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. Ever yours T. B. MACAULAY. Albany, London: December 13, 1843. Dear Napier,-You shall have my paper on Barère before Parliament meets. I never took to writing anything with more hearty goodwill. 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.1 What do you hear of Jeffrey's book? 2 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 seems 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 1 "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 thunderstorm 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. 2 Lord Jeffrey's Contributions to the Edinburgh Review. 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 an 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 been great success, and disappointed his hearers only because their expectations were extravagant. Ever yours T. B. MACAULAY. Albany, London: April 10, 1844 Dear Napier, I am glad that you like my article. It 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. 1 "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 14, 1844. EAR NAPIER,-I have been working hard for you DEA during the last week, and have covered many sheets of foolscap; and now I find that I have taken a subject altogether unmanageable.1 There is no want of materials. On the contrary, facts and thoughts, both interesting and new, are abundant. But this very abundance bewilders. 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 me. 1 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." to write for you, not a History of England during the earlier part of George the Third's reign, but an account of the last years of Lord Chatham's life. I promised or half promised this ten years ago, at the end of my review of Thackeray's book. Most of what I have written will come in very well. The fourth volume of the Chatham Correspondence has not, I think, been reviewed. It will furnish a heading for the article. Ever yours truly T. B. MACAULAY. A week later Macaulay writes: "The article on Chatham goes on swimmingly. A great part of the information which I have is still in manuscript;-Horace Walpole's Memoirs of George the Third's reign, which were transcribed for Mackintosh; and the first Lord Holland's Diary, which Lady Holland permitted me to read. I mean to be with you on Saturday the 31st. I would gladly stay with you till the Tuesday; but I shall not be quite my own master. It is certainly more agreeable to represent such a place as Paisley, or Wolverhampton, than such a place as Edinburgh. Hallam or Everett can enjoy the society and curiosities of your fine city; but I am the one person to whom all those things are interdicted." Shortly before Macaulay's arrival in India, a civilian, employed as Resident at a native court, came under the suspicion of having made use of his position to enrich himself by illicit means. Bills came to hand through Persia, drawn in his favour for great sums of money on the East Indian Company itself. The Court of Directors naturally took the alarm, and sent a hint to the Governor-General, who wrote to the officer in question inviting him to clear his character before a Commission of Inquiry. But the bird had already flown. The late Resident was well on his way to Europe; and his answer to Lord William Bentinck, in which the offer of an in vestigation was civilly but most positively declined, was actually addressed from the Sandheads at the mouth of the Hooghly. The following letters will sufficiently indicate the aspect under which the transaction presented itself to Macaulay. His behaviour on this occasion may scem unnecessarily harsh to that section of society which, in its dealings with gilded rogues, takes very good care not to err on the side of intolerance; but most readers will think the better of him because, when he found himself in questionable company, he obeyed the instinct which prompted him to stand on his dignity as an honest man. Rotterdam: October 9, 1844. 66 Dear Hannah,-After a very pleasant day at Antwerp, I started at seven yesterday morning by the steamer for Rotterdam. I had an odd conversation on board, and one which, I think, will amuse both you and Trevelyan. As we passed Dordrecht, one of the passengers, an Englishman, said that he had never seen anything like it. Parts of it reminded me of some parts of Cape Town; and I said so. An elderly gentleman immediately laid hold of me. "You have been at the Cape, Sir?" "Yes, Sir." Perhaps you have been in India?” "Yes, Sir." "My dear, here is a gentleman who has been in India." So I became an object of attention to an ill-looking vulgar woman, who appeared to be the wife of my questioner; and to his daughter, a pretty girl enough, but by no means ladylike. "And how did you like India? Is it not the most delightful place in the world?" "It is well enough," I said, "for a place of exile." "Exile!" says the lady. think people are exiled when they come away from India." "I have never," said the old gentleman, " had a day's good health since I left India." A little chat followed about mangoes and mango-fish, punkahs and palanquins, white ants and cockroaches. I maintained, as I generally do on such occasions, that all the fruits of the tropics are 66 |