A personal view of England, from the Napoleonic Wars to the high tide of mid-Victorian prosperity, is recorded in these letters of one of the Victorian era's greatest figures. Historian, essayist, poet, orator, statesman, Macaulay saw and recorded - and frequently had part in - some of the most important events of his time. The abolition of slavery and the slave trade, the passage of the Reform Bill, the reform of Indian government, and the struggle over the Corn Laws are among the public interests of Macaulay's letters. At the same time they present a lively picture of the style and behaviour of Macaulay's time as he saw it in many different scenes: among the Evangelicals of Clapham, at Cambridge, amidst the society of Holland House, in Parliament, at the country houses of the grand Whigs, and among the literary, legal and political circles of Victorian London.