The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-31 00:00:00

THE LATE LORD MACAULAY.

No death which we could chronicle will be more
deeply or more widely lamented than that of Lord
Macaulay. His loss is not simply that of a great
man. It is the loss of a great man who accumu-
lated immense stores of information that perish
with him. As on the funeral pile of some Oriental
potentate the wealth of a province is heaped up
to be burned, we see passing with the historian
into the darkness of the grave not only a
majestic mind which sooner or later must have
gone from among us, but also the vast acqui-
sitions of this mind, which we fancy might have
remained to us for ever. Macaulay's wealth
of information was almost incredible, and in
all his writings, in his speeches, in his con-
versations, he poured it forth so lavishly, and yet
so carefully, that reader and hearer scarcely knew
which to admire . most—the extent of his know-
lege, or the felicity with which he brought to bear
upon the matter in hand. He had a more intimate
acquaintance with English history than any man
living, or perhaps any man who ever lived. His ac-
quaintance with it was not abarren knowledge, but
had fructified into political wisdom; and no pen
could surpass his in the description of what lie knew
and thought and felt. The death of such a man is
more than a common loss—is more than the loss of
a man equally great in other departments of litera-
ture. The material which he handles gives to the
work of the historian a value which the work of no
other artist enjoys. A great novelist or a great poet
may be compared to a worker in colours, which
have no -value except in the arrangement given to
them by the artist. A great historian, on the other
hand, is a worker in gold and silver and precious
stones, which have a value independent of the work-
manship bestowed on them. It requires a great
mind to elicit the facts, but the facts have a value
in themselves, and if they are not transmitted by
the historian who is in possession of them the loss
which we sustain is not comparable to that of an
additional poem or a new novel from the poet or
novelist too soon struck down. Macaulay is cut off
in his 60th year, and in the midst of his work.
Who is to finish what he has begun ? Who is to
make good wherein he has failed? The deep regret
for such a loss will be universally felt wherever the
English language is spoken will be mingled with
surprise at its suddenness. Only on Monday last
Lord Macaulay had entertained his family at a
Christmas party. It is true that for some years ho
had suffered from an affection of the heart, and
three weeks ago he had a return of threatening
symptoms. But he appeared to rally again ; the
symptoms, although serious, were not alarming ;
and at the Christmas party on Monday last he
was only so far unlike himself as to be rather
silent. If Sidney Smith had been there, he would
not have had to complain, as he once did, that
he longed for some "brilliant flashes of silence ;"
and yet, in spite of Lord Macaulay's quietness, his
,\hfriends in parting with him that night little thought
at in less than eight-and-forty hours he would be
o more for this world. On Wednesday evening,
bout 8 o'clock, he died in a fainting fit, without
Ike least pain.

Thomas Babington Macaulay was born on the
24til of October, 1800, at Rothley Temple, in Lei-
cek4-ershire. He was the son of Zachary Macaulay,
wlko: has a monument in Westminster Abbey, and
was well known as a prominent member of the
a°Nlled "Clapham Sect," as well as of the philan-
thrk,ists who exerted themselves for the abolition
of .te slave trade and of slavery. The 'family be-
othe Highlands of Scotland, where Zachary
lona ,' to
Mackny's father and uncle were ministers of the
Kirk, Dr, Johnson, in his
" Tour to the Hebrides,"
mcnti)ns both the Rev. John and the Rev. Kenneth
111aeakiny in a kindly way, and the Presbyterian
the family is worth noticing, as its effects
originof
may lc,traced quite distinctly in the writings of the
NI Especially
historo . in his essays—that is to say;
his earli„,. writings—there must be observed a curi-
ous faulikiarity, not simply with scriptural phrase-
ology, Uklich might have been derived from any re-
ligious ekliation, but with the pet phrases and for-
mulas ''bleb are current among the Presbyterian
and metaphysical divines, Although Macaulay
could scarcely be called a Scotchman, his religious
alluaulsions are as distinctively Scotch as those of Sir
Walter Sc%tt himself. - His father, Zachary, seems
Itondliaav ine beef a sturdy Calvinist. He was a West
crellknt, who had early in life been sent to
Jamaica, and who was so
horrified with what he
saw there of slavery that he for some years pitched
his tent funk' all the unhealthiness - of Sierra
'Leone, with the ]rope of doing good to the negroes.
It was under the influence of such a character
and of his aNciates, who at that time were held
up to public sewn as "the Clapham Sect," that
Lord Macaulay ,was brought up. His education be.
, gan at home ; h, was then placed under the care
of a Mr. Prestok, at Shelford, in Cambridgeshire
and finally he entered at Trinity College,Cambridge,
in 1818. His career at the university was very
distinguished.;. Ik his first year he gained the
Chancellor's roctiq for a poem on o Pompeii ; " in
his second year he carried off the same prize for a
poem on "Evening;, both of which have been pub-
lished ; immediately afterwards he gained the
second Craven Sclimarship ; in 1822 he took his
Bachelor's degree, 411 d though he did not compete
for honours, olving„ to his dislike of mathematics,
'he was elected a Feth4w of his college. Macaulay,
moreover, made a great figure in the Union nobat-
ing Society, where he 413 e it a good deal of his time.
He was to study for the bar, and it was evident
that he was to be an orator, What were his chances
of promotion ? He bad k Fellowship to begin with;
he had a father who ivah. not only in good circum-
stances, but was also a lading member a frater-
nity that had sorao PG4 ticalinfluence,_ and has
always been celebrated for the virtue which phre-
nologists have termed " adhesiveness!! Evangeli-
cals have generally had t.1)0 merit of sticking to
each other, and, even had he been a dull man,
Macaulay, might have coutvted
on the tenacity ofl
his father's friends. It so happened that he gave
the most brilliant promise 14 youth, and When still
a very young man achieved" some extraordinary
works. The Evangelicals (),.t that day were not
remarkable for learning, or auqity, or any kind of
brilliancy, and they looked grNously on the young
man who was to folio v in the footsteps of his
father, and to add the lustre
of intellect to the
beauty of holiness.
In 1830 Mr. Macaulay had nikle such a reputa-
tion for himself that he becNie M.P. for the
borough of Calne—a seat then, as tl ow, in the nomi-
nation of Lord Lansdowne. lire have therefore to
account for those eight years bet`keen 1822, when.
he took his Bachelor's degree, and 1830, when he
entered the House of Commons, and to show how
he fought his way upwards. Vor tlio first four of
these years a good deal of his titno was spent
between London and Cambridge, whore he had
his Fellowship. He took his Master's degree in
1824, and he was called to the bar at tincoln's-inn
in 1826. But far more important to his future
prospect was the fact that in this period
be began to
write. He wrote poetry, he wrote eNys, he wrote
imaginary conversations, he wrote critiques—he
wrote in every form. TheSe appeared as contribu-
tions to "Knight's Quarterly .MaiTazitle,o of which
it will readily bo understood they ibrniQd the prin-
cipal attraction. It was in these days he produced
his ballads of the Spanish Armada, the Battle of the
League, and Ivry ; and we believe that some of his
other contributions have been republished in Ame-
rica, although certainly not all. Maeamay was
chary of publishing his periodical wtiting% and it
is only by digging into the British ltiloslira that
we eau find out what he was in the be,innitlrr. One
chance, indeed, he has given us of asee,eaining
what ho was when fresh from College. 40 had
i earned such a reputation by the colitributims of