performance. Mediocrity is now, as
formerly, dangerous, commonly fatal, to the poet; but among even the
successful writers of prose, those who rise sensibly above it are the
very rarest exceptions. The tests of excellence in prose are as much
less palpable as the public appetite is less fastidious. Moreover, we
are moving downward in this respect. The proportion of middling to good
writing constantly and rapidly increases. With the average of
performance, the standard of judgment progressively declines. The
inexorable conscientiousness of Macaulay, his determination to put out
nothing from his hand which his hand was still capable of improving, was
a perfect godsend to the best hopes of our slipshod generation.

It was naturally consequent upon this habit of treating composition in
the spirit of art, that he should extend to the body of his books much
of the regard and care which he so profusely bestowed upon their soul.
We have accordingly had in him, at the time when the need was greatest,
a most vigilant guardian of the language. We seem to detect rare and
slight evidences of carelessness in his Journal: of which we can only
say that in a production of the moment, written for himself alone, we
are surprised that they are not more numerous and considerable. In
general society, carelessness of usage is almost universal, and it is
exceedingly difficult for an individual, however vigilant, to avoid
catching some of the trashy or faulty usages which are continually in
his ear. But in his published works his grammar, his orthography, nay,
his punctuation (too often surrendered to the printer), are faultless.
On these questions, and on the lawfulness or unlawfulness of a word, he
may even be called an authority without appeal; and we cannot doubt that
we owe it to his works, and to their boundless circulation, that we have
not in this age witnessed a more rapid corruption and degeneration of
the language.

To the literary success of Macaulay it would be difficult to find a
parallel in the history of recent authorship. For this and probably for
all future centuries, we are to regard the public as the patron of
literary men; and as a patron abler than any that went before to heap
both fame and fortune on its favorites. Setting aside works of which the
primary purpose was entertainment, Tennyson alone among the writers of
our age, in point of public favor and of emolument following upon it,
comes near to Macaulay. But Tennys