society following a revolution. Mr. Macaulay's position, too, is of importance, not merely as regards the past, but also with a view to the future. Events seem pointing to a period when the aristocratic influence will be exercised less directly and generally over the representative system and in the legislature. If it is ever destined to be superseded by the commercial or even the popular influence, how desirable it is that constituencies so tending should choose for their representatives not the mere pledged advocates of rival "interests, or those coarser demagogues who live by pampering the worst appetites of the partially instructed, but men of well-trained minds, initiated in the business of government, and far surpassing their accidental competitors in those external arts and graces of the political adventurer, for which, strange to say, the least educated audiences display the keenest relish, while, by so doing, they mark their own just appreciation. The success achieved by Mr. Macaulay-more remarkable and significant that it was in opposition to the prejudices and remonstrances of some of the older members of the Whig party, opens the door to a new and an increasing class of public men, who would devote themselves to politics as the business of their lives, as others give themselves up to science or to the regular professions, who, from the very nature and origin of their influence would find favour with popular constituencies, anxious as were the aristocrats under the old system to secure talented and welltrained exponents of their wishes and opinions, so that they might become a real and active power in the state, and not merely puppets in the hands of intriguing and ambitious statesmen. It is a significant fact, as connected with this theory, that Mr. Macaulay should be the representative of the second metropolitan constituency in the empire.

The character of Mr. Macaulay's mind, as developed in his various speeches and acknowledged writings, eminently qualified him for the part he has already taken in the political history of his time, and that which he seems destined still to act. It is obvious that a man whom, speaking relatively, one may, without offence,

call an adventurer a title which it will be seen is not in his case meant as a reproach, but rather as by comparison an honour-it is obvious that such a man must have some very peculiar qualities of mind, so to have overcome or disarmed the most jealous aristocratic prejudices, at the same time that he has made his country, and at least the literary world in general, ring with his name; while his conduct as a politician has by no means been characterised by that caution and dissimulation which sometimes carry a man safely through the difficulties of political warfare, till the hour has come when he conceives he may safely declare his real sentiments, and stand forth to the world the true man he is. Mr. Macaulay has, almost from the outset of his public life, boldly avowed the most extreme opinions ever countenanced even in the most desperate manœuvres of faction, by the heads of his party. By the side of landholders and men whose standing depends on elective influence, he has declared himself the open advocate of the ballot. He was always a-head of his party on the Corn-laws; on all the other great popular questions with which, from time to time, they have tampered. Yet, be it ever remembered, as his political position was not created by, or dependent on, mob influence, but rather on the favour of those who were socially, though not intellectually, his superiors, he risked every thing by this frankness. He might have played a safer, but not so bold or glorious a game, if he were not far above the political meanness of disguising his opinions.

There is a fine spirit of philosophical statesmanship animating all the political thinking of Mr. Macaulay, which guides him safely in those dangerous tracks to which he is led by his intellectual propensities. His mind has been trained in the old forms, and in its full strength it does not repudiate them. In this respect he is more to be relied on as a politician by the cautious, than even the most obstinate adherent of the status quo; who, in most cases, gives a strength to the opinions he affects to shun, and stings to fresh energy opponents he pretends to despise. Mr. Macaulay neither shuns nor despises.

He is not to be deterred by warnings derived from the past, or predictions of evil in the future. He grapples with every proposition that comes in his way, meeting it fairly on its own ground. No fear of explosion withholds him from applying his intellectual test to the new element, or from appropriating it to the purposes of political science, if its properties or its facility of combination make it a desirable ally. A new opinion, or a new movement originating in opinion, is either discarded, crushed, disposed of at once, or it is now and for ever incorporated in the system he has raised for himself, and which he is always adding to, cementing, strengthening, never weakening or undermining. He looks at the present and the future with the light of the past. However prospective his purposes may be, his mind is retrospective in its organisation, and in the intellectual aliment on which it has fed with the most appropriating avidity. However new may be his propositions or his views, they are never crude. If he sometimes appears to question, and, by questioning, to undermine and destroy the most cherished and universally admitted principles, the chances are that he does it only to divorce them from fallacies which tend to weaken their efficacy. He separates the sound from the unsound, in order to unite it again to fresh and undecayed materials. He is a great reconciler of the new with the old. It is his delight to give new interpretations to old laws and forms of thought; and, by so doing, to restore their original integrity. With all his brilliancy, although it is one of his distinguishing traits to touch the most grave and important topics in that light and graceful spirit which has made him the most popular essayist of his time; notwithstanding that in his writings, and even in his speeches on congenial themes, he seems led captive by his imagination to an extent that might make the common dull herd fear to yield themselves to his guidance, there is not among the politicians of the day a more thoroughly practical man than Mr. Macaulay. Although he may adorn a subject with the lights afforded by his rare genius, he never trifles with it. The graceful flowers have strong props and

