HARVARD CCLLEGE LIBRARY GIFT OF FULMER 100D DEC 20 1932 ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL COPYRIGHT, 1897, 1905 BY GINN AND COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 816.8 The Athenæum Press PREFATORY NOTE. Both for its historical worth and as an introduction to the style of Lord Macaulay the portion of the History which is given in the following pages is of much educational value. It is seldom possible to detach from a work so vivid a picture of a period, and to find in the fragment so much the appearance of completeness; but while it holds its place perfectly in the History, this chapter might have been written as an essay, and may be read without any feeling of its being either unfinished or detached. iii INTRODUCTION. I. Thomas Babington Macaulay was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, England, on October 25, 1800. He came of stout old Scotch Presbyterian stock on his father's side, and on his mother's of Quaker blood. His mother was a woman of strong character and individuality, who, as the boy developed a precocity really amazing, had at once the perception to appreciate his unusual gifts and the good judgment not to spoil him. When hardly more than an infant he showed a remarkable power of writing, producing prose and verse with almost equal facility; but while wonderingly proud, the wise mother had the self-control and sense never to let him see that she regarded his youthful efforts, as she wrote to a friend, "as anything more than a schoolboy's amusement." To her tenderness, her firmness, and her wisdom, Macaulay owed much; and he always regarded her with the warmest affection and admiration. After four years at an excellent private boarding school, Macaulay entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was graduated in 1822. Two years later he took his degree of M.A., and was elected to a fellowship. During all these years his reading was enormous, especially in the line of poetry, fiction, and essays; he exercised himself constantly at the debating clubs then so much in fashion; and he took a keen delight in following the tangled threads of the confused and confusing politics of the day. In connection with the last, the young V |