GEORGE GROTE.—­This distinguished writer was born near London, in 1794.  He was the son of a banker, and received his education at the Charter House.  Instead of entering one of the universities, he became a clerk in his father’s banking-house.  Early imbued with a taste for Greek literature, he continued his studies with great zeal; and was for many years collecting the material for a history of Greece.  The subject was quietly and thoroughly digested in his mind before he began to write.  A member of Parliament from 1832 to 1841, he was always a strong Whig, and was specially noted for his championship of the vote by ballot.  There was no department of wholesome reform which he did not sustain.  He opposed the corn laws, which had become oppressive; he favored the political rights of the Jews, and denounced prescriptive evils of every kind.

HISTORY OF GREECE.—­In 1846 he published the first volume of his History of Greece from the Earliest Period to the Death of Alexander the Great:  the remaining volumes appeared between that time and 1856.  The work was well received by critics of all political opinions; and the world was astonished that such a labor should have been performed by any writer who was not a university man.  It was a luminous ancient history, in a fresh and racy modern style:  the review of the mythology is grand; the political conditions, the manners and customs of the people, the military art, the progress of law, the schools of philosophy, are treated with remarkable learning and clearness.  But he as clearly exhibits the political condition of his own age, by the sympathy which he displays towards the democracy of Athens in their struggles against the tenets and actions of the aristocracy.  The historian writes from his own political point of view; and Grote’s history exhibits his own views of reform as plainly as that of Mitford sets forth his aristocratic proclivities.  Thus the English politics of the age play a part in the Grecian history.

There were several histories of Greece written not long before that of Grote, which may be considered as now set aside by his greater accuracy and better style.  Among these the principal are that of JOHN GILLIES, 1747-1836, which is learned, but statistical and dry; that of CONNOP THIRLWALL, born 1797, Bishop of St. David’s, which was greatly esteemed by Grote himself; and that of WILLIAM MITFORD, 1744-1827, to correct the errors and supply the deficiencies of which, Grote’s work was written.

LORD MACAULAY.—­Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley, in Leicestershire, on the 25th of October, 1800.  His father, Zachary Macaulay, a successful West Indian merchant, devoted his later life to philanthropy.  His mother was Miss Selina Mills, the daughter of a bookseller of Bristol.  After an early education, chiefly conducted at home, he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1818, where he distinguished himself as a debater, and gained