the beautiful, and not to be on the lookout for faults and blemishes. The acquisition of such a critical spirit must invariably blind the student to those very elements which alone are worth his study.

If the student searches for faults in Macaulay's works he will surely find them, and often flagrant ones; but his aim should be far different from this. It is true that an intelligent reading of either Macaulay's Essays or his History cannot fail to disclose his faults; but these should be passed over with as little notice as possible, and the attention concentrated upon the beauties of his style and thought. Aside from their brilliancy, there is a peculiarly magnetic quality in Macaulay's works which at once wins the reader and brings him into close sympathy with their author. The student who studies him with an earnest purpose will soon find himself under the sway of his magic, and his works will be invested with an almost irresistible interest.

It is a fundamental principle of all literary study that the student should first gain a fair knowledge of the work as a whole, the general trend of reasoning, and the conclusions which the author desires to establish, before proceeding to an analytical and detailed study. So in taking up these essays the student should first read them through carefully without stopping to look up references or to verify allusions, in order to

gain a general view of the whole field. Then he should turn back and begin a more or less exhaustive study of the essay, giving his attention mainly to the author's style and vocabulary, and to its general

content.

Macaulay's vocabulary was noted chiefly for its wide extent and for his good taste in the use of words. He displays no eccentricities, nor does he employ unusual or provincial forms of speech. In his choice of words he is both dignified and graceful. These and other characteristics should be carefully noted, but too much time should not be devoted to the study of words in this or in any other masterpiece. It must always be remembered that words are but the instruments by which thought is expressed, and only enough time should be given to their study to enable the student to master the intricacies of the author's thought. It is the living spirit which quickens, and words are but the vehicles by which it is conveyed.

The second subject of study is the author's style, and it offers a most fruitful field for interesting and profitable investigation. Few authors have been characterized by a style at once so brilliant and so clear; so florid and picturesque, and yet so simple and direct. His essays abound in imagery, comparisons, contrasts, and allusions. From his boundless stores of information he draws copiously and with marked spontaneity

illustrations of his subject which cover the widest possible range of human thought and life. He knows not only the great events and personages of the world's history and literature, but he evinces a remarkable. familiarity with persons and deeds so inconspicuous as hardly to find mention in the most detailed annals of the past. The student who conscientiously follows out each allusion and illustration in any one of his greater essays will have to search through many dictionaries, encyclopædias, and histories, and will acquire no small fund of useful and interesting information. And whoever does this will gain some idea of the wide range of reading, the indefatigable industry, and the marvellous memory of the author, who wrote many of these essays, as he himself says, afar from books and libraries, without an opportunity even to verify the references with which his memory supplied him so bountifully.

The student should study carefully the various constructive devices which he employs to convey his meaning, such as the balanced and periodical sentence; the antithetical and climactic forms of expression; and the numerous rhetorical figures, such as pathos, the various forms of comparison and contrast, humor, hyperbole, irony, etc., all of which he frequently uses with power and effect. Numerous illustrations of all of these and others may be found in each essay, and

they should be identified and studied both analytically and constructively.

His style may be characterized briefly as clear, simple, animated, and strong. It has sometimes been called artificial, but the true lover of Macaulay will find it the natural and artistic expression of his sympathetic mind, and not a series of labored devices to attract readers or impress his points. In the long run the popular verdict of a writer is the true one. Critics may still carp and cavil at the author of "Milton" and "The Lays," but by the popular tribunal he has been acquitted of their charges and placed forever among the great masters of thought and expression which the English-speaking world has produced.

The last and most important topic of study is found in an author's purposes and the steps by which he attains them. And here the easiest and by far the most interesting part of the work is reached in a study of Macaulay.

In his expression he is always clear and frank. No matter how radical his views, he never fears to utter them. He never indulges in obscurities or subtleties of thought. His opinions never lack definition; and he never fails to express them so clearly that they cannot be misunderstood, and so forcibly that it seems almost presumption to attempt to discredit them. It is true that he is so vigorous a thinker, and becomes so

absorbed in the subject with which he is dealing at the moment, that he tends towards radical and exaggerated views, so that his subject becomes unduly exalted and the things with which he compares or contrasts it correspondingly depreciated. But it is by no means a harmful thing for a young person to come into an intimate acquaintance with a man who can be at one moment an impetuous lover and at the next moment a violent hater, and one who is not afraid to express his opinions and is never at a loss for vigorous language to clothe them in.

After having read the essay as a whole, the student should carefully look up and verify all its allusions and references, re-reading it in the light of his increased knowledge and expanded horizon. He should then make a paragraph summary, that is, he should express the main idea of each paragraph in a single pointed sentence, in proper order. From this summary he should proceed to make a skeleton of the essay by selecting the most important points, expanding them, and joining to them in their proper order and relationship the minor or subordinate elements, until a complete outline of the whole essay has been formed.

This outline should then be studied, point by point, to ascertain whether Macaulay developed his thought in a careful and logical manner; whether he followed his line of argument closely or indulged in digressions;