LIFE AND LETTERS OF LORD MACAULAY

Volume I

By Sir George Otto Trevelyan

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

WHEN publishing the Second Edition of Lord MACAULAY'S Life and Letters, I may be permitted to say that no pains were spared in order that theFirst Edition should be as complete as possible. But, in the course ofthe last nine months, I have come into possession of a certain quantityof supplementary matter, which the appearance of the book has elicitedfrom various quarters. Stray letters have been hunted up. Half-forgottenanecdotes have been recalled. Floating reminiscences have been reducedto shape;--in one case, as will be seen from the extracts from SirWilliam Stirling Maxwell's letter, by no unskilful hand. I should havebeen tempted to draw more largely upon these new resources, if it hadnot been for the examples, which literary history only too copiouslyaffords, of the risk that attends any attempt to alter the form, orconsiderably increase the bulk, of a work which, in its original shape, has had the good fortune not to displease the public. I have, however, ventured, by a very sparing selection from sufficiently abundantmaterial, slightly to enlarge, and, I trust, somewhat to enrich thebook. 

If this Second Edition is not rigidly correct in word and substance, I have no valid excuse to offer. Nothing more pleasantly indicates thewide-spread interest with which Lord MACAULAY has inspired his readers, both at home and in foreign countries, than the almost microscopic carewith which these volumes have been studied. It is not too much to saythat, in several instances, a misprint, or a verbal error, has beenbrought to my notice by at least five-and-twenty different persons; andthere is hardly a page in the book which has not afforded occasion forcomment or suggestion from some friendly correspondent. There is nostatement of any importance throughout the two volumes the accuracy ofwhich has been circumstantially impugned; but some expressions, whichhave given personal pain or annoyance, have been softened or removed. 

There is another class of criticism to which I have found myselfaltogether unable to defer. I have frequently been told by reviewersthat I should "have better consulted MACAULAY'S reputation, " or "donemore honour to MACAULAY'S memory, " if I had omitted passages in theletters or diaries which may be said to bear the trace of intellectualnarrowness, or political and religious intolerance. I cannot but thinkthat strictures, of this nature imply a serious misconception of thebiographer's duty. It was my business to show my Uncle as he was, andnot as I, or any one else, would have had him. If a faithful picture ofMACAULAY could not have been produced without injury to his memory, Ishould have left the task of drawing that picture to others; but, havingonce undertaken the work, I had no choice but to ask myself, with regardto each feature of the portrait, not whether it was attractive, butwhether it was characteristic. We who had the best opportunity ofknowing him have always been convinced that his character would standthe test of an exact, and even a minute, delineation; and we humblybelieve that our confidence was not misplaced, and that the readingworld has now extended to the man the approbation which it has longconceded to his hooks. 

G. O. T. 

December 1876. 

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION

THIS work has been undertaken principally from a conviction that itis the performance of a duty which, to the best of my ability, it isincumbent on me to fulfil. Though even on this ground I cannot appealto the forbearance of my readers, I may venture to refer to a peculiardifficulty which I have experienced in dealing with Lord MACAULAY'Sprivate papers. 

To give to the world compositions not intended for publication may beno injury to the fame of writers who, by habit, were careless and hastyworkmen; but it is far otherwise in the case of one who made it arule for himself to publish nothing which was not carefully planned, strenuously laboured, and minutely finished. Now, it is impossibleto examine Lord MACAULAY'S journals and correspondence without beingpersuaded that the idea of their being printed, even in part, never waspresent to his mind; and I should not feel myself justified in layingthem before the public if it were not that their unlaboured andspontaneous character adds to their biographical value all, and perhapsmore than all, that it detracts from their literary merit. 

To the heirs and relations of Mr. Thomas Flower Ellis and Mr. AdamBlack, to the Marquis of Lansdowne, to Mr. Macvey Napier, and to theexecutors of Dr. Whewell, my thanks are due for the courtesy with whichthey have placed the different portions of my Uncle's correspondence atmy disposal. Lady Caroline Lascelles has most kindly permitted me touse as much of Lord Carlisle's journal as relates to the subject of thiswork; and Mr. Charles Cowan, my Uncle's old opponent at Edinburgh, hassent me a considerable mass of printed matter bearing upon the electionsof 1847 and 1852. The late Sir Edward Ryan, and Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, spared no pains to inform me with regard to Lord MACAULAY'S work atCalcutta. His early letters, with much that relates to the wholecourse of his life, have been preserved, studied, and arranged, by theaffectionate industry of his sister, Miss Macaulay; and material of highinterest has been entrusted to my hands by Mr. And the Hon. Mrs. EdwardCropper. I have been assisted throughout the book by the sympathy, andthe recollections, of my sister Lady Holland, the niece to whose custodyLord MACAULAY'S papers by inheritance descend. 

G. O. T. 

March 1876. 

LIFE AND LETTERS OF LORD MACAULAY

By

Sir George Otto Trevelyan

CHAPTER I. 1800-1818. 

 Plan and scope of the work--History of the Macaulay family-- Aulay--Kenneth--Johnson and Boswell--John Macaulay and his children--Zachary Macaulay--His career in the West Indies and in Africa--His character--Visit of the French squadron to Sierra Leone--Zachary Macaulay's marriage--Birth of his eldest son--Lord Macaulay's early years--His childish productions--Mrs. Hannah More--General Macaulay--Choice of a school--Shelford--Dean Milner--Macaulay's early letters-- Aspenden hall--The boy's habits and mental endowments--His home--The Clapham set--The boy's relations with his father-- The political ideas amongst which he was brought up, and their influence on the work of his life. 

HE who undertakes to publish the memoirs of a distinguished man may finda ready apology in the custom of the age. If we measure the effectivedemand for biography by the supply, the person commemorated need possessbut a very moderate reputation, and have played no exceptional part, in order to carry the reader through many hundred pages of anecdote, dissertation, and correspondence. To judge from the advertisements ofour circulating libraries, the public curiosity is keen with regard tosome who did nothing worthy of special note, and others who acted socontinuously in the face of the world that, when their course wasrun, there was little left for the world to learn about them. It may, therefore, be taken for granted that a desire exists to hear somethingauthentic about the life of a man who has produced works which areuniversally known, but which bear little or no indication of the privatehistory and the personal qualities of the author. 

This was in a marked degree the case with Lord Macaulay. His two famouscontemporaries in English literature have, consciously or unconsciously, told their own story in their books. Those who could see between thelines in "David Copperfield" were aware that they had before them adelightful autobiography; and all who knew how to read Thackeray couldtrace him in his novels through every stage in his course, on from theday when as a little boy, consigned to the care of English relatives andschoolmasters, he left his mother on the steps of the landing-place atCalcutta. The dates and names were wanting, but the man was there; whilethe most ardent admirers of Macaulay will admit that a minute study ofhis literary productions left them, as far as any but an intellectualknowledge of the writer himself was concerned, very much as it foundthem. A consummate master of his craft, he turned out works whichbore the unmistakable marks of the artificer's hand, but which did notreflect his features. It would be almost as hard to compose a picture ofthe author from the History, the Essays, and the Lays, as to evolve anidea of Shakespeare from Henry the Fifth and Measure for Measure. 

But, besides being a man of letters, Lord Macaulay was a statesman, ajurist, and a brilliant ornament of society, at a time when to shinein society was a distinction which a man of eminence and ability mightjustly value. In these several capacities, it will be said, he was knownwell, and known widely. But in the first place, as these pages willshow, there was one side of his life (to him, at any rate, the mostimportant, ) of which even the persons with whom he mixed most freely andconfidentially in London drawing-rooms, in the Indian Council chamber, and in the lobbies and on the benches of the House of Commons, were onlyin part aware. And in the next place, those who have seen his featuresand heard his voice are few already and become yearly fewer; while, by arare fate in literary annals, the number of those who read his booksis still rapidly increasing. For everyone who sat with him in privatecompany or at the transaction of public business, --for every ten whohave listened to his oratory in Parliament or from the hustings, --theremust be tens of thousands whose interest in history and literature hehas awakened and informed by his pen, and who would gladly know whatmanner of man it was that has done them so great a service. 

To gratify that most legitimate wish is the duty of those who have themeans at their command. His lifelike image is indelibly impressed upontheir minds, (for how could it be otherwise with any who had enjoyed soclose relations with such a man?) although the skill which can reproducethat image before the general eye may well be wanting. But his ownletters will supply the deficiencies of the biographer. Never did anyone leave behind him more copious materials for enabling others toput together a narrative which might be the history, not indeed of histimes, but of the man himself. For in the first place he so soon showedpromise of being one who would give those among whom his early yearswere passed reason to be proud, and still more certain assurance thathe would never afford them cause for shame, that what he wrote waspreserved with a care very seldom bestowed on childish compositions;and the value set upon his letters by those with whom he correspondednaturally enough increased as years went on. And in the next place hewas by nature so incapable of affectation or concealment that he couldnot write otherwise than as he felt, and, to one person at least, couldnever refrain from writing all that he felt; so that we may read in hisletters, as in a clear mirror, his opinions and inclinations, hishopes and affections, at every succeeding period of his existence. Suchletters could never have been submitted to an editor not connected withboth correspondents by the strongest ties; and even one who stands inthat position must often be sorely puzzled as to what he has the heartto publish and the right to withhold. 

I am conscious that a near relative has peculiar temptations towardsthat partiality of the biographer which Lord Macaulay himself so oftenand so cordially denounced; and the danger is greater in the case of onewhose knowledge of him coincided with his later years; for it would notbe easy to find a nature which gained more by time than his, and lostless. But believing, as I do, (to use his own words, ) that "if he werenow living he would have sufficient judgment and sufficient greatnessof mind" to wish to be shown as himself, I will suppress no trait inhis disposition, or incident in his career, which might provoke blameor question. Such in all points as he was, the world, which has been soindulgent to him, has a right to know him; and those who best love himdo not fear the consequences of freely submitting his character and hisactions to the public verdict. 

The most devout believers in the doctrine of the transmission offamily qualities will be content with tracing back descent through fourgenerations; and all favourable hereditary influences, both intellectualand moral, are assured by a genealogy which derives from a ScotchManse. In the first decade of the eighteenth century Aulay Macaulay, the great-grandfather of the historian, was minister of Tiree and Coll;where he was "grievously annoyed by a decreet obtained after instance ofthe Laird of Ardchattan, taking away his stipend. " The Duchess of Argyllof the day appears to have done her best to see him righted; "but hishealth being much impaired, and there being no church or meeting-house, he was exposed to the violence of the weather at all seasons; andhaving no manse or plebe, and no fund for communion elements, and nomortification for schools or any pious purpose in either of the islands, and the air being unwholesome, he was dissatisfied;" and so, to thegreat regret of the parishioners whom he was leaving behind, he migratedto Harris, where he discharged the clerical duties for nearly half acentury. 

Aulay was the father of fourteen children, of whom one, Kenneth, theminister of Ardnamurchan, still occupies a very humble niche in thetemple of literature. He wrote a History of St. Kilda which happened tofall into the hands of Dr. Johnson, who spoke of it more than once withfavour. His reason for liking the book is characteristic enough. Mr. Macaulay had recorded the belief prevalent in St. Kilda that, as soon asthe factor landed on the island, all the inhabitants had an attackwhich from the account appears to have partaken of the nature bothof influenza and bronchitis. This touched the superstitious vein inJohnson, who praised him for his "magnanimity" in venturing tochronicle so questionable a phenomenon; the more so because, --saidthe Doctor, --"Macaulay set out with a prejudice against prejudice, andwanted to be a smart modern thinker. " To a reader of our day the Historyof St. Kilda appears to be innocent of any trace of such pretension;unless it be that the author speaks slightingly of second-sight, asubject for which Johnson always had a strong hankering. In 1773 Johnsonpaid a visit to Mr. Macaulay, who by that time had removed to Calder, and began the interview by congratulating him on having produced "a verypretty piece of topography, "--a compliment which did not seem to thetaste of the author. The conversation turned upon rather delicatesubjects, and, before many hours had passed, the guest had said to thehost one of the very rudest things recorded by Boswell! Later on in thesame evening he atoned for his incivility by giving one of the boys ofthe house a pocket Sallust, and promising to procure him a servitorshipat Oxford. Subsequently Johnson pronounced that Mr. Macaulay was notcompetent to have written the book that went by his name; a decisionwhich, to those who happen to have read the work, will give a very poornotion of my ancestor's abilities. 

The eldest son of old Aulay, and the grandfather of Lord Macaulay, wasJohn, born in the year 1720. He was minister successively of Barra, South Uist, Lismore, and Inverary; the last appointment being a proofof the interest which the family of Argyll continued to take in thefortunes of the Macaulays. He, likewise, during the famous tour inthe Hebrides, came across the path of Boswell, who mentions him in anexquisitely absurd paragraph, the first of those in which is describedthe visit to Inverary Castle. ["Monday, Oct. 25. --My acquaintance, theRev. Mr. John M'Aulay, one of the ministers of Inverary, and brother toour good friend at Calder, came to us this morning, and accompanied usto the castle, where I presented Dr. Johnson to the Duke of Argyll. Wewere shown through the house; and I never shall forget the impressionmade upon my fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neatmorning dresses. After seeing for a long time little but rusticity, their lively manner, and gay inciting appearance, pleased me so much, that I thought for a moment I could have been a knight-errant forthem. "] Mr. Macaulay afterwards passed the evening with the travellersat their inn, and provoked Johnson into what Boswell calls warmth, andanyone else would call brutality, by the very proper remark that hehad no notion of people being in earnest in good professions if theirpractice belied them. When we think what well-known ground this was toLord Macaulay, it is impossible to suppress a wish that the great talkerhad been at hand to avenge his grandfather and grand-uncle. Next morning"Mr. Macaulay breakfasted with us, nothing hurt or dismayed by his lastnight's correction. Being a man of good sense he had a just admirationof Dr. Johnson. " He was rewarded by seeing Johnson at his very best, andhearing him declaim some of the finest lines that ever were written in amanner worthy of his subject. 

There is a tradition that, in his younger days, the minister of Inveraryproved his Whiggism by giving information to the authorities whichalmost led to the capture of the young Pretender. It is perhaps a matterof congratulation that this item was not added to the heavy account thatthe Stuarts have against the Macaulay family. John Macaulay enjoyeda high reputation as a preacher, and was especially renowned for hisfluency. In 1774 he removed to Cardross in Dumbartonshire, where, on thebank of the noble estuary of the Clyde, he spent the last fifteen yearsof a useful and honoured life. He was twice married. His first wife diedat the birth of his first child. Eight years afterwards, in 1757, heespoused Margaret, daughter of Colin Campbell of Inveresragan, whosurvived him by a single year. By her he had the patriarchal number oftwelve children, whom he brought up on the old Scotch system, --commonto the households of minister, man of business, farmer, and peasantalike, --on fine air, simple diet, and a solid training in knowledgehuman and divine. Two generations after, Mr. Carlyle, during a visit tothe late Lord Ashburton at the Grange, caught sight of Macaulay's facein unwonted repose, as he was turning over the pages of a book. "Inoticed, " said he, "the homely Norse features that you find everywherein the Western Isles, and I thought to myself 'Well! Anyone can see thatyou are an honest good sort of fellow, made out of oatmeal. '"

Several of John Macaulay's children obtained position in the world. Aulay, the eldest by his second wife, became a clergyman of the Churchof England. His reputation as a scholar and antiquary stood high, and inthe capacity of a private tutor he became known even in royal circles. He published pamphlets and treatises, the list of which it is not worthwhile to record, and meditated several large works that perhaps nevergot much beyond a title. Of all his undertakings the one best deservingcommemoration in these pages was a tour that he made into Scotlandin company with Mr. Thomas Babington, the owner of Rothley Temple inLeicestershire, in the course of which the travellers paid a visitto the manse at Cardross. Mr. Babington fell in love with one of thedaughters of the house, Miss Jean Macaulay, and married her in1787. Nine years afterwards he had an opportunity of presenting hisbrother-in-law Aulay Macaulay with the very pleasant living of Rothley. 

Alexander, another son of John Macaulay, succeeded his father asminister of Cardross. Colin went into the Indian army, and died ageneral. He followed the example of the more ambitious among his brotherofficers, and exchanged military for civil duties. In 1799 he acted assecretary to a political and diplomatic Commission which accompaniedthe force that marched under General Harris against Seringapatam. Theleading Commissioner was Colonel Wellesley, and to the end of GeneralMacaulay's life the great Duke corresponded with him on terms ofintimacy, and (so the family flattered themselves) even of friendship. Soon after the commencement of the century Colin Macaulay was appointedResident at the important native state of Travancore. While on thisemployment he happened to light upon a valuable collection of books, andrapidly made himself master of the principal European languages, whichhe spoke and wrote with a facility surprising in one who had acquiredthem within a few leagues of Cape Comorin. 

There was another son of John Macaulay, who in force and elevation ofcharacter stood out among his brothers, and who was destined to makefor himself no ordinary career. The path which Zachary Macaulay choseto tread did not lead to wealth, or worldly success, or indeed to muchworldly happiness. Born in 1768, he was sent out at the age of sixteenby a Scotch house of business as bookkeeper to an estate in Jamaica, ofwhich he soon rose to be sole manager. His position brought him intothe closest possible contact with negro slavery. His mind was notprepossessed against the system of society which he found in the WestIndies. His personal interests spoke strongly in its favour, while hisfather, whom he justly respected, could see nothing to condemn in aninstitution recognised by Scripture. Indeed, the religious world stillallowed the maintenance of slavery to continue an open question. JohnNewton, the real founder of that school in the Church of England ofwhich in after years Zachary Macaulay was a devoted member, contrived toreconcile the business of a slave trader with the duties of a Christian, and to the end of his days gave scandal to some of his disciples, (whoby that time were one and all sworn abolitionists, ) by his supposedreluctance to see that there could be no fellowship between light andsuch darkness. 

But Zachary Macaulay had eyes of his own to look about him, a clear headfor forming a judgment on what he saw, and a conscience which wouldnot permit him to live otherwise than in obedience to its mandates. Theyoung Scotchman's innate respect for his fellows, and his appreciationof all that instruction and religion can do for men, was shocked at thesight of a population deliberately kept ignorant and heathen. His kindheart was wounded by cruelties practised at the will and pleasure of athousand petty despots. He had read his Bible too literally to acquiesceeasily in a state of matters under which human beings were bred andraised like a stock of cattle, while outraged morality was revengedon the governing race by the shameless licentiousness which is theinevitable accompaniment of slavery. He was well aware that these evils, so far from being superficial or remediable, were essential to thevery existence of a social fabric constituted like that within which helived. It was not for nothing that he had been behind the scenes in thattragedy of crime and misery. His philanthropy was not learned by theroyal road of tracts, and platform speeches, and monthly magazines. Whathe knew he had spelt out for himself with no teacher except the aspectof human suffering, and degradation, and sin. 

He was not one of those to whom conviction comes in a day; and, whenconvinced, he did nothing sudden. Little more than a boy in age, singularly modest, and constitutionally averse to any course thatappeared pretentious or theatrical, he began by a sincere attempt tomake the best of his calling. For some years he contented himself withdoing what he could, (so he writes to a friend, ) "to alleviate thehardships of a considerable number of my fellow-creatures, and to renderthe bitter cup of servitude as palatable as possible. " But by the timehe was four-and-twenty he became tired of trying to find a compromisebetween right and wrong, and, refusing really great offers from thepeople with whom he was connected, he threw up his position, andreturned to his native country. This step was taken against the wishesof his father, who was not prepared for the construction which his sonput upon the paternal precept that a man should make his practice squarewith his professions. 

But Zachary Macaulay soon had more congenial work to do. The young WestIndian overseer was not alone in his scruples. Already for some timepast a conviction had been abroad that individual citizens could notdivest themselves of their share in the responsibility in which thenation was involved by the existence of slavery in our colonies. Alreadythere had been formed the nucleus of the most disinterested, andperhaps the most successful, popular movement which history records. Thequestion of the slave trade was well before Parliament and the country. Ten years had passed since the freedom of all whose feet touched thesoil of our island had been vindicated before the courts at Westminster, and not a few negroes had become their own masters as a consequenceof that memorable decision. The patrons of the race were somewhatembarrassed by having these expatriated freedmen on their hands;an opinion prevailed that the traffic in human lives could neverbe efficiently checked until Africa had obtained the rudiments ofcivilisation; and, after long discussion, a scheme was matured forthe colonisation of Sierra Leone by liberated slaves. A company wasorganised, with a charter from the Crown, and a board which included thenames of Granville Sharpe and Wilberforce. A large capital was speedilysubscribed, and the Chair was accepted by Mr. Henry Thornton, a leadingCity banker and a member of Parliament, whose determined opposition tocruelty and oppression in every form was such as might be expected inone who had inherited from his father the friendship of the poet Cowper. Mr. Thornton heard Macaulay's story from Thomas Babington, with whom helived on terms of close intimacy and political alliance. The Board, bythe advice of its Chairman, passed a resolution appointing the young manSecond Member in the Sierra Leone Council, and early in the year 1793he sailed for Africa, where soon after his arrival he succeeded to theposition and duties of Governor. 

The Directors had done well to secure a tried man. The colony was atonce exposed to the implacable enmity of merchants whose market theagents of the new company spoiled in their capacity of traders, and slave-dealers with whom they interfered in their character ofphilanthropists. The native tribes in the vicinity, instigated byEuropean hatred and jealousy, began to inflict upon the defencelessauthorities of the settlement a series of those monkey-likeimpertinences which, absurdly as they may read in a narrative, areformidable and ominous when they indicate that savages feel their power. These barbarians, who had hitherto commanded as much rum and gunpowderas they cared to have by selling their neighbours at the nearestbarracoon, showed no appreciation for the comforts and advantages ofcivilisation. Indeed, those advantages were displayed in anything butan attractive shape even within the pale of the company's territory. An aggregation of negroes from Jamaica, London, and Nova Scotia, who possessed no language except an acquired jargon, and shared noassociations beyond the recollections of a common servitude, werenot very promising apostles for the spread of Western culture and theChristian faith. Things went smoothly enough as long as the business ofthe colony was mainly confined to eating the provisions that had beenbrought in the ships; but as soon as the work became real, and thecommons short, the whole community smouldered down into chronic mutiny. 

Zachary Macaulay was the very man for such a crisis. To a rare fund ofpatience, and self-command, and perseverance, he united a calm couragethat was equal to any trial. These qualities were, no doubt, inherentin his disposition; but no one except those who have turned over hisvoluminous private journals can understand what constant effort, andwhat incessant watchfulness, went to maintain throughout a long life acourse of conduct, and a temper of mind, which gave every appearanceof being the spontaneous fruit of nature. He was not one who dealt inpersonal experiences; and few among even the friends who loved him likefather or brother, and who would have trusted him with all their fortuneon his bare word, knew how entirely his outward behaviour was theexpress image of his religious belief. The secret of his character andof his actions lay in perfect humility and an absolute faith. Events didnot discompose him, because they were sent by One who best knew his ownpurposes. He was not fretted by the folly of others, or irritatedby their hostility, because he regarded the humblest or the worst ofmankind as objects, equally with himself, of the divine love and care. On all other points he examined himself so closely that the meditationsof a single evening would fill many pages of diary; but so completelyin his case had the fear of God cast out all other fear that amidstthe gravest perils, and the most bewildering responsibilities, it neveroccurred to him to question whether he was brave or not. He workedstrenuously and unceasingly, never amusing himself from year's end toyear's end, and shrinking from any public praise or recognition as froman unlawful gratification, because he was firmly persuaded that, whenall had been accomplished and endured, he was yet but an unprofitableservant, who had done that which was his duty to do. Some, perhaps, willconsider such motives as oldfashioned, and such convictions as out ofdate; but self-abnegation, self-control, and self-knowledge that doesnot give to self the benefit of any doubt, are virtues which are notoldfashioned, and for which, as time goes on, the world is likely tohave as much need as ever. [Sir James Stephen writes thus of his friendMacaulay: "That his understanding was proof against sophistry, andhis nerves against fear, were, indeed, conclusions to which a strangerarrived at the first interview with him. But what might be suggestingthat expression of countenance, at once so earnest and so monotonous--bywhat manner of feeling those gestures, so uniformly firm and deliberatewere prompted--whence the constant traces of fatigue on thoseoverhanging brows and on that athletic though ungraceful figure--whatmight be the charm which excited amongst his chosen circle a faithapproaching to superstition, and a love rising to enthusiasm, towards aman whose demeanour was so inanimate, if not austere:--it was a riddleof which neither Gall nor Lavater could have found the key. "

That Sir James himself could read the riddle is proved by the concludingwords of a passage marked by a force and tenderness of feeling unusualeven in him: "His earthward affections, --active and all--enduring asthey were, could yet thrive without the support of human sympathy, because they were sustained by so abiding a sense of the divinepresence, and so absolute a submission to the divine will, as raisedhim habitually to that higher region where the reproach of man could notreach, and the praise of man might not presume to follow him. "]

Mr. Macaulay was admirably adapted for the arduous and uninviting taskof planting a negro colony. His very deficiencies stood him in goodstead; for, in presence of the elements with which he had to deal, itwas well for him that nature had denied him any sense of the ridiculous. Unconscious of what was absurd around him, and incapable of beingflurried, frightened, or fatigued, he stood as a centre of order andauthority amidst the seething chaos of inexperience and insubordination. The staff was miserably insufficient, and every officer of the Companyhad to do duty for three in a climate such that a man is fortunate if hecan find health for the work of one during a continuous twelvemonth. TheGovernor had to be in the counting-house, the law-court, the school, andeven the chapel. He was his own secretary, his own paymaster, his ownenvoy. He posted ledgers, he decided causes, he conducted correspondencewith the Directors at home, and visited neighbouring potentates ondiplomatic missions which made up in danger what they lacked in dignity. In the absence of properly qualified clergymen, with whom he would havebeen the last to put himself in competition, he preached sermonsand performed marriages;--a function which must have given honestsatisfaction to one who had been so close a witness of the enforcedand systematised immorality of a slave-nursery. Before long, somethingfairly resembling order was established, and the settlement began toenjoy a reasonable measure of prosperity. The town was built, the fieldswere planted, and the schools filled. The Governor made a point ofallotting the lightest work to the negroes who could read and write; andsuch was the stimulating effect of this system upon education that heconfidently looked forward "to the time when there would be few inthe colony unable to read the Bible. " A printing-press was in constantoperation, and in the use of a copying-machine the little community wasthree-quarters of a century ahead of the London public offices. 

But a severe ordeal was in store for the nascent civilisation of SierraLeone. On a Sunday morning in September 1794, eight French sail appearedoff the coast. The town was about as defensible as Brighton; and it isnot difficult to imagine the feelings which the sansculottes inspiredamong Evangelical colonists whose last advices from Europe dated fromthe very height of the Reign of Terror. There was a party in favour ofescaping into the forest with as much property as could be removed at soshort a notice; but the Governor insisted that there would be no chanceof saving the Company's buildings unless the Company's servants couldmake up their minds to remain at their posts, and face it out. Thesquadron moored within musket-shot of the quay, and swept the streetsfor two hours with grape and bullets; a most gratuitous piece ofcruelty that killed a negress and a child, and gave one unlucky Englishgentleman a fright which ultimately brought him to his grave. Theinvaders then proceeded to land, and Mr. Macaulay had an opportunity oflearning something about the condition of the French marine during theheroic period of the Republic. 

A personal enemy of his own, the captain of a Yankee slaver, broughta party of sailors straight to the Governor's house. What followed hadbest be told in Mr. Macaulay's own words. "Newell, who was attended byhalf-a-dozen sans-culottes, almost foaming with rage, presented a pistolto me, and with many oaths demanded instant satisfaction for the slaveswho had run away from him to my protection. I made very littlereply, but told him he must now _take_ such satisfaction as he judgedequivalent to his claims, as I was no longer master of my actions. Hebecame so very outrageous that, after bearing with him a little while, I thought it most prudent to repair myself to the French officer, andrequest his safe-conduct on board the Commodore's ship. As I passedalong the wharf the scene was curious enough. The Frenchmen, who hadcome ashore in filth and rags, were now many of them dressed out withwomen's shifts, gowns, and petticoats. Others had quantities of clothwrapped about their bodies, or perhaps six or seven suits of clothesupon them at a time. The scene which presented itself on my gettingon board the flag-ship was still more singular. The quarter-deck wascrowded by a set of ragamuffins whose appearance beggared every previousdescription, and among whom I sought in vain for some one who lookedlike a gentleman. The stench and filth exceeded anything I had everwitnessed in any ship, and the noise and confusion gave me some idea oftheir famous Mountain. I was ushered into the Commodore's cabin, whoat least received me civilly. His name was Citizen Allemand. He did notappear to have the right of excluding any of his fellow-citizens evenfrom this place. Whatever might be their rank, they crowded into it, and conversed familiarly with him. " Such was the discipline of the fleetthat had been beaten by Lord Hove on the first of June; and such the rawmaterial of the armies which, under firm hands, and on an element moresuited to the military genius of their nation, were destined to triumphat Rivoli and Hohenlinden. 

Mr. Macaulay, who spoke French with ease and precision, in his anxietyto save the town used every argument which might prevail on theCommodore, whose Christian name, (if one may use such a phrase withreference to a patriot of the year two of the Republic, ) happened oddlyenough to be the same as his own. He appealed first to the traditionalgenerosity of Frenchmen towards a fallen enemy, but soon discerned thatthe quality in question had gone out with the old order of things, ifindeed it ever existed. He then represented that a people, who professedto be waging war with the express object of striking off the fetters ofmankind, would be guilty of flagrant inconsistency if they destroyed anasylum for liberated slaves; but the Commodore gave him to understandthat sentiments, which sounded very well in the Hall of the Jacobins, were out of place on the West Coast of Africa. The Governor returnedon shore to find the town already completely gutted. It was evident atevery turn that, although the Republican battalions might carry libertyand fraternity through Europe on the points of their bayonets, theRepublican sailors had found a very different use for the edge of theircutlasses. "The sight of my own and of the Accountant's offices almostsickened me. Every desk, and every drawer, and every shelf, togetherwith the printing and copying presses, had been completely demolishedin the search for money. The floors were strewed with types, and papers, and leaves of books; and I had the mortification to see a great part ofmy own labour, and of the labour of others, for several yearstotally destroyed. At the other end of the house I found telescopes, hygrometers, barometers, thermometers, and electrical machines, lyingabout in fragments. The view of the town library filled me with livelyconcern. The volumes were tossed about and defaced with the utmostwantonness; and, if they happened to bear any resemblance to Bibles, they were torn in pieces and trampled on. The collection of naturalcuriosities next caught my eye. Plants, seeds, dried birds, insects, and drawings were scattered about in great confusion, and some of thesailors were in the act of killing a beautiful musk-cat, which theyafterwards ate. Every house was full of Frenchmen, who were hacking, anddestroying, and tearing up everything which they could not convert totheir own use. The destruction of live stock on this and the followingday was immense. In my yard alone they killed fourteen dozen of fowls, and there were not less than twelve hundred hogs shot in the town. " Itwas unsafe to walk in the streets of Freetown during the forty-eighthours that followed its capture, because the French crews, with too muchof the Company's port wine in their heads to aim straight, were firingat the pigs of the poor freedmen over whom they had achieved such aquestionable victory. 

To readers of Erckmann-Chatrian it is unpleasant to be taken thus behindthe curtain on which those skilful artists have painted the wars of theearly Revolution. It is one thing to be told how the crusaders of '93and '94 were received with blessings and banquets by the populations towhom they brought freedom and enlightenment, and quite another to readthe journal in which a quiet accurate-minded Scotchman tells us howa pack of tipsy ruffians sat abusing Pitt and George to him, over africassee of his own fowls, and among the wreck of his lamps and mirrorswhich they had smashed as a protest against aristocratic luxury. 

"There is not a boy among them who has not learnt to accompany the nameof Pitt with an execration. When I went to bed, there was no sleep to behad on account of the sentinels thinking fit to amuse me the whole nightthrough with the revenge they meant to take on him when they got him toParis. Next morning I went on board the 'Experiment. ' The Commodore andall his officers messed together, and I was admitted among them. Theyare truly the poorest-looking people I ever saw. Even the Commodorehas only one suit which can at all distinguish him, not to say from theofficers, but from the men. The filth and confusion of their meals wasterrible. A chorus of boys usher in the dinner with the Marseilles hymn, and it finishes in the same way. The enthusiasm of all ranks among themis astonishing, but not more so than their blindness. They talk withecstasy of their revolutionary government, of their bloody executions, of their revolutionary tribunal, of the rapid movement of theirrevolutionary army with the Corps of justice and the flying guillotinebefore it; forgetting that not one of them is not liable to its strokeon the accusation of the greatest vagabond on board. They asked me withtriumph if yesterday had not been Sunday. 'Oh, ' said they, 'the NationalConvention have decreed that there is no Sunday, and that the Bible isall a lie. '" After such an experience it is not difficult to accountfor the keen and almost personal interest with which, to the very day ofWaterloo, Mr. Macaulay watched through its varying phases the riseand the downfall of the French power. He followed the progress of theBritish arms with a minute and intelligent attention which from a veryearly date communicated itself to his son; and the hearty patriotism ofLord Macaulay is perhaps in no small degree the consequence of whathis father suffered from the profane and rapacious sansculottes of therevolutionary squadron. 

Towards the middle of October the Republicans took their departure. Evenat this distance of time it is provoking to learn that they got backto Brest without meeting an enemy that had teeth to bite. The Africanclimate, however, reduced the squadron to such a plight, that it waswell for our frigates that they had not the chance of getting itsfever-stricken crews under their hatches. The French never revisitedFreetown. Indeed, they had left the place in such a condition thatit was not worth their while to return. The houses had been carefullyburned to the ground, and the live stock killed. Except the clotheson their backs, and a little brandy and flour, the Europeans had losteverything they had in the world. Till assistance came from the mothercountry they lived upon such provisions as could be recovered from thereluctant hands of the negro settlers, who providentially had not beenable to resist the temptation of helping the Republicans to plunder theCompany's stores. Judicious liberality at home, and a year's hard workon the spot, did much to repair the damage; and, when his colony wasagain upon its feet, Mr. Macaulay sailed to England with the objectof recruiting his health, which had broken down under an attack of lowfever. 

On his arrival he was admitted at once and for ever within the innermostcircle of friends and fellow-labourers who were united round Wilberforceand Henry Thornton by indissoluble bonds of mutual personal regard andcommon public ends. As an indispensable part of his initiation into thatvery pleasant confederacy, he was sent down to be introduced to HannahMore, who was living at Cowslip Green, near Bristol, in the enjoymentof general respect, mixed with a good deal of what even those who admireher as she deserved must in conscience call flattery. He there metSelina Mills, a former pupil of the school which the Miss Mores keptin the neighbouring city, and a lifelong friend of all the sisters. Theyoung lady is said to have been extremely pretty and attractive, asmay well be believed by those who saw her in later years. She was thedaughter of a member of the Society of Friends, who at one time was abookseller in Bristol, and who built there a small street called "MillsPlace, " in which he himself resided. His grandchildren remembered himas an old man of imposing appearance, with long white hair, talkingincessantly of Jacob Boehmen. Mr. Mills had sons, one of whom edited aBristol journal exceedingly well, and is said to have made some figurein light literature. This uncle of Lord Macaulay was a very lively, clever man, full of good stories, of which only one has survived. YoungMills, while resident in London, had looked in at Rowland Hill's chapel, and had there lost a new hat. When he reported the misfortune to hisfather, the old Quaker replied: "John, if thee'd gone to the right placeof worship, thee'd have kept thy hat upon thy head. " Lord Macaulay wasaccustomed to say that he got his "joviality" from his mother's family. If his power of humour was indeed of Quaker origin, he was ratherungrateful in the use to which he sometimes put it. 

Mr. Macaulay fell in love with Miss Mills, and obtained her affectionin return. He had to encounter the opposition of her relations, who wereset upon her making another and a better match, and of Mrs. Patty More, (so well known to all who have studied the somewhat diffuse annals ofthe More family, ) who, in the true spirit of romantic friendship, wishedher to promise never to marry at all, but to domesticate herself as ayoungest sister in the household at Cowslip Green. Miss Hannah, however, took a more unselfish view of the situation, and advocated Mr. Macaulay's cause with firmness and good feeling. Indeed, he must havebeen, according to her particular notions, the most irreproachable oflovers, until her own Coelebs was given to the world. By her help hecarried his point in so far that the engagement was made and recognised;but the friends of the young lady would not allow her to accompany himto Africa; and, during his absence from England, which began in theearly months of 1796, by an arrangement that under the circumstances wasvery judicious, she spent much of her time in Leicestershire with hissister Mrs. Babington. 

His first business after arriving at Sierra Leone was to sit in judgmenton the ringleaders of a formidable outbreak which had taken place inthe colony; and he had an opportunity of proving by example that negrodisaffection, from the nature of the race, is peculiarly susceptibleto treatment by mild remedies, if only the man in the post ofresponsibility has got a heart and can contrive to keep his head. He hadmuch more trouble with a batch of missionaries, whom he took with him inthe ship, and who were no sooner on board than they began to fall out, ostensibly on controversial topics, but more probably from the samemotives that so often set the laity quarrelling during the incessant andinvoluntary companionship of a sea-voyage. Mr. Macaulay, finding thatthe warmth of these debates furnished sport to the captain and otherirreligious characters, was forced seriously to exert his authorityin order to separate and silence the disputants. His report of theseoccurrences went in due time to the Chairman of the Company, who excusedhimself for an arrangement which had turned out so ill by telling astory of a servant who, having to carry a number of gamecocks from oneplace to another, tied them up in the same bag, and found on arriving athis journey's end that they had spent their time in tearing each otherto pieces. When his master called him to account for his stupidity hereplied: "Sir, as they were all your cocks, I thought they would be allon one side. "

Things did not go much more smoothly on shore. Mr. Macaulay's officialcorrespondence gives a curious picture of his difficulties in thecharacter of Minister of Public Worship in a black community. "TheBaptists under David George are decent and orderly, but there isobservable in them a great neglect of family worship, and sometimesan unfairness in their dealings. To Lady Huntingdon's Methodists, as abody, may with great justice be addressed the first verse of thethird chapter of the Revelation. The lives of many of them are verydisorderly, and rank antinomianism prevails among them. " But his senseof religion and decency was most sorely tried by Moses Wilkinson, aso-called Wesleyan Methodist, whose congregation, not a very respectableone to begin with, had recently been swollen by a Revival which had beenaccompanied by circumstances the reverse of edifying. [Lord Macaulayhad in his youth heard too much about negro preachers, and negroadministrators, to permit him to entertain any very enthusiasticanticipations with regard to the future of the African race. He writesin his journal for July 8 1858: "Motley called. I like him much. Weagree wonderfully well about slavery, and it is not often that I meetany person with whom I agree on that subject. For I hate slavery fromthe bottom of my soul; and yet I am made sick by the cant and the sillymock reasons of the Abolitionists. The nigger driver and the negrophileare two odious things to me. I must make Lady Macbeth's reservation:'Had he not resembled--, '"] The Governor must have looked backwith regret to that period in the history of the colony when he wasunderhanded in the clerical department. 

But his interest in the negro could bear ruder shocks than an occasionaloutburst of eccentric fanaticism. He liked his work, because he likedthose for whom he was working. "Poor people, " he writes, "one cannothelp loving them. With all their trying humours, they have a warmth ofaffection which is really irresistible. " For their sake he endured allthe risk and worry inseparable from a long engagement kept by the ladyamong disapproving friends, and by the gentleman at Sierra Leone. Hestayed till the settlement had begun to thrive, and the Company hadalmost begun to pay; and until the Home Government had given markedtokens of favour and protection, which some years later developed into anegotiation under which the colony was transferred to the Crown. It wasnot till 1799 that he finally gave up his appointment, and left a regionwhich, alone among men, he quitted with unfeigned, and, except in oneparticular, with unmixed regret. But for the absence of an Eve, heregarded the West Coast of Africa as a veritable Paradise, or, to usehis own expression, as a more agreeable Montpelier. With a temper whichin the intercourse of society was proof against being ruffled by anypossible treatment of any conceivable subject, to the end of his life heshowed faint signs of irritation if anyone ventured in his presence tohint that Sierra Leone was unhealthy. 

On his return to England he was appointed Secretary to the Company, andwas married at Bristol on the 26th of August, 1799. A most close unionit was, and, (though in latter years he became fearfully absorbed inthe leading object of his existence, and ceased in a measure to be thecompanion that he had been, ) his love for his wife, and deep trust andconfidence in her, never failed. They took a small house in Lambeth forthe first twelve months. When Mrs. Macaulay was near her confinement, Mrs. Babington, who belonged to the school of matrons who hold that theadvantage of country air outweighs that of London doctors, invited hersister-in-law to Rothley Temple; and there, in a room panelled fromceiling to floor, like every corner of the ancient mansion, with oakalmost black from age, --looking eastward across the park and southwardthrough an ivy-shaded window into a little garden, --Lord Macaulay wasborn. It was on the 25th of October 1800, the day of St. Crispin, theanniversary of Agincourt, (as he liked to say, ) that he opened his eyeson a world which he was destined so thoroughly to learn and so intenselyto enjoy. His father was as pleased as a father could be; but fateseemed determined that Zachary Macaulay should not be indulged in anygreat share of personal happiness. The next morning the noise of aspinning-jenny, at work in a cottage, startled his horse as he wasriding past. He was thrown, and both arms were broken; and he spent ina sick-room the remainder of the only holiday worth the name which, (asfar as can be traced in the family records, ) he ever took during hismarried life. Owing to this accident the young couple were detainedat Rothley into the winter; and the child was baptised in the privatechapel which formed part of the house, on the 26th November 1800, by thenames of Thomas Babington;--the Rev. Aulay Macaulay, and Mr. And Mrs. Babington, acting as sponsors. 

The two years which followed were passed in a house in Birchin Lane, where the Sierra Leone Company had its office. The only place where thechild could be taken for exercise, and what might be called air, wasDrapers' Gardens, which (already under sentence to be covered withbricks and mortar at an early date) lies behind Throgmorton Street, and within a hundred yards of the Stock Exchange. To this dismal yard, containing as much gravel as grass, and frowned upon by a board of Rulesand Regulations almost as large as itself, his mother used to convoy thenurse and the little boy through the crowds that towards noon swarmedalong Cornhill and Threadneedle Street; and thither she would return, after a due interval, to escort them back to Birchin Lane. So strongwas the power of association upon Macaulay's mind that in after yearsDrapers' Garden was among his favourite haunts. Indeed, his habit ofroaming for hours through and through the heart of the City, (a habitthat never left him as long as he could roam at all, ) was due in partto the recollection which caused him to regard that region as nativeground. 

Baby as he was when he quitted it, he retained some impression of hisearliest home. He remembered standing up at the nursery window by hisfather's side, looking at a cloud of black smoke pouring out of a tallchimney. He asked if that was hell; an inquiry that was received with agrave displeasure which at the time he could not understand. The kindlyfather must have been pained, almost against his own will, at findingwhat feature of his creed it was that had embodied itself in so verymaterial a shape before his little son's imagination. When in after daysMrs. Macaulay was questioned as to how soon she began to detect in thechild a promise of the future, she used to say that his sensibilitiesand affections were remarkably developed at an age which to her hearersappeared next to incredible. He would cry for joy on seeing her after afew hours' absence, and, (till her husband put a stop to it, ) her powerof exciting his feelings was often made an exhibition to her friends. She did not regard this precocity as a proof of cleverness; but, likea foolish young mother, only thought that so tender a nature was markedfor early death. 

The next move which the family made was into as healthy an atmosphere, in every sense, as the most careful parent could wish to select. Mr. Macaulay took a house in the High Street of Clapham, in the part nowcalled the Pavement, on the same side as the Plough inn, but some doorsnearer to the Common. It was a roomy comfortable dwelling, with a verysmall garden behind, and in front a very small one indeed, whichhas entirely disappeared beneath a large shop thrown out towards theroad-way by the present occupier, who bears the name of Heywood. Herethe boy passed a quiet and most happy childhood. From the time that hewas three years old he read incessantly, for the most part lying on therug before the fire, with his book on the ground, and a piece of breadand batter in his hand. A very clever woman, who then lived in the houseas parlour-maid, told how he used to sit in his nankeen frock, perchedon the table by her as she was cleaning the plate, and expounding toher out of a volume as big as himself. He did not care for toys, but wasvery fond of taking his walk, when he would hold forth to his companion, whether nurse or mother, telling interminable stories out of his ownhead, or repeating what he had been reading in language far above hisyears. His memory retained without shout effort the phraseology of thebook which he had been last engaged on, and he talked, as the maid said, "quite printed words, " which produced an effect that appeared formal, and often, no doubt, exceedingly droll. Mrs. Hannah More was fondof relating how she called at Mr. Macaulay's, and was met by a fair, pretty, slight child, with abundance of light hair, about four years ofage, who came to the front door to receive her, and tell her that hisparents were out, but that if she would be good enough to come in hewould bring her a glass of old spirits; a proposition which greatlystartled the good lady, who had never aspired beyond cowslip wine. Whenquestioned as to what he knew about old spirits, he could only say thatRobinson Crusoe often had some. About this period his father took him ona visit to Lady Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill, and was much pleased, toexhibit to his old friend the fair bright boy, dressed in a green coatwith red cellar and cuffs, a frill at the throat, and white trousers. After some time had been spent among the wonders of the OrfordCollection, of which he ever after carried a catalogue in his head, aservant who was waiting upon the company in the great gallery spilt somehot coffee over his legs. The hostess was all kindness and compassion, and when, after a while, she asked how he was feeling, the little fellowlooked up in her face and replied: "Thank you, madam, the agony isabated. "

But it must not be supposed that his quaint manners proceeded fromaffectation or conceit; for all testimony declares that a more simpleand natural child never lived, or a more lively and merry one. He had athis command the resources of the Common; to this day the most unchangedspot within ten miles of St. Paul's, and which to all appearancewill ere long hold that pleasant preeminence within ten leagues. That delightful wilderness of gorse bushes, and poplar groves, andgravel-pits, and ponds great and small, was to little Tom Macaulay aregion of inexhaustible romance and mystery. He explored its recesses;he composed, and almost believed, its legends; he invented for itsdifferent features a nomenclature which has been faithfully preservedby two generations of children. A slight ridge, intersected by deepditches, towards the west of the Common, the very existence of which noone above eight years old would notice, was dignified with the title ofthe Alps; while the elevated island, covered with shrubs, that givesa name to the Mount pond, was regarded with infinite awe as being thenearest approach within the circuit of his observation to a conceptionof the majesty of Sinai. Indeed, at this period his infant fancy wasmuch exercised with the threats and terrors of the Law. He had a littleplot of ground at the back of the house, marked out as his own by a Toryof oyster-shells, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish. He wentstraight to the drawing-room, where his mother was entertaining somevisitors, walked into the circle, and said very solemnly: "Cursed beSally; for it is written, Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour'sland-mark. "

While still the merest child he was sent as a day-scholar to Mr. Greaves, a shrewd Yorkshireman with a turn for science, who had beenoriginally brought to the neighbourhood in order to educate a numberof African youths sent over to imbibe Western civilisation at thefountain-head. The poor fellows had found as much difficulty in keepingalive at Clapham as Englishmen experience at Sierra Leone; and, in theend, their tutor set up a school for boys of his own colour, and at onetime had charge of almost the entire rising generation of the Common. Mrs. Macaulay explained to Tom that he must learn to study without thesolace of bread and butter, to which he replied: "Yes, mama, industryshall be my bread and attention my butter. " But, as a matter of fact, no one ever crept more unwillingly to school. Each several afternoon hemade piteous entreaties to be excused returning after dinner, and wasmet by the unvarying formula: "No, Tom, if it rains cats and dogs, youshall go. "

His reluctance to leave home had more than one side to it. Not only didhis heart stay behind, but the regular lessons of the class took himaway from occupations which in his eyes were infinitely more delightfuland important; for these were probably the years of his greatestliterary activity. As an author he never again had mere facility, oranything like so wide a range. In September 1808, his mother writes:"My dear Tom continues to show marks of uncommon genius. He gets onwonderfully in all branches of his education, and the extent ofhis reading, and of the knowledge he has derived from it, are trulyastonishing in a boy not yet eight years old. He is at the same time asplayful as a kitten. To give you some idea of the activity of his mindI will mention a few circumstances that may interest you and Colin. Youwill believe that to him we never appear to regard anything he does asanything more than a schoolboy's amusement. He took it into his head towrite a compendium of Universal History about a year ago, and he reallycontrived to give a tolerably connected view of the leading events fromthe Creation to the present time, filling about a quire of paper. Hetold me one day that he had been writing a paper, which Henry Dalywas to translate into Malabar, to persuade the people of Travancore toembrace the Christian religion. On reading it I found it to contain avery clear idea of the leading facts and doctrines of that religion, with some strong arguments for its adoption. He was so fired withreading Scott's Lay and Marmion, the former of which he got entirely, and the latter almost entirely, by heart, merely from his delight inreading them, that he determined on writing himself a poem in six cantoswhich he called the 'Battle of Cheviot. ' After he had finished aboutthree of the cantos of about 120 lines each, which he did in a couple ofdays, he became tired of it. I make no doubt he would have finished hisdesign, but, as he was proceeding with it, the thought struck him ofwriting an heroic poem to be called 'Olaus the Great, or the Conquestof Mona, ' in which, after the manner of Virgil, he might introduce inprophetic song the future fortunes of the family;--among others, thoseof the hero who aided in the fall of the tyrant of Mysore, after havinglong suffered from his tyranny; [General Macaulay had been one of TippooSahib's prisoners] and of another of his race who had exerted himselffor the deliverance of the wretched Africans. He has just begun it. Hehas composed I know not how many hymns. I send you one, as a specimen, in his own handwriting, which he wrote about six months ago on oneMonday morning while we were at breakfast. "

The affection of the last generation of his relatives has preservedall these pieces, but the piety of this generation will refrain fromsubmitting them to public criticism. A marginal note, in which Macaulayhas expressed his cordial approval of Uncle Toby's [Tristram Shandy, chapter clxiii. ] remark about the great Lipsius, indicates his ownwishes in the matter too clearly to leave any choice for those who comeafter him. But there still may be read in a boyish scrawl the epitome ofUniversal History, from "a new king who knew not Joseph, "--down throughRameses, and Dido, and Tydeus, and Tarquin, and Crassus, and Gallienus, and Edward the Martyr, --to Louis, who "set off on a crusade against theAlbigenses, " and Oliver Cromwell, who "was an unjust and wicked man. "The hymns remain, which Mrs. Hannah More, surely a consummate judge ofthe article, pronounced to be "quite extraordinary for such a baby. "To a somewhat later period probably belongs a vast pile of blank verse, entitled "Fingal, a poem in xii books;" two of which are in a completeand connected shape, while the rest of the story is lost amidst alabyrinth of many hundred scattered lines, so transcribed as to suggesta conjecture that the boy's demand for foolscap had outrun the paternalgenerosity. 

Of all his performances, that which attracted most attention at the timewas undertaken for the purpose of immortalising Olaus Magnus, King ofNorway, from whom the clan to which the bard belonged was supposedto derive its name. Two cantos are extant, of which there are severalexemplars, in every stage of calligraphy from the largest round handdownwards, a circumstance which is apparently due to the desire on thepart of each of the little Macaulays to possess a copy of the greatfamily epic. The opening stanzas, each of which contains more lines thantheir author counted years, go swinging along with plenty of animationand no dearth of historical and geographical allusion. 

 Day set on Cumbria's hills supreme, And, Menai, on thy silver stream. The star of day had reached the West. Now in the main it sank to rest. Shone great Eleindyn's castle tall: Shone every battery, every hall: Shone all fair Mona's verdant plain; But chiefly shone the foaming main. 

And again

 "Long, " said the Prince, "shall Olave's name Live in the high records of fame. Fair Mona now shall trembling stand That ne'er before feared mortal hand. Mona, that isle where Ceres' flower In plenteous autumn's golden hour Hides all the fields from man's survey As locusts hid old Egypt's day. "

The passage containing a prophetic mention of his father and uncleafter the manner of the sixth book of the Aeneid, for the sake ofwhich, according to Mrs. Macaulay, the poem was originally designed, cannowhere be discovered. It is possible that in the interval between theconception and the execution the boy happened to light upon a copy ofthe Rolliad. If such was the case, he already had too fine a senseof humour to have persevered in his original plan after reading thatmasterpiece of drollery. It is worthy of note that the voluminouswritings of his childhood, dashed off at headlong speed in the oddsand ends of leisure from school-study and nursery routine, are not onlyperfectly correct in spelling and grammar, but display the same lucidityof meaning, and scrupulous accuracy in punctuation and the other minordetails of the literary art, which characterise his mature works. 

Nothing could be more judicious than the treatment that Mr. And Mrs. Macaulay adopted towards their boy. They never handed his productionsabout, or encouraged him to parade his powers of conversation ormemory. They abstained from any word or act which might foster in hima perception of his own genius with as much care as a wise millionaireexpends on keeping his son ignorant of the fact that he is destined tobe richer than his comrades. "It was scarcely ever, " writes one who knewhim well from the very first, "that the consciousness was expressedby either of his parents of the superiority of their son over otherchildren. Indeed, with his father I never remember any such expression. What I most observed myself was his extraordinary command of language. When he came to describe to his mother any childish play, I took careto be present, when I could, that I might listen to the way in which heexpressed himself, often scarcely exceeded in his later years. Exceptthis trifle, I remember him only as a good-tempered boy, alwaysoccupied, playing with his sisters without assumption of any kind. " Oneeffect of this early discipline showed itself in his freedom from vanityand susceptibility, --those qualities which, coupled together in ourmodern psychological dialect under the head of "self-consciousness, " aresupposed to be the besetting defects of the literary character. Anotherresult was his habitual over-estimate of the average knowledge possessedby mankind. Judging others by himself, he credited the world at largewith an amount of information which certainly few have the abilityto acquire, or the capacity to retain. If his parents had not beenso diligent in concealing from him the difference between his ownintellectual stores and those of his neighbours, it is probable thatless would have been heard of Lord Macaulay's Schoolboy. 

The system pursued at home was continued at Barley Wood, the place wherethe Misses More resided from 1802 onwards. Mrs. Macaulay gladly sent herboy to a house where he was encouraged without being spoiled, and wherehe never failed to be a welcome guest. The kind old ladies made a realcompanion of him, and greatly relished his conversation; while at thesame time, with their ideas on education, they would never have allowedhim, even if he had been so inclined, to forget that he was a child. Mrs. Hannah More, who had the rare gift of knowing how to live with bothyoung and old, was the most affectionate and the wisest of friends, andreadily undertook the superintendence of his studies, his pleasures, andhis health. She would keep him with her for weeks, listening to him ashe read prose by the ell, declaimed poetry by the hour, and discussedand compared his favourite heroes, ancient, modern, and fictitious, under all points of view and in every possible combination; coaxing himinto the garden under pretence of a lecture on botany; sending him fromhis books to run round the grounds, or play at cooking in the kitchen;giving him Bible lessons which invariably ended in a theologicalargument, and following him with her advice and sympathy through hismultifarious literary enterprises. ["The next time, " (my uncle once saidto us, ) "that I saw Hannah More was in 1807. The old ladies begged myparents to leave me with them for a week, and this visit was a greatevent in my life. In parlour and kitchen they could not make enough ofme. They taught me to cook; and I was to preach, and they got in peoplefrom the fields and I stood on a chair, and preached sermons. I mighthave been indicted for holding a conventicle. "] She writes to his fatherin 1809: "I heartily hope that the sea air has been the means of settingyou up, and Mrs. Macaulay also, and that the dear little poet has caughthis share of bracing. .. . Tell Tom I desire to know how 'Olaus' goes on. The sea, I suppose, furnished him with some new images. "

The broader and more genial aspect under which life showed itself to theboy at Barley Wood has left its trace in a series of childish squibs andparodies, which may still be read with an interest that his Cambrianand Scandinavian rhapsodies fail to inspire. The most ambitious ofthese lighter efforts is a pasquinade occasioned by some local scandal, entitled "Childe Hugh and the labourer, a pathetic ballad. " The "Childe"of the story was a neighbouring baronet, and the "Abbot" a neighbouringrector, and the whole performance, intended, as it was, to mimic thespirit of Percy's Reliques, irresistibly suggests a reminiscence ofJohn Gilpin. It is pleasant to know that to Mrs. Hannah More was due thecommencement of what eventually became the most readable of libraries, as is shown in a series of letters extending over the entire period ofMacaulay's education. When he was six years old she writes; "Though youare a little boy now, you will one day, if it please God, be a man; butlong before you are a man I hope you will be a scholar. I thereforewish you to purchase such books as will be useful and agreeable to you_then_, and that you employ this very small sum in laying a little tinycorner-stone for your future library. " A year or two afterwards shethanks him for his "two letters, so neat and free from blots. By thisobvious improvement you have entitled yourself to another book. You mustgo to Hatchard's and choose. I think we have nearly exhausted the Epics. What say you to a little good prose? Johnson's Hebrides, or Walton'sLives, unless you would like a neat edition of Cowper's poems orParadise Lost for your own eating? In any case choose something whichyou do not possess. I want you to become a complete Frenchman, thatI may give you Racine, the only dramatic poet I know in any modernlanguage that is perfectly pure and good. I think you have hit off theOde very well, and I am much obliged to you for the Dedication. " Thepoor little author was already an adept in the traditional modes ofrequiting a patron. 

He had another Maecenas in the person of General Macaulay, who came backfrom India in 1810. The boy greeted him with a copy of verses, beginning

 "Now safe returned from Asia's parching strand, Welcome, thrice welcome to thy native land. "

To tell the unvarnished truth, the General's return was not altogetherof a triumphant character. After very narrowly escaping with his lifefrom an outbreak at Travancore, incited by a native minister who owedhim a grudge, he had given proof of courage and spirit during somemilitary operations which ended in his being brought back to theResidency with flying colours. But, when the fighting was over, hecountenanced, and perhaps prompted, measures of retaliation which wereill taken by his superiors at Calcutta. In his congratulatory effusionthe nephew presumes to remind the uncle that on European soil therestill might be found employment for so redoubtable a sword. 

 "For many a battle shall be lost and won Ere yet thy glorious labours shall be done. "

The General did not take the hint, and spent the remainder of his lifepeacefully enough between London, Bath, and the Continental capitals. He was accustomed to say that his travelling carriage was his onlyfreehold; and, wherever he fixed his temporary residence, he hadthe talent of making himself popular. At Geneva he was a universalfavourite; he always was welcome at Coppet; and he gave the strongestconceivable proof of a cosmopolitan disposition by finding himselfequally at home at Rome and at Clapham. When in England he lived muchwith his relations, to whom he was sincerely attached. He was generousin a high degree, and the young people owed to him books which theyotherwise could never have obtained, and treats and excursions whichformed the only recreations that broke the uniform current of theirlives. They regarded their uncle Colin as the man of the world of theMacaulay family. 

Zachary Macaulay's circumstances during these years were good, andconstantly improving. For some time he held the post of Secretary to theSierra Leone Company, with a salary of L500 per annum. He subsequentlyentered into partnership with a nephew, and the firm did a largebusiness as African merchants under the names of Macaulay and Babington. The position of the father was favourable to the highest interests ofhis children. A boy has the best chance of being well brought up ina household where there is solid comfort, combined with thrift andsimplicity; and the family was increasing too fast to leave any marginfor luxurious expenditure. Before the eldest son had completed histhirteenth year he had three brothers and five sisters. 

[It was in the course of his thirteenth year that the boy wrote his"Epitaph on Henry Martyn. "

 Here Martyn lies. In manhood's early bloom The Christian hero finds a Pagan tomb. Religion, sorrowing o'er her favourite son, Points to the glorious trophies that he won. Eternal trophies! not with carnage red, Not stained with tears by hapless captives shed, But trophies of the Cross. For that dear name, Through every form of danger, death, and shame, Onward he journeyed to a happier shore, Where danger, death and shame assault no more. "]

In the course of 1812 it began to be evident that Tom had got beyondthe educational capabilities of Clapham; and his father seriouslycontemplated the notion of removing to London in order to place him as aday-scholar at Westminster. Thorough as was the consideration which theparents gave to the matter, their decision was of more importancethan they could at the time foresee. If their son had gone to a publicschool, it is more than probable that he would have turned out adifferent man, and have done different work. So sensitive and homelovinga boy might for a while have been too depressed to enter fully untothe ways of the place; but, as he gained confidence, he could not havewithstood the irresistible attractions which the life of a great schoolexercises over a vivid eager nature, and he would have sacrificed topassing pleasures and emulations a part, at any rate, of those yearswhich, in order to be what he was, it was necessary that he should spendwholly among his books. Westminster or Harrow might have sharpened hisfaculties for dealing with affairs and with men; but the world at largewould have lost more than he could by any possibility have gained. IfMacaulay had received the usual education of a young Englishman, hemight in all probability have kept his seat for Edinburgh; but hecould hardly have written the Essay on Von Ranke, or the description ofEngland in the third chapter of the History. 

Mr. Macaulay ultimately fixed upon a private school, kept by the Rev. Mr. Preston, at Little Shelford, a village in the immediate vicinityof Cambridge. The motives which guided this selection were mainly ofa religious nature. Mr. Preston held extreme Low Church opinions, andstood in the good books of Mr. Simeon, whose word had long been law inthe Cambridge section of the Evangelical circle. But whatever had beenthe inducement to make it, the choice proved singularly fortunate. Thetutor, it is true, was narrow in his views, and lacked the taste andjudgment to set those views before his pupils in an attractive form. Theological topics dragged into the conversation at unexpected moments, inquiries about their spiritual state, and long sermons which had to belistened to under the dire obligation of reproducing them in an epitome, fostered in the minds of some of the boys a reaction against the outwardmanifestations of religion;--a reaction which had already begun underthe strict system pursued in their respective homes. But, on the otherhand, Mr. Preston knew both how to teach his scholars, and when to leavethem to teach themselves. The eminent judge, who divided grown men intotwo sharply defined and most uncomplimentary categories, was accustomedto say that private schools made poor creatures, and public schools saddogs; but Mr. Preston succeeded in giving a practical contradictionto Sir William Maine's proposition. His pupils, who were limited to anaverage of a dozen at a time, got far beyond their share of honours atthe university and of distinction in after life. George Stainforth, a grandson of Sir Francis Baring, by his success at Cambridge wasthe first to win the school an honourable name, which was more thansustained by Henry Malden, now Greek Professor at University College, London, and by Macaulay himself. Shelford was strongly under theinfluence of the neighbouring university; an influence which Mr. Preston, himself a fellow of Trinity, wisely encouraged. The boys werepenetrated with Cambridge ambitions and ways of thought; and frequentvisitors brought to the table, where master and pupils dined in common, the freshest Cambridge gossip of the graver sort. 

Little Macaulay received much kindness from Dean Milner, the Presidentof Queen's College, then at the very summit of a celebrity which isalready of the past. Those who care to search among the embers of thatonce brilliant reputation can form a fair notion of what Samuel Johnsonwould have been if he had lived a generation later, and had beenabsolved from the necessity of earning his bread by the enjoyment ofecclesiastical sinecures, and from any uneasiness as to his worldlystanding by the possession of academical dignities and functions. TheDean who had boundless goodwill for all his fellow-creatures at everyperiod of life, provided that they were not Jacobins or sceptics, recognised the promise of the boy, and entertained him at his collegeresidence on terms of friendliness, and almost of equality. After one ofthese visits he writes to Mr. Macaulay; "Your lad is a fine fellow. Heshall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men. "

Shelford: February 22, 1813. 

My dear Papa, --As this is a whole holiday, I cannot find a better timefor answering your letter. With respect to my health, I am very well, and tolerably cheerful, as Blundell, the best and most clever of all thescholars, is very kind, and talks to me, and takes my part. He is quitea friend of Mr. Preston's. The other boys, especially Lyon, a Scotchboy, and Wilberforce, are very good-natured, and we might have gone onvery well had not one, a Bristol fellow, come here. He is unanimouslyalloyed to be a queer fellow, and is generally characterised as afoolish boy, and by most of us as an ill-natured one. In my learningI do Xenophon every day, and twice a week the Odyssey, in which I amclassed with Wilberforce, whom all the boys allow to be very clever, very droll, and very impudent. We do Latin verses trice a week, and Ihave not yet been laughed at, as Wilberforce is the only one who hearsthem, being in my class. We are exercised also once a week in Englishcomposition, and once in Latin composition, and letters of personsrenowned in history to each other. We get by heart Greek grammar orVirgil every evening. As for sermon-writing, I have hitherto got offwith credit, and I hope I shall keep up my reputation. We have had thefirst meeting of our debating society the other day, when a vote ofcensure was moved for upon Wilberforce, but he getting up said, "Mr. President, I beg to second the motion. " By this means he escaped. Thekindness which Mr. Preston shows me is very great. He always assistsme in what I cannot do, and takes me to walk out with him every nowand then. My room is a delightful snug little chamber, which nobody canenter, as there is a trick about opening the door. I sit like a king, with my writing-desk before me; for, (would you believe it?) there isa writing-desk in my chest of drawers; my books on one side, my box ofpapers on the other, with my arm-chair and my candle; for every boy hasa candlestick, snuffers, and extinguisher of his own. Being pressed forroom, I will conclude what I have to say to-morrow, and ever remain, Your affectionate son, THOMAS B. MACAULAY. 

The youth who on this occasion gave proof of his parentage by hisreadiness and humour was Wilberforce's eldest son. A fortnight lateron, the subject chosen for discussion was "whether Lord Wellington orMarlborough was the greatest general. A very warm debate is expected. "

Shelford: April 20, 1813. 

My dear Mama, --Pursuant to my promise I resume my pen to write to youwith the greatest pleasure. Since I wrote to you yesterday, I haveenjoyed myself more than I have ever done since I came to Shelford. Mr. Hodson called about twelve o'clock yesterday morning with a pony for me, and took me with him to Cambridge. How surprised and delighted was Ito learn that I was to take a bed at Queen's College in Dean Milner'sapartments! Wilberforce arrived soon after, and I spent the day veryagreeably, the Dean amusing me with the greatest kindness. I sleptthere, and came home on horseback to-day just in time for dinner. The Dean has invited me to come again, and Mr. Preston has given hisconsent. The books which I am at present employed in reading to myselfare, in English, Plutarch's Lives, and Milner's Ecclesiastical History;in French, Fenelon's Dialogues of the Dead. I shall send you back thevolumes of Madame de Genlis's petits romans as soon as possible, and Ishould be very much obliged for one or two more of them. Everything nowseems to feel the influence of spring. The trees are all out. The lilacsare in bloom. The days are long, and I feel that I should be happywere it not that I want home. Even yesterday, when I felt more realsatisfaction than I have done for almost three months, I could not helpfeeling a sort of uneasiness, which indeed I have always felt more orless since I have been here, and which is the only thing that hinders mefrom being perfectly happy. This day two months will put a period to myuneasiness. 

"Fly fast the hours, and dawn th' expected morn. "

Every night when I lie down I reflect that another day is cut off fromthe tiresome time of absence. 

Your affectionate son, THOMAS B. MACAULAY. 

Shelford: April 26 1813. 

My dear Papa, --Since I have given you a detail of weekly duties, I hopeyou will be pleased to be informed of my Sunday's occupations. It isquite a day of rest here, and I really look to it with pleasure throughthe whole of the week. After breakfast we learn a chapter in the GreekTestament that is with the aid of our Bibles, and without doing it witha dictionary like other lessons. We then go to church. We dine almostas soon as we come back, and we are left to ourselves till afternoonchurch. During this time I employ myself in reading, and Mr. Prestonlends me any books for which I ask him, so that I am nearly as welloff in this respect as at home, except for one thing, which, though Ibelieve it is useful, is not very pleasant. I can only ask for one bookat a time, and cannot touch another till I have read it through. We thengo to church, and after we come hack I read as before till tea-time. After tea we write out the sermon. I cannot help thinking that Mr. Preston uses all imaginable means to make us forget it, for he gives usa glass of wine each on Sunday, and on Sunday only, the very day when wewant to have all our faculties awake; and some do literally go to sleepduring the sermon, and look rather silly when they wake. I, however, have not fallen into this disaster. 

Your affectionate son, THOMAS B. MACAULAY. 

The constant allusions to home politics and to the progress of theContinental struggle, which occur throughout Zachary Macaulay'scorrespondence with his son, prove how freely, and on what an equalfooting, the parent and child already conversed on questions of publicinterest. The following letter is curious as a specimen of the eagernesswith which the boy habitually flung himself into the subjects whichoccupied his father's thoughts. The renewal of the East India Company'scharter was just then under the consideration of Parliament, andthe whole energies of the Evangelical party were exerted in order tosignalise the occasion by securing our Eastern dominions as a field forthe spread of Christianity. Petitions against the continued exclusionof missionaries were in course of circulation throughout the island, thedrafts of which had been prepared by Mr. Macaulay. 

Shelford: May 8, 1813. 

My dear Papa, --As on Monday it will be out of my power to write, sincethe examination subjects are to be given out I write to-day instead toanswer your kind and long letter. 

I am very much pleased that the nation seems to take such interest inthe introduction of Christianity into India. My Scotch blood beginsto boil at the mention of the 1, 750 names that went up from a singlecountry parish. Ask Mama and Selina if they do not now admit my argumentwith regard to the superior advantages of the Scotch over the Englishpeasantry. 

As to my examination preparations, I will if you please give you asketch of my plan. On Monday, the day on which the examination subjectsare given out, I shall begin. My first performance will be my verses andmy declamation. I shall then translate the Greek and Latin. The firsttime of going over I shall mark the passages which puzzle me, and thenreturn to them again. But I shall have also to rub up my Mathematics, (by the bye, I begin the second book of Euclid to-day, ) and to studywhatever History may be appointed for the examination. I shall not beable to avoid trembling, whether I know my subjects or not. I am howeverintimidated at nothing but Greek. Mathematics suit my taste, although, before I came, I declaimed against them, and asserted that, when I wentto College, it should not be to Cambridge. I am occupied with the hopeof lecturing Mama and Selina upon Mathematics, as I used to do uponHeraldry, and to change Or, and Argent, and Azure, and Gules, forsquares, and points, and circles, and angles, and triangles, andrectangles, and rhomboids, and in a word "all the pomp and circumstance"of Euclid. When I come home I shall, if my purse is sufficient, bring acouple of rabbits for Selina and Jane. 

Your affectionate son, THOMAS B. MACAULAY. 

It will be seen that this passing fondness for mathematics soon changedinto bitter disgust. 

Clapham May 28, 1813. 

My dear Tom, --I am very happy to hear that you have so far advanced inyour different prize exercises, and with such little fatigue. I know youwrite with great ease to yourself, and would rather write ten poems thanprune one; but remember that excellence is not attained at first. Allyour pieces are much mended after a little reflection, and thereforetake some solitary walks, and think over each separate thing. Spare notime or trouble to render each piece as perfect as you can, and thenleave the event without one anxious thought. I have always admireda saying of one of the old heathen philosophers. When a friend wascondoling with him that he so well deserved of the gods, and yet thatthey did not shower their favours on him, as on some others less worthy, he answered, "I will, however, continue to deserve well of them. " So doyou, my dearest. Do your best because it is the will of God you shouldimprove every faculty to the utmost now, and strengthen the powers ofyour mind by exercise, and then in future you will be better enabled toglorify God with all your powers and talents, be they of a more humble, or higher order, and you shall not fail to be received into everlastinghabitations, with the applauding voice of your Saviour, "Well done, goodand faithful servant. " You see how ambitious your mother is. She musthave the wisdom of her son acknowledged before Angels, and an assembledworld. My wishes can soar no higher, and they can be content withnothing less for any of my children. The first time I saw your face, Irepeated those beautiful lines of Watts' cradle hymn, Mayst thou live to know and fear Him, Trust and love Him all thy days Then go dwell for ever near Him, See His face, and sing His praise. 

and this is the substance of all my prayers for you. In less than amonth you and I shall, I trust, be rambling over the Common, which nowlooks quite beautiful. 

I am ever, my dear Tom, Your affectionate mother, SELINA MACAULAY. 

The commencement of the second half-year at school, perhaps the darkestseason of a boy's existence, was marked by an unusually severe andprolonged attack of home-sickness. It would be cruel to insert the firstletter written after the return to Shelford from the summer holidays. That which follows it is melancholy enough. 

Shelford: August 14. 1813. 

My dear Mama, --I must confess that I have been a little disappointedat not receiving a letter from home to-day. I hope, however, for oneto-morrow. My spirits are far more depressed by leaving home thanthey were last half-year. Everything brings home to my recollection. Everything I read, or see, or hear, brings it to my mind. You told me Ishould be happy when I once came here, but not an hour passes in whichI do not shed tears at thinking of home. Every hope, however unlikely tobe realised, affords me some small consolation. The morning on which Iwent, you told me that possibly I might come home before the holidays. If you can confirm this hope, believe me when I assure you that there isnothing which I would not give for one instant's sight of home. Tellme in your next, expressly, if you can, whether or no there is anylikelihood of my coming home before the holidays. If I could gain Papa'sleave, I should select my birthday on October 25 as the time which Ishould wish to spend at that home which absence renders still dearer tome. I think I see you sitting by Papa just after his dinner, reading myletter, and turning to him, with an inquisitive glance, at the end ofthe paragraph. I think too that I see his expressive shake of the headat it. O, may I be mistaken! You cannot conceive what an alteration afavourable answer would produce in me. If your approbation of my requestdepends upon my advancing in study, I will work like a cart-horse. Ifyou should refuse it, you will deprive me of the most pleasing illusionwhich I ever experienced in my life. Pray do not fail to write speedily. 

Your dutiful and affectionate son, T. B. MACAULAY. 

His father answered him in a letter of strong religious complexion, full of feeling, and even of beauty, but too long for reproduction in abiography that is not his own. 

Mr. Macaulay's deep anxiety for his son's welfare sometimes induced himto lend too ready an ear to busybodies, who informed him of failingsin the boy which would have been treated more lightly, and perhaps morewisely, by a less devoted father. In the early months of 1814 he writesas follows, after hearing the tale of some guest of Mr. Preston whomTom had no doubt contradicted at table in presence of the assembledhousehold. 

London: March 4, 1814. 

My dear Tom, --In taking up my pen this morning a passage in Cowperalmost involuntarily occurred to me. You will find it at length in his"Conversation. "

 "Ye powers who rule the Tongue, if such there are, And make colloquial happiness your care, Preserve me from the thing I dread and hate, A duel in the form of a debate. Vociferated logic kills me quite. A noisy man is always in the right. "

You know how much such a quotation as this would fall in with mynotions, averse as I am to loud and noisy tones, and self-confident, overwhelming, and yet perhaps very unsound arguments. And you willremember how anxiously I dwelt upon this point while you were at home. I have been in hopes that this half-year would witness a great changein you in this respect. My hopes, however, have been a little damped bysomething which I heard last week through a friend, who seemed to havereceived an impression that you had gained a high distinction among theyoung gentlemen at Shelford by the loudness and vehemence of your tones. Now, my dear Tom, you cannot doubt that this gives me pain; and it doesso not so much on account of the thing itself, as because I considerit a pretty infallible test of the mind within. I do long and praymost earnestly that the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit may besubstituted for vehemence and self-confidence, and that you may be asmuch distinguished for the former as ever you have been for the latter. It is a school in which I am not ambitious that any child of mine shouldtake a high degree. 

If the people of Shelford be as bad as you represent them in yourletters, what are they but an epitome of the world at large? Are theyungrateful to you for your kindnesses? Are they foolish, and wicked, and wayward in the use of their faculties? What is all this but whatwe ourselves are guilty of every day? Consider how much in our case theguilt of such conduct is aggravated by our superior knowledge. We shallnot have ignorance to plead in its extenuation, as many of the people ofShelford may have. Now, instead of railing at the people of Shelford, Ithink the best thing which you and your schoolfellows could do would beto try to reform them. You can buy and distribute useful and strikingtracts, as well as Testaments, among such as can read. The cheapRepository and Religious Tract Society will furnish tracts suited to alldescriptions of persons; and for those who cannot read--why should younot institute a Sunday school to be taught by yourselves, and in whichappropriate rewards being given for good behaviour, not only at schoolbut through the week, great effects of a moral kind might soon beproduced? I have exhausted my paper, and must answer the rest of yourletter in a few days. In the meantime, I am ever your most affectionate father, ZACHARY MACAULAY. 

A father's prayers are seldom fulfilled to the letter. Many years wereto elapse before the son ceased to talk loudly and with confidence; andthe literature that he was destined to distribute through the world wasof another order from that which Mr. Macaulay here suggests. The answer, which is addressed to the mother, affords a proof that the boy couldalready hold his own. The allusions to the Christian Observer, of whichhis father was editor, and to Dr. Herbert Marsh, with whom the ablestpens of Clapham were at that moment engaged in hot and embitteredcontroversy, are thrown in with an artist's hand. 

Shelford: April 11. 1814. 

My dear Mama, --The news is glorious indeed. Peace! Peace with a Bourbon, with a descendant of Henri Quatre, with a prince who is bound to us byall the ties of gratitude. I have some hopes that it will be a lastingpeace; that the troubles of the last twenty years may make kings andnations wiser. I cannot conceive a greater punishment to Buonaparte thanthat which the allies have inflicted on him. How can his ambitious mindsupport it? All his great projects and schemes, which once made everythrone in Europe tremble, are buried in the solitude of an Italian isle. How miraculously everything has been conducted! We almost seem to hearthe Almighty saying to the fallen tyrant, "For this cause have I raisedthee up, that I might show in thee My power. "

As I am in very great haste with this letter, I shall have but littletime to write. I am sorry to hear that some nameless friend of Papa'sdenounced my voice as remarkably loud. I have accordingly resolved tospeak in a moderate key except on the undermentioned special occasions. Imprimis, when I am speaking at the same time with three others. Secondly, when I am praising the Christian Observer. Thirdly, when Iam praising Mr. Preston or his sisters I may be allowed to speak in myloudest voice, that they may hear me. 

I saw to-day that greatest of churchmen, that pillar of Orthodoxy, that true friend to the Liturgy, that mortal enemy to the BibleSociety, --Herbert Marsh, D. D. , Professor of Divinity on Lady Margaret'sfoundation. I stood looking at him for about ten minutes, and shallalways continue to maintain that he is a very ill-favoured gentleman asfar as outward appearance is concerned. I am going this week to spenda day or two at Dean Milner's, where I hope, nothing unforeseenpreventing, to see you in about two months' time. 

Ever your affectionate son, T. B. MACAULAY. 

In the course of the year 1814 Mr. Preston removed his establishment toAspenden Hall near Buntingford, in Hertfordshire; a large old-fashionedmansion, standing amidst extensive shrubberies, and a pleasantundulating domain sprinkled with fine timber. The house has been rebuiltwithin the last twenty years, and nothing remains of it except the darkoak panelling of the hall in which the scholars made their recitationson the annual speech day. The very pretty church, which stands hard bywithin the grounds, was undergoing restoration in 1873 and by this timethe only existing portion of the former internal fittings is the familypew, in which the boys sat on drowsy summer afternoons, doing what theycould to keep their impressions of the second sermon distinct from theirreminiscences of the morning. Here Macaulay spent four most industriousyears, doing less and less in the class-room as time went on, butenjoying the rare advantage of studying Greek and Latin by the side ofsuch a scholar as Malden. The two companions were equally matched in ageand classical attainments, and at the university maintained a rivalry sogenerous as hardly to deserve the name. Each of the pupils had his ownchamber, which the others were forbidden to enter under the penalty ofa shilling fine. This prohibition was in general not very strictlyobserved; but the tutor had taken the precaution of placing Macaulayin a room next his own;--a proximity which rendered the position of anintruder so exceptionally dangerous that even Malden could not rememberhaving once passed his friend's threshold during the whole of their stayat Aspenden. 

In this seclusion, removed from the delight of family intercourse, (theonly attraction strong enough to draw him from his books, ) the boyread widely, unceasingly, more than rapidly. The secret of his immenseacquirements lay in two invaluable gifts of nature, --an unerring memory, and the capacity for taking in at a glance the contents of a printedpage. During the first part of his life he remembered whatever caughthis fancy without going through the process of consciously getting itby heart. As a child, during one of the numerous seasons when the socialduties devolved upon Mr. Macaulay, he accompanied his father on anafternoon call, and found on a table the Lay of the Last Minstrel, whichhe had never before met with. He kept himself quiet with his prize whilethe elders were talking, and, on his return home, sat down upon hismother's bed, and repeated to her as many cantos as she had the patienceor the strength to listen to. At one period of his life he was known tosay that, if by some miracle of Vandalism all copies of Paradise Lostand the Pilgrim's Progress were destroyed off the face of the earth, he would undertake to reproduce them both from recollection whenevera revival of learning came. In 1813, while waiting in a Cambridgecoffee-room for a postchaise which was to take him to his school, hepicked up a county newspaper containing two such specimens of provincialpoetical talent as in those days might be read in the corner of anyweekly journal. One piece was headed "Reflections of an Exile;" whilethe other was a trumpery parody on the Welsh ballad "Ar hyd y nos, "referring to some local anecdote of an ostler whose nose had been bittenoff by a filly. He looked them once through, and never gave them athought for forty years, at the end of which time he repeated them bothwithout missing, --or, as far as he knew, changing, --a single word. 

[Sir William Stirling Maxwell says, in a letter with which he hashonoured me: "Of his extraordinary memory I remember Lord Jeffreytelling me an instance. They had had a difference about a quotation fromParadise Lost, and made a wager about it; the wager being a copy of thehook, which, on reference to the passage, it was found Jeffrey had won. The bet was made just before, and paid immediately after, the Eastervacation. On putting the volume into Jeffrey's hand, your uncle said, 'I don't think you will find me tripping again. I knew it, I thought, pretty well before; but I am sure I know it now. ' Jeffrey proceeded toexamine him, putting him on at a variety of the heaviest passages--thebattle of the angels--the dialogues of Adam and the archangels, --andfound him ready to declaim them all, till he begged him to stop. Heasked him how he had acquired such a command of the poem, and had foranswer: 'I had him in the country, and I read it twice over, and Idon't think that I shall ever forget it again. ' At the same time he toldJeffrey that he believed he could repeat everything of his own he hadever printed, and nearly all he had ever written, 'except, perhaps, someof my college exercises. '

"I myself had an opportunity of seeing and hearing a remarkable proof ofyour uncle's hold upon the most insignificant verbiage that chance hadpoured into his ear. I was staying with him at Bowood, in the winterof 1852. Lord Elphinstone--who had been many years before Governor ofMadras, --was telling one morning at breakfast of a certain native barberthere, who was famous, in his time, for English doggrel of his ownmaking, with which he was wont to regale his customers. 'Of course, 'said Lord Elphinstone, 'I don't remember any of it; but was very funny, and used to be repeated in society. ' Macaulay, who was sitting a goodway off, immediately said: 'I remember being shaved by the fellow, andhe recited a quantity of verse to me during the operation, and hereis some of it;' and then he went off in a very queer doggrel about theexploits of Bonaparte, of which I recollect the recurring refrain--

 But when he saw the British boys, He up and ran away. 

It is hardly conceivable that he had ever had occasion to recall thatpoem since the day when he escaped from under the poet's razor. ]

As he grew older, this wonderful power became impaired so far thatgetting by rote the compositions of others was no longer an involuntaryprocess. He has noted in his Lucan the several occasions on which hecommitted to memory his favourite passages of an author whom he regardedas unrivalled among rhetoricians; and the dates refer to 1836, when hehad just turned the middle point of life. During his last years, at hisdressing-table in the morning, he would learn by heart one or anotherof the little idylls in which Martial expatiates on the enjoyments of aSpanish country-house, or a villa-farm in the environs of Rome;--thosedelicious morsels of verse which, (considering the sense that modernideas attach to the name, ) it is an injustice to class under the head ofepigrams. 

Macaulay's extraordinary faculty of assimilating printed matter at firstsight remained the same through life. To the end he read books morequickly than other people skimmed them, and skimmed them as fast asanyone else could turn the leaves. "He seemed to read through the skin, "said one who had often watched the operation. And this speed was not inhis case obtained at the expense of accuracy. Anything which had onceappeared in type, from the highest effort of genius down to the mostdetestable trash that ever consumed ink and paper manufactured forbetter things, had in his eyes an authority which led him to look uponmisquotation as a species of minor sacrilege. 

With these endowments, sharpened by an insatiable curiosity, from hisfourteenth year onward he was permitted to roam almost at will overthe whole expanse of literature. He composed little beyond his schoolexercises, which themselves bear signs of having been written in aperfunctory manner. At this period he had evidently no heart in anythingbut his reading. Before leaving Shelford for Aspenden he had alreadyinvoked the epic muse for the last time. 

 "Arms and the man I sing, who strove in vain To save green Erin from a foreign reign. "

The man was Roderic, king of Connaught, whom he got tired of singingbefore he had well completed two books of the poem. Thenceforward heappears never to have struck his lyre, except in the first enthusiasmaroused by the intelligence of some favourable turn of fortune onthe Continent. The flight of Napoleon from Russia was celebrated in a"Pindaric Ode" duly distributed into strophes and antistrophes;and, when the allies entered Paris, the school put his services intorequisition to petition for a holiday in honour of the event. Headdressed his tutor in a short poem, which begins with a few sonorousand effective couplets, grows more and more like the parody onFitzgerald in "Rejected Addresses, " and ends in a peroration of whichthe intention is unquestionably mock-heroic:

 "Oh, by the glorious posture of affairs, By the enormous price that Omnium hears, By princely Bourbon's late recovered Crown, And by Miss Fanny's safe return from town, Oh, do not thou, and thou alone, refuse To show thy pleasure at this glorious news!"

Touched by the mention of his sister, Mr. Preston yielded and youngMacaulay never turned another verse except at the bidding of hisschoolmaster, until, on the eve of his departure for Cambridge, hewrote between three and four hundred lines of a drama, entitled "DonFernando, " marked by force and fertility of diction, but somewhat tooartificial to be worthy of publication under a name such as his. Muchabout the same time he communicated to Malden the commencement of aburlesque poem on the story of Anthony Babington; who, by the part thathe took in the plots against the life of Queen Elizabeth, had given thefamily a connection with English history which, however questionable, was in Macaulay's view better than none. 

 "Each, says the proverb, has his taste. 'Tis true. Marsh loves a controversy; Coates a play; Bennet a felon; Lewis Way a Jew; The Jew the silver spoons of Lewis Way. The Gipsy Poetry, to own the truth, Has been my love through childhood and in youth. "

It is perhaps as well that the project to all appearance stopped withthe first stanza, which in its turn was probably written for the sake ofa single line. The young man had a better use for his time than to spendit in producing frigid imitations of Beppo. 

