LORD MACAULAY.

In the

the realms which Cortes and Pizarro had added to the dominions of Charles V.; how in Asia, British adventurers founded an empire not less splendid and more durable than that of Alexander.

In 1842, as already stated, LORD MACAULAY produced his Lays of Ancient Rome. Nor will it be less my duty faithfully to record following year, he published a selection of Critical crimes and follies far more humiliating than any disdisasters mingled with triumphs, with great national and Historical Essays, contributed to the Edin-aster. It will be seen that what we justly account our burgh Review, which are still unrivalled among chief blessings were not without alloy. It will be seen productions of this kind. In questions of classical that the system which effectually secured our liberties learning and criticism-in English philosophy against the encroachments of kingly power, gave birth and history-in all the minutiae of biography and to a new class of abuses from which absolute monarchies literary anecdote-in the principles and details of are exempt. It will be seen that in consequence partly government-in the revolutions of parties and of unwise interference, and partly of unwise neglect, opinions-in all these he seems equally versant. the increase of wealth and the extension of trade proHe enriched every subject with illustrations drawn duced, together with immense good, some evils from from a vast range of reading. He is most able which poor and rude societies are free. It will be seen and striking in his historical articles, which present was followed by just retribution; how imprudence and how, in two important dependencies of the crown, wrong pictures of the times of which he treats, with obstinacy broke the ties which bound the North Ameriportraits of the principal actors, and comparisons can colonies to the parent state; how Ireland, cursed and contrasts drawn from contemporary events by the domination of race over race, and of religion ov and characters in other countries. His reviews of religion, remained indeed a member of the empire, but Hallam's Constitutional History, Ranke's History a withered and distorted member, adding no strength of the Popes, and the Memoirs of Burleigh, Hamp- to the body politic, and reproachfully pointed at by all den, Sir Robert Walpole, Chatham, Sir William who feared or envied the greatness of England. Temple, Clive, and Warren Hastings, form a series of brilliant and complete historical retrospects or summaries unsurpassed in our literature. His eloquent papers on Bunyan, Horace Walpole, Boswell's Johnson, Addison, Southey's Colloquies, Byron, &c., have equal literary value; and to these must be added his later works, the biog raphies in the Encyclopædia Britannica, which exhibit his style as sobered and chastened, though not enfeebled.

In 1848 appeared the first two volumes of his History of England from the Accession of James II., of which it was said 18,000 copies were sold in six months. In his opening chapter he explains the nature and scope of his work.

Exordium to History of England.

over

Yet, unless I greatly deceive myself, the general effect of this checkered narrative will be to excite thankfulness in all religious minds, and hope in the breasts of all patriots. For the history of our country during the of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement. last hundred and sixty years is eminently the history Those who compare the age on which their lot has fallen with a golden age which exists only in their imagination, may talk of degeneracy and decay; but no man who is correctly informed as to the past, will be disposed to take a morose or desponding view of the present.

I should very imperfectly execute the task which I have undertaken, if I were merely to treat of battles and sieges, of the rise and fall of administrations, of intrigues in the palace, and of debates in the parliament. It will be my endeavour to relate the history of the people as well as the history of the government, to trace the progress of useful and ornamental arts, to describe the rise of religious sects and the changes of literary taste, to portray the manners of successive generations, and not to pass by with neglect even the revolutions which have taken place in dress, furniture, repasts, and public entertainments. I shall cheerfully bear the reproach of having descended below the dignity. of history, if I can succeed in placing before the English of the nineteenth century a true picture of the life of their ancestors.

Volumes III. and IV. appeared in 1855, and it soon became manifest that it was hopeless to expect that the historian would live to realise his intention of bringing down his History to 'a time within the memory of men still living,' or living in 1848. The anticipated period we may assume to be the close of the last century; and

I purpose to write the history of England from the accession of King James II. down to a time which is within the memory of men still living. I shall recount the errors which, in a few months, alienated a loyal gentry and priesthood from the House of Stuart. I shall trace the course of that revolution which terminated the long struggle between our sovereigns and their parliaments, and bound up together the rights of the people and the title of the reigning dynasty. I shall relate how the new settlement was, during many troubled years, successfully defended against foreign and domestic enemies; how, under that settlement, the authority of law and the security of property were found to be compatible with a liberty of discussion and of individual action never before known; how, from the auspicious union of order and freedom, sprang a prosperity of which the annals of human affairs had furnished no example; how our country, from a state of ignomin-between 1685-the date of the accession of James ious vassalage, rapidly rose to the place of umpire among European powers; how her opulence and her martial glory grew together; how, by wise and resolute good faith, was gradually established a public credit fruitful of marvels, which to the statesmen of any former age would have seemed incredible; how a gigantic commerce gave birth to a maritime power, compared with which every other maritime power, ancient or modern, sinks into insignificance; how Scotland, after ages of enmity, was at length united to England, not merely by legal bonds, but by indissoluble ties of interest and affection; how in America, the British colonies rapidly became far mightier and wealthier than

II.-and 1800, we have one hundred and fifteen years, of which Lord Macaulay had then only travelled over twelve. His fourth volume concludes with the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. Part of a fifth volume was written, bringing down the History to the general election in 1701, but not published till after the death of the author. No historical work in modern times has excited the same amount of interest and anxiety, or, we may add, of admiration, as Lord Macaulay's History. Robertson and Gibbon were astonished at their own success; it greatly exceeded their most daring

At about one in the morning of Monday the sixth of July, the rebels were on the open moor. But between them and the enemy lay three broad rhines filled with Ditch and the Langmoor Rhine, Monmouth knew that water and soft mud. Two of these, called the Black he must pass. But, strange to say, the existence of a trench, called the Bussex Rhine, which immediately covered the royal encampment, had not been mentioned to him by any of his scouts.

and sanguine hopes; but the number of readers was then limited, and quarto volumes travelled The Battle of Sedgemoor, July 6, 1685. slowly. Compared with Macaulay, it was as the old mail-coach drawn up with the railway express. The moon was indeed at the full, and the northern The night was not ill suited for such an enterprise. Before the second portion of Macaulay's History streamers were shining brilliantly. But the marsh fog was ready, eleven large editions of the first had lay so thick on Sedgemoor that no object could be been disposed of. It had been read with the discerned there at the distance of fifty paces. The eagerness and avidity of a romance. The colour-clock struck eleven; and the Duke (of Monmouth) ing might at times appear too high, almost coarse, with his body-guard rode out of the castle. He was but there were no obscure or misty passages. not in the frame of mind which befits one who is about Highly embellished as was the style, it was as to strike a decisive blow. The very children who pressed clear and intelligible as that of Swift or Defoe. to see him pass observed, and long remembered, that It was the pre-Raphaelite painting without its his look was sad and full of evil augury. His army littleness. Whether drawing a landscape or por- marched by a circuitous path, near six miles in length, trait, evolving the nice distinctions and subtle towards the royal encampment on Sedgemoor. Part of traits of character or motives, stating a legal arguthe route is to this day called War Lane. The foot ment, or disentangling a complicated party ques-fided to Grey, in spite of the remonstrances of some were led by Monmouth himself. The horse were contion, this virtue of perspicacity never forsakes the who remembered the mishap at Bridport. Orders were historian. It is no doubt a homely virtue, but given that strict silence should be preserved, that no here it is united to vivid imagination and rheto- drum should be beaten, and no shot fired. The word rical brilliance. So much ornament with so much by which the insurgents were to recognise one another strong sense, logical clearness, and easy adapta- in the darkness was Soho. It had doubtless been selected tion of style to every purpose of the historian, was in allusion to Soho Fields in London, where their never before seen in combination. In producing leader's palace stood. his distinct and striking impressions, the historian is charged with painting too strongly and exaggerating his portraits. He has his likes and dislikes his moral sympathies and antipathies. His sympathies were all with the Whigs, and his History has been called an epic poem with King William for its hero. Marlborough is portrayed in too dark colours, and William Penn also suffers injustice. The outline in each case is correct. Marlborough was treacherous and avaricious, and Penn was too much of a courtier in a bad court.* But the historian magnifies their defects. He does not make allowance for the character and habits of the times in which they lived, and he seizes upon doubtful and obscure incidents or statements by unscrupulous adversaries as pregnant and infallible proofs of guilt. In his pictures of social life and manners there is also a tendency to caricature; exceptional and accidental cases are made general; and the vivid fancy of the historian sports among startling contrasts and moral incongruities. Blemishes of this kind have been pointed out by laborious critics and political opponents; the 'critical telescope' has been incessantly levelled at the great luminary, yet nearly all will subscribe to the opinion that a writer of more passionless and judicial mind would not have produced a work of half so intense and deep an interest; that if Macaulay had been more minutely scrupulous, he would not have been nearly as picturesque; and that, if he had been less picturesque, we should not have retained nearly so much of his delineations, and should, therefore, have been losers of so much knowledge which is substantially, if not always circumstantially, correct.' + His History is altogether one of the glories of our country and literature.

