“Celsâ sedet Æolus arce, Sceptra tenens; mollitque animos et temperat iras Ni faciat, maria ac terras cœlumque profundum Quippe ferant rapidi secum, verrantque per auras.”[1] The consequence of letting loose the passions at present chained and confined, would be to produce a scene of desolation which no man can contemplate without horror; and I should not sleep easy on my couch if I were conscious that I had contributed to precipitate it by a single moment. This, then, is the reason—a reason very different from fear—the reverse of a consciousness of disability—why I dread the recurrence of hostilities in any part of Europe; why I would bear much, and would forbear long; why I would (as I have said) put up with almost any thing that did not touch national faith and national honor, rather than let slip the furies of war, the leash of which we hold in our hands—not knowing whom they may reach, or how far their ravages may be carried. Such is the love of peace which the British Government acknowledges; and such the necessity for peace which the circumstances of the world inculcate. I will push these topics no further. I return, in conclusion, to the object of the address. Let us fly to the aid of Portugal, by whomsoever attacked, because it is our duty to do so; and let us cease our interference where that duty ends. We go to Portugal not to rule, not to dictate, not to prescribe constitutions, but to defend and to preserve the independence of an ally. We go to plant the standard of England on the well-known heights of Lisbon. Where that standard is planted, foreign dominion shall not come. LORD MACAULAY. In August of 1825 there appeared in the _Edinburgh Review_ an article on Milton which attracted instantaneous and universal attention. Though it did not, perhaps, go to the bottom of the various topics it had to deal with, it displayed so wonderful a range of knowledge, so great a variety of strong and striking thoughts, and such a splendor of rhetoric, that it dazzled and drew into an earnest enthusiasm the host of readers of that already famous journal. When it came to be known that the author of this marvellous piece of literary workmanship was a young man of only twenty-five, it was at once perceived that a new luminary had made its appearance in the galaxy of English authorship. From that time till the day when, nearly thirty years later, his services in behalf of letters were rewarded with a grave in the Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey, Thomas Babington Macaulay wielded a literary influence not surpassed by that of any other master of English prose.