MACAULAY, CATHARINE. 



and also a printed but not published copy of the same tract, iu Svo, 

 dated London, 1763. 



MACAULAY, CATHARINE, was the daughter of John Sawbridge, 

 Esq., of Olantigh, near Wye, Kent, where she was born in 1733. She 

 took the name by which she is best known from her first husband, 

 Dr. George Macaulay, a London physician, to whom she was married in 

 1760. It was soon after this date that she commenced authoress, by 

 the publication of her ' History of England from the accession of 

 James I. to the elevation of the House of Hanover,' the first volume 

 of which, in 4 to, appeared in 1763, and the fifth and List, which how- 

 ever only brought the narrative down to the Restoration, in 1771. 

 The work also went through more than one edition in Svo. On its 

 first publication it attracted considerable attention, principally from 

 the double piquancy of the sex and the avowed republicanism of the 

 writer ; but it had not merit enough to preserve it from passing into 

 the oblivion of waste paper. The five volumes of the ' History ' 

 were followed in 1778 by another, entitled 'The History of England 

 from the Revolution to the present time, in a series of Letters to the 

 Reverend Dr. Wilson, rector of St. Stephen's, Walbrook, and pre- 

 bendary of Westminster,' 4to, Bath. The six letters of which this 

 volume consists come down to the termination of the administration 

 of Sir Robert Walpole, in 1742. 



In 1778, or, according to another account, in 1785, Mrs. Macaulay, 

 having lost her first husband, married a Mr. Graham. Both during 

 the progress of her great work and after its completion, she also wrote 

 several pamphlets; among them were : 'Remarks on Hobbes's Rudi- 

 ments of Government and Society ,' 1767, enlarged and republished in 

 1769, with the more striking title of ' Loose Remarks on some of Mr. 

 Hobbes's Positions;' 'Observations on a Pamphlet (Burke's) entitled 

 Thoughts on the Causes of the present Discontents,' 1770 ; ' An 

 Address to the People of England, Scotland, and Ireland, on the 

 pre-ent Important Crisis of Affairs," 1775; 'A Treatise on the Immu- 

 tability of Monti Truth,' called iu a second much enlarged edition, 

 'Letter* on Education,' 1790; and 'Observations mi the Reflections 

 of the Right Hon. . Burke on the Revolution iu France, in a Letter 

 to the Right Hon. the Earl of Stanhope,' 1791. In 1785 she made a 

 voyage to America to viit Washington. On her return she retired 

 with her husband to a small huu-e iu Leicestershire, where she died 

 on the 22nd of June 1791. In 1790 was printed a litth volume 

 entitled 'A dialogue of Tracts,' which a manuscript annotation on 

 the copy in the royal library in the British Museum states to he 

 " Mr-*. Macaulay 's," meaning apparently the. tracts in her library. The 

 titles are between 5000 and 6000 ia number, besides about 1300 

 ernxms. 



MACAULAY, THE RIGHT HON. THOMAS BABINGTON, was 

 born at Rotbley Temple, Leicestershire, in the year 1800. His father, 

 Zaci ary Macaulay, well known in the eirly part of the present century 

 for his exertions against the slave-trade and in other works of philan- 

 thropy, wan the son of the Rev. John Macaulay, Presbyterian minister 

 in the Scottish Highlands, descended from the Macaulats of th inland 

 of Lewis. This John Macaulay, and a brother of bin named Kenneth, 

 also a clergyman of a Higblaud parUh, are both mentioned with 

 respect in Johnson's ' Tour to the Hebride-.' A daughter of John, 

 that in, a sister of Zacbary Macaulay, mariied a Mr. Thomas Babing- 

 ton, a rich English merchant, and the name Thomas Babington was 

 bestowed on the uepi ew. He. was t ducat ed at Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge, where his career was one of distinction. In 1819 he gained 

 the I'liancellor's medal for a poem entitled ' Pompeii,' then published ; 

 in 1821 he gained the same chancellor's medal for another poem entitled 

 ' Evening.' also pui/U-hed ; iu the eamo year he was elected- to the 

 Craven scholarship; in 1822 be graduated B. A., and wa-i elected a 

 Fellow of Trinity ; and iu 1825 he graduated M.A. Having adopted 

 the bar as bin profession, he was called at Lincoln's Inn in February 

 1826. During the whole course of his university career he was no'ed as 

 various and indefatigable reader, whose memory was almost rnimcu- 

 lou-ly retentive both of words and things. The range of his acquire- 

 ments, and the brilliancy of his style, were indicated at an early period 

 in his contributions to ' Knight's Quarterly Magazine ' his ballads, 

 and some of his essays iu that periodical, bavin; gone far beyond a 

 mere; promise of excellence. It was in August 1825, or six months 

 before his call to the bar, and when he was just twenty-five years of 

 age, that Mr. Macaulay contributed his article on ' Milton ' to the 

 'Edinburgh Review' the first of that long series of brilliant essays 

 with which, for a period of twenty years, he enriched the pages of the 

 gryiit northern periodical, and upon which even yet so much of his 

 fame, in literature depends. Various articles, including those on 

 'Machiavelli ' and on ' Hallam'a Constitutional History,' had suc- 

 ceeded the one on Milton, when, in recognition of the literary 

 articles of the young larrister, and of his relationship to Zachary 

 Macaulay, the Whigs appointed him to a commissiouership of bank- 

 ruptcy. In 1830 he became a member of parliament iu the Whig 

 interest, representing the borough of Calne. In this capacity, and 

 holding the ministerial office of secretary to the Board of Control 

 for India, he enacted a very conspicuous part in the debates 

 during the Reform bill agitation. His greatest parliamentary speech 

 on Reform was published separately in 1831; and at the same 

 he extended his choice of topics for the 'Edinburgh Review,' 

 writing occasionally on political questions as well as on themes of 



MACAULAY, RT. HON. THOMAS BABINGTON. e 



purely literary or historical interest. In December 1832 Mr, Macaulay 

 was returned to the first reformed parliament as member for. Leeds; 

 and he retained his seat till 1834, increasing his reputation as a parlia- 

 mentary orator and as a liberal and philosophic politician. In 1834, 

 somewhat to the surprise of the public, he resigned his seat, in order 

 to go out to India as a member of the Supreme Council of Calcutta. 

