LIBRARY OF THE University of California. RECEIVED BY EXCHANGE Class Thomas Babington Macaulayl The Rhetorician An Examination of His Structural Devices in the History of England by DAVID ARTHUR HUGHES Litt.M., Ph.D.. D.V.M. ''All the Artifices of Rhetoric." — Macaulay. Hiii^.a£-^4^NG.. Book II. P. 11!). L, 21-22' *^ Of THE UNIVERSITY -ef- £4UFOR|ii> A thesis presented to the University Faculty of Cornell University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, when it was conferred upon the writer, June 16, 1898, Inscription. To James Morgan Hart, M. A.. J. U. D., LiTT. D. Eminent as a luriter, philologist and rhetorician, whose book on ''The Germaii Universities'" caused flocks of American Students to migrate to Europe to receive the fruits of German scholarship ; whose works on English Philology have extended his fame amongst linguists with his ripening years ; and who, in his text books, surpasses his celebrated father as a rhetorician. To George Lincoln Burr, B. A., LL. D., LiTT. D. Bibliographer, archivist, medicevalist, whose ivork as a collector has greatly enriched the historical libraries of Cornell University ; ivhose labours in the Dutch archives in the Hague, during the administratioft of President Cleveland, ivere the means of averting war with England in the I'ene- zeula boundary difficulty ; whose knowledge of the Middle Ages and gifts as a lecturer and critic have justly entitled him to fame in that specialty. To Henry Morse Stephens, M. A. First Honourman o" the Modern History School of Oxford University, the historian of the French Revolution and of the British Empire, the volumi- nous writer and brilliant and versatile lecturer — who neither writes nor speaks on any subject that he does not iridescently illuminate and adorn. All Three Of whotn were my examiners for the Doctor'' s degree in Philosophy, This Thesis is Inscribed. 2i09G4 iaNVHoxj SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTERS. INTRODUCTION. 1. General statement of the Plan of this Thesis.. 1 2. Macaulay's theory of historical writing 2 3. Macaulay's Introduction to his History 3 (a). The plan marked out in his Introduction.. 3 (b). The extent to which the plan set forth in the Introduction is carried out 4 PART I.— PARAGRAPHING. Section A. — Invention. Chapter 1. — Paragraph Grouping. 1. Wave movement of paragraphs 9 2. The shortening and lengthening of para- graphs 17 3. Reasons for Macaulay's variations from his usual manner of grouping. Detailed explana- tions for groups of short, medium and long paragraphs, with numerous references to the History 19 Chapter 2. — The Indhndual Paragraph . 1. Kinds of paragraphs used by Macaulay 24 2. Unity 25 3. Sequence 26 4. Connectives 28 5. Variations of unity 33 6. The link paragraph 34 7. Paragraph echo 37 8. Beginnings and endings of paragraphs 41 9. The subject sentence 45 10. Repeated structure.... 48 11. Selection, Propoition, Variety 50 Chapter 3. — Narration. 1. Macaulay's manner in general 57 2. Condensed Narrative and amplified narra- tive 60 3 Movement of paragraphs in narration 64 4. Reverting narrative 65 5. Overlapping narration 66 6. Digression 67 7. Episode 68 8. Intercalated narration 69 9. Mixed narration and description 70 10. Mixed exposit on and narration 71 Chapter 4. — Description. 1. Macaulay's manner 73 2. Macaulay's fondness for description 76 3. Observations on the character of Macaulay's description 77 4. Character-description, frequency, where it occurs, and why 80 5. Place and scene description ; noticeable fea- tures 84 6. Length of description. Macaulay's ability to adapt himself to description of any length, from a few sentences (vignettes), to long, elaborate description 90 7. Use made by Macaulay of description sup- ported by narration. Analysis of examples 98 8. Diagram. Point of reference 100 9. Shifting the point of view. Use of narration for suspense 102 10. introducing the personal element. This is a common device of Macaulay's 104 11. Sketch. Suggestion 106 12. Generalized description 108 Chapter 5. — Exposition. 1. General remarks on Macaulay as an exposi- tor Ill 2. Macaulay's manner 114 3. The places where Macaulay is apt to intro- duce his exposition 120 4. His ability to formulate the opinions of fac- tions, or to summarize documents, in brilliant general statement 123 5. Exposition leading to argument „,..y...y...^....^^l29 6. Expository description 131 7. Macaulay's manner of formulating general- law, idea and relation \^ 8. Macaulay's faults as an expositor. His overstatement and understatement 140 Section B. — Expression. Chapter 6. — General Qualities of Ejipression . (a) Clearness. 1. Macaulay's choice of language 141 2. Macaulay's painstaking 144 3. His directness. The simplicity and short- ness of his sentences, hence his perspicuity ...146 (bl Force. 1. Device for carrying the reader on, and rais- ing him to a high pitch of excitement 148 A. The various forms of climax and anti- climax 148 B. Oratorical eulogy 151 2. Device for holding thie reader's interest by means of variety 156 A. Balance in sentence 157 B. Balance of parts of paragraphs 162 C. Balance in successive paragraphs 163 D. Counterbalance and contrast 163 3. Device for quickening the mind of the reader to astonishment 164 A. Plausible stattment of assured results or conclusions, ending in statement of real result 164 B. By timely statement of picturesque in- cident, story or quotation 166 C. Allusion and suspense 167 D. Suspension of the leading thought of a paragraph until the end 170 E. By brilliant antithesis . 171 (c) Both clearness and force by means of repeti- tion. 1. Repetition of some word 175 2. Repetition of favorite phrases 175 3. Repetition of noun, adjective, pronoun, verb, adverb, conjunction, preposition 176 Chapter 7. — Figurative Expression. 1. General remarks on Macaulay's use of figures.. 180 2. Hyperbole and exaggeration 182 3. Comparison and contrast 185 4. Antithesis 190 5. Epigram 191 6. Analogy 193 7. Other figures 196 PART II.— SENTENCE STRUCTURE. Chapter S. — Classes and Form of Macaiilay's Sentences. (a) Preliminary discussion of certain modern theories of the sentence 1. L. A. Sherman's Theory 203 2. A. S. Hill's View 206 3. The present writer's view. Sentence struc- ture due : first to the character of the thought; second to habit. Query: First, What are the surroundings of a sentence ? sec- ond, Is the style formal or informal, conversa- tional and familiar ? 207 (bj The classe- of sentence found in the History. 1. Sentences embodying either a condition, restriction, or thought parallel with the main thought 209 A. Places where such sentences are to be found. Explanation 209 B. A study of this class of sentences in Macaulay's exposition. Examination of a representative group 210 C. The two forms of description in which this kind of sentence occurs. Explana- tion 212 D. The particular narrative form in which it is found, and why. One representative passage studied 213 2. Sentences without condition or restriction. .213 A. Macaulay's fondness for this class of sentences 213 B. His use of such sentences singly or in small groups. The reason for this 214 C. His use of them in rapid succession or in large groups.. 215 1. In the description of extensive operations and of attendant circum- stances. Study of representative passages 215 2. In narration following the order of time. Study of one representative passage 217 (c) The forms of sentences in Macaulay. 1. Prelimintary remarks. Macaulay's style dignified and studied. Hence his choice of sentences to that end 219 2. The forms of sentences used by Macaulay : the short sentence ; the balanced sentence ; the periodic 219 3. The differences in his use of these sentences in narrative, description and expository writ- ing 219 4. The use of short, periodic and balanced sentences in narration 220 (a) In narration where the order is that of cause and effect 220 (b) In narration where the order is that of time 221 5. The use of short, periodic and balanced sentences in descripnon . 221 (a) In place-description 221 (b) In general character description 221 (c) In description of operations 222 (d) In description of circumstances 222 6. The use of periodic and balanced sentences in exposition 222 A. In a single paragraph.. 222 B. In groups of two paragraphs 223 C. In groups of three paragraphs 224 D. In large groups. Reason for the ab- sence of short sentences in exposition 224 7. Variety in the use of these forms of sen- 99 c fences ^^-^ A. Why balanced sentences are used 225 (a) Halves or parts of sentences in balance 225 (b) Successive sentences in balance .226 (c) The sentence containing a balance and a periodic ending 227 B. Use of periodic sentences toward the paragraph's end .228 C. The use of short sentences 230 (a) Oracularly, i. e., for point 230 (b) For movement 231 8. Concluding observations - 231 A. The sentence forms favored by Macau- lay demand, from their very nature, spe- cial care in order to insure correctness and neatness 231 B. Macaulay's carefulness proven 231 (a) Objectively, from the testimony of Trevelyan 231 (b) From the internal evidence of the sentences themselves 233 C. Macaulay's cerrectness 233 (a) In the syntax itself 233 (b) In the relative places assigned to the clauses and phrases embodying the leading thought and the subor- dinate thoughts 234 Chapter 9. — Properties of the Sentence in ' Macaiilav . (a) Unity. 1. Macaulay's painstaking 235 2. Occasional lack of strict unity in punctua- tion 235 3. Lack of unity in adjusting sentences to the paragraph, — stringing together sentences without connection - 237 (b) Clearness. 1. Care in the use of modifiers 237 2. Care in the use of personal pronouns 238 3. Care in the use of the neuter (it) and rela- tivepronouns 238 4. Care in the use of demonstrative pronouns .239 5. Repetition of personal pronouns, adjec- tives, verbs and nouns 239 6. Use of and 240 7. Nice use of adverbs 240 8. Avoidance of very long sentences 240 9. Use of for at the beginning, — explanation .. 241 10. The leading thought of paragraph stated in a simple sentence . 242 11. Luminousness and clearness due to avoid- ance of loose sentences and preference for formal sentences 242 (c) Force. 1. In the sentence . 243 A. Aviodance of loose sentences 243 B. Apt use of interrogative sentences 243 C. U^e of short sentences 244 1. For bold, direct statement. . 244 2. To mark the half-way point of para- graph 244 3. To end a climax and turn to a fresh subject 245 D. Periodic sentences 245 I. The stress coming at the end in a single word or thought 245 XII 2. The stress coming on the climactic word of a series 246 E. Balanced sentences 247 1. Stress in the second part of the balance 247 2. Stress on the first part of the bal- ance 247 F. Chiasmus 247 The place of the subject sentence 248 A. At the beginning 248 B. At the end 248 C. Cogent statements of the topic at the beginning of a paragraph, with repeti- tion at the end in different language 249 D. At the beginning, middle and end of a paragraph 249 In the adjustment of sentences to the para- graph 250 A. Climax within the paragraph leading to final climax at the end of the paragraph. .250 B. The rise into periodic sentences of in- creasing length in forcible expression of opinion 251 C. Emphatic word 251 1. At the beginning of a paragraph. ...251 2. At the end of a paragraph 252 D. Adjusting the sentence structure to energetic expression 253 1. Partition of paragraph into sec- tions, each section dealing with part of the general theme, and having the same or nearl}' the same number of sentences .- 254 2. Repetition of the leading thought of a section at the beginning and end 254 xui 3. Grouping of sentences to form a climax 255 E. Brevity, spacing, economy of words. .256 (d) Harmony. 1. Macaulay's taste for harmonious flow of language : his poetry, his expressions in his essays 257 2. The absence of barbarisms and neologisms from his language 258 3. Alliteration 259 4. Pairing words of similar sound 259 5. Adapting sound to sense 260 Conclusion of this Thesis 261 Of THE UNIVERSITY of INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 1. General Statement of the Plan of This Thesis. J propose to make as thorough a stiuly as I)ossible of Macaulay's artifices in paragraph- ing and sentence-structure, in so far as they are noticeable in the History of England. Among his brilliant accomplishments none was more conspicuous than his mastery of style. Un- doubtedly it was the enchantment of his style which won him the ear and the heart of Eng- lish-speaking people. Xo other of his writings spread his fame as widely as did the History of England, and on no other did he spend as much pains in perfecting the rhetorical form.* Consequently we may expecc to find him. in this, his most carefully written work, full of the artifices of a skilled writer who studied his form as much, if not more, than his subject. f An examination of these artifices, then, is the ()resent writer's aim. *See Trevelyan, Life and Letters of M. Vol. II. tOf course I am not concerned with Macaulay's subject-matter. His Whiggism may or may not be 7-ampant : that is a point which does not enter Into an Examination of the form of the History. 2. Macanlay's Theory of Historical Writing. . To make this examination worthil y, even /tX''^^ * respectably, a scholar should have a lively InroWlecrge of Lord Macaulay's "imaginary model," for the great writer must have en- deavored, to the extent of his abilities, to con- form to his ideal of perfection. "History," he says, in the Introduction to his Essay on Plal- 1am, "history, at least in its state of imaginary perfection, is a compound of poetry and philos- ophy. It impresses great truths on the mind by a vivid representation of particular char- acters and incidents." Again, in his Essay on History, "The perfect historian is he in whose work the character and spirit of an age is ex- hibited in miniature. He relates no fact, he attributes no expression to his characters, which is not authenticated by sufficient testi- mony. But by judicious selection, rejection and arrangement he gives to truth those at- tractions which have been usurped by fiction. . . . We have no hesitation in saying, that a great artist might produce a portrait of this remarkable woman (Elizabeth) at least as striking as that in the novel Kenilworth without employing a single trait not authenti- cated by ample testimony." The key word of these opinions is the word l'"iction. The major portion of the most cele- l)i-cite(l wnrks of lictioii is the truth of liunian nature irrespective of the facts of history. Macaulay would make his History all truth and all fact. He would embelljsh it with all the charms of the novel: lively narration, glowing description, that element of the dra- matic, — the sayings of the characters, and ex- |)Osition. In other words, he would exercise the same care in arrangement, in structure, as in selection of subject-matter; in the one the perfect historian should be an artist ; in the other the faithful relater of fact. Every state- ment should Ije a fact : there should be "images in e\-ery line." Historical truth should be dressed in the garb of the ^Modern Novel. For twenty years this theory lay fallow in his brain until it bore abundant fruit in the ])ublication of his History of England. 3. Macaitlay's introduction to His History. (a) The plan marked out in his introduc- tion. The year 1849 was made illustrious in the roll of English letters by the appearance of "The History of England from the Accession of James II."' In the opening sentence, with his usual |)crs])icuity. the author announces his plan. "T purpose to write the History of Eng- land from the accession of James II down to a time which is within the memory of men 3 still living." After laying down the details of his plan, he continues: "I should very imper- fectly execute the task which I have undertaken if I were merely to treat of battles and sieges, of the rise and fall of administrations, of in- trigues m the palace, and of debates in the par- liament. It will be my endeavor to relate the history of the people as well as the history of the government ; to trace the progress of the useful and ornamental arts, to describe the rise of religious sects and the changes of lit- erary taste, to portray the manners of suc- cessive generations, and not to pass by with neglect even the revolutions which have taken place in dress, furniture, repasts and public amusements. I shall cheerfully bear the re- proach of having descended below the dignity of history, if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of our ancestors." "A true picture of the life of our ancestors" ; Macaulay has not, then, abandoned his theory. He proposed to treat pictorially the history of the people and the history of the government from James II to George W. (b) The extent to which the plan set forth in the Introduction is carried out. The author's purpose was not accomplished. The five volumes published are a torso of the original ])laii — magnificent, indeed, Imt never- theless a torso. Air. J. Cotter Morison has given the explanation of the failure.* He says: "It is perhaps a low-minded objection to Alacaulay's conception of history to remark that its application to lengthy periods is a physical impossibility. The five volumes we have of his History comprise the space of some fifteen years. It was his original scheme to bring his narration down to the end of the reign of George IV; in round numbers, a period of a century and a half. If, therefore, his plan had been carried out on its present scale, it would have needed fifty volumes, if not more, as it is highly improbable that more recent events would have permitted greater compression. But, further, he wrote, at an average, a volume in three years ; therefore his whole task would have taken him one hundred and fifty years to accomplish, — that is to say, it would have taken as long to record the events as the events took to happen. This is almost a practical refutation of the method he adopted. And yet such an absurd result could not, on his principles, be avoided. If history is to be written in such minute detail" that it shall rival the novel in unbroken sustention of the personal interest attaching to the char- / *Macaulay, Eng. Men of Letters Series, P. 141. 5 acters, unexampled bulk must ensue. Ma- caulay had no intention of being so prolix. He expected to achieve the first portion of his plan (down to the commencement of Wal- pole's administration), a matter of thirty-five years, in five volumes ; and, as it turned out, five volumes only carried him over fifteen years. But he could not afiford to reduce his scale, thus sacrificing his conception of how history should be written." Fail Macaulay undoubtedly did in the abil- ity to cover the period of one hundred and fifty years. But what of the fifteen years actually covered? His impartiality has been called in question ; but the dignity, the pictorial quality of his style has never been disputed. In 1849, while the voice of Croker alone was raised against him, the English ladies were reading the History at their country houses and at the seaside instead of their novels. Macaulay held his readers by his sustained eloquence, by vivid representation of partic- ular characters and incidents, by the attrac- tions which had been long usurped by drama and fiction : in short, by all the artifices of rhetoric. It is of these artifices that I wish to speak in the following pages : PART I PARAGRAPHING UNIVERSITY OF SECTION A— INVENTION CHAPTER I PARAGRAPH GROUPING 1. IVavc-iuorcmciJt of Panu/raf^hs. (a) The term \vave-m(_)vcnient of the para- s^raplis shouhl explain itself. To guard ai:^ainst any misapprehension, however, I will say that by wave-movement I mean the variation of length of the paragraphs in a particular series dealing with one sub- ject. In this and subsequent pages I use the terms short, medium and long para- graphs. By short paragraph I mean one of from two to eight lines of the octavo page ; by medium, nine to twenty lines ; by long, anything over twenty lines. (1) ) In general the wave-movement of para- graphs throughout JMacaulay's History is as follows : The series begins with a short pragraph, which is followed by a medium paragraph, this in turn by a long para- graph. The number and size of the long Q paragraphs in any series vary with the subject of the series and the amount of material on that subject. A group may consist of either three or more than three paragraphs. If the group consists of only three paragraphs, they are as a rule ar- ranged in the order above stated. If the group consists of more than three para- graphs, then usually, after the second, or medium paragraph, the paragraphs grow longer and longer until we come to a very climactic paragraph, after which the series is closed by another medium paragraph. " In other words, the movement of the para- graphs is such as, by the use of longer and longer paragraphs to carry the mind of the reader onward towards a single paragraph, — three-quarters of a page to two and a half pages long, — in which is massed the bulk of the details of some event, situation or party opinion. Thus : "The discomfiture of the Whigs was com- pleted by a communication from the King. Caermarthen appeared in the House of Lords bearing in his hand a parchment signed by William. It was an Act of Grace for political offences. "Between an Act of Grace originating with 10 Ihe Sovereign and an Act of Indemnity origi- nating witli the Estates of the Reahii there are some remari^able distinctions. An Act of Indemnity passes through all the stages through which other laws pass, and may, dur- ing its progress, be amended by either House. An Act of Grace is received with peculiar marks of respect, is read only once by the Lords and once by the Commons, and must be either rejected altogether or accepted as it stands. William had not ventured to submit such an Act to the preceding Parliament. But in the new Parliament he was certain of a ma- jority. The minority gave no trouble. The stubborn spirit which had, during two sessions, obstructed the progress of the Bill of Indem- nity had been at length broken by defeats and humiliations. Both Houses stood up uncov- ered while the Act of Grace was read, and gave their sanction to it without one dissen- tient voice. "There would not have been this unanimity harl not a few great criminals been excluded from the benefits of the amnesty. Foremost among them stood the surviving members of the High Court of Justice which had sate on Charles the First. With these ancient men were joined the two nameless executioners who had done their office, with masked faces, 11 on the scaffold before the Banqueting House. None knew who tliey were, or of what rank. It was probable that they had been long dead. Yet it was thought necessary to declare that, if even now, after the lapse of forty-one years, they should be discovered, they would still be liable to the punishment of their great crime. Perhaps it would hardly have been thought necessary to mention these men, if the animos- ities of the preceding generation had not been rekindled by the recent appearance of Ludlow in England. About thirty of the agents of the tyranny of James were left to the law. With these exceptions, all political offences, com- mitted before the day on which the royal sig- nature was afffxed to the Act, were covered with a general oblivion.* Even the criminals who were by name excluded had little to fear. Many of them were in foreign countries ; and those who were in England were well assured that, unless they committed some new fault, they would not be molested. "The Act of Grace the nation owed to Wil- liam alone; and it is one of his noblest and purest titles to renown. From the commence- ment of the civil troubles of the seventeenth century down to the Revolution, every victory gained by either party had been followed by a !=Stat. 2 W. & M. se.ss. 1, c. 10 12 sanguinary proscriplion. When tlie Ronnd- heads triumphed over the CavaHers, when the Cavahers triumphed over the Roundheads, when the fable of the Popish plot gave the ascendency to the Whigs, when the detection of the Rye House Plot transferred the ascend- ency to the Tories, blood, and more blood, and still more blood, had flowed. Every great ex- plosion and every great recoil of public feeling had been accompanied by severities which, at the time, the predominant faction loudly ap- plauded, but which on a calm review, history and posterity have condemned. Xo wise and humane man, whatever may be his political opinions, now mentions without reprehension the death either of Laud or of \'ane. either of Stafford or of Russell. Of the alternate butch- eries the last and worst is that which is insep- arably associated with the names of James and Jeffreys. But it assuredly would not have been the last, perhaps it might not have been the worst, if William had not had the virtue and the firmness resolutely to withstand the importunity of his most zealous adherents. These men were bent on exacting a terrible retribution for all they had undergone during seven disastrous years. The scaft'old of Sid- ney, the gibbet of Cornish, the stake at which Elizabeth Gaunt had perished in the flames for 13 the crime of harbouring a fugitive, the porches of the Somersetshire churches surmounted by the skulls and quarters of murdered peasants, the holds of those Jamaica ships from which every day the carcass of some prisoner dead of thirst and foul air had been flung to the sharks, all these things were fresh in the mem- ory of the party which the Revolution had made, for a time, dominant in the State. Some chiefs of that party had redeemed their necks by paying heavy ransom. Others had lan- guished long in Newgate. Others had starved and shivered winter after winter, in the garrets of Amsterdam. It was natural that in the day of their power and prosperity they should wish to inflict some part of what they had suffered. During a whole year they pursued their scheme of revenge. They succeeded in defeating In- demnity Bill after Indemnity Bill. Nothing stood between them and their victims, but Wil- liam's immutable resolution that the glory of the great deliverance which he had wrought should not be sullied by cruelty. His clem- ency was peculiar to himself. It was not the clemency of an ostentatiousinan, or of a senti- mental man, or of an easy tempered man. It was cold, unconciliating, inflexible. It pro- duced no fine stage effects. It drew on him the savage invectives of those whose malevo- / 14 lent passions he refused to satisfy. It won for him no gratitude from those who owed to him fortune, Hherty, and Hfe. While the violent Whigs railed at his lenity, the agents of the fallen tyranny, as soon as they found them- selves safe, instead of acknowledging their ob- ligations to him, reproached him in insulting language with the mercy which he had extend- ed to them. His Act of Grace, they said, had completely refuted his Declaration. Was it possible to believe that, if there had been any truth in the charges which he had brought against the late government, he would have granted iniminiity to the guilty? It was now acknowledged by himself, under his own hand, that the stories by which he and his friends had deluded the nation and driven away the royal family were mere calumnies devised to serve a turn. The turn had been served ; and the accusations by which he had inflamed the public mind to madness were coolly with- drawn. But none of these things moved him. He had done well. He had risked his popu- larity with men who had been his warmest admirers, in order to give repose and security to men by whom his name was never men- tioned without a curse. Nor had he conferred a less benefit on those whom he iiad disappoint- ed of their revenge than on those whom he had 15 protected. If he had saved one ^faction from a proscription, he had saved the other from the reaction which such a proscription would in- evital)ly have produced. If his people did not justly appreciate his policy, so much the worse for them. He had discharged his duty by them. He feared no obloquy ; and he wanted no thanks." (c) This statement of Macaulay's method could not be fully corroborated without immoderately long citations. The truth of the statement, however, will be appre- hended by the most casual reader wdio will study attentively any one chapter with regard to the point. The following are illustrative references : \V)1. HI. Pp. 41-43. 71-77, 128-129, 141- 145. 166-170, 171-219, 266-269, 289- 291, 489-497, 497-500. ci al. \"ol. I\'. Pp. 117-119. 190-193. 193-209. 221-222, 249-255, 255-260. 419-427, 497-499, 547-551. \'ol. V. Pp. 16-22. 42-51. 53-67. ct al. ( d ) In wave moment of paragraphs there is a striking contrast between ^Nlacaulay and Gibbon. Students of ^lacaulay have never marked this contrast. The massive uniformity of Gibbon's periods has been *The edition here followe:! is tliat of tlie Amer. Publ. Corpora., New York, 310-31S SixUi Ave. 16 compared to the tramp of a Roman legion. In Alacanlay the paragraph at any point in the History ofifers a variety of move- ment commensurable with the effect he desires to make on the reader. The SIiorfciiiiKj and LciKjthriiiiKj of Para- graphs. (a) The explanation of the general plan of grouping, which I have remarked upon is easy. ( 1 ) The short paragraph is usually transitional, technically a link-paragraph. It carries the mind of the reader on from one set of events which have been con- cluded, to another set of events which are just beginning to be narrated. The second paragra])h is summarizing ; that is to say. it states the main points or the outline of the subject which is to be treated in the scries. The long paragraphs which follow contain the details of the subject of the series. (2) Macaulay's evident intention in observing this order and increasing length of paragraph was to gradually arouse the interest of the reader until he came to the grand paragraph, after which he would relax the tension by following up the climax with a medium paragraph, and thus gently lead liim into the next sub- ject or the next series. The effect is what 17 is called in music crescendo. The author hurries the reader to the climax in the grand paragraph, where the mind revels in details or is dazzled with colors. (b) But Alacaulay's general plan has many exceptions. (1) The commonest diverg- ence from the normal is to pass directly from a short paragraph to a long para- graph or to several long paragraphs with- out a medium paragraph, either between the short and the first long, or at the end of the series. (2) One series of para- graphs on a given subject is sometimes connected with another series on another subject without the interposition of link and medium (or summarizing) para- graphs. This is accomplished by what is technically called the echo. (c) The paragraph shortening and length- ening varies (1) according to the material the author has in hand ; and (2) accord- ing to the attitude of his mind towards the matter. The variety in the size of the groups depends, of course, on what place or character is to be described, events nar- rated, or principle explained. The wave movement also varies with the attitude of the mind of Macaulay to his material, his mood, and the impression which fact, or truth, or principle has made on him. Macaulay is always a consummate artist and the groups of paragraphs increase or decrease in size in obedience to his taste for striking effect. 3. Reasons for Macaiilax's J\iriatioiis from His Usual Manner of Grouping. De- tailed E.vplanations for Groups of Short, Medium and Long Paragraphs. Besides the variations already mentioned, other significant expedients are to be noticed : (a) Groups of short paragraphs. ( 1 ) Short paragraphs are sometimes bunched together for condensation of thought and for concentration of the attention. Thus : "The baptismal service was repeatedly dis- cussed. As to matter of form the Commis- sioners were disposed to be indulgent. They were generally willing to admit infants into the Church without sponsors and without the sign of the cross. But the majority, after much (lel)ate, steadily refused to soften down or explain away those words which, to all minds not sophisticated, appear to assert the regenerating virtue of the sacrament. As to the surplice, the Commissioners de- termined to recommend that a large discretion 19 should be left to the Bishops. Expedients were devised by which a person who had re- ceived Presbyterian ordination might, without admitting, either expressly or by implication, the invalidity of that ordination, become a min- ister of the Church of England. "The ecclesiastical calendar was carefully revised. The great festivals were retained. But it was not thought desirable that Saint A'alentine. Saint Chad, Saint Swithin, Saint Edward King of the West Saxons, Saint Dun- stan, and Saint Alphage, should share the hon- ours of Saint John and Saint Paul ; or that the Church should appear to class the ridiculous fable of the discovery of the cross so awfully important as the Nativity, the Passion, the Resurrection and the Ascension of her Lord." —A'. Ill, P. 424, Ch. 14. (2) There may also be a succession of short paragraphs where the object is to produce animation and movement. In the following the mind moves along rapidly with the events : "But it was too late. The King's forces were now near at hand. Colonel Oglethorpe, at the head of about a hundred men of the Life Guards, dashed into Keynsham, scattered two troops of rebel horse which ventured to oppose I'.'m, and retired after inflicting much injury 20 and suffering little. In these circumstances it was thought necessary to relinquish the design on Bristol. "TUit what was to he done? Several schemes were proposed and discussed. It was suggest- ed that Monmouth might hasten to Gloucester, might cross the Severn there, might break down the bridge behind him, and, with his right flank protected by the river, might march through Worcestershire into Shropshire and Cheshire. He had formerly made a progress through those counties, and had been received there with as much enthusiasm as in Somerset- shire and Devonshire. His presence might re- vive the zeal of his old friends; and his army might in a few days be swollen to double its present numbers. "On full consideration, however, it appeared that this plan, though specious, was impracti- cable. The rebels were ill shod for such work as they had lately undergone, and were ex- hausted by toiling, day after day. through deep mud under heavy rain. Harassed and impeded as they would be at every stage by the enemy's cavalry, they could not hope to reach Gloucester without being overtaken by the main body of the royal troops, and forced to a general action under every disadvantage. "Then it was proposed to enter Wiltshire. 