English Lands, Letters and Kings, vol. 4: The Later Georges to Victoria

This does not sound like those verses of Shelley, which we lately encountered. Those went through the empyrean of song like Aurora’s chariot of the morning, with cherubs, and garlands, and flashing torches. This, in the comparison, is like some well-appointed dump-cart, with sleek, well-groomed Percheron horses—up to their work, and accomplishing what they are set to do absolutely well.

It was not until 1842, a year or two after the Italian visit, that Macaulay ventured to publish that solitary book of his verse; he very much doubted the wisdom of putting his literary reputation in peril by such overture in rhyme. It extorted, however, extravagant praise from that muscular critic Christopher North; while the fastidious Hunt writes to him (begging a little money—as was his wont), and regretting that the book did not show more of the poetic aroma which breathes from the Faerie Queene. But say what we may of its lack—there is no weakly maundering; it is the work of a man full-grown, with all his wits active, and his vision clear, and who loved plain sirloins better than the fricandeaux and ragoûts of the artists.

There is also a scholarly handling, with high, historic air blowing through—as if he liked his Homer better than his Spenser; his prosody is up to the rules; the longs and shorts are split to a hair’s breadth—jingling and merry where the sense calls for it; and sober and resonant where meaning is weighty; flashing, too, where need is—with sword play and spear-heads that glitter and waver over marching men; but nowhere—I think it must be said—the tremulous poetic susurrus, that falters, and touches, and detains by its mystic sounds—tempting one into dim border-lands where higher and more inspired singers find their way. Christabel is not of his school, nor the star-shaped shadow of Wordsworth’s Daisy.

Parliamentarian and Historian.

Meantime occasional papers from Macaulay’s hand found their way into the pages of the great Northern Review—but by no means so many as the Whig managers could have wished; he had himself grown to think lightly of such work; the History was calling for his best powers, and there were parliamentary duties devolving upon him as member for Edinboro’.

I remember catching sight of him somewhere between 1844 and 1846—in his place in the House of Commons, and of listening to his brilliant castigation of Sir Robert Peel, in the matter, I think, of the Maynooth grant. He was well toward fifty then, but sturdy—with the firm tread of a man who could do his three or four leagues of walking—if need were; beetle-browed; his clothes ill-adjusted; his neck bundled in a big swathing of cravat. There was silence when he rose; there was nothing orator-like in his bearing; rather awkward in his pose; having scorn, too, as would seem, for any of the graces of elocution. But he was clear, emphatic, direct, with a great swift river of words all bearing toward definite aim. Tory critics used to say he wrote his speeches and committed them to memory. There was no need for that. Words tripped to his tongue as easily as to his pen. But there were no delicate modulations of voice; no art of pantomime; no conscious or unconscious assumption of graceful attitudes; and when subject-matter enfevered and kindled him—as it did on that occasion—there was the hurry and the over-strained voice of extreme earnestness.

It was not very long after this that he met with a notable repulse from his old political supporters in Edinboro’ that touched him grievously. But there were certain arts of the politician he could not, and would not learn; he could not truckle; he could not hobnob with clients who made vulgar claims upon him. He could not make domiciliary visits, to kiss the babies—whether of patrons, or of editors; he could not listen to twaddle from visiting committees, without breaking into a righteous wrath that hurt his chances. Edinboro’, afterward, however, cleared the record, by giving him before his death a triumphant return to Parliament.

Meantime that wonderful History had been written, and its roll of magniloquent periods made echo in every quarter of the literary world. Its success was phenomenal. After the issue of its second couplet of volumes the publishers sent to the author a check for £20,000 on account. Such checks passing between publisher and author were then uncommon; and—without straining a point—I think I may say they are now. With its Macaulay endorsement, it makes a unique autograph, now in the possession of the Messrs. Longmans—but destined to find place eventually among the manuscript treasures of the British Museum.

