Show I AM i ENTHUSIASM THAT WAS ENTHUSllS VAS > I Tho Secret of Macaulay Twentyfour years ago being a boy of 12 I carried sundry coins to Mr Franklins Frank-lins bookshop me corner of St Nicholas Nich-olas square In NcwcastleonTyne and I exchanged them for a copy of the Crl Heal rtncl Historical Essays of Lord 1 Macaulay I could show you the very spot In Neville street where walking I homeward I stopped to take a deep I I i draught of rhetoric from the podgy volume In a gamboge binding Has Jus I lice been done to Macauiay ns the liter iiry mentor or boys under H I doubt I It the debt Is so large There la a class of books from which bookish boys draw their llrst literary nourishment and although these books are not the same for every hoy yet there arc certain I I cer-tain books which really form n group 01 thIs nature Washington Jrvlngs I Sketch Book Is one and Maeaulays I Essays la I another From these and I from Lamb and from Addlsons Spectator Spec-tator boys oe xhe draw green knowledge i I moods and capabilities of literature They learn how much sarcasm can gall j I IllS victims or argument crush them i I and hugely they enjoy such spectacles I They easily delight themselves with tho I I 1 broad effects of good prose 0 flowing style n richness of allusion clever an i lllhcses Ingenious similes Moreover I I i they learn names nothing haunts n boy I like namesand on these they build I castles of surmise very pleasant to behold be-hold Great among such writers lo I Macaulay of the Ijssuys I could have said this laot week but It was only I I f I yesterday that 1 realized how strong was the spell that Macaxuay threw oVi I < I me In that gamboge volume Casually 1 i I had picked UD the new edition of the 1 I Essays Issued In the Temple Classics i I series and casual I opened it at a I I page In the article on Machlavelll To my no small astonishment I could hardly I hard-ly read It with a dry eye For I had alighted on a passage which 1 had roared lo the I wind on sea shores In railway carriages and wherever the glory of words could add a joy to life I or relieve some boyish bitterness The 1 passage was this 1 From the oppressions of Illiterate mantelS and the sufferings of a degraded J degrad-ed peasantry 1 Is delightful to turn to the opulent and enlightened states of Italy to the vast and magnificent cities the ports the arsenals the villas the I museums the libraries the marts fled with every article of comfort or luxury I the factories swarming with artisans the Apennines coveredwith rich cultivation I culti-vation UD to their very summits the Po wafllng the harvests of Lombardy i to the granaries of Venice and carrying back the silks of Bengal and the furs of Siberia to the palaces of Milan With peculiar I i pleasures every cultivated I mind must repose on the fair the happy hap-py the glorious Florence the halls which rang with the mirth of Pulcl the cell where twinkled the midnight lamp of Politlan the statues on which the1 J young eyes of Michael Angelo glared I I with the frenzv of kindred Inspiration the gardens in which Lorenzo meditated some sparkling song for the May day dance of the Etrurian virgins Alas for the beautiful city Alas for the wit and the learning the genius and the love I Lo donne nigh e i cavalier gll affannl e gll Cho nunvogllava nmoro e cortesla La dove I cuor son tall si mal nSl A lime was at hand when all the seven vials of the Apocalypse were to I be poured forth and shaken out over I those pleasant countries a time of slaughter famlhe beggary Infamy slavery despair The secret of Mocaulays hold on the literary boy Is plain A boy with any taste for literature always deals in bombast he loves the mouthflllitur word nnd the rolling period Does he glory In stately words and clothof gold phrases i lie Is your budding writer Those qnkishlngs and revellngs in the sea of speech declare the swimmer swim-mer who one day will cut the waves with a clean stroke and an economy of spray Macaulays ntyle Is not bombast bom-bast but to many n boy It Is the foamy and resonant font of literature The more I dip Into the Essays the more I doubt whether this Is not their greatest use and their greatest merit that they shout I so splendidly round the boy and cast such treasures at his feet Macaulayn delight In I full world n thriving society and an advanced culture cul-ture his prodigious knowledge his memory his vocabulary his health these are elements In a style that lures the young mind by the broad vigor and symmetry of its operations Of senti ment and subtlety there arc just enough in the Essays to please I boy which Is to say thai there Is very little of either Macaulays grand catalogue of the things that are Is relieved to Just the right extent and In Just the right way A boy has as lief read In Macau lay of the end of London as of the o glory of Rome Hear him take on his lips the famous passage on the