us, the admiral of the Macedonian fleet, and beginning with the
lines

"When as first I did come back from ploughing the salt water
They paid me off at Salamis, three minae and a quarter,--"

is highly Aristophanic in every sense of the word.

He did not seriously look to the bar as a profession. No persuasion
would induce him to return to his chambers in the evening, according to
the practice then in vogue. After the first year or two of the period
during which he called himself a barrister he gave up even the pretence
of reading law, and spent many more hours under the gallery of the House
of Commons, than in all the Courts together. The person who knew him
best said of him: "Throughout life he never really applied himself to
any pursuit that was against the grain." Nothing is more characteristic
of the man than the contrast between his unconquerable aversion to the
science of jurisprudence at the time when he was ostensibly preparing
himself to be an advocate, and the zest with which, on his voyage to
India, he mastered that science in principle and detail as soon as
his imagination was fired by the prospect of the responsibilities of a
law-giver.

He got no business worth mention, either in London or on circuit.
Zachary Macaulay, who was not a man of the world, did what he could to
make interest with the attorneys, and, as a last resource, proposed
to his son to take a brief in a suit which he himself had instituted
against the journal that had so grossly libelled him. "I am rather
glad," writes Macaulay from York in March 1827, "that I was not in
London, if your advisers thought it right that I should have appeared as
your counsel. Whether it be contrary to professional etiquette I do not
know; but I am sure that it would be shocking to public feeling, and
particularly imprudent against adversaries whose main strength lies in
detecting and exposing indecorum or eccentricity. It would have been
difficult to avoid a quarrel with Sugden, with Wetherell, and with old
Lord Eldon himself. Then the John Bull would have been upon us with
every advantage. The personal part of the consideration it would have
been my duty, and my pleasure and pride also, to overlook; but your
interests must have suffered."

Meanwhile he was busy enough in fields better adapted than the law to
his talents and his temperament. He took a part in a meeting of the
Anti-Slavery Society held at Freemasons' Tavern, on the 25th of June
1824,