A volume of "Poems" (1891) was less successful. In 1896, he published two volumes entitled "Democracy and Liberty", in which he considered modern democracy. The pessimistic conclusions at which he arrived provoked criticism both in the UK and USA, which was renewed when he published in a new edition (1899) his low estimate of William Ewart Gladstone, then recently dead.In "The Map of Life" (1899) Lecky discussed in a popular style ethical problems of everyday life. In 1903 he published a revised and enlarged edition of "Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland", in two volumes, with the essay on Swift omitted and that on O'Connell was expanded into a complete biography. A critic of the methods by which the Act of Union was passed, Lecky, who grew up as a moderate Liberal, was opposed to Gladstone's policy of Home Rule and, in 1895, he was returned to parliament as Unionist member for Dublin University in a by-election. In 1897, he was made a privy councillor. In the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on 26 June 1902 he was nominated an original member of the new Order of Merit (OM), and he was invested as such by King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace on 24 October 1902.