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 greeted him with a copy of
verses, beginning

"Now safe returned from Asia's parching strand,
Welcome, thrice welcome to thy native land."

To tell the unvarnished truth, the General's return was not