Littell's Living Age

"a most unconscionable time dying, but he hoped those lofty columns which compose the portico of they would excuse it." "This was the last the British temple of science, and whose proud glimpse," says Mr. Macaulay, "of that exquisite names are imperishably united with the glory and urbanity so often found potent to charm away the greatness of their country. Had Mr. Macaulay resentment of a justly incensed nation." His thus appreciated the services of his countrymen, he speech soon after failed him, and he died at seven would doubtless have viewed with sympathy that without a struggle. large and distinguished class of intellectual laborers who, without national encouragement or support, are striving, as he once strove, to advance the literature and science of England; and having in his eye the constitution of that Royal Society which is sustained by the annual charity of philosophers themselves, he would have called the attention of

Before commencing the history of James II., Mr. Macaulay introduces a chapter of 150 pages on the state of England at the death of Charles II. This chapter evinces great research, and will be perused with a high degree of interest by many classes of readers. But, however much we have been gratified with its brilliant pictures and its in- the government, to which he belongs, to those nostructive details, we are of opinion, that a disser-ble academical associations, patronized by contitation of this kind is an unnecessary appendage to nental powers, in which all the genius of the nation a work of history, and, if deemed essential by the is generously marshalled for its intellectual service, author, that it should have formed an introductory and to that just appreciation of mental glory under chapter. In our progress through Mr. Macaulay's which the savans even of despotic governments are fascinating narrative, we have found it an obstruc- permitted to share in the honors and offices of the tion in our path; and have felt somewhat as a state. But on these subjects the voice of eloquence lover of the picturesque would feel were he taken is dumb. Raised to a high niche in the Elysium into a penitentiary and a cotton-mill, in order that of the state, Mr. Macaulay looks down from his he might understand why the peasantry were moral azure canopy upon the chill and troubled regions, and the villages populous. The object of the chap-where genius and learning are allowed to vegetate, ter is "to correct some false notions which would to wither, and to die. render the subsequent narrative unintelligible or uninstructive;" but we felt no want of the information which it contains, while we perused the chapters which precede it, and have obtained no advantage from it in perusing those which follow. To describe the condition of England as it ought to be described, in all its interesting relations, would require a range of knowledge which the historian of interest. cannot be supposed to possess; and we can expect tion of the least and most worthy of these public only that department of it to be well executed characters. which is most intimately connected with the author's studies and opportunities of observation. In The mounted highwayman, a marauder known his lively sketch of the state of literature and the to our generation only from books, was to be found fine arts, Mr. Macaulay has been singularly suc- on every main road. The Cambridge scholars trembled when they approached Epping cessful, but he has as singularly failed in his ac-forest even in broad daylight. Seamen, who had count of the sciences and useful arts. Misappre-been just paid off at Chatham, were often compelled hending, as all literary men do, the precise value to deliver their purses on Gadshill, celebrated, near of the labors of Bacon, he has formed a most erro- a hundred years earlier, by the greatest of poets as neous estimate of their influence on the progress the scenes of the depredations of Poins and Falof the physical sciences. His praise of Sir Isaac Newton is exaggerated, indiscriminating, and incorrect. We have striven in vain to understand what Mr. Macaulay means by the new philosophy; and we are equally at a loss to fathom his allusion to "the long series of glorious and salutary reforms" which the Royal Society was destined to effect.

Notwithstanding our gentle criticism on Mr. Macaulay's statistical chapter, we are sorry that we cannot indulge our readers with some specimens of its excellence. His portraits of the swearing and drinking old country squire, of the domestic chaplain, of the parochial clergy, and of the mounted highwayman of the time, are finely drawn and full We shall make room for his descrip

staff.

