Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, vol 1 by George Otto Trevelyan (reading the story of the TXT) 📕

“I was amused with a parody of Tom’s on the nursery song ‘Twenty pounds shall marry me,’ as applied to the creation of Peers.

What though now opposed I be?

Twenty Peers shall carry me.

If twenty won’t, thirty will,

For I’m his Majesty’s bouncing Bill.

Sir Robert Peel has been extremely complimentary to him. One sentence he repeated to us: ‘My only feeling towards that gentleman is a not ungenerous envy, as I listened to that wonderful flow of natural and beautiful language, and to that utterance which, rapid as it is, seems scarcely able to convey its rich freight of thought and fancy!’ People say that these words were evidently carefully prepared.

“I have just been looking round our little drawing-room, as if trying to impress every inch of it on my memory, and thinking how in future years it will rise before my mind as the scene of many hours of light-hearted mirth; how I shall again see him, lolling indolently on the old blue sofa, or strolling round the narrow confines of our room. With such a scene will come the remembrance of his beaming countenance, happy affectionate smile, and joyous laugh; while, with everyone at ease around him, he poured out the stores of his full mind in his own peculiarly beautiful and expressive language, more delightful here than anywhere else, because more perfectly unconstrained. The name which passes through this little room in the quiet, gentle tones of sisterly affection is a name which will be repeated through distant generations, and go down to posterity linked with eventful times and great deeds.”

The last words here quoted will be very generally regarded as the tribute of a sister’s fondness. Many, who readily admit that Macaulay’s name will go down to posterity linked with eventful times and great deeds, make that admission with reference to times not his own, and deeds in which he had no part except to commemorate them with his pen. To him, as to others, a great reputation of a special order brought with it the consequence that the credit, which he deserved for what he had done well, was overshadowed by the renown of what he did best. The world, which has forgotten that Newton excelled as an administrator, and Voltaire as a man of business, remembers somewhat faintly that Macaulay was an eminent orator and, for a time at least, a strenuous politician. The universal voice of his contemporaries, during the first three years of his parliamentary career, testifies to the leading part which he played in the House of Commons, so long as with all his heart he cared, and with all his might he tried, to play it. Jeffrey, (for it is well to adduce none but first-rate evidence,) says in his account of an evening’s discussion on the second reading of the Reform Bill: “Not a very striking debate. There was but one exception, and it was a brilliant one. I mean Macaulay, who surpassed his former appearance in closeness, fire, and vigour, and very much improved the effect of it by a more steady and graceful delivery. It was prodigiously cheered, as it deserved, and I think puts him clearly at the head of the great speakers, if not the debaters, of the House.” And again, on the 17th of December: “Macaulay made, I think, the best speech he has yet delivered; the most condensed, at least, and with the greatest weight of matter. It contained, indeed, the only argument to which any of the speakers who followed him applied themselves.” Lord Cockburn, who sat under the gallery for twenty-seven hours during the last three nights of the Bill, pronounced Macaulay’s speech to have been “by far the best;” though, like a good Scotchman, he asserts that he heard nothing at Westminster which could compare with Dr.

Chalmers in the General Assembly. Sir James Mackintosh writes from the Library of the House of Commons: “Macaulay and Stanley have made two of the finest speeches ever spoken in Parliament;”

and a little further on he classes together the two young orators as “the chiefs of the next, or rather of this, generation.”

To gain and keep the position that Mackintosh assigned him Macaulay possessed the power, and in early days did not lack the will. He was prominent on the Parliamentary stage, and active behind the scenes;—the soul of every honourable project which might promote the triumph of his principles, and the ascendency of his party. One among many passages in his correspondence may be quoted without a very serious breach of ancient and time-worn confidences. On the 17th of September, 1831, he writes to his sister Hannah: “I have been very busy since I wrote last, moving heaven and earth to render it certain that, if our ministers are so foolish as to resign in the event of a defeat in the Lords, the Commons may be firm and united; and I think that I have arranged a plan which will secure a bold and instant declaration on our part, if necessary. Lord Ebrington is the man whom I have in my eye as our leader. I have had much conversation with him, and with several of our leading county members. They are all staunch; and I will answer for this,—that, if the ministers should throw us over, we will be ready to defend ourselves.”

