CARLYLE, THOMAS (1795-1881), British essayist, histo rian and philosopher, born on Dec. 4, 1795, at Ecclefechan, in Annandale, was the eldest of the nine children of James Carlyle by his second wife, Margaret Aitken. The father was by trade a mason, and then a small farmer. He had joined a sect of seceders from the kirk, and had all the characteristics of the typical Scottish Calvinist. He was respected for his integrity and independence, and a stern outside covered warm affections. The family tie between all the Carlyles was unusually strong, and Thomas regarded his father with a reverence which found forcible expression in his Reminiscences. He always showed the tenderest love for his mother, and was the best of brothers. The narrow means of his parents were made sufficient by strict frugality. He was sent to school when he was about five and to Annan grammar school when ten years old, and soon showed an appetite for learning which induced his father to decide to educate him for the ministry. He walked to Edinburgh in Nov., 18og, and entered the university. Of the professors, he liked Sir John Leslie the best and distinguished himself in mathematics. But he benefited most by his reading of books obtained from the University library and the Advocates' Library. A few lads in positions similar to his own began to look up to him as an intellectual leader, and their correspondence with him shows remarkable interest in literary matters. In 1814 Carlyle, still looking forward to the career of a minister, obtained the mathematical mastership at Annan. The salary of 16o or 170 a year enabled him to save a little money. He went to Edinburgh twice to deliver the dis courses required from students of divinity, but the main occupa tion of his leisure time was wide reading in French and English literature and the study of mathematics. In 1816 he was ap pointed, through the recommendation of Leslie, to a school at Kirkcaldy, where Edward Irving, Carlyle's senior by three years, was also master of a school. Irving's severity as a teacher had offended some of the parents, who set up Carlyle to be his rival. A previous meeting with Irving, also a native of Annan, had led to a little passage of arms, but Irving now welcomed Carlyle with a generosity which entirely won his heart, and the rivals soon became the closest of friends. The intimacy, affectionately commemorated in the Reminiscences, was of great importance to Carlyle's whole career. "But for Irving," he says, "I had never known what the communion of man with man means." Irving had a library, in which Carlyle devoured Gibbon and much French literature, and they made various excursions together. Carlyle did his duties as a schoolmaster punctiliously, but found the life thoroughly uncongenial. No man was less fitted by temperament for the necessary drudgery and worry. His admira tion for a Miss Gordon there seems to have suggested the "Blu mine" of Sartor Resartus; but he made no new friendships, and when Irving left at the end of 1818 Carlyle also resigned his post.
He had by this time given up the ministry and altogether ceased to believe in Christianity in the winter of 1817-18, though he was and always remained in profound sympathy with its moral teaching. A period of severe struggle followed. He studied law for a time, but liked it no better than schoolmastering. He took a pupil or two, and wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia under the editorship of Brewster. He occasionally visited his family, and their unfailing confidence helped to keep up his courage. Meanwhile he was going through a spiritual crisis. Atheism was profoundly repugnant to him. At last, one day in July or Aug., 1822, of ter three weeks' total sleeplessness, he went through the crisis afterwards described quite "literally" in Sartor Resartus. He cast out the spirit of negation, and henceforth the temper of his misery was changed to one, not of "whining," but of "indignation and grim fire-eyed defiance." That, he says, was his spiritual new-birth, though certainly not into a life of serenity. The conversion was coincident with Carlyle's submission to a new and very potent influence. In 181g he had begun to read German, with which he soon acquired a very remarkable familiarity. Many of his contemporaries were awakening to the importance of Ger man thought, and Carlyle's knowledge enabled him before long to take a conspicuous part in diffusing the new intellectual light. The chief object of his reverence was Goethe. In many most important respects no two men could be more unlike; but, for the present, Carlyle seems to have seen in Goethe a proof that it was possible to reject outworn dogmas without sinking into materialism. Goethe, by singularly different methods, had emerged from a merely negative position into a lofty and coherent con ception of the universe. Meanwhile, Carlyle's various anxieties were beginning to be complicated by physical derangement. A rat, he declared, was gnawing at the pit of his stomach. He was already suffering from the agonies of indigestion from which he continued to suffer all his life.
