By Professor P. G. Tait, Professor of Natural Philo- sophy in the University of Edinburgh. 1876. 2. On Geological Dynamics. By Sir William Thomson, LL.D., F.R.S. Transactions of the Geological Society 3. On Geological Time. By Sir William Thomson, LL.D., Geological Society of Glasgow. 1868. logical Survey of Scotland. London, 1875. 6. Principles of Geology. By Sir Charles Lyell. 14th VII. 1. Myths and Songs from the South Pacific. By the Rev. W. W. Gill, B.A., of the London Missionary Society. With a Preface by F. Max Müller, M.A.. 2. Polynesian Mythology, and Ancient Traditional His- tory of the New Zealand Race. By Sir George Grey, late Governor-in-Chief of New Zealand. London, 3. Te Ika a Maui; or New Zealand and its Inhabitants. By the Rev. Richard Taylor, M.A., F.G.S. Second 4. Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders. By Edward Shortland, M.A. Second edition. London, VIII.—1. The American Genealogist; being a Catalogue of Family Histories and Publications containing Genea- logical Information issued in the United States. Arranged chronologically by William H. Whitmore. 2. Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, with an Historical Essay. By Lorenzo 3. The Old Streets of New York under the Dutch. A Paper read before the New York Historical Society by J. W. Gerard. New York, 1875. 4. Puritan Politics in England and New England. A Lecture delivered before the Lowell Institution by 5. The Rise of the Republic of the United States. By I.-1. A Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole, Youngest Son of Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford, at Strawberry Hill, near Twickenham, Middlesex. With an Inventory of the Furniture, Pictures, Curi- osities, &c. Strawberry Hill: printed by Thomas 2. The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford. Edited by Peter Cunningham. Now first Chrono- - 303 II.-1. Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, with a Sketch of their Habits, Religion, Language, and other Pecu- liarities. By Dr. Henry Rink, Director of the Royal Greenland Board of Trade. Translated from the Danish by the Author, and Edited by Dr. Robert III.-1. Letters and other Writings of the late Edward Deni- son, M.P. Edited by Sir Baldwin Leighton, Bart. 2. Our New Masters. By Thomas Wright (the Journey- 3. The Seven Curses of London. By James Greenwood. IV.-1. Eight Months at Rome during the Vatican Council: impressions of a Contemporary. By Pomponio Leto. Translated from the original. London, 1876. 2. De Hebræorum et Christianorum sacrâ Monarchiâ: et de infallibili in utrâque Magisterio. In tres partes V.-1. The Great Canal at Suez: its Political Engineering and Financial History. By Percy Fitzgerald, M.A. VI.-1. A Collection of Prints from Pictures painted for the purpose of Illustrating the Dramatical Works of Shake- speare by the Artists of Great Britain. Boydell. 2. The Boydell Gallery: a Collection of Engravings illustrating the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare by 3. Illustrations of Shakespeare. By Moritz Retzsch. 4. The Works of Shakespeare edited by Howard Staunton. The Illustrations by John Gilbert. London, 1864 VII. Parliamentary Papers on Turkey. 1875-6 IX.-1. Parliamentary Papers.-Turkey. 1875, 1876. 2. Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East. By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, M.P. 1876. 3. A Speech delivered at Blackheath on Saturday, Sep- tember 9th, 1876 together with Letters on the Question of the East. By the Right Hon. W. E. 4, 5. Replies of Lord Derby to Deputations at the Foreign Cffice. September 11th and 27th, 1876. 6. Report by Mr. Baring on the Atrocities committed upon the Christians in Bulgaria. Supplement to the THE QUARTERLY REVIEW. ART. I. The Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay. By his Nephew, George Otto Trevelyan, M.P. In Two Volumes. London, 1876. A PECULIAR faculty, and one approaching to the dramatic order, belongs to the successful painter of historical portraits, and belongs also to the true biographer. It is that of representing personality. In the picture, what we want is not merely a collection of unexceptionable lines and colours so presented as readily to identify their original. Such a work is not the man, but a duly attested certificate of the man. What we require, however, is the man and not merely the certificate. In the same way, what we want in a biography, and what, despite the etymology of the title, we very seldom find, is life. The very best transcript is a failure, if it be a transcript only. To fulfil its idea, it must have in it the essential quality of movement; must realise the lofty fiction of the divine Shield of Achilles, where the upturning earth, though wrought in metal, darkened as the plough went on, and the figures of the battlepiece dealt their strokes and parried them, and dragged out from the turmoil the bodies of their dead. To write the biography of Lord Macaulay was a most arduous task. Such seems to have been the conception, with which it was approached; nor is it belied by the happy faculty with which it has been accomplished. Mr. Trevelyan had already achieved a reputation for conspicuous ability; and the honour of near relationship was in this case at least a guarantee for reverent and devoted love. But neither love, which is indeed a danger as well as an ally, nor intelligence, nor assiduity, nor forgetfulness of self, will make a thoroughly good biography, without this subtle gift of imparting life. By this it was that Boswell established himself as the prince of all biographers; by this Mr. Trevelyan has, we believe, earned for himself a place on what is still a somewhat scanty roll. Vol. 142.-No. 283. B Beyond Beyond doubt, his subject has supplied him with great, and, to the general reader, unexpected advantages. The world was familiar in a high degree with the name of Lord Macaulay, and thought it knew the man, as one transcendent in much, and greatly eminent in all, that he undertook. With the essayist, the orator, the historian, the poet, the great social star, and even the legist, we were all prepared, in our anticipations of this biography, to renew an admiring acquaintance. But there lay behind all these what was in truth richer and better than them all—a marked and noble human character; and it has not been the well-known aspects, and the better-known works, of the man which Mr. Trevelyan has set himself to exhibit. He has executed a more congenial and delightful office in exhibiting ad vivum this personality, of which the world knew little, and of which its estimate, though never low, was, as has now been shown, very far beneath the mark of truth. This is the pledge which he gives to his readers at the outset (vol. i. p. 3): For every one who sat with him in private company, or at the transaction of public business, for every ten who have listened to his oratory in Parliament, or on the hustings, there must be tens of thousands whose interest in history and literature he has awakened and informed by his pen, and who would gladly know what manner of man it was that has done them so great a service. To gratify that most legitimate wish is the duty of those who have the means at their command His own letters will supply the deficiencies of the biographer.' And the promise thus conveyed he redeems in some nine hundred and fifty pages, which are too few rather than too many. In the greater part of the work, he causes Lord Macaulay to speak for himself. In the rest he is, probably for the reason that it was Lord Macaulay's custom to destroy the letters of his correspondents, nearly the sole interlocutor; and the setting will not disappoint those who admired, and are jealous for, the stones. Lord Macaulay lived a life of no more than sixty years and three months. But it was an extraordinarily full life of sustained exertion a high table-land without depressions. If in its outer aspect there be anything wearisome, it is only the wearisomeness of reiterated splendour, and of success so uniform as to be almost monotonous. He speaks of himself as idle, but his idleness was more active, and carried with it hour by hour a greater expenditure of brain-power, than what most men regard as their serious employments. He might well have been, in his mental career, the spoiled child of fortune; for all he tried. succeeded, all he touched turned into gems and gold. In a happy childhood he evinced extreme precocity. His academical career |