The great history is a partisan history, but it is the work of a bold and out-spoken and manly partisan. The colors that he uses are intense and glaring; but they are blended in the making of his great panorama of King William’s times, with a marvellous art. We are told that he was an advocate and not a philosopher; that he was a rhetorician and not a poet. We may grant all this, and we may grant more—and yet I think we shall continue to cherish his work. Men of greater critical acumen and nicer exploration may sap the grounds of some of his judgments; cooler writers, and those of more self-restraint, may draw the fires by which his indignations are kindled; but it will be very long before the world will cease to find high intellectual refreshment in the crackle of his epigrams, in his artful deployment of testimony, in his picturesque array of great historic characters and in the roll of his sonorous periods.

Yet he is the wrong man to copy; his exaltations make an unsafe model. He exaggerates—but he knows how to exaggerate. He paints a truth in colors that flow all round the truth, and enlarge it. Such outreach of rhetoric wants corresponding capacity of brain, and pen-strokes that never swerve or tremble. Smallish men should beware how they copy methods which want fulness of power and the besom of enthusiasm to fill out their compass. Homer can make all his sea-waves iridescent and multitudinous—all his women high-bosomed or blue-eyed—and all his mountains sweep the skies: but we should be modest and simple.

It was not until Macaulay had done his last work upon the book (still incomplete) which he counted his monument, that he moved away from his bachelor quarters in the Albany (Piccadilly) and established himself at Holly Lodge, which, under the new name (he gave it) of Oirlie Lodge, may be found upon a winding lane in that labyrinth of city roads that lies between Kensington Gardens and Holland House. There was a bit of green lawn attached, which he came to love in those last days of his; though he had been without strong rural proclivities. Like Gibbon, he never hunted, never fished, rarely rode. But now and then—among the thorn-trees reddening into bloom and the rhododendrons bursting their buds, the May mornings were “delicious” to him. He enjoyed, too, overmuch, the modest hospitalities he could show in a home of his own. There are joyfully turned notes—in his journal or in his familiar letters—of “a goose for Michaelmas,” and of “a chine and oysters for Christmas eve,” and “excellent audit ale” on Lord Mayor’s day. There, too, at Holly Lodge, comes to him in August, 1857, when he was very sad about India (as all the world were), an offer of a peerage. He accepts it, as he had accepted all the good things of life—cheerily and squarely, and was thenceforward Baron Macaulay of Rothley. He appears from time to time on the benches of the Upper House, but never spoke there. His speaking days were over. A little unwonted fluttering of the heart warned him that the end was not far off.

A visit to the English lakes and to Scotland in 1859 did not—as was hoped—give him access of strength. He was much disturbed, too (at this crisis), by the prospect of a long separation from his sister, Lady Trevelyan—whose husband had just now been appointed Governor of Madras. “This prolonged parting,” he says, “this slow sipping of the vinegar and the gall is terrible!” And the parting came earlier than he thought, and easier; for on a day of December in the same year he died in his library chair. His nephew and biographer had left him in the morning—sitting with his head bent forward on his chest—an attitude not unusual for him—in a languid and drowsy reverie. In the evening, a little before seven, Lady Trevelyan was summoned, and the biographer says:—“As we drove up to the porch of my uncle’s house, the maids ran crying into the darkness to meet us; and we knew that all was over.”

He was not an old man—only fifty-nine. The stone which marks his grave in Westminster Abbey is very near to the statue of Addison.

In estimating our indebtedness to Macaulay as a historian—where his fame and execution were largest—we must remember that his method of close detail forbade wide outlook or grasp of long periods of time. If he had extended the same microscopic examination and dramatic exhibit of important personages to those succeeding reigns, which he originally intended to cover—coming down to the days of William IV.—he would have required fifty volumes; and if he had attempted, in the same spirit, a reach like that of Green or Hume, his rhetorical periods must have overflowed more than two hundred bulky quartos! No ordinary man could read such; and—thank Heaven!—no extraordinary man could write so many.

Some Tory Critics.

Among those who sought with a delightsome pertinacity for flaws in the historic work of Macaulay, in his own time, was John Wilson Croker, to whom I have already alluded.[86] He was an older man than the historian; Irish by birth, handsome, well-allied by marriage, plausible, fawning on the great (who were of his party) wearing easily and boastfully his familiarity with Wellington, Lansdowne and Cumberland, airing daintily his literary qualities at the tables of Holland or Peel; proud of his place in Parliament, where he loved to show a satiric grace of speech, and the curled lips of one used to more elegant encounters. In short, he was the very man to light up the blazing contempt of such another as Macaulay; more than all since Croker was identified with the worst form of Toryism, and the other always his political antagonist.

