1849.] Historical Illusion. 259 more we study the annals of the past, the more shall we rejoice that we live in a merciful age, in an age in which cruelty is abhorred, and in which pain, even when deserved, is inflicted reluctantly and from a sense of duty. Every class, doubtless, has gained largely by this great moral change; but the class which has gained most is the poorest, the most dependent, and the most defenceless. "The general effect of the evidence which has been submitted to the reader seems hardly to admit of doubt; yet, in spite of evi dence, many will still image to themselves the England of the Stuarts as a more pleasant country than the England in which we live. It may, at first sight, seem strange, that society, while constantly moving forward with eager speed, should be constantly looking backward with tender regret. But these two propensities, inconsistent as they may appear, can easily be resolved into the same principle. Both spring from our impatience of the state in which we actually are. That impatience, while it stimulates us to surpass preceding generations, disposes us to overrate their happiness. It is, in some sense, unreasonable and ungrateful in us to be constantly discontented with a condition which is constantly improving. But, in truth, there is constant improvement precisely because there is constant discontent. If we were per fectly satisfied with the present, we should cease to contrive, to labor, and to save, with a view to the future. And it is natural, that, being dissatisfied with the present, we should form a too favorable estimate of the past. "In truth, we are under a deception similar to that which misleads the traveller in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare; but far in advance and far in the rear is the semblance of refreshing waters. The pilgrims hasten forward, and find nothing but sand where, an hour before, they had seen a lake; they turn their eyes, and see a lake where, an hour before, they were toiling through sand. A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degrees of opulence and civilization. But if we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find it recede before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion to place the Golden Age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes of our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana. We too shall, in our turn, be outstripped, and, in our turn, be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably paid with fifteen shillings a week; that the carpenter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings a day; that laboring men may be as little used to dine without meat as they now are to eat rye bread; that sanitary police and medical discoveries may have added several more years to the average length of human life; that numerous comforts and luxuries which are now unknown, or confined to a few, may be within the reach of every diligent and thrifty workingman. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that the increase of wealth and the progress of science have benefited the few at the expense of the many, and to talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as the time when England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendor of the rich." pp. 394-397. The fourth chapter opens with a most dramatic and exciting narrative of the circumstances attending the death of "the merry monarch," a narrative digested and harmonized with an amazing ingenuity from some scores of conflicting accounts and testimonies. Our newspapers are all copying this narrative; by no means an insignificant compliment. The suspense of parties, the forbearing patience of the great mass of the people, the all-enduring loyalty of the nation which was willing to bear so much, and the ungenerous and dastardly qualities of the new king in encroaching beyond all decency upon that patience and loyalty, are set forth by the historian with equal fidelity and power. There is a melancholy charm in the interest which the fifth and last chapter offers, as it describes the rebellion under Argyle and Monmouth. The scenes here painted are harrowing and bloody. They testify alike to the strength and the weakness of the feelings which masses of human beings will exhibit on occasions that engage their sympathies or overpower them with the might of established forms and opinions. The bloody assizes" of the wretch and monster Jeffreys are only the darkest shadings of the times when the haughty obstinacy of the Stuarts pitted itself against every claim of justice and magnanimity in the hearts of their whole people. The brutal mockeries of justice which followed the fight at Sedgemoor, and the atrocities perpetrated in London, the cruel vengeance taken against Alice Lisle and Elizabeth Gaunt, and the abuse of mercy where favor was shown to 1849.] Its Excellences. 261 the most guilty, furnish our author with materials which need no aid from rhetoric to stir every passion in his readers. Some may think that the truculency of Monmouth is portrayed with too much severity. He is entitled to all the allowance to be found in a naturally weak disposition, and in the bitter disappointment of hopes which had been fed by something more substantial than flattery or popular favor. It We infer, from a note in the volume before us, that Mr. Macaulay has had the use of all the rich and abundant materials collected by the late Sir James Mackintosh for his projected History. England has, indeed, been preparing materials for more than a century to furnish her annalists with the most voluminous and varied sources of information. The British Museum contains a collection, the very catalogues of which would make a small library. It requires a mind like Macaulay's to put such a repository to the wisest use. would seem as if, through his whole life, he had been what is called a general reader, and had retained the fruits in an available form by crowding commonplace-books and indexes with the gatherings of years. He appears to exhaust all the examples, hints, and