was not taken in 1829. I would, even now, gladly support any well-digested plan which might be likely to succeed. But I fear that the difficulties are insurmountable. Against such a measure there are all the zealots of the High Church, and all the zealots of the Low Church; the Bishop of Exeter, and Hugh Macneile; Oxford, and Exeter Hall; all the champions of the voluntary system; all the English Dissenters; all Scotland; all Ireland, both Orangemen and Papists. If you add together the mass which opposed the late Government on the Education question, the mass which opposed Sir James Graham's Education clauses last year,* and the mass which is crying out for repeal in Ireland, you get something like a notion of the force which will be arrayed against a bill for paying the Irish Catholic clergy.

What have you on the other side? You have the statesmen, both Tory and Whig; but no combination of statesmen is a match for a general combination of fools. And, even among the statesmen, there is by no means perfect concord. The Tory statesmen are for paying the Catholic priests, but not for touching one farthing of the revenue of the Protestant Church. The Liberal statesmen (I for one, if I may lay claim to the name) would transfer a large part of the Irish Church revenues from the Protestants to the Catholics. For such a measure I should think it my duty to vote, though I were certain my vote would cost me my seat in Parliament. Whether I would vote for a measure which, leaving the Protestant Church of Ireland untouched, should add more than half a million to our public burdens for the maintenance of the popish priesthood is another question. I am not ashamed to say that I have not quite made up my mind, and that I should be glad, before I made it up, to hear the opinions of others.

As things stand, I do not believe that Sir Robert or Lord John, or even Sir Robert and Lord John united, could induce one third part of the members of the House of Commons to

* In 1843, Sir James Graham, speaking for the Government, proposed a scheme for educating the population of our great towns, which was defeated by the opposition of the Non-conformists.

vote for any plan whatever, of which the object should be the direct payment of the Irish Catholic priests. Thinking thus, I have turned my mind to the best indirect ways of effecting this object, and I have some notions which may possibly bear fruit. I shall probably take an opportunity of submitting them to the House of Commons. Now, I can conceive nothing more inexpedient than that, with these views, I should at the present moment go down to Edinburgh. If I did, I should certainly take the bull by the horns. I should positively refuse to give any promise. I should declare that I was not, on principle, opposed to the payment of Catholic priests; and I should reserve my judgment as to any particular mode of payment till the details were before me. The effect would be a violent explosion of public feeling. Other towns would follow the example of Edinburgh. Petitions would pour in by thousands as soon as Parliament had assembled; and the difficulties with which we have to deal, and which are great enough as it is, would be doubled.

I do not, however, think that the Edinburgh Review ought to be under the same restraint under which a Whig cabinet is necessarily placed. The Review has not to take the queen's pleasure, to count votes in the Houses, or to keep powerful supporters in good humor. It should expound and defend the Whig theory of government; a theory from which we are forced sometimes to depart in practice. There can be no objection to Senior's arguing in the strongest manner for the paying of the Catholic priests. I should think it very injudicious to lay down the rule that the Whig Review should never plead for any reforms except such as a Whig ministry could prudently propose to the Legislature.

I have a plan in my head which I hope you will not dislike. I think of reviewing the "Memoirs" of Barère. I really am persuaded that I could make something of that subject. T. B. MACAULAY.

Ever yours,

Albany, London, December 13th, 1843. DEAR NAPIER,-You shall have my paper on Barère before Parliament meets. I never took to writing any thing with

more hearty good-will. If I can, I will make the old villain shake, even in his grave. Some of the lies in which I have detected him are such as you, with all your experience in literary matters, will find it difficult to believe without actual inspection of the authorities.*

What do you hear of Jeffrey's book?t My own general impression is that the selection is ill made, and that a certain want of finish, which in a periodical work is readily excused, and has sometimes even the effect of a grace, is rather too perceptible in many passages. On the other hand, the variety and versatility of Jeffrey's mind seem to me more extraordinary than ever. I think that there are few things in the four volumes which one or two other men could not have done as well; but I do not think that any one man except Jeffrey-nay, that any three men-could have produced such diversified excellence. When I compare him with Sydney and myself, I feel, with humility perfectly sincere, that his range is immeasurably wider than ours. And this is only as a writer; but he is not only a writer, he has been a great advocate, and he is a great judge. Take him all in all, I think him more nearly a universal genius than any man of our time; certainly far more nearly than Brougham, much as Brougham affects the character. Brougham does one thing well, two or three things indifferently, and a hundred things detestably. His Parliamentary speaking is admirable, his forensic speaking poor, his writings, at the very best, second-rate. As to his hydrostatics, his political philosophy, his equity judgments, his translations from the Greek, they are really below contempt. Jeffrey, on the other hand, has tried nothing in which he has not succeeded, except Parliamentary speaking; and there he obtained what to any other man would have

* "As soon as he ceases to write trifles, he begins to write lies; and such lies! A man who has never been within the tropics does not know what a thunder-storm means; a man who has never looked on Niagara has but a faint idea of a cataract; and he who has not read Barère's 'Memoirs,' may be said not to know what it is to lie."-Macaulay's Article on Barère.

+ Lord Jeffrey's contribution to the Edinburgh Review.

been great success, and disappointed his hearers only because their expectations were extravagant. Ever yours,

T. B. MACAULAY.

It

Albany, London, April 10th, 1844. DEAR NAPIER,-I am glad that you like my article. does not please me now, by any means, as much as it did while I was writing it. It is shade, unrelieved by a gleam of light.* This is the fault of the subject rather than of the painter; but it takes away from the effect of the portrait. And thus, to the many reasons which all honest men have for hating Barère I may add a reason personal to myself, that the excess of his rascality has spoiled my paper on him.

Ever yours,

T. B. MACAULAY.

* "Whatsoever things are false, whatsoever things are dishonest, whatsoever things are unjust, whatsoever things are impure, whatsoever things are hateful, whatsoever things are of evil report, if there be any vice, and if there be any infamy, all these things were blended in Barère."

CHAPTER X.

1844-1847.

Letters to Mr. Napier.-Macaulay modifies his Design for an Article on Burke and his Times into a Sketch of Lord Chatham's Later Years.— Tour in Holland.-Scene off Dordrecht.-Macaulay on the Irish Church. -Maynooth. The Ministerial Crisis of December, 1845: Letters to Lady Trevelyan.-Letter to Mr. Macfarlan.-Fall of Sir Robert Peel.Macaulay becomes Paymaster-general.-His Re-election at Edinburgh. -His Position in the House of Commons.-General Election of 1847.— Macaulay's Defeat at Edinburgh.

Albany, London, August 14th, 1844. DEAR NAPIER,—I have been working hard for you during the last week, and have covered many sheets of foolscap; and now I find that I have taken a subject altogether unmanageable. There is no want of materials. On the contrary, facts and thoughts, both interesting and new, are abundant. But this very abundance bewilders me. The stage is too small for the actors; the canvas is too narrow for the multitude of figures. It is absolutely necessary that I should change my whole plan. I will try to write for you, not a history of England during the earlier part of George the Third's reign, but an account

* The unmanageable subject was a review of Burke's life and writings. "I should wish," Macaulay writes, "to say a good deal about the ministerial revolutions of the early part of George the Third's reign; about the characters of Bute, Mansfield, Chatham, Townshend, George Grenville, and many others; about Wilkes's and Churchill's lampoons, and so forth. I should wish, also, to go into a critical examination of the 'Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful,' and to throw out some hints on the subject which have long been rolling up and down in my mind. But this would be enough for a long article; and, when this is done, we have only brought Burke to the threshold of the House of Commons. The American War, the Coalition, the Impeachment of Hastings, the French Revolution, still remain."