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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, by 
+George Otto Trevelyan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay
+
+Author: George Otto Trevelyan
+
+Release Date: May, 2001 [EBook #2647]
+Posting Date: November 12, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE AND LETTERS OF LORD MACAULAY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Martin Adamson
+
+
+
+
+
+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 the
+First Edition should be as complete as possible. But, in the course of
+the last nine months, I have come into possession of a certain quantity
+of supplementary matter, which the appearance of the book has elicited
+from various quarters. Stray letters have been hunted up. Half-forgotten
+anecdotes have been recalled. Floating reminiscences have been reduced
+to shape;--in one case, as will be seen from the extracts from Sir
+William Stirling Maxwell's letter, by no unskilful hand. I should have
+been tempted to draw more largely upon these new resources, if it had
+not been for the examples, which literary history only too copiously
+affords, of the risk that attends any attempt to alter the form, or
+considerably 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 abundant
+material, slightly to enlarge, and, I trust, somewhat to enrich the
+book.
+
+If this Second Edition is not rigidly correct in word and substance,
+I have no valid excuse to offer. Nothing more pleasantly indicates the
+wide-spread interest with which Lord MACAULAY has inspired his readers,
+both at home and in foreign countries, than the almost microscopic care
+with which these volumes have been studied. It is not too much to say
+that, in several instances, a misprint, or a verbal error, has been
+brought to my notice by at least five-and-twenty different persons; and
+there is hardly a page in the book which has not afforded occasion for
+comment or suggestion from some friendly correspondent. There is no
+statement of any importance throughout the two volumes the accuracy of
+which has been circumstantially impugned; but some expressions, which
+have given personal pain or annoyance, have been softened or removed.
+
+There is another class of criticism to which I have found myself
+altogether unable to defer. I have frequently been told by reviewers
+that I should "have better consulted MACAULAY'S reputation," or "done
+more honour to MACAULAY'S memory," if I had omitted passages in the
+letters or diaries which may be said to bear the trace of intellectual
+narrowness, or political and religious intolerance. I cannot but think
+that strictures, of this nature imply a serious misconception of the
+biographer's duty. It was my business to show my Uncle as he was, and
+not as I, or any one else, would have had him. If a faithful picture of
+MACAULAY could not have been produced without injury to his memory, I
+should have left the task of drawing that picture to others; but, having
+once undertaken the work, I had no choice but to ask myself, with regard
+to each feature of the portrait, not whether it was attractive, but
+whether it was characteristic. We who had the best opportunity of
+knowing him have always been convinced that his character would stand
+the test of an exact, and even a minute, delineation; and we humbly
+believe that our confidence was not misplaced, and that the reading
+world has now extended to the man the approbation which it has long
+conceded to his hooks.
+
+G. O. T.
+
+December 1876.
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION
+
+THIS work has been undertaken principally from a conviction that it
+is the performance of a duty which, to the best of my ability, it is
+incumbent on me to fulfil. Though even on this ground I cannot appeal
+to the forbearance of my readers, I may venture to refer to a peculiar
+difficulty which I have experienced in dealing with Lord MACAULAY'S
+private papers.
+
+To give to the world compositions not intended for publication may be
+no injury to the fame of writers who, by habit, were careless and hasty
+workmen; but it is far otherwise in the case of one who made it a
+rule for himself to publish nothing which was not carefully planned,
+strenuously laboured, and minutely finished. Now, it is impossible
+to examine Lord MACAULAY'S journals and correspondence without being
+persuaded that the idea of their being printed, even in part, never was
+present to his mind; and I should not feel myself justified in laying
+them before the public if it were not that their unlaboured and
+spontaneous character adds to their biographical value all, and perhaps
+more than all, that it detracts from their literary merit.
+
+To the heirs and relations of Mr. Thomas Flower Ellis and Mr. Adam
+Black, to the Marquis of Lansdowne, to Mr. Macvey Napier, and to the
+executors of Dr. Whewell, my thanks are due for the courtesy with which
+they have placed the different portions of my Uncle's correspondence at
+my disposal. Lady Caroline Lascelles has most kindly permitted me to
+use as much of Lord Carlisle's journal as relates to the subject of this
+work; and Mr. Charles Cowan, my Uncle's old opponent at Edinburgh, has
+sent me a considerable mass of printed matter bearing upon the elections
+of 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 at
+Calcutta. His early letters, with much that relates to the whole
+course of his life, have been preserved, studied, and arranged, by the
+affectionate industry of his sister, Miss Macaulay; and material of high
+interest has been entrusted to my hands by Mr. and the Hon. Mrs. Edward
+Cropper. I have been assisted throughout the book by the sympathy, and
+the recollections, of my sister Lady Holland, the niece to whose custody
+Lord 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 find
+a ready apology in the custom of the age. If we measure the effective
+demand for biography by the supply, the person commemorated need possess
+but 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 of
+our circulating libraries, the public curiosity is keen with regard to
+some who did nothing worthy of special note, and others who acted so
+continuously in the face of the world that, when their course was
+run, there was little left for the world to learn about them. It may,
+therefore, be taken for granted that a desire exists to hear something
+authentic about the life of a man who has produced works which are
+universally known, but which bear little or no indication of the private
+history and the personal qualities of the author.
+
+This was in a marked degree the case with Lord Macaulay. His two famous
+contemporaries in English literature have, consciously or unconsciously,
+told their own story in their books. Those who could see between the
+lines in "David Copperfield" were aware that they had before them a
+delightful autobiography; and all who knew how to read Thackeray could
+trace him in his novels through every stage in his course, on from the
+day when as a little boy, consigned to the care of English relatives and
+schoolmasters, he left his mother on the steps of the landing-place at
+Calcutta. The dates and names were wanting, but the man was there; while
+the most ardent admirers of Macaulay will admit that a minute study of
+his literary productions left them, as far as any but an intellectual
+knowledge of the writer himself was concerned, very much as it found
+them. A consummate master of his craft, he turned out works which
+bore the unmistakable marks of the artificer's hand, but which did not
+reflect his features. It would be almost as hard to compose a picture of
+the author from the History, the Essays, and the Lays, as to evolve an
+idea of Shakespeare from Henry the Fifth and Measure for Measure.
+
+But, besides being a man of letters, Lord Macaulay was a statesman, a
+jurist, and a brilliant ornament of society, at a time when to shine
+in society was a distinction which a man of eminence and ability might
+justly value. In these several capacities, it will be said, he was known
+well, and known widely. But in the first place, as these pages will
+show, there was one side of his life (to him, at any rate, the most
+important,) of which even the persons with whom he mixed most freely and
+confidentially in London drawing-rooms, in the Indian Council chamber,
+and in the lobbies and on the benches of the House of Commons, were only
+in part aware. And in the next place, those who have seen his features
+and heard his voice are few already and become yearly fewer; while, by a
+rare fate in literary annals, the number of those who read his books
+is still rapidly increasing. For everyone who sat with him in private
+company or at the transaction of public business,--for every ten who
+have listened to his oratory in Parliament or from the hustings,--there
+must be tens of thousands whose interest in history and literature he
+has awakened and informed by his pen, and who would gladly know what
+manner 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 the
+means at their command. His lifelike image is indelibly impressed upon
+their minds, (for how could it be otherwise with any who had enjoyed so
+close relations with such a man?) although the skill which can reproduce
+that image before the general eye may well be wanting. But his own
+letters will supply the deficiencies of the biographer. Never did any
+one leave behind him more copious materials for enabling others to
+put together a narrative which might be the history, not indeed of his
+times, but of the man himself. For in the first place he so soon showed
+promise of being one who would give those among whom his early years
+were passed reason to be proud, and still more certain assurance that
+he would never afford them cause for shame, that what he wrote was
+preserved with a care very seldom bestowed on childish compositions;
+and the value set upon his letters by those with whom he corresponded
+naturally enough increased as years went on. And in the next place he
+was by nature so incapable of affectation or concealment that he could
+not write otherwise than as he felt, and, to one person at least, could
+never refrain from writing all that he felt; so that we may read in his
+letters, as in a clear mirror, his opinions and inclinations, his
+hopes and affections, at every succeeding period of his existence. Such
+letters could never have been submitted to an editor not connected with
+both correspondents by the strongest ties; and even one who stands in
+that position must often be sorely puzzled as to what he has the heart
+to publish and the right to withhold.
+
+I am conscious that a near relative has peculiar temptations towards
+that partiality of the biographer which Lord Macaulay himself so often
+and so cordially denounced; and the danger is greater in the case of one
+whose knowledge of him coincided with his later years; for it would not
+be easy to find a nature which gained more by time than his, and lost
+less. But believing, as I do, (to use his own words,) that "if he were
+now living he would have sufficient judgment and sufficient greatness
+of mind" to wish to be shown as himself, I will suppress no trait in
+his disposition, or incident in his career, which might provoke blame
+or question. Such in all points as he was, the world, which has been so
+indulgent to him, has a right to know him; and those who best love him
+do not fear the consequences of freely submitting his character and his
+actions to the public verdict.
+
+The most devout believers in the doctrine of the transmission of
+family qualities will be content with tracing back descent through four
+generations; and all favourable hereditary influences, both intellectual
+and moral, are assured by a genealogy which derives from a Scotch
+Manse. 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 of
+the Laird of Ardchattan, taking away his stipend." The Duchess of Argyll
+of the day appears to have done her best to see him righted; "but his
+health being much impaired, and there being no church or meeting-house,
+he was exposed to the violence of the weather at all seasons; and
+having no manse or plebe, and no fund for communion elements, and no
+mortification for schools or any pious purpose in either of the islands,
+and the air being unwholesome, he was dissatisfied;" and so, to the
+great regret of the parishioners whom he was leaving behind, he migrated
+to Harris, where he discharged the clerical duties for nearly half a
+century.
+
+Aulay was the father of fourteen children, of whom one, Kenneth, the
+minister of Ardnamurchan, still occupies a very humble niche in the
+temple of literature. He wrote a History of St. Kilda which happened to
+fall into the hands of Dr. Johnson, who spoke of it more than once with
+favour. His reason for liking the book is characteristic enough. Mr.
+Macaulay had recorded the belief prevalent in St. Kilda that, as soon as
+the factor landed on the island, all the inhabitants had an attack
+which from the account appears to have partaken of the nature both
+of influenza and bronchitis. This touched the superstitious vein in
+Johnson, who praised him for his "magnanimity" in venturing to
+chronicle so questionable a phenomenon; the more so because,--said
+the Doctor,--"Macaulay set out with a prejudice against prejudice, and
+wanted to be a smart modern thinker." To a reader of our day the History
+of St. Kilda appears to be innocent of any trace of such pretension;
+unless it be that the author speaks slightingly of second-sight, a
+subject for which Johnson always had a strong hankering. In 1773 Johnson
+paid a visit to Mr. Macaulay, who by that time had removed to Calder,
+and began the interview by congratulating him on having produced "a very
+pretty piece of topography,"--a compliment which did not seem to the
+taste of the author. The conversation turned upon rather delicate
+subjects, and, before many hours had passed, the guest had said to the
+host one of the very rudest things recorded by Boswell! Later on in the
+same evening he atoned for his incivility by giving one of the boys of
+the house a pocket Sallust, and promising to procure him a servitorship
+at Oxford. Subsequently Johnson pronounced that Mr. Macaulay was not
+competent to have written the book that went by his name; a decision
+which, to those who happen to have read the work, will give a very poor
+notion of my ancestor's abilities.
+
+The eldest son of old Aulay, and the grandfather of Lord Macaulay, was
+John, born in the year 1720. He was minister successively of Barra,
+South Uist, Lismore, and Inverary; the last appointment being a proof
+of the interest which the family of Argyll continued to take in the
+fortunes of the Macaulays. He, likewise, during the famous tour in
+the Hebrides, came across the path of Boswell, who mentions him in an
+exquisitely absurd paragraph, the first of those in which is described
+the visit to Inverary Castle. ["Monday, Oct. 25.--My acquaintance, the
+Rev. Mr. John M'Aulay, one of the ministers of Inverary, and brother to
+our good friend at Calder, came to us this morning, and accompanied us
+to the castle, where I presented Dr. Johnson to the Duke of Argyll. We
+were shown through the house; and I never shall forget the impression
+made upon my fancy by some of the ladies' maids tripping about in neat
+morning 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 for
+them."] Mr. Macaulay afterwards passed the evening with the travellers
+at their inn, and provoked Johnson into what Boswell calls warmth, and
+anyone else would call brutality, by the very proper remark that he
+had no notion of people being in earnest in good professions if their
+practice belied them. When we think what well-known ground this was to
+Lord Macaulay, it is impossible to suppress a wish that the great talker
+had been at hand to avenge his grandfather and grand-uncle. Next morning
+"Mr. Macaulay breakfasted with us, nothing hurt or dismayed by his last
+night's correction. Being a man of good sense he had a just admiration
+of Dr. Johnson." He was rewarded by seeing Johnson at his very best, and
+hearing him declaim some of the finest lines that ever were written in a
+manner worthy of his subject.
+
+There is a tradition that, in his younger days, the minister of Inverary
+proved his Whiggism by giving information to the authorities which
+almost led to the capture of the young Pretender. It is perhaps a matter
+of congratulation that this item was not added to the heavy account that
+the Stuarts have against the Macaulay family. John Macaulay enjoyed
+a high reputation as a preacher, and was especially renowned for his
+fluency. In 1774 he removed to Cardross in Dumbartonshire, where, on the
+bank of the noble estuary of the Clyde, he spent the last fifteen years
+of a useful and honoured life. He was twice married. His first wife died
+at the birth of his first child. Eight years afterwards, in 1757, he
+espoused Margaret, daughter of Colin Campbell of Inveresragan, who
+survived him by a single year. By her he had the patriarchal number of
+twelve children, whom he brought up on the old Scotch system,--common
+to the households of minister, man of business, farmer, and peasant
+alike,--on fine air, simple diet, and a solid training in knowledge
+human and divine. Two generations after, Mr. Carlyle, during a visit to
+the late Lord Ashburton at the Grange, caught sight of Macaulay's face
+in unwonted repose, as he was turning over the pages of a book. "I
+noticed," said he, "the homely Norse features that you find everywhere
+in the Western Isles, and I thought to myself 'Well! Anyone can see that
+you 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 Church
+of England. His reputation as a scholar and antiquary stood high, and in
+the capacity of a private tutor he became known even in royal circles.
+He published pamphlets and treatises, the list of which it is not worth
+while to record, and meditated several large works that perhaps never
+got much beyond a title. Of all his undertakings the one best deserving
+commemoration in these pages was a tour that he made into Scotland
+in company with Mr. Thomas Babington, the owner of Rothley Temple in
+Leicestershire, in the course of which the travellers paid a visit
+to the manse at Cardross. Mr. Babington fell in love with one of the
+daughters of the house, Miss Jean Macaulay, and married her in
+1787. Nine years afterwards he had an opportunity of presenting his
+brother-in-law Aulay Macaulay with the very pleasant living of Rothley.
+
+Alexander, another son of John Macaulay, succeeded his father as
+minister of Cardross. Colin went into the Indian army, and died a
+general. He followed the example of the more ambitious among his brother
+officers, and exchanged military for civil duties. In 1799 he acted as
+secretary to a political and diplomatic Commission which accompanied
+the force that marched under General Harris against Seringapatam. The
+leading Commissioner was Colonel Wellesley, and to the end of General
+Macaulay's life the great Duke corresponded with him on terms of
+intimacy, and (so the family flattered themselves) even of friendship.
+Soon after the commencement of the century Colin Macaulay was appointed
+Resident at the important native state of Travancore. While on this
+employment he happened to light upon a valuable collection of books, and
+rapidly made himself master of the principal European languages, which
+he spoke and wrote with a facility surprising in one who had acquired
+them within a few leagues of Cape Comorin.
+
+There was another son of John Macaulay, who in force and elevation of
+character stood out among his brothers, and who was destined to make
+for himself no ordinary career. The path which Zachary Macaulay chose
+to tread did not lead to wealth, or worldly success, or indeed to much
+worldly happiness. Born in 1768, he was sent out at the age of sixteen
+by a Scotch house of business as bookkeeper to an estate in Jamaica, of
+which he soon rose to be sole manager. His position brought him into
+the closest possible contact with negro slavery. His mind was not
+prepossessed against the system of society which he found in the West
+Indies. His personal interests spoke strongly in its favour, while his
+father, whom he justly respected, could see nothing to condemn in an
+institution recognised by Scripture. Indeed, the religious world still
+allowed the maintenance of slavery to continue an open question. John
+Newton, the real founder of that school in the Church of England of
+which in after years Zachary Macaulay was a devoted member, contrived to
+reconcile 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, (who
+by that time were one and all sworn abolitionists,) by his supposed
+reluctance to see that there could be no fellowship between light and
+such darkness.
+
+But Zachary Macaulay had eyes of his own to look about him, a clear head
+for forming a judgment on what he saw, and a conscience which would
+not permit him to live otherwise than in obedience to its mandates. The
+young Scotchman's innate respect for his fellows, and his appreciation
+of all that instruction and religion can do for men, was shocked at the
+sight of a population deliberately kept ignorant and heathen. His kind
+heart was wounded by cruelties practised at the will and pleasure of a
+thousand petty despots. He had read his Bible too literally to acquiesce
+easily in a state of matters under which human beings were bred and
+raised like a stock of cattle, while outraged morality was revenged
+on the governing race by the shameless licentiousness which is the
+inevitable accompaniment of slavery. He was well aware that these evils,
+so far from being superficial or remediable, were essential to the
+very existence of a social fabric constituted like that within which he
+lived. It was not for nothing that he had been behind the scenes in that
+tragedy of crime and misery. His philanthropy was not learned by the
+royal road of tracts, and platform speeches, and monthly magazines. What
+he knew he had spelt out for himself with no teacher except the aspect
+of human suffering, and degradation, and sin.
+
+He was not one of those to whom conviction comes in a day; and, when
+convinced, he did nothing sudden. Little more than a boy in age,
+singularly modest, and constitutionally averse to any course that
+appeared pretentious or theatrical, he began by a sincere attempt to
+make the best of his calling. For some years he contented himself with
+doing what he could, (so he writes to a friend,) "to alleviate the
+hardships of a considerable number of my fellow-creatures, and to render
+the bitter cup of servitude as palatable as possible." But by the time
+he was four-and-twenty he became tired of trying to find a compromise
+between right and wrong, and, refusing really great offers from the
+people with whom he was connected, he threw up his position, and
+returned to his native country. This step was taken against the wishes
+of his father, who was not prepared for the construction which his son
+put upon the paternal precept that a man should make his practice square
+with his professions.
+
+But Zachary Macaulay soon had more congenial work to do. The young West
+Indian overseer was not alone in his scruples. Already for some time
+past a conviction had been abroad that individual citizens could not
+divest themselves of their share in the responsibility in which the
+nation was involved by the existence of slavery in our colonies. Already
+there had been formed the nucleus of the most disinterested, and
+perhaps the most successful, popular movement which history records. The
+question of the slave trade was well before Parliament and the country.
+Ten years had passed since the freedom of all whose feet touched the
+soil of our island had been vindicated before the courts at Westminster,
+and not a few negroes had become their own masters as a consequence
+of that memorable decision. The patrons of the race were somewhat
+embarrassed by having these expatriated freedmen on their hands;
+an opinion prevailed that the traffic in human lives could never
+be efficiently checked until Africa had obtained the rudiments of
+civilisation; and, after long discussion, a scheme was matured for
+the colonisation of Sierra Leone by liberated slaves. A company was
+organised, with a charter from the Crown, and a board which included the
+names of Granville Sharpe and Wilberforce. A large capital was speedily
+subscribed, and the Chair was accepted by Mr. Henry Thornton, a leading
+City banker and a member of Parliament, whose determined opposition to
+cruelty and oppression in every form was such as might be expected in
+one who had inherited from his father the friendship of the poet Cowper.
+Mr. Thornton heard Macaulay's story from Thomas Babington, with whom he
+lived on terms of close intimacy and political alliance. The Board, by
+the advice of its Chairman, passed a resolution appointing the young man
+Second Member in the Sierra Leone Council, and early in the year 1793
+he sailed for Africa, where soon after his arrival he succeeded to the
+position and duties of Governor.
+
+The Directors had done well to secure a tried man. The colony was at
+once exposed to the implacable enmity of merchants whose market the
+agents of the new company spoiled in their capacity of traders,
+and slave-dealers with whom they interfered in their character of
+philanthropists. The native tribes in the vicinity, instigated by
+European hatred and jealousy, began to inflict upon the defenceless
+authorities of the settlement a series of those monkey-like
+impertinences which, absurdly as they may read in a narrative, are
+formidable and ominous when they indicate that savages feel their power.
+These barbarians, who had hitherto commanded as much rum and gunpowder
+as they cared to have by selling their neighbours at the nearest
+barracoon, showed no appreciation for the comforts and advantages of
+civilisation. Indeed, those advantages were displayed in anything but
+an 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 no
+associations beyond the recollections of a common servitude, were
+not very promising apostles for the spread of Western culture and the
+Christian faith. Things went smoothly enough as long as the business of
+the colony was mainly confined to eating the provisions that had been
+brought in the ships; but as soon as the work became real, and the
+commons short, the whole community smouldered down into chronic mutiny.
+
+Zachary Macaulay was the very man for such a crisis. To a rare fund of
+patience, and self-command, and perseverance, he united a calm courage
+that was equal to any trial. These qualities were, no doubt, inherent
+in his disposition; but no one except those who have turned over his
+voluminous private journals can understand what constant effort, and
+what incessant watchfulness, went to maintain throughout a long life a
+course of conduct, and a temper of mind, which gave every appearance
+of being the spontaneous fruit of nature. He was not one who dealt in
+personal experiences; and few among even the friends who loved him like
+father or brother, and who would have trusted him with all their fortune
+on his bare word, knew how entirely his outward behaviour was the
+express image of his religious belief. The secret of his character and
+of his actions lay in perfect humility and an absolute faith. Events did
+not discompose him, because they were sent by One who best knew his own
+purposes. He was not fretted by the folly of others, or irritated
+by their hostility, because he regarded the humblest or the worst of
+mankind as objects, equally with himself, of the divine love and care.
+On all other points he examined himself so closely that the meditations
+of a single evening would fill many pages of diary; but so completely
+in his case had the fear of God cast out all other fear that amidst
+the gravest perils, and the most bewildering responsibilities, it never
+occurred to him to question whether he was brave or not. He worked
+strenuously and unceasingly, never amusing himself from year's end to
+year's end, and shrinking from any public praise or recognition as from
+an unlawful gratification, because he was firmly persuaded that, when
+all had been accomplished and endured, he was yet but an unprofitable
+servant, who had done that which was his duty to do. Some, perhaps, will
+consider such motives as oldfashioned, and such convictions as out of
+date; but self-abnegation, self-control, and self-knowledge that does
+not give to self the benefit of any doubt, are virtues which are not
+oldfashioned, and for which, as time goes on, the world is likely to
+have as much need as ever. [Sir James Stephen writes thus of his friend
+Macaulay: "That his understanding was proof against sophistry, and
+his nerves against fear, were, indeed, conclusions to which a stranger
+arrived at the first interview with him. But what might be suggesting
+that expression of countenance, at once so earnest and so monotonous--by
+what manner of feeling those gestures, so uniformly firm and deliberate
+were prompted--whence the constant traces of fatigue on those
+overhanging brows and on that athletic though ungraceful figure--what
+might be the charm which excited amongst his chosen circle a faith
+approaching to superstition, and a love rising to enthusiasm, towards a
+man whose demeanour was so inanimate, if not austere:--it was a riddle
+of which neither Gall nor Lavater could have found the key."
+
+That Sir James himself could read the riddle is proved by the concluding
+words of a passage marked by a force and tenderness of feeling unusual
+even in him: "His earthward affections,--active and all--enduring as
+they were, could yet thrive without the support of human sympathy,
+because they were sustained by so abiding a sense of the divine
+presence, and so absolute a submission to the divine will, as raised
+him habitually to that higher region where the reproach of man could not
+reach, and the praise of man might not presume to follow him."]
+
+Mr. Macaulay was admirably adapted for the arduous and uninviting task
+of planting a negro colony. His very deficiencies stood him in good
+stead; for, in presence of the elements with which he had to deal, it
+was well for him that nature had denied him any sense of the ridiculous.
+Unconscious of what was absurd around him, and incapable of being
+flurried, frightened, or fatigued, he stood as a centre of order and
+authority amidst the seething chaos of inexperience and insubordination.
+The staff was miserably insufficient, and every officer of the Company
+had to do duty for three in a climate such that a man is fortunate if he
+can find health for the work of one during a continuous twelvemonth. The
+Governor had to be in the counting-house, the law-court, the school, and
+even the chapel. He was his own secretary, his own paymaster, his own
+envoy. He posted ledgers, he decided causes, he conducted correspondence
+with the Directors at home, and visited neighbouring potentates on
+diplomatic missions which made up in danger what they lacked in dignity.
+In the absence of properly qualified clergymen, with whom he would have
+been the last to put himself in competition, he preached sermons
+and performed marriages;--a function which must have given honest
+satisfaction to one who had been so close a witness of the enforced
+and systematised immorality of a slave-nursery. Before long, something
+fairly resembling order was established, and the settlement began to
+enjoy a reasonable measure of prosperity. The town was built, the fields
+were planted, and the schools filled. The Governor made a point of
+allotting the lightest work to the negroes who could read and write; and
+such was the stimulating effect of this system upon education that he
+confidently looked forward "to the time when there would be few in
+the colony unable to read the Bible." A printing-press was in constant
+operation, and in the use of a copying-machine the little community was
+three-quarters of a century ahead of the London public offices.
+
+But a severe ordeal was in store for the nascent civilisation of Sierra
+Leone. On a Sunday morning in September 1794, eight French sail appeared
+off the coast. The town was about as defensible as Brighton; and it is
+not difficult to imagine the feelings which the sansculottes inspired
+among Evangelical colonists whose last advices from Europe dated from
+the very height of the Reign of Terror. There was a party in favour of
+escaping into the forest with as much property as could be removed at so
+short a notice; but the Governor insisted that there would be no chance
+of saving the Company's buildings unless the Company's servants could
+make up their minds to remain at their posts, and face it out. The
+squadron moored within musket-shot of the quay, and swept the streets
+for two hours with grape and bullets; a most gratuitous piece of
+cruelty that killed a negress and a child, and gave one unlucky English
+gentleman a fright which ultimately brought him to his grave. The
+invaders then proceeded to land, and Mr. Macaulay had an opportunity of
+learning something about the condition of the French marine during the
+heroic period of the Republic.
+
+A personal enemy of his own, the captain of a Yankee slaver, brought
+a party of sailors straight to the Governor's house. What followed had
+best be told in Mr. Macaulay's own words. "Newell, who was attended by
+half-a-dozen sans-culottes, almost foaming with rage, presented a pistol
+to me, and with many oaths demanded instant satisfaction for the slaves
+who had run away from him to my protection. I made very little
+reply, but told him he must now _take_ such satisfaction as he judged
+equivalent to his claims, as I was no longer master of my actions. He
+became so very outrageous that, after bearing with him a little while,
+I thought it most prudent to repair myself to the French officer, and
+request his safe-conduct on board the Commodore's ship. As I passed
+along the wharf the scene was curious enough. The Frenchmen, who had
+come ashore in filth and rags, were now many of them dressed out with
+women's shifts, gowns, and petticoats. Others had quantities of cloth
+wrapped about their bodies, or perhaps six or seven suits of clothes
+upon them at a time. The scene which presented itself on my getting
+on board the flag-ship was still more singular. The quarter-deck was
+crowded by a set of ragamuffins whose appearance beggared every previous
+description, and among whom I sought in vain for some one who looked
+like a gentleman. The stench and filth exceeded anything I had ever
+witnessed in any ship, and the noise and confusion gave me some idea of
+their famous Mountain. I was ushered into the Commodore's cabin, who
+at least received me civilly. His name was Citizen Allemand. He did not
+appear to have the right of excluding any of his fellow-citizens even
+from this place. Whatever might be their rank, they crowded into it,
+and conversed familiarly with him." Such was the discipline of the fleet
+that had been beaten by Lord Hove on the first of June; and such the raw
+material of the armies which, under firm hands, and on an element more
+suited to the military genius of their nation, were destined to triumph
+at Rivoli and Hohenlinden.
+
+Mr. Macaulay, who spoke French with ease and precision, in his anxiety
+to save the town used every argument which might prevail on the
+Commodore, whose Christian name, (if one may use such a phrase with
+reference to a patriot of the year two of the Republic,) happened oddly
+enough to be the same as his own. He appealed first to the traditional
+generosity of Frenchmen towards a fallen enemy, but soon discerned that
+the quality in question had gone out with the old order of things, if
+indeed it ever existed. He then represented that a people, who professed
+to be waging war with the express object of striking off the fetters of
+mankind, would be guilty of flagrant inconsistency if they destroyed an
+asylum for liberated slaves; but the Commodore gave him to understand
+that sentiments, which sounded very well in the Hall of the Jacobins,
+were out of place on the West Coast of Africa. The Governor returned
+on shore to find the town already completely gutted. It was evident at
+every turn that, although the Republican battalions might carry liberty
+and fraternity through Europe on the points of their bayonets, the
+Republican sailors had found a very different use for the edge of their
+cutlasses. "The sight of my own and of the Accountant's offices almost
+sickened me. Every desk, and every drawer, and every shelf, together
+with the printing and copying presses, had been completely demolished
+in 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 of
+my own labour, and of the labour of others, for several years
+totally destroyed. At the other end of the house I found telescopes,
+hygrometers, barometers, thermometers, and electrical machines, lying
+about in fragments. The view of the town library filled me with lively
+concern. The volumes were tossed about and defaced with the utmost
+wantonness; and, if they happened to bear any resemblance to Bibles,
+they were torn in pieces and trampled on. The collection of natural
+curiosities next caught my eye. Plants, seeds, dried birds, insects,
+and drawings were scattered about in great confusion, and some of the
+sailors were in the act of killing a beautiful musk-cat, which they
+afterwards ate. Every house was full of Frenchmen, who were hacking, and
+destroying, and tearing up everything which they could not convert to
+their own use. The destruction of live stock on this and the following
+day 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." It
+was unsafe to walk in the streets of Freetown during the forty-eight
+hours that followed its capture, because the French crews, with too much
+of the Company's port wine in their heads to aim straight, were firing
+at the pigs of the poor freedmen over whom they had achieved such a
+questionable victory.
+
+To readers of Erckmann-Chatrian it is unpleasant to be taken thus behind
+the curtain on which those skilful artists have painted the wars of the
+early Revolution. It is one thing to be told how the crusaders of '93
+and '94 were received with blessings and banquets by the populations to
+whom they brought freedom and enlightenment, and quite another to read
+the journal in which a quiet accurate-minded Scotchman tells us how
+a pack of tipsy ruffians sat abusing Pitt and George to him, over a
+fricassee of his own fowls, and among the wreck of his lamps and mirrors
+which they had smashed as a protest against aristocratic luxury.
+
+"There is not a boy among them who has not learnt to accompany the name
+of Pitt with an execration. When I went to bed, there was no sleep to be
+had on account of the sentinels thinking fit to amuse me the whole night
+through with the revenge they meant to take on him when they got him to
+Paris. Next morning I went on board the 'Experiment.' The Commodore and
+all his officers messed together, and I was admitted among them. They
+are truly the poorest-looking people I ever saw. Even the Commodore
+has only one suit which can at all distinguish him, not to say from the
+officers, but from the men. The filth and confusion of their meals was
+terrible. 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 them
+is astonishing, but not more so than their blindness. They talk with
+ecstasy of their revolutionary government, of their bloody executions,
+of their revolutionary tribunal, of the rapid movement of their
+revolutionary army with the Corps of justice and the flying guillotine
+before it; forgetting that not one of them is not liable to its stroke
+on the accusation of the greatest vagabond on board. They asked me with
+triumph if yesterday had not been Sunday. 'Oh,' said they, 'the National
+Convention have decreed that there is no Sunday, and that the Bible is
+all a lie.'" After such an experience it is not difficult to account
+for the keen and almost personal interest with which, to the very day of
+Waterloo, Mr. Macaulay watched through its varying phases the rise
+and the downfall of the French power. He followed the progress of the
+British arms with a minute and intelligent attention which from a very
+early date communicated itself to his son; and the hearty patriotism of
+Lord Macaulay is perhaps in no small degree the consequence of what
+his father suffered from the profane and rapacious sansculottes of the
+revolutionary squadron.
+
+Towards the middle of October the Republicans took their departure. Even
+at this distance of time it is provoking to learn that they got back
+to Brest without meeting an enemy that had teeth to bite. The African
+climate, however, reduced the squadron to such a plight, that it was
+well for our frigates that they had not the chance of getting its
+fever-stricken crews under their hatches. The French never revisited
+Freetown. Indeed, they had left the place in such a condition that
+it was not worth their while to return. The houses had been carefully
+burned to the ground, and the live stock killed. Except the clothes
+on their backs, and a little brandy and flour, the Europeans had lost
+everything they had in the world. Till assistance came from the mother
+country they lived upon such provisions as could be recovered from the
+reluctant hands of the negro settlers, who providentially had not been
+able to resist the temptation of helping the Republicans to plunder the
+Company's stores. Judicious liberality at home, and a year's hard work
+on the spot, did much to repair the damage; and, when his colony was
+again upon its feet, Mr. Macaulay sailed to England with the object
+of recruiting his health, which had broken down under an attack of low
+fever.
+
+On his arrival he was admitted at once and for ever within the innermost
+circle of friends and fellow-labourers who were united round Wilberforce
+and Henry Thornton by indissoluble bonds of mutual personal regard and
+common public ends. As an indispensable part of his initiation into that
+very pleasant confederacy, he was sent down to be introduced to Hannah
+More, who was living at Cowslip Green, near Bristol, in the enjoyment
+of general respect, mixed with a good deal of what even those who admire
+her as she deserved must in conscience call flattery. He there met
+Selina Mills, a former pupil of the school which the Miss Mores kept
+in the neighbouring city, and a lifelong friend of all the sisters. The
+young lady is said to have been extremely pretty and attractive, as
+may well be believed by those who saw her in later years. She was the
+daughter of a member of the Society of Friends, who at one time was a
+bookseller in Bristol, and who built there a small street called "Mills
+Place," in which he himself resided. His grandchildren remembered him
+as an old man of imposing appearance, with long white hair, talking
+incessantly of Jacob Boehmen. Mr. Mills had sons, one of whom edited a
+Bristol journal exceedingly well, and is said to have made some figure
+in light literature. This uncle of Lord Macaulay was a very lively,
+clever man, full of good stories, of which only one has survived. Young
+Mills, 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 his
+father, the old Quaker replied: "John, if thee'd gone to the right place
+of worship, thee'd have kept thy hat upon thy head." Lord Macaulay was
+accustomed to say that he got his "joviality" from his mother's family.
+If his power of humour was indeed of Quaker origin, he was rather
+ungrateful in the use to which he sometimes put it.
+
+Mr. Macaulay fell in love with Miss Mills, and obtained her affection
+in return. He had to encounter the opposition of her relations, who were
+set 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 of
+the More family,) who, in the true spirit of romantic friendship, wished
+her to promise never to marry at all, but to domesticate herself as a
+youngest 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 have
+been, according to her particular notions, the most irreproachable of
+lovers, until her own Coelebs was given to the world. By her help he
+carried 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 him
+to Africa; and, during his absence from England, which began in the
+early months of 1796, by an arrangement that under the circumstances was
+very judicious, she spent much of her time in Leicestershire with his
+sister Mrs. Babington.
+
+His first business after arriving at Sierra Leone was to sit in judgment
+on the ringleaders of a formidable outbreak which had taken place in
+the colony; and he had an opportunity of proving by example that negro
+disaffection, from the nature of the race, is peculiarly susceptible
+to treatment by mild remedies, if only the man in the post of
+responsibility has got a heart and can contrive to keep his head. He had
+much more trouble with a batch of missionaries, whom he took with him in
+the ship, and who were no sooner on board than they began to fall out,
+ostensibly on controversial topics, but more probably from the same
+motives that so often set the laity quarrelling during the incessant and
+involuntary companionship of a sea-voyage. Mr. Macaulay, finding that
+the warmth of these debates furnished sport to the captain and other
+irreligious characters, was forced seriously to exert his authority
+in order to separate and silence the disputants. His report of these
+occurrences went in due time to the Chairman of the Company, who excused
+himself for an arrangement which had turned out so ill by telling a
+story of a servant who, having to carry a number of gamecocks from one
+place to another, tied them up in the same bag, and found on arriving at
+his journey's end that they had spent their time in tearing each other
+to pieces. When his master called him to account for his stupidity he
+replied: "Sir, as they were all your cocks, I thought they would be all
+on one side."
+
+Things did not go much more smoothly on shore. Mr. Macaulay's official
+correspondence gives a curious picture of his difficulties in the
+character of Minister of Public Worship in a black community. "The
+Baptists under David George are decent and orderly, but there is
+observable in them a great neglect of family worship, and sometimes
+an unfairness in their dealings. To Lady Huntingdon's Methodists, as a
+body, may with great justice be addressed the first verse of the
+third chapter of the Revelation. The lives of many of them are very
+disorderly, and rank antinomianism prevails among them." But his sense
+of religion and decency was most sorely tried by Moses Wilkinson, a
+so-called Wesleyan Methodist, whose congregation, not a very respectable
+one to begin with, had recently been swollen by a Revival which had been
+accompanied by circumstances the reverse of edifying. [Lord Macaulay
+had in his youth heard too much about negro preachers, and negro
+administrators, to permit him to entertain any very enthusiastic
+anticipations with regard to the future of the African race. He writes
+in his journal for July 8 1858: "Motley called. I like him much. We
+agree wonderfully well about slavery, and it is not often that I meet
+any person with whom I agree on that subject. For I hate slavery from
+the bottom of my soul; and yet I am made sick by the cant and the silly
+mock reasons of the Abolitionists. The nigger driver and the negrophile
+are two odious things to me. I must make Lady Macbeth's reservation:
+'Had he not resembled--,'"] The Governor must have looked back
+with regret to that period in the history of the colony when he was
+underhanded in the clerical department.
+
+But his interest in the negro could bear ruder shocks than an occasional
+outburst of eccentric fanaticism. He liked his work, because he liked
+those for whom he was working. "Poor people," he writes, "one cannot
+help loving them. With all their trying humours, they have a warmth of
+affection which is really irresistible." For their sake he endured all
+the risk and worry inseparable from a long engagement kept by the lady
+among disapproving friends, and by the gentleman at Sierra Leone. He
+stayed till the settlement had begun to thrive, and the Company had
+almost begun to pay; and until the Home Government had given marked
+tokens of favour and protection, which some years later developed into a
+negotiation under which the colony was transferred to the Crown. It was
+not till 1799 that he finally gave up his appointment, and left a region
+which, alone among men, he quitted with unfeigned, and, except in one
+particular, with unmixed regret. But for the absence of an Eve, he
+regarded the West Coast of Africa as a veritable Paradise, or, to use
+his own expression, as a more agreeable Montpelier. With a temper which
+in the intercourse of society was proof against being ruffled by any
+possible treatment of any conceivable subject, to the end of his life he
+showed faint signs of irritation if anyone ventured in his presence to
+hint that Sierra Leone was unhealthy.
+
+On his return to England he was appointed Secretary to the Company, and
+was married at Bristol on the 26th of August, 1799. A most close union
+it was, and, (though in latter years he became fearfully absorbed in
+the leading object of his existence, and ceased in a measure to be the
+companion that he had been,) his love for his wife, and deep trust and
+confidence in her, never failed. They took a small house in Lambeth for
+the first twelve months. When Mrs. Macaulay was near her confinement,
+Mrs. Babington, who belonged to the school of matrons who hold that the
+advantage of country air outweighs that of London doctors, invited her
+sister-in-law to Rothley Temple; and there, in a room panelled from
+ceiling to floor, like every corner of the ancient mansion, with oak
+almost black from age,--looking eastward across the park and southward
+through an ivy-shaded window into a little garden,--Lord Macaulay was
+born. It was on the 25th of October 1800, the day of St. Crispin, the
+anniversary of Agincourt, (as he liked to say,) that he opened his eyes
+on a world which he was destined so thoroughly to learn and so intensely
+to enjoy. His father was as pleased as a father could be; but fate
+seemed determined that Zachary Macaulay should not be indulged in any
+great share of personal happiness. The next morning the noise of a
+spinning-jenny, at work in a cottage, startled his horse as he was
+riding past. He was thrown, and both arms were broken; and he spent in
+a sick-room the remainder of the only holiday worth the name which, (as
+far as can be traced in the family records,) he ever took during his
+married life. Owing to this accident the young couple were detained
+at Rothley into the winter; and the child was baptised in the private
+chapel which formed part of the house, on the 26th November 1800, by the
+names 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 the
+child could be taken for exercise, and what might be called air, was
+Drapers' Gardens, which (already under sentence to be covered with
+bricks 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 Rules
+and Regulations almost as large as itself, his mother used to convoy the
+nurse and the little boy through the crowds that towards noon swarmed
+along Cornhill and Threadneedle Street; and thither she would return,
+after a due interval, to escort them back to Birchin Lane. So strong
+was the power of association upon Macaulay's mind that in after years
+Drapers' Garden was among his favourite haunts. Indeed, his habit of
+roaming for hours through and through the heart of the City, (a habit
+that never left him as long as he could roam at all,) was due in part
+to the recollection which caused him to regard that region as native
+ground.
+
+Baby as he was when he quitted it, he retained some impression of his
+earliest home. He remembered standing up at the nursery window by his
+father's side, looking at a cloud of black smoke pouring out of a tall
+chimney. He asked if that was hell; an inquiry that was received with a
+grave displeasure which at the time he could not understand. The kindly
+father must have been pained, almost against his own will, at finding
+what feature of his creed it was that had embodied itself in so very
+material a shape before his little son's imagination. When in after days
+Mrs. Macaulay was questioned as to how soon she began to detect in the
+child a promise of the future, she used to say that his sensibilities
+and affections were remarkably developed at an age which to her hearers
+appeared next to incredible. He would cry for joy on seeing her after a
+few hours' absence, and, (till her husband put a stop to it,) her power
+of exciting his feelings was often made an exhibition to her friends.
+She did not regard this precocity as a proof of cleverness; but, like
+a foolish young mother, only thought that so tender a nature was marked
+for 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 now
+called the Pavement, on the same side as the Plough inn, but some doors
+nearer to the Common. It was a roomy comfortable dwelling, with a very
+small garden behind, and in front a very small one indeed, which
+has entirely disappeared beneath a large shop thrown out towards the
+road-way by the present occupier, who bears the name of Heywood. Here
+the boy passed a quiet and most happy childhood. From the time that he
+was three years old he read incessantly, for the most part lying on the
+rug before the fire, with his book on the ground, and a piece of bread
+and batter in his hand. A very clever woman, who then lived in the house
+as parlour-maid, told how he used to sit in his nankeen frock, perched
+on the table by her as she was cleaning the plate, and expounding to
+her out of a volume as big as himself. He did not care for toys, but was
+very fond of taking his walk, when he would hold forth to his companion,
+whether nurse or mother, telling interminable stories out of his own
+head, or repeating what he had been reading in language far above his
+years. His memory retained without shout effort the phraseology of the
+book 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 fond
+of 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 of
+age, who came to the front door to receive her, and tell her that his
+parents were out, but that if she would be good enough to come in he
+would bring her a glass of old spirits; a proposition which greatly
+startled the good lady, who had never aspired beyond cowslip wine. When
+questioned as to what he knew about old spirits, he could only say that
+Robinson Crusoe often had some. About this period his father took him on
+a visit to Lady Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill, and was much pleased, to
+exhibit to his old friend the fair bright boy, dressed in a green coat
+with red cellar and cuffs, a frill at the throat, and white trousers.
+After some time had been spent among the wonders of the Orford
+Collection, of which he ever after carried a catalogue in his head, a
+servant who was waiting upon the company in the great gallery spilt some
+hot coffee over his legs. The hostess was all kindness and compassion,
+and when, after a while, she asked how he was feeling, the little fellow
+looked up in her face and replied: "Thank you, madam, the agony is
+abated."
+
+But it must not be supposed that his quaint manners proceeded from
+affectation or conceit; for all testimony declares that a more simple
+and natural child never lived, or a more lively and merry one. He had at
+his command the resources of the Common; to this day the most unchanged
+spot within ten miles of St. Paul's, and which to all appearance
+will ere long hold that pleasant preeminence within ten leagues.
+That delightful wilderness of gorse bushes, and poplar groves, and
+gravel-pits, and ponds great and small, was to little Tom Macaulay a
+region of inexhaustible romance and mystery. He explored its recesses;
+he composed, and almost believed, its legends; he invented for its
+different features a nomenclature which has been faithfully preserved
+by two generations of children. A slight ridge, intersected by deep
+ditches, towards the west of the Common, the very existence of which no
+one above eight years old would notice, was dignified with the title of
+the Alps; while the elevated island, covered with shrubs, that gives
+a name to the Mount pond, was regarded with infinite awe as being the
+nearest approach within the circuit of his observation to a conception
+of the majesty of Sinai. Indeed, at this period his infant fancy was
+much exercised with the threats and terrors of the Law. He had a little
+plot of ground at the back of the house, marked out as his own by a Tory
+of oyster-shells, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish. He went
+straight to the drawing-room, where his mother was entertaining some
+visitors, walked into the circle, and said very solemnly: "Cursed be
+Sally; for it is written, Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour's
+land-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 been
+originally brought to the neighbourhood in order to educate a number
+of African youths sent over to imbibe Western civilisation at the
+fountain-head. The poor fellows had found as much difficulty in keeping
+alive at Clapham as Englishmen experience at Sierra Leone; and, in the
+end, their tutor set up a school for boys of his own colour, and at one
+time had charge of almost the entire rising generation of the Common.
+Mrs. Macaulay explained to Tom that he must learn to study without the
+solace of bread and butter, to which he replied: "Yes, mama, industry
+shall be my bread and attention my butter." But, as a matter of fact,
+no one ever crept more unwillingly to school. Each several afternoon he
+made piteous entreaties to be excused returning after dinner, and was
+met by the unvarying formula: "No, Tom, if it rains cats and dogs, you
+shall go."
+
+His reluctance to leave home had more than one side to it. Not only did
+his heart stay behind, but the regular lessons of the class took him
+away from occupations which in his eyes were infinitely more delightful
+and important; for these were probably the years of his greatest
+literary activity. As an author he never again had mere facility, or
+anything like so wide a range. In September 1808, his mother writes:
+"My dear Tom continues to show marks of uncommon genius. He gets on
+wonderfully in all branches of his education, and the extent of
+his reading, and of the knowledge he has derived from it, are truly
+astonishing in a boy not yet eight years old. He is at the same time as
+playful as a kitten. To give you some idea of the activity of his mind
+I will mention a few circumstances that may interest you and Colin. You
+will believe that to him we never appear to regard anything he does as
+anything more than a schoolboy's amusement. He took it into his head to
+write a compendium of Universal History about a year ago, and he really
+contrived to give a tolerably connected view of the leading events from
+the Creation to the present time, filling about a quire of paper. He
+told me one day that he had been writing a paper, which Henry Daly
+was to translate into Malabar, to persuade the people of Travancore to
+embrace the Christian religion. On reading it I found it to contain a
+very clear idea of the leading facts and doctrines of that religion,
+with some strong arguments for its adoption. He was so fired with
+reading Scott's Lay and Marmion, the former of which he got entirely,
+and the latter almost entirely, by heart, merely from his delight in
+reading them, that he determined on writing himself a poem in six cantos
+which he called the 'Battle of Cheviot.' After he had finished about
+three of the cantos of about 120 lines each, which he did in a couple of
+days, he became tired of it. I make no doubt he would have finished his
+design, but, as he was proceeding with it, the thought struck him of
+writing an heroic poem to be called 'Olaus the Great, or the Conquest
+of Mona,' in which, after the manner of Virgil, he might introduce in
+prophetic song the future fortunes of the family;--among others, those
+of the hero who aided in the fall of the tyrant of Mysore, after having
+long suffered from his tyranny; [General Macaulay had been one of Tippoo
+Sahib's prisoners] and of another of his race who had exerted himself
+for the deliverance of the wretched Africans. He has just begun it. He
+has 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 one
+Monday morning while we were at breakfast."
+
+The affection of the last generation of his relatives has preserved
+all these pieces, but the piety of this generation will refrain from
+submitting them to public criticism. A marginal note, in which Macaulay
+has expressed his cordial approval of Uncle Toby's [Tristram Shandy,
+chapter clxiii.] remark about the great Lipsius, indicates his own
+wishes in the matter too clearly to leave any choice for those who come
+after him. But there still may be read in a boyish scrawl the epitome of
+Universal History, from "a new king who knew not Joseph,"--down through
+Rameses, and Dido, and Tydeus, and Tarquin, and Crassus, and Gallienus,
+and Edward the Martyr,--to Louis, who "set off on a crusade against the
+Albigenses," and Oliver Cromwell, who "was an unjust and wicked man."
+The hymns remain, which Mrs. Hannah More, surely a consummate judge of
+the 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 complete
+and connected shape, while the rest of the story is lost amidst a
+labyrinth of many hundred scattered lines, so transcribed as to suggest
+a conjecture that the boy's demand for foolscap had outrun the paternal
+generosity.
+
+Of all his performances, that which attracted most attention at the time
+was undertaken for the purpose of immortalising Olaus Magnus, King of
+Norway, from whom the clan to which the bard belonged was supposed
+to derive its name. Two cantos are extant, of which there are several
+exemplars, in every stage of calligraphy from the largest round hand
+downwards, a circumstance which is apparently due to the desire on the
+part of each of the little Macaulays to possess a copy of the great
+family epic. The opening stanzas, each of which contains more lines than
+their author counted years, go swinging along with plenty of animation
+and 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 uncle
+after the manner of the sixth book of the Aeneid, for the sake of
+which, according to Mrs. Macaulay, the poem was originally designed, can
+nowhere be discovered. It is possible that in the interval between the
+conception and the execution the boy happened to light upon a copy of
+the Rolliad. If such was the case, he already had too fine a sense
+of humour to have persevered in his original plan after reading that
+masterpiece of drollery. It is worthy of note that the voluminous
+writings of his childhood, dashed off at headlong speed in the odds
+and ends of leisure from school-study and nursery routine, are not only
+perfectly correct in spelling and grammar, but display the same lucidity
+of meaning, and scrupulous accuracy in punctuation and the other minor
+details 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 productions
+about, or encouraged him to parade his powers of conversation or
+memory. They abstained from any word or act which might foster in him
+a perception of his own genius with as much care as a wise millionaire
+expends on keeping his son ignorant of the fact that he is destined to
+be richer than his comrades. "It was scarcely ever," writes one who knew
+him well from the very first, "that the consciousness was expressed
+by either of his parents of the superiority of their son over other
+children. 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 care
+to be present, when I could, that I might listen to the way in which he
+expressed himself, often scarcely exceeded in his later years. Except
+this trifle, I remember him only as a good-tempered boy, always
+occupied, playing with his sisters without assumption of any kind." One
+effect of this early discipline showed itself in his freedom from vanity
+and susceptibility,--those qualities which, coupled together in our
+modern psychological dialect under the head of "self-consciousness," are
+supposed to be the besetting defects of the literary character. Another
+result was his habitual over-estimate of the average knowledge possessed
+by mankind. Judging others by himself, he credited the world at large
+with an amount of information which certainly few have the ability
+to acquire, or the capacity to retain. If his parents had not been
+so diligent in concealing from him the difference between his own
+intellectual stores and those of his neighbours, it is probable that
+less would have been heard of Lord Macaulay's Schoolboy.
+
+The system pursued at home was continued at Barley Wood, the place where
+the Misses More resided from 1802 onwards. Mrs. Macaulay gladly sent her
+boy to a house where he was encouraged without being spoiled, and where
+he never failed to be a welcome guest. The kind old ladies made a real
+companion of him, and greatly relished his conversation; while at the
+same time, with their ideas on education, they would never have allowed
+him, 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 both
+young and old, was the most affectionate and the wisest of friends, and
+readily undertook the superintendence of his studies, his pleasures, and
+his health. She would keep him with her for weeks, listening to him as
+he read prose by the ell, declaimed poetry by the hour, and discussed
+and compared his favourite heroes, ancient, modern, and fictitious,
+under all points of view and in every possible combination; coaxing him
+into the garden under pretence of a lecture on botany; sending him from
+his books to run round the grounds, or play at cooking in the kitchen;
+giving him Bible lessons which invariably ended in a theological
+argument, and following him with her advice and sympathy through his
+multifarious literary enterprises. ["The next time," (my uncle once said
+to us,) "that I saw Hannah More was in 1807. The old ladies begged my
+parents to leave me with them for a week, and this visit was a great
+event in my life. In parlour and kitchen they could not make enough of
+me. They taught me to cook; and I was to preach, and they got in people
+from the fields and I stood on a chair, and preached sermons. I might
+have been indicted for holding a conventicle."] She writes to his father
+in 1809: "I heartily hope that the sea air has been the means of setting
+you up, and Mrs. Macaulay also, and that the dear little poet has caught
+his 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 the
+boy at Barley Wood has left its trace in a series of childish squibs and
+parodies, which may still be read with an interest that his Cambrian
+and Scandinavian rhapsodies fail to inspire. The most ambitious of
+these 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 neighbouring
+rector, and the whole performance, intended, as it was, to mimic the
+spirit of Percy's Reliques, irresistibly suggests a reminiscence of
+John Gilpin. It is pleasant to know that to Mrs. Hannah More was due the
+commencement of what eventually became the most readable of libraries,
+as is shown in a series of letters extending over the entire period of
+Macaulay's education. When he was six years old she writes; "Though you
+are a little boy now, you will one day, if it please God, be a man; but
+long before you are a man I hope you will be a scholar. I therefore
+wish 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 tiny
+corner-stone for your future library." A year or two afterwards she
+thanks him for his "two letters, so neat and free from blots. By this
+obvious improvement you have entitled yourself to another book. You must
+go 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's
+Lives, unless you would like a neat edition of Cowper's poems or
+Paradise Lost for your own eating? In any case choose something which
+you do not possess. I want you to become a complete Frenchman, that
+I may give you Racine, the only dramatic poet I know in any modern
+language that is perfectly pure and good. I think you have hit off the
+Ode very well, and I am much obliged to you for the Dedication." The
+poor little author was already an adept in the traditional modes of
+requiting a patron.
+
+He had another Maecenas in the person of General Macaulay, who came back
+from 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 altogether
+of a triumphant character. After very narrowly escaping with his life
+from an outbreak at Travancore, incited by a native minister who owed
+him a grudge, he had given proof of courage and spirit during some
+military operations which ended in his being brought back to the
+Residency with flying colours. But, when the fighting was over, he
+countenanced, and perhaps prompted, measures of retaliation which were
+ill taken by his superiors at Calcutta. In his congratulatory effusion
+the nephew presumes to remind the uncle that on European soil there
+still 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 life
+peacefully enough between London, Bath, and the Continental capitals.
+He was accustomed to say that his travelling carriage was his only
+freehold; and, wherever he fixed his temporary residence, he had
+the talent of making himself popular. At Geneva he was a universal
+favourite; he always was welcome at Coppet; and he gave the strongest
+conceivable proof of a cosmopolitan disposition by finding himself
+equally at home at Rome and at Clapham. When in England he lived much
+with his relations, to whom he was sincerely attached. He was generous
+in a high degree, and the young people owed to him books which they
+otherwise could never have obtained, and treats and excursions which
+formed the only recreations that broke the uniform current of their
+lives. They regarded their uncle Colin as the man of the world of the
+Macaulay family.
+
+Zachary Macaulay's circumstances during these years were good, and
+constantly improving. For some time he held the post of Secretary to the
+Sierra Leone Company, with a salary of L500 per annum. He subsequently
+entered into partnership with a nephew, and the firm did a large
+business as African merchants under the names of Macaulay and Babington.
+The position of the father was favourable to the highest interests of
+his children. A boy has the best chance of being well brought up in
+a household where there is solid comfort, combined with thrift and
+simplicity; and the family was increasing too fast to leave any margin
+for luxurious expenditure. Before the eldest son had completed his
+thirteenth 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 beyond
+the educational capabilities of Clapham; and his father seriously
+contemplated the notion of removing to London in order to place him as a
+day-scholar at Westminster. Thorough as was the consideration which the
+parents gave to the matter, their decision was of more importance
+than they could at the time foresee. If their son had gone to a public
+school, it is more than probable that he would have turned out a
+different man, and have done different work. So sensitive and homeloving
+a boy might for a while have been too depressed to enter fully unto
+the ways of the place; but, as he gained confidence, he could not have
+withstood the irresistible attractions which the life of a great school
+exercises over a vivid eager nature, and he would have sacrificed to
+passing pleasures and emulations a part, at any rate, of those years
+which, in order to be what he was, it was necessary that he should spend
+wholly among his books. Westminster or Harrow might have sharpened his
+faculties for dealing with affairs and with men; but the world at large
+would have lost more than he could by any possibility have gained. If
+Macaulay had received the usual education of a young Englishman, he
+might in all probability have kept his seat for Edinburgh; but he
+could hardly have written the Essay on Von Ranke, or the description of
+England 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 vicinity
+of Cambridge. The motives which guided this selection were mainly of
+a religious nature. Mr. Preston held extreme Low Church opinions, and
+stood in the good books of Mr. Simeon, whose word had long been law in
+the Cambridge section of the Evangelical circle. But whatever had been
+the inducement to make it, the choice proved singularly fortunate. The
+tutor, it is true, was narrow in his views, and lacked the taste and
+judgment 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 be
+listened to under the dire obligation of reproducing them in an epitome,
+fostered in the minds of some of the boys a reaction against the outward
+manifestations of religion;--a reaction which had already begun under
+the strict system pursued in their respective homes. But, on the other
+hand, Mr. Preston knew both how to teach his scholars, and when to leave
+them to teach themselves. The eminent judge, who divided grown men into
+two sharply defined and most uncomplimentary categories, was accustomed
+to say that private schools made poor creatures, and public schools sad
+dogs; but Mr. Preston succeeded in giving a practical contradiction
+to Sir William Maine's proposition. His pupils, who were limited to an
+average of a dozen at a time, got far beyond their share of honours at
+the university and of distinction in after life. George Stainforth,
+a grandson of Sir Francis Baring, by his success at Cambridge was
+the first to win the school an honourable name, which was more than
+sustained by Henry Malden, now Greek Professor at University College,
+London, and by Macaulay himself. Shelford was strongly under the
+influence of the neighbouring university; an influence which Mr.
+Preston, himself a fellow of Trinity, wisely encouraged. The boys were
+penetrated with Cambridge ambitions and ways of thought; and frequent
+visitors 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 President
+of Queen's College, then at the very summit of a celebrity which is
+already of the past. Those who care to search among the embers of that
+once brilliant reputation can form a fair notion of what Samuel Johnson
+would have been if he had lived a generation later, and had been
+absolved from the necessity of earning his bread by the enjoyment of
+ecclesiastical sinecures, and from any uneasiness as to his worldly
+standing by the possession of academical dignities and functions. The
+Dean who had boundless goodwill for all his fellow-creatures at every
+period of life, provided that they were not Jacobins or sceptics,
+recognised the promise of the boy, and entertained him at his college
+residence on terms of friendliness, and almost of equality. After one of
+these visits he writes to Mr. Macaulay; "Your lad is a fine fellow. He
+shall 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 time
+for answering your letter. With respect to my health, I am very well,
+and tolerably cheerful, as Blundell, the best and most clever of all the
+scholars, is very kind, and talks to me, and takes my part. He is quite
+a friend of Mr. Preston's. The other boys, especially Lyon, a Scotch
+boy, and Wilberforce, are very good-natured, and we might have gone on
+very well had not one, a Bristol fellow, come here. He is unanimously
+alloyed to be a queer fellow, and is generally characterised as a
+foolish boy, and by most of us as an ill-natured one. In my learning
+I do Xenophon every day, and twice a week the Odyssey, in which I am
+classed with Wilberforce, whom all the boys allow to be very clever,
+very droll, and very impudent. We do Latin verses trice a week, and I
+have not yet been laughed at, as Wilberforce is the only one who hears
+them, being in my class. We are exercised also once a week in English
+composition, and once in Latin composition, and letters of persons
+renowned in history to each other. We get by heart Greek grammar or
+Virgil every evening. As for sermon-writing, I have hitherto got off
+with credit, and I hope I shall keep up my reputation. We have had the
+first meeting of our debating society the other day, when a vote of
+censure was moved for upon Wilberforce, but he getting up said, "Mr.
+President, I beg to second the motion." By this means he escaped. The
+kindness which Mr. Preston shows me is very great. He always assists
+me in what I cannot do, and takes me to walk out with him every now
+and then. My room is a delightful snug little chamber, which nobody can
+enter, 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 is
+a writing-desk in my chest of drawers; my books on one side, my box of
+papers on the other, with my arm-chair and my candle; for every boy has
+a candlestick, snuffers, and extinguisher of his own. Being pressed for
+room, 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 his
+readiness and humour was Wilberforce's eldest son. A fortnight later
+on, the subject chosen for discussion was "whether Lord Wellington or
+Marlborough 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 you
+with the greatest pleasure. Since I wrote to you yesterday, I have
+enjoyed 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 I
+to learn that I was to take a bed at Queen's College in Dean Milner's
+apartments! Wilberforce arrived soon after, and I spent the day very
+agreeably, the Dean amusing me with the greatest kindness. I slept
+there, 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 his
+consent. The books which I am at present employed in reading to myself
+are, in English, Plutarch's Lives, and Milner's Ecclesiastical History;
+in French, Fenelon's Dialogues of the Dead. I shall send you back the
+volumes of Madame de Genlis's petits romans as soon as possible, and I
+should be very much obliged for one or two more of them. Everything now
+seems to feel the influence of spring. The trees are all out. The lilacs
+are in bloom. The days are long, and I feel that I should be happy
+were it not that I want home. Even yesterday, when I felt more real
+satisfaction than I have done for almost three months, I could not help
+feeling a sort of uneasiness, which indeed I have always felt more or
+less since I have been here, and which is the only thing that hinders me
+from being perfectly happy. This day two months will put a period to my
+uneasiness.
+
+"Fly fast the hours, and dawn th' expected morn."
+
+Every night when I lie down I reflect that another day is cut off from
+the 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 hope
+you will be pleased to be informed of my Sunday's occupations. It is
+quite a day of rest here, and I really look to it with pleasure through
+the whole of the week. After breakfast we learn a chapter in the Greek
+Testament that is with the aid of our Bibles, and without doing it with
+a dictionary like other lessons. We then go to church. We dine almost
+as soon as we come back, and we are left to ourselves till afternoon
+church. During this time I employ myself in reading, and Mr. Preston
+lends me any books for which I ask him, so that I am nearly as well
+off in this respect as at home, except for one thing, which, though I
+believe it is useful, is not very pleasant. I can only ask for one book
+at a time, and cannot touch another till I have read it through. We then
+go 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 us
+a glass of wine each on Sunday, and on Sunday only, the very day when we
+want to have all our faculties awake; and some do literally go to sleep
+during 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 the
+Continental struggle, which occur throughout Zachary Macaulay's
+correspondence with his son, prove how freely, and on what an equal
+footing, the parent and child already conversed on questions of public
+interest. The following letter is curious as a specimen of the eagerness
+with which the boy habitually flung himself into the subjects which
+occupied his father's thoughts. The renewal of the East India Company's
+charter was just then under the consideration of Parliament, and
+the whole energies of the Evangelical party were exerted in order to
+signalise the occasion by securing our Eastern dominions as a field for
+the spread of Christianity. Petitions against the continued exclusion
+of missionaries were in course of circulation throughout the island, the
+drafts 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, since
+the examination subjects are to be given out I write to-day instead to
+answer your kind and long letter.
+
+I am very much pleased that the nation seems to take such interest in
+the introduction of Christianity into India. My Scotch blood begins
+to boil at the mention of the 1,750 names that went up from a single
+country parish. Ask Mama and Selina if they do not now admit my argument
+with regard to the superior advantages of the Scotch over the English
+peasantry.
+
+As to my examination preparations, I will if you please give you a
+sketch of my plan. On Monday, the day on which the examination subjects
+are given out, I shall begin. My first performance will be my verses and
+my declamation. I shall then translate the Greek and Latin. The first
+time of going over I shall mark the passages which puzzle me, and then
+return 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 study
+whatever History may be appointed for the examination. I shall not be
+able to avoid trembling, whether I know my subjects or not. I am however
+intimidated at nothing but Greek. Mathematics suit my taste, although,
+before I came, I declaimed against them, and asserted that, when I went
+to College, it should not be to Cambridge. I am occupied with the hope
+of lecturing Mama and Selina upon Mathematics, as I used to do upon
+Heraldry, and to change Or, and Argent, and Azure, and Gules, for
+squares, and points, and circles, and angles, and triangles, and
+rectangles, 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 a
+couple of rabbits for Selina and Jane.
+
+Your affectionate son,
+
+THOMAS B. MACAULAY.
+
+It will be seen that this passing fondness for mathematics soon changed
+into bitter disgust.
+
+Clapham May 28, 1813.
+
+My dear Tom,--I am very happy to hear that you have so far advanced in
+your different prize exercises, and with such little fatigue. I know you
+write with great ease to yourself, and would rather write ten poems than
+prune one; but remember that excellence is not attained at first. All
+your pieces are much mended after a little reflection, and therefore
+take some solitary walks, and think over each separate thing. Spare no
+time or trouble to render each piece as perfect as you can, and then
+leave the event without one anxious thought. I have always admired
+a saying of one of the old heathen philosophers. When a friend was
+condoling with him that he so well deserved of the gods, and yet that
+they 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 do
+you, my dearest. Do your best because it is the will of God you should
+improve every faculty to the utmost now, and strengthen the powers of
+your mind by exercise, and then in future you will be better enabled to
+glorify 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 everlasting
+habitations, with the applauding voice of your Saviour, "Well done, good
+and faithful servant." You see how ambitious your mother is. She must
+have the wisdom of her son acknowledged before Angels, and an assembled
+world. My wishes can soar no higher, and they can be content with
+nothing less for any of my children. The first time I saw your face, I
+repeated 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 a
+month you and I shall, I trust, be rambling over the Common, which now
+looks quite beautiful.
+
+I am ever, my dear Tom,
+
+Your affectionate mother,
+
+SELINA MACAULAY.
+
+The commencement of the second half-year at school, perhaps the darkest
+season of a boy's existence, was marked by an unusually severe and
+prolonged attack of home-sickness. It would be cruel to insert the first
+letter 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 disappointed
+at not receiving a letter from home to-day. I hope, however, for one
+to-morrow. My spirits are far more depressed by leaving home than
+they 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 I
+should be happy when I once came here, but not an hour passes in which
+I do not shed tears at thinking of home. Every hope, however unlikely to
+be realised, affords me some small consolation. The morning on which I
+went, 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 is
+nothing which I would not give for one instant's sight of home. Tell
+me in your next, expressly, if you can, whether or no there is any
+likelihood of my coming home before the holidays. If I could gain Papa's
+leave, I should select my birthday on October 25 as the time which I
+should wish to spend at that home which absence renders still dearer to
+me. I think I see you sitting by Papa just after his dinner, reading my
+letter, and turning to him, with an inquisitive glance, at the end of
+the paragraph. I think too that I see his expressive shake of the head
+at it. O, may I be mistaken! You cannot conceive what an alteration a
+favourable answer would produce in me. If your approbation of my request
+depends upon my advancing in study, I will work like a cart-horse. If
+you should refuse it, you will deprive me of the most pleasing illusion
+which 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 a
+biography that is not his own.
+
+Mr. Macaulay's deep anxiety for his son's welfare sometimes induced him
+to lend too ready an ear to busybodies, who informed him of failings
+in the boy which would have been treated more lightly, and perhaps more
+wisely, by a less devoted father. In the early months of 1814 he writes
+as follows, after hearing the tale of some guest of Mr. Preston whom
+Tom had no doubt contradicted at table in presence of the assembled
+household.
+
+London: March 4, 1814.
+
+My dear Tom,--In taking up my pen this morning a passage in Cowper
+almost 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 my
+notions, averse as I am to loud and noisy tones, and self-confident,
+overwhelming, and yet perhaps very unsound arguments. And you will
+remember 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 change
+in you in this respect. My hopes, however, have been a little damped by
+something which I heard last week through a friend, who seemed to have
+received an impression that you had gained a high distinction among the
+young 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 does
+so not so much on account of the thing itself, as because I consider
+it a pretty infallible test of the mind within. I do long and pray
+most earnestly that the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit may be
+substituted for vehemence and self-confidence, and that you may be as
+much 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 should
+take a high degree.
+
+If the people of Shelford be as bad as you represent them in your
+letters, what are they but an epitome of the world at large? Are they
+ungrateful to you for your kindnesses? Are they foolish, and wicked,
+and wayward in the use of their faculties? What is all this but what
+we ourselves are guilty of every day? Consider how much in our case the
+guilt of such conduct is aggravated by our superior knowledge. We shall
+not have ignorance to plead in its extenuation, as many of the people of
+Shelford may have. Now, instead of railing at the people of Shelford, I
+think the best thing which you and your schoolfellows could do would be
+to try to reform them. You can buy and distribute useful and striking
+tracts, as well as Testaments, among such as can read. The cheap
+Repository and Religious Tract Society will furnish tracts suited to all
+descriptions of persons; and for those who cannot read--why should you
+not institute a Sunday school to be taught by yourselves, and in which
+appropriate rewards being given for good behaviour, not only at school
+but through the week, great effects of a moral kind might soon be
+produced? I have exhausted my paper, and must answer the rest of your
+letter 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 were
+to elapse before the son ceased to talk loudly and with confidence; and
+the literature that he was destined to distribute through the world was
+of another order from that which Mr. Macaulay here suggests. The answer,
+which is addressed to the mother, affords a proof that the boy could
+already hold his own. The allusions to the Christian Observer, of which
+his father was editor, and to Dr. Herbert Marsh, with whom the ablest
+pens of Clapham were at that moment engaged in hot and embittered
+controversy, 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 by
+all the ties of gratitude. I have some hopes that it will be a lasting
+peace; that the troubles of the last twenty years may make kings and
+nations wiser. I cannot conceive a greater punishment to Buonaparte than
+that which the allies have inflicted on him. How can his ambitious mind
+support it? All his great projects and schemes, which once made every
+throne in Europe tremble, are buried in the solitude of an Italian isle.
+How miraculously everything has been conducted! We almost seem to hear
+the Almighty saying to the fallen tyrant, "For this cause have I raised
+thee up, that I might show in thee My power."
+
+As I am in very great haste with this letter, I shall have but little
+time to write. I am sorry to hear that some nameless friend of Papa's
+denounced my voice as remarkably loud. I have accordingly resolved to
+speak 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 I
+am praising Mr. Preston or his sisters I may be allowed to speak in my
+loudest 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 Bible
+Society,--Herbert Marsh, D.D., Professor of Divinity on Lady Margaret's
+foundation. I stood looking at him for about ten minutes, and shall
+always continue to maintain that he is a very ill-favoured gentleman as
+far as outward appearance is concerned. I am going this week to spend
+a day or two at Dean Milner's, where I hope, nothing unforeseen
+preventing, 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 to
+Aspenden Hall near Buntingford, in Hertfordshire; a large old-fashioned
+mansion, standing amidst extensive shrubberies, and a pleasant
+undulating domain sprinkled with fine timber. The house has been rebuilt
+within the last twenty years, and nothing remains of it except the dark
+oak panelling of the hall in which the scholars made their recitations
+on the annual speech day. The very pretty church, which stands hard by
+within the grounds, was undergoing restoration in 1873 and by this time
+the only existing portion of the former internal fittings is the family
+pew, in which the boys sat on drowsy summer afternoons, doing what they
+could to keep their impressions of the second sermon distinct from their
+reminiscences of the morning. Here Macaulay spent four most industrious
+years, doing less and less in the class-room as time went on, but
+enjoying the rare advantage of studying Greek and Latin by the side of
+such a scholar as Malden. The two companions were equally matched in age
+and classical attainments, and at the university maintained a rivalry so
+generous as hardly to deserve the name. Each of the pupils had his own
+chamber, which the others were forbidden to enter under the penalty of
+a shilling fine. This prohibition was in general not very strictly
+observed; but the tutor had taken the precaution of placing Macaulay
+in a room next his own;--a proximity which rendered the position of an
+intruder so exceptionally dangerous that even Malden could not remember
+having once passed his friend's threshold during the whole of their stay
+at Aspenden.
+
+In this seclusion, removed from the delight of family intercourse, (the
+only attraction strong enough to draw him from his books,) the boy
+read widely, unceasingly, more than rapidly. The secret of his immense
+acquirements lay in two invaluable gifts of nature,--an unerring memory,
+and the capacity for taking in at a glance the contents of a printed
+page. During the first part of his life he remembered whatever caught
+his fancy without going through the process of consciously getting it
+by heart. As a child, during one of the numerous seasons when the social
+duties devolved upon Mr. Macaulay, he accompanied his father on an
+afternoon call, and found on a table the Lay of the Last Minstrel, which
+he had never before met with. He kept himself quiet with his prize while
+the elders were talking, and, on his return home, sat down upon his
+mother's bed, and repeated to her as many cantos as she had the patience
+or the strength to listen to. At one period of his life he was known to
+say that, if by some miracle of Vandalism all copies of Paradise Lost
+and the Pilgrim's Progress were destroyed off the face of the earth,
+he would undertake to reproduce them both from recollection whenever
+a revival of learning came. In 1813, while waiting in a Cambridge
+coffee-room for a postchaise which was to take him to his school, he
+picked up a county newspaper containing two such specimens of provincial
+poetical talent as in those days might be read in the corner of any
+weekly journal. One piece was headed "Reflections of an Exile;" while
+the 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 bitten
+off by a filly. He looked them once through, and never gave them a
+thought for forty years, at the end of which time he repeated them both
+without missing,--or, as far as he knew, changing,--a single word.
+
+[Sir William Stirling Maxwell says, in a letter with which he has
+honoured me: "Of his extraordinary memory I remember Lord Jeffrey
+telling me an instance. They had had a difference about a quotation from
+Paradise Lost, and made a wager about it; the wager being a copy of the
+hook, which, on reference to the passage, it was found Jeffrey had won.
+The bet was made just before, and paid immediately after, the Easter
+vacation. 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 to
+examine him, putting him on at a variety of the heaviest passages--the
+battle of the angels--the dialogues of Adam and the archangels,--and
+found him ready to declaim them all, till he begged him to stop. He
+asked him how he had acquired such a command of the poem, and had for
+answer: 'I had him in the country, and I read it twice over, and I
+don't think that I shall ever forget it again.' At the same time he told
+Jeffrey that he believed he could repeat everything of his own he had
+ever printed, and nearly all he had ever written, 'except, perhaps, some
+of my college exercises.'
+
+"I myself had an opportunity of seeing and hearing a remarkable proof of
+your uncle's hold upon the most insignificant verbiage that chance had
+poured into his ear. I was staying with him at Bowood, in the winter
+of 1852. Lord Elphinstone--who had been many years before Governor of
+Madras,--was telling one morning at breakfast of a certain native barber
+there, who was famous, in his time, for English doggrel of his own
+making, 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 good
+way off, immediately said: 'I remember being shaved by the fellow, and
+he recited a quantity of verse to me during the operation, and here
+is some of it;' and then he went off in a very queer doggrel about the
+exploits 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 that
+poem since the day when he escaped from under the poet's razor.]
+
+As he grew older, this wonderful power became impaired so far that
+getting by rote the compositions of others was no longer an involuntary
+process. He has noted in his Lucan the several occasions on which he
+committed to memory his favourite passages of an author whom he regarded
+as unrivalled among rhetoricians; and the dates refer to 1836, when he
+had just turned the middle point of life. During his last years, at his
+dressing-table in the morning, he would learn by heart one or another
+of the little idylls in which Martial expatiates on the enjoyments of a
+Spanish country-house, or a villa-farm in the environs of Rome;--those
+delicious morsels of verse which, (considering the sense that modern
+ideas attach to the name,) it is an injustice to class under the head of
+epigrams.
+
+Macaulay's extraordinary faculty of assimilating printed matter at first
+sight remained the same through life. To the end he read books more
+quickly than other people skimmed them, and skimmed them as fast as
+anyone 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 in
+his case obtained at the expense of accuracy. Anything which had once
+appeared in type, from the highest effort of genius down to the most
+detestable trash that ever consumed ink and paper manufactured for
+better things, had in his eyes an authority which led him to look upon
+misquotation as a species of minor sacrilege.
+
+With these endowments, sharpened by an insatiable curiosity, from his
+fourteenth year onward he was permitted to roam almost at will over
+the whole expanse of literature. He composed little beyond his school
+exercises, which themselves bear signs of having been written in a
+perfunctory manner. At this period he had evidently no heart in anything
+but his reading. Before leaving Shelford for Aspenden he had already
+invoked 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 singing
+before he had well completed two books of the poem. Thenceforward he
+appears never to have struck his lyre, except in the first enthusiasm
+aroused by the intelligence of some favourable turn of fortune on
+the 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 into
+requisition to petition for a holiday in honour of the event. He
+addressed his tutor in a short poem, which begins with a few sonorous
+and effective couplets, grows more and more like the parody on
+Fitzgerald in "Rejected Addresses," and ends in a peroration of which
+the 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 young
+Macaulay never turned another verse except at the bidding of his
+schoolmaster, until, on the eve of his departure for Cambridge, he
+wrote between three and four hundred lines of a drama, entitled "Don
+Fernando," marked by force and fertility of diction, but somewhat too
+artificial to be worthy of publication under a name such as his. Much
+about the same time he communicated to Malden the commencement of a
+burlesque poem on the story of Anthony Babington; who, by the part that
+he took in the plots against the life of Queen Elizabeth, had given the
+family 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 with
+the first stanza, which in its turn was probably written for the sake of
+a single line. The young man had a better use for his time than to spend
+it in producing frigid imitations of Beppo.