Irving's friendship now became serviceable. Carlyle's confes sion of the radical difference of religious opinion had not alienated his friend, who was settling in London, and used his opportunities for promoting Carlyle's interest. In Jan. 1822 Carlyle, through Irving's recommendation, became tutor to Charles and Arthur Buller, who were to be students at Edinburgh. Carlyle's salary was £200 a year, and this, with the proceeds of some literary work, enabled him at once to help his brother John to study medicine and his brother Alexander to take up a farm. Carlyle was tutor to the young Bullers till July, 1824, when it was de cided to send them to Cambridge and both Charles Buller and his parents continued to be his friends as long as they lived. It was through Charles Buller that he later became acquainted with the Barings. Meanwhile he was employed upon a life of Schiller and a translation of Wilhelm Meister. He received £5o for a translation of Legendre's Geometry; and an introduction, explain ing the theory of proportion, is said by De Morgan to show that he could have gained distinction as an expounder of mathematical principles. The impressions made upon him by London men of letters in 1824 were most unfavourable. Carlyle felt by this time conscious of having a message to deliver to mankind, and the men of letters, he thought, were making literature a trade instead of a vocation, and prostituting their talents to frivolous journal ism. He went once to see Coleridge, who was then delivering his oracular utterances at Highgate, and the only result was the singularly vivid portrait given in a famous chapter in his life of Sterling. Coleridge seemed to him to be ineffectual as a philosopher, and personally to be a melancholy instance of genius running to waste. Carlyle, conscious of great abilities, and im pressed by such instances of the deleterious effects of the social atmosphere of London, resolved to settle in his native district. There he could live frugally and achieve some real work. He could for one thing, be the interpreter of Germany to England. A friendly letter from Goethe, acknowledging the translation of Wilhelm Meister, reached him towards the end of 1824 and greatly encouraged him. Goethe afterwards spoke warmly of the life of Schiller, and it was translated into German. Letters occasionally passed between them in later years, which were edited by Charles Eliot Norton in 1887. Goethe received Carlyle's homage with kind complacency. The gift of a seal to Goethe on his birthday in 1831 "from fifteen English friends," including Scott and Words worth, was suggested and carried out by Carlyle. Carlyle did much to promote interest in German literature during the next few years, and made some preparations for a history of German literature. British curiosity, however, about such matters seems to have been soon satisfied, and the demand for such work slackened.
Carlyle meanwhile was passing through the most important crisis of his personal history. Jane Baillie Welsh, born 18o1, was the only child of Dr. Welsh of Haddington. She had shown precocious talent, and was sent to the school at Haddington where Edward Irving (q.v.) was a master. After her father's death in 1819 she lived with her mother, and her wit and money attracted many admirers. Her father had bequeathed to her all his property which was worth about £ 200 a year.