Such being the animus of the parties, one can imagine the delight of Croker in detecting a blunder of Macaulay, and the delight of Macaulay when he was able to pounce upon the blunders in Croker’s edition of Boswell’s Johnson. This was on many counts an excellent work and—with its emendations—holds its ground now; but I think the slaps, and the scourgings, and the derisive mockery which the critic dealt out to the self-poised and elegant Croker have made a highly appetizing sauce piquante for the book these many a year. For my own part, I never enjoy it half so much as when I think of Macaulay’s rod of discipline “starting the dust out of the varlet’s [editor’s] jacket.”

It is not a question if Croker deserved this excoriation; we are so taken up with the dexterity and effectiveness with which the critical professor uses the surgeon’s knife, that we watch the operation, and the exceeding grace and ease with which he lays bare nerve after nerve, without once inquiring if the patient is really in need of such heroic treatment.

The Croker Papers[87]—two ponderous volumes of letters and diary which have been published in these latter years—have good bits in them; but they are rare bits, to be dredged for out from quagmires of rubbish. The papers are interesting, furthermore, as showing how a cleverish man, with considerable gifts of presence and of brain, with his re-actionary Toryism dominant, and made a fetich of, can still keep a good digestion and go in a respectable fashion through a long life—backwards, instead of “face to the front.”

In this connection it is difficult to keep out of mind that other Toryish administrator of the Quarterly bombardments of reform and of Liberalists—I mean Lockhart (to whom reference has already been made in the present volume), and who, with all of Croker’s personal gifts, added to these a still larger scorn than that of his elder associate in the Quarterly conclaves, for those whose social disabilities disqualified them for breathing the rarefied air which circulated about Albemarle Street and the courts of Mr. Murray. Even Mr. Lang in his apologetic but very interesting story of Lockhart’s life,[88] cannot forbear quiet reprehensive allusions to that critic’s odious way of making caustic allusion to “the social rank” of political opponents; although much of this he avers “is said in wrath.” Yet it is an unworthy wrath, always and everywhere, which runs in those directions. Lockhart, though an acute critic, and a very clever translator, was a supreme worshipper of “conditions,” rather than of qualities. He never forgave Americans for being Americans, and never preter-mitted his wrathy exposition of their ‘low-lived antecedents’ socially. The baronetcy of his father-in-law, Sir Walter Scott, was I think, a perpetual and beneficent regalement to him.

Two Gone-by Story Tellers.

Must it be said that the jolly story-teller of the sea and of the sea-ports, who wrote for our uncles and aunts, and elder brothers, the brisk, rollicking tales about Midshipman Easy, and Japhet in Search of a Father, is indeed gone by?

His name was Frederick Marryat,[89] the son of a well-to-do London gentleman, who had served the little Borough of Sandwich as member of Parliament (and was also author of some verses and political tractates), but who did not wean his boy from an inborn love of the sea. To gratify this love the boy had sundry adventurous escapades; but when arrived at the mature age of fourteen, he entered as midshipman in the Royal Navy—his first service, and a very active one, being with that brave and belligerent Lord Cochrane, who later won renown on the west coast of South America. Adventures of most hazardous and romantic qualities were not wanting under such an officer, all of which were stored in the retentive memory of the enthusiastic and observant midshipman, and thereafter, for years succeeding, were strewn with a free hand over his tales of the sea. These break a good many of the rules of rhetoric—and so do sailors; they have to do with the breakage of nearly all the commandments—and so do sailors. But they are breezy; they are always pushing forward; spars and sails are all ship-shape; and so are the sailors’ oaths, and the rattle of the chain-cables, and the slatting of the gaskets, and the smell of the stews from the cook’s galley.

