On one occasion he learned that the
floods were out between Ware and London, that passengers had
to swim for their lives, and that a higgler had perished in the
attempt to cross.
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to swim for their lives, and that a higgler had perished in the
attempt to cross.
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9381
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
(1800-1859)
BY JOHN BACH MCMASTER
HOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, the most widely read of English
essayists and historians, was born near London on the 25th
of October, 1800. His early education was received at
private schools; but in 1818 he went into residence at Trinity College,
Cambridge, graduated with honor, and was elected a fellow in 1824.
Out of deference to the wishes of his father he thought for a while
of becoming an attorney, read law, and was called to the bar in 1826.
But the labors of the profession were little to his liking; no business
of consequence came to him, and he was soon deep in literature and
politics, for the pursuit of which his tastes, his habits, and his parts
pre-eminently fitted him.
His nephew and biographer has gathered a mass of anecdotes and
reminiscences, which go far to show that while still a lad Macaulay
displayed in a high degree many of the mental characteristics which
later in life made him famous. The eagerness with which he de-
voured books of every sort; the marvelous memory which enabled
him to recall for years whole pages and poems, read but once; the
quickness of perception by the aid of which he could at a glance.
extract the contents of a printed page; his love of novels and poetry;
his volubility, his positiveness of assertion, and the astonishing amount
of information he could pour out on matters of even trivial import-
ance,-
,—were as characteristic of the boy as of the man.
As might have been expected from one so gifted, Macaulay began
to write while a mere child; but his first printed piece was an anony-
mous letter defending novel-reading and lauding Fielding and Smol-
lett. It was written at the age of sixteen; was addressed to his father,
then editor of the Christian Observer, was inserted in utter ignorance
of the author, and brought down on the periodical the wrath of a
host of subscribers. One declared that he had given the obnoxious
number to the flames, and should never again read the magazine.
At twenty-three Macaulay began to write for Knight's Quarterly Maga-
zine, and contributed to it articles some of which as The Conver-
sation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton touching
the Great Civil War'; his criticism of Dante and Petrarch; that on
Athenian Orators; and the 'Fragments of a Roman Tale' are still
―
## p. 9382 (#406) ###########################################
9382
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
given a place in his collected writings. In themselves these pieces
are of small value; but they served to draw attention to the author
just at the time when Jeffrey, the editor of the great Whig Edin-
burgh Review, was eagerly and anxiously searching for "some clever
young man" to write for it. Macaulay was such a clever young man.
Overtures were therefore made to him; and in 1825, in the August
number of the Review, appeared his essay on 'John Milton. The
effect was immediate. Like Byron, he awoke one morning to find
himself famous; was praised and complimented on every hand, and
day after day saw his table covered with cards of invitation to dinner
from every part of London. And well he might be praised; for no
English magazine had ever before published so readable, so eloquent,
so entertaining an essay. Its very faults are pleasing. Its merits
are of a high order; but the passage which will best bear selection
as a specimen of the writing of Macaulay at twenty-five is the de-
scription of the Puritan.
Macaulay had now found his true vocation, and entered on it
eagerly and with delight. In March 1827 came the essay on Machia-
velli; and during 1828 those on John Dryden, on History, and on Hal-
lam's 'Constitutional History. ' During 1829 he wrote and published
reviews of James Mill's Essay on Government' (which involved him
in an unseemly wrangle with the Westminster Review, and called
forth two more essays on the Utilitarian Theory of Government),
Southey's Colloquies on Society,' Sadler's Law of Population,' and
the reviews of Robert Montgomery's Poems. The reviews of Moore's
'Life of Byron' and of Southey's edition of the Pilgrim's Progress'
appeared during 1830. In that same year Macaulay entered Parlia-
ment, and for a time the essays came forth less frequently. A reply
to a pamphlet by Mr. Sadler written in reply to Macaulay's review,
the famous article in which Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson
was pilloried, and the essay on John Hampden, were all he wrote in
1831. In 1832 came Burleigh and his Times, and Mirabeau; in 1833
The War of the Succession in Spain, and Horace Walpole; in 1834
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham; in 1835 Sir James Mackintosh; in 1837
Lord Bacon, the finest yet produced; in 1838 Sir William Temple; in
1839 Gladstone on Church and State; and in 1840 the greatest of all
his essays, those on Von Ranke's History of the Popes' and on Lord
Clive. The Comic Dramatists of the Restoration, Warren Hastings,
and a short sketch of Lord Holland, were written in 1841 Frederic
the Great in 1842; Madame D'Arblay and Addison in 1843; Barère
and The Earl of Chatham in 1844: and with these the long list
closes.
Never before in any period of twenty years had the British read-
ing public been instructed and amused by so splendid a series of
## p. 9383 (#407) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9383
essays. Taken as a whole the series falls naturally into three classes:
the critical, the biographical, and the historical. Each has merits and
peculiarities of its own; but all have certain characteristics in com-
mon which enable us to treat them in a group.
Whoever will take the pains to read the six-and-thirty essays we
have mentioned, - and he will be richly repaid for his pains, -can-
not fail to perceive that sympathy with the past is Macaulay's ruling
passion. Concerning the present he knew little and cared less. The
range of topics covered by him was enormous; art, science, theology,
history, literature, poetry, the drama, philosophy — all were passed
in review. Yet he has never once failed to treat his subject histori-
cally. We look in vain for the faintest approach to a philosophical
or analytical treatment. He reviewed Mill's essay on Government,
and Hallam's 'Constitutional History'; but he made no observations
on government in the abstract, nor expressed any opinions as to
what sort of government is best suited for civilized communities in
general. He wrote about Bacon; yet he never attempted to expound
the principles or describe the influence of the Baconian philosophy.
He wrote about Addison and Johnson, Hastings and Clive, Machia-
velli and Horace Walpole and Madame D'Arblay; yet in no case did
he analyze the works, or fully examine the characteristics, or set forth
exhaustively the ideas, of one of them. They are to him mere pegs
on which to hang a splendid historical picture of the times in which
these people lived. Thus the essay on Milton is a review of the
Cromwellian period; Machiavelli, of Italian morals in the sixteenth
century; that on Dryden, of the state of poetry and the drama in the
days of Charles the Second; that on Johnson, of the state of English
literature in the days of Walpole. In the essays on Clive and Hast-
ings, we find little of the founders of British India beyond the enu-
meration of their acts. But the Mogul empire, and the rivalries and
struggles which overthrew it, are all depicted in gorgeous detail. No
other writer has ever given so fine an account of the foreign policy
of Charles the Second as Macaulay has done in the essay on Sir Will-
iam Temple; nor of the Parliamentary history of England for the forty
years preceding our Revolution, as is to be found in the essays on
Lord Chatham. In each case the image of the man whose name
stands at the head of the essay is blurred and indistinct.
We are
told of the trial of John Hampden; but we do not see the fearless
champion of popular liberty as he stood before the judges of King
Charles. We are introduced to Frederic the Great, and are given a
summary of his characteristics and a glowing narrative of the wars
in which he won fame; but the real Frederic, the man contending
"against the greatest superiority of power and the utmost spite of
fortune," is lost in the mass of accessories. He describes the out-
ward man admirably: the inner man is never touched.
## p. 9384 (#408) ###########################################
9384
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
But however faulty the Essays may be in respect to the treatment
accorded to individual men, they display a prodigious knowledge of
the facts and events of the periods they cover. His wonderful mem-
ory, stored with information gathered from a thousand sources, his
astonishing power of arranging facts and bringing them to bear on
any subject, whether it called for description or illustration, joined
with a clear and vigorous style, enabled him to produce historical
scenes with a grouping, a finish, and a splendor to which no other
writer can approach. His picture of the Puritan in the essay on
Milton, and of Loyola and the Jesuits in the essay on the Popes; his
description of the trial of Warren Hastings; of the power and mag-
nificence of Spain under Philip the Second; of the destiny of the
Church of Rome; of the character of Charles the Second in the essay
on Sir James Mackintosh,-are but a few of many of his bits of word-
painting which cannot be surpassed. What is thus true of particular
scenes and incidents in the Essays is equally true of many of them
in the whole. Long periods of time, great political movements, com-
plicated policies, fluctuations of ministries, are sketched with an accu-
racy, animation, and clearness not to be met with in any elaborate
treatise covering the same period.
While Macaulay was writing two and three essays a year, he won
renown in a new field by the publication of 'The Lays of Ancient
Rome. ' They consist of four ballads-'Horatius'; 'The Battle of
the Lake Regillus'; 'Virginius'; and 'The Prophecy of Capys'— which
are supposed to have been sung by Roman minstrels, and to belong
to a very early period in the history of the city. In them are re-
peated all the merits and all the defects of the Essays. The men
and women are mere enumerations of qualities; the battle pieces are
masses of uncombined incidents: but the characteristics of the periods
treated have been caught and reproduced with perfect accuracy. The
setting of Horatius, which belongs to the earliest days of Rome,
is totally different from the setting of the Prophecy of Capys, which
belongs to the time when Rome was fast acquiring the mastery over
Italy; and in each case the setting is studiously and remarkably exact.
In these poems, again, there is the same prodigious learning, the same
richness of illustration, which distinguish the essays; and they are
adorned with a profusion of metaphor and aptness of epithets which
is most admirable.
The 'Lays' appeared in 1842, and at once found their way into
popular favor. Macaulay's biographer assures us that in ten years
18,000 copies were sold in Great Britain; 40,000 copies in twenty
years; and before 1875 nearly 100,000 had passed into the hands of
readers.
Meantime the same popularity attended the 'Essays. ' Again and
again Macaulay had been urged to collect and publish them in book
## p. 9385 (#409) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9385
form, and had stoutly refused. But when an enterprising publisher
in Philadelphia not only reprinted them but shipped copies to Eng-
land, Macaulay gave way; and in the early months of 1843 a volume
was issued.
