United States or Lithuania ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There is no wound, however, which time and necessity will not render endurable; and, after all, what am I more than my fathers, than the millions and tens of millions who have been weak enough to pay double price for some favourite number in the lottery of life, and who have suffered double disappointment when their ticket came up a blank?" To Hannah M. Macaulay. Leeds: December 12, 1832
"The aim of Bacon," says Macaulay, "was utility, fruit; the multiplication of human enjoyments, ... the mitigation of human sufferings, ... the prolongation of life by new inventions," dotare vitam humanum novis inventis et copiis; "the conquest of Nature," dominion over the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air; the application of science to the subjection of the outward world; progress in useful arts, in those arts which enable us to become strong, comfortable, and rich in houses, shops, fabrics, tools, merchandise, new vegetables, fruits, and animals: in short, a philosophy which will "not raise us above vulgar wants, but will supply those wants."
The months of July and August Macaulay spent on the Neilgherries, in a climate equable as Madeira and invigorating as Braemar; where thickets of rhododendron fill the glades and clothe the ridges; and where the air is heavy with the scent of rose-trees of a size more fitted for an orchard than a flower-bed, and bushes of heliotrope thirty paces round.
Literature descended from her high altar to lend it dignity; and the long, silent library displayed row upon row of the masters, appropriately clad in morocco or calf, Smollett, Macaulay, Gibbon, Richardson, Fielding, Scott, Dickens, Irving and Thackeray, as though each had striven for a tablet here.
As Macaulay puts it: 'He might fill himself with the corned beef and carrots; but as soon as the tarts and cheese-cakes made their appearance, he quitted his seat and stood aloof till he was summoned to return thanks for the repast, from a great part of which he had been excluded. Gay refers to this churlish custom in the second book of Trivia: 'Cheese that the table's closing rites denies.
Ah Macaulay! from thy Seventh Heaven, reserved for the lords of intellect the children of genius, who needs must be the favorites of Omniscience shake down a drop of cold water upon the blistered lips of Bertrand Barere, for they did not frame the supreme falsehood nor did he strive to unchain a black lecher that he might imperil the honor of the ladies of his native land.
The muster of literary men is large and brilliant. Mr Hallam is most likely there as Professor of Ancient History to the Academy; and Mr Macaulay as Professor of Ancient Literature.
Thus, Sir, there would be a perpetual struggle for precedence, were there no fixed invariable rules for the distinction of rank, which creates no jealousy, as it is allowed to be accidental. * This ONE Mrs. Macaulay was the same personage who afterwards made herself so much known as the celebrated female historian. BOSWELL.
On the 7th of March, 1835, Lord William Bentinck decided that "the great object of the British Government ought to be the promotion of European literature and science among the natives of India;" two of the Orientalists retired from the Committee of Public Instruction; several new members, both English and native, were appointed; and Macaulay entered upon the functions of President with an energy and assiduity which in his case was an infallible proof that his work was to his mind.
Among them may be mentioned Elizabeth Carter, the translator of Epictetus, whom he thought the best Greek scholar he had known, and praised for being also a good maker of puddings; Fanny Burney, of whose novels he was an enthusiastic admirer; Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Macaulay, and Hannah More, the chief learned ladies of the day, all three women of real ability; and his own brilliant and witty Mrs.
Word Of The Day