Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay. Volume 1

by George Otto Trevelyan

He reserved his pugnacity for quarrels undertaken on public grounds, and fought out with the world looking on as umpire. In the lists of criticism and of debate it cannot be denied that, as a young man, he sometimes deserved the praise which Dr. Johnson pronounced upon a good hater. He had no mercy for bad writers, and notably for bad poets, unless they were in want of money; in which case he became within his means, the most open-handed of patrons. He was too apt to undervalue both the heart and the head of those who desired to maintain the old system of civil and religious exclusion, and who grudged political power to their fellow-countrymen, or at any rate to those of their fellow-countrymen whom he was himself prepared to enfranchise. Independent, frank, and proud almost to a fault, he detested the whole race of jobbers and time-servers, parasites and scandal-mongers, led-captains, led-authors, and led-orators. Some of his antipathies have stamped themselves indelibly upon literary history. He attributed to the Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty during the twenty years preceding 1830, qualities which excited his disapprobation beyond control, and possibly beyond measure. His judgment has been confirmed by the public voice, which identifies Croker with the character of Rigby in Mr. Disraeli's Coningsby.

Macaulay was the more formidable as an opponent because he could be angry without losing his command of the situation. His first onset was terrific; but in the fiercest excitement of the melee he knew when to call a halt. A certain member of Parliament named Michael Thomas Sadler had fallen foul of Malthus, and very foul indeed of Macaulay, who in two short and telling articles took revenge enough for both. [Macaulay writes to Mr. Napier in February 1831: "People here think that I have answered Sadler completely. Empson tells me that Malthus is well pleased, which is a good sign. As to Blackwood's trash I could not get through it. It bore the same relation to Sadler's pamphlet that a bad hash bears to a bad joint.">[ He writes on this subject to Mr. Macvey Napier, who towards the close of 1829 had succeeded Jeffrey in the editorship of the Edinburgh Review: "The position which we have now taken up is absolutely impregnable, and, if we were to quit it, though we might win a more splendid victory, we should expose ourselves to some risk. My rule in controversy has always been that to which the Lacedaemonians adhered in war: never to break the ranks for the purpose of pursuing a beaten enemy." He had, indeed, seldom occasion to strike twice. Where he set his mark, there was no need of a second impression. The unduly severe fate of those who crossed his path during the years when his blood was hot teaches a serious lesson on the responsibilities of genius. Croker, and Sadler, and poor Robert Montgomery, and the other less eminent objects of his wrath, appear likely to enjoy just so much notoriety, and of such a nature, as he has thought fit to deal out to them in his pages; and it is possible that even Lord Ellenborough may be better known to our grand-children by Macaulay's oration on the gates of Somnauth than by the noise of his own deeds, or the echo of his own eloquence.

When Macaulay went to college he was justified in regarding himself as one who would not have to work for his bread. His father, who believed himself to be already worth a hundred thousand pounds, had statedly declared to the young man his intention of making him, in a modest way, an eldest son; and had informed him that, by doing his duty at the university, he would earn the privilege of shaping his career at choice. In 1818 the family removed to London, and set up an establishment on a scale suited to their improved circumstances in Cadogan Place, which, in everything except proximity to Bond Street, was then hardly less rural than Clapham. But the prosperity of the house of Macaulay and Babington was short-lived. The senior member of the firm gave his whole heart, and five-sixths of his time, to objects unconnected with his business; and he had selected a partner who did not possess the qualities necessary to compensate for his own deficiencies. In 1819 the first indications of possible disaster begin to show themselves in the letters to and from Cambridge; while waiting for a fellowship Macaulay was glad to make a hundred guineas by taking pupils; and, as time went on, it became evident that he was to be an eldest son only in the sense that, throughout the coming years of difficulty and distress, his brothers and sisters would depend mainly upon him for comfort, guidance, and support. He acknowledged the claim cheerfully, lovingly, and, indeed, almost unconsciously. It was not in his disposition to murmur over what was inevitable, or to plume himself upon doing what was right. He quietly took up the burden which his father was unable to bear; and, before many years had elapsed, the fortunes of all for whose welfare he considered himself responsible were abundantly assured. In the course of the efforts which he expended on the accomplishment of this result he unlearned the very notion of framing his method of life with a view to his own pleasure; and such was his high and simple nature, that it may well be doubted whether it ever crossed his mind that to live wholly for others was a sacrifice at all.

