works of fiction, and eulogising Fielding and Smollett. This he
incautiously inserted in his periodical, and brought down upon
himself the most violent objurgations from scandalised
contributors, one of whom informed the public that he had
committed the obnoxious number to the flames, and should
thenceforward cease to take in the Magazine. The editor replied
with becoming spirit; although by that time he was aware that the
communication, the insertion of which in an unguarded moment had
betrayed him into a controversy for which he had so little heart,
had proceeded from the pen of his son. Such was young Macaulay's
first appearance in print, if we except the index to the
thirteenth volume of the Christian Observer, which he drew up
during his Christmas holidays of 1814. The place where he
performed his earliest literary work can be identified with
tolerable certainty. He enjoyed the eldest son's privilege of a
separate bedchamber; and there, at the front window on the top
story, furthest from the Common and nearest to London, we can
fancy him sitting, apart from the crowded play-room, keeping
himself warm as best he might, and travelling steadily through
the blameless pages the contents of which it was his task to
classify for the convenience of posterity.

Lord Macaulay used to remark that Thackeray introduced too much
of the Dissenting element into his picture of Clapham in the
opening chapters of "The Newcomes." The leading people of the
place,--with the exception of Mr. William Smith, the Unitarian
member of Parliament,--were one and all staunch Churchmen; though
they readily worked in concert with those religious communities
which held in the main the same views, and pursued the same
objects, as themselves. Old John Thornton, the earliest of the