Macaulay’s family was Scottish in origin, his father Zachary being the next younger brother of Colin Campbell Macaulay, who, late in life, became Member for Saltash in the 1826 Parliament.
It was in Clapham, to which the family moved in 1802 or 1803, that Tom Macaulay soon began to display signs of his alarmingly prodigious abilities. Not only did he read widely from an early age, but he could recall much of it almost verbatim, added to which his acknowledged habit of indulging in daydreams and fantasies endowed him with a highly developed creative faculty. Educated locally and then at the school of an Evangelical minister, he excelled in his private studies and inevitably grew up something of a man apart.
his fine promise of mind expands more and more and, what is extraordinary, he has as much accuracy in his expression as spirit and vivacity in his imagination. I like, too, that he takes a lively interest in all passing events and that the child is still preserved ... Several men of sense and learning have been struck with the union of gaiety and rationality in his conversation.
Knutsford, 278-80, 288; Letters of Hannah More ed. A. Roberts, 83-85.
With these talents he proved a great success at Cambridge, where he was known as ‘Beast’ Macaulay to distinguish him from his cousin, John Heyrick ‘Bear’ Macaulay. He revelled in the intellectual and social climate, won several prizes and scholarships, dominated the Union in 1822 and 1823, and gained a fellowship at Trinity College.
Macaulay was unlucky in his relations with his father, who, imbued with the rigidities of his Evangelical principles, set impossibly high standards even for so gifted a man as his son. Slovenliness and laziness, even novel reading, were regarded as faults, and criticized as such, because they indicated a lack of self-discipline and awareness of a higher purpose.
Brought up in an atmosphere dominated by public affairs, Macaulay soon immersed himself in politics.
It was through his writings that Macaulay confirmed his Whig credentials and first achieved celebrity. He had written a good deal of juvenile prose and verse, and in 1816 he outwitted his father by inducing him to print an anonymous letter in defence of novel reading in his Christian Observer. This was one of his earliest publications, and it was followed by a variety of other miscellaneous writings.
one of the most promising of the rising generation I have seen for a long time ... He has a good face - not the delicate features of a man of genius and sensibility, but the strong lines and well knit limbs of a man in sturdy body and mind. Very eloquent and cheerful. Overflowing with words and not poor in thought. Liberal in opinion, but no radical. He seems a correct as well as a full man. He showed a minute knowledge of subjects not introduced by himself.
Crabb Robinson Diary, ii. 41.
Early that year he was called to the bar and, although he never had a practice to speak of, he joined the northern circuit, on which he met Thomas Flower Ellis, his only close male friend.
Apart from electoral affairs, he busied himself with attending the Commons, speaking at debating societies and other literary activities.
We are convinced that the cause of the present ministers is the cause of liberty, the cause of toleration, the cause of political science, the cause of the people, who are entitled to expect from their wisdom and liberality many judicious reforms, the cause of the aristocracy, who, unless those reforms be adopted, must inevitably be the victims of a violent and desolating revolution.
He wrote to his father that he was ‘extremely shocked’ by the death of George Canning, the prime minister, later that year, but that he believed the government would continue, if anything strengthened by it.
Lord Lansdowne, who had served as home secretary in Canning’s government and had praised Macaulay’s article in support of it (among others), was particularly impressed by his arguments against the Utilitarians. As a result, in early 1830 he offered to bring him in for Calne, his pocket borough, where there was a vacancy which his eldest son, Lord Kerry†, was as yet too young to fill. Macaulay accepted, having warned Lansdowne, who had a high opinion of his moral character, that he wished to vote as he himself determined, and in particular that he would follow his father’s line in any division on slavery.
denominated Dr. Southey, Mr. Sadler and Mr. [William] Cobbett† three quacks, and observed that it must be by a continuance of peace, by great economy in our ministers and by industry and frugality on the part of the people, that the country would be enabled to surmount its present difficulties.
Devizes Gazette, 18, 25 Feb. 1830.
Zachary, thanking Lansdowne by letter that month, wrote of his son that the
sphere of usefulness thus opened to him I trust he will labour so to occupy as to justify your lordship’s choice, and I am ready to believe that it is not merely the blind partiality of parental affection but my intimate acquaintance with his mind and habits which persuades me that he will at least leave no means unattempted to prove himself not undeserving of it.
Lansdowne mss.
