Page:James Thomason (Temple).djvu/33

Rh had wisely chosen this place for arboriculture. Every tree known in England grows here with commanding height and umbrageous expansion. Thus Little Shelford has become a continuous grove of imposing dimensions, rising up with sylvan majesty in the champaign solitude. The sycamore, the lime, the plane, the acacia, the beech, the elm, the oak, are arranged in groups, in double avenues, in belts, or are growing singly. The ground-ivy forms a thick green carpet, which in autumn is overlaid with the fallen leaves in all their golden colours. The water of the Cam and its branches glides silently with a deep metallic green, affording artistic contrast to the foliage. Yet there is no excess of thicket and under-growth to prevent the sunsets being seen through the openings in the wood, as through windows. From the age of the trees, it is probable that the place must have looked almost as well in Thomas Thomason's time as it looks to-day.

Here then was James Thomason, the statesman, born on May 3rd, 1804. Hard by is the little church with a suitable tower of the elder architecture, and inside is a stone font, where the infant James must have been baptized.

A few years later Little Shelford was destined to receive a further distinction. Mr. Preston, one of Simeon's coadjutors, set up a private school there. Among his pupils were Thomas Babington Macaulay, and the eldest son of William Wilberforce. Indeed, Macaulay's boyish letters regarding his early studies