She writes to his father
in 1809: "I heartily hope that the sea air has been the means of setting
you up, and Mrs. Macaulay also, and that the dear little poet has caught
his share of bracing.... Tell Tom I desire to know how 'Olaus' goes on.
The sea, I suppose, furnished him with some new images."

The broader and more genial aspect under which life showed itself to the
boy at Barley Wood has left its trace in a series of childish squibs and
parodies, which may still be read with an interest that his Cambrian
and Scandinavian rhapsodies fail to inspire. The most ambitious of
these lighter efforts is a pasquinade occasioned by some local scandal,
entitled "Childe Hugh and the labourer, a pathetic ballad." The "Childe"
of the story was a neighbouring baronet, and the "Abbot" a neighbouring
rector, and the whole performance, intended, as it was, to mimic the
spirit of Percy's Reliques, irresistibly suggests a reminiscence of
John Gilpin. It is pleasant to know that to Mrs. Hannah More was due the
commencement of what eventually became the most readable of libraries,
as is shown in a series of letters extending over the entire period of
Macaulay's education. When he was six years old she writes; "Though you
are a little boy now, you will one day, if it please God, be a man; but
long before you are a man I hope you will be a scholar. I therefore
wish you to purchase such books as will be useful and agreeable to you
_then_, and that you employ this very small sum in laying a little tiny
corner-stone for your future library." A year or two afterwards she
thanks him for his "two letters, so neat and free from blots. By this
obvious improvement you have entitled yourself to another book. You must
go to Hatchard's and choose. I think we have nearly exhausted the Epics.
What say you to a little good prose? Johnson's Hebrides, or Walton's
Lives, unless you would like a neat edition of Cowper's poems or
Paradise Lost for your own eating? In any case choose something which
you do not possess. I want you to become a complete Frenchman, that
I may give you Racine, the only dramatic poet I know in any modern
language that is perfectly pure and good. I think you have hit off the
Ode very well, and I am much obliged to you for the Dedication." The
poor little author was already an adept in the traditional modes of
requiting a patron.

He had another Maecenas in the person of General Macaulay, who came back
from India in 1810. The boy gr