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Cornell University Library 
 PR 773.S79 
 
 Modern English prose writers. 
 
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Cornell University 
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BUST OF THACKERAY. 
 
 IN THE POETS' CORNER, WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 
MODERN ENGLISH 
 PROSE WRITERS 
 
 With the 
 
 Compliments ofthe Author 
 
 G. p. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 NEW YORK & LONDON 
 Zbe ftnicIietDocitec pvees 
 
 '897 
 
COPYFIGHT, l8g7 
 BY 
 
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 Entered at Sutionere' Hall, London 
 
 Ube linicfierboclict pteee, vuw Dork 
 
PREFACE 
 
 IT is time to take a review of the century. 
 Periods of history are not usually confined 
 within even and symmetrical dates, but the present 
 era clearly began with the appointment of Na- 
 poleon as sole consul in the year 1800. How 
 much longer it will last no wise person will predict, 
 but the present decade seems so quiet and unevent- 
 ful, that it reminds one of those periods of uncertain 
 weather which precede the gathering of a storm. It 
 has been an era of scientific discoveries, commercial 
 enterprise, and mechanical inventions. The cen- 
 tury has also witnessed terrific political convulsions ; 
 and it has given birth to a literature distinguished 
 for its originality, its delicacy, and boldness of ex- 
 pression. A review of what has been accomplished 
 since the year 1800, could not be condensed into one 
 volume, or perhaps into twenty. Every department 
 of art, science, and literature, as well as politics, 
 economics, etc., would have to be represented. 
 The results of science and economics can be abbre- 
 viated : not so with literature and art. Here a full 
 statement is essential to a just understanding of the 
 subject. Criticism itself is literature, and amenable 
 to the laws of prose composition. The object of 
 
IV 
 
 Preface. 
 
 the present volume is to give a thorough account 
 of the most eminent and influential prose-writers 
 who have flourished in England during this epoch. 
 Biographies of most of them are already before the 
 public ; and what we are concerned with here is the 
 character and quality of the work they performed. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction i 
 
 Historical Introduction 17 
 
 Macaulay , . .23 
 
 T!Iarlyle 59 
 
 FrOUDE Ill 
 
 Walter Scott 164 
 
 Thackeray 186 
 
 Dickens 210 
 
 Marian Evans .231 
 
 RUSKIN ^ . . . 258 
 
 F. Max Muller 288 
 
 Matthew Arnold '. *^ 310 
 
 Appendix^^' ^~- - 
 
 A— Lowell ON Carlyle's " Frederick " . 331 
 B — Froude's American Critics . . . 335 
 
MODERN ENGLISH PROSE WRITERS 
 
It is a. pleasure to stand upon the shore, and to see ships tossed 
 upon the sea ; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle, and see 
 a battle and the adventures thereof below : but no pleasure is com- 
 parable to the standing upon the vantage ground of Truth (a hill not to 
 be commanded, and where the air is always clear and serene), and to 
 see the errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the 
 vale below. 
 
 Lord Bacon. 
 
 The foolish think as they will : the wise will as they think. 
 
 Wasson. 
 
Modern English Prose Writers 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 IT is generally recognized that English literature 
 in the eighteenth century was by no means 
 equal to that of the French, either in its artistic 
 quahty, or its influence on civilization ; and still less 
 favorably does it appear when compared with the 
 somewhat later German literature. In the nineteenth 
 century, however, it has again retaken its position as 
 foremost among all nations; abounding in a good 
 number of the finest poets, and in excellent prose- 
 writers, too numerous to be easily counted. In 
 critical and historical work, the Germans still con- 
 tinue to lead the world, and I notice that most of the 
 foot-notes in Hallam's Middle Ages refer to French 
 authorities ; but in Germany, Heine has proved the 
 only poet comparable to Byron or Tennyson, and 
 France has not produced a novelist equal to Thack- 
 eray or George Eliot. The next place ought prop- 
 erly to be assigned to American literature, which if 
 it had received equal encouragement might have 
 pushed the mother country to a pretty close race. 
 
 I 
 
Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 The distinguishing character of the best literature 
 of the present century both in England and America, 
 has been freedom and variety of style, almost bor- 
 dering on eccentricity. If we look through the best 
 English writers of the eighteenth century, we find- 
 differences of style, it is true, but nothing like the 
 difference between Tennyson and Browning, be- 
 tween Carlyle and Froude, or between Emerson 
 and Lowell. And this, on the whole, is to be con- 
 sidered an advantage; indicating a larger liberality 
 of thought, and independence of judgment. The 
 greatest painters are those who have the most de- 
 cided peculiarities of style. Small hills all look 
 alike, but every mountain peak has an outline of its 
 own. A Titian was never mistaken for a Raphael, 
 nor a Correggio for a Van Dyck. A characteristic 
 style is only possible through character ; and as soon 
 as literature becomes conventional and impersonal 
 its best qualities of authorship have departed from 
 it. It requires rare courage to write in a style like 
 Browning's or Emerson's. It requires courage 
 enough to publish any book with the consciousness 
 of what Mr. Snigidibs is likely to say about it ; but 
 to publish a book to which critics of every class 
 are likely to be opposed, may be compared to the 
 French cavalry charge at Sedan. 
 
 Among so many excellent prose-writers, how are 
 we to distinguish those who are of superior and en- 
 during value ? Matthew Arnold made a classifica- 
 tion between Aristotle as a great philosopher, and 
 Cicero as a great writer. Plato was both. The dis- 
 tinction lies between those who are artists in their 
 
Introduction. 
 
 particular line, and those who are not. Lord Bacon 
 holds the first rank among English philosophical 
 writers, but his Essays and his History of Henry 
 VH. are also fine literature. John S. Mill and Her- 
 - bert Spencer are celebrated for their philosophical 
 works, and they also wrote very good English, but we 
 can hardly call it literature. By the same rule we 
 dispose of a good number of historians. Greene's 
 History is a useful condensation, but its very con- 
 densation prevents it from having a value as art. 
 The historical researches of Mr. Freeman will always 
 be valuable, but he lacks style as a writer, and has 
 injured his work by the adoption of impracticable 
 political theories. Professor Seelye's History of 
 Prussia during the dictatorship of Von Stein is a 
 valuable book though somewhat verbose, but his 
 Life of Napoleon can only be designated as an obsti- 
 nate effort to distort and even falsify history. If 
 we take Von Hoist, who has written the best history 
 of American politics, as a standard to measure by, 
 we find only three — Macaulay, Carlyle, and Froude 
 — who equal or surpass him. 
 
 Darwin, Huxley, and Tyndall are admirable 
 writers of scientific prose, and something more than 
 that. They have almost created a literature of 
 science — if that were possible, — and Tyndall, espe- 
 cially, has gleams of true imagination. The con- 
 sideration of their work, however, belongs properly 
 to scientific records, and not to the present treatise. 
 
