THE QUALITIES OF MACAULAY

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 15162, 4 October 1913, Page 3

THE QUALITIES OF MACAULAY

«J? lepubhcatcon of Mr Canning's S of Macauiay as e&ayist and historian suggests.-fcha* his popularity is cleJv f£ a the lran6 - ™°re cleai.y than any man of his day, perIT 3 '* ™ a 7 H»a* enormous spread of nterest m books, and in books of a .serious" nature, which, when.he began to write, was' onh- beginning to manifest itself. He deliberately applied his gilts and learning and his stylo of its cultivation, and won an enormous following. The secret of his success is now common pronerty. Ihrougliout Mr Canning's sober and painstaking analysis, reconsideration, and readjustment of Macauiar's views and metnods' recur again and aga ; n such phrases as brilliant eloquence, brilliant language and style, powerful mind, matter-ot-fact and commensense fcee t intelligence, sensational partisan, lliey all denote quakes that attract instantly an eager and voracious mind, thouga they may not endur.ngiy continue to charm. The young scholar who has not yob fallen a prey to the hard, glrtußrmg antithetical lucidity of Macaulay has probably no vet chanced on either essays or historV; but the i j tllat Mr Caimm .g has" repeatedly ended a flaehing citation from his author's works with a cold-blooded "etc." suggests the Hmitat.ons of Macaulay's talents and shows up the weaknesses of his vigorous style. Apart altogether from his grasp and learning and inexhaustible wealth of detail, Macaulay is an excellent, an almost indispensible, wrcter to study; but he is a dangerous writer to imitate. For all his effects are easy of attainment, and the novice maj fail to perceive the solid rock beneath. It is the solid rock of a keen intelligence, and of little else. No writer o? Macaula.y'a standard reveals so little personality, so little lovableness and errant humanity. "An emphatic, hot- . tosh really forcible person, but unhappily ; without divine idea,'' was Carlyle's caustic summary. "He is abso.utely renowned in society as the greatest bore that ever appeared," Baid Brougham, taking another point of view. brilliant, metallic, a solid man'in handsome, clothes, a vivified cyclopaedia, with an almost stupid face, who was said never to have been in love, buL who could, lake. a cataract, talk down a dozen doughty diners, Macaulay wrote essays that, on their own confession, raesmerically drew Mrs Browning to her feet. His actual presence onlv incited Miss Martmfeau to the perfectly just decis-'on, he "wants heart." A certain blindness of sp-.rit, moreover, cou'd alone have allowed him to describe the "Pilgrim's Progress" as "a fanciM and delightful parable." Macaulay, indeed, was an unprecedentedly brilliant boy, but had never been a child. He had an enormous, a mechanic memory for facts, none for atmosphere. It is as easy to belittle him as to overrate him. To guard against the former danger it 'is only necessary to attempt to rewrite one of his essays; the latter has long ceased to be a fashionable feat; while Mr Canning, as critic, has—perhaps a little to avoid both extremes.