"When Lucan's age is considered, it is impossible not to allow that the poem is a very extraordinary one; more extraordinary, perhaps, than if it had been of a higher kind; for it is more common for the imagination to be in full vigour at an early time of life than for a young man to obtain a complete mastery of political and philosophical rhetoric. I know no declamation in the world, not even Cicero's best, which equals some passages in the Pharsalia. As to what were meant for bold poetical flights,—the sea-fight at Marseilles, the Centurion who is covered with wounds, the snakes in the Libyan desert, it is all as detestable as Cibber's Birthday Odes. The furious partiality of Lucan takes away much of the pleasure which his talents would otherwise afford. A poet who is, as has often been said, less a poet than a historian, should to a certain degree conform to the laws of history. The manner in which he represents the two parties is not to be reconciled with the laws even of fiction. The senators are demigods; Pompey, a pure lover of his country; Cato, the abstract idea of virtue; while Caesar, the finest gentleman, the most humane conqueror, and the most popular politician that Rome ever produced, is a bloodthirsty ogre. If Lucan had lived, he would probably have improved greatly." "Again, December 9, 1836,">[

I am glad that you have so much business, and sorry that you have so little leisure. In a few years you will be a Baron of the Exchequer; and then we shall have ample time to talk over our favourite classics. Then I will show you a most superb emendation of Bentley's in Ampelius, and I will give you unanswerable reasons for pronouncing that Gibbon was mistaken in supposing that Quintus Curtius wrote under Gordian.

Remember me most kindly to Mrs. Ellis. I hope that I shall find Frank writing as good Alcaics as his father.

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. MACAULAY.

Calcutta: March 8, 1837.

Dear Ellis,—I am at present very much worked, and have been so for a long time past. Cameron, after being laid up for some months, sailed at Christmas for the Cape, where I hope his health will be repaired; for this country can very ill spare him. However, we have almost brought our great work to a conclusion. In about a month we shall lay before the Government a complete penal Code for a hundred millions of people, with a commentary explaining and defending the provisions of the text. Whether it is well, or ill, done heaven knows. I only know that it seems to me to be very ill done when I look at it by itself; and well done when I compare it with Livingstone's Code, with the French Code, or with the English statutes which have been passed for the purpose of consolidating and amending the Criminal Law. In health I am as well as ever I was in my life. Time glides fast. One day is so like another that, but for a habit which I acquired soon after I reached India of pencilling in my books the date of my reading them, I should have hardly any way of estimating the lapse of time. If I want to know when an event took place, I call to mind which of Calderon's plays, or of Plutarch's Lives, I was reading on that day. I turn to the book; find the date; and am generally astonished to see that, what seems removed from me by only two or three months, really happened nearly a year ago.

I intend to learn German on my voyage home, and I have indented largely, (to use our Indian official term), for the requisite books. People tell me that it is a hard language; but I cannot easily believe that there is a language which I cannot master in four months, by working ten hours a day. I promise myself very great delight and information from German literature; and, over and above, I feel a soft of presentiment, a kind of admonition of the Deity, which assures me that the final cause of my existence,—the end for which I was sent into this vale of tears,—was to make game of certain Germans. The first thing to be done in obedience to this heavenly call is to learn German; and then I may perhaps try, as Milton says,

"Frangere Saxonicas Britonum sub Marte phalanges."

Ever yours affectionately