of the French War Office, were garnered into a multitude of pocketbooks of every possible shape and colour. Of these a dozen still remain, ready to the hands of any among Macaulay's remote heirs who may be tempted to commit the posthumous treachery of publishing the commonplace book of a great writer. His industry has had its reward. The extent and exactness of his knowledge have won him the commendation of learned and candid writers who have travelled over ground which he has trod before. Each in his own particular field recognises the high quality of Macaulay's work; and there is no testimonial so valuable as the praise of an enlightened specialist. Such praise has been freely given by Mr Bagehot, the editor of the Economist, in that delightful treatise which goes by the name of 'Lombard Street.' He commences one important section of the book with a sentence in which, except for its modesty, I am unwilling to find a fault: The origin of the Bank of England has been told by Macaulay, and it is never wise for an ordinary writer to tell again what he has told so much better.' And Mr Buckle, who was as well acquainted with the social manners of our ancestors as is Mr Bagehot with their finance, appends the following note to what is perhaps the most interesting chapter in his 'History of Civilisation:' 'Everything Mr Macaulay has said on the contempt into which the clergy fell in the reign of Charles II. is perfectly accurate, and from evidence which I have collected, I know that this very able writer, of whose immense research few people are competent judges, has rather understated the case than overstated it. On several subjects I should venture to differ from Mr Macaulay; but I cannot refrain from expressing my admiration of his unwearied diligence, of the consummate skill with which he has arranged his materials, and of the noble love of liberty which animates his entire work. These are qualities which will long survive the aspersions of his puny detractors-men who, in point of knowledge and ability, are unworthy to loosen the shoe-latchet of him they foolishly attack.' "The main secret of Macaulay's success lay in this, that to extraordinary fluency and facility he united patient, minute, and persistent diligence. He well knew, as Chaucer knew before him, that There is na workeman That can bothe worken wel and hastilie. If his method of composition ever comes into fashion, books probably will be better, and undoubtedly will be shorter. As soon as he had got into his head all the information relating to any particular episode in his ' History' (such, for instance, as Argyle's expedition to Scotland, or the attainder of Sir John Fenwick, or the calling in of the clipped coinage), he would sit down and write off the whole story at a headlong pace; sketching in the outlines under the genial and audacious impulse of a first conception; and securing in black and white each idea, and epithet, and turn of phrase as it flowed straight from his busy brain to his rapid fingers. His manuscript, at this stage, to the eyes of any one but himself, appeared to consist of column after column of dashes and flourishes, in which a straight line, with a half-formed letter at each end and another in the middle, did duty for a word. It was from amidst a chaos of such hieroglyphics that Lady Trevelyan, after her brother's death, deciphered that account of the last days of William which fitly closes the 'History.' "As soon as Macaulay had finished his rough draft he began to fill it in at the rate of six sides of foolscap every morning, written in so large a hand, and with such a multitude of erasures, that the whole six pages were, on an average, compressed into two pages of print. This portion he called his 'task,' and he was never quite easy unless he completed it daily. More he seldom sought to accomplish; for he had learned by long experience that this was as much as he could do at his best; and except when at his best, he never would work at all. I had no heart to write,' he says in his journal of March 6, 1851. 'I am too self-indulgent in this matter, it may be; and yet I attribute much of the success which I have had to my habit of writing only when I am in the humour, and of stopping as soon as the thoughts and words cease to flow fast. There are therefore few lees in my wine. It is all the cream of the bottle.' "Macaulay never allowed a sentence to pass muster until it was as good as he could make it. He thought little of recasting a chapter in order to obtain a more lucid arrangement, and nothing whatever of reconstructing a paragraph for the sake of one happy stroke or apt illustration. Whatever the worth of his labour, at any rate it was a labour of love. 