All objects of ambition, all rewards of talent, sink into nothing compared with that affection which is independent of good or adverse circumstances, excepting that it is never so ardent, so delicate, or so tender as in the hour of languor or distress.

But I must stop.

I had no intention of pouring out on paper what I am much more used to think than to express.

Farewell, my dear Mother.
Ever yours affectionately, T.B.

MACAULAY.
Macaulay liked Cambridge too well to spend the long vacation elsewhere except under strong compulsion; but in 1821, with the terrors of the Mathematical Tripos already close at hand, he was persuaded into joining a reading party in Wales with a Mr.Bird as tutor.