"The bray of Exeter Hall," a phrase in his Maynoott speech particularly obnoxious to the dissenters, he would not take back, and it was used against him with great effect. A Mr. Cowan, a man of no note, was elected as the opposing candidate, as if his enemies had determined to mortify his pride as well as deprive him of his seat. His speeches from the hustings were continually interrupted by a mob who, infuriated by fanaticism or whiskey, received his statements with insults, and answered his arguments by jeers. "If," exclaimed Macaulay in one of his speeches, "your representative be an honest man -"Ay! but he's no that" was a cry that came back from the crowd. To interruptions and to insults, however, he presented a bold front, and met outrage with defiance. not condescend to humor at the hustings the prejudices he had offended in Parliament, but reaffirmed his opinions in the most pointed and explicit language. One of his arguments was that, in regard to the Maynooth grant, no principle was involved. A sum had always been yearly voted to support that Roman Catholic College; the only cause of complaint against him was that he had spoken and voted for an additional sum. He was therefore opposed, not on a principle, but on a quibble. "And," he exclaimed, "if you want a representative who will peril the peace of the empire for a mere quibble, that representative I will not be."

He would

He was defeated, and after it was known that he was defeated, he was hissed. In his speech to the crowd, announcing that his political connection with Edinburgh was dissolved forever, he alluded to this last tircumstance as unprecedented in political warfare. To hiss a defeated candidate, he reminded them, wa

below the ordinary magnanimity of the most factious mob. In his farewell address to the electors, written after he had returned to London, he indicated that, to an honest, honorable, and patriotic statesman, there might be solid consolations, even to personal pride, in the circumstances of his defeat. "I shall always be proud," he writes, "to think that I once enjoyed your favor, but permit me to say I shall remember, not less proudly, how I risked and how I lost it." The following noble poem, published since his death, contains, perhaps, the most authentic record of his feelings on the occasion:

LINES WRITTEN IN AUGUST, 1847.

THE day of tumult, strife, defeat, was o'er;
Worn out with toil and noise and scorn and spleen
I slumbered, and in slumber saw once more
A room in an old mansion, long unseen.

That room, methought, was curtained from the light;
Yet through the curtains shone the moon's cold ray
Full on a cradle, where, in linen white,

Sleeping life's first soft sleep, an infant lay

Pale flickered on the hearth the dying flame,
And all was silent in that ancient hall,
Save when by fits on the low night-wind came
The murmur of the distant water-fall.

And lo! the fairy queens who rule our birth

Drew nigh to speak the new-born baby's doom:
With noiseless step, which left no trace on earth,
From gloom they came, and vanished into gloom

Not deigning on the boy a glance to cast,

Swept careless by the gorgeous Queen of Gain;
More scornful still, the Queen of Fashion passed,
With mincing gait and sneer of cold disdain.

The Queen of Power tossed high her jewelled head,
And o'er her shoulder threw a wrathful frown:
The Queen of Pleasure on the pillow shed

Scarce one stray rose-leaf from her fragrant crown

Still Fay in long procession followed Fay;

And still the little couch remained unblest;
But, when those wayward sprites had passed away,
Came One, the last, the mightiest, and the best.

Ob, glorious lady, with the eyes of light

And laurels clustering round thy lofty brow,
Who by the cradle's side didst watch that night,
Warbling a sweet strange music, who wast thou?

"Yes, darling; let them go;" so ran the strain:
"Yes; let them go, gain, fashion, pleasure, power,
And all the busy elves to whose domain

Belongs the nether sphere, the fleeting hour.

"Without one envious sigh, one anxious scheme,
The nether sphere, the fleeting hour resign.
Mine is the world of thought, the world of dream,
Mine all the past, and all the future mine.

"Fortune, that lays in sport the mighty low,

Age, that to penance turns the joys of youth, Shall leave untouched the gifts which I bestow, The sense of beauty and the thirst of truth.

"Of the fair brotherhood who share my grace, I, from thy natal day, pronounce thee free; And, if for some I keep a nobler place,

I keep for none a happier than for thee.

"There are who, while to vulgar eyes they seem Of all my bounties largely to partake,

Of me as of some rival's handmaid deem,

And court me but for gain's, power's, fashion's sake.

"To such, though deep their lore, though wide their fame, Shall my great mysteries be all unknown:

But thou, through good and evil, praise and blame,
Wilt not thou love me for myself alone?

Yes; thou wilt love me with exceeding love;
And I will tenfold all that love repay,
Still smiling, though the tender may reprove,
Still faithful, though the trusted may betray.

"For aye mine emblem was, and aye shall be,
The ever-during plant whose bough I wear,
Brightest and greenest then, when every tree
That blossoms in the light of Time is bare.

"In the dark hour of shame, I deigned to stand
Before the frowning peers at Bacon's side:
On a far shore I smoothed with tender hand,
Through months of pain, the sleepless bed of Hyde

"I brought the wise and brave of ancient days
To cheer the cell where Raleigh pined alone:

I lighted Milton's darkness with the blaze

Of the bright ranks that guard the eternal throne.

"And even so, my child, it is my pleasure

That thou not then alone shouldst feel me nigh,
When, in domestic bliss and studious leisure,
Thy weeks uncounted come, uncounted fly;

"Not then alone, when myriads, closely pressed
Around thy car, the shout of triumph raise;
Nor when, in gilded drawing-rooms, thy breast
Swells at the sweeter sound of woman's praise.

"No: when on restless night dawns cheerless morrow, When weary soul and wasting body pine,

Thine am I still, in danger, sickness, sorrow,

In conflict, obloquy, want, exile, thine;

"Thine, where on mountain waves the snow-birds scream,
Where more than Thule's winter barbs the breeze,
Where scarce, through lowering clouds, one sickly gleam
Lights the drear May-day of Antarctic seas;

"Thine, when around thy litter's track all day
White sand-hills shall reflect the blinding glare;
Thine, when, through forests breathing death, thy way
All night shall wind by many a tiger's lair

"Thine most, when friends turn pale, when traitors fy,
When, hard beset, thy spirit, justly proud,
For truth, peace, freedom, mercy, dares defy
A sullen priesthood and a raving crowd.

"Amidst the din of all things fell and vile,

Hate's yell and envy's hiss and folly's bray,
Remember me; and with an unforced smile
See riches, baubles, flatterers, pass away.

"Yes: they will pass away; nor deem it strange:
They come and go, as comes and goes the sea:
And let them come and go: thou, through all change,
Fix thy firm gaze on virtue and on me."

He now devoted his time to a work he had long meditated, and for which he had not only collected a considerable portion of the materials, but had probably written some portion of the text, the History of England, from the Accession of James II. The first two volumes of this were published in the autumn of 1848, and gave him a literary reputation far beyond what he had acquired by his historical essays. The book was as popular as any of Scott's or Dickens's novels, while its solid merits of research and generalization placed it among the great historical works of the century. Its circulation, large in England, was immense in the United States; and in every portion of the world where English literature is esteemed, it was widely read, either in the original text or in carefully prepared translations.

In 1852, the city of Edinburgh, desirous of repairing the injustice it had done to Macaulay in 1847, elected him its representative without his appearing as a candidate. He accepted the trust, though his health had begun to fail, and he was already visited with the