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
Evangelical magnates, when he went on his annual tour to the South
Coast or the Scotch mountains, would take with him some Independent or
Wesleyan minister who was in need of a holiday; and his followers in
the next generation had the most powerful motives for maintaining the
alliance which he had inaugurated. They could not neglect such doughty
auxiliaries in the memorable war which they waged against cruelty,
ignorance, and irreligion, and in their less momentous skirmishes with
the votaries of the stage, the racecourse, and the card-table.
Without the aid of nonconformist sympathy, and money, and oratory,
and organisation, their operations would have been doomed to certain
failure. The cordial relations entertained with the members of other
denominations by those among whom his youth was passed did much to
indoctrinate Macaulay with a lively and genuine interest in sectarian
theology. He possessed a minute acquaintance, very rare among men of
letters, with the origin and growth of the various forms of faith and
practice which have divided the allegiance of his countrymen; not the
least important of his qualifications for writing the history of an
epoch when the national mind gave itself to religious controversy even
more largely than has been its wont.

The method of education in vogue among the Clapham families was simple,
wit