able that in the best modern Latin a writer of the Augustan age would detect ludicrous improprieties ;" and he was quite right in thinking so. This, one would think, is tolerably clear without farther expansion. But Macaulay goes on to cite no less than three parallel cases of the difficulty of mastering a foreign idiom.

"What modern scholar can honestly declare that he sees the smallest impurity in the style of Livy? Yet is it not certain that in the style of Livy, Pollio, whose taste had been formed on the banks of the Tiber, detected the inelegant idiom of the Po? Has any modern scholar understood Latin better than Frederic the Great understood French? Yet is it not notorious that Frederic the Great, after reading, speaking, writing French, and nothing but French, during more than half a century, after unlearning his mother tongue in order to learn French, after living familiarly during many years with French associates, could not, to the last, compose in French, without imminent risk of committing some mistake which would have moved a smile in the literary circles of Paris?"

In like manner, the works of Scott and Robertson contain Scotticisms "at which a London apprentice would laugh."

This excess of particularity is an error on the right side for popular success. The multiplication of instances may be overdone; but if the language is fresh and varied, general readers will take a good deal before they complain of a surfeit. The language, however, must be fresh and varied; of this condition a writer should make sure before trying to imitate Macaulay.

If the student wishes to conform his style to the general judgment of critics, he must not imitate Macaulay too absolutely; he must endeavour to be more varied in the forms of his sentences, to aim less frequently at contrasts, to study more carefully the placing of important words, and, above all, to make a more moderate use of abrupt transitions.

Figures of Speech.

"Splendour of Imagery."-The eulogists of Macaulay's style rarely fail to include among its beauties great "splendour of imagery." Now, if under "imagery" may be included comparisons and contrasts of every description, as well as every kind of picturesque circumstances, he is no doubt fully entitled to the phrase. But if imagery means no more than pictorial similitudes, then, compared with such writers as Carlyle and Burke, he cannot be called a master of splendid imagery.

In his earlier essays, he shows an obvious straining after ingenious conceits. His Essay on Milton is, as he said himself in later years, "overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful ornament." In essays written before he was thirty, there are probably twice as many similes as in all his subsequent writings. His "Milton"

contains as many as any six of his later essays. The History is studiously plain, so far at least as regards figurative ornament.

Undoubtedly, his similitudes are often brilliantly ingenious, and expressed with his usual richness and felicity of language. But they are too artificial and gaudy finery to be worthy of serious imitation.

Real Comparisons.-Out of the resources of his prodigious memory, Macaulay was able to elucidate a point much more vividly than by figurative comparisons. Whatever he undertakes to depict, whether persons, places, or things, he is able to compare them at all points with other objects of the same kind; he is able to make what are technically called "real comparisons ;" and thus conveys a livelier impression of their salient attributes than if he compared them with objects having less in common. It is needless to multiply examples of what may be found in almost every page. We take as specimens four from the first few pages of his History:

"Hengist and Horsa, Vortigern and Rowena, Arthur and Mordred, are mythical persons, whose very existence may be questioned, and whose adventures must be classed with those of Hercules and Romulus."

"What the Olympian chariot-course and the Pythian oracle were to all the Greek cities, from Trebizond to Marseilles, Rome and her bishop were to all Christians of the Latin communion, from Calabria to the Hebrides."

"The same atrocities which had attended the victory of the Saxon over the Celt were now, after the lapse of ages, suffered by the Saxon at the hand of the Dane."

"The Court of Rouen seems to have been to the Court of Edward the Confessor what the Court of Versailles long afterwards was to the Court of Charles the Second."

Perhaps the most forcible of his comparisons are those intended to reverse a common prejudice, or drive home an unfamiliar view. Thus, in the beginning of his History, he falls foul of English historians for expatiating with exultation on the power and splendour of our French kings:

"This," he says, "is as absurd as it would be in a Haytian negro of our time to dwell with national pride on the greatness of Lewis the Fourteenth, and to speak of Blenheim and Ramilies with patriotic regret and shame. One of the ablest among them, indeed, attempted to win the hearts of his English subjects by espousing an English princess. But by many of his barons this marriage was regarded as a marriage between a white planter and a quadroon girl would now be regarded in Virginia."

So, to illustrate how completely the popular element had been subverted in the monarchies of the Continent, he says

"The privileges of the States-General, of the States of Brittany, of the States of Burgundy, are now matters of as little practical importance as the constitution of the Jewish Sanhedrim or of the Amphictyonic Council."

Very often the comparisons are made in an abbreviated form,

G

like the figure of synecdoche, in which an individual stands as the type of a species. Thus

'Scotsmen, whose dwellings and whose food were as wretched as those of the Icelanders of our time, wrote Latin verse with more than the delicacy of Vida, and made discoveries in science which would have added to the renown of Galileo. Ireland could boast of no Buchanan or Napier."

In like manner, but, to speak technically, with more of the genuine Antonomasia, he says that had Bacon given to Literature the time that he gave to Law and Politics, "he would have been not only the Moses but the Joshua of philosophy." William could have gained the cordial support of the Whigs only "by becoming the most factious man in his kingdom, a Shaftesbury on the throne."

