encouraged, and he is described as playful as a kitten. But every one was impressed by his wonderful command of language, and his extraordinary memory. Hannah More's influence was very stimulating to him, especially when he visited her at Barley Wood, especially when people were even got in from the fields to hear him preach sermons, stuck on a chair. Probably a little less of Hannah More's forcing process would have been no loss.

Meanwhile Zachary Macaulay, from being secretary of the Sierra Leone Company, became an African merchant, in partnership with a nephew, under the style of Macaulay and Babington. His family grew apace. Young Tom had three brothers and five sisters before he was thirteen. In the same year he wrote his well-known epitaph on Henry Martyn, the missionary.

In 1812 Macaulay was sent to a small private school at Shelford, near Cambridge, kept by the Rev. Mr. Preston, a strong Low Churchman, who was a good teacher, if severe in his Evangelicalism. Here he enjoyed his work, read omnivorously, wrote much, both poetry and prose, and gained greatly by his intercourse with a school friend, Henry Malden, afterwards professor of Greek at University College, London. The school was removed, in 1814, to Aspenden Hall, near Buntingford, in Hertfordshire. Here he remained till 1818, laying up large stores of learning, often imperceptibly, for Macaulay in youth had one of those memories which absorb anything which interests, without needing to make an effort.

In 1813, casually taking up a Cambridge newspaper, he read two poems, one the "Reflections of an Exile," the other a parody on a Welsh ballad. He read them through once, and repeated them after an interval of forty years, during which he had never once thought about them.

Another remarkable instance of his power of memory is the following: As a child, accompanying his father on a call, he picked up Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel," which was new to him. During the conversation, in which he sat quiet, he read it through, and in the evening he repeated to his mother the greater part of the poem.

Macaulay's memory, however, was special for what he had himself written. Long afterwards he told his friend, Lord Jeffrey, that he believed he could repeat all his own printed writings, and nearly everything he had written. In late life his capacity for remembering other people's writings became diminished: he had to use conscious effort to recollect them. But all through life "he read books more quickly than other people skimmed them, and skimmed them as fast as any one else could turn the leaves."

At home, during the vacations, Tom Macaulay was made an idol of by the younger members of his family. His sister, Lady Trevelyan, says, "To us he was an object of passionate love and devotion. To us he could do no wrong. His unruffled sweetness of temper, his unfailing flow of spirits, his amusing talk, all made his presence so delightful that his wishes and his tastes were our law. He hated strangers; and his notion of perfect happiness was to see us working round him while he read aloud a novel, and then to walk all together on the common, or, if it rained, to have a frightfully noisy game of hide-and-seek." Meanwhile his father was pursuing his indefatigable labours in securing the suppression of slavery and the slave trade; and to some extent he appeared to repress his son's exuberance. largely proceeded from his desire to check the growth of conceit, and other

This

faults from which the father was free. "Himself precise in his arrangements, writing a beautiful hand, particular about neatness, very accurate and calm, detesting strong expressions, and remarkably self-controlled; while his eager, impetuous boy, careless of his dress, always forgetting to wash his hands and brush his hair, writing an execrable hand, and folding his letters with a great blotch for a seal, was a constant care and irritation.” The fact is, he wanted his son to have his father's virtues as well as his own. In October, 1818, Tom Macaulay entered upon his Cambridge career at Trinity College, Henry Thornton being his companion. The young historian was fascinated by the medieval aspect of Cambridge and the memories of its colleges. It was always to him through life as a dearly loved home. His friends had genius, some equal to his own. There was Praed the poet, Charles Austin the Radical utilitarian, who afterwards preferred money and ease to fame as a politician, Romilly, Moultrie, Derwent Coleridge, and others. Among these Charles Austin stood out foremost, and J. S. Mill has said of him: "The impression he gave was that of boundless strength, together with talents which, combined with such apparent force of will and character, seemed capable of dominating the world." His influence over Macaulay was great, and he soon led him out of the Tory opinions in which he had been brought up, and the young man harassed his family circle by pronouncing himself a Radical.

Amid such companions Macaulay's conversational powers shone brightly. He kept every college regulation, but contrived to enjoy himself to the utmost and to read, as ever, voraciously. The recollection of these days was one of the most prized possessions of many besides himself. In after years a chance meeting between Austin and Macaulay, at Lord Lansdowne's seat at Bowood, led to an interesting proof of the power which the two exercised. After breakfast one morning the two drew up at opposite ends of the mantelpiece, and renewed their college days. Soon the distinguished circle of ladies and gentlemen at table became silent, and listening to the rich stream of reminiscences poured forth by two of the best talkers who ever conversed, remained transfixed in delight till it was time to dress for dinner in the evening.