21 Persons who professed to know that county well assured the Duke that he would be joined there by such strong reinforcements as would make it safe for him to give battle. "He took this advice, and turned towards Wiltshire. He first summoned Bath. But Bath was strongly garrisoned for the King ; and Feversham was fast approaching. The rebels, therefore, made no attempt on the walls, but hastened to Philip's Norton, where they halted on the evening of the twenty-sixth of June. "Feversham followed them thither. Early on the morning of the twenty-seventh tliey were alarmed by tidings that he was close at hand. They got into order, and lined the hedges leading to the town." — Ch. 5, Mon- mouth's Movements. vSee also the approach of Monmouth to land, in the same chapter; and H, 426-427, 560-577, 587-588, etc. In the excitement of description Macaulay is apt to group together many short paragraphs. See Londonderry, Trial of Seven Bishops, Ex- pulsion of Fellows of Magdalen, the Battle of the Boyne, etc. (b) Groups of medium paragraphs. (1) When his mood is calm and ex- pository the writer is apt to convey his 22 thought in a series of medium para- graphs. See the first fifteen pages of ch. 5 of the History, the characters of the rebels in Holland. (2) Plain state- ment of fact is likely to be given in groups of medium paragraphs. Thus the first ten pages of ch. 13 on the Rev- olution in Scotland. ( c ) Series of long paragraphs. If his short paragraphs show ]\Iacaulay's transcendent power in cogent state- ment, in rapid movement, it is in his long paragraphs that he rises into ex- alting thought. It is here that he lavishes color and phrase. It is here that the intellect scintillates. When the subject of a series of paragraphs is lofty, all the paragraphs of the series are long, majestic in movement, and dazzle with materials of rarest brilliance. The best example of this kind of grouping is the account of the intellectual life of England at the close of the reign of Charles II, ch. 3. Diflferent. but equally rich in phrase, figure, and sustained majesty is the series of long paragraphs on the char- acters of William and Mary, ch. 7. 23 CHAPTER II THE INDIVIDUAL PARAGRAPHS 1. Kinds of Paragraph Used by Macaitlay. There are, of course, two kinds of para- graphs; the connected and the isolated. Most, if not ah. of Macaulay's paragraphs belong to the first kind. The connected paragraphs may be classed into short, medium and long, ac- cording to length and content, as stated in chapter I. To recapitulate, under the class of short paragraphs may be put link paragraphs and the short paragraphs of movement in nar- rative and description. Under medium para- graphs may be put the paragraphs of twenty lines which occur in ordinary narration and de- scription, and the summaries at the beginning or end of Macaulay's paragraph-series. Final- ly, under long paragraphs, may be put the grand paragraph of a series, or a succession of long paragraphs. Strictly, there are no isolated paragraphs in the History, since such a work is, by its very nature, connected throughout. Nevertheless, there is found occasionally a paragraph on a 24 theme not needed in tlie progress of tlie main narrative. Init standinj^ apart from it. Such a paragraph is usuahy a single long paragraph in which a mass of facts is gathered into one narrative paragrai)h suhsidiary to main narra- tive. See the account of the House of Devon- shire, V. II, pp. 228-230, and of the inllnence of Sutherland, v. I\', ])p. 495-497. 2. rnity. I'nity is a fundamental principle of the par- agrai^h and the paragraph-group. The fol- lowing ohservations on the History arc in point : ( 1 ) Alacaulay is painstaking in the unity of the paragraph, and has proven his mastery of the principle; (2) as a rule each of his paragra])hs is on a single topic; (3) the materials on that to])ic are variously used in the ]:)aragraph according to ( a ) the hearing of the to])ic on the theme in hand, (b) form into which the theme is to be cast, \\4iatever may l)c the bearing of the topic of a paragraph, and whatever the variety in the arranging of the materials, it will be found that paragra])h- unity is in general carefully observed. It might be added here that ^vlacaulav is usu- ally careful, not only in unity of single para- graphs, but also in the grouping of paragraphs. Always vigilant and intensely alive, never awk- ward, Macaulay's success in im])ressing his 25 thought on the mind of his reader is partly due to care in paragraph-unity and scrupulous care in the unity of groups of paragraphs. 3. Sequence. If it can be said that he preserves unity, it cannot be said that he always takes the same pains to secure sequence, either in a single par- agraph or in the paragraph-group. I do not go to the extreme of saying that ^lacaulay is. grossly deficient in this point. His faults are at once evident and striking. They may be summarized thus : (1) Lapses into the hum-drum of a public document. See the middle of ch. 7 of the History — summary of Lords dismissed by James. Each sentence begins with the. and the paragraph is inelegant. (2)" Breaks between link and first para- graph of a series.* See H, 376, ch. 9. "The task would indeed and "on the great day ..." The reader feels as if he were left hanging in the air. (3) Breaks at the beginning of a paragraph and continuing throughout : "To what cause . . ." (See third sentence) vol. IV., p. 28, ch. 18. "Of all the actors . . ." "The most *The words quoted are the opening words of the paragraphs where there is a break. This is done to indicate the paragraph in whieh the break occurs. jiopiilar actress . . ." Vol. IV. pp. 381. 382. ch. 19. (4) Deviations in the i\ira,qra]-)h to a new line of thought. (a) A deviation with a return to the original thought. "During the two years and a half . . .'" Vol. IV, p. 39. ch. 21. (b) A deviation witlKmt a return to the original thought. "Portland now repaired "Swift many years later . . .'" \"ol. IV, pp. 434-433, ch. 19. In the last case the aside, to use a the- atrical term, begins at the middle of a paragraph and continues through the first third of the following. (5 ) Other breaks within the paragraph. (a) Due to lack of connecting sentences or phrases. "David Mume, undoubtedly one of the most profound political economists of his time, declared that our madness had exceeded the madness of the cru- sades. Richard Coeur de Lion and Saint Lewis had gone in the face of arithmetical demonstration," etc. (b) Due to fondness for startling com- parison. See the paragraphs : 27 "The master of stair seems . . ." and "An order was laid before him . . ." A'. I\', pp. 286-289, ch. 18. (c) Use of unexplained references to persons or places. "He concealed the instruments . . . and bade defiance to . . . the Lit- tle Hooknose himself." "Little Hooknose" is never explained. In concluding this section, let me offer a word of excuse for ]\Iacaulay's seeming disre- gard of the principle of sequence : (1 ) It was undoubtedly an artifice of style, his idea being to startle his readers; (2) it was in part an outcome of his habits in public speaking. 4. Connectives. A complete study of Macaulay's connectives is beyond the hmits of this thesis. I have con- lined myself, therefore, to his commonest uses. A. Use of but. ( a ) The frequency with which ]Macaulay uses but as a connective has often been remarked upon. Lewis in his History of the English Para'graph^'^ has stated that fifteen per cent of his connectives are hut and hut vet; and Minto and all the rhetor- icians and litterateurs who have touched upon Alacaulay have said substantially the *P. 178. 28 same thing. An explanation has never been given. ( b ) The truth is that Macaulay either sub- stitutes but for other connectives or so forms his sentences that he deems no other connectives necessary. He makes plain, direct statements : all restrictions are begun with a but. It will be found that most of the sentences or clauses which begin with a but are just as bold, plain, direct as the sentences without a but. the difference being that the "but"' construc- tion conveys a restriction of opinion and the other construction does not. Thus : "It is remarkable that the Lord President, at the very time at which he was insulted as a W'illiamite at Bath, was considered as a stanch Jacobite at Saint Germains. How he came to be so considered is a most perplexing question. Some writers are of opinion that he, like Shrewsbury, Russell, Godolphin, and Marlborough, entered into engagements with one king while eating the Ijread of the other. But this opinion does not rest on sufficient proofs. About the treasons of Shrewsbury, of Russell, of Godolphin, and of Marlborough, we have a great mass of evidence, derived from various sources, and extending over sev- 29 eral years. But all the information which we possess about Caermarthen's dealings with James is contained in a single short paper written by Alelfort on the sixteenth of Octo- ber, 1693. From that paper it is quite clear that some intelligence had reached the ban- ished King and his ^Ministers which led them \o regard Caermarthen as a friend. But there is no proof that they ever so regarded him. either before that day or after that day." — Ch. 22. It is true that ]\Iacaulay is immoderate in the use of this connective. The frecjuency of its occurrence is to be explained as the out- come of his absolute confidence in his opinions and his boldness in enunciating them. (c) The above statement is not offered in justification of the practice, but as an ex- planation. Obviously Macaulay has used the connective too often. He jerks us "Back and forth with it from thought to thought, situation to situation : (1) "It was hardly possible to be at once a consistent Quaker and a courtier ; but it was utterly impossible to be . . . " (2) (End of one paragraph) — " . . . he therefore soon regained his liberty and returned to his plots." (3) (Beginning of the succeeding para- 30 graph) — "But the chief conspirator . . ." etc. These huts constantly appear at the heads of paragraphs, at the beginnings of sentences and clauses. The reader feels that there is no moderation in the use. and that in most places the "hut" is redundant: for. in the first place, it is inimical to that easy flow of prose for which De Ouincey is noted ; and, in the second place, it causes the reader to doubt the writer's coherence. (d) "But" with an adverb or conjunction. In the History we constantly find but used with adverbs : such as "now," "even." "how,"" "though." "whether." This is an- other instance of Macaulay's attachment to the but. Many times the expression would be more forcible without it. Note: "But now the other divisions of the army were in motion.'" I. 546. "But whether the opportunity should be seized or lost it did not belong to him to decide."" I\'. 491. "But how was the ])lan to be carried into effect?"" 11,306. Jj. The word aiid is almost always em- ])loycd correctly in }ilacaula}'. The excep- tions are: (a) superfluous, not to say er- roneous, use at the beginning of the sen- tence : — "It was regarded as the restora- 31 tion of national independence. And true it was . . ." I, 173. "And all was lost, and nothing remained . . ." I. 154; (b) and followed by an adverb. "And now during a few hours . . ." I, 500. "And now the Earl . . ." I, 507. C. The fact that INlacaulay was writing his- tory is sufficient reason for the prevalence of adverbs and adverbial phrases as sen- tence and paragraph connectives. One curious fact is noteworthy. How much he was a writer and how little a mere chronicler is seen in that he pays scarcely any attention to dates. As a great nar- rator and describer of things connected with men and manners, government and political action, he pays more attention to events than to geography and chronology. His time-connectives are the adverbs and adverbial phrases, "now." "meanwhile," "by this time," "at this time," etc. This is his manner : first, of connecting event with event ; secondly, of signifying that the narratives are to be carried on. D. This remark may serve as an explanation of IMacaulay's suppression of connectives, avoidance of qualifying clauses and phrases and avoidance of long sentences. First, his idea was to make his sentences a2 sharp and pungent ; second, by ridding himself of restrictive clauses and phrases, to gain rapidity of movement. These habits involved the dropping of con- nectives. / 'ariaiioiis of l.^iiify. A. The tendency of Macaulay as a para- grapher was to pass from short to long paragraphs and then back again to short. In the long paragraphs his mind is wrought up to the highest pitch. In them he centers the interest of the reader in masses of picturesque details : B. The danger is evident, to-wit : the habit of cumulation may occasionally lead to disregard of the rule of unity. This is sometimes true of Macaulay : (1) A long paragraph of description or narration might have been made more artistic and efifective by separating the narrative from the descriptive part. See the home and habits of the Macdonalds. ch. 18. (2) A long paragraph of narration is to be found wdiich normally should have been two par- agraphs. See the examination of Fen- wick, ch. 22. In this the second paragraph should start at the point "then the struggle began." (3) In one place it is noticeable that Macaulay breaks away from true nar- 33 ration to answer a number of imaginary questions. This breaks the continuity of a paragraph group. See the fifth and sixth paragraphs of ch. 15. C. These instances just cited are exceptions from the rule. ^Nlacaulay, even in a single paragraph covering several pages octavo, as in the account of Louis XIY at the close of ch. 11, preserves unity in a multi- tude of glittering details. The Link-Paragraph. A. Xo author is more scrupulous in the con- nection of paragraph with paragraph, and group with group, than Macaulay. ]\Iy observation is that he always makes these connections either by means of what is technically called the echo or else by means of the link-paragraph. He adheres strictly to this throughout the entire His- torv\ A multitude of examples might be advanced in proof ; but when the term link is clearly understood and it is stated that Macaulay rigorously adheres to the rule ref|uiring occasionally the link a- pause or connective, it is unnecessary to tabulate examples. B. ^lacaulay's use of the link. (a) Within the chapters. M) To connect subject with subject. 34 He has mentioned the unpopularity of the government in Scotland and Ireland and is just about to discuss the unpopularity of the government at home : "^leantime the government had. even in England, ceased to be popular. The Royalists had begun to quarrel with the court and with each other : and the party which had been van- quished, trampled down. and. as it seemed, an- nihilated, but which had still retained a strong principle of life, again raised its head, and renewed the interminable war." I 177, ch. 2. Or this, between an argument on the rights of William and an account of the services of Burnet : "The great object of \\'illiam was now to unite in one body the numerous sections of the community which regarded him as their com- mon head. In this work he had several able and trusty coadjutors, among whom two were preeminently useful. Burnet and Dykvelt." II 235, ch. 7. (2) To connect one part of a subject with another part of the same sub- ject. The following is an instance where the character description of Schomberg is linked with a narra- tion of his military operations : 35 "On the twentieth of August the Parhament, having been constantly engaged in business during seven months, broke up, by the royal command, for a short recess. The same Ga- zette which announced that the Houses had ceased to sit announced that Schomberg had landed in Ireland." Ill 374. ch. 14. C. Sometimes two links are found together, the one looking back on what has been said, the other looking forward to what is to be said. In the following, the first looks l)ack on what has been said upon "terms for Protestant Dissenters," the sec- ond looks forward to what is to be said upon the Toleration act : "Such were the terms on which the Protest- ant dissenters of England were, for the first time, permitted by law to worship God accord- ing to their own conscience. They were very properly forbidden to assemble with barred doors, but were protected against hostile intru- sion by a clause which made it penal to enter a meeting house for the purpose of molesting the congregation. "As if the numerous limitations and precau- tions which have been mentioned were insuffi- cient, it was emphatically declared that the legislature did not intend to grant the smallest indulgence to any Papist, or to any person who denied tlie doctrine of the Trinity as tliat doc- trine is set forth in the formularies of the Church of England." Ill 85, ch. 11. (b) Between chapter and chapter. ( 1 ) At the close of a chapter, looking forward to the next chapter : "During the three days which followed the arrival of the disastrous tidings from Beachy Head, the aspect of London was gloomy and agitated. But on the fourth day all was changed. I5ells were pealing ; flags were fly- ing; candles were arranged in the windows for an illumination ; men were eagerly shaking hands with each other in the streets. A courier had that morning arrived at Whitehall witli great news from Ireland." Close ch. 15. (2) At the beginning of a chapter, looking back on the preceding chapter : '"William had been, diu-ing the whole spring, impatiently expected in Ulster. The Protest- ant settlements along the coast of that prov- ince had. in the course of the month of May, been repeatedly agitated by false reports of his arrival." Beginning of ch. 16. 7. Parayra/^h-Echo. A. The paragraph-echo consists in making the beginning sentence of the paragra])h echo the thought, and sometimes the word- 37 ing, of the conclusion of the preceding paragraph.* Three motives may be as- signed for Macaulay's constant use of this device ; first, though his work is mainly narrative, he habitually refrains from giv- ing dates ; some means of connecting para- graph with paragraph is necessary ; sec- ondly, he had his matter so clearly in mind, and had his groups planned out so systematically, that the closing thought of one paragraph naturally leads into the next paragraph ; thirdly, the absence of dates makes the echo indispensable for coupling the thought or event of one para- graph with that of another. B. Macaulay's Use of the Echo. (a) To connect paragraph with para- graph. "The reply of James was cold. He declared that he had no intention of depriving the Eng- lish colonists of their land, but that he regarded a large portion of them as his enemies, and that, since he consented to leave so much money in the hands of his enemies, it was the more necessary that the civil and military ad- ministration should be in the hands of his friends. 'J. M. Hnrt, H.nndhook of Eng. romp. P. :!!. 38 "Accordingly several Roman Catholics were sworn of flie Privy Council ; and orders were sent to corporations to admit Roman Catholics to municipal advantages. Many officers of the army were arbitrarily deprived of their com- missions and of their bread. It was" 11. 135, ch. 6. "disabilities equally galling on Protestants. It was plain that, under such a prince, apostasy was the only road to greatness. It was a road, however, which few ventured to take. For the spirit of the nation was thoroughly roused ; Olid czrry renegade had to endure such an amount of public scorn and detestation as can- not be altogether unfelt even by the most cal- lous natures. "It is true that several remarkable conver- sions had recently taken place; but they were such as did little credit to the Church of Rome. Two men of high rank had joined her commu- nion ; Henry Mordaunt, Earl of Peterborough, and James Cecil, Earl of Salisbury." II, 181, ch. 7. "reasonably be supposed to agree with his fa- ther's, had great weight. The young politi- cian flattered himself that he had secured the services of an agent eminently cjualified to bring the negotiation with Tyrconnel to a ])ros- perous issue. "This agent was one of a remarkable fam- ily which had sprung from a noble Scottish stock, but which had long been settled in Ire- land." Ill 143, ch. 12. "While Montgomery was labouring to form out of various materials a party which might, when the Convention should reassemble, be powerful enough to dictate to the throne, an enemy still more formidable than Montgomery had set up the standard of civil war in a re- gion about which the politicians of Westmin- ster, and indeed most of the politicians of Ed- inburgh, knew no more than about Abyssinia or Japan. "It is not easy for a modern Englishman, who can pass in a day from his club in Saint James's Street to his shooting box among the Grampians, and who finds in his shooting box all the comforts and luxuries of his club." Ill, 174, ch. 13. (b) In place of a link, to connect sub- ject with subject, "resolution. On the fourteenth of ^larch the Commons were summoned to the Upper House : the title of the Triennial Bill was read ; and it was announced, after the ancient form, that the King and Queen would take the matter into their consideration. The Par- liament was then prorogued. 40 "Soon after the prorogation \\'i!liani set out for tlie Continent. It"' Towards close of ch. 19. '"the Holy See and Lewis was not removed. The King continued to appoint prelates ; the Pope continued to refuse them institution ; and the consequence was that a fourth port of flic dioceses of France had bishops who were inca- pable of performing any episcopal function. "The Anglican Church was, at this time, not less distracted than the Gallican Church. The first of August had been fixed by Act of P'ar-" III, 396, ch. 14. 8 Begiujiings and Endi>igs of Paragraptis. It is a trite sayin^^ that the emphatic places in a paragraph! are the beginning and the end. The great writers have all displayed their skill in utilizing these places for making the best impression upon the reader, but none has shown greater mastery than Macaulay. Here his artifices are well nigh legion. The ones most frequently exhibited are : A. Beginning. (a) His habit of opening a paragraph with an exaggerated statement. He seems always ready to begin a ])ara- graph with : "never,'" "no,"' "nothing." "none." "the greatest.'" Always sure of his point, he exerted himself rather to 41 impress than to be fair and moderate. Thus : "The noblest subject in England, and, indeed, as Englishmen loved to say, the noblest subject in Europe, was Aubrey de Vere . . ."" "None of the English nobles enjoyed a greater measure of public favour than Charles Sackville. "No barrister living had opposed the court with more virulence than William Williams. "Never had the church been so dear to the nation." "Never was there a clearer case. ..." (b) Opening with a commonplace state- ment of eighteen to twenty words, then immediately passing over into exciting details. "A few hours before the execution of the chief conspirators, a general muster of the army was held : and it was ob- served that the ranks of the English battalions looked thin. From the first day of the campaign there had been much sick}iess among the recruits ; but it was not until the time of the equinox that the mortality became alarming. . . ." (And so on through a terrible descrip- tion.) Schombero- in Ireland, cli. 14. (c) Opening with a succinct statement which (1) gathers up in a word or two the substance of the preceding j^ara- graph, or (2) denies what was said in the preceding paragraph. Thus, after speaking at length of the sufferings of the English, he begins the next para- graph : (1) "The Irish army suft'ered much less. The Kerne of Munster or Connaught. . . ." (2) After giving a long paragraph to the effect of an alarm on the Irish army, he begins the next para- graph : "The alarm proved false. The Duke's army . . ." Schomberg in Ireland, ch. 14. B. Endings of Paragraphs. (a) ]\Iacaulay's power to converge the thoughts of a paragraph into a striking close. Thus, having spoken in detail of the various fortunes of Charles Montague and Matthew Prior after they had to- gether written a satire of "The Hind and the Panther," he concludes the para- graph: "... At length, after many 43 eventful years, the associates, so long parted, were reunited in \\'estminster Abbey." II., 187, ch. 7. (b) Closing a paragraph with a state- ment the very opposite of the general thought of the paragraj)!!. See acounts of Danby, Nottingham, Shrewsbury. Ch. 11. (c) Closing one paragraph and begin- ning the next with the same word. ". . . On the following morning James left his capital in the opposite direction to encounter Sclwmhcrg." "Sclwinbcrg had landed in the north of Ulster." III., 379. ch. 14. (d) Closing with a story or incident. These stories are always short and pithy. They are placed at the close of the paragraph to illustrate and to en- force the teaching of the paragraph. It will not be necessary to give exam- ples. Opening any volume of the His- tory at random, the reader will be pretty sure to find one. (e) Sometimes the whole of a long para- graph is given up to a particular inci- dent, the connection of which with the main narrative does not become obvious until the very end. In other words, the 44 or l)aragra])h is an illustration made ef- fective by keeping the point in suspense until the very close of the parag-raph. See Baldearg O'Donnel at Limerick, ch. 16. 9. The Subject-Sentence. A. My observation is that, throughout the History, the subject-sentences are, as a rule, at the beginning of the paragraph. They may be short or longer according to the necessitv of the case. Thus : "The .Ithaiiasiaii creed caused much perplexity. A Tost of the Commis- sioners were equally unwilling to give up the doctrinal clauses. . . .'" III.. 423. ch. U. Or: "The i^reat moral and intellectual in- fluence of the En_i:^}ish universities had been strenuously e.verfed on the side of the cro-a'u. The headquarters of Charles the First had been at Ox- ford. . . . Cambridge was not less loyally disposed, etc. . . ." Lord Macaulay's habit of com- posing brief subject-sentences and placing them at the beginning is verv noticeable in the large paragraph 45 groups of ordinary narration and de- scription. See twelve paragraphs from "The State of the EngHsh Part of Ireland" to "Saint Ruth." II.,, 170- 180. ch. 17. P). ?^Iany times, as Minto remarks,* the par- agraph subject-sentence is not given until the fourth or fifth sentence. Thus : "Such had been his policy as long as he could cherish any hope that the Church of England would consent to share ascendency with the Church of of Rome. That hope at one time amounted to confidence. . . . But he was disappointed. His parliament with- stood him," etc. etc. II., 189, ch. 7. "The marked discourtesy of the Pope might well have irritated the weakest of princes. But the only effect wliich it produced on James was to make him more lavish of caresses and compli- ments. While Castlemaine, his wdiole soul festering with angry passions, was on his road back to England, the Nun- cio zms loaded zcith honours zchich his ozvn judgment zvould have led him to reject. ..." (All the rest of the long paragraph *Manual of Eng. Prose. 46 is on these honors.) Cli. 8. para- graph 1. When the subject-sentence, as above, does not come till the fourth or fifth sentence it will be found that the first few sentences summarize what has been said in the preceding- paragraph. It is a great mistake to sujipose that the trenchant statements in three or four w^ords frequently found at the begin- ning- of ]\Iacaulay"s paragraphs are sub- ject-sentences. This is a mannerism of Macaulay's. the object of which will be spoken of in a future chapter. C. Sometimes the subject-sentence does not appear till near the close, or at the close of a paragraph. In the paragraph of six hundred words, or fifty-five lines, in Chap- ter 12, beginning, "Meanwhile Mountjoy and Rice. ..." the topic is Lewis's and Louvois's opinions of James's wishes. The subject-sentence does not appear till the fortieth line. Thus: "Such were the sentiments of Lewis, and in those senti- ments he was confirmed b\- his minister of war, Louvois. . . ."' The remaining fifteen lines are given up to the opinions of Louis, 47 10. Repeated Structure. It is to be expected that a writer like ]\Ia- caulay. who lays such stress on clearness, would indulge freely in repeated structure. In truth, much of the clearness and force for which he is justly famous is due to this very device. He subtly stamps an idea on the mind bv rq^eating it in more lucid language ; he makes a picture vivid by gradually unfolding its beauties or its horrors. "A few hours before the execution of the chief conspirators, a general muster of the army was held ; and it zcas observed that the ranks of the English battalions looked thin. From the first day of the campaign, there had been much sickness among the recruits; but it was not till the time of the equinox that the mortality became alarming. The autumnal rains of Ireland are usually heavy; and this year they were heavier than usual. The whole country was deluged : and the Duke's camp became a marsh. The Enniskillen men i^'cre seasoned to the climate. The Dutch were ac- customed to live in a countrs' which, as a wit of that age said, draws fifty feet of water. They kept their huts dry and clean ; and they had exi>erienced and careful officers who did not suffer tliem to omit any precaution. Rut the peasants of Yorkshire and Derbyshire had 48 neitlicr constitutions prepared to resist the pernicious influence nor skill to protect them- sehes against it. The bad provisions furnished !)}• tlic commissariat aggravated the maladies generated by tJic air. Remedies were almost entirely wanting. The surgeons were few. The metlicine chest contained little more than lint and i)lastcrs for wounds. The English sickened and died by hundreds. Even those who were not smitten ])y the pestilence were unnerved and dejected, and. instead of putting forth the energy which is the heritage of our race, aieaited tlieir fate with the helpless apathy of .■Lsiaties." Schomberg in Ireland, ch. 14. In this passage several things are note- worthy : (1 ) The first sentence suggests that there is something wrong in the English ranks. (2) the epithets for "something wrong" grad- ually get stronger and stronger — "sickness." "mortality and alarm," "suffering," "pernicious influence," ''malady generated by the air," "pestilence," "death," "men awaiting their fate with the helpless apathy of Asiatics." (3) All this is an amplification of the phrase, "something wrong." The picture at fTrst sug- gested is gradually unfolded. (4) The eft'ect is heightened by contrasting the English with the Enniskillcns and Dutch. Those parts of the History which call for 40 a display of imagination are full of repeated structure, as various in form as it is impressive and full of light. In the subtlety with which he leads the reader into the midst of such scenes as we have been studying, by a way which is gradual and of deepest impress, Ma- caulay is as masterly as he is in more con- spicuous artifices. 11. Selection, Proportion, Variety. There are three criteria for the judgment of a man's literary capacity or capability : First, his choice of material, the items he selects for a desired effect ; second, the place and prominence he gives to each item ; third, his manner of varying the shades of thought and forms of expression. When Macanlay is at his best, no one will better stand the test of these criteria. His success was due, first, to his resourcefulness ; second, to his untiring care. It is pleasurable to study one of the best specimens of his art. The following repre- sentation of English ignorance of the beauties of the Highlands is found in Vol. Ill, p. 274, ch. 13: 1 "beauties of nature. A traveller must be freed from all apprehension of being mur- dered or starved before he can be charmed 2 b\ the bold outlines and rich tints of the r.o lulls. He is not likely to be thrown into ecstasies by the abruptness of a precipice from which he is in imminent danger of falling two thousand feet perpendicular ; by the boiling waves of a torrent which sud- denly whirls away his baggage and forces him to run for his life, by the gloomy grandeur of a pass where he finds a corpse which marauders have just stripped and mangled ; or by the screams of those eagles whose next meal may probably be on his own eyes. About the year 1730, Captain Burt, one of the first Englishmen who caught a glimpse of the spots which now allure fourisfs from every part of the civil- ized world, wrote an account of his wan- derings. He was evidently a man of a quick, an observant and a cultivated mind, and would doubtless, had he lived in our age, have looked with mingled awe and de- light on the iiwitiifains of Invernessshire. But, writing with the feeling which was uni- versal in his own age, he pronounced those mountains monstrous excrescences. Their deformity, he said, was such that the most sterile plains seemed lovely by comparison. Fine weather, he complained, only made bad worse ; for, the clearer the day, the more disagreeably did those missha[:en 51 masses of gloomy brown and dirty purple 8 affect the eye. What a contrast, he ex- 9 claimed, between these horrible prospects and the beauties of Richmond Hill! Some persons may think that Burt was a man of vulgar and prosaical mind ; but they will scarcely venture to pass a similar judgment 10 on Oliver Goldsmith. Goldsmith was one of the very Saxons who, more than a cen- 11 tury ago, ventured to explore the High- lands. He was disgusted by the hideous zalderuess. and declared that he greatly preferred the charming country around Ley den, the vast expanse of verdant meadow and the villas with their statues and 12 grottoes, trim flower beds, and rectilinear avenues. Yet it is difficult to believe that the author of tJie Traveller and of the De- serted Village was naturally inferior in taste and sensibility to the thousands of clerks and inillincrs wdio are now thrown into raptures by the sight of Loch Katrine \3.and Loch Lomond. His feelings may easily 14 be explained. It was not till roads had been cut out of the rocks, till bridges had been flung oi'cr the courses of the rizmlets, till inns had succeeded to dens of robbers, till there zvas as little danger of being slain or plundered in the wildest defile of Badenoch 52 or Lochabcr as in Cornhill, that strangers could he enchanted by the blue dimples of the lakes and by the rainbozvs zvhich over- hung the zcaterfalls, and could derive a solemn pleasure even from the clouds and tempests which lowered on the mountain tops." The two parts of sentences are amplified in last sentence. Alacaulay obtains his efifects in this para- graph by repetition and contrast. First, let us consider the repetition. Having previously given a grand description of the Highlands, he writes his subject-sentence thus : "A traveller must be freed from all apprehen- sion of being murdered or starved before he can be charmed by the bold outlines and rich tints of the hills." This thought is repeated, intensified, and stamped indelibly upon the mind in the next sentence. Then it is, seem- ingly, kept in abeyance until the closing sen- tence, when it is repeated and emphasized in an imaginative flight rivaling any of the gor- geous imagery with which Burke was wont to close his paragraphs. Next let us consider the contrasts. The sec- ond sentence contains a series of them. Con- trasts are also made between the "horrible prospects" and Richmond Hill ; between the 53 "hideous wilderness" and Leyden ; between the "wild defiles" and Cornhill ; between places of allurement for modern tourists and the "dis- oust" of Burt and Goldsmith ; between the plain statement of the subject in the first sen- tence and the "mingled awe and delight" in- spired by its full emphatic statement in the last sentence. Mainly through the devices of con- trast and repetition, then, this exaltation of mind is obtained. If we look a little closely at the passage quoted we shall see : ( 1 ) That selection is exercised in the ma- terials used to impress the one thought, and to convince the mind of its truthful- ness. In the first two sentences Alacaulay introduces the thought and expands it. He next shows how the travelers of 1790 dififered from the tourists of recent years in their opinions of the Highlands, after which he proves that some at least of the early travelers were men of acknowledged taste. For surely a Goldsmith was not inferior in taste to the modern tourist. Hence, Macaulay concludes that popular opinion of the Highlands in 1790 was biased by fear of the Highlanders, \\diilc Macaulay is convincing our reason by this specious argument, he adroitly manneuvers 54 to beguile our imagination through pic- tures of mingled awe and delight. (2) That due attention is paid to spacing and to the prominence which each item deserves. The quotation is divisible into four sections: (a) from the subject-sen- tence to the instance of Captain Burt ; (b) the instance of Captain Burt; (c) the instance of Goldsmith; (d) conclusion of these four sections (a) and (d) are much the same, except that in the long sen- tence of (a) emphasis is everywhere given to the terror inspired by the Highlands ; in (d) the emphasis is placed on their wdld beauty. Sections (b) and (c), on Burt and Goldsmith are meant only to illustrate and prove the view stated in (a) and enforced so confidently by a final appeal to reason and imagination in (d). (3) That in the quotation there is every element of variety. Mingled wnth the im- aginative sentences are terse ones which show that Macaulay can say a "plain thing plainly"* as well as a "fine thing finely.'' Everywhere there is exhibited a delicate sense of language. Language and feeling go hand in hand thus : "Abruptness of a precipice," "gloomy *See what Macaulay says on Tacit us in liis Essay on History. 