Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay Part 28

"Seringapatam has always been a place of peculiar interest to me. It was the scene of the greatest events of Indian history. It was the residence of the greatest of Indian princes. From a child, I used to hear it talked of every day. Our uncle Colin was imprisoned there for four years, and he was afterwards distinguished at the siege. I remember that there was, in a shop-window at Clapham, a daub of the taking of Seringapatam, which, as a boy, I often used to stare at with the greatest interest. I was delighted to have an opportunity of seeing the place; and, though my expectations were high, they were not disappointed.

"The town is depopulated; but the fortress, which was one of the strongest in India, remains entire. A river almost as broad as the Thames at Chelsea breaks into two branches, and surrounds the walls, above which are seen the white minarets of a mosque. We entered, and found everything silent and desolate. The mosque, indeed, is still kept up, and deserves to be so; but the palace of Tippoo has fallen into utter ruin. I saw, however, with no small interest, the airholes of the dungeon in which the English prisoners were confined, and the water-gate leading down to the river where the body of Tippoo was found still warm by the Duke of Wellington, then Colonel Wellesley. The exact spot through which the English soldiers fought their way against desperate disadvantages into the fort is still perfectly discernible. But, though only thirty-five years have elapsed since the fall of the city, the palace is in the condition of Tintern Abbey and Melrose Abbey. The courts, which bear a great resemblance to those of the Oxford Colleges, are completely overrun with weeds and flowers. The Hall of Audience, once considered the finest in India, still retains some very faint traces of its old magnificence. It is supported on a great number of light and lofty wooden pillars, resting on pedestals of black granite.

These pillars were formerly covered with gilding, and here and there the glitter may still be perceived. In a few more years not the smallest trace of this superb chamber will remain. I am surprised that more care was not taken by the English to preserve so splendid a memorial of the greatness of him whom they had conquered. It was not like Lord Wellesley's general mode of proceeding; and I soon saw a proof of his taste and liberality. Tippoo raised a most sumptuous mausoleum to his father, and attached to it a mosque which he endowed. The buildings are carefully maintained at the expense of our Government. You walk up from the fort through a narrow path, bordered by flower beds and cypresses, to the front of the mausoleum, which is very beautiful, and in general character closely resembles the most richly carved of our small Gothic chapels. Within are three tombs, all covered with magnificent palls embroidered in gold with verses from the Koran. In the centre lies Hyder; on his right the mother of Tippoo; and Tippoo himself on the left."

During his stay at Mysore, Macaulay had an interview with the deposed Rajah; whose appearance, conversation, palace, furniture, jewels, soldiers, elephants, courtiers, and idols, he depicts in a letter, intended for family perusal, with a minuteness that would qualify him for an Anglo-Indian Richardson. By the evening of the 24th June he was once more on the road; and, about noon on the following day, he began to ascend the Neilgherries, through scenery which, for the benefit of readers who had never seen the Pyrenees or the Italian slopes of an Alpine pa.s.s, he likened to "the vegetation of Windsor Forest, or Blenheim, spread over the mountains of c.u.mberland." After reaching the summit of the table-land, he pa.s.sed through a wilderness where for eighteen miles together he met nothing more human than a monkey, until a turn of the road disclosed the pleasant surprise of an amphitheatre of green hills encircling a small lake, whose banks were dotted with red-tiled cottages surrounding a pretty Gothic church. The whole station presented "very much the look of a rising English watering-place. The largest house is occupied by the Governor-General. It is a s.p.a.cious and handsome building of stone. To this I was carried, and immediately ushered into his Lordship's presence. I found him sitting by a fire in a carpeted library. He received me with the greatest kindness, frankness, and hospitality. He is, as far as I can yet judge, all that I have heard; that is to say, rect.i.tude, openness, and good-nature, personified." Many months of close friendship and common labours did but confirm Macaulay in this first view of Lord William Bentinck. His estimate of that singularly n.o.ble character survives in the closing sentence of the essay on Lord Clive; and is inscribed on the base of the statue which, standing in front of the Town Hall may be seen far and wide over the great expanse of gra.s.s that serves as the park, the parade-ground, and the race-course of Calcutta.

To Thomas Flower Ellis.

Ootacamund: July 1, 1834.

