1866
and 1867, and who can recall the sensations evoked by a contest of which
the issues were far less grave and the passions less strong than of
yore, will make allowances for one who, with the imagination of a poet
and the temperament of an orator, at thirty years old was sent straight
into the thickest of the tumult which then raged round the standard of
Reform, and will excuse him for having borne himself in that battle of
giants as a determined and a fiery partisan.

If to live intensely be to live happily, Macaulay had an enviable lot
during those stirring years; and, if the old songwriters had reason
on their side when they celebrated the charms of a light purse, he
certainly possessed that element of felicity. Among the earliest
economical reforms undertaken by the new Government was a searching
revision of our Bankruptcy jurisdiction, in the course of which
his Commissionership was swept away, without leaving him a penny of
compensation. "I voted for the Bankruptcy Court Bill," he said in answer
to an inquisitive constituent. "There were points in that Bill of
which I did not approve, and I only refrained from stating those points
because an office of my own was at stake." When this source fell dry he
was for a while a poor man; for a member of Parliament, who has others
to think of besides himself, is anything but rich on sixty or seventy
pounds a quarter as the produce of his pen, and a college income which
has only a few more months to run. At a time when his Parliamentary fame
stood at its highest he was reduced to sell the gold medals which he had
gained at Cambridge; but he was never for a moment in debt; nor did he
publish a line prompted by any lower motive than the inspiration of his
political faith, or the instinct of his literary genius. He had none but
pleasant recollections connected with the period when his fortunes were
at their lowest. From the secure prosperity of after life he delighted
in recalling the time when, after cheering on the fierce debate for
twelve or fifteen hours together, he would walk home by daylight to his
chambers, and make his supper on a cheese which was a present from
one of his Wiltshire constituents, and a glass of the audit ale which
reminded him that he was still a fellow of Trinity.

With political distinction came social success, more rapid and more
substantial, perhaps, than has ever been achieved by one who took so
little trouble to win or to retain it. The circ