young man. In republishing it he made a few alterations, but that every competent judge will indorse his own statement, 'the criticism on Milton, which was written when the author was fresh from College, and which contains scarcely a paragraph such as his matured judgment approves, still remains overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful ornament.' As he advanced, however, he improved, as will be seen in the essay on Machiavelli, which immediately follows that on Milton, but is separated from it by an interval of eighteen months. It will never be so popular as the Milton article, which is very dazzling, but it is in every way a better work, and one can see in it the Macaulay of later days, his subtlety of thought, his tolerant temper, his high view of morality, his ideal of composition; and we may say the same of the articles on Hallam and Southey, which are next in order, and belong to the period before he entered Parliament. An article on History which he contributed to the Edinburgh Review' in May, 1828, has not been republished, and in itself perhaps it is not of much value, having very much the appearance of a college exercise touched up. But as the production of one who afterward became one of the greatest of historians, and who, if he has not actually invented a new style of history, has given us the most perfect specimen of the new style; it is well worthy of perusal, and will, no doubt, be published with other works which Lord Macaulay has been perhaps too anxious to consign to oblivion.

Among these will be found some political squibs which are really very good, and with regard to two of them we quote the following from Moore's Diary, though the date is June, 1831. He is relating a conversation at the breakfast table of Rogers, and says:—' In the course of conversation Campbell quoted a line

'Ye diners out from whom we guard our spoons,'

and looking over at me said significantly, 'You ought to know that line.' I pleaded not guilty; upon which he said, 'It is a poem that appeared in the 'Times' which every body attributes to you.' But I again declared that I did not even remember it. Macaulay then broke silence and said, to our general surprise, 'that is mine, on which we all expressed a wish to have it recalled to our memories, and he repeated the whole of it. I then remembered having been much struck with it at the time, and said that there was another squib still better, on the subject of William Bankes's candidateship for Cambridge, which so much amused me when it ap

peared, and showed such power in that style of composition, that I wrote up to Barnes about it, and advised him by all means to secure that hand as an ally. That was mine, also,' said Macaulay, thus discovering to us a new power, in addition to that varied store of talent which we had already known him to possess.' His talents were so great, his writings were so effective, and his influence so strong, that the Whigs obtained for him (this, we suppose, must have been in the Coalition Ministry) an appointment as Commissioner of Bankrupts, and in 1830 he entered Parliament as member for Calne.

"For the future Mr. Macaulay is to be as much a politician as a writer. He made an impression in the House of Commons almost from the first. To one who was uttering some disparagement of the young man, Mr. Sheil is reported to have screeched out, 'Nonsense, Sir! don't attempt to run down Macaulay. He's the cleverest man in Christendom. Didn't he make four speeches on the Reform Bill, and get £10,000 a year? Think of that, and be dumb.' Immense things were expected of him when he appeared in the House; he was to be another Burke, and, indeed, he took a part in the debates in favor of Reform and the Grey Ministry second only to the more spontaneous efforts of Lord Derby, then Mr. Stanley. Croker, who had also a reputation as a reviewer, was frequently in these days set up to destroy the young debater, but he failed, as, other things being equal, the man of detail must always fail against the man of broad views and sweeping generalizations. Besides his performances on the floor of the House of Commons, Mr. Macaulay did duty in these days for his friends the Abolitionists, whose hearts he rejoiced in highly impassioned speeches at the Freemasons' Tavern. In Parliament his style was more argumentative and sober, and he did good service to his friends. Jeffrey, writing to Lord Cockburn in 1833, observes, 'Macaulay is a marvellous person. He made the very best speech that has been made this session on India, a few nights ago, to a House of less than fifty. The Speaker, who is a severe judge rays he rather thinks it the best speech he ever heard.' Admirable speaker as he was, however, one may venture to doubt about Mr. Macaulay's qualifications as a debater. With all his stores of information, and with all his flow of language, he could never trust himself to speak without the most elaborate preparation; his presence as an orator was not overpowering; and his voice was not particularly good. His head was set stiff upon his shoulders,

and his feet were always planted immovable on the ground. One hand was fixed behind him across his back, and in this rigid attitude, with only a slight movement of his right hand, he poured forth his sentences. His speeches were what he said those of Sir James Mackintosh were - spoken essays; only that Macaulay's essays, unlike those of Sir James, were written in a highly rhetorical style. It is, perhaps, the most rhetorical prose that ever was written; at all events, the prose that combines in the most perfect way whatever is excellent in the written with whatever is valuable in the spoken style. Macaulay certainly did wonders with it, and if he was not very formidable in extemporary debate, he managed at all times to fascinate both sides of the House, to win golden opinions from all sorts of men.

"One benefit our author derived from his Indian experience: he was able to write of Indian affairs with a fulness of knowledge and a vividness of apprehension which are unsurpassed in his treatment of any other subject. His essays on Clive and Warren Hastings are, on the whole, the best he has written. Nothing can be more masterly than his views, nothing more picturesque than his narration, nothing more just than his admiration of the men, combined with condemnation of their acts. The essays will always be the most popular of his works, and we may read them a dozen times without ever tiring of them. The English is his best,

his most finished style, and we must give him the praise of having in his style added to the clearness of the English language. He has taught us to avoid involved sentences; he has given us the most brilliant examples of directness; and by a chary use of pronouns, especially the personal pronouns, he has given at once lucidity and emphasis to all he has to say.