VOL. XXXII. NO, CXCIII,

stems beneath, to bear them up against rough weather. His historical research renders him a living link with the old and uncorrupted constitution of the country. He can bring, most unexpectedly, old sanctions to the newest ideas. Thus to ally the present with the past, is the valuable instinct of his mind. It operates insensibly as a great guarantee with others not so quick and capable. It is also a living and active principle, the operation of which may be most beneficial in contemporary politics. By it antiquity conquers and absorbs novelty, which again reanimates the old. If the spirit of inquiry, or of innovation, or of change, or of indomitable English common-sense, suddenly breaks away the legislative barriers behind which an established system of political things has entrenched itself, it is a great source of confidence to those alarmed at defeat as well as those perhaps equally alarmed at success, to know that the invading is in reality older than the invaded; that what is supposed to be a revolution is, in truth, a restoration of something better than that which was swept away. Mr. Macaulay looks at political questions in this reconstructive spirit, and hence the favour with which he is regarded by his aristocratic allies. He has all the boldness, vigour, and originality which democratic opinions inspire, without that levelling spirit which makes them odious and dangerous.

It is this philosophic and statesmanlike tone which gives the speeches of Mr. Macaulay their real interest and value. The more grave and important considerations which it educes from the political events of the hour are admirably intermingled and interwoven with them, so as to do away altogether with the appearance of pedantry and dry historical disquisition on the one hand, or of vague and useless political theory on the other. There is no speaker now before the public who so readily and usefully, and with so little appearance of effort, infuses the results of very extensive reading and very deep research into the common, every-day business of parliament. But his learning never tyrannises over his common sense. If he has a parallel ready for almost every great character or great

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event, or an instance or a dictum from some acknowledged authority, his own reason does not, therefore, bow with implicit deference, making the one case a rule for all time. His speeches on the Reform - bill, more especially that on the third reading, were remarkable evidences of the skill and readiness with which he could bring historical instances to bear upon immediate political events, without being at all embarrassed by the precedents. His mind appears so admirably organised, his stores of memory so well filled and so instantaneously at hand, that the right idea or the most happy illustration seems to spring up at exactly the right moment; and the train of thinking thus aroused is dismissed again with equal ease, leaving him at liberty to pursue the general tenor of his argument. There is very great symmetry in his speeches. The subject is admirably handled for the purpose of instructing, delighting, or arousing; and learning, illustration, invective, or declamation, are used with such a happy art, and with so equally happy an abstinence, that, when the speech is concluded, you are left under the impression that every thing material to a just judgment has been said, and the whole theme exhausted. His speeches read like essays, as his essays read like speeches. It is impossible to doubt that they are prepared with the utmost care, and committed to memory before delivery. They bear internal evidences of this, and the mode of delivery confirms the suspicion.

The speeches made by Mr. Macaulay on the spur of the moment, when the subject has suddenly arisen, and preparation is impossible, confirm, by contrast, the belief that his great displays are carefully conned beforehand. There is almost a total absence of that historical allusion, that happy illustration, those antithetical sentences and paradoxical arguments, which characterise his formal orations. They are generally, when thus the spontaneous product of the moment, most able and vigorous arguments on the subject under discussion, which is, in most cases, placed in an entirely new light. After he has spoken on such occasions as these, the debate usually takes a new turn. Members on both sides of the house

