214 FRESH FIELDS 



cient in the historical sense, the sense of devel- 

 opment, and of compensation in history; but in 

 vividness of apprehension of men and events, and 

 power of portraiture, he is undoubtedly without a 

 rival. "Those devouring eyes and that portraying 

 hand," Emerson says. 



Those who contract their view of Carlyle till they 

 see only his faults do a very unwise thing. Nearly 

 all his great traits have their shadows. His power 

 of characterization sometimes breaks away into cari- 

 cature; his command of the picturesque leads him 

 into the grotesque; his eloquent denunciation at 

 times becomes vituperation; his marvelous power 

 to name things degenerates into outrageous nick- 

 naming; his streaming humor, which, as Emerson 

 said, floats every object he looks upon, is not free 

 from streaks of the most crabbed, hide-bound ill- 

 humor. Nearly every page has a fringe of these 

 things, and sometimes a pretty broad one, but they 

 are by no means the main matter, and often lend an 

 additional interest. The great personages, the great 

 events, are never caricatured, though painted with 

 a bold, free hand, but there is in the border of the 

 picture all manner of impish and grotesque strokes. 

 In " Frederick " there is a whole series of secondary 

 men and incidents that are touched off with the hand 

 of a master caricaturist. Some peculiarity of feature 

 or manner is seized upon, magnified, and made prom- 

 inent on all occasions. We are never suffered to for- 

 get George the Second's fish eyes and gartered leg; 

 nor the lean May- pole mistress of George the First; 



