Editor's Introduction THIS volume of selections from the writings of Macaulay begins with that portion of his essay on "History" which deals with the functions of the modern historian. It was written at the age of twenty-eight, and announced a program to which the author steadily conformed throughout his literary career. Three years before, Macaulay's essay on "Milton" had given him sudden fame, and the passage devoted to the Puritans, reprinted here, is a well-known example of the brilliant though somewhat over-accented style which was one of the causes of his immediate success with the public. The essays devoted to Dr. Johnson and to Lord Byron reveal some of the limitations in sympathy and insight that are only too characteristic of Macaulay's mind. Dr. Johnson's gloomy spirit experienced passionate conflicts which the cheery, emphatic essayist could not comprehend; nor was Macaulay altogether the man to measure the full sweep of Byron's wing. But the external traits of these two men of letters, and the impressions they made |