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THE VICTORIAN AGE

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"Do you think the grand old Pagan wrote that piece just now?" asks Carlyle of a Conversation published when Landor was over eighty. "The sound of it is like the ring of Roman swords on the helmets of barbarians! The unsubduable old Roman." 1

He was honored by many distinguished representatives of the new era; John Forster, Dickens, and Browning were among his friends.

V. THE GREAT ESSAYISTS: MACAULAY, CARLYLE,

RUSKIN.

The last great epoch in the history of English literature began in the second quarter of the cen- The Victury just completed. In the popular life of torian Age. the nation, as well as in its literary life, the Victorian age was an era of wonderful development and achievement. Materially, the progress of invention and expansion has been marvelous. It was not until 1829 that the steam locomotive was placed in actual service upon an English railway; it was in the late thirties that the first steamships crossed the Atlantic, and that the electric telegraph came into practical use. Scientific discovery has within this period opened a new world of human knowledge. The spirit of democracy has asserted itself in the political and social organization of the state. In 1832 the English Reform Bill was passed, virtually making the people the governing power of the kingdom. The growth of popular education has been remarkable, and the literary activities of the age have kept pace with the material and intellectual progress of the people.

The characteristics of Victorian literature are best seen in the work of such representative prose writers.

1 See the excellent introduction, by Havelock Ellis, to Imaginary Conversations in the Camelot Series.

as Carlyle, Ruskin, Arnold, and Dickens, such poets as Tennyson, Browning, and Morris, preëminently teachers of their generation; they reveal their nearness to the public life and thought of the age, their purpose to assist, to correct, and to guide that life in matters of practical concern and in the perception of beauty and truth.

In reviewing the literary history of this period we shall consider in order, first, the work of the essayists; second, that of the novelists; and lastly, the work of the poets-in their respective groups.

Macaulay,

First among the great writers of the new era to Thomas attract public attention was Thomas BabingBabington ton Macaulay. Brilliantly successful as an 1800-59. historian and essayist, sensible, hard-headed, optimistic, full of faith in the institutions of his country, and participating actively in the administration of her interests, Macaulay was throughout the second quarter of the century a conspicuous figure in the political life of England, as he was her foremost representative in literature.

Parentage

Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple in Leicester shire. His father, Zachary Macaulay, a man and Youth. of unusual force of character, was connected for many years with the Sierra Leone Company, had been placed in charge of the colony at Freetown on the African coast, and devoted his energies to the movement for abolishing the slave trade. His associates were a band of philanthropists whose leader was Wilberforce. Mrs. Macaulay was of Quaker parentage, had been a pupil of the noted Hannah More, and maintained an intimate friendship with that interesting woman. Throughout his youth Macaulay lived in an atmosphere of serious purpose, surrounded by the influences of noble, unselfish lives. Both parents ex

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hibited rare judgment in the domestic training of their talented son.

Macaulay's childhood was quiet and happy. He was an incessant reader from the time that he was three years old; his favorite attitude was to lie stretched on the rug before the fire, with his book on the floor, and a piece of bread and butter in his hand. He was famous, while a boy, for his extraordinary memory and his ready absorption of books. He knew Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel by heart before he was eight years old, and was inspired by its vigorous spirit to the composition of several epics, including a few swinging cantos upon the theme of King Olaf of Norway. Through life he retained this ability to absorb, almost at a glance, the contents of a page; and what he thus read he never forgot. He declared that if the Paradise Lost and the Pilgrim's Progress were destroyed, he would undertake to replace both from memory. Amusing stories are told of his numerous literary activities and of his unusual command of language while a mere child; of his sitting perched on the table, while the housemaid cleaned the silver, expounding to her out of a volume as big as himself; of his compendium of universal history, written at seven, of his hymns, his odes, and his ballads - really extraordinary productions for a lad of his years.1

At Cam

In his nineteenth year Macaulay entered Trinity College, Cambridge. He won special honors in the classics and in oratory, and received a bridge. fellowship in 1824. While a student he began writing for the reviews, and in 1824 made his first public address, in an abolitionist meeting. In 1825 appeared his first contribution to The Edinburgh Review, his

1 For the fuller account of Macaulay's boyhood, read Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, ch. i.

famous essay on Milton. Like Byron, Macaulay found himself famous in a day. Compliments poured in from every side best of all the word of the formidable Jeffrey, editor of the Review: "The more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that style." It was not that a new literary method had been applied in the writing of reviews, but that a new master of English had appeared, whose style was as distinct from that of all other essayists as it was brilliant and lofty.

In Public
Life.

Macaulay was called to the bar in 1826; but he never became prominent as a lawyer. His public service was rendered through literature. He entered Parliament in 1830, and delivered his maiden speech on the bill removing the Jewish disabilities. When he spoke upon the Reform Bill in March, 1831, the speaker declared that he had never seen the house in such a state of excitement. Three years later Macaulay was made president of a new law commission for India and a member of the Supreme Council of Calcutta. In the execution of the duties connected with this appointment, he remained two and a half years in India, returning in 1838. The results of his work were the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. In 1859 and 1869 these codes passed into law. Amid the exactions of his work in India, Macaulay yet found time for a vast amount of substantial reading, including almost the complete body of Greek and Roman literature. He also prepared and wrote the essay on Bacon. In 1839 he was once more in Parliament, was made Secretary of War, and a member of the Privy Council. In party politics Macaulay was a Whig, a strong partisan, and visibly interested in all questions of public reform. As an orator he was a fluent and rapid speaker; it was

THE HISTORY OF ENGLAND

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the matter of his speech, his vivid language, his vehement directness of manner, rather than the graces of eloquent utterance, that gave him power with an audience. His public addresses were carefully prepared essays; but it is equally true that as an essayist he wrote in the style of the orator.

Between the publication of the essay on Milton in 1825, and that on Bacon in 1837, Macaulay Literary had found time to prepare no less than fifteen Labors. notable articles for the Edinburgh Review, of which those upon Machiavelli, Dryden, Byron, and Johnson are, perhaps, most important. In 1840 appeared the essay on Clive; in 1841 that upon Warren Hastings· two of his most picturesque and eloquent productions. In these essays he made use of the rich material gathered during his residence in India. The Lays of Ancient Rome were published in 1842. vivid portrayals of ancient Roman virtue, that embodied the idea of courage and expressed itself in acts of patriotic devotion, these Lays in the vigorous ballad measure form no insignificant contribution to English verse. They are in some degree typical of their author's spirit and character. The essays upon Frederick the Great, Madame D'Arblay, Addison, and Pitt were written between 1842 and 1844.

Stirring and

the virtue

It is, however, the History of England which represents, in its greatest achievement, the The History genius of Macaulay. As early as 1841, of England. Macaulay had written to his friend Napier :

"I have at last begun my historical labors -I can hardly say with how much interest and delight. I really do not think there is in our literature so great a void as that which I am trying to supply. English history from 1688 to the French Revolution is, even to educated people, almost a terra incognita. The materials for an amusing narra

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