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 going through the process of consciously getting it by heart.

As a child, during one of the numerous seasons when the social duties devolved upon Mr.Macaulay, he accompanied his father on an afternoon call, and found on a table the Lay of the Last Minstrel, which he had never before met with.