Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/143

Rh MAOAULAY 127 signal success. Sir Robert Peel said of it that &quot; portions were as beautiful as anything I have ever heard or read.&quot; Encouraged by this first success, Macaulay now threw himself with ardour into the life of the House of Commons, while at the same time he continued to enjoy to the full the social opportunities which his literary and political celebrity had placed within his reach. For these reasons he dined out almost nightly, and spent many of his Sundays at the suburban villas of the Whig leaders, while he continued to supply the Edinburgh Revieiv with a steady series of his most elaborate articles. On the triumph of Earl Grey s cabinet, and the passing of the Reform Act in June 1832, Macaulay, whose eloquence had signalized every stage of the conflict, became one of the commissioners of the Board of Control, and applied himself to the stuiy of Indian affairs. His industry was untiring, and the amount of intellectual product which he threw off very great. Giving his days to India and his nights to the House of Commons, he could only devote a few hours to literary compDsition by rising at five when the business of the House had allowed of his getting to bed in time on the previous evening. Between September 1831 and December 1833 he furnished the Revieiv with the following articles : &quot; Boswell s Life of Johnson&quot; ; &quot;Lord Nugent s Hampdeu&quot;; &quot; Burleigh and his Times&quot;; &quot;Mirabeau&quot;; &quot;Horace Walpole&quot;; &quot;Lord Chatham&quot;; besides writing his ballad on the Armada for one of the Albums, annual publications of miscellanies then in fashion. In the first reform parliament, January 1833, Macaulay took his seat as one of the two first members for Leeds, which up to that date had been unrepresented in the House of Commons. He replied to O Connell in the debate on the address, meeting the great agitator face to face, with high, but not intemperate, defiance. In July he defended the Government India Bill in a speech of great power, and to his aid was greatly due the getting the bill through committee without unnecessary friction. When the abolition of slavery came before the House as a practical question, Macaulay had the prospect of being placed in the dilemma of having to surrender office or to vote for a modified abolition, viz., twelve years apprentice ship, which was proposed by the ministry, but condemned by the abolitionists. He was prepared to make the sacrifice of place rather than be unfaithful to the cause to which his father had devoted his life. He placed his resignation in Lord Althorp s hands, and spoke against the ministerial proposal. But the sense of the House was so strongly expressed as unfavourable that, finding they would be beaten if they persisted, the ministry gave way, and reduced apprenticeship to seven years, a compromise which the abolition party accepted; and Macaulay remained at the Board of Control. While he was thus growing in reputation, and advancing his public credit, the fortunes of the family were sinking, and it became evident that his sisters would have no provision except such as their brother might be enabled to make for them. Macaulay had but two sources of income, both of them precarious office and his pen. As to office, the Whigs could not have expected at that time to retain power for a whole generation ; and, even while they did so, Macaulay s resolution that he would always give an independent vote made it possible that he might at any moment find himself in disagreement with his colleagues, and have to quit his place. As to literature, he wrote himself to Lord Lansdowne (1833), &quot;it has been hitherto merely my relaxation ; I have never considered it as the means of support. I have chosen my own topics, taken my own time, and dictated my own terms. The thought of becoming a bookseller s hack, of spurring a jaded fancy to reluctant exertion, of filling sheets with trash merely that sheets may be filled, of bearing from publishers and editors what Dryden bore from Tonson and what Mackintosh bore from Lardner, is horrible to me.&quot; Though pennyless, Macaulay could never be accused of playing the game of politics from selfish considerations. But it was impossible that, circumstanced as he was, he should not look with anxiety upon his own future and that of his sisters, sisters who had been, and who had deserved to be, the intimate confidants of all his thoughts and doings, and to whom he was attached by the tenderest affection. He was therefore prepared to accept the offer which was made him of a seat in the supreme council of India, a body which had been created by the India Act he had himself been instrumental in passing. The salary of the office was fixed at 10,000, an income out of which he calculated to be able to save in five years a capital of 30,000. His sister Hannah accepted his proposal to accompany him, and in February 183i the brother and sister sailed for Calcutta. Macaulay s appointment to India occurred at the critical moment when the government of the company was being superseded by government by the crown. His knowledge of India was, when he landed, but superficial. But at this juncture there was more need of statesmanship directed by general liberal principles than of a practical knowledge of the details of Indian administration. Macaulay s presence in the council 4 was of great value ; his minutes are models of good judgment and practical sagacity. The part he took in India has been described as &quot; the applica tion of sound liberal principles to a government which had till then been jealous, close, and repressive.&quot; He vindi cated the liberty of the press ; he maintained the equality of Europeans and natives before the law ; and as president of the committee of public instruction he inaugurated that system of national education which has since spread over the whole of the Indian peninsula. A clause in the Indian Act of 1833 occasioned the appointment of a commission to inquire into the juris prudence of our Eastern empire. Macaulay was appointed president of that commission. The draft of a penal code which he submitted became, after a revision of many years, and by the labour of many experienced lawyers, that criminal code under which law is now administered throughout the empire. Of this code Sir Jarnes Stephen says that &quot;it reproduces in a concise and even beautiful form the spirit of the law of England, in a compass which by comparison with the original may be regarded as almost absurdly small. The Indian penal code is to the English criminal law what a manufactured article ready for use is to the materials out of which it is made. It is to the French Code Pe&quot;nal, and to the German code of 1871, what a finished picture is to a sketch. It is simpler and better expressed than Livingston s code for Louisiana; and its practical success has been complete.&quot; As might be expected, Macaulay s enlightened views and measures drew down on him the abuse and ill-will of Anglo-Indian society in Calcutta and the Mofussil. Fortunately for himself he was enabled to maintain a tranquil indifference to political detraction by withdrawing his thoughts into a sphere remote from the opposition and enmity by which he was surrounded. Even amid the excitement of his early parliamentary successes literature had balanced politics in his thoughts and interests. Now in his exile, for such he felt it to be, he began to feel more strongly each year the attraction of European letters and European history. He writes to his friend Ellis, &quot; I have gone back to Greek literature with a passion astonishing to myself. I have never felt anything like it. I was enraptured with Italian during the six months which I gave up to it ; and I was little less pleased with Spanish. But when I went back to the Greek I felt as if I had never