 The special purpose of Mr. Macaulay 's appointment was the prepara- 

 tion of a new Indian code of law. He was therefore exempted from 

 all share iu the executive government, and had four assistants 

 assigned to facilitate his labours. He remained in India two years 

 and a half, and after his return in 183S his proposed Penal Code was 

 published. It contained twenty-six short chapters, embracing 488 

 clauses. Its great ability was generally acknowledged ; but the 

 variety of races and customs to which it was to be applied, and other 

 difficulties, have prevented any attempt to carry it into execution. 

 While iu the East he increased or acquired that knowledge which at a 

 later period he exhibited in bis splendid essays on ' Clive ' and ' Warren 

 Hastings.' Nor while residing in India did ho cease to write for the 

 ' Edinburgh Review ; ' several of his most celebrated articles, including, 

 we believe, that on ' Bacon,' having been sent over from Calcutta. It 

 was one consequence, too, of Mr. Macaulay 'a absence in India that, 

 when he did return to England, he returned with a fortune which, if 

 not large, rendered him independent. 



Re-eutering political life as secretary-at-war in 1839, Mr. Macaulay 

 was elected member of parliament for the city of Edinburgh in January 

 1840. He held the secretaryship-at-war, and was a conspicuous member 

 of the Whig administration, till September 1841, when the accession 

 of Sir Robert Peel deprived him of office. On the return of the Whigj 

 to office in 1846, under the premiership of Lord John Russell, he was 

 appointed paymaster-general of the forces, with a seat in the cabinet ; 

 and this office he held till July 1847, when, chiefly on account of a 

 disagreement with the majority of his Edinburgh constituents on the 

 subject of the Marnooth grant, he lost his election. The rej c'ion of 

 such a man in such circumstances caused great surprise, and Mr. Mao- 

 aulay could easily have found another constituency, but he preferred 

 withdrawing altogether I'IMIU parliament 



It was the consolation of Mr. Macaulay 's admirers on his retirement 

 from active polities that his time would tnus be giveu in larger 

 measure than before to literary labour. During the first four or five 

 years after his return from India, and while first acting in parliament 

 as representative tor Edinburgh, be had continued as sedulously as 

 ever his contributions to the 'Edinburgh Review;' where, indeed (his 

 style being known), they were now regularly looked for by an eager 

 circle of readers. Ho also found time to return to a form of literature 

 of which he had been fond in his youth the metrical ballad and to 

 compose thos^ well-known 'Lays of Ancient Rome,' which were pub- 

 lished in 1842 After this public ttiou he wrote but four or five articles 

 for the ' Review ; ' the last from his pen being, it is understood, th it on 

 ' The. Earl of Chatham,' which appeared iu the number lor October 

 1844. As almost all the articles of the splendid t * nty years' series of 

 which this was the last, were well known, the Americans bad already in 

 1840 reprinted in five volumes such of the u as hud appeared up to 

 that time ; and copies of the reprint in considerable numbers bad been 

 imported iulo Britain. This li.-il to the publication by Mr. Macmlay 

 himself in 1843, of an authorised English edition in t ree volumes, 

 revisrd by himself, and containing, with a fe>v exceutioas, all the 

 essays included iu the American reprint. Three papers on the Utili- 

 tarian Philosophy, not included iu the American edition, were also 

 omitted from this, for a reason very honourable to the author. " Ha 

 has determined," he says, speaking of himself iu the third person iu 

 the preface, " to mint these papers, not becausu he is disposed to 

 retract a single doctrine which they contain ; but because he is 

 unwilling to offer what might be considered as an affront to the 

 memory of one [Mr. Jauns Mill] from whose opinions he still widely 

 dissents, but to whose talents -and virtues he admits that he formerly 

 did not do justice. Serious as are the faults of the ' Essay on Govern- 

 ment,' a critic, while noticing these faults, should have abstained froui 

 using contemptuous language respecting the historian of British India. 

 It ought to be known that Mr. Mill had the generosity, not only to 

 forgive, but to forget the unbecoming acrimony with which he had 

 been assailed, and was, when his valuable life closed, on terms of 

 cordial friendship u ith his assailant." The essays thus republished 

 have passed through numerous editions, and have been by far the 

 most popular of such republications in this country. The later editions 

 close with the article on Chatham above alluded to. In that article 

 Mr. Macaulay took farewell of the ' Essay ' form of literature, in 

 which he had won such reputation and which he had done so much to 

 dignify. It was known that iu doing so he was reserving his strength 

 for a more continuous and laborious, if not a more brilliant species 

 of work ; and, believing this work to be already somewhat advanced, 

 the public, in its interest, regretted less in 1847 Mr. Macaulay 's retire- 

 ment from parliament. At length in 1849, the fruits of his leisure in 

 his town residence in the Alb my were seen ; and the first two volumes 

 of his 'History of Eugland from the Accession of James II.' were 

 given to the world. Since the publication of Gibbon's immortal 

 work, few historical works have had such a reception ; edition altar 

 edition was called for; and after a little while tho public began to 

 be anxious for the appearance of the succeeding volumes. 



