broken, and his sister was absent in Madras, before Sir Charles Trevelyan's unworthy recall, he had seriously contemplated rejoining her, and might so have closed his life on Indian soil.

His father, Zachary Macaulay, will have his own niche in history, hardly below his son's. His mother's father was Mr. Thomas Mills, bookseller and publisher, of Bristol; the name is a wellknown Bristol name. Thomas Mills had a shop in the High Street, just opposite that amiable bibliopole's, Mr. Cottle, who proved such a sturdy friend to Southey and Coleridge. His printing place was in a street off Small Street. The site of the place of business is now occupied by a bank, the shop having been burnt down. The impression of my informant was that this conflagration happened in Mr. Mills' time, and we find him with more than one business residence. Macaulay most probably received his first name from his grandfather, Thomas Mills. His sister (Lady Trevelyan) received the name of Hannah More from the wonderful old lady who was so closely connected both with the Mills and the Macaulays. The Misses Mills became Hannah More's successors in the school in Park Street. The old lady passed the last years of her life at Windsor Terrace, Clifton, where she died, where Macaulay would visit her during his occasional sojourns in Clifton.

I PROPOSE to gather up some notes, mainly derived from public sources, which I have made from time to time, on the personal history of Lord Macaulay. He was one of whom it was repeatedly said that he lived his life in public, and his private life was only thinly separated from his public career. We had hoped that before now some family biography would have appeared, which might possibly include not only the Indian journals, but the unpublished poem of Waterloo, some collections towards the History of the French Revolution of 1830, which at one time he contemplated writing, and some additional deciphered fragments of the History. By the lamented death of Lady Trevelyan, the prospect seems still further removed, unless the honourable member for the Border Boroughs should take the task in hand. As Mr. Gladstone truly said, the English public has an insatiable interest in everything belonging to Lord Macaulay. There are one or two points both in the earlier and latter part of his career, which it would be interesting to see traced out. Macaulay was a Liberal of the Liberals, but there was a time when he was a Tory of the Tories. Looking over the reports of the Union debates at Cambridge some time ago, I observe that in earlier times he took a strong Tory line. He always took a strong Tory line during the Queen Caroline agitation. The noticeable point is the suddenness and completeness of his alteration of views. The remarkable Indian career of Lord Macaulay, during which he was enabled to give very important practical effect to his views on education and legislation, is a chapter of characteristic brusqueness, that he was personal and political history little known except to some individuals in some Asia Minor of Bath or Cheltenham, where old Indians congregate. We have some notes on this head, but the subject might well demand an essay as full as one of his own Indian essays. India occupied the centre of his life, and proved the turning point of his career. We believe that in his last days, when his health was

Macaulay was of Scotch descent, and many peculiarities of the Scottish mind

especially the clearness and simplicity of what stood for his mental science-show clearly forth. His grandfather was that Mr. John Macaulay, who is mentioned in "Boswell's Life of Johnson," and whom Johnson told, with

grossly ignorant of human nature. The father of this Macaulay was a minister of an obscure parish in the Western Isles, and from this obscurity the plain pedigree starts. Zachary Macaulay, the father of the historian, most characteristically possessed the perfervidum ingenium Scotorum. Macaulay, unlike Mr. Gladstone, who prides himself on his Scotch descent, carefully guarded him