Her old tutor, Irving, was now at Kirkcaldy, where he became engaged to a Miss Martin. He visited Haddington occasionally in the following years, and a strong mutual regard arose between him and Miss Welsh. They contemplated a marriage, and Irving endeavoured to obtain a release from his previous engagement. The Martin family held him to his word, and he took a final leave of Miss Welsh in 1822. Meanwhile he had brought Carlyle from Edinburgh and introduced him to the Welshes. Carlyle was attracted by the brilliant abilities of the young lady, procured books for her and wrote letters to her as an intellectual guide. The two were to perform a new variation upon the theme of Abelard and Heloise. (A good deal of uncertainty long covered the precise character of their relations. Until 1gog, when Mr. Alexander Carlyle published his edition of the "love-letters," the full material was not accessible; they had been read by Carlyle's biographer, Froude, and also by Charles Norton, and Norton [in his edition of Carlyle's Early Letters, 1886] declared that Froude had distorted the significance of this correspondence in a sense injurious to the writers. The publication of the letters certainly seems to justify Norton's view.) Miss Welsh's previous affair with Irving had far less importance than Froude ascribes to it; and she soon came to regard her past love as a childish fancy. She recognized Carlyle's vast intellectual superiority, and the respect gradually deepened into genuine love. The process, however, took some time. By 1825 Carlyle and she were planning marriage, and at Carlyle's instance she conveyed to her mother the house at Haddington, and everything in it, and gave her the life rent of Craigenputtock estate. She also made her will and bequeathed the fee-simple of the estate to Carlyle. She had been brought up in a station superior to that of the Carlyles, and could not accept the life of hardship which would be necessary in his present cir cumstances. Carlyle, accustomed to his father's household, was less frightened by the prospect of poverty. He was determined not to abandon his vocation as a man of genius by following the lower though more profitable paths to literary success, and expected that his wife should share the necessary sacrifice of comfort. The natural result of such discussions followed. The attraction became stronger on both sides, in spite of occasional spasms of doubt.
About the same time, July 1825, a friend of Irving's, Mrs. Basil Montague, wrote to Miss Welsh, to exhort her to suppress her love for Irving, who had married Miss Martin in 1823. Miss Welsh replied by announcing her intention to marry Carlyle; and then told him the whole story, of which he had previously been ignorant. He properly begged her not to yield to the impulse without due consideration. She answered by coming at once to his father's house, where he was staying; and the marriage was finally settled. It took place on Oct. 17, 1826.
Carlyle had now to arrange the mode of life which should enable him to fulfil his aspiration. His wife had made over her income to her mother, but he had saved a small sum upon which to begin housekeeping. A passing suggestion from Mrs. Carlyle that they might live with her mother was judiciously abandoned. Carlyle had thought of occupying Craigenputtock, a remote and dreary farm belonging to Mrs. Welsh. His wife objected to his utter incapacity as a farmer; and they finally took a small house at Comely Bank, Edinburgh, where they could live on a humble scale. The brilliant conversation of both attracted some notice in the literary society of Edinburgh. The most important con nection was with Francis, Lord Jeffrey, still editor of the Edin burgh Review. Though Jeffrey had no intellectual sympathy with Carlyle, he accepted some articles for the Review and became warmly attached to Mrs. Carlyle. Carlyle began to be known as leader of a new "mystic" school, and his earnings enabled him to send his brother John to study in Germany. The public appetite, however, for "mysticism" was not keen. In spite of support from Jeffrey and other friends, Carlyle failed in a candida ture for a professorship at St. Andrews. His brother, Alexander, had now taken the farm at Craigenputtock, and the Carlyles decided to settle at the separate dwelling-house there, which would bring them nearer to Mrs. Welsh. They went there in 1828, and began a hard struggle. Carlyle, indomitably determined to make no concessions for immediate profit, wrote slowly and care fully, and turned out some of his most finished work. He laboured "passionately"- at Sartor Resartus, and made articles out of frag ments originally intended for the history of German literature. The money difficulty soon became more pressing. John, whom he was still helping, was trying unsuccessfully to set up as a doctor in London; and Alexander's farming failed. In spite of such drawbacks, Carlyle in later years looked back upon the life at Craigenputtock as on the whole a comparatively healthy and even happy period, as it was certainly one of most strenuous and courageous endeavour. Though absorbed in his work, he found relief in rides with his wife, and occasionally visiting their rela tions. Their letters during temporary separations are most af fectionate. The bleak climate, however, the solitude, and the necessity of managing a household with a single servant, were trying to a delicate woman. In the autumn of 1831 Carlyle accepted a loan of f so from Jeffrey, and went in search of work to London, whither his wife followed him. He made some engage ments with publishers, though no one would take Sartor Resartus, and he returned to Craigenputtock in the spring of 1832. Jeffrey, stimulated perhaps by his sympathy for Mrs. Carlyle, was characteristically generous. Besides pressing loans upon both Thomas and John Carlyle, he offered to settle an annuity of £roo upon Thomas, and finally enabled John to support himself by recommending him to a medical position.' Carlyle's proud spirit of independence made him reject Jeffrey's help as long as possible; and even his acknowledgment of the generosity (in the Reminis cences) is not so cordial as might have been expected. In he applied to Jeffrey for a post at the Edinburgh Observatory, for which his knowledge of mathematics and astronomy made him specially well qualified. But Jeffrey preferred to give the job to a man who had been clerk in his service, which led to a break between Carlyle and Jeffrey which lasted some years.
