of Thucydides. "This
day," Macaulay said, when in his thirty-fifth year, "I finished
Thucydides after reading him with inexpressible interest and admiration.
He is the greatest historian that ever lived." Again during the same
year he wrote: "What are all the Roman historians to the great Athenian?
I do assure you there is no prose composition in the world, not even the
oration on the Crown, which I place so high as the seventh book of
Thucydides. It is the _ne plus ultra_ of human art. I was delighted to
find in Gray's letters the other day this query to Wharton: 'The retreat
from Syracuse--is or is it not the finest thing you ever read in your
life?' ... Most people read all the Greek they ever read before they are
five and twenty. They never find time for such studies afterwards until
they are in the decline of life; and then their knowledge of the
language is in great measure lost, and cannot easily be recovered.
Accordingly, almost all the ideas that people have of Greek literature
are ideas formed while they were still very young. A young man,
whatever his genius may be, is no judge of such a writer as Thucydides.
I had no high opinion of him ten years ago. I have now been reading him
with a mind accustomed to historical researches and to political affairs
and I am astonished at my own former blindness and at his
greatness."[19]

I have borrowed John Morley's words, speaking of Gibbon, Macaulay, and
Carlyle as "three great born men of letters." Our student cannot
therefore afford to miss a knowledge of Macaulay's History, but the
Essays, except perhaps three or four of the latest ones, need not be
read. In a preface to the authorized edition of the Essays, Macaulay
wrote that he was "sensible of their defects," deemed them "imperfect
pieces," and did not think that they were "worthy of a permanent place
in English literature." For instance, his essay on Milton contained
scarcely a paragraph which his matured judgment approved. Macaulay's
peculiar faults are emphasized in his Essays and much of the harsh
criticism which he has received comes from the glaring defects of these
earlier productions. His history, however, is a great book, shows
extensive research, a sane method and an excellent power of narration;
and when he is a partisan, he is so honest and transparent that the
effect of his partiality is neither enduring nor mischievous.

I must say further to the student: read either Carlyle's "French
Revolution"