Mrs. Catherine Macaulay, 1733–1791, was a writer of some notoriety. She wrote on historical, moral, and political subjects, and was an avowed republican. She was so much of a partisan that her historical writings are regarded as of doubtful credit. She wrote “A History of England from the Accession of James II. to that of the Brunswick Line,” 8 vols., 4to; “A History of England from the Revolution to the Present Time,” only one volume finished; “Moral Truth,” 8vo.; “Letters on Education,” 4to.; several political pamphlets.
Personal
I would behave to a nobleman as I should expect he would behave to me, were I a nobleman and he Sam. Johnson. Sir, there is one Mrs. Macaulay in this town, a great republican. One day when I was at her house, I put on a very grave countenance, and said to her, “Madam, I am now become a convert to your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal footing; and to give you an unquestionable proof. Madam, that I am in earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen, your footman; I desire that he may be allowed to sit down and dine with us.” I thus, Sir, shewed her the absurdity of the leveling doctrine. She has never liked me since.
Was much pleased with her good sense and liberal turn of mind.
History of England
To Mrs. Macaulay I did give a letter, but am ashamed of it, as she ought to be of her foolish and absurd “Summary,” which is a wretched compilation from magazines, full of gross mistakes, and confounding all characters, leveling all for no end or purpose, but to support so silly an hypothesis, as that no king can be a good king, because he is a king. She defends James II. for the nonsensical pleasure of abusing King William, and has no more idea of general merit than Sir John Dalrymple. In short, whom does she approve but herself and her idolater—that dirty disappointed hunter of a mitre, Dr. Wilson, and Alderman Heathcote, a paltry worthless Jacobite, whom I remember, and her own grandfather Sawbridge, who, she has been told, was a mighty worthy man though dipped in the infamous job of the South Sea? In short I ran through the book, had forgotten it, and only recollect it now to answer your question.
The very word respect brings Mrs. Macaulay to my remembrance. The woman of the greatest abilities, undoubtedly, that this country has ever produced.—And yet this woman has been suffered to die without sufficient respect being paid to her memory. Posterity, however, will be more just; and remember that Catherine Macaulay was an example of intellectual acquirements supposed to be incompatible with the weakness of her sex. In her style of writing, indeed, no sex appears, for it is like the sense it conveys, strong and clear. I will not call her’s a masculine understanding, because I admit not of such an arrogant assumption of reason; but I contend that it was a sound one, and that her judgment, the matured fruit of profound thinking, was a proof that a woman can acquire judgment, in the full extent of the word. Possessing more penetration than sagacity, more understanding than fancy, she writes with sober energy and argumentative closeness; yet sympathy and benevolence give an interest to her sentiments, and that vital heat to arguments, which forces the reader to weigh them.
Combining Roman admiration with English faction, she violated truth in her English characters, and exaggerated romance in her Roman.
Strafford’s Letters … furnished materials to Harris and Macaulay; but the first is little read at present, and the second not at all.
When any doubt is entertained of the character of Charles, Mrs. Macaulay may be referred to; and a charge against him, if it can possibly be made out, will assuredly be found, and supported with all the references that the most animated diligence can supply.
Catherine, though now forgotten by an ungrateful public, made quite as much noise in her day as Thomas does in ours.
Mrs. Macaulay, as an historian, is placed by Horace Walpole, very nearly on a level with Robertson, and far beyond the partial and unreliable Hume. She was certainly a woman of remarkable intelligence; enthusiastic, well read, laborious, and sincere in her passion for freedom. In her own age she found many admirers…. Her numerous works show the ardor with which she pursued her literary labors. She wrote a History of England from the reign of James I. to the Accession, in which she supports her liberal views by a violent attack upon the Stuarts. With no delicacy of taste or novelty of manner, this work could only have gained reputation as a severe and unreliable partisan history. It is evidently, however, the production of a person of considerable reflection, of great ardor and sincerity, and of a warm and enthusiastic temperament. Mrs. Macaulay’s mind seemed to turn resolutely towards politics, as if assured that there was its natural bent…. In all these writings Mrs. Macaulay showed unusual ability, without ever rising to the excellence of a fine writer. And the name of the author is hardly remembered, except among historical inquirers.
The ablest writer of the New Radical School.
