oung man, he
sometimes deserved the praise which Dr. Johnson pronounced upon a good
hater. He had no mercy for bad writers, and notably for bad poets,
unless they were in want of money; in which case he became within his
means, the most open-handed of patrons. He was too apt to undervalue
both the heart and the head of those who desired to maintain the old
system of civil and religious exclusion, and who grudged political
power to their fellow-countrymen, or at any rate to those of their
fellow-countrymen whom he was himself prepared to enfranchise.
Independent, frank, and proud almost to a fault, he detested the
whole race of jobbers and time-servers, parasites and scandal-mongers,
led-captains, led-authors, and led-orators. Some of his antipathies have
stamped themselves indelibly upon literary history. He attributed to the
Right Honourable John Wilson Croker, Secretary to the Admiralty
during the twenty years preceding 1830, qualities which excited his
disapprobation beyond control, and possibly beyond measure. His judgment
has been confirmed by the public voice, which identifies Croker with the
character of Rigby in Mr. Disraeli's Coningsby.

Macaulay was the more formidable as an opponent because he could be
angry without losing his command of the situation. His first onset was
terrific; but in the fiercest excitement of the melee he knew when to
call a halt. A certain member of Parliament named Michael Thomas Sadler
had fallen foul of Malthus, and very foul indeed of Macaulay, who in
two short and telling articles took revenge enough for both. [Macaulay
writes to Mr. Napier in February 1831: "People here think that I
have answered Sadler completely. Empson tells me that Malthus is well
pleased, which is a good sign. As to Blackwood's trash I could not get
through it. It bore the same relation to Sadler's pamphlet that a bad
hash bears to a bad joint."] He writes on this subject to Mr. Macvey
Napier, who towards the close of 1829 had succeeded Jeffrey in the
editorship of the Edinburgh Review: "The position which we have now
taken up is absolutely impregnable, and, if we were to quit it, though
we might win a more splendid victory, we should expose ourselves to
some risk. My rule in controversy has always been that to which the
Lacedaemonians adhered in war: never to break the ranks for the purpose
of pursuing a beaten enemy." He had, indeed, seldom occasion to strike
twice. Where he set his mark, there was no need