According to his sister Selina, Macaulay, who had recently taken lodgings in Gray’s Inn, returned to London on 17 Feb., but having neglected some necessary forms, he was unable to take his seat that day, as intended. He therefore took the oaths the following day, at the same time as Brougham, newly elected for Knaresborough, who immediately turned his back on him and cut him dead. This behaviour was attributed to his jealousy of Macaulay’s successes in the Edinburgh. He was also angry that he had not been consulted by Lansdowne, and that the more deserving and senior Whig lawyer Thomas Denman* had been overlooked.
As early as 1824 Hannah More had wished that Macaulay ‘was rich enough to be in Parliament; he would eclipse them all’; and Lord Dudley, the former foreign secretary, who thought him ‘a very clever, very educated and very disagreeable man’, reckoned that he would ‘cut some considerable figure’ there.
I hear that Mr. Babington Macaulay is to be returned. If he speaks half so well as he writes, the House will be set in fashion again. I fear that he is one of those who, like the individual whom he has most studied [Edmund Burke†], will ‘give up to party what was meant for mankind’.
O. Goldsmith, Retaliation (1774). At any rate, he must get rid of his rabidity. He writes now on all subjects, as if he certainly intended to be a renegade and was determined to make the contrast complete.
Macaulay was therefore a man of whom great things were expected and, although he had been advised to speak as soon as possible, in order to gain the indulgence of the House, he did not do so.
speech was extremely admired as to matter, but all who heard it agree in saying that he speaks far too rapidly, and thus weakens very much the effect of what he says. Mr. O’Connell said to him it was the best speech he had heard since he had been in Parliament, but said he, ‘Your delivery is not suited to the House’, and a host of other persons have given the same opinion. Lord Nugent* said to him that it was impossible for the reporters to follow him, and that consequently the speech was given extremely ill. He also said Tom’s style of speaking was one which particularly required time to be given to weigh the arguments, and that by the present manner the effect of these was in a great measure lost. Tom seems determined to speak more slowly, but he says he shall find it exceedingly difficult to do so when he is animated in debate.
‘Selina Macaulay’s Diary’, 442.
On 6 July, answering Sugden, he gave his ‘most earnest and hearty support’ to, and promised to vote for, an address to the new king to recommend regency proposals. He voted for Brougham’s motion against colonial slavery, 13 July. He was elected to the Athenaeum, 12 June 1830.
Macaulay, who in August thought that the duke of Wellington and his ‘ministers are clearly in a scrape’ and that they could not possibly stand until Christmas, was listed by them among their ‘foes’, and duly voted against them on the civil list, 15 Nov. 1830. On 23 Nov. he acknowledged that some praise was due to Wellington, who made way for Lord Grey, especially on Catholic emancipation, ‘which I believe saved the country from civil war’. That day he came to the defence of Brougham, who, despite promises that he would not join the coalition ministry, had just left the Commons to become lord chancellor, against John Wilson Croker, for whom he had already formed a mutual dislike. Although he ‘speaks like a gentleman’, as John James Hope Vere* put it, he was called to order for saying of Croker, that he ‘would have sooner burned his tongue last week, than have made the attack which he has done this day’.
appears to have spared anyone the pains of drubbing him. Tom I believe would have been quite ready to do his best to make him regret any attack he might have made on you. He has been sadly baffled by circumstances in his purposes of speaking, though he has been on the watch for fair opportunities.
Brougham mss.
Macaulay, who in February 1831 briefly contemplated writing an article on parliamentary reform, made an early intervention on the ministry’s reform proposals, 2 Mar.
Let me then implore you to take counsel, not from prejudice or party, but from the history of past events, the knowledge of what is passing around you. It is yet time to save the country from risk, to save the multitude from its own ungovernable power and passion, to save it from that danger to which even a few days may expose it.
He was answered by his friend and fellow historian Lord Mahon, who, as others were often to do, pointed out that, despite Macaulay’s arguments to the contrary, he had provided eloquent testimony in favour of the retention of rotten boroughs as seats for talented young men. Later that day Denman, now attorney-general, said that it was ‘a speech which is yet tingling in our ears, and which will dwell in our memories as long as memory lasts’. Margaret, who noted that Mackintosh relieved her poorly brother with oranges during the speech, recorded that ‘his voice from cold and overexcitement got quite into a scream towards the last part, and some of his opponents were inclined to titter at his having got into [Charles Williams] "Wynn’s* scream", which was drowned in applause’. Indeed, except for the fact that he again spoke too fast, most observers were united in their praise, and the Speaker summoned him to compliment him on his success.
reads better than it was spoken. Quite marred in the delivery and he does not look the orator well, a mean whitey looking man, of the Babbage sort but more forward-vivacity of air and yellow hair all any-how except the right way, not with the inspiration-electrico look of [Thomas] Spring Rice*. But no matter for all this, in spite of his outside, his inside will get him on.
