burgh. Mr. Isaac Bate, the secretary, read the report, which was of the most cheering character. The number of members of the institute was 271. The issues from the library had been 3,240. Ten pounds had been expended in supplying new books; and, since the printing of the catalogue (two years ago), 116 more volumes had been added to the library. Two donations, each of £5, had been presented by his Highness the Maharajah Dhuleep Sing. A lifelike and admirably executed portrait of Dr. Scoresby had been presented; and, by subscription, was purchased a portrait of Mr. Robert Hamilton, one of the founders of the institute. A por trait of Captain James Cook (whose maritime career commenced at Whitby) was painted and presented by Mr. T. H. Readman, an amateur portrait painter. The evening classes had been well attended. The general instruction LITERARY PETER BAYNE, Esq., Author of the "Christian Life," a volume of " Essays," successor of the late Hugh Miller as editor of the "Witness," is to become conductor of The Dial, which is announced to appear on the 7th inst., as a weekly newspaper. Arago's works are now complete, in eighteen volumes, at Paris. A People's College is projected at Ely, under the auspices of the Dean. Among the candidates for the Professorship of Logic and Rhetoric, vacant by the death of William Spalding, of St. Andrew's, the following persons are mentioned, viz.: Herbert Spencer, author of "Principles of Psychology,' "Social Statics," &c.; Alexander Bain, author of "The Senses and the Intellect," "The Emotions of the Will," &c.; John Veitch, the translator of "Descartes," and sub-editor of "Sir William Hamilton's Lectures;" John Nicholl, son of the late Professor of Astronomy, in Glasgow, author of a volume of "Poems;" and Samuel Neil, author of "The Art of Reasoning," "The Elements of Rhetoric," &c. Death has been reaping rich harvests class numbered 42 members, a French class 15 members, and a design class, though commenced late in the season, made great progress. A local com mittee was formed to obtain candidates for the Society of Arts examination, but was not successful. The lecture department was in a very languid state, and the directors felt they were not sufficiently sustained by the attendance of the members generally. The meeting was addressed by Thomas Chapman, Esq., F.R.S., F.S.A.; Mr. Thomas Clegg, Rev. Thos. Keane, M.A., M.A.S.; George Hitchcock, Esq., and Edwin Cockburn, Esq., both of London; John Buchannan, Esq., Rev. J. C. Potter, Rev. Joseph Hughes, M.A. Miss Newbound was engaged for the musical department, and added much to the pleasure of the evening. The singing of the national anthem terminated the proceedings. NOTES. of late. Washington Irving, the Goldsmith of American literature, died on 28th November. Thomas De Quincey -almost the Cicero of modern letters -expired in Edinburgh, on 8th ult., having just concluded the revision of the proof sheets of the fourth and last volume of his Selections. Miltonic illustrations are multiplying, and are likely to give hard work to the hard-working editor of Macmillan's Magazine-David Masson. Mr. D. Hamilton has recently published some, and S. L. Sotheby is preparing others. Rev. P. Blackburn, of The Athenæum, has committed suicide. "The Leader" is to add "The Saturday Analyst" to its title; and, taking a leaf from the British Controversialist, is about to confine itself to the essence of the press. MR. ALLEN, of Birmingham, has brought out a facsimile reproduction of the Hamlets of 1603 and 1604, in antique binding, and on specially prepared paper. A (posthumous) History of India, by the recently deceased Hon. Mount STUART ELPHINSTONE, is likely soon to be published. An important work-"The Life of Professor John Wilson" (Christopher North), is understood to be engaging the attention of THOMAS AIRD. No man is better fitted for the grateful and the genial task. Several hard facts against "Rare Ben Jonson" have of late appeared in the Athenæum; and we fear that the proofs of his being a spy and informer are too strong for contradiction, however desirable. A copy of an information tendered by Ben against Zouch Townley, a friend and defender of his own, is quoted in issue of 5th. LORD BROUGHAM is about to issue eleven "Tracts, Mathematical and Physical," in one vol., dedicated to the University of Edinburgh, of which he is Chancellor. The "Memoirs and Remains of Professor Edward Forbes" are left incompletely prepared for the press, by the death, on 22nd November last, of his friend and fellow-Professor, George Wilson. The author of "Horæ Subseciva" is likely to finish it, and to write a biography of the Edinburgh Technologist. Mr. Wilkie Collins's "Queen of Hearts" is a set of diamonds out of the mines of "Household Words," put on a new thread. The MS. of an "Essay on Dreams," given in to Professor Dugald Stewart, in 1796, by Henry (now Lord) Broughham, has recently "turned up." "Household Words" is to yield other selections, one in especial, from the pen of its sub-editor, W. H. WILLS. The "Literary Gazette" has passed into the hands of a body of gentlemen, who propose devoting a large capital to its improvement and extension. Arrangements are in progress for securing the services of experienced writers in the musical, dramatic, scientific, and literary departments. After the 1st January, 1860, the "Gazette" will be permanently enlarged. Mr. Buckle has nearly ready for publication the second volume of his valuable "History of Civilization." In this volume, the mode of arrangement is much superior to that adopted in the previous volume. Mr. W. H. RUSSELL, the Times' correspondent, is said to have received from the Messrs. Routledge, £1,500 for his Indian Diary. "CORNHILL MAGAZINE."