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.
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers