But the savage sarcasms which are tolerable in a passionate young reformer smarting under the follies of George IV., are a serious defect in a grave historian, when used indiscriminately of men and women in every age and under every condition. In his _Machiavelli_, Macaulay hints that the best histories are perhaps "those in which a little of fictitious narrative is judiciously employed." "Much," he says, "is gained in effect." It is to be feared that this youthful indiscretion was never wholly purged out of him. Boswell, we know, was "a dunce, a parasite, and a coxcomb"--_and therefore_ immortal. He was one of "the smallest men that ever lived," of "the meanest and feeblest intellect," "servile," "shallow," "a bigot and a sot," and so forth--and yet, "a great writer, _because_ he was a great fool." We all know what is meant; and there is a substratum of truth in this; but it is tearing a paradox to tatters. How differently has Carlyle dealt with poor dear Bozzy! Croker's _Boswell's Johnson_ "is as bad as bad can be," full of "monstrous blunders"--(he had put 1761 for 1766) "gross mistakes"--"for which a schoolboy would be flogged." Southey is "utterly destitute of the power of discerning truth from falsehood." He prints a joke which "is enough to make us ashamed of our species." Robert Montgomery pours out "a roaring cataract of nonsense." One of his tropes is "the worst similitude in the world." And yet Macaulay can rebuke Johnson for "big words wasted on little things"! Neither Cicero, Milton, Swift, nor Junius ever dealt in more furious words than Macaulay, who had not the excuse of controversy or passion. Frederick William of Prussia was "the most execrable of fiends, a cross between Moloch and Puck"; "his palace was hell"; compared with the Prince, afterwards Frederick the Great, "Oliver Twist in the workhouse, and Smike at Dotheboys Hall were petted children." It would be difficult for Mark Twain to beat that. "The follies and vices of King John _were the salvation_ of England." Cranmer was peculiarly fitted to organise the Church of England by being "unscrupulous, indifferent, a coward, and a time-server." James I. was given to "stammering, slobbering, shedding unmanly tears," alternating between the buffoon and the pedagogue. James II. "amused himself with hearing Covenanters shriek"; he was "a libertine, singularly slow and narrow in understanding, obstinate, harsh, and unforgiving." The country gentleman of that age talked like "the most ignorant clown"; his wife and daughter were in taste "below a stillroom maid of the present day." The chaplain was a mere servant, and was expected to marry a servant girl whose character had been blown upon.