place. Adaptation of his topics to his | lap-dog, a fussy sofa-pet of one of the audience was not Carlyle's speciality, mongrel pre-fox-terrier types, which and there were times when his specula- was in the habit of obtruding its prestions and language were too transcen- ence in ways detrimental to conversadental to be understanded of immature tion and to the visitor's temper. youth. The intelligence must, however, The revolutionary events of 1848 have been dull, indeed, that was not were, of course, the frequent subjects struck by his phenomenal command of of Carlyle's talk. With the "oppressed words, the variety and aptness of his nationalities " of the period he had metaphors and illustrations, and by the little sympathy; partial exceptions to torrents of racy, humorous expression his indifference had a personal origin, which poured from his lips. Mr. and were owing to his acquaintance Froude's verdict that in conversation with Louis Blanc, Mazzini, and other Carlyle was No. 1, and no one else refugees. He was very fond of making anywhere, may be open to revision. fun of Louis Philippe and Monsieur His impromptu style was, doubtless, Guizot, as the ensuing example shows. preferable to the "book-in-breeches," ," He mentioned that he had received two learnt-by-heart manner of Macaulay. hundred letters requesting him to lecture Still, good talk, in the Johnsonian sense, on this or that subject (subsequently, is unconstrained dialogue, and Carlyle's no doubt, to the course on heroes, was oratorical monologue, oracular as which was his fourth experiment of the the voice of Delphi, and calculated to kind), but that his rule was to decline, suggest meditation rather than reply. as the business was disagreeable, and, After an evening in Cheyne Row, Soc- in England, held to be undignified. He rates or Frederick the Great might would, however, now suggest that Guizot have said: "C'est magnifique, mais ce should go round lecturing on Revolun'est pas le guerre." Again, his voice, tion, showing the ex-king on the platthough of fair baritone resonance, was form as a kind of grand experimental hardly majestic, his delivery constantly illustration of his thesis. Thackeray sank into a sing-song recitative, his has said: "Women are great brutes to obligato laughter, or guffaw, was hearty, each other." According to my knowlbut had not the genuine Homeric ring, edge, historians are open to some little while his Border twang by no means reproach of this kind: their inter-vitusuggested to a Southron's ear the tone peration is endless. As to Carlyle, from of the eternal melodies." The flow first to last he was in the habit of of reason in Cheyne Row was power- speaking of Macaulay as a humbug; his fully and agreeably stimulated by Mrs. estimates of his rival's power and perCarlyle. At this time, if there were formances always required the applicaany remains of the beauty with which tion of a multiplier of at least ten to she has been credited, she was some- bring them within the neighborhood of what worn for her years, was always the truth. When the first two volumes witty, spoke with a strong infusion of of the " History of England" appeared, the accent of Caledonia stern and wild, the Rev. F. D. Maurice, with whom I had great stores of miscellaneous knowl- was acquainted, praised the work to me edge, and was rated by some who had in a warm and adequate manner, reaccess to the intellectual queens of the marking that it showed a marked London society of the time as "the advance, both in substance and style, cleverest of all the clever women." But on the brilliant but less solid "Essays." she did not carry the heavy conversa- Carlyle would not hear of this, and tional guns which Mrs. Grote, for in- contemptuously replied: "Reading Mastance, would sometimes bring to bear, caulay is like going into Howell and making her utterances sound like the James's shop." For the judgments of deliverances of wisdom heard in some Mr. Maurice he had otherwise some hoary Grecian temple. Regard for her esteem. He expressed high approval could not make her intimates love her of the little periodical called Politics for VOL. LXXX. 4128 LIVING AGE. 66 the People, a cheap organ of Christian | things your eye will discover if it look earquasi-democracy, which Mr. Maurice nestly; such things are the real poems and had just started in conjunction with dramas (God himself the author), which it Kingsley, but thought that the hewers best of all beseems a man to try if he can of wood and drawers of water, to whom do a little towards interpreting. it was addressed, would not read it, that it has many good qualities in esse and Of your manner of writing I will say only which was so. Of Kingsley, as poet at in posse, and that I know no rule so imporleast, his opinion was very low. He tant as this one, which, indeed, if well unsaid that he had stuck at the third page derstood, includes all rules whatsoever : of the "Saints' Tragedy," called it "Be wisely brief." Brief, not in phrase delightful" in