262 Life and Times of " The Dr?ad." 



a useful social reformer in his way (though 

 cabmen will never allow it), were the only not- 

 able vacancies created by pallida mors at St. 

 Stephen's. Whigs, however, and Tories, too, 

 will long miss that small, shambling, ungainly 

 thick-set figure, clad in a snuff-coloured frock 

 coat with velvet collar, which might always be 

 seen close behind the Government bench when 

 the Whigs were in office ; with hat set deep on 

 the back of the head, and pointed out to stran- 

 gers by the doorkeepers as 'Mister Macaulay.' 

 On him young authors looked with awe as 

 upon one who wrote the greatest article extant 

 on Milton when he was only twenty-five, and 

 who, when barely thirty, hurled back the 

 poisoned arrows of John Wilson Croker at 

 that bitterest of critics. Genius gave 

 Macaulay confidence to meet the man before 

 whom others quailed, and there was never a 

 truer remark made when Croker endeavoured 

 to return the equivocal compliments paid to 

 his edition of ' Boswell ' by attacking the 

 'History of England,' than 'that he had 

 attempted murder and committed suicide.' 



" The letters of Dean Milner throw most 

 light upon Lord Macaulay's early days ; and 



