for discriminating between truth and falsehood, should commit to writing such sweeping charges and bitter sarcasms as the celebrated passage in which he observed that no man of sound common sense is ever at a loss to refute illogical reasoning and expose contradictory assertions, with both of which he will be brought in contact whenever he mcets a Reverend Master of Arts brought up on Figure and Trope in the venerable cloisters of Oxford.

Although not an athlete, Macaulay was active and high-spirited. He used to amuse himself at Cambridge, and probably in later life, with such sports as horn-blowing, until his neighbours wished him far enough away. He was a good walker, and that, if it can be dignified by so pretentious a name, was his only bodily accomplishment. Ride he never could, and when, as Cabinet Minister in attendance on the Queen, he was informed that a horse was at his disposal, he replied that if he were to ride it must be on an elephant. In person he was not prepossessing. Mrs. Beecher Stowe, in "Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands," describes him as short, stout, and commonplace-indeed, thoroughly English, to quote her uncomplimentary language. Fat and rather ungainly, with a countenance that in repose was singularly wanting in animation and intellect, he might have been mistaken for an unlettered farmer; indeed, he was actually taken for a "cholera doctor," so, at least, Mr. Greville informs us, with exquisite good taste and very scant courtesy to the followers of Galen. That very accomplished gossip describes with some humour his first interview with Macaulay, and his consternation when he discovered that the fat, silent man at his side, who had been so busily absorbed getting through his dinner, was the famous Thomas Babington Macaulay. The model in Madame Tussaud's gallery is faithful enough, and is in no sense that of an imposing or particularly handsome man. He dressed expensively, but with want of taste, and he looked more like a good-humoured, country-bred tradesman of slender parts than a brilliant wit, distinguished statesman, and irrepressible talker. Talking, when he was in the humour, was his delight. He would talk for hours, no matter who was present, and he rarely gave his hearers those brilliant occasional flashes of silence, as Sydney Smith humorously and felicitously called them. The abstrusest and most unpopular subjects were brought up and discussed con amore until everything had been said. His prodigious memory did him good service, and whenever an opportunity offered he was able to repeat immensely long poems or give lengthy extracts from prose works. Some of the accounts of his feats of memory are positively incredible. He prided himself immensely on

his memory, and it is related that, on one occasion, when it played him false, he was so grievously chagrined as actually to leave the room in his distress with tears standing in his eyes. Great talkers are generally argumentative and dogmatic, and Macaulay was no exception. He was ready to talk about anything and to argue out every point, and he used to cling to his opinions with a tenacity that nothing could shake. All the same he was good-humoured, and wholly free from party and personal animosities; and although that has been somewhat doubted of late, his criticisms were generally just, and he refrained from introducing and repeating the scandal of fashionable society, while the comments he published on men and books are characterised by good feeling and large-heartedness; those he scribbled on the margins of the books he kept for his private use were the reverse, and some curious selections have been published. It was his habit to write comments on the margin as he went on, and these observations are generally distinguished for a slashing style that would not be entertaining to the writers of those works. Perhaps it never occurred to him that his own productions might one day be treated with equally scanty consideration.

While an undergraduate he contributed some interesting papers to one or two minor periodicals, and without achieving anything approaching a literary triumph, he contrived to alarm his father. Thus once more was exemplified the old proverb, that a prophet has small honour in his own country. In his twenty-fifth year he contributed that splendid article on Milton which appeared in the Edinburgh Review of August, 1825. At that time he was reading for the Bar. He subsequently wrote that this essay was overloaded with gaudy and ungraceful ornament, and, contrasted with his later and more highly-finished works, it is comparatively inferior. At the time it received, if we may credit his biographer, flattering attention and praise, and was thought to give promise of extraordinary future triumphs. Robert Hall is said to have been incited by it to begin the study of Italian, to judge for himself if the comparisons between Milton and Dante were true. This was in Robert Hall's old age, when he was racked by pain, and is a great tribute to the essayist's genius. In this striking essay, as in all his subsequent writings, he paraded his uncompromising Whig opinions rather too forcibly, and with unnecessary plainness. Macaulay does not seem to have been a Liberal in the modern sense, but a staunch Whig-a widely different matter. One is tempted to object that Macaulay sometimes fell into the error of obtruding his opinions, occasionally, too, when there was no excuse for political discussions. As time went on his views

gained strength and depth, and were still more forcibly and uncompromisingly laid before his readers. A critical examination of his first essay shows that, in spite of obvious merit and great promise, he had not acquired that elegance of expression and cogency of argument which were subsequently displayed in every sentence of his more finished works. Yet even his earliest article displays accurate learning and a captivating felicity and vigour of style, and probably not ten men in England could have produced an article so rich in persuasive eloquence, splendid description, and accurate scholarship.