There is also a liberal and quasi democratic coloring of the links and interludes of his novels. The trials of Peter Simple grow largely out of the cruel action of the British laws of primogeniture; nor does the jolly midshipman—grandson, or nephew—forego his satiric raps at my lord “Privilege.” Yet Marryat shows no special admiration for such evolutions of the democratic problem as he encounters in America.[90]

Upon the whole, one finds no large or fine literary quality in his books; but the fun in them is positive, and catching—as our aunts and uncles used to find it; but it is the fun of the tap-room, and of the for’castle, rather than of the salon, or the library. For all this, scores and scores of excellent old people were shaking their sides—in the early part of this century—over the pages of Captain Marryat—in the days when other readers with sighs were bemoaning the loss of the “Great Magician’s” power in the dreary story of Count Robert of Paris, or kindling into a new worship as they followed Ainsworth’s[91] vivid narrative of Dick Turpin’s daring gallop from London to York.

A nearer name to us, and one perhaps more familiar, is that of G. P. R. James,[92] an excellent, industrious man, who drove his trade of novel-making—as our engineers drive wells—with steam, and pistons, and borings, and everlasting clatter.

Yet,—is this sharp, irreverent mention, wholly fair to the old gentleman, upon whose confections, and pastries, so many of us have feasted in times past? What a delight it was—not only for youngsters, but for white-haired judges, and country lawyers—to listen for the jingle of the spurs, when one of Mr. James’s swarthy knights—“with a grace induced by habits of martial exercise”—came dashing into old country quietudes, with his visor up; or, perhaps in “a Genoa bonnet of black velvet, round which his rich chestnut hair coiled in profusion”—making the welkin ring with his—“How now, Sir Villain!”

I caught sight of this great necromancer of “miniver furs,” and mantua-making chivalry—in youngish days, in the city of New York—where he was making a little over-ocean escape from the multitudinous work that flowed from him at home; a well-preserved man, of scarce fifty years, stout, erect, gray-haired, and with countenance blooming with mild uses of mild English ale—kindly, unctuous—showing no signs of deep thoughtfulness or of harassing toil. I looked him over, in boyish way, for traces of the court splendors I had gazed upon, under his ministrations, but saw none; nor anything of the “manly beauty of features, rendered scarcely less by a deep scar upon the forehead,”—nor “of the gray cloth doublets slashed with purple;” a stanch, honest, amiable, well-dressed Englishman—that was all.

And yet, what delights he had conjured for us! Shall we be ashamed to name them, or to confess it all? Shall the modern show of new flowerets of fiction, and of lilies—forced to the front in January—make us forget utterly the old cinnamon roses, and the homely but fragrant pinks, which once regaled and delighted us, in the April and May of our age?

What incomparable siestas those were, when, from between half-closed eyelids, we watched for the advent of the two horsemen—one in corselet of shining silver, inlaid with gold, and the other with hauberk of bright steel rings—slowly riding down the distant declivity, under the rays of a warm, red sunset! Then, there were abundance of gray castle-walls—ever so high, the ivy hanging deliciously about them; and there were clanging chains of draw-bridges, that rattled when a good knight galloped over; and there were stalwart gypsies lying under hedges, with charmingest of little ones with flaxen hair (who are not gypsies at all, but only stolen); and there is clash of arms; and there are bad men, who get punched with spear heads—which is good for them; and there are jolly old burghers who drink beer, and “troll songs”; and assassins who lurk in the shadows of long corridors—where the moonbeams shine upon their daggers; and there are dark-haired young women, who look out of casements and kiss their hands and wave white kerchiefs,—and somebody sees it in the convenient edge of the wood, and salutes in return, and steals away; and the assassin escapes, and the gypsies are captured in the bush, and some bad king is killed, and an old parchment is found, and the stars come out, and the rivulet murmurs, and the good knight comes back; and the dark tresses are at the casement, and she smiles, and the marriage bells ring, and they are happy. And the school bell (for supper) rings, and we are happy!