*I wrote the History of four years during which he (Penn) was exposed to great temptations-during which he was the favourite of a bad king, and an active solicitor in a most corrupt court. His character was injured by his associations. Ten years before or ten years later he would have made a much better figure. But was I to begin my book ten years earlier or ten years later for William Penn's sake?'-Life of Macaulay, ii. 252. It is clear, however, that, misled by Sir James Mackintosh's notes, he imputed to William Penn corrupt practices chargeable against a worthless contemporary, George Penne.

t North British Review, No. 49.

The wains which carried the ammunition remained at

the entrance of the moor. The horse and foot, in a long narrow column, passed the Black Ditch by a causeway. There was a similar causeway across the Langmoor Rhine; but the guide, in the fog, missed his way. There was some delay and some tumult before the error could be rectified. At length the passage was effected; the Horse Guards, who were on watch, heard the report, but, in the confusion, a pistol went off. Some men of and perceived that a great multitude was advancing through the mist. They fired their carbines, and galloped off in different directions to give the alarm. Some hastened to Weston Zoyland, where the cavalry lay. One trooper spurred to the encampment of the infantry, and cried out vehemently that the enemy was at hand. The drums of Dumbarton's regiment beat to arms; and the men got fast into their ranks. It was time; for Monmouth was already drawing up his army for action. He ordered Grey to lead the way with the cavalry, and followed himself at the head of the infantry. Grey by the Bussex Rhine. On the opposite side of the ditch pushed on till his progress was unexpectedly arrested the king's foot were hastily forming in order of battle.

'For whom are you?' called out an officer of the Foot Guards. For the king,' replied a voice from the ranks of the rebel cavalry. For which king?' was then demanded. The answer was a shout of 'King Monmouth,' mingled with the war cry, which forty years before had been inscribed on the colours of the parliamentary regiments, 'God with us.' The royal troops instantly fired such a volley of musketry as sent the rebel horse flying in all directions. The world agreed to ascribe this ignominious rout to Grey's pusillanimity. Yet it is by no means clear that Churchill would have succeeded better at the head of men who had never before handled arms on horseback, and whose horses were unused, not only to stand fire, but to obey the rein.

A few minutes after the duke's horse had dispersed themselves over the moor, his infantry came up running fast, and guided through the gloom by the lighted matches of Dumbarton's regiment.

Monmouth was startled by finding that a broad and profound trench lay between him and the camp which he had hoped to surprise. The insurgents halted on the edge of the rhine, and fired. Part of the royal infantry on the opposite bank returned the fire. During threequarters of an hour the roar of the musketry was incessant. The Somersetshire peasants behaved themselves as if they had been veteran soldiers, save only that they levelled their pieces too high.

