and of a power of memory, which astonished all who knew him.

His first literary production was an essay on Milton, which appeared in 1826, and drew upon him the attention of the public; this was followed by many other essays, critical and historical, of which the one on Warren Hastings (from which our extract is taken), is perhaps one of the most striking. Macaulay wrote some poems of great merit, "The Lays of Ancient Rome," "The Armada," &c., also a "History of England, from the Accession of James II."

In 1830, he entered Parliament, and soon afterwards received a government appointment; he was an eloquent but not a frequent speaker, and in 1857 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Macaulay.

THE TRIAL OF WARREN HASTINGS.

WARREN HASTINGS, born 1733, died 1818, was the first Governor-General of India. He was a man of great energy and talents, and succeeded in consolidating and strengthening our Eastern Empire; but he was accused of injustice and cruelty to the native princes, and on his return to England, in 1785, he was impeached before the House of Lords, by official accusers appointed by the House of Commons. His trial lasted seven years, and ended in his acquittal.

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The commencement of this famous trial is thus described by Lord Macaulay :

"The preparations for the trial had proceeded rapidly; and on Feb. 13th, 1788, the sittings of the court commenced. There have been spectacles more dazzling to the eye, more gorgeous with jewellery and cloth of gold, more attractive to grown-up children, than that which was then exhibited at Westminster; but, perhaps, there never was a spectacle so well calculated to strike a highly-cultivated, a reflecting, an imaginative mind.

All the various kinds of interests, which belong to the near and to the distant, to the present and to the past, were collected on one spot and in one hour. All the talents and all the accomplishments, which are developed by liberty and civilisation were now displayed, with every advantage, that could be derived both from co-operation and from contrast. Every step in the proceedings carried the mind either backward, through many troubled centuries, to the days when the foundations of our constitution were laid; or far away, over boundless seas and deserts, to dusky nations living under strange stars, worshipping strange gods, and writing strange characters from right to left. The High Court of Parliament was to sit, according to forms handed down from the days of the Plantagenets, on an Englishman accused of exercising tyranny over the Lord of the Holy City of Benares,* and over the ladies of the princely house of Oude. 5

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"The place was worthy of such a trial. It was the great Hall of William Rufus, the hall which had resounded with acclamations at the inauguration of thirty kings, the hall which had witnessed the just sentence of Bacon, and the just absolution of Somers, the hall where the eloquence of Strafford had for a time awed and melted a victorious party inflamed with just resentment, the hall where Charles I. had confronted the High Court of Justice, with the placid courage which has half redeemed his fame.

"Neither military nor civil pomp was wanting. The avenues were lined with grenadiers. The streets were kept clear by cavalry. The peers, robed in gold and ermine, were marshalled by the heralds under Garter King-at-Arms.10 The judges, in their vestments of state, attended to give advice on points of law. Near a hundred and seventy lords, three-fourths of the Upper

House, as the Upper House then was, walked in solemn order from their usual place of assembling to the tribunal. The junior baron present led the way, George Eliott, Lord Heathfield, recently ennobled for his memorable defence of Gibraltar, against the fleets and armies of France and Spain. The long procession was closed by the Duke of Norfolk, Earl Marshal of the realm, by the great dignitaries, and by the brothers and sons of the king. Last of all came the Prince of Wales, conspicuous by his fine person and noble bearing.

"The grey old walls were hung with scarlet. The long galleries were crowded by an audience, such as has rarely excited the fears or the emulation of an orator. There were gathered together, from all parts of a great, free, prosperous, and enlightened empire, grace and female loveliness, wit and learning, the representatives of every science and of every art.

"The sergeants 11 made proclamation. Hastings advanced to the bar and bent the knee. The culprit was, indeed, not unworthy of that great presence. He had ruled an extensive and populous country, had made laws and treaties, had sent forth armies, had set up and pulled down princes. And in his high place had so borne himself, that all had feared him, that most had loved him, and that hatred itself could deny him no title to glory except virtue. He looked like a great man, and not like a bad man. A person small and emaciated,12 yet deriving dignity from a carriage, which, while it indicated deference to the court, indicated also habitual self-possession and self-respect, a high and intellectual forehead, a brow pensive but not gloomy, a mouth of inflexible decision, a face pale, worn, but serene; such was the aspect with which the great proconsul 18 presented himself to his judges.

"His counsel accompanied him, men, all of whom were afterwards raised, by their talents and learning, to the highest posts in their profession; the bold and strongminded Law, afterwards Chief Justice of the King's Bench; the more humane and eloquent Dallas, afterwards Chief Justice of the Common Pleas; and Palmer who, twenty years later, successfully conducted in the same high court the defence of Lord Melville, and subsequently became Vice-Chancellor, and Master of the Rolls.

"But neither the culprit nor his advocates attracted so much attention as the accusers. In the midst of the blaze of red drapery, a space had been fitted up with green benches and tables for the Commons. The managers,14 with Burke 15 at their head, appeared in full dress, and the box, in which the managers stood, contained an array of speakers, such as perhaps had not appeared together since the great age of Athenian eloquence.

"There were Fox and Sheridan, the English Demosthenes, 16 and the English Hyperides.17 There was Burke, ignorant indeed, or negligent, of the art of adapting his reasonings and his style to the capacity and taste of his hearers, but in amplitude of comprehension and richness of imagination, superior to every orator, ancient or modern. There, with eyes reverentially fixed on Burke, appeared the finest gentleman of the age, his form developed by every manly exercise, his face beaming with intelligence and spirit, the ingenious, the chivalrous, the high-souled Windham.

"Nor though surrounded by such men, did the youngest manager pass unnoticed. At an age when most of those, who distinguish themselves in life, are still contending for prizes and fellowships at college, he had won for himself a conspicuous place in Parliament.

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advantages of fortune or connection were wanting, that could set off to the height his splendid talents, and his unblemished honour. At twenty-three, he had been thought worthy to be ranked with the veteran statesmen, who appeared as the delegates of the British Commons, at the bar of the British nobility. All who stood at that bar, save him alone, are gone; culprit, advocates, accusers. To the generation, which is now in the vigour of life, he is the sole representative of a great age, which has passed away. But those who have listened with delight, till the morning sun shone on the tapestries of the House of Lords, to the lofty and animated eloquence of Charles, Earl Grey,18 are able to form some estimate of the powers of a race of men, among whom he was not the foremost.

"The charges and the answers of Hastings were first read. The ceremony occupied two whole days, and was rendered less tedious, than it would otherwise have been, by the silver voice and just emphasis of Cowper, the clerk of the court, a near relation of the amiable poet.19

"On the third day Burke rose. Four sittings were occupied by his opening speech, which was intended to be a general introduction to all the charges. With an exuberance of thought, and a splendour of diction, which more than satisfied the highly-raised expectation of the audience, he described the character and institutions of the natives of India, recounted the circumstances, in which the Asiatic Empire of Great Britain had originated, and set forth the constitution of the Company 20 and of the English Presidencies. 21

"Having thus attempted to communicate to his hearers an idea of Eastern society, as vivid as that which existed in his own mind, he proceeded to arraign the administration of Hastings as systematically conducted in defiance of morality and public law.