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"know that there was a Dr. John Eachard, who wrote a celebrated work on the Grounds and Occasions of the Contempt of the Clergy. They also know that there was a Dr. Lawrence Echard, who wrote both a History of England and a History of the Revolution. Both of these were remarkable men; but we almost doubt whether Mr. Macaulay, who quotes the works of each, does not confound their persons, for he refers to them both by the common (as it may once have been) name of Eachard, and at least twenty times by the wrong name." Every one who knows Mr. Macaulay is aware that this is the last kind of blunder he is at all likely to commit. But the blunder is all the critic's. We do not say that he knew nothing of these "remarkable men" till he saw them mentioned in Mr. Macaulay's references; but had he known a little more of them, he would have been aware that they were of the same name, and nearly related; that though the name was sometimes spelt with an a, and sometimes without it, every body who has occasion to mention them has always spelt both names alike—that when Lawrence himself mentions John he spells his name as he does his own-Echard; and that the Biographia Britannica spells them both Eachard. Can the depths of drivelling sink lower than this?

|lection. We shall enter no further into this controversy than to make two quotations, which show that, as usual, if Mr. Macaulay is wrong, he errs in good company.

Selden, in his Table Talk, says, "Ministers with the Protestants have very little respect the reason whereof is, in the beginning of the Reformation they were glad to get such to take livings as they could procure by any invitations-things of pitiful conditions. The nobility and gentry would not suffer their sons or kinsmen to meddle with the Church, and therefore, at this day, when they see a parson they think him such a thing still, and there they will keep him, and use him accordingly. If he be a gentleman, he is singled out and used the more respectfully."

The second quotation we make is from Jeremy Collier, who in his Dialogues on Pride, evinces how clearly he understood the Royal Order, exactly as our author does. Philathes, who represents Collier himself, is represented as saying "Upon my word, this order, take it which way you will, has a very singular aspect, and looks as if it intended to put the clergy in mind that they ought not to aspire above an Abigail."

It seems to us, however, that the Order itself may be well explained, and the fact of the general lowness of the clergy's matrimonial alliances still further accounted for, by only recollecting the Great Queen's avowed predilection for the celibacy of

their wives, and the unprotected state in which she left their marriages. The act of Edward the Sixth, legalizing their marriages, which had been repealed by Mary, was not received till the accession of James I. Laud publicly declared in the reign of Charles I. that in the disposal of patronage he should always prefer single to married men. So that, at all events, it must be easy to understand, that, while such impressions prevailed in high quarters, persons of good condition would never consent to let their daughters form connections which would, in the first place, draw on them the discountenance and reprobation of all the high social authorities

Mr. Macaulay is complained of for his scanty catalogue of the luminaries of the English Church who flourished in 1685. The critic complains of the omission of "Je-churchmen; the contempt in which she held remy Taylor, Sanderson, Ken, Sparrow, Oughtred, Cudworth, Hall, Herbert, Godwin, Hammond, Fuller, Hooper, Pearson, and a hundred others." The complaint is absurd-and worse than absurd. Cudworth and Pearson are mentioned in the paragraph complained of. Ken is mentioned so often in the book as not to require to be named again. As to the rest, not one of them, except Hooper and Sparrow, were alive in 1685, and these are not very great names. Taylor had been dead eighteen years; Sanderson twenty-two years; Fuller and Hammond twenty-four years; Oughtred twentyfive years; Hall nearly thirty years; and Godwin and Herbert nearly fifty years! And yet, these are the names which it seems Mr. Macaulay ought to have introduced as being the living lights of the Church of England in 1685!

Mr. Macaulay is vehemently assailed for his account of the social position of the clergy, and for his construction of the Royal Örder given by Bishop Sparrow in his col

and, in the event of a return to papacyor even to a more rigorous discipline-often contended for in the Anglican church itself, might make them and their children causes of shame and humilation to their families. Under such circumstances it seems to us inevitable that the habit of forming low marriages must have been very general among the great body of the country clergy; and

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on their seals, banners, or monuments, and carved them in wood or stone, or depicted them on the glass windows of their mansions, and in the churches, chapels, and religious houses of their foundation, endowment, and patronage, as perspicuous evidences and memorials of their having a possessory right to such supporters, are fully and absolutely well entitled to bear them." After this, what is to be said or thought of the flippant assumption of the critic, who declares the right to supporters to be a question which " never had and could never have arisen among English country gentlemen!"

