t in such an attitude as to impose upon a superior enemy,'
and so on through the sum of Wellington's achievements. 'There was
something more precious than these, more to be desired than the high and
enduring fame which he had secured by his military achievements, the
satisfaction of thinking to what end those achievements had been
directed; that they were for the deliverance of two most injured and
grievously oppressed nations; for the safety, honour, and welfare of his
own country; and for the general interests of Europe and of the
civilised world. His campaigns were sanctified by the cause; they were
sullied by no cruelties, no crimes; the chariot-wheels of his triumphs
have been followed by no curses; his laurels are entwined with the
amaranths of righteousness, and upon his death-bed he might remember his
victories among his good works.'

What is worse than want of depth and fineness of intonation in a period,
is all gross excess of colour, because excess of colour is connected
with graver faults in the region of the intellectual conscience.
Macaulay is a constant sinner in this respect. The wine of truth is in
his cup a brandied draught, a hundred degrees above proof, and he too
often replenishes the lamp of knowledge with naphtha instead of fine
oil. It is not that he has a spontaneous passion for exuberant
decoration, which he would have shared with more than one of the
greatest names in literature. On the contrary, we feel that the
exaggerated words and dashing sentences are the fruit of deliberate
travail, and the petulance or the irony of his speech is mostly due to a
driving predilection for strong effects. His memory, his directness, his
aptitude for forcing things into firm outline, and giving them a sharply
defined edge,--these and other singular talents of his all lent
themselves to this intrepid and indefatigable pursuit of effect. And the
most disagreeable feature is that Macaulay was so often content with an
effect of an essentially vulgar kind, offensive to taste, discordant to
the fastidious ear, and worst of all, at enmity with the whole spirit of
truth. By vulgar we certainly do not mean homely, which marks a wholly
different quality. No writer can be more homely than Mr. Carlyle, alike
in his choice of particulars to dwell upon, and in the terms or images
in which he describes or illustrates them, but there is also no writer
further removed from vulgarity. Nor do we mean that Macaulay too
copiousl