+
+He was not unpopular among his fellow-pupils, who regarded him with
+pride and admiration, tempered by the compassion which his utter
+inability to play at any sort of game would have excited in every
+school, private or public alike. He troubled himself very little about
+the opinion of those by whom he was surrounded at Aspenden. It required
+the crowd and the stir of a university to call forth the social
+qualities which he possessed in so large a measure. The tone of his
+correspondence during these years sufficiently indicates that he lived
+almost exclusively among books. His letters, which had hitherto been
+very natural and pretty, began to smack of the library, and please less
+than those written in early boyhood. His pen was overcharged with the
+metaphors and phrases of other men; and it was not till maturing powers
+had enabled him to master and arrange the vast masses of literature
+which filled his memory that his native force could display itself
+freely through the medium of a style which was all his own. In 1815 he
+began a formal literary correspondence, after the taste of the previous
+century, with Mr. Hudson, a gentleman in the Examiner's Office of the
+East India House.
+
+Aspenden Hall: August 22, 1815.
+
+Dear Sir,--The Spectator observes, I believe in his first paper, that
+we can never read an author with much zest unless we are acquainted with
+his situation. I feel the same in my epistolary correspondence; and,
+supposing that in this respect we may be alike, I will just tell you
+my condition. Imagine a house in the middle of pretty large grounds,
+surrounded by palings. These I never pass. You may therefore suppose
+that 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 may
+form an idea of what I know of the present state of things. Write to
+me as one who is ignorant of every event except political occurrences.
+These I learn regularly; but if Lord Byron were to publish melodies or
+romances, or Scott metrical tales without number, I should never see
+them, or perhaps hear of them, till Christmas. Retirement of this kind,
+though it precludes me from studying the works of the hour, is very
+favourable for the employment of "holding high converse with the mighty
+dead."
+
+I know not whether "peeping at the world through the loopholes of
+retreat" be the best way of forming us for engaging in its busy and
+active scenes. I am sure it is not a way to my taste. Poets may talk
+of the beauties of nature, the enjoyments of a country life, and rural
+innocence; but there is another kind of life which, though unsung
+by bards, is yet to me infinitely superior to the dull uniformity of
+country life. London is the place for me. Its smoky atmosphere, and its
+muddy river, charm me more than the pure air of Hertfordshire, and the
+crystal currents of the river Rib. Nothing is equal to the splendid
+varieties of London life, "the fine flow of London talk," and the
+dazzling brilliancy of London spectacles. Such are my sentiments, and,
+if ever I publish poetry, it shall not be pastoral. Nature is the last
+goddess 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 his
+fifteenth year!
+
+Aspenden Hall: August 23, 1815.
+
+My dear Mama,--You perceive already in so large a sheet, and so small a
+hand, the promise of a long, a very long letter, longer, as I intend
+it, than all the letters which you send in a half-year together. I have
+again begun my life of sterile monotony, unvarying labour, the dull
+return of dull exercises in dull uniformity of tediousness. But do not
+think 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 to
+say not particularly unhappy,--in solitude; but man is an animal made
+for society. I was gifted with reason, not to speculate in Aspenden
+Park, but to interchange ideas with some person who can understand me.
+This is what I miss at Aspenden. There are several here who possess both
+taste and reading; who can criticise Lord Byron and Southey with much
+tact 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 the
+first place read Boccacio's Decameron, a tale of a hundred cantos. He is
+a wonderful writer. Whether he tells in humorous or familiar strains the
+follies of the silly Calandrino, or the witty pranks of Buffalmacco and
+Bruno, 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 of
+the monks and the priestcraft of the established religion, he is always
+elegant, amusing, and, what pleases and surprises most in a writer of
+so unpolished an age, strikingly delicate and chastised. I prefer him
+infinitely to Chaucer. If you wish for a good specimen of Boccacio, as
+soon as you have finished my letter, (which will come, I suppose, by
+dinner-time,) send Jane up to the library for Dryden's poems, and you
+will find among them several translations from Boccacio, particularly
+one entitled "Theodore and Honoria."
+
+But, truly admirable as the bard of Florence is, I must not permit
+myself to give him more than his due share of my letter. I have likewise
+read Gil Blas, with unbounded admiration of the abilities of Le Sage.
+Malden and I have read Thalaba together, and are proceeding to the Curse
+of Kehama. Do not think, however, that I am neglecting more important
+studies than either Southey or Boccacio. I have read the greater part of
+the History of James I. and Mrs. Montague's essay on Shakspeare, and
+a great deal of Gibbon. I never devoured so many books in a fortnight.
+John Smith, Bob Hankinson, and I, went over the Hebrew Melodies
+together. I certainly think far better of them than we used to do at
+Clapham. Papa may laugh, and indeed he did laugh me out of my taste at
+Clapham; but I think that there is a great deal of beauty in the first
+melody, "She walks in beauty," though indeed who it is that walks in
+beauty is not very exactly defined. My next letter shall contain a
+production of my muse, entitled "An Inscription for the Column of
+Waterloo," which is to be shown to Mr. Preston to-morrow. What he may
+think of it I do not know. But I am like my favourite Cicero about my
+own productions. It is all one to me what others think of them. I never
+like 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 three
+subjects for a Declamation. Those which I have selected are as follows:
+1st, a speech in the character of Lord Coningsby, impeaching the Earl of
+Oxford; 2nd, an essay on the utility of standing armies; 3rd, an essay
+on the policy of Great Britain with regard to continental possessions.
+I conclude with sending my love to Papa, Selina, Jane, John, ("but he
+is not there," as Fingal pathetically says, when in enumerating his sons
+who should accompany him to the chase he inadvertently mentions the dead
+Ryno,) Henry, Fanny, Hannah, Margaret, and Charles. Valete.
+
+T.B. MACAULAY.
+
+This exhaustive enumeration of his brothers and sisters invites
+attention to that home where he reigned supreme. Lady Trevelyan thus
+describes their life at Clapham: "I think that my father's strictness
+was a good counterpoise to the perfect worship of your uncle by the rest
+of 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, his
+unfailing flow of spirits, his amusing talk, all made his presence
+so delightful that his wishes and his tastes were our law. He hated
+strangers; and his notion of perfect happiness was to see us all working
+round him while he read aloud a novel, and then to walk all together
+on the Common, or, if it rained, to have a frightfully noisy game of
+hide-and-seek. I have often wondered how our mother could ever have
+endured our noise in her little house. My earliest recollections speak
+of the intense happiness of the holidays, beginning with finding him in
+Papa's room in the morning; the awe at the idea of his having reached
+home in the dark after we were in bed, and the Saturnalia which at once
+set in;--no lessons; nothing but fun and merriment for the whole six
+weeks. In the year 1816 we were at Brighton for the summer holidays, and
+he read to us Sir Charles Grandison. It was always a habit in our family
+to read aloud every evening. Among the books selected I can recall
+Clarendon, Burnet, Shakspeare, (a great treat when my mother took the
+volume,) Miss Edgeworth, Mackenzie's Lounger and Mirror, and, as a
+standing 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, and
+stigmatised as 'drinking drams in the morning.'"
+
+Morning or evening, Mr. Macaulay disapproved of novel-reading; but, too
+indulgent 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 were
+more read, and better remembered, than in any household of the United
+Kingdom. The first warning of the troubles that were in store for him
+was an anonymous letter addressed to him as editor of the Christian
+Observer, defending works of fiction, and eulogising Fielding and
+Smollett. This he incautiously inserted in his periodical, and brought
+down upon himself the most violent objurgations from scandalised
+contributors, one of whom informed the public that he had committed the
+obnoxious number to the flames, and should thenceforward cease to take
+in the Magazine. The editor replied with becoming spirit; although by
+that time he was aware that the communication, the insertion of which in
+an unguarded moment had betrayed him into a controversy for which he had
+so little heart, had proceeded from the pen of his son. Such was young
+Macaulay's first appearance in print, if we except the index to the
+thirteenth volume of the Christian Observer, which he drew up during his
+Christmas holidays of 1814. The place where he performed his earliest
+literary work can be identified with tolerable certainty. He enjoyed the
+eldest son's privilege of a separate bedchamber; and there, at the front
+window on the top story, furthest from the Common and nearest to London,
+we can fancy him sitting, apart from the crowded play-room, keeping
+himself warm as best he might, and travelling steadily through the
+blameless pages the contents of which it was his task to classify for
+the convenience of posterity.
+
+Lord Macaulay used to remark that Thackeray introduced too much of the
+Dissenting element into his picture of Clapham in the opening chapters
+of "The Newcomes." The leading people of the place,--with the exception
+of Mr. William Smith, the Unitarian member of Parliament,--were one and
+all staunch Churchmen; though they readily worked in concert with those
+religious communities which held in the main the same views, and pursued
+the same objects, as themselves. Old John Thornton, the earliest of the
+Evangelical magnates, when he went on his annual tour to the South
+Coast or the Scotch mountains, would take with him some Independent or
+Wesleyan minister who was in need of a holiday; and his followers in
+the next generation had the most powerful motives for maintaining the
+alliance which he had inaugurated. They could not neglect such doughty
+auxiliaries in the memorable war which they waged against cruelty,
+ignorance, and irreligion, and in their less momentous skirmishes with
+the 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 certain
+failure. The cordial relations entertained with the members of other
+denominations by those among whom his youth was passed did much to
+indoctrinate Macaulay with a lively and genuine interest in sectarian
+theology. He possessed a minute acquaintance, very rare among men of
+letters, with the origin and growth of the various forms of faith and
+practice which have divided the allegiance of his countrymen; not the
+least important of his qualifications for writing the history of an
+epoch when the national mind gave itself to religious controversy even
+more 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 houses
+of an architecture already dating a century back, which surrounded the
+Common, there was plenty of freedom, and good fellowship, and reasonable
+enjoyment for young and old alike. Here again Thackeray has not
+done justice to a society that united the mental culture, and the
+intellectual activity, which are developed by the neighbourhood of a
+great capital, with the wholesome quiet and the homely ways of country
+life. Hobson and Brian Newcome are not fair specimens of the effect
+of Clapham influences upon the second generation. There can have been
+nothing vulgar, and little that was narrow, in a training which produced
+Samuel Wilberforce, and Sir James Stephen, and Charles and Robert Grant,
+and Lord Macaulay. The plan on which children were brought up in the
+chosen home of the Low Church party, during its golden age, will
+bear comparison with systems about which, in their day, the world was
+supposed never to tire of hearing, although their ultimate results have
+been small indeed.
+
+It is easy to trace whence the great bishop and the great writer derived
+their immense industry. Working came as naturally as walking to sons who
+could not remember a time when their fathers idled. "Mr. Wilberforce and
+Mr. Babington have never appeared downstairs lately, except to take a
+hasty dinner, and for half an hour after we have supped. The slave-trade
+now occupies them nine hours daily. Mr. Babington told me last night
+that he had fourteen hundred folio pages to read, to detect the
+contradictions, and to collect the answers which corroborate Mr.
+Wilberforce's assertions in his speeches. These, with more than two
+thousand pages to be abridged, must be done within a fortnight, and they
+talk of sitting up one night in every week to accomplish it. The two
+friends begin to look very ill, but they are in excellent spirits, and
+at this moment I hear them laughing at some absurd questions in the
+examination." Passages such as this are scattered broadcast through the
+correspondence of Wilberforce and his friends. Fortitude, and diligence,
+and self-control, and all that makes men good and great, cannot be
+purchased from professional educators. Charity is not the only quality
+which begins at home. It is throwing away money to spend a thousand a
+year on the teaching of three boys, if they are to return from school
+only to find the older members of their family intent on amusing
+themselves at any cost of time and trouble, or sacrificing self-respect
+in ignoble efforts to struggle into a social grade above their own. The
+child will never place his aims high, and pursue them steadily, unless
+the parent has taught him what energy, and elevation of purpose, mean
+not less by example than by precept.
+
+In that company of indefatigable workers none equalled the labours of
+Zachary Macaulay. Even now, when he has been in his grave for more than
+the third of a century, it seems almost an act of disloyalty to record
+the public services of a man who thought that he had done less than
+nothing if his exertions met with praise, or even with recognition. The
+nature and value of those services may be estimated from the terms in
+which a very competent judge, who knew how to weigh his words, spoke
+of the part which Mr. Macaulay played in one only of his numerous
+enterprises,--the suppression of slavery and the slave-trade. "That God
+had called him into being to wage war with this gigantic evil became his
+immutable conviction. During forty successive years he was ever burdened
+with this thought. It was the subject of his visions by day and of his
+dreams by night. To give them reality he laboured as men labour for the
+honours of a profession or for the subsistence of their children.
+In that service he sacrificed all that a man may lawfully
+sacrifice--health, fortune, repose, favour, and celebrity. He died a
+poor man, though wealth was within his reach. He devoted himself to
+the severest toil, amidst allurements to luxuriate in the delights of
+domestic and social intercourse, such as few indeed have encountered.
+He silently permitted some to usurp his hardly-earned honours, that
+no selfish controversy might desecrate their common cause. He made no
+effort to obtain the praises of the world, though he had talents to
+command, and a temper peculiarly disposed to enjoy them. He drew upon
+himself the poisoned shafts of calumny, and, while feeling their sting
+as generous spirits only can feel it, never turned a single step aside
+from his path to propitiate or to crush the slanderers."
+
+Zachary Macaulay was no mere man of action. It is difficult to
+understand when it was that he had time to pick up his knowledge of
+general literature; or how he made room for it in a mind so crammed
+with facts and statistics relating to questions of the day that when
+Wilberforce 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 long
+register of unbroken toil, do nothing to clear up the problem. Highly
+cultivated, however, he certainly was, and his society was in request
+with many who cared little for the objects which to him were everything.
+That he should have been esteemed and regarded by Lord Brougham, Francis
+Homer, and Sir James Mackintosh, seems natural enough, but there is
+something surprising in finding him in friendly and frequent
+intercourse with some of his most distinguished French contemporaries.
+Chateaubriand, Sismondi, the Duc de Broglie, Madame de Stael, and
+Dumont, the interpreter of Bentham, corresponded with him freely in
+their own language, which he wrote to admiration. The gratification that
+his foreign acquaintance felt at the sight of his letters would have
+been unalloyed but for the pamphlets and blue-books by which they were
+too often accompanied. It is not difficult to imagine the feelings of a
+Parisian on receiving two quarto volumes, with the postage only in part
+pre-paid, containing the proceedings of a Committee on Apprenticeship in
+the West Indies, and including the twelve or fifteen thousand questions
+and answers on which the Report was founded. It would be hard to meet
+with a more perfect sample of the national politeness than the passage
+in which M. Dumont acknowledges one of the less formidable of these
+unwelcome gifts. "Mon cher Ami,--Je ne laisserai pas partir Mr. Inglis
+sans le charger de quelques lignes pour vous, afin de vous remercier du
+Christian Observer que vous avez eu la bonte de m'envoyer. Vous savez
+que j'ai a great taste for it; mais il faut vous avouer une triste
+verite, c'est que je manque absolument de loisir pour le lire. Ne m'en
+envoyez plus; car je me sens peine d'avoir sous les yeux de si bonnes
+choses, dont je n'ai pas le temps de tue nourrir."
+
+"In the year 1817," Lady Trevelyan writes, "my parents made a tour in
+Scotland with your uncle. Brougham gave them a letter to Jeffrey, who
+hospitably entertained them; but your uncle said that Jeffrey was not
+at all at his ease, and was apparently so terrified at my father's
+religious reputation that he seemed afraid to utter a joke. Your uncle
+complained grievously that they travelled from manse to manse, and
+always came in for very long prayers and expositions. [Macaulay writes
+in his journal of August 8, 1859: "We passed my old acquaintance,
+Dumbarton castle, I remembered my first visit to Dumbarton, and the old
+minister, who insisted on our eating a bit of cake with him, and said
+a grace over it which might have been prologue to a dinner of the
+Fishmongers' Company, or the Grocers' Company."] I think, with all the
+love and reverence with which your uncle regarded his father's memory,
+there mingled a shade of bitterness that he had not met quite the
+encouragement and appreciation from him which he received from others.
+But such a son as he was! Never a disrespectful word or look; always
+anxious to please and amuse; and at last he was the entire stay and
+support of his father's declining years.
+
+"Your uncle was of opinion that the course pursued by his father towards
+him during his youth was not judicious. But here I am inclined to
+disagree with him. There was no want of proof of the estimation in which
+his father held him, corresponding with him from a very early age as
+with 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 my
+father a great outward show of repression and depreciation. Then
+the faults of your uncle were peculiarly those that my father had no
+patience with. Himself precise in his arrangements, writing a beautiful
+hand, particular about neatness, very accurate and calm, detesting
+strong expressions, and remarkably self-controlled; while his eager
+impetuous boy, careless of his dress, always forgetting to wash his
+hands and brush his hair, writing an execrable hand, and folding
+his letters with a great blotch for a seal, was a constant care and
+irritation. 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 desired
+to repeat the experiment till he succeeds. General Macaulay's fastidious
+nature led him to take my father's line regarding your uncle, and my
+youthful soul was often vexed by the constant reprimands for venial
+transgressions. But the great sin was the idle reading, which was a
+thorn in my father's side that never was extracted. In truth, he really
+acknowledged to the full your uncle's abilities, and felt that if he
+could only add his own morale, his unwearied industry, his power of
+concentrating his energies on the work in hand, his patient painstaking
+calmness, to the genius and fervour which his son possessed, then a
+being might be formed who could regenerate the world. Often in later
+years I have heard my father, after expressing an earnest desire for
+some object, exclaim, 'If I had only Tom's power of speech!' But he
+should have remembered that all gifts are not given to one, and that
+perhaps such a union as he coveted is even impossible. Parents must
+be content to see their children walk in their own path, too happy if
+through any road they attain the same end, the living for the glory of
+God and the good of man."
+
+From a marvellously early date in Macaulay's life public affairs divided
+his thoughts with literature, and, as he grew to manhood, began more and
+more to divide his aspirations. His father's house was much used as a
+centre of consultation by members of Parliament who lived in the suburbs
+on the Surrey side of London; and the boy could hardly have heard more
+incessant, and assuredly not more edifying, political talk if he had
+been brought up in Downing Street. The future advocate and interpreter
+of Whig principles was not reared in the Whig faith. Attached friends of
+Pitt, who in personal conduct, and habits of life, certainly came nearer
+to their standard than his great rival,--and warmly in favour of a war
+which, to their imagination, never entirely lost its early character of
+an internecine contest with atheism.--the Evangelicals in the House of
+Commons for the most part acted with the Tories. But it may be doubted
+whether, in the long run, their party would not have been better without
+them. By the zeal, the munificence, the laborious activity, with which
+they pursued their religious and semi-religious enterprises, they did
+more to teach the world how to get rid of existing institutions than
+by their votes and speeches at Westminster they contributed to preserve
+them. [Macaulay, writing to one of his sisters in 1844, says: "I think
+Stephen's article on the Clapham Sect the best thing he ever did, I do
+not think with you that the Claphamites were men too obscure for such
+delineation. The truth is that from that little knot of men emanated
+all the Bible Societies, and almost all the Missionary Societies, in the
+world. The whole organisation of the Evangelical party was their work.
+The share which they had in providing means for the education of the
+people was great. They were really the destroyers of the slave-trade,
+and of slavery. Many of those whom Stephen describes were public men of
+the greatest weight, Lord Teignmouth governed India in Calcutta, Grant
+governed India in Leadenhall Street, Stephen's father was Perceval's
+right-hand man in the House of Commons. It is needless to speak of
+Wilberforce. As to Simeon, if you knew what his authority and influence
+were, and how they extended from Cambridge to the most remote corners
+of England, you would allow that his real sway in the Church was far
+greater than that of any primate. Thornton, to my surprise, thinks the
+passage about my father unfriendly. I defended Stephen. The truth is
+that he asked my permission to draw a portrait of my father for the
+Edinburgh Review. I told him that I had only to beg that he would not
+give 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 so
+well known that a mere eulogy of my father appearing in that work would
+only call forth derision. I therefore am really glad that Stephen has
+introduced into his sketch some little characteristic traits which, in
+themselves, were not beauties."] With their May meetings, and African
+Institutions, and Anti-slavery Reporters, and their subscriptions of
+tens of thousands of pounds, and their petitions bristling with hundreds
+of thousands of signatures, and all the machinery for informing opinion
+and bringing it to bear on ministers and legislators which they did
+so much to perfect and even to invent, they can be regarded as nothing
+short of the pioneers and fuglemen of that system of popular agitation
+which forms a leading feature in our internal history during the past
+half-century. At an epoch when the Cabinet which they supported was
+so averse to manifestations of political sentiment that a Reformer who
+spoke his mind in England was seldom long out of prison, and in Scotland
+ran a very serious risk of transportation, Toryism sat oddly enough on
+men who spent their days in the committee-room and their evenings on the
+platform, and each of whom belonged to more Associations combined for
+the purpose of influencing Parliament than he could count on the fingers
+of both his hands.
+
+There was something incongruous in their position; and as time went
+on they began to perceive the incongruity. They gradually learned that
+measures dear to philanthropy might be expected to result from the
+advent to power of their opponents; while their own chief too often
+failed them at a pinch out of what appeared to them an excessive,
+and humiliating, deference to interests powerfully represented on the
+benches behind him. Their eyes were first opened by Pitt's change of
+attitude with regard to the object that was next all their hearts. There
+is something almost pathetic in the contrast between two entries in
+Wilberforce's diary, of which the first has become classical, but the
+second is not so generally known. In 1787, referring to the movement
+against the slave-trade, he says: "Pitt recommended me to undertake its
+conduct, as a subject suited to my character and talents. At length, I
+well remember, after a conversation in the open air at the root of an
+old tree at Holwood, just above the vale of Keston, I resolved to give
+notice on a fit occasion in the House of Commons of my intention to
+bring the subject forward." Twelve years later Mr. Henry Thornton had
+brought in a bill for confining the trade within certain limits upon
+the coast of Africa. "Upon the second reading of this bill," writes
+Wilberforce, "Pitt coolly put off the debate when I had manifested a
+design of answering P.'s speech, and so left misrepresentations without
+a word. William Smith's anger;--Henry Thornton's coolness;--deep
+impression on me, but conquered, I hope, in a Christian way."
+
+Besides instructing their successors in the art of carrying on a popular
+movement, Wilberforce and his followers had a lesson to teach, the value
+of which not so many perhaps will be disposed to question. In public
+life, as in private, they habitually had the fear of God before their
+eyes. A mere handful as to number, and in average talent very much on
+a level with the mass of their colleagues;--counting in their ranks no
+orator, or minister, or boroughmonger;--they commanded the ear of the
+House, and exerted on its proceedings an influence, the secret of which
+those who have studied the Parliamentary history of the period find it
+only 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 variance
+with the social customs of the day than it was the exception in the
+political world to meet with men who looked to the facts of the case and
+not to the wishes of the minister, and who before going into the lobby
+required to be obliged with a reason instead of with a job. Confidence
+and respect, and (what in the House of Commons is their unvarying
+accompaniment) power, were gradually, and to a great extent
+involuntarily, accorded to this group of members. They were not addicted
+to crotchets, nor to the obtrusive and unseasonable assertion of
+conscientious scruples. The occasions on which they made proof of
+independence and impartiality were such as justified, and dignified,
+their temporary renunciation of party ties. They interfered with
+decisive effect in the debates on the great scandals of Lord Melville
+and the Duke of York, and in more than one financial or commercial
+controversy that deeply concerned the national interests, of which
+the question of the retaining the Orders in Council was a conspicuous
+instance. A boy who, like young Macaulay, was admitted to the intimacy
+of politicians such as these, and was accustomed to hear matters of
+state discussed exclusively from a public point of view without any
+afterthought of ambition, or jealousy, or self-seeking, could hardly
+fail to grow up a patriotic and disinterested man. "What is far better
+and more important than all is this, that I believe Macaulay to be
+incorruptible. You might lay ribbons, stars, garters, wealth, titles
+before him in vain. He has an honest genuine love of his country, and
+the world would not bribe him to neglect her interests." Thus said
+Sydney Smith, who of all his real friends was the least inclined to
+over-praise him.
+
+The memory of Thornton and Babington, and the other worthies of their
+day and set, is growing dim, and their names already mean little in our
+ears. Part of their work was so thoroughly done that the world, as its
+wont is, has long ago taken the credit of that work to itself. Others of
+their undertakings, in weaker hands than theirs, seem out of date among
+the ideas and beliefs which now are prevalent. At Clapham, as elsewhere,
+the old order is changing, and not always in a direction which to them
+would be acceptable or even tolerable. What was once the home of Zachary
+Macaulay stands almost within the swing of the bell of a stately
+and elegant Roman Catholic chapel; and the pleasant mansion of Lord
+Teignmouth, the cradle of the Bible Society, is now a religious house of
+the Redemptorist Order. But in one shape or another honest performance
+always lives, and the gains that accrued from the labours of these
+men are still on the right side of the national ledger. Among the most
+permanent of those gains is their undoubted share in the improvement of
+our political integrity by direct, and still more by indirect, example.
+It would be ungrateful to forget in how large a measure it is due to
+them that one, whose judgments upon the statesmen of many ages and
+countries have been delivered to an audience vast beyond all precedent,
+should have framed his decisions in accordance with the dictates of
+honour 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 for
+Southwark, was his companion throughout his university career. The
+young men lived in the same lodgings, and began by reading with the same
+tutor; a plan which promised well, because, in addition to what was his
+own by right, each had the benefit of the period of instruction paid for
+by the other. But two hours were much the same as one to Macaulay, in
+whose eyes algebra and geometry were so much additional material for
+lively and interminable argument. Thornton reluctantly broke through the
+arrangement, and eventually stood highest among the Trinity wranglers
+of his year; an elevation which he could hardly have attained if he had
+pursued his studies in company with one who regarded every successive
+mathematical proposition as an open question. A Parliamentary election
+took place while the two friends were still quartered together in Jesus
+Lane. A tumult in the neighbouring street announced that the citizens
+were expressing their sentiments by the only channel which was open to
+them before the days of Reform; and Macaulay, to whom any excitement of
+a political nature was absolutely irresistible, dragged Thornton to
+the scene of action, and found the mob breaking the windows of the Hoop
+hotel, the head-quarters of the successful candidates. His ardour
+was cooled by receiving a dead cat full in the face. The man who was
+responsible for the animal came up and apologised very civilly, assuring
+him that there was no town and gown feeling in the matter, and that the
+cat had been meant for Mr. Adeane. "I wish," replied Macaulay, "that you
+had meant it for me, and hit Mr. Adeane."
+
+After no long while he removed within the walls of Trinity, and resided
+first in the centre rooms of Bishop's Hostel, and subsequently in the
+Old Court, between the Gate and the Chapel. The door, which once bore
+his name, is on the ground floor, to the left hand as you face the
+staircase. In more recent years, undergraduates who are accustomed to
+be out after lawful hours have claimed a right of way through the window
+which looks towards the town;--to the great annoyance of any occupant
+who is too good-natured to refuse the accommodation to others, and too
+steady to need it himself. This power of surreptitious entry had not
+been discovered in Macaulay's days; and, indeed, he would have cared
+very little for the privilege of spending his time outside walls which
+contained within them as many books as even he could read, and more
+friends than even he could talk to. Wanting nothing beyond what his
+college had to give, he revelled in the possession of leisure and
+liberty, in the almost complete command of his own time, in the power of
+passing at choice from the most perfect solitude to the most agreeable
+company. He keenly appreciated a society which cherishes all that is
+genuine, and is only too out-spoken in its abhorrence of pretension and
+display:--a society in which a man lives with those whom he likes,
+and with those only; choosing his comrades for their own sake, and so
+indifferent to the external distinctions of wealth and position that
+no one who has entered fully into the spirit of college life can ever
+unlearn its priceless lesson of manliness and simplicity.
+
+Of all his places of sojourn during his joyous and shining pilgrimage
+through the world, Trinity, and Trinity alone, had any share with his
+home in Macaulay's affection and loyalty. To the last he regarded it as
+an ancient Greek, or a mediaeval Italian, felt towards his native city.
+As long as he had place and standing there, he never left it willingly
+or returned to it without delight. The only step in his course about the
+wisdom of which he sometimes expressed misgiving was his preference of
+a London to a Cambridge life. The only dignity that in his later days he
+was known to covet was an honorary fellowship, which would have allowed
+him again to look through his window upon the college grass-plots,
+and to sleep within sound of the splashing of the fountain; again to
+breakfast on commons, and dine beneath the portraits of Newton and Bacon
+on the dais of the hall; again to ramble by moonlight round Neville's
+cloister, discoursing the picturesque but somewhat exoteric philosophy
+which it pleased him to call by the name of metaphysics. From the door
+of his rooms, along the wall of the Chapel, there runs a flagged pathway
+which affords an acceptable relief from the rugged pebbles that surround
+it. Here as a Bachelor of Arts he would walk, book in hand, morning
+after morning throughout the long vacation, reading with the same
+eagerness and the same rapidity whether the volume was the most abstruse
+of treatises, the loftiest of poems, or the flimsiest of novels. That
+was the spot where in his failing years he specially loved to renew
+the feelings of the past; and some there are who can never revisit it
+without the fancy that there, if anywhere, his dear shade must linger.
+
+He was fortunate in his contemporaries. Among his intimate friends were
+the two Coleridges--Derwent, the son, and Henry Nelson, who was destined
+to be the son-in-law of the poet; and how exceptional that destiny was
+the readers of Sara Coleridge's letters are now aware. Hyde Villiers,
+whom an untimely death alone prevented from taking an equal place in
+a trio of distinguished brothers, was of his year, though not of his
+college. [Lord Clarendon, and his brothers, were all Johnians.] In the
+year below were the young men who now bear the titles of Lord Grey, Lord
+Belper, and Lord Romilly; [This paragraph was written in the summer of
+1874. Three of Macaulay's old college friends, Lord Romilly, Moultrie,
+and Charles Austin, died, in the hard winter that followed, within a few
+days of each other.] and after the same interval came Moultrie, who in
+his "Dream of Life," with a fidelity which he himself pronounced to have
+been obtained at some sacrifice of grace, has told us how the heroes of
+his time looked and lived, and Charles Villiers, who still delights our
+generation by showing us how they talked. Then there was Praed, fresh
+from editing the Etonian, as a product of collective boyish effort
+unique in its literary excellence and variety; and Sidney Walker,
+Praed's gifted school fellow, whose promise was blighted by premature
+decay of powers; and Charles Austin, whose fame would now be more in
+proportion to his extraordinary abilities, had not his unparalleled
+success as an advocate tempted him before his day to retire from the
+toils of a career of whose rewards he already had enough.
+
+With his vigour and fervour, his depth of knowledge and breadth
+of humour, his close reasoning illustrated by an expansive
+imagination,--set off, as these gifts were, by the advantage, at that
+period of life so irresistible, of some experience of the world at home
+and 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 by
+John Stuart Mill's prose. "The impression he gave was that of boundless
+strength, together with talents which, combined with such apparent
+force 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 of
+Utilitarian, a panegyrist of American institutions, and an unsparing
+assailant of ecclesiastical endowments and hereditary privileges, he
+effectually cured the young undergraduate of his Tory opinions, which
+were never more than skin deep, and brought him nearer to Radicalism
+than he ever was before or since. The report of this conversion, of
+which the most was made by ill-natured tale-bearers who met with more
+encouragement than they deserved, created some consternation in the
+family circle; while the reading set at Cambridge was duly scandalised
+at the influence which one, whose classical attainments were rather
+discursive than exact, had gained over a Craven scholar. To this hour
+men may be found in remote parsonages who mildly resent the fascination
+which Austin of Jesus exercised over Macaulay of Trinity. [It was at
+this period of his career that Macaulay said to the late Mr. Hampden
+Gurney: "Gurney, I have been a Tory, I am a Radical; _but I never will
+be a Whig_."]
+
+The day and the night together were too short for one who was entering
+on the journey of life amidst such a band of travellers. So long as a
+door was open, or a light burning, in any of the courts, Macaulay was
+always in the mood for conversation and companionship. Unfailing in his
+attendance at lecture and chapel, blameless with regard to college laws
+and college discipline, it was well for his virtue that no curfew was in
+force within the precincts of Trinity. He never tired of recalling the
+days when he supped at midnight on milk-punch and roast turkey, drank
+tea in floods at an hour when older men are intent upon anything rather
+than on the means of keeping themselves awake, and made little of
+sitting over the fire till the bell rang for morning chapel in order
+to see a friend off by the early coach. In the license of the summer
+vacation, after some prolonged and festive gathering, the whole party
+would pour out into the moonlight, and ramble for mile after mile
+through the country, till the noise of their wide-flowing talk mingled
+with the twittering of the birds in the hedges which bordered the Coton
+pathway or the Madingley road. On such occasions it must have been well
+worth the loss of sleep to hear Macaulay plying Austin with sarcasms
+upon the doctrine of the Greatest Happiness, which then had still some
+gloss of novelty; putting into an ever-fresh shape the time-honoured
+jokes against the Johnians for the benefit of the Villierses; and urging
+an interminable debate on Wordsworth's merits as a poet, in which
+the Coleridges, as in duty bound, were ever ready to engage. In this
+particular field he acquired a skill of fence which rendered him the
+most redoubtable of antagonists. Many years afterwards, at the time when
+the Prelude was fresh from the press, he was maintaining against the
+opinion of a large and mixed society that the poem was unreadable. At
+last, overborne by the united indignation of so many of Wordsworth's
+admirers, he agreed that the question should be referred to the test
+of personal experience; and on inquiry it was discovered that the only
+individual present who had got through the Prelude was Macaulay himself.
+
+It is not only that the witnesses of these scenes unanimously declare
+that they have never since heard such conversation in the most renowned
+of social circles. The partiality of a generous young man for trusted
+and admired companions may well colour his judgment over the space of
+even half a century. But the estimate of university contemporaries
+was abundantly confirmed by the outer world. While on a visit to Lord
+Lansdowne at Bowood, years after they had left Cambridge, Austin and
+Macaulay happened to get upon college topics one morning at breakfast.
+When the meal was finished they drew their chairs to either end of the
+chimney-piece, and talked at each other across the hearth-rug as if
+they were in a first-floor room in the Old Court of Trinity. The whole
+company, ladies, artists, politicians, and diners-out, formed a silent
+circle round the two Cantabs, and, with a short break for lunch, never
+stirred till the bell warned them that it was time to dress for dinner.
+
+It has all irrevocably perished. With life before them, and each intent
+on his own future, none among that troop of friends had the mind to play
+Boswell to the others. One repartee survives, thrown off in the heat
+of discussion, but exquisitely perfect in all its parts. Acknowledged
+without dissent to be the best applied quotation that ever was made
+within five miles of the Fitzwilliam Museum, it is unfortunately too
+strictly classical for reproduction in these pages.
+
+We are more easily consoled for the loss of the eloquence which then
+flowed so full and free in the debates of the Cambridge Union. In 1820
+that Society was emerging from a period of tribulation and repression.
+The authorities of the university, who, as old constituents of Mr. Pitt
+and warm supporters of Lord Liverpool, had never been very much
+inclined to countenance the practice of political discussion among the
+undergraduates, set their faces against it more than ever at an epoch
+when the temper of the time increased the tendency of young men to run
+into extremes of partisanship. At length a compromise was extorted from
+the reluctant hands of the Vice-Chancellor, and the Club was allowed
+to take into consideration public affairs of a date anterior to the
+century. It required less ingenuity than the leaders of the Union had at
+their command to hit upon a method of dealing with the present under the
+guise of the past. Motions were framed that reflected upon the existing
+Government under cover of a censure on the Cabinets of the previous
+generation. Resolutions which called upon the meeting to declare that
+the boon of Catholic Emancipation should have been granted in the year
+1795, or that our Commercial Policy previous to 1800 should have been
+founded on the basis of Free Trade, were clearly susceptible of great
+latitude of treatment. And, again, in its character of a reading club,
+the Society, when assembled for the conduct of private business, was
+at liberty to review the political creed of the journals of the day in
+order to decide which of them it should take in, and which it should
+discontinue. The Examiner newspaper was the flag of many a hard-fought
+battle; the Morning Chronicle was voted in and out of the rooms
+half-a-dozen times within a single twelvemonth; while a series of
+impassioned speeches on the burning question of interference in behalf
+of 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 back
+of the Red Lion in Petty Cury, the most prominent members met for supper
+in the Hotel, or at Moultrie's lodgings, which were situated close at
+hand. They acted as a self-appointed Standing Committee, which watched
+over the general interests of the Union, and selected candidates whom
+they put in nomination for its offices. The Society did not boast a
+Hansard;--an omission which, as time went on, some among its orators had
+no reason to regret. Faint recollections still survive of a discussion
+upon the august topic of the character of George the Third. "To whom
+do we owe it," asked Macaulay, "that while Europe was convulsed with
+anarchy 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 was
+illuminated only for triumphs? [This debate evidently made some noise in
+the university world. There is an allusion to it in a squib of Praed's,
+very finished and elegant, and beyond all doubt contemporary. The
+passage relating to Macaulay begins with the lines--"Then the favourite
+comes with his trumpets and drums, And his arms and his metaphors
+crossed."] You may find the cause in the same three words: the Good Old
+King." Praed, on the other hand, would allow his late monarch neither
+public merits nor private virtues. "A good man! If he had been a plain
+country gentleman with no wider opportunities for mischief, he would at
+least have bullied his footmen and cheated his steward."
+
+Macaulay's intense enjoyment of all that was stirring and vivid around
+him undoubtedly hindered him in the race for university honours; though
+his success was sufficient to inspirit him at the time, and to give him
+abiding pleasure in the retrospect. He twice gained the Chancellor's
+medal for English verse, with poems admirably planned, and containing
+passages of real beauty, but which may not be republished in the teeth
+of the panegyric which, within ten years after they were written, he
+pronounced upon Sir Roger Newdigate. Sir Roger had laid down the rule
+that no exercise sent in for the prize which he established at Oxford
+was to exceed fifty lines. This law, says Macaulay, seems to have more
+foundation in reason than is generally the case with a literary canon,
+"for the world, we believe, is pretty well agreed in thinking that the
+shorter a prize poem is, the better."
+
+Trinity men find it difficult to understand how it was that he missed
+getting one of the three silver goblets given for the best English
+Declamations of the year. If there is one thing which all Macaulay's
+friends, and all his enemies, admit, it is that he could declaim
+English. His own version of the affair was that the Senior Dean, a
+relative of the victorious candidate, sent for him and said: "Mr.
+Macaulay, as you have not got the first cup, I do not suppose that you
+will care for either of the others." He was consoled, however, by the
+prize for Latin Declamation; and in 1821 he established his classical
+repute by winning a Craven University scholarship in company with his
+friend Malden, and Mr. George Long, who preceded Malden as Professor of
+Greek at University College, London.
+
+Macaulay detested the labour of manufacturing Greek and Latin verse in
+cold blood as an exercise; and his Hexameters were never up to the best
+Etonian mark, nor his Iambics to the highest standard of Shrewsbury. He
+defined 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 practised
+composition a single hour since I have been at Cambridge." "Soak your
+mind with Cicero," was his constant advice to students at that time of
+life when writing Latin prose is the most lucrative of accomplishments.
+The advantage of this precept was proved in the Fellowship examination
+of the year 1824, when he obtained the honour which in his eyes was the
+most desirable that Cambridge had to give. The delight of the young man
+at finding himself one of the sixty masters of an ancient and splendid
+establishment; the pride with which he signed his first order for the
+college plate, and dined for the first time at the high table in his
+own right; the reflection that these privileges were the fruit, not
+of favour or inheritance, but of personal industry and ability,--were
+matters on which he loved to dwell long after the world had loaded
+him with its most envied prizes. Macaulay's feeling on this point is
+illustrated by the curious reverence which he cherished for those
+junior members of the college who, some ninety years ago, by a spirited
+remonstrance addressed to the governing body, brought about a reform in
+the Trinity Fellowship examination that secured to it the character for
+fair play, and efficiency, which it has ever since enjoyed. In his copy
+of the Cambridge Calendar for the year 1859, (the last of his life,)
+throughout the list of the old mathematical Triposes the words "one of
+the eight" appear in his hand-writing opposite the name of each of these
+gentlemen. And I can never remember the time when it was not diligently
+impressed upon me that, if I minded my syntax, I might eventually hope
+to reach a position which would give me three hundred pounds a year, a
+stable for my horse, six dozen of audit ale every Christmas, a loaf and
+two pats of butter every morning, and a good dinner for nothing, with as
+many almonds and raisins as I could eat at dessert.
+
+Macaulay was not chosen a Fellow until his last trial, nominally for
+the amazing reason that his translations from Greek and Latin, while
+faithfully representing the originals, were rendered into English that
+was ungracefully bald and inornate. The real cause was, beyond all
+doubt, his utter neglect of the special study of the place; a liberty
+which Cambridge seldom allows to be taken with impunity even by her most
+favoured sons. He used to profess deep and lasting regret for his early
+repugnance to scientific subjects; but the fervour of his penitence in
+after years was far surpassed by the heartiness with which he inveighed
+against mathematics as long as it was his business to learn them.
+Everyone who knows the Senate House may anticipate the result. When the
+Tripos of 1822 made its appearance, his name did not grace the list. In
+short, to use the expressive vocabulary of the university, Macaulay was
+gulfed--a mishap which disabled him from contending for the Chancellor's
+medals, then the crowning trophies of a classical career. "I well
+remember," says Lady Trevelyan, "that first trial of my life. We were
+spending the winter at Brighton when a letter came giving an account of
+the event. I recollect my mother taking me into her room to tell me, for
+even then it was known how my whole heart was wrapped up in him, and
+it was thought necessary to break the news. When your uncle arrived at
+Brighton, I can recall my mother telling him that he had better go at
+once to his father, and get it over, and I can see him as he left the
+room on that errand."
+
+During the same year he engaged in a less arduous competition. A certain
+Mr. Greaves of Fulbourn had long since provided a reward of ten pounds
+for "the Junior Bachelor of Trinity College who wrote the best essay on
+the Conduct and Character of William the Third." As the prize is annual,
+it is appalling to reflect upon the searching analysis to which the
+motives of that monarch must by this time have been subjected. The
+event, however, may be counted as an encouragement to the founders
+of endowments; for, amidst the succession of juvenile critics whose
+attention was by his munificence turned in the direction of his
+favourite hero, Mr. Greaves had at last fallen in with the right man. It
+is more than probable that to this old Cambridgeshire Whig was due the
+first idea of that History in whose pages William of Orange stands as
+the central figure. The essay is still in existence, in a close
+neat hand, which twenty years of Reviewing never rendered illegible.
+Originally written as a fair copy, but so disfigured by repeated
+corrections and additions as to be unfit for the eyes of the college
+authorities, it bears evident marks of having been held to the flames,
+and rescued on second, and in this case it will be allowed, on better
+thoughts. 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 next
+Easter term by some young man of judgment and spirit, who knows
+his Macaulay by heart, and will paraphrase him without scruple. The
+characters of James, of Shaftesbury, of William himself; the Popish
+plot; the struggle over the Exclusion bill; the reaction from Puritanic
+rigour into the license of the Restoration, are drawn on the same lines
+and painted in the same colours as those with which the world is now
+familiar. The style only wants condensation, and a little of the humour
+which he had not yet learned to transfer from his conversation to his
+writings, in order to be worthy of his mature powers. He thus describes
+William's lifelong enemy and rival, whose name he already spells after
+his own fashion.
+
+"Lewis was not a great general. He was not a great legislator. But he
+was, in one sense of the words, a great king. He was a perfect master of
+all the mysteries of the science of royalty,--of all the arts which at
+once extend power and conciliate popularity,--which most advantageously
+display the merits, or most dexterously conceal the deficiencies, of a
+sovereign. He was surrounded by great men, by victorious commanders,
+by sagacious statesmen. Yet, while he availed himself to the utmost of
+their services, he never incurred any danger from their rivalry. His was
+a talisman which extorted the obedience of the proudest and mightiest
+spirits. The haughty and turbulent warriors whose contests had agitated
+France during his minority yielded to the irresistible spell, and,
+like the gigantic slaves of the ring and lamp of Aladdin, laboured to
+decorate and aggrandise a master whom they could have crushed. With
+incomparable address he appropriated to himself the glory of campaigns
+which had been planned, and counsels which had been suggested, by
+others. The arms of Turenne were the terror of Europe. The policy of
+Colbert was the strength of France. But in their foreign successes, and
+their internal prosperity, the people saw only the greatness and wisdom
+of Lewis."
+
+In the second chapter of the History much of this is compressed into the
+sentence: "He had shown, in an eminent degree, two talents invaluable to
+a prince,--the talent of choosing his servants well, and the talent of
+appropriating to himself the chief part of the credit of their acts."
+
+In a passage that occurs towards the close of the essay may be traced
+something more than an outline of the peroration in which, a quarter
+of a century later on, he summed up the character and results of the
+Revolution of 1688.
+
+"To have been a sovereign, yet the champion of liberty; a revolutionary
+leader, yet the supporter of social order, is the peculiar glory of
+William. He knew where to pause. He outraged no national prejudice. He
+abolished no ancient form. He altered no venerable name. He saw that the
+existing institutions possessed the greatest capabilities of excellence,
+and that stronger sanctions, and clearer definitions, were alone
+required to make the practice of the British constitution as admirable
+as the theory. Thus he imparted to innovation the dignity and
+stability of antiquity. He transferred to a happier order of things the
+associations which had attached the people to their former government.
+As the Roman warrior, before he assaulted Veii, invoked its guardian
+gods to leave its walls, and to accept the worship and patronise the
+cause of the besiegers, this great prince, in attacking a system of
+oppression, summoned to his aid the venerable principles and deeply
+seated feelings to which that system was indebted for protection."
+
+A letter, written during the latter years of his life, expresses
+Macaulay's general views on the subject of University honours. "If a man
+brings away from Cambridge self-knowledge, accuracy of mind, and habits
+of strong intellectual exertion, he has gained more than if he had made
+a display of showy superficial Etonian scholarship, got three or four
+Browne's medals, and gone forth into the world a schoolboy and doomed to
+be 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 having
+been Senior Wrangler or University scholar is never mentioned but with
+derision. If he makes a distinguished figure, his early honours merge in
+those of a later date. I hope that I do not overrate my own place in the
+estimation of society. Such as it is, I would not give a halfpenny to
+add to the consideration which I enjoy, all the consideration that I
+should derive from having been Senior Wrangler. But I often regret, and
+even acutely, my want of a Senior Wrangler's knowledge of physics and
+mathematics; and I regret still more some habits of mind which a Senior
+Wrangler is pretty certain to possess." Like all men who know what the
+world is, he regarded the triumph of a college career as of less value
+than its disappointments. Those are most to be envied who soonest learn
+to expect nothing for which they have not worked hard, and who never
+acquire the habit, (a habit which an unbroken course of University
+successes too surely breeds,) of pitying themselves overmuch if ever in
+after life they happen to work in vain.
+
+Cambridge: Wednesday. (Post-mark, 1818)
+
+My dear Mother,--King, I am absolutely certain, would take no more
+pupils on any account. And, even if he would, he has numerous applicants
+with prior claims. He has already six, who occupy him six hours in the
+day, and is likewise lecturer to the college. It would, however, be
+very easy to obtain an excellent tutor. Lefevre and Malkin are men
+of first-rate mathematical abilities, and both of our college. I can
+scarcely bear to write on Mathematics or Mathematicians. Oh for words to
+express my abomination of that science, if a name sacred to the useful
+and embellishing arts may be applied to the perception and recollection
+of certain properties in numbers and figures! Oh that I had to learn
+astrology, or demonology, or school divinity! Oh that I were to pore
+over Thomas Aquinas, and to adjust the relation of Entity with the
+two 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 personification
+of Algebra, a living trigonometrical canon, a walking table of
+Logarithms. All my perceptions of elegance and beauty gone, or at least
+going. By the end of the term my brain will be "as dry as the remainder
+biscuit after a voyage." Oh to change Cam for Isis! But such is my
+destiny; and, since it is so, be the pursuit contemptible, below
+contempt, or disgusting beyond abhorrence, I shall aim at no second
+place. But three years! I cannot endure the thought. I cannot bear
+to contemplate what I must have to undergo. Farewell then Homer and
+Sophocles 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 my
+head by such elegant expressions as the following
+
+[Long mathematical formula]
+
+My classics must be Woodhouse, and my amusements summing an infinite
+series. Farewell, and tell Selina and Jane to be thankful that it is
+not a necessary part of female education to get a headache daily without
+acquiring one practical truth or beautiful image in return. Again, and
+with affectionate love to my Father, farewell wishes your most miserable
+and 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. The
+Emperor Alexander's plans as detailed in the conversation between him
+and Clarkson [Thomas Clarkson, the famous assailant of slavery.]
+are almost superhuman; and tower as much above the common hopes and
+aspirations of philanthropists as the statue which his Macedonian
+namesake proposed to hew out of Mount Athos excelled the most colossal
+works of meaner projectors. As Burke said of Henry the Fourth's
+wish that every peasant in France might have the chicken in his pot
+comfortably on a Sunday, we may say of these mighty plans, "The mere
+wish, the unfulfilled desire, exceeded all that we hear of the splendid
+professions and exploits of princes." Yet my satisfaction in the success
+of that noble cause in which the Emperor seems to be exerting himself
+with so much zeal is scarcely so great as my regret for the man who
+would have traced every step of its progress with anxiety, and hailed
+its success with the most ardent delight. Poor Sir Samuel Romilly!
+Quando ullum invenient parem? How long may a penal code at once too
+sanguinary and too lenient, half written in blood like Draco's, and
+half undefined and loose as the common law of a tribe of savages, be the
+curse and disgrace of the country? How many years may elapse before a
+man who knows like him all that law can teach, and possesses at the same
+time like him a liberality and a discernment of general rights which
+the technicalities of professional learning rather tend to blunt, shall
+again rise to ornament and reform our jurisprudence? For such a man, if
+he had fallen in the maturity of years and honours, and been borne from
+the bed of sickness to a grave by the side of his prototype Hale amidst
+the tears of nobles and senators, even then, I think, the public sorrow
+would have been extreme. But that the last moments of an existence of
+high thoughts and great virtues should have been passed as his were
+passed! In my feelings the scene at Claremont [The death of Princess
+Charlotte.] this time last year was mere dust in the balance in
+comparison.
+
+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 attention
+all your criticisms on Pompeii. [The subject of the English poem for the
+Chancellor's prize of 1819 was the Destruction of Pompeii.] I certainly
+am much obliged to you for withdrawing so much time from more important
+business to correct my effusions. Most of the remarks which I have
+examined are perfectly just; but as to the more momentous charge, the
+want of a moral, I think it might be a sufficient defence that, if a
+subject is given which admits of none, the man who writes without a
+moral is scarcely censurable. But is it the real fact that no literary
+employment is estimable or laudable which does not lead to the spread
+of moral truth or the excitement of virtuous feeling? Books of amusement
+tend to polish the mind, to improve the style, to give variety to
+conversation, and to lend a grace to more important accomplishments. He
+who can effect this has surely done something. Is no useful end served
+by that writer whose works have soothed weeks of languor and sickness,
+have relieved the mind exhausted from the pressure of employment by an
+amusement which delights without enervating, which relaxes the tension
+of the powers without rendering them unfit for future exercise? I should
+not be surprised to see these observations refuted; and I shall not be
+sorry 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 of
+literature directed to moral ends.
+
+At all events let us be consistent. I was amused in turning over an old
+volume of the Christian Observer to find a gentleman signing himself
+Excubitor, (one of our antagonists in the question of novel-reading,)
+after a very pious argument on the hostility of novels to a religious
+frame of mind, proceeding to observe that he was shocked to hear a
+young lady who had displayed extraordinary knowledge of modern ephemeral
+literature own herself ignorant of Dryden's fables! Consistency with
+a vengeance! The reading of modern poetry and novels excites a worldly
+disposition and prevents ladies from reading Dryden's fables! There is a
+general disposition among the more literary part of the religious world
+to cry down the elegant literature of our own times, while they are
+not in the slightest degree shocked at atrocious profaneness or gross
+indelicacy when a hundred years have stamped them with the title
+of classical. I say: "If you read Dryden you can have no reasonable
+objection to reading Scott." The strict antagonist of ephemeral reading
+exclaims, "Not so. Scott's poems are very pernicious. They call away the
+mind from spiritual religion, and from Tancred and Sigismunda." But I
+am exceeding all ordinary limits. If these hasty remarks fatigue you,
+impute it to my desire of justifying myself from a charge which I should
+be 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 the
+next year was Waterloo. The opening lines of Macaulay's exercise
+were pretty and simple enough to ruin his chance in an academical
+competition.
+
+ 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 itself
+by inventing a story to the effect that the successful candidate had run
+away from the battle.
+
+In the summer of 1819 there took place a military affair, less
+attractive than Waterloo as a theme for poets, but which, as far as this
+country is concerned, has proved even more momentous in its ultimate
+consequences. On the 16th of August a Reform demonstration was arranged
+at Manchester resembling those which were common in the Northern
+districts during the year 1866, except that in 1819 women formed an
+important element in the procession. A troop of yeomanry, and afterwards
+two squadrons of hussars, were sent in among the crowd, which was
+assembled in St. Peter's Fields, the site on which the Free Trade Hall
+now stands. The men used their swords freely, and the horses their
+hoofs. The people, who meant anything but fighting, trampled each other
+down in the attempt to escape. Five or six lives were lost, and fifty or
+sixty persons were badly hurt; but the painful impression wrought upon
+the national conscience was well worth the price. British blood has
+never since been shed by British hands in any civic contest that rose
+above the level of a lawless riot. The immediate result, however, was
+to concentrate and embitter party feeling. The grand jury threw out
+the bills against the yeomen, and found true bills against the popular
+orators who had called the meeting together. The Common Councilmen of
+the City of London, who had presented an Address to the Prince Regent
+reflecting upon the conduct of the Government, were roundly rebuked
+for their pains. Earl Fitzwilliam was dismissed from the office of Lord
+Lieutenant, for taking part in a Yorkshire county gathering which had
+passed resolutions in the same sense as the Address from the City. On
+the other hand, a Peterloo medal was struck, which is still treasured
+in such Manchester families as have not learned to be ashamed of the old
+Manchester politics.
+
+In this heated state of the political atmosphere the expiring Toryism
+of the Anti-Slavery leaders flamed up once again. "I declare," said
+Wilberforce, "my greatest cause of difference with the democrats is
+their laying, and causing people to lay, so great a stress on the
+concerns of this world as to occupy their whole minds and hearts, and
+to leave a few scanty and lukewarm thoughts for the heavenly treasure."
+Zachary Macaulay, who never canted, and who knew that on the 16th of
+August the Manchester Magistrates were thinking just as much or as
+little about religion as the Manchester populace, none the less took
+the same side as Wilberforce. Having formed for himself, by observations
+made on the spot, a decided opinion that the authorities ought to be
+supported, he was much disturbed by reports which came to him from
+Cambridge.
+
+September, 1819.
+
+My dear Father,--My mother's letter, which has just arrived, has given
+me much concern. The letter which has, I am sorry to learn, given you
+and her uneasiness was written rapidly and thoughtlessly enough, but can
+scarcely, I think, as far as I remember its tenour, justify some of the
+extraordinary inferences which it has occasioned. I can only assure you
+most solemnly that I am not initiated into any democratical societies
+here, and that I know no people who make politics a common or frequent
+topic of conversation, except one man who is a determined Tory. It is
+true that this Manchester business has roused some indignation here, as
+at other places, and drawn philippics against the powers that be from
+lips which I never heard opened before but to speak on university
+contests or university scandal. For myself I have long made it a rule
+never to talk on politics except in the most general manner; and I
+believe that my most intimate associates have no idea of my opinions
+on the questions of party. I can scarcely be censured, I think, for
+imparting them to you;--which, however, I should scarcely have thought
+of doing, (so much is my mind occupied with other concerns,) had
+not your letter invited me to state my sentiments on the Manchester
+business.
+
+I hope that this explanation will remove some of your uneasiness. As
+to my opinions, I have no particular desire to vindicate them. They are
+merely speculative, and therefore cannot partake of the nature of moral
+culpability. They are early formed, and I am not solicitous that you
+should think them superior to those of most people at eighteen. I will,
+however, say this in their defence. Whatever the affectionate alarm of
+my dear mother may lead her to apprehend, I am not one of the "sons of
+anarchy and confusion" with whom she classes me. My opinions, good or
+bad, were learnt, not from Hunt and Waithman, but from Cicero, from
+Tacitus, and from Milton. They are the opinions which have produced
+men who have ornamented the world, and redeemed human nature from the
+degradation of ages of superstition and slavery. I may be wrong as to
+the facts of what occurred at Manchester; but, if they be what I have
+seen them stated, I can never repent speaking of them with indignation.
+When I cease to feel the injuries of others warmly, to detest wanton
+cruelty, and to feel my soul rise against oppression, I shall think
+myself unworthy to be your son.
+
+I could say a great deal more. Above all I might, I think, ask, with
+some reason, why a few democratical sentences in a letter, a private
+letter, of a collegian of eighteen, should be thought so alarming an
+indication of character, when Brougham and other people, who at an age
+which ought to have sobered them talk with much more violence, are
+not thought particularly ill of? But I have so little room left that I
+abstain, and will only add thus much. Were my opinions as decisive as
+they are fluctuating, and were the elevation of a Cromwell or the renown
+of a Hampden the certain reward of my standing forth in the democratic
+cause, I would rather have my lips sealed on the subject than give my
+mother or you one hour of uneasiness. There are not so many people in
+the world who love me that I can afford to pain them for any object of
+ambition which it contains. If this assurance be not sufficient, clothe
+it in what language you please, and believe me to express myself in
+those words which you think the strongest and most solemn. Affectionate
+love to my mother and sisters. Farewell.
+
+T. B. M.
+
+Cambridge: January 5, 1820.
+
+My dear Father,--Nothing that gives you disquietude can give me
+amusement. Otherwise I should have been excessively diverted by the
+dialogue which you have reported with so much vivacity; the accusation;
+the predictions; and the elegant agnomen of "the novel-reader" for which
+I am indebted to this incognito. I went in some amazement to Malden,
+Romilly, and Barlow. Their acquaintance comprehends, I will venture to
+say, almost every man worth knowing in the university in every field of
+study. They had never heard the appellation applied to me by any man.
+Their intimacy with me would of course prevent any person from speaking
+to 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 not
+wish to be kicked downstairs to reply to a man who mentions another as
+his particular friend, "Do you mean the blackguard or the novel-reader?"
+But I am fully convinced that had the charge prevailed to any extent it
+must have reached the ears of one of those whom I interrogated. At all
+events I have the consolation of not being thought a novel-reader by
+three or four who are entitled to judge upon the subject, and whether
+their opinion be of equal value with that of this John-a-Nokes against
+whom I have to plead I leave you to decide.
+
+But stronger evidence, it seems, is behind. This gentleman was in
+company with me. Alas that I should never have found out how accurate
+an observer was measuring my sentiments, numbering the novels which I
+criticised, and speculating on the probability of my being plucked. "I
+was familiar with all the novels whose names he had ever heard." If so
+frightful an accusation did not stun me at once, I might perhaps hint
+at the possibility that this was to be attributed almost as much to
+the 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 their
+eight hours a day to the honours of the Senate House; who leave the
+groves which witnessed the musings of Milton, of Bacon, and of Gray,
+without one liberal idea or elegant image, and carry with them into the
+world minds contracted by unmingled attention to one part of science,
+and memories stored only with technicalities. How often have I seen
+such men go forth into society for people to stare at them, and ask each
+other how it comes that beings so stupid in conversation, so uninformed
+on every subject of history, of letters, and of taste, could gain such
+distinction at Cambridge!
+
+It is in such circles, which, I am happy to say, I hardly know but by
+report, that knowledge of modern literature is called novel-reading; a
+commodious name, invented by ignorance and applied by envy, in the same
+manner as men without learning call a scholar a pedant, and men without
+principle call a Christian a Methodist. To me the attacks of such men
+are valuable as compliments. The man whose friend tells him that he is
+known to be extensively acquainted with elegant literature may suspect
+that he is flattering him; but he may feel real and secure satisfaction
+when some Johnian sneers at him for a novel-reader. [My uncle was fond
+of telling us how he would walk miles out of Cambridge in order to meet
+the coach which brought the last new Waverley novel.]
+
+As to the question whether or not I am wasting time, I shall leave that
+for time to answer. I cannot afford to sacrifice a day every week in
+defence and explanation as to my habits of reading. I value, most deeply
+value, that solicitude which arises from your affection for me; but
+let it not debar me from justice and candour. Believe me ever, my dear
+Father,
+
+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 both
+partisans of the Queen. Zachary Macaulay was inclined in her favour by
+sentiments alike of friendship, and of the most pardonable resentment.
+Brougham, her illustrious advocate, had for ten years been the main hope
+and stay of the movement against Slavery and the Slave Trade; while the
+John Bull, whose special mission it was to write her down, honoured the
+Abolitionist party with its declared animosity. However full its columns
+might be of libels upon the honour of the wives and daughters of Whig
+statesmen, it could always find room for calumnies against Mr. Macaulay
+which in ingenuity of fabrication, and in cruelty of intention,
+were conspicuous even among the contents of the most discreditable
+publication that ever issued from the London press. When Queen Caroline
+landed from the Continent in June 1820 the young Trinity undergraduate
+greeted her Majesty with a complimentary ode, which certainly little
+resembled those effusions that, in the old courtly days, an University
+was accustomed to lay at the feet of its Sovereign. The piece has no
+literary value, and is curious only as reflecting the passion of the
+hour. 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 of
+Lords, and by dwindling majorities within, Lord Liverpool announced
+that the King's Ministers had come to the determination not to proceed
+further with the Bill of Pains and Penalties. The joy which this
+declaration spread through the country has been described as "beyond the
+scope 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 Friday
+night. "Thank God, the country is saved," is written on every face and
+echoed by every voice. Even the symptoms of popular violence, three days
+ago so terrific, are now displayed with good humour and received with
+cheerfulness. Instead of curses on the Lords, on every post and every
+wall is written, "All is as it should be;" "Justice done at last;" and
+similar mottoes expressive of the sudden turn of public feeling. How the
+case 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 hope
+that the result of these changes may be the secure reestablishment
+of our commerce, which I suppose political apprehension must have
+contributed to depress. I hope, at least, that there is no danger to our
+own 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 firmly
+prepared to encounter the worst with fortitude, and to do my utmost to
+retrieve it by exertion. The best inheritance you have already secured
+to me,--an unblemished name and a good education. And for the
+rest, whatever calamities befall us, I would not, to speak without
+affectation, exchange adversity consoled, as with us it must ever be,
+by mutual affection and domestic happiness, for anything which can be
+possessed by those who are destitute of the kindness of parents and
+sisters like mine. But I think, on referring to your letter, that I
+insist too much upon the signification of a few words. I hope so, and
+trust that everything will go well. But it is chapel time, and I must
+conclude.
+
+Ever most affectionately yours,
+
+T.B. MACAULAY.
+
+Trin. Coll.: March 25, 1821.
+
+My dear Mother,--I entreat you to entertain no apprehensions about my
+health. My fever, cough, and sore-throat have all disappeared for the
+last four days. Many thanks for your intelligence about poor dear John's
+recovery, which has much exhilarated me. Yet I do not know whether
+illness to him is not rather a prerogative than an evil. I am sure that
+it is well worth while being sick to be nursed by a mother. There is
+nothing which I remember with such pleasure as the time when you nursed
+me at Aspenden. The other night, when I lay on my sofa very ill and
+hypochondriac, 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! How
+well I remember with what an ecstasy of joy I saw that face approaching
+me, in the middle of people that did not care if I died that night
+except for the trouble of burying me! The sound of your voice, the touch
+of your hand, are present to me now, and will be, I trust in God, to
+my last hour. The very thought of these things invigorated me the other
+day; and I almost blessed the sickness and low spirits which brought
+before me associated images of a tenderness and an affection, which,
+however imperfectly repaid, are deeply remembered. Such scenes and such
+recollections are the bright half of human nature and human destiny. All
+objects of ambition, all rewards of talent, sink into nothing
+compared with that affection which is independent of good or adverse
+circumstances, excepting that it is never so ardent, so delicate, or so
+tender as in the hour of languor or distress. But I must stop. I had no
+intention of pouring out on paper what I am much more used to think than
+to express. Farewell, my dear Mother.
+
+Ever yours affectionately,
+
+T.B. MACAULAY.
+
+Macaulay liked Cambridge too well to spend the long vacation elsewhere
+except under strong compulsion; but in 1821, with the terrors of the
+Mathematical Tripos already close at hand, he was persuaded into joining
+a reading party in Wales with a Mr. Bird as tutor. Eardley Childers, the
+father of the statesman of that name, has preserved a pleasant little
+memorial of the expedition.
+
+To Charles Smith Bird, Eardley Childers, Thos. B. Macaulay, William
+Clayton Walters, Geo. B. Paley, Robert Jarratt, Thos. Jarratt, Edwin
+Kempson, Ebenezer Ware, Wm. Cornwall, John Greenwood, J. Lloyd, and Jno.
+Wm. Gleadall, Esquires.
+
+Gentlemen,--We the undersigned, for ourselves and the inhabitants in
+general of the town of Llanrwst in the county of Denbigh, consider it
+our duty to express to you the high sense we entertain of your general
+good conduct and demeanour during your residence here, and we assure
+you that we view with much regret the period of your separation and
+departure from amongst us. We are very sensible of the obligation we
+are under for your uniformly benevolent and charitable exertions
+upon several public occasions, and we feel peculiar pleasure in thus
+tendering to you individually our gratitude and thanks.
+
+Wishing you all possible prosperity and happiness in your future
+avocations, 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. A
+scheme was on foot in the town to found an auxiliary branch of the Bible
+Society. A public meeting was called, and Mr. Bird urged his eloquent
+pupil to aid the project with a specimen of Union rhetoric. Macaulay,
+however, had had enough of the Bible Society at Clapham, and sturdily
+refused 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 calendar
+in this sequestered spot is as irregular as Robinson Crusoe's after he
+had missed one day in his calculation. I have no intelligence to send
+you, unless a battle between a drunken attorney and an impudent publican
+which took place here yesterday may deserve the appellation. You may
+perhaps be more interested to hear that I sprained my foot, and am just
+recovering from the effects of the accident by means of opodeldoc which
+I bought at the tinker's. For all trades and professions here lie in a
+most delightful confusion. The druggist sells hats; the shoemaker is the
+sole bookseller, if that dignity may be allowed him on the strength of
+the three Welsh Bibles, and the guide to Caernarvon, which adorn his
+window; ink is sold by the apothecary; the grocer sells ropes, (a
+commodity which, I fear, I shall require before my residence here is
+over,) and tooth-brushes. A clothes-brush is a luxury yet unknown to
+Llanrwst. As to books, for want of any other English literature, I
+intend to learn Paradise Lost by heart at odd moments. But I must
+conclude. Write to me often, my dear Mother, and all of you at home, or
+you may have to answer for my drowning myself, like Gray's bard, in "Old
+Conway's foaming flood," which is most conveniently near for so poetical
+an exit.
+
+Ever most affectionately yours,
+
+T. B. M.
+
+
+Llanrwst: August 32, 1821.
+
+My dear Father,--I have just received your letter, and cannot but feel
+concerned at the tone of it. I do not think it quite fair to attack me
+for filling my letters with remarks on the King's Irish expedition. It
+has been the great event of this part of the world. I was at Bangor
+when he sailed. His bows, and the Marquis of Anglesea's fete, were the
+universal subjects of conversation; and some remarks on the business
+were as natural from me as accounts of the coronation from you in
+London. In truth I have little else to say. I see nothing that connects
+me with the world except the newspapers. I get up, breakfast, read, play
+at quoits, and go to bed. This is the history of my life. It will do for
+every 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 private
+decency. If Lord were to issue tickets for a gala ball immediately
+after receiving intelligence of the sudden death of his divorced wife, I
+should say the same. I pretend to no great insight into party politics;
+but the question whether it is proper for any man to mingle in
+festivities while his wife's body lies unburied is one, I confess, which
+I thought myself competent to decide. But I am not anxious about the
+fate 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's
+conduct were right or wrong; but it is of great importance that those
+whom I love should not think me a precipitate, silly, shallow sciolist
+in politics, and suppose that every frivolous word that falls from my
+pen is a dogma which I mean to advance as indisputable; and all this
+only because I write to them without reserve; only because I love them
+well enough to trust them with every idea which suggests itself to me.
+In fact, I believe that I am not more precipitate or presumptuous than
+other people, but only more open. You cannot be more fully convinced
+than I am how contracted my means are of forming a judgment. If I chose
+to weigh every word that I uttered or wrote to you, and, whenever I
+alluded to politics, were to labour and qualify my expressions as if I
+were 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 those
+whom 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 employ
+exaggerated expressions about persons or events in writing to you or
+to my mother, it is not, I believe, that I want power to systematise my
+ideas or to measure my expressions, but because I have no objection to
+letting you see my mind in dishabille. I have a court dress for days of
+ceremony and people of ceremony, nevertheless. But I would not willingly
+be frightened into wearing it with you; and I hope you do not wish me to
+do so.
+
+Ever yours,
+
+T. B. M.
+
+To hoax a newspaper has, time out of mind, been the special ambition of
+undergraduate wit. In the course of 1821 Macaulay sent to the Morning
+Post a burlesque copy of verses, entitled "Tears of Sensibility." The
+editor 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, and
+it has been a good deal awakened by your criticisms. I could not have
+imagined that it would have been necessary for me to have said that the
+execrable trash entitled "Tears of Sensibility" was merely a burlesque
+on the style of the magazine verses of the day. I could not suppose that
+you could have suspected me of _seriously_ composing such a farrago
+of false metaphor and unmeaning epithet. It was meant solely for a
+caricature on the style of the poetasters of newspapers and journals;
+and, (though I say it who should not say it,) has excited more attention
+and received more praise at Cambridge than it deserved. If you have
+it, read it over again, and do me the justice to believe that such a
+compound of jargon, nonsense, false images, and exaggerated sentiment,
+is not the product of my serious labours. I sent it to the Morning
+Post, because that paper is the ordinary receptacle of trash of the
+description which I intended to ridicule, and its admission therefore
+pointed the jest. I see, however, that for the future I must mark more
+distinctly 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 months
+of 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 to
+receive a hundred guineas. It gives me great pleasure to be able even in
+this degree to relieve you from the burden of my expenses here. I begin
+my tutorial labours to-morrow. My pupils are young, one being fifteen
+and the other thirteen years old, but I hear excellent accounts of their
+proficiency, 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 is
+that I am more patient than I had imagined, or that I have not yet had
+time to grow tired of my new vocation. I find, also, what at first sight
+may appear paradoxical, that I read much more in consequence, and that
+the regularity of habits necessarily produced by a periodical employment
+which cannot be procrastinated fully compensates for the loss of the
+time which is consumed in tuition."
+
+Trinity College, Cambridge: October 1, 1824.
+
+My dear Father,--I was elected Fellow this morning, shall be sworn in
+to-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 much
+I enjoy the thought of the pleasure which it will afford to you, my
+mother, and our other friends. Till I become a Master of Arts next July
+the pecuniary emolument which I shall derive will not be great. For
+seven years from that time it will make me almost an independent man.
+
+Malden is elected. You will take little interest in the rest of our
+Cambridge 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 were
+retiring for the night, he was observed to be carefully picking out the
+longest candle. An old King's Counsel, who noticed that he had a volume
+under his arm, remonstrated with him on the danger of reading in bed,
+upon which he rejoined with immense rapidity of utterance "I always read
+in bed at home; and, if I am not afraid of committing parricide, and
+matricide, and fratricide, I can hardly be expected to pay any special
+regard to the lives of the bagmen of Leeds." And, so saying, he left
+his hearers staring at one another, and marched off to his room, little
+knowing that, before many years were out, he would have occasion to
+speak 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 Northern
+circuit calls by the name of "Grand Night," when personalities of the
+most pronounced description are welcomed by all except the object
+of them, and forgiven even by him. His hand may be recognised in a
+macaronic poem, written in Greek and English, describing the feast at
+which Alexander murdered Clitus. The death of the victim is treated with
+an exuberance of fantastic drollery, and a song, put into the mouth of
+Nearchus, the admiral of the Macedonian fleet, and beginning with the
+lines
+
+ "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 persuasion
+would induce him to return to his chambers in the evening, according to
+the practice then in vogue. After the first year or two of the period
+during which he called himself a barrister he gave up even the pretence
+of reading law, and spent many more hours under the gallery of the House
+of Commons, than in all the Courts together. The person who knew him
+best said of him: "Throughout life he never really applied himself to
+any pursuit that was against the grain." Nothing is more characteristic
+of the man than the contrast between his unconquerable aversion to the
+science of jurisprudence at the time when he was ostensibly preparing
+himself to be an advocate, and the zest with which, on his voyage to
+India, he mastered that science in principle and detail as soon as
+his imagination was fired by the prospect of the responsibilities of a
+law-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 to
+make interest with the attorneys, and, as a last resource, proposed
+to his son to take a brief in a suit which he himself had instituted
+against the journal that had so grossly libelled him. "I am rather
+glad," writes Macaulay from York in March 1827, "that I was not in
+London, if your advisers thought it right that I should have appeared as
+your counsel. Whether it be contrary to professional etiquette I do not
+know; but I am sure that it would be shocking to public feeling, and
+particularly imprudent against adversaries whose main strength lies in
+detecting and exposing indecorum or eccentricity. It would have been
+difficult to avoid a quarrel with Sugden, with Wetherell, and with old
+Lord Eldon himself. Then the John Bull would have been upon us with
+every advantage. The personal part of the consideration it would have
+been my duty, and my pleasure and pride also, to overlook; but your
+interests must have suffered."
+
+Meanwhile he was busy enough in fields better adapted than the law to
+his talents and his temperament. He took a part in a meeting of the
+Anti-Slavery Society held at Freemasons' Tavern, on the 25th of June
+1824, with the Duke of Gloucester in the chair. The Edinburgh Review
+described his speech as "a display of eloquence so signal for rare and
+matured excellence that the most practised orator may well admire how it
+should have come from one who then for the first time addressed a public
+assembly."
+
+Those who know what the annual meeting of a well-organised and
+disciplined association is, may imagine the whirlwind of cheers which
+greeted the declaration that the hour was at hand when "the peasant of
+the Antilles will no longer crawl in listless and trembling dejection
+round a plantation from whose fruits he must derive no advantage, and
+a hut whose door yields him no protection; but, when his cheerful and
+voluntary labour is performed, he will return with the firm step and
+erect brow of a British citizen from the field which is his freehold to
+the cottage which is his castle."
+
+Surer promise of aptitude for political debate was afforded by the skill
+with which the young speaker turned to account the recent trial for
+sedition, and death in prison, of Smith, the Demerara missionary; an
+event which was fatal to Slavery in the West Indies in the same degree
+as the execution of John Brown was its deathblow in the United States.
+"When this country has been endangered either by arbitrary power or
+popular delusion, truth has still possessed one irresistible organ, and
+justice one inviolable tribunal. That organ has been an English press,
+and that tribunal an English jury. But in those wretched islands we
+see a press more hostile to truth than any censor, and juries more
+insensible to justice than any Star Chamber. In those islands alone
+is exemplified the full meaning of the most tremendous of the curses
+denounced against the apostate Hebrews, 'I will curse your blessings.'
+We can prove this assertion out of the mouth of our adversaries. We
+remember, and God Almighty forbid that we ever should forget, how,
+at the trial of Mr. Smith, hatred regulated every proceeding, was
+substituted for every law, and allowed its victim no sanctuary in the
+house of mourning, no refuge in the very grave. Against the members of
+that court-martial the country has pronounced its verdict. But what is
+the line of defence taken by its advocates? It has been solemnly and
+repeatedly declared in the House of Commons that a jury composed
+of planters would have acted with far more injustice than did this
+court;--this court which has never found a single lawyer to stake his
+professional character on the legality of its proceedings. The argument
+is this. Things have doubtless been done which should not have been
+done. The court-martial sat without a jurisdiction; it convicted without
+evidence; it condemned to a punishment not warranted by law. But we must
+make allowances. We must judge by comparison. 'Mr Smith ought to have
+been very thankful that it was no worse. Only think what would have been
+his fate if he had been tried by a jury of planters!' Sir, I have always
+lived under the protection of the British laws, and therefore I
+am unable to imagine what could be worse; but, though I have small
+knowledge, I have a large faith; I by no means presume to set any limits
+to the possible injustice of a West Indian judicature. And since the
+colonists maintain that a jury composed of their own body not only
+possibly might, but necessarily must, have acted with more iniquity than
+this court-martial, I certainly shall not dispute the assertion, though
+I am utterly unable to conceive the mode."
+
+That was probably the happiest half-hour of Zachary Macaulay's life. "My
+friend," said Wilberforce, when his turn came to speak, "would doubtless
+willingly bear with all the base falsehoods, all the vile calumnies, all
+the detestable artifices which have been aimed against him, to render
+him the martyr and victim of our cause, for the gratification he has
+this day enjoyed in hearing one so dear to him plead such a cause in
+such a manner." Keen as his pleasure was, he took it in his own sad
+way. From the first moment to the last, he never moved a muscle of his
+countenance, but sat with his eyes fixed on a piece of paper, on which
+he seemed to be writing with a pencil. While talking with his son that
+evening, he referred to what had passed only to remark that it was
+ungraceful in so young a man to speak with folded arms in the presence
+of royalty.