self against being called a Scotchman. kings." The design had been to send "I had not the honour of being born in him to Westminster School. At this Scotland, neither was I educated there," date, however, men of evangelical princihe once remarked on a public occasion. ples were shy of the great public schools, And again he says, "I am not a Scotch- perhaps because the great evangelical man by birth or education." And once poet had written the "Tirocinium." So more, "That he only visited Scotland as he went to one or two private schools; a stranger and traveller." We should and one of his masters exultingly showed have thought that it would have been a friend the very Horace that he used. with very different feelings that he would Hannah More wished that "Tom might have visited the home of his fathers, and be in Parliament, for then he would beat the cradle of his race. The Greek úrokoç them all." He and Hannah More did would have looked on Scotland as the not always get on very well together. mother land, but Macaulay speaks of it She could not approve of all that he said pretty much as he might of Kamts- and did when he was in Parliament, and chatka. The family connection on which is believed to have told him so very he most prided himself was merely an plainly. But when he stayed at Clifton accidental one with the ancient family of for his health, in his latter days, he would the Leicestershire Babingtons, one of speak of her with affection, and point whom had married his aunt Jean. He out the house where she lived. Ill was born at the family mansion of Roth-though he was, he would go out and see ley Temple, and in his autobiographical "the St. Vincent Rocks in all their poem, written after his defeat at Edin- beauty," as he said in one of his letters burgh, he alludes to the "ancient cham-to the late Mr. Black who kindly gave ber" of the "old mansion." The house me permission to make some use of Maonce belonged to the Knights Templars, and was reputed to be "in the parish of Jerusalem." The intermarriages of the family are recorded on stained glass on a large bow window. The family are entitled to a set of rooms at Cambridge, which cannot be otherwise disposed of without their permission. In the house are preserved the ancient rapier and helmet and constable's staff with which the Babingtons of the day went out at the time of the Armada. This may have in-esting to observe, that one year he obfluenced his writing the fine poem of the Armada. At the extreme end of the great hall of Trinity are the royal arms, and below is Queen Elizabeth's motto, Semper eadem. "The glorious Semper eadem, the banner of our pride," as he calls it.

Bristol was a place with which he maintained his associations from first to last. His mother had been a pupil of Hannah More's, her last pupil, before she gave up her school. As a child he used to visit Hannah More, and the old lady thought that there was no schoolboy, no young man like him. "He ought to have competitors. He is like the prince who refused to play with anything but

caulay's letters to him. At Clifton he would visit his relations, the Mills, who conducted a very respectable local newspaper.

Although he came up to Cambridge, in his eighteenth year, with none of the éclat which a public school can confer, when he first rose up to construe in class it was a passage in the Perse of Æschylus - he was pointed out as likely to be the first man of his year. It is inter

tained a prize for the best essay on the conduct and character of William the Third — an incident which may have helped towards his future line of study. In his reading, he widely diverged from the course of Cambridge mathematical study, which in those days had the unfair effect of debarring him from the highest classical honours. He distinguished himself in literature and oratory, and Lord Brougham sent him, through his father, a good deal of advice about oratory, which young Macaulay studied and surpassed. There is a book, now very scarce, entitled Conversations at Cambridge, which purports to give some specimens of Macaulay's Union speeches. The declamation

against Cromwell belongs to those very ever, was of the scantiest. He convicted early days in which he was a Tory. Its a boy of stealing a parcel of cocks and internal evidence places the authorship hens, and that was about the amount of beyond a doubt, and it becomes a ques- it. Still Macaulay belonged to the polittion how the speeches found their way ical party that was now prosperous, and into this obscure book. Either they it was determined to do something for must have been furnished by Macaulay, him. We have no doubt but his father or they were reprinted as a pamphlet for private circulation, as I have known done at the Oxford Union. This is not, however, the impression of the author of the book. who told me, that in the lapse of years he had forgotten the sources from which he obtained these speeches. To his contributions at this date to Knight's Quarterly Magazine, so great is the value attached, that nearly all his juvenile pieces, as in the case of Tennyson, have been reprinted. His portrait is sketched at this time by his friend Mr. Moultrie, in one of his poems:

Zachary, and the friends with whom he acted, were perfectly sincere in their zeal for the abolition of slavery, and would have been true to the cause, as in years gone by, amid all difficulties and obstacles. But Abolition was found to be an exceedingly popular election cry, and it was turned to sharp political purposes. "Young Macaulay" was described in those days as the son of "old Macaulay ;" and in course of time, when their friends were in, both "young Macaulay” and "old Macaulay" got places. Sidney Smith asked Lady Grey to get the Whigs to make

Macaulay Solicitor-general. That legal experience about the cocks and hens furnished too narrow a basis for such a distinction. But he was made one of the seventy Commissioners of Bankruptcy Lord Westbury once said they were called the Chancellor's Septuagint

and it must be said that this system of commissioners, though derided and abolished, did the bankruptcy work at least as well as it has ever been done since.

His great legal appointment was when he was made Legal Member of the Supreme Court of Calcutta; but I believe he always consistently denied the soft impeachment that he was a lawyer.