The combination of public spirit, political instinct, and legitimate self-assertion, which was conspicuous in Macaulay’s character, pointed him out to some whose judgment had been trained by long experience of affairs as a more than possible leader in no remote future; and it is not for his biographer to deny that they had grounds for their conclusion. The prudence, the energy, the self-reliance, which he displayed in another field, might have been successfully directed to the conduct of an executive policy, and the management of a popular assembly.

Macaulay never showed himself deficient in the qualities which enable a man to trust his own sense; to feel responsibility, but not to fear it; to venture where others shrink; to decide while others waver; with all else that belongs to the vocation of a ruler in a free country. But it was not his fate; it was not his work; and the rank which he might have claimed among the statesmen of Britain was not ill exchanged for the place which he occupies in the literature of the world.

To Macvey Napier, Esq.

York: March 22, 1830.

My dear Sir,—I was in some doubt as to what I should be able to do for Number 101, and I deferred writing till I could make up my mind. If my friend Ellis’s article on Greek History, of which I have formed high expectations, could have been ready, I should have taken a holiday. But, as there is no chance of that for the next number, I ought, I think, to consider myself as his bail, and to surrender myself to your disposal in his stead.

I have been thinking of a subject, light and trifling enough, but perhaps not the worse for our purpose on that account. We seldom want a sufficient quantity of heavy matter. There is a wretched poetaster of the name of Robert Montgomery who has written some volumes of detestable verses on religious subjects, which by mere puffing in magazines and newspapers have had an immense sale, and some of which are now in their tenth or twelfth editions. I have for some time past thought that the trick of puffing, as it is now practised both by authors and publishers, is likely to degrade the literary character, and to deprave the public taste, in a frightful degree. I really think that we ought to try what effect satire will have upon this nuisance, and I doubt whether we can ever find a better opportunity.

Yours very faithfully

T. B. MACAULAY.

To Macvey Napier, Esq.

London: August 19, 1830.

My dear Sir,—The new number appeared this morning in the shop windows. The article on Niebuhr contains much that is very sensible; but it is not such an article as so noble a subject required. I am not like Ellis, Niebuhr-mad; and I agree with many of the remarks which the reviewer has made both on this work, and on the school of German critics and historians. But surely the reviewer ought to have given an account of the system of exposition which Niebuhr has adopted, and of the theory which he advances respecting the Institutions of Rome. The appearance of the book is really an era in the intellectual history of Europe, and I think that the Edinburgh Review ought at least to have given a luminous abstract of it. The very circumstance that Niebuhr’s own arrangement and style are obscure, and that his translators have need of translators to make them intelligible to the multitude, rendered it more desirable that a clear and neat statement of the points in controversy should be laid before the public. But it is useless to talk of what cannot be mended. The best editors cannot always have good writers, and the best writers cannot always write their best.

I have no notion on what ground Brougham imagines that I am going to review his speech. He never said a word to me on the subject.

Nor did I ever say either to him, or to anyone else, a single syllable to that effect. At all events I shall not make Brougham’s speech my text. We have had quite enough of puffing and flattering each other in the Review. It is a vile taste for men united in one literary undertaking to exchange their favours.

I have a plan of which I wish to know your opinion. In ten days, or thereabouts, I set off for France, where I hope to pass six weeks. I shall be in the best society, that of the Duc de Broglie, Guizot, and so on. I think of writing an article on the Politics of France since the Restoration, with characters of the principal public men, and a parallel between the present state of France and that of England. I think that this might be made an article of extraordinary interest. I do not say that I could make it so. It must, you will perceive, be a long paper, however concise I may try to be; but as the subject is important, and I am not generally diffuse, you must not stint me. If you like this scheme, let me know as soon as possible.

Ever yours truly

T. B. MACAULAY.

It cannot be denied that there was some ground for the imputation of systematic puffing which Macaulay urges with a freedom that a modern editor would hardly permit to the most valued contributor.

Brougham had made a speech on Slavery in the House of Commons; but time was wanting to get the Corrected Report published soon enough for him to obtain his tribute of praise in the body of the Review. The unhappy Mr. Napier was actually reduced to append a notice to the July number regretting that “this powerful speech, which, as we are well informed, produced an impression on those who heard it not likely to be forgotten, or to remain barren of effects,