He was not unpopular among his fellow-pupils, who regarded him withpride and admiration, tempered by the compassion which his utterinability to play at any sort of game would have excited in everyschool, private or public alike. He troubled himself very little aboutthe opinion of those by whom he was surrounded at Aspenden. It requiredthe crowd and the stir of a university to call forth the socialqualities which he possessed in so large a measure. The tone of hiscorrespondence during these years sufficiently indicates that he livedalmost exclusively among books. His letters, which had hitherto beenvery natural and pretty, began to smack of the library, and please lessthan those written in early boyhood. His pen was overcharged with themetaphors and phrases of other men; and it was not till maturing powershad enabled him to master and arrange the vast masses of literaturewhich filled his memory that his native force could display itselffreely through the medium of a style which was all his own. In 1815 hebegan a formal literary correspondence, after the taste of the previouscentury, with Mr. Hudson, a gentleman in the Examiner's Office of theEast India House. 

Aspenden Hall: August 22, 1815. 

Dear Sir, --The Spectator observes, I believe in his first paper, thatwe can never read an author with much zest unless we are acquainted withhis situation. I feel the same in my epistolary correspondence; and, supposing that in this respect we may be alike, I will just tell youmy condition. Imagine a house in the middle of pretty large grounds, surrounded by palings. These I never pass. You may therefore supposethat I resemble the Hermit of Parnell. 

 "As yet by books and swains the world he knew, Nor knew if books and swains report it true. "

If you substitute newspapers and visitors for books and swains, you mayform an idea of what I know of the present state of things. Write tome as one who is ignorant of every event except political occurrences. These I learn regularly; but if Lord Byron were to publish melodies orromances, or Scott metrical tales without number, I should never seethem, or perhaps hear of them, till Christmas. Retirement of this kind, though it precludes me from studying the works of the hour, is veryfavourable for the employment of "holding high converse with the mightydead. "

I know not whether "peeping at the world through the loopholes ofretreat" be the best way of forming us for engaging in its busy andactive scenes. I am sure it is not a way to my taste. Poets may talkof the beauties of nature, the enjoyments of a country life, and ruralinnocence; but there is another kind of life which, though unsungby bards, is yet to me infinitely superior to the dull uniformity ofcountry life. London is the place for me. Its smoky atmosphere, and itsmuddy river, charm me more than the pure air of Hertfordshire, and thecrystal currents of the river Rib. Nothing is equal to the splendidvarieties of London life, "the fine flow of London talk, " and thedazzling brilliancy of London spectacles. Such are my sentiments, and, if ever I publish poetry, it shall not be pastoral. Nature is the lastgoddess to whom my devoirs shall be paid. 

Yours most faithfully, THOMAS B. MACAULAY. 

This votary of city life was still two months short of completing hisfifteenth year!

Aspenden Hall: August 23, 1815. 

My dear Mama, --You perceive already in so large a sheet, and so small ahand, the promise of a long, a very long letter, longer, as I intendit, than all the letters which you send in a half-year together. I haveagain begun my life of sterile monotony, unvarying labour, the dullreturn of dull exercises in dull uniformity of tediousness. But do notthink that I complain. 

 My mind to me a kingdom is, Such perfect joy therein I find As doth exceed all other bliss That God or nature hath assigned. 

Assure yourself that I am philosopher enough to be happy, --I meant tosay not particularly unhappy, --in solitude; but man is an animal madefor society. I was gifted with reason, not to speculate in AspendenPark, but to interchange ideas with some person who can understand me. This is what I miss at Aspenden. There are several here who possess bothtaste and reading; who can criticise Lord Byron and Southey with muchtact and "savoir du metier. " But here it is not the fashion to think. Hear what I have read since I came here. Hear and wonder! I have in thefirst place read Boccacio's Decameron, a tale of a hundred cantos. He isa wonderful writer. Whether he tells in humorous or familiar strains thefollies of the silly Calandrino, or the witty pranks of Buffalmacco andBruno, or sings in loftier numbers

 Dames, knights, and arms, and love, the feats that spring From courteous minds and generous faith, or lashes with a noble severity and fearless independence the vices ofthe monks and the priestcraft of the established religion, he is alwayselegant, amusing, and, what pleases and surprises most in a writer ofso unpolished an age, strikingly delicate and chastised. I prefer himinfinitely to Chaucer. If you wish for a good specimen of Boccacio, assoon as you have finished my letter, (which will come, I suppose, bydinner-time, ) send Jane up to the library for Dryden's poems, and youwill find among them several translations from Boccacio, particularlyone entitled "Theodore and Honoria. "

But, truly admirable as the bard of Florence is, I must not permitmyself to give him more than his due share of my letter. I have likewiseread Gil Blas, with unbounded admiration of the abilities of Le Sage. Malden and I have read Thalaba together, and are proceeding to the Curseof Kehama. Do not think, however, that I am neglecting more importantstudies than either Southey or Boccacio. I have read the greater part ofthe History of James I. And Mrs. Montague's essay on Shakspeare, anda great deal of Gibbon. I never devoured so many books in a fortnight. John Smith, Bob Hankinson, and I, went over the Hebrew Melodiestogether. I certainly think far better of them than we used to do atClapham. Papa may laugh, and indeed he did laugh me out of my taste atClapham; but I think that there is a great deal of beauty in the firstmelody, "She walks in beauty, " though indeed who it is that walks inbeauty is not very exactly defined. My next letter shall contain aproduction of my muse, entitled "An Inscription for the Column ofWaterloo, " which is to be shown to Mr. Preston to-morrow. What he maythink of it I do not know. But I am like my favourite Cicero about myown productions. It is all one to me what others think of them. I neverlike them a bit less for being disliked by the rest of mankind. Mr. Preston has desired me to bring him up this evening two or threesubjects for a Declamation. Those which I have selected are as follows:1st, a speech in the character of Lord Coningsby, impeaching the Earl ofOxford; 2nd, an essay on the utility of standing armies; 3rd, an essayon the policy of Great Britain with regard to continental possessions. I conclude with sending my love to Papa, Selina, Jane, John, ("but heis not there, " as Fingal pathetically says, when in enumerating his sonswho should accompany him to the chase he inadvertently mentions the deadRyno, ) Henry, Fanny, Hannah, Margaret, and Charles. Valete. 

T. B. MACAULAY. 

This exhaustive enumeration of his brothers and sisters invitesattention to that home where he reigned supreme. Lady Trevelyan thusdescribes their life at Clapham: "I think that my father's strictnesswas a good counterpoise to the perfect worship of your uncle by the restof the family. To us he was an object of passionate love and devotion. To us he could do no wrong. His unruffled sweetness of temper, hisunfailing flow of spirits, his amusing talk, all made his presenceso delightful that his wishes and his tastes were our law. He hatedstrangers; and his notion of perfect happiness was to see us all workinground him while he read aloud a novel, and then to walk all togetheron the Common, or, if it rained, to have a frightfully noisy game ofhide-and-seek. I have often wondered how our mother could ever haveendured our noise in her little house. My earliest recollections speakof the intense happiness of the holidays, beginning with finding him inPapa's room in the morning; the awe at the idea of his having reachedhome in the dark after we were in bed, and the Saturnalia which at onceset in;--no lessons; nothing but fun and merriment for the whole sixweeks. In the year 1816 we were at Brighton for the summer holidays, andhe read to us Sir Charles Grandison. It was always a habit in our familyto read aloud every evening. Among the books selected I can recallClarendon, Burnet, Shakspeare, (a great treat when my mother took thevolume, ) Miss Edgeworth, Mackenzie's Lounger and Mirror, and, as astanding dish, the Quarterly and the Edinburgh Reviews. Poets too, especially Scott and Crabbe, were constantly chosen. Poetry and novels, except during Tom's holidays, were forbidden in the daytime, andstigmatised as 'drinking drams in the morning. '"

Morning or evening, Mr. Macaulay disapproved of novel-reading; but, tooindulgent to insist on having his own way in any but essential matters, he lived to see himself the head of a family in which novels weremore read, and better remembered, than in any household of the UnitedKingdom. The first warning of the troubles that were in store for himwas an anonymous letter addressed to him as editor of the ChristianObserver, defending works of fiction, and eulogising Fielding andSmollett. This he incautiously inserted in his periodical, and broughtdown upon himself the most violent objurgations from scandalisedcontributors, one of whom informed the public that he had committed theobnoxious number to the flames, and should thenceforward cease to takein the Magazine. The editor replied with becoming spirit; although bythat time he was aware that the communication, the insertion of which inan unguarded moment had betrayed him into a controversy for which he hadso little heart, had proceeded from the pen of his son. Such was youngMacaulay's first appearance in print, if we except the index to thethirteenth volume of the Christian Observer, which he drew up during hisChristmas holidays of 1814. The place where he performed his earliestliterary work can be identified with tolerable certainty. He enjoyed theeldest son's privilege of a separate bedchamber; and there, at the frontwindow on the top story, furthest from the Common and nearest to London, we can fancy him sitting, apart from the crowded play-room, keepinghimself warm as best he might, and travelling steadily through theblameless pages the contents of which it was his task to classify forthe convenience of posterity. 

Lord Macaulay used to remark that Thackeray introduced too much of theDissenting element into his picture of Clapham in the opening chaptersof "The Newcomes. " The leading people of the place, --with the exceptionof Mr. William Smith, the Unitarian member of Parliament, --were one andall staunch Churchmen; though they readily worked in concert with thosereligious communities which held in the main the same views, and pursuedthe same objects, as themselves. Old John Thornton, the earliest of theEvangelical magnates, when he went on his annual tour to the SouthCoast or the Scotch mountains, would take with him some Independent orWesleyan minister who was in need of a holiday; and his followers inthe next generation had the most powerful motives for maintaining thealliance which he had inaugurated. They could not neglect such doughtyauxiliaries in the memorable war which they waged against cruelty, ignorance, and irreligion, and in their less momentous skirmishes withthe votaries of the stage, the racecourse, and the card-table. Without the aid of nonconformist sympathy, and money, and oratory, and organisation, their operations would have been doomed to certainfailure. The cordial relations entertained with the members of otherdenominations by those among whom his youth was passed did much toindoctrinate Macaulay with a lively and genuine interest in sectariantheology. He possessed a minute acquaintance, very rare among men ofletters, with the origin and growth of the various forms of faith andpractice which have divided the allegiance of his countrymen; not theleast important of his qualifications for writing the history of anepoch when the national mind gave itself to religious controversy evenmore largely than has been its wont. 

The method of education in vogue among the Clapham families was simple, without being severe. In the spacious gardens, and the commodious housesof an architecture already dating a century back, which surrounded theCommon, there was plenty of freedom, and good fellowship, and reasonableenjoyment for young and old alike. Here again Thackeray has notdone justice to a society that united the mental culture, and theintellectual activity, which are developed by the neighbourhood of agreat capital, with the wholesome quiet and the homely ways of countrylife. Hobson and Brian Newcome are not fair specimens of the effectof Clapham influences upon the second generation. There can have beennothing vulgar, and little that was narrow, in a training which producedSamuel Wilberforce, and Sir James Stephen, and Charles and Robert Grant, and Lord Macaulay. The plan on which children were brought up in thechosen home of the Low Church party, during its golden age, willbear comparison with systems about which, in their day, the world wassupposed never to tire of hearing, although their ultimate results havebeen small indeed. 

It is easy to trace whence the great bishop and the great writer derivedtheir immense industry. Working came as naturally as walking to sons whocould not remember a time when their fathers idled. "Mr. Wilberforce andMr. Babington have never appeared downstairs lately, except to take ahasty dinner, and for half an hour after we have supped. The slave-tradenow occupies them nine hours daily. Mr. Babington told me last nightthat he had fourteen hundred folio pages to read, to detect thecontradictions, and to collect the answers which corroborate Mr. Wilberforce's assertions in his speeches. These, with more than twothousand pages to be abridged, must be done within a fortnight, and theytalk of sitting up one night in every week to accomplish it. The twofriends begin to look very ill, but they are in excellent spirits, andat this moment I hear them laughing at some absurd questions in theexamination. " Passages such as this are scattered broadcast through thecorrespondence of Wilberforce and his friends. Fortitude, and diligence, and self-control, and all that makes men good and great, cannot bepurchased from professional educators. Charity is not the only qualitywhich begins at home. It is throwing away money to spend a thousand ayear on the teaching of three boys, if they are to return from schoolonly to find the older members of their family intent on amusingthemselves at any cost of time and trouble, or sacrificing self-respectin ignoble efforts to struggle into a social grade above their own. Thechild will never place his aims high, and pursue them steadily, unlessthe parent has taught him what energy, and elevation of purpose, meannot less by example than by precept. 

In that company of indefatigable workers none equalled the labours ofZachary Macaulay. Even now, when he has been in his grave for more thanthe third of a century, it seems almost an act of disloyalty to recordthe public services of a man who thought that he had done less thannothing if his exertions met with praise, or even with recognition. Thenature and value of those services may be estimated from the terms inwhich a very competent judge, who knew how to weigh his words, spokeof the part which Mr. Macaulay played in one only of his numerousenterprises, --the suppression of slavery and the slave-trade. "That Godhad called him into being to wage war with this gigantic evil became hisimmutable conviction. During forty successive years he was ever burdenedwith this thought. It was the subject of his visions by day and of hisdreams by night. To give them reality he laboured as men labour for thehonours of a profession or for the subsistence of their children. In that service he sacrificed all that a man may lawfullysacrifice--health, fortune, repose, favour, and celebrity. He died apoor man, though wealth was within his reach. He devoted himself tothe severest toil, amidst allurements to luxuriate in the delights ofdomestic and social intercourse, such as few indeed have encountered. He silently permitted some to usurp his hardly-earned honours, thatno selfish controversy might desecrate their common cause. He made noeffort to obtain the praises of the world, though he had talents tocommand, and a temper peculiarly disposed to enjoy them. He drew uponhimself the poisoned shafts of calumny, and, while feeling their stingas generous spirits only can feel it, never turned a single step asidefrom his path to propitiate or to crush the slanderers. "

Zachary Macaulay was no mere man of action. It is difficult tounderstand when it was that he had time to pick up his knowledge ofgeneral literature; or how he made room for it in a mind so crammedwith facts and statistics relating to questions of the day that whenWilberforce was at a loss for a piece of information he used to say, "Let us look it out in Macaulay. " His private papers, which are one longregister of unbroken toil, do nothing to clear up the problem. Highlycultivated, however, he certainly was, and his society was in requestwith many who cared little for the objects which to him were everything. That he should have been esteemed and regarded by Lord Brougham, FrancisHomer, and Sir James Mackintosh, seems natural enough, but there issomething surprising in finding him in friendly and frequentintercourse with some of his most distinguished French contemporaries. Chateaubriand, Sismondi, the Duc de Broglie, Madame de Stael, andDumont, the interpreter of Bentham, corresponded with him freely intheir own language, which he wrote to admiration. The gratification thathis foreign acquaintance felt at the sight of his letters would havebeen unalloyed but for the pamphlets and blue-books by which they weretoo often accompanied. It is not difficult to imagine the feelings of aParisian on receiving two quarto volumes, with the postage only in partpre-paid, containing the proceedings of a Committee on Apprenticeship inthe West Indies, and including the twelve or fifteen thousand questionsand answers on which the Report was founded. It would be hard to meetwith a more perfect sample of the national politeness than the passagein which M. Dumont acknowledges one of the less formidable of theseunwelcome gifts. "Mon cher Ami, --Je ne laisserai pas partir Mr. Inglissans le charger de quelques lignes pour vous, afin de vous remercier duChristian Observer que vous avez eu la bonte de m'envoyer. Vous savezque j'ai a great taste for it; mais il faut vous avouer une tristeverite, c'est que je manque absolument de loisir pour le lire. Ne m'enenvoyez plus; car je me sens peine d'avoir sous les yeux de si bonneschoses, dont je n'ai pas le temps de tue nourrir. "

"In the year 1817, " Lady Trevelyan writes, "my parents made a tour inScotland with your uncle. Brougham gave them a letter to Jeffrey, whohospitably entertained them; but your uncle said that Jeffrey was notat all at his ease, and was apparently so terrified at my father'sreligious reputation that he seemed afraid to utter a joke. Your unclecomplained grievously that they travelled from manse to manse, andalways came in for very long prayers and expositions. [Macaulay writesin his journal of August 8, 1859: "We passed my old acquaintance, Dumbarton castle, I remembered my first visit to Dumbarton, and the oldminister, who insisted on our eating a bit of cake with him, and saida grace over it which might have been prologue to a dinner of theFishmongers' Company, or the Grocers' Company. "] I think, with all thelove and reverence with which your uncle regarded his father's memory, there mingled a shade of bitterness that he had not met quite theencouragement and appreciation from him which he received from others. But such a son as he was! Never a disrespectful word or look; alwaysanxious to please and amuse; and at last he was the entire stay andsupport of his father's declining years. 

"Your uncle was of opinion that the course pursued by his father towardshim during his youth was not judicious. But here I am inclined todisagree with him. There was no want of proof of the estimation in whichhis father held him, corresponding with him from a very early age aswith a man, conversing with him freely, and writing of him most fondly. But, in the desire to keep down any conceit, there was certainly in myfather a great outward show of repression and depreciation. Thenthe faults of your uncle were peculiarly those that my father had nopatience with. Himself precise in his arrangements, writing a beautifulhand, particular about neatness, very accurate and calm, detestingstrong expressions, and remarkably self-controlled; while his eagerimpetuous boy, careless of his dress, always forgetting to wash hishands and brush his hair, writing an execrable hand, and foldinghis letters with a great blotch for a seal, was a constant care andirritation. Many letters to your uncle have I read on these subjects. Sometimes a specimen of the proper way of folding a letter is sent him, (those were the sad days before envelopes were known, ) and he is desiredto repeat the experiment till he succeeds. General Macaulay's fastidiousnature led him to take my father's line regarding your uncle, and myyouthful soul was often vexed by the constant reprimands for venialtransgressions. But the great sin was the idle reading, which was athorn in my father's side that never was extracted. In truth, he reallyacknowledged to the full your uncle's abilities, and felt that if hecould only add his own morale, his unwearied industry, his power ofconcentrating his energies on the work in hand, his patient painstakingcalmness, to the genius and fervour which his son possessed, then abeing might be formed who could regenerate the world. Often in lateryears I have heard my father, after expressing an earnest desire forsome object, exclaim, 'If I had only Tom's power of speech!' But heshould have remembered that all gifts are not given to one, and thatperhaps such a union as he coveted is even impossible. Parents mustbe content to see their children walk in their own path, too happy ifthrough any road they attain the same end, the living for the glory ofGod and the good of man. "

From a marvellously early date in Macaulay's life public affairs dividedhis thoughts with literature, and, as he grew to manhood, began more andmore to divide his aspirations. His father's house was much used as acentre of consultation by members of Parliament who lived in the suburbson the Surrey side of London; and the boy could hardly have heard moreincessant, and assuredly not more edifying, political talk if he hadbeen brought up in Downing Street. The future advocate and interpreterof Whig principles was not reared in the Whig faith. Attached friends ofPitt, who in personal conduct, and habits of life, certainly came nearerto their standard than his great rival, --and warmly in favour of a warwhich, to their imagination, never entirely lost its early character ofan internecine contest with atheism. --the Evangelicals in the House ofCommons for the most part acted with the Tories. But it may be doubtedwhether, in the long run, their party would not have been better withoutthem. By the zeal, the munificence, the laborious activity, with whichthey pursued their religious and semi-religious enterprises, they didmore to teach the world how to get rid of existing institutions thanby their votes and speeches at Westminster they contributed to preservethem. [Macaulay, writing to one of his sisters in 1844, says: "I thinkStephen's article on the Clapham Sect the best thing he ever did, I donot think with you that the Claphamites were men too obscure for suchdelineation. The truth is that from that little knot of men emanatedall the Bible Societies, and almost all the Missionary Societies, in theworld. The whole organisation of the Evangelical party was their work. The share which they had in providing means for the education of thepeople was great. They were really the destroyers of the slave-trade, and of slavery. Many of those whom Stephen describes were public men ofthe greatest weight, Lord Teignmouth governed India in Calcutta, Grantgoverned India in Leadenhall Street, Stephen's father was Perceval'sright-hand man in the House of Commons. It is needless to speak ofWilberforce. As to Simeon, if you knew what his authority and influencewere, and how they extended from Cambridge to the most remote cornersof England, you would allow that his real sway in the Church was fargreater than that of any primate. Thornton, to my surprise, thinks thepassage about my father unfriendly. I defended Stephen. The truth isthat he asked my permission to draw a portrait of my father for theEdinburgh Review. I told him that I had only to beg that he would notgive it the air of a puff; a thing which, for myself and for my friends, I dread far more than any attack. My influence over the Review is sowell known that a mere eulogy of my father appearing in that work wouldonly call forth derision. I therefore am really glad that Stephen hasintroduced into his sketch some little characteristic traits which, inthemselves, were not beauties. "] With their May meetings, and AfricanInstitutions, and Anti-slavery Reporters, and their subscriptions oftens of thousands of pounds, and their petitions bristling with hundredsof thousands of signatures, and all the machinery for informing opinionand bringing it to bear on ministers and legislators which they didso much to perfect and even to invent, they can be regarded as nothingshort of the pioneers and fuglemen of that system of popular agitationwhich forms a leading feature in our internal history during the pasthalf-century. At an epoch when the Cabinet which they supported wasso averse to manifestations of political sentiment that a Reformer whospoke his mind in England was seldom long out of prison, and in Scotlandran a very serious risk of transportation, Toryism sat oddly enough onmen who spent their days in the committee-room and their evenings on theplatform, and each of whom belonged to more Associations combined forthe purpose of influencing Parliament than he could count on the fingersof both his hands. 

There was something incongruous in their position; and as time wenton they began to perceive the incongruity. They gradually learned thatmeasures dear to philanthropy might be expected to result from theadvent to power of their opponents; while their own chief too oftenfailed them at a pinch out of what appeared to them an excessive, and humiliating, deference to interests powerfully represented on thebenches behind him. Their eyes were first opened by Pitt's change ofattitude with regard to the object that was next all their hearts. Thereis something almost pathetic in the contrast between two entries inWilberforce's diary, of which the first has become classical, but thesecond is not so generally known. In 1787, referring to the movementagainst the slave-trade, he says: "Pitt recommended me to undertake itsconduct, as a subject suited to my character and talents. At length, Iwell remember, after a conversation in the open air at the root of anold tree at Holwood, just above the vale of Keston, I resolved to givenotice on a fit occasion in the House of Commons of my intention tobring the subject forward. " Twelve years later Mr. Henry Thornton hadbrought in a bill for confining the trade within certain limits uponthe coast of Africa. "Upon the second reading of this bill, " writesWilberforce, "Pitt coolly put off the debate when I had manifested adesign of answering P. 's speech, and so left misrepresentations withouta word. William Smith's anger;--Henry Thornton's coolness;--deepimpression on me, but conquered, I hope, in a Christian way. "

Besides instructing their successors in the art of carrying on a popularmovement, Wilberforce and his followers had a lesson to teach, the valueof which not so many perhaps will be disposed to question. In publiclife, as in private, they habitually had the fear of God before theireyes. A mere handful as to number, and in average talent very much ona level with the mass of their colleagues;--counting in their ranks noorator, or minister, or boroughmonger;--they commanded the ear of theHouse, and exerted on its proceedings an influence, the secret of whichthose who have studied the Parliamentary history of the period find itonly too easy to understand. To refrain from gambling and ball-giving, to go much to church and never to the theatre, was not more at variancewith the social customs of the day than it was the exception in thepolitical world to meet with men who looked to the facts of the case andnot to the wishes of the minister, and who before going into the lobbyrequired to be obliged with a reason instead of with a job. Confidenceand respect, and (what in the House of Commons is their unvaryingaccompaniment) power, were gradually, and to a great extentinvoluntarily, accorded to this group of members. They were not addictedto crotchets, nor to the obtrusive and unseasonable assertion ofconscientious scruples. The occasions on which they made proof ofindependence and impartiality were such as justified, and dignified, their temporary renunciation of party ties. They interfered withdecisive effect in the debates on the great scandals of Lord Melvilleand the Duke of York, and in more than one financial or commercialcontroversy that deeply concerned the national interests, of whichthe question of the retaining the Orders in Council was a conspicuousinstance. A boy who, like young Macaulay, was admitted to the intimacyof politicians such as these, and was accustomed to hear matters ofstate discussed exclusively from a public point of view without anyafterthought of ambition, or jealousy, or self-seeking, could hardlyfail to grow up a patriotic and disinterested man. "What is far betterand more important than all is this, that I believe Macaulay to beincorruptible. You might lay ribbons, stars, garters, wealth, titlesbefore him in vain. He has an honest genuine love of his country, andthe world would not bribe him to neglect her interests. " Thus saidSydney Smith, who of all his real friends was the least inclined toover-praise him. 

The memory of Thornton and Babington, and the other worthies of theirday and set, is growing dim, and their names already mean little in ourears. Part of their work was so thoroughly done that the world, as itswont is, has long ago taken the credit of that work to itself. Others oftheir undertakings, in weaker hands than theirs, seem out of date amongthe ideas and beliefs which now are prevalent. At Clapham, as elsewhere, the old order is changing, and not always in a direction which to themwould be acceptable or even tolerable. What was once the home of ZacharyMacaulay stands almost within the swing of the bell of a statelyand elegant Roman Catholic chapel; and the pleasant mansion of LordTeignmouth, the cradle of the Bible Society, is now a religious house ofthe Redemptorist Order. But in one shape or another honest performancealways lives, and the gains that accrued from the labours of thesemen are still on the right side of the national ledger. Among the mostpermanent of those gains is their undoubted share in the improvement ofour political integrity by direct, and still more by indirect, example. It would be ungrateful to forget in how large a measure it is due tothem that one, whose judgments upon the statesmen of many ages andcountries have been delivered to an audience vast beyond all precedent, should have framed his decisions in accordance with the dictates ofhonour and humanity, of ardent public spirit and lofty public virtue. 

CHAPTER II. 1818-1824. 

 Macaulay goes to the University--His love for Trinity College--His contemporaries at Cambridge--Charles Austin-- The Union Debating Society--University studies, successes, and failures--The Mathematical Tripos--The Trinity Fellowship--William the Third--Letters--Prize poems-- Peterloo--Novel-reading--The Queen's Trial--Macaulay's feeling towards his mother--A Reading-party--Hoaxing an editor--Macaulay takes pupils. 

IN October 1818 Macaulay went into residence at Trinity College, Cambridge. Mr. Henry Sykes Thornton, the eldest son of the member forSouthwark, was his companion throughout his university career. Theyoung men lived in the same lodgings, and began by reading with the sametutor; a plan which promised well, because, in addition to what was hisown by right, each had the benefit of the period of instruction paid forby the other. But two hours were much the same as one to Macaulay, inwhose eyes algebra and geometry were so much additional material forlively and interminable argument. Thornton reluctantly broke through thearrangement, and eventually stood highest among the Trinity wranglersof his year; an elevation which he could hardly have attained if he hadpursued his studies in company with one who regarded every successivemathematical proposition as an open question. A Parliamentary electiontook place while the two friends were still quartered together in JesusLane. A tumult in the neighbouring street announced that the citizenswere expressing their sentiments by the only channel which was open tothem before the days of Reform; and Macaulay, to whom any excitement ofa political nature was absolutely irresistible, dragged Thornton tothe scene of action, and found the mob breaking the windows of the Hoophotel, the head-quarters of the successful candidates. His ardourwas cooled by receiving a dead cat full in the face. The man who wasresponsible for the animal came up and apologised very civilly, assuringhim that there was no town and gown feeling in the matter, and that thecat had been meant for Mr. Adeane. "I wish, " replied Macaulay, "that youhad meant it for me, and hit Mr. Adeane. "

After no long while he removed within the walls of Trinity, and residedfirst in the centre rooms of Bishop's Hostel, and subsequently in theOld Court, between the Gate and the Chapel. The door, which once borehis name, is on the ground floor, to the left hand as you face thestaircase. In more recent years, undergraduates who are accustomed tobe out after lawful hours have claimed a right of way through the windowwhich looks towards the town;--to the great annoyance of any occupantwho is too good-natured to refuse the accommodation to others, and toosteady to need it himself. This power of surreptitious entry had notbeen discovered in Macaulay's days; and, indeed, he would have caredvery little for the privilege of spending his time outside walls whichcontained within them as many books as even he could read, and morefriends than even he could talk to. Wanting nothing beyond what hiscollege had to give, he revelled in the possession of leisure andliberty, in the almost complete command of his own time, in the power ofpassing at choice from the most perfect solitude to the most agreeablecompany. He keenly appreciated a society which cherishes all that isgenuine, and is only too out-spoken in its abhorrence of pretension anddisplay:--a society in which a man lives with those whom he likes, and with those only; choosing his comrades for their own sake, and soindifferent to the external distinctions of wealth and position thatno one who has entered fully into the spirit of college life can everunlearn its priceless lesson of manliness and simplicity. 

Of all his places of sojourn during his joyous and shining pilgrimagethrough the world, Trinity, and Trinity alone, had any share with hishome in Macaulay's affection and loyalty. To the last he regarded it asan ancient Greek, or a mediaeval Italian, felt towards his native city. As long as he had place and standing there, he never left it willinglyor returned to it without delight. The only step in his course about thewisdom of which he sometimes expressed misgiving was his preference ofa London to a Cambridge life. The only dignity that in his later days hewas known to covet was an honorary fellowship, which would have allowedhim again to look through his window upon the college grass-plots, and to sleep within sound of the splashing of the fountain; again tobreakfast on commons, and dine beneath the portraits of Newton and Baconon the dais of the hall; again to ramble by moonlight round Neville'scloister, discoursing the picturesque but somewhat exoteric philosophywhich it pleased him to call by the name of metaphysics. From the doorof his rooms, along the wall of the Chapel, there runs a flagged pathwaywhich affords an acceptable relief from the rugged pebbles that surroundit. Here as a Bachelor of Arts he would walk, book in hand, morningafter morning throughout the long vacation, reading with the sameeagerness and the same rapidity whether the volume was the most abstruseof treatises, the loftiest of poems, or the flimsiest of novels. Thatwas the spot where in his failing years he specially loved to renewthe feelings of the past; and some there are who can never revisit itwithout the fancy that there, if anywhere, his dear shade must linger. 

He was fortunate in his contemporaries. Among his intimate friends werethe two Coleridges--Derwent, the son, and Henry Nelson, who was destinedto be the son-in-law of the poet; and how exceptional that destiny wasthe readers of Sara Coleridge's letters are now aware. Hyde Villiers, whom an untimely death alone prevented from taking an equal place ina trio of distinguished brothers, was of his year, though not of hiscollege. [Lord Clarendon, and his brothers, were all Johnians. ] In theyear below were the young men who now bear the titles of Lord Grey, LordBelper, and Lord Romilly; [This paragraph was written in the summer of1874. Three of Macaulay's old college friends, Lord Romilly, Moultrie, and Charles Austin, died, in the hard winter that followed, within a fewdays of each other. ] and after the same interval came Moultrie, who inhis "Dream of Life, " with a fidelity which he himself pronounced to havebeen obtained at some sacrifice of grace, has told us how the heroes ofhis time looked and lived, and Charles Villiers, who still delights ourgeneration by showing us how they talked. Then there was Praed, freshfrom editing the Etonian, as a product of collective boyish effortunique in its literary excellence and variety; and Sidney Walker, Praed's gifted school fellow, whose promise was blighted by prematuredecay of powers; and Charles Austin, whose fame would now be more inproportion to his extraordinary abilities, had not his unparalleledsuccess as an advocate tempted him before his day to retire from thetoils of a career of whose rewards he already had enough. 

With his vigour and fervour, his depth of knowledge and breadthof humour, his close reasoning illustrated by an expansiveimagination, --set off, as these gifts were, by the advantage, at thatperiod of life so irresistible, of some experience of the world at homeand abroad, --Austin was indeed a king among his fellows. 

 "Grave, sedate, And (if the looks may indicate the age, ) Our senior some few years; no keener wit, No intellect more subtle, none more bold, Was found in all our host. "

So writes Moultrie, and the testimony of his verse is borne out byJohn Stuart Mill's prose. "The impression he gave was that of boundlessstrength, together with talents which, combined with such apparentforce of will and character, seemed capable of dominating the world. "He certainly was the only man who ever succeeded in dominating Macaulay. Brimming over with ideas that were soon to be known by the name ofUtilitarian, a panegyrist of American institutions, and an unsparingassailant of ecclesiastical endowments and hereditary privileges, heeffectually cured the young undergraduate of his Tory opinions, whichwere never more than skin deep, and brought him nearer to Radicalismthan he ever was before or since. The report of this conversion, ofwhich the most was made by ill-natured tale-bearers who met with moreencouragement than they deserved, created some consternation in thefamily circle; while the reading set at Cambridge was duly scandalisedat the influence which one, whose classical attainments were ratherdiscursive than exact, had gained over a Craven scholar. To this hourmen may be found in remote parsonages who mildly resent the fascinationwhich Austin of Jesus exercised over Macaulay of Trinity. [It was atthis period of his career that Macaulay said to the late Mr. HampdenGurney: "Gurney, I have been a Tory, I am a Radical; _but I never willbe a Whig_. "]

The day and the night together were too short for one who was enteringon the journey of life amidst such a band of travellers. So long as adoor was open, or a light burning, in any of the courts, Macaulay wasalways in the mood for conversation and companionship. Unfailing in hisattendance at lecture and chapel, blameless with regard to college lawsand college discipline, it was well for his virtue that no curfew was inforce within the precincts of Trinity. He never tired of recalling thedays when he supped at midnight on milk-punch and roast turkey, dranktea in floods at an hour when older men are intent upon anything ratherthan on the means of keeping themselves awake, and made little ofsitting over the fire till the bell rang for morning chapel in orderto see a friend off by the early coach. In the license of the summervacation, after some prolonged and festive gathering, the whole partywould pour out into the moonlight, and ramble for mile after milethrough the country, till the noise of their wide-flowing talk mingledwith the twittering of the birds in the hedges which bordered the Cotonpathway or the Madingley road. On such occasions it must have been wellworth the loss of sleep to hear Macaulay plying Austin with sarcasmsupon the doctrine of the Greatest Happiness, which then had still somegloss of novelty; putting into an ever-fresh shape the time-honouredjokes against the Johnians for the benefit of the Villierses; and urgingan interminable debate on Wordsworth's merits as a poet, in whichthe Coleridges, as in duty bound, were ever ready to engage. In thisparticular field he acquired a skill of fence which rendered him themost redoubtable of antagonists. Many years afterwards, at the time whenthe Prelude was fresh from the press, he was maintaining against theopinion of a large and mixed society that the poem was unreadable. Atlast, overborne by the united indignation of so many of Wordsworth'sadmirers, he agreed that the question should be referred to the testof personal experience; and on inquiry it was discovered that the onlyindividual present who had got through the Prelude was Macaulay himself. 

It is not only that the witnesses of these scenes unanimously declarethat they have never since heard such conversation in the most renownedof social circles. The partiality of a generous young man for trustedand admired companions may well colour his judgment over the space ofeven half a century. But the estimate of university contemporarieswas abundantly confirmed by the outer world. While on a visit to LordLansdowne at Bowood, years after they had left Cambridge, Austin andMacaulay happened to get upon college topics one morning at breakfast. When the meal was finished they drew their chairs to either end of thechimney-piece, and talked at each other across the hearth-rug as ifthey were in a first-floor room in the Old Court of Trinity. The wholecompany, ladies, artists, politicians, and diners-out, formed a silentcircle round the two Cantabs, and, with a short break for lunch, neverstirred till the bell warned them that it was time to dress for dinner. 

It has all irrevocably perished. With life before them, and each intenton his own future, none among that troop of friends had the mind to playBoswell to the others. One repartee survives, thrown off in the heatof discussion, but exquisitely perfect in all its parts. Acknowledgedwithout dissent to be the best applied quotation that ever was madewithin five miles of the Fitzwilliam Museum, it is unfortunately toostrictly classical for reproduction in these pages. 

We are more easily consoled for the loss of the eloquence which thenflowed so full and free in the debates of the Cambridge Union. In 1820that Society was emerging from a period of tribulation and repression. The authorities of the university, who, as old constituents of Mr. Pittand warm supporters of Lord Liverpool, had never been very muchinclined to countenance the practice of political discussion among theundergraduates, set their faces against it more than ever at an epochwhen the temper of the time increased the tendency of young men to runinto extremes of partisanship. At length a compromise was extorted fromthe reluctant hands of the Vice-Chancellor, and the Club was allowedto take into consideration public affairs of a date anterior to thecentury. It required less ingenuity than the leaders of the Union had attheir command to hit upon a method of dealing with the present under theguise of the past. Motions were framed that reflected upon the existingGovernment under cover of a censure on the Cabinets of the previousgeneration. Resolutions which called upon the meeting to declare thatthe boon of Catholic Emancipation should have been granted in the year1795, or that our Commercial Policy previous to 1800 should have beenfounded on the basis of Free Trade, were clearly susceptible of greatlatitude of treatment. And, again, in its character of a reading club, the Society, when assembled for the conduct of private business, wasat liberty to review the political creed of the journals of the day inorder to decide which of them it should take in, and which it shoulddiscontinue. The Examiner newspaper was the flag of many a hard-foughtbattle; the Morning Chronicle was voted in and out of the roomshalf-a-dozen times within a single twelvemonth; while a series ofimpassioned speeches on the burning question of interference in behalfof Greek Independence were occasioned by a proposition of Malden's "that'e Ellenike salpigks' do lie upon the table. "

At the close of the debates, which were held in a large room at the backof the Red Lion in Petty Cury, the most prominent members met for supperin the Hotel, or at Moultrie's lodgings, which were situated close athand. They acted as a self-appointed Standing Committee, which watchedover the general interests of the Union, and selected candidates whomthey put in nomination for its offices. The Society did not boast aHansard;--an omission which, as time went on, some among its orators hadno reason to regret. Faint recollections still survive of a discussionupon the august topic of the character of George the Third. "To whomdo we owe it, " asked Macaulay, "that while Europe was convulsed withanarchy and desolated with war, England alone remained tranquil, prosperous, and secure? To whom but the Good Old King? Why was it that, when neighbouring capitals were perishing in the flames, our own wasilluminated only for triumphs? [This debate evidently made some noise inthe university world. There is an allusion to it in a squib of Praed's, very finished and elegant, and beyond all doubt contemporary. Thepassage relating to Macaulay begins with the lines--"Then the favouritecomes with his trumpets and drums, And his arms and his metaphorscrossed. "] You may find the cause in the same three words: the Good OldKing. " Praed, on the other hand, would allow his late monarch neitherpublic merits nor private virtues. "A good man! If he had been a plaincountry gentleman with no wider opportunities for mischief, he would atleast have bullied his footmen and cheated his steward. "

Macaulay's intense enjoyment of all that was stirring and vivid aroundhim undoubtedly hindered him in the race for university honours; thoughhis success was sufficient to inspirit him at the time, and to give himabiding pleasure in the retrospect. He twice gained the Chancellor'smedal for English verse, with poems admirably planned, and containingpassages of real beauty, but which may not be republished in the teethof the panegyric which, within ten years after they were written, hepronounced upon Sir Roger Newdigate. Sir Roger had laid down the rulethat no exercise sent in for the prize which he established at Oxfordwas to exceed fifty lines. This law, says Macaulay, seems to have morefoundation in reason than is generally the case with a literary canon, "for the world, we believe, is pretty well agreed in thinking that theshorter a prize poem is, the better. "

Trinity men find it difficult to understand how it was that he missedgetting one of the three silver goblets given for the best EnglishDeclamations of the year. If there is one thing which all Macaulay'sfriends, and all his enemies, admit, it is that he could declaimEnglish. His own version of the affair was that the Senior Dean, arelative of the victorious candidate, sent for him and said: "Mr. Macaulay, as you have not got the first cup, I do not suppose that youwill care for either of the others. " He was consoled, however, by theprize for Latin Declamation; and in 1821 he established his classicalrepute by winning a Craven University scholarship in company with hisfriend Malden, and Mr. George Long, who preceded Malden as Professor ofGreek at University College, London. 

Macaulay detested the labour of manufacturing Greek and Latin verse incold blood as an exercise; and his Hexameters were never up to the bestEtonian mark, nor his Iambics to the highest standard of Shrewsbury. Hedefined a scholar as one who reads Plato with his feet on the fender. When already well on in his third year he writes: "I never practisedcomposition a single hour since I have been at Cambridge. " "Soak yourmind with Cicero, " was his constant advice to students at that time oflife when writing Latin prose is the most lucrative of accomplishments. The advantage of this precept was proved in the Fellowship examinationof the year 1824, when he obtained the honour which in his eyes was themost desirable that Cambridge had to give. The delight of the young manat finding himself one of the sixty masters of an ancient and splendidestablishment; the pride with which he signed his first order for thecollege plate, and dined for the first time at the high table in hisown right; the reflection that these privileges were the fruit, notof favour or inheritance, but of personal industry and ability, --werematters on which he loved to dwell long after the world had loadedhim with its most envied prizes. Macaulay's feeling on this point isillustrated by the curious reverence which he cherished for thosejunior members of the college who, some ninety years ago, by a spiritedremonstrance addressed to the governing body, brought about a reform inthe Trinity Fellowship examination that secured to it the character forfair play, and efficiency, which it has ever since enjoyed. In his copyof the Cambridge Calendar for the year 1859, (the last of his life, )throughout the list of the old mathematical Triposes the words "one ofthe eight" appear in his hand-writing opposite the name of each of thesegentlemen. And I can never remember the time when it was not diligentlyimpressed upon me that, if I minded my syntax, I might eventually hopeto reach a position which would give me three hundred pounds a year, astable for my horse, six dozen of audit ale every Christmas, a loaf andtwo pats of butter every morning, and a good dinner for nothing, with asmany almonds and raisins as I could eat at dessert. 

Macaulay was not chosen a Fellow until his last trial, nominally forthe amazing reason that his translations from Greek and Latin, whilefaithfully representing the originals, were rendered into English thatwas ungracefully bald and inornate. The real cause was, beyond alldoubt, his utter neglect of the special study of the place; a libertywhich Cambridge seldom allows to be taken with impunity even by her mostfavoured sons. He used to profess deep and lasting regret for his earlyrepugnance to scientific subjects; but the fervour of his penitence inafter years was far surpassed by the heartiness with which he inveighedagainst mathematics as long as it was his business to learn them. Everyone who knows the Senate House may anticipate the result. When theTripos of 1822 made its appearance, his name did not grace the list. Inshort, to use the expressive vocabulary of the university, Macaulay wasgulfed--a mishap which disabled him from contending for the Chancellor'smedals, then the crowning trophies of a classical career. "I wellremember, " says Lady Trevelyan, "that first trial of my life. We werespending the winter at Brighton when a letter came giving an account ofthe event. I recollect my mother taking me into her room to tell me, foreven then it was known how my whole heart was wrapped up in him, andit was thought necessary to break the news. When your uncle arrived atBrighton, I can recall my mother telling him that he had better go atonce to his father, and get it over, and I can see him as he left theroom on that errand. "

During the same year he engaged in a less arduous competition. A certainMr. Greaves of Fulbourn had long since provided a reward of ten poundsfor "the Junior Bachelor of Trinity College who wrote the best essay onthe Conduct and Character of William the Third. " As the prize is annual, it is appalling to reflect upon the searching analysis to which themotives of that monarch must by this time have been subjected. Theevent, however, may be counted as an encouragement to the foundersof endowments; for, amidst the succession of juvenile critics whoseattention was by his munificence turned in the direction of hisfavourite hero, Mr. Greaves had at last fallen in with the right man. Itis more than probable that to this old Cambridgeshire Whig was due thefirst idea of that History in whose pages William of Orange stands asthe central figure. The essay is still in existence, in a closeneat hand, which twenty years of Reviewing never rendered illegible. Originally written as a fair copy, but so disfigured by repeatedcorrections and additions as to be unfit for the eyes of the collegeauthorities, it bears evident marks of having been held to the flames, and rescued on second, and in this case it will be allowed, on betterthoughts. The exercise, (which is headed by the very appropriate motto, "Primus qui legibus urbem Fundabit, Curibus parvis et paupere terra Missus in imperium magnum, ")

is just such as will very likely be produced in the course of nextEaster term by some young man of judgment and spirit, who knowshis Macaulay by heart, and will paraphrase him without scruple. Thecharacters of James, of Shaftesbury, of William himself; the Popishplot; the struggle over the Exclusion bill; the reaction from Puritanicrigour into the license of the Restoration, are drawn on the same linesand painted in the same colours as those with which the world is nowfamiliar. The style only wants condensation, and a little of the humourwhich he had not yet learned to transfer from his conversation to hiswritings, in order to be worthy of his mature powers. He thus describesWilliam's lifelong enemy and rival, whose name he already spells afterhis own fashion. 

"Lewis was not a great general. He was not a great legislator. But hewas, in one sense of the words, a great king. He was a perfect master ofall the mysteries of the science of royalty, --of all the arts which atonce extend power and conciliate popularity, --which most advantageouslydisplay the merits, or most dexterously conceal the deficiencies, of asovereign. He was surrounded by great men, by victorious commanders, by sagacious statesmen. Yet, while he availed himself to the utmost oftheir services, he never incurred any danger from their rivalry. His wasa talisman which extorted the obedience of the proudest and mightiestspirits. The haughty and turbulent warriors whose contests had agitatedFrance during his minority yielded to the irresistible spell, and, like the gigantic slaves of the ring and lamp of Aladdin, laboured todecorate and aggrandise a master whom they could have crushed. Withincomparable address he appropriated to himself the glory of campaignswhich had been planned, and counsels which had been suggested, byothers. The arms of Turenne were the terror of Europe. The policy ofColbert was the strength of France. But in their foreign successes, andtheir internal prosperity, the people saw only the greatness and wisdomof Lewis. "

In the second chapter of the History much of this is compressed into thesentence: "He had shown, in an eminent degree, two talents invaluable toa prince, --the talent of choosing his servants well, and the talent ofappropriating to himself the chief part of the credit of their acts. "

In a passage that occurs towards the close of the essay may be tracedsomething more than an outline of the peroration in which, a quarterof a century later on, he summed up the character and results of theRevolution of 1688. 

"To have been a sovereign, yet the champion of liberty; a revolutionaryleader, yet the supporter of social order, is the peculiar glory ofWilliam. He knew where to pause. He outraged no national prejudice. Heabolished no ancient form. He altered no venerable name. He saw that theexisting institutions possessed the greatest capabilities of excellence, and that stronger sanctions, and clearer definitions, were alonerequired to make the practice of the British constitution as admirableas the theory. Thus he imparted to innovation the dignity andstability of antiquity. He transferred to a happier order of things theassociations which had attached the people to their former government. As the Roman warrior, before he assaulted Veii, invoked its guardiangods to leave its walls, and to accept the worship and patronise thecause of the besiegers, this great prince, in attacking a system ofoppression, summoned to his aid the venerable principles and deeplyseated feelings to which that system was indebted for protection. "

A letter, written during the latter years of his life, expressesMacaulay's general views on the subject of University honours. "If a manbrings away from Cambridge self-knowledge, accuracy of mind, and habitsof strong intellectual exertion, he has gained more than if he had madea display of showy superficial Etonian scholarship, got three or fourBrowne's medals, and gone forth into the world a schoolboy and doomed tobe a schoolboy to the last. After all, what a man does at Cambridge is, in itself, nothing. If he makes a poor figure in life, his havingbeen Senior Wrangler or University scholar is never mentioned but withderision. If he makes a distinguished figure, his early honours merge inthose of a later date. I hope that I do not overrate my own place in theestimation of society. Such as it is, I would not give a halfpenny toadd to the consideration which I enjoy, all the consideration that Ishould derive from having been Senior Wrangler. But I often regret, andeven acutely, my want of a Senior Wrangler's knowledge of physics andmathematics; and I regret still more some habits of mind which a SeniorWrangler is pretty certain to possess. " Like all men who know what theworld is, he regarded the triumph of a college career as of less valuethan its disappointments. Those are most to be envied who soonest learnto expect nothing for which they have not worked hard, and who neveracquire the habit, (a habit which an unbroken course of Universitysuccesses too surely breeds, ) of pitying themselves overmuch if ever inafter life they happen to work in vain. 

Cambridge: Wednesday. (Post-mark, 1818)

My dear Mother, --King, I am absolutely certain, would take no morepupils on any account. And, even if he would, he has numerous applicantswith prior claims. He has already six, who occupy him six hours in theday, and is likewise lecturer to the college. It would, however, bevery easy to obtain an excellent tutor. Lefevre and Malkin are menof first-rate mathematical abilities, and both of our college. I canscarcely bear to write on Mathematics or Mathematicians. Oh for words toexpress my abomination of that science, if a name sacred to the usefuland embellishing arts may be applied to the perception and recollectionof certain properties in numbers and figures! Oh that I had to learnastrology, or demonology, or school divinity! Oh that I were to poreover Thomas Aquinas, and to adjust the relation of Entity with thetwo Predicaments, so that I were exempted from this miserable study!"Discipline" of the mind! Say rather starvation, confinement, torture, annihilation! But it must be. I feel myself becoming a personificationof Algebra, a living trigonometrical canon, a walking table ofLogarithms. All my perceptions of elegance and beauty gone, or at leastgoing. By the end of the term my brain will be "as dry as the remainderbiscuit after a voyage. " Oh to change Cam for Isis! But such is mydestiny; and, since it is so, be the pursuit contemptible, belowcontempt, or disgusting beyond abhorrence, I shall aim at no secondplace. But three years! I cannot endure the thought. I cannot bearto contemplate what I must have to undergo. Farewell then Homer andSophocles and Cicero. 

 Farewell happy fields Where joy for ever reigns Hail, horrors, hail, Infernal world!

How does it proceed? Milton's descriptions have been driven out of myhead by such elegant expressions as the following

[Long mathematical formula]

My classics must be Woodhouse, and my amusements summing an infiniteseries. Farewell, and tell Selina and Jane to be thankful that it isnot a necessary part of female education to get a headache daily withoutacquiring one practical truth or beautiful image in return. Again, andwith affectionate love to my Father, farewell wishes your most miserableand mathematical son

T. B. MACAULAY. 

Cambridge: November 9, 1818. 

My dear Father, --Your letter, which I read with the greatest pleasure, is perfectly safe from all persons who could make a bad use of it. TheEmperor Alexander's plans as detailed in the conversation between himand Clarkson [Thomas Clarkson, the famous assailant of slavery. ]are almost superhuman; and tower as much above the common hopes andaspirations of philanthropists as the statue which his Macedoniannamesake proposed to hew out of Mount Athos excelled the most colossalworks of meaner projectors. As Burke said of Henry the Fourth'swish that every peasant in France might have the chicken in his potcomfortably on a Sunday, we may say of these mighty plans, "The merewish, the unfulfilled desire, exceeded all that we hear of the splendidprofessions and exploits of princes. " Yet my satisfaction in the successof that noble cause in which the Emperor seems to be exerting himselfwith so much zeal is scarcely so great as my regret for the man whowould have traced every step of its progress with anxiety, and hailedits success with the most ardent delight. Poor Sir Samuel Romilly!Quando ullum invenient parem? How long may a penal code at once toosanguinary and too lenient, half written in blood like Draco's, andhalf undefined and loose as the common law of a tribe of savages, be thecurse and disgrace of the country? How many years may elapse before aman who knows like him all that law can teach, and possesses at the sametime like him a liberality and a discernment of general rights whichthe technicalities of professional learning rather tend to blunt, shallagain rise to ornament and reform our jurisprudence? For such a man, ifhe had fallen in the maturity of years and honours, and been borne fromthe bed of sickness to a grave by the side of his prototype Hale amidstthe tears of nobles and senators, even then, I think, the public sorrowwould have been extreme. But that the last moments of an existence ofhigh thoughts and great virtues should have been passed as his werepassed! In my feelings the scene at Claremont [The death of PrincessCharlotte. ] this time last year was mere dust in the balance incomparison. 

Ever your affectionate son, T. B. M. 

Cambridge: Friday, February 5, 1819. 

My dear Father, --I have not of course had time to examine with attentionall your criticisms on Pompeii. [The subject of the English poem for theChancellor's prize of 1819 was the Destruction of Pompeii. ] I certainlyam much obliged to you for withdrawing so much time from more importantbusiness to correct my effusions. Most of the remarks which I haveexamined are perfectly just; but as to the more momentous charge, thewant of a moral, I think it might be a sufficient defence that, if asubject is given which admits of none, the man who writes without amoral is scarcely censurable. But is it the real fact that no literaryemployment is estimable or laudable which does not lead to the spreadof moral truth or the excitement of virtuous feeling? Books of amusementtend to polish the mind, to improve the style, to give variety toconversation, and to lend a grace to more important accomplishments. Hewho can effect this has surely done something. Is no useful end servedby that writer whose works have soothed weeks of languor and sickness, have relieved the mind exhausted from the pressure of employment by anamusement which delights without enervating, which relaxes the tensionof the powers without rendering them unfit for future exercise? I shouldnot be surprised to see these observations refuted; and I shall not besorry if they are so. I feel personally little interest in the question. If my life be a life of literature, it shall certainly be one ofliterature directed to moral ends. 

At all events let us be consistent. I was amused in turning over an oldvolume of the Christian Observer to find a gentleman signing himselfExcubitor, (one of our antagonists in the question of novel-reading, )after a very pious argument on the hostility of novels to a religiousframe of mind, proceeding to observe that he was shocked to hear ayoung lady who had displayed extraordinary knowledge of modern ephemeralliterature own herself ignorant of Dryden's fables! Consistency witha vengeance! The reading of modern poetry and novels excites a worldlydisposition and prevents ladies from reading Dryden's fables! There is ageneral disposition among the more literary part of the religious worldto cry down the elegant literature of our own times, while they arenot in the slightest degree shocked at atrocious profaneness or grossindelicacy when a hundred years have stamped them with the titleof classical. I say: "If you read Dryden you can have no reasonableobjection to reading Scott. " The strict antagonist of ephemeral readingexclaims, "Not so. Scott's poems are very pernicious. They call away themind from spiritual religion, and from Tancred and Sigismunda. " But Iam exceeding all ordinary limits. If these hasty remarks fatigue you, impute it to my desire of justifying myself from a charge which I shouldbe sorry to incur with justice. Love to all at home. 

Affectionately yours, T. B. M. 

With or without a moral, the poem carried the day. The subject for thenext year was Waterloo. The opening lines of Macaulay's exercisewere pretty and simple enough to ruin his chance in an academicalcompetition. 

 It was the Sabbath morn. How calm and fair Is the blest dawning of the day of prayer! Who hath not felt how fancy's mystic power With holier beauty decks that solemn hour; A softer lustre in its sunshine sees; And hears a softer music in its breeze? Who hath not dreamed that even the skylark's throat Hails that sweet morning with a gentler note? Fair morn, how gaily shone thy dawning smile On the green valleys of my native isle! How gladly many a spire's resounding height With peals of transport hailed thy newborn light! Ah! little thought the peasant then, who blest The peaceful hour of consecrated rest, And heard the rustic Temple's arch prolong The simple cadence of the hallowed song, That the same sun illumed a gory field, Where wilder song and sterner music pealed; Where many a yell unholy rent the air, And many a hand was raised, --but not in prayer. 

The prize fell to a man of another college, and Trinity comforted itselfby inventing a story to the effect that the successful candidate had runaway from the battle. 

In the summer of 1819 there took place a military affair, lessattractive than Waterloo as a theme for poets, but which, as far as thiscountry is concerned, has proved even more momentous in its ultimateconsequences. On the 16th of August a Reform demonstration was arrangedat Manchester resembling those which were common in the Northerndistricts during the year 1866, except that in 1819 women formed animportant element in the procession. A troop of yeomanry, and afterwardstwo squadrons of hussars, were sent in among the crowd, which wasassembled in St. Peter's Fields, the site on which the Free Trade Hallnow stands. The men used their swords freely, and the horses theirhoofs. The people, who meant anything but fighting, trampled each otherdown in the attempt to escape. Five or six lives were lost, and fifty orsixty persons were badly hurt; but the painful impression wrought uponthe national conscience was well worth the price. British blood hasnever since been shed by British hands in any civic contest that roseabove the level of a lawless riot. The immediate result, however, wasto concentrate and embitter party feeling. The grand jury threw outthe bills against the yeomen, and found true bills against the popularorators who had called the meeting together. The Common Councilmen ofthe City of London, who had presented an Address to the Prince Regentreflecting upon the conduct of the Government, were roundly rebukedfor their pains. Earl Fitzwilliam was dismissed from the office of LordLieutenant, for taking part in a Yorkshire county gathering which hadpassed resolutions in the same sense as the Address from the City. Onthe other hand, a Peterloo medal was struck, which is still treasuredin such Manchester families as have not learned to be ashamed of the oldManchester politics. 

In this heated state of the political atmosphere the expiring Toryismof the Anti-Slavery leaders flamed up once again. "I declare, " saidWilberforce, "my greatest cause of difference with the democrats istheir laying, and causing people to lay, so great a stress on theconcerns of this world as to occupy their whole minds and hearts, andto leave a few scanty and lukewarm thoughts for the heavenly treasure. "Zachary Macaulay, who never canted, and who knew that on the 16th ofAugust the Manchester Magistrates were thinking just as much or aslittle about religion as the Manchester populace, none the less tookthe same side as Wilberforce. Having formed for himself, by observationsmade on the spot, a decided opinion that the authorities ought to besupported, he was much disturbed by reports which came to him fromCambridge. 

September, 1819. 

My dear Father, --My mother's letter, which has just arrived, has givenme much concern. The letter which has, I am sorry to learn, given youand her uneasiness was written rapidly and thoughtlessly enough, but canscarcely, I think, as far as I remember its tenour, justify some of theextraordinary inferences which it has occasioned. I can only assure youmost solemnly that I am not initiated into any democratical societieshere, and that I know no people who make politics a common or frequenttopic of conversation, except one man who is a determined Tory. It istrue that this Manchester business has roused some indignation here, asat other places, and drawn philippics against the powers that be fromlips which I never heard opened before but to speak on universitycontests or university scandal. For myself I have long made it a rulenever to talk on politics except in the most general manner; and Ibelieve that my most intimate associates have no idea of my opinionson the questions of party. I can scarcely be censured, I think, forimparting them to you;--which, however, I should scarcely have thoughtof doing, (so much is my mind occupied with other concerns, ) hadnot your letter invited me to state my sentiments on the Manchesterbusiness. 

I hope that this explanation will remove some of your uneasiness. Asto my opinions, I have no particular desire to vindicate them. They aremerely speculative, and therefore cannot partake of the nature of moralculpability. They are early formed, and I am not solicitous that youshould think them superior to those of most people at eighteen. I will, however, say this in their defence. Whatever the affectionate alarm ofmy dear mother may lead her to apprehend, I am not one of the "sons ofanarchy and confusion" with whom she classes me. My opinions, good orbad, were learnt, not from Hunt and Waithman, but from Cicero, fromTacitus, and from Milton. They are the opinions which have producedmen who have ornamented the world, and redeemed human nature from thedegradation of ages of superstition and slavery. I may be wrong as tothe facts of what occurred at Manchester; but, if they be what I haveseen them stated, I can never repent speaking of them with indignation. When I cease to feel the injuries of others warmly, to detest wantoncruelty, and to feel my soul rise against oppression, I shall thinkmyself unworthy to be your son. 

I could say a great deal more. Above all I might, I think, ask, withsome reason, why a few democratical sentences in a letter, a privateletter, of a collegian of eighteen, should be thought so alarming anindication of character, when Brougham and other people, who at an agewhich ought to have sobered them talk with much more violence, arenot thought particularly ill of? But I have so little room left that Iabstain, and will only add thus much. Were my opinions as decisive asthey are fluctuating, and were the elevation of a Cromwell or the renownof a Hampden the certain reward of my standing forth in the democraticcause, I would rather have my lips sealed on the subject than give mymother or you one hour of uneasiness. There are not so many people inthe world who love me that I can afford to pain them for any object ofambition which it contains. If this assurance be not sufficient, clotheit in what language you please, and believe me to express myself inthose words which you think the strongest and most solemn. Affectionatelove to my mother and sisters. Farewell. 

T. B. M. 

Cambridge: January 5, 1820. 

My dear Father, --Nothing that gives you disquietude can give meamusement. Otherwise I should have been excessively diverted by thedialogue which you have reported with so much vivacity; the accusation;the predictions; and the elegant agnomen of "the novel-reader" for whichI am indebted to this incognito. I went in some amazement to Malden, Romilly, and Barlow. Their acquaintance comprehends, I will venture tosay, almost every man worth knowing in the university in every field ofstudy. They had never heard the appellation applied to me by any man. Their intimacy with me would of course prevent any person from speakingto them on the subject in an insulting manner; for it is not usual here, whatever your unknown informant may do, for a gentleman who does notwish to be kicked downstairs to reply to a man who mentions another ashis particular friend, "Do you mean the blackguard or the novel-reader?"But I am fully convinced that had the charge prevailed to any extent itmust have reached the ears of one of those whom I interrogated. At allevents I have the consolation of not being thought a novel-reader bythree or four who are entitled to judge upon the subject, and whethertheir opinion be of equal value with that of this John-a-Nokes againstwhom I have to plead I leave you to decide. 

But stronger evidence, it seems, is behind. This gentleman was incompany with me. Alas that I should never have found out how accuratean observer was measuring my sentiments, numbering the novels which Icriticised, and speculating on the probability of my being plucked. "Iwas familiar with all the novels whose names he had ever heard. " If sofrightful an accusation did not stun me at once, I might perhaps hintat the possibility that this was to be attributed almost as much tothe narrowness of his reading on this subject as to the extent of mine. There are men here who are mere mathematical blocks; who plod on theireight hours a day to the honours of the Senate House; who leave thegroves which witnessed the musings of Milton, of Bacon, and of Gray, without one liberal idea or elegant image, and carry with them into theworld minds contracted by unmingled attention to one part of science, and memories stored only with technicalities. How often have I seensuch men go forth into society for people to stare at them, and ask eachother how it comes that beings so stupid in conversation, so uninformedon every subject of history, of letters, and of taste, could gain suchdistinction at Cambridge!

It is in such circles, which, I am happy to say, I hardly know but byreport, that knowledge of modern literature is called novel-reading; acommodious name, invented by ignorance and applied by envy, in the samemanner as men without learning call a scholar a pedant, and men withoutprinciple call a Christian a Methodist. To me the attacks of such menare valuable as compliments. The man whose friend tells him that he isknown to be extensively acquainted with elegant literature may suspectthat he is flattering him; but he may feel real and secure satisfactionwhen some Johnian sneers at him for a novel-reader. [My uncle was fondof telling us how he would walk miles out of Cambridge in order to meetthe coach which brought the last new Waverley novel. ]

As to the question whether or not I am wasting time, I shall leave thatfor time to answer. I cannot afford to sacrifice a day every week indefence and explanation as to my habits of reading. I value, most deeplyvalue, that solicitude which arises from your affection for me; butlet it not debar me from justice and candour. Believe me ever, my dearFather, Your most affectionate son, T. B. M. 

The father and son were in sympathy upon what, at this distance of time, appears as the least inviting article of the Whig creed. They were bothpartisans of the Queen. Zachary Macaulay was inclined in her favour bysentiments alike of friendship, and of the most pardonable resentment. Brougham, her illustrious advocate, had for ten years been the main hopeand stay of the movement against Slavery and the Slave Trade; while theJohn Bull, whose special mission it was to write her down, honoured theAbolitionist party with its declared animosity. However full its columnsmight be of libels upon the honour of the wives and daughters of Whigstatesmen, it could always find room for calumnies against Mr. Macaulaywhich in ingenuity of fabrication, and in cruelty of intention, were conspicuous even among the contents of the most discreditablepublication that ever issued from the London press. When Queen Carolinelanded from the Continent in June 1820 the young Trinity undergraduategreeted her Majesty with a complimentary ode, which certainly littleresembled those effusions that, in the old courtly days, an Universitywas accustomed to lay at the feet of its Sovereign. The piece has noliterary value, and is curious only as reflecting the passion of thehour. The first and last stanzas run as follows:--

 Let mirth on every visage shine And glow in every soul. Bring forth, bring forth, the oldest wine, And crown the largest bowl. Bear to her home, while banners fly From each resounding steeple, And rockets sparkle in the sky, The Daughter of the People. E'en here, for one triumphant day, Let want and woe be dumb, And bonfires blaze, and schoolboys play. Thank Heaven, our Queen is come. 

 * * * *

 Though tyrant hatred still denies Each right that fits thy station, To thee a people's love supplies A nobler coronation; A coronation all unknown To Europe's royal vermin; For England's heart shall be thy throne, And purity thine ermine; Thy Proclamation our applause, Applause denied to some; Thy crown our love; thy shield our laws. Thank Heaven, our Queen is come!

Early in November, warned by growing excitement outside the House ofLords, and by dwindling majorities within, Lord Liverpool announcedthat the King's Ministers had come to the determination not to proceedfurther with the Bill of Pains and Penalties. The joy which thisdeclaration spread through the country has been described as "beyond thescope of record. "

Cambridge: November 13, 1820. 

My dear Father, --All here is ecstasy. "Thank God, the country is saved, "were my first words when I caught a glimpse of the papers of Fridaynight. "Thank God, the country is saved, " is written on every face andechoed by every voice. Even the symptoms of popular violence, three daysago so terrific, are now displayed with good humour and received withcheerfulness. Instead of curses on the Lords, on every post and everywall is written, "All is as it should be;" "Justice done at last;" andsimilar mottoes expressive of the sudden turn of public feeling. How thecase may stand in London I do not know; but here the public danger, like all dangers which depend merely on human opinions and feelings, has disappeared from our sight almost in the twinkling of an eye. I hopethat the result of these changes may be the secure reestablishmentof our commerce, which I suppose political apprehension must havecontributed to depress. I hope, at least, that there is no danger to ourown fortunes of the kind at which you seem to hint. Be assured however, my dear Father, that, be our circumstances what they may, I feel firmlyprepared to encounter the worst with fortitude, and to do my utmost toretrieve it by exertion. The best inheritance you have already securedto me, --an unblemished name and a good education. And for therest, whatever calamities befall us, I would not, to speak withoutaffectation, exchange adversity consoled, as with us it must ever be, by mutual affection and domestic happiness, for anything which can bepossessed by those who are destitute of the kindness of parents andsisters like mine. But I think, on referring to your letter, that Iinsist too much upon the signification of a few words. I hope so, andtrust that everything will go well. But it is chapel time, and I mustconclude. 

Ever most affectionately yours, T. B. MACAULAY. 

Trin. Coll. : March 25, 1821. 

My dear Mother, --I entreat you to entertain no apprehensions about myhealth. My fever, cough, and sore-throat have all disappeared for thelast four days. Many thanks for your intelligence about poor dear John'srecovery, which has much exhilarated me. Yet I do not know whetherillness to him is not rather a prerogative than an evil. I am sure thatit is well worth while being sick to be nursed by a mother. There isnothing which I remember with such pleasure as the time when you nursedme at Aspenden. The other night, when I lay on my sofa very ill andhypochondriac, I was thinking over that time. How sick, and sleepless, and weak I was, lying in bed, when I was told that you were come! Howwell I remember with what an ecstasy of joy I saw that face approachingme, in the middle of people that did not care if I died that nightexcept for the trouble of burying me! The sound of your voice, the touchof your hand, are present to me now, and will be, I trust in God, tomy last hour. The very thought of these things invigorated me the otherday; and I almost blessed the sickness and low spirits which broughtbefore me associated images of a tenderness and an affection, which, however imperfectly repaid, are deeply remembered. Such scenes and suchrecollections are the bright half of human nature and human destiny. Allobjects of ambition, all rewards of talent, sink into nothingcompared with that affection which is independent of good or adversecircumstances, excepting that it is never so ardent, so delicate, or sotender as in the hour of languor or distress. But I must stop. I had nointention of pouring out on paper what I am much more used to think thanto express. Farewell, my dear Mother. 

Ever yours affectionately, T. B. MACAULAY. 

Macaulay liked Cambridge too well to spend the long vacation elsewhereexcept under strong compulsion; but in 1821, with the terrors of theMathematical Tripos already close at hand, he was persuaded into joininga reading party in Wales with a Mr. Bird as tutor. Eardley Childers, thefather of the statesman of that name, has preserved a pleasant littlememorial of the expedition. 

To Charles Smith Bird, Eardley Childers, Thos. B. Macaulay, WilliamClayton Walters, Geo. B. Paley, Robert Jarratt, Thos. Jarratt, EdwinKempson, Ebenezer Ware, Wm. Cornwall, John Greenwood, J. Lloyd, and Jno. Wm. Gleadall, Esquires. 

Gentlemen, --We the undersigned, for ourselves and the inhabitants ingeneral of the town of Llanrwst in the county of Denbigh, consider itour duty to express to you the high sense we entertain of your generalgood conduct and demeanour during your residence here, and we assureyou that we view with much regret the period of your separation anddeparture from amongst us. We are very sensible of the obligation weare under for your uniformly benevolent and charitable exertionsupon several public occasions, and we feel peculiar pleasure in thustendering to you individually our gratitude and thanks. 

Wishing you all possible prosperity and happiness in your futureavocations, we subscribe ourselves with unfeigned respect, Gentlemen, Your most obedient servants, REV. JOHN TILTEY, &c. , &c. 

(25 signatures. )

In one respect Macaulay hardly deserved his share of this eulogium. Ascheme was on foot in the town to found an auxiliary branch of the BibleSociety. A public meeting was called, and Mr. Bird urged his eloquentpupil to aid the project with a specimen of Union rhetoric. Macaulay, however, had had enough of the Bible Society at Clapham, and sturdilyrefused to come forward as its champion at Llanrwst. 

Llanrwst: July--, 1821. 

My dear Mother, --You see I know not how to date my letter. My calendarin this sequestered spot is as irregular as Robinson Crusoe's after hehad missed one day in his calculation. I have no intelligence to sendyou, unless a battle between a drunken attorney and an impudent publicanwhich took place here yesterday may deserve the appellation. You mayperhaps be more interested to hear that I sprained my foot, and am justrecovering from the effects of the accident by means of opodeldoc whichI bought at the tinker's. For all trades and professions here lie in amost delightful confusion. The druggist sells hats; the shoemaker is thesole bookseller, if that dignity may be allowed him on the strength ofthe three Welsh Bibles, and the guide to Caernarvon, which adorn hiswindow; ink is sold by the apothecary; the grocer sells ropes, (acommodity which, I fear, I shall require before my residence here isover, ) and tooth-brushes. A clothes-brush is a luxury yet unknown toLlanrwst. As to books, for want of any other English literature, Iintend to learn Paradise Lost by heart at odd moments. But I mustconclude. Write to me often, my dear Mother, and all of you at home, oryou may have to answer for my drowning myself, like Gray's bard, in "OldConway's foaming flood, " which is most conveniently near for so poeticalan exit. 

Ever most affectionately yours, T. B. M. 

Llanrwst: August 32, 1821. 

My dear Father, --I have just received your letter, and cannot but feelconcerned at the tone of it. I do not think it quite fair to attack mefor filling my letters with remarks on the King's Irish expedition. Ithas been the great event of this part of the world. I was at Bangorwhen he sailed. His bows, and the Marquis of Anglesea's fete, were theuniversal subjects of conversation; and some remarks on the businesswere as natural from me as accounts of the coronation from you inLondon. In truth I have little else to say. I see nothing that connectsme with the world except the newspapers. I get up, breakfast, read, playat quoits, and go to bed. This is the history of my life. It will do forevery day of the last fortnight. 

As to the King, I spoke of the business, not at all as a political, but as a moral question, --as a point of correct feeling and of privatedecency. If Lord were to issue tickets for a gala ball immediatelyafter receiving intelligence of the sudden death of his divorced wife, Ishould say the same. I pretend to no great insight into party politics;but the question whether it is proper for any man to mingle infestivities while his wife's body lies unburied is one, I confess, whichI thought myself competent to decide. But I am not anxious about thefate of my remarks, which I have quite forgot, and which, I dare say, were very foolish. To me it is of little importance whether the King'sconduct were right or wrong; but it is of great importance that thosewhom I love should not think me a precipitate, silly, shallow sciolistin politics, and suppose that every frivolous word that falls from mypen is a dogma which I mean to advance as indisputable; and all thisonly because I write to them without reserve; only because I love themwell enough to trust them with every idea which suggests itself to me. In fact, I believe that I am not more precipitate or presumptuous thanother people, but only more open. You cannot be more fully convincedthan I am how contracted my means are of forming a judgment. If I choseto weigh every word that I uttered or wrote to you, and, whenever Ialluded to politics, were to labour and qualify my expressions as if Iwere drawing up a state paper, my letters might be a great deal wiser, but would not be such letters as I should wish to receive from thosewhom I loved. Perfect love, we are told, casteth out fear. If I say, as I know I do, a thousand wild and inaccurate things, and employexaggerated expressions about persons or events in writing to you orto my mother, it is not, I believe, that I want power to systematise myideas or to measure my expressions, but because I have no objection toletting you see my mind in dishabille. I have a court dress for days ofceremony and people of ceremony, nevertheless. But I would not willinglybe frightened into wearing it with you; and I hope you do not wish me todo so. 

Ever yours, T. B. M. 

To hoax a newspaper has, time out of mind, been the special ambition ofundergraduate wit. In the course of 1821 Macaulay sent to the MorningPost a burlesque copy of verses, entitled "Tears of Sensibility. " Theeditor fell an easy victim, but unfortunately did not fall alone. 

 No pearl of ocean is so sweet As that in my Zuleika's eye. No earthly jewel can compete With tears of sensibility. 

 Like light phosphoric on the billow, Or hermit ray of evening sky, Like ripplings round a weeping willow Are tears of sensibility. 

 Like drops of Iris-coloured fountains By which Endymion loved to lie, Like dew-gems on untrodden mountains Are tears of sensibility. 

 While Zephyr broods o'er moonlight rill The flowerets droop as if to die, And from their chaliced cup distil The tears of sensibility. 

 The heart obdurate never felt One link of Nature's magic tie If ne'er it knew the bliss to melt In tears of sensibility. 

 The generous and the gentle heart Is like that balmy Indian tree Which scatters from the wounded part The tears of sensibility. 

 Then oh! ye Fair, if Pity's ray E'er taught your snowy breasts to sigh, Shed o'er my contemplative lay The tears of sensibility. 

November 2, 1821. 

My dear Mother, --I possess some of the irritability of a poet, andit has been a good deal awakened by your criticisms. I could not haveimagined that it would have been necessary for me to have said that theexecrable trash entitled "Tears of Sensibility" was merely a burlesqueon the style of the magazine verses of the day. I could not suppose thatyou could have suspected me of _seriously_ composing such a farragoof false metaphor and unmeaning epithet. It was meant solely for acaricature on the style of the poetasters of newspapers and journals;and, (though I say it who should not say it, ) has excited more attentionand received more praise at Cambridge than it deserved. If you haveit, read it over again, and do me the justice to believe that such acompound of jargon, nonsense, false images, and exaggerated sentiment, is not the product of my serious labours. I sent it to the MorningPost, because that paper is the ordinary receptacle of trash of thedescription which I intended to ridicule, and its admission thereforepointed the jest. I see, however, that for the future I must mark moredistinctly when I intend to be ironical. 

Your affectionate son

T. B. M. 

Cambridge: July 26, 1822. 

My dear Father, --I have been engaged to take two pupils for nine monthsof the next year. They are brothers, whose father, a Mr. Stoddart, resides at Cambridge. I am to give them an hour a day, each; and am toreceive a hundred guineas. It gives me great pleasure to be able even inthis degree to relieve you from the burden of my expenses here. I beginmy tutorial labours to-morrow. My pupils are young, one being fifteenand the other thirteen years old, but I hear excellent accounts of theirproficiency, and I intend to do my utmost for them. Farewell. 

T. B. M. 

A few days later on he writes "I do not dislike teaching whether it isthat I am more patient than I had imagined, or that I have not yet hadtime to grow tired of my new vocation. I find, also, what at first sightmay appear paradoxical, that I read much more in consequence, and thatthe regularity of habits necessarily produced by a periodical employmentwhich cannot be procrastinated fully compensates for the loss of thetime which is consumed in tuition. "

Trinity College, Cambridge: October 1, 1824. 

My dear Father, --I was elected Fellow this morning, shall be sworn into-morrow, and hope to leave Cambridge on Tuesday for Rothley Temple. The examiners speak highly of the manner in which I acquitted myself, and I have reason to believe that I stood first of the candidates. 

I need not say how much I am delighted by my success, and how muchI enjoy the thought of the pleasure which it will afford to you, mymother, and our other friends. Till I become a Master of Arts next Julythe pecuniary emolument which I shall derive will not be great. Forseven years from that time it will make me almost an independent man. 

Malden is elected. You will take little interest in the rest of ourCambridge successes and disappointments. 

Yours most affectionately, T. B. M. 

CHAPTER III. 1824-30. 

 Macaulay is called to the bar--Does not make it a serious profession--Speech before the Anti-Slavery Society--Knight's Quarterly Magazine--The Edinburgh Review and the Essay on Milton--Macaulay's personal appearance and mode of existence--His defects and virtues, likings and antipathies-- Croker Sadler--Zachary Macaulay's circumstances-- Description of the family habits of life in Great Ormond Street--Macaulay's sisters--Hannah Macaulay--the Judicious Poet--Macaulay's humour in conversation--His articles in the Review--His attacks on the Utilitarians and on Southey-- Blackwood's Magazine--Macaulay is made Commissioner of Bankruptcy--Enters Parliament--Letters from Circuit and Edinburgh. 

MACAULAY was called to the bar in 1826, and joined the Northern circuit. On the evening that he first appeared at mess, when the company wereretiring for the night, he was observed to be carefully picking out thelongest candle. An old King's Counsel, who noticed that he had a volumeunder his arm, remonstrated with him on the danger of reading in bed, upon which he rejoined with immense rapidity of utterance "I always readin bed at home; and, if I am not afraid of committing parricide, andmatricide, and fratricide, I can hardly be expected to pay any specialregard to the lives of the bagmen of Leeds. " And, so saying, he lefthis hearers staring at one another, and marched off to his room, littleknowing that, before many years were out, he would have occasion tospeak much more respectfully of the Leeds bagmen. 

Under its social aspect Macaulay heartily enjoyed his legal career. He made an admirable literary use of the Saturnalia which the Northerncircuit calls by the name of "Grand Night, " when personalities of themost pronounced description are welcomed by all except the objectof them, and forgiven even by him. His hand may be recognised in amacaronic poem, written in Greek and English, describing the feast atwhich Alexander murdered Clitus. The death of the victim is treated withan exuberance of fantastic drollery, and a song, put into the mouth ofNearchus, the admiral of the Macedonian fleet, and beginning with thelines

 "When as first I did come back from ploughing the salt water They paid me off at Salamis, three minae and a quarter, --"

is highly Aristophanic in every sense of the word. 

He did not seriously look to the bar as a profession. No persuasionwould induce him to return to his chambers in the evening, according tothe practice then in vogue. After the first year or two of the periodduring which he called himself a barrister he gave up even the pretenceof reading law, and spent many more hours under the gallery of the Houseof Commons, than in all the Courts together. The person who knew himbest said of him: "Throughout life he never really applied himself toany pursuit that was against the grain. " Nothing is more characteristicof the man than the contrast between his unconquerable aversion to thescience of jurisprudence at the time when he was ostensibly preparinghimself to be an advocate, and the zest with which, on his voyage toIndia, he mastered that science in principle and detail as soon ashis imagination was fired by the prospect of the responsibilities of alaw-giver. 

He got no business worth mention, either in London or on circuit. Zachary Macaulay, who was not a man of the world, did what he could tomake interest with the attorneys, and, as a last resource, proposedto his son to take a brief in a suit which he himself had institutedagainst the journal that had so grossly libelled him. "I am ratherglad, " writes Macaulay from York in March 1827, "that I was not inLondon, if your advisers thought it right that I should have appeared asyour counsel. Whether it be contrary to professional etiquette I do notknow; but I am sure that it would be shocking to public feeling, andparticularly imprudent against adversaries whose main strength lies indetecting and exposing indecorum or eccentricity. It would have beendifficult to avoid a quarrel with Sugden, with Wetherell, and with oldLord Eldon himself. Then the John Bull would have been upon us withevery advantage. The personal part of the consideration it would havebeen my duty, and my pleasure and pride also, to overlook; but yourinterests must have suffered. "

Meanwhile he was busy enough in fields better adapted than the law tohis talents and his temperament. He took a part in a meeting of theAnti-Slavery Society held at Freemasons' Tavern, on the 25th of June1824, with the Duke of Gloucester in the chair. The Edinburgh Reviewdescribed his speech as "a display of eloquence so signal for rare andmatured excellence that the most practised orator may well admire how itshould have come from one who then for the first time addressed a publicassembly. "

Those who know what the annual meeting of a well-organised anddisciplined association is, may imagine the whirlwind of cheers whichgreeted the declaration that the hour was at hand when "the peasant ofthe Antilles will no longer crawl in listless and trembling dejectionround a plantation from whose fruits he must derive no advantage, anda hut whose door yields him no protection; but, when his cheerful andvoluntary labour is performed, he will return with the firm step anderect brow of a British citizen from the field which is his freehold tothe cottage which is his castle. "

Surer promise of aptitude for political debate was afforded by the skillwith which the young speaker turned to account the recent trial forsedition, and death in prison, of Smith, the Demerara missionary; anevent which was fatal to Slavery in the West Indies in the same degreeas the execution of John Brown was its deathblow in the United States. "When this country has been endangered either by arbitrary power orpopular delusion, truth has still possessed one irresistible organ, andjustice one inviolable tribunal. That organ has been an English press, and that tribunal an English jury. But in those wretched islands wesee a press more hostile to truth than any censor, and juries moreinsensible to justice than any Star Chamber. In those islands aloneis exemplified the full meaning of the most tremendous of the cursesdenounced against the apostate Hebrews, 'I will curse your blessings. 'We can prove this assertion out of the mouth of our adversaries. Weremember, and God Almighty forbid that we ever should forget, how, at the trial of Mr. Smith, hatred regulated every proceeding, wassubstituted for every law, and allowed its victim no sanctuary in thehouse of mourning, no refuge in the very grave. Against the members ofthat court-martial the country has pronounced its verdict. But what isthe line of defence taken by its advocates? It has been solemnly andrepeatedly declared in the House of Commons that a jury composedof planters would have acted with far more injustice than did thiscourt;--this court which has never found a single lawyer to stake hisprofessional character on the legality of its proceedings. The argumentis this. Things have doubtless been done which should not have beendone. The court-martial sat without a jurisdiction; it convicted withoutevidence; it condemned to a punishment not warranted by law. But we mustmake allowances. We must judge by comparison. 'Mr Smith ought to havebeen very thankful that it was no worse. Only think what would have beenhis fate if he had been tried by a jury of planters!' Sir, I have alwayslived under the protection of the British laws, and therefore Iam unable to imagine what could be worse; but, though I have smallknowledge, I have a large faith; I by no means presume to set any limitsto the possible injustice of a West Indian judicature. And since thecolonists maintain that a jury composed of their own body not onlypossibly might, but necessarily must, have acted with more iniquity thanthis court-martial, I certainly shall not dispute the assertion, thoughI am utterly unable to conceive the mode. "

That was probably the happiest half-hour of Zachary Macaulay's life. "Myfriend, " said Wilberforce, when his turn came to speak, "would doubtlesswillingly bear with all the base falsehoods, all the vile calumnies, allthe detestable artifices which have been aimed against him, to renderhim the martyr and victim of our cause, for the gratification he hasthis day enjoyed in hearing one so dear to him plead such a cause insuch a manner. " Keen as his pleasure was, he took it in his own sadway. From the first moment to the last, he never moved a muscle of hiscountenance, but sat with his eyes fixed on a piece of paper, on whichhe seemed to be writing with a pencil. While talking with his son thatevening, he referred to what had passed only to remark that it wasungraceful in so young a man to speak with folded arms in the presenceof royalty. 

In 1823 the leading members of the cleverest set of boys who ever weretogether at a public school found themselves collected once more atCambridge. Of the former staff of the Etonian, Praed, Moultrie, NelsonColeridge, and, among others, Mr. Edmond Beales, so well known to ourgeneration as an ardent politician, were now in residence at King's orTrinity. Mr. Charles Knight, too enterprising a publisher to let sucha quantity of youthful talent run to waste, started a periodical, whichwas largely supported by undergraduates and Bachelors of Arts, amongwhom the veterans of the Eton press formed a brilliant, and, as hevainly hoped, a reliable nucleus of contributors. 

Knight's Quarterly Magazine is full of Macaulay, and of Macaulay in theattractive shape which a great author wears while he is still writingto please no one but himself. He unfortunately did not at all please hisfather. In the first number, besides a great deal of his that isstill worth reading, there were printed under his adopted signature ofTristram Merton two little poems, the nature of which may be guessedfrom Praed's editorial comments. "Tristram Merton, I have a strongcuriosity to know who Rosamond is. But you will not tell me; and, afterall, as far as your verses are concerned, the surname is nowise germaneto the matter. As poor Sheridan said, it is too formal to be registeredin love's calendar. " And again: "Tristram, I hope Rosamond and your FairGirl of France will not pull caps; but I cannot forbear the temptationof introducing your Roxana and Statira to an admiring public. " Theverses were such as any man would willingly look back to having writtenat two and twenty; but their appearance occasioned real misery toZachary Macaulay, who indeed disapproved of the whole publicationfrom beginning to end, with the exception of an article on West IndianSlavery which his son had inserted with the most filial intention, butwhich, it must be allowed, was not quite in keeping with the generalcharacter of the magazine. 

July 9, 1823. 

My dear Father, --I have seen the two last letters which you have sent tomy mother. They have given me deep pain; but pain without remorse. I amconscious of no misconduct, and whatever uneasiness I may feel arisessolely from sympathy for your distress. 

You seem to imagine that the book is edited, or principally written, by friends of mine. I thought that you had been aware that the workis conducted in London, and that my friends and myself are merelycontributors, and form a very small proportion of the contributors. The manners of almost all of my acquaintances are so utterly alien fromcoarseness, and their morals from libertinism, that I feel assured thatno objection of that nature can exist to their writings. As to my owncontributions I can only say that the Roman Story was read to my motherbefore it was published, and would have been read to you if you hadhappened to be at home. Not one syllable of censure was uttered. 

The Essay on the Royal Society of Literature was read to you. I madethe alterations which I conceived that you desired, and submittedthem afterwards to my mother. As to the poetry which you parallel withLittle's, if anything vulgar or licentious has been written by myself, I am willing to bear the consequences. If anything of that cast has beenwritten by my friends, I allow that a certain degree of blame attachesto me for having chosen them at least indiscreetly. If, however, abookseller of whom we knew nothing has coupled improper productions withours in a work over which we had no control, I cannot plead guilty toanything more than misfortune; a misfortune in which some of the mostrigidly moral and religious men of my acquaintance have participated inthe present instance. 