Dear Ellis,--You need not get your map to see where Ootacamund is; for it has not found its way into the maps. It is a new discovery; a place to which Europeans resort for their health, or, as it is called by the Company's servants--blessings on their learning,--a _sanaterion_. It lies at the height of 7,000 feet above the sea.

While London is a perfect gridiron, here am I, at 13 degrees North from the equator, by a blazing wood fire, with my windows closed. My bed is heaped with blankets, and my black servants are coughing round me in all directions. One poor fellow in particular looks so miserably cold that, unless the sun comes out, I am likely soon to see under my own roof the spectacle which, according to Shakespeare, is so interesting to the English,--a dead Indian. [The Tempest, act ii. scene 2.]

I travelled the whole four hundred miles between this and Madras on men's shoulders. I had an agreeable journey on the whole. I was honoured by an interview with the Rajah of Mysore, who insisted on showing me all his wardrobe, and his picture gallery. He has six or seven coloured English prints, not much inferior to those which I have seen in the sanded parlour of a country inn; "Going to Cover," "The Death of the Fox," and so forth. But the bijou of his gallery, of which he is as vain as the Grand Duke can be of the Venus, or Lord Carlisle of the Three Maries, is a head of the Duke of Wellington, which has, most certainly, been on a sign-post in England.

Yet, after all, the Rajah was by no means the greatest fool whom I found at Mysore. I alighted at a bungalow appertaining to the British Residency. There I found an Englishman who, without any preface, accosted me thus: "Pray, Mr. Macaulay, do not you think that Buonaparte was the Beast?" "No, Sir, I cannot say that I do." "Sir, he was the Beast. I can prove it. I have found the number 666 in his name. Why, Sir, if he was not the Beast, who was?" This was a puzzling question, and I am not a little vain of my answer. "Sir," said I, "the House of Commons is the Beast. There are 658 members of the House; and these, with their chief officers,--the three clerks, the Sergeant and his deputy, the Chaplain, the doorkeeper, and the librarian,--make 666."

"Well, Sir, that is strange. But I can a.s.sure you that, if you write Napoleon Buonaparte in Arabic, leaving out only two letters, it will give 666." "And pray, Sir, what right have you to leave out two letters?

And, as St. John was writing Greek, and to Greeks, is it not likely that he would use the Greek rather than the Arabic notation?" "But, Sir,"

said this learned divine, "everybody knows that the Greek letters were never used to mark numbers." I answered with the meekest look and voice possible: "I do not think that everybody knows that. Indeed I have reason to believe that a different opinion,--erroneous no doubt,--is universally embraced by all the small minority who happen to know any Greek." So ended the controversy. The man looked at me as if he thought me a very wicked fellow; and, I dare say, has by this time discovered that, if you write my name in Tamul, leaving out T in Thomas, B in Babington, and M in Macaulay, it will give the number of this unfortunate Beast.

I am very comfortable here. The Governor-General is the frankest and best-natured of men. The chief functionaries, who have attended him hither, are clever people, but not exactly on a par as to general attainments with the society to which I belonged in London. I thought, however, even at Madras, that I could have formed a very agreeable circle of acquaintance; and I am a.s.sured that at Calcutta I shall find things far better. After all, the best rule in all parts of the world, as in London itself, is to be independent of other men's minds. My power of finding amus.e.m.e.nt without companions was pretty well tried on my voyage. I read insatiably; the Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil, Horace, Caesar's Commentaries, Bacon de Augmentis, Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Ta.s.so, Don Quixote, Gibbon's Rome, Mill's India, all the seventy volumes of Voltaire, Sismondi's History of France, and the seven thick folios of the Biographia Britannica. I found my Greek and Latin in good condition enough. I liked the Iliad a little less, and the Odyssey a great deal more than formerly. Horace charmed me more than ever; Virgil not quite so much as he used to do. The want of human character, the poverty of his supernatural machinery, struck me very strongly. Can anything be so bad as the living bush which bleeds and talks, or the Harpies who befoul Aeneas's dinner? It is as extravagant as Ariosto, and as dull as Wilkie's Epigoniad. The last six books, which Virgil had not fully corrected, pleased me better than the first six. I like him best on Italian ground. I like his localities; his national enthusiasm; his frequent allusions to his country, its history, its antiquities, and its greatness. In this respect he often reminded me of Sir Walter Scott, with whom, in the general character of his mind, he had very little affinity. The Georgics pleased me better; the Eclogues best,--the second and tenth above all. But I think the finest lines in the Latin language are those five which begin,

"Sepibus in nostris parvam te roscida mala--"

[Eclogue viii. 37.]

