Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 1Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Critical and Historical Essays — Volume 1
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English literature -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- History
only by superior diligence, sobriety, and regularity in the pursuits, of
peace, from the other members of the community which they had saved.
In the general spirit and character of his administration, we think
Cromwell far superior to Napoleon. “In the civil government,” says Mr.
Hallam, “there can be no adequate parallel between one who had sucked
only the dregs of a besotted fanaticism, and one to whom the stores of
reason and philosophy were open.” These expressions, it seems to
us, convey the highest eulogium on our great countryman. Reason
and philosophy did not teach the conqueror of Europe to command his
passions, or to pursue, as a first object, the happiness of his people.
They did not prevent him from risking his fame and his power in a
frantic contest against the principles of human nature and the laws of
the physical world, against the rage of the winter and the liberty
of the sea. They did not exempt him from the influence of that most
pernicious of superstitions, a presumptuous fatalism. They did not
preserve him from the inebriation of prosperity, or restrain him from
indecent querulousness in adversity. On the other hand, the fanaticism
of Cromwell never urged him on impracticable undertakings, or confused
his perception of the public good. Our countryman, inferior to Bonaparte
in invention, was far superior to him in wisdom. The French Emperor is
among conquerors what Voltaire is among writers, a miraculous child.
His splendid genius was frequently clouded by fits of humour as absurdly
perverse as those of the pet of the nursery, who quarrels with his food,
and dashes his playthings to pieces. Cromwell was emphatically a man.
He possessed, in an eminent degree, that masculine and full-grown
robustness of mind, that equally diffused intellectual health, which,
if our national partiality does not mislead us, has peculiarly
characterised the great men of England. Never was any ruler so
conspicuously born for sovereignty. The cup which has intoxicated almost
all others, sobered him. His spirit, restless from its own buoyancy in
a lower sphere, reposed in majestic placidity as soon as it had reached
the level congenial to it. He had nothing in common with that large
class of men who distinguish themselves in subordinate posts, and whose
incapacity becomes obvious as soon as the public voice summons them
to take the lead. Rapidly as his fortunes grew, his mind expanded
more rapidly still. Insignificant as a private citizen, he was a great
general; he was a still greater prince. Napoleon had a theatrical
manner, in which the coarseness of a revolutionary guard-room was
blended with the ceremony of the old Court of Versailles. Cromwell,
by the confession even of his enemies, exhibited in his demeanour the
simple and natural nobleness of a man neither ashamed of his origin
nor vain of his elevation, of a man who had found his proper place in
society, and who felt secure that he was competent to fill it. Easy,
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