has been rebuilt within the last twenty years, and nothing remains
of it except the dark oak panelling of the hall in which the
scholars made their recitations on the annual speech day. The very
pretty church, which stands hard by within the grounds, was
undergoing restoration in 1873 and by this time the only existing
portion of the former internal fittings is the family pew, in
which the boys sat on drowsy summer afternoons, doing what they
could to keep their impressions of the second sermon distinct from
their reminiscences of the morning. Here Macaulay spent four most
industrious years, doing less and less in the class-room as time
went on, but enjoying the rare advantage of studying Greek and
Latin by the side of such a scholar as Malden. The two companions
were equally matched in age and classical attainments, and at the
university maintained a rivalry so generous as hardly to deserve
the name. Each of the pupils had his own chamber, which the others
were forbidden to enter under the penalty of a shilling fine. This
prohibition was in general not very strictly observed; but the
tutor had taken the precaution of placing Macaulay in a room next
his own;--a proximity which rendered the position of an intruder
so exceptionally dangerous that even Malden could not remember
having once passed his friend's threshold during the whole of
their stay at Aspenden.

In this seclusion, removed from the delight of family
intercourse, (the only attraction strong enough to draw him from
his books,) the boy read widely, unceasingly, more than rapidly.
The secret of his immense acquirements lay in two invaluable
gifts of nature,--an unerring memory, and the capacity for taking
in at a glance the contents of a printed page. During the first
part of his life he remembered whatever caught his fancy without