Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

went several times on the northern circuit. But he was not fond of the practice of law. It required too much hard and continued application to delicate and difficult problems to suit his offhand methods of thinking. So he obtained but few clients. But during this time he was busy with what was of far more importance to his future career. His essays continued to appear in the Edinburgh Review, increasing the popularity gained by the Milton. Their strong Whig bias attracted the attention of the Ministry then in power, and in 1828 Lord Lyndhurst made him a Commissioner of Bankruptcy. In 1829 Macaulay wrote two vigorous articles attacking Mill's Essay on Government. These so impressed the Marquis of Lansdowne that, in 1830, he offered Macaulay, though an entire stranger, a seat in Parliament for the borough of Calne.

Thus began his Parliamentary career which, with two intervals of about five years each, lasted nearly till the close of his life. He took his seat at the commencement of the memorable struggle for parliamentary reform which handed over the political power from the country gentry to the great middle class. In this he took a prominent part and contributed greatly to the final victory. His very first speech on the Reform Bill put him in the front rank of parliamentary orators.

The Speaker told him that "in all his

prolonged experience he had never seen the house in such a state of excitement." "Whenever he rose to speak," said Gladstone, "it was a summons like a trumpet call to fill the benches." "It may well be questioned whether Macaulay was so well endowed for any career as that of a great orator. The rapidity of speech suited the impetuosity of his genius far better than the slow labor of composition. He has the true Demosthenic rush in which argument becomes incandescent with passion. It is not going too far to say that he places the question on loftier grounds of state policy than any of his colleagues." His fourth speech on the Reform Bill called out in answer all the best orators of the Tory side, including Sir Robert Peel himself. Macaulay's oratorical power could receive no higher praise.

For the next four years he lived under an incessant strain. Besides his parliamentary duties and official work, he became one of the lions of London society and "a constant guest at Holland House - the imperious mistress of which [Lady Holland] scolded, flattered, and caressed him with a patronizing condescension that would not have been to every pers taste." He was also intimate with the leading wits of the day, with whom he more than held his own. Still continuing to write for the Edinburgh Review, he filled his engagements "in hastily snatched moments of

S

leisure, saved with a miserly thrift from public and official work, by rising at five and writing till breakfast."

And in all this he was still hampered by his pecuniary affairs, as his family was practically dependent on him. But his ingrained honesty never wavered. He voted for the bill abolishing his commissionership, although his Cambridge Fellowship was just expiring, and he was earning only about $1000 a year by his pen. In fact, at one time he was forced to sell the medals won at the University. However, he soon received another post on the Indian Board of Control, which placed him in comparative comfort. But this too was put in jeopardy by his high sense of honor and duty. The slavery bill brought in by the Government, though quite liberal, did not satisfy old Zachary Macaulay and other fanatical abolitionists. The son at once told his chiefs he could not go against his father, saying: "He has devoted his whole life to the question; and I cannot grieve him by giving way, when he wishes me. to stand firm." So he sent in his resignation, and, as an independent member, criticised the bill. But he expected no mercy. "I know that, if I were Minister," he wrote, "I would not allow such latitude to any man in office; and so I told Lord Althorp." Macaulay's noble independence was appreciated. His resignation was refused, and he remained "as good friends with the Ministers as ever."

66

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 Iwell be doubted whether it ever crossed his mind that to live wholly for others was a sacrifice at all.”

Stern old Zachary Macaulay had been unable to imbue his brilliant son with his own gloomy religion. He had even driven him to such a point as to make him hate all theological speculation, and to deride such questions as "the necessity of human actions and the foundation of moral obligation." But certainly, in the realm of practical moral conduct, Thomas Macaulay, whether from nature or from education, left nothing to be desired.

The Fellowship was not gained till the third and last trial in 1824; but Macaulay had already begun to make somewhat of a literary reputation. He had won the Greaves historical prize: On the Conduct and Character of William the Third, the hero of his History. Some portions of it have been published and show that his famous style was quite natural and not an artificial production. Compare the following passage with any of his later essays:

"Lewis XIV was not a great general. He was not a great legislator. But he was in one sense of the word a great king. He was perfect master of all the mysteries of the science of royalty — of the arts which

[ocr errors]

at once extend power and conciliate popularity, which most advantageously display the merits and most dexterously conceal the deficiencies of a sovereign."

But what was of more importance to his future career was the contribution of a number of poems, articles, and tales to Knight's Quarterly Magazine. Of the poems, Naseby and Ivry still live and are as good as any of his later verse; the stories, Fragments of a Roman Tale and Scenes from Athenian Revels, give evidence that he might have become a better historical novelist than any one since Walter Scott; and one paper, A Conversation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton, touching the Great Civil War, is a "beautiful piece of majestic English." It is published in the first volume of Macaulay's Miscellanies, and in refinement and nobility of diction is decidedly superior to the more flashy and oratorical style displayed in his subsequent works. It was Macaulay's own favorite of his earlier pieces; and many critics are of the opinion that his political life and parlia mentary speeches had an unfavorable effect on the finer qualities of his style.

Zachary Macaulay was by no means pleased with his son's literary efforts. The character of Knight's Quarterly seemed to his stern morality frivolous and even improper, and the son again had to defend himself from the father's animadversions. These articles,

« ПредишнаНапред »