There is one piece of philology on which Mr. Macaulay's censor ventures, which is hit off with so classical an air, and is yet so plainly the result of mere ignorance, that we cannot refrain from exposing it. We do it with less regret, that the topic is a curious

if once established, would, as usual, continue | who anciently used such supporters either after the first cause might have ceased. The critic doubts if Mr. Macaulay ever read the Grand Duke Cosmo's Travels, because he, the critic, could find nothing in the book derogatory to the birth of the English clergy. That he had read through this huge quarto volume to verify, or rather discredit, our author's assertion, is good proof alike of his industry and his inclinations. Next time, however, he consults the book, let him turn to Appendix A., where, after giving a list of the bishops, the writer says, They are of low birth, in consequence of certain customs which have been introduced into the kingdom."* But perhaps the most unblushing piece of ignorant and presumptuous fault-finding in this critique meets us a few pages on. Mr. Macaulay says that the English country gentleman "knew the genealogies and coats of arms of all his neighbors, and could tell which of them had assumed supporters without any right, and which had the misfortune to be alderman." On which the better-informed critic exclaims: "There was not one of these unlettered country gentlemen who could not have informed our historian that no such question about supporters had or could ever have arisen among private English gentlemen." It is scarcely necessary to say that, as usual, Mr. Macaulay is right; and the critic speaking about a matter of which he knows nothing. No point in heraldry has been more disputed than the right of English private gentlemen to bear supporters. If our contemporary will look at Edmonson, (Mowbray Herald's) "Body of Heraldry," he will find the following passage: "There have been many who, although they were neither ennobled nor ever enjoyed any public

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office under the crown, assumed and bore porters, which were continued to be used by their descendants until the extinction of the family; as, amongst others, the Hevenings of Sussex, the Stawells of Somersetshire, Wallops and Titchbournes of Hants, Lutterells of Somersetshire, Popham of Hants, Covert of Sussex, Savage of Cheshire, &c. Hence it may justly be concluded that those families

* We have seen a book by a Mr. Churchill Babington, which is apparently intended to confute, but in reality very much confirms our author's views as to the clergy in the seventeenth century. We may simply mention, to show this gentleman's idea of refutation, that in order to neutralize the effect of a citation from the Whig poet, Shadwell, representing a Tory parson courting an Abigail, he judiciously rummages out a Tory pamphlet, which represents a Whig parson in the same situation! † Vol. i. 191.

one.

Mr. Macaulay refers, in his earlier chapters, to a legend related by Procopius, concerning the then mysterious island of Britain. For this he is sharply corrected. It seems Procopius did not, and could not refer to Britain, but to another island, called Brittia, which, wherever it was, was not Britain. And then the critic says, in stern and solemn conclusion, "We again wonder that a grave historian should think that such a story could possibly relate to an island in possession of the greater part of which the Romans had been for upwards of four centuries, and introduce it to prove nothing as far as we can see but what we own it does prove that "able historians may tell very foolish stories, and that an over-anxiety to show one's learning may betray the smallness and occasionality of

the stock.'

Now this all sounds very learned, though we perfectly agree with the sentiment with which it concludes; but there are one or two things about the subject which the writer has still to learn. First, the man who penned the last sentence probably did not know that Mr. Macaulay is not the first "grave historian" who has given this proof of a scanty stock of learning. He will find in the thirty-eighth chapter of Gibbon the very legend given at length from Procopius, and attributed to Britain; and also a note in which Gibbon remarks, "The Greek historian himself is so confounded by the wonders which he relates, that he weakly attempts to distinguish the islands of Brittia and Britain, which he has identified by so many inseparable circumstanHe will find also that the historian of

ces.