illustrations which are scattered over the whole wide field of English literature. His new material has been for the most part derived from the diplomatic correspondence between foreign residents at the English court and their own governments, which is preserved in the archives of France, Spain, and the Low Countries. Ranke was the first among historians to turn this class of materials to the best account. Its value appears, in the work before us, in the elucidation of that dark mystery of the Dover treaty, by which the English Charles and James, for a price, became traitors to their own throne and empire. Mr. Macaulay shows his strength particularly in defining the relations and divisions of parties, in adjusting the shifting weight which lay between them, as it swayed alternately to one or the other side, and in tracing the rise and development of the elements which were successively manifested. But his signal distinction lies in the vigor and grasp, the keen analysis, and the brilliant skill with which he seizes upon the characters of the men prominent in the movements before him. Clarendon has been generally allowed to be the great master of the delineation of character; - not, however, because he excels in candor, in freedom from prejudice, or in stern integrity. These, indeed, are the qualities which are most VOL. XLVI. - 4TH S. VOL. XI. NO. II. 23 missed in his sketches of mental and moral peculiarities. But he is remarkable for his evident knowledge of the elements of character which make and decide the man. He describes the parts and passions, the idiosyncrasies, the strong points and the weak points, which, variously disposed, and attaching themselves to various combinations of temperament with circumstances, constitute and make up the human being, and in their exercise give shape and direction to his life. Macaulay excels Clarendon in justice and charity, and is his equal in skill and discernment. We quote the following as a specimen of candor in the judgment of parties. The author is speaking of those once called Cavaliers and Roundheads, essentially the respective forerunners of the parties now known as Tories and Whigs. "It would not be difficult to compose a lampoon or a panegyric on either of these renowned factions; for no man not utterly destitute of judgment and candor will deny that there are many deep stains on the fame of the party to which he belongs, or that the party to which he is opposed may justly boast of many illustrious names, of many heroic actions, and of many great services rendered to the state." pp. 93, 94. The following character of Archbishop Cranmer stands warranted by the testimonies of many fair judges, as well in the Anglican Church as out of it: "His temper and his understanding eminently fitted him to act as mediator [between the Roman and the English Churches]. Saintly in his professions, unscrupulous in his dealings, zealous for nothing, bold in speculation, a coward and a timeserver in action, a placable enemy and a lukewarm friend, he was in every way qualified to arrange the terms of the coalition between the religious and the worldly enemies of Popery. "To this day the constitution, the doctrines, and the services of the Church retain the visible marks of the compromise from which she sprang."- p. 48. We fear that not only the bigotry of Episcopalians, but also the doctrinal zeal of many of other sects, is faithfully accounted for in what Macaulay says of the country gentry of 1685: "Their love of the Church was not, indeed, the effect of study or meditation. Few among them could have given any reason, drawn from Scripture or ecclesiastical history, for adhering to her 1849.] Extracts. 263 doctrines, her ritual, and her polity; nor were they, as a class, by any means strict observers of that code of morality which is common to all Christian sects. But the experience of many ages proves that men may be ready to fight to the death, and to persecute without pity, for a religion whose creed they do not understand, and whose precepts they habitually disobey." - p. 302. The following sentence we copy without comment : "It is an unquestionable and a most instructive fact, that the years during which the political power of the Anglican hierarchy was in the zenith were precisely the years during which national virtue was at the lowest point."— p. 169. We are at a little loss to discover the exact moral estimate which Macaulay affixes to the character of Oliver Cromwell. He, indeed, calls the Protector" the greatest prince that has ever ruled England." We find, too, encomiums upon the prowess, the wisdom, the prudence, the sagacity, and the self-command of Cromwell; but we conclude that Macaulay does not wish to commit himself in the moral judgment of that extraordinary man. We have faith in Oliver. If he be now within the sound of mortal testimony concerning him, we believe that his soul was of such a frame that nothing would afford him a higher pleasure or reward than the judgment which Macaulay pronounces upon the character of his famous army. When that body of fifty thousand soldiers was disbanded, it was feared, that, like all other soldiers, they would become beggars and marauders, a pest to society, filling the land with misery and crime. But what was the fact? "In a few months there remained not a trace indicating that the most formidable army in the world had just been absorbed into the mass of the community. The Royalists themselves confessed, that, in every department of honest industry, the discarded warriors prospered beyond other men; that none was charged with any theft or robbery; that none was heard to ask an alms; and that if a baker, a mason, or a wagoner attracted notice by his diligence and sobriety, he was, in all probability, one of Oliver's old soldiers.” — p. 144. There is much good sense in the following sentence, in which our author moralizes upon his own account of the amateur ladies and gentlemen whom the institution of the Royal Society induced to dabble in science : "In this, as in every great stir of the human mind, there was |