As I close this book with these last shadowy glimpses of story-tellers, who have told their pleasant tales, and have lived out their time, and gone to rest, I see lifting over that fair British horizon, where Victoria shows her queenly presence—the modest Mr. Pickwick, with his gaiters and bland expanse of figure; Thackeray, too, with his stalwart form and spectacled eyes is peering out searchingly upon all he encounters; the refined face of Ruskin is also in evidence, and his easy magniloquence is covering one phase of British art with new robes. A woman’s Dantesque profile shows the striking qualities which are fairly mated by the striking passages in Adam Bede and Daniel Deronda; one catches sight, too, of the shaggy, keen visage of the quarrel-loving Carlyle, and of those great twin-brethren of poesy—Browning and Tennyson—the Angelo and the Raphael of latter images in verse. Surely these make up a wonderful grouping of names—not unworthy of comparison with those others whom we found many generations ago, grouped around another great queen of England, who blazed in her royal court, and flaunted her silken robes, and—is gone.

FOOTNOTES

INDEX.

• Abbotsford, 66;
• the author’s visit to, 67 et seq.; 81.
• “Abou-ben-Adhem,” 152.
• “Adam Bede,” 287.
• “Adonais,” 232.
• Ainsworth, W. H., 283.
• “Alastor,” 221.
• Alison, Rev. Archibald, 84.
• “Anacreon,” Moore’s, 154.
• “Ancient Mariner, Rime of the,” 56.
• Arnold, Dr., his experience with the young princes, 118.
• Aylmer, Rose, 129.
• “Battle of Blenheim, The,” 9.
• “Battle of Hohenlinden,” Campbell’s, 53.
• “Battle of Ivry, The,” 264.
• Beaconsfield, Lord. See Disraeli.
• Blackwood’s Magazine, 42; 46; 52.
• Blessington, Lady, 174 et seq.;
• her many fascinations, 176;
• her downfall, 186; 242; 259; 264.
• “Border Minstrelsy,” Scott’s, 60.
• Boswell, Gifford’s satire on, 115.
• Bowles, Caroline, 23.
• Bowles, William Lisle, 248.
• Brougham, Henry, 87;
• his connection with the Edinburgh Review, 88;
• becomes Lord Chancellor, 89;
• his manner in Parliament, 90;
• his fervid oratory, 108, note;
• his many quarrels, 109;
• his death, 110; 113;
• his famous defence of Queen Caroline, 124; 177;
• his criticism of Byron, 193; 255; 265.
• Brown, Dr. Thomas, his connection with the Edinburgh Review, 107, note.
• Browning, Robert, 288.
• Bulwer-Lytton, Edward L., 178; 254.
• Byron, Lord, 56;
• his satire on Scott, 78;
• Leigh Hunt’s quarrel with, 144;
• his opinion of Moore, 161;
• compared with Moore, 162;
• his break with George IV., 168;
• leaves England, 188;
• his family history, 190;
• his boyhood, 191;
• his controversy with Brougham, 193;
• his unfortunate marriage, 201 et seq.;
• in London, 206;
• separates from his wife, 209;
• leaves England, 212;
• his foreign tour, 214;
• meets Shelley, 216;
• Shelley’s influence on, 222;
• in Italy, 223;
• his scepticism, 224;
• at Shelley’s funeral, 235;
• his character, 239, 240;
• sails for Greece, 242;
• his death, 246; 249.
• “Caleb Williams,” 219.
• Campbell, Thomas, his primness, 52;
• his first poem, 54;
• his clear field in 1799, 56;
• his work in prose and poetry, 58;
• compared with Scott, 61; 82.
• Canning, George, 166.
• Carlyle, Thomas, his mildness towards Southey, 19;
• his criticism of Scott’s work, 75; 288.
