anything I have written.

There is not a sentence in the latter half of the article which has not been repeatedly recast."

Macaulay never intended to put his essays into permanent form, and several times refused the request of his publishers to collect and edit them. But finally the popular demand became so great that American publishers issued unauthorized editions, which found a ready sale in England as well as in America. Influenced by this fact, he finally consented to edit and publish an authorized edition, to which he attached the following preface:

"The author of these essays is so sensible of their defects that he has repeatedly refused to let them appear in a form which might seem to indicate that he thought them worthy of a permanent place in English literature; nor would he now give his consent to the re-publication of pieces so imperfect, if, by withholding his consent, he could make re-publication impossible. But as they have been reprinted more than once in the United States, as many American copies have been imported into this country, and as a still larger importation is expected, he conceives that he cannot, in justice to the publishers of the Edinburgh Review, longer object to a measure which they consider as necessary to the protection of their rights, and that he cannot be accused of presumption

for wishing that his writings, if they are read, may be read in an edition freed at least from errors of the press and from slips of the pen.

...

"No attempt has been made to remodel any of the pieces which are contained in these volumes. Even the criticism on Milton, which was written when the author was fresh from college, and which contains scarcely a paragraph such as his matured judgment approves, still remains overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful ornament. The blemishes which have been removed were, for the most part, blemishes caused by unavoidable haste. The author has sometimes, like other contributors to periodical works, been under the necessity of writing at a distance from all books and from all advisers, often trusting to his memory for facts, dates, and quotations, and of often sending manuscripts to the post without reading them over. What he has composed thus rapidly has often been as rapidly printed. His object has been that every essay should now appear as it probably would have appeared when it was first published, if he had been allowed an additional day or two to revise the proof-sheets with the assistance of a good library."

THE LITERARY HISTORY OF MACAULAY'S AGE1

A CONSIDERABLE number of England's most noted writers flourished during the life of Macaulay. At his birth the greatest poets of the preceding century were still in the fulness of their powers, while at his death the authors who have been so intimately connected with the glory of Victorian literature had already begun that brilliant work which has made this the most noteworthy period in the whole range of English literature.

With few exceptions, the greatest English poets belong to the nineteenth century. During its first quarter the world was dazzled by the genius of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Southey, Keats, and Shelley; and they had hardly passed from the stage when the first works of Browning and Tennyson were produced.

1 The Joint Committee on English Requirements, at its session in New York in 1897, recommended the study of the literary history of the various periods, to which the prescribed books belong, in connection with their study. No attempt is made here even to sketch the literary history of this period further than is necessary to furnish a background or, what may be so called, a literary setting for Macaulay's works. A more extended study of the general features of the period may be carried on with profit; yet it should not be forgotten that the great purpose of all literary study should be found in the thought of the author, and not in the details of his life history.

The history of this century contains the names of nearly all of the great masters of English fiction, of whom Scott, Thackeray, Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton, Miss Edgeworth, Charlotte Bronté, and Miss Austen were contemporary with Macaulay.

Two writers of his period may be fairly classed with our author, although they differed widely from him in many essential characteristics. These were De Quincey and Carlyle, who, with Macaulay, will easily rank among the greatest of English essayists.

Like Macaulay, De Quincey began his literary career by contributing to periodical literature, but, unlike him, he also ended it there; and he has the distinction of being the only great English prose writer who never wrote a book. Few writers since the time of Aristotle have covered so broad a field, and fewer still have proved themselves so thoroughly at home in every department of human thought and investigation, yet he never sustained any line of thought or investigation long enough to produce a work which may be called a real contribution to the intellectual life of the world. The literary value of his works is great, and in beauty and grace, as well as dignity, his style is hardly excelled; yet he cannot be ranked among the great masters of English thought.

In this respect De Quincey was distinctly inferior to Macaulay and Carlyle, each of whom engaged in

exhaustive research, and produced works that have enriched literature for all time.

Many points of resemblance will be discovered between De Quincey and Macaulay from a comparative study of their works. They were both indefatigable readers, and possessed of wonderful retentive powers. Both wrote for magazines on a wide range of topics. Each was gifted with peculiar beauties of style and with a remarkable exuberance of thought; but in their personal characteristics they were at the antipodes. The one was retiring, introspective, and morbid; the other was a man of affairs, and gifted with the power of leadership. Both were masters of the now almost forgotten art of conversation.

Between Macaulay and Carlyle there were few resemblances and fewer elements of sympathy. They were both great prose writers, and interested in the same general class of subjects. Each was attracted to the study of history, and particularly to questions relating to political and social conditions; but their view points were essentially antagonistic. The one was an interested participator in the political activities of his times, and conducted his historical studies and investigations from the standpoint of a partisan, while the other was a philosopher, and almost a recluse.

Yet while Macaulay is more attractive and, by the