On the last page of the Birds of Aristophanes:  “Jan. 16, 1836.  Oi presbeis of papa ton Basileos ton Nepauliton eisegonto khthes es Kalkouttan.” ["The ambassadors from the King of Nepaul entered Calcutta yesterday.”  It may be observed that Macaulay wrote Greek with or without accents, according to the humour, or hurry, of the moment.]

On the first page of Theocrats:  “March 20, 1835.  Lord W. Bentinck sailed this morning.”

On the last page of the “De Amicitia:”  “March 5, 1836.  Yesterday Lord Auckland arrived at Government House, and was sworn in.”

Beneath an idyl of Moschus, of all places in the world, Macaulay notes the fact of Peel being First Lord of the Treasury; and he finds space, between two quotations in Athenaeus, to commemorate a Ministerial majority of 29 on the Second Reading of the Irish Church Bill.

A somewhat nearer approach to a formal diary may be found in his Catullus, which contains a catalogue of the English books that he read in the cold season of 1835-36; as for instance

Gibbon’s Answer to Davis.         November 6 and 7
Gibbon on Virgil’s VI Aeneid     November 7
Whately’s Logic                  November 15
Thirlwall’s Greece               November 22
Edinburgh Review                 November 29

And all this was in addition to his Greek and Latin studies, to his official work, to the French that he read with his sister, and the unrecorded novels that he read to himself; which last would alone have afforded occupation for two ordinary men, unless this month of November was different from every other month of his existence since the day that he left Mr. Preston’s schoolroom.  There is something refreshing, amidst the long list of graver treatises, to light upon a periodical entry of “Pikwikina”; the immortal work of a Classic who has had more readers in a single year than Statius and Seneca in all their eighteen centuries together.  Macaulay turned over with indifference, and something of distaste, the earlier chapters of that modern Odyssey.  The first touch which came home to him was Jingle’s “Handsome Englishman?” In that phrase he recognised a master; and, by the time that he landed in England, he knew his Pickwick almost as intimately as his Grandison.

Calcutta:  June 15, 1837

Dear Napier,—­Your letter about my review of Mackintosh miscarried, vexatiously enough.  I should have been glad to know what was thought of my performance among friends and foes; for here we have no information on such subjects.  The literary correspondents of the Calcutta newspapers seem to be penny-a-line risen, whose whole stock of literature comes from the conversations in the Green Room.