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AND POEMS

INCLUDING ESSAYS

FROM "THE EDINBURGH REVIEW'

LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME

AND

MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS

IN PROSE AND VERSE

BY

LORD MACAULAY

г

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION

By G. T. BETTANY, M.A.

WARD, LOCK, AND CO.
LONDON, NEW YORK, AND MELBOURNE.

1890.

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INTRODUCTION.

LORD MACAULAY.

ESSAYIST, POLITICIAN, AND HISTORIAN.

An honourable ancestry, association with men and women of high character from earliest youth, and a liberal education, make a man fit to play a distinguished part in life, impose upon him a heavy responsibility, and give him every advantage in starting. When to these are added natural powers of a high order, memory combined with originality, a sense of the picturesqe associated with indefatigable industry, a tendency to noble action with resolution in carrying out plans, we have a man who only needs adequate opportunity to leave an imperishable record behind him. Such a man the world recognizes in Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Macaulay's grandfather and great grandfather were worthy Scotch ministers. The grandfather, the Rev. John Macaulay, of Inverary, is chiefly known by the rude remarks of Dr. Johnson to him during his tour in the Hebrides, and by a very low estimate which he gave of his abilities. But this was of a piece with Johnson's well-known prejudice against Scotchmen. Despite Dr. Johnson, John Macaulay had a good record as a fluent and acceptable preacher. He had thirteen children, whom he trained in simple habits of living and sound ways of thinking. One son, Aulay, became an English clergyman, and introduced his friend, Mr. Thomas Babington, of Rothley Temple, in Leicestershire (where Macaulay was born), to his father's family. Mr. Babington fell in love with Miss Jean Macaulay, whom he married in 1787; and afterwards presented his brother-in-law to the living of Rothley. Another son of John Macaulay, Colin, became a general in the Indian army.

But the most vigorous nature among the Scotch clergyman's sons was that of Zachary Macaulay, the father of Lord Macaulay. He was born in 1768; he went in 1784 to Jamaica, as bookkeeper to an estate, of which he ere long became manager. We must recollect that this was at a time when men of undoubted philanthropy saw no unchristian taint in negro slavery, and we must not be surprised at John Macaulay allowing his son to be connected with a slave-owning firm.

Experience was destined to bring enlightenment to the young bookkeeper. With a genuine love for humanity, and keen observation, he soon became dismayed at the results of a system which allowed human beings to remain in ignorance, not only of common knowledge, but of the Christian religion.

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The cruelties practised on the slaves, the shameless immorality of which they were made the victims, gradually impressed themselves on his sensitive nature, and converted the shy boy into a brave opponent of evil. At last, at the age of four and twenty, he gave up his post and returned to England, against his father's wishes.

Such a man was a fit agent for the home emancipators-Granville Sharp, Wilberforce, and Thornton, then about to colonize Sierra Leone with freed slaves. By Thomas Babington's influence, Zachary Macaulay was, in 1793, appointed a member of the Sierra Leone Council, and soon after his arrival became Governor. We have not space to record the extreme difficulties which he successfully surmounted, the shameful destruction wrought upon the infant colony in 1794, the courageous efforts by which the distracted survivors were set on their feet once more. Finally, in 1785, Zachary returned to England invalided, was made acquainted with Hannah More, and introduced by her to Miss Selina Mills, to whom he was soon afterwards engaged. He returned to Sierra Leone in 1796, and held his appointment till 1799, when the settlement seemed on the high road to prosperity. Being made Secretary to the Sierra Leone Company in England, Zachary Macaulay married Miss Mills on August 26, 1799, and went to live in Lambeth.

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple, on October 25, 1800; but he was not destined to enjoy for long the delights of that country seat. His first two years were passed in Birchin Lane in the City; Drapers' Garden, behind Throgmorton Street, was his chief place of exercise, and long a favourite haunt of his. The next home of the Macaulays was a roomy house in the old High Street at Clapham.

Here Macaulay's tastes began to show themselves. From the age of three he read continually, often lying on a rug before the fire, with his book on the rug, and a piece of bread and butter in one hand. Again, he early learnt to invent stories of enormous length, or repeat what he had read in language strangely contrasting with his years. Hannah More describes him when four years old, as a fair, pretty, slight child, with abundance of light hair, who came to the front door to receive her, and told her that "his parents were out, but that if she would be good enough to come in he would bring her a glass of old spirits." A similar tinge of the ludicrous is met with in his reply to Lady Waldegrave at Strawberry Hill, when a servant had spilt some hot coffee over his legs, and she inquired how he was feeling: "Thank you, madam, the agony is abated." Still more amusing is his indignant denunciation of a servant who had thrown away some oyster shells which marked out a little piece of ground as his own. Before a number of drawingroom visitors, he marched in and declared: "Cursed be Sally; for it is written, Cursed is he that removeth his neighbour's landmark."

Little Tom Macaulay, having his own notions of spending his time profitably, went most unwillingly to a day-school kept by one Greaves at Clapham. At this time he was prolific in authorship, writing a compendium of Universal History at seven, as well as long poems and many hymns. And these were not only in thought beyond his years, but correctly spelt, in good grammar, and carefully punctuated, as all his after-work was.

It must not be imagined that the young prodigy was forced or stimulated by extravagant praise. In fact, he himself was never told or allowed to infer by his parents that he had talents beyond other children. Playfulness was

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