Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/536

528 to Whig principles. The passage, in these days, it may be well to quote.

"I look with pride," said Macaulay, "on all that the Whigs have done for the cause of human freedom and of human happiness. I see them now hard pressed, struggling with difficulties, but still fighting the good fight. At their head I see men who have inherited the spirit and the virtues, as well as the blood, of old champions and martyrs of freedom. To those men I propose to attachattach [sic] myself. While one shred of the old banner is flying, by that banner will I, at least, be found. Whether in or out of Parliament—whether speaking with that authority which must always belong to the representative of this great and enlightened community, or expressing the humble sentiments of a private citizen—I will to the last maintain inviolate my fidelity to principles which, though they may be borne down for a time by senseless clamour, are yet strong with the strength, and immortal with the immortality, of truth; and which, however they may be misunderstood or misrepresented by contemporaries, will assuredly find justice from a better age."

The day came, even in Edinburgh, when the enthusiasm excited by this patriotic language was forgotten; but the day never came when Macaulay flinched from those principles; and the day will never come when those who follow, at however great a distance, in his footsteps, will forsake them.

It was not long before Macaulay was called upon to make a considerable sacrifice to his sense of public duty. The most cherished desire of his heart had been to devote himself, on his return to England, to some great literary work, for in his eyes all that he had hitherto achieved was desultory and ephemeral. He applied himself, indeed, with fresh energy to the review, and it was at this time that the splendid articles on Clive and Warren Hastings were written, to be followed by many others. But the magnum opus he had in view—the work which was to hand down his name to posterity, and perhaps be read and admired at the distance of a thousand years, was his English history. The plan was already framed in his mind, though in proportions very different from those which it afterwards assumed; and on March 9, 1839, it appears from his journal that he wrote a portion of the introduction. "Pretty well," was his own note upon it, "but a little too stately and rhetorical." But before the close of September he received a letter from Lord Melbourne, with an offer of the secretaryship at war and a seat in the Cabinet. No doubt to attain to a place in the executive government of England before a man is forty, by sheer force of intellect, is a triumph and a temptation which few men of strong political feelings and ambition could resist. But in accepting office Macaulay added nothing to his own fame. He had no inducement to accept it but the consciousness that it was his duty to support what he knew to be a falling government. His powers of debate were wasted in violent and fruitless altercations, and his duties as secretary at war might have been as well performed by a chief clerk of the department. In one respect his short ministerial career was remarkable. He gave a strenuous support to Lord Palmerston in the transactions of 1840 which nearly led to war with France; and he did not side with the dissentient voices in the Cabinet, though amongst them were several names dearest to the Whig party and to himself. The struggle of the Cabinet was not of long duration. In less than two years the Melbourne ministry fell, and Macaulay was liberated from office.

He wrote at this time to Macvey Napier;—

I am not at all disappointed by the elections. They have, indeed, gone very nearly as I expected. Perhaps I counted on seven or eight votes more; and even these we may get on petition. I can truly say that I have not, for many years, been so happy as I am at present. Before I went to India, I had no prospect in the event of a change of government, except that of living by my pen, and seeing my sisters governesses. In India I was an exile. When I came back, I was for a time at liberty; but I had before me the prospect of parting in a few months, probably forever, with my dearest sister and her children. That misery was removed; but I found myself in office, a member of a government wretchedly weak, and struggling for existence. Now I am free. I am independent. I am in Parliament, as honourably seated as man can be. My family is comfortably off. I have leisure for literature; yet I am not reduced to the necessity of writing for money. If I had to choose a lot from all that there are in human life, I am not sure that I should prefer any to that which has fallen to me. I am sincerely and thoroughly contented.

These agreeable prognostications were to a great extent realized. Eighteen years of life still remained to him, and he spent them in full and unbroken enjoyment. His influence in Parliament was considerable, and on more than one occasion he turned the opinion of the House, by the incomparable ingenuity of his arguments. He lost his seat for Edinburgh indeed but that was the result of a proud and