In the beginning of 1833 the Carlyles made another trial of Edinburgh. There he found materials in the Advocate's Library for the article on the Diamond Necklace, one of his most perfect writings, and he began to study the history of the French Revolu tion. Sartor Resartus was at last appearing in Fraser's Magazine, though the rate of payment was cut down, and the publisher reported that it was received with "unqualified dissatisfaction." Both Carlyle and his wife liked Edinburgh, but on the whole preferred London. Besides, the materials for the history of the French Revolution which he had decided to write were more accessible in London ; so they went there in the summer of and took the house at 5 (now 24) Cheyne row, Chelsea, which Carlyle inhabited till his death; the house has since been bought for the public. Irving, who had welcomed him on former occa sions, was just dying—a victim, as Carlyle thought, to fashionable cajoleries. A few young men were beginning to show appreciation. J. S. Mill had made Carlyle's acquaintance in the previous visit to London, and had corresponded with him. Mill had introduced Ralph Waldo Emerson, who visited Craigenputtock in Carlyle was charmed with Emerson, and their letters published by Norton show that his regard never cooled. Emerson's interest showed that Carlyle's fame was already spreading in America. Carlyle's connection with Charles Buller, a zealous utilitarian, introduced him to the circle of "philosophical radicals." Carlyle called himself in some sense a radical; and J. S. Mill, though not an intellectual disciple, was a very warm admirer of his friend's genius. Carlyle had some expectation of the editor ship of the London Review, started by Sir W. Molesworth at this time as an organ of philosophical radicalism. The combination would clearly have been explosive. Meanwhile Mill, who had collected many books upon the French Revolution, was eager to help Carlyle in the history which he was now beginning. He set to work at once and finished the first volume in five months, and lent the ms. to J. S. Mill, who left it at the house of a Mrs. Taylor, who had separated from her husband on account of her intimacy with Mill. There it was burned accidentally, according to Mrs. Taylor, and Carlyle who had no copy and few notes had to write it afresh. Mill sent a cheque for £ 200 as compensation. Carlyle accepted only £Ioo, the actuai cost of living while he was writing what had been burned. On Jan. 12, 1837, the writing of the history was finished, and Carlyle said to his wife : "What they will do with this book, none knows, my Jeannie, lass; but they have not had, for a two hundred years, any book that came more truly from a man's very heart ; and so let them trample it under foot and hoof as they see best." "Pooh, pooh! they cannot trample that," was her answer.
The publication, six months later, of the French Revolution marks the turning-point of Carlyle's career. Many readers hold it to be the best, as it is certainly the most characteristic, of Carlyle's books. The failure of Sartor Resartus to attract average readers is quite intelligible. It contains, indeed, some of the most impressive expositions of his philosophical position, and some of his most beautiful and perfectly written passages. But there is something forced and clumsy, in spite of the flashes of grim 'John Aitken Carlyle (1801-79) finally settled near the Carlyles in Chelsea. He began an English prose version of Dante's Divine Comedy --which has earned him the name of "Dante Carlyle"—but only completed the translation of the Inferno (184Q) . The work included a critical edition of the text and a valuable introduction and notes.