+
+In 1823 the leading members of the cleverest set of boys who ever were
+together at a public school found themselves collected once more at
+Cambridge. Of the former staff of the Etonian, Praed, Moultrie, Nelson
+Coleridge, and, among others, Mr. Edmond Beales, so well known to our
+generation as an ardent politician, were now in residence at King's or
+Trinity. Mr. Charles Knight, too enterprising a publisher to let such
+a quantity of youthful talent run to waste, started a periodical, which
+was largely supported by undergraduates and Bachelors of Arts, among
+whom the veterans of the Eton press formed a brilliant, and, as he
+vainly hoped, a reliable nucleus of contributors.
+
+Knight's Quarterly Magazine is full of Macaulay, and of Macaulay in the
+attractive shape which a great author wears while he is still writing
+to please no one but himself. He unfortunately did not at all please his
+father. In the first number, besides a great deal of his that is
+still worth reading, there were printed under his adopted signature of
+Tristram Merton two little poems, the nature of which may be guessed
+from Praed's editorial comments. "Tristram Merton, I have a strong
+curiosity to know who Rosamond is. But you will not tell me; and, after
+all, as far as your verses are concerned, the surname is nowise germane
+to the matter. As poor Sheridan said, it is too formal to be registered
+in love's calendar." And again: "Tristram, I hope Rosamond and your Fair
+Girl of France will not pull caps; but I cannot forbear the temptation
+of introducing your Roxana and Statira to an admiring public." The
+verses were such as any man would willingly look back to having written
+at two and twenty; but their appearance occasioned real misery to
+Zachary Macaulay, who indeed disapproved of the whole publication
+from beginning to end, with the exception of an article on West Indian
+Slavery which his son had inserted with the most filial intention, but
+which, it must be allowed, was not quite in keeping with the general
+character of the magazine.
+
+July 9, 1823.
+
+My dear Father,--I have seen the two last letters which you have sent to
+my mother. They have given me deep pain; but pain without remorse. I am
+conscious of no misconduct, and whatever uneasiness I may feel arises
+solely 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 work
+is conducted in London, and that my friends and myself are merely
+contributors, and form a very small proportion of the contributors.
+The manners of almost all of my acquaintances are so utterly alien from
+coarseness, and their morals from libertinism, that I feel assured that
+no objection of that nature can exist to their writings. As to my own
+contributions I can only say that the Roman Story was read to my mother
+before it was published, and would have been read to you if you had
+happened to be at home. Not one syllable of censure was uttered.
+
+The Essay on the Royal Society of Literature was read to you. I made
+the alterations which I conceived that you desired, and submitted
+them afterwards to my mother. As to the poetry which you parallel with
+Little's, if anything vulgar or licentious has been written by myself,
+I am willing to bear the consequences. If anything of that cast has been
+written by my friends, I allow that a certain degree of blame attaches
+to me for having chosen them at least indiscreetly. If, however, a
+bookseller of whom we knew nothing has coupled improper productions with
+ours in a work over which we had no control, I cannot plead guilty to
+anything more than misfortune; a misfortune in which some of the most
+rigidly moral and religious men of my acquaintance have participated in
+the present instance.
+
+I am pleading at random for a book which I never saw. I am defending
+the works of people most of whose names I never heard. I am therefore
+writing under great disadvantages. I write also in great haste. I am
+unable even to read over what I have written.
+
+Affectionately yours
+
+T. B. M.
+
+Moved by the father's evident unhappiness, the son promised never to
+write again for the obnoxious periodical. The second number was so dull
+and decorous that Zachary Macaulay, who felt that, if the magazine
+went on through successive quarters reforming its tone in the same
+proportion, it would soon be on a level of virtue with the Christian
+Observer, withdrew his objection; and the young man wrote regularly till
+the short life of the undertaking ended in something very like a quarrel
+between the publisher and his contributors. It is not the province of
+biography to dilate upon works which are already before the world; and
+the results of Macaulay's literary labour during the years 1823 and
+1824 have been, perhaps, only too freely reproduced in the volumes which
+contain his miscellaneous writings. It is, however, worthy of notice
+that among his earlier efforts in literature his own decided favourite
+was "the Conversation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton
+touching 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 from
+faults than as they abound in beauties; and Macaulay's readers will very
+generally give the preference to two fragmentary sketches of Roman and
+Athenian society which sparkle with life, and humour, and a masculine
+vigorous fancy that had not yet learned to obey the rein. Their crude
+but genuine merit suggests a regret that he did not in after days enrich
+the Edinburgh Review with a couple of articles on classical subjects,
+as a sample of that ripened scholarship which produced the Prophecy of
+Capys, and the episode relating to the Phalaris controversy in the Essay
+on 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 be
+much censured. Every magazine must contain a certain quantity of mere
+ballast, of no value but as it occupies space. The general tone and
+spirit of the work will stand a comparison, in a moral point of view,
+with any periodical publication not professedly religious. I will
+venture to say that nothing has appeared in it, at least since the first
+number, from the pen of any of my friends, which can offend the most
+fastidious. Knight is absolutely in our hands, and most desirous to
+gratify us all, and me in particular. When I see you in London I
+will mention to you a piece of secret history which will show you how
+important 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 the
+commencement of Macaulay's connection with the Edinburgh Review. That
+famous periodical, which for three and twenty years had shared in and
+promoted the rising fortunes of the Liberal cause, had now attained its
+height--a height unequalled before or since--of political, social, and
+literary power. To have the entry of its columns was to command the
+most direct channel for the spread of opinions, and the shortest road
+to influence and celebrity. But already the anxious eye of the master
+seemed to discern symptoms of decline. Jeffrey, in Lord Cockburn's
+phrase, was "growing feverish about new writers." In January 1825 he
+says in a letter to a friend in London: "Can you not lay your hands on
+some clever young man who would write for us? The original supporters
+of the work are getting old, and either too busy or too stupid, and here
+the young men are mostly Tories." Overtures had already been made to
+Macaulay, and that same year his article on Milton appeared in the
+August number.
+
+The effect on the author's reputation was instantaneous. Like Lord
+Byron, he awoke one morning and found himself famous. The beauties
+of the work were such as all men could recognise, and its very faults
+pleased. The redundance of youthful enthusiasm, which he himself
+unsparingly condemns in the preface to his collected essays, seemed
+graceful enough in the eyes of others, if it were only as a relief from
+the perverted ability of that elaborate libel on our great epic poet
+which goes by the name of Dr. Johnson's Life of Milton. Murray declared
+that it would be worth the copyright of Childe Harold to have Macaulay
+on the staff of the Quarterly. The family breakfast table in Bloomsbury
+was covered with cards of invitation to dinner from every quarter
+of London, and his father groaned in spirit over the conviction that
+thenceforward the law would be less to him than ever. A warm admirer
+of Robert Hall, Macaulay heard with pride how the great preacher, then
+wellnigh worn out with that long disease, his life, was discovered lying
+on the floor, employed in learning by aid of grammar and dictionary
+enough Italian to enable him to verify the parallel between Milton and
+Dante. But the compliment that of all others came most nearly home,--the
+only commendation of his literary talent which even in the innermost
+domestic circle he was ever known to repeat,--was the sentence with
+which Jeffrey acknowledged the receipt of his manuscript: "The more I
+think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that style."
+
+Macaulay's outward man was never better described than in two sentences
+of Praed's Introduction to Knight's Quarterly Magazine. "There came up a
+short manly figure, marvellously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and one
+hand in his waistcoat pocket. ["I well remember," writes Sir William
+Stirling Maxwell, "the first time I met him,--in 1845 or '46, I
+think,--at dinner at the house of his old friend, Sir John Macleod. I
+did not know him by sight, and, when he came into the room with two
+or three other guests, I supposed that he was announced as General--I
+forget what. The party was large, and I was on the other side of the
+table, and a good way off, and I was very soon struck by the amazing
+number of subjects on which he seemed at home;--politics, home and
+foreign,--French literature, and Hebrew poetry;--and I remember
+thinking, 'This is a General with a singularly well-stored mind and
+badly tied neckcloth.' Till, at last, a remark on the prose of Dryden
+led me to conclude that it could be no one but the Great Essayist."] Of
+regular beauty he had little to boast; but in faces where there is an
+expression of great power, or of great good humour, or both, you do
+not 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 features
+of a powerful and rugged cast, but so constantly lit up by every joyful
+and ennobling emotion that it mattered little if, when absolutely
+quiescent, his face was rather homely than handsome. While conversing at
+table 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, the
+other day," writes his sister Margaret in September 1831, "Tom met Lady
+Lyndhurst for the first time. She said to him: 'Mr. Macaulay, you are so
+different to what I expected. I thought you were dark and thin, but you
+are fair, and really, Mr. Macaulay, you are fat."' He at all times sat
+and stood straight, full, and square; and in this respect Woolner, in
+the fine statue at Cambridge, has missed what was undoubtedly the most
+marked fact in his personal appearance.
+
+He dressed badly, but not cheaply. His clothes, though ill put on, were
+good, and his wardrobe was always enormously overstocked. Later in
+life he indulged himself in an apparently inexhaustible succession
+of handsome embroidered waistcoats, which he used to regard with
+much complacency. He was unhandy to a degree quite unexampled in the
+experience of all who knew him. When in the open air he wore perfectly
+new dark kid gloves, into the fingers of which he never succeeded in
+inserting his own more than half way. After he had sailed for India
+there were found in his chambers between fifty and sixty strops, hacked
+into strips and splinters, and razors without beginning or end. About
+the 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, athletic
+pursuits are regarded as a leading object of existence rather than as
+a means of health and recreation, it requires some boldness to confess
+that Macaulay was utterly destitute of bodily accomplishments, and that
+he viewed his deficiencies with supreme indifference. He could neither
+swim, nor row, nor drive, nor skate, nor shoot. He seldom crossed a
+saddle, and never willingly. When in attendance at Windsor as a cabinet
+minister he was informed that a horse was at his disposal. "If her
+Majesty wishes to see me ride," he said, "she must order out an
+elephant." The only exercise in which he can be said to have excelled
+was 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 faster
+than anybody else could read. As a pedestrian he was, indeed, above the
+average. Till he had passed fifty he thought nothing of going on foot
+from the Albany to Clapham, and from Clapham on to Greenwich; and, while
+still in the prime of life, he was for ever on his feet indoors as well
+as out. "In those days," says his cousin Mrs. Conybeare, "he walked
+rapidly 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 of
+a declamation on some subject, and said, 'You have a brick floor here.'
+The hostess confessed that it was true, though she hoped that it had
+been disguised by double matting and a thick carpet. He said that his
+habit of always walking enabled him to tell accurately the material he
+was treading on."
+
+His faults were such as give annoyance to those who dislike a man rather
+than anxiety to those who love him. Vehemence, over-confidence, the
+inability to recognise that there are two sides to a question or
+two people in a dialogue, are defects which during youth are perhaps
+inseparable 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 enunciated
+a 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 the
+opposite of those held by the person with whom he was talking. To that
+charge, at any rate, he did not long continue liable. He left college a
+staunch and vehement Whig, eager to maintain against all comers, and
+at any moment, that none but Whig opinions had a leg to stand upon.
+His cousin George Babington, a rising surgeon, with whom at one time
+he lived in the closest intimacy, was always ready to take up the Tory
+cudgels. The two friends "would walk up and down the room, crossing
+each other for hours, shouting one another down with a continuous
+simultaneous storm of words, until George at length yielded to arguments
+and lungs combined. Never, so far as I remember, was there any loss of
+temper. 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 better
+than to listen to him, which was fortunate; because in his early days
+he had scanty respect of persons, either as regarded the choice of his
+topics, or the quantity of his words. But with his excellent temper,
+and entire absence of conceit, he soon began to learn consideration for
+others in small things as well as in great. By the time he was fairly
+launched in London he was agreeable in company, as well as forcible and
+amusing. Wilberforce speaks of his "unruffled good-humour." Sir Robert
+Inglis, a good observer with ample opportunity of forming a judgment,
+pronounced that he conversed and did not dictate, and that he was loud
+but never overbearing. As far back as the year 1826 Crabb Robinson gave
+a very favourable account of his demeanour in society, which deserves
+credence as the testimony of one who liked his share of talk, and was
+not willing to be put in the background for anybody. "I went to James
+Stephen, and drove with him to his house at Hendon. A dinner party.
+I had a most interesting companion in young Macaulay, one of the most
+promising of the rising generation I have seen for a long time. He has
+a good face,--not the delicate features of a man of genius and
+sensibility, but the strong lines and well-knit limbs of a man sturdy in
+body and mind. Very eloquent and cheerful. Overflowing with words, and
+not poor in thought. Liberal in opinion, but no radical. He seems a
+correct as well as a full man. He showed a minute knowledge of subjects
+not introduced by himself."
+
+So loyal and sincere was Macaulay's nature that he was unwilling to live
+upon terms of even apparent intimacy with people whom he did not like,
+or could not esteem; and, as far as civility allowed, he avoided their
+advances, 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 all
+companies. He was true throughout life to those who had once acquired
+his 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 the
+disposal of a friend; and anyone whom he called by that name he judged
+with indulgence, and trusted with a faith that would endure almost any
+strain. If his confidence proved to have been egregiously misplaced,
+which he was always the last to see, he did not resort to remonstrance
+or recrimination. His course under such circumstances he described in a
+couplet 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 journal
+of February 15, 1851, after quoting the couplet, Macaulay adds: "Odd
+that two lines of a damned play, and, it should seem, a justly damned
+play, should have lived near a century and have become proverbial."]
+
+He was never known to take part in any family quarrel, or personal
+broil, of any description whatsoever. His conduct in this respect was
+the result of self-discipline, and did not proceed from any want of
+sensibility. "He is very sensitive," said his sister Margaret, "and
+remembers long, as well as feels deeply, anything in the form of
+slight." Indeed, at college his friends used to tell him that his
+leading qualities were "generosity and vindictiveness." Courage he
+certainly did not lack. During the years when his spirit was high, and
+his pen cut deep, and when the habits of society were different from
+what they are at present, more than one adversary displayed symptoms of
+a desire to meet him elsewhere than on paper. On these occasions, while
+showing consideration for his opponent, he evinced a quiet but very
+decided sense of what was due to himself, which commanded the respect of
+all who were implicated, and brought difficulties that might have been
+grave 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 of
+criticism and of debate it cannot be denied that, as a young man, he
+sometimes deserved the praise which Dr. Johnson pronounced upon a good
+hater. 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 his
+means, the most open-handed of patrons. He was too apt to undervalue
+both the heart and the head of those who desired to maintain the old
+system of civil and religious exclusion, and who grudged political
+power to their fellow-countrymen, or at any rate to those of their
+fellow-countrymen whom he was himself prepared to enfranchise.
+Independent, frank, and proud almost to a fault, he detested the
+whole race of jobbers and time-servers, parasites and scandal-mongers,
+led-captains, led-authors, and led-orators. Some of his antipathies have
+stamped themselves indelibly upon literary history. He attributed to the
+Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty
+during the twenty years preceding 1830, qualities which excited his
+disapprobation beyond control, and possibly beyond measure. His judgment
+has been confirmed by the public voice, which identifies Croker with the
+character of Rigby in Mr. Disraeli's Coningsby.
+
+Macaulay was the more formidable as an opponent because he could be
+angry without losing his command of the situation. His first onset was
+terrific; but in the fiercest excitement of the melee he knew when to
+call a halt. A certain member of Parliament named Michael Thomas Sadler
+had fallen foul of Malthus, and very foul indeed of Macaulay, who in
+two short and telling articles took revenge enough for both. [Macaulay
+writes to Mr. Napier in February 1831: "People here think that I
+have answered Sadler completely. Empson tells me that Malthus is well
+pleased, which is a good sign. As to Blackwood's trash I could not get
+through it. It bore the same relation to Sadler's pamphlet that a bad
+hash bears to a bad joint."] He writes on this subject to Mr. Macvey
+Napier, who towards the close of 1829 had succeeded Jeffrey in the
+editorship of the Edinburgh Review: "The position which we have now
+taken up is absolutely impregnable, and, if we were to quit it, though
+we might win a more splendid victory, we should expose ourselves to
+some risk. My rule in controversy has always been that to which the
+Lacedaemonians adhered in war: never to break the ranks for the purpose
+of pursuing a beaten enemy." He had, indeed, seldom occasion to strike
+twice. 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 years
+when his blood was hot teaches a serious lesson on the responsibilities
+of genius. Croker, and Sadler, and poor Robert Montgomery, and the other
+less eminent objects of his wrath, appear likely to enjoy just so much
+notoriety, and of such a nature, as he has thought fit to deal out to
+them in his pages; and it is possible that even Lord Ellenborough may be
+better known to our grand-children by Macaulay's oration on the gates
+of Somnauth than by the noise of his own deeds, or the echo of his own
+eloquence.
+
+When Macaulay went to college he was justified in regarding himself as
+one who would not have to work for his bread. His father, who believed
+himself to be already worth a hundred thousand pounds, had statedly
+declared to the young man his intention of making him, in a modest
+way, an eldest son; and had informed him that, by doing his duty at the
+university, he would earn the privilege of shaping his career at choice.
+In 1818 the family removed to London, and set up an establishment on a
+scale suited to their improved circumstances in Cadogan Place, which, in
+everything except proximity to Bond Street, was then hardly less rural
+than Clapham. But the prosperity of the house of Macaulay and Babington
+was short-lived. The senior member of the firm gave his whole heart, and
+five-sixths of his time, to objects unconnected with his business; and
+he had selected a partner who did not possess the qualities necessary
+to compensate for his own deficiencies. In 1819 the first indications
+of possible disaster begin to show themselves in the letters to and from
+Cambridge; while waiting for a fellowship Macaulay was glad to make
+a hundred guineas by taking pupils; and, as time went on, it became
+evident that he was to be an eldest son only in the sense that,
+throughout the coming years of difficulty and distress, his brothers and
+sisters would depend mainly upon him for comfort, guidance, and support.
+He acknowledged the claim cheerfully, lovingly, and, indeed, almost
+unconsciously. It was not in his disposition to murmur over what was
+inevitable, or to plume himself upon doing what was right. He quietly
+took up the burden which his father was unable to bear; and, before many
+years had elapsed, the fortunes of all for whose welfare he considered
+himself responsible were abundantly assured. In the course of the
+efforts which he expended on the accomplishment of this result he
+unlearned the very notion of framing his method of life with a view to
+his own pleasure; and such was his high and simple nature, that it may
+well be doubted whether it ever crossed his mind that to live wholly for
+others 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 less
+fashionable quarter of the town. In 1823 the family settled in 50 Great
+Ormond Street, which runs east and west for some three hundred yards
+through the region bounded by the British Museum, the Foundling
+Hospital, and Gray's Inn Road. It was a large rambling house, at the
+corner of Powis Place, and was said to have been the residence of Lord
+Chancellor Thurlow at the time when the Great Seal was stolen from his
+custody. It now forms the east wing of an Homoeopathic hospital.
+Here the Macaulays remained till 1831. "Those were to me," says Lady
+Trevelyan, "years of intense happiness. There might be money troubles,
+but they did not touch us. Our lives were passed after a fashion which
+would seem indeed strange to the present generation. My father, ever
+more 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 the
+Wilberforces, the Buxtons, Sir Robert Inglis, and others; but what is
+now meant by 'society' was utterly unknown to us.
+
+"In the morning there was some pretence of work and study. In the
+afternoon your uncle always took my sister Margaret and myself a long
+walk. We traversed every part of the City, Islington, Clerkenwell,
+and the Parks, returning just in time for a six o'clock dinner. What
+anecdotes he used to pour out about every street, and square, and court,
+and alley! There are many places I never pass without 'the tender grace
+of a day that is dead' coming back to me. Then, after dinner, he always
+walked 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, least
+of 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, and
+push back his spectacles, and, I dare say, wonder in his heart how
+we could so waste our time. After tea the book then in reading was
+produced. Your uncle very seldom read aloud himself of an evening, but
+walked about listening, and commenting, and drinking water.
+
+"The Sundays were in some respects trying days to him. My father's habit
+was to read a long sermon to us all in the afternoon, and again after
+evening service another long sermon was read at prayer-time to the
+servants. Our doors were open to sons of relations or friends; and
+cousins who were medical students, or clerks in merchants' houses,
+came in regularly to partake of our Sunday dinner and sermons. Sunday
+walking, for walking's sake, was never allowed; and even going to a
+distant church was discouraged. When in Cadogan Place, we always crossed
+the Five Fields, where Belgrave Square now stands, to hear Dr. Thorpe at
+the Lock Chapel, and bring him home to dine with us. From Great Ormond
+Street, we attended St. John's Chapel in Bedford Row, then served by
+Daniel Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta. He was succeeded in 1826
+by the Rev. Baptist Noel. Your uncle generally went to church with us in
+the morning, and latterly formed the habit of walking out of town, alone
+or with a friend, in the after part of the day. I never heard that my
+father took any notice of this; and, indeed, in the interior of his own
+family, he never attempted in the smallest degree to check his son in
+his mode of life, or in the expression of his opinions.
+
+"I believe that breakfast was the pleasantest part of the day to my
+father. His spirits were then at their best, and he was most disposed to
+general conversation. He delighted in discussing the newspaper with his
+son, and lingered over the table long after the meal was finished. On
+this account he felt it extremely when, in the year 1829, your uncle
+went to live in chambers, and often said to my mother that the change
+had taken the brightness out of his day. Though your uncle generally
+dined with us, yet my father was tired by the evening, so that the
+breakfast 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 I
+believe that no one, who did not know him there, ever knew him in his
+most brilliant, witty, and fertile vein."
+
+That home was never more cheerful than during the eight years which
+followed the close of Macaulay's college life. There had been much quiet
+happiness at Clapham, and much in Cadogan Place; but it was round the
+house in Great Ormond Street that the dearest associations gathered.
+More than forty years afterwards, when Lady Trevelyan was dying, she
+had herself driven to the spot, as the last drive she ever took, and sat
+silent in her carriage for many minutes with her eyes fixed upon those
+well-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 a
+bill upon No. 50. I knocked, was let in, and went over the house with
+a strange mixture of feelings. It is more than twenty-six years since
+I was in it. The dining-room, and the adjoining room, in which I once
+slept, are scarcely changed--the same colouring on the wall, but more
+dingy. My father's study much the same;--the drawing-rooms too, except
+the papering. My bedroom just what it was. My mother's bedroom. I had
+never been in it since her death. I went away sad."]
+
+While warmly attached to all his nearest relations, Macaulay lived in
+the closest and most frequent companionship with his sisters Hannah and
+Margaret, younger than himself by ten and twelve years respectively.
+His affection for these two, deep and enduring as it was, had in it no
+element of blindness or infatuation. Even in the privacy of a diary,
+or the confidence of the most familiar correspondence, Macaulay, when
+writing about those whom he loved, was never tempted to indulge in fond
+exaggeration of their merits. Margaret, as will be seen in the course
+of this narrative, died young, leaving a memory of outward graces, and
+sweet and noble mental qualities, which is treasured by all among whom
+her short existence was passed. As regards the other sister, there are
+many alive who knew her for what she was; and, for those who did not
+know 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 have
+repaid their debt even to her.
+
+Education in the Macaulay family was not on system. Of what are
+ordinarily called accomplishments the daughters had but few, and Hannah
+fewest of any; but, ever since she could remember anything, she had
+enjoyed the run of a good standard library, and had been allowed to read
+at her own time, and according to her own fancy. There were two traits
+in her nature which are seldom united in the same person: a vivid
+practical interest in the realities which surrounded her, joined with
+the power of passing at will into a world of literature and romance
+in which she found herself entirely at home. The feeling with which
+Macaulay and his sister regarded books differed from that of other
+people in kind rather than in degree. When they were discoursing
+together about a work of history or biography, a bystander would have
+supposed that they had lived in the times of which the author treated,
+and had a personal acquaintance with every human being who was mentioned
+in his pages. Pepys, Addison, Horace Walpole, Dr. Johnson, Madame de
+Genlis, the Duc de St. Simon, and the several societies in which those
+worthies moved, excited in their minds precisely the same sort of
+concern, and gave matter for discussions of exactly the same type, as
+most people bestow upon the proceedings of their own contemporaries. The
+past was to them as the present, and the fictitious as the actual. The
+older novels, which had been the food of their early years, had become
+part of themselves to such an extent that, in speaking to each other,
+they frequently employed sentences from dialogues in those novels to
+express the idea, or even the business, of the moment. On matters of
+the street or of the household they would use the very language of Mrs.
+Elton and Mrs. Bennet, Mr. Woodhouse, Mr. Collins, and John Thorpe, and
+the other inimitable actors on Jane Austen's unpretending stage: while
+they would debate the love affairs and the social relations of their own
+circle in a series of quotations from Sir Charles Grandison or Evelina.
+
+The effect was at times nothing less than bewildering. When Lady
+Trevelyan married, her husband, whose reading had lain anywhere rather
+than among the circulating libraries, used at first to wonder who the
+extraordinary people could be with whom his wife and his brother-in-law
+appeared to have lived. This style of thought and conversation had for
+young minds a singular and a not unhealthy fascination. Lady Trevelyan's
+children were brought up among books, (to use the homely simile of
+an American author), as a stable-boy among horses. The shelves of the
+library, instead of frowning on us as we played and talked, seemed alive
+with kindly and familiar faces. But death came, and came again, and then
+all was changed, and changed as in an instant. There were many favourite
+volumes out of which the spirit seemed to vanish at once and for ever.
+We endeavoured unsuccessfully to revive by our own efforts the amusement
+which we had been taught to find in the faded flatteries and absurdities
+that passed between Miss Seward and her admirers, or to retrace for
+ourselves the complications of female jealousy which played round
+Cowper's tea-table at Olney. We awoke to the discovery that the charm
+was not in us, nor altogether in the books themselves. The talisman,
+which endowed with life and meaning all that it touched, had passed away
+from among us, leaving recollections which are our most cherished, as
+they must ever be our proudest, possession.
+
+Macaulay thought it probable that he could re-write Sir Charles
+Grandison from memory, and certainly he might have done so with his
+sister's help. But his intimate acquaintance with a work was no proof of
+its merit. "There was a certain prolific author," says Lady Trevelyan,
+"named Mrs. Meeke, whose romances he all but knew by heart; though
+he 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 who
+eventually proves to be the son of a Duke. Then there was a set of books
+by a Mrs. Kitty Cuthbertson, most silly though readable productions, the
+nature of which may be guessed from their titles:--'Santo Sebastiano,
+or the Young Protector,' 'The Forest of Montalbano,' 'The Romance of
+the Pyrenees,' and 'Adelaide, or the Countercharm.' I remember how, when
+'Santo Sebastiano' was sold by auction in India, he and Miss Eden bid
+against each other till he secured it at a fabulous price; and I possess
+it still."
+
+As an indication of the thoroughness with which this literary
+treasure has been studied, there appears on the last page an elaborate
+computation of the number of fainting-fits that occur in the course of
+the 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 the
+shortest, will serve as a specimen of these catastrophes "One of the
+sweetest smiles that ever animated the face of mortal now diffused
+itself over the countenance of Lord St. Orville, as he fell at the feet
+of Julia in a death-like swoon."
+
+The fun that went on in Great Ormond Street was of a jovial, and
+sometimes uproarious, description. Even when the family was by itself,
+the school-room and the drawing-room were full of young people; and
+friends and cousins flocked in numbers to a resort where so much
+merriment was perpetually on foot. There were seasons during the school
+holidays when the house overflowed with noise and frolic from morning to
+night; and Macaulay, who at any period of his life could literally spend
+whole days in playing with children, was master of the innocent revels.
+Games of hide-and-seek, that lasted for hours, with shouting and the
+blowing of horns up and down the stairs and through every room, were
+varied by ballads, which, like the Scalds of old, he composed during the
+act of recitation, while the others struck in with the chorus. He had no
+notion whatever of music, but an infallible ear for rhythm. His knack of
+improvisation he at all times exercised freely. The verses which he thus
+produced, and which he invariably attributed to an anonymous author whom
+he styled "the Judicious Poet," were exclusively for home consumption.
+Some of these effusions illustrate a sentiment in his disposition
+which was among the most decided, and the most frequently and loudly
+expressed. Macaulay was only too easily bored, and those whom he
+considered fools he by no means suffered gladly. He once amused his
+sisters by pouring out whole Iliads of extempore doggrel upon the head
+of an unfortunate country squire of their acquaintance, who had a habit
+of detaining people by the button, and who was especially addicted to
+the 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 being
+sufficiently known by all to give point, but well enough remembered by
+some to give pain.]
+
+and so on, throughout the entire bench, until, after a good half-hour
+of hearty and spontaneous nonsense, the girls would go laughing back to
+their Italian and their drawing-boards.
+
+He did not play upon words as a habit, nor did he interlard his talk
+with far-fetched or overstrained witticisms. His humour, like his
+rhetoric, was full of force and substance, and arose naturally from the
+complexion of the conversation or the circumstance of the moment. But
+when alone with his sisters, and, in after years, with his nieces,
+he was fond of setting himself deliberately to manufacture conceits
+resembling those on the heroes of the Trojan War which have been thought
+worthy of publication in the collected works of Swift. When walking in
+London he would undertake to give some droll turn to the name of every
+shopkeeper in the street, and, when travelling, to the name of every
+station along the line. At home he would run through the countries of
+Europe, the States of the Union, the chief cities of our Indian Empire,
+the provinces of France, the Prime Ministers of England, or the chief
+writers and artists of any given century; striking off puns, admirable,
+endurable, and execrable, but all irresistibly laughable, which followed
+each other in showers like sparks from flint. Capping verses was a game
+of which he never tired. "In the spring of 1829," says his cousin Mrs.
+Conybeare, "we were staying in Ormond Street. My chief recollection of
+your uncle during that visit is on the evenings when we capped verses.
+All the family were quick at it, but his astounding memory made him
+supereminent. When the time came for him to be off to bed at his
+chambers, he would rush out of the room after uttering some long-sought
+line, and would be pursued to the top of the stairs by one of the others
+who had contrived to recall a verse which served the purpose, in order
+that he might not leave the house victorious; but he, with the hall-door
+open in his hand, would shriek back a crowning effort, and go off
+triumphant."
+
+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 scanty
+sympathy or similarity of pursuits. It was not until he poured out his
+mind almost daily to those who approached him more nearly in age, and in
+tastes, that the lighter side of his nature began to display itself on
+paper. Most of what he addressed to his parents between the time when he
+left Cambridge, and the time when he entered the House of Commons, may
+be characterised as belonging to the type of duty-letters, treating of
+politics, legal gossip, personal adventures, and domestic incidents,
+with some reticence and little warmth or ease of expression, The
+periodical insertion on the son's part of anecdotes and observations
+bearing upon the question of Slavery reminds the reader of those
+presents of tall recruits with which, at judiciously chosen intervals,
+Frederic the Great used to conciliate his terrible father. As between
+the Macaulays, these little filial attentions acquire a certain
+gracefulness from the fact that, in the circumstances of the
+family, they could be prompted by no other motive than a dutiful and
+disinterested affection.
+
+It must not be supposed,--no one who examines the dates of his
+successive essays will for a moment suppose,--that his attention was
+distracted, or his energy dissipated, by trifles. Besides the finished
+study of Machiavelli, and the masterly sketch of our great civil
+troubles known as the article on Hallam's Constitutional History, he
+produced much which his mature judgment would willingly have allowed to
+die, but which had plenty of life in it when it first appeared between
+the blue and yellow covers. His most formidable enterprise, during the
+five earliest years of his connection with the great Review, was that
+passage of arms against the champions of the Utilitarian philosophy in
+which he touched the mighty shields of James Mill and Jeremy Bentham,
+and rode slashing to right and left through the ranks of their less
+distinguished followers. Indeed, while he sincerely admired the chiefs
+of 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 by
+some teacher who assures them that the studies which they have neglected
+are of no value, puts five or six phrases into their mouths, lends them
+an odd number of the Westminster Review, and in a month transforms them
+into philosophers." It must be allowed that there was some colour for
+his opinion. The Benthamite training may have stimulated the finer
+intellects, (and they were not few,) which came within its influence;
+but it is impossible to conceive anything more dreary than must have
+been the condition of a shallow mind, with a native predisposition to
+sciolism, after its owner had joined a society "composed of young men
+agreeing in fundamental principles, acknowledging Utility as their
+standard in ethics and politics," "meeting once a fortnight to read
+essays and discuss questions conformably to the premises thus agreed
+on," and "expecting the regeneration of mankind, not from any direct
+action on the sentiments of unselfish benevolence and love of justice,
+but from the effect of educated intellect enlightening the selfish
+feelings." John Stuart Mill, with that candour which is the rarest of
+his great qualities, gave a generous and authoritative testimony to the
+merit of these attacks upon his father, and his father's creed, which
+Macaulay himself lived to wish that he had left unwritten.
+
+["The author has been strongly urged to insert three papers on the
+Utilitarian Philosophy, which, when they first appeared, attracted some
+notice. * * * He has, however, determined to omit these papers, not
+because he is disposed to retract a single doctrine which they contain,
+but because he is unwilling to offer what might be regarded as an
+affront to the memory of one from whose opinions he still widely
+dissents, but to whose talents and virtues he admits that he formerly
+did not do justice. * * It ought to be known that Mr. Mill had the
+generosity, not only to forgive, but to forget the unbecoming acrimony
+with which he had been assailed, and was, when his valuable life
+closed, on terms of cordial friendship with his assailant."--Preface to
+Macaulay's Collected Essays.]
+
+He was already famous enough to have incurred the inevitable penalty
+of success in the shape of the pronounced hostility of Blackwood's
+Magazine. The feelings which the leading contributors to that periodical
+habitually entertained towards a young and promising writer were in
+his case sharpened by political partisanship; and the just and measured
+severity which he infused into his criticism on Southey's "Colloquies
+of Society" brought down upon him the bludgeon to whose strokes poetic
+tradition has attributed the death of Keats. Macaulay was made of
+harder stuff, and gave little heed to a string of unsavoury invectives
+compounded 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 from
+the polemical vocabulary of the personage who, by the irony of fate,
+filled the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. The substance of
+Professor Wilson's attacks consisted in little more than the reiteration
+of that charge of intellectual juvenility, which never fails to
+be employed as the last resource against a man whose abilities are
+undoubted, and whose character is above detraction.
+
+"North. He's a clever lad, James.
+
+"Shepherd. Evidently; and a clever lad he'll remain, depend ye upon
+that, a' the days of his life. A clever lad thirty years auld and some
+odds is to ma mind the maist melancholy sight in nature. Only think of a
+clever lad o' three-score-and-ten, on his deathbed, wha can look back on
+nae greater achievement than having aince, or aiblins ten times, abused
+Mr. Southey in the Embro' Review."
+
+The prophecies of jealousy seldom come true. Southey's book died before
+its author, with the exception of the passages extracted by Macaulay,
+which have been reproduced in his essay a hundred times, and more, for
+once that they were printed in the volumes from which he selected them
+for his animadversion.
+
+The chambers in which he ought to have been spending his days, and did
+actually spend his nights between the years 1829 and 1834, were within
+five minutes' walk of the house in Great Ormond Street. The building of
+which those chambers formed a part,--8 South Square, Gray's Inn,--has
+since been pulled down to make room for an extension of the Library; a
+purpose which, in Macaulay's eyes, would amply compensate for the loss
+of such associations as might otherwise have attached themselves to the
+locality. His Trinity fellowship brought him in nearly three hundred
+pounds annually, and the Edinburgh Review nearly two hundred. In January
+1828, during the interregnum that separated the resignation of
+Lord Goderich and the acceptance of the Premiership by the Duke of
+Wellington, Lord Lyndhurst made him a Commissioner of Bankruptcy; a rare
+piece of luck at a time when, as Lord Cockburn tells us, "a youth of a
+Tory family, who was discovered to have a leaning towards the doctrines
+of the opposition, was considered as a lost son." "The Commission is
+welcome," Macaulay writes to his father, "and I am particularly glad
+that it has been given at a time when there is no ministry, and when the
+acceptance of it implies no political obligation. To Lord Lyndhurst I of
+course feel personal gratitude, and I shall always take care how I speak
+of him."
+
+The emoluments of the office made up his income, for the three or four
+years during which he held it, to about nine hundred pounds per annum.
+His means were more than sufficient for his wants, but too small, and
+far too precarious, for the furtherance of the political aspirations
+which now were uppermost in his mind. "Public affairs," writes Lady
+Trevelyan, "were become intensely interesting to him. Canning's
+accession to power, then his death, the repeal of the Test Act, the
+Emancipation of the Catholics, all in their turn filled his heart and
+soul. He himself longed to be taking his part in Parliament, but with a
+very hopeless longing.
+
+"In February 1830 I was staying at Mr. Wilberforce's at Highwood Hill
+when 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, and
+that he wished to be the means of first introducing their author to
+public 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 and
+private character which had determined him to make the offer, and that
+he wished in no respect to influence his votes, but to leave him quite
+at liberty to act according to his conscience. I remember flying into
+Mr. Wilberforce's study, and, absolutely speechless, putting the letter
+into his hands. He read it with much emotion, and returned it to me,
+saying 'Your father has had great trials, obloquy, bad health, many
+anxieties. 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 he
+clapped 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 fought
+out by speech and vote within the walls of a senate-house, the young
+recruit went gaily to his post in the ranks of that party whose coming
+fortunes he was prepared loyally to follow, and the history of whose
+past 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 of
+the letters of introduction which you forwarded to me. Since I received
+them I have been confined to the house with a cold; and, now that I am
+pretty well recovered, I must take my departure for Pontefract. But, if
+it had been otherwise, I could not have presented these recommendations.
+Letters of this sort may be of great service to a barrister; but the
+barrister himself must not be the bearer of them. On this subject the
+rule 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 the
+intervention of third persons. We are sensible of our dependence on
+the attorneys, and proportioned to that sense of dependence is our
+affectation of superiority. Even to take a meal with an attorney is a
+high misdemeanour. One of the most eminent men among us brought
+himself into a serious scrape by doing so. But to carry a letter of
+introduction, to wait in the outer room while it is being read, to be
+then ushered into the presence, to receive courtesies which can only be
+considered as the condescensions of a patron, to return courtesies which
+are little else than the blessings of a beggar, would be an infinitely
+more terrible violation of our professional code. Every barrister to
+whom I have applied for advice has most earnestly exhorted me on no
+account whatever to present the letters myself. I should perhaps add
+that my advisers have been persons who cannot by any possibility feel
+jealous of me.
+
+In default of anything better I will eke out my paper with some lines
+which I made in bed last night,--an inscription for a picture of
+Voltaire.
+
+ 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 my
+wig 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 less
+determinate 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 special
+messenger 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 dressing
+of my wig, or a collector for the Jews' Society? Down I went, and to my
+utter amazement beheld the Smith of Smiths, Sydney Smith, alias Peter
+Plymley. I had forgotten his very existence till I discerned the queer
+contrast between his black coat and his snow-white head, and the equally
+curious contrast between the clerical amplitude of his person, and the
+most unclerical wit, whim, and petulance of his eye. I shook hands with
+him very heartily; and on the Catholic question we immediately fell,
+regretted Evans, triumphed over Lord George Beresford, and abused
+the Bishops. [These allusions refer to the general election which had
+recently taken place.] He then very kindly urged me to spend the time
+between the close of the Assizes and the commencement of the Sessions
+at his house; and was so hospitably pressing that I at last agreed to go
+thither on Saturday afternoon. He is to drive me over again into York
+on Monday morning. I am very well pleased at having this opportunity
+of becoming better acquainted with a man who, in spite of innumerable
+affectations and oddities, is certainly one of the wittiest and most
+original 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 lies
+three or four miles out of any frequented road. He is, however, most
+pleasantly situated. "Fifteen years ago," said he to me as I alighted
+at the gate of his shrubbery, "I was taken up in Piccadilly and set down
+here. There was no house, and no garden; nothing but a bare field." One
+service this eccentric divine has certainly rendered to the Church.
+He has built the very neatest, most commodious, and most appropriate
+rectory that I ever saw. All its decorations are in a peculiarly
+clerical style; grave, simple, and gothic. The bed-chambers are
+excellent, and excellently fitted up; the sitting-rooms handsome; and
+the grounds sufficiently pretty. Tindal and Parke, (not the judge
+of course,) two of the best lawyers, best scholars, and best men in
+England, were there. We passed an extremely pleasant evening, had a very
+good 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 miserable
+little hovel with a wooden belfry. It was, however, well filled, and
+with decent people, who seemed to take very much to their pastor. I
+understand that he is a very respectable apothecary; and most liberal
+of his skill, his medicine, his soul, and his wine, among the sick.
+He preached a very queer sermon--the former half too familiar and the
+latter half too florid, but not without some ingenuity of thought and
+expression.
+
+Sydney Smith brought me to York on Monday morning, in time for the
+stage-coach which runs to Skipton. We parted with many assurances of
+goodwill. 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 reserve
+all their good things for special occasions. It seems to be his greatest
+luxury to keep his wife and daughters laughing for two or three hours
+every day. His notions of law, government, and trade are surprisingly
+clear and just. His misfortune is to have chosen a profession at once
+above him and below him. Zeal would have made him a prodigy; formality
+and bigotry would have made him a bishop; but he could neither rise to
+the duties of his order, nor stoop to its degradations.
+
+He praised my articles in the Edinburgh Review with a warmth which I am
+willing to believe sincere, because he qualified his compliments with
+several very sensible cautions. My great danger, he said, was that
+of taking a tone of too much asperity and contempt in controversy. I
+believe 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 would
+answer it if I had anything equally amusing to say in return; but here
+we have no news, except what comes from London, and is as stale as
+inland fish before it reaches us. We have circuit anecdotes to be sure;
+and perhaps you will be pleased to hear that Brougham has been rising
+through the whole of this struggle. At York Pollock decidedly took the
+lead. At Durham Brougham overtook him, passed him at Newcastle, and got
+immensely ahead of him at Carlisle and Appleby, which, to be sure, are
+the places where his own connections lie. We have not been here quite
+long enough to determine how he will succeed with the Lancastrians.
+This has always hitherto been his least favourable place. He appears to
+improve in industry and prudence. He learns his story more thoroughly,
+and tells it more clearly, than formerly. If he continues to manage
+causes as well as he has done of late he must rise to the summit of the
+profession. I cannot say quite so much for his temper, which this close
+and constant rivalry does not improve. He squabbles with Pollock more
+than, in generosity or policy, he ought to do. I have heard several of
+our younger men wondering that he does not show more magnanimity. He
+yawns while Pollock is speaking; a sign of weariness which, in their
+present relation to each other, he would do well to suppress. He has
+said some very good, but very bitter, things. There was a case of a
+lead-mine. Pollock was for the proprietors, and complained bitterly of
+the encroachments which Brougham's clients had made upon this property,
+which he represented as of immense value. Brougham said that the
+estimate which his learned friend formed of the property was vastly
+exaggerated, but that it was no wonder that a person who found it so
+easy to get gold for his lead should appreciate that heavy metal
+so highly. The other day Pollock laid down a point of law rather
+dogmatically. "Mr. Pollock," said Brougham, "perhaps, before you rule
+the point, you will suffer his Lordship to submit a few observations on
+it to your consideration."
+
+I received the Edinburgh paper which you sent me. Silly and spiteful as
+it is, there is a little truth in it. In such cases I always remember
+those 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 as
+the dispersion of the circuit commences,--that is, after the delivery
+of the last batch of briefs; always supposing, which may be supposed
+without 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 resolution
+to petition against the Catholic Claims. The minority demanded a poll,
+and conveyed a hint to their friends in London. Macaulay, with one or
+two more to help him, beat up the Inns of Court for recruits, chartered
+a 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 of
+Emancipation. The whole party dined in triumph at Trinity, and got back
+to town the same evening; and the Tory journalists were emphatic in
+their indignation at the deliberate opinion of the University having
+been 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 undeserving
+of a very undeserving family. You, I think, have sent me one letter
+since 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 in
+abundance to frank them, and abundance of matter to fill them with. My
+Edinburgh expedition has given me so much to say that, unless I write
+off some of it before I come home, I shall talk you all to death, and be
+voted a bore in every house which I visit. I will commence with Jeffrey
+himself. I had almost forgotten his person; and, indeed, I should not
+wonder if even now I were to forget it again. He has twenty faces almost
+as unlike each other as my father's to Mr. Wilberforce's, and infinitely
+more unlike to each other than those of near relatives often are;
+infinitely more unlike, for example, than those of the two Grants. When
+absolutely quiescent, reading a paper, or hearing a conversation in
+which he takes no interest, his countenance shows no indication
+whatever of intellectual superiority of any kind. But as soon as he is
+interested, and opens his eyes upon you, the change is like magic.
+There is a flash in his glance, a violent contortion in his frown, an
+exquisite humour in his sneer, and a sweetness and brilliancy in his
+smile, beyond anything that ever I witnessed. A person who had seen him
+in only one state would not know him if he saw him in another. For
+he has not, like Brougham, marked features which in all moods of mind
+remain unaltered. The mere outline of his face is insignificant. The
+expression is everything; and such power and variety of expression
+I never saw in any human countenance, not even in that of the most
+celebrated actors. I can conceive that Garrick may have been like him.
+I have seen several pictures of Garrick, none resembling another, and I
+have heard Hannah More speak of the extraordinary variety of countenance
+by which he was distinguished, and of the unequalled radiance and
+penetration of his eye. The voice and delivery of Jeffrey resemble his
+face. He possesses considerable power of mimicry, and rarely tells a
+story 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 is
+imperceptible. Sometimes his utterance is snappish and quick to the last
+degree; sometimes it is remarkable for rotundity and mellowness. I can
+easily conceive that two people who had seen him on different days might
+dispute about him as the travellers in the fable disputed about the
+chameleon.
+
+In one thing, as far as I observed, he is always the same and that is
+the warmth of his domestic affections. Neither Mr. Wilberforce, nor
+my uncle Babington, come up to him in this respect. The flow of his
+kindness is quite inexhaustible. Not five minutes pass without some fond
+expression, or caressing gesture, to his wife or his daughter. He has
+fitted 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, or
+in his wife's boudoir. When he goes to other parts of the country on a
+retainer he takes them in the carriage with him. I do not wonder that
+he should be a good husband, for his wife is a very amiable woman. But I
+was 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 of
+affectionate nonsense. Through our whole journey to Perth he kept up
+a sort of mock quarrel with his daughter; attacked her about
+novel-reading, laughed her into a pet, kissed her out of it, and laughed
+her into it again. She and her mother absolutely idolise him, and I do
+not wonder at it.
+
+His conversation is very much like his countenance and his voice, of
+immense variety; sometimes plain and unpretending even to flatness;
+sometimes whimsically brilliant and rhetorical almost beyond the license
+of private discourse. He has many interesting anecdotes, and tells them
+very well. He is a shrewd observer; and so fastidious that I am not
+surprised at the awe in which many people seem to stand when in his
+company. Though not altogether free from affectation himself, he has
+a peculiar loathing for it in other people, and a great talent for
+discovering and exposing it. He has a particular contempt, in which
+I most heartily concur with him, for the fadaises of bluestocking
+literature, for the mutual flatteries of coteries, the handing about
+of vers de societe, the albums, the conversaziones, and all the other
+nauseous trickeries of the Sewards, Hayleys, and Sothebys. I am not
+quite sure that he has escaped the opposite extreme, and that he is not
+a little too desirous to appear rather a man of the world, an active
+lawyer, or an easy careless gentleman, than a distinguished writer. I
+must own that, when Jeffrey and I were by ourselves, he talked much and
+very well on literary topics. His kindness and hospitality to me were,
+indeed, beyond description, and his wife was as pleasant and friendly as
+possible. 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, and
+never rises till forced up by business or hunger. He is extremely
+well in health; so that I could not help suspecting him of being very
+hypochondriac; for all his late letters to me have been filled with
+lamentations about his various maladies. His wife told me, when I
+congratulated her on his recovery, that I must not absolutely rely on
+all his accounts of his own diseases. I really think that he is, on the
+whole, the youngest-looking man of fifty that I know, at least when he
+is animated.
+
+His house is magnificent. It is in Moray Place, the newest pile of
+buildings in the town, looking out to the Forth on one side, and to a
+green garden on the other. It is really equal to the houses in Grosvenor
+Square. Fine, however, as is the new quarter of Edinburgh, I decidedly
+prefer the Old Town. There is nothing like it in the island. You have
+been there, but you have not seen the town, and no lady ever sees a
+town. It is only by walking on foot through all corners at all hours
+that cities can be really studied to good purpose. There is a new pillar
+to the memory of Lord Melville; very elegant, and very much better than
+the man deserved. His statue is at the top, with a wreath on the head
+very like a nightcap drawn over the eyes. It is impossible to look at
+it without being reminded of the fate which the original most richly
+merited. 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 for
+neglecting 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 you
+all are I have not the very slightest notion. Pray let me hear. That
+dispersion of the Gentiles which our friends the prophets foretell seems
+to have commenced with our family.
+
+Everything here is going on in the common routine. The only things of
+peculiar interest are those which we get from the London papers. All
+minds seem to be perfectly made up as to the certainty of Catholic
+Emancipation having come at last. The feeling of approbation among the
+barristers is all but unanimous. The quiet townspeople here, as far as I
+can see, are very well contented. As soon as I arrived I was asked by
+my landlady how things had gone. I told her the division, which I had
+learned from Brougham at Garstang. She seemed surprised at the majority.
+I asked her if she was against the measure. "No; she only wished
+that all Christians would live in peace and charity together." A very
+sensible speech, and better than one at least of the members for the
+county ever made in his life.
+
+I implore you above everything, my dear Father, to keep up your health
+and spirits. Come what may, the conveniences of life, independence,
+our personal respectability, and the exercise of the intellect and the
+affections, we are almost certain of retaining; and everything else is a
+mere superfluity, to be enjoyed, but not to be missed. But I ought to be
+ashamed of reading you a lecture on qualities which you are so much more
+competent 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 on
+Southey,--too long, I fear, to meet your wishes, but as short as I could
+make it.
+
+There were, by the bye, in my last article a few omissions made, of no
+great consequence in themselves; the longest, I think, a paragraph of
+twelve or fourteen lines. I should scarcely have thought this worth
+mentioning, as it certainly by no means exceeds the limits of that
+editorial prerogative which I most willingly recognise, but that the
+omissions seemed to me, and to one or two persons who had seen the
+article in its original state, to be made on a principle which,
+however sound in itself, does not I think apply to compositions of this
+description. The passages omitted were the most pointed and ornamented
+sentences in the review. Now, for high and grave works, a history for
+example, or a system of political or moral philosophy, Doctor Johnson's
+rule,--that every sentence which the writer thinks fine ought to be cut
+out,--is excellent. But periodical works like ours, which unless they
+strike at the first reading are not likely to strike at all, whose whole
+life is a month or two, may, I think, be allowed to be sometimes even
+viciously florid. Probably, in estimating the real value of any tinsel
+which I may put upon my articles, you and I should not materially
+differ. 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. Be
+assured, at all events, that what I have said is said in perfect good
+humour, and indicates no mutinous disposition.
+
+The Jews are about to petition Parliament for relief from the absurd
+restrictions which lie on them,--the last relique of the old system of
+intolerance. I have been applied to by some of them in the name of the
+managers of the scheme to write for them in the Edinburgh Review. I
+would gladly further a cause so good, and you, I think, could have no
+objection.
+
+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 desirable
+that I should stay in the neighbourhood, and pay my compliments to my
+future constituents every other day.
+
+The house is splendid and elegant, yet more remarkable for comfort
+than for either elegance or splendour. I never saw any great place so
+thoroughly desirable for a residence. Lord Kerry tells me that his uncle
+left everything in ruin,--trees cut down, and rooms unfurnished,--and
+sold the library, which was extremely fine. Every book and picture in
+Bowood has been bought by the present Lord, and certainly the collection
+does him great honour.
+
+I am glad that I stayed here. A burgess of some influence, who, at
+the last election, attempted to get up an opposition to the Lansdowne
+interest, has just arrived. I called on him this morning, and, though
+he was a little ungracious at first, succeeded in obtaining his promise.
+Without him, indeed, my return would have been secure; but both from
+motives of interest and from a sense of gratitude I think it best to
+leave nothing undone which may tend to keep Lord Lansdowne's influence
+here unimpaired against future elections.
+
+Lord Kerry seems to me to be going on well. He has been in very good
+condition, he says, this week; and hopes to be at the election, and at
+the subsequent dinner. I do not know when I have taken so much to so
+young 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 long
+intimacy 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 passed
+with us, and, when I told her laughing that she set me at ease on a
+point which had given me much trouble, she said that she would never
+suffer 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 am
+myself concerned, I should not hesitate; but the interest of my family
+is also to be considered. We shall see, however, before long what my
+chance of success as a public man may prove to be. At present it would
+clearly 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 Brougham
+about this business. He is so angry at it that he cannot keep his anger
+to himself. I know that he has blamed Lord Lansdowne in the robing-room
+of the Court of King's Bench. The seat ought, he says, to have been
+given to another man. If he means Denman, I can forgive, and even
+respect 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 a
+period when a man conscious of power, impatient of public wrongs, and
+still young enough to love a fight for its own sake, could have entered
+Parliament with a fairer prospect of leading a life worth living, and
+doing work that would requite the pains, than at the commencement of the
+year 1830.
+
+In this volume, which only touches politics in order to show to what
+extent Macaulay was a politician, and for how long, controversies cannot
+appropriately be started or revived. This is not the place to enter
+into a discussion on the vexed question as to whether Mr. Pitt and his
+successors, in pursuing their system of repression, were justified by
+the necessities of the long French war. It is enough to assert, what few
+or none will deny, that, for the space of more than a generation from
+1790 onwards, our country had, with a short interval, been governed on
+declared reactionary principles. We, in whose days Whigs and Tories have
+often exchanged office, and still more often interchanged policies,
+find it difficult to imagine what must have been the condition of the
+kingdom, when one and the same party almost continuously held not only
+place, but power, throughout a period when, to an unexampled degree,
+"public life was exasperated by hatred, and the charities of private
+life soured by political aversion." [These expressions occur in Lord
+Cockburn's Memorials of his Time.] Fear, religion, ambition, and
+self-interest,--everything that could tempt and everything that could
+deter,--were enlisted on the side of the dominant opinions. To profess
+Liberal views was to be excluded from all posts of emolument, from all
+functions of dignity, and from all opportunities of public usefulness.
+The Whig leaders, while enjoying that security for life and liberty
+which even in the worst days of our recent history has been the reward
+of eminence, were powerless in the Commons and isolated in the Lords. No
+motive but disinterested conviction kept a handful of veterans steadfast
+round a banner which was never raised except to be swept contemptuously
+down by the disciplined and overwhelming strength of the ministerial
+phalanx. Argument and oratory were alike unavailing under a constitution
+which was indeed a despotism of privilege. The county representation
+of England was an anomaly, and the borough representation little better
+than a scandal. The constituencies of Scotland, with so much else that
+of right belonged to the public, had got into Dundas's pocket. In the
+year 1820 all the towns north of Tweed together contained fewer voters
+than are now on the rolls of the single burgh of Hawick, and all the
+counties together contained fewer voters than are now on the register of
+Roxburghshire. So small a band of electors was easily manipulated by a
+party leader who had the patronage of India at his command. The three
+Presidencies were flooded with the sons and nephews of men who were
+lucky enough to have a seat in a Town Council, or a superiority in
+a rural district; and fortunate it was for our empire that the
+responsibilities of that noblest of all careers soon educated young
+Indian Civil Servants into something higher than mere adherents of a
+political party.
+
+While the will of the nation was paralysed within the senate, effectual
+care was taken that its voice should not be heard without. The press was
+gagged in England, and throttled in Scotland. Every speech, or sermon,
+or pamphlet, the substance of which a Crown lawyer could torture into
+a semblance of sedition, sent its author to the jail, the hulks, or the
+pillory. In any place of resort where an informer could penetrate, men
+spoke their minds at imminent hazard of ruinous fines, and protracted
+imprisonment. It was vain to appeal to Parliament for redress against
+the tyranny of packed juries, and panic-driven magistrates. Sheridan
+endeavoured to retain for his countrymen the protection of Habeas
+Corpus; but he could only muster forty-one supporters. Exactly as many
+members followed Fox into the lobby when he opposed a bill, which,
+interpreted in the spirit that then actuated our tribunals, made
+attendance at an open meeting summoned for the consideration of
+Parliamentary Reform a service as dangerous as night-poaching, and far
+more dangerous than smuggling. Only ten more than that number
+ventured to protest against the introduction of a measure, still more
+inquisitorial in its provisions and ruthless in its penalties, which
+rendered every citizen who gave his attention to the removal of public
+grievances liable at any moment to find himself in the position of
+a criminal;--that very measure in behalf of which Bishop Horsley had
+stated in the House of Peers that he did not know what the mass of the
+people 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 to
+be entrusted with it, such a state of matters could not last for ever.
+Justly proud of the immense success that they had bought by their
+resolution, their energy, and their perseverance, the Ministers regarded
+the fall of Napoleon as a party triumph which could only serve to
+confirm their power. But the last cannon-shot that was fired on the 18th
+of 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 discontent
+engendered by a protracted period of commercial distress, the opponents
+of progress began to perceive that they had to reckon, not with a small
+and disheartened faction, but with a clear majority of the nation led by
+the most enlightened, and the most eminent, of its sons. Agitators and
+incendiaries retired into the background, as will always be the case
+when the country is in earnest; and statesmen who had much to lose, but
+were 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 from
+office, embittered by unpopularity, at length reaped their reward. Earl
+Grey, who forty years before had been hooted through the streets
+of North Shields with cries of "No Popery," lived to bear the most
+respected name in England; and Brougham, whose opinions differed little
+from those for expressing which Dr. Priestley in 1791 had his house
+burned about his ears by the Birmingham mob, was now the popular idol
+beyond all comparison or competition.
+
+In the face of such unanimity of purpose, guided by so much worth and
+talent, the Ministers lost their nerve, and, like all rulers who do not
+possess the confidence of the governed, began first to make mistakes,
+and then to quarrel among themselves. Throughout the years of Macaulay's
+early manhood the ice was breaking fast. He was still quite young when
+the concession of Catholic Emancipation gave a moral shock to the Tory
+party from which it never recovered until the old order of things had
+finally passed away. [Macaulay was fond of repeating an answer made to
+him by Lord Clarendon in the year 1829. The young men were talking over
+the situation, and Macaulay expressed curiosity as to the terms in which
+the Duke of Wellington would recommend the Catholic Relief Bill to the
+Peers. "Oh," said the other, "it will be easy enough. He'll say 'My
+lords! Attention! Right about face! March!'"] It was his fortune to
+enter into other men's labours after the burden and heat of the day had
+already been borne, and to be summoned into the field just as the
+season was at hand for gathering in a ripe and long-expected harvest of
+beneficent legislation.
+
+On the 5th of April, 1830, he addressed the House of Commons on the
+second reading of Mr. Robert Grant's bill for the Removal of Jewish
+Disabilities. Sir James Mackintosh rose with him, but Macaulay got the
+advantage of the preference that has always been conceded to one who
+speaks for the first time after gaining his seat during the continuance
+of a Parliament;--a privilege which, by a stretch of generosity, is now
+extended to new members who have been returned at a general election.
+Sir James subsequently took part in the debate; not, as he carefully
+assured his audience, "to supply any defects in the speech of his
+honourable friend, for there were none that he could find, but
+principally to absolve his own conscience." Indeed, Macaulay, addressing
+himself to his task with an absence of pretension such as never fails
+to conciliate the goodwill of the House towards a maiden speech,
+put clearly and concisely enough the arguments in favour of the
+bill;--arguments which, obvious, and almost common-place, as they appear
+under his straightforward treatment, had yet to be repeated during a
+space of six and thirty years before they commended themselves to the
+judgment of our Upper Chamber.
+
+"The power of which you deprive the Jew consists in maces, and gold
+chains, and skins of parchment with pieces of wax dangling from their
+edges. The power which you leave the Jew is the power of principal over
+clerk, of master over servant, of landlord over tenant. As things now
+stand, a Jew may be the richest man in England. He may possess the
+means of raising this party and depressing that; of making East Indian
+directors; of making members of Parliament. The influence of a Jew may
+be of the first consequence in a war which shakes Europe to the centre.
+His power may come into play in assisting or thwarting the greatest
+plans of the greatest princes; and yet, with all this confessed,
+acknowledged, undenied, you would have him deprived of power! Does not
+wealth confer power? How are we to permit all the consequences of that
+wealth but one? I cannot conceive the nature of an argument that is to
+bear out such a position. If we were to be called on to revert to the
+day when the warehouses of Jews were torn down and pillaged, the
+theory would be comprehensible. But we have to do with a persecution so
+delicate that there is no abstract rule for its guidance. You tell us
+that 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 to
+be in England, and six hundred years ago they had no legal right to the
+teeth in their heads. But, if it is the moral right we are to look at, I
+hold that on every principle of moral obligation the Jew has a right to
+political 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 he
+could have effected by half a dozen brilliant perorations. A crisis was
+rapidly approaching when a man gifted with eloquence, who by previous
+self-restraint had convinced the House that he did not speak for
+speaking's sake, might rise almost in a day to the very summit of
+influence and reputation. The country was under the personal rule of the
+Duke of Wellington, who had gradually squeezed out of his Cabinet every
+vestige of Liberalism, and even of independence, and who at last
+stood so completely alone that he was generally supposed to be in more
+intimate communication with Prince Polignac than with any of his own
+colleagues. The Duke had his own way in the Lords; and on the benches of
+the Commons the Opposition members were unable to carry, or even visibly
+to improve their prospect of carrying, the measures on which their
+hearts were set. The Reformers were not doing better in the division
+lobby than in 1821; and their question showed no signs of having
+advanced since the day when it had been thrown over by Pitt on the eve
+of the French Revolution.
+
+But the outward aspect of the situation was very far from answering to
+the reality. While the leaders of the popular party had been spending
+themselves in efforts that seemed each more abortive than the
+last,--dividing only to be enormously outvoted, and vindicating
+with calmness and moderation the first principles of constitutional
+government only to be stigmatised as the apostles of anarchy,--a mighty
+change was surely but imperceptibly effecting itself in the collective
+mind 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 the
+England of 1830 from the England of 1790. The King died; Parliament was
+dissolved on the 24th of July; and in the first excitement and bustle
+of the elections, while the candidates were still on the roads and the
+writs in the mailbags, came the news that Paris was in arms. The
+troops fought as well as Frenchmen ever can be got to fight against
+the tricolour; but by the evening of the 29th it was all over with the
+Bourbons. The Minister, whose friendship had reflected such unpopularity
+on our own Premier, succumbed to the detestation of the victorious
+people, and his sacrifice did not save the dynasty. What was passing
+among our neighbours for once created sympathy, and not repulsion,
+on this side the Channel. One French Revolution had condemned English
+Liberalism to forty years of subjection, and another was to be the
+signal which launched it on as long a career of supremacy. Most men
+said, and all felt, that Wellington must follow Polignac; and the public
+temper was such as made it well for the stability of our throne that
+it was filled by a monarch who had attracted to himself the hopes and
+affection of the nation, and who shared its preferences and antipathies
+with regard to the leading statesmen of the day.
+
+One result of political disturbance in any quarter of the globe is to
+fill the scene of action with young members of Parliament, who follow
+Revolutions about Europe as assiduously as Jew brokers attend upon the
+movements of an invading army. Macaulay, whose re-election for Calne
+had 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 of
+continental travel. His letters during the tour were such as, previously
+to the age of railroads, brothers who had not been abroad before used to
+write for the edification of sisters who expected never to go abroad at
+all. He describes in minute detail manners and institutions that to us
+are no longer novelties, and monuments which an educated Englishman of
+our time knows as well as Westminster Abbey, and a great deal better
+than the Tower. Everything that he saw, heard, ate, drank, paid, and
+suffered, was noted down in his exuberant diction to be read aloud and
+commented on over the breakfast table in Great Ormond Street.
+
+"At Rouen," he says, "I was struck by the union of venerable antiquity
+with extreme liveliness and gaiety. We have nothing of the sort in
+England. Till the time of James the First, I imagine, our houses were
+almost all of wood, and have in consequence disappeared. In York there
+are 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 of
+demolition and rebuilding, I doubt whether there are fifty houses that
+date from the Reformation. But in Rouen you have street after street of
+lofty stern-looking masses of stone, with Gothic carvings. The buildings
+are so high, and the ways so narrow, that the sun can scarcely reach the
+pavements. Yet in these streets, monastic in their aspect, you have all
+the 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 Garden
+does not furnish, filling the windows of the fruiterers; showy women
+swimming smoothly over the uneasy stones, and stared at by national
+guards swaggering by in full uniform. It is the Soho Bazaar transplanted
+into the gloomy cloisters of Oxford."
+
+He writes to a friend just before he started on his tour: "There is much
+that I am impatient to see, but two things specially,--the Palais Royal,
+and the man who called me the Aristarchus of Edinburgh." Who this person
+might be, and whether Macaulay succeeded in meeting him, are questions
+which his letters leave unsolved; but he must have been a constant
+visitor at the Palais Royal if the hours that he spent in it bore any
+relation 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 not
+the orderly and decent bazaar of the Second Empire, but was still that
+compound of Parnassus and Bohemia which is painted in vivid colours in
+the "Grand Homme de Province" of Balzac,--still the paradise of such
+ineffable 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 and
+evil of civilisation are most strikingly exhibited, in which the arts of
+life are carried to the highest perfection, and in which all pleasures,
+high and low, intellectual and sensual, are collected in the smallest
+space, I should certainly choose the Palais Royal. It is the Covent
+Garden Piazza, the Paternoster Row, the Vauxhall, the Albion Tavern, the
+Burlington Arcade, the Crockford's the Finish, the Athenaeum of Paris
+all in one. Even now, when the first dazzling effect has passed off, I
+never traverse it without feeling bewildered by its magnificent variety.
+As a great capital is a country in miniature, so the Palais Royal is
+a 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 lie
+underneath its brilliant exterior. Everything is there, and everybody.
+Statesmen, wits, philosophers, beauties, dandies, blacklegs,
+adventurers, artists, idlers, the king and his court, beggars with
+matches crying for charity, wretched creatures dying of disease and want
+in garrets. There is no condition of life which is not to be found in
+this gorgeous and fantastic Fairyland."
+
+Macaulay had excellent opportunities for seeing behind the scenes during
+the closing acts of the great drama that was being played out through
+those summer months. The Duc de Broglie, then Prime Minister, treated
+him with marked attention, both as an Englishman of distinction, and as
+his father's son. He was much in the Chamber of Deputies, and witnessed
+that strange and pathetic historical revival when, after an interval of
+forty such years as mankind had never known before, the aged La Fayette
+again stood forth, in the character of a disinterested dictator, between
+the hostile classes of his fellow-countrymen.
+
+"De La Fayette is so overwhelmed with work that I scarcely knew how
+to deliver even Brougham's letter, which was a letter of business, and
+should have thought it absurd to send him Mackintosh's, which was a mere
+letter of introduction, I fell in with an English acquaintance who told
+me that he had an appointment with La Fayette, and who undertook to
+deliver them both. I accepted his offer, for, if I had left them with
+the porter, ten to one they would never have been opened. I hear that
+hundreds of letters are lying in the lodge of the hotel. Every Wednesday
+morning, from nine to eleven, La Fayette gives audience to anybody who
+wishes to speak with him; but about ten thousand people attend on these
+occasions, and fill, not only the house, but all the courtyard and half
+the street. La Fayette is Commander in Chief of the National Guard of
+France. The number of these troops in Paris alone is upwards of forty
+thousand. The Government find a musket and bayonet; but the uniform,
+which costs about ten napoleons, the soldiers provide themselves. All
+the shopkeepers are enrolled, and I cannot sufficiently admire their
+patriotism. My landlord, Meurice, a man who, I suppose, has realised a
+million francs or more, is up one night in four with his firelock doing
+the duty of a common watchman.
+
+"There is, however, something to be said as an explanation of the zeal
+with which the bourgeoisie give their time and money to the public. The
+army received so painful a humiliation in the battles of July that it
+is by no means inclined to serve the new system faithfully. The rabble
+behaved nobly during the conflict, and have since shown rare humanity
+and moderation. Yet those who remember the former Revolution feel an
+extreme dread of the ascendency of mere multitude and there have been
+signs, trifling in themselves, but such as may naturally alarm people of
+property. Workmen have struck. Machinery has been attacked. Inflammatory
+handbills have appeared upon the walls. At present all is quiet; but the
+thing may happen, particularly if Polignac and Peyronnet should not be
+put to death. The Peers wish to save them. The lower orders, who have
+had five or six thousand of their friends and kinsmen butchered by the
+frantic wickedness of these men, will hardly submit. 'Eh! eh!' said a
+fierce old soldier of Napoleon to me the other day. 'L'on dit qu'ils
+seront 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 La
+Fayette 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 he
+had 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 common
+Parisians take in politics you may judge by this. I told my driver to
+wait 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 number
+of deputies who voted the intrepid address to Charles the Tenth, which
+irritated him into his absurd coup d'etat, was 221. I walked into the
+hotel through a crowd of uniforms, and found the reception-rooms as full
+as they could hold. I was not able to make my way to La Fayette; but
+I 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 interest
+in these journal letters; and their publication would serve no purpose
+except that of informing the present leader of the Monarchists what
+his father had for breakfast and dinner during a week of 1830, and of
+enabling him to trace changes in the disposition of the furniture of the
+De Broglie hotel. "I believe," writes Macaulay, "that I have given the
+inventory of every article in the Duke's salon. You will think that I
+have some intention of turning upholsterer."
+
+His thoughts and observations on weightier matters he kept for an
+article on the State of Parties in France which he intended to provide
+for the October number of the Edinburgh Review. While he was still at
+Paris, this arrangement was rescinded by Mr. Napier in compliance
+with the wish, or the whim, of Brougham; and Macaulay's surprise and
+annoyance vented itself in a burst of indignant rhetoric strong enough
+to have upset a Government. [See on page 142 the letter to Mr. Napier of
+September 16, 1831.] His wrath,--or that part of it, at least, which was
+directed 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 a
+volume for the series of Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, under the title
+of "The History of France, from the Restoration of the Bourbons to
+the Accession of Louis Philippe." Ten years ago proofs of the first
+eighty-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 broken
+up before the sheets had been pulled. The task, as far as it went, was
+faithfully performed; but the author soon arrived at the conclusion that
+he might find a more profitable investment for his labour. With his head
+full of Reform, Macaulay was loth to spend in epitomising history the
+time and energy that would be better employed in helping to make it.
+
+When the new Parliament met on the 26th of October it was already
+evident that the Government was doomed. Where the elections were open,
+Reform had carried the day. Brougham was returned for Yorkshire, a
+constituency of tried independence, which before 1832 seldom failed
+to secure the triumph of a cause into whose scale it had thrown its
+enormous weight. The counties had declared for the Whigs by a majority
+of 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 not
+forgotten Catholic Emancipation, and who did not mean to pardon their
+leaders until they had ceased to be Ministers.
+
+In the debate on the Address the Duke of Wellington uttered his famous
+declaration that the Legislature possessed, and deserved to possess,
+the full and entire confidence of the country; that its existing
+constitution was not only practically efficient but theoretically
+admirable; and that, if he himself had to frame a system of
+representation, he should do his best to imitate so excellent a model,
+though he admitted that the nature of man was incapable at a single
+effort of attaining to such mature perfection. His bewildered colleagues
+could only assert in excuse that their chief was deaf, and wish that
+everybody else had been deaf too. The second ministerial feat was of a
+piece with the first. Their Majesties had accepted an invitation to dine
+at Guildhall on the 9th of November. The Lord Mayor elect informed the
+Home Office that there was danger of riot, and the Premier, (who could
+not be got to see that London was not Paris because his own political
+creed happened to be much the same as Prince Polignac's,) advised the
+King to postpone his visit to the City, and actually talked of putting
+Lombard Street and Cheapside in military occupation. Such a step taken
+at such a time by such a man had its inevitable result. Consols, which
+the Duke's speech on the Address had brought from 84 to 80, fell to 77
+in an hour and a half; jewellers and silversmiths sent their goods to
+the banks; merchants armed their clerks and barricaded their warehouses;
+and, when the panic subsided, fear only gave place to the shame and
+annoyance which a loyal people, whose loyalty was at that moment more
+active than ever, experienced from the reflection that all Europe was
+discussing the reasons why our King could not venture to dine in public
+with the Chief Magistrate of his own capital. A strong Minister, who
+sends the funds down seven per cent. in as many days, is an anomaly that
+no nation will consent to tolerate; the members of the Cabinet looked
+forward with consternation to a scheme of Reform which, with the
+approbation of his party, Brougham had undertaken to introduce on the
+15th of November; and when, within twenty-four hours of the dreaded
+debate, they were defeated on a motion for a committee on the Civil
+List, their relief at having obtained an excuse for retiring at least
+equalled that which the country felt at getting rid of them.
+
+Earl Grey came in, saying, (and meaning what he said,) that the
+principles on which he stood were "amelioration of abuses, promotion
+of economy, and the endeavour to preserve peace consistently with the
+honour of the country." Brougham, who was very sore at having been
+forced to postpone his notice on Reform on account of the ministerial
+crisis, had gratuitously informed the House of Commons on two successive
+days that he had no intention of taking office. A week later on he
+accepted the Chancellorship with an inconsistency which his friends
+readily forgave, for they knew that, when he resolved to join
+the Cabinet, he was thinking more of his party than of himself; a
+consideration that naturally enough only sharpened the relish with which
+his adversaries pounced upon this first of his innumerable scrapes. When
+the new writ for Yorkshire was moved, Croker commented sharply on the
+position in which the Chancellor was placed, and remarked that he had
+often heard Brougham declare that "the characters of public men formed
+part of the wealth of England;"--a reminiscence which was delivered with
+as much gravity and unction as if it had been Mackintosh discoursing on
+Romilly. Unfortunately for himself, Croker ruined his case by referring
+to a private conversation, an error which the House of Commons always
+takes at least an evening to forgive; and Macaulay had his audience with
+him as he vindicated the absent orator with a generous warmth, which
+at length carried him so far that he was interrupted by a call to order
+from the Chair. "The noble Lord had but a few days for deliberation,
+and that at a time when great agitation prevailed, and when the country
+required a strong and efficient Ministry to conduct the government of
+the State. At such a period a few days are as momentous as months would
+be at another period. It is not by the clock that we should measure the
+importance of the changes that might take place during such an interval.
+I owe no allegiance to the noble Lord who has been transferred to
+another place; but as a member of this House I cannot banish from my
+memory the extraordinary eloquence of that noble person within these
+walls,--an eloquence which has left nothing equal to it behind; and when
+I behold the departure of the great man from amongst us, and when I see
+the place in which he sat, and from which he has so often astonished
+us by the mighty powers of his mind, occupied this evening by the
+honourable member who has commenced this debate, I cannot express the
+feelings and emotions to which such circumstances give rise."
+
+Parliament adjourned over Christmas; and on the 1st of March 1831 Lord
+John Russell introduced the Reform Bill amidst breathless silence,
+which was at length broken by peals of contemptuous laughter from the
+Opposition benches, as he read the list of the hundred and ten boroughs
+which were condemned to partial or entire disfranchisement. Sir Robert
+Inglis led the attack upon a measure that he characterised as Revolution
+in the guise of a statute. Next morning as Sir Robert was walking into
+town over Westminster Bridge, he told his companion that up to the
+previous night he had been very anxious, but that his fears were now
+at an end, inasmuch as the shock caused by the extravagance of the
+ministerial proposals would infallibly bring the country to its senses.
+On the evening of that day Macaulay made the first of his Reform
+speeches. When he sat down the Speaker sent for him, and told him that
+in all his prolonged experience he had never seen the House in such a
+state of excitement. Even at this distance of time it is impossible to
+read aloud the last thirty sentences without an emotion which suggests
+to the mind what must have been their effect when declaimed by one who
+felt every word that he spoke, in the midst of an assembly agitated by
+hopes and apprehensions such as living men have never known, or have
+long forgotten. ["The question of Parliamentary Reform is still behind.
+But signs, of which it is impossible to misconceive the import, do most
+clearly 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 long
+versed in high political affairs cannot read these signs? Is it possible
+that 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 would
+they have us wait? Would they have us wait, merely that we may show to
+all 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 point
+where we can neither refuse with authority, nor concede with grace?