Like the Lays, the Essays rose at once into popular
favor, and in the course of thirty years 120,000 copies were sold in
the United Kingdom by one publisher.
But the work on which he was now intent was 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. ' The idea of
such a narrative had long been in his mind; but it was not till 1841
that he began seriously to write, and not till 1848 that he published
the first and second volumes. Again his success was instant. Nothing
like it had been known since the days of Waverley. Of 'Marmion'
were sold in the first month; of Macaulay's History 3,000
copies were sold in ten days. Of the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel'
2,250 copies were disposed of in course of the first year; but the
publishers sold 13,000 copies of Macaulay in four months. In the
United States the success was greater yet.
2,000
"We beg you to accept herewith a copy of our cheap edition of your
work," wrote Harper & Brothers in 1849. "There have been three other
editions published by different houses, and another is now in preparation; so
there will be six different editions in the market. We have already sold
40,000 copies, and we presume that over 60,000 copies have been disposed of.
Probably within three months of this time the sale will amount to 200,000
copies. No work of any kind has ever so completely taken our whole coun-
try by storm. »
Astonishing as was the success, it never flagged; and year after
year the London publisher disposed of the work at the rate of
seventy sets a week. In November 1855 the third and fourth vol-
umes were issued. Confident of an immense sale, 25,000 copies were
printed as a first edition, and were taken by the trade before a copy
was bound. In the United States the sale, he was assured by Everett,
was greater than that of any book ever printed, save the Bible and
a few school-books in universal use. Prior to 1875, his biographer
states, 140,000 copies of the History were sold in the United King-
dom. In ten weeks from the day of the issue 26,500 copies were
taken, and in March 1856 $100,000 was paid him as a part of the
royalty due in December. .
Honors of every sort were now showered on him. He was raised
to the peerage; he was rich, famous, and great. But the enjoyment
of his honors was short-lived; for in December 1859 he was found in
his library, seated in his easy-chair, dead. Before him on the table
lay a copy of the Cornhill Magazine, open at the first page of
Thackeray's story of Lovel the Widower. '
## p. 9386 (#410) ###########################################
9386
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
All that has been said regarding the Essays and the Lays applies
with equal force to the History of England. ' No historian who has
yet written has shown such familiarity with the facts of English
history, no matter what the subject in hand may be: the extinction
of villeinage, the Bloody Assizes, the appearance of the newspaper,
the origin of the national debt, or the state of England in 1685.
Macaulay is absolutely unrivaled in the art of arranging and com-
bining his facts, and of presenting in a clear and vigorous narrative
the spirit of the epoch he treats. Nor should we fail to mention that
both Essays and History abound in remarks, general observations, and
comment always clear, vigorous, and shrewd, and in the main very
just.
Johns
he Back MeMaster
THE COFFEE-HOUSE
From the History of England ›
THE
HE coffee-house must not be dismissed with a cursory men-
tion. It might indeed at that time have been not im-
properly called a most important political institution. No.
Parliament had sat for years. The municipal council of the City
had ceased to speak the sense of the citizens. Public meetings,
harangues, resolutions, and the rest of the modern machinery of
agitation had not yet come into fashion. Nothing resembling
the modern newspaper existed. In such circumstances the coffee-
houses were the chief organs through which the public opinion
of the metropolis vented itself.
The first of these establishments had been set up by a Tur-
key merchant, who had acquired among the Mahometans a taste
for their favorite beverage. The convenience of being able to
make appointments in any part of the town, and of being able
to pass evenings socially at a very small charge, was so great
that the fashion spread fast. Every man of the upper or middle
class went daily to his coffee-house to learn the news and to dis-
cuss it.
Every coffee-house had one or more orators to whose
eloquence the crowd listened with admiration, and who soon.
became what the journalists of our time have been called, a
Fourth Estate of the realm. The court had long seen with un-
easiness the growth of this new power in the State. An attempt
## p. 9387 (#411) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9387
had been made, during Danby's administration, to close the coffee-
houses. But men of all parties missed their usual places of
resort so much that there was an unusual outcry. The govern-
ment did not venture, in opposition to a feeling so strong and
general, to enforce a regulation of which the legality might well
be questioned. Since that time ten years had elapsed, and during
those years the number and influence of the coffee-houses had
been constantly increasing. Foreigners remarked that the coffee-
house was that which especially distinguished London from all
other cities; that the coffee-house was the Londoner's home, and
that those who wished to find a gentleman commonly asked, not
whether he lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but whether
he frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow. Nobody was excluded
from these places who laid down his penny at the bar. Yet
every rank and profession, and every shade of religious and polit-
ical opinion, had its own headquarters. There were houses near
Saint James's Park where fops congregated, their heads and shoul-
ders covered with black or flaxen wigs, not less ample than those
which are worn by the Chancellor and by the Speaker of the
House of Commons. The wig came from Paris, and so did the
rest of the fine gentleman's ornaments,— his embroidered coat, his
fringed gloves, and the tassel which upheld his pantaloons. The
conversation was in that dialect which, long after it had ceased
to be spoken in fashionable circles, continued in the mouth of
Lord Foppington to excite the mirth of theatres. The atmo-
sphere was like that of a perfumer's shop. Tobacco in any other
form than that of richly scented snuff was held in abomination.
If any clown, ignorant of the usages of the house, called for a
pipe, the sneers of the whole assembly and the short answers of
the waiters soon convinced him that he had better go somewhere
else. Nor indeed would he have had far to go.
For in gen-
eral, the coffee-rooms reeked with tobacco like a guard-room; and
strangers sometimes expressed their surprise that so many peo-
ple should leave their own firesides to sit in the midst of eternal
fog and stench. Nowhere was the smoking more constant than
at Will's. That celebrated house, situated between Covent Gar-
den and Bow Street, was sacred to polite letters. There the talk
was about poetical justice and the unities of place and time.
There was a faction for Perrault and the moderns, a faction for
Boileau and the ancients. One group debated whether 'Paradise
Lost' ought not to have been in rhyme. To another an envious
## p. 9388 (#412) ###########################################
9388
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
poetaster demonstrated that 'Venice Preserved' ought to have
been hooted from the stage. Under no roof was a greater vari-
ety of figures to be seen. There were earls in stars and garters,
clergymen in cassocks and bands, pert Templars, sheepish lads
from the universities, translators and index-makers in ragged
coats of frieze. The great press was to get near the chair where
John Dryden sat. In winter that chair was always in the warm-
est nook by the fire; in summer it stood in the balcony. To bow
to the Laureate, and to hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy
or of Bossu's treatise on epic poetry, was thought a privilege.
A pinch from his snuff-box was an honor sufficient to turn the
head of a young enthusiast. There were coffee-houses where the
first medical men might be consulted. Dr. John Radcliffe, who in
the year 1685 rose to the largest practice in London, came daily,
at the hour when the Exchange was full, from his house in
Bow Street, then a fashionable part of the capital, to Garraway's;
and was to be found, surrounded by surgeons and apothecaries,
at a particular table. There were Puritan coffee-houses where no
oath was heard, and where lank-haired men discussed election
and reprobation through their noses; Jew coffee-houses where
dark eyed money-changers from Venice and Amsterdam greeted
each other; and Popish coffee-houses where, as good Protestants
believed, Jesuits planned over their cups another great fire, and
cast silver bullets to shoot the King.
THE DIFFICULTY OF TRAVEL IN ENGLAND, 1685
From the History of England'
THE
HE chief cause which made the fusion of the different ele-
ments of society so imperfect was the extreme difficulty
which our ancestors found in passing from place to place.
Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing-press alone ex-
cepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most
for the civilization of our species. Every improvement of the
means of locomotion benefits mankind morally and intellectually
as well as materially; and not only facilitates the interchange of
the various productions of nature and art, but tends to remove
national and provincial antipathies, and to bind together all the
branches of the great human family. In the seventeenth century
## p. 9389 (#413) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9389
the inhabitants of London were, for almost every practical pur-
pose, farther from Reading than they now are from Edinburgh,
and farther from Edinburgh than they now are from Vienna.
The subjects of Charles the Second were not, it is true, quite
unacquainted with that principle which has, in our own time,
produced an unprecedented revolution in human affairs; which
has enabled navies to advance in face of wind and tide, and
brigades of troops, attended by all their baggage and artillery, to
traverse kingdoms at a pace equal to that of the fleetest race-
horse. The Marquess of Worcester had recently observed the
expansive power of moisture rarefied by heat. After many ex-
periments he had succeeded in constructing a rude steam-engine,
which he called a fire-water work, and which he pronounced to
be an admirable and most forcible instrument of propulsion.
But the Marquess was suspected to be a madman, and known to
be a Papist. His inventions therefore found no favorable recep-
tion. His fire-water work might perhaps furnish matter for
conversation at a meeting of the Royal Society, but was not
applied to any practical purpose. There were no railways, except
a few made of timber, on which coals were carried from the
mouths of the Northumbrian pits to the banks of the Tyne.
There was very little internal communication by water. A few
attempts had been made to deepen and embank the natural
streams, but with slender success. Hardly a single navigable
canal had been even projected. The English of that day were
in the habit of talking with mingled admiration and despair of
the immense trench by which Lewis the Fourteenth had made a
junction between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. They lit-
tle thought that their country would, in the course of a few gen-
erations, be intersected, at the cost of private adventurers, by
artificial rivers making up more than four times the length of
the Thames, the Severn, and the Trent together.
