Macaulay has
fulminated the censure and withheld the praise.
What is of more interest to Americans, he loses no opportunity of
attacking and defaming William Penn; making statements which have been
proved false, and attributing motives without reason or justice.
His style is what the French call the _style coupe_,--short sentences,
like those of Tacitus, which ensure the interest by their recurring
shocks. He writes history with the pen of a reviewer, and gives verdicts
with the authority of a judge. He seems to say, Believe the autocrat; do
not venture to philosophize.
His poetry displays tact and talent, but no genius; it is pageantry in
verse. His _Lays of Ancient Rome_ are scholarly, of course, and pictorial
in description, but there is little of nature, and they are theatrical
rather than dramatic; they are to be declaimed rather than to be read or
sung.
In society, Macaulay was a great talker--he harangued his friends; and
there was more than wit in the saying of Sidney Smith, that his
conversation would have been improved by a few "brilliant flashes of
silence.
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