+Would they have us wait, that the numbers of the discontented party may
+become larger, its demands higher, its feelings more acrimonious, its
+organisation more complete? Would they have us wait till the whole
+tragicomedy of 1827 has been acted over again? till they have been
+brought into office by a cry of 'No Reform,' to be reformers, as they
+were once before brought into office by a cry of 'No Popery', to be
+emancipators? Have they obliterated from their minds--gladly, perhaps,
+would some among them obliterate from their minds--the transactions
+of that year? And have they forgotten all the transactions of the
+succeeding year? Have they forgotten how the spirit of liberty in
+Ireland, debarred from its natural outlet, found a vent by forbidden
+passages? Have they forgotten how we were forced to indulge the
+Catholics in all the license of rebels, merely because we chose
+to withhold from them the liberties of subjects? Do they wait for
+associations more formidable than that of the Corn Exchange, for
+contributions larger than the Rent, for agitators more violent than
+those who, three years ago, divided with the King and the Parliament
+the sovereignty of Ireland? Do they wait for that last and most dreadful
+paroxysm of popular rage, for that last and most cruel test of military
+fidelity? Let them wait, if their past experience shall induce them to
+think that any high honour or any exquisite pleasure is to be obtained
+by a policy like this. Let them wait, if this strange and fearful
+infatuation be indeed upon them, that they should not see with their
+eyes, or hear with their ears, or understand with their heart. But let
+us know our interest and our duty better. Turn where we may, within,
+around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that
+you may preserve. Now, therefore, while everything at home and abroad
+forebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against the
+spirit of the age, now, while the crash of the proudest throne of the
+Continent is still resounding in our ears, now, while the roof of a
+British palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of
+forty kings, now, while we see on every side ancient institutions
+subverted, and great societies dissolved, now, while the heart of
+England is still sound, now, while old feelings and old associations
+retain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away, now, in this
+your accepted time, now, in this your day of salvation, take counsel,
+not of prejudice, not of party spirit, not of the ignominious pride of
+a fatal consistency, but of history, of reason, of the ages which are
+past, of the signs of this most portentous time. Pronounce in a
+manner worthy of the expectation with which this great debate has been
+anticipated, 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 the
+greatest, the fairest, and most highly civilised community that ever
+existed, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the rich
+heritage 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 that
+none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes
+with unavailing remorse, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion
+of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social
+order."] Sir Thomas Denman, who rose later on in the discussion, said,
+with universal acceptance, that the orator's words remained tingling in
+the ears of all who heard them, and would last in their memories as
+long as they had memories to employ. That sense of proprietorship in an
+effort 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 heard
+or read. It reminded one of the old times." The names of Fox, Burke,
+and Canning were during that evening in everybody's mouth; and Macaulay
+overheard with delight a knot of old members illustrating their
+criticisms by recollections of Lord Plunket. He had reason to be
+pleased; for he had been thought worthy of the compliment which the
+judgment of Parliament reserves for a supreme occasion. In 1866, on the
+second reading of the Franchise Bill, when the crowning oration of that
+memorable debate had come to its close amidst a tempest of applause,
+one or two veterans of the lobby, forgetting Macaulay on
+Reform,--forgetting, it may be, Mr. Gladstone himself on the
+Conservative Budget of 1852,--pronounced, amidst the willing assent of a
+younger generation, that there had been nothing like it since Plunket.
+
+The unequivocal success of the first speech into which he had thrown his
+full power decided for some time to come the tenor of Macaulay's career.
+During the next three years he devoted himself to Parliament, rivalling
+Stanley in debate, and Hume in the regularity of his attendance. He
+entered with zest into the animated and manysided life of the House of
+Commons, of which so few traces can ordinarily be detected in what goes
+by the name of political literature. The biographers of a distinguished
+statesman too often seem to have forgotten that the subject of their
+labours passed the best part of his waking hours, during the half of
+every year, in a society of a special and deeply marked character, the
+leading traits of which are at least as well worth recording as the
+fashionable or diplomatic gossip that fills so many volumes of memoirs
+and correspondence. Macaulay's letters sufficiently indicate how
+thoroughly he enjoyed the ease, the freedom, the hearty good-fellowship,
+that reign within the precincts of our national senate; and how entirely
+he recognised that spirit of noble equality, so prevalent among its
+members, which takes little or no account of wealth, or title, or indeed
+of reputation won in other fields, but which ranks a man according as
+the value of his words, and the weight of his influence, bear the test
+of a standard which is essentially its own.
+
+In February 1831 he writes to Whewell: "I am impatient for Praed's
+debut. The House of Commons is a place in which I would not promise
+success to any man. I have great doubts even about Jeffrey. It is the
+most peculiar audience in the world. I should say that a man's being
+a good writer, a good orator at the bar, a good mob-orator, or a good
+orator in debating clubs, was rather a reason for expecting him to fail
+than for expecting him to succeed in the House of Commons. A place where
+Walpole succeeded and Addison failed; where Dundas succeeded and Burke
+failed; where Peel now succeeds and where Mackintosh fails; where
+Erskine and Scarlett were dinner-bells; where Lawrence and Jekyll, the
+two wittiest men, or nearly so, of their time, were thought bores, is
+surely a very strange place. And yet I feel the whole character of the
+place growing upon me. I begin to like what others about me like, and to
+disapprove what they disapprove. Canning used to say that the House, as
+a body, had better taste than the man of best taste in it, and I am very
+much inclined to think that Canning was right."
+
+The readers of Macaulay's letters will, from time to time, find reason
+to wish that the young Whig of 1830 had more frequently practised that
+studied respect for political opponents, which now does so much to
+correct the intolerance of party among men who can be adversaries
+without ceasing to regard each other as colleagues. But this honourable
+sentiment was the growth of later days; and, at an epoch when the system
+of the past and the system of the future were night after night in
+deadly wrestle on the floor of St. Stephen's, the combatants were apt
+to keep their kindliness, and even their courtesies, for those with whom
+they stood shoulder to shoulder in the fray. Politicians, Conservative
+and Liberal alike, who were themselves young during the Sessions of 1866
+and 1867, and who can recall the sensations evoked by a contest of which
+the issues were far less grave and the passions less strong than of
+yore, will make allowances for one who, with the imagination of a poet
+and the temperament of an orator, at thirty years old was sent straight
+into the thickest of the tumult which then raged round the standard of
+Reform, and will excuse him for having borne himself in that battle of
+giants as a determined and a fiery partisan.
+
+If to live intensely be to live happily, Macaulay had an enviable lot
+during those stirring years; and, if the old songwriters had reason
+on their side when they celebrated the charms of a light purse, he
+certainly possessed that element of felicity. Among the earliest
+economical reforms undertaken by the new Government was a searching
+revision of our Bankruptcy jurisdiction, in the course of which
+his Commissionership was swept away, without leaving him a penny of
+compensation. "I voted for the Bankruptcy Court Bill," he said in answer
+to an inquisitive constituent. "There were points in that Bill of
+which I did not approve, and I only refrained from stating those points
+because an office of my own was at stake." When this source fell dry he
+was for a while a poor man; for a member of Parliament, who has others
+to think of besides himself, is anything but rich on sixty or seventy
+pounds a quarter as the produce of his pen, and a college income which
+has only a few more months to run. At a time when his Parliamentary fame
+stood at its highest he was reduced to sell the gold medals which he had
+gained at Cambridge; but he was never for a moment in debt; nor did he
+publish a line prompted by any lower motive than the inspiration of his
+political faith, or the instinct of his literary genius. He had none but
+pleasant recollections connected with the period when his fortunes were
+at their lowest. From the secure prosperity of after life he delighted
+in recalling the time when, after cheering on the fierce debate for
+twelve or fifteen hours together, he would walk home by daylight to his
+chambers, and make his supper on a cheese which was a present from
+one of his Wiltshire constituents, and a glass of the audit ale which
+reminded him that he was still a fellow of Trinity.
+
+With political distinction came social success, more rapid and more
+substantial, perhaps, than has ever been achieved by one who took so
+little trouble to win or to retain it. The circumstances of the time
+were all in his favour. Never did our higher circles present so much
+that would attract a new-comer, and never was there more readiness to
+admit within them all who brought the honourable credentials of talent
+and celebrity. In 1831 the exclusiveness of birth was passing away, and
+the exclusiveness of fashion had not set in. The Whig party, during
+its long period of depression, had been drawn together by the bonds
+of common hopes, and endeavours, and disappointments; and personal
+reputation, whether literary, political, or forensic, held its own as
+against the advantages of rank and money to an extent that was never
+known before, and never since. Macaulay had been well received in the
+character of an Edinburgh Reviewer, and his first great speech in the
+House of Commons at once opened to him all the doors in London that were
+best worth entering. Brought up, as he had been, in a household which
+was perhaps the strictest and the homeliest among a set of families
+whose creed it was to live outside the world, it put his strength of
+mind to the test when he found himself courted and observed by the
+most distinguished and the most formidable personages of the day. Lady
+Holland listened to him with unwonted deference, and scolded him with a
+circumspection that was in itself a compliment. Rogers spoke of him with
+friendliness, and to him with positive affection, and gave him the last
+proof of his esteem and admiration by asking him to name the morning for
+a breakfast-party. He was treated with almost fatherly kindness by the
+able and worthy man who is still remembered by the name of Conversation
+Sharp. Indeed, his deference for the feelings of all whom he liked
+and respected, which an experienced observer could detect beneath the
+eagerness of his manner and the volubility of his talk, made him a
+favourite among those of a generation above his own. He bore his honours
+quietly, and enjoyed them with the natural and hearty pleasure of a man
+who has a taste for society, but whose ambitions lie elsewhere. For the
+space of three seasons he dined out almost nightly, and spent many of
+his Sundays in those suburban residences which, as regards the company
+and the way of living, are little else than sections of London removed
+into a purer air.
+
+Before very long his habits and tastes began to incline in the direction
+of domesticity, and even of seclusion; and, indeed, at every period of
+his life he would gladly desert the haunts of those whom Pope and
+his contemporaries used to term "the great," to seek the cheerful and
+cultured simplicity of his home, or the conversation of that one friend
+who had a share in the familiar confidence which Macaulay otherwise
+reserved for his nearest relatives. This was Mr. Thomas Flower Ellis,
+whose reports of the proceedings in King's Bench, extending over a whole
+generation, have established and perpetuated his name as that of an
+acute and industrious lawyer. He was older than Macaulay by four years.
+Though both Fellows of the same college, they missed each other at the
+university, and it was not until 1827, on the Northern circuit, that
+their acquaintance began. "Macaulay has joined," writes Mr. Ellis; "an
+amusing person; somewhat boyish in his manner, but very original." The
+young barristers had in common an insatiable love of the classics;
+and similarity of character, not very perceptible on the surface, soon
+brought about an intimacy which ripened into an attachment as important
+to the happiness of both concerned as ever united two men through every
+stage of life and vicissitude of fortune. Mr. Ellis had married early;
+but in 1839 he lost his wife, and Macaulay's helpful and heartfelt
+participation in his great sorrow riveted the links of a chain that was
+already indissoluble.
+
+The letters contained in this volume will tell, better than the words
+of any third person, what were the points of sympathy between the two
+companions, and in what manner they lived together till the end came.
+Mr. Ellis survived his friend little more than a year; not complaining
+or lamenting but going about his work like a man from whose day the
+light has departed.
+
+Brief and rare were the vacations of the most hard-worked Parliament
+that had sat since the times of Pym and Hampden. In the late autumn of
+1831, the defeat of the Reform Bill in the House of Lords delivered
+over the country to agitation, resentment, and alarm; and gave a short
+holiday to public men who were not Ministers, magistrates, or officers
+in the yeomanry. Hannah and Margaret Macaulay accompanied their brother
+on a visit to Cambridge, where they met with the welcome which young
+Masters of Arts delight in providing for the sisters of a comrade of
+whom they are fond and proud.
+
+"On the evening that we arrived," says Lady Trevelyan, "we met at dinner
+Whewell, Sedgwick, Airy, and Thirlwail and how pleasant they were,
+and how much they made of us two happy girls, who were never tired of
+seeing, and hearing and admiring! We breakfasted, lunched, and dined
+with one or the other of the set during our stay, and walked about the
+colleges all day with the whole train. [A reminiscence from that week of
+refined and genial hospitality survives in the Essay on Madame d'Arblay.
+The reception which Miss Burney would have enjoyed at Oxford, if she had
+visited it otherwise than as an attendant on Royalty, is sketched off
+with all the writer's wonted spirit, and more than his wonted grace.]
+Whewell was then tutor; rougher, but less pompous, and much more
+agreeable, than in after years; though I do not think that he ever
+cordially liked your uncle. We then went on to Oxford, which from
+knowing no one there seemed terribly dull to us by comparison with
+Cambridge, and we rejoiced our brother's heart by sighing after
+Trinity."
+
+During the first half of his life Macaulay spent some months of every
+year at the seat of his uncle, Mr. Babington, who kept open house for
+his nephews and nieces throughout the summer and autumn. Rothley Temple,
+which lies in a valley beyond the first ridge that separates the flat
+unattractive country immediately round Leicester from the wild and
+beautiful scenery of Charnwood Forest, is well worth visiting as a
+singularly unaltered specimen of an old English home. The stately trees;
+the grounds, half park and half meadow; the cattle grazing up to the
+very windows; the hall, with its stone pavement rather below than above
+the level of the soil, hung with armour rude and rusty enough to dispel
+the suspicion of its having passed through a collector's hands; the low
+ceilings; the dark oak wainscot, carved after primitive designs, that
+covered every inch of wall in bedroom and corridor; the general air
+which the whole interior presented of having been put to rights at
+the date of the Armada and left alone ever since;--all this antiquity
+contrasted quaintly, but prettily enough, with the youth and gaiety that
+lit up every corner of the ever-crowded though comfortable mansion. In
+wet weather there was always a merry group sitting on the staircase, or
+marching up and down the gallery; and, wherever the noise and fun were
+most abundant, wherever there was to be heard the loudest laughter and
+the most vehement expostulation, Macaulay was the centre of a circle
+which was exclaiming at the levity of his remarks about the Blessed
+Martyr; disputing with him on the comparative merits of Pascal, Racine,
+Corneille, Moliere, and Boileau or checking him as he attempted to
+justify his godparents by running off a list of all the famous Thomases
+in history. The place is full of his memories. His favourite walk was a
+mile of field-road and lane which leads from the house to a lodge on
+the highway; and his favourite point of view in that walk was a slight
+acclivity, whence the traveller from Leicester catches his first sight
+of Rothley Temple, with its background of hill and greenwood. He is
+remembered as sitting at the window in the hall, reading Dante to
+himself, or translating it aloud as long as any listener cared to remain
+within ear-shot. He occupied, by choice, a very small chamber on the
+ground floor, through the window of which he could escape unobserved
+while afternoon callers were on their way between the front door and the
+drawing-room. On such occasions he would take refuge in a boat moored
+under the shade of some fine oaks which still exist, though the
+ornamental water on whose bank they stood has since been converted into
+dry land.
+
+A journal kept at intervals by Margaret Macaulay, some extracts from
+which have here been arranged in the form of a continuous narrative,
+affords a pleasant and faithful picture of her brother's home-life
+during the years 1831 and 1832. With an artless candour, from which his
+reputation will not suffer, she relates the alternations of hope and
+disappointment through which the young people passed when it began to be
+a 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 a
+period of seven years. I shall never forget my delight and enchantment
+when I first found that he seemed to like talking to me. His manner was
+very flattering to such a child, for he always took as much pains to
+amuse me, and to inform me on anything I wished to know, as ho could
+have done to the greatest person in the land. I have heard him express
+great disgust towards those people who, lively and agreeable abroad, are
+a dead weight in the family circle. I think the remarkable clearness
+of his style proceeds in some measure from the habit of conversing with
+very 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, as
+I very often do with his being too severe upon people, he takes it with
+the greatest kindness, and often alters what we do not like. I hardly
+ever, 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 sometimes
+return a quick answer, for which he will be sorry the moment he has said
+it. But in a conversation of any length, though it may be on subjects
+that touch him very nearly, and though the person with whom he converses
+may be very provoking and extremely out of temper, I never saw him lose
+his. He never uses this superiority, as some do, for the purpose
+of irritating another still more by coolness; but speaks in a kind,
+good-natured manner, as if he wished to bring the other back to temper
+without 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 not
+make 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 was
+a proof of great quickness.
+
+"Saturday, February 26, 1831--At dinner we talked of the Grants. Tom
+said he had found Mr. Robert Grant walking about in the lobbies of the
+House of Commons, and saying that he wanted somebody to defend his place
+in the Government, which he heard was going to be attacked. 'What did
+you say to him?' we asked. 'Oh, I said nothing; but, if they'll give me
+the place, I'll defend it. When I am Judge Advocate, I promise you that
+I will not go about asking anyone to defend me.'
+
+"After dinner we played at capping verses, and after that at a game in
+which one of the party thinks of something for the others to guess at.
+Tom gave the slug that killed Perceval, the lemon that Wilkes squeezed
+for Doctor Johnson, the pork-chop which Thurtell ate after he had
+murdered Weare, and Sir Charles Macarthy's jaw which was sent by the
+Ashantees 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 his
+daughters. 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 eye
+when a repartee or verse is working in his brain.
+
+"March 3, 1831.--Yesterday morning Hannah and I walked part of the way
+to his chambers with Tom, and, as we separated, I remember wishing him
+good luck and success that night. He went through it most triumphantly,
+and called down upon himself admiration enough to satisfy even his
+sister. I like so much the manner in which he receives compliments. He
+does not pretend to be indifferent, but smiles in his kind and animated
+way, with 'I am sure it is very kind of you to say so,' or something of
+that nature. His voice from cold and over-excitement got quite into a
+scream towards the last part. A person told him that he had not heard
+such 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 of
+agitation as the House of Commons presented at the passing of the
+second reading of the Reform Bill the day before yesterday, or rather
+yesterday, 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 I
+found to my cost, for when I went out to walk with him he walked so very
+fast that I could scarcely keep up with him at all. With sparkling
+eyes he described the whole scene of the preceding evening in the most
+graphic manner.
+
+"'I suppose the Ministers are all in high spirits,' said Mamma. 'In
+spirits, 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 a
+prayer-book.'
+
+"Tom is very much improved in his appearance during the last two or
+three years. His figure is not so bad for a man of thirty as for a man
+of twenty-two. He dresses better, and his manners, from seeing a great
+deal of society, are very much improved. When silent and occupied in
+thought, walking up and down the room as he always does, his hands
+clenched and muscles working with the intense exertion of his
+mind, strangers would think his countenance stern; but I remember a
+writing-master of ours, when Tom had come into the room and left it
+again, saying, 'Ladies, your brother looks like a lump of good-humour!'
+
+"March 30, 1831--Tom has just left me, after a very interesting
+conversation. He spoke of his extreme idleness. He said: 'I never knew
+such an idle man as I am. When I go in to Empson or Ellis their tables
+are always covered with books and papers. I cannot stick at anything for
+above 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 a
+week, and read any book in the language at the end of a month, but
+I have not the courage to attempt it. If there had not been really
+something 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 to
+facts,' 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 soon
+constructed into a romance.' He then went on to describe the way in
+which from his childhood his imagination had been filled by the study of
+history. 'With a person of my turn,' he said, 'the minute touches are of
+as great interest, and perhaps greater, than the most important events.
+Spending so much time as I do in solitude, my mind would have rusted
+by gazing vacantly at the shop windows. As it is, I am no sooner in
+the streets than I am in Greece, in Rome, in the midst of the French
+Revolution. Precision in dates, the day or hour in which a man was born
+or died, becomes absolutely necessary. A slight fact, a sentence, a
+word, are of importance in my romance. Pepys's Diary formed almost
+inexhaustible 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 are
+long, and sufficiently animated; in the style, if not with the merits,
+of Sir Walter Scott's. The old parts of London, which you are sometimes
+surprised at my knowing so well, those old gates and houses down by the
+river, have all played their part in my stories.' He spoke, too, of
+the manner in which he used to wander about Paris, weaving tales of the
+Revolution, and he thought that he owed his command of language greatly
+to this habit.
+
+"I am very sorry that the want both of ability and memory should prevent
+my preserving with greater truth a conversation which interested me very
+much.
+
+"May 21, 1831.--Tom was from London at the time my mother's death
+occurred, and things fell out in such a manner that the first
+information he received of it was from the newspapers. He came home
+directly. He was in an agony of distress, and gave way at first to
+violent bursts of feeling. During the whole of the week he was with
+us all day, and was the greatest comfort to us imaginable. He talked a
+great deal of our sorrow, and led the conversation by degrees to other
+subjects, bearing the whole burden of it himself and interesting us
+without jarring with the predominant feeling of the time. I never saw
+him appear to greater advantage--never loved him more dearly.
+
+"September 1831.--Of late we have walked a good deal. I remember pacing
+up and down Brunswick Square and Lansdowne Place for two hours one day,
+deep in the mazes of the most subtle metaphysics;--up and down
+Cork Street, engaged over Dryden's poetry and the great men of that
+time;--making jokes all the way along Bond Street, and talking politics
+everywhere.
+
+"Walking in the streets with Tom and Hannah, and talking about the hard
+work the heads of his party had got now, I said:
+
+"'How idle they must think you, when they meet you here in the busy
+part of the day!' 'Yes, here I am,' said he, 'walking with two unidea'd
+girls. [Boswell relates in his tenth chapter how Johnson scolded Langton
+for leaving "his social friends, to go and sit with a set of wretched
+unidea'd girls."] However, if one of the Ministry says to me, "Why walk
+you 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 execution
+thrown off with the greatest rapidity; what has apparently been the work
+of a few hours being destined to last for ages.
+
+"Mr. Tierney said he was sure Sir Philip Francis had written Junius, for
+he was the proudest man he ever knew, and no one ever heard of anything
+he had done to be proud of.
+
+"November 14, 1831, half-past-ten.--On Friday last Lord Grey sent for
+Tom. His note was received too late to be acted on that day. On
+Saturday came another, asking him to East Sheen on that day, or Sunday.
+Yesterday, accordingly, he went, and stayed the night, promising to be
+here as early as possible to-day. So much depends upon the result of
+this 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 Secretaryship
+of the Board of Control, but will not thank them for it; and would not
+accept that, but that he thinks it will be a place of importance during
+the approaching discussions on the East Indian monopoly.
+
+"If he gets a sufficient salary, Hannah and I shall most likely live
+with him. Can I possibly look forward to anything happier? I cannot
+imagine a course of life that would suit him better than thus to enjoy
+the pleasures of domestic life without its restraints; with sufficient
+business, but not, I hope, too much.
+
+"At one o'clock he came. I went out to meet him. 'I have nothing to
+tell you. Nothing. Lord Grey sent for me to speak about a matter of
+importance, which must be strictly private.'
+
+"November 27.--I am just returned from a long walk, during which the
+conversation turned entirely on one subject. After a little previous
+talk about a certain great personage, [The personage was Lord Brougham,
+who at this time was too formidable for the poor girl to venture to
+write his name at length even in a private journal.] I asked Tom when
+the present coolness between them began. He said: 'Nothing could exceed
+my respect and admiration for him in early days. I saw at that time
+private letters in which he spoke highly of my articles, and of me as
+the most rising man of the time. After a while, however, I began to
+remark that he became extremely cold to me, hardly ever spoke to me on
+circuit, 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 not
+in any sense a private matter, he always drew him away from me instead
+of addressing us both. When my article on Hallam came out, he complained
+to Jeffrey that I took up too much of the Review; and, when my first
+article on Mill appeared, he foamed with rage, and was very angry with
+Jeffrey for having printed it.'
+
+"'But,' said I,' the Mills are friends of his, and he naturally did not
+like 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 a
+friend of mine defended my articles to him, he said: "I know nothing of
+the articles. I have not read Macaulay's articles." What can be imagined
+more absurd than his keeping up an angry correspondence with Jeffrey
+about 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. I
+said that I would gladly do so, if they would remove the headquarters of
+the Review to London. Jeffrey wrote to him about it. He disapproved of
+it so strongly that the plan was given up. The truth was that he felt
+that his power over the Review diminished as mine increased, and he saw
+that he would have little indeed if I were editor.
+
+"'I then came into Parliament. I do not complain that he should have
+preferred Denman's claims to mine, and that he should have blamed Lord
+Lansdowne for not considering him. I went to take my seat. As I turned
+from the table at which I had been taking the oaths, he stood as near
+to 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 between
+us in the lobby. I have sat close to him when many men of whom I
+knew nothing have introduced themselves to me to shake hands, and
+congratulate me after making a speech, and he has never said a single
+word. I know that it is jealousy, because I am not the first man whom he
+has used in this way. During the debate on the Catholic claims he was
+so enraged because Lord Plunket had made a very splendid display, and
+because the Catholics had chosen Sir Francis Burdett instead of him to
+bring the Bill forward, that he threw every difficulty in its way. Sir
+Francis once said to him: "Really, Mr.-- you are so jealous that it is
+impossible to act with you." I never will serve in an Administration of
+which he is the head. On that I have most firmly made up my mind. I do
+not believe that it is in his nature to be a month in office without
+caballing against his colleagues. ["There never was a direct personal
+rival, or one who was in a position which, however reluctantly, implied
+rivalry, to whom he has been just; and on the fact of this ungenerous
+jealousy I do not understand that there is any difference of
+opinion."--Lord Cockburn's Journal.]
+
+"'He is, next to the King, the most popular man in England. There is
+no other man whose entrance into any town in the kingdom would be so
+certain to be with huzzaing and taking off of horses. At the same time
+he 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 was
+talking to Sydney Smith of him the other day, and said that, great as I
+felt his faults to be, I must allow him a real desire to raise the lower
+orders, and do good by education, and those methods upon which his heart
+has 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 all
+do, angry and sore at his overbearing, arrogant, and neglectful conduct,
+when those reactions in public feeling, which must come, arrive, he will
+have nothing to return upon, no place of refuge, no hand of such tried
+friends as Fox and Canning had to support him. You will see that he will
+soon place himself in a false position before the public. His popularity
+will go down, and he will find himself alone. Mr. Pitt, it is true, did
+not study to strengthen himself by friendships but this was not from
+jealousy. I do not love the man, but I believe he was quite superior to
+that. It was from a solitary pride he had. I heard at Holland House the
+other day that Sir Philip Francis said that, though he hated Pitt, he
+must confess there was something fine in seeing how he maintained his
+post by himself. "The lion walks alone," he said. "The jackals herd
+together."'"
+
+This conversation, to those who have heard Macaulay talk, bears
+unmistakable signs of having been committed to paper while the
+words,--or, at any rate, the outlines,--of some of the most important
+sentences were fresh in his sister's mind. Nature had predestined the
+two men to mutual antipathy. Macaulay, who knew his own range and kept
+within it, and who gave the world nothing except his best and most
+finished work, was fretted by the slovenly omniscience of Brougham, who
+affected to be a walking encyclopaedia, "a kind of semi-Solomon, half
+knowing everything from the cedar to the hyssop." [These words are
+extracted from a letter written by Macaulay.] The student, who, in his
+later years, never left his library for the House of Commons without
+regret, had little in common with one who, like Napoleon, held that a
+great reputation was a great noise; who could not change horses without
+making a speech, see the Tories come in without offering to take a
+judgeship, or allow the French to make a Revolution without proposing to
+naturalise himself as a citizen of the new Republic. The statesman who
+never deserted an ally, or distrusted a friend, could have no fellowship
+with a free-lance, ignorant of the very meaning of loyalty; who, if
+the surfeited pen of the reporter had not declined its task, would have
+enriched our collections of British oratory by at least one Philippic
+against every colleague with whom he had ever acted. The many who read
+this conversation by the light of the public history of Lord Melbourne's
+Administration, and still more the few who have access to the secret
+history of Lord Grey's Cabinet, will acknowledge that seldom was a
+prediction so entirely fulfilled, or a character so accurately read.
+And that it was not a prophecy composed after the event is proved by the
+circumstance that it stands recorded in the handwriting of one who died
+before it was accomplished.
+
+"January 3, 1832.--Yesterday Tom dined at Holland House, and heard Lord
+Holland tell this story. Some paper was to be published by Mr. Fox, in
+which mention was made of Mr. Pitt having been employed at a club in a
+manner 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; 'if
+there are any good people who would be scandalised, I will certainly
+put it out!' Mr. Wilberforce then preparing to take his leave, he said:
+'Now, Mr. Wilberforce, if, instead of being about Mr. Pitt, this had
+been an account of my being seen gaming at White's on a Sunday, would
+you 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 he
+would 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. He
+talked almost uninterruptedly for six hours. In the evening he made a
+great many impromptu charades in verse. I remember he mentioned a piece
+of impertinence of Sir Philip Francis. Sir Philip was writing a history
+of his own time, with characters of its eminent men, and one day asked
+Mr. Tierney if he should like to hear his own character. Of course
+he said 'Yes,' and it was read to him. It was very flattering, and he
+expressed 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 may
+happen in the future.'
+
+"I am glad Tom has reviewed old John Bunyan. Many are reading it who
+never read it before. Yesterday, as he was sitting in the Athenaeum, a
+gentleman called out: 'Waiter, is there a copy of the Pilgrim's Progress
+in the library?' As might be expected, there was not.
+
+"February 12, 1832.--This evening Tom came in, Hannah and I being
+alone. He was in high boyish spirits. He had seen Lord Lansdowne in the
+morning, who had requested to speak with him. His Lordship said that he
+wished to have a talk about his taking office, not with any particular
+thing 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 be
+more 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 personally
+concerned, had no desire for office. At the same time he thought that,
+after the Reform Bill had passed, it would be absolutely necessary that
+the Government should be strengthened; that he was of opinion that he
+could do it good service; that he approved of its general principles,
+and should not be unwilling to join it. Lord Lansdowne said that they
+all,--and he particularly mentioned Lord Grey,--felt of what importance
+to them his help was, and that he now perfectly understood his views.
+
+"February 13, 1832.--It has been much reported, and has even appeared in
+the 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 it
+was stated in the John Bull that Madras had been offered to the Judge
+Advocate for this purpose, but that he had refused it. Two or three
+nights 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 half
+asleep. Being roused he apologised in the usual manner, and then added,
+oddly enough: 'I am very sorry, indeed, to stand in the way of your
+mounting.'
+
+"March 15, 1832.--Yesterday Hannah and I spent a very agreeable
+afternoon with Tom.
+
+"He began to talk of his idleness. He really came and dawdled with us
+all day long; he had not written a line of his review of Burleigh's
+Life, and he shrank from beginning on such a great work. I asked him to
+put it by for the present, and write a light article on novels. This he
+seemed to think he should like, and said he could get up an article on
+Richardson in a very short time, but he knew of no book that he could
+hang it on. Hannah advised that he should place at the head of this
+article a fictitious title in Italian of a critique on Clarissa Harlowe,
+published at Venice. He seemed taken with this idea, but said that, if
+he 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 pounds
+shall 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 sentence
+he repeated to us: 'My only feeling towards that gentleman is a not
+ungenerous envy, as I listened to that wonderful flow of natural and
+beautiful language, and to that utterance which, rapid as it is, seems
+scarcely able to convey its rich freight of thought and fancy!' People
+say that these words were evidently carefully prepared.
+
+"I have just been looking round our little drawing-room, as if trying to
+impress every inch of it on my memory, and thinking how in future years
+it will rise before my mind as the scene of many hours of light-hearted
+mirth; how I shall again see him, lolling indolently on the old blue
+sofa, or strolling round the narrow confines of our room. With such
+a scene will come the remembrance of his beaming countenance, happy
+affectionate smile, and joyous laugh; while, with everyone at ease
+around him, he poured out the stores of his full mind in his own
+peculiarly beautiful and expressive language, more delightful here than
+anywhere else, because more perfectly unconstrained. The name which
+passes through this little room in the quiet, gentle tones of sisterly
+affection 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 the
+tribute of a sister's fondness. Many, who readily admit that Macaulay's
+name will go down to posterity linked with eventful times and great
+deeds, make that admission with reference to times not his own, and
+deeds 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 with
+it the consequence that the credit, which he deserved for what he had
+done well, was overshadowed by the renown of what he did best. The
+world, which has forgotten that Newton excelled as an administrator, and
+Voltaire as a man of business, remembers somewhat faintly that Macaulay
+was an eminent orator and, for a time at least, a strenuous politician.
+The universal voice of his contemporaries, during the first three years
+of his parliamentary career, testifies to the leading part which he
+played 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 well
+to adduce none but first-rate evidence,) says in his account of an
+evening's discussion on the second reading of the Reform Bill: "Not
+a very striking debate. There was but one exception, and it was a
+brilliant one. I mean Macaulay, who surpassed his former appearance in
+closeness, fire, and vigour, and very much improved the effect of it by
+a more steady and graceful delivery. It was prodigiously cheered, as
+it deserved, and I think puts him clearly at the head of the great
+speakers, if not the debaters, of the House." And again, on the 17th of
+December: "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 speakers
+who followed him applied themselves." Lord Cockburn, who sat under the
+gallery 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 Westminster
+which could compare with Dr. Chalmers in the General Assembly. Sir James
+Mackintosh writes from the Library of the House of Commons: "Macaulay
+and Stanley have made two of the finest speeches ever spoken in
+Parliament;" and a little further on he classes together the two young
+orators as "the chiefs of the next, or rather of this, generation."
+
+To gain and keep the position that Mackintosh assigned him Macaulay
+possessed the power, and in early days did not lack the will. He was
+prominent on the Parliamentary stage, and active behind the scenes;--the
+soul of every honourable project which might promote the triumph of his
+principles, and the ascendency of his party. One among many passages
+in his correspondence may be quoted without a very serious breach of
+ancient and time-worn confidences. On the 17th of September, 1831, he
+writes to his sister Hannah: "I have been very busy since I wrote last,
+moving heaven and earth to render it certain that, if our ministers
+are so foolish as to resign in the event of a defeat in the Lords, the
+Commons may be firm and united; and I think that I have arranged a
+plan 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 our
+leader. I have had much conversation with him, and with several of our
+leading county members. They are all staunch; and I will answer for
+this,--that, if the ministers should throw us over, we will be ready to
+defend ourselves."
+
+The combination of public spirit, political instinct, and legitimate
+self-assertion, which was conspicuous in Macaulay's character, pointed
+him out to some whose judgment had been trained by long experience of
+affairs as a more than possible leader in no remote future; and it
+is not for his biographer to deny that they had grounds for their
+conclusion. The prudence, the energy, the self-reliance, which he
+displayed in another field, might have been successfully directed to
+the conduct of an executive policy, and the management of a popular
+assembly. Macaulay never showed himself deficient in the qualities which
+enable a man to trust his own sense; to feel responsibility, but not to
+fear 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 he
+might have claimed among the statesmen of Britain was not ill exchanged
+for 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 for
+Number 101, and I deferred writing till I could make up my mind. If my
+friend Ellis's article on Greek History, of which I have formed high
+expectations, 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, to
+consider myself as his bail, and to surrender myself to your disposal in
+his stead.
+
+I have been thinking of a subject, light and trifling enough, but
+perhaps not the worse for our purpose on that account. We seldom want
+a sufficient quantity of heavy matter. There is a wretched poetaster of
+the name of Robert Montgomery who has written some volumes of detestable
+verses on religious subjects, which by mere puffing in magazines and
+newspapers have had an immense sale, and some of which are now in their
+tenth or twelfth editions. I have for some time past thought that the
+trick of puffing, as it is now practised both by authors and publishers,
+is likely to degrade the literary character, and to deprave the public
+taste, in a frightful degree. I really think that we ought to try what
+effect satire will have upon this nuisance, and I doubt whether we can
+ever 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 is
+not 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 reviewer
+has made both on this work, and on the school of German critics and
+historians. But surely the reviewer ought to have given an account of
+the system of exposition which Niebuhr has adopted, and of the theory
+which he advances respecting the Institutions of Rome. The appearance of
+the book is really an era in the intellectual history of Europe, and I
+think that the Edinburgh Review ought at least to have given a luminous
+abstract of it. The very circumstance that Niebuhr's own arrangement and
+style are obscure, and that his translators have need of translators to
+make them intelligible to the multitude, rendered it more desirable that
+a clear and neat statement of the points in controversy should be laid
+before the public. But it is useless to talk of what cannot be mended.
+The best editors cannot always have good writers, and the best writers
+cannot always write their best.
+
+I have no notion on what ground Brougham imagines that I am going to
+review his speech. He never said a word to me on the subject. Nor did
+I ever say either to him, or to anyone else, a single syllable to that
+effect. At all events I shall not make Brougham's speech my text.
+We have had quite enough of puffing and flattering each other in the
+Review. It is a vile taste for men united in one literary undertaking to
+exchange their favours.
+
+I have a plan of which I wish to know your opinion. In ten days, or
+thereabouts, I set off for France, where I hope to pass six weeks. I
+shall be in the best society, that of the Duc de Broglie, Guizot, and
+so on. I think of writing an article on the Politics of France since the
+Restoration, with characters of the principal public men, and a parallel
+between the present state of France and that of England. I think that
+this might be made an article of extraordinary interest. I do not say
+that 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, and
+I am not generally diffuse, you must not stint me. If you like this
+scheme, 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 of
+systematic puffing which Macaulay urges with a freedom that a modern
+editor would hardly permit to the most valued contributor. Brougham had
+made a speech on Slavery in the House of Commons; but time was wanting
+to get the Corrected Report published soon enough for him to obtain his
+tribute of praise in the body of the Review. The unhappy Mr. Napier was
+actually reduced to append a notice to the July number regretting that
+"this powerful speech, which, as we are well informed, produced an
+impression on those who heard it not likely to be forgotten, or to
+remain barren of effects, should have reached us at a moment when it was
+no longer possible for us to notice its contents at any length.... On
+the eve of a general election to the first Parliament of a new reign, we
+could have wished to be able to contribute our aid towards the diffusion
+of the facts and arguments here so strikingly and commandingly stated
+and enforced, among those who are about to exercise the elective
+franchise.... We trust that means will be taken to give the widest
+possible circulation to the Corrected Report. Unfortunately, we can,
+at present, do nothing more than lay before our readers its glowing
+peroration--so worthy of this great orator, this unwearied friend of
+liberty and humanity."
+
+To Macvey Napier, Esq.
+
+Paris: September 16, 1830.
+
+My dear Sir,--I have just received your letter, and I cannot deny that
+I am much vexed at what has happened. It is not very agreeable to find
+that I have thrown away the labour, the not unsuccessful labour as I
+thought, of a month; particularly as I have not many months of perfect
+leisure. This would not have happened if Brougham had notified his
+intentions to you earlier, as he ought in courtesy to you, and to
+everybody connected with the Review, to have done. He must have known
+that this French question was one on which many people would be desirous
+to write.
+
+I ought to tell you that I had scarcely reached Paris when I received
+a letter containing a very urgent application from a very respectable
+quarter. I was desired to write a sketch, in one volume, of the late
+Revolution here. Now, I really hesitated whether I should not make
+my excuses to you, and accept this proposal,--not on account of the
+pecuniary terms, for about these I have never much troubled myself--but
+because I should have had ampler space for this noble subject than the
+Review would have afforded. I thought, however, that this would not be
+a fair or friendly course towards you. I accordingly told the applicants
+that I had promised you an article, and that I could not well write
+twice in one month on the same subject without repeating myself. I
+therefore declined; and recommended a person whom I thought quite
+capable of producing an attractive book on these events. To that person
+my correspondent has probably applied. At all events I cannot revive the
+negotiation. I cannot hawk my rejected articles up and down Paternoster
+Row.
+
+I am, therefore, a good deal vexed at this affair; but I am not at all
+surprised 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 that
+no Editor of the Edinburgh Review could, without risking the ruin of
+the publication, resolutely oppose the demands of a man so able and
+powerful. It was because I was certain that he would exact submissions
+which I am not disposed to make that I wished last year to give up
+writing for the Review. I had long been meditating a retreat. I thought
+Jeffrey's abdication a favourable time for effecting it; not, as I hope
+you are well assured, from any unkind feeling towards you; but because I
+knew that, under any Editor, mishaps such as that which has now occurred
+would be constantly taking place. I remember that I predicted to Jeffrey
+what has now come to pass almost to the letter.
+
+My expectations have been exactly realised. The present constitution
+of the Edinburgh Review is this, that, at whatever time Brougham may be
+pleased to notify his intention of writing on any subject, all previous
+engagements are to be considered as annulled by that notification. His
+language translated into plain English is this: "I must write about this
+French Revolution, and I will write about it. If you have told Macaulay
+to do it, you may tell him to let it alone. If he has written an
+article, he may throw it behind the grate. He would not himself have
+the assurance to compare his own claims with mine. I am a man who act
+a 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 on
+that. What have people like him to do, except to eulogise people like
+me?" No man likes to be reminded of his inferiority in such a way, and
+there are some particular circumstances in this case which render the
+admonition more unpleasant than it would otherwise be. I know that
+Brougham dislikes me; and I have not the slightest doubt that he feels
+great pleasure in taking this subject out of my hands, and at having
+made me understand, as I do most clearly understand, how far my services
+are rated below his. I do not blame you in the least. I do not see how
+you could have acted otherwise. But, on the other hand, I do not see why
+I should make any efforts or sacrifices for a Review which lies under an
+intolerable dictation. Whatever my writings may be worth, it is not for
+want of strong solicitations, and tempting offers, from other quarters
+that I have continued to send them to the Edinburgh Review. I adhered
+to the connection solely because I took pride and pleasure in it. It has
+now 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 might
+complain, and might hope to be better treated another time. Unhappily
+you are in a situation in which it is proper for you to do what it
+would be improper in me to endure. What has happened now may happen next
+quarter, and must happen before long, unless I altogether refrain from
+writing for the Review. I hope you will forgive me if I say that I
+feel what has passed too strongly to be inclined to expose myself to a
+recurrence of the same vexations.
+
+Yours most truly
+
+T. B. MACAULAY.
+
+A few soft words induced Macaulay to reconsider his threat of
+withdrawing from the Review; but, even before Mr. Napier's answer
+reached him, the feeling of personal annoyance had already been effaced
+by a greater sorrow. A letter arrived, announcing that his sister Jane
+had died suddenly and most unexpectedly. She was found in the morning
+lying as though still asleep, having passed away so peacefully as not to
+disturb a sister who had spent the night in the next room, with a door
+open between them. Mrs. Macaulay never recovered from this shock. Her
+health gave way, and she lived into the coming year only so long as to
+enable 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 go
+nor to stay. I can do nothing but sit down in my room, and think of poor
+dear Jane's kindness and affection. When I am calmer, I will let you
+know my intentions. There will be neither use nor pleasure in remaining
+here. My present purpose, as far as I can form one, is to set off in two
+or three days for England; and in the meantime to see nobody, if I can
+help it, but Dumont, who has been very kind to me. Love to all,--to all
+who 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 from
+the papers as well as from me. It is clear that the Reform Bill must
+pass, either in this or in another Parliament. The majority of one
+does not appear to me, as it does to you, by any means inauspicious. We
+should perhaps have had a better plea for a dissolution if the
+majority had been the other way. But surely a dissolution under such
+circumstances would have been a most alarming thing. If there should be
+a dissolution now, there will not be that ferocity in the public mind
+which there would have been if the House of Commons had refused to
+entertain the Bill at all. I confess that, till we had a majority, I was
+half inclined to tremble at the storm which we had raised. At present I
+think that we are absolutely certain of victory, and of victory without
+commotion.
+
+Such a scene as the division of last Tuesday I never saw, and never
+expect to see again. If I should live fifty years, the impression of it
+will 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 Oliver
+taking the mace from the table; a sight to be seen only once, and never
+to be forgotten. The crowd overflowed the House in every part. When the
+strangers were cleared out, and the doors locked, we had six hundred and
+eight members present,--more by fifty-five than ever were in a division
+before. The Ayes and Noes were like two volleys of cannon from opposite
+sides of a field of battle. When the opposition went out into the lobby,
+an operation which took up twenty minutes or more, we spread ourselves
+over the benches on both sides of the House; for there were many of us
+who had not been able to find a seat during the evening. ["The practice
+in the Commons, until 1836, was to send one party forth into the lobby,
+the other remaining in the House."--Sir T. Erskine May's "Parliamentary
+Practice."] When the doors were shut we began to speculate on our
+numbers. Everybody was desponding. "We have lost it. We are only two
+hundred 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 they
+are two hundred and ninety-nine." This was the talk on our benches. I
+wonder that men who have been long in Parliament do not acquire a better
+coup 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 even
+on debates of considerable interest. I had no hope, however, of three
+hundred. As the tellers passed along our lowest row on the left hand
+side the interest was insupportable,--two hundred and ninety-one,--two
+hundred and ninety-two,--we were all standing up and stretching forward,
+telling with the tellers. At three hundred there was a short cry of
+joy,--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 thrown
+open, and in they came. Each of them, as he entered, brought some
+different report of their numbers. It must have been impossible, as
+you may conceive, in the lobby, crowded as they were, to form any exact
+estimate. First we heard that they were three hundred and three; then
+that number rose to three hundred and ten; then went down to three
+hundred and seven. Alexander Barry told me that he had counted, and that
+they were three hundred and four. We were all breathless with anxiety,
+when Charles Wood, who stood near the door, jumped up on a bench and
+cried out, "They are only three hundred and one." We set up a shout that
+you might have heard to Charing Cross, waving our hats, stamping against
+the floor, and clapping our hands. The tellers scarcely got through the
+crowd; for the House was thronged up to the table, and all the floor
+was fluctuating with heads like the pit of a theatre. But you might have
+heard a pin drop as Duncannon read the numbers. Then again the shouts
+broke out, and many of us shed tears. I could scarcely refrain. And
+the jaw of Peel fell; and the face of Twiss was as the face of a damned
+soul; and Herries looked like Judas taking his necktie off for the last
+operation. We shook hands, and clapped each other on the back, and went
+out laughing, crying, and huzzaing into the lobby. And no sooner were
+the outer doors opened than another shout answered that within the
+House. All the passages, and the stairs into the waiting-rooms, were
+thronged by people who had waited till four in the morning to know the
+issue. 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 we
+got into the open air. I called a cabriolet, and the first thing the
+driver asked was, "Is the Bill carried?" "Yes, by one." "Thank God for
+it, Sir." And away I rode to Gray's Inn,--and so ended a scene which
+will probably never be equalled till the reformed Parliament
+wants reforming; and that I hope will not be till the days of our
+grandchildren, 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 me
+in the front rank, if I can keep there; and it has not been my luck
+hitherto to lose ground when I have once got it. Sheil and I are on very
+civil terms. He talks largely concerning Demosthenes and Burke. He made,
+I must say, an excellent speech; too florid and queer, but decidedly
+successful.
+
+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 that
+Praed had known to whom he was speaking. But, with all his talent, he
+has no tact, and he has fared accordingly. Tierney used to say that he
+never rose in the House without feeling his knees tremble under him; and
+I am sure that no man who has not some of that feeling will ever succeed
+there.
+
+Ever yours
+
+T. B. MACAULAY.
+
+London: May 27, 1835.
+
+My dear Hannah,--Let me see if I can write a letter a la Richardson:--a
+little 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's
+letters. According to the nearest calculation that I can make, her
+correspondence must have enriched the post office of Ashby Canons by
+something more than the whole annual interest of her fifteen thousand
+pounds.
+
+I reached Lansdowne House by a quarter to eleven, and passed through the
+large suite of rooms to the great Sculpture Gallery. There were seated
+and standing perhaps three hundred people, listening to the performers,
+or talking to each other. The room is the handsomest and largest, I
+am told, in any private house in London. I enclose our musical bill of
+fare. Fanny, I suppose, will be able to expound it better than I. The
+singers were more showily dressed than the auditors, and seemed quite at
+home. As to the company, there was just everybody in London (except that
+little million and a half that you wot of,)--the Chancellor, and the
+First Lord of the Admiralty, and Sydney Smith, and Lord Mansfield, and
+all the Barings and the Fitzclarences, and a hideous Russian spy, whose
+face I see everywhere, with a star on his coat. During the interval
+between the delights of "I tuoi frequenti," and the ecstasies of "Se tu
+m'ami," I contrived to squeeze up to Lord Lansdowne. I was shaking hands
+with Sir James Macdonald, when I heard a command behind us: "Sir James,
+introduce me to Mr. Macaulay;" and we turned, and there sate a large
+bold-looking woman, with the remains of a fine person, and the air of
+Queen Elizabeth. "Macaulay," said Sir James, "let me present you to Lady
+Holland." Then was her ladyship gracious beyond description, and asked
+me to dine and take a bed at Holland House next Tuesday. I accepted
+the dinner, but declined the bed, and I have since repented that I so
+declined it. But I probably shall have an opportunity of retracting on
+Tuesday.
+
+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 man
+seems to be a miracle. The newspapers say that long streamy flakes of
+music fall from his string, interspersed with luminous points of sound
+which ascend the air and appear like stars. This eloquence is quite
+beyond me.
+
+Ever yours
+
+T. B. M.
+
+London: May 28, 1831.
+
+My dear Hannah,--More gaieties and music-parties; not so fertile of
+adventures as that memorable masquerade whence Harriet Byron was carried
+away; but still I hope that the narrative of what passed there will
+gratify "the venerable circle." Yesterday I dressed, called a cab, and
+was whisked away to Hill Street. I found old Marshall's house a very
+fine one. He ought indeed to have a fine one; for he has, I believe, at
+least thirty thousand a year. The carpet was taken up, and chairs were
+set out in rows, as if we had been at a religious meeting. Then we
+had flute-playing by the first flute-player in England, and
+pianoforte-strumming by the first pianoforte-strummer in England,
+and singing by all the first singers in England, and Signor Rubini's
+incomparable tenor, and Signor Curioni's incomparable counter-tenor, and
+Pasta's incomparable expression. You who know how airs much inferior
+to these take my soul, and lap it in Elysium, will form some faint
+conception of my transport. Sharp beckoned me to sit by him in the back
+row. These old fellows are so selfish. "Always," said he, "establish
+yourself in the middle of the row against the wall; for, if you sit in
+the front or next the edges, you will be forced to give up your seat to
+the ladies who are standing." I had the gallantry to surrender mine to
+a damsel who had stood for a quarter of an hour; and I lounged into the
+ante-rooms, where I found Samuel Rogers. Rogers and I sate together on
+a bench in one of the passages, and had a good deal of very pleasant
+conversation. He was,--as indeed he has always been to me,--extremely
+kind, and told me that, if it were in his power, he would contrive to be
+at Holland House with me, to give me an insight into its ways. He is the
+great oracle of that circle.
+
+He has seen the King's letter to Lord Grey, respecting the Garter; or
+at least has authentic information about it. It is a happy stroke of
+policy, and will, they say, decide many wavering votes in the House of
+Lords. The King, it seems, requests Lord Grey to take the order, as a
+mark of royal confidence in him "at so critical a time;"--significant
+words, 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, and
+arrived, through a fine avenue of elms, at the great entrance towards
+seven o'clock. The house is delightful;--the very perfection of the
+old Elizabethan style;--a considerable number of very large and very
+comfortable rooms, rich with antique carving and gilding, but carpeted
+and furnished with all the skill of the best modern upholsterers. The
+library is a very long room,--as long, I should think, as the gallery
+at 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 it
+contains almost everything that one ever wished to read. I found nobody
+there when I arrived but Lord Russell, the son of the Marquess of
+Tavistock. We are old House of Commons friends; so we had some very
+pleasant talk, and in a little while in came Allen, who is warden of
+Dulwich College, and who lives almost entirely at Holland House. He is
+certainly a man of vast information and great conversational powers.
+Some other gentlemen dropped in, and we chatted till Lady Holland made
+her 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 is
+rich with gilded coronets, roses, and portcullises. There were Lord
+Albemarle, Lord Alvanley, Lord Russell, Lord Mahon,--a violent Tory, but
+a 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, and
+some other people whose names I did not catch. What however is more to
+the purpose, there was a most excellent dinner. I have always heard that
+Holland House is famous for its good cheer, and certainly the reputation
+is not unmerited. After dinner Lord Holland was wheeled in, and placed
+very near me. He was extremely amusing and good-natured.
+
+In the drawing-room I had a long talk with Lady Holland about the
+antiquities of the house, and about the purity of the English language,
+wherein she thinks herself a critic. I happened, in speaking about the
+Reform Bill, to say that I wished that it had been possible to form a
+few commercial constituencies, if the word constituency were admissible.
+"I am glad you put that in," said her ladyship. "I was just going
+to 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 the
+word _talents_ and its history. I said that it had first appeared in
+theological writing, that it was a metaphor taken from the parable in
+the New Testament, and that it had gradually passed from the vocabulary
+of divinity into common use. I challenged her to find it in any
+classical writer on general subjects before the Restoration, or even
+before the year 1700. I believe that I might safely have gone down
+later. She seemed surprised by this theory, never having, so far as I
+could 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 critic
+in the delicacies of the English language ought to have the Bible at his
+fingers' ends.
+
+She is certainly a woman of considerable talents and great literary
+acquirements. To me she was excessively gracious; yet there is a
+haughtiness in her courtesy which, even after all that I had heard of
+her, surprised me. The centurion did not keep his soldiers in better
+order than she keeps her guests. It is to one "Go," and he goeth; and to
+another "Do this," and it is done. "Ring the bell, Mr. Macaulay." "Lay
+down that screen, Lord Russell; you will spoil it." "Mr. Allen, take a
+candle and show Mr. Cradock the picture of Buonaparte." Lord Holland
+is, on the other hand, all kindness, simplicity, and vivacity. He talked
+very well both on politics and on literature. He asked me in a very
+friendly manner about my father's health, and begged to be remembered to
+him.
+
+When my coach came, Lady Holland made me promise that I would on
+the first fine morning walk out to breakfast with them, and see the
+grounds;--and, after drinking a glass of very good iced lemonade, I
+took my leave, much amused and pleased. The house certainly deserves
+its reputation for pleasantness, and her ladyship used me, I believe, as
+well 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 how
+obliged by yours! But I have little more than my thanks to give for your
+last. I have nothing to tell about great people to-day. I heard no fine
+music yesterday, saw nobody above the rank of a baronet, and was shut
+up in my own room reading and writing all the morning. This day seems
+likely to pass in much the same way, except that I have some bankruptcy
+business to do, and a couple of sovereigns to receive. So here I am,
+with three of the ugliest attorneys that ever deserved to be transported
+sitting opposite to me; a disconsolate-looking bankrupt, his hands in
+his empty pockets, standing behind; a lady scolding for her money, and
+refusing to be comforted because it is not; and a surly butcher-like
+looking creditor, growling like a house-dog, and saying, as plain as
+looks can say "If I sign your certificate, blow me, that's all." Among
+these fair and interesting forms, on a piece of official paper, with
+a pen and with ink found at the expense of the public, am I writing to
+Nancy.
+
+These dirty courts, filled with Jew money-lenders, sheriffs' officers,
+attorneys' runners, and a crowd of people who live by giving sham bail
+and taking false oaths, are not by any means such good subjects for a
+lady's correspondent as the Sculpture Gallery at Lansdowne House, or
+the conservatory at Holland House, or the notes of Pasta, or the talk of
+Rogers. But we cannot be always fine. When my Richardsonian epistles are
+published, 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 to
+Geronymo which Miss Byron hypocritically asked for, or as the greater
+part of that stupid last volume.
+
+We shall soon have more attractive matter. I shall walk out to breakfast
+at Holland House; and I am to dine with Sir George Philips, and with
+his son the member for Steyning, who have the best of company; and I
+am going to the fancy ball of the Jew. He met me in the street, and
+implored 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 pretty
+goats." [See Boswell's Tour to the Hebrides, Sept. 1 1773. "The Doctor
+was prevailed with to mount one of Vass's grays. As he rode upon it
+downhill, it did not go well, and he grumbled. I walked on a little
+before, but was excessively entertained with the method taken to keep
+him in good humour. Hay led the horse's head, talking to Dr. Johnson
+as much as he could and, (having heard him, in the forenoon, express a
+pastoral pleasure on seeing the goats browsing,) just when the Doctor
+was uttering his displeasure, the fellow cried, with a very Highland
+accent, 'See, such pretty goats!' Then he whistled whu! and made them
+jump."] However, I told my honest Hebrew that I would come. I may
+perhaps, like the Benjamites, steal away some Israelite damsel in the
+middle of her dancing.
+
+But the noise all round me is becoming louder, and a baker in a white
+coat is bellowing for the book to prove a debt of nine pounds fourteen
+shillings and fourpence. So I must finish my letter and fall to
+business.
+
+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 very
+amusing. 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 Holland
+House. 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 gruff
+good-natured voice asking, "Where is Mr. Macaulay? Where have you put
+him?" and in his arm-chair Lord Holland was wheeled in. He took me round
+the apartments, he riding and I walking. He gave me the history of the
+most 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 of
+Charles James Fox, an ignominious failure. Lord Holland said that it
+was 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 Holland
+painted some thirty years ago. I could have cried to see the change. She
+must have been a most beautiful woman. She still looks, however, as if
+she 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 that
+she looks as well in the morning as in the evening. We came back to the
+dining-room. Our breakfast party consisted of my Lord and Lady, myself,
+Lord Russell, and Luttrell. You must have heard of Luttrell. I met him
+once at Rogers's; and I have seen him, I think, in other places. He is
+a famous wit,--the most popular, I think, of all the professed wits,--a
+man who has lived in the highest circles, a scholar, and no contemptible
+poet. He wrote a little volume of verse entitled "Advice to Julia,"--not
+first rate, but neat, lively, piquant, and showing the most consummate
+knowledge of fashionable life.
+
+We breakfasted on very good coffee, and very good tea, and very good
+eggs, butter kept in the midst of ice, and hot rolls. Lady Holland told
+us her dreams; how she had dreamed that a mad dog bit her foot, and how
+she set off to Brodie, and lost her way in St. Martin's Lane, and could
+not find him. She hoped, she said, the dream would not come true. I said
+that I had had a dream which admitted of no such hope; for I had dreamed
+that I heard Pollock speak in the House of Commons, that the speech was
+very long, and that he was coughed down. This dream of mine diverted
+them much.
+
+After breakfast Lady Holland offered to conduct me to her own
+drawing-room, or, rather, commanded my attendance. A very beautiful room
+it is, opening on a terrace, and wainscoted with miniature paintings
+interesting from their merit, and interesting from their history. Among
+them 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 but
+Stothard'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 the
+separation. 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, and
+that if I did not take them, the bailiffs would, and that they would be
+lost in the wreck." Her ladyship then honoured me so far as to conduct
+me through her dressing-room into the great family bedchamber to show me
+a very fine picture by Reynolds of Fox, when a boy, birds-nesting. She
+then consigned me to Luttrell, asking him to show me the grounds.
+
+Through the grounds we went, and very pretty I thought them. In the
+Dutch garden is a fine bronze bust of Napoleon, which Lord Holland put
+up in 1817, while Napoleon was a prisoner at St. Helena. The inscription
+was selected by his lordship, and is remarkably happy. It is from
+Homer's Odyssey. I will translate it, as well as I can extempore, into a
+measure which gives a better idea of Homer's manner than Pope's singsong
+couplet.
+
+ 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 poet
+loves, it seems, to sit there. A very elegant inscription by Lord
+Holland 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 hangs
+there. Luttrell adjured me with mock pathos to spare his blushes; but I
+am author enough to know what the blushes of authors mean. So I read
+the lines, and very pretty and polished they were, but too many to be
+remembered from one reading.
+
+Having gone round the grounds I took my leave, very much pleased with
+the place. Lord Holland is extremely kind. But that is of course; for he
+is kindness itself. Her ladyship too, which is by no means of course, is
+all graciousness and civility. But, for all this, I would much rather
+be quietly walking with you; and the great use of going to these fine
+places 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 letter
+which 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 my
+letters 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 am
+sitting again in Basinghall Street and Basil Montagu is haranguing about
+Lord Verulam, and the way of inoculating one's mind with truth; and
+all this a propos of a lying bankrupt's balance-sheet. ["Those who are
+acquainted with the Courts in which Mr. Montagu practises with so much
+ability and success, will know how often he enlivens the discussion of
+a point of law by citing some weighty aphorism, or some brilliant
+illustration, from the De Augmentis or the Novum Organum."--Macaulay's
+Review of Basil Montagu's Edition of Bacon.]
+
+Send me some gossip, my love. Tell me how you go on with German. What
+novel have you commenced? Or, rather, how many dozen have you finished?
+Recommend me one. What say you to "Destiny"? Is the "Young Duke" worth
+reading? 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, like
+a civil gentleman, told me last week to write no more reviews, and to
+publish separate works; adding, what for him is a very rare thing,
+a compliment: "You may do anything, Mr. Macaulay." See how vain and
+insincere human nature is! I have been put into so good a temper with
+Rogers that I have paid him, what is as rare with me as with him, a very
+handsome compliment in my review. ["Well do we remember to have heard a
+most correct judge of poetry revile Mr. Rogers for the incorrectness of
+that 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 that
+I cannot understand the popularity of his poetry. It is pleasant and
+flowing enough; less monotonous than most of the imitations of Pope and
+Goldsmith; and calls up many agreeable images and recollections. But
+that such men as Lord Granville, Lord Holland, Hobhouse, Lord Byron, and
+others of high rank in intellect, should place Rogers, as they do, above
+Southey, Moore, and even Scott himself, is what I cannot conceive. But
+this comes of being in the highest society of London. What Lady Jane
+Granville called the Patronage of Fashion can do as much for a middling
+poet as for a plain girl like Miss Arabella Falconer. [Lady Jane, and
+Miss Arabella, appear in Miss Edgeworth's "Patronage."]
+
+But I must stop. This rambling talk has been scrawled in the middle of
+haranguing, squabbling, swearing, and crying. Since I began it I have
+taxed four bills, taken forty depositions, and rated several perjured
+witnesses.
+
+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 meeting
+Ramohun 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 them
+both together was a novelty, and a novelty not the less curious because
+their mutual hostility is well known, and the hard hits which they have
+given 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 person
+of 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 a
+flavour; but two are too many. Rogers and Sydney Smith would not come
+into conflict. If one had possession of the company, the other was
+silent; and, as you may conceive, the one who had possession of the
+company was always Sydney Smith, and the one who was silent was always
+Rogers. Sometimes, however, the company divided, and each of them had a
+small congregation. I had a good deal of talk with both of them; for, in
+whatever they may disagree, they agree in always treating me with very
+marked kindness.
+
+I had a good deal of pleasant conversation with Rogers. He was telling
+me of the curiosity and interest which attached to the persons of
+Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron. When Sir Walter Scott dined at a
+gentleman's in London some time ago, all the servant-maids in the house
+asked leave to stand in the passage and see him pass. He was, as you
+may conceive, greatly flattered. About Lord Byron, whom he knew well, he
+told me some curious anecdotes. When Lord Byron passed through Florence,
+Rogers was there. They had a good deal of conversation, and Rogers
+accompanied him to his carriage. The inn had fifty windows in front. All
+the windows were crowded with women, mostly English women, to catch a
+glance at their favourite poet. Among them were some at whose houses he
+had often been in England, and with whom he had lived on friendly terms.
+He would not notice them, or return their salutations. Rogers was the
+only person that he spoke to.
+
+The worst thing that I know about Lord Byron is the very unfavourable
+impression which he made on men, who certainly were not inclined to
+judge him harshly, and who, as far as I know, were never personally
+ill-used by him. Sharp and Rogers both speak of him as an unpleasant,
+affected, splenetic person. I have heard hundreds and thousands of
+people who never saw him rant about him; but I never heard a single
+expression of fondness for him fall from the lips of any of those who
+knew 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 Charles
+Fox without tears.
+
+Sydney Smith leaves London on the 20th, the day before Parliament meets
+for business. I advised him to stay, and see something of his friends
+who would be crowding to London. "My flock!" said this good shepherd.
+"My dear Sir, remember my flock! The hungry sheep look up and are not
+fed."
+
+I could say nothing to such an argument; but I could not help thinking
+that, if Mr. Daniel Wilson had said such a thing, it would infallibly
+have 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 come
+and see him at Combe Florey. "There I am, Sir, the priest of the Flowery
+Valley, in a delightful parsonage, about which I care a good deal, and a
+delightful country, about which I do not care a straw." I told him that
+my meeting him was some compensation for missing Ramohun Roy. Sydney
+broke forth:
+
+"Compensation! Do you mean to insult me? A beneficed clergyman,
+an orthodox clergyman, a nobleman's chaplain, to be no more than
+compensation for a Brahmin; and a heretic Brahmin too, a fellow who has
+lost 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 has
+lost 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 think
+of 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 and
+look with which they say it. The conversation of Rogers is remarkably
+polished and artificial. What he says seems to have been long meditated,
+and might be published with little correction. Sydney talks from the
+impulse 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 no
+excuse for forgetting the invitation; for, about a week after I had
+received the green varnished billet, and answered it, came another in
+the self-same words, and addressed to Mr. Macaulay, Junior. I thought
+that my answer had miscarried; so down I sate, and composed a second
+epistle to the Hebrews. I afterwards found that the second invitation
+was meant for Charles.
+
+I set off a little after ten, having attired myself simply as for a
+dinner-party. The house is a very fine one. The door was guarded by
+peace-officers, and besieged by starers. My host met me in a
+superb court-dress, with his sword at his side. There was a most
+sumptuous-looking Persian, covered with gold lace. Then there was an
+Italian bravo with a long beard. Two old gentlemen, who ought to have
+been wiser, were fools enough to come in splendid Turkish costumes at
+which everybody laughed. The fancy-dresses were worn almost exclusively
+by the young people. The ladies for the most part contented themselves
+with a few flowers and ribands oddly disposed. There was, however,
+a beautiful Mary Queen of Scots, who looked as well as dressed the
+character perfectly; an angel of a Jewess in a Highland plaid; and
+an old woman, or rather a woman,--for through her disguise it was
+impossible to ascertain her age,--in the absurdest costume of the last
+century. These good people soon began their quadrilles and galopades,
+and were enlivened by all the noise that twelve fiddlers could make for
+their lives.
+
+You must not suppose the company was made up of these mummers. There was
+Dr. Lardner, and Long, the Greek Professor in the London University, and
+Sheil, and Strutt, and Romilly, and Owen the philanthropist. Owen laid
+bold on Sheil, and gave him a lecture on Co-operation which lasted
+for 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 prove
+to her that there could be no such thing as moral responsibility. I had
+fled at the first sound of his discourse, and was talking with Strutt
+and Romilly, when behold! I saw Owen leave Mrs. Sheil and come towards
+us. So I cried out "Sauve qui peut!" and we ran off. But before we had
+got five feet from where we were standing, who should meet us face to
+face but Old Basil Montagu? "Nay, then," said I, "the game is up. The
+Prussians are on our rear. If we are to be bored to death there is no
+help for it." Basil seized Romilly; Owen took possession of Strutt; and
+I was blessing myself on my escape, when the only human being worthy to
+make a third with such a pair, J--, caught me by the arm, and begged to
+have a quarter of an hour's conversation with me. While I was suffering
+under J--, a smart impudent-looking young dog, dressed like a sailor in
+a blue jacket and check shirt, marched up, and asked a Jewish-looking
+damsel near me to dance with him. I thought that I had seen the fellow
+before; and, after a little looking, I perceived that it was Charles;
+and most knowingly, I assure you, did he perform a quadrille with Miss
+Hilpah Manasses.
+
+If I were to tell you all that I saw I should exceed my ounce. There
+was Martin the painter, and Proctor, alias Barry Cornwall, the poet or
+poetaster. I did not see one Peer, or one star, except a foreign order
+or two, which I generally consider as an intimation to look to my
+pockets. A German knight is a dangerous neighbour in a crowd. [Macaulay
+ended by being a German knight himself.] After seeing a galopade very
+prettily danced by the Israelitish women, I went downstairs, reclaimed
+my hat, and walked into the dining-room. There, with some difficulty,
+I squeezed myself between a Turk and a Bernese peasant, and obtained an
+ice, a macaroon, and a glass of wine. Charles was there, very active in
+his attendance on his fair Hilpah. I bade him good night. "What!" said
+young Hopeful, "are you going yet?" It was near one o'clock; but this
+joyous tar seemed to think it impossible that anybody could dream of
+leaving such delightful enjoyments till daybreak. I left him staying
+Hilpah with flagons, and walked quietly home. But it was some time
+before I could get to sleep. The sound of fiddles was in mine ears; and
+gaudy dresses, and black hair, and Jewish noses, were fluctuating up and
+down before mine eyes.
+
+There is a fancy ball for you. If Charles writes a history of it, tell
+me 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 of
+an hour, the only quarter of an hour which I am likely to secure during
+the day, to write to you. I will not omit writing two days running,
+because, if my letters give you half the pleasure which your letters
+give me, you will, I am sure, miss them. I have not, however, much to
+tell. I have been very busy with my article on Moore's Life of Byron. I
+never wrote anything with less heart. I do not like the book; I do not
+like the hero; I have said the most I could for him, and yet I shall be
+abused 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. Morier
+began to quote Latin before the ladies had left the room, and quoted it
+by no means to the purpose. After their departure he fell to repeating
+Virgil, choosing passages which everybody else knows and does not
+repeat. He, though he tried to repeat them, did not know them, and could
+not get on without my prompting. Sotheby was full of his translation of
+Homer's Iliad, some specimens of which he has already published. It is a
+complete failure; more literal than that of Pope, but still tainted
+with the deep radical vice of Pope's version, a thoroughly modern and
+artificial manner. It bears the same kind of relation to the Iliad
+that Robertson's narrative bears to the story of Joseph in the book of
+Genesis.
+
+There is a pretty allegory in Homer--I think in the last book, but I
+forget precisely where--about two vessels, the one filled with blessings
+and the other with sorrow, which stand, says the poet, on the right and
+left hand of Jupiter's throne, and from which he dispenses good and evil
+at his pleasure among men. What word to use for these vessels has long
+posed the translators of Homer. Pope, who loves to be fine, calls
+them _urns_. Cowper, who loves to be coarse, calls them _casks_;--a
+translation more improper than Pope's; for a cask is, in our general
+understanding, a wooden vessel; and the Greek word means an earthen
+vessel. There is a curious letter of Cowper's to one of his female
+correspondents about this unfortunate word. She begged that Jupiter
+might be allowed a more elegant piece of furniture for his throne than
+a cask. But Cowper was peremptory. I mentioned this incidentally when
+we were talking about translations. This set Sotheby off. "I," said
+he, "have translated it _vase_. I hope that meets your ideas. Don't you
+think vase will do? Does it satisfy you?" I told him, sincerely enough,
+that it satisfied me; for I must be most unreasonable to be dissatisfied
+at 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 in
+September 1859: "I am glad that Mackintosh's Life interests you. I knew
+him 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 is
+the most serious thing that has happened in his time; and assuredly, if
+the disease were to rage in London as it has lately raged in Riga, it
+would be difficult to imagine anything more horrible. I, however, feel
+no uneasiness. In the first place I have a strong leaning towards the
+doctrines of the anti-contagionists. In the next place I repose a great
+confidence in the excellent food and the cleanliness of the English.
+
+I have this instant received your letter of yesterday with the enclosed
+proof-sheets. Your criticism is to a certain extent just; but you have
+not considered the whole sentence together. Depressed is in itself
+better than weighed down; but "the oppressive privileges which had
+depressed industry" would be a horrible cacophony. I hope that word
+convinces you. I have often observed that a fine Greek compound is an
+excellent substitute for a reason.
+
+I met Rogers at the Athenaeum. He begged me to breakfast with him, and
+name my day, and promised that he would procure me as agreeable a party
+as 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 a
+compliment as could be paid to a Duke. Have you seen what the author of
+the "Young Duke" says about me: how rabid I am, and how certain I am to
+rat?
+
+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 in
+question does not appear to have been ill-naturedly meant. ["I hear that
+Mr. Babington Macaulay is to be returned. If he speaks half as well as
+he writes, the House will be in fashion again. I fear that he is one of
+those who, like the individual whom he has most studied, will give up to
+a party what was meant for mankind. At any rate, he must get rid of his
+rabidity. He writes now on all subjects as if he certainly intended to
+be a renegade, and was determined to make the contrast complete."--The
+Young Duke, book v chap. vi.] It is much what any young literary man
+outside the House of Commons might write of another who had only been
+inside that House for a few weeks; and it was probably forgotten by the
+author within twenty-four hours after the ink was dry. It is to be
+hoped that the commentators of the future will not treat it as an
+authoritative record of Mr. Disraeli's estimate of Lord Macaulay's
+political character.
+
+To Hannah M. Macaulay.
+
+London: June 25, 1831.
+
+My dear Sister,--There was, as you will see, no debate on Lord John
+Russell's motion. The Reform Bill is to be brought in, read once, and
+printed, without discussion. The contest will be on the second reading,
+and will be protracted, I should think, through the whole of the week
+after 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 his
+book, showed me very marked attention. I was forced to go away early on
+account of bankrupt business; but Rogers said that we must have the talk
+out so we are to meet at his house again to breakfast. What a delightful
+house it is! It looks out on the Green Park just at the most pleasant
+point. The furniture has been selected with a delicacy of taste quite
+unique. Its value does not depend on fashion, but must be the same while
+the fine arts are held in any esteem. In the drawing-room, for example,
+the chimney-pieces are carved by Flaxman into the most beautiful Grecian
+forms. The book-case is painted by Stothard, in his very best manner,
+with groups from Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Boccacio. The pictures are
+not numerous; but every one is excellent. In the dining-room there are
+also some beautiful paintings. But the three most remarkable objects in
+that 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 afterwards
+made 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 notice
+of the vase, and the table on which it stands, and asked Rogers who
+made the table. "A common carpenter," said Rogers. "Do you remember
+the making of it?" said Chantrey. "Certainly," said Rogers, in some
+surprise. "I was in the room while it was finished with the chisel, and
+gave the workman directions about placing it." "Yes," said Chantrey, "I
+was the carpenter. I remember the room well, and all the circumstances."
+A curious story, I think, and honourable both to the talent which raised
+Chantrey, and to the magnanimity which kept him from being ashamed of
+what 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 Parliamentary
+business. Next week the debates will be warm and long. I should not
+wonder if we had a discussion of five nights. I shall probably take a
+part in it.
+
+I have breakfasted again with Rogers. The party was a remarkable
+one,--Lord John Russell, Tom Moore, Tom Campbell, and Luttrell. We were
+all very lively. An odd incident took place after breakfast, while we
+were standing at the window and looking into the Green Park. Somebody
+was 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 never
+saw it in my life," said Moore. "It is in one of your best things in the
+Times," 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 lines
+called the Political Georgics, which I sent to the Times about three
+years ago. They made me repeat the lines, and were vociferous in praise
+of them. Tom Moore then said, oddly enough:
+
+"There is another poem in the Times that I should like to know
+the author of;--A Parson's Account of his Journey to the Cambridge
+Election." I laid claim to that also. "That is curious," said Moore. "I
+begged Barnes to tell me who wrote it. He said that he had received it
+from Cambridge, and touched it up himself, and pretended that all the
+best strokes were his. I believed that he was lying, because I never
+knew 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, I
+said, except the Sortes Virgilianae, which Lord John remembered well.
+I never mentioned the Cambridge Journey, or the Georgics, to any but
+my own family; and I was therefore, as you may conceive, not a little
+flattered to hear in one day Moore praising one of them, and Campbell
+praising the other.
+
+I find that my article on Byron is very popular; one among a thousand
+proofs of the bad taste of the public. I am to review Croker's edition
+of Bozzy. It is wretchedly ill done. The notes are poorly written, and
+shamefully inaccurate. There is, however, much curious information in
+it. 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's
+lumbering book. The whole makes five large volumes. There is a most
+laughable sketch of Bozzy, taken by Sir T. Lawrence when young. I never
+saw a character so thoroughly hit off. I intend the book for you, when I
+have finished my criticism on it. You are, next to myself, the best read
+Boswellite that I know. The lady whom Johnson abused for flattering
+him [See Boswell's Life of Johnson, April 15, 1778.] was certainly,
+according to Croker, Hannah More. Another ill-natured sentence about
+a 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 days
+that 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. I
+am half ashamed to tell you the compliments which I have received; but
+you well know that it is not from vanity, but to give you pleasure, that
+I tell you what is said about me. Lord Althorp told me twice that it was
+the best speech he had ever heard; Graham, and Stanley, and Lord John
+Russell spoke of it in the same way; and O'Connell followed me out of
+the house to pay me the most enthusiastic compliments. I delivered my
+speech much more slowly than any that I have before made, and it is in
+consequence better reported than its predecessors, though not well. I
+send you several papers. You will see some civil things in the leading
+articles of some of them. My greatest pleasure, in the midst of all this
+praise, is to think of the pleasure which my success will give to my
+father and my sisters. It is happy for me that ambition has in my mind
+been softened into a kind of domestic feeling, and that affection has at
+least as much to do as vanity with my wish to distinguish myself. This
+I owe to my dear mother, and to the interest which she always took in my
+childish successes. From my earliest years, the gratification of those
+whom I love has been associated with the gratification of my own thirst
+for 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 paid
+to me? I shall never end, if I stuff my letters with them; for I meet
+nobody who does not give me joy. Baring tells me that I ought never to
+speak again. Howick sent a note to me yesterday to say that his father
+wished very much to be introduced to me, and asked me to dine with them
+yesterday, as, by great good luck, there was nothing to do in the
+House of Commons. At seven I went to Downing Street, where Earl Grey's
+official residence stands. It is a noble house. There are two splendid
+drawing-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, and
+that her Ladyship had just gone to dress. Howick had not mentioned the
+hour in his note. I sate down, and turned over two large portfolios of
+political caricatures. Earl Grey's own face was in every print. I was
+very much diverted. I had seen some of them before; but many were new to
+me, and their merit is extraordinary. They were the caricatures of that
+remarkably able artist who calls himself H. B. In about half an hour
+Lady Georgiana Grey, and the Countess, made their appearance. We had
+some 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 my
+speech, that they all agreed that it was the best that had been made
+since the death of Fox, and that it was more like Fox's speaking than
+anybody's else. Then she told me that I was too much worked, that I must
+go out of town, and absolutely insisted on my going to Holland House to
+dine, and take a bed, on the next day on which there is no Parliamentary
+business. At eight we went to dinner. Lord Howick took his father's
+place, and we feasted very luxuriously. At nine Lord Grey came from the
+House with Lord Durham, Lord Holland, and the Duke of Richmond. They
+dined on the remains of our dinner with great expedition, as they had to
+go to a Cabinet Council at ten. Of course I had scarcely any talk with
+Lord Grey. He was, however, extremely polite to me, and so were his
+colleagues. I liked the ways of the family.
