name which, (as far as can be traced in the family records,) he
ever took during his married life. Owing to this accident the
young couple were detained at Rothley into the winter; and the
child was baptised in the private chapel which formed part of the
house, on the 26th November 1800, by the names of Thomas
Babington;--the Rev. Aulay Macaulay, and Mr. and Mrs. Babington,
acting as sponsors.

The two years which followed were passed in a house in Birchin
Lane, where the Sierra Leone Company had its office. The only
place where the child could be taken for exercise, and what might
be called air, was Drapers' Gardens, which (already under
sentence to be covered with bricks 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