65 grandeur," "mountains monstrous ex- crescences," "misshapen masses of gloomy brown and dirty purple," "horrible pros- pects," and "trim flower beds," "recti- linear avenues," "enchanted by the blue dimples of the sky," "solemn pleasure even from the clouds." In choice of material, in placing of material and in variety of expression Macaulay is among the best writers : for the adaptation of structure to thought is everywhere the crowning quality of the great masters. Be CHAPTER III NARRATION Mdcaiilay's Manner in General. (a) History as a form of literature has to do with many forms of writing, — nar- ration, description, exposition, argument. (b) But, because it has to do. for the most part, with events chronologically stated, it is mostly narration. (c) (1) In studying Macaulay's narra- tive work we are not concerned with the final position of the History in Eng- lish literature. It is necessary, how- ever, to remember that his ideal was to cast historical material into that form of literature called the novel. He has, therefore, after the fashion of novelists, grouped all his events around two great characters — James and William — the one representing to him the evil force in English politics, the other the force making for good, — law, liberty, order and good government. In the narra- tion the events all have to do, directly 57 or indirectly, with these two men, who never disappear from si^ht. Whether the events concern the people or the gov- ernment, all point towards James and William. The stream of events always touches the one or the other. (2) The period of time covered in the narrative is fifteen years. The task Macanlay set for himself, — to mass in the form of a novel with W^illiam and James as its chief characters all the events pertaining to the people and the government, — necessitated a most com- plex narrative. All the events, though they have more or less to do with the kings, have also to do with England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Holland, or the departments of state, or society, or individuals of greater or lesser ]:)romi- nence in letters, government or war. Accordingly, though the main narrative has to do with kings, there are innum- erahle subsidiary narratives. Still all these converge upon the main narra- tive ; and the History, a torso though it be of the plan set forth in his intro- duction, is, considered by itself, a unit. The word narrative is really inadequate to describe the History. It is composed 58 of many narratives, some j)ile(l one upon the other hke strata, sometimes playing against one another, criss-cro^s- mg, yet ahvays promoting the main in- terest centered in the kings. Macanhv had a wonderful gift for carrying on the different threads of narration, with- out tangling them ; always clear, he always stimulates, always makes the reader's interest keener and keener in the kings, their characters, acts, and the principles they represented. ( d ) The narrative work may be put under three heads, according to subject. (1) The History as a whole, the sub- ject of which is the events connected with James and William. (2) By chapters, the subjects of which vary according to place or time. They concern Scotland, Ireland, England, France, Holland according to the time in the narrative, or, in other words, according to the progress of events. (3) By parts of chapters. These vary according to the concern which an in- dividual or party or section of the country may have in the division of the main subject of which the chapter treats. 50 Everywhere unity of main or sub- sidiary narrative is preserved as at- tention is paid to the sequence of events, and interest is stimulated — sometimes, indeed, "till stimulus loses its force." 2. Condensed Navratk'e and Amplified Nar- rative. (a) The narrative is short or long accord- ing as the historian conceived an event or series of events to be of greater or lesser importance., (b) From this come two kinds of narra- tive — condensed and amplified. Con- densed narrative consists of from one to three paragraphs in which are cast events selected from a large group which might otherwise have made a long narrative. It is as if the historian were compelled by self-imposed limits of space to exercise choice and condense his statement into the smallest number of paragraphs. Amplified narrative, on the other hand, is that in which the historian seems to have felt himself at liberty to develop his. subject with extreme fulness. (c) Use of condensed narration. Macaulay had admirable power in short- enina" or lencthening his narrative to suit his special purpose. Yet, whether he works within a narrow or a wide compass, he seldom lets his narrative become un- £;ainly. His condensed narrative is as ad- miralile in its way as his amplified narra- tive. He was n(^t less artful in massing' his material than in spreadinj^' it over a lono- series of paragraphs. Neither form is tawdry, rather is each in its kind lively and impressive. In condensed narration Macaulay bunches events into one. two, or three paragraphs. ( 1 ) Condensed narration in one para- graph. See 1. The storv of the convers- ion of William Sher- lock, told in a single narrative paragraph of one and a half pages. IV. 150-152, Ch. V. See 2. Ill-atTection of clergy for the king. Ill, 428-430, Ch. 14. (2) Condensed narrative in two para- graphs. These jiaragraphs may be long or short to suit the occasion. The short ones have a staccato ef- fect ; the long drawn out paragraphs are more graphic and pleasurable, 61 See 1. For long paragraphs, the state of Ireland at the time of the Revolution, the second and third paragraphs of chapter 12. See 2. For short paragraphs : Go- dolphin retires, III. 490. Ch. 15. (3) Condensed narrative in three paragraphs. 1. The meeting of the English regiments. III. 45-49, Ch. 2. 2. William's foreign favourites. III. 63-66. Ch. 2.' (d) Use of amplified narrative. (1) Something of ]\Iacaulay's power in biographical and historical narration had been known from his essays, but the fulness of this power was not known until the publication of the History. The variety in the length of his ampli- fied narrative, on a single subject, ranges from three to one hundred and one paragraphs. He seldom goes be- yond a hundred paragraphs and there -are, but a few examples of a hundred paragraphs on a single subject. Also, though his amplified narrative may he 62 more or less continuous throuj;h from four to seventy-five paragraphs, it is usually broken intermittently by descrip- tion or exposition or argunicnt. This is due to the very nature of historical com- position. It is therefore difficult to cite very long examples of ])ure narration. (2) .\mi)lified narration varies in num- ber and size of paragraphs according to the importance of the subject. Thus : 1. The king's attitude towards the banished Huguenots. II. 78-82, Ch. 6, four paragraphs, two long, two medium. The subject is con- nected, with both the preceding and following subjects, bv the echo. 2. The events leading to the turn- ing of the Queen of James to the Jesuits. II. 72-76. ch. 6. Ten paragraphs. Gradual rise into two grand paragraphs of one and a quarter pages each. 3. James and Scotland. I. 446- 453, ch. 4. Eleven paragraphs, mixed, medium and long. 4. James" first parliament. I. 459- 71. ch. 4. Twenty-six paragraphs, 63 following the general order of wave movement of paragraphs in Macaulay. 3. Movement of Paragraphs in Narration. The best means of learning how methodical Macaulay can be in uninterrupted narrative is to study the mechanism of a representative passage. Such a passage is the second half of chapter 9, on the Coming, Arrival, and Prog- ress of William, and the Acts of James from that time till his abdication. In the hundred and one paragraphs of this passage the following points are noticeable : 1 . The paragraphs vary in length in ac- cordance with the principle of wave-move- ment mentioned in chapter 1 of this paper. 2. The ratio of paragraphs to page 101 :68, exemplifies the modern practice of making the average paragraph less than a page. 3. In the first part (William's coming, prog- ress, arrival, thirty-six paragraphs, II, 427-450). the interest is intentionally cen- tered: (1) in the efifect of William's ar- rival on Devonshire (see grand paragraph of three and a half pages, 437-441) ; and (2) in the effect on London, narrated in a grand paragraph of one and a half ]~>ages. 443-4-14. 4. In the second part (acts of James up to 64 the time of his escape, sixty-five para- graphs. II. 450-494). the paragraphs mostly of moderate length, are marie to move rapidly towards the most important event, — the flight. The grand paragraphs of one to one and a half pages each, to- wards the close of the chapter, relate the details of the flight. 4. Rci-crtiii<^r Narrative. By this is meant the narration of certain early portions of the story after the main action has been carried on awhile.''' This is a common device of epic poets and novelists. Macaulay has used it many times in his His- tory. See 1. The History of the Xational Debt, l\\ 390-401. ch. 19. Here the great writer, having brought his History up to the point when a national debt became necessary, turns back to recount the events which led Parliament to the deci- sion to contract such a debt. See 2. Debates upon the trade with India, IW 221-234, ch. 18, and I\', 384, ch. 19. Here Macaulay. having carried the main narrative up to the time when the de- bates began in Parliament, turns back to *.J. :a. Hart's Handbook of Eng. ("omp. P. 4S. 65 Of THE UNIVERSITY relate the history of the trade from EHza- beth's time onwards. 5. Otfcrlapp'mg Narrative. Macaulay, who had so many groups of char- acters to hnk together, and whose ideal was to make his personages move and to inspire in- terest in them after the fashion of his favour- ites. Jane Austen and Maria Edgeworth, in their novels, naturally used the same expedients for carrying on the simultaneous action of his several groups. That is to say, he used what is technically called Overlapping Narrative. There are many examples in the History. One will suffice to illustrate the use of the artifice: Between 157-166, Y. IV. ch. 17, ?^lacaulay has been speaking of the ]ilot of Russell. Go- dolphin and Marlborough against William. He concludes thus : "But he (Marlborough) had otJicr objects which neither Russell nor Go- dolphin had ever contemplated. There is, as zve shall see, strong reason to believe that this wise, brave, wicked man was meditating a plan . . . (which) would have ruined Wil- liam without benefiting James, and would have made the successful traitor master of England and arbiter of Europe." The main narrative, on the war in Ireland and the acts of Parlia- ment assembled, is then carried on for eighty- 06 three pages ; that is. through the reniainder of chapter 17 and the first quarter of chap- ter IS. Suddenly the heginning of the narra- tive of the plot of Marlborough is announced in a link, thus : "It is certain that those who in the confer- ence on this bill represented the Commons did not exaggerate the dangers to which the gov- ernment was exposed. While the constitution of the court which was to try peers for treason was under discussion, a treason planned with rare skill by a peer was all but carried into ex- ecution. "Marlborough had never never ceased to as- sure the Court of Saint Germains that the great crime which he had committed was con- stantly present to his thoughts, and that he lived only for the purpose of . . ." 6. Digression. (a) The meaning of digression is plain. Digression is the introduction of matter into a narrative having no direct connec- tion with that narrative. ^lacaulay in- dulges in digression for two reasons : ( 1 ) to utilize material that could not other- wise be used; (2) to clear up some point or points in the main narrative. On 1. See: The account of George Fox and his following. I\', 132-138, ch. 17. 67 On 2. See : "Of the manner in which such a bid should have been framed," IV, 407-410. ch. 19. (b) Usually Macaulay's dig^ressions are justifiable, and they are carefully con- nected with the main narrative by means of the link-paragraph. There are cases^ however, where the digression is appar- ently due to the mere wish to communicate something out of the fulness of his knowl- edge. See 1 : His statements on the rise, prog- ress and decline of Parliamentary corruption in England. III. 484-489, ch. 15. See 2 : Remarks on politics in the reigns of George III and George IV, IV, 220-221, ch. 18. 7. Episode. Episode, deviation from the main narrative to tell a pointed story or relate a pleasing in- cident, another artifice of the novelists and epic poets, is once and again found in the History. Thus : 1. Macaulay diversifies the narrative of the angry debates of Parliament at the beginning of chapter 15 with two short episodes. The first is on the reception of Walker in London 68 (see chajjter 15, paragraph 10). The second is on Edmund Eudlow, chap- ter 15. paragraph 13. The first of these is called "a pleasing incident" ; the second, "another curious and in- teresting episode." 2. A long", comparatively dry account of Parliamentary legislation, IV, ZZ7- 381, ch. 19, is diversified hy relating the episode of the murder of an actor by Lord Mohun, 381-384. The inci- dent is introduced as follows: in the course of the session an event took place . . . which well deserves to be recorded as a striking illustration of the state of manners and morals in that age." 8. Intercalated Narrative. A born raconteur like Macaulay. impatient because brilliant, could not at times refrain from a hasty glance into the future, dashing ofif a striking bit of narrative by way of satis- faction and inserting the tid-bit in the main narrative, in disregard of the normal sequence of events. Such striking narrative, technically called intercalated narrative, is sometimes found in the History. A notable example is the pictorial narrative of the efifect j^roduced on Anne and her house- 69 hold by the government's proposition to put her on the Civil List with an arniuity of 20.000 pounds. III. 500-506, ch. 15. The proposition is made by Macaulay the occasion for telling the story of Lady Marlborough's influence over Anne. The insertion, wholly uncalled for in this part of the History, we may safely regard as the precursor of Macaulay's projected but unwritten history of the reign of Anne. 9. Mixed Narration and Description. (a) Frequently we find an historical pas- sage which, in its relation to events or phenomena, has the order of time, or cause and efifect, but details of which are descriptive of some person or thing. Such a passage is called mixed narration and description. Macaulay abounds in such passages. They may consist of one para- graph or many. (b) Alacaulay's use of mixed narration and description. 1. In one long paragraph. See : Sir James Dalrymple of Stair, III, 242-244, ch. 13. And, the haggling of the ambassadors before the treaty of Ryswick. V, 232-235, ch. 23. 2. In three paragraphs. See : James's public exhibition of his 70 Catholicism, 1, 426-429. ch. 4. 3. In 12 paragraphs of lively move- ment. See: The Progress of James, III, 160-166, ch. 12. 10. Mixed Exposition and Narration. Yet another narrative form is found in the History ; that is, narration mixed with exposi- tion. It is not always necessary for an his- torian to find causes for the effects which he has observed, nor to explain situations, nor to trace the motives for action ; sometimes, in- deed, it is not possible ; nevertheless ^^lacaulay contrives to mix with his narrative much ex- position. JNIany passages might be cited in which his aim is evidently to narrate, in which there is a clearly discernible thread of narra- tion running from beginning to end, yet in which there is so much of explanation, or formulation of principle, or statement of what seems to him to be the truth in opposition to the opinion of party or sect, that no better term can be given to such passages than mixed exposition and narration. Far example : I. In the "Debate on the State of the Nation," II, 558-562, ch. 10, there is much explanation of party opinion, yet criticism of political doctrine, etc. 71 Macaulay's object was undoubtedly to narrate events then happening in Par- liament. 2. L 528-530, ch. 5, is a narration of the progress of ]Monmouth. But an ex- position of Whig doctrine is run into the narrative. In concluding this section the following ex- planation may be suggested for Alacaulay's mixture of rhetorical forms. — narration and description, exposition and narration. First, his mixture of narration and description may be regarded as an artifice borrowed from the novelists, who embellish their narratives with descriptions of animate and inanimate objects, captivating their readers with lively pictures of men and nature. Second, his mixture of exposition and narration — that is, his summary statement of doctrine, formulation of princi- ple, etc. — have some resemblance to the moral- izings of the novelists. In short, the above- mentioned forms are part of the garb of fiction wdth which ]\lacaulay aimed to dress his History. 72 CHAPTER IV DESCRIPTION Macaiilay's Manner. A. His theory. In description, no less than in narration, IMacaulay endeavored to carry out his ideal of perfection in historical writing. History, he believed, in its state of imaginary per- fection, should "impress great truths on the mind by a vivid representation of particular characters and incidents. By "particular characters and incidents" he meant the lumi- nous description of men and places. He would utilize in history that graphic de- scription of character, that pictorial hue and shade in place-description which had made the great novelists famous. In a word, as an historian, he would catch the spirit of the novelists in the color, form and incident of their description, as well as in lively nar- ration. B. Difference between description in ihc novel and in history. But there were limits to Macaulay's power 73 to borrow the devices of the novelists in de- scription. The novehst creates such char- acters as he wishes, and may describe ideal or real situations or places. As long as he is true to human nature in character-descrip- tion, as long- as his place-description has k semblance of reality, he is not open to criti- cism in these two points. The historian, on the other hand, imit-ite the novelists as he may, is restricted to historical fact. He may not create his characters ; they exist already. The places and scenes in history, likewise, are not the product of the imagination. Xevertherless. the historian may approach the novelist in the sheen, the color, the live- liness of his portraiture of persons who have actually lived, or in recasting before his readers scenes in the drama of history, or else in sketching or painting places where the characters acted or where events took place. If the historian is. in his imitation, approximate to the best work of the novelist, he must be greater in his descriptive gifts, because of the vast number of places and characters to be described, and the necessity of adhering to fact. Macaulay knew this and expressed his knowledge of the fact in the close of his essay on History. Never- theless, it is obvious that in his History he 74 strenuously endeavored to carry out his ideal, not only in narrative of events, htu in description of character, place and scene. C. Macaulay's description in general. (a) His great abilities in certain kinds of description. 1. His love of movement. He revels in gorgeous pageants, movements of armies and processions. He has no liking for description of still life. 2. There is a very strong pathetic ele- ment in the History. See: Mary's death, IV, 180. The severe simplicity and earnestness of this description is more effective than the most skilled rhetoric. Macaulav abandons the long, swinging paragraphs ordinarily found in his description of movement. The subject is sad, it re(|uires earnest- ness and simplicity of treatment. The paragraphs, therefore, are short. It is to be noted that the paragraph I, p. 580, closes with rare simplicity and sadness. See also : Execution of Argyle, 1. 504-511; The Trial and Execution of Alonmouth, T. 554-563 ; Death of Charles H, in I, 3S7-3')7, ch. 4. 75 (b) His manner in these two kinds of description. In (1) his paragraphs are long, stately, majestic, in keeping with the grandeur of the subject. See: Pageant of Wil- liam in Exeter, II, 437-444 : the bril- liant reception of James and ^lary by Louis XIV in II, 537-541 ; the corona- tion of William and Mary, II. 115-188. In (2) the paragraphs are of short or medium length, in keeping with the dominant emotion. Macaiilay's Fondness for Description. A. The- great writer's strenuous effort to conform to his ideal has been remarked upon ; it is exhibited in the number, vari- ety and length of his descriptive passages. The imagination of the writer, his re- sourcefulness in description, condensed or amplified character-description, scenic play, beautiful place-description, long and short and exceedingly diversified in coloring, have made the History pictorial indeed. There is hardly a page in the His- tory on which there is not some descrip- tion, in miniature, or unabridged and rich of tint. B. Though Macaulay's peculiar gifts of description are best seen in elaborate 76 passages, his fondness for it is shown in his attempt to make "pictures in every Hne." He accordingly slips in short descriptive touches in all forms of narration. These little scenes, character- and place-descriptions, though (|uite hrief and intended to illustrate the narrative proper, are distinct and complete in them- selves. See 1. Blaise Pascal in the running narrative and expository pas- sage on the Jesuits II., chap. 1. 2. Description of \"reary, III., 130-134. ch. 7. 3. Description of Enniskillen, III., 134-135, ch. 7. Obscrz'atioiis on flic Character of Macau- lay's Description. A. Macaulay in historical description is confined to characters, places and scenes in the History of England during the fifteen years from 1688 to 1713. Under these circumstances he (lis])layed great taste: in variety of color, in variety of size; in the variety of material selected. a. In variety of color. Faithful to his ideal of perfection he did not shirk the description of good or bad characters, magnificent or 77 horrid scenes, attractive or unattrac- tive places or situations. He did not attempt to make a bad character at- tractive ; he did not show horrid scenes which he felt it his duty to describe. He as carefully painted unattractive places as attractive ones. In no instance does he exhibit a vul- gar or plebean spirit. Throughout all he is refined, high-minded, dignified. Even the casual reader of the His- tory is aware of these truths. Hence no citations are necessary. b. In variety of size. Macaulay's descriptions vary in size from three or four lines to three or four pages octavo. They range from a few suggestive points, thrown out after the manner of Kipling and other short story writers, up to elabo- rate description embracing all the sa- lient features of a character or scene. In compass, therefore, he has equaled the short-story writers and the nov- elists. c. In variety of material. It is observable that the great Eng- lish novelists afli^ect much sameness in description of character, place 78 and scene. Almost every novel of George Eliot, for example, has situ- ations, characters, scenes, descrip- tions which are similar to those in her other novels. Novelists have their favorite characters, situations, scenes. But Macaulays gallery of characters ranges from empei'ors, kings, ministers, great lords and l)ish- ops, parliamentarians and scholars down to conspirators, assassins and fanatics : to all he does even-handed justice in character-description. In scene-painting his description has called for the approbation of critics and rhetoricians. For movement, for glitter, excitement, his scenes have probably been rivaled by those of Carlyle. His place-description in the History is sparse, but adequate. True, he marks only the most notice- able features of a land>cape or town ; but his descriptive power lends itself to whatever is needful in the descrip- tion of the splendour of Highlands, the conspicuous features of a town, or the artificial cultivated beauties of an English coinitry mansion embos- omed among elms, or a farmhouse 79 peeping out from amongst beehives and apple blossoms. B. We may say : ( 1 ) Macaulay realized his theory of historical writing; (2) while for the most part remaining true to the facts of history, he has surpassed the nov- elists in the multitude of his character- descriptions and in the variety given to character-description; (3) in the abandon of his depiction of pageants he has seldom been equaled by historians and possibly never by novelists. 4. Character-Description, Frequency, Where it Occurs and JVhy. A. Who are described. It may be sai 1 in all truth that not only every person of prominence in the fifteen years. 1688-1713, is material for Macaulay's descriptive art, but hundreds of characters who played only incitleutal parts in the drama of the Revolution come to life again in his graphic pages. B. The variety in length of paragraph in character-descriptions. 1. The description may be of any length from a few lines to several pages. See 1. Monmouth, I, 231. 80 2. William, Mary and lUir- net, IT, 152-176. 2. A character - description usuall\- stands in a paragraph by itself. (a) Often in a single paragrajih. See Tillotson, II, 417-419. (b) Oftener character-descriptions follow one another in a para- graph-group. See 1. The non-jurors. If. 407-416. 2. The chiefs of the Whigs, 1\\ 502-.120. (c) A paragraph is often part character-description and part narrative of events in the life of the same character. See Barillon and Talbot. II, 56-57. (d) Many character-descriptions are vignettes within the narra- tive paragraphs. See: The character of Charles's concubines in chapter 4, and Pascal, Tl. 64. C. The places where character-description is to be expected. 1. A character-description or a series of character-descriptions is often found at the beginning of a narrative passage. Macaulay's preference was to make the character-description explain the events /^in the narration. In other words, be- fore telHng ns of a person's actions, Macanlay lays bare the motives and dis- positions from which those actions have proceeded. See: Jeffreys. I, 406-429; Schom- berg. II1/372; Tillotson, III, 420. Best of all, see: William Will- iams, II, 310. This description of Williams illuminates and strength- ens wonderfully the succeeding narrative passages. 2. In many cases, like those above, the reader is left to infer the effect of the character in the succeeding events. In others Alacaulay directly ])lans to show that the character described is just the. character and was in just the circum- stances to act as we find him acting in the narrative which follows. See: Castlemaine, II, 226; II, 243. 3. Effect heightened by suspense. Sometimes Macaulay does not bring the character he has described into play at once. He impresses the mind strongly P3 l)y lavishing all his eloquence on a char- acter for a paragraph or two placed op- portunely at the beginning of a narrative series. He then leaves the character and narrates events not connected with that character. No direct connection between the events and the person is made, but he is remembered from the description. When the person does later appear as an actor, his actions are understood. A lively impression is made on the reader 1)}- the suspense. See: Sutherland, II, 67, 399-405. In the same passage the work of vSidney is also going on. He is described in 366. See also Torrington, III, 536- 542, 396-397. D. Explanation for the frequency of char- acter-description. In the essa}^ on History ^lacaulay lays weight on the fact that the historian who would be a great artist must produce pic- tures as striking, for example, as the pic- ture of Elizabeth in Scott's Kenilworth, and so frequent as to be found on every page. To equal such novelists was his design in making frequent like-life pic- tures. The number of his characters, 1::- manner of introducing their appearrnce, 83 their sayings, their acts, voice, features, his explanation of the impression they made, warrants our conclusion that he has accomplished his end, namely, "to give truth those attractions usurped by fiction." Place- and Sccnc-Dcscription. Noticeable Features. A. Where Macaulay is apt to introduce place-description and scene-description. 1. Just before the narration of events which lead up to a battle or other event of importance. See Sedgemoor, I, 546; Landing at Torbay, II, 433 ; Exeter, 437 ; Lon- donderry, III, 136; Enniskillen, III, 134. 2. At the opening of chapters. See Death of Charles II, ch. 4 (scene) ; Carrie Mfergus. ch. 16 (place). B. \A'hat places and scenes are described? All the places associated with leading events or prominent events in the period covered. Macaulay visited all the places he described and wrote in accordance with his personal observation. Place-descriptions. 1. They are usually found before 84 the narrative of events concerned with the place. See Kerr}', III, 120-134; KiUie- crankie. III, 320; Boyne, I\^ 18-19. 2. They usually contain but a feu- words, — seldom over a page and a half octavo,— and usually consist of medium sized paragraphs. 3. Alacaulay marks only the most prominent aspects of places, the most noticeable features, the most conspicuous objects. Thus, Boyne, ch. 16: "Still William continued to push forward, and still the Irish receded before him, till, on the morning of Monday, the thirteenth of June, his army, marching in three columns, reached the summit of a rising ground near the southern frontier of the county of Louth. Beneath lay a valley, now so rich and so cheerful that the Englishman who gazes on it may imagine himself to be in one of the most highly fa- voured parts of his own highly favoured country. Fields of wheat, woodlands, meadows bright with daisies and clover, slope gently 85 do7,'i! to the edge of the Boyne. That bright and tranquil stream. the boundary of Louth and Meath. having- floAved many miles between green banks crowned by modern palaces, and by the ruined keeps of old Norman barons of the pale, is here about, to mingle with the sea. Five miles to the i^'cst of the place from which William looked down on the river, now stands, on a ver- dant bank, amidst nolile woods. Slane Castle, the nmnsion of the Marquess of Conyngham. T-ico miles to tlie east, a cloud of smoke from factories and steam vessels overhangs the busy town and port of Drogheda. On the Meatli side of the Boyne, the ground, still all corn, grass, flowers, and foliage, rises with a gentle swell to an emi- nence surmounted by a conspicuous tuft of ash trees which overshades the ruined church and desolate graveyard of Donore." This is a representative passage. Macaulay had not Carlyle's distinc- tive gift for the portrayal of places. His bent was towards the descrip- tion of g^reat scenes or occasions — the pomp attending- the assembly of notables, or the movement of bodies of men. C. Graphic description of scenes in political history. In these ]\Iacaulay reveals his fondness for movement. 1. The movement of processions or pageants. See 1. William at Torbay, II. 437-44. 2. Jonrney of ^\'illiam to Holland and triumphant entry, R', 113-117, ch. 17. 3. Procession of \\' i 1 1 i a m through the country after Namur, V, 76-78. ch. 21. 4. Rejoicing in England after Rysv^ack. The King's en- try into London, close of ch. 22. 2. ^Movement of armies and navies. See : Steinkirk, IV, 352-360, ch. 19. Landan, IV. 465-470. Trahogue. IV. 311-21. The Boyne, J\ , 24- 52, and Londonderry, Dunkeld. Glencoe, Aghrim. 3. Other striking events. See : Expulsion of Fellows of I\Iag- 87 dalen. The Trial of the Seven Bishops. Remarks. In 1 (pageants and processions) the paragraphs are made very long — one page to two and a half pages octavo ; each description usually consists of a series of these long paragraphs full of lively, brilliant details ; the descrip- tions are purposely composed of these long paragraphs in keeping with the majesty and glory of the scene. In 2 (movement of armies and navies) particularly where rapidity of movement is desired, the para- graphs become shorter and shorter ; at times they are so short as to in- tentionally create the impression of haste, breathless haste. In a word, rapidity means short paragraphs. The same is true of description of remarkable scenes full of excitement and bustle, like the trial of the seven Bishops. D. Pathetic scenes ; awful or horrible scenes ; fallen greatness. 