stent
with the service of the Crown."

Just before the general election Hyde Villiers died, and the
Secretaryship to the Board of Control became vacant. Macaulay
succeeded his old college friend in an office that gave him weighty
responsibility, defined duties, and, as it chanced, exceptional
opportunities for distinction. About the same time, an event occurred
which touched him more nearly than could any possible turn of fortune
in the world of politics. His sisters Hannah and Margaret had for some
months been almost domesticated among a pleasant nest of villas which
lie in the southern suburb of Liverpool, on Dingle Bank; a spot whose
natural beauty nothing can spoil, until in the fulness of time its
inevitable destiny shall convert it into docks. The young ladies were
the guests of Mr. John Cropper, who belonged to the Society of Friends,
a circumstance which readers who have got thus far into the Macaulay
correspondence will doubtless have discovered for themselves. Before the
visit was over, Margaret became engaged to the brother of her host, Mr.
Edward Cropper, a man in every respect worthy of the personal esteem and
the commercial prosperity which have fallen to his lot.

There are many who will be surprised at finding in Macaulay's letters,
both now and hereafter, indications of certain traits in his disposition
with which the world, knowing him only through his political actions
and his published works, may perhaps be slow to credit him; but which,
taking his life as a whole, were predominant in their power to affect
his happiness and give matter for his thoughts. Those who are least
partial to him will allow that his was essentially a virile intellect.
He wrote, he thought, he spoke, he acted, like a man. The public
regarded him as an impersonation of vigour, vivacity, and self-reliance;
but his own family, together with one, and probably only one, of
his friends, knew that his affections were only too tender, and his
sensibilities only too acute. Others may well be loth to parade what he
concealed; but a portrait of Macaulay, from which these features were
omitted, would be imperfect to the extent of misrepresentation; and it
must be acknowledged that, where he loved, he loved more entirely, and
more exclusively, than was well for himself. It was improvident in him
to concentrate such intensity of feeling upon relations who, however
deeply they were attached to him, could not always be in a position to
requ