The debates at the Union Society, then under a considerable ban on the part of the University authorities, of course, occupied Macaulay largely. The large room behind the Red Lion, in the Petty Cury, resounded with fervid Radicalism, and discussed the present covertly, under the pretence of criticising the affairs of previous centuries, which alone were open to them. It was easy to bring forward a motion, saying that Free Trade ought to have been granted before 1800, or Catholic Emancipation before 1795. Meanwhile Macaulay's course was not idle, and he gained the Chancellor's medal for an English poem twice, in 1819 and in 1821, and in 1821 won a Craven scholarship, together with Henry Malden and George Long, equally illustrious as scholars. The classical tripos did not then exist, and Macaulay, in order to compete for the Chancellor's classical medals, must pass the mathematical tripos. This, from his repugnance to mathematics, he failed to do in 1822. However, this year he won a college prize for an essay on the Conduct and Character of William the Third, which doubtless led to his future choice of a period for the main interest of his History. In 1824 Macaulay gained the coveted fellowship at Trinity, which gave him "three

hundred pounds a year, a stable for his horse, six dozen of audit ale every Christmas, a loaf and two pats of butter every morning, and a good dinner for nothing, with as many almonds and raisins as he could eat at dessert." But Macaulay estimated university honours and successes at their true value. "If a man brings away from Cambridge self-knowledge, accuracy of mind, and habits of strong intellectual exertion," he wrote later, "he has gained more than if he had made a display. . . . What a man does at Cambridge is, in itself, nothing. If he makes a poor figure in life, his having been senior wrangler or university scholar is never mentioned but with derision. If he makes a distinguished figure, his early honours merge in those of a later date."

The bar was Macaulay's profession, which he entered in 1826; but he did not cultivate it. Throughout his short period in chambers he spent more time in the House of Commons than in the courts of law. He made his debût as a public speaker in London at a meeting of the Anti-slavery Society, in 1824. It was termed by the Edinburgh Review "a display of eloquence signal for rare and matured excellence." At the same time Charles Knight's Quarterly Magazine was starting on its short-lived career, and Macaulay became a prominent contributor, but his own writings in it seem to have pleased his father no more than those of the other contributors. However, the magazine ceased to exist in 1824, and Macaulay's connection with it was of chief importance because it led to his engagement on the Edinburgh Review, then the most powerful arbiter of politics and literary merit. Jeffrey found out Macaulay, and printed his essay on Milton in the August number of 1825.

Fame then grew rapidly. New writers were wanted, and Macaulay fascinated the educated taste of the time. He gave a new vogue to Milton, and demolished the influence of Dr. Johnson's criticism of the poet. Jeffrey paid him the great compliment of saying, "The more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that style." The man certainly did not pick up the style. In Macaulay's case, if in any, the style was the man. Robert Hall, racked with pain, lay on the floor learning Italian, that he might follow out and criticise Macaulay's famous parallel between Dante and Milton.

At this time Macaulay was vividly described by Praed, as "a short, manly figure, marvellously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and one hand in his waistcoat pocket." His features, with little beauty, powerful and rugged, were so continually lit up with exquisite expression as to put out of sight the homeliness of his features. As to clothes, though he provided himself with an abundance, he lacked the faculty of putting them on well, and, indeed, was singularly unhandy. He could never get his fingers more than half way into his gloves. He hacked his face with his razors, of which he possessed a large assortment. In fact, he had no athletic or bodily accomplishments. But he could walk through crowded streets rapidly, reading more rapidly.

As reading was his greatest business as well as pleasure, and writing his chosen occupation, so talking was his recreation-a recreation in which, however, he permitted too few to join who came near him. He was not very capable of believing that there were two sides to a question, and not very willing to listen to the side opposed to his own. Vehement, voluble,

but in reality good-tempered and destitute of conceit, he had in him what would make him a prize in any company, and both agreeable and amusing. He soon made way into the best society, and more than held his own; he held sway. Yet he could not make himself really friendly to those for whose characters he had no respect. This quality gave him another equally marked: he stuck to his friends through thick and thin, and was the last to be persuaded of any ill-desert of those whom he trusted.

As a critic he was severe on those who failed to reach the somewhat high standard he set up. Thus budding poets and wearisome hackwriters learned to dread his lash. He particularly hated scandalmongers and placemen, and attacked unmercifully the Right Hon. J. W. Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty from 1810 to 1830, not only for his edition of Boswell's Johnson, but for other proceedings. But the character of Rigby in "Coningsby," universally held to describe Croker, is his justification from the side of Croker's own party.

