Page:Studies of a Biographer 3.djvu/236

 Macaulay's obvious faults of taste, his strained and tiresome antitheses, and the purple patches of glaring crudity. The graceful simplicity and restraint of Froude's style, the skill with which he makes a story tell itself and develops the drama without obtruding himself as showman, are less palpable to a youthful reader. I am not sure that I have not now become unjust to some of Macaulay's merits, both of style and substance. In one respect he has a great superiority. He had saturated his mind with knowledge of his period, and his marvellous memory and eye for the picturesque enabled him to illustrate every topic with graphic and unforgettable details. He had his prejudices, which often led to misinterpretation of facts; but he had also an omnivorous and disinterested craving for information. His opinions appeared to him to be so obviously true that he did not want to make out a case. He did not so much look at the facts through coloured spectacles as with eyes affected by constitutional colour-blindness. He therefore read with prejudice, but not in order to confirm his prejudices. It would not be just to accuse Froude of accepting the other alternative; but it is true that Froude's interest in history was to some extent an