I am pleading at random for a book which I never saw. I am defendingthe works of people most of whose names I never heard. I am thereforewriting under great disadvantages. I write also in great haste. I amunable even to read over what I have written. 

Affectionately yours

T. B. M. 

Moved by the father's evident unhappiness, the son promised never towrite again for the obnoxious periodical. The second number was so dulland decorous that Zachary Macaulay, who felt that, if the magazinewent on through successive quarters reforming its tone in the sameproportion, it would soon be on a level of virtue with the ChristianObserver, withdrew his objection; and the young man wrote regularly tillthe short life of the undertaking ended in something very like a quarrelbetween the publisher and his contributors. It is not the province ofbiography to dilate upon works which are already before the world; andthe results of Macaulay's literary labour during the years 1823 and1824 have been, perhaps, only too freely reproduced in the volumes whichcontain his miscellaneous writings. It is, however, worthy of noticethat among his earlier efforts in literature his own decided favouritewas "the Conversation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Miltontouching the great Civil War. " But an author, who is exempt from vanity, is inclined to rate his own works rather according as they are free fromfaults than as they abound in beauties; and Macaulay's readers will verygenerally give the preference to two fragmentary sketches of Roman andAthenian society which sparkle with life, and humour, and a masculinevigorous fancy that had not yet learned to obey the rein. Their crudebut genuine merit suggests a regret that he did not in after days enrichthe Edinburgh Review with a couple of articles on classical subjects, as a sample of that ripened scholarship which produced the Prophecy ofCapys, and the episode relating to the Phalaris controversy in the Essayon Sir William Temple. 

Rothley Temple: October 7, 1824. 

My dear Father, --As to Knight's Magazine, I really do not think that, considering the circumstances under which it is conducted, it can bemuch censured. Every magazine must contain a certain quantity of mereballast, of no value but as it occupies space. The general tone andspirit of the work will stand a comparison, in a moral point of view, with any periodical publication not professedly religious. I willventure to say that nothing has appeared in it, at least since the firstnumber, from the pen of any of my friends, which can offend the mostfastidious. Knight is absolutely in our hands, and most desirous togratify us all, and me in particular. When I see you in London Iwill mention to you a piece of secret history which will show you howimportant our connection with this work may possibly become. 

Yours affectionately

T. B. M. 

The "piece of secret history" above referred to was beyond a doubt thecommencement of Macaulay's connection with the Edinburgh Review. Thatfamous periodical, which for three and twenty years had shared in andpromoted the rising fortunes of the Liberal cause, had now attained itsheight--a height unequalled before or since--of political, social, andliterary power. To have the entry of its columns was to command themost direct channel for the spread of opinions, and the shortest roadto influence and celebrity. But already the anxious eye of the masterseemed to discern symptoms of decline. Jeffrey, in Lord Cockburn'sphrase, was "growing feverish about new writers. " In January 1825 hesays in a letter to a friend in London: "Can you not lay your hands onsome clever young man who would write for us? The original supportersof the work are getting old, and either too busy or too stupid, and herethe young men are mostly Tories. " Overtures had already been made toMacaulay, and that same year his article on Milton appeared in theAugust number. 

The effect on the author's reputation was instantaneous. Like LordByron, he awoke one morning and found himself famous. The beautiesof the work were such as all men could recognise, and its very faultspleased. The redundance of youthful enthusiasm, which he himselfunsparingly condemns in the preface to his collected essays, seemedgraceful enough in the eyes of others, if it were only as a relief fromthe perverted ability of that elaborate libel on our great epic poetwhich goes by the name of Dr. Johnson's Life of Milton. Murray declaredthat it would be worth the copyright of Childe Harold to have Macaulayon the staff of the Quarterly. The family breakfast table in Bloomsburywas covered with cards of invitation to dinner from every quarterof London, and his father groaned in spirit over the conviction thatthenceforward the law would be less to him than ever. A warm admirerof Robert Hall, Macaulay heard with pride how the great preacher, thenwellnigh worn out with that long disease, his life, was discovered lyingon the floor, employed in learning by aid of grammar and dictionaryenough Italian to enable him to verify the parallel between Milton andDante. But the compliment that of all others came most nearly home, --theonly commendation of his literary talent which even in the innermostdomestic circle he was ever known to repeat, --was the sentence withwhich Jeffrey acknowledged the receipt of his manuscript: "The more Ithink, the less I can conceive where you picked up that style. "

Macaulay's outward man was never better described than in two sentencesof Praed's Introduction to Knight's Quarterly Magazine. "There came up ashort manly figure, marvellously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and onehand in his waistcoat pocket. ["I well remember, " writes Sir WilliamStirling Maxwell, "the first time I met him, --in 1845 or '46, Ithink, --at dinner at the house of his old friend, Sir John Macleod. Idid not know him by sight, and, when he came into the room with twoor three other guests, I supposed that he was announced as General--Iforget what. The party was large, and I was on the other side of thetable, and a good way off, and I was very soon struck by the amazingnumber of subjects on which he seemed at home;--politics, home andforeign, --French literature, and Hebrew poetry;--and I rememberthinking, 'This is a General with a singularly well-stored mind andbadly tied neckcloth. ' Till, at last, a remark on the prose of Drydenled me to conclude that it could be no one but the Great Essayist. "] Ofregular beauty he had little to boast; but in faces where there is anexpression of great power, or of great good humour, or both, you donot regret its absence. " This picture, in which every touch is correct, tells all that there is to be told. He had a massive head, and featuresof a powerful and rugged cast, but so constantly lit up by every joyfuland ennobling emotion that it mattered little if, when absolutelyquiescent, his face was rather homely than handsome. While conversing attable no one thought him otherwise than good-looking; but, when he rose, he was seen to be short and stout in figure. "At Holland House, theother day, " writes his sister Margaret in September 1831, "Tom met LadyLyndhurst for the first time. She said to him: 'Mr. Macaulay, you are sodifferent to what I expected. I thought you were dark and thin, but youare fair, and really, Mr. Macaulay, you are fat. "' He at all times satand stood straight, full, and square; and in this respect Woolner, inthe fine statue at Cambridge, has missed what was undoubtedly the mostmarked fact in his personal appearance. 

He dressed badly, but not cheaply. His clothes, though ill put on, weregood, and his wardrobe was always enormously overstocked. Later inlife he indulged himself in an apparently inexhaustible successionof handsome embroidered waistcoats, which he used to regard withmuch complacency. He was unhandy to a degree quite unexampled in theexperience of all who knew him. When in the open air he wore perfectlynew dark kid gloves, into the fingers of which he never succeeded ininserting his own more than half way. After he had sailed for Indiathere were found in his chambers between fifty and sixty strops, hackedinto strips and splinters, and razors without beginning or end. Aboutthe same period he hurt his hand, and was reduced to send for a barber. After the operation, he asked what was to pay. "Oh, Sir, " said the man, "whatever you usually give the person who shaves you. " "In that case, "said Macaulay, "I should give you a great gash on each cheek. "

During an epoch when, at our principal seats of education, athleticpursuits are regarded as a leading object of existence rather than asa means of health and recreation, it requires some boldness to confessthat Macaulay was utterly destitute of bodily accomplishments, and thathe viewed his deficiencies with supreme indifference. He could neitherswim, nor row, nor drive, nor skate, nor shoot. He seldom crossed asaddle, and never willingly. When in attendance at Windsor as a cabinetminister he was informed that a horse was at his disposal. "If herMajesty wishes to see me ride, " he said, "she must order out anelephant. " The only exercise in which he can be said to have excelledwas that of threading crowded streets with his eyes fixed upon a book. He might be seen in such thoroughfares as Oxford Street, and Cheapside, walking as fast as other people walked, and reading a great deal fasterthan anybody else could read. As a pedestrian he was, indeed, above theaverage. Till he had passed fifty he thought nothing of going on footfrom the Albany to Clapham, and from Clapham on to Greenwich; and, whilestill in the prime of life, he was for ever on his feet indoors as wellas out. "In those days, " says his cousin Mrs. Conybeare, "he walkedrapidly up and down a room as he talked. I remember on one occasion, when he was making a call, he stopped short in his walk in the midst ofa declamation on some subject, and said, 'You have a brick floor here. 'The hostess confessed that it was true, though she hoped that it hadbeen disguised by double matting and a thick carpet. He said that hishabit of always walking enabled him to tell accurately the material hewas treading on. "

His faults were such as give annoyance to those who dislike a man ratherthan anxiety to those who love him. Vehemence, over-confidence, theinability to recognise that there are two sides to a question ortwo people in a dialogue, are defects which during youth are perhapsinseparable from gifts like those with which he was endowed. Moultrie, speaking of his undergraduate days, tells us that

 "To him There was no pain like silence--no constraint So dull as unanimity. He breathed An atmosphere of argument, nor shrank From making, where he could not find, excuse For controversial fight. "

At Cambridge he would say of himself that, whenever anybody enunciateda proposition, all possible answers to it rushed into his mind at once;and it was said of him by others that he had no politics except theopposite of those held by the person with whom he was talking. To thatcharge, at any rate, he did not long continue liable. He left college astaunch and vehement Whig, eager to maintain against all comers, andat any moment, that none but Whig opinions had a leg to stand upon. His cousin George Babington, a rising surgeon, with whom at one timehe lived in the closest intimacy, was always ready to take up the Torycudgels. The two friends "would walk up and down the room, crossingeach other for hours, shouting one another down with a continuoussimultaneous storm of words, until George at length yielded to argumentsand lungs combined. Never, so far as I remember, was there any loss oftemper. It was a fair, good-humoured battle in not very mannerly lists. "

Even as a very young man nine people out of ten liked nothing betterthan to listen to him, which was fortunate; because in his early dayshe had scanty respect of persons, either as regarded the choice of histopics, or the quantity of his words. But with his excellent temper, and entire absence of conceit, he soon began to learn consideration forothers in small things as well as in great. By the time he was fairlylaunched in London he was agreeable in company, as well as forcible andamusing. Wilberforce speaks of his "unruffled good-humour. " Sir RobertInglis, a good observer with ample opportunity of forming a judgment, pronounced that he conversed and did not dictate, and that he was loudbut never overbearing. As far back as the year 1826 Crabb Robinson gavea very favourable account of his demeanour in society, which deservescredence as the testimony of one who liked his share of talk, and wasnot willing to be put in the background for anybody. "I went to JamesStephen, and drove with him to his house at Hendon. A dinner party. I had a most interesting companion in young Macaulay, one of the mostpromising of the rising generation I have seen for a long time. He hasa good face, --not the delicate features of a man of genius andsensibility, but the strong lines and well-knit limbs of a man sturdy inbody and mind. Very eloquent and cheerful. Overflowing with words, andnot poor in thought. Liberal in opinion, but no radical. He seems acorrect as well as a full man. He showed a minute knowledge of subjectsnot introduced by himself. "

So loyal and sincere was Macaulay's nature that he was unwilling to liveupon terms of even apparent intimacy with people whom he did not like, or could not esteem; and, as far as civility allowed, he avoided theiradvances, and especially their hospitality. He did not choose, he said, to eat salt with a man for whom he could not say a good word in allcompanies. He was true throughout life to those who had once acquiredhis regard and respect. Moultrie says of him

 "His heart was pure and simple as a child's Unbreathed on by the world: in friendship warm, Confiding, generous, constant; and, though now He ranks among the great ones of the earth And hath achieved such glory as will last To future generations, he, I think, Would sup on oysters with as right good will In this poor home of mine as e'er he did On Petty Cury's classical first floor Some twenty years ago. "

He loved to place his purse, his influence, and his talents at thedisposal of a friend; and anyone whom he called by that name he judgedwith indulgence, and trusted with a faith that would endure almost anystrain. If his confidence proved to have been egregiously misplaced, which he was always the last to see, he did not resort to remonstranceor recrimination. His course under such circumstances he described in acouplet from an old French comedy:

 "Le bruit est pour le fat, la plainte pour le sot; L'honnete homme trompe s'eloigne et ne dit mot. 

["La Coquette corrigee. Comedie par Mr. Delanoue, 1756. " In his journalof February 15, 1851, after quoting the couplet, Macaulay adds: "Oddthat two lines of a damned play, and, it should seem, a justly damnedplay, should have lived near a century and have become proverbial. "]

He was never known to take part in any family quarrel, or personalbroil, of any description whatsoever. His conduct in this respect wasthe result of self-discipline, and did not proceed from any want ofsensibility. "He is very sensitive, " said his sister Margaret, "andremembers long, as well as feels deeply, anything in the form ofslight. " Indeed, at college his friends used to tell him that hisleading qualities were "generosity and vindictiveness. " Courage hecertainly did not lack. During the years when his spirit was high, andhis pen cut deep, and when the habits of society were different fromwhat they are at present, more than one adversary displayed symptoms ofa desire to meet him elsewhere than on paper. On these occasions, whileshowing consideration for his opponent, he evinced a quiet but verydecided sense of what was due to himself, which commanded the respect ofall who were implicated, and brought difficulties that might have beengrave to an honourable and satisfactory issue. 

He reserved his pugnacity for quarrels undertaken on public grounds, and fought out with the world looking on as umpire. In the lists ofcriticism and of debate it cannot be denied that, as a young man, hesometimes deserved the praise which Dr. Johnson pronounced upon a goodhater. He had no mercy for bad writers, and notably for bad poets, unless they were in want of money; in which case he became within hismeans, the most open-handed of patrons. He was too apt to undervalueboth the heart and the head of those who desired to maintain the oldsystem of civil and religious exclusion, and who grudged politicalpower to their fellow-countrymen, or at any rate to those of theirfellow-countrymen whom he was himself prepared to enfranchise. Independent, frank, and proud almost to a fault, he detested thewhole race of jobbers and time-servers, parasites and scandal-mongers, led-captains, led-authors, and led-orators. Some of his antipathies havestamped themselves indelibly upon literary history. He attributed to theRight Honourable John Wilson Croker, Secretary to the Admiraltyduring the twenty years preceding 1830, qualities which excited hisdisapprobation beyond control, and possibly beyond measure. His judgmenthas been confirmed by the public voice, which identifies Croker with thecharacter of Rigby in Mr. Disraeli's Coningsby. 

Macaulay was the more formidable as an opponent because he could beangry without losing his command of the situation. His first onset wasterrific; but in the fiercest excitement of the melee he knew when tocall a halt. A certain member of Parliament named Michael Thomas Sadlerhad fallen foul of Malthus, and very foul indeed of Macaulay, who intwo short and telling articles took revenge enough for both. [Macaulaywrites to Mr. Napier in February 1831: "People here think that Ihave answered Sadler completely. Empson tells me that Malthus is wellpleased, which is a good sign. As to Blackwood's trash I could not getthrough it. It bore the same relation to Sadler's pamphlet that a badhash bears to a bad joint. "] He writes on this subject to Mr. MacveyNapier, who towards the close of 1829 had succeeded Jeffrey in theeditorship of the Edinburgh Review: "The position which we have nowtaken up is absolutely impregnable, and, if we were to quit it, thoughwe might win a more splendid victory, we should expose ourselves tosome risk. My rule in controversy has always been that to which theLacedaemonians adhered in war: never to break the ranks for the purposeof pursuing a beaten enemy. " He had, indeed, seldom occasion to striketwice. Where he set his mark, there was no need of a second impression. The unduly severe fate of those who crossed his path during the yearswhen his blood was hot teaches a serious lesson on the responsibilitiesof genius. Croker, and Sadler, and poor Robert Montgomery, and the otherless eminent objects of his wrath, appear likely to enjoy just so muchnotoriety, and of such a nature, as he has thought fit to deal out tothem in his pages; and it is possible that even Lord Ellenborough may bebetter known to our grand-children by Macaulay's oration on the gatesof Somnauth than by the noise of his own deeds, or the echo of his owneloquence. 

When Macaulay went to college he was justified in regarding himself asone who would not have to work for his bread. His father, who believedhimself to be already worth a hundred thousand pounds, had statedlydeclared to the young man his intention of making him, in a modestway, an eldest son; and had informed him that, by doing his duty at theuniversity, he would earn the privilege of shaping his career at choice. In 1818 the family removed to London, and set up an establishment on ascale suited to their improved circumstances in Cadogan Place, which, ineverything except proximity to Bond Street, was then hardly less ruralthan Clapham. But the prosperity of the house of Macaulay and Babingtonwas short-lived. The senior member of the firm gave his whole heart, andfive-sixths of his time, to objects unconnected with his business; andhe had selected a partner who did not possess the qualities necessaryto compensate for his own deficiencies. In 1819 the first indicationsof possible disaster begin to show themselves in the letters to and fromCambridge; while waiting for a fellowship Macaulay was glad to makea hundred guineas by taking pupils; and, as time went on, it becameevident that he was to be an eldest son only in the sense that, throughout the coming years of difficulty and distress, his brothers andsisters would depend mainly upon him for comfort, guidance, and support. He acknowledged the claim cheerfully, lovingly, and, indeed, almostunconsciously. It was not in his disposition to murmur over what wasinevitable, or to plume himself upon doing what was right. He quietlytook up the burden which his father was unable to bear; and, before manyyears had elapsed, the fortunes of all for whose welfare he consideredhimself responsible were abundantly assured. In the course of theefforts which he expended on the accomplishment of this result heunlearned the very notion of framing his method of life with a view tohis own pleasure; and such was his high and simple nature, that it maywell be doubted whether it ever crossed his mind that to live wholly forothers was a sacrifice at all. 

He resided with his father in Cadogan Place, and accompanied him when, under the pressure of pecuniary circumstances, he removed to a lessfashionable quarter of the town. In 1823 the family settled in 50 GreatOrmond Street, which runs east and west for some three hundred yardsthrough the region bounded by the British Museum, the FoundlingHospital, and Gray's Inn Road. It was a large rambling house, at thecorner of Powis Place, and was said to have been the residence of LordChancellor Thurlow at the time when the Great Seal was stolen from hiscustody. It now forms the east wing of an Homoeopathic hospital. Here the Macaulays remained till 1831. "Those were to me, " says LadyTrevelyan, "years of intense happiness. There might be money troubles, but they did not touch us. Our lives were passed after a fashion whichwould seem indeed strange to the present generation. My father, evermore and more engrossed in one object, gradually gave up all society;and my mother never could endure it. We had friends, of course, with whom we stayed out for months together; and we dined with theWilberforces, the Buxtons, Sir Robert Inglis, and others; but what isnow meant by 'society' was utterly unknown to us. 

"In the morning there was some pretence of work and study. In theafternoon your uncle always took my sister Margaret and myself a longwalk. We traversed every part of the City, Islington, Clerkenwell, and the Parks, returning just in time for a six o'clock dinner. Whatanecdotes he used to pour out about every street, and square, and court, and alley! There are many places I never pass without 'the tender graceof a day that is dead' coming back to me. Then, after dinner, he alwayswalked up and down the drawing-room between us chatting till tea-time. Our noisy mirth, his wretched puns, so many a minute, so many an hour!Then we sang, none of us having any voices, and he, if possible, leastof all; but still the old nursery songs were set to music, and chanted. My father, sitting at his own table, used to look up occasionally, andpush back his spectacles, and, I dare say, wonder in his heart howwe could so waste our time. After tea the book then in reading wasproduced. Your uncle very seldom read aloud himself of an evening, butwalked about listening, and commenting, and drinking water. 

"The Sundays were in some respects trying days to him. My father's habitwas to read a long sermon to us all in the afternoon, and again afterevening service another long sermon was read at prayer-time to theservants. Our doors were open to sons of relations or friends; andcousins who were medical students, or clerks in merchants' houses, came in regularly to partake of our Sunday dinner and sermons. Sundaywalking, for walking's sake, was never allowed; and even going to adistant church was discouraged. When in Cadogan Place, we always crossedthe Five Fields, where Belgrave Square now stands, to hear Dr. Thorpe atthe Lock Chapel, and bring him home to dine with us. From Great OrmondStreet, we attended St. John's Chapel in Bedford Row, then served byDaniel Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta. He was succeeded in 1826by the Rev. Baptist Noel. Your uncle generally went to church with us inthe morning, and latterly formed the habit of walking out of town, aloneor with a friend, in the after part of the day. I never heard that myfather took any notice of this; and, indeed, in the interior of his ownfamily, he never attempted in the smallest degree to check his son inhis mode of life, or in the expression of his opinions. 

"I believe that breakfast was the pleasantest part of the day to myfather. His spirits were then at their best, and he was most disposed togeneral conversation. He delighted in discussing the newspaper with hisson, and lingered over the table long after the meal was finished. Onthis account he felt it extremely when, in the year 1829, your unclewent to live in chambers, and often said to my mother that the changehad taken the brightness out of his day. Though your uncle generallydined with us, yet my father was tired by the evening, so that thebreakfast hour was a grievous loss to him, as indeed it was to us all. Truly he was to old and young alike the sunshine of our home; and Ibelieve that no one, who did not know him there, ever knew him in hismost brilliant, witty, and fertile vein. "

That home was never more cheerful than during the eight years whichfollowed the close of Macaulay's college life. There had been much quiethappiness at Clapham, and much in Cadogan Place; but it was round thehouse in Great Ormond Street that the dearest associations gathered. More than forty years afterwards, when Lady Trevelyan was dying, shehad herself driven to the spot, as the last drive she ever took, and satsilent in her carriage for many minutes with her eyes fixed upon thosewell-known walls. 

[In August 1857, Macaulay notes in his diary: "I sent the carriage home, and walked to the Museum. Passing through Great Ormond Street I saw abill upon No. 50. I knocked, was let in, and went over the house witha strange mixture of feelings. It is more than twenty-six years sinceI was in it. The dining-room, and the adjoining room, in which I onceslept, are scarcely changed--the same colouring on the wall, but moredingy. My father's study much the same;--the drawing-rooms too, exceptthe papering. My bedroom just what it was. My mother's bedroom. I hadnever been in it since her death. I went away sad. "]

While warmly attached to all his nearest relations, Macaulay lived inthe closest and most frequent companionship with his sisters Hannah andMargaret, younger than himself by ten and twelve years respectively. His affection for these two, deep and enduring as it was, had in it noelement of blindness or infatuation. Even in the privacy of a diary, or the confidence of the most familiar correspondence, Macaulay, whenwriting about those whom he loved, was never tempted to indulge in fondexaggeration of their merits. Margaret, as will be seen in the courseof this narrative, died young, leaving a memory of outward graces, andsweet and noble mental qualities, which is treasured by all among whomher short existence was passed. As regards the other sister, there aremany alive who knew her for what she was; and, for those who did notknow her, if this book proves how much of her brother's heart she had, and how well it was worth having, her children will feel that they haverepaid their debt even to her. 

Education in the Macaulay family was not on system. Of what areordinarily called accomplishments the daughters had but few, and Hannahfewest of any; but, ever since she could remember anything, she hadenjoyed the run of a good standard library, and had been allowed to readat her own time, and according to her own fancy. There were two traitsin her nature which are seldom united in the same person: a vividpractical interest in the realities which surrounded her, joined withthe power of passing at will into a world of literature and romancein which she found herself entirely at home. The feeling with whichMacaulay and his sister regarded books differed from that of otherpeople in kind rather than in degree. When they were discoursingtogether about a work of history or biography, a bystander would havesupposed that they had lived in the times of which the author treated, and had a personal acquaintance with every human being who was mentionedin his pages. Pepys, Addison, Horace Walpole, Dr. Johnson, Madame deGenlis, the Duc de St. Simon, and the several societies in which thoseworthies moved, excited in their minds precisely the same sort ofconcern, and gave matter for discussions of exactly the same type, asmost people bestow upon the proceedings of their own contemporaries. Thepast was to them as the present, and the fictitious as the actual. Theolder novels, which had been the food of their early years, had becomepart of themselves to such an extent that, in speaking to each other, they frequently employed sentences from dialogues in those novels toexpress the idea, or even the business, of the moment. On matters ofthe street or of the household they would use the very language of Mrs. Elton and Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Collins, and John Thorpe, andthe other inimitable actors on Jane Austen's unpretending stage: whilethey would debate the love affairs and the social relations of their owncircle in a series of quotations from Sir Charles Grandison or Evelina. 

The effect was at times nothing less than bewildering. When LadyTrevelyan married, her husband, whose reading had lain anywhere ratherthan among the circulating libraries, used at first to wonder who theextraordinary people could be with whom his wife and his brother-in-lawappeared to have lived. This style of thought and conversation had foryoung minds a singular and a not unhealthy fascination. Lady Trevelyan'schildren were brought up among books, (to use the homely simile ofan American author), as a stable-boy among horses. The shelves of thelibrary, instead of frowning on us as we played and talked, seemed alivewith kindly and familiar faces. But death came, and came again, and thenall was changed, and changed as in an instant. There were many favouritevolumes out of which the spirit seemed to vanish at once and for ever. We endeavoured unsuccessfully to revive by our own efforts the amusementwhich we had been taught to find in the faded flatteries and absurditiesthat passed between Miss Seward and her admirers, or to retrace forourselves the complications of female jealousy which played roundCowper's tea-table at Olney. We awoke to the discovery that the charmwas not in us, nor altogether in the books themselves. The talisman, which endowed with life and meaning all that it touched, had passed awayfrom among us, leaving recollections which are our most cherished, asthey must ever be our proudest, possession. 

Macaulay thought it probable that he could re-write Sir CharlesGrandison from memory, and certainly he might have done so with hissister's help. But his intimate acquaintance with a work was no proof ofits merit. "There was a certain prolific author, " says Lady Trevelyan, "named Mrs. Meeke, whose romances he all but knew by heart; thoughhe quite agreed in my criticism that they were one just like another, turning on the fortunes of some young man in a very low rank of life whoeventually proves to be the son of a Duke. Then there was a set of booksby a Mrs. Kitty Cuthbertson, most silly though readable productions, thenature of which may be guessed from their titles:--'Santo Sebastiano, or the Young Protector, ' 'The Forest of Montalbano, ' 'The Romance ofthe Pyrenees, ' and 'Adelaide, or the Countercharm. ' I remember how, when'Santo Sebastiano' was sold by auction in India, he and Miss Eden bidagainst each other till he secured it at a fabulous price; and I possessit still. "

As an indication of the thoroughness with which this literarytreasure has been studied, there appears on the last page an elaboratecomputation of the number of fainting-fits that occur in the course ofthe five volumes. 

 Julia de Clifford. .. .. 11 Lady Delamore. .. .. .. 4 Lady Theodosia. .. .. .. 4 Lord Glenbrook. .. .. . 2 Lord Delamore. .. .. . 2 Lady Enderfield. .. .. . 1 Lord Ashgrove. .. .. .. 1 Lord St. Orville. .. .. 1 Henry Mildmay. .. .. .. 1

A single passage, selected for no other reason than because it is theshortest, will serve as a specimen of these catastrophes "One of thesweetest smiles that ever animated the face of mortal now diffuseditself over the countenance of Lord St. Orville, as he fell at the feetof Julia in a death-like swoon. "

The fun that went on in Great Ormond Street was of a jovial, andsometimes uproarious, description. Even when the family was by itself, the school-room and the drawing-room were full of young people; andfriends and cousins flocked in numbers to a resort where so muchmerriment was perpetually on foot. There were seasons during the schoolholidays when the house overflowed with noise and frolic from morning tonight; and Macaulay, who at any period of his life could literally spendwhole days in playing with children, was master of the innocent revels. Games of hide-and-seek, that lasted for hours, with shouting and theblowing of horns up and down the stairs and through every room, werevaried by ballads, which, like the Scalds of old, he composed during theact of recitation, while the others struck in with the chorus. He had nonotion whatever of music, but an infallible ear for rhythm. His knack ofimprovisation he at all times exercised freely. The verses which he thusproduced, and which he invariably attributed to an anonymous author whomhe styled "the Judicious Poet, " were exclusively for home consumption. Some of these effusions illustrate a sentiment in his dispositionwhich was among the most decided, and the most frequently and loudlyexpressed. Macaulay was only too easily bored, and those whom heconsidered fools he by no means suffered gladly. He once amused hissisters by pouring out whole Iliads of extempore doggrel upon the headof an unfortunate country squire of their acquaintance, who had a habitof detaining people by the button, and who was especially addicted tothe society of the higher order of clergy

 "His Grace Archbishop Manners Sutton Could not keep on a single button. As for Right Reverend John of Chester, His waistcoats open at the breast are. Our friend* has filled a mighty trunk With trophies torn from Doctor Monk And he has really tattered foully The vestments of Archbishop Howley No button could I late discern on The garments of Archbishop Vernon, And never had his fingers mercy Upon the garb of Bishop Percy. The buttons fly from Bishop Ryder Like corks that spring from bottled cyder, --"

[*The name of this gentleman has been concealed, as not beingsufficiently known by all to give point, but well enough remembered bysome to give pain. ]

and so on, throughout the entire bench, until, after a good half-hourof hearty and spontaneous nonsense, the girls would go laughing back totheir Italian and their drawing-boards. 

He did not play upon words as a habit, nor did he interlard his talkwith far-fetched or overstrained witticisms. His humour, like hisrhetoric, was full of force and substance, and arose naturally from thecomplexion of the conversation or the circumstance of the moment. Butwhen alone with his sisters, and, in after years, with his nieces, he was fond of setting himself deliberately to manufacture conceitsresembling those on the heroes of the Trojan War which have been thoughtworthy of publication in the collected works of Swift. When walking inLondon he would undertake to give some droll turn to the name of everyshopkeeper in the street, and, when travelling, to the name of everystation along the line. At home he would run through the countries ofEurope, the States of the Union, the chief cities of our Indian Empire, the provinces of France, the Prime Ministers of England, or the chiefwriters and artists of any given century; striking off puns, admirable, endurable, and execrable, but all irresistibly laughable, which followedeach other in showers like sparks from flint. Capping verses was a gameof which he never tired. "In the spring of 1829, " says his cousin Mrs. Conybeare, "we were staying in Ormond Street. My chief recollection ofyour uncle during that visit is on the evenings when we capped verses. All the family were quick at it, but his astounding memory made himsupereminent. When the time came for him to be off to bed at hischambers, he would rush out of the room after uttering some long-soughtline, and would be pursued to the top of the stairs by one of the otherswho had contrived to recall a verse which served the purpose, in orderthat he might not leave the house victorious; but he, with the hall-dooropen in his hand, would shriek back a crowning effort, and go offtriumphant. "

Nothing of all this can be traced in his letters before the year 1830. Up to that period he corresponded regularly with no one but his father, between whom and himself there existed a strong regard, but scantysympathy or similarity of pursuits. It was not until he poured out hismind almost daily to those who approached him more nearly in age, and intastes, that the lighter side of his nature began to display itself onpaper. Most of what he addressed to his parents between the time when heleft Cambridge, and the time when he entered the House of Commons, maybe characterised as belonging to the type of duty-letters, treating ofpolitics, legal gossip, personal adventures, and domestic incidents, with some reticence and little warmth or ease of expression, Theperiodical insertion on the son's part of anecdotes and observationsbearing upon the question of Slavery reminds the reader of thosepresents of tall recruits with which, at judiciously chosen intervals, Frederic the Great used to conciliate his terrible father. As betweenthe Macaulays, these little filial attentions acquire a certaingracefulness from the fact that, in the circumstances of thefamily, they could be prompted by no other motive than a dutiful anddisinterested affection. 

It must not be supposed, --no one who examines the dates of hissuccessive essays will for a moment suppose, --that his attention wasdistracted, or his energy dissipated, by trifles. Besides the finishedstudy of Machiavelli, and the masterly sketch of our great civiltroubles known as the article on Hallam's Constitutional History, heproduced much which his mature judgment would willingly have allowed todie, but which had plenty of life in it when it first appeared betweenthe blue and yellow covers. His most formidable enterprise, during thefive earliest years of his connection with the great Review, was thatpassage of arms against the champions of the Utilitarian philosophy inwhich he touched the mighty shields of James Mill and Jeremy Bentham, and rode slashing to right and left through the ranks of their lessdistinguished followers. Indeed, while he sincerely admired the chiefsof the school, he had a young man's prejudice against their disciples, many of whom he regarded as "persons who, having read little or nothing, are delighted to be rescued from the sense of their own inferiority bysome teacher who assures them that the studies which they have neglectedare of no value, puts five or six phrases into their mouths, lends theman odd number of the Westminster Review, and in a month transforms theminto philosophers. " It must be allowed that there was some colour forhis opinion. The Benthamite training may have stimulated the finerintellects, (and they were not few, ) which came within its influence;but it is impossible to conceive anything more dreary than must havebeen the condition of a shallow mind, with a native predisposition tosciolism, after its owner had joined a society "composed of young menagreeing in fundamental principles, acknowledging Utility as theirstandard in ethics and politics, " "meeting once a fortnight to readessays and discuss questions conformably to the premises thus agreedon, " and "expecting the regeneration of mankind, not from any directaction on the sentiments of unselfish benevolence and love of justice, but from the effect of educated intellect enlightening the selfishfeelings. " John Stuart Mill, with that candour which is the rarest ofhis great qualities, gave a generous and authoritative testimony to themerit of these attacks upon his father, and his father's creed, whichMacaulay himself lived to wish that he had left unwritten. 

["The author has been strongly urged to insert three papers on theUtilitarian Philosophy, which, when they first appeared, attracted somenotice. * * * He has, however, determined to omit these papers, notbecause he is disposed to retract a single doctrine which they contain, but because he is unwilling to offer what might be regarded as anaffront to the memory of one from whose opinions he still widelydissents, but to whose talents and virtues he admits that he formerlydid not do justice. * * It ought to be known that Mr. Mill had thegenerosity, not only to forgive, but to forget the unbecoming acrimonywith which he had been assailed, and was, when his valuable lifeclosed, on terms of cordial friendship with his assailant. "--Preface toMacaulay's Collected Essays. ]

He was already famous enough to have incurred the inevitable penaltyof success in the shape of the pronounced hostility of Blackwood'sMagazine. The feelings which the leading contributors to that periodicalhabitually entertained towards a young and promising writer were inhis case sharpened by political partisanship; and the just and measuredseverity which he infused into his criticism on Southey's "Colloquiesof Society" brought down upon him the bludgeon to whose strokes poetictradition has attributed the death of Keats. Macaulay was made ofharder stuff, and gave little heed to a string of unsavoury invectivescompounded out of such epithets as "ugly, " "splay-footed, " and"shapeless;" such phrases as "stuff and nonsense, " "malignant trash, ""impertinent puppy, " and "audacity of impudence;" and other samples fromthe polemical vocabulary of the personage who, by the irony of fate, filled the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. The substance ofProfessor Wilson's attacks consisted in little more than the reiterationof that charge of intellectual juvenility, which never fails tobe employed as the last resource against a man whose abilities areundoubted, and whose character is above detraction. 

"North. He's a clever lad, James. 

"Shepherd. Evidently; and a clever lad he'll remain, depend ye uponthat, a' the days of his life. A clever lad thirty years auld and someodds is to ma mind the maist melancholy sight in nature. Only think of aclever lad o' three-score-and-ten, on his deathbed, wha can look back onnae greater achievement than having aince, or aiblins ten times, abusedMr. Southey in the Embro' Review. "

The prophecies of jealousy seldom come true. Southey's book died beforeits author, with the exception of the passages extracted by Macaulay, which have been reproduced in his essay a hundred times, and more, foronce that they were printed in the volumes from which he selected themfor his animadversion. 

The chambers in which he ought to have been spending his days, and didactually spend his nights between the years 1829 and 1834, were withinfive minutes' walk of the house in Great Ormond Street. The building ofwhich those chambers formed a part, --8 South Square, Gray's Inn, --hassince been pulled down to make room for an extension of the Library; apurpose which, in Macaulay's eyes, would amply compensate for the lossof such associations as might otherwise have attached themselves to thelocality. His Trinity fellowship brought him in nearly three hundredpounds annually, and the Edinburgh Review nearly two hundred. In January1828, during the interregnum that separated the resignation ofLord Goderich and the acceptance of the Premiership by the Duke ofWellington, Lord Lyndhurst made him a Commissioner of Bankruptcy; a rarepiece of luck at a time when, as Lord Cockburn tells us, "a youth of aTory family, who was discovered to have a leaning towards the doctrinesof the opposition, was considered as a lost son. " "The Commission iswelcome, " Macaulay writes to his father, "and I am particularly gladthat it has been given at a time when there is no ministry, and when theacceptance of it implies no political obligation. To Lord Lyndhurst I ofcourse feel personal gratitude, and I shall always take care how I speakof him. "

The emoluments of the office made up his income, for the three or fouryears during which he held it, to about nine hundred pounds per annum. His means were more than sufficient for his wants, but too small, andfar too precarious, for the furtherance of the political aspirationswhich now were uppermost in his mind. "Public affairs, " writes LadyTrevelyan, "were become intensely interesting to him. Canning'saccession to power, then his death, the repeal of the Test Act, theEmancipation of the Catholics, all in their turn filled his heart andsoul. He himself longed to be taking his part in Parliament, but with avery hopeless longing. 

"In February 1830 I was staying at Mr. Wilberforce's at Highwood Hillwhen I got a letter from your uncle, enclosing one from Lord Lansdowne, who told him that he had been much struck by the articles on Mill, andthat he wished to be the means of first introducing their author topublic life by proposing to him to stand for the vacant seat at Calne. Lord Lansdowne expressly added that it was your uncle's high moral andprivate character which had determined him to make the offer, and thathe wished in no respect to influence his votes, but to leave him quiteat liberty to act according to his conscience. I remember flying intoMr. Wilberforce's study, and, absolutely speechless, putting the letterinto his hands. He read it with much emotion, and returned it to me, saying 'Your father has had great trials, obloquy, bad health, manyanxieties. One must feel as if Tom were given him for a recompense. 'He was silent for a moment, and then his mobile face lighted up, and heclapped his hand to his ear, and cried: 'Ah! I hear that shout again. Hear! Hear! What a life it was!'"

And so, on the eve of the most momentous conflict that ever was foughtout by speech and vote within the walls of a senate-house, the youngrecruit went gaily to his post in the ranks of that party whose comingfortunes he was prepared loyally to follow, and the history of whosepast he was destined eloquently, and perhaps imperishably, to record. 

York: April 2, 1826. 

My dear Father, --I am sorry that I have been unable to avail myself ofthe letters of introduction which you forwarded to me. Since I receivedthem I have been confined to the house with a cold; and, now that I ampretty well recovered, I must take my departure for Pontefract. But, ifit had been otherwise, I could not have presented these recommendations. Letters of this sort may be of great service to a barrister; but thebarrister himself must not be the bearer of them. On this subject therule is most strict, at least on our circuit. The hugging of the Bar, like the Simony of the Church, must be altogether carried on by theintervention of third persons. We are sensible of our dependence onthe attorneys, and proportioned to that sense of dependence is ouraffectation of superiority. Even to take a meal with an attorney is ahigh misdemeanour. One of the most eminent men among us broughthimself into a serious scrape by doing so. But to carry a letter ofintroduction, to wait in the outer room while it is being read, to bethen ushered into the presence, to receive courtesies which can only beconsidered as the condescensions of a patron, to return courtesies whichare little else than the blessings of a beggar, would be an infinitelymore terrible violation of our professional code. Every barrister towhom I have applied for advice has most earnestly exhorted me on noaccount whatever to present the letters myself. I should perhaps addthat my advisers have been persons who cannot by any possibility feeljealous of me. 

In default of anything better I will eke out my paper with some lineswhich I made in bed last night, --an inscription for a picture ofVoltaire. 

 If thou would'st view one more than man and less, Made up of mean and great, of foul and fair, Stop here; and weep and laugh, and curse and bless, And spurn and worship; for thou seest Voltaire. That flashing eye blasted the conqueror's spear, The monarch's sceptre, and the Jesuit's beads And every wrinkle in that haggard sneer Hath been the grave of Dynasties and Creeds. In very wantonness of childish mirth He puffed Bastilles, and thrones, and shrines away, Insulted Heaven, and liberated earth. Was it for good or evil? Who shall say?

Ever affectionately yours

T. B. M. 

York: July 21, 1826. 

My dear Father, --The other day, as I was changing my neck-cloth which mywig had disfigured, my good landlady knocked at the door of my bedroom, and told me that Mr. Smith wished to see me, and was in my room below. Of all names by which men are called there is none which conveys a lessdeterminate idea to the mind than that of Smith. Was he on the circuit?For I do not know half the names of my companions. Was he a specialmessenger from London? Was he a York attorney coming to be preyed upon, or a beggar coming to prey upon me, a barber to solicit the dressingof my wig, or a collector for the Jews' Society? Down I went, and to myutter amazement beheld the Smith of Smiths, Sydney Smith, alias PeterPlymley. I had forgotten his very existence till I discerned the queercontrast between his black coat and his snow-white head, and the equallycurious contrast between the clerical amplitude of his person, and themost unclerical wit, whim, and petulance of his eye. I shook hands withhim very heartily; and on the Catholic question we immediately fell, regretted Evans, triumphed over Lord George Beresford, and abusedthe Bishops. [These allusions refer to the general election which hadrecently taken place. ] He then very kindly urged me to spend the timebetween the close of the Assizes and the commencement of the Sessionsat his house; and was so hospitably pressing that I at last agreed to gothither on Saturday afternoon. He is to drive me over again into Yorkon Monday morning. I am very well pleased at having this opportunityof becoming better acquainted with a man who, in spite of innumerableaffectations and oddities, is certainly one of the wittiest and mostoriginal writers of our times. 

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. M. 

Bradford: July 26, 1826. 

My dear Father, --On Saturday I went to Sydney Smith's. His parish liesthree or four miles out of any frequented road. He is, however, mostpleasantly situated. "Fifteen years ago, " said he to me as I alightedat the gate of his shrubbery, "I was taken up in Piccadilly and set downhere. There was no house, and no garden; nothing but a bare field. " Oneservice this eccentric divine has certainly rendered to the Church. He has built the very neatest, most commodious, and most appropriaterectory that I ever saw. All its decorations are in a peculiarlyclerical style; grave, simple, and gothic. The bed-chambers areexcellent, and excellently fitted up; the sitting-rooms handsome; andthe grounds sufficiently pretty. Tindal and Parke, (not the judgeof course, ) two of the best lawyers, best scholars, and best men inEngland, were there. We passed an extremely pleasant evening, had a verygood dinner, and many amusing anecdotes. 

After breakfast the next morning I walked to church with Sydney Smith. The edifice is not at all in keeping with the rectory. It is a miserablelittle hovel with a wooden belfry. It was, however, well filled, andwith decent people, who seemed to take very much to their pastor. Iunderstand that he is a very respectable apothecary; and most liberalof his skill, his medicine, his soul, and his wine, among the sick. He preached a very queer sermon--the former half too familiar and thelatter half too florid, but not without some ingenuity of thought andexpression. 

Sydney Smith brought me to York on Monday morning, in time for thestage-coach which runs to Skipton. We parted with many assurances ofgoodwill. I have really taken a great liking to him. He is full of wit, humour, and shrewdness. He is not one of those show-talkers who reserveall their good things for special occasions. It seems to be his greatestluxury to keep his wife and daughters laughing for two or three hoursevery day. His notions of law, government, and trade are surprisinglyclear and just. His misfortune is to have chosen a profession at onceabove him and below him. Zeal would have made him a prodigy; formalityand bigotry would have made him a bishop; but he could neither rise tothe duties of his order, nor stoop to its degradations. 

He praised my articles in the Edinburgh Review with a warmth which I amwilling to believe sincere, because he qualified his compliments withseveral very sensible cautions. My great danger, he said, was thatof taking a tone of too much asperity and contempt in controversy. Ibelieve that he is right, and I shall try to mend. 

Ever affectionately yours

T. B. M. 

Lancaster: September 1, 1827. 

My dear Father, --Thank Hannah from me for her pleasant letter. I wouldanswer it if I had anything equally amusing to say in return; but herewe have no news, except what comes from London, and is as stale asinland fish before it reaches us. We have circuit anecdotes to be sure;and perhaps you will be pleased to hear that Brougham has been risingthrough the whole of this struggle. At York Pollock decidedly took thelead. At Durham Brougham overtook him, passed him at Newcastle, and gotimmensely ahead of him at Carlisle and Appleby, which, to be sure, arethe places where his own connections lie. We have not been here quitelong enough to determine how he will succeed with the Lancastrians. This has always hitherto been his least favourable place. He appears toimprove in industry and prudence. He learns his story more thoroughly, and tells it more clearly, than formerly. If he continues to managecauses as well as he has done of late he must rise to the summit of theprofession. I cannot say quite so much for his temper, which this closeand constant rivalry does not improve. He squabbles with Pollock morethan, in generosity or policy, he ought to do. I have heard several ofour younger men wondering that he does not show more magnanimity. Heyawns while Pollock is speaking; a sign of weariness which, in theirpresent relation to each other, he would do well to suppress. He hassaid some very good, but very bitter, things. There was a case of alead-mine. Pollock was for the proprietors, and complained bitterly ofthe encroachments which Brougham's clients had made upon this property, which he represented as of immense value. Brougham said that theestimate which his learned friend formed of the property was vastlyexaggerated, but that it was no wonder that a person who found it soeasy to get gold for his lead should appreciate that heavy metalso highly. The other day Pollock laid down a point of law ratherdogmatically. "Mr. Pollock, " said Brougham, "perhaps, before you rulethe point, you will suffer his Lordship to submit a few observations onit to your consideration. "

I received the Edinburgh paper which you sent me. Silly and spiteful asit is, there is a little truth in it. In such cases I always rememberthose excellent lines of Boileau

 "Moi, qu'une humeur trop libre, un esprit peu soumis, De bonne heure a pourvo d'utiles ennemis, Je dois plus a leur haine (il faut que je l'avoue) Qu'au faible et vain talent dont la France me loue. Sitot que sur un vice un pensent me confondre, C'est en me guerissant que je sais leur repondre. "

This place disagrees so much with me that I shall leave it as soon asthe dispersion of the circuit commences, --that is, after the deliveryof the last batch of briefs; always supposing, which may be supposedwithout much risk of mistake, that there are none for me. 

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. M. 

It was about this period that the Cambridge Senate came to a resolutionto petition against the Catholic Claims. The minority demanded a poll, and conveyed a hint to their friends in London. Macaulay, with one ortwo more to help him, beat up the Inns of Court for recruits, chartereda stage-coach, packed it inside and out with young Whig Masters of Arts, and drove up King's Parade just in time to turn the scale in favour ofEmancipation. The whole party dined in triumph at Trinity, and got backto town the same evening; and the Tory journalists were emphatic intheir indignation at the deliberate opinion of the University havingbeen overridden by a coachful of "godless and briefless barristers. "

Court House, Pomfret: April 15, 1828. 

My dear Mother, --I address this epistle to you as the least undeservingof a very undeserving family. You, I think, have sent me one lettersince I left London. I have nothing here to do but to write letters;and, what is not very often the case, I have members of Parliament inabundance to frank them, and abundance of matter to fill them with. MyEdinburgh expedition has given me so much to say that, unless I writeoff some of it before I come home, I shall talk you all to death, and bevoted a bore in every house which I visit. I will commence with Jeffreyhimself. I had almost forgotten his person; and, indeed, I should notwonder if even now I were to forget it again. He has twenty faces almostas unlike each other as my father's to Mr. Wilberforce's, and infinitelymore unlike to each other than those of near relatives often are;infinitely more unlike, for example, than those of the two Grants. Whenabsolutely quiescent, reading a paper, or hearing a conversation inwhich he takes no interest, his countenance shows no indicationwhatever of intellectual superiority of any kind. But as soon as he isinterested, and opens his eyes upon you, the change is like magic. There is a flash in his glance, a violent contortion in his frown, anexquisite humour in his sneer, and a sweetness and brilliancy in hissmile, beyond anything that ever I witnessed. A person who had seen himin only one state would not know him if he saw him in another. Forhe has not, like Brougham, marked features which in all moods of mindremain unaltered. The mere outline of his face is insignificant. Theexpression is everything; and such power and variety of expressionI never saw in any human countenance, not even in that of the mostcelebrated actors. I can conceive that Garrick may have been like him. I have seen several pictures of Garrick, none resembling another, and Ihave heard Hannah More speak of the extraordinary variety of countenanceby which he was distinguished, and of the unequalled radiance andpenetration of his eye. The voice and delivery of Jeffrey resemble hisface. He possesses considerable power of mimicry, and rarely tells astory without imitating several different accents. His familiar tone, his declamatory tone, and his pathetic tone are quite different things. Sometimes Scotch predominates in his pronunciation; sometimes it isimperceptible. Sometimes his utterance is snappish and quick to the lastdegree; sometimes it is remarkable for rotundity and mellowness. I caneasily conceive that two people who had seen him on different days mightdispute about him as the travellers in the fable disputed about thechameleon. 

In one thing, as far as I observed, he is always the same and that isthe warmth of his domestic affections. Neither Mr. Wilberforce, normy uncle Babington, come up to him in this respect. The flow of hiskindness is quite inexhaustible. Not five minutes pass without some fondexpression, or caressing gesture, to his wife or his daughter. He hasfitted up a study for himself; but he never goes into it. Law papers, reviews, whatever he has to write, he writes in the drawing-room, orin his wife's boudoir. When he goes to other parts of the country on aretainer he takes them in the carriage with him. I do not wonder thathe should be a good husband, for his wife is a very amiable woman. But Iwas surprised to see a man so keen and sarcastic, so much of a scoffer, pouring himself out with such simplicity and tenderness in all sorts ofaffectionate nonsense. Through our whole journey to Perth he kept upa sort of mock quarrel with his daughter; attacked her aboutnovel-reading, laughed her into a pet, kissed her out of it, and laughedher into it again. She and her mother absolutely idolise him, and I donot wonder at it. 

His conversation is very much like his countenance and his voice, ofimmense variety; sometimes plain and unpretending even to flatness;sometimes whimsically brilliant and rhetorical almost beyond the licenseof private discourse. He has many interesting anecdotes, and tells themvery well. He is a shrewd observer; and so fastidious that I am notsurprised at the awe in which many people seem to stand when in hiscompany. Though not altogether free from affectation himself, he hasa peculiar loathing for it in other people, and a great talent fordiscovering and exposing it. He has a particular contempt, in whichI most heartily concur with him, for the fadaises of bluestockingliterature, for the mutual flatteries of coteries, the handing aboutof vers de societe, the albums, the conversaziones, and all the othernauseous trickeries of the Sewards, Hayleys, and Sothebys. I am notquite sure that he has escaped the opposite extreme, and that he is nota little too desirous to appear rather a man of the world, an activelawyer, or an easy careless gentleman, than a distinguished writer. Imust own that, when Jeffrey and I were by ourselves, he talked much andvery well on literary topics. His kindness and hospitality to me were, indeed, beyond description, and his wife was as pleasant and friendly aspossible. I liked everything but the hours. We were never up till ten, and never retired till two hours at least after midnight. Jeffrey, indeed, never goes to bed till sleep comes on him overpoweringly, andnever rises till forced up by business or hunger. He is extremelywell in health; so that I could not help suspecting him of being veryhypochondriac; for all his late letters to me have been filled withlamentations about his various maladies. His wife told me, when Icongratulated her on his recovery, that I must not absolutely rely onall his accounts of his own diseases. I really think that he is, on thewhole, the youngest-looking man of fifty that I know, at least when heis animated. 

His house is magnificent. It is in Moray Place, the newest pile ofbuildings in the town, looking out to the Forth on one side, and to agreen garden on the other. It is really equal to the houses in GrosvenorSquare. Fine, however, as is the new quarter of Edinburgh, I decidedlyprefer the Old Town. There is nothing like it in the island. You havebeen there, but you have not seen the town, and no lady ever sees atown. It is only by walking on foot through all corners at all hoursthat cities can be really studied to good purpose. There is a new pillarto the memory of Lord Melville; very elegant, and very much better thanthe man deserved. His statue is at the top, with a wreath on the headvery like a nightcap drawn over the eyes. It is impossible to look atit without being reminded of the fate which the original most richlymerited. But my letter will overflow even the ample limits of a frank, if I do not conclude. I hope that you will be properly penitent forneglecting such a correspondent when you receive so long a dispatch, written amidst the bellowing of justices, lawyers, criers, witnesses, prisoners, and prisoners' wives and mothers. 

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. M. 

Lancaster: March 24, 1829. 

My dear Father, --A single line to say that I am at Lancaster. Where youall are I have not the very slightest notion. Pray let me hear. Thatdispersion of the Gentiles which our friends the prophets foretell seemsto have commenced with our family. 

Everything here is going on in the common routine. The only things ofpeculiar interest are those which we get from the London papers. Allminds seem to be perfectly made up as to the certainty of CatholicEmancipation having come at last. The feeling of approbation among thebarristers is all but unanimous. The quiet townspeople here, as far as Ican see, are very well contented. As soon as I arrived I was asked bymy landlady how things had gone. I told her the division, which I hadlearned from Brougham at Garstang. She seemed surprised at the majority. I asked her if she was against the measure. "No; she only wishedthat all Christians would live in peace and charity together. " A verysensible speech, and better than one at least of the members for thecounty ever made in his life. 

I implore you above everything, my dear Father, to keep up your healthand spirits. Come what may, the conveniences of life, independence, our personal respectability, and the exercise of the intellect and theaffections, we are almost certain of retaining; and everything else is amere superfluity, to be enjoyed, but not to be missed. But I ought to beashamed of reading you a lecture on qualities which you are so much morecompetent to teach than myself. 

Ever yours very affectionately

T. B. M. 

To Macvey Napier, Esq. 

50 Great Ormond Street, London:

January 25, 1830. 

My dear Sir, --I send off by the mail of to-day an article onSouthey, --too long, I fear, to meet your wishes, but as short as I couldmake it. 

There were, by the bye, in my last article a few omissions made, of nogreat consequence in themselves; the longest, I think, a paragraph oftwelve or fourteen lines. I should scarcely have thought this worthmentioning, as it certainly by no means exceeds the limits of thateditorial prerogative which I most willingly recognise, but that theomissions seemed to me, and to one or two persons who had seen thearticle in its original state, to be made on a principle which, however sound in itself, does not I think apply to compositions of thisdescription. The passages omitted were the most pointed and ornamentedsentences in the review. Now, for high and grave works, a history forexample, or a system of political or moral philosophy, Doctor Johnson'srule, --that every sentence which the writer thinks fine ought to be cutout, --is excellent. But periodical works like ours, which unless theystrike at the first reading are not likely to strike at all, whose wholelife is a month or two, may, I think, be allowed to be sometimes evenviciously florid. Probably, in estimating the real value of any tinselwhich I may put upon my articles, you and I should not materiallydiffer. But it is not by his own taste, but by the taste of the fish, that the angler is determined in his choice of bait. 

Perhaps after all I am ascribing to system what is mere accident. Beassured, at all events, that what I have said is said in perfect goodhumour, and indicates no mutinous disposition. 

The Jews are about to petition Parliament for relief from the absurdrestrictions which lie on them, --the last relique of the old system ofintolerance. I have been applied to by some of them in the name of themanagers of the scheme to write for them in the Edinburgh Review. Iwould gladly further a cause so good, and you, I think, could have noobjection. 

Ever yours truly

T. B. MACAULAY. 

Bowood: February 20, 1830. 

My dear Father, --I am here in a very nice room, with perfect liberty, and a splendid library at my command. It seems to be thought desirablethat I should stay in the neighbourhood, and pay my compliments to myfuture constituents every other day. 

The house is splendid and elegant, yet more remarkable for comfortthan for either elegance or splendour. I never saw any great place sothoroughly desirable for a residence. Lord Kerry tells me that his uncleleft everything in ruin, --trees cut down, and rooms unfurnished, --andsold the library, which was extremely fine. Every book and picture inBowood has been bought by the present Lord, and certainly the collectiondoes him great honour. 

I am glad that I stayed here. A burgess of some influence, who, atthe last election, attempted to get up an opposition to the Lansdowneinterest, has just arrived. I called on him this morning, and, thoughhe was a little ungracious at first, succeeded in obtaining his promise. Without him, indeed, my return would have been secure; but both frommotives of interest and from a sense of gratitude I think it best toleave nothing undone which may tend to keep Lord Lansdowne's influencehere unimpaired against future elections. 

Lord Kerry seems to me to be going on well. He has been in very goodcondition, he says, this week; and hopes to be at the election, and atthe subsequent dinner. I do not know when I have taken so much to soyoung a man. In general my intimacies have been with my seniors;but Lord Kerry is really quite a favourite of mine, --kind, lively, intelligent, modest, with the gentle manners which indicate a longintimacy with the best society, and yet without the least affectation. We have oceans of beer, and mountains of potatoes, for dinner. Indeed, Lady Lansdowne drank beer most heartily on the only day which she passedwith us, and, when I told her laughing that she set me at ease on apoint which had given me much trouble, she said that she would neversuffer any dandy novelist to rob her of her beer or her cheese. 

The question between law and politics is a momentous one. As far as I ammyself concerned, I should not hesitate; but the interest of my familyis also to be considered. We shall see, however, before long what mychance of success as a public man may prove to be. At present it wouldclearly be wrong in me to show any disposition to quit my profession. 

I hope that you will be on your guard as to what you may say to Broughamabout this business. He is so angry at it that he cannot keep his angerto himself. I know that he has blamed Lord Lansdowne in the robing-roomof the Court of King's Bench. The seat ought, he says, to have beengiven to another man. If he means Denman, I can forgive, and evenrespect him, for the feeling which he entertains. 

Believe me ever yours most affectionately

T. B. M. 

CHAPTER IV. 1830-1832. 

 State of public affairs when Macaulay entered Parliament-- His maiden speech--The French Revolution of July 1830-- Macaulay's letters from Paris--The Palais Royal--Lafayette-- Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia--The new Parliament meets-- Fall of the Duke of Wellington--Scene with Croker--The Reform Bill--Political success--House of Commons life-- Macaulay's party spirit--Loudon Society--Mr. Thomas Flower Ellis--Visit to Cambridge--Rothley Temple--Margaret Macaulay's Journal--Lord Brougham--Hopes of Office--Macaulay as a politician--Letters to Hannah Macaulay, Mr. Napier, and Mr. Ellis. 

THROUGHOUT the last two centuries of our history there never was aperiod when a man conscious of power, impatient of public wrongs, andstill young enough to love a fight for its own sake, could have enteredParliament with a fairer prospect of leading a life worth living, anddoing work that would requite the pains, than at the commencement of theyear 1830. 

In this volume, which only touches politics in order to show to whatextent Macaulay was a politician, and for how long, controversies cannotappropriately be started or revived. This is not the place to enterinto a discussion on the vexed question as to whether Mr. Pitt and hissuccessors, in pursuing their system of repression, were justified bythe necessities of the long French war. It is enough to assert, what fewor none will deny, that, for the space of more than a generation from1790 onwards, our country had, with a short interval, been governed ondeclared reactionary principles. We, in whose days Whigs and Tories haveoften exchanged office, and still more often interchanged policies, find it difficult to imagine what must have been the condition of thekingdom, when one and the same party almost continuously held not onlyplace, but power, throughout a period when, to an unexampled degree, "public life was exasperated by hatred, and the charities of privatelife soured by political aversion. " [These expressions occur in LordCockburn's Memorials of his Time. ] Fear, religion, ambition, andself-interest, --everything that could tempt and everything that coulddeter, --were enlisted on the side of the dominant opinions. To professLiberal views was to be excluded from all posts of emolument, from allfunctions of dignity, and from all opportunities of public usefulness. The Whig leaders, while enjoying that security for life and libertywhich even in the worst days of our recent history has been the rewardof eminence, were powerless in the Commons and isolated in the Lords. Nomotive but disinterested conviction kept a handful of veterans steadfastround a banner which was never raised except to be swept contemptuouslydown by the disciplined and overwhelming strength of the ministerialphalanx. Argument and oratory were alike unavailing under a constitutionwhich was indeed a despotism of privilege. The county representationof England was an anomaly, and the borough representation little betterthan a scandal. The constituencies of Scotland, with so much else thatof right belonged to the public, had got into Dundas's pocket. In theyear 1820 all the towns north of Tweed together contained fewer votersthan are now on the rolls of the single burgh of Hawick, and all thecounties together contained fewer voters than are now on the register ofRoxburghshire. So small a band of electors was easily manipulated by aparty leader who had the patronage of India at his command. The threePresidencies were flooded with the sons and nephews of men who werelucky enough to have a seat in a Town Council, or a superiority ina rural district; and fortunate it was for our empire that theresponsibilities of that noblest of all careers soon educated youngIndian Civil Servants into something higher than mere adherents of apolitical party. 

While the will of the nation was paralysed within the senate, effectualcare was taken that its voice should not be heard without. The press wasgagged in England, and throttled in Scotland. Every speech, or sermon, or pamphlet, the substance of which a Crown lawyer could torture intoa semblance of sedition, sent its author to the jail, the hulks, or thepillory. In any place of resort where an informer could penetrate, menspoke their minds at imminent hazard of ruinous fines, and protractedimprisonment. It was vain to appeal to Parliament for redress againstthe tyranny of packed juries, and panic-driven magistrates. Sheridanendeavoured to retain for his countrymen the protection of HabeasCorpus; but he could only muster forty-one supporters. Exactly as manymembers followed Fox into the lobby when he opposed a bill, which, interpreted in the spirit that then actuated our tribunals, madeattendance at an open meeting summoned for the consideration ofParliamentary Reform a service as dangerous as night-poaching, and farmore dangerous than smuggling. Only ten more than that numberventured to protest against the introduction of a measure, still moreinquisitorial in its provisions and ruthless in its penalties, whichrendered every citizen who gave his attention to the removal of publicgrievances liable at any moment to find himself in the position ofa criminal;--that very measure in behalf of which Bishop Horsley hadstated in the House of Peers that he did not know what the mass of thepeople of any country had to do with the laws, except to obey them. 

Amidst a population which had once known freedom, and was still fit tobe entrusted with it, such a state of matters could not last for ever. Justly proud of the immense success that they had bought by theirresolution, their energy, and their perseverance, the Ministers regardedthe fall of Napoleon as a party triumph which could only serve toconfirm their power. But the last cannon-shot that was fired on the 18thof June, was in truth the death-knell of the golden age of Toryism. When the passion and ardour of the war gave place to the discontentengendered by a protracted period of commercial distress, the opponentsof progress began to perceive that they had to reckon, not with a smalland disheartened faction, but with a clear majority of the nation led bythe most enlightened, and the most eminent, of its sons. Agitators andincendiaries retired into the background, as will always be the casewhen the country is in earnest; and statesmen who had much to lose, butwere not afraid to risk it, stepped quietly and firmly to the front. The men, and the sons of the men, who had so long endured exclusion fromoffice, embittered by unpopularity, at length reaped their reward. EarlGrey, who forty years before had been hooted through the streetsof North Shields with cries of "No Popery, " lived to bear the mostrespected name in England; and Brougham, whose opinions differed littlefrom those for expressing which Dr. Priestley in 1791 had his houseburned about his ears by the Birmingham mob, was now the popular idolbeyond all comparison or competition. 

In the face of such unanimity of purpose, guided by so much worth andtalent, the Ministers lost their nerve, and, like all rulers who do notpossess the confidence of the governed, began first to make mistakes, and then to quarrel among themselves. Throughout the years of Macaulay'searly manhood the ice was breaking fast. He was still quite young whenthe concession of Catholic Emancipation gave a moral shock to the Toryparty from which it never recovered until the old order of things hadfinally passed away. [Macaulay was fond of repeating an answer made tohim by Lord Clarendon in the year 1829. The young men were talking overthe situation, and Macaulay expressed curiosity as to the terms in whichthe Duke of Wellington would recommend the Catholic Relief Bill to thePeers. "Oh, " said the other, "it will be easy enough. He'll say 'Mylords! Attention! Right about face! March!'"] It was his fortune toenter into other men's labours after the burden and heat of the day hadalready been borne, and to be summoned into the field just as theseason was at hand for gathering in a ripe and long-expected harvest ofbeneficent legislation. 

On the 5th of April, 1830, he addressed the House of Commons on thesecond reading of Mr. Robert Grant's bill for the Removal of JewishDisabilities. Sir James Mackintosh rose with him, but Macaulay got theadvantage of the preference that has always been conceded to one whospeaks for the first time after gaining his seat during the continuanceof a Parliament;--a privilege which, by a stretch of generosity, is nowextended to new members who have been returned at a general election. Sir James subsequently took part in the debate; not, as he carefullyassured his audience, "to supply any defects in the speech of hishonourable friend, for there were none that he could find, butprincipally to absolve his own conscience. " Indeed, Macaulay, addressinghimself to his task with an absence of pretension such as never failsto conciliate the goodwill of the House towards a maiden speech, put clearly and concisely enough the arguments in favour of thebill;--arguments which, obvious, and almost common-place, as they appearunder his straightforward treatment, had yet to be repeated during aspace of six and thirty years before they commended themselves to thejudgment of our Upper Chamber. 

"The power of which you deprive the Jew consists in maces, and goldchains, and skins of parchment with pieces of wax dangling from theiredges. The power which you leave the Jew is the power of principal overclerk, of master over servant, of landlord over tenant. As things nowstand, a Jew may be the richest man in England. He may possess themeans of raising this party and depressing that; of making East Indiandirectors; of making members of Parliament. The influence of a Jew maybe of the first consequence in a war which shakes Europe to the centre. His power may come into play in assisting or thwarting the greatestplans of the greatest princes; and yet, with all this confessed, acknowledged, undenied, you would have him deprived of power! Does notwealth confer power? How are we to permit all the consequences of thatwealth but one? I cannot conceive the nature of an argument that is tobear out such a position. If we were to be called on to revert to theday when the warehouses of Jews were torn down and pillaged, thetheory would be comprehensible. But we have to do with a persecution sodelicate that there is no abstract rule for its guidance. You tell usthat the Jews have no legal right to power, and I am bound to admit it;but in the same way, three hundred years ago they had no legal right tobe in England, and six hundred years ago they had no legal right to theteeth in their heads. But, if it is the moral right we are to look at, Ihold that on every principle of moral obligation the Jew has a right topolitical power. "

He was on his legs once again, and once only, during his first Session;doing more for future success in Parliament by his silence than hecould have effected by half a dozen brilliant perorations. A crisis wasrapidly approaching when a man gifted with eloquence, who by previousself-restraint had convinced the House that he did not speak forspeaking's sake, might rise almost in a day to the very summit ofinfluence and reputation. The country was under the personal rule of theDuke of Wellington, who had gradually squeezed out of his Cabinet everyvestige of Liberalism, and even of independence, and who at laststood so completely alone that he was generally supposed to be in moreintimate communication with Prince Polignac than with any of his owncolleagues. The Duke had his own way in the Lords; and on the benches ofthe Commons the Opposition members were unable to carry, or even visiblyto improve their prospect of carrying, the measures on which theirhearts were set. The Reformers were not doing better in the divisionlobby than in 1821; and their question showed no signs of havingadvanced since the day when it had been thrown over by Pitt on the eveof the French Revolution. 

But the outward aspect of the situation was very far from answering tothe reality. While the leaders of the popular party had been spendingthemselves in efforts that seemed each more abortive than thelast, --dividing only to be enormously outvoted, and vindicatingwith calmness and moderation the first principles of constitutionalgovernment only to be stigmatised as the apostles of anarchy, --a mightychange was surely but imperceptibly effecting itself in the collectivemind of their fellow-countrymen. 

 "For, while the tired waves, vainly breaking, Seem here no painful inch to gain, Far back, through creeks and inlets making, Comes silent, flooding in, the main. "

Events were at hand, which unmistakably showed how different was theEngland of 1830 from the England of 1790. The King died; Parliament wasdissolved on the 24th of July; and in the first excitement and bustleof the elections, while the candidates were still on the roads and thewrits in the mailbags, came the news that Paris was in arms. Thetroops fought as well as Frenchmen ever can be got to fight againstthe tricolour; but by the evening of the 29th it was all over with theBourbons. The Minister, whose friendship had reflected such unpopularityon our own Premier, succumbed to the detestation of the victoriouspeople, and his sacrifice did not save the dynasty. What was passingamong our neighbours for once created sympathy, and not repulsion, on this side the Channel. One French Revolution had condemned EnglishLiberalism to forty years of subjection, and another was to be thesignal which launched it on as long a career of supremacy. Most mensaid, and all felt, that Wellington must follow Polignac; and the publictemper was such as made it well for the stability of our throne thatit was filled by a monarch who had attracted to himself the hopes andaffection of the nation, and who shared its preferences and antipathieswith regard to the leading statesmen of the day. 

One result of political disturbance in any quarter of the globe is tofill the scene of action with young members of Parliament, who followRevolutions about Europe as assiduously as Jew brokers attend upon themovements of an invading army. Macaulay, whose re-election for Calnehad been a thing of course, posted off to Paris at the end of August, journeying by Dieppe and Rouen, and eagerly enjoying a first taste ofcontinental travel. His letters during the tour were such as, previouslyto the age of railroads, brothers who had not been abroad before used towrite for the edification of sisters who expected never to go abroad atall. He describes in minute detail manners and institutions that to usare no longer novelties, and monuments which an educated Englishman ofour time knows as well as Westminster Abbey, and a great deal betterthan the Tower. Everything that he saw, heard, ate, drank, paid, andsuffered, was noted down in his exuberant diction to be read aloud andcommented on over the breakfast table in Great Ormond Street. 

"At Rouen, " he says, "I was struck by the union of venerable antiquitywith extreme liveliness and gaiety. We have nothing of the sort inEngland. Till the time of James the First, I imagine, our houses werealmost all of wood, and have in consequence disappeared. In York thereare some very old streets; but they are abandoned to the lowest people, and the gay shops are in the newly-built quarter of the town. In London, what with the fire of 1666, and what with the natural progress ofdemolition and rebuilding, I doubt whether there are fifty houses thatdate from the Reformation. But in Rouen you have street after street oflofty stern-looking masses of stone, with Gothic carvings. The buildingsare so high, and the ways so narrow, that the sun can scarcely reach thepavements. Yet in these streets, monastic in their aspect, you have allthe glitter of Regent Street or the Burlington Arcade. Rugged and dark, above, below they are a blaze of ribands, gowns, watches, trinkets, artificial flowers; grapes, melons, and peaches such as Covent Gardendoes not furnish, filling the windows of the fruiterers; showy womenswimming smoothly over the uneasy stones, and stared at by nationalguards swaggering by in full uniform. It is the Soho Bazaar transplantedinto the gloomy cloisters of Oxford. "

He writes to a friend just before he started on his tour: "There is muchthat I am impatient to see, but two things specially, --the Palais Royal, and the man who called me the Aristarchus of Edinburgh. " Who this personmight be, and whether Macaulay succeeded in meeting him, are questionswhich his letters leave unsolved; but he must have been a constantvisitor at the Palais Royal if the hours that he spent in it bore anyrelation to the number of pages which it occupies in his correspondence. The place was indeed well worth a careful study; for in 1830 it was notthe orderly and decent bazaar of the Second Empire, but was still thatcompound of Parnassus and Bohemia which is painted in vivid colours inthe "Grand Homme de Province" of Balzac, --still the paradise of suchineffable rascals as Diderot has drawn with terrible fidelity in his"Neveu de Rameau. "

"If I were to select the spot in all the earth in which the good andevil of civilisation are most strikingly exhibited, in which the arts oflife are carried to the highest perfection, and in which all pleasures, high and low, intellectual and sensual, are collected in the smallestspace, I should certainly choose the Palais Royal. It is the CoventGarden Piazza, the Paternoster Row, the Vauxhall, the Albion Tavern, theBurlington Arcade, the Crockford's the Finish, the Athenaeum of Parisall in one. Even now, when the first dazzling effect has passed off, Inever traverse it without feeling bewildered by its magnificent variety. As a great capital is a country in miniature, so the Palais Royal isa capital in miniature, --an abstract and epitome of a vast community, exhibiting at a glance the politeness which adorns its higher ranks, the coarseness of its populace, and the vices and the misery which lieunderneath its brilliant exterior. Everything is there, and everybody. Statesmen, wits, philosophers, beauties, dandies, blacklegs, adventurers, artists, idlers, the king and his court, beggars withmatches crying for charity, wretched creatures dying of disease and wantin garrets. There is no condition of life which is not to be found inthis gorgeous and fantastic Fairyland. "

Macaulay had excellent opportunities for seeing behind the scenes duringthe closing acts of the great drama that was being played out throughthose summer months. The Duc de Broglie, then Prime Minister, treatedhim with marked attention, both as an Englishman of distinction, and ashis father's son. He was much in the Chamber of Deputies, and witnessedthat strange and pathetic historical revival when, after an interval offorty such years as mankind had never known before, the aged La Fayetteagain stood forth, in the character of a disinterested dictator, betweenthe hostile classes of his fellow-countrymen. 

"De La Fayette is so overwhelmed with work that I scarcely knew howto deliver even Brougham's letter, which was a letter of business, andshould have thought it absurd to send him Mackintosh's, which was a mereletter of introduction, I fell in with an English acquaintance who toldme that he had an appointment with La Fayette, and who undertook todeliver them both. I accepted his offer, for, if I had left them withthe porter, ten to one they would never have been opened. I hear thathundreds of letters are lying in the lodge of the hotel. Every Wednesdaymorning, from nine to eleven, La Fayette gives audience to anybody whowishes to speak with him; but about ten thousand people attend on theseoccasions, and fill, not only the house, but all the courtyard and halfthe street. La Fayette is Commander in Chief of the National Guard ofFrance. The number of these troops in Paris alone is upwards of fortythousand. The Government find a musket and bayonet; but the uniform, which costs about ten napoleons, the soldiers provide themselves. Allthe shopkeepers are enrolled, and I cannot sufficiently admire theirpatriotism. My landlord, Meurice, a man who, I suppose, has realised amillion francs or more, is up one night in four with his firelock doingthe duty of a common watchman. 

"There is, however, something to be said as an explanation of the zealwith which the bourgeoisie give their time and money to the public. Thearmy received so painful a humiliation in the battles of July that itis by no means inclined to serve the new system faithfully. The rabblebehaved nobly during the conflict, and have since shown rare humanityand moderation. Yet those who remember the former Revolution feel anextreme dread of the ascendency of mere multitude and there have beensigns, trifling in themselves, but such as may naturally alarm people ofproperty. Workmen have struck. Machinery has been attacked. Inflammatoryhandbills have appeared upon the walls. At present all is quiet; but thething may happen, particularly if Polignac and Peyronnet should not beput to death. The Peers wish to save them. The lower orders, who havehad five or six thousand of their friends and kinsmen butchered by thefrantic wickedness of these men, will hardly submit. 'Eh! eh!' said afierce old soldier of Napoleon to me the other day. 'L'on dit qu'ilsseront deportes: mais ne m'en parle pas. Non! non! Coupez-leur le cou. Sacre! Ca ne passera pas comme ca. '"

"This long political digression will explain to you why Monsieur De LaFayette is so busy. He has more to do than all the Ministers together. However, my letters were presented, and he said to my friend that hehad a soiree every Tuesday, and should be most happy to see me there. I drove to his house yesterday night. Of the interest which the commonParisians take in politics you may judge by this. I told my driver towait for me, and asked his number. 'Ah! monsieur, c'est un beau numero. C'est un brave numero. C'est 221. ' You may remember that the numberof deputies who voted the intrepid address to Charles the Tenth, whichirritated him into his absurd coup d'etat, was 221. I walked into thehotel through a crowd of uniforms, and found the reception-rooms as fullas they could hold. I was not able to make my way to La Fayette; butI was glad to see him. He looks like the brave, honest, simple, good-natured man that he is. "

Besides what is quoted above, there is very little of general interestin these journal letters; and their publication would serve no purposeexcept that of informing the present leader of the Monarchists whathis father had for breakfast and dinner during a week of 1830, and ofenabling him to trace changes in the disposition of the furniture of theDe Broglie hotel. "I believe, " writes Macaulay, "that I have given theinventory of every article in the Duke's salon. You will think that Ihave some intention of turning upholsterer. "

His thoughts and observations on weightier matters he kept for anarticle on the State of Parties in France which he intended to providefor the October number of the Edinburgh Review. While he was still atParis, this arrangement was rescinded by Mr. Napier in compliancewith the wish, or the whim, of Brougham; and Macaulay's surprise andannoyance vented itself in a burst of indignant rhetoric strong enoughto have upset a Government. [See on page 142 the letter to Mr. Napier ofSeptember 16, 1831. ] His wrath, --or that part of it, at least, which wasdirected against the editor, --did not survive an interchange of letters;and he at once set to work upon turning his material into the shape of avolume for the series of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, under the titleof "The History of France, from the Restoration of the Bourbons tothe Accession of Louis Philippe. " Ten years ago proofs of the firsteighty-eight pages were found in Messrs. Spottiswoode's printing office, with a note on the margin to the effect that most of the type was brokenup before the sheets had been pulled. The task, as far as it went, wasfaithfully performed; but the author soon arrived at the conclusion thathe might find a more profitable investment for his labour. With his headfull of Reform, Macaulay was loth to spend in epitomising history thetime and energy that would be better employed in helping to make it. 

When the new Parliament met on the 26th of October it was alreadyevident that the Government was doomed. Where the elections were open, Reform had carried the day. Brougham was returned for Yorkshire, aconstituency of tried independence, which before 1832 seldom failedto secure the triumph of a cause into whose scale it had thrown itsenormous weight. The counties had declared for the Whigs by a majorityof eight to five, and the great cities by a majority of eight to one. Of the close boroughs in Tory hands many were held by men who had notforgotten Catholic Emancipation, and who did not mean to pardon theirleaders until they had ceased to be Ministers. 

In the debate on the Address the Duke of Wellington uttered his famousdeclaration that the Legislature possessed, and deserved to possess, the full and entire confidence of the country; that its existingconstitution was not only practically efficient but theoreticallyadmirable; and that, if he himself had to frame a system ofrepresentation, he should do his best to imitate so excellent a model, though he admitted that the nature of man was incapable at a singleeffort of attaining to such mature perfection. His bewildered colleaguescould only assert in excuse that their chief was deaf, and wish thateverybody else had been deaf too. The second ministerial feat was of apiece with the first. Their Majesties had accepted an invitation to dineat Guildhall on the 9th of November. The Lord Mayor elect informed theHome Office that there was danger of riot, and the Premier, (who couldnot be got to see that London was not Paris because his own politicalcreed happened to be much the same as Prince Polignac's, ) advised theKing to postpone his visit to the City, and actually talked of puttingLombard Street and Cheapside in military occupation. Such a step takenat such a time by such a man had its inevitable result. Consols, whichthe Duke's speech on the Address had brought from 84 to 80, fell to 77in an hour and a half; jewellers and silversmiths sent their goods tothe banks; merchants armed their clerks and barricaded their warehouses;and, when the panic subsided, fear only gave place to the shame andannoyance which a loyal people, whose loyalty was at that moment moreactive than ever, experienced from the reflection that all Europe wasdiscussing the reasons why our King could not venture to dine in publicwith the Chief Magistrate of his own capital. A strong Minister, whosends the funds down seven per cent. In as many days, is an anomaly thatno nation will consent to tolerate; the members of the Cabinet lookedforward with consternation to a scheme of Reform which, with theapprobation of his party, Brougham had undertaken to introduce on the15th of November; and when, within twenty-four hours of the dreadeddebate, they were defeated on a motion for a committee on the CivilList, their relief at having obtained an excuse for retiring at leastequalled that which the country felt at getting rid of them. 

Earl Grey came in, saying, (and meaning what he said, ) that theprinciples on which he stood were "amelioration of abuses, promotionof economy, and the endeavour to preserve peace consistently with thehonour of the country. " Brougham, who was very sore at having beenforced to postpone his notice on Reform on account of the ministerialcrisis, had gratuitously informed the House of Commons on two successivedays that he had no intention of taking office. A week later on heaccepted the Chancellorship with an inconsistency which his friendsreadily forgave, for they knew that, when he resolved to jointhe Cabinet, he was thinking more of his party than of himself; aconsideration that naturally enough only sharpened the relish with whichhis adversaries pounced upon this first of his innumerable scrapes. Whenthe new writ for Yorkshire was moved, Croker commented sharply on theposition in which the Chancellor was placed, and remarked that he hadoften heard Brougham declare that "the characters of public men formedpart of the wealth of England;"--a reminiscence which was delivered withas much gravity and unction as if it had been Mackintosh discoursing onRomilly. Unfortunately for himself, Croker ruined his case by referringto a private conversation, an error which the House of Commons alwaystakes at least an evening to forgive; and Macaulay had his audience withhim as he vindicated the absent orator with a generous warmth, whichat length carried him so far that he was interrupted by a call to orderfrom the Chair. "The noble Lord had but a few days for deliberation, and that at a time when great agitation prevailed, and when the countryrequired a strong and efficient Ministry to conduct the government ofthe State. At such a period a few days are as momentous as months wouldbe at another period. It is not by the clock that we should measure theimportance of the changes that might take place during such an interval. I owe no allegiance to the noble Lord who has been transferred toanother place; but as a member of this House I cannot banish from mymemory the extraordinary eloquence of that noble person within thesewalls, --an eloquence which has left nothing equal to it behind; and whenI behold the departure of the great man from amongst us, and when I seethe place in which he sat, and from which he has so often astonishedus by the mighty powers of his mind, occupied this evening by thehonourable member who has commenced this debate, I cannot express thefeelings and emotions to which such circumstances give rise. "

Parliament adjourned over Christmas; and on the 1st of March 1831 LordJohn Russell introduced the Reform Bill amidst breathless silence, which was at length broken by peals of contemptuous laughter from theOpposition benches, as he read the list of the hundred and ten boroughswhich were condemned to partial or entire disfranchisement. Sir RobertInglis led the attack upon a measure that he characterised as Revolutionin the guise of a statute. Next morning as Sir Robert was walking intotown over Westminster Bridge, he told his companion that up to theprevious night he had been very anxious, but that his fears were nowat an end, inasmuch as the shock caused by the extravagance of theministerial proposals would infallibly bring the country to its senses. On the evening of that day Macaulay made the first of his Reformspeeches. When he sat down the Speaker sent for him, and told him thatin all his prolonged experience he had never seen the House in such astate of excitement. Even at this distance of time it is impossible toread aloud the last thirty sentences without an emotion which suggeststo the mind what must have been their effect when declaimed by one whofelt every word that he spoke, in the midst of an assembly agitated byhopes and apprehensions such as living men have never known, or havelong forgotten. ["The question of Parliamentary Reform is still behind. But signs, of which it is impossible to misconceive the import, do mostclearly indicate that, unless that question also be speedily settled, property, and order, and all the institutions of this great monarchy, will be exposed to fearful peril. Is it possible that gentlemen longversed in high political affairs cannot read these signs? Is it possiblethat they can really believe that the Representative system of England, such as it now is, will last to the year 1860? If not, for what wouldthey have us wait? Would they have us wait, merely that we may show toall the world how little we have profited by our own recent experience?Would they have us wait, that we may once again hit the exact pointwhere we can neither refuse with authority, nor concede with grace?Would they have us wait, that the numbers of the discontented party maybecome larger, its demands higher, its feelings more acrimonious, itsorganisation more complete? Would they have us wait till the wholetragicomedy of 1827 has been acted over again? till they have beenbrought into office by a cry of 'No Reform, ' to be reformers, as theywere once before brought into office by a cry of 'No Popery', to beemancipators? Have they obliterated from their minds--gladly, perhaps, would some among them obliterate from their minds--the transactionsof that year? And have they forgotten all the transactions of thesucceeding year? Have they forgotten how the spirit of liberty inIreland, debarred from its natural outlet, found a vent by forbiddenpassages? Have they forgotten how we were forced to indulge theCatholics in all the license of rebels, merely because we choseto withhold from them the liberties of subjects? Do they wait forassociations more formidable than that of the Corn Exchange, forcontributions larger than the Rent, for agitators more violent thanthose who, three years ago, divided with the King and the Parliamentthe sovereignty of Ireland? Do they wait for that last and most dreadfulparoxysm of popular rage, for that last and most cruel test of militaryfidelity? Let them wait, if their past experience shall induce them tothink that any high honour or any exquisite pleasure is to be obtainedby a policy like this. Let them wait, if this strange and fearfulinfatuation be indeed upon them, that they should not see with theireyes, or hear with their ears, or understand with their heart. But letus know our interest and our duty better. Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, thatyou may preserve. Now, therefore, while everything at home and abroadforebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against thespirit of the age, now, while the crash of the proudest throne of theContinent is still resounding in our ears, now, while the roof of aBritish palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir offorty kings, now, while we see on every side ancient institutionssubverted, and great societies dissolved, now, while the heart ofEngland is still sound, now, while old feelings and old associationsretain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away, now, in thisyour accepted time, now, in this your day of salvation, take counsel, not of prejudice, not of party spirit, not of the ignominious pride ofa fatal consistency, but of history, of reason, of the ages which arepast, of the signs of this most portentous time. Pronounce in amanner worthy of the expectation with which this great debate has beenanticipated, and of the long remembrance which it will leave behind. Renew the youth of the State. Save property, divided against itself. Save the multitude, endangered by its own ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save thegreatest, the fairest, and most highly civilised community that everexisted, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the richheritage of so many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible. The time is short. If this bill should be rejected, I pray to God thatnone of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their voteswith unavailing remorse, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusionof ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of socialorder. "] Sir Thomas Denman, who rose later on in the discussion, said, with universal acceptance, that the orator's words remained tingling inthe ears of all who heard them, and would last in their memories aslong as they had memories to employ. That sense of proprietorship in aneffort of genius, which the House of Commons is ever ready to entertain, effaced for a while all distinctions of party. "Portions of the speech, "said Sir Robert Peel, "were as beautiful as anything I have ever heardor read. It reminded one of the old times. " The names of Fox, Burke, and Canning were during that evening in everybody's mouth; and Macaulayoverheard with delight a knot of old members illustrating theircriticisms by recollections of Lord Plunket. He had reason to bepleased; for he had been thought worthy of the compliment which thejudgment of Parliament reserves for a supreme occasion. In 1866, on thesecond reading of the Franchise Bill, when the crowning oration of thatmemorable debate had come to its close amidst a tempest of applause, one or two veterans of the lobby, forgetting Macaulay onReform, --forgetting, it may be, Mr. Gladstone himself on theConservative Budget of 1852, --pronounced, amidst the willing assent of ayounger generation, that there had been nothing like it since Plunket. 

The unequivocal success of the first speech into which he had thrown hisfull power decided for some time to come the tenor of Macaulay's career. During the next three years he devoted himself to Parliament, rivallingStanley in debate, and Hume in the regularity of his attendance. Heentered with zest into the animated and manysided life of the House ofCommons, of which so few traces can ordinarily be detected in what goesby the name of political literature. The biographers of a distinguishedstatesman too often seem to have forgotten that the subject of theirlabours passed the best part of his waking hours, during the half ofevery year, in a society of a special and deeply marked character, theleading traits of which are at least as well worth recording as thefashionable or diplomatic gossip that fills so many volumes of memoirsand correspondence. Macaulay's letters sufficiently indicate howthoroughly he enjoyed the ease, the freedom, the hearty good-fellowship, that reign within the precincts of our national senate; and how entirelyhe recognised that spirit of noble equality, so prevalent among itsmembers, which takes little or no account of wealth, or title, or indeedof reputation won in other fields, but which ranks a man according asthe value of his words, and the weight of his influence, bear the testof a standard which is essentially its own. 