 Of novelists there has been a prodigious number, 
 whose productions range all the way from trash to 
 the very highest merit. Lord Lytton, Charles 
 
4 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Kingsley, Charles Reade, Miss Sheppard, Charlotte 
 Bronte, Disraeli, Wilkie Collins, Anthony TroUope, 
 Jane Austen, George MacDonald, Miss Muloch, 
 have all written interesting books; and there may 
 be others. The Caxtons may pass, perhaps, for a 
 classic, though more like Lucan than Horace, Jane 
 Eyre offers an example of womanly devotion as rare 
 in English literature (at least since Shakespeare's 
 time) as the Alcestes of Euripides. Christie John- 
 stone, which was greatly admired by Emerson, 
 though it has some of the faults of Macaulay's 
 essays, is a bright, spirited story. John Halifax 
 was the first, and is, I believe, the best of Miss 
 Mulock's stories, and certainly worth reading. 
 Collins and Trollope are keen, sensible writers, and 
 furnish us with pleasant pictures of English home 
 life. Charles Auchester stands by itself, and illus- 
 trates the power which fine music has to mould the 
 lives of men and women. Counterparts is even a 
 more remarkable story; the only instance in Eng- 
 lish fiction where human nature is treated indepen- 
 dently, as it is in Wilhelm Meister, of all arbitrary 
 rules. Disraeli's novels are strongly artificial, and 
 their art is made subservient to political purposes. 
 They have a kind of nickel-plated character, but 
 they are also very bright, and his exposition of the 
 methods by which modern Catholicism makes con- 
 verts will go into the archives of religious history.* 
 
 * A well-known American lady, who was converted in Rome more 
 than twenty years ago, wrote, while her mind was still doubtful, a 
 number of letters on religious tenets to her former pastor in New 
 York City. These letters never reached him, while those to other 
 friends in America were duly received. 
 
Introduction. 
 
 Disraeli's writing is not art, but an exercise of in- 
 genuity. 
 
 If, however, we compare any of the foregoing with 
 Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, or George Eliot, we find 
 them not only at a disadvantage in their knowledge 
 of human nature, but also suffering from some other 
 deficiency which causes them to fall short of true 
 greatness. Charles Reade has a brusque, feverish, 
 and at times sensational method of expressing him- 
 self. Miss Muloch frequently becomes common, 
 and fails to explain, sufficiently, those transitions 
 from one event to another, by which the movement 
 of a story is preserved. Miss Sheppard lacked prac- 
 tical experience ; and Miss Austen, according to her 
 own confession, wrote on an ivory tablet with a 
 diamond pen, — that is, she is perfect in a narrow 
 sphere. It is not easy to find fault with Collins and 
 TroUope, and I suppose critics would place them 
 next to Dickens. They are exempt, it is true, from 
 some of Dickens's faults, but, at the same time, they 
 never rise above a certain level. They have not 
 Dickens's deep sympathy with the poor and op- 
 pressed; nor do they feel Thackeray's finer sym- 
 pathy for noble natures, in their struggles and trials 
 with the more brutal sort of humanity. There is a 
 fault in Kingsley's writing known to musicians as 
 bravura. Hypatia is a brilliant historical novel, 
 but German critics have called him to account for 
 his unwarrantable injustice to Hypatia herself. 
 
 Harriet Martineau was a vigorous writer and her 
 book on Egypt has even a kind of scenic grandeur; 
 but her philanthropic writings are too strongly pre- 
 
Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 judiced. They served their purpose and may now 
 be dismissed. 
 
 In the literature of art, Ruskin stands alone. 
 Eastlake, Walter Pater, and Mr. Crowe are more 
 trustworthy critics, but they do not possess a tithe 
 of Ruskin's insight and eloquence. 
 
 John H. Newman and Francis W. Newman re- 
 mind one of the story of the two friends who had 
 started to go around the world in different direc- 
 tions, trusting that they would meet on the opposite 
 side of the globe. Where one member of a family 
 develops some special trait of character, and makes 
 a point of cultivating it, it often happens that some 
 other member is affected in precisely the opposite 
 manner. These two brothers, whose elevated lives 
 have been the admiration of their countrymen during 
 the present century, would seem to have differed 
 chiefly in independence of character. 
 
 Francis Newman had a mind of his own. He was 
 a devoted student, a thorough investigator, and 
 formed opinions for himself on all subjects, reli- • 
 gious, political, and social. He neither lacked 
 courage in uttering his views, nor consistency in 
 maintaining them. It is likely that he missed in 
 this way the influence he might have possessed over 
 his own people; for men are obliged to act in 
 masses, if their action is to be of any effect. His 
 writing is clear, cool-headed, analytical, and pene- 
 trating, — by no means brilliant or impressive. 
 
 J. H. Newman was more of an artist than his 
 brother, and far more sympathetic. He was often 
 
Introduction. 7 
 
 an eloquent speaker, his writing has a more distin- 
 guished style, and he was consequently more popu- 
 lar; but he lacked independence of character. He 
 commenced his public career as a faithful vassal of 
 the Church of England, and closed it as an humble 
 servant of the Church of Rome. To trace the course 
 of this mental and moral transition, would be a 
 valuable study, but this is not the place for it. 
 What we have to show here is, that the man was 
 not only inconsistent in the beginning and the end 
 of his life; that his life was not only illogical and 
 contradictory as a whole, but also was inconsistent 
 in detail ; and that despite his superior nature and 
 rare talent, — in spite of his long-continued public 
 activity, and the eloquent memorials he has left of 
 it, — Cardinal Newman's work belongs to the past, 
 and does not form an ingredient in the solid stock 
 of English literature. 
 
 It is inevitable that a young writer should be ag- 
 gressive, and attempt to win his spurs by attacking 
 the supposed abuses of his time. It is the conflict 
 between the old and the new; but the manner in 
 which he does this is often significant of his future 
 usefulness. The question is, whether he shivers his 
 lance like Wendell Phillips against a true national 
 evil, or like Don Quixote tilts against a wind mill. 
 The following extract will give some apprehension 
 of the way in which J. H. Newman attempted it. 
 
 " We must deal with the Church of Rome as we would 
 toward a friend who is visited by derangement ; in great 
 affliction, with all affectionate tender thoughts, with 
 
8 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 tearful regret and a broken heart, but still with a steady 
 eye and a firm hand. For in truth she is a Church be- 
 side herself, abounding in noble gifts and rightful titles, 
 but unable to use them religiously ; crafty, obstinate, 
 wilful, malicious, cruel, unnatural, as madmen are. Or 
 rather, she may be said to resemble a demoniac ; pos- 
 sessed with principles, thought, and tendencies, not her 
 own, in outward form and in outward powers what God 
 made her, but ruled within by an inexorable spirit, who 
 is sovereign in his management over her, and most subtle 
 and most successful in the use of her gifts. Then she is 
 her real self only in name, and, till God vouchsafe to 
 restore her, we must treat her as if she were that evil 
 one which governs her. 
 
 Such intemperate poetizing is excusable in times 
 of great public agitation, but the Catholic Church 
 never assumed a more modest and unaggressive atti- 
 tude in Great Britain than between 1830 and 1840, 
 when this address was delivered. We have only to 
 look around us, in our own families, to perceive the 
 good which Catholicism accomplishes. It serves as 
 a light and a path to the uneducated now, as it 
 served them during the dark ages, when the Church 
 of St. Peter was the only hope of civilization. In 
 country districts, it is true, the poorer classes can 
 generally find gospel comfort, but in the cities 
 Catholicism is their only refuge. At least in Amer- 
 ican cities it is so. 
 
 Twenty years later we find Cardinal Newman lec- 
 turing on education from the Catholic point of view. 
 In true course he treats of Abelard, who may fairly 
 be called the founder of modern education. Glad- 
 
Introduction. 
 
 stone speaks of him as a transcendent genius ; and 
 it was the impetus which he gave to the University 
 of Paris that placed it in a position before all others. 
 He introduced reason into mediaeval life ; he was to 
 the twelfth century, what Luther and Melanchthon 
 were to the sixteenth. France has not yet pro- 
 duced a greater man. 
 
