be able to revenge himself on old friends, whose only crime is that they could not help finding him to be an habitual and incurable traitor. Hitherto your caution and firmness have done wonders. Yet already he has begun to use the word Whig" as an epithet of reproach, exactly as it is used in the lowest writings of the Tories, and of the extreme Radicals; exactly as it is used in Blackwood, in Fraser, in The Age, in Tait's Magazine. There are several instances in the article on Lady Charlotte Bury. "The Whig notions of female propriety." "The Whig secret tribunal." I have no doubt that the tone of his papers will become more and more hostile to the Government; and that, in a short time, it will be necessary for you to take one of three courses, to every one of which there are strong objections—to break with him; to admit his papers into the Review, while the rest of the Review continues to be written in quite a different tone; or to yield to his dictation, and to let him make the Review a mere tool of his ambition and revenge.

As to Brougham's feelings toward myself, I know, and have known for a long time, that he hates me. If during the last ten years I have gained any reputation either in politics or in letters-if I have had any success in life-it has been without his help or countenance, and often in spite of his utmost exertions to keep me down. It is strange that he should be surprised at my not calling on him since my return. I did not call on him when I went away. When he was chancellor, and I was in office, I never once attended his levée. It would be strange indeed if now, when he is squandering the remains of his public character in an attempt to ruin the party of which he was a member then, and of which I am a member still, I should begin to pay court to him. For the sake of the long intimacy which subsisted between him and my father, and of the mutual good offices which passed between them, I will not, unless I am compelled, make any public attack on him. But this is really the only tie which restrains me; for I neither love him nor fear him.

With regard to the Indian Penal Code, if you are satisfied that Empson really wishes to review it on its own account,

and not merely out of kindness to me, I should not at all object to his doing so. The subject is one of immense importance. The work is of a kind too abstruse for common readers, and can be made known to them only through the medium of some popular exposition. There is another consideration which weighs much with me. The Press in India has fallen into the hands of the lower legal practitioners, who detest all law-reform; and their scurrility, though mere matter of derision to a person accustomed to the virulence of English factions, is more formidable than you can well conceive to the members of the civil service, who are quite unaccustomed to be dragged rudely before the public. It is, therefore, highly important that the members of the Indian Legislature, and of the Law Commission, should be supported against the clamorous abuse of the scribblers who surround them by seeing that their performances attract notice at home, and are judged with candor and discernment by writers of a far higher rank in literature than the Calcutta editors. For these reasons I should be glad to see an article on the Penal Code in the Edinburgh Review. But I must stipulate that my name may not be mentioned, and that every thing may be attributed to the Law Commission as a body. I am quite confident that Empson's own good taste, and regard for me, will lead him, if he should review the Code, to abstain most carefully from every thing that resembles puffing. His regard to truth and the public interest will, of course, lead him to combat our opinions freely wherever he thinks us wrong.

There is little chance that I shall see Scotland this year. In the autumn I shall probably set out for Rome, and return to London in the spring. As soon as I return, I shall seriously commence my "History." The first part (which, I think, will take up 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 dispatched 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 the Fourth 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. But there are great and obvious objections to contemporary history. To be sure, if I live to be seventy, the events of George the Fourth's reign will be to me then what the American war and the Coalition are to me now.

Whether I shall continue to reside in London seems to me very uncertain. I used to think that I liked London; but, in truth, I liked things which were in London, and which are gone. My family is scattered. I have no Parliamentary or official business to bind me to the capital. The business to which I propose to devote myself is almost incompatible with the distractions of a town life. I am sick of the monotonous succession of parties, and long for quiet and retirement. To quit politics for letters is, I believe, a wise choice. To cease to be a member of Parliament only to become a diner - out would be contemptible; and it is not easy for me to avoid becoming a mere diner-out if I reside here.

