her sentiments in very tolerable rhymes, but not in better, I should think, than (independent of their moral) might be written by scores of men and women. I say independent of their moral, for, after all, if we do not insist on Moralists rising above mediocrity with poetry in which they may choose to clothe their thoughts, we shall be inundated with moral and religious poetasters. Miss Taylor's poetry is, however, sufficiently respectable to entitle her to publish it. This I fully admit; but then I think you give her too high a place when you would bring her into contact with Cowper. She may possibly rank with Kirke White, Montgomery, and Gisborne, but to me she appears not to reach some of them, and she falls far below Charles Grant, and Heber, and Wilson (in his City of the Plague).

CHAPTER XI

REMOVAL TO LONDON

THE deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Thornton had broken almost the last link which held Macaulay to Clapham. Already the greater number of the members who had composed the coterie surrounding the Common, the Wilberforces, Grants, Stephens and Teignmouths, had dispersed to residences in different parts of London and although Macaulay still paid frequent visits to Battersea Rise, where the kind and hospitable Sir Robert Inglis was established with his wife as guardians to the young Thorntons, yet the tie which had hitherto bound him to Clapham Common was severed. He began to consider the convenience in his busy life of taking up his abode in London; and accordingly early in 1818 the household removed to Cadogan Place, a situation selected partly for the advantage of the neighbourhood to Wilberforce's house in Kensington Gore. Two more children had been added to his number: Margaret, who was from early childhood unusually lovely and attractive; and Charles, the youngest of the family, who was born in 1813.

Macaulay fulfilled his duties as a parent and head of a family with great attention and exactitude. The education and characters of his children were his constant study, and any circumstances which concerned their spiritual and moral welfare were carefully noted and taken advantage of by him. But it will have been gathered from his correspondence that his eldest son occupied the largest share in his thoughts and affections, although, with the exception of his wife, the only individual to whom he permitted himself the indulgence of expatiating upon Tom's merits and Tom's abilities was his old and sympathetic friend, Mrs. Hannah More. It is plain that in his strictly conscientious performance of duty he had made up his mind that the uncommon powers of mind evinced by

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the boy formed a special call upon him as a father to exercise the most minute care in training and fitting him for any career which he might select. At one time he fondly cherished the hope of seeing this beloved son devote himself to the Church and take Orders, but it appears that he did not endeavour beyond certain limits to influence the young man's choice of a profession, and that he confined himself to preparing the instrument for whatever service might be destined for it.

As the period approached when the boy must quit the shelter of Aspenden Hall for the larger sphere of the University, the anxiety of the father knew no bounds. He pondered deeply and took much advice upon the best way of shielding his son from the dangers which he foreshadowed for him there, and of preparing him for the distinction which he hoped that he was destined to achieve. Many were the letters which passed upon the subject. George Stainforth, a young Cambridge student whose career of high promise was cut short by an early death, and who was the son of a member of the former Clapham coterie, was applied to for his assistance. In an amusing letter to a member of his own family, Stainforth, after stating that Tom Macaulay would be a pupil of no ordinary attainments, and that it would require more time and exertion on his own part to render him any effectual service in his studies than he could well afford to surrender with the prospect of a Trinity Fellowship examination before him, goes on to say that with the sincere respect, even veneration, which he felt for Mr. Macaulay he would wish to gratify him in every particular, and that he has no hesitation in believing that Mr. Macaulay would be certain to disapprove of the companions Tom would meet if placed under his care at Cambridge.

However, by perseverance all difficulties were overcome, and Stainforth devoted himself for a time during the long vacation entirely to his young pupil, who retained in after life a great admiration for his abilities. It was arranged that Tom should reside at Clapham with Stainforth's family for the last few months before going to the University, and only pay occasional visits to his own home; and before these visits took place letters always passed with his father, carefully weighing the advantages and disadvantages likely to result from each interruption to the course of study.

