Macaulay's Life of Samuel Johnson, with a Selection from his Essay on Johnson

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telling the stories that he read, and as he easily remembered the words of the book he rapidly acquired a somewhat astonishing vocabulary for a boy of his years. One afternoon when the little fellow, then aged four, was visiting, a servant spilled some hot coffee on his legs. The hostess, who was very sympathetic, soon afterward asked how he was feeling. He looked up in her face and replied, "Thank you, madam, the

ond as he was of reading, he was "as playful as a kitten." Although he made wonderful progress in all branches of his education, he had to be driven to school. Again and again his entreaty to be allowed to stay at home met his mother's "No, Tom, if it rains cats and dogs, you shall go." The boy th

as rapidly as most boys read, and who was eager to declaim poetry by the hour, or to tell interminable stories of his own, would attract somebody's attention. Fortunately for all concerned the lady who was particularly interested in him, and who had him at her house for weeks at a time, Mrs. Hannah More, encouraged without spoiling him, and rewarded him by buying books to increase his library. When he was six or eight years old, she gave him a small sum with which to lay "a corner-stone" for his library, and a year or two afte

arted boy reasoned with him and pleaded with him, and whether successful or not in persuading his father, loved him just the same. The mother, with all her love and ambition for him, took the utmost pains to teach him to do thoroughly whatever he undertook, in order that he might attain the perfect development of character that comes alone from the most vigorous training. His sister, Lady Trevelyan, writes: "His unruffled sweetness of temper, his unfailing flow of spirits, his amusing talk, all made

see the home "which absence renders still dearer." In August, 1813, he urged his mother for permission to go home on his birthday, October 25: "If your approbation of my request depends upon my advancing in study, I will work like a cart-horse. If you should refuse it, you will deprive me of the m

not. But he was eager to avoid the sciences, and he was not content to be a mere struggler for honors. He was sensible enough to enjoy the companionships the place afforded. He knew something of the value of choosing comrades after his own heart, who were thoroughly genuine and sincere, natural and manly. Even if, as Mr. Morison says, the result of his college course was that "those faculties which were naturally strong were made stronger, and those which were naturally weak received little or no exercise," he wisely spent much time with a remarkable group of young men, among whom Charles Austin was king. Of Austin, John Stuart Mill says, "The impression he gave was that of boundless strength,

, he wrote his mother: "I am sure that it is well worth while being sick to be nursed by a mother. There is nothing which I remember with such pleasure as the time when you nursed me at Aspenden. The other night, when I lay on my sofa very ill and hypochondriac, I was told that you were come! How

or of Arts, he wrote his father that he was that morning elected Fellow, and that t

The next year Macaulay was asked to write for that famous periodical, then at the height of its political, social, and literary power. He contributed the essay on Milton and "like Lord Byron he awoke one morning and found himself famous." The compliment for which he cared most

the other children looking to him for guidance and support. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, he drew freely on his income from the fellowship and

rm Bill was introduced, the opposition laughed contemptuously at the impossibility of disfranchising, wholly or in part, a hundred and ten boroughs for the sake of securing a fair representation of the United Kingdom in the House of Commons. Two days later Macaulay made the first of his Reform speeches, and "when he sat down, the Speaker sent for him, and told him that, in all his prolonged experience, he had never seen the House in such a state of excite

arliamentary fame was highest, was so reduced that he sold the gold medals he had won at Cambridge,-though "he was never for a moment in debt,"-it was sometimes convenient to be a lion. Yet this "sitting up in the House of Commons till three o'clock five days i

d of Control, which represented the crown in its relations to the East Indian directors. He held this commissionership only eighteen months, however, for as a means of reducing expenses the Whig Government

se votes meant bread to him was as refreshing as it was striking. His frank opinions they should have at all times, but pledges never. They should choose their representative cautiously and then confide in him liberally. Such independence was not relished in many quarters,

a zealous abolitionist, the measure was not satisfactory. To please him the son opposed it. In order that he might be free to criticise the bill, simply as a member of Parliament, he resigned his position in the Cabinet, although both he and his father thought this course

ng on him he now realized fully the need not of riches but of a competence. He could live by his pen or by office; but he could not think seriously of writing to "relieve the emptiness of the pocket" rather than "the fullness of the mind," and if he must earn this

ot satisfied with the immense amount already assigned him, he saw two large opportunities to do more by serving on two committees. As president of the Committee of Public Instruction he substituted for Oriental learning the introduction and promotion of European literature and science among the natives; as president of the Law Commission he took the initiative in framing the famous Penal Code, the value of which must be judged from the

ller in Rome at every turn." Much as he enjoyed Italy, he soon began to long for his regular work, and the following February found him in London again. In March he was unanimously elected to the Club, and he was making the most of his leisure for books when he felt it his duty to enter Parliament for Edinburgh. "Office was never, within my memory, so little attractive," he writes, "and therefo

ther like the sort of work, and I have some aptitude for it. I find business pretty nearly enough to occupy all my time; and if I have a few minutes to myself, I spend them with my sister and niece; so that, except while I am dressing and undressing, I get no reading at all. I

of government, and Macaulay lost his office. How the loss affected him we may gather f

as man can be. My family is comfortably off. I have leisure for literature, yet I am not reduced to the necessity of writing for money. If I had to choose a

r was it the collecting and reprinting of his Essays, although they have given hundreds of thousands of minds a taste for letters and a desire for knowledge. One could hardly call it the delivery of those vehement and effective parliamentary speeches with which he held his audience spellbound, even if one of them did secure the passing of the Copyright Bill in 1842 in practically its present form. But while attending to these other matters, Macaulay had on his mind an undertaking which was destined to satisfy, as far as he carried it toward completion, the hopes of his most enthusiastic admirers. In 1841 he had written to Napier, "I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies."13 In order that he might give all his attention to this one project he soon stopped writing for the Edinburgh Rev

The same year the people of Edinburgh, ashamed of their failure to re?lect him five years before, chose him to represent them in Parliament. Meantime he had been well and happy. In his journal for October 25, 1850, he wrote: "My birthday. I am fifty. Well, I have had a happy life. I do not know that anybody, whom I hav

age, his patience, and his benevolence." Occasionally he treated the House to a "torrent of words," but he understood that he must husband his powers for work on books. To protect himself from a bookseller who advertised an edition of his speeches, he made and published a selection of his own, many of which he had to write fro

Oxford, and made a peer-Baron of Rothley. Naturally before receiving this last honor he had withdrawn from Parliament, and from 1856 to the end of his life he enjoyed a retired home, with a fine garden. He had plenty of time to cash the famous check for twenty thousand pounds which the fir

e quiet of his library he enjoyed the companionship of the author he happened to be reading as perhaps few men could. He who could command any society in London failed to find any that he preferred, at breakfast or at dinner,

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sentences." His biography reveals the dutiful son, the affectionate brother, the true friend, the honorable politician, the prac