Besides the _History_ and _Essays_, he wrote a collection of
beautiful ballads, including the well-known _Lays of Ancient Rome_. In
1849 he was elected Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow, and in 1857,
his honours culminated in his elevation to the peerage as Baron Macaulay.
He died on the 28th of December, 1869.
MILTON, JOHN, An immortal poet, and with the exception of Shakespeare, the
most illustrious name in English Literature, was born in Bread Street,
London, on December 9th, 1608. He graduated at Cambridge, and was intended
for the law or the Church, but did not enter either calling. He settled at
Horton in Buckinghamshire, where he wrote his _Comus, L'Allegro, Il
Penuroso_, and _Lycidas_. He took the side of the Parliament in the
dispute with King Charles I. and rendered his party efficient service with
his pen. About 1654 he became totally blind, and after serving the
Protector as Latin Secretary for four or five years, he retired from public
life in 1657. In 1665, the time of the Great Plague, he first showed the
finished manuscript of his great poem, _Paradise Lost_, which was
first printed in 1667, this immortal work being sold to a bookseller for
L5! He afterwards wrote _Paradise Regained_, but it is, in all
respects, quite inferior to _Paradise Lost_.
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