permanence perma-nence of the Roman Catholic church She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain before be-fore the Frank had passed the Rhine when Grecian elonuence still nourished at Anlloeh when Idols were still worshiped wor-shiped In the temple at Mecca And she may still exist In undlnnnlshed vigor when some traveler from New Zealand shall In the midst of a vast solitude lake his stand on t broken arch of Lon don bridge to sketch the ruins of St I Pauls MacauJay gloated on these vast operations opera-tions of Time He wrote In the essay on Machlavolli All the curses denounced against Tyre seemed to have fallen on Venice Her merchants already stood afar off lamenting for this great city The lime seemed near when the seaweed should overgrow her silent Rialto and the fisherman fish-erman wash his nets in her deserted arsenal sonal sonalnd And again in the Sir William Temple Tem-ple I Lewis and Dorothy are alike dust A cotton mill stands oj che ruins of Marll and tho Osbornes have ceased to dwell under the ancient roof of Chlcksands Always concrete rhetorical and brilliant bril-liant always the easy muster of his thought no wonder M ucau hay Is worshiped wor-shiped by boys To see him take off his coat to thrash C poet like Montgomery Montgom-ery or I critic like Croker was uhecr ecstasy So many processor horizons rclullonshlDs were Hashed upon the mind as incidents in the glorious bout I such far glimpses and such vast suggestions sug-gestions were opened on every side You learned In excitement you grew wlae In bailie And then the cult of the hit the Joy of sarcasm and the feelings feel-ings of Mr Montgomery We would not be understood however how-ever to say that Mr Robert Montgomery I Mont-gomery cannot make similitudes for himself A very few lines further on we llncl one which has every murk of orlglnallly and on which we will be bound none of the poets whom he has plundered will ever think of mal reprisals re-prisals t I Tho soul aspiring hauLs KM source to mount An streams mqnndcr level with their fount We take this to be on the whole the Worst similitude In the world In the frt place no stream meanders or can possibly meander level with Us fount In the next place If streams did meander mean-der level with their founts no two mo tons can be less like each other than that of meandering level and of mounting mount-ing upward I To see Mr Crolccr pounded In page after of cumulative muscles page cumulnlc cumulative cu-mulative scorn and all In a blaze of cru t dlllon beyond the dreams of schoolmasters j school-masters IJow one loved even the ml nutlae of the onslaught Mr Crokor states that Mr Henry Bate who afterward assumed the name of Dudley was proprietor of tho MornIng Morn-Ing Herald and fought a duel with I George Robinson Sjoney in conse qucncc of some ultuctis on jiuly Strath mdry whloh appeared Jn that paper lNuvvMi Ont i Avasthiin oonneilod not Jwlththfe I MorulnjrHurald but with the Morning Post Slid the dispute took I place before the Morning Herald was in I I existence Tho duel was fought In January Jan-uary 1777 The Chronicle tho Annual An-nual Register for that year contains an I account of the transaction and dIn tlnctly slalcs that Mr Bat was edt lor of the Mornlner Post The Morning Herald as any person may see by lookIng look-Ing at any number of it was not established es-tablished till some years acer this affair af-fair For this blunder there Is I we must acknowledge some excuse for It cell talnly seems almost Incredible to a person per-son living In our time than any human being should ever have stopped lo fight with a writer in the Morning Post All this does not seem too fair now And really one blushes for the cruelty of the epigram I Is not likely that person who is ignorant i of what almost everybody known l can know that of which almost everybody io Ignorant But a boy enjoys this aa he does a knockdon blow with the gloves and he frankly accepts the Titans explanation explana-tion tionWe We did not open thin hook with any wish to find blemishes In it We have made no curious researches The work h i elf and L i very common knowledge of literary and political history have enabled J us to detect the mistakes which we have poInted out and many other I mlslakcs of the same kind We must say and = we say It with regret that we do b not consider tho authority of Mr I Croker unsupported by other evidence as sufficient to justify I any wrIter 1 who liLy follow him In relating a single an ccdate or In assigning a date to a single event Moved by a memory T have but touched on Mncaulays attraction for I Ipoys l His wealth of proper names and I allusion was dazzling Poor Souihcys philosophy might stand or fall but to I see that remote scheme condemned by I remoter standards was a treat A I mere daydream poetical creation like poetcal lke the Dom anlel cavern the Swerga or Pandalon W In the Academy |