—It is said that the first order given to the printers by the publishers of the "Cornhill Magazine," was for 60,000 copies. We "Ho MR. NEWBY AND THE ADAM BEDE SEQUEL We hear that Mr. Newby has decided that it is better, "under existing circumstances," not to publish "Adam Bede, Junior: a Sequel." see that Mr. Newby announces nesty is the Best Policy," in two vols. "MACMILLAN'S MAGAZINE." "The Sea-Dreams: an Idyll," which Mr. Tennyson is to contribute to the January number of " Macmillan's Magazine," and for which he is to receive 250 guineas, will not, it is said, exceed 100 lines. 250 guineas for 100 lines! It is something for a penny-a-liner to meditate on. For his "Grandmother's Apology," published in "Once a Week," the Poet Laureate received only £100. MR. SMILES, the author of "The Life of George Stephenson," and "Self Help," is engaged in writing a life of James Watt. From his position on the South-Eastern Railway, Mr. Smiles not only understands the theory on which Watt and Stephenson worked, but the practical part of their lives, and this makes him better qualified to speak on such men than any writer of the present day. We hear of a "Manchester Review," about to be started on the plan of the Saturday. The editor is a gentleman who has had varied experience in connection with the press, both of Manchester and London; and among the contributors mentioned is Professor Scott, of Owen's College, of which institution he was formerly Principal. LORD MACAULAY. A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, AND A CRITICAL ESTIMATE. Ar Holly Lodge, Campden Hill, Kensington, "blithe Christmas" was spent amid the fairy graces of domestic life," and it seemed as though “the sullen evenings of the closing year" had only come to "Repair the wither'd verdure of the mind, And thus, to fresher life and brighter hue, Lord Macaulay had been ill, but it was fondly hoped that he would still and for long continue "To trim the taper o'er the page Where lives the mind of poet and of sage." But the woeful impotence of life was destined only to receive a new illustration. On the 28th of December he suddenly died, and now "The pliant muscles of the various face, The mien that gave each sentence strength and grace, and in the south transept of Westminster Abbey-"that temple of silence and reconciliation, where the enmities of twenty generations lie buried" he already reposes-beside the father of English Literature, "Who left half-told The story of Cambuscan bold;" -his life (but not his life-task) finished. The pen of the historian is laid aside, the harp of the poet has become tuneless, the tongue of the orator is mute, the heart-beat of the essayist is still, the brain of the statesman is schemeless now, and the glory of the legislator is only a memory. Changeful Death has snatched from earth a large-minded, widelycultured, sympathetic, and nobly-ambitious soul, whose energies were looked upon as far from being spent, and whose peculiar powers had given a singular interest to the annals of our country, and imparted a rich breadth and luminousness to the records of the past. The conscientious toil of years, with all their accumulations of ripe wisdom and ready specificality; the results of a multifarious and almost omnivorous course of reading and study; the brilliant combinations of a vividly pictorial fancy, and the exquisite skill and mastery of language which had been acquired by continued assiduity, were all expectantly devoted to the production of a work in which the new forms of political life consequent on the era of the Commonwealth might have been placed before the reader with graphic elaboration and substantial rehabilitation; but the chisel has been stricken from the artist's grasp, and the chill of the grave restrains the only hand which could sculpture the splendid torso into the semblance of the foregone realities of Time. It is with no "fantastic sorrow that such a loss must be mourned, and that hunger-pinched Hope should grieve for the sudden abstraction of that great though invisible wealth of thought, in which for many a future day it trusted to rejoice. The heart must thrill with pain when such a bereavement compels the world to utter the solemn requiem of sorrow. We cannot do amiss-even though sitting in the shadow of a nation's grief-by striving to recall, in one continuous chronicle, the achievements which the might and potency of a strong will and endeavour enabled Lord Macaulay to accomplish; for we shall best put to its true uses the present lesson of Death, if we can cast the lustre of his example upon those who are now and still แ Toiling o'er