to Parliament, and
to official work, when his true career undoubtedly was literature pure
and simple, for which no man of his time was so splendidly equipped,
both by nature and by preparation. We ought to have had from him more
enduring historical works, and more of his masterly estimates of the
works of other men. After his retirement into private life, in 1847, he
enjoyed his freedom intensely, and much regretted that he had not
obtained it sooner. He enjoyed the pleasures of society greatly at this
time. He was the centre of a gifted circle of men--the most brilliant of
their time--all of whom were his close friends and admirers. How
brilliantly these men talked is already a matter of tradition. Macaulay
was the most wonderful conversationalist, probably, since Dr. Johnson,
not even excepting Carlyle, or Sydney Smith, or Coleridge. Very
laughable stories are told, of course, of a man who would talk three
hours without pause, and undoubtedly there were many people sadly bored
by him in his day; but to those who could appreciate the remarkable
stores of information he possessed, and the lucidity with which he could
deal them forth,--to say nothing of his rhetorical splendors,--those
discourses of his were never tedious, but full of supreme interest. To
be sure, Sydney Smith sneered at his "wonderful stores of very
accurate--misinformation," but he was one who did not like a rival near
the throne; and in Macaulay's absence he was himself the sun around
which the social universe revolved. Thackeray wrote after Macaulay's
death:--

"Now that wonderful tongue is to speak no more, will not many a man
grieve that he no longer can listen? To remember the talk is to
wonder, to think not only of the treasures he had stored, but of
the trifles which he could produce with equal readiness. What a
vast, brilliant, wonderful store of learning he had; what strange
lore would he not fetch at your bidding."

No report of these conversations exists, except such as is found
scattered in private diaries. In these there are records of many an
Attic night, and still more agreeable morning. Lord Carlisle's journal
contains as many of these records, perhaps, as any one's. He makes
glowing mention of Macaulay and his eloquence, after nearly every
meeting of the famous circle. The only criticism he made, and it is one
that was frequently made on Macaulay, was that it was remarkable what
quantities of trash he r