 Cardinal Newman does not recognize the whole 
 of Abelard's actuality, but he sees a large portion of 
 it, and he tells us himself how men thronged from 
 all countries to listen to him and be instructed by 
 him, — how the crowd followed him from Paris into 
 the provinces, and built tabernacles for him to lec- 
 ture in. Yet he considers Abelard's life a failure, 
 on account of the H61oise incident and some hereti- 
 cal ideas which he propounded. Cardinal Newman 
 concludes as follows : 
 
 " In reviewing his career, the career of so great 
 an intellect so miserably thrown away, we are re- 
 minded of the famous words of the dying scholar 
 and jurist, which are a lesson to us all ' Heu, vitam 
 perdidi, operose nihil agendo ' — -A happier lot be 
 ours!" 
 
 This last invocation does not appear to have been 
 granted. What this heresy was, would be a most 
 interesting item to us, but the Cardinal prudently 
 refrains from making it known. It could not have 
 been serious, for Abelard was never punished for it. 
 In like manner the Hdoise incident ought to be re- 
 garded in much the same light as Goethe's marriage ; 
 but even if we regard it, as it was considered by his 
 co-temporaries, the evil it occasioned was but an 
 
lO Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 ounce in the scale compared with the weight of 
 good which he accomplished. Cardinal Newman's 
 conclusion is sophistical and pusillanimous. 
 
 There are numerous beautiful passages in his 
 writing, — fine idyllic descriptions of life and char- 
 acter, — but their aesthetic quality does not compen- 
 sate for the lack of those traits which would give it 
 enduring value. The self-contradictory nature of 
 the man constantly reappears, and mars the tissue 
 of his thought. With all his brilliant rhetoric, his 
 English is not always of the purest, being too col- 
 loquial, in many places, for the gravity of his subject. 
 In one of his essays I noticed a sentence more than 
 a page in length, and before I reached the end of it 
 I had forgotten the beginning. People do not write 
 in that manner for any honest purpose. 
 
 Justin McCarthy is of opinion, that the influence 
 of Francis Newman, though not so widely extended, 
 was really more potent than that of his brother. 
 The present age is one in which people care much 
 more for reason than they do for sentiment; an 
 orator impresses them for the time being, but it is 
 the cool-headed logician who finally carries the day. 
 Froude, Thackeray, Tennyson, Browning, and even 
 Matthew Arnold (though he would have resented 
 the obligation), as well as many other public leaders, 
 were all indebted to him for their first mental im- 
 petus. He was the chief of the party of Disestab- 
 lishment ; and it certainly seems a national injustice 
 that whole cities and counties of men, as in Ireland 
 and Wales, should be obliged to pay taxes for a 
 creed which they do not profess. His favorite argu- 
 
Introduction. 1 1 
 
 ment was, to point to the United States of America, 
 where, as he said, all the religious sects exist as in 
 Great Britain, but they are self-supporting, and in 
 no respect dependent on the patronage of the civil 
 authority. It were well if we could consider in this 
 connection Webster's well-deserved eulogy in the 
 Girard Will case on the character of the American 
 clergy, and the efificiency of our system of religious 
 worship. A German writer, however, complains 
 that American ministers of the gospel are too much 
 under the influence of prominent parishioners. 
 This, no doubt, is true in certain cases; but men 
 like Channing, Beecher, Manning and Phillips 
 Brooks have certainly enjoyed all the freedom 
 they could wish for in the pulpit. 
 
 It is doubtful if either of the Newmans was 
 capable of perceiving more than one side of a ques- 
 tion; an unfortunate deficiency where great social 
 and political problems are concerned. Francis 
 Newman thinks that the Reformation arose through 
 the development of nationalities, and the spirit of 
 patriotism in England and Germany. He should 
 rather have said, that nationalities gave the Reform- 
 ation a basis and a sustaining force. His sugges- 
 tion is a valuable one ; but we know that it was the 
 irreligious spirit, and selfish levity of the higher 
 Roman prelates, which led directly to the revolt in 
 Germany. Good Catholics have admitted that their 
 Church was at that time in a sadly demoralized con- 
 dition. 
 
 Buckle ought, perhaps, to be considered with Eng- 
 lish historians, but judged by the character of his 
 
1 2 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 work he belongs with Cardinal Newman. Physical 
 causes are too narrow a basis to build a philosophy of 
 history upon ; and the writer who attempts to prove 
 that in history " all is order, symmetry, and law, 
 and that the movements of nations are solely deter- 
 mined by their antecedents ' ' has a most difficult 
 task before him. It was the difficulty of this under- 
 taking, as some suppose, that killed Mr. Buckle. It 
 is impossible to escape the personal element in his- 
 tory ; and though the laws of cause and effect are in 
 constant operation, the value of an individual will, 
 in certain cases, cannot be overestimated. What 
 would Prussia have been without Frederick, or the 
 United States without Washington and Hamilton ? 
 Let us suppose Bismarck to have been on the throne 
 of France in 1870, and Louis Napoleon or some such 
 person Chancellor of Prussia. Would history have 
 been the same under such conditions ? The true 
 historian does not find symmetry in history, but 
 quite the reverse. The most glorious of human 
 achievements have often an unfinished character. 
 
 If there is any author to whom I do injustice, by 
 the neglect of an elaborate criticism and express 
 valuation of his merits, it is De Quincey. It is long 
 since I have heard his name mentioned in liter- 
 ary conclaves, but Stopford Brooke says of him: 
 " Thomas De Quincey was, among the miscellane- 
 ous writers of his time, the greatest master of Eng- 
 lish prose. De Quincey's style has so peculiar a 
 quality that it stands alone. The sentences are built 
 up like passages in a fugue, and there is nothing in 
 
Introduction. 1 3 
 
 English literature which can be compared in involved 
 melody to the prose of the Confessions of an English 
 Opium Eater. One man alone in our own day is as 
 great a master of English prose — John Ruskin. " 
 This is pretty near the truth. De Quincey's sent- 
 ences are so laced together that, like a yacht in racing 
 canvas, he caught all the popular breezes of his own 
 time. There is a keenness and flexibility to his 
 style, which is more French than English, and sug- 
 gests that the prefix to his name may have brought 
 with it a genuine Gallic quality. If Thackeray's 
 satire may be compared to the acid of a lemon, we 
 might say that the pleasant flavor of De Quincey is 
 not unlike the juice of a lime. I am informed that 
 a new edition of his writings has lately been pub- 
 lished, and I trust it will be appreciated, and that 
 he will long continue to be read. 
 
 At the same time there is not much more to be said 
 of him. His writings have a varied character, and do 
 not form a complete whole. His account of Cole- 
 ridge, like Boswell's life of Johnson, is more valu- 
 able now than Coleridge's own prose; but he did 
 not, like Boswell, make a complete statement of the 
 man. De Quincey did not accomplish a work which 
 can be called intrinsically great. He was not, like 
 Macaulay, a writer of great virtues and great faults ; 
 nor did he come, like Carlyle, with a great lesson to 
 mankind ; nor, like Froude, could he see clearly into 
 the labyrinth of political affairs. He is essentially a 
 writer for private life, — for the fireside, and the 
 quiet, winter evening. He does not belong to the 
 great outside world. 
 
