112 CARLYLE, 



on the ground that a general s drab ought to have a handle 

 to her name. Mr. Carlyle murmurs in a mild parenthesis 

 that we rather regret this ! (Vol. iii. p. 559.) This is his 

 usual way of treating unpleasant matters, sidling by with a 

 deprecating shrug of the shoulders. Not that he ever wil 

 fully suppresses anything. On the contrary, there is no 

 greater proof of his genius than the way in which, while he 

 seems to paint a character with all its disagreeable traits, he 

 contrives to win our sympathy for it, nay, almost our liking. 

 This is conspicuously true of his portrait of Friedriclrs 

 father ; and that he does not succeed in making Friedrich 

 himself attractive is a strong argument with us that the fault 

 is in the subject and not the artist. ^* 



The book, we believe, has been comparatively unsuccessful 

 as a literary venture. Nor do we wonder at it. It is dispro 

 portionately long, and too much made up of those descrip 

 tions of battles to read which seems even more difficult than 

 to have won the victory itself, more disheartening than to 

 have suffered the defeat. To an American, also, the warfare 

 seemed Lilliputian in the presence of a conflict so much 

 larger in its proportions and significant in its results. The 

 interest, moreover, flags decidedly toward the close, where 

 the reader cannot help feeling that the author loses breath 

 somewhat painfully under the effort of so prolonged a course. 

 Mr. Carlyle h?vS evidently devoted to his task a labour that 

 may be justly called prodigious. Not only has he sifted all 

 the German histories and memoirs, but has visited every 

 battle-field, and describes them with an eye for country that 

 is without rival among historians. The book is evidently an 

 abridgment of even more abundant collections, and yet as it 

 stands the matter overburdens the work. It is a bundle of 

 lively episodes rather than a continuous narrative. In this 

 respect it contrasts oddly with the concinnity of his own 

 earlier Life of Schiller. But the episodes are lively, the 

 humour and pathos spring from a profound nature, the 

 sketches of character are masterly, the seizure of every pic 

 turesque incident infallible, and the literary judgments those 

 of a thorough scholar and critic. There is, of course, the 

 usual amusing objurgation of Dryasdust and his rubbish- 

 heaps, the usual assumption of omniscience, and the usual 

 certainty of the lively French lady of being always in the 

 right; yet we cannot help thinking that a little of Dryasdust s 



