Thomas Babinglon illacauhty altogether his own and not literature, of course, yet praised as one of the most remarkable and satisfactory instruments of its kind ever draftekl. Next the poems, published in 1842, adding little to his fame and not a great deal to English literature, yet respectable achievements in the field of the modern romantic ballad. Finally the unfinished history of England from the accession of James, the Second, his last, his most ambitious, and probably, his most successful work. Upon the history Macaulay staked his claim to future remembrance, regarding it as the great work of his life. He was exceptionally well equipped for the undertaking. He had such a grasp of universal history as few men h ave been able to secure, and a detailed knowledge of the period of English history under contemplation equalled by none. But lie delayed the undertaking too long, and he allowed his time and energy to be dissipated in obedience to party calls. Death overtook him in the midst of his labors. Even thus, it is clear that lie underestimated the magnitude of the task he had set for himself, for lie proposed to cover a period of nearly a century and a half; the four volumes which he com pleted actually cover about fifteen years. His plan invol‘'ed too much detail. IL has been called pictorial history writ ing, and such it was. History was to be as vital and as human as romance. It was to be in every sense a restora tion of the life of the past. The main objection to Macau lay's history is that it treats a comparatively unimportant era of EngHsi' history with such fullness and brilliance that the other eras are thrown sadly out of perspective. Macaulay's name is also popularly associated with that body of essays which in bulk alone are scarcely exceeded by the product of any other essay-writer in an essay-writing age. Their range is not wide, for they are of but two kinds, the historical and the critical. The more remarkable will this work appear when we consider the manner of its pro duction. Most of the essays were published anonymously in
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