14 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Much the same may be said of Charles Lamb. 
 He is a humorist, but not a Cervantes. If there is 
 an English prose-writer of whom it would be diffi- 
 cult to decide whether he belonged within or with- 
 out the pale of English classics, Lamb would be the 
 one. He was a domestic person, and his mild, 
 gentle temperament constrained him to a limited 
 acquaintance, and an equally limited knowledge of 
 the world. A neighbor of mine, for whom I have 
 most sincere respect as a man of character and 
 ability, once delivered a lecture on Charles Lamb as 
 a humorist, and perhaps, if I could read it now, I 
 might have more to say. It may be my own idio- 
 syncrasy, but a book like Crabbe Robinson's Diary 
 is much more interesting to me than the essays in 
 Elia. 
 
 If any one writer has been included in the present 
 volume, who ought properly to be omitted, it is 
 Matthew Arnold. Doubtless there are some who 
 will think he does not deserve the distinction of 
 being placed with Thackeray and Ruskin, at least 
 for what he has published in prose. His writines 
 are scattered, and no collection of them has yet 
 been made : the books he has published are few in 
 number. Yet I believe Matthew Arnold succeeded 
 where the Newmans failed. He was too fastidious 
 to be always a just critic, but he possessed the rare 
 faculty of looking at a subject in which he was in- 
 terested from different points of view. He sur- 
 passed Francis Newman in breadth, and Cardinal 
 Newman in sincerity. He was a power in his day, 
 and it was not the power of his own personality, but 
 
Introduction. 1 5 
 
 of the truth that he uttered. He made mistakes, 
 but he atoned for them. He did not draw from the 
 English lakes, but from the great ocean. His mind 
 was of the cosmopolitan order; and the qualities 
 which gave his writing value, during his life, will 
 continue to make it vital and influential in time to 
 come. 
 
 De Quincey and Charles Lamb require no ex- 
 planation. They are excellent writers, but not 
 profound, and show for just what they are. It is 
 otherwise with Carlyle, Ruskin, and Matthew 
 Arnold, who sank their plummets deep in the past, 
 and drew their resources not from their own country 
 alone, but from many others. 
 
 Walter Savage Landor bears nearly the same rela- 
 tion to Matthew Arnold that Charles Reade does to 
 George Eliot. As Joubert says of Madame De Stael, 
 he had more vehemence than truth, and more heat 
 than light. His Pericles and Aspasia is interesting, 
 but in rather a fanciful manner; for it has neither 
 the dignity of history nor the charm of imaginative 
 work. Lowell says that he was " emphatically a 
 man,'' and we may judge from this, that he had 
 plenty of courage and self-confidence, but the rash- 
 ness of his judgment appears in his estimation of 
 Napoleon HL — " a much greater person than the 
 first Napoleon." 
 
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 IN the archives of Hterature there is nothing so 
 rare as a great historian. You can almost count 
 them on your fingers. How many glorious poets 
 there were among the Greeks ; and who are their 
 historians ? Only Herodotus, Thucydides, and, per- 
 haps, Plutarch can be classed among writers of the 
 first rank. In the Latin tongue we have Livy, 
 Tacitus, and Caesar's Commentaries. Tacitus says, 
 " The affairs of the republic have been written by 
 many and good historians ' ' ; but few of these have 
 been preserved to us, and even the names of the 
 others are unknown. Sallust and Josephus are cele- 
 brated because they have no rivals. 
 
 Macchiavelli was a great writer ; but his History 
 of Florence, though invaluable, is rather dry reading, 
 and not what it might have been. The same may 
 be said of Hume's History of England, which is 
 written in a grand style but not based on original 
 investigations. It has been stated with some justice 
 that the best history of England previous to the 
 Reformation is to be found in Shakespeare's plays. 
 Bacon wrote his history of Henry VII. as if to fill 
 the gap between Richard III. and Henry VIII. 
 Except Thucydides, no other writer of equal genius 
 
 a 17 
 
1 8 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 has paid much attention to history. It would seem 
 as if he had written it under too much constraint, so 
 that the undercurrent of English political life which 
 we would most like to know, is not to be found in it. 
 Gibbon was the first of historians to treat his sub- 
 ject in a modern style, and there are those who con- 
 sider him the first in rank. He not only wrote from 
 documentary evidence, but brought to his subject a 
 mental method trained by intellectual culture, and 
 ripened by philosophical study. A history like 
 Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic, which is based 
 merely upon popular opinion, can never satisfy 
 thinking men as an explanation of the course of 
 human affairs. Unfortunately, Gibbon's philoso- 
 phy was not profound enough, nor his insight quite 
 clear enough, for the work he undertook; and the 
 subject still remains the most mysterious, difficult, 
 and important to which the human mind can apply 
 itself. Besides this, Gibbon's style, though vigorous 
 and impressive, is not one of the best, and his love 
 of rhetoric sometimes launched him into statements 
 which will not stand a fair-minded inquiry. I re- 
 member especially his saying that the " long reign 
 of Justinian was disgraced by war, pestilence, and 
 famine." Now the wars of Justinian, his destruc- 
 tion of the Vandal kingdom in Africa and the 
 Gothic kingdom in Italy, were much to the advan- 
 tage of civilization ; and as for the pestilence which 
 devastated Asia Minor during his reign, Justinian 
 can no more be held responsible for it than he could 
 for an earthquake. The real disgrace of his reign 
 was his unjust treatment of Belisarius. 
 
Historical Introduction. 1 9 
 
 Voltaire is a great historian of the artistic order ; 
 though he never troubled himself over-carefully with 
 regard to his facts. Thiers also knew how to poetize, 
 and it is doubtful if he can be considered really great. 
 Where he and Napoleon both describe the same cir- 
 cumstances, the superiority of the latter, even as a 
 writer, is plainly apparent. Neither is Guizot a 
 writer of the best quality. Sismondi, Michelet, and 
 others have made invaluable researches on which 
 Hallam largely depended for his account of the Mid- 
 dle Ages. 
 
 In Germany there are many and excellent histori- 
 ans, who are noted for their thoroughness, breadth 
 of statement, and intellectual veracity. Foremost 
 among them is Mommsen, who may fairly be called 
 great. Von Ranke is also justly celebrated; and 
 Dr. Von Hoist, who has given to the world the most 
 satisfactory account of the foundation of our govern- 
 ment and our political conflict over the slavery ques- 
 tion, comes very close to both. The best histories 
 of Greece, of Rome, of the Reformation, and of the 
 French Revolution are to be sought for in the Ger- 
 man language, though many of them are now trans- 
 lated into English. German historians, however, 
 are almost invariably university professors, and their 
 writings lack that pleasant flavor of practical activ- 
 ity which belongs to men of the world. 
 
 Among all these, Thucydides still holds the first 
 place. He has been called the most impartial of 
 historians, the most graphic, the most original, etc. ; 
 but his true excellence consists mainly in this, that 
 he was a man of genius. That distinguishes him 
 
20 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 from Herodotus, Xenophon, Sallust, and nearly all 
 modern historians. It has been said of Mozart's Don 
 Giovanni that the first notes of the orchestra lift the 
 hearers above themselves, and so sustain them until 
 the green curtain falls again. So it is with Shake- 
 speare, and Homer, except in the catalogue of ships, 
 and Thucydides, — in whose first paragraph we feel 
 the strong hand, and are willing to follow him wher- 
 ever he may lead us. Like a great artist, he disposes 
 the light and shade of his narrative, and fills in the 
 lines of life between with firmness and truth. We 
 all know what Demosthenes owed to him; but 
 statesmen and orators still go to him for inspiration 
 and instruction, and the plenitude of his wisdom has 
 not yet become the common property of mankind. 
 The possession of genius implies imagination ; and 
 persons who have that gift are not often attracted 
 to history. They either become drawn into the vor- 
 tex of practical affairs, or more frequently escape 
 into the ideal region of art, poetry, and fiction. 
 Pegasus does not like being harnessed to a diligence. 
 The examination and comparison of public records, 
 old documents, speeches, and opinions in different 
 languages may be compared to travelling in a hot 
 sun on a dusty road. This was literally what 
 Herodotus and Thucydides were obliged to do. 
 They had few documents to consult, but they ob- 
 tained their information from various individuals in 
 different places, and not without dangers and diffi- 
 culty. Schiller twice attempted to become an his- 
 torian, but the occupation was not suited to him, and 
 his collection of materials for an account of the 
 
Historical Introduction. 
 
 it 
 
 Thirty Years' War served instead for the magnificent 
 drama of Wallenstein. 
 
