blood that pulsed through his veins in the comparative innocence of his childish years. One of our poets sings in simple beauty— "I remember, I remember, the house where I was born, The little window where the sun came peeping in with morn; He never came a wink too soon, nor brought too long a day, But now I often wish the night had ta'en my breath away. "I remember, I remember, where I was used to swing, And thought the air would rush as fresh to swallows on the wing; My spirit flew in feathers then, that is so heavy now, And summer pools could hardly cool the fever on my brow. "I remember, I remember, the fir-trees dark and high, I used to think their slender tops went close against the sky; It was a childish ignorance, but now 'tis little joy To know I'm further off from heaven than when I was a boy." Three Pictures. I am in difficulties to-night. There are three pictures vivid to my mental eye, which will haply illustrate those difficulties better than any long array of words. The first is that of a gleaner, by the dim light of the moon, searching painfully among the unwealthy stubble, in a harvest-field from which the corn has been reaped, and from which the reapers have withdrawn. I am that gleaner. About the great man who is my subject to-night, there has been as much said as would suffice for a long course of lectures, and as much written as would almost furnish a library. Where is the tongue which has not been loosened to utter his eulogy?* Where is the pen which has not been swift in his praise? I have, therefore, to deal with matters which are already treasured as national property. If I am to furnish for you any but thin and blasted ears, I must of necessity enrich myself from the full sheaves of others. The second picture is that of an unfortunate individual, who has to write an art-criticism upon a celebrated picture, but who finds himself, with a small physique and with a horror of crowds, jammed hopelessly into the front rank of the spectators at the Academy, with the sun dazzling his eyes, and so near to the picture that he sees little upon the canvas but a vague and shapeless outline of colour. I am that unhappy critic, dazzled as I look * Macaulay. upon my subject-and both you and I are too near for perfect vision. Macaulay, as every one knows, was through life identified with a political party. Even his literary efforts were prompted by political impulses, and tinged necessarily with political hues. It would seem, therefore, that to be accurately judged he must be looked at through the haze of years, when the strife of passion has subsided, and prepossession and prejudice have alike faded in the lapse of time. The third picture is that of a son, keenly affectionate, but of high integrity, clinging with almost reverent fondness to the memory of a father, but who has become conscious of one detraction from that father's excellence which he may not conscientiously conceal. I am that mourning son. There are few of you who hold that marvellous Englishman more dear, or who are more jealous for the renown which, on his human side, he merits, and which has made his name a word of pride wherever Anglo-Saxons talk in their grand, free, mother tongue. If this world were all, I could admire and worship with the best of you, and no warning accompaniment should mingle with the music of the praise; but I should be recreant to the duty which I owe to those who listen to me, and traitorous to my higher stewardship as a minister of Christ, if I forbore to warn you, that without godliness in the heart and in the life, the most brilliant career has missed of its allotted purpose, and there comes a paleness upon the lustre of the very proudest fame. It is enough. Your discernment perceives my difficulties, and your sympathy will accord me its indulgence while we speak together of the man who was the marvel of other lands, and who occupies no obscure place upon the bright bead-roll of his own-the rhetorician, the essayist, the poet, the statesman, the historian-Thomas Babington, first and last Baron Macaulay. "Ye are not your own.” How strangely sounds this sentence in the ears of human pride; with what unfeigned wonder does it fill the natural man! How absolutely does it oppose itself to all the habitudes of reflection which he has been wont to indulge, and to all the trains of reasoning which he has been wont to pursue. |