His time of entrance into the House of Commons was propitious. It was just before the death of George IV and the accession of William IV, and consequently on the eve of the battle for the reforms of 1832. Macaulay was 30 years of age, was widely read in history and literature and was a ready and fluent speaker aflame with interest in public questions. In 1824 he had made a notable speech at a meet ing of the Anti-Slavery Society; later, in the discussion for Catholic emacipation, he headed a coachload of M.A.'s from London to Cambridge, arriving in time to vote down a pe tition in the university senate against the act. He now threw himself ardently into the strug gle for reform and took an honorable part in the fight from begininning to end. His Parlia mentary success was immediate. "Whenever he rose to speak," Mr. Gladstone testified, utt was a summons like a trumpet-call to fill the benches." His earliest effort was on the re moval of the civil disabilities of the Jews, which he followed by an essay on the subject in the Edinburgh Review (January 1831). On the emancipation of slaves in the colonies he never wavered, but stood unflinchingly true to his father's principles.. He offered to resign his position with the ministry rather than yield his views on this subject; but the question was satisfactorily settled and his resignation not ac• cepted.
Meanwhile he found time to write. The es. says on 'Byron,
His appointment in 1832 as a commissioner of the Board of Control was followed by ab sorption in East Indian affairs, and in 1833, when the charter of the East India Company was renewed, he was offered a position on the East Indian Council with a salary of f10,000 per annum for five years. His brilliant career In Parliament was seemingly permanently en dangered; but Macaulay did not hesitate. He estimated that he could save half his salary and in five years have a competence. He needed money on account of his father's pov erty, for the sake of his two sisters, as well as for his own career; and he accepted, going out in 1834 and returning in 1838. The genius for government which the father had displayed at Sierre Leone, the son now manifested at Cal cutta. His important permanent reforms were the creation of the Indian Penal Code and the Code for Criminal Procedure, achieved in the face of bitter local opposition, and the organ ization of a sound educational system.
Macaulay's family ties were very strong and there is no record of any love affair in his life. A sister, Jane, had died in 1830, and his mother in 1831. One of his favorite sisters, Margaret, was married in 1832, an occurrence which he accepted as a source of personal dis tress. The other, Hannah, accompanied him to India, and there she met and was shortly married to Charles Trevelyan, an officer in the government service. Macaulay was much pleased with the match, and the two households lived together under the same roof. Ever af
terward, as the young Trevelyans, his nieces and nephews, grew up, they became a very real part of Macaulay's life. His love for children, and particularly for these, was a marked trait, and one of them afterward filially wrote his uncle's biography. Meanwhile his sister Mar garet had died in England, and likewise his father died while Macaulay and the Trevelyans were on their homeward voyage. These deaths affected him deeply, and the home-coming was a sad one.
While in India he made opportunity for an immense amount of reading, particularly of the Latin and Greek classics, to which he returned with increasing delight. He also read widely in Italian and French, and did some German on the return voyage. His love for the great poets, dramatists, orators and historians af fected his culture, his style and his ideals. The lists of his reading from now to the end of his life became a part of his biography and would stock a good library. His long walks with a copy of Homer or Virgil, from which he was reading or spouting, became an accustomed sight. Thenceforward he determined that he would write a history in emulation of Thucy dides and Tacitus and Livy, and his set speeches caught something of the spirit of Lysias and Cicero.
Upon his return to England .he left for a tour in Italy, revelling in its beauties and as sociations with the enthusiasm of a first visit and the eye of an historian and student of Latin and Italian literatures. The literary fruits were the 'Lays of Ancient Rome.' Returned home, he sincerely hoped to begin his 'History of England,' which he had planned to write from the Revolution of 1688 to the death of George III. Had he begun it then, with 20 years of life to devote to it, he might easily have left 10 or more volumes -covering the century instead of the first five extending through but 15 years— a brilliant fragment.. But he was again dragged into politics and Macvey Napier, editor of the Edinburgh Re view, made heavy draughts upon his titpe.
In India he had contributed hut two essays to the Review, that do (Mackintosh's History) and the very long one on (Bacon.> However, his experience furnished him the material for the brilliant narratives on 'Clive> (1840) and 'Warren Hastings' (1841). Besides these in the six years after his return he contributed (Sir William Temple' (1838)— written in an entirely fresh spirit;