But now the other divisions of the royal army were in motion. The Life Guards and Blues came pricking fast from Weston Zoyland, and scattered in an instant some of Grey's horse, who had attempted to rally. The fugitives spread a panic among their comrades in the rear, who had charge of the ammunition. The wagoners drove off at full speed, and never stopped till they were many miles from the field of battle. Monmouth had hitherto done his part like a stout and able warrior. He had been seen on foot, pike in hand, encouraging his infantry by voice and by example. But he was too well acquainted with military affairs not to know that all was over. His men had lost the advantage which surprise and darkness had given them. They were deserted by the horse and by the ammunition wagons. The king's forces were now united and in good order. Feversham had been awakened by the firing, had got out of bed, had adjusted his cravat, had looked at him self well in the glass, and had come to see what his men were doing. Meanwhile, what was of much more importance, Churchill had rapidly made an entirely new disposition of the royal infantry. The day was about to break. The effect of a conflict on an open plain, by broad sunlight, could not be doubtful. Yet Monmouth should have felt that it was not for him to fly, while thousands whom affection for him had hurried to destruction were still fighting manfully in his cause. But vain hopes and the intense love of life prevailed. He saw that if he tarried the royal cavalry would soon intercept his retreat. He mounted and rode from the

field.

been killed or wounded. Of the rebels more than a thousand lay dead on the moor. So ended the last fight, deserving the name of battle, that has been fought on English ground.

Execution of Monmouth.

It was ten o'clock. The coach of the Lieutenant of the Tower was ready. Monmouth requested his spiritual advisers to accompany him to the place of execution; and they consented: but they told him that, in their judgment, he was about to die in a perilous state of mind, and that, if they attended him, it would be their duty to exhort him to the last. As he passed along the ranks of the guards he saluted them with a smile, and he mounted the scaffold with a firm tread. Tower Hill was covered up to the chimney tops with an innumerable multitude of gazers, who, in awful silence, broken only by sighs and the noise of weeping, listened for the last accents of the darling of the people. 'I shall say little,' he began. 'I come here, not to speak, but to die. I die a Protestant of the Church of England.' The bishops interrupted him, and told him that, unless he acknowledged resistance to be sinful, he was no member of their church. He went on to speak of his Henrietta. She was, he said, a young lady of virtue and honour. He loved her to the last, and he could not die without giving utterance to his feelings. The bishops again interfered, and begged him not to use such language. Some altercation followed. The divines have been accused of dealing harshly with the dying man. But they appear to have only discharged what, in their view, was a sacred duty. Monmouth knew their principles, and, if he wished to avoid their importunity, should have dispensed with their attendance. Their general arguments against resistance had no effect on him. But when they reminded him of the ruin which he had brought on his brave and loving followers, of the blood which had been shed, of the souls which had been sent unprepared to the great account, he was touched, and Yet his foot, though deserted, made a gallant stand. said, in a softened voice: 'I do own that. I am sorry The Life Guards attacked them on the right, the Blues that it ever happened.' They prayed with him long on the left; but the Somersetshire clowns, with their and fervently; and he joined in their petitions till they scythes and the butt-ends of their muskets, faced the invoked a blessing on the king. He remained silent. royal horse like old soldiers. Oglethorpe made a vigor-Sir,' said one of the bishops, 'do you not pray for the ous attempt to break them, and was manfully repulsed. king with us?' Monmouth paused some time, and, Sarsfield, a brave Irish officer, whose name afterwards after an internal struggle, exclaimed ‘Amen.' But it obtained a melancholy celebrity, charged on the other was in vain that the prelates implored him to address to flank. His men were beaten back. He was himself the soldiers and to the people a few words on the duty struck to the ground, and lay for a time as one dead. of obedience to the government. 'I will make no But the struggle of the hardy rustics could not last. speeches,' he exclaimed. Only ten words, my lord.' Their powder and ball were spent. Cries were heard of He turned away, called his servant, and put into the Ammunition! for God's sake, ammunition!' But no man's hand a toothpick case, the last token of ill-starred ammunition was at hand. And now the king's artillery love. 'Give it,' he said, 'to that person.' He then came up. It had been posted half a mile off, on the accosted John Ketch the executioner, a wretch who had high road from Weston Zoyland to Bridgewater. So butchered many brave and noble victims, and whose defective were then the appointments of an English army name has, during a century and a half, been vulgarly that there would have been much difficulty in dragging given to all who have succeeded him in his odious office. the great guns to the place where the battle was raging, Here,' said the duke, are six guineas for you. Do had not the Bishop of Winchester offered his coach not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have korses and traces for the purpose. This interference of heard that you struck him three or four times. My a Christian prelate in a matter of blood has, with strange servant will give you some more gold if you do the inconsistency, been condemned by some Whig writers work well.' He then undressed, felt the edge of the who can see nothing criminal in the conduct of the axe, expressed some fear that it was not sharp enough, numerous Puritan ministers then in arms against the and laid his head on the block. The divines in the government. Even when the guns had arrived, there meantime continued to ejaculate with great energy: was such a want of gunners that a sergeant of Dum-'God accept your repentance! God accept your imbarton's regiment was forced to take on himself the perfect repentance!' management of several pieces. The cannon, however, though ill served, brought the engagement to a speedy close. The pikes of the rebel battalions began to shake; the ranks broke; the king's cavalry charged again, and bore down everything before them; the king's infantry came pouring across the ditch. Even in that extremity the Mendip miners stood bravely to their arms, and sold their lives dearly. But the rout was in a few minutes complete. Three hundred of the soldiers had