In February 1831 he writes to Whewell: "I am impatient for Praed'sdebut. The House of Commons is a place in which I would not promisesuccess to any man. I have great doubts even about Jeffrey. It is themost peculiar audience in the world. I should say that a man's beinga good writer, a good orator at the bar, a good mob-orator, or a goodorator in debating clubs, was rather a reason for expecting him to failthan for expecting him to succeed in the House of Commons. A place whereWalpole succeeded and Addison failed; where Dundas succeeded and Burkefailed; where Peel now succeeds and where Mackintosh fails; whereErskine and Scarlett were dinner-bells; where Lawrence and Jekyll, thetwo wittiest men, or nearly so, of their time, were thought bores, issurely a very strange place. And yet I feel the whole character of theplace growing upon me. I begin to like what others about me like, and todisapprove what they disapprove. Canning used to say that the House, asa body, had better taste than the man of best taste in it, and I am verymuch inclined to think that Canning was right. "

The readers of Macaulay's letters will, from time to time, find reasonto wish that the young Whig of 1830 had more frequently practised thatstudied respect for political opponents, which now does so much tocorrect the intolerance of party among men who can be adversarieswithout ceasing to regard each other as colleagues. But this honourablesentiment was the growth of later days; and, at an epoch when the systemof the past and the system of the future were night after night indeadly wrestle on the floor of St. Stephen's, the combatants were aptto keep their kindliness, and even their courtesies, for those with whomthey stood shoulder to shoulder in the fray. Politicians, Conservativeand Liberal alike, who were themselves young during the Sessions of 1866and 1867, and who can recall the sensations evoked by a contest of whichthe issues were far less grave and the passions less strong than ofyore, will make allowances for one who, with the imagination of a poetand the temperament of an orator, at thirty years old was sent straightinto the thickest of the tumult which then raged round the standard ofReform, and will excuse him for having borne himself in that battle ofgiants as a determined and a fiery partisan. 

If to live intensely be to live happily, Macaulay had an enviable lotduring those stirring years; and, if the old songwriters had reasonon their side when they celebrated the charms of a light purse, hecertainly possessed that element of felicity. Among the earliesteconomical reforms undertaken by the new Government was a searchingrevision of our Bankruptcy jurisdiction, in the course of whichhis Commissionership was swept away, without leaving him a penny ofcompensation. "I voted for the Bankruptcy Court Bill, " he said in answerto an inquisitive constituent. "There were points in that Bill ofwhich I did not approve, and I only refrained from stating those pointsbecause an office of my own was at stake. " When this source fell dry hewas for a while a poor man; for a member of Parliament, who has othersto think of besides himself, is anything but rich on sixty or seventypounds a quarter as the produce of his pen, and a college income whichhas only a few more months to run. At a time when his Parliamentary famestood at its highest he was reduced to sell the gold medals which he hadgained at Cambridge; but he was never for a moment in debt; nor did hepublish a line prompted by any lower motive than the inspiration of hispolitical faith, or the instinct of his literary genius. He had none butpleasant recollections connected with the period when his fortunes wereat their lowest. From the secure prosperity of after life he delightedin recalling the time when, after cheering on the fierce debate fortwelve or fifteen hours together, he would walk home by daylight to hischambers, and make his supper on a cheese which was a present fromone of his Wiltshire constituents, and a glass of the audit ale whichreminded him that he was still a fellow of Trinity. 

With political distinction came social success, more rapid and moresubstantial, perhaps, than has ever been achieved by one who took solittle trouble to win or to retain it. The circumstances of the timewere all in his favour. Never did our higher circles present so muchthat would attract a new-comer, and never was there more readiness toadmit within them all who brought the honourable credentials of talentand celebrity. In 1831 the exclusiveness of birth was passing away, andthe exclusiveness of fashion had not set in. The Whig party, duringits long period of depression, had been drawn together by the bondsof common hopes, and endeavours, and disappointments; and personalreputation, whether literary, political, or forensic, held its own asagainst the advantages of rank and money to an extent that was neverknown before, and never since. Macaulay had been well received in thecharacter of an Edinburgh Reviewer, and his first great speech in theHouse of Commons at once opened to him all the doors in London that werebest worth entering. Brought up, as he had been, in a household whichwas perhaps the strictest and the homeliest among a set of familieswhose creed it was to live outside the world, it put his strength ofmind to the test when he found himself courted and observed by themost distinguished and the most formidable personages of the day. LadyHolland listened to him with unwonted deference, and scolded him with acircumspection that was in itself a compliment. Rogers spoke of him withfriendliness, and to him with positive affection, and gave him the lastproof of his esteem and admiration by asking him to name the morning fora breakfast-party. He was treated with almost fatherly kindness by theable and worthy man who is still remembered by the name of ConversationSharp. Indeed, his deference for the feelings of all whom he likedand respected, which an experienced observer could detect beneath theeagerness of his manner and the volubility of his talk, made him afavourite among those of a generation above his own. He bore his honoursquietly, and enjoyed them with the natural and hearty pleasure of a manwho has a taste for society, but whose ambitions lie elsewhere. For thespace of three seasons he dined out almost nightly, and spent many ofhis Sundays in those suburban residences which, as regards the companyand the way of living, are little else than sections of London removedinto a purer air. 

Before very long his habits and tastes began to incline in the directionof domesticity, and even of seclusion; and, indeed, at every period ofhis life he would gladly desert the haunts of those whom Pope andhis contemporaries used to term "the great, " to seek the cheerful andcultured simplicity of his home, or the conversation of that one friendwho had a share in the familiar confidence which Macaulay otherwisereserved for his nearest relatives. This was Mr. Thomas Flower Ellis, whose reports of the proceedings in King's Bench, extending over a wholegeneration, have established and perpetuated his name as that of anacute and industrious lawyer. He was older than Macaulay by four years. Though both Fellows of the same college, they missed each other at theuniversity, and it was not until 1827, on the Northern circuit, thattheir acquaintance began. "Macaulay has joined, " writes Mr. Ellis; "anamusing person; somewhat boyish in his manner, but very original. " Theyoung barristers had in common an insatiable love of the classics;and similarity of character, not very perceptible on the surface, soonbrought about an intimacy which ripened into an attachment as importantto the happiness of both concerned as ever united two men through everystage of life and vicissitude of fortune. Mr. Ellis had married early;but in 1839 he lost his wife, and Macaulay's helpful and heartfeltparticipation in his great sorrow riveted the links of a chain that wasalready indissoluble. 

The letters contained in this volume will tell, better than the wordsof any third person, what were the points of sympathy between the twocompanions, and in what manner they lived together till the end came. Mr. Ellis survived his friend little more than a year; not complainingor lamenting but going about his work like a man from whose day thelight has departed. 

Brief and rare were the vacations of the most hard-worked Parliamentthat had sat since the times of Pym and Hampden. In the late autumn of1831, the defeat of the Reform Bill in the House of Lords deliveredover the country to agitation, resentment, and alarm; and gave a shortholiday to public men who were not Ministers, magistrates, or officersin the yeomanry. Hannah and Margaret Macaulay accompanied their brotheron a visit to Cambridge, where they met with the welcome which youngMasters of Arts delight in providing for the sisters of a comrade ofwhom they are fond and proud. 

"On the evening that we arrived, " says Lady Trevelyan, "we met at dinnerWhewell, Sedgwick, Airy, and Thirlwail and how pleasant they were, and how much they made of us two happy girls, who were never tired ofseeing, and hearing and admiring! We breakfasted, lunched, and dinedwith one or the other of the set during our stay, and walked about thecolleges all day with the whole train. [A reminiscence from that week ofrefined and genial hospitality survives in the Essay on Madame d'Arblay. The reception which Miss Burney would have enjoyed at Oxford, if she hadvisited it otherwise than as an attendant on Royalty, is sketched offwith all the writer's wonted spirit, and more than his wonted grace. ]Whewell was then tutor; rougher, but less pompous, and much moreagreeable, than in after years; though I do not think that he evercordially liked your uncle. We then went on to Oxford, which fromknowing no one there seemed terribly dull to us by comparison withCambridge, and we rejoiced our brother's heart by sighing afterTrinity. "

During the first half of his life Macaulay spent some months of everyyear at the seat of his uncle, Mr. Babington, who kept open house forhis nephews and nieces throughout the summer and autumn. Rothley Temple, which lies in a valley beyond the first ridge that separates the flatunattractive country immediately round Leicester from the wild andbeautiful scenery of Charnwood Forest, is well worth visiting as asingularly unaltered specimen of an old English home. The stately trees;the grounds, half park and half meadow; the cattle grazing up to thevery windows; the hall, with its stone pavement rather below than abovethe level of the soil, hung with armour rude and rusty enough to dispelthe suspicion of its having passed through a collector's hands; the lowceilings; the dark oak wainscot, carved after primitive designs, thatcovered every inch of wall in bedroom and corridor; the general airwhich the whole interior presented of having been put to rights atthe date of the Armada and left alone ever since;--all this antiquitycontrasted quaintly, but prettily enough, with the youth and gaiety thatlit up every corner of the ever-crowded though comfortable mansion. Inwet weather there was always a merry group sitting on the staircase, ormarching up and down the gallery; and, wherever the noise and fun weremost abundant, wherever there was to be heard the loudest laughter andthe most vehement expostulation, Macaulay was the centre of a circlewhich was exclaiming at the levity of his remarks about the BlessedMartyr; disputing with him on the comparative merits of Pascal, Racine, Corneille, Moliere, and Boileau or checking him as he attempted tojustify his godparents by running off a list of all the famous Thomasesin history. The place is full of his memories. His favourite walk was amile of field-road and lane which leads from the house to a lodge onthe highway; and his favourite point of view in that walk was a slightacclivity, whence the traveller from Leicester catches his first sightof Rothley Temple, with its background of hill and greenwood. He isremembered as sitting at the window in the hall, reading Dante tohimself, or translating it aloud as long as any listener cared to remainwithin ear-shot. He occupied, by choice, a very small chamber on theground floor, through the window of which he could escape unobservedwhile afternoon callers were on their way between the front door and thedrawing-room. On such occasions he would take refuge in a boat mooredunder the shade of some fine oaks which still exist, though theornamental water on whose bank they stood has since been converted intodry land. 

A journal kept at intervals by Margaret Macaulay, some extracts fromwhich have here been arranged in the form of a continuous narrative, affords a pleasant and faithful picture of her brother's home-lifeduring the years 1831 and 1832. With an artless candour, from which hisreputation will not suffer, she relates the alternations of hope anddisappointment through which the young people passed when it began to bea question whether or not he would be asked to join the Administration. 

"I think I was about twelve when I first became very fond of my brother, and from that time my affection for him has gone on increasing during aperiod of seven years. I shall never forget my delight and enchantmentwhen I first found that he seemed to like talking to me. His manner wasvery flattering to such a child, for he always took as much pains toamuse me, and to inform me on anything I wished to know, as ho couldhave done to the greatest person in the land. I have heard him expressgreat disgust towards those people who, lively and agreeable abroad, area dead weight in the family circle. I think the remarkable clearnessof his style proceeds in some measure from the habit of conversing withvery young people, to whom he has a great deal to explain and impart. 

"He reads his works to us in the manuscript, and, when we find fault, asI very often do with his being too severe upon people, he takes it withthe greatest kindness, and often alters what we do not like. I hardlyever, indeed, met with a sweeter temper than his. He is rather hasty, and when he has not time for an instant's thought, he will sometimesreturn a quick answer, for which he will be sorry the moment he has saidit. But in a conversation of any length, though it may be on subjectsthat touch him very nearly, and though the person with whom he conversesmay be very provoking and extremely out of temper, I never saw him losehis. He never uses this superiority, as some do, for the purposeof irritating another still more by coolness; but speaks in a kind, good-natured manner, as if he wished to bring the other back to temperwithout appearing to notice that he had lost it. 

"He at one time took a very punning turn, and we laid a wager in books, my Mysteries of Udolpho against his German Theatre, that he could notmake two hundred puns in one evening. He did it, however, in two hours, and, although they were of course most of them miserably bad, yet it wasa proof of great quickness. 

"Saturday, February 26, 1831--At dinner we talked of the Grants. Tomsaid he had found Mr. Robert Grant walking about in the lobbies of theHouse of Commons, and saying that he wanted somebody to defend his placein the Government, which he heard was going to be attacked. 'What didyou say to him?' we asked. 'Oh, I said nothing; but, if they'll give methe place, I'll defend it. When I am Judge Advocate, I promise you thatI will not go about asking anyone to defend me. '

"After dinner we played at capping verses, and after that at a game inwhich one of the party thinks of something for the others to guess at. Tom gave the slug that killed Perceval, the lemon that Wilkes squeezedfor Doctor Johnson, the pork-chop which Thurtell ate after he hadmurdered Weare, and Sir Charles Macarthy's jaw which was sent by theAshantees as a present to George the Fourth. 

"Some one mentioned an acquaintance who had gone to the West Indies, hoping to make money, but had only ruined the complexions of hisdaughters. Tom said:

 Mr. Walker was sent to Berbice By the greatest of statesmen and earls. He went to bring back yellow boys, But he only brought back yellow girls. 

"I never saw anything like the fun and humour that kindles in his eyewhen a repartee or verse is working in his brain. 

"March 3, 1831. --Yesterday morning Hannah and I walked part of the wayto his chambers with Tom, and, as we separated, I remember wishing himgood luck and success that night. He went through it most triumphantly, and called down upon himself admiration enough to satisfy even hissister. I like so much the manner in which he receives compliments. Hedoes not pretend to be indifferent, but smiles in his kind and animatedway, with 'I am sure it is very kind of you to say so, ' or something ofthat nature. His voice from cold and over-excitement got quite into ascream towards the last part. A person told him that he had not heardsuch speaking since Fox. 'You have not heard such screaming since Fox, 'he said. 

"March 24, 1831. --By Tom's account, there never was such a scene ofagitation as the House of Commons presented at the passing of thesecond reading of the Reform Bill the day before yesterday, or ratheryesterday, for they did not divide till three or four in the morning. When dear Tom came the next day he was still very much excited, which Ifound to my cost, for when I went out to walk with him he walked so veryfast that I could scarcely keep up with him at all. With sparklingeyes he described the whole scene of the preceding evening in the mostgraphic manner. 

"'I suppose the Ministers are all in high spirits, ' said Mamma. 'Inspirits, Ma'am? I'm sure I don't know. In bed, I'll answer for it. 'Mamma asked him for franks, that she might send his speech to a lady[This lady was Mrs. Hannah More. ] who, though of high Tory principles, is very fond of Tom, and has left him in her will her valuable library. 'Oh, no, ' he said, 'don't send it. If you do, she'll cut me off with aprayer-book. '

"Tom is very much improved in his appearance during the last two orthree years. His figure is not so bad for a man of thirty as for a manof twenty-two. He dresses better, and his manners, from seeing a greatdeal of society, are very much improved. When silent and occupied inthought, walking up and down the room as he always does, his handsclenched and muscles working with the intense exertion of hismind, strangers would think his countenance stern; but I remember awriting-master of ours, when Tom had come into the room and left itagain, saying, 'Ladies, your brother looks like a lump of good-humour!'

"March 30, 1831--Tom has just left me, after a very interestingconversation. He spoke of his extreme idleness. He said: 'I never knewsuch an idle man as I am. When I go in to Empson or Ellis their tablesare always covered with books and papers. I cannot stick at anything forabove a day or two. I mustered industry enough to teach myself Italian. I wish to speak Spanish. I know I could master the difficulties in aweek, and read any book in the language at the end of a month, butI have not the courage to attempt it. If there had not been reallysomething in me, idleness would have ruined me. '

"I said that I was surprised at the great accuracy of his information, considering how desultory his reading had been. 'My accuracy as tofacts, ' he said, 'I owe to a cause which many men would not confess. It is due to my love of castle-building. The past is in my mind soonconstructed into a romance. ' He then went on to describe the way inwhich from his childhood his imagination had been filled by the study ofhistory. 'With a person of my turn, ' he said, 'the minute touches are ofas great interest, and perhaps greater, than the most important events. Spending so much time as I do in solitude, my mind would have rustedby gazing vacantly at the shop windows. As it is, I am no sooner inthe streets than I am in Greece, in Rome, in the midst of the FrenchRevolution. Precision in dates, the day or hour in which a man was bornor died, becomes absolutely necessary. A slight fact, a sentence, aword, are of importance in my romance. Pepys's Diary formed almostinexhaustible food for my fancy. I seem to know every inch of Whitehall. I go in at Hans Holbein's gate, and come out through the matted gallery. The conversations which I compose between great people of the time arelong, and sufficiently animated; in the style, if not with the merits, of Sir Walter Scott's. The old parts of London, which you are sometimessurprised at my knowing so well, those old gates and houses down by theriver, have all played their part in my stories. ' He spoke, too, ofthe manner in which he used to wander about Paris, weaving tales of theRevolution, and he thought that he owed his command of language greatlyto this habit. 

"I am very sorry that the want both of ability and memory should preventmy preserving with greater truth a conversation which interested me verymuch. 

"May 21, 1831. --Tom was from London at the time my mother's deathoccurred, and things fell out in such a manner that the firstinformation he received of it was from the newspapers. He came homedirectly. He was in an agony of distress, and gave way at first toviolent bursts of feeling. During the whole of the week he was withus all day, and was the greatest comfort to us imaginable. He talked agreat deal of our sorrow, and led the conversation by degrees to othersubjects, bearing the whole burden of it himself and interesting uswithout jarring with the predominant feeling of the time. I never sawhim appear to greater advantage--never loved him more dearly. 

"September 1831. --Of late we have walked a good deal. I remember pacingup and down Brunswick Square and Lansdowne Place for two hours one day, deep in the mazes of the most subtle metaphysics;--up and downCork Street, engaged over Dryden's poetry and the great men of thattime;--making jokes all the way along Bond Street, and talking politicseverywhere. 

"Walking in the streets with Tom and Hannah, and talking about the hardwork the heads of his party had got now, I said:

"'How idle they must think you, when they meet you here in the busypart of the day!' 'Yes, here I am, ' said he, 'walking with two unidea'dgirls. [Boswell relates in his tenth chapter how Johnson scolded Langtonfor leaving "his social friends, to go and sit with a set of wretchedunidea'd girls. "] However, if one of the Ministry says to me, "Why walkyou here all the day idle?" I shall say, "Because no man has hired me. "'

"We talked of eloquence, which he has often compared to fresco-painting:the result of long study and meditation, but at the moment of executionthrown off with the greatest rapidity; what has apparently been the workof a few hours being destined to last for ages. 

"Mr. Tierney said he was sure Sir Philip Francis had written Junius, forhe was the proudest man he ever knew, and no one ever heard of anythinghe had done to be proud of. 

"November 14, 1831, half-past-ten. --On Friday last Lord Grey sent forTom. His note was received too late to be acted on that day. OnSaturday came another, asking him to East Sheen on that day, or Sunday. Yesterday, accordingly, he went, and stayed the night, promising to behere as early as possible to-day. So much depends upon the result ofthis visit! That he will be offered a place I have not the least doubt. He will refuse a Lordship of the Treasury, a Lordship of the Admiralty, or the Mastership of the Ordnance. He will accept the Secretaryshipof the Board of Control, but will not thank them for it; and would notaccept that, but that he thinks it will be a place of importance duringthe approaching discussions on the East Indian monopoly. 

"If he gets a sufficient salary, Hannah and I shall most likely livewith him. Can I possibly look forward to anything happier? I cannotimagine a course of life that would suit him better than thus to enjoythe pleasures of domestic life without its restraints; with sufficientbusiness, but not, I hope, too much. 

"At one o'clock he came. I went out to meet him. 'I have nothing totell you. Nothing. Lord Grey sent for me to speak about a matter ofimportance, which must be strictly private. '

"November 27. --I am just returned from a long walk, during which theconversation turned entirely on one subject. After a little previoustalk about a certain great personage, [The personage was Lord Brougham, who at this time was too formidable for the poor girl to venture towrite his name at length even in a private journal. ] I asked Tom whenthe present coolness between them began. He said: 'Nothing could exceedmy respect and admiration for him in early days. I saw at that timeprivate letters in which he spoke highly of my articles, and of me asthe most rising man of the time. After a while, however, I began toremark that he became extremely cold to me, hardly ever spoke to me oncircuit, and treated me with marked slight. If I were talking to a man, if he wished to speak to him on politics or anything else that was notin any sense a private matter, he always drew him away from me insteadof addressing us both. When my article on Hallam came out, he complainedto Jeffrey that I took up too much of the Review; and, when my firstarticle on Mill appeared, he foamed with rage, and was very angry withJeffrey for having printed it. '

"'But, ' said I, ' the Mills are friends of his, and he naturally did notlike them to be attacked. '

"'On the contrary, ' said Tom, 'he had attacked them fiercely himself;but he thought I had made a hit, and was angry accordingly. When afriend of mine defended my articles to him, he said: "I know nothing ofthe articles. I have not read Macaulay's articles. " What can be imaginedmore absurd than his keeping up an angry correspondence with Jeffreyabout articles he has never read? Well, the next thing was that Jeffrey, who was about to give up the editorship, asked me if I would take it. Isaid that I would gladly do so, if they would remove the headquarters ofthe Review to London. Jeffrey wrote to him about it. He disapproved ofit so strongly that the plan was given up. The truth was that he feltthat his power over the Review diminished as mine increased, and he sawthat he would have little indeed if I were editor. 

"'I then came into Parliament. I do not complain that he should havepreferred Denman's claims to mine, and that he should have blamed LordLansdowne for not considering him. I went to take my seat. As I turnedfrom the table at which I had been taking the oaths, he stood as nearto me as you do now, and he cut me dead. We never spoke in the House, excepting once, that I can remember, when a few words passed betweenus in the lobby. I have sat close to him when many men of whom Iknew nothing have introduced themselves to me to shake hands, andcongratulate me after making a speech, and he has never said a singleword. I know that it is jealousy, because I am not the first man whom hehas used in this way. During the debate on the Catholic claims he wasso enraged because Lord Plunket had made a very splendid display, andbecause the Catholics had chosen Sir Francis Burdett instead of him tobring the Bill forward, that he threw every difficulty in its way. SirFrancis once said to him: "Really, Mr. -- you are so jealous that it isimpossible to act with you. " I never will serve in an Administration ofwhich he is the head. On that I have most firmly made up my mind. I donot believe that it is in his nature to be a month in office withoutcaballing against his colleagues. ["There never was a direct personalrival, or one who was in a position which, however reluctantly, impliedrivalry, to whom he has been just; and on the fact of this ungenerousjealousy I do not understand that there is any difference ofopinion. "--Lord Cockburn's Journal. ]

"'He is, next to the King, the most popular man in England. There isno other man whose entrance into any town in the kingdom would be socertain to be with huzzaing and taking off of horses. At the same timehe is in a very ticklish situation, for he has no real friends. Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Mackintosh, all speak of him as I now speak to you. I wastalking to Sydney Smith of him the other day, and said that, great as Ifelt his faults to be, I must allow him a real desire to raise the lowerorders, and do good by education, and those methods upon which his hearthas been always set. Sydney would not allow this, or any other, merit. Now, if those who are called his friends feel towards him, as they alldo, angry and sore at his overbearing, arrogant, and neglectful conduct, when those reactions in public feeling, which must come, arrive, he willhave nothing to return upon, no place of refuge, no hand of such triedfriends as Fox and Canning had to support him. You will see that he willsoon place himself in a false position before the public. His popularitywill go down, and he will find himself alone. Mr. Pitt, it is true, didnot study to strengthen himself by friendships but this was not fromjealousy. I do not love the man, but I believe he was quite superior tothat. It was from a solitary pride he had. I heard at Holland House theother day that Sir Philip Francis said that, though he hated Pitt, hemust confess there was something fine in seeing how he maintained hispost by himself. "The lion walks alone, " he said. "The jackals herdtogether. "'"

This conversation, to those who have heard Macaulay talk, bearsunmistakable signs of having been committed to paper while thewords, --or, at any rate, the outlines, --of some of the most importantsentences were fresh in his sister's mind. Nature had predestined thetwo men to mutual antipathy. Macaulay, who knew his own range and keptwithin it, and who gave the world nothing except his best and mostfinished work, was fretted by the slovenly omniscience of Brougham, whoaffected to be a walking encyclopaedia, "a kind of semi-Solomon, halfknowing everything from the cedar to the hyssop. " [These words areextracted from a letter written by Macaulay. ] The student, who, in hislater years, never left his library for the House of Commons withoutregret, had little in common with one who, like Napoleon, held that agreat reputation was a great noise; who could not change horses withoutmaking a speech, see the Tories come in without offering to take ajudgeship, or allow the French to make a Revolution without proposing tonaturalise himself as a citizen of the new Republic. The statesman whonever deserted an ally, or distrusted a friend, could have no fellowshipwith a free-lance, ignorant of the very meaning of loyalty; who, ifthe surfeited pen of the reporter had not declined its task, would haveenriched our collections of British oratory by at least one Philippicagainst every colleague with whom he had ever acted. The many who readthis conversation by the light of the public history of Lord Melbourne'sAdministration, and still more the few who have access to the secrethistory of Lord Grey's Cabinet, will acknowledge that seldom was aprediction so entirely fulfilled, or a character so accurately read. And that it was not a prophecy composed after the event is proved by thecircumstance that it stands recorded in the handwriting of one who diedbefore it was accomplished. 

"January 3, 1832. --Yesterday Tom dined at Holland House, and heard LordHolland tell this story. Some paper was to be published by Mr. Fox, inwhich mention was made of Mr. Pitt having been employed at a club in amanner that would have created scandal. Mr. Wilberforce went to Mr. Fox, and asked him to omit the passage. 'Oh, to be sure, ' said Mr. Fox; 'ifthere are any good people who would be scandalised, I will certainlyput it out!' Mr. Wilberforce then preparing to take his leave, he said:'Now, Mr. Wilberforce, if, instead of being about Mr. Pitt, this hadbeen an account of my being seen gaming at White's on a Sunday, wouldyou have taken so much pains to prevent it being known?' 'I asked this, 'said Mr. Fox, 'because I wanted to see what he would say, for I knew hewould not tell a lie about it. He threw himself back, as his way was, and only answered: "Oh, Mr. Fox, you are always so pleasant!"'

"January 8, 1832. --Yesterday Tom dined with us, and stayed late. Hetalked almost uninterruptedly for six hours. In the evening he made agreat many impromptu charades in verse. I remember he mentioned a pieceof impertinence of Sir Philip Francis. Sir Philip was writing a historyof his own time, with characters of its eminent men, and one day askedMr. Tierney if he should like to hear his own character. Of coursehe said 'Yes, ' and it was read to him. It was very flattering, and heexpressed his gratification for so favourable a description of himself. 'Subject to revision, you must remember, Mr. Tierney, ' said Sir Philip, as he laid the manuscript by; 'subject to revision according to what mayhappen in the future. '

"I am glad Tom has reviewed old John Bunyan. Many are reading it whonever read it before. Yesterday, as he was sitting in the Athenaeum, agentleman called out: 'Waiter, is there a copy of the Pilgrim's Progressin the library?' As might be expected, there was not. 

"February 12, 1832. --This evening Tom came in, Hannah and I beingalone. He was in high boyish spirits. He had seen Lord Lansdowne in themorning, who had requested to speak with him. His Lordship said that hewished to have a talk about his taking office, not with any particularthing in view, as there was no vacancy at present, and none expected, but that he should be glad to know his wishes in order that he might bemore able to serve him in them. 

"Tom, in answer, took rather a high tone. He said he was a poor man, but that he had as much as he wanted, and, as far as he was personallyconcerned, had no desire for office. At the same time he thought that, after the Reform Bill had passed, it would be absolutely necessary thatthe Government should be strengthened; that he was of opinion that hecould do it good service; that he approved of its general principles, and should not be unwilling to join it. Lord Lansdowne said that theyall, --and he particularly mentioned Lord Grey, --felt of what importanceto them his help was, and that he now perfectly understood his views. 

"February 13, 1832. --It has been much reported, and has even appeared inthe newspapers, that the Ministers were doing what they could to get Mr. Robert Grant out of the way to make room for Tom. Last Sunday week itwas stated in the John Bull that Madras had been offered to the JudgeAdvocate for this purpose, but that he had refused it. Two or threenights since, Tom, in endeavouring to get to a high bench in the House, stumbled over Mr. Robert Grant's legs, as he was stretched out halfasleep. Being roused he apologised in the usual manner, and then added, oddly enough: 'I am very sorry, indeed, to stand in the way of yourmounting. '

"March 15, 1832. --Yesterday Hannah and I spent a very agreeableafternoon with Tom. 

"He began to talk of his idleness. He really came and dawdled with usall day long; he had not written a line of his review of Burleigh'sLife, and he shrank from beginning on such a great work. I asked him toput it by for the present, and write a light article on novels. This heseemed to think he should like, and said he could get up an article onRichardson in a very short time, but he knew of no book that he couldhang it on. Hannah advised that he should place at the head of thisarticle a fictitious title in Italian of a critique on Clarissa Harlowe, published at Venice. He seemed taken with this idea, but said that, ifhe did such a thing, he must never let his dearest friend know. 

"I was amused with a parody of Tom's on the nursery song 'Twenty poundsshall marry me, ' as applied to the creation of Peers. 

 What though now opposed I be? Twenty Peers shall carry me. If twenty won't, thirty will, For I'm his Majesty's bouncing Bill. 

Sir Robert Peel has been extremely complimentary to him. One sentencehe repeated to us: 'My only feeling towards that gentleman is a notungenerous envy, as I listened to that wonderful flow of natural andbeautiful language, and to that utterance which, rapid as it is, seemsscarcely able to convey its rich freight of thought and fancy!' Peoplesay that these words were evidently carefully prepared. 

"I have just been looking round our little drawing-room, as if trying toimpress every inch of it on my memory, and thinking how in future yearsit will rise before my mind as the scene of many hours of light-heartedmirth; how I shall again see him, lolling indolently on the old bluesofa, or strolling round the narrow confines of our room. With sucha scene will come the remembrance of his beaming countenance, happyaffectionate smile, and joyous laugh; while, with everyone at easearound him, he poured out the stores of his full mind in his ownpeculiarly beautiful and expressive language, more delightful here thananywhere else, because more perfectly unconstrained. The name whichpasses through this little room in the quiet, gentle tones of sisterlyaffection is a name which will be repeated through distant generations, and go down to posterity linked with eventful times and great deeds. "

The last words here quoted will be very generally regarded as thetribute of a sister's fondness. Many, who readily admit that Macaulay'sname will go down to posterity linked with eventful times and greatdeeds, make that admission with reference to times not his own, anddeeds in which he had no part except to commemorate them with his pen. To him, as to others, a great reputation of a special order brought withit the consequence that the credit, which he deserved for what he haddone well, was overshadowed by the renown of what he did best. Theworld, which has forgotten that Newton excelled as an administrator, andVoltaire as a man of business, remembers somewhat faintly that Macaulaywas an eminent orator and, for a time at least, a strenuous politician. The universal voice of his contemporaries, during the first three yearsof his parliamentary career, testifies to the leading part which heplayed in the House of Commons, so long as with all his heart he cared, and with all his might he tried, to play it. Jeffrey, (for it is wellto adduce none but first-rate evidence, ) says in his account of anevening's discussion on the second reading of the Reform Bill: "Nota very striking debate. There was but one exception, and it was abrilliant one. I mean Macaulay, who surpassed his former appearance incloseness, fire, and vigour, and very much improved the effect of it bya more steady and graceful delivery. It was prodigiously cheered, asit deserved, and I think puts him clearly at the head of the greatspeakers, if not the debaters, of the House. " And again, on the 17th ofDecember: "Macaulay made, I think, the best speech he has yet delivered;the most condensed, at least, and with the greatest weight of matter. It contained, indeed, the only argument to which any of the speakerswho followed him applied themselves. " Lord Cockburn, who sat under thegallery for twenty-seven hours during the last three nights of the Bill, pronounced Macaulay's speech to have been "by far the best;" though, like a good Scotchman, he asserts that he heard nothing at Westminsterwhich could compare with Dr. Chalmers in the General Assembly. Sir JamesMackintosh writes from the Library of the House of Commons: "Macaulayand Stanley have made two of the finest speeches ever spoken inParliament;" and a little further on he classes together the two youngorators as "the chiefs of the next, or rather of this, generation. "

To gain and keep the position that Mackintosh assigned him Macaulaypossessed the power, and in early days did not lack the will. He wasprominent on the Parliamentary stage, and active behind the scenes;--thesoul of every honourable project which might promote the triumph of hisprinciples, and the ascendency of his party. One among many passagesin his correspondence may be quoted without a very serious breach ofancient and time-worn confidences. On the 17th of September, 1831, hewrites to his sister Hannah: "I have been very busy since I wrote last, moving heaven and earth to render it certain that, if our ministersare so foolish as to resign in the event of a defeat in the Lords, theCommons may be firm and united; and I think that I have arranged aplan which will secure a bold and instant declaration on our part, if necessary. Lord Ebrington is the man whom I have in my eye as ourleader. I have had much conversation with him, and with several of ourleading county members. They are all staunch; and I will answer forthis, --that, if the ministers should throw us over, we will be ready todefend ourselves. "

The combination of public spirit, political instinct, and legitimateself-assertion, which was conspicuous in Macaulay's character, pointedhim out to some whose judgment had been trained by long experience ofaffairs as a more than possible leader in no remote future; and itis not for his biographer to deny that they had grounds for theirconclusion. The prudence, the energy, the self-reliance, which hedisplayed in another field, might have been successfully directed tothe conduct of an executive policy, and the management of a popularassembly. Macaulay never showed himself deficient in the qualities whichenable a man to trust his own sense; to feel responsibility, but not tofear it; to venture where others shrink; to decide while others waver;with all else that belongs to the vocation of a ruler in a free country. But it was not his fate; it was not his work; and the rank which hemight have claimed among the statesmen of Britain was not ill exchangedfor the place which he occupies in the literature of the world. 

To Macvey Napier, Esq. 

York: March 22, 1830. 

My dear Sir, --I was in some doubt as to what I should be able to do forNumber 101, and I deferred writing till I could make up my mind. If myfriend Ellis's article on Greek History, of which I have formed highexpectations, could have been ready, I should have taken a holiday. But, as there is no chance of that for the next number, I ought, I think, toconsider myself as his bail, and to surrender myself to your disposal inhis stead. 

I have been thinking of a subject, light and trifling enough, butperhaps not the worse for our purpose on that account. We seldom wanta sufficient quantity of heavy matter. There is a wretched poetaster ofthe name of Robert Montgomery who has written some volumes of detestableverses on religious subjects, which by mere puffing in magazines andnewspapers have had an immense sale, and some of which are now in theirtenth or twelfth editions. I have for some time past thought that thetrick of puffing, as it is now practised both by authors and publishers, is likely to degrade the literary character, and to deprave the publictaste, in a frightful degree. I really think that we ought to try whateffect satire will have upon this nuisance, and I doubt whether we canever find a better opportunity. 

Yours very faithfully

T. B. MACAULAY. 

To Macvey Napier, Esq. 

London: August 19, 1830. 

My dear Sir, --The new number appeared this morning in the shop windows. The article on Niebuhr contains much that is very sensible; but it isnot such an article as so noble a subject required. I am not like Ellis, Niebuhr-mad; and I agree with many of the remarks which the reviewerhas made both on this work, and on the school of German critics andhistorians. But surely the reviewer ought to have given an account ofthe system of exposition which Niebuhr has adopted, and of the theorywhich he advances respecting the Institutions of Rome. The appearance ofthe book is really an era in the intellectual history of Europe, and Ithink that the Edinburgh Review ought at least to have given a luminousabstract of it. The very circumstance that Niebuhr's own arrangement andstyle are obscure, and that his translators have need of translators tomake them intelligible to the multitude, rendered it more desirable thata clear and neat statement of the points in controversy should be laidbefore the public. But it is useless to talk of what cannot be mended. The best editors cannot always have good writers, and the best writerscannot always write their best. 

I have no notion on what ground Brougham imagines that I am going toreview his speech. He never said a word to me on the subject. Nor didI ever say either to him, or to anyone else, a single syllable to thateffect. At all events I shall not make Brougham's speech my text. We have had quite enough of puffing and flattering each other in theReview. It is a vile taste for men united in one literary undertaking toexchange their favours. 

I have a plan of which I wish to know your opinion. In ten days, orthereabouts, I set off for France, where I hope to pass six weeks. Ishall be in the best society, that of the Duc de Broglie, Guizot, andso on. I think of writing an article on the Politics of France since theRestoration, with characters of the principal public men, and a parallelbetween the present state of France and that of England. I think thatthis might be made an article of extraordinary interest. I do not saythat I could make it so. It must, you will perceive, be a long paper, however concise I may try to be; but as the subject is important, andI am not generally diffuse, you must not stint me. If you like thisscheme, let me know as soon as possible. 

Ever yours truly

T. B. MACAULAY. 

It cannot be denied that there was some ground for the imputation ofsystematic puffing which Macaulay urges with a freedom that a moderneditor would hardly permit to the most valued contributor. Brougham hadmade a speech on Slavery in the House of Commons; but time was wantingto get the Corrected Report published soon enough for him to obtain histribute of praise in the body of the Review. The unhappy Mr. Napier wasactually reduced to append a notice to the July number regretting that"this powerful speech, which, as we are well informed, produced animpression on those who heard it not likely to be forgotten, or toremain barren of effects, should have reached us at a moment when it wasno longer possible for us to notice its contents at any length. .. . Onthe eve of a general election to the first Parliament of a new reign, wecould have wished to be able to contribute our aid towards the diffusionof the facts and arguments here so strikingly and commandingly statedand enforced, among those who are about to exercise the electivefranchise. .. . We trust that means will be taken to give the widestpossible circulation to the Corrected Report. Unfortunately, we can, at present, do nothing more than lay before our readers its glowingperoration--so worthy of this great orator, this unwearied friend ofliberty and humanity. "

To Macvey Napier, Esq. 

Paris: September 16, 1830. 

My dear Sir, --I have just received your letter, and I cannot deny thatI am much vexed at what has happened. It is not very agreeable to findthat I have thrown away the labour, the not unsuccessful labour as Ithought, of a month; particularly as I have not many months of perfectleisure. This would not have happened if Brougham had notified hisintentions to you earlier, as he ought in courtesy to you, and toeverybody connected with the Review, to have done. He must have knownthat this French question was one on which many people would be desirousto write. 

I ought to tell you that I had scarcely reached Paris when I receiveda letter containing a very urgent application from a very respectablequarter. I was desired to write a sketch, in one volume, of the lateRevolution here. Now, I really hesitated whether I should not makemy excuses to you, and accept this proposal, --not on account of thepecuniary terms, for about these I have never much troubled myself--butbecause I should have had ampler space for this noble subject than theReview would have afforded. I thought, however, that this would not bea fair or friendly course towards you. I accordingly told the applicantsthat I had promised you an article, and that I could not well writetwice in one month on the same subject without repeating myself. Itherefore declined; and recommended a person whom I thought quitecapable of producing an attractive book on these events. To that personmy correspondent has probably applied. At all events I cannot revive thenegotiation. I cannot hawk my rejected articles up and down PaternosterRow. 

I am, therefore, a good deal vexed at this affair; but I am not at allsurprised at it. I see all the difficulties of your situation. Indeed, I have long foreseen them. I always knew that in every association, literary or political, Brougham would wish to domineer. I knew also thatno Editor of the Edinburgh Review could, without risking the ruin ofthe publication, resolutely oppose the demands of a man so able andpowerful. It was because I was certain that he would exact submissionswhich I am not disposed to make that I wished last year to give upwriting for the Review. I had long been meditating a retreat. I thoughtJeffrey's abdication a favourable time for effecting it; not, as I hopeyou are well assured, from any unkind feeling towards you; but because Iknew that, under any Editor, mishaps such as that which has now occurredwould be constantly taking place. I remember that I predicted to Jeffreywhat has now come to pass almost to the letter. 

My expectations have been exactly realised. The present constitutionof the Edinburgh Review is this, that, at whatever time Brougham may bepleased to notify his intention of writing on any subject, all previousengagements are to be considered as annulled by that notification. Hislanguage translated into plain English is this: "I must write about thisFrench Revolution, and I will write about it. If you have told Macaulayto do it, you may tell him to let it alone. If he has written anarticle, he may throw it behind the grate. He would not himself havethe assurance to compare his own claims with mine. I am a man who acta prominent part in the world; he is nobody. If he must be reviewing, there is my speech about the West Indies. Set him to write a puff onthat. What have people like him to do, except to eulogise people likeme?" No man likes to be reminded of his inferiority in such a way, andthere are some particular circumstances in this case which render theadmonition more unpleasant than it would otherwise be. I know thatBrougham dislikes me; and I have not the slightest doubt that he feelsgreat pleasure in taking this subject out of my hands, and at havingmade me understand, as I do most clearly understand, how far my servicesare rated below his. I do not blame you in the least. I do not see howyou could have acted otherwise. But, on the other hand, I do not see whyI should make any efforts or sacrifices for a Review which lies under anintolerable dictation. Whatever my writings may be worth, it is not forwant of strong solicitations, and tempting offers, from other quartersthat I have continued to send them to the Edinburgh Review. I adheredto the connection solely because I took pride and pleasure in it. It hasnow become a source of humiliation and mortification. 

I again repeat, my dear Sir, that I do not blame you in the least. This, however, only makes matters worse. If you had used me ill, I mightcomplain, and might hope to be better treated another time. Unhappilyyou are in a situation in which it is proper for you to do what itwould be improper in me to endure. What has happened now may happen nextquarter, and must happen before long, unless I altogether refrain fromwriting for the Review. I hope you will forgive me if I say that Ifeel what has passed too strongly to be inclined to expose myself to arecurrence of the same vexations. 

Yours most truly

T. B. MACAULAY. 

A few soft words induced Macaulay to reconsider his threat ofwithdrawing from the Review; but, even before Mr. Napier's answerreached him, the feeling of personal annoyance had already been effacedby a greater sorrow. A letter arrived, announcing that his sister Janehad died suddenly and most unexpectedly. She was found in the morninglying as though still asleep, having passed away so peacefully as not todisturb a sister who had spent the night in the next room, with a dooropen between them. Mrs. Macaulay never recovered from this shock. Herhealth gave way, and she lived into the coming year only so long as toenable her to rejoice in the first of her son's Parliamentary successes. 

Paris: September 26. 

My dear Father, --This news has broken my heart. I am fit neither to gonor to stay. I can do nothing but sit down in my room, and think of poordear Jane's kindness and affection. When I am calmer, I will let youknow my intentions. There will be neither use nor pleasure in remaininghere. My present purpose, as far as I can form one, is to set off in twoor three days for England; and in the meantime to see nobody, if I canhelp it, but Dumont, who has been very kind to me. Love to all, --to allwho are left me to love. We must love each other better. 

T. B. M. 

London: March 30, 1831

Dear Ellis, --I have little news for you, except what you will learn fromthe papers as well as from me. It is clear that the Reform Bill mustpass, either in this or in another Parliament. The majority of onedoes not appear to me, as it does to you, by any means inauspicious. Weshould perhaps have had a better plea for a dissolution if themajority had been the other way. But surely a dissolution under suchcircumstances would have been a most alarming thing. If there should bea dissolution now, there will not be that ferocity in the public mindwhich there would have been if the House of Commons had refused toentertain the Bill at all. I confess that, till we had a majority, I washalf inclined to tremble at the storm which we had raised. At present Ithink that we are absolutely certain of victory, and of victory withoutcommotion. 

Such a scene as the division of last Tuesday I never saw, and neverexpect to see again. If I should live fifty years, the impression of itwill be as fresh and sharp in my mind as if it had just taken place. It was like seeing Caesar stabbed in the Senate House, or seeing Olivertaking the mace from the table; a sight to be seen only once, and neverto be forgotten. The crowd overflowed the House in every part. When thestrangers were cleared out, and the doors locked, we had six hundred andeight members present, --more by fifty-five than ever were in a divisionbefore. The Ayes and Noes were like two volleys of cannon from oppositesides of a field of battle. When the opposition went out into the lobby, an operation which took up twenty minutes or more, we spread ourselvesover the benches on both sides of the House; for there were many of uswho had not been able to find a seat during the evening. ["The practicein the Commons, until 1836, was to send one party forth into the lobby, the other remaining in the House. "--Sir T. Erskine May's "ParliamentaryPractice. "] When the doors were shut we began to speculate on ournumbers. Everybody was desponding. "We have lost it. We are only twohundred and eighty at most. I do not think we are two hundred and fifty. They are three hundred. Alderman Thompson has counted them. He says theyare two hundred and ninety-nine. " This was the talk on our benches. Iwonder that men who have been long in Parliament do not acquire a bettercoup d'oeil for numbers. The House, when only the Ayes were in it, looked to me a very fair House, --much fuller than it generally is evenon debates of considerable interest. I had no hope, however, of threehundred. As the tellers passed along our lowest row on the left handside the interest was insupportable, --two hundred and ninety-one, --twohundred and ninety-two, --we were all standing up and stretching forward, telling with the tellers. At three hundred there was a short cry ofjoy, --at three hundred and two another, --suppressed however in a moment;for we did not yet know what the hostile force might be. We knew, however, that we could not be severely beaten. The doors were thrownopen, and in they came. Each of them, as he entered, brought somedifferent report of their numbers. It must have been impossible, asyou may conceive, in the lobby, crowded as they were, to form any exactestimate. First we heard that they were three hundred and three; thenthat number rose to three hundred and ten; then went down to threehundred and seven. Alexander Barry told me that he had counted, and thatthey were three hundred and four. We were all breathless with anxiety, when Charles Wood, who stood near the door, jumped up on a bench andcried out, "They are only three hundred and one. " We set up a shout thatyou might have heard to Charing Cross, waving our hats, stamping againstthe floor, and clapping our hands. The tellers scarcely got through thecrowd; for the House was thronged up to the table, and all the floorwas fluctuating with heads like the pit of a theatre. But you might haveheard a pin drop as Duncannon read the numbers. Then again the shoutsbroke out, and many of us shed tears. I could scarcely refrain. Andthe jaw of Peel fell; and the face of Twiss was as the face of a damnedsoul; and Herries looked like Judas taking his necktie off for the lastoperation. We shook hands, and clapped each other on the back, and wentout laughing, crying, and huzzaing into the lobby. And no sooner werethe outer doors opened than another shout answered that within theHouse. All the passages, and the stairs into the waiting-rooms, werethronged by people who had waited till four in the morning to know theissue. We passed through a narrow lane between two thick masses of them;and all the way down they were shouting and waving their hats, till wegot into the open air. I called a cabriolet, and the first thing thedriver asked was, "Is the Bill carried?" "Yes, by one. " "Thank God forit, Sir. " And away I rode to Gray's Inn, --and so ended a scene whichwill probably never be equalled till the reformed Parliamentwants reforming; and that I hope will not be till the days of ourgrandchildren, till that truly orthodox and apostolical person Dr. Francis Ellis is an archbishop of eighty. 

As for me, I am for the present a sort of lion. My speech has set mein the front rank, if I can keep there; and it has not been my luckhitherto to lose ground when I have once got it. Sheil and I are on verycivil terms. He talks largely concerning Demosthenes and Burke. He made, I must say, an excellent speech; too florid and queer, but decidedlysuccessful. 

Why did not Price speak? If he was afraid, it was not without reason;for a more terrible audience there is not in the world. I wish thatPraed had known to whom he was speaking. But, with all his talent, hehas no tact, and he has fared accordingly. Tierney used to say that henever rose in the House without feeling his knees tremble under him; andI am sure that no man who has not some of that feeling will ever succeedthere. 

Ever yours

T. B. MACAULAY. 

London: May 27, 1835. 

My dear Hannah, --Let me see if I can write a letter a la Richardson:--alittle less prolix it must be, or it will exceed my ounce. By the bye, I wonder that Uncle Selby never grudged the postage of Miss Byron'sletters. According to the nearest calculation that I can make, hercorrespondence must have enriched the post office of Ashby Canons bysomething more than the whole annual interest of her fifteen thousandpounds. 

I reached Lansdowne House by a quarter to eleven, and passed through thelarge suite of rooms to the great Sculpture Gallery. There were seatedand standing perhaps three hundred people, listening to the performers, or talking to each other. The room is the handsomest and largest, Iam told, in any private house in London. I enclose our musical bill offare. Fanny, I suppose, will be able to expound it better than I. Thesingers were more showily dressed than the auditors, and seemed quite athome. As to the company, there was just everybody in London (except thatlittle million and a half that you wot of, )--the Chancellor, and theFirst Lord of the Admiralty, and Sydney Smith, and Lord Mansfield, andall the Barings and the Fitzclarences, and a hideous Russian spy, whoseface I see everywhere, with a star on his coat. During the intervalbetween the delights of "I tuoi frequenti, " and the ecstasies of "Se tum'ami, " I contrived to squeeze up to Lord Lansdowne. I was shaking handswith Sir James Macdonald, when I heard a command behind us: "Sir James, introduce me to Mr. Macaulay;" and we turned, and there sate a largebold-looking woman, with the remains of a fine person, and the air ofQueen Elizabeth. "Macaulay, " said Sir James, "let me present you to LadyHolland. " Then was her ladyship gracious beyond description, and askedme to dine and take a bed at Holland House next Tuesday. I acceptedthe dinner, but declined the bed, and I have since repented that I sodeclined it. But I probably shall have an opportunity of retracting onTuesday. 

To-night I go to another musical party at Marshall's, the late M. P. For Yorkshire. Everybody is talking of Paganini and his violin. The manseems to be a miracle. The newspapers say that long streamy flakes ofmusic fall from his string, interspersed with luminous points of soundwhich ascend the air and appear like stars. This eloquence is quitebeyond me. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: May 28, 1831. 

My dear Hannah, --More gaieties and music-parties; not so fertile ofadventures as that memorable masquerade whence Harriet Byron was carriedaway; but still I hope that the narrative of what passed there willgratify "the venerable circle. " Yesterday I dressed, called a cab, andwas whisked away to Hill Street. I found old Marshall's house a veryfine one. He ought indeed to have a fine one; for he has, I believe, atleast thirty thousand a year. The carpet was taken up, and chairs wereset out in rows, as if we had been at a religious meeting. Then wehad flute-playing by the first flute-player in England, andpianoforte-strumming by the first pianoforte-strummer in England, and singing by all the first singers in England, and Signor Rubini'sincomparable tenor, and Signor Curioni's incomparable counter-tenor, andPasta's incomparable expression. You who know how airs much inferiorto these take my soul, and lap it in Elysium, will form some faintconception of my transport. Sharp beckoned me to sit by him in the backrow. These old fellows are so selfish. "Always, " said he, "establishyourself in the middle of the row against the wall; for, if you sit inthe front or next the edges, you will be forced to give up your seat tothe ladies who are standing. " I had the gallantry to surrender mine toa damsel who had stood for a quarter of an hour; and I lounged into theante-rooms, where I found Samuel Rogers. Rogers and I sate together ona bench in one of the passages, and had a good deal of very pleasantconversation. He was, --as indeed he has always been to me, --extremelykind, and told me that, if it were in his power, he would contrive to beat Holland House with me, to give me an insight into its ways. He is thegreat oracle of that circle. 

He has seen the King's letter to Lord Grey, respecting the Garter; orat least has authentic information about it. It is a happy stroke ofpolicy, and will, they say, decide many wavering votes in the House ofLords. The King, it seems, requests Lord Grey to take the order, as amark of royal confidence in him "at so critical a time;"--significantwords, I think. 

Ever yours

T. B. MACAULAY. 

To Hannah More Macaulay. 

London: May 30, 1831. 

Well, my dear, I have been to Holland House. I took a glass coach, andarrived, through a fine avenue of elms, at the great entrance towardsseven o'clock. The house is delightful;--the very perfection of theold Elizabethan style;--a considerable number of very large and verycomfortable rooms, rich with antique carving and gilding, but carpetedand furnished with all the skill of the best modern upholsterers. Thelibrary is a very long room, --as long, I should think, as the galleryat Rothley Temple, --with little cabinets for study branching out of it. Warmly and snugly fitted up, and looking out on very beautiful grounds. The collection of books is not, like Lord Spencer's, curious; but itcontains almost everything that one ever wished to read. I found nobodythere when I arrived but Lord Russell, the son of the Marquess ofTavistock. We are old House of Commons friends; so we had some verypleasant talk, and in a little while in came Allen, who is warden ofDulwich College, and who lives almost entirely at Holland House. He iscertainly a man of vast information and great conversational powers. Some other gentlemen dropped in, and we chatted till Lady Holland madeher appearance. Lord Holland dined by himself on account of his gout. We sat down to dinner in a fine long room, the wainscot of which isrich with gilded coronets, roses, and portcullises. There were LordAlbemarle, Lord Alvanley, Lord Russell, Lord Mahon, --a violent Tory, buta very agreeable companion, and a very good scholar. There was Cradock, a fine fellow who was the Duke of Wellington's aide-de-camp in 1815, andsome other people whose names I did not catch. What however is more tothe purpose, there was a most excellent dinner. I have always heard thatHolland House is famous for its good cheer, and certainly the reputationis not unmerited. After dinner Lord Holland was wheeled in, and placedvery near me. He was extremely amusing and good-natured. 

In the drawing-room I had a long talk with Lady Holland about theantiquities of the house, and about the purity of the English language, wherein she thinks herself a critic. I happened, in speaking about theReform Bill, to say that I wished that it had been possible to form afew commercial constituencies, if the word constituency were admissible. "I am glad you put that in, " said her ladyship. "I was just goingto give it you. It is an odious word. Then there is _talented_ and_influential_, and _gentlemanly_. I never could break Sheridan of_gentlemanly_, though he allowed it to be wrong. " We talked about theword _talents_ and its history. I said that it had first appeared intheological writing, that it was a metaphor taken from the parable inthe New Testament, and that it had gradually passed from the vocabularyof divinity into common use. I challenged her to find it in anyclassical writer on general subjects before the Restoration, or evenbefore the year 1700. I believe that I might safely have gone downlater. She seemed surprised by this theory, never having, so far as Icould judge, heard of the parable of the talents. I did not tell her, though I might have done so, that a person who professes to be a criticin the delicacies of the English language ought to have the Bible at hisfingers' ends. 

She is certainly a woman of considerable talents and great literaryacquirements. To me she was excessively gracious; yet there is ahaughtiness in her courtesy which, even after all that I had heard ofher, surprised me. The centurion did not keep his soldiers in betterorder than she keeps her guests. It is to one "Go, " and he goeth; and toanother "Do this, " and it is done. "Ring the bell, Mr. Macaulay. " "Laydown that screen, Lord Russell; you will spoil it. " "Mr. Allen, take acandle and show Mr. Cradock the picture of Buonaparte. " Lord Hollandis, on the other hand, all kindness, simplicity, and vivacity. He talkedvery well both on politics and on literature. He asked me in a veryfriendly manner about my father's health, and begged to be remembered tohim. 

When my coach came, Lady Holland made me promise that I would onthe first fine morning walk out to breakfast with them, and see thegrounds;--and, after drinking a glass of very good iced lemonade, Itook my leave, much amused and pleased. The house certainly deservesits reputation for pleasantness, and her ladyship used me, I believe, aswell as it is her way to use anybody. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

Court of Commissioners, Basinghall Street: May 31, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --How delighted I am that you like my letters, and howobliged by yours! But I have little more than my thanks to give for yourlast. I have nothing to tell about great people to-day. I heard no finemusic yesterday, saw nobody above the rank of a baronet, and was shutup in my own room reading and writing all the morning. This day seemslikely to pass in much the same way, except that I have some bankruptcybusiness to do, and a couple of sovereigns to receive. So here I am, with three of the ugliest attorneys that ever deserved to be transportedsitting opposite to me; a disconsolate-looking bankrupt, his hands inhis empty pockets, standing behind; a lady scolding for her money, andrefusing to be comforted because it is not; and a surly butcher-likelooking creditor, growling like a house-dog, and saying, as plain aslooks can say "If I sign your certificate, blow me, that's all. " Amongthese fair and interesting forms, on a piece of official paper, witha pen and with ink found at the expense of the public, am I writing toNancy. 

These dirty courts, filled with Jew money-lenders, sheriffs' officers, attorneys' runners, and a crowd of people who live by giving sham bailand taking false oaths, are not by any means such good subjects for alady's correspondent as the Sculpture Gallery at Lansdowne House, orthe conservatory at Holland House, or the notes of Pasta, or the talk ofRogers. But we cannot be always fine. When my Richardsonian epistles arepublished, there must be dull as well as amusing letters among them;and this letter is, I think, as good as those sermons of Sir Charles toGeronymo which Miss Byron hypocritically asked for, or as the greaterpart of that stupid last volume. 

We shall soon have more attractive matter. I shall walk out to breakfastat Holland House; and I am to dine with Sir George Philips, and withhis son the member for Steyning, who have the best of company; and Iam going to the fancy ball of the Jew. He met me in the street, andimplored me to come. "You need not dress more than for an evening party. You had better come. You will be delighted. It will be so very pretty. "I thought of Dr. Johnson and the herdsman with his "See, such prettygoats. " [See Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, Sept. 1 1773. "The Doctorwas prevailed with to mount one of Vass's grays. As he rode upon itdownhill, it did not go well, and he grumbled. I walked on a littlebefore, but was excessively entertained with the method taken to keephim in good humour. Hay led the horse's head, talking to Dr. Johnsonas much as he could and, (having heard him, in the forenoon, express apastoral pleasure on seeing the goats browsing, ) just when the Doctorwas uttering his displeasure, the fellow cried, with a very Highlandaccent, 'See, such pretty goats!' Then he whistled whu! and made themjump. "] However, I told my honest Hebrew that I would come. I mayperhaps, like the Benjamites, steal away some Israelite damsel in themiddle of her dancing. 

But the noise all round me is becoming louder, and a baker in a whitecoat is bellowing for the book to prove a debt of nine pounds fourteenshillings and fourpence. So I must finish my letter and fall tobusiness. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London June 1, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --My last letter was a dull one. I mean this to be veryamusing. My last was about Basinghall Street, attorneys, and bankrupts. But for this, --take it dramatically in the German style. 

Fine morning. Scene, the great entrance of Holland House. 

Enter MACAULAY and Two FOOTMEN in livery. 

 First Footman. --Sir, may I venture to demand your name?

 Macaulay. --Macaulay, and thereto I add M. P. And that addition, even in these proud halls, May well ensure the bearer some respect. 

 Second Footman. --And art thou come to breakfast with our Lord?

 Macaulay. --I am for so his hospitable will, And hers--the peerless dame ye serve--hath bade. 

 First Footman. --Ascend the stair, and thou above shalt find, On snow-white linen spread, the luscious meal. 

(Exit MACAULAY up stairs. )

In plain English prose, I went this morning to breakfast at HollandHouse. The day was fine, and I arrived at twenty minutes after ten. After I had lounged a short time in the dining-room, I heard a gruffgood-natured voice asking, "Where is Mr. Macaulay? Where have you puthim?" and in his arm-chair Lord Holland was wheeled in. He took me roundthe apartments, he riding and I walking. He gave me the history of themost remarkable portraits in the library, where there is, by the bye, one of the few bad pieces of Lawrence that I have seen--a head ofCharles James Fox, an ignominious failure. Lord Holland said that itwas the worst ever painted of so eminent a man by so eminent an artist. There is a very fine head of Machiavelli, and another of Earl Grey, a very different sort of man. I observed a portrait of Lady Hollandpainted some thirty years ago. I could have cried to see the change. Shemust have been a most beautiful woman. She still looks, however, as ifshe had been handsome, and shows in one respect great taste and sense. She does not rouge at all; and her costume is not youthful, so thatshe looks as well in the morning as in the evening. We came back to thedining-room. Our breakfast party consisted of my Lord and Lady, myself, Lord Russell, and Luttrell. You must have heard of Luttrell. I met himonce at Rogers's; and I have seen him, I think, in other places. He isa famous wit, --the most popular, I think, of all the professed wits, --aman who has lived in the highest circles, a scholar, and no contemptiblepoet. He wrote a little volume of verse entitled "Advice to Julia, "--notfirst rate, but neat, lively, piquant, and showing the most consummateknowledge of fashionable life. 

We breakfasted on very good coffee, and very good tea, and very goodeggs, butter kept in the midst of ice, and hot rolls. Lady Holland toldus her dreams; how she had dreamed that a mad dog bit her foot, and howshe set off to Brodie, and lost her way in St. Martin's Lane, and couldnot find him. She hoped, she said, the dream would not come true. I saidthat I had had a dream which admitted of no such hope; for I had dreamedthat I heard Pollock speak in the House of Commons, that the speech wasvery long, and that he was coughed down. This dream of mine divertedthem much. 

After breakfast Lady Holland offered to conduct me to her owndrawing-room, or, rather, commanded my attendance. A very beautiful roomit is, opening on a terrace, and wainscoted with miniature paintingsinteresting from their merit, and interesting from their history. Amongthem I remarked a great many, --thirty, I should think, --which even I, who am no great connoisseur, saw at once could come from no hand butStothard's. They were all on subjects from Lord Byron's poems. "Yes, "said she; "poor Lord Byron sent them to me a short time before theseparation. I sent them back, and told him that, if he gave them away, he ought to give them to Lady Byron. But he said that he would not, andthat if I did not take them, the bailiffs would, and that they would belost in the wreck. " Her ladyship then honoured me so far as to conductme through her dressing-room into the great family bedchamber to show mea very fine picture by Reynolds of Fox, when a boy, birds-nesting. Shethen consigned me to Luttrell, asking him to show me the grounds. 

Through the grounds we went, and very pretty I thought them. In theDutch garden is a fine bronze bust of Napoleon, which Lord Holland putup in 1817, while Napoleon was a prisoner at St. Helena. The inscriptionwas selected by his lordship, and is remarkably happy. It is fromHomer's Odyssey. I will translate it, as well as I can extempore, into ameasure which gives a better idea of Homer's manner than Pope's singsongcouplet. 

 For not, be sure, within the grave Is hid that prince, the wise, the brave; But in an islet's narrow bound, With the great Ocean roaring round, The captive of a foeman base He pines to view his native place. 

There is a seat near the spot which is called Rogers's seat. The poetloves, it seems, to sit there. A very elegant inscription by LordHolland is placed over it. 

 "Here Rogers sate; and here for ever dwell With me those pleasures which he sang so well. "

Very neat and condensed, I think. Another inscription by Luttrell hangsthere. Luttrell adjured me with mock pathos to spare his blushes; but Iam author enough to know what the blushes of authors mean. So I readthe lines, and very pretty and polished they were, but too many to beremembered from one reading. 

Having gone round the grounds I took my leave, very much pleased withthe place. Lord Holland is extremely kind. But that is of course; for heis kindness itself. Her ladyship too, which is by no means of course, isall graciousness and civility. But, for all this, I would much ratherbe quietly walking with you; and the great use of going to these fineplaces is to learn how happy it is possible to be without them. Indeed, I care so little for them that I certainly should not have gone to-day, but that I thought that I should be able to find materials for a letterwhich you might like. 

Farewell. 

T. B. MACAULAY. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: June 3, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --I cannot tell you how delighted I am to find that myletters amuse you. But sometimes I must be dull like my neighbours. I paid no visits yesterday, and have no news to relate to-day. I amsitting again in Basinghall Street and Basil Montagu is haranguing aboutLord Verulam, and the way of inoculating one's mind with truth; andall this a propos of a lying bankrupt's balance-sheet. ["Those who areacquainted with the Courts in which Mr. Montagu practises with so muchability and success, will know how often he enlivens the discussion ofa point of law by citing some weighty aphorism, or some brilliantillustration, from the De Augmentis or the Novum Organum. "--Macaulay'sReview of Basil Montagu's Edition of Bacon. ]

Send me some gossip, my love. Tell me how you go on with German. Whatnovel have you commenced? Or, rather, how many dozen have you finished?Recommend me one. What say you to "Destiny"? Is the "Young Duke" worthreading? and what do you think of "Laurie Todd"?

I am writing about Lord Byron so pathetically that I make Margaret cry, but so slowly that I am afraid I shall make Napier wait. Rogers, likea civil gentleman, told me last week to write no more reviews, and topublish separate works; adding, what for him is a very rare thing, a compliment: "You may do anything, Mr. Macaulay. " See how vain andinsincere human nature is! I have been put into so good a temper withRogers that I have paid him, what is as rare with me as with him, a veryhandsome compliment in my review. ["Well do we remember to have heard amost correct judge of poetry revile Mr. Rogers for the incorrectness ofthat most sweet and graceful passage:--

 'Such grief was ours, --it seems but yesterday, -- When in thy prime, wishing so much to stay, Twas thine, Maria, thine without a sigh At midnight in a sister's arms to die, Oh! thou wast lovely; lovely was thy frame, And pure thy spirit as from heaven it came; And, when recalled to join the blest above, Thou diedst a victim to exceeding love Nursing the young to health. In happier hours, When idle Fancy wove luxuriant flowers, Once in thy mirth thou badst me write on thee; And now I write what thou shalt never see. '

Macaulay's Essay on Byron. ] It is not undeserved; but I confess thatI cannot understand the popularity of his poetry. It is pleasant andflowing enough; less monotonous than most of the imitations of Pope andGoldsmith; and calls up many agreeable images and recollections. Butthat such men as Lord Granville, Lord Holland, Hobhouse, Lord Byron, andothers of high rank in intellect, should place Rogers, as they do, aboveSouthey, Moore, and even Scott himself, is what I cannot conceive. Butthis comes of being in the highest society of London. What Lady JaneGranville called the Patronage of Fashion can do as much for a middlingpoet as for a plain girl like Miss Arabella Falconer. [Lady Jane, andMiss Arabella, appear in Miss Edgeworth's "Patronage. "]

But I must stop. This rambling talk has been scrawled in the middle ofharanguing, squabbling, swearing, and crying. Since I began it I havetaxed four bills, taken forty depositions, and rated several perjuredwitnesses. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay. 

London: June 7, 1831. 

Yesterday I dined at Marshall's, and was almost consoled for not meetingRamohun Roy by a very pleasant party. The great sight was the two wits, Rogers and Sydney Smith. Singly I have often seen them; but to see themboth together was a novelty, and a novelty not the less curious becausetheir mutual hostility is well known, and the hard hits which they havegiven to each other are in everybody's mouth. They were very civil, however. But I was struck by the truth of what Matthew Bramble, a personof whom you probably never heard, says in Smollett's Humphrey Clinker:that one wit in a company, like a knuckle of ham in soup, gives aflavour; but two are too many. Rogers and Sydney Smith would not comeinto conflict. If one had possession of the company, the other wassilent; and, as you may conceive, the one who had possession of thecompany was always Sydney Smith, and the one who was silent was alwaysRogers. Sometimes, however, the company divided, and each of them had asmall congregation. I had a good deal of talk with both of them; for, inwhatever they may disagree, they agree in always treating me with verymarked kindness. 

I had a good deal of pleasant conversation with Rogers. He was tellingme of the curiosity and interest which attached to the persons ofSir Walter Scott and Lord Byron. When Sir Walter Scott dined at agentleman's in London some time ago, all the servant-maids in the houseasked leave to stand in the passage and see him pass. He was, as youmay conceive, greatly flattered. About Lord Byron, whom he knew well, hetold me some curious anecdotes. When Lord Byron passed through Florence, Rogers was there. They had a good deal of conversation, and Rogersaccompanied him to his carriage. The inn had fifty windows in front. Allthe windows were crowded with women, mostly English women, to catch aglance at their favourite poet. Among them were some at whose houses hehad often been in England, and with whom he had lived on friendly terms. He would not notice them, or return their salutations. Rogers was theonly person that he spoke to. 

The worst thing that I know about Lord Byron is the very unfavourableimpression which he made on men, who certainly were not inclined tojudge him harshly, and who, as far as I know, were never personallyill-used by him. Sharp and Rogers both speak of him as an unpleasant, affected, splenetic person. I have heard hundreds and thousands ofpeople who never saw him rant about him; but I never heard a singleexpression of fondness for him fall from the lips of any of those whoknew him well. Yet, even now, after the lapse of five-and-twenty years, there are those who cannot talk for a quarter of an hour about CharlesFox without tears. 

Sydney Smith leaves London on the 20th, the day before Parliament meetsfor business. I advised him to stay, and see something of his friendswho would be crowding to London. "My flock!" said this good shepherd. "My dear Sir, remember my flock! The hungry sheep look up and are notfed. "

I could say nothing to such an argument; but I could not help thinkingthat, if Mr. Daniel Wilson had said such a thing, it would infalliblyhave appeared in his funeral sermon, and in his Life by Baptist Noel. But in poor Sydney's mouth it sounded like a joke. He begged me to comeand see him at Combe Florey. "There I am, Sir, the priest of the FloweryValley, in a delightful parsonage, about which I care a good deal, and adelightful country, about which I do not care a straw. " I told him thatmy meeting him was some compensation for missing Ramohun Roy. Sydneybroke forth:

"Compensation! Do you mean to insult me? A beneficed clergyman, an orthodox clergyman, a nobleman's chaplain, to be no more thancompensation for a Brahmin; and a heretic Brahmin too, a fellow who haslost his own religion and can't find another; a vile heterodox dog, who, as I am credibly informed eats beef-steaks in private! A man who haslost his caste! who ought to have melted lead poured down his nostrils, if the good old Vedas were in force as they ought to be. "

These are some Boswelliana of Sydney; not very clerical, you will say, but indescribably amusing to the hearers, whatever the readers may thinkof them. Nothing can present a more striking contrast to his rapid, loud, laughing utterance, and his rector-like amplitude and rubicundity, than the low, slow, emphatic tone, and the corpse-like face of Rogers. There is as great a difference in what they say as in the voice andlook with which they say it. The conversation of Rogers is remarkablypolished and artificial. What he says seems to have been long meditated, and might be published with little correction. Sydney talks from theimpulse of the moment, and his fun is quite inexhaustible. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M Macaulay. 

London: June 8, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --Yesterday night I went to the Jew's. I had indeed noexcuse for forgetting the invitation; for, about a week after I hadreceived the green varnished billet, and answered it, came another inthe self-same words, and addressed to Mr. Macaulay, Junior. I thoughtthat my answer had miscarried; so down I sate, and composed a secondepistle to the Hebrews. I afterwards found that the second invitationwas meant for Charles. 

I set off a little after ten, having attired myself simply as for adinner-party. The house is a very fine one. The door was guarded bypeace-officers, and besieged by starers. My host met me in asuperb court-dress, with his sword at his side. There was a mostsumptuous-looking Persian, covered with gold lace. Then there was anItalian bravo with a long beard. Two old gentlemen, who ought to havebeen wiser, were fools enough to come in splendid Turkish costumes atwhich everybody laughed. The fancy-dresses were worn almost exclusivelyby the young people. The ladies for the most part contented themselveswith a few flowers and ribands oddly disposed. There was, however, a beautiful Mary Queen of Scots, who looked as well as dressed thecharacter perfectly; an angel of a Jewess in a Highland plaid; andan old woman, or rather a woman, --for through her disguise it wasimpossible to ascertain her age, --in the absurdest costume of the lastcentury. These good people soon began their quadrilles and galopades, and were enlivened by all the noise that twelve fiddlers could make fortheir lives. 

You must not suppose the company was made up of these mummers. There wasDr. Lardner, and Long, the Greek Professor in the London University, andSheil, and Strutt, and Romilly, and Owen the philanthropist. Owen laidbold on Sheil, and gave him a lecture on Co-operation which lastedfor half an hour. At last Sheil made his escape. Then Owen seized Mrs. Sheil, --a good Catholic, and a very agreeable woman, --and began to proveto her that there could be no such thing as moral responsibility. I hadfled at the first sound of his discourse, and was talking with Struttand Romilly, when behold! I saw Owen leave Mrs. Sheil and come towardsus. So I cried out "Sauve qui peut!" and we ran off. But before we hadgot five feet from where we were standing, who should meet us face toface but Old Basil Montagu? "Nay, then, " said I, "the game is up. ThePrussians are on our rear. If we are to be bored to death there is nohelp for it. " Basil seized Romilly; Owen took possession of Strutt; andI was blessing myself on my escape, when the only human being worthy tomake a third with such a pair, J--, caught me by the arm, and begged tohave a quarter of an hour's conversation with me. While I was sufferingunder J--, a smart impudent-looking young dog, dressed like a sailor ina blue jacket and check shirt, marched up, and asked a Jewish-lookingdamsel near me to dance with him. I thought that I had seen the fellowbefore; and, after a little looking, I perceived that it was Charles;and most knowingly, I assure you, did he perform a quadrille with MissHilpah Manasses. 

If I were to tell you all that I saw I should exceed my ounce. Therewas Martin the painter, and Proctor, alias Barry Cornwall, the poet orpoetaster. I did not see one Peer, or one star, except a foreign orderor two, which I generally consider as an intimation to look to mypockets. A German knight is a dangerous neighbour in a crowd. [Macaulayended by being a German knight himself. ] After seeing a galopade veryprettily danced by the Israelitish women, I went downstairs, reclaimedmy hat, and walked into the dining-room. There, with some difficulty, I squeezed myself between a Turk and a Bernese peasant, and obtained anice, a macaroon, and a glass of wine. Charles was there, very active inhis attendance on his fair Hilpah. I bade him good night. "What!" saidyoung Hopeful, "are you going yet?" It was near one o'clock; but thisjoyous tar seemed to think it impossible that anybody could dream ofleaving such delightful enjoyments till daybreak. I left him stayingHilpah with flagons, and walked quietly home. But it was some timebefore I could get to sleep. The sound of fiddles was in mine ears; andgaudy dresses, and black hair, and Jewish noses, were fluctuating up anddown before mine eyes. 

There is a fancy ball for you. If Charles writes a history of it, tellme which of us does it best. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M Macaulay. 

London: June 10. 1835. 

My dear Sister, --I am at Basinghall Street, and I snatch this quarter ofan hour, the only quarter of an hour which I am likely to secure duringthe day, to write to you. I will not omit writing two days running, because, if my letters give you half the pleasure which your lettersgive me, you will, I am sure, miss them. I have not, however, much totell. I have been very busy with my article on Moore's Life of Byron. Inever wrote anything with less heart. I do not like the book; I do notlike the hero; I have said the most I could for him, and yet I shall beabused for speaking as coldly of him as I have done. 

I dined the day before yesterday at Sir George Philips's with Sotheby, Morier the author of "Hadji Baba, " and Sir James Mackintosh. Morierbegan to quote Latin before the ladies had left the room, and quoted itby no means to the purpose. After their departure he fell to repeatingVirgil, choosing passages which everybody else knows and does notrepeat. He, though he tried to repeat them, did not know them, and couldnot get on without my prompting. Sotheby was full of his translation ofHomer's Iliad, some specimens of which he has already published. It is acomplete failure; more literal than that of Pope, but still taintedwith the deep radical vice of Pope's version, a thoroughly modern andartificial manner. It bears the same kind of relation to the Iliadthat Robertson's narrative bears to the story of Joseph in the book ofGenesis. 

There is a pretty allegory in Homer--I think in the last book, but Iforget precisely where--about two vessels, the one filled with blessingsand the other with sorrow, which stand, says the poet, on the right andleft hand of Jupiter's throne, and from which he dispenses good and evilat his pleasure among men. What word to use for these vessels has longposed the translators of Homer. Pope, who loves to be fine, callsthem _urns_. Cowper, who loves to be coarse, calls them _casks_;--atranslation more improper than Pope's; for a cask is, in our generalunderstanding, a wooden vessel; and the Greek word means an earthenvessel. There is a curious letter of Cowper's to one of his femalecorrespondents about this unfortunate word. She begged that Jupitermight be allowed a more elegant piece of furniture for his throne thana cask. But Cowper was peremptory. I mentioned this incidentally whenwe were talking about translations. This set Sotheby off. "I, " saidhe, "have translated it _vase_. I hope that meets your ideas. Don't youthink vase will do? Does it satisfy you?" I told him, sincerely enough, that it satisfied me; for I must be most unreasonable to be dissatisfiedat anything that he chooses to put in a book which I never shall read. Mackintosh was very agreeable; and, as usually happens when I meet him, I learned something from him. [Macaulay wrote to one of his nieces inSeptember 1859: "I am glad that Mackintosh's Life interests you. I knewhim well; and a kind friend he was to me when I was a young fellow, fighting my way uphill. "]

The great topic now in London is not, as you perhaps fancy, Reform, but Cholera. There is a great panic; as great a panic as I remember, particularly in the City. Rice shakes his head, and says that this isthe most serious thing that has happened in his time; and assuredly, ifthe disease were to rage in London as it has lately raged in Riga, itwould be difficult to imagine anything more horrible. I, however, feelno uneasiness. In the first place I have a strong leaning towards thedoctrines of the anti-contagionists. In the next place I repose a greatconfidence in the excellent food and the cleanliness of the English. 

I have this instant received your letter of yesterday with the enclosedproof-sheets. Your criticism is to a certain extent just; but you havenot considered the whole sentence together. Depressed is in itselfbetter than weighed down; but "the oppressive privileges which haddepressed industry" would be a horrible cacophony. I hope that wordconvinces you. I have often observed that a fine Greek compound is anexcellent substitute for a reason. 

I met Rogers at the Athenaeum. He begged me to breakfast with him, andname my day, and promised that he would procure me as agreeable a partyas he could find in London. Very kind of the old man, is it not? and, if you knew how Rogers is thought of, you would think it as great acompliment as could be paid to a Duke. Have you seen what the author ofthe "Young Duke" says about me: how rabid I am, and how certain I am torat?

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

Macaulay's account of the allusion to himself in the "Young Duke"is perfectly accurate; and yet, when read as a whole, the passage inquestion does not appear to have been ill-naturedly meant. ["I hear thatMr. Babington Macaulay is to be returned. If he speaks half as well ashe writes, the House will be in fashion again. I fear that he is one ofthose who, like the individual whom he has most studied, will give up toa party what was meant for mankind. At any rate, he must get rid of hisrabidity. He writes now on all subjects as if he certainly intended tobe a renegade, and was determined to make the contrast complete. "--TheYoung Duke, book v chap. Vi. ] It is much what any young literary manoutside the House of Commons might write of another who had only beeninside that House for a few weeks; and it was probably forgotten by theauthor within twenty-four hours after the ink was dry. It is to behoped that the commentators of the future will not treat it as anauthoritative record of Mr. Disraeli's estimate of Lord Macaulay'spolitical character. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: June 25, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --There was, as you will see, no debate on Lord JohnRussell's motion. The Reform Bill is to be brought in, read once, andprinted, without discussion. The contest will be on the second reading, and will be protracted, I should think, through the whole of the weekafter next;--next week it will be, when you read this letter. 

I breakfasted with Rogers yesterday. There was nobody there but Moore. We were all on the most friendly and familiar terms possible; and Moore, who is, Rogers tells me, excessively pleased with my review of hisbook, showed me very marked attention. I was forced to go away early onaccount of bankrupt business; but Rogers said that we must have the talkout so we are to meet at his house again to breakfast. What a delightfulhouse it is! It looks out on the Green Park just at the most pleasantpoint. The furniture has been selected with a delicacy of taste quiteunique. Its value does not depend on fashion, but must be the same whilethe fine arts are held in any esteem. In the drawing-room, for example, the chimney-pieces are carved by Flaxman into the most beautiful Grecianforms. The book-case is painted by Stothard, in his very best manner, with groups from Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Boccacio. The pictures arenot numerous; but every one is excellent. In the dining-room there arealso some beautiful paintings. But the three most remarkable objects inthat room are, I think, a cast of Pope taken after death by Roubiliac;a noble model in terra-cotta by Michael Angelo, from which he afterwardsmade one of his finest statues, that of Lorenzo de Medici; and, lastly, a mahogany table on which stands an antique vase. 

When Chantrey dined with Rogers some time ago he took particular noticeof the vase, and the table on which it stands, and asked Rogers whomade the table. "A common carpenter, " said Rogers. "Do you rememberthe making of it?" said Chantrey. "Certainly, " said Rogers, in somesurprise. "I was in the room while it was finished with the chisel, andgave the workman directions about placing it. " "Yes, " said Chantrey, "Iwas the carpenter. I remember the room well, and all the circumstances. "A curious story, I think, and honourable both to the talent which raisedChantrey, and to the magnanimity which kept him from being ashamed ofwhat he had been. 

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: June 29, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --We are not yet in the full tide of Parliamentarybusiness. Next week the debates will be warm and long. I should notwonder if we had a discussion of five nights. I shall probably take apart in it. 

I have breakfasted again with Rogers. The party was a remarkableone, --Lord John Russell, Tom Moore, Tom Campbell, and Luttrell. We wereall very lively. An odd incident took place after breakfast, while wewere standing at the window and looking into the Green Park. Somebodywas talking about diners-out. "Ay, " said Campbell--

"Ye diners-out from whom we guard our spoons. "

Tom Moore asked where the line was. "Don't you know?" said Campbell. "Not I, " said Moore. "Surely, " said Campbell, "it is your own. " "I neversaw it in my life, " said Moore. "It is in one of your best things in theTimes, " said Campbell. Moore denied it. Hereupon I put in my claim, and told them that it was mine. Do you remember it? It is in some linescalled the Political Georgics, which I sent to the Times about threeyears ago. They made me repeat the lines, and were vociferous in praiseof them. Tom Moore then said, oddly enough:

"There is another poem in the Times that I should like to knowthe author of;--A Parson's Account of his Journey to the CambridgeElection. " I laid claim to that also. "That is curious, " said Moore. "Ibegged Barnes to tell me who wrote it. He said that he had received itfrom Cambridge, and touched it up himself, and pretended that all thebest strokes were his. I believed that he was lying, because I neverknew him to make a good joke in his life. And now the murder is out. "They asked me whether I had put anything else in the Times. Nothing, Isaid, except the Sortes Virgilianae, which Lord John remembered well. I never mentioned the Cambridge Journey, or the Georgics, to any butmy own family; and I was therefore, as you may conceive, not a littleflattered to hear in one day Moore praising one of them, and Campbellpraising the other. 

I find that my article on Byron is very popular; one among a thousandproofs of the bad taste of the public. I am to review Croker's editionof Bozzy. It is wretchedly ill done. The notes are poorly written, andshamefully inaccurate. There is, however, much curious information init. The whole of the Tour to the Hebrides is incorporated with the Life. So are most of Mrs. Thrale's anecdotes, and much of Sir John Hawkins'slumbering book. The whole makes five large volumes. There is a mostlaughable sketch of Bozzy, taken by Sir T. Lawrence when young. I neversaw a character so thoroughly hit off. I intend the book for you, when Ihave finished my criticism on it. You are, next to myself, the best readBoswellite that I know. The lady whom Johnson abused for flatteringhim [See Boswell's Life of Johnson, April 15, 1778. ] was certainly, according to Croker, Hannah More. Another ill-natured sentence abouta Bath lady ["He would not allow me to praise a lady then at Bath;observing, 'She does not gain upon me, sir; I think her empty-headed. '"]whom Johnson called "empty-headed" is also applied to your godmother. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: July 6, 1835. 

My dear Sister, --I have been so busy during the last two or three daysthat I have found no time to write to you. I have now good news for you. I spoke yesterday night with a success beyond my utmost expectations. Iam half ashamed to tell you the compliments which I have received; butyou well know that it is not from vanity, but to give you pleasure, thatI tell you what is said about me. Lord Althorp told me twice that it wasthe best speech he had ever heard; Graham, and Stanley, and Lord JohnRussell spoke of it in the same way; and O'Connell followed me out ofthe house to pay me the most enthusiastic compliments. I delivered myspeech much more slowly than any that I have before made, and it is inconsequence better reported than its predecessors, though not well. Isend you several papers. You will see some civil things in the leadingarticles of some of them. My greatest pleasure, in the midst of all thispraise, is to think of the pleasure which my success will give to myfather and my sisters. It is happy for me that ambition has in my mindbeen softened into a kind of domestic feeling, and that affection has atleast as much to do as vanity with my wish to distinguish myself. ThisI owe to my dear mother, and to the interest which she always took in mychildish successes. From my earliest years, the gratification of thosewhom I love has been associated with the gratification of my own thirstfor fame, until the two have become inseparably joined in my mind. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M Macaulay

London: July 8, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --Do you want to hear all the compliments that are paidto me? I shall never end, if I stuff my letters with them; for I meetnobody who does not give me joy. Baring tells me that I ought never tospeak again. Howick sent a note to me yesterday to say that his fatherwished very much to be introduced to me, and asked me to dine with themyesterday, as, by great good luck, there was nothing to do in theHouse of Commons. At seven I went to Downing Street, where Earl Grey'sofficial residence stands. It is a noble house. There are two splendiddrawing-rooms, which overlook St. James's Park. Into these I was shown. The servant told me that Lord Grey was still at the House of Lords, andthat her Ladyship had just gone to dress. Howick had not mentioned thehour in his note. I sate down, and turned over two large portfolios ofpolitical caricatures. Earl Grey's own face was in every print. I wasvery much diverted. I had seen some of them before; but many were new tome, and their merit is extraordinary. They were the caricatures of thatremarkably able artist who calls himself H. B. In about half an hourLady Georgiana Grey, and the Countess, made their appearance. We hadsome pleasant talk, and they made many apologies. The Earl, they said, was unexpectedly delayed by a question which had arisen in the Lords. Lady Holland arrived soon after, and gave me a most gracious reception;shook my hand very warmly, and told me, in her imperial decisive manner, that she had talked with all the principal men on our side about myspeech, that they all agreed that it was the best that had been madesince the death of Fox, and that it was more like Fox's speaking thananybody's else. Then she told me that I was too much worked, that I mustgo out of town, and absolutely insisted on my going to Holland House todine, and take a bed, on the next day on which there is no Parliamentarybusiness. At eight we went to dinner. Lord Howick took his father'splace, and we feasted very luxuriously. At nine Lord Grey came from theHouse with Lord Durham, Lord Holland, and the Duke of Richmond. Theydined on the remains of our dinner with great expedition, as they had togo to a Cabinet Council at ten. Of course I had scarcely any talk withLord Grey. He was, however, extremely polite to me, and so were hiscolleagues. I liked the ways of the family. 

