chances of failure it is difficult at this distance of time to calculate with accuracy. But we think that an estimate approximating to the truth may, without much difficulty, be formed. The Allies had been victorious in Germany, Italy, and Flanders. It was by no means improbable that they might fight their way into the very heart of France. But at no time since the commencement of the war had their prospects been so dark in that country which was the very object of the struggle. In Spain they held only a few square leagues. The temper of the great majority of the nation was decidedly hostile to them. If they had persisted, if they had obtained success equal to their highest expectations, if they had gained a series of victories as splendid as those of Blenheim and Ramilies, if Paris had fallen, if Lewis had been a prisoner, we still doubt whether they would have accomplished their object. They would still have had to carry on interminable hostilities against the whole population of a country which affords peculiar facilities to irregular warfare, and in which invading armies suffer more from famine than from the sword.

We are, therefore, for the peace of Utrecht. We are indeed no admirers of the statesmen who concluded that peace. Harley, we believe, was a solemn trifler, St. John a brilliant knave. The great body of their followers consisted of the country clergy and the country gentry; two classes of men who were then inferior in intelligence to decent shopkeepers or farmers of our time. Parson Barnabas, Parson Trulliber, Sir Wilful Witwould, Sir Francis Wronghead, Squire Western, Squire Sullen,1 such were the people who composed the main strength of the Tory party during the sixty years which followed the Revolution. It is true that the means by which the Tories came into power in 1710 were most disreputable. It is true that the manner in which they used their power was often unjust and cruel. It is true that, in order to bring about their favourite project of peace, they resorted to slander and deception, without the slightest scruple. It is true that they passed off on the British nation a renunciation which they knew to be invalid. It is true that they gave up the Catalans to the vengeance of Philip, in a manner inconsistent

1 It is unfair to take caricatures as types or to judge any large body of men by what the satirist says of the worst among them. The generality of the country clergy were probably as much superior to Parson Trulliber as they were inferior to the Vicar of Wakefield. Parson Barnabas and Parson Trulliber appear in Fielding's Joseph Andrews; Sir Wilful Witwould in Congreve's "Way of the World;" Sir Francis Wronghead in Cibber's "Provoked Husband"; Squire Western in Fielding's Tom Jones and Squire Sullen in Farquhar's "Beaux' Stratagem."

with humanity and national honour.1 But on the great question of Peace or War, we cannot but think that, though their motives may have been selfish and malevolent, their decision was beneficial to the state.

But we have already exceeded our limits. It remains only for us to bid Lord Mahon heartily farewell, and to assure him that, whatever dislike we may feel for his political opinions, we shall always meet him with pleasure on the neutral ground of litera

ture.

1 The Catalans had enjoyed very ample liberties dating from the time when Catalonia was a virtually independent state. After the union of Castile and Arragon these liberties were often disregarded by the Kings of Spain, but never forgotten by the Catalans who cherished a bitter hatred of Castilian tyranny. Hence the circumstance that the Castilians were zealous for Philip sufficed to make the Catalans welcome Charles. In 1705 the Queen of England, in consideration of their support, had promised to secure from the King of Spain the confirmation of their rights and liberties. She now recognised Philip without exacting any such confirmation. The Catalans refused to accept Philip, but were forced to submit.

43

IN

HORACE WALPOLE

OCTOBER, 1833

NOTE ON THE ESSAY

N this essay Macaulay attacks Horace Walpole with a violence almost as unreasonable as his paradoxical assertion about Boswell, that the faults of the author account for the excellence of his writings. He fastens upon the superficial foibles of Walpole while almost ignoring his real talent. Walpole is to him "the most eccentric, the most artificial, the most fastidious, the most capricious of men.' Macaulay does not perceive that Walpole's ironic disposition led him to play with his own oddities, to exaggerate and to justify them. He is angry because Walpole was keen to note the petty and ridiculous aspects of the grave business of the world. He is vexed with Walpole for disclaiming the dignity of a serious author, for ridiculing those who thought him learned, for avowing himself to be what he really was, a clever dilettante. He is more angry still because Walpole talked an aristocratic republicanism and philanthropy which were common enough in the drawing-rooms of the eighteenth century; most angry because Walpole was neither a disciplined nor a progressive Whig, was well content with the rotten boroughs, did not march with the Rockingham party, thought Burke's pamphlets too long and spoke with levity even of Russells and Cavendishes. judges a noble of the eighteenth century in the spirit of the middle class of the nineteenth. He would almost induce us to think that he regarded a solid, commonplace, prosing member of Parliament as more valuable than the best chronicler of the most brilliant period of English social life. He turns in haste from the pleasant variety of themes afforded by Walpole's Letters and Memoirs to follow the routine of debate and the fortunes of ministers. He is ill at ease until he has put aside Horace Walpole to discuss Sir Robert and even the Pelhams. One admirable sentence of criticism, however, this essay does contain: "No man who has written so much is so seldom tiresome." The perception of this truth should have led Macaulay to inquire more deeply how "the author of many quartos" succeeded so well in amusing his readers. Some power of mind such an achievement does imply, and Walpole's powers were very far from contemptible. Walpole may

He

41 83

have been a trifler, but he was a highly intelligent trifler. He could discern merit in men whom he did not like. He did homage to the commanding qualities of Pitt and Carteret, although both had been bitter enemies of the father whose memory he adored. He showed a sense of what is good in literature by preferring Gray to all contemporary poets. If he thought Dante a Methodist parson in Bedlam,' he went little beyond the prejudice of the time, whilst he extolled Shakspeare in terms which even our own age would not think cold. Whatever his aversion to Voltaire and Rousseau he has repeatedly acknowledged their genius. In art also he had flashes of insight. He built Strawberry Hill, it is true, but he admired the Gothic cathedrals. He was in truth a precursor, although a shamefaced one, of the romantic movement. Nor did Walpole lack penetration in affairs of state. He felt instinctively the madness of that American policy which a grave statesman like Grenville could adopt and a wise historian like Gibbon support. If Walpole is artificial, at least he has his own conventions. His prejudices are the whims of a clever sceptic, not the badges imposed by general order upon the members of a sect or party. He is not to be fully trusted by the historian, yet no historian has done so much to keep the eighteenth century real to the men of after ages.

Perhaps the most amiable of Horace Walpole's weaknesses is his unreserved loyalty to a father so unlike himself. Macaulay could recognise Sir Robert's manly good sense, industry and patriotism. Some may think that Macaulay has not made sufficient allowance for the difficulties which beset Walpole's Administration, and others may think that he should have noticed Walpole's errors or omissions in foreign policy; but most readers of history will think his sketch both spirited and truthful. The amazing zest with which Macaulay entered into the incidents of Parliamentary warfare enlivens even those dullest of topics, antique debates and divisions. His singular skill in using literature to illustrate or adorn political history is fully displayed in this essay. It is, perhaps, abused in his portrayal of the Duke of Newcastle, where the most ridiculous anecdotes which Smollett or Walpole had heard or imagined are brought together to produce an effect so grotesque that we must believe it a caricature.

We know upon his own authority that Macaulay took considerable pains with this essay. "I was so thoroughly dissatisfied with the article as it stood at first that I completely rewrote it, altered the whole arrangement, left out ten or twelve pages in one part and added twice as many in another. I never wrote anything so slowly as the first half or so rapidly as the last half" (Macaulay to Macvey Napier, 21st October, 1833).