From these delicate and choice writers I turned with some curiosity to a
player of the big drum--Macaulay. I had in hand the two-volume edition,
and I opened at the beginning of the second volume. Here was what I
read:--

"The violence of revolutions is generally proportioned to the degree
of the maladministration which has produced them. It is therefore
not strange that the government of Scotland, having been during many
years greatly more corrupt than the government of England, should
have fallen with a far heavier ruin. The movement against the last
king of the house of Stuart was in England conservative, in Scotland
destructive. The English complained not of the law, but of the
violation of the law."

This was plain-sailing enough; it was our old friend PVF, floated by the
liquids in a body; but as I read on, and turned the page, and still
found PVF with his attendant liquids, I confess my mind misgave me
utterly. This could be no trick of Macaulay's; it must be the nature of
the English tongue. In a kind of despair, I turned half-way through the
volume; and coming upon his lordship dealing with General Cannon, and
fresh from Claverhouse and Killiekrankie, here, with elucidative
spelling, was my reward:--

"Meanwhile the disorders of Kannon's Kamp went on inKreasing. He
Kalled a KOUNCIL of war to Konsider what Kourse it would be advisable
to taKe. But as soon as the Kouncil had met a preliminary Kuestion
was raised. The army was almost eKsKlusively a Highland army. The
recent viKtory had been won eKsKlusively by Highland warriors. Great
chie_f_s who had brought siKs or se_v_en hundred _f_ighting men into
the _f_ield, did not think it _f_air that they should be out_v_oted
by gentlemen _f_rom Ireland and _f_rom the Low Kountries, who bore
indeed King James's Kommission, and were Kalled Kolonels and
Kaptains, but who were Kolonels without regiments and Kaptains
without Kompanies."

A moment of FV in all this world of K's! It was not the English
language, then, that was an instrument of one string, but Macaulay that
was an incomparable dauber.

It was probably from this barbaric love of repeating the same sound,
rather than from any design of clearness, that he acquired his
irritating habit of repeating words; I say the one rather than the
other, because such a trick of the ear is deeper seated and more
original in man than any logical consideration. Few w