ed to me, and to one or two persons who had seen the article in its original state, to be made on a principle which, however sound in itself, does not, I think, apply to compositions of this description. The passages omitted were the most pointed and ornamented sentences in the review. Now, for high and grave works, a history, for example, or a system of political or moral philosophy, Dr. Johnson's rule-that every sentence which the writer thinks fine ought to be cut out-is excellent. But periodical works like ours, which, unless they strike at the first reading are not likely to strike at all, whose whole life is a month or two, may, I think, be allowed to be sometimes even viciously florid. Probably, in estimating the real value of any tinsel which I may put upon my articles, you and I should not materially differ. But it is not by his own taste, but by the taste of the fish, that the angler is determined in his choice of bait.

Perhaps, after all, I am ascribing to system what is mere accident. Be assured, at all events, that what I have said is said in perfect good-humor, and indicates no mutinous disposition.

The Jews are about to petition Parliament for relief from the absurd restrictions which lie on them-the last relic of the old system of intolerance. I have been applied to by some of them, in the name of the managers of the scheme, to write for them in the Edinburgh Review. I would gladly further a cause so good, and you, I think, could have no objection. Ever yours truly,

T. B. MACAULAY.

Bowood, February 10th, 1830.

MY DEAR FATHER,-I am here in a very nice room, with perfect liberty, and a splendid library at my command. It seems to be thought desirable that I should stay in the neighborhood, and pay my compliments to my future constituents every other day.

The house is splendid and elegant, yet more remarkable for comfort than for either elegance or splendor. I never saw any great place so thoroughly desirable for a residence. Lord Kerry tells me that his uncle left every thing in ruin-trees cut down, and rooms unfurnished-and sold the library, which was extremely fine. Every book and picture in Bowood has

been bought by the present lord, and certainly the collection does him great honor.

I am glad that I staid here. A burgess of some influence, who, at the last election, attempted to get up an opposition to the Lansdowne interest, has just arrived. I called on him this morning, and, though he was a little ungracious at first, succeeded in obtaining his promise. Without him, indeed, my return would have been secure; but both from motives of interest and from a sense of gratitude I think it best to leave nothing undone which may tend to keep Lord Lansdowne's influence here unimpaired against future elections.

Lord Kerry seems to me to be going on well. He has been in very good condition, he says, this week; and hopes to be at the election, and at the subsequent dinner. I do not know when I have taken so much to so young a man. In general my intimacies have been with my seniors; but Lord Kerry is really quite a favorite of mine-kind, lively, intelligent, modest, with the gentle manners which indicate a long intimacy with the best society, and yet without the least affectation. We have oceans of beer and mountains of potatoes for dinner. Indeed, Lady Lansdowne drank beer most heartily on the only day which she passed with us; and when I told her, laughing, that she set me at ease on a point which had given me much trouble, she said that she would never suffer any dandy novelist to rob her of her beer or her cheese.

The question between law and politics is a momentous one. As far as I am myself concerned, I should not hesitate; but the interest of my family is also to be considered. We shall see, however, before long, what my chance of success as a public man may prove to be. At present it would clearly be wrong in me to show any disposition to quit my profession.

I hope that you will be on your guard as to what you may say to Brougham about this business. He is so angry at it that he can not keep his anger to himself. I know that he has blamed Lord Lansdowne in the robing-room of the Court of King's Bench. The seat ought, he says, to have been given to another man. If he means Denman, I can forgive, and even respect him, for the feeling which he entertains.

Believe me ever yours most affectionately, T. B. M.

CHAPTER IV.

1830-1832.

State of Public Affairs when Macaulay entered Parliament.-His Maiden Speech. The French Revolution of July, 1830.-Macaulay's Letters from Paris.--The Palais Royal.-Lafayette.-Lardner's Cabinet "Cyclopedia."—The New Parliament Meets.-Fall of the Duke of Wellington.-Scene with Croker.-The Reform Bill.-Political Success.-House of Commons Life.-Macaulay's Party Spirit.-London Society.—Mr. Thomas Flower Ellis. Visit to Cambridge.-Rothley Temple.-Margaret Macaulay's Journal.-Lord Brougham.-Hopes of Office.-Macaulay as a Politician.-Letters to Lady Trevelyan, Mr. Napier, and Mr. Ellis.