I cannot tell you how they struck me. I was amused to find that Voltaire p.r.o.nounces that pa.s.sage to be the finest in Virgil.

I liked the Jerusalem better than I used to do. I was enraptured with Ariosto; and I still think of Dante, as I thought when I first read him, that he is a superior poet to Milton, that he runs neck and neck with Homer, and that none but Shakespeare has gone decidedly beyond him.

As soon as I reach Calcutta I intend to read Herodotus again. By the bye, why do not you translate him? You would do it excellently; and a translation of Herodotus, well executed, would rank with original compositions. A quarter of an hour a day would finish the work in five years. The notes might be made the most amusing in the world. I wish you would think of it. At all events, I hope you will do something which may interest more than seven or eight people. Your talents are too great, and your leisure time too small, to be wasted in inquiries so frivolous, (I must call them,) as those in which you have of late been too much engaged; whether the Cherokees are of the same race with the Chickasaws; whether Van Diemen's Land was peopled from New Holland, or New Holland from Van Diemen's land; what is the precise anode of appointing a headman in a village in Timbuctoo. I would not give the worst page in Clarendon or Fra Paolo for all that ever was, or ever will be, written about the migrations of the Leleges and the laws of the Oscans.

I have already entered on my public functions, and I hope to do some good. The very wigs of the judges in the Court of King's Bench would stand on end if they knew how short a chapter my Law of Evidence will form. I am not without many advisers. A native of some fortune in Madras has sent me a paper on legislation. "Your honour must know," says this judicious person, "that the great evil is that men swear falsely in this country. No judge knows what to believe. Surely if your honour can make men to swear truly, your honour's fame will be great, and the Company will flourish. Now, I know how men may be made to swear truly; and I will tell your honour for your fame, and for the profit of the Company.

Let your honour cut off the great toe of the right foot of every man who swears falsely, whereby your honour's fame will be extended." Is not this an exquisite specimen of legislative wisdom?

I must stop. When I begin to write to England, my pen runs as if it would run on for ever.

Ever yours affectionately

T. B. M.

To Miss f.a.n.n.y and Miss Selina Macaulay.

Ootacamund: August 10, 1834.

My dear Sisters,--I sent last month a full account of my journey hither, and of the place, to Margaret, as the most stationary of our family; desiring her to let you all see what I had written to her. I think that I shall continue to take the same course. It is better to write one full and connected narrative than a good many imperfect fragments.

Money matters seem likely to go on capitally. My expenses, I find, will be smaller than I antic.i.p.ated. The Rate of Exchange, if you know what that means, is very favourable indeed; and, if I live, I shall get rich fast. I quite enjoy the thought of appearing in the light of an old hunks who knows on which side his bread is b.u.t.tered; a warm man; a fellow who will cut up well. This is not a character which the Macaulays have been much in the habit of sustaining; but I can a.s.sure you that, after next Christmas, I expect to lay up, on an average, about seven thousand pounds a year, while I remain in India.

At Christmas I shall send home a thousand, or twelve hundred, pounds for my father, and you all. I cannot tell you what a comfort it is to me to find that I shall be able to do this. It reconciles me to all the pains--acute enough, sometimes, G.o.d knows,--of banishment. In a few years, if I live--probably in less than five years from the time at which you will be reading this letter--we shall be again together in a comfortable, though a modest, home; certain of a good fire, a good joint of meat, and a good gla.s.s of wine; without owing obligations to anybody; and perfectly indifferent, at least as far as our pecuniary interest is concerned, to the changes of the political world. Rely on it, my dear girls, that there is no chance of my going back with my heart cooled towards you. I came hither princ.i.p.ally to save my family, and I am not likely while here to forget them.

Ever yours

T. B. M.

The months of July and August Macaulay spent on the Neilgherries, in a climate equable as Madeira and invigorating as Braemar; where thickets of rhododendron fill the glades and clothe the ridges; and where the air is heavy with the scent of rose-trees of a size more fitted for an orchard than a flower-bed, and bushes of heliotrope thirty paces round.