The hangman addressed himself to his office. But he had been disconcerted by what the duke had said. The first blow inflicted only a slight wound. The duke struggled, rose from the block, and looked reproachfully at the executioner. The head sank down once more. The stroke was repeated again and again; but still the neck was not severed, and the body continued to move. Yells of rage and horror rose from the crowd. Ketch flung down the axe with a curse. 'I cannot do it,' he

6

said; my heart fails me.' 'Take up the axe, man,' cried the sheriff. Fling him over the rails,' roared the mob. At length the axe was taken up. Two more blows extinguished the last remains of life; but a knife was used to separate the head from the shoulders. The crowd was wrought up to such an ecstasy of rage that the executioner was in danger of being torn in pieces, and was conveyed away under a strong guard.

In the meantime many handkerchiefs were dipped in the duke's blood; for by a large part of the multitude he was regarded as a martyr who had died for the Protestant religion. The head and body were placed in a coffin covered with black velvet, and were laid privately under the communion table of St Peter's Chapel in the Tower. Within four years the pavement of the chancel was again disturbed, and hard by the remains of Monmouth were laid the remains of Jeffreys. In truth there is no sadder spot on the earth than that little cemetery. Death is there associated, not, as in Westminster Abbey and St Paul's, with genius and virtue, with public veneration and imperishable renown; not, as in our humblest churches and churchyards, with everything that is most endearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human destiny, with the savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and of blighted fame. Thither have been carried, through successive ages, by the rude hands of gaolers, without one mourner following, the bleeding relics of men who had been the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, the oracles of senates, and the ornaments of courts. Thither was borne, before the window where Jane Grey was praying, the mangled corpse of Guildford Dudley. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and Protector of the realm, reposes there by the brother whom he murdered. There has mouldered away the headless trunk of John Fisher, bishop of Rochester and cardinal of St Vitalis, a man worthy to have lived in a better age, and to have died in a better cause. There are laid John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, Lord High Admiral, and Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex, Lord High Treasurer. There, too, is another Essex, on whom nature and fortune had lavished all their bounties in vain, and whom valour, grace, genius, royal favour, popular applause, conducted to an early and ignominious doom. Not far off sleep two chiefs of the great house of Howard-Thomas, fourth Duke of Norfolk, and Philip, eleventh Earl of Arundel. Here and there, among the thick graves of unquiet and aspiring statesmen, lie more delicate sufferers-Margaret of Salisbury, the last of the proud name of Plantagenet, and those two fair queens who perished by the jealous rage of Henry. Such was the dust with which the dust of Monmouth mingled.

guard. Near the northern door, on the right hand, a large number of peers had assembled. On the left were the Commons with their Speaker, attended by the mace. The southern door opened; and the Prince and Princess of Orange, side by side, entered, and took their place under the canopy of state.

