Part 20 (2/2)
”All true work is sacred. In all true work, were it but true hand-labour, there is something of divineness. Labour, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven.”
”Remember now and always that Life is no idle dream, but a solemn reality based upon Eternity, and encompa.s.sed by Eternity. Find out your task: stand to it: the night cometh when no man can work.”
29. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (+1800-1859+), the most popular of modern historians,-- an essayist, poet, statesman, and orator,-- was born at Rothley Temple, in Leicesters.h.i.+re, in the year 1800. His father was one of the greatest advocates for the abolition of slavery; and received, after his death, the honour of a monument in Westminster Abbey. Young Macaulay was educated privately, and then at Trinity College, Cambridge.
He studied cla.s.sics with great diligence and success, but detested mathematics-- a dislike the consequences of which he afterwards deeply regretted. In 1824 he was elected Fellow of his college. His first literary work was done for Knight's 'Quarterly Magazine'; but the earliest piece of writing that brought him into notice was his famous essay on +Milton+, written for the 'Edinburgh Review' in 1825. Several years of his life were spent in India, as Member of the Supreme Council; and, on his return, he entered Parliament, where he sat as M.P. for Edinburgh. Several offices were filled by him, among others that of Paymaster-General of the Forces, with a seat in the Cabinet of Lord John Russell. In 1842 appeared his +Lays of Ancient Rome+, poems which have found a very large number of readers. His greatest work is his +History of England from the Accession of James II+. To enable himself to write this history he read hundreds of books, Acts of Parliament, thousands of pamphlets, tracts, broadsheets, ballads, and other flying fragments of literature; and he never seems to have forgotten anything he ever read.
In. 1849 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; and in 1857 was raised to the peerage with the t.i.tle of Baron Macaulay of Rothley-- the first literary man who was ever called to the House of Lords. He died at Holly Lodge, Kensington, in the year 1859.
30. +Macaulay's Style.+-- One of the most remarkable qualities in his style is the copiousness of expression, and the remarkable power of putting the same statement in a large number of different ways. This enormous command of expression corresponded with the extraordinary power of his memory. At the age of eight he could repeat the whole of Scott's poem of ”Marmion.” He was fond, at this early age, of big words and learned English; and once, when he was asked by a lady if his toothache was better, he replied, ”Madam, the agony is abated!” He knew the whole of Homer and of Milton by heart; and it was said with perfect truth that, if Milton's poetical works could have been lost, Macaulay would have restored every line with complete exactness. Sydney Smith said of him: ”There are no limits to his knowledge, on small subjects as on great; he is like a book in breeches.” His style has been called ”abrupt, pointed, and oratorical.” He is fond of the arts of surprise-- of ant.i.thesis-- and of epigram. Sentences like these are of frequent occurrence:--
”Cranmer could vindicate himself from the charge of being a heretic only by arguments which made him out to be a murderer.”
”The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.”
Besides these elements of epigram and ant.i.thesis, there is a vast wealth of ill.u.s.tration, brought from the stores of a memory which never seemed to forget anything. He studied every sentence with the greatest care and minuteness, and would often rewrite paragraphs and even whole chapters, until he was satisfied with the variety and clearness of the expression.
”He could not rest,” it was said, ”until the punctuation was correct to a comma; until every paragraph concluded with a telling sentence, and every sentence flowed like clear running water.” But, above all things, he strove to make his style perfectly lucid and immediately intelligible. He is fond of countless details; but he so masters and marshals these details that each only serves to throw more light upon the main statement. His prose may be described as pictorial prose. The character of his mind was, like Burke's, combative and oratorical; and he writes with the greatest vigour and animation when he is attacking a policy or an opinion.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SECOND HALF OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
1. +Science.+-- The second half of the nineteenth century is distinguished by the enormous advance made in science, and in the application of science to the industries and occupations of the people.
Chemistry and electricity have more especially made enormous strides.
Within the last twenty years, chemistry has remade itself into a new science; and electricity has taken a very large part of the labour of mankind upon itself. It carries our messages round the world-- under the deepest seas, over the highest mountains, to every continent, and to every great city; it lights up our streets and public halls; it drives our engines and propels our trains. But the powers of imagination, the great literary powers of poetry, and of eloquent prose,-- especially in the domain of fiction,-- have not decreased because science has grown.
They have rather shown stronger developments. We must, at the same time, remember that a great deal of the literary work published by the writers who lived, or are still living, in the latter half of this century, was written in the former half. Thus, Longfellow was a man of forty-three, and Tennyson was forty-one, in the year 1850; and both had by that time done a great deal of their best work. The same is true of the prose-writers, Thackeray, d.i.c.kens, and Ruskin.
2. +Poets and Prose-Writers.+-- The six greatest poets of the latter half of this century are +Longfellow+, a distinguished American poet, +Tennyson+, +Mrs Browning+, +Robert Browning+, +William Morris+, and +Matthew Arnold+. Of these, Mrs Browning and Longfellow are dead-- Mrs Browning having died in 1861, and Longfellow in 1882. --The four greatest writers of prose are +Thackeray+, +d.i.c.kens+, +George Eliot+, and +Ruskin+. Of these, only Ruskin is alive.
3. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW (+1807-1882+), the most popular of American poets, and as popular in Great Britain as he is in the United States, was born at Portland, Maine, in the year 1807. He was educated at Bowdoin College, and took his degree there in the year 1825. His profession was to have been the law; but, from the first, the whole bent of his talents and character was literary. At the extraordinary age of eighteen the professors.h.i.+p of modern languages in his own college was offered to him; it was eagerly accepted, and in order to qualify himself for his duties, he spent the next four years in Germany, France, Spain, and Italy. His first important prose work was +Outre-Mer+, or a +Pilgrimage beyond the Sea+. In 1837 he was offered the Chair of Modern Languages and Literature in Harvard University, and he again paid a visit to Europe-- this time giving his thoughts and study chiefly to Germany, Denmark, and Scandinavia. In 1839 he published the prose romance called +Hyperion+. But it was not as a prose-writer that Longfellow gained the secure place he has in the hearts of the English-speaking peoples; it was as a poet. His first volume of poems was called +Voices of the Night+, and appeared in 1841; Evangeline was published in 1848; and +Hiawatha+, on which his poetical reputation is perhaps most firmly based, in 1855. Many other volumes of poetry-- both original and translations-- have also come from his pen; but these are the best. The University of Oxford created him Doctor of Civil Law in 1869. He died at Harvard in the year 1882. A man of singularly mild and gentle character, of sweet and charming manners, his own lines may be applied to him with perfect appropriateness--
”His gracious presence upon earth Was as a fire upon a hearth; As pleasant songs, at morning sung, The words that dropped from his sweet tongue Strengthened our hearts, or-- heard at night-- Made all our slumbers soft and light.”
4. +Longfellow's Style.+-- In one of his prose works, Longfellow himself says, ”In character, in manners, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.” This simplicity he steadily aimed at, and in almost all his writings reached; and the result is the sweet lucidity which is manifest in his best poems. His verse has been characterised as ”simple, musical, sincere, sympathetic, clear as crystal, and pure as snow.” He has written in a great variety of measures-- in more, perhaps, than have been employed by Tennyson himself. His ”Evangeline” is written in a kind of dactylic hexameter, which does not always scan, but which is almost always musical and impressive--
”Fair was she and young, when in hope began the long journey; Faded was she and old, when in disappointment it ended.”
The ”Hiawatha,” again, is written in a trochaic measure-- each verse containing four trochees--
”'Farewell!' said he, 'Minnehaha, Farewell, O my laughing water!
All my heart is buried with you, All' my | thou'ghts go | on'ward | wi'th you!'”
He is always careful and painstaking with his rhythm and with the cadence of his verse. It may be said with truth that Longfellow has taught more people to love poetry than any other English writer, however great.
5. ALFRED TENNYSON, a great English poet, who has written beautiful poetry for more than fifty years, was born at Somersby, in Lincolns.h.i.+re, in the year 1809. He is the youngest of three brothers, all of whom are poets. He was educated at Cambridge, and some of his poems have shown, in a striking light, the forgotten beauty of the fens and flats of Cambridge and Lincolns.h.i.+re. In 1829 he obtained the Chancellor's medal for a poem on ”Timbuctoo.” In 1830 he published his first volume, with the t.i.tle of +Poems chiefly Lyrical+-- a volume which contained, among other beautiful verses, the ”Recollections of the Arabian Nights” and ”The Dying Swan.” In 1833 he issued another volume, called simply +Poems+; and this contained the exquisite poems ent.i.tled ”The Miller's Daughter” and ”The Lotos-Eaters.” +The Princess+, a poem as remarkable for its striking thoughts as for its perfection of language, appeared in 1847. The +In Memoriam+, a long series of short poems in memory of his dear friend, Arthur Henry Hallam, the son of Hallam the historian, was published in the year 1850. When Wordsworth died in 1850, Tennyson was appointed to the office of Poet-Laureate. This office, from the time when Dryden was forced to resign it in 1689, to the time when Southey accepted it in 1813, had always been held by third or fourth rate writers; in the present day it is held by the man who has done the largest amount of the best poetical work. +The Idylls of the King+ appeared in 1859. This series of poems-- perhaps his greatest-- contains the stories of ”Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.” Many other volumes of poems have been given by him to the world. In his old age he has taken to the writing of ballads and dramas. His ballad of +The Revenge+ is one of the n.o.blest and most vigorous poems that England has ever seen. The dramas of +Harold+, +Queen Mary+, and +Becket+, are perhaps his best; and the last was written when the poet had reached the age of seventy-four. In the year 1882 he was created Baron Tennyson, and called to the House of Peers.
6. +Tennyson's Style.+-- Tennyson has been to the last two generations of Englishmen the national teacher of poetry. He has tried many new measures; he has ventured on many new rhythms; and he has succeeded in them all. He is at home equally in the slowest, most tranquil, and most meditative of rhythms, and in the rapidest and most impulsive. Let us look at the following lines as an example of the first. The poem is written on a woman who is dying of a lingering disease--
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