35 



CARLYLE, THOMAS. 



CARLYLE, THOMAS. 



we built and furnished a neat substantial dwelling; here, in the 

 absence of a professional or other office, we live to cultivate literature 

 according to our strength, and in our own peculiar way. We wish a 

 joyful growth to the roses and flowers of our garden ; we hope for 

 health and peaceful thoughts to further our aims. The roses indeed 

 are still in part to be planted, but they blossom already in anticipation. 

 Two ponies which carry us everywhere, and the mountain air, are the 

 best medicine for weak nerves. This daily exercise, to which I am 

 much devoted, is my only recreation ; for this nook of ours is the 

 loneliest in Britain six miles removed from any one likely to visit 

 me. Hera Rousseau would have been as happy as on his island of 

 Saint-Pierre. My town friends indeed ascribe my sojourn here to a 

 similar disposition, and forbode me no good result ; but I came hither 

 solely with the design to simplify my way of life, and to secure the 

 independence through which I could be enabled to remain true to 

 myself. Thia bit of earth is our own : here we can live, write, and 

 think as best pleases ourselves, even though Zoilus himself were to 

 be crowned the monarch of literature. Nor is the solitude of such 

 great importance, for a stage-coach takes us speedily to Edinburgh, 

 which we look upon as our British Weimar. And have I not too at 

 this moment, piled upon the table of my little library, a whole cart- 

 load of French, German, American, and English journal* and periodi- 

 calswhatever may be their worth ? Of antiquarian studies, too, there 

 is no lack." 



Before this letter was written Mr. Carlyle had already begun the 

 well-known series of his contributions to the 'Edinburgh Review.' 

 The first of these was his essay on 'Jean Paul,' which appeared 

 in 1827 ; and was followed by his striking article on ' German 

 Literature,' and by his singularly beautiful essay on 'Burns' (1828). 

 Other essays in the same periodical followed, as well as articles 

 in the ' Foreign Quarterly Review,' which was established in 1828, 

 and shorter articles of less importance in Brewster's ' Edinburgh 

 Encyclopaedia,' then in course of publication. Externally, in short, at 

 this time Mr. Carlyle was a writer for reviews and magazines, choosing 

 to live, for the convenience of his work and the satisfaction of hia own 

 tastes, in a retired nook of Scotland, whence he could correspond with 

 his friends, occasionally vi-it the nearest of them, and occasionally also 

 receive visits from them in turn. Among the friends whom he saw 

 in his occasional visits to Edinburgh were Jeffrey, Wilson, and other 

 literary celebrities of that capital (Sir Walter Scott, we believe, he 

 never met otherwise than casually in the streets) ; among the more 

 distant friends who visited him none was more welcome than the 

 Aiixriean Kmerson, who, having already been attracted to him by his 

 writings, made a journey to Dumfriesshire, during his first visit to 

 England, expressly to see him ; and of his foreign correspondents the 

 most valued by far was Giithe, whose death in 1832, and that of Scott 

 in the same year, impressed him deeply, and were finely commemorated 

 by him. 



Meanwhile, though thus ostensibly but an occasional contributor to 

 periodicals, Mr. Carlyle was silently throwing his whole strength 

 into a work which was to reveal him in a far other character than 

 that of a mere literary critic, however able and profound. This 

 was his ' Sartor Resartus '; or, an imaginary History of the Life and 

 Opinions of Heir Teufelsdrbckh, an eccentric German Professor anil 

 'jph'T. Under this quaint guise (the name 'Sartor Resartus' 

 being, it would appear, a translation into Latin of ' The Tailor done 

 Over," which is the title of an old Scottish song) Mr. Carlyle pro- 

 pounded, in a style half serious and half grotesque, and in a manner 

 far more bold and trenchant than the rules of review-writing permitted, 

 his own philosophy of life and society in almost all their bearings. 

 The work was truly an anomaly in British literature, exhibiting a 

 combination of deep speculative power, poetical genius, an-1 lofty 

 moral purpose, with wild and riotous humour and shrewd observation 

 and Ratire, such as had rarely been seen ; and coming into the midst 

 of the more conventional British literature of the day, it was like a fresh 

 but barbaric blast from the bills and moorlands amid which it had 

 been conceive'!. But the very strangeness and originality of the work 

 prevented it from finding a publisher; and after the manuscript had 

 been returned by several London firms to whom it was offered, the 

 anthor wan glad to cut it into parts and publish it piecemeal in 

 'Fraer' Magazine.' Hero it appeared in the course of 1833-34, 

 scandalising most readers by its gothic mode of thought and its 

 extraordinary torture, as it was called, of the English language ; but 

 eagerly read by some sympathetic minds, who discerned in the writer 

 a new power in literature, and wondered who and what ho was. 



With the publication of the ' Sartor Resartus ' papers, the third 

 period of Mr. Carlyle's literary life may be said to begin. It was 

 during the negociaticms for their publication that he was led to con- 

 template removing to London a step which he finally took, we 

 believe, in 1834. Since that year the thirty-ninth of his life- 

 Mr. Carlyle has permanently resided in London, in a house situated 

 in one of the quiet streets running at right angles to tho river Thames 

 at Chelsea. The change into the bustle of London from the solitude 

 of Craigenputtoch was, externally, a great one. In reality however it 

 was less than it seemed. A man in the prime of life when ho came 

 to reside in the metropolis, he brought into its roar and confusion not 

 the restless spirit of a young adventurer, but the fettled energy of one 

 who had ascertained his strength and fixed his methods and his aims. 



