CARLYLE. 133 



The very qualities, it seems to us, which came so near 

 making a great poet of Mr. Carlyle, disqualify him for 

 the office of historian. The poet's concern is with the 

 appearances of things, with their harmony in that whole 

 which the imagination demands for its satisfaction, and 

 their truth to that ideal nature which is the proper 

 object of poetry. History, unfortunately, is very far 

 from being ideal, still farther from an exclusive interest 

 in those heroic or typical figures which answer all the 

 wants of the epic and the drama and fill their utmost 

 artistic limits. Mr. Carlyle has an unequalled power and 

 vividness in painting detached scenes, in bringing out in 

 their full relief the oddities or peculiarities of character ; 

 but he has a far feebler sense of those gradual changes 

 of opinion, that strange communication of sympathy 

 from mind to mind, that subtile influence of very subor 

 dinate 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 peo 

 ple 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 condi 

 tions 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 nation 

 ality, Protestant nationality too, and an intimate convic 

 tion of its advantages, the war might have ended quite 