'Antonio Stradivari has an eye That winces at false work, and loves the true.' "When at length, after repeated revisions, Macaulay had satisfied himself that his writing was as good as he could make it, he would submit it to the severest of all tests, that of being read aloud to others. Though he never ventured on this experiment in the presence of any except his own family, and his friend Mr Ellis, it may well be believed that, even within that restricted circle, he had no difficulty in finding hearers. I read,' he says, in December 1849, a portion of my "History" to Hannah and Trevelyany with great effect. Hannah cried and Trevelyan kept awake. I think what I have done as good as any part of the former volumes: and so thinks Ellis.' "Whenever one of his books was passing through the press, Macaulay extended his indefatigable industry and his scrupulous precision to the minutest mechanical drudgery of the literary calling. There was no end to the trouble that he devoted to matters which most authors are only too glad to leave to the care and experience of their publisher. He could not rest until the lines were level to a hair's breadth, and the punctuation correct to a comma; until every paragraph concluded with a telling sentence, and every sentence flowed like running water. I remember the pleasure with which he showed us a communication from one of the readers in Mr Spottiswoode's office, who respectfully informed him that there was one expression, and one only, throughout the two volumes of which he did not catch the meaning at a glance. And it must be remembered that Macaulay's punctilious attention to details was prompted by an honest wish to increase the enjoyment, and smooth the difficulties, of those who did him the honour to buy his books." miles a year ago." In the winter which followed, he had an attack of bronchitis, and for the remainder of his life was troubled with confirmed asthma, and was also tormented by frequent fits of coughing; and in 1854, "instead of writing, as on a pinch he loved to write, straight on from his late and somewhat lazy breakfast until the moment of dinner found him hungry and complacent, with a heavy task successfully performed, he was condemned, for the first time in his life, to the detested necessity of breaking the labours of the day by luncheon." In 1853, on the occasion of an imperfect and pirated edition of his speeches having been issued by a London publisher, in self-defence he himself prepared an authorised edition. Shortly after its publication, he applied himself to his "History," a work which was now the business and the pleasure of his life. He ceased to be a Member of Parliament, and formally resigned his seat in 1856. In November 1855, another instalment of the "History" was finished. The following entry is from his journal of 23d November: "Longman came. All the 25,000 copies are ordered. Monday, the 27th of December, is to be the day. But on the evening of the preceding Saturday, those booksellers who take more than a thousand are to have their books. The stock lying at the bookbinder's is insured for £10,000. The whole weight is fifty-six tons. It seems that no such edition was ever published of any work of the same bulk. I earnestly hope that neither age nor riches will narrow my heart." He was much amused in passing through the streets of London to see a copy of Hume's "History of England" exposed for sale in a bookseller's window, with the label, "Only £2, 2s., Hume's 'History of England,' in eight volumes, highly valuable as an introduction to Macaulay." In 1848 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow: in his inaugural address he gave a retrospect of the history and condition of the university at the commencement of each successive century of its existence. In 1849 he was offered the Professorship of History at Cambridge, by the Prince Consort, which he declined. The half of August of this year he spent in Ireland, studying the literature of the country. In 1850 Macaulay dined at the Palace, and was presented to royalty, and in January 1851 he was again at Windsor Castle. "When we went into the drawing-room," he says, "the Queen came to me with great animation, and insisted on my telling her some of my stories, which she had heard at second hand from George Grey. I certainly made her laugh heartily. She talked on for some time, most courteously and pleasantly. Nothing could be more sensible than her remarks on German affairs." In 1852 Macaulay was returned Member of Parliament for Edinburgh, the enthusiasm of his election not being confined to his own party. He had no intention, says his bio-tory" were sold in ten weeks. "I should not grapher, of again aspiring to be a leader; and he very soon was taught that he must not even hope to count as an effective among the rank and file of politicians. In the autumn of this year, writing became a burden to him, and the doctor pronounced his heart to be affected. In March 1853, he wrote: "Last July was a crisis in my life. I became twenty years older in a week. A mile is more to me now than ten The sale of Macaulay's "History" within but a generation of its first appearance, is stated to have been 140,000 copies. Its sale in the United States was immense, rivalling that of the Bible and one or two very popular schoolbooks. Six translators were at one time busy translating rival editions into the German language. Honours were plentifully bestowed upon him. He was made a member of the Academies of Utrecht, Munich, and Turin. He was named a Knight of the Order of Merit by the King of Prussia. He was elected a member of the Institute of France, and the Oxford University conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Civil Law. In 1854 he was chosen President of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. Longman reported to him on