1. Macaulay was always profoundly moved by such scenes and described them admirably. See: Death of Mary, 88 death of Charles; best of all. see: the capture and execution of Monmouth, l, 550-563. Remark. The pathetic element is strong in the History. The pathetic descriptions are usually severely simple and are written in a series of medium-sized paragraphs indicative of deep feel- ing expressed calmly. It was often necessary for Macaulay to describe awful or horrible scenes. See: The trial and whipping of Gates, 1, 436; Suffering of Danger- field, I, 440-42 ; End of Jeffreys, III, 360-364. Remark. Descriptions of awful scenes are often made in long paragraphs, sometimes in a single paragraph of one-half or three-fourths of a page, sometimes in a series of paragraphs one-half to three-fourths of a page each. In these descriptions Macaulay makes the paragraphs either cumulative, pregnant with details, or shortens the paragraphs, filling them with short, brief statements and conversa- tion. For the second kind see: Trial 89 of Baxter, I, 442-446. In the second kind the aim is : (1 ) to give more movement, to make the scene dra- matic. 6. Length of Description. Maeaiilay's Abil- ity to Adapt Himself to Description of Any Length, from o Frw Sentences (Vignettes) to Long, Elaborate De- scription. A. Macaulay had the gift of adapting him- self to small or large compass. He could exercise his selective faculty and, hy util- izing conspicuous features, present a pic- ture of a place in a few brief words or condense a character-description into a few lines. Yet these short descriptions do not give the reader any sense of incom- pleteness. He sees at once that minor features are suppressed and prominent points given instead. The few strokes reveal the character and save the time of the writer. The few lines and colors of place-description "throw" before the eye a vignette as marked and suggestive as David's sketch of Marie Antoinette. These vignettes display as much talent as long description. Thus (character-description) : "\Mldman had served forty years be- 90 fore in the parliamentary army, but had been more distinguished there as an agitator than as a soldier, and had early quitted the profession of arms for pursuits better suited to his tem- per. His hatred of monarchy had in- duced him to engage in a long series of conspiracies, first against the Pro- tector, and then against the Stuarts. But with Wildman's fanaticism was joined a tender care for his own safety. He had a wonderful skill in grazing the edge of treason. No man understood better how to instigate others to desperate enterprises by words which, when repeated to a jury, might seem innocent, or at worst, ambiguous. Such was his cunning that, though always plotting, though always known to be plotting, and though long malignantly watched by a vindictive government, he eluded every danger, and died in his bed, after having seen two generations of his accomplices die on the gallows. Danvers was a man of the same class, hotheaded, but fainthearted, con- stantly urged to the brink of danger by enthusiasm, and constantly stopped on that brink by cowardice. He had considerable influence among a por- tion of the Baptists, had written largely in defence of their peculiar opinions, and had drawn down on himself the severe censure of the most respectable Puritans by attempt- ing to palliate the crimes of Matthias and John of Leyden. It is probable that, had he possessed a little courage, he would have trodden in the foot- steps of the wretches whom he de- fended. He was, at this time, con- cealing himself from the officers of justice; for warrants were out against him on account of a grossly calumni- ous paper of which the government had discovered him to be the author. "It is easy to imagine what kind of intelligence and counsel men, such as have been described, were likely to send to the outlaws in the Nether- lands. An estimate may be formed from a few samples. "One of the most conspicuous among them was John AylofTe, a lawyer connected by affinity with the Hydes, and through the Hydes, with James. Ayloffe had early made himself re- 92 markable by offering a whimsical in- sult to the government. At a time when the ascendency of the court of Versailles had excited general un- easiness, he had contrived to put a wooden shoe, the established type, among the English, of French tyranny, into the chair of the House of Commons. He had subsequently been concerned in the Whig plot ; but there is no reason to believe that he was a party to the design of assassinating the royal brothers. He was a man of parts and courage ; but his moral character did not stand high. The Puritan divines whispered •that he was a careless Gallio or some- thing worse, and that, whatever zeal he might profess for civil liberty, the Saints would do well to avoid all con- nection with him. "Nathaniel Wade was. like Ayloffe, a lawyer. He had long resided at Bristol, and had been celebrated in his own neighbourhood as a vehe- ment republican. At one time he had formed a project of emigrating to New Jersey, where he expected to find institutions better suited to his taste than those of England. His ac- tivity in electioneering had introduced him to the notice of some Whig nobles. They had employed him pro- fessionally, and had, at length, ad- mitted him to their most secret coun- sels. He had been deeply concerned in the scheme of insurrection, and had undertaken to head a rising in his own city. He had also been privy to the more odious plot against the lives of Charles and James. But he always declared that, though privy to it, he abhorred it, and had attempt- ed to dissuade his associates from carrying their design into elTect. For a man bred to civil pursuits. Wade seems to have had, in an unusual de- gree, that sort of ability and that sort of nerve which make a good sol- dier. Unhappily his principles and his courage proved to be not of suffi- cient force to support him when the fight was over, and when in a prison, he had to choose between death and infamy. "Another fugitive was Richard Good- enough, who had formerly been Un- der Sheriff of London. On this man 04 or his party had long relied for services of no honorable kind, and especially for the selection of jurymen not likely to be troubled with scruples in po- litical cases. He had been deeply con- cerned in those dark and atrocious parts of the Whig plot which had been carefully concealed from the most respectable Whigs. Nor is it possible to plead, in extenuation of his guilt, that he was misled by in- ordinate zeal for the public good. For it will be seen that after having disgraced a noble cause by his crimes, he betrayed it in order to escape from his well merited punishment." "'\'ery different was the character of Richard Rumbold. He had held a commission in Cromwell's own regi- ment, had guarded the scaffold Ije- fore the Banqueting House on the day of the great execution, had fought at Dunbar and Worcester, and had always shown in the highest degree the qualities which distin- guished the invincible army in which he served, courage of the truest tem- per, fiery enthu — " First part of Chapter 6. 95 The following is place-description : "In the seventeenth century Drogheda presented a very different aspect. The traces of art and industry were few. Scarcely a vessel was on the river except those rude coracles of wickerwork cov- ered with the skins of horses in which the Celtic peasantry fished for trout and salmon. Drogheda, now peopled by twen- ty thousand industrious inhabitants, was a small knot of narrow, crooked, and filthy lanes, encircled by a ditch and a mound. The houses were built of wood with high gables and projecting upper stories. Without the walls of the town, scarcely a dwelling was to be seen except at a place called Oldbridge. At Oldbridge the river was fordable ; and on the south of the ford were a few mud cabins, and a single house built of more solid ma- terials. "When William caught sight of the valley of the Boyne, he could not suppress an exclamation and gesture of delight. He had been apprehensive that the enemy would avoid a decisive action, and would protract the war till the autumnal rains should return with pestilence in their train. He was now at ease. It was plain that the 98 contest would be sharp and short. Tlie paviHon of James was pitched on the emi- nence of Donore. The flags of the House of Stuart and of the House of ISourbon waved together in defiance on the wahs of Drogheda. AU the Southern l)ank of the river was hned by the camp and bat- teries of the hostile army. Thousands of armed men were moving about among the tents ; and every one, horse-soldier or foot-soldier. French or Iri>h. had a white badge on his hat. That colour had been chosen in compliment to the House of Eourbon. T'm glad to see you. gentle- men,' said the king, as his keen eye sur- veyed the Irish lines. Tf you escape me now, the fault will be mine.' " Ch. 16, paragraphs 7 and 8. B. As the direct opposite of the gift of selection. Macaulay had the gift of elab- orate description, in which all details are filled, thus making a large picture as com- plete as it is minute. Alacaulay could change his method according to his sub- ject. Long descriptions are found in every chapter of the History. See : The two pages devoted to a rich, cnnndative, long paragTa])h on the consternation in Dublin after the Boyne, IV, 124-125. In de- scriptions. — such as the one cited, — Ma- caulay is apt to make the beginning and end of the paragraph unostentatious and cahn, and the center ghtter with details. Such paragraphs are Hke the gradual kin- dling, full blaze and dying out of a bon- fire. 7. Use Made by Macaulay of Description Supported by Narration. Analyses of Examples. (a) It was Macaulay 's habit to give a de- scription of a place immediately before the events which centered in that place. The explanation is, of course, that the descrip- tion illustrated the narrative, the narrative • utilized or supported the details given in the description. This was a common de- vice of ]\Iacaulay's for giving force to his narration. Thus : "Athlone was perhaps, in a military point of view, the most important place in the island. Rosen, who un- derstood war well, had always main- tained that it was there that the Irishry would, with most advantage, make a stand against the Englishry. The town which ivas surrounded by ramparts of earth, lay partly in Lein- 98 ster and partlx- in Connauglit. The English quarter, which was in Lein- ster. had once consisted of new and handsome houses, hut had heen hurnt by the Irish some months before, and now lay in heaps of ruin. The Celtic quarter, which was in Connaught, was old and meanly built. The Shannon, zi'luch is the boundary of the ttvo f^roi-inccs. rushed through Athlone in a deep and rapid stream, and turned tico large mills tdnch rose on the arches of a stone bridge. Above the bridge, on the Connaught side a castle, built, it was said, by King John, towered to the height of sev- enty feet, and extended two hundred feet along the river. Fifty or sixty yards beloii' the bridge was a narrozu ford." l\, 182. ch. 17. Tn the narrative paragraphs following this short description we read, in the first paragraph, that a breach was made and "The Irish . . . ran towards the bridge. There the press was so great that some of the fugitives were crushed to death in the narrow passage and others were forced over the parapets into the waters zvhich roared among the mill zvheels beloiv;" in 09 the second paragraph, "the bridge was so narrow that a few resolute men might keep it against an army. The )nills zi'Iiich stood on it zi'ere strongly guarded and it was commanded by the gtins of the castle," . . . etc. Five paragraphs further on we read: "On the thirteenth of June Ginkell . . . proposed to try tlie ford." (b) Often both a description of the gen- erals, and of the place, precedes the ac- count of a battle. See : Description of the character of Luxemburg and of the coun- try around Lambeque and Steinkirk before the Battle of Steinkirk, IV. 352-353. 8. Diagrain, Point of Reference. One would think that a skillful writer like r\lacaulay, who aims to make his descriptions clear and forcible, would not only use mechan- ical devices for assisting the reader, but would indicate lines or suggest the diagram of a place. This is true of his historical description. Thus : "The buildings (of Londonderry) cov- ered the summit and slope of a hill which overlooked the broad stream of the Foyle, then whitened by vast flocks of wild swans. C)n the highest ground stood the cathedral. . . . Near the cathedral rose the palace of the Bishop. . . . The 100 citv was in iorm nearly an ellipse ; and the principal streets formed a cross, the arms of which met in a square called the diamond," etc., Ill, 136, ch. 12. Or this : "The most important military post in Athol was Blair Castle. The house wdiich now bears that name is not distinguished by any striking peculiarity from other country seats of the aristocracy. The old l)uil(ling- was a lofty tower of rude archi- tecture which commanded a vale watered by the Garry. The walls would have of- fered very little resistance to a battering train, but were quite strong enough to keep the herdsmen of the Grampians in awe. About five miles soutJi of this strong- Jiold the valley of the Garry contracts itself into the celebrated glen of Killiecrankie. . The only path was narrow and rugged : a horse could with difficulty be led up : two men could hardly walk abreast ; and, in some places, the way ran so close by the precipice that the traveller had great need of a steady eye and foot. Many years later, the first Duke of Athol constructed a road up which it w^as just possible to drag his coach. But even that road was so steep and so strait that a handful of resolute men might have de- fended it against an army ; nor did any Saxon consider a visit to Kihiecranlvie as a pleasure, till experience had taught the English Government that the weapons by w^hich the Celtic clans could be most ef- fectually subdued were the pickaxe and the spade." Ill, 320. ch. 13. Or this : "The steeple of the parish church of Bridgewater is said to be the loftiest in Somersetshire, and commands a wide view of the surrounding country. Monmouth, accompanied by some of his officers, went up to the top of the square tower from which the spire ascends, and observed through a telescope the position of the en- emy. Beneath him lay a flat expanse. ." I, 541, ch. 5. ]\Iacaulay went up to the top of the same steeple. (See Trevelyan, Life and Letters of Macaulay, \'ol. II.) 9. Shifting the Point of Jlc7^'. Use of Nar- ration for Suspense. In the History we find, what would be long description, sometimes given in several stages. — usuallv two or three, — the efifect being that of a succession of views. Macaulav uses the 102 expedient of placing narration between the dif- ferent views as a means of suspense. A magnificent example of this occurs in the account of the expulsion of the Fellows of Magdalen. First, the appearance of ^lagdalen College is described, II, 260-261, ch. 17. Sec- ond, the hi>tory of the college, up to the quar- rel between James and the Fellows, is nar- rated. II, 261-267. Third, the progress of James, "the longest and most splendid that had been known during many years," is nar- rated. II. 265-267. Fourth, the description of the expulsion of the Fellows of the College is given. The reader's mind is led from the col'ege itself to its history, then to the royal progress through the country, then to the work of expulsion and spoliation. A panoramic ef- fect is thus obtained. Another thrilling example is found in the fourth paragraph of the seventeenth chapter. In the second paragraph begins a description of William's enthusiastic reception in Holland, which is continued through the third para- graph. The second paragraph is a page octavo, the third is two pages long. In the fourth paragraph JMacaulay pauses long enough to mention the differences between William's ob- ligations to the States-General on his depar- ture and on his return. The paragraph em- 103 bracing these facts, and consisting of a mere hundred words, carries the mind from the jubilant celebration of the Hollanders into the Senate chamber. It acts as a lull amid the huzzas of the joyful people. In the fifth para- graph the great writer takes us into the streets again, for. in this paragraph of two pages, he completes his description of the reception of \\'illiam at the Hague. 10. Introducing the Personal Element. This as a Common Dii'ice of Maeaulay. The love of contrast which is so prominent a characteristic of IMacaulay's writings comes out never so strongly as in those descriptions where the personal element is introduced. In these descriptions he awakens in the mind of the reader thought or feeling by suggesting the impression which the event, condition or scene makes on the mind of a contemporary, or on the mind of an observer. The device is a com- monplace of the great writers. Macaulay's manner is to contrast the effect made by a scene or event on its contemporary with the wrong notion of it held by the ordinary reader, thereby correcting the wrong' notion. The de- vice is subtle in its workings. It is also charm- ing because it appeals to the reader's conceit. The place where this artifice is most com- monly noticeable is in the celebrated chapter on 101 the state of England in 1685. The chapter dis- plays many varieties of its use, sonie of them at once evident, others not so readily discerned. Thus : 1. "JJ'r should he much mistaken if 7vc pictured to niirsclrcs tlie squires of the seventeenth century as men bearing- a close resemblance to their descendants. . The modern country oentleman generally receives a liberal edtication. passes from a distinguished school to a distinguished college, . . ."' and so forth for a half a page on modern Eng- lish education. Then : "A conntrv i^ciitlcuian K'lio -i^'itjicssed the revolution was probably in receipt of about a fourth of that which his acres now yield to his posterity. . . ." and so on. a page and a half on the inferior advantages of young country gentlemen in those days. II. 292. 2. After two pages on the social degrada- tion of the lower clergy, "Clarendon, who assuredly bore no ill-will to the priesthood, mentions as a sign of con- fusion of ranks which the great rebel- lion had produced, that some damsels of noble families had bestowed them- selves on divines." II, 300-301. 105 3. In a long paragraph of a page and a half Macaulay skillfully conveys the impression that he is all the while giv- ing Pepys' opinion of London, where- as Pepys' opinion really stops at the end of the passage quoted : "Pepys, who visited Bristol eight years after the Restoration, was struck by the splendour of the city. It seems that, in no other place with which he was acquainted, except Lon- don, did the buildings completely shut out the woods and fields. Large as Bristol might then appear, it occupied but a very small portion of the area in which it now stands. . . ." II, 307. 4. "He who rambled to what is now the gayest and most crowded part of Re- gent street found himself in a solitude, and was sometimes fortunate enough to have a shot at a woodcock." II, 326. 11. Sketch. Suggestion. (a) Enough has already been said upon Macaulay's power of abridging his de- scription as well as amplifying it. Suffi- cient illustrations of his ability as a sketcher may be had by consulting Sec- tion 6 of this chapter. (b) Novelists, short-story writers, dra- loa matists, have written passages in which the aim was to suggest a certain thought to tlie reader, to throw him into a certain mood, to imply that something pleasurable or disagreeable is about to happen. Ma- caulay has used this artistic touch as well as any novelist or dramatist. In the following extract, — taken from the description of Glencoe, coming long before the massacre. — there is everywhere a suggestion of sadness and impending horror. The prose extract rivals the famous passage in Shakespeare's Macbeth beginning : "The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Dun- can Under my battlements." Macbeth. A. 1, S. 5. "]\lac Ian dwelt in fJie mouth of a ravine situated not far from the south- ern shore of Lochleven, an arm of the sea zchich deeply indents the western coast of Scotland, and separates Ar- gvleshire from Invernesshire. ... In the Gaelic tongue, Glencoe signfies the Glen of Weeping, and in truth that pass is the most dreary and melancholy of all the Scottish passes, the very Valley of 107 the Siiadozu of Death. Alists and storms brood over it through the greater part of the finest summer ; and ci'cn on those rare days when the sun is bright, and when there is no cloud in the sky, the impression made by the landscape is sad and azufid. The path lies along a stream which issues from the most sullen and gloomy of mountain pools. Huge preci- pices of naked stone frown on both sides. Even in July the streaks of snow may often be discerned in the rifts near the summits. All down the sides of the crags heaps of ruin mark the headlong paths of the torrents," etc. IV, 177, ch. 18. 12. Generalised Description. It was sometimes necessary for the historian to give a description, not of a person, but of a people ; and to describe them, not in sections, or as they were at any one time, but as a whole and in their essential character. Other his- torians have described a people in this manner. No one has been more successful than Ma- caulay. In II, 179-182, ch. 12, he devotes one para- graph, in length two pages and a half octavo, to a generalized character-description of the Ulstermen and Leinstermen crowded in Lon- donderry. jQg "And now Londonderry was left destitute of all military and of all civil g-overnment. No man in the town had a rit^ht to command any other : the defence was weak. . . . What- ever an engineer might think of the strength of the ramparts, all that was most intelligent, most courageous, most high-spirited among the Englishry of Leinster and North-Ulster was crowded behind them." All the remainder of the long- paragraph is given to a description of them. They are compared to the Crom- wellian army, the Castilians, the Spartans. He concludes : "Nevertheless it is impossible to deny that the English colonists have had, with too many of the faults, all the noblest virtues of a sovereign caste. The faults have, as was natural, been most offensively exhibited in times of prosperity and security ; the virtues have been most resplendent in times of dis- tress and peril ; and never were those virtues so signally displayed as by the defenders of Londonderry, when their governor had aban- doned them, and when the camp of their mor- tal enemy was pitched before their walls." The beginning and end of the long para- graph are connected with the preceding and following narration by particularizing- the facts that the virtues of the people were evinced in the siege, nevertheless two pages of the para- 109 graph treat of the virtues and faults of the Ulstermen and Leinstermen in general. The characteristics mentioned by Macaulay that people have had in all places and at all times. 110 CHAPTER V EXPOSITION General Remarks on Macaiilay as an Ex- positor. A. Two thing's were a forecast of the full exhibition of Macaulay's expository gifts in the History of England : First, his essays, — such as those on Bentlmm and Mill ; second, his strength in parliamen- tary debate. Tn the essays he displayed acumen in philosophical disputation, mas- tery of utilitarian and other ethical, po- litical and economic theory. When he spoke in the House, the Commons were captivated by his methods of persuasion and thrown -into rapture by his eloquence. Though his arguments might not always be convincing to some, nor worthy of final confidence, they always seemed plausible and were always put ingeniously and strongly. Tndeefl his faculty for debate and for incisive criticism of theological or ethical theory, was only another illus- tration of his versatility. The fulness of 111 his expository power was to be displayed in the History of England. B. It is remarkable that in the History there are two conditions or moods when ^lacaulay becomes expository. First, he speculates at almost every turn on wTiat would have happened under given condi- tions_^ or what would be done in the fu- ture as a result of certain facts. He states probabilities or improbabilities and often indulges in dogmatic certitude. See : "The new charter given to the East India Company," I\\ 485, ch. 20. Second, it is his habit to state the truth as it appeared to him, in contradistinction to the opinion of party or sect. These statements al- ways follow the discussion of clashing opinions. See the excellent illustrative passage. "The Place Bill." R', 407-410. C. There are two kinds of exposition in the History. First, where Macaulay is laying down or explaining the opinions of others on a point. See : "The convention turned into a Parliament," III, 36-37 ; The debate on the Bill of Rights, III, 352- 356. Second, wdien he is giving voice to his own opinion. See : The short his- tory of the English Ministry, beginning "The truth was that the change which the 112 Revolution had made. ..." I\^, 492. D. INIacaulay's adaptability in exposition. Macaulay abbreviated his exposition or allowed himself liberty to explain a point or discuss fully a situation, in accordance with the main plan of the passage or chapter. The exposition may be in many or few paragraphs as it suits his purpose. 1. For an "abstract of (a) debate" see : Abstract of Somers's Argument on the Bill of Rights, III, 353. para- graph 3. Xote : (a) It is in one medium paragraph : (b) it is a digest of the weaker side of an argument given among a series of short para- graphs, expressing the excitement of Parliament at the Trial of Oates ; (c) It is artfully followed by the two long paragraphs of "complete and triumphant" reply to the argu- ment expressed in the digest. 2. All the important debates of Par- liament are given in sequences of long paragraphs. These show: (1) the temper of Macaulay's mind for par- liamentary disputation ; (2) his power in amplified exposition; (3) his fidel- ity to his theory, to treat fully the history of politics as well as people, 113 See: "The Mutiny Bill," III, 50-53 (three paragraphs, over a page apiece). See also: "The Place Bill," "The Comprehension Bill," etc. 2. Macaulay's Manner. A. Attempt to get at the truth under con- ditions or circumstances where the opin- ions of parties or sections are at variance. In such cases he states : (a) The opinions of parties in a para- graph or two — usually medium para- graphs. (b) Then the truth, as it appears to him, in a separate paragraph See: "The Declaration of Indulg- ence," I, 207-210, ch. 2. Three me- dium paragraphs stating (1) the opinion of parliament; (2) the opin- ion of king and court; (3) the^ruth (as it a£gears to Macaulay). Also: "The' arguments "ag^ihst the oaths," II. 402-403. ch. 14; and "The Place Bill," IV, 407-410; "The Ministry," I^^ 492. B^ Simple statement of a situation followed by a justification of the action of an indi- y vidual in that situation. (a) The situation is given in a short link paragraph. 114 (h) The justification in one or two long paragraphs. See : Justification of the King's anger at tlie committee of religion, I, 466. C. Narration of certain events, followed by a statement of the correct line of action an individual should take who is to act in the events coming after the events nar- rated. (a) Such exposition usually comes in a single long paragraph. (b) The paragraph, coming directly in the midst of narration, and treat- ing of persons acting in the narrative, makes the paragraph smack of narra- tion, whereas the spirit of it is ex- pository. See : "Unreasouable con- duct of the Scotch refugees," I, 487., and "Temper of the Scotch nation," I, 497-498. D. .Statement of the policy in a given situa- tion of parties or factions ; first, the policy of a party, then the policy of the other, with the reasons for each, concluding with tlic action taken by the party which gets the upper hand. (a) In such cases the paragraphs are medium. 115 (b) The idea is not to burden the reader with tedious details of debates. See : "ParHament after the Abdica- tion," II, 524-527, and "Contest of Whigs and Tories over the Regency," II, 562-567. But in case of a burning question, the opinions of parties are stated in long paragraphs of one to one and one- half pages each. See : "Statement of political par- tics in England," II, 546-554, ch. 10. The explanation is manifest, to-\vit : The importance of the occasion de- mands fulness of treatment. This is best done in long paragraphs. E. Explanation of national, party or indi- vidual action. (a) In shorter, abbreviated explanation. These are in single long paragraphs of one to one and one-half pages in length. See 1. Explanation of Whig posi- tion, I, 528-529. 2. Williams's attitude towards Ireland, III, 141-142. 3. Position of Louis after the abdication of James II, II, 497-498. 116 4. James's new position reli- giously, II. 188-192. (b) In longer exposition: here Macau- lay allows himself full liberty of ex- pression. These passages are found only at junctures where the writer feels that, because of the importance of the events to follow, an elaborate exposition is necessary. See : ''James's policy when his power was at its height." Ill, 13-22. Remarks: 1. No paragraph over half a page. All are medium. 2. Orderly and formal exposition of the theme. 3. Each paragraph contains a clearly circumscribed portion of the ex- position of the general theme. 4. No figure of speech, no appeal to the imagination is to be found. Every statement, every para- graph, makes an appeal to reason. 5. The exposition appears at the be- ginning of an important chapter. Up to that chapter Macaulay has related the progress of James in power. He is now going to trace the decline of his power. 117 See also :_ 11. 122-131 — an excellent example of Alacaulay's long ex- position. The above statements hold true of this passage, except that in it are two paragraphs of a page apiece. P. Macaulay's manner of summarizing an argument in one long pararaph, — which might otherwise take many paragraphs, — suggesting what the debate was upon it, or would be likely to be upon it, by. as it were, questioning himself or the reader on that argument in a series of interroga- tive sentences, all within the paragraph. See his: "Observations on the Bill of Rights." Ill, 356. The following is Macaulay's manner of summarizing the debate in the Lords. In the preceding paragraph.- — a link. — he merely states that the bill passed the Commons. "The Declaration had settled the crown, first on William and Mary jointly, then on the survivor of the two, then on Mary's posterity, then on Anne and her posterity, and lastly, on the posterity of William by any other wife than Mary. The Bill had been drawn in exact conformity with the Declaration. Who was to succeed if Mary, Anne, and William should all die 118 without posterity was left in uncertainty. Yet the event for which no provision was made was far from improbable. Intleed it really came to pass. William had never had a child. Anne had repeatedly been a mother, but had no child living. It would not be very strange if in a few months disease, war, or treason should remove all who stood in the entail. In what state would the country then be left ? To whom would allegiance be due ? The Bill indeed contained a clause which excluded Papists from the throne. But would such a clause supply the place of a clause designating the successor by name ? What if the next heir should be a prince of the House of Savoy not three months old ? It would be absurd to call such an infant a Papist. Was he then to be proclaimed King? Or was the crown to be in abeyance till he came to an age at which he might be capable of choosing a religion? Might not the most honest and ^he most intelli- gent men be in doubt whether they ought to regard him as their Sovereign? And to whom could they look for a solution of this doubt ? Parliament there would be none : for the Parliament would expire with the prince who had convoked it. 119 . There would be mere anarchy, anarchy which might end in the destruction of the monarchy, or in the destruction of pubhc hberty. For these weighty reasons, Bur- net, at Wihiam's suggestion, proposed in the House of Lords that the crown should. failing heirs of His ]\Iajesty's body, be entailed on an undoubted Protestant, Sophia. Duchess of Brunswick Lunen- berg, granddaughter of James the First, and daughter of Elizabeth, Queen of Bo- hemia." Places Where MacauJay is Apt to Intro- duce His Exposition. 1. Before a long narrative. (a) To clear up a view, state a principle, l^efore proceeding with the narrative illustrating the view taken or the prin- ciple laid down. See : Alacaulay's thesis, "James's cruelty was not more odious than his mercy," I, 588-590. Re})iark: 1. Paragraphs medium. 2. Aim to state thesis explicitly, incisively, tersely. (b) To express and enforce a personal opinion. See : The three expository paragraphs on the Place Bill, IV, 407-410. 120 Rcviark: 1. The three paragraphs are re- spectively one-fourth of a page, a page, and a page and a half. 2. The first short paragraph ex- presses the theme. In the sec- ond paragraph Macanlay ex- patiates on the first half of the theme ; in the third paragraph, on the second half. 3. The crescendo paragraph length is for climactic effect. (c) Long, carefully-expressed exposition at a crucial point in the main narrative. See again : James's policy when his power was at its height, IIi_i3-22^> Remark: Care is taken to explain James's policy when his power is at its height in order that the sub- sequent narrative of his decline from power may be understood. B. At the end of a long and exciting nar- rative here Macaulay wishes to draw his general conclusions from the narrative. See: "Conclusions after the account of the Trial of the Seven Bishops," II, 352- 356. Note 1. The paragraphs are long. 2. They are addressed directly 121 to the reader as the concki- sions of the writer. 3. They point the moral of the preceding narrative, have a persuasive homiletic tone. "It must be remembered that, though concord is ... . calamity and peril often force men to combine. Prosperity and security often encourage them to separate. Such mor- alizing reminds the present writer of the close of the first chapter of George Eliot's "Felix Holt." In truth, the moralizings at the close of many of George Eliot's chap- ters are not at all unlike Macaulay's conclusion of chapter IX. See also: III, 50-52. The results of of mutiny. C. In the midst of a series of narrative paragraphs, where Macaulay wishes to vindicate an action. See the vindication of ^^^^ig opinion in the midst of the narra- tive of the progress of the rebellion of Monmouth. "Albemarle transmitted these proclamations . . . ." I, 528, ch. 5. 