The Press.
London, England, 1853-12-10 00:00:00

MAt'AULAY.

Speeches of the 1601 Ilan. T. B. 31araway,
M.l'. Corrected by Himself London :
Longman and Co.
,'peeehes. Parliamentary and Misrellanenne, By
the Eight Ilan. T. Babington Macaulay.
Volumes.) London : Cloche, It

and Co.
" Do you know young Macaulay down at Cam-
bridge." "Is Macaulay to be a banister ? "
" Have you ever heard Mr. Macaulay at the
Union ? " Who is this Mr. Macaulay people
are talking of ?"
Such were the questions which were often
addressed to us five and twenty years ago.
Well do we remember, us if it were but yester-
day, the interest taken in the first
politienl of of that brilliant writer, from
whom' so intieh was exported, and who has
realised u great part, though not all, of the ar-
dent expectations of his friends. The recol-
lection of his earlier days, and the interest
which we then felt for bun, are strongly called
to out- mind by the sight of these volumes of
his collected speeches. Briefly glancing at his
past career, let us first look back on his literar y
achievements, and otter some conjectures on
the degree of his future
The son of the well-known humanitarian,an
associate of Wilberforce, of the late Master Ste-
phen, and Henry Thornton, young Thomas
Babington Macaulay started in the world with
a better position titan ins generally supposed
His family were connected extensively with
commerce, and rank creditably in Leicester-
shire Of Scotch extraction, they had settled
in England, and thriven so prosperously that
young Macaulay on entering into the world
bad not to undergo that terrible apprentice-
ship which so often grinds down men of genius
into were mediocrities. Society, and that of
the best kind, was open to him ; and it is im-
possible to listen to the streams of interesting
gossip that pour from him in conversation,
without being constantly reminded that when
scarcely out of his teens he was brought into
association with many of the first celebrities
in England. The difficulties in his path were
as nothing compared to the obstaoles that lay
before Burke, Sheridan, and others. Master
of all his time, he had never, like Sheridan. to
write for his personal wants ; or, like Burke,
to drudge for Dodsley on a miserable pittance.
Ho graduated at Cambridge at a time when
the attention of leading politicians was fixed
on the Universities. Those were days when
the war of polities was carried on by weapons
of brighter polish aad keener temper than
are used in battles w'acre the O'Connells and
the Cobdeus conquer Wellingtons and Peels
by organised force and seditious clamour.
Then wits the time when the opposing argu-
ments of politics were sustained by the intel-
lects of the gifted and the wise—when Can-
tinge; and Plunkets, Copleys and Broughams,
held enthralled the silent Senate, before Par-
liament was threatened with being vulgarised
to the level of a parish vestry.
" The Union " at Cambridge was then in its
pahniest period. Crowded audiences were
attracted by debates in which many living
persons of eminence first distinguished them-
selves. Nor was it only in mimic combats of
polities that the leading students displayed
their talents. In Knight's Quarterly Magazind
they appealed to the public to endorse the
verdict passed upon them by their friends.
Fluent, animated, and argumentative upon his
legs in the " Union." in the pages of Knight's
young Macaulay displayed all the marked fea-
tures of that altisonant style which, with its
euphonious cadences and gorgeous diction,
has hound so many readers in its fascinating
spells. Francis Jeffrey read his es,ays with
admiration, and Ilenry Brougham exulted over
the shrill hut sincere eulogies which the heir
of Earl Grey poured forth upon Zachary
Alneaulay.B brilliant and aecomplished •
At Freemasons' favern the "Abolitionist
cheered to the echo the rapidly-rolling the
tome that poured from his lips , and in society
he was complimented nit his college hunours