He resided with his father in Cadogan Place, and accompanied him when, under the pressure of pecuniary circumstances, he removed to a less fashionable quarter of the town. In 1823 the family settled in 50 Great Ormond Street, which runs east and west for some three hundred yards through the region bounded by the British Museum, the Foundling Hospital, and Gray's Inn Road. It was a large rambling house, at the corner of Powis Place, and was said to have been the residence of Lord Chancellor Thurlow at the time when the Great Seal was stolen from his custody. It now forms the east wing of an Homoeopathic hospital. Here the Macaulays remained till 1831. "Those were to me," says Lady Trevelyan, "years of intense happiness. There might be money troubles, but they did not touch us. Our lives were passed after a fashion which would seem indeed strange to the present generation. My father, ever more and more engrossed in one object, gradually gave up all society; and my mother never could endure it. We had friends, of course, with whom we stayed out for months together; and we dined with the Wilberforces, the Buxtons, Sir Robert Inglis, and others; but what is now meant by 'society' was utterly unknown to us.

"In the morning there was some pretence of work and study. In the afternoon your uncle always took my sister Margaret and myself a long walk. We traversed every part of the City, Islington, Clerkenwell, and the Parks, returning just in time for a six o'clock dinner. What anecdotes he used to pour out about every street, and square, and court, and alley! There are many places I never pass without 'the tender grace of a day that is dead' coming back to me. Then, after dinner, he always walked up and down the drawing-room between us chatting till tea-time. Our noisy mirth, his wretched puns, so many a minute, so many an hour! Then we sang, none of us having any voices, and he, if possible, least of all; but still the old nursery songs were set to music, and chanted. My father, sitting at his own table, used to look up occasionally, and push back his spectacles, and, I dare say, wonder in his heart how we could so waste our time. After tea the book then in reading was produced. Your uncle very seldom read aloud himself of an evening, but walked about listening, and commenting, and drinking water.

"The Sundays were in some respects trying days to him. My father's habit was to read a long sermon to us all in the afternoon, and again after evening service another long sermon was read at prayer-time to the servants. Our doors were open to sons of relations or friends; and cousins who were medical students, or clerks in merchants' houses, came in regularly to partake of our Sunday dinner and sermons. Sunday walking, for walking's sake, was never allowed; and even going to a distant church was discouraged. When in Cadogan Place, we always crossed the Five Fields, where Belgrave Square now stands, to hear Dr. Thorpe at the Lock Chapel, and bring him home to dine with us. From Great Ormond Street, we attended St. John's Chapel in Bedford Row, then served by Daniel Wilson, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta. He was succeeded in 1826 by the Rev. Baptist Noel. Your uncle generally went to church with us in the morning, and latterly formed the habit of walking out of town, alone or with a friend, in the after part of the day. I never heard that my father took any notice of this; and, indeed, in the interior of his own family, he never attempted in the smallest degree to check his son in his mode of life, or in the expression of his opinions.

"I believe that breakfast was the pleasantest part of the day to my father. His spirits were then at their best, and he was most disposed to general conversation. He delighted in discussing the newspaper with his son, and lingered over the table long after the meal was finished. On this account he felt it extremely when, in the year 1829, your uncle went to live in chambers, and often said to my mother that the change had taken the brightness out of his day. Though your uncle generally dined with us, yet my father was tired by the evening, so that the breakfast hour was a grievous loss to him, as indeed it was to us all. Truly he was to old and young alike the sunshine of our home; and I believe that no one, who did not know him there, ever knew him in his most brilliant, witty, and fertile vein."

That home was never more cheerful than during the eight years which followed the close of Macaulay's college life. There had been much quiet happiness at Clapham, and much in Cadogan Place; but it was round the house in Great Ormond Street that the dearest associations gathered. More than forty years afterwards, when Lady Trevelyan was dying, she had herself driven to the spot, as the last drive she ever took, and sat silent in her carriage for many minutes with her eyes fixed upon those well-known walls.

[In August 1857, Macaulay notes in his diary: "I sent the carriage home, and walked to the Museum. Passing through Great Ormond Street I saw a bill upon No. 50. I knocked, was let in, and went over the house with a strange mixture of feelings. It is more than twenty-six years since I was in it. The dining-room, and the adjoining room, in which I once slept, are scarcely changed—the same colouring on the wall, but more dingy. My father's study much the same;—the drawing-rooms too, except the papering. My bedroom just what it was. My mother's bedroom. I had never been in it since her death. I went away sad.">[

While warmly attached to all his nearest relations, Macaulay lived in the closest and most frequent companionship with his sisters Hannah and Margaret, younger than himself by ten and twelve years respectively. His affection for these two, deep and enduring as it was, had in it no element of blindness or infatuation. Even in the privacy of a diary, or the confidence of the most familiar correspondence, Macaulay, when writing about those whom he loved, was never tempted to indulge in fond exaggeration of their merits. Margaret, as will be seen in the course of this narrative, died young, leaving a memory of outward graces, and sweet and noble mental qualities, which is treasured by all among whom her short existence was passed. As regards the other sister, there are many alive who knew her for what she was; and, for those who did not know her, if this book proves how much of her brother's heart she had, and how well it was worth having, her children will feel that they have repaid their debt even to her.