508
CARLYLE he discovered to be as wearisome as their Puritan pre- object of general respect. His infirmities enforced a very decessors and more voluminous. He went to Scotland retired life, but he was constantly visited by Froude, and to see his mother, to whom he had always shown occasionally by his disciple Ruskin. A small number of the tenderest affection, on her deathbed at the end of other friends paid him constant attention. His conversa1853. He returned to shut himself up in the “sound- tion was still interesting, especially when it turned upon proof room.” He twice visited Germany (1852 and 1858), his recollections, and though his judgments were sometimes to see Frederick’s battlefields and obtain materials; and’ severe enough, he never condescended to the scandalous. he occasionally went to the Ashburtons and his relations His views of the future were gloomy. The world seemed in Scotland. The first two volumes of Frederick the Great to be going from bad to worse, with little heed to his appeared in 1858, and succeeding volumes in 1862, 1864, warnings. He would sometimes regret that it -was no and 1865. The success was great from the first, though it longer permissible to leave it in the old Roman fashion. did little to clear up Carlyle’s gloom. The book is in some He sank gradually, and died on 4th February 1881. A respects his masterpiece, and its merits are beyond question. place in Westminster Abbey was offered, but he was buried, Carlyle had. spared no pains in research. The descrip- according to his own desire, by the side of his parents at tions of the campaigns are admirably vivid, and show Ecclefechan. He left Craigenputtock, which had become his singular eye for scenery. These narratives are said his own property, to found bursaries at the University to be used by military students in Germany, and of Edinburgh. He gave his books to Harvard College, at least convince the non-military student that he can Massachusetts. understand the story. The book was declared by Carlyle’s appearance has been made familiar by many Emerson to be the wittiest ever written. Many episodes, portraits, none of them, according to Froude, satisfactory. describing the society at the Prussian court and the The statue by Boehm on the Chelsea Embankment, howrelations of Frederick to Voltaire, are unsurpassable as ever, is characteristic; and there is a fine painting by humorous portraiture. The effort to fuse the masses of Watts in the National Portrait Gallery. During Carlyle’s raw material into a well-proportioned whole is perhaps later years the antagonism roused by his attacks upon not quite successful; and Carlyle had not the full sympathy popular opinions had subsided; and upon his death with Frederick which had given interest to the Cromwell. general expression was given to the emotions natural upon A hero-worshipper with half-concealed doubts as to his the loss of a remarkable man of genius. The rapid publihero is in an awkward position. Carlyle’s general concep- cation of the Reminiscences by Froude produced a sudden tion of history made him comparatively blind to aspects of revulsion of feeling. Carlyle became the object of general the subject which would, to writers of other schools, have a condemnation. Froude’s biography, and the Memorials great importance. The extraordinary power of the book of Mrs Carlyle, published soon afterwards, strengthened the is undeniable, though it does not show the fire which hostile feeling. Carlyle had appended to the Reminisanimated the French Revolution. A certain depression and cences an injunction to his friends not to publish them weariness of spirit darken the general tone. as they stood, and added that no part could ever be pubDuring the later labours Mrs Carlyle’s health had been lished without the strictest editing. Afterwards, when breaking. Carlyle, now that happier relations had been he had almost forgotten what he had written, he verbally restored, did his best to give her the needed comforts; empowered Froude to use his own judgment: Froude and in spite of his immersion in Frederick, showed her accordingly published the book at once, without any all possible attention in later years. She had apparently editing, and with many inaccuracies. Omissions of a few recovered from an almost hopeless illness, when at the end passages written from memory at a time of profound of 1865 he was elected to the rectorship of the University nervous depression would have altered the whole character of Edinburgh. He delivered an address there on 2nd of the book. Froude in this and the later publications April 1866, unusually mild in tone and received with held that he was giving effect to Carlyle’s wish to imitate general applause. He was still detained in Scotland when Johnson’s “penance.” No one, said Boswell, should perMrs Carlyle died suddenly while driving in her carriage. suade him to make his lion into a cat. Froude intended, in The immediate cause was the shock of an accident to her the same spirit, to give the shades as well as the lights in the dog. She had once hurt her mother’s feelings by refusing portrait of his hero. His admiration for Carlyle probably to use some wax candles. She had preserved them ever led him to assume too early that his readers would approach since, and by her direction they were now lighted in the the story from the same point of view, that is, with an adchamber of death. Carlyle was overpowered by the loss. miration too warm to be repelled by the admissions. MoreHis life thenceforward became more and more secluded, over, Froude’s characteristic desire for picturesque effect, and he gradually became incapable of work. He went to unchecked by any painstaking accuracy, led to his reading Mentone in the winter of 1866 and began the Reminis- preconceived impressions into his documents. The result cences. He afterwards annotated the letters from his life, was that Carlyle was too often judged by his defects, and published (1883) as Letters and Memorials. He was, as regarded as a selfish and eccentric misanthrope with flashes Froude says, impressed by the story of Johnson’s “ penance ” of genius, rather than as a man with many of the highest at Uttoxeter, and desired to make a posthumous confession qualities of mind and character clouded by constitutional of his shortcomings in his relations to his wife. A few infirmities. Yet it would be difficult to speak too strongly later utterances made known his opinions of current affairs. of the great qualities which underlay the superficial defects. He joined the committee for the defence of Governor Through long years of poverty and obscurity Carlyle Eyre in 1867 ; he also wrote in 1867 an article upon showed unsurpassed fidelity to his vocation and superiority “shooting Niagara,” that is, upon the tendency of the to the lower temptations which have ruined so many Reform Bill of that year; and in 1870 he wrote a letter literary careers. His ambition might be interpreted as defending the German case against France. The worth selfishness, but certainly showed no coldness of heart. of his Frederick was acknowledged by the Prussian Order His unstinted generosity to his brothers during his worst of Merit in 1874. In the same year Disraeli offered times is only one proof of the singular strength of his him the Grand Cross of the Bath and a pension. He family affections. No one was more devoted to such declined very courteously, and felt some regret for previous congenial friends as Irving and Sterling. He is not the remarks upon the minister. The length of his literary only man whom absorption in work and infirmity of career was now softening old antipathies, and he was the temper have made into a provoking husbandl though few
