which indicate a long
intimacy with the best society, and yet without the least affectation.
We have oceans of beer, and mountains of potatoes, for dinner. Indeed,
Lady Lansdowne drank beer most heartily on the only day which she passed
with us, and, when I told her laughing that she set me at ease on a
point which had given me much trouble, she said that she would never
suffer any dandy novelist to rob her of her beer or her cheese.

The question between law and politics is a momentous one. As far as I am
myself concerned, I should not hesitate; but the interest of my family
is also to be considered. We shall see, however, before long what my
chance of success as a public man may prove to be. At present it would
clearly be wrong in me to show any disposition to quit my profession.

I hope that you will be on your guard as to what you may say to Brougham
about this business. He is so angry at it that he cannot keep his anger
to himself. I know that he has blamed Lord Lansdowne in the robing-room
of the Court of King's Bench. The seat ought, he says, to have been
given to another man. If he means Denman, I can forgive, and even
respect him, for the feeling which he entertains.

Believe me ever yours most affectionately

T. B. M.

CHAPTER IV. 1830-1832.

State of public affairs when Macaulay entered Parliament--
His maiden speech--The French Revolution of July 1830--
Macaulay's letters from Paris--The Palais Royal--Lafayette--
Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopaedia--The new Parliament meets--
Fall of the Duke of Wellington--Scene with Croker--The
Reform Bill--Political success--House of Commons life--
Macaulay's party spirit--Loudon Society--Mr. Thomas Flower
Ellis--Visit to Cambridge--Rothley Temple--Margaret
Macaulay's Journal--Lord Brougham--Hopes of Office--Macaulay
as a politician--Letters to Hannah Macaulay, Mr. Napier, and
Mr. Ellis.

THROUGHOUT the last two centuries of our history there never was a
period when a man conscious of power, impatient of public wrongs, and
still young enough to love a fight for its own sake, could have entered
Parliament with a fairer prospect of leading a life worth living, and
doing work that would requite the pains, than at the commencement of the
year 1830.

In this volume, which only touches politics in order to show to what
extent Macaulay was a politician, and for how long, controversies cannot
appropriately be star