Among the Maginns and others who contributed to ' Fraser," he at 

 once took his place as a man rather to influence than to be influenced ; 

 and gradually as the circle of his acquaintance widened so as to include 

 such uotable men as John Mill, Sterling, Maurice, Leigh Hunt, 

 Browning, Thackeray, and others of established or rising fame in all 

 walks of speculation and literature, the recognition of his rare per- 

 soual powers of influence became more general and deep. In particular 

 in that London circle in which John Sterling moved was his personal 

 influence great, even while as yet he was but the anonymous author 

 of the ' Sartor Resartus ' papers, and of numerous other contributions, 

 also anonymous, to ' Fraser's Magazine, ' and the ' Edinburgh,' ' Foreign 

 Quarterly, ' British aud Foreign,' and ' Westminster ' Reviews. It was 

 not till 1837, or his forty-second year, that his name, already so well 

 known to an inner circle of admirers, was openly associated with a 

 work fully proportional to his powers. This was his ' French Revo- 

 lution : a History,' in three volumes, the extraordinary merits of which 

 as at once a history and a gorgeous prose-epic are known to all. In 1838 

 the 'Sartor Resartus' papers already republished in the United States, 

 were put forth collectively with his name ; and in the same year his 

 various scattered articles in periodicals, after having similarly received 

 the honour of republication in America, were given to the world in 

 four volumes in their chronological series from 1827 to 1837, under 

 the title of ' Miscellanies." Mr. Carlyle's next publication was his 

 little tract on ' Chartism,' published in 1839, in which, to use tho 

 words of one of his critics, " he first broke ground on the Condition of 

 England Question." 



During the time when these successive publications were carry- 

 ing his name through the land, Mr. Carlyle appeared in a new 

 capacity, and delivered four courses of lectures in London to select 

 but crowded audiences, including many of the aristocracy both of 

 rank and of literature the first, a course on ' German Litera- 

 ture,' delivered at Willis's Rooms in 1837; the second, a course on 

 'The History of Literature, or the Successive Periods of European 

 Culture,' delivered in Edward-street, Portman-square, in 1838; the 

 third, a course on ' The Revolutions of Modern Europe,' delivered iu 

 1839 ; and the fourth, a course on ' Heroes, Hero-worship and the 

 Heroic iu History,' delivered iu 1840. This last course alone was 

 published ; and it became more immediately popular than any of the 

 works which had preceded it. It was followed in 1843 by 'Past and 

 Present,' a work contrasting in a historico-pliilosophical spirit English 

 society of the middle ages with English society in our own day; and 

 this again in 18-15 by ' Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with 

 elucidations and a connecting narrative ; ' such being the unpretending 

 form which a work originally intended to be a history of Cromwell 

 and his times ultimately assumed. By the year 1849 this work had 

 reached a third edition. In 1850 appeared the 'L:itter-Day Pamphlets," 

 in which, more than iu any previous publication, the author spoko 

 out in the character of a social and political censor of his own age. 

 From their very nature as stern denunciations of what the author 

 considered contemporary fallacies, wrongs, and hypocrisies, these 

 pamphlets produced a storm of critical indignation against Mr. Carlyle, 

 which was still raging when, in 1851, ha gave to the world hia 

 ' Life of John Sterling." While we write (April 1856) this, with the 

 exception of some papers in periodicals, is the last publication that 

 has proceeded from, his pen ; but at present the British public are 

 anxiously expecting a ' History of the Life and Times of Frederick tho 

 Great," in which he is known to have been long engaged. A collection of 

 some of the most striking opinions, sentiments, and descriptions con- 

 tained in all his works hitherto written has been published iu a single 

 volume entitled 'Passages selected from the Writings of Thomas 

 Carlyle' (1855), from the memoir prefixed to which by the editor, 

 Mr. Thomas Ballantyne, we have derived most of the facts for thia 

 notice. 



An appreciation of Mr. Carlyle's genius and of his influence on 

 British thought and literature is not to be looked for here, and 

 indeed is hardly possible in the still raging conflict of opinions one 

 might even say, passions and parties respecting him. The following 

 remarks however by one of his critics, seem to us to express what all 

 must admit to be the literal truth : " It is nearly half a generation 

 since Mr. Carlyle became an intellectual power in this country ; and 

 certainly rarely, if ever, in the history of literature has such a 

 phenomenon been witnessed as that of his influence. Throughout the 

 whole atmosphere of this island his spirit has diffused itself, so that 

 there is probably not an educated man under forty years of age, from 

 Caithness to Cornwall, that can honestly say that he has not beeu 

 more or less affected by it. Not to speak of his express imitators, 

 one can hardly take up a book or a periodical without finding some 

 expression or some modo of thinking that bears the mint-mark of his 

 genius." The same critic notices it as a peculiarity in Mr. Carlyle's 

 literary career that, whereas most men begin with the vehement and 

 the controversial, and gradually become calm and acquiescent in things 

 as they arc, he began as an artist in pure literature, a critic of poetry, 

 song, and the drama, and has ended as a vehement moralist and 

 preacher of social reforms, disdaining the etiquette and even the name 

 of pure literature, aud more anxious to rouse than to please. With 

 this development of his views of his own function as a writer, is 

 connected the development of his literary style, from the quiet and 

 pleasing, though still solid and deep beauty of his earlier writings, to 