+
+I picked up some news from these Cabinet Ministers. There is to be
+a Coronation on quite a new plan; no banquet in Westminster Hall, no
+feudal 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 Peers
+are to come in state and in their robes, and the King is to take the
+oaths, and be crowned and anointed in their presence. The spectacle will
+be finer than usual to the multitude out of doors. The few hundreds who
+could 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 sleep
+at Holland House. We had a very agreeable and splendid party; among
+others the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, and the Marchioness of
+Clanricarde, who, you know, is the daughter of Canning. She is very
+beautiful, and very like her father, with eyes full of fire, and great
+expression in all her features. She and I had a great deal of talk. She
+showed much cleverness and information, but, I thought, a little more of
+political animosity than is quite becoming in a pretty woman. However,
+she has been placed in peculiar circumstances. The daughter of a
+statesman who was a martyr to the rage of faction may be pardoned
+for speaking sharply of the enemies of her parent; and she did speak
+sharply. With knitted brows, and flashing eyes, and a look of feminine
+vengeance about her beautiful mouth, she gave me such a character of
+Peel 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 near
+enough to hear a word that he said. I now had the pleasure of listening
+for an hour and a half to his conversation. He is certainly the greatest
+curiosity that I ever fell in with. His head is sunk down between two
+high shoulders. One of his feet is hideously distorted. His face is as
+pale as that of a corpse, and wrinkled to a frightful degree. His eyes
+have an odd glassy stare quite peculiar to them. His hair, thickly
+powdered and pomatumed, hangs down his shoulders on each side as
+straight as a pound of tallow candles. His conversation, however, soon
+makes you forget his ugliness and infirmities. There is a poignancy
+without effort in all that he says, which reminded me a little of the
+character which the wits of Johnson's circle give of Beauclerk. For
+example, we talked about Metternich and Cardinal Mazarin. "J'y trouve
+beaucoup a redire. Le Cardinal trompait; mais il ne mentait pas. Or, M.
+de Metternich ment toujours, et ne trompe jamais." He mentioned M. de
+St. Aulaire,--now one of the most distinguished public men of France. I
+said: "M. de Saint-Aulaire est beau-pere de M. le duc de Cazes, n'est-ce
+pas?" "Non, monsieur," said Talleyrand; "l'on disait, il y a douze
+ans, que M. de Saint-Aulaire etoit beau-pere de M. de Cazes; l'on dit
+maintenant que M. de Cazes est gendre de M. de Saint-Aulaire." [This
+saying remained in Macaulay's mind. He quoted it on the margin of his
+Aulus Gellius, as an illustration of the passage in the nineteenth book
+in which Julius Caesar is described, absurdly enough as "perpetuus ille
+dictator, Cneii Pompeii socer".] It was not easy to describe the change
+in the relative positions of two men more tersely and more sharply; and
+these remarks were made in the lowest tone, and without the slightest
+change of muscle, just as if he had been remarking that the day was
+fine. He added: "M. de Saint-Aulaire a beaucoup d'esprit. Mais il est
+devot, et, ce qui pis est, devot honteux. Il va se cacher dans quelque
+hameau pour faire ses Paques." This was a curious remark from a Bishop.
+He told several stories about the political men of France; not of any
+great value in themselves; but his way of telling them was beyond
+all praise,--concise, pointed, and delicately satirical. When he had
+departed, I could not help breaking out into admiration of his talent
+for relating anecdotes. Lady Holland said that he had been considered
+for nearly forty years as the best teller of a story in Europe, and that
+there was certainly nobody like him in that respect.
+
+When the Prince was gone, we went to bed. In the morning Lord John
+Russell drove me back to London in his cabriolet, much amused with what
+I 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 exceeds
+anything that has been known in our day. Indeed I doubt whether, at the
+time of Mr. Pitt's first becoming Premier, at the time of Sir Robert
+Walpole's fall, or even during the desperate struggles between the
+Whigs and Tories at the close of Anne's reign, the fury of party was so
+fearfully violent. Lord Mahon said to me yesterday that friendships of
+long standing were everywhere giving way, and that the schism between
+the reformers and the anti-reformers was spreading from the House of
+Commons into every private circle. Lord Mahon himself is an exception.
+He and I are on excellent terms. But Praed and I become colder every
+day.
+
+The scene of Tuesday night beggars description. I left the House at
+about three, in consequence of some expressions of Lord Althorp's which
+indicated that the Ministry was inclined to yield on the question of
+going into Committee on the Bill. I afterwards much regretted that I had
+gone away; not that my presence was necessary; but because I should have
+liked to have sate through so tremendous a storm. Towards eight in
+the morning the Speaker was almost fainting. The Ministerial members,
+however, were as true as steel. They furnished the Ministry with the
+resolution which it wanted. "If the noble Lord yields," said one of
+our men, "all is lost." Old Sir Thomas Baring sent for his razor, and
+Benett, the member for Wiltshire, for his night-cap; and they were both
+resolved to spend the whole day in the House rather than give way. If
+the Opposition had not yielded, in two hours half London would have been
+in 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 what
+would in any other time be called extreme violence. I have not been once
+in bed till three in the morning since last Sunday. To-morrow we have a
+holiday. I dine at Lansdowne House. Next week I dine with Littleton,
+the member for Staffordshire, and his handsome wife. He told me that
+I should meet two men whom I am curious to see, Lord Plunket and the
+Marquess Wellesley; let alone the Chancellor, who is not a novelty to
+me.
+
+Ever yours
+
+T. B. M.
+
+To Hannah M. Macaulay.
+
+London: July 25, 1831.
+
+My dear Sister,--On Saturday evening I went to Holland House. There
+I found the Dutch Ambassador, M. de Weissembourg, Mr. and Mrs. Vernon
+Smith, and Admiral Adam, a son of old Adam, who fought the duel with
+Fox. We dined like Emperors, and jabbered in several languages. Her
+Ladyship, 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 the
+thunder. She closed all the shutters, drew all the curtains, and ordered
+candles in broad day to keep out the lightning, or rather the appearance
+of the lightning. On Saturday she was in a terrible taking about the
+cholera; talked of nothing else; refused to eat any ice because somebody
+said that ice was bad for the cholera; was sure that the cholera was at
+Glasgow; and asked me why a cordon of troops was not instantly placed
+around that town to prevent all intercourse between the infected and the
+healthy spots. Lord Holland made light of her fears. He is a thoroughly
+good-natured, open, sensible man; very lively; very intellectual; well
+read in politics, and in the lighter literature both of ancient and
+modern times. He sets me more at ease than almost any person that I
+know, by a certain good-humoured way of contradicting that he has.
+He always begins by drawing down his shaggy eyebrows, making a face
+extremely 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?" He
+tells a story delightfully; and bears the pain of his gout, and the
+confinement and privations to which it subjects him, with admirable
+fortitude and cheerfulness. Her Ladyship is all courtesy and kindness
+to me; but her demeanour to some others, particularly to poor Allen, is
+such as it quite pains me to witness. He really is treated like a negro
+slave. "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 up
+dinner." "Mr. Allen, there is not enough turtle-soup for you. You must
+take gravy-soup or none." Yet I can scarcely pity the man. He has an
+independent income; and, if he can stoop to be ordered about like a
+footman, I cannot so much blame her for the contempt with which she
+treats 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 borough
+of St. Germains with a very quiet party,--Lord Milton, Lord Tavistock,
+and George Lamb. But, instead of telling you in dramatic form my
+conversations with Cabinet Ministers, I shall, I think, go back two
+or three days, and complete the narrative which I left imperfect in my
+epistle of yesterday.
+
+[This refers to a passage in a former letter, likewise written from the
+Library of the House.
+
+"'Macaulay!' Who calls Macaulay? Sir James Graham. What can he have to
+say 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 your
+letter?
+
+Macaulay. To my constituents at Caine, to be sure. They expect news of
+the Reform Bill every day.
+
+Sir J. G. Well, writing to constituents is less of a plague to you than
+to 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 constituents
+alone, and come into the House. We are going on to the case of the
+borough of Great Bedwin immediately."]
+
+At half after seven on Sunday I was set down at Littleton's palace, for
+such it is, in Grosvenor Place. It really is a noble house; four
+superb drawing-rooms on the first floor, hung round with some excellent
+pictures--a Hobbema, (the finest by that artist in the world, it is
+said,) and Lawrence's charming portrait of Mrs. Littleton. The beautiful
+original, by the bye, did not make her appearance. We were a party of
+gentlemen. But such gentlemen! Listen, and be proud of your connection
+with one who is admitted to eat and drink in the same room with beings
+so 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 Secretaries
+of the Treasury, Rice and Ellice; George Lamb; Denison; and half a
+dozen more Lords and distinguished Commoners, not to mention Littleton
+himself. Till last year he lived in Portman Square. When he changed
+his residence his servants gave him warning. They could not, they said,
+consent to go into such an unheard-of part of the world as Grosvenor
+Place. I can only say that I have never been in a finer house than
+Littleton's, Lansdowne House excepted,--and perhaps Lord Milton's, which
+is also in Grosvenor Place. He gave me a dinner of dinners. I talked
+with Denison, and with nobody else. I have found out that the real use
+of conversational powers is to put them forth in tete-a-tete. A man
+is flattered by your talking your best to him alone. Ten to one he is
+piqued by your overpowering him before a company. Denison was agreeable
+enough. I heard only one word from Lord Plunket, who was remarkably
+silent. He spoke of Doctor Thorpe, and said that, having heard the
+Doctor in Dublin, he should like to hear him again in London. "Nothing
+easier," quoth Littleton; "his chapel is only two doors off; and he will
+be just mounting the pulpit." "No," said Lord Plunket; "I can't lose my
+dinner." An excellent saying, though one which a less able man than Lord
+Plunket 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 left
+Littleton's just before us; and many other Whigs and ornaments of human
+nature. As Macdonald and I were rising to depart we saw Rogers, and I
+went to shake hands with him. You cannot think how kind the old man was
+to me. He shook my hand over and over, and told me that Lord Plunket
+longed to see me in a quiet way, and that he would arrange a breakfast
+party in a day or two for that purpose.
+
+Away I went from Brooks's--but whither? "To bed now, I am sure," says
+little Anne. No, but on a walk with Sir James Macdonald to the end of
+Sloane Street, talking about the Ministry, the Reform Bill, and the East
+India 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 our
+sitting to-day. At three this morning I left the House. At two this
+afternoon I have returned to it, with the thermometer at boiling heat,
+and four hundred and fifty people stowed together like negroes in the
+John Newton's slaveship. I have accordingly left Sir Francis Burdett
+on his legs, and repaired to the smoking-room; a large, wainscoted,
+uncarpeted place, with tables covered with green baize and writing
+materials. On a full night it is generally thronged towards twelve
+o'clock with smokers. It is then a perfect cloud of fume. There have I
+seen, (tell it not to the West Indians,) Buxton blowing fire out of his
+mouth. My father will not believe it. At present, however, all the doors
+and windows are open, and the room is pure enough from tobacco to suit
+my father himself.
+
+Get Blackwood's new number. There is a description of me in it. What do
+you think he says that I am? "A little, splay-footed, ugly, dumpling of
+a fellow, with a mouth from ear to ear." Conceive how such a charge must
+affect 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 quite
+unpremeditated, and were not ill received. I feel that much practice
+will be necessary to make me a good debater on points of detail; but my
+friends tell me that I have raised my reputation by showing that I was
+quite equal to the work of extemporaneous reply. My manner, they say, is
+cold and wants care. I feel this myself. Nothing but strong excitement,
+and a great occasion, overcomes a certain reserve and mauvaise honte
+which I have in public speaking; not a mauvaise honte which in the least
+confuses me, or makes me hesitate for a word, but which keeps me from
+putting any fervour into my tone or my action. This is perhaps in some
+respects an advantage; for, when I do warm, I am the most vehement
+speaker in the House, and nothing strikes an audience so much as the
+animation of an orator who is generally cold.
+
+I ought to tell you that Peel was very civil, and cheered me loudly; and
+that impudent leering Croker congratulated the House on the proof which
+I had given of my readiness. He was afraid, he said, that I had been
+silent so long on account of the many allusions which had been made
+to Calne. Now that I had risen again he hoped that they should hear me
+often. See whether I do not dust that varlet's jacket for him in the
+next number of the Blue and Yellow. I detest him more than cold boiled
+veal. ["By the bye," Macaulay writes elsewhere, "you never saw such a
+scene as Croker's oration on Friday night. He abused Lord John Russell;
+he abused Lord Althorp; he abused the Lord Advocate, and we took no
+notice;--never once groaned or cried 'No!' But he began to praise Lord
+Fitzwilliam;--'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 right
+honourable friend. 'Your friend! damn your impudent face!' said the
+member who sate next me."]
+
+After the debate I walked about the streets with Bulwer till near
+three o'clock. I spoke to him about his novels with perfect sincerity,
+praising warmly, and criticising freely. He took the praise as a greedy
+boy takes apple-pie, and the criticism as a good dutiful boy takes
+senna-tea. He has one eminent merit, that of being a most enthusiastic
+admirer of mine; so that I may be the hero of a novel yet, under the
+name of Delamere or Mortimer. Only think what an honour!
+
+Bulwer is to be editor of the New Monthly Magazine. He begged me very
+earnestly to give him something for it. I would make no promises; for
+I am already over head and ears in literary engagements. But I may
+possibly now and then send him some trifle or other. At all events I
+shall expect him to puff me well. I do not see why I should not have my
+puffers as well as my neighbours.
+
+I am glad that you have read Madame de Stael's Allemagne. The book is a
+foolish one in some respects; but it abounds with information, and shows
+great mental power. She was certainly the first woman of her age; Miss
+Edgeworth, 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 House
+of Commons till three o'clock five days in the week, and getting an
+indigestion at great dinners the remaining two. I dined on Saturday with
+Lord Althorp, and yesterday with Sir James Graham. Both of them gave me
+exactly the same dinner; and, though I am not generally copious on the
+repasts which my hosts provide for me, I must tell you, for the honour
+of 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. We
+were a small party; Lord Ebrington, Hawkins, Captain Spencer, Stanley,
+and two or three more. We all of us congratulated Lord Althorp on his
+good 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 the
+business of his office; that at four he dined, went down to the House
+at five, and never stirred till the House rose, which is always after
+midnight; that he then went home, took a basin of arrow-root with a
+glass of sherry in it, and went to bed, where he always dropped asleep
+in three minutes. "During the week," said he, "which followed my taking
+office, I did not close my eyes for anxiety. Since that time I have
+never been awake a quarter of an hour after taking off my clothes."
+Stanley laughed at Lord Althorp's arrow-root, and recommended his own
+supper, cold meat and warm negus; a supper which I will certainly begin
+to take when I feel a desire to pass the night with a sensation as if I
+was swallowing a nutmeg-grater every third minute.
+
+We talked about timidity in speaking. Lord Althorp said that he had only
+just got over his apprehensions. "I was as much afraid," he said, "last
+year as when first I came into Parliament. But now I am forced to speak
+so 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 one
+of the most modest men in existence. But I was surprised to hear Stanley
+say 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 who
+is going to be hanged." Nothing can be more composed and cool than
+Stanley's manner. His fault is on that side. A little hesitation at
+the beginning of a speech is graceful; and many eminent speakers have
+practised it, merely in order to give the appearance of unpremeditated
+reply to prepared speeches; but Stanley speaks like a man who never knew
+what fear, or even modesty, was. Tierney, it is remarkable, who was
+the most ready and fluent debater almost ever known, made a confession
+similar to Stanley's. He never spoke, he said, without feeling his knees
+knock together when he rose.
+
+My opinion of Lord Althorp is extremely high. In fact, his character is
+the only stay of the Ministry. I doubt whether any person has ever lived
+in England who, with no eloquence, no brilliant talents, no profound
+information, with nothing in short but plain good sense and an excellent
+heart, possessed so much influence both in and out of Parliament. His
+temper is an absolute miracle. He has been worse used than any Minister
+ever was in debate; and he has never said one thing inconsistent, I do
+not say with gentlemanlike courtesy, but with real benevolence. Lord
+North, perhaps, was his equal in suavity and good-nature; but Lord North
+was not a man of strict principles. His administration was not only
+an administration hostile to liberty, but it was supported by vile and
+corrupt means,--by direct bribery, I fear, in many cases. Lord Althorp
+has the temper of Lord North with the principles of Romilly. If he had
+the oratorical powers of either of those men, he might do anything. But
+his understanding, though just, is slow, and his elocution painfully
+defective. It is, however, only justice to him to say that he has done
+more service to the Reform Bill even as a debater than all the other
+Ministers together, Stanley excepted.
+
+We are going,--by we I mean the Members of Parliament who are for
+reform,--as soon as the Bill is through the Commons, to give a grand
+dinner to Lord Althorp and Lord John Russell, as a mark of our respect.
+Some people wished to have the other Cabinet Ministers included; but
+Grant and Palmerston are not in sufficiently high esteem among the Whigs
+to 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, my
+story of the magnificence of yesterday. No pageant can be conceived more
+splendid. The newspapers will happily save me the trouble of relating
+minute particulars. I will therefore give you an account of my own
+proceedings, and mention what struck me most. I rose at six. The cannon
+awaked me; and, as soon as I got up, I heard the bells pealing on every
+side from all the steeples in London. I put on my court-dress, and
+looked a perfect Lovelace in it. At seven the glass coach, which I had
+ordered for myself and some of my friends, came to the door. I called in
+Hill Street for William Marshall, M.P. for Beverley, and in Cork Street
+for Strutt the Member for Derby, and Hawkins the Member for Tavistock.
+Our party being complete, we drove through crowds of people, and ranks
+of horseguards in cuirasses and helmets, to Westminster Hall, which we
+reached 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. My
+county, Wiltshire, was among the first drawn; so I got an excellent
+place in the Abbey, next to Lord Mahon, who is a very great favourite of
+mine, and a very amusing companion, though a bitter Tory.
+
+Our gallery was immediately over the great altar. The whole vast avenue
+of lofty pillars was directly in front of us. At eleven the guns
+fired, the organ struck up, and the procession entered. I never saw so
+magnificent a scene. All down that immense vista of gloomy arches there
+was one blaze of scarlet and gold. First came heralds in coats stiff
+with embroidered lions, unicorns, and harps; then nobles bearing the
+regalia, 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 and
+women who at a distance looked altogether beautiful, attending on the
+Queen. Her train of purple velvet and ermine was borne by six of these
+fair creatures. All the great officers of state in full robes, the Duke
+of Wellington with his Marshal's staff, the Duke of Devonshire with his
+white rod, Lord Grey with the Sword of State, and the Chancellor with
+his seals, came in procession. Then all the Royal Dukes with their
+trains borne behind them, and last the King leaning on two Bishops. I do
+not, I dare say, give you the precise order. In fact, it was impossible
+to 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. The
+King very awkwardly. The Duke of Devonshire looked as if he came to be
+crowned 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 carelessly
+performed. The Archbishop mumbled. The Bishop of London preached, well
+enough indeed, but not so effectively as the occasion required; and,
+above all, the bearing of the King made the foolish parts of the ritual
+appear monstrously ridiculous, and deprived many of the better parts of
+their proper effect. Persons who were at a distance perhaps did not feel
+this; but I was near enough to see every turn of his finger, and every
+glance of his eye. The moment of the crowning was extremely fine. When
+the Archbishop placed the crown on the head of the King, the trumpets
+sounded, and the whole audience cried out "God save the King." All the
+Peers and Peeresses put on their coronets, and the blaze of splendour
+through the Abbey seemed to be doubled. The King was then conducted to
+the raised throne, where the Peers successively did him homage, each
+of them kissing his cheek, and touching the crown. Some of them were
+cheered, which I thought indecorous in such a place, and on such an
+occasion. The Tories cheered the Duke of Wellington; and our people, in
+revenge, cheered Lord Grey and Brougham.
+
+You will think this a very dull letter for so great a subject; but I
+have 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 been
+forced to work to-day. Half my article on Boswell went to Edinburgh the
+day 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 be
+ashamed of the pickle in which I leave him. [Mr. Carlyle reviewed
+Croker's book in "Fraser's Magazine" a few months after the appearance
+of Macaulay's article in the "Edinburgh." The two Critics seem to have
+arrived at much the same conclusion as to the merits of the work.
+"In fine," writes Mr. Carlyle, "what ideas Mr. Croker entertains of
+a literary _whole_, and the thing called _Book_, and how the very
+Printer's Devils did not rise in mutiny against such a conglomeration as
+this, and refuse to print it, may remain a problem.... It is our painful
+duty to declare, aloud, if that be necessary, that his gift, as weighed
+against the hard money which the booksellers demand for giving it you,
+is (in our judgment) very much the lighter. No portion, accordingly, of
+our small floating capital has been embarked in the business, or ever
+shall be. Indeed, were we in the market for such a thing, there is
+simply 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 you
+all in London, and being again one of a family, and of a family which I
+love 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, will
+probably settle the whole, and bring to an issue the question, Reform or
+Revolution. 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 that
+even my rest is disturbed by vexation and uneasy forebodings; not for
+myself; for I may gain, and cannot lose; but for this noble country,
+which seems likely to be ruined without the miserable consolation of
+being ruined by great men. All seems fair as yet, and will seem fair for
+a fortnight longer. But I know the danger from information more accurate
+and certain than, I believe, anybody not in power possesses; and I
+perceive, what our men in power do not perceive, how terrible the danger
+is.
+
+I called on Lord Lansdowne on Sunday. He told me distinctly that he
+expected the Bill to be lost in the Lords, and that, if it were
+lost, the Ministers must go out. I told him, with as much strength of
+expression as was suited to the nature of our connection, and to his age
+and rank, that, if the Ministers receded before the Lords, and hesitated
+to make Peers, they and the Whig party were lost; that nothing remained
+but an insolent oligarchy on the one side, and an infuriated people on
+the other; and that Lord Grey and his colleagues would become as odious
+and more contemptible than Peel and the Duke of Wellington. Why did they
+not think of all this earlier? Why put their hand to the plough, and
+look back? Why begin to build without counting the cost of finishing?
+Why raise the public appetite, and then baulk it? I told him that the
+House of Commons would address the King against a Tory Ministry. I
+feel assured that it would do so. I feel assured that, if those who are
+bidden will not come, the highways and hedges will be ransacked to get
+together a reforming Cabinet. To one thing my mind is made up. If nobody
+else 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 mislaid
+your letter and forgot your direction. When shall you be in London? Of
+course you do not mean to sacrifice your professional business to the
+work of numbering the gates, and telling the towers, of boroughs in
+Wales. [Mr. Ellis was one of the Commissioners appointed to arrange
+the boundaries of Parliamentary boroughs in connection with the Reform
+Bill.] You will come back, I suppose, with your head full of ten pound
+householders instead of eroes and of Caermarthen and Denbigh instead of
+Carians and Pelasgians. Is it true, by the bye, that the Commissioners
+are whipped on the boundaries of the boroughs by the beadles, in order
+that they may not forget the precise line which they have drawn? I deny
+it wherever I go, and assure people that some of my friends who are in
+the Commission would not submit to such degradation.
+
+You must have been hard-worked indeed, and soundly whipped too, if
+you have suffered as much for the Reform Bill as we who debated it. I
+believe that there are fifty members of the House of Commons who have
+done irreparable injury to their health by attendance on the discussions
+of this session. I have got through pretty well, but I look forward, I
+confess, with great dismay to the thought of recommencing; particularly
+as 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 speeches
+have been received. To say the truth, the station which I now hold in
+the House is such that I should not be inclined to quit it for any place
+which was not of considerable importance. What you saw about my having
+a place was a blunder of a stupid reporter's. Croker was taunting the
+Government with leaving me to fight their battle, and to rally their
+followers; and said that the honourable and learned member for Calne,
+though only a practising barrister in title, seemed to be in reality
+the most efficient member of the Government. By the bye, my article on
+Croker has not only smashed his book, but has hit the Westminster Review
+incidentally. The Utilitarians took on themselves to praise the accuracy
+of the most inaccurate writer that ever lived, and gave as an instance
+of it a note in which, as I have shown, he makes a mistake of twenty
+years and more. John Mill is in a rage, and says that they are in a
+worse 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 of
+hatred, which I repay with a gracious smile of pity.
+
+I am ashamed to have said so much about myself. But you asked for news
+about me. No request is so certain to be granted, or so certain to be a
+curse 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 we
+are winding up the affairs of many estates, that I shall not be able to
+send off my article about Hampden till Thursday the 12th. It will be,
+I fear, more than forty pages long. As Pascal said of his eighteenth
+letter, I would have made it shorter if I could have kept it longer. You
+must indulge me, however; for I seldom offend in that way.
+
+It is in part a narrative. This is a sort of composition which I have
+never yet attempted. You will tell me, I am sure with sincerity, how you
+think that I succeed in it. I have said as little about Lord Nugent's
+book 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 tell
+Longman to send me the book. However bad the work may be, it will serve
+as 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 pamphlet
+which he published, (or rather printed, for I believe it is not for
+sale,) is made up of extracts from Blackwood; and I thought that a
+contest with your grog-drinking, cock-fighting, cudgel-playing Professor
+of Moral Philosophy would be too degrading. I could have demolished
+every paragraph of the defence. Croker defended his thuetoi philoi
+by quoting a passage of Euripides which, as every scholar knows, is
+corrupt; which is nonsense and false metre if read as he reads it; and
+which Markland and Matthiae have set right by a most obvious correction.
+But, as nobody seems to have read his vindication, we can gain nothing
+by refuting it. ["Mr. Croker has favoured us with some Greek of his
+own. 'At the altar,' say Dr. Johnson. 'I recommended my th ph.'
+'These letters,' says the editor, (which Dr. Strahan seems not to
+have understood,) probably mean _departed friends._' Johnson was not
+a first-rate Greek scholar; but he knew more Greek than most boys
+when they leave school; and no schoolboy could venture to use the word
+thuetoi in the sense which Mr. Croker ascribes to it without imminent
+danger 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 still
+labouring heavily; but, long before she was through the breakers, men
+had begun to discount the treasures which she was bringing into port.
+The time was fast approaching when the country would be called upon to
+choose its first Reformed Parliament. As if the spectacle of what
+was doing at Westminster did not satisfy their appetite for political
+excitement, the Constituencies of the future could not refrain from
+anticipating the fancied pleasures of an electoral struggle. Impatient
+to exercise their privileges, and to show that they had as good an eye
+for a man as those patrons of nomination seats whose discernment was
+being vaunted nightly in a dozen speeches from the Opposition benches
+of the House of Commons, the great cities were vying with each other to
+seek representatives worthy of the occasion and of themselves. The Whigs
+of Leeds, already provided with one candidate in a member of the great
+local firm of the Marshalls, resolved to seek for another among the
+distinguished politicians of their party. As early as October 1831
+Macaulay had received a requisition from that town, and had pledged
+himself to stand as soon as it had been elevated into a Parliamentary
+borough. The Tories, on their side, brought forward Mr. Michael Sadler,
+the very man on whose behalf the Duke of Newcastle had done "what he
+liked with his own" in Newark,--and, at the last general election, had
+done it in vain. Sadler, smarting from the lash of the Edinburgh Review,
+infused into the contest an amount of personal bitterness that for
+his own sake might better have been spared; and, during more than a
+twelvemonth to come, Macaulay lived the life of a candidate whose own
+hands are full of public work at a time when his opponent has nothing to
+do except to make himself disagreeable. But, having once undertaken
+to fight the battle of the Leeds Liberals, he fought it stoutly and
+cheerily; 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 honour
+him with their choice.
+
+The old system died hard; but in May 1832 came its final agony. The
+Reform Bill had passed the Commons, and had been read a second time in
+the Upper House; but the facilities which Committee affords for maiming
+and delaying a measure of great magnitude and intricacy proved too much
+for the self-control of the Lords. The King could not bring himself
+to adopt that wonderful expedient by which the unanimity of the three
+branches of our legislature may, in the last resort, be secured.
+Deceived by an utterly fallacious analogy, his Majesty began to be
+persuaded that the path of concession would lead him whither it had led
+Louis the Sixteenth; and he resolved to halt on that path at the point
+where his Ministers advised him to force the hands of their lordships
+by creating peers. The supposed warnings of the French Revolution, which
+had been dinned into the ears of the country by every Tory orator
+from Peel to Sibthorpe, at last had produced their effect on the royal
+imagination. Earl Grey resigned, and the Duke of Wellington, with a
+loyalty 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 for
+his courage and constancy. He could not get colleagues to assist him in
+the Cabinet, or supporters to vote with him in Parliament, or soldiers
+to fight for him in the streets; and it was evident that in a few days
+his position would be such as could only be kept by fighting.
+
+The revolution had in truth commenced. At a meeting of the political
+unions on the slope of Newhall Hill at Birmingham a hundred thousand
+voices 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 property
+distrained by the tax-gatherer. In thus renouncing the first obligation
+of a citizen they did in effect draw the sword, and they would have been
+cravens if they had left it in the scabbard. Lord Milton did something
+to enhance the claim of his historic house upon the national gratitude
+by giving practical effect to this audacious resolve; and, after the
+lapse of two centuries, another Great Rebellion, more effectual than its
+predecessor, but so brief and bloodless that history does not recognise
+it as a rebellion at all, was inaugurated by the essentially English
+proceeding of a quiet country gentleman telling the Collector to
+call again. The crisis lasted just a week. The Duke had no mind for a
+succession of Peterloos, on a vaster scale, and with a different issue.
+He advised the King to recall his Ministers; and his Majesty, in his
+turn, honoured the refractory lords with a most significant circular
+letter, respectful in form, but unmistakable in tenor. A hundred peers
+of the Opposition took the hint, and contrived to be absent whenever
+Reform was before the House. The Bill was read for a third time by a
+majority of five to one on the 4th of June; a strange, and not very
+complimentary, method of celebrating old George the Third's birthday. On
+the 5th it received the last touches in the Commons; and on the 7th
+it became an Act, in very much the same shape, after such and so many
+vicissitudes, as it wore when Lord John Russell first presented it to
+Parliament.
+
+Macaulay, whose eloquence had signalised every stage of the conflict,
+and whose printed speeches are, of all its authentic records, the most
+familiar to readers of our own day, was not left without his reward. He
+was appointed one of the Commissioners of the Board of Control, which,
+for three quarters of a century from 1784 onwards, represented the Crown
+in its relations to the East Indian directors. His duties, like those of
+every individual member of a Commission, were light or heavy as he chose
+to make them; but his own feeling with regard to those duties must not
+be deduced from the playful allusions contained in letters dashed off,
+during the momentary leisure of an over-busy day, for the amusement of
+two girls who barely numbered forty years between them. His speeches and
+essays teem with expressions of a far deeper than official interest in
+India and her people; and his minutes remain on record, to prove that he
+did not affect the sentiment for a literary or oratorical purpose. The
+attitude of his own mind with regard to our Eastern empire is depicted
+in the passage on Burke, in the essay on Warren Hastings, which
+commences with the words, "His knowledge of India--," and concludes
+with the sentence, "Oppression in Bengal was to him the same thing as
+oppression in the streets of London." That passage, unsurpassed as it is
+in force of language, and splendid fidelity of detail, by anything that
+Macaulay ever wrote or uttered, was inspired, as all who knew him could
+testify, by sincere and entire sympathy with that great statesman
+of whose humanity and breadth of view it is the merited, and not
+inadequate, panegyric.
+
+In Margaret Macaulay's journal there occurs more than one mention of
+her brother's occasional fits of contrition on the subject of his own
+idleness; but these regrets and confessions must be taken for what they
+are worth, and for no more. He worked much harder than he gave himself
+credit for. His nature was such that whatever he did was done with all
+his heart, and all his power; and he was constitutionally incapable
+of doing it otherwise. He always under-estimated the tension and
+concentration of mind which he brought to bear upon his labours, as
+compared with that which men in general bestow on whatever business
+they may have in hand; and, to-wards the close of life, this honourable
+self-deception no doubt led him to draw far too largely upon his failing
+strength, under the impression that there was nothing unduly severe in
+the efforts to which he continued to brace himself with ever increasing
+difficulty.
+
+During the eighteen months that he passed at the Board of Control he had
+no time for relaxation, and very little for the industry which he loved
+the best. Giving his days to India, and his nights to the inexorable
+demands of the Treasury Whip, he could devote a few hours to the
+Edinburgh Review only by rising at five when the rules of the House of
+Commons had allowed him to get to bed betimes on the previous evening.
+Yet, under these conditions, he contrived to provide Mr. Napier with
+the highly finished articles on Horace Walpole and Lord Chatham, and to
+gratify a political opponent, who was destined to be a life-long friend,
+by his kindly criticism and spirited summary of Lord Mahon's "History of
+the War of the Succession in Spain." And, in the "Friendship's Offering"
+of 1833, one of those mawkish annual publications of the album species
+which were then in fashion, appeared his poem of the Armada; whose
+swinging couplets read as if somewhat out of place in the company of
+such productions as "The Mysterious Stranger, or the Bravo of Banff;"
+"Away to the Greenwood, a song;" and "Lines on a Window that had been
+frozen," 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 Calne
+fixed Wednesday for my re-election on taking office; the very day on
+which I was to have been at a public dinner at Leeds. I shall therefore
+remain here till Wednesday morning, and read Indian politics in quiet. I
+am already deep in Zemindars, Ryots, Polygars, Courts of Phoujdary, and
+Courts of Nizamut Adawlut. I can tell you which of the native Powers are
+subsidiary, and which independent, and read you lectures of an hour on
+our diplomatic transactions at the courts of Lucknow, Nagpore, Hydrabad,
+and Poonah. At Poonah, indeed, I need not tell you that there is no
+court; for the Paishwa, as you are doubtless aware, was deposed by Lord
+Hastings in the Pindarree War. Am I not in fair training to be as great
+a bore as if I had myself been in India?--that is to say, as great a
+bore as the greatest.
+
+I am leading my watering-place life here; reading, writing, and walking
+all day; speaking to nobody but the waiter and the chambermaid; solitary
+in a great crowd, and content with solitude. I shall be in London again
+on Thursday, and shall also be an M. P. From that day you may send your
+letters as freely as ever; and pray do not be sparing of them. Do you
+read any novels at Liverpool? I should fear that the good Quakers would
+twitch 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? I
+have sadly neglected Calderon; but, whenever I have a month to spare, I
+shall 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 put
+together. I will venture to say that I have written more letters, by a
+good many, than I have received, and this with India and the Edinburgh
+Review on my hands; the Life of Mirabeau to be criticised; the Rajah of
+Travancore to be kept in order; and the bad money, which the Emperor
+of the Burmese has had the impudence to send us byway of tribute, to be
+exchanged 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 the
+railroad. Be particular, above all, in your accounts of the Quakers.
+I enjoin this especially on Nancy; for from Meg I have no hope of
+extracting a word of truth.
+
+I dined yesterday at Holland House; all Lords except myself. Lord
+Radnor, Lord Poltimore, Lord King, Lord Russell, and his uncle Lord
+John. Lady Holland was very gracious, praised my article on Burleigh to
+the skies, and told me, among other things, that she had talked on the
+preceding day for two hours with Charles Grant upon religion, and had
+found him very liberal and tolerant. It was, I suppose, the cholera
+which sent her Ladyship to the only saint in the Ministry for ghostly
+counsel. Poor Macdonald's case was most undoubtedly cholera. It is
+said that Lord Amesbury also died of cholera, though no very strange
+explanation seems necessary to account for the death of a man of
+eighty-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 many
+other foolish stories. I do not believe there is the slightest ground
+for uneasiness; though Lady Holland apparently considers the case so
+serious that she has taken her conscience out of Allen's keeping, and
+put it into the hands of Charles Grant.
+
+Here I end my letter; a great deal too long already for so busy a man to
+write, 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, looking
+out on the Thames, and divided, like Garrick in Sir Joshua's picture,
+between Tragedy and Comedy; a letter to you, and a bundle of papers
+about Hydrabad, and the firm of Palmer and Co., late bankers to the
+Nizam.
+
+Poor Sir Walter Scott is going back to Scotland by sea tomorrow. All
+hope is over; and he has a restless wish to die at home. He is many
+thousand pounds worse than nothing. Last week he was thought to be so
+near his end that some people went, I understand, to sound Lord Althorp
+about a public funeral. Lord Althorp said, very like himself, that if
+public money was to be laid out, it would be better to give it to the
+family than to spend it in one day's show. The family, however, are said
+to be not ill off.
+
+I am delighted to hear of your proposed tour, but not so well pleased
+to be told that you expect to be bad correspondents during your stay at
+Welsh inns. Take pens and ink with you, if you think that you shall find
+none at the Bard's Head, or the Glendower Arms. But it will be too
+bad if you send me no letters during a tour which will furnish so many
+subjects. Why not keep a journal, and minute down in it all that you
+see and hear? and remember that I charge you, as the venerable circle
+charged Miss Byron, to tell me of every person who "regards you with an
+eye of partiality."
+
+What can I say more? as the Indians end their letters. Did not Lady
+Holland tell me of some good novels? I remember:--Henry Masterton, three
+volumes, an amusing story and a happy termination. Smuggle it in,
+next time that you go to Liverpool, from some circulating library; and
+deposit it in a lock-up place out of the reach of them that are clothed
+in drab; and read it together at the curling hour.
+
+My article on Mirabeau will be out in the forthcoming number. I am not
+a good judge of my own compositions, I fear; but I think that it will be
+popular. A Yankee has written to me to say that an edition of my works
+is about to be published in America with my life prefixed, and that he
+shall 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 the
+judicious 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 our
+great 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 my
+article on Dumont, [Dumont's "Life of Mirabeau." See the Miscellaneous
+Writings of Lord Macaulay.] but sends me no money. Allah blacken his
+face! 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 henceforth
+to sit on Saturdays. This, indeed, is the only way to get through our
+business. On Saturday next we shall, I hope, rise before seven, as I am
+engaged to dine on that day with pretty, witty Mrs.--. I fell in with
+her at Lady Grey's great crush, and found her very agreeable. Her
+husband is nothing in society. Ropers has some very good stories about
+their domestic happiness,--stories confirming a theory of mine which, as
+I remember, made you very angry. When they first married, Mrs.--treated
+her husband with great respect. But, when his novel came out and
+failed completely, she changed her conduct, and has, ever since that
+unfortunate publication, henpecked the poor author unmercifully. And the
+case, says Ropers, is the harder, because it is suspected that she wrote
+part of the book herself. It is like the scene in Milton where Eve,
+after tempting Adam, abuses him for yielding to temptation. But do you
+not remember how I told you that much of the love of women depended on
+the 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 it
+up 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's
+turning 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 them
+the dates of my birth, and of my coming into Parliament. I told them
+also that I was educated at Cambridge. As to my early bon-mots, my
+crying for holidays, my walks to school through showers of cats and
+dogs, I have left all those for the "Life of the late Right Honourable
+Thomas Babington Macaulay, with large extracts from his correspondence,
+in two volumes, by the Very Rev. J. Macaulay, Dean of Durham, and Rector
+of Bishopsgate, with a superb portrait from the picture by Pickersgill
+in the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne."
+
+As you like my verses, I will some day or other write you a whole
+rhyming letter. I wonder whether any man ever wrote doggrel so easily. I
+run it off just as fast as my pen can move, and that is faster by about
+three words in a minute than any other pen that I know. This comes of
+a schoolboy habit of writing verses all day long. Shall I tell you the
+news 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 this
+filthiest of all filthy atmospheres, and in the vilest of all vile
+company; with the smell of tobacco in my nostrils, and the ugly,
+hypocritical face of Lieutenant ---- before my eyes. There he sits
+writing opposite to me. To whom, for a ducat? To some secretary of an
+Hibernian Bible Society; or to some old woman who gives cheap tracts,
+instead of blankets, to the starving peasantry of Connemara; or to
+some good Protestant Lord who bullies his Popish tenants. Reject not my
+letter, though it is redolent of cigars and genuine pigtail; for this is
+the room--
+
+The room,--but I think I'll describe it in rhyme, That smells of tobacco
+and chloride of lime. The smell of tobacco was always the same; But the
+chloride was brought since the cholera came.
+
+But I must return to prose, and tell you all that has fallen out since
+I wrote last. I have been dining with the Listers at Knightsbridge.
+They are in a very nice house, next, or almost next, to that which
+the Wilberforces had. We had quite a family party. There were George
+Villiers, and Hyde Villiers, and Edward Villiers. Charles was not there.
+George and Hyde rank very high in my opinion. I liked their behaviour to
+their sister much. She seems to be the pet of the whole family; and
+it is natural that she should be so. Their manners are softened by her
+presence; and any roughness and sharpness which they have in intercourse
+with men vanishes at once. They seem to love the very ground that she
+treads 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 another
+heroine 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 in
+her next novel; and, as I am not ambitious of such an honour, I kept
+away. If I could fall in with her at a great party, where I could see
+unseen and hear unheard, I should very much like to make observations on
+her; 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 the
+Church with an Irish papist who has seated himself at my elbow; and they
+keep such a din that I cannot tell what I am writing. There they go.
+The Lord Lieutenant--the Bishop of Derry-Magee--O'Connell--your
+Bible meetings--your Agitation meetings--the propagation of the
+Gospel--Maynooth College--the Seed of the Woman shall bruise the
+Serpent'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 end
+of my letter, and I shall leave the two demoniacs to tear each other to
+pieces.
+
+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; the
+House is thin; the subject is dull; and I have stolen away to write
+to you. Lushington is scribbling at my side. No sound is heard but the
+scratching of our pens, and the ticking of the clock. We are in a far
+better atmosphere than in the smoking-room, whence I wrote to you last
+week; 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 every
+member 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 my
+civilities wait for that blessed day; and I have so many scores of
+visits to pay that I can scarcely find time for any of that Sunday
+reading 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 round
+of calls to all my friends who had the cholera. Then I walked to all the
+clubs of which I am a member, to see the newspapers. The first of
+these two works you will admit to be a work of mercy; the second, in
+a political man, one of necessity. Then, like a good brother, I walked
+under a burning sun to Kensington to ask Fanny how she did, and stayed
+there two hours. Then I went to Knightsbridge to call on Mrs. Listen and
+chatted with her till it was time to go and dine at the Athenaeum. Then
+I dined, and after dinner, like a good young man, I sate and read Bishop
+Heber's journal till bedtime. There is a Sunday for you! I think that I
+excel in the diary lire. I will keep a journal like the Bishop, that my
+memory may
+
+ "Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust."
+
+Next Sunday I am to go to Lord Lansdowne's at Richmond, so that I hope
+to have something to tell you. But on second thoughts I will tell you
+nothing, 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 send
+me longer letters? But I am at the end of my paper, so that I have no
+more 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 has
+half killed us all.[On the 8th August, 1832, Macaulay writes to Lord
+Mahon: "We are now strictly on duty. No furloughs even for a dinner
+engagement, or a sight of Taglioni's legs, can be obtained. It is very
+hard to keep forty members in the House. Sibthorpe and Leader are on the
+watch to count us out; and from six till two we never venture further
+than the smoking-room without apprehension. In spite of all our
+exertions the end of the Session seems further and further off every
+day. If you would do me the favour of inviting Sibthorpe to Chevening
+Park you might be the means of saving my life, and that of thirty or
+forty more of us who are forced to swallow the last dregs of the oratory
+of this Parliament; and nauseous dregs they are."] On Saturday we
+met,--for the last time, I hope, on business. When the House rose, I set
+off for Holland House. We had a small party, but a very distinguished
+one. Lord Grey, the Chancellor, Lord Palmerston, Luttrell, and myself
+were 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 so
+good as usual; for the French cook was ill; and her Ladyship kept up a
+continued lamentation during the whole repast. I should never have found
+out that everything was not as it should be but for her criticisms. The
+soup was too salt; the cutlets were not exactly comme il faut; and the
+pudding was hardly enough boiled. I was amused to hear from the splendid
+mistress of such a house the same sort of apologies which--made when her
+cook forgot the joint, and sent up too small a dinner to table. I told
+Luttrell that it was a comfort to me to find that no rank was exempted
+from these afflictions.
+
+They talked about --'s marriage. Lady Holland vehemently defended the
+match; and, when Allen said that--had caught a Tartar, she quite went
+off into one of her tantrums: "She a Tartar! Such a charming girl a
+Tartar! He is a very happy man, and your language is insufferable:
+insufferable, Mr. Allen." Lord Grey had all the trouble in the world to
+appease her. His influence, however, is very great. He prevailed on her
+to receive Allen again into favour, and to let Lord Holland have a slice
+of melon, for which he had been petitioning most piteously, but which
+she had steadily refused on account of his gout. Lord Holland thanked
+Lord Grey for his intercession.. "Ah, Lord Grey, I wish you were always
+here. It is a fine thing to be Prime Minister." This tattle is worth
+nothing, except to show how much the people whose names will fill the
+history of our times resemble, in all essential matters, the quiet folks
+who 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 Holland
+House. Rogers, who is the bitterest and most cynical observer of little
+traits of character that ever I knew-, once said to me of him: "Observe
+that man. He never talks to men; he never talks to girls; but, when he
+can get into a circle of old tabbies, he is just in his element. He will
+sit clacking with an old woman for hours together. That always settles
+my opinion of a young fellow."
+
+I am delighted to find that you like my review on Mirabeau, though I am
+angry with Margaret for grumbling at my Scriptural allusions, and still
+more angry with Nancy for denying my insight into character. It is one
+of my strong points. If she knew how far I see into hers, she would he
+ready 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 on
+Saturday at furthest, the hope to finish our business. I did not reach
+home till four this morning, after a most fatiguing and yet rather
+amusing night. What passed will not find its way into the papers, as
+the gallery was locked during most of the time. So I will tell you the
+story.
+
+There is a bill before the House prohibiting those processions of
+Orangemen which have excited a good deal of irritation in Ireland. This
+bill was committed yesterday night. Shaw, the Recorder of Dublin, an
+honest man enough, but a bitter Protestant fanatic, complained that
+it should be brought forward so late in the Session. Several of his
+friends, he said, had left London believing that the measure had been
+abandoned. It appeared, however, that Stanley and Lord Althorp had given
+fair notice of their intention; so that, if the absent members had been
+mistaken, the fault was their own; and the House was for going on. Shaw
+said 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 was
+negatived by forty votes to two. Then the first clause was read. Shaw
+divided the House again on that clause. He was beaten by the same
+majority. He moved again that the chairman should leave the chair. He
+was 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; that
+his conduct was unhandsome and vexatious; that he heartily begged our
+pardons; but that he had said that he would delay the bill as far as
+the forms of the House would permit; and that he must keep his word. Now
+came a discussion by which Nancy, if she had been in the ventilator, [A
+circular ventilator, in the roof of the House of Commons, was the only
+Ladies' Gallery that existed in the year 1832.] might have been greatly
+edified, touching the nature of vows; whether a man's promise given
+to 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 somebody
+sitting near me. Peregrine Courtenay on one side of the House, and Lord
+Palmerston on the other, attempted to enlighten the poor Orangeman
+on the question of casuistry. They might as well have preached to any
+madman out of St. Luke's. "I feel," said the silly creature, "that I am
+doing wrong, and acting very unjustifiably. If gentlemen will forgive
+me, I will never do so again. But I must keep my word." We roared with
+laughter every time he repeated his apologies. The orders of the House
+do not enable any person absolutely to stop the progress of a bill
+in Committee, but they enable him to delay it grievously. We divided
+seventeen times, and between every division this vexatious Irishman
+made us a speech of apologies and self-condemnation. Of the two who had
+supported him at the beginning of his freak one soon sneaked away. The
+other, Sibthorpe, stayed to the last, not expressing remorse like Shaw,
+but glorying in the unaccommodating temper he showed and in the delay
+which he produced. At last the bill went through. Then Shaw rose;
+congratulated himself that his vow was accomplished; said that the only
+atonement he could make for conduct so unjustifiable was to vow that he
+would never make such a vow again; promised to let the bill go through
+its future stages without any more divisions; and contented himself
+with suggesting one or two alterations in the details. "I hint at these
+amendments," he said. "If the Secretary for Ireland approves of them, I
+hope he will not refrain from introducing them because they are brought
+forward by me. I am sensible that I have forfeited all claim to the
+favour 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 that
+the seventeen divisions occupied less time than a real hard debate would
+have done, and were infinitely more amusing. The oddest part of the
+business is that Shaw's frank good-natured way of proceeding, absurd as
+it was, has made him popular. He was never so great a favourite with
+the House as after harassing it for two or three hours with the most
+frivolous opposition. This is a curious trait of the House of Commons.
+Perhaps you will find this long story, which I have not time to read
+over again, very stupid and unintelligible. But I have thought it my
+duty to set before you the evil consequences of making vows rashly, and
+adhering 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 another
+occasion.
+
+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 dinnertime
+on Saturday evening. To resume my narrative, I slept there on Sunday
+night. On Monday morning, after breakfast, I walked to town with
+Luttrell, whom I found a delightful companion. Before we went, we sate
+and 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 paid
+long ago to the Court of Denmark; and of King Christian, the madman, who
+was at last deprived of all real share in the government on account of
+his infirmity. "Such a Tom of Bedlam I never saw," said Lord Holland.
+"One day the Neapolitan Ambassador came to the levee, and made a
+profound bow to his Majesty. His Majesty bowed still lower. The
+Neapolitan bowed down his head almost to the ground; when, behold! the
+King clapped his hands on his Excellency's shoulders, and jumped over
+him like a boy playing at leap-frog. Another day the English Ambassador
+was sitting opposite the King at dinner. His Majesty asked him to take
+wine. The glasses were filled. The Ambassador bowed, and put the wine to
+his lips. The King grinned hideously and threw his wine into the face of
+one of the footmen. The other guests kept the most profound gravity;
+but the Englishman, who had but lately come to Copenhagen, though a
+practised diplomatist, could not help giving some signs of astonishment.
+The King immediately addressed him in French: 'Eh, mais, Monsieur
+l'Envoye d'Angleterre, qu'avez-vous done? Pourquoi riez-vous? Est-ce
+qu'il y'ait quelque chose qui vous ait diverti? Faites-moi le plaisir de
+me l'indiquer. J'aime beaucoup les ridicules.'"
+
+Parliament is up at last. We official men are now left alone at the
+West End of London, and are making up for our long confinement in
+the mornings by feasting together at night. On Wednesday I dined with
+Labouchere at his official residence in Somerset House. It is well that
+he is a bachelor; for he tells me that the ladies his neighbours make
+bitter complaints of the unfashionable situation in which they are
+cruelly obliged to reside gratis. Yesterday I dined with Will Brougham,
+and an official party, in Mount Street. We are going to establish a
+Club, to be confined to members of the House of Commons in place under
+the present Government, who are to dine together weekly at Grillon's
+Hotel, and to settle the affairs of the State better, I hope, than our
+masters 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 is
+going on as well as possible. I, and most of my friends, feel sanguine
+as to the result. About half my day was spent in speaking, and hearing
+other people speak; in squeezing and being squeezed; in shaking hands
+with people whom I never saw before, and whose faces and names I forget
+within a minute after being introduced to them. The rest was passed in
+conversation with my leading friends, who are very honest substantial
+manufacturers. They feed me on roast beef and Yorkshire pudding; at
+night they put me into capital bedrooms; and the only plague which they
+give me is that they are always begging me to mention some food or wine
+for which I have a fancy, or some article of comfort and convenience
+which I may wish them to procure.
+
+I travelled to town with a family of children who ate without
+intermission from Market Harborough, where they got into the coach, to
+the Peacock at Islington, where they got out of it. They breakfasted
+as if they had fasted all the preceding day. They dined as if they had
+never breakfasted. They ate on the road one large basket of sandwiches,
+another of fruit, and a boiled fowl; besides which there was not an
+orange-girl, an old man with cakes, or a boy with filberts, who came to
+the coach-side when we stopped to change horses, of whom they did not
+buy something.
+
+I am living here by myself with no society, or scarcely any, except my
+books. I read a play of Calderon before I breakfast; then look over
+the newspaper; frank letters; scrawl a line or two to a foolish girl
+in 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 something
+about the Bank, and hope, when next I go to Rothley Temple, to be
+a match for the whole firm of Mansfield and Babington on questions
+relating to their own business. When I leave the Board, I walk for two
+hours; then I dine; and I end the day quietly over a basin of tea and a
+novel.
+
+On Saturday I go to Holland House, and stay there till Monday. Her
+Ladyship wants me to take up my quarters almost entirely there; but
+I love my own chambers and independence, and am neither qualified nor
+inclined to succeed Allen in his post. On Friday week, that is to-morrow
+week, 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 to
+me when his kindness was of some consequence to me, I cannot, and will
+not, 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 stayed
+there Sunday. It was legitimate Sabbath employment,--visiting the
+sick,--which, as you well know, always stands first among the works of
+mercy enumerated in good books. My Lord was ill, and my Lady thought
+herself so. He was, during the greater part of the day, in bed. For a
+few hours he lay on his sofa, wrapped in flannels. I sate by him about
+twenty 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 he
+retained all his courage, and all his sweetness of temper. I told his
+sister 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 through
+the sharpest pain of the attack he never complained." I admire him
+more, 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 be
+particularly valuable; for he has the keenest zest for those pleasures
+which health would enable him to enjoy. He is, however, an invalid, and
+a cripple. He passes some weeks of every year in extreme torment. When
+he is in his best health he can only limp a hundred yards in a day. Yet
+he never says a cross word. The sight of him spreads good humour over
+the face of every one who comes near him. His sister, an excellent old
+maid as ever lived, and the favourite of all the young people of her
+acquaintance, says that it is quite a pleasure to nurse him. She was
+reading the "Inheritance" to him as he lay in bed, and he enjoyed it
+amazingly. She is a famous reader; more quiet and less theatrical than
+most famous readers, and therefore the fitter for the bed-side of a sick
+man. Her Ladyship had fretted herself into being ill, could eat nothing
+but the breast of a partridge, and was frightened out of her wits by
+hearing a dog howl. She was sure that this noise portended her death, or
+my Lord's. Towards the evening, however, she brightened up, and was in
+very good spirits. My visit was not very lively. They dined at four, and
+the company was, as you may suppose at this season, but scanty. Charles
+Greville, commonly called, heaven knows why, Punch Greville, came on
+the 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 Lord
+Holland out of bed. I therefore did my best to keep the house alive. I
+had the library and the delightful gardens to myself during most of the
+day, and I got through my visit very well.
+
+News you have in the papers. Poor Scott is gone, and I cannot be sorry
+for it. A powerful mind in ruins is the most heart-breaking thing which
+it 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 is
+very 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 really
+very well planned. I do not know that I have ever seen so happy an
+imitation of the domestic architecture of Elizabeth's reign. The oriels,
+towers, terraces, and battlements are in the most perfect keeping; and
+the building is as convenient within as it is picturesque without. A few
+weather-stains, or a few American creepers, and a little ivy, would make
+it perfect; and all that will come, I suppose, with time. The terrace
+is my favourite spot. I always liked "the trim gardens" of which
+Milton speaks, and thought that Brown and his imitators went too far
+in bringing forests and sheep-walks up to the very windows of
+drawing-rooms.
+
+I came through Oxford. It was as beautiful a day as the second day of
+our visit, and the High Street was in all its glory. But it made me
+quite sad to find myself there without you and Margaret. All my old
+Oxford associations are gone. Oxford, instead of being, as it used
+to be, the magnificent old city of the seventeenth century,--still
+preserving its antique character among the improvements of modern times,
+and exhibiting in the midst of upstart Birminghams and Manchesters the
+same aspect which it wore when Charles held his court at Christchurch,
+and Rupert led his cavalry over Magdalene Bridge, is now to me only the
+place where I was so happy with my little sisters. But I was restored to
+mirth, and even to indecorous mirth, by what happened after we had
+left the fine old place behind us. There was a young fellow of about
+five-and-twenty, mustachioed and smartly dressed, in the coach with
+me. He was not absolutely uneducated; for he was reading a novel, the
+Hungarian brothers, the whole way. We rode, as I told you, through the
+High Street. The coach stopped to dine; and this youth passed half an
+hour in the midst of that city of palaces. He looked about him with his
+mouth open, as he re-entered the coach, and all the while that we were
+driving away past the Ratcliffe Library, the Great Court of All Souls,
+Exeter, Lincoln, Trinity, Balliol, and St. John's. When we were about
+a 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 could
+not answer him for laughing; but he seemed quite unconscious of his own
+absurdity.
+
+Ever yours
+
+T. B. M.
+
+During all the period covered by this correspondence the town of Leeds
+was alive with the agitation of a turbulent, but not very dubious,
+contest. Macaulay's relations with the electors whose votes he was
+courting are too characteristic to be omitted altogether from the story
+of his life; though the style of his speeches and manifestoes is more
+likely to excite the admiring envy of modern members of Parliament,
+than to be taken as a model for their communications to their own
+constituents. This young politician, who depended on office for his
+bread, and on a seat in the House of Commons for office, adopted from
+the first an attitude of high and almost peremptory independence which
+would have sat well on a Prime Minister in his grand climacteric. The
+following letter, (some passages of which have been here omitted, and
+others slightly condensed,) is strongly marked in every line with the
+personal qualities of the writer.
+
+London: August 3, 1832.
+
+"My dear Sir,--I am truly happy to find that the opinion of my friends
+at Leeds on the subject of canvassing agrees with that which I have long
+entertained. The practice of begging for votes is, as it seems to me,
+absurd, pernicious, and altogether at variance with the true principles
+of representative government. The suffrage of an elector ought not to
+be asked, or to be given as a personal favour. It is as much for the
+interest of constituents to choose well, as it can be for the interest
+of a candidate to be chosen. To request an honest man to vote according
+to his conscience is superfluous. To request him to vote against his
+conscience is an insult. The practice of canvassing is quite reasonable
+under 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 to
+Parliament to serve the public. While we had only a mock representation,
+it was natural enough that this practice should be carried to a great
+extent. I trust it will soon perish with the abuses from which it
+sprung. I trust that the great and intelligent body of people who have
+obtained the elective franchise will see that seats in the House of
+Commons ought not to be given, like rooms in an almshouse, to urgency
+of solicitation; and that a man who surrenders his vote to caresses and
+supplications 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 an
+affront to be courted and fawned upon in his capacity of elector as in
+his capacity of juryman. He would be shocked at the thought of finding
+an unjust verdict because the plaintiff or the defendant had been very
+civil and pressing; and, if he would reflect, he would, I think, be
+equally shocked at the thought of voting for a candidate for whose
+public character he felt no esteem, merely because that candidate had
+called upon him, and begged very hard, and had shaken his hand very
+warmly. My conduct is before the electors of Leeds. My opinions shall on
+all occasions be stated to them with perfect frankness. If they approve
+that conduct, if they concur in those opinions, they ought, not for my
+sake, 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 should
+think it no honour to be returned to Parliament by persons who, thinking
+me destitute of the requisite qualifications, had yet been wrought upon
+by cajolery and importunity to poll for me in despite of their better
+judgment.
+
+"I wish to add a few words touching a question which has lately been
+much canvassed; I mean the question of pledges. In this letter, and in
+every letter which I have written to my friends at Leeds, I have plainly
+declared my opinions. But I think it, at this conjuncture, my duty to
+declare that I will give no pledges. I will not bind myself to make or
+to support any particular motion. I will state as shortly as I can some
+of the reasons which have induced me to form this determination.
+The great beauty of the representative system is, that it unites
+the advantages of popular control with the advantages arising from a
+division of labour. Just as a physician understands medicine better than
+an ordinary man, just as a shoemaker makes shoes better than an ordinary
+man, so a person whose life is passed in transacting affairs of State
+becomes a better statesman than an ordinary man. In politics, as well
+as every other department of life, the public ought to have the means of
+checking those who serve it. If a man finds that he derives no benefit
+from the prescription of his physician, he calls in another. If his
+shoes do not fit him, he changes his shoemaker. But when he has called
+in a physician of whom he hears a good report, and whose general
+practice he believes to be judicious, it would be absurd in him to tie
+down that physician to order particular pills and particular draughts.
+While he continues to be the customer of a shoemaker, it would be absurd
+in him to sit by and mete every motion of that shoemaker's hand. And in
+the same manner, it would, I think, be absurd in him to require
+positive pledges, and to exact daily and hourly obedience, from his
+representative. My opinion is, that electors ought at first to choose
+cautiously; then to confide liberally; and, when the term for which they
+have 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 confidence
+which is necessary to the proper discharge of the duties of a
+representative, I hope that I shall not abuse it. If it be their
+pleasure to fetter their members by positive promises, it is in
+their power to do so. I can only say that on such terms I cannot
+conscientiously serve them.
+
+"I hope, and feel assured, that the sincerity with which I make this
+explicit declaration, will, if it deprive me of the votes of my friends
+at 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 a
+downright challenge, produced remonstrances which, after the interval of
+a week, were answered by Macaulay in a second letter; worth reprinting
+if it were only for the sake of his fine parody upon the popular cry
+which for two years past had been the watchword of Reformers.
+
+"I was perfectly aware that the avowal of my feelings on the subject of
+pledges was not likely to advance my interest at Leeds. I was perfectly
+aware that many of my most respectable friends were likely to differ
+from me; and therefore I thought it the more necessary to make,
+uninvited, an explicit declaration of my feelings. If ever there was
+a time when public men were in an especial measure _bound to speak the
+truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth_, to the people, this
+is that time. Nothing is easier than for a candidate to avoid unpopular
+topics as long as possible, and, when they are forced on him, to take
+refuge in evasive and unmeaning phrases. Nothing is easier than for
+him to give extravagant promises while an election is depending, and to
+forget 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 the
+old system I have never been the flatterer of the great. Under the new
+system I will not be the flatterer of the people. The truth, or what
+appears to me to be such, may sometimes be distasteful to those whose
+good opinion I most value. I shall nevertheless always abide by it, and
+trust to their good sense, to their second thoughts, to the force of
+reason, and the progress of time. If, after all, their decision should
+be unfavourable to me, I shall submit to that decision with fortitude
+and good humour. It is not necessary to my happiness that I should
+sit in Parliament; but it is necessary to my happiness that I should
+possess, in Parliament or out of Parliament, the consciousness of having
+done what is right."
+
+Macaulay had his own ideas as to the limits within which constituents
+are justified in exerting their privilege of questioning a candidate;
+and, on the first occasion when those limits were exceeded, he made a
+notable 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. "Let
+that man stand up!" he cried. "Let him stand on a form, where I can see
+him!" The offender, who proved to be a Methodist preacher, was heisted
+on to a bench by his indignant neighbours; nerving himself even in that
+terrible moment by a lingering hope that he might yet be able to hold
+his own. But the unhappy man had not a chance against Macaulay,
+who harangued him as if he were the living embodiment of religious
+intolerance and illegitimate curiosity. "I have heard with the greatest
+shame and sorrow the question which has been proposed to me; and with
+peculiar pain do I learn that this question was proposed by a minister
+of religion. I do most deeply regret that any person should think
+it necessary to make a meeting like this an arena for theological
+discussion. I will not be a party to turning this assembly to such
+a purpose. My answer is short, and in one word. Gentlemen, I am a
+Christian." At this declaration the delighted audience began to cheer;
+but Macaulay would have none of their applause. "This is no subject," he
+said, "for acclamation. I will say no more. No man shall speak of me as
+the person who, when this disgraceful inquisition was entered upon in an
+assembly of Englishmen, brought forward the most sacred subjects to be
+canvassed here, and be turned into a matter for hissing or for cheering.
+If on any future occasion it should happen that Mr. Carlile should
+favour any large meeting with his infidel attacks upon the Gospel, he
+shall 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 to
+ask this question has the feelings worthy of a teacher of religion, he
+will not, I think, rejoice that he has called me forth."
+
+This ill-fated question had been prompted by a report, diligently spread
+through the town, that the Whig candidates were Unitarians; a report
+which, even if correct, would probably have done little to damage
+their electioneering prospects. There are few general remarks which
+so uniformly hold good as the observation that men are not willing to
+attend 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 composed
+of Low churchmen and Broad churchmen; while Presbyterians and
+Wesleyans have no objection to a sound discourse from a divine of the
+Establishment; it is seldom the case that any but Unitarians are seen
+inside a Unitarian chapel. On the other hand, at the general election
+of 1874, when not a solitary Roman Catholic was returned throughout
+the length and breadth of the island of Great Britain, the
+Unitarians retained their long acknowledged pre-eminence as the most
+over-represented sect in the kingdom.
+
+While Macaulay was stern in his refusal to gratify his electors with
+the customary blandishments, he gave them plenty of excellent political
+instruction; which he conveyed to them in rhetoric, not premeditated
+with 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 the
+moment was pouring itself from his lips in a stream of faultless, but
+unstudied, sentences. A course of mobs, which turned Cobden into an
+orator, made of Macaulay a Parliamentary debater; and the ear and eye
+of the House of Commons soon detected, in his replies from the Treasury
+bench, welcome signs of the invaluable training that can be got nowhere
+except on the hustings and the platform. There is no better sample of
+Macaulay's extempore speaking than the first words which he addressed
+to his committee at Leeds after the Reform Bill had received the Royal
+assent. "I find it difficult to express my gratification at seeing such
+an 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 of
+them, which, for importance, we can venture to compare with the Reform
+Bill, we shall find something to disgrace and tarnish the achievement.
+It was by the assistance of French arms and of Roman bulls that King
+John was harassed into giving the Great Charter. In the times of Charles
+I., how much injustice, how much crime, how much bloodshed and misery,
+did it cost to assert the liberties of England! But in this event, great
+and important as it is in substance, I confess I think it still more
+important from the manner in which it has been achieved. Other countries
+have obtained deliverances equally signal and complete, but in no
+country has that deliverance been obtained with such perfect peace; so
+entirely within the bounds of the Constitution; with all the forms of
+law observed; the government of the country proceeding in its regular
+course; every man going forth unto his labour until the evening. France
+boasts of her three days of July, when her people rose, when barricades
+fenced the streets, and the entire population of the capital in grins
+successfully vindicated their liberties. They boast, and justly, of
+those 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 an
+impassable barrier between ourselves and military tyranny; but we fenced
+ourselves only with moral barricades. Not one crime committed, not one
+acre confiscated, not one life lost, not one instance of outrage or
+attack on the authorities or the laws. Our victory has not left a single
+family in mourning. Not a tear, not a drop of blood, has sullied the
+pacific and blameless triumph of a great people."
+
+The Tories of Leeds, as a last resource, fell to denouncing Macaulay as
+a placeman; a stroke of superlative audacity in a party which, during
+eight-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 a
+placeman. Gentlemen, is it your wish that those persons who are thought
+worthy of the public confidence should never possess the confidence of
+the King? Is it your wish that no men should be Ministers but those whom
+no populous places will take as their representatives? By whom, I ask,
+has the Reform Bill been carried? By Ministers. Who have raised Leeds
+into the situation to return members to Parliament? It is by the
+strenuous efforts of a patriotic Ministry that that great result has
+been produced. I should think that the Reform Bill had done little for
+the people, if under it the service of the people was not consistent
+with the service of the Crown."
+
+Just before the general election Hyde Villiers died, and the
+Secretaryship to the Board of Control became vacant. Macaulay
+succeeded his old college friend in an office that gave him weighty
+responsibility, defined duties, and, as it chanced, exceptional
+opportunities for distinction. About the same time, an event occurred
+which touched him more nearly than could any possible turn of fortune
+in the world of politics. His sisters Hannah and Margaret had for some
+months been almost domesticated among a pleasant nest of villas which
+lie in the southern suburb of Liverpool, on Dingle Bank; a spot whose
+natural beauty nothing can spoil, until in the fulness of time its
+inevitable destiny shall convert it into docks. The young ladies were
+the guests of Mr. John Cropper, who belonged to the Society of Friends,
+a circumstance which readers who have got thus far into the Macaulay
+correspondence will doubtless have discovered for themselves. Before the
+visit was over, Margaret became engaged to the brother of her host, Mr.
+Edward Cropper, a man in every respect worthy of the personal esteem and
+the 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 disposition
+with which the world, knowing him only through his political actions
+and his published works, may perhaps be slow to credit him; but which,
+taking his life as a whole, were predominant in their power to affect
+his happiness and give matter for his thoughts. Those who are least
+partial to him will allow that his was essentially a virile intellect.
+He wrote, he thought, he spoke, he acted, like a man. The public
+regarded him as an impersonation of vigour, vivacity, and self-reliance;
+but his own family, together with one, and probably only one, of
+his friends, knew that his affections were only too tender, and his
+sensibilities only too acute. Others may well be loth to parade what he
+concealed; but a portrait of Macaulay, from which these features were
+omitted, would be imperfect to the extent of misrepresentation; and it
+must be acknowledged that, where he loved, he loved more entirely, and
+more exclusively, than was well for himself. It was improvident in him
+to concentrate such intensity of feeling upon relations who, however
+deeply they were attached to him, could not always be in a position to
+requite 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 kind
+to permit that others should suffer with him; and it is not for one who
+obtained by inheritance a share of his inestimable affection to regret a
+weakness to which he considers himself by duty bound to refer.
+
+How keenly Macaulay felt the separation from his sister it is impossible
+to do more than indicate. He never again recovered that tone of thorough
+boyishness, which had been produced by a long unbroken habit of gay
+and affectionate intimacy with those younger than himself; indulged in
+without a suspicion on the part of any concerned that it was in its very
+nature transitory and precarious. For the first time he was led to doubt
+whether his scheme of life was indeed a wise one; or, rather, he began
+to be aware that he had never laid out any scheme of life at all. But
+with that unselfishness which was the key to his character and to much
+of his career, (resembling in its quality what we sometimes admire in
+a woman, rather than what we ever detect in a man,) he took successful
+pains to conceal his distress from those over whose happiness it
+otherwise could not have failed to cast a shadow.
+
+"The attachment between brothers and sisters," he writes in November
+1832, "blameless, amiable, and delightful as it is, is so liable to be
+superseded by other attachments that no wise man ought to suffer it to
+become indispensable to him. That women shall leave the home of their
+birth, and contract ties dearer than those of consanguinity, is a law
+as ancient as the first records of the history of our race, and as
+unchangeable as the constitution of the human body and mind. To repine
+against the nature of things, and against the great fundamental law of
+all society, because, in consequence of my own want of foresight, it
+happens to bear heavily on me, would be the basest and most absurd
+selfishness.
+
+"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, with
+a heart formed, if ever any man's heart was formed, for domestic
+happiness, I shall have nothing left in this world but ambition.
+There is no wound, however, which time and necessity will not render
+endurable; and, after all, what am I more than my fathers,--than the
+millions and tens of millions who have been weak enough to pay double
+price for some favourite number in the lottery of life, and who have
+suffered 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 will
+not poll at all. Even if we were not to bring up another man, the
+probability is that we should win. On Sunday morning early I hope to be
+in 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 am
+sitting in the midst of two hundred friends, all mad with exultation and
+party spirit, all glorying over the Tories, and thinking me the happiest
+man in the world. And it is all that I can do to hide my tears, and
+to command my voice, when it is necessary for me to reply to their
+congratulations. 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 these
+successes, I should wish that I were lying by poor Hyde Villiers. But
+I cannot go on. I am wanted to waste an address to the electors; and I
+shall lay it on Sadler pretty heavily. By what strange fascination is it
+that ambition and resentment exercise such power over minds which ought
+to be superior to them? I despise myself for feeling so bitterly towards
+this fellow as I do. But the separation from dear Margaret has jarred
+my whole temper. I am cried up here to the skies as the most affable and
+kind-hearted of then, while I feel a fierceness and restlessness within
+me, 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 am
+gratified 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 not
+quite 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 was
+there such a take-in. I had been given to understand that his Lordship's
+cuisine was superintended by the first French artists, and that I
+should find there all the luxuries of the Almanach des Gourmands. What
+a mistake! His lordship is luxurious, indeed, but in quite a different
+way. He is a true Englishman. Not a dish on his table but what Sir Roger
+de Coverley, or Sir Hugh Tyrold, [The uncle of Miss Burney's Camilla.]
+might have set before his guests. A huge haunch of venison on the
+sideboard; a magnificent piece of beef at the bottom of the table;
+and before my Lord himself smoked, not a dindon aux truffes, but a fat
+roasted goose stuffed with sage and onions. I was disappointed, but
+very agreeably; for my tastes are, I fear, incurably vulgar, as you may
+perceive by my fondness for Mrs. Meeke's novels.
+
+Our party consisted of Sharp; Lubbock; Watson, M.P. for Canterbury; and
+Rich, 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 brother
+chose 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 his
+Christmas with his old mother in Westmoreland. We had some good talk,
+particularly about Junius's Letters. I learned some new facts which I
+will tell you when we meet. I am more and more inclined to believe that
+Francis was one of the people principally concerned.
+
+Ever yours
+
+T.B. M.
+
+On the 29th of January, 1833, commenced the first Session of the
+Reformed Parliament. The main incidents of that Session, so fruitful in
+great measures of public utility, belong to general history; if indeed
+Clio herself is not fated to succumb beneath the stupendous undertaking
+of turning Hansard into a narrative imbued with human interest.
+O'Connell,--criticising the King's speech at vast length, and passing in
+turns through every mood from the most exquisite pathos to downright and
+undisguised ferocity,--at once plunged the House into a discussion on
+Ireland, which alternately blazed and smouldered through four livelong
+nights. Shed and Grattan spoke finely; Peel and Stanley admirably;
+Bulwer made the first of his successes, and Cobbett the second of
+his failures; but the longest and the loudest cheers were those which
+greeted each of the glowing periods in which Macaulay, as the champion
+of the Whig party, met the great agitator face to face with high, but
+not intemperate, defiance.["We are called base, and brutal, and bloody.
+Such are the epithets which the honourable and learned member for Dublin
+thinks it becoming to pour forth against the party to which he owes
+every political privilege that he enjoys. The time will come when
+history will do justice to the Whigs of England, and will faithfully
+relate how much they did and suffered for Ireland. I see on the
+benches near me men who might, by uttering one word against Catholic
+Emancipation.--nay, by merely abstaining from uttering a word in favour
+of Catholic Emancipation,--have been returned to this House without
+difficulty or expense, and who, rather than wrong their Irish
+fellow-subjects, were content to relinquish all the objects of their
+honourable ambition, and to retire into private life with conscience
+and fame untarnished. As to one eminent person, who seems to be regarded
+with especial malevolence by those who ought never to mention his name
+without respect and gratitude, I will only say this, that the loudest
+clamour which the honourable and learned gentleman can excite against
+Lord Grey will be trifling when compared with the clamour which Lord
+Grey withstood in order to place the honourable and learned gentleman
+where he now sits. Though a young member of the Whig party I will
+venture to speak in the name of the whole body. I tell the honourable
+and learned gentleman, that the same spirit which sustained us in a just
+contest 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 than
+that he should be less than a British subject. We never will suffer him
+to be more."] In spite of this flattering reception, he seldom addressed
+the House. A subordinate member of a Government, with plenty to do in
+his own department, finds little temptation, and less encouragement,
+to play the debater. The difference of opinion between the two Houses
+concerning the Irish Church Temporalities Bill, which constituted the
+crisis of the year, was the one circumstance that excited in Macaulay's
+mind any very lively emotions; but those emotions, being denied their
+full and free expression in the oratory of a partisan, found vent in the
+doleful prognostications of a despairing patriot which fill his letters
+throughout the months of June and July. His abstinence from the passing
+topics of Parliamentary controversy obtained for him a friendly, as well
+as an attentive, hearing from both sides of the House whenever he
+spoke on his own subjects; and did much to smooth the progress of those
+immense and salutary reforms with which the Cabinet had resolved to
+accompany the renewal of the India Company's Charter.
+
+So rapid had been the march of events under that strange imperial
+system established in the East by the enterprise and valour of three
+generations of our countrymen, that each of the periodical revisions
+of that system was, in effect, a revolution. The legislation of 1813
+destroyed the monopoly of the Indian trade. In 1833 the time had arrived
+when it was impossible any longer to maintain the monopoly of the China
+trade; and the extinction of this remaining commercial privilege could
+not fail to bring upon the Company commercial ruin. Skill, and energy,
+and caution, however happily combined, would not enable rulers who were
+governing a population larger than that governed by Augustus, and making
+every decade conquests more extensive than the conquests of Trajan, to
+compete with private merchants in an open market. England, mindful of
+the inestimable debt which she owed to the great Company, did not intend
+to requite her benefactors by imposing on them a hopeless task. Justice
+and expediency could be reconciled by one course, and one only;--that
+of buying up the assets and liabilities of the Company on terms the
+favourable character of which should represent the sincerity of the
+national gratitude. Interest was to be paid from the Indian exchequer
+at the rate of ten guineas a year on every hundred pounds of stock;
+the Company was relieved of its commercial attributes, and became a
+corporation charged with the function of ruling Hindoostan; and its
+directors, as has been well observed, remained princes, but merchant
+princes no longer.
+
+The machinery required for carrying into effect this gigantic
+metamorphosis was embodied in a bill every one of whose provisions
+breathed the broad, the fearless, and the tolerant spirit with which
+Reform had inspired our counsels. The earlier Sections placed the whole
+property of the Company in trust for the Crown, and enacted that "from
+and after the 22nd day of April 1834 the exclusive right of trading
+with the dominions of the Emperor of China, and of trading in tea, shall
+cease." Then came clauses which threw open the whole continent of
+India as a place of residence for all subjects of his Majesty; which
+pronounced the doom of Slavery; and which ordained that no native of the
+British 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 on
+Wednesday the 10th July. On that occasion Macaulay defended the bill in
+a thin House; a circumstance which may surprise those who are not aware
+that on a Wednesday, and with an Indian question on the paper, Cicero
+replying to Hortensius would hardly draw a quorum. Small as it was, the
+audience contained Lord John Russell, Peel, O'Connell, and other masters
+in the Parliamentary craft. Their unanimous judgment was summed up by
+Charles Grant, in words which every one who knows the House of Commons
+will recognise as being very different from the conventional verbiage
+of mutual senatorial flattery. "I must embrace the opportunity of
+expressing, not what I felt, (for language could not express it,) but
+of making an attempt to convey to the House my sympathy with it in its
+admiration of the speech of my honourable and learned friend; a speech
+which, I will venture to assert, has never been exceeded within these
+walls for the development of statesmanlike policy and practical good
+sense. It exhibited all that is noble in oratory; all that is sublime,
+I had almost said, in poetry; all that is truly great, exalted, and
+virtuous in human nature. If the House at large felt a deep interest in
+this magnificent display, it may judge of what were my emotions when
+I perceived in the hands of my honourable friend the great principles
+which he expounded glowing with fresh colours, and arrayed in all the
+beauty of truth."
