ime governor of the Sierra Leone
colony for liberated negroes, and devoted a large part of his life to the
abolition of the slave trade. His mother, of Quaker parentage, was a
brilliant, sensitive woman, whose character is reflected in that of her
son. The influence of these two, and the son's loyal devotion to his
family, can best be read in Trevelyan's interesting biography.

As a child, Macaulay is strongly suggestive of Coleridge. At three years of
age he began to read eagerly; at five he "talked like a book"; at ten he
had written a compendium of universal history, besides various hymns, verse
romances, arguments for Christianity, and one ambitious epic poem. The
habit of rapid reading, begun in childhood, continued throughout his life,
and the number and vari ety of books which he read is almost incredible.
His memory was phenomenal. He could repeat long poems and essays after a
single reading; he could quote not only passages but the greater part of
many books, including _Pilgrim's Progress, Paradise Lost_, and various
novels like _Clarissa_. Once, to test his memory, he recited two newspaper
poems which he had read in a coffeehouse forty years before, and which he
had never thought of in the interval.

At twelve years of age this remarkable boy was sent to a private school at
Little Shelford, and at eighteen he eqgered Trinity College, Cambridge.
Here he made a reputation as a classical scholar and a brilliant talker,
but made a failure of his mathematics. In a letter to his mother he wrote:
"Oh for words to express my abomination of that science.... Discipline of
the mind! Say rather starvation, confinement, torture, annihilation!" We
quote this as a commentary on Macaulay's later writings, which are
frequently lacking in the exactness and the logical sequence of the science
which he detested.

After his college course Macaulay studied law, was admitted to the bar,
devoted himself largely to politics, entered Parliament in 1830, and almost
immediately won a reputation as the best debater and the most eloquent
speaker, of the Liberal or Whig party. Gladstone says of him: "Whenever he
arose to speak it was a summons like a trumpet call to fill the benches."
At the time of his election he was poor, and the loss of his father's
property threw upon him the support of his brothers and sisters; but he
took up the burden with cheerful courage, and by his own efforts soon
placed himself and his family in comfort. His p