Thomas Babington MacaulayRezensionen

This book has obviously been studied critically by an owner, probably by Ms. Richards. Hopefully it was also loved. I think Macaulay kind of liked Hampden. His essay was a more of a personal history made interesting. The book included Lytton's essay on Falkland which was much more of a discussion of the time than a sketch of Falkland himself. It was, however, really interesting and a thoughtful presentation of what went on pre-Cromwell.½

Interesting reading. It includes, at the back, some excerpts from Macaulay's review of Robert Southey's book on Sir Thomas More, of which he is scathing. Also included is a Commentary by editor Williams in which he endeavours to place Macaulay high in the pantheon of English writers.

This little book contains six of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. I had forgotten how enjoyable they are to read. Editor Roberts followed them with commentaries on the life of Macaulay and his poetic presentation. The book concludes with Macaulay's Essay on the Lays and a prose presentation of some of the stories by Livy. Back in the 1920s, et seq, English teachers must have praised the publishers for devising the Kings Treasuries as useful teaching materials. They are still delightful.

Excellent Condition. 5 volumes. Intro by nephew M.P. George Otto Trevalyan: life and important letters by Lord Macaulay

An endless list of people I never heard of and never want to hear of, written in a meter that makes you feel seasick. Who could ever have had the taste for this sort of thing?

With weeping and with laughter
Still is the story told

This free Kindle edition does not have Ivry or the Armada. You might as well get a version that includes those, too. Also, there is an 1887 illustrated edition that you might find used; I have not seen it reproduced.

Favorite narrative history of compelling story arcs. This time around I was focused on the James II to Wm And Mary / Glorious Revolution. The war in Ireland, Scotland, the naval conflicts and the amusing story of the history of the English debt.

Good collection of historical and literary essays and musings. Especially enjoyed the Fredrick the Great essay. Others- not so much. Persecution of Jews in England, Histories of the Popes and others... of varying interest.

Trying to fill in gaps in the tudors . 1588, to the glorious revolution, etc. good, but so spotty as to maybe not be useful.

LBB-1

Gave up on it after about 25% of way through. Accompanying text too hard to follow, too "scholarly", and the lays themselves not that interesting. Just thought I'd try it, after seeing the book in the movie, "Oblivion", starring Tom Cruise.

At times long winded and rife 5 dollar words, these volumes captures the era well. The years 1650 to 1700 were turbulent times for England. The plague and Great fire of London, Civil War the beheading of a King and the abdication of another and the ascension of King William and Queen Mary, whose influence steadies the kingdom to the present day. It wasn't all smooth sailing, humans being what they are. The more things change the more they stay the same.

NA

When he was two and a half, having given Sam some (proper) sultanas to eat, he said afterwards 'Thank you, they were absolutely delicious'. At the time I was much surprised at the vocab of this very young person, as well as the clarity with which he spoke.

But I realise now that Sam is cut from the same cloth as Thomas Macaulay who from the age of three "talked, as the maid said, `quite printed words', which produced an effect that appeared formal, and often, no doubt, exceedingly droll." The famous story exemplifying this took place when he was three or four. A servant dropped hot liquid on him and after the fuss of cleaning him up, upon asked if he was okay, he replied `Thank you madam, the agony is abated'. https://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/anecdtes/c19/macaulay.htm

Surely such a boy, a compulsive reader with a phenomenal memory must have created a great work of its type.

Twenty years ago my father offered me a lovely old set of Macaulay's History of England and was much surprised when, in my ignorance, I turned it down. In the years since my father has died, for some reason this is a scene that pops up regularly into my head. How could I have been so, so, so ???? Uggggh.

Anyway, I hope one day to remedy this state of affairs.

I know it is the general opinion, and especially the "conservative" general opinion, that the 20th century pretty much refuted the Whig narrstive of history. i share that conclusion. Still, the Glorious Revolution and its long train of consequences surely did some real good. Similarly, there is a lot of good sense in Macauley. I figure it's like what they say these days about Newtonian physics: it's valid within its premises--these are just not universal.

