History of England.—­Macaulay had for some time wondered why some one should not do for real history what Scott had done for imaginary history.  Macaulay accordingly proposed to himself the task of writing a history that should be more accurate than Hume’s and possess something of the interest of Scott’s historical romances.  In 1848 appeared the first two volumes of The History of England from the Accession of James II.  Macaulay had the satisfaction of seeing his work, in sales and popular appreciation, surpass the novels.  He intended to trace the development of English liberty from James II. to the death of George III.; but his minute method of treatment allowed him to unfold only sixteen years (from 1685 to 1701) of that period, so important in the constitutional and religious history of England.

Macaulay’s pages are not a graveyard for the dry bones of history.  The human beings that figure in his chapters have been restored to life by his touch.  We see Charles II. “before the dew was off in St. James’s Park striding among the trees, playing with his spaniels, and flinging corn to his ducks.”  We gaze for a moment with the English courtiers at William III.:—­

“They observed that the king spoke in a somewhat imperious tone, even to the wife to whom he owed so much, and whom he sincerely loved and esteemed.  They were amused and shocked to see him, when the Princess Anne dined with him, and when the first green peas of the year were put on the table, devour the whole dish without offering a spoonful to her Royal Highness, and they pronounced that this great soldier and politician was no better than a low Dutch bear."[6]

Parts of the History are masterpieces of the narrator’s art.  A trained novelist, unhampered by historical facts, could scarcely have surpassed the last part of Macaulay’s eighth chapter in relating the trial of the seven Bishops.  Our blood tingles to the tips of our fingers as we read in the fifth chapter the story of Monmouth’s rebellion and of the Bloody Assizes of Judge Jeffreys.

Macaulay shirked no labor in preparing himself to write the History.  He read thousands of pages of authorities and he personally visited the great battlefields in order to give accurate descriptions.  Notwithstanding such preparation, the value of his History is impaired, not only because he sometimes displays partisanship, but also because he fails to appreciate the significance of underlying social movements.  He does not adopt the modern idea that history is a record of social growth, moral as well as physical.  While a graphic picture of the exterior aspects of society is presented, we are given no profound insight into the interior movements of a great constitutional epoch.  We may say of both Gibbon and Macaulay that they are too often mere surveyors, rather than geologists, of the historic field.[7] The popularity of the History is not injured by this method.