Early in 1826 he was called to the Bar of Lincoln's Inn, but never achieved eminence as a lawyer. He never held but one brief, and that was for the defence of a poacher on a charge of killing a rabbit, or something of that sort, and he never received the fee-half a sovereign-so that his legal career brought him no direct gain. He had a certain kind of eloquence-fluency would perhaps be the better word; his perseverance was remarkable, nor was his ambition small; and, having influence, he before long became a commissioner of bankruptcy, and was only thirty years old when he took his seat in the House as member for Calne, a borough which more recently was represented by Mr. Lowe. As a statesman Macaulay did not become a power. His support would not have kept a disunited party together, nor his opposition struck dismay into its enemies. He spoke often and with vigour, and his sound common sense and extraordinary command of language always received flattering attention. His manner was deficient in grace, his delivery was monotonous, and his language imposed too sustained a strain on his hearers to allow of his achieving marked success as an orator. He had not that irresistible power of carrying his audience with him, that marvellous faculty of stirring the hearts and souls of his hearers, that divine gift of directing the passions of his followers to any end he had, which have enabled Gladstone and Bright to rouse with ease what kings cannot command nor emperors control-the hopes and passions of a great party, with adherents in every town and village. Men listened to Macaulay with respect, weighed his arguments, reflected on what he had said, were often convinced, sometimes converted; but nowhere did crowds of eager listeners and ardent admirers bend beneath the music of his voice or the lightning glance of his eye. An old friend of mine, recently dead, who had often heard him and remembered him perfectly, assured me, however, that he was a great power fifty years ago, and he believed that his oratorical triumphs hardly received full credit in those days. Macaulay himself said that one of his chief defects as a public

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speaker was his extraordinary rapidity of utterance, which spoilt the effect of his words. His speeches resembled carefully prepared essays, delivered with incredible rapidity and some want of impressiveness, rather than the spontaneous outburst of the orator's full heart. Fluency and great facility in finding the right words are not an unmixed gain to the speaker. Appropriate pauses and emphasis are even more important; otherwise a torrent of words lacks impressiveness. Then the management of the voice counts for very much. A speech that flows on like a rope unwound from a cylinder is not a good one. Again, to be successful a speech must be enlivened with anecdotes or humour; people can always read for solid instruction, but a platform speaker must amuse and please rather than teach.

He sat for Leeds from 1832 to 1834, when he went to India as legal adviser to the Supreme Council. While in the East he extended his accurate and exhaustive knowledge of India and its unhappy history, which bore golden fruit in two of his finest essays, and much of his subsequent fame was due to the lessons he learned in his brief but honourable exile at Calcutta.

In 1839, soon after returning from India, he became member for Edinburgh, an honour which he did not appreciate more highly than it deserved. He was soon made Secretary of State for War, and eight years later, during the administration of Lord John Russell, was Paymaster General. The following year he lost favour with the people of Edinburgh, who returned Mr. Cowan ; the explanation of this mishap being the energetic part which Macaulay had taken in the Maynooth grant, a measure of which he approved, not from any predilection for the Roman Catholic Church, but because he believed it to be a just concession to the religion and claims of the Irish majority. This makes one fancy that he would have been a Home Ruler in these days, although his authority is often quoted against Home Rule.

For some time after his defeat he lived in retirement, busy in the preparation of that noble and heart-stirring fragment of a history, written with a power, a loving earnestness, that no English historian has ever surpassed. But for his failure at Edinburgh, this magnificent contribution to the literature of his country might not have been so nearly completed.

History ought to be a most fascinating and almost universal study, and so it would be, were it not for the uncertainty surrounding everything connected with it. We cannot be reasonably sure as to the actions and motives of living public men, so recklessly do ill-informed

As for authentic anecdotes,

and untruthful scribblers write about them. which go the round of society, especially of the so-called Society papers, they will seldom stand the rough test of five minutes' investigation. When it comes to inquiries into events that happened several centuries ago, matters are incomparably worse. Take, for instance, the recent correspondence in the Times relating to the fate of Thomas Becket's body-whether it was buried here, there, or somewhere else, whether it was subsequently burnt and not buried; whether again such and such passages in ancient records are trustworthy, or mean what they appear to signify-are questions that are puzzling the most acute antiquaries and scholars. And why? Because traditions are seldom trustworthy, but are often hopelessly conflicting. So little reliance can be placed on the best historians that most well-informed men are of Sir Robert Walpole's opinion: "Do not read me history, for that I know to be false." While nothing would surpass in interest a perfectly faithful delineation of the habits and life of a remote age, nothing is less likely to be presented. What should we not give for a trustworthy narrative of Roman life in Cæsar's days; of the events connected with the Norman Conquest; of the condition of the peasantry in Elizabeth's days; and of the life and surroundings of Dante and Shakespeare? In spite of Macaulay's acumen, learning, and impartiality, his history, though not his picturesque essays, will year by year be less read by the general public, though his reputation will long continue to be treasured as one of the most brilliant of the nineteenth century. Histories are as perishable as novels, from no fault of the writers, but from the constant change of views going on, and the frequent removals of historical landmarks with the perpetual coming to light of fresh facts.

In 1852 he again received the suffrages of the electors of Edinburgh, and sat for the Northern Athens until 1856, when he resigned his seat. Mr. Greville comments as follows. "Sunday, January 27, 1856. Macaulay, owing to continued bad health, is obliged to retire from Parliament. He now says that he will not be able to continue the History of England beyond the death of Queen Anne. He enters into such minute details, I think it very doubtful if he will even get as far as that epoch." His incessant political and literary labours had been telling with fatal effect on his health, and for some years he had painful warnings that the end was not far distant. In 1857 Lord Palmerston was empowered by the Queen to offer him a peerage, and this dignity he gratefully accepted, and was raised to the Upper House as Baron Macaulay, of Rothley Temple. But the scholar was not long permitted to enjoy the dignified and