I picked up some news from these Cabinet Ministers. There is to bea Coronation on quite a new plan; no banquet in Westminster Hall, nofeudal services, no champion, no procession from the Abbey to the Hall, and back again. But there is to be a service in the Abbey. All the Peersare to come in state and in their robes, and the King is to take theoaths, and be crowned and anointed in their presence. The spectacle willbe finer than usual to the multitude out of doors. The few hundreds whocould obtain admittance to the Hall will be the only losers. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: July 8, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --Since I wrote to you I have been out to dine and sleepat Holland House. We had a very agreeable and splendid party; amongothers the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, and the Marchioness ofClanricarde, who, you know, is the daughter of Canning. She is verybeautiful, and very like her father, with eyes full of fire, and greatexpression in all her features. She and I had a great deal of talk. Sheshowed much cleverness and information, but, I thought, a little more ofpolitical animosity than is quite becoming in a pretty woman. However, she has been placed in peculiar circumstances. The daughter of astatesman who was a martyr to the rage of faction may be pardonedfor speaking sharply of the enemies of her parent; and she did speaksharply. With knitted brows, and flashing eyes, and a look of femininevengeance about her beautiful mouth, she gave me such a character ofPeel as he would certainly have had no pleasure in hearing. 

In the evening Lord John Russell came; and, soon after, old Talleyrand. I had seen Talleyrand in very large parties, but had never been nearenough to hear a word that he said. I now had the pleasure of listeningfor an hour and a half to his conversation. He is certainly the greatestcuriosity that I ever fell in with. His head is sunk down between twohigh shoulders. One of his feet is hideously distorted. His face is aspale as that of a corpse, and wrinkled to a frightful degree. His eyeshave an odd glassy stare quite peculiar to them. His hair, thicklypowdered and pomatumed, hangs down his shoulders on each side asstraight as a pound of tallow candles. His conversation, however, soonmakes you forget his ugliness and infirmities. There is a poignancywithout effort in all that he says, which reminded me a little of thecharacter which the wits of Johnson's circle give of Beauclerk. Forexample, we talked about Metternich and Cardinal Mazarin. "J'y trouvebeaucoup a redire. Le Cardinal trompait; mais il ne mentait pas. Or, M. De Metternich ment toujours, et ne trompe jamais. " He mentioned M. DeSt. Aulaire, --now one of the most distinguished public men of France. Isaid: "M. De Saint-Aulaire est beau-pere de M. Le duc de Cazes, n'est-cepas?" "Non, monsieur, " said Talleyrand; "l'on disait, il y a douzeans, que M. De Saint-Aulaire etoit beau-pere de M. De Cazes; l'on ditmaintenant que M. De Cazes est gendre de M. De Saint-Aulaire. " [Thissaying remained in Macaulay's mind. He quoted it on the margin of hisAulus Gellius, as an illustration of the passage in the nineteenth bookin which Julius Caesar is described, absurdly enough as "perpetuus illedictator, Cneii Pompeii socer". ] It was not easy to describe the changein the relative positions of two men more tersely and more sharply; andthese remarks were made in the lowest tone, and without the slightestchange of muscle, just as if he had been remarking that the day wasfine. He added: "M. De Saint-Aulaire a beaucoup d'esprit. Mais il estdevot, et, ce qui pis est, devot honteux. Il va se cacher dans quelquehameau pour faire ses Paques. " This was a curious remark from a Bishop. He told several stories about the political men of France; not of anygreat value in themselves; but his way of telling them was beyondall praise, --concise, pointed, and delicately satirical. When he haddeparted, I could not help breaking out into admiration of his talentfor relating anecdotes. Lady Holland said that he had been consideredfor nearly forty years as the best teller of a story in Europe, and thatthere was certainly nobody like him in that respect. 

When the Prince was gone, we went to bed. In the morning Lord JohnRussell drove me back to London in his cabriolet, much amused with whatI had seen and heard. But I must stop. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

Basinghall Street: July 15 1831. 

My dear Sister, --The rage of faction at the present moment exceedsanything that has been known in our day. Indeed I doubt whether, at thetime of Mr. Pitt's first becoming Premier, at the time of Sir RobertWalpole's fall, or even during the desperate struggles between theWhigs and Tories at the close of Anne's reign, the fury of party was sofearfully violent. Lord Mahon said to me yesterday that friendships oflong standing were everywhere giving way, and that the schism betweenthe reformers and the anti-reformers was spreading from the House ofCommons into every private circle. Lord Mahon himself is an exception. He and I are on excellent terms. But Praed and I become colder everyday. 

The scene of Tuesday night beggars description. I left the House atabout three, in consequence of some expressions of Lord Althorp's whichindicated that the Ministry was inclined to yield on the question ofgoing into Committee on the Bill. I afterwards much regretted that I hadgone away; not that my presence was necessary; but because I should haveliked to have sate through so tremendous a storm. Towards eight inthe morning the Speaker was almost fainting. The Ministerial members, however, were as true as steel. They furnished the Ministry with theresolution which it wanted. "If the noble Lord yields, " said one ofour men, "all is lost. " Old Sir Thomas Baring sent for his razor, andBenett, the member for Wiltshire, for his night-cap; and they were bothresolved to spend the whole day in the House rather than give way. Ifthe Opposition had not yielded, in two hours half London would have beenin Old Palace Yard. 

Since Tuesday the Tories have been rather cowed. But their demeanour, though less outrageous than at the beginning of the week, indicates whatwould in any other time be called extreme violence. I have not been oncein bed till three in the morning since last Sunday. To-morrow we have aholiday. I dine at Lansdowne House. Next week I dine with Littleton, the member for Staffordshire, and his handsome wife. He told me thatI should meet two men whom I am curious to see, Lord Plunket and theMarquess Wellesley; let alone the Chancellor, who is not a novelty tome. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: July 25, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --On Saturday evening I went to Holland House. ThereI found the Dutch Ambassador, M. De Weissembourg, Mr. And Mrs. VernonSmith, and Admiral Adam, a son of old Adam, who fought the duel withFox. We dined like Emperors, and jabbered in several languages. HerLadyship, for an esprit fort, is the greatest coward that I ever saw. The last time that I was there she was frightened out of her wits by thethunder. She closed all the shutters, drew all the curtains, and orderedcandles in broad day to keep out the lightning, or rather the appearanceof the lightning. On Saturday she was in a terrible taking about thecholera; talked of nothing else; refused to eat any ice because somebodysaid that ice was bad for the cholera; was sure that the cholera was atGlasgow; and asked me why a cordon of troops was not instantly placedaround that town to prevent all intercourse between the infected and thehealthy spots. Lord Holland made light of her fears. He is a thoroughlygood-natured, open, sensible man; very lively; very intellectual; wellread in politics, and in the lighter literature both of ancient andmodern times. He sets me more at ease than almost any person that Iknow, by a certain good-humoured way of contradicting that he has. He always begins by drawing down his shaggy eyebrows, making a faceextremely like his uncle, wagging his head and saying: "Now do you know, Mr. Macaulay, I do not quite see that. How do you make it out?" Hetells a story delightfully; and bears the pain of his gout, and theconfinement and privations to which it subjects him, with admirablefortitude and cheerfulness. Her Ladyship is all courtesy and kindnessto me; but her demeanour to some others, particularly to poor Allen, issuch as it quite pains me to witness. He really is treated like a negroslave. "Mr. Allen, go into my drawing-room and bring my reticule. ""Mr. Allen, go and see what can be the matter that they do not bring updinner. " "Mr. Allen, there is not enough turtle-soup for you. You musttake gravy-soup or none. " Yet I can scarcely pity the man. He has anindependent income; and, if he can stoop to be ordered about like afootman, I cannot so much blame her for the contempt with which shetreats him. 

Perhaps I may write again to-morrow. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

Library of the House of Commons

July 26, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --Here I am seated, waiting for the debate on the boroughof St. Germains with a very quiet party, --Lord Milton, Lord Tavistock, and George Lamb. But, instead of telling you in dramatic form myconversations with Cabinet Ministers, I shall, I think, go back twoor three days, and complete the narrative which I left imperfect in myepistle of yesterday. 

[This refers to a passage in a former letter, likewise written from theLibrary of the House. 

"'Macaulay!' Who calls Macaulay? Sir James Graham. What can he have tosay to me? Take it dramatically:

Sir J. G. Macaulay!

Macaulay. What?

Sir J. G. Whom are you writing to, that you laugh so much over yourletter?

Macaulay. To my constituents at Caine, to be sure. They expect news ofthe Reform Bill every day. 

Sir J. G. Well, writing to constituents is less of a plague to you thanto most people, to judge by your face. 

Macaulay. How do you know that I am not writing a billet doux to a lady?

Sir J. G. You look more like it, by Jove!

Cutlar Ferguson, M. P. For Kirkcudbright. Let ladies and constituentsalone, and come into the House. We are going on to the case of theborough of Great Bedwin immediately. "]

At half after seven on Sunday I was set down at Littleton's palace, forsuch it is, in Grosvenor Place. It really is a noble house; foursuperb drawing-rooms on the first floor, hung round with some excellentpictures--a Hobbema, (the finest by that artist in the world, it issaid, ) and Lawrence's charming portrait of Mrs. Littleton. The beautifuloriginal, by the bye, did not make her appearance. We were a party ofgentlemen. But such gentlemen! Listen, and be proud of your connectionwith one who is admitted to eat and drink in the same room with beingsso exalted. There were two Chancellors, Lord Brougham and Lord Plunket. There was Earl Gower; Lord St. Vincent; Lord Seaford; Lord Duncannon;Lord Ebrington; Sir James Graham; Sir John Newport; the two Secretariesof the Treasury, Rice and Ellice; George Lamb; Denison; and half adozen more Lords and distinguished Commoners, not to mention Littletonhimself. Till last year he lived in Portman Square. When he changedhis residence his servants gave him warning. They could not, they said, consent to go into such an unheard-of part of the world as GrosvenorPlace. I can only say that I have never been in a finer house thanLittleton's, Lansdowne House excepted, --and perhaps Lord Milton's, whichis also in Grosvenor Place. He gave me a dinner of dinners. I talkedwith Denison, and with nobody else. I have found out that the real useof conversational powers is to put them forth in tete-a-tete. A manis flattered by your talking your best to him alone. Ten to one he ispiqued by your overpowering him before a company. Denison was agreeableenough. I heard only one word from Lord Plunket, who was remarkablysilent. He spoke of Doctor Thorpe, and said that, having heard theDoctor in Dublin, he should like to hear him again in London. "Nothingeasier, " quoth Littleton; "his chapel is only two doors off; and he willbe just mounting the pulpit. " "No, " said Lord Plunket; "I can't lose mydinner. " An excellent saying, though one which a less able man than LordPlunket might have uttered. 

At midnight I walked away with George Lamb, and went--where for a ducat?"To bed, " says Miss Hannah. Nay, my sister, not so; but to Brooks's. There I found Sir James Macdonald; Lord Duncannon, who had leftLittleton's just before us; and many other Whigs and ornaments of humannature. As Macdonald and I were rising to depart we saw Rogers, and Iwent to shake hands with him. You cannot think how kind the old man wasto me. He shook my hand over and over, and told me that Lord Plunketlonged to see me in a quiet way, and that he would arrange a breakfastparty in a day or two for that purpose. 

Away I went from Brooks's--but whither? "To bed now, I am sure, " sayslittle Anne. No, but on a walk with Sir James Macdonald to the end ofSloane Street, talking about the Ministry, the Reform Bill, and the EastIndia question. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

House of Commons Smoking Room: Saturday. 

My dear Sister, --The newspapers will have, explained the reason of oursitting to-day. At three this morning I left the House. At two thisafternoon I have returned to it, with the thermometer at boiling heat, and four hundred and fifty people stowed together like negroes in theJohn Newton's slaveship. I have accordingly left Sir Francis Burdetton his legs, and repaired to the smoking-room; a large, wainscoted, uncarpeted place, with tables covered with green baize and writingmaterials. On a full night it is generally thronged towards twelveo'clock with smokers. It is then a perfect cloud of fume. There have Iseen, (tell it not to the West Indians, ) Buxton blowing fire out of hismouth. My father will not believe it. At present, however, all the doorsand windows are open, and the room is pure enough from tobacco to suitmy father himself. 

Get Blackwood's new number. There is a description of me in it. What doyou think he says that I am? "A little, splay-footed, ugly, dumpling ofa fellow, with a mouth from ear to ear. " Conceive how such a charge mustaffect a man so enamoured of his own beauty as I am. 

I said a few words the other night. They were merely in reply, and quiteunpremeditated, and were not ill received. I feel that much practicewill be necessary to make me a good debater on points of detail; but myfriends tell me that I have raised my reputation by showing that I wasquite equal to the work of extemporaneous reply. My manner, they say, iscold and wants care. I feel this myself. Nothing but strong excitement, and a great occasion, overcomes a certain reserve and mauvaise hontewhich I have in public speaking; not a mauvaise honte which in the leastconfuses me, or makes me hesitate for a word, but which keeps me fromputting any fervour into my tone or my action. This is perhaps in somerespects an advantage; for, when I do warm, I am the most vehementspeaker in the House, and nothing strikes an audience so much as theanimation of an orator who is generally cold. 

I ought to tell you that Peel was very civil, and cheered me loudly; andthat impudent leering Croker congratulated the House on the proof whichI had given of my readiness. He was afraid, he said, that I had beensilent so long on account of the many allusions which had been madeto Calne. Now that I had risen again he hoped that they should hear meoften. See whether I do not dust that varlet's jacket for him in thenext number of the Blue and Yellow. I detest him more than cold boiledveal. ["By the bye, " Macaulay writes elsewhere, "you never saw such ascene as Croker's oration on Friday night. He abused Lord John Russell;he abused Lord Althorp; he abused the Lord Advocate, and we took nonotice;--never once groaned or cried 'No!' But he began to praise LordFitzwilliam;--'a venerable nobleman, an excellent and amiable nobleman'and so forth; and we all broke out together with 'Question!' 'No, no!''This is too bad!' 'Don't, don't!' He then called Canning his righthonourable friend. 'Your friend! damn your impudent face!' said themember who sate next me. "]

After the debate I walked about the streets with Bulwer till nearthree o'clock. I spoke to him about his novels with perfect sincerity, praising warmly, and criticising freely. He took the praise as a greedyboy takes apple-pie, and the criticism as a good dutiful boy takessenna-tea. He has one eminent merit, that of being a most enthusiasticadmirer of mine; so that I may be the hero of a novel yet, under thename of Delamere or Mortimer. Only think what an honour!

Bulwer is to be editor of the New Monthly Magazine. He begged me veryearnestly to give him something for it. I would make no promises; forI am already over head and ears in literary engagements. But I maypossibly now and then send him some trifle or other. At all events Ishall expect him to puff me well. I do not see why I should not have mypuffers as well as my neighbours. 

I am glad that you have read Madame de Stael's Allemagne. The book is afoolish one in some respects; but it abounds with information, and showsgreat mental power. She was certainly the first woman of her age; MissEdgeworth, I think, the second; and Miss Austen the third. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: August 29, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --Here I am again settled, sitting up in the Houseof Commons till three o'clock five days in the week, and getting anindigestion at great dinners the remaining two. I dined on Saturday withLord Althorp, and yesterday with Sir James Graham. Both of them gave meexactly the same dinner; and, though I am not generally copious on therepasts which my hosts provide for me, I must tell you, for the honourof official hospitality, how our Ministers regale their supporters. Turtle, turbot, venison, and grouse, formed part of both entertainments. 

Lord Althorp was extremely pleasant at the head of his own table. Wewere a small party; Lord Ebrington, Hawkins, Captain Spencer, Stanley, and two or three more. We all of us congratulated Lord Althorp on hisgood health and spirits. He told us that he never took exercise now;that from his getting up, till four o'clock, he was engaged in thebusiness of his office; that at four he dined, went down to the Houseat five, and never stirred till the House rose, which is always aftermidnight; that he then went home, took a basin of arrow-root with aglass of sherry in it, and went to bed, where he always dropped asleepin three minutes. "During the week, " said he, "which followed my takingoffice, I did not close my eyes for anxiety. Since that time I havenever been awake a quarter of an hour after taking off my clothes. "Stanley laughed at Lord Althorp's arrow-root, and recommended his ownsupper, cold meat and warm negus; a supper which I will certainly beginto take when I feel a desire to pass the night with a sensation as if Iwas swallowing a nutmeg-grater every third minute. 

We talked about timidity in speaking. Lord Althorp said that he had onlyjust got over his apprehensions. "I was as much afraid, " he said, "lastyear as when first I came into Parliament. But now I am forced to speakso often that I am quite hardened. Last Thursday I was up forty times. "I was not much surprised at this in Lord Althorp, as he is certainly oneof the most modest men in existence. But I was surprised to hear Stanleysay that he never rose without great uneasiness. "My throat and lips, "he said, "when I am going to speak, are as dry as those of a man whois going to be hanged. " Nothing can be more composed and cool thanStanley's manner. His fault is on that side. A little hesitation atthe beginning of a speech is graceful; and many eminent speakers havepractised it, merely in order to give the appearance of unpremeditatedreply to prepared speeches; but Stanley speaks like a man who never knewwhat fear, or even modesty, was. Tierney, it is remarkable, who wasthe most ready and fluent debater almost ever known, made a confessionsimilar to Stanley's. He never spoke, he said, without feeling his kneesknock together when he rose. 

My opinion of Lord Althorp is extremely high. In fact, his character isthe only stay of the Ministry. I doubt whether any person has ever livedin England who, with no eloquence, no brilliant talents, no profoundinformation, with nothing in short but plain good sense and an excellentheart, possessed so much influence both in and out of Parliament. Histemper is an absolute miracle. He has been worse used than any Ministerever was in debate; and he has never said one thing inconsistent, I donot say with gentlemanlike courtesy, but with real benevolence. LordNorth, perhaps, was his equal in suavity and good-nature; but Lord Northwas not a man of strict principles. His administration was not onlyan administration hostile to liberty, but it was supported by vile andcorrupt means, --by direct bribery, I fear, in many cases. Lord Althorphas the temper of Lord North with the principles of Romilly. If he hadthe oratorical powers of either of those men, he might do anything. Buthis understanding, though just, is slow, and his elocution painfullydefective. It is, however, only justice to him to say that he has donemore service to the Reform Bill even as a debater than all the otherMinisters together, Stanley excepted. 

We are going, --by we I mean the Members of Parliament who are forreform, --as soon as the Bill is through the Commons, to give a granddinner to Lord Althorp and Lord John Russell, as a mark of our respect. Some people wished to have the other Cabinet Ministers included; butGrant and Palmerston are not in sufficiently high esteem among the Whigsto be honoured with such a compliment. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: September 9, 1835. 

My dear Sister, --I scarcely know where to begin, or where to end, mystory of the magnificence of yesterday. No pageant can be conceived moresplendid. The newspapers will happily save me the trouble of relatingminute particulars. I will therefore give you an account of my ownproceedings, and mention what struck me most. I rose at six. The cannonawaked me; and, as soon as I got up, I heard the bells pealing on everyside from all the steeples in London. I put on my court-dress, andlooked a perfect Lovelace in it. At seven the glass coach, which I hadordered for myself and some of my friends, came to the door. I called inHill Street for William Marshall, M. P. For Beverley, and in Cork Streetfor Strutt the Member for Derby, and Hawkins the Member for Tavistock. Our party being complete, we drove through crowds of people, and ranksof horseguards in cuirasses and helmets, to Westminster Hall, which wereached as the clock struck eight. 

The House of Commons was crowded, and the whole assembly was in uniform. After prayers we went out in order by lot, the Speaker going last. Mycounty, Wiltshire, was among the first drawn; so I got an excellentplace in the Abbey, next to Lord Mahon, who is a very great favourite ofmine, and a very amusing companion, though a bitter Tory. 

Our gallery was immediately over the great altar. The whole vast avenueof lofty pillars was directly in front of us. At eleven the gunsfired, the organ struck up, and the procession entered. I never saw somagnificent a scene. All down that immense vista of gloomy arches therewas one blaze of scarlet and gold. First came heralds in coats stiffwith embroidered lions, unicorns, and harps; then nobles bearing theregalia, with pages in rich dresses carrying their coronets on cushions;then the Dean and Prebendaries of Westminster in copes of cloth of gold;then a crowd of beautiful girls and women, or at least of girls andwomen who at a distance looked altogether beautiful, attending on theQueen. Her train of purple velvet and ermine was borne by six of thesefair creatures. All the great officers of state in full robes, the Dukeof Wellington with his Marshal's staff, the Duke of Devonshire with hiswhite rod, Lord Grey with the Sword of State, and the Chancellor withhis seals, came in procession. Then all the Royal Dukes with theirtrains borne behind them, and last the King leaning on two Bishops. I donot, I dare say, give you the precise order. In fact, it was impossibleto discern any order. The whole abbey was one blaze of gorgeous dresses, mingled with lovely faces. 

The Queen behaved admirably, with wonderful grace and dignity. TheKing very awkwardly. The Duke of Devonshire looked as if he came to becrowned instead of his master. I never saw so princely a manner and air. The Chancellor looked like Mephistopheles behind Margaret in the church. The ceremony was much too long, and some parts of it were carelesslyperformed. The Archbishop mumbled. The Bishop of London preached, wellenough indeed, but not so effectively as the occasion required; and, above all, the bearing of the King made the foolish parts of the ritualappear monstrously ridiculous, and deprived many of the better parts oftheir proper effect. Persons who were at a distance perhaps did not feelthis; but I was near enough to see every turn of his finger, and everyglance of his eye. The moment of the crowning was extremely fine. Whenthe Archbishop placed the crown on the head of the King, the trumpetssounded, and the whole audience cried out "God save the King. " All thePeers and Peeresses put on their coronets, and the blaze of splendourthrough the Abbey seemed to be doubled. The King was then conducted tothe raised throne, where the Peers successively did him homage, eachof them kissing his cheek, and touching the crown. Some of them werecheered, which I thought indecorous in such a place, and on such anoccasion. The Tories cheered the Duke of Wellington; and our people, inrevenge, cheered Lord Grey and Brougham. 

You will think this a very dull letter for so great a subject; but Ihave only had time to scrawl these lines in order to catch the post. I have not a minute to read them over. I lost yesterday, and have beenforced to work to-day. Half my article on Boswell went to Edinburgh theday before yesterday. I have, though I say it who should not say it, beaten Croker black and blue. Impudent as he is, I think he must beashamed of the pickle in which I leave him. [Mr. Carlyle reviewedCroker's book in "Fraser's Magazine" a few months after the appearanceof Macaulay's article in the "Edinburgh. " The two Critics seem to havearrived at much the same conclusion as to the merits of the work. "In fine, " writes Mr. Carlyle, "what ideas Mr. Croker entertains ofa literary _whole_, and the thing called _Book_, and how the veryPrinter's Devils did not rise in mutiny against such a conglomeration asthis, and refuse to print it, may remain a problem. .. . It is our painfulduty to declare, aloud, if that be necessary, that his gift, as weighedagainst the hard money which the booksellers demand for giving it you, is (in our judgment) very much the lighter. No portion, accordingly, ofour small floating capital has been embarked in the business, or evershall be. Indeed, were we in the market for such a thing, there issimply no edition of Boswell to which this last would seem preferable, "]

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: September 13, 1831. 

My dear Sister, --I am in high spirits at the thought of soon seeing youall in London, and being again one of a family, and of a family which Ilove so much. It is well that one has something to love in private life;for the aspect of public affairs is very menacing;--fearful, I think, beyond what people in general imagine. Three weeks, however, willprobably settle the whole, and bring to an issue the question, Reform orRevolution. One or the other I am certain that we must and shall have. I assure you that the violence of the people, the bigotry of the Lords, and the stupidity and weakness of the Ministers, alarm me so much thateven my rest is disturbed by vexation and uneasy forebodings; not formyself; for I may gain, and cannot lose; but for this noble country, which seems likely to be ruined without the miserable consolation ofbeing ruined by great men. All seems fair as yet, and will seem fair fora fortnight longer. But I know the danger from information more accurateand certain than, I believe, anybody not in power possesses; and Iperceive, what our men in power do not perceive, how terrible the dangeris. 

I called on Lord Lansdowne on Sunday. He told me distinctly that heexpected the Bill to be lost in the Lords, and that, if it werelost, the Ministers must go out. I told him, with as much strength ofexpression as was suited to the nature of our connection, and to his ageand rank, that, if the Ministers receded before the Lords, and hesitatedto make Peers, they and the Whig party were lost; that nothing remainedbut an insolent oligarchy on the one side, and an infuriated people onthe other; and that Lord Grey and his colleagues would become as odiousand more contemptible than Peel and the Duke of Wellington. Why did theynot think of all this earlier? Why put their hand to the plough, andlook back? Why begin to build without counting the cost of finishing?Why raise the public appetite, and then baulk it? I told him that theHouse of Commons would address the King against a Tory Ministry. Ifeel assured that it would do so. I feel assured that, if those who arebidden will not come, the highways and hedges will be ransacked to gettogether a reforming Cabinet. To one thing my mind is made up. If nobodyelse will move an address to the Crown against a Tory Ministry, I will. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: October 17, 1831. 

My dear Ellis, --I should have written to you before, but that I mislaidyour letter and forgot your direction. When shall you be in London? Ofcourse you do not mean to sacrifice your professional business to thework of numbering the gates, and telling the towers, of boroughs inWales. [Mr. Ellis was one of the Commissioners appointed to arrangethe boundaries of Parliamentary boroughs in connection with the ReformBill. ] You will come back, I suppose, with your head full of ten poundhouseholders instead of eroes and of Caermarthen and Denbigh instead ofCarians and Pelasgians. Is it true, by the bye, that the Commissionersare whipped on the boundaries of the boroughs by the beadles, in orderthat they may not forget the precise line which they have drawn? I denyit wherever I go, and assure people that some of my friends who are inthe Commission would not submit to such degradation. 

You must have been hard-worked indeed, and soundly whipped too, ifyou have suffered as much for the Reform Bill as we who debated it. Ibelieve that there are fifty members of the House of Commons who havedone irreparable injury to their health by attendance on the discussionsof this session. I have got through pretty well, but I look forward, Iconfess, with great dismay to the thought of recommencing; particularlyas Wetherell's cursed lungs seem to be in as good condition as ever. 

I have every reason to be gratified by the manner in which my speecheshave been received. To say the truth, the station which I now hold inthe House is such that I should not be inclined to quit it for any placewhich was not of considerable importance. What you saw about my havinga place was a blunder of a stupid reporter's. Croker was taunting theGovernment with leaving me to fight their battle, and to rally theirfollowers; and said that the honourable and learned member for Calne, though only a practising barrister in title, seemed to be in realitythe most efficient member of the Government. By the bye, my article onCroker has not only smashed his book, but has hit the Westminster Reviewincidentally. The Utilitarians took on themselves to praise the accuracyof the most inaccurate writer that ever lived, and gave as an instanceof it a note in which, as I have shown, he makes a mistake of twentyyears and more. John Mill is in a rage, and says that they are in aworse scrape than Croker; John Murray says that it is a damned nuisance;and Croker looks across the House of Commons at me with a leer ofhatred, which I repay with a gracious smile of pity. 

I am ashamed to have said so much about myself. But you asked for newsabout me. No request is so certain to be granted, or so certain to be acurse to him who makes it as that which you have made to me. 

Ever yours

T. B. MACAULAY. 

London: January 9, 1832. 

Dear Napier, --I have been so much engaged by bankrupt business, as weare winding up the affairs of many estates, that I shall not be able tosend off my article about Hampden till Thursday the 12th. It will be, I fear, more than forty pages long. As Pascal said of his eighteenthletter, I would have made it shorter if I could have kept it longer. Youmust indulge me, however; for I seldom offend in that way. 

It is in part a narrative. This is a sort of composition which I havenever yet attempted. You will tell me, I am sure with sincerity, how youthink that I succeed in it. I have said as little about Lord Nugent'sbook as I decently could. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: January 19, 1832. 

Dear Napier, --I will try the Life of Lord Burleigh, if you will tellLongman to send me the book. However bad the work may be, it will serveas a heading for an article on the times of Elizabeth. On the whole, I thought it best not to answer Croker. Almost all the little pamphletwhich he published, (or rather printed, for I believe it is not forsale, ) is made up of extracts from Blackwood; and I thought that acontest with your grog-drinking, cock-fighting, cudgel-playing Professorof Moral Philosophy would be too degrading. I could have demolishedevery paragraph of the defence. Croker defended his thuetoi philoiby quoting a passage of Euripides which, as every scholar knows, iscorrupt; which is nonsense and false metre if read as he reads it; andwhich Markland and Matthiae have set right by a most obvious correction. But, as nobody seems to have read his vindication, we can gain nothingby refuting it. ["Mr. Croker has favoured us with some Greek of hisown. 'At the altar, ' say Dr. Johnson. 'I recommended my th ph. ''These letters, ' says the editor, (which Dr. Strahan seems not tohave understood, ) probably mean _departed friends. _' Johnson was nota first-rate Greek scholar; but he knew more Greek than most boyswhen they leave school; and no schoolboy could venture to use the wordthuetoi in the sense which Mr. Croker ascribes to it without imminentdanger of a flogging. "--Macaulay's Review of Croker's Boswell. ]

Ever yours

T. B. MACAULAY. 

CHAPTER V. 1832-1834. 

 Macaulay is invited to stand for Leeds--The Reform bill passes--Macaulay appointed Commissioner of the Board of Control--His life in office--Letters to his sisters-- Contested election at Leeds--Macaulay's bearing as a candidate--Canvassing--Pledges--Intrusion of religion into politics--Placemen in Parliament--Liverpool--Margaret Macaulay's marriage--How it affected her brother--He is returned for Leeds--Becomes Secretary of the Board of Control--Letters to Hannah Macaulay--Session of 1832-- Macaulay's Speech on the India Bill--His regard for Lord Glenelg--Letters to Hannah Macaulay--The West Indian question--Macaulay resigns Office--He gains his point, and resumes his place--Emancipation of the Slaves--Death of Wilberforce--Macaulay is appointed Member of the Supreme Council of India--Letters to Hannah Macaulay, Lord Lansdowne, and Mr. Napier--Altercation between Lord Althorp and Mr. Shiel--Macaulay's appearance before the Committee of Investigation--He sails for India. 

DURING the earlier half of the year 1832 the vessel of Reform was stilllabouring heavily; but, long before she was through the breakers, menhad begun to discount the treasures which she was bringing into port. The time was fast approaching when the country would be called upon tochoose its first Reformed Parliament. As if the spectacle of whatwas doing at Westminster did not satisfy their appetite for politicalexcitement, the Constituencies of the future could not refrain fromanticipating the fancied pleasures of an electoral struggle. Impatientto exercise their privileges, and to show that they had as good an eyefor a man as those patrons of nomination seats whose discernment wasbeing vaunted nightly in a dozen speeches from the Opposition benchesof the House of Commons, the great cities were vying with each other toseek representatives worthy of the occasion and of themselves. The Whigsof Leeds, already provided with one candidate in a member of the greatlocal firm of the Marshalls, resolved to seek for another among thedistinguished politicians of their party. As early as October 1831Macaulay had received a requisition from that town, and had pledgedhimself to stand as soon as it had been elevated into a Parliamentaryborough. The Tories, on their side, brought forward Mr. Michael Sadler, the very man on whose behalf the Duke of Newcastle had done "what heliked with his own" in Newark, --and, at the last general election, haddone it in vain. Sadler, smarting from the lash of the Edinburgh Review, infused into the contest an amount of personal bitterness that forhis own sake might better have been spared; and, during more than atwelvemonth to come, Macaulay lived the life of a candidate whose ownhands are full of public work at a time when his opponent has nothing todo except to make himself disagreeable. But, having once undertakento fight the battle of the Leeds Liberals, he fought it stoutly andcheerily; and he would have been the last to claim it as a merit, that, with numerous opportunities of a safe and easy election at his disposal, he remained faithful to the supporters who had been so forward to honourhim with their choice. 

The old system died hard; but in May 1832 came its final agony. TheReform Bill had passed the Commons, and had been read a second time inthe Upper House; but the facilities which Committee affords for maimingand delaying a measure of great magnitude and intricacy proved too muchfor the self-control of the Lords. The King could not bring himselfto adopt that wonderful expedient by which the unanimity of the threebranches of our legislature may, in the last resort, be secured. Deceived by an utterly fallacious analogy, his Majesty began to bepersuaded that the path of concession would lead him whither it had ledLouis the Sixteenth; and he resolved to halt on that path at the pointwhere his Ministers advised him to force the hands of their lordshipsby creating peers. The supposed warnings of the French Revolution, whichhad been dinned into the ears of the country by every Tory oratorfrom Peel to Sibthorpe, at last had produced their effect on the royalimagination. Earl Grey resigned, and the Duke of Wellington, with aloyalty which certainly did not stand in need of such an unlucky proof, came forward to meet the storm. But its violence was too much even forhis courage and constancy. He could not get colleagues to assist him inthe Cabinet, or supporters to vote with him in Parliament, or soldiersto fight for him in the streets; and it was evident that in a few dayshis position would be such as could only be kept by fighting. 

The revolution had in truth commenced. At a meeting of the politicalunions on the slope of Newhall Hill at Birmingham a hundred thousandvoices had sung the words:

 God is our guide. No swords we draw. We kindle not war's battle fires. By union, justice, reason, law, We claim the birthright of our sires. 

But those very men were now binding themselves by a declaration that, unless the Bill passed, they would pay no taxes, nor purchase propertydistrained by the tax-gatherer. In thus renouncing the first obligationof a citizen they did in effect draw the sword, and they would have beencravens if they had left it in the scabbard. Lord Milton did somethingto enhance the claim of his historic house upon the national gratitudeby giving practical effect to this audacious resolve; and, after thelapse of two centuries, another Great Rebellion, more effectual than itspredecessor, but so brief and bloodless that history does not recogniseit as a rebellion at all, was inaugurated by the essentially Englishproceeding of a quiet country gentleman telling the Collector tocall again. The crisis lasted just a week. The Duke had no mind for asuccession of Peterloos, on a vaster scale, and with a different issue. He advised the King to recall his Ministers; and his Majesty, in histurn, honoured the refractory lords with a most significant circularletter, respectful in form, but unmistakable in tenor. A hundred peersof the Opposition took the hint, and contrived to be absent wheneverReform was before the House. The Bill was read for a third time by amajority of five to one on the 4th of June; a strange, and not verycomplimentary, method of celebrating old George the Third's birthday. Onthe 5th it received the last touches in the Commons; and on the 7thit became an Act, in very much the same shape, after such and so manyvicissitudes, as it wore when Lord John Russell first presented it toParliament. 

Macaulay, whose eloquence had signalised every stage of the conflict, and whose printed speeches are, of all its authentic records, the mostfamiliar to readers of our own day, was not left without his reward. Hewas appointed one of the Commissioners of the Board of Control, which, for three quarters of a century from 1784 onwards, represented the Crownin its relations to the East Indian directors. His duties, like those ofevery individual member of a Commission, were light or heavy as he choseto make them; but his own feeling with regard to those duties must notbe deduced from the playful allusions contained in letters dashed off, during the momentary leisure of an over-busy day, for the amusement oftwo girls who barely numbered forty years between them. His speeches andessays teem with expressions of a far deeper than official interest inIndia and her people; and his minutes remain on record, to prove that hedid not affect the sentiment for a literary or oratorical purpose. Theattitude of his own mind with regard to our Eastern empire is depictedin the passage on Burke, in the essay on Warren Hastings, whichcommences with the words, "His knowledge of India--, " and concludeswith the sentence, "Oppression in Bengal was to him the same thing asoppression in the streets of London. " That passage, unsurpassed as it isin force of language, and splendid fidelity of detail, by anything thatMacaulay ever wrote or uttered, was inspired, as all who knew him couldtestify, by sincere and entire sympathy with that great statesmanof whose humanity and breadth of view it is the merited, and notinadequate, panegyric. 

In Margaret Macaulay's journal there occurs more than one mention ofher brother's occasional fits of contrition on the subject of his ownidleness; but these regrets and confessions must be taken for what theyare worth, and for no more. He worked much harder than he gave himselfcredit for. His nature was such that whatever he did was done with allhis heart, and all his power; and he was constitutionally incapableof doing it otherwise. He always under-estimated the tension andconcentration of mind which he brought to bear upon his labours, ascompared with that which men in general bestow on whatever businessthey may have in hand; and, to-wards the close of life, this honourableself-deception no doubt led him to draw far too largely upon his failingstrength, under the impression that there was nothing unduly severe inthe efforts to which he continued to brace himself with ever increasingdifficulty. 

During the eighteen months that he passed at the Board of Control he hadno time for relaxation, and very little for the industry which he lovedthe best. Giving his days to India, and his nights to the inexorabledemands of the Treasury Whip, he could devote a few hours to theEdinburgh Review only by rising at five when the rules of the House ofCommons had allowed him to get to bed betimes on the previous evening. Yet, under these conditions, he contrived to provide Mr. Napier withthe highly finished articles on Horace Walpole and Lord Chatham, and togratify a political opponent, who was destined to be a life-long friend, by his kindly criticism and spirited summary of Lord Mahon's "History ofthe War of the Succession in Spain. " And, in the "Friendship's Offering"of 1833, one of those mawkish annual publications of the album specieswhich were then in fashion, appeared his poem of the Armada; whoseswinging couplets read as if somewhat out of place in the company ofsuch productions as "The Mysterious Stranger, or the Bravo of Banff;""Away to the Greenwood, a song;" and "Lines on a Window that had beenfrozen, " beginning with, "Pellucid pane, this morn on thee My fancy shaped both tower and tree. "

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay

Bath: June 10, 1832. 

My dear Sisters, --Everything has gone wrong with me. The people at Calnefixed Wednesday for my re-election on taking office; the very day onwhich I was to have been at a public dinner at Leeds. I shall thereforeremain here till Wednesday morning, and read Indian politics in quiet. Iam already deep in Zemindars, Ryots, Polygars, Courts of Phoujdary, andCourts of Nizamut Adawlut. I can tell you which of the native Powers aresubsidiary, and which independent, and read you lectures of an hour onour diplomatic transactions at the courts of Lucknow, Nagpore, Hydrabad, and Poonah. At Poonah, indeed, I need not tell you that there is nocourt; for the Paishwa, as you are doubtless aware, was deposed by LordHastings in the Pindarree War. Am I not in fair training to be as greata bore as if I had myself been in India?--that is to say, as great abore as the greatest. 

I am leading my watering-place life here; reading, writing, and walkingall day; speaking to nobody but the waiter and the chambermaid; solitaryin a great crowd, and content with solitude. I shall be in London againon Thursday, and shall also be an M. P. From that day you may send yourletters as freely as ever; and pray do not be sparing of them. Do youread any novels at Liverpool? I should fear that the good Quakers wouldtwitch them out of your hands, and appoint their portion in the fire. Yet probably you have some safe place, some box, some drawer with a key, wherein a marble-covered book may lie for Nancy's Sunday reading. And, if you do not read novels, what do you read? How does Schiller go on? Ihave sadly neglected Calderon; but, whenever I have a month to spare, Ishall carry my conquests far and deep into Spanish literature. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay. 

London: July 2, 1832. 

My dear Sisters, --I am, I think, a better correspondent than you two puttogether. I will venture to say that I have written more letters, by agood many, than I have received, and this with India and the EdinburghReview on my hands; the Life of Mirabeau to be criticised; the Rajah ofTravancore to be kept in order; and the bad money, which the Emperorof the Burmese has had the impudence to send us byway of tribute, to beexchanged for better. You have nothing to do but to be good, and write. Make no excuses, for your excuses are contradictory. If you see sights, describe them; for then you have subjects. If you stay at home, write;for then you have time. Remember that I never saw the cemetery or therailroad. Be particular, above all, in your accounts of the Quakers. I enjoin this especially on Nancy; for from Meg I have no hope ofextracting a word of truth. 

I dined yesterday at Holland House; all Lords except myself. LordRadnor, Lord Poltimore, Lord King, Lord Russell, and his uncle LordJohn. Lady Holland was very gracious, praised my article on Burleigh tothe skies, and told me, among other things, that she had talked on thepreceding day for two hours with Charles Grant upon religion, and hadfound him very liberal and tolerant. It was, I suppose, the cholerawhich sent her Ladyship to the only saint in the Ministry for ghostlycounsel. Poor Macdonald's case was most undoubtedly cholera. It issaid that Lord Amesbury also died of cholera, though no very strangeexplanation seems necessary to account for the death of a man ofeighty-four. Yesterday it was rumoured that the three Miss Molyneuxes, of whom by the way there are only two, were all dead in the same way;that the Bishop of Worcester and Lord Barham were no more; and manyother foolish stories. I do not believe there is the slightest groundfor uneasiness; though Lady Holland apparently considers the case soserious that she has taken her conscience out of Allen's keeping, andput it into the hands of Charles Grant. 

Here I end my letter; a great deal too long already for so busy a man towrite, and for such careless correspondents to receive. 

T. B. M. 

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay. 

London: July 6, 1832. 

 Be you Foxes, be you Pitts, You must write to silly chits. Be you Tories, be you Whigs, You must write to sad young gigs. On whatever board you are-- Treasury, Admiralty, War, Customs, Stamps, Excise, Control;-- Write you must, upon my soul. 

So sings the judicious poet; and here I sit in my parlour, lookingout on the Thames, and divided, like Garrick in Sir Joshua's picture, between Tragedy and Comedy; a letter to you, and a bundle of papersabout Hydrabad, and the firm of Palmer and Co. , late bankers to theNizam. 

Poor Sir Walter Scott is going back to Scotland by sea tomorrow. Allhope is over; and he has a restless wish to die at home. He is manythousand pounds worse than nothing. Last week he was thought to be sonear his end that some people went, I understand, to sound Lord Althorpabout a public funeral. Lord Althorp said, very like himself, that ifpublic money was to be laid out, it would be better to give it to thefamily than to spend it in one day's show. The family, however, are saidto be not ill off. 

I am delighted to hear of your proposed tour, but not so well pleasedto be told that you expect to be bad correspondents during your stay atWelsh inns. Take pens and ink with you, if you think that you shall findnone at the Bard's Head, or the Glendower Arms. But it will be toobad if you send me no letters during a tour which will furnish so manysubjects. Why not keep a journal, and minute down in it all that yousee and hear? and remember that I charge you, as the venerable circlecharged Miss Byron, to tell me of every person who "regards you with aneye of partiality. "

What can I say more? as the Indians end their letters. Did not LadyHolland tell me of some good novels? I remember:--Henry Masterton, threevolumes, an amusing story and a happy termination. Smuggle it in, next time that you go to Liverpool, from some circulating library; anddeposit it in a lock-up place out of the reach of them that are clothedin drab; and read it together at the curling hour. 

My article on Mirabeau will be out in the forthcoming number. I am nota good judge of my own compositions, I fear; but I think that it will bepopular. A Yankee has written to me to say that an edition of my worksis about to be published in America with my life prefixed, and that heshall be obliged to me to tell him when I was born, whom I married, and so forth. I guess I must answer him slick right away. For, as thejudicious poet observes, Though a New England man lolls back in his chair, With a pipe in his mouth, and his legs in the air, Yet surely an Old England man such as I To a kinsman by blood should be civil and spry. 

How I run on in quotation! But, when I begin to cite the verses of ourgreat writers, I never can stop. Stop I must, however. 

Yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay. 

London: July 18, 1832. 

My dear Sisters, --I have heard from Napier. He speaks rapturously of myarticle on Dumont, [Dumont's "Life of Mirabeau. " See the MiscellaneousWritings of Lord Macaulay. ] but sends me no money. Allah blacken hisface! as the Persians say. He has not yet paid me for Burleigh. 

We are worked to death in the House of Commons, and we are henceforthto sit on Saturdays. This, indeed, is the only way to get through ourbusiness. On Saturday next we shall, I hope, rise before seven, as I amengaged to dine on that day with pretty, witty Mrs. --. I fell in withher at Lady Grey's great crush, and found her very agreeable. Herhusband is nothing in society. Ropers has some very good stories abouttheir domestic happiness, --stories confirming a theory of mine which, asI remember, made you very angry. When they first married, Mrs. --treatedher husband with great respect. But, when his novel came out andfailed completely, she changed her conduct, and has, ever since thatunfortunate publication, henpecked the poor author unmercifully. And thecase, says Ropers, is the harder, because it is suspected that she wrotepart of the book herself. It is like the scene in Milton where Eve, after tempting Adam, abuses him for yielding to temptation. But do younot remember how I told you that much of the love of women depended onthe eminence of men? And do you not remember how, on behalf of your sex, you resented the imputation?

As to the present state of affairs, abroad and at home, I cannot sum itup better than in these beautiful lines of the poet:

 Peel is preaching, and Croker is lying. The cholera's raging, the people are dying. When the House is the coolest, as I am alive, The thermometer stands at a hundred and five. We debate in a heat that seems likely to burn us, Much like the three children who sang in the furnace. The disorders at Paris have not ceased to plague us; Don Pedro, I hope, is ere this on the Tagus; In Ireland no tithe can be raised by a parson; Mr. Smithers is just hanged for murder and arson; Dr. Thorpe has retired from the Lock, and 'tis said That poor little Wilks will succeed in his stead. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay. 

London: July 21 1832. 

My dear Sisters, --I am glad to find that there is no chance of Nancy'sturning Quaker. She would, indeed, make a queer kind of female Friend. 

What the Yankees will say about me I neither know nor care. I told themthe dates of my birth, and of my coming into Parliament. I told themalso that I was educated at Cambridge. As to my early bon-mots, mycrying for holidays, my walks to school through showers of cats anddogs, I have left all those for the "Life of the late Right HonourableThomas Babington Macaulay, with large extracts from his correspondence, in two volumes, by the Very Rev. J. Macaulay, Dean of Durham, and Rectorof Bishopsgate, with a superb portrait from the picture by Pickersgillin the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne. "

As you like my verses, I will some day or other write you a wholerhyming letter. I wonder whether any man ever wrote doggrel so easily. Irun it off just as fast as my pen can move, and that is faster by aboutthree words in a minute than any other pen that I know. This comes ofa schoolboy habit of writing verses all day long. Shall I tell you thenews in rhyme? I think I will send you a regular sing-song gazette. 

 We gained a victory last night as great as e'er was known. We beat the Opposition upon the Russian loan. They hoped for a majority, and also for our places. We won the day by seventy-nine. You should have seen their faces. Old Croker, when the shout went down our rank, looked blue with rage. You'd have said he had the cholera in the spasmodic stage. Dawson was red with ire as if his face was smeared with berries; But of all human visages the worst was that of Herries. Though not his friend, my tender heart I own could not but feel A little for the misery of poor Sir Robert Peel. But hang the dirty Tories! and let them starve and pine! Huzza for the majority of glorious seventy-nine!

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay. 

House of Commons Smoking-Room

July 23, 1832. 

My dear Sisters, --I am writing here, at eleven at night, in thisfilthiest of all filthy atmospheres, and in the vilest of all vilecompany; with the smell of tobacco in my nostrils, and the ugly, hypocritical face of Lieutenant ---- before my eyes. There he sitswriting opposite to me. To whom, for a ducat? To some secretary of anHibernian Bible Society; or to some old woman who gives cheap tracts, instead of blankets, to the starving peasantry of Connemara; or tosome good Protestant Lord who bullies his Popish tenants. Reject not myletter, though it is redolent of cigars and genuine pigtail; for this isthe room--

The room, --but I think I'll describe it in rhyme, That smells of tobaccoand chloride of lime. The smell of tobacco was always the same; But thechloride was brought since the cholera came. 

But I must return to prose, and tell you all that has fallen out sinceI wrote last. I have been dining with the Listers at Knightsbridge. They are in a very nice house, next, or almost next, to that whichthe Wilberforces had. We had quite a family party. There were GeorgeVilliers, and Hyde Villiers, and Edward Villiers. Charles was not there. George and Hyde rank very high in my opinion. I liked their behaviour totheir sister much. She seems to be the pet of the whole family; andit is natural that she should be so. Their manners are softened by herpresence; and any roughness and sharpness which they have in intercoursewith men vanishes at once. They seem to love the very ground that shetreads on; and she is undoubtedly a charming woman, pretty, clever, lively, and polite. 

I was asked yesterday evening to go to Sir John Burke's, to meet anotherheroine who was very curious to see me. Whom do you think? Lady Morgan. I thought, however, that, if I went, I might not improbably figure inher next novel; and, as I am not ambitious of such an honour, I keptaway. If I could fall in with her at a great party, where I could seeunseen and hear unheard, I should very much like to make observations onher; but I certainly will not, if I can help it, meet her face to face, lion to lioness. 

That confounded chattering--, has just got into an argument about theChurch with an Irish papist who has seated himself at my elbow; and theykeep such a din that I cannot tell what I am writing. There they go. The Lord Lieutenant--the Bishop of Derry-Magee--O'Connell--yourBible meetings--your Agitation meetings--the propagation of theGospel--Maynooth College--the Seed of the Woman shall bruise theSerpent's head. My dear Lieutenant, you will not only bruise, but break, my head with your clatter. Mercy! mercy! However, here I am at the endof my letter, and I shall leave the two demoniacs to tear each other topieces. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay. 

Library of the H. Of C. July 30, 1832, 11 o'clock at night. 

My dear Sisters, --Here I am. Daniel Whittle Harvey is speaking; theHouse is thin; the subject is dull; and I have stolen away to writeto you. Lushington is scribbling at my side. No sound is heard but thescratching of our pens, and the ticking of the clock. We are in a farbetter atmosphere than in the smoking-room, whence I wrote to you lastweek; and the company is more decent, inasmuch as that naval officer, whom Nancy blames me for describing in just terms, is not present. 

By the bye, you know doubtless the lines which are in the mouth of everymember of Parliament, depicting the comparative merits of the two rooms. They are, I think, very happy. 

 If thou goest into the Smoking-room Three plagues will thee befall, -- The chloride of lime, the tobacco smoke, And the Captain who's worst of all, The canting Sea-captain, The prating Sea-captain, The Captain who's worst of all. 

 If thou goest into the Library Three good things will thee befall, -- Very good books, and very good air, And M*c**l*y, who's best of all, The virtuous M*c**l*y, The prudent M*c**l*y, M*c**l*y who's best of all. 

Oh, how I am worked! I never see Fanny from Sunday to Sunday. All mycivilities wait for that blessed day; and I have so many scores ofvisits to pay that I can scarcely find time for any of that Sundayreading in which, like Nancy, I am in the habit of indulging. Yesterday, as soon as I was fixed in my best and had breakfasted, I paid a roundof calls to all my friends who had the cholera. Then I walked to all theclubs of which I am a member, to see the newspapers. The first ofthese two works you will admit to be a work of mercy; the second, ina political man, one of necessity. Then, like a good brother, I walkedunder a burning sun to Kensington to ask Fanny how she did, and stayedthere two hours. Then I went to Knightsbridge to call on Mrs. Listen andchatted with her till it was time to go and dine at the Athenaeum. ThenI dined, and after dinner, like a good young man, I sate and read BishopHeber's journal till bedtime. There is a Sunday for you! I think that Iexcel in the diary lire. I will keep a journal like the Bishop, that mymemory may

 "Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust. "

Next Sunday I am to go to Lord Lansdowne's at Richmond, so that I hopeto have something to tell you. But on second thoughts I will tell younothing, nor ever will write to you again, nor ever speak to you again. I have no pleasure in writing to undutiful sisters. Why do you not sendme longer letters? But I am at the end of my paper, so that I have nomore room to scold. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay. 

London: August 14, 1832. 

My dear Sisters, --Our work is over at last; not, however, till it hashalf killed us all. [On the 8th August, 1832, Macaulay writes to LordMahon: "We are now strictly on duty. No furloughs even for a dinnerengagement, or a sight of Taglioni's legs, can be obtained. It is veryhard to keep forty members in the House. Sibthorpe and Leader are on thewatch to count us out; and from six till two we never venture furtherthan the smoking-room without apprehension. In spite of all ourexertions the end of the Session seems further and further off everyday. If you would do me the favour of inviting Sibthorpe to CheveningPark you might be the means of saving my life, and that of thirty orforty more of us who are forced to swallow the last dregs of the oratoryof this Parliament; and nauseous dregs they are. "] On Saturday wemet, --for the last time, I hope, on business. When the House rose, I setoff for Holland House. We had a small party, but a very distinguishedone. Lord Grey, the Chancellor, Lord Palmerston, Luttrell, and myselfwere the only guests. Allen was of course at the end of the table, carving the dinner and sparring with my Lady. The dinner was not sogood as usual; for the French cook was ill; and her Ladyship kept up acontinued lamentation during the whole repast. I should never have foundout that everything was not as it should be but for her criticisms. Thesoup was too salt; the cutlets were not exactly comme il faut; and thepudding was hardly enough boiled. I was amused to hear from the splendidmistress of such a house the same sort of apologies which--made when hercook forgot the joint, and sent up too small a dinner to table. I toldLuttrell that it was a comfort to me to find that no rank was exemptedfrom these afflictions. 

They talked about --'s marriage. Lady Holland vehemently defended thematch; and, when Allen said that--had caught a Tartar, she quite wentoff into one of her tantrums: "She a Tartar! Such a charming girl aTartar! He is a very happy man, and your language is insufferable:insufferable, Mr. Allen. " Lord Grey had all the trouble in the world toappease her. His influence, however, is very great. He prevailed on herto receive Allen again into favour, and to let Lord Holland have a sliceof melon, for which he had been petitioning most piteously, but whichshe had steadily refused on account of his gout. Lord Holland thankedLord Grey for his intercession. . "Ah, Lord Grey, I wish you were alwayshere. It is a fine thing to be Prime Minister. " This tattle is worthnothing, except to show how much the people whose names will fill thehistory of our times resemble, in all essential matters, the quiet folkswho live in Mecklenburg Square and Brunswick Square. 

I slept in the room which was poor Mackintosh's. The next day, Sunday, ---- came to dinner. He scarcely ever speaks in the society of HollandHouse. Rogers, who is the bitterest and most cynical observer of littletraits of character that ever I knew-, once said to me of him: "Observethat man. He never talks to men; he never talks to girls; but, when hecan get into a circle of old tabbies, he is just in his element. He willsit clacking with an old woman for hours together. That always settlesmy opinion of a young fellow. "

I am delighted to find that you like my review on Mirabeau, though I amangry with Margaret for grumbling at my Scriptural allusions, and stillmore angry with Nancy for denying my insight into character. It is oneof my strong points. If she knew how far I see into hers, she would heready to hang herself. Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay. 

London: August 16, 1832, My dear Sisters, --We begin to see a hope of liberation. To-morrow, or onSaturday at furthest, the hope to finish our business. I did not reachhome till four this morning, after a most fatiguing and yet ratheramusing night. What passed will not find its way into the papers, asthe gallery was locked during most of the time. So I will tell you thestory. 

There is a bill before the House prohibiting those processions ofOrangemen which have excited a good deal of irritation in Ireland. Thisbill was committed yesterday night. Shaw, the Recorder of Dublin, anhonest man enough, but a bitter Protestant fanatic, complained thatit should be brought forward so late in the Session. Several of hisfriends, he said, had left London believing that the measure had beenabandoned. It appeared, however, that Stanley and Lord Althorp had givenfair notice of their intention; so that, if the absent members had beenmistaken, the fault was their own; and the House was for going on. Shawsaid warmly that he would resort to all the means of delay in his power, and moved that the chairman should leave the chair. The motion wasnegatived by forty votes to two. Then the first clause was read. Shawdivided the House again on that clause. He was beaten by the samemajority. He moved again that the chairman should leave the chair. Hewas beaten again. He divided on the second clause. He was beaten again. He then said that he was sensible that he was doing very wrong; thathis conduct was unhandsome and vexatious; that he heartily begged ourpardons; but that he had said that he would delay the bill as far asthe forms of the House would permit; and that he must keep his word. Nowcame a discussion by which Nancy, if she had been in the ventilator, [Acircular ventilator, in the roof of the House of Commons, was the onlyLadies' Gallery that existed in the year 1832. ] might have been greatlyedified, touching the nature of vows; whether a man's promise givento himself, --a promise from which nobody could reap any advantage, and which everybody wished him to violate, --constituted an obligation. Jephtha's daughter was a case in point, and was cited by somebodysitting near me. Peregrine Courtenay on one side of the House, and LordPalmerston on the other, attempted to enlighten the poor Orangemanon the question of casuistry. They might as well have preached to anymadman out of St. Luke's. "I feel, " said the silly creature, "that I amdoing wrong, and acting very unjustifiably. If gentlemen will forgiveme, I will never do so again. But I must keep my word. " We roared withlaughter every time he repeated his apologies. The orders of the Housedo not enable any person absolutely to stop the progress of a billin Committee, but they enable him to delay it grievously. We dividedseventeen times, and between every division this vexatious Irishmanmade us a speech of apologies and self-condemnation. Of the two who hadsupported him at the beginning of his freak one soon sneaked away. Theother, Sibthorpe, stayed to the last, not expressing remorse like Shaw, but glorying in the unaccommodating temper he showed and in the delaywhich he produced. At last the bill went through. Then Shaw rose;congratulated himself that his vow was accomplished; said that the onlyatonement he could make for conduct so unjustifiable was to vow that hewould never make such a vow again; promised to let the bill go throughits future stages without any more divisions; and contented himselfwith suggesting one or two alterations in the details. "I hint at theseamendments, " he said. "If the Secretary for Ireland approves of them, Ihope he will not refrain from introducing them because they are broughtforward by me. I am sensible that I have forfeited all claim to thefavour of the House. I will not divide on any future stage of the bill. "We were all heartily pleased with these events; for the truth was thatthe seventeen divisions occupied less time than a real hard debate wouldhave done, and were infinitely more amusing. The oddest part of thebusiness is that Shaw's frank good-natured way of proceeding, absurd asit was, has made him popular. He was never so great a favourite withthe House as after harassing it for two or three hours with the mostfrivolous opposition. This is a curious trait of the House of Commons. Perhaps you will find this long story, which I have not time to readover again, very stupid and unintelligible. But I have thought it myduty to set before you the evil consequences of making vows rashly, andadhering to them superstitiously; for in truth, my Christian brethren, or rather my Christian sisters, let us consider &c. &c. &c. 

But I reserve the sermon on promises, which I had to preach, for anotheroccasion. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah and Margaret Macaulay

London: August 17, 1832. 

My dear Sisters, --I brought down my story of Holland House to dinnertimeon Saturday evening. To resume my narrative, I slept there on Sundaynight. On Monday morning, after breakfast, I walked to town withLuttrell, whom I found a delightful companion. Before we went, we sateand chatted with Lord Holland in the library for a quarter of an hour. He was very entertaining. He gave us an account of a visit which he paidlong ago to the Court of Denmark; and of King Christian, the madman, whowas at last deprived of all real share in the government on account ofhis infirmity. "Such a Tom of Bedlam I never saw, " said Lord Holland. "One day the Neapolitan Ambassador came to the levee, and made aprofound bow to his Majesty. His Majesty bowed still lower. TheNeapolitan bowed down his head almost to the ground; when, behold! theKing clapped his hands on his Excellency's shoulders, and jumped overhim like a boy playing at leap-frog. Another day the English Ambassadorwas sitting opposite the King at dinner. His Majesty asked him to takewine. The glasses were filled. The Ambassador bowed, and put the wine tohis lips. The King grinned hideously and threw his wine into the face ofone of the footmen. The other guests kept the most profound gravity;but the Englishman, who had but lately come to Copenhagen, though apractised diplomatist, could not help giving some signs of astonishment. The King immediately addressed him in French: 'Eh, mais, Monsieurl'Envoye d'Angleterre, qu'avez-vous done? Pourquoi riez-vous? Est-cequ'il y'ait quelque chose qui vous ait diverti? Faites-moi le plaisir deme l'indiquer. J'aime beaucoup les ridicules. '"

Parliament is up at last. We official men are now left alone at theWest End of London, and are making up for our long confinement inthe mornings by feasting together at night. On Wednesday I dined withLabouchere at his official residence in Somerset House. It is well thathe is a bachelor; for he tells me that the ladies his neighbours makebitter complaints of the unfashionable situation in which they arecruelly obliged to reside gratis. Yesterday I dined with Will Brougham, and an official party, in Mount Street. We are going to establish aClub, to be confined to members of the House of Commons in place underthe present Government, who are to dine together weekly at Grillon'sHotel, and to settle the affairs of the State better, I hope, than ourmasters at their Cabinet dinners. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: September 20, 1832

My dear Sister, --I am at home again from Leeds, where everything isgoing on as well as possible. I, and most of my friends, feel sanguineas to the result. About half my day was spent in speaking, and hearingother people speak; in squeezing and being squeezed; in shaking handswith people whom I never saw before, and whose faces and names I forgetwithin a minute after being introduced to them. The rest was passed inconversation with my leading friends, who are very honest substantialmanufacturers. They feed me on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding; atnight they put me into capital bedrooms; and the only plague which theygive me is that they are always begging me to mention some food or winefor which I have a fancy, or some article of comfort and conveniencewhich I may wish them to procure. 

I travelled to town with a family of children who ate withoutintermission from Market Harborough, where they got into the coach, tothe Peacock at Islington, where they got out of it. They breakfastedas if they had fasted all the preceding day. They dined as if they hadnever breakfasted. They ate on the road one large basket of sandwiches, another of fruit, and a boiled fowl; besides which there was not anorange-girl, an old man with cakes, or a boy with filberts, who came tothe coach-side when we stopped to change horses, of whom they did notbuy something. 

I am living here by myself with no society, or scarcely any, except mybooks. I read a play of Calderon before I breakfast; then look overthe newspaper; frank letters; scrawl a line or two to a foolish girlin Leicestershire; and walk to my Office. There I stay till near five, examining claims of money-lenders on the native sovereigns of India, and reading Parliamentary papers. I am beginning to understand somethingabout the Bank, and hope, when next I go to Rothley Temple, to bea match for the whole firm of Mansfield and Babington on questionsrelating to their own business. When I leave the Board, I walk for twohours; then I dine; and I end the day quietly over a basin of tea and anovel. 

On Saturday I go to Holland House, and stay there till Monday. HerLadyship wants me to take up my quarters almost entirely there; butI love my own chambers and independence, and am neither qualified norinclined to succeed Allen in his post. On Friday week, that is to-morrowweek, I shall go for three days to Sir George Philips's, at Weston, in Warwickshire. He has written again in terms half complaining; and, though I can ill spare time for the visit, yet, as he was very kind tome when his kindness was of some consequence to me, I cannot, and willnot, refuse. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay

London: September 25, 1832. 

My dear Sister, --I went on Saturday to Holland House, and stayedthere Sunday. It was legitimate Sabbath employment, --visiting thesick, --which, as you well know, always stands first among the works ofmercy enumerated in good books. My Lord was ill, and my Lady thoughtherself so. He was, during the greater part of the day, in bed. For afew hours he lay on his sofa, wrapped in flannels. I sate by him abouttwenty minutes, and was then ordered away. He was very weak and languid;and, though the torture of the gout was over, was still in pain; but heretained all his courage, and all his sweetness of temper. I told hissister that I did not think that he was suffering much. "I hope not, "said she; "but it is impossible to judge by what he says; for throughthe sharpest pain of the attack he never complained. " I admire himmore, I think, than any man whom I know. He is only fifty-seven, or fifty-eight. He is precisely the man to whom health would beparticularly valuable; for he has the keenest zest for those pleasureswhich health would enable him to enjoy. He is, however, an invalid, anda cripple. He passes some weeks of every year in extreme torment. Whenhe is in his best health he can only limp a hundred yards in a day. Yethe never says a cross word. The sight of him spreads good humour overthe face of every one who comes near him. His sister, an excellent oldmaid as ever lived, and the favourite of all the young people of heracquaintance, says that it is quite a pleasure to nurse him. She wasreading the "Inheritance" to him as he lay in bed, and he enjoyed itamazingly. She is a famous reader; more quiet and less theatrical thanmost famous readers, and therefore the fitter for the bed-side of a sickman. Her Ladyship had fretted herself into being ill, could eat nothingbut the breast of a partridge, and was frightened out of her wits byhearing a dog howl. She was sure that this noise portended her death, ormy Lord's. Towards the evening, however, she brightened up, and was invery good spirits. My visit was not very lively. They dined at four, andthe company was, as you may suppose at this season, but scanty. CharlesGreville, commonly called, heaven knows why, Punch Greville, came onthe Saturday. Byng, named from his hair Poodle Byng, came on the Sunday. Allen, like the poor, we had with us always. I was grateful, however, for many pleasant evenings passed there when London was full, and LordHolland out of bed. I therefore did my best to keep the house alive. Ihad the library and the delightful gardens to myself during most of theday, and I got through my visit very well. 

News you have in the papers. Poor Scott is gone, and I cannot be sorryfor it. A powerful mind in ruins is the most heart-breaking thing whichit is possible to conceive. Ferdinand of Spain is gone too; and, I fear, old Mr. Stephen is going fast. I am safe at Leeds. Poor Hyde Villiers isvery ill. I am seriously alarmed about him. Kindest love to all. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

Weston House: September 29, 1832. 

My dear Sister, --I came hither yesterday, and found a handsome house, pretty grounds, and a very kind host and hostess. The house is reallyvery well planned. I do not know that I have ever seen so happy animitation of the domestic architecture of Elizabeth's reign. The oriels, towers, terraces, and battlements are in the most perfect keeping; andthe building is as convenient within as it is picturesque without. A fewweather-stains, or a few American creepers, and a little ivy, would makeit perfect; and all that will come, I suppose, with time. The terraceis my favourite spot. I always liked "the trim gardens" of whichMilton speaks, and thought that Brown and his imitators went too farin bringing forests and sheep-walks up to the very windows ofdrawing-rooms. 

I came through Oxford. It was as beautiful a day as the second day ofour visit, and the High Street was in all its glory. But it made mequite sad to find myself there without you and Margaret. All my oldOxford associations are gone. Oxford, instead of being, as it usedto be, the magnificent old city of the seventeenth century, --stillpreserving its antique character among the improvements of modern times, and exhibiting in the midst of upstart Birminghams and Manchesters thesame aspect which it wore when Charles held his court at Christchurch, and Rupert led his cavalry over Magdalene Bridge, is now to me only theplace where I was so happy with my little sisters. But I was restored tomirth, and even to indecorous mirth, by what happened after we hadleft the fine old place behind us. There was a young fellow of aboutfive-and-twenty, mustachioed and smartly dressed, in the coach withme. He was not absolutely uneducated; for he was reading a novel, theHungarian brothers, the whole way. We rode, as I told you, through theHigh Street. The coach stopped to dine; and this youth passed half anhour in the midst of that city of palaces. He looked about him with hismouth open, as he re-entered the coach, and all the while that we weredriving away past the Ratcliffe Library, the Great Court of All Souls, Exeter, Lincoln, Trinity, Balliol, and St. John's. When we were abouta mile on the road he spoke the first words that I had heard him utter. "That was a pretty town enough. Pray, sir, what is it called?" I couldnot answer him for laughing; but he seemed quite unconscious of his ownabsurdity. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

During all the period covered by this correspondence the town of Leedswas alive with the agitation of a turbulent, but not very dubious, contest. Macaulay's relations with the electors whose votes he wascourting are too characteristic to be omitted altogether from the storyof his life; though the style of his speeches and manifestoes is morelikely to excite the admiring envy of modern members of Parliament, than to be taken as a model for their communications to their ownconstituents. This young politician, who depended on office for hisbread, and on a seat in the House of Commons for office, adopted fromthe first an attitude of high and almost peremptory independence whichwould have sat well on a Prime Minister in his grand climacteric. Thefollowing letter, (some passages of which have been here omitted, andothers slightly condensed, ) is strongly marked in every line with thepersonal qualities of the writer. 

London: August 3, 1832. 

"My dear Sir, --I am truly happy to find that the opinion of my friendsat Leeds on the subject of canvassing agrees with that which I have longentertained. The practice of begging for votes is, as it seems to me, absurd, pernicious, and altogether at variance with the true principlesof representative government. The suffrage of an elector ought not tobe asked, or to be given as a personal favour. It is as much for theinterest of constituents to choose well, as it can be for the interestof a candidate to be chosen. To request an honest man to vote accordingto his conscience is superfluous. To request him to vote against hisconscience is an insult. The practice of canvassing is quite reasonableunder a system in which men are sent to Parliament to serve themselves. It is the height of absurdity under a system under which men are sent toParliament to serve the public. While we had only a mock representation, it was natural enough that this practice should be carried to a greatextent. I trust it will soon perish with the abuses from which itsprung. I trust that the great and intelligent body of people who haveobtained the elective franchise will see that seats in the House ofCommons ought not to be given, like rooms in an almshouse, to urgencyof solicitation; and that a man who surrenders his vote to caresses andsupplications forgets his duty as much as if he sold it for a bank-note. I hope to see the day when an Englishman will think it as great anaffront to be courted and fawned upon in his capacity of elector as inhis capacity of juryman. He would be shocked at the thought of findingan unjust verdict because the plaintiff or the defendant had been verycivil and pressing; and, if he would reflect, he would, I think, beequally shocked at the thought of voting for a candidate for whosepublic character he felt no esteem, merely because that candidate hadcalled upon him, and begged very hard, and had shaken his hand verywarmly. My conduct is before the electors of Leeds. My opinions shall onall occasions be stated to them with perfect frankness. If they approvethat conduct, if they concur in those opinions, they ought, not for mysake, but for their own, to choose me as their member. To be so chosen, I should indeed consider as a high and enviable honour; but I shouldthink it no honour to be returned to Parliament by persons who, thinkingme destitute of the requisite qualifications, had yet been wrought uponby cajolery and importunity to poll for me in despite of their betterjudgment. 

"I wish to add a few words touching a question which has lately beenmuch canvassed; I mean the question of pledges. In this letter, and inevery letter which I have written to my friends at Leeds, I have plainlydeclared my opinions. But I think it, at this conjuncture, my duty todeclare that I will give no pledges. I will not bind myself to make orto support any particular motion. I will state as shortly as I can someof the reasons which have induced me to form this determination. The great beauty of the representative system is, that it unitesthe advantages of popular control with the advantages arising from adivision of labour. Just as a physician understands medicine better thanan ordinary man, just as a shoemaker makes shoes better than an ordinaryman, so a person whose life is passed in transacting affairs of Statebecomes a better statesman than an ordinary man. In politics, as wellas every other department of life, the public ought to have the means ofchecking those who serve it. If a man finds that he derives no benefitfrom the prescription of his physician, he calls in another. If hisshoes do not fit him, he changes his shoemaker. But when he has calledin a physician of whom he hears a good report, and whose generalpractice he believes to be judicious, it would be absurd in him to tiedown that physician to order particular pills and particular draughts. While he continues to be the customer of a shoemaker, it would be absurdin him to sit by and mete every motion of that shoemaker's hand. And inthe same manner, it would, I think, be absurd in him to requirepositive pledges, and to exact daily and hourly obedience, from hisrepresentative. My opinion is, that electors ought at first to choosecautiously; then to confide liberally; and, when the term for which theyhave selected their member has expired, to review his conduct equitably, and to pronounce on the whole taken together. 

"If the people of Leeds think proper to repose in me that confidencewhich is necessary to the proper discharge of the duties of arepresentative, I hope that I shall not abuse it. If it be theirpleasure to fetter their members by positive promises, it is intheir power to do so. I can only say that on such terms I cannotconscientiously serve them. 

"I hope, and feel assured, that the sincerity with which I make thisexplicit declaration, will, if it deprive me of the votes of my friendsat Leeds, secure to me what I value far more highly, their esteem. 

"Believe me ever, my dear Sir, "Your most faithful Servant, "T. B. MACAULAY. "

This frank announcement, taken by many as a slight, and by some as adownright challenge, produced remonstrances which, after the interval ofa week, were answered by Macaulay in a second letter; worth reprintingif it were only for the sake of his fine parody upon the popular crywhich for two years past had been the watchword of Reformers. 

"I was perfectly aware that the avowal of my feelings on the subject ofpledges was not likely to advance my interest at Leeds. I was perfectlyaware that many of my most respectable friends were likely to differfrom me; and therefore I thought it the more necessary to make, uninvited, an explicit declaration of my feelings. If ever there wasa time when public men were in an especial measure _bound to speak thetruth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth_, to the people, thisis that time. Nothing is easier than for a candidate to avoid unpopulartopics as long as possible, and, when they are forced on him, to takerefuge in evasive and unmeaning phrases. Nothing is easier than forhim to give extravagant promises while an election is depending, and toforget them as soon as the return is made. I will take no such course. I do not wish to obtain a single vote on false pretences. Under theold system I have never been the flatterer of the great. Under the newsystem I will not be the flatterer of the people. The truth, or whatappears to me to be such, may sometimes be distasteful to those whosegood opinion I most value. I shall nevertheless always abide by it, andtrust to their good sense, to their second thoughts, to the force ofreason, and the progress of time. If, after all, their decision shouldbe unfavourable to me, I shall submit to that decision with fortitudeand good humour. It is not necessary to my happiness that I shouldsit in Parliament; but it is necessary to my happiness that I shouldpossess, in Parliament or out of Parliament, the consciousness of havingdone what is right. "

Macaulay had his own ideas as to the limits within which constituentsare justified in exerting their privilege of questioning a candidate;and, on the first occasion when those limits were exceeded, he made anotable example of the transgressor. During one of his public meetings, a voice was heard to exclaim from the crowd in the body of the hall:"An elector wishes to know the religious creed of Mr. Marshall and Mr. Macaulay. " The last-named gentleman was on his legs in a moment. "Letthat man stand up!" he cried. "Let him stand on a form, where I can seehim!" The offender, who proved to be a Methodist preacher, was heistedon to a bench by his indignant neighbours; nerving himself even in thatterrible moment by a lingering hope that he might yet be able to holdhis own. But the unhappy man had not a chance against Macaulay, who harangued him as if he were the living embodiment of religiousintolerance and illegitimate curiosity. "I have heard with the greatestshame and sorrow the question which has been proposed to me; and withpeculiar pain do I learn that this question was proposed by a ministerof religion. I do most deeply regret that any person should thinkit necessary to make a meeting like this an arena for theologicaldiscussion. I will not be a party to turning this assembly to sucha purpose. My answer is short, and in one word. Gentlemen, I am aChristian. " At this declaration the delighted audience began to cheer;but Macaulay would have none of their applause. "This is no subject, " hesaid, "for acclamation. I will say no more. No man shall speak of me asthe person who, when this disgraceful inquisition was entered upon in anassembly of Englishmen, brought forward the most sacred subjects to becanvassed here, and be turned into a matter for hissing or for cheering. If on any future occasion it should happen that Mr. Carlile shouldfavour any large meeting with his infidel attacks upon the Gospel, heshall not have it to say that I set the example. Gentlemen, I have done;I tell you, I will say no more; and if the person who has thought fit toask this question has the feelings worthy of a teacher of religion, hewill not, I think, rejoice that he has called me forth. "

This ill-fated question had been prompted by a report, diligently spreadthrough the town, that the Whig candidates were Unitarians; a reportwhich, even if correct, would probably have done little to damagetheir electioneering prospects. There are few general remarks whichso uniformly hold good as the observation that men are not willing toattend the religious worship of people who believe less than themselves, or to vote at elections for people who believe more than themselves. While the congregations at a high Anglican service are in part composedof Low churchmen and Broad churchmen; while Presbyterians andWesleyans have no objection to a sound discourse from a divine of theEstablishment; it is seldom the case that any but Unitarians are seeninside a Unitarian chapel. On the other hand, at the general electionof 1874, when not a solitary Roman Catholic was returned throughoutthe length and breadth of the island of Great Britain, theUnitarians retained their long acknowledged pre-eminence as the mostover-represented sect in the kingdom. 

While Macaulay was stern in his refusal to gratify his electors withthe customary blandishments, he gave them plenty of excellent politicalinstruction; which he conveyed to them in rhetoric, not premeditatedwith the care that alone makes speeches readable after a lapse of years, but for this very reason all the more effective when the passion of themoment was pouring itself from his lips in a stream of faultless, butunstudied, sentences. A course of mobs, which turned Cobden into anorator, made of Macaulay a Parliamentary debater; and the ear and eyeof the House of Commons soon detected, in his replies from the Treasurybench, welcome signs of the invaluable training that can be got nowhereexcept on the hustings and the platform. There is no better sample ofMacaulay's extempore speaking than the first words which he addressedto his committee at Leeds after the Reform Bill had received the Royalassent. "I find it difficult to express my gratification at seeing suchan assembly convened at such a time. All the history of our own country, all the history of other countries, furnishes nothing parallel to it. Look at the great events in our own former history, and in every one ofthem, which, for importance, we can venture to compare with the ReformBill, we shall find something to disgrace and tarnish the achievement. It was by the assistance of French arms and of Roman bulls that KingJohn was harassed into giving the Great Charter. In the times of CharlesI. , how much injustice, how much crime, how much bloodshed and misery, did it cost to assert the liberties of England! But in this event, greatand important as it is in substance, I confess I think it still moreimportant from the manner in which it has been achieved. Other countrieshave obtained deliverances equally signal and complete, but in nocountry has that deliverance been obtained with such perfect peace; soentirely within the bounds of the Constitution; with all the forms oflaw observed; the government of the country proceeding in its regularcourse; every man going forth unto his labour until the evening. Franceboasts of her three days of July, when her people rose, when barricadesfenced the streets, and the entire population of the capital in grinssuccessfully vindicated their liberties. They boast, and justly, ofthose three days of July; but I will boast of our ten days of May. We, too, fought a battle, but it was with moral arms. We, too, placed animpassable barrier between ourselves and military tyranny; but we fencedourselves only with moral barricades. Not one crime committed, not oneacre confiscated, not one life lost, not one instance of outrage orattack on the authorities or the laws. Our victory has not left a singlefamily in mourning. Not a tear, not a drop of blood, has sullied thepacific and blameless triumph of a great people. "

The Tories of Leeds, as a last resource, fell to denouncing Macaulay asa placeman; a stroke of superlative audacity in a party which, duringeight-and-forty years, had been out of office for only fourteen months. It may well be imagined that he found plenty to say in his own defence. "The only charge which malice can prefer against me is that I am aplaceman. Gentlemen, is it your wish that those persons who are thoughtworthy of the public confidence should never possess the confidence ofthe King? Is it your wish that no men should be Ministers but those whomno populous places will take as their representatives? By whom, I ask, has the Reform Bill been carried? By Ministers. Who have raised Leedsinto the situation to return members to Parliament? It is by thestrenuous efforts of a patriotic Ministry that that great result hasbeen produced. I should think that the Reform Bill had done little forthe people, if under it the service of the people was not consistentwith the service of the Crown. "

Just before the general election Hyde Villiers died, and theSecretaryship to the Board of Control became vacant. Macaulaysucceeded his old college friend in an office that gave him weightyresponsibility, defined duties, and, as it chanced, exceptionalopportunities for distinction. About the same time, an event occurredwhich touched him more nearly than could any possible turn of fortunein the world of politics. His sisters Hannah and Margaret had for somemonths been almost domesticated among a pleasant nest of villas whichlie in the southern suburb of Liverpool, on Dingle Bank; a spot whosenatural beauty nothing can spoil, until in the fulness of time itsinevitable destiny shall convert it into docks. The young ladies werethe guests of Mr. John Cropper, who belonged to the Society of Friends, a circumstance which readers who have got thus far into the Macaulaycorrespondence will doubtless have discovered for themselves. Before thevisit was over, Margaret became engaged to the brother of her host, Mr. Edward Cropper, a man in every respect worthy of the personal esteem andthe commercial prosperity which have fallen to his lot. 

There are many who will be surprised at finding in Macaulay's letters, both now and hereafter, indications of certain traits in his dispositionwith which the world, knowing him only through his political actionsand his published works, may perhaps be slow to credit him; but which, taking his life as a whole, were predominant in their power to affecthis happiness and give matter for his thoughts. Those who are leastpartial to him will allow that his was essentially a virile intellect. He wrote, he thought, he spoke, he acted, like a man. The publicregarded him as an impersonation of vigour, vivacity, and self-reliance;but his own family, together with one, and probably only one, ofhis friends, knew that his affections were only too tender, and hissensibilities only too acute. Others may well be loth to parade what heconcealed; but a portrait of Macaulay, from which these features wereomitted, would be imperfect to the extent of misrepresentation; and itmust be acknowledged that, where he loved, he loved more entirely, andmore exclusively, than was well for himself. It was improvident in himto concentrate such intensity of feeling upon relations who, howeverdeeply they were attached to him, could not always be in a position torequite him with the whole of their time, and the whole of their heart. He suffered much for that improvidence; but he was too just and too kindto permit that others should suffer with him; and it is not for one whoobtained by inheritance a share of his inestimable affection to regret aweakness to which he considers himself by duty bound to refer. 

How keenly Macaulay felt the separation from his sister it is impossibleto do more than indicate. He never again recovered that tone of thoroughboyishness, which had been produced by a long unbroken habit of gayand affectionate intimacy with those younger than himself; indulged inwithout a suspicion on the part of any concerned that it was in its verynature transitory and precarious. For the first time he was led to doubtwhether his scheme of life was indeed a wise one; or, rather, he beganto be aware that he had never laid out any scheme of life at all. Butwith that unselfishness which was the key to his character and to muchof his career, (resembling in its quality what we sometimes admire ina woman, rather than what we ever detect in a man, ) he took successfulpains to conceal his distress from those over whose happiness itotherwise could not have failed to cast a shadow. 

"The attachment between brothers and sisters, " he writes in November1832, "blameless, amiable, and delightful as it is, is so liable to besuperseded by other attachments that no wise man ought to suffer it tobecome indispensable to him. That women shall leave the home of theirbirth, and contract ties dearer than those of consanguinity, is a lawas ancient as the first records of the history of our race, and asunchangeable as the constitution of the human body and mind. To repineagainst the nature of things, and against the great fundamental law ofall society, because, in consequence of my own want of foresight, ithappens to bear heavily on me, would be the basest and most absurdselfishness. 

"I have still one more stake to lose. There remains one event for which, when it arrives, I shall, I hope, be prepared. From that moment, witha heart formed, if ever any man's heart was formed, for domestichappiness, I shall have nothing left in this world but ambition. There is no wound, however, which time and necessity will not renderendurable; and, after all, what am I more than my fathers, --than themillions and tens of millions who have been weak enough to pay doubleprice for some favourite number in the lottery of life, and who havesuffered double disappointment when their ticket came up a blank?"

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

Leeds: December 12, 1832

My dear Sister, --The election here is going on as well as possible. Today the poll stands thus:

 Marshall Macaulay Sadler 1, 804 1, 792 1, 353

The probability is that Sadler will give up the contest. If he persists, he will be completely beaten. The voters are under 4, 000 in number;those who have already polled are 3, 100; and about five hundred willnot poll at all. Even if we were not to bring up another man, theprobability is that we should win. On Sunday morning early I hope to bein London; and I shall see you in the course of the day. 

I had written thus far when your letter was delivered to me. I amsitting in the midst of two hundred friends, all mad with exultation andparty spirit, all glorying over the Tories, and thinking me the happiestman in the world. And it is all that I can do to hide my tears, andto command my voice, when it is necessary for me to reply to theircongratulations. Dearest, dearest sister, you alone are now left to me. Whom have I on earth but thee? But for you, in the midst of all thesesuccesses, I should wish that I were lying by poor Hyde Villiers. ButI cannot go on. I am wanted to waste an address to the electors; and Ishall lay it on Sadler pretty heavily. By what strange fascination is itthat ambition and resentment exercise such power over minds which oughtto be superior to them? I despise myself for feeling so bitterly towardsthis fellow as I do. But the separation from dear Margaret has jarredmy whole temper. I am cried up here to the skies as the most affable andkind-hearted of then, while I feel a fierceness and restlessness withinme, quite new, and almost inexplicable. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: December 24, 1832. 

My dear Sister, --I am much obliged to you for your letter, and amgratified by all its contents, except what you say about your own cough. As soon as you come back, you shall see Dr. Chambers, if you are notquite well. Do not oppose me in this; for I have set my heart on it. I dined on Saturday at Lord Essex's in Belgrave Square. But never wasthere such a take-in. I had been given to understand that his Lordship'scuisine was superintended by the first French artists, and that Ishould find there all the luxuries of the Almanach des Gourmands. Whata mistake! His lordship is luxurious, indeed, but in quite a differentway. He is a true Englishman. Not a dish on his table but what Sir Rogerde Coverley, or Sir Hugh Tyrold, [The uncle of Miss Burney's Camilla. ]might have set before his guests. A huge haunch of venison on thesideboard; a magnificent piece of beef at the bottom of the table;and before my Lord himself smoked, not a dindon aux truffes, but a fatroasted goose stuffed with sage and onions. I was disappointed, butvery agreeably; for my tastes are, I fear, incurably vulgar, as you mayperceive by my fondness for Mrs. Meeke's novels. 

Our party consisted of Sharp; Lubbock; Watson, M. P. For Canterbury; andRich, the author of "What will the Lords do?" who wishes to be M. P. For Knaresborough. Rogers was to have been of the party; but his brotherchose that very day to die upon, so that poor Sam had to absent himself. The Chancellor was also invited, but he had scampered off to pass hisChristmas with his old mother in Westmoreland. We had some good talk, particularly about Junius's Letters. I learned some new facts which Iwill tell you when we meet. I am more and more inclined to believe thatFrancis was one of the people principally concerned. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

On the 29th of January, 1833, commenced the first Session of theReformed Parliament. The main incidents of that Session, so fruitful ingreat measures of public utility, belong to general history; if indeedClio herself is not fated to succumb beneath the stupendous undertakingof turning Hansard into a narrative imbued with human interest. O'Connell, --criticising the King's speech at vast length, and passing inturns through every mood from the most exquisite pathos to downright andundisguised ferocity, --at once plunged the House into a discussion onIreland, which alternately blazed and smouldered through four livelongnights. Shed and Grattan spoke finely; Peel and Stanley admirably;Bulwer made the first of his successes, and Cobbett the second ofhis failures; but the longest and the loudest cheers were those whichgreeted each of the glowing periods in which Macaulay, as the championof the Whig party, met the great agitator face to face with high, butnot intemperate, defiance. ["We are called base, and brutal, and bloody. Such are the epithets which the honourable and learned member for Dublinthinks it becoming to pour forth against the party to which he owesevery political privilege that he enjoys. The time will come whenhistory will do justice to the Whigs of England, and will faithfullyrelate how much they did and suffered for Ireland. I see on thebenches near me men who might, by uttering one word against CatholicEmancipation. --nay, by merely abstaining from uttering a word in favourof Catholic Emancipation, --have been returned to this House withoutdifficulty or expense, and who, rather than wrong their Irishfellow-subjects, were content to relinquish all the objects of theirhonourable ambition, and to retire into private life with conscienceand fame untarnished. As to one eminent person, who seems to be regardedwith especial malevolence by those who ought never to mention his namewithout respect and gratitude, I will only say this, that the loudestclamour which the honourable and learned gentleman can excite againstLord Grey will be trifling when compared with the clamour which LordGrey withstood in order to place the honourable and learned gentlemanwhere he now sits. Though a young member of the Whig party I willventure to speak in the name of the whole body. I tell the honourableand learned gentleman, that the same spirit which sustained us in a justcontest for him will sustain us in an equally just contest against him. Calumny, abuse, royal displeasure, popular fury, exclusion from office, exclusion from Parliament, we were ready to endure them all, rather thanthat he should be less than a British subject. We never will suffer himto be more. "] In spite of this flattering reception, he seldom addressedthe House. A subordinate member of a Government, with plenty to do inhis own department, finds little temptation, and less encouragement, to play the debater. The difference of opinion between the two Housesconcerning the Irish Church Temporalities Bill, which constituted thecrisis of the year, was the one circumstance that excited in Macaulay'smind any very lively emotions; but those emotions, being denied theirfull and free expression in the oratory of a partisan, found vent in thedoleful prognostications of a despairing patriot which fill his lettersthroughout the months of June and July. His abstinence from the passingtopics of Parliamentary controversy obtained for him a friendly, as wellas an attentive, hearing from both sides of the House whenever hespoke on his own subjects; and did much to smooth the progress of thoseimmense and salutary reforms with which the Cabinet had resolved toaccompany the renewal of the India Company's Charter. 