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'Lord Macaulay's rejection at Edinburgh probably hastened the undertaking of what was his chief ambition, a true History of England. He produced two volumes of this history in 1848, two more made their appearance in 1855, and the public were in expectation of a further instalment, to be issued very shortly, when now they hear of the historian's decease. The excitement which the first two volumes created, appearing as they did in all the hubbub of the French Revolution, presenting to us a picture in remarkable contrast to that of the Parisian rabble, and calming down our own populace with the story of a nobler revolution, must be vividly in the recollection of our readers. Of the value of that history we have spoken so recently (the 'Times,' January 6

1857) that we need not now trouble them with a detailed criti cism. Despite of any amount of criticism, the work is a very great work, and, just as Hume is read notwithstanding our censures, Macaulay will be read, whatever his deviations from strict accuracy. The only fact about which it is necessary now to call attention is, that the author in commencing his work proposed to carry it down to a period within the memory of persons still living,' and that he has not been permitted to fulfil his task. He frequently turned his attention to other works, as witness his admirable biography of the younger Pitt in a recent volume of the 'Encyclopædia,' and the work had so grown on his hand that probably he himself long since gave up the hope of being able to bring down his narrative to recent times. As it is, it is a magnificent fragment, which, even if the author had produced but a single volume, would have been of enormous value as a specimen of the high ideal at which he aimed."

In connection with this article from the "Times," a sketch of Macaulay's life and literary character from the "London Athenæum," (January 7th, 1860,) will interest the reader :

"Earth will on Monday close over all that was perishable of Thomas Babington, Baron Macaulay, of Temple Rothley. The dust is laid at the foot of Addison's statue in the venerable Abbey; the spirit is abroad in the world, and will not be laid so long as the language in which it breathed is spoken of men. As an historian Macaulay has few rivals; as an essayist he has no rival. There is no rashness in predicting for the sketches of Clive and Hastings a safe literary immortality.

“Macaulay, born in 1800, at Temple Rothley, in Leicestershire, was the son of Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Presbyterian of stern principles and life. His grandfather was a pastor in the kirk. His mother was a schoolmistress at Bristol. Her maiden name was Mills she was the daughter of a Quaker; and being trained under the care of the Misses More, (Hannah More and her sisters,) was an accomplished and instructed woman for her class. Thus, by distant streams, the blood of professors in two of the most severe and chastened sects in Europe, Covenanter and Quaker, — met in the veins of the wonderful boy. His father's sister being married to Thomas Babington, a merchant, he received those names at the font.

From his birth it is said that he exhibited signs of superiority

6

and genius, and more especially of that power of memory which startled every one by its quickness, flexibility, and range. While he was yet a boy, he was in incessant request to tell books' to his playmates. At that early date he would repeat and declaim the longest Arabian Night' as fluently as Scheherazade herself. A little later he would recite one of Scott's novels -story, characters, scenery - almost as well as though the book were in his hand. But these were stolen and profane pleasures, not encouraged, indeed barely tolerated, in the strict conventual house. The household books were the Bible, The Pilgrim's Progress,' and a few Cameronian divines. An eager and dramatic appetite found food for fancy in the allegories of Scripture, and even in the dry sectarian literature of Scottish controversy. Many a strong passage of description or vituperation in his writings, salted as they are with Biblical words, shows how familiar he had been with Scripture phraseology in early youth. He himself used to tell a funny story of a nursery scene. For every one who came to his father's house he had a Biblical nickname: Moses, Holofernes, Melchisedek, and the like. One visitor he called 'The Beast.' Kind mamma, prudent papa, frowned at their precocious child, and set their brows against this offensive name; but Thomas stuck to his point. Next time the 'Beast' made a morning call, the boy ran to the window which hung over the street- to turn back laughing, crowing with excitement and delight. 'Look here, mother,' cries the child,' you see I am right. Look, look at the number of the Beast!' Mrs. Macaulay glanced at the hackney-coach; and, behold, its number was 666!*

"This faculty for histrionic narrative and personation grew upon him as he grew in years, and at the proper time took its place among his literary qualifications. From school he went to Cambridge, where he earned reputation by his verses and his oratory, and by his youthful contributions to Charles Knight's Quarterly Magazine. Among his rivals and contemporaries were the Rev. J. Moultrie, Mackworth Praed, Prof. Malden, and others now known to fame. He graduated B. A. in 1822, M. A. in 1826 He had already entered himself of Lincoln's Inn, and been called to the bar.

"His real entry into literature was through the gates of the Edinburgh Review, in his hand that paper on Milton, which has so often puzzled the critics, and of which he was himself in later life ashamed. It was followed, during twenty years, by many other *Revelation 13: 18.