Rome, so far from thinking it impossible that the legend could relate to an island which the Romans had possessed for four centuries, quotes this among other authorities to prove the singular fact that what had been "a Roman province was again lost among the fabulous islands of the Ocean." Yet Gibbon never took his learning at second-hand. But farther, Procopius having written in the sixth century, John Tzetzes, who wrote in the twelfth century, mentions the identical legend, with express reference to Britain. By that time England had taken its place as one of the great Norman kingdoms, and must have been emphatically known, from the communication which the Crusades had opened with our Western world. The passage occurs in his Scholium on Hesiod's Works and Days, 1. 169. (Gaisford's Poetæ Græci Minores, Oxon. 1820, vol. iii. p. 120.) it begins as follows:

· Περὶ δὲ τῶν ἐν Ωκεανῳ νήσων Ομηρος, καὶ οὐτοσὶν ὁ Ἡσίοδος, καὶ Λυκόφρων, καὶ Πλούταρχος, καὶ Φιλόστρατος, καὶ Δίων, καὶ ἕτεροί τινες συγγεγραφήκεσαν, ὡς ἀγαθή τε ἡ χώρα ἐστὶ, καὶ ἀεὶ καταπνεομένη ζεφύρῳ, τρὶς ἔτους ἑκάστου ἀναδίδωσι τοὺς καρπούς. Ἐκεῖσε δέ φασι καὶ τὰς τῶν ἀποβεβιωκότων ψυχὰς διαπορθμεύεσθαι, γράφοντες τοιάδε. “Περὶ τὴν ἀκτὴν τοῦ πες: τὴν Βρεταννίαν νῆσον Ὠκεανοῦ, ἄνθρωποί τινες οἰκοῦσιν ἰχθυοθῆραι, κατήκοοι μὲν Φράγγοις, φόρον δὲ μὴ τελοῦτες αὐτοῖς,” &c.*

* We subjoin a translation of the whole passage

for the benefit of the less learned reader, and especially the erudite critic, to whom such assistance, we suspect, will be a great accommodation:-"Now concerning the islands in Ocean, Homer and our Hesiod himself, and Lycophron and Plutarch and Philostratus and Dion, and some others, have given an account-how good the country is, and how, being fanned continually by Zephyrus, it produces three crops each year. And they say that thither the spirits of the deceased are transported-writing

in this manner-'On the shore of the ocean which surrounds the island of Bretannia, dwell a race of fishermen, subjects of the Franks but not paying them tribute. These people while sleeping in their own houses, hear a voice calling them and are

sensible of a bustle about their doors, and on getting passengers. Embarking in these ships, in a single stretch, they reach the island of Bretannia rowing; although they could hardly reach it in their own ships, even under sail, in a whole day and night. There they disembark and land their unknown passengers, and though they see no one, they hear the voice of persons admitting them and calling them by name and tribe, and family and trade; and them in like manner making answer. And so they sail home again in one stretch, and perceive the ships lighter than when they had those passengers aboard.' Hence all the sons of the Greeks say the spirits of the departed dwell there."

up, they find certain vessels not their own, full of

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We stop here, because our space and our patience are alike exhausted. We might fill pages with errors as gross and exposures as palpable. We have only given our readers some means of estimating, as the well-informed among them could easily have done without our help, how far the critic has ambition. But we are weary of beating the very humble object of his air. We feel as we have sometimes done on a summer evening, when with arms fatigued we retreat at last, and leave the field of battle by a constant combat with the musquitoes, to the victorious insects. Singly, none of them are worth the crushing, and life is too short to make away with them all. Sufice it to say, that of all the imaginary mistakes bored to convict Mr. Macaulay, there is not in fact, of which our contemporary has laone which does not, like the examples given above, proceed either on bold misquotation or palpable ignorance. We are wrong, however, there is one. Mr. Macaulay calls Sir Winston Churchill a baronet-when he was only a knight. But the error was corrected in 4000 copies in full circulation three months before this critique saw the light-and this, we believe, is the full extent of the victory which has been gained over the historian in this contest de minimis. We therefore quit have given leave nothing farther to be said the subject, satisfied that the specimens we or thought of this solitary grumbler. We would rather, for the credit of our craft, that his splenetic arrows had never been launched from such a quiver. Were all the paltry cavils as true as they are absurdly false, they would not dim one single gem in Mr. Macaulay's glittering circlet. Being untrue, they have only brought down deserved derision on their author. Dryden, in "Mac Flecknoe," has a forced, but striking conceit, that St. Patrick's destruction of poisonous reptiles

