In the course of looking after his father's business Macaulay unlearned most of the previous lessons of his life, and taught himself that to do for others and sink self was the manly method. But so lightly did he bear the burden that it is doubtful if he ever considered he was making any sacrifice. When his father died, Macaulay put entirely out of his mind the question of a household separate and apart from that of his mother and sisters. He devoted himself entirely to them; he wanted no other love than theirs. Unlike so many men of decided talent, the best and most loving side of Macaulay's nature was made manifest at home. His bubbling wit, brilliant conversation, and good-cheer were for his own fireside, first; and all that cutting, critical, scathing flood of invective was for the public that wore a rhinoceros-hide. Macaulay's article on Milton, published during his twenty-fifth year, in the "Edinburgh Review," is generally regarded as a most wonderful achievement. "Just think!" the critics cry—"the first article printed to be of a quality that electrified the world!" But we must remember that this youth had been getting ready to write that article for ten years. At college Macaulay shirked mathematics and philosophy, spending his time and attention on things he liked better. The only study in which he excelled was composition. Even in babyhood his command of language had been a wonder to the neighborhood in which he lived. Hannah More had for a time taken him under her immediate charge and prophesied great things of his literary faculty; and his mother was not slow in seconding the opinion. At Cambridge he already had more than a local reputation as a writer, and it was this reputation that secured him the commission to write for the "Review." The terrible Jeffrey was getting old and his regular staff had pretty nearly worked out their vein. Jeffrey wrote up to London (being south) to a friend telling him that the "Review" must have new blood, and imploring him to be on the lookout for some young man who had ideas in his ink-bottle. This friend knew the vigor and incisiveness of Macaulay's style, and as he read the letter from Jeffrey he exclaimed, "Macaulay!" It was a great compliment to a mere youth to be asked to contribute to the "Edinburgh Review." Edinburgh was a literary center, and you could not throw a stone in Princess Street, any more than you can in Tremont Street, Boston, without hitting a poet and caroming on two novel-writers and an essayist. Thomas Carlyle, five years older than Macaulay, and who was to live and write for twenty-five years after Macaulay's passing, had not yet struck twelve. London, too, like Edinburgh, was full of writing men, standing in the market-places of Grub Street with no man to hire.