+
+There is no praise more gratefully treasured than that which is bestowed
+by a generous chief upon a subordinate with whom he is on the best of
+terms. Macaulay to the end entertained for Lord Glenelg that sentiment
+of loyalty which a man of honour and feeling will always cherish with
+regard to the statesman under whom he began his career as a servant of
+the Crown. [The affinity between this sentiment and that of the Quaestor
+towards his first Proconsul, so well described in the Orations against
+Verres, is one among the innumerable points of resemblance between the
+public life of ancient Rome and modern England.] The Secretary repaid
+the President for his unvarying kindness and confidence by helping him
+to get the bill through committee with that absence of friction which
+is the pride and delight of official men. The vexed questions of
+Establishment and Endowment, (raised by the clauses appointing
+bishops to Madras and Bombay, and balancing them with as many salaried
+Presbyterian chaplains,) increased the length of the debates and the
+number of the divisions; but the Government carried every point by
+large majorities, and, with slight modifications in detail, and none in
+principle, the measure became law with the almost universal approbation
+both 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 what
+passed 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 of
+the Indian people, and won it by 38 to 6. It was a rascally claim of
+a dishonest agent of the Company against the employers whom he had
+cheated, and sold to their own tributaries. [In his great Indian speech
+Macaulay referred to this affair, in a passage, the first sentence of
+which has, by frequent quotation, been elevated into an apophthegm: "A
+broken head in Cold Bath Fields produces a greater sensation than three
+pitched battles in India. A few weeks ago we had to decide on a claim
+brought by an individual against the revenues of India. If it had been
+an English question the walls would scarcely have held the members who
+would have flocked to the division. It was an Indian question; and we
+could scarcely, by dint of supplication, make a House."] The nephew
+of the original claimant has been pressing his case on the Board most
+vehemently. He is an attorney living in Russell Square, and very likely
+hears the word at St. John's Chapel. He hears it however to very little
+purpose; for he lies as much as if he went to hear a "cauld clatter of
+morality" at the parish church.
+
+I remember that, when you were at Leamington two years ago, I used to
+fill my letters with accounts of the people with whom I dined. High life
+was new to me then; and now it has grown so familiar that I should
+not, I fear, be able, as I formerly was, to select the striking
+circumstances. I have dined with sundry great folks since you left
+London, and I have attended a very splendid rout at Lord Grey's. I
+stole thither, at about eleven, from the House of Commons with Stewart
+Mackenzie. I do not mean to describe the beauty of the ladies, nor
+the brilliancy of stars and uniforms. I mean only to tell you one
+circumstance which struck, and even affected me. I was talking to Lady
+Charlotte Lindsay, the daughter of Lord North, a great favourite of
+mine, about the apartments and the furniture, when she said with a good
+deal of emotion: "This is an interesting visit to me. I have never been
+in this house for fifty years. It was here that I was born; I left it a
+child when my father fell from power in 1782, and I have never crossed
+the threshold since." Then she told me how the rooms seemed dwindled to
+her; how the staircase, which appeared to her in recollection to be the
+most spacious and magnificent that she had ever seen, had disappointed
+her. She longed, she said, to go over the garrets and rummage her old
+nursery. She told me how, in the No-Popery riots of 1780, she was
+taken out of bed at two o'clock in the morning. The mob threatened Lord
+North's house. There were soldiers at the windows, and an immense and
+furious crowd in Downing Street. She saw, she said, from her nursery
+the fires in different parts of London; but she did not understand the
+danger; and only exulted in being up at midnight. Then she was conveyed
+through 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 of
+the officers. "And it was such fun," she said, "that I have ever after
+had rather a liking for insurrections."
+
+I write in the midst of a crowd. A debate on Slavery is going on in the
+Commons; a debate on Portugal in the Lords. The door is slamming behind
+me every moment, and people are constantly going out and in. Here comes
+Vernon Smith. "Well, Vernon, what are they doing?" "Gladstone has just
+made a very good speech, and Howick is answering him." "Aye, but in the
+House of Lords?" "They will beat us by twenty, they say." "Well, I do
+not think it matters much." "No; nobody out of the House of Lords cares
+either for Don Pedro, or for Don Miguel."
+
+There is a conversation between two official men in the Library of the
+House of Commons on the night of the 3rd June 1833, reported word
+for word. To the historian three centuries hence this letter will be
+invaluable. 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 my
+three? A lazy chit whose fingers tire with penning a page in reply to a
+quire! There, Miss, you read all the first sentence of my epistle, and
+never knew that you were reading verse. I have some gossip for you about
+the Edinburgh Review. Napier is in London, and has called on me several
+times. He has been with the publishers, who tell him that the sale is
+falling off; and in many private parties, where he hears sad complaints.
+The universal cry is that the long dull articles are the ruin of the
+Review. As to myself, he assures me that my articles are the only things
+which keep the work up at all. Longman and his partners correspond with
+about five hundred booksellers in different parts of the kingdom. All
+these booksellers, I find, tell them that the Review sells, or does not
+sell, according as there are, or are not, articles by Mr. Macaulay.
+So, you see, I, like Mr. Darcy,[The central male figure in "Pride and
+Prejudice."] shall not care how proud I am. At all events, I cannot but
+be pleased to learn that, if I should be forced to depend on my pen for
+subsistence, 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 the
+smoking-room, with three Repealers making chimneys of their mouths under
+my 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 implying
+censure on the Ministers.[On June 3rd, 1833, a vote of censure on the
+Portuguese policy of the Ministry was moved by the Duke of
+Wellington, and carried in the Lords by 79 votes to 69. On June 6th a
+counter-resolution was carried in the Commons by 361 votes to 98.] The
+Ministers do not seem inclined to take it of them. The King has snubbed
+their Lordships properly; and in about an hour, as I guess, (for it is
+near eleven), we shall have come to a Resolution in direct opposition
+to that agreed to by the Upper House. Nobody seems to care one straw for
+what the Peers say about any public matter. A Resolution of the Court
+of Common Council, or of a meeting at Freemasons' Hall, has often made
+a greater sensation than this declaration of a branch of the Legislature
+against the Executive Government. The institution of the Peerage is
+evidently dying a natural death.
+
+I dined yesterday--where, and on what, and at what price, I am ashamed
+to tell you. Such scandalous extravagance and gluttony I will not commit
+to writing. I blush when I think of it. You, however, are not wholly
+guiltless in this matter. My nameless offence was partly occasioned by
+Napier; and I have a very strong reason for wishing to keep Napier in
+good humour. He has promised to be at Edinburgh when I take a certain
+damsel thither; to loop out for very nice lodgings for us in Queen
+Street; to show us everything and everybody; and to see us as far as
+Dunkeld on our way northward, if we do go northward. In general I abhor
+visiting; but at Edinburgh we must see the people as well as the walls
+and 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 have
+grumbled, for ought I know, at not having more letters from you; but, as
+to being angry, you ought to know by this time what sort of anger mine
+is when you are its object.
+
+You have seen the papers, I dare say, and you will perceive that I did
+not speak yesterday night.[The night of the First Reading of the India
+Bill.] The House was thin. The debate was languid. Grant's speech had
+done our work sufficiently for one night; and both he and Lord Althorp
+advised me to reserve myself for the Second Reading.
+
+What have I to tell you? I will look at my engagement book, to see where
+I 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 of
+my quarter's salary, which is now nearly due, to be at the Dingle. I am
+sick of Lords with no brains in their heads, and Ladies with paint on
+their cheeks, and politics, and politicians, and that reeking furnace of
+a 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 to
+hear 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 I
+firmly believe that, before many days have passed, a desperate attempt
+will be made in the House of Lords to turn us out. If we stand the
+shock, we shall be firmer than ever. I am not without anxiety as to the
+result; yet I believe that Lord Grey understands the position in which
+he 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 his
+Ministers in May 1832. Macaulay proved a bad prophet; for, after an
+interval of only three years, William the Fourth repeated his blunder in
+an aggravated form.]
+
+But why plague ourselves about politics when we have so much pleasanter
+things to talk of? The Parson's Daughter; don't you like the Parson's
+Daughter? What a wretch Harbottle was! And Lady Frances, what a sad
+worldly woman! But Mrs. Harbottle, dear suffering angel! and Emma Level,
+all excellence! Dr. Mac Gopus you doubtless like; but you probably do
+not admire the Duchess and Lady Catherine. There is a regular cone over
+a novel for you! But, if you will have my opinion, I think it Theodore
+Book's worst performance; far inferior to the Surgeon's Daughter; a set
+of fools making themselves miserable by their own nonsensical fancies
+and 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 will
+throw out the Irish Church Bill, whether the King will consent to create
+new Peers, whether the Tories will venture to form a Ministry, are
+matters about which we are all in complete doubt. If the Ministry should
+really be changed, Parliament will, I feel quite sure, be dissolved.
+Whether I shall have a seat in the next Parliament I neither know nor
+care. I shall regret nothing for myself but our Scotch tour. For the
+public I shall, if this Parliament is dissolved, entertain scarcely any
+hopes. I see nothing before us but a frantic conflict between extreme
+opinions; a short period of oppression; then a convulsive reaction; and
+then a tremendous crash of the Funds, the Church, the Peerage, and the
+Throne. It is enough to make the most strenuous royalist lean a little
+to republicanism to think that the whole question between safety and
+general destruction may probably, at this most fearful conjuncture,
+depend on a single man whom the accident of his birth has placed in a
+situation to which certainly his own virtues or abilities would never
+have raised him.
+
+The question must come to a decision, I think, within the fortnight. In
+the meantime the funds are going down, the newspapers are storming, and
+the faces of men on both sides are growing day by day more gloomy and
+anxious. Even during the most violent part of the contest for the Reform
+Bill I do not remember to have seen so much agitation in the political
+circles. I have some odd anecdotes for you, which I will tell you when
+we meet. If the Parliament should be dissolved, the West Indian and East
+Indian Bills are of course dropped. What is to become of the slaves?
+What is to become of the tea-trade? Will the negroes, after receiving
+the Resolutions of the House of Commons promising them liberty, submit
+to the cart-whip? Will our merchants consent to have the trade with
+China, which has just been offered to them, snatched away? The Bank
+Charter, too, is suspended. But that is comparatively a trifle. After
+all, what is it to me who is in or out, or whether those fools of Lords
+are resolved to perish, and drag the King to perish with them in
+the ruin which they have themselves made? I begin to wonder what the
+fascination is which attracts men, who could sit over their tea and
+their books in their own cool quiet room, to breathe bad air, hear bad
+speeches, lounge up and down the long gallery, and doze uneasily on the
+green benches till three in the morning. Thank God, these luxuries
+are not necessary to me. My pen is sufficient for my support, and my
+sister's company is sufficient for my happiness. Only let me see
+her well and cheerful, and let offices in Government, and seats in
+Parliament, go to those who care for them. If I were to leave public
+life to-morrow, I declare that, except for the vexation which it might
+give you and one or two others, the event would not be in the slightest
+degree painful to me. As you boast of having a greater insight into
+character than I allow to you, let me know how you explain this
+philosophical disposition of mine, and how you reconcile it with my
+ambitious inclinations. That is a problem for a young lady who professes
+knowledge of human nature.
+
+Did I tell you that I dined at the Duchess of Kent's, and sate next that
+loveliest of women, Mrs. Littleton? Her husband, our new Secretary for
+Ireland, told me this evening that Lord Wellesley, who sate near us
+at the Duchess's, asked Mrs. Littleton afterwards who it was that was
+talking to her. "Mr. Macaulay." "Oh! "said the Marquess," I am
+very sorry I did not know it. I have a most particular desire to be
+acquainted with that man." Accordingly Littleton has engaged me to dine
+with him, in order to introduce me to the Marquess. I am particularly
+curious, and always was, to know him. He has made a great and splendid
+figure in history, and his weaknesses, though they make his character
+less worthy of respect, make it more interesting as a study. Such a
+blooming old swain I never saw; hair combed with exquisite nicety, a
+waistcoat 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. The
+two Houses had a conference on the subject in an old Gothic room called
+the Painted Chamber. The painting consists in a mildewed daub of a woman
+in the niche of one of the windows. The Lords sate in little cocked hats
+along a table; and we stood uncovered on the other side, and delivered
+in our Resolutions. I thought that before long it may be our turn to
+sit, 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 Fanny
+this morning that Margaret pronounces you to be as well as she could
+wish you to be. Only continue so, and all the changes of public life
+will be as indifferent to me as to Horatio. If I am only spared the
+misery 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 and
+to the Peers. I think that their Lordships are rather cowed. Indeed, if
+they venture on the course on which they lately seemed bent, I would not
+give sixpence for a coronet or a penny for a mitre.
+
+I shall not read the Repealers; and I think it very impudent in you to
+make 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 read
+only one novel within the last week, and a most precious one it was: the
+Invisible Gentleman. Have you ever read it? But I need not ask. No
+doubt it has formed part of your Sunday studies. A wretched, trumpery,
+imitation of Godwin's worst manner. What a number of stories I shall
+have 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 that
+time.
+
+ 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 a
+certain dignity and meaning from the events of the ensuing weeks.
+The unparalleled labours of the Anti-Slavery leaders were at length
+approaching a successful issue, and Lord Grey's Cabinet had declared
+itself responsible for the emancipation of the West Indian negroes. But
+it was already beginning to be known that the Ministerial scheme, in
+its original shape, was not such as would satisfy even the more moderate
+Abolitionists. Its most objectionable feature was shadowed forth in the
+third of the Resolutions with which Mr. Stanley, who had the question
+in charge, prefaced the introduction of his bill: "That all persons, now
+slaves, be entitled to be registered as apprenticed labourers, and to
+acquire thereby all the rights and privileges of freemen, subject to
+the restriction of labouring, for a time to be fixed by Parliament,
+for their present owners." It was understood that twelve years would
+be proposed as the period of apprenticeship; although no trace of this
+intention could be detected in the wording of the Resolution. Macaulay,
+who thought twelve years far too long, felt himself justified in
+supporting the Government during the preliminary stages; but he took
+occasion to make some remarks indicating that circumstances might occur
+which 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 to
+the test; and a severe test it was. A rising statesman, whose prospects
+would be irremediably injured by abruptly quitting a Government that
+seemed likely to be in power for the next quarter of a century; a
+zealous Whig, who shrank from the very appearance of disaffection to his
+party; a man of sense, with no ambition to be called Quixotic; a member
+for a large constituency, possessed of only seven hundred pounds in the
+world when his purse was at its fullest; above all, an affectionate son
+and brother, now, more than ever, the main hope and reliance of those
+whom he held most dear;--it may well be believed that he was not in a
+hurry to act the martyr. His father's affairs were worse than bad. The
+African firm, without having been reduced to declare itself bankrupt,
+had ceased to exist as a house of business; or existed only so far that
+for some years to come every penny that Macaulay earned, beyond what the
+necessities of life demanded, was scrupulously devoted to paying, and
+at length to paying off, his father's creditors; a dutiful enterprise
+in which he was assisted by his brother Henry, [Henry married in 1841
+a daughter of his brother's old political ally, Lord Denman. He died at
+Boa Vista, in 1846, leaving two sons, Henry, and Joseph, Macaulay.] a
+young man of high spirit and excellent abilities, who had recently been
+appointed one of the Commissioners of Arbitration in the Prize Courts at
+Sierra Leone.
+
+The pressure of pecuniary trouble was now beginning to make itself felt
+even by the younger members of the family. About this time, or perhaps a
+little earlier, Hannah Macaulay writes thus to one of her cousins:
+"You say nothing about coming to us. You must come in good health and
+spirits. Our trials ought not greatly to depress us; for, after all, all
+we want is money, the easiest want to bear; and, when we have so many
+mercies--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--let
+us not be so ungrateful as to repine because we are without what in
+itself cannot make our happiness."
+
+Macaulay's colleagues, who, without knowing his whole story, knew enough
+to be aware that he could ill afford to give up office, were earnest
+in their remonstrances; but he answered shortly, and almost roughly:
+"I cannot go counter to my father. He has devoted his whole life to the
+question, and I cannot grieve him by giving way when he wishes me to
+stand firm." During the crisis of the West India Bill, Zachary Macaulay
+and his son were in constant correspondence. There is something touching
+in the picture which these letters present of the older man, (whose
+years were coming to a close in poverty which was the consequence of his
+having always lived too much for others,) discussing quietly and gravely
+how, and when, the younger was to take a step that in the opinion
+of them both would be fatal to his career; and this with so little
+consciousness that there was anything heroic in the course which they
+were pursuing, that it appears never to have occurred to either of their
+that any other line of conduct could possibly be adopted.
+
+Having made up his mind as to what he should do, Macaulay set about it
+with as good a grace as is compatible with the most trying position in
+which a man, and especially a young man, can find himself. Carefully
+avoiding the attitude of one who bargains or threatens, he had given
+timely notice in the proper quarter of his intentions and his views. At
+length the conjuncture arrived when decisive action could no longer
+be postponed. On the 24th of July Mr. Thomas Fowell Buxton moved an
+amendment in Committee, limiting the apprenticeship to the shortest
+period necessary for establishing the system of free labour. Macaulay,
+whose resignation was already in Lord Althorp's hands, made a speech
+which produced all the more effect as being inornate, and, at times,
+almost awkward. Even if deeper feelings had not restrained the range of
+his fancy and the flow of his rhetoric, his judgment would have told
+him that it was not the moment for an oratorical display. He began
+by entreating the House to extend to him that indulgence which it had
+accorded on occasions when he had addressed it "with more confidence
+and with less harassed feelings." He then, at some length, exposed the
+effects of the Government proposal. "In free countries the master has
+a choice of labourers, and the labourer has a choice of masters; but
+in slavery it is always necessary to give despotic power to the master.
+This bill leaves it to the magistrate to keep peace between master and
+slave. Every time that the slave takes twenty minutes to do that which
+the master thinks he should do in fifteen, recourse must be had to
+the magistrate. Society would day and night be in a constant state
+of litigation, and all differences and difficulties must be solved by
+judicial interference."
+
+He did not share in Mr. Buxton's apprehension of gross cruelty as a
+result of the apprenticeship. "The magistrate would be accountable to
+the Colonial Office, and the Colonial Office to the House of Commons, in
+which every lash which was inflicted under magisterial authority would
+be told and counted. My apprehension is that the result of continuing
+for twelve years this dead slavery,--this state of society destitute of
+any vital principle,--will be that the whole negro population will sink
+into weak and drawling inefficacy, and will be much less fit for liberty
+at the end of the period than at the commencement. My hope is that the
+system will die a natural death; that the experience of a few months
+will so establish its utter inefficiency as to induce the planters to
+abandon 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 Third
+Reading; but, while the bill is in Committee, I shall join with other
+honourable 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 excellent
+division, which under the circumstances was equivalent to a victory. The
+next day Mr. Stanley rose; adverted shortly to the position in which the
+Ministers stood; and announced that the term of apprenticeship would be
+reduced from twelve years to seven. Mr. Buxton, who, with equal energy
+and wisdom, had throughout the proceedings acted as leader of the
+Anti-slavery party in the House of Commons, advised his friends to make
+the best of the concession; and his counsel was followed by all those
+Abolitionists who were thinking more of their cause than of themselves.
+It is worthy of remark that Macaulay's prophecy came true, though not
+at so early a date as he ventured to anticipate. Four years of the
+provisional system brought all parties to acquiesce in the premature
+termination of a state of things which denied to the negro the blessings
+of freedom, and to the planter the profits of slavery.
+
+"The papers," Macaulay writes to his father, "will have told you all
+that has happened, as far as it is known to the public. The secret
+history you will have heard from Buxton. As to myself, Lord Althorp
+told me yesterday night that the Cabinet had determined not to accept
+my resignation. I have therefore the singular good luck of having saved
+both my honour and my place, and of having given no just ground of
+offence either to the Abolitionists or to my party-friends. I have more
+reason than ever to say that honesty is the best policy."
+
+This letter is dated the 27th of July. On that day week, Wilberforce
+was carried to his grave in Westminster Abbey. "We laid him," writes
+Macaulay, "side by side with Canning, at the feet of Pitt, and within
+two steps of Fox and Grattan." He died with the promised land full in
+view. Before the end of August Parliament abolished slavery, and the
+last touch was put to the work that had consumed so many pure and noble
+lives. In a letter of congratulation to Zachary Macaulay, Mr. Buxton
+says: "Surely you have reason to rejoice. My sober and deliberate
+opinion is that you have done more towards this consummation than any
+other man. For myself, I take pleasure in acknowledging that you have
+been my tutor all the way through, and that I could have done nothing
+without you." Such was the spirit of these men, who, while the struggle
+lasted, were prodigal of health and ease; but who, in the day of
+triumph, disclaimed, each for himself, even that part of the merit
+which their religion allowed them to ascribe to human effort and
+self-sacrifice.
+
+London: July 11, 1833.
+
+Dear Hannah,--I have been so completely overwhelmed with business for
+some days that I have not been able to find time for writing a
+line. Yesterday night we read the India Bill a second time. It was a
+Wednesday, and the reporters gave hardly any account of what passed.
+They always resent being forced to attend on that day, which is their
+holiday. I made the best speech, by general agreement, and in my own
+opinion, that I ever made in my life. I was an hour and three-quarters
+up; and such compliments as I had from Lord Althorp, Lord Palmerston,
+Lord John Russell, Wynne, O'Connell, Grant, the Speaker, and twenty
+other people, you never heard. As there is no report of the speech,
+I have been persuaded, rather against my will, to correct it for
+publication. I will tell you one compliment that was paid me, and which
+delighted me more than any other. An old member said to me: "Sir, having
+heard that speech may console the young people for never having heard
+Mr. Burke." [A Tory member said that Macaulay resembled both the Burkes:
+that he was like the first from his eloquence, and like the second from
+his stopping other people's mouths.]
+
+The Slavery Bill is miserably bad. I am fully resolved not to be dragged
+through the mire, but to oppose, by speaking and voting, the clauses
+which I think objectionable. I have told Lord Althorp this, and have
+again tendered my resignation. He hinted that he thought that the
+Government would leave me at liberty to take my own line, but that he
+must consult his colleagues. I told him that I asked for no favour; that
+I knew what inconvenience would result if official men were allowed to
+dissent from Ministerial measures, and yet to keep their places; and
+that I should not think myself in the smallest degree ill-used if the
+Cabinet accepted my resignation. This is the present posture of affairs.
+In the meantime the two Houses are at daggers drawn. Whether the
+Government 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 few
+quiet days, a cool country breeze, and a little chatting with my dear
+sister.
+
+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, sate
+till three, and are just set at liberty for two hours. At five we
+recommence, and shall be at work till midnight. In the interval between
+three and five I have to despatch the current business of the office,
+which, at present, is fortunately not heavy; to eat my dinner, which I
+shall do at Grant's; and to write a short scrawl to my little sister.
+
+My work, though laborious, has been highly satisfactory. No Bill, I
+believe, of such importance,--certainly no important Bill in my time,
+has been received with such general approbation. The very cause of the
+negligence of the reporters, and of the thinness of the House, is that
+we have framed our measure so carefully as to give little occasion for
+debate. Littleton, Denison, and many other members, assure me that they
+never 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 been
+discussed, I trust, for the last time in the House of Commons; and, in
+all probability, I shall within forty-eight hours after that time be out
+of office. I am fully determined not to give way about the West India
+Bill; and I can hardly expect,--I am sure I do not wish,--that the
+Ministers 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 to
+an end of this interminable Session than to stay either in office or
+in Parliament. The Tories are quite welcome to take everything, if
+they will only leave me my pen and my books, a warm fireside, and you
+chattering beside it. This sort of philosophy, an odd kind of cross
+between Stoicism and Epicureanism, I have learned, where most people
+unlearn all their philosophy, in crowded senates and fine drawing-rooms.
+
+But time flies, and Grant's dinner will be waiting. He keeps open house
+for 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 they
+have passed the Irish Church Bill through its first stage, will very
+probably mutilate it in Committee. It will then be for the Ministers to
+decide whether they can with honour keep their places. I believe that
+they will resign if any material alteration should be made; and then
+everything is confusion.
+
+These circumstances render it very difficult for me to shape my course
+right with respect to the West India Bill, the Second Reading of which
+stands for this evening. I am fully resolved to oppose several of the
+clauses. But to declare my intention publicly, at a moment when the
+Government is in danger, would have the appearance of ratting. I must be
+guided by circumstances; but my present intention is to say nothing on
+the Second Reading. By the time that we get into Committee the political
+crisis, will, I hope, be over; the fate of the Church Bill will be
+decided one way or the other; and I shall be able to take my own
+course on the Slavery question without exposing myself to the charge of
+deserting 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 India
+debate on Monday night went off very quietly in little more than an
+hour. To-night we expect the great struggle, and I fear that, much
+against my inclination, I must bear a part in it. My resignation is in
+Lord Althorp's hands. He assures me that he will do his utmost to obtain
+for me liberty to act as I like on this question; but Lord Grey and
+Stanley are to be consulted, and I think it very improbable that they
+will consent to allow me so extraordinary a privilege. I know that, if I
+were Minister, I would not allow such latitude to any man in office; and
+so I told Lord Althorp. He answered in the kindest and most flattering
+manner; told me that in office I had surpassed their expectations, and
+that, much as they wished to bring me in last year, they wished much
+more to keep me in now. I told him in reply that the matter was one for
+the Ministers to settle, purely with a view to their own interest; that
+I asked for no indulgence; that I could make no terms; and that, what I
+would 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 few
+hours.
+
+This detestable Session goes on lengthening, and lengthening, like a
+human hair in one's mouth. (Do you know that delicious sensation?) Last
+month we expected to have been up before the middle of August. Now we
+should be glad to be quite certain of being in the country by the first
+of September. One comfort I shall have in being turned out: I will not
+stay 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 with
+the publishers, the editor, and the reading public generally, that the
+number would have been much the better for an article of thirty or forty
+pages 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 an
+instruction to the Committee on the Slavery Bill, which the Government
+opposed, and which I supported. It was extremely painful to me to speak
+against all my political friends; so painful that at times I could
+hardly go on. I treated them as mildly as I could; and they all tell me
+that I performed my difficult task not ungracefully. We divided at two
+this morning, and were 151 to 158. The Ministers found that, if they
+persisted, they would infallibly be beaten. Accordingly they came down
+to the House at twelve this day, and agreed to reduce the apprenticeship
+to seven years for the agricultural labourers, and to five years for
+the skilled labourers. What other people may do I cannot tell; but I am
+inclined to be satisfied with this concession; particularly as I believe
+that, if we press the thing further, they will resign, and we shall have
+no Bill at all, but instead of it a Tory Ministry and a dissolution.
+Some people flatter me with the assurance that our large minority, and
+the 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 Irish
+Church Bill passes the Lords, I may consider myself as safe till the
+next Session; when Heaven knows what may happen. It is still quite
+uncertain when we may rise. I pine for rest, air, and a taste of family
+life, more than I can express. I see nothing but politicians, and talk
+about 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 have
+something 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 most
+stormy weeks that the oldest man remembers in Parliamentary affairs.
+I have resigned my office, and my resignation has been refused. I have
+spoken and voted against the Ministry under which I hold my place. The
+Ministry has been so hard run in the Commons as to be forced to modify
+its plan; and has received a defeat in the Lords, [On the 25th of July
+the Archbishop of Canterbury carried an amendment on the Irish Church
+Bill, against the Government, by 84 votes to 82.]--a slight one to be
+sure, and on a slight matter,--yet such that I, and many others, fully
+believed 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 as
+strong as ever. I am as good friends with the Ministers as ever. The
+East India Bill is carried through our House. The West India Bill is so
+far modified that, I believe, it will be carried. The Irish Church Bill
+has got through the Committee in the Lords; and we are all beginning to
+look forward to a Prorogation in about three weeks.
+
+To-day I went to Hayden's to be painted into his great picture of the
+Reform Banquet. Ellis was with me, and declares that Hayden has touched
+me off to a nicety. I am sick of pictures of my own face. I have seen
+within the last few days one drawing of it, one engraving, and three
+paintings. They all make me a very handsome fellow. Hayden pronounces my
+profile a gem of art, perfectly antique; and, what is worth the praise
+of ten Haydens, I was told yesterday that Mrs. Littleton, the handsomest
+woman in London, had paid me exactly the same compliment. She pronounced
+Mr. Macaulay's profile to be a study for an artist. I have bought a new
+looking-glass and razor-case on the strength of these compliments, and
+am meditating on the expediency of having my hair cut in the Burlington
+Arcade, 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."] to
+rate all my acquaintance according to their beauty. But what nonsense I
+write, 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 a
+very pleasant party. My Lady was courteous, and my Lord extravagantly
+entertaining, 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 is
+a 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 had
+her Grace of--; and her daughter Lady--, a fine, buxom, sonsy lass, with
+more colour than, I am sorry to say, is often seen among fine ladies. So
+our dinner and our soiree were very agreeable.
+
+We narrowly escaped a scene at one time. Lord is in the navy, and is
+now on duty in the fleet at the Tagus. We got into a conversation about
+Portuguese politics. His name was mentioned, and Graham, who is First
+Lord of the Admiralty, complimented the Duchess on her son's merit, to
+which, he said, every despatch bore witness. The Duchess forthwith began
+to entreat that he might be recalled. He was very ill, she said. If he
+stayed longer on that station she was sure that he would die; and then
+she began to cry. I cannot bear to see women cry, and the matter
+became serious, for her pretty daughter began to bear her company. That
+hardhearted Lord ---- seemed to be diverted by the scene. He, by all
+accounts, has been doing little else than making women cry during the
+last five-and-twenty years. However, we all were as still as death while
+the wiping of eyes and the blowing of noses proceeded. At last Lord
+Holland contrived to restore our spirits; but, before the Duchess went
+away, she managed to have a tete-a-tete with Graham, and, I have no
+doubt, begged and blubbered to some purpose. I could not help thinking
+how many honest stout-hearted fellows are left to die on the most
+unhealthy stations for want of being related to some Duchess who has
+been handsome, or to some Duchess's daughter who still is so.
+
+The Duchess said one thing that amused us. We were talking about Lady
+Morgan. "When she first came to London," said Lord Holland, "I remember
+that she carried a little Irish harp about with her wherever she
+went." Others denied this. I mentioned what she says in her Book of the
+Boudoir. There she relates how she went one evening to Lady--'s with her
+little Irish harp, and how strange everybody thought it. "I see nothing
+very strange," said her Grace, "in her taking her harp to Lady--'s. If
+she 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. I
+expect, and indeed wish, to be abused by the Agency Society. My father
+is 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 beautiful
+episodes, and am succeeding pretty well. You shall have what I have
+done when I come to Liverpool, which will be, I hope, in three weeks or
+thereanent.
+
+Ever yours
+
+T. B. M.
+
+To Hannah M. Macaulay.
+
+London: July 31, 1833.
+
+My dear Sister,--Political affairs look cheeringly. The Lords passed the
+Irish Church Bill yesterday, and mean, we understand, to give us little
+or no trouble about the India Bill. There is still a hitch in the
+Commons about the West India Bill, particularly about the twenty
+millions for compensation to the planters; but we expect to carry our
+point by a great majority. By the end of next week we shall be very near
+the termination of our labours. Heavy labours they have been.
+
+So Wilberforce is gone! We talk of burying him in Westminster Abbey; and
+many eminent men, both Whigs and Tories, are desirous to join in paying
+him this honour. There is, however, a story about a promise given to old
+Stephen that they should both lie in the same grave. Wilberforce kept
+his faculties, and, except when he was actually in fits, his spirits, to
+the 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 to
+live longer. Strange in a man who had, I should have said, so little to
+attach him to this world, and so firm a belief in another; in a man with
+an impaired fortune, a weak spine, and a worn-out stomach! What is
+this fascination which makes us cling to existence in spite of present
+sufferings and of religious hopes? Yesterday evening I called at the
+house in Cadogan Place, where the body is lying. I was truly fond of
+him; that is, "je l'aimais comme l'on aime." And how is that? How very
+little one human being generally cares for another! How very little the
+world misses anybody! How soon the chasm left by the best and wisest
+men closes! I thought, as I walked back from Cadogan Place, that our
+own selfishness when others are taken away ought to teach us how little
+others will suffer at losing us. I thought that, if I were to die
+to-morrow, not one of the fine people, whom I dine with every week, will
+take a cotelette aux petits pois the less on Saturday at the table to
+which I was invited to meet them, or will smile less gaily at the ladies
+over the champagne. And I am quite even with them. What are those pretty
+lines 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 my
+dinner; but there are one or two whose deaths would break my heart. The
+more I see of the world, and the more numerous my acquaintance becomes,
+the narrower and more exclusive my affection grows, and the more I cling
+to my sisters, and to one or two old tried friends of my quiet days. But
+why should I go on preaching to you out of Ecclesiastes? And here comes,
+fortunately, to break the train of my melancholy reflections, the proof
+of my East India Speech from Hansard; so I must put my letter aside, and
+correct 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 clever
+passages, and the style is not bad. Their celebrity must be attributed
+to causes quite distinct from their literary merit, and particularly to
+the position which the author held in society. We see in our own time
+that the books written by public men of note are generally rated at
+more than their real value: Lord Granville's little compositions, for
+example; Canning's verses; Fox's history; Brougham's treatises. The
+writings of people of high fashion, also, have a value set on them far
+higher than that which intrinsically belongs to them. The verses of the
+late Duchess of Devonshire, or an occasional prologue by Lord Alvanley,
+attract a most undue share of attention. If the present Duke of
+Devonshire, 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 a
+masterpiece 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; at
+the head of the House of Lords, and at the head of laze; Mr. Canning
+and the Duke of Devonshire in one. In our time the division of labour
+is carried so far that such a man could not exist. Politics require the
+whole of energy, bodily and mental, during half the year; and leave
+very little time for the bow window at White's in the day, or for the
+crush-room of the Opera at night. A century ago the case was different.
+Chesterfield was at once the most distinguished orator in the Upper
+House, and the undisputed sovereign of wit and fashion. He held this
+eminence for about forty years. At last it became the regular custom
+of the higher circles to laugh whenever he opened his mouth, without
+waiting for his bon mot. He used to sit at White's with a circle of
+young men of rank round him, applauding every syllable that he uttered.
+If you wish for a proof of the kind of position which Chesterfield
+held among his contemporaries, look at the prospectus of Johnson's
+Dictionary. Look even at Johnson's angry letter. It contains the
+strongest admission of the boundless influence which Chesterfield
+exercised 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 to
+repose; and I should think that by this day fortnight we shall probably
+be 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 knows
+nothing 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 of
+Parliament.
+
+To-morrow Wilberforce is to be buried. His sons acceded, with great
+eagerness, to the application made to them by a considerable number of
+the members of both Houses that the funeral should be public. We meet
+to-morrow at twelve at the House of Commons, and we shall attend the
+coffin into the Abbey. The Duke of Wellington, Lord Eldon, and Sir
+R. Peel have put down their names, as well as the Ministers and the
+Abolitionists.
+
+My father urges me to pay some tribute to Wilberforce in the House of
+Commons. If any debate should take place on the third reading of the
+West India Bill in which I might take part, I should certainly embrace
+the opportunity of doing honour to his memory. But I do not expect that
+such an occasion will arise. The House seems inclined to pass the Bill
+without more contest; and my father must be aware that anything like
+theatrical display,--anything like a set funeral oration not springing
+naturally out of the discussion of a question,--is extremely distasteful
+to the House of Commons.
+
+I have been clearing off a great mass of business, which had accumulated
+at our office while we were conducting our Bill through Parliament.
+Today I had the satisfaction of seeing the green boxes, which a week
+ago were piled up with papers three or four feet high, perfectly empty.
+Admire my superhuman industry. This I will say for myself, that, when
+I do sit down to work, I work harder and faster than any person that I
+ever knew.
+
+Ever yours
+
+T. B. M.
+
+The next letter, in terms too clear to require comment, introduces
+the mention of what proved to be the most important circumstance in
+Macaulay'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 you
+and Margaret will be one of the most agitating interest; and which, on
+that account chiefly, is so to me.
+
+By the new India bill it is provided that one of the members of the
+Supreme Council, which is to govern our Eastern Empire, is to be chosen
+from 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 and
+consideration. The salary is ten thousand pounds a year. I am assured by
+persons who know Calcutta intimately, and who have themselves mixed in
+the highest circles and held the highest offices at that Presidency,
+that I may live in splendour there for five thousand a year, and may
+save the rest of the salary with the accruing interest. I may therefore
+hope to return to England at only thirty-nine, in the full vigour of
+life, with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. A larger fortune I never
+desired.
+
+I am not fond of money, or anxious about it. But, though every day makes
+me less and less eager for wealth, every day shows me more and more
+strongly how necessary a competence is to a man who desires to be either
+great or useful. At present the plain fact is that I can continue to be
+a public man only while I can continue in office. If I left my place in
+the 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 man
+to write enough to procure him a decent subsistence, and at the same
+time to take an active part in politics. I have not during this Session
+been able to send a single line to the Edinburgh Review; and, if I had
+been out of office, I should have been able to do very little. Edward
+Bulwer has just given up the New Monthly Magazine on the ground that he
+cannot conduct it, and attend to his Parliamentary duties. Cobbett has
+been compelled to neglect his Register so much that its sale has fallen
+almost to nothing. Now, in order to live like a gentleman, it would be
+necessary 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 my
+pen. I could not support myself in comfort on less than five hundred;
+and I shall in all probability have many others to support. The
+prospects of our family are, if possible, darker than ever.
+
+In the meantime my political outlook is very gloomy. A schism in the
+Ministry is approaching. It requires only that common knowledge of
+public affairs, which any reader of the newspapers may possess, to see
+this; and I have more, much more, than common knowledge on the subject.
+They cannot hold together. I tell you in perfect seriousness that my
+chance of keeping my present situation for six months is so small, that
+I 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 in
+opposition, I shall break most of the private ties which I have formed
+during the last three years. In England I see nothing before me, for
+some time to come, but poverty, unpopularity, and the breaking up of old
+connections.
+
+If there were no way out of these difficulties, I would encounter them
+with courage. A man can always act honourably and uprightly; and, if
+I were in the Fleet Prison or the rules of the King's Bench, I believe
+that I could find in my own mind resources which would preserve me from
+being positively unhappy. But, if I could escape from these impending
+disasters, I should wish to do so. By accepting the post which is
+likely to be offered to me, I withdraw myself for a short time from the
+contests of faction here. When I return, I shall find things settled,
+parties formed into new combinations, and new questions under
+discussion. I shall then be able, without the scandal of a violent
+separation, and without exposing myself to the charge of inconsistency,
+to take my own line. In the meantime I shall save my family from
+distress; and shall return with a competence honestly earned, as rich as
+if I were Duke of Northumberland or Marquess of Westminster, and able
+to act on all public questions without even a temptation to deviate
+from the strict line of duty. While in India, I shall have to discharge
+duties not painfully laborious, and of the highest and most honourable
+kind. I shall have whatever that country affords of comfort or
+splendour; nor will my absence be so long that my friends, or the public
+here, 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 Grant
+and Stewart Mackenzie, who know better than most men the state of the
+political world, think that I should act unwisely in refusing this post;
+and this though they assure me,--and, I really believe, sincerely,--that
+they shall feel the loss of my society very acutely. But what shall I
+feel? 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 one
+of comfort,--and, after the first shock, even of happiness,--depends on
+you. If, as I expect, this offer shall be made to me, will you go with
+me? I know what a sacrifice I ask of you. I know how many dear and
+precious ties you must, for a time, sunder. I know that the splendour
+of the Indian Court, and the gaieties of that brilliant society of which
+you 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 will
+love you better than I love you now, if I can.
+
+I have asked George Babington about your health and mine. He says that
+he 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 you
+good as harm.
+
+All this is most strictly secret. You may, of course, show the letter
+to Margaret; and Margaret may tell Edward; for I never cabal against
+the lawful authority of husbands. But further the thing must not go. It
+would hurt my father, and very justly, to hear of it from anybody before
+he hears of it from myself; and, if the least hint of it were to get
+abroad, I should be placed in a very awkward position with regard to the
+people at Leeds. It is possible, though not probable, that difficulties
+may arise at the India House; and I do not mean to say anything to any
+person, who is not already in the secret, till the Directors have made
+their choice, and till the King's pleasure has been taken.
+
+And now think calmly over what I have written. I would not have written
+on the subject even to you, till the matter was quite settled, if I had
+not thought that you ought to have full time to make up your mind. If
+you feel an insurmountable aversion to India, I will do all in my power
+to make your residence in England comfortable during my absence, and
+to enable you to confer instead of receiving benefits. But if my dear
+sister would consent to give me, at this great crisis of my life, that
+proof, that painful and arduous proof, of her affection, which I beg
+of her, I think that she will not repent of it. She shall not, if the
+unbounded confidence and attachment of one to whom she is dearer than
+life can compensate her for a few years' absence from much that she
+loves.
+
+Dear Margaret! She will feel this. Consult her, my love, and let us both
+have the advantage of such advice as her excellent understanding, and
+her warm affection for us, may furnish. On Monday next, at the latest, I
+expect to be with you. Our Scotch tour, under these circumstances, must
+be short. By Christmas it will be fit that the new Councillor should
+leave England. His functions in India commence next April. We shall
+leave our dear Margaret, I hope, a happy mother.
+
+Farewell, my dear sister. You cannot tell how impatiently I shall wait
+for 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 not
+then the familiar name that it has become to a generation which regards
+a visit to Cashmere as a trip to be undertaken between two London
+seasons, and which discusses over its breakfast table at home the
+decisions arrived at on the previous afternoon in the Council-room of
+Simla or Calcutta. In those rural parsonages and middle-class households
+where service in our Eastern territories now presents itself in the
+light of a probable and desirable destiny for a promising son, those
+same territories were forty years ago regarded as an obscure and distant
+region of disease and death. A girl who had seen no country more foreign
+than Wales, and crossed no water broader and more tempestuous than the
+Mersey, looked forward to a voyage which (as she subsequently learned
+by melancholy experience), might extend over six weary months, with an
+anxiety that can hardly be imagined by us who spend only half as many
+weeks on the journey between Dover and Bombay. A separation from
+beloved relations under such conditions was a separation indeed; and, if
+Macaulay and his sister could have foreseen how much of what they left
+at their departure they would fail to find on their return, it is a
+question whether any earthly consideration could have induced them to
+quit their native shore. But Hannah's sense of duty was too strong for
+these doubts and tremors; and, happily, (for on the whole her resolution
+was a fortunate one,) she resolved to accompany her brother in an
+expatriation which he never would have faced without her. With a mind
+set at ease by a knowledge of her intention, he came down to Liverpool
+as soon as the Session was at an end; and carried her off on a jaunt to
+Edinburgh, in a post-chaise furnished with Horace Walpole's letters for
+their common reading, and Smollett's collected works for his own.
+Before October he was back at the Board of Control; and his letters
+recommenced, as frequent and rather more serious and business-like than
+of 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 now
+and then fall in with some person passing through town on his way to the
+Continent or to Brighton. The other day I met Sharp, and had a long talk
+with him about everything and everybody,--metaphysics, poetry, politics,
+scenery, and painting. One thing I have observed in Sharp, which is
+quite peculiar to him among town-wits and diners-out. He never talks
+scandal. If he can say nothing good of a man, he holds his tongue. I do
+not, of course, mean that in confidential communication about politics
+he does not speak freely of public men; but about the foibles of private
+individuals 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 very
+agreeably in his company at the club.
+
+I have also seen Kenny for an hour or two. I do not know that I ever
+mentioned Kenny to you. When London is overflowing, I meet such numbers
+of people that I cannot remember half their names. This is the time
+at which every acquaintance, however slight, attracts some degree of
+attention. In the desert island, even poor Poll was something of a
+companion to Robinson Crusoe. Kenny is a writer of a class which, in our
+time, is at the very bottom of the literary scale. He is a dramatist.
+Most of the farces, and three-act plays, which have succeeded during
+the last eight or ten years, are, I am told, from his pen. Heaven knows
+that, if they are the farces and plays which I have seen, they do him
+but 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 our
+modern audiences better than any other person who has stooped to that
+degrading work. We had a good deal of literary chat; and I thought him a
+clever shrewd fellow.
+
+My father is poorly; not that anything very serious is the matter with
+him; 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 is
+one of the happy moments of my life; a stupid task performed; a weight
+taken off my mind. I should be quite joyous if I had only you to read it
+to. But to Napier it must go forthwith; and, as soon as I have finished
+this letter, I shall put it into the general post with my own fair
+hands. I was up at four this morning to put the last touch to it. I
+often differ with the majority about other people's writings, and still
+oftener about my own; and therefore I may very likely be mistaken; but
+I think that this article will be a hit. We shall see. Nothing ever cost
+me more pains than the first half; I never wrote anything so flowingly
+as the latter half; and I like the latter half the best. I have laid it
+on Walpole so unsparingly that I shall not be surprised if Miss Berry
+should 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. But
+they ought to be obliged to me; for I refrained for their sake from
+laying a hand, which has been thought to be not a light one, on that old
+rogue the first Lord Holland. [Lord Holland, once upon a time, speaking
+to Macaulay of his grandfather, said: "He had that temper which kind
+folks have been pleased to say belongs to my family; but he shared the
+fault that belonged to that school of statesmen, an utter disbelief in
+public virtue."]
+
+Charles Grant is still at Paris; ill, he says. I never knew a man who
+wanted 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 to
+do with P--? The relationship is one which none but Scotchmen would
+recognise. The lad is such a fool that he would utterly disgrace my
+recommendation. And, as if to make the thing more provoking, his sisters
+say that he must be provided for in England, for that they cannot think
+of parting with him. This, to be sure, matters little; for there is
+at present just as little chance of getting anything in India as in
+England.
+
+But what strange folly this is which meets me in every quarter; people
+wanting posts in the army, the navy, the public offices, and saying
+that, if they cannot find such posts, they must starve! How do all the
+rest of mankind live? If I had not happened to be engaged in politics,
+and if my father had not been connected, by very extraordinary
+circumstances, with public men, I should never have dreamed of having
+places. Why cannot P-- be apprenticed to some hatter or tailor? He may
+do well in such a business; he will do detestably ill as a clerk in my
+office. He may come to make good coats; he will never, I am sure, write
+good despatches. There is nothing truer than Poor Richard's say: "We
+are taxed twice as heavily by our pride as by the state." The curse of
+England is the obstinate determination of the middle classes to make
+their sons what they call gentlemen. So we are overrun by clergymen
+without livings; lawyers without briefs; physicians without patients;
+authors without readers; clerks soliciting employment, who might
+have thriven, and been above the world, as bakers, watchmakers, or
+innkeepers. The next time my father speaks to me about P--, I will offer
+to subscribe twenty guineas towards making a pastry-cook of him. He had
+a sweet tooth when he was a child.
+
+So you are reading Burnet! Did you begin from the beginning? What do
+you 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 with
+much kind feeling towards his opponents, and even towards his personal
+enemies. He is to me a most entertaining writer; far superior to
+Clarendon in the art of amusing, though of course far Clarendon's
+inferior in discernment, and in dignity and correctness of style. Do you
+know, by the bye, Clarendon's life of himself? I like it, the part after
+the 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 Don
+Quixote again, and admire it more than ever. It is certainly the best
+novel 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 talk
+about matters both public and private. The Government would support
+my appointment; but he expects violent opposition from the Company. He
+mentioned my name to the Chairs, and they were furious. They know that
+I have been against them through the whole course of the negotiations
+which resulted in the India Bill. They put their opposition on the
+ground of my youth,--a very flattering objection to a man who this week
+completes his thirty-third year. They spoke very highly of me in other
+respects; but they seemed quite obstinate.
+
+The question now is whether their opposition will be supported by the
+other Directors. If it should be so, I have advised Grant most strongly
+to withdraw my name, to put up some other man, and then to fight the
+battle to the utmost. We shall be suspected of jobbing if we proceed to
+extremities on behalf of one of ourselves; but we can do what we
+like, if it is in favour of some person whom we cannot be suspected of
+supporting from interested motives. From the extreme unreasonableness
+and pertinacity which are discernible in every communication that we
+receive from the India House at present, I am inclined to think that
+I have no chance of being chosen by them, without a dispute in which I
+should not wish the Government to engage for such a purpose. Lord Grey
+says 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 my
+going. I do not think that I shall go. However, a few days will decide
+the matter.
+
+I have heard from Napier. He praises my article on Walpole in terms
+absolutely extravagant. He says that it is the best that I ever
+wrote; and, entre nous, I am not very far from agreeing with him. I
+am impatient to have your opinion. No flattery pleases me so much as
+domestic 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 it
+myself; which is not much my habit. Very likely the public, which has
+often been kinder to my performances than I was, may on this, as on
+other 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 complained
+very bitterly in your heart. I was so thoroughly dissatisfied with the
+article, as it stood at first, that I completely re-wrote it; altered
+the whole arrangement; left out ten or twelve pages in one part; and
+added twice as many in another. I never wrote anything so slowly as the
+first half, or so rapidly as the last half.
+
+You are in an error about Akenside, which I must clear up for his
+credit, and for mine. You are confounding the Ode to Curio and the
+Epistle to Curio. The latter is generally printed at the end of
+Akenside'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 executed
+in the most unskilful way. Johnson says, in his Life of Akenside, that
+no poet ever so much mistook his powers as Akenside when he took to
+lyric composition. "Having," I think the words are, "written with great
+force and poignancy his Epistle to Curio, he afterwards transformed it
+into an Ode only disgraceful to its author." ["Akenside was one of
+the fiercest and the most uncompromising of the young patriots out of
+Parliament. When he found that the change of administration had produced
+no change of system, he gave vent to his indignation in the 'Epistle to
+Curio,' the best poem that he ever wrote; a poem, indeed, which seems to
+indicate that, if he had left lyrical composition to Cray and Collins,
+and had employed his powers in grave and elevated satire, he might have
+disputed the pre-eminence of Dryden." This passage occurs in Macaulay's
+Essay on Horace Walpole. In the course of the same Essay, Macaulay
+remarks that "Lord Chesterfield stands much lower in the estimation
+of posterity than he would have done if his letters had never been
+published."]
+
+When I said that Chesterfield had lost by the publication of his
+letters, I of course considered that he had much to lose; that he
+has left an immense reputation, founded on the testimony of all his
+contemporaries of all parties, for wit, taste, and eloquence; that what
+remains of his Parliamentary oratory is superior to anything of that
+time that has come down to us, except a little of Pitt's. The utmost
+that can be said of the letters is that they are the letters of a
+cleverish man; and there are not many which are entitled even to that
+praise. I think he would have stood higher if we had been left to judge
+of his powers,--as we judge of those of Chatham, Mansfield, Charles
+Townshend, and many others,--only by tradition, and by fragments of
+speeches preserved in Parliamentary reports.
+
+I said nothing about Lord Byron's criticism on Walpole, because I
+thought it, like most of his Lordship's criticism, below refutation. On
+the drama Lord Byron wrote more nonsense than on any subject. He wanted
+to have restored the unities. His practice proved as unsuccessful as his
+theory was absurd. His admiration of the "Mysterious Mother" was of
+a piece with his thinking Gifford, and Rogers, greater poets than
+Wordsworth, 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 Benjamin
+Malkin, a college friend of Macaulay, was afterwards a judge in
+the Supreme Court at Calcutta.] Malkin is a man of singular temper,
+judgment, and firmness of nerve. Danger and responsibility, instead of
+agitating and confusing him, always bring out whatever there is in him.
+This was the reason of his great success at Cambridge. He made a figure
+there far beyond his learning or his talents, though both his learning
+and his talents are highly respectable. But the moment that he sate down
+to 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 his
+very best. His intellect became clearer, and his manner more quiet, than
+usual. He is the very man to make up his mind in three minutes if the
+Viceroy of Canton were in a rage, the mob bellowing round the doors of
+the factory, and an English ship of war making preparations to bombard
+the town.
+
+A propos of places, my father has been at me again about P--. Would you
+think it? This lad has a hundred and twenty pounds a year for life! I
+could 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 move
+heaven and earth to push this boy who, as he is the silliest, is also, I
+think, the richest relation that I have in the world.
+
+I am to dine on Thursday with the Fishmongers' Company, the first
+company for gourmandise in the world. Their magnificent Hall near London
+Bridge is not yet built, but, as respects eating and drinking, I shall
+be no loser; for we are to be entertained at the Albion Tavern. This is
+the first dinner-party that I shall have been to for a long time. There
+is nobody in town that I know except official men, and they have left
+their wives and households in the country. I met Poodle Byng, it is
+true, the day before yesterday in the street; and he begged me to make
+haste to Brooks's; for Lord Essex was there, he said, whipping up for a
+dinner-party; cursing and swearing at all his friends for being out
+of town; and wishing--what an honour!--that Macaulay was in London. I
+preserved all the dignity of a young lady in an affaire du coeur. "I
+shall not run after my Lord, I assure you. If he wants me, he knows
+where he may hear of me." This nibble is the nearest approach to a
+dinner-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; but
+everything that I have to add looks one way. We have a new Chairman and
+Deputy Chairman, both very strongly in my favour. Sharp, by whom I sate
+yesterday at the Fishmongers' dinner, told me that my old enemy James
+Mill had spoken to him on the subject. Mill is, as you have heard, at
+the head of one of the principal departments of the India House. The
+late Chairman consulted him about me; hoping, I suppose, to have his
+support against me. Mill said, very handsomely, that he would advise
+the Company to take me; for, as public men went, I was much above the
+average, and, if they rejected me, he thought it very unlikely that they
+would 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 is
+going on as I am myself.
+
+Old Sharp told me that I was acting quite wisely, but that he should
+never 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 him
+that I hoped to be in England again before the end of 1839, and that
+there was nothing impossible in our meeting again. He cheered up after
+a time; told me that he should correspond with me, and give me all the
+secret history both of politics and of society; and promised to select
+the best books, and send them regularly to me.
+
+The Fishmongers' dinner was very good, but not so profusely splendid as
+I had expected. There has been a change, I find, and not before it was
+wanted. They had got at one time to dining at ten guineas a head. They
+drank my health, and I harangued them with immense applause. I talked
+all the evening to Sharp. I told him what a dear sister I had, and how
+readily she had agreed to go with me. I had told Grant the same in
+the morning. Both of them extolled my good fortune in having such a
+companion.
+
+Ever yours
+
+T. B. M.
+
+London: November--, 1833.
+
+Dear Hannah,--Things stand as they stood; except that the report of my
+appointment is every day spreading more widely; and that I am beset by
+advertising dealers begging leave to make up a hundred cotton shirts for
+me, and fifty muslin gowns for you, and by clerks out of place begging
+to be my secretaries. I am not in very high spirits to-day, as I have
+just received a letter from poor Ellis, to whom I had not communicated
+my intentions till yesterday. He writes so affectionately and so
+plaintively that he quite cuts me to the heart. There are few indeed
+from whom I shall part with so much pain; and he, poor fellow, says
+that, next to his wife, I am the person for whom he feels the
+most thorough attachment, and in whom he places the most unlimited
+confidence.
+
+On the 11th of this month there is to be a dinner given to Lushington
+by the electors of the Tower Hamlets. He has persecuted me with
+importunities to attend, and make a speech for him; and my father has
+joined in the request. It is enough, in these times, Heaven knows, for
+a man who represents, as I do, a town of a hundred and twenty thousand
+people to keep his own constituents in good humour; and the Spitalfields
+weavers, and Whitechapel butchers, are nothing to me. But, ever since
+I succeeded in what everybody allows to have been the most hazardous
+attempt of the kind ever made,--I mean in persuading an audience of
+manufacturers, all Whigs or Radicals, that the immediate alteration
+of the corn-laws was impossible,--I have been considered as a capital
+physician for desperate cases in politics. However,--to return from that
+delightful theme, my own praises,--Lushington, who is not very popular
+with the rabble of the Tower Hamlets, thinks that an oration from me
+would give him a lift. I could not refuse him directly, backed as he was
+by my father. I only said that I would attend if I were in London on the
+11th; but I added that, situated as I was, I thought it very probable
+that I should be out of town.
+
+I shall go to-night to Miss Berry's soiree. I do not know whether I
+told you that she resented my article on Horace Walpole so much that
+Sir Stratford Canning advised me not to go near her. She was Walpole's
+greatest favourite. His Reminiscences are addressed to her in terms of
+the most gallant eulogy. When he was dying at past eighty, he asked her
+to marry him, merely that he might make her a Countess and leave her
+his fortune. You know that in Vivian Grey she is called Miss Otranto. I
+always expected that my article would put her into a passion, and I was
+not mistaken; but she has come round again, and sent me a most pressing
+and kind invitation the other day.
+
+I have been racketing lately, having dined twice with Rogers, and once
+with Grant. Lady Holland is in a most extraordinary state. She came
+to Rogers's, with Allen, in so bad a humour that we were all forced
+to rally, and make common cause against her. There was not a person at
+table to whom she was not rude; and none of us were inclined to submit.
+Rogers sneered; Sydney made merciless sport of her. Tom Moore looked
+excessively impertinent; Bobus put her down with simple straightforward
+rudeness; and I treated her with what I meant to be the coldest
+civility. Allen flew into a rage with us all, and especially with
+Sydney, whose guffaws, as the Scotch say, were indeed tremendous. When
+she and all the rest were gone, Rogers made Tom Moore and me sit down
+with him for half an hour, and we coshered over the events of the
+evening. Rogers said that he thought Allen's firing up in defence of his
+patroness the best thing that he had seen in him. No sooner had Tom and
+I got into the street than he broke forth: "That such an old stager as
+Rogers should talk such nonsense, and give Allen credit for attachment
+to anything but his dinner! Allen was bursting with envy to see us so
+free, while he was conscious of his own slavery."
+
+Her Ladyship has been the better for this discipline. She has
+overwhelmed me ever since with attentions and invitations. I have at
+last found out the cause of her ill-humour, or at least of that portion
+of it of which I was the object. She is in a rage at my article on
+Walpole, but at what part of it I cannot tell. I know that she is very
+intimate with the Waldegraves, to whom the manuscripts belong, and for
+whose benefit the letters were published. But my review was surely not
+calculated to injure the sale of the book. Lord Holland told me, in an
+aside, that he quite agreed with me, but that we had better not discuss
+the subject.
+
+A note; and, by my life, from my Lady Holland: "Dear Mr. Macaulay, pray
+wrap yourself very warm, and come to us on Wednesday." No, my good
+Lady. I am engaged on Wednesday to dine at the Albion Tavern with the
+Directors 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 no
+chance of an unfavourable result. The Chairs have collected the
+opinions of their brethren; and the result is, that, of the twenty-four
+Directors, only six or seven at the most will vote against me.
+
+I dined with the Directors on Wednesday at the Albion Tavern. We had a
+company of about sixty persons, and many eminent military men amongst
+them. The very courteous manner in which several of the Directors begged
+to be introduced to me, and drank my health at dinner, led me to think
+that the Chairs have not overstated the feeling of the Court. One of
+them, an old Indian and a great friend of our uncle the General, told
+me in plain words that he was glad to hear that I was to be in their
+service. Another, whom I do not even know by sight, pressed the Chairman
+to propose my health. The Chairman with great judgment refused. It
+would have been very awkward to have had to make a speech to them in the
+present circumstances.
+
+Of course, my love, all your expenses, from the day of my appointment,
+are my affair. My present plan, formed after conversation with
+experienced East Indians, is not to burden myself with an extravagant
+outfit. I shall take only what will be necessary for the voyage. Plate,
+wine, coaches, furniture, glass, china, can be bought in Calcutta as
+well as in London. I shall not have money enough to fit myself out
+handsomely with such things here; and to fit myself out shabbily would
+be folly. I reckon that we can bring our whole expense for the passage
+within the twelve hundred pounds allowed by the Company. My calculation
+is that our cabins and board will cost L250 apiece. The passage of our
+servants L50 apiece. That makes up L600. My clothes and etceteras, as
+Mrs. Meeke observes, I will, I am quite sure, come within L200. [Mrs.
+Meeke was his favourite among bad novel-writers, See page 96.] Yours
+will, 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 probably
+prefer 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. The
+whole 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 maidservants
+with them from this country to India, should give security to send
+them back within two years. The reason was, that no class of people
+misconducted themselves so much in the East as female servants from
+this country. They generally treat the natives with gross insolence; an
+insolence natural enough to people accustomed to stand in a subordinate
+relation to others when, for the first time, they find a great
+population placed in a servile relation towards them. Then, too, the
+state of society is such that they are very likely to become mistresses
+of the wealthy Europeans, and to flaunt about in magnificent palanquins,
+bringing discredit on their country by the immorality of their lives
+and the vulgarity of their manners. On these grounds the Company has
+hitherto insisted upon their being sent back at the expense of those who
+take 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 careful
+in your selection. You see how much depends upon it. The happiness and
+concord of our native household, which will probably consist of sixty or
+seventy people, may be destroyed by her, if she should be ill-tempered
+and arrogant. If she should be weak and vain, she will probably form
+connections that will ruin her morals and her reputation. I am no
+preacher, as you very well know; but I have a strong sense of the
+responsibility under which we shall both lie with respect to a poor
+girl, brought by us into the midst of temptations of which she cannot
+be aware, and which have turned many heads that might have been steady
+enough in a quiet nursery or kitchen in England.
+
+To find a man and wife, both of whom would suit us, would be very
+difficult; and I think it right, also, to offer to my clerk to keep him
+in my service. He is honest, intelligent, and respectful; and, as he is
+rather inclined to consumption, the change of climate would probably be
+useful to him. I cannot bear the thought of throwing any person who has
+been about me for five years, and with whom I have no fault to find, out
+of 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 letter
+till this day, in order that I might be able to send you definite
+intelligence. Yesterday evening the Directors appointed me to a seat in
+the Council of India. The votes were nineteen for me, and three against
+me.
+
+I feel that the sacrifice which I am about to make is great. But the
+motives which urge me to make it are quite irresistible. Every day that
+I live I become less and less desirous of great wealth. But every day
+makes me more sensible of the importance of a competence. Without a
+competence it is not very easy for a public man to be honest; it is
+almost impossible for him to be thought so. I am so situated that I can
+subsist only in two ways: by being in office, and by my pen. Hitherto,
+literature has been merely my relaxation,--the amusement of perhaps a
+month in the year. I have never considered it as the means of support. I
+have 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, not
+the fulness of the mind, but the emptiness of the pocket; of spurring a
+jaded fancy to reluctant exertion; of filling sheets with trash merely
+that the sheets may be filled; of bearing from publishers and editors
+what Dryden bore from Tonson, and what, to my own knowledge, Mackintosh
+bore from Lardner, is horrible to me. Yet thus it must be, if I should
+quit office. Yet to hold office merely for the sake of emolument would
+be more horrible still. The situation, in which I have been placed for
+some time back, would have broken the spirit of many men. It has rather
+tended to make me the most mutinous and unmanageable of the followers of
+the Government. I tendered my resignation twice during the course of the
+last Session. I certainly should not have done so if I had been a man
+of fortune. You, whom malevolence itself could never accuse of coveting
+office for the sake of pecuniary gain, and whom your salary very poorly
+compensates for the sacrifice of ease, and of your tastes, to the public
+service, cannot estimate rightly the feelings of a man who knows that
+his circumstances lay him open to the suspicion of being actuated in his
+public conduct by the lowest motives. Once or twice, when I have been
+defending unpopular measures in the House of Commons, that thought has
+disordered my ideas, and deprived me of my presence of mind.
+
+If this were all, I should feel that, for the sake of my own happiness
+and of my public utility, a few years would be well spent in obtaining
+an independence. But this is not all. I am not alone in the world. A
+family which I love most fondly is dependent on me. Unless I would see
+my father left in his old age to the charity of less near relations;
+my youngest brother unable to obtain a good professional education; my
+sisters, 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 in
+my power to make the last days of my father comfortable, to educate my
+brother, 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 England
+with 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 few
+years. But, if your kindness had not introduced me very early to
+Parliament,--if I had been left to climb up the regular path of my
+profession, and to rise by my own efforts,--I should have had very
+little chance of being in the House of Commons at forty. If I have
+gained any distinction in the eyes of my countrymen,--if I have acquired
+any knowledge of Parliamentary and official business, and any habitude
+for the management of great affairs,--I ought to consider these things
+as clear gain.
+
+Then, too, the years of my absence, though lost, as far as English
+politics are concerned, will not, I hope, be wholly lost, as respects
+either my own mind or the happiness of my fellow-creatures. I can
+scarcely conceive a nobler field than that which our Indian Empire now
+presents to a statesman. While some of my partial friends are blaming
+me for stooping to accept a share in the government of that Empire, I
+am afraid that I am aspiring too high for my qualifications. I sometimes
+feel, I most unaffectedly declare, depressed and appalled by the immense
+responsibility which I have undertaken. You are one of the very few
+public men of our time who have bestowed on Indian affairs the attention
+which they deserve; and you will therefore, I am sure, fully enter into
+my feelings.
+
+And now, dear Lord Lansdowne, let me thank you most warmly for the kind
+feeling which has dictated your letter. That letter is, indeed, but a
+very small part of what I ought to thank you for. That at an early age
+I have gained some credit in public life; that I have done some little
+service to more than one good cause; that I now have it in my power
+to repair the ruined fortunes of my family, and to save those who are
+dearest to me from the misery and humiliation of dependence; that I am
+almost certain, if I live, of obtaining a competence by honourable
+means before I am past the full vigour of manhood,--this I owe to your
+kindness. I will say no more. I will only entreat you to believe that
+neither now, nor on any former occasion, have I ever said one thousandth
+part of what I feel.
+
+If it will not be inconvenient to you, I propose to go to Bowood on
+Wednesday next. Labouchere will be my fellow-traveller. On Saturday we
+must both return to town. Short as my visit must be, I look forward to
+it 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 work
+here, and preparing for my new functions. Plans of ships, and letters
+from captains, pour in without intermission. I really am mobbed with
+gentlemen begging to have the honour of taking me to India at my own
+time. The fact is that a Member of Council is a great catch, not merely
+on account of the high price which he directly pays for accommodation,
+but because other people are attracted by him. Every father of a young
+writer, or a young cadet, likes to have his son on board the same vessel
+with the great man, to dine at the same table, and to have a chance of
+attracting his notice. Everything in India is given by the Governor
+in Council; and, though I have no direct voice in the disposal of
+patronage, my indirect influence may be great.
+
+Grant's kindness through all these negotiations has been such as I
+really 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 his
+feeling partly to Robert Grant's absence; not that Robert ever did me
+ill offices with him far from it; but Grant's is a mind that cannot
+stand alone. It is begging your pardon for my want of gallantry, a
+feminine mind. It turns, like ivy, to some support. When Robert is near
+him, he clings to Robert. Robert being away, he clings to me. This may
+be 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, and
+talked to me on my appointment with a warmth of kindness which, though
+we have been always on good terms, surprised me. But the approach of
+a long separation, like the approach of death, brings out all friendly
+feelings with unusual strength. The Cabinet, he said, felt the loss
+strongly. It was great at the India Board, but in the House of Commons,
+(he used the word over and over,) "irreparable." They all, however, he
+said, agreed that a man of honour could not make politics a profession
+unless he had a competence of his own, without exposing himself to
+privation of the severest kind. They felt that they had never had it
+in their power to do all they wished to do for me. They had no means of
+giving me a provision in England; and they could not refuse me what
+I asked in India. He said very strongly that they all thought that
+I judged quite wisely; and added that, if God heard his prayers, and
+spared my health, I should make a far greater figure in public life than
+if 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 the
+suburbs of Chowringhee, and the villas of the Garden Reach. Selina
+professes that she is ready to die with envy of the fine houses and
+verandahs. I heartily wish we were back again in a nice plain brick
+house, three windows in front, in Cadogan Place or Russell Square, with
+twelve or fifteen hundred a year, and a spare bedroom,--(we, like Mrs.
+Norris, [A leading personage in Miss Austen's "Mansfield Park."] must
+always have a spare bedroom,)--for Edward and Margaret, Love to them
+both.
+
+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 to
+tell you. Yesterday evening the Directors of the East India Company
+elected me one of the members of the Supreme Council. It will,
+therefore, be necessary that in a few weeks,--ten weeks, at furthest,--I
+should leave this country for a few years.
+
+It would be mere affectation in me to pretend not to know that my
+support is of some importance to the Edinburgh Review. In the situation
+in which I shall now be placed, a connection with the Review will be of
+some importance to me. I know well how dangerous it is for a public man
+wholly to withdraw himself from the public eye. During an absence of six
+years, I run some risk of losing most of the distinction, literary and
+political, which I have acquired. As a means of keeping myself in the
+recollection of my countrymen during my sojourn abroad the Review will
+be invaluable to me; nor do I foresee that there will be the slightest
+difficulty 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 call
+to mind a single sentence in any one of them which might not have been
+written at Calcutta as easily as in London. Perhaps in India I might not
+have the means of detecting two or three of the false dates in Croker's
+Boswell. But that would have been all. Very little, if any, of the
+effect of my most popular articles is produced either by minute research
+into rare books, or by allusions to mere topics of the day.
+
+I think therefore that we might easily establish a commerce mutually
+beneficial. I shall wish to be supplied with all the good books
+which come out in this part of the world. Indeed, many books which
+in themselves are of little value, and which, if I were in England, I
+should not think it worth while to read, will be interesting to me in
+India; just as the commonest daubs, and the rudest vessels, at Pompeii
+attract the minute attention of people who would not move their eyes
+to see a modern signpost, or a modern kettle. Distance of place, like
+distance of time, makes trifles valuable.
+
+What I propose, then, is that you should pay me for the articles which I
+may send you from India, not in money, but in books. As to the amount
+I make no stipulations. You know that I have never haggled about such
+matters. As to the choice of books, the mode of transmission, and other
+matters, we shall have ample time to discuss them before my departure.
+Let me know whether you are willing to make an arrangement on this
+basis.
+
+I have not forgotten Chatham in the midst of my avocations. I hope to
+send 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 permission
+to read this. It is to me, I will confess, a solemn and melancholy
+announcement. I ought not, perhaps, so to consider it. But I cannot help
+it. I was not prepared for six years, and I must still hope that it will
+not be so much. At my age, and with that climate for him, the chances of
+our ever meeting again are terribly endangered by such a term. He does
+not know the extent of the damage which his secession may be to the
+great cause of Liberal government. His anticipations and offers about
+the Review are generous and pleasing, and must be peculiarly gratifying
+to 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 very
+agreeable party: Duncannon, Charles Grant, Sharp, Chantrey the sculptor,
+Bobus Smith, and James Mill. Mill and I were extremely friendly, and
+I found him a very pleasant companion, and a man of more general
+information than I had imagined.
+
+Bobus was very amusing. He is a great authority on Indian matters. He
+was during several years Advocate-General in Bengal, and made all his
+large fortune there. I asked him about the climate. Nothing, he said,
+could be pleasanter, except in August and September. He never ate or
+drank so much in his life. Indeed, his looks do credit to Bengal; for
+a healthier man of his age I never saw. We talked about expenses. "I
+cannot conceive," he said, "how anybody at Calcutta can live on less
+than L3,000 a year, or can contrive to spend more than L4,000." We
+talked of the insects and snakes, and he said a thing which reminded me
+of his brother Sydney: "Always, Sir, manage to have at your table
+some fleshy, blooming, young writer or cadet, just come out; that the
+musquitoes 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 every
+disadvantage, all litter and confusion; but she is a fine ship, and our
+cabins will be very good. The captain I like much. He is an agreeable,
+intelligent, polished man of forty; and very good-looking, considering
+what storms and changes of climate he has gone through. He advised me
+strongly to put little furniture into our cabins. I told him to have
+yours made as neat as possible, without regard to expense. He has
+promised 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 nothing
+to make a pretty little boudoir for you. You cannot think how my friends
+here 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 twice
+as many invitations as I can accept; and I have been frequently begged
+to name my own party. Empty as London is, I never was so much beset with
+invitations. Sharp asked me about you. I told him how much I regretted
+my never having had any opportunity of showing you the best part of
+London society. He said that he would take care that you should see what
+was best worth seeing before your departure. He promises to give us a
+few breakfast-parties and dinner-parties, where you will meet as many
+as he can muster of the best set in town,--Rogers, Luttrell, Rice, Tom
+Moore, Sydney Smith, Grant, and other great wits and politicians. I am
+quite 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, and
+because even to have mixed a little in a circle so brilliant will be
+of advantage to you in India. You have neglected, and very rightly and
+sensibly, frivolous accomplishments; you have not been at places of
+fashionable diversion; and it is, therefore, the more desirable that
+you should appear among the dancing, pianoforte-playing, opera-going,
+damsels at Calcutta as one who has seen society better than any that
+they ever approached. I hope that you will not disapprove of what I have
+done. 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 first
+article on Lord Chatham.] I cannot in the least tell at present whether
+I shall like it or not. I proceed with great ease; and in general I have
+found that the success of my writings has been in proportion to the ease
+with which they have been written.
+
+I had a most extraordinary scene with Lady Holland. If she had been as
+young and handsome as she was thirty years ago, she would have turned my
+head. She was quite hysterical about my going; paid me such compliments
+as I cannot repeat; cried; raved; called me dear, dear Macaulay. "You
+are 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; and
+now sending you to India!" I always do my best to keep my temper with
+Lady Holland for three reasons; because she is a woman; because she is
+very unhappy in her health, and in the circumstances of her position;
+and because she has a real kindness for me. But at last she said
+something about you. This was too much, and I was beginning to answer
+her in a voice trembling with anger, when she broke out again: "I beg
+your pardon. Pray forgive me, dear Macaulay. I was very impertinent. I
+know you will forgive me. Nobody has such a temper as you. I have said
+so a hundred times. I said so to Allen only this morning. I am sure you
+will 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 angry
+with her. I hear that it is not to me alone that she runs on in this
+way. She storms at the Ministers for letting me go. I was told that at
+one dinner she became so violent that even Lord Holland, whose temper,
+whatever his wife may say, is much cooler than mine, could not command
+himself, and broke out: "Don't talk such nonsense, my Lady. What, the
+devil! Can we tell a gentleman who has a claim upon us that he must lose
+his only chance of getting an independence in order that he may come and
+talk to you in an evening?"
+
+Good-bye, and take care not to become so fond of your own will as my
+Lady. It is now my duty to omit no opportunity of giving you wholesome
+advice. I am henceforward your sole guardian. I have bought Gisborne's
+Duties of Women, Moore's Fables for the Female Sex, Mrs. King's Female
+Scripture Characters, and Fordyce's Sermons. With the help of these
+books I hope to keep my responsibility in order on our voyage, and in
+India.
+
+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 only
+bear one reading; but good books for a library. I have my eye on all the
+bookstalls; and I shall no longer suffer you, when we walk together in
+London, to drag me past them as you used to do. Pray make out a list of
+any which you would like to have. The provision which I design for the
+voyage is Richardson, Voltaire's works, Gibbon, Sismondi's History of
+the French, Davila, the Orlando in Italian, Don Quixote in Spanish,
+Homer in Greek, Horace in Latin. I must also have some books of
+jurisprudence, and some to initiate me in Persian and Hindostanee. Shall
+I buy "Dunallan" for you? I believe that in your eyes it would stand in
+the place of all the rest together. But, seriously, let me know what you
+would like me to procure.
+
+Ellis is making a little collection of Greek classics for me. Sharp has
+given me one or two very rare and pretty books, which I much wanted. All
+the Edinburgh Reviews are being bound, so that we shall have a complete
+set, up to the forth coming number, which will contain an article of
+mine on Chatham. And this reminds me that I must give over writing to
+you, 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-health
+during the last few weeks; but I am now rapidly recovering, and am
+assured by all my medical advisers that a week of the sea will make me
+better than ever I was in my life.
+
+I have several subjects in my head. One is Mackintosh's History; I mean
+the fragment of the large work. Another plan which I have is a very fine
+one, if it could be well executed. I think that the time is come when a
+fair estimate may be formed of the intellectual and moral character of
+Voltaire. The extreme veneration, with which he was regarded during his
+lifetime, has passed away; the violent reaction, which followed, has
+spent 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 greatness
+and littleness, virtues and vices. I have all his works, and shall take
+them in my cabin on the voyage. But my library is not particularly rich
+in those books which illustrate the literary history of his times. I
+have Rousseau, and Marmontel's Memoirs, and Madame du Deffand's Letters,
+and perhaps a few other works which would be of use. But Grimm's
+Correspondence, and several other volumes of memoirs and letters, would
+be necessary. If you would make a small collection of the works which
+would be most useful in this point of view, and send it after me as soon
+as possible, I will do my best to draw a good Voltaire. I fear that the
+article must be enormously long,--seventy pages perhaps;--but you know
+that I do not run into unnecessary lengths.
+
+I may perhaps try my hand on Miss Austen's novels. That is a subject on
+which I shall require no assistance from books.
+
+Whatever volumes you may send me ought to be half bound; or the white
+ants will devour them before they have been three days on shore. Besides
+the books which may be necessary for the Review, I should like to have
+any work of very striking merit which may appear during my absence. The
+particular department of literature which interests me most is history;
+above all, English history. Any valuable book on that subject I should
+wish to possess. Sharp, Miss Berry, and some of my other friends, will
+perhaps, now and then, suggest a book to you. But it is principally on
+your 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 an
+address which the Leeds Tories probably thought too high-flown for the
+occasion. ["If, now that I have ceased to be your servant, and am only
+your sincere and grateful friend, I may presume to offer you advice
+which must, at least, be allowed to be disinterested, I would say to
+you: Act towards your future representatives as you have acted towards
+me. Choose them, as you chose me, without canvassing and without
+expense. Encourage them, as you encouraged me, always to speak to you
+fearlessly and plainly. Reject, as you have hitherto rejected, the wages
+of dishonour. Defy, as you have hitherto defied, the threats of petty
+tyrants. Never forget that the worst and most degrading species of
+corruption is the corruption which operates, not by hopes, but by fears.
