Society in 1855. He removed from Ipswich to London in 1851, 

 and died suddenly on the 1 Oth of August, 1860, leaving behind him a 

 reputation for high professional ability, and for an amiable and bene- 

 ficent disposition, varied by keen humour, in private life. 



The biography of Lord Macaulay belongs rather to the history 

 of Literature than to that of Natural Philosophy : he takes his pro- 

 per place among the Statesmen, Orators, Poets, Essayists, Historians 

 of England, not among her men of Science. With a mind so active 

 and wide-ranging, he could not but take deep interest in the progress 

 and in the marvellous discoveries of modern science; but he was 

 content to accept those results on the authority of others, and to dwell 

 on their political and social consequences, rather than himself to 

 follow out their slow and laborious processes, for which, indefatigable 

 as he was, he had no time, probably no inclination. Yet the annals 

 of the Royal Society, which has ever been proud to enroj among its 

 Members statesmen and men of letters of the highest eminence, can- 

 not pass over in silence a name so illustrious as that of Lord Macaulay. 



THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY was born October 25, 1800, at 

 Rothley Temple in Leicestershire, the seat of his paternal uncle Thomas 

 Babington. His father, Zachary Macanlay, resided at Clapham, one 

 of those earnest and zealous men who, with Mr. Wilberforce, led the 

 way in the strong religious reaction which followed the French Revo- 

 lution, and whom posterity will honour as among the earliest and 

 most steady adversaries of the African Slave Trade, the advocates of 

 the emancipation of the negroes in our Colonies. The perpetual 

 agitation of such questions, involving the most sacred principles of 

 human liberty, could not be without its effect on the precocious mind 

 of the young Macaulay. Perhaps to his birth and training in that 

 school he owed in some degree his command of biblical illustration, 

 which, however, his strong sense and sober judgement always kept 

 within the limits of serious and respectful reverence. Family tra- 

 ditions, happily only traditions, of his early promise, of his childish 

 attempts at composition in prose and verse, were not likely to be lost 

 among a strong religious party, bound together by common sympa- 

 thies, and maintaining an active correspondence throughout the 

 country. The fame of young Macaulay reached the ears of Hannah 

 More, and, after receiving a visit from him, the High Priestess of the 



