A POPULAR HISTORY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3807, 11 September 1936, Page 2

A POPULAR HISTORY

MACAULAY’S CLASSIC WORK. / “I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the habits of young ladies,” wrote Macaulay concerning his “ History of England.” Seven years later when the first two volumes of the work were published he realised his ambition. But on the eve of publication he had some doubts concerning the merits of his work, despite the assurances he had received from friends who had read some of it in proof or manuscript. “These things keep up my spirits,” he said with reference to these assurances, in a letter to his sister; “ yet I see every day more and more clearly how far my performance is below excellence.” To his mother he wrote: “ The state of my own mind is this, when 1 compare my book with what I imagine history ought to be 1 ieel dejected and ashamed, but when 1 compare it with some histories that have a high repute 1 feel reassured.”

“ Within three days after its first i ppearance the fortune of the book was already secure,” wrote Macaulay’s nephew and official biographer, George Trevelyan. “It was greeted by an ebullition of national pride and satisfaction which delighted Macaulay’s friends and reconciled to him most who remained of his old political adversaries. Other hands than his have copied and preserved the letters of congratulation and approval which for months together flowed in upon him from every quarter of the compass.”

The publishers originally decided to issue an addition of 3000 copies, which in those days was a fairly large edition of a work of history. The edition was soon sold out, and a second one of 3000 copies was printed. “ 1 have reason to be pleased,” wrote Macaulay in his journal. “Of ‘ The Lay of the Last Minstrel ’ 2250 copies were sold in the first year; of ‘ Marmion,’ 2000 copies in the first month; of my book, 3000 copies in the first ten days. The success is in every way complete beyond all hope, and is the more agreeable to me because expectation had been wound up so high that disappointment was almost inevitable. I think, though with some misgivings, that the book will live.” A third edition of 7000 copies was prepared. Macaulay thought the publishers were too optimistic in expecting to sell 13,000 copies of the work in six months. “Of such a run I had never dreamed,” he wrote in his journal. “But I thought that the book would have a permanent place in our literature, and I see no reason to alter that opinion. Yet I feel extremely anxious about the second part. Can it possibly come up to the first ? Does the subject admit of such vivid description and such exciting narrative ? Will not the judgment of the public be unduly severe ? All this disturbs me. Yet the risk must be run, and whatever art and labour can do shall be done.” The third edition of 7000 copies was sold out within four months of the first publication of the work; and these first two volumes were still selling seven years later, when the next two volumes appeared. In the United States, where at the time there was no copyright, the two volumes were pirated by several publishers. The sale of American cheap editions was much greater than the sale of the orthodox edition in Great Britain. The New York publishing firm of Harper and Company informed the author that it had sold 40,000 copies, and in all probability the total sale in the United States of al! editions would reach 200,000 copies. “No work of the kind has ever so completely taken the whole country by storm,” wrote Harper and Company. THE SWEETS OF REVENGE. Most of the literary critics praised Macaulay’s history very warmly, although of course his Whigism was not acceptable to Tory readers. “ Some few notes of disapprobation and detraction might here and there oe heard; but they were for the most part too faint to mar the effect produced by so full a chorus of eulogy,” wrote his official biographer. “ The only loud one among them, was harsh and discordant to that degree that all the bystanders were fain to stop their ears.” This harsh and discordant criticism was the work of Macaulay’s old enemy, John W’ilson Croker. Eighteen years earlier Macaulay had reviewed in scathing terms Croker’s edition of Boswell’s “ Life of Samuel Johnson.” It was now Croker’s turn to scarify Macaulay, and he did so at some length in reviewing the first two volumes of the “ History of England ” in the Quarterly Review. “ It is as full of political prejudice and partisan advocacy as any of his Parliamentary speeches,” wrote Croker. “It makes the fact of English history as fabulous as his ‘Lays ’ do those of Roman tradition, and it is vzritten with as captious, as dogmatical, and as cynical a spirit as the

bitterest of his reviews Mr Macaulay’s historical narrative is poisoned with a rancour more violent than even the passions of the time, and the literary qualifications of the work, though in some respects vary remarkable, are far from redeeming

its substantial defects. There is hardly a page—we speak literally, hardly a page—that does not contain something objectionable either in substance or in colour, and the whole of the brilliant and at first captivating narrative is perceived on examination to be impregnated to a really marvellous degree with bad taste, bad feeling, and, we are under the painful necessity of adding, bad faith.” Croker filled twenty pages of the Quarterly Review explaining the defects of Macaulay’s “ History ” and his unfitness for the role of historian. INCREASED POPULAP.ITY. The third and fourth volumes of the “History” were published on 27th December, 1855, seven years after the first two volumes had appeared. The first printing of these later volumes was 25,000 copies, and all were ordered by the booksellers before the date of publication. Some of the principal booksellers took more than 1000 copies each. •‘ It seems that no such edition was ever published of any work of the same bulk,” wrote Macaulay in his journal. “ I earnestly hope that neither age nor riches will narrow ,my heart.” Within ten weeks 26,500 copies were sold. In expressing his astonishment and delight, Macaulay wrote: “ I should not wonder if 1 made £20,000 clear this year by literature. Pretty well, considering that twenty-two years ago I had just nothing when my debts were paid; and ail that I have, with the exception of a small part left me by my uncle the General, has been made by myself, and made easily and honestly, by pursuits which were a pleasure to me, and without one insinuation from any slanderer that I was not even liberal in all my pecuniary dealings.”

His publishers, Messrs Longmans, Green, and Company, gave him a cheque for £20,000 as part payment of the royalties due to him. “ What a sum to be gained by one edition of a book ! ” wrote Macaulay. “ I may say, gained in one day. But that was harvest day. The work had been near seven years in hand.” Before the end of the twelve months 7600 more copies were sold, and ‘ Macaulay’s shrre of the profits on these was about £6OOO.

Mr Trevelyan stated, on the authority of the publishers’ books, that within a generation of its first appearance upward of 140,000 copies of the “ History ” were printed and sold in the United Kingdom alone. The sale of cheap editions was much greater in the United States, and the work was published in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Holland, Poland, Sweden, Hungary, and Russia.