Two generations after, Mr.Carlyle, during a visit to the late Lord Ashburton at the Grange, caught sight of Macaulay's face in unwonted repose, as he was turning over the pages of a book.

"I noticed," said he, "the homely Norse features that you find everywhere in the Western Isles, and I thought to myself 'Well! Anyone can see that you are an honest good sort of fellow, made out of oatmeal.'" Several of John Macaulay's children obtained position in the world.
Aulay, the eldest by his second wife, became a clergyman of the Church of England.

His reputation as a scholar and antiquary stood high, and in the capacity of a private tutor he became known even in royal circles.
He published pamphlets and treatises, the list of which it is not worth while to record, and meditated several large works that perhaps never got much beyond a title.

Of all his undertakings the one best deserving commemoration in these pages was a tour that he made into Scotland in company with Mr.Thomas Babington, the owner of Rothley Temple in Leicestershire, in the course of which the travellers paid a visit to the manse at Cardross.

Mr.Babington fell in love with one of the daughters of the house, Miss Jean Macaulay, and married her in 1787.