which he opposed, were known to him from their beginnings. He felt the historical continuity of his activity, as a British citizen in the midst of political strife, with that of the great men of the Revolution and of the whole Georgian era. To him Pitt was intimately known. From his own experience and observation he appreciated the motives that governed that great leader, and he sympathized with the vicissitudes of his career. No other man could speak about Pitt with the readiness and the copiousness of Macaulay. To a reader of to-day, and especially to an American reader, Macaulay's superabundance of knowledge is sometimes a cause of embarrassment. Details are given us in too great profusion, and what was meant to help or to please serves only to perplex. Hence some annotation is generally recognized as needed by the great majority of readers who would peruse these essays with intelligence and appreciation.

Of all Macaulay's essays, it is perhaps the Clive and the Hastings that have proved the most popular. Like all his most fervid chapters, these too have had to be corrected here and there in justice to individuals, or in conformity to more fully ascertained historical truth.1 But the essays are read as romances are, because they seize and hold the attention, and because they portray great men engaged in struggle and magnificently achieving success.

The student will remember that Macaulay wrote the Clive and the Hastings after a four years' residence in India, during which it had been his business to acquaint

1 As by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, in his Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey. Macmillan & Co., London, 1885.

himself with the history of Indian affairs. He knew, therefore, how to give his descriptions the true local coloring. British relations to India were as well known to him as were home politics. To interest the Englishspeaking world in these matters required the magic of his pen. Many persons in England and America to-day know something about India and the conquest of it by Great Britain; but very few there are who can trace their knowledge to any other source than the essays of Macaulay on Clive and Hastings.

In the present edition no attempt has been made to have the notes take the place of dictionary, encyclopædia, and such histories as are within the reach of highschool students. It is taken for granted that such books will be provided, and that it is part of the business of the school to train pupils in the use of them. The laboratory method, teaching pupils to handle apparatus, is as appropriate in English as in science teaching. A map of India has been added, which contains the nomenclature of the essays. It is intended to include all places mentioned in the text, and few others.

In the preparation of the notes, as well as in the proof-reading of the entire book, I have to acknowledge the very material assistance of Mr. George A. Bacon, by whose help the volume is ready for the press much sooner than would otherwise have been possible.

S. T.

AUGUST, 1892.

HISTORICAL ESSAYS OF MACAULAY.

WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF CHATHAM.

(1834.)

A History of the Right Honorable William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, containing his Speeches in Parliament, a considerable Portion of his Correspondence when Secretary of State, upon French, Spanish, and American Affairs, never before published; and an Account of the principal Events and Persons of his Time, connected with his Life, Sentiments, and Administration. By the Rev. FRANCIS THACKERAY, A.M. 2 vols. 4to. London: 1827.

THOUGH Several years have elapsed since the publication of this work, it is still, we believe, a new publication to most of our readers. Nor are we surprised at this. The book is large, and the style heavy. The information which Mr. Thackeray has obtained from the State Paper Office is new; but much of it is very uninteresting. The rest of his narrative is very little better than Gifford's or Tomline's Life of the second Pitt, and tells us little or nothing that may not be found quite as well told in the Parliamentary History, the Annual Register, and other works equally

common.

Almost every mechanical employment, it is said, has a tendency to injure some one or other of the bodily organs of the artisan. Grinders of cutlery die of consumption; weavers are stunted in their growth; smiths become bleareyed. In the same manner almost every intellectual

1

employment has a tendency to produce some intellectual malady. Biographers, translators, editors, all, in short, who employ themselves in illustrating the lives or the writings of others, are peculiarly exposed to the Lues Boswelliana, or disease of admiration. But we scarcely remember ever to have seen a patient so far gone in this distemper as Mr. Thackeray. He is not satisfied with forcing us to confess that Pitt was a great orator, a vigorous minister, an honorable and high-spirited gentleman. He will have it that all virtues and all accomplishments met in his hero. In spite of Gods, men, and columns, Pitt must be a poet, a poet capable of producing a heroic poem of the first order; and we are assured that we ought to find many charms in such lines as these:

"Midst all the tumults of the warring sphere,

My light-charged bark may haply glide;

Some gale may waft, some conscious thought shall cheer,
And the small freight unanxious glide." 1

Pitt was in the army for a few months in time of peace. Mr. Thackeray accordingly insists on our confessing that, if the young cornet had remained in the service, he would have been one of the ablest commanders that ever lived. But this is not all. Pitt, it seems, was not merely a great poet in esse, and a great general in posse, but a finished example of moral excellence, the just man made perfect. He was in the right when he attempted to establish an inquisition, and to give bounties for perjury, in order to get Walpole's head. He was in the right when he declared Walpole to have been an excellent minister. He was in the right when, being in opposition, he maintained that no peace ought to be made with Spain, till she should formally renounce the right of search. He was in the right when,

1 The quotation is faithfully made from Mr. Thackeray. Perhaps Pitt wrote guide in the fourth line.