Critical & Historical Essays by Thomas Babington Macaulay I. [antikvár]

EDITOR'S NOTEA French student of English letters (M. Paul Oursel) has written the following lines :" Depuis deux siecles les Essais forment une branche importante de la littérature anglaise ; pour désigner un écrivain de cette classe, nos voisons emploient un mot qui n'a pas d'équivalent en français ; Ils disent : un essayist. Qu'est-ce qu'un essayist f \Jessayist se distingue du moraliste, de l'historien, du critique littéraire, du biographe, de l'écrivain politique ; et pourtant il emprunte quelque trait a chacun d'eux ; il ressemble tour a tour a l'un ou a l'autre ; il est aussi philosophe, il est satirique, humoriste a ses heures ; il réunit en sa personne des qualités multiples ; il offre dans ses écrits un spécimen de tous les genres. On voit qu'il n'est pas facile de définir Vessayist; mais l'exemple suppléera a la définition. On connaîtra exactement le sens du mot quand on aura étudié l'écrivain qui, d'apres le jugement de ces compatriotes, est Vessayist par excellence, ou, comme on disait dans les anciens cours de littérature, le Prince des essayists.^'Macaulay is indeed the prince of essayists, and his reign is unchallenged. " I still thinksays Professor Saintsbury {Corrected Impressions^ p. 89 f.)that on any subject which Macaulay has touched, his survey is unsurpassable for giving a first bird's-eye view, and for creating interest in the matter. . . . And he certainly has not his equal anywhere for covering his subject in the pointing-stick fashion. You need notyou had much better notpin your faith on his details, but his Pisgah sights are admirable. Hole after hole has been picked in the " Clive " and the " Hastings," the " Johnson " and the " Addison," the " Frederick " and the " Horace Walpole," yet every one of these papers contains sketches, summaries, précis., which have not been made obsolete or valueless by all the work of correction in detail."Tvo other appreciations from among the mass of critical literature that las accumulated round Macaulay's work may be fitly cited. This i-om Mr. Frederic Harrison :" Hcw many men has Macaulay succeeded in reaching, to whom all othir history and criticism is a sealed book, or a book in anvU