papers, some written from books and some from life, of which the best were unquestionably those on Hastings and Clive, original efforts of his genius working on new material, the gathering of his own eye and ear in the country which they so splendidly describe. "On his political career we need not dwell. The outlines of his course are in every newspaper and every biographical dictionary. An article from his pen on the Ballot caught the eye of Lord Lansdowne, who at once sought out the young barrister, brought him into Parliament as member for Calne, when the Government made him Secretary to the Board of Control for India, and secured his talents for the service of the Whigs. This appointment was the best party-move in our generation. He went to India for fortune, and came back to England for fame. For a few years he hesitated between letters and politics, serving as a burgess for Edinburgh as well as writing articles for the Edinburgh Review. A quarrel with his supporters on the question of endowing Maynooth broke his connection with the House of Commons, and restored him to literature. Once afterward he became a member of the House, yet little more than a nominal member. He spoke only once or twice, and then on points of no large public moment. "For twelve years past his time had been given up almost solely to his History of England.' Four volumes have been published. Of late years, though he is known to have worked closely upon the continuation, he has frequently turned aside for other literary tasks, such as the memoirs of Oliver Goldsmith and William Pitt for the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. As yet, it is uncertain to what extent the materials left will be found available for publication. If, as we hope, the narrative is perfect down to the death of William the Third, the book, though a mere fragment of the History of England,' will, as a life and times of William, possess a certain unity and completeness within itself. "The verdict of mankind on the merits of his very considerable contribution to the History of England' is not likely to be unanimous. The taste of contemporaries is never decisive. Lord Macaulay's ambition was to stand in the same rank with Hume. If a publisher's balance-sheet proved any thing, his rank would be far higher than that of Hume. The Messrs. Longmans have paid to him the revenue of a prince. We have heard, on the best authority, of one single check from publishers to historian for twenty thousand pounds! "As a table-talker Lord Macaulay had a reputation most pecul iar. He was not witty, like Jerrold, nor humorous, like Smith, no poetical, like Moore, nor dreamy, like Coleridge. He was narrative. He was the troubadour of dining-rooms, who charmed the company with noble speech while they cracked the nuts and passed the wine. In his conversation, often as it took the form of monologue, there was no indication of arrogance on his part, or of desire to monopolize the attention of everybody. The stream welled forth out of the fulness of his mind and prodigious memory. A quick and fertile intellect got excited by the applause of auditors and by the vivacity of its own eloquence. When he launched into any subject, there was no hope of arresting his voyage, nor any wish to do so. He would begin with the remotest beginnings of the topic,—just as he begins his history of the reign of James the Second with the Phoenicians, - would gather strength and substance as he went on, would pick up illustration here and there from men and from books, leaving no corner for objection to fasten on, no opportunity for reply. There seemed no reason why the discourse should ever cease, no more than for the Thames to run dry, or the time to pause. The talk had something of Milton's organ-roll, and was only to be closed by Milton's organ-stop. It was not vivacious, so much as flowing, suggestive, and sonorously poetical. It was like his essays and his lays; as a lady described it to her friend, it was all print. Thus, though his reputation for conversational opulence was great, few of his sayings are abroad, or will survive the personal recollections of his friends. "In private life Lord Macaulay was amiable and friendly. His kindness to men of letters, even to those who had no claim on him, and in many instances very little claim on literature, was above price. His gifts of money in beneficence were on a scale far beyond that of his fortune. It is the more necessary to dwell on this fact, as he himself never told of his good deeds, and common rumor ascribed to him, most falsely, a cold and unkindly heart." - Pp. 18-19. See also January 14th, p. 54. Some interesting particulars respecting Mr. Macaulay's personal qualities not familiar to the public, are noticed in a genial manner in the "Manchester Guardian," in an article from its London correspondent: "It was very characteristic of the Macaulay family that the tidings of Lord Macaulay's death should have reached the public ear so slowly and circuitously. All courting of publicity, all craving for public expression of admiration, all trading upon fame and name, was peculiarly alien from the character of the deceased nobleman, as well as from those of his surviving brother, Charles Zachary Macaulay, Secretary of the Board of Audit, and his sister, Lady Trevelyan. The brothers and sister were linked by strong affection, not unmingled with pride on either side. They were proud of their brother's unparalleled popularity as a writer; he was proud of his brother Charles's rising repute as a most valuable and conscientious public servant; of Lady Trevelyan's intelligence and usefulness as the helpmate of Sir Charles Trevelyan, whose labors in the public service Lord Macaulay keenly sympathized with, and approvingly watched and cheered. 