Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3)Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
History
Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3)
Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay, Baron
English literature -- History and criticism; Great Britain -- History
had learned in the school of Walpole, but by a harshness which almost
amounted to cruelty, and which had never been supposed to belong to his
character. His severity increased the unpopularity from which it had
sprung. The well-known lampoon of Gray may serve as a specimen of the
feeling of the country. All the images are taken from shipwrecks,
quicksands, and cormorants. Lord Holland is represented as complaining
that the cowardice of his accomplices had prevented him from putting
down the free spirit of the city of London by sword and fire, and as
pining for the time when birds of prey should make their nests in
Westminster Abbey, and unclean beasts burrow in St. Paul's.
Within a few months after the death of this remarkable man, his second
son Charles appeared at the head of the party opposed to the American
War. Charles had inherited the bodily and mental constitution of his
father, and had been much, far too much, under his father's influence.
It was indeed impossible that a son of so affectionate and noble a
nature should not have been warmly attached to a parent who possessed
many fine qualities, and who carried his indulgence and liberality
towards his children even to a culpable extent. Charles saw that the
person to whom he was bound by the strongest ties was, in the highest
degree, odious to the nation; and the effect was what might have been
expected from the strong passions and constitutional boldness of so
high-spirited a youth. He cast in his lot with his father, and took,
while still a boy, a deep part in the most unjustifiable and unpopular
measures that had been adopted since the reign of James the Second. In
the debates on the Middlesex election, he distinguished himself, not
only by his precocious powers of eloquence, but by the vehement and
scornful manner in which he bade defiance to public opinion. He was at
that time regarded as a man likely to be the most formidable champion of
arbitrary government that had appeared since the Revolution, to be a
Bute with far greater powers, a Mansfield with far greater courage.
Happily his father's death liberated him early from the pernicious
influence by which he had been misled. His mind expanded. His range of
observation became wider. His genius broke through early prejudices.
His natural benevolence and magnanimity had fair play. In a very short
time he appeared in a situation worthy of his understanding and of his
heart. From a family whose name was associated in the public mind with
tyranny and corruption, from a party of which the theory and the
practice were equally servile, from the midst of the Luttrells, the
Dysons, the Barringtons, came forth the greatest parliamentary defender
of civil and religious liberty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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