Bunbury Mem. 158-60; Edgeworth Letters, 488.
Years later Macaulay described that day as an epoch in his life, and it certainly made him a political and literary lion in London, for instance at Holland House, to which he was soon invited.
Such a scene as the division of last Tuesday I never saw, and never expect to see again. If I should live 50 years the impression of it will be as fresh and sharp in my mind as if it had just taken place. It was like seeing Caesar stabbed in the Senate House, or seeing Oliver take the mace from the table, a sight to be seen only once and never to be forgotten.
He vividly depicted the telling of the 302 votes in favour of the bill, of which he was of course one, and dwelt on the speculation on the size of the opposition:
We were all breathless with anxiety, when Charles Wood who stood near the door jumped on a bench and cried out, ‘They are only 301’. We set up a shout that you might have heard to Charing Cross, waving our hats, stamping against the floor and clapping our hands. The tellers scarcely got through the crowd: for the House was thronged up to the table, and all the floor was fluctuating with heads like the pit of a theatre. But you might have heard a pin drop as Duncannon read the numbers. Then again the shouts broke out, and many of us shed tears; I could scarcely refrain. And the jaw of Peel fell, and the face of Twiss was as the face of a damned soul, and Herries looked like Judas taking his neck-cloth off for the last operation.
Macaulay Letters, ii. 9-11.
Macaulay was vexed by Buxton’s notice for an anti-slavery motion, and even offered Lansdowne to resign his seat, as he expected, for his father’s sake, to have to act against ministers on it. Lansdowne left him free to decide his own course of action and, in the end, no division occurred on the question, 15 Apr.
Macaulay again faced the threat of an opposition at Calne at the general election of 1831 and in order, as he wished, to keep up Lansdowne’s interest for Kerry, he was forced to engage in extensive canvassing and to defend the rights of the corporators on the hustings, 2 May, when he was again re-elected.
the whole of history shows that all great revolutions have been produced by a disproportion between society and its institutions; for while society has grown, its institutions have not kept pace and accommodated themselves to its improvements ... The very reason that the people of England are great and happy is that their history is the history of reform.
He differed with Lord Porchester, Mahon’s colleague at Wootton Bassett, by saying that it was not reforms as such which had led to revolution in France, but reforms offered too late to satisfy the raised expectations of the people. Amid shouts of disapprobation, he insisted that ‘we are now all reformers’, and that the bill had ‘passed its crisis ... this second Bill of Rights, the great charter of the liberties of the people of England; the country, our children, will hereafter call it so’. Althorp, who twice told him privately that it was the best speech he had ever heard, said in the chamber that he had ‘electrified the House with his eloquence’. According to John Cam Hobhouse*, he ‘made a most effective oration, and was applauded to the skies, particularly towards the end of his speech, when he said that if this bill was defeated, Peel would bring in a reform bill of his own’. Some aspersive comments were made by opposition speakers, but it was largely left to Peel, the former home secretary, who ‘winced a good deal’ at this last point, to answer him. As before, Macaulay received an enormous number of compliments on his triumph, as well as an invitation to dine with Grey.
With this speech Macaulay’s reputation reached new heights. Jeffrey, now lord advocate, wrote that he had
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.
