reader will observe the same characteristics which have marked his writings.

"We talk of the wisdom of our ancestors-and in one respect, at least, they were wiser than we. They legislated for their own times. They looked at the England which was before them. They did not think it necessary to give twice as many members to York as they gave to London, because York had been the capital of England in the time of Constantius Chlorus. And they would have been amazed indeed, if they had foreseen, that a city of more than a hundred thousand inhabitants would be left without representatives in the nineteenth century, merely because it stood on ground which, in the thirteenth century, had been occupied by a few huts. They framed a representative system, which was not, indeed, without defects and irregularities, but which was well adapted to the state of England in their time. But a great revolution took place. The character of the old corporations changed; new forms of property came into existence,-new portions of society rose into importance. There were in our rural districts rich cultivators who were not freeholders. There were in our capital rich traders, who were not liverymen. Towns shrank into villages. Villages swelled into cities larger than the London of the Plantagenets. Unhappily, while the natural growth of society went on, the artificial polity continued unchanged. The ancient form of representation remained, and precisely because the form remained, the spirit departed. Then came that pressure almost to bursting-the new wine in the old bottles-the new people under the old institutions. It is now time for us to pay a decent, a rational, a manly reverence to our ancestors,-not by superstitiously adhering to what they, under other circumstances, did,- but by doing what they, in our circumstances, would have done. All history is full of revolutions, produced by causes similar to those which are now operating in England. A portion of the community, which had been of no account, expands and becomes strong. It demands a place in the system, suited, not to its former weakness, but to its present power. If this is granted, all is well. If this is refused, then comes the struggle between the young energy of one class, and the ancient privileges of another. Such was the struggle between the plebeians and the patricians of Rome! Such was the struggle of the Italian allies for admission to the full rights of Roman citizens. Such was the struggle of our North American colonists against the mother country. Such was the struggle which the Tiers Etat of France maintained against the aristocracy of birth. Such was the struggle which the catholics of Ireland maintained against the aristocracy of creed. Such is the struggle which the free people of colour in Jamaica are now maintaining against the aristocracy of skin. Such, finally, is the struggle which the middle classes in England are maintaining against the aristocracy of mere locality; against the aristocracy, the principle of which is, to invest one hundred drunken pot-wallopers in one place, or the owner of a ruined hovel in another, with powers which are withheld from cities renowned to the furthest ends of the earth, for the marvels of their wealth, and of their industry."

"My hon. friend, the member for the University of Oxford, tells us, that if we pass this law England will soon be a republic. The reformed House of Commons will, according to him, before it has sat ten years,

depose the king, and expel the lords from their house. Sir, if my hou. friend could prove this, he would have succeeded in bringing an argument for democracy, infinitely stronger than any that is to be found in the works of Paine. His proposition is, in fact, this,—that our monarchical and aristocratical institutions have no hold on the public mind of England; that those institutions are regarded with aversion by a decided majority of the middle class. This, sir, I say, is plainly deducible from his proposition; for he tells us that the representatives of the middle class will inevitably abolish royalty and nobility within ten years; and there is surely no reason to think that the representatives of the middle class will be more inclined to a democratic revolution than their constituents. Now, sir, if I were convinced that the great body of the middle class in England look with aversion on monarchy and aristocracy, I should be forced, much against my will, to come to this conclusion, that monarchical and aristocratical institutions are unsuited to this country. Monarchy and aristocracy, valuable and useful as I think them, are still valuable and useful as means, and not as ends. The end of government is the happiness of the people; and I do not conceive that, in a country like this, the happiness of the people can be promoted by a form of government in which the middle classes place no confidence, and which exists only because the middle have no organ by which to make their sentiments known."

He was equally conspicuous by the fearlessness and brilliancy of his oratory in support of the second Reform Bill, in the next session. Perhaps his sense of the perilous excitement of that crisis can best be expressed by quoting a passage from one of his essays, where he is evidently referring to the reform agitation of 1831-32.

"There are terrible conjunctures when the discontents of a nation, not light and capricious discontents, but discontents that have been steadily increasing during a long series of years have attained their full maturity. The discerning few predict the approach of these conjunctures, but predict in vain. To the many the evil season comes as a total eclipse of the sun at noon comes to a people of savages. Society, which but a short time before was in a state of perfect repose, is on a sudden agitated with the most fearful convulsions, and seems to be on the verge of dissolution; and the rulers who, till the mischief was beyond the reach of all ordinary remedies, had never bestowed one thought on its existence, stand bewildered and panic-stricken, without hope or resource, in the midst of the confusion. One such conjuncture this generation has seen. God grant that we may never see another!"

