Malignantly

So miserably fallen is the faculty of the nation, that the greater portion of the books which are annually published are made or compiled, and not conceived; and if an original work appears, to flash upon the region of dulness, the bibliothetic dolts meanly and malignantly confederate to limit its influence, and destroy its character—an evil which they are enabled to perpetrate so effectually, by their power and their number, that the mightiest Genius, who disdains to pay homage to such unworthy grubs, or become a servile pensioner upon their illiberal and base establishments, must eternally retire from the mart of Letters, with desperation and a broken heart!

Macaulay was concerned to interpret the seventeenth century in terms of the triumph of the Whigs as champions of public rights; and he upheld this one-sidedly but not malignantly.