102 



bringing out in their full relief *he oddities or peculiarities of 

 character ; but he has a tar feebler sense of those gradual 

 changes of opinion, that strange communication of sympathy 

 from mind to mind, that subtile influence of very subordinate 

 actors in giving a direction to policy or action, which we 

 are wont somewhat vaguely to call the progress of events. 

 His scheme of history is purely an epical one, where only 

 leading figures appear by name and are in any strict sense 

 operative. He has no conception of the people as anything 

 else than an element of mere brute force in political problems, 

 and would sniff scornfully at that unpicturesque common- 

 sense of the many, which comes slowly to its conclusions, no 

 doubt, but compels obedience even from rulers the most 

 despotic when once its mind is made up. His history of 

 Frederick is, of course, a Fritziad ; but next to his hero, the 

 cane of the drill-sergeant and iron ramrods appear to be the 

 conditions which to his mind satisfactorily account for the 

 result of the Seven Years War. It is our opinion, which 

 subsequent events seem to justify, that, had there not been 

 in the Prussian people a strong instinct of nationality, Pro 

 testant nationality too, aiid an intimate conviction of Us 

 advantages, the war might have ended quite otherwise. 

 Frederick II. left the machine of war which he received from 

 his father even more perfect than he found it, yet within a 

 few years of his death it went to pieces before the shock of 

 French armies animated by an idea. Again a few years, and 

 the Prussian soldiery, inspired once more by the old national 

 fervour, were victorious. Were it not for the purely pictu 

 resque bias of Mr. Carlyle s genius, for the necessity which 

 his epical treatment lays upon him of always having a 

 protagonist, we should be astonished that an idealist like 

 him should have so little faith in ideas and so much in 

 matter. 



Mr. Carlyle s manner is not so well suited to the historian 

 as to the essayist. He is always great in single figures and 

 striking episodes, but there is neither gradation nc^^conti- 

 nuity. He has extraordinary patience and conscientiousness 

 in the gathering and sifting of his material, but is scornful of 

 commonplace facts and characters, impatient of whatever 

 will not serve for one of his clever sketches, or group well in 

 a more elaborate figure-piece. He sees history, as it were, 

 by flashes of lightning. A single scene, whether a landscape 



