e judgments upon the statesmen of many ages and
countries have been delivered to an audience vast beyond all precedent,
should have framed his decisions in accordance with the dictates of
honour and humanity, of ardent public spirit and lofty public virtue.

CHAPTER II. 1818-1824.

Macaulay goes to the University--His love for Trinity
College--His contemporaries at Cambridge--Charles Austin--
The Union Debating Society--University studies, successes,
and failures--The Mathematical Tripos--The Trinity
Fellowship--William the Third--Letters--Prize poems--
Peterloo--Novel-reading--The Queen's Trial--Macaulay's
feeling towards his mother--A Reading-party--Hoaxing an
editor--Macaulay takes pupils.

IN October 1818 Macaulay went into residence at Trinity College,
Cambridge. Mr. Henry Sykes Thornton, the eldest son of the member for
Southwark, was his companion throughout his university career. The
young men lived in the same lodgings, and began by reading with the same
tutor; a plan which promised well, because, in addition to what was his
own by right, each had the benefit of the period of instruction paid for
by the other. But two hours were much the same as one to Macaulay, in
whose eyes algebra and geometry were so much additional material for
lively and interminable argument. Thornton reluctantly broke through the
arrangement, and eventually stood highest among the Trinity wranglers
of his year; an elevation which he could hardly have attained if he had
pursued his studies in company with one who regarded every successive
mathematical proposition as an open question. A Parliamentary election
took place while the two friends were still quartered together in Jesus
Lane. A tumult in the neighbouring street announced that the citizens
were expressing their sentiments by the only channel which was open to
them before the days of Reform; and Macaulay, to whom any excitement of
a political nature was absolutely irresistible, dragged Thornton to
the scene of action, and found the mob breaking the windows of the Hoop
hotel, the head-quarters of the successful candidates. His ardour
was cooled by receiving a dead cat full in the face. The man who was
responsible for the animal came up and apologised very civilly, assuring
him that there was no town and gown feeling in the matter, and that the
cat had been meant for Mr. Adeane. "I wish," replied Macaulay, "that you
had meant it for m