What though now opposed I be? 
 Twenty Peers shall carry me. 
 If twenty won’t, thirty will,
 For I’m his Majesty’s bouncing Bill.

Sir Robert Peel has been extremely complimentary to him.  One sentence he repeated to us:  ’My only feeling towards that gentleman is a not ungenerous envy, as I listened to that wonderful flow of natural and beautiful language, and to that utterance which, rapid as it is, seems scarcely able to convey its rich freight of thought and fancy!’ People say that these words were evidently carefully prepared.

“I have just been looking round our little drawing-room, as if trying to impress every inch of it on my memory, and thinking how in future years it will rise before my mind as the scene of many hours of light-hearted mirth; how I shall again see him, lolling indolently on the old blue sofa, or strolling round the narrow confines of our room.  With such a scene will come the remembrance of his beaming countenance, happy affectionate smile, and joyous laugh; while, with everyone at ease around him, he poured out the stores of his full mind in his own peculiarly beautiful and expressive language, more delightful here than anywhere else, because more perfectly unconstrained.  The name which passes through this little room in the quiet, gentle tones of sisterly affection is a name which will be repeated through distant generations, and go down to posterity linked with eventful times and great deeds.”

The last words here quoted will be very generally regarded as the tribute of a sister’s fondness.  Many, who readily admit that Macaulay’s name will go down to posterity linked with eventful times and great deeds, make that admission with reference to times not his own, and deeds in which he had no part except to commemorate them with his pen.  To him, as to others, a great reputation of a special order brought with it the consequence that the credit, which he deserved for what he had done well, was overshadowed by the renown of what he did best.  The world, which has forgotten that Newton excelled as an administrator, and Voltaire as a man of business, remembers somewhat faintly that Macaulay was an eminent orator and, for a time at least, a strenuous politician.  The universal voice of his contemporaries, during the first three years of his parliamentary career, testifies to the leading part which he played in the House of Commons, so long as with all his heart he cared, and with all his might he tried, to play it.  Jeffrey, (for it is well to adduce none but first-rate evidence,) says in his account of an evening’s discussion on the second reading of the Reform Bill:  “Not a very striking debate.  There was but one exception, and it was a brilliant one.  I mean Macaulay, who surpassed his former appearance in closeness, fire, and vigour, and very much improved the effect of it by a more steady and graceful delivery.  It was prodigiously cheered, as it deserved, and I think puts him clearly at the head of the great speakers,