It was by the highways that both travelers and goods gener-
ally passed from place to place; and those highways appear to
have been far worse than might have been expected from the
degree of wealth and civilization which the nation had even then
attained. On the best lines of communication the ruts were
deep, the descents precipitous, and the way often such as it was
hardly possible to distinguish, in the dusk, from the uninclosed
heath and fen which lay on both sides. Ralph Thoresby the
antiquary was in danger of losing his way on the Great North
## p. 9390 (#414) ###########################################
9390
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
Road, between Barnby Moor and Tuxford, and actually lost his
way between Doncaster and York. Pepys and his wife, traveling
in their own coach, lost their way between Newbury and Read-
ing. In the course of the same tour they lost their way near
Salisbury, and were in danger of having to pass the night on the
plain. It was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of the
road was available for wheeled vehicles. Often the mud lay
deep on the right and the left; and only a narrow track of firm
ground rose above the quagmire. At such times obstructions and
quarrels were frequent, and the path was sometimes blocked up
during a long time by carriers, neither of whom would break the
way. It happened, almost every day, that coaches stuck fast,
until a team of cattle could be procured from some neighbor-
ing farm, to tug them out of the slough. But in bad seasons
the traveler had to encounter inconveniences still more serious.
Thoresby, who was in the habit of traveling between Leeds and
the capital, has recorded, in his Diary, such a series of perils and
disasters as might suffice for a journey to the Frozen Ocean or
to the Desert of Sahara.
On one occasion he learned that the
floods were out between Ware and London, that passengers had
to swim for their lives, and that a higgler had perished in the
attempt to cross. In consequence of these tidings he turned out
of the high-road, and was conducted across some meadows, where
it was necessary for him to ride to the saddle skirts in water.
In the course of another journey he narrowly escaped being
swept away by an inundation of the Trent. He was afterwards
detained at Stamford four days, on account of the state of the
roads; and then ventured to proceed only because fourteen mem-
bers of the House of Commons, who were going up in a body to
Parliament with guides and numerous attendants, took him into
their company.
On the roads of Derbyshire, travelers were in
constant fear for their necks, and were frequently compelled to
alight and lead their beasts. The great route through Wales
to Holyhead was in such a state that in 1685, a viceroy going
to Ireland was five hours in traveling fourteen miles, from St.
Asaph to Conway. Between Conway and Beaumaris he was
forced to walk a great part of the way; and his lady was car-
ried in a litter. His coach was, with much difficulty and by the
help of many hands, brought after him entire. In general, car-
riages were taken to pieces at Conway, and borne on the shoul-
ders of stout Welsh peasants to the Menai Straits. In some
## p. 9391 (#415) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9391
parts of Kent and Sussex, none but the strongest horses could
in winter get through the bog, in which at every step they
sank deep. The markets were often inaccessible during several
months. It is said that the fruits of the earth were sometimes
suffered to rot in one place, while in another place, distant only
a few miles, the supply fell far short of the demand. The
wheeled carriages were in this district generally pulled by oxen.
When Prince George of Denmark visited the stately mansion of
Petworth in wet weather, he was six hours in going nine miles;
and it was necessary that a body of sturdy hinds should be on
each side of his coach, in order to prop it. Of the carriages
which conveyed his retinue, several were upset and injured.
A letter from one of the party has been preserved, in which
the unfortunate courtier complains that during fourteen hours
he never once alighted, except when his coach was overturned
or stuck fast in the mud.
One chief cause of the badness of the roads seems to have
beer the defective state of the law. Every parish was bound
to repair the highways which passed through it. The peasantry
were forced to give their gratuitous labor six days in the year.
If this was not sufficient, hired labor was employed, and the
expense was met by a parochial rate. That a route connecting
two great towns, which have a large and thriving trade with
each other, should be maintained at the cost of the rural popu-
lation scattered between them, is obviously unjust; and this
injustice was peculiarly glaring in the case of the Great North
Road, which traversed very poor and thinly inhabited districts,
and joined very rich and populous districts. Indeed, it was not
in the power of the parishes of Huntingdonshire to mend a high-
way worn by the constant traffic between the West Riding of
Yorkshire and London. Soon after the Restoration this griev-
ance attracted the notice of Parliament; and an act, the first of
our many turnpike acts, was passed, imposing a small toll on
travelers and goods, for the purpose of keeping some parts of
this important line of communication in good repair. This inno-
vation, however, excited many murmurs; and the other great
avenues to the capital were long left under the old system. A
change was at length effected, but not without much difficulty.
For unjust and absurd taxation to which men are accustomed is
often borne far more willingly than the most reasonable impost
which is new. It was not till many toll-bars had been violently
## p. 9392 (#416) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9392
pulled down, till the troops had in many districts been forced to
act against the people, and till much blood had been shed, that a
good system was introduced. By slow degrees reason triumphed
over prejudice; and our island is now crossed in every direction
by near thirty thousand miles of turnpike road.
On the best highways heavy articles were, in the time of
Charles the Second, generally conveyed from place to place by
stage-wagons. In the straw of these vehicles nestled a crowd
of passengers, who could not afford to travel by coach or on
horseback, and who were prevented by infirmity, or by the weight
of their luggage, from going on foot. The expense of transmit-
ting heavy goods in this way was enormous. From London to
Birmingham the charge was seven pounds a ton; from London
to Exeter twelve pounds a ton. This was about fifteen pence a
ton for every mile; more by a third than was afterwards charged
on turnpike roads, and fifteen times what is now demanded
by railway companies. The cost of conveyance amounted to a
prohibitory tax on many useful articles. Coal in particular was
never seen except in the districts where it was produced, or in
the districts to which it could be carried by sea; and was indeed
always known in the south of England by the name of sea-coal.
On by-roads, and generally throughout the country north of
York and west of Exeter, goods were carried by long trains of
pack-horses. These strong and patient beasts, the breed of which
is now extinct, were attended by a class of men who seem to
have borne much resemblance to the Spanish muleteers. A trav-
eler of humble condition often found it convenient to perform a
journey mounted on a pack-saddle between two baskets, under the
care of these hardy guides. The expense of this mode of con-
veyance was small. But the caravan moved at a foot's pace; and
in winter the cold was often insupportable.
The rich commonly traveled in their own carriages, with at
least four horses. Cotton, the facetious poet, attempted to go
from London to the Peak with a single pair; but found at St.
Albans that the journey would be insupportably tedious, and
altered his plan. A coach-and-six is in our time never seen,
except as part of some pageant. The frequent mention there-
fore of such equipages in old books is likely to mislead us. We
attribute to magnificence what was really the effect of a very
disagreeable necessity. People in the time of Charles the Sec-
ond traveled with six horses, because with a smaller number
## p. 9393 (#417) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9393
there was great danger of sticking fast in the mire. Nor were
even six horses always sufficient. Vanbrugh, in the succeeding
generation, described with great humor the way in which a
country gentleman, newly chosen a member of Parliament, went
up to London. On that occasion all the exertions of six beasts,
two of which had been taken from the plow, could not save the
family coach from being imbedded in a quagmire.
Public carriages had recently been much improved. During
the years which immediately followed the Restoration, a dili-
gence ran between London and Oxford in two days.
The pas-
sengers slept at Beaconsfield. At length, in the spring of 1669,
a great and daring innovation was attempted. It was announced
that a vehicle, described as the Flying Coach, would perform the
whole journey between sunrise and sunset. This spirited under-
taking was solemnly considered and sanctioned by the Heads of
the University, and appears to have excited the same sort of in-
terest which is excited in our own time by the opening of a new
railway. The Vice-Chancellor, by a notice affixed in all public
places, prescribed the hour and place of departure. The success
of the experiment was complete. At six in the morning the car-
riage began to move from before the ancient front of All Souls
College; and at seven in the evening the adventurous gentlemen
who had run the first risk were safely deposited at their inn in
London. The emulation of the sister university was moved;
and soon a diligence was set up which in one day carried passen-
gers from Cambridge to the capital. At the close of the reign
of Charles the Second, flying carriages ran thrice a week from
London to the chief towns. But no stage-coach, indeed no stage-
wagon, appears to have proceeded further north than York, or
further west than Exeter. The ordinary day's journey of a flying
coach was about fifty miles in the summer; but in winter, when
the ways were bad and the nights long, little more than thirty.
The Chester coach, the York coach, and the Exeter coach gen-
erally reached London in four days during the fine season, but at
Christmas not till the sixth day. The passengers, six in number,
were all seated in the carriage; for accidents were so frequent
that it would have been most perilous to mount the roof. The
ordinary fare was about twopence halfpenny a mile in summer,
and somewhat more in winter.
This mode of traveling, which by Englishmen of the pres-
ent day would be regarded as insufferably slow, seemed to our
XVI-588
## p. 9394 (#418) ###########################################
9394
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
ancestors wonderfully and indeed alarmingly rapid. In a work
published a few months before the death of Charles the Second,
the flying coaches are extolled as far superior to any similar
vehicles ever known in the world. Their velocity is the subject
of special commendation, and is triumphantly contrasted with
the sluggish pace of the Continental posts. But with boasts like
these was mingled the sound of complaint and invective. The
interests of large classes had been unfavorably affected by the
establishment of the new diligences; and as usual, many per-
sons were, from mere stupidity and obstinacy, disposed to clamor
against the innovation simply because it was an innovation.
was vehemently argued that this mode of conveyance would be
fatal to the breed of horses and to the noble art of horseman-
ship; that the Thames, which had long been an important nursery
of seamen, would cease to be the chief thoroughfare from London.
up to Windsor and down to Gravesend; that saddlers and spur-
riers would be ruined by hundreds; that numerous inns, at which
mounted travelers had been in the habit of stopping, would be
deserted, and would no longer pay any rent; that the new car-
riages were too hot in summer and too cold in winter; that the
passengers were grievously annoyed by invalids and crying child-
ren; that the coach sometimes reached the inn so late that it
was impossible to get supper, and sometimes started so early that
it was impossible to get breakfast. On these grounds it was
gravely recommended that no public coach should be permitted
to have more than four horses, to start oftener than once a week,
or to go more than thirty miles a day. It was hoped that if
this regulation were adopted, all except the sick and the lame
would return to the old mode of traveling. Petitions embodying
such opinions as these were presented to the King in council
from several companies of the City of London, from several pro-
vincial towns, and from the justices of several counties. We
smile at these things. It is not impossible that our descendants,
when they read the history of the opposition offered by cupidity
and prejudice to the improvements of the nineteenth century,
may smile in their turn.