The progress of history is ever moving forward, away from superstition and autocracy towards free-thought and greater liberty, at least that what Lord Macaulay believed. In his The History of England (from the Accession of James the Second), Macaulay brings forth “the Whig interpretation of history” for the first time that changed how history was interpretation for the next century.

This abridgment of Macaulay’s five-volume history of events leading up to the Glorious Revolution during James II reign through the death of William III begins with Macaulay’s purpose for his work. The first half of the abridgment covers how James II began his reign by slowly alienating his traditional supporters in the Anglican Church and Tory county squires by putting Roman Catholics in high positions and supporting the Irish against Anglo-Scot colonists. Even though he survived one rebellion early in his reign, James kept on escalating his efforts until both “Exclusionist” and Tory politicians—including moderate Roman Catholics—joined forces to invite William to take the throne. The second half of the abridgment covers William’s invasion and the Revolution in all three Kingdoms, not just England. While the English portion was political rather than martial, it was not the same in Ireland and Scotland as battles between those supporting James and William took place in bloody fashion though mostly in Ireland. Another bit of history was the religious aspect of the Revolution, while in England there was more toleration in practice which included Roman Catholics it was a different matter entirely in Scotland were Presbyterians retook control after suffering under Restoration policies for over 30 years. Finally, the effects of the Revolution on finance and Parliamentary corruption are examined before Macaulay’s final summing up.

While Hugh Trevor-Roper did an admirable job in selecting portions over five volumes into approximately 550 pages, it is also the main problem with the book. With such a reduction of Macaulay’s prose, the reader gets glimpses of his thoughts and intentions but without consistency the reader doesn’t get the importance of the overall work. As for the work itself, Macaulay’s bias of excusing his hero (William III) and aggressively character assassinating those he dislikes (Marlborough), is one of the biggest flaws.

The History of England is a glimpse into the larger work of Lord Macaulay that really doesn’t give the reader a constancy to see why it was such an important piece of historical literature. If given the choice, I would have chosen five books of the total work over a short abridgment.½

NOT A REVIEW: I bought this set used. It is missing Volume I. I copied the entry on LibraryThing for Volume IV three times and tweaked it so that it appears that I have Volume II, III & IV. I dislike that so many sets are in LT and the individual books aren't, especially since I shop primarily at used and rare bookshops. With this in mind, there is a strong possibility that I will be missing a volume here or there. Plus I like the concept of having a total book count, where boxed sets count as more than one.

NOTE: This volume (IV) was published in 1984 and was printed in England.

NOT A REVIEW: I bought this set used. It is missing Volume I. I copied the entry on LibraryThing for Volume IV three times and tweaked it so that it appears that I have Volume II, III & IV. I dislike that so many sets are in LT and the individual books aren't, especially since I shop primarily at used and rare bookshops. With this in mind, there is a strong possibility that I will be missing a volume here or there. Plus I like the concept of having a total book count, where boxed sets count as more than one.

NOTE: This volume (III) was published in 1967 and was printed in Switzerland.

NOT A REVIEW: I bought this set used. It is missing Volume I. I copied the entry on LibraryThing for Volume IV three times and tweaked it so that it appears that I have Volume II, III & IV. I dislike that so many sets are in LT and the individual books aren't, especially since I shop primarily at used and rare bookshops. With this in mind, there is a strong possibility that I will be missing a volume here or there. Plus I like the concept of having a total book count, where boxed sets count as more than one.

NOTE: This volume (II) was published in 1984 and was printed in England.

Believe it or not the epigram “Rome was not built in a day”, meaning that some things cannot be done at once, but require time and patience, was not coined by Romans. As a matter of fact it first appeared in England in John Heywood’s “A Dialogue Containing the Number in Effect of All the Proverbes in the English Tongue” (1546). It was also used in “Don Quixote” (1605) by Miguel de Cervantes. Nowadays modern Romans usually do as they like, and do not expect others do as they do.

