in Macaulay a lover of truth and political honour. We find no more than
we expected, when we are told that the one circumstance upon which he
looked back with some regret was the unauthorised publication by a
constituent of a letter in which he had spoken too frankly of a
political ally. That is indeed an infinitesimal stain upon the character
of a man who rose without wealth or connection, by sheer force of
intellect, to a conspicuous position amongst politicians. But we find
something more than we expected in the singular beauty of Macaulay's
domestic life. In his relations to his father, his sisters, and the
younger generation, he was admirable. The stern religious principle and
profound absorption in philanthropic labours of old Zachary Macaulay
must have made the position of his brilliant son anything but an easy
one. He could hardly read a novel, or contribute to a worldly magazine,
without calling down something like a reproof. The father seems to have
indulged in the very questionable practice of listening to vague gossip
about his son's conduct, and demanding explanations from the supposed
culprit. The stern old gentleman carefully suppressed his keen
satisfaction at his son's first oratorical success, and, instead of
praising him, growled at him for folding his arms in the presence of
royalty. Many sons have turned into consummate hypocrites under such
paternal discipline; and, as a rule, the system is destructive of
anything like mutual confidence. Macaulay seems, in spite of all, to
have been on the most cordial terms with his father to the last. Some
suppression of his sentiments must indeed have been necessary; and we
cannot avoid tracing certain peculiarities of the son's intellectual
career to his having been condemned from an early age to habitual
reticence upon the deepest of all subjects of thought.

Macaulay's relations to his sisters are sufficiently revealed in a long
series of charming letters, showing, both in their playfulness and in
their literary and political discussions, the unreserved respect and
confidence which united them. One of them writes upon his death: 'We
have lost the light of our home, the most tender, loving, generous,
unselfish, devoted of friends. What he was to me for fifty years who can
tell? What a world of love he poured out upon me and mine!' Reading
these words at the close of the biography, we do not wonder at the
glamour of sisterly affection; but admit them to be the n