ristics of humanity. He is indeed
rather a sculptor than a painter. His figures are round, perfect,
throbbing with life, and their hard and striking outlines, springing
sharply from the background of despotism and persecution, are more
imposing than any Rubens-like vividness of coloring which could warm
them. He treats of diplomacy as a diplomat, unwinds the reel of protocol
and treaty, and binds up with the inflexible cord the rich sheaves of
his deep researches. His reflections are suggestive but short, and his
details never weary.

He loves, too, to mark the sympathies of nature with event--the rain
falling upon the black-hung scaffold, or the laughter of gay sunshine
mingling with the shouts of a great victory. And here he differs, as
indeed he does in almost every other respect, with Macaulay. The
Englishman thinks little of nature; as he himself says of Dante, 'He
leaves to others the earth, the ocean, and the sky; his business is with
man.' Indeed, the absence of a true and universal sympathy is the one
vast defect of Macaulay. No position is so high that it may not be
overshadowed by the giant form of his violent partisanship, no character
so small that it may not be raised to the semblance of greatness by the
mere force of his political preferences. His scholarship was splendid,
his genius commanding, the beauty of his style unsurpassed; but he
perverted his knowledge to subserve certain public ends, and wielded his
magnificent powers too often in the defence of an undeserving cause.
Fascinated by his dazzling rhetoric, borne along by its rapid and
tumultuous current to the most brilliant conclusions, we forget the
narrowness of the stream. His scope of vision was indeed great, but it
had its limits, and these were not imposed by time or necessity, but by
the unyielding will of his own prejudices. As his virtues were massive,
so were his errors grievous. He ventured to grasp the great speculative
themes of existence with a mind that was neither profound nor
suggestive. He swam with all the wondrous ease of an athlete through the
billows and across the currents and counter-currents of elegant
literature, of politics, of theology, yet possessed not the diver's
power to win their sunken but priceless jewels. Rich he was with the
accumulated intellectual spoil of centuries, but the power of exhaustive
generalization was denied him. His perceptions were vigorous and acute,
and none knew more perfectly to exhaust a s