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and of all ranks are to be found shaping their remarks, either in confirmation or refutation of what Mr. Macaulay has said: so influential is his bold, vigorous, uncompromising mode of handling a question; so acute his analysis, so firm his grasp. So that we must not merely look at Mr. Macaulay, in the common point of view, as a "brilliant" speaker and accomplished orator, delivering essays on a given subject adorned by all the graces of style, and in which the imagination preponderates over all else; we must also regard him as a practical politician, ready at every emergency, and exercising by the superiority of his mind an ascendancy over the councils of the nation. mingles in a remarkable manner the persuasiveness of the advocate with the impartiality of the judge. If a judge were to use eloquence to insinuate on the minds of his hearers the justice of his decision, he might treat his subject in much the same style as that adopted by Mr. Macaulay. His art in concealing the machinery with which he works on his hearers is perfect. There is no appearance of a plan, yet a careful study of his speeches will shew that they are constructed, and the subjects and trains of thought disposed, with the utmost skill. There is no apparent straining after graces of style or peculiarities of diction, as in the case of Mr. Sheil. You are thrown off your guard by the simplicity of the language, and the absence of all ambitious effort. He seems rather to trust to the clearness of his case, and the impetuosity and perseverance of his advocacy. Yet no opportunity for working up a "point" is neglected. Exquisite passages are here and there scattered through a speech, yet they seem to fall naturally into the argument, although really the result of the most careful preparation. His perorations, too, are remarkable, in general, for their declamatory energy, their sustained eloquence, and the manner in which they stamp, as it were, the argument or theme of the whole speech on the mind of the audience at parting. Grace of diction is throughout made secondary to vigour of thought. But Mr. Macaulay argues much in metaphor, though never for the metaphor's sake. He will put the whole

force of a position into an apt and simple illustration with a suddenness quite startling. These, and an occasional antithesis of the simplest kind, are almost his only departures from the style of ordinary level speaking. His language, at the same time, is always remarkably pure; and for elegance, it is unsurpassed. There are, however, faults in his speaking. For instance, he will sometimes spoil the effect of an eloquent passage by a sudden antithetical allusion, involving some vulgar idea, which catches him because of the opportunity it affords for alliteration or contrast, and which he thinks humorous. This is in bad taste, and is so far an evidence of his want of a keen sense of wit and humour. Yet it is seldom that there is even this slight and trivial drawback to the symmetry of his speeches.

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as Mr. Macaulay's speeches are on paper, his delivery of them altogether belies that reputation which they are calculated to obtain for him. It is, perhaps, heightened expectation which causes the deep disappointment one feels on hearing him the first time; or it may be that his defects of manner and style would not be observed were the matter he utters of an inferior order. Whatever the cause, the spell is in a great measure broken. Nature has not gifted him, either in voice or in person, with those attributes of the orator which help to fascinate and kindle a popular assembly. With such a voice and aspect as Lord Denman, how infinitely greater would be the effect on his audience of his undoubted intellectual power! Mr. Macaulay, in his personal appearance, and in the material or physical part of his oratory, contradicts altogether the ideal portrait one has formed on reading his speeches. Every man would, of course, have his own especial hallucination; but the chances are ten to one that the majority would have associated with his subject every physical attribute of the intellectual-investing him in imagination with a noble and dignified presence, and especially with a voice fit to give utterance to those fine passages of declamation with which his speeches abound. contrast of the reality is, in many respects, striking. Nature has grudged

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Mr. Macaulay height and fine proportion, and his voice is one of the most monotonous and least agreeable of those which usually belong to our countrymen north of the Tweed-a voice well adapted to give utterance with precision to the conclusions of the intellect, but in no way naturally formed to express feeling or passion. Mr. Macaulay is short in stature, round, and with a growing tendency to aldermanic disproportions. His head has the same rotundity as his body, and seems stuck on it as firmly as a pin-head. This is nearly the sum of his personal defects; all else, except the voice, is certainly in his favour. His face seems literally instinct with expression; the eye, above all, full of deep thought and meaning. As he walks, or rather straggles, along the street, he seems as if in a state of total abstraction, unmindful of all that is going on around him, and solely occupied with his own working mind. You cannot help thinking that literature with him is not a mere profession or pursuit, but that it has almost grown a part of himself, as though historical problems or analytical criticism were a part of his daily and regular intellectual food.

