Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st. Baron Macaulay (1800–1859), was a Victorian historian, essayist, poet, and politician who wrote a once-renowned History of England and Lays of Ancient Rome, a once-popular collection of verses about heroes and villains of Roman history. Indeed, Macaulay was a great believer in the "heroes and villains" version of history, to such an extent that no less a personage than that heroic villain, Karl Marx, referred to him as "a systematic falsifier of history." Oh, well. Herr Marx was notoriously hard to please.
Macaulay had a dramatic view of nations and races, too. Here he is on the Irish. It's an interesting take.
"In natural courage and intelligence, both the nations which now became
connected with England ranked high. In perseverance, in self command, in
forethought, in all the virtues which conduce to success in life, the Scots
have never been surpassed. The Irish, on the other hand, were distinguished by
qualities which tend to make men interesting rather than prosperous. They were
an ardent and impetuous race, easily moved to tears or to laughter, to fury or
to love. Alone among the nations of northern Europe they had the
susceptibility, the vivacity, the natural turn for acting and rhetoric, which
are indigenous on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea."
No wonder I feel so much at home in Italy.
