Xll 



brotherhood, in an agreeable letter, still extant, uttered an oracle 

 predictive of his future greatness. After a few years of instruction 

 at a small school in Clapham, at the age of 12 he was placed under 

 the care of the Rev. Mr. Preston, first at Shelford, afterwards near 

 Buntingford, in the neighbourhood of Cambridge. Mr. Preston seems 

 to have been a man of attainments and judgement. He must have 

 taught the Latin and Greek authors extremely well, for under his 

 instruction Macaulay became a sound and good scholar. He did 

 more, he fostered that love for the great classical writers, without 

 which all study is barren and without durable impression. He re- 

 spected too that great maxim, that no one is so well taught as by 

 himself. Having given or strengthened the impulse, he left the 

 young scholar to his own insatiable avidity for learning, and for 

 books of all kinds. The schoolboy sent an anonymous defence of 

 novel reading to the serious journal of his father's friends, the Chris- 

 tian Observer, which was inserted. This passion for novel reading 

 adhered to him to the last ; he swept the whole range, not only of 

 English but of foreign fiction, not without great profit to the future 

 historian. The higher tastes which he then imbibed were equally 

 indelible ; his admiration of the unrivalled writers of Greece and Rome 

 grew deeper to the close of his life. Homer and Thucydides, and 

 Tacitus, remained among his constant and familiar studies, and no 

 doubt, without controlling him to servile imitation, exercised a powerful 

 influence on his mode of composition and on his style. Among his 

 father's friends holding the same religious opinions, was Isaac Milner, 

 Dean of Carlisle, and Master of Queen's College, a man with a singu- 

 lar union of profound mathematical acquirements, strong evangelical 

 views, and a peculiar broad humour. During his visits to Milner 

 at Cambridge, Macaulay acquired that strong attachment to the 

 University, which, like his other attachments, seemed to become more 

 strong and fervent with the progress of years. 



In his 19th year he began his residence at Trinity College, Cam- 

 bridge. His career at Cambridge was not quite so brilliant as the 

 sanguine expectations of his friends had foretold. He had a repug- 

 nance for mathematics, or rather he was under the jealous and 

 absorbing spell of more congenial studies. That repugnance in 

 after life was a subject of much regret ; he fully recognized the 

 importance, almost the necessity, of such studies for perfect educa- 



