really injurious perversion of
his authorities. This unfortunate indulgence, in whatever juvenile
levity it may have originated, and through whatever steps it may have
grown into an unconscious habit, seems to us to pervade the whole work--
from Alpha to Omega--from Procopius to Mackintosh--and it is on that
very account the more difficult to bring to the distinct conception of
our readers. Individual instances can be, and shall be, produced; but
how can we extract and exhibit the minute particles that colour every
thread of the texture?--how extract the impalpable atoms that have
fermented the whole brewing? We must do as Dr. Faraday does at the
Institution when he exhibits in miniature the larger processes of
Nature. We will suppose, then--taking a simple phrase as the fairest for
the experiment--that Mr. Macaulay found Barillon saying in French, "_le
drole m'a fait peur_," or Burnet saying in English, "_the fellow
frightened me_." We should be pretty sure not to find the same words in
Mr. Macaulay. He would pause--he would first consider whether "the
fellow" spoken of was a _Whig_ or a _Tory_. If a Whig, the thing would
be treated as a joke, and Mr. Macaulay would transmute it playfully into
"_the rogue startled me_"; but if a _Tory_, it would take a deeper dye,
and we should find "_the villain assaulted me_"; and in either case we
should have a grave reference to

Jan. 31,
"Barillon,-------- 1686"; or, "Burnet, i. 907."
Feb. 1,

If our reader will keep this formula in his mind, he will find it a fair
exponent of Mr. Macaulay's _modus operandi_....

We shall now proceed to more general topics. We decline, as we set out
by saying, to treat this "New Atalantis" as a serious history, and
therefore we shall not trouble our readers with matters of such remote
interest as the errors and anachronisms with which the chapter that
affects to tell our earlier history abounds. Our readers would take no
great interest in a discussion whether Hengist was as fabulous as
Hercules, Alaric a Christian born, and "the fair chapels of New College
and St. George" at Windsor of the same date. But there is one subject in
that chapter on which we cannot refrain from saying a few words--THE
CHURCH.

We decline to draw any inferences from this work as to Mr. Macaulay's
own religious opinions; but it is our duty to say--and we trust we may
do so without offence--that Mr. Macaulay's mode of dealing with the
general p