The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-30 00:00:00

style Vest l'homtne I Had MACAULAY been less of I
a partisan he would have been almost matchless as
a historian. As it is, even with the enormous
drawback caused by his political prejudices and
predilections—dimming the clearness of his per-
ception, warping the disc of his judgment, now
blurring, now distorting their otherwise marvel-
lous reflections—this colossal torso, this fragment
of a masterpiece, these incomplete annals of his
native land, will carry the name of MACAULAY
down to future times side by side with the names
of TACITUS, Of LIVY, of HERODOTUS.

The lamented death of Lord 'MACAULAY, it ap-
pears, took place at eight o'clock on Wednesday
evening, the 28th of December, at his residence,
Holly Lodge, Campden-hill, Kensington. It
resulted from that formidable disease of the heart
from which his lordship was known, for some years
past, to be suffering. A severe attack arising from
this fatal source had alarmed those about him as
nearly as may be a fortnight since, but having
rallied from this so far as to be apparently in his
customary health or convalescence, Lord MACAULAY
succumbed at last to a relapse as unlooked for at
the moment as it was overwhelming. The noble
and learned lord—and the adjectives are here in no
way applied to him merely conventionally, for in
his genius and in his knowledge he was indeed truly
noble and truly learned—may be claimed as
absolutely and essentially an Englishman. He
was born in 1800, at Rothley Temple, in Leicester-
shire. That date reminds us how prematurely he
has expired. He breathed his last in his fifty-
ninth year, when—but for that threatening disease
at his heart, which has kept him (as an orator) dumb
since his elevation to the House of Lords, and
which has since carried him off abruptly, while his
manuscripts lay strewn around him in disorder—
he might have hoped for years yet to come,
during which he might have perfected (as
far as human life and human powers per-
mitted) his immense reputation. It will always
be recorded of him, in his biography, that the
eminent essayist, critic, orator, and historian, was
son of a distinguished philanthropist. He was the
son, in fact, of that ZACHARY MACAULAY whose
memory will long be cherished in connection with the
cause of the abolition of the Slave Trade, with the
historic names of THOMAS CLARKSON and WILLIAM
WILBERFORCE. The salient incidents in the career
of Lord MACAULAY, like those in the lifetime of
most men of letters, though his was also the pro-
gress of a politician, and, in a minor degree, like-
wise of one of our national administrators, may be
readily enumerated. His academic achievements
are still borne in remembrance in the annals and
traditions of Trinity College, Cambridge. It was
at that college that he graduated with high honour
—winning rhetorical fame even beyond the pre-
cincts of the University, while yet an undergraduate
by his brilliant oritorical displays at the celebrated
Debating Society of the Union. In 1821, when
scarcely of age THOMAS MACAULAY was elected to
the Craven scholarship. In 1822 he obtained his
fellowship, and four years later (1826) was called to
to the bar at Lincoln's Inn. Previously, however,
he had even as far back as 1824, given radiant
evidence of his rare literary abilities. He was al-
ready an industrious contributor to several of the
magazines—poems and essays, in some instances
with his initials attached to them, were scattered up
and down the periodicals. They were the prelude
to those strains of music which rose at last
to the Tyrtean melody of " The Lays
of Ancient Rome." They were the precursors
to those all but perfect masterpieces in prose later
on, the papers on " Lord CLIVE" and " WARREN
HASTINGS," in the _Edinburgh. But the Lays did
did not appear till 1842—and the earliest of the
Essays did not adorn the pages of the great Whig
Review till 1826, when the criticism on
"MILToN" appeared, and, becoming the talk of
London, was the subject at once of mingled
surprise and admiration. Yet earlier than that
among those more youthful effusions of the genius
of THOMAS MACAULAY we recal to mind, for
example, a paper in Knight's Magazine : a paper
signed "T. M." recounting an imaginary con-
versation between MILTON and COWLEY, a conver-
sation supposed to have taken place in a boat upon
the River Thames in the hearing of a young Templar,
who thereupon relates or rather reports from me-
mory the "high argument " between the two great
poets—the one the champion of Royalty, the other of
Republicanism—the one the exponent of Kin gcraft,
the other of Democracy. It is a paper worthy of
MACAULAY. It is a conversation not unworthy
of COWLEY and MILTON, Yat to this day, we
believe, it has never been (unless, it may be, pirati-
ally in America) republished, As we have said,
however, in 1826, our great Essayist inaugurated
with his exquisite criticism on MILTON his
unequalled career as an Edinburgh Reviewer. In
recognition of his high literary attainments, and
already we may even say achievements, the Whig
leaders nominated Mr. MACAULAY a Commissioner
of Bankruptcy. Snbsequently, in 1830 (in ample
time to take part in the Reform discussions), as M.P.
for Caine (Lord LANSDOWNE'S borough), he entered
Parliament. Not long after this entrance into the
House of Commons, he was appointed Secretary to
the Board of Control. having risen in Parlia-
mentary repute by his extraordinary powers rather
as an orator than as a debater, Mr. MACAULAY was
returned after the passing of the Reform Bill
as M.P. for the newly-created borough of
Leeds, having Mr. MARSHALL as his colleague. A
couple of years had hardly elapsed, however, when
there commenced with startling suddenness a hiatus
in his home career. He accepted a lucrative appoint-
ment in the Supreme Council of India, and for
three years discharged the duties of that respon-
sible and remunerative office in Calcutta. At the
end of this interval he returned homewards, and
resumed the interrupted labours of love, which
had been previously building up for him
simultaneously a. high literary and Parliamevtary
reputation. The noblest of his essays—the two
already particularised—duly made their appearance
—Mr. MACAULAY himself accepting in 1839, the
post of Secretary-at-War, and being returned to
Parliament in 1840, as M.P. for the city of Edin-
burgh. How, upon the formation of the Whig
Ministry in 1846, Mr. MACAULAY received the
office of Paymaster of the Forces, and took his place
in the Cabinet—how in 1847, he was disgracefully
rejected by his former constituency of Edinburgh,
by reason of his conduct in regard to the
grant to the College of Maynooth—how in 1852
the citizens of Edinburgh, at length repentant,
spontaneously returned him once more to the House
without
thoi so havingexpend
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end—how Mr. MACAULAY remained in the House
of Commons as M.P. for Edinburgh until he was
raised, in 1857, to the House of Lords as Baron
MACAULAY—aII this, and much more, of him the
nation proudly bears in its remembrance. Alas ! it
has now only to bear himself also gratefully and
honourably in its remembrance. In his regard we
have now only to bury our dead. We have to accord
to him a fitting sepulture in Westminster Abbey.
His loftiest monument, fragment though it is, and
faultless though it is not, is of course his "History."
Yet beyond those interrupted volumes we are fain