+Cherish those noble and virtuous principles for which we have struggled
+and triumphed together--the principles of liberty and toleration, of
+justice and order. Support, as you have steadily supported, the cause of
+good government; and may all the blessings which are the natural
+fruits of good government descend upon you and be multiplied to you an
+hundredfold! May your manufactures flourish; may your trade be extended;
+may your riches increase! May the works of your skill, and the signs of
+your prosperity, meet me in the furthest regions of the East, and give
+me fresh cause to be proud of the intelligence, the industry, and the
+spirit of my constituents!"] But he had not yet done with the House of
+Commons. Parliament met on the first Tuesday in the month; and, on the
+Wednesday, O'Connell, who had already contrived to make two speeches
+since the Session began, rose for a third time to call attention to
+words uttered during the recess by Mr. Hill, the Member for Hull. That
+gentleman, for want of something better to say to his constituents, had
+told them that he happened to know "that an Irish Member, who spoke
+with great violence against every part of the Coercion Bill, and voted
+against every clause of it, went to Ministers and said: 'Don't bate a
+single atom of that Bill, or it will be impossible for any man to live
+in Ireland."' O'Connell called upon Lord Althorp, as the representative
+of the Government, to say what truth there was in this statement. Lord
+Althorp, taken by surprise, acted upon the impulse of the moment, which
+in his case was a feeling of reluctance to throw over poor Mr. Hill to
+be bullied by O'Connell and his redoubtable tail. After explaining that
+no set and deliberate communication of the nature mentioned had been
+made to the Ministers, his Lordship went on to say that he "should not
+act properly if he did not declare that he had good reason to believe
+that some Irish Members did, in private conversation, use very different
+language" from what they had employed in public.
+
+It was chivalrously, but most unwisely, spoken. O'Connell at once gave
+the cue by inquiring whether he himself was among the Members referred
+to, and Lord Althorp assured him that such was not the case. The
+Speaker tried to interfere; but the matter had gone too far. One Irish
+representative after another jumped up to repeat the same question with
+regard to his own case, and received the same answer. At length Sheil
+rose, and asked whether he was one of the Members to whole the Noble
+Lord had alluded. Lord Althorp replied: "Yes. The honourable and learned
+gentleman is one." Sheil, "in the face of his country, and the presence
+of his God," asserted that the individual who had given any such
+information to the Noble Lord was guilty of a "gross and scandalous
+calumny," and added that he understood the Noble Lord to have made
+himself responsible for the imputation. Then ensued one of those
+scenes in which the House of Commons appears at its very worst. All the
+busybodies, as their manner is, rushed to the front; and hour after
+hour slipped away in an unseemly, intricate, and apparently interminable
+wrangle. Sheil was duly called upon to give an assurance that the affair
+should not be carried beyond the walls of the House. He refused to
+comply, and was committed to the charge of the Sergeant at Arms. The
+Speaker then turned to Lord Althorp, who promised in Parliamentary
+language not to send a challenge. Upon this, as is graphically enough
+described in the conventional terms of Hansard, "Mr O'Connell made some
+observation to the honourable Member sitting next him which was not
+heard in the body of the House. Lord Althorp immediately rose, and amid
+loud cheers, and with considerable warmth, demanded to know what the
+honourable and learned gentleman meant by his gesticulation;" and then,
+after an explanation from O'Connell, his Lordship went on to use phrases
+which very clearly signified that, though he had no cause for sending a
+challenge, he had just as little intention of declining one; upon which
+he likewise was made over to the Sergeant. Before, however, honourable
+Members went to their dinners, they had the relief of learning that
+their 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 February
+a Committee of Investigation was appointed, composed of Members who
+enjoyed a special reputation for discretion. Mr. Hill called his
+witnesses. The first had nothing relevant to tell. Macaulay was the
+second; and he forthwith cut the matter short by declaring that,
+on principle, he refused to disclose what had passed in private
+conversation; a sentiment which was actually cheered by the Committee.
+One sentence of common sense brought the absurd embroilment to a
+rational conclusion. Mr. Hill saw his mistake; begged that no further
+evidence might be taken; and, at the next sitting of the House, withdrew
+his charge in unqualified terms of self-abasement and remorse. Lord
+Althorp readily admitted that he had acted "imprudently as a man, and
+still more imprudently as a Minister," and stated that he considered
+himself bound to accept Sheil's denial; but he could not manage so to
+frame his remarks as to convey to his hearers the idea that his opinion
+of that honourable gentleman had been raised by the transaction. Sheil
+acknowledged the two apologies with effusion proportioned to their
+respective value; and so ended an affair which, at the worst, had evoked
+a fresh proof of that ingrained sincerity of character for the sake
+of which his party would have followed Lord Althorp to the death. [In
+Macaulay's journal for June 4, 1851, we read: "I went to breakfast
+with the Bishop of Oxford, and there learned that Sheil was dead. Poor
+fellow! We talked about Sheil, and I related my adventure of February
+1834. Odd that it should have been so little known or so completely
+forgotten!"]
+
+Gravesend: February 15, 1834.
+
+Dear Lord Lansdowne,--I had hoped that it would have been in my power to
+shake hands with you once more before my departure; but this deplorably
+absurd affair in the House of Commons has prevented me from calling
+on you. I lost a whole day while the Committee were deciding whether
+I should, or should not, be forced to repeat all the foolish, shabby,
+things that I had heard Sheil say at Brooks's. Everybody thought me
+right, as I certainly was.
+
+I cannot leave England without sending a few lines to you,--and yet they
+are needless. It is unnecessary for me to say with what feelings I shall
+always remember our connection, and with what interest I shall always
+learn 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 their
+Mayor, came on board to wish Macaulay his health in India and a happy
+return to England, nothing occurred that broke the monotony of an
+easy and rapid voyage. "The catching of a shark; the shooting of an
+albatross; a sailor tumbling down the hatchway and breaking his head; a
+cadet getting drunk and swearing at the captain," are incidents to which
+not even the highest literary power can impart the charm of novelty
+in the eyes of the readers of a seafaring nation. The company on the
+quarterdeck was much on a level with the average society of an East
+Indiaman. "Hannah will give you the histories of all these good people
+at length, I dare say, for she was extremely social; danced with the
+gentlemen in the evenings, and read novels and sermons with the ladies
+in the mornings. I contented myself with being very civil whenever I was
+with the other passengers, and took care to be with them as little as I
+could. 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 me
+cheerful and employed. During the whole voyage I read with keen and
+increasing 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 his
+first introduction to the people for whom he was appointed to legislate
+in the person of a boatman who pulled through the surf on his raft. "He
+came on board with nothing on him but a pointed yellow cap, and walked
+among us with a self-possession and civility which, coupled with
+his colour and his nakedness, nearly made me die of laughing." This
+gentleman was soon followed by more responsible messengers, who brought
+tidings the reverse of welcome. Lord William Bentinck, who was then
+Governor-General, was detained by ill-health at Ootacamund in the
+Neilgherry Hills; a place which, by name at least, is now as familiar to
+Englishmen as Malvern; but which in 1834 was known to Macaulay, by
+vague report, as situated somewhere "in the mountains of Malabar, beyond
+Mysore." The state of public business rendered it necessary that the
+Council should meet; and, as the Governor-General had left one member
+of that body in Bengal as his deputy, he was not able to make a quorum
+until his new colleague arrived from England. A pressing summons to
+attend his Lordship in the Hills placed Macaulay in some embarrassment
+on account of his sister, who could not with safety commence her Eastern
+experiences by a journey of four hundred miles up the country in the
+middle of June. Happily the second letter which he opened proved to be
+from Bishop Wilson, who insisted that the son and daughter of so eminent
+an Evangelical as the Editor of the Christian Observer, themselves part
+of his old congregation in Bedford Row, should begin their Indian
+life nowhere except under his roof. Hannah, accordingly, continued her
+voyage, and made her appearance in Calcutta circles with the Bishop's
+Palace as a home, and Lady William Bentinck as a kind, and soon an
+affectionate, chaperon; while her brother remained on shore at Madras,
+somewhat consoled for the separation by finding himself in a country
+where so much was to be seen, and where, as far as the English residents
+were concerned, he was regarded with a curiosity at least equal to his
+own.
+
+During the first few weeks nothing came amiss to him. "To be on land
+after three months at sea is of itself a great change. But to be in such
+a land! The dark faces, with white turbans, and flowing robes; the trees
+not our trees; the very smell of the atmosphere that of a hothouse, and
+the architecture as strange as the vegetation." Every feature in that
+marvellous scene delighted him both in itself, and for the sake of the
+innumerable associations and images which it conjured up in his active
+and well-stored mind. The salute of fifteen guns that greeted him, as
+he set his foot on the beach, reminded him that he was in a region where
+his countrymen could exist only on the condition of their being warriors
+and rulers. When on a visit of ceremony to a dispossessed Rajah or
+Nabob, he pleased himself with the reflection that he was face to
+face with a prince who in old days governed a province as large as a
+first-class European kingdom, conceding to his Suzerain, the Mogul,
+no tribute beyond "a little outward respect such as the great Dukes of
+Burgundy used to pay to the Kings of France; and who now enjoyed the
+splendid and luxurious insignificance of an abdicated prince which fell
+to the lot of Charles the Fifth or Queen Christina of Sweden," with a
+court that preserved the forms of royalty, the right of keeping as many
+badly armed and worse paid ragamuffins as he could retain under his
+tawdry standard, and the privilege of "occasionally sending letters of
+condolence and congratulation to the King of England, in which he calls
+himself 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. He
+has recorded his first impressions of Hindostan in a series of journal
+letters addressed to his sister Margaret. The fresh and vivid character
+of those impressions--the genuine and multiform interest excited in him
+by all that met his ear or eye--explain the secret of the charm which
+enabled him in after days to overcome the distaste for Indian literature
+entertained by that personage who, for want of a better, goes by the
+name of the general reader. Macaulay reversed in his own case, the
+experience of those countless writers on Indian themes who have
+successively blunted their pens against the passive indifference of the
+British public; for his faithful but brilliant studies of the history of
+our Eastern Empire are to this day incomparably the most popular of his
+works. [When published in a separate form the articles on Lord Clive and
+Warren Hastings have sold nearly twice as well as the articles on Lord
+Chatham, nearly thrice as well as the article on Addison, and nearly
+five times as well as the article on Byron. The great Sepoy mutiny,
+while it something more than doubled the sale of the essay on Warren
+Hastings, all but trebled the sale of the essay on Lord Clive; but,
+taking the last twenty years together, there has been little to choose
+between the pair. The steadiness and permanence of the favour with which
+they are regarded may be estimated by the fact that, during the five
+years between 1870 and 1874, as compared with the five years between
+1865 and 1869, the demand for them has been in the proportion of seven
+to three; and, as compared with the five years between 1860 and 1864, in
+the proportion of three to one.] It may be possible, without injury to
+the fame of the author, to present a few extracts from a correspondence,
+which is in some sort the raw material of productions that have already
+secured their place among our national classics:
+
+"In the afternoon of the 17th June I left Madras. My train consisted of
+thirty-eight persons. I was in one palanquin, and my servant followed in
+another. He is a half-caste. On the day on which we set out he told me
+he was a Catholic; and added, crossing himself and turning up the whites
+of his eyes, that he had recommended himself to the protection of his
+patron saint, and that he was quite confident that we should perform
+our journey in safety. I thought of Ambrose Llamela, Gil Blas's devout
+valet, who arranges a scheme for robbing his master of his portmanteau,
+and, when he comes back from meeting his accomplices, pretends that he
+has been to the cathedral to implore a blessing on their voyage. I did
+him, 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 a
+negligent bearer, arrange a bed, and make a curry. But he is so fond of
+giving 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. His
+name, which I never hear without laughing, is Peter Prim.
+
+"Half my journey was by daylight, and all that I saw during that time
+disappointed me grievously. It is amazing how small a part of the
+country is under cultivation. Two-thirds at least, as it seemed to me,
+was in the state of Wandsworth Common, or, to use an illustration which
+you will understand better, of Chatmoss. The people whom we met were as
+few as in the Highlands of Scotland. But I have been told that in India
+the villages generally lie at a distance from the roads, and that much
+of the land, which when I passed through it looked like parched moor
+that had never been cultivated, would after the rains be covered with
+rice."
+
+After traversing this landscape for fifteen hours he reached the town of
+Arcot, which, under his handling, was to be celebrated far and wide as
+the cradle of our greatness in the East.
+
+"I was most hospitably received by Captain Smith, who commanded the
+garrison. After dinner the palanquins went forward with my servant, and
+the 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. We
+passed through a garden which was attached to the residence of the Nabob
+of the Carnatic, who anciently held his court at Arcot. The garden has
+been suffered to run to waste, and is only the more beautiful for having
+been neglected. Garden, indeed, is hardly a proper word. In England
+it would rank as one of our noblest parks, from which it differs
+principally in this, that most of the fine trees are fruit trees.
+From this we came to a mountain pass which reminded me strongly of
+Borradaile, near Derwentwater, and through this defile we struck into
+the road, and rejoined the bearers."
+
+And so he went forward on his way, recalling at every step the
+reminiscence of some place, or event, or person; and, thereby, doubling
+for himself, and perhaps for his correspondent, the pleasure which
+the reality was capable of affording. If he put up at a collector's
+bungalow, he liked to think that his host ruled more absolutely and over
+a 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, he
+pronounced him "as Dominic Sampson said of another Indian Colonel, 'a
+man of great erudition, considering his imperfect opportunities.'"
+
+On the 19th of June he crossed the frontier of Mysore; reached Bangalore
+on the morning of the 20th and rested there for three days in the house
+of 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 not
+passed 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 a
+carriage was waiting for me. I had told Colonel Cubbon that I very much
+wished to see Seringapatam. He had written to the British authorities at
+the town of Mysore, and an officer had come from the Residency to show
+me 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 about
+them, you will know more on the subject than half the members of the
+Cabinet."
+
+After a few pages occupied by a sketch of the history of Mysore during
+the preceding century, Macaulay proceeds
+
+"Seringapatam has always been a place of peculiar interest to me. It was
+the scene of the greatest events of Indian history. It was the residence
+of the greatest of Indian princes. From a child, I used to hear it
+talked of every day. Our uncle Colin was imprisoned there for four
+years, and he was afterwards distinguished at the siege. I remember
+that there was, in a shop-window at Clapham, a daub of the taking
+of Seringapatam, which, as a boy, I often used to stare at with the
+greatest interest. I was delighted to have an opportunity of seeing
+the place; and, though my expectations were high, they were not
+disappointed.
+
+"The town is depopulated; but the fortress, which was one of the
+strongest in India, remains entire. A river almost as broad as the
+Thames at Chelsea breaks into two branches, and surrounds the walls,
+above which are seen the white minarets of a mosque. We entered, and
+found everything silent and desolate. The mosque, indeed, is still kept
+up, and deserves to be so; but the palace of Tippoo has fallen into
+utter ruin. I saw, however, with no small interest, the airholes of the
+dungeon in which the English prisoners were confined, and the water-gate
+leading down to the river where the body of Tippoo was found still
+warm by the Duke of Wellington, then Colonel Wellesley. The exact spot
+through which the English soldiers fought their way against desperate
+disadvantages into the fort is still perfectly discernible. But, though
+only thirty-five years have elapsed since the fall of the city, the
+palace is in the condition of Tintern Abbey and Melrose Abbey. The
+courts, 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 faint
+traces of its old magnificence. It is supported on a great number of
+light and lofty wooden pillars, resting on pedestals of black granite.
+These pillars were formerly covered with gilding, and here and there
+the glitter may still be perceived. In a few more years not the smallest
+trace of this superb chamber will remain. I am surprised that more care
+was not taken by the English to preserve so splendid a memorial of
+the greatness of him whom they had conquered. It was not like Lord
+Wellesley's general mode of proceeding; and I soon saw a proof of his
+taste and liberality. Tippoo raised a most sumptuous mausoleum to his
+father, and attached to it a mosque which he endowed. The buildings are
+carefully maintained at the expense of our Government. You walk up from
+the fort through a narrow path, bordered by flower beds and cypresses,
+to the front of the mausoleum, which is very beautiful, and in general
+character closely resembles the most richly carved of our small Gothic
+chapels. Within are three tombs, all covered with magnificent palls
+embroidered in gold with verses from the Koran. In the centre lies
+Hyder; on his right the mother of Tippoo; and Tippoo himself on the
+left."
+
+During his stay at Mysore, Macaulay had an interview with the deposed
+Rajah; 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 him
+for an Anglo-Indian Richardson. By the evening of the 24th June he was
+once more on the road; and, about noon on the following day, he began
+to ascend the Neilgherries, through scenery which, for the benefit of
+readers who had never seen the Pyrenees or the Italian slopes of
+an Alpine pass, he likened to "the vegetation of Windsor Forest, or
+Blenheim, spread over the mountains of Cumberland." After reaching
+the summit of the table-land, he passed through a wilderness where for
+eighteen miles together he met nothing more human than a monkey, until
+a turn of the road disclosed the pleasant surprise of an amphitheatre
+of green hills encircling a small lake, whose banks were dotted with
+red-tiled cottages surrounding a pretty Gothic church. The whole station
+presented "very much the look of a rising English watering-place. The
+largest house is occupied by the Governor-General. It is a spacious
+and handsome building of stone. To this I was carried, and immediately
+ushered into his Lordship's presence. I found him sitting by a fire in a
+carpeted library. He received me with the greatest kindness, frankness,
+and hospitality. He is, as far as I can yet judge, all that I
+have heard; that is to say, rectitude, openness, and good-nature,
+personified." Many months of close friendship and common labours did
+but confirm Macaulay in this first view of Lord William Bentinck. His
+estimate of that singularly noble character survives in the closing
+sentence of the essay on Lord Clive; and is inscribed on the base of
+the statue which, standing in front of the Town Hall may be seen far
+and wide over the great expanse of grass that serves as the park, the
+parade-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; for
+it has not found its way into the maps. It is a new discovery; a place
+to which Europeans resort for their health, or, as it is called by the
+Company's servants--blessings on their learning,--a _sanaterion_. It
+lies at the height of 7,000 feet above the sea.
+
+While London is a perfect gridiron, here am I, at 13 degrees North from
+the equator, by a blazing wood fire, with my windows closed. My bed is
+heaped with blankets, and my black servants are coughing round me in all
+directions. One poor fellow in particular looks so miserably cold that,
+unless the sun comes out, I am likely soon to see under my own roof
+the spectacle which, according to Shakespeare, is so interesting to the
+English,--a dead Indian. [The Tempest, act ii. scene 2.]
+
+I travelled the whole four hundred miles between this and Madras on
+men's shoulders. I had an agreeable journey on the whole. I was honoured
+by an interview with the Rajah of Mysore, who insisted on showing me
+all his wardrobe, and his picture gallery. He has six or seven coloured
+English prints, not much inferior to those which I have seen in the
+sanded parlour of a country inn; "Going to Cover," "The Death of the
+Fox," and so forth. But the bijou of his gallery, of which he is as vain
+as the Grand Duke can be of the Venus, or Lord Carlisle of the Three
+Maries, 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 I
+found at Mysore. I alighted at a bungalow appertaining to the British
+Residency. There I found an Englishman who, without any preface,
+accosted me thus: "Pray, Mr. Macaulay, do not you think that Buonaparte
+was the Beast?" "No, Sir, I cannot say that I do." "Sir, he was the
+Beast. 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 of
+Commons is the Beast. There are 658 members of the House; and these,
+with their chief officers,--the three clerks, the Sergeant and his
+deputy, the Chaplain, the doorkeeper, and the librarian,--make 666."
+"Well, Sir, that is strange. But I can assure you that, if you write
+Napoleon Buonaparte in Arabic, leaving out only two letters, it will
+give 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 that
+he would use the Greek rather than the Arabic notation?" "But, Sir,"
+said this learned divine, "everybody knows that the Greek letters were
+never used to mark numbers." I answered with the meekest look and voice
+possible: "I do not think that everybody knows that. Indeed I have
+reason to believe that a different opinion,--erroneous no doubt,--is
+universally embraced by all the small minority who happen to know any
+Greek." So ended the controversy. The man looked at me as if he thought
+me a very wicked fellow; and, I dare say, has by this time discovered
+that, if you write my name in Tamul, leaving out T in Thomas, B
+in Babington, and M in Macaulay, it will give the number of this
+unfortunate Beast.
+
+I am very comfortable here. The Governor-General is the frankest and
+best-natured of men. The chief functionaries, who have attended him
+hither, are clever people, but not exactly on a par as to general
+attainments with the society to which I belonged in London. I thought,
+however, even at Madras, that I could have formed a very agreeable
+circle of acquaintance; and I am assured that at Calcutta I shall find
+things 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 power
+of finding amusement without companions was pretty well tried on my
+voyage. 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 volumes
+of Voltaire, Sismondi's History of France, and the seven thick folios of
+the Biographia Britannica. I found my Greek and Latin in good condition
+enough. I liked the Iliad a little less, and the Odyssey a great deal
+more than formerly. Horace charmed me more than ever; Virgil not quite
+so much as he used to do. The want of human character, the poverty of
+his supernatural machinery, struck me very strongly. Can anything be so
+bad as the living bush which bleeds and talks, or the Harpies who
+befoul Aeneas's dinner? It is as extravagant as Ariosto, and as dull
+as Wilkie's Epigoniad. The last six books, which Virgil had not fully
+corrected, pleased me better than the first six. I like him best on
+Italian ground. I like his localities; his national enthusiasm; his
+frequent allusions to his country, its history, its antiquities, and
+its greatness. In this respect he often reminded me of Sir Walter Scott,
+with whom, in the general character of his mind, he had very little
+affinity. The Georgics pleased me better; the Eclogues best,--the second
+and tenth above all. But I think the finest lines in the Latin language
+are 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 Voltaire
+pronounces that passage to be the finest in Virgil.
+
+I liked the Jerusalem better than I used to do. I was enraptured with
+Ariosto; 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 with
+Homer, and that none but Shakespeare has gone decidedly beyond him.
+
+As soon as I reach Calcutta I intend to read Herodotus again. By the
+bye, why do not you translate him? You would do it excellently; and
+a translation of Herodotus, well executed, would rank with original
+compositions. A quarter of an hour a day would finish the work in five
+years. The notes might be made the most amusing in the world. I wish you
+would think of it. At all events, I hope you will do something which may
+interest 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 much
+engaged; whether the Cherokees are of the same race with the Chickasaws;
+whether Van Diemen's Land was peopled from New Holland, or New Holland
+from Van Diemen's land; what is the precise anode of appointing a
+headman in a village in Timbuctoo. I would not give the worst page in
+Clarendon or Fra Paolo for all that ever was, or ever will be, written
+about the migrations of the Leleges and the laws of the Oscans.
+
+I have already entered on my public functions, and I hope to do some
+good. The very wigs of the judges in the Court of King's Bench would
+stand on end if they knew how short a chapter my Law of Evidence will
+form. I am not without many advisers. A native of some fortune in Madras
+has sent me a paper on legislation. "Your honour must know," says this
+judicious person, "that the great evil is that men swear falsely in this
+country. No judge knows what to believe. Surely if your honour can make
+men to swear truly, your honour's fame will be great, and the Company
+will flourish. Now, I know how men may be made to swear truly; and I
+will 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 man
+who swears falsely, whereby your honour's fame will be extended." Is not
+this an exquisite specimen of legislative wisdom?
+
+I must stop. When I begin to write to England, my pen runs as if it
+would 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 that
+I shall continue to take the same course. It is better to write one full
+and connected narrative than a good many imperfect fragments.
+
+Money matters seem likely to go on capitally. My expenses, I find, will
+be smaller than I anticipated. The Rate of Exchange, if you know what
+that means, is very favourable indeed; and, if I live, I shall get rich
+fast. I quite enjoy the thought of appearing in the light of an old
+hunks who knows on which side his bread is buttered; a warm man; a
+fellow who will cut up well. This is not a character which the Macaulays
+have 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 seven
+thousand pounds a year, while I remain in India.
+
+At Christmas I shall send home a thousand, or twelve hundred, pounds for
+my father, and you all. I cannot tell you what a comfort it is to me
+to find that I shall be able to do this. It reconciles me to all the
+pains--acute enough, sometimes, God knows,--of banishment. In a few
+years, if I live--probably in less than five years from the time at
+which you will be reading this letter--we shall be again together in a
+comfortable, though a modest, home; certain of a good fire, a good joint
+of meat, and a good glass of wine; without owing obligations to anybody;
+and perfectly indifferent, at least as far as our pecuniary interest is
+concerned, to the changes of the political world. Rely on it, my dear
+girls, that there is no chance of my going back with my heart cooled
+towards you. I came hither principally to save my family, and I am not
+likely while here to forget them.
+
+Ever yours
+
+T. B. M.
+
+The months of July and August Macaulay spent on the Neilgherries, in a
+climate equable as Madeira and invigorating as Braemar; where thickets
+of rhododendron fill the glades and clothe the ridges; and where the
+air is heavy with the scent of rose-trees of a size more fitted for an
+orchard than a flower-bed, and bushes of heliotrope thirty paces round.
+The glories of the forests and of the gardens touched him in spite of
+his profound botanical ignorance, and he dilates more than once upon his
+"cottage buried in laburnums, or something very like them, and geraniums
+which grow in the open air." He had the more leisure for the natural
+beauties of the place, as there was not much else to interest even a
+traveller 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 or
+indecency. There is nothing of the sort at Ootacamund. I have not,
+during the last six weeks, witnessed a single circumstance from which
+you would have inferred that this was a heathen country. The bulk of the
+natives here are a colony from the plains below, who have come up hither
+to wait on the European visitors, and who seem to trouble themselves
+very little about caste or religion. The Todas, the aboriginal
+population of these hills, are a very curious race. They had a grand
+funeral a little while ago. I should have gone if it had not been a
+Council day; but I found afterwards that I had lost nothing. The whole
+ceremony consisted in sacrificing bullocks to the manes of the defunct.
+The roaring of the poor victims was horrible. The people stood talking
+and laughing till a particular signal was made, and immediately all
+the ladies lifted up their voices and wept. I have not lived three and
+thirty years in this world without learning that a bullock roars when he
+is knocked down, and that a woman can cry whenever she chooses.
+
+"By all that I can learn, the Catholics are the most respectable portion
+of the native Christians. As to Swartz's people in the Tanjore, they are
+a perfect scandal to the religion which they profess. It would have been
+thought something little short of blasphemy to say this a year ago; but
+now it is considered impious to say otherwise, for they have got into a
+violent quarrel with the missionaries and the Bishop. The missionaries
+refused to recognise the distinctions of caste in the administration of
+the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and the Bishop supported them in
+the refusal. I do not pretend to judge whether this was right or wrong.
+Swartz and Bishop Heber conceived that the distinction of caste, however
+objectionable politically, was still only a distinction of rank;
+and that, as in English churches the gentlefolks generally take the
+Sacrament apart from the poor of the parish, so the high-caste natives
+might be allowed to communicate apart from the Pariahs.
+
+"But, whoever was first in the wrong, the Christians of Tanjore took
+care to be most so. They called in the interposition of Government, and
+sent up such petitions and memorials as I never saw before or since;
+made up of lies, invectives, bragging, cant, bad grammar of the most
+ludicrous kind, and texts of Scripture quoted without the smallest
+application. I remember one passage by heart, which is really only a
+fair specimen of the whole: 'These missionaries, my Lord, loving only
+filthy lucre, bid us to eat Lord-supper with Pariahs as lives ugly,
+handling dead men, drinking rack and toddy, sweeping the streets, mean
+fellows altogether, base persons, contrary to that which Saint Paul
+saith: I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him
+crucified.'
+
+"Was there ever a more appropriate quotation? I believe that nobody on
+either side of the controversy found out a text so much to the purpose
+as one which I cited to the Council of India, when we were discussing
+this business: 'If this be a question of words, and names, and of your
+law, 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 the
+Hills, that I thought it a pity to break up the Church of Tanjore on
+account of a matter which such men as Swartz and Heber had not been
+inclined to regard as essential. 'Sir,' said the reverend gentleman,
+'the sooner the Church of Tanjore is broken up the better. You can form
+no notion of the worthlessness of the native Christians there.' I could
+not 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 while
+of so many good men to come fifteen thousand miles over sea and land in
+order to make proselytes, who, their very instructors being judges, were
+more children of hell than before."
+
+Unfortunately Macaulay's stay on the Neilgherries coincided with the
+monsoon. "The rain streamed down in floods. It was very seldom that I
+could see a hundred yards in front of me. During a month together I did
+not get two hours' walking." He began to be bored, for the first and
+last time in his life; while his companions, who had not his resources,
+were ready to hang themselves for very dulness. The ordinary amusements
+with which, in the more settled parts of India, our countrymen beguile
+the rainy season, were wanting in a settlement that had only lately been
+reclaimed from the desert; in the immediate vicinity of which you still
+ran the chance of being "trod into the shape of half a crown by a wild
+elephant, or eaten by the tigers, which prefer this situation to the
+plains below for the same reason that takes so many Europeans to India;
+they encounter an uncongenial climate for the sake of what they can
+get." There were no books in the place except those that Macaulay had
+brought with him, among which, most luckily, was Clarissa Harlowe. Aided
+by the rain outside, he soon talked his favourite romance into general
+favour. The reader will consent to put up with one or two slight
+inaccuracies 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 leave
+it. When I was in India I passed one hot season in the Hills; and there
+were the Governor-General, and the Secretary of Government, and the
+Commander-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 of
+excitement about Miss Harlowe, and her misfortunes, and her scoundrelly
+Lovelace. The Governor's wife seized the book; the Secretary waited for
+it; the Chief justice could not read it for tears.' He acted the whole
+scene; he paced up and down the Athenaeum library. I dare say he could
+have spoken pages of the book; of that book, and of what countless piles
+of others!"
+
+An old Scotch doctor, a Jacobin and a free-thinker, who could only be
+got 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 an
+abridgment of Clarissa, itself as long as an ordinary novel. A wiser
+course than buying the abridgment would be to commence the original
+at the Third volume. In the same way, if anyone, after obtaining the
+outline 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 of
+a delightful, and not unmanageable, book.] The Chief
+Secretary,--afterwards, as Sir William Macnaghten, the hero and the
+victim of the darkest episode in our Indian history,--declared that
+reading this copy of Clarissa, under the inspiration of its owner's
+enthusiasm, was nothing less than an epoch in his life. After the lapse
+of thirty years, when Ootacamund had long enjoyed the advantage of a
+book-club and a circulating library, the tradition of Macaulay and
+his novel still lingered on with a tenacity most unusual in the
+ever-shifting society of an Indian station.
+
+"At length Lord William gave me leave of absence. My bearers were posted
+along 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 state
+of the laws, morals, and manners among the natives.
+
+"My new servant, a Christian, but such a Christian as the missionaries
+make in this part of the world, had been persecuted most unmercifully
+for his religion by the servants of some other gentlemen on the Hills.
+At last they contrived to excite against him (whether justly or
+unjustly I am quite unable to say) the jealousy of one of Lord William's
+under-cooks. We had accordingly a most glorious tragi-comedy; the part
+of Othello by the cook aforesaid; Desdemona by an ugly, impudent Pariah
+girl, his wife; Iago by Colonel Casement's servant; and Michael Cassio
+by my rascal. The place of the handkerchief was supplied by a small
+piece 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 I
+had any part in the piece, it was, I am afraid, that of Roderigo, whom
+Shakespeare describes as a 'foolish gentleman,' and who also appears to
+have had 'money in his purse.'
+
+"On the evening before my departure my bungalow was besieged by a mob
+of blackguards. The Native judge came with them. After a most prodigious
+quantity of jabbering, of which I could not understand one word, I
+called the judge, who spoke tolerable English, into my room, and learned
+from him the nature of the case. I was, and still am, in doubt as to the
+truth 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 my
+servant that I offered to settle the business at my own expense. Under
+ordinary circumstances this would have been easy enough, for the Hindoos
+of the lower castes have no delicacy on these subjects. The husband
+would gladly have taken a few rupees, and walked away; but the
+persecutors of my servant interfered, and insisted that he should be
+brought to trial in order that they might have the pleasure of smearing
+him with filth, giving him a flogging, beating kettles before him, and
+carrying him round on an ass with his face to the tail.
+
+"As the matter could not be accommodated, I begged the Judge to try the
+case instantly; but the rabble insisted that the trial should not take
+place for some days. I argued the matter with them very mildly, and told
+them that I must go next day, and that, if my servant were detained,
+guilty or innocent, he must lose his situation. The gentle and reasoning
+tone of my expostulations only made them impudent. They are, in truth,
+a race so accustomed to be trampled on by the strong that they always
+consider humanity as a sign of weakness. The Judge told me that he never
+heard a gentleman speak such sweet words to the people. But I was now
+at an end of my sweet words. My blood was beginning to boil at the
+undisguised display of rancorous hatred and shameless injustice. I sate
+down, and wrote a line to the Commandant of the station, begging him to
+give orders that the case might be tried that very evening. The Court
+assembled, and continued all night in violent contention. At last the
+judge pronounced my servant not guilty. I did not then know, what I
+learned some days after, that this respectable magistrate had received
+twenty rupees on the occasion.
+
+"The husband would now gladly have taken the money which he refused the
+day before; but I would not give him a farthing. The rascals who had
+raised the disturbance were furious. My servant was to set out at eleven
+in the morning, and I was to follow at two. He had scarcely left the
+door when I heard a noise. I looked forth, and saw that the gang had
+pulled him out of his palanquin, torn off his turban, stripped him
+almost naked, and were, as it seemed, about to pull him to pieces. I
+snatched up a sword-stick, and ran into the middle of them. It was all
+I could do to force my way to him, and, for a moment, I thought my own
+person was in danger as well as his. I supported the poor wretch in my
+arms; for, like most of his countrymen, he is a chickenhearted fellow,
+and was almost fainting away. My honest barber, a fine old soldier in
+the Company's service, ran off for assistance, and soon returned with
+some police officers. I ordered the bearers to turn round, and proceeded
+instantly to the house of the Commandant. I was not long detained here.
+Nothing can be well imagined more expeditious than the administration of
+justice in this country, when the judge is a Colonel, and the plaintiff
+a Councillor. I told my story in three words. In three minutes the
+rioters were marched off to prison, and my servant, with a sepoy to
+guard 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 and
+moisture, and the plain of Mysore lay before us--a vast ocean of foliage
+on which the sun was shining gloriously. I am very little given to cant
+about the beauties of nature, but I was moved almost to tears. I jumped
+off the palanquin, and walked in front of it down the immense declivity.
+In two hours we descended about three thousand feet. Every turning in
+the road showed the boundless forest below in some new point of view. I
+was greatly struck with the resemblance which this prodigious jungle, as
+old as the world and planted by nature, bears to the fine works of the
+great English landscape gardeners. It was exactly a Wentworth Park, as
+large as Devonshire. After reaching the foot of the hills, we travelled
+through a succession of scenes which might have been part of the garden
+of Eden. Such gigantic trees I never saw. In a quarter of an hour I
+passed hundreds the smallest of which would bear a comparison with any
+of those oaks which are shown as prodigious in England. The grass, the
+weeds, and the wild flowers grew as high as my head. The sun, almost
+a stranger to me, was now shining brightly; and, when late in the
+afternoon I again got out of my palanquin and looked back, I saw the
+large 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 living
+for weeks.
+
+"On Tuesday, the 16th" (of September), "I went on board at Madras. I
+amused myself on the voyage to Calcutta with learning Portuguese, and
+made myself almost as well acquainted with it as I care to be. I
+read the Lusiad, and am now reading it a second time. I own that I am
+disappointed in Camoens; but I have so often found my first impressions
+wrong on such subjects that I still hope to be able to join my voice to
+that 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 superior
+to what I had imagined. Yet in these cases I had not pitched my
+expectations low."
+
+He had not much time for his Portuguese studies. The run was unusually
+fast, and the ship only spent a week in the Bay of Bengal, and
+forty-eight hours in the Hooghly. He found his sister comfortably
+installed in Government House, where he himself took up his quarters
+during the next six weeks; Lady William Bentinck having been prepared
+to welcome him as her guest by her husband's letters, more than one
+of which ended with the words "e un miracolo." Towards the middle of
+November, Macaulay began housekeeping for himself; living, as he always
+loved to live, rather more generously than the strict necessities of his
+position demanded. His residence, then the best in Calcutta, has long
+since 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 on
+Mackintosh; an article which has the merit of length, whatever it may be
+deficient in. As I wished to transmit it to England in duplicate, if not
+in triplicate, I thought it best to have two or three copies coarsely
+printed here under the seal of strict secresy. The printers at Edinburgh
+will, therefore, have no trouble in deciphering my manuscript, and the
+corrector 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 you
+from inserting what I have said on this subject. Murray's copy writers
+are unsparingly abused by Southey and Lockhart in the Quarterly; and it
+would be hard indeed if we might not in the Edinburgh strike hard at an
+assailant of Mackintosh.
+
+I shall now begin another article. The subject I have not yet fixed
+upon; perhaps the romantic poetry of Italy, for which there is an
+excellent opportunity; Panizzi's reprint of Boiardo; perhaps the little
+volume of Burnet's Characters edited by Bishop Jebb. This reminds me
+that I have to acknowledge the receipt of a box from Longman, containing
+this little book; and other books of much greater value, Grimm's
+Correspondence, Jacquemont's Letters, and several foreign works on
+jurisprudence. 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's
+Chronicle; and Coxe's book on the Pelhams. I should also like to have a
+really good edition of Lucian.
+
+My sister desires me to send you her kind regards. She remembers her
+visit 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 Nancy
+may have prepared you to learn what I am now about to communicate. She
+is going to be married, and with my fullest and warmest approbation. I
+can 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 have
+entrusted her happiness. Trevelyan is about eight and twenty. He was
+educated at the Charter-house, and then went to Haileybury, and came out
+hither. In this country he has distinguished himself beyond any man
+of his standing by his great talent for business; by his liberal
+and enlarged views of policy; and by literary merit, which, for his
+opportunities, 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 only
+twenty-one years of age he publicly accused ----, then almost at the
+head of the service, of receiving bribes from the natives. A perfect
+storm was raised against the accuser. He was almost everywhere abused,
+and very generally cut. But with a firmness and ability scarcely ever
+seen in any man so young, he brought his proofs forward, and, after an
+inquiry of some weeks, fully made out his case. ---- was dismissed in
+disgrace, and is now living obscurely in England. The Government here
+and the Directors at home applauded Trevelyan in the highest terms; and
+from that tithe he has been considered as a man likely to rise to the
+very top of the service. Lord William told him to ask for anything that
+he wished for. Trevelyan begged that something might be done for his
+elder brother, who is in the Company's army. Lord William told him
+that he had richly earned that or anything else, and gave Lieutenant
+Trevelyan a very good diplomatic employment. Indeed Lord William, a man
+who makes no favourites, has always given to Trevelyan the strongest
+marks, not of a blind partiality, but of a thoroughly well-grounded and
+discriminating esteem.
+
+Not long ago Trevelyan was appointed by him to the Under Secretaryship
+for foreign affairs, an office of a very important and confidential
+nature. While holding the place he was commissioned to report to
+Government on the operation of the Internal Transit duties of India.
+About a year ago his Report was completed. I shall send to England a
+copy or two of it by the first safe conveyance; for nothing that I
+can say of his abilities, or of his public spirit, will be half so
+satisfactory. I have no hesitation in affirming that it is a perfect
+masterpiece in its kind. Accustomed as I have been to public affairs, I
+never read an abler State paper; and I do not believe that there is, I
+will not say in India, but in England, another man of twenty-seven who
+could have written it. Trevelyan is a most stormy reformer. Lord William
+said to me, before anyone had observed Trevelyan's attentions to Nancy:
+"That man is almost always on the right side in every question; and it
+is well that he is so, for he gives a most confounded deal of trouble
+when he happens to take the wrong one." [Macaulay used to apply to his
+future brother-in-law the remark which Julius Caesar made with regard
+to his young friend Brutus: "Magni refert hic quid velit; sed quidquid
+volet, valde volet."] He is quite at the head of that active party among
+the younger servants of the Company who take the side of improvement. In
+particular, he is the soul of every scheme for diffusing education among
+the natives of this country. His reading has been very confined; but to
+the little that he has read he has brought a mind as active and restless
+as Lord Brougham's, and much more judicious and honest.
+
+As to his person, he always looks like a gentleman, particularly on
+horseback. He is very active and athletic, and is renowned as a great
+master in the most exciting and perilous of field sports, the spearing
+of wild boars. His face has a most characteristic expression of ardour
+and impetuosity, which makes his countenance very interesting to me.
+Birth is a thing that I care nothing about; but his family is one of the
+oldest 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 his
+whole time was divided between public business and field sports, and
+where he seldom saw a European gentleman and never a European lady. He
+has no small talk. His mind is full of schemes of moral and political
+improvement, and his zeal boils over in his talk. His topics, even
+in courtship, are steam navigation, the education of the natives, the
+equalisation of the sugar duties, the substitution of the Roman for the
+Arabic alphabet in the Oriental languages.
+
+I saw the feeling growing from the first; for, though I generally pay
+not the smallest attention to those matters, I had far too deep an
+interest in Nancy's happiness not to watch her behaviour to everybody
+who 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 Trevelyan
+with a little coldness, for he is a man whom the smallest rebuff would
+completely discourage. But you will believe, my dearest Margaret, that
+no thought of such base selfishness ever passed through my mind. I
+would as soon have locked my dear Nancy up in a nunnery as have put the
+smallest obstacle in the way of her having a good husband. I therefore
+gave every facility and encouragement to both of them. What I have
+myself felt it is unnecessary to say. My parting from you almost broke
+my heart. But when I parted from you I had Nancy; I had all my other
+relations; I had my friends; I had my country. Now I have nothing except
+the resources of my own mind, and the consciousness of having acted not
+ungenerously. But I do not repine. Whatever I suffer I have brought on
+myself. 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 on
+the sand; and I have fared accordingly. I must bear my punishment as
+I can; and, above all, I must take care that the punishment does not
+extend beyond myself.
+
+Nothing can be kinder than Nancy's conduct has been. She proposes that
+we should form one family; and Trevelyan, (though, like most lovers, he
+would, I imagine, prefer having his goddess to himself,) consented with
+strong expressions of pleasure. The arrangement is not so strange as
+it might seem at home. The thing is often done here; and those quarrels
+between servants, which would inevitably mar any such plan in England,
+are not to be apprehended in an Indian establishment. One advantage
+there will be in our living together of a most incontestable sort; we
+shall both be able to save more money. Trevelyan will soon be entitled
+to 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 I
+shall represent the marriage as what it is, in every respect except its
+effect on my own dreams of happiness--a most honourable and happy event;
+prudent in a worldly point of view; and promising all the felicity
+which strong mutual affection, excellent principles on both sides,
+good temper, youth, health, and the general approbation of friends can
+afford. As for myself, it is a tragical denouement of an absurd plot.
+I remember quoting some nursery rhymes, years ago, when you left me in
+London 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 own
+nature, and a wise man to forecast his own future. "I feel a growing
+tendency to cynicism and suspicion. My intellect remains; and is likely,
+I sometimes think, to absorb the whole man. I still retain, (not only
+undiminished, but strengthened by the very events which have deprived
+me of everything else,) my thirst for knowledge; my passion for holding
+converse with the greatest minds of all ages and nations; any power of
+forgetting what surrounds me, and of living with the past, the future,
+the distant, and the unreal. Books are becoming everything to me. If
+I had at this moment my choice of life, I would bury myself in one of
+those immense libraries that we saw together at the universities,
+and never pass a waking hour without a book before me." So little was
+Macaulay aware that, during the years which were to come, his thoughts
+and cares would be less than ever for himself, and more for others,
+and that his existence would be passed amidst a bright atmosphere of
+affectionate domestic happiness, which, until his own death came, no
+accident was thenceforward destined to overcloud.
+
+But, before his life assumed the equable and prosperous tenor in which
+it continued to the end, one more trouble was in store for him. Long
+before the last letters to his sister Margaret had been written, the
+eyes which were to have read them had been closed for ever. The fate
+of so young a wife and mother touched deeply all who had known her, and
+some who knew her only by name. [Moultrie made Mrs. Cropper's death
+the subject of some verses on which her relatives set a high value. He
+acknowledges his little poem to be the tribute of one who had been a
+stranger 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 were
+spending their honeymoon in a lodge in the Governor-General's park
+at Barrackpore. They immediately returned to Calcutta, and, under the
+shadow 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 of
+official work. ["April 8. Lichfield. Easter Sunday. After the service
+was ended we went over the Cathedral. When I stood before the famous
+children by Chantrey, I could think only of one thing; that, when last I
+was there, in 1832, my dear sister Margaret was with me and that she was
+greatly affected. I could not command my tears and was forced to leave
+our party, and walk about by myself."--Macaulay's Journal for the year
+1849.]
+
+The narrative of that work may well be the despair of Macaulay's
+biographer. It would be inexcusable to slur over what in many important
+respects was the most honourable chapter of his life; while, on the
+other hand, the task of interesting Englishmen in the details of Indian
+administration is an undertaking which has baffled every pen except his
+own. In such a dilemma the safest course is to allow that pen to
+tell the story for itself; or rather so much of the story as, by
+concentrating the attention of the reader upon matters akin to those
+which are in frequent debate at home, may enable him to judge whether
+Macaulay, at the council-board and the bureau, was the equal of Macaulay
+in the senate and the library.
+
+Examples of his Minute-writing may with some confidence be submitted to
+the criticism of those whose experience of public business has taught
+them in what a Minute should differ from a Despatch, a Memorial, a
+Report, and a Decision. His method of applying general principles to the
+circumstances of a special case, and of illustrating those principles
+with just as much literary ornament as would place his views in a
+pictorial form before the minds of those whom it was his business to
+convince, is strikingly exhibited in the series of papers by means of
+which he reconciled his colleagues in the Council, and his masters
+in Leadenhall Street, to the removal of the modified Censorship which
+existed in India previously to the year 1835.
+
+"It is difficult," he writes, "to conceive that any measures can be more
+indefensible than those which I propose to repeal. It has always been
+the practice of politic rulers to disguise their arbitrary measures
+under popular forms and names. The conduct of the Indian Government with
+respect to the Press has been altogether at variance with this trite
+and obvious maxim. The newspapers have for years been allowed as ample a
+measure of practical liberty as that which they enjoy in England. If any
+inconveniences arise from the liberty of political discussion, to those
+inconveniences we are already subject. Yet while our policy is thus
+liberal and indulgent, we are daily reproached and taunted with the
+bondage in which we keep the Press. A strong feeling on this subject
+appears to exist throughout the European community here; and the loud
+complaints which have lately been uttered are likely to produce a
+considerable effect on the English people, who will see at a glance
+that the law is oppressive, and who will not know how completely it is
+inoperative.
+
+"To impose strong restraints on political discussion is an intelligible
+policy, and may possibly--though I greatly doubt it--be in some
+countries a wise policy. But this is not the point at issue. The
+question 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 a
+Government to make itself unpopular for nothing; to be indulgent, and
+yet to disguise its indulgence under such outward forms as bring on it
+the reproach of tyranny. Yet this is now our policy. We are exposed
+to all the dangers--dangers, I conceive, greatly over-rated--of a free
+Press; and at the same time we contrive to incur all the opprobrium of
+a censorship. It is universally allowed that the licensing system, as
+at present administered, does not keep any man who can buy a press from
+publishing the bitterest and most sarcastic reflections on any public
+measure, or any public functionary. Yet the very words 'license to
+print' have a sound hateful to the ears of Englishmen in every part
+of the globe. It is unnecessary to inquire whether this feeling be
+reasonable; whether the petitioners who have so strongly pressed this
+matter on our consideration would not have shown a better judgment if
+they had been content with their practical liberty, and had reserved
+their murmurs for practical grievances. The question for us is not what
+they ought to do, but what we ought to do; not whether it be wise in
+them to complain when they suffer no injury, but whether it be wise in
+us to incur odium unaccompanied by the smallest accession of security or
+of power.
+
+"One argument only has been urged in defence of the present system. It
+is admitted that the Press of Bengal has long been suffered to enjoy
+practical liberty, and that nothing but an extreme emergency could
+justify the Government in curtailing that liberty. But, it is said, such
+an emergency may arise, and the Government ought to retain in its hands
+the power of adopting, in that event, the sharp, prompt, and decisive
+measures which may be necessary for the preservation of the Empire. But
+when we consider with what vast powers, extending over all classes of
+people, Parliament has armed the Governor-General in Council, and, in
+extreme cases, the Governor-General alone, we shall probably be inclined
+to allow little weight to this argument. No Government in the world
+is better provided with the means of meeting extraordinary dangers by
+extraordinary precautions. Five persons, who may be brought together in
+half an hour, whose deliberations are secret, who are not shackled by
+any of those forms which elsewhere delay legislative measures, can, in a
+single sitting, make a law for stopping every press in India. Possessing
+as we do the unquestionable power to interfere, whenever the safety of
+the State array require it, with overwhelming rapidity and energy, we
+surely ought not, in quiet times, to be constantly keeping the offensive
+form 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 occasion
+to attack Macaulay with a breadth and ferocity of calumny such as few
+public men, in any age or country, have ever endured, and none, perhaps,
+have ever forgiven. There were many mornings when it was impossible for
+him to allow the newspapers to lie about his sister's drawing-room.
+
+The Editor of the Periodical which called itself, and had a right to
+call itself, the "Friend of India," undertook to shame his brethren
+by publishing a collection of their invectives; but it was very soon
+evident that no decent journal could venture to foul its pages by
+reprinting the epithets, and the anecdotes, which constituted the daily
+greeting of the literary men of Calcutta to their fellow-craftsman of
+the Edinburgh Review. But Macaulay's cheery and robust common sense
+carried him safe and sound through an ordeal which has broken down
+sterner natures than his, and embittered as stainless lives. The
+allusions in his correspondence, all the more surely because they are
+brief and rare, indicate that the torrent of obloquy to which he was
+exposed interfered neither with his temper nor with his happiness; and
+how little he allowed it to disturb his judgment or distort his public
+spirit is proved by the tone of a State paper, addressed to the Court of
+Directors in September 1836, in which he eagerly vindicates the freedom
+of the Calcutta Press, at a time when the writers of that Press, on the
+days when they were pleased to be decent, could find for him no milder
+appellations than those of cheat, swindler, and charlatan.
+
+"I regret that on this, or on any subject, my opinion should differ from
+that of the Honourable Court. But I still conscientiously think that we
+acted wisely when we passed the law on the subject of the Press; and
+I am quite certain that we should act most unwisely if we were now to
+repeal that law.
+
+"I must, in the first place, venture to express an opinion that the
+importance of that question is greatly over-rated by persons, even the
+best informed and the most discerning, who are not actually on the spot.
+It is most justly observed by the Honourable Court that many of the
+arguments which may be urged in favour of a free Press at home do not
+apply to this country. But it is, I conceive, no less true that scarcely
+any of those arguments which have been employed in Europe to defend
+restrictions on the Press apply to a Press such as that of India.
+
+"In Europe, and especially in England, the Press is an engine of
+tremendous power, both for good and for evil. The most enlightened
+men, after long experience both of its salutary and of its pernicious
+operation, have come to the conclusion that the good on the whole
+preponderates. But that there is no inconsiderable amount of evil to be
+set off against the good has never been disputed by the warmest friend
+to freedom of discussion.
+
+"In India the Press is comparatively a very feeble engine. It does far
+less good and far less harm than in Europe. It sometimes renders
+useful services to the public. It sometimes brings to the notice of
+the Government evils the existence of which would otherwise have been
+unknown. It operates, to some extent, as a salutary check on public
+functionaries. It does something towards keeping the administration
+pure. On the other hand, by misrepresenting public measures, and by
+flattering the prejudices of those who support it, it sometimes produces
+a slight degree of excitement in a very small portion of the community.
+
+"How slight that excitement is, even when it reaches its greatest
+height, and how little the Government has to fear from it, no person
+whose observation has been confined to European societies will readily
+believe. In this country the number of English residents is very small,
+and, of that small number, a great proportion are engaged in the service
+of the State, and are most deeply interested in the maintenance of
+existing institutions. Even those English settlers who are not in the
+service of the Government have a strong interest in its stability. They
+are few; they are thinly scattered among a vast population, with whom
+they have neither language, nor religion, nor morals, nor manners, nor
+colour in common; they feel that any convulsion which should overthrow
+the existing order of things would be ruinous to themselves. Particular
+acts of the Government--especially acts which are mortifying to the
+pride of caste naturally felt by an Englishman in India--are often
+angrily condemned by these persons. But every indigo-planter in Tirhoot,
+and every shopkeeper in Calcutta, is perfectly aware that the downfall
+of 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 subjects
+for that species of excitement which the Press sometimes produces
+at home. There is no class among them analogous to that vast body of
+English labourers and artisans whose minds are rendered irritable by
+frequent distress and privation, and on whom, therefore, the sophistry
+and rhetoric of bad men often produce a tremendous effect. The English
+papers here might be infinitely more seditious than the most seditious
+that were ever printed in London without doing harm to anything but
+their own circulation. The fire goes out for want of some combustible
+material on which to seize. How little reason would there be to
+apprehend danger to order and property in England from the most
+inflammatory writings, if those writings were read only by Ministers of
+State, Commissioners of the Customs and Excise, Judges and Masters in
+Chancery, upper clerks in Government offices, officers in the army,
+bankers, landed proprietors, barristers, and master manufacturers! The
+most timid politician would not anticipate the smallest evil from the
+most seditious libels, if the circulation of those libels were confined
+to such a class of readers; and it is to such a class of readers that
+the circulation of the English newspapers in India is almost entirely
+confined."
+
+The motive for the scurrility with which Macaulay was assailed by a
+handful of sorry scribblers was his advocacy of the Act familiarly known
+as the Black Act, which withdrew from British subjects resident in the
+provinces their so-called privilege of bringing civil appeals before the
+Supreme Court at Calcutta. Such appeals were thenceforward to be tried
+by the Sudder Court, which was manned by the Company's judges, "all of
+them English gentlemen of liberal education; as free as even the judges
+of the Supreme Court from any imputation of personal corruption,
+and selected by the Government from a body which abounds in men as
+honourable and as intelligent as ever were employed in the service of
+any state." The change embodied in the Act was one of little practical
+moment; but it excited an opposition based upon arguments and assertions
+of such a nature that the success or failure of the proposed measure
+became a question of high and undeniable importance.
+
+"In my opinion," writes Macaulay, "the chief reason for preferring the
+Sudder Court is this--that it is the court which we have provided to
+administer 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 fit
+to administer justice to the great body of the people, why should we
+exempt a mere handful of settlers from its jurisdiction? There certainly
+is, I will not say the reality, but the semblance of partiality and
+tyranny in the distinction made by the Charter Act of 1813. That
+distinction seems to indicate a notion that the natives of India may
+well put up with something less than justice, or that Englishmen in
+India have a title to something more than justice. If we give our own
+countrymen an appeal to the King's Courts, in cases in which all others
+are forced to be contented with the Company's Courts, we do in fact cry
+down the Company's Courts. We proclaim to the Indian people that there
+are two sorts of justice--a coarse one, which we think good enough for
+then, and another of superior quality, which we keep for ourselves. If
+we take pains to show that we distrust our highest courts, how can we
+expect 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, as
+opposed to the Capital.] Seven weeks have elapsed since the notification
+took place. Time has been allowed for petitions from the furthest
+corners of the territories subject to this Presidency. But I have heard
+of only one attempt in the Mofussil to get up a remonstrance; and the
+Mofussil newspapers which I have seen, though generally disposed to
+cavil at all the acts of the Government, have spoken favourably of this
+measure.
+
+"In Calcutta the case has been somewhat different; and this is a
+remarkable fact. The British inhabitants of Calcutta are the only
+British-born subjects in Bengal who will not be affected by the proposed
+Act; and they are the only British subjects in Bengal who have expressed
+the smallest objection to it. The clamour, indeed, has proceeded from
+a very small portion of the society of Calcutta. The objectors have not
+ventured to call a public meeting, and their memorial has obtained
+very few signatures. But they have attempted to make up by noise and
+virulence for what has been wanting in strength. It may at first sight
+appear strange that a law, which is not unwelcome to those who are to
+live under it, should excite such acrimonious feelings among people who
+are wholly exempted from its operation. But the explanation is simple.
+Though nobody who resides at Calcutta will be sued in the Mofussil
+courts, many people who reside at Calcutta have, or wish to have,
+practice in the Supreme Court. Great exertions have accordingly been
+made, though with little success, to excite a feeling against this
+measure among the English inhabitants of Calcutta.
+
+"The political phraseology of the English in India is the same with the
+political phraseology of our countrymen at home; but it is never to be
+forgotten that the same words stand for very different things at London
+and at Calcutta. We hear much about public opinion, the love of liberty,
+the influence of the Press. But we must remember that public opinion
+means the opinion of five hundred persons who have no interest, feeling,
+or taste in common with the fifty millions among whom they live; that
+the love of liberty means the strong objection which the five hundred
+feel to every measure which can prevent them from acting as they choose
+towards the fifty millions, that the Press is altogether supported by
+the five hundred, and has no motive to plead the cause of the fifty
+millions.
+
+"We know that India cannot have a free Government. But she may have
+the next best thing--a firm and impartial despotism. The worst state in
+which she can possibly be placed is that in which the memorialists would
+place her. They call on us to recognise them as a privileged order of
+freemen in the midst of slaves. It was for the purpose of averting
+this great evil that Parliament, at the same time at which it suffered
+Englishmen 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 to
+use them now."
+
+Macaulay had made two mistakes. He had yielded to the temptation of
+imputing motives, a habit which the Spectator newspaper has pronounced
+to be his one intellectual vice, finely adding that it is "the vice
+of rectitude;" and he had done worse still, for he had challenged his
+opponents to a course of agitation. They responded to the call. After
+preparing the way by a string of communications to the public journals,
+in to which their objections to the Act were set forth at enormous
+length, and with as much point and dignity as can be obtained by
+a copious use of italics and capital letters, they called a public
+meeting, the proceedings at which were almost too ludicrous for
+description. "I have seen," said one of the speakers, "at a Hindoo
+festival, a naked dishevelled figure, his face painted with grotesque
+colours, and his long hair besmeared with dirt and ashes. His tongue was
+pierced with an iron bar, and his breast was scorched by the fire from
+the burning altar which rested on his stomach. This revolting figure,
+covered with ashes, dirt, and bleeding voluntary wounds, may the next
+moment ascend the Sudder bench, and in a suit between a Hindoo and an
+Englishman think it an act of sanctity to decide against law in favour
+of the professor of the true faith." Another gentleman, Mr. Longueville
+Clarke, 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 of
+history will supply him with many examples of what has occurred when
+resistance has been provoked by milder instances of despotism than the
+decimation of a people." This pretty explicit recommendation to lynch a
+Member of Council was received with rapturous applause.
+
+At length arose a Captain Biden, who spoke as follows: "Gentlemen, I
+come before you in the character of a British seaman, and on that ground
+claim your attention for a few moments. Gentlemen, there has been
+much talk during the evening of laws, and regulations, and rights,
+and liberties; but you all seem to have forgotten that this is the
+anniversary of the glorious Battle of Waterloo. I beg to propose, and I
+call on the statue of Lord Cornwallis and yourselves to join me in
+three cheers for the Duke of Wellington and the Battle of Waterloo." The
+audience, who by this time were pretty well convinced that no grievance
+which could possibly result under the Black Act could equal the horrors
+of 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 even
+the gallant orator. The business was brought to a hurried close, and the
+meeting was adjourned till the following week.
+
+But the luck of Macaulay's adversaries pursued them still. One of the
+leading speakers at the adjourned meeting, himself a barrister, gave
+another barrister the lie, and a tumult ensued which Captain Biden
+in vain endeavoured to calm by his favourite remedy. "The opinion at
+Madras, Bombay, and Canton," said he,--and in so saying he uttered the
+only sentence of wisdom which either evening had produced,--"is that
+there is no public opinion at Calcutta but the lawyers. And now,--who
+has the presumption to call it a burlesque?--let's give three cheers for
+the Battle of Waterloo, and then I'll propose an amendment which shall
+go into the whole question." The Chairman, who certainly had earned
+the vote of thanks for "his very extraordinary patience," which Captain
+Biden was appropriately selected to move, contrived to get resolutions
+passed in favour of petitioning Parliament and the Home Government
+against the obnoxious Act.
+
+The next few weeks were spent by the leaders of the movement in
+squabbling over the preliminaries of duels that never came off, and
+applying for criminal informations for libel against each other, which
+their beloved Supreme Court very judiciously refused to grant; but in
+the 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, a
+Committee of inquiry into the operation of the Act was moved for in the
+House of Commons; but there was nothing in the question which tempted
+Honourable Members to lay aside their customary indifference with regard
+to Indian controversies, and the motion fell through without a division.
+The House allowed the Government to have its own way in the matter; and
+any possible hesitation on the part of the Ministers was borne down by
+the emphasis with which Macaulay claimed their support. "I conceive," he
+wrote, "that the Act is good in itself, and that the time for passing it
+has been well chosen. The strongest reason, however, for passing it is
+the nature of the opposition which it has experienced. The organs of
+that opposition repeated every day that the English were the conquerors,
+and the lords of the country, the dominant race; the electors of the
+House of Commons, whose power extends both over the Company at home,
+and over the Governor-General in Council here. The constituents of the
+British Legislature, they told us, were not to be bound by laws made by
+any inferior authority. The firmness with which the Government withstood
+the idle outcry of two or three hundred people, about a matter with
+which they had nothing to do, was designated as insolent defiance of
+public opinion. We were enemies of freedom, because we would not suffer
+a small white aristocracy to domineer over millions. How utterly at
+variance these principles are with reason, with justice, with the honour
+of the British Government, and with the dearest interests of the Indian
+people, it is unnecessary for me to point out. For myself, I can only
+say that, if the Government is to be conducted on such principles, I am
+utterly disqualified, by all my feelings and opinions, from bearing any
+part in it, and cannot too soon resign my place to some person better
+fitted 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 that
+he came at the moment when he did; for that moment was the very
+turning-point of her intellectual progress. All educational action had
+been at a stand for some time back, on account of an irreconcilable
+difference of opinion in the Committee of Public Instruction; which was
+divided, five against five, on either side of a controversy,--vital,
+inevitable, admitting of neither postponement nor compromise, and
+conducted by both parties with a pertinacity and a warmth that was
+nothing but honourable to those concerned. Half of the members were
+for maintaining and extending the old scheme of encouraging Oriental
+learning 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 knowledge
+in the vernacular tongues, and the higher branches in English. On his
+arrival, Macaulay was appointed President of the Committee; but he
+declined to take any active part in its proceedings until the Government
+had finally pronounced on the question at issue. Later in January 1835
+the advocates of the two systems, than whom ten abler men could not be
+found 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 the
+English section in the Committee.
+
+"How stands the case? We have to educate a people who cannot at present
+be educated by means of their mother-tongue. We must teach them some
+foreign language. The claims of our own language it is hardly necessary
+to recapitulate. It stands preeminent even among the languages of the
+West. It abounds with works of imagination not inferior to the noblest
+which Greece has bequeathed to us; with models of every species of
+eloquence; with historical compositions, which, considered merely
+as narratives, have seldom been surpassed, and which, considered as
+vehicles 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 respecting
+every experimental science which tends to preserve the health, to
+increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of man. Whoever knows
+that language has ready access to all the vast intellectual wealth which
+the the wisest nations of the earth have created and hoarded in the
+course of ninety generations. It may safely be said that the literature
+now extant in that language is of far greater value than all the
+literature which three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages
+of the world together. Nor is this all. In India, English is the
+language spoken by the ruling class. It is spoken by the higher class of
+natives at the seats of government. It is likely to become the language
+of commerce throughout the seas of the East. It is the language of two
+great European communities which are rising, the one in the south of
+Africa, the other in Australasia; communities which are every year
+becoming more important, and more closely connected with our Indian
+Empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic value of our literature or at
+the particular situation of this country, we shall see the strongest
+reason to think that, of all foreign tongues, the English tongue is that
+which would be the most useful to our native subjects.
+
+"The question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our power
+to teach this language, we shall teach languages in which, by universal
+confession, there are no books on any subject which deserve to be
+compared to our own; whether, when we can teach European science, we
+shall teach systems which, by universal confession, whenever they differ
+from those of Europe, differ for the worse; and whether, when we can
+patronise sound philosophy and true history, we shall countenance, at
+the public expense, medical doctrines, which would disgrace an English
+furrier--astronomy, which would move laughter in the girls at an English
+boarding-school--history, abounding with kings thirty feet high, and
+reigns thirty thousand years long--and geography made up of seas of
+treacle and seas of butter.
+
+"We are not without experience to guide us. History furnishes several
+analogous cases, and they all teach the same lesson. There are in modern
+times, to go no further, two memorable instances of a great impulse
+given to the mind of a whole society--of prejudice overthrown--of
+knowledge diffused--of taste purified--of arts and sciences planted in
+countries which had recently been ignorant and barbarous.
+
+"The first instance to which I refer is the great revival of letters
+among the western nations at the close of the fifteenth and the
+beginning of the sixteenth century. At that time almost everything that
+was worth reading was contained in the writings of the ancient
+Greeks and Romans. Had our ancestors acted as the Committee of Public
+Instruction has hitherto acted; had they neglected the language of
+Cicero and Tacitus; had they confined their attention to the old
+dialects of our own island; had they printed nothing, and taught nothing
+at the universities, but chronicles in Anglo-Saxon, and romances in
+Norman French, would England have been what she now is? What the Greek
+and Latin were to the contemporaries of More and Ascham, our tongue is
+to the people of India. The literature of England is now more valuable
+than that of classical antiquity. I doubt whether the Sanscrit
+literature be as valuable as that of our Saxon and Norman progenitors.
+In some departments--in history, for example--I am certain that it is
+much less so.
+
+"Another instance may be said to be still before our eyes. Within the
+last hundred and twenty years a nation which had previously been in
+a state as barbarous as that in which our ancestors were before the
+Crusades 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 with
+persons fit to serve the state in the highest functions, and in no way
+inferior to the most accomplished men who adorn the best circles of
+Paris and London. There is reason to hope that this vast Empire, which
+in the time of our grandfathers was probably behind the Punjab, may, in
+the time of our grandchildren, be pressing close on France and Britain
+in the career of improvement. And how was this change effected? Not by
+flattering national prejudices; not by feeding the mind of the young
+Muscovite with the old woman's stories which his rude fathers had
+believed; not by filling his head with lying legends about St. Nicholas;
+not by encouraging him to study the great question, whether the world
+was or was not created on the 13th of September; not by calling him 'a
+learned native,' when he has mastered all these points of knowledge; but
+by teaching him those foreign languages in which the greatest mass of
+information had been laid up, and thus putting all that information
+within his reach. The languages of western Europe civilised Russia. I
+cannot doubt that they will do for the Hindoo what they have done for
+the Tartar."
+
+This Minute, which in its original shape is long enough for an article
+in a quarterly review, and as businesslike as a Report of a Royal
+Commission, set the question at rest at once and for ever. On the 7th of
+March, 1835, Lord William Bentinck decided that "the great object of the
+British Government ought to be the promotion of European literature and
+science among the natives of India;" two of the Orientalists retired
+from the Committee of Public Instruction; several new members, both
+English and native, were appointed; and Macaulay entered upon the
+functions of President with an energy and assiduity which in his case
+was an infallible proof that his work was to his mind.
+
+The post was no sinecure. It was an arduous task to plan, found, and
+construct, in all its grades, the education of such a country as
+India. The means at Macaulay's disposal were utterly inadequate for the
+undertaking on which he was engaged. Nothing resembling an organised
+staff was as yet in existence. There were no Inspectors of Schools.
+There were no training colleges for masters. There were no boards of
+experienced managers. The machinery consisted of voluntary committees
+acting on the spot, and corresponding directly with the superintending
+body at Calcutta. Macaulay rose to the occasion, and threw himself
+into the routine of administration and control with zeal sustained
+by diligence and tempered by tact. "We were hardly prepared," said a
+competent critic, "for the amount of conciliation which he evinces in
+dealing with irritable colleagues and subordinates, and for the strong,
+sterling, practical common sense with which he sweeps away rubbish, or
+cuts the knots of local and departmental problems." The mastery which a
+man exercises over himself, and the patience and forbearance displayed
+in his dealings with others, are generally in proportion to the value
+which he sets upon the objects of his pursuit. If we judge Macaulay by
+this standard, it is plain that he cared a great deal more for providing
+our Eastern Empire with an educational outfit that would work and wear
+than he ever cared for keeping his own seat in Parliament or pushing his
+own fortunes in Downing Street. Throughout his innumerable Minutes, on
+all subjects from the broadest principle to the narrowest detail, he
+is everywhere free from crotchets and susceptibilities; and everywhere
+ready to humour any person who will make himself useful, and to adopt
+any appliance which can be turned to account.
+
+"I think it highly probable that Mr. Nicholls may be to blame, because I
+have seldom known a quarrel in which both parties were not to blame. But
+I see no evidence that he is so. Nor do I see any evidence which tends
+to prove that Mr. Nicholls leads the Local Committee by the nose. The
+Local Committee appear to have acted with perfect propriety, and
+I 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. I
+dislike the suggestion of putting military men on the Committee as
+a check on the civilians. Hitherto we have never, to the best of my
+belief, been troubled by any such idle jealousies. I would appoint the
+fittest men without caring to what branch of the service they belonged,
+or whether they belonged to the service at all." [This, and the
+following extracts, are taken from a volume of Macaulay's Minutes, "now
+first collected from Records in the Department of Public instruction, by
+H. Woodrow, Esq., M.A., Inspector of Schools at Calcutta, and formerly
+Fellow of Caius College, Cambridge." The collection was published in
+India.]
+
+Exception had been taken to an applicant for a mastership, on the ground
+that he had been a preacher with a strong turn for proselytising.
+
+"Mr. ---- seems to be so little concerned about proselytising, that he
+does not even know how to spell the word; a circumstance which, if I did
+not suppose it to be a slip of the pen, I should think a more serious
+objection than the 'Reverend' which formerly stood before his name. I am
+quite content with his assurances."
+
+In default of better, Macaulay was always for employing the tools
+which came to hand. A warm and consistent advocate of appointment by
+competitive examination, wherever a field for competition existed, he
+was no pedantic slave to a theory. In the dearth of schoolmasters, which
+is a feature in every infant educational system, he refused to reject
+a candidate who mistook "Argos for Corinth," and backed the claims of
+aspirants of respectable character who could "read, write, and work a
+sum."
+
+"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 revenues
+of Oude, and the treasures of Saadut Ali, might have borne the expense
+of producing something better than a map in which Sicily is joined on
+to the toe of Italy, and in which so important an eastern island as Java
+does not appear at all."
+
+"As to the corrupting influence of the zenana, of which Mr. Trevelyan
+speaks, I may regret it; but I own that I cannot help thinking that the
+dissolution of the tie between parent and child is as great a moral evil
+as can be found in any zenana. In whatever degree infant schools relax
+that tie they do mischief. For my own part, I would rather hear a boy
+of three years old lisp all the bad words in the language than that he
+should have no feelings of family affection--that his character should
+be that which must be expected in one who has had the misfortune of
+having a schoolmaster in place of a mother."
+
+"I do not see the reason for establishing any limit as to the age of
+scholars. The phenomena are exactly the same which have always been
+found to exist when a new mode of education has been rising into
+fashion. No man of fifty now learns Greek with boys; but in the
+sixteenth century it was not at all unusual to see old Doctors of
+Divinity 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 is
+demanded from those who have access to them, and if all that is raised
+by this subscription is laid out in adding to the libraries, the
+students will be no losers by the plan. Our libraries, the best of them
+at least, would be better than any which would be readily accessible at
+an up-country station; and I do not know why we should grudge a young
+officer the pleasure of reading our copy of Boswell's Life of Johnson
+or Marmontel's Memoirs, if he is willing to pay a few rupees for the
+privilege."
+
+These utterances of cultured wisdom or homely mother-wit are sometimes
+expressed in phrases almost as amusing, though not so characteristic, as
+those which Frederic the Great used to scrawl on the margin of reports
+and 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 dislikes
+the 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 comfortable
+and useful. Our masters run from station to station at our cost, as
+vapourised ladies at home run about from spa to spa. All situations have
+their discomforts; and there are times when we all wish that our lot had
+been 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 be
+introduced into any part of our Indian system. Heraldry is not a
+science which has any eternal rules. It is a system of arbitrary canons,
+originating in pure caprice. Nothing can be more absurd and grotesque
+than armorial bearings, considered in themselves. Certain recollections,
+certain associations, make them interesting in many cases to an
+Englishman; but in those recollections and associations the natives of
+India do not participate. A lion, rampant, with a folio in his paw, with
+a 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 very
+mysterious, or very absurd."
+
+In a discussion on the propriety of printing some books of Oriental
+science, Macaulay writes
+
+"I should be sorry to say anything disrespectful of that liberal
+and generous enthusiasm for Oriental literature which appears in Mr.
+Sutherland's minute; but I own that I cannot think that we ought to be
+guided in the distribution of the small sum, which the Government has
+allotted for the purpose of education, by considerations which seem
+a little romantic. That the Saracens a thousand years ago cultivated
+mathematical science is hardly, I think, a reason for our spending any
+money in translating English treatises on mathematics into Arabic. Mr.
+Sutherland would probably think it very strange if we were to urge the
+destruction of the Alexandrian Library as a reason against patronising
+Arabic literature in the nineteenth century. The undertaking may be, as
+Mr. Sutherland conceives, a great national work. So is the breakwater at
+Madras. 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. That
+men of thirty should be bribed to continue their education into mature
+life "seems very absurd. Moghal Jan has been paid to learn something
+during twelve years. We are told that he is lazy and stupid; but there
+are hopes that in four years more he will have completed his course
+of study. We have had quite enough of these lazy, stupid schoolboys of
+thirty."
+
+"I must frankly own that I do not like the list of books. Grammars of
+rhetoric and grammars of logic are among the most useless furniture of
+a shelf. Give a boy Robinson Crusoe. That is worth all the grammars of
+rhetoric and logic in the world. We ought to procure such books as are
+likely to give the children a taste for the literature of the West; not
+books filled with idle distinctions and definitions, which every man
+who has learned them makes haste to forget. Who ever reasoned better for
+having been taught the difference between a syllogism and an enthymeme?
+Who ever composed with greater spirit and elegance because he could
+define an oxymoron or an aposiopesis? I am not joking, but writing quite
+seriously, when I say that I would much rather order a hundred copies
+of Jack the Giant-killer for our schools than a hundred copies of any
+grammar 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 they
+have received all Mr. Pinnock's improvements. I must own too, that I
+think the order for globes and other instruments unnecessarily large.
+To lay out 324 pounds at once on globes alone, useful as I acknowledge
+those articles to be, seems exceedingly profuse, when we have only about
+3,000 pounds a year for all purposes of English education. One 12-inch
+or 18-inch globe for each school is quite enough; and we ought not, I
+think, to order sixteen such globes when we are about to establish only
+seven schools. Useful as the telescopes, the theodolites, and the other
+scientific instruments mentioned in the indent undoubtedly are, we
+must consider that four or five such instruments run away with a year's
+salary of a schoolmaster, and that, if we purchase them, it will be
+necessary to defer the establishment of schools."
+
+At one of the colleges at Calcutta the distribution of prizes was
+accompanied by some histrionic performances on the part of the pupils.
+
+"I have no partiality," writes Macaulay, "for such ceremonies. I think
+it a very questionable thing whether, even at home, public spouting and
+acting ought to form part of the system of a place of education. But
+in this country such exhibitions are peculiarly out of place. I can
+conceive nothing more grotesque than the scene from the Merchant of
+Venice, with Portia represented by a little black boy. Then, too, the
+subjects of recitation were ill chosen. We are attempting to introduce a
+great nation to a knowledge of the richest and noblest literature in
+the world. The society of Calcutta assemble to see what progress we are
+making; and we produce as a sample a boy who repeats some blackguard
+doggerel of George Colman's, about a fat gentleman who was put to bed
+over an oven, and about a man-midwife who was called out of his bed by
+a drunken man at night. Our disciple tries to hiccup, and tumbles and
+staggers about in imitation of the tipsy English sailors whom he has
+seen at the punch houses. Really, if we can find nothing better worth
+reciting than this trash, we had better give up English instruction
+altogether."
+
+"As to the list of prize books, I am not much better satisfied. It
+is absolutely unintelligible to me why Pope's Works and my old friend
+Moore's Lalla Rookh should be selected from the whole mass of English
+poetry to be prize books. I will engage to frame, currente calamo, a
+better list. Bacon's Essays, Hume's England, Gibbon's Rome, Robertson's
+Charles V., Robertson's Scotland, Robertson's America, Swift's Gulliver,
+Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare's Works, Paradise Lost, Milton's smaller
+poems, Arabian Nights, Park's Travels, Anson's Voyage, the Vicar of
+Wakefield, Johnson's Lives, Gil Blas, Voltaire's Charles XII., Southey's
+Nelson, Middleton's Life of Cicero.