122 D. At the beginning of a chapter. The ex- position is so placed that the reader may understand the narrative which follows. See : First eight pages of chapter IX, exposition of the change of view of the English clergy ; and. first ten pages of charter VI. 4. His Ability to Foniiulafc the 0[>inions of Pactions or to Suiuunvirjc Docmiicnts ill Brilliant General Statement. A. Summary exposition of documents. There are times when historians must give the substance of documents in order to justify their statements. This Macau- lay did in many ways, sometimes in a sentence or two, sometimes in half a para- graph. He seldom incorporates the exact words of any document, but gives a sum- mary in his own language. See : Jacobite libels, William Ander- ton. W, 477-478 — the latter half of the paragraph. R. Occasionally he gives the substance of a document ostensibly as if quoted, but really in his own language. See : The "complete and triumpliant" reply to the Lords, III, 354-3.S6. C. Formidation of opinions of factions in brilliant general statement. 123 Macaulay has an artifice never before ob- served by the present writer. He composes occasionally a paragraph, sometimes a series of paragraphs, in which he throws brilliant general statement, not in the third person, but in interrogative sentences addressed to the reader. These passages are almost al- ways in the phraseology of the sect, faction or nationality whose opinions they represent. The bickerings of a sect or faction are thus made luminous to the reader. The ordinary task of giving general statement in plain, commonplace language is thus avoided. (a) Half of a paragraph in interroga- tive sentences; the other half summary statement of document in the third per- son. See : "Indeed Charnock in another paper .... " — a paragraph of a page in length, V, 132-133, ch. 21. (b) The bulk of a paragraph in interrog- ative sentences. ( 1 ) One paragraph of a page. See : "The Bill of Attainder," V, 198-199. (2) One paragraph of a page and a half. Interrogative sentences ; phrase- ology of the period. "As King of Scotland, he soon found himself embarrassed at every step by 124 all the difficulties which had embar- rassed him as King of England, and by other difficulties which in England were happily unknown. In the north of the island, no class was more dis- satisfied with the Revolution than the class which owed most to the Revolu- tion. The manner in which the Con- vention had decided the question of ecclesiastical polity had not been more offensive to the Bishops them- selves than to those fiery Covenanters wdio had long, in defiance of sword and carbine, boot and gibbet, wor- ship]:)ed their Maker after their own fashion in caverns and on mountain tops. Was there ever, these zealots exclaimed, such a halting between two opinions, such a compromise be- tzwcii the Lord and Baalf The Es- tates ought to have said that e])isco- pacy was an abomination in (iod's sight, and that, in obedience to his word, and from fear of his righteous judgment, they were determined to deal with this great national sin and scandal after the fashion of those saintly rulers who of old cut down the groves and demolished the altars 125 of Chcmosh and Astarfe. Unhappily, Scotland was ruled, not by pious Jo- siahs. but by careless Gallios. The antichristian hierarchy was to be abol- ished, not because it was an insult to heaven, but because it was felt as a burden on earth ; not because it was hateful to the great Head of the Church, but because it was hateful to the people. Was public opinion, then, the test of right and wrong in religion ? Was not the order which Christ had established in his own house to be held equally sacred in all countries and through all ages? And was there no reason for following that order in Scotland, except a rea- son which might be urged with equal force for maintaining Prelacy in Eng- land, Popery in Spain, and Mahomet- anism in Turkey? Why. too. was nothing said of those Covenants which the nation had so generally subscribed and so generally violated ? Why was it not distinctly affirmed that the promises set down in those rolls were still binding^, and would to the end of time be binding, on the kingdom? Were these truths to be 126 suppressed from regard for the feel- ings and interests of a prince who was all things to all men. an ally of the idolatrous Spaniard and of the Lutheran Dane, a presbyterian at the Hague and a prelatist at Whitehall? He, like Jehu in ancient times, had doubtless so far done well that he had been the scourge of the idolatrous House of Ahab. But he, like Jehu, had not taken heed to walk in the divine law with his whole heart, but had tolerated and practised impieties differing only in degree from those of which he had declared himself the enemy. It would have better be- come godly senators to remonstrate with him on the sin which he was committing by conforming to the Anglican ritual, and by maintaining the Anglican Church government, than to flatter him by using a [phrase- ology which seemed to indicate that thev were a^ deeply tainted with Erastianism as himself. Many of those who held this language refused to do any act which could be con- strued into a recognition of the new Sovereigns, and would rather have 127 been fired upon by files of musket- eers, or tied to stakes within low water mark, than have uttered a prayer that God would bless William and Mary." Ill, 268-269. (3) One remarkable paragraph of five pages in length, couched in phraseology of the time and in in- terrogative sentences. IV, 152-156. "Sherlock took the oaths . . . . " (c) The use of the interrogative is also a favorite device of Macaulay's for sug- gesting what an argument might be at a given time, or what might be the ex- planation of certain circumstances. See: III, 365. "The fall of the man once so great " ch. 14. (d) A series of paragraphs containing the interrogative device. 1. In four paragraphs. See "The Anglican Church," III, 396-400. 2. In a long series of paragraphs. See : The Comprehension Bill and Bill of Allegiance and Suprem- acy. Ill, 90-105, ch. ii. Remarks: 1. The long paragraphs are im- itations of the long-winded argumentation of the party or sectarian controversialists. 128 2. They are declamatory. 3. They are not tlie argument of one man, but of a faction. 4. Instead of giving many pages to the dry matter of de- bate, Macaulay used this de- vice to give hfe to the work. 5. Exposition Leading to Argument. It is in the nature of exposition to lead into argumentation, or the support of one side of a question by arguments. Macaulay's intense ])arty-spirit and his parliamentary experience induced him in his History to enter spasmod- ically into argumentation on his own account. Macaulay's arguments may be divided into; (a) vindication; (b) refutation. Besides these there are found in the History (c) statements of arguments, urged against individuals or sects, by persons other than Macaulay. (a) Vindication. See: "The Place Bill," IV, 407-410. Note: 1. There are three paragraphs, with a gradual increase in size. 2. The first is the assertion of a general proposition. The second argues for the first half of the proposition. The third, a page and a half long, 129 supports the second half of the proposition. 3. The paragraph-subject is put at the beginning of each paragraph. 4. No figures ; dignified ; per- suasive ; consistently argu- mentative in tone. See also: IV, 492-495. Origin of the ministry. Note: 1. The manner — general state- ment followed by argument and narrative. 2. The paragraphs gradually increase in size from six to twenty-six lines. 3. The order of paragraphs (1) Preliminary statement: (2) The new Institution — the ministry; (3) the modern ministry; (4) the origin of the ministry. (b) Refutation. See: I\\ 544-546. "The Land Bank." Note : ( 1 ) The statement of the ques- tion ; (2) the exposition of its ab- surdity. See also: V, 195, § 2. The argument of the Whigs on the case of Fenwick. 130 Note : (\) Ari^iiment condensed in- to one caustic medium paragraph ; (2) the incisiveness of the lan- guage. Remark: (1) Macaulay's refutation is always given summarily in one to three medium paragraphs ; (2) always stated in incisive language. •^^ (c) Statement of the arguments of others. This is midway between argument and pure exposition. See : The arguments against William Anderton. IV, 479- 481. Note: (1) Macaulay states the ar- guments furnished by others and then discusses their truthfulness or falsity; (2) The mood is calm, paragraphs medium. 6. Expository Description. Many passages in the History are a blend- ing of exposition and description. Here the aim is undoubtedly to explain a condition of things — the general character of a people (for example, Hollanders, French, Irish. Scotch), or the prevailing tone of a place, or the dom- inant ideas of a period, or the spirit of a litera- ture : nevertheless, the details are all descript- ive. A close examination of the celebrated chapter on England in 1685 will reveal the 131 fact that in it are many expository descriptive passag^es. Two examples selected from many in that chapter represent this artifice, called expository description. (1) "It would have been well if our writ- ers had also copied the decorum which their great French contemporaries, with few exceptions, preserved ; for the prof- ligacy of the English plays, satires, songs, and novels of that age is a deep blot on our national fame. The evil may easily be traced to its source. The 2i'its and the Puritans had never he en on friendly terms. There was no sympathy between the tzvo classes. They looked on the whole sys- tem of human life from different points and in different lights. The earnest of each was the jest of the other. The pleas- ures of each were the torments of the other. To the stern precisian even the innocent sport of the fancy seemed a crime. To light and festive natures the solemnity of the zealous brethren furnish- ed copious matter of ridicule. From the Reformation to the civil war, almost every uriter, gifted with a fine sense of the ludicrous, had taken some opportunity of assailing the straighthaired. snuffling, whining saints, who christened their chil- 132 dren out of the Book of Nehemiah, who groaned in spirit at the sight of Jack in the Circen, and who thought it impious to taste plum porridge on Christmas day." I, 361-362, ch. 3. (2) "The spirit of the Antipuritan reaction pervades almost the whole polite literature of the reign of Charles the Second. But the very quintessence of that spirit will be found in the comic drama. The play- houses, shut by the meddling fanatic in the day of his power, were again crowded. To their old attractions new and more powerful attractions had been added. Scenery, dresses, and decorations, such as would now be thought mean or absurd, but such as would have been esteemed in- credibly magnificent by those who, early in the seventeenth century, sate on the filthy benches of the Hope, or under the thatched roof of the Rose, dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The fascination of sex was called in to aid the fascination of art : and the young spectator saw, with emotions unknown to the contemporaries of Shakespeare and Johnson, tender and sprightly heroines personated by lovely women. From the day on which the the- atres were reopened they became sem- 183 inaries of vice ; and tlic vice propagated itself. The profligacy of the representa- tions soon drove away soher people. The frivolous and dissolute who remained re- quired every year stronger and stronger stimulants. Thus the artists corrupted the spectators, and the spectators the artists, till the turpitude of the dranm became such as must astonish all ivho are not azvare that extreme relaxation is the natural effect of extreme restraint, and that an age of hypocrisy is, in the regular course of things, followed by an age of impudence." I, 364-365, ch. 3. Note: (1) Macaulay is giving an ex- position, in short comjJass. of the "war of the wits and Puritans" as it was carried on "from the Reforma- tion to the Civil War." He finds the "source" of profligacy in the "differ- ent points" and "different lights" of the two classes. Note: (2) Macaulay is attempting to give the ciuintessence of the spirit of anti-puritanism. The beginning and end show the expository mood of the writer. In both : The descriptive details il- lustrate the generalizations. 134 7. Macaulay's Manner of Formulating Gen- eral Law, Idea and Relation. A. General Law. Of law, in the strict sense, there is none in the History. Frequently, however, as is true of most historians, Macaulay states a generality which usually, though not always, holds true. Such an one is the "Tenrlency of the English Constitution," IV, 222-223 — a generality on the growth of the English Constitution. B. General Idea. More frequently the historian sets forth with positiveness general ideas which have struck him as true under given conditions and in given situations. Macaulay always states these impressions boldly and proceeds to substantiate them. The idea, its expan- sion, and its substantiation cover anywhere from one to three paragraphs. Thus : (a) In one paragraph. 1. "The constancy of the common peo- ple." I, 565. Note : ( 1 ) He attempts to establish the general truth by showing the constancy of the common people in several crises. (2) The size of the paragraph equals one page. (3) 135 The general statement made at the beginning is enforced at the end." 2. "Ministers are responsible." IV, 120-121, ch. 17. Note : Macaulay lays down three propositions and attempts to de- duce from them the right of Wil- liam to be his own Foreign Secre- tary. 3. Lewis's relation to James II. IV, 489. Note: (1) Macaulay states the re- lationship, then says, "This in truth was the point on which everything turned." (2) All Lewis's thought made to revolve around this pivotal sentence, (b) In two paragraphs. 1. James's "cruelty was not more odious than his mercy" — a general truth about the character of an in- dividual. I, 588-590. Note : ( 1 ) Two paragraphs, short and medium. (2) Macaulay 's plan is to substantiate his prop- osition, which he calls a "rule," that the leaders of a rebellion are the only ones who should be pun- ished. 136 2. "The violence of revolutions is c:en- erally proportional to the degree of maladministration which has pro- duced them." Beginning of ch. 13. Note: (1) Two large paragraphs. (2) Statement proven hy historic fact, (c) In three paragraphs. Defense of the proposition : that the prosecution of the Seven Bishops was the first and last time when the na- tion was united in love of freedom and church. }]^_^^^Z^^^::~-~- '--■ Note: (1) Three paragraphs de- creasing in size from one page to a quarter of a page. (2) Passing from the heat of a vivid description to the defence of above proposition at the close. C. General Relation. jNlacaulay, who is ever finding particular relations, analogies, comparisons and con- trasts, finds also general relations, influences of one thing upon another, wrong attitudes producing wrong results, necessity produc- ing political action, etc. (a) See: "The two errors into which historians are liable to fall." II, 217- 220, ch. 7. Introducing the subject, the 137 writer says : There are two opposite errors into which those who study the annals of our country are in constant clanger of falling, the error of judging the present by the past, and the error of judging the past by the present." He then shows the relationship between the two, the resemblances and differ- ences, and applies the statement to the historians of the Revolution. Note : (1) The paragraphs are medium and short — two short, three medium. (2) In the first paragraph the two errors ai-e compared. In the second the prop- osition is applied to the contest over admitting Romanists to parliament. In the third, the views of factions are com- pared. In the fourth and fifth comes the conclusion as below : "Perhaps, however, it will be found on examination that we may vin- dicate the course which was unan- imously approved by all the great English statesmen of the seven- teenth century, without questioning the wisdom of the course which was as unanimously approved by all the great English statesmen of our own time. 138 "Undoubtedly it is an evil that any citizen should be excluded from civil employment on account of his religious opinions, but a choice be- tween evils is sometimes all that is left to human wisdom. A nation may be placed in such a situation that the majority must either im- pose disabilities or submit to them, and that what would, under ordi- nary circumstances, be justly con- demned as |)ersecution, may fall within the bounds of legitimate self-defence : and such was in the year 1687 the situation of Eng- land." (b) See: IV, 394-395, ch. 19. Note: (1) Proposition. "The truth is, society in the natural course of its growth reached a point that, if there were a long and costly war, there should be a national debt." (2) Subject, the relation between the needs of the time and some such financial measure as the national debt. (3) Two long para- graphs by comparing England of the past with England of 1688. and by com- paring the country as a whole with the Continent. Macaulay proves the need of a national debt at that time. 139 8. Macaulay's Faults as an Expositor — His Over-statement and Understatement. The subject of this treatise does not require us to go afield into a discussion of the historic truthfuhiess or untruthfuhiess of Macaulay's work. Nevertheless, from the standpoint of the rhetorician it is evident that the History is full of exaggeration and depreciation. Macau- lay's use of exaggeration and hyperbole will be treated in another chapter. So full of rhe- torical artifices vi^as Macaulay, so eager to make forcible, not to say startling, statements, that he did not stop to nicely measure the truth. He was as fond of astonishing generalities as of astonishing pictures. He did not scruple to exaggerate a general relationship any more than to exaggerate a character-description. He aimed at making a strong and profound im- pression. He was first and last a great rhet- orician. Calmer minds, therefore, although they usu- ally find Macaulay, at first blush, plausible, on closer study cannot avoid noticing his many ex- travagances. Their scrutiny once aroused, they peruse many a passage only to be unconvinced. They see, as Kipling says, "another story," unwritten truth, as well as "over-statement and under-statement." 140 SECTION B-EXPRESSION CHAPTER VI GENERAL QUALITIES OF EXPRESSION (A) Clearness. 1. Macaiilay's Choice of Language. If there is one thing for which Macaulay is remarkable above all Enj^^Ush men of let- ters, it is for his clearness. There is nothing in all the History that is not understood on the instant. Macaulay never wrote a bun- filing statement, nor an obscure line. If one were asked the three chief charcteristics of Macaulay's style, one nmst say — clearness, exaltation, brilliance. To these one might add : grace^ stateliness, vigor. It is remark- able that throughout the essays and the His- tory the words which are continually in Macaulay's mouth in commendation of speeches and writings are the very words which characterize his own style. Everyone who has read the Essays will remember how the great writer eulogized writings marked by dignity, stateliness, vigor. Excellent in- 141 stances are his remarks on Madame D'Arb- lay, Maria Erlj^eworth and Jane Austen ; though, indeed, he never fails to note these characteristics in any writer. In the History, hkewise, the favourite words are constantly recurring. He speaks of: "the vigorous and fertile genius of Butler" (I. 263. ch. 3) : "of lyric poets he (Dryden) is, if not the most sublime, the most brilliant and •^on]-stirring" (T, 366, ch. 3). The libels of Montgomery "are distinguished by the grace and vigor of their style" fTV. 86, ch. 16). Macaulay naturally had a fondness for those character- istics of style for which his own style was distinguished. Of all the characteristics which fascinated him. by far the most im- portant is clearness. There have been great writers of prose, like Milton, whose stvle is exalted but not always clear. There have been brilliant writers of prose, like Landor, whose work has not always been perspicu- ous. It is the feat of the greatest writers of prose to unite exaltation and brilliance with clearness. Macaulay is distinsruished precminentlv for this union : it is his highest mark of merit. The clearness, as well as the brilliance and exaltation of ?kTacaulay's style, is, as the great writer himself might say, "known to 142 every school-boy." The knowledge of the care he exercised in the choice of language, his steady toil, his incessant revision of his text, the agony he underwent preceding his transport of joy at the adulation of press and people at the publication — must be learned from the testimony of his friends and relatives. "Take at hazard." says Thack- eray, "any three pages of the 'Essays' or the 'History," and glimmering below the stream of the narrative, you, an average reader, see one, two, three, or half score of allusions to other historic facts, characters, literature, poetry, with which you are acquainted. Your neighbor, who has his reading and his little stock of literature stowed away in his mind, shall detect many points, allusions, happy touches, indicating not only the prodigious memory and vast learning of this master, but the wonderful hidustry, the honest, hum- ble toil of this great scholar. He read hccnty books to -uritc a sentence: he travelled a hun- dred miles to make a line of description." These generous words of Thackeray's on Macaulay's brilliance and industry receive the cordial ajiprobation of Trevelyan in the following words : "Any one who will turn to the description of the town of Leeds, and will read the six paragraphs that pre- cede it and the three that follow it, may form a conception of the pains which those clear and flowing periods must have cost an author ivho expended on the pointing of a phrase as tnueh conscientious research as would have provided some writers who speak of Macaulay as showy and shallow with at least half a dozen pages of ostentatious sta- tistics."* And the same writer says else- where: "The main secret of Macaulay's success lay in this, that to extraordinary flu- ency and facility he united patient, minute, and persistent diligence."* 2. Macaulay's Painstaking. The gist of Trevelyan's testimony is that Macaulay's success as a writer was won by compelling himself to exercise extraordinary care in the choice of language and severe scrutiny in revision to counteract the in- elegancies and errors which came from ex- traordinary facility in composition. In fine, he was facile in composition and painstak- ing in revision. The truth of both these thoughts becomes luminant from the state- ment? of Macaulay himself and his con- temporaries. 'T had no heart to write," *]. Quoted by Trevelyan. Life and Letters of Macaulay. "Vol. II. P. 192. Harper's Edit., 1876, 4426 D 12. 2. Ibid. P. 193. •Trevelyan II. 198. 144 says the historian in his journal under March 6. 1851. "I am too self-indulo^ent in this matter, it may be : and yet I attribute much of the success which I have had to my habit of writing- only when I am in the humour, and of stopping as soon as thoughts and words cease to flow fast. There are, there- fore, few lees in my wine. It is all the cream of the bottle."' Mr. Woodrow. in the preface to his collection of the Indian Education minutes, says : "Scarcely few con- secutive lines in any of Macaulay's minutes will be found unmarked by blots or correc- tions. Macaulay himself, in a minute dated Nov 3, 1835, says. 'After blotting a great deal of paper, T can recommend nothing but a reference to the Governor-General in Council.' My copyist was always able in- stantly to single out his writing by the mul- tiplicity of corrections and blots which mark every page. When the first master of the English language corrects his own composi- tion, which appeared faultless before, the correction my^T'must be based on the high- est rules of criticism. "2 1. Trevelyan II. 199. 2. Quoted by Trevelyan. footnote, II. 199. 145 3. His Directness. The Siinplicity and Shortne,ss of His Sentences, Hence the Perspicuity. A. His directness. [Nlacaulay's sneers at philosophy and his neglect of mathematics are well known. The extreme result of extensive studies in speculative philosophy is probably to make the student subtle in his refinements of thought, very wary about accepting con- clusions, always deeming reasons inade- quate or questionable. For this state of mind Macaulay had an abhorrence. He disliked involved construction which seems usually to be the concomitant of speculation. He may speculate, but he has his speculation so well thought out, and is so certain of the truth of his con- clusions that he delivers his thought with directness, usually without qualification. If he admits any qualification he gives it either in the second half of a short bal- anced sentence separatefl from the first section bv a semicolon, or else in a short, independent sentence. In either case the qualification is expressed as positively as the main thought. B. Simplicity and shortness of sen- tences. 146 Macaulay seldom used long sentences except in oratorical eiilog}'' (see the close of chap. 17 of the History) ; even here short sentences predominate. Macau- lay's sentences are not only short but simple. A short sentence may be as blundering and obscure as a long one. The vast majority of Macaulay's sen- tences are short and simple. C. His perspicuity. Macaulay's perspicuity is due : first, to the usual simplicity of thought in his writ- ing, as opposed to subtlety of thinking; second, to one characteristic of the man — his "cocksureness." hence his directness; third, to the delivery of his thought in short, simple sentences. Macaulay's was certainly a studied style. He exerted himself to make every line limpid. Yet, though there are not many refinements of thinking in the History ; though there was, as Trevelyan states, strenuous endeavor to be lucid, Macaulay. nevertheless, al- ways writes as if "to the manner born," with elegant ease and unostentatious sim- plicity.* *"The fourth sense of simplicity also respects stvle: but it regards not as much the degree of ornament employed as the easv and natural man- ner in which our language expresses our thoughts. In this sense simplicity is compatible with the 147 ( B ) Force. 1. Device for Carrying the Reader on, and Raising Him to a High Pitch of Ex- citement. A. The various forms of climax and anticlimax. (a) 1. The strict climactic para- graph. This is one of the common- est artifices in Macaulay. Whenever the occasion per- mits, — at those times in the discussion of a subject when a climactic paragraph can be utilized, — he never fails to use this kind of climax. Such paragraphs are rounded off with startling effect. 2. The climactic paragraph end- ing in an anticlimax. Alacaulay's manner is to fin- ish the climax a sentence or two before the close of the paragraph, then to close the paragraph with anticlimax — highest ornament. Homer, for example, possesses this simplicity in the greatest perfection: and yet no writer lias more ornament and beautv. This simplicity is opposed not to ornament, hut to af- fectation of ornament, and is a superior excellence in composition." Blair's Lectures on Style, P. 103. 148 with a few ordinary state- ments having the effect of re- pose after excitement. See: the description of Luxem- bourg just before the battle of Steinkirk. IV, 353, ch. 19. 3. A climactic paragraph fol- lowed by a paragraph al- together anti-climactic. This is of frequent occur- rence ; a notable example is found at the close of the de- scription of the trial and exe- cution of Monmouth. I, 560- 563. Macaulay closes the de- scription with remarks on St. Peter's chapel in the Tower where Monmouth was buried. The effect of the anti-climax is marvelous, (b) Climax in the paragraph series. Hardly any section of the History is without climaxes at one or two points, and usually at several points in the narrative series. No one knew better than Macaulay at what point in the story to raise the pitch of ex- citement, and of that point he never failed to take advantage : See : His 149 account of the parliamentary pro- ceedings against Fenwick, V, 192-213. Note : Here the interest centers in two long paragraphs, the first, on the examination of the witnesses, — a sin- gle paragraph of two and a half pages ; the second, on the incident of Lady Fenwick, — written in a single paragraph of three pages. Notice: (1) How the interest is made to rise as we approach these two paragraphs. (2) The climax is found in the single para- graph of three pages. (3) The anti-climax, ap- pearing in the se- verely simple de- scription of the ex- ecution in a medi- um paragraph, is made more im- pressive by sus- pending the anti- climax until the contrast between the fate of Peter- 150 borough and that of Shrewsbury is drawn, (c) At the close of a chapter. See: Close of ch. 17, IV, 209-214. The climax begins in a short sen- tence, "The sails disappeared," open- ing a long paragraph. Note: (1) the exaltation of the magnificent long paragraphs. (2) Macaulay's depart- ure from his habit of short sentences and free use of long sentences on the last page. The climax closes the Revolution in Ireland. B. Oratorical Eulogy. There are two excellent examples of oratorical Eulogy in the History: (a) End of volume II, 588-595, ch. 10. Note: 1. The spirit of eulogy was upon Macaulay. The passage begins : "Thus was consummated the English Revolution. When we compare it with those revolutions which have, during the last sixty years, over- thrown so many ancient 151 governments, we can- not but be struck by its peculiar character. Why that character was so pecuHar is sufficiently obvious, and yet seems not to have been always understood either by eulogists or by cen- sors." Later on we read : "The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the revolution of 1688 is this, that it was our last revolution," etc. 2. The subject of the eu- logy, then, is the Revo- lution of 1688. 3. There is a studied ex- altation of language. The spirit of the writer rose higher and higher as he proceeded. 4. The paragraphs increase in size. 5. The last paragraph is evi- dently peroration. It begins : 152 "Now, if ever, we ought to be able to appreciate the whole importance of the stand which was made by our forefa- thers against the House of Stuart. All around us the world is con- vulsed by the agonies of great nations. Gov- ernments which lately seemed likely to stand during ages have been on a sudden shaken and overthrown. The proud- est capitals of Western Europe have streamed with civil blood. All evil passions, the thirst of gain and the thirst of vengeance," etc. and ends : "are wildly and blindly seeking to regain. It is because we had a pre- serving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution in 153 the nineteenth. Tt is because we had free- dom in the midst of servitude that we have order in the midst of anarchy. For the au- thority of law, for the security of proper- ty, for the peace of our streets, for the happi- ness of our homes, our gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at his pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to Wil- liam of Orange." 6. The motive for the ora- torical eulogy is evi- dent. It is written as a magnificent ending of the first installment of the History, which was ready in the memora- ble year of revolution, 1848. (b) The end of volume IV, 244-250. This, like the passage cited above, is 154 a good specimen of oratorical eulogy. Macaulay, in every line, at every point of the History, shows an eye and ear for tlie reader's impressibihty. He carefully chose an event of the greatest importance for closing his second set of volumes for publication. The close of the first set of volumes, published in 1848, gave him a chance to eulogize the Revolution. The close of the second set, published in 1857, gave him an op- portunity to write an encomium of his hero, William ; for he concludes the fourth volume with the successful ac- complishment of William's efforts, the procession of the King, the rejoicings of the people. The wave-movement of the paragraphs, the exaltation of the language, the magnificence of the scene are worthy of note. The closing para- graph begins : "There was indeed reason for joy and thankfulness. England had passed through severe trials, and had come forth renewed in health and vigour. Ten years before, it had seemed that both her liberty and her independence were no more. Her liberty she had vindicated by a just and necessary rev- 165 olution. Her independence she had re- conquered by a not less just and neces- sary war. She had successfully de- fended the order of things established by her Bill of Rights against the mighty monarchy of France, against the abo- riginal population of Ireland, against the avowed hostility of the nonjurors, against the," etc. And ends : "There was a sense of relief every- where, from the Royal Exchange to the most secluded hamlets among the moun- tains of Wales and the fens of Lincoln- shire. The ploughmen, the shepherds, the miners of the Northumbrian coal- pits, the artisans who toiled at the looms of Norwich and the anvils of Birming- ham felt the change, without under- standing it ; and the cheerful bustle in every seaport and every market town indicated, not obscurely, the commence- ment of a happier age." 2. Dciicc for Holding the Reader's Inter- est by Means of Variety. With the exception of Johnson, there is no writer in modern English Literature who delights so much in balanced structure as Alacaulay. He used it to vary the interest of 156 the reader ; but he cultivated it in so many forms and employed it so incessantly as to produce in the reader a feeling of satiety. He was fond of balancing situations, bal- ancing opinions, balancing paragraphs and parts of paragraphs, balancing sentences and parts of sentences, balancing even phrases and single words. A. Balance in Sentence. 