the dead languages, reading Plutarch's Lives twice in a year, and
Euripides, Thucydides, Homer, Cicero, Cæsar--all without special aim or
end. Such a restless appetite for reading is apt to produce mental
dyspepsia, and is not at all to be advised for average people; and the
probabilities are that even in Macaulay's case his time might often have
been better spent in meditation.

In Eighteen Hundred Twenty-seven appeared in the "Review" the "Essay on
Mill." Like all of Macaulay's articles it reveals a wealth of learning and
bristles with information on many themes. It often seems as if Macaulay
took a subject simply to execute a learned war-dance around it. The
article on Mill is a good example of merely touching the central theme and
then going off into by-lanes of economics, history and civil government,
with endless allusions to literature, poetry, art and philosophy. It is
all intensely interesting, closely woven, often gorgeous in its coloring;
and "style" runs like a thread of gold through it all.

Shortly after this article appeared, Lord Lansdowne intimated to the young
writer that he would like the honor of introducing him into public life,
and if agreeable he could arrange for him to stand for Parliament in the
vacant seat of Calne.

Calne was one of those vest-pocket boroughs, owned by a single man, of
which England has so many. The people think they choose their
representative, but they do not, any more than we do in America. The
government by the Boss and for the Boss is no new institution. Macaulay
presented himself and was elected without opposition. And so before his
thirtieth year he found himself on the flood-tide of national politics.

Fifteen years before, if any one had expressed himself as plainly as