He was easily bored in general society, and in later life rarely went beyond his little circle of intimates. Children were the only people of whom he never tired, and he was a royal companion to them always. He was unrivalled in the invention of games, and never wearied of repeating them. He had an inexhaustible repertory of small dramas for his nieces, and sustained a great variety of parts with much skill. An old friend of the family writes:—
"There was one never-failing game of building up a den with newspapers behind the sofa, and of enacting robbers and tigers; we shrieking with terror, but always begging him to begin again, of which we never grew weary."
He writes to a friend concerning Dickens, that he did not think it possible for fiction to affect him as the death of little Nell had done, and adds:—
"Have you seen the first number of 'Dombey'? There is not much in it, but there is one passage which made me cry as if my heart would break. It is the description of a little girl who has just lost her mother, and is unkindly treated by everybody. Images of that kind always overpower me even when the artist is less skilful than Dickens."
In truth, his extreme sensibility was often a great annoyance to him. He strove very hard to overcome it, but in vain; and he was moved to tears upon a great many occasions, when he would have given much to be able to control himself.
Let us quote a little more from Thackeray's tribute to him.
"All sorts of successes were easy to him. As a lad he goes down into the arena with others, and wins all the prizes to which he has a mind. A place in the Senate is straightway offered to the young man. He takes his seat there, he speaks when so minded, without party anger or intrigue, but not without party faith and a sort of heroic enthusiasm for his cause; and speech is also a success to him. Still he is a poet and philosopher even more than orator. . . . Years ago there was a wretched outcry raised because he dated a letter from Windsor Castle, where he was staying. Immortal gods! was not this man a fit guest for any palace in the world, or a fit companion for any man or woman in it? The place of such a natural chief was among the first in the land."
Macaulay died, in 1860, a sudden and painless death, and lies buried in Westminster Abbey, in the Poet's Corner, near the west wall of the South Transept, at the feet of Addison.