1. Repetition of the same words and structure in each part. Whether, in 1689. it would have been possible to effect a civil union without a religious union may well be doubted. But there can be no doubt that a religious union would have been one of the greatest calamities that could have befallen either king- dom. The union accomplished in 1707 has indeed been a great bless- ing both to England and to Scotland. But it ha^ been a blessing because in constituting one State, it left two churches. The political interest of the contractiiig parties 7vas the same; but the ecclesiastical dispute bet-ween them was one which admitted of no compromise. They could therefore preserve harmony only by agreeing to 157 differ. Had there been an amalga- mation of the hierarchtes, there never ivonld have been an amalgamation of the nations. Successive Mitchells -cvould have fired at siicccssi7r Sharf^s. Five generations of Claverhouscs iK'oidd have butchered five genera- tions of Camerons. Those marvel- lous improvements which have changed the face of Scotland would never have been efifected. Plains nozv rich with harvest would hai'c re- mained barren moors. Waterfalls zvhich noiv turn the wheels of im- mense factories zvould have resound- ed in a wilderness. Nezv Lanark would still have been a sheepzvalk, and Greenock a fishing hamlet. What little strength Scotland could, under such a system, have possessed must, in an estimate of the resources of Great Britain, have been, not add- ed, but deducted. So encumbered our country never" III. 22)7. ch. 13. 2. With semicolon in the middle of the sentence, marking off the balance. "During some months Sir John at Edinburgh affected to condemn the dis- loyalty of his unhappy parent. Sir 168 James; and Sir James at Leyden told his Puritan friends how deeply he la- mented the wicked compliances of his unjiappy child. Sir John." IIT, 244, -^13.' 3. Sentences following each other in halanced pairs. "This is not an attractive picture. And yet an enlightened and dispas- sionate ohserver would have found in the character and manners of this rude people something which might well excite admiration and a good hope. Their courage was what great exploits achieved in all the four quar- ters of the glohe have since proved to be. Their intense attachment to their own tribe and to their own patriarch, though politically a great evil, par- took of the nature of virtue. The sentiment was misdirected and ill regulated; but still it was heroic. There must be some elevation of soul in a man who loves the society of which he is a member and the leader whom he folknvs with a love stronger than the love of life. Tt was true that the Tdighlandcr had few scru- ples about shedding the blood of an 159 enemy; but it was not less true that he had high notions of the duty of observing faith to alHes and hospital- ity to guests. It was true that his predatory habits were most perni- cious to the commonwealth. Yet those erred greatly who imagined that he bore any resemblance to villains who, in rich and well governed com- munities, live by stealing. MHien he drove before him the herds of Low- land farmers up the pass which led to his native glen, he no more con- sidered himself as a thief than the Raleighs and Drakes considered themselves as thieves when they di- vided the cargoes of Spanish galleons. He was a warrior seizing lawful prize of war, of war never once intermitted during the thirty-five generations which had passed away since the Teu- tonic invaders had driven the children of the soil to the mountains." Ill, 279, ch. 13. 4. Words pairc'l within the sentence. "The neighbouring fastnesses, famed throughout the world for their strength, Antzverp and Ostcnd. Ypres, Lisle and Tournay, Moas and Valen- 160 ciennes, Camhray and Charlcroy, Limbnrg and Luxembourg, had opened their gates to the conquerors: hut never once had the flag been pnlled down from the battlements of Xamnr." IV. 347. ch. 19. The important words of a sentence placed in balance at the beginning and end of that sentence. "The two together (William and Sutherland) would have made up a consummate statesman. The master was capable of forming and execut- ing large designs, but was negligent of those parts in which the servant excelled. The master saw farther off than most men : but what was near no man saw so clearly as the servant. The master, though pro- foundly versed in the politics of the great community of nations, never thoroughly understood the politics of his own kingdom. The servant was perfectly well informed as to the temper and organization of the Eng- lish factions, and as to the strong and weak parts of the character of every Englishman of note." IV, 499, ch. 20. 161 B. Balance in parts of paragraphs. See: 1. James and William at the Boyne, IV, 31-32. One para- graph showing in contrast the actions of both. 2. The slain and the wounded after La Hogiie, IV. 322. The single paragraph on this dual subject is divisible into two parts. In the first part Ma- caulay speaks of the respect paid to the slain. In the sec- ond, he speaks of what was done for the wounded. The second part is announced in the following sentence : "While such marks of respect were paid to the slain, the wounded were not neglected." 3. Halves of a paragraph in bal- ance. See : The opinions of Lewis and William on the proposed peace of Ryswick, V, 230. The paragraph begins, "Lewis had, early in the spring " In about the centre of the para- graph, appears the opinion of William. 162 C. Balance in successive paragraphs. 1. In medium paragraphs. See : The contrasts of countries and armies in the first few paragraphs of ch. 16; and: The compounders among the Roman Catholics and Jesuits, IV, 448, 449. 2. Long paragraps in balance. See : The two paragraphs on High- land character, III, 276-281. These are about equal in size. First the unattractive side of Highland character is given ; then the at- tractive. 3. Series of balanced paragraphs. See TV, 142-149. These are set out with great art. The first long paragraph deals with Tillotson, 142-144. The second deals with the Sancroft plot. Here Macaulay throws in a short intermediary paragraph on Ken, as a contrast to the one just given to Sancroft and the one about to follow on Sancroft, 147-149. D. Counterbalance and contrast. Macaulay sometimes puts his para- graphs in juxtaposition, or, to use his own word, in counterbalance. By coun- 16S terbalance is meant a sequence of para- graphs which resemble each other in structure, but which, nevertheless, treat of situations or influences widely dif- ferent. We can readily understand that many events in history exactly nullify others ; that certain situations dominate others ; that certain influences defeat others. When two paragraphs treat- ing of two such influences, situations or events, follow one another with the same structure, they are said to coun- terbalance. IMacaulay used this artifice most com- monly in descriptions of battles. The accounts of opposing armies are given in counterbalancing paragraphs. See: The army of James and the army of William, IV, 20-22, ch. 16. Also: Lewis's arrogance and mortifica- tion, IV, 350-351, ch. 19. Device for Quickening the Mind of the Reader to Astonishment. A. Plausible statement of assumed re- sults or conclusions, ending in state- ment of the real result or conclusion by way of surprise. 1. "Had there been a general election while the nation was smarting un- 164 der the many disgraces and mis- fortunes, it is probable that the Roundheads would have gained as- cendency in the state. But the Par- liament was still the Cavalier Par- liament, chosen in the transport of loyalty which had followed the Restoration. Nevertheless, it soon became evident, etc. ..." The remainder of the paragraph tells what really happened, I, 181, ch. 2. "Which plan was the better con- ceived may be doubted. Which was the better executed is a question which admits of no doubt. The whole French navy . . . was moved by one will, etc. ..." IY,/474,'ch. 20. he opinion of the great majority &f the House of Commons was that the Indian trade could be ad- vantageously carried on only by means of a joint stock company and a monopoly. It might there- fore have been expected that the resolution . . . would have been immediately followed by a law granting a monopoly to the new company. No such law, hoiv- 165 tv(*r, was passed . . ." IV, 527, ch. 20. B. By timely statement of picturesque in- cident, story or quotation. Every reader of the History has noticed the stories with which Alacaulay enlivens his paragraphs. Their pungency, their aptness, their illustrative qualities, are evident. It should be noticed that they are usually placed at the close of the paragraph to throw light on the body of paragraphs. It is difficult to cite exam- ples, as the paragraphs must be read if the stories are to be appreciated. In his paragraph on the closing of the gates of Londonderry, an appreciation of the state of the city and the excitement of those who closed the gates is shown by the fact that one of them broke into a discourse by the Bishop with : "A good sermon, my Lord ; a very good sermon : but we have no time to hear it just now." This oc- curs at the end of the paragraph. III, 138-139. Another illustrative bit is the celebrated chant of the Cornishmen when Trelaw- ney was in peril, put by Macaulay at the end of one of his paragraphs : "And shall Trelawney die, and shall Tre- lawney die, 160 Then twenty thousand Cornish boys will know the reason why." II, 335. Examples need not be multiplied. The reader may find specimens on almost any page of the History. C. Allusion and suspense. ( a ) Allusion. A narrator cannot be always repeat- ing the names of his personages. He has a right to assume that the reader will rememl^er what they have done or said. Hence a mere reference to those deeds or words, will be readily under- stood. This should be said also: first, allusion, instead of explicit reference, is a necessity of History ; second, the difficulty of retaining the unity and smoothness of the main narrative is lessened by the use of allusion; third, a great writer never leaves us in the dark about a character to whom he al- ludes, because the traits of this particu- lar character are always made vivid be- forehand. 1. Allusion within the paragraph. See: Sunderland IV, 495. "The statesman who had the chief share The historian does not state that Sun- 167 derland is the man referred to in the first long sentence of the paragraph. Yet in the second sentence we are told : "During that period of general terror and confusion which followed the flight of James, Sunderland disappeared." It is certain from the remainder of the paragraph that Sunderland is the man referred to in the first sentence. 2. Allusion to a person spoken of many paragraphs before. See Castelmaine II, 78; II, 242. In this, as in many other cases, the historian alludes in the second cita- tion to the work begun in the first. The first passage is on Castel- maine's mission to the pope, the second is on the results of that mission, (b) Suspense. The difference between allusion and suspense is that in allusion the histo- rian refers to something that has al- ready happened, or been said ; in sus- pense he refers covertly to something which is going to happen. In suspense he defers the astonishment which is to come, but insinuates what will be the result of the events he is narrating. See: The prevision of the fate of the brave defenders of Limerick, stated, IV, 60. At the close of the paragraph, beginning: "When it was known that the French troops . " we read, "If the giins and powder could be intercepted and destroyed, there might be some hope. If not, all was lost : and the best thing that a brave and high- spirited Irish gentleman could do was to forget the country which he had tried in vain to defend, and to seek in some foreign land a home and a grave." One hundred and forty-nine pages further on, in the six pages closing chapter 17, we have described to us this very thing, — the departure of the Irish over sea "to seek in some foreign land a home and a grave." See also: V, 189-190. Here to- wards the end of a quiet, detailed account of the trial of Fenwick by the Commons, Macaulay takes the reader by surprise, and describes the House of Commons as thrown into consternation, when someone utters "the terrible words, 'Bill of Attainder.' " 169 D. Suspension of the leading thought of a paragraph .till the end. The reader cannot always be sure when he begins a paragraph of the His- tory, or when he has read half way through it, that he has gotten the gist of the paragraph, because in many para- graphs Macaulay has a trick of reserving the leading thought for the close. This is a means of astonishment. 1. The leading thought coming at the very end of the paragraph, put in a single strong sentence whose thought is in contrast to all the other thought of the paragraph. See: V, 14. "The hopes of James of his companions ..." The paragraph is devoted to the depre- ciative opinion of William held by James and his companions. It ends : "But all the statesmen of Europe were deceived; and, strange to say, his reign was decidedly more pros- perous and more tranquil after the decease of Mary than during her life." 2. \'ivid description in the first part of a paragraph leading the reader on to a definite conclusion ; then, in 170 the latter part of the paragraph a cool statement of the very opposite of that opinion. The hest example of this expedient for quickening the mind through sur- prise is found in the story of Lewis's action just hefore the siege of Na- mur. A very long paragraph is given up to Lewis's preparations to lead his army in [lerson. Great is our aston- ishment to read in the last sentence, "Lewis left the camp a week after he had joined it, and never after- wards made war in person ..." IV, 464-465. 3. Contrasted beginning and end of paragraph. See : A common statement at begin- ning with lively description at the end — the Review of the French army be- fore Mons. IV, 345-346. E. By brilliant antithesis. (a) Macaulay had an excessive fond- ness for contrast of every kind, — contrasted thought, paragraphs, sen- tences, words. There is no variety of contrast which is not to be found in the History. Sometimes they occur in a strong passage, adding 171 strength to strength ; sometimes in the dreary events of a dreary debate, giving animation to what might be dull paragraphs. They are always sudden, always astonishing, always awakening, — never the same in form, (b) Antithesis. 1. Of thought, occurring suddenly in a paragraph or paragraph series, following dry paragraphs. After Macaulay has given an ex- position of James's position ( in ch. 6 of the History) he speaks of the two factions at court — illustrating what he says by character-descrip- tions of Talbot and the two French envoys. Then he gives a link par- agraph wherein he merely states that the Jesuits at that time were plotting against the Pope. Then on a sudden is given a thrilling, brilliant description of the rise of the power of the Jesuits, their vir- tues and vices, their power in the seventeenth century, closing with a statement of the awkward posi- tion of the Jesuits in England and France. II, 49-64. • See also: The burning of the 172 Palatinate, TI. 119-123. Here the historian makes a magnificent close to chapter eleven in one long, elo- quent paragraph on Louis XIV. This paragraph is artfully placed here at the close of the volume in contrast to all the dry, preceding parts of the chapter. Note in this passage: (\) Magnificent close to chapter; (2) contrast to dry de- tails of debate: (3) mixed narra- tion and description: (4) its size and astonishing effect; (5) the anti-climax of the conclusion of the chapter. !. Antithesis occurring in the mid- dle of a paragraph as a diversion of thought. See: "Wharton was not the man to let . . . " V. 23. The first part of the paragraph is devoted to the character of Wharton. In the middle of the paragraph occurs this sentence: "While he. animat- ed by that fierce party spirit, zvliich in honest men would he thought a 7'ice, but -ci'hicJi in him 7vas almost a virtue, was eagerly . . . the subject zvas suddenly and strangely 173 forced forward." The remainder of the paragraph treats of a bill in Parliament. 3. Antithesis occurring at the end of a paragraph, as a sudden influx of thought entirely different from the contents of the paragraph. See: IV. 490. The paragraph treats entirely of Lewis's ques- tionings on James's cause. At the end is found this sentence : "Who should reign in England was a question to be decided by England alone." 4. Antithesis occurring within the paragraph simply to diversify the thought. In the paragraph on Sun- derland, IV, 496, we read: "The Whigs hated him as the vilest of the slaves by whom the late gov- ernment had been served ; and the Jacobites as the vilest of the trait- ors by whom it had been over- thrown." Again: "His second apostasy edified his wife as much as his first apostasy had edified his master." (C) Both Clearness and Force by Means of Repetition. It is only a corollary to the present writer's 174 remarks on Macaulay's clearness, to say, that the historian exercised the greatest care to prevent obscurity or strained construction or contorted phraseology. He never feared to repeat word or phrase to guard against mis- apprehension, and to lend force to this thought. 1. Repetition of Some Word. After speaking of St. Peter's chapel in the Tower, its association with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human destinv. and of those buried there, he con- cludes his paragraph : "Such was the dust ivith "which the dust of Monmouth min- gled." 1. 363. After the siege of Londonderry we read : "Whigs. Tories, nay. even the Jacobites in whom Jacobitism had not extinguished ev- ery patriotic sentiment, gloried in the r/lory of Enniskillen and Londonderry." TTT. 208. Of a dropped bill, we read: "The bill was. therefore, happily for the honor of English legislation, consigned to that dark repositorv in which the abortive statutes of manv generations sleep a sleep rarely dis- turbed bv the historian or the antiquary." IV. 99. 2. Repetition of Favorite Phrases. Macaulay had a relish for choice phrases 175 and repeated those that pleased him. — not in the same paragraph, for that would show ineptitude, — but elsewhere in the History. The above-quoted remark on the burial of Monmouth must have been such a choice morsel for the tongue of IMacaulay, for we read in the account of the Irishman's love for Ireland, beginning "very different was the feeling of the children of the soil . . . . . " TV, 56. "There (in Ireland) were collected all the objects of his love and of his ambition : and there he hoped that his dust would one dav mingle with the dust of his fathers." The same statement of Monmouth's burial, occurs three volumes back — in vol. I. 3. Repetition of A^oun, Adjective. Pro- noun, Verb, Adverb, Conjunction. Preposition. fa) Reoetition of noun. 1. Repetition of noun instead of using pronoim. See: "During the summer of 1691. the controversy " IV. 237-238, ch. 18. In this para- graph the terms "Old Company" and "New Company" are repeated nine times. 2. Simple repetition of noun. To the dangers of war and dangers 176 of treason had recently been added the dangers of a terrible financial and commercial crisis. But all these dan- gers were over " See last paragraph in volume IV. 3. Lack of clearness through non-repe- tition of noun. Macaulay sometimes has the pronoun too far from the subject. See the paragraph begin- ning, "For these reasons he was dis- liked by the Commons "I, 184. ch. 2. The subject of the open- ing sentence, — the pronoun he, — is too far away from its antecedent, which is found far back in the pre- ceding paragraph, (b) Repetition of pronouns. 1. Repetition of demonstrative pro- nouns. The historian habitually re- peats demonstratives. See : "The bill became a law. It attracted .... . . . ." IV, 220-221, ch. 18. In this paragraph that is constantly repeated. 2. Repetition of personal pronoun in- stead of using relative. See the paragraph opening: "Had Marlborough been of a proud and vindictive nature " V, 38, ch. 20. Every sentence in the para- 177 graph is headed by a he (referring to Marlborough), (c) Repetition of adjective. 1. Simple adjective. "The Gaelic monuments, the Gaelic usages, the Gaelic superstitions, the Gaelic verses, disdainfully neglected during many ages, began to attract the attention of the learned from the moment at which the peculiarities of the Gaelic race began to appear." Til. 284. ch. 13. "The two great houses of Russell and Cavendish connected by comnwn opin- ions, common sufferings and com- mon triumphs " IV, 555, ch. 20. 2. Possessive adjective. " Few persons knew that he (Marlborough) had, while command- ing William's troops, while sitting in IVilliam's council, while waiting in William's bedchamber, formed a most artful and dangerous plot for the subversion of IVilliam's throne." IV, 560, ch. 20. 3. Indefinite numeral adjective. Some escaped to Ireland ; some to Corunna; some to Lisbon; some to 178 Cadiz ; some were captured, and more destroyed." IV. 475, ch. 20. (d) Repetition of Verb. Macaulay habitually repeats the same auxiliary in many succeeding clauses of a single sentence, or in many succeed- ing sentences. See: the last two pages of volume IV. (e) Repetition of Adverb. 1. Adverb of place. See : the repetition of nowhere in the passage beginning "The clan of Macintosh " III, 295. ch. 13. 2. Adverb of time. There is a constant repetition of ivhile and then in many single sen- tences or successive sentences. For zvhile see: the paragraph open- ing. "The bill became a law. It at- tracted " IV, 221, ch. 18. For then see: "The natural effect of this state of things " IV, 391, ch. 19. (f) Rei)etition of Conjunction. See: the paragraph opening. "The clan of Mackintosh " HI, ^94, ch. 13. In this paragraph is one sentence containing eight thoughs. _ (g) Repetition of Preposition. See : the closing paragraph of vol. IV. Note the repetition of by and against. 179 CHAPTER VII FIGURES 1. General Remarks on Macaulay's Use of Figures. A. One of the measures of a man's literary ability is his use of apt, refined, strong lucid figures. Figures used by the high- est order of literary mind are apt. that is, they have peculiar fitness for the par- ticular place where they are used : are re- fined, that is. they proceed from a mind which has no tinge of vulgarity, but whose taste is cultivated to the highest point of literary excellence ; are strong, that is, they add to the thought and lodge it in the reader's mind as no other expression could ; are lucid, that is, they sparkle with the new light meant to be thrown on a particular passage by their use. Men of letters vary in their use of fig- ures. Some use them sparingly ; yet these men may have many of the marks of high literary faculty. Others use them freely. Among these are the poets. The poetic 180 temperament seems to demand 6gures as media of expression. The poetic imagina- tion actually takes wing in figurative speech. Of writers who use figures, he is of the highest literary ability who ap- proaches to perfection in the use of apt, refined, strong, lucid figures. B. Macaulay's tendency, on his own ac- knowledgment, was to profusion of fig- ures. His first essay, — that on Milton, — as he himself said, was "profuse with or- nament." As in his first published work, so in his last published work, there is profusion of ornament, for Macaulay did not check his tendency. The History of England is laden with figurative speech. Much of the picture, the fire and light which animate every line, is due to the figures with which he enriches his pages. There are two forms of writing in which Macaulay uses figures. They are found sparkling in his description, en- lightening his narrative. They are, how- ever, never found in his exposition, for in it there is no call for imagination. Perhaps Macaulay's most conspicuous fault as a literary man was a tendency to exaggerate. Yet he was quick to detect this fault in others. Throughout the His- 181 tory, when speaking of addresses or writ- ings, he makes reference to the rhetorical effect obtained by speakers and writers by the art of exaggeration. Indeed the hne adopted by the present writer as a motto for this treatise is taken from an observa- tion made by Macaulay on Jacobite speeches. He says : "Little affrays, such as, at every great pageant, almost inevit- ably take place between those who are eager to see the show and those whose business it is to keep the communications clear, zvcre exaggerated zvith all the arti- fices of rhetoric" (III, 110, Hues 28-33). Beyond a doubt, appreciating exaggera- tion as a rhetorical artifice, Macaulay con- sciously used it for its startling effective- ness. He had his strong way of saying things, and much of his strength comes from pure exaggeration, or else from the figure of speech which has exaggeration as its prime element, — liyperbole. Hyperbole and Exaggeration. A. Plain, bold exaggeration, without the figurative element, is one of the common- est kinds of Macaulay's expression. The historian was master of every artifice for producing astonishment. Of all these he was readiest and most wanton in exag- 182 geration. Scarcely a page is to be found withoui this vermilion-colored expression. 1. Exaggerations which are constantly repeated. See: (1) "Almost to madness." II, 103. "His love of mischief and of dark and crooked ways amounted almost to mad- ness." (2) "Almost to a disease." II, 248. "He was in truth a man in whom the pride of birth and pride of rank amounted al- most to a disease." (3) "Never." "Never had the English been accustomed to the control or interference of any strang- er." II, 384. "Never, within the memory of man had there been an ap- proach to entire concord . . . . ." II, 499. "There had never before been such a day in England: and there has never since been such a day." 183 "Such a patron of letters England had never seen" (Charles Sackville), II, 294. 2. Less common exaggerations. There are a multitude of exaggera- tions used only once or twice in the History. Macaulay overloads his pages with superlatives. Examples are subjoined : "Another day of agitation and alarm closed and was followed by a night the strangest and most terrible England had ever seen," II, 304. "The whole history of ancient and modern times records no other such triumph of statesmanship." (Wil- liam's ). II, 376. "Her ships were so rotten that they seemed likely to fly asunder at the discharge of their own guns," IV, 562. B. Hyperbole, or exaggeration with the figurative element. "A party of twenty courtiers were seat- ed at cards round a large table on which gold was heaped in mountains," I, 89. " Spanish functionaries, who calmlv sutTered the miserable remains of what had been the greatest navy in 184 the world to rot under their very eyes.'^ IV, 563. "A great mountain of books and furni- ture blazed on the site of the convent at Clerkenwell.'" II, 499. '"The theatres were every night, from the pit to the ceiling, one blaze of or- ange ribands." II. 524. "Sheriffs and Bailiffs in scarlet gowns, musters of zealous Protestants with or- ange flags and ribands, salutes, bonfires, illuminations, music, balls, dinners, gut- ters miming with ale, and conduits spouting claret." Ill, 14. 3. Couiparison, Contrast. ^facaulay's memory, as everyone knows, was prodigious. To it must be ascribed his readiness in comparison and contrast. He de- lighted in finding resemblance and difference, simlarity and dissimilarity, contrasting high and low things, weakness and strength. He ranged the world over to obtain material for comparison. The longer the jump, the more glaring the color, the more the astonishment, and the greater the delight to him. The first noticeable feature in Macaulay's use of fig- ures is his fondness for exaggeration. The second prominent and striking characteristic is his fondness for drawing comparisons where 185 the two elements are at antipodes in remote- ness or distance. (a) Comparison, contrast, given in a few words. 1. "The Irish statute book, afterwards polluted by intolerance as barbarous as that of the dark ages, then contained scarcely a single enactment imposing any penalty on Papists as such." Ill, 122. 2. "Lewis, polite and dignified, profuse and voluptuous, fond of display and averse from danger, a munificent pat- ron of arts and letters, and a cruel per- secutor of Calvinists, presented a re- markable contrast to William, simple in tastes, ungracious in demeanor, inde- fatigable and intrepid in war, regardless of all the ornamental branches of knowledge and firmly attached to the theology of Geneva." II, 173. 3. "One other name must be mentioned, a name then only known to a small cir- cle of philosophers, but now pronounced beyond the Ganges and the Mississip- pi." (Sir Isaac Newton). 4. "Whole countries, he said, were devas- tated by a rabble resembling the vul- tures and ravens which follow the march of an army." Ill, 149. 186 5 "The stones which travellers told of the savage Hottentots near the Cape of Good Hope were realized in Leinster." H. 149. 6. "The freehooters (the Irish), at first revelled in heef and mutton, as the sav- age invaders, who of old poured down from the forests of the north on Italy, revelled in Massic and Falernian wine." HI, 150. 7. "Vov James's personal comforts pro- vision was made with anxiety resem- bling that of a tender mother ec|uipping her son for a first campaign." II, 157. 8. "The town ( Cork ) is adorned by broad and well 1)uilt streets, by a Co- rinthian portico which would do honour to Palladia, and by a Gothic college worthy to stand in the High Street of Oxford." HI, 167. 9. " a reign about which the politicians of Westminster knew no more than about Abyssinia or Japan." HI, 274. 10. "In the time of his grandfather (the modern Englishman's) St. James's street had as little connection with the Grampians as the Andes." Ill, 27H. 11. "The modern Englishman was to the 187 Englishman of the sixteenth century what \ erres and Curio were to Denta- tus and Fabricius." Ill, 484. 12. They were as much out of the pale of the civilized world as if they had been banished to Dahomey or Spitzber- gen." IV, 56. 13. "Apprehensions similar to those which had induced the Caesars to ex- tort from Africa and Egypt the means of pampering the rabble of Rome, in- duced Lewis " IV, 484. 14. "He justly thought it was monstrous that a third part of Scotland should be in a state scarcely less savage than New Guinea." IV, 285. (b) Cases where the first element of the figures is compared to more than one thing. In these cases Macaulay allows the greatest of license. See : William and Luxembourg, IV, 470. "Never, perhaps, was the change which the progress of civilization has produced in the art of war more strikingly illus- trated than on that day. Ajax beating down the Trojan leader with a rock which two ordinary men could scarcely lift, Ho- ratius defending the bridge against an army, Richard the Lion-hearted spurring 188 along the whole Saraoeii line without find- ing an enemv to stand his assault, Robert Bnice cracking with one blow the helmet and head of Sir Henry Boheen in sight of the whole army of England and Scot- land, such are the heroes of a dark age. .... At Landen two poor, sickly be- ings, who in a rude society would have be^'en regarded as too puny to bear any part in combats, were the souls of two great armies It is probable that, among the hundred and twenty thousand soldiers who were marshalled around Narwinden under all the standards of W'estern Europe, the two feeblest in body were the hunch-backed dwarf who urged forward the fiery onset of France, and the asthmatic skeleton who covered the slow retreat of England." See also: The Bank of St. George, \\\ 543. "The bank of St. George had nearly completed its third century. Tt had be- gun to receive deposits and to make loans before Columbus had crossed the Atlan- tic before Gama had turned the cape, when a Christian Emperor was rei-nmg at Constantinople, when a Mohammedan Sultan was reigning at Granada, when Florence was a Republic, when Holland 189 obeyed an hereditary Prince. All these things had been changed. New continents and new oceans had been discovered. The Turk was at Constantinople : the Castilian was at Granada : Florence had its heredi- tary Prince : Holland was a Republic ; but the bank of St. George was still receiving- deposits and making loans." 4. Antithesis. Closely related to comparison is antithesis. In antithesis the aim need not be to com]:)are one object w^ith another. Rather, in antithe- sis, two opjiosite elements are put side by side in one sentence, not with the aim of compar- ing them, but simply as a device to startle the reader by the juxtaposition. The History is adorned ever and anon with antithesis. Yet INIacaulay's use of it does not smack of vulgar smartness. Astonish though it may, it is nev- ertheless the product of refined feeling. See: "FTe was capable of rising to the part of the P)lack Prince : and yet he was capable of sinking to the part of Ful- ler." (This is said of Fuller, a creature like Gates. ) V, 202. "Such a defence, however weak it was to appear to some shallow speculators, will probably be thought complete by statesmen." HI, 88. 190 "\\"liat tlie engineer is to the iTiat]ici"na- tician. the active statesmen is to the contem])lative statesman." I IT, 86. " Churchin, unrivahed in sa- gacity and address, endowed hv nature witli a certain cool intrepichty wliich never failed him either in fighting or lying '• TI. 448. ''As to the lady of the manor and her daughter, their literarv stores gener- ally consisted of a praver hook and re- ceipt book." T. ?)?/. "The Puritans hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spec- tator." I. 154. (Eleventh paragraph of chapter II ). Remark: 1. Antithesis plays, like the lightning in the storm of a summer's evening, on most of the pages of the History. 2. It usually embraces a whole sentence, as appears from the above citations. In a long sentence the antithesis is often compressed into two or three words. See. the above quotation on Marlbor- ough. Ehif/rain. In many places in the History Macaulay 191 speaks direct from intuition, giving in a con- cise, cogent statement an axiom of human na- ture, something that is true of men every- where. These utterances compare well with the celebrated Pensees of Pascal and the em- piric philosophy of Bacon. See : "Calamity and peril often force men to combine. Prosperity and security often encourage them to separate." II. 356. End of ch. 8. "The omnipotent sophistry of interest and of passion." II. 358. "Gratitude is not to be expected by rulers who give to fear what they have refused to justice." II. 420. "The judicious are always a minority." II, 424. "Sympathy is rarely strong when there is a great inequality of condition." II. 536. "To the evils arising from mutual ani- mosity of factions were added the evils arising from the mutual animosity of sects." Ill, 72. "He never knew either that noble peace of mind which is the reward of rectitude, or that abject peace of mind which springs from impudence and insensibil- ity." IV. 498. "Every man is prone to belie^'e in the 193 gratitude and attachment even of the tn>)st worthless of persons on whom he has conferred great benefits." IV, 498. Remark': 1. These epigrammatic utterances do not occur in any particular place in the ])aragraph, though they are likely to be found either at the beginning or end, either as pungent statement from which the deductions found in the paragraph are drawn, or as a happy conclusion to the paragraph. 