It was necessary to the success, and even to the safety of the highwayman, that he should be a bold and skilful rider, that his manners and appearance should be such as suited the master of a fine horse. He therefore held an aristocratical position in the community of thieves, appeared at fashionable coffee-houses and gaming-houses, and betted with men of quality on the race-ground. Sometimes, indeed, he was a man of good family and education. A romantic interest, therefore, atIn contrasting the present with the past con- tached, and perhaps still attaches, to the names of dition of England, Mr. Macaulay might have spared freebooters of this class. The vulgar eagerly drank a passing eulogy to those illustrious philosophers in tales of their ferocity and audacity-of their ocand inventors, to whom alone she owes her present casional acts of generosity and good nature-of their gigantic attitude of civilization and power. It was amors-of their miraculous escapes-of their desnot to statesmen and orators, and still less to his- perate struggles-and of their manly bearing at the Thus it was related of Wiltorians, and poets, and painters, that we owe the bar, and in the cart. mighty change which Mr. Macaulay has described; he levied a quarterly tribute on all the northern liam Nevison, the great robber of Yorkshire, that -it was to the Watts, and Arkwrights, and Brind-drovers, and in return not only spared them himself, leys to the Bradleys and Herschels-to the Caven- but protected them against all other thieves; that dishes, and Davys, and Wollastons, and Youngs, he demanded purses in the most courteous manner

—that he gave largely to the poor what he had nor did his utmost exertions always prevent the taken from the rich-that his life was once spared bailiffs from taking his concordance and his inkby the royal clemency, but that he again tempted stand in execution. It was a white day on which his fate, and at length died, in 1685, on the gallows he was admitted into the kitchen of a great house, of York. It was related how Claude Duval, the and regaled by the servants with cold meat and ale. French page of the Duke of Richmond, took to the His children were brought up like the children of road, became captain of a formidable gang, and had the neighboring peasantry. His boys followed the the honor to be named first in a royal proclamation plough; and his girls went out to service. Study against notorious offenders-how at the head of his he found impossible; for the advowson of his living troops he stopped a lady's coach in which there was would hardly have sold for a sum sufficient to pura booty of £400-how he took only £100, and chase a good theological library; and he might be suffered the fair owner to ransom the rest by dancing considered as unusually lucky if he had ten or a coranto with him on the heath-how his vivacious twelve dog-eared voluines among the pots and pans gallantry stole away the hearts of all women-how on his shelves.—Vol. i., p. 330. his dexterity at sword and pistol made him a terror to all men-how at length, in 1670, he was seized when overcome by wine-how dames of high rank visited him in prison, and with tears interceded for his life-how the king would have granted a pardon, but for the interference of Judge Morton, the terror of highwaymen, who threatened to resign his office unless the law were carried into full effect

and how, after the execution, the corpse lay in state, with all the pomp of scutcheons, wax lights, black hangings, and mutes, till the same cruel judge, who had intercepted the mercy of the crown, sent officers to disturb the obsequies.-Vol. i., pp. 381-384.

Although the domestic chaplain was treated with urbanity and kindness in the houses of men of liberal education, it was otherwise under the roof of ordinary country gentlemen :

The coarse and ignorant squire, who thought it belonged to his dignity to have grace said every day at his table by an ecclesiastic in full canonicals, found means to reconcile dignity with economy. A young Levite-such was the phrase then in usemight be had for his board, a small garret, and ten pounds a year, and might not only perform his own professional functions, might not only be the most patient of butts and of listeners, might not only be always ready in fine weather for bowls, and in rainy weather for shovelboard, but might also save the expense of a gardener, or of a groom. Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the coach-horses. He cast up the farrier's bills. He walked ten miles with a message or a parcel. If he was permitted to dine with the family he was expected to content himself with the plainest fare. He might fill himself with the corned beef and the carrots; but as soon as the tarts and cheesecakes made their appearance he quitted his seat, and stood aloof till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of which he had been excluded.-Vol. i., p. 327.

When James II. quitted the bedside of the departed monarch, he commenced his reign by a speech to his privy councillors, then assembled in Whitehall. He expressed his resolution to maintain the established government in church and state, to defend the Church of England, and supHow soon port the just liberties of the people. and how completely these pledges were broken, the events of his reign will show. Rochester became premier; and the other ministers of the late king were retained in office, more for the purpose of insulting than of honoring them. Though the great seal was left with Guilford, he was dishonored by having associated with him, in the administration, the notorious Sir George Jeffreys, a man whose depravity has become proverbial.