humour, in the machinery of the Clothes Philosophy. The mannerism, which has been attributed to an imitation of Jean Paul, appeared to Carlyle himself to be derived rather from the phrases current in his father's house, and in any case gave an appropriate dialect for the expression of his peculiar idiosyncrasy. But it could not be appreciated by readers who would not take the trouble to learn a new language. In the French Revolution Carlyle had discovered his real strength. He was always at his best when his imagination was set to work upon a solid frame work of fact. The book shows a unique combination : on the one hand is the singularly shrewd insight into character and the vivid realization of the picturesque ; on the other is the "mysti cism" or poetical philosophy which relieves the events against a background of mystery. The contrast is marked by the humour which seems to combine a cynical view of human folly with a deeply pathetic sense of the sadness and suffering of life. The convictions, whatever their value, came, as he said, "flamingly from the heart." It was, of course, impossible for Carlyle to satisfy modern requirements of matter-of-fact accuracy in details. He could not in the time have assimilated all the materials even then extant, and later accumulations would necessitate a complete revision. Considered as a "prose epic," or a vivid utterance of the thought of the period, it has a permanent and unique value. The book was speedily successful. It was reviewed by Mill in the Westminster and by Thackeray in The Times, an Carlyle, after a heroic struggle, was at last touching land. In each of the years 1837 to 1840 he gave a course of lectures, of which the last only (upon "Hero Worship") was published by himself ; they materially helped his finances. By Emerson's management he also received something during the same period from American publishers. At the age of 45 he had thus become independent. He had also established a position among the chief writers of the day. Young disciples, among whom John Sterling was the most accepted, were gathering round him, and he became an object of social curiosity. Monckton Milnes (Lord Houghton), who won universal popularity by the most genuine kindliness of nature, became a cordial friend. Another important intimacy was with the Barings, afterwards Lord and Lady Ashburton. Carlyle's conversational powers were extraordinary; though, as he won greater recognition as a prophet, he indulged too freely in didactic monologue. In his prophetic capacity he published two remark able books : Chartism (i839), enlarged from an article which Lockhart, though personally approving, was afraid to take for the Quarterly; and Past and Present (1843), in which a recently published Mediaeval Chronicle was taken as a text for the ex posure of modern evils. They may be regarded as expositions of the doctrine implicitly set forth in the French Revolution. Carlyle was a "radical" as sharing the sentiments of the class in which he was born. He had been profoundly moved by the widely-spread distresses in his earlier years. When the yeomanry were called out to suppress riots after the Peace, his sympathies were with the people rather than with the authorities. So far he was in harmony with Mill and the "philosophical radicals." A fundamental diver gence of principle, however, existed and was soon indicated by his speedy separation from the party and alienation from Mill himself. The Revolution, according to him, meant the sweeping away of effete beliefs and institutions, but implied also the necessity of a reconstructive process. Chartism begins with a fierce attack upon the laissez faire theory, which showed blindness to this necessity. The prevalent political economy, in which that theory was embodied, made a principle of neglecting the very evils which it should be the great function of government to remedy. Carlyle's doctrines, entirely opposed to the ordinary opinions of Whigs and Radicals, found afterwards an expositor in his ardent disciple Ruskin, and inspired Keir Hardie and other leaders of the labour movement. At the time he was as one crying in the wilderness to little practical purpose. Liberals were scan dalized by his apparent identification of "right" with "might," implied in the demand for a strong government ; and though he often declared the true interpretation to be that the right would ultimately become might, his desire for strong government seemed too often to sanction the inverse view. He came into collision with philanthropists, and was supposed to approve of despotism for its own sake.