THROUGHOUT the last two centuries of our history there never was a period when a man conscious of power, impatient of public wrongs, and still young enough to love a fight for its own sake, could have entered Parliament with a fairer prospect of leading a life worth living, and doing work that would requite the pains, than at the commencement of the year 1830.

In these volumes, which only touch politics in order to show to what extent Macaulay was a politician, and for how long, controversies can not appropriately be started or revived. This is not the place to enter into a discussion on the vexed question as to whether Mr. Pitt and his successors, in pursuing their system of repression, were justified by the neces sities of the long French war. It is enough to assert, what few or none will deny, that, for the space of more than a generation from 1790 onward, our country had, with a short interval, been governed on declared reactionary principles. We in whose days Whigs and Tories have often exchanged office, and still more often interchanged policies, find it difficult to imagine what must have been the condition of the kingdom

when one and the same party almost continuously held not only place, but power, over a period when to an unexampled degree "public life was exasperated by hatred, and the charities of private life soured by political aversion." Fear, religion, ambition, and self-interest-every thing that could tempt and every thing that could deter-were enlisted on the side of the dominant opinions. To profess Liberal views was to be hopelessly excluded from all posts of emolument, from all functions of dignity, from the opportunities of business, from the amenities of society. Quiet tradesmen, who ventured to maintain that there was something in Jacobinism besides the guillotine, soon found their town or village too hot to hold them, and were glad to place the Atlantic between themselves and their neighbors. Clergymen suspected of thinking that in the "Vindicia Gallica" Mackintosh had got the better of Burke, were ousted from their college fellowships as atheists, or left to starve without a curacy as radicals. Political animosity and political favoritism made themselves felt in departments of life which had hitherto been free from their encroachments. Whig merchants had a difficulty in getting money for their paper, and Whig barristers in obtaining acceptance for their arguments. Whig statesmen, while enjoying that security for life and liberty which even in the worst days of our recent history has been the reward of eminence, were powerless in the Commons and isolated in the Lords. No motive but disinterested conviction kept a handful of veterans steadfast round a banner which was never raised except to be swept contemptuously down by the disciplined and overwhelming strength of the ministerial phalanx. Argument and oratory were alike unavailing under a constitution which was, indeed, a despotism of privilege. The county representation of England was an anomaly, and the borough representation little better than a scandal. The constituencies of Scotland, with so much else that of right belonged to the public, had got into Dundas's pocket. In the year 1820 all the towns north of Tweed together contained fewer voters than are now on the rolls of the single burgh of Hawick, and all the counties together contained fewer voters

than are now on the register of Roxburghshire. So small a band of electors was easily manipulated by a party leader who had the patronage of India at his command. The three pres idencies were flooded with the sons and nephews of men who were lucky enough to have a seat in a town-council or a superiority in a rural district; and fortunate it was for our empire that the responsibilities of that noblest of all careers soon educated young civil servants into something higher than mere adherents of a political party.

While the will of the nation was paralyzed within the senate, effectual care was taken that its voice should not be heard without. The press was gagged in England, and throttled in Scotland. Every speech, or sermon, or pamphlet, the substance of which a crown lawyer could torture into a semblance of sedition, sent its author to the jail, the hulks, or the pillory. In any place of resort where an informer could penetrate, men spoke their minds at imminent hazard of ruinous fines and protracted imprisonment. It was vain to appeal to Parliament for redress against the tyranny of packed juries and panic-driven magistrates. Sheridan endeavored to retain for his countrymen the protection of Habeas Corpus, but he could only muster forty-one supporters. Exactly as many members followed Fox into the lobby when he opposed a bill which, interpreted in the spirit that then actuated our tribunals, made attendance at an open meeting summoned for the consideration of Parliamentary Reform a service as dangerous as night-poaching and far more dangerous than smuggling. Only ten more than that number ventured to protest against the introduction of a measure, still more inquisitorial in its provisions and ruthless in its penalties, which rendered every citizen who gave his attention to the removal of public griev ances liable at any moment to find himself in the position of a criminal-that very measure in behalf of which Bishop Horsley had stated in the House of Peers that he did not know what the mass of the people of any country had to do with the laws except to obey them.

Amidst a population which had once known freedom, and was still fit to be intrusted with it, such a state of matters