With all this prosperity, Macaulay now naturally set up his carriage.  He dined often with the Queen, and was a great man, according to English notions, more even from his wealth and social position than from his success in letters.  Lord John Russell pressed him to accept a seat in his cabinet, but “I told him,” Macaulay writes, “that I should be of no use,—­that I was not a debater; that it was too late to become one; that my temper, taste, and literary habits alike prevented.”  He was, however, induced to become again a member of Parliament, and in 1852 was elected once more for Edinburgh, which had repented of its rejection of him in 1847.  But he insisted on perfect independence to vote as he pleased.  He regarded this re-entrance into public life as a great personal sacrifice, since it might postpone the appearance of his next two volumes of the History.  His election, however, was received with great acclamation.  Even Professor Wilson, the most conservative of Scotch Tories, voted for him.  It was not a party victory, but purely a personal triumph.

A serious illness now follows,—­a weakness of the heart, from the effects of which Macaulay died a few years afterwards.  He retires to Clifton, and gives himself up to getting well, visiting Barley Wood, and driving in his private carriage among the most interesting scenery in the west of England.  But he was never perfectly well again, although he continued to work on his History.  His intimate friends saw the change in him with sadness, but he himself was serene and uncomplaining.  Although he suffered from an oppression of the chest, he still on great occasions addressed the House.  His mind was clear, but his voice was faint.  The last speech he made was in behalf of the independence of the Scottish Church.  The strain of the House of Commons proved to be too great for his now enfeebled constitution.  “Nor could he conceal from himself and his friends,” says Trevelyan, “that it was a grievous waste, while the reign of Anne still remained unwritten, for him to consume his scanty stock of vigor in the tedious and exhaustive routine of political existence; waiting whole evenings for the vote, and then ... trudging home at three in the morning through the slush of a February thaw.”  He therefore spared himself as a member of Parliament, and carefully husbanded his powers in order to work upon his book.  He gave himself more time for his annual vacation, yet would write when he could on the subjects which engrossed his life.  His labors were too severe for his strength, but he worked on, and even harder and harder.