In 1839 he was elected member of Parlia ment for Edinburgh and was made Secretary at War with a seat in the Cabinet. Fortunately the ministry soon expired, and his freedom from official duties gave him some leisure. He retained, however, his seat for Edinburgh, and his most important work was the Copyright Bill, which, after many radical suggestions, passed in almost the exact terms in which he advocated it.
In 1842 the appeared and achieved a great success despite the natural fears of friends. °Christopher North)" of Blackwood's, who had attacked Macaulay on account of the Southey reviews, made up — on poetry they could agree. In 1843 the (Essays' were col lected and published. There had been a con stantly growing demand for them. in a per manent form, which their author at first resisted. They had been written at odd moments of leisure, and he regarded them as ephemeral, but copies were being introduced from Amer ica, and Macaulay had to consent. The sale their popularity to be a permanent one. Macaulay's Essays still are unapproached of their kind, as condensed booklets of knowledge. An analysis of their contents shows how their author's mind was revolving constantly upon a definite period of English history— the Revo lution and the consequent development under constitutional government, the subject he set for himself in writing his 'History'— and these are uniformly among his best. Those on for eign subjects and the controversial ones are less satisfying.
The 'History' had been delayed year after year for lack of leisure to begin actual work. At length the first two volumes appeared in 1849. They comprised the reign of James II and the Revolution, but reproduced the setting as a whole and included details at once pic turesque and dramatic such as could only be drawn by a supreme master of narrative. Macaulay had set for himself high ideals; he wished to be read and to be understood; he sought to give a series of brilliant mental pic tures; and he achieved what he set out to do. He is weakest, perhaps, on the side of ethical interpretation, in searching out the causes and setting forth the nexus of events; his narrative is brilliant and effective, hut it has the supreme fault in a history of being entirely lacking in detachment of view. In opinions he repre sented the great middle class and the world of Whiggism and its mode of thinking; in many things, Philistine; in some things, even vulgar; where mysticism and all esoteric systems of philosophy and kindred schools of poetry were accounted as foolishness.
The popularity of the 'History> was some thing enormous, surpassing even that of By ron's poems and of Scott's and Dickens' novels. In 1849, in consequence of this success, Macaulay was made rector of the University of Glasgow and Fellow of the Royal Society. He had been appointed trustee of the British Museum in 1847. He declined a professorship of history at Cambridge, and steadily refused positions under the government which would take up his time.
He had represented Edinburgh in Parliament for eight years, when in 1847, on account of his characteristic independence in voting for the Maynooth grant -- for the maintenance of a Catholic university in Ireland — he offended many Edinburgh electors, and was not returned at the polls. He accepted his defeat with relief,
and turned the more eagerly to the 'History.' In 1852, without any solicitation on his part and with a steady refusal to give pledges, he was returned voluntarily by the electors of Edin burgh to his former seat. Under such circum stances he felt he could not refuse election; but the duties it involved aided in sapping his strength, and that year he had a spell of illness from which he never wholly recovered.
In 1853 his speeches were collected and pub lished. In 1855 the third and fourth volumes of his 'History' appeared. Macaulay feared for their success after the splendid reception ac corded to the former two; but the new subject was the life and career of William of Orange, his favorite hero, he had worked hard to sustain himself and 26,500 copies were sold in 10 weeks. In 1856 he withdrew from the House of Commons; and in 1857 he was made a peer, and chose the title, Baron Macaulay of Rothley, from his birthplace. Likewise this year he was made a foreign member of the French Acad emy, member of the Prussian Order of Merit and high steward of Cambridge. In 1858 he wrote five short biographies for the eighth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica — Atter bury, Bunyan, Goldsmith, Johnson and Pitt. These show greater compactness and maturity in judgment than his earlier treatment of the same themes.
In 1856 he left his bachelor quarters in town, at The Albany, and leased a pleasant villa, Holly Lodge, Campden Hill, Kensington. In 1859 his brother-in-law, now Sir Charles Tre velyan, was appointed governor of Madras, and the thought of the separation bore heavily upon him. Fortunately his sister and the children remained behind a while longer. Macaulay had not been well for some time, and he died at Holly Lodge, 28 December. On 9 Jan. 1860, he was buried in Westminster Abbey in the Poets' Corner at the foot of Addison's statue.
A fifth volume of the 'History,' concluding the reign of William III, had been completed, was edited posthumously by Lady Trevelyan and appeared in 1861. See MACAULAY'S ESSAYS; LAYS OF ANCIENT ROME.
The official life, written by George (afterward Sir George) Otto Trevelyan (his nephew), appeared in London in 1876, and is generally conceded to be one of the best biographies in the English language. Consult also Lord Avebury, 'Essays and Addresses' (London 1903) ; Bagehot, Walter, 'Literary Studies' (ib. 1879) • Canning, 'Lord Macaulay and his History' (ib. 1822) ; Hughes, D. A., 'Thomas Babington Macaulay the Rhetorician: an Examination of his Structural Devices> (Ithaca, N. Y., 1898) ; Macgregor, D. H., 'Lord Macaulay> (London 1901) ; Viscount Morley, 'Critical Miscellanies' (ib. 1877); Morrison, J. Cotter, 'Macaulay> in the 'Eng lish Men of Letters' (ib. 1882) • Spedding, 'Evenings with a Reviewer' (ib. 1881).