He was (says Mr. Macaulay) a man of quick and vigorous parts, but constitutionally prone to insolence and to the angry passions. When just emerging from boyhood he had risen into practice at the Old Bailey bar, a bar where advocates have always used a license of tongue unknown in Westminster Hall. Here, during many years, his chief business was to examine and cross-examine the most hardened miscreants of a great capital. Daily conflicts with prostitutes and thieves called out and exercised his powers so effectually, that he became the most consummate bully ever known in his profession. All tenderness for the feelings of others, all self-respect, all sense of the becoming, were obliterated from his mind. He acquired a boundless command of the rhetoric in which the vulgar express hatred and contempt. The profusion of maledictions and vituperative epithets which composed his vocabulary, could hardly have been rivalled in the fish-market or the bear-garden. His countenance and his voice must always have been unamiable. But these natural advantages-for such he seems to have thought them-he had improved When the chaplain was promoted to a living it to such a degree that there were few who, in his paroxysms of rage, could see or hear him without was expected that he should take a wife. A wait-emotion. Impudence and ferocity sat upon his ing-woman in his patron's service was considered brow. The glare of his eyes had a fascination for as a suitable match; and the chaplain was fortu- the unhappy victim on whom they were fixed. Yet nate if the services of his helpmate had not been his brow and eye were said to be less terrible than of an equivocal character. Nor was his position the savage lines of his mouth. His yell of fury, much improved by the change. as was said by one who had often heard it, sounded like the thunder of the judgment-day. There Not one living in fifty enabled the incumbent to was a fiendish exultation in the way in which he bring up a family comfortably. As children multi-pronounced sentence on offenders. Their weeping plied and grew, the household of the priest became and imploring seemed to titillate him voluptuously; more and more beggarly. Holes appeared more and he loved to scare them into fits, by dilating, and more plainly in the thatch of his parsonage, with luxuriant amplification, on all the details of and in his single cassock. Often it was only by what they were to suffer. Thus when he had an toiling on his glebe, by feeding swine, and by load-opportunity of ordering an unlucky adventuress to ing dung-carts, that he could obtain daily bread; be whipped at the cart's tail—“Hangman,” ne

would exclaim, I charge you to pay particular wish to consult him about everything, but in this attention to this lady. Scourge her soundly, man. case a week's delay might have produced seScourge her till the blood runs down! It is Christrious consequences.' Next morning Rochester mas-a cold time for madam to strip in! See that repeated these excuses to Barillon, and even asked you warm her shoulders thoroughly." Even in civil causes his malevolent and despotic for money. "It will be well laid out," he said, temper perpetually disordered his judgment. To your master cannot employ his revenues better." enter his court was to enter the den of a wild beast"The King of England should not be dependent which none could tame, and which was as likely to upon his own people, but the friendship of France be roused to rage by caresses as by attacks. He alone!" Thirty-five thousand five hundred pounds frequently poured forth on plaintiffs and defendants, were remitted to Whitehall. The king received barristers and attorneys, witnesses and jurymen, it with tears of joy, and the venal minister em

torrents of frantic abuse, intermixed with oaths and

curses.

His looks and tones had inspired terror when he was merely a young advocate struggling into practice. Now that he was at the head of the most formidable tribunal in the realm, there were few indeed who did not tremble before him. Even when he was sober, his violence was sufficiently frightful. But in general his reason was overclouded and his evil passions stimulated by the fumes of intoxication. His evenings were ordinarily given to revelry. People who saw him only over his bottle would have supposed him to be a man gross indeed, sottish, and addicted to low company and low merriment, but social and goodhumored. He was constantly surrounded on such occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, from among the vilest pettifoggers who practised before him. These men bantered and abused each other for his entertainment. He joined in their ribald talk, sang catches with them, and, when his head grew hot, hugged and kissed them in an ecstasy of drunken fondness. But, though wine at first seemed to soften his heart, the effect a few hours later was very different. He often came to the judgment-seat, having kept the court waiting long, and yet having but half slept off his debauch, his cheeks on fire, his eyes staring like those of a maniac. When he was in this state, his boon companions of the preceding night, if they were wise, kept out of his way; for the recollection of the familiarity to which he admitted them inflamed his malignity; and he was sure to take every opportunity of overwhelming them with execration and invective. Not the least odious of his many odious peculiarities was the pleasure which he took in publicly browbeating and mortifying those whom, in his fits of maudlin tenderness, he had encouraged to presume on his favor.—Vol. i., PP. 449-453.

