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Temple, M.P. for Leicestershire; and so it turned out that his son, Thomas Babington Macaulay, was born 25th October, 1800, at his uncle's residence, and bore his uncle's name with him from the font. The strict religiousness and formalism of the parents were little adapted to the training of a frolicsome and precocious boy of some forwardness, and with much of the flexible tricksiness of boyhood. They early led him to the study of the Scriptures, compends of Calvinistic theology, and restricted him to religious reading; but this (perhaps too) rigid training gave an additional zest to the enjoyment drawn from the "stolen waters" of fiction and poetry, and caused the semi-conventualist to luxuriate with keen relish in the marvels of the " Arabian Nights," and in the magic evoked by the wand of the Wizard of the North in the "Waverley Novels." His early education was carefully superintended at home, with such results as to make him a widely-read and well-informed lad, before he was placed, for preparation for the University, under the care of a Mr. Preston, at Shelford, in Cambridgeshire, under whose tuition he seems to have progressed favourably, for he "entered" at Trinity College, Cambridge, in his eighteenth year. His career was preeminently brilliant. He gained the Chancellor's gold medal in two successive competitions,-in 1819 for a poem on Pompeii," and in 1821 for one on " Evening." Both of these productions have been published in a collection of University Prize Poems, where they hold their place worthily beside those of Heber and Keble. They are smooth, flowing, and facile, tinctured but not imbued with learning, indicative of some study of Pope, and considerable admiration of Campbell, but not at all gushing with energy, or flooded with "brave translunary things." About the same time, however, he made one of those important tentatives in literature which often bear rich fruit. By adopting Niebuhr's ballad theory, then unhackneyed, that the early history of Rome had been constructed out of pre-historic legendary poems, he set himself to reproduce such semblances of these ballads as might afford at once delight to the fancy and ground of experiment to the reason. These and other early contributions were first published in an almost forgotten magazine-"The Etonian,"-edited by W. M. Praed and the Rev. J. Moultrie, and in Charles Knight's. "Quarterly Magazine," a defunct periodical, in the five volumes of which there are many unforgetable things. In 1821 he gained the second Craven scholarship, graduated B.A. in 1822, and M.A. in 1825. Though, through distaste of and deficiency in mathematics, he did not compete for honours, he was elected a fellow of his college; and, having previously entered himself of Lincoln's Inn, he was called to the Bar, 1826, almost immediately after taking his mastership in arts, and then he chose, we believe, the Northern Circuit for the scene of his practice. During this time he was an active, promising, and prominent member of the Union Debating Society, where his studies in oratory found inducement and endorsement. His first public published speech, one in favour of the abolition of slavery, was delivered in 1824, and was noticed with praise in the "Edinburgh Review."

Perhaps this induced him to make his first bold essay in literature, by forwarding to Jeffrey his paper on Milton, which appeared in that renowned Whig journal in August, 1825.

The acute editor of the "blue and yellow" saw at once the mark and likelihood of the new adventurer, and hastened to secure his adjuvancy. The son of one of the purest and most zealous of Scotch Whigs, himself a literary man, and wielding in some measure the influence of his sect; the favourite nephew of an M.P. of some standing; Fellow of the University, and a barrister, a popular Unionist, a practised writer, and a rising man,-who could neglect ? Certainly not Jeffrey, at such a time, when all forces were muster. ing for the effectuation of that great reform in Parliament which was shortly thereafter (1832) consummated. This paper, though its author has since more than half retracted it, by its brilliancy and power, the happy figurativeness and the gorgeous drapery of its language, the curious compositeness and well-balanced melody of its phraseology, crowded with literary allusion, and graphicly scriptural, and the grand Miltonic swell and sweep of its argument, caught the public ear immediately, and gave him a stand-place at once among the men of note in his party and in literature. It echoed over the Atlantic, whose waves, next year, brought back that magnificent though sectarian counter-production from the pen of W. E. Channing, "Remarks on the Character and Writings of John Milton," with which it must now always stand in comparison. In the moorland solitude of Craigenputtock it struck Carlyle; and Robert Hall, at the age of 60, is said to have studied Italian, though racked by continual pain the while, that he might be able to read the "Divine Comedy," and so satisfy himself of the justice of the contrastive parallel Macaulay had therein instituted between Dante and Milton.

