l trustworthiness, or even
of literary-style, in both which respects he has come in for
severe strictures and sometimes for rather half-hearted
defence. Nor do the letters display any purely literary
gifts in him (except perhaps a playfulness of humour or at
least wit) which do not appear in the _History_ and the
_Essays_. But, as the exception may perhaps partly indicate,
they extend and improve the notion of his personality in the
most remarkable fashion. Even those who did not quarrel with
his views sometimes, before Sir George Trevelyan's book,
disliked and regretted what have been called his "pistolling
ways"--the positive, hectoring "hold-your-tongue" sort of
tone which dominated his productions. With the very rarest
exceptions, themselves sometimes of a revealing and
excusable frankness, this tone is, if not quite absent[122]
from, much seldomer present in, his letters. He jokes
without difficulty; talks without in the least monopolising
the conversation; shows himself often willing to live and
let live; and is on the whole as different a person as
possible from the Macaulay who is sure that "every
schoolboy" knows better than the author he is reviewing, and
who finds Johnson guilty of superstition and Swift of
apostasy. "Happy thrice and more also" are those whose
letters thus vindicate them. I have purposely chosen the
following example (written to his sister) from the most
_mundane_ class. "Appointment" was to the _Indian_ Council,
which explains the "Cotton" and "Muslin" and other things.
"Ellis" (Thomas Flower), a friend of Macaulay's from
Cambridge days and his literary executor in part.
"Lushington" (Stephen), a civilian lawyer of great eminence
as a judge in Admiralty and ecclesiastical matters, but a
rather violent politician. "Town"--Leeds. "Miss Berry" is
annotated elsewhere. "Sir Stratford Canning," later Viscount
Stratford de Redcliffe, George Canning's cousin, and one of
the most famous diplomatists of the nineteenth century,
especially during his long tenure of the Embassy at
Constantinople. _Vivian Grey_--Disraeli's first novel. "Lady
Holland," the most famous hostess on the Whig side in the
first half of the nineteenth century, but, by all accounts,
a person now and then quite intolerable. "Allen" (John