ject to a dangerous bias, by the picture
of Macaulay's personal character--its domestic amiability, its
benevolence to unlucky followers of letters, its manliness, its high
public spirit and generous patriotism. On reading my criticism over
again, I am well pleased to find that not an epithet needs to be
altered,--so independent is opinion as to this strong man's work, of our
esteem for his loyal and upright character.]

That Macaulay comes in the very front rank in the mind of the ordinary
bookbuyer of our day is quite certain. It is an amusement with some
people to put an imaginary case of banishment to a desert island, with
the privilege of choosing the works of one author, and no more than one,
to furnish literary companionship and refreshment for the rest of a
lifetime. Whom would one select for this momentous post? Clearly the
author must be voluminous, for days on desert islands are many and long;
he must be varied in his moods, his topics, and his interests; he must
have a great deal to say, and must have a power of saying it that shall
arrest a depressed and dolorous spirit. Englishmen, of course, would
with mechanical unanimity call for Shakespeare; Germans could hardly
hesitate about Goethe; and a sensible Frenchman would pack up the ninety
volumes of Voltaire. It would be at least as interesting to know the
object of a second choice, supposing the tyrant in his clemency to give
us two authors. In the case of Englishmen there is some evidence as to a
popular preference. A recent traveller in Australia informs us that the
three books which he found on every squatter's shelf, and which at last
he knew before he crossed the threshold that he should be sure to find,
were Shakespeare, the Bible, and Macaulay's Essays. This is only an
illustration of a feeling about Macaulay that has been almost universal
among the English-speaking peoples.

We may safely say that no man obtains and keeps for a great many years
such a position as this, unless he is possessed of some very
extraordinary qualities, or else of common qualities in a very uncommon
and extraordinary degree. The world, says Goethe, is more willing to
endure the Incongruous than to be patient under the Insignificant. Even
those who set least value on what Macaulay does for his readers, may
still feel bound to distinguish the elements that have given him his
vast popularity. The inquiry is not a piece of merely literary
criticism, for it is impossible that