In spite of the attractions of the flying coaches, it was still
usual for men who enjoyed health and vigor, and who were not
incumbered by much baggage, to perform long journeys on
horseback. If a traveler wished to move expeditiously, he rode
post. Fresh saddle-horses and guides were to be procured at
## p. 9395 (#419) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9395
convenient distances along all the great lines of road. The charge
was threepence a mile for each horse, and fourpence a stage for
the guide. In this manner, when the ways were good, it was
possible to travel, for a considerable time, as rapidly as by any
conveyance known in England, till vehicles were propelled by
steam. There were as yet no post-chaises; nor could those who
rode in their own coaches ordinarily procure a change of horses.
The King, however, and the great officers of State, were able
to command relays. Thus, Charles commonly went in one day
from Whitehall to Newmarket, a distance of about fifty-five miles,
through a level country; and this was thought by his subjects a
proof of great activity. Evelyn performed the same journey in
company with the Lord Treasurer Clifford. The coach was drawn
by six horses, which were changed at Bishop Stortford and again
at Chesterford. The travelers reached Newmarket at night. Such
a mode of conveyance seems to have been considered as a rare
luxury, confined to princes and ministers.
THE HIGHWAYMAN
From the History of England'
WHA
HATEVER might be the way in which a journey was per-
formed, the travelers, unless they were numerous and
well armed, ran considerable risk of being stopped and
plundered. The mounted highwayman, a marauder known to our
generation only from books, was to be found on every main road.
The waste tracts which lay on the great routes near London were
especially haunted by plunderers of this class. Hounslow Heath
on the Great Western Road, and Finchley Common on the Great
Northern Road, were perhaps the most celebrated of these spots.
The Cambridge scholars trembled when they approached Epping
Forest, even in broad daylight. Seamen who had just been paid.
off at Chatham were often compelled to deliver their purses on
Gadshill, celebrated near a hundred years earlier by the greatest
of poets as the scene of the depredations of Falstaff. The public
authorities seem to have been often at a loss how to deal with
the plunderers. At one time it was announced in the Gazette
that several persons, who were strongly suspected of being high-
waymen, but against whom there was not sufficient evidence,
would be paraded at Newgate in riding dresses: their horses
## p. 9396 (#420) ###########################################
9396
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
would also be shown; and all gentlemen who had been robbed
were invited to inspect this singular exhibition. On another
occasion a pardon was publicly offered to a robber if he would
give up some rough diamonds, of immense value, which he had
taken when he stopped the Harwich mail. A short time after
appeared another proclamation, warning the innkeepers that the
eye of the government was upon them. Their criminal conniv-
ance, it was affirmed, enabled banditti to infest the roads with
impunity. That these suspicions were not without foundation, is
proved by the dying speeches of some penitent robbers of that
age, who appear to have received from the innkeepers services
much resembling those which Farquhar's Boniface rendered to
Gibbet.
It was necessary to the success and even to the safety of the
highwayman that he should be a bold and skillful rider, and that
his manners and appearance should be such as suited the master
of a fine horse. He therefore held an aristocratical position in
the community of thieves, appeared at fashionable coffee-houses
and gaming-houses, and betted with men of quality on the race
ground. Sometimes, indeed, he was a man of good family and
education. A romantic interest therefore attached, and perhaps
still attaches, to the names of freebooters of this class. The vul-
gar eagerly drank in tales of their ferocity and audacity, of their
occasional acts of generosity and good-nature, of their amours, of
their miraculous escapes, of their desperate struggles, and of their
manly bearing at the bar and in the cart. Thus it was related
of William Nevison, the great robber of Yorkshire, that he levied
a quarterly tribute on all the northern drovers, and, in return,
not only spared them himself, but protected them against all
other thieves; that he demanded purses in the most courteous
manner; that he gave largely to the poor what he had taken
from the rich; that his life was once spared by the royal clem-
ency, but that he again tempted his fate, and at length died, in
1685, on the gallows of York. It was related how Claude Duval,
the French page of the Duke of Richmond, took to the road,
became captain of a formidable gang, and had the honor to be
named first in a royal proclamation against notorious offenders;
how at the head of his troop he stopped a lady's coach, in which
there was a booty of four hundred pounds; how he took only one
hundred, and suffered the fair owner to ransom the rest by dan-
cing a coranto with him on the heath; how his vivacious gallantry
## p. 9397 (#421) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9397
stole away the hearts of all women; how his dexterity at sword
and pistol made him a terror to all men: how at length, in the
year 1670, he was seized when overcome by wine; how dames of
high rank visited him in prison, and with tears interceded for his
life; how the King would have granted a pardon, but for the
interference of Judge Morton, the terror of highwaymen, who
threatened to resign his office unless the law were carried into
full effect; and how, after the execution, the corpse lay in state
with all the pomp of scutcheons, wax-lights, black hangings, and
mutes, till the same cruel judge, who had intercepted the mercy
of the Crown, sent officers to disturb the obsequies. In these
anecdotes there is doubtless a large mixture of fable: but they
are not on that account unworthy of being recorded; for it is
both an authentic and an important fact that such tales, whether
false or true, were heard by our ancestors with eagerness and
faith.
THE DELUSION OF OVERRATING THE HAPPINESS OF OUR
ANCESTORS
From the History of England'
THE
HE general effect of the evidence which has been submitted
to the reader seems hardly to admit of doubt. Yet in spite
of evidence, many will still image to themselves the Eng-
land 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 con-
stantly looking backward with tender regret. But these two pro-
pensities, 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 stimu-
lates us to surpass preceding generations, disposes us to overrate
their happiness. It is, in some sense, unreasonable and ungrate-
ful in us to be constantly discontented with a condition which is
constantly improving. But in truth, there is constant improve-
ment precisely because there is constant discontent. If we were
perfectly 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.
## p. 9398 (#422) ###########################################
9398
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
In truth, we are under a deception similar to that which mis-
leads the traveler 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 civiliza-
tion. 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 to have a clean shirt
once a week was a privilege reserved for the higher class of gen-
try, 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 miser-
ably paid with twenty 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 are now 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 un-
known, 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.
## p. 9399 (#423) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
THE PURITAN
From the Essay on John Milton'
WⓇ
E WOULD Speak first of the Puritans; the most remarkable
body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced.
The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on
the surface. He that runs may read them; nor have there been
wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out.
For many years after the Restoration they were the theme of
unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the
utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, at the time
when the press and the stage were most licentious. They were
not men of letters; they were as a body unpopular; they could
not defend themselves, and the public would not take them
under its protection. They were therefore abandoned, without
reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists.
The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their
nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew
names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every
occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of
polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But
it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history
is to be learnt. And he who approaches this subject should care-
fully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has
already misled so many excellent writers.
"Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio
Che mortali perigli in se contiene;
Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio,
Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene. »*
9399
Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed their
measures through a long series of eventful years, who formed
out of the most unpromising materials the finest army that
Europe had ever seen, who trampled down King, Church, and
Aristocracy, who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition and
rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation
on the face of the earth,—were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their
* «Behold the fount of mirth, behold the rill
Containing mortal perils in itself;
And therefore here to bridle our desires,
And to be cautious well doth us befit. "
## p. 9400 (#424) ###########################################
9400
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of free-
masonry or the dresses of friars. We regret that these badges
were not more attractive. We regret that a body to whose cour-
age and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations had
not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the adherents
of Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which the court.
of Charles the Second was celebrated. But if we must make our
choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious
caskets which contain only the Death's-head and the Fool's-head,
and fix on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure.
The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar
character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and
eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general
terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every
event to the will of the Great Being for whose power nothing
was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To
know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great
end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremoni-
ous homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of
the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity
through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intol-
erable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence
originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The differ-
ence between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed
to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which sep-
arated the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were
constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his
favor; and, confident of that favor, they despised all the accom-
plishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were un-
acquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were
deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not
found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book
of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train
of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them.
Their palaces were houses not made with hands, their diadems
crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich
and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with
contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious
treasure and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by
the right of an earlier creation and priests by the imposition of
a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to
## p. 9401 (#425) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9401
whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged; on
whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked
with anxious interest; who had been destined, before heaven and
earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when
heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which short-
sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained
on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished,
and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his
will by the pen of the Evangelist and the harp of the prophet.
He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp
of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no
vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for
him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been
rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at
the sufferings of her expiring God.
Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men: the one
all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud,
calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust be-
fore his Maker; but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In
his devotional retirement he prayed with convulsions, and groans,
and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illus-
He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers
of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke
screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought
himself intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. Like
Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had.
hid his face from him. But when he took his seat in the coun-
cil, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of
the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who
saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard
nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns,
might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who
encountered them in the hall of debate or on the field of battle.
These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness
of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some writers
have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which
were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their
feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One
overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred,
ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its
charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures
## p. 9402 (#426) ###########################################
9402
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
and their sorrows; but not for the things of this world. Enthu-
siasm had made them Stoics; had cleared their minds from every
vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influ-
ence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them
to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means.
## p. 9380 (#402) ###########################################
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## p. 9380 (#403) ###########################################
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## p. 9381 (#405) ###########################################
9381
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
(1800-1859)
BY JOHN BACH MCMASTER
HOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, the most widely read of English
essayists and historians, was born near London on the 25th
of October, 1800. His early education was received at
private schools; but in 1818 he went into residence at Trinity College,
Cambridge, graduated with honor, and was elected a fellow in 1824.
Out of deference to the wishes of his father he thought for a while
of becoming an attorney, read law, and was called to the bar in 1826.
