His many-sided Sympathies. 263 



it is amusing to find that he speaks of him, 

 when a mere boy of twelve on his first visit 

 to the Lodge, at Queen's College, Cambridge, 

 as exceedingly disputatious. In the Dean's 

 ' Life,' the future historian pays the highest 

 tribute to one of the most robust and 

 universal gfeniuses that Granta ever sent to 

 maintain her fame. Says the Dean to him, 

 1 You are so correct that I don't mind show- 

 ing you a few squibs upon heads of houses, 

 some thirty years ago, which I have got in a 

 portfolio ; ' and anon, the lad who hated 

 mathematics so much that he never entered 

 the Mathematical Tripos, even to entitle him 

 to contend for the Chancellor's Medal, con- 

 fesses that the experiments in physics which 

 the Dean showed him made the subject as 

 agreeable as a fairy tale. 



"When the Edinburgh Revieiv, 'The 

 Battle of Ivry,' and his speeches on the floor 

 of the House had shown him his power, 

 Macaulay soon acquired a very great con- 

 tempt for the opinions of constituencies. In 

 fact he thought, with Burke, that they were 

 simply the rungs of the ladder, and ought 

 humbly to wait till they found a man, and 



