In 1841 Macaulay began to write his History of England, the plan of which had long been in his mind. He worked at it with great assiduity and delight, till in 1848 the first two, and in 1855 the next two volumes appeared. The work met instant applause of the reading public. The extraoridinary success of this history is chiefly due to the fact that it well suited the self-complacent mentality of the middle classes. The fundamental idea underlying History of England is this: the unprecedented power and prosperity of the 19th century England (and especially of the middle classes) is the direct outcome of the whig revolution of 1688, which established once for all the supremacy of the Commons over the Crown. Written from this viewpoint, his portaiture of historical figures is not always impartial, as in the case of Strafford. Contrary to his original intention, his history stopped at the death of William III. However, his various essays and speeches connected with English history clearly show that the subsequent development of English politics was viewed by him in the light of the unfolding and realisation of the whig principles. The culmination of this growth was to him the Reform Act of 1832. He was then the champion of the rising middle classes. Since 1832 he resolutely opposed any further suffrage extention as endangering the Constitution and the principle of property. Therein he was at one with conservatives of the time such as Carlyle. According to him the principle of property is the foundation of all civilisations. Hence his repugnance to Jacobinism as is shown in his criticism of the French Revolution, and hence also his opposition to the introduction of universal suffrage, as is shown in his speeches on the occasion of Chartist petitions. Hindered by this one-sided view of history, he completely failed to foresee the later growth of English democracy in the second half of the 19th century. His early surroundings were not necessarily whiggish, but his education at Cambridge and his connection with the Holland House and the Edinburgh Review determined his subsequent political outlook and made of him a great historian of the bourgeois classes.

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We note in young Shakespeare the influence of Marlowe. How did he develop the Marlovian theme in his dramaturgy? This can be seen, from the standpoint of "Machiavellism," in the process from The Few of Malta to Richard III. Now "Machiavellism" is taken here to mean the culmination of that individualism which marks off the awakened Europe from the Middle age and the true "Machiavellist" is a man, who, possessed of the valour of a lion and the cunning of a fox, can ignore humanity and employ every means to gain his end. Marlowe had already glorified that vigorous passion for self-realization in Tamburlaine and Dr. Faustus, but had paid small attention to the "means," for Tamburlaine uses nothing but the sword to realize his ambition, and Faustus starts with the selling of his soul to the devil, which should be the last resort. Now Machiavellism was introduced in The Few of Malta; Barabas is the first hero who employs every means, Mortimer in Edward II and Guise in The Massacre at Paris following the suit. But in all these dramas, "the means," arranged mechanically as well as independently of the heroes, it may be said, serves in no way to reveal the heroes' characters. Shakespeare takes up the same theme in his Henry VI trilogy, especially in "The Second Part," and in Richard III. "The First Part" is only a pageant of the national events, and "the Third Part" may be regarded as a prologue to Richard III. In the "Second Part" Shakespeare depicts the ambition, not of a man, but of a crowd that makes up the atmosphere of this ambitious world, and it is here that York's character, weak as it may be, becomes conspicuous, through the various means he uses, when occasion requires, against his no less ambitious rivals. Here each means serves to tell a certain aspect of his character, the aggregates showing his whole. In York, however, it was far from being perfect, and it is seen at its best in Richard III; here, the delineation of Richard's character is the sole end, to which each means pays its own tribute, creating thus, for the first time, the living figure of the ideal "Prince" of Machiavelli.

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The writer of this essay, while he appreciates the general merit of the current sociological trend of linguistic study, is not satisfied with the perfunctory or else antipodally different ways in which linguists understand their shibboleth: Language is a social fact. This dissatisfaction impels him to a critical examination of some important theories of language expressing different sociological attitutdes. In Part I, the writer takes up the controversy between Jespersen and Bally over the Saussurean doctrine, through which he brings into relief the two fundamental viewpoints: social nominalism (Jes.) and social realism (Saus.) with Tarde and Durkheim for their respective protagonists. Criticism of these two antagonistic standpoints of sociology leads him to enunciate the essential nature of social fact. In conclusion, he appreciates Th. Geiger's position which vanquishes the subjectivism of social nominalism and the objectivism of social realism. In Part II, after a historical location of the standpoints examined above, the writer proceeds to weigh Gardiner's position--another typical standpoint of sociology--which, he points out, singularly well accords with MacIver's with its two cardinal points: the volitional theory of sociality and the dichotomy of social activity and its consequence. Gardiner (-MacIver)'s standpoint is shown to be nearer to his alleged opponent Jespersen (-Tarde)'s than to de Saussure (-Durkheim)'s. Finally, the writer detects that Gardiner's entire system, in spite of its apparent emphasis on sociology, is not so much remarkable for its sociological outlook as for its (neo-) psychological substance, from which its actual utility derives. From the ironical case of Gardiner the writer learns the possibility and utility of a broad-minded angle holding together the psychological and sociological studies of speech. And such an angle is not far to seek if one gets aware of the compatibility of Geiger's standpoint and that of present-day psychology which alike have overcome both subjectivism and objectivism in their own domains. Thus, in Part III, the writer considers it necessary to go beyond the pale of sociology, pointing out that the proper study of speech with its multiple aspects necessitates some larger angle from which one can explicate consistently its psychological, sociological and also logical aspects. In describing this angle, he appreciates the fundamental importance of the concept of field to which behaviour in general including speech stands in functional relation, and overcomes, along that line, not merely the abstractness of Sprachphilosophie but the short-sightedness of phenomenalistic linguistics whether of sociological or logical or even psychological nature that refuses to go beyond fact and cannot get even as far as fact.

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The influences of Anglo-Irish on Americanism are examined chiefly in their syntactical peculiarities. Eight salient points are mentioned-(1) Prepositions "off", "out", "with", "over", "for", (2) "Have+object+past participle", (3) "Have+object+infinitive (without to)" (not in causative use) and "Have+obj.+present participle", (4) "Like+obj.+adjective," (5) The peculiar use of the definite article, (6) Identity of idiomatical patterns in (a) Irish "put the comether on〜" etc., and American "put the blast on〜" etc., and in (b) Ir. "kick the shite out of〜" and Amer. "knock the hell out of〜" etc., (7) Intensives composed of "adj.+and", i.e. "nice and〜", "good and〜", (8) Frequent appearances of appositional genitives, i.e. "a lump of a woman" etc. Irish influence is, the present writer thinks, much greater in the formation of American English than has been admitted so far. Many instances of "archaic flavor" of Americanism is to be ascribed to the Irish imigrants in the 19th century, who are said to have retained the English of Oliver Cromwell's age faithfully. In the Appendix are given a number of metaphors and words common to Anglo-Irish and American, of which the dates of the earliest evidences are supplied by DAE and NED wherever available. Almost all of them point to 19th cent, as the date of their adoption.

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