• Caroline, Queen, marries the Prince, 121;
• separates from her husband, 122;
• her trial, 124.
• Chalon, A. E., 183.
• Charlotte, Princess, 122.
• Chaworth, Mary, Byron’s poem to, 193; 250.
• “Childe Harold,” 195; 238.
• Cochrane, Lord, 282.
• Cockburn, Lord, his account of Jeffrey, 93.
• Coleridge, Hartley, his home, 4;
• Southey’s letter to, 8.
• Coleridge, S. T., his separation from his wife, 8;
• his intercourse with Southey, 11;
• with Southey at Greta Hall, 15;
• chafes at Southey’s odes, 18;
• compared with Southey, 20; 56.
• “Confessions of an Opium Eater, The,” 34.
• Croker, John Wilson, 116;
• his criticism of Macaulay, 277.
• “Croker Papers, The,” 18, note; 279.
• “Daniel Deronda,” 287.
• De Quincey, Thomas, his home, 4;
• Robinson’s description of, 28;
• his early years, 29;
• settles near Grasmere, 31;
• his affection for Catharine Wordsworth, 32;
• his marriage, 34;
• his laudanum drinking, 35;
• his “Reminiscences,” 37;
• last years and death of, 38, 40;
• his assertion as to the appreciation of Wordsworth in 1802, 56, note.
• Derwent Water, 2; 5; 6.
• “Devereux,” 178.
• Dickens, Charles, his caricature of Leigh Hunt, 147.
• “Disowned, The,” 178.
• Disraeli, Benjamin, his foppishness, 179;
• his antecedents, 180 et seq.;
• his literary work, 182 et seq.;
• his ability as Lord Beaconsfield, 186; 201.
• “Doctor, The,” Southey’s, 20.
• “Don Juan,” 224, 239.
• D’Orsay, Comte, 178, 180, 186.
• Dwight, Timothy, 12.
• Edinburgh Review, founded by Smith and Jeffrey, 86.
• “Endymion,” 230.
• Erskine, William, 80.
• Examiner, The, 142.
• “First Gentleman of Europe, The,” 165.
• Fitzherbert, Mrs., 120 et seq.
• Fox, Charles, 96.
• Francesca da Rimini, Leigh Hunt’s, 148.
• “Frankenstein,” 250.
• Franklin, Benjamin, 143.
• Gamba, Count, 242.
• “Gebir,” Landor’s, 129.
• George III., loses his reason, 17, note;
• Scott’s allusions to, 77; 118.
• George IV., appointed Regent, 17;
• his friendliness toward Sir Walter Scott, 78;
• his later laxity, 119;
• his unfortunate situation, 120;
• ascends the throne, 123;
• last days of, 165.
• “Gertrude of Wyoming,” 54; 57.
• Gifford, William, 114 et seq.; 163.
• Godwin, Mary, elopes with Shelley, 220.
• Godwin, William, 219.
• Gordon, General, 186.
• Gore House, 177.
• Grasmere, 4.
• Greta Hall, 15.
• Greville, Charles, 166.
• Hallam, Arthur, Tennyson’s lament for, 173.
• Hallam, Henry, his serenity, 171;
• contrasted with Hazlitt, 172, 173; 177.
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel, his account of Leigh Hunt, 146.
• Hazlitt, William, his cynicism, 168;
• his friendship with the Lambs, 169;
• his strenuous personality, 170.
• Helvellyn, Mt., 4, 5.
• Holland, Lady, 96; 213; 264.
• Holland, Lord, 96.
• Horner, Francis, 86.
• “Hours of Idleness,” 193.
• Hucknall-Torkard, 247.
• Humphreys, David, 12.
• Hunt, Isaac, 143.
• Hunt, John, 142.
• Hunt, Leigh, imprisonment of, 142;
• his American blood, 143;
• his first writings, 144;
• his pretty phrases, 145;
• his easy methods of living, 147;
• his poetry, 148 et seq.;
• his opinion of Moore, 161; 163;
• compared with Hazlitt, 170;
• compared with Shelley, 228;
• his friendship for Shelley, 234;
• at Shelley’s funeral, 235; 269.
• “Idler in Italy, The,” Lady Blessington’s, 175.