the last day of February 1856, that 26,500 copies of his "His wonder," he remarks in his diary on this success, "if I made £20,000 this year by literature. Pretty well, considering that twenty-two years ago I had just nothing when my debts were paid; and all that I have, with the exception of a small part left me by my uncle, the general, has been made by myself." When the £20,000 had been paid over to his account by his publisher, he further remarked: "What a sum to be gained by one edition of a book! may say In 1856 Macaulay, after a farewell address A vivid and thoughtful commentary upon our method of government by alternation of parties. No passage in all his works more clearly illustrates the union of intellectual qualities which formed the real secret of his strength-the combination in one and the same man of literary power, historical learning, and practical familiarity with the conduct of great affairs.. "However effective were the episodes which thickly strew the portion of his history that he did not live to publish, there can be no question that the alacrity with which he had once pursued his great undertaking had begun to languish. 'I find it difficult,' he writes in February 1857, 'to settle to my work. This is an old malady of mine. It has not prevented me from doing a good deal in the course of my life. Of late I have felt this impotence more than usual. The chief reason, I believe, is the great doubt which I feel whether I shall live long enough to finish another volume of my book.' He already knew, dying William of Orange, 'that his time was to use the expression which he applied to the short, and grieved, with a grief such as only noble his work but half finished." spirits feel, to think that he must leave peer In August 1857, he was elevated to age, with the title of Baron Macaulay of Robe ley. On 1st October 1856, his journal showed that he was again at work on the fifth volume of his "History:" "To the Museum, and turned over the Dutch despatches for information about the fire at Whitehall. In the autumn of 1859 he visited Scotland Home, and wrote a sheet and the north of England. While travelling he of foolscap, the first of part iii. God knows whether I shall ever finish that part. I begin tention. The clovese of the year was saddened was made the tosubject of much honour and at it with little heart or hope." In the summer of 1857 he remarks: "How the days steal away, and nothing done! I think often of Johnson's lamentations repeated every Easter over his own idleness. But the cases differ. felt this morbid incapacity to work; but never Often I have so long and so strong as of late-the natural effect of age and ease. On the 14th of July in the same year: "I wrote a good deal to-day; Darien. The humour has returned, and I shall woo it to continue. What better amusement can I have, if it should prove no more than an amusement." And again: "Read about the Darien affair. It will be impossible to tell the truth as to that matter without putting the Scotch into a rage. But the truth shall be told." "The intrinsic importance of the work on which Macaulay was now engaged," says his biographer, "could hardly be over-rated; for the course of his 'History' had brought him to a most momentous era in the political annals of our country. It was his business to tell the story, and to point the lesson, of the years from 1697 to 1701-those years when the majority in the House of Commons was already the strongest force in the State, but when the doctrine that the executive administration must be in the hands of ministers who possessed the confidence of that majority had not as yet been recognised as a constitutional axiom. Nothing which he has ever written is more valuable than his account of the grave perils which beset the kingdom during that period of transition, or than his by the thought of hlosing the companionship of February of the foll his sister Hannah b ely her removal to India, in ts pwing year. He drowned these thoughts in absoforbing study in his library. But his health was fabling rapidly. Four vollifetime; the fifth, upood in which he had been umes of his "History"we were issued during his working, and which had tin not received his final revision, was published angifter his death, which took place at Holly Lodge, in his sixtieth year, December 28, 1859. Heolied peacefully in his library, dressed and seate labd in his easy chair, having ceased to breathe w with the first number of the hen in that posture, lying on the table beside ye him. Cornhill Magazine "He died," says Mr Trevelyan, as he had always wished well, preceding to the grave repeall whom he loved, to die, without pain, withou at any formal fareand leaving behind him a gref that and honourable which was as clear and transparts, rent as one of his name, and the memory of a liit, fe every action of own sentences." 