 Carlyle thought that not until geniuses of the 
 highest order give their undivided attention to his- 
 tory will mankind be benefited by the lesson which 
 it has for us, and which lies concealed in it. It is to 
 be hoped that a writer will yet arise who shall be as 
 great an historian as Michel Angelo was an artist. 
 Without history, the human race would be as it was 
 originally, like one lost in a wilderness. At present 
 we grope our way into the unknown, trusting to 
 profit by the mistakes of our ancestors, but without 
 any very clear foresight of the pitfalls and dangers 
 which lie before us. 
 
MACAULAY 
 
 AFTER the confusion produced by the general 
 overturn of 1793, and the wars consequent 
 on it in both Europe and America, two men of ex- 
 ceptional ability appeared in either continent whose 
 mission it was to bring back the minds of men to a 
 clear understanding of orderly and constitutional 
 government. There was urgent need of this, for the 
 severe strain of continual warfare had produced a 
 twofold effect : of despotic concentration in the con- 
 duct of public affairs among the higher classes of 
 society, and a tendency to insurrection and dis- 
 orderly conduct among the lower. The battle of 
 Waterloo had nearly extinguished the germs of con- 
 stitutional government on the continent of Europe, 
 and though it still survived in England, there was 
 danger that, through the immense prestige of the 
 Duke of Wellington, with his military notions, and 
 with the help of the rotten-borough system, parlia- 
 ment would become as subservient to the monarchy 
 as it had been during the Henrys and Edwards, or 
 as the Roman senate was during the reign of Au- 
 gustus. In America, the arrogant usurpations of 
 Jackson, which were supported by a majority of the 
 people, showed a decided tendency to imperialism, 
 
 83 
 
24 Modem English Prose Writers. 
 
 as well as disrespect for constitutional form and 
 sound legal procedure. These two evils tended to 
 exaggerate and intensify each other; and it was 
 evident to far-sighted minds that society would 
 before long become divided against itself, and civil 
 war must ensue. This came to pass in Europe 
 directly, in 1848, and in America indirectly in 1861. 
 England was the only civilized country that es- 
 caped, and this was due chiefly to the just temper- 
 ance of Lord Grey and other leaders of the Whig 
 party. 
 
 The two men referred to are Webster and 
 Macaulay, who, with some decided differences of 
 character, were on the whole very much alike. 
 They were even alike in their geographical extrac- 
 tion. Webster came from the granite ridges of 
 New Hampshire, with an intellect keen as mountain 
 air, and making his way with the force of a mountain 
 torrent. As quick-witted as he was untiring, of 
 enormous force physically and mentally, he yet pos- 
 sessed an artistic nature, and surpassed other men 
 not only by his natural vigor but by the graceful 
 form of his discourse. Macaulay also came from 
 the north and is supposed to have descended from 
 the sea-roving Norsemen who formed a colony 
 among the Scottish isles in the tenth or eleventh 
 century. He had a remarkable faculty for acquiring 
 and reproducing knowledge ; and easily won the first 
 places at the university, in London society, and in 
 political life. They were both possessed with such 
 remarkable advantages that among other men they 
 were like what ordinary men are among boys ; and 
 
Macaulay. 25 
 
 the only credit they deserved for their success was 
 that of not wasting their opportunities. 
 
 Webster was the abler of the two, and more dis- 
 tinctively a genius. He was not only a better orator 
 than Macaulay, but a more elegant writer, and might 
 have been a greater historian if he had turned his 
 activity in that direction. He is rather copious, as is 
 the nature of orators, but the classic purity of his 
 sentences (for the most part) appears to advantage 
 beside Macaulay's often too highly stimulated 
 rhetoric. Otherwise their mental methods were 
 very similar. They excelled other writers of their 
 time in logic, and in the skill with which they pre- 
 sented their subject. They themselves not only 
 could see clearly into a confused and complicated 
 matter, but could disentangle its various elements 
 and cause others to perceive it as clearly as them- 
 selves. This is the true basis of both oratory and 
 history. They were not constructive thinkers, but 
 discursive. They had a wonderful faculty of expo- 
 sition, and their longest sentences have a clear ring. 
 
 Webster's interest in practical affairs never 
 abated until his death. He always continued to 
 hope for the accomplishment of great designs. 
 Macaulay, however, seems to have been dissatisfied 
 with his success in politics, and wisely retired from 
 public life to the contemplation of history and liter- 
 ature. He thus failed of obtaining such influence as 
 Webster wielded in his own time, but was compen- 
 sated for it by a more enduring influence on pos- 
 terity. What they both lacked was the poetic 
 element, or we might say, perhaps, the dramatic. 
 
26 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Their form of statement is linear, with a tendency 
 to become monotonous. Neither do we respect their 
 characters as men so much as we admire their abili- 
 ties. They were fond of show, of ceremonial din- 
 ners, and an exaggerated mode of life. We do not 
 think of them as we do of Washington and Canning. 
 Especially we ought to reprobate Macaulay's fond- 
 ness for scandal, and his readiness to circulate idle 
 calumnies. 
 
 Schiller composed an ingenious philosophic poem 
 called the " Three Words of Error," and in it he 
 says that no man will be wise — 
 
 " So long as he dreams of an earthly place 
 Where the good are peacefully dwelling ; 
 For the good a merciless fight must wage, 
 The demon of darkness in quelling." 
 
 It is in this continuous conflict that human nature 
 finds its true evolution. Muscles require exercise so 
 that the body may be healthy, and how are they to 
 obtain it without some object of resistance? The 
 intellect requires resistance and even contention 
 quite as much, and so does the moral sense. A 
 mechanical morality is no virtue at all, and it is for- 
 tunate for the human race that there are differences 
 of opinion and of religious belief ; even if these lead 
 to domestic quarrels and to those national quarrels 
 which are called wars. 
 
 It is this struggle of the individual externally and 
 internally which has formed the perpetual theme of 
 poetry and fiction ; and it is a similar struggle in the 
 whole community which makes the proper subject of 
 
Macaulay. 27 
 
 history. The dramatic poet may represent histori- 
 cal events as reflected in the minds of prominent 
 public actors, but it belongs to the historian to deal 
 directly with those grand phenomena, to analyze 
 their character, discover the causes of their origin, 
 and represent their influence on the fortunes not 
 only of individuals but of nations and races. 
 