The glories of the forests and of the gardens touched him in spite of his profound botanical ignorance, and he dilates more than once upon his "cottage buried in laburnums, or something very like them, and geraniums which grow in the open air." He had the more leisure for the natural beauties of the place, as there was not much else to interest even a traveller fresh from England.

"I have as yet seen little of the idolatry of India; and that little, though excessively absurd, is not characterised by atrocity or indecency. There is nothing of the sort at Ootacamund. I have not, during the last six weeks, witnessed a single circ.u.mstance from which you would have inferred that this was a heathen country. The bulk of the natives here are a colony from the plains below, who have come up hither to wait on the European visitors, and who seem to trouble themselves very little about caste or religion. The Todas, the aboriginal population of these hills, are a very curious race. They had a grand funeral a little while ago. I should have gone if it had not been a Council day; but I found afterwards that I had lost nothing. The whole ceremony consisted in sacrificing bullocks to the manes of the defunct.

The roaring of the poor victims was horrible. The people stood talking and laughing till a particular signal was made, and immediately all the ladies lifted up their voices and wept. I have not lived three and thirty years in this world without learning that a bullock roars when he is knocked down, and that a woman can cry whenever she chooses.

"By all that I can learn, the Catholics are the most respectable portion of the native Christians. As to Swartz's people in the Tanjore, they are a perfect scandal to the religion which they profess. It would have been thought something little short of blasphemy to say this a year ago; but now it is considered impious to say otherwise, for they have got into a violent quarrel with the missionaries and the Bishop. The missionaries refused to recognise the distinctions of caste in the administration of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and the Bishop supported them in the refusal. I do not pretend to judge whether this was right or wrong.

Swartz and Bishop Heber conceived that the distinction of caste, however objectionable politically, was still only a distinction of rank; and that, as in English churches the gentlefolks generally take the Sacrament apart from the poor of the parish, so the high-caste natives might be allowed to communicate apart from the Pariahs.

"But, whoever was first in the wrong, the Christians of Tanjore took care to be most so. They called in the interposition of Government, and sent up such pet.i.tions and memorials as I never saw before or since; made up of lies, invectives, bragging, cant, bad grammar of the most ludicrous kind, and texts of Scripture quoted without the smallest application. I remember one pa.s.sage by heart, which is really only a fair specimen of the whole: 'These missionaries, my Lord, loving only filthy lucre, bid us to eat Lord-supper with Pariahs as lives ugly, handling dead men, drinking rack and toddy, sweeping the streets, mean fellows altogether, base persons, contrary to that which Saint Paul saith: I determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.'

"Was there ever a more appropriate quotation? I believe that n.o.body on either side of the controversy found out a text so much to the purpose as one which I cited to the Council of India, when we were discussing this business: 'If this be a question of words, and names, and of your law, look ye to it; for I will be no judge of such matters.' But though, like Gallio, I drove them and their pet.i.tions from my judgment seat, I could not help saying to one of the missionaries, who is here on the Hills, that I thought it a pity to break up the Church of Tanjore on account of a matter which such men as Swartz and Heber had not been inclined to regard as essential. 'Sir,' said the reverend gentleman, 'the sooner the Church of Tanjore is broken up the better. You can form no notion of the worthlessness of the native Christians there.' I could not dispute this point with him; but neither could I help thinking, though I was too polite to say so, that it was hardly worth the while of so many good men to come fifteen thousand miles over sea and land in order to make proselytes, who, their very instructors being judges, were more children of h.e.l.l than before."

Unfortunately Macaulay's stay on the Neilgherries coincided with the monsoon. "The rain streamed down in floods. It was very seldom that I could see a hundred yards in front of me. During a month together I did not get two hours' walking." He began to be bored, for the first and last time in his life; while his companions, who had not his resources, were ready to hang themselves for very dulness. The ordinary amus.e.m.e.nts with which, in the more settled parts of India, our countrymen beguile the rainy season, were wanting in a settlement that had only lately been reclaimed from the desert; in the immediate vicinity of which you still ran the chance of being "trod into the shape of half a crown by a wild elephant, or eaten by the tigers, which prefer this situation to the plains below for the same reason that takes so many Europeans to India; they encounter an uncongenial climate for the sake of what they can get." There were no books in the place except those that Macaulay had brought with him, among which, most luckily, was Clarissa Harlowe. Aided by the rain outside, he soon talked his favourite romance into general favour. The reader will consent to put up with one or two slight inaccuracies in order to have the story told by Thackeray.

