not approve, and I only refrained from stating those points because an office of my own was at stake.”  When this source fell dry he was for a while a poor man; for a member of Parliament, who has others to think of besides himself, is anything but rich on sixty or seventy pounds a quarter as the produce of his pen, and a college income which has only a few more months to run.  At a time when his Parliamentary fame stood at its highest he was reduced to sell the gold medals which he had gained at Cambridge; but he was never for a moment in debt; nor did he publish a line prompted by any lower motive than the inspiration of his political faith, or the instinct of his literary genius.  He had none but pleasant recollections connected with the period when his fortunes were at their lowest.  From the secure prosperity of after life he delighted in recalling the time when, after cheering on the fierce debate for twelve or fifteen hours together, he would walk home by daylight to his chambers, and make his supper on a cheese which was a present from one of his Wiltshire constituents, and a glass of the audit ale which reminded him that he was still a fellow of Trinity.

With political distinction came social success, more rapid and more substantial, perhaps, than has ever been achieved by one who took so little trouble to win or to retain it.  The circumstances of the time were all in his favour.  Never did our higher circles present so much that would attract a new-comer, and never was there more readiness to admit within them all who brought the honourable credentials of talent and celebrity.  In 1831 the exclusiveness of birth was passing away, and the exclusiveness of fashion had not set in.  The Whig party, during its long period of depression, had been drawn together by the bonds of common hopes, and endeavours, and disappointments; and personal reputation, whether literary, political, or forensic, held its own as against the advantages of rank and money to an extent that was never known before, and never since.  Macaulay had been well received in the character of an Edinburgh Reviewer, and his first great speech in the House of Commons at once opened to him all the doors in London that were best worth entering.  Brought up, as he had been, in a household which was perhaps the strictest and the homeliest among a set of families whose creed it was to live outside the world, it put his strength of mind to the test when he found himself courted and observed by the most distinguished and the most formidable personages of the day.  Lady Holland listened to him with unwonted deference, and scolded him with a circumspection that was in itself a compliment.  Rogers spoke of him with friendliness, and to him with positive affection, and gave him the last proof of his esteem and admiration by asking him to name the morning for a breakfast-party.  He was treated with almost fatherly kindness by the able and worthy man who is still remembered by the