The same story of Romulus and Remus is just a story which says that they founded on this day Rome. Read what a famous English historian wrote in his “Lays of Ancient Rome”, a collection of narrative poems, or lays: Thomas Babington Macaulay. Four of these recount heroic episodes from early Roman history with strong dramatic and tragic themes, giving the collection its name. The Lays were composed by Macaulay in his thirties, during his spare time while he was the "legal member" of the Governor-General of India's Supreme Council from 1834 to 1838.

The Roman ballads are preceded by brief introductions, discussing the legends from a scholarly perspective. Macaulay explains that his intention was to write poems resembling those that might have been sung in ancient times.The Lays were first published by Longman in 1842, at the beginning of the Victorian Era. They became immensely popular, and were a regular subject of recitation, then a common pastime. The Lays were standard reading in British public schools for more than a century. Here follows what he says about this legend:

“That what is called the history of the Kings and early Consuls of Rome is to a great extent fabulous, few scholars have, since the time of Beaufort, ventured to deny. It is certain that, more than three hundred and sixty years after the date ordinarily assigned for the foundation of the city, the public records were, with scarcely an exception, destroyed by the Gauls. It is certain that the oldest annals of the commonwealth were compiled more than a century and a half after this destruction of the records.

It is certain, therefore, that the great Latin writers of the Augustan age did not possess those materials, without which a trustworthy account of the infancy of the republic could not possibly be framed. Those writers own, indeed, that the chronicles to which they had access were filled with battles that were never fought, and Consuls that were never inaugurated; and we have abundant proof that, in these chronicles, events of the greatest importance, such as the issue of the war with Porsena and the issue of the war with Brennus, were grossly misrepresented.

Under these circumstances a wise man will look with great suspicion on the legend which has come down to us. He will perhaps be inclined to regard the princes who are said to have founded the civil and religious institutions of Rome, the sons of Mars, and the husband of Egeria, as mere mythological personages, of the same class with Perseus and Ixion. As he draws nearer to the confines of authentic history, he will become less and less hard of belief.

He will admit that the most important parts of the narrative have some foundation in truth. But he will distrust almost all the details, not only because they seldom rest on any solid evidence, but also because he will constantly detect in them, even when they are within the limits of physical possibility, that peculiar character, more easily understood than defined, which distinguishes the creations of the imagination from the realities of the world in which we live.

The early history of Rome is indeed far more poetical than anything else in Latin literature. The loves of the Vestal and the God of War, the cradle laid among the reeds of Tiber, the fig-tree, the she-wolf, the shepherd's cabin, the recognition, the fratricide, the rape of the Sabines, the death of Tarpeia, the fall of Hostus Hostilius, the struggle of Mettus Curtius through the marsh, the women rushing with torn raiment and dishevelled hair between their fathers and their husbands, the nightly meetings of Numa and the Nymph by the well in the sacred grove, the fight of the three Romans and the three Albans, the purchase of the Sibylline books, the crime of Tullia, the simulated madness of Brutus, the ambiguous reply of the Delphian oracle to the Tarquins, the wrongs of Lucretia, the heroic actions of Horatius Cocles, of Scaevola, and of Cloelia, the battle of Regillus won by the aid of Castor and Pollux, the defense of Cremera, the touching story of Coriolanus, the still more touching story of Virginia, the wild legend about the draining of the Alban lake, the combat between Valerius Corvus and the gigantic Gaul, are among the many instances which will at once suggest themselves to every reader.

In the narrative of Livy, who was a man of fine imagination, these stories retain much of their genuine character. Nor could even the tasteless Dionysius distort and mutilate them into mere prose. The poetry shines, in spite of him, through the dreary pedantry of his eleven books. It is discernible in the most tedious and in the most superficial modern works on the early times of Rome. It enlivens the dulness of the Universal History, and gives a charm to the most meagre abridgements of Goldsmith. Even in the age of Plutarch there were discerning men who rejected the popular account of the foundation of Rome, because that account appeared to them to have the air, not of a history, but of a romance or a drama …”

It would be scarcely possible for a man of Mr Macaulay's talents and acquirements to write a volume so large as that before us, which should be wholly destitute of information and amusement. He writes a flowing, graceful line and can be very funny when he brutalises some poor author's offering. These are opinion pieces, and when one knows something of the subject, he is entertaining, whether you agree or disagree – these are also polarising pieces. I found myself skipping his opinions on historical periods of which I am ignorant. And then I found myself skipping other bits because ultimately he's not saying much of substance. And then I abandoned the book because at my time of life, why read something you only like half of.

