Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, vol 1 | Page 3

writer himself was concerned,
very much as it found them. A consummate master of his craft, he
turned out works which bore the unmistakable marks of the artificer's
hand, but which did not reflect his features. It would be almost as hard
to compose a picture of the author from the History, the Essays, and the
Lays, as to evolve an idea of Shakespeare from Henry the Fifth and
Measure for Measure.
But, besides being a man of letters, Lord Macaulay was a statesman, a
jurist, and a brilliant ornament of society, at a time when to shine in
society was a distinction which a man of eminence and ability might
justly value. In these several capacities, it will be said, he was known
well, and known widely. But in the first place, as these pages will show,
there was one side of his life (to him, at any rate, the most important,)
of which even the persons with whom he mixed most freely and
confidentially in London drawing-rooms, in the Indian Council
chamber, and in the lobbies and on the benches of the House of
Commons, were only in part aware. And in the next place, those who
have seen his features and heard his voice are few already and become
yearly fewer; while, by a rare fate in literary annals, the number of
those who read his books is still rapidly increasing. For everyone who
sat with him in private company or at the transaction of public
business,--for every ten who have listened to his oratory in Parliament
or from the hustings,-- there must be tens of thousands whose interest
in history and literature he has awakened and informed by his pen, and
who would gladly know what manner of man it was that has done them

so great a service.
To gratify that most legitimate wish is the duty of those who have the
means at their command. His lifelike image is indelibly impressed upon
their minds, (for how could it be otherwise with any who had enjoyed
so close relations with such a man?) although the skill which can
reproduce that image before the general eye may well be wanting. But
his own letters will supply the deficiencies of the biographer. Never did
any one leave behind him more copious materials for enabling others to
put together a narrative which might be the history, not indeed of his
times, but of the man himself. For in the first place he so soon showed
promise of being one who would give those among whom his early
years were passed reason to be proud, and still more certain assurance
that he would never afford them cause for shame, that what he wrote
was preserved with a care very seldom bestowed on childish
compositions; and the value set upon his letters by those with whom he
corresponded naturally enough increased as years went on. And in the
next place he was by nature so incapable of affectation or concealment
that he could not write otherwise than as he felt, and, to one person at
least, could never refrain from writing all that he felt; so that we may
read in his letters, as in a clear mirror, his opinions and inclinations, his
hopes and affections, at every succeeding period of his existence. Such
letters could never have been submitted to an editor not connected with
both correspondents by the strongest ties; and even one who stands in
that position must often be sorely puzzled as to what he has the heart to
publish and the right to withhold.
I am conscious that a near relative has peculiar temptations towards that
partiality of the biographer which Lord Macaulay himself so often and
so cordially denounced; and the danger is greater in the case of one
whose knowledge of him coincided with his later years; for it would
not be easy to find a nature which gained more by time than his, and
lost less. But believing, as I do, (to use his own words,) that "if he were
now living he would have sufficient judgment and sufficient greatness
of mind" to wish to be shown as himself, I will suppress no trait in his
disposition, or incident in his career, which might provoke blame or
question. Such in all points as he was, the world, which has been so

indulgent to him, has a right to know him; and those who best love him
do not fear the consequences of freely submitting his character and his
actions to the public verdict.
The most devout believers in the doctrine of the transmission of family
qualities will be content with tracing back descent through four
generations; and all favourable hereditary influences, both intellectual
and moral, are assured by a genealogy which derives from a