he names of the eighteenth century than in those
of all other centuries put together. If we are to talk about 'popular
histories,' the writer who distances every competitor by an
immeasurable distance is Macaulay. Whatever may be said about that
illustrious man's style, his conception of history, his theories of
human society, it is at least beyond question or denial that his
_Essays_ have done more than any other writings of this generation to
settle the direction of men's historical interest and curiosity. From
Eton and Harrow down to an elementary school in St. Giles's or Bethnal
Green, Macaulay's _Essays_ are a text-book. At home and in the
colonies, they are on every shelf between Shakespeare and the Bible.
And of all these famous compositions, none are so widely read or so
well-known as those on Clive, Hastings, Chatham, Frederick, Johnson,
with the gallery of vigorous and animated figures that Macaulay
grouped round these great historic luminaries. We are not now saying
that Macaulay's view of the actors or the events of the eighteenth
century is sound, comprehensive, philosophical, or in any other way
meritorious; we are only examining the truth of Mr. Seeley's
assumption that the century which the most popular writer of the day
has treated in his most glowing, vivid, picturesque, and varied style,
is regarded by the majority of us as destitute of interest, as
containing neither memorable men nor memorable affairs, and as
overspread with an ignoble pall of all that is flat, stagnant, and
common.

Nor is there any better foundation for Mr. Seeley's somewhat
peremptory assertion that previous writers all miss what he considers
the true point in our history during the eighteenth century. It is
simply contrary to fact to assert that 'they do not perceive that in
that century the history of England is not in England, but in America
and Asia.' Mr. Green, for instance, was not strong in his grasp of the
eighteenth century, and that period is in many respects an extremely
unsatisfactory part of his work. Yet if we turn to his _History of the
English People_, this is what we find at the very outset of the
section that deals with modern England:--

The Seven Years' War is in fact a turning point in our national
history, as it is a turning point in the history of the world....
From the close of the Seven Years' War it mattered little whether
England counted for less or more with the nations around her