In the House of Commons, the same abstraction is still his chief characteristic. He enters the house with a certain pole-star to guide him -his seat; how he reaches it seems as if it were a process unknown to him. Seated, he folds his arms and sits in silence, seldom speaking to his colleagues, or appearing to notice what is going forward. If he has prepared himself for a speech, it will be remarked that he comes down much earlier than usual, being very much addicted to speaking before the dinner-hour, when, of course, his memory would be more likely to serve him than at a later hour in the night, after having endured for hours the hot atmosphere of the house, and the disturbing influences of an animated debate. It is observable, too, that, on such occasions, a greater number of members than usual may be seen loitering about the house. An opening is made in the discussion, and he rises, or rather darts up from his seat, plunging at once into the very heart of his subject, without exordium or apologetic preface. In

fact, you have for a few seconds heard a voice, pitched in alto, monotonous, and rather shrill, pouring forth words with inconceivable velocity ere you have become aware that a new speaker, and one of no common order, has broken in upon the debate.

A few seconds more, and cheers, perhaps from all parts of the house, rouse you completely from your apathy, compelling you to follow that extremely voluble and not very enticing voice in its rapid course through the subject on which the speaker is entering with a resolute determination, as it seems, never to pause. You think of an express train which does not stop even at the chief stations. On, on he speeds, in full reliance on his own momentum, never stopping for words, never stopping for thoughts, never halting for an instant, even to take breath, his intellect gathering new vigour as it proceeds, hauling the subject after him, and all its possible attributes and illustrations, with the strength of a giant, leaving a line of light on the pathway his mind has trod, till, unexhausted, and apparently inexhaustible, he brings this remarkable effort to a close by a peroration so highly sustained in its declamatory power, so abounding in illustration, so admirably framed to crown and clench the whole oration, that surprise, if it has even begun to wear off, kindles anew, and the hearer is left utterly prostrate and powerless by the whirlwind of ideas and emotions that has swept over him.

Yet, although you have been astonished, stimulated to intellectual exertion, thoroughly roused, and possibly even convinced, no impression whatever has been made by the orator upon your feelings; nor has he created any confidence in himself apart from the argument he has used. And yet, strange to say, perhaps it is because his oration has been too faultless. He exhibits none of the common weakness of even the greatest speakers. He never entices you, as it were, to help him by the confession of any difficulty. The intellectual preponderates too much. More heart and less mind would serve his turn better. How different is Lord John Russell! Though with a responsibility so much greater,

how often he appears to be in want of a thought, a word, or an illustration! He, as it were, lets you into the secret of his difficulties, and so a sort of friendship grows up. You

see him making up for his part; he does not keep you before the curtain and then try to dazzle you with his spangles and fine feathers;-so you acquire a confidence in him. Not so Mr. Macaulay. He astonishes you, quells your faculties; but he, at the same time, keeps you at a distance. Always powerful and influential as he must be in the councils of his party, he would never have a following in the country. He is too didactic. He never thoroughly warms up his audience. It is not his defective voice, for Mr. Sheil is as badly, if not worse off in this respect; yet what a flame he can kindle! The cause lies in his inveterate habit of preparing his speeches, even to the very words and phrases, and committing them to memory long before the hour of delivery. Partial preparation is allowable in the greatest orators. Exordiums, and perorations, and the general sketch of the speech may well be arranged and shaped beforehand; but let some scope be left for the impulse of the moment. The greatest thoughts are often those struck out by the mind when at heat in debate they are caught up by minds in a congenial state. Even a lower order of excellence will at such times produce a greater effect. It is wonderful, however, how well Mr. Macaulay contrives to adapt these cool productions of the closet to temperaments exerted by party. If a counterfeit could ever stand competition with the reality, these mock-heroics of Mr. Macaulay certainly would not have the worst chance. When he is called up suddenly, under circumstances forbidding all preparation, speeches produce a much greater immediate effect. As compositions they may be inferior, but for practical purposes they are much better. On such occasions he has sometimes reached the height of real eloquence -not the eloquence of words and brilliant images, but that fervour and inspiring sincerity which comes direct from the heart and finds at once a kindred response.

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