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For a time he endured "the law's delay" to give promotionhalting between a literary and a political life-unable to determine for either, anxious to pursue and enjoy both. Besides continuing to supply those dashing and glowing, rhetorical and ornate, fullcrammed and potent essays," on which for a long time his reputation rested, he attempted to write leading articles for the Morning Chronicle; but in this he was generally esteemed unsuccessful, as he had neither the tact, the facility, nor the lightness of manner requisite for the daily production of readable matter on the temporary affairs which interest the age. The intense and painstaking elaboration with which he composed was not suited to the ready and rapid reading which newspapers receive, nor could they be produced with sufficient haste and immediate appropriateness, one might almost say, improvisation. He apparently devoted as much time to the preparation of one of his papers for the "Edinburgh Review," as Shakespeare or Massinger required for the production of a new drama. Yet he could dash off merry and stinging squibs and jeux d'esprit, lightsome and nettley enough to be mistaken for Moore's, and of such merit as to find admission to the columns of the Times; and furnished fashionable rhyme for the

popular Annuals of the day. A splendid and deep-rooted article on Machiavelli (March, 1827); the paper on History (May, 1828), from which we have already quoted, and the discriminating and keenly critical estimate of Hallam's "Constitutional History" (Sept. 1828), occupied the leisure he was able to afford from the duties of a Commissioner in Bankruptcy, to which his party had recently elevated him. A paper of his on the ballot attracted the notice of Lord Lansdowne, who immediately singled out the writer for patronage, and introduced him, at the new election consequent on the death of George IV. (1830), into Parliament as member for the ancient borough of Calne, in Wiltshire, near which is his Lordship's residence -Bowood Park. The seat was then, as now, virtually in the gift of the Marquis, and it was in recognition of this service on the threshold of his public career that Macaulay (1854) dedicated his own revised edition of his speeches to the noble lord, whose motto is, "Virtute non verbis," By worth, not words. He took a specially prominent part in the debates on parliamentary reform, and, though elaborate, print-like, pointed, and prim, his speeches were clever and taking,-full of life, merit, and dash. He was nominated by the then newly enfranchised borough of Leeds, though connected with it neither by personal nor political interest, and through mere admiration of his earnest advocacy of reform, and carried into the new House of Commons (1833) triumphantly as their representative. He was almost immediately chosen Secretary to the Board of Control, and both astonished and displeased his radical constituents by accepting an appointment as legal adviser to the Supreme Council of India, with a salary of " ten thousand a year." It has been frankly avowed that the chief inducement to the proposal and acceptance of this appointment was the securing of a competency such as would enable him to devote his after years to labours of greater moment for his party and mankind. He was exempted from all share in the administration of affairs, had four assistants allotted to him, and the special duty with which he was charged was to prepare a penal code for India. He took out with him an immense and admirably selected library, with which he almost continually occupied himself, prudently husbanding not only his time but his resources; he saw little company, and interchanged few hospitalities. Many of his best essays, e. g., those on William Pitt, 1834; Mackintosh, 1835; Bacon, 1837; Sir William Temple, 1838; were forwarded from Calcutta. The labour he went to perform he accomplished; on his return to England, 1838, his Indian Penal Code was published. It is a great and important work, but it is regarded as cumbrous and impracticable-a monument of industry and talent misapplied, because no other feasible plan appeared so likely to save a mighty mind from daily drudgery for daily bread. It has never gained legal enactment or practical embodiment. Indeed, the attempt to carry into effect some of its provisions tended greatly to the infuriation of the people, which resulted in the late serious mutiny in our Eastern empire. Much of the pith and value of this code (such as it is) is due, we believe, to a Mr. Cameron, Macaulay's im

mediate subordinate in office, whom he ultimately saw well caredfor.

During Macaulay's homeward voyage, his father died (1838); his merits and goodness have since been honoured by the erection of a monument to his memory in Westminster Abbey. This event saddened his home-coming, though it left him more at liberty to pursue his own literary inclinations, unhampered by his father's anxiety to see him a statesman.

