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THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY.

EW names are more familiar to the English reading public than that of Lord Macaulay, poet, essayist, and historian. His biography by his nephew, Mr. Trevelyan, shows a successful life, happy, industrious, and beneficent. Macaulay was descended from a line of Scotch parish ministers, his great-grandfather being minister of Tiree and Coll; his grand-uncle, of Ardnamurchan; his grandfather, John Macaulay, was successively the minister of Barra, South Uist, Inveraray, and Cardross. One of his uncles, becoming a clergyman in the Church of England, made the acquaintance of Mr. Thomas Babington, owner of Rotheley Temple, Leicestershire. He afterwards married one of Macaulay's aunts, and presented his brother-inlaw to the living of Rotheley. His father, Zachary Macaulay, born in 1768, had been sent out to Jamaica by a Scotch house of business as book-keeper on an estate, where he became sole manager. His close contact with and knowledge of the evils of negro slavery caused him to throw up his situation when he was four-and-twenty, from conscientious scruples, and return to his native country. He became the colleague of Granville Sharp, Wilberforce, and Thornton, as a

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slave abolitionist. For some time he resided at Sierra Leone, promoting various philanthropic objects; afterwards he became a thriving merchant, but neglecting his business in his overzeal as a reformer, he brought poverty on the family. He married Miss Mills, a Quakeress. Thomas Macaulay was born in the house of his aunt, Mrs. Babington, at Rotheley Temple, on 25th October 1800. While still very young, he remembered standing by his father's side looking out of the nursery window at a cloud of black smoke which was pouring out of a tall chimney, and asking if that were the mouth of hell. His early years were spent at Clapham, where his precocity and his command of language were equally remarkable. His childhood was quiet and happy, and from three years of age he read incessantly. His memory retained the bookish phraseology. Here are three anecdotes regarding this period:

His father took him on a visit to Lady Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill, and was much pleased to exhibit to his old friend the fair bright boy, dressed in a green coat with red collar and cuffs, a frill at the throat, and white trousers. A servant who was waiting upon the company in the great gallery spilt some hot coffee over his legs. The hostess was all kindness and compassion, and when, after a while, she asked how he was feeling, the little fellow looked up in her face, and replied, "Thank you, madam, the agony is abated."

'He had a little plot of ground at the back of the house, marked out as his own by a row of oyster-shells, which a maid one day threw away as rubbish. He went straight to the

drawing-room, where his mother was entertaining some visitors, walked into the circle, and said very solemnly, "Cursed be Sally; for it is written, Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour's landmark."

'Mrs. Macaulay explained to Tom that he must learn to study without the solace of bread and butter, to which he replied, "Yes, mamma, industry shall be my bread and attention my butter."

He went to school at first with extreme reluctance. In his eighth year he was a busy young author. He had prepared a compendium of universal history, written a paper to persuade the people of Travancore to embrace the Christian religion, and, fired with the perusal of Scott's Lay and Marmion, he commenced writing a poem in six cantos, to be called the Battle of Cheviot. Three cantos of this work only were finished. He had also composed several hymns. At a later date he wrote Fingal, a poem, in twelve books. Hannah More and her sister made a companion of him during his visits at Barley Wood, where he would read prose and declaim poetry by the hour to these worthy ladies. Till her death Hannah More was his admirer and friend. In 1812 the young historian, having outgrown his Clapham school, was sent to a private school at Little Shellford, near Cambridge.' He was not unpopular among his fellow-pupils, who regarded him with admiration, tempered with the compassion which his utter inability to play at any sort of game would have excited in every school, public or private alike.' Here he read widely, unceasingly, and rapidly, his powerful memory enabling him to take in almost at a glance the contents of a printed page. The letters he wrote at this time have a bookish tone. In the eyes of his sisters, who regarded him with passionate love and devotion, he could do no wrong, and they enjoyed his unruffled sweetness of temper, his unfailing flow of spirits, and his amusing talk. Strangers he cared little for, and while at home with his sisters working around him, he would read

aloud from a novel, or, by way of variety, they would take a walk together outside. Poetry and novels, unless when he was at home for the holidays, were forbidden in the daytime in the Macaulay family, and were referred to as 'drinking drams in the morning.' Zachary Macaulay entirely disapproved of novel reading; but the young people had their way, and became confirmed novel readers. While editor of the Christian Observer, an anonymous letter was inserted, which he afterwards discovered was written by his own son. This letter eulogized Fielding and Smollett, and drew down upon him the wrath of many of the contributors. Young Macaulay nevertheless continued to be reverent, devoted, and respectful towards his father, and eventually became the mainstay and support of the whole family.

Macaulay took up his residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1818. He was the author of two prize poems, was elected to the Craven scholarship in 1821, and became a Fellow of Trinity College in 1822. He detested the labour of manufacturing Greek and Latin verse, cared little for mathematics, and his advice to writers of Latin prose was, 'Soak your mind with Cicero.' He distinguished himself in debating, and began to take an interest in politics. He still continued to read novels, good, bad, and indifferent, and he would cry over the pathetic passages. His first public appearance as a speaker was at a meeting of the AntiSlavery Society in June 1824. The Duke of Gloucester was in the chair, and his speech was highly successful. His father made but one remark on the speech, to the effect that ‘it was ungraceful in so young a man to speak with folded arms in the presence of royalty.' Macaulay was called to the bar in 1826, and joined the northern circuit at Leeds, but he did

not look seriously upon the law as a profession, and he got little business either in London or on circuit. When Charles Knight started his Quarterly Magazine, Macaulay was one of its most reliable and attractive contributors. His father,

however, disapproved of the whole publication from beginning to end, and Macaulay withdrew his name for a time from the list of contributors. His father having withdrawn his objections after the issue of the second number, Macaulay continued to be a contributor until the premature death of the periodical. Macaulay's connection with the Edinburgh Review began in August 1825, with the publication of his article on Milton. Like Lord Byron, says his biographer, he awoke one morning and found himself famous. Murray, the London publisher, declared it would be worth the copyright of Childe Harold to have him on the staff of the Quarterly. His breakfast-table was covered with cards of invitation to dinner, while his father foresaw that the law would be less to him than it had ever previously been. Lord Jeffrey had some time before this shown himself anxious to secure fresh blood for the Edinburgh Review. Writing to a friend in London he said: 'Can you not lay your hands on some clever young man who would write for us? The original supporters of the work are getting old, and either too busy or too stupid, and here the young men are mostly Tories.' In acknowledging the receipt of Macaulay's manuscript, he said: "The more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that style.' In personal appearance, Praed's description of him in Knight's Quarterly Magazine is said to be correct: There came up a short, manly figure, marvellously upright, with a bad neckcloth, and one hand in his waistcoat pocket.' His wardrobe was always overstocked. Later in life he indulged in a succession