kindness and hospitality to me were, indeed, beyond description; and his wife was as pleasant and friendly as possible. I liked every thing but the hours. We were never up till ten, and never retired till two hours at least after midnight. Jeffrey, indeed, never goes to bed till sleep comes on him overpoweringly, and never rises till forced up by business or hunger. He is extremely well in health; so that I could not help suspecting him of being very hypochondriac; for all his late letters to me have been filled with lamentations about his various maladies. His wife told me, when I congratulated her on his recovery, that I must not absolutely rely on all his accounts of his own diseases. I really think that he is, on the whole, the youngest-looking man of fifty that I know, at least when he is animated.

His house is magnificent. It is in Moray Place, the newest pile of buildings in the town, looking out to the Forth on one side, and to a green garden on the other. It is really equal to the houses in Grosvenor Square. Fine, however, as is the new quarter of Edinburgh, I decidedly prefer the Old Town. There is nothing like it in the island. You have been there; but you have not seen the town: and no lady ever sees a town. It is only by walking on foot through all corners at all hours that cities can be really studied to good purpose. There is a new pillar to the memory of Lord Melville; very elegant, and very much better than the man deserved. His statue is at the top, with a wreath on the head very like a night-cap drawn over the eyes. It is impossible to look at it without being reminded of the fate which the original most richly merited. But my letter will overflow even the ample limits of a frank, if I do not conclude. I hope that you will be properly penitent for neglecting such a correspondent when you receive so long a dispatch written amidst the bellowing of justices, lawyers, criers, witnesses, prisoners, and prisoners' wives and mothers. Ever yours affectionately, T. B. M.

Lancaster, March 14th, 1829. MY DEAR FATHER,-A single line to say that I am at LanWhere you all are I have not the very slightest

caster.

notion. Pray let me hear. That dispersion of the Gentiles which our friends the prophets foretell seems to have commenced with our family.

Every thing here is going on in the common routine. The only things of peculiar interest are those which we get from the London papers. All minds seem to be perfectly made up as to the certainty of Catholic Emancipation having come at last. The feeling of approbation among the barristers is all but unanimous. The quiet towns-people here, as far as I can see, are very well contented. As soon as I arrived I was asked by my landlady how things had gone. I told her the division, which I had learned from Brougham at Garstang. She seemed surprised at the majority. I asked her if she was against the measure. "No; she only wished that all Christians would live in peace and charity together." A very sensible speech, and better than one at least of the members for the county ever made in his life.

I implore you above every thing, my dear father, to keep up your health and spirits. Come what may, the conveniences of life, independence, our personal respectability, and the exercise of the intellect and the affections, we are almost certain of retaining; and every thing else is a mere superfluity, to be enjoyed, but not to be missed. But I ought to be ashamed of reading you a lecture on qualities which you are so much more competent to teach than myself.

Ever yours very affectionately,

To Macvey Napier, Esq.

T. B. M.

50 Great Ormond Street, London, January 25th, 1830. MY DEAR SIR,-I send off by the mail of to-day an article on Southey too long, I fear, to meet your wishes, but ast short as I could make it.

There were, by-the-bye, in my last article a few omissions made, of no great consequence in themselves; the longest, I think, a paragraph of twelve or fourteen lines. I should scarcely have thought this worth mentioning, as it certainly by no means exceeds the limits of that editorial prerogative which I most willingly recognize, but that the omissions seemVOL. I.-10

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 necessities 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