"When I personally knew Lord Macaulay, I still more enjoyed my disposition to admire him. The harmony was perfect between the man and the artist, the talker and the writer. Nothing bore a closer resemblance to Lord Macaulay's works than his conversation. There was the same richness and readiness of memory, the same unaffected ardour in the thought, the same vivacity of imagination, the same clearness of language, the same natural and pointed turn in the reflections. There was as much pleasure and almost as much instruction in listening to as in reading him. And when after so many remarkable and charming Essays, he published his great work, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, the same qualities developed themselves therein with even increased abundance and effect. I know no history in which the past and the historian who relates it live so intimately or familiarly together."