THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF LORD MACAULAY

2 volumes. First Edition. WIth an engraved frontispiece in the first volume. 8vo, publisher’s original green cloth lettered in gilt on the spines xi, 475; viii 480 [8 ads] pp. A nice copy, the bindings slightly shaken and showing just a bit of age, but still a handsome and pleasing set.

Edizione: fascinating writings by thomas babington macaulay, british historian, whig politician, essayist, and poet. "besides being a man of letters, lord macaulay was a statesman, a jurist, and a brilliant ornament of society, at a time when to shine in society was a distinction which a man of eminence and ability might justly value. in these several capacities, it will be said, he was known well, and known widely. but in the first place, as these pages will show, there was one side of his life (to him, at any rate, the most important,) of which even the persons with whom he mixed most freely and confidentially in london drawing-rooms, in the indian council chamber, and in the lobbies and on the benches of the house of commons, were only in part aware. and in the next place, those who have seen his features and heard his voice are few already and become yearly fewer; while, by a rare fate in literary annals, the number of those who read his books is still rapidly increasing. for everyone who sat with him in private company or at the transaction of public business,—for every ten who have listened to his oratory in parliament or from the hustings,—there must be tens of thousands whose interest in history and literature he has awakened and informed by his pen, and who would gladly know what manner of man it was that has done them so great a service." g.o.trevelyan