Further, the greater number of his comparisons are not allegations of similarity. The characteristic Macaulayan comparison is more a contrast than a parallel-is, indeed, the form of secondary contrast specified as the contrast between the individual members of a comprehensive class. Thus, take poets: he seems to have poets and their productions ranged on a scale of merit; and when a particular poet or production comes up, he places them above or below some other, or between some two. Machiavelli's "Mandragola is superior to the best of Goldoni, and inferior only to the best of Molière." Byron's letters from Italy "are less affected than those of Pope and Walpole; they have more matter in them than those of Cowper." Addison's Epistle to Lord Halifax "contains passages as good as the second-rate passages of Pope, and would have added to the reputation of Parnell or Prior." Again, "We need not hesitate to admit that Addison has left us some compositions which do not rise above mediocrity, some heroic poems hardly equal to Parnell's, some criticism as superficial as Dr Blair's, and a tragedy not very much better than Dr Johnson's." What he does with poets, he does in a greater or less degree with statesmen, generals, and all sorts and conditions of men that cross his narratives.

Figures of Contrast.-We have already noticed incidentally our author's lavish use of antithesis. The contrasts are really more numerous than might be thought at first glance; the bare framework is so overlaid and disguised by the extraordinary fulness of expression that many of them escape notice. When we look narrowly, we see that there is a constant play of antithesis. Not only is word set off against word, clause against clause, and sentence against sentence. There are contrasts on a more extensive scale; one group of sentences answers to another, and paragraphs are balanced against paragraphs. His pages are illuminated not only by little sparks of antithesis, but by broad flashes.

Enough has been given in illustration of the minuter play of antithesis. Pupils in composition may be exercised in referring examples to the various modes of antithesis, extreme and secondary. Here it may not be superfluous to dwell at some length upon a few of our author's more prominent ways of manufacturing this stage-lightning in its ampler forms.

He deals very largely in what is technically known as obverse statement; and gives it a peculiar abrupt point by denying the negative before affirming the positive. In explaining his abrupt transitions we called attention to something of this nature: we remarked on one example (p. 88), that before affirming that a certain form of government prevailed in one tract of country, he affirmed that it did not prevail in another. As another example, take the following passage from a disquisition on the style of Johnson :

"Mannerism is pardonable, and is sometimes even agreeable, when the manner, though vicious, is natural. Few readers, for example, would be willing to part with the mannerism of Milton or of Burke. But a mannerism which does not sit easy on the mannerist, which has been adopted on principle, and which can be sustained only by constant effort, is always offensive. And such is the mannerism of Johnson."

There is a good deal of antithetic pungency in thus taking the obverse first. We expect, from the general tone of his remarks, that he means to condemn the mannerism of Johnson, and we start with surprise when he abruptly declares that "mannerism is pardonable." "What!" flashes across our mind, "Johnson's mannerism?" We eagerly read on, and are pleasingly reassured when we see the qualification-" when the manner, though vicious, is natural." Nor is this the only startle we receive in the course of the short paragraph; there is another shock in reserve to keep our attention awake. We have been called away from some minute particulars about Johnson to this general principle, and the illustration of it from remote quarters. At the end of the paragraph we are brought abruptly back to Johnson-" And such is the mannerism of Johnson." Many writers would have executed neither of these brilliant turns. Many would have begun by saying that the mannerism of Johnson is unpardonable, and would then have proceeded to state why it is so, and then, perhaps, by way of counter-illustration, would have explained when mannerism is pardonable. Macaulay's order of statement would thus have been inverted, and the contrast, brought in by an equable transition, would have produced a much less flashing effect.

A favourite and characteristic way of getting up an antithesis is, before narrating an event, to recount all the circumstances that concurred to make it different from what it ultimately proved to be. Thus, before narrating Frederick the Great's breach of faith

with Maria Theresa, he describes the Pragmatic Sanction, and dilates upon the considerations weighing with the various European Governments to make them observe what they had stipulated. In like manner, he contrasts the general expectation before an event with the event itself. A good example of this is his account of the disbanding of Cromwell's veterans :—

"The troops were now to be disbanded. Fifty thousand men, accustomed to the profession of arms, were at once thrown on the world; and experience seemed to warrant the belief that this change would produce much misery and crime, that the discharged veterans would be seen begging in every street, or would be driven by hunger to pillage. But no such result followed. In a few months there remained not a trace indicating that the most formidable army in the world had just been absorbed into the mass of the community. The Royalists themselves confessed that in every department of honest industry, the discarded warriors prospered beyond other men; that none was charged with any theft or robbery; that none was heard to ask an alms; and that, if a baker, a mason, or a waggoner attracted notice by his diligence and sobriety, he was in all probability one of Oliver's old soldiers."

Another favourite device is in the course of his narrative to speculate what might have happened had the circumstances been different. He does this at every turning-point in English history. The struggle between Crown and Parliament might have come on early in the reign of Elizabeth, had not intestine quarrels been suspended in the face of a common danger. Had the administration of James been able and splendid, the Parliament might have been suppressed, and the Crown become absolute. In like manner, upon the execution of Charles I., the fall of Richard Cromwell, the Restoration, and the Revolution, he pauses to imagine what might have been the course of events had they been directed by men of different character. The same vein of reflection is continually cropping up in all his narratives.

Everywhere in his writings we can trace the dominating love of antithesis. His "celebrated third chapter" sustains the excitement of paradox through more than a hundred pages. In his History the conflict of opposing parties affords him constant opportunities. What the one party thought of a particular measure is set off against what the other party thought; "the temper of the Whigs" is contrasted with the "temper of the Tories." We are kept in the seat of judgment till we have heard the historian plead first on the one side, and then, still more convincingly, on the other.

In the delineation of characters he finds greater scope for his favourite effect. In these pictures, the scintillations of antithesis are almost incessant.

Antithesis is such an undeniable advantage in the statement of a fact, as a means of awakening us to its full import, that it is hard