the sarcastic sense, and only, but still more in thought. Divide the spoke of the book as worthless except living from the dead! let nothing of exfor the presence of Maurice's admirable traneous or unessential enter into your preface. If the whole of Carlyle's cor- living figure (if it is to live). Everywhere respondence with members of the sev-hit the nail on the head, and do not strike eral branches of our family had been at it again! With many thanks and reYours ever truly, preserved it would have filled a chest. gards, But carelessness, liberality to collectors of autographs, and systematic habits of letter-burning have reduced the original bulk to a very small residue, of which maxim "Be wisely brief" is seriously surviving fraction only a portion is suit-transgressed. When involved in that able for present publication. I quote a work, Carlyle's conversation and correletter addressed by Carlyle in 1848 to the eldest of my brothers, who had published an essay on "Hamlet," in which he preferred the interpretations of Coleridge against those of Goethe: Chelsea: 20 December, 1848. T. CARLYLE. Some modern critics would say that in the "Frederick the Great" the spondence were thickly larded with growls at the "nightmare king and his century: What have I to do with this man," he said, "or he with me?" My avocations having called me to Stuttgart, I made some report to Carlyle on the local situation. His reply, of which portions are appended, shows the pessimism with which he regarded his prospects of success in his great enterprise : Chelsea, London: 5 june, 1857. I got a very pleasant letter from Stuttgard a long while ago, giving pleasant intimations of the scene round you in that old Würtemberg metropolis. . . . One thing is very certain to me: If you are as well off as my wishes for you indicate, there will be nothing to complain of. I will hope not only that you are happy for the present time; but that you are daily gathering new culture, experience, solidity, and not only knowledge but wisdom-daily new ability to do your work in this world well — which by and by may amount to something far better than being "happy.". Oremus, I looked over the copy you gave me (for which were, silently, sent many thanks) when it arrived here: I had much to praise in the gentle, assiduous, and pious spirit with which the task had been undertaken and performed; a really careful, industrious, lucid, and luminous reading of the play of "Hamlet ;" and I pleased myself with the hope that your literary tendency would yet lead you into still fruitfuller fields, towards the reading and interpretation of objects much more in need of being "read" (some of them), and better worth reading too, than the play of "Hamlet." "Amlethus," I find from old Saxon, is nothing but a Norse myth, adumbrating the course of the sun and annual seasons; a dream of the human brain, instead of a created fact of the Almighty Maker; towards which latter class of objects, I persist in believing, the thought and reading-speremus. faculty of all serious men decidedly directs I can send you no news of England, nor itself. What say you now to taking up a biography of some noble man, unknown or misknown to the vulgar, much to their damage; some bit of authentic historical narrative and delineation, worthy of a human soul's taking trouble with it? Such any even of myself - life with me, for these twelve or twice twelve months past, having been but a dark and indeed almost deadly struggle in the abyss of German historical stupor-endeavoring (with almost no success at all) to extract some human record of Frederick the Great," as he is called, out of that alarming element. Never in nature had I the notion before of such a task as this proves to me, in this place, at this time of day, in these circumstances generally! But I may get it done (ill since well is impossible); done on any terms if so much life be allowed me. And, indeed, that is pretty much the one hope I have left-that of getting rid of this intolerable torment-that has made my life black (as it were—yes, and even base, as it were) for five or six years past! The cause of my writing at present is that same business: to get a little light from you perhaps, about a point of Würtemberg history which will come to concern me by and by. He proceeds to unfold a vexata quæstio, too esoteric for statement here, which he had been unable to solve by the help of his London books. Parts of the conclusion of the letter are worth quoting, especially the familiar compliments, so frequent in the “Frederick the Great,' to the historical Dry-as-dusts of Germany. He says: I know the Pfaffs, the Spittlers, the etc., etc. Ach Gott! the only human book I ever read on him (a certain Duke of Würtemberg) (and that by no means a first-rate one) is Strauss's "Life of Schubart ;" and he does not touch on any subject at all. . . . Judge if I want to know the particulars, which no Prussian blockhead will say one word of to me! . . . What does Stuttgard say, especially what