Ever yours,

T. B. M.

London, September 15th, 1838. DEAR ELLIS,—On Monday I shall set off for Liverpool by the railroad, which will then be opened for the whole way. I shall remain there about a week. The chief object of my visit is to see my little nephew, the son of my sister Margaret. It is no visit of pleasure, though I hear every thing most hopeful and pleasing about the boy's talents and temper.* Indeed, it is not without a great effort that I force my

*The boy died in 1847, having already shown as fair promise of remarkable ability and fine character as can be given at the age of thirteen. "I feel the calamity much," Macaulay wrote. "I had left the dear boy my library, little expecting that I should ever wear mourning for him."

self to go. But I will say no more on this subject, for I can not command myself when I approach it.

Empson came to London yesterday night, with his lady in high beauty and good humor. It is, you know, quite a proverbial truth that wives never tolerate an intimacy between their husbands and any old friends, except in two cases: the one, when the old friend was, before the marriage, a friend of both wife and husband; the other, when the friendship is of later date than the marriage. I may hope to keep Empson's friendship under the former exception, as I have kept yours under the latter.

Empson brings a sad account of poor Napier: all sorts of disquiet and trouble, with dreadful, wearing complaints which give his friends the gravest cause for alarm. And, as if this were not enough, Brougham is persecuting him with the utmost malignity. I did not think it possible for human nature, in an educated, civilized man-a man, too, of great intel lect to have become so depraved. He writes to Napier in language of the most savage hatred, and of the most extravagant vaunting. The ministers, he says, have felt only his little finger. He will now put forth his red right hand. They shall have no rest. As to me, he says that I shall rue my baseness in not calling on him. But it is against Empson that he is most furious. He says that, in consequence of this new marriage,* he will make it the chief object of his life to prevent Jeffrey from ever being Lord President of the Court of Session. He thinks that there is some notion of making Empson editor of the Review. If that be done, he says, he will relinquish every other object in order to ruin the Review. He will lay out his last sixpence in that enterprise. He will make revenge on Empson the one business of the remaining years of his life. Empson says that nothing so demoniacal was ever written in the world. For my part, since he takes it into his head to be angry, I am pleased that he goes on in such a way; for he is much less formidable in such a state than he would be if he kept his temper. I sent to Napier on Thursday a

* Mr. Empson had married the daughter of Lord Jeffrey.

long article on Temple. It is superficial; but on that account, among others, I shall be surprised if it does not take.

Hayter has painted me for his picture of the House of Commons. I can not judge of his performance. I can only say, as Charles the Second did on a similar occasion, "Odds fish! if I am like this, I am an ugly fellow."

Yours ever,

T. B. M.

In the middle of October Macaulay started for a tour in Italy. Just past middle life, with his mind already full, and his imagination still fresh and his health unbroken, it may be doubted whether any traveler had carried thither a keener expectation of enjoyment since Winckelmann for the first time. crossed the Alps. A diary, from which extracts will be given in the course of this chapter, curiously illustrates the feelings with which he regarded the scenes around him. He viewed the works, both of man and of nature, with the eyes of an historian, and not of an artist. The leading features of a tract of country impressed themselves rapidly and indelibly on his observation; all its associations and traditions swept at once across his memory; and every line of good poetry which its fame or its beauty had inspired rose almost involuntarily to his lips. But, compared with the wealth of phrases on which he could draw at will when engaged on the description of human passions, catastrophes, and intrigues, his stock of epithets applicable to mountains, seas, and clouds was singularly scanty; and he had no ambition to enlarge it. When he had recorded the fact that the leaves were green, the sky blue, the plain rich, and the hills clothed with wood, he had said all he had to say, and there was an end of it. He had neither the taste nor the power for rivaling those novelists who have more colors in their vocabulary than ever Turner had on his palette; and who spend over the lingering phases of a single sunset as much ink as Richardson consumed in depicting the death of his villain or the ruin of his heroine. "I have always thought," said Lady Trevelyan, "that your uncle was incomparable in showing a town, or the place where any famous event occurred; but that he did not care for scenery, merely