satisfy the examiners that his name did not appear in the Class List of 1822, and his election as a Fellow of Trinity was delayed until 1824.

When Macaulay first went up to Cambridge he had the hope of an independence. But before he had taken his degree this prospect was overcast. More and more possessed with enthusiasm for the cause of negro freedom, Zachary Macaulay neglected his own business concerns until they fell into a disorder beyond the possibility of repair. As his children grew up, his means of settling them in the world diminished, and Thomas was forced to adopt a profession. He chose the law and became a member of Lincoln's Inn, but did not study hard, preferring to read widely and to write when he felt inclined. He had gained a literary reputation before he was called to the bar in 1826, and, although he then went the northern circuit, he can scarcely be said to have practised. Most of the early ventures of his pen were made in Knight's Quarterly Magazine. Several have been reprinted in his Miscellaneous Works. Macaulay himself preferred the "Conversation between Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Milton touching the Great Civil War," and there can be little doubt that he was right. For although we may note in all these fugitive pieces the early ripeness of his style, in the "Conversation" we also find a measure and a sober dignity which he did not always preserve in later years and which remind us of his admirable contributions to the Encyclopædia Britannica. The "Conversation" and other pleasant trifles passed, however, with some slight applause. It was the essay on "Milton" in the Edinburgh Review for August, 1825, which made Macaulay famous. Crude, garish, and superficial as this essay now seems to many readers, it then carried away the public. Its worst faults as a piece of criticism did not offend, for people were accustomed to criticism drugged with party politics. Its vehement eloquence and clear-cut political doctrines announced a valuable recruit to the Whig party, then returning to life and popularity after a generation of impotence. At a time when letters were far more closely allied with politics than they are now, when political leaders still had pocket boroughs to bestow, and polished eloquence was still a valued accomplishment in

public men, the young barrister was not likely to be left nuch longer to the company of his books.

Macaulay was indeed too poor to make his own way in politics unaided. He had nothing but his fellowship and the emoluments of a Commissioner in Bankruptcy, an office which he owed to the kindness of Lord Lyndhurst. But Lord Lansdowne offered to bring him in for the family borough of Calne without exacting any pledges or imposing any conditions. Macaulay accepted the offer, was returned to Parliament at the general election of 1830, a most inspiring moment for an ardent young Whig, and made his first speech in favour of a bill for removing Jewish disabilities. He was almost immediately recognised as an orator of the highest promise. He finally established his reputation in the memorable debates on the Reform Bill. After his first speech for the bill, the Speaker sent for Macaulay and said that in a prolonged experience he had never seen the House so much excited. "Portions of the speech," said Sir Robert Peel, "were as beautiful as anything I have ever heard or read." Such an orator and such a talker was warmly welcomed by Whig society. In May of 1831 he paid his first visit to Holland House and took his place in the brilliant circle which submitted to the imperious friendship of Lady Holland. Then followed a series of successes which might have spoiled a weak man, but had no effect upon Macaulay's sensible, affectionate nature. In October of 1831 he was invited to become a candidate for the city of Leeds. In the following year he was appointed a member of the Board of Control, and a little later was made its Secretary. Thus began his connection with India. His speeches were heard with wonder and delight in the House, while his conversation, if a continuous flow of utterance can be so termed, amazed and sometimes piqued the cleverest people by its unflagging energy and unequalled range of quotation and allusion. At the same time his simplicity and frankness saved him from most of the ill-will which great talents, too eagerly displayed, are apt to excite. Although he took and enjoyed all the good things which came in his way and never affected the airs of a philosopher, he never became fortune's slave or set his heart on pleasures which at best are not unmingled and must always depend on other men's caprice,

Essentially a man of letters, he never threw himself int the struggle for power with the zest of a born politician lik Disraeli. Unusually domestic in his instincts, he did not at bottom, care very much for social intercourse or even fo intellectual display. The ease and freedom of conversation with his books and with his sisters outweighed it all Moreover, young as he was and buoyant as were his spirits he bore at this time a heavy load of care. His father, now growing old and weak, was less and less able to make head against adversity, so that the burden of supporting the family fell in some measure upon Macaulay. His fellowship, tenable by a layman for seven years only, was running out and his office of Commissioner in Bankruptcy had been suppressed by a recent reform. Even when his parliamentary fame was at the height, he had been forced to sell his Cambridge medals. So long as his party remained in power, he might reckon on his stipend as Secretary to the Board of Control, but a political reverse might at any moment reduce him to poverty. There was, indeed, another resource. Macaulay had continued to write for the Edinburgh Review just often enough to maintain and improve his position as an author from whom great things might be expected, and, with the advantage of those political and parliamentary honours which ensure a sale even to indifferent productions, he might reasonably hope to make a handsome competence by his books. But he wisely and nobly resolved not to traffic away his fine literary gift, not to sink into a bookseller's hack or to write save upon subjects for which he cared and in the manner which his own judgment approved. He preferred to make himself independent by a few years' exile from the pursuits and the friends of his heart. In December of 1833 he accepted a seat in the Supreme Council of the Governor-General of India, and in June of the following year he landed at Madras.