So rapid had been the march of events under that strange imperialsystem established in the East by the enterprise and valour of threegenerations of our countrymen, that each of the periodical revisionsof that system was, in effect, a revolution. The legislation of 1813destroyed the monopoly of the Indian trade. In 1833 the time had arrivedwhen it was impossible any longer to maintain the monopoly of the Chinatrade; and the extinction of this remaining commercial privilege couldnot fail to bring upon the Company commercial ruin. Skill, and energy, and caution, however happily combined, would not enable rulers who weregoverning a population larger than that governed by Augustus, and makingevery decade conquests more extensive than the conquests of Trajan, tocompete with private merchants in an open market. England, mindful ofthe inestimable debt which she owed to the great Company, did not intendto requite her benefactors by imposing on them a hopeless task. Justiceand expediency could be reconciled by one course, and one only;--thatof buying up the assets and liabilities of the Company on terms thefavourable character of which should represent the sincerity of thenational gratitude. Interest was to be paid from the Indian exchequerat the rate of ten guineas a year on every hundred pounds of stock;the Company was relieved of its commercial attributes, and became acorporation charged with the function of ruling Hindoostan; and itsdirectors, as has been well observed, remained princes, but merchantprinces no longer. 

The machinery required for carrying into effect this giganticmetamorphosis was embodied in a bill every one of whose provisionsbreathed the broad, the fearless, and the tolerant spirit with whichReform had inspired our counsels. The earlier Sections placed the wholeproperty of the Company in trust for the Crown, and enacted that "fromand after the 22nd day of April 1834 the exclusive right of tradingwith the dominions of the Emperor of China, and of trading in tea, shallcease. " Then came clauses which threw open the whole continent ofIndia as a place of residence for all subjects of his Majesty; whichpronounced the doom of Slavery; and which ordained that no native of theBritish territories in the East should "by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, or colour, be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment. " The measure was introduced by Mr. Charles Grant, the President of the Board of Control, and was read a second time onWednesday the 10th July. On that occasion Macaulay defended the bill ina thin House; a circumstance which may surprise those who are not awarethat on a Wednesday, and with an Indian question on the paper, Ciceroreplying to Hortensius would hardly draw a quorum. Small as it was, theaudience contained Lord John Russell, Peel, O'Connell, and other mastersin the Parliamentary craft. Their unanimous judgment was summed up byCharles Grant, in words which every one who knows the House of Commonswill recognise as being very different from the conventional verbiageof mutual senatorial flattery. "I must embrace the opportunity ofexpressing, not what I felt, (for language could not express it, ) butof making an attempt to convey to the House my sympathy with it in itsadmiration of the speech of my honourable and learned friend; a speechwhich, I will venture to assert, has never been exceeded within thesewalls for the development of statesmanlike policy and practical goodsense. It exhibited all that is noble in oratory; all that is sublime, I had almost said, in poetry; all that is truly great, exalted, andvirtuous in human nature. If the House at large felt a deep interest inthis magnificent display, it may judge of what were my emotions whenI perceived in the hands of my honourable friend the great principleswhich he expounded glowing with fresh colours, and arrayed in all thebeauty of truth. "

There is no praise more gratefully treasured than that which is bestowedby a generous chief upon a subordinate with whom he is on the best ofterms. Macaulay to the end entertained for Lord Glenelg that sentimentof loyalty which a man of honour and feeling will always cherish withregard to the statesman under whom he began his career as a servant ofthe Crown. [The affinity between this sentiment and that of the Quaestortowards his first Proconsul, so well described in the Orations againstVerres, is one among the innumerable points of resemblance between thepublic life of ancient Rome and modern England. ] The Secretary repaidthe President for his unvarying kindness and confidence by helping himto get the bill through committee with that absence of friction whichis the pride and delight of official men. The vexed questions ofEstablishment and Endowment, (raised by the clauses appointingbishops to Madras and Bombay, and balancing them with as many salariedPresbyterian chaplains, ) increased the length of the debates and thenumber of the divisions; but the Government carried every point bylarge majorities, and, with slight modifications in detail, and none inprinciple, the measure became law with the almost universal approbationboth of Parliament and the country. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

House of Commons. Monday night, half-past 12. 

My dear Sister, --The papers will scarcely contain any account of whatpassed yesterday in the House of Commons in the middle of the day. Grant and I fought a battle with Briscoe and O'Connell in defence ofthe Indian people, and won it by 38 to 6. It was a rascally claim ofa dishonest agent of the Company against the employers whom he hadcheated, and sold to their own tributaries. [In his great Indian speechMacaulay referred to this affair, in a passage, the first sentence ofwhich has, by frequent quotation, been elevated into an apophthegm: "Abroken head in Cold Bath Fields produces a greater sensation than threepitched battles in India. A few weeks ago we had to decide on a claimbrought by an individual against the revenues of India. If it had beenan English question the walls would scarcely have held the members whowould have flocked to the division. It was an Indian question; and wecould scarcely, by dint of supplication, make a House. "] The nephewof the original claimant has been pressing his case on the Board mostvehemently. He is an attorney living in Russell Square, and very likelyhears the word at St. John's Chapel. He hears it however to very littlepurpose; for he lies as much as if he went to hear a "cauld clatter ofmorality" at the parish church. 

I remember that, when you were at Leamington two years ago, I used tofill my letters with accounts of the people with whom I dined. High lifewas new to me then; and now it has grown so familiar that I shouldnot, I fear, be able, as I formerly was, to select the strikingcircumstances. I have dined with sundry great folks since you leftLondon, and I have attended a very splendid rout at Lord Grey's. Istole thither, at about eleven, from the House of Commons with StewartMackenzie. I do not mean to describe the beauty of the ladies, northe brilliancy of stars and uniforms. I mean only to tell you onecircumstance which struck, and even affected me. I was talking to LadyCharlotte Lindsay, the daughter of Lord North, a great favourite ofmine, about the apartments and the furniture, when she said with a gooddeal of emotion: "This is an interesting visit to me. I have never beenin this house for fifty years. It was here that I was born; I left it achild when my father fell from power in 1782, and I have never crossedthe threshold since. " Then she told me how the rooms seemed dwindled toher; how the staircase, which appeared to her in recollection to be themost spacious and magnificent that she had ever seen, had disappointedher. She longed, she said, to go over the garrets and rummage her oldnursery. She told me how, in the No-Popery riots of 1780, she wastaken out of bed at two o'clock in the morning. The mob threatened LordNorth's house. There were soldiers at the windows, and an immense andfurious crowd in Downing Street. She saw, she said, from her nurserythe fires in different parts of London; but she did not understand thedanger; and only exulted in being up at midnight. Then she was conveyedthrough the Park to the Horse Guards as the safest place; and was laid, wrapped up in blankets, on the table in the guardroom in the midst ofthe officers. "And it was such fun, " she said, "that I have ever afterhad rather a liking for insurrections. "

I write in the midst of a crowd. A debate on Slavery is going on in theCommons; a debate on Portugal in the Lords. The door is slamming behindme every moment, and people are constantly going out and in. Here comesVernon Smith. "Well, Vernon, what are they doing?" "Gladstone has justmade a very good speech, and Howick is answering him. " "Aye, but in theHouse of Lords?" "They will beat us by twenty, they say. " "Well, I donot think it matters much. " "No; nobody out of the House of Lords careseither for Don Pedro, or for Don Miguel. "

There is a conversation between two official men in the Library of theHouse of Commons on the night of the 3rd June 1833, reported wordfor word. To the historian three centuries hence this letter will beinvaluable. To you, ungrateful as you are, it will seem worthless. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

Smoking-Room of the House of Commons June 6, 1833. 

My Darling, --Why am I such a fool as to write to a gypsey at Liverpool, who fancies that none is so good as she if she sends one letter for mythree? A lazy chit whose fingers tire with penning a page in reply to aquire! There, Miss, you read all the first sentence of my epistle, andnever knew that you were reading verse. I have some gossip for you aboutthe Edinburgh Review. Napier is in London, and has called on me severaltimes. He has been with the publishers, who tell him that the sale isfalling off; and in many private parties, where he hears sad complaints. The universal cry is that the long dull articles are the ruin of theReview. As to myself, he assures me that my articles are the only thingswhich keep the work up at all. Longman and his partners correspond withabout five hundred booksellers in different parts of the kingdom. Allthese booksellers, I find, tell them that the Review sells, or does notsell, according as there are, or are not, articles by Mr. Macaulay. So, you see, I, like Mr. Darcy, [The central male figure in "Pride andPrejudice. "] shall not care how proud I am. At all events, I cannot butbe pleased to learn that, if I should be forced to depend on my pen forsubsistence, I can command what price I choose. 

The House is sitting; Peel is just down; Lord Palmerston is speaking;the heat is tremendous; the crowd stifling; and so here I am in thesmoking-room, with three Repealers making chimneys of their mouths undermy very nose. 

 To think that this letter will bear to my Anna The exquisite scent of O'Connor's Havannah!

You know that the Lords have been foolish enough to pass a vote implyingcensure on the Ministers. [On June 3rd, 1833, a vote of censure on thePortuguese policy of the Ministry was moved by the Duke ofWellington, and carried in the Lords by 79 votes to 69. On June 6th acounter-resolution was carried in the Commons by 361 votes to 98. ] TheMinisters do not seem inclined to take it of them. The King has snubbedtheir Lordships properly; and in about an hour, as I guess, (for it isnear eleven), we shall have come to a Resolution in direct oppositionto that agreed to by the Upper House. Nobody seems to care one straw forwhat the Peers say about any public matter. A Resolution of the Courtof Common Council, or of a meeting at Freemasons' Hall, has often madea greater sensation than this declaration of a branch of the Legislatureagainst the Executive Government. The institution of the Peerage isevidently dying a natural death. 

I dined yesterday--where, and on what, and at what price, I am ashamedto tell you. Such scandalous extravagance and gluttony I will not committo writing. I blush when I think of it. You, however, are not whollyguiltless in this matter. My nameless offence was partly occasioned byNapier; and I have a very strong reason for wishing to keep Napier ingood humour. He has promised to be at Edinburgh when I take a certaindamsel thither; to loop out for very nice lodgings for us in QueenStreet; to show us everything and everybody; and to see us as far asDunkeld on our way northward, if we do go northward. In general I abhorvisiting; but at Edinburgh we must see the people as well as the wallsand windows; and Napier will be a capital guide. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: June 14, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --I do not know what you may have been told. I may havegrumbled, for ought I know, at not having more letters from you; but, asto being angry, you ought to know by this time what sort of anger mineis when you are its object. 

You have seen the papers, I dare say, and you will perceive that I didnot speak yesterday night. [The night of the First Reading of the IndiaBill. ] The House was thin. The debate was languid. Grant's speech haddone our work sufficiently for one night; and both he and Lord Althorpadvised me to reserve myself for the Second Reading. 

What have I to tell you? I will look at my engagement book, to see whereI am to dine. 

 Friday June 14 . Lord Grey. Saturday June 15. Mr. Boddington. Sunday June 16 . Mr. S. Rice. Saturday June 22. Sir R. Inglis. Thursday June 27. The Earl of Ripon. Saturday June 29. Lord Morpeth. 

Read, and envy, and pine, and die. And yet I would give a large slice ofmy quarter's salary, which is now nearly due, to be at the Dingle. I amsick of Lords with no brains in their heads, and Ladies with paint ontheir cheeks, and politics, and politicians, and that reeking furnace ofa House. As the poet says, Oh! rather would I see this day My little Nancy well and merry Than the blue riband of Earl Grey, Or the blue stockings of Miss Berry. 

Margaret tells us that you are better, and better, and better. I want tohear that you are well. At all events our Scotch tour will set you up. I hope, for the sake of the tour, that we shall keep our places; but Ifirmly believe that, before many days have passed, a desperate attemptwill be made in the House of Lords to turn us out. If we stand theshock, we shall be firmer than ever. I am not without anxiety as to theresult; yet I believe that Lord Grey understands the position in whichhe is placed, and, as for the King, he will not forget his last blunder, I will answer for it, even if he should live to the age of his father. [This "last blunder" was the refusal of the King to stand by hisMinisters in May 1832. Macaulay proved a bad prophet; for, after aninterval of only three years, William the Fourth repeated his blunder inan aggravated form. ]

But why plague ourselves about politics when we have so much pleasanterthings to talk of? The Parson's Daughter; don't you like the Parson'sDaughter? What a wretch Harbottle was! And Lady Frances, what a sadworldly woman! But Mrs. Harbottle, dear suffering angel! and Emma Level, all excellence! Dr. Mac Gopus you doubtless like; but you probably donot admire the Duchess and Lady Catherine. There is a regular cone overa novel for you! But, if you will have my opinion, I think it TheodoreBook's worst performance; far inferior to the Surgeon's Daughter; a setof fools making themselves miserable by their own nonsensical fanciesand suspicions. Let me hear your opinion, for I will be sworn that, In spite of all the serious world, Of all the thumbs that ever twirled, Of every broadbrim-shaded brow, Of every tongue that e'er said "thou, " You still read books in marble covers About smart girls and dapper lovers. 

But what folly I have been scrawling! I must go to work. 

 I cannot all day Be neglecting Madras And slighting Bombay For the sake of a lass. 

Kindest love to Edward, and to the woman who owns him. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: June 17, 1833. 

Dear Hannah, --All is still anxiety here. Whether the House of Lords willthrow out the Irish Church Bill, whether the King will consent to createnew Peers, whether the Tories will venture to form a Ministry, arematters about which we are all in complete doubt. If the Ministry shouldreally be changed, Parliament will, I feel quite sure, be dissolved. Whether I shall have a seat in the next Parliament I neither know norcare. I shall regret nothing for myself but our Scotch tour. For thepublic I shall, if this Parliament is dissolved, entertain scarcely anyhopes. I see nothing before us but a frantic conflict between extremeopinions; a short period of oppression; then a convulsive reaction; andthen a tremendous crash of the Funds, the Church, the Peerage, and theThrone. It is enough to make the most strenuous royalist lean a littleto republicanism to think that the whole question between safety andgeneral destruction may probably, at this most fearful conjuncture, depend on a single man whom the accident of his birth has placed in asituation to which certainly his own virtues or abilities would neverhave raised him. 

The question must come to a decision, I think, within the fortnight. Inthe meantime the funds are going down, the newspapers are storming, andthe faces of men on both sides are growing day by day more gloomy andanxious. Even during the most violent part of the contest for the ReformBill I do not remember to have seen so much agitation in the politicalcircles. I have some odd anecdotes for you, which I will tell you whenwe meet. If the Parliament should be dissolved, the West Indian and EastIndian Bills are of course dropped. What is to become of the slaves?What is to become of the tea-trade? Will the negroes, after receivingthe Resolutions of the House of Commons promising them liberty, submitto the cart-whip? Will our merchants consent to have the trade withChina, which has just been offered to them, snatched away? The BankCharter, too, is suspended. But that is comparatively a trifle. Afterall, what is it to me who is in or out, or whether those fools of Lordsare resolved to perish, and drag the King to perish with them inthe ruin which they have themselves made? I begin to wonder what thefascination is which attracts men, who could sit over their tea andtheir books in their own cool quiet room, to breathe bad air, hear badspeeches, lounge up and down the long gallery, and doze uneasily on thegreen benches till three in the morning. Thank God, these luxuriesare not necessary to me. My pen is sufficient for my support, and mysister's company is sufficient for my happiness. Only let me seeher well and cheerful, and let offices in Government, and seats inParliament, go to those who care for them. If I were to leave publiclife to-morrow, I declare that, except for the vexation which it mightgive you and one or two others, the event would not be in the slightestdegree painful to me. As you boast of having a greater insight intocharacter than I allow to you, let me know how you explain thisphilosophical disposition of mine, and how you reconcile it with myambitious inclinations. That is a problem for a young lady who professesknowledge of human nature. 

Did I tell you that I dined at the Duchess of Kent's, and sate next thatloveliest of women, Mrs. Littleton? Her husband, our new Secretary forIreland, told me this evening that Lord Wellesley, who sate near usat the Duchess's, asked Mrs. Littleton afterwards who it was that wastalking to her. "Mr. Macaulay. " "Oh! "said the Marquess, " I amvery sorry I did not know it. I have a most particular desire to beacquainted with that man. " Accordingly Littleton has engaged me to dinewith him, in order to introduce me to the Marquess. I am particularlycurious, and always was, to know him. He has made a great and splendidfigure in history, and his weaknesses, though they make his characterless worthy of respect, make it more interesting as a study. Such ablooming old swain I never saw; hair combed with exquisite nicety, awaistcoat of driven snow, and a star and garter put on with rare skill. 

To-day we took up our Resolutions about India to the House of Lords. Thetwo Houses had a conference on the subject in an old Gothic room calledthe Painted Chamber. The painting consists in a mildewed daub of a womanin the niche of one of the windows. The Lords sate in little cocked hatsalong a table; and we stood uncovered on the other side, and deliveredin our Resolutions. I thought that before long it may be our turn tosit, and theirs to stand. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: June 21, 1833. 

Dear Hannah, --I cannot tell you how delighted I was to learn from Fannythis morning that Margaret pronounces you to be as well as she couldwish you to be. Only continue so, and all the changes of public lifewill be as indifferent to me as to Horatio. If I am only spared themisery of seeing you suffer, I shall be found

 A man that fortune's buffets and rewards Has ta'en with equal thanks. 

Whether we are to have buffets or rewards is known only to Heaven andto the Peers. I think that their Lordships are rather cowed. Indeed, ifthey venture on the course on which they lately seemed bent, I would notgive sixpence for a coronet or a penny for a mitre. 

I shall not read the Repealers; and I think it very impudent in you tomake such a request. Have I nothing to do but to be your novel-taster?It is rather your duty to be mine. What else have you to do? I have readonly one novel within the last week, and a most precious one it was: theInvisible Gentleman. Have you ever read it? But I need not ask. Nodoubt it has formed part of your Sunday studies. A wretched, trumpery, imitation of Godwin's worst manner. What a number of stories I shallhave to tell you when we meet!--which will be, as nearly as I can guess, about the 10th or 12th of August. I shall be as rich as a Jew by thattime. 

 Next Wednesday will be quarter-day; And then, if I'm alive, Of sterling pounds I shall receive Three hundred seventy-five. 

 Already I possess in cash Two hundred twenty-four, Besides what I have lent to John Which makes up twenty more. 

 Also the man who editeth The Yellow and the Blue Doth owe me ninety pounds at least, All for my last review. 

 So, if my debtors pay their debts, You'll find, dear sister mine, That all my wealth together makes Seven hundred pounds and nine. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

The rhymes in which Macaulay unfolds his little budget derive acertain dignity and meaning from the events of the ensuing weeks. The unparalleled labours of the Anti-Slavery leaders were at lengthapproaching a successful issue, and Lord Grey's Cabinet had declareditself responsible for the emancipation of the West Indian negroes. Butit was already beginning to be known that the Ministerial scheme, inits original shape, was not such as would satisfy even the more moderateAbolitionists. Its most objectionable feature was shadowed forth in thethird of the Resolutions with which Mr. Stanley, who had the questionin charge, prefaced the introduction of his bill: "That all persons, nowslaves, be entitled to be registered as apprenticed labourers, and toacquire thereby all the rights and privileges of freemen, subject tothe restriction of labouring, for a time to be fixed by Parliament, for their present owners. " It was understood that twelve years wouldbe proposed as the period of apprenticeship; although no trace of thisintention could be detected in the wording of the Resolution. Macaulay, who thought twelve years far too long, felt himself justified insupporting the Government during the preliminary stages; but he tookoccasion to make some remarks indicating that circumstances might occurwhich would oblige him to resign office, and adopt a line of his own. 

As time went on it became evident that his firmness would be put tothe test; and a severe test it was. A rising statesman, whose prospectswould be irremediably injured by abruptly quitting a Government thatseemed likely to be in power for the next quarter of a century; azealous Whig, who shrank from the very appearance of disaffection to hisparty; a man of sense, with no ambition to be called Quixotic; a memberfor a large constituency, possessed of only seven hundred pounds in theworld when his purse was at its fullest; above all, an affectionate sonand brother, now, more than ever, the main hope and reliance of thosewhom he held most dear;--it may well be believed that he was not in ahurry to act the martyr. His father's affairs were worse than bad. TheAfrican firm, without having been reduced to declare itself bankrupt, had ceased to exist as a house of business; or existed only so far thatfor some years to come every penny that Macaulay earned, beyond what thenecessities of life demanded, was scrupulously devoted to paying, andat length to paying off, his father's creditors; a dutiful enterprisein which he was assisted by his brother Henry, [Henry married in 1841a daughter of his brother's old political ally, Lord Denman. He died atBoa Vista, in 1846, leaving two sons, Henry, and Joseph, Macaulay. ] ayoung man of high spirit and excellent abilities, who had recently beenappointed one of the Commissioners of Arbitration in the Prize Courts atSierra Leone. 

The pressure of pecuniary trouble was now beginning to make itself felteven by the younger members of the family. About this time, or perhaps alittle earlier, Hannah Macaulay writes thus to one of her cousins:"You say nothing about coming to us. You must come in good health andspirits. Our trials ought not greatly to depress us; for, after all, allwe want is money, the easiest want to bear; and, when we have so manymercies--friends who love us and whom we love; no bereavements; and, above all, (if it be not our own fault, ) a hope full of immortality--letus not be so ungrateful as to repine because we are without what initself cannot make our happiness. "

Macaulay's colleagues, who, without knowing his whole story, knew enoughto be aware that he could ill afford to give up office, were earnestin their remonstrances; but he answered shortly, and almost roughly:"I cannot go counter to my father. He has devoted his whole life to thequestion, and I cannot grieve him by giving way when he wishes me tostand firm. " During the crisis of the West India Bill, Zachary Macaulayand his son were in constant correspondence. There is something touchingin the picture which these letters present of the older man, (whoseyears were coming to a close in poverty which was the consequence of hishaving always lived too much for others, ) discussing quietly and gravelyhow, and when, the younger was to take a step that in the opinionof them both would be fatal to his career; and this with so littleconsciousness that there was anything heroic in the course which theywere pursuing, that it appears never to have occurred to either of theirthat any other line of conduct could possibly be adopted. 

Having made up his mind as to what he should do, Macaulay set about itwith as good a grace as is compatible with the most trying position inwhich a man, and especially a young man, can find himself. Carefullyavoiding the attitude of one who bargains or threatens, he had giventimely notice in the proper quarter of his intentions and his views. Atlength the conjuncture arrived when decisive action could no longerbe postponed. On the 24th of July Mr. Thomas Fowell Buxton moved anamendment in Committee, limiting the apprenticeship to the shortestperiod necessary for establishing the system of free labour. Macaulay, whose resignation was already in Lord Althorp's hands, made a speechwhich produced all the more effect as being inornate, and, at times, almost awkward. Even if deeper feelings had not restrained the range ofhis fancy and the flow of his rhetoric, his judgment would have toldhim that it was not the moment for an oratorical display. He beganby entreating the House to extend to him that indulgence which it hadaccorded on occasions when he had addressed it "with more confidenceand with less harassed feelings. " He then, at some length, exposed theeffects of the Government proposal. "In free countries the master hasa choice of labourers, and the labourer has a choice of masters; butin slavery it is always necessary to give despotic power to the master. This bill leaves it to the magistrate to keep peace between master andslave. Every time that the slave takes twenty minutes to do that whichthe master thinks he should do in fifteen, recourse must be had tothe magistrate. Society would day and night be in a constant stateof litigation, and all differences and difficulties must be solved byjudicial interference. "

He did not share in Mr. Buxton's apprehension of gross cruelty as aresult of the apprenticeship. "The magistrate would be accountable tothe Colonial Office, and the Colonial Office to the House of Commons, inwhich every lash which was inflicted under magisterial authority wouldbe told and counted. My apprehension is that the result of continuingfor twelve years this dead slavery, --this state of society destitute ofany vital principle, --will be that the whole negro population will sinkinto weak and drawling inefficacy, and will be much less fit for libertyat the end of the period than at the commencement. My hope is that thesystem will die a natural death; that the experience of a few monthswill so establish its utter inefficiency as to induce the planters toabandon it, and to substitute for it a state of freedom. I have voted, "he said, "for the Second Reading, and I shall vote for the ThirdReading; but, while the bill is in Committee, I shall join with otherhonourable gentlemen in doing all that is possible to amend it. "

Such a declaration, coming from the mouth of a member of the Government, gave life to the debate, and secured to Mr. Buxton an excellentdivision, which under the circumstances was equivalent to a victory. Thenext day Mr. Stanley rose; adverted shortly to the position in which theMinisters stood; and announced that the term of apprenticeship would bereduced from twelve years to seven. Mr. Buxton, who, with equal energyand wisdom, had throughout the proceedings acted as leader of theAnti-slavery party in the House of Commons, advised his friends to makethe best of the concession; and his counsel was followed by all thoseAbolitionists who were thinking more of their cause than of themselves. It is worthy of remark that Macaulay's prophecy came true, though notat so early a date as he ventured to anticipate. Four years of theprovisional system brought all parties to acquiesce in the prematuretermination of a state of things which denied to the negro the blessingsof freedom, and to the planter the profits of slavery. 

"The papers, " Macaulay writes to his father, "will have told you allthat has happened, as far as it is known to the public. The secrethistory you will have heard from Buxton. As to myself, Lord Althorptold me yesterday night that the Cabinet had determined not to acceptmy resignation. I have therefore the singular good luck of having savedboth my honour and my place, and of having given no just ground ofoffence either to the Abolitionists or to my party-friends. I have morereason than ever to say that honesty is the best policy. "

This letter is dated the 27th of July. On that day week, Wilberforcewas carried to his grave in Westminster Abbey. "We laid him, " writesMacaulay, "side by side with Canning, at the feet of Pitt, and withintwo steps of Fox and Grattan. " He died with the promised land full inview. Before the end of August Parliament abolished slavery, and thelast touch was put to the work that had consumed so many pure and noblelives. In a letter of congratulation to Zachary Macaulay, Mr. Buxtonsays: "Surely you have reason to rejoice. My sober and deliberateopinion is that you have done more towards this consummation than anyother man. For myself, I take pleasure in acknowledging that you havebeen my tutor all the way through, and that I could have done nothingwithout you. " Such was the spirit of these men, who, while the strugglelasted, were prodigal of health and ease; but who, in the day oftriumph, disclaimed, each for himself, even that part of the meritwhich their religion allowed them to ascribe to human effort andself-sacrifice. 

London: July 11, 1833. 

Dear Hannah, --I have been so completely overwhelmed with business forsome days that I have not been able to find time for writing aline. Yesterday night we read the India Bill a second time. It was aWednesday, and the reporters gave hardly any account of what passed. They always resent being forced to attend on that day, which is theirholiday. I made the best speech, by general agreement, and in my ownopinion, that I ever made in my life. I was an hour and three-quartersup; and such compliments as I had from Lord Althorp, Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Wynne, O'Connell, Grant, the Speaker, and twentyother people, you never heard. As there is no report of the speech, I have been persuaded, rather against my will, to correct it forpublication. I will tell you one compliment that was paid me, and whichdelighted me more than any other. An old member said to me: "Sir, havingheard that speech may console the young people for never having heardMr. Burke. " [A Tory member said that Macaulay resembled both the Burkes:that he was like the first from his eloquence, and like the second fromhis stopping other people's mouths. ]

The Slavery Bill is miserably bad. I am fully resolved not to be draggedthrough the mire, but to oppose, by speaking and voting, the clauseswhich I think objectionable. I have told Lord Althorp this, and haveagain tendered my resignation. He hinted that he thought that theGovernment would leave me at liberty to take my own line, but that hemust consult his colleagues. I told him that I asked for no favour; thatI knew what inconvenience would result if official men were allowed todissent from Ministerial measures, and yet to keep their places; andthat I should not think myself in the smallest degree ill-used if theCabinet accepted my resignation. This is the present posture of affairs. In the meantime the two Houses are at daggers drawn. Whether theGovernment will last to the end of the Session I neither know nor care. I am sick of Boards, and of the House of Commons; and pine for a fewquiet days, a cool country breeze, and a little chatting with my dearsister. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay

London: July 19, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --I snatch a few minutes to write a single line to you. We went into Committee on the India Bill at twelve this morning, satetill three, and are just set at liberty for two hours. At five werecommence, and shall be at work till midnight. In the interval betweenthree and five I have to despatch the current business of the office, which, at present, is fortunately not heavy; to eat my dinner, which Ishall do at Grant's; and to write a short scrawl to my little sister. 

My work, though laborious, has been highly satisfactory. No Bill, Ibelieve, of such importance, --certainly no important Bill in my time, has been received with such general approbation. The very cause of thenegligence of the reporters, and of the thinness of the House, is thatwe have framed our measure so carefully as to give little occasion fordebate. Littleton, Denison, and many other members, assure me that theynever remember to have seen a Bill better drawn or better conducted. 

On Monday night, I hope, my work will be over. Our Bill will have beendiscussed, I trust, for the last time in the House of Commons; and, inall probability, I shall within forty-eight hours after that time be outof office. I am fully determined not to give way about the West IndiaBill; and I can hardly expect, --I am sure I do not wish, --that theMinisters should suffer me to keep my place and oppose their measure. Whatever may befall me or my party, I am much more desirous to come toan end of this interminable Session than to stay either in office orin Parliament. The Tories are quite welcome to take everything, ifthey will only leave me my pen and my books, a warm fireside, and youchattering beside it. This sort of philosophy, an odd kind of crossbetween Stoicism and Epicureanism, I have learned, where most peopleunlearn all their philosophy, in crowded senates and fine drawing-rooms. 

But time flies, and Grant's dinner will be waiting. He keeps open housefor us during this fight. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: July 22, 1833. 

My dear Father, --We are still very anxious here. The Lords, though theyhave passed the Irish Church Bill through its first stage, will veryprobably mutilate it in Committee. It will then be for the Ministers todecide whether they can with honour keep their places. I believe thatthey will resign if any material alteration should be made; and theneverything is confusion. 

These circumstances render it very difficult for me to shape my courseright with respect to the West India Bill, the Second Reading of whichstands for this evening. I am fully resolved to oppose several of theclauses. But to declare my intention publicly, at a moment when theGovernment is in danger, would have the appearance of ratting. I must beguided by circumstances; but my present intention is to say nothing onthe Second Reading. By the time that we get into Committee the politicalcrisis, will, I hope, be over; the fate of the Church Bill will bedecided one way or the other; and I shall be able to take my owncourse on the Slavery question without exposing myself to the charge ofdeserting my friends in a moment of peril. 

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: July 24, 1833, My dear Sister, --You will have seen by the papers that the West Indiadebate on Monday night went off very quietly in little more than anhour. To-night we expect the great struggle, and I fear that, muchagainst my inclination, I must bear a part in it. My resignation is inLord Althorp's hands. He assures me that he will do his utmost to obtainfor me liberty to act as I like on this question; but Lord Grey andStanley are to be consulted, and I think it very improbable that theywill consent to allow me so extraordinary a privilege. I know that, if Iwere Minister, I would not allow such latitude to any man in office; andso I told Lord Althorp. He answered in the kindest and most flatteringmanner; told me that in office I had surpassed their expectations, andthat, much as they wished to bring me in last year, they wished muchmore to keep me in now. I told him in reply that the matter was one forthe Ministers to settle, purely with a view to their own interest; thatI asked for no indulgence; that I could make no terms; and that, what Iwould not do to serve them, I certainly would not do to keep my place. Thus the matter stands. It will probably be finally settled within a fewhours. 

This detestable Session goes on lengthening, and lengthening, like ahuman hair in one's mouth. (Do you know that delicious sensation?) Lastmonth we expected to have been up before the middle of August. Now weshould be glad to be quite certain of being in the country by the firstof September. One comfort I shall have in being turned out: I will notstay a day in London after the West India Bill is through Committee;which I hope it will be before the end of next week. 

The new Edinburgh Review is not much amiss; but I quite agree withthe publishers, the editor, and the reading public generally, that thenumber would have been much the better for an article of thirty or fortypages from the pen of a gentleman who shall be nameless. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: July 25, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --The plot is thickening. Yesterday Buxton moved aninstruction to the Committee on the Slavery Bill, which the Governmentopposed, and which I supported. It was extremely painful to me to speakagainst all my political friends; so painful that at times I couldhardly go on. I treated them as mildly as I could; and they all tell methat I performed my difficult task not ungracefully. We divided at twothis morning, and were 151 to 158. The Ministers found that, if theypersisted, they would infallibly be beaten. Accordingly they came downto the House at twelve this day, and agreed to reduce the apprenticeshipto seven years for the agricultural labourers, and to five years forthe skilled labourers. What other people may do I cannot tell; but I aminclined to be satisfied with this concession; particularly as I believethat, if we press the thing further, they will resign, and we shall haveno Bill at all, but instead of it a Tory Ministry and a dissolution. Some people flatter me with the assurance that our large minority, andthe consequent change in the Bill, have been owing to me. If this be so, I have done one useful act at least in my life. 

I shall now certainly remain in office; and if, as I expect, the IrishChurch Bill passes the Lords, I may consider myself as safe till thenext Session; when Heaven knows what may happen. It is still quiteuncertain when we may rise. I pine for rest, air, and a taste of familylife, more than I can express. I see nothing but politicians, and talkabout nothing but politics. 

I have not read Village Belles. Tell me, as soon as you can get it, whether it is worth reading. As John Thorpe [The young Oxford man in"Northanger Abbey. "] says "Novels! Oh Lord! I never read novels. I havesomething else to do. "

Farewell. 

T. B. M, To Hannah M. Macaulay, London: July 27, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --Here I am, safe and well, at the end of one of the moststormy weeks that the oldest man remembers in Parliamentary affairs. I have resigned my office, and my resignation has been refused. I havespoken and voted against the Ministry under which I hold my place. TheMinistry has been so hard run in the Commons as to be forced to modifyits plan; and has received a defeat in the Lords, [On the 25th of Julythe Archbishop of Canterbury carried an amendment on the Irish ChurchBill, against the Government, by 84 votes to 82. ]--a slight one to besure, and on a slight matter, --yet such that I, and many others, fullybelieved twenty-four hours ago that they would have resigned. In fact, some of the Cabinet, --Grant among the rest, to my certain knowledge, were for resigning. At last Saturday has arrived. The Ministry is asstrong as ever. I am as good friends with the Ministers as ever. TheEast India Bill is carried through our House. The West India Bill is sofar modified that, I believe, it will be carried. The Irish Church Billhas got through the Committee in the Lords; and we are all beginning tolook forward to a Prorogation in about three weeks. 

To-day I went to Hayden's to be painted into his great picture of theReform Banquet. Ellis was with me, and declares that Hayden has touchedme off to a nicety. I am sick of pictures of my own face. I have seenwithin the last few days one drawing of it, one engraving, and threepaintings. They all make me a very handsome fellow. Hayden pronounces myprofile a gem of art, perfectly antique; and, what is worth the praiseof ten Haydens, I was told yesterday that Mrs. Littleton, the handsomestwoman in London, had paid me exactly the same compliment. She pronouncedMr. Macaulay's profile to be a study for an artist. I have bought a newlooking-glass and razor-case on the strength of these compliments, andam meditating on the expediency of having my hair cut in the BurlingtonArcade, rather than in Lamb's Conduit Street. As Richard says, "Since I am crept in favour with myself, I will maintain it with some little cost. "

I begin, like Sir Walter Elliot, [The Baronet in "Persuasion. "] torate all my acquaintance according to their beauty. But what nonsense Iwrite, and in times that make many merry men look grave!

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: July 29, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --I dined last night at Holland House. There was avery pleasant party. My Lady was courteous, and my Lord extravagantlyentertaining, telling some capital stories about old Bishop Horsley, which were set off with some of the drollest mimicry that I ever saw. Among many others there were Sir James Graham; and Dr. Holland, who isa good scholar as well as a good physician; and Wilkie, who is a modest, pleasing companion as well as an excellent artist. For ladies, we hadher Grace of--; and her daughter Lady--, a fine, buxom, sonsy lass, withmore colour than, I am sorry to say, is often seen among fine ladies. Soour dinner and our soiree were very agreeable. 

We narrowly escaped a scene at one time. Lord is in the navy, and isnow on duty in the fleet at the Tagus. We got into a conversation aboutPortuguese politics. His name was mentioned, and Graham, who is FirstLord of the Admiralty, complimented the Duchess on her son's merit, towhich, he said, every despatch bore witness. The Duchess forthwith beganto entreat that he might be recalled. He was very ill, she said. If hestayed longer on that station she was sure that he would die; and thenshe began to cry. I cannot bear to see women cry, and the matterbecame serious, for her pretty daughter began to bear her company. Thathardhearted Lord ---- seemed to be diverted by the scene. He, by allaccounts, has been doing little else than making women cry during thelast five-and-twenty years. However, we all were as still as death whilethe wiping of eyes and the blowing of noses proceeded. At last LordHolland contrived to restore our spirits; but, before the Duchess wentaway, she managed to have a tete-a-tete with Graham, and, I have nodoubt, begged and blubbered to some purpose. I could not help thinkinghow many honest stout-hearted fellows are left to die on the mostunhealthy stations for want of being related to some Duchess who hasbeen handsome, or to some Duchess's daughter who still is so. 

The Duchess said one thing that amused us. We were talking about LadyMorgan. "When she first came to London, " said Lord Holland, "I rememberthat she carried a little Irish harp about with her wherever shewent. " Others denied this. I mentioned what she says in her Book of theBoudoir. There she relates how she went one evening to Lady--'s with herlittle Irish harp, and how strange everybody thought it. "I see nothingvery strange, " said her Grace, "in her taking her harp to Lady--'s. Ifshe brought it safe away with her, that would have been strange indeed. "On this, as a friend of yours says, we la-a-a-a-a-a-a-ft. 

I am glad to find that you approve of my conduct about the Niggers. Iexpect, and indeed wish, to be abused by the Agency Society. My fatheris quite satisfied, and so are the best part of my Leeds friends. 

I amuse myself, as I walk back from the House at two in the morning, with translating Virgil. I am at work on one of the most beautifulepisodes, and am succeeding pretty well. You shall have what I havedone when I come to Liverpool, which will be, I hope, in three weeks orthereanent. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: July 31, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --Political affairs look cheeringly. The Lords passed theIrish Church Bill yesterday, and mean, we understand, to give us littleor no trouble about the India Bill. There is still a hitch in theCommons about the West India Bill, particularly about the twentymillions for compensation to the planters; but we expect to carry ourpoint by a great majority. By the end of next week we shall be very nearthe termination of our labours. Heavy labours they have been. 

So Wilberforce is gone! We talk of burying him in Westminster Abbey; andmany eminent men, both Whigs and Tories, are desirous to join in payinghim this honour. There is, however, a story about a promise given to oldStephen that they should both lie in the same grave. Wilberforce kepthis faculties, and, except when he was actually in fits, his spirits, tothe very last. He was cheerful and full of anecdote only last Saturday. He owned that he enjoyed life much, and that he had a great desire tolive longer. Strange in a man who had, I should have said, so little toattach him to this world, and so firm a belief in another; in a man withan impaired fortune, a weak spine, and a worn-out stomach! What isthis fascination which makes us cling to existence in spite of presentsufferings and of religious hopes? Yesterday evening I called at thehouse in Cadogan Place, where the body is lying. I was truly fond ofhim; that is, "je l'aimais comme l'on aime. " And how is that? How verylittle one human being generally cares for another! How very little theworld misses anybody! How soon the chasm left by the best and wisestmen closes! I thought, as I walked back from Cadogan Place, that ourown selfishness when others are taken away ought to teach us how littleothers will suffer at losing us. I thought that, if I were to dieto-morrow, not one of the fine people, whom I dine with every week, willtake a cotelette aux petits pois the less on Saturday at the table towhich I was invited to meet them, or will smile less gaily at the ladiesover the champagne. And I am quite even with them. What are those prettylines of Shelley?

 Oh, world, farewell! Listen to the passing bell. It tells that thou and I must part With a light and heavy heart. 

There are not ten people in the world whose deaths would spoil mydinner; but there are one or two whose deaths would break my heart. Themore I see of the world, and the more numerous my acquaintance becomes, the narrower and more exclusive my affection grows, and the more I clingto my sisters, and to one or two old tried friends of my quiet days. Butwhy should I go on preaching to you out of Ecclesiastes? And here comes, fortunately, to break the train of my melancholy reflections, the proofof my East India Speech from Hansard; so I must put my letter aside, andcorrect the press. Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: August 2, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --I agree with your judgment on Chesterfield's Letters. They are for the most part trash; though they contain some cleverpassages, and the style is not bad. Their celebrity must be attributedto causes quite distinct from their literary merit, and particularly tothe position which the author held in society. We see in our own timethat the books written by public men of note are generally rated atmore than their real value: Lord Granville's little compositions, forexample; Canning's verses; Fox's history; Brougham's treatises. Thewritings of people of high fashion, also, have a value set on them farhigher than that which intrinsically belongs to them. The verses of thelate Duchess of Devonshire, or an occasional prologue by Lord Alvanley, attract a most undue share of attention. If the present Duke ofDevonshire, who is the very "glass of fashion and mould of form, "were to publish a book with two good pages, it would be extolled as amasterpiece in half the drawing-rooms of London. Now Chesterfield was, what no person in our time has been or can be, a great political leader, and at the same time the acknowledged chief of the fashionable world; atthe head of the House of Lords, and at the head of laze; Mr. Canningand the Duke of Devonshire in one. In our time the division of labouris carried so far that such a man could not exist. Politics require thewhole of energy, bodily and mental, during half the year; and leavevery little time for the bow window at White's in the day, or for thecrush-room of the Opera at night. A century ago the case was different. Chesterfield was at once the most distinguished orator in the UpperHouse, and the undisputed sovereign of wit and fashion. He held thiseminence for about forty years. At last it became the regular customof the higher circles to laugh whenever he opened his mouth, withoutwaiting for his bon mot. He used to sit at White's with a circle ofyoung men of rank round him, applauding every syllable that he uttered. If you wish for a proof of the kind of position which Chesterfieldheld among his contemporaries, look at the prospectus of Johnson'sDictionary. Look even at Johnson's angry letter. It contains thestrongest admission of the boundless influence which Chesterfieldexercised over society. When the letters of such a man were published, of course they were received more favourably by far than they deserved. 

So much for criticism. As to politics, everything seems tending torepose; and I should think that by this day fortnight we shall probablybe prorogued. The Jew Bill was thrown out yesterday night by the Lords. No matter. Our turn will come one of these days. 

If you want to see me puffed and abused by somebody who evidently knowsnothing about me, look at the New Monthly for this month. Bulwer, I see, has given up editing it. I suppose he is making money in some other way;for his dress must cost as much as that of any five other members ofParliament. 

To-morrow Wilberforce is to be buried. His sons acceded, with greateagerness, to the application made to them by a considerable number ofthe members of both Houses that the funeral should be public. We meetto-morrow at twelve at the House of Commons, and we shall attend thecoffin into the Abbey. The Duke of Wellington, Lord Eldon, and SirR. Peel have put down their names, as well as the Ministers and theAbolitionists. 

My father urges me to pay some tribute to Wilberforce in the House ofCommons. If any debate should take place on the third reading of theWest India Bill in which I might take part, I should certainly embracethe opportunity of doing honour to his memory. But I do not expect thatsuch an occasion will arise. The House seems inclined to pass the Billwithout more contest; and my father must be aware that anything liketheatrical display, --anything like a set funeral oration not springingnaturally out of the discussion of a question, --is extremely distastefulto the House of Commons. 

I have been clearing off a great mass of business, which had accumulatedat our office while we were conducting our Bill through Parliament. Today I had the satisfaction of seeing the green boxes, which a weekago were piled up with papers three or four feet high, perfectly empty. Admire my superhuman industry. This I will say for myself, that, whenI do sit down to work, I work harder and faster than any person that Iever knew. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

The next letter, in terms too clear to require comment, introducesthe mention of what proved to be the most important circumstance inMacaulay's life. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: August 17, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --I am about to write to you on a subject which to youand Margaret will be one of the most agitating interest; and which, onthat account chiefly, is so to me. 

By the new India bill it is provided that one of the members of theSupreme Council, which is to govern our Eastern Empire, is to be chosenfrom among persons who are not servants of the Company. It is probable, indeed nearly certain, that the situation will be offered to me. 

The advantages are very great. It is a post of the highest dignity andconsideration. The salary is ten thousand pounds a year. I am assured bypersons who know Calcutta intimately, and who have themselves mixed inthe highest circles and held the highest offices at that Presidency, that I may live in splendour there for five thousand a year, and maysave the rest of the salary with the accruing interest. I may thereforehope to return to England at only thirty-nine, in the full vigour oflife, with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. A larger fortune I neverdesired. 

I am not fond of money, or anxious about it. But, though every day makesme less and less eager for wealth, every day shows me more and morestrongly how necessary a competence is to a man who desires to be eithergreat or useful. At present the plain fact is that I can continue to bea public man only while I can continue in office. If I left my place inthe Government, I must leave my seat in Parliament too. For I must live;I can live only by my pen; and it is absolutely impossible for any manto write enough to procure him a decent subsistence, and at the sametime to take an active part in politics. I have not during this Sessionbeen able to send a single line to the Edinburgh Review; and, if I hadbeen out of office, I should have been able to do very little. EdwardBulwer has just given up the New Monthly Magazine on the ground that hecannot conduct it, and attend to his Parliamentary duties. Cobbett hasbeen compelled to neglect his Register so much that its sale has fallenalmost to nothing. Now, in order to live like a gentleman, it would benecessary for me to write, not as I have done hitherto, but regularly, and even daily. I have never made more than two hundred a year by mypen. I could not support myself in comfort on less than five hundred;and I shall in all probability have many others to support. Theprospects of our family are, if possible, darker than ever. 

In the meantime my political outlook is very gloomy. A schism in theMinistry is approaching. It requires only that common knowledge ofpublic affairs, which any reader of the newspapers may possess, to seethis; and I have more, much more, than common knowledge on the subject. They cannot hold together. I tell you in perfect seriousness that mychance of keeping my present situation for six months is so small, thatI would willingly sell it for fifty pounds down. If I remain in office, I shall, I fear, lose my political character. If I go out, and engage inopposition, I shall break most of the private ties which I have formedduring the last three years. In England I see nothing before me, forsome time to come, but poverty, unpopularity, and the breaking up of oldconnections. 

If there were no way out of these difficulties, I would encounter themwith courage. A man can always act honourably and uprightly; and, ifI were in the Fleet Prison or the rules of the King's Bench, I believethat I could find in my own mind resources which would preserve me frombeing positively unhappy. But, if I could escape from these impendingdisasters, I should wish to do so. By accepting the post which islikely to be offered to me, I withdraw myself for a short time from thecontests of faction here. When I return, I shall find things settled, parties formed into new combinations, and new questions underdiscussion. I shall then be able, without the scandal of a violentseparation, and without exposing myself to the charge of inconsistency, to take my own line. In the meantime I shall save my family fromdistress; and shall return with a competence honestly earned, as rich asif I were Duke of Northumberland or Marquess of Westminster, and ableto act on all public questions without even a temptation to deviatefrom the strict line of duty. While in India, I shall have to dischargeduties not painfully laborious, and of the highest and most honourablekind. I shall have whatever that country affords of comfort orsplendour; nor will my absence be so long that my friends, or the publichere, will be likely to lose sight of me. 

The only persons who know what I have written to you are Lord Grey, the Grants, Stewart Mackenzie, and George Babington. Charles Grantand Stewart Mackenzie, who know better than most men the state of thepolitical world, think that I should act unwisely in refusing this post;and this though they assure me, --and, I really believe, sincerely, --thatthey shall feel the loss of my society very acutely. But what shall Ifeel? And with what emotions, loving as I do my country and my family, can I look forward to such a separation, enjoined, as I think it is, by prudence and by duty? Whether the period of my exile shall be oneof comfort, --and, after the first shock, even of happiness, --depends onyou. If, as I expect, this offer shall be made to me, will you go withme? I know what a sacrifice I ask of you. I know how many dear andprecious ties you must, for a time, sunder. I know that the splendourof the Indian Court, and the gaieties of that brilliant society of whichyou would be one of the leading personages, have no temptation for you. I can bribe you only by telling you that, if you will go with me, I willlove you better than I love you now, if I can. 

I have asked George Babington about your health and mine. He says thathe has very little apprehension for me, and none at all for you. Indeed, he seemed to think that the climate would be quite as likely to do yougood as harm. 

All this is most strictly secret. You may, of course, show the letterto Margaret; and Margaret may tell Edward; for I never cabal againstthe lawful authority of husbands. But further the thing must not go. Itwould hurt my father, and very justly, to hear of it from anybody beforehe hears of it from myself; and, if the least hint of it were to getabroad, I should be placed in a very awkward position with regard to thepeople at Leeds. It is possible, though not probable, that difficultiesmay arise at the India House; and I do not mean to say anything to anyperson, who is not already in the secret, till the Directors have madetheir choice, and till the King's pleasure has been taken. 

And now think calmly over what I have written. I would not have writtenon the subject even to you, till the matter was quite settled, if I hadnot thought that you ought to have full time to make up your mind. Ifyou feel an insurmountable aversion to India, I will do all in my powerto make your residence in England comfortable during my absence, andto enable you to confer instead of receiving benefits. But if my dearsister would consent to give me, at this great crisis of my life, thatproof, that painful and arduous proof, of her affection, which I begof her, I think that she will not repent of it. She shall not, if theunbounded confidence and attachment of one to whom she is dearer thanlife can compensate her for a few years' absence from much that sheloves. 

Dear Margaret! She will feel this. Consult her, my love, and let us bothhave the advantage of such advice as her excellent understanding, andher warm affection for us, may furnish. On Monday next, at the latest, Iexpect to be with you. Our Scotch tour, under these circumstances, mustbe short. By Christmas it will be fit that the new Councillor shouldleave England. His functions in India commence next April. We shallleave our dear Margaret, I hope, a happy mother. 

Farewell, my dear sister. You cannot tell how impatiently I shall waitfor your answer. 

T. B. M. 

This letter, written under the influence of deep and varied emotions, was read with feelings of painful agitation and surprise. India was notthen the familiar name that it has become to a generation which regardsa visit to Cashmere as a trip to be undertaken between two Londonseasons, and which discusses over its breakfast table at home thedecisions arrived at on the previous afternoon in the Council-room ofSimla or Calcutta. In those rural parsonages and middle-class householdswhere service in our Eastern territories now presents itself in thelight of a probable and desirable destiny for a promising son, thosesame territories were forty years ago regarded as an obscure and distantregion of disease and death. A girl who had seen no country more foreignthan Wales, and crossed no water broader and more tempestuous than theMersey, looked forward to a voyage which (as she subsequently learnedby melancholy experience), might extend over six weary months, with ananxiety that can hardly be imagined by us who spend only half as manyweeks on the journey between Dover and Bombay. A separation frombeloved relations under such conditions was a separation indeed; and, ifMacaulay and his sister could have foreseen how much of what they leftat their departure they would fail to find on their return, it is aquestion whether any earthly consideration could have induced them toquit their native shore. But Hannah's sense of duty was too strong forthese doubts and tremors; and, happily, (for on the whole her resolutionwas a fortunate one, ) she resolved to accompany her brother in anexpatriation which he never would have faced without her. With a mindset at ease by a knowledge of her intention, he came down to Liverpoolas soon as the Session was at an end; and carried her off on a jaunt toEdinburgh, in a post-chaise furnished with Horace Walpole's letters fortheir common reading, and Smollett's collected works for his own. Before October he was back at the Board of Control; and his lettersrecommenced, as frequent and rather more serious and business-like thanof old. 

London: October 5, 1833

Dear Hannah, --Life goes on so quietly here, or rather stands so still, that I have nothing, or next to nothing, to say. At the Athenaeum I nowand then fall in with some person passing through town on his way to theContinent or to Brighton. The other day I met Sharp, and had a long talkwith him about everything and everybody, --metaphysics, poetry, politics, scenery, and painting. One thing I have observed in Sharp, which isquite peculiar to him among town-wits and diners-out. He never talksscandal. If he can say nothing good of a man, he holds his tongue. I donot, of course, mean that in confidential communication about politicshe does not speak freely of public men; but about the foibles of privateindividuals I do not believe that, much as I have talked with him, I ever heard him utter one word. I passed three or four hours veryagreeably in his company at the club. 

I have also seen Kenny for an hour or two. I do not know that I evermentioned Kenny to you. When London is overflowing, I meet such numbersof people that I cannot remember half their names. This is the timeat which every acquaintance, however slight, attracts some degree ofattention. In the desert island, even poor Poll was something of acompanion to Robinson Crusoe. Kenny is a writer of a class which, in ourtime, is at the very bottom of the literary scale. He is a dramatist. Most of the farces, and three-act plays, which have succeeded duringthe last eight or ten years, are, I am told, from his pen. Heaven knowsthat, if they are the farces and plays which I have seen, they do himbut little honour. However, this man is one of our great comic writers. He has the merit, such as it is, of hitting the very bad taste of ourmodern audiences better than any other person who has stooped to thatdegrading work. We had a good deal of literary chat; and I thought him aclever shrewd fellow. 

My father is poorly; not that anything very serious is the matter withhim; but he has a cold, and is in low spirits. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: October 14, 1833

Dear Hannah, --I have just finished my article on Horace Walpole. This isone of the happy moments of my life; a stupid task performed; a weighttaken off my mind. I should be quite joyous if I had only you to read itto. But to Napier it must go forthwith; and, as soon as I have finishedthis letter, I shall put it into the general post with my own fairhands. I was up at four this morning to put the last touch to it. Ioften differ with the majority about other people's writings, and stilloftener about my own; and therefore I may very likely be mistaken; butI think that this article will be a hit. We shall see. Nothing ever costme more pains than the first half; I never wrote anything so flowinglyas the latter half; and I like the latter half the best. I have laid iton Walpole so unsparingly that I shall not be surprised if Miss Berryshould cut me. You know she was Walpole's favourite in her youth. Neither am I sure that Lord and Lady Holland will be well pleased. Butthey ought to be obliged to me; for I refrained for their sake fromlaying a hand, which has been thought to be not a light one, on that oldrogue the first Lord Holland. [Lord Holland, once upon a time, speakingto Macaulay of his grandfather, said: "He had that temper which kindfolks have been pleased to say belongs to my family; but he shared thefault that belonged to that school of statesmen, an utter disbelief inpublic virtue. "]

Charles Grant is still at Paris; ill, he says. I never knew a man whowanted setting to rights so often. He goes as badly as your watch. 

My father is at me again to provide for P--. What on earth have I todo with P--? The relationship is one which none but Scotchmen wouldrecognise. The lad is such a fool that he would utterly disgrace myrecommendation. And, as if to make the thing more provoking, his sisterssay that he must be provided for in England, for that they cannot thinkof parting with him. This, to be sure, matters little; for there isat present just as little chance of getting anything in India as inEngland. 

But what strange folly this is which meets me in every quarter; peoplewanting posts in the army, the navy, the public offices, and sayingthat, if they cannot find such posts, they must starve! How do all therest of mankind live? If I had not happened to be engaged in politics, and if my father had not been connected, by very extraordinarycircumstances, with public men, I should never have dreamed of havingplaces. Why cannot P-- be apprenticed to some hatter or tailor? He maydo well in such a business; he will do detestably ill as a clerk in myoffice. He may come to make good coats; he will never, I am sure, writegood despatches. There is nothing truer than Poor Richard's say: "Weare taxed twice as heavily by our pride as by the state. " The curse ofEngland is the obstinate determination of the middle classes to maketheir sons what they call gentlemen. So we are overrun by clergymenwithout livings; lawyers without briefs; physicians without patients;authors without readers; clerks soliciting employment, who mighthave thriven, and been above the world, as bakers, watchmakers, orinnkeepers. The next time my father speaks to me about P--, I will offerto subscribe twenty guineas towards making a pastry-cook of him. He hada sweet tooth when he was a child. 

So you are reading Burnet! Did you begin from the beginning? What doyou think of the old fellow? He was always a great favourite of mine;honest, though careless; a strong party man on the right side, yet withmuch kind feeling towards his opponents, and even towards his personalenemies. He is to me a most entertaining writer; far superior toClarendon in the art of amusing, though of course far Clarendon'sinferior in discernment, and in dignity and correctness of style. Do youknow, by the bye, Clarendon's life of himself? I like it, the part afterthe Restoration at least, better than his great History. 

I am very quiet; rise at seven or half-past; read Spanish till ten;breakfast; walk to my office; stay there till four; take a long walk, dine towards seven; and am in bed before eleven. I am going through DonQuixote again, and admire it more than ever. It is certainly the bestnovel in the world, beyond all comparison. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: October 21, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --Grant is here at last, and we have had a very long talkabout matters both public and private. The Government would supportmy appointment; but he expects violent opposition from the Company. Hementioned my name to the Chairs, and they were furious. They know thatI have been against them through the whole course of the negotiationswhich resulted in the India Bill. They put their opposition on theground of my youth, --a very flattering objection to a man who this weekcompletes his thirty-third year. They spoke very highly of me in otherrespects; but they seemed quite obstinate. 

The question now is whether their opposition will be supported by theother Directors. If it should be so, I have advised Grant most stronglyto withdraw my name, to put up some other man, and then to fight thebattle to the utmost. We shall be suspected of jobbing if we proceed toextremities on behalf of one of ourselves; but we can do what welike, if it is in favour of some person whom we cannot be suspected ofsupporting from interested motives. From the extreme unreasonablenessand pertinacity which are discernible in every communication that wereceive from the India House at present, I am inclined to think thatI have no chance of being chosen by them, without a dispute in which Ishould not wish the Government to engage for such a purpose. Lord Greysays that I have a right to their support if I ask for it; but that, for the sake of his administration generally, he is very adverse to mygoing. I do not think that I shall go. However, a few days will decidethe matter. 

I have heard from Napier. He praises my article on Walpole in termsabsolutely extravagant. He says that it is the best that I everwrote; and, entre nous, I am not very far from agreeing with him. Iam impatient to have your opinion. No flattery pleases me so much asdomestic flattery. You will have the Number within the week. 

Ever yours

T. B. M

To Macvey Napier, Esq. 

London: October 21, 1833. 

Dear Napier, --I am glad to learn that you like my article. I like itmyself; which is not much my habit. Very likely the public, which hasoften been kinder to my performances than I was, may on this, as onother occasions, differ from me in opinion. If the paper has any merit, it owes it to the delay of which you must, I am sure, have complainedvery bitterly in your heart. I was so thoroughly dissatisfied with thearticle, as it stood at first, that I completely re-wrote it; alteredthe whole arrangement; left out ten or twelve pages in one part; andadded twice as many in another. I never wrote anything so slowly as thefirst half, or so rapidly as the last half. 

You are in an error about Akenside, which I must clear up for hiscredit, and for mine. You are confounding the Ode to Curio and theEpistle to Curio. The latter is generally printed at the end ofAkenside's works, and is, I think, the best thing that he ever wrote. The Ode is worthless. It is merely an abridgment of the Epistle executedin the most unskilful way. Johnson says, in his Life of Akenside, thatno poet ever so much mistook his powers as Akenside when he took tolyric composition. "Having, " I think the words are, "written with greatforce and poignancy his Epistle to Curio, he afterwards transformed itinto an Ode only disgraceful to its author. " ["Akenside was one ofthe fiercest and the most uncompromising of the young patriots out ofParliament. When he found that the change of administration had producedno change of system, he gave vent to his indignation in the 'Epistle toCurio, ' the best poem that he ever wrote; a poem, indeed, which seems toindicate that, if he had left lyrical composition to Cray and Collins, and had employed his powers in grave and elevated satire, he might havedisputed the pre-eminence of Dryden. " This passage occurs in Macaulay'sEssay on Horace Walpole. In the course of the same Essay, Macaulayremarks that "Lord Chesterfield stands much lower in the estimationof posterity than he would have done if his letters had never beenpublished. "]

When I said that Chesterfield had lost by the publication of hisletters, I of course considered that he had much to lose; that hehas left an immense reputation, founded on the testimony of all hiscontemporaries of all parties, for wit, taste, and eloquence; that whatremains of his Parliamentary oratory is superior to anything of thattime that has come down to us, except a little of Pitt's. The utmostthat can be said of the letters is that they are the letters of acleverish man; and there are not many which are entitled even to thatpraise. I think he would have stood higher if we had been left to judgeof his powers, --as we judge of those of Chatham, Mansfield, CharlesTownshend, and many others, --only by tradition, and by fragments ofspeeches preserved in Parliamentary reports. 

I said nothing about Lord Byron's criticism on Walpole, because Ithought it, like most of his Lordship's criticism, below refutation. Onthe drama Lord Byron wrote more nonsense than on any subject. He wantedto have restored the unities. His practice proved as unsuccessful as histheory was absurd. His admiration of the "Mysterious Mother" was ofa piece with his thinking Gifford, and Rogers, greater poets thanWordsworth, and Coleridge. 

Ever yours truly

T. B. MACAULAY. 

London: October 28, 1833. 

Dear Hannah, --I wish to have Malkin as head of the Commission at Canton, and Grant seems now to be strongly bent on the same plan. [Sir BenjaminMalkin, a college friend of Macaulay, was afterwards a judge inthe Supreme Court at Calcutta. ] Malkin is a man of singular temper, judgment, and firmness of nerve. Danger and responsibility, instead ofagitating and confusing him, always bring out whatever there is in him. This was the reason of his great success at Cambridge. He made a figurethere far beyond his learning or his talents, though both his learningand his talents are highly respectable. But the moment that he sate downto be examined, which is just the situation in which all other people, from natural flurry, do worse than at other times, he began to do hisvery best. His intellect became clearer, and his manner more quiet, thanusual. He is the very man to make up his mind in three minutes if theViceroy of Canton were in a rage, the mob bellowing round the doors ofthe factory, and an English ship of war making preparations to bombardthe town. 

A propos of places, my father has been at me again about P--. Would youthink it? This lad has a hundred and twenty pounds a year for life! Icould not believe my ears; but so it is; and I, who have not a penny, with half a dozen brothers and sisters as poor as myself, am to moveheaven and earth to push this boy who, as he is the silliest, is also, Ithink, the richest relation that I have in the world. 

I am to dine on Thursday with the Fishmongers' Company, the firstcompany for gourmandise in the world. Their magnificent Hall near LondonBridge is not yet built, but, as respects eating and drinking, I shallbe no loser; for we are to be entertained at the Albion Tavern. This isthe first dinner-party that I shall have been to for a long time. Thereis nobody in town that I know except official men, and they have lefttheir wives and households in the country. I met Poodle Byng, it istrue, the day before yesterday in the street; and he begged me to makehaste to Brooks's; for Lord Essex was there, he said, whipping up for adinner-party; cursing and swearing at all his friends for being outof town; and wishing--what an honour!--that Macaulay was in London. Ipreserved all the dignity of a young lady in an affaire du coeur. "Ishall not run after my Lord, I assure you. If he wants me, he knowswhere he may hear of me. " This nibble is the nearest approach to adinner-party that I have had. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: November 1, 1833. 

Dear Hannah, --I have not much to add to what I told you yesterday; buteverything that I have to add looks one way. We have a new Chairman andDeputy Chairman, both very strongly in my favour. Sharp, by whom I sateyesterday at the Fishmongers' dinner, told me that my old enemy JamesMill had spoken to him on the subject. Mill is, as you have heard, atthe head of one of the principal departments of the India House. Thelate Chairman consulted him about me; hoping, I suppose, to have hissupport against me. Mill said, very handsomely, that he would advisethe Company to take me; for, as public men went, I was much above theaverage, and, if they rejected me, he thought it very unlikely that theywould get anybody so fit. This is all the news that I have to give you. It is not much. But I wish to keep you as fully informed of what isgoing on as I am myself. 

Old Sharp told me that I was acting quite wisely, but that he shouldnever see me again; and he cried as he said it. [Mr. Sharp died in 1837, before Macaulay's return from India. ] I encouraged him; and told himthat I hoped to be in England again before the end of 1839, and thatthere was nothing impossible in our meeting again. He cheered up aftera time; told me that he should correspond with me, and give me all thesecret history both of politics and of society; and promised to selectthe best books, and send them regularly to me. 

The Fishmongers' dinner was very good, but not so profusely splendid asI had expected. There has been a change, I find, and not before it waswanted. They had got at one time to dining at ten guineas a head. Theydrank my health, and I harangued them with immense applause. I talkedall the evening to Sharp. I told him what a dear sister I had, and howreadily she had agreed to go with me. I had told Grant the same inthe morning. Both of them extolled my good fortune in having such acompanion. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: November--, 1833. 

Dear Hannah, --Things stand as they stood; except that the report of myappointment is every day spreading more widely; and that I am beset byadvertising dealers begging leave to make up a hundred cotton shirts forme, and fifty muslin gowns for you, and by clerks out of place beggingto be my secretaries. I am not in very high spirits to-day, as I havejust received a letter from poor Ellis, to whom I had not communicatedmy intentions till yesterday. He writes so affectionately and soplaintively that he quite cuts me to the heart. There are few indeedfrom whom I shall part with so much pain; and he, poor fellow, saysthat, next to his wife, I am the person for whom he feels themost thorough attachment, and in whom he places the most unlimitedconfidence. 

On the 11th of this month there is to be a dinner given to Lushingtonby the electors of the Tower Hamlets. He has persecuted me withimportunities to attend, and make a speech for him; and my father hasjoined in the request. It is enough, in these times, Heaven knows, fora man who represents, as I do, a town of a hundred and twenty thousandpeople to keep his own constituents in good humour; and the Spitalfieldsweavers, and Whitechapel butchers, are nothing to me. But, ever sinceI succeeded in what everybody allows to have been the most hazardousattempt of the kind ever made, --I mean in persuading an audience ofmanufacturers, all Whigs or Radicals, that the immediate alterationof the corn-laws was impossible, --I have been considered as a capitalphysician for desperate cases in politics. However, --to return from thatdelightful theme, my own praises, --Lushington, who is not very popularwith the rabble of the Tower Hamlets, thinks that an oration from mewould give him a lift. I could not refuse him directly, backed as he wasby my father. I only said that I would attend if I were in London on the11th; but I added that, situated as I was, I thought it very probablethat I should be out of town. 

I shall go to-night to Miss Berry's soiree. I do not know whether Itold you that she resented my article on Horace Walpole so much thatSir Stratford Canning advised me not to go near her. She was Walpole'sgreatest favourite. His Reminiscences are addressed to her in terms ofthe most gallant eulogy. When he was dying at past eighty, he asked herto marry him, merely that he might make her a Countess and leave herhis fortune. You know that in Vivian Grey she is called Miss Otranto. Ialways expected that my article would put her into a passion, and I wasnot mistaken; but she has come round again, and sent me a most pressingand kind invitation the other day. 

I have been racketing lately, having dined twice with Rogers, and oncewith Grant. Lady Holland is in a most extraordinary state. She cameto Rogers's, with Allen, in so bad a humour that we were all forcedto rally, and make common cause against her. There was not a person attable to whom she was not rude; and none of us were inclined to submit. Rogers sneered; Sydney made merciless sport of her. Tom Moore lookedexcessively impertinent; Bobus put her down with simple straightforwardrudeness; and I treated her with what I meant to be the coldestcivility. Allen flew into a rage with us all, and especially withSydney, whose guffaws, as the Scotch say, were indeed tremendous. Whenshe and all the rest were gone, Rogers made Tom Moore and me sit downwith him for half an hour, and we coshered over the events of theevening. Rogers said that he thought Allen's firing up in defence of hispatroness the best thing that he had seen in him. No sooner had Tom andI got into the street than he broke forth: "That such an old stager asRogers should talk such nonsense, and give Allen credit for attachmentto anything but his dinner! Allen was bursting with envy to see us sofree, while he was conscious of his own slavery. "

Her Ladyship has been the better for this discipline. She hasoverwhelmed me ever since with attentions and invitations. I have atlast found out the cause of her ill-humour, or at least of that portionof it of which I was the object. She is in a rage at my article onWalpole, but at what part of it I cannot tell. I know that she is veryintimate with the Waldegraves, to whom the manuscripts belong, and forwhose benefit the letters were published. But my review was surely notcalculated to injure the sale of the book. Lord Holland told me, in anaside, that he quite agreed with me, but that we had better not discussthe subject. 

A note; and, by my life, from my Lady Holland: "Dear Mr. Macaulay, praywrap yourself very warm, and come to us on Wednesday. " No, my goodLady. I am engaged on Wednesday to dine at the Albion Tavern with theDirectors of the East India Company; now my servants; next week, I hope, to be my masters. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: November 22, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --The decision is postponed for a week; but there is nochance of an unfavourable result. The Chairs have collected theopinions of their brethren; and the result is, that, of the twenty-fourDirectors, only six or seven at the most will vote against me. 

I dined with the Directors on Wednesday at the Albion Tavern. We had acompany of about sixty persons, and many eminent military men amongstthem. The very courteous manner in which several of the Directors beggedto be introduced to me, and drank my health at dinner, led me to thinkthat the Chairs have not overstated the feeling of the Court. One ofthem, an old Indian and a great friend of our uncle the General, toldme in plain words that he was glad to hear that I was to be in theirservice. Another, whom I do not even know by sight, pressed the Chairmanto propose my health. The Chairman with great judgment refused. Itwould have been very awkward to have had to make a speech to them in thepresent circumstances. 

Of course, my love, all your expenses, from the day of my appointment, are my affair. My present plan, formed after conversation withexperienced East Indians, is not to burden myself with an extravagantoutfit. I shall take only what will be necessary for the voyage. Plate, wine, coaches, furniture, glass, china, can be bought in Calcutta aswell as in London. I shall not have money enough to fit myself outhandsomely with such things here; and to fit myself out shabbily wouldbe folly. I reckon that we can bring our whole expense for the passagewithin the twelve hundred pounds allowed by the Company. My calculationis that our cabins and board will cost L250 apiece. The passage of ourservants L50 apiece. That makes up L600. My clothes and etceteras, asMrs. Meeke observes, I will, I am quite sure, come within L200. [Mrs. Meeke was his favourite among bad novel-writers, See page 96. ] Yourswill, of course, be more. I will send you L300 to lay out as you like;not meaning to confine you to it, by any means; but you would probablyprefer having a sum down to sending in your milliner's bills to me. I reckon my servant's outfit at L50; your maid's at as much more. Thewhole will be L1200. 

One word about your maid. You really must choose with great caution. Hitherto the Company has required that all ladies, who take maidservantswith them from this country to India, should give security to sendthem back within two years. The reason was, that no class of peoplemisconducted themselves so much in the East as female servants fromthis country. They generally treat the natives with gross insolence; aninsolence natural enough to people accustomed to stand in a subordinaterelation to others when, for the first time, they find a greatpopulation placed in a servile relation towards them. Then, too, thestate of society is such that they are very likely to become mistressesof the wealthy Europeans, and to flaunt about in magnificent palanquins, bringing discredit on their country by the immorality of their livesand the vulgarity of their manners. On these grounds the Company hashitherto insisted upon their being sent back at the expense of those whotake them out. The late Act will enable your servant to stay in India, if she chooses to stay. I hope, therefore, that you will be carefulin your selection. You see how much depends upon it. The happiness andconcord of our native household, which will probably consist of sixty orseventy people, may be destroyed by her, if she should be ill-temperedand arrogant. If she should be weak and vain, she will probably formconnections that will ruin her morals and her reputation. I am nopreacher, as you very well know; but I have a strong sense of theresponsibility under which we shall both lie with respect to a poorgirl, brought by us into the midst of temptations of which she cannotbe aware, and which have turned many heads that might have been steadyenough in a quiet nursery or kitchen in England. 

To find a man and wife, both of whom would suit us, would be verydifficult; and I think it right, also, to offer to my clerk to keep himin my service. He is honest, intelligent, and respectful; and, as he israther inclined to consumption, the change of climate would probably beuseful to him. I cannot bear the thought of throwing any person who hasbeen about me for five years, and with whom I have no fault to find, outof bread, while it is in my power to retain his services. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: December 5, 1833

Dear Lord Lansdowne, --I delayed returning an answer to your kind lettertill this day, in order that I might be able to send you definiteintelligence. Yesterday evening the Directors appointed me to a seat inthe Council of India. The votes were nineteen for me, and three againstme. 

I feel that the sacrifice which I am about to make is great. But themotives which urge me to make it are quite irresistible. Every day thatI live I become less and less desirous of great wealth. But every daymakes me more sensible of the importance of a competence. Without acompetence it is not very easy for a public man to be honest; it isalmost impossible for him to be thought so. I am so situated that I cansubsist only in two ways: by being in office, and by my pen. Hitherto, literature has been merely my relaxation, --the amusement of perhaps amonth in the year. I have never considered it as the means of support. Ihave chosen my own topics, taken my own time, and dictated my own terms. The thought of becoming a bookseller's hack; of writing to relieve, notthe fulness of the mind, but the emptiness of the pocket; of spurring ajaded fancy to reluctant exertion; of filling sheets with trash merelythat the sheets may be filled; of bearing from publishers and editorswhat Dryden bore from Tonson, and what, to my own knowledge, Mackintoshbore from Lardner, is horrible to me. Yet thus it must be, if I shouldquit office. Yet to hold office merely for the sake of emolument wouldbe more horrible still. The situation, in which I have been placed forsome time back, would have broken the spirit of many men. It has rathertended to make me the most mutinous and unmanageable of the followers ofthe Government. I tendered my resignation twice during the course of thelast Session. I certainly should not have done so if I had been a manof fortune. You, whom malevolence itself could never accuse of covetingoffice for the sake of pecuniary gain, and whom your salary very poorlycompensates for the sacrifice of ease, and of your tastes, to the publicservice, cannot estimate rightly the feelings of a man who knows thathis circumstances lay him open to the suspicion of being actuated in hispublic conduct by the lowest motives. Once or twice, when I have beendefending unpopular measures in the House of Commons, that thought hasdisordered my ideas, and deprived me of my presence of mind. 

If this were all, I should feel that, for the sake of my own happinessand of my public utility, a few years would be well spent in obtainingan independence. But this is not all. I am not alone in the world. Afamily which I love most fondly is dependent on me. Unless I would seemy father left in his old age to the charity of less near relations;my youngest brother unable to obtain a good professional education; mysisters, who are more to me than any sisters ever were to a brother, forced to turn governesses or humble companions, --I must do something, I must make some effort. An opportunity has offered itself. It is inmy power to make the last days of my father comfortable, to educate mybrother, to provide for my sisters, to procure a competence for myself. I may hope, by the time I am thirty-nine or forty, to return to Englandwith a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. To me that would be affluence. I never wished for more. 

As far as English politics are concerned, I lose, it is true, a fewyears. But, if your kindness had not introduced me very early toParliament, --if I had been left to climb up the regular path of myprofession, and to rise by my own efforts, --I should have had verylittle chance of being in the House of Commons at forty. If I havegained any distinction in the eyes of my countrymen, --if I have acquiredany knowledge of Parliamentary and official business, and any habitudefor the management of great affairs, --I ought to consider these thingsas clear gain. 

Then, too, the years of my absence, though lost, as far as Englishpolitics are concerned, will not, I hope, be wholly lost, as respectseither my own mind or the happiness of my fellow-creatures. I canscarcely conceive a nobler field than that which our Indian Empire nowpresents to a statesman. While some of my partial friends are blamingme for stooping to accept a share in the government of that Empire, Iam afraid that I am aspiring too high for my qualifications. I sometimesfeel, I most unaffectedly declare, depressed and appalled by the immenseresponsibility which I have undertaken. You are one of the very fewpublic men of our time who have bestowed on Indian affairs the attentionwhich they deserve; and you will therefore, I am sure, fully enter intomy feelings. 

And now, dear Lord Lansdowne, let me thank you most warmly for the kindfeeling which has dictated your letter. That letter is, indeed, but avery small part of what I ought to thank you for. That at an early ageI have gained some credit in public life; that I have done some littleservice to more than one good cause; that I now have it in my powerto repair the ruined fortunes of my family, and to save those who aredearest to me from the misery and humiliation of dependence; that I amalmost certain, if I live, of obtaining a competence by honourablemeans before I am past the full vigour of manhood, --this I owe to yourkindness. I will say no more. I will only entreat you to believe thatneither now, nor on any former occasion, have I ever said one thousandthpart of what I feel. 

If it will not be inconvenient to you, I propose to go to Bowood onWednesday next. Labouchere will be my fellow-traveller. On Saturday wemust both return to town. Short as my visit must be, I look forward toit with great pleasure. 

Believe me, ever, Yours most faithfully and affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: December 5, 1833

My dear Sister, --I am overwhelmed with business, clearing off my workhere, and preparing for my new functions. Plans of ships, and lettersfrom captains, pour in without intermission. I really am mobbed withgentlemen begging to have the honour of taking me to India at my owntime. The fact is that a Member of Council is a great catch, not merelyon account of the high price which he directly pays for accommodation, but because other people are attracted by him. Every father of a youngwriter, or a young cadet, likes to have his son on board the same vesselwith the great man, to dine at the same table, and to have a chance ofattracting his notice. Everything in India is given by the Governorin Council; and, though I have no direct voice in the disposal ofpatronage, my indirect influence may be great. 

Grant's kindness through all these negotiations has been such as Ireally cannot describe. He told me yesterday, with tears in his eyes, that he did not know what the Board would do without me. I attribute hisfeeling partly to Robert Grant's absence; not that Robert ever did meill offices with him far from it; but Grant's is a mind that cannotstand alone. It is begging your pardon for my want of gallantry, afeminine mind. It turns, like ivy, to some support. When Robert is nearhim, he clings to Robert. Robert being away, he clings to me. This maybe a weakness in a public man; but I love him the better for it. 

I have lately met Sir James Graham at dinner. He took me aside, andtalked to me on my appointment with a warmth of kindness which, thoughwe have been always on good terms, surprised me. But the approach ofa long separation, like the approach of death, brings out all friendlyfeelings with unusual strength. The Cabinet, he said, felt the lossstrongly. It was great at the India Board, but in the House of Commons, (he used the word over and over, ) "irreparable. " They all, however, hesaid, agreed that a man of honour could not make politics a professionunless he had a competence of his own, without exposing himself toprivation of the severest kind. They felt that they had never had itin their power to do all they wished to do for me. They had no means ofgiving me a provision in England; and they could not refuse me whatI asked in India. He said very strongly that they all thought thatI judged quite wisely; and added that, if God heard his prayers, andspared my health, I should make a far greater figure in public life thanif I had remained during the next five or six years in England. 

I picked up in a print-shop the other day some superb views of thesuburbs of Chowringhee, and the villas of the Garden Reach. Selinaprofesses that she is ready to die with envy of the fine houses andverandahs. I heartily wish we were back again in a nice plain brickhouse, three windows in front, in Cadogan Place or Russell Square, withtwelve or fifteen hundred a year, and a spare bedroom, --(we, like Mrs. Norris, [A leading personage in Miss Austen's "Mansfield Park. "] mustalways have a spare bedroom, )--for Edward and Margaret, Love to themboth. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Macvey Napier, Esq. 

London: December 5, 1833

Dear Napier, --You are probably not unprepared for what I am about totell you. Yesterday evening the Directors of the East India Companyelected me one of the members of the Supreme Council. It will, therefore, be necessary that in a few weeks, --ten weeks, at furthest, --Ishould leave this country for a few years. 

It would be mere affectation in me to pretend not to know that mysupport is of some importance to the Edinburgh Review. In the situationin which I shall now be placed, a connection with the Review will be ofsome importance to me. I know well how dangerous it is for a public manwholly to withdraw himself from the public eye. During an absence of sixyears, I run some risk of losing most of the distinction, literary andpolitical, which I have acquired. As a means of keeping myself in therecollection of my countrymen during my sojourn abroad the Review willbe invaluable to me; nor do I foresee that there will be the slightestdifficulty in my continuing to write for you at least as much as ever. I have thought over my late articles, and I really can scarcely callto mind a single sentence in any one of them which might not have beenwritten at Calcutta as easily as in London. Perhaps in India I might nothave the means of detecting two or three of the false dates in Croker'sBoswell. But that would have been all. Very little, if any, of theeffect of my most popular articles is produced either by minute researchinto rare books, or by allusions to mere topics of the day. 

I think therefore that we might easily establish a commerce mutuallybeneficial. I shall wish to be supplied with all the good bookswhich come out in this part of the world. Indeed, many books whichin themselves are of little value, and which, if I were in England, Ishould not think it worth while to read, will be interesting to me inIndia; just as the commonest daubs, and the rudest vessels, at Pompeiiattract the minute attention of people who would not move their eyesto see a modern signpost, or a modern kettle. Distance of place, likedistance of time, makes trifles valuable. 

What I propose, then, is that you should pay me for the articles which Imay send you from India, not in money, but in books. As to the amountI make no stipulations. You know that I have never haggled about suchmatters. As to the choice of books, the mode of transmission, and othermatters, we shall have ample time to discuss them before my departure. Let me know whether you are willing to make an arrangement on thisbasis. 

I have not forgotten Chatham in the midst of my avocations. I hope tosend you an article on him early next week. 

Ever yours sincerely

T. B. MACAULAY. 

From the Right Hon. Francis Jeffrey to Macvey Napier, Esq. 

24, Moray Place Saturday evening, December

My dear Napier, --I am very much obliged to you for the permissionto read this. It is to me, I will confess, a solemn and melancholyannouncement. I ought not, perhaps, so to consider it. But I cannot helpit. I was not prepared for six years, and I must still hope that it willnot be so much. At my age, and with that climate for him, the chances ofour ever meeting again are terribly endangered by such a term. He doesnot know the extent of the damage which his secession may be to thegreat cause of Liberal government. His anticipations and offers aboutthe Review are generous and pleasing, and must be peculiarly gratifyingto you. I think, if you can, you should try to see him before he goes, and I envy you the meeting. 

Ever very faithfully yours

F. JEFFREY. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: December 21, 1833. 

My dear Sister, --Yesterday I dined at Boddington's. We had a veryagreeable party: Duncannon, Charles Grant, Sharp, Chantrey the sculptor, Bobus Smith, and James Mill. Mill and I were extremely friendly, andI found him a very pleasant companion, and a man of more generalinformation than I had imagined. 

Bobus was very amusing. He is a great authority on Indian matters. Hewas during several years Advocate-General in Bengal, and made all hislarge fortune there. I asked him about the climate. Nothing, he said, could be pleasanter, except in August and September. He never ate ordrank so much in his life. Indeed, his looks do credit to Bengal; fora healthier man of his age I never saw. We talked about expenses. "Icannot conceive, " he said, "how anybody at Calcutta can live on lessthan L3, 000 a year, or can contrive to spend more than L4, 000. " Wetalked of the insects and snakes, and he said a thing which reminded meof his brother Sydney: "Always, Sir, manage to have at your tablesome fleshy, blooming, young writer or cadet, just come out; that themusquitoes may stick to him, and leave the rest of the company alone. "

I have been with George Babington to the Asia. We saw her to everydisadvantage, all litter and confusion; but she is a fine ship, and ourcabins will be very good. The captain I like much. He is an agreeable, intelligent, polished man of forty; and very good-looking, consideringwhat storms and changes of climate he has gone through. He advised mestrongly to put little furniture into our cabins. I told him to haveyours made as neat as possible, without regard to expense. He haspromised to have it furnished simply, but prettily; and when you see it, if any addition occurs to you, it shall be made. I shall spare nothingto make a pretty little boudoir for you. You cannot think how my friendshere praise you. You are quite Sir James Graham's heroine. 

To-day I breakfasted with Sharp, whose kindness is as warm as possible. Indeed, all my friends seen to be in the most amiable mood. I have twiceas many invitations as I can accept; and I have been frequently beggedto name my own party. Empty as London is, I never was so much beset withinvitations. Sharp asked me about you. I told him how much I regrettedmy never having had any opportunity of showing you the best part ofLondon society. He said that he would take care that you should see whatwas best worth seeing before your departure. He promises to give us afew breakfast-parties and dinner-parties, where you will meet as manyas he can muster of the best set in town, --Rogers, Luttrell, Rice, TomMoore, Sydney Smith, Grant, and other great wits and politicians. I amquite delighted at this; both because you will, I am sure, be amused, and pleased, at a time when you ought to have your mind occupied, andbecause even to have mixed a little in a circle so brilliant will beof advantage to you in India. You have neglected, and very rightly andsensibly, frivolous accomplishments; you have not been at places offashionable diversion; and it is, therefore, the more desirable thatyou should appear among the dancing, pianoforte-playing, opera-going, damsels at Calcutta as one who has seen society better than any thatthey ever approached. I hope that you will not disapprove of what I havedone. I accepted Sharp's offer for you eagerly. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: January 2, 1834. 

My dear Sister, --I am busy with an article for Napier. [The firstarticle on Lord Chatham. ] I cannot in the least tell at present whetherI shall like it or not. I proceed with great ease; and in general I havefound that the success of my writings has been in proportion to the easewith which they have been written. 

I had a most extraordinary scene with Lady Holland. If she had been asyoung and handsome as she was thirty years ago, she would have turned myhead. She was quite hysterical about my going; paid me such complimentsas I cannot repeat; cried; raved; called me dear, dear Macaulay. "Youare sacrificed to your family. I see it all. You are too good to them. They are always making a tool of you; last Session about the slaves; andnow sending you to India!" I always do my best to keep my temper withLady Holland for three reasons; because she is a woman; because she isvery unhappy in her health, and in the circumstances of her position;and because she has a real kindness for me. But at last she saidsomething about you. This was too much, and I was beginning to answerher in a voice trembling with anger, when she broke out again: "I begyour pardon. Pray forgive me, dear Macaulay. I was very impertinent. Iknow you will forgive me. Nobody has such a temper as you. I have saidso a hundred times. I said so to Allen only this morning. I am sure youwill bear with my weakness. I shall never see you again;" and she cried, and I cooled; for it would have been to very little purpose to be angrywith her. I hear that it is not to me alone that she runs on in thisway. She storms at the Ministers for letting me go. I was told that atone dinner she became so violent that even Lord Holland, whose temper, whatever his wife may say, is much cooler than mine, could not commandhimself, and broke out: "Don't talk such nonsense, my Lady. What, thedevil! Can we tell a gentleman who has a claim upon us that he must losehis only chance of getting an independence in order that he may come andtalk to you in an evening?"