A peerage, and a seat in the cabinet, was the retaining fee by which the King of England secured the services of the basest of his subjects. The advice to break the spirit and the letter of the law, by levying the customs for his own use, was the compensation which James received for the dignities of office. It had become necessary to summon Parliament, but James knew that the King of France had employed both bribes and threats to prevent Charles from assembling the houses, and was ready to become, like him, the hireling and the vassal of Louis. He therefore resisted the advice of the council, but when his dread of the consequences had compelled him to yield, he thus addressed himself privately to the French ambassador:-" Assure your master of my gratitude and attachment; without his protection I can do nothing. If the houses meddle with foreign affairs, I will send them about their business. He has a right to be consulted, and I

braced the ambassador.

The return for this bag of gold was the permission to annex Brabant and Hainault to France, and an ambassador extraordinary was selected to assure Louis of the gratitude and affection of the king. To discharge this duty, John Churchill, the germ of the infamous but illustrious Marlborough, was selected. .

Soon after the Restoration, (says Mr. Macaulay) James, young and ardent in the pursuit of pleasure, had been attracted by Arabella Churchill, one of the maids of honor who waited on his first wife. The young lady was not beautiful; but the taste of James was not nice; and she became his avowed mistress. She was the daughter of a poor cavalier baronet who haunted Whitehall, and made himself ridiculous by publishing a dull and affected folio, long forgotten, in praise of monarchy and monarchs. The necessities of the Churchills were pressing; their loyalty was ardent; and their only feeling about Arabella's seduction seems to have been joyful surprise that so plain a girl should have attained such high preferment.

Her interest was indeed of great use to her relations; but none of them was so fortunate as her eldest brother John, a fine youth, who carried a pair of colors in the Foot Guards. He rose fast in the court and in the army, and was early distinguished as a man of fashion and of pleasure. His stature was commanding, his face handsome, his address singularly winning, yet of such dignity, that the most impertinent fops never ventured to take any liberty with him; his temper, even in the most vexatious and irritating circumstances, always under perfect command. His education had been so much neglected, that he could not spell the most common words of his own language; but his acute and vigorous understanding amply supplied the place of book learning. He was not loquacious; but, when he was forced to speak in public, his natural eloquence moved the envy of practised rhetoricians. His courage was singularly cool and imperturbable. During many years of anxiety and peril, he never in any emergency lost, even for a moment, the perfect use of his admirable judgment. In his twenty-third year he was sent with his regiment to join the French forces, then engaged in operations against Holland. His serene intrepidity distinguished him among thousands of brave soldiers. His professional skill commanded the respect of veteran officers. He was publicly thanked at the head of the army, and received many marks of esteem and confidence from Turenne, who was then at the height of military glory.

Unhappily the splendid qualities of John Churchill Some propensities, which in youth are singularly were mingled with alloy of the most sordid kind. ungraceful, began very early to show themselves in him. He was thrifty in his very vices, and levied ample contributions on ladies enriched by the spoils

