LET Taylor preach, upon a morning breezy, What if the lark does carol in the sky, Talk not to me of bees and such like hums, A bed of time. To me Dan Phoebus and his car are nought, My stomach is not ruled by other men's, An early riser Mr. Gray has drawn, With charwomen such early hours agree, So here I lie, my morning calls deferring LORD MACAULAY. Thomas Babington Macaulay was born in 1800, and was educated at Cambridge, where he had a very high reputation as a classical scholar. He was called to the bar in 1825, but before that time had written The Battle of Ivry, the glowing essay on Milton, and other brilliant papers. He early obtained official employment, and in 1830 became a member of Parliament. His enthusiastic support was given to the Whig party, which in return rewarded him with honor and high place. In 1834 he went to India as a member of the Council, and there framed a civil code intended to secure to the natives their rights in the courts. It was in India, on the spot, that the facts were gathered which he has so ably and picturesquely used in the essays on Clive, and on Warren Hastings. The Lays of Ancient Rome appeared in 1842, and added greatly to his reputation as a scholar. The work for which all his previous efforts were only so many separate studies, and that upon which his fame as an author securely rests, is his History of England. Two volumes were published in 1848, and were read with eager delight by all classes. No successful novel or poem was ever received with such universal acclamations. Enormous editions were sold in America as well as in England; and the author's name was as familiar in the loghouse of the western pioneer as in Westminster Hall. For the first time the reading world had seen a learned and able history made more fascinating than any fiction by the splendor of its style, by the art of dramatic arrangement, and by its delightful pictures of society and manners. Exceptions have been taken to some of the author's positions and theories; but discussion has only increased the number of his readers, if that were possible. Two more volumes appeared in 1855; another was published after his death in 1859. But a small part of the projected work was finished. He was elected to Parliament again in 1852, and in 1857 was raised to the peerage under the title of Baron Macaulay. His Essays were mostly written for the Edinburgh Review, and are among the most splendid contributions to our periodical literature. They cover a wide range of topics; they are inviting in style, and frequently eloquent; they are full of illustration and anecdote, and exhibit the fruits of extensive reading. No volume is better fitted to be used as an introduction to the treasures of literature than these Essays. They are earnestly commended to the student. Macaulay was distinguished for his brilliant talent in conversation, and was fond of talking. He was never married. He was known to be benevolent during his life, but the extent of his charities was not know until after his death, when his papers showed that for many years more than a fourth part of his income had been given away. SOCIETY AND MANNERS IN THE TIME OF CHARLES THE SECOND. [From Macaulay's History of England.] WE should be much mistaken if we pictured to ourselves the squires of the seventeenth century as men bearing a close resemblance to their descendants, the county members and chairmen of quarter sessions with whom we are familiar. The modern country gentleman generally receives a liberal education, passes from a distinguished school to a distinguished college, and has every opportunity to become an excellent scholar. He has generally seen something of foreign countries. A considerable part of his life has generally been passed in the capital; and the refinements of the capital follow him into the country. There is, perhaps, no class of dwellings so pleasing as the rural seats of the English gentry. In the parks and pleasure-grounds, Nature, dressed, yet not disguised by art, wears her most alluring form. In the buildings, good sense and good taste combine to produce a happy union of the comfortable and the graceful. The pictures, the musical instruments, the library, would in any other country be considered as proving the owner to be an eminently polished and accomplished man. A country gentleman who witnessed the Revolution was probably in receipt of about a fourth part of the rent which his acres now yield to his posterity. He was, therefore, as compared with his posterity, a poor man, and was generally under the necessity of residing, with little interruption, on his estate. To travel on the Continent, to maintain an establishment in London, or even to visit London frequently, were pleasures in which only the great proprietors could indulge. It may be confidently affirmed, that of the squires whose names were in King Charles's commissions of peace and lieutenancy, not one in twenty went to town once in five years, or had ever in his life wandered so far as Paris. Many lords of manors had received an education differing little from that of their menial servants. The heir of an estate often passed his boyhood and youth at the seat of his family, with no better tutors than grooms and gamekeepers, and scarce attained learning enough to sign his name to a mittimus. If he went to school and to college, he generally