man, being true to his position, shall be one with his race, and his race, being accordant with its origin and its end, shall be one with God? This may always be but an idea; yet, even as an idea, it has deep and living power. It is a sublime thought. Wherever it is strong, it kills the narrow self, and is at the bottom of all continued and admirable action. "Worlds," says Fichte, "speaking out of this faith in the infinite, produce worlds. Ages produce ages, which stand in meditation over those that have gone before, and reveal the secret bond of connection which unites causes and consequences within them. the grave opens, - not that which men heap together in earth, but the grave of impenetrable darkness, wherewith the first life has surrounded us, and from out of it arises the mighty power of ideas, which sees in a new light the end in the beginning, the perfect in the partial; every wonderful work which springs from faith in the Eternal appears, and the hidden aspirations which are here imprisoned and bound down to earth soar upward on unfettered pinions into a new and purer ether."

Then

As the individual is vitally related to the universe, so is the universe to the individual. All the powers of nature contribute to his wants. They are ministers to the requirements of his body, and to the faculties of his soul. The earth gives him of her fulness; the winds are his servants; the mines are his treasure-places; the mountains are his watch-towers; the clouds refresh him with shade and showers; the sun covers

him with splendor; above his head are the heights of air, and beneath his eye the depths of ocean. All energies are working to support, to educate, to bless him; and not these only, but whatever men have done or suffered, whatever has made the life of ages, whatever has made the life of nations. The whole has been acting for the individual soul. For that patriarchs had visions sent them from the opened heavens. For that prophets beheld a glory to be revealed in distant times. For that Jesus himself appeared in the world, was wounded with many griefs, and bled upon the cruel cross. For that Evangelists have written and Apostles preached. For that philanthropists have worked and lived. For that martyrs have endured and died. For that philosophers have meditated, and poets have sung, and wisdom and melody have been born. For that earth is robed in fairness, and heaven is hung with lamps of gladness. For that all governments, all dynasties, all hierarchies, have existed; and that shall be when they shall be no more. When monarchy, with its gorgeous pomp and haughty sway, its solemn power and its towered palaces, shall have melted as a dream, — when democracy, with its din of tongues and turbulence, shall be silent as an infant's sleep, -nay, when this huge globe itself shall shake to atoms all that rest upon its surface, as a lion arousing from slumber throws from his mane the dews of the forest, - when the sun shall be dark, and even the mighty hosts of stars shall die, that soul, that sacred soul, shall live. That spirit, kindled in the breath of Deity, has a light to burn over the ashes and the graves of worlds, a light of joy and thought for ever, in the consciousness of its immortal being, in the consciousness of its eternal Lord.

Yet glory not, thou proud man! for, in the midst of these sublime realities, thy pride belittles thee. Thou hast not the faith to which things invisible are open; thou hast not the humility to which greatness is revealed. And, thou timid and desponding man, cheer up thy hope, and let thy confidence not fail thee. Think not the distant stars are cold ; say not the forces of the universe are against thee; believe not that the course of things below is a relentless fate; for thou canst see the stars, thou canst use the forces; in right, thy will is unconquerable, and by it thou art the maker and the lord of destiny. In thy living consciousness the universe itself has living being, and thou in that art greater than the universe. Anoint thine eyes with holy thought, that the gross

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and fleshly scales may fall from off them. Then, like Gehazi in the mountain at the prayer of Elijah, thou shalt behold that Power for thy good is round about thee; thou shalt discern that thou art embosomed in Protection, that thou art compassed by the fiery energies of Heaven, that thou art girded and guarded by the Presence and the Majesty of God.

H. G.

ART. VI.-MACAULAY'S HISTORY.*

MR. MACAULAY follows the example of Hume, Robertson, Gibbon, and Alison, in giving to the public by portions what will be, when completed, a voluminous work. Two volumes of his History, of which six are promised, have appeared in England; the second of them is republished in this country only as this sheet passes through the press. We suppose that he and his predecessors chose this method solely as a matter of convenience. It can hardly be inferred that a writer hopes or intends, by this mode of addressing the literary world, to avail himself of the criticisms upon his earlier volumes for the improvement or modification of those which may follow, or for introducing into the latter any special pleading or defence in behalf of views which, as expressed in the former, may have opened controversies against him. Gibbon and Robertson did, indeed, turn to some good account, as they advanced in their labors, both the encomiums and the censures which were passed upon the first-published portions of their works. The notes in the last half of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire not infrequently show that he had felt the effect of criticisms which were so freely uttered on its first portion. He found likewise, as we hope Mr. Macaulay will find, that he had an inadequate idea of the extent to which his undertaking would expand under his pen, and he reached the end of it only when he had filled twice the intended number of volumes. Robertson suspended the publication of his History of America at a critical period, the

* The History of England from the Accession of James II. By THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY. Volume I. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1849. 8vo. pp. 619.

commencement of our own Revolutionary War.