-that he gave largely to the poor what he had nor did his utmost exertions always prevent the taken from the rich-that his life was once spared bailiffs from taking his concordance and his inkby the royal clemency, but that he again tempted stand in execution. It was a white day on which his fate, and at length died, in 1685, on the gallows he was admitted into the kitchen of a great house, of York. It was related how Claude Duval, the and regaled by the servants with cold meat and ale. French page of the Duke of Richmond, took to the His children were brought up like the children of road, became captain of a formidable gang, and had the neighboring peasantry. His boys followed the the honor to be named first in a royal proclamation plough; and his girls went out to service. Study against notorious offenders-how at the head of his he found impossible; for the advowson of his living troops he stopped a lady's coach in which there was would hardly have sold for a sum sufficient to pura booty of £400-how he took only £100, and chase a good theological library; and he might be suffered the fair owner to ransom the rest by dancing considered as unusually lucky if he had ten or a coranto with him on the heath-how his vivacious twelve dog-eared voluines among the pots and pans gallantry stole away the hearts of all women-how on his shelves.-Vol. i., p. 330. his dexterity at sword and pistol made him a terror to all men-how at length, in 1670, he was seized when overcome by wine-how dames of high rank visited him in prison, and with tears interceded for his life-how the king would have granted a pardon, but for the interference of Judge Morton, the terror of highwaymen, who threatened to resign his office unless the law were carried into full effect

381-384.

Although the domestic chaplain was treated with urbanity and kindness in the houses of men of liberal education, it was otherwise under the roof of ordinary country gentlemen :

The coarse and ignorant squire, who thought it belonged to his dignity to have grace said every day at his table by an ecclesiastic in full canonicals, found means to reconcile dignity with economy. A young Levite-such was the phrase then in usemight be had for his board, a small garret, and ten pounds a year, and might not only perform his own professional functions, might not only be the most patient of butts and of listeners, might not only be always ready in fine weather for bowls, and in rainy weather for shovelboard, but might also save the expense of a gardener, or of a groom. Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the coach-horses. He cast up the far-all self-respect, all sense of the becoming, were rier's bills. He walked ten miles with a message or a parcel. If he was permitted to dine with the family he was expected to content himself with the plainest fare. He might fill himself with the corned beef and the carrots; but as soon as the tarts and cheesecakes made their appearance he quitted his seat, and stood aloof till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of which he had been excluded.-Vol. i., p. 327.

obliterated from his mind. He acquired a boundless command of the rhetoric in which the vulgar express hatred and contempt. The profusion of maledictions and vituperative epithets which composed his vocabulary, could hardly have been rivalled in the fish-market or the bear-garden. His countenance and his voice must always have been unamiable. But these natural advantages-for such he seems to have thought them-he had improved to such a degree that there were few who, in his When the chaplain was promoted to a living it paroxysms of rage, could see or hear him without was expected that he should take a wife. A wait-emotion. Impudence and ferocity sat upon his ing-woman in his patron's service was considered brow. The glare of his eyes had a fascination for as a suitable match; and the chaplain was fortunate if the services of his helpmate had not been of an equivocal character. Nor was his position much improved by the change.

the unhappy victim on whom they were fixed. Yet his brow and eye were said to be less terrible than the savage lines of his mouth. His yell of fury, as was said by one who had often heard it, sounded like the thunder of the judgment-day. *** There Not one living in fifty enabled the incumbent to was a fiendish exultation in the way in which he bring up a family comfortably. As children multi-pronounced sentence on offenders. Their weeping plied and grew, the household of the priest became and imploring seemed to titillate him voluptuously; more and more beggarly. Holes appeared more and he loved to scare them into fits, by dilating, and more plainly in the thatch of his parsonage, and in his single cassock. Often it was only by toiling on his glebe, by feeding swine, and by loading dung-carts, that he could obtain daily bread;

with luxuriant amplification, on all the details of what they were to suffer. Thus when he had an opportunity of ordering an unlucky adventuress to be whipped at the cart's tail-"Hangman," ne

would exclaim, I charge you to pay particular wish to consult him about everything, but in this attention to this lady. Scourge her soundly, man. Scourge her till the blood runs down! It is Christ-rious consequences." case a week's delay might have produced semas—a cold time for madam to strip in! See that repeated these excuses to Barillon, and even asked Next morning Rochester you warm her shoulders thoroughly."

for money.

