THE FREE LANCE.
"His good blade carves the casques of men, for the Free Lance
thrusteM sure."
Vol. XV.
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.
NNIVHN, in 1825, Francis Jeffrey, Editor of the Edin
burgh Review, searching for "some clever young
man who would write for us," chanced upon Thomas Bab
ington Macaulay, lie did not know he was marking a red
letter day in the calendar of English journalism. Through
the two decades of its existence the Review had served its
patrons with the writings of Lord Brougham and of its
editor, and the patrons had apparently dreamed of nothing
better until the young Fellow of Trinity enlivened its pages
with his essay on Milton. And for the next two decades
the essays that followed from the same pen became so far
the mainstay of the maga4ine that booksellers declared it
sold or did not sell according as it contained or did not con
tain articles by Mr. Macaulay.
English prose, at this date, was still clinging to the
traditions of its eighteenth century stateliness. But the
life had nearly gone out of it and it was thi's ,languishing
prose which Macaulay, perhaps more than any other writer,
deserves the credit of rejuvenating with that wonderful
something which Jeffrey was pleased to call "style." If
Macaulay had clone nothing else than revivify prose, which is
possibly his most enduring achievement, he would have little
reason to complain.
March, 1902.
No. 9.