Nor was it only in literature that he made his debut. Between taking his degree and achieving his fellowship he made at In the old days young men of congreat anti-slavery speech at the Freema-spicuous ability were sought for as posons' Hall, which, though unreported by litical recruits by leaders of parties, and the Times, was alluded to both by the at times promising young men at the Quarterly and the Edinburgh. Alto- universities were watched, marked out gether, this is a very remarkable position for future eminence, and returned to for a young Bachelor of Arts to have Parliament by political sponsors and pataken up before he attained his fellowship. trons. Reform legislation, with many atHe was called to the bar in 1826, and tendant advantages, has closed the doors went the Northern Circuit. Those were of the House to this class of political asthe great days of the Northern Circuit, pirants - young men who are thinkers when it was attended by Brougham, Scar- and readers, and have taken to politics as lett, Tindal, Williams, Coltman, Alder- the serious business of their lives. It is son. He also went to Quarter Sessions, hard to see how men of the character and which had then the character, which it is belongings of Macaulay, Canning, and fast losing, of being an avenue to dis- Gladstone, can have a political career tinction at the bar. His business, how-open to them in the future, in what some

think is fast becoming a "Chamber of geous and consistent supporter of the Mediocrity." ballot in days when it was regarded as the Returned for Calne, for which, as Mr. most extreme and dangerous of political Bright once said, Lord Lansdowne could experiments. The correspondence shows send up his coachman or valet, he soon a curious and remarkable phase of the laid the foundation of a solid Parliament-election. Mr. Macaulay writes long letary reputation. In his second Session ters to one or other of his supporters. the Reform agitation, owing mainly to Those letters are promptly reprinted, and the French Revolution, had reached its become virtually addresses to the electheight. For two years Macaulay was a ors. They are as long as Mr. Gladstone's great popular orator. He had not "Scor- recent address to the electors of Greenpion Stanley's" inborn genius for de- wich. They illustrate his own saying bates, but for a set oration there was no that the tendency of letters from the Inman who excelled him. Amid all the dia Office where he then held an apflood of Reform oratory his are the only pointment-is to become essay writing. speeches that have taken permanent rank There is an amount of argumentation, an in literature, and are still worthy of care-elevation of tone, in these letters almost ful study. There was no orator more without a parallel in the history of elecdistinctly and emphatically before the tions, unless we except Burke's letter to country; there was no one for whom the electors of Bristol. there existed a larger amount of sympathy and admiration. If he had continued in this country, he might have had a real chance of becoming Premier, a much better chance than the then member for Shrewsbury, Mr. Disraeli, who was much slower in achieving Parliamentary distinction.

On one occasion he writes:

I do not wish to obtain a single vote under false pretences. Under the old system, I

mour.

ress of time. If, after all, their decision should be unfavourable to me, I shall submit to that decision with fortitude and good hu that I should sit in Parliament; but it is It is not necessary to my happiness necessary to my happiness that I should possess, in Parliament or out of it, the consciousness of having done what is right.

This language is very similar to that which he subsequently held towards the electors of Edinburgh.

under the new system I will not be the flatterer have never been the flatterer of the great; of the people. The truth, or what appears to me to be such, may sometimes be distasteful to those whose good opinion I most value. I In the general election after the pass-shall nevertheless always abide by it, and ing of the Reform Bill, Mr. Macaulay was trust to their good sense, to their second elected to Leeds. The circumstances thoughts, to the force of reason, and the progwere remarkable, and gave rise to a good deal of Macaulay correspondence. It was known for a year and a half that Leeds was to have its representative, and for all this long time there was a process of electioneering. There are several batches of Macaulay correspondence to which we shall, in order of date, briefly call attention. Electioneering correspondence, mainly at Leeds, forms one batch; correspondence with Mr. Gladstone is another; correspondence with In the contest for Leeds he was pitted Bishop Phillpots is another; corres- against Mr. Michael Thomas Sadler, who pondence with Mr. Lathbury is another; ought always to be gratefully remembered correspondence with the late Mr. Black by the operative classes in this country is another. This mass of correspondence as the author of the Ten Hours' Bill. where we deal with the personal Macaulay had handled him roughly in though not the private element has re- the Edinburgh Review, and handled him ceived publication; but in such diverse roughly in the contest. "I look on the and sometimes recondite ways, that it Factory Bill," he said, "though I admit has never been examined as a whole. I the propriety of regulating the labour of unearthed the first set of letters, with a children, as a quack medicine." In this good deal of parallel electioneering speak-election all the old amenities were preing, in the Leeds local papers. These served. On one occasion Macaulay letters, with the accompanying speeches spoke from the top of a coach, and when and incidents, would be valuable ele-people began to climb the coach, though ments in Mémoires pour servir à l'Histoire, and give a striking view of a contested election before the comparative quietude of our ballot day. It must be recollected that Macaulay was a coura

with coats completely rent, he had to beat a retreat. He repeatedly spoke in the town and in the out townships; at times with the accompaniment of a band of music and a free fight. Before the elec