Macaulay remained in India just three years and a half, by far the most memorable portion of his public career. In Parliament he had shown himself a speaker of rare merit, but he had exerted little political influence and had not been admitted to the Cabinet. At Calcutta he set a lasting mark upon the history of British India. By a celebrated minute

he induced the Indian Government to decide that whatever funds the State could spare for education should be spent in teaching Western science through the medium of the English language. A little later he was named President of the Commission of Public Instruction, where he could give effect to his own opinions regarding education in India. He was also appointed President of the Commission to inquire into the Jurisprudence and Jurisdiction of the Indian Empire. While holding this position he advised the codification of the criminal law of India, and drafted, doubtless with some help from lawyers of a larger practical experience than his own, that penal code which, after many years and certain amendments, was enacted and is still in force. The Indian Penal Code has always been regarded as one of Macaulay's greatest achievements. Macaulay, indeed, had many qualifications for the office of a legislator, strong common sense, a memory which could hold and combine countless particulars, a style of expression somewhat lacking in grace and subtlety, but clear, precise and penetrating. His public duties at this time might seem enough to tax a vigorous mind and body, yet he contrived to read more books than would have taken up all the leisure of professed literary men and to write his elaborate essays upon "Mackintosh" and "Bacon."

Macaulay was not happy in India. He never had a strong passion for travel or a minute faculty for the observation of outward things. Slow and laborious as were Indian journeys seventy years ago, it excites some surprise that Macaulay should never have spared a few weeks to visit even the best known and most accessible of Indian cities. He seems to have reserved his interest for the history of the English in India, and even this he was content to study in books alone. "I have no words," he wrote to a friend, "to tell you how I pine for England or how intensely bitter exile has been to me, though I hope that I have borne it well. I feel as if I had no other wish than to see my country again and die." This feeling of home-sickness was made more poignant by events in his family. Not long after leaving England he lost a beloved sister, Mrs. Cropper; and his sister Hannah who accompanied him to India married there a distinguished civilian, Mr. Charles Trevelyan. It is true that the parting

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of brother from sister could hardly have been more gentle, for the Trevelyans lived under Macaulay's roof and returned with him to England. But circumstances had so centred Macaulay's warm affection upon his sisters that changes which other men accept as a matter of course and which he acknowledged to be inevitable clouded his life and all but broke his spirit. The constant decline of his father gave a fresh sting to the desire to be at home once more. At the close of 1837 he felt justified in returning to his native country. He sailed in January of 1838, but the voyage was tedious, and before he could touch land his father had expired.

He was now somewhat lonely, but he had purchased that independence which is inestimable to the true man of letters. He had saved a large sum, he had no expensive tastes, he was a bachelor and, so far as is known, had no serious wish to be otherwise. For some time past he had thought of writing a great historical work. In the year of his return, if not earlier, he fixed upon the subject. "The first part," he wrote to Macvey Napier, "(which, I think, will take five octavo volumes), will extend from the Revolution to the commencement of Sir Robert Walpole's long Administration; a period of three or four and thirty very eventful years. From the commencement of Walpole's Administration to the commencement of the American War, events may be despatched more concisely. From the commencement of the American War, it will again become necessary to be copious. These at least are my present notions. How far I shall bring the narrative down I have not determined. The death of George IV. would be the best halting-place. The History would then be an entire view of all the transactions which took place between the Revolution which brought the Crown into harmony with the Parliament and the Revolution which brought the Parliament into harmony with the nation." We can only regret that he did not immediately bend all his energies to the execution of this vast design. An Italian tour in the autumn and winter of 1838 was a well-earned holiday; but his return to political life, his Lays of Ancient Rome and his later essays were so many distractions from his true occupation. While living in India he had written :

"In the quiet of my own little grass-plot when the moon