2. Thev are either in a single sentence, after the manner of the novelists, or part of a sentence. 6. .-htalogy. Macaulav m the History often speaks of analogv and he employs analogy after his own manner. To him analogy does not mean what it does in argumentation. When he speaks of an analogy, he means that one situation in his narrative is imaged in the past of English or continental history — often in the remote past. He does not bring before the mind this past image of a present situation for argumenta- tive uses, but simply to illustrate the situa- tion of which he is now speaking. Clearly, then, analogy with him is a figure of speech bearing a close resemblance to what is tech- 193 nically called Vision, differing from it in that the writer does not use the Historic Present nor represent himself to have been present at the events. He simply throws before the read- er an image of a situation in the past, corre- sponding to the present situation of which he is treating. See I\', 65-66. ]\lacaulay has been speak- ing at length of the first siege. His conclud- ing paragraph is : "The history of the first siege of Limerick bears, in some respects, a remarkable analogy to the history of the siege of Londonderry. The southern city was. like the northern city, the last asylum of a Church and of a nation. Both places were crowded by fugitives from all parts of Ireland. Both places appeared to men who had made a regular study of the art of war incapable of resisting an enemy. Both were, in the moment of extreme danger, aban- doned by those commanders who should have defended them. Lauzun and Tyrconnel de- serted Limerick as Cunningham and Lundy deserted Londonderry. In both cases, religi- ous and patriotic enthusiasm struggled unas- sisted against great odds, and, in both cases religious and patriotic enthusiasm did what veteran warriors had pronounced it absurd to attempt." 194 When one has read his remarkable descrip- tion of the siege of Londonderry in volume III, the above in volume IV is appreciated. See also: 1. Mow the situation in the Eng- lish Church bears an analogy to the Gallician Church. Ill, 396- 98. 2. "The history of Puritanism in England bears a close analogy to the History of Protestantism in Europe." Ill, 95-99. 3. The analogy drawn between the Highlanders and continent- al commonwealth Macaulay be- gins thus: "For there was a commonwealth of clans, the im- age, on a reduced scale, of the great commonwealth of Euro- pean nations." 4. Towards the close of his de- scription of the death of Mary. Macaulay finds an analogy be- tween her death and the turn of her father's fortune, thus : "Mary died in Christmas week. There could be no doubt that, if the secrets of Providence were disclosed to us. we should find that the turns of the 185 daughter's complaint in Decem- ber. 1694, bore an exact anal- ogy to the turns of the father's fortune in December, 1688. It was at midnight that the father ran away from Rochester ; it was at midnight that the daugh- ter expired. Such was the pro- fundity and such the ingenuity of a writer whom the Jacobite schismatics justly regarded as one of their ablest chiefs." Note 1. This figure of speech (analogy) is often carried through many suc- cessive paragraphs. In some cases the image is introduced intermit- tently in a succession of paragraphs. 2. It is another exhibition of the full- ness of Macaulay's knowledge, of his wish to throw all possible light on his main narrative, of his fidelity to his theory. 7. Other Figures. Figures less commonly used by Macaulay are: synecdoche, metonymy, metaphor and al- legory. These and the other kinds already mentioned in this chapter are by no means an exhaustive list of figures found in the His- tory, only the ones most frequently employed. 196 Subjoined are remarkable specimens which have caught the eye of the present writer. 1. Synecdoche. There is a certain synecdoche which is foimd incessantly in the History. See: "unblushing forehead," IV, 569; "brazen forehead," V, 25 ; "unabashed forehead," V, 27 . This is Macaulay's usual brief, strong manner of saying a man could do evil with- out blushing. , Synecdoche is once and again noticeable particularly in narrative and descriptive paragraphs. " Lewis had made a great display of power, promptitude and energy in a quarter where the most splendid achievements could produce noth- ing more than an illumination and a Te Deum." Ill, 119. 2. Metonymy This is a flower of language which bright- ens many pages. "He (William) was always counting the days which must elapse before he should again see the land of his birth, the clipped trees, the wings of the innumerable wind- mills the long line of painted villas reflected in the sleeping canals. He took no pains to hide the preference . . . . . though he rendered great service to 197 our country, he did not reign in our hearts." IV, 336. 3. Metaphor. "He (Peterborough) was still all air and fire." V, 212. "When the night came fireworks were established on the great tank which wash- es the walls of the palace of the Federa- tion. That tank was now as hard as mar- ble ; and the Dutch boasted that nothing had ever been seen, even on the terrace of \'ersailles. more brilliant than the effect produced by the innumerable cascades of flame which were reflected in the smooth mirror of ice." IV, 116-117. 4. Next to the capability of composing al- legory with success, is the capacity to "amply" appreciate it when it is written with elegance. Macaulay did not com- pose an allegory anywhere in the History, but in one place he has applied, as an illustration, an allegory composed by an- other in a manner which shows his mar- velous literary sensibility. In the celebrated twentieth chapter of the History, he borrowed from the pages of Addison, "one of the most ingenious and graceful little allegories," to illustrate the mind of the rulers of the Bank of England in the days of William : 198 "Seventeen years after the passing of the Tonnage Bill, Addison, in one of his most ingenious and graceful little alle- gories, described the situation of the great Company through which the immense wealth of London was constantly circu- lating. He saw Public Credit on her throne in Grovers' Hall, the Great Charter over her head, the Act of Parliament full in her view. Her touch turned every thing to gold. Behind her seat, bags filled with coin were piled up to the ceiling. On her right and on her left the floor was hidden by pyramids of guineas. On a sudden the door flies open. The Pre- tender rushes in. a sponge in one hand, in the other a Sword which he shakes at the Act of Settlement. The beautiful Queen sinks down fainting. The spell by which she has turned all things around her into treasure is broken. The money bags shrink like pricked bladders. The piles of gold pieces are turned into bun- dles of rags or faggots of wooden tal- lies.t The truth which this parable was meant to convey was constantly present to the minds of the rulers of the Bank. So clo'^elv was their interest bound up with the .' . . . ." IV, 531, ch. 20. See also Spectator 3. 199 it cannot be doubted that, had Macaulay chosen, he could have written as inge- nious and graceful an allegory as Addison himself. Indeed^ in every flower of speech with which he amply decks his pages, he has proven his mastery in all kinds of figurative expression. Every- where carrying himself with high-minded dignity, everywhere the refined rhetori- cian, everywhere profuse in apt expres- sion, everywhere strong and lucid, he has everywhere strewn his History with apt, refined, strong, lucid figures. 200 PART II SENTENCE-STRUCTURE 201 CHAPTER VIII CLASSES AND FORMS OF MACAULAY'S SENTENCES (a) Preliminary discussion of certain MODERN THEORIES OF THE SENTENCE. 1. L. A. Slicrman's Theory. \ Xovelties are to be expected in these days of intensest interest in research. Minute and profound study in the different branches of literary cuhure has affected rhetoricians, wlio have turned their attention to the de- velopment of English prose. Among the scholars who have been foremost in this in- vestigation has been Professor Lucius A. Sherman of the University of Nebraska. His theory is treated in chapters 19-27 of his "Analytics of Literature." In substance it is this: that the development of English prose has been marked : first, by decrease in predication' ; second, by suppression of clauses'; third, by omission of conjunctions and infrecjuent use of relatives^. Professor 1. Analytics of Literature by Sherman, Ginn & Co. 1893. Ch. XX. 2. Ibid. P. 280. 3. Ibid. P. 309. 203 Sherman's conclusion, enforced with a good deal of emphasis, is, that "from the Lyrical Ballads to the present moment the language of books and the language of men have been growing rapidly alike." This is truly aston- ishing. There can be no misunderstanding of his meaning, for he ends the statement of his theory with all the confidence of a proph- et : "The literature of this busy age must be as condensed and energized as its thought. So far as this may be we are trying to make words do the work of sentences. — as we have seen in Browning and Tennyson's mode in poetry. We reduce 'if one were to speak with strictness' to 'strictly speaking' ; and we shall cut down 'strictly speaking' to 'strictly,' if we can get our generation to ac- cept the symbol ; so with 'calmly', 'mani- festly,' and the rest. Literary English, in short, will follow the forms of the standard spoken English from which it came. No man should talk worse than he writes, no man writes better than he should talk. The element of unerring, instant selection, — when it is lacking, is the only difference. "* Professor Sherman is a voluble writer with a theory. He is a radical and has a new gospel for rhetoricians. Conservative •Ibid. Pp. 311-312 men are always slow in accepting novelties and strange doctrines. This is particularly true of conservative rhetoricians. More- over, it is easy to point out Sherman's er- rors. Though in many parts of his book he seems to appreciate the element of per- sonality as it appears in the style of writers, though he once and again seems to realize that there can be many styles, whether in prose or poetry, all faultless, he falls com- pletely under the sway of a mere notion, a new and strange doctrine, when he speaks of the development of English prose. In his words, last quoted, any one with half an eye can see that he confounds the license which has always been acceded to poets with an imagined right which has never been granted to writers of prose. Everyone re- members Voltaire's witty remarks that the English gain four hours a day by clipping their words. But no man, except a man with new rhetorical notions, believes that there is to be a time when we shall cast off the formality essential to an elegant prose style, or the wording and phrasing without which prose would become sputter. The signs of thought displayed by an orator — gesture, posture, facial expression, varieties of articulation and intonation are lost in 205 written speech. The procedure in written speech must l)e more or less formal. The punctuation, wording, phrasing must be to the eye of the reader what gesture and in- tonation are to the eye and ear of the hearer. Talking and writing one and the same ! Not at all ! They can never be. because they are different means of delivering thought, and the means must be suited to the differ- ing conditions.* 2. A. S. Hill's J'iczv. As far as the West is from the East, so far is the theory of Sherman from the the- ory of Hill. The Nebraskan's theory rep- resents the young man with an "original" notion of which this old world has never heard before. The theory of the Harvard rhetorician is that of the wise conservative who cares not for striking "original" no- tions, but who, in the words of Harvard's own Emerson : re-read an old book when many people go palavering about a new one. It is a comfort after reading Sherman's dog- matic assertions on the short sentence to turn to conservative opinions of present- day sentence-structure. "In our day," says Professor Hill, "although we occasionally *In confirmation of tliis opinion see: J. M. Hart's Handbook of Rlietoric, Pp. 141-142. 206 see a sentence of only two or three words and occasionally one of two hundred, ex- tremely short and extremely long sentences are rare. Often the distinction between the two is so slight that a change in punctua- tion, phraseology or arrangement suffices to put material that is scattered through sev- eral sentences into one, or material that is stretched through one sentence into several. When the difference is a mere matter of punctuation, and still more when it is a matter of substance, the choice between short and long sentences depends partly on the nature of the subject matter and partly on the character of the persons addressed. To recommend the use of short sentences almost exclusively, as some writers do. is to look on the subject from but one point of view.* Elsewhere H\\\ says : That kind of sentence has its place. Each kind the mas- ter of expression uses according to his needs.* 3. The Present IVriter's Jleic. In the opinion of the pre>ent writer. Hill's statements, which are based on the doctrine of all the old rhetoricians, seem to be sen- .See: the 1S96 Edit, of Adam? Sherman Hill'-s "Principles of Rhet'«ric," Pp. 216-217. L. A. Sherman's book was published in 1893. •Ibid 228. 207 sible and sound. Sentence-structure in written speech is due : first, to the charac- ter of the thought ; second, to habit. The study of a man's rhetoric is at bottom the study of a man's mind, and, conversely, a man's thought will change his manner of expression. Yet the best of us, even those most fertile in rhetorical devices, are crea- tures of habit. The growth of mind, the increase of culture, may vary expression, but on the whole we shall find that we are habituated to certain modes of expression. The sum of these modes constitutes the style of the writer. The style, as the French say, is the man. Though it is true that all ex- pression must be more or less formal, still, generally speaking, styles fall into two classes : first, what the French call "grand," that is the studied, the carefully formal style; second, the informal, conversational and familiar style. Accordingly when we consider the sentence-structure of any para- graph or series of paragraphs, our query should be : first, what are the surroundings of a sentence ; second, is the style formal, or informal, conversational and familiar? As a thousand tongues have said, Macaulay's style is carefully, consistently, consciously formal. The difference between the His- 308 tory and the Essays is that in it he is more formal than ever. The lahor of fifteen years, the sacrifice of all other ambitions, an elaborate plan, the most scrupulous care in composition, the search-light of refined crit- icism in revision, made Macaulay's style in his iiuujiiiiiii of'iis as "grand." yet moving with elegant ease, as he could wish. Ac- cordinglv we may expect his sentence- structure, whether it be in narration, de- scription or exposition, to be studiously cor- rect, solid, formal: though it may vary in form, according to the thought, it must, nevertheless, preserve the same rigid for- mality, (b) The classes of sentences found in THE History. 1. Sentences Embodying Either a Condi- tion. Restriction, Hesitation, or a til on (/lit Running Parallel zvith the Main Thought. A. Places where such sentences are to be found. They are to be found, first of all, in exposition. It is impossible, because of the very nature of exposition, to do without conditions or restrictions of opinion when giving an explanation of a principle or situation. Laconic lan- 209 guage at any rate, though it may do for the expression of dogma, will not do .for the expression of a condition or restriction within a single sentence. Also it is the nature of mind to express in relative clauses thought having di- rect relationship with the main thought of the sentence. If there is a desire to be strictly formal in sentence-structure, and if two thoughts are parallel, it is natural to put them in a single sen- tence. We find Macaulay then, in ex- position, embodying in a single sentence within a main thought with its accom- panying restrictions, conditions, hesi- tations, or parallel thoughts. Second, this class of sentences is to be found in place-description and generalized char- acter-description. Third, in narrative where the order is that of cause and eflFect. B. A study of this class of sentences in ]\Iacaulay's exposition. Examination of representative groups. 1. Exposition in one paragraph. See: The justification of Wil- liam's action in the paragraph be- ginning: "Those lords and gen- tlemen at whose request. ..." 210 Ill, 141, ch. 12. Seventeen sen- tences, nine belonging to the above class. In the first half of the par- agraph we read the accusations tnade against WilHam, then demon- stration of their falsity. 2. Exposition in two paragraphs. See: Explanation of Declaration of Indulgence in paragraph begin- ning, "It must in candour be ad- mitted ..." I, 206-207, mid- dle of ch. 2. Twenty-one sen- tences, thirteen of above class. 3. Exposition in three paragraphs. See IV, 120-121, beg. ch. 17. "This mode of transacting business ..." Twenty-three sentences, fifteen of above class. 4. Long series of paragraphs. See: IV, 410-416, ch. 19. Parlia- mentary reform to first discussion concerning liberty of the press. Here Macaulay passes from expo- sition into narration, then back again to exposition. It is notice- able that, in the expository pas- sages, with scarcely an exception, the sentences are of the above class. When he passes into narrative the 211 sentences become shorter and more direct. C. The two forms of description in which this class of sentence appears. Explanation. Representative passages examined. 1. In place-description see: "This country, then uncultivated and un- inhabited ..." III. 136-137, ch. 12. Here all the sentences are of the above class. 2. In character-description see : III, 179-182. General character-descrip- tion of the people of Londonderry. Thirty-six sentences, only three short. Explanation. This class of sen- tences occurs in place-description and generalized character-descrip- tion, because, though undoubtedly throughout these passages the mo- tive is description, the descriptions partake of the nature of exposi- tion ; describing certain places or characters, they also explain cer- tain situations coming before or after the description. At any rate it is observable that in such de- scription the tendency of the sen- 213 tence is to become long — to become longer than in any other kind of description. D. The particular narrative form in which it is found and why. One repre- sentative passage studied. This class of sentence occurs in narra- tive where the order is that of cause and etTect. The explanation is that in this form of narrative, though of course the narrative motive is predominant, there is a subsidiary purpose to explain relations. Hence in this kind of narrative the first class of sentences is likely to be found. See: II, 376-390. Conduct of James after the trial of the Bishops, discontent of the clergy, the gentry, the army; public indignation. The cause is James. The effect is on clergy, gentry, army and common people. In this long pas- sage the sentences are equally divided bet:ween the long and short class. Srntoices zvithoiit Condition or Restric- tion. A. Macaulay's fondness for this class of sentences. There are several reasons why Macau- lay chose to use short, straight- forward sentences : first, he aimed to make his aia work readable, capable of being under- stood by the humblest reader ; second, in description and narration — wliich em- braced most of his work — short sentences, unhampered by condition or hesitation, gave movement to his work ; third, these sentences suited his nature. B. His use of such sentences singly, or in small groups. The reasons for this. Within expository paragraphs Macau- lay is prone to break away from the first class of sentences embodying restriction of opinion, into the composition of one or two or a succession of sentences of the second class. The reason is that his pre- dominant desire as a writer was to be clear even to the humblest reader. Thus his purpose in using short sentences within expository paragraphs was to make his chief ideas stand out. He put those ideas which were prominent in his mind in sharp, short, simple sentences. A par- agraph explaining William's action closes thus: "He had found the treasury empty and the pay of the navy in arrears. He had no power to hypothecate any part of the public revenue. Those who lent him money lent it on no security but his bare word. It was only by the patriotic lib- 214 erality of the merchants of London that he was enabled to defray the ordinary charges of government till the meeting of the convention. It is surely unjust to blame him for not instantly fitting out, in such circumstances, an armament suffi- cient to conquer a kingdom." Ill, 142, ch. 12. Besides, such sentences are very often placed prominently at the head of a paragraph ; though, when in such a place, they are not always subject-sen- tences. His desire in so placing them was to strike into the mind of the reader the thought embodied in these sentences. For examples of short sentences at the head of paragraphs see almost any page of the History. C. His use of them in rapid succession or in large groups. 1. In description of extensive opera- tions and the attendant circumstances. Study of representative passages. Almost any long, rapid description in the History may be instanced to prove that in such passages short, simple sentences are used in great numbers. The most notable instance is the description of the siege of Londonderry, the com- mencement of the siege, the attack re- 215 pulsed, the blockade. Ill, 185, etc., ch. 12. Note : "The operations now commenced in earnest. The besiegers began by battering the town. It was soon on fire in several places. Roofs and upper stories of houses fell in, and crushed the inmates. During a short time the garrison, many of whom had never be- fore seen the effect of a cannonade, seemed to be discomposed by the crash of chimneys, and by the heaps of ruin mingled with disfigured corpses. But lamiliarity with danger and horror pro- duced in a few hours the natural effect. The spirit of the people rose so high that their chiefs thought it safe to act on the offensive. On the twenty-first of April a sally was made under the command of Murray. The Irish stood their ground resolutely ; and a furious and bloody contest took place. Mau- mont, at the head of a body of cavalry, flew to the place where the fight was raging. He was struck in the head by a musket ball, and fell a corpse. The besiegers lost several other officers, and about two hundred men, before the colonists could be driven in. Murray aia esca|)ed with difficnlty. His horse was killed under him : and he was beset by enemies: he was able to defend himself till some of his friends made a rush from the gate to his rescue, with old Walker at their head." See also: the account of the distress in the town just l)efore its relief, "By this time July was far advanced " The sentences are seldom more than a line long. They break on one another's heels in a manner which suggests the utmost confusion. III, 215. ch. 12. See also: The Rattle of the Boyne, IV, 25-31. 2. In narration following the order of time. Study of one representative passage. Into no narrative passage follow- ing the order of time did Macaulay enter with more spirit than into that in which he traces the events from William's start from Helvoetsluys for England to the abdication of lames II, 427-494 (second half of ch. 9), and in no other narrative passage does he better exhibit his fondness for snappy sentences con- taining no restrictive statements. ai7 The passage begins, "The deputies of the principal towns accompanied him to his yacht. Even the representatives of Amsterdam, so long the chief seat of opposition to his administration, joined in paying him this compliment. Public prayers were offered for him on that day in all the churches of the Hague. 'Tn the evening he arrived at Hel- voetsluys and went on board of a frigate called the Brill. His flag was immediately hoisted. It dis- played the arms of Nassau quartered with those of England. The motto, embroidered in letters three feet long, was happily chosen. The House of Orange had long used the elliptical device, T will maintain." The ellip- sis was now filled up with words of high import. 'The liberties of Eng- land and the Protestant religion.' "The Prince had not been many hours on board when the wind became fair. On the nineteenth the armament put out to sea, and traversed, before a strong breeze, about half the distance between the Dutch andEng-lish coasts. 218 Then the wind changed, blew hard and continues to the close of ch. 9. (c) TlIR FORMS OF SFXTFNCES IN MaCAULAY. 1. Prcliiiiiiiary Remarks. Macaulays Style Studied and Dignified, Hence tJie Choice of Sentences to that End. Though it is true that most styles are more or less formal, it is also true that there are styles which are rigorously for- mal. Such an one is Macaulay's. Re- cause his manner was strictly formal, it was necessary to shape sentences to that end. 2. Hie fovnis of Sentences Used by Macau- lax: the Short Sentence, the Balanced Sentence, the Periodic. For a strictly formal style the only sen- tence-forms at his disposal were the short sentence, the balanced, the periodic. The short sentence was useful for plain, straight- forward utterance. The balance was use- ful for matching or contrasting word or phrase or thought. The periodic sentence gave him the opportunity to make a deep impression at the end of a sentence, or to rise into climax at the end of a paragraph. 3. The Differences in His Use of These ai9 Sentences in Narrative, Descriptive and Expository Writing. In narrative following the order of time the sentences are short. They are usually composed of one subject and one predicate. They are seldom or never modified. They are short, pointed, assertive. In narrative following the order of cause and efifect, the sentence-forms are mixed. In ordinary de- scription the common sentence-form is the short and simple, though there are occa- sional periodic sentences ; balanced sentences are rare. In exposition the majority of the sentences are rather long, periodic, together with many in formal balance. 4. The Use of Short, Balanced and Peri- odic Sentences in Narration. (a) In narration where the order is that of cause and effect. As the mood in this kind of narration is partly narrative and partly expository, it has its effect on the sentence-structure. In II, 376-380, the conduct of James after the trial of the Seven Bishops, for example, half of the sentences are short, half are balanced. Here Macaulay shows two tend- encies. On the one hand, in pure narra- tion, to short sentences ; and, on the other hand, when the analytical faculty is up- aao permost. to the long sentences found in his exposition. f b ) In narration where the order is that of time. Here, because of the rapidity of movement gained by them, because of the terseness they give, because of the ease with which he can convey fact by them. ^lacaulay uses short sentences. See : the coming of Wihiam to England. II. 427-493, ch. 9. I. The Use of Short, Balanced and Peri- odic Sentences in Descrif^tion. (a) In place-description. In place-description ^Nlacaulay uses few sentences. They are often periodic. A representative passage is the siege of Lon- donderry. III. 136. Here all the sen- tences but one are periodic. There is a desire to be brief, pointed, but at the same time stately. (b) In generalized character description. In this particular kind of description, because the motive is generalization, the sentence-structure is apt to be like that in exposition. That is to say. the sen- tences are long, usually periodic, mixed with balanced. See the generalized char- acter-description of the Ulsterman, III, 231 179-182. tiere the sentences are mostly periodic. Some are balanced. ( c ) In descriptions of operations. In this kind of description the sen- tence-form is the short. See : the siege and blockade of Londonderry, III, 184, etc. Here rapidity of movement is de- sired (as is always the case in Macaulay's descriptions of operations), together with ease for the mind of the reader in readily grasping the facts, (d) In description of circumstances. F'or the same reason as in description of o]:ierations, Macaulay, in descriptions of circumstances, employs the short sen- tence. An ex'cellent example is the state of Londonderry at the height of the siege. Ill, 214-216. Tlic Use of Periodic and Bcdanccd Sen- tences ill Exposition. A. In a single paragraph. See: Vindication of the king's anger at the committee on religion, I, 466, to- wards close of ch. 4. The sentences are mostly balanced and periodic. The sentences become longer towards the paragraph-end. Also : T. 565. Defence of the com- mon people, periodic and balanced sentences. 222 Aii.l: III. 141. The arguments against William. Thirteen sentences, the nine long ones periodic and bal- anced. Thus it is with exposition in one paragraph. The sentences are long— either periodic or balanced, ^lacaulay is not, however, necessarily confined, in single expository para- graphs, to such sentences. A very re- markable exception is the argument of the whigs in the Fenwick case. See- "Thus far the Whigs seem to have " \'- 195, ch. 21. In this medium expository paragraph there are thirteen sentences, all, ex- cept two, short. Great force and point is obtained by the crowd of short sentences. B. In groups of two paragraphs. See : "James's cruelty more odious than his mercy." T. 588-590. Two para- graphs of exposition leading to nar- ration. The majority of_ the sen- tences balanced and periodic. Tn the periodic sentence at the close of para- graph one. Alacaulay asks to whom and for what did James grant his pardon. The answers come in bal- anced sentences in the centre and at the end of the next paragraph. 223 See also : The argument for the na- tional debt. I\". 394-395. The ma- jority of the sentences periodic ; three or four balanced. C. In groups of three paragraphs. See : Macaulay's excuse for William's acting as his own Foreign Secretary, IV. 120-122, ch. 17. There is a pre- ponderance of balanced and periodic sentences. The sentences are adjust- ed in the paragraph to make a forci- ble argument, climaxes in the second and third paragraphs. D. In large groups. Several remarkable passages may be studied in this connection. First, see: Parliamentary Reform and the Place Bill. IV, 401-416. Note: the passage consists of exposition, breaking at one time into narration, and then fall- ing back into exposition ; there is a preponderance of balanced and peri- odic sentences in the expository parts, and of short in the narrative part; the last three pages, in which Macaulay is stronglv asserting his own opinion, consists of periodic sen- tences increasing in size towards the climax at the end of the passage. Sec- 224 ond : see, the Hate of Ireland, IT, 122-131, ch. 6. Note: the scarcity of short sentences ; in several of the paragraphs the sentences are the same in form and equal in number, making the paragraphs as nearly alike as possible. Remark: The explanation for the ab- sence of short sentences in exposi- tion is perfectly obvious. Short sen- tences will do for direct assertion. If, in passages requiring the analyt- ical faculty, the author cannot use incompact, loose sentences he must use the balanced and periodic struc- ture. ]\Iacaulay habitually eschewed loose forms : hence we find him using, almost entirely, in exposition bal- anced and periodic forms. 7. Variety in the Use of These Forms of Sell fence. A. A\niy balanced sentences are used. Though Macaulay restricted himself so much to balanced and periodic sen- tences, he gave variety to his balanced forms in order that the reader might not be wearied. Thus : (a) Halves or parts of sentences 225 in balance. "They saw the debt grow : and they forgot that other things grew as well as the debt." I\', 400. "They greatly over- rated the pressure of the bur- den : they greatly underrated the strength by which that burden was to be borne." IV, 400. "The faults (of the Ulsterman) have, as was natural, been most offensively exhibited in times of prosperity and security: the vir- tues have been most resplendent in times of distress and peril ; and never were those virtues more signally displayed than by the defenders of Londonderry . . . " (the sentence contin- ues for three lines) TIT, 182. (b) Successive sentences in bal- ance. "The character [of the Ulster- men] thus formed, has two as- pects. Seen on one side, it must 1)-^ regarded by every well con- stituted mind with disapproba- tion. Seen on the other, it irre- sistibly extorts applause. The Spartan, smiting and spurning 226 the wretched Helot, moves our disgust. But the same Spartan, calmly dressing his hair, and ut- tering his concise jests, on what he well knows to be his last day, in the pass of Thermopylae, is not to be contemplated without admiration. To a superficial ob- server it may seem strange that so much evil and so much good should be found together. But in truth the good and the evil, which at first sight appear al- most incompatible, are closely connected, and have a common origin." Ill, 181. (c) The sentence containing a balance and a periodic end- ing. "There could not be equality be- tween men who lived in houses and men who lived in sties, between men who fed on bread and men who were fed on potatoes, between men who spake the noble tongue of great philosophers and poets, and men who, with a perverted pride, boasted that they could not writhe their mouths into chatter- ing such a jargon as that in which the Advancement of Learning and the Paradise Lost were written." n, 180. "It is a truth ever present to his mind tliat his own wellbeing de- pends on the ascendency of the class to which he belongs. His very selfishness therefore is siib- linied into public spirit; and this public spirit is stimulated to fierce enthusiasm by sympathy, by the de- sire of apf'lause, and by the dread of infamy. For the only opinion which he values is the opinion of his fellows : and in their opinion devotion to the common cause is the most sacred of duties." Ill, 181. B. Use of periodic sentences towards the paragraph-end. This is a common artifice of Macau- lav's for rounding oflf his expository par- agraphs and raising the mind to a high pitch of excitement. Towards the last quarter of a paragraph it is noticeable that the sentences become periodic and grow longer and the paragraph ends with impetus. 