EDITOR'S APPENDIX 445 1550 (Sept.). Appointed a Secretary of State and sworn of the Privy Council. 1551. 1552. Knighted. Succeeds to the family estates. Chancellor of the Order of the Garter. 1553 (June). Signs Northumberland's scheme re Lady Jane 1554-55. 1558. 1559. 1563. 1568-69. 1571. 1572. Grey, as a witness. Diplomatic services between England and Appointed Chief Secretary of State by Elizabeth. Master of the Court of Wards; organises Declines the Speakership of the House of Mary Stuart imprisoned; the Northern Re- Baron of Burghley. Lord High Treasurer. "To follow his career from this point to his close would be to write the history of England. . . . Death came upon him at his house in the Strand on 4th August 1598. His body was removed for burial to Stamford Baron, his obsequies being performed on the same day with much magnificence at Westminster Abbey.' Books of Reference There is no really satisfactory biography of William Cecil, Lord Burghley. The anonymous life published by Peck in the Desiderata Curiosa is early and valuable; but the materials have never been properly brought together. Lord Burghley's life was so closely interwoven with the history of his time that it must suffice here to refer to Froude's History of England and to the bibliography at the end of Dr. Jessopp's article in vol. ix. of the Dictionary of National Biography. THE ESSAY ON THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION "In order to extol a contemptible impostor (Peterborough), the memory of this great Huguenot general (Henry de Ruvigny, ། Earl of Galway) has been aspersed by Lord Macaulay and most "Unfortunately the descriptions of him (Galway) given by Lord Macaulay, Lord Stanhope, and Sir Walter Scott, are very wide of the truth, and form conclusive manifestations of the manner in which these writers have allowed their proclivities for the Parolles of Queen Anne's reign to warp their better judgments.'-Colonel A. Parnell. Chief Dates etc. in the War Causes (apart from the technical questions of the succession): (6) Dutch dread of French influence in the Spanish (c) The Emperor's mortification and fear of Louis (d) Louis's recognition of the Pretender (England). 1703. French victories over Leopold. 1704. Blenheim; Gibraltar. 1705. French victories in Italy. Spain. Peterborough's exploits in 1706. Ramillies; French expelled from Italy; Forces equally matched in Spain. 1707. Berwick's victory at Almanza. 1708. French victories in Italy and Spain; Oudenarde; English take Minorca. 1709. Malplaquet. 1710. Spanish campaign-French defeated at first but finally victorious. 1711. Charles becomes Emperor and quits Spain; Marlborough in disgrace. 1712. Eugene defeated at Denain. 1713. Treaty of Utrecht. 1714. Treaty of Rastadt. Results: Louis had won a crown for his grandson at the expense of the impoverishment, humiliation, and retrogression of France. In clutching at universal empire, he sowed the seeds of the French Revolution.' EDITOR'S APPENDIX Books of Reference 447 In addition to the work of Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope) reviewed by Macaulay : A. Parnell: The War of Succession in Spain (1888). (Archdeacon) W. Coxe: Memoirs of the Kings of Spain of the House of Bourbon (5 vols. 1813). Memoirs of John, Duke of Marlborough (3 vols. 1818-19). Valuable for the letters, the narrative part is derived from unsafe sources. G. J. (Viscount) Wolseley: The Life of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (2 vols. 1894). W. Stebbing: Peterborough [English Men of Action] 1890. ** All the other memoirs of Peterborough are based on the Memoirs of Captain George Carleton (1809), or, what comes to the same thing (see Eng. Hist. Rev., Jan. 1891), on Peterborough's imaginative invention. Colonel Parnell (op. cit. supra) has proved Carleton to be quite fictitious, and has based his own indispensable narrative of the War on contemporary and official accounts, with disastrous results for Peterborough's military reputation. THE ESSAY ON HORACE WALPOLE The Essay falls into two parts of almost equal length, the first being a perverse literary criticism of Horace Walpole, the best letter-writer in the English language according to Scott, the second a vivid and cogent history of the time as reflected in the letters of Horace Walpole, which should be compared with the opening paragraphs of the Essay on Pitt. 