The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-06-03
LORD MACAULAY.
Of his Early Life aud Assoeia
fiOns ira London.

lions 70, London.
From the lately published life and
letters of Lord Macaulay, we select the
following description of his fathers fam
lily when Macaulay was in London
studying for the bar: The fun that
went on in Great. Ormond street, was ola
jovial, and sometimes uproarious, de-
scription. Even when the family was
by itself, the schOolroom and drawing
room were full of young people, and
friends and cousins focked in numbers
to resort where so much merriment
was perpetually on foot.
There were seasons during the school
holidays when the house overflowed with
noise and frolic from morning till night
and Macaulay, who at any period of his
life could literally spend whole days in
playing with children, was master of the
innocent revels. Games of hide-and
seek, that lasted for hours, with shout
ing and the blowing of horns up and down
the stairs and through every room, we're
varied by ballads, which, like the Scalds
of old, he composed during the act of
recitation, while the others struck in
with the chorus. He had no notion
whatever of music, but an infallible ear
for rhythm. His knack of importation
| he at all times exercised freely.
The verses which he thus produced,
and which he invariably attributed to
an anonymous author whom he styled
the Judicious Poet, were exclusively for
home consumption. He did not play
upon words as habit, nor did he inter-
lard his talk with far-fetched or over
strained witticisms. His humor, like
his rhetoric. was full of force and sub
stance, and arose naturally from the
complexion of the conversation or the
circumstances of the moment. But
when alone with his sisters, and in after
years with his nieces, he was fond of set
ting himself deliberately to manufacture
conceits resembling those on the heroes
of the Trojan war which have been
thought worthy of publication in the
collected works of Swift. When walk.
ing in London he would undertake to
give some droll turn to the name Of
every shopkeeper in the street, and
when travelling, to the name of every
station along the line. At home he
would run through the countries Of
Europe, the states of the union, the
chief cities of our Indian empire, the
provinces of France, the prime minister
of England, and the chief writers and
artists of any given century-striking of
puns, admirable, endurable, and execra
BILE, but all irresistibly laughabie, which
followed each other in showers like
sparks from flint. Gaping verses was {
game of which he was never tired. "II
the spring of 1922" says his cousin
Mrs. Conybeare, I'VE were staying
in Ormond street. My chief recollec
ton of your uncle during that visit il
on the evenings when We capped verses
All the family were quick at it, but hi
astounding memory made him superem
inent. When the time came for him tt
be off to bed at his chambers he woule
rush out of the room after uttering som,
long sought line, and would be pursued
to the top of the stairs by one of tn,
Others who had contrived to recall
verse which served the purpose, in orde
that he might not leave the house victo
rious, but he, with the hall door opeI
in his hand, would shrek back a crown
ing effort and go off triumphant.