Pin your faith to the busy person. Macaulay's first and only political rebuff came with his defeat the second time he stood for election in Edinburgh. His conscientious opposition to a measure in which the Scottish people were especially interested caused the tide to turn against him. No doubt, though, the failure of re-election was a good thing for Macaulay—and for the world. He at once began serious work on his "History of England"—that project which had been in his head and heart for a score of years. All of his literary labors so far had been merely ephemeral—at least he so regarded them. The Essays he regarded only as so many newspaper articles, not worth the collecting. It was America that first guessed their true value as literature, and it was not until the American editions were pouring into England that Macaulay allowed his scattered work to be collected, corrected and put into authorized book form. This history was to be the thesis that would admit his name to the Roster of Fame. But, alas, the history was destined to be only a fragment. It covers scarce fifteen years, and is like that other splendid fragment, the work of Henry Thomas Buckle, a preface; Buckle's preface is the greatest ever penned, with its author dead at forty. The projected work of both of these men was too great for any one man to accomplish in a single lifetime. A hundred years of unremitting toil could not have completed Macaulay's task. In Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow; and at his speech of installation he took occasion to take formal leave of political life. He would devote the remainder of his days to literature and abstract thought. Men are continually "retiring" from business and active life, all unaware of the grim humor of the proceedings. It was not so very long before Edinburgh, in an endeavor to undo the slight she had put upon Macaulay, again elected him to Parliament, without his being near, or raising his hand either for or against the measure. And again his voice was heard in the House of Commons. Macaulay was a modest man, and yet he knew his power. The Premiership dangled just beyond his reach. Many claim that if he had not gone to India he would have moved by strong, steady strides straight to the highest office that England could bestow. And others aver that when he was created a Peer in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-seven it was a move toward the Premiership, and that if his health had not failed he would surely have won the goal. But how futile it is to speculate on what might have happened had not this or the other occurred! Yet certainly the daring caution of Macaulay's mind, his dignity and luring presence, his patience, self-command, good temper, and all those manifold graces of his heart, would have made him an almost ideal Premier, one who might rank with Palmerston, Peel, Disraeli or Gladstone. But the highest office was not for him.