His religious position was equally unintelligible to the average mind. While unequivocally rejecting the accepted creeds, and so scandalizing even liberal theologians, he was still more hostile to simply sceptical and materialist tendencies. He accepted the nickname of "mystic," which had been applied to him by critics. The God he revered and held up for worship was the living God of Nature—inspiring all human effort, revealed by all reality, and speaking in the hearts of men and women. Any philosophy of history which emphasized the importance of general causes seemed to him to imply a simply mechanical doctrine and to deny the efficacy of the great spiritual forces. He met it by making biog raphy the essence of history, or attributing all great events to the "heroes," who are the successive embodiments of divine revelations. This belief was implied in his next great work, the Life and Letters of Oliver Cromwell, published in 1845. The great Puritan hero was a man after his own heart, and the portrait drawn by so sympathetic a writer is not only intensely vivid, but a very effective rehabilitation of misrepresented character. He was the first to make plain the greatness of Oliver Cromwell as one of the makers of the modern British empire. The "bio graphical" view of history, however, implies the weakness, not only of unqualified approval of all Cromwell's actions, but of omitting any attempt to estimate the Protector's real relation to the social and political development of the time. The question, what was Cromwell's real and permanent achievement, is not answered nor distinctly considered. The effect may be partly due to the peculiar form of the book as a detached series of documents and comments. The composition introduced Carlyle to the "Dryasdust" rubbish heaps of which he here and ever afterwards bitterly complained. A conscientious desire to unearth the facts, and the effort of extracting from the dullest records the materials for graphic pictures, made the process of production excessively painful. For some years after Cromwell Carlyle wrote little. His growing ac ceptance by publishers, and the inheritance of her property by Mrs. Carlyle on her mother's death in 1842, finally removed the stimulus of money pressure. He visited Ireland in 1846 and again in 1849, when he made a long tour in company with Sir C. Gavan Duffy, then a young member of the Nationalist party (see Sir C. G. Duffy's Conversations with Carlyle, 1892, for an interesting narra tive). Carlyle's strong convictions as to the misery and mis government of Ireland recommended him to men who had taken part in the rising of 1848. Although the remedies acceptable to a eulogist of Cromwell could not be to their taste, they admired his moral teaching; and he received their attentions, as Sir C. G. Duffy testifies, with conspicuous courtesy. His aversion from the ordinary radicalism led to an article upon slavery in 1849, to which Mill replied, and which caused their final alienation. It was followed in 185o by the Latterday Pamphlets, containing "sul phurous" denunciations of the do-nothing principle. They gave general offence, and the disapproval, according to Froude, stopped the sale for years. The Life of Sterling (d. 1844), which appeared in 1851, was intended to correct the life by Julius Hare, which had given too much prominence to theological questions. The subject roused Carlyle's tenderest mood, and the Life is one of the most perfect in the language.
Carlyle meanwhile was suffering domestic troubles, unfortu nately not exceptional in their nature, though the exceptional in tellect and characters of the persons concerned have given them unusual prominence. Carlyle's constitutional irritability made him intensely sensitive to petty annoyances. He suffered the torments of dyspepsia ; he was often sleepless, and the crowing of "demon-fowls" in neighbours' yards drove him wild. He would gladly have retired to the country again for the sake of quiet; but his wife's love of London kept him there. What helped to decide him to humour her by remaining there was the state of her health. For many years she was in danger of a mental break down, from which she was delivered mainly by his continual care and attentions.
Mrs. Carlyle had apparently recovered from an almost hopeless illness, when at the end of 1865 Carlyle was elected to the rector ship of the University of Edinburgh. He delivered an address there on April 2, 1866, unusually mild in tone, and received with general applause. He was still detained in Scotland when Mrs. Carlyle died suddenly while driving in her carriage. The imme diate cause was the shock of an accident to her dog. She had once hurt her mother's feelings by refusing to use some wax candles. She had preserved them ever since, and by her direction they were now lighted in the chamber of death. Carlyle was over powered by her loss. His life thenceforward became more and more secluded. He went to Mentone in the winter of 1866 and began the Reminiscences. He afterwards annotated the letters from his wife, published (1883) as Letters and Memorials. He was impressed by the story of Johnson's "penance" at Uttoxeter, and desired to make a posthumous confession of his shortcomings in his relations to his wife, according to Froude, whose state ments to this effect, however, are not generally accepted. A few later utterances made known his opinions of current affairs. He joined the committee for the defence of Governor Eyre in 1866; he also wrote in 1867 an article upon "shooting Niagara," that is, upon the tendency of the Reform Bill of that year; and in 187o he wrote a letter defending the German case against France. The worth of his Frederick was acknowledged by the Prussian Order of Merit in 1874. In the same year Disraeli offered him the Grand Cross of the Bath and a pension. He declined very courteously, and felt some regret for previous remarks upon the minister. The length of his literary career was now softening old antipathies, and he was the object of general respect. His infirmities enforced a very retired life, but he was constantly visited by Froude, Ruskin, and many others. Many friends paid him constant atten tion. A niece, Miss Aitken afterwards Mrs. Alexander Carlyle, became his housekeeper and ministered to him like a daughter till the end of his life. His conversation was still interesting, especially when it turned upon his recollections, and though his judgments were sometimes severe enough, he never condescended to the scandalous. His views of the future were gloomy. The world seemed to be going from bad to worse, with little heed to his warnings. He would sometimes regret that it was no longer permissible to leave it in the old Roman fashion. He sank gradually, and died on Feb. 4, 1881. A place in Westminster Abbey was offered, but he was buried, according to his own desire, by the side of his parents at Ecclefechan. He left Craigenputtock, which had become his own property, to found bursaries at the University of Edinburgh. He gave his books to Harvard college.
