course of affairs doubtless strengthened his insight into history, and
taught him the value of downright common-sense in teaching an average
audience. Speaking purely from the literary point of view, I cannot
agree further in the opinion suggested. I suspect the 'History' would
have been better if Macaulay had not been so deeply immersed in all the
business of legislation and electioneering. I do not profoundly
reverence the House of Commons' tone--even in the House of Commons; and
in literature it easily becomes a nuisance. Familiarity with the actual
machinery of politics tends to strengthen the contempt for general
principles, of which Macaulay had an ample share. It encourages the
illusion of the fly upon the wheel, the doctrine that the dust and din
of debate and the worry of lobbies and committee-rooms are not the
effect but the cause of the great social movement. The historian of the
Roman Empire, as we know, owed something to the captain of Hampshire
Militia; but years of life absorbed in parliamentary wrangling and in
sitting at the feet of the philosophers of Holland House were not
likely to widen a mind already disposed to narrow views of the world.

For Macaulay's immediate success, indeed, the training was undoubtedly
valuable. As he carried into Parliament the authority of a great writer,
so he wrote books with the authority of the practical politician. He has
the true instinct of affairs. He knows what are the immediate motives
which move masses of men; and is never misled by fanciful analogies or
blindfolded by the pedantry of official language. He has seen
flesh-and-blood statesmen--at any rate, English statesmen--and
understands the nature of the animal. Nobody can be freer from the
dominion of crotchets. All his reasoning is made of the soundest common
sense, and represents, if not the ultimate forces, yet forces with which
we have to reckon. And he knows, too, how to stir the blood of the
average Englishman. He understands most thoroughly the value of
concentration, unity, and simplicity. Every speech or essay forms an
artistic whole, in which some distinct moral is vigorously driven home
by a succession of downright blows. This strong rhetorical instinct is
shown conspicuously in the 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' which, whatever we
might say of them as poetry, are an admirable specimen of rhymed
rhetoric. We know how good they are when we see how incapable are modern
ballad-writers in general of putting th