to talk he was too modest and had too much common sense to appear on the floor of the House unless his voice seemed to be needed.

His great opportunity arose in the very constitution of the House itself. The House of Commons was formed in the thirteenth century, the summons reading, "two knights from every shire," "two burgesses from every city, borough, and leading town." In the five hundred years since, no reorganization of the House had been made, though some of the boroughs that still sent representatives had lost all of their inhabitants, and other small boroughs had been created by sovereigns who needed votes in the House. On the other hand, many great cities had grown up in districts not provided for originally, and these masses of citizens were still unrepresented. In the eighteenth century such men as Chatham and Burke had worked on the problem of the reform of the House, until this subject had been crowded out by consideration of the troubles with France; but for ten years previous to Macaulay's coming to the House one reform bill after another had been brought forward and rejected. The country was demanding more and more urgently a change; but the Tory Ministry and the House of Lords. with the unreformed House of Commons were against it.

At the beginning of Macaulay's second session in the House of Commons the Whigs were returned by a

large majority, and the Tory Ministry was forced to resign. Under the new Whig Ministry Lord John Russell's Reform Bill came up. This bill gave a franchise to many hitherto unrepresented cities and boroughs; but the clause in it which disfranchised wholly or partially one hundred and ten boroughs was pronounced, by the leaders of the Opposition, so extravagant that they ridiculed any suggestion that the bill could be passed. March 2, 1831, Macaulay made the first of his speeches on this Reform Bill. As his Milton had won him immediate recognition as a literary man, so this speech gave him distinction at once among the orators and statesmen of England. The Speaker of the House sent for him and told him that he had never seen the House in such a state of excitement. Sir Robert Peel and Sir Thomas Denman complimented him in stately terms. But the greatest compliment paid to this and his following reform speeches was, that the leaders of the Opposition felt called upon to devote more time to answering his speeches than to attacking those of the older debaters. To Macaulay's great satisfaction this Reform Bill carried.

The following years he was, as he always had been, a strenuous worker. Besides his duties in the House he had other official duties, and his political honors had given him entrance to the best London society.

His letters give pictures of breathless pauses in the House till a majority of one sends them laughing, crying, and huzzaing into the lobby, or of such a state as this: "Toward eight in the morning the Speaker was almost fainting. Old Sir Thomas

Baring sent for his razor and Benett for his nightcap; they were both resolved to spend the whole day in the House rather than give way. If the Opposition had not yielded in two hours half of London would have been in Old Palace Yard." Other pictures he gives us of dinners with Lord Grey and Lord John Russell, of breakfasts in the beautiful home of Rogers the poet, of music parties where he heard the first flute player in England and "pianoforte strumming by the first pianoforte strummer," of meetings with Talleyrand and Sydney Smith, Tom Moore and Tom Campbell, and of innumerable courtesies from that haughty old aristocrat, Lady Holland. The political reward for Macaulay's services on the Reform Bill was an appointment on the Board of Control in the East India affairs.

In the midst of these social and political successes which he so frankly enjoyed, his simple creed of voting for the best interest of the country endured several severe tests. In each case he seems to have realized and deplored the consequences to himself, but did not allow them to influence his actions. His own vote

assisted in abolishing the office by which he held his Commissionership of Bankruptcy, at a time when he was not earning much by his writing and within a few months of the expiration of his income from the fellowship. A still stronger temptation to consider self was withstood when he decided to send in his resignation, so that he might go upon the floor of the House and oppose a measure brought in by his own party, a slavery bill that did not come up to the rigid requirements of his father and other Abolitionists. Trevelyan says: "During the crisis of the West India Bill Zachary Macaulay and his son were in constant correspondence. There is something touching in the picture which these letters present of the older man (whose years were coming to a close in poverty, which was the consequence of his having always lived too much for others), discussing quietly and gravely how and when the younger was to take a step that in the opinion of them both would be fatal to his career; and this with so little consciousness that there was anything heroic in the course which they were pursuing, that it appears never to have occurred to either of them that any other line of conduct could possibly be adopted." But Macaulay's honesty was appreciated and he writes jubilantly: "Here I am safe and well at the end of one of the most stormy weeks that the oldest man remembers in Parliamentary affairs. I have resigned my office and my

resignation has been refused. I have spoken and voted against the Ministry under which I hold my place." And again he writes: "I have, therefore, the singular good luck of having saved both my honor and my place."

In 1834 he was chosen by the government to go to Calcutta as their representative in the Supreme Council. To Lord Lansdowne, his friend and political patron, he told his reasons for accepting a position which seemed to all a sacrifice of his political ambitions. "Every day that I live, I become less and less desircus of great wealth. But every day makes me more sensible of the importance of a competence. Without a competence it is not easy for a public man to be honest; it is almost impossible for him to be thought so. I am so situated that I can subsist only in two ways: by being in office and by my pen. ... The thought of becoming a book-seller's hack, of writing to relieve, not the fulness of the mind, but the emptiness of the pocket, . . . is horrible to me. Yet thus it must be if I should quit office. Yet to hold office merely for the sake of emolument would be more horrible still. . . . But this is not all. I am not alone in the world. A family which I love most fondly is dependent on me. An opportunity has offered itself. . . . I may hope by the time I am thirty-nine or forty to return to England with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds. To me that would be affluence." On the first intimation of this