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prizes; contributed to Knight's Quarterly Magazine, his earliest articles attracting general attention. In 1824 he wrote his first essay (on "Milton ") for the Edinburgh Review; in 1828 was made "Commissioner of Bankruptcy;" in 1830 entered the lower house of Parliament; in 1833 was appointed member of "the Supreme Council of India; in 1834 sailed for India; in 1835 became "President of the Committee of Public Instruction," and then " President of the Law Commission," in which position he framed a criminal code for the whole Indian Empire; in 1838 returned to England; in 1840 was appointed "War Secretary;" in 1842 wrote the "Lays of Ancient Rome;" in 1843 published three volumes of his "Essays;" in 1846, under the premiership of Lord John Russell, was made "Paymaster of the General Forces, with a seat in the Cabinet; in 1847 lost his membership in Parliament; in 1848 published volumes one and two of his "History of England from the Accession of James Second; in 1849 was elected" Lord-Rector of the University of Glasgow;" in 1850 was appointed to the honorary office of "Professor of Ancient History" in the Royal Academy; in 1853 received the "Prussian Order of Merit; in 1852 was returned to Parliament from Edinburgh; in 1855 pub: lished volumes three and four of his "History;" in

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1856 was raised to the peerage as "Baron Macaulay of Rothley," concerning which he says, "It was necessary for me to choose a title off-hand. I determined to be Baron Macaulay of Rothley. I was born there; I lived much there; I am named from the family which long had the manor; my uncle was rector there; nobody can complain from my taking a designation from a village which is nobody's property now." Lord Macaulay died Dec. 28, 1859, and was buried in "the Poets' Corner Westminster Abbey, Jan. 9, 1860. "He rests with peers in Poets' west wall of the south transept. tombs of Johnson and Garrick and Handel and Goldsmith and Gay, stands conspicuous the statue of Addison; and at the feet of Addison lies the stone which bears this inscription: THOMAS BABINGTON, LORD MACAULAY, BORN AT ROTHLEY TEMPLE, LEICESTERSHIRE, Oct. 25, 1800; DIED AT HOLLY LODGE, CAMPden Hall, Dec. 28, 1859. HIS BODY IS BURIED IN PEACE, BUT HIS NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE.' And Dean Stanley, in his "Memorials of Westminster Abbey," writes, "There lies the brilliant poet and historian, who, perhaps, of all who have trod the floor of the Abbey, or lie buried within its precincts, most deeply knew and felt its manifold interests, and most incisively com

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memorated them.

Lord Macaulay rests at the feet

of the statue of Addison, whose character and genius none had painted as he, and who carried with him to his grave the story of the reign of Queen Anne, which none but he could adequately tell.

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Lord Brougham had said when Tom Macaulay was a little fellow, "A prodigy of a boy there." stories of his precocity are sources of amusement and wonder. The largest promises of his juvenile years were amply fulfilled to the last. Professor Ranke called him "the incomparable man." One of his biographers says, "His narrative power among historians is quite unapproached, and on a level with that of the greatest masters of prose fiction. He was the best story-teller that ever lived." He was a master in the art of winning and retaining attention; clear as crystal; full of suggestiveness; never for one moment dull; possessing to its highest degree the power of illustration; drawing at will from inexhaustible resources of knowledge. In the Greville memoirs the statement is made, that Macaulay had "displayed feats of memory to be unequalled by any human being. He can repeat all of Demosthenes by heart, and all Milton, a great part of the Bible, both in English and (New Testament) in Greek: besides this, his memory retains passages innumerable of every description of books, which in discussion he

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no Greek book of any note which he has not read over and over again: in the Bible he takes great delight, and there are few better biblical scholars. . . . He pours forth stores of learning, opinion, precept, example, anecdote, and illustration, with a familiarity and facility not less astonishing than delightful: he writes as if he had lived in the times and among the people whose actions and characters he records and delineates."

Sidney Smith, who met him at Holland Hall, says of Macaulay, "There are no limits to his knowledge on small subjects, as well as great: he is like a book in breeches." Sidney acknowledged, that, after Macaulay's return from India, he was more agreeable than before he went. "His enemies," added Sidney, "might, perhaps, have said before (though I never did so) that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

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Macaulay lacked thorough sympathy with human nature, on its spiritual and affectional side. One of his biographers says, "He almost lacked the stronger passions. He was benevolent, but unsympathetic." He had constitutional steadiness and uprightness of character, was self-contained, prudent, cautious, and honorable. His egotism, not

of an offensive type, was colossal. Greville, while conceding his "most extraordinary power" and "astonishing knowledge," adds, "but he is not

agreeable. His face, voice, and manner are all bad; he sees and instructs; he sometimes entertains, seldom amuses, and still seldomer pleases. . . . He is short, fat, and ungraceful, with a round, thick, unmeaning face, with rather a lisp." Thomas Carlyle gives frank and gruff expression, after his own bearlike manner, to his dislike for Macaulay. He records in his journal for March 14, 1848, “Friday last at Lord Mahon's for breakfast. A Niagara of eloquent, common-place talk from Macaulay. . . . All that was in him, now gone to the tongue; a squat, thickset, low-browed, short, grizzled, little man of fifty. These be thy gods, O Israel!"

This is a compact summary of the life, work, and character of Lord Macaulay, compiled from many sources, and offered as a brief introductory chapter to the splendid English classic, now published anew for the readers of the C.L.S.C.

PLAINFIELD, N.J., June 18, 1886.

J. H. VINCENT.

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