But the labors of the profession were little to his liking; no business
of consequence came to him, and he was soon deep in literature and
politics, for the pursuit of which his tastes, his habits, and his parts
pre-eminently fitted him.
His nephew and biographer has gathered a mass of anecdotes and
reminiscences, which go far to show that while still a lad Macaulay
displayed in a high degree many of the mental characteristics which
later in life made him famous. The eagerness with which he de-
voured books of every sort; the marvelous memory which enabled
him to recall for years whole pages and poems, read but once; the
quickness of perception by the aid of which he could at a glance.
extract the contents of a printed page; his love of novels and poetry;
his volubility, his positiveness of assertion, and the astonishing amount
of information he could pour out on matters of even trivial import-
ance,-
,—were as characteristic of the boy as of the man.
As might have been expected from one so gifted, Macaulay began
to write while a mere child; but his first printed piece was an anony-
mous letter defending novel-reading and lauding Fielding and Smol-
lett. It was written at the age of sixteen; was addressed to his father,
then editor of the Christian Observer, was inserted in utter ignorance
of the author, and brought down on the periodical the wrath of a
host of subscribers. One declared that he had given the obnoxious
number to the flames, and should never again read the magazine.
At twenty-three Macaulay began to write for Knight's Quarterly Maga-
zine, and contributed to it articles some of which as The Conver-
sation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton touching
the Great Civil War'; his criticism of Dante and Petrarch; that on
Athenian Orators; and the 'Fragments of a Roman Tale' are still
―
## p. 9382 (#406) ###########################################
9382
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
given a place in his collected writings. In themselves these pieces
are of small value; but they served to draw attention to the author
just at the time when Jeffrey, the editor of the great Whig Edin-
burgh Review, was eagerly and anxiously searching for "some clever
young man" to write for it. Macaulay was such a clever young man.
Overtures were therefore made to him; and in 1825, in the August
number of the Review, appeared his essay on 'John Milton. The
effect was immediate. Like Byron, he awoke one morning to find
himself famous; was praised and complimented on every hand, and
day after day saw his table covered with cards of invitation to dinner
from every part of London. And well he might be praised; for no
English magazine had ever before published so readable, so eloquent,
so entertaining an essay. Its very faults are pleasing. Its merits
are of a high order; but the passage which will best bear selection
as a specimen of the writing of Macaulay at twenty-five is the de-
scription of the Puritan.
Macaulay had now found his true vocation, and entered on it
eagerly and with delight. In March 1827 came the essay on Machia-
velli; and during 1828 those on John Dryden, on History, and on Hal-
lam's 'Constitutional History. ' During 1829 he wrote and published
reviews of James Mill's Essay on Government' (which involved him
in an unseemly wrangle with the Westminster Review, and called
forth two more essays on the Utilitarian Theory of Government),
Southey's Colloquies on Society,' Sadler's Law of Population,' and
the reviews of Robert Montgomery's Poems. The reviews of Moore's
'Life of Byron' and of Southey's edition of the Pilgrim's Progress'
appeared during 1830. In that same year Macaulay entered Parlia-
ment, and for a time the essays came forth less frequently. A reply
to a pamphlet by Mr. Sadler written in reply to Macaulay's review,
the famous article in which Croker's edition of Boswell's Johnson
was pilloried, and the essay on John Hampden, were all he wrote in
1831. In 1832 came Burleigh and his Times, and Mirabeau; in 1833
The War of the Succession in Spain, and Horace Walpole; in 1834
William Pitt, Earl of Chatham; in 1835 Sir James Mackintosh; in 1837
Lord Bacon, the finest yet produced; in 1838 Sir William Temple; in
1839 Gladstone on Church and State; and in 1840 the greatest of all
his essays, those on Von Ranke's History of the Popes' and on Lord
Clive. The Comic Dramatists of the Restoration, Warren Hastings,
and a short sketch of Lord Holland, were written in 1841 Frederic
the Great in 1842; Madame D'Arblay and Addison in 1843; Barère
and The Earl of Chatham in 1844: and with these the long list
closes.
Never before in any period of twenty years had the British read-
ing public been instructed and amused by so splendid a series of
## p. 9383 (#407) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9383
essays. Taken as a whole the series falls naturally into three classes:
the critical, the biographical, and the historical. Each has merits and
peculiarities of its own; but all have certain characteristics in com-
mon which enable us to treat them in a group.
Whoever will take the pains to read the six-and-thirty essays we
have mentioned, - and he will be richly repaid for his pains, -can-
not fail to perceive that sympathy with the past is Macaulay's ruling
passion. Concerning the present he knew little and cared less. The
range of topics covered by him was enormous; art, science, theology,
history, literature, poetry, the drama, philosophy — all were passed
in review. Yet he has never once failed to treat his subject histori-
cally. We look in vain for the faintest approach to a philosophical
or analytical treatment. He reviewed Mill's essay on Government,
and Hallam's 'Constitutional History'; but he made no observations
on government in the abstract, nor expressed any opinions as to
what sort of government is best suited for civilized communities in
general. He wrote about Bacon; yet he never attempted to expound
the principles or describe the influence of the Baconian philosophy.
He wrote about Addison and Johnson, Hastings and Clive, Machia-
velli and Horace Walpole and Madame D'Arblay; yet in no case did
he analyze the works, or fully examine the characteristics, or set forth
exhaustively the ideas, of one of them. They are to him mere pegs
on which to hang a splendid historical picture of the times in which
these people lived. Thus the essay on Milton is a review of the
Cromwellian period; Machiavelli, of Italian morals in the sixteenth
century; that on Dryden, of the state of poetry and the drama in the
days of Charles the Second; that on Johnson, of the state of English
literature in the days of Walpole. In the essays on Clive and Hast-
ings, we find little of the founders of British India beyond the enu-
meration of their acts. But the Mogul empire, and the rivalries and
struggles which overthrew it, are all depicted in gorgeous detail. No
other writer has ever given so fine an account of the foreign policy
of Charles the Second as Macaulay has done in the essay on Sir Will-
iam Temple; nor of the Parliamentary history of England for the forty
years preceding our Revolution, as is to be found in the essays on
Lord Chatham. In each case the image of the man whose name
stands at the head of the essay is blurred and indistinct.
We are
told of the trial of John Hampden; but we do not see the fearless
champion of popular liberty as he stood before the judges of King
Charles. We are introduced to Frederic the Great, and are given a
summary of his characteristics and a glowing narrative of the wars
in which he won fame; but the real Frederic, the man contending
"against the greatest superiority of power and the utmost spite of
fortune," is lost in the mass of accessories. He describes the out-
ward man admirably: the inner man is never touched.
## p. 9384 (#408) ###########################################
9384
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
But however faulty the Essays may be in respect to the treatment
accorded to individual men, they display a prodigious knowledge of
the facts and events of the periods they cover. His wonderful mem-
ory, stored with information gathered from a thousand sources, his
astonishing power of arranging facts and bringing them to bear on
any subject, whether it called for description or illustration, joined
with a clear and vigorous style, enabled him to produce historical
scenes with a grouping, a finish, and a splendor to which no other
writer can approach. His picture of the Puritan in the essay on
Milton, and of Loyola and the Jesuits in the essay on the Popes; his
description of the trial of Warren Hastings; of the power and mag-
nificence of Spain under Philip the Second; of the destiny of the
Church of Rome; of the character of Charles the Second in the essay
on Sir James Mackintosh,-are but a few of many of his bits of word-
painting which cannot be surpassed. What is thus true of particular
scenes and incidents in the Essays is equally true of many of them
in the whole. Long periods of time, great political movements, com-
plicated policies, fluctuations of ministries, are sketched with an accu-
racy, animation, and clearness not to be met with in any elaborate
treatise covering the same period.
While Macaulay was writing two and three essays a year, he won
renown in a new field by the publication of 'The Lays of Ancient
Rome. ' They consist of four ballads-'Horatius'; 'The Battle of
the Lake Regillus'; 'Virginius'; and 'The Prophecy of Capys'— which
are supposed to have been sung by Roman minstrels, and to belong
to a very early period in the history of the city. In them are re-
peated all the merits and all the defects of the Essays. The men
and women are mere enumerations of qualities; the battle pieces are
masses of uncombined incidents: but the characteristics of the periods
treated have been caught and reproduced with perfect accuracy. The
setting of Horatius, which belongs to the earliest days of Rome,
is totally different from the setting of the Prophecy of Capys, which
belongs to the time when Rome was fast acquiring the mastery over
Italy; and in each case the setting is studiously and remarkably exact.
In these poems, again, there is the same prodigious learning, the same
richness of illustration, which distinguish the essays; and they are
adorned with a profusion of metaphor and aptness of epithets which
is most admirable.
The 'Lays' appeared in 1842, and at once found their way into
popular favor. Macaulay's biographer assures us that in ten years
18,000 copies were sold in Great Britain; 40,000 copies in twenty
years; and before 1875 nearly 100,000 had passed into the hands of
readers.
Meantime the same popularity attended the 'Essays. ' Again and
again Macaulay had been urged to collect and publish them in book
## p. 9385 (#409) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9385
form, and had stoutly refused. But when an enterprising publisher
in Philadelphia not only reprinted them but shipped copies to Eng-
land, Macaulay gave way; and in the early months of 1843 a volume
was issued.
Like the Lays, the Essays rose at once into popular
favor, and in the course of thirty years 120,000 copies were sold in
the United Kingdom by one publisher.
But the work on which he was now intent was 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. ' The idea of
such a narrative had long been in his mind; but it was not till 1841
that he began seriously to write, and not till 1848 that he published
the first and second volumes. Again his success was instant. Nothing
like it had been known since the days of Waverley. Of 'Marmion'
were sold in the first month; of Macaulay's History 3,000
copies were sold in ten days. Of the 'Lay of the Last Minstrel'
2,250 copies were disposed of in course of the first year; but the
publishers sold 13,000 copies of Macaulay in four months. In the
United States the success was greater yet.
