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The text employed in this edition is the revised text prepared by Macaulay for the first collected edition of his essays. The original punctuation and capitalization have been carefully retained, and the pupil may with profit be led to institute a comparison between the elaborate and purely formal punctuation in use in England a halfcentury ago and the rational system now employed, especially in this country.

BOSTON, May, 1900.

A. P. W.

BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE OF MACAULAY'S LIFE AS RELATED TO HIS PRINCIPAL LITERARY WORK.

1800 He was born at Rothley Temple, Leicestershire, England. 25 Oct. His father was a Presbyterian clergyman, his mother a Quaker. In early childhood he was an insatiable reader. After the year

1812 He began his formal education by attending a private academy.

Having

1818 He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, where he won distinction for brilliant work in all studies except mathematics. He was associated with the college for more than seven years (Craven University Scholar, 1821; B.A., 1822; Fellow, 1824). (Contributions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine, 1822; Essay on Milton, 1825.) determined to pursue the profession of law, in 1826 He was called to the bar, but devoted much of his time to literature, as his Essay on Milton, contributed to the Edinburgh Review, had gained him instant popularity. To that magazine he contributed regularly for several years. (Essays on Machiavelli, 1827; Dryden, January, 1828; History, May, 1828; Hallam's History, September, 1828, etc.)

1830 He entered Parliament as a Whig member for Calne, on the nomination of Lord Lansdowne. He immediately became an ardent advocate of political reforms, and added to his reputation as a writer that of an orator. His literary activity was not diminished by his new duties (Essays on Bunyan, December, 1830; Byron, June, 1831; Johnson, September, 1831; Mirabeau, July, 1832; Walpole, October, 1833, etc.), while his political services to the cause of

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BIOGRAPHICAL OUTLINE.

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reform won him the suffrages of the city of Leeds in the elections of 1832, and the gratitude of the Whig leaders. 1833 He was made Secretary of the Board of Control. In the same year his speech on a Bill for the Government of India proved his exhaustive acquaintance with the conditions and needs of that country. Accordingly he was appointed a member of the Supreme Council of India and its legal adviser, at a salary of £10,000 a year.

1834 He went to India in this capacity, and devoted his powers to solving administrative problems and to formulating a Code of Laws for India, his literary gifts meanwhile finding but little expression. (Essays on Mackintosh's History, 1835; Bacon, 1837.) Having saved from his ample income a sum sufficient to relieve him from anxiety for the future, in 1838 He returned to England, and was soon elected to Parliament as a member for Edinburgh.

1839 He became Secretary of War in the ministry of Lord Melbourne. On the accession to power of the Tories in

1841 He became an active member of the Opposition to Peel. He resumed his frequent contributions to the Edinburgh Review. (Essays on Clive, 1840; Leigh Hunt, Lord Holland, Hastings, 1841; Frederick the Great, 1842; Madame D'Arblay, Addison, 1843, etc.) Meanwhile he tempted fortune in a new line of literary activity (Lays of Ancient Rome, 1842), and also prepared the first collected edition of his Essays (1843).

1846 He became Paymaster of the Forces in the new Whig ministry of Russell. In the election of the succeeding year, he was rejected by the voters of Edinburgh because of his independent attitude on religious and other questions. This defeat left him free to prosecute the work which he had long designed to make the crowning literary production of his life, the History of England from the Accession of James I. (Vols. I. and II., 1848).

1852 He was reëlected Member of Parliament for Edinburgh without any canvass on his own behalf, but resigned his seat four years later, as the completion of his History was still

his foremost consideration (Vols. III. and IV., 1855), and his failing health warned him that he must set a limit to his activities. In recognition of his services to the state in so many fields of labor, in

1857 He was elevated to the peerage as "Baron Macaulay of Rothley." Besides his labors upon the History, he now found time to contribute to the Encyclopædia Britannica a series of biographies of eminent men (Atterbury, 1853; Bunyan, 1854; Goldsmith, Johnson, 1856; William Pitt, 1859). His health, although failing, gave no serious cause of alarm until in

1859 He died of disease of the heart, and was buried in the Dec. 28 "Poet's Corner" in Westminster Abbey, at the foot of the

monument to Addison.

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