first and second volumes, which at once achieved
an unprecedented popularity. His style had lost none of its brilliancy;
his reading had been immense; his examination of localities was careful
and minute. It was due, perhaps, to this growing fame, that the electors
of Edinburgh, without any exertion on his part, returned him to Parliament
in 1852. In 1855 the third and fourth volumes of his History appeared,
bringing the work down to the peace of Ryswick, in 1697. All England
applauded the crown when he was elevated to the peerage, in 1857, as Baron
Macaulay of Rothley.

It was now evident that Macaulay had deceived himself as to the magnitude
of his subject; at least, he was never to finish it. He died suddenly of
disease of the heart, on the 28th of December, 1859; and all that remained
of his History was a fragmentary volume, published after his death by his
sister, Lady Trevelyan, which reaches the death of William III., in 1702.

ITS FAULTS.--The faults of Macaulay's History spring from the character of
the man: he is always a partisan or a bitter enemy. His heroes are angels;
those whom he dislikes are devils; and he pursues them with the ardor of a
crusader or the vendetta of a Corsican. The Stuarts are painted in the
darkest colors; while his eulogy of William III. is fulsome and false. He
blackens the character of Marlborough for real faults indeed; but for such
as Marlborough had in common with thousands of his contemporaries. If, as
has been said, that great captain deserved the greatest censure as a
statesman and warrior, it is equally true, paradoxical as it may seem,
that he deserved also the greatest praise in both capacities. Macaulay has
fulminated the censure and withheld the praise.

What is of more interest to Americans, he loses no opportunity of
attacking and defaming William Penn; making statements which have been
proved false, and attributing motives without reason or justice.

His style is what the French call the _style coupe_,--short sentences,
like those of Tacitus, which ensure the interest by their recurring
shocks. He writes history with the pen of a reviewer, and gives verdicts
with the authority of a judge. He seems to say, Believe the autocrat; do
not venture to philosophize.

His poetry displays tact and talent, but no genius; it is pageantry in
verse. His _Lays of Ancient Rome_ are scholarly, of course, and pictorial
in description, but there is little of nature, and they are the