228 Thus, the paragraph of 2^4 pages on the character of the Ulstercnen closes : "Something of the same character, com- pounded of tyrant and hero, has been found in all nations which have dominat- ed over more numerous nations. But it has nowhere in modern Europe shown itself so conspicuously as in Ireland. With what contempt, with what antip- athy the ruling minority in that country long regarded the subject majority may be best learned from the hateful laws which, within the memory of men still living, disgraced the Irish statute book. Those laws were at length annulled but the spirit which had dictated them sur- vived them, and even at this day some- times breaks out in excesses pernicious to the commonwealth and dishonourable to the Protestant religion. Nevertheless it is impossible to deny that the English col- onists have had, with too many of the faults, all the noblest virtues of a sover- eign caste. The faults have, as was nat- ural, been most offensively exhibited in times of prosperity and security, the vir- tues have been most resplendent in times of distress and peril, and never were those virtues more signally displayed than by the defenders of Londonderry, when their Governor had abandoned them, and when the camp of their mortal enemy was pitched before their walls." Ill, 181-182. C. Use of short sentences. (a) Oracularly, i. e., for point. 1. At the beginning of an exposi- tory paragraph. Bv this means the point of a para- graph is known at once. Thus : "The History of Monmouth would alone suffice to refute the imputa- tion of inconstancy which is so fre- quently thrown on the common people." I, 565. "No English sovereign has given stronger proof of a cruel nature than James II." I, 588. "The truth is that the dispensing power was a great anomaly in poli- tics." I, 207. 2. In the middle of an expository paragraph. Here the succinctness of state- ment brings out the point sharply and makes it stand out boldly. See: ^lany of the paragraphs in the celebrated passage on James's policy when his power 230 was at its height, II, 13-22. Within the first paragraph we read : "The corporations were filled with his creatures. His revenues far exceeded those of his predecessors. His pride rose high." (b) For Movement. The use of short sentences for move- ment is noticeable in all of Macaulay's description of operations and attend- ant circumstances, and in rapid narra- tion. Concliidiiuj Observations. A. The sentence forms favoured by ]Macaulay, namely, the short sentence, which is direct and contains no restric- tion ; the balanced, which has two equal or nearly equal parts ; the periodic, which has its parts so placed that em- phasis will come at the end of the sen- tence, all demand from their very na- ture unusual care to ensure absolute correctness and neatness. How much care can be learned from a comparison of Macaulay's periods with the slap- dash of the ordinary writer. B. Macaulay's carefulness proven : (a) Objectively, from the testimony of Trevelyan. asi Macaulay's consistency, in general, with his theory, his canons for histor- ical writing, have already been spoken of in this treatise. How scrupulous he was in the minutiae of his sentence- structure, needs now to be mentioned. Trevelyan, in the Life and Letters of Macaulay already referred to, says: "Macaulay never allowed a sentence to pass muster until it was as good as he could make it. He thought little of re- casting a chapter in order to obtain a more lucid arrangement, and nothing whatever of reconstructing a paragraph for the sake of a happy stroke." "He could not rest until the lines were level to a hair's breadth, and the punctuation correct to a comma ; until every para- graph concluded with a telling sentence, and every sentence flowed like running water." And Trevelyan adds that Mac- aulay wrote to Mr. Longman about the edition of 1858, "I have no more cor- rections to make at present. I am in- clined to hope that the book will be as nearly faultless, as to typographical ex- ecution, as any work of equal extent that is to be found in the world."* Life and Letters of Macaulay, Pp. 200, 203. 282 (b) From the internal evidence of the sentences themselves. High sounding as these words of Trevelvan are, the truth of them is borne out by an industrious and pains- taking scrutiny of Macaulay's sentence- structure in the History. Never was there sentence-structure more faultless in execution. The sentence-forms em- ployed required care in order to ensure correctness. ]\lacaulay gave unstinted care. Therefore minute examination of his lines can find little fault in them. Some men may prefer the informal sentence-structure, but every man must find the formal sentence-structure of the History, after its kind, beyond crit- icism. C. Macaulay's correctness : (a) In the syntax itself. As in the paragraph, so in the syn- tax. ]\Iacaulay is correct. His dili- gence, his refined sentence-feeling, so to speak, his impatience with error, his ambition to make every sentence and everv paragraph a model of excellence, resulted in perfect syntax. (h) In the relative places assigned to the clause and phrase embodying the 233 leading thought and the subordinate thought. But sentences may be correct, and yet not neat. Sometimes a new arrange- ment of clause and phrase may better suit the eye and the ear. In mastery of arrangement, whether it be in paragraphing or sentence - structure. Macaulay was equally preeminent. As -far as sentence-structure is concerned his masterly arrangement of clause and phrase in balanced and periodic sen- tences is admirable. The balance is al- ways nicely adjusted, as in Pope's coup- lets. The periodic sentences, short or long, prove the great rhetorician's scrupulosity in the placing of subordi- nate thought and leading thought in that order which would strike hardest at the close. 234 CHAPTER IX PROPERTIES OF THE SENTENCE IN MACAULAY (A) Unity. 1. Macauloy's Painstaking. It is merely another way of saying that Macaulay was careful in sentence-structure, to say, that it was his habit to finish his sen- tences to a nicety. His short sentences are as finished as they are short ; his periodic and balanced sentences are each an organ- ized whole. A man of his literary sensi- tiveness and so thorough in revision, would leave no tags to his sentences, nor tolerate redundancies. 2. Occasional Lack of Strict Unity; Faulty Punctuation. Several critics, particularly Mo /t-Jsoa . and ]\Iinto, have observed that ^vlacaulay, in the Essays, sometimes lapses into the error of overloading his sentences with details. In other words, he btmches into one sentence many statements which could have been bet- ter formulated in several sentences. This is true also of his work in the History. 235 ^Iacalliay seems to have felt at times that his sentences were getting too short and scrappy and, accordingly, massed many statements in one sentence, separating them by colon and semicolon. The present writer has noted several dozen instances. One or two citations will bear out his opinion. (a) At the end of a paragraph, after many short sentences, we read: "The chancellor fell with a great ruin. The seal was taken from him; his head was not safe: he fled from the country; an act was passed which doomed him to perpetual exile; and those who had as- sailed and undermined him began to struggle for the fragments of his power." I, 185. (b) "'The town (Namur) was strong; the castle was believed to be impregna- ble ; the magazines were filled with pro- visions and ammunition sufficient . . . winter quarters ; the garrison consisted of sixteen thousand of the best troops in the world ; they were commanded by an excellent general ; he was assisted by an excellent engineer ; nor was it doubted that \'illeroy could march with his great army to the assistance of Boufflers, and that the besiegers would 236 be in much more danger than the be- sieged." V. 56. 3. Lack of Unity in Adjusting Sentences to the Paragraph: Stringing Togeth- er Sentences Without Connectires. It has been observed in a previous chajv ter that Macaulay habitually suppressed con- nectives. This is apt to make parts of par- agraphs, and sometimes whole paragraphs, choppy. Almost every sentence of Macau- lay's, considered as a unit, may be correct in composition. Nevertheless, his non-use of connectives — "like," "accordingly." "how- ever." "thus." "hence." etc.. which are con- sidered necessary in the modern English paragraph for the sake of sequence — is open to criticism. Connectives amalgamate sen- tence with sentence, and carry on the para- graph sequence. (B) Clearness. 1. Care in the Use of Modifiers. One of the sources of clearness in Macau- lav's writing is his freedom from confusion in the use of modifiers. .All the phrases which express time, place, manner, are u.sed neatly, as well as correctly, \ever are the words "either." "or," "only." "not only." "alone." "still." improperly used. Moreover, Macaulay has the knack of employing these 237 words in such places as to give vigor to his expression. A single instance is : "The his- tory of Monmouth would olone suffice to re- fute the imputation of inconstancy which is so often thrown on the common people." 2. Care in the Use of Personal Pronouns. The forms of sentence which were IVIa- caulay's choice, if they are to be composed correctly and neatly, require necessary vigi- lance in the use of pronouns. In the use of personal pronouns, Macaulay deliberately guarded as far as possible against construc- tions involving any other case than the nom- inative. In many places where other writers would have written complex sentences, \Ia- caulay. because of his dislike of involved construction and for the sake of clearness, frequently broke what might be a complex sentence into many sentences beginning with he and they. 3. Care in the Use of the Neuter fit) and Relative Pronouns. The stumbling block of several great writ- ers, for example, Addison, and of most young writers, is the neuter pronoun it. That pronoun is never used incorrectly in the History. Indeed. IMacaulay's work serves as a model in this respect. See the paragraph beginning, "The truth is the dispensing 238 l)0\ver was a great anomaly in politics. It was Utterly nioonsistent ... i, -w/, ch. 2. It. referring to "dispensing power." is used in every sentence in the paragraph. Likewise in the use of relative pronouns Alacaulay is a model. Relatives are never omitted when needed. They seldom are too far from an antecedent, and are never with- out one. 4. Care in the Use of Deiiwiistrative Fro- llOltJlS. The confusion of that and zchich. an error found in the prose of otherwise excellent writers, is never noticealile in ^Nlacaulay. Besides, in order to avoid ohscurity. he has a habit of repeating his thats at the begin- ning of many successive clauses where some writers would have made a single demon- strative suffice. 5. Repetition of Personal Pronouns, Ad- jectives, T^erbs. and Xonus. Not only does the historian repeat the same personal pronoun, adjective, verb and noun in many successive sentences, as was shown in chapter 6 of this treatise, he also repeats them in single sentences. Obviously in single sentences, as in successive sen- tences, the repetition is for the sake of clearness. The reader may find many ex- 23B amjiles of repetition of pronoun, adjective, etc., in a single sentence in any chapter of the History. 6. Use of "and." Macanlay's use of a/;fl'-initial was criti- cised in our second chapter. Of course the commonest use of and is as a connective within the sentence. Here many great writ- ers, and most ordinary writers, err by using the connective immoderately. IMacaulay uses the and within the paragraph moder- ately, and, in such places, correctly. 7. Sice Use of .Uzuvhs. Nothing can he more awkward in a writer and more trying to his readers than the mis- placing of adverbs. Adverbs properly placed are forcible ; improperly placed they are most irritating. Macaulay, in accordance with that keen sense of diction for which he was celebrated in his essays and in his poetry, has been very discriminating in his use of adverbs. Note the use of "justly" in the following citations: "Neither of the hostile castes can justly be absolved from blame." H, 1?2. "The mother country justly regarded their cause as her own." H, 1.31. 8. A-eoidancc of Very Long Sentences. Macaulay's avoidance of long sentences 240 has previously been remarked upon. But adequate explanation was not given. It is true, as Coleridge has remarked, that in a single long sentence the whole of an idea, in all its parts, can be presented.* This has been proven in modern times, for e.xample, by Coleridge himself in his metaphvsical writings ; and. in the Elizabethan era, in the long sentences of Hasker's Ecclesiastical Polity. Nevertheless, modern practice is against very long sentences. The question is really one of utility. Long sentences are a necessity for the presentation of certain kinds of thought. There were two reasons why Macaulay avoided long sentences. The first was his constitutional dislike of the long, rambling sentences. The second was that the kind of thought he had to present did not recjuire such sentences. These two things combined to make Macaulay deliver himself in short sentences with that clear- ness for which he is justly celebrated. 9. Use of "for" at the Beginning of Sen- teiiees. Explanation. Perhaps nothing signalizes Macaulay's dislike of long sentences better than his use of the word for at the beginning of the sen- tences. Scattered throughout the Historv •See: The Friend. 241 are many groups of two or three sentences which most writers would combine into one. Instead of making the explanation which is introduced with for a subordinate part of the main statement, the historian almost al- ways detaches it and makes it an independ- ent sentence. Thus : " . . . they clear- ly ought to have supported the Exclusion Bill. For to place a papist on the throne was monstrous." I, 466. "In fact, however, his condition was more pitiable and irritating than theirs. For though not persecuted as a Roman Catholic, he was op- pressed as an Irishman." II, 123. 10. Tlic Leading Thouglif of a Paragraph Stated in a Simple Sentence. The possibilitv of easily following the thought of a paragraph depends upon clear apprehension of the leading thought at the start. In general ]\Iacaulay places the lead- ing thought of a paragraph in a short, sim- ple sentence at or near the beginning. The drift of the thought of a paragraph is thus made clear. 11. Lnininonsness and Clearness Due to Avoidance of Loose Structure and Preference for Formal Sentences. Clearness in ]\lacaulay. however, is most- ly due to the forms of sentence which he fa- 242 vnred. The nature of the loose sentence is such that it is a good medium for the deHv- ery of chit-chat, odds and ends of thought, conversation: in short, it is the sentence for famihar talk. easy, flowing, informal writ- ing. The very nature of the balanced and periodic structure is such that in it great care is needed in the placing of every part of speech. Clause and phrase must each be in a definite place. Stress must be laid at a particular point. The formal style, therefore, if it is also correct, must always be the clearest style in which to present thought as simple as IVIacaulay's. The his- torian's clearness is largely due to his em- jiloyment of short, balanced and periodic sentences. (C) Force. 1. Ill tJie Sentence. A. Avoidance of loose sentences. By avoiding loose sentences, not only did Macaulay gain clearness ; he gained force. Orderliness, concentration of material, and forcible utterance are best obtained in the sentence-structure which was his choice. B. Apt use of interrogative sentences. The historian did not use interrogative 243 sentences haphazard or spasmodically, as do many writers. Interrogative sentences, when found in the History, are bunched in a single paragraph or series of para- graphs, evidently with a purpose. In truth, the use of interrogative sentences in such paragraphs is a device of ]\Iacau- lay's for force. C. Use of short sentences. 1. For bold, direct statement. Besides the ordinary use of short sentences in description and narration, Alacaulay uses them on special occa- sions for extraordinarily forcible ex- pression. Under such conditions they occur at the beginning or within a par- agraph ; seldom at the end. 2. To mark the half-way point of a paragraph. This is a very striking device. Hav- ing given the first half of the paragraph to a certain aspect or part of the main thought of the whole paragraph, the historian indicates his intention of turn- ing to the second aspect or part of the thought, by writing sharp, short sen- tences, thus : a. In the first half of the paragraph beginning, "Unhappily James in- 244 stead of becoming ..." It, 131. ch. 6., the great writer has been speaking of James's partisan- ship. The second part begins : '"But this was the smallest part of his guilt and madness." b. In the first half of the first para- graph of ch. 6, the historian speaks of James's prosperity. The sec- ond half of the paragraph is most- ly in periodic sentences. This half is begun : "The corporations were filled with his creatures. His rev- enues far exceeded those of his predecessors. His pride rose high." 3. To end a climax and turn to a fresh subject. Sometimes when a climax is conclud- ed, a short sentence makes a convenient turn towards a new subject. Thus, after a grand clima.x on the partisan- ship of James, already referred to, the historian closes his paragraph, "Such were the bitter fruits of the policy of James." A new paragraph then begins. D. Periodic sentences. 1. Stress coming at the end in a single word or thought. See: "Yet surely the presumption is 346 that what the most honest and hon- ourable men of both parties, Not- tingham for example among the Tories, and Somers among the Whigs, not only did, but avowed, cannot have been altogether inex- cusable; and a very sufficient ex- cuse will without difficulty be found."' I\', 120. The excuse is given in the next two paragraphs. 2. The stress coming on the climactic word of a series. At the close of a paragraph in IV, 121, ch. 17, we read : "Yet it would be a great error to imagine, even now, that our princes merely reign and never govern. In the seventeenth century, both Whigs and Tories thought it, not only right, but the duty, of the first magistrate to govern. All parties agreed in blaming Charles the Second for not being his own Prime Minister. All par- ties agreed in praising James for being his own Lord High Admiral ; and all parties thought it natural and reason- able that William should be his own Foreign Secretary. Note the force of Foreign Secretary. The historian ar- ranges, not only the series of sentences, 246 but the whole paragraph, to get the two words Foreign Secretary at the end. I. Balanced sentences. 1. Stress on the second part of the balance. "For though not persecuted as a Roman Catholic, he was oppressed as an Irishman. In his country the same line of demarcation which sep- arated religions separated races, and he was of the conquered, the subju- gated, the degraded race." II. 131. 3. Stress on the first part of the bal- ance. "To this day a more than Spartan haughtiness alloys the many noble qualities which characterize the chil- dren of the victors, while a Helot feeling, compounded of awe and ha- tred, is but too often discernible in the children of the vanquished." II, 130. F. Chiasmus. ^^'e should expect a writer like ^lacau- lay, whose mind was saturated with Greek and Latin classics, to employ rhetorical artifices found in those two languages. Such an one is the inverted balance, called by the Greeks Chiasmus. 247 Thus : "The old proprietors, by their effort to recover what they had lost, lost the greater part of what they had retained." II, 131, ch. 6. 2. The Place of the Sitbject-Seiifeiice. The forcibleness of a series of sentences depends among other things upon the place where the leading thought is found. Great writers, therefore, aim to display the leading thought at the beginning of a paragraph, towards the middle, or at the end. At any rate Alacaulay attempts to stamp the leading thought on the memory by placing it at the beginning or the end of a paragraph. A. At the beginning. 1. A paragraph on the obscurity of the dispensing power in Charles II's reign begins: "It must in candour be admitted that the constitutional question was not then free from ob- scurity." I. 206. 2. Another, on the cruelty of James, begins: "No English sovereign has ever given stronger proof of a cruel nature than James II." I, 588. B. At the end. The commonest place for the subject- sentence in the History is at the beginning, or near the beginning, of paragraphs. 248 Sometimes it is found at the end. Thus, at the end of a paragrajih on James's ec- centric clemency, we read: "It (the eccentric clemency ) may be distinctly traced in every case either to a sordid or to a malignant motive, either to a thirst for money or thirst for blood." I, 390. C. Cogent expression of topic at the be- ginning of a paragraph, with repeti- tion at the end in different language. .\ paragraph on historic proofs of the popular opinion that, "the Roman Catholic, where the interests of his re- ligion were concerned, thought himself free from the ordinary rules of moral- ity." The paragraph begins: "Nor w^as this opinion |as above] destitute of a show of reason." And ends: "the in- ference popularly drawn from these things was that, however fair the gen- eral character of a Papist might be, there was no excess of fraud or cru- eltv of which he was not capable when the safety or honour of his Church was at stake." II, 18. D. At the beginning, middle and end of a paragraph. See: \, 120, ch. 20. The paragraph 249 begins : "The English regard assas- sination, and have during some ages regarded it, with a loathing peculiar to themselves." In the centre of the paragraph we read: "Scarcely an Englishman, not utterly destitute of conscience or honor, will engage in a plot for slaying an unsuspecting fel- low creature." The paragraph ends : "To bring together in one body forty Englishmen all hardened cutthroats, and yet all so upright and generous that neither the hope of opulence nor the dread of the gallows can tempt any one of them to be false to the rest, has hitherto been found, and w\\\, it is hoped, always be found im- possible." /;; the Adjustment of the Sentences to the Paragraph. A. Climax within the paragraph read- ing to grand climax at the end of the paragraph. See the paragraph opening: "Unhap- pily James, instead of becoming a me- diator ..." II, 130-131, ch. 6. The paragraph is on James's partisanship and its unhappy consequences. There are two climaxes, one occurring in the 250 centre in a series of short sentences ; the other at the end. See also: The first paragraph of ch. 6. Two chmaxes, one at the centre the other at the end. B. The rise into periodic sentences of increasing length in forcihle expression of opinion. See ISIacaulay's opinions of the Place r.ill in the paragraphs beginning: "The subordinate functionaries ought to be excluded ..." and. "still more noxious if possible . . . I\'. 408-409, ch. 19. C. Emphatic word. It is not very difficult to open a para- graph with a powerful, emphatic word; but it is certainly no small accomplish- ment to so carry out all the details of the paragraph that they will converge in a single emphatic word at the end. Macau- lay has succeeded in both of these things. 1. Emphatic word at the beginning of a paragraph. See: "Aiiistcrdaiu was the place where the leading emigrants, Scotch and Irish, assemliled." I, 487, ch. 3. After many paragraphs on James's blameworthy action towards Ire- 251 land, in which, however, he is not mentioned, the historian opens a paragraph : "James himself seemed, at the commencement of his reign, to be perfectly aware of these truths." II, 128, ch. 6. Emphatic word at the end of a paragraph. See, the paragraph beginning, "Wil- liam had under his command near- ly thirty-six thousand men ..." IV, 21, ch. 16. This is a eulogy of the army of William just before the description of the battle of the 15oyne. Up to this time Macaulay has hardly mentioned the word Boyne. He brings it in with start- ling effect as the last word of the paragraph. See also, "The gen- eral to whom the direction of the expedition against Ireland ..." Ill, Z72, ch. 14. Here we have a paragraph two pages long on Schomberg, in the second half of which the tribute paid to him by the Commons is compared to the tribute paid to a general one hun- dred and twenty-five years later. The name of the general is not 252 mentioned. Suddenly, at the very end of the paragraph occurs the word W'cUinyton. D. Adjusting the sentence-structure to energetic expression. There are times when a theme in the HistorA- has extraordinary interest for Macaulay; when the subject and the oc- casion call into action the full play of his genius ; when he is carried away by a consummate flame of eloquence. Such passages are eminently worthy of special study. Even here, exalted as is his theme. ra])id as is his utterance, passion- ate as is the surge of his elocjuence, his sentences are finished ; he is self-con- trolled. These passages have the air of spontaneity, but the close student discov- ers order and arrangement where the careless eye sees only play of light. Perhaps no ]:)assage in the History is more justly celebrated than the descrip- tion of the siege of Londonderry. In that passage there is nothing more vigorous, more noble, nothing written with more en- thusiasm than the character-description of the XHstermen (ITT. 1/0-182). To this we turn for a study of Macaulay's adjust- ment of sentence-structure to energetic expression. 253 1. Partition of paragraph into sec- tions, each section deahng with a part of the general theme and having the same, or nearly the same, number of sentences. The passage spoken of consists of one paragraph of 2^^ pages. The sub- ject is treated in four nearly equal parts ; first, introduction and compar- ison of the Ulstermen with the Puri- tans and Cromwellians : second, com- parison with the Castilians ; third, comparison with the Spartans ; fourth, conclusion. 2. Repetition of the leading thought of a section at the beginning and end. Each comparison which is made in this passage brings out a new phase of the character of the Ulstermen. At the beginning of the third and most impor- tant section, that on the Spartans, we read : In all ages, men situated as the Anglo Saxons in Ireland were situated, have peculiar vices and peculiar virtues, the vices and virtues of masters, as op- posed to the vices and virtues of slaves." And at the end of the sec- tion: "Something of the same charac- 264 ter, compounded of tyrant and hero, ha?? been found in all nations which have dominated over more numerous na- tions." With Macaulay clear thought means accurate expression. How clear- ly he thought, and how accurately he expressed his thought, comes out in such repetition. 3. Grouping of sections to form a cli- max. Moreover, in this great paragraph Macaulay has so grouped his sections that each adds a new phase to the thought and forcibly expresses the facts as to the nobility of character of the Ulstermen exhibited during the siege. The comparison with the Cromwellians brings out their religious zeal and in- vincibility : the comparison with the Castilians, their haughtiness ; the com- parison with the Spartans, their calm- ness. The conclusion summarizes their virtues and faults in a series of periodic sentences growing longer as we come to the grand climax at the end. Note: (1) Tn this paragraph there are but three simple sentences : all the rest are balanced or periodic. (2) The variety of the balanced 255 sentences. (3) The increase in number and size of the periodic sentences towards the cHmax. ( 4 ) Clearness is due : to the form of the sentences, particularly to the successive balances. embodying comparisons. ( 5 ) Force is due : to the grouping of the sections, to the rise towards climax, to the form of the sentence-structure, to the cli- maxes in the sentences themselevs. E. Brevity, spacing, economy of words. Contradictory as it may sound, no writer was more proper in expression, yet at the same time more economical than Macaulay. His profuseness is shown in the numerous passages where he puts no restraint on full expression. His econ- omy of words is shown in his dropping of connectives, in his directness, his straight- forwardness, his aversion for roundabout locution. Much of his forcibleness lies in this very fact, that, while he surges onward carrying his readers with him in the flood of his language, he steers clear from contorted expressions, which, like eddies, are the danger-points in many writings. He economizes words by drop- ping connectives, phrases, leaving them 356 to be supplied by tbe reader. He avoids redundancy. Everywhere, in short, peri- odic or balanced sentences, he is brief, neat, clear, forcible. ^1^1 Harmoxy. 1. iMacaulay's Taste for Harmonious Flozv of Language: His Poetry, His Ex- pressions in His Essays. ^racaulay, considered chronologically, was first a poet, then an essayist, then an histo- rian. In his poetry he evinced a taste for harmonious flow of language; in his essays he everywhere commends this quality ; in his History it is among his own greatest charms. Twice as a student of Trinity he won the Chancellor's prize for poetry. One of these poems. "Evening," which he indited in 1821, has many real beauties. Its mood is the mild pensiveness which pervades Milton's II Penseroso. There are no verses in it which linger in the memory. But there is in it a gift for melodious numbers, cultivated to a high degree of excellence. The Chan- cellor's prize poems are not well known, as they were never published: btit parts of Horatius. published in "Lays of Ancient Rome," can yet be found in many school books. The heroic ideals of old Rome, cast into the appropriate metre found in Hora- 257 tins, have ensured ]\Iacaulay's reputation as a poet to the present day. Everyone who knows anything about Macaulay remembers Trevelyan's account of his love for ballads, the astonishing ease with which he com- posed them, the happy faculty for melody which they evinced. Everyone who has read Macaulay's essays on literary subjects recalls his laudation of prose with stately movement. Not the least part of the enjoy- ment of reading the History is due to the melodious flow of the language. 1. The Absence of Barbarisms and Ne- ologisms from, His Language. A marked feature of the History, indeed, of the essays also, is the absence of barba- risms. The .whimsical introduction of gro- tesque word-shapes, which was Carlyle's fault, the coining of new words which De Ouincey and Coleridge indulged in, and which was the amiable weakness of Matthew Arnold, cannot be reckoned against ATacau- lay. He is not a purist, yet his language is idiomatic. He was slow to use a new word, yet had command of all that was pure and best in the English language of his day. Therefore the second source of enjoyment of his language is due to its inoffensiveness. 2B8 3. Alliteration. An exhaustive study of the manifestations of Macaulay's sense of Harmony — that del- icate sensitiveness to the even flow of his periods — as it is exhibited in the History, would take us too far afield. A few citations will illustrate the truth. Alliteration is fre- quently noticed. Thus: "No amnesty for the mutual wrongs inflicted by the Saxon de- fenders of Londonderry, and by the Celtic defenders of Limerick, his ever been granted from the heart by either race. To this day a more than Spartan haughtiness alloys the many noble qualities which characterize the children of the Victors, while a Helot feel- ing, compounded of awe and hatred, is but too often discernible in the children of the Vanquished." U, 122. 4. Pairing Words of Similar Sound. Excellent use of alliteration, shows the poet's ear. The pairing of words of similar sound betrays the training in metre which was Macaulay's in his earlier days. "The town [Cork] is adorned by broad and well built streets, by fair gardens, by a Corinth- ian portico which would do honour to Pal- ladio, and by a Gothic College worthy to stand in the High street of Oxford." HI, 269 161. Note the sonorous effect of the o's in the first syllable of many of the words. "The next .summer the soW, fertilized by /wenty /Aousand corpses, broke forth into millions of poppies. The traveler, who, on the road from Saint Trou to Tirlemoiit, saw that vast sheet of rich scarlet spreading from Lsinden to Neerwindeu, could hardly help fancying that the figurative prediction of the Hebrew prophet was literally accom- plished, that the earth was disclosing her blood, and refusing to cover the slain." IV, 471, ch. 20. 5. Adapting Sound to Sense. The exquisite commingling of sound and sense is of the very nature of poetry. It is not very often that we notice a happy blending of the two in the lines of the History. Wlien we do, as in the case where Macaulay's imagination is at play, we are reminded that he began as a poet, and ended as an histo- rian. Thus: "A new court, not designed with the purest taste, but stately, spacious and commodious, rose under the direction of Wren. The wainscots were adorned with the rich and delicate carvings of Gib- bons. The sfoireases zvere in a blaze with the glaring frescoes of Vcrrio." III. 61. It is only in narration and description that 260 Macaulay's poetic fervor, poetic imagination and extreme sensitiveness to the flow of lan- guage aijpear. If the perfection of both tiiought and form i^ the highest mark of merit in hterature, lAlacaulay attained to it hy virtue of the unbroken harmony of his language: for every line is "level to a hair's breadth."' because every sentence flows like running water. Our work is done. Yet we cannot refrain from adding a parting word. It is not given to many men to attain to their standard of perfection, whether it be in literature, sci- ence, or any other field of activity. The highest eulogy that can be pronounced upon Macaulay is that he attained to the high standard towards which he strove. True he did not, in his History, cover the period which he had allotted to himself. But that part of his task which he did finish, is, judged from the literary standpoint, as per- fect as a man of genius, of the greatest skill, the greatest training, exercising the greatest care, could make it. The "imaginary model" which Macaulay set up in his essay on His- tory was, in literary workmanship, realized in the publication of the History of Eng- land from the accession of James II. The blemishes and inefficiencies of the History 261 are due to the limitation of the faculties of the historian. Its admirahle ciualities are due to the splendour of his genius. Now, we have a lively knowledge of many of Macaulay's literary qualities. We have studied him in many moods. We have scrutinized many forms of his writing. We have attempted to thoroughly master some, if not all, the artifices of his Rhetoric. Of THE UNIVERSITY OF ^UfOHViji 26a 1^ UAX UOH i TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. s book is due on the last date stamped below, >n the date to which reaewed. 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