rotchets, nor to the obtrusive and unseasonable assertion of
conscientious scruples. The occasions on which they made proof of
independence and impartiality were such as justified, and dignified,
their temporary renunciation of party ties. They interfered with
decisive effect in the debates on the great scandals of Lord Melville
and the Duke of York, and in more than one financial or commercial
controversy that deeply concerned the national interests, of which
the question of the retaining the Orders in Council was a conspicuous
instance. A boy who, like young Macaulay, was admitted to the intimacy
of politicians such as these, and was accustomed to hear matters of
state discussed exclusively from a public point of view without any
afterthought of ambition, or jealousy, or self-seeking, could hardly
fail to grow up a patriotic and disinterested man. "What is far better
and more important than all is this, that I believe Macaulay to be
incorruptible. You might lay ribbons, stars, garters, wealth, titles
before him in vain. He has an honest genuine love of his country, and
the world would not bribe him to neglect her interests." Thus said
Sydney Smith, who of all his real friends was the least inclined to
over-praise him.

The memory of Thornton and Babington, and the other worthies of their
day and set, is growing dim, and their names already mean little in our
ears. Part of their work was so thoroughly done that the world, as its
wont is, has long ago taken the credit of that work to itself. Others of
their undertakings, in weaker hands than theirs, seem out of date among
the ideas and beliefs which now are prevalent. At Clapham, as elsewhere,
the old order is changing, and not always in a direction which to them
would be acceptable or even tolerable. What was once the home of Zachary
Macaulay stands almost within the swing of the bell of a stately
and elegant Roman Catholic chapel; and the pleasant mansion of Lord
Teignmouth, the cradle of the Bible Society, is now a religious house of
the Redemptorist Order. But in one shape or another honest performance
always lives, and the gains that accrued from the labours of these
men are still on the right side of the national ledger. Among the most
permanent of those gains is their undoubted share in the improvement of
our political integrity by direct, and still more by indirect, example.
It would be ungrateful to forget in how large a measure it is due to
them that one, whos