• “Imaginary Conversations,” Landor’s, 16, note; 132.
• Ingersoll, Robert, 224.
• “In Memoriam,” 173; 232.
• “Irish Avatar, The,” Byron’s, 168.
• “Isle of Palms, The,” John Wilson’s, 42, 45.
• James, G. P. R., 283.
• “Japhet in Search of a Father,” 281.
• Jeffrey, Francis, his association with Sydney Smith, 85, 86;
• his criticism of Southey and Wordsworth, 92;
• marries Miss Wilkes, 94;
• becomes Lord Jeffrey, 95; 113.
• Jersey, Lady, 213.
• “Julia de Roubigné,” Mackenzie’s, 84.
• Keats, John, his school days, 229;
• publishes “Endymion,” 230;
• goes to Italy, 231;
• his death, 232, 233.
• Keble, John, 254.
• “Kehama, The Curse of,” Southey’s, 13.
• “Kenilworth,” 73.
• Keswick, 3; 8.
• Knight, Charles, 253.
• Knight’s Quarterly Magazine, 263.
• “Lady of the Lake, The,” 65.
• Lake Country, The, 1 et seq.
• “Lalla Rookh,” 153;
• great success of, 157.
• Lamb, Charles, 12;
• his opinion of Southey, 16, note;
• his friendship with Hazlitt, 169.
• Lamb, Mary, 169.
• Landor, Walter Savage, 16; 18; 20; 56;
• his lack of popularity, 125 et seq.;
• his fondness for the country, 127, 128;
• his “Gebir,” 129;
• goes abroad, 131;
• in Italy, 132 et seq.;
• his genius for skimming, 135;
• his domestic troubles, 136, 137;
• his old age and death, 139;
• strange contrasts in, 165;
• compared with Byron, 188; 228.
• Lang, Andrew, 71; 280.
• Lansdowne, Lord, 255; 265.
• “Laon and Cythna,” 225.
• “Last Days of Pompeii, The,” 179.
• “Lay of the Last Minstrel, The,” 60;
• Byron’s satire on, 78.
• “Lays of Ancient Rome,” 263.
• Lockhart, J. G., his work on the Quarterly Review, 47;
• quotation from Lang’s “Life” of, 71;
• Scott’s dying words to, 81; 280.
• “Lycidas,” 232.
• Lytton, Lord, 180. See also Bulwer-Lytton.
• Macaulay, Thomas Babington, his ancestry, 260;
• at the university, 262;
• his first writings, 263;
• supports the Reform Bill, 265;
• finishes his “Lays of Ancient Rome,” 267;
• in Parliament, 270;
• his great History, 272;
• elevated to the peerage, 275;
• his death, 276.
• Macaulay, Zachary, 261.
• Mackenzie, Henry, 84.
• Mackintosh, Sir James, his political career, 104;
• failure of his literary plans, 105 et seq.
• “Man of Feeling, The,” Mackenzie’s, 84.
• “Manfred,” 215.
• Markham, Dr., 118.
• “Marmion,” 61.
• Marryat, Frederick, goes to sea, 281;
• his books, 282.
• Mavrocordatos, 243.
• Melbourne, Lord, 256; 265.
• “Midshipman Easy,” 281.
• Milbanke, Miss, 203, 204; 250.
• Milbanke, Sir Ralph, 206.
• Moore, Thomas, 56; 101;
• his acquaintance with Leigh Hunt, 153;
• his success in society, 154;
• his impressions of America, 155;
• his domestic relations, 158;
• his great reputation, 160;
• his melodious songs, 164; 177.
• More, Mrs. Hannah, 29, 261.
• “Murder as a Fine Art,” appears in Blackwood’s, 37.
• Murray, John, 78;
• starts The Quarterly, 114; 160; 205.
• New Monthly Magazine, The, 58.
• Newman, Cardinal, 254.
• Newspapers, marvellous increase in circulation of, from 1836 to 1838, 254.
• Newstead Abbey, 189.
• “Noctes Ambrosianæ,” 31; 42.
• “North, Christopher,” 40 et seq., 269.
• O’Connell, Daniel, 184.
• “Old Mortality,” 73.
• Paine, Thomas, 143.
• Peel, Sir Robert, 166; 255; 259; 265; 271.
• “Pelham,” 178.
• Penny Cyclopædia, The, 253.
• Penny Magazine, The, 253.
