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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay
+by George Otto Trevelyan
+
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+Title: Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay
+
+Author: George Otto Trevelyan
+
+Release Date: May, 2001 [EBook #2647]
+[This file was last updated on March 26, 2002]
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+Edition: 11
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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MACAULAY'S LIFE & LETTERS ***
+
+
+
+
+E-Text created by Martin Adamson
+martin@grassmarket.freeserve.co.uk
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+
+
+Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay
+
+by Sir George Otto Trevelyan
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME I
+
+
+
+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 thhey 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 pre-
+eminence 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 be 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 he 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 he 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, hut 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, be 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 l00 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
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MACAULAY'S LIFE & LETTERS ***
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+This file should be named 1lllm11.txt or 1lllm11.zip
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