Carlyle's appearance has been made familiar by many portraits. The statue by Boehm on the Chelsea Embankment is character istic ; and there is a fine painting by Watts in the National Por trait Gallery, London. J. McNeill Whistler's portrait of him is in the possession of the Glasgow corporation.
During Carlyle's later years the antagonism roused by his at tacks upon popular opinions had subsided ; and upon his death general expression was given to the emotions natural upon the loss of a remarkable man of genius. The rapid publication of the Reminiscences by Froude produced a sudden revulsion of feeling. Carlyle became the object of general condemnation. Froude's biography, and the Memorials of Mrs. Carlyle, published soon afterwards, strengthened the hostile feeling. Carlyle had appended to the Reminiscences an injunction to his friends not to publish them as they stood, and added that no part could ever be pub lished without the strictest editing. Afterwards, when he had almost forgotten what he had written, he verbally empowered Froude to use his own judgment ; Froude accordingly published the book at once, without any editing, and with many inaccuracies. Omissions of a few passages written from memory at a time of profound nervous depression would have altered the whole char. acter of fhe book. Froude in this and the later publications held that he was giving effect to Carlyle's wish to imitate Johnson's "penance." No one, said Boswell, should persuade him to make his lion into a cat. Froude intended, in the same spirit, to give the shades as well as the lights in the portrait of his hero. His admi ration for Carlyle probably led him to assume too easily that his readers would approach the story from the same point of view, that is, with an admiration too warm to be repelled by the admis sions. Moreover, Froude's characteristic desire for picturesque effect, unchecked by any painstaking accuracy, led to his reading preconceived impressions into his documents. The result was that Carlyle was too often judged by his defects, and regarded as a selfish and eccentric misanthrope with flashes of genius, rather than as a man with many of the highest qualities of mind and character clouded by constitutional infirmities. Yet it would be difficult to speak too strongly of the great qualities which underlay the superficial defects. Through long years of poverty and ob scurity Carlyle showed unsurpassed fidelity to his vocation and superiority to the lower temptations which have ruined so many literary careers. His ambition might be interpreted as selfishness, but certainly showed no coldness of heart. His unstinted generosity to his brothers during his worst times is only one proof of the sin gular strength of his family affections. No one was more devoted to such congenial friends as Irving and Sterling. He gave away a great deal of money when the sale of his books made him rich in the later years of his life, but he was careful to hide his bene factions as much as possible.