Mackintosh called Macaulay ‘the orator of his time’, and Lord Holland, the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, opined that he and Edward Smith Stanley, the Irish secretary, would soon learn the art of keeping Peel in order, now that Brougham had been removed.
is an ugly, cross-made, splay-footed, shapeless little dumpling of a fellow, with a featureless face too, except indeed a good expansive forehead, sleek puritanical sandy hair, large glimmering eyes and a mouth from ear to ear. He has a lisp and a burr, moreover, and speaks thickly and huskily for several minutes before he gets into the swing of his discourse: but after that nothing can be more dazzling than his whole execution. What he says, is substantially of course, mere stuff and nonsense; but it is so well worded, and so volubly and forcible delivered - there is such an endless stream of epigram and antithesis, such a flashing of epithets, such an accumulation of images - and the voice is so trumpet-like and the action so grotesquely emphatic that you might hear a pin drop in the House. Manners Sutton himself listens. It is obvious that he has got the main parts at least by heart, but for this I give him the more praise and glory. Altogether, the impression on my mind was very much beyond what I had been prepared for, so much so that I can honestly and sincerely say I felt for his situation most deeply, when Peel was skinning him alive the next evening, and the sweat of agony kept pouring down his well bronzed cheeks under the merciless affliction.
Wilson’s Noctes Ambrosianae ed. R.S. Mackenzie, iv. 356.
Later in July Hobhouse recorded that
Brougham was anxious that the attorney-general should be put forward ... It seems he depreciates Macaulay and always extols the attorney as having made the best speech on the bill. Sydney Smith says it is because Macaulay is not content with being a moon, but ‘wants to do a little bit in the solar line’.
Broughton, iv. 124-5.
Yet at some point the two seem to have buried their differences. As Sir George Philips*, a friend, put it:
When Macaulay first obtained a seat in Parliament, Brougham went about telling people that he had quite failed, and that there was no chance of his ever distinguishing himself as a speaker in the House of Commons. His jealousy was so extreme that he ceased for a long time speaking to him, or even recognizing him in the streets. All at once he altered his conduct, laid hold of him by the arm, called him Tom and enquired affectionately after his health. He talked to some of Macaulay’s friends, who asked him what Tom he meant. He said there was only one Tom, and that was Tom Macaulay.
Warws. RO MI 247, Philips’s Mems. i. 371-2.
Macaulay, who voted for the second reading of the bill, 6 July, divided at least twice against adjourning the proceedings on it, 12 July, but he ‘left the House at about three, in consequence of some expressions of Lord Althorp’s which indicated that the ministry was inclined to yield’, and he afterwards ‘much regretted’ that he had gone away.
were not ill received. I feel that much practice will be necessary to make me a good debater on points of detail. But my friends tell me that I have raised my reputation by showing that I was quite equal to the work of extemporaneous reply. My manner, they say, is cold and wants ease. I feel this myself. Nothing but strong excitement and a great occasion overcomes a certain reserve and mauvaise honte which I have in public speaking; not a mauvaise honte which in the least confuses me or makes me hesitate for a word, but a mauvaise honte which keeps me from putting any fervour into my tone or my action. This is perhaps in some respects an advantage. For when I do warm, I am the most vehement speaker in the House, and nothing strikes an audience so much as the animation of an orator who is generally cold.
Ibid. ii. 83-84.
He voted in the minorities on the issuing of writs for Dublin, 8 Aug., and Liverpool, 5 Sept. 1831.
Looking forward to visiting his relatives, he wrote to Hannah, 12 Aug. 1831, that
I shall not be sorry to be out of the way of the miserable proceedings in the House of Commons. One is ashamed to support such a government and, in my situation, I cannot attack it. The weakness, dullness, cowardice and tergiversation of the ministers, those I mean who sit in the House of Commons, have begun to disgust their most devoted friends. I will tell you instances of their fatuity and infirmity of purpose ... which are absolutely astounding ... But nothing can save them from ruin if they do not speedily alter their course ... it is no business of mine whether they stand or fall. There is not one of them in the House of Commons except Lord Althorp who is not either useless or worse than useless, and I do not see that it would be either for my interest or my honour to thrust myself between them and the public contempt.
At the end of that month he reiterated that ‘my opinion of Lord Althorp is extremely high. In fact his character is the only stay of the ministry’.
the question is this: if the reform bill is lost, ought the ministers to resign? I have conversed on this subject with people of different ranks and of different shades of opinion; and I have heard only one answer. The unanimous sentiment is this: that if the ministers resign they will prove themselves to be men unfit for their station, small men unhappily called to power at a great crisis, that they will act unfairly towards the king, and towards the people who have supported them. A very distinguished Member of the House of Commons, a county Member, the heir to a peerage, said to me a few days ago, ‘You know my personal attachment to the ministers. You know my public conduct. I have stood by them for 20 years. If they resign in consequence of the decision of the Lords, I have done with them. My confidence in them is at an end for ever’. This is but a single instance. I have heard expressions as strong from at least 20 Members for populous places. In fact it is difficult to convince the ministerial Members of the House of Commons that the ministers can possibly think of resigning at such a crisis as this.