66 Macaulay's conversation, more than that of any man I have ever met, impressed me with the notion of a memory of peerless accuracy, the stores of which were used with an unfailing and disciplined energy of mind, manifested especially in the force and finish of the speaker's language. All Macaulay's conversation would admit of being put in print, just as it was spoken. There was nothing unfinished, slipshod, hesitatingly, or half expressed. The sentences were flung before you with an irrepressible buoyancy and forcefulness of utterance, complete, clear cut, well rounded, and well linked to each other. And yet there was nothing Johnsonian, nothing pompous, sesquipedalian, or pedantic in the phraseology. And as the manner so was the matter — pleasant, interesting, amusing, but never prosy, boring, or over ambitious for the company or the time. "Never were pleasanter, more unrestrained, or more genial breakfasts than those of Lord Macaulay, at his rooms, in the Albany-while he was still a liver in chambers, before he removed to Holly Lodge, at Campden Hill, which he has not occupied for three years if my memory be exact. Macaulay monologized, only because he had so much ready to flow forth on most subjects, that it took a long time to pump off even his surface water. But, in company with people who had something to say and could say it, Macaulay did not habitually take up more than his fair share of the conversation. Sydney Smith used to complain of Macaulay, because he was a rival, and a worse monopolist, and could not bear to see the attention of the table distracted from his own rampant and Rabelaisian fun. He, by his allusion to 'Macaulay's brilliant flashes of silence,' gave color to the imp itation of bur densome loquacity, often urged against the deceased historian. But I believe no one who saw much of Macaulay in society will be found to indorse that charge. "Among the most honorable characteristics of Lord Macaulay — of which I am glad to see such general recognition should be mentioned, his rare freedom from all taint of self-serving or jobbery. Great as were his opportunities of serving relatives, connections, or dependents, he systematically abstained from all exercises of his influence on their behalf; and this, though a warm friend, an attached kinsman, and a most affectionate brother. When he was last in office, his brother who was at the Bar, but who was at once well fitted and inclined for the public service — was without any public employment. Lord John Russell, when he subsequently appointed this brother to the treasurership of the Mauritius, informed him that he never even knew Lord Macaulay had a brother available for public employment. Indeed, Lord Macaulay may be thought by many to have carried this abnegation of influence to an excess; for this brother has in all his subsequent employments proved himself one of the most efficient and popular of civil servants. I may also mention - what in Lord Macaulay's lifetime the public never learned from him or by his wish that Lord Macaulay was unwearied and most liberal in his charities, especially to all needy literary brethren. The amount distributed by him in this way would, I am satisfied, astonish the public; but it will never be known. Careful as he was in business matters, in his charities at least his right hand never knew what his left was doing. "Though when Lord Macaulay begun his history he hoped to bring it down to the limits of living memory, he had long ago abandoned this hope. Latterly the utmost range he gave himself was down to the accession of the House of Hanover, and this he had hoped to accomplish in five, if not four more volumes. I do not think he would ever have so compressed his material. The reign of Queen Anne- with its statesmen, poets, and essayists — would have been ground too tempting to his well-stored memory, and his strong love of the writers of that age, for any sharp or narrow limitation. He must have overflowed into comment, portraiture, and criticism. Two volumes of the unfinished history are, I believe, so far advanced to completeness, as that we may look to see them before long. And with these two, I fear, concluding the reign of William, and ushering us over the threshold of that of Anne, we must rest content." The "London Punch" referred to Macaulay's death in the following lines:— MACAULAY, 28TH DECEMBER, 1859. "O dying year did'st wreak thy latest scoff On those who, wearied with thee, bade thee go, The arrangements for the funeral were thus detailed in the "London Globe" of January 2, 1861: "ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE FUNERAL OF LORD MACAULAY. "Lord Macaulay will be buried this week in Westminster Abbey. The sexton of the Dean and Chapter is busy opening a grave for our great historian not with kings and knights of the Garter not even with Stephenson and Telford — but in the Poet's Corner, or the south transept of the Abbey. He will lie at the foot of Addison's statue, and close to the grave of Isaac Barrow, one of the great Trinity of Cambridge men, Macaulay's own College. The historian will not lie far off Camden almost the father of English history nor yet far from what remains of May, the historian of the Long Parliament, and near to the remains of Johnson, Garrick, Sheridan, and Gifford, the Tory editor of the Quarterly Review.' He will lie facing the statue of the poet of 'The Pleasures of Hope,' at whose funeral the noble historian helped (with wise selection) to bear the pall. The day of the funeral is, we believe, as yet unfixed.” In Westminster Abbey, on the occasion of the funeral, were assembled the most notable literary men of the country. A vivid picture of this distinguished company is given in the "Manchester Guardian," (Jan. 9, 1860,) in these words : "There could not have been one thousand persons present in the Abbey to-day; and yet, small as that number seems, how few of our most conspicuous names in the senate, in law, in literature, |