lizing influence of
machinery, in the increasing comforts of life through the constant
increase of wealth among the middle classes, and especially through the
power of Christianity, in spite of the dissensions of sects, the attacks
of crude philosophers, socialists, anarchists, scientists, and atheists,
from one end of Christendom to the other. Why should he not have equal
faith in American civilization, which, in spite of wars and strikes and
commercial distresses and political corruption, has yet made a marked
progress from the time of Jefferson, the apostle of equality, down to
our day,--as seen especially in the multiplication of schools and
colleges, in an untrammelled and watchful press, and in the active
benevolence of the rich in the foundation of every kind of institution
to relieve misery and want? The truth is that he, in common with most
educated Englishmen of his day,--and of too many even of our own
day,--cherished a silent contempt for Americans, for their literature
and their institutions; and hence he was not only inconsistent in the
principles which he advocated, but showed that he was not emancipated,
with all his learning, from prejudices of which he ought to have
been ashamed.

As time made inroads on Macaulay's strong constitution, he gave up both
politics and society in the absorbing interest which he took in his
History, confining himself to his library, and sometimes allowing months
to pass without accepting any invitation whatever to a social gathering.
No man was ever more disenchanted with society. He begrudged his time
even when tempted by the calls of friendship. When visitors penetrated
to his den, he bowed them out with ironical politeness. He had no favors
to ask from friends or foes, for he declined political office, and was
as independent as wealth or fame could make him. In 1849 he was made
Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and the acclamations following
his address were prodigious. Lord John Russell gave to Macaulay's
brother John a living worth L1100. Macaulay himself was offered the
professorship of History at Cambridge. In one year he received for the
first edition of his third and fourth volumes of the History, published
in 1855, L20,000 in a single check from Longman. At the age of
forty-nine, he writes in his diary: "I have no cause for
complaint,--tolerable health, competence, liberty, leisure, dear
relatives and friends, and a very great literary reputation."

With