The harsh judgments of individuals in the Reminiscences had no parallel in his own writings. He scarcely ever mentions a contemporary, and was never involved in a personal controversy. But the harshness certainly reflects a characteristic attitude of mind. Carlyle was throughout a pessimist or a prophet denounc ing a backsliding world. His most popular contemporaries seemed to him to be false guides, and charlatans had ousted the heroes. The general condemnation of "shams" and cant had, of course, particular applications, though he left them to be inferred by his readers. Carlyle was the exponent of many of the deepest con victions of his time. Nobody could be more in sympathy with aspirations for a spiritual religion and for a lofty idealism in political and social life. To most minds, however, which cherish such aspirations the gentler optimism of men like Emerson was more congenial. They believed in the progress of the race and the triumph of the nobler elements. Though Carlyle, especially in his earlier years, could deliver an invigorating and encouraging, if not a sanguine doctrine, his utterances were more generally couched in the key of denunciation, and betrayed a growing de spondency. Materialism and low moral principles seemed to him to be gaining the upper hand; and the hope that religion might survive the "old clothes" in which it had been draped seemed to grow fainter. The ordinary mind complained that he had no specific remedy to propose for the growing evils of the time ; and the more cultivated idealist was alienated by the gloom and the tendency to despair. To a later generation it will probably appear that, whatever the exaggerations and the misconceptions to which he was led, his vehement attacks at least called attention to rather grave limitations and defects in the current beliefs and social tendencies of the time. The mannerisms and grotesque exaggerations of his writings annoyed persons of refinement, and suggested Matthew Arnold's advice to flee "Carlylese" as you would flee the devil. Yet the shrewd common sense, the biting humour, the power of graphic description and the imaginative "mysticism" give them a unique attraction for many even who do not fully sympathize with the implied philosophy or with the Puritanical code of ethics. The letters and autobiographical writ ings, whether they attract or repel sympathy, are at least a series of documents of profound interest for any one who cares to study character, and display an almost unique idiosyncrasy.
(L. S.; D. A. W.) The materials for the Life of Carlyle consist of his Reminiscences and his own and his wife's correspondence and the reports of many disciples and other witnesses. The best edition of the Reminiscences is that of C. E. Norton (5887), who has also edited the correspondence with Goethe (5887) and with Emerson (1883) and four volumes of other letters (i888). Alexander Carlyle has edited his Love Letters (1909), Letters of Carlyle to Mill, Sterling and Browning (5923) and two more volumes, New Letters (1904) and Carlyle intime (1907). A book published in 1892, Last Words of Thomas Carlyle, is mainly letters. The correspondence of Mrs. Carlyle is in her Letters and Memorials, three volumes edited by Froude (1883) , supplemented by two more edited by Alexander Carlyle (19o3), and her Early Letters, edited by David G. Ritchie (1889), and Letters to her Kinsfolk, edited by Leonard Huxley (5924). The reports by disciples and others are numerous. Among the best are Conversations with Carlyle, by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy (1892) ; Literary Recollections, by F. Espinasse (1893) ; "Carlyle in Society and at Home," by G. S. Venables (Fort nightly Review, 5883-84) ; William Allingham, A Diary, edited by H. Allingham and D. Radford (19o7) ; Personal Reminiscences of Carlyle, by A. J. Symington (1886) ; "Conversations with Carlyle," by William Knighton (Contemporary Review, 1881), and Carlyle Personally and in his Writings, by David Masson (1885).
There have been many short biographies. That by Richard Garnett (5887) is one of the best, but many others are also good, and so is Augustus Ralli's Guide to Carlyle (192o) in two volumes. The four-volume life by J. A. Froude (1882-84) was riddled by many critics, and in the posthumously published book, My Relations with Carlyle (5903), Froude at last confessed how he had shaped his work in complete reliance on the truth of what he had been told by Geraldine Jewsbury, that "Carlyle was one of those persons who ought never to have married." This led to a controversy, the upshot of which is that Miss Jewsbury and Mr. Froude, who believed her, were both mistaken. See The Nemesis of Froude, by Sir James Crich ton-Browne and A. Carlyle (19o3) and The Truth about Carlyle, by D. A. Wilson (1913), with a preface by Sir James Crichton-Browne. Thanks mainly to Crichton-Browne, there is now no room left for doubt in the medical profession and among people of sense about a matter of peculiar importance in the case of a great moralist.