"It will be well laid out," he said,

were remitted to Whitehall. The king received it with tears of joy, and the venal minister embraced the ambassador. The return for this bag of gold was the permission to annex Brabant and Hainault to France, and an ambassador extraordinary was selected to assure Louis of the gratitude and affection of the king. To discharge this duty, John Churchill, the germ of the infamous but illustrious Marlborough, was selected.

Even in civil causes his malevolent and despotic temper perpetually disordered his judgment. To your master cannot employ his revenues better." enter his court was to enter the den of a wild beast"The King of England should not be dependent which none could tame, and which was as likely to upon his own people, but the friendship of France be roused to rage by caresses as by attacks. He alone!" Thirty-five thousand five hundred pounds frequently poured forth on plaintiffs and defendants, barristers and attorneys, witnesses and jurymen, torrents of frantic abuse, intermixed with oaths and curses. His looks and tones had inspired terror when he was merely a young advocate struggling into practice. Now that he was at the head of the most formidable tribunal in the realm, there were few indeed who did not tremble before him. Even when he was sober, his violence was sufficiently frightful. But in general his reason was overclouded and his evil passions stimulated by the fumes of intoxication. His evenings were ordinaSoon after the Restoration, (says Mr. Macaulay) rily given to revelry. People who saw him only James, young and ardent in the pursuit of pleasure, over his bottle would have supposed him to be a had been attracted by Arabella Churchill, one of man gross indeed, sottish, and addicted to low the maids of honor who waited on his first wife. company and low merriment, but social and good- The young lady was not beautiful; but the taste of humored. He was constantly surrounded on such James was not nice; and she became his avowed occasions by buffoons selected, for the most part, mistress. She was the daughter of a poor cavalier from among the vilest pettifoggers who practised baronet who haunted Whitehall, and made himself before him. These men bantered and abused each ridiculous by publishing a dull and affected folio, other for his entertainment. He joined in their long forgotten, in praise of monarchy and monarchs. ribald talk, sang catches with them, and, when his The necessities of the Churchills were pressing; head grew hot, hugged and kissed them in an their loyalty was ardent; and their only feeling ecstasy of drunken fondness. But, though wine at first seemed to soften his heart, the effect a few hours later was very different. He often came to the judgment-seat, having kept the court waiting Her interest was indeed of great use to her relalong, and yet having but half slept off his debauch, tions; but none of them was so fortunate as her his cheeks on fire, his eyes staring like those of a eldest brother John, a fine youth, who carried a maniac. When he was in this state, his boon com- pair of colors in the Foot Guards. He rose fast in panions of the preceding night, if they were wise, the court and in the army, and was early distinkept out of his way; for the recollection of the fa-guished as a man of fashion and of pleasure. His miliarity to which he admitted them inflamed his stature was commanding, his face handsome, his malignity; and he was sure to take every opportu- address singularly winning, yet of such dignity, nity of overwhelming them with execration and that the most impertinent fops never ventured to invective. Not the least odious of his many odious peculiarities was the pleasure which he took in publicly browbeating and mortifying those whom, in his fits of maudlin tenderness, he had encouraged to presume on his favor.-Vol. i., pp. 449–453.

ness.

about Arabella's seduction seems to have been joyful surprise that so plain a girl should have attained such high preferment.

take any liberty with him; his temper, even in the most vexatious and irritating circumstances, always under perfect command. His education had been so much neglected, that he could not spell the most common words of his own language; but his acute and vigorous understanding amply supplied the place of book learning. He was not loquacious; but, when he was forced to speak in public, his natural eloquence moved the envy of practised rhetoricians. His courage was singularly cool and imperturbable. During many years of anxiety and peril, he never in any emergency lost, even for a moment, the perfect use of his admirable judgment. In his twenty-third year he was sent with his regiment to join the French forces, then engaged in operations against Holland. His serene intrepidity distinguished him among thousands of brave soldiers. His professional skill commanded the respect of veteran officers. He was publicly thanked at the head of the army, and received many marks of esteem and confidence from Turenne, who was then at the height of military glory.

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Littell's Living Age, Volume 21