In 1818 Macaulay's father had quitted Clapham for Cadogan Place, and believed himself worth a hundred thousand pounds. His activity outside his business led him to trust too much to his partner, and before long serious losses came upon the firm. In 1823 the family moved to 50, Great Ormond Street, and lived very simply. The house became endeared by a thousand associations. The younger children were kept in continual enjoyment by games and improvised ballads, by puns and concerts, by capping verses and quoting from endless novels. Lady Trevelyan, forty years after, when dying, took a last drive to the spot, and sat silent many minutes with her eyes fixed on the dear old home.

Meanwhile the Edinburgh Review was receiving its full tale of learned and attractive articles. Hallam, Machiavelli, Bentham, were in turn illuminated and dissected. Blackwood attacked him, bitter at Southey's severe fate under Macaulay's scalpel; and Professor Wilson affected to dismiss him as a clever lad who would always remain such. But Wilson's fame is dwarfed by that of Macaulay.

By January, 1828, the brilliant essayist had attracted so much attention that Lord Lyndhurst gave him a place as Commissioner of Bankruptcy, an appointment which, however indefensible in these days, when special merits for a particular post are looked for, was a usual way of rewarding other deserts in those times. It was worth about £900 a year to him; and it inspirited him in the aspiration for Parliamentary honours, that he might share in the advent of the new liberty which was dawning with the repeal of the Test Act, Catholic Emancipation, and the freeing of the South American States.

Lord Lansdowne and his pocket borough of Calne had the privilege and merit of introducing Macaulay to political life in February, 1830. The nomination was equally unsolicited and unexpected; and it was thoroughly honourable, for it placed no obligation on Macaulay but to act according to his conscience. He was a welcome visitor to Lord Lansdowne at Bowood in 1830. He went back to the House of Commons ready for the flood-tide of triumphant Liberalism.

His first speech, on April 5, 1830, on Robert Grant's Bill for the Removal of Jewish Disabilities, was a striking success. It was clear, concise, and sound; but it was many years yet before freedom was won for the Jews.

His re-election for Calne, after George IV.'s death in July, was followed by a visit to Paris, to enjoy the new results of the Revolution in Paris. The Palais Royal had for him infinite attractions. The Prime Minister, the Duc de Broglie, received him with special honour; and the aged Lafayette admitted him to his receptions. Macaulay was to have written his views on the state of parties in France for the October number of the Edinburgh Review, but Brougham's imperiousness caused a reversal of this arrangement, much to the younger man's indignation.

In the autumn the new parliament of the United Kingdom met, and the Duke of Wellington declaimed in favour of the fossil system of representation then persisting, as the best of all possible schemes. The Ministry was defeated, and Earl Grey came in; Brougham accepted the Chancellorship after having daclared he would not take office, and Macaulay heaped coals of fire upon his head by chivalrously defending his action against Croker's

sarcasm.

Macaulay's next success was his speech on March 2, 1831, on Lord John Russell's first Reform Bill. Its effect was so marked, that Sir Robert Peel was constrained to say, "Portions of the speech were as beautiful as anything I have ever heard or read." A fine passage deserves quoting, that an age which knows Macaulay chiefly as a historian and essayist, may recall that he was a great parliamentary orator. "Turn where we may, within, around, the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve. Now, therefore, while everything at home and abroad forebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against the spirit of the age; now, while the crash of the proudest throne of the Continent is still resounding in our ears; now, while the roof of a British palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of forty kings; now, while we see on every side ancient institutions subverted, and great societies dissolved; now, while the heart of England is still sound; now, while old feelings and old associations retain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away; now, in this your accepted time; now, in this your day of salvation, take counsel, not of prejudice, not of party spirit, not of the ignominious pride of a fatal consistency, but of history, of reason, of the ages which are past, of the signs of this most portentous time. Pronounce in a manner worthy of the expectation with which this great debate has been anticipated, and of the long remembrance which it will leave behind. Renew the youth of the State. Save property, divided against itself; save the multitude, endangered by its own ungovernable passions, save the aristocracy, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save the greatest and fairest and most highly civilized community that ever existed, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the rich heritage of so many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible; the time is short. If this Bill should be rejected, I pray to God that none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes with unavailing remorse, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoilation of property, and the dissolution of social order."

From this time, during the great Reform struggle, and for some years after, Macaulay took a leading part in debate, being at one time termed by his enemy Croker, "the most efficient member of the Government," when as yet he had no official position, at another, complimented by Disraeli, not vet a member, in these terms, "If he speaks half as well as he writes, the