9th January 1860, and he was preburied in Poets' His funeral took place on the Corner, Westminster Abbey. Trierhe stone there bears the inscription: en cult "THOMAS BABINGTON, LORTDeep MACAULAY, Died at Holly Lodge, Chink amden Hill, 'His body is burie d in peace, ance. HUGH MILLER. [1802-1856.] mother, telling what I had seen; and the housegirl whom she next sent to shut the door, apparently affected by my terror, also returned frightened, and said that she too had seen the THE name of Hugh Miller is one which commands universal regard and respect, whether we view him as a geologist, a man of letters, or as a stone-mason, who possessed sturdy independence of character, and indomitable persever-woman's hand; which, however, did not seem In telling the story of his life we have at to be the case. And finally, my mother going least two good sources of information. There is to the door, saw nothing, though she appeared the interesting autobiography which he wrote, much impressed by the extremeness of my terror "My Schools and Schoolmasters; or, the Story and the minuteness of my description. I comof my Education," and also "The Life and municate the story, as it lies fixed in my Letters of Hugh Miller," by Peter Bayne, M. A. memory, without attempting to explain it. Besides this, although not so generally recog- The supposed apparition may have been merely nised at the time, Dr Guthrie paid him a hand- a momentary affection of the eye, of the nature some and deserved tribute for what he accom- described by Sir Walter Scott in his "Demonoplished as editor of the Witness, in connection logy," and Sir David Brewster in his "Natural with the Disruption in the Church of Scotland Magic." But if so, the affection was one of of 1843. which I experienced no after-return; and its coincidence, in the case, with the probable time of my father's death, seems at least curious." Hugh Miller was born in the town of Cromarty, 10th October 1802. His father, who was brave and gentle, and seldom angry without just cause, had a strange dream regarding his first-born. There was a dash of Celtic blood in his descent, but his character belonged more to the Lowland type. His paternal ancestors had all been seafaring men; and for more than a hundred years before his birth not one of these ancestors had been laid to rest in the churchyard of Cromarty. His own father perished at sea when he was but five years old. Of this sad event, and before the news of it had arrived at his home, Miller writes: This superstitious feeling was no doubt nursed by his mother, who entertained a belief in fairies, witches, dreams, ghosts, and presentiments. She was but eighteen when married, while her husband was forty-four. Young Hugh was sent to a dame school, where he learned to read, and during his sixth year spelt through the Shorter Catechism, the Proverbs, and the New Testament. He read the Old Testament narrative, especially the story of Joseph, with growing interest. He also perused those classics for youth, "Jack the Giant Killer," "Jack and the Bean Stalk," and followed them up with Pope's Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey," and Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress." In process of time he also devoured all the voyages, travels, and romances upon which he could lay his hands. His mother, a young widow with her son of five, and two daughters emerging from infancy, with a fixed income of but twelve pounds, betook herself to her needle, and was otherwise befriended by her two brothers, mentioned in "My Schools and Schoolmasters" under the names of Uncle James and Uncle Sandy. Thinking themselves called upon to take his father's place in the work of his instruction and discipline, Miller remarks that he owed much more of his real education to them, than to any of the teachers whose schools he afterwards attended. "There were no forebodings in the master's dwelling; for his Peterhead letter-a brief but hopeful missive-had been just received; and my mother was sitting, on the evening after, beside the household fire, plying the cheerful needle, when the house door, which had been left unfastened, fell open, and I was despatched from her side to shut it. What follows must be regarded as simply the recollection, though a very vivid one, of a boy who had completed his fifth year only a month before. Day had not wholly disappeared, but it was fast posting on to night, and a grey haze spread a neutral tint of dimness over every more distant object, but left the nearer ones comparatively distinct, when I saw at the open door, within less than a yard of my breast, as plainly as ever I saw anything, a dissevered hand and arm stretched towards me. Hand and arm were apparently "My elder uncle, James," he writes, "added those of a female: they bore a livid and sodden to a clear head and much native sagacity, a appearance; and directly fronting me, where singularly retentive memory, and great thirst of the body ought to have been, there was only information. He was a harness-maker, and blank, transparent space, through which I could wrought for the farmers of an extensive district see the dim forms of the objects beyond. I was of country; and as he never engaged either fearfully startled. and ran shrieking to my journeyman or apprentice, but executed all hi work with his own hands, his hours of labour, save that he indulged in a brief pause as the twilight came on, and took a mile's walk or so, were usually protracted from six o'clock in the morning till ten at night. Such incessant occupation left him little time for reading; but he often found some one to read beside him during | the day; and in the winter evenings his portable bench