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tion came off he was advanced to the India with the blessings of legislation. post of Secretary to the Board of Con- He seems not to have fully grasped Hintrol with £1800 a-year, and was, of course, doo character, for on an early occasion represented by his opponents as a "place- he said, that the phenomenon which man" and a hireling." The nomina- struck an observer, and most damped his tion day was in the finest old British hope of being able to serve the people, style. Brickbats and bludgeons were was their own apathy and passiveness. freely used; a huge skeleton was dis- The observer was, no doubt, himself. He played on a banner, holding up the Anat- went out in the "Asia," accompanied by omy Bill, which he had supported; a his sister, the late Lady Trevelyan. Á band struck up to drown his voice, which lady, on board ship with him on one of caused him to reduce his speech to a his voyages, tells me that he much irbow, and the statement that he should ritated some young men by graciously reserve his remarks; and finally there telling them they might smoke if they was a tremendous riot, which Macaulay liked, which they were quite prepared to attributed to the Blues, and the Blues to do, without "Bab Mac Bahauder's" perthe Yellows. Finally he stood second on mission. He was also accredited with the poll, with a majority of several having said, within forty-eight hours of hundreds over Sadler, and the Yellows his landing, that, if he had his own way, rejoiced at their public dinners over their not a court of English law should exist "superhuman member." in India. The Indian paper traced him They were rather annoyed when the from Madras to the Neilgherries, and "superhuman member" vacated his seat from the Neilgherries to Calcutta. The at the end of the first Session of the re- society of Calcutta is bright with vaudeformed Parliament. In that Session, and villes, operas, and all the European amusein its immense and important agitation, ments; and Mrs. Atkinson's musical rehe had greatly distinguished himself. On union is thinly attended in consequence one occasion he grappled with O'Connell of a dinner party at Mr. Macaulay's. himself in an entirely extempore speech, We hear how his Highness the Nabob of which elicited a storm of applause. He the Carnatic paid him a visit, and how he seems to have lost the faculty of extemporaneous speech after his long absence in India, and to have confined himself to set orations. He had a most important share in the great Indian legislation of 1833. But the House of Commons will never take a proper interest in India, and his speech both O'Connell and the Speaker extolled it as one of the best ever heard was delivered to almost empty benches. He was now a special authority on India, and was offered very high office there if he chose to go out.

went to an entertainment at our Dwarkonath Tagore, who gave ices, champagne, coloured lights, in rooms, rich in more than the fabled magnificence of the East, combined with the statuary and decorations of Western art." One of the Indian papers says of his career: “ Mr. Macaulay had no privacy, if we may use the term. He was always as if before the public, and whether at the Town-hall, or a Berra Kounah in Chowringee, he was ever the same - it was always talkee for talkee with him. It may be, however, Mr. Macaulay went out to India in that he possessed one grand redeeming 1834. It has been sometimes erroneous- feature: he was frank and open in his ly said, that his office had been specially dislike or indifference. He contemned created for him by the East India Act of public opinion, and was indifferent to, or the preceding year. He was the Legal disliked society, and he took no pains to Member of the Council, and was after-conceal the one or the other." At the wards nominated Chief of the Law Com- same time, some of his after-dinner mission. This is an office which, in recent years, Mr. Forsyth has declined, and Mr. Fitzjames Stevens resigned. The complaint made about him from the very first, when expressed in homely phrase, was, that he was bumptious. The directors gave him a dinner on the evening of the day when he was sworn in; and one who was present observed that he rather gave himself the air of Lycurgus, as if he were about, for the first time, to favour the anxious natives of

speeches, notably one that he made on St. Andrew's day, were as genial and eloquent as any which he published himself, or which others published for him. He took almost unnecessary pains to explain that he had only visited Scotland as a stranger and a traveller; but then he proceeds to speak eloquently of its beauties. One sentence appears to have particularly struck his Calcutta auditory. The newspaper report says, that its conclusion was lost amid cheers; but in the