E-text prepared by Suzanne Lybarger, Brian Janes, Leonard Johnson, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has Volumes I and II of this work in text file format only. See Volume I: https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2332 Volume II: https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2333 CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS by LORD MACAULAY In Three Volumes [Illustration: The Riverside Press logo.] VOLUME III Boston and New York Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press Cambridge Copyright, 1899, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. All Rights Reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES 1 LEIGH HUNT'S COMIC DRAMATISTS OF THE RESTORATION 47 LORD HOLLAND 101 WARREN HASTINGS 114 FREDERIC THE GREAT 243 DIARY AND LETTERS OF MADAME D'ARBLAY 331 THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON 396 BARERE 487 THE EARL OF CHATHAM 591 INDEX TO THE ESSAYS 689 CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS III RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES[1] _The Edinburgh Review_, October, 1840 It is hardly necessary for us to say that this is an excellent book excellently translated. The original work of Professor Ranke is known and esteemed wherever German literature is studied, and has been found interesting even in a most inaccurate and dishonest French version. It is, indeed, the work of a mind fitted both for minute researches and for large speculations. It is written also in an admirable spirit, equally remote from levity and bigotry, serious and earnest, yet tolerant and impartial. It is, therefore, with the greatest pleasure that we now see this book take its place among the English classics. Of the translation we need only say that it is such as might be expected from the skill, the taste, and the scrupulous integrity of the accomplished lady who, as an interpreter between the mind of Germany and the mind of Britain, has already deserved so well of both countries. The subject of this book has always appeared to us singularly interesting. How it was that Protestantism did so much, yet did no more, how it was that the Church of Rome, having lost a large part of Europe, not only ceased to lose, but actually regained nearly half of what she had lost, is certainly a most curious and important question; and on this question Professor Ranke has thrown far more light than any other person who has written on it.