Really, Restoration History. For decades in my sophomore survey of English Lit classes I aloudread TBM's account of the Monmouth landing in Rye, his attempt to replace his Catholic uncle, James II, who interviewed his condemned nephew before the botched beheading in the Tower by one Ketch--whose name became a byword for Botched jobbers. To begin, I asked if they knew baseball usage, Kill the Ump? The executee Duke of Monmouth gave Ketch six 1685 guineas with the fervent request, "Do not hack me as you did my Lord Russell. I have heard you struck him three or four times." But here's Macaulay: "The first blow inflicted only a slight wound. The Duke struggled, rose from the block, and looked reproachfully at the executioner. The head sank down once more. The stroke was repeated again and again; but still the neck was not severed, and the body continued to move. Yells of rage and horror rose from the crowd. Ketch flung down the axe with a curse, "I cannot do it," he said, "My heart fails me." "Take up the axe, man, " cried the sheriff. "Fling him over the rails," roared the mob….wrought up to such an ecstasy of rage that the executioner was in danger of being torn to pieces, and was conveyed away under strong guard." KILL the UMP indeed.
I am afraid I have softened it for delicate readers. If you read Ch 5 you will find Monmouth flat refusing to admit sin to the bishops on the scaffold, neither in his open revolt, nor in his adulterous relation with Lady Henrietta Wentworth (Penguin 106-112). For additional class delight I continued the ch next class, on the Bloody Assize in Dorset. Four different years I lived in Weymouth or Whitchurch for a month, and would visit Judge Jeffreys' court in Dorchester, not far from Thomas Hardy sites, including the house where his wife died and his lovely birthplace.
My other usual reading in Restoration classes was Clarendon's account of James II's introducing his new wife, Catherine of Braganza (she and her attendants all dressed in black) to his mistress, three days after landing from Portugal. Very amusing, especially to my students in a city 2/3 Portuguese.
No wonder so many of my students continued as history majors. Probably I failed to tell them Clarendon and Macaulay were of course Literature, as is only the best history. Grant's autobiography.
Henry Adams's history, and The Education of; Machiavelli's Discorsi (on Livy); Livy, Caesar…etc.

This is really great writing. This little book contains the story of Lord Robert Clive and his works in India. It also carries a short bio of Macaulay himself, a critique on his qualities as a writer and some thoughtful questions that an English Teacher might like to use after reading the story to his pupils. I can see how having such a book to teach from was highly valued in the teaching system used in English countries during the decades from the 20s through the 70s. Indeed the pencilled comments made within the text indicate use by a teacher or fairly senior student: Ms Connie Brown, Form VB, R.C.I.S., as enscribed on inside back cover.½

Easy to read, pages flew by, when I picked it up. Gives a thorough picture of England in the 1600s. More accessible than Gibbon, language easier to pick up.

I picked up this book with some trepidation. I have heard this book mentioned many times always in the context of criticizing so called "Whig Historians" of which Macaulay was one of the most prominent. I also thought that the book being a large and dusty tome would be hard to read at n=est and boring at worst.
In fact nothing could be further from the truth. MaCaulay's prose is both rich and interesting. The book flows almost as a novel. Regarding the Whig bias this did not disturb me. I recognise that every history book ever written must reflect the bias of its authors. Will not our modern histories of twentieth Century events sound biased to the reader in 50-10 years.
I feel taht I ma learning as much about the 19th century, the period when Macaulay was writing as about the 17th century.