It is more than probable that to this old Cambridgeshire Whig was due the first idea of that History in whose pages William of Orange stands as the central figure.

The essay is still in existence, in a close neat hand, which twenty years of Reviewing never rendered illegible.
Originally written as a fair copy, but so disfigured by repeated corrections and additions as to be unfit for the eyes of the college authorities, it bears evident marks of having been held to the flames, and rescued on second, and in this case it will be allowed, on better thoughts.

The exercise, (which is headed by the very appropriate motto, "Primus qui legibus urbem Fundabit, Curibus parvis et paupere terra Missus in imperium magnum,") is just such as will very likely be produced in the course of next Easter term by some young man of judgment and spirit, who knows his Macaulay by heart, and will paraphrase him without scruple.

The characters of James, of Shaftesbury, of William himself; the Popish plot; the struggle over the Exclusion bill; the reaction from Puritanic rigour into the license of the Restoration, are drawn on the same lines and painted in the same colours as those with which the world is now familiar.

The style only wants condensation, and a little of the humour which he had not yet learned to transfer from his conversation to his writings, in order to be worthy of his mature powers.