E due TS08.260,1+4 HARVARD COLLEGE OCT 3 1919 LIBRARY Copyright, 1895, by LIFE OF JOHNSON. M. I. INTRODUCTION. THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY, the most popular essayist of his time, was born at Leicestershire, Eng., in 1800. His father, Zachary Macaulay, a friend and coworker of Wilberforce, was a man of austere character, who was greatly shocked at his son's fondness for worldly literature. Macaulay's mother, however, encouraged his reading, and did much to foster his literary tastes. From the time that he was three," says Trevelyan in his standard biography, "Macaulay read incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug before the fire, with his book on the ground and a piece of bread and butter in his hand." He early showed marks of uncommon genius. When he was only seven, he took it into his head to write a "Compendium of Universal History." He could remember almost the exact phraseology of the books he read, and had Scott's "Marmion" almost entirely by heart. His omnivorous reading and extraordinary memory bore ample fruit in the richness of allusion and brilliancy of illustration that marked the literary style of his mature years. He could have written “Sir Charles Grandison" from memory, and in 1849 he could repeat more than half of "Paradise Lost." In 1818 Macaulay entered Trinity College, Cambridge. Here he won prizes in classics and English; but he had an invincible distaste for mathematics. 5 |