When the Reform Bill was carried, Mr. Macaulay shared in the full harvest of popularity which, for a time, was enjoyed by the Whigs. He was chosen by the populous and important town of Leeds to be one of its representatives in the parliament of 1833, but, fortunately for him, he was now withdrawn for a time from the great arena of English politics, in consequence of his accepting an important appointment in India.

By the act which renewed the East India Company's charter in 1833, a commission was appointed to inquire into and amend the laws of that country, and Mr. Macaulay was placed at its head. His career in India was honourably marked by earnest and enlightened industry; and in particular he deserves high credit for the independence and courage which he displayed respecting one of the reforms which he introduced.

We allude to the celebrated XIth Article of the Legislative Council, which placed all the subjects of the British crown in India on a footing of equality in the eye of the law, without respect to their being of European or of Asiatic birth. The exasperated Anglo-Indians called this the Black Act; and loud and long were the protests and complaints transmitted to England against this levelling of the dominant race with the native population in the administration of justice. Mr. Macaulay was unmoved by either clamour or obloquy. And he replied to the attacks of his numerous foes by a state paper, which is justly regarded as one of the ablest of the many able documents which have appeared from Indian officials.

We have said that Mr. Macaulay's Indian appointment was a fortunate event for him; and we meant to style it so, not merely on account of its lucrative character, but because it saved Mr. Macaulay from sharing in the decline and fall of Whig popularity, which took place during the five years that followed the passing of the Reform Bill. Mr. Macaulay only returned from India in time to participate in some of the final struggles of Lord Melbourne's Ministry. In 1839 he joined the cabinet as secretary at war, and made several vigorous oratorical charges against the powerful enemy that was pressing hard on the retreating Whigs. In particular, his speech on the 29th of January, 1840, in the debate on the vote of want of confidence in the Ministry, was marked with all his fire; and the passage of it in which he reminded his then adversary, Sir James Graham, of their former joint triumphs during the reform struggle, is one of the finest that he ever uttered. After the accession of Sir Robert Peel to office, Mr. Macaulay was one of the most effective speakers on the opposition side of the House; but he did not suffer party spirit to lead him into blind and indiscriminating animosity against the victorious rivals of his Whig friends; and his conduct on one memorable occasion during this period is deserving of the highest honour. We allude to his speech in favour of the increased grant to Maynooth, when proposed by the Peel ministry in 1845. Of course we are passing no opinion of our own as to the policy or impolicy of Maynooth endowments. We merely say that Mr. Macaulay, being conscientiously convinced that such an endowment was proper, acted most honourably in supporting it; though he knew that the people of Edinburgh (which city he then represented in the House) were fanatically opposed to it, though it was brought forward by the men who had bitterly reviled Mr. Macaulay's own party for favouring the Irish Catholics, and though there was a tempting opportunity for revenge, by combining with the ultra-Protestants headed by Sir Robert Inglis in the house, so as to leave the ministry in a minority.

Mr. Macaulay took little part in the Corn-Law debates. He had spoken in 1842, on Mr. Villiers' motion in favour of the principle of Free Trade, but against any sudden withdrawal of the protection, which the agricultural interest had so long enjoyed. He refused to countenance the agitation of the Anti-Corn-Law League; and probably this increased the disfavour which his Maynooth speech had already procured for him with his Edinburgh constituents.

He lost his election in 1846; an event which, however much we may admire him as a statesman, we can hardly regret, inasmuch as it obtained for him the leisure requisite for the composition of his Opus Magnum, his History of England.

Before, however, we speak of this we must remind our readers of the glorious "Lays of Ancient Rome," which Mr. Macaulay gave the world in 1842, while still keenly bent on his parliamentary career. This book interested the scholar by the magnificent illustration which it gave of the intrinsic probability of Niebuhr's theory as to the origin of the current early history of Rome. It gratified and served the historian by its admirable introductory comments; and by its interspersed epitomes of some of the most stirring crises in the fortunes of the great Republic. But, above all, it has delighted hundreds of thousands, who were neither scholars nor historians, by the glowing spirit of true poetry which animates it in every line.

These "Lays" show in meridian fulness the powers of Objectivity, of which the early ballads of Mr. Macaulay gave promise. The rush of heady combat, the mustering, the march, the chivalrous aspects, the picturesque garbs, and the bold gestures and words, and bolder deeds of warriors are brought with Homeric expressiveness before us. The descriptions of scenery also, are beautifully given. But Mr. Macaulay shows little Subjective power. He is comparatively weak, when he introduces single characters expressing their passions and feelings in the present tense and first person. This is particularly apparent in the Third Lay, which tells of Virginius,

"Who wrote his daughter's honour in her blood,"

to adopt the noble line in which Mr. Warren, in his "Lily and Bee,” sums up that far-famed legend.

Mr. Macaulay's retirement from Parliament secured for him those two years of lettered ease, without which, as he rightly considered, no man can do justice to himself or the public as a writer of history.* The first fruits of that leisure were the first two volumes of his "History of England," which appeared in the autumn of 1848. We trust that many more are destined to follow. It would be unwarrantable in us to criticise the portion we possess, with such scant space at our command as the conclusion of this memoir can afford. The public of England and America have pronounced a verdict of enthusiastic approbation, to which individual critics could add little weight, and from which (even if we were so minded) we could detract still less. If we were to express a wish as to any change in the fashion of the work, it would be that passages of repose should be more frequently introduced. A history ought not to be a continuous excitement.

Upon Mr. Macaulay's features, as represented in the accompanying portrait

"The seal of Middle Age Hath scarce been set,"

and we hope that a long career of active glory is still before him. But even if he were doomed to rest upon his present intellectual achievements, his name would rank among the highest of the nineteenth century. His works are read and admired wherever the Anglo-Saxon race has spread over the Old World and the New, and their fame will last as long as the language of that race endures.

* See his advice to Sir James Stephens, cited in the preface to that gentleman's Lecture on French History."

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE COUNT DE MIRABEAU WITH THE COUNT DE LA MARCK.

"THE influence which the Queen is said to have exercised in directing the King's choice of his Ministers is altogether imaginary; I have it in my power to prove, that this charge also was quite without foundation, except in one instance, which I have before mentioned, when she exerted herself on behalf of the Marquis de Ségur. Far from desiring to mix herself up in state affairs, she manifested a strong distaste to anything like important business; in this respect, perhaps, she only exhibits what is natural to the character of a woman's mind. I have not the slightest hesitation, therefore, in declaring, that all that has been said on this subject is utterly false, as well as concerning the part which the Abbé de Vermont is stated to have taken with regard to the relations of France with Austria; besides, in the cases which I have already enumerated, and which were of little importance.

"I here take the opportunity of mentioning some facts in support of my opinion, and shall begin with one which first suggests itself to my memory, though it occurred after others which I shall subsequently relate. When M. Necker was dismissed from office the first time, I happened to be at Brussels, as well as the Emperor Joseph; I saw him almost every day, and he seemed to take pleasure in conversing with me about France and the Queen; it was from him that I heard of M. Necker's dismissal, for he had just received the news in a letter from his sister. He spoke in the warmest terms of this Minister, and of the talents with which he considered him endowed, and seriously blamed the King for dismissing him. He remarked, that the Queen was also very much vexed at this step; she wrote to me,' he added, 'to assure me that she had nothing to do with this change of Ministry. But I must proceed to mention some other facts.

"At the death of Louis the Fifteenth, the Court of Vienna was very anxious that the Duc de Choiseul should be placed at the head of the new King's Ministry. He had ever shown himself the most zealous upholder of the Treaty of 1756, that is to say, of the close alliance between France and Austria. The most explicit and urgent instructions were therefore dispatched to the Count de Mercy on the subject, and he readily found an instrument for his purpose, in the Abbé de Vermont, who was devoted to M. de Choiseul; for, as I have previously observed, he was partly indebted to him for the post he had obtained at Vienna. The Choiseul party, which was exceedingly numerous, did not either remain inactive; its members lost no opportunity in endeavouring to interest the Queen in M. de Choiseul's nomination to the Ministry. They even went so far as to say that it was to them she owed the successful issue of the negotiation for her marriage, as if the Archduchess was not at that period, the most fitting match for the Dauphin, and as if there had been a better choice left for him! But M. de Choiseul, and his party, were not very scrupulous about the means they employed; they sought only to turn everything they could to their own advantage.