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
This noble and sober wisdom had its reward. If he did not carry the
banners of the Commonwealth in triumph to distant capitals, if he did
not adorn Whitehall with the spoils of the Stadthouse and the Louvre, if
he did not portion out Flanders and Germany into principalities for his
kinsmen and his generals, he did not, on the other hand, see his country
overrun by the armies of nations which his ambition had provoked. He did
not drag out the last years of his life an exile and a prisoner, in
an unhealthy climate and under an ungenerous gaoler, raging with the
impotent desire of vengeance, and brooding over visions of departed
glory. He went down to his grave in the fulness of power and fame; and
he left to his son an authority which any man of ordinary firmness and
prudence would have retained.
But for the weakness of that foolish Ishbosheth, the opinions which we
have been expressing would, we believe, now have formed the orthodox
creed of good Englishmen. We might now be writing under the government
of his Highness Oliver the Fifth or Richard the Fourth, Protector, by
the grace of God, of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
and the dominions thereto belonging. The form of the great founder of
the dynasty, on horseback, as when he led the charge at Naseby or on
foot, as when he took the mace from the table of the Commons, would
adorn our squares and over look our public offices from Charing Cross;
and sermons in his praise would be duly preached on his lucky day, the
third of September, by court-chaplains, guiltless of the abomination of
the surplice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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