 Gibbon was a better historian than Hume, for he 
 made a thorough investigation of such materials as 
 he could obtain for his subject ; but Macaulay was 
 the first English writer who gave to history a de- 
 cisively modern character. Gibbon could consult 
 no authentic documents for his work, and Hume 
 apparently made no attempt to do so ; but even the 
 mendacious despatch of a foreign ambassador is of 
 more real value to a subsequent investigator, than 
 the unsupported statement of a cotemporary who 
 pretends to construct history himself. Macaulay, 
 like Thucydides (whom he venerated above all 
 others), did not attempt to cover too large a space 
 of time, but confined himself to a definite period of 
 English history, which forms an epoch by itself and 
 seems to be almost complete in itself. It was a 
 period particularly interesting to Macaulay, for it 
 signalized the triumph of constitutional government 
 and liberal theology in England, and the escape 
 from the intolerant belief and antiquated political 
 methods of the middle ages. For this work he made 
 the most thorough preparation, and it was one well 
 calculated for popularity, since there is no other 
 portion of their history of which Englishmen are 
 more proud, although it was not, on the whole, an 
 
28 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 era of prosperity and chronicles no great national 
 actions. It is commonly referred to as the " glori- 
 ous revolution of 1688." 
 
 Macaulay paid slight attention to form, except in 
 the construction of sentences. He went straight 
 forward like an ocean steamer with barely a pause 
 for his reader to take breath in. He wrote some 
 of the longest chaf)ters on record. The first chap- 
 ter of his history is one hundred and sixty pages 
 in length, and contains a review of English civiliza- 
 tion from the time of the Druids until the restoration 
 of the Stuarts. His second chapter, in which he 
 gave a sketchy account of the reign of Charles H., 
 is a hundred pages in length. George Eliot re- 
 marks in her diary that the worst writing Macaulay 
 ever perpetrated was ' ' the introduction to his intro- 
 duction ' ' ; though it could not have been more faulty 
 than some of his earlier essays. His first chapter is 
 not based on original study, but merely contains his 
 reflections on early English history taken from the 
 Anglo-Saxon chronicle and such other books as were 
 convenient to his hand. The first half of it may be 
 easily omitted, but the latter portion is interesting 
 from his clear analysis of the disagreement between 
 Charles I. and the Long Parliament, and also for 
 his eloquent tribute to Cromwell, concerning whom 
 he held an opinion in close agreement with Carlyle's. 
 In the second chapter he gives an account of the 
 course of events through which the change of gov- 
 ernment took place after Cromwell's death, and this 
 is one of the most interesting passages in the whole 
 
Macaulay. 29 
 
 work — very remarkable for its clearness and accuracy 
 of statement. 
 
 Macaulay came too early to reap the advantage, 
 which all the world has since derived, from German 
 thought and literature. He never was broadened 
 and deepened by what Taine calls the " grand ideas 
 of Hegel and Goethe." Nothing could have as- 
 tonished him so much as to have been informed 
 that in the latter half of the nineteenth century a 
 knowledge of the German language would be con- 
 sidered as indispensable to a liberal education as 
 Greek or Latin. There was a prejudice at that time 
 in English fashionable society against everything 
 German, except the wines and scenery of the Rhine 
 land, and Macaulay was not quite the man to sur- 
 mount such an obstacle ; but he had the true spirit 
 of a scholar, and would gladly have welcomed a 
 valid extension of the range of human knowledge. 
 Hegel's philosophic examination of the Oriental 
 religions would have greatly interested him, for he 
 would himself have brought to the subject the ex- 
 perience and reflections of a long sojourn in India. 
 The central position of Germany is an advantage to 
 the Germans, — just as a man stationed in the centre 
 of a hall can perceive the objects in it more clearly 
 and comprehend their relative positions better than 
 one that is standing in a corner. 
 
 The limitation rather than the fault of Macau- 
 lay's history, as it has been of less important English 
 writers, is that he treats the history of his country 
 as if it was separate from and nearly independent of 
 the rest of Europe. We have seen how, within the 
 
30 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 last thirty years successive British ministries have 
 been overthrown by the influence of foreign events. 
 The success of republicanism in America, proved by 
 the war for the Union, carried Gladstone into power, 
 and the Franco-German war carried him out again. 
 Every one of Napoleon's great victories upset a 
 ministry at Westminster ; and the care-worn Pitt is 
 supposed to have been used up by the battle of Aus- 
 terlitz. In the seventeenth century the relations be- 
 tween England and the other great countries were 
 not so close nor the tension so severe, but the policy 
 of France or Holland often had a disturbing effect 
 on domestic affairs of the United Kingdom ; and in 
 addition there were always more subtile powers at 
 work affecting the habits and thoughts of men in- 
 sensibly throughout the civilized world. 
 
 To go back to the original disagreement between 
 Charles I. and his Parliament, which was the egg 
 whence three distinct revolutions were hatched, we 
 find that Macaulay attributes the occasion of the 
 difificulty to the peculiar character of the king him- 
 self. He sums it up in a celebrated period as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 " Faithlessness was the chief cause of his disasters, 
 and is the chief stain on his memory. There is reason 
 to believe he was perfidious, not only from constitution 
 and from habit, but on principle. He seems to have 
 learned from theologians whom he most esteemed that 
 between him and his subjects there could be nothing of 
 the nature of a mutual contract, that he could not, even 
 if he would, divest himself of his despotic authority, and 
 that in every promise which he made there was an im- 
 
Macaulay. 3 1 
 
 plied reservation that such promise might be broken in 
 case of necessity, and that of necessity he was the sole 
 judge." 
 
 As a piece of vivid character-drawing, this is 
 worthy of Fielding or Molifere; but what ground 
 has Macaulay for supposing it to be the true diag- 
 nosis of Charles the First's character. He gives 
 no testimony from cotemporary witnesses to sup- 
 port so daring a statement ; and how can we judge 
 of the motives of a man so exceptionally placed at 
 so remote a time ? No doubt there were plenty of 
 office-hunters, and other disappointed personages 
 about the Court who considered the king faithless 
 enough. Did he, however, prove treacherous to 
 those who served him and supported him through 
 changes of party and fortune? There is, in fact, 
 another method of viewing the subject, from which 
 we derive quite a different result. 
 
 In the tragedy of Hamlet there are two remarks 
 thrown in casually which bear peculiar testimony to 
 the political groundwork of Shakespeare's time. In 
 the grave-digging scene Hamlet says to Horatio, " I 
 have noted it for some time past, the toe of the peas- 
 ant treads so near the heel of the courtier it galls 
 his kibe." The other is the well-known epigram, 
 " There is a divinity doth hedge a king." 
 
 The first may be looked on as a prediction of 
 modern democracy. The English made a rapid 
 advance in civilization during the long, peaceful reign 
 of Elizabeth ; ' ' and the wild beasts ' ' of whom Cel- 
 lini speaks, became measurably converted into Sid- 
 neys and Raleighs. Macaulay also notices, in his 
 
32 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 essay on Burleigh, the resolute and independent 
 spirit of Elizabeth's last Parliament. There is also 
 reason for believing that the true offence of Lord 
 Bacon, for which he was calumniated and dismissed, 
 was the unpopularity of a minister who asserted too 
 much for the royal prerogative. This was one ele- 
 ment in the coming struggle for political power, and 
 the all-observing Shakespeare was the man to take 
 notice of it. 
 
 The theory of a divine right of kings originated 
 in the compact between Charlemagne and the pope, 
 but it did not become a political dogma until the 
 reign of Charles V. — or rather Charles II. of Spain. 
 A king's authority was supposed to become divine 
 by religious consecration, but for that very reason 
 it remained subordinate to the head of the church. 
 When, however, respect for church government 
 declined, and Rome was captured by the army of 
 Charles II., the veneration which common people 
 must feel for some definite object was transferred to 
 royalty, and royalty was not slow to take advantage 
 of this. 
 
