80. Thomas Babington Macaulay

Born on October 25, 1800

There are few works of history whose reading evokes such a sure feeling that they take us into the spirit of the epochs described as Macaulay's " History of England". Undoubtedly there are historians who are able to shape their material more artfully, to bring out the personalities more vividly, and those who are able to apply even greater diligence in the collection of details than Macaulay. The harmonious interaction of these three skills, as found in his work, can only be found in the same way in very few historians. The first two volumes of the work were published in November 1848. The publication was awaited in England with the highest hopes. The most extraordinary things were expected from the man who had been held in the highest esteem as an essayist and politician for more than twenty years. Macaulay surpassed everything that had been expected. In the shortest possible time, translations into German, French, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Bohemian, Hungarian and Persian were available. Such a rapid spread of the book throughout the educated world is perfectly understandable when one considers the aforementioned sense of security that its study arouses. It is one of those literary achievements in which one gains complete confidence as soon as one first becomes acquainted with them. The first two volumes cover the short period of English history from 1685 to 1689; in the later volumes Macaulay succeeded in describing events up to 1704. Ten years of careful study preceded their publication. Even if one does not learn about this care from Macaulay's biography, one soon gets to know it from the work. Every sentence expresses it forcefully. The description of the facts is so vivid that one almost believes one is listening to a contemporary; the characterization of the personalities portrayed often lulls us into the illusion that someone is telling the story on the basis of personal acquaintance. This perfect maturity of his historical judgment is a result of the course of Macaulay's life and his quite unique character. He was almost always in situations in life that offered him the widest conceivable horizon of experience. His father was sent to Jamaica by a Scottish trading house when he was sixteen. There he experienced the horrors of slavery. This prompted him to devote part of his life to fighting it. After his return home, a company founded for the purpose of freeing slaves commissioned him to colonize freed slaves on the coast of Sierra Leone. The mindset of such a personality, who had matured in cultural tasks on a grand scale, must have contributed to the development of a great, free spirit in his son. The father certainly influenced the young Macaulay in this direction. The parental home often brought together numerous men who were involved in a wide range of activities. The old Macaulay did everything he could to arouse his son's interest in the negotiations and work of these men. - When Macaulay was twenty-five years old, his first important piece of writing appeared in the "Edinburgh Review" on Milton. It made the author a famous man in one fell swoop. Fame at such a young age raises those who have the prerequisites for it to a higher level of activity. It gives the strength necessary to bring talent into the right relationship with things and with one's contemporaries. In a country like England, the attention of those interested in public life was soon to be drawn to the young writer. In 1830 he was elected Member of Parliament for Wiltshire. He was a representative of the people at a turbulent time. The French July Revolution sparked calls everywhere for the expansion of freedom. Macaulay was privileged to participate as a Member of Parliament in the debate on Lord Russell's reform bill in 1831. The preservation of the English constitution was in question. Macaulay acted in a way that added to his reputation as a great writer that of an important politician. Three years later, his field of work expanded again. He was elected a member of the High Council of India. He administered his office in England's colonies on the basis of a highly ethical view of life. His activities in India lasted until 1837 and left a beneficial mark on both the material and spiritual culture of the country. - Until 1847, Macaulay led a quieter life, devoting himself almost exclusively to extensive studies for his "History of England". In 1847 he once again entered Parliament. The extent of his influence, which was based on nothing more than the persuasive effect of his words and reasons, can be seen from the fact that in 1853 he succeeded in defeating a bill relating to the exclusion of the Chief Archivist from Parliament, which had been as good as passed before his speech, by a majority of over a hundred votes.

The fact that Macaulay was able to exploit the fortunate circumstances in which he found himself for the purpose of comprehensive effectiveness is explained by the extraordinary qualities of his mind. In addition to an almost miraculous memory, he had a rare gift for combining information, which, as a historian, allowed him to illuminate one event through another, often quite distant one, and which, in the field of practical activity, allowed him to energetically find the appropriate means to achieve the goals he had in mind. I would like to cite one of his brilliant historical analogies to characterize his intellectual capacity. It is to be found in the essay "Burleigh and His Times": "The only event of modern times which can be conveniently compared with the Reformation is the French Revolution, or, to express it more definitely, that great revolution in political views which took place during the eighteenth century in almost all the countries of the civilized world, and which celebrated its greatest and most terrible triumph in France. Each of these memorable events would be most correctly described as an outrage of human reason against a caste. One was a struggle for spiritual liberty, waged by the laity against the clergy; the other was a struggle for political liberty, waged by the people against princes and nobility. In both cases, the spirit of innovation was initially encouraged by a class of society that one would have expected to be in the forefront of prejudice. It was under the protection of Frederick, Catherine, Joseph, and the French greats that the philosophy which later threatened all the thrones and aristocracies of Europe with destruction received its terrible development. The zeal with which scholarly studies began to be pursued towards the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century found warm encouragement from the heads of the same church to which the scientific enlightenment was to become so pernicious. When it broke out, it happened in both cases with such violence that even some of those who had at first distinguished themselves by the freedom of their views turned away in horror and disgust. The violence of the democratic party transformed Burke into a Tory and Alfieri into a courtier. The passion of the men at the head of the religious movement in Germany made Erasmus a defender of the abuses, and caused Thomas More, the author of the Utopia, to act as a persecutor against the followers of the innovations."

When one reads the character sketches of historical figures that Macaulay has provided, one is often reminded of the monumental style of Emerson. But whereas the latter, as a rhetorician and moral writer, worked towards the finely elaborated thought and preferred the faithfulness of the apergus to the naturalistic depiction of reality, the reverse is the case with Macaulay. But his immersion in reality is so mature, so thorough and thoughtful that his historical fidelity is automatically transformed into a striking apergus. Thus, when he characterizes Burleigh, Queen Elizabeth's statesman, with the words: "He never left his friends until it became unpleasant to stay with them any longer. He was an excellent Protestant, so long as there was no great advantage in being a Papist. He recommended to his mistress, as strongly as he could without risking her favor, the observance of a tolerant policy. He allowed no one to be put to the torture unless it was likely to extort a useful confession. He was so moderate in his covetousness that he left only three hundred different estates, although, as his honest servant tells us, he could have left many more if he had wanted to take money from the treasury for his own use, as many a treasurer has done."

In Macaulay's "History of England", the chapter on the state of England in 1685 is a model of historical representation. It is a modern trend in historiography to replace the former, purely diplomatic-political method with the cultural-historical method. In this chapter Macaulay becomes a perfect cultural historian, because the intrinsic truth of his subject induces him to do so, and his comprehensive sense makes it impossible for him not to trace the relations which connect things into their remotest corners. - It was not possible for the indefatigable man to continue his historical work beyond the year 1704. A heart condition swept away this strong life in 1858.