do its Antiquar bookshops say of all this? In fact, what am I to say, or think? If there is any knowledge procurable, I ought to try fairly for it; if there is none, I shall in that case know what to say. In short, turn over this matter well in your head (there is no hurry about it); and see gradually whether you cannot pick up an old book or two, etc., etc., or in some way help me. adieu for this time. Chelsea: May, 1863. I am struggling, with all the strength I have, to get that unutterable book gathered into finis in some honest way. For six or eight months to come, my slavery is far beyond that of any penal colony or treadwheel but then perhaps I shall get done. Carlyle's growls at the "nightmare" king had no intermission. Here is another specimen from the quiverful extracted from a letter addressed to my eldest brother at a somewhat earlier date than just quoted : Chelsea: 28 January, 1856. No book I ever undertook has been such a misery to me, from causes extrinsic and intrinsic, as this of "Frederick the Great ;" thoughtlessly gone into, and in which I am still sunk overhead, uncertain yet whether I shall ever get out of it alive. Innumerable things are proven in that enterprise; this, which is worst of all, that I have literally no motive to proceed, except the conscientious reluctance to be quite beaten ; that, in fact, I have little real love for Frederick, and for his century. and its works and ways, contemptuous abhorrence rather than love. I am always, with many affectionate regards and recollections, Yours sincerely, T. CARLYLE. For the five or six years previous to the battle of Sadowa, and a similar period posterior to the battle of Sedan, my recollections of Carlyle show a hiatus. In this interval his wife died, and he And so set himself to compose the "Reminiscences," whose publication caused such lamentable rending of "the sacred body of Homer," and he was overtaken by old age. To this time belongs a letter addressed by him to Blumine, who had one day unexpectedly appeared in Cheyne Row: Yours always truly, T. CARLYLE. Circumstances prevented the researches in question being undertaken, but being subsequently in Holland I stumbled on some original documents of value relating to his nightmare, which were placed at Carlyle's disposal. He replied in a letter from which the following characteristic sentences are taken : Carlyle, to whom, both from tempera- evening, like a dream become real! It set | brim over. In certain cases, however, me thinking for many hours, upon times where veracity and deep feeling inlong gone, and persons and events that can spired the matter and the manner, he never cease to be important and affecting has risen above himself. Of this it will to me. That of postponing dinner was a perhaps be thought that an example has mighty indifferent matter- — so unluckily it been furnished in his expressions of always is in this house! But I grudged to be specially unwell that day (below par, in grief on the death of his Shooter's Hill regard to sleep, etc. for three weeks past), friend, and the letter just quoted is a and never fairly to see you except in chia-pleasing proof that he could excel in Written by a roscuro, while you talked. I might indeed a kindly, natural vein. have ordered candles (or lighted the candles gallivanting old gentleman like, for inthat were), but I never thought of that stance, the Lord Jeffrey of the "Remsimple expedient, or if it did suggest itself, iniscences," this epistle would not of rejected it as a disturbance or intrusion. necessity indicate the existence in past You must mend that by making me another times of passages of sentiment between visit when the lights are better disposed the parties concerned. Coming from towards us. With a great deal of readiness I send you the photograph which you are pleased to care for having: sorry only that it is such a grim affair (thanks to time, and what he brings and takes), though indeed this was never much a bright image, not even forty-eight years ago, when your bright eyes first took it in. As to visiting, I grieve that I am no longer fit for that operation; so sad, so weak and nervous; tumbled to pieces by the racket of a late dinner, etc., and generally, as net results, losing all power of sleep on such occasions. I tried the adventure twice last year for a few days each time; but found I really must not BY MRS. ANDREW CROSSE. again. Sandhurst, therefore, especially in this season, I fear is forbidden altogether, "I HAVE never been able to sit down but if you stay in Aldershot till winter go, to remember," said Croker; "converand if there are railways to the neighbor-sation," he added, "breaks through the hood, I will flatter myself with coming thither some day, and making a call of surface that time spreads over events, three or four hours, which really is the and turns up anecdotes as the plough safest plan. My capabilities, you see, are sometimes does old coins." So it Last night, in the very limited, and are not likely to become