He added that government ‘might, by a very moderate exercise of the undoubted prerogative of the crown, secure a majority in the Lords’.
His reservations about ministers probably heightened the passion he brought to his speech in favour of the passage of the bill, 20 Sept. 1831, when he spoke of the benefits that would accrue to national prosperity, denied that there was any public reaction against it, rebutted the argument that it would destroy the privileges of peers and urged Members to place themselves at the head of the people and ensure its success. Denman noted that he was ‘divine’, though ‘perhaps a little too severe in his censure of the ex-ministers’, while William Henry Fremantle* considered him the only reformer worth listening to.
I have been very busy since I wrote last [13 Sept.], 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 that 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 are all staunch: and I will answer for this, that if the ministers should betray us, we will be ready to defend ourselves.
Macaulay Letters, ii. 100-1.
His former colleague at Calne, Sir James Macdonald, now Member for Hampshire, contemplating a reinforced ministry, confirmed that Macaulay was ‘bold and ambitious and quite ready to take his line. The Leeds overture has roused him’.
the circumstances admit of no delay. Is there one among us who is not looking with breathless anxiety for the next tidings which may arrive from the remote parts of the kingdom? Even while I speak the moments are passing away, the irrevocable moments, pregnant with the destiny of a great people. The country is in danger; it may be saved; we can save it. This is the way, this is the time. In our hands are the issues of great good and great evil, the issues of life and death of the state.
His speech was much attacked as an incitement to violence, and Hobhouse thought ‘he went somewhat near the wind on the intimidation side; and I told him so, and I saw he was not pleased’. Peel criticized him, but Edward John Littleton* observed that ‘an allusion of Macaulay’s to his having bowed his head into the dust, when he recanted his error on the Catholic question, seemed to combler him with suffering ... His speech was one of almost unconditional surrender’.
entre nous they would have made a poor hand of it without me. Our meeting at Willis’s rooms and Lord Ebrington’s motion were wholly brought about by me. I really believe that, but for the stir which I made among our county Members, the ministers would have resigned. This is all in the strictest confidence.
Macaulay Letters, ii. 101, 105-6.
Macaulay approved of, and by his own account voted for (on 28 Sept. and/or 13 Oct. 1831), Brougham’s bankruptcy court bill, by which his commissionership was to be abolished.
He will refuse a lordship of the treasury, a lordship of the admiralty, and the mastership of the ordnance. He will accept the secretaryship of the board of control, but will not thank them for it; and would not accept that, but that he thinks it would be a place of importance during the approaching discussions on the East India monopoly. Anything above that he would be glad to have.
He was disappointed, therefore, merely to be asked to prepare a cabinet paper, which was probably on Wellington’s complaint about the arming of the Birmingham Political Union, a subject that was considered by the cabinet the following day.
On the second reading of the revised reform bill, 16 Dec. 1831, Macaulay made another great speech, even though, prompted by Mahon’s references to Leeds and the ballot, ‘it was spoken a day sooner than was intended and the last touches were not put to it’. He reiterated his opinions on the unjustifiable anomaly of rotten boroughs, the history of gradual and concessionary reforms, the role of the middle classes and his animosity to levelling doctrines. As was his habit, he castigated the conduct of the former ministers: ‘I allow that there is danger in legislating in times of excitement; but reformers are compelled to reform at last, because bigots would not reform at first’. In particular, he was even more than usually vitriolic in his attack on Peel, condemning him for changing his principles and stealing the reformers’ thunder on emancipation. Littleton left this description of his ‘brilliant’ speech
which carried the House away in the same furious whirlwind of mixed passions which seemed to seize himself. Never was a more extraordinary compound of deep philosophy, exalted sentiments and party bitterness, enunciated with a warmth, a vigour and rapidity inconceivable. The public can collect but little of it from the papers. It is like the course of a meteor, never to be forgotten by those who have the fortune to see it, but seen but by a few, and to be known to others only by description. A paragraph of his speech, which he concluded by a denunciation of the late administration as ‘one that would be known to posterity only for its recantations’, was followed by a crash of cheers, which pained me, from my respect for the motive which induced Peel to accomplish the passing of the Catholic bill.
