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soon did.

While absent from Europe I had scarce seen a white lady; and among men in the West Indies, whatever be their rank, there is a total emancipation not only from the trammels of ceremony, but, notwithstanding a great deal of hospitality and even kindness, from the more necessary forms of good-breeding. I am content to bear the occasional uneasiness still flowing from this source as a memento of the greater punishment I at that time of my return to England incurred, and as some check to my too prevalent passion for appearing well in the eyes of others.

'I ought to observe here that at this time I was fond of games of skill, such as whist, backgammon, and draughts, and that I had attained, in spite of my limited opportunities, to a more than ordinary proficiency in them. On the passage home I had the misfortune to fall into the company of two amateurs of play. One, a son of the late Governor Winch, had already thrown away £30,000 on the turf and at gaming-tables, for which he had gained the praise of being, as he certainly was, the most graceful rider in England as well as one of the most eminent jockeys and whist-players. The other was a man of wonderfully versatile talents, but whom we afterwards discovered to be a swindler by profession.

'I played at first very cautiously, and never permitted myself to be tempted to bet. But as my winnings increased, which they generally did, I was exposed to the danger of becoming attached to play, and the miseries which I felt would naturally follow such an attachment. I heroically resolved, therefore, to break the chain, and adopted some strong determinations on the point, which I have since, with few deviations, been able to keep. I say heroically, for in the then state of my mind, and with my feeble, inefficacious, and unsound principles, it was certainly no mean degree of self-denial to quench a passion which had risen to some height, and to deny my vanity the gratification of displaying the skill I had acquired, and for the acquisition of which I had paid many an hour of anxiety and perturbation.'

The autobiographical fragment ends when Macaulay reached England, and was never continued. Indeed there was little occasion for it, as the voluminous letters and journals which he was soon to commence writing form an ample and almost continuous record of his laborious existence. It is a relief to close this chapter of it, and to know that although Zachary Macaulay had his full share of troubles and anxieties in after life, yet the special class of difficulties which beset him in the West Indies was ended for him for ever.

CHAPTER II

NEW INFLUENCES

WHEN Macaulay arrived in England in 1789, he found himself in circumstances calculated to bring about a remarkable change in the modes of thought and objects of ambition which he had hitherto pursued. A marriage had taken place in his family which was destined to affect powerfully his fortunes in life, and to develop the natural bent of his disposition in the most favourable manner.

His elder brother Aulay, who was about ten years his senior, had taken orders in the Church of England with apparently the full approval of his father, and had in 1781 accepted the curacy of Claybrook in Leicestershire. Aulay Macaulay was a man of strong literary tastes and varied attainments; he soon made many acquaintances in the neighbourhood where the greater portion of his life was to be spent; but he formed a specially intimate friendship with that individual who may be considered to have exercised a paramount influence upon the character and upon the destiny of Zachary Macaulay.

Thomas Babington was a young country gentleman of ancient lineage, and the owner of Rothley Temple, a picturesque and interesting mansion of great antiquity, situated a few miles from Leicester. It had been formerly a possession of the Knights Templars, and afterwards a Commandery of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John; and at the time of the Reformation it passed by more honest means than many similar domains were acquired at that time, by genuine purchase, into the hands of his ancestor, Humphrey Babington.

In 1787 Thomas Babington made, in company with his friend the curate, Aulay Macaulay, an expedition to Scotland for a tour of pleasure, an unusual adventure still at that period when Englishmen rarely crossed the Tweed except upon calls

of business and duty. It was natural that Aulay Macaulay should desire to include Cardross in the itinerary of their route, and to take the opportunity of visiting his family whom he had not seen for ten years. During his absence his brothers had dispersed, three of the number having gone to the East Indies; but his five young sisters were all at the manse. Mr. Babington soon found himself strongly attracted by Jean, one of the elder daughters, who had grown up to be a remarkably pretty and charming girl; and instead of paying only the brief visit to Cardross which had been their original intention, the two friends prolonged their stay until Mr. Babington, having convinced himself that his happiness for life depended upon the answer, made the offer of his heart and hand to Miss Macaulay.

The response was propitious to his wishes; and as soon as he was assured of being acceptable to the lady of his choice, he wrote to announce his engagement to his family in England. The news of his approaching marriage in such remote wilds with the daughter of a Presbyterian Minister met with little favour among his neighbours in the country-houses and rectories of Leicestershire. It is amusing to see that his own relations seem to have regarded the affair with much the same feelings of astonishment and dismay with which the family of an Arctic explorer might hear of his intention to return home with an Esquimaux bride.