returned before he was twenty to the seclusion of the old hall, and there, un less his mind was very happily constituted by nature, soon forgot his academical pursuits in rural business and pleasures. His chief serious employment was the care of his property. He examined samples of grain, handled pigs, and on market-days made bargains over a tankard with drovers and hop-merchants. His chief pleasures were commonly derived from field-sports and from an unrefined sensuality. His language and pronunciation were such as we should now expect to hear only from the most ignorant clowns. His oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms of abuse were uttered with the broadest accent of his province. It was easy to discern, from the first words which he spoke, whether he came from Somersetshire or Yorkshire. He troubled himself little about decorating his abode, and, if he attempted decoration, seldom produced anything but deformity. The litter of a farm-yard gathered under the windows of his bed-chamber, and the cabbages and gooseberry bushes grew close to his hall door. His table was loaded with coarse plenty, and guests were cordially welcomed to it; but, as the habit of drinking to excess was general in the class to which he belonged, and as his fortune did not enable him to intoxicate large assemblies daily with claret or canary, strong beer was the ordinary beverage. The quantity of beer consumed in those days was indeed enormous; for beer then was to the middle and lower classes not only all that beer now is, but all that wine, tea, and ardent spirits now are. It was only at great houses or on great occasions that foreign drink was placed on the board. The ladies of the house, whose business it had commonly been to cook the repast, retired as soon as the dishes had been devoured, and left the gentlemen to their ale and tobacco. The coarse jollity of the afternoon was often prolonged till the revellers were laid under the table. It was very seldom that the country gentleman caught glimpses of the great world, and what he saw of it tended rather to confuse than to enlighten his understanding. His opinions respecting religion, government, foreign countries, and former times, having been derived, not from study, from observation, or from conversation with enlightened companions, but from such traditions as were current in his own small circle, were the opinions of a child. He adhered to them, however, with the obstinacy which is generally found in ignorant men accustomed to be fed with flattery. His animosities were numerous and bitter. He hated Frenchmen and Italians, Scotchmen and Irishmen, Papists and Presbyterians, Independents and Baptists, Quakers and Jews. Towards London and Londoners he felt an aversion which more than once produced important political effects. His wife and daughter were in tastes and acquirements below a housekeeper or a still-room maid of the present day. They stitched and spun, brewed gooseberry wine, cured marigolds, and made the crust for the venison pasty. The clergy were regarded as, on the whole, a plebeian class; and, indeed, for one who made the figure of a gentleman, ten were mere menial servants. A large proportion of those divines who had no benefices, or whose benefices were too small to afford a comfortable revenue, lived in the houses of laymen. It had long been evident that this practice tended to degrade the priestly character. Laud had exerted himself to effect a change; and Charles the First had repeatedly issued positive orders that none but men of high rank should presume to keep domestic chaplains. But these injunctions had become obsolete. Indeed, during the domination of the Puritans, many of the ejected ministers of the Church of England could obtain bread and shelter only by attaching themselves to the households of Royalist gentlemen; and the habits which had been formed in those times of trouble continued long after the re-establishment of monarchy and episcopacy. In the mansions of men of liberal sentiments and cultivated understandings, the chaplain was doubtless treated with urbanity and kindness. His conversation, his literary assistance, his spiritual advice, were considered as an ample return for his food, his lodging, and his stipend. But this was not the general feeling of the country gentlemen. The coarse and ignorant squire, who thought that it belonged to his dignity to have grace said every day at his table by an ecclesiastic in full canonicals, found means to reconcile dignity with economy. A young Levite—such was the phrase then in use — might be had for his board, a small garret, and ten pounds a year, and might not only perform his own professional functions, might not only be the most patient of butts and of listeners, might not only be always ready in fine weather for bowls, and in rainy weather for shovel-board, but might also save the expense of a gardener or of a groom. Sometimes the reverend man nailed up the apricots, and sometimes he curried the coach-horses. He cast up the farrier's bills. He walked ten miles with a message or a parcel. If he was permitted to dine with the family, he was expected to content himself with the plainest fare. He might fill himself with the corned beef and the carrots; but, as soon as the tarts and cheese-cakes made their appearance, he quitted his seat, and stood aloof till he |