"Contemporary English historians, it seemed, were miserably neglecting the art of narration, yet the popularity of well-written biographies showed that it was possible to combine both truth and colour. Such books as Boswell's life of Johnson and Southey's account of Nelson were [according to Macaulay]
'perused with delight by the most frivolous and indolent. Whenever any tolerable book of the same description makes its appearance, the circulating libraries are mobbed; the book societies are in commotion; the new novel lies uncut; the magazines and newspapers fill their columns with extracts. In the meantime histories of great empires, written by men of eminent ability, lie unread on the shelves of ostentatious libraries.' "
1828: Thomas Babington Macaulay on historians, quoted in Peter Rowland's Introduction to Macaulay's The History of England from 1485 to 1685
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