2,000
"We beg you to accept herewith a copy of our cheap edition of your
work," wrote Harper & Brothers in 1849. "There have been three other
editions published by different houses, and another is now in preparation; so
there will be six different editions in the market. We have already sold
40,000 copies, and we presume that over 60,000 copies have been disposed of.
Probably within three months of this time the sale will amount to 200,000
copies. No work of any kind has ever so completely taken our whole coun-
try by storm. »
Astonishing as was the success, it never flagged; and year after
year the London publisher disposed of the work at the rate of
seventy sets a week. In November 1855 the third and fourth vol-
umes were issued. Confident of an immense sale, 25,000 copies were
printed as a first edition, and were taken by the trade before a copy
was bound. In the United States the sale, he was assured by Everett,
was greater than that of any book ever printed, save the Bible and
a few school-books in universal use. Prior to 1875, his biographer
states, 140,000 copies of the History were sold in the United King-
dom. In ten weeks from the day of the issue 26,500 copies were
taken, and in March 1856 $100,000 was paid him as a part of the
royalty due in December. .
Honors of every sort were now showered on him. He was raised
to the peerage; he was rich, famous, and great. But the enjoyment
of his honors was short-lived; for in December 1859 he was found in
his library, seated in his easy-chair, dead. Before him on the table
lay a copy of the Cornhill Magazine, open at the first page of
Thackeray's story of Lovel the Widower. '
## p. 9386 (#410) ###########################################
9386
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
All that has been said regarding the Essays and the Lays applies
with equal force to the History of England. ' No historian who has
yet written has shown such familiarity with the facts of English
history, no matter what the subject in hand may be: the extinction
of villeinage, the Bloody Assizes, the appearance of the newspaper,
the origin of the national debt, or the state of England in 1685.
Macaulay is absolutely unrivaled in the art of arranging and com-
bining his facts, and of presenting in a clear and vigorous narrative
the spirit of the epoch he treats. Nor should we fail to mention that
both Essays and History abound in remarks, general observations, and
comment always clear, vigorous, and shrewd, and in the main very
just.
Johns
he Back MeMaster
THE COFFEE-HOUSE
From the History of England ›
THE
HE coffee-house must not be dismissed with a cursory men-
tion. It might indeed at that time have been not im-
properly called a most important political institution. No.
Parliament had sat for years. The municipal council of the City
had ceased to speak the sense of the citizens. Public meetings,
harangues, resolutions, and the rest of the modern machinery of
agitation had not yet come into fashion. Nothing resembling
the modern newspaper existed. In such circumstances the coffee-
houses were the chief organs through which the public opinion
of the metropolis vented itself.
The first of these establishments had been set up by a Tur-
key merchant, who had acquired among the Mahometans a taste
for their favorite beverage. The convenience of being able to
make appointments in any part of the town, and of being able
to pass evenings socially at a very small charge, was so great
that the fashion spread fast. Every man of the upper or middle
class went daily to his coffee-house to learn the news and to dis-
cuss it.
Every coffee-house had one or more orators to whose
eloquence the crowd listened with admiration, and who soon.
became what the journalists of our time have been called, a
Fourth Estate of the realm. The court had long seen with un-
easiness the growth of this new power in the State. An attempt
## p. 9387 (#411) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9387
had been made, during Danby's administration, to close the coffee-
houses. But men of all parties missed their usual places of
resort so much that there was an unusual outcry. The govern-
ment did not venture, in opposition to a feeling so strong and
general, to enforce a regulation of which the legality might well
be questioned. Since that time ten years had elapsed, and during
those years the number and influence of the coffee-houses had
been constantly increasing. Foreigners remarked that the coffee-
house was that which especially distinguished London from all
other cities; that the coffee-house was the Londoner's home, and
that those who wished to find a gentleman commonly asked, not
whether he lived in Fleet Street or Chancery Lane, but whether
he frequented the Grecian or the Rainbow. Nobody was excluded
from these places who laid down his penny at the bar. Yet
every rank and profession, and every shade of religious and polit-
ical opinion, had its own headquarters. There were houses near
Saint James's Park where fops congregated, their heads and shoul-
ders covered with black or flaxen wigs, not less ample than those
which are worn by the Chancellor and by the Speaker of the
House of Commons. The wig came from Paris, and so did the
rest of the fine gentleman's ornaments,— his embroidered coat, his
fringed gloves, and the tassel which upheld his pantaloons. The
conversation was in that dialect which, long after it had ceased
to be spoken in fashionable circles, continued in the mouth of
Lord Foppington to excite the mirth of theatres. The atmo-
sphere was like that of a perfumer's shop. Tobacco in any other
form than that of richly scented snuff was held in abomination.
If any clown, ignorant of the usages of the house, called for a
pipe, the sneers of the whole assembly and the short answers of
the waiters soon convinced him that he had better go somewhere
else. Nor indeed would he have had far to go.
For in gen-
eral, the coffee-rooms reeked with tobacco like a guard-room; and
strangers sometimes expressed their surprise that so many peo-
ple should leave their own firesides to sit in the midst of eternal
fog and stench. Nowhere was the smoking more constant than
at Will's. That celebrated house, situated between Covent Gar-
den and Bow Street, was sacred to polite letters. There the talk
was about poetical justice and the unities of place and time.
There was a faction for Perrault and the moderns, a faction for
Boileau and the ancients. One group debated whether 'Paradise
Lost' ought not to have been in rhyme. To another an envious
## p. 9388 (#412) ###########################################
9388
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
poetaster demonstrated that 'Venice Preserved' ought to have
been hooted from the stage. Under no roof was a greater vari-
ety of figures to be seen. There were earls in stars and garters,
clergymen in cassocks and bands, pert Templars, sheepish lads
from the universities, translators and index-makers in ragged
coats of frieze. The great press was to get near the chair where
John Dryden sat. In winter that chair was always in the warm-
est nook by the fire; in summer it stood in the balcony. To bow
to the Laureate, and to hear his opinion of Racine's last tragedy
or of Bossu's treatise on epic poetry, was thought a privilege.
A pinch from his snuff-box was an honor sufficient to turn the
head of a young enthusiast. There were coffee-houses where the
first medical men might be consulted. Dr. John Radcliffe, who in
the year 1685 rose to the largest practice in London, came daily,
at the hour when the Exchange was full, from his house in
Bow Street, then a fashionable part of the capital, to Garraway's;
and was to be found, surrounded by surgeons and apothecaries,
at a particular table. There were Puritan coffee-houses where no
oath was heard, and where lank-haired men discussed election
and reprobation through their noses; Jew coffee-houses where
dark eyed money-changers from Venice and Amsterdam greeted
each other; and Popish coffee-houses where, as good Protestants
believed, Jesuits planned over their cups another great fire, and
cast silver bullets to shoot the King.
THE DIFFICULTY OF TRAVEL IN ENGLAND, 1685
From the History of England'
THE
HE chief cause which made the fusion of the different ele-
ments of society so imperfect was the extreme difficulty
which our ancestors found in passing from place to place.
Of all inventions, the alphabet and the printing-press alone ex-
cepted, those inventions which abridge distance have done most
for the civilization of our species. Every improvement of the
means of locomotion benefits mankind morally and intellectually
as well as materially; and not only facilitates the interchange of
the various productions of nature and art, but tends to remove
national and provincial antipathies, and to bind together all the
branches of the great human family. In the seventeenth century
## p. 9389 (#413) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9389
the inhabitants of London were, for almost every practical pur-
pose, farther from Reading than they now are from Edinburgh,
and farther from Edinburgh than they now are from Vienna.
The subjects of Charles the Second were not, it is true, quite
unacquainted with that principle which has, in our own time,
produced an unprecedented revolution in human affairs; which
has enabled navies to advance in face of wind and tide, and
brigades of troops, attended by all their baggage and artillery, to
traverse kingdoms at a pace equal to that of the fleetest race-
horse. The Marquess of Worcester had recently observed the
expansive power of moisture rarefied by heat. After many ex-
periments he had succeeded in constructing a rude steam-engine,
which he called a fire-water work, and which he pronounced to
be an admirable and most forcible instrument of propulsion.
But the Marquess was suspected to be a madman, and known to
be a Papist. His inventions therefore found no favorable recep-
tion. His fire-water work might perhaps furnish matter for
conversation at a meeting of the Royal Society, but was not
applied to any practical purpose. There were no railways, except
a few made of timber, on which coals were carried from the
mouths of the Northumbrian pits to the banks of the Tyne.
There was very little internal communication by water. A few
attempts had been made to deepen and embank the natural
streams, but with slender success. Hardly a single navigable
canal had been even projected. The English of that day were
in the habit of talking with mingled admiration and despair of
the immense trench by which Lewis the Fourteenth had made a
junction between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. They lit-
tle thought that their country would, in the course of a few gen-
erations, be intersected, at the cost of private adventurers, by
artificial rivers making up more than four times the length of
the Thames, the Severn, and the Trent together.
It was by the highways that both travelers and goods gener-
ally passed from place to place; and those highways appear to
have been far worse than might have been expected from the
degree of wealth and civilization which the nation had even then
attained. On the best lines of communication the ruts were
deep, the descents precipitous, and the way often such as it was
hardly possible to distinguish, in the dusk, from the uninclosed
heath and fen which lay on both sides. Ralph Thoresby the
antiquary was in danger of losing his way on the Great North
## p. 9390 (#414) ###########################################
9390
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
Road, between Barnby Moor and Tuxford, and actually lost his
way between Doncaster and York. Pepys and his wife, traveling
in their own coach, lost their way between Newbury and Read-
ing. In the course of the same tour they lost their way near
Salisbury, and were in danger of having to pass the night on the
plain. It was only in fine weather that the whole breadth of the
road was available for wheeled vehicles. Often the mud lay
deep on the right and the left; and only a narrow track of firm
ground rose above the quagmire. At such times obstructions and
quarrels were frequent, and the path was sometimes blocked up
during a long time by carriers, neither of whom would break the
way. It happened, almost every day, that coaches stuck fast,
until a team of cattle could be procured from some neighbor-
ing farm, to tug them out of the slough. But in bad seasons
the traveler had to encounter inconveniences still more serious.
