That was probably the happiest half-hour of Zachary Macaulay’s life.  “My friend,” said Wilberforce, when his turn came to speak, “would doubtless willingly bear with all the base falsehoods, all the vile calumnies, all the detestable artifices which have been aimed against him, to render him the martyr and victim of our cause, for the gratification he has this day enjoyed in hearing one so dear to him plead such a cause in such a manner.”  Keen as his pleasure was, he took it in his own sad way.  From the first moment to the last, he never moved a muscle of his countenance, but sat with his eyes fixed on a piece of paper, on which he seemed to be writing with a pencil.  While talking with his son that evening, he referred to what had passed only to remark that it was ungraceful in so young a man to speak with folded arms in the presence of royalty.

In 1823 the leading members of the cleverest set of boys who ever were together at a public school found themselves collected once more at Cambridge.  Of the former staff of the Etonian, Praed, Moultrie, Nelson Coleridge, and, among others, Mr. Edmond Beales, so well known to our generation as an ardent politician, were now in residence at King’s or Trinity.  Mr. Charles Knight, too enterprising a publisher to let such a quantity of youthful talent run to waste, started a periodical, which was largely supported by undergraduates and Bachelors of Arts, among whom the veterans of the Eton press formed a brilliant, and, as he vainly hoped, a reliable nucleus of contributors.

Knight’s Quarterly Magazine is full of Macaulay, and of Macaulay in the attractive shape which a great author wears while he is still writing to please no one but himself.  He unfortunately did not at all please his father.  In the first number, besides a great deal of his that is still worth reading, there were printed under his adopted signature of Tristram Merton two little poems, the nature of which may be guessed from Praed’s editorial comments.  “Tristram Merton, I have a strong curiosity to know who Rosamond is.  But you will not tell me; and, after all, as far as your verses are concerned, the surname is nowise germane to the matter.  As poor Sheridan said, it is too formal to be registered in love’s calendar.”  And again:  “Tristram, I hope Rosamond and your Fair Girl of France will not pull caps; but I cannot forbear the temptation of introducing your Roxana and Statira to an admiring public.”  The verses were such as any man would willingly look back to having written at two and twenty; but their appearance occasioned real misery to Zachary Macaulay, who indeed disapproved of the whole publication from beginning to end, with the exception of an article on West Indian Slavery which his son had inserted with the most filial intention, but which, it must be allowed, was not quite in keeping with the general character of the magazine.

July 9, 1823.

My dear Father,—­I have seen the two last letters which you have sent to my mother.  They have given me deep pain; but pain without remorse.  I am conscious of no misconduct, and whatever uneasiness I may feel arises solely from sympathy for your distress.