"I spoke to him once about Clarissa. 'Not read Clarissa!' he cried out.

'If you have once read Clarissa, and are infected by it, you can't leave it. When I was in India I pa.s.sed one hot season in the Hills; and there were the Governor-General, and the Secretary of Government, and the Commander-in-Chief, and their wives. I had Clarissa with me; and, as soon as they began to read, the whole station was in a pa.s.sion of excitement about Miss Harlowe, and her misfortunes, and her scoundrelly Lovelace. The Governor's wife seized the book; the Secretary waited for it; the Chief justice could not read it for tears.' He acted the whole scene; he paced up and down the Athenaeum library. I dare say he could have spoken pages of the book; of that book, and of what countless piles of others!"

An old Scotch doctor, a Jacobin and a free-thinker, who could only be got to attend church by the positive orders of the Governor-General, cried over the last volume until he was too ill to appear at dinner.

[Degenerate readers of our own day have actually been provided with an abridgment of Clarissa, itself as long as an ordinary novel. A wiser course than buying the abridgment would be to commence the original at the Third volume. In the same way, if anyone, after obtaining the outline of Lady Clementina's story from a more adventurous friend, will read Sir Charles Grandison, skipping all letters from Italians, to Italians, and about Italians, he will find that he has got hold of a delightful, and not unmanageable, book.] The Chief Secretary,--afterwards, as Sir William Macnaghten, the hero and the victim of the darkest episode in our Indian history,--declared that reading this copy of Clarissa, under the inspiration of its owner's enthusiasm, was nothing less than an epoch in his life. After the lapse of thirty years, when Ootacamund had long enjoyed the advantage of a book-club and a circulating library, the tradition of Macaulay and his novel still lingered on with a tenacity most unusual in the ever-shifting society of an Indian station.

"At length Lord William gave me leave of absence. My bearers were posted along the road; my palanquins were packed; and I was to start next day; when an event took place which may give you some insight into the state of the laws, morals, and manners among the natives.

"My new servant, a Christian, but such a Christian as the missionaries make in this part of the world, had been persecuted most unmercifully for his religion by the servants of some other gentlemen on the Hills.

At last they contrived to excite against him (whether justly or unjustly I am quite unable to say) the jealousy of one of Lord William's under-cooks. We had accordingly a most glorious tragi-comedy; the part of Oth.e.l.lo by the cook aforesaid; Desdemona by an ugly, impudent Pariah girl, his wife; Iago by Colonel Cas.e.m.e.nt's servant; and Michael Ca.s.s...o...b.. my rascal. The place of the handkerchief was supplied by a small piece of sugar-candy which Desdemona was detected in the act of sucking, and which had found its way from my canisters to her fingers. If I had any part in the piece, it was, I am afraid, that of Roderigo, whom Shakespeare describes as a 'foolish gentleman,' and who also appears to have had 'money in his purse.'

"On the evening before my departure my bungalow was besieged by a mob of blackguards. The Native judge came with them. After a most prodigious quant.i.ty of jabbering, of which I could not understand one word, I called the judge, who spoke tolerable English, into my room, and learned from him the nature of the case. I was, and still am, in doubt as to the truth of the charge. I have a very poor opinion of my man's morals, and a very poor opinion also of the veracity of his accusers. It was, however, so very inconvenient for me to be just then deprived of my servant that I offered to settle the business at my own expense. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances this would have been easy enough, for the Hindoos of the lower castes have no delicacy on these subjects. The husband would gladly have taken a few rupees, and walked away; but the persecutors of my servant interfered, and insisted that he should be brought to trial in order that they might have the pleasure of smearing him with filth, giving him a flogging, beating kettles before him, and carrying him round on an a.s.s with his face to the tail.