Good-bye, and take care not to become so fond of your own will as myLady. It is now my duty to omit no opportunity of giving you wholesomeadvice. I am henceforward your sole guardian. I have bought Gisborne'sDuties of Women, Moore's Fables for the Female Sex, Mrs. King's FemaleScripture Characters, and Fordyce's Sermons. With the help of thesebooks I hope to keep my responsibility in order on our voyage, and inIndia. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

To Hannah M. Macaulay. 

London: January 4, 1834. 

My dear Sister, --I am now buying books; not trashy books which will onlybear one reading; but good books for a library. I have my eye on all thebookstalls; and I shall no longer suffer you, when we walk together inLondon, to drag me past them as you used to do. Pray make out a list ofany which you would like to have. The provision which I design for thevoyage is Richardson, Voltaire's works, Gibbon, Sismondi's History ofthe French, Davila, the Orlando in Italian, Don Quixote in Spanish, Homer in Greek, Horace in Latin. I must also have some books ofjurisprudence, and some to initiate me in Persian and Hindostanee. ShallI buy "Dunallan" for you? I believe that in your eyes it would stand inthe place of all the rest together. But, seriously, let me know what youwould like me to procure. 

Ellis is making a little collection of Greek classics for me. Sharp hasgiven me one or two very rare and pretty books, which I much wanted. Allthe Edinburgh Reviews are being bound, so that we shall have a completeset, up to the forth coming number, which will contain an article ofmine on Chatham. And this reminds me that I must give over writing toyou, and fall to my article. I rather think that it will be a good one. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

London: February 13, 1834. 

Dear Napier, --It is true that I have been severely tried by ill-healthduring the last few weeks; but I am now rapidly recovering, and amassured by all my medical advisers that a week of the sea will make mebetter than ever I was in my life. 

I have several subjects in my head. One is Mackintosh's History; I meanthe fragment of the large work. Another plan which I have is a very fineone, if it could be well executed. I think that the time is come when afair estimate may be formed of the intellectual and moral character ofVoltaire. The extreme veneration, with which he was regarded during hislifetime, has passed away; the violent reaction, which followed, hasspent itself; and the world can now, I think, bear to hear the truth, and to see the man exhibited as he was, --a strange mixture of greatnessand littleness, virtues and vices. I have all his works, and shall takethem in my cabin on the voyage. But my library is not particularly richin those books which illustrate the literary history of his times. Ihave Rousseau, and Marmontel's Memoirs, and Madame du Deffand's Letters, and perhaps a few other works which would be of use. But Grimm'sCorrespondence, and several other volumes of memoirs and letters, wouldbe necessary. If you would make a small collection of the works whichwould be most useful in this point of view, and send it after me as soonas possible, I will do my best to draw a good Voltaire. I fear that thearticle must be enormously long, --seventy pages perhaps;--but you knowthat I do not run into unnecessary lengths. 

I may perhaps try my hand on Miss Austen's novels. That is a subject onwhich I shall require no assistance from books. 

Whatever volumes you may send me ought to be half bound; or the whiteants will devour them before they have been three days on shore. Besidesthe books which may be necessary for the Review, I should like to haveany work of very striking merit which may appear during my absence. Theparticular department of literature which interests me most is history;above all, English history. Any valuable book on that subject I shouldwish to possess. Sharp, Miss Berry, and some of my other friends, willperhaps, now and then, suggest a book to you. But it is principally onyour own judgment that I must rely to keep me well supplied. 

Yours most truly

T. B. MACAULAY. 

On the 4th of February Macaulay bade farewell to his electors, in anaddress which the Leeds Tories probably thought too high-flown for theoccasion. ["If, now that I have ceased to be your servant, and am onlyyour sincere and grateful friend, I may presume to offer you advicewhich must, at least, be allowed to be disinterested, I would say toyou: Act towards your future representatives as you have acted towardsme. Choose them, as you chose me, without canvassing and withoutexpense. Encourage them, as you encouraged me, always to speak to youfearlessly and plainly. Reject, as you have hitherto rejected, the wagesof dishonour. Defy, as you have hitherto defied, the threats of pettytyrants. Never forget that the worst and most degrading species ofcorruption is the corruption which operates, not by hopes, but by fears. Cherish those noble and virtuous principles for which we have struggledand triumphed together--the principles of liberty and toleration, ofjustice and order. Support, as you have steadily supported, the cause ofgood government; and may all the blessings which are the naturalfruits of good government descend upon you and be multiplied to you anhundredfold! May your manufactures flourish; may your trade be extended;may your riches increase! May the works of your skill, and the signs ofyour prosperity, meet me in the furthest regions of the East, and giveme fresh cause to be proud of the intelligence, the industry, and thespirit of my constituents!"] But he had not yet done with the House ofCommons. Parliament met on the first Tuesday in the month; and, on theWednesday, O'Connell, who had already contrived to make two speechessince the Session began, rose for a third time to call attention towords uttered during the recess by Mr. Hill, the Member for Hull. Thatgentleman, for want of something better to say to his constituents, hadtold them that he happened to know "that an Irish Member, who spokewith great violence against every part of the Coercion Bill, and votedagainst every clause of it, went to Ministers and said: 'Don't bate asingle atom of that Bill, or it will be impossible for any man to livein Ireland. "' O'Connell called upon Lord Althorp, as the representativeof the Government, to say what truth there was in this statement. LordAlthorp, taken by surprise, acted upon the impulse of the moment, whichin his case was a feeling of reluctance to throw over poor Mr. Hill tobe bullied by O'Connell and his redoubtable tail. After explaining thatno set and deliberate communication of the nature mentioned had beenmade to the Ministers, his Lordship went on to say that he "should notact properly if he did not declare that he had good reason to believethat some Irish Members did, in private conversation, use very differentlanguage" from what they had employed in public. 

It was chivalrously, but most unwisely, spoken. O'Connell at once gavethe cue by inquiring whether he himself was among the Members referredto, and Lord Althorp assured him that such was not the case. TheSpeaker tried to interfere; but the matter had gone too far. One Irishrepresentative after another jumped up to repeat the same question withregard to his own case, and received the same answer. At length Sheilrose, and asked whether he was one of the Members to whole the NobleLord had alluded. Lord Althorp replied: "Yes. The honourable and learnedgentleman is one. " Sheil, "in the face of his country, and the presenceof his God, " asserted that the individual who had given any suchinformation to the Noble Lord was guilty of a "gross and scandalouscalumny, " and added that he understood the Noble Lord to have madehimself responsible for the imputation. Then ensued one of thosescenes in which the House of Commons appears at its very worst. All thebusybodies, as their manner is, rushed to the front; and hour afterhour slipped away in an unseemly, intricate, and apparently interminablewrangle. Sheil was duly called upon to give an assurance that the affairshould not be carried beyond the walls of the House. He refused tocomply, and was committed to the charge of the Sergeant at Arms. TheSpeaker then turned to Lord Althorp, who promised in Parliamentarylanguage not to send a challenge. Upon this, as is graphically enoughdescribed in the conventional terms of Hansard, "Mr O'Connell made someobservation to the honourable Member sitting next him which was notheard in the body of the House. Lord Althorp immediately rose, and amidloud cheers, and with considerable warmth, demanded to know what thehonourable and learned gentleman meant by his gesticulation;" and then, after an explanation from O'Connell, his Lordship went on to use phraseswhich very clearly signified that, though he had no cause for sending achallenge, he had just as little intention of declining one; upon whichhe likewise was made over to the Sergeant. Before, however, honourableMembers went to their dinners, they had the relief of learning thattheir refractory colleagues had submitted to the Speaker's authority, and had been discharged from custody. 

There was only one way out of the difficulty. On the 10th of Februarya Committee of Investigation was appointed, composed of Members whoenjoyed a special reputation for discretion. Mr. Hill called hiswitnesses. The first had nothing relevant to tell. Macaulay was thesecond; and he forthwith cut the matter short by declaring that, on principle, he refused to disclose what had passed in privateconversation; a sentiment which was actually cheered by the Committee. One sentence of common sense brought the absurd embroilment to arational conclusion. Mr. Hill saw his mistake; begged that no furtherevidence might be taken; and, at the next sitting of the House, withdrewhis charge in unqualified terms of self-abasement and remorse. LordAlthorp readily admitted that he had acted "imprudently as a man, andstill more imprudently as a Minister, " and stated that he consideredhimself bound to accept Sheil's denial; but he could not manage so toframe his remarks as to convey to his hearers the idea that his opinionof that honourable gentleman had been raised by the transaction. Sheilacknowledged the two apologies with effusion proportioned to theirrespective value; and so ended an affair which, at the worst, had evokeda fresh proof of that ingrained sincerity of character for the sakeof which his party would have followed Lord Althorp to the death. [InMacaulay's journal for June 4, 1851, we read: "I went to breakfastwith the Bishop of Oxford, and there learned that Sheil was dead. Poorfellow! We talked about Sheil, and I related my adventure of February1834. Odd that it should have been so little known or so completelyforgotten!"]

Gravesend: February 15, 1834. 

Dear Lord Lansdowne, --I had hoped that it would have been in my power toshake hands with you once more before my departure; but this deplorablyabsurd affair in the House of Commons has prevented me from callingon you. I lost a whole day while the Committee were deciding whetherI should, or should not, be forced to repeat all the foolish, shabby, things that I had heard Sheil say at Brooks's. Everybody thought meright, as I certainly was. 

I cannot leave England without sending a few lines to you, --and yet theyare needless. It is unnecessary for me to say with what feelings I shallalways remember our connection, and with what interest I shall alwayslearn tidings of you and of your family. 

Yours most sincerely

T. B. MACAULAY. 

CHAPTER VI. 1834-1838. 

 The outward voyage--Arrival at Madras--Macaulay is summoned to join Lord William Bentinck in the Neilgherries--His journey up-country--His native servant--Arcot--Bangalore-- Seringapatam--Ascent of the Neilgherries--First sight of the Governor-General--Letters to Mr. Ellis, and the Miss Macaulays--A summer on the Neilgherries--Native Christians-- Clarissa--A tragi-comedy--Macaulay leaves the Neilgherries, travels to Calcutta, and there sets up house--Letters to Mr. Napier, and Mrs. Cropper--Mr. Trevelyan--Marriage of Hannah Macaulay--Death of Mrs. Cropper--Macaulay's work in India-- His Minutes for Council--Freedom of the Press--Literary gratitude--Second Minute on the Freedom of the Press--The Black Act--A Calcutta public meeting--Macaulay's defence of the policy of the Indian Government--His Minute on Education--He becomes President of the Committee of Public Instruction--His industry in discharging the functions of that post--Specimens of his official writing--Results of his labours--He is appointed President of the Law Commission, and recommends the framing of a Criminal Code--Appearance of the Code--Comments of Mr. Fitzjames Stephen--Macaulay's private life in India--Oriental delicacies--Breakfast- parties--Macaulay's longing for England--Calcutta and Dublin--Departure from India--Letters to Mr. Ellis, Mr. Sharp, Mr. Napier, and Mr. Z. Macaulay. 

FROM the moment that a deputation of Falmouth Whigs, headed by theirMayor, came on board to wish Macaulay his health in India and a happyreturn to England, nothing occurred that broke the monotony of aneasy and rapid voyage. "The catching of a shark; the shooting of analbatross; a sailor tumbling down the hatchway and breaking his head; acadet getting drunk and swearing at the captain, " are incidents to whichnot even the highest literary power can impart the charm of noveltyin the eyes of the readers of a seafaring nation. The company on thequarterdeck was much on a level with the average society of an EastIndiaman. "Hannah will give you the histories of all these good peopleat length, I dare say, for she was extremely social; danced with thegentlemen in the evenings, and read novels and sermons with the ladiesin the mornings. I contented myself with being very civil whenever I waswith the other passengers, and took care to be with them as little as Icould. Except at meals, I hardly exchanged a word with any human being. I never was left for so long a time so completely to my own resources;and I am glad to say that I found them quite sufficient to keep mecheerful and employed. During the whole voyage I read with keen andincreasing enjoyment. I devoured Greek, Latin, Spanish, Italian, French, and English; folios, quartos, octavos, and duodecimos. "

On the 10th of June the vessel lay to off Madras; and Macaulay had hisfirst introduction to the people for whom he was appointed to legislatein the person of a boatman who pulled through the surf on his raft. "Hecame on board with nothing on him but a pointed yellow cap, and walkedamong us with a self-possession and civility which, coupled withhis colour and his nakedness, nearly made me die of laughing. " Thisgentleman was soon followed by more responsible messengers, who broughttidings the reverse of welcome. Lord William Bentinck, who was thenGovernor-General, was detained by ill-health at Ootacamund in theNeilgherry Hills; a place which, by name at least, is now as familiar toEnglishmen as Malvern; but which in 1834 was known to Macaulay, byvague report, as situated somewhere "in the mountains of Malabar, beyondMysore. " The state of public business rendered it necessary that theCouncil should meet; and, as the Governor-General had left one memberof that body in Bengal as his deputy, he was not able to make a quorumuntil his new colleague arrived from England. A pressing summons toattend his Lordship in the Hills placed Macaulay in some embarrassmenton account of his sister, who could not with safety commence her Easternexperiences by a journey of four hundred miles up the country in themiddle of June. Happily the second letter which he opened proved to befrom Bishop Wilson, who insisted that the son and daughter of so eminentan Evangelical as the Editor of the Christian Observer, themselves partof his old congregation in Bedford Row, should begin their Indianlife nowhere except under his roof. Hannah, accordingly, continued hervoyage, and made her appearance in Calcutta circles with the Bishop'sPalace as a home, and Lady William Bentinck as a kind, and soon anaffectionate, chaperon; while her brother remained on shore at Madras, somewhat consoled for the separation by finding himself in a countrywhere so much was to be seen, and where, as far as the English residentswere concerned, he was regarded with a curiosity at least equal to hisown. 

During the first few weeks nothing came amiss to him. "To be on landafter three months at sea is of itself a great change. But to be in sucha land! The dark faces, with white turbans, and flowing robes; the treesnot our trees; the very smell of the atmosphere that of a hothouse, andthe architecture as strange as the vegetation. " Every feature in thatmarvellous scene delighted him both in itself, and for the sake of theinnumerable associations and images which it conjured up in his activeand well-stored mind. The salute of fifteen guns that greeted him, ashe set his foot on the beach, reminded him that he was in a region wherehis countrymen could exist only on the condition of their being warriorsand rulers. When on a visit of ceremony to a dispossessed Rajah orNabob, he pleased himself with the reflection that he was face toface with a prince who in old days governed a province as large as afirst-class European kingdom, conceding to his Suzerain, the Mogul, no tribute beyond "a little outward respect such as the great Dukes ofBurgundy used to pay to the Kings of France; and who now enjoyed thesplendid and luxurious insignificance of an abdicated prince which fellto the lot of Charles the Fifth or Queen Christina of Sweden, " with acourt that preserved the forms of royalty, the right of keeping as manybadly armed and worse paid ragamuffins as he could retain under histawdry standard, and the privilege of "occasionally sending letters ofcondolence and congratulation to the King of England, in which he callshimself his Majesty's good brother and ally. "

Macaulay set forth on his journey within a week from his landing, travelling by night, and resting while the sun was at its hottest. Hehas recorded his first impressions of Hindostan in a series of journalletters addressed to his sister Margaret. The fresh and vivid characterof those impressions--the genuine and multiform interest excited in himby all that met his ear or eye--explain the secret of the charm whichenabled him in after days to overcome the distaste for Indian literatureentertained by that personage who, for want of a better, goes by thename of the general reader. Macaulay reversed in his own case, theexperience of those countless writers on Indian themes who havesuccessively blunted their pens against the passive indifference of theBritish public; for his faithful but brilliant studies of the history ofour Eastern Empire are to this day incomparably the most popular of hisworks. [When published in a separate form the articles on Lord Clive andWarren Hastings have sold nearly twice as well as the articles on LordChatham, nearly thrice as well as the article on Addison, and nearlyfive times as well as the article on Byron. The great Sepoy mutiny, while it something more than doubled the sale of the essay on WarrenHastings, all but trebled the sale of the essay on Lord Clive; but, taking the last twenty years together, there has been little to choosebetween the pair. The steadiness and permanence of the favour with whichthey are regarded may be estimated by the fact that, during the fiveyears between 1870 and 1874, as compared with the five years between1865 and 1869, the demand for them has been in the proportion of sevento three; and, as compared with the five years between 1860 and 1864, inthe proportion of three to one. ] It may be possible, without injury tothe fame of the author, to present a few extracts from a correspondence, which is in some sort the raw material of productions that have alreadysecured their place among our national classics:

"In the afternoon of the 17th June I left Madras. My train consisted ofthirty-eight persons. I was in one palanquin, and my servant followed inanother. He is a half-caste. On the day on which we set out he told mehe was a Catholic; and added, crossing himself and turning up the whitesof his eyes, that he had recommended himself to the protection of hispatron saint, and that he was quite confident that we should performour journey in safety. I thought of Ambrose Llamela, Gil Blas's devoutvalet, who arranges a scheme for robbing his master of his portmanteau, and, when he comes back from meeting his accomplices, pretends that hehas been to the cathedral to implore a blessing on their voyage. I didhim, however, a great injustice; for I have found him a very honest man, who knows the native languages, and who can dispute a charge, bully anegligent bearer, arrange a bed, and make a curry. But he is so fond ofgiving advice that I fear he will some day or other, as the Scotch say, raise my corruption, and provoke me to send him about his business. Hisname, which I never hear without laughing, is Peter Prim. 

"Half my journey was by daylight, and all that I saw during that timedisappointed me grievously. It is amazing how small a part of thecountry is under cultivation. Two-thirds at least, as it seemed to me, was in the state of Wandsworth Common, or, to use an illustration whichyou will understand better, of Chatmoss. The people whom we met were asfew as in the Highlands of Scotland. But I have been told that in Indiathe villages generally lie at a distance from the roads, and that muchof the land, which when I passed through it looked like parched moorthat had never been cultivated, would after the rains be covered withrice. "

After traversing this landscape for fifteen hours he reached the town ofArcot, which, under his handling, was to be celebrated far and wide asthe cradle of our greatness in the East. 

"I was most hospitably received by Captain Smith, who commanded thegarrison. After dinner the palanquins went forward with my servant, andthe Captain and I took a ride to see the lions of the neighbourhood. He mounted me on a very quiet Arab, and I had a pleasant excursion. Wepassed through a garden which was attached to the residence of the Nabobof the Carnatic, who anciently held his court at Arcot. The garden hasbeen suffered to run to waste, and is only the more beautiful for havingbeen neglected. Garden, indeed, is hardly a proper word. In Englandit would rank as one of our noblest parks, from which it differsprincipally in this, that most of the fine trees are fruit trees. From this we came to a mountain pass which reminded me strongly ofBorradaile, near Derwentwater, and through this defile we struck intothe road, and rejoined the bearers. "

And so he went forward on his way, recalling at every step thereminiscence of some place, or event, or person; and, thereby, doublingfor himself, and perhaps for his correspondent, the pleasure whichthe reality was capable of affording. If he put up at a collector'sbungalow, he liked to think that his host ruled more absolutely and overa larger population than "a Duke of Saxe-Weimar or a Duke of Lucca;"and, when he came across a military man with a turn for reading, hepronounced him "as Dominic Sampson said of another Indian Colonel, 'aman of great erudition, considering his imperfect opportunities. '"

On the 19th of June he crossed the frontier of Mysore; reached Bangaloreon the morning of the 20th and rested there for three days in the houseof the Commandant. 

"On Monday, the 23rd, I took leave of Colonel Cubbon, who told me, with a warmth which I was vain enough to think sincere, that he had notpassed three such pleasant days for thirty years. I went on all night, sleeping soundly in my palanquin. At five I was waked, and found that acarriage was waiting for me. I had told Colonel Cubbon that I very muchwished to see Seringapatam. He had written to the British authorities atthe town of Mysore, and an officer had come from the Residency to showme all that was to be seen. I must now digress into Indian politics;and let me tell you that, if you read the little that I shall say aboutthem, you will know more on the subject than half the members of theCabinet. "

After a few pages occupied by a sketch of the history of Mysore duringthe preceding century, Macaulay proceeds

"Seringapatam has always been a place of peculiar interest to me. It wasthe scene of the greatest events of Indian history. It was the residenceof the greatest of Indian princes. From a child, I used to hear ittalked of every day. Our uncle Colin was imprisoned there for fouryears, and he was afterwards distinguished at the siege. I rememberthat there was, in a shop-window at Clapham, a daub of the takingof Seringapatam, which, as a boy, I often used to stare at with thegreatest interest. I was delighted to have an opportunity of seeingthe place; and, though my expectations were high, they were notdisappointed. 

"The town is depopulated; but the fortress, which was one of thestrongest in India, remains entire. A river almost as broad as theThames at Chelsea breaks into two branches, and surrounds the walls, above which are seen the white minarets of a mosque. We entered, andfound everything silent and desolate. The mosque, indeed, is still keptup, and deserves to be so; but the palace of Tippoo has fallen intoutter ruin. I saw, however, with no small interest, the airholes of thedungeon in which the English prisoners were confined, and the water-gateleading down to the river where the body of Tippoo was found stillwarm by the Duke of Wellington, then Colonel Wellesley. The exact spotthrough which the English soldiers fought their way against desperatedisadvantages into the fort is still perfectly discernible. But, thoughonly thirty-five years have elapsed since the fall of the city, thepalace is in the condition of Tintern Abbey and Melrose Abbey. Thecourts, which bear a great resemblance to those of the Oxford Colleges, are completely overrun with weeds and flowers. The Hall of Audience, once considered the finest in India, still retains some very fainttraces of its old magnificence. It is supported on a great number oflight and lofty wooden pillars, resting on pedestals of black granite. These pillars were formerly covered with gilding, and here and therethe glitter may still be perceived. In a few more years not the smallesttrace of this superb chamber will remain. I am surprised that more carewas not taken by the English to preserve so splendid a memorial ofthe greatness of him whom they had conquered. It was not like LordWellesley's general mode of proceeding; and I soon saw a proof of histaste and liberality. Tippoo raised a most sumptuous mausoleum to hisfather, and attached to it a mosque which he endowed. The buildings arecarefully maintained at the expense of our Government. You walk up fromthe fort through a narrow path, bordered by flower beds and cypresses, to the front of the mausoleum, which is very beautiful, and in generalcharacter closely resembles the most richly carved of our small Gothicchapels. Within are three tombs, all covered with magnificent pallsembroidered in gold with verses from the Koran. In the centre liesHyder; on his right the mother of Tippoo; and Tippoo himself on theleft. "

During his stay at Mysore, Macaulay had an interview with the deposedRajah; whose appearance, conversation, palace, furniture, jewels, soldiers, elephants, courtiers, and idols, he depicts in a letter, intended for family perusal, with a minuteness that would qualify himfor an Anglo-Indian Richardson. By the evening of the 24th June he wasonce more on the road; and, about noon on the following day, he beganto ascend the Neilgherries, through scenery which, for the benefit ofreaders who had never seen the Pyrenees or the Italian slopes ofan Alpine pass, he likened to "the vegetation of Windsor Forest, orBlenheim, spread over the mountains of Cumberland. " After reachingthe summit of the table-land, he passed through a wilderness where foreighteen miles together he met nothing more human than a monkey, untila turn of the road disclosed the pleasant surprise of an amphitheatreof green hills encircling a small lake, whose banks were dotted withred-tiled cottages surrounding a pretty Gothic church. The whole stationpresented "very much the look of a rising English watering-place. Thelargest house is occupied by the Governor-General. It is a spaciousand handsome building of stone. To this I was carried, and immediatelyushered into his Lordship's presence. I found him sitting by a fire in acarpeted library. He received me with the greatest kindness, frankness, and hospitality. He is, as far as I can yet judge, all that Ihave heard; that is to say, rectitude, openness, and good-nature, personified. " Many months of close friendship and common labours didbut confirm Macaulay in this first view of Lord William Bentinck. Hisestimate of that singularly noble character survives in the closingsentence of the essay on Lord Clive; and is inscribed on the base ofthe statue which, standing in front of the Town Hall may be seen farand wide over the great expanse of grass that serves as the park, theparade-ground, and the race-course of Calcutta. 

To Thomas Flower Ellis. 

Ootacamund: July 1, 1834. 

Dear Ellis, --You need not get your map to see where Ootacamund is; forit has not found its way into the maps. It is a new discovery; a placeto which Europeans resort for their health, or, as it is called by theCompany's servants--blessings on their learning, --a _sanaterion_. Itlies at the height of 7, 000 feet above the sea. 

While London is a perfect gridiron, here am I, at 13 degrees North fromthe equator, by a blazing wood fire, with my windows closed. My bed isheaped with blankets, and my black servants are coughing round me in alldirections. One poor fellow in particular looks so miserably cold that, unless the sun comes out, I am likely soon to see under my own roofthe spectacle which, according to Shakespeare, is so interesting to theEnglish, --a dead Indian. [The Tempest, act ii. Scene 2. ]

I travelled the whole four hundred miles between this and Madras onmen's shoulders. I had an agreeable journey on the whole. I was honouredby an interview with the Rajah of Mysore, who insisted on showing meall his wardrobe, and his picture gallery. He has six or seven colouredEnglish prints, not much inferior to those which I have seen in thesanded parlour of a country inn; "Going to Cover, " "The Death of theFox, " and so forth. But the bijou of his gallery, of which he is as vainas the Grand Duke can be of the Venus, or Lord Carlisle of the ThreeMaries, is a head of the Duke of Wellington, which has, most certainly, been on a sign-post in England. 

Yet, after all, the Rajah was by no means the greatest fool whom Ifound at Mysore. I alighted at a bungalow appertaining to the BritishResidency. There I found an Englishman who, without any preface, accosted me thus: "Pray, Mr. Macaulay, do not you think that Buonapartewas the Beast?" "No, Sir, I cannot say that I do. " "Sir, he was theBeast. I can prove it. I have found the number 666 in his name. Why, Sir, if he was not the Beast, who was?" This was a puzzling question, and I am not a little vain of my answer. "Sir, " said I, "the House ofCommons is the Beast. There are 658 members of the House; and these, with their chief officers, --the three clerks, the Sergeant and hisdeputy, the Chaplain, the doorkeeper, and the librarian, --make 666. ""Well, Sir, that is strange. But I can assure you that, if you writeNapoleon Buonaparte in Arabic, leaving out only two letters, it willgive 666. " "And pray, Sir, what right have you to leave out two letters?And, as St. John was writing Greek, and to Greeks, is it not likely thathe would use the Greek rather than the Arabic notation?" "But, Sir, "said this learned divine, "everybody knows that the Greek letters werenever used to mark numbers. " I answered with the meekest look and voicepossible: "I do not think that everybody knows that. Indeed I havereason to believe that a different opinion, --erroneous no doubt, --isuniversally embraced by all the small minority who happen to know anyGreek. " So ended the controversy. The man looked at me as if he thoughtme a very wicked fellow; and, I dare say, has by this time discoveredthat, if you write my name in Tamul, leaving out T in Thomas, Bin Babington, and M in Macaulay, it will give the number of thisunfortunate Beast. 

I am very comfortable here. The Governor-General is the frankest andbest-natured of men. The chief functionaries, who have attended himhither, are clever people, but not exactly on a par as to generalattainments with the society to which I belonged in London. I thought, however, even at Madras, that I could have formed a very agreeablecircle of acquaintance; and I am assured that at Calcutta I shall findthings far better. After all, the best rule in all parts of the world, as in London itself, is to be independent of other men's minds. My powerof finding amusement without companions was pretty well tried on myvoyage. I read insatiably; the Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil, Horace, Caesar's Commentaries, Bacon de Augmentis, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Tasso, Don Quixote, Gibbon's Rome, Mill's India, all the seventy volumesof Voltaire, Sismondi's History of France, and the seven thick folios ofthe Biographia Britannica. I found my Greek and Latin in good conditionenough. I liked the Iliad a little less, and the Odyssey a great dealmore than formerly. Horace charmed me more than ever; Virgil not quiteso much as he used to do. The want of human character, the poverty ofhis supernatural machinery, struck me very strongly. Can anything be sobad as the living bush which bleeds and talks, or the Harpies whobefoul Aeneas's dinner? It is as extravagant as Ariosto, and as dullas Wilkie's Epigoniad. The last six books, which Virgil had not fullycorrected, pleased me better than the first six. I like him best onItalian ground. I like his localities; his national enthusiasm; hisfrequent allusions to his country, its history, its antiquities, andits greatness. In this respect he often reminded me of Sir Walter Scott, with whom, in the general character of his mind, he had very littleaffinity. The Georgics pleased me better; the Eclogues best, --the secondand tenth above all. But I think the finest lines in the Latin languageare those five which begin, "Sepibus in nostris parvam te roscida mala--"

[Eclogue viii. 37. ]

I cannot tell you how they struck me. I was amused to find that Voltairepronounces that passage to be the finest in Virgil. 

I liked the Jerusalem better than I used to do. I was enraptured withAriosto; and I still think of Dante, as I thought when I first read him, that he is a superior poet to Milton, that he runs neck and neck withHomer, and that none but Shakespeare has gone decidedly beyond him. 

As soon as I reach Calcutta I intend to read Herodotus again. By thebye, why do not you translate him? You would do it excellently; anda translation of Herodotus, well executed, would rank with originalcompositions. A quarter of an hour a day would finish the work in fiveyears. The notes might be made the most amusing in the world. I wish youwould think of it. At all events, I hope you will do something which mayinterest more than seven or eight people. Your talents are too great, and your leisure time too small, to be wasted in inquiries so frivolous, (I must call them, ) as those in which you have of late been too muchengaged; whether the Cherokees are of the same race with the Chickasaws;whether Van Diemen's Land was peopled from New Holland, or New Hollandfrom Van Diemen's land; what is the precise anode of appointing aheadman in a village in Timbuctoo. I would not give the worst page inClarendon or Fra Paolo for all that ever was, or ever will be, writtenabout the migrations of the Leleges and the laws of the Oscans. 

I have already entered on my public functions, and I hope to do somegood. The very wigs of the judges in the Court of King's Bench wouldstand on end if they knew how short a chapter my Law of Evidence willform. I am not without many advisers. A native of some fortune in Madrashas sent me a paper on legislation. "Your honour must know, " says thisjudicious person, "that the great evil is that men swear falsely in thiscountry. No judge knows what to believe. Surely if your honour can makemen to swear truly, your honour's fame will be great, and the Companywill flourish. Now, I know how men may be made to swear truly; and Iwill tell your honour for your fame, and for the profit of the Company. Let your honour cut off the great toe of the right foot of every manwho swears falsely, whereby your honour's fame will be extended. " Is notthis an exquisite specimen of legislative wisdom?

I must stop. When I begin to write to England, my pen runs as if itwould run on for ever. 

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. M. 

To Miss Fanny and Miss Selina Macaulay. 

Ootacamund: August 10, 1834. 

My dear Sisters, --I sent last month a full account of my journey hither, and of the place, to Margaret, as the most stationary of our family;desiring her to let you all see what I had written to her. I think thatI shall continue to take the same course. It is better to write one fulland connected narrative than a good many imperfect fragments. 

Money matters seem likely to go on capitally. My expenses, I find, willbe smaller than I anticipated. The Rate of Exchange, if you know whatthat means, is very favourable indeed; and, if I live, I shall get richfast. I quite enjoy the thought of appearing in the light of an oldhunks who knows on which side his bread is buttered; a warm man; afellow who will cut up well. This is not a character which the Macaulayshave been much in the habit of sustaining; but I can assure you that, after next Christmas, I expect to lay up, on an average, about seventhousand pounds a year, while I remain in India. 

At Christmas I shall send home a thousand, or twelve hundred, pounds formy father, and you all. I cannot tell you what a comfort it is to meto find that I shall be able to do this. It reconciles me to all thepains--acute enough, sometimes, God knows, --of banishment. In a fewyears, if I live--probably in less than five years from the time atwhich you will be reading this letter--we shall be again together in acomfortable, though a modest, home; certain of a good fire, a good jointof meat, and a good glass of wine; without owing obligations to anybody;and perfectly indifferent, at least as far as our pecuniary interest isconcerned, to the changes of the political world. Rely on it, my deargirls, that there is no chance of my going back with my heart cooledtowards you. I came hither principally to save my family, and I am notlikely while here to forget them. 

Ever yours

T. B. M. 

The months of July and August Macaulay spent on the Neilgherries, in aclimate equable as Madeira and invigorating as Braemar; where thicketsof rhododendron fill the glades and clothe the ridges; and where theair is heavy with the scent of rose-trees of a size more fitted for anorchard than a flower-bed, and bushes of heliotrope thirty paces round. The glories of the forests and of the gardens touched him in spite ofhis profound botanical ignorance, and he dilates more than once upon his"cottage buried in laburnums, or something very like them, and geraniumswhich grow in the open air. " He had the more leisure for the naturalbeauties of the place, as there was not much else to interest even atraveller fresh from England. 

"I have as yet seen little of the idolatry of India; and that little, though excessively absurd, is not characterised by atrocity orindecency. There is nothing of the sort at Ootacamund. I have not, during the last six weeks, witnessed a single circumstance from whichyou would have inferred that this was a heathen country. The bulk of thenatives here are a colony from the plains below, who have come up hitherto wait on the European visitors, and who seem to trouble themselvesvery little about caste or religion. The Todas, the aboriginalpopulation of these hills, are a very curious race. They had a grandfuneral a little while ago. I should have gone if it had not been aCouncil day; but I found afterwards that I had lost nothing. The wholeceremony consisted in sacrificing bullocks to the manes of the defunct. The roaring of the poor victims was horrible. The people stood talkingand laughing till a particular signal was made, and immediately allthe ladies lifted up their voices and wept. I have not lived three andthirty years in this world without learning that a bullock roars when heis knocked down, and that a woman can cry whenever she chooses. 

"By all that I can learn, the Catholics are the most respectable portionof the native Christians. As to Swartz's people in the Tanjore, they area perfect scandal to the religion which they profess. It would have beenthought something little short of blasphemy to say this a year ago; butnow it is considered impious to say otherwise, for they have got into aviolent quarrel with the missionaries and the Bishop. The missionariesrefused to recognise the distinctions of caste in the administration ofthe Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and the Bishop supported them inthe refusal. I do not pretend to judge whether this was right or wrong. Swartz and Bishop Heber conceived that the distinction of caste, howeverobjectionable politically, was still only a distinction of rank;and that, as in English churches the gentlefolks generally take theSacrament apart from the poor of the parish, so the high-caste nativesmight be allowed to communicate apart from the Pariahs. 

"But, whoever was first in the wrong, the Christians of Tanjore tookcare to be most so. They called in the interposition of Government, andsent up such petitions and memorials as I never saw before or since;made up of lies, invectives, bragging, cant, bad grammar of the mostludicrous kind, and texts of Scripture quoted without the smallestapplication. I remember one passage by heart, which is really only afair specimen of the whole: 'These missionaries, my Lord, loving onlyfilthy lucre, bid us to eat Lord-supper with Pariahs as lives ugly, handling dead men, drinking rack and toddy, sweeping the streets, meanfellows altogether, base persons, contrary to that which Saint Paulsaith: I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Himcrucified. '

"Was there ever a more appropriate quotation? I believe that nobody oneither side of the controversy found out a text so much to the purposeas one which I cited to the Council of India, when we were discussingthis business: 'If this be a question of words, and names, and of yourlaw, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters. ' But though, like Gallio, I drove them and their petitions from my judgment seat, I could not help saying to one of the missionaries, who is here on theHills, that I thought it a pity to break up the Church of Tanjore onaccount of a matter which such men as Swartz and Heber had not beeninclined to regard as essential. 'Sir, ' said the reverend gentleman, 'the sooner the Church of Tanjore is broken up the better. You can formno notion of the worthlessness of the native Christians there. ' I couldnot dispute this point with him; but neither could I help thinking, though I was too polite to say so, that it was hardly worth the whileof so many good men to come fifteen thousand miles over sea and land inorder to make proselytes, who, their very instructors being judges, weremore children of hell than before. "

Unfortunately Macaulay's stay on the Neilgherries coincided with themonsoon. "The rain streamed down in floods. It was very seldom that Icould see a hundred yards in front of me. During a month together I didnot get two hours' walking. " He began to be bored, for the first andlast time in his life; while his companions, who had not his resources, were ready to hang themselves for very dulness. The ordinary amusementswith which, in the more settled parts of India, our countrymen beguilethe rainy season, were wanting in a settlement that had only lately beenreclaimed from the desert; in the immediate vicinity of which you stillran the chance of being "trod into the shape of half a crown by a wildelephant, or eaten by the tigers, which prefer this situation to theplains below for the same reason that takes so many Europeans to India;they encounter an uncongenial climate for the sake of what they canget. " There were no books in the place except those that Macaulay hadbrought with him, among which, most luckily, was Clarissa Harlowe. Aidedby the rain outside, he soon talked his favourite romance into generalfavour. The reader will consent to put up with one or two slightinaccuracies in order to have the story told by Thackeray. 

"I spoke to him once about Clarissa. 'Not read Clarissa!' he cried out. 'If you have once read Clarissa, and are infected by it, you can't leaveit. When I was in India I passed one hot season in the Hills; and therewere the Governor-General, and the Secretary of Government, and theCommander-in-Chief, and their wives. I had Clarissa with me; and, as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a passion ofexcitement about Miss Harlowe, and her misfortunes, and her scoundrellyLovelace. The Governor's wife seized the book; the Secretary waited forit; the Chief justice could not read it for tears. ' He acted the wholescene; he paced up and down the Athenaeum library. I dare say he couldhave spoken pages of the book; of that book, and of what countless pilesof others!"

An old Scotch doctor, a Jacobin and a free-thinker, who could only begot to attend church by the positive orders of the Governor-General, cried over the last volume until he was too ill to appear at dinner. [Degenerate readers of our own day have actually been provided with anabridgment of Clarissa, itself as long as an ordinary novel. A wisercourse than buying the abridgment would be to commence the originalat the Third volume. In the same way, if anyone, after obtaining theoutline of Lady Clementina's story from a more adventurous friend, will read Sir Charles Grandison, skipping all letters from Italians, to Italians, and about Italians, he will find that he has got hold ofa delightful, and not unmanageable, book. ] The ChiefSecretary, --afterwards, as Sir William Macnaghten, the hero and thevictim of the darkest episode in our Indian history, --declared thatreading this copy of Clarissa, under the inspiration of its owner'senthusiasm, was nothing less than an epoch in his life. After the lapseof thirty years, when Ootacamund had long enjoyed the advantage of abook-club and a circulating library, the tradition of Macaulay andhis novel still lingered on with a tenacity most unusual in theever-shifting society of an Indian station. 

"At length Lord William gave me leave of absence. My bearers were postedalong the road; my palanquins were packed; and I was to start next day;when an event took place which may give you some insight into the stateof the laws, morals, and manners among the natives. 

"My new servant, a Christian, but such a Christian as the missionariesmake in this part of the world, had been persecuted most unmercifullyfor his religion by the servants of some other gentlemen on the Hills. At last they contrived to excite against him (whether justly orunjustly I am quite unable to say) the jealousy of one of Lord William'sunder-cooks. We had accordingly a most glorious tragi-comedy; the partof Othello by the cook aforesaid; Desdemona by an ugly, impudent Pariahgirl, his wife; Iago by Colonel Casement's servant; and Michael Cassioby my rascal. The place of the handkerchief was supplied by a smallpiece of sugar-candy which Desdemona was detected in the act of sucking, and which had found its way from my canisters to her fingers. If Ihad any part in the piece, it was, I am afraid, that of Roderigo, whomShakespeare describes as a 'foolish gentleman, ' and who also appears tohave had 'money in his purse. '

"On the evening before my departure my bungalow was besieged by a mobof blackguards. The Native judge came with them. After a most prodigiousquantity of jabbering, of which I could not understand one word, Icalled the judge, who spoke tolerable English, into my room, and learnedfrom him the nature of the case. I was, and still am, in doubt as to thetruth of the charge. I have a very poor opinion of my man's morals, and a very poor opinion also of the veracity of his accusers. It was, however, so very inconvenient for me to be just then deprived of myservant that I offered to settle the business at my own expense. Underordinary circumstances this would have been easy enough, for the Hindoosof the lower castes have no delicacy on these subjects. The husbandwould gladly have taken a few rupees, and walked away; but thepersecutors of my servant interfered, and insisted that he should bebrought to trial in order that they might have the pleasure of smearinghim with filth, giving him a flogging, beating kettles before him, andcarrying him round on an ass with his face to the tail. 

"As the matter could not be accommodated, I begged the Judge to try thecase instantly; but the rabble insisted that the trial should not takeplace for some days. I argued the matter with them very mildly, and toldthem that I must go next day, and that, if my servant were detained, guilty or innocent, he must lose his situation. The gentle and reasoningtone of my expostulations only made them impudent. They are, in truth, a race so accustomed to be trampled on by the strong that they alwaysconsider humanity as a sign of weakness. The Judge told me that he neverheard a gentleman speak such sweet words to the people. But I was nowat an end of my sweet words. My blood was beginning to boil at theundisguised display of rancorous hatred and shameless injustice. I satedown, and wrote a line to the Commandant of the station, begging him togive orders that the case might be tried that very evening. The Courtassembled, and continued all night in violent contention. At last thejudge pronounced my servant not guilty. I did not then know, what Ilearned some days after, that this respectable magistrate had receivedtwenty rupees on the occasion. 

"The husband would now gladly have taken the money which he refused theday before; but I would not give him a farthing. The rascals who hadraised the disturbance were furious. My servant was to set out at elevenin the morning, and I was to follow at two. He had scarcely left thedoor when I heard a noise. I looked forth, and saw that the gang hadpulled him out of his palanquin, torn off his turban, stripped himalmost naked, and were, as it seemed, about to pull him to pieces. Isnatched up a sword-stick, and ran into the middle of them. It was allI could do to force my way to him, and, for a moment, I thought my ownperson was in danger as well as his. I supported the poor wretch in myarms; for, like most of his countrymen, he is a chickenhearted fellow, and was almost fainting away. My honest barber, a fine old soldier inthe Company's service, ran off for assistance, and soon returned withsome police officers. I ordered the bearers to turn round, and proceededinstantly to the house of the Commandant. I was not long detained here. Nothing can be well imagined more expeditious than the administration ofjustice in this country, when the judge is a Colonel, and the plaintiffa Councillor. I told my story in three words. In three minutes therioters were marched off to prison, and my servant, with a sepoy toguard him, was fairly on his road and out of danger. "

Early next morning Macaulay began to descend the pass. 

"After going down for about an hour we emerged from the clouds andmoisture, and the plain of Mysore lay before us--a vast ocean of foliageon which the sun was shining gloriously. I am very little given to cantabout the beauties of nature, but I was moved almost to tears. I jumpedoff the palanquin, and walked in front of it down the immense declivity. In two hours we descended about three thousand feet. Every turning inthe road showed the boundless forest below in some new point of view. Iwas greatly struck with the resemblance which this prodigious jungle, asold as the world and planted by nature, bears to the fine works of thegreat English landscape gardeners. It was exactly a Wentworth Park, aslarge as Devonshire. After reaching the foot of the hills, we travelledthrough a succession of scenes which might have been part of the gardenof Eden. Such gigantic trees I never saw. In a quarter of an hour Ipassed hundreds the smallest of which would bear a comparison with anyof those oaks which are shown as prodigious in England. The grass, theweeds, and the wild flowers grew as high as my head. The sun, almosta stranger to me, was now shining brightly; and, when late in theafternoon I again got out of my palanquin and looked back, I saw thelarge mountain ridge from which I had descended twenty miles behind me, still buried in the same mass of fog and rain in which I had been livingfor weeks. 

"On Tuesday, the 16th" (of September), "I went on board at Madras. Iamused myself on the voyage to Calcutta with learning Portuguese, andmade myself almost as well acquainted with it as I care to be. Iread the Lusiad, and am now reading it a second time. I own that I amdisappointed in Camoens; but I have so often found my first impressionswrong on such subjects that I still hope to be able to join my voice tothat of the great body of critics. I never read any famous foreign book, which did not, in the first perusal, fall short of my expectations;except Dante's poem, and Don Quixote, which were prodigiously superiorto what I had imagined. Yet in these cases I had not pitched myexpectations low. "

He had not much time for his Portuguese studies. The run was unusuallyfast, and the ship only spent a week in the Bay of Bengal, andforty-eight hours in the Hooghly. He found his sister comfortablyinstalled in Government House, where he himself took up his quartersduring the next six weeks; Lady William Bentinck having been preparedto welcome him as her guest by her husband's letters, more than oneof which ended with the words "e un miracolo. " Towards the middle ofNovember, Macaulay began housekeeping for himself; living, as he alwaysloved to live, rather more generously than the strict necessities of hisposition demanded. His residence, then the best in Calcutta, has longsince been converted into the Bengal Club. 

To Macvey Napier, Esq. 

Calcutta: December 10, 1834. 

Dear Napier, --First to business. At length I send you the article onMackintosh; an article which has the merit of length, whatever it may bedeficient in. As I wished to transmit it to England in duplicate, if notin triplicate, I thought it best to have two or three copies coarselyprinted here under the seal of strict secresy. The printers at Edinburghwill, therefore, have no trouble in deciphering my manuscript, and thecorrector of the press will find his work done to his hands. 

The disgraceful imbecility, and the still more disgraceful malevolence, of the editor have, as you will see, moved my indignation not a little. I hope that Longman's connection with the Review will not prevent youfrom inserting what I have said on this subject. Murray's copy writersare unsparingly abused by Southey and Lockhart in the Quarterly; and itwould be hard indeed if we might not in the Edinburgh strike hard at anassailant of Mackintosh. 

I shall now begin another article. The subject I have not yet fixedupon; perhaps the romantic poetry of Italy, for which there is anexcellent opportunity; Panizzi's reprint of Boiardo; perhaps the littlevolume of Burnet's Characters edited by Bishop Jebb. This reminds methat I have to acknowledge the receipt of a box from Longman, containingthis little book; and other books of much greater value, Grimm'sCorrespondence, Jacquemont's Letters, and several foreign works onjurisprudence. All that you have yet sent have been excellently chosen. I will mention, while I am on this subject, a few books which I want, and which I am not likely to pick up here--Daru's Histoire de Venise;St. Real's Conjuration de Venise; Fra Paolo's works; Monstrelet'sChronicle; and Coxe's book on the Pelhams. I should also like to have areally good edition of Lucian. 

My sister desires me to send you her kind regards. She remembers hervisit to Edinburgh, and your hospitality, with the greatest pleasure. Calcutta is called, and not without some reason, the city of palaces;but I have seen nothing in the East like the view from the Castle Rock, nor expect to see anything like it till we stand there together again. 

Kindest regards to Lord Jeffrey. 

Yours most truly

T. B. MACAULAY. 

To Mrs. Cropper. 

Calcutta: December 7, 1834. 

Dearest Margaret, --I rather suppose that some late letters from Nancymay have prepared you to learn what I am now about to communicate. Sheis going to be married, and with my fullest and warmest approbation. Ican truly say that, if I had to search India for a husband for her, I could have found no man to whom I could with equal confidence haveentrusted her happiness. Trevelyan is about eight and twenty. He waseducated at the Charter-house, and then went to Haileybury, and came outhither. In this country he has distinguished himself beyond any manof his standing by his great talent for business; by his liberaland enlarged views of policy; and by literary merit, which, for hisopportunities, is considerable. He was at first placed at Delhi under----, a very powerful and a very popular man, but extremely corrupt. This man tried to initiate Trevelyan in his own infamous practices. But the young fellow's spirit was too noble for such things. When onlytwenty-one years of age he publicly accused ----, then almost at thehead of the service, of receiving bribes from the natives. A perfectstorm was raised against the accuser. He was almost everywhere abused, and very generally cut. But with a firmness and ability scarcely everseen in any man so young, he brought his proofs forward, and, after aninquiry of some weeks, fully made out his case. ---- was dismissed indisgrace, and is now living obscurely in England. The Government hereand the Directors at home applauded Trevelyan in the highest terms; andfrom that tithe he has been considered as a man likely to rise to thevery top of the service. Lord William told him to ask for anything thathe wished for. Trevelyan begged that something might be done for hiselder brother, who is in the Company's army. Lord William told himthat he had richly earned that or anything else, and gave LieutenantTrevelyan a very good diplomatic employment. Indeed Lord William, a manwho makes no favourites, has always given to Trevelyan the strongestmarks, not of a blind partiality, but of a thoroughly well-grounded anddiscriminating esteem. 

Not long ago Trevelyan was appointed by him to the Under Secretaryshipfor foreign affairs, an office of a very important and confidentialnature. While holding the place he was commissioned to report toGovernment on the operation of the Internal Transit duties of India. About a year ago his Report was completed. I shall send to England acopy or two of it by the first safe conveyance; for nothing that Ican say of his abilities, or of his public spirit, will be half sosatisfactory. I have no hesitation in affirming that it is a perfectmasterpiece in its kind. Accustomed as I have been to public affairs, Inever read an abler State paper; and I do not believe that there is, Iwill not say in India, but in England, another man of twenty-seven whocould have written it. Trevelyan is a most stormy reformer. Lord Williamsaid to me, before anyone had observed Trevelyan's attentions to Nancy:"That man is almost always on the right side in every question; and itis well that he is so, for he gives a most confounded deal of troublewhen he happens to take the wrong one. " [Macaulay used to apply to hisfuture brother-in-law the remark which Julius Caesar made with regardto his young friend Brutus: "Magni refert hic quid velit; sed quidquidvolet, valde volet. "] He is quite at the head of that active party amongthe younger servants of the Company who take the side of improvement. Inparticular, he is the soul of every scheme for diffusing education amongthe natives of this country. His reading has been very confined; but tothe little that he has read he has brought a mind as active and restlessas Lord Brougham's, and much more judicious and honest. 

As to his person, he always looks like a gentleman, particularly onhorseback. He is very active and athletic, and is renowned as a greatmaster in the most exciting and perilous of field sports, the spearingof wild boars. His face has a most characteristic expression of ardourand impetuosity, which makes his countenance very interesting to me. Birth is a thing that I care nothing about; but his family is one of theoldest and best in England. 

During the important years of his life, from twenty to twenty-five, or thereabouts, Trevelyan was in a remote province of India, where hiswhole time was divided between public business and field sports, andwhere he seldom saw a European gentleman and never a European lady. Hehas no small talk. His mind is full of schemes of moral and politicalimprovement, and his zeal boils over in his talk. His topics, evenin courtship, are steam navigation, the education of the natives, theequalisation of the sugar duties, the substitution of the Roman for theArabic alphabet in the Oriental languages. 

I saw the feeling growing from the first; for, though I generally paynot the smallest attention to those matters, I had far too deep aninterest in Nancy's happiness not to watch her behaviour to everybodywho saw much of her. I knew it, I believe, before she knew it herself;and I could most easily have prevented it by merely treating Trevelyanwith a little coldness, for he is a man whom the smallest rebuff wouldcompletely discourage. But you will believe, my dearest Margaret, thatno thought of such base selfishness ever passed through my mind. Iwould as soon have locked my dear Nancy up in a nunnery as have put thesmallest obstacle in the way of her having a good husband. I thereforegave every facility and encouragement to both of them. What I havemyself felt it is unnecessary to say. My parting from you almost brokemy heart. But when I parted from you I had Nancy; I had all my otherrelations; I had my friends; I had my country. Now I have nothing exceptthe resources of my own mind, and the consciousness of having acted notungenerously. But I do not repine. Whatever I suffer I have brought onmyself. I have neglected the plainest lessons of reason and experience. I have staked my happiness without calculating the chances of the dice. I have hewn out broken cisterns; I have leant on a reed; I have built onthe sand; and I have fared accordingly. I must bear my punishment asI can; and, above all, I must take care that the punishment does notextend beyond myself. 

Nothing can be kinder than Nancy's conduct has been. She proposes thatwe should form one family; and Trevelyan, (though, like most lovers, hewould, I imagine, prefer having his goddess to himself, ) consented withstrong expressions of pleasure. The arrangement is not so strange asit might seem at home. The thing is often done here; and those quarrelsbetween servants, which would inevitably mar any such plan in England, are not to be apprehended in an Indian establishment. One advantagethere will be in our living together of a most incontestable sort; weshall both be able to save more money. Trevelyan will soon be entitledto his furlough; but he proposes not to take it till I go home. 

I shall write in a very different style from this to my father. To him Ishall represent the marriage as what it is, in every respect except itseffect on my own dreams of happiness--a most honourable and happy event;prudent in a worldly point of view; and promising all the felicitywhich strong mutual affection, excellent principles on both sides, good temper, youth, health, and the general approbation of friends canafford. As for myself, it is a tragical denouement of an absurd plot. I remember quoting some nursery rhymes, years ago, when you left me inLondon to join Nancy at Rothley Temple or Leamington, I forget which. Those foolish lines contain the history of my life. 

 "There were two birds that sat on a stone; One flew away, and there was but one. The other flew away, and then there was none; And the poor stone was left all alone. "

Ever, my dearest Margaret, yours

T. B. MACAULAY. 

A passage from a second letter to the same person deserves to be quoted, as an instance of how a good man may be unable to read aright his ownnature, and a wise man to forecast his own future. "I feel a growingtendency to cynicism and suspicion. My intellect remains; and is likely, I sometimes think, to absorb the whole man. I still retain, (not onlyundiminished, but strengthened by the very events which have deprivedme of everything else, ) my thirst for knowledge; my passion for holdingconverse with the greatest minds of all ages and nations; any power offorgetting what surrounds me, and of living with the past, the future, the distant, and the unreal. Books are becoming everything to me. IfI had at this moment my choice of life, I would bury myself in one ofthose immense libraries that we saw together at the universities, and never pass a waking hour without a book before me. " So little wasMacaulay aware that, during the years which were to come, his thoughtsand cares would be less than ever for himself, and more for others, and that his existence would be passed amidst a bright atmosphere ofaffectionate domestic happiness, which, until his own death came, noaccident was thenceforward destined to overcloud. 

But, before his life assumed the equable and prosperous tenor in whichit continued to the end, one more trouble was in store for him. Longbefore the last letters to his sister Margaret had been written, theeyes which were to have read them had been closed for ever. The fateof so young a wife and mother touched deeply all who had known her, andsome who knew her only by name. [Moultrie made Mrs. Cropper's deaththe subject of some verses on which her relatives set a high value. Heacknowledges his little poem to be the tribute of one who had been astranger to her whom it was written to commemorate:

 "And yet methinks we are not strange: so many claims there be Which seem to weave a viewless band between my soul and thee. Sweet sister of my early friend, the kind, the singlehearted, Than whose remembrance none more bright still gilds the days departed! Beloved, with more than sister's love, by some whose love to me Is now almost my brightest gem in this world's treasury. "]

When the melancholy news arrived in India, the young couple werespending their honeymoon in a lodge in the Governor-General's parkat Barrackpore. They immediately returned to Calcutta, and, under theshadow of a great sorrow, began their sojourn in their brother's house, who, for his part, did what he might to drown his grief in floods ofofficial work. ["April 8. Lichfield. Easter Sunday. After the servicewas ended we went over the Cathedral. When I stood before the famouschildren by Chantrey, I could think only of one thing; that, when last Iwas there, in 1832, my dear sister Margaret was with me and that she wasgreatly affected. I could not command my tears and was forced to leaveour party, and walk about by myself. "--Macaulay's Journal for the year1849. ]

The narrative of that work may well be the despair of Macaulay'sbiographer. It would be inexcusable to slur over what in many importantrespects was the most honourable chapter of his life; while, on theother hand, the task of interesting Englishmen in the details of Indianadministration is an undertaking which has baffled every pen except hisown. In such a dilemma the safest course is to allow that pen totell the story for itself; or rather so much of the story as, byconcentrating the attention of the reader upon matters akin to thosewhich are in frequent debate at home, may enable him to judge whetherMacaulay, at the council-board and the bureau, was the equal of Macaulayin the senate and the library. 

Examples of his Minute-writing may with some confidence be submitted tothe criticism of those whose experience of public business has taughtthem in what a Minute should differ from a Despatch, a Memorial, aReport, and a Decision. His method of applying general principles to thecircumstances of a special case, and of illustrating those principleswith just as much literary ornament as would place his views in apictorial form before the minds of those whom it was his business toconvince, is strikingly exhibited in the series of papers by means ofwhich he reconciled his colleagues in the Council, and his mastersin Leadenhall Street, to the removal of the modified Censorship whichexisted in India previously to the year 1835. 

"It is difficult, " he writes, "to conceive that any measures can be moreindefensible than those which I propose to repeal. It has always beenthe practice of politic rulers to disguise their arbitrary measuresunder popular forms and names. The conduct of the Indian Government withrespect to the Press has been altogether at variance with this triteand obvious maxim. The newspapers have for years been allowed as ample ameasure of practical liberty as that which they enjoy in England. If anyinconveniences arise from the liberty of political discussion, to thoseinconveniences we are already subject. Yet while our policy is thusliberal and indulgent, we are daily reproached and taunted with thebondage in which we keep the Press. A strong feeling on this subjectappears to exist throughout the European community here; and the loudcomplaints which have lately been uttered are likely to produce aconsiderable effect on the English people, who will see at a glancethat the law is oppressive, and who will not know how completely it isinoperative. 

"To impose strong restraints on political discussion is an intelligiblepolicy, and may possibly--though I greatly doubt it--be in somecountries a wise policy. But this is not the point at issue. Thequestion before us is not whether the Press shall be free, but whether, being free, it shall be called free. It is surely mere madness in aGovernment to make itself unpopular for nothing; to be indulgent, andyet to disguise its indulgence under such outward forms as bring on itthe reproach of tyranny. Yet this is now our policy. We are exposedto all the dangers--dangers, I conceive, greatly over-rated--of a freePress; and at the same time we contrive to incur all the opprobrium ofa censorship. It is universally allowed that the licensing system, asat present administered, does not keep any man who can buy a press frompublishing the bitterest and most sarcastic reflections on any publicmeasure, or any public functionary. Yet the very words 'license toprint' have a sound hateful to the ears of Englishmen in every partof the globe. It is unnecessary to inquire whether this feeling bereasonable; whether the petitioners who have so strongly pressed thismatter on our consideration would not have shown a better judgment ifthey had been content with their practical liberty, and had reservedtheir murmurs for practical grievances. The question for us is not whatthey ought to do, but what we ought to do; not whether it be wise inthem to complain when they suffer no injury, but whether it be wise inus to incur odium unaccompanied by the smallest accession of security orof power. 

"One argument only has been urged in defence of the present system. Itis admitted that the Press of Bengal has long been suffered to enjoypractical liberty, and that nothing but an extreme emergency couldjustify the Government in curtailing that liberty. But, it is said, suchan emergency may arise, and the Government ought to retain in its handsthe power of adopting, in that event, the sharp, prompt, and decisivemeasures which may be necessary for the preservation of the Empire. Butwhen we consider with what vast powers, extending over all classes ofpeople, Parliament has armed the Governor-General in Council, and, inextreme cases, the Governor-General alone, we shall probably be inclinedto allow little weight to this argument. No Government in the worldis better provided with the means of meeting extraordinary dangers byextraordinary precautions. Five persons, who may be brought together inhalf an hour, whose deliberations are secret, who are not shackled byany of those forms which elsewhere delay legislative measures, can, in asingle sitting, make a law for stopping every press in India. Possessingas we do the unquestionable power to interfere, whenever the safety ofthe State array require it, with overwhelming rapidity and energy, wesurely ought not, in quiet times, to be constantly keeping the offensiveform and ceremonial of despotism before the eyes of those whom, nevertheless, we permit to enjoy the substance of freedom. "

Eighteen months elapsed; during which the Calcutta Press found occasionto attack Macaulay with a breadth and ferocity of calumny such as fewpublic men, in any age or country, have ever endured, and none, perhaps, have ever forgiven. There were many mornings when it was impossible forhim to allow the newspapers to lie about his sister's drawing-room. 

The Editor of the Periodical which called itself, and had a right tocall itself, the "Friend of India, " undertook to shame his brethrenby publishing a collection of their invectives; but it was very soonevident that no decent journal could venture to foul its pages byreprinting the epithets, and the anecdotes, which constituted the dailygreeting of the literary men of Calcutta to their fellow-craftsman ofthe Edinburgh Review. But Macaulay's cheery and robust common sensecarried him safe and sound through an ordeal which has broken downsterner natures than his, and embittered as stainless lives. Theallusions in his correspondence, all the more surely because they arebrief and rare, indicate that the torrent of obloquy to which he wasexposed interfered neither with his temper nor with his happiness; andhow little he allowed it to disturb his judgment or distort his publicspirit is proved by the tone of a State paper, addressed to the Court ofDirectors in September 1836, in which he eagerly vindicates the freedomof the Calcutta Press, at a time when the writers of that Press, on thedays when they were pleased to be decent, could find for him no milderappellations than those of cheat, swindler, and charlatan. 

"I regret that on this, or on any subject, my opinion should differ fromthat of the Honourable Court. But I still conscientiously think that weacted wisely when we passed the law on the subject of the Press; andI am quite certain that we should act most unwisely if we were now torepeal that law. 

"I must, in the first place, venture to express an opinion that theimportance of that question is greatly over-rated by persons, even thebest informed and the most discerning, who are not actually on the spot. It is most justly observed by the Honourable Court that many of thearguments which may be urged in favour of a free Press at home do notapply to this country. But it is, I conceive, no less true that scarcelyany of those arguments which have been employed in Europe to defendrestrictions on the Press apply to a Press such as that of India. 

"In Europe, and especially in England, the Press is an engine oftremendous power, both for good and for evil. The most enlightenedmen, after long experience both of its salutary and of its perniciousoperation, have come to the conclusion that the good on the wholepreponderates. But that there is no inconsiderable amount of evil to beset off against the good has never been disputed by the warmest friendto freedom of discussion. 

"In India the Press is comparatively a very feeble engine. It does farless good and far less harm than in Europe. It sometimes rendersuseful services to the public. It sometimes brings to the notice ofthe Government evils the existence of which would otherwise have beenunknown. It operates, to some extent, as a salutary check on publicfunctionaries. It does something towards keeping the administrationpure. On the other hand, by misrepresenting public measures, and byflattering the prejudices of those who support it, it sometimes producesa slight degree of excitement in a very small portion of the community. 

"How slight that excitement is, even when it reaches its greatestheight, and how little the Government has to fear from it, no personwhose observation has been confined to European societies will readilybelieve. In this country the number of English residents is very small, and, of that small number, a great proportion are engaged in the serviceof the State, and are most deeply interested in the maintenance ofexisting institutions. Even those English settlers who are not in theservice of the Government have a strong interest in its stability. Theyare few; they are thinly scattered among a vast population, with whomthey have neither language, nor religion, nor morals, nor manners, norcolour in common; they feel that any convulsion which should overthrowthe existing order of things would be ruinous to themselves. Particularacts of the Government--especially acts which are mortifying to thepride of caste naturally felt by an Englishman in India--are oftenangrily condemned by these persons. But every indigo-planter in Tirhoot, and every shopkeeper in Calcutta, is perfectly aware that the downfallof the Government would be attended with the destruction of his fortune, and with imminent hazard to his life. 

"Thus, among the English inhabitants of India, there are no fit subjectsfor that species of excitement which the Press sometimes producesat home. There is no class among them analogous to that vast body ofEnglish labourers and artisans whose minds are rendered irritable byfrequent distress and privation, and on whom, therefore, the sophistryand rhetoric of bad men often produce a tremendous effect. The Englishpapers here might be infinitely more seditious than the most seditiousthat were ever printed in London without doing harm to anything buttheir own circulation. The fire goes out for want of some combustiblematerial on which to seize. How little reason would there be toapprehend danger to order and property in England from the mostinflammatory writings, if those writings were read only by Ministers ofState, Commissioners of the Customs and Excise, Judges and Masters inChancery, upper clerks in Government offices, officers in the army, bankers, landed proprietors, barristers, and master manufacturers! Themost timid politician would not anticipate the smallest evil from themost seditious libels, if the circulation of those libels were confinedto such a class of readers; and it is to such a class of readers thatthe circulation of the English newspapers in India is almost entirelyconfined. "

The motive for the scurrility with which Macaulay was assailed by ahandful of sorry scribblers was his advocacy of the Act familiarly knownas the Black Act, which withdrew from British subjects resident in theprovinces their so-called privilege of bringing civil appeals before theSupreme Court at Calcutta. Such appeals were thenceforward to be triedby the Sudder Court, which was manned by the Company's judges, "all ofthem English gentlemen of liberal education; as free as even the judgesof the Supreme Court from any imputation of personal corruption, and selected by the Government from a body which abounds in men ashonourable and as intelligent as ever were employed in the service ofany state. " The change embodied in the Act was one of little practicalmoment; but it excited an opposition based upon arguments and assertionsof such a nature that the success or failure of the proposed measurebecame a question of high and undeniable importance. 

"In my opinion, " writes Macaulay, "the chief reason for preferring theSudder Court is this--that it is the court which we have provided toadminister justice, in the last resort, to the great body of the people. If it is not fit for that purpose, it ought to be made so. If it is fitto administer justice to the great body of the people, why should weexempt a mere handful of settlers from its jurisdiction? There certainlyis, I will not say the reality, but the semblance of partiality andtyranny in the distinction made by the Charter Act of 1813. Thatdistinction seems to indicate a notion that the natives of India maywell put up with something less than justice, or that Englishmen inIndia have a title to something more than justice. If we give our owncountrymen an appeal to the King's Courts, in cases in which all othersare forced to be contented with the Company's Courts, we do in fact crydown the Company's Courts. We proclaim to the Indian people that thereare two sorts of justice--a coarse one, which we think good enough forthen, and another of superior quality, which we keep for ourselves. Ifwe take pains to show that we distrust our highest courts, how can weexpect that the natives of the country will place confidence in them?

"The draft of the Act was published, and was, as I fully expected, not unfavourably received by the British in the Mofussil. [The term"Mofussil" is used to denote the provinces of the Bengal Presidency, asopposed to the Capital. ] Seven weeks have elapsed since the notificationtook place. Time has been allowed for petitions from the furthestcorners of the territories subject to this Presidency. But I have heardof only one attempt in the Mofussil to get up a remonstrance; and theMofussil newspapers which I have seen, though generally disposed tocavil at all the acts of the Government, have spoken favourably of thismeasure. 

"In Calcutta the case has been somewhat different; and this is aremarkable fact. The British inhabitants of Calcutta are the onlyBritish-born subjects in Bengal who will not be affected by the proposedAct; and they are the only British subjects in Bengal who have expressedthe smallest objection to it. The clamour, indeed, has proceeded froma very small portion of the society of Calcutta. The objectors have notventured to call a public meeting, and their memorial has obtainedvery few signatures. But they have attempted to make up by noise andvirulence for what has been wanting in strength. It may at first sightappear strange that a law, which is not unwelcome to those who are tolive under it, should excite such acrimonious feelings among people whoare wholly exempted from its operation. But the explanation is simple. Though nobody who resides at Calcutta will be sued in the Mofussilcourts, many people who reside at Calcutta have, or wish to have, practice in the Supreme Court. Great exertions have accordingly beenmade, though with little success, to excite a feeling against thismeasure among the English inhabitants of Calcutta. 

"The political phraseology of the English in India is the same with thepolitical phraseology of our countrymen at home; but it is never to beforgotten that the same words stand for very different things at Londonand at Calcutta. We hear much about public opinion, the love of liberty, the influence of the Press. But we must remember that public opinionmeans the opinion of five hundred persons who have no interest, feeling, or taste in common with the fifty millions among whom they live; thatthe love of liberty means the strong objection which the five hundredfeel to every measure which can prevent them from acting as they choosetowards the fifty millions, that the Press is altogether supported bythe five hundred, and has no motive to plead the cause of the fiftymillions. 

"We know that India cannot have a free Government. But she may havethe next best thing--a firm and impartial despotism. The worst state inwhich she can possibly be placed is that in which the memorialists wouldplace her. They call on us to recognise them as a privileged order offreemen in the midst of slaves. It was for the purpose of avertingthis great evil that Parliament, at the same time at which it sufferedEnglishmen to settle in India, armed us with those large powers which, in my opinion, we ill deserve to possess, if we have, not the spirit touse them now. "

Macaulay had made two mistakes. He had yielded to the temptation ofimputing motives, a habit which the Spectator newspaper has pronouncedto be his one intellectual vice, finely adding that it is "the viceof rectitude;" and he had done worse still, for he had challenged hisopponents to a course of agitation. They responded to the call. Afterpreparing the way by a string of communications to the public journals, in to which their objections to the Act were set forth at enormouslength, and with as much point and dignity as can be obtained bya copious use of italics and capital letters, they called a publicmeeting, the proceedings at which were almost too ludicrous fordescription. "I have seen, " said one of the speakers, "at a Hindoofestival, a naked dishevelled figure, his face painted with grotesquecolours, and his long hair besmeared with dirt and ashes. His tongue waspierced with an iron bar, and his breast was scorched by the fire fromthe burning altar which rested on his stomach. This revolting figure, covered with ashes, dirt, and bleeding voluntary wounds, may the nextmoment ascend the Sudder bench, and in a suit between a Hindoo and anEnglishman think it an act of sanctity to decide against law in favourof the professor of the true faith. " Another gentleman, Mr. LonguevilleClarke, reminded "the tyrant" that

 There yawns the sack, and yonder rolls the sea. 

"Mr. Macaulay may treat this as an idle threat; but his knowledge ofhistory will supply him with many examples of what has occurred whenresistance has been provoked by milder instances of despotism than thedecimation of a people. " This pretty explicit recommendation to lynch aMember of Council was received with rapturous applause. 

At length arose a Captain Biden, who spoke as follows: "Gentlemen, Icome before you in the character of a British seaman, and on that groundclaim your attention for a few moments. Gentlemen, there has beenmuch talk during the evening of laws, and regulations, and rights, and liberties; but you all seem to have forgotten that this is theanniversary of the glorious Battle of Waterloo. I beg to propose, and Icall on the statue of Lord Cornwallis and yourselves to join me inthree cheers for the Duke of Wellington and the Battle of Waterloo. " Theaudience, who by this time were pretty well convinced that no grievancewhich could possibly result under the Black Act could equal the horrorsof a crowd in the Town Hall of Calcutta during the latter half of June, gladly caught at the diversion, and made noise enough to satisfy eventhe gallant orator. The business was brought to a hurried close, and themeeting was adjourned till the following week. 

But the luck of Macaulay's adversaries pursued them still. One of theleading speakers at the adjourned meeting, himself a barrister, gaveanother barrister the lie, and a tumult ensued which Captain Bidenin vain endeavoured to calm by his favourite remedy. "The opinion atMadras, Bombay, and Canton, " said he, --and in so saying he uttered theonly sentence of wisdom which either evening had produced, --"is thatthere is no public opinion at Calcutta but the lawyers. And now, --whohas the presumption to call it a burlesque?--let's give three cheers forthe Battle of Waterloo, and then I'll propose an amendment which shallgo into the whole question. " The Chairman, who certainly had earnedthe vote of thanks for "his very extraordinary patience, " which CaptainBiden was appropriately selected to move, contrived to get resolutionspassed in favour of petitioning Parliament and the Home Governmentagainst the obnoxious Act. 

The next few weeks were spent by the leaders of the movement insquabbling over the preliminaries of duels that never came off, andapplying for criminal informations for libel against each other, whichtheir beloved Supreme Court very judiciously refused to grant; but inthe course of time the petitions were signed, and an agent was selected, who undertook to convey them to England. On the 22nd of March, 1838, aCommittee of inquiry into the operation of the Act was moved for in theHouse of Commons; but there was nothing in the question which temptedHonourable Members to lay aside their customary indifference with regardto Indian controversies, and the motion fell through without a division. The House allowed the Government to have its own way in the matter; andany possible hesitation on the part of the Ministers was borne down bythe emphasis with which Macaulay claimed their support. "I conceive, " hewrote, "that the Act is good in itself, and that the time for passing ithas been well chosen. The strongest reason, however, for passing it isthe nature of the opposition which it has experienced. The organs ofthat opposition repeated every day that the English were the conquerors, and the lords of the country, the dominant race; the electors of theHouse of Commons, whose power extends both over the Company at home, and over the Governor-General in Council here. The constituents of theBritish Legislature, they told us, were not to be bound by laws made byany inferior authority. The firmness with which the Government withstoodthe idle outcry of two or three hundred people, about a matter withwhich they had nothing to do, was designated as insolent defiance ofpublic opinion. We were enemies of freedom, because we would not suffera small white aristocracy to domineer over millions. How utterly atvariance these principles are with reason, with justice, with the honourof the British Government, and with the dearest interests of the Indianpeople, it is unnecessary for me to point out. For myself, I can onlysay that, if the Government is to be conducted on such principles, I amutterly disqualified, by all my feelings and opinions, from bearing anypart in it, and cannot too soon resign my place to some person betterfitted to hold it. "

It is fortunate for India that a man with the tastes, and the training, of Macaulay came to her shores as one vested with authority, and thathe came at the moment when he did; for that moment was the veryturning-point of her intellectual progress. All educational action hadbeen at a stand for some time back, on account of an irreconcilabledifference of opinion in the Committee of Public Instruction; which wasdivided, five against five, on either side of a controversy, --vital, inevitable, admitting of neither postponement nor compromise, andconducted by both parties with a pertinacity and a warmth that wasnothing but honourable to those concerned. Half of the members werefor maintaining and extending the old scheme of encouraging Orientallearning by stipends paid to students in Sanscrit, Persian, and Arabic;and by liberal grants for the publication of works in those languages. The other half were in favour of teaching the elements of knowledgein the vernacular tongues, and the higher branches in English. On hisarrival, Macaulay was appointed President of the Committee; but hedeclined to take any active part in its proceedings until the Governmenthad finally pronounced on the question at issue. Later in January 1835the advocates of the two systems, than whom ten abler men could not befound in the service, laid their opinions before the Supreme Council;and, on the and of February, Macaulay, as a member of that Council, produced a minute in which he adopted and defended the views of theEnglish section in the Committee. 

"How stands the case? We have to educate a people who cannot at presentbe educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them someforeign language. The claims of our own language it is hardly necessaryto recapitulate. It stands preeminent even among the languages of theWest. It abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblestwhich Greece has bequeathed to us; with models of every species ofeloquence; with historical compositions, which, considered merelyas narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and which, considered asvehicles of ethical and political instruction, have never been equalled;with just and lively representations of human life and human nature;with the most profound speculations on metaphysics, morals, government, jurisprudence, and trade; with full and correct information respectingevery experimental science which tends to preserve the health, toincrease the comfort, or to expand the intellect of man. Whoever knowsthat language has ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth whichthe the wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in thecourse of ninety generations. It may safely be said that the literaturenow extant in that language is of far greater value than all theliterature which three hundred years ago was extant in all the languagesof the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English is thelanguage spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher class ofnatives at the seats of government. It is likely to become the languageof commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the language of twogreat European communities which are rising, the one in the south ofAfrica, the other in Australasia; communities which are every yearbecoming more important, and more closely connected with our IndianEmpire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value of our literature or atthe particular situation of this country, we shall see the strongestreason to think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is thatwhich would be the most useful to our native subjects. 

"The question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our powerto teach this language, we shall teach languages in which, by universalconfession, there are no books on any subject which deserve to becompared to our own; whether, when we can teach European science, weshall teach systems which, by universal confession, whenever they differfrom those of Europe, differ for the worse; and whether, when we canpatronise sound philosophy and true history, we shall countenance, atthe public expense, medical doctrines, which would disgrace an Englishfurrier--astronomy, which would move laughter in the girls at an Englishboarding-school--history, abounding with kings thirty feet high, andreigns thirty thousand years long--and geography made up of seas oftreacle and seas of butter. 

"We are not without experience to guide us. History furnishes severalanalogous cases, and they all teach the same lesson. There are in moderntimes, to go no further, two memorable instances of a great impulsegiven to the mind of a whole society--of prejudice overthrown--ofknowledge diffused--of taste purified--of arts and sciences planted incountries which had recently been ignorant and barbarous. 

"The first instance to which I refer is the great revival of lettersamong the western nations at the close of the fifteenth and thebeginning of the sixteenth century. At that time almost everything thatwas worth reading was contained in the writings of the ancientGreeks and Romans. Had our ancestors acted as the Committee of PublicInstruction has hitherto acted; had they neglected the language ofCicero and Tacitus; had they confined their attention to the olddialects of our own island; had they printed nothing, and taught nothingat the universities, but chronicles in Anglo-Saxon, and romances inNorman French, would England have been what she now is? What the Greekand Latin were to the contemporaries of More and Ascham, our tongue isto the people of India. The literature of England is now more valuablethan that of classical antiquity. I doubt whether the Sanscritliterature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and Norman progenitors. In some departments--in history, for example--I am certain that it ismuch less so. 

"Another instance may be said to be still before our eyes. Within thelast hundred and twenty years a nation which had previously been ina state as barbarous as that in which our ancestors were before theCrusades has gradually emerged from the ignorance in which it was sunk, and has taken its place among civilised communities. I speak of Russia. There is now in that country a large educated class, abounding withpersons fit to serve the state in the highest functions, and in no wayinferior to the most accomplished men who adorn the best circles ofParis and London. There is reason to hope that this vast Empire, whichin the time of our grandfathers was probably behind the Punjab, may, inthe time of our grandchildren, be pressing close on France and Britainin the career of improvement. And how was this change effected? Not byflattering national prejudices; not by feeding the mind of the youngMuscovite with the old woman's stories which his rude fathers hadbelieved; not by filling his head with lying legends about St. Nicholas;not by encouraging him to study the great question, whether the worldwas or was not created on the 13th of September; not by calling him 'alearned native, ' when he has mastered all these points of knowledge; butby teaching him those foreign languages in which the greatest mass ofinformation had been laid up, and thus putting all that informationwithin his reach. The languages of western Europe civilised Russia. Icannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they have done forthe Tartar. "

This Minute, which in its original shape is long enough for an articlein a quarterly review, and as businesslike as a Report of a RoyalCommission, set the question at rest at once and for ever. On the 7th ofMarch, 1835, Lord William Bentinck decided that "the great object of theBritish Government ought to be the promotion of European literature andscience among the natives of India;" two of the Orientalists retiredfrom the Committee of Public Instruction; several new members, bothEnglish and native, were appointed; and Macaulay entered upon thefunctions of President with an energy and assiduity which in his casewas an infallible proof that his work was to his mind. 

The post was no sinecure. It was an arduous task to plan, found, andconstruct, in all its grades, the education of such a country asIndia. The means at Macaulay's disposal were utterly inadequate for theundertaking on which he was engaged. Nothing resembling an organisedstaff was as yet in existence. There were no Inspectors of Schools. There were no training colleges for masters. There were no boards ofexperienced managers. The machinery consisted of voluntary committeesacting on the spot, and corresponding directly with the superintendingbody at Calcutta. Macaulay rose to the occasion, and threw himselfinto the routine of administration and control with zeal sustainedby diligence and tempered by tact. "We were hardly prepared, " said acompetent critic, "for the amount of conciliation which he evinces indealing with irritable colleagues and subordinates, and for the strong, sterling, practical common sense with which he sweeps away rubbish, orcuts the knots of local and departmental problems. " The mastery which aman exercises over himself, and the patience and forbearance displayedin his dealings with others, are generally in proportion to the valuewhich he sets upon the objects of his pursuit. If we judge Macaulay bythis standard, it is plain that he cared a great deal more for providingour Eastern Empire with an educational outfit that would work and wearthan he ever cared for keeping his own seat in Parliament or pushing hisown fortunes in Downing Street. Throughout his innumerable Minutes, onall subjects from the broadest principle to the narrowest detail, heis everywhere free from crotchets and susceptibilities; and everywhereready to humour any person who will make himself useful, and to adoptany appliance which can be turned to account. 

"I think it highly probable that Mr. Nicholls may be to blame, because Ihave seldom known a quarrel in which both parties were not to blame. ButI see no evidence that he is so. Nor do I see any evidence which tendsto prove that Mr. Nicholls leads the Local Committee by the nose. TheLocal Committee appear to have acted with perfect propriety, andI cannot consent to treat them in the manner recommended by Mr. Sutherland. If we appoint the Colonel to be a member of their body, we shall in effect pass a most severe censure on their proceedings. Idislike the suggestion of putting military men on the Committee asa check on the civilians. Hitherto we have never, to the best of mybelief, been troubled by any such idle jealousies. I would appoint thefittest men without caring to what branch of the service they belonged, or whether they belonged to the service at all. " [This, and thefollowing extracts, are taken from a volume of Macaulay's Minutes, "nowfirst collected from Records in the Department of Public instruction, byH. Woodrow, Esq. , M. A. , Inspector of Schools at Calcutta, and formerlyFellow of Caius College, Cambridge. " The collection was published inIndia. ]

Exception had been taken to an applicant for a mastership, on the groundthat he had been a preacher with a strong turn for proselytising. 

"Mr. ---- seems to be so little concerned about proselytising, that hedoes not even know how to spell the word; a circumstance which, if I didnot suppose it to be a slip of the pen, I should think a more seriousobjection than the 'Reverend' which formerly stood before his name. I amquite content with his assurances. "

In default of better, Macaulay was always for employing the toolswhich came to hand. A warm and consistent advocate of appointment bycompetitive examination, wherever a field for competition existed, hewas no pedantic slave to a theory. In the dearth of schoolmasters, whichis a feature in every infant educational system, he refused to rejecta candidate who mistook "Argos for Corinth, " and backed the claims ofaspirants of respectable character who could "read, write, and work asum. "

"By all means accept the King of Oude's present; though, to be sure, more detestable maps were never seen. One would think that the revenuesof Oude, and the treasures of Saadut Ali, might have borne the expenseof producing something better than a map in which Sicily is joined onto the toe of Italy, and in which so important an eastern island as Javadoes not appear at all. "

"As to the corrupting influence of the zenana, of which Mr. Trevelyanspeaks, I may regret it; but I own that I cannot help thinking that thedissolution of the tie between parent and child is as great a moral evilas can be found in any zenana. In whatever degree infant schools relaxthat tie they do mischief. For my own part, I would rather hear a boyof three years old lisp all the bad words in the language than that heshould have no feelings of family affection--that his character shouldbe that which must be expected in one who has had the misfortune ofhaving a schoolmaster in place of a mother. "

"I do not see the reason for establishing any limit as to the age ofscholars. The phenomena are exactly the same which have always beenfound to exist when a new mode of education has been rising intofashion. No man of fifty now learns Greek with boys; but in thesixteenth century it was not at all unusual to see old Doctors ofDivinity attending lectures side by side with young students. "

"With respect to making our College libraries circulating libraries, there is much to be said on both sides. If a proper subscription isdemanded from those who have access to them, and if all that is raisedby this subscription is laid out in adding to the libraries, thestudents will be no losers by the plan. Our libraries, the best of themat least, would be better than any which would be readily accessible atan up-country station; and I do not know why we should grudge a youngofficer the pleasure of reading our copy of Boswell's Life of Johnsonor Marmontel's Memoirs, if he is willing to pay a few rupees for theprivilege. "

These utterances of cultured wisdom or homely mother-wit are sometimesexpressed in phrases almost as amusing, though not so characteristic, asthose which Frederic the Great used to scrawl on the margin of reportsand despatches for the information of his secretaries. 

"We are a little too indulgent to the whims of the people in our employ. We pay a large sum to send a master to a distant station. He dislikesthe place. The collector is uncivil; the surgeon quarrels with him;and he must be moved. The expenses of the journey have to be defrayed. Another man is to be transferred from a place where he is comfortableand useful. Our masters run from station to station at our cost, asvapourised ladies at home run about from spa to spa. All situations havetheir discomforts; and there are times when we all wish that our lot hadbeen cast in some other line of life, or in some other place. "

With regard to a proposed coat of arms for Hooghly College, he says

"I do not see why the mummeries of European heraldry should beintroduced into any part of our Indian system. Heraldry is not ascience which has any eternal rules. It is a system of arbitrary canons, originating in pure caprice. Nothing can be more absurd and grotesquethan armorial bearings, considered in themselves. Certain recollections, certain associations, make them interesting in many cases to anEnglishman; but in those recollections and associations the natives ofIndia do not participate. A lion, rampant, with a folio in his paw, witha man standing on each side of him, with a telescope over his head, and with a Persian motto under his feet, must seem to them either verymysterious, or very absurd. "

In a discussion on the propriety of printing some books of Orientalscience, Macaulay writes

"I should be sorry to say anything disrespectful of that liberaland generous enthusiasm for Oriental literature which appears in Mr. Sutherland's minute; but I own that I cannot think that we ought to beguided in the distribution of the small sum, which the Government hasallotted for the purpose of education, by considerations which seema little romantic. That the Saracens a thousand years ago cultivatedmathematical science is hardly, I think, a reason for our spending anymoney in translating English treatises on mathematics into Arabic. Mr. Sutherland would probably think it very strange if we were to urge thedestruction of the Alexandrian Library as a reason against patronisingArabic literature in the nineteenth century. The undertaking may be, asMr. Sutherland conceives, a great national work. So is the breakwater atMadras. But under the orders which we have received from the Government, we have just as little to do with one as with the other. "

Now and then a stroke, aimed at Hooghly College, hits nearer home. Thatmen of thirty should be bribed to continue their education into maturelife "seems very absurd. Moghal Jan has been paid to learn somethingduring twelve years. We are told that he is lazy and stupid; but thereare hopes that in four years more he will have completed his courseof study. We have had quite enough of these lazy, stupid schoolboys ofthirty. "

"I must frankly own that I do not like the list of books. Grammars ofrhetoric and grammars of logic are among the most useless furniture ofa shelf. Give a boy Robinson Crusoe. That is worth all the grammars ofrhetoric and logic in the world. We ought to procure such books as arelikely to give the children a taste for the literature of the West; notbooks filled with idle distinctions and definitions, which every manwho has learned them makes haste to forget. Who ever reasoned better forhaving been taught the difference between a syllogism and an enthymeme?Who ever composed with greater spirit and elegance because he coulddefine an oxymoron or an aposiopesis? I am not joking, but writing quiteseriously, when I say that I would much rather order a hundred copiesof Jack the Giant-killer for our schools than a hundred copies of anygrammar of rhetoric or logic that ever was written. "

"Goldsmith's Histories of Greece and Rome are miserable performances, and I do not at all like to lay out 50 pounds on them, even after theyhave received all Mr. Pinnock's improvements. I must own too, that Ithink the order for globes and other instruments unnecessarily large. To lay out 324 pounds at once on globes alone, useful as I acknowledgethose articles to be, seems exceedingly profuse, when we have only about3, 000 pounds a year for all purposes of English education. One 12-inchor 18-inch globe for each school is quite enough; and we ought not, Ithink, to order sixteen such globes when we are about to establish onlyseven schools. Useful as the telescopes, the theodolites, and the otherscientific instruments mentioned in the indent undoubtedly are, wemust consider that four or five such instruments run away with a year'ssalary of a schoolmaster, and that, if we purchase them, it will benecessary to defer the establishment of schools. "

At one of the colleges at Calcutta the distribution of prizes wasaccompanied by some histrionic performances on the part of the pupils. 

