MACAULAY A POLITICIAN. 265 who allowed no new find of so brilliant feather to escape her. In Politics and Verse. Macaulay's alliance with the Scottish Reviewers, and his known liberalism, make him a pet of the great Whigs; and through Lansdowne, with a helping hand from Melbourne, he found his way into Parliament: there were those who prophesied his failure in that field; I think Brougham in those days, with not a little of jealousy in his make up, was disposed to count him a mere essayist. But his speeches in favor of the Reform bill belied all such auguries. Sir Robert Peel declared them to be wonderful in their grasp and eloquence; they certainly had great weight in furthering reform; and his parliamentary work won presently for him the offer from Government of a place in India. No Oriental glamour allured him, but the new position was worth £10,000 per annum. He counted of Speakers of the House of Commons and Fathers of the Church, said: "Well, Mr. Macaulay, can you tell us anything of dolls - when first named or used?" Macaulay was ready on the instant-dilated upon Roman dolls and others citing Persius," Veneri donato a virgine puppæ." upon saving the half of this, and returning after five years with a moderate fortune. He did better, however shortening his period of exile by nearly a twelve-month, and bringing back £30,000. His sister (who later became Lady Trevelyan) went with him as the mistress of his Calcutta household; and his affectionate and most tender relations with this, as well as with his younger sister, are beautifully set forth in the charming biography by his nephew, Otto Trevelyan. It is a biography that everybody should read; and none can read it, I am sure, without coming to a kindlier estimate of its subject. The home-letters with which it abounds run over with affectionate playfulness. We are brought to no ugly post mortem in the book, and no opening of old sores. It is modest, courteous, discreet, and full. Macaulay did monumental work in India upon the Penal Code. He also kept up there his voracious habits of reading and study. Listen for a moment to his story of this: "During the last thirteen months I have read Eschylus, twice; Sophocles, twice; Euripides, once; Pindar, twice; Callimachus, Apollonius Rhodius, Theocritus, twice; Herodo LAYS OF rome. 267 tus, Thucydides, almost all of Xenophon's works, almost all of Plato, Aristotle's Politics, and a good deal of his Organon ; the whole of Plutarch's Lives; half of Lucian; two or three books of Athenæus; Plautus, twice; Terence, twice; Lucretius, twice; Catullus, Propertius, Lucan, Statius, Silius Italicus, Livy, Velleius Paterculus, Sallust, Cæsar, and lastly, Cicero." This is his classical list. Of his modern reading he does not tell; yet he was plotting the History of England, and the bouncing balladry of the Lays of Rome was even then taking shape in the intervals of his study. His father died while Macaulay was upon his voyage home from India- a father wholly unlike the son, in his rigidities and his Calvinistic asperities; but always venerated by him, and in the latter years of the old gentleman's life treated with a noble and beautiful generosity. A short visit to Italy was made after the return from India; and it was in Rome itself that he put some of the last touches to the Lays staying the work until he could confirm by personal observation the relative sites of the bridge across the Tiber and the home of Horatius upon the Palatine. You remember the words perhaps; if not, 'twere well you should, 'Alone stood brave Horatius, But constant still in mind; 'Down with him!' cried false Sextus, With a smile on his pale face. Round turned he, as not deigning But he saw on Palatinus The white porch of his home; And he spake to the noble river That rolls by the towers of Rome. 'Oh, Tiber, father Tiber! To whom the Romans pray, A Roman's life, a Roman's arms, Plunged headlong in the tide." This does not sound like those verses of Shelley, which we lately encountered. Those went through of LAYS OF Rome. 269 the empyrean song like Aurora's chariot of the morning, with cherubs, and garlands, and flashing torches. This, in the comparison, is like some well-appointed dump-cart, with sleek, wellgroomed Percheron horses-up to their work, and accomplishing what they are set to do absolutely well. It was not until 1842, a year or two after the Italian visit, that Macaulay ventured to publish that solitary book of his verse; he very much doubted the wisdom of putting his literary reputation in peril by such overture in rhyme. It extorted, however, extravagant praise from that muscular critic Christopher North; while the fastidious Hunt writes to him (begging a little money—as was his wont), and regretting that the book did not show more of the poetic aroma which breathes from the Faerie Queene. But say what we may of its lack there is no weakly maundering; it is the work of a man fullgrown, with all his wits active, and his vision clear, and who loved plain sirloins better than the fricandeaux and ragoûts of the artists. There is also a scholarly handling, with high, |