When the time arrived for the lad to go to Cambridge Macaulay accompanied him, and he wrote a pretty letter from Cambridge to Mrs. Macaulay detailing the purchases which he and Tom had made together, and recounting how, according to prearrangement, he had settled Tom in lodgings with Henry Thornton, the eldest son of his lamented friend,-how Tom and Henry seemed to take much to each other,—how their tutor Mr. Browne promised to 'select among the thirty laundresses of Trinity College one of exemplary virtue for our youths,'-and the measures which he took to prevent any association beyond the merest civility with certain cousins who had asked Tom to take a walk with them, but whose characters did not meet with his father's approval.

TO MRS. H. MORE.

London, March 23, 1818.

I received this morning the enclosed letter from the Rev. Mr Gallaudet,1 for whose acquaintance I have you to thank. He is a very valuable man, and possesses, along with a powerful and well-furnished mind, a better taste than usually falls to the lot of Anglo-Americans. A very useful and rather superior volume of sermons by this gentleman, dedicated to you, is about to appear in this country.

You were right in supposing that Thomas's 2 protest was but the signal for battle. It has now become very evident that the hostility of the worldly part of our hierarchy to true religion is deep and inveterate. At the same time I feel nothing dismayed by this discovery. I am only anxious that those who are sound in doctrine and right in principle may also be correct in conduct, and particularly that they may make their moderation known unto all men. If they do, they must gain by the struggle; for the very violence and fury of the adverse party, if allowed to run their course, must defeat their ends. I am ten times more afraid of ourselves than I am of them. How much more injury, for example, is done to the cause of true religion by the hastiness and want of a kind and conciliatory

1 Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, Principal of the Asylum for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb in Connecticut, U.S.A. He had been residing for some time in Paris in order to acquaint himself with the system of the Abbé Sicard.

2 The Rev. Josiah Thomas, Archdeacon of Bath, had caused great consternation by introducing himself into a Meeting called by the supporters of the Church Missionary Society in December 1817 and delivering a protest against the establishment of such a Society in the city of Bath. The Bishop of Gloucester was in the chair at the time, which made the Archdeacon's conduct still more significant.

spirit shown in the letters dear John Sargent1 has published by way of defence, than by all the petulant and malignant effusions of Lloyd or of his curate.

My brother has lately been kissing the Pope's hand. He was very graciously received. He tells me that an Irish gentleman belonging to the Propaganda had lately a discussion with an Italian Catholic as to the salvability of heretics. The Irishman, having many Protestant relations, was unwilling to consign. them over to wholesale destruction. He accordingly determined to refer the matter to his Holiness. 'My son,' says the old man, whoever is seeking the truth with all his heart is a member of the Catholic Church, whatever be his name.' I wish our English popes were half as liberal.

FROM MRS. H. MORE.

Barley Wood, April 11, 1818.

Poor dear Marianne! I believe her conscience is tender, for she was guilty of a little disingenuousness. She never wrote me a syllable of her intention till the very day before she set out, and then told me it would be too late for me to answer her as she should be gone the next day, but begged me to write her some warnings when she was abroad. I would speak with all due tenderness, but I must say that three visits to France within two years of the death of her excellent mother is not a good example for Henry Thornton's daughter. I am sure it would be painful to her incomparable friends and protectors, the Inglises.

The good old lady's animadversions did not meet with sympathy from Macaulay, who in any case would have been unwilling to admit that Henry Thornton's eldest daughter, for whom he cherished an hereditary affection and admiration, could do wrong. But on this occasion he had given his particular approval to the proposed expedition to France with some friends as likely to be beneficial to the health and spirits of a girl who, before she was eighteen, had been called upon to pass through the furnace of affliction, and whose present position entailed upon her much care and responsibility. He assured Mrs. H. More that Sir Robert and Lady Inglis were themselves much addicted to travelling in France, and were delighted that Marianne should have the opportunity of a short change of

1 Rev. John Sargent, rector of Lavington, and author of the Memoir of Henry Martyn.