stands in that position must often be sorely puzzled as to what he
has the heart to publish and the right to withhold.

I am conscious that a near relative has peculiar temptations
towards that partiality of the biographer which Lord Macaulay
himself so often and so cordially denounced; and the danger is
greater in the case of one whose knowledge of him coincided with
his later years; for it would not be easy to find a nature which
gained more by time than his, and lost less. But believing, as I
do, (to use his own words,) that "if he were now living he would
have sufficient judgment and sufficient greatness of mind" to
wish to be shown as himself, I will suppress no trait in his
disposition, or incident in his career, which might provoke blame
or question. Such in all points as he was, the world, which has
been so indulgent to him, has a right to know him; and those who
best love him do not fear the consequences of freely submitting
his character and his actions to the public verdict.

The most devout believers in the doctrine of the transmission of
family qualities will be content with tracing back descent
through four generations; and all favourable hereditary
influences, both intellectual and moral, are assured by a
genealogy which derives from a Scotch Manse. In the first decade
of the eighteenth century Aulay Macaulay, the great-grandfather
of the historian, was minister of Tiree and Coll; where he was
"grievously annoyed by a decreet obtained after instance of the
Laird of Ardchattan, taking away his stipend." The Duchess of
Argyll of the day appears to have done her best to see him
righted; "but his health being much impaired, and there being no
church or meeting-house, he was exposed to the violence of the