Yours most faithfully,

Thomas B. Macaulay.

This votary of city life was still two months short of completing his fifteenth year!

Aspenden Hall:  August 23, 1815.

My dear Mama,—­You perceive already in so large a sheet, and so small a hand, the promise of a long, a very long letter, longer, as I intend it, than all the letters which you send in a half-year together.  I have again begun my life of sterile monotony, unvarying labour, the dull return of dull exercises in dull uniformity of tediousness.  But do not think that I complain.

 My mind to me a kingdom is,
 Such perfect joy therein I find
 As doth exceed all other bliss
 That God or nature hath assigned.

Assure yourself that I am philosopher enough to be happy,—­I meant to say not particularly unhappy,—­in solitude; but man is an animal made for society.  I was gifted with reason, not to speculate in Aspenden Park, but to interchange ideas with some person who can understand me.  This is what I miss at Aspenden.  There are several here who possess both taste and reading; who can criticise Lord Byron and Southey with much tact and “savoir du metier.”  But here it is not the fashion to think.  Hear what I have read since I came here.  Hear and wonder!  I have in the first place read Boccacio’s Decameron, a tale of a hundred cantos.  He is a wonderful writer.  Whether he tells in humorous or familiar strains the follies of the silly Calandrino, or the witty pranks of Buffalmacco and Bruno, or sings in loftier numbers

 Dames, knights, and arms, and love, the feats that spring
 From courteous minds and generous faith,

or lashes with a noble severity and fearless independence the vices of the monks and the priestcraft of the established religion, he is always elegant, amusing, and, what pleases and surprises most in a writer of so unpolished an age, strikingly delicate and chastised.  I prefer him infinitely to Chaucer.  If you wish for a good specimen of Boccacio, as soon as you have finished my letter, (which will come, I suppose, by dinner-time,) send Jane up to the library for Dryden’s poems, and you will find among them several translations from Boccacio, particularly one entitled “Theodore and Honoria.”

But, truly admirable as the bard of Florence is, I must not permit myself to give him more than his due share of my letter.  I have likewise read Gil Blas, with unbounded admiration of the abilities of Le Sage.  Malden and I have read Thalaba together, and are proceeding to the Curse of Kehama.  Do not think, however, that I am neglecting more important studies than either Southey or Boccacio.  I have read the greater part of the History of James I. and Mrs. Montague’s essay on Shakspeare, and a great deal of Gibbon.  I never devoured so many books in a fortnight.  John Smith, Bob Hankinson, and I, went over the Hebrew Melodies together.  I certainly think far better of them than we used to