Life's stormy main," so that in the voyage it lights no longer, his life may be communicative of heart and hope, of encouragement, and, if need be, of warning. Thus only, as generations press on generations, is the progress of humanity secured, and the grave becomes a teacher of charities and hopes, which the pulsing haste of life makes us too ready to forget or disbelieve. : To write History respectably-that is, to abbreviate despatches and make extracts from speeches, to intersperse, in due proportion, epithets of praise and abhorrence, to draw up antithetical characters of great men, setting forth how many contradictory virtues and vices they united, and abounding in withs and withouts—all this is very easy but to be a really great historian is, perhaps, the rarest of intellectual distinctions... We are acquainted with no history which approaches to our notion of what a history ought to be-with no history which does not widely depart, either on the right hand or on the left, from the exact line. . . . A perfect historian must possess an imagination sufficiently powerful to make his narrative affecting and picturesque. Yet he must control it so absolutely, as to content himself with the materials which he finds, and to refrain from supplying deficiencies by additions of his own. He must be a profound and ingenious reasoner. Yet he must possess sufficient self-command to abstain from casting his facts in the mould of his hypothesis."* So wrote Macaulay, in his twenty-eighth year, when, as 'Coming events cast their shadows before," his mind seems to have become instinctively conscious of its vocation, and he had begun to imp his wings for a flight into that transcendant region of endeavour, in which "such a happy and delicate combination of qualities" is required, that " those who can justly estimate its almost insuperable difficulties will not think it strange that every writer should have failed either in the narrative or in the speculative department." At that time the ideal * History," Edinburgh Review," May, 1828. existed in his thought unhampered by the real; and the long reach of a life-time of unintermitted labour appeared to lie before him, sunned only by the glow of hope, and all undimmed by sorrow, sickness, or care, and not even specked, much less gloomed, by political partisanships and disappointments, official routine, and the multitudinous fatigues of investigative research. The glare of this paper lay like a lane of spears across Macaulay's life; and the fact that-though it is one of his most brilliant and telling articles-he has never assented to its republication, may enable us to guess that he was scarcely willing, when time had mellowed and matured his thoughts, and experience had moderated the zeal of his hot youth, to undergo the scriptural ordeal, "With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." Nor shall we, at the outset and on the threshold of our memorial of his worth and greatness, attempt to show how far and how sadly he has departed from this lofty theory of historic authorship, nor how much, by the radical vices of his theory, the practical utility and the permanent value of his noblest life-labour has been marred and injured. We shall better measure the issue of his life, by first tracing the growth and uprise of his being, from its early prime to its somewhat premature collapse and close. To this, therefore, we must devote a brief space. In the island of Lewes-one of the outer Hebrides-laved by the Minch and washed by the Atlantic, peopled by a short, hardy, robust, Gaelic-speaking race, whose ancestors were Celts and Scandinavians, the forefathers of Lord Macaulay long dwelt; and there, for generations, they acquired and displayed that irrepressible energy and combative indefatigability of character which has as yet no name except a quasi-Latin one, perfervidum ingenium Scotorum. In the ministry of the Church of Scotland his grandfather and uncle found outlet for their energy and scope for their genius, and both receive kindly mention in Dr. Johnson's "Tour in the Hebrides." He met them at Inverary, of which the Rev. John Macaulay was then, 1773, incumbent, though he died 1789, minister of Cardross, in Dumbartonshire. Zachary, son of the Rev. John Macaulay, born 1768, was sent at an early age to the West Indies, where he was trained to commercial life. He subsequently became a merchant in Jamaica, where he heard the wail and saw the sorrow of slavery, and became convinced that its entire abolition was a necessity. For years he strove to ameliorate the condition of the negroes by and during a residence in Sierra Leone, and, on his return to the mother country, he associated himself with Wilberforce, Clarkson, Stephen, and others, in an agitation against "the trade of man in man." He became a member of what has been derisively called the Clapham Sect, and editor of the "Christian Examiner." He married Miss Selina Mills, a quakeress, the daughter of a bookseller, a pupil of Miss Hannah More, and then a schoolmistress in Bristol. His sister had been married to Thomas Babington, Esq., of Rothley See Sir J. Stephen's paper, "The Clapham Sect."-Edin. Rev., July, 1844. |