used to be brought from his shop at the other end of the dwelling, into the family sitting-room, and placed beside the circle round the hearth, where his brother Alexander, my younger uncle, whose occupation left his evenings free, would read aloud from some interesting volume for the general benefit-placing him- | self always at the opposite side of the bench, so as to share in the light of the worker. Occasionally the family circle would be widened by the accession of from two to three intelligent neighbours, who would drop in to listen; and then the book, after a space, would be laid aside, in order that its contents might be discussed in conversation. In the summer months Uncle James always spent some time in the country, in looking after and keeping in repair the harness of the farmers for whom he wrought; and during his journeys and twilight walks on these occasions there was not an old castle, or hillfort, or ancient encampment, or antique ecclesiastical edifice, within twenty miles of the town, which he had not visited and examined over and over again. He was a keen local antiquary; knew a good deal about the architectural styles of the various ages, at a time when these subjects were little studied or known; and possessed more traditionary lore, picked up chiefly in his country journeys, than any man I ever knew. What he once heard he never forgot; and the knowledge which he had acquired he could communicate pleasingly and succinctly, in a style which, had he been a writer of books, instead of merely a reader of them, would have had the merit of being clear and terse, and more laden with meaning than words. From his reputation for sagacity, his advice used to be much sought after by the neighbours in every little difficulty that came their way; and the counsel given was always shrewd and honest. I never knew a man more entirely just in his dealings than Uncle James, or who regarded every species of meanness with a more thorough contempt. I soon learned to bring my story-books to his workshop, and became, in a small way, one of his readers-greatly more, however, as may be supposed, on my own account than his. My books were not yet of the kind which he would have chosen for himself; but he took an interest in my interest; and his explanations of all the hard words saved me the trouble of turning over a dictionary. And when tired of reading, I never failed to find rare delight in his anecdotes and oldworld stories, many of which were not to be found in books, and all of which, without apparent effort on his own part, he could render singularly amusing. Of these narratives, the larger part died with him; but a portion of them I succeeded in preserving in a little traditionary work published a few years after his death. I was much a favourite with Uncle James-even more, I am disposed to think, on my father's account than on that of his sister, my mother. My father and he had been close friends for years; and in the vigorous and energetic sailor he had found his beau-ideal of a man. "My Uncle Alexander was of a different cast from his brother, both in intellect and temperament; but he was characterised by the same strict integrity; and his religious feelings, though quiet and unobtrusive, were perhaps more deep. James was somewhat of a humorist, and fond of a good joke. Alexander was grave and serious; and never, save on one solitary occasion, did I know him even attempt a jest. On hearing an intelligent but somewhat eccentric neighbour observe, that 'all flesh is grass,' in a strictly physical sense, seeing that all the flesh of the herbivorous animals is elaborated from vegetation, and all the flesh of the carnivorous animals from that of the herbivorous ones, Uncle Sandy remarked that, knowing, as he did, the piscivorous habits of the Cromarty folk, he should surely make an exception in his generalisation, by admitting that in at least one village ‘all flesh is fish.' My uncle had acquired the trade of the cartwright, and was employed in a workshop at Glasgow at the time the first war of the French Revolution broke out; when, moved by some such spirit as possessed his uncle-the victim of Admiral Vernon's unlucky expedition-or Old Donald Roy, when he buckled himself to his Highland broadsword, and set out in pursuit of the caterans-he entered the navy. "Early on the Sabbath evenings I used regularly to attend at my uncle's with two of my maternal cousins, boys of about my own age, and latterly with my two sisters, to be catechised, first on the Shorter Catechism, and then on the Mother's Catechism of Willison. On Willison my uncles always cross-examined us, to make sure that we understood the short and simple questions; but, apparently regarding the questions of the Shorter Catechism as seed sown for a future day, they were content with having them well fixed in our memories. There was a Sabbath class taught in the parish church at the time by one of the elders; but Sabbath-schools my uncles regarded as merely compensatory institutions, highly creditable to the teachers, but very discreditable indeed to the parents and relatives of the taught; and so they of course never thought of sending us there. Later in the evening, after a short twilight walk, for which the sedentary occupation of my Uncle James |