 This explains the absolutism of Philip II., Ferdi- 
 nand the Catholic, and Louis XIV. It extended 
 itself over all Europe, excepting the extreme 
 northern countries, and caused immense mischief. 
 Charles I. must have of course been conscious of it 
 through the foreign ambassadors at court, with 
 whom a king always feels more nearly on terms of 
 equality than with any of his own subjects. Thus 
 the general tendency of European politics must have 
 made a strong impression on Charles while the ma- 
 
Macaulay. 33 
 
 jority of Englishmen would only know of it by 
 hearsay. The independent spirit of Parliament 
 would at the same time intensify the king's feeling 
 of a right to absolute authority. Charles was a mas- 
 culine counterpart of Mary Queen of Scots, and his 
 career was almost an exact repetition of hers. 
 
 From this point of view, therefore, the conduct 
 of Charles does not appear faithless, any more than 
 the extension of its authority by Parliament during 
 the last century was faithless. Authority itself is an 
 historical fact, and does not emanate from any one 
 branch of government or even from the people them- 
 selves. At any particular time Charles could justify 
 himself by the example of other European powers. 
 He could have claimed that the aggressive spirit of 
 Parliament was a sufficient reason for his asserting 
 more firmly the dignity of his position. The pur- 
 chasing power of gold and silver had greatly dimin- 
 ished since the reign of Elizabeth, and Charles could 
 have complained (and I believe he did) that the ap- 
 propriations made by Parliament were not sufficient 
 to maintain the royal household in a royal and dig- 
 nified manner. He was supported in this opinion 
 by a strong court party, and by a majority of the 
 nobility, who risked their lives for him on many a 
 battle-field, and looked on him in retrospect as a 
 glorious martyr. He may have been perfectly hon- 
 est in his belief that a king could be superior to all 
 law and limitation. 
 
 The divine right of kings has been tried in the 
 balance of time, and has kicked the beam in all the 
 nations of western Europe. It has ended in mis- 
 3 
 
34 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 government, corruption, incapacity, and revolution. 
 Macaulay is therefore justified in condemning 
 Charles, whether he acted from selfish insincerity or 
 narrow-minded principle. Why, however, as one of 
 his critics has suggested, should Macaulay have tol- 
 erated in Cromwell a more extended usurpation of 
 power than Charles ever attempted ? * This certainly 
 seems inconsistent, and is a point we should like to 
 have explained. Cromwell's tyranny was certainly 
 justified by the result, for the ill effects of his regime 
 died with him, and the good he did lived afterward. 
 Most people now feel that Cromwell was justified by 
 the purity of his intentions and the excellence of his 
 judgment. He did not claim that he was acting 
 from any divine right, but rather from the necessity 
 of establishing a divine order in affairs, for his work 
 was not yet finished when death came upon him, 
 and the question is whether he would ever have 
 perceived that a military despotism was unsuited to 
 an intelligent and progressive people. He evidently 
 did not perceive that a government of natural su- 
 periority could only survive during the life of its 
 founder. He designed to have it continued under 
 his son, who had neither the experience nor capacity 
 for the conduct of great affairs. It is even a problem 
 how long the English people would have endured it 
 under Cromwell himself. 
 
 Macaulay's description of Charles H. is one of 
 
 the finest pieces of intellectual analysis extant, but it 
 
 is open to the same form of criticism as his judgment 
 
 of Charles I. In estimating the character of Charles 
 
 * Hon. A. S. G. Canning. 
 
Macatday. 35 
 
 II., he makes no allowance for the difficulties which 
 beset him both before and after he came to the 
 throne, and the effect these must have had on his 
 moral nature. A monarch could hardly have been 
 more free and independent than Charles I. was be- 
 fore his struggle commenced with the Long Parlia- 
 ment. He had no wars, no foreign complications, 
 no domestic insurrections, no dangerous rivals to 
 contend with. Perhaps it was this perfect indepen- 
 dence which lured him to destruction. Charles II. 
 was either wiser than his father, or he learned wis- 
 dom from his father's fate. He suited himself to 
 the vicissitudes of his life with an almost feminine 
 tact and amiability. He was certainly the best of 
 the Stuarts, and he does not seem to me to have re- 
 ceived the credit he deserved. The good will with 
 which he put an end to the persecution of the 
 Quakers in New England is something in his favor ; 
 and whether his toleration of different forms of re- 
 ligion arose from indifference or breadth of mind, it 
 has at least a semblance of virtue rare enough in 
 those times. Too light-hearted to feel very seriously 
 on religious questions, he was obliged to become a 
 Catholic in order to maintain himself at the intoler- 
 ant court of Louis XIV., and afterward concluded 
 like Henry IV. that a change of religion was not too 
 high a price to pay for a throne, — with a mental re- 
 servation thrown in, perhaps. The dissolute man- 
 ners of court Hfe, which he is supposed to have 
 introduced into England, were nothing more than 
 the fashions of Versailles, in which he had grown 
 up and been educated. At least he remained there 
 
36 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 long enough to assimilate the French mode of life, 
 and is not more to be blamed for doing so than a 
 man is for possessing hereditary tendencies which 
 are too strong for his self-control. If he introduced 
 into England a fashion of lax conjugal morality, he 
 also brought with it a French sense of elegance and 
 refinement in social life such as had hitherto been 
 unknown. There are certain men intended by 
 nature to represent the social side of life, and they 
 are quite as useful in their way as those intensely 
 practical persons who stand like exclamation points 
 in the drawing-room. 
 
 That Charles II. was extravagant, fond of luxury, 
 gorgeous dresses, and grand entertainments ; that he 
 rewarded in a princely manner many persons who 
 had no higher claim to gratitude than making his life 
 pleasant for him ; and that he was comparatively in- 
 different to public affairs, may have been true 
 enough. We may blame him for this, but we ought 
 not to blame him severely. A king who enjoyed 
 his throne in England for fifteen years without com- 
 mitting any deeds which we now consider cowardly, 
 brutal, or atrocious, may possibly be pardoned for 
 some smaller transgressions. Charles had a fine 
 aesthetic sense which elevated him above the vulgar 
 pleasure-seeker. He liked fine pictures and beauti- 
 ful women. To place him on the same level with 
 Louis XV., as Macaulay does, is a sin and a shame. 
 Fortunately, we have Macaulay's own contradiction 
 for the statement, — a clear contradiction not only in 
 terms but in fact. On the fourteenth page of Chap- 
 ter II. he says: 
 
Macaulay. 3 7 
 
 " From such a school it might have been expected 
 that a young man who wanted neither abilities nor amia- 
 ble qualities would have come forth a great and good 
 king. Charles came forth from that school with social 
 habits, with polite and engaging manners, and with some 
 talent for lively conversation, addicted beyond measure to 
 sensual indulgence, fond of sauntering and of frivolous 
 amusements, incapable of self-denial and of exertion, 
 without faith in human virtue or in human attachment, 
 without desire of renown, and without sensibility to 
 reproach." 
 
 Again, at the opening of Chapter IV., he makes the 
 following statement: 
 
 " The death of King Charles the Second took the 
 nation by surprise. His frame was naturally strong, and 
 did not appear to have suffered from excess. He had 
 always been mindful of his health even in his pleasures ; 
 and his habits were such as promise a long life and a 
 robust age. Indolent as he was on all occasions which 
 required tension of the mind, he was active and perse- 
 vering in bodily exercise." 
 