+
+"This may serve as a specimen. These are books which will amuse and
+interest those who obtain them. To give a boy Abercrombie on the
+Intellectual Powers, Dick's Moral Improvement, Young's Intellectual
+Philosophy, Chalmers's Poetical Economy!!! (in passing I may be allowed
+to ask what that means?) is quite absurd. I would not give orders at
+random for books about which we know nothing. We are under no necessity
+of ordering at haphazard. We know Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver, and
+the Arabian Nights, and Anson's Voyage, and many other delightful works
+which interest even the very young, and which do not lose their interest
+to the end of our lives. Why should we order blindfold such books as
+Markham's New Children's Friend, the juvenile Scrap Book, the Child's
+Own Book, Niggens's Earth, Mudie's Sea, and somebody else's Fire and
+Air?--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 Sir
+Benjamin Malkin will furnish the names of ten or twelve works of a
+scientific kind, which he thinks suited for prizes, the task will not
+be difficult; and, with his help, I will gladly undertake it. There is a
+marked distinction between a prize book and a school book. A prize book
+ought to be a book which a boy receives with pleasure, and turns over
+and over, not as a task, but spontaneously. I have not forgotten my own
+school-boy feelings on this subject. My pleasure at obtaining a prize
+was greatly enhanced by the knowledge that my little library would
+receive a very agreeable addition. I never was better pleased than when
+at fourteen I was master of Boswell's Life of Johnson, which I had long
+been wishing to read. If my master had given me, instead of Boswell, a
+Critical Pronouncing Dictionary, or a Geographical Class book, I should
+have been much less gratified by my success."
+
+The idea had been started of paying authors to write books in the
+languages of the country. On this Macaulay remarks
+
+"To hire four or five people to make a literature is a course which
+never answered and never will answer, in any part of the world.
+Languages grow. They cannot be built. We are now following the slow but
+sure course on which alone we can depend for a supply of good books in
+the vernacular languages of India. We are attempting to raise up a large
+class of enlightened natives. I hope that, twenty years hence, there
+will be hundreds, nay thousands, of natives familiar with the best
+models of composition, and well acquainted with Western science. Among
+them some persons will be found who will have the inclination and the
+ability to exhibit European knowledge in the vernacular dialects. This
+I believe to be the only way in which we can raise up a good vernacular
+literature in this country."
+
+These hopeful anticipations have been more than fulfilled. Twice twenty
+years have brought into existence, not hundreds or thousands, but
+hundreds of thousands, of natives who can appreciate European knowledge
+when laid before them in the English language, and can reproduce it in
+their own. Taking one year with another, upwards of a thousand works of
+literature and science are published annually in Bengal alone, and
+at least four times that number throughout the entire continent. Our
+colleges have more than six thousand students on their books, and two
+hundred thousand boys are receiving a liberal education in schools of
+the higher order. For the improvement of the mass of the people, nearly
+seven thousand young men are in training as Certificated Masters. The
+amount allotted in the budget to the item of Public Instruction has
+increased more than seventy-fold since 1835; and is largely supplemented
+by the fees which parents of all classes willingly contribute when once
+they have been taught the value of a commodity the demand for which is
+created by the supply. During many years past the generosity of wealthy
+natives has to a great extent been diverted from the idle extravagance
+of pageants and festivals, to promote the intellectual advancement of
+their fellow-countrymen. On several different occasions, at a single
+stroke of the pen, our Indian universities have been endowed with twice,
+three times, four times the amount of the slender sum which Macaulay
+had at his command. But none the less was he the master-engineer, whose
+skill and foresight determined the direction of the channels, along
+which this stream of public and private munificence was to flow for the
+regeneration of our Eastern Empire.
+
+It may add something to the merit of Macaulay's labours in the cause of
+Education that those labours were voluntary and unpaid; and voluntary
+and unpaid likewise was another service which he rendered to India, not
+less durable than the first, and hardly less important. A clause in the
+Act of 1833 gave rise to the appointment of a Commission to inquire into
+the jurisprudence and jurisdiction of our Eastern Empire. Macaulay, at
+his own instigation, was appointed President of that Commission. He had
+not been many months engaged in his new duties before he submitted a
+proposal, by the adoption of which his own industry and the high talents
+of his colleagues, Mr. Cameron and Sir John Macleod, might be turned to
+the best account by being employed in framing a Criminal Code for the
+whole Indian Empire. "This Code," writes Macaulay, "should not be a mere
+digest of existing usages and regulations, but should comprise all the
+reforms which the Commission may think desirable. It should be framed
+on two great principles, the principle of suppressing crime with the
+smallest possible amount of suffering, and the principle of ascertaining
+truth at the smallest possible cost of time and money. The Commissioners
+should be particularly charged to study conciseness, as far as it is
+consistent with perspicuity. In general, I believe, it will be found
+that perspicuous and concise expressions are not only compatible, but
+identical."
+
+The offer was eagerly accepted, and the Commission fell to work. The
+results of that work did not show themselves quickly enough to satisfy
+the most practical, and, (to its credit be it spoken,) the most exacting
+of Governments; and Macaulay was under the necessity of explaining and
+excusing a procrastination, which was celerity itself as compared with
+any codifying that had been done since the days of Justinian.
+
+"During the last rainy season,--a season, I believe, peculiarly
+unhealthy,--every member of the Commission, except myself, was wholly
+incapacitated for exertion. Mr. Anderson has been twice under the
+necessity of leaving Calcutta, and has not, till very lately, been
+able to labour with his accustomed activity. Mr. Macleod has been, till
+within the last week or ten days, in so feeble a state that the smallest
+effort seriously disordered him; and his health is so delicate that,
+admirably qualified as he is, by very rare talents, for the discharge
+of his functions, it would be imprudent, in forming any prospective
+calculation, to reckon on much service from him. Mr. Cameron, of the
+importance of whose assistance I need not speak, has been, during more
+than four months, utterly unable to do any work, and has at length been
+compelled to ask leave of absence, in order to visit the Cape for the
+recovery of his health. Thus, as the Governor-General has stated, Mr.
+Millett and myself have, during a considerable time, constituted the
+whole effective strength of the Commission. Nor has Mr. Millett been
+able to devote to the business of the Commission his whole undivided
+attention.
+
+"I must say that, even if no allowance be made for the untoward
+occurrences which have retarded our progress, that progress cannot
+be called slow. People who have never considered the importance and
+difficulty of the task in which we are employed are surprised to find
+that a Code cannot be spoken of extempore, or written like an article
+in a magazine. I am not ashamed to acknowledge that there are several
+chapters in the Code on which I have been employed for months; of which
+I have changed the whole plan ten or twelve times; which contain not a
+single word as it originally stood; and with which I am still very far
+indeed from being satisfied. I certainly shall not hurry on my share
+of the work to gratify the childish impatience of the ignorant. Their
+censure ought to be a matter of perfect indifference to men engaged in
+a task, on the right performance of which the welfare of millions may,
+during a long series of years, depend. The cost of the Commission is
+as nothing when compared with the importance of such a work. The time
+during which the Commission has sat is as nothing compared with the time
+during which that work will produce good, or evil, to India.
+
+"Indeed, if we compare the progress of the Indian Code with the progress
+of Codes under circumstances far more favourable, we shall find little
+reason to accuse the Law Commission of tardiness. Buonaparte had at his
+command the services of experienced jurists to any extent to which he
+chose to call for them; yet his legislation proceeded at a far slower
+rate than ours. The French Criminal Code was begun, under the Consulate,
+in March 1801; and yet the Code of Criminal Procedure was not completed
+till 1808, and the Penal Code not till 1810. The Criminal Code
+of Louisiana was commenced in February 1821. After it had been in
+preparation during three years and a half, an accident happened to the
+papers which compelled Mr. Livingstone to request indulgence for another
+year. Indeed, when I remember the slow progress of law reforms at home,
+and when I consider that our Code decides hundreds of questions, every
+one of which, if stirred in England, would give occasion to voluminous
+controversy and to many animated debates, I must acknowledge that I am
+inclined to fear that we have been guilty rather of precipitation than
+of delay."
+
+This Minute was dated the end of January, 1837; and in the course of
+the same year the Code appeared, headed by an Introductory Report in the
+shape of a letter to the Governor-General, and followed by an Appendix
+containing eighteen notes, each in itself an essay. The most readable of
+all 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 may
+easily be recognised as that of Lady Macbeth and the grooms; ["A, after
+wounding 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 front
+himself, but also that Z may be convicted of voluntarily causing
+grievous hurt. A is liable to punishment as a fabricator of false
+evidence."] and the offence of voluntary culpable homicide by an
+imaginary incident of a pit covered with sticks and turf, which
+irresistibly recalls a reminiscence of Jack the Giant-killer. The
+chapters on theft and trespass establish the rights of book owners
+as against book stealers, book borrowers, and book defacers, with an
+affectionate precision which would have gladdened the heart of Charles
+Lamb or Sir Walter Scott. ["A, being on friendly terms with Z, goes
+into Z's library, in Z's absence, and takes a book without Z's express
+consent. Here, it is probable that A may have conceived that he had Z's
+implied consent to use Z's books. If this was A's impression, A has not
+committed theft."
+
+"A takes up a book belonging to Z, and reads it, not having any right
+over the book, and not having the consent of any person entitled to
+authorise A so to do. A trespasses.
+
+"A, being exasperated at a passage in a book which is lying on the
+counter of Z, snatches it up, and tears it to pieces. A has not
+committed theft, as he has not acted fraudulently, though he may
+have committed criminal trespass and mischief."] In the chapter on
+manslaughter, the judge is enjoined to treat with lenity an act done
+in the first anger of a husband or father, provoked by the intolerable
+outrage of a certain kind of criminal assault. "Such an assault produced
+the Sicilian Vespers. Such an assault called forth the memorable blow of
+Wat Tyler." And, on the question whether the severity of a hurt should
+be considered in apportioning the punishment, we are reminded of
+"examples which are universally known. Harley was laid up more than
+twenty days by the wound which he received from Guiscard;" while "the
+scratch which Damien gave to Louis the Fifteenth was so slight that it
+was followed by no feverish symptoms." Such a sanguine estimate of the
+diffusion of knowledge with regard to the details of ancient crimes
+could proceed from no pen but that of the writer who endowed schoolboys
+with the erudition of professors, and the talker who, when he poured
+forth the stores of his memory, began each of his disquisitions with the
+phrase, "don't you remember?"
+
+If it be asked whether or not the Penal Code fulfils the ends for which
+it was framed, the answer may safely be left to the gratitude of Indian
+civilians, the younger of whom carry it about in their saddle-bags, and
+the older in their heads. The value which it possesses in the eyes of a
+trained English lawyer may be gathered from the testimony of Macaulay's
+eminent successor, Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, who writes of it thus:
+
+"In order to appreciate the importance of the Penal Code, it must be
+borne in mind what crime in India is. Here, in England, order is so
+thoroughly well established that the crime of the country is hardly more
+than an annoyance. In India, if crime is allowed to let to a head, it
+is capable of destroying the peace and prosperity of whole tracts
+of country. The mass of the people in their common moods are gentle,
+submissive, and disposed to be innocent; but, for that very reason, bold
+and successful criminals are dangerous in the extreme. In old days, when
+they joined in gangs or organised bodies, they soon acquired political
+importance. Now, in many parts of India, crime is quite as uncommon
+as in the least criminal parts of England; and the old high-handed
+systematised crime has almost entirely disappeared. This great
+revolution (for it is nothing less) in the state of society of a whole
+continent has been brought about by the regular administration of a
+rational body of criminal law.
+
+"The administration of criminal justice is entrusted to a very
+small number of English magistrates, organised according to a
+carefully-devised system of appeal and supervision which represents the
+experience of a century. This system is not unattended by evils; but it
+is absolutely necessary to enable a few hundred civilians to govern a
+continent. Persons in such a position must be provided with the plainest
+instructions as to the nature of their duties. These instructions, in
+so far as the administration of criminal justice is concerned, are
+contained in the Indian Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure.
+The Code of Criminal Procedure contains 541 sections, and forms a
+pamphlet of 210 widely printed octavo pages. The Penal Code consists of
+510 sections. Pocket editions of these Codes are published, which may be
+carried about as easily as a pocket Bible; and I doubt whether, even
+in Scotland, you would find many people who know their Bibles as Indian
+civilians know their Codes."
+
+After describing the confusion and complication of the criminal law of
+our 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 be
+accepted at once. It was a draft when he left India in 1838. His
+successors made remarks on it for twenty-two years. Those years were
+filled with wars and rumours of wars. The Afghan disasters and triumphs,
+the war in Central India, the wars with the Sikhs, Lord Dalhousie's
+annexations, threw law reform into the background, and produced a state
+of mind not very favourable to it. Then came the Mutiny, which in its
+essence was the breakdown of an old system; the renunciation of an
+attempt to effect an impossible compromise between the Asiatic and the
+European view of things, legal, military, and administrative. The effect
+of the Mutiny on the Statute-book was unmistakable. The Code of Civil
+Procedure was enacted in 1859. The Penal Code was enacted in 1860, and
+came into operation on the 1st of January 1862. The credit of passing
+the Penal Code into law, and of giving to every part of it the
+improvements which practical skill and technical knowledge could bestow,
+is due to Sir Barnes Peacock, who held Lord Macaulay's place during the
+most anxious years through which the Indian Empire has passed. The Draft
+and the Revision are both eminently creditable to their authors; and the
+result of their successive efforts has been to reproduce in a concise,
+and even beautiful, form the spirit of the law of England; the most
+technical, the most clumsy, and the most bewildering of all systems of
+criminal law; though I think, if its principles are fully understood, it
+is the most rational. If anyone doubts this assertion, let him compare
+the Indian Penal Code with such a book as Mr. Greaves's edition of
+Russell on Crimes. The one subject of homicide, as treated by Mr.
+Greaves and Russell, is, I should think, twice as long as the whole
+Penal Code; and it does not contain a tenth part of the matter."
+
+"The point which always has surprised me most in connection with
+the Penal Code is, that it proves that Lord Macaulay must have had a
+knowledge of English criminal law which, considering how little he had
+practised it, may fairly be called extraordinary. [Macaulay's practice
+at the bar had been less than little, according to an account which he
+gave of it at a public dinner: "My own forensic experience, gentlemen,
+has been extremely small; for my only recollection of an achievement
+that way is that at quarter sessions I once convicted a boy of stealing
+a parcel of cocks and hens."] He must have possessed the gift of going
+at once to the very root of the matter, and of sifting the corn from the
+chaff to a most unusual degree; for his Draft gives the substance of
+the criminal law of England, down to its minute working details, in
+a compass which, by comparison with the original, may be regarded as
+almost absurdly small. The Indian Penal Code is to the English criminal
+law what a manufactured article ready for use is to the materials out of
+which it is made. It is to the French 'Code Penal,' and, I may add, to
+the North German Code of 1871, what a finished picture is to a sketch.
+It is far simpler, and much better expressed, than Livingstone's Code
+for Louisiana; and its practical success has been complete. The clearest
+proof of this is that hardly any questions have arisen upon it which
+have had to be determined by the courts; and that few and slight
+amendments have had to be made in it by the Legislature."
+
+Without troubling himself unduly about the matter, Macaulay was
+conscious that the world's estimate of his public services would be
+injuriously affected by the popular notion, which he has described as
+"so flattering to mediocrity," that a great writer cannot be a great
+administrator; and it is possible that this consciousness had something
+to do with the heartiness and fervour which he threw into his defence
+of the author of "Cato" against the charge of having been an inefficient
+Secretary of State. There was much in common between his own lot
+and that of the other famous essayist who had been likewise a Whig
+statesman; and this similarity in their fortunes may account in part for
+the indulgence, and almost tenderness, with which he reviewed the career
+and character of Addison. Addison himself, at his villa in Chelsea, and
+still more amidst the gilded slavery of Holland House, might have envied
+the literary seclusion, ample for so rapid a reader, which the usages of
+Indian 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, and
+flower-beds scattered over it. It looks beautiful just now after the
+rains, and I hear that it keeps its verdure during a great part of the
+year. A flight of steps leads down from my library into the garden, and
+it is so well shaded that you may walk there till ten o'clock in the
+morning."
+
+Here, book in hand, and in dressing-gown and slippers, he would spend
+those two hours after sun-rise which Anglo-Indian gentlemen devote
+to riding, and Anglo-Indian ladies to sleeping off the arrears of the
+sultry night. Regularly, every morning, his studies were broken in upon
+by the arrival of his baby niece, who came to feed the crows with the
+toast which accompanied his early cup of tea; a ceremony during which
+he had much ado to protect the child from the advances of a multitude of
+birds, each almost as big as herself, which hopped and fluttered round
+her as she stood on the steps of the verandah. When the sun drove him
+indoors, (which happened sooner than he had promised himself, before he
+had learned by experience what the hot season was,) he went to his bath
+and toilette, and then to breakfast; "at which we support nature under
+the exhausting effects of the climate by means of plenty of eggs,
+mango-fish, snipe-pies, and frequently a hot beefsteak. My cook is
+renowned through Calcutta for his skill. He brought me attestations of
+a long succession of gourmands, and among them one from Lord Dalhousie,
+who pronounced him decidedly the first artist in Bengal. [Lord
+Dalhousie, the father of the Governor-General, was Commander-In-Chief
+in India during the years 1830 and 1831.] This great man, and his two
+assistants, I am to have for thirty rupees a month. While I am on the
+subject of the cuisine, I may as well say all that I have to say about
+it at once. The tropical fruits are wretched. The best of them is
+inferior to our apricot or gooseberry. When I was a child, I had a
+notion of its being the most exquisite of treats to eat plantains and
+yams, and to drink palm-wine. How I envied my father for having enjoyed
+these luxuries! I have now enjoyed them all, and I have found like much
+greater men on much more important occasions, that all is vanity. A
+plantain is very like a rotten pear,--so like that I would lay twenty to
+one that a person blindfolded would not discover the difference. A yam
+is better. It is like an indifferent potato. I tried palm-wine at a
+pretty village near Madras, where I slept one night. I told Captain
+Barron that I had been curious to taste that liquor ever since I first
+saw, eight or nine and twenty years ago, the picture of the negro
+climbing the tree in Sierra Leone. The next morning I was roused by a
+servant, with a large bowl of juice fresh from the tree. I drank it, and
+found it very like ginger-beer in which the ginger has been sparingly
+used."
+
+Macaulay necessarily spent away from home the days on which the Supreme
+Council, or the Law Commission, held their meetings; but the rest of his
+work, legal, literary, and educational, he carried on in the quiet of
+his library. Now and again, a morning was consumed in returning calls,
+an expenditure of time which it is needless to say that he sorely
+grudged. "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 are
+always 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 reading
+French for her benefit; and Scribe's comedies and Saint Simon's Memoirs
+beguiled the long languid leisure of the Calcutta afternoon, while the
+punkah swung overhead, and the air came heavy and scented through the
+moistened grass-matting which shrouded the windows. At the approach of
+sunset, with its attendant breeze, he joined his sister in her drive
+along the banks of the Hooghly; and they returned by starlight,--too
+often to take part in a vast banquet of forty guests, dressed as
+fashionably as people can dress at ninety degrees East from Paris; who,
+one and all, had far rather have been eating their curry, and drinking
+their 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 and
+discomfort of a two-shilling ordinary. Nothing can be duller. Nobody
+speaks except to the person next him. The conversation is the most
+deplorable twaddle, and, as I always sit next to the lady of the highest
+rank, or, in other words, to the oldest, ugliest, and proudest woman in
+the company, I am worse off than my neighbours."
+
+Nevertheless he was far too acute a judge of men to undervalue the
+special type of mind which is produced and fostered by the influences of
+an Indian career. He was always ready to admit that there is no better
+company in the world than a young and rising civilian; no one who has
+more to say that is worth hearing, and who can say it in a manner better
+adapted to interest those who know good talk from bad. He delighted in
+that freedom from pedantry, affectation, and pretension which is one of
+the most agreeable characteristics of a service, to belong to which
+is in itself so effectual an education, that a bore is a phenomenon
+notorious everywhere within a hundred miles of the station which has the
+honour to possess him, and a fool is quoted by name throughout all the
+three Presidencies. Macaulay writes to his sisters at home: "The best
+way of seeing society here is to have very small parties. There is
+a little circle of people whose friendship I value, and in whose
+conversation I take pleasure: the Chief Justice, Sir Edward Ryan; my old
+friend, Malkin; Cameron and Macleod, the Law Commissioners; Macnaghten,
+among the older servants of the Company, and Mangles, Colvin, and John
+Peter Grant among the younger. [It cannot be said that all the claims
+made upon Macaulay's friendship were acknowledged as readily as those
+of Sir Benjamin Malkin. "I am dunned unmercifully by place-hunters. The
+oddest application that I have received is from that rascal --, who is
+somewhere in the interior. He tells me he is sure that prosperity has
+not changed me; that I am still the same John Macaulay who was his
+dearest friend, his more than brother; and that he means to come up, and
+live with me at Calcutta. If he fulfils his intention, I will have him
+taken before the police-magistrates."] These, in my opinion, are the
+flower of Calcutta society, and I often ask some of them to a quiet
+dinner." On the Friday of every week, these chosen few met round
+Macaulay's breakfast table to discuss the progress which the Law
+Commission had made in its labours; and each successive point which
+was started opened the way to such a flood of talk,--legal, historical,
+political, and personal,--that the company would sit far on towards
+noon over the empty teacups, until an uneasy sense of accumulating
+despatch-boxes drove them, one by one, to their respective offices.
+
+There are scattered passages in these letters which prove that
+Macaulay's feelings, during his protracted absence from his native
+country, were at times almost as keen as those which racked the breast
+of Cicero, when he was forced to exchange the triumphs of the Forum,
+and the cozy suppers with his brother augurs, for his hateful place
+of banishment at Thessalonica, or his hardly less hateful seat of
+government at Tarsus. The complaints of the English statesman do not,
+however, amount in volume to a fiftieth part of those reiterated out
+pourings of lachrymose eloquence with which the Roman philosopher
+bewailed an expatriation that was hardly one-third as long. "I have no
+words," writes Macaulay, very much under-estimating the wealth of his
+own vocabulary, "to tell you how I pine for England, or how intensely
+bitter exile has been to me, though I hope that I have borne it well. I
+feel as if I had no other wish than to see my country again and die. Let
+me assure you that banishment is no light matter. No person can judge of
+it who has not experienced it. A complete revolution in all the habits
+of life; an estrangement from almost every old friend and acquaintance;
+fifteen thousand miles of ocean between the exile and everything that
+he cares for; all this is, to me at least, very trying. There is no
+temptation of wealth, or power, which would induce me to go through it
+again. But many people do not feel as I do. Indeed, the servants of the
+Company rarely have such a feeling; and it is natural that they should
+not have it, for they are sent out while still schoolboys, and when they
+know little of the world. The moment of emigration is to them also the
+moment of emancipation; and the pleasures of liberty and affluence to a
+great degree compensate them for the loss of their home. In a few years
+they become orientalised, and, by the time that they are of my age, they
+would generally prefer India, as a residence, to England. But it is a
+very different matter when a man is transplanted at thirty-three."
+
+Making, as always, the best of everything, he was quite ready to allow
+that he might have been placed in a still less agreeable situation. In
+the following extract from a letter to his friend, Mrs. Drummond, there
+is much which will come home to those who are old enough to remember how
+vastly the Dublin of 1837 differed, for the worse, from the Dublin of
+1875, "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 would
+rather stay here than be settled in the Phoenix Park. The last residence
+which I would choose would be a place with all the plagues, and none of
+the attractions, of a capital; a provincial city on fire with factions
+political and religious, peopled by raving Orangemen and raving
+Repealers, and distracted by a contest between Protestantism as
+fanatical as that of Knot and Catholicism as fanatical as that of
+Bonner. We have our share of the miseries of life in this country.
+We are annually baked four months, boiled four more, and allowed the
+remaining four to become cool if we can. At this moment, the sun is
+blazing like a furnace. The earth, soaked with oceans of rain, is
+steaming like a wet blanket. Vegetation is rotting all round us. Insects
+and undertakers are the only living creatures which seem to enjoy the
+climate. But, though our atmosphere is hot, our factions are lukewarm. A
+bad epigram in a newspaper, or a public meeting attended by a tailor,
+a pastry-cook, a reporter, two or three barristers, and eight or ten
+attorneys, are our most formidable annoyances. We have agitators in
+our own small way, Tritons of the minnows, bearing the same sort of
+resemblance to O'Connell that a lizard bears to an alligator. Therefore
+Calcutta for me, in preference to Dublin."
+
+He had good reason for being grateful to Calcutta, and still better for
+not showing his gratitude by prolonging his stay there over a fourth
+summer and autumn. "That tremendous crash of the great commercial houses
+which took place a few years ago has produced a revolution in fashions.
+It ruined one half of the English society in Bengal, and seriously
+injured the other half. A large proportion of the most important
+functionaries here are deeply in debt, and accordingly, the mode of
+living is now exceedingly quiet and modest. Those immense subscriptions,
+those public tables, those costly equipages and entertainments of which
+Heber, 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 good
+fortune that I came hither just at the time when the general distress
+had forced everybody to adopt a moderate way of living. Owing very much
+to that circumstance, (while keeping house, I think, more handsomely
+than any other member of Council,) I have saved what will enable me
+to do my part towards making my family comfortable; and I shall have a
+competency for myself, small indeed, but quite sufficient to render
+me as perfectly independent as if I were the possessor of Burleigh or
+Chatsworth." [Macaulay writes to Lord Mahon on the last day of December
+1836: "In another year I hope to leave this country, with a fortune
+which you would think ridiculously small, but which will make me as
+independent 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 in
+politics; but I cannot tell what effect the sight of the old Hall and
+Abbey may produce on me."]
+
+"The rainy season of 1837 has been exceedingly unhealthy. Our house has
+escaped as well as any; yet Hannah is the only one of us who has come
+off untouched. The baby has been repeatedly unwell. Trevelyan has
+suffered a good deal, and is kept right only by occasional trips in a
+steamer 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 vigorous
+measures that it never came again; but I remained unnerved and exhausted
+for nearly a fortnight. This was my first, and I hope my last, taste of
+Indian maladies. It is a happy thing for us all that we are not to pass
+another year in the reek of this deadly marsh." Macaulay wisely declined
+to set the hope of making another lac of rupees against the risk, to
+himself and others of such a fate as subsequently befell Lord Canning
+and Mr. James Wilson. He put the finishing stroke to his various
+labours; resigned his seat in the Council, and his Presidentships of the
+Law Commission and the Committee of Public Instruction; and, in company
+with the Trevelyans, sailed for England in the first fortnight of the
+year 1838.
+
+To Mr Thomas Flower Ellis.
+
+Calcutta: December 16, 1834.
+
+Dear Ellis,--Many thanks for your letter. It is delightful in this
+strange land to see the handwriting of such a friend. We must keep up
+our spirits. We shall meet, I trust, in little more than four years,
+with feelings of regard only strengthened by our separation. My spirits
+are not bad; and they ought not to be bad. I have health; affluence;
+consideration; great power to do good; functions which, while they are
+honourable and useful, are not painfully burdensome; leisure for study;
+good books; an unclouded and active mind; warm affections; and a very
+dear sister. There will soon be a change in my domestic arrangements. My
+sister is to be married next week. Her lover, who is lover enough to
+be a knight of the Round Table, is one of the most distinguished of our
+young Civilians.
+
+I have the very highest opinion of his talents both for action and for
+discussion. 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, of
+a sweet temper, and of strong principle. His public virtue has gone
+through very severe trials, and has come out resplendent. Lord William,
+in congratulating me the other day, said that he thought my destined
+brother-in-law the ablest young man in the service. His name is
+Trevelyan. He is a nephew of Sir John Trevelyan, a baronet; in Cornwall
+I 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 house
+about as large as Lord Dudley's in Park Lane, or rather larger, so
+that I shall accommodate them without the smallest difficulty. This
+arrangement is acceptable to me, because it saves me from the misery of
+parting with my sister in this strange land; and is, I believe, equally
+gratifying to Trevelyan, whose education, like that of other Indian
+servants, was huddled up hastily at home; who has an insatiable thirst
+for knowledge of every sort; and who looks on me as little less than
+an oracle of wisdom. He came to me the other morning to know whether
+I would advise him to keep up his Greek, which he feared he had nearly
+lost. 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 was
+very well grounded in that language. He read with perfect rapture, and
+has marched off with the book, declaring that he shall never be content
+till he has finished the whole. This, you will think, is not a bad
+brother-in-law for a man to pick up in 22 degrees of North latitude, and
+100 degrees of East longitude.
+
+I read much, and particularly Greek; and I find that I am, in all
+essentials, still not a bad scholar. I could, I think, with a year's
+hard study, qualify myself to fight a good battle for a Craven's
+scholarship. I read, however, not as I read at College, but like a
+man of the world. If I do not know a word, I pass it by unless it is
+important to the sense. If I find, as I have of late often found, a
+passage which refuses to give up its meaning at the second reading, I
+let it alone. I have read during the last fortnight, before breakfast,
+three books of Herodotus, and four plays of Aeschylus. My admiration of
+Aeschylus has been prodigiously increased by this reperusal. I cannot
+conceive how any person of the smallest pretension to taste should doubt
+about his immeasurable superiority to every poet of antiquity, Homer
+only excepted. Even Milton, I think, must yield to him. It is quite
+unintelligible to me that the ancient critics should have placed him
+so 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 insisted
+on is the skill of Aeschylus as a manager, as a property-man; the
+judicious way in which he boarded the stage; the masks, the buskins, and
+the 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 obvious
+characteristic of Aeschylus, is by no means his highest or his best. Nor
+can I explain this by saying that Horace had too tame and unimaginative
+a mind to appreciate Aeschylus. Horace knew what he could himself do,
+and, with admirable wisdom, he confined himself to that; but he seems
+to have had a perfectly clear comprehension of the merit of those
+great masters whom he never attempted to rival. He praised Pindar most
+enthusiastically. It seems incomprehensible to me that a critic, who
+admired 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 having
+suffered in so good a cause; and that I would rather have been treated
+as he has been treated, on such an account, than have the Mastership of
+Trinity. [The subjoined extract from the letter of a leading member of
+Trinity College explains Macaulay's indignation. "Thirlwall published a
+pamphlet in 1834, on the admission of Dissenters to the University. The
+result was that he was either deprived of his Assistant Tutorship or had
+to give it up. Thirlwall left Cambridge soon afterwards. I suppose
+that, if he had remained, he would have been very possibly Wordsworth's
+successor in the Mastership."] There would be some chance for the
+Church, if we had more Churchmen of the same breed, worthy successors of
+Leighton and Tillotson.
+
+From one Trinity Fellow I pass to another. (This letter is quite a study
+to a metaphysician who wishes to illustrate the Law of Association.) We
+have no official tidings yet of Malkin's appointment to the vacant seat
+on the Bench at Calcutta. I cannot tell you how delighted I am at
+the prospect of having him here. An honest enlightened Judge, without
+professional narrowness, is the very man whom we want on public grounds.
+And, as to my private feelings, nothing could be more agreeable to me
+than to have an old friend, and so estimable a friend, brought so near
+to 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 went
+through. Indeed, I never knew before what it was to be miserable. Early
+in January, letters from England brought me news of the death of my
+youngest sister. What she was to me no words can express. I will not say
+that she was dearer to me than anything in the world; for my sister who
+was with me was equally dear; but she was as dear to me as one human
+being can be to another. Even now, when time has begun to do its healing
+office, I cannot write about her without being altogether unmanned. That
+I 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 to
+converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal! Many times during
+the last few weeks I have repeated to myself those fine lines of old
+Hesiod:
+
+ 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 with
+sorrow-stricken heart, a minstrel, the henchman of the Muses, celebrates
+the men of old and the gods who possess Olympus; straightway he forgets
+his melancholy, and remembers not at all his grief, beguiled by the
+blessed gift of the goddesses of song." In Macaulay's Hesiod this
+passage is scored with three lines in pencil.]
+
+I have gone back to Greek literature with a passion quite astonishing
+to myself. I have never felt anything like it. I was enraptured with
+Italian during the six months which I gave up to it; and I was little
+less pleased with Spanish. But, when I went back to the Greek, I felt
+as if I had never known before what intellectual enjoyment was. Oh that
+wonderful people! There is not one art, not one science, about which we
+may not use the same expression which Lucretius has employed about the
+victory over superstition, "Primum Graius homo--."
+
+I think myself very fortunate in having been able to return to these
+great masters while still in the full vigour of life, and when my taste
+and judgment are mature. Most people read all the Greek that they ever
+read before they are five and twenty. They never find time for such
+studies afterwards till they are in the decline of life; and then their
+knowledge of the language is in a great measure lost, and cannot easily
+be recovered. Accordingly, almost all the ideas that people have of
+Greek literature, are ideas formed while they were still very young. A
+young man, whatever his genius may be, is no judge of such a writer as
+Thucydides. I had no high opinion of him ten years ago. I have now been
+reading him with a mind accustomed to historical researches, and to
+political affairs; and I am astonished at my own former blindness, and
+at his greatness. I could not bear Euripides at college. I now read my
+recantation. He has faults undoubtedly. But what a poet! The Medea, the
+Alcestis, the Troades, the Bacchae, are alone sufficient to place him in
+the 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 great
+Attic poets, but still with admiration. An idea occurred to me which may
+very likely have been noticed by a hundred people before. I was always
+puzzled to understand the reason for the extremely abrupt transitions
+in those Odes of Horace which are meant to be particularly fine. The
+"justum et tenacem" is an instance. All at once you find yourself in
+heaven, Heaven knows how. What the firmness of just men in times of
+tyranny, or of tumult, has to do with Juno's oration about Troy it
+is hardly possible to conceive. Then, again, how strangely the fight
+between the Gods and the Giants is tacked on to the fine hymn to the
+Muses in that noble ode, "Descende coelo et die age tibia"! This
+always struck me as a great fault, and an inexplicable one; for it
+is peculiarly alien from the calm good sense, and good taste, which
+distinguish Horace.
+
+My explanation of it is this. The Odes of Pindar were the acknowledged
+models of lyric poetry. Lyric poets imitated his manner as closely as
+they could; and nothing was more remarkable in his compositions than the
+extreme violence and abruptness of the transitions. This in Pindar was
+quite natural and defensible. He had to write an immense number of poems
+on subjects extremely barren, and extremely monotonous. There could be
+little difference between one boxing-match and another. Accordingly,
+he made all possible haste to escape from the immediate subject, and to
+bring in, by hook or by crook, some local description; some old legend;
+something or other, in short, which might be more susceptible
+of poetical embellishment, and less utterly threadbare, than the
+circumstances of a race or a wrestling-match. This was not the practice
+of Pindar alone. There is an old story which proves that Simonides did
+the same, and that sometimes the hero of the day was nettled at finding
+how little was said about him in the Ode for which he was to pay. This
+abruptness of transition was, therefore, in the Greek lyric poets, a
+fault rendered inevitable by the peculiarly barren and uniform nature
+of the subjects which they had to treat. But, like many other faults
+of great masters, it appeared to their imitators a beauty; and a beauty
+almost essential to the grander Ode. Horace was perfectly at liberty to
+choose his own subjects, and to treat them after his own fashion. But he
+confounded what was merely accidental in Pindar's manner with what was
+essential; and because Pindar, when he had to celebrate a foolish lad
+from Aegina who had tripped up another's heels at the Isthmus, made all
+possible haste to get away from so paltry a topic to the ancient heroes
+of the race of Aeacus, Horace took it into his head that he ought always
+to begin as far from the subject as possible, and then arrive at it by
+some strange and sudden bound. This is my solution. At least I can
+find no better. The most obscure passage,--at least the strangest
+passage,--in all Horace may be explained by supposing that he was
+misled by Pindar's example: I mean that odd parenthesis in the "Qualem
+Ministrum:"
+
+                      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 are
+several things in Pindar very like it. [Orelli makes an observation,
+much to the same effect, in his note on this passage in his edition of
+1850.]
+
+You must excuse all this, for I labour at present under a suppression of
+Greek, and am likely to do so for at least three years to come. Malkin
+may be some relief; but I am quite unable to guess whether he means to
+come to Calcutta. I am in excellent bodily health, and I am recovering
+my 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 more
+comfortable than I expected to be in this country; and, as to the
+climate, I think it, beyond all comparison, better than that of the
+House of Commons.
+
+Yours affectionately
+
+T. B. MACAULAY.
+
+Writing three days after the date of the foregoing letter, Macaulay
+says to his old friend Mr. Sharp: "You see that my mind is not in great
+danger of rusting. The danger is that I may become a mere pedant. I feel
+a habit of quotation growing on me; but I resist that devil, for such
+it is, and it flees from me. It is all that I can do to keep Greek and
+Latin out of all my letters. Wise sayings of Euripides are even now at
+my fingers' ends. If I did not maintain a constant struggle against this
+propensity, my correspondence would resemble the notes to the 'Pursuits
+of Literature.' It is a dangerous thing for a man with a very strong
+memory to read very much. I could give you three or four quotations
+this moment in support of that proposition; but I will bring the vicious
+propensity under subjection, if I can." [Many years later Macaulay wrote
+to my mother: "Dr. -- came, and I found him a very clever man; a little
+of a coxcomb, but, I dare say, not the worse physician for that. He must
+have quoted Horace and Virgil six times at least a propos of his medical
+inquiries. Horace says, in a poem in which he jeers the Stoics, that
+even a wise man is out of sort when 'pituita molesta est;' which is,
+being interpreted, 'when, his phlegm is troublesome.' The Doctor thought
+it necessary to quote this passage in order to prove that phlegm is
+troublesome;--a proposition, of the truth of which, I will venture to
+say, 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 Tories
+dissolved at the end of December, and we also know that they were beaten
+towards the end of February. [In November 1834 the King called Sir
+Robert Peel to power; after having of his own accord dismissed the Whig
+Ministry. Parliament was dissolved, but the Tories did not succeed in
+obtaining a majority. After three months of constant and angry fighting,
+Peel was driven from office in April 1835.] As to what passed in the
+interval, we are quite in the dark. I will not plague you with comments
+on events which will have been driven out of your mind by other events
+before this reaches you, or with prophecies which may be falsified
+before you receive them. About the final issue I am certain. The
+language of the first great reformer is that which I should use in reply
+to the exultation of our Tories here, if there were any of them who
+could 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 Jove
+is 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 the
+Whig Prometheus.]
+
+As for myself, I rejoice that I am out of the present storm. "Suave mari
+magno;" or, as your new Premier, if he be still Premier, construes. "It
+is a source of melancholy satisfaction." I may, indeed, feel the effects
+of the changes here, but more on public than private grounds. A Tory
+Governor-General is not very likely to agree with me about the very
+important law reforms which I am about to bring before the Council. But
+he 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 to
+live, after my very moderate fashion, in perfect independence at home;
+and whatever debts any Governor-General may choose to lay on me at
+Calcutta 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 society
+as little as I can. My spirits have not yet recovered,--I sometimes
+think that they will never wholly recover,--the shock which they
+received five months ago. I find that nothing soothes them so much as
+the contemplation of those miracles of art which Athens has bequeathed
+to us. I am really becoming, I hope not a pedant, but certainly an
+enthusiast about classical literature. I have just finished a second
+reading of Sophocles. I am now deep in Plato, and intend to go right
+through all his works. His genius is above praise. Even where he is most
+absurd,--as, for example, in the Cratylus,--he shows an acuteness, and
+an expanse of intellect, which is quite a phenomenon by itself. The
+character 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 he
+is said to have treated Protagoras, Hippias, and Gorgias, I could never
+have 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. I
+cannot describe to you the way in which it now tickles me. I often sink
+forward on my huge old Marsilius Ficinus in a fit of laughter. I should
+say that there never was a vein of ridicule so rich, at the same time so
+delicate. It is superior to Voltaire's; nay, to Pascal's. Perhaps there
+are one or two passages in Cervantes, and one or two in Fielding, that
+might give a modern reader a notion of it.
+
+I have very nearly finished Livy. I never read him through before. I
+admire him greatly, and would give a quarter's salary to recover the
+lost Decades. While I was reading the earlier books I went again
+through Niebuhr. And I am sorry to say that, having always been a little
+sceptical about his merits, I am now a confirmed unbeliever. I do not of
+course mean that he has no merit. He was a man of immense learning, and
+of great ingenuity. But his mind was utterly wanting in the faculty
+by which a demonstrated truth is distinguished from a plausible
+supposition. He is not content with suggesting that an event may have
+happened. He is certain that it happened, and calls on the reader to be
+certain too, (though not a trace of it exists in any record whatever,)
+because it would solve the phenomena so neatly. Just read over again, if
+you have forgotten it, the conjectural restoration of the Inscription in
+page 126 of the second volume; and then, on your honour as a scholar and
+a man of sense, tell me whether in Bentley's edition of Milton there is
+anything which approaches to the audacity of that emendation. Niebuhr
+requires you to believe that some of the greatest men in Rome were
+burned alive in the Circus; that this event was commemorated by an
+inscription on a monument, one half of which is sill in existence; but
+that no Roman historian knew anything about it; and that all tradition
+of the event was lost, though the memory of anterior events much less
+important has reached our time. When you ask for a reason, he tells you
+plainly that such a thing cannot be established by reason; that he is
+sure of it; and that you must take his word. This sort of intellectual
+despotism always moves me to mutiny, and generates a disposition to
+pull down the reputation of the dogmatist. Niebuhr's learning was
+immeasurably superior to mine; but I think myself quite as good a judge
+of evidence as he was. I might easily believe him if he told me that
+there were proofs which I had never seen; but, when he produces all his
+proofs, I conceive that I am perfectly competent to pronounce on their
+value.
+
+As I turned over his leaves just now, I lighted on another instance
+of what I cannot but call ridiculous presumption. He says that Martial
+committed a blunder in making the penultimate of Porsena short. Strange
+that 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 Professor
+telling the world, on his own authority, and without giving the smallest
+reason, that two of the best Latin poets were ignorant of the quantity
+of a word which they must have used in their exercises at school a
+hundred 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 God
+send us some miraculous help, we have to look forward to a period of
+destruction similar to that which the Roman world experienced about the
+middle of the third century." Now, when I see a man scribble such abject
+nonsense about events which are passing under our eyes, what confidence
+can I put in his judgment as to the connection of causes and effects in
+times very imperfectly known to us.
+
+But I must bring my letter, or review, to a close. Remember me most
+kindly to your wife. Tell Frank that I mean to be a better scholar than
+he when I come back, and that he must work hard if he means to overtake
+me.
+
+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 most
+actively engaged in preparing a complete Criminal Code for India. He and
+I agree excellently. Ryan, the most liberal of Judges, lends us his best
+assistance. I heartily hope, and fully believe, that we shall put
+the whole Penal law, and the whole law of Criminal Procedure, into a
+moderately sized volume. I begin to take a very warm interest in this
+work. It is, indeed, one of the finest employments of the intellect that
+it is easy to conceive. I ought, however, to tell you that, the more
+progress I make as a legislator, the more intense my contempt for the
+mere technical study of law becomes.
+
+I am deep in the examination of the political theories of the old
+philosophers. I have read Plato's Republic, and his laws; and I am now
+reading Aristotle's Politics; after which I shall go through Plato's two
+treatises again. I every now and then read one of Plutarch's Lives on
+an idle afternoon; and in this way I have got through a dozen of them. I
+like him prodigiously. He is inaccurate, to be sure, and a romancer;
+but he tells a story delightfully, and his illustrations and sketches
+of 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 he
+was in my opinion; and I am busily engaged with Cicero, whose character,
+moral and intellectual, interests me prodigiously. I think that I see
+the whole man through and through. But this is too vast a subject for
+a letter. I have gone through all Ovid's poems. I admire him; but I was
+tired to death before I got to the end. I amused myself one evening with
+turning over the Metamorphoses, to see if I could find any passage of
+ten 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 half
+an hour without the smallest success. At last I chanced to light on a
+little passage more Virgilian, to my thinking, than Virgil himself. Tell
+me what you say to my criticism. It is part of Apollo's speech to the
+laurel
+
+                        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's
+praise. [In the dialogue "De Claris Oratoribus" Cicero makes Atticus say
+that 'A consummate judge of style (who is evidently intended for Cicero
+himself,) pronounces Caesar's Latin to be the most elegant, with one
+implied exception, that had ever been heard in the Senate or the Forum'.
+Atticus then goes on to detail at full length a compliment which Caesar
+had paid to Cicero's powers of expression; and Brutus declares with
+enthusiasm that such praise, coming from such a quarter, is worth more
+than a Triumph, as Triumphs were then given; and inferior in value
+only to the honours which were voted to the statesman who had baffled
+Catiline. The whole passage is a model of self-glorification, exquisite
+in skill and finish.] He has won the honour of an excellent historian
+while attempting merely to give hints for history. But what are they
+all to the great Athenian? I do assure you that there is no prose
+composition in the world, not even the De Corona, which I place so high
+as 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 to
+Wharton: "The retreat from Syracuse--Is it or is it not the finest thing
+you ever read in your life?"
+
+Did you ever read Athenaeus through? I never did; but I am meditating
+an attack on him. The multitude of quotations looks very tempting; and I
+never 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 cannot
+conjecture. Our latest English intelligence is of the 15th of August.
+The Lords were then busy in rendering the only great service that I
+expect them ever to render to the nation; that is to say, in hastening
+the day of reckoning. [In the middle of August the Irish Tithe Bill went
+up to the House of Lords, where it was destined to undergo a mutilation
+which was fatal to its existence.] But I will not fill my paper with
+English politics.
+
+I am in excellent health. So are my sister and brother-in-law, and their
+little girl, whom I am always nursing; and of whom I am becoming fonder
+than a wise man, with half my experience, would choose to be of anything
+except himself. I have but very lately begun to recover my spirits. The
+tremendous blow which fell on me at the beginning of this year has left
+marks behind it which I shall carry to my grave. Literature has saved my
+life 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 of
+life will be, when I return to England, is very doubtful. But I am more
+than half determined to abandon politics, and to give myself wholly to
+letters; to undertake some great historical work, which may be at once
+the business and the amusement of my life; and to leave the pleasures of
+pestiferous rooms, sleepless nights, aching heads, and diseased stomachs
+to Roebuck and to Praed.
+
+In England I might probably be of a very different opinion. But, in the
+quiet of my own little grass-plot,--when the moon, at its rising, finds
+me with the Philoctetes or the De Finibus in my hand,--I often wonder
+what strange infatuation leads men who can do something better to
+squander their intellect, their health, their energy, on such subjects
+as those which most statesmen are engaged in pursuing. I comprehend
+perfectly how a man who can debate, but who would make a very
+indifferent figure as a contributor to an annual or a magazine,--such a
+man as Stanley, for example,--should take the only line by which he
+can attain distinction. But that a man before whom the two paths of
+literature and politics lie open, and who might hope for eminence
+in either, should choose politics, and quit literature, seems to me
+madness. On the one side is health, leisure, peace of mind, the search
+after truth, and all the enjoyments of friendship and conversation.
+On the other side is almost certain ruin to the constitution, constant
+labour, constant anxiety. Every friendship which a man may have, becomes
+precarious as soon as he engages in politics. As to abuse, men soon
+become callous to it, but the discipline which makes them callous is
+very severe. And for what is it that a man who might, if he chose, rise
+and 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 as
+if he were within the rules of the Fleet; to be tethered during eleven
+months 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 a
+noisome atmosphere, and listening to harangues of which nine-tenths are
+far below the level of a leading article in a newspaper? For what is
+it that he submits, day after day, to see the morning break over the
+Thames, and then totters home, with bursting temples, to his bed? Is
+it for fame? Who would compare the fame of Charles Townshend to that of
+Hume, that of Lord North to that of Gibbon, that of Lord Chatham to that
+of Johnson? Who can look back on the life of Burke and not regret that
+the years which he passed in ruining his health and temper by political
+exertions were not passed in the composition of some great and durable
+work? Who can read the letters to Atticus, and not feel that Cicero
+would have been an infinitely happier and better man, and a not less
+celebrated man, if he had left us fewer speeches, and more Academic
+Questions and Tusculan Disputations; if he had passed the time which he
+spent in brawling with Vatinius and Clodius in producing a history
+of Rome superior even to that of Livy? But these, as I said, are
+meditations in a quiet garden, situated far beyond the contagious
+influence of English action. What I might feel if I again saw Downing
+Street and Palace Yard is another question. I tell you sincerely my
+present feelings.
+
+I have cast up my reading account, and brought it to the end of the year
+1835. It includes December 1834; for I came into my house and unpacked
+my books at the end of November 1834. During the last thirteen months
+I have read Aeschylus twice; Sophocles twice; Euripides once; Pindar
+twice; Callimachus; Apollonius Rhodius; Quintus Calaber; Theocritus
+twice; Herodotus; Thucydides; almost all Xenophon's works; almost all
+Plato; Aristotle's Politics, and a good deal of his Organon, besides
+dipping elsewhere in him; the whole of Plutarch's Lives; about half of
+Lucian; two or three books of Athenaeus; Plautus twice; Terence twice;
+Lucretius twice; Catullus; Tibullus; Propertius; Lucan; Statius; Silius
+Italicus; Livy; Velleius Paterculus; Sallust; Caesar; and, lastly,
+Cicero. I have, indeed, still a little of Cicero left; but I shall
+finish him in a few days. I am now deep in Aristophanes and Lucian.
+Of Aristophanes I think as I always thought; but Lucian has agreeably
+surprised me. At school I read some of his Dialogues of the Dead when I
+was thirteen; and, to my shame, I never, to the best of my belief, read
+a line of him since. I am charmed with him. His style seems to me to be
+superior to that of any extant writer who lived later than the age of
+Demosthenes and Theophrastus. He has a most peculiar and delicious
+vein of humour. It is not the humour of Aristophanes; it is not that of
+Plato; 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 instance
+of a writer, in the decline of a literature, who has shown an invention
+so rich, and a taste so pure. But, if I get on these matters, I shall
+fill 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 I
+have not time. I can only say that some of the competitors tried to read
+the Greek with the papers upside down; and that the great man of the
+examination, the Thirlwall of Calcutta, a graduate of Trinity College,
+Dublin, translated the words of Theophrastus, osas leitourgias
+leleitroupgeke "how many times he has performed divine service." ["How
+many public services he had discharged at his own expense." Macaulay
+used to say that a lady who dips into Mr. Grote's history, and learns
+that Alcibiades won the heart of his fellow-citizens by the novelty of
+his theories and the splendour of his liturgies, may get a very false
+notion 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 foregoing
+letter was not only read through, but read with care, is proved by the
+pencil marks, single, double, and treble, which meander down the margin
+of such passages as excited the admiration of the student; and by the
+remarks, literary, historical, and grammatical, with which the critic
+has interspersed every volume, and sometimes every page. In the case
+of a favourite writer, Macaulay frequently corrects the errors of the
+press, and even the punctuation, as minutely as if he were preparing
+the book for another edition. He read Plautus, Terence, and Aristophanes
+four times through at Calcutta; and Euripides thrice. [See the Appendix
+at the end.] In his copy of Quintus Calaber, (a versifier who is less
+unknown 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 celebrity
+which they enjoy, if, in the course of the three years during which
+Justinian's Law Commission was at work, the president Tribonian had read
+Quintus Smyrnaeus twice.
+
+Calcutta; May 30, 1836.
+
+Dear Ellis,--I have just received your letter dated December, 28; How
+time flies! Another hot season has almost passed away, and we are daily
+expecting the beginning of the rains. Cold season, hot season, and
+rainy season are all much the same to me. I shall have been two years on
+Indian ground in less than a fortnight, and I have not taken ten grains
+of 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 climate
+is absurdly maligned; but the yellow, spectral, figures which surround
+me serve to correct the conclusions which I should be inclined to draw
+from the state of my own health.
+
+One execrable effect the climate produces. It destroys all the works of
+man with scarcely one exception. Steel rusts; razors lose their edge;
+thread decays; clothes fall to pieces; books moulder away, and drop out
+of their bindings; plaster cracks; timber rots; matting is in shreds.
+The sun, the steam of this vast alluvial tract, and the infinite armies
+of white ants, make such havoc with buildings that a house requires
+a complete repair every three years. Ours was in this situation about
+three months ago; and, if we had determined to brave the rains without
+any precautions, we should, in all probability, have had the roof down
+on our heads. Accordingly we were forced to migrate for six weeks from
+our stately apartments and our flower-beds, to a dungeon where we were
+stifled with the stench of native cookery, and deafened by the noise
+of native music. At last we have returned to our house. We found it
+all snow-white and pea-green; and we rejoice to think that we shall not
+again be under the necessity of quitting it, till we quit it for a ship
+bound on a voyage to London.
+
+We have been for some months in the middle of what the people here think
+a political storm. To a person accustomed to the hurricanes of English
+faction this sort of tempest in a horsepond is merely ridiculous.
+We have put the English settlers up the country under the exclusive
+jurisdiction of the Company's Courts in civil actions in which they are
+concerned with natives. The English settlers are perfectly contented;
+but the lawyers of the Supreme Court have set up a yelp which they think
+terrible, and which has infinitely diverted me. They have selected me as
+the object of their invectives, and I am generally the theme of five
+or six columns of prose and verse daily. I have not patience to read
+a tenth part of what they put forth. The last ode in my praise which I
+perused began,
+
+ "Soon we hope they will recall ye,
+  Tom Macaulay, Tom Macaulay."
+
+The last prose which I read was a parallel between me and Lord
+Strafford.
+
+My mornings, from five to nine, are quite my own. I still give them
+to ancient literature. I have read Aristophanes twice through since
+Christmas; and have also read Herodotus, and Thucydides again. I got
+into a way last year of reading a Greek play every Sunday. I began on
+Sunday the 18th of October with the Prometheus, and next Sunday I shall
+finish with the Cyclops of Euripides. Euripides has made a complete
+conquest of me. It has been unfortunate for him that we have so many
+of his pieces. It has, on the other hand, I suspect, been fortunate for
+Sophocles that so few of his have come down to us. Almost every play of
+Sophocles, which is now extant, was one of his masterpieces. There
+is hardly one of them which is not mentioned with high praise by some
+ancient writer. Yet one of them, the Trachiniae, is, to my thinking,
+very poor and insipid. Now, if we had nineteen plays of Sophocles, of
+which twelve or thirteen should be no better than the Trachiniae,--and
+if, on the other hand, only seven pieces of Euripides had come down to
+us, and if those seven had been the Medea, the Bacchae, the Iphigenia in
+Aulis, the Orestes, the Phoenissae, the Hippolytus, and the Alcestis, I
+am not sure that the relative position which the two poets now hold in
+our estimation would not be greatly altered.
+
+I have not done much in Latin. I have been employed in turning over
+several third-rate and fourth-rate writers. After finishing Cicero, I
+read through the works of both the Senecas, father and son. There is
+a great deal in the Controversiae both of curious information, and of
+judicious criticism. As to the son, I cannot bear him. His style affects
+me in something the same way with that of Gibbon. But Lucius Seneca's
+affectation is even more rank than Gibbon's. His works are made up of
+mottoes. There is hardly a sentence which might not be quoted; but to
+read him straightforward is like dining on nothing but anchovy sauce.
+I have read, as one does read such stuff, Valerius Maximus, Annaeus
+Florus, Lucius Ampelius, and Aurelius Victor. I have also gone through
+Phaedrus. 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. I
+am not, however, without my share. I am as fond of my little niece
+as her father. I pass an hour or more every day in nursing her, and
+teaching her to talk. She has got as far as Ba, Pa, and Ma; which, as
+she is not eight months old, we consider as proofs of a genius little
+inferior to that of Shakespeare or Sir Isaac Newton.
+
+The municipal elections have put me in good spirits as to English
+politics. 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 to
+hear from you. There are few things to which I look forward with more
+pleasure than to our meeting. It is really worth while to go into
+banishment for a few years for the pleasure of going home again. Yet
+that home will in some things be a different home--oh how different a
+home!--from that to which I expected to return. But I will not stir up
+the bitterness of sorrow which has at last subsided.
+
+You take interest, I see, in my Greek and Latin studies. I continue to
+pursue them steadily and actively. I am now reading Demosthenes with
+interest and admiration indescribable. I am slowly, at odd minutes,
+getting through the stupid trash of Diodorus. I have read through
+Seneca, and an affected empty scribbler he is. I have read Tacitus
+again, and, by the bye, I will tell you a curious circumstance relating
+to that matter. In my younger days I always thought the Annals a
+prodigiously superior work to the History. I was surprised to find that
+the Annals seemed cold and poor to me on the last reading. I began to
+think that I had overrated Tacitus. But, when I began the History, I was
+enchanted, and thought more highly of him than ever. I went back to the
+Annals, and liked them even better than the History. All at once the
+explanation of this occurred to me. While I was reading the Annals I
+was reading Thucydides. When I began the History, I began the Hellenics.
+What made the Annals appear cold and poor to me was the intense interest
+which Thucydides inspired. Indeed, what colouring is there which would
+not look tame when placed side by side with the magnificent light, and
+the terrible shade, of Thucydides? Tacitus was a great man, but he was
+not up to the Sicilian expedition. When I finished Thucydides, and
+took up Xenophon, the case was reversed. Tacitus had been a foil to
+Thucydides. 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 the
+University 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 his
+class.
+
+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 Camoens
+with care; and I want no more. I have adopted an opinion about the
+Italian historians quite different from that which I formerly held, and
+which, I believe, is generally considered as orthodox. I place Fra Paolo
+decidedly at the head of them, and next to him Davila, whom I take to
+be the best modern military historian except Colonel Napier. Davila's
+battle of Ivry is worthy of Thucydides himself. Next to Davila I put
+Guicciardini, and last of all Machiavelli. But I do not think that you
+ever read much Italian.
+
+The English poetry of the day has very few attractions for me. Van
+Artevelde is far the best specimen that I have lately seen. I do not
+much like Talfourd's Ion; but I mean to read it again. It contains
+pretty lines; but, to my thinking, it is neither fish nor flesh. There
+is too much, and too little, of the antique about it. Nothing but the
+most strictly classical costume can reconcile me to a mythological plot;
+and Ion is a modern philanthropist, whose politics and morals have been
+learned from the publications of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
+Knowledge.
+
+I do not know whether the noise which the lawyers of the Supreme Court
+have been raising against our legislative authority has reached, or
+will reach, England. They held a public meeting, which ended,--or rather
+began, continued, and ended,--in a riot; and ever since then the leading
+agitators have been challenging each other, refusing each other's
+challenges, libelling each other, swearing the peace against each other,
+and blackballing each other. Mr. Longueville Clarke, who aspires to
+be the O'Connell of Calcutta, called another lawyer a liar. The
+last-mentioned lawyer challenged Mr. Longueville Clarke. Mr. Longueville
+Clarke refused to fight, on the ground that his opponent had been
+guilty of hugging attorneys. The Bengal Club accordingly blackballed
+Longueville. This, and some other similar occurrences, have made the
+opposition here thoroughly ridiculous and contemptible. They will
+probably send a petition home; but, unless the House of Commons has
+undergone a great change since 1833, they have no chance there.
+
+I have almost brought my letter to a close without mentioning the most
+important matter about which I had to write. I dare say you have heard
+that my uncle General Macaulay, who died last February, has left me
+L10,000 This legacy, together with what I shall have saved by the end of
+1837, will make me quite a rich man; richer than I even wish to be as a
+single 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 our
+house. My sister, my brother-in-law, and their little child, are as well
+as possible. As to me, I think that, as Buonaparte said of himself after
+the 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 about
+Lord Bacon. I hardly know whether it is not too long for an article in a
+Review; but the subject is of such vast extent that I could easily have
+made the paper twice as long as it is.
+
+About the historical and political part there is no great probability
+that we shall differ in opinion; but what I have said about Bacon's
+philosophy is widely at variance with what Dugald Stuart, and
+Mackintosh, have said on the same subject. I have not your essay; nor
+have 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 very
+faint and general recollection of its contents, and have in vain tried
+to procure a copy of it here. I fear, however, that, differing widely
+as I do from Stewart and Mackintosh, I shall hardly agree with you. My
+opinion is formed, not at second hand, like those of nine-tenths of the
+people who talk about Bacon; but after several very attentive perusals
+of his greatest works, and after a good deal of thought. If I am in the
+wrong, my errors may set the minds of others at work, and may be the
+means of bringing both them, and me, to a knowledge of the truth. I
+never bestowed so much care on anything that I have written. There is
+not a sentence in the latter half of the article which has not been
+repeatedly recast. I have no expectation that the popularity of the
+article will bear any proportion to the trouble which I have expended
+on it. But the trouble has been so great a pleasure to me that I have
+already been greatly overpaid. Pray look carefully to the printing.
+
+In little more than a year I shall be embarking for England, and I
+have determined to employ the four months of my voyage in mastering
+the 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, the
+best grammar, and the best dictionary, that can be procured; a German
+Bible; Schiller's works; Goethe's works; and Niebuhr's History, both in
+the original, and in the translation. My way of learning a language is
+always 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 common
+particles, the common rules of syntax, and a pretty large vocabulary.
+Then I fall on some good classical work. It was in this way that I
+learned both Spanish and Portuguese, and I shall try the same course
+with German.
+
+I have little or nothing to tell you about myself. My life has flowed
+away here with strange rapidity. It seems but yesterday that I left
+my country; and I am writing to beg you to hasten preparations for my
+return. I continue to enjoy perfect health, and the little political
+squalls which I have had to weather here are mere capfuls of wind to a
+man 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 I
+shall be much obliged to you to correct. I have said that Bacon did not
+deal at all in idle rants "like those in which Cicero and Mr. Shandy
+sought consolation for the loss of Tullia and of Bobby." Nothing can, as
+a general remark, be more true, but it escaped my recollection that two
+or three of Mr. Shandy's consolatory sentences are quoted from Bacon's
+Essays. The illustration, therefore, is singularly unfortunate. Pray
+alter it thus; "in which Cicero vainly sought consolation for the loss
+of Tullia." To be sure, it is idle to correct such trifles at a distance
+of 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 least
+particle 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 old
+setting of a Dowager's ring. Since Bacon himself, I do not know that
+there has been anything so fine. The first five or six pages are in a
+lower 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 serve
+up the rich repast in two courses; and on the whole I incline to that
+partition. 120 pages might cloy even epicures, and would be sure to
+surfeit the vulgar; and the biography and philosophy are so entirely
+distinct, and of not very unequal length, that the division would not
+look like a fracture.
+
+FRANCIS JEFFREY.
+
+In the end, the article appeared entire; occupying 104 pages of the
+Review; and accompanied by an apology for its length in the shape of one
+of those editorial appeals to "the intelligent scholar," and "the best
+class of our readers," which never fail of success.
+
+The letters addressed to Zachary Macaulay are half filled with anecdotes
+of the nursery; pretty enough, but such as only a grandfather could
+be expected to read. In other respects, the correspondence is chiefly
+remarkable for the affectionate ingenuity with which the son selects
+such topics as would interest the father.
+
+Calcutta: October 12 1836.
+
+My dear Father, We were extremely gratified by receiving, a few days
+ago, a letter from you which, on the whole, gave a good account of your
+health and spirits. The day after tomorrow is the first anniversary of
+your little grand-daughter's birthday. The occasion is to be celebrated
+with a sort of droll puppet-show, much in fashion among the natives; an
+exhibition much in the style of Punch in England, but more dramatic and
+more showy. All the little boys and girls from the houses of our friends
+are invited, and the party will, I have no doubt, be a great deal more
+amusing than the stupid dinners and routs with which the grown-up people
+here kill the time.
+
+In a few months,--I hope, indeed, in a few weeks,--we shall send up the
+Penal Code to Government. We have got rid of the punishment of death,
+except in the case of aggravated treason and wilful murder. We shall
+also get rid indirectly of everything that can properly be called
+slavery in India. There will remain civil claims on particular people
+for particular services, which claims may be enforced by civil action;
+but no person will be entitled, on the plea of being the master of
+another, to do anything to that other which it would be an offence to do
+to a free-man.
+
+Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. We find it
+difficult,--indeed, in some places impossible,--to provide instruction
+for all who want it. At the single town of Hoogly fourteen hundred boys
+are learning English. The effect of this education on the Hindoos is
+prodigious. No Hindoo, who has received an English education, ever
+remains sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess it
+as matter of policy; but many profess themselves pure Deists, and
+some embrace Christianity. It is my firm belief that, if our plans of
+education are followed up, there will not be a single idolater among
+the respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will
+be effected without any efforts to proselytise; without the smallest
+interference with religious liberty; merely by the natural operation of
+knowledge 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 this
+time. I had a most kind letter from him a few weeks before I heard of
+his death. He has a son just come out, to whom I have shown such little
+attentions as are in my power.
+
+Within half a year after the time when you read this we shall be making
+arrangements for our return. The feelings with which I look forward to
+that return I cannot express. Perhaps I should be wise to continue
+here longer, in order to enjoy during a greater number of months the
+delusion,--for I know that it will prove a delusion,--of this delightful
+hope. I feel as if I never could be unhappy in my own country; as if
+to exist on English ground and among English people, seeing the old
+familiar sights and hearing the sound of my mother tongue, would be
+enough for me. This cannot be; yet some days of intense happiness I
+shall surely have; and one of those will be the day when I again see my
+dear 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 the
+accompaniments of a Bengal winter. As to my private life, it has glided
+on, since I wrote to you last, in the most peaceful monotony. If it were
+not for the books which I read, and for the bodily and mental growth of
+my dear little niece, I should have no mark to distinguish one part of
+the year from another. Greek and Latin, breakfast; business, an evening
+walk with a book, a drive after sunset, dinner, coffee, my bed,--there
+you have the history of a day. My classical studies go on vigorously.
+I have read Demosthenes twice,--I need not say with what delight and
+admiration. I am now deep in Isocrates and from him I shall pass to
+Lysias. I have finished Diodorus Siculus at last, after dawdling over
+him 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 of
+him. I have read Arrian's expedition of Alexander, together with Quintus
+Curtius. I have at stray hours read Longus's Romance and Xenophon's
+Ephesiaca; and I mean to go through Heliodorus, and Achilles Tatius,
+in the same way. Longus is prodigiously absurd; but there is often an
+exquisite prettiness in the style. Xenophon's Novel is the basest thing
+to be found in Greek. [Xenophon the Ephesian lived in the third or
+fourth century of the Christian era. At the end of his work Macaulay has
+written: "A most stupid worthless performance, below the lowest trash of
+an English circulating library." Achilles Tatius he disposes of with
+the words "Detestable trash;" and the Aethiopics of Heliodorus, which he
+appears to have finished on Easter-day, 1837, he pronounces "The best of
+the Greek Romances, which is not saying much for it."] It was discovered
+at Florence, little more than a hundred years ago, by an English envoy.
+Nothing so detestable ever came from the Minerva Press. I have read
+Theocritus again, and like him better than ever.
+
+As to Latin, I made a heroic attempt on Pliny's Natural History; but I
+stuck after getting through about a quarter of it. I have read Ammianus
+Marcellinus, the worst written book in ancient Latin. The style would
+disgrace a monk of the tenth century; but Marcellinus has many of the
+substantial qualities of a good historian. I have gone through the
+Augustan history, and much other trash relating to the lower empire;
+curious as illustrating the state of society, but utterly worthless as
+composition. 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. The
+dream of Pompey in the seventh book of the Pharsalia is a very noble
+piece of writing. I hardly know an instance in poetry of so great an
+effect produced by means so simple. There is something irresistibly
+pathetic 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 anything
+that I know in the Latin language. One is the enumeration of Pompey's
+exploits
+
+ "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, not
+very far from historical truth. When I consider that Lucan died at
+twenty-six, I cannot help ranking him among the most extraordinary men
+that ever lived.
+
+[The following remarks occur at the end of Macaulay's copy of the
+Pharsalia
+
+August 30, 1835.
+
+"When Lucan's age is considered, it is impossible not to allow that the
+poem is a very extraordinary one; more extraordinary, perhaps, than if
+it had been of a higher kind; for it is more common for the imagination
+to be in full vigour at an early time of life than for a young man to
+obtain a complete mastery of political and philosophical rhetoric. I
+know no declamation in the world, not even Cicero's best, which equals
+some passages in the Pharsalia. As to what were meant for bold poetical
+flights,--the sea-fight at Marseilles, the Centurion who is covered
+with wounds, the snakes in the Libyan desert, it is all as detestable as
+Cibber's Birthday Odes. The furious partiality of Lucan takes away much
+of the pleasure which his talents would otherwise afford. A poet who
+is, as has often been said, less a poet than a historian, should to a
+certain degree conform to the laws of history. The manner in which he
+represents the two parties is not to be reconciled with the laws even of
+fiction. 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 Rome
+ever produced, is a bloodthirsty ogre. If Lucan had lived, he would
+probably have improved greatly." "Again, December 9, 1836,"]
+
+I am glad that you have so much business, and sorry that you have so
+little leisure. In a few years you will be a Baron of the Exchequer; and
+then we shall have ample time to talk over our favourite classics. Then
+I will show you a most superb emendation of Bentley's in Ampelius, and
+I will give you unanswerable reasons for pronouncing that Gibbon was
+mistaken in supposing that Quintus Curtius wrote under Gordian.
+
+Remember me most kindly to Mrs. Ellis. I hope that I shall find Frank
+writing 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 a
+long time past. Cameron, after being laid up for some months, sailed at
+Christmas for the Cape, where I hope his health will be repaired; for
+this country can very ill spare him. However, we have almost brought
+our great work to a conclusion. In about a month we shall lay before the
+Government 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 seems
+to me to be very ill done when I look at it by itself; and well done
+when I compare it with Livingstone's Code, with the French Code, or
+with the English statutes which have been passed for the purpose of
+consolidating and amending the Criminal Law. In health I am as well
+as ever I was in my life. Time glides fast. One day is so like another
+that, but for a habit which I acquired soon after I reached India of
+pencilling in my books the date of my reading them, I should have hardly
+any way of estimating the lapse of time. If I want to know when an event
+took place, I call to mind which of Calderon's plays, or of Plutarch's
+Lives, I was reading on that day. I turn to the book; find the date; and
+am generally astonished to see that, what seems removed from me by only
+two 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 tell
+me that it is a hard language; but I cannot easily believe that there is
+a language which I cannot master in four months, by working ten hours
+a day. I promise myself very great delight and information from German
+literature; and, over and above, I feel a soft of presentiment, a kind
+of admonition of the Deity, which assures me that the final cause of my
+existence,--the end for which I was sent into this vale of tears,--was
+to make game of certain Germans. The first thing to be done in obedience
+to this heavenly call is to learn German; and then I may perhaps try, as
+Milton says,
+
+ "Frangere Saxonicas Britonum sub Marte phalanges."
+
+Ever yours affectionately
+
+T. B. MACAULAY.
+
+The years which Macaulay spent in India formed a transition period
+between the time when he kept no journal at all, and the time when the
+daily portion of his journal was completed as regularly as the daily
+portion of his History. Between 1834 and 1838, he contented himself with
+jotting down any circumstance that struck his fancy in the book which he
+happened to have in hand. The records of his Calcutta life, written in
+half a dozen different languages, are scattered throughout the whole
+range of classical literature from Hesiod to Macrobius. At the end
+of the eighty-ninth Epistle of Seneca we read: "April 11, 1836. Hodie
+praemia distribui tois en to mouseio Sanskritiko neaniskois. [To-day I
+distributed the prizes to the students of the Sanscrit College."]
+
+On the last page of the Birds of Aristophanes: "Jan. 16, 1836. Oi
+presbeis of papa ton Basileos ton Nepauliton eisegonto khthes es
+Kalkouttan." ["The ambassadors from the King of Nepaul entered Calcutta
+yesterday." It may be observed that Macaulay wrote Greek with or without
+accents, according to the humour, or hurry, of the moment.]
+
+On the first page of Theocrats: "March 20, 1835. Lord W. Bentinck sailed
+this morning."
+
+On the last page of the "De Amicitia:" "March 5, 1836. Yesterday Lord
+Auckland arrived at Government House, and was sworn in."
+
+Beneath an idyl of Moschus, of all places in the world, Macaulay notes
+the fact of Peel being First Lord of the Treasury; and he finds space,
+between two quotations in Athenaeus, to commemorate a Ministerial
+majority of 29 on the Second Reading of the Irish Church Bill.
+
+A somewhat nearer approach to a formal diary may be found in his
+Catullus, which contains a catalogue of the English books that he read
+in 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 his
+official work, to the French that he read with his sister, and the
+unrecorded novels that he read to himself; which last would alone have
+afforded occupation for two ordinary men, unless this month of November
+was different from every other month of his existence since the day that
+he left Mr. Preston's schoolroom. There is something refreshing, amidst
+the long list of graver treatises, to light upon a periodical entry of
+"Pikwikina"; the immortal work of a Classic who has had more readers in
+a single year than Statius and Seneca in all their eighteen centuries
+together. Macaulay turned over with indifference, and something of
+distaste, the earlier chapters of that modern Odyssey. The first touch
+which came home to him was Jingle's "Handsome Englishman?" In that
+phrase he recognised a master; and, by the time that he landed in
+England, 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 of
+my performance among friends and foes; for here we have no information
+on such subjects. The literary correspondents of the Calcutta newspapers
+seem to be penny-a-line risen, whose whole stock of literature comes
+from the conversations in the Green Room.
+
+My long article on Bacon has, no doubt, been in your hands some time. I
+never, to the best of my recollection, proposed to review Hannah More's
+Life or Works. If I did, it must have been in jest. She was exactly
+the very last person in the world about whom I should choose to write
+a critique. She was a very kind friend to me from childhood. Her notice
+first called out my literary tastes. Her presents laid the foundation
+of my library. She was to me what Ninon was to Voltaire,--begging her
+pardon for comparing her to a bad woman, and yours for comparing myself
+to a great man. She really was a second mother to me. I have a real
+affection for her memory. I therefore could not possibly write about her
+unless I wrote in her praise; and all the praise which I could give to
+her writings, even after straining my conscience in her favour, would be
+far indeed from satisfying any of her admirers.
+
+I will try my hand on Temple, and on Lord Clive. Shaftesbury I shall
+let alone. Indeed, his political life is so much connected with Temple's
+that, without endless repetition, it would be impossible for me to
+furnish a separate article on each. Temple's Life and Works, the part
+which he took in the controversy about the ancients and moderns; the
+Oxford confederacy against Bentley; and the memorable victory which
+Bentley obtained, will be good subjects. I am in training for this part
+of the subject, as I have twice read through the Phalaris controversy
+since I arrived in India.
+
+I have been almost incessantly engaged in public business since I sent
+off the paper on Bacon; but I expect to have comparative leisure
+during the short remainder of my stay here. The Penal Code of India is
+finished, and is in the press. The illness of two of my colleagues threw
+the work almost entirely on me. It is done, however; and I am not likely
+to be called upon for vigorous exertion during the rest of my Indian
+career.
+
+Yours ever
+
+T. B. MACAULAY.
+
+If you should have assigned Temple, or Clive, to anybody else, pray do
+not 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, the
+death of our poor friend Malkin. I have felt very much for his widow.
+The intensity of her affliction, and the fortitude and good feeling
+which she showed as soon as the first agony was over, have interested me
+greatly in her. Six or seven of Malkin's most intimate friends here have
+joined with Ryan and me, in subscribing to put up a plain marble
+tablet in the cathedral, for which I have written an inscription. [This
+inscription appears in Lord Macaulay's Miscellaneous Works.]
+
+My departure is now near at hand. This is the last letter which I shall
+write to you from India. Our passage is taken in the Lord Hungerford;
+the most celebrated of the huge floating hotels which run between London
+and Calcutta. She is more renowned for the comfort and luxury of her
+internal arrangements than for her speed. As we are to stop at the Cape
+for a short time, I hardly expect to be with you till the end of May, or
+the beginning of June. I intend to make myself a good German scholar by
+the time of my arrival in England. I have already, at leisure moments
+broken the ice. I have read about half of the New Testament in Luther's
+translation, and am now getting rapidly, for a beginner, through
+Schiller's History of the Thirty Years' War. My German library consists
+of all Goethe's works, all Schiller's works, Muller's History of
+Switzerland, some of Tieck, some of Lessing, and other works of less
+fame. I hope to despatch them all on my way home. I like Schiller's
+style exceedingly. His history contains a great deal of very just and
+deep thought, conveyed in language so popular and agreeable that dunces
+would 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 raised
+him in my opinion. I procured the magnificent edition of Chrysostom, by
+Montfaucon, from a public library here, and turned over the eleven huge
+folios, reading wherever the subject was of peculiar interest. As to
+reading him through, the thing is impossible. These volumes contain
+matter at least equal to the whole extant literature of the best times
+of Greece, from Homer to Aristotle inclusive. There are certainly some
+very brilliant passages in his homilies. It seems curious that, though
+the Greek literature began to flourish so much earlier than the Latin,
+it continued to flourish so much later. Indeed, if you except the
+century which elapsed between Cicero's first public appearance and
+Livy's death, I am not sure that there was any time at which Greece had
+not writers equal or superior to their Roman contemporaries. I am sure
+that 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 with
+Longinus; that no Latin prose of the age of Chrysostom can be named with
+Chrysostom's compositions. I have read Augustin's Confessions. The book
+is not without interest; but he expresses himself in the style of a
+field-preacher.
+
+Our Penal Code is to be published next week. It has cost me very intense
+labour; and, whatever its faults may be, it is certainly not a slovenly
+performance. Whether the work proves useful to India or not, it has been
+of great use, I feel and know, to my own mind.
+
+[In October 1854, Macaulay writes to my mother: "I cannot but be pleased
+to find that, at last, the Code on which I bestowed the labour of two of
+the best years of my life has had justice done to it. Had this justice
+been done sixteen years ago, I should probably have given much more
+attention 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 than
+I have been."]
+
+Ever yours affectionately
+
+T. B. MACAULAY.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, by 
+George Otto Trevelyan
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