Page "Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay" Paragraph 30

The Liberal historian Lord Acton read Macaulay's History of England four times and later described himself as " a raw English schoolboy, primed to the brim with Whig politics " but " not Whiggism only, but Macaulay in particular that I was so full of ".

However after coming under German influence Acton would later find fault in Macaulay.

In 1880 Acton classed Macaulay ( with Burke and Gladstone ) as one " of the three greatest Liberals ".

In 1883 he advised Mary Gladstone " that the Essays are really flashy and superficial.

He was not above par in literary criticism ; his Indian articles will not hold water ; and his two most famous reviews, on Bacon and Ranke, show his incompetence.

The essays are only pleasant reading, and a key to half the prejudices of our age.

It is the History ( with one or two speeches ) that is wonderful.

He knew nothing respectably before the seventeenth century, he knew nothing of foreign history, of religion, philosophy, science, or art.

His account of debates has been thrown into the shade by Ranke, his account of diplomatic affairs, by Klopp.

He is, I am persuaded, grossly, basely unfair.

Read him therefore to find out how it comes that the most unsympathetic of critics can think him very nearly the greatest of English writers ".

In 1885 Acton asserted that: " We must never judge the quality of a teaching by the quality of the Teacher, or allow the spots to shut out the sun.

It would be unjust, and it would deprive us of nearly all that is great and good in this world.

Let me remind you of Macaulay.

He remains to me one of the greatest of all writers and masters, although I think him utterly base, contemptible and odious for certain reasons which you know ".

In 1888 he wrote that Macaulay " had done more than any writer in the literature of the world for the propagation of the Liberal faith, and he was not only the greatest, but the most representative, Englishman then living ".