CHAPTER XIV.

1856-1858.

Macaulay resigns his seat for Edinburgh-He settles himself at Holly Lodge-His house and garden-His notions of hospitality-L'Almanach des Gourmands-Country visits-Continental tours Chateaubriand - Macaulay as a man of business-His generosity in money matters-His kindness to his relations and towards children-Picture galleriesMacaulay as an instructor -He pays a compliment to Lord Palmerston-Macaulay is made a Peer-His attachment to his old University-He is elected Lord High Steward of the Borough of Cambridge-Macaulay in the House of LordsFrench politics-The Indian Mutiny-The National Fastday - The capture of Delhi, and relief of Lucknow--Professor Owen, and the British Museum-Literary ease-The Fifth Volume of the History-Macaulay's contributions to the Encyclopædia Britannica-His habit of learning by heart-Foreign languages--Macaulay's modes of amusing himself-The consequences of celebrity-Extracts from Macaulay's journal-His literary Conservatism-His love for Theology and Church History-His devotion to literature.

MACAULAY's first care in the year 1856 was to make his arrangements for retiring from Parliament. He bade farewell to the electors of Edinburgh in a letter which, as we are told by his successor in the representation of the city, was received by them with "unfeigned sorrow." "The experience," he writes, "of the last two years has convinced me that I cannot reasonably expect to be ever again capable of performing, even in an imperfect manner, those duties which the public has a right to expect from every Member of the House of Commons. You meanwhile have borne with me in a manner which

entitles you to my warmest gratitude. Had even a small number of my constituents hinted to me a wish that I would vacate my seat, I should have thought it my duty to comply with that wish. But from not one single elector have I ever received a line of reproach or complaint." This letter was despatched on the 19th of January; on the 21st he applied for the Chiltern Hundreds; and on the 2nd of February he notes in his journal: "I received a letter from the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, enclosing an Address from the electors unanimously voted in a great meeting. I was really touched."

And now Macaulay, yielding a tardy obedience to the advice of every one who had an interest in his welfare, began to enjoy the ease which he had so laboriously earned. He had more than once talked of shifting his quarters to some residence less unsuited to his state of health than a set of chambers on a second floor between Vigo Street and Piccadilly. At one time he amused himself with the idea of renting one of the new villas on Weybridge Common; and at another he was sorely tempted to become the purchaser of a large mansion and grounds at "dear old Clapham." But in January 1856 Dean Milman wrote to inform him that the lease of a very agreeable house and garden at Kensington was in the market. The immediate effect of this letter was to suggest to Macaulay the propriety of giving his old friend's book another reading. "I began," he says, “Milman's Latin Christianity, and was more impressed than ever by the contrast between the substance and the style. The substance is excellent. The style very much otherwise." 1 On the morrow he heard from the Duchess of Argyll, who, knowing the place in question as only a next-door neighbour

A few months after this Macaulay writes: "I was glad to hear that a new edition of

Milman's History is called for. It is creditable to the age. I began to read it again.

could, urged him not to miss what was indeed an excellent opportunity. Accordingly, on the 23rd of January, he says: "I went with Hannah and Margaret to see the house about which the Duchess and the Dean had written to me. It is in many respects the very thing; but I must know more, and think more, before I decide." He soon made up his mind that he had lighted on the home which he wanted. Without more ado, he bought the lease; and with great deliberation, and after many a pleasant family discussion, he re-furnished his new abode in conformity with his sister's taste and his own notions of comfort.

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May 1, 1856.-The change draws very near. After fifteen happy years passed in the Albany I am going to leave it, thrice as rich a man as when I entered it, and far more famous; with health impaired, but with affections as warm and faculties as vigorous as ever. I have lost nothing that was very near my heart while I was here. Kind friends have died, but they were not part of my daily circle. I do not at all expect to live fifteen years more. If I do, I cannot hope that they will be so happy as the last fifteen. The removal makes me sad, and would make me sadder but for the extreme discomfort in which I have been living during the last week. The books are gone, and the shelves look like a skeleton. To-morrow I take final leave of this room where I have spent most of the waking hours of so many years. Already its aspect is changed. It is the corpse of what it was on Sunday. I hate partings. To-day, even while I climbed the endless steps, panting and weary, I thought that it was for the last time, and the tears would come into my eyes. I have been happy at the top of this toilsome stair. Ellis came to dinner;-the last of probably four hundred dinners, or more, that we have had in these

chambers. Then to bed. Everything that I do is coloured by the thought that it is for the last time. One day there will come a last in good earnest."

I well remember that, about this period, my uncle used to speak of the affinity which existed between our feeling for houses and our feeling for people. "Nothing," he said, "would at one time. have reconciled me to the thought of leaving the Albany; but, when I go home, and see the rooms dismantled, and the bookcases empty, and the whole place the ghost of its former self, I acknowledge that the end cannot come too soon." And then he spoke of those sad changes, the work of age and illness, which prepare us gradually, and even mercifully, for the loss of those from whom it once seemed as if we could never have borne to part. He was thinking of a very dear friend who was just then passing quietly, and very slowly, through the antechamber of death. On the 13th of February in this year he says: “I went to call on poor Hallam. I found him quite prisoner to his sofa, unable to walk. To write legibly he has long been unable. But in the conversation between us,-not, to be sure, a trying conversation,-he showed no defect of memory or apprehension. Poor dear fellow! I put a cheerful face on the matter; but I was sad at heart.

'Let me not live

After my flame lacks oil, to be the scoff
Of meaner spirits.'

Mean they must be indeed who scoff in such a case.'

1 Mr. Hallam lived into 1859. In the January of that year Macaulay wrote: "Poor Hallam! To be sure, to me he died some years ago. I then missed him much and often. Now the loss is hardly felt. I am inclined to think that there is scarcely any separation, even

of those separations which break hearts and cause suicides, which might not be made endurable by gradual weaning. In the course of that weaning there will be much suffering; but it will at no moment be very acute."

Macaulay was thenceforward lodged as his friends wished to see him. He could not well have bettered his choice. Holly Lodge, now called " Airlie Lodge,” occupies the most secluded corner of the little labyrinth of bye-roads, which, bounded to the east by Palace Gardens and to the west by Holland House, constitutes the district known by the name of Campden Hill. The villa, for a villa it is, stands in a long and winding lane, which, with its high black paling concealing from the passer-by every-. thing except a mass of dense and varied foliage, presents an appearance as rural as Roehampton and East Sheen present still, and as Wandsworth and Streatham presented twenty years ago. The only entrance into the lane for carriages was at the end furthest from Holly Lodge; and Macaulay had no one living beyond him except the Duke of Argyll, who loved quiet as much as himself, and for the

same reasons.

The rooms in Holly Lodge were for the most part small. The dining-room was that of a bachelor who was likewise something of an invalid; and the drawing-room, which, from old habit, my uncle could seldom bring himself to use, was little more than a vestibule to the dining-room. But the house afforded in perfection the two requisites for an author's ideal of happiness, a library and a garden. The library was a spacious and commodiously shaped room, enlarged, after the old fashion, by a pillared recess. It was a warm and airy retreat in winter; and in summer it afforded a student only too irresistible an inducement to step from among his book-shelves on to a lawn whose unbroken slope of verdure was worthy of the country house of a Lord Lieutenant. Nothing in the garden exceeded thirty feet in height; but there was in abundance all that hollies, and laurels, and hawthorns, and groves of standard roses, and bowers of lilacs and laburnums could give of shade,