But Thomas Babington's attachment was proof against all opposition. In due course of time the marriage took place; and the young wife set out with her husband for England, cheered by the reflection that her brother the clergyman would be near her in the unknown country where her future lot was to be cast. As far as can be learned from the voluminous correspondence of the family, Jean Babington did not revisit her native country for forty years.

Mr. Babington's strong affection did not blind him to the requirements of his position in life, and to the inevitable deficiencies of a young girl, however pleasing and clever she might be naturally, who had been accustomed only to the secluded and simple life of a Scotch manse, when suddenly transferred to the head of a large and hospitable establishment in a wellpeopled neighbourhood in England. The plan he adopted for

supplying her with the necessary education is somewhat diverting. Instead of taking Mrs. Babington direct to Rothley Temple, he arranged to go with her on a visit to Yoxall Lodge, the beautiful residence of his brother-in-law and close friend, Mr. Gisborne, in the very heart of Needwood Forest. It was under the care of Mrs. Gisborne, Thomas Babington's only sister, that the young bride was placed in order to learn the duties of her new position.

It speaks well for the temper and sense of all concerned that this extraordinary plan thoroughly answered, and that the most cordial relations grew up and subsisted always between Mrs. Babington and her husband's family. At the end of a probation of six months she was pronounced capable of taking the head of her own house; and during her stay at Yoxall Lodge she had so entirely won the heart of her husband's mother that the old lady returned to Rothley Temple, and resided there until her death, on affectionate terms with the daughter-in-law whose arrival she had awaited with such alarm and disapproval. Jean Babington united to great personal charms and a warm heart a very lively disposition and considerable cleverness and quickness of apprehension. She held the reins of authority at Rothley Temple during the course of a long life, and ruled with a dignity and decision which made her a person of considerable consequence in the circle surrounding her.

The character of Thomas Babington himself was one that may be better and more justly estimated by its effect upon his contemporaries than by any special performance of his own that has been left to the judgment of posterity. The peculiarity of his goodness, upon which all who had been personally acquainted with him loved to dwell, was a perfect rectitude, a simple straightforwardness of speech and purpose, which inspired in minds that intellectually were of a far higher order than his own, respect for his opinion and confidence in his advice. The ancient walls of Rothley Temple became a centre where those who were in sympathy with his views upon the real purpose of life loved to assemble; and each returning summer brought with it the chosen band of friends, linked together by the closest ties of religious hope and faith, by congenial tastes and habits, and, as time went on, by the

common interest of endeavouring to free their fellow-creatures from degrading bondage.

Macaulay was twenty-one years old when he landed from the West Indies. His father had died at Cardross a short time before his arrival in England, and he appears to have gone direct to Leicestershire, where he received an affectionate welcome. Mrs. Babington, who had been his special companion formerly as the one of his sisters who was nearest him in age, had grown into a charming woman during his absence; but she retained that preference for him over all the rest of her family which she continued to exhibit during her whole life, and which she afterwards extended to his children and to everything connected with him.

To a young man of Macaulay's character who since his childhood had been entirely shut out from the happiness and softening influences of family life and domestic society, who had only lived where no affection was shown him, and among people who took no personal interest in him, the effect upon his mind of the change of scene into which his introduction to Rothley Temple brought him was beyond expression overpowering and bewildering. Thomas Babington, whose ideal of the duties of relationship was high, gave a kind reception to his brother-in-law, although the manners and behaviour of the young man did not at first prepossess any one in his favour. A daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Babington remembered hearing her parents relate that upon his first arrival from Jamaica her uncle Zachary was thought by most people to be a disagreeable, conceited youth, with self-sufficient, dogmatic manners, but that before long an entire change took place in him.

The autobiographical fragment has shown the class of persons among whom Macaulay had lived since he was a boy of fourteen, and the standard of conduct among his superiors and equals in the West Indies to which he had been endeavouring to compel his conscience to conform. He now found himself living in intimate association with men in whose daily life he beheld every pure Christian principle brought into action, and whose motives and habits bore unflinchingly the closest scrutiny. Instead of the systematic indulgence and selfishness of those with whom he had spent his youth, he saw his present companions voluntarily renouncing that ease and enjoyment to

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