Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the essay, is shown in the Introduction the difference between the oratorical and the essayistic style.

After this, Burke's "Speech on Conciliation is treated in a similar manner, the essential principles of forensic authorship being set forth.

[ocr errors]

Again, De Quincey's "Flight of a Tartar Tribe a conspicuous example of pure narration - exhibits the character and quality of this department of literary composition.

Southey's "Life of Nelson" is presented in the same personal and critical manner, placing before the student the essential characteristics of the biographical style.

66

The series continues with specimens of such works as "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," by Coleridge; the "Essay on Burns," by Carlyle; the "Sir Roger De Coverley Papers," by Addison; Milton's "Paradise Lost," Books I. and II.; Pope's Iliad," Books I., VI., XXII., and XXIV.; Dryden's "Palamon and Arcite," and other works of equally eminent writers, covering, in the completed series, a large and diversified area of literary exposition.

The functions of the several departments of authorship are explained in simple terms. The beginner, as well as the somewhat advanced scholar, will find in this series ample instruction and guidance for his own study, without being perplexed by abstruse or doubtful problems.

With the same thoughtfulness for the student's progress, the appended Notes provide considerable information outright; but they are also designed to stimulate the student in making researches for himself, as well as in applying, under the direction of the teacher, the principles laid down in the critical examination of the separate divisions.

A portrait, either of the author or of the personage about whom he writes, will form an attractive feature of each volume. The text is from approved editions, keeping as far as possible the original form; and the contents offer, at a very reasonable price, the latest results of critical instruction in the art of literary expression.

The teacher will appreciate the fact that enough, and not too much, assistance is rendered the student, leaving the instructor ample room for applying and extending the principles and suggestions which have been presented.

INTRODUCTION.

MR. GLADSTONE sums up the character and career of Thomas Babington Macaulay by saying that "In a happy childhood (he was born of Scotch descent, at Rothby, October 25, 1800) he evinced extreme precocity. His academical career (Trinity College, Cambridge, 1818) gave sufficient, though not redundant, promise of after celebrity." (He wrote the poem "Pompeii," in 1819, and gained the Chancellor's medal. In 1821, his poem on "Evening" gave him the Craven scholarship.) "The new golden age he imparted to the 'Edinburgh Review,' and his Parliamentary speeches in the grand crisis of the first Reform Bill, achieved for him an immense distinction. He was indeed prosperous and brilliant; a prodigy, a meteor, almost a portent in literary history. But his course was laborious, truthful, simple, independent, noble."

Jeffrey, in acknowledging his manuscript of "Milton," said, "The more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that style."

"With the essay on Milton," says Matthew Arnold, "began Macaulay's literary career, and, brilliant as that career was, it had few points more brilliant than its beginning."

5

He was twenty-five years old when he wrote his essay on Milton, and during his life of sixty years and three months he wrote thirty-three essays which were published in the "Edinburgh Review," and four other essays, besides his speeches in Parliament, the speech at his installation as Lord Rector of Glasgow University (1849), and a short speech on retiring from political life the same year.

His most celebrated poems, aside from "Pompeii," "Evening," and "The Battle of Ivry," are his "Lays of Ancient Rome," which, after the manner of Sir Walter Scott, are patriotic, simple, rich in imagery, and often idyllic; but not such as to give him the fame which he won by his prose. Every school-boy knows the versification and the stirring character of "The Battle of Lake Regillus" and "Horatius Cocles."

Macaulay's favorite study was history, which he wove into all his essays, often in the form of biography; and his History of England, two volumes of which were published in 1848, absorbed his mind for the last fifteen years of his life, remaining as a monument of his exact and extensive historical research. Thackeray said, "He reads twenty books to write a sentence; he travels one hundred miles to make a line of description." Mr. Buckle, author of the "History of Civilization," declared that Macaulay was "perfectly accurate in all the facts which he himself had investigated." His terseness has been compared with that of Tacitus. His power of condensation, aptness of phrase and epithet, and his indomitable industry made him a master of rhetorical effect in the use of his great learning.

In 1834, resigning his seat in Parliament, he was appointed a member of the Supreme Council of India, on a salary of £10,000 a year; and in 1838, returning from India, he had by saving accumulated a fortune of £30,000, which, with a legacy of £10,000 from his uncle, General Macaulay, enabled him to pursue his literary work free from pecuniary anxiety. He remained un

married, and his intimate intercourse was confined to a few literary men, his family consisting of his nieces, with whom he spent his later days at Holly Lodge, a charming retreat in Kensington. One of his pleasures was to take the children to see the sights of London, and he was always affected, even to tears, at any touches of pathos in the events around him or in the books he read. He died in December, 1859, and was buried in the Poet's Corner, Westminster Abbey, having for pall-bearers the most illustrious men of England.

He received during his life distinguished honors, being created a British Peer in 1847; elected Lord High Steward of the Borough of Cambridge; made an honorary member of the academies of Utrecht, Munich, and Turin; a member of the Order of Merit, by the King of Prussia; Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford; and President of the Philosophical Institute of Edinburgh.

Macaulay was an essayist rather than an orator, although his speeches in Parliament were elaborated with great painstaking and were models of argument and rhetoric. He did his best in everything he wrote, but he was not a leader. As an historical critic and a man of letters he was without a peer, but he has been criticised as somewhat

lacking in philosophical thought and as sophistical in spirit. His keen analysis and brilliant narration of historical and biographical facts blinded his reader's mind to the strong prejudices which sometimes colored his inductions. "In his own line," says one of his critics, "he had no rival. He kindled a fervent human interest in past and real events, which novelists kindle in fictitious events. This was the peculiarity which fascinated contemporaries and made them so lavish of praise and admiration." Another critic has written, "As a narrator, in his own province, it would be difficult to name his equal among English writers; in it, he exhibited the understanding of Hallam, the knowledge of Mackintosh, joined to the picturesqueness of Southey and the wit of Pope."

We turn now, in connection with our study of Macaulay's "Milton," to the consideration of this great author as a model writer of

THE ESSAY.

There are some striking distinctions between an essay and an oration.

I. An essay is given out and understood to be written discourse; an oration is to be spoken, its aim being to impress auditors by the apparent spontaneity of utterance. In the essay there are a measured flow and elaboration of the ideas which are presented. This kind of discourse is to be read with deliberation, and studied. In the direct address of an oration, there may be a cer

« AnteriorContinuar »