Edin., for which he sat until 1847, when he was thrown out on the Maynooth question, and from 1839-41 was Sec. for War.  The Lays of Ancient Rome were pub. in 1842, and a collection of his essays in The Edinburgh the following year.  In 1846 he joined the government of Lord John Russell as Paymaster-General, an office with light duties, his retirement from which, however, followed the loss of his seat in the next year.  He was now finally set free for his great work, which became thenceforth the leading interest of his life.  The first and second vols. appeared in 1848, and were received with extraordinary applause.  In 1852 he was offered, but declined, a seat in the coalition government of Lord Aberdeen, accepting, however, the seat in Parliament which Edin., now repentant, gave him unsolicited.  His health began about this time to show symptoms of failure, and he spoke in the House only once or twice.  In 1855 the third and fourth vols. of the History came out, and meeting with a success both at home and in America unprecedented in the case of an historical work, were translated into various foreign languages.  In 1857 M. was raised to the Peerage, a distinction which he appreciated and enjoyed.  His last years were spent at Holly Lodge, Kensington, in comparative retirement, and there he d. on December 28, 1859.  Though never m., M. was a man of the warmest family affections.  Outside of his family he was a steady friend and a generous opponent, disinterested and honourable in his public life.  Possessed of an astonishing memory, knowledge of vast extent, and an unfailing flow of ready and effective speech, he shone alike as a parliamentary orator and a conversationalist.  In his writings he spared no pains in the collection and arrangement of his materials, and he was incapable of deliberate unfairness.  Nevertheless, his mind was strongly cast in the mould of the orator and the pleader:  and the vivid contrasts, antitheses, and even paradoxes which were his natural forms of expression do not always tend to secure a judicial view of the matter in hand.  Consequently he has been accused by some critics of party-spirit, inaccuracy, and prejudice.  He has not often, however, been found mistaken on any important matter of fact, and in what he avowedly set himself to do, namely, to give a living picture of the period which he dealt with, he has been triumphantly successful.  Unfortunately, strength and life failed before his great design was completed.  He is probably most widely known by his Essays, which retain an extraordinary popularity.

Life by his nephew, Sir G.O.  Trevelyan. See also J.C.  Monson’s Life (English Men of Letters).

MACCARTHY, DENIS FLORENCE (1817-1882).—­Poet, b. at Dublin, and ed. at Maynooth with a view to the priesthood, devoted himself, however, to literature, and contributed verses to The Nation.  Among his other writings are Ballads, Poems, and Lyrics (1850), The Bell Founder (1857), and Under-Glimpses.  He also ed. a collection of Irish lyrics, translated Calderon, and wrote Shelley’s Early Life (1872).