Thomas Babington Macaulay.

One of the most brilliant and estimable of England's men of letters, Macaulay (1800-1859), who became Lord Macaulay in 1857, was born October 5th, at Rothley Temple, in Lincolnshire. His father was Zachary Macaulay, a Scottish Presbyterian. Thomas was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1819 gained the Chancellor's Medal for a poem entitled "Pompeii”—hardly above the average of similar prize poems. He was a devoted student, however, and his improvement was rapid. He wrote the best of his poems, "The Battle of Ivry," in his twenty-fourth year; and was only twentyfive when he contributed his brilliant article on Milton to the Edinburgh Review. It was the first of a series of remarkable papers on distinguished characters. Having been admitted to the Bar, in 1830 he became a Member of Parliament. His speeches, which are very able, were carefully studied, and usually committed to memory, which was an easy task to him.

In 1834 he proceeded to India, as legal adviser to the Supreme Council of Calcutta. He returned to England in 1838; represented Edinburgh in Parliament up to the year 1847; held seats in the Cabinet; and in 1849 published the first two volumes of his great "History of England." It commanded a larger and more rapid sale, both in England and America, than any historical work known to the trade. His "Lays of Ancient Rome" had appeared in 1842; eighteen thousand copies were sold in ten years. It was his last attempt at poetry. "Like a wise gamester," he writes, "I shall leave off while I am a winner, and not cry 'Double or Quits.' In the extract which we give from the "Lay of Horatius," thirtyone of the stanzas are omitted. Wordsworth denied that the "Lays" were poetry at all; and Leigh Hunt, in a letter asking Macaulay to lend him money, wrote him that he lamented that his "verses wanted the true poetical aroma which breathes from Spenser's 'Faery Queene.'" Upon which Macaulay says: "I am much pleased with him for having the spirit to tell me, in a begging letter, how little he likes my poetry."

Great as he was in literary execution, Macaulay, in one of his letters, remarks: "I never read again the most popular passages of my own works without painfully feeling how far my execution has fallen short of the standard which is in my mind." It was as an essayist and a writer of history that his contemporary laurels were gained. His poetry is quite overshadowed by his prose; but had he been unknown as a prose writer, he would have enjoyed no ordinary fame as. a poet. His memory was wonderfully quick and tenacious, and his conversational powers were the wonder of his hearers. He has been accused of talking too much; and Sydney Smith once said of him: "He is certainly more agreeable since his return from India. His enemics 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."

Take him for all in all, Macaulay was one of the noblest characters in English literature; generous to the needy, warm in the family affections, self-sacrificing and magnanimous, irreproachable in his habits and his life. He

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was never married. His mortal remains were deposited in Westminster Abbey, in Poets' Corner, his favorite haunt. An interesting "Life" of him, by his nephew, G. O. Trevelyan, who has also edited a volume of selections from his writings, appeared in 1877.

FROM THE LAY OF "HORATIUS.”

Lars Porsena of Clusium

By the Nine Gods he swore That the great house of Tarquin

Should suffer wrong no more. By the Nine Gods he swore it,

And named a trysting-day; And bade his messengers ride forth, East and west, and south and north, To summon his array.

East and west, and south and north The messengers ride fast,

And tower, and town, and cottage

Have heard the trumpet's blast. Shame on the false Etruscan

Who lingers in his home,
When Porsena of Clusium
Is on the march for Rome.

The horsemen and the footmen
Are pouring in amain

From many a stately market-place;
From many a fruitful plain;
From many a lonely hamlet,

Which, hid by beech and pine,
Like an eagle's nest, hangs on the crest
Of purple Apennine.

There be thirty chosen prophets,

The wisest of the land, Who alway by Lars Porsena

Both morn and evening stand: Evening and morn the Thirty

Have turned the verses o'er, Traced from the right on linen white By mighty seers of yore.

And with one voice the Thirty

Have their glad answer given:
"Go forth, go forth, Lars Porsena;
Go forth, beloved of heaven;
Go, and return in glory

To Clusium's royal dome;
And hang round Nurscia's altars
The golden shields of Rome."

And wherefore doth your rout send forth a joyous shout?

And whence be the grapes of the wine - press which ye tread?

Oh, evil was the root, and bitter was the fruit, And crimson was the juice of the vintage that we trod;

For we trampled on the throng of the haughty and the strong

Who sat in the high places, and slew the saints of God.

It was about the noon of a glorious day of June That we saw their banners dance, and their cuirasses shine,

And the Man of Blood was there, with his long essenced hair,

And Astley and Sir Marmaduke and Rupert of the Rhine.

Like a whirlwind on the trees, like a deluge on the dikes,

Our cuirassiers have burst on the ranks of the Accursed,

And at a shock have scattered the forest of his pikes.

Fast, fast the gallants ride, in some safe nook to hide

Their coward heads predestined to rot on Tem

ple Bar;

And he he turns, he flies; shame on those cruel eyes, That bore to look on torture, and dare not look

on war.

Ho! comrades, scour the plain; and, ere ye strip the slain,

First give another stab, to make your search

secure,

Then shake from sleeves and pockets their broadpieces and lockets,

The tokens of the wanton, the plunder of the poor. Fools! your doublets shone with gold, and your hearts were gay and bold,

When you kissed your lily hands to your lemans to-day;