hall:
Shone all fair Mona's verdant plain;
But chiefly shone the foaming main.

And again

"Long," said the Prince, "shall Olave's name
Live in the high records of fame.
Fair Mona now shall trembling stand
That ne'er before feared mortal hand.
Mona, that isle where Ceres' flower
In plenteous autumn's golden hour
Hides all the fields from man's survey
As locusts hid old Egypt's day."

The passage containing a prophetic mention of his father and uncle
after the manner of the sixth book of the Aeneid, for the sake of
which, according to Mrs. Macaulay, the poem was originally designed, can
nowhere be discovered. It is possible that in the interval between the
conception and the execution the boy happened to light upon a copy of
the Rolliad. If such was the case, he already had too fine a sense
of humour to have persevered in his original plan after reading that
masterpiece of drollery. It is worthy of note that the voluminous
writings of his childhood, dashed off at headlong speed in the odds
and ends of leisure from school-study and nursery routine, are not only
perfectly correct in spelling and grammar, but display the same lucidity
of meaning, and scrupulous accuracy in punctuation and the other minor
details of the literary art, which characterise his mature works.

Nothing could be more judicious than the treatment that Mr. and Mrs.
Macaulay adopted towards their boy. They never handed his productions
about, or encouraged him to parade his powers of conversation or
memory. They abstained from any word or act which might foster in him
a perception of his own genius with as much care as a wise millionaire
expends on keeping his son ignorant of the fact that he is destined to
be richer than his comrades. "It was scarcely ever," writes one who knew
him well from the very first, "that the consciousness was expressed
by either of his parents of the superiority of their son over other
children. Indeed, with his father I never remember any such expression.
What I most observed myself was his extraordinary command of language.
When he came to describe to his mother any childish play, I took care
to be present, when I could, that I might listen to the way in which he
expressed himself, often scarcely exceeded in his later years. Except
this trifle, I remember him only as a good-tempered boy, always
occupied, playing with his sisters without assumption of any kind." One
effect of this early discipline showed it