"As the matter could not be accommodated, I begged the Judge to try the case instantly; but the rabble insisted that the trial should not take place for some days. I argued the matter with them very mildly, and told them that I must go next day, and that, if my servant were detained, guilty or innocent, he must lose his situation. The gentle and reasoning tone of my expostulations only made them impudent. They are, in truth, a race so accustomed to be trampled on by the strong that they always consider humanity as a sign of weakness. The Judge told me that he never heard a gentleman speak such sweet words to the people. But I was now at an end of my sweet words. My blood was beginning to boil at the undisguised display of rancorous hatred and shameless injustice. I sate down, and wrote a line to the Commandant of the station, begging him to give orders that the case might be tried that very evening. The Court a.s.sembled, and continued all night in violent contention. At last the judge p.r.o.nounced my servant not guilty. I did not then know, what I learned some days after, that this respectable magistrate had received twenty rupees on the occasion.

"The husband would now gladly have taken the money which he refused the day before; but I would not give him a farthing. The rascals who had raised the disturbance were furious. My servant was to set out at eleven in the morning, and I was to follow at two. He had scarcely left the door when I heard a noise. I looked forth, and saw that the gang had pulled him out of his palanquin, torn off his turban, stripped him almost naked, and were, as it seemed, about to pull him to pieces. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up a sword-stick, and ran into the middle of them. It was all I could do to force my way to him, and, for a moment, I thought my own person was in danger as well as his. I supported the poor wretch in my arms; for, like most of his countrymen, he is a chickenhearted fellow, and was almost fainting away. My honest barber, a fine old soldier in the Company's service, ran off for a.s.sistance, and soon returned with some police officers. I ordered the bearers to turn round, and proceeded instantly to the house of the Commandant. I was not long detained here.

Nothing can be well imagined more expeditious than the administration of justice in this country, when the judge is a Colonel, and the plaintiff a Councillor. I told my story in three words. In three minutes the rioters were marched off to prison, and my servant, with a sepoy to guard him, was fairly on his road and out of danger."

Early next morning Macaulay began to descend the pa.s.s.

"After going down for about an hour we emerged from the clouds and moisture, and the plain of Mysore lay before us--a vast ocean of foliage on which the sun was shining gloriously. I am very little given to cant about the beauties of nature, but I was moved almost to tears. I jumped off the palanquin, and walked in front of it down the immense declivity.

In two hours we descended about three thousand feet. Every turning in the road showed the boundless forest below in some new point of view. I was greatly struck with the resemblance which this prodigious jungle, as old as the world and planted by nature, bears to the fine works of the great English landscape gardeners. It was exactly a Wentworth Park, as large as Devonshire. After reaching the foot of the hills, we travelled through a succession of scenes which might have been part of the garden of Eden. Such gigantic trees I never saw. In a quarter of an hour I pa.s.sed hundreds the smallest of which would bear a comparison with any of those oaks which are shown as prodigious in England. The gra.s.s, the weeds, and the wild flowers grew as high as my head. The sun, almost a stranger to me, was now shining brightly; and, when late in the afternoon I again got out of my palanquin and looked back, I saw the large mountain ridge from which I had descended twenty miles behind me, still buried in the same ma.s.s of fog and rain in which I had been living for weeks.

"On Tuesday, the 16th" (of September), "I went on board at Madras. I amused myself on the voyage to Calcutta with learning Portuguese, and made myself almost as well acquainted with it as I care to be. I read the Lusiad, and am now reading it a second time. I own that I am disappointed in Camoens; but I have so often found my first impressions wrong on such subjects that I still hope to be able to join my voice to that of the great body of critics. I never read any famous foreign book, which did not, in the first perusal, fall short of my expectations; except Dante's poem, and Don Quixote, which were prodigiously superior to what I had imagined. Yet in these cases I had not pitched my expectations low."

He had not much time for his Portuguese studies. The run was unusually fast, and the ship only spent a week in the Bay of Bengal, and forty-eight hours in the Hooghly. He found his sister comfortably installed in Government House, where he himself took up his quarters during the next six weeks; Lady William Bentinck having been prepared to welcome him as her guest by her husband's letters, more than one of which ended with the words "e un miracolo." Towards the middle of November, Macaulay began housekeeping for himself; living, as he always loved to live, rather more generously than the strict necessities of his position demanded. His residence, then the best in Calcutta, has long since been converted into the Bengal Club.