Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/490

482 young man, who had hitherto failed in everything he had undertaken; but a ten-pound note and a promise of more had induced the youth to allow Herbert Montgomery to slip into his place. He pleaded his own cause, the determination he had made to win Gwendoline, who in former days had refused him twice, and the difficulty of approaching her in any other way. And Lady Murch was forced to forgive him, especially as her own husband was charmed with the story, which awoke a long-dormant spirit of romance in his breast. Fox was so great a favourite with them all that every one was pleased with his engagement to the daughter of the house, notwithstanding his want of fortune. And George Leslie made his pretty betrothed more than happy by undertaking to finish her beloved brothers' education at Eton and Cambridge.

"There is only one little face that is very sad to-day," continued the old colonel.

"I am sorry to hear that. Whose is it?" said Lady Murch.

"It is little Amy Gordon, the pastry-maid, who will be left behind. But Macdown has been throwing so much energy into comforting her that I cannot help thinking "

"Stop, stop, stop!" cried Lady Murch, holding her ears—"tell me no more."

I was only going to say that with Sir Joseph's interest, that post in the British Museum "

But Lady Murch was gone; and in her place, facing the bewildered colonel, stood the helmeted form of Miss Highclere.

"Good-bye, Colonel Clarence," she said; "I am just going."

"There is an old proverb about a falling house," murmured the colonel. She did not hear rightly.

"Did you ask the reason of my abrupt departure?" she asked, grimly. "It is because I consider the whole concern to have turned out a perfect fiasco"



is told of Strafford that before reading any book for the first time, he would call for a sheet of paper, and then proceed to write down upon it some sketch of the ideas that he already had upon the subject of the book, and of the questions that he expected to find answered. No one who has been at the pains to try the experiment, will doubt the usefulness of Strafford's practice: it gives to our acquisitions from books clearness and reality, a right place and an independent shape. At this moment we are all looking for the biography of an illustrious man of letters, written by a near kinsman, who is himself naturally endowed with keen literary interests, and who has invigorated his academic cultivation by practical engagement in considerable affairs of public business. Before taking up Mr. Trevelyan's two volumes, it is perhaps worth while, on Strafford's plan, to ask ourselves shortly what kind of significance or value belongs to Lord Macaulay's achievements, and to what place he has a claim among the forces of English literature. It is seventeen years since he died, and those of us who never knew him nor ever saw him may now think about his work with that perfect detachment which is impossible in the case of actual contemporaries.

That Macaulay comes in the very front rank in the mind of the ordinary book-buyer of our day is quite certain. It is an amusement with some people to put an imaginary case of banishment to a desert island, with the privilege of choosing the works of one author, and no more, to furnish literary companionship and refreshment for the rest of a lifetime. Whom would one select for this momentous post? Clearly the author must be voluminous, for days on desert islands are many and long; he must be varied in his moods, his topics, and his interests; he must have a great deal to say, and must have a power of saying it that shall arrest a depressed and dolorous spirit. Englishmen, of course, would with mechanical unanimity call for Shakespeare; Germans could hardly hesitate about Goethe; and a sensible Frenchman would pack up the ninety volumes of Voltaire. It would be at least as interesting to know the object of a second choice, supposing the tyrant were in his clemency to give us two authors. In the case of Englishmen there is some evidence as to a popular preference. A recent traveller in Australia informs us that the three books which he found on every squatter's shelf, and which at last he knew before he crossed the threshold that he should be sure to find, were Shakespeare, the Bible, and Macaulay's "Essays." This is only an illustration of a feeling about Macaulay that has been almost universal among the English-speaking peoples.

We may safely say that no man obtains and keeps for a great many years such a position as this, unless he is possessed of some very extraordinary qualities, or else 