He entered with zest into the animated and manysided life of the House of Commons, of which so few traces can ordinarily be detected in what goes by the name of political literature.

The biographers of a distinguished statesman too often seem to have forgotten that the subject of their labours passed the best part of his waking hours, during the half of every year, in a society of a special and deeply marked character, the leading traits of which are at least as well worth recording as the fashionable or diplomatic gossip that fills so many volumes of memoirs and correspondence.

Macaulay's letters sufficiently indicate how thoroughly he enjoyed the ease, the freedom, the hearty good-fellowship, that reign within the precincts of our national senate; and how entirely he recognised that spirit of noble equality, so prevalent among its members, which takes little or no account of wealth, or title, or indeed of reputation won in other fields, but which ranks a man according as the value of his words, and the weight of his influence, bear the test of a standard which is essentially its own.
In February 1831 he writes to Whewell: "I am impatient for Praed's debut.

The House of Commons is a place in which I would not promise success to any man.

I have great doubts even about Jeffrey.