prevented the malice of his countrymen from ever being dangerous. Had this suicidal onslaught come from an Hibernian instead of an English pen, we might very justly have said with the poet, that

"In his heart though venom lies, It doth but touch his Irish pen-and dies."

It was a great mistake to assail this work on the score of accuracy. Its author was the last man likely to be caught tripping on that head. But with all the praise, and not exaggerated praise, we have bestowed on it, there are faults which an ill-natured critic might enlarge on, and a friendly one point out. And with a word or two on these we shall conclude.

The first lies on the surface; and is one of style. With great familiarity of expression on some few occasions, the author, nevertheless, is too constantly on his high-stepping steed, and trots over the common pathway with too uniform an air of grandeur. However brilliant the composition-and however much the interest excited may conceal the blemish, it is one which calls for correction; because, in the more humble though necessary parts of the narrative, it throws an air of constraint over them. In his great efforts Mr. Macaulay never fails; and he makes great occasions out of materials which would be but ordinary to ordinary men. The defect which is most apparent and, indeed, almost the only one in manner-is his difficulty in saying a simple thing simply.

We do not stop to quote examples. The reader, we admit, never wearies for an instant; and the imposing glow and richness of the context prevents their jarring on the ear or offending the judgment. Still it would be well to have the preludes and accompaniments of so striking a piece in strict harmony and accordance with their immediate theme. It is not so great an art to say a common thing in common words, as to say a brilliant thing in splendid words: but it is also an art in its way.

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not tempered and chastised in our author by a logical head, an accurate memory, and an instinctive love for fair play. His talent for description sometimes gets the better of him; and although he neither invents nor imagines incidents, it now and then happens that he loads a fact with more inferences and accessories than it can easily sustain. We have alluded to this before; and though we do not think that the ultimate impression conveyed can in any instance be justly said to be exaggerated, he at times colors his picture more from his inward reflection than the outward fact. His chapter on the customs and society of England in the seventeenth century may afford an example of what we mean-where he has dashed off a picturesque conclusion, which, we are not satisfied, was always in nature quite so striking in all its features. This, perhaps, arises in some respects from the materials with which he was there obliged to work; his description being the concentrated reflection of rays borrowed from satirists, and caricaturists, and writers of fiction, with whom truth is always subservient to point and vivacity of effect. It is right, however, to say, that the defect we refer to occurs much more rarely in his narrative, and never when the occasion is important; and the discussion on the manners and habits of the time, though a graceful and almost necessary accompaniment to the narrative, may be supposed to admit of bolder speculation than the more austere parts of the volume. It is necessary, too, to bear in mind, in criticisms of this nature, that unless allowance is made for our different points of view and for our different estimates of the relative importance of different particulars, nobody would be safe in describing an event or drawing a character.

In his general view of the history of these times, we have nothing to condemn or to suggest. It seems to us, from first to last, fresh, coherent, and true. Perhaps a Northern Whig might think that he has too little favor for the Puritans, and passes too lightly over the Scottish persecutions of Charles and James the Second. But even in this case we do not say that he has not exercised a wholesome moderation.

We now take our leave of Mr. Macaulay, not without good hope of a speedy and happy meeting again. We trust that this noble foundation may be crowned with a structure still more magnificent; and that he may live to complete the great monument which he purposes to rear to the constitution of his country. But should his fame as an historian rest solely on the volumes before us, we ac

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