chanced with me. less so; my right hand itself is unwilling course of conversation, a friend renow and then even to write; and in effect peated Landor's well-known lines to all round me is the sound as of evening Rose Aylmer. There was something in bells, which are not sad only, or ought not the tone and cadence of the speaker's to be, but beautiful also, and blessed and voice that touched and reverberated on quiet. No more to-day, dear lady: my best the chord of memory, and without conwishes and affectionate regards will abide scious volition, I recalled what else had with you to the end. been forgotten- an evening long ago, when my husband and I were the guests of Walter Savage Landor. It was in the autumn, at his Bath lodgings, we had partaken of our simple dinner on the round table in the same room; twilight had deepened, and the fire-light rather than the antique pair of candles lit up the grim "Old Masters" that crowded all the wall space. Yours ever truly, T. CARLYLE. Carlyle is not generally ranked with the great artists of the epistolary style. His correspondence, in his middle and later periods especially, has little of the gaiety, eloquence, and epigram with which the letters of Byron, Scott, and, to take a recent name, of M. Doudan, From Temple Bar. OLD MEMORIES INTERVIEWED. But to Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes A night of memories and sighs I consecrate to thee. The effect of the resonant pathos of his melodious voice, together with the glow of firelight on features mobile with deepest feeling, so transfigured the old man's face, graven though it was by time and sorrow, that he looked young again, and I could fancy I had for once seen the poet in his prime! "Oh, the soul keeps its youth!" How truly said by her, to whom love and youth came in Landor's "Antony and Octavius," which formed the keynote of much of his more serious moods. He says: My soul Assures me wisdom is humanity; And they who want it, wise as they may seem, confident in their own sight and strength, Reach not the scope they aim at. night we talked not of the epoch-making Masaccio, or balanced the claims of Mabuse to pre-eminence in the Teutonic school. At other times Landor had much to say on these and kindred subjects; to-night he was not even in the mind for asserting, with his usual unreasoning vehemence, the absolute genuineness of every picture in his possession. This evening the poet's mood was one of peace; he was under the spell of memory, he was thinking of the well-loved Rose Aylmer, the friend of his youth. Landor was peculiarly sensitive to local and personal in middle life. There is a fine passage associations. It chanced that we had just come from visiting Mr. Crosse's cousin in Devonshire, Mr. Henry Porter, of Winslade, whose wife was the late Lord Aylmer's niece. This lady had been named Rose Aylmer, in memory of her cousin, for she was born under the same roof, and on the same And sad day, when the poet's love had passed away with her crown of twenty years. Thus it came about that we had been talking of the Aylmers and of the days that were no more. Then Landor, in response, began speaking reverently of his own youth, as men do, looking back at the time when they stood expectant on life's threshold speaking, I repeat reverently he recalled those early years. It was at Tenby, "Sweet Tenby," when the world was young, where he made the acquaintance of the Aylmers. It was during their pleasant intimacy, when books and thoughts were daily interchanged, that the daughter, his especial friend Rose, lent him an Arabian story, which suggested the writing of "Gebir," his first achievement in literature! Rapt in the glamour of the past, we listened to his rising tide of talk, till when he ceased for a space, overborne by the flood of memory, there fell upon us all "the pious silence that gives delight." The silence was broken at length by Landor breathing forth in low but distinct tones his own exquisite lines: Ah, what avails the sceptred race! These pregnant lines help to an understanding of Landor's point of sympathy with Browning, expressed with critical acumen in the verses he addressed to the younger poet, at a time when “none would hear his singing." He says that in "modern times: No man hath walkt along our roads with step So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue So varied in discourse. In saying this Landor anticipated by half a lifetime the verdict which a later generation has passed upon Browning's influence as a poet- an influence the chief factor of which is that same humanity which the soul assures us is wisdom. Landor was a man who delighted to talk about his friends to his friends. Of Southey, I remember he had much to say; things such as one loving brother might say of another. The name of Julius Hare was very frequently on his lips, while in his heart the memory of that pure-minded man was canonized. Liberal and free in speech on religion and politics, before it was the vogue to be thus free, yet might |