Rice called this personal attack ‘a caustic as severe as [the convicted empiric John] St. John Long’s. Enough indeed to blister a rhinoceros’; and Hobhouse noted that Peel ‘looked as if sweating blood. I never saw him so scalded, not even in the days of Brougham’. Croker rose immediately in his defence, but made so many factual errors that Macaulay drew up a list of them, which Smith Stanley used to demolish him the following day. On 17 Dec. 1831 Peel was still ‘so nettled by Macaulay’s sarcasms’, that he ‘for three-quarters of an hour made a very lame and laboured defence of himself’.
Macaulay ceased to fulfil his time-consuming duties on the bankruptcy commission on its abolition, 11 Jan. 1832.
said he would not speak in the House [on relations with Belgium and Holland]. ‘He had his doubts about our foreign policy’. In short I found he was sulky and thought himself slighted, on account of Hobhouse’s being made secretary at war. He did not say this; but I am sure it is so, and accordingly gave the government the hint.
Ibid. ii. 113; Margaret Macaulay, Recollections, 227-9; Holland House Diaries, 120; Hatherton diary.
On 12 Feb. Macaulay met Lansdowne, who explained about Calne, but asked him whether he would accept office, if one were available. He replied that
he was a poor man, but he had as much as he wanted and, as far as he was personally concerned, had no desire for office. At the same time, he thought that after the reform bill had passed it would be absolutely necessary that the government should be strengthened, that he thought he could do it good service, that he approved of its general principles and should not be unwilling to join it. Lord Lansdowne said that, indeed, they all, and particularly mentioned Lord Grey, felt of what importance to them his help was.
At that time ministers were trying to find another position for Robert Grant* in order to make a vacancy for Macaulay at the board of control.
we are legislating not for a republic, but for the England of the present day. I do not support this bill because I think democratical institutions are calculated for all ages and all countries, but because I think that a more democratical system of representation than now exists would, in this country and in this age, produce a good government.
He pointed out the inconsistency of Tories who argued against any reform as a breach of the prescriptive constitution but tacitly accepted the need for moderate alterations, and also had an exhortation for ministers, of whom he said that ‘in their situation they see and feel, that to abandon their country would be to abandon themselves’. Peel again had to justify his conduct and made clear that he would never take responsibility for bringing in a reform bill, and Littleton thought that ‘it was amusing to observe the extreme deference with which he treated Macaulay; paid him compliments with evidently great pain [and] showed him much very distant civility’.
hearing that Miss ... was to be in the House today, he did not wish, after the reports that have even reached the newspapers about her engagement to him, to countenance them by speaking when she was known to be there. He says, ‘the House is thoroughly tired of the interminable bill’. The report he hears from Mr. [John] Fazakerley* is, that the young men say, ‘Macaulay was not so effective tonight’, but that ministers were highly pleased, and say he helped them very much.
Margaret Macaulay, Recollections, 241.
He divided with ministers on the third reading, 22 Mar. 1832.
With the bill in the Upper House, Macaulay feared that they ‘evidently shrank from taking the only means [the creation of peers] by which they could make sure of a majority’ there. He was in despair at the prospect of the disastrous consequences of the ministry’s fall, and stated that he would resign his seat if that happened, ‘for I never will consent to follow their lead more’. He had heard of one possibility, however:
Lord ... has lately been keeping very quiet; apparently he is ill. If the bill is lost he may come forward at the head of the sturdy reformers, who would carry the bill at all risks, say that he disapproved of the conduct of his colleagues, has had nothing to do with it, and put himself at the head of a new ministry of strong Whigs and carry the bill.
Ibid. 241-2, 244-5.
As in late 1831, he may have been involved in attempts to strengthen the nerve of the government from the inside. In the House, 9 May 1832, after Grey had resigned, he denied that Members who ‘speak with approbation of the conduct of ministers, or who say that they regret the advice given by the ministers was not adopted and acted upon’, were casting a slur on the king. The following day, Ebrington moved for an address, written by Macaulay, calling on the king to appoint only ministers who would carry the bill unimpaired.
in extremely good spirits and thinks the Whigs will be firmer to their places than ever before the week is out. I should like a month of opposition for him very much. It would be a stirring time for him. He describes the excitement and indignation felt on his side of the House to be immense. Mr. [Henry] Gally Knight* said to him, ‘I would drink hot blood’.
