never less so than when imitating him—just as his being no Macaulay is never more decisively shown, than when he essays a tableau[1] which might resemble what it copies, were not Macaulay's brush, colours, outline, filling -up, relief, and general keeping, all found wanting. The place was Paris, and the time was May, 1814, when the "Historian of Europe" was moved to undertake his imposing enterprise. "Among the countless multitude whom the extraordinary events of the period had drawn together from every part of Europe to the French capital, and the brilliancy of this spectacle had concentrated in one spot, was one young man who had watched with intense interest the progress of the war from his earliest years, and who, having hurried from his paternal roof in Edinburgh on the first cessation of hostilities, then conceived the first idea of narrating its events; and amidst its wonders inhaled that ardent spirit, that deep enthusiasm, which, sustaining him through fifteen subsequent years of travelling and study, and fifteen more of composition, has at length realised itself in the present history." This it is, then, that comes of inhaling ardent spirits; even thus does ardent spirit realise itself. Britons born will guess at, and do justice to, the historian's meaning; but ought we not to tremble in opening a translation, lest that meaning in this passage be lamentably perverted, and the historian accredited, on his own showing, with a thirty years' recourse to stimulants, to sustain him under the fatigues of travel, study, and composition? As they festinant lentè, putting a stout heart to the stey brae of his twenty volumes, those readers of Alison, who retain aught of loyalty to the Queen's English, are vexed, or amused (according to their temperament), by such ever-recurring phrases as—"the whole combatants of the Grand Army,"—"the whole Cossacks of the Don,"—"the whole cattle, horses, and carriages in their possession,"—"the whole youth of the kingdom were summoned,"—"the whole dependants of the pontifical court,"—"Metternich ostensibly revealed his whole confidential communications to M. Otto,"—"Wellington had anxiously enjoined the whole Spanish generals,"—"intercept the whole communications of the enemy,"—"relinquish the whole ammunition waggons of the army,"—"King Joseph and his whole civil functionaries,"—"the whole British columns were in motion,"—"Napoleon scrupled not to seize the whole fortresses and royal family of Spain,"—"the fatigue undergone by his whole attendants," &c. The Scotch confusion of will and shall, too, is kept up with national persistency:[2] Napoleon "frequently said that he
- ↑ For instance, Sir Archibald's "set-scene" of the Trial of Queen Caroline, meant as a companion-picture to that of Warren Hastings by Macaulay. The execution is as curious an infelicity as the design.
- ↑ Among other cherished Scoticisms may be remembered Sir Archibald's use of the verb "to require." E. g., in one short paragraph occur two cases in point. Napoleon's Swiss porter, we are told, was expected to be always at his post; "night and day he required to be at the door of the cabinet:"—while of the Emperor it is said, "so vast was the variety of information which required to be taken into account in the formation of his designs."—Hist. of Europe, ch. 78, § 47. The second instance indeed may be thought in effect, if not by right, a now naturalised Anglicism; but the first is a pure specimen of its kind. Again: "the sword required to be thrown in to restore the balance" (79, 62);—"the British naval force on the [North American] Lakes required to bring every gun from Great Britain " (91, 63).
