MACAULAY, Thomas Babington, Eng lish essayist, historian and statesman: b. Roth ley Temple, Leicestershire, 25 Oct. 1800; d. Holly Lodge, Kensington, 28 Dec. 1859.
Macaulay was the son of Zachary Macau lay, a Scotchman of remarkable character, who achieved distinction by his life-long advocacy of the abolition of slavery and by his efficiency, as a young man, in the governorship of Sierra Leone, the colony of African freedmen. The family removed to Clapham, then a suburb of London, where much of Macaulay's youth was spent. Hannah More was a friend of the fam ily and she encouraged the lad as a writer and presented him with books to start his library. Young Macaulay was regarded as a prodigy, and his memory was something startling. He attended school near Cambridge under a Mr. Preston; his range of reading, particularly in poetry and fiction, was immense, but his taste for mathematics and the exact sciences steadily declined. In October 1818 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, and in the citadel of mathe matics his aversion for this study became pro nounced. Twice he gained the Chancellor's medal for poetry, and he displayed classical attainments, but was ugulphed" in mathematics. However, after a third trial, he won a Fellow ship in 1824. His mental training was. thus one-sided; and a certain lack of philosophical grasp and a dislike of facing abstruse intel lectual problems became thus characteristic.
The association with his college mates, rather than his studies, left the deepest impres sion upon Macaulay. His great friend was Charles Austin, whose influence converted the young Tory into an uncompromising Whig. He shone in the Union Debating Society, develop ing powers that afterward became conspicuous in the House of Commons. Politics he had heard discussed from early childhood in the circles which gathered round his father's table, and along with literature politics was his abid ing passion. At college he had competed for a prize in history on the subject which he de veloped fuller in later years: "The Conduct and Character of William III.'>
leaving the university he began writing for publication in Knight's Quarterly Magazine (1823). Two lyrics, 'Ivry) and still live; but the most important con tribution was the ingenious be tween Mr. Abraham Cowley and Mr. John Mil ton, touching the great Civil War.) It seems likely enough that the freshness and delicacy revealed in this early work became injured by the author's entrance into the rougher world of political strife. On the other hand, it may be maintained that Macaulay's gifts were pre eminently those of the man in public life, and to him literature, always a delight, was never theless really but an avocation.
Macaulay's father unexpectedly became finan cially involved. Full of courage, the son began tutoring while still at Cambridge, and cheer fully assisted in supporting his sisters. Ulti mately, together with his brother, he paid off all his father's obligations.
Macaulay was called to the bar in 1826 and joined the Northern circuit; but soon gave up the law for politics. Interestingly enough, his entrance into politics came by way of literature. In August 1825 appeared the essay on 'Mil ton,' the first of the series that Macaulay con tributed to the Edinburgh Review, which, for the next 20 years made both him and the view famous. Jeffrey, the editor, expressed his frank wonder as to where Macaulay "picked up that style." Upon Jeffrey's resignation Ma caulay was offered the editorship, but he was not willing to leave London. Papers on avelli' (1827), and lam's Constitutional History) (1828), followed, and soon after controversial articles on James Mill, Sadler and Southey, which revealed the declared Whig. Their reputation introduced him into both social and political life. He was made commissioner of bankruptcy in 1828 and in 1830, Lord Lansdowne, who had been favor ably impressed by the attack on Mill, offered Macaulay a seat in Parliament for Caine in Wiltshire which he held until in 1832 he was elected for Leeds.