University of Virginia Library

"It is hard to say whether his poetry, his speeches in parliament, or his brilliant
essays, are the most charming; each has raised him to very great eminence, and would
be sufficient to constitute the reputation of any ordinary man."

"It may be said that Great Britain has produced no statesman since Burke who has
united in so eminent a degree as Macaulay the lofty and cultivated genius, the eloquent
orator, and the sagacious and far-reaching politician."

"We do not know of any living English orator, whose eloquence comes so near the
ancient ideal—close, rapid, powerful, practical reasoning, animated by an intense earnestness
of feeling."

"Mr. Macaulay has lately acquired as great a reputation as an orator, as he had formerly
won as an essayist and historian. He takes in his speeches the same wide and
comprehensive grasp of his subject that he does in his essays, and treats it in the same
elegant style."

"The same elaborate finish, sparkling antithesis, full sweep and copious flow of
thought, and transparency of style, which made his essays so attractive, are found in
his speeches. They are so perspicuous, so brilliantly studded with ornament and illustration,
and so resistless in their current, that they appear at the time to be the wisest
and greatest of human compositions."