CAELYLE. 120 



assimilating, as he grows older, more and more nearly to 

 its principles and practice. It is no longer the sagacious 

 and moderate Goethe who is his type of what is highest in 

 human nature, but far rather some Gbtz of the Iron Hand, 

 some assertor of the divine legitimacy of Faustreckt. 

 It is odd to conceive the fate of Mr. Carlyle under the 

 sway of any of his heroes, — how Cromwell would have 

 scorned him as a babbler more long-winded than Prynne, 

 but less clear and practical, — how Friedrich would have 

 scoffed at his tirades as dumm.es Zeug not to be compared 

 with the romances of Crebillon fils, or possibly have 

 clapped him in a marching regiment as a fit subject for 

 the cane of the sergeant. Perhaps something of Mr. 

 Carlyle's irritability is to be laid to the account of his 

 early schoolmastership at Ecclefechan. This great booby 

 World is such a dull boy, and will not learn the lesson 

 we have taken such pains in expounding for the fiftieth 

 time. Well, then, if eloquence, if example, if the awful 

 warning of other little boys who neglected their acci- 

 dence and came to the gallows, if none of these avail, the 

 birch at least is left, and we will try that. The dominie 

 spirit has become every year more obtrusive and in- 

 tolerant in Mr. Carlyle's writing, and the rod, instead of 

 being kept in its place as a resource for desperate cases, 

 has become the alpha and omega of all successful train- 

 ing, the one divinely-appointed means of human enlight- 

 enment and progress, — in short, the final hope of that 

 absurd animal who fancies himself a little lower than 

 the angels. Have we feebly taken it for granted that 

 the distinction of man was reason 1 Never was there a 

 more fatal misconception. It is in the gift of unreason 

 that we are unenviably distinguished from the brutes, 

 whose nobler privilege of instinct saves them from our 

 blunders and our crimes. 



But since Mr. Carlyle has become possessed with the 



