s and mortar at an early date) lies behind Throgmorton Street,
and within a hundred yards of the Stock Exchange. To this dismal yard,
containing as much gravel as grass, and frowned upon by a board of Rules
and Regulations almost as large as itself, his mother used to convoy the
nurse and the little boy through the crowds that towards noon swarmed
along Cornhill and Threadneedle Street; and thither she would return,
after a due interval, to escort them back to Birchin Lane. So strong
was the power of association upon Macaulay's mind that in after years
Drapers' Garden was among his favourite haunts. Indeed, his habit of
roaming for hours through and through the heart of the City, (a habit
that never left him as long as he could roam at all,) was due in part
to the recollection which caused him to regard that region as native
ground.

Baby as he was when he quitted it, he retained some impression of his
earliest home. He remembered standing up at the nursery window by his
father's side, looking at a cloud of black smoke pouring out of a tall
chimney. He asked if that was hell; an inquiry that was received with a
grave displeasure which at the time he could not understand. The kindly
father must have been pained, almost against his own will, at finding
what feature of his creed it was that had embodied itself in so very
material a shape before his little son's imagination. When in after days
Mrs. Macaulay was questioned as to how soon she began to detect in the
child a promise of the future, she used to say that his sensibilities
and affections were remarkably developed at an age which to her hearers
appeared next to incredible. He would cry for joy on seeing her after a
few hours' absence, and, (till her husband put a stop to it,) her power
of exciting his feelings was often made an exhibition to her friends.
She did not regard this precocity as a proof of cleverness; but, like
a foolish young mother, only thought that so tender a nature was marked
for early death.

The next move which the family made was into as healthy an atmosphere,
in every sense, as the most careful parent could wish to select. Mr.
Macaulay took a house in the High Street of Clapham, in the part now
called the Pavement, on the same side as the Plough inn, but some doors
nearer to the Common. It was a roomy comfortable dwelling, with a very
small garden behind, and in front a very small one indeed, which
has entirely disappeared beneath a large shop