whether he was brave or not.  He worked strenuously and unceasingly, never amusing himself from year’s end to year’s end, and shrinking from any public praise or recognition as from an unlawful gratification, because he was firmly persuaded that, when all had been accomplished and endured, he was yet but an unprofitable servant, who had done that which was his duty to do.  Some, perhaps, will consider such motives as oldfashioned, and such convictions as out of date; but self-abnegation, self-control, and self-knowledge that does not give to self the benefit of any doubt, are virtues which are not oldfashioned, and for which, as time goes on, the world is likely to have as much need as ever. [Sir James Stephen writes thus of his friend Macaulay:  “That his understanding was proof against sophistry, and his nerves against fear, were, indeed, conclusions to which a stranger arrived at the first interview with him.  But what might be suggesting that expression of countenance, at once so earnest and so monotonous—­by what manner of feeling those gestures, so uniformly firm and deliberate were prompted—­whence the constant traces of fatigue on those overhanging brows and on that athletic though ungraceful figure—­what might be the charm which excited amongst his chosen circle a faith approaching to superstition, and a love rising to enthusiasm, towards a man whose demeanour was so inanimate, if not austere:—­it was a riddle of which neither Gall nor Lavater could have found the key.”

That Sir James himself could read the riddle is proved by the concluding words of a passage marked by a force and tenderness of feeling unusual even in him:  “His earthward affections,—­active and all—­enduring as they were, could yet thrive without the support of human sympathy, because they were sustained by so abiding a sense of the divine presence, and so absolute a submission to the divine will, as raised him habitually to that higher region where the reproach of man could not reach, and the praise of man might not presume to follow him.”]

Mr. Macaulay was admirably adapted for the arduous and uninviting task of planting a negro colony.  His very deficiencies stood him in good stead; for, in presence of the elements with which he had to deal, it was well for him that nature had denied him any sense of the ridiculous.  Unconscious of what was absurd around him, and incapable of being flurried, frightened, or fatigued, he stood as a centre of order and authority amidst the seething chaos of inexperience and insubordination.  The staff was miserably insufficient, and every officer of the Company had to do duty for three in a climate such that a man is fortunate if he can find health for the work of one during a continuous twelvemonth.  The Governor had to be in the counting-house, the law-court, the school, and even the chapel.  He was his own secretary, his own paymaster, his own envoy.  He posted ledgers, he decided causes, he conducted correspondence with