great a scholar should not know that Horace had done so too!

Minacis aut Etrusca Porsenae manus.

There is something extremely nauseous to me in a German Professor
telling the world, on his own authority, and without giving the smallest
reason, that two of the best Latin poets were ignorant of the quantity
of a word which they must have used in their exercises at school a
hundred times.

As to the general capacity of Niebuhr for political speculations,
let him be judged by the Preface to the Second Volume. He there says,
referring to the French Revolution of July 1830, that "unless God
send us some miraculous help, we have to look forward to a period of
destruction similar to that which the Roman world experienced about the
middle of the third century." Now, when I see a man scribble such abject
nonsense about events which are passing under our eyes, what confidence
can I put in his judgment as to the connection of causes and effects in
times very imperfectly known to us.

But I must bring my letter, or review, to a close. Remember me most
kindly to your wife. Tell Frank that I mean to be a better scholar than
he when I come back, and that he must work hard if he means to overtake
me.

Ever, dear Ellis,

Your affectionate friend

T. B. MACAULAY.

Calcutta: August 25, 1835.

Dear Ellis,--Cameron arrived here about a fortnight ago, and we are most
actively engaged in preparing a complete Criminal Code for India. He and
I agree excellently. Ryan, the most liberal of Judges, lends us his best
assistance. I heartily hope, and fully believe, that we shall put
the whole Penal law, and the whole law of Criminal Procedure, into a
moderately sized volume. I begin to take a very warm interest in this
work. It is, indeed, one of the finest employments of the intellect that
it is easy to conceive. I ought, however, to tell you that, the more
progress I make as a legislator, the more intense my contempt for the
mere technical study of law becomes.

I am deep in the examination of the political theories of the old
philosophers. I have read Plato's Republic, and his laws; and I am now
reading Aristotle's Politics; after which I shall go through Plato's two
treatises again. I every now and then read one of Plutarch's Lives on
an idle afternoon; and in this way I have got through a dozen of them. I
like him prodigiously. He is inaccurate, to be sure, and a romancer;
but he tells a story delightfully, and his illustrations