Thoresby, who was in the habit of traveling between Leeds and
the capital, has recorded, in his Diary, such a series of perils and
disasters as might suffice for a journey to the Frozen Ocean or
to the Desert of Sahara.
On one occasion he learned that the
floods were out between Ware and London, that passengers had
to swim for their lives, and that a higgler had perished in the
attempt to cross. In consequence of these tidings he turned out
of the high-road, and was conducted across some meadows, where
it was necessary for him to ride to the saddle skirts in water.
In the course of another journey he narrowly escaped being
swept away by an inundation of the Trent. He was afterwards
detained at Stamford four days, on account of the state of the
roads; and then ventured to proceed only because fourteen mem-
bers of the House of Commons, who were going up in a body to
Parliament with guides and numerous attendants, took him into
their company.
On the roads of Derbyshire, travelers were in
constant fear for their necks, and were frequently compelled to
alight and lead their beasts. The great route through Wales
to Holyhead was in such a state that in 1685, a viceroy going
to Ireland was five hours in traveling fourteen miles, from St.
Asaph to Conway. Between Conway and Beaumaris he was
forced to walk a great part of the way; and his lady was car-
ried in a litter. His coach was, with much difficulty and by the
help of many hands, brought after him entire. In general, car-
riages were taken to pieces at Conway, and borne on the shoul-
ders of stout Welsh peasants to the Menai Straits. In some
## p. 9391 (#415) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9391
parts of Kent and Sussex, none but the strongest horses could
in winter get through the bog, in which at every step they
sank deep. The markets were often inaccessible during several
months. It is said that the fruits of the earth were sometimes
suffered to rot in one place, while in another place, distant only
a few miles, the supply fell far short of the demand. The
wheeled carriages were in this district generally pulled by oxen.
When Prince George of Denmark visited the stately mansion of
Petworth in wet weather, he was six hours in going nine miles;
and it was necessary that a body of sturdy hinds should be on
each side of his coach, in order to prop it. Of the carriages
which conveyed his retinue, several were upset and injured.
A letter from one of the party has been preserved, in which
the unfortunate courtier complains that during fourteen hours
he never once alighted, except when his coach was overturned
or stuck fast in the mud.
One chief cause of the badness of the roads seems to have
beer the defective state of the law. Every parish was bound
to repair the highways which passed through it. The peasantry
were forced to give their gratuitous labor six days in the year.
If this was not sufficient, hired labor was employed, and the
expense was met by a parochial rate. That a route connecting
two great towns, which have a large and thriving trade with
each other, should be maintained at the cost of the rural popu-
lation scattered between them, is obviously unjust; and this
injustice was peculiarly glaring in the case of the Great North
Road, which traversed very poor and thinly inhabited districts,
and joined very rich and populous districts. Indeed, it was not
in the power of the parishes of Huntingdonshire to mend a high-
way worn by the constant traffic between the West Riding of
Yorkshire and London. Soon after the Restoration this griev-
ance attracted the notice of Parliament; and an act, the first of
our many turnpike acts, was passed, imposing a small toll on
travelers and goods, for the purpose of keeping some parts of
this important line of communication in good repair. This inno-
vation, however, excited many murmurs; and the other great
avenues to the capital were long left under the old system. A
change was at length effected, but not without much difficulty.
For unjust and absurd taxation to which men are accustomed is
often borne far more willingly than the most reasonable impost
which is new. It was not till many toll-bars had been violently
## p. 9392 (#416) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9392
pulled down, till the troops had in many districts been forced to
act against the people, and till much blood had been shed, that a
good system was introduced. By slow degrees reason triumphed
over prejudice; and our island is now crossed in every direction
by near thirty thousand miles of turnpike road.
On the best highways heavy articles were, in the time of
Charles the Second, generally conveyed from place to place by
stage-wagons. In the straw of these vehicles nestled a crowd
of passengers, who could not afford to travel by coach or on
horseback, and who were prevented by infirmity, or by the weight
of their luggage, from going on foot. The expense of transmit-
ting heavy goods in this way was enormous. From London to
Birmingham the charge was seven pounds a ton; from London
to Exeter twelve pounds a ton. This was about fifteen pence a
ton for every mile; more by a third than was afterwards charged
on turnpike roads, and fifteen times what is now demanded
by railway companies. The cost of conveyance amounted to a
prohibitory tax on many useful articles. Coal in particular was
never seen except in the districts where it was produced, or in
the districts to which it could be carried by sea; and was indeed
always known in the south of England by the name of sea-coal.
On by-roads, and generally throughout the country north of
York and west of Exeter, goods were carried by long trains of
pack-horses. These strong and patient beasts, the breed of which
is now extinct, were attended by a class of men who seem to
have borne much resemblance to the Spanish muleteers. A trav-
eler of humble condition often found it convenient to perform a
journey mounted on a pack-saddle between two baskets, under the
care of these hardy guides. The expense of this mode of con-
veyance was small. But the caravan moved at a foot's pace; and
in winter the cold was often insupportable.
The rich commonly traveled in their own carriages, with at
least four horses. Cotton, the facetious poet, attempted to go
from London to the Peak with a single pair; but found at St.
Albans that the journey would be insupportably tedious, and
altered his plan. A coach-and-six is in our time never seen,
except as part of some pageant. The frequent mention there-
fore of such equipages in old books is likely to mislead us. We
attribute to magnificence what was really the effect of a very
disagreeable necessity. People in the time of Charles the Sec-
ond traveled with six horses, because with a smaller number
## p. 9393 (#417) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9393
there was great danger of sticking fast in the mire. Nor were
even six horses always sufficient. Vanbrugh, in the succeeding
generation, described with great humor the way in which a
country gentleman, newly chosen a member of Parliament, went
up to London. On that occasion all the exertions of six beasts,
two of which had been taken from the plow, could not save the
family coach from being imbedded in a quagmire.
Public carriages had recently been much improved. During
the years which immediately followed the Restoration, a dili-
gence ran between London and Oxford in two days.
The pas-
sengers slept at Beaconsfield. At length, in the spring of 1669,
a great and daring innovation was attempted. It was announced
that a vehicle, described as the Flying Coach, would perform the
whole journey between sunrise and sunset. This spirited under-
taking was solemnly considered and sanctioned by the Heads of
the University, and appears to have excited the same sort of in-
terest which is excited in our own time by the opening of a new
railway. The Vice-Chancellor, by a notice affixed in all public
places, prescribed the hour and place of departure. The success
of the experiment was complete. At six in the morning the car-
riage began to move from before the ancient front of All Souls
College; and at seven in the evening the adventurous gentlemen
who had run the first risk were safely deposited at their inn in
London. The emulation of the sister university was moved;
and soon a diligence was set up which in one day carried passen-
gers from Cambridge to the capital. At the close of the reign
of Charles the Second, flying carriages ran thrice a week from
London to the chief towns. But no stage-coach, indeed no stage-
wagon, appears to have proceeded further north than York, or
further west than Exeter. The ordinary day's journey of a flying
coach was about fifty miles in the summer; but in winter, when
the ways were bad and the nights long, little more than thirty.
The Chester coach, the York coach, and the Exeter coach gen-
erally reached London in four days during the fine season, but at
Christmas not till the sixth day. The passengers, six in number,
were all seated in the carriage; for accidents were so frequent
that it would have been most perilous to mount the roof. The
ordinary fare was about twopence halfpenny a mile in summer,
and somewhat more in winter.
This mode of traveling, which by Englishmen of the pres-
ent day would be regarded as insufferably slow, seemed to our
XVI-588
## p. 9394 (#418) ###########################################
9394
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
ancestors wonderfully and indeed alarmingly rapid. In a work
published a few months before the death of Charles the Second,
the flying coaches are extolled as far superior to any similar
vehicles ever known in the world. Their velocity is the subject
of special commendation, and is triumphantly contrasted with
the sluggish pace of the Continental posts. But with boasts like
these was mingled the sound of complaint and invective. The
interests of large classes had been unfavorably affected by the
establishment of the new diligences; and as usual, many per-
sons were, from mere stupidity and obstinacy, disposed to clamor
against the innovation simply because it was an innovation.
was vehemently argued that this mode of conveyance would be
fatal to the breed of horses and to the noble art of horseman-
ship; that the Thames, which had long been an important nursery
of seamen, would cease to be the chief thoroughfare from London.
up to Windsor and down to Gravesend; that saddlers and spur-
riers would be ruined by hundreds; that numerous inns, at which
mounted travelers had been in the habit of stopping, would be
deserted, and would no longer pay any rent; that the new car-
riages were too hot in summer and too cold in winter; that the
passengers were grievously annoyed by invalids and crying child-
ren; that the coach sometimes reached the inn so late that it
was impossible to get supper, and sometimes started so early that
it was impossible to get breakfast. On these grounds it was
gravely recommended that no public coach should be permitted
to have more than four horses, to start oftener than once a week,
or to go more than thirty miles a day. It was hoped that if
this regulation were adopted, all except the sick and the lame
would return to the old mode of traveling. Petitions embodying
such opinions as these were presented to the King in council
from several companies of the City of London, from several pro-
vincial towns, and from the justices of several counties. We
smile at these things. It is not impossible that our descendants,
when they read the history of the opposition offered by cupidity
and prejudice to the improvements of the nineteenth century,
may smile in their turn.
