, and is injurious to, the absolute and
balanced presentation of the subject. Macaulay was a master in
execution, rather than in what painting or music terms expression. He
did not fetch from the depths, nor soar to the heights; but his power
upon the surface was rare and marvelous, and it is upon the surface that
an ordinary life is passed and that its imagery is found. He mingled,
then, like Homer, the functions of the poet and the chronicler: but what
Homer did was due to his time; what Macaulay did, to his temperament.

The 'History' of Macaulay, whatever else it may be, is the work not of a
journeyman but of a great artist, and a great artist who lavishly
bestowed upon it all his powers. Such a work, once committed to the
press, can hardly die. It is not because it has been translated into a
crowd of languages, nor because it has been sold in hundreds of
thousands, that we believe it will live; but because, however open it
may be to criticism, it has in it the character of a true and very high
work of art....

Whether he will subsist as a standard and supreme authority is another
question. Wherever and whenever read, he will be read with fascination,
with delight, with wonder. And with copious instruction too; but also
with copious reserve, with questioning scrutiny, with liberty to reject
and with much exercise of that liberty. The contemporary mind may in
rare cases be taken by storm; but posterity, never. The tribunal of the
present is accessible to influence; that of the future is incorrupt. The
coming generations will not give Macaulay up; but they will probably
attach much less value than we have done to his _ipse dixit_. They will
hardly accept from him his net solutions of literary, and still less of
historic problems. Yet they will obtain, from his marked and telling
points of view, great aid in solving them. We sometimes fancy that ere
long there will be editions of his works in which his readers may be
saved from pitfalls by brief, respectful, and judicious commentary; and
that his great achievements may be at once commemorated and corrected by
men of slower pace, of drier light, and of more tranquil, broad-set,
and comprehensive judgment. For his works are in many respects among the
prodigies of literature; in some, they have never been surpassed. As
lights that have shone through the whole universe of letters, they have
made their title to a place in the solid firmament of fame. But the tree
is greate