In a letter

to a friend he wrote, "It is lucky that my American History was not finished before this event. How many plausible theories that I should have been entitled to form are contradicted by what has now happened!" To which remark his biographer, Bishop Gleig, wisely adds,-" And how many other theories, which he seems to have actually formed, were contradicted by the issue of the contest!" Yet, after all, the publication of the successive volumes of an extensive history at intervals contributes but a moderate amount of liberty and opportunity to the author to introduce any essential change into the character of his work as a whole. His first volume commits him to the public. In that he must proclaim his theory of history, and announce his own predilections and prejudices. He may afterwards soften or strengthen, qualify or confirm, some of the opinions which he has incidentally expressed, but he will be apt to value self-consistency too highly to be to any great extent the medium of his own rebuke or correction. It is much the same in this matter as in the building of an edifice. The foundation and the successive stories must present themselves to the public view in due order, but few builders introduce any modification of their general plan, or even of its details, though criticism may run to the length of ridicule, or may question the security of the fabric.

But though the method of publication which Mr. Macaulay, like other great historians, has adopted, may allow an author only a very limited opportunity to improve by the judgments which may be pronounced upon the first portions of his work, this piecemeal supply of history does, nevertheless, have a great effect on contemporary criticism. There are but few readers of history who are equally interested, or equally well informed, concerning all that is embraced in the whole range of time, events, and characters of any modern nation. Most of such readers have their favorite epoch, or subject, or dynasty, or crisis, with all that relates to which they have filled their minds, selecting it as a pet theme, and thus, doubtless, often exaggerating its relative importance, or making it the centre of their own prejudices. When a new history offers itself to their perusal, their standard for judging it is found in the place which it assigns to their own favorite subject, the manner of dealing with it, and the harmony or dissonance of opinion between them and the author. If their

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subject comes up at an early stage of the history, its treatment decides their judgment of the whole work. If they are compelled to wait till near the end, they do not feel ready to criticize, but suspend their judgment. In our country, the general decision upon the merits of Mr. Macaulay's History will depend upon his treatment of the theme which will lie midway in his intended progress, our preparation and struggle for national independence. At home, some of his readers may regret that he has passed over so hurriedly the Anglo-Saxon period of their history, which the recent publication of so many Chronicles and other new materials has made a most inviting period, rich but most perplexing, and therefore requiring elucidation from some gifted and penetrating mind.

Mr. Macaulay announces his purpose to be, "to write the history of England from the accession of King James the Second down to a time which is within the memory of men still living." Yet no historian would be content to begin such a work in the middle of an era, and it is curious to note the various ways in which annalists have endeavoured to trace back the threads in the loom of time which they intend to weave into the fabric of their narrative. Our good father Prince, in his "Annals of New England," could find no satisfactory starting-point, except in the formless and void chaos whence this "mundane world" issued. In our more modern histories, though not yet in all our "Ordination sermons," it is now customary to take the flood for granted. Mr. Macaulay confines himself to the isle of Britain, and begins with Julius Cæsar. One long and brilliant chapter contains a masterly summary of the annals of Great Britain for more than a thousand years of time, and even amid the shadows and mists of the fabulous ages of that marvellous island the author finds the germs of all those institutions and opinions which are now associated with the name of England. The whole compass of historical literature does not afford a more felicitous specimen of a comprehensive and a clear delineation of crowded centuries than we find in this chapter. The pregnancy of each paragraph bears witness to the fulness of the author's researches, and the skilful selection of leading ideas which have been elaborated and ever present in all the following centuries proves that the author is master of the highest application of the Baconian method to the philosophy of history.

Prior, in his Life of Goldsmith, says that it was the opinion