th all his might he tried, to play it. Jeffrey, (for it is well
to adduce none but first-rate evidence,) says in his account of an
evening's discussion on the second reading of the Reform Bill: "Not
a very striking debate. There was but one exception, and it was a
brilliant one. I mean Macaulay, who surpassed his former appearance in
closeness, fire, and vigour, and very much improved the effect of it by
a more steady and graceful delivery. It was prodigiously cheered, as
it deserved, and I think puts him clearly at the head of the great
speakers, if not the debaters, of the House." And again, on the 17th of
December: "Macaulay made, I think, the best speech he has yet delivered;
the most condensed, at least, and with the greatest weight of matter.
It contained, indeed, the only argument to which any of the speakers
who followed him applied themselves." Lord Cockburn, who sat under the
gallery for twenty-seven hours during the last three nights of the Bill,
pronounced Macaulay's speech to have been "by far the best;" though,
like a good Scotchman, he asserts that he heard nothing at Westminster
which could compare with Dr. Chalmers in the General Assembly. Sir James
Mackintosh writes from the Library of the House of Commons: "Macaulay
and Stanley have made two of the finest speeches ever spoken in
Parliament;" and a little further on he classes together the two young
orators as "the chiefs of the next, or rather of this, generation."

To gain and keep the position that Mackintosh assigned him Macaulay
possessed the power, and in early days did not lack the will. He was
prominent on the Parliamentary stage, and active behind the scenes;--the
soul of every honourable project which might promote the triumph of his
principles, and the ascendency of his party. One among many passages
in his correspondence may be quoted without a very serious breach of
ancient and time-worn confidences. On the 17th of September, 1831, he
writes to his sister Hannah: "I have been very busy since I wrote last,
moving heaven and earth to render it certain that, if our ministers
are so foolish as to resign in the event of a defeat in the Lords, the
Commons may be firm and united; and I think that I have arranged a
plan which will secure a bold and instant declaration on our part,
if necessary. Lord Ebrington is the man whom I have in my eye as our
leader. I have had much conversation with him, and with several of our
leading county members. They a