'Nothing ever cost me more pains than the first half; I never wrote anything so flowingly as the latter half; and I like the latter half the best. I have laid it on [Horace] Walpole so unsparingly that I shall not be surprised if Miss Berry [a friend of Walpole's] should cut me.'-Macaulay, Letter to his sister Hannah, Oct. 1833. "Several political reasons have been suggested why Macaulay "laid it on Walpole so unsparingly." But they have little relevance. It is more reasonable to suppose that between his avowed delight in Walpole as a letter-writer and his robust contempt for him as an individual, he found a subject to his hand, which admitted of all the brilliant antithesis and sparkle of epigram which he lavished upon it. Walpole's trivialities and eccentricities, his whims and affectations, are seized with As remorseless skill and presented with all the rhetorical advantages with which the writer so well knew how to invest them. regards his literary estimate, the truth of the picture can scarcely be gainsaid; but the personal character, as Walpole's surviving friends felt, is certainly too much en noir.'-Mr. Austin Dobson. Edinburgh Review came last night. A smart, vigorous paper by Macaulay on Horace Walpole. Ambitious; too antithetic; the heart of the matter not struck.'-Extract from Carlyle's Journal, Nov. 1, 1833. Chief Dates in Walpole's Life and Times 1717 (Sept.24). Birth in London. 1721. Sir R. Walpole Prime 1727-34. Eton. 1735. Cambridge (King's). 1738. Usher of the Exchequer. 1739. Grand Tour with Gray. 1741. M.P. for Callington. 1744. M.P. for Castle Rising. 1747. Buys Strawberry Hill. 1724. Minister. Carteret Lord-Lieutenant 1730. Walpole and Townshend 1733. Excise Bill. 1757. Letters from Xo-Ho to 1735. William Pitt enters Par Lien-Chi. liament. M.P. for King's Lynn. 1739. War with Spain. 1758. Catalogue of Royal and 1742. Fall of Sir R. Walpole. Noble Authors. 1743. Pelham Prime Minister. 1762. Anecdotes of Painting in 1745. Jacobite Rising. England. 1763. Catalogue of Engravers. 1764. Castle of Otranto. 1765. In Paris. Rousseau. 1754. Newcastle succeeds Pel ham. 1756. Seven Years' War begins. Letter from 1757. Plassey. the King of Prussia to 1759. Minden, Quebec, etc. 1760. Accession of George II. 1768. Historic Doubts on Richard 1761. Pitt resigns his Secretary III. ship. The Mysterious Mother. 1762. Newcastle resigns. 1772. Grammont's Memoirs. 1765. Stamp Act. 1785. Essay on Modern Garden- 1771. ing. 1791. Earl of Orford. 1797 (March 2). Death, Freedom of Parliamentary reporting. 1776. American Declaration of Independence. 1783. Treaty of Paris. 1789. French Revolution begins, EDITOR'S APPENDIX Books of Reference 449 Eliot Warburton: Memoirs of Horace Walpole and his Contemporaries (1851). Austin Dobson: Horace Walpole: a Memoir, with an Appendix of Books printed at the Strawberry Hill Press (1890, 1893). Leslie Stephen: Hours in a Library [new edition, 1892], i. PP. 345-376. A complete edition of the Letters (9 vols.), by Peter Cunningham, was brought out in 1857-9, and Selections by L. B. Seeley (Horace Walpole and his World) and by C. D. Yonge, in 1884 and 1890 respectively. Mr. John Downie, in his useful edition of the Essay (1900), gives a table of the variations between the text of the original and that of the revised version, as well as an Appendix of Extracts from Walpole's Letters. THE ESSAY ON WILLIAM PITT, EARL OF 'The two articles on the first William Pitt, written at ten years' interval, show the difference between Macaulay's earlier and later manner very clearly. The first is full of dash, vigour, and interest, but in a somewhat boisterous tone of high spirits, which at times runs dangerously near to bad taste. . . . Nothing of this kind will be found in the second article, but, on the contrary, great dignity and gravity, which recall the best pages of the History.-J. C. Morison. Chief Dates in Pitt's Life (to 1760) 1708 (Nov 15). Birth at Westminster. 1713. 1721. 1726. 1721-42. 1733. 1735. 1738. 1739. [1740. 1742. VOL. II. Treaty of Utrecht. South Sea Bubble. Pitt enters at Trinity College, Cambridge. Pitt a Cornet in the Light Blues. Pitt M.P. for Old Sarum ; joins the Opposition. |