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"He went to India for fortune, and came back to England for fame." At the time of his appointment he was called "lucky Tom.” "Did he not," said Richard Lalor Sheil, make four speeches on the Reform Bill, and get £10,000 a year?" The truth of the designation may be questioned. It is almost certain that he brought home with him the seeds of impaired health, and of that chronic cough from which in his latter years he suffered so much; and it is quite evident that in unhinging himself from his party, and casting himself aloof from the activities of political life, during the best years of his manhood, and while the sharp contests of differing administrations were elaborating, and adapting the forms of government to the new conditions of affairs-he virtually renounced all chance and hope of attaining the highest honours of statesmanship, or the most remunerative and substantial offices in the ministry. It is quite true, nay it is highly probable, that he may have now reached the conclusion that books and study were more congenial to him than the routine of office, and the transient glories of oratory; or felt within himself the throbbings of an ambition to be more than the mere occupant of place or expectant of pension. Indeed, we fancy that he had accurately observed the intractable nature of his own mind, which fructified profusely in the study, but withered in St. Stephen's.

It is difficult, however, to tear away ambition from the heart; and the excitement of public life is so pungent and peculiar, that it is akin to an impossibility to relinquish, much less to abandon it. He still seems to have believed it possible to act a part in statesmanship, and yet not to "suffer political avocations so entirely to engross him, as to leave him no leisure for literature and philosophy." There was peculiar fitness in the constituency of Edinburgh-to the power and popularity of whose Review he had contributed so much-returning him triumphantly, and all but expenselessly, as their representative, shortly after his return (1839). He was appointed Secretary at War in the renewed Melbourne ministry of that year, and went out with his party, when ousted by Sir R. Peel, in 1841. In 1842, he published those vividly picturesque and pregnant glimpses of antique Roman life, "The Lays of Ancient Rome," which prove how suggestive, fecund, forceful, and ripe, were the energies out of which they flowed, and how much he sympathized with the spirit which animated the old Romans, and the bravery which glowed on the banks of "the tawny Tiber." The dates of his several essays show that during these years of office his efforts were unrelaxing in adding to the glory of

his party, by placing in their fairest light some of the great men it has numbered in its train.

In 1846, Macaulay received from Lord John Russell, then prime minister, the semi-sinecure of Paymaster to the Forces. About this time the Anti-Maynooth Endowment agitation had begun to be waged with some zeal, if not fury; and Mr. Macaulay had the honesty (his opponents called it temerity) to maintain-in opposition to what he designated " the bray of Exeter Hall "—the opinion he was well known to entertain, that religious differences ought not to entail civil disabilities; and thus won for himself the enmity of the shabby sectarianism, so much abounding in Edinburgh, which, while it swallows government money for its own denominational glorification, with the quenchless greed of the daughters of the horseleech, would try to wring proselytes out of the Church of Rome, by closing the exchequer to the claims of their Catholic fellow-subjects to education equally with themselves. With a petty malignity, of which "the remorse of ages" cannot wholly wipe away the stain, a mob of zealots banded themselves together to thrust him from his seat, when in 1847 the election of a new parliament became necessary. It is true and a hopeful and pleasing fact it is that Edinburgh redeemed itself somewhat from this disgrace, and had the finger of scorn withdrawn by subsequently re-electing him—though he, strong in the integrity of a manly nature, held himself coldly and silently apart till the reparation, which indicated repentance, was offered in 1852. But we have yet to learn that the removal of the burden of shame was due to the sects, and was not mainly effected by the knitting together of many who longed to show that they had really no intention, part, or lot, in this premeditated political assassination.

Everywhere the palliatives of considerate notice were applied to the heart-wounded ex-M.P.; and he had a splendid revenge on the hooting and hooded owls of 1847, when in 1848 he placed before the public, but not as M.P. for Edinburgh-the two first volumes of "The History of England, from the Accession of James the Second," a work which, within six months, went through five editions, amounting in all to 18,000 copies, in this country, while innumerable reproductions of its contents, in all forms and at almost every price, were sown broadcast throughout America. Fame sung descants of approbation of it everywhere; the chorus was universal; and scarcely a pen was raised but to pour out rapture at the manner in which the attempt to widen and deepen the channel of historic truth, as well as to purify the waters that swept along it, had been made. And though a soberer estimate may now be formed, and bills of indictment upon several points have since been filed against the author, it would be difficult to name any modern work in which the stores of information are so gigantic, the several parts so well arranged, their general teachings so pleasingly and accurately brought out, and in which the patriotism and the rhetoric are so pure and indubitable.

The students of the University of Glasgow, with the generous