"I have no partiality, " writes Macaulay, "for such ceremonies. I thinkit a very questionable thing whether, even at home, public spouting andacting ought to form part of the system of a place of education. Butin this country such exhibitions are peculiarly out of place. I canconceive nothing more grotesque than the scene from the Merchant ofVenice, with Portia represented by a little black boy. Then, too, thesubjects of recitation were ill chosen. We are attempting to introduce agreat nation to a knowledge of the richest and noblest literature inthe world. The society of Calcutta assemble to see what progress we aremaking; and we produce as a sample a boy who repeats some blackguarddoggerel of George Colman's, about a fat gentleman who was put to bedover an oven, and about a man-midwife who was called out of his bed bya drunken man at night. Our disciple tries to hiccup, and tumbles andstaggers about in imitation of the tipsy English sailors whom he hasseen at the punch houses. Really, if we can find nothing better worthreciting than this trash, we had better give up English instructionaltogether. "

"As to the list of prize books, I am not much better satisfied. Itis absolutely unintelligible to me why Pope's Works and my old friendMoore's Lalla Rookh should be selected from the whole mass of Englishpoetry to be prize books. I will engage to frame, currente calamo, abetter list. Bacon's Essays, Hume's England, Gibbon's Rome, Robertson'sCharles V. , Robertson's Scotland, Robertson's America, Swift's Gulliver, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare's Works, Paradise Lost, Milton's smallerpoems, Arabian Nights, Park's Travels, Anson's Voyage, the Vicar ofWakefield, Johnson's Lives, Gil Blas, Voltaire's Charles XII. , Southey'sNelson, Middleton's Life of Cicero. 

"This may serve as a specimen. These are books which will amuse andinterest those who obtain them. To give a boy Abercrombie on theIntellectual Powers, Dick's Moral Improvement, Young's IntellectualPhilosophy, Chalmers's Poetical Economy!!! (in passing I may be allowedto ask what that means?) is quite absurd. I would not give orders atrandom for books about which we know nothing. We are under no necessityof ordering at haphazard. We know Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver, andthe Arabian Nights, and Anson's Voyage, and many other delightful workswhich interest even the very young, and which do not lose their interestto the end of our lives. Why should we order blindfold such books asMarkham's New Children's Friend, the juvenile Scrap Book, the Child'sOwn Book, Niggens's Earth, Mudie's Sea, and somebody else's Fire andAir?--books which, I will be bound for it, none of us ever opened. 

"The list ought in all its parts to be thoroughly recast. If SirBenjamin Malkin will furnish the names of ten or twelve works of ascientific kind, which he thinks suited for prizes, the task will notbe difficult; and, with his help, I will gladly undertake it. There is amarked distinction between a prize book and a school book. A prize bookought to be a book which a boy receives with pleasure, and turns overand over, not as a task, but spontaneously. I have not forgotten my ownschool-boy feelings on this subject. My pleasure at obtaining a prizewas greatly enhanced by the knowledge that my little library wouldreceive a very agreeable addition. I never was better pleased than whenat fourteen I was master of Boswell's Life of Johnson, which I had longbeen wishing to read. If my master had given me, instead of Boswell, aCritical Pronouncing Dictionary, or a Geographical Class book, I shouldhave been much less gratified by my success. "

The idea had been started of paying authors to write books in thelanguages of the country. On this Macaulay remarks

"To hire four or five people to make a literature is a course whichnever answered and never will answer, in any part of the world. Languages grow. They cannot be built. We are now following the slow butsure course on which alone we can depend for a supply of good books inthe vernacular languages of India. We are attempting to raise up a largeclass of enlightened natives. I hope that, twenty years hence, therewill be hundreds, nay thousands, of natives familiar with the bestmodels of composition, and well acquainted with Western science. Amongthem some persons will be found who will have the inclination and theability to exhibit European knowledge in the vernacular dialects. ThisI believe to be the only way in which we can raise up a good vernacularliterature in this country. "

These hopeful anticipations have been more than fulfilled. Twice twentyyears have brought into existence, not hundreds or thousands, buthundreds of thousands, of natives who can appreciate European knowledgewhen laid before them in the English language, and can reproduce it intheir own. Taking one year with another, upwards of a thousand works ofliterature and science are published annually in Bengal alone, andat least four times that number throughout the entire continent. Ourcolleges have more than six thousand students on their books, and twohundred thousand boys are receiving a liberal education in schools ofthe higher order. For the improvement of the mass of the people, nearlyseven thousand young men are in training as Certificated Masters. Theamount allotted in the budget to the item of Public Instruction hasincreased more than seventy-fold since 1835; and is largely supplementedby the fees which parents of all classes willingly contribute when oncethey have been taught the value of a commodity the demand for which iscreated by the supply. During many years past the generosity of wealthynatives has to a great extent been diverted from the idle extravaganceof pageants and festivals, to promote the intellectual advancement oftheir fellow-countrymen. On several different occasions, at a singlestroke of the pen, our Indian universities have been endowed with twice, three times, four times the amount of the slender sum which Macaulayhad at his command. But none the less was he the master-engineer, whoseskill and foresight determined the direction of the channels, alongwhich this stream of public and private munificence was to flow for theregeneration of our Eastern Empire. 

It may add something to the merit of Macaulay's labours in the cause ofEducation that those labours were voluntary and unpaid; and voluntaryand unpaid likewise was another service which he rendered to India, notless durable than the first, and hardly less important. A clause in theAct of 1833 gave rise to the appointment of a Commission to inquire intothe jurisprudence and jurisdiction of our Eastern Empire. Macaulay, athis own instigation, was appointed President of that Commission. He hadnot been many months engaged in his new duties before he submitted aproposal, by the adoption of which his own industry and the high talentsof his colleagues, Mr. Cameron and Sir John Macleod, might be turned tothe best account by being employed in framing a Criminal Code for thewhole Indian Empire. "This Code, " writes Macaulay, "should not be a meredigest of existing usages and regulations, but should comprise all thereforms which the Commission may think desirable. It should be framedon two great principles, the principle of suppressing crime with thesmallest possible amount of suffering, and the principle of ascertainingtruth at the smallest possible cost of time and money. The Commissionersshould be particularly charged to study conciseness, as far as it isconsistent with perspicuity. In general, I believe, it will be foundthat perspicuous and concise expressions are not only compatible, butidentical. "

The offer was eagerly accepted, and the Commission fell to work. Theresults of that work did not show themselves quickly enough to satisfythe most practical, and, (to its credit be it spoken, ) the most exactingof Governments; and Macaulay was under the necessity of explaining andexcusing a procrastination, which was celerity itself as compared withany codifying that had been done since the days of Justinian. 

"During the last rainy season, --a season, I believe, peculiarlyunhealthy, --every member of the Commission, except myself, was whollyincapacitated for exertion. Mr. Anderson has been twice under thenecessity of leaving Calcutta, and has not, till very lately, beenable to labour with his accustomed activity. Mr. Macleod has been, tillwithin the last week or ten days, in so feeble a state that the smallesteffort seriously disordered him; and his health is so delicate that, admirably qualified as he is, by very rare talents, for the dischargeof his functions, it would be imprudent, in forming any prospectivecalculation, to reckon on much service from him. Mr. Cameron, of theimportance of whose assistance I need not speak, has been, during morethan four months, utterly unable to do any work, and has at length beencompelled to ask leave of absence, in order to visit the Cape for therecovery of his health. Thus, as the Governor-General has stated, Mr. Millett and myself have, during a considerable time, constituted thewhole effective strength of the Commission. Nor has Mr. Millett beenable to devote to the business of the Commission his whole undividedattention. 

"I must say that, even if no allowance be made for the untowardoccurrences which have retarded our progress, that progress cannotbe called slow. People who have never considered the importance anddifficulty of the task in which we are employed are surprised to findthat a Code cannot be spoken of extempore, or written like an articlein a magazine. I am not ashamed to acknowledge that there are severalchapters in the Code on which I have been employed for months; of whichI have changed the whole plan ten or twelve times; which contain not asingle word as it originally stood; and with which I am still very farindeed from being satisfied. I certainly shall not hurry on my shareof the work to gratify the childish impatience of the ignorant. Theircensure ought to be a matter of perfect indifference to men engaged ina task, on the right performance of which the welfare of millions may, during a long series of years, depend. The cost of the Commission isas nothing when compared with the importance of such a work. The timeduring which the Commission has sat is as nothing compared with the timeduring which that work will produce good, or evil, to India. 

"Indeed, if we compare the progress of the Indian Code with the progressof Codes under circumstances far more favourable, we shall find littlereason to accuse the Law Commission of tardiness. Buonaparte had at hiscommand the services of experienced jurists to any extent to which hechose to call for them; yet his legislation proceeded at a far slowerrate than ours. The French Criminal Code was begun, under the Consulate, in March 1801; and yet the Code of Criminal Procedure was not completedtill 1808, and the Penal Code not till 1810. The Criminal Codeof Louisiana was commenced in February 1821. After it had been inpreparation during three years and a half, an accident happened to thepapers which compelled Mr. Livingstone to request indulgence for anotheryear. Indeed, when I remember the slow progress of law reforms at home, and when I consider that our Code decides hundreds of questions, everyone of which, if stirred in England, would give occasion to voluminouscontroversy and to many animated debates, I must acknowledge that I aminclined to fear that we have been guilty rather of precipitation thanof delay. "

This Minute was dated the end of January, 1837; and in the course ofthe same year the Code appeared, headed by an Introductory Report in theshape of a letter to the Governor-General, and followed by an Appendixcontaining eighteen notes, each in itself an essay. The most readable ofall Digests, its pages are alive with illustrations drawn from history, from literature, and from the habits and occurrences of everyday life. The offence of fabricating evidence is exemplified by a case which mayeasily be recognised as that of Lady Macbeth and the grooms; ["A, afterwounding a person with a knife, goes into the room where Z is sleeping, smears Z's clothes with blood, and lays the knife under Z's pillow;intending not only that suspicion may thereby be turned away fronthimself, but also that Z may be convicted of voluntarily causinggrievous hurt. A is liable to punishment as a fabricator of falseevidence. "] and the offence of voluntary culpable homicide by animaginary incident of a pit covered with sticks and turf, whichirresistibly recalls a reminiscence of Jack the Giant-killer. Thechapters on theft and trespass establish the rights of book ownersas against book stealers, book borrowers, and book defacers, with anaffectionate precision which would have gladdened the heart of CharlesLamb or Sir Walter Scott. ["A, being on friendly terms with Z, goesinto Z's library, in Z's absence, and takes a book without Z's expressconsent. Here, it is probable that A may have conceived that he had Z'simplied consent to use Z's books. If this was A's impression, A has notcommitted theft. "

"A takes up a book belonging to Z, and reads it, not having any rightover the book, and not having the consent of any person entitled toauthorise A so to do. A trespasses. 

"A, being exasperated at a passage in a book which is lying on thecounter of Z, snatches it up, and tears it to pieces. A has notcommitted theft, as he has not acted fraudulently, though he mayhave committed criminal trespass and mischief. "] In the chapter onmanslaughter, the judge is enjoined to treat with lenity an act donein the first anger of a husband or father, provoked by the intolerableoutrage of a certain kind of criminal assault. "Such an assault producedthe Sicilian Vespers. Such an assault called forth the memorable blow ofWat Tyler. " And, on the question whether the severity of a hurt shouldbe considered in apportioning the punishment, we are reminded of"examples which are universally known. Harley was laid up more thantwenty days by the wound which he received from Guiscard;" while "thescratch which Damien gave to Louis the Fifteenth was so slight that itwas followed by no feverish symptoms. " Such a sanguine estimate of thediffusion of knowledge with regard to the details of ancient crimescould proceed from no pen but that of the writer who endowed schoolboyswith the erudition of professors, and the talker who, when he pouredforth the stores of his memory, began each of his disquisitions with thephrase, "don't you remember?"

If it be asked whether or not the Penal Code fulfils the ends for whichit was framed, the answer may safely be left to the gratitude of Indiancivilians, the younger of whom carry it about in their saddle-bags, andthe older in their heads. The value which it possesses in the eyes of atrained English lawyer may be gathered from the testimony of Macaulay'seminent successor, Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, who writes of it thus:

"In order to appreciate the importance of the Penal Code, it must beborne in mind what crime in India is. Here, in England, order is sothoroughly well established that the crime of the country is hardly morethan an annoyance. In India, if crime is allowed to let to a head, itis capable of destroying the peace and prosperity of whole tractsof country. The mass of the people in their common moods are gentle, submissive, and disposed to be innocent; but, for that very reason, boldand successful criminals are dangerous in the extreme. In old days, whenthey joined in gangs or organised bodies, they soon acquired politicalimportance. Now, in many parts of India, crime is quite as uncommonas in the least criminal parts of England; and the old high-handedsystematised crime has almost entirely disappeared. This greatrevolution (for it is nothing less) in the state of society of a wholecontinent has been brought about by the regular administration of arational body of criminal law. 

"The administration of criminal justice is entrusted to a verysmall number of English magistrates, organised according to acarefully-devised system of appeal and supervision which represents theexperience of a century. This system is not unattended by evils; but itis absolutely necessary to enable a few hundred civilians to govern acontinent. Persons in such a position must be provided with the plainestinstructions as to the nature of their duties. These instructions, inso far as the administration of criminal justice is concerned, arecontained in the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure. The Code of Criminal Procedure contains 541 sections, and forms apamphlet of 210 widely printed octavo pages. The Penal Code consists of510 sections. Pocket editions of these Codes are published, which may becarried about as easily as a pocket Bible; and I doubt whether, evenin Scotland, you would find many people who know their Bibles as Indiancivilians know their Codes. "

After describing the confusion and complication of the criminal law ofour Indian Empire before it was taken in hand by the Commission of 1834, Mr. Stephen proceeds to say:

"Lord Macaulay's great work was far too daring and original to beaccepted at once. It was a draft when he left India in 1838. Hissuccessors made remarks on it for twenty-two years. Those years werefilled with wars and rumours of wars. The Afghan disasters and triumphs, the war in Central India, the wars with the Sikhs, Lord Dalhousie'sannexations, threw law reform into the background, and produced a stateof mind not very favourable to it. Then came the Mutiny, which in itsessence was the breakdown of an old system; the renunciation of anattempt to effect an impossible compromise between the Asiatic and theEuropean view of things, legal, military, and administrative. The effectof the Mutiny on the Statute-book was unmistakable. The Code of CivilProcedure was enacted in 1859. The Penal Code was enacted in 1860, andcame into operation on the 1st of January 1862. The credit of passingthe Penal Code into law, and of giving to every part of it theimprovements which practical skill and technical knowledge could bestow, is due to Sir Barnes Peacock, who held Lord Macaulay's place during themost anxious years through which the Indian Empire has passed. The Draftand the Revision are both eminently creditable to their authors; and theresult of their successive efforts has been to reproduce in a concise, and even beautiful, form the spirit of the law of England; the mosttechnical, the most clumsy, and the most bewildering of all systems ofcriminal law; though I think, if its principles are fully understood, itis the most rational. If anyone doubts this assertion, let him comparethe Indian Penal Code with such a book as Mr. Greaves's edition ofRussell on Crimes. The one subject of homicide, as treated by Mr. Greaves and Russell, is, I should think, twice as long as the wholePenal Code; and it does not contain a tenth part of the matter. "

"The point which always has surprised me most in connection withthe Penal Code is, that it proves that Lord Macaulay must have had aknowledge of English criminal law which, considering how little he hadpractised it, may fairly be called extraordinary. [Macaulay's practiceat the bar had been less than little, according to an account which hegave of it at a public dinner: "My own forensic experience, gentlemen, has been extremely small; for my only recollection of an achievementthat way is that at quarter sessions I once convicted a boy of stealinga parcel of cocks and hens. "] He must have possessed the gift of goingat once to the very root of the matter, and of sifting the corn from thechaff to a most unusual degree; for his Draft gives the substance ofthe criminal law of England, down to its minute working details, ina compass which, by comparison with the original, may be regarded asalmost absurdly small. The Indian Penal Code is to the English criminallaw what a manufactured article ready for use is to the materials out ofwhich it is made. It is to the French 'Code Penal, ' and, I may add, tothe North German Code of 1871, what a finished picture is to a sketch. It is far simpler, and much better expressed, than Livingstone's Codefor Louisiana; and its practical success has been complete. The clearestproof of this is that hardly any questions have arisen upon it whichhave had to be determined by the courts; and that few and slightamendments have had to be made in it by the Legislature. "

Without troubling himself unduly about the matter, Macaulay wasconscious that the world's estimate of his public services would beinjuriously affected by the popular notion, which he has described as"so flattering to mediocrity, " that a great writer cannot be a greatadministrator; and it is possible that this consciousness had somethingto do with the heartiness and fervour which he threw into his defenceof the author of "Cato" against the charge of having been an inefficientSecretary of State. There was much in common between his own lotand that of the other famous essayist who had been likewise a Whigstatesman; and this similarity in their fortunes may account in part forthe indulgence, and almost tenderness, with which he reviewed the careerand character of Addison. Addison himself, at his villa in Chelsea, andstill more amidst the gilded slavery of Holland House, might have enviedthe literary seclusion, ample for so rapid a reader, which the usages ofIndian life permitted Macaulay to enjoy. "I have a very pretty garden, "he writes, "not unlike our little grass-plot at Clapham, but larger. It consists of a fine sheet of turf, with a gravel walk round it, andflower-beds scattered over it. It looks beautiful just now after therains, and I hear that it keeps its verdure during a great part of theyear. A flight of steps leads down from my library into the garden, andit is so well shaded that you may walk there till ten o'clock in themorning. "

Here, book in hand, and in dressing-gown and slippers, he would spendthose two hours after sun-rise which Anglo-Indian gentlemen devoteto riding, and Anglo-Indian ladies to sleeping off the arrears of thesultry night. Regularly, every morning, his studies were broken in uponby the arrival of his baby niece, who came to feed the crows with thetoast which accompanied his early cup of tea; a ceremony during whichhe had much ado to protect the child from the advances of a multitude ofbirds, each almost as big as herself, which hopped and fluttered roundher as she stood on the steps of the verandah. When the sun drove himindoors, (which happened sooner than he had promised himself, before hehad learned by experience what the hot season was, ) he went to his bathand toilette, and then to breakfast; "at which we support nature underthe exhausting effects of the climate by means of plenty of eggs, mango-fish, snipe-pies, and frequently a hot beefsteak. My cook isrenowned through Calcutta for his skill. He brought me attestations ofa long succession of gourmands, and among them one from Lord Dalhousie, who pronounced him decidedly the first artist in Bengal. [LordDalhousie, the father of the Governor-General, was Commander-In-Chiefin India during the years 1830 and 1831. ] This great man, and his twoassistants, I am to have for thirty rupees a month. While I am on thesubject of the cuisine, I may as well say all that I have to say aboutit at once. The tropical fruits are wretched. The best of them isinferior to our apricot or gooseberry. When I was a child, I had anotion of its being the most exquisite of treats to eat plantains andyams, and to drink palm-wine. How I envied my father for having enjoyedthese luxuries! I have now enjoyed them all, and I have found like muchgreater men on much more important occasions, that all is vanity. Aplantain is very like a rotten pear, --so like that I would lay twenty toone that a person blindfolded would not discover the difference. A yamis better. It is like an indifferent potato. I tried palm-wine at apretty village near Madras, where I slept one night. I told CaptainBarron that I had been curious to taste that liquor ever since I firstsaw, eight or nine and twenty years ago, the picture of the negroclimbing the tree in Sierra Leone. The next morning I was roused by aservant, with a large bowl of juice fresh from the tree. I drank it, andfound it very like ginger-beer in which the ginger has been sparinglyused. "

Macaulay necessarily spent away from home the days on which the SupremeCouncil, or the Law Commission, held their meetings; but the rest of hiswork, legal, literary, and educational, he carried on in the quiet ofhis library. Now and again, a morning was consumed in returning calls, an expenditure of time which it is needless to say that he sorelygrudged. "Happily, the good people here are too busy to be at home. Except the parsons, they are all usefully occupied somewhere or other, so that I have only to leave cards; but the reverend gentlemen arealways within doors in the heat of the day, lying on their backs, regretting breakfast, longing for tiffin, and crying out for lemonade. "After lunch he sate with Mrs. Trevelyan, translating Greek or readingFrench for her benefit; and Scribe's comedies and Saint Simon's Memoirsbeguiled the long languid leisure of the Calcutta afternoon, while thepunkah swung overhead, and the air came heavy and scented through themoistened grass-matting which shrouded the windows. At the approach ofsunset, with its attendant breeze, he joined his sister in her drivealong the banks of the Hooghly; and they returned by starlight, --toooften to take part in a vast banquet of forty guests, dressed asfashionably as people can dress at ninety degrees East from Paris; who, one and all, had far rather have been eating their curry, and drinkingtheir bitter beer, at home, in all the comfort of muslin and nankeen. Macaulay is vehement in his dislike of "those great formal dinners, which unite all the stiffness of a levee to all the disorder anddiscomfort of a two-shilling ordinary. Nothing can be duller. Nobodyspeaks except to the person next him. The conversation is the mostdeplorable twaddle, and, as I always sit next to the lady of the highestrank, or, in other words, to the oldest, ugliest, and proudest woman inthe company, I am worse off than my neighbours. "

Nevertheless he was far too acute a judge of men to undervalue thespecial type of mind which is produced and fostered by the influences ofan Indian career. He was always ready to admit that there is no bettercompany in the world than a young and rising civilian; no one who hasmore to say that is worth hearing, and who can say it in a manner betteradapted to interest those who know good talk from bad. He delighted inthat freedom from pedantry, affectation, and pretension which is one ofthe most agreeable characteristics of a service, to belong to whichis in itself so effectual an education, that a bore is a phenomenonnotorious everywhere within a hundred miles of the station which has thehonour to possess him, and a fool is quoted by name throughout all thethree Presidencies. Macaulay writes to his sisters at home: "The bestway of seeing society here is to have very small parties. There isa little circle of people whose friendship I value, and in whoseconversation I take pleasure: the Chief Justice, Sir Edward Ryan; my oldfriend, Malkin; Cameron and Macleod, the Law Commissioners; Macnaghten, among the older servants of the Company, and Mangles, Colvin, and JohnPeter Grant among the younger. [It cannot be said that all the claimsmade upon Macaulay's friendship were acknowledged as readily as thoseof Sir Benjamin Malkin. "I am dunned unmercifully by place-hunters. Theoddest application that I have received is from that rascal --, who issomewhere in the interior. He tells me he is sure that prosperity hasnot changed me; that I am still the same John Macaulay who was hisdearest friend, his more than brother; and that he means to come up, andlive with me at Calcutta. If he fulfils his intention, I will have himtaken before the police-magistrates. "] These, in my opinion, are theflower of Calcutta society, and I often ask some of them to a quietdinner. " On the Friday of every week, these chosen few met roundMacaulay's breakfast table to discuss the progress which the LawCommission had made in its labours; and each successive point whichwas started opened the way to such a flood of talk, --legal, historical, political, and personal, --that the company would sit far on towardsnoon over the empty teacups, until an uneasy sense of accumulatingdespatch-boxes drove them, one by one, to their respective offices. 

There are scattered passages in these letters which prove thatMacaulay's feelings, during his protracted absence from his nativecountry, were at times almost as keen as those which racked the breastof Cicero, when he was forced to exchange the triumphs of the Forum, and the cozy suppers with his brother augurs, for his hateful placeof banishment at Thessalonica, or his hardly less hateful seat ofgovernment at Tarsus. The complaints of the English statesman do not, however, amount in volume to a fiftieth part of those reiterated outpourings of lachrymose eloquence with which the Roman philosopherbewailed an expatriation that was hardly one-third as long. "I have nowords, " writes Macaulay, very much under-estimating the wealth of hisown vocabulary, "to tell you how I pine for England, or how intenselybitter exile has been to me, though I hope that I have borne it well. Ifeel as if I had no other wish than to see my country again and die. Letme assure you that banishment is no light matter. No person can judge ofit who has not experienced it. A complete revolution in all the habitsof life; an estrangement from almost every old friend and acquaintance;fifteen thousand miles of ocean between the exile and everything thathe cares for; all this is, to me at least, very trying. There is notemptation of wealth, or power, which would induce me to go through itagain. But many people do not feel as I do. Indeed, the servants of theCompany rarely have such a feeling; and it is natural that they shouldnot have it, for they are sent out while still schoolboys, and when theyknow little of the world. The moment of emigration is to them also themoment of emancipation; and the pleasures of liberty and affluence to agreat degree compensate them for the loss of their home. In a few yearsthey become orientalised, and, by the time that they are of my age, theywould generally prefer India, as a residence, to England. But it is avery different matter when a man is transplanted at thirty-three. "

Making, as always, the best of everything, he was quite ready to allowthat he might have been placed in a still less agreeable situation. Inthe following extract from a letter to his friend, Mrs. Drummond, thereis much which will come home to those who are old enough to remember howvastly the Dublin of 1837 differed, for the worse, from the Dublin of1875, "It now seems likely that you may remain in Ireland for years. I cannot conceive what has induced you to submit to such an exile. I declare, for my own part, that, little as I love Calcutta, I wouldrather stay here than be settled in the Phoenix Park. The last residencewhich I would choose would be a place with all the plagues, and none ofthe attractions, of a capital; a provincial city on fire with factionspolitical and religious, peopled by raving Orangemen and ravingRepealers, and distracted by a contest between Protestantism asfanatical as that of Knot and Catholicism as fanatical as that ofBonner. We have our share of the miseries of life in this country. We are annually baked four months, boiled four more, and allowed theremaining four to become cool if we can. At this moment, the sun isblazing like a furnace. The earth, soaked with oceans of rain, issteaming like a wet blanket. Vegetation is rotting all round us. Insectsand undertakers are the only living creatures which seem to enjoy theclimate. But, though our atmosphere is hot, our factions are lukewarm. Abad epigram in a newspaper, or a public meeting attended by a tailor, a pastry-cook, a reporter, two or three barristers, and eight or tenattorneys, are our most formidable annoyances. We have agitators inour own small way, Tritons of the minnows, bearing the same sort ofresemblance to O'Connell that a lizard bears to an alligator. ThereforeCalcutta for me, in preference to Dublin. "

He had good reason for being grateful to Calcutta, and still better fornot showing his gratitude by prolonging his stay there over a fourthsummer and autumn. "That tremendous crash of the great commercial houseswhich took place a few years ago has produced a revolution in fashions. It ruined one half of the English society in Bengal, and seriouslyinjured the other half. A large proportion of the most importantfunctionaries here are deeply in debt, and accordingly, the mode ofliving is now exceedingly quiet and modest. Those immense subscriptions, those public tables, those costly equipages and entertainments of whichHeber, and others who saw Calcutta a few years back, say so much, are never heard of. Speaking for myself, it was a great piece of goodfortune that I came hither just at the time when the general distresshad forced everybody to adopt a moderate way of living. Owing very muchto that circumstance, (while keeping house, I think, more handsomelythan any other member of Council, ) I have saved what will enable meto do my part towards making my family comfortable; and I shall have acompetency for myself, small indeed, but quite sufficient to renderme as perfectly independent as if I were the possessor of Burleigh orChatsworth. " [Macaulay writes to Lord Mahon on the last day of December1836: "In another year I hope to leave this country, with a fortunewhich you would think ridiculously small, but which will make me asindependent as if I had all that Lord Westminster has above the ground, and Lord Durham below it. I have no intention of again taking part inpolitics; but I cannot tell what effect the sight of the old Hall andAbbey may produce on me. "]

"The rainy season of 1837 has been exceedingly unhealthy. Our house hasescaped as well as any; yet Hannah is the only one of us who has comeoff untouched. The baby has been repeatedly unwell. Trevelyan hassuffered a good deal, and is kept right only by occasional trips in asteamer down to the mouth of the Hooghly. I had a smart touch of fever, which happily stayed but an hour or two, and I took such vigorousmeasures that it never came again; but I remained unnerved and exhaustedfor nearly a fortnight. This was my first, and I hope my last, taste ofIndian maladies. It is a happy thing for us all that we are not to passanother year in the reek of this deadly marsh. " Macaulay wisely declinedto set the hope of making another lac of rupees against the risk, tohimself and others of such a fate as subsequently befell Lord Canningand Mr. James Wilson. He put the finishing stroke to his variouslabours; resigned his seat in the Council, and his Presidentships of theLaw Commission and the Committee of Public Instruction; and, in companywith the Trevelyans, sailed for England in the first fortnight of theyear 1838. 

To Mr Thomas Flower Ellis. 

Calcutta: December 16, 1834. 

Dear Ellis, --Many thanks for your letter. It is delightful in thisstrange land to see the handwriting of such a friend. We must keep upour spirits. We shall meet, I trust, in little more than four years, with feelings of regard only strengthened by our separation. My spiritsare not bad; and they ought not to be bad. I have health; affluence;consideration; great power to do good; functions which, while they arehonourable and useful, are not painfully burdensome; leisure for study;good books; an unclouded and active mind; warm affections; and a verydear sister. There will soon be a change in my domestic arrangements. Mysister is to be married next week. Her lover, who is lover enough tobe a knight of the Round Table, is one of the most distinguished of ouryoung Civilians. 

I have the very highest opinion of his talents both for action and fordiscussion. Indeed, I should call him a man of real genius. He is also, what is even more important, a man of the utmost purity of honour, ofa sweet temper, and of strong principle. His public virtue has gonethrough very severe trials, and has come out resplendent. Lord William, in congratulating me the other day, said that he thought my destinedbrother-in-law the ablest young man in the service. His name isTrevelyan. He is a nephew of Sir John Trevelyan, a baronet; in CornwallI suppose, by the name; for I never took the trouble to ask. 

He and my sister will live with me during my stay here. I have a houseabout as large as Lord Dudley's in Park Lane, or rather larger, sothat I shall accommodate them without the smallest difficulty. Thisarrangement is acceptable to me, because it saves me from the misery ofparting with my sister in this strange land; and is, I believe, equallygratifying to Trevelyan, whose education, like that of other Indianservants, was huddled up hastily at home; who has an insatiable thirstfor knowledge of every sort; and who looks on me as little less thanan oracle of wisdom. He came to me the other morning to know whetherI would advise him to keep up his Greek, which he feared he had nearlylost. I gave him Homer, and asked him to read a page; and I found that, like most boys of any talent who had been at the Charterhouse, he wasvery well grounded in that language. He read with perfect rapture, andhas marched off with the book, declaring that he shall never be contenttill he has finished the whole. This, you will think, is not a badbrother-in-law for a man to pick up in 22 degrees of North latitude, and100 degrees of East longitude. 

I read much, and particularly Greek; and I find that I am, in allessentials, still not a bad scholar. I could, I think, with a year'shard study, qualify myself to fight a good battle for a Craven'sscholarship. I read, however, not as I read at College, but like aman of the world. If I do not know a word, I pass it by unless it isimportant to the sense. If I find, as I have of late often found, apassage which refuses to give up its meaning at the second reading, Ilet it alone. I have read during the last fortnight, before breakfast, three books of Herodotus, and four plays of Aeschylus. My admiration ofAeschylus has been prodigiously increased by this reperusal. I cannotconceive how any person of the smallest pretension to taste should doubtabout his immeasurable superiority to every poet of antiquity, Homeronly excepted. Even Milton, I think, must yield to him. It is quiteunintelligible to me that the ancient critics should have placed himso low. Horace's notice of him in the Ars Poetica is quite ridiculous. There is, to be sure, the "magnum loqui;" but the great topic insistedon is the skill of Aeschylus as a manager, as a property-man; thejudicious way in which he boarded the stage; the masks, the buskins, andthe dresses. 

 ["Post hunc personae pallaeque repertor honestae Aeschylus et modicis instravit pulpita tignis, Et docuit magnumnque loqui, nitique cothuruo. "]

And, after all, the "magnum loqui, " though the most obviouscharacteristic of Aeschylus, is by no means his highest or his best. Norcan I explain this by saying that Horace had too tame and unimaginativea mind to appreciate Aeschylus. Horace knew what he could himself do, and, with admirable wisdom, he confined himself to that; but he seemsto have had a perfectly clear comprehension of the merit of thosegreat masters whom he never attempted to rival. He praised Pindar mostenthusiastically. It seems incomprehensible to me that a critic, whoadmired Pindar, should not admire Aeschylus far more. 

Greek reminds me of Cambridge and of Thirlwall. When you see Thirlwall, tell him that I congratulate him from the bottom of my soul on havingsuffered in so good a cause; and that I would rather have been treatedas he has been treated, on such an account, than have the Mastership ofTrinity. [The subjoined extract from the letter of a leading member ofTrinity College explains Macaulay's indignation. "Thirlwall published apamphlet in 1834, on the admission of Dissenters to the University. Theresult was that he was either deprived of his Assistant Tutorship or hadto give it up. Thirlwall left Cambridge soon afterwards. I supposethat, if he had remained, he would have been very possibly Wordsworth'ssuccessor in the Mastership. "] There would be some chance for theChurch, if we had more Churchmen of the same breed, worthy successors ofLeighton and Tillotson. 

From one Trinity Fellow I pass to another. (This letter is quite a studyto a metaphysician who wishes to illustrate the Law of Association. ) Wehave no official tidings yet of Malkin's appointment to the vacant seaton the Bench at Calcutta. I cannot tell you how delighted I am atthe prospect of having him here. An honest enlightened Judge, withoutprofessional narrowness, is the very man whom we want on public grounds. And, as to my private feelings, nothing could be more agreeable to methan to have an old friend, and so estimable a friend, brought so nearto me in this distant country. 

Ever, dear Ellis, Yours very affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY. 

Calcutta: February 8, 1835. 

Dear Ellis, --The last month has been the most painful that I ever wentthrough. Indeed, I never knew before what it was to be miserable. Earlyin January, letters from England brought me news of the death of myyoungest sister. What she was to me no words can express. I will not saythat she was dearer to me than anything in the world; for my sister whowas with me was equally dear; but she was as dear to me as one humanbeing can be to another. Even now, when time has begun to do its healingoffice, I cannot write about her without being altogether unmanned. ThatI have not utterly sunk under this blow I owe chiefly to literature. What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;--to be able toconverse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal! Many times duringthe last few weeks I have repeated to myself those fine lines of oldHesiod:

 ei gar tis kai penthos egon neokedei thumo aksetai kradien akakhemenos, autar aoidos mousaon therapon kleia proteron anthropon umnese, makaras te theous oi Olumpon ekhousi, aips oge dusphroneon epilethetai oude ti kedeon memnetai takheos de paretrape dora theaon. 

["For if to one whose grief is fresh as he sits silent withsorrow-stricken heart, a minstrel, the henchman of the Muses, celebratesthe men of old and the gods who possess Olympus; straightway he forgetshis melancholy, and remembers not at all his grief, beguiled by theblessed gift of the goddesses of song. " In Macaulay's Hesiod thispassage is scored with three lines in pencil. ]

I have gone back to Greek literature with a passion quite astonishingto myself. I have never felt anything like it. I was enraptured withItalian during the six months which I gave up to it; and I was littleless pleased with Spanish. But, when I went back to the Greek, I feltas if I had never known before what intellectual enjoyment was. Oh thatwonderful people! There is not one art, not one science, about which wemay not use the same expression which Lucretius has employed about thevictory over superstition, "Primum Graius homo--. "

I think myself very fortunate in having been able to return to thesegreat masters while still in the full vigour of life, and when my tasteand judgment are mature. Most people read all the Greek that they everread before they are five and twenty. They never find time for suchstudies afterwards till they are in the decline of life; and then theirknowledge of the language is in a great measure lost, and cannot easilybe recovered. Accordingly, almost all the ideas that people have ofGreek literature, are ideas formed while they were still very young. Ayoung man, whatever his genius may be, is no judge of such a writer asThucydides. I had no high opinion of him ten years ago. I have now beenreading him with a mind accustomed to historical researches, and topolitical affairs; and I am astonished at my own former blindness, andat his greatness. I could not bear Euripides at college. I now read myrecantation. He has faults undoubtedly. But what a poet! The Medea, theAlcestis, the Troades, the Bacchae, are alone sufficient to place him inthe very first rank. Instead of depreciating him, as I have done, I may, for aught I know, end by editing him. 

I have read Pindar, --with less pleasure than I feel in reading the greatAttic poets, but still with admiration. An idea occurred to me which mayvery likely have been noticed by a hundred people before. I was alwayspuzzled to understand the reason for the extremely abrupt transitionsin those Odes of Horace which are meant to be particularly fine. The"justum et tenacem" is an instance. All at once you find yourself inheaven, Heaven knows how. What the firmness of just men in times oftyranny, or of tumult, has to do with Juno's oration about Troy itis hardly possible to conceive. Then, again, how strangely the fightbetween the Gods and the Giants is tacked on to the fine hymn to theMuses in that noble ode, "Descende coelo et die age tibia"! Thisalways struck me as a great fault, and an inexplicable one; for itis peculiarly alien from the calm good sense, and good taste, whichdistinguish Horace. 

My explanation of it is this. The Odes of Pindar were the acknowledgedmodels of lyric poetry. Lyric poets imitated his manner as closely asthey could; and nothing was more remarkable in his compositions than theextreme violence and abruptness of the transitions. This in Pindar wasquite natural and defensible. He had to write an immense number of poemson subjects extremely barren, and extremely monotonous. There could belittle difference between one boxing-match and another. Accordingly, he made all possible haste to escape from the immediate subject, and tobring in, by hook or by crook, some local description; some old legend;something or other, in short, which might be more susceptibleof poetical embellishment, and less utterly threadbare, than thecircumstances of a race or a wrestling-match. This was not the practiceof Pindar alone. There is an old story which proves that Simonides didthe same, and that sometimes the hero of the day was nettled at findinghow little was said about him in the Ode for which he was to pay. Thisabruptness of transition was, therefore, in the Greek lyric poets, afault rendered inevitable by the peculiarly barren and uniform natureof the subjects which they had to treat. But, like many other faultsof great masters, it appeared to their imitators a beauty; and a beautyalmost essential to the grander Ode. Horace was perfectly at liberty tochoose his own subjects, and to treat them after his own fashion. But heconfounded what was merely accidental in Pindar's manner with what wasessential; and because Pindar, when he had to celebrate a foolish ladfrom Aegina who had tripped up another's heels at the Isthmus, made allpossible haste to get away from so paltry a topic to the ancient heroesof the race of Aeacus, Horace took it into his head that he ought alwaysto begin as far from the subject as possible, and then arrive at it bysome strange and sudden bound. This is my solution. At least I canfind no better. The most obscure passage, --at least the strangestpassage, --in all Horace may be explained by supposing that he wasmisled by Pindar's example: I mean that odd parenthesis in the "QualemMinistrum:"

 quibus Mos unde deductus per omne--. 

This passage, taken by itself, always struck me as the harshest, queerest, and most preposterous digression in the world. But there areseveral things in Pindar very like it. [Orelli makes an observation, much to the same effect, in his note on this passage in his edition of1850. ]

You must excuse all this, for I labour at present under a suppression ofGreek, and am likely to do so for at least three years to come. Malkinmay be some relief; but I am quite unable to guess whether he means tocome to Calcutta. I am in excellent bodily health, and I am recoveringmy mental health; but I have been sorely tried. Money matters look well. My new brother-in-law and I are brothers in more than law. I am morecomfortable than I expected to be in this country; and, as to theclimate, I think it, beyond all comparison, better than that of theHouse of Commons. 

Yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY. 

Writing three days after the date of the foregoing letter, Macaulaysays to his old friend Mr. Sharp: "You see that my mind is not in greatdanger of rusting. The danger is that I may become a mere pedant. I feela habit of quotation growing on me; but I resist that devil, for suchit is, and it flees from me. It is all that I can do to keep Greek andLatin out of all my letters. Wise sayings of Euripides are even now atmy fingers' ends. If I did not maintain a constant struggle against thispropensity, my correspondence would resemble the notes to the 'Pursuitsof Literature. ' It is a dangerous thing for a man with a very strongmemory to read very much. I could give you three or four quotationsthis moment in support of that proposition; but I will bring the viciouspropensity under subjection, if I can. " [Many years later Macaulay wroteto my mother: "Dr. -- came, and I found him a very clever man; a littleof a coxcomb, but, I dare say, not the worse physician for that. He musthave quoted Horace and Virgil six times at least a propos of his medicalinquiries. Horace says, in a poem in which he jeers the Stoics, thateven a wise man is out of sort when 'pituita molesta est;' which is, being interpreted, 'when, his phlegm is troublesome. ' The Doctor thoughtit necessary to quote this passage in order to prove that phlegm istroublesome;--a proposition, of the truth of which, I will venture tosay, no man on earth is better convinced than myself. "]

Calcutta, May 29, 1835. 

Dear Ellis, --I am in great want of news. We know that the Toriesdissolved at the end of December, and we also know that they were beatentowards the end of February. [In November 1834 the King called SirRobert Peel to power; after having of his own accord dismissed the WhigMinistry. Parliament was dissolved, but the Tories did not succeed inobtaining a majority. After three months of constant and angry fighting, Peel was driven from office in April 1835. ] As to what passed in theinterval, we are quite in the dark. I will not plague you with commentson events which will have been driven out of your mind by other eventsbefore this reaches you, or with prophecies which may be falsifiedbefore you receive them. About the final issue I am certain. Thelanguage of the first great reformer is that which I should use in replyto the exultation of our Tories here, if there were any of them whocould understand it

 sebou, proseukhou thopte ton kratount aei emoi d'elasson Zeuos e meden melei. Drato krateito tonde ton brakhun khronon opes thelei daron gar ouk arksei theois

["Worship thou, adore, and flatter the monarch of the hour. To me Joveis of less account than nothing. Let him have his will, and his sceptre, for this brief season; for he will not long be the ruler of the Gods. "It is needless to say that poor William the Fourth was the Jove of theWhig Prometheus. ]

As for myself, I rejoice that I am out of the present storm. "Suave marimagno;" or, as your new Premier, if he be still Premier, construes. "Itis a source of melancholy satisfaction. " I may, indeed, feel the effectsof the changes here, but more on public than private grounds. A ToryGovernor-General is not very likely to agree with me about the veryimportant law reforms which I am about to bring before the Council. Buthe is not likely to treat me ill personally; or, if he does, all ou ti khairon, en tod orthothe Belos, ["It shall be to his cost, so long as this bow carries true. "]

as Philoctetes says. In a few months I shall have enough to enable me tolive, after my very moderate fashion, in perfect independence at home;and whatever debts any Governor-General may choose to lay on me atCalcutta shall be paid off, he may rely on it, with compound interest, at Westminster. 

My time is divided between public business and books. I mix with societyas little as I can. My spirits have not yet recovered, --I sometimesthink that they will never wholly recover, --the shock which theyreceived five months ago. I find that nothing soothes them so much asthe contemplation of those miracles of art which Athens has bequeathedto us. I am really becoming, I hope not a pedant, but certainly anenthusiast about classical literature. I have just finished a secondreading of Sophocles. I am now deep in Plato, and intend to go rightthrough all his works. His genius is above praise. Even where he is mostabsurd, --as, for example, in the Cratylus, --he shows an acuteness, andan expanse of intellect, which is quite a phenomenon by itself. Thecharacter of Socrates does not rise upon me. The more I read about him, the less I wonder that they poisoned him. If he had treated me as heis said to have treated Protagoras, Hippias, and Gorgias, I could neverhave forgiven him. 

Nothing has struck me so much in Plato's dialogues as the raillery. At college, somehow or other, I did not understand or appreciate it. Icannot describe to you the way in which it now tickles me. I often sinkforward on my huge old Marsilius Ficinus in a fit of laughter. I shouldsay that there never was a vein of ridicule so rich, at the same time sodelicate. It is superior to Voltaire's; nay, to Pascal's. Perhaps thereare one or two passages in Cervantes, and one or two in Fielding, thatmight give a modern reader a notion of it. 

I have very nearly finished Livy. I never read him through before. Iadmire him greatly, and would give a quarter's salary to recover thelost Decades. While I was reading the earlier books I went againthrough Niebuhr. And I am sorry to say that, having always been a littlesceptical about his merits, I am now a confirmed unbeliever. I do not ofcourse mean that he has no merit. He was a man of immense learning, andof great ingenuity. But his mind was utterly wanting in the facultyby which a demonstrated truth is distinguished from a plausiblesupposition. He is not content with suggesting that an event may havehappened. He is certain that it happened, and calls on the reader to becertain too, (though not a trace of it exists in any record whatever, )because it would solve the phenomena so neatly. Just read over again, ifyou have forgotten it, the conjectural restoration of the Inscription inpage 126 of the second volume; and then, on your honour as a scholar anda man of sense, tell me whether in Bentley's edition of Milton there isanything which approaches to the audacity of that emendation. Niebuhrrequires you to believe that some of the greatest men in Rome wereburned alive in the Circus; that this event was commemorated by aninscription on a monument, one half of which is sill in existence; butthat no Roman historian knew anything about it; and that all traditionof the event was lost, though the memory of anterior events much lessimportant has reached our time. When you ask for a reason, he tells youplainly that such a thing cannot be established by reason; that he issure of it; and that you must take his word. This sort of intellectualdespotism always moves me to mutiny, and generates a disposition topull down the reputation of the dogmatist. Niebuhr's learning wasimmeasurably superior to mine; but I think myself quite as good a judgeof evidence as he was. I might easily believe him if he told me thatthere were proofs which I had never seen; but, when he produces all hisproofs, I conceive that I am perfectly competent to pronounce on theirvalue. 

As I turned over his leaves just now, I lighted on another instanceof what I cannot but call ridiculous presumption. He says that Martialcommitted a blunder in making the penultimate of Porsena short. Strangethat so great a scholar should not know that Horace had done so too!

Minacis aut Etrusca Porsenae manus. 

There is something extremely nauseous to me in a German Professortelling the world, on his own authority, and without giving the smallestreason, that two of the best Latin poets were ignorant of the quantityof a word which they must have used in their exercises at school ahundred times. 

As to the general capacity of Niebuhr for political speculations, let him be judged by the Preface to the Second Volume. He there says, referring to the French Revolution of July 1830, that "unless Godsend us some miraculous help, we have to look forward to a period ofdestruction similar to that which the Roman world experienced about themiddle of the third century. " Now, when I see a man scribble such abjectnonsense about events which are passing under our eyes, what confidencecan I put in his judgment as to the connection of causes and effects intimes very imperfectly known to us. 

But I must bring my letter, or review, to a close. Remember me mostkindly to your wife. Tell Frank that I mean to be a better scholar thanhe when I come back, and that he must work hard if he means to overtakeme. 

Ever, dear Ellis, Your affectionate friend

T. B. MACAULAY. 

Calcutta: August 25, 1835. 

Dear Ellis, --Cameron arrived here about a fortnight ago, and we are mostactively engaged in preparing a complete Criminal Code for India. He andI agree excellently. Ryan, the most liberal of Judges, lends us his bestassistance. I heartily hope, and fully believe, that we shall putthe whole Penal law, and the whole law of Criminal Procedure, into amoderately sized volume. I begin to take a very warm interest in thiswork. It is, indeed, one of the finest employments of the intellect thatit is easy to conceive. I ought, however, to tell you that, the moreprogress I make as a legislator, the more intense my contempt for themere technical study of law becomes. 

I am deep in the examination of the political theories of the oldphilosophers. I have read Plato's Republic, and his laws; and I am nowreading Aristotle's Politics; after which I shall go through Plato's twotreatises again. I every now and then read one of Plutarch's Lives onan idle afternoon; and in this way I have got through a dozen of them. Ilike him prodigiously. He is inaccurate, to be sure, and a romancer;but he tells a story delightfully, and his illustrations and sketchesof character are as good as anything in ancient eloquence. I have never, till now, rated him fairly. 

As to Latin, I am just finishing Lucan, who remains pretty much where hewas in my opinion; and I am busily engaged with Cicero, whose character, moral and intellectual, interests me prodigiously. I think that I seethe whole man through and through. But this is too vast a subject fora letter. I have gone through all Ovid's poems. I admire him; but I wastired to death before I got to the end. I amused myself one evening withturning over the Metamorphoses, to see if I could find any passage often lines which could, by possibility, have been written by Virgil. Whether I was in ill luck or no I cannot tell; but I hunted for halfan hour without the smallest success. At last I chanced to light on alittle passage more Virgilian, to my thinking, than Virgil himself. Tellme what you say to my criticism. It is part of Apollo's speech to thelaurel

 Semper habebunt Te coma, te citharae, te nostrae, laure, pharetrae Tu ducibus Latiis aderis, cum laeta triumphum Vox canet, et longas visent Capitolia pompas. Portibus Augustis cadem fidissima custos Ante fores stabis, mediamque tuebere quercum. 

As to other Latin writers, Sallust has gone sadly down in my opinion. Caesar has risen wonderfully. I think him fully entitled to Cicero'spraise. [In the dialogue "De Claris Oratoribus" Cicero makes Atticus saythat 'A consummate judge of style (who is evidently intended for Cicerohimself, ) pronounces Caesar's Latin to be the most elegant, with oneimplied exception, that had ever been heard in the Senate or the Forum'. Atticus then goes on to detail at full length a compliment which Caesarhad paid to Cicero's powers of expression; and Brutus declares withenthusiasm that such praise, coming from such a quarter, is worth morethan a Triumph, as Triumphs were then given; and inferior in valueonly to the honours which were voted to the statesman who had baffledCatiline. The whole passage is a model of self-glorification, exquisitein skill and finish. ] He has won the honour of an excellent historianwhile attempting merely to give hints for history. But what are theyall to the great Athenian? I do assure you that there is no prosecomposition in the world, not even the De Corona, which I place so highas the seventh book of Thucydides. It is the ne plus ultra of human art. I was delighted to find in Gray's letters the other day this query toWharton: "The retreat from Syracuse--Is it or is it not the finest thingyou ever read in your life?"

Did you ever read Athenaeus through? I never did; but I am meditatingan attack on him. The multitude of quotations looks very tempting; and Inever open him for a minute without being paid for my trouble. 

Yours very affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY. 

Calcutta: December 30, 1835, Dear Ellis, --What the end of the Municipal Reform Bill is to be I cannotconjecture. Our latest English intelligence is of the 15th of August. The Lords were then busy in rendering the only great service that Iexpect them ever to render to the nation; that is to say, in hasteningthe day of reckoning. [In the middle of August the Irish Tithe Bill wentup to the House of Lords, where it was destined to undergo a mutilationwhich was fatal to its existence. ] But I will not fill my paper withEnglish politics. 

I am in excellent health. So are my sister and brother-in-law, and theirlittle girl, whom I am always nursing; and of whom I am becoming fonderthan a wise man, with half my experience, would choose to be of anythingexcept himself. I have but very lately begun to recover my spirits. Thetremendous blow which fell on me at the beginning of this year has leftmarks behind it which I shall carry to my grave. Literature has saved mylife and my reason. Even now, I dare not, in the intervals of business, remain alone for a minute without a book in my hand. What my course oflife will be, when I return to England, is very doubtful. But I am morethan half determined to abandon politics, and to give myself wholly toletters; to undertake some great historical work, which may be at oncethe business and the amusement of my life; and to leave the pleasures ofpestiferous rooms, sleepless nights, aching heads, and diseased stomachsto Roebuck and to Praed. 

In England I might probably be of a very different opinion. But, in thequiet of my own little grass-plot, --when the moon, at its rising, findsme with the Philoctetes or the De Finibus in my hand, --I often wonderwhat strange infatuation leads men who can do something better tosquander their intellect, their health, their energy, on such subjectsas those which most statesmen are engaged in pursuing. I comprehendperfectly how a man who can debate, but who would make a veryindifferent figure as a contributor to an annual or a magazine, --such aman as Stanley, for example, --should take the only line by which hecan attain distinction. But that a man before whom the two paths ofliterature and politics lie open, and who might hope for eminencein either, should choose politics, and quit literature, seems to memadness. On the one side is health, leisure, peace of mind, the searchafter truth, and all the enjoyments of friendship and conversation. On the other side is almost certain ruin to the constitution, constantlabour, constant anxiety. Every friendship which a man may have, becomesprecarious as soon as he engages in politics. As to abuse, men soonbecome callous to it, but the discipline which makes them callous isvery severe. And for what is it that a man who might, if he chose, riseand lie down at his own hour, engage in any study, enjoy any amusement, and visit any place, consents to make himself as much a prisoner asif he were within the rules of the Fleet; to be tethered during elevenmonths of the year within the circle of half a mile round Charing Cross;to sit, or stand, night after night for ten or twelve hours, inhaling anoisome atmosphere, and listening to harangues of which nine-tenths arefar below the level of a leading article in a newspaper? For what isit that he submits, day after day, to see the morning break over theThames, and then totters home, with bursting temples, to his bed? Isit for fame? Who would compare the fame of Charles Townshend to that ofHume, that of Lord North to that of Gibbon, that of Lord Chatham to thatof Johnson? Who can look back on the life of Burke and not regret thatthe years which he passed in ruining his health and temper by politicalexertions were not passed in the composition of some great and durablework? Who can read the letters to Atticus, and not feel that Cicerowould have been an infinitely happier and better man, and a not lesscelebrated man, if he had left us fewer speeches, and more AcademicQuestions and Tusculan Disputations; if he had passed the time which hespent in brawling with Vatinius and Clodius in producing a historyof Rome superior even to that of Livy? But these, as I said, aremeditations in a quiet garden, situated far beyond the contagiousinfluence of English action. What I might feel if I again saw DowningStreet and Palace Yard is another question. I tell you sincerely mypresent feelings. 

I have cast up my reading account, and brought it to the end of the year1835. It includes December 1834; for I came into my house and unpackedmy books at the end of November 1834. During the last thirteen monthsI have read Aeschylus twice; Sophocles twice; Euripides once; Pindartwice; Callimachus; Apollonius Rhodius; Quintus Calaber; Theocritustwice; Herodotus; Thucydides; almost all Xenophon's works; almost allPlato; Aristotle's Politics, and a good deal of his Organon, besidesdipping elsewhere in him; the whole of Plutarch's Lives; about half ofLucian; two or three books of Athenaeus; Plautus twice; Terence twice;Lucretius twice; Catullus; Tibullus; Propertius; Lucan; Statius; SiliusItalicus; Livy; Velleius Paterculus; Sallust; Caesar; and, lastly, Cicero. I have, indeed, still a little of Cicero left; but I shallfinish him in a few days. I am now deep in Aristophanes and Lucian. Of Aristophanes I think as I always thought; but Lucian has agreeablysurprised me. At school I read some of his Dialogues of the Dead when Iwas thirteen; and, to my shame, I never, to the best of my belief, reada line of him since. I am charmed with him. His style seems to me to besuperior to that of any extant writer who lived later than the age ofDemosthenes and Theophrastus. He has a most peculiar and deliciousvein of humour. It is not the humour of Aristophanes; it is not that ofPlato; and yet it is akin to both; not quite equal, I admit, to either, but still exceedingly charming. I hardly know where to find an instanceof a writer, in the decline of a literature, who has shown an inventionso rich, and a taste so pure. But, if I get on these matters, I shallfill sheet after sheet. They must wait till we take another long walk, or another tavern dinner, together; that is, till the summer of 1838. 

I had a long story to tell you about a classical examination here; but Ihave not time. I can only say that some of the competitors tried to readthe Greek with the papers upside down; and that the great man of theexamination, the Thirlwall of Calcutta, a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, translated the words of Theophrastus, osas leitourgiasleleitroupgeke "how many times he has performed divine service. " ["Howmany public services he had discharged at his own expense. " Macaulayused to say that a lady who dips into Mr. Grote's history, and learnsthat Alcibiades won the heart of his fellow-citizens by the novelty ofhis theories and the splendour of his liturgies, may get a very falsenotion of that statesman's relations with the Athenian public. ]

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY. 

That the enormous list of classical works recorded in the foregoingletter was not only read through, but read with care, is proved by thepencil marks, single, double, and treble, which meander down the marginof such passages as excited the admiration of the student; and by theremarks, literary, historical, and grammatical, with which the critichas interspersed every volume, and sometimes every page. In the caseof a favourite writer, Macaulay frequently corrects the errors of thepress, and even the punctuation, as minutely as if he were preparingthe book for another edition. He read Plautus, Terence, and Aristophanesfour times through at Calcutta; and Euripides thrice. [See the Appendixat the end. ] In his copy of Quintus Calaber, (a versifier who is lessunknown by the title of Quintus Smyrnaeus, ) appear the entries, "September 22, 1833. " "Turned over, July 13, 1837. "

It may be doubted whether the Pandects would have attained the celebritywhich they enjoy, if, in the course of the three years during whichJustinian's Law Commission was at work, the president Tribonian had readQuintus Smyrnaeus twice. 

Calcutta; May 30, 1836. 

Dear Ellis, --I have just received your letter dated December, 28; Howtime flies! Another hot season has almost passed away, and we are dailyexpecting the beginning of the rains. Cold season, hot season, andrainy season are all much the same to me. I shall have been two years onIndian ground in less than a fortnight, and I have not taken ten grainsof solid, or a pint of liquid, medicine during the whole of that time. If I judged only from my own sensations, I should say that this climateis absurdly maligned; but the yellow, spectral, figures which surroundme serve to correct the conclusions which I should be inclined to drawfrom the state of my own health. 

One execrable effect the climate produces. It destroys all the works ofman with scarcely one exception. Steel rusts; razors lose their edge;thread decays; clothes fall to pieces; books moulder away, and drop outof their bindings; plaster cracks; timber rots; matting is in shreds. The sun, the steam of this vast alluvial tract, and the infinite armiesof white ants, make such havoc with buildings that a house requiresa complete repair every three years. Ours was in this situation aboutthree months ago; and, if we had determined to brave the rains withoutany precautions, we should, in all probability, have had the roof downon our heads. Accordingly we were forced to migrate for six weeks fromour stately apartments and our flower-beds, to a dungeon where we werestifled with the stench of native cookery, and deafened by the noiseof native music. At last we have returned to our house. We found itall snow-white and pea-green; and we rejoice to think that we shall notagain be under the necessity of quitting it, till we quit it for a shipbound on a voyage to London. 

We have been for some months in the middle of what the people here thinka political storm. To a person accustomed to the hurricanes of Englishfaction this sort of tempest in a horsepond is merely ridiculous. We have put the English settlers up the country under the exclusivejurisdiction of the Company's Courts in civil actions in which they areconcerned with natives. The English settlers are perfectly contented;but the lawyers of the Supreme Court have set up a yelp which they thinkterrible, and which has infinitely diverted me. They have selected me asthe object of their invectives, and I am generally the theme of fiveor six columns of prose and verse daily. I have not patience to reada tenth part of what they put forth. The last ode in my praise which Iperused began, "Soon we hope they will recall ye, Tom Macaulay, Tom Macaulay. "

The last prose which I read was a parallel between me and LordStrafford. 

My mornings, from five to nine, are quite my own. I still give themto ancient literature. I have read Aristophanes twice through sinceChristmas; and have also read Herodotus, and Thucydides again. I gotinto a way last year of reading a Greek play every Sunday. I began onSunday the 18th of October with the Prometheus, and next Sunday I shallfinish with the Cyclops of Euripides. Euripides has made a completeconquest of me. It has been unfortunate for him that we have so manyof his pieces. It has, on the other hand, I suspect, been fortunate forSophocles that so few of his have come down to us. Almost every play ofSophocles, which is now extant, was one of his masterpieces. Thereis hardly one of them which is not mentioned with high praise by someancient writer. Yet one of them, the Trachiniae, is, to my thinking, very poor and insipid. Now, if we had nineteen plays of Sophocles, ofwhich twelve or thirteen should be no better than the Trachiniae, --andif, on the other hand, only seven pieces of Euripides had come down tous, and if those seven had been the Medea, the Bacchae, the Iphigenia inAulis, the Orestes, the Phoenissae, the Hippolytus, and the Alcestis, Iam not sure that the relative position which the two poets now hold inour estimation would not be greatly altered. 

I have not done much in Latin. I have been employed in turning overseveral third-rate and fourth-rate writers. After finishing Cicero, Iread through the works of both the Senecas, father and son. There isa great deal in the Controversiae both of curious information, and ofjudicious criticism. As to the son, I cannot bear him. His style affectsme in something the same way with that of Gibbon. But Lucius Seneca'saffectation is even more rank than Gibbon's. His works are made up ofmottoes. There is hardly a sentence which might not be quoted; but toread him straightforward is like dining on nothing but anchovy sauce. I have read, as one does read such stuff, Valerius Maximus, AnnaeusFlorus, Lucius Ampelius, and Aurelius Victor. I have also gone throughPhaedrus. I am now better employed. I am deep in the Annals of Tacitus, and I am at the same time reading Suetonius. 

You are so rich in domestic comforts that I am inclined to envy you. Iam not, however, without my share. I am as fond of my little nieceas her father. I pass an hour or more every day in nursing her, andteaching her to talk. She has got as far as Ba, Pa, and Ma; which, asshe is not eight months old, we consider as proofs of a genius littleinferior to that of Shakespeare or Sir Isaac Newton. 

The municipal elections have put me in good spirits as to Englishpolitics. I was rather inclined to despondency. 

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY. 

Calcutta: July 25, 1836. 

My dear Ellis, --I have heard from you again, and glad I always am tohear from you. There are few things to which I look forward with morepleasure than to our meeting. It is really worth while to go intobanishment for a few years for the pleasure of going home again. Yetthat home will in some things be a different home--oh how different ahome!--from that to which I expected to return. But I will not stir upthe bitterness of sorrow which has at last subsided. 

You take interest, I see, in my Greek and Latin studies. I continue topursue them steadily and actively. I am now reading Demosthenes withinterest and admiration indescribable. I am slowly, at odd minutes, getting through the stupid trash of Diodorus. I have read throughSeneca, and an affected empty scribbler he is. I have read Tacitusagain, and, by the bye, I will tell you a curious circumstance relatingto that matter. In my younger days I always thought the Annals aprodigiously superior work to the History. I was surprised to find thatthe Annals seemed cold and poor to me on the last reading. I began tothink that I had overrated Tacitus. But, when I began the History, I wasenchanted, and thought more highly of him than ever. I went back to theAnnals, and liked them even better than the History. All at once theexplanation of this occurred to me. While I was reading the Annals Iwas reading Thucydides. When I began the History, I began the Hellenics. What made the Annals appear cold and poor to me was the intense interestwhich Thucydides inspired. Indeed, what colouring is there which wouldnot look tame when placed side by side with the magnificent light, andthe terrible shade, of Thucydides? Tacitus was a great man, but he wasnot up to the Sicilian expedition. When I finished Thucydides, andtook up Xenophon, the case was reversed. Tacitus had been a foil toThucydides. Xenophon was a foil to Tacitus. 

I have read Pliny the Younger. Some of the Epistles are interesting. Nothing more stupid than the Panegyric was ever preached in theUniversity church. I am reading the Augustan History, and Aulus Gellius. Aulus is a favourite of mine. I think him one of the best writers of hisclass. 

I read in the evenings a great deal of English, French, and Italian;and a little Spanish. I have picked up Portuguese enough to read Camoenswith care; and I want no more. I have adopted an opinion about theItalian historians quite different from that which I formerly held, andwhich, I believe, is generally considered as orthodox. I place Fra Paolodecidedly at the head of them, and next to him Davila, whom I take tobe the best modern military historian except Colonel Napier. Davila'sbattle of Ivry is worthy of Thucydides himself. Next to Davila I putGuicciardini, and last of all Machiavelli. But I do not think that youever read much Italian. 

The English poetry of the day has very few attractions for me. VanArtevelde is far the best specimen that I have lately seen. I do notmuch like Talfourd's Ion; but I mean to read it again. It containspretty lines; but, to my thinking, it is neither fish nor flesh. Thereis too much, and too little, of the antique about it. Nothing but themost strictly classical costume can reconcile me to a mythological plot;and Ion is a modern philanthropist, whose politics and morals have beenlearned from the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of UsefulKnowledge. 

I do not know whether the noise which the lawyers of the Supreme Courthave been raising against our legislative authority has reached, orwill reach, England. They held a public meeting, which ended, --or ratherbegan, continued, and ended, --in a riot; and ever since then the leadingagitators have been challenging each other, refusing each other'schallenges, libelling each other, swearing the peace against each other, and blackballing each other. Mr. Longueville Clarke, who aspires tobe the O'Connell of Calcutta, called another lawyer a liar. Thelast-mentioned lawyer challenged Mr. Longueville Clarke. Mr. LonguevilleClarke refused to fight, on the ground that his opponent had beenguilty of hugging attorneys. The Bengal Club accordingly blackballedLongueville. This, and some other similar occurrences, have made theopposition here thoroughly ridiculous and contemptible. They willprobably send a petition home; but, unless the House of Commons hasundergone a great change since 1833, they have no chance there. 

I have almost brought my letter to a close without mentioning the mostimportant matter about which I had to write. I dare say you have heardthat my uncle General Macaulay, who died last February, has left meL10, 000 This legacy, together with what I shall have saved by the end of1837, will make me quite a rich man; richer than I even wish to be as asingle man; and every day renders it more unlikely that I should marry. 

We have had a very unhealthy season; but sickness has not come near ourhouse. My sister, my brother-in-law, and their little child, are as wellas possible. As to me, I think that, as Buonaparte said of himself afterthe Russian campaign, J'ai le diable au corps. 

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY. 

To Macvey Napier, Esq. 

Calcutta: November 26, 1836. 

Dear Napier, --At last I send you an article of interminable length aboutLord Bacon. I hardly know whether it is not too long for an article in aReview; but the subject is of such vast extent that I could easily havemade the paper twice as long as it is. 

About the historical and political part there is no great probabilitythat we shall differ in opinion; but what I have said about Bacon'sphilosophy is widely at variance with what Dugald Stuart, andMackintosh, have said on the same subject. I have not your essay; norhave I read it since I read it at Cambridge, with very great pleasure, but without any knowledge of the subject. I have at present only a veryfaint and general recollection of its contents, and have in vain triedto procure a copy of it here. I fear, however, that, differing widelyas I do from Stewart and Mackintosh, I shall hardly agree with you. Myopinion is formed, not at second hand, like those of nine-tenths of thepeople who talk about Bacon; but after several very attentive perusalsof his greatest works, and after a good deal of thought. If I am in thewrong, my errors may set the minds of others at work, and may be themeans of bringing both them, and me, to a knowledge of the truth. Inever bestowed so much care on anything that I have written. There isnot a sentence in the latter half of the article which has not beenrepeatedly recast. I have no expectation that the popularity of thearticle will bear any proportion to the trouble which I have expendedon it. But the trouble has been so great a pleasure to me that I havealready been greatly overpaid. Pray look carefully to the printing. 

In little more than a year I shall be embarking for England, and Ihave determined to employ the four months of my voyage in masteringthe German language. I should be much obliged to you to send me out, as early as you can, so that they may be certain to arrive in time, thebest grammar, and the best dictionary, that can be procured; a GermanBible; Schiller's works; Goethe's works; and Niebuhr's History, both inthe original, and in the translation. My way of learning a language isalways to begin with the Bible, which I can read without a dictionary. After a few days passed in this way, I am master of all the commonparticles, the common rules of syntax, and a pretty large vocabulary. Then I fall on some good classical work. It was in this way that Ilearned both Spanish and Portuguese, and I shall try the same coursewith German. 

I have little or nothing to tell you about myself. My life has flowedaway here with strange rapidity. It seems but yesterday that I leftmy country; and I am writing to beg you to hasten preparations for myreturn. I continue to enjoy perfect health, and the little politicalsqualls which I have had to weather here are mere capfuls of wind to aman who has gone through the great hurricanes of English faction. 

I shall send another copy of the article on Bacon by another ship. 

Yours very truly

T. B. MACAULAY. 

Calcutta: November 28, 1836. 

Dear Napier, --There is an oversight in the article on Bacon which Ishall be much obliged to you to correct. I have said that Bacon did notdeal at all in idle rants "like those in which Cicero and Mr. Shandysought consolation for the loss of Tullia and of Bobby. " Nothing can, asa general remark, be more true, but it escaped my recollection that twoor three of Mr. Shandy's consolatory sentences are quoted from Bacon'sEssays. The illustration, therefore, is singularly unfortunate. Prayalter it thus; "in which Cicero vainly sought consolation for the lossof Tullia. " To be sure, it is idle to correct such trifles at a distanceof fifteen thousand miles. 

Yours ever

T. B. MACAULAY. 

From Lord Jeffrey to Macvey Napier, Esq. 

May 2, 1837. 

My dear N. , --What mortal could ever dream of cutting out the leastparticle of this precious work, to make it fit better into your Review?It would be worse than paring down the Pitt Diamond to fit the oldsetting of a Dowager's ring. Since Bacon himself, I do not know thatthere has been anything so fine. The first five or six pages are in alower tone, but still magnificent, and not to be deprived of a word. 

Still, I do not object to consider whether it might not be best to serveup the rich repast in two courses; and on the whole I incline to thatpartition. 120 pages might cloy even epicures, and would be sure tosurfeit the vulgar; and the biography and philosophy are so entirelydistinct, and of not very unequal length, that the division would notlook like a fracture. 

FRANCIS JEFFREY. 

In the end, the article appeared entire; occupying 104 pages of theReview; and accompanied by an apology for its length in the shape of oneof those editorial appeals to "the intelligent scholar, " and "the bestclass of our readers, " which never fail of success. 

The letters addressed to Zachary Macaulay are half filled with anecdotesof the nursery; pretty enough, but such as only a grandfather couldbe expected to read. In other respects, the correspondence is chieflyremarkable for the affectionate ingenuity with which the son selectssuch topics as would interest the father. 

Calcutta: October 12 1836. 

My dear Father, We were extremely gratified by receiving, a few daysago, a letter from you which, on the whole, gave a good account of yourhealth and spirits. The day after tomorrow is the first anniversary ofyour little grand-daughter's birthday. The occasion is to be celebratedwith a sort of droll puppet-show, much in fashion among the natives; anexhibition much in the style of Punch in England, but more dramatic andmore showy. All the little boys and girls from the houses of our friendsare invited, and the party will, I have no doubt, be a great deal moreamusing than the stupid dinners and routs with which the grown-up peoplehere kill the time. 

In a few months, --I hope, indeed, in a few weeks, --we shall send up thePenal Code to Government. We have got rid of the punishment of death, except in the case of aggravated treason and wilful murder. We shallalso get rid indirectly of everything that can properly be calledslavery in India. There will remain civil claims on particular peoplefor particular services, which claims may be enforced by civil action;but no person will be entitled, on the plea of being the master ofanother, to do anything to that other which it would be an offence to doto a free-man. 

Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. We find itdifficult, --indeed, in some places impossible, --to provide instructionfor all who want it. At the single town of Hoogly fourteen hundred boysare learning English. The effect of this education on the Hindoos isprodigious. No Hindoo, who has received an English education, everremains sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess itas matter of policy; but many profess themselves pure Deists, andsome embrace Christianity. It is my firm belief that, if our plans ofeducation are followed up, there will not be a single idolater amongthe respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this willbe effected without any efforts to proselytise; without the smallestinterference with religious liberty; merely by the natural operation ofknowledge and reflection. I heartily rejoice in the prospect. 

I have been a sincere mourner for Mill. He and I were on the best terms, and his services at the India House were never so much needed as at thistime. I had a most kind letter from him a few weeks before I heard ofhis death. He has a son just come out, to whom I have shown such littleattentions as are in my power. 

Within half a year after the time when you read this we shall be makingarrangements for our return. The feelings with which I look forward tothat return I cannot express. Perhaps I should be wise to continuehere longer, in order to enjoy during a greater number of months thedelusion, --for I know that it will prove a delusion, --of this delightfulhope. I feel as if I never could be unhappy in my own country; as ifto exist on English ground and among English people, seeing the oldfamiliar sights and hearing the sound of my mother tongue, would beenough for me. This cannot be; yet some days of intense happiness Ishall surely have; and one of those will be the day when I again see mydear father and sisters. 

Ever yours most affectionately T. B. MACAULAY. 

Calcutta: November 30, 1836. 

Dear Ellis, --How the months run away! Here is another cold season;morning fogs, cloth coats, green peas, new potatoes, and all theaccompaniments of a Bengal winter. As to my private life, it has glidedon, since I wrote to you last, in the most peaceful monotony. If it werenot for the books which I read, and for the bodily and mental growth ofmy dear little niece, I should have no mark to distinguish one part ofthe year from another. Greek and Latin, breakfast; business, an eveningwalk with a book, a drive after sunset, dinner, coffee, my bed, --thereyou have the history of a day. My classical studies go on vigorously. I have read Demosthenes twice, --I need not say with what delight andadmiration. I am now deep in Isocrates and from him I shall pass toLysias. I have finished Diodorus Siculus at last, after dawdling overhim at odd times ever since last March. He is a stupid, credulous, prosing old ass; yet I heartily wish that we had a good deal more ofhim. I have read Arrian's expedition of Alexander, together with QuintusCurtius. I have at stray hours read Longus's Romance and Xenophon'sEphesiaca; and I mean to go through Heliodorus, and Achilles Tatius, in the same way. Longus is prodigiously absurd; but there is often anexquisite prettiness in the style. Xenophon's Novel is the basest thingto be found in Greek. [Xenophon the Ephesian lived in the third orfourth century of the Christian era. At the end of his work Macaulay haswritten: "A most stupid worthless performance, below the lowest trash ofan English circulating library. " Achilles Tatius he disposes of withthe words "Detestable trash;" and the Aethiopics of Heliodorus, which heappears to have finished on Easter-day, 1837, he pronounces "The best ofthe Greek Romances, which is not saying much for it. "] It was discoveredat Florence, little more than a hundred years ago, by an English envoy. Nothing so detestable ever came from the Minerva Press. I have readTheocritus again, and like him better than ever. 

As to Latin, I made a heroic attempt on Pliny's Natural History; but Istuck after getting through about a quarter of it. I have read AmmianusMarcellinus, the worst written book in ancient Latin. The style woulddisgrace a monk of the tenth century; but Marcellinus has many of thesubstantial qualities of a good historian. I have gone through theAugustan history, and much other trash relating to the lower empire;curious as illustrating the state of society, but utterly worthless ascomposition. I have read Statius again and thought him as bad as ever. I really found only two lines worthy of a great poet in all the Thebais. They are these. What do you think of my taste?

 "Clamorem, bello qualis supremus apertis Urbibus, aut pelago jam descendente carina. "

I am now busy with Quintilian and Lucan, both excellent writers. Thedream of Pompey in the seventh book of the Pharsalia is a very noblepiece of writing. I hardly know an instance in poetry of so great aneffect produced by means so simple. There is something irresistiblypathetic in the lines

 "Qualis erat populi facies, clamorque faventum Olim cum juvenis--"

and something unspeakably solemn in the sudden turn which follows

 "Crastina dira quies--"

There are two passages in Lucan which surpass in eloquence anythingthat I know in the Latin language. One is the enumeration of Pompey'sexploits

 "Quod si tam sacro dignaris nomine saxum--"

The other is the character which Cato gives of Pompey, "Civis obit, inquit--"

a pure gem of rhetoric, without one flaw, and, in my opinion, notvery far from historical truth. When I consider that Lucan died attwenty-six, I cannot help ranking him among the most extraordinary menthat ever lived. 

[The following remarks occur at the end of Macaulay's copy of thePharsalia

August 30, 1835. 

"When Lucan's age is considered, it is impossible not to allow that thepoem is a very extraordinary one; more extraordinary, perhaps, than ifit had been of a higher kind; for it is more common for the imaginationto be in full vigour at an early time of life than for a young man toobtain a complete mastery of political and philosophical rhetoric. Iknow no declamation in the world, not even Cicero's best, which equalssome passages in the Pharsalia. As to what were meant for bold poeticalflights, --the sea-fight at Marseilles, the Centurion who is coveredwith wounds, the snakes in the Libyan desert, it is all as detestable asCibber's Birthday Odes. The furious partiality of Lucan takes away muchof the pleasure which his talents would otherwise afford. A poet whois, as has often been said, less a poet than a historian, should to acertain degree conform to the laws of history. The manner in which herepresents the two parties is not to be reconciled with the laws even offiction. The senators are demigods; Pompey, a pure lover of his country;Cato, the abstract idea of virtue; while Caesar, the finest gentleman, the most humane conqueror, and the most popular politician that Romeever produced, is a bloodthirsty ogre. If Lucan had lived, he wouldprobably have improved greatly. " "Again, December 9, 1836, "]

I am glad that you have so much business, and sorry that you have solittle leisure. In a few years you will be a Baron of the Exchequer; andthen we shall have ample time to talk over our favourite classics. ThenI will show you a most superb emendation of Bentley's in Ampelius, andI will give you unanswerable reasons for pronouncing that Gibbon wasmistaken in supposing that Quintus Curtius wrote under Gordian. 

Remember me most kindly to Mrs. Ellis. I hope that I shall find Frankwriting as good Alcaics as his father. 

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY. 

Calcutta: March 8, 1837. 

Dear Ellis, --I am at present very much worked, and have been so for along time past. Cameron, after being laid up for some months, sailed atChristmas for the Cape, where I hope his health will be repaired; forthis country can very ill spare him. However, we have almost broughtour great work to a conclusion. In about a month we shall lay before theGovernment a complete penal Code for a hundred millions of people, with a commentary explaining and defending the provisions of the text. Whether it is well, or ill, done heaven knows. I only know that it seemsto me to be very ill done when I look at it by itself; and well donewhen I compare it with Livingstone's Code, with the French Code, orwith the English statutes which have been passed for the purpose ofconsolidating and amending the Criminal Law. In health I am as wellas ever I was in my life. Time glides fast. One day is so like anotherthat, but for a habit which I acquired soon after I reached India ofpencilling in my books the date of my reading them, I should have hardlyany way of estimating the lapse of time. If I want to know when an eventtook place, I call to mind which of Calderon's plays, or of Plutarch'sLives, I was reading on that day. I turn to the book; find the date; andam generally astonished to see that, what seems removed from me by onlytwo or three months, really happened nearly a year ago. 

I intend to learn German on my voyage home, and I have indented largely, (to use our Indian official term), for the requisite books. People tellme that it is a hard language; but I cannot easily believe that there isa language which I cannot master in four months, by working ten hoursa day. I promise myself very great delight and information from Germanliterature; and, over and above, I feel a soft of presentiment, a kindof admonition of the Deity, which assures me that the final cause of myexistence, --the end for which I was sent into this vale of tears, --wasto make game of certain Germans. The first thing to be done in obedienceto this heavenly call is to learn German; and then I may perhaps try, asMilton says, "Frangere Saxonicas Britonum sub Marte phalanges. "

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY. 

The years which Macaulay spent in India formed a transition periodbetween the time when he kept no journal at all, and the time when thedaily portion of his journal was completed as regularly as the dailyportion of his History. Between 1834 and 1838, he contented himself withjotting down any circumstance that struck his fancy in the book which hehappened to have in hand. The records of his Calcutta life, written inhalf a dozen different languages, are scattered throughout the wholerange of classical literature from Hesiod to Macrobius. At the endof the eighty-ninth Epistle of Seneca we read: "April 11, 1836. Hodiepraemia distribui tois en to mouseio Sanskritiko neaniskois. [To-day Idistributed the prizes to the students of the Sanscrit College. "]

On the last page of the Birds of Aristophanes: "Jan. 16, 1836. Oipresbeis of papa ton Basileos ton Nepauliton eisegonto khthes esKalkouttan. " ["The ambassadors from the King of Nepaul entered Calcuttayesterday. " It may be observed that Macaulay wrote Greek with or withoutaccents, according to the humour, or hurry, of the moment. ]

On the first page of Theocrats: "March 20, 1835. Lord W. Bentinck sailedthis morning. "

On the last page of the "De Amicitia:" "March 5, 1836. Yesterday LordAuckland arrived at Government House, and was sworn in. "

Beneath an idyl of Moschus, of all places in the world, Macaulay notesthe fact of Peel being First Lord of the Treasury; and he finds space, between two quotations in Athenaeus, to commemorate a Ministerialmajority of 29 on the Second Reading of the Irish Church Bill. 

A somewhat nearer approach to a formal diary may be found in hisCatullus, which contains a catalogue of the English books that he readin the cold season of 1835-36; as for instance

 Gibbon's Answer to Davis. November 6 and 7 Gibbon on Virgil's VI Aeneid November 7 Whately's Logic November 15 Thirlwall's Greece November 22 Edinburgh Review November 29

And all this was in addition to his Greek and Latin studies, to hisofficial work, to the French that he read with his sister, and theunrecorded novels that he read to himself; which last would alone haveafforded occupation for two ordinary men, unless this month of Novemberwas different from every other month of his existence since the day thathe left Mr. Preston's schoolroom. There is something refreshing, amidstthe long list of graver treatises, to light upon a periodical entry of"Pikwikina"; the immortal work of a Classic who has had more readers ina single year than Statius and Seneca in all their eighteen centuriestogether. Macaulay turned over with indifference, and something ofdistaste, the earlier chapters of that modern Odyssey. The first touchwhich came home to him was Jingle's "Handsome Englishman?" In thatphrase he recognised a master; and, by the time that he landed inEngland, he knew his Pickwick almost as intimately as his Grandison. 

Calcutta: June 15, 1837

Dear Napier, --Your letter about my review of Mackintosh miscarried, vexatiously enough. I should have been glad to know what was thought ofmy performance among friends and foes; for here we have no informationon such subjects. The literary correspondents of the Calcutta newspapersseem to be penny-a-line risen, whose whole stock of literature comesfrom the conversations in the Green Room. 

My long article on Bacon has, no doubt, been in your hands some time. Inever, to the best of my recollection, proposed to review Hannah More'sLife or Works. If I did, it must have been in jest. She was exactlythe very last person in the world about whom I should choose to writea critique. She was a very kind friend to me from childhood. Her noticefirst called out my literary tastes. Her presents laid the foundationof my library. She was to me what Ninon was to Voltaire, --begging herpardon for comparing her to a bad woman, and yours for comparing myselfto a great man. She really was a second mother to me. I have a realaffection for her memory. I therefore could not possibly write about herunless I wrote in her praise; and all the praise which I could give toher writings, even after straining my conscience in her favour, would befar indeed from satisfying any of her admirers. 

I will try my hand on Temple, and on Lord Clive. Shaftesbury I shalllet alone. Indeed, his political life is so much connected with Temple'sthat, without endless repetition, it would be impossible for me tofurnish a separate article on each. Temple's Life and Works, the partwhich he took in the controversy about the ancients and moderns; theOxford confederacy against Bentley; and the memorable victory whichBentley obtained, will be good subjects. I am in training for this partof the subject, as I have twice read through the Phalaris controversysince I arrived in India. 

I have been almost incessantly engaged in public business since I sentoff the paper on Bacon; but I expect to have comparative leisureduring the short remainder of my stay here. The Penal Code of India isfinished, and is in the press. The illness of two of my colleagues threwthe work almost entirely on me. It is done, however; and I am not likelyto be called upon for vigorous exertion during the rest of my Indiancareer. 

Yours ever

T. B. MACAULAY. 

If you should have assigned Temple, or Clive, to anybody else, pray donot be uneasy on that account. The pleasure of writing pays itself. 

Calcutta: December 18, 1837. 

Dear Ellis, --My last letter was on a deeply melancholy subject, thedeath of our poor friend Malkin. I have felt very much for his widow. The intensity of her affliction, and the fortitude and good feelingwhich she showed as soon as the first agony was over, have interested megreatly in her. Six or seven of Malkin's most intimate friends here havejoined with Ryan and me, in subscribing to put up a plain marbletablet in the cathedral, for which I have written an inscription. [Thisinscription appears in Lord Macaulay's Miscellaneous Works. ]

My departure is now near at hand. This is the last letter which I shallwrite to you from India. Our passage is taken in the Lord Hungerford;the most celebrated of the huge floating hotels which run between Londonand Calcutta. She is more renowned for the comfort and luxury of herinternal arrangements than for her speed. As we are to stop at the Capefor a short time, I hardly expect to be with you till the end of May, orthe beginning of June. I intend to make myself a good German scholar bythe time of my arrival in England. I have already, at leisure momentsbroken the ice. I have read about half of the New Testament in Luther'stranslation, and am now getting rapidly, for a beginner, throughSchiller's History of the Thirty Years' War. My German library consistsof all Goethe's works, all Schiller's works, Muller's History ofSwitzerland, some of Tieck, some of Lessing, and other works of lessfame. I hope to despatch them all on my way home. I like Schiller'sstyle exceedingly. His history contains a great deal of very just anddeep thought, conveyed in language so popular and agreeable that dunceswould think him superficial. 

I lately took it into my head to obtain some knowledge of the Fathers, and I read therefore a good deal of Athanasius, which by no means raisedhim in my opinion. I procured the magnificent edition of Chrysostom, byMontfaucon, from a public library here, and turned over the eleven hugefolios, reading wherever the subject was of peculiar interest. As toreading him through, the thing is impossible. These volumes containmatter at least equal to the whole extant literature of the best timesof Greece, from Homer to Aristotle inclusive. There are certainly somevery brilliant passages in his homilies. It seems curious that, thoughthe Greek literature began to flourish so much earlier than the Latin, it continued to flourish so much later. Indeed, if you except thecentury which elapsed between Cicero's first public appearance andLivy's death, I am not sure that there was any time at which Greece hadnot writers equal or superior to their Roman contemporaries. I am surethat no Latin writer of the age of Lucian is to be named with Lucian;that no Latin writer of the age of Longinus is to be named withLonginus; that no Latin prose of the age of Chrysostom can be named withChrysostom's compositions. I have read Augustin's Confessions. The bookis not without interest; but he expresses himself in the style of afield-preacher. 

Our Penal Code is to be published next week. It has cost me very intenselabour; and, whatever its faults may be, it is certainly not a slovenlyperformance. Whether the work proves useful to India or not, it has beenof great use, I feel and know, to my own mind. 

[In October 1854, Macaulay writes to my mother: "I cannot but be pleasedto find that, at last, the Code on which I bestowed the labour of two ofthe best years of my life has had justice done to it. Had this justicebeen done sixteen years ago, I should probably have given much moreattention to legislation, and much less to literature than I have done. I do not know that I should have been either happier or more useful thanI have been. "]

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY.