1838-39.

LORD MACAULAï.

13

There is

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. 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 candour 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 everything 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 everything 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.

may

There is little chance that I shall see Scotland In the autumn I shall probably set out this year. 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 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 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 dinerout would be contemptible; and it is not easy for me to avoid becoming a mere diner-out if I reside here.

London: September 15, 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 everything most hopeful and pleasing about the boy's talents and temper.1 Indeed, it is not without a great effort that I force myself to go. But I will say no more on this subject, for I cannot command myself when I approach it.

Empson came to London yesterday night, with his lady in high beauty and good humour. 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 civilised man,- a man, too, of great intellect,―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

1 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."

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 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 cannot 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 traveller 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

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

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 rivalling those novelists who have more colours 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 as scenery. enjoyed the country in his way. He liked sitting out on a lawn, and seeing grass and flowers around him. Occasionally a view made a great impression on him, such as the view down upon Susa, going over Mont Cenis; but I doubt whether any scene pleased his eye more than his own beloved Holly Lodge, or Mr. Thornton's garden at Battersea Rise. When we were recalling the delights of an excursion among the Surrey hills, or in the byways at the English lakes, he would be inclined to ask 'What

He