• “Peter Bell,” Lamb’s and Robinson’s opinions of, 27.
• “Peter Simple,” 282.
• “Pleasures of Hope, The,” 54.
• “Political Justice,” 219.
• Pusey, Dr., 254.
• Quarterly, The, founding of, 114.
• Quarterly Review, The, 16.
• “Queen Mab,” 221.
• Reform Bill, The, 100; 253.
• “Revolt of Islam, The,” 225.
• “Rienzi,” 179.
• Robinson, Henry Crabb, his friendship with Southey, 23, 24;
• his “Diary and Reminiscences,” 26; 264.
• “Roderick the Goth,” Southey’s, 14.
• Rogers, Samuel, 177.
• Ruskin, John, 287.
• Rydal, 3.
• Scott, Anne, death of, 70.
• Scott, Charles, death of, 70.
• Scott, Sir Walter, 47;
• his boyhood, 59;
• his first poems appear, 60;
• compared with Campbell, 61;
• his marriage, 65;
• genealogy of, 72, note;
• the charm of his stories, 73 et seq.;
• his love of pageantry, 77;
• his management of the Edinboro’ reception to the King, 79;
• his visit to the Mediterranean, 80;
• his death, 81; 82;
• his opinion of Gifford, 116;
• his admiration for Moore, 161; 168.
• Shelley, Percy Bysshe, his early life, 216;
• his marriage and unhappiness, 218;
• elopes with Mary Godwin, 220;
• meets Byron, 221;
• his influence on Byron, 222;
• his scepticism, 224, 228;
• his death and pagan burial, 235;
• his character, 236.
• Smith, Goldwin, 65; 183.
• Smith, Sydney, settles in Edinboro’, 84;
• assists in founding The Edinburgh Review, 86;
• goes to London, 96;
• his ministerial career, 97 et seq.;
• his famous “Dame Partington” simile, 100;
• his wit, 102;
• his praise of Moore, 161; 177; 264.
• Southey, Robert, 5 et seq.;
• his early life, 11 et seq.;
• settles at Keswick, 14;
• appointed Poet Laureate, 18;
• compared with Coleridge, 20;
• refuses a baronetcy, 22;
• death of, 24; 56;
• meets Landor at Como, 131; 168; 177;
• Shelley’s acquaintance with, 218;
• Byron’s satire on, 224; 228.
• Staël, Madame de, 106; 215.
• Stamp Tax, The, effect of its reduction on the newspapers, 254.
• Stanley, Lord, 91.
• Stewart, Dugald, 48; 84.
• Story, W. W., Landor’s connection with, 139.
• Strawberry Hill, 261.
• Swan Inn, The, 4.
• “Talisman, The,” 73.
• Tennyson, Lord, his grief at the death of Arthur Hallam, 172;
• his dramas, 223; 288.
• Thackeray, W. M., 287.
• “Thalaba,” 13;
• profits on, 15.
• Thrale, Madame, 115.
• “Tintern Abbey,” Wordsworth’s, 62.
• Trelawney, E. J., 235; 242.
• Trumbull, John, 144.
• Victoria, Queen, beginning of her reign, 167;
• her accession, 255;
• her marriage, 257; 287.
• “Vision of Judgment, A,” 224.
• “Vivian Grey,” 182.
• Wellington, Duke of, 166; 255.
• West, Benjamin, 144; 245.
• Wilkes, John, 94, note.
• William IV., 81;
• his nerve and pluck, 167;
• his lack of ceremony, 252;
• some events of his time, 253, 254.
• “William and Helen,” Scott’s, 60.
• Wilson, James, 41, note.
• Wilson, John, 31; 36;
• his character, 40, 41;
• his writings in Blackwood’s, 42, 46;
• his diaries, 44;
• becomes a professor, 48;
• his success, 50; 82.
• Windermere, 2 et seq.
• “Wishing Gate, The,” 4.
• Wollstonecraft, Mary, 220.
• Wordsworth, Catharine, 32.
• Wordsworth, Dorothy, 43, note.
• Wordsworth, William, his opposition to railways, 3;
• his grave, 4;
• his attitude toward Southey’s odes, 18;
• his account of Southey’s last years, 23; 30; 31; 32; 56;
• his unlikeness to Scott, 61 et seq.; 168; 228.