Margaret Macaulay, Recollections, 264.
On 14 May Macaulay rounded on Wellington for inconsistency in countenancing a measure of reform after having opposed disfranchisement in the Lords. According to Denis Le Marchant†, he
expressed himself with his usual energy and the House went with him in every word, one part especially where he said, ‘I am willing to let others have infamy and place, only leave us honour and the bill’. The effect was electrical. Poor Hardinge’s face seemed swollen with rage. He jumped up as if to enter into some personal conflict, and vehemently complained of such language. His complaints were coldly received and Macaulay’s explanation was if possible worse than his charge.
Broughton, iv. 225; Croker Pprs. ii. 165; Three Diaries, 255.
Another exchange between the two occurred the following day.
Macaulay spoke and voted in the minority for Buxton’s motion for a select committee on colonial slavery, 24 May 1832. This was a decision taken against the reinstated ministers, but it did not harm his relations with them, probably because, as Althorp explained to him a few days later, the depth of support for an inquiry had persuaded them of its inevitability.
The House is still sitting, and sitting 12 hours out of the 24. I am forced to be there almost without intermission: for so few Members are left that we are in constant danger of being counted out. There is a snug party of 40 of us who lay on taxes and pass laws in the quietest manner in the world.
Macaulay Letters, ii. 153, 158, 160, 171-2.
He defended Brougham against a charge of nepotism brought by Sugden, 27 July. Citing the situation in Leeds, he denied the suggestion in a petition from Manchester that the Reform Act would enfranchise an insufficient number of inhabitants, 15 Aug. 1832, and that day he voted with government, in 17 divisions, in favour of the bill prohibiting processions of Orangemen.
Macaulay dressed carelessly, and, being short with a tendency to fatness, was generally remarked for his ugliness, except when the strongly marked features of his face accentuated the overwhelming flow of his speech.
vulgarity and ungainliness of his appearance; not a ray of intellect beams from his countenance; a lump of more ordinary clay never enclosed a powerful mind and lively imagination. He had a cold and a sore throat, the latter of which occasioned a constant contraction of the muscles of the thorax, making him appear as in momentary danger of a fit. His manner struck me as not pleasing, but it was not assuming, unembarrassed, yet not easy, unpolished, yet not coarse; there was no kind of usurpation of the conversation, no tenacity as to opinion or facts, no assumption of superiority, but the variety and extent of his information were soon apparent, for whatever subject was touched upon he evinced the utmost familiarity with it; quotation, illustration, anecdote, seemed ready in his hands for every topic.
Greville Mems. ii. 247-9, 317; iii. 280-1, 480.
Apart from his extraordinary memory and depth of knowledge, he was also notable for other legacies of his Clapham upbringing, such as his burning desire to expose falsehood and proclaim truth, his amazing confidence in the making of moral judgements and his strong sense of his own importance in the progress of mankind.
These factors help to account for the sensational effect of his speeches. His sister Margaret recalled, 10 Oct. 1831, that
we talked of eloquence, which he has often compared to fresco painting, the result of long study and deep meditation, but at the moment of execution thrown off with the greatest rapidity; what has apparently been the work of a few hours to last for ages. Today, he said that in really eloquent displays there must be plan and order, the right thing said in the right place, but it must be done with apparent carelessness and unconsciousness: ‘a mighty maze, but not without a plan’.
Margaret Macaulay, Recollections, 215.
It was not so much that he learned his speeches by rote, but that he worked them up by long hours of preparation, contemplation and rehearsal. That he achieved something like the effect he sought is shown by Rice’s comment, 16 Dec. 1831, that ‘Caravaggio never painted more broadly and more powerfully. It was like the Gamblers at the Sciarra’.
He was an excellent speaker withal; not forcible or vehement, carrying you away, as it were, by force; but seducing you, taking you a willing captive, if I may so speak, by his dulcet tones and engaging manner, wherever he chose to go. Time after time has the House listened to him as if entranced.
[J. Grant], Random Recollections of Commons (1837), 176-8.
Macaulay, who is credited with introducing the words ‘constituency’ and ‘fourth estate’ into contemporary usage, played a highly significant part in the passage of the Reform Act.
Macaulay, having sat for Leeds until early 1834, returned financially secure from a spell in office in India in time to administer the estate of his father, who died in 1838, leaving personalty of under £5,000.