Both Houses approached, bowing low. William and Mary advanced a few steps. Halifax on the right, and Powle on the left stood forth, and Halifax spoke. The Convention, he said, had agreed to a resolution which he prayed their highnesses to hear. They signified their assent; and the clerk of the House of Lords read, in a loud voice, the Declaration of Right. When he had concluded, Halifax, in the name of all the estates of the | realm, requested the prince and princess to accept the

crown.

William, in his own name, and in that of his wife, answered that the crown was, in their estimation, the more valuable because it was presented to them as a token of the confidence of the nation. We thankfully accept,' he said, 'what you have offered us.' Then, for himself, he assured them that the laws of England, which he had once already vindicated, should be the rules of his conduct; that it should be his study to promote the welfare of the kingdom; and that, as to the means of doing so, he should constantly recur to the advice of the Houses, and should be disposed to trust their judgment rather than his own. These words were received with a shout of joy which was heard in the streets below, and was instantly answered by huzzas from many thousands of voices. The Lords and Commons then reverently retired from the Banqueting House, and went in procession to the great gate of Whitehall, where the heralds and pursuivants were waiting in their gorgeous tabards. All the space as far as Charing Cross was one sea of heads. The kettle-drums struck up, the trumpets pealed, and Garter King at Arms, in a loud voice, proclaimed the Prince and Princess of Orange king and queen of England; charged all Englishmen to pay, from that moment, faith and true allegiance to the new sovereigns; and besought God, who had already wrought so signal a deliverance for our church and nation, to bless William and Mary with a long and happy reign.

Thus was consummated the English Revolution. When we compare it with those revolutions which have during the last sixty years overthrown so many ancient governments, we cannot but be struck by its peculiar character. The continental revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took place in countries where all trace of the limited monarchy of the middle ages had long been effaced. The right of the prince to make laws and to levy money, had during many generations been undisputed. His throne was guarded by a great regular army. His administration could not, without extreme peril, be blamed even in the mildest terms. His subjects Yet a few months, and the quiet village of Todding-held their personal liberty by no other tenure than his ton, in Bedfordshire, witnessed a still sadder funeral. Near that village stood an ancient and stately hall, the seat of the Wentworths. The transept of the parish church had long been their burial-place. To that burial-place, in the spring which followed the death of Monmouth, was borne the coffin of the young Baroness Wentworth of Nettlestede. Her family reared a sumptuous mausoleum over her remains; but a less costly memorial of her was long contemplated with far deeper interest. Her name, carved by the hand of him whom she loved too well, was, a few years ago, still discernible on a tree in the adjoining park.

pleasure. Not a single institution was left which had, within the memory of the oldest man, afforded efficient protection to the subject against the utmost excess of tyranny. Those great councils which had once curbed the regal power had sunk into oblivion. Their composition and their privileges were known only to antiquaries. We cannot wonder, therefore, that, when men who had been thus ruled succeeded in wresting supreme power from a government which they had long in secret hated, they should have been impatient to demolish and unable to construct; that they should have been fascinated by every specious novelty; that they should have proscribed every title, ceremony, and phrase associated with the old system; and that, turning away with disgust from their own national precedents and traditions, they should have On the morning of Wednesday the 13th of February sought for principles of government in the writings of [1689], the court of Whitehall and all the neighbouring theorists, or aped, with ignorant and ungraceful affecstreets were filled with gazers. The magnificent Ban-tation, the patriots of Athens and Rome. As little queting House, the masterpiece of Inigo, embellished by masterpieces of Rubens, had been prepared for a great ceremony. The walls were lined by the yeomen of the

The Revolution of 1688-9.

can we wonder that the violent action of the revolutionary spirit should have been followed by reaction equally violent, and that confusion should speedily have