In spite of the attractions of the flying coaches, it was still
usual for men who enjoyed health and vigor, and who were not
incumbered by much baggage, to perform long journeys on
horseback. If a traveler wished to move expeditiously, he rode
post. Fresh saddle-horses and guides were to be procured at
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THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9395
convenient distances along all the great lines of road. The charge
was threepence a mile for each horse, and fourpence a stage for
the guide. In this manner, when the ways were good, it was
possible to travel, for a considerable time, as rapidly as by any
conveyance known in England, till vehicles were propelled by
steam. There were as yet no post-chaises; nor could those who
rode in their own coaches ordinarily procure a change of horses.
The King, however, and the great officers of State, were able
to command relays. Thus, Charles commonly went in one day
from Whitehall to Newmarket, a distance of about fifty-five miles,
through a level country; and this was thought by his subjects a
proof of great activity. Evelyn performed the same journey in
company with the Lord Treasurer Clifford. The coach was drawn
by six horses, which were changed at Bishop Stortford and again
at Chesterford. The travelers reached Newmarket at night. Such
a mode of conveyance seems to have been considered as a rare
luxury, confined to princes and ministers.
THE HIGHWAYMAN
From the History of England'
WHA
HATEVER might be the way in which a journey was per-
formed, the travelers, unless they were numerous and
well armed, ran considerable risk of being stopped and
plundered. The mounted highwayman, a marauder known to our
generation only from books, was to be found on every main road.
The waste tracts which lay on the great routes near London were
especially haunted by plunderers of this class. Hounslow Heath
on the Great Western Road, and Finchley Common on the Great
Northern Road, were perhaps the most celebrated of these spots.
The Cambridge scholars trembled when they approached Epping
Forest, even in broad daylight. Seamen who had just been paid.
off at Chatham were often compelled to deliver their purses on
Gadshill, celebrated near a hundred years earlier by the greatest
of poets as the scene of the depredations of Falstaff. The public
authorities seem to have been often at a loss how to deal with
the plunderers. At one time it was announced in the Gazette
that several persons, who were strongly suspected of being high-
waymen, but against whom there was not sufficient evidence,
would be paraded at Newgate in riding dresses: their horses
## p. 9396 (#420) ###########################################
9396
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
would also be shown; and all gentlemen who had been robbed
were invited to inspect this singular exhibition. On another
occasion a pardon was publicly offered to a robber if he would
give up some rough diamonds, of immense value, which he had
taken when he stopped the Harwich mail. A short time after
appeared another proclamation, warning the innkeepers that the
eye of the government was upon them. Their criminal conniv-
ance, it was affirmed, enabled banditti to infest the roads with
impunity. That these suspicions were not without foundation, is
proved by the dying speeches of some penitent robbers of that
age, who appear to have received from the innkeepers services
much resembling those which Farquhar's Boniface rendered to
Gibbet.
It was necessary to the success and even to the safety of the
highwayman that he should be a bold and skillful rider, and that
his manners and appearance should be such as suited the master
of a fine horse. He therefore held an aristocratical position in
the community of thieves, appeared at fashionable coffee-houses
and gaming-houses, and betted with men of quality on the race
ground. Sometimes, indeed, he was a man of good family and
education. A romantic interest therefore attached, and perhaps
still attaches, to the names of freebooters of this class. The vul-
gar eagerly drank in tales of their ferocity and audacity, of their
occasional acts of generosity and good-nature, of their amours, of
their miraculous escapes, of their desperate struggles, and of their
manly bearing at the bar and in the cart. Thus it was related
of William Nevison, the great robber of Yorkshire, that he levied
a quarterly tribute on all the northern drovers, and, in return,
not only spared them himself, but protected them against all
other thieves; that he demanded purses in the most courteous
manner; that he gave largely to the poor what he had taken
from the rich; that his life was once spared by the royal clem-
ency, but that he again tempted his fate, and at length died, in
1685, on the gallows of York. It was related how Claude Duval,
the French page of the Duke of Richmond, took to the road,
became captain of a formidable gang, and had the honor to be
named first in a royal proclamation against notorious offenders;
how at the head of his troop he stopped a lady's coach, in which
there was a booty of four hundred pounds; how he took only one
hundred, and suffered the fair owner to ransom the rest by dan-
cing a coranto with him on the heath; how his vivacious gallantry
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THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9397
stole away the hearts of all women; how his dexterity at sword
and pistol made him a terror to all men: how at length, in the
year 1670, he was seized when overcome by wine; how dames of
high rank visited him in prison, and with tears interceded for his
life; how the King would have granted a pardon, but for the
interference of Judge Morton, the terror of highwaymen, who
threatened to resign his office unless the law were carried into
full effect; and how, after the execution, the corpse lay in state
with all the pomp of scutcheons, wax-lights, black hangings, and
mutes, till the same cruel judge, who had intercepted the mercy
of the Crown, sent officers to disturb the obsequies. In these
anecdotes there is doubtless a large mixture of fable: but they
are not on that account unworthy of being recorded; for it is
both an authentic and an important fact that such tales, whether
false or true, were heard by our ancestors with eagerness and
faith.
THE DELUSION OF OVERRATING THE HAPPINESS OF OUR
ANCESTORS
From the History of England'
THE
HE general effect of the evidence which has been submitted
to the reader seems hardly to admit of doubt. Yet in spite
of evidence, many will still image to themselves the Eng-
land 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 con-
stantly looking backward with tender regret. But these two pro-
pensities, 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 stimu-
lates us to surpass preceding generations, disposes us to overrate
their happiness. It is, in some sense, unreasonable and ungrate-
ful in us to be constantly discontented with a condition which is
constantly improving. But in truth, there is constant improve-
ment precisely because there is constant discontent. If we were
perfectly 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.
## p. 9398 (#422) ###########################################
9398
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
In truth, we are under a deception similar to that which mis-
leads the traveler 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 civiliza-
tion. 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 to have a clean shirt
once a week was a privilege reserved for the higher class of gen-
try, 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 miser-
ably paid with twenty 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 are now 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 un-
known, 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.
## p. 9399 (#423) ###########################################
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
THE PURITAN
From the Essay on John Milton'
WⓇ
E WOULD Speak first of the Puritans; the most remarkable
body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced.
The odious and ridiculous parts of their character lie on
the surface. He that runs may read them; nor have there been
wanting attentive and malicious observers to point them out.
For many years after the Restoration they were the theme of
unmeasured invective and derision. They were exposed to the
utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, at the time
when the press and the stage were most licentious. They were
not men of letters; they were as a body unpopular; they could
not defend themselves, and the public would not take them
under its protection. They were therefore abandoned, without
reserve, to the tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists.
The ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, their
nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, their Hebrew
names, the Scriptural phrases which they introduced on every
occasion, their contempt of human learning, their detestation of
polite amusements, were indeed fair game for the laughers. But
it is not from the laughers alone that the philosophy of history
is to be learnt. And he who approaches this subject should care-
fully guard against the influence of that potent ridicule which has
already misled so many excellent writers.
"Ecco il fonte del riso, ed ecco il rio
Che mortali perigli in se contiene;
Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio,
Ed esser cauti molto a noi conviene. »*
9399
Those who roused the people to resistance, who directed their
measures through a long series of eventful years, who formed
out of the most unpromising materials the finest army that
Europe had ever seen, who trampled down King, Church, and
Aristocracy, who, in the short intervals of domestic sedition and
rebellion, made the name of England terrible to every nation
on the face of the earth,—were no vulgar fanatics. Most of their
* «Behold the fount of mirth, behold the rill
Containing mortal perils in itself;
And therefore here to bridle our desires,
And to be cautious well doth us befit. "
## p. 9400 (#424) ###########################################
9400
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
absurdities were mere external badges, like the signs of free-
masonry or the dresses of friars. We regret that these badges
were not more attractive. We regret that a body to whose cour-
age and talents mankind has owed inestimable obligations had
not the lofty elegance which distinguished some of the adherents
of Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which the court.
of Charles the Second was celebrated. But if we must make our
choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the play, turn from the specious
caskets which contain only the Death's-head and the Fool's-head,
and fix on the plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure.
The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar
character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and
eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general
terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every
event to the will of the Great Being for whose power nothing
was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To
know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great
end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremoni-
ous homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of
the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity
through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intol-
erable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence
originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The differ-
ence between the greatest and the meanest of mankind seemed
to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which sep-
arated the whole race from Him on whom their own eyes were
constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his
favor; and, confident of that favor, they despised all the accom-
plishments and all the dignities of the world. If they were un-
acquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were
deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not
found in the registers of heralds, they were recorded in the Book
of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train
of menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them.
Their palaces were houses not made with hands, their diadems
crowns of glory which should never fade away. On the rich
and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with
contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious
treasure and eloquent in a more sublime language, nobles by
the right of an earlier creation and priests by the imposition of
a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to
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THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
9401
whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged; on
whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked
with anxious interest; who had been destined, before heaven and
earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when
heaven and earth should have passed away. Events which short-
sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained
on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished,
and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his
will by the pen of the Evangelist and the harp of the prophet.
He had been wrested by no common deliverer from the grasp
of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no
vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for
him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been
rent, that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered at
the sufferings of her expiring God.
Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men: the one
all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud,
calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust be-
fore his Maker; but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In
his devotional retirement he prayed with convulsions, and groans,
and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illus-
He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting whispers
of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke
screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought
himself intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. Like
Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had.
hid his face from him. But when he took his seat in the coun-
cil, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of
the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who
saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard
nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns,
might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh who
encountered them in the hall of debate or on the field of battle.
These fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness
of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some writers
have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which
were in fact the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their
feelings on one subject made them tranquil on every other. One
overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred,
ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its
charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures
## p. 9402 (#426) ###########################################
9402
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
and their sorrows; but not for the things of this world. Enthu-
siasm had made them Stoics; had cleared their minds from every
vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influ-
ence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them
to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means.