 Now a man cannot be addicted beyond measure to 
 sensual indulgence, and yet have such habits as 
 might promise a long life and a robust old age. His 
 comparatively early death would seem to corrobor- 
 ate the first statement ; but there are other ways of 
 accounting for that, beside youthful irregularities. 
 The Stuarts were not more vigorous physically than 
 mentally, and I do not remember that any of the 
 kings of Scotland survived to above sixty years. 
 The reign of Charles II. was full of anxiety, plots, 
 
38 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 and political complications. He may not have been 
 so indifferent to public business as Macaulay sup- 
 poses ; especially where it concerned the security of 
 his throne and person. It appears to have been a 
 disorder of the brain that brought him to his end. 
 
 If he was something of a cynic, like Frederick of 
 Prussia, the fact is not to be wondered at. The 
 execution of his father, who was at least kind and 
 affectionate to his children, must have made a terri- 
 ble impression on him ; and from his point of view 
 Charles could only attribute this to the malevolence 
 of mankind. He was in all respects the antipodes of 
 Cromwell, and represented perfectly the national re- 
 action against the Puritan regime. If we cannot 
 admire him as we do grim old Oliver, it is not be- 
 cause he was not without virtues of his own. Those 
 pretty and amusing creatures called King Charles 
 spaniels always seemed rather appropriate to him. 
 
 That the restored Stuarts should have been main- 
 tained and subsidized by the French court was a dis- 
 grace to England, and if it had been known at the 
 time would have aroused the liveliest indignation. 
 The ostensible object of Louis XIV. in doing this 
 was to give aid and comfort to the Catholic religion, 
 but it really served as a retainer to keep the English 
 government quiet, while he pursued his plans of 
 conquest in Belgium and on the Rhine. These 
 were the ancient boundaries of Gaul, and Louis, like 
 Napoleon, considered that a sufficient justification 
 for his design. The subsidy would have had small 
 effect, however, if it had not been for the aggressive 
 enterprise of the Dutch. The civil disturbances in 
 
Macaulay. 39 
 
 Great Britain were a glorious opportunity for the 
 Netherlands, and the latter soon divided with the 
 Portuguese most of the commerce of Europe. That 
 war should ensue between the English and Dutch 
 was a matter of course. Cromwell defeated and 
 suppressed them for a time; but after his death 
 they became bolder and more rapacious than ever. 
 During the latter half of the seventeenth century, 
 the Netherlands were the first naval power in Europe, 
 and their war-ships scoured the seas of both English 
 and Spaniards. 
 
 So long as this state of affairs continued, the 
 French subsidy could do no harm, for the national 
 feeling in England was favorable to France in com- 
 parison with Holland. There was in truth a fair rea- 
 son why Charles should have accepted it ; and again 
 we are obliged to quote Macaulay's words against 
 his own conclusions. 
 
 " The Commons alone could legally grant him money. 
 They could not be prevented from putting their own 
 price to his grants. The price which they put on their 
 grants was this, that they should be allowed to interfere 
 with every one of the king's prerogatives, to wring from 
 him his consent to laws which he disliked, to break up 
 cabinets, to dictate the course of foreign policy, and 
 even to direct the administration of war." 
 
 Only Joseph Bonaparte, when he was King of Spain 
 without a partisan in the country, might have en- 
 vied the position of Charles II. of England, who was 
 distrusted by his own people (even the Catholics) ; 
 who could not obtain funds to support his own estab- 
 
40 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 lishment, much less to maintain an army or navy ; 
 who was compelled to remain under obligations to 
 one foreign government and to endure repeated hu- 
 miliations from another, for which he was blamed 
 by those who remained responsible for it. Many 
 private persons have sunk under the burden of a 
 similar situation. If Charles soon showed a distaste 
 for public business, and took refuge from the cares 
 of state in gay company and frivolous amusements, 
 who need be surprised at it ? 
 
 This may not be after all the true interpretation 
 of Charles II., but it is probable and worth con- 
 sidering. 
 
 At length there came a time when the subsidy 
 would not avail. The successes of Louis XIV. not 
 only began to threaten the independence of the 
 Netherlands but to alarm the English at the increas- 
 ing power of France. It had been a time-honored 
 principle of British policy, that the possession of 
 Belgium by their ancient enemy would be dangerous 
 to British independence. In consequence, the popu- 
 lar administration of John De Witt was overthrown in 
 Holland, and the Prince of Orange, the most clear- 
 headed statesman of his time, came to the front, and 
 by a master-stroke of genius united Great Britain 
 and the Netherlands under his own leadership. 
 This, quite as much as the persecutions of the Inde- 
 pendents in the bloody assizes of Judge Jeffreys, was 
 the cause of King James's expulsion from the 
 government. There are certain changes in poll- / 
 tics which resemble chemical reactions; and the 
 battle of Boyne River was a consequence of the 
 
Macaulay. 41 
 
 marriage of his daughter, which James II. had not 
 thought of. 
 
 Macaulay is always a Whig, and the proportion 
 of English history which he wrote shows the Whigs 
 to their best advantage, and the Tories at their 
 worst. The names Whig and Tory originated dur- 
 ing the reign of Charles II. and are among the rare 
 instances in language where words can be traced to 
 their source ; and yet nobody knows how they origi- 
 nated. The Whigs were always the party of pro- 
 gress in Great Britain, and deserve credit beside for 
 their moderation, patriotism, and practical sense. 
 That they should have been always in the right, and 
 the Tories always in the wrong, was not, however, in 
 the nature of things. The party still exists in Scot- 
 land and Ireland, but is nearly extinct in England, 
 as it has been long since in America. The present 
 English Liberal party has an altogether diiferent 
 character. 
 
 / Macaulay resembles Walter Scott in this, that his 
 ( good people are decidedly good, and his bad char- 
 ) acters very bad. He also discourses of others who 
 are more like ordinary human nature, but the lead- 
 ing parts in his drama are representative of either a 
 virtue or a vice, not unworthy of Scott in graphic de- 
 lineation. His portrait of Charles II. as an indiffer- 
 ent and indolent pleasure-seeker, despising human 
 nature, and equally regardless of praise or censure, 
 because he had no faith in the sincerity of either, is 
 supplemented by a characterization of James II. as 
 an obstinate, self-conceited bigot, who is unwilling 
 
42 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 to listen to the advice of sensible men because he 
 wishes to have the credit of governing his own king- 
 dom without assistance from others. 
 
 Then he introduces with fine dramatic effect the 
 Prince of Orange: the hero-statesman, resplendent 
 as the morning sun. He comes in like the appari- 
 tion of Lohengrin in the opera, — a champion sent 
 by Providence to redress the wrongs of suffering 
 England. Never was there a more brilliant histori- 
 cal contrast, and Macaulay has not failed to make 
 good use of it. 
 
 This is the most interesting portion of his work, 
 and does him very great credit. His portrait of 
 William HI. is presumably an ideal, — Macaulay's 
 ideal of the true executive ; but since at this date 
 we cannot ascertain what the real William actually 
 was, it is all the more valuable on that account. It 
 has been studied for fifty years both in England and 
 America, and must have contributed much, like 
 Webster's speeches, to form the style and character 
 of our best public men. Although Macaulay could 
 not appreciate the finer domestic virtues, and was 
 even lacking in some of those qualities which consti- 
 tute a gentleman, the virtue of public life and high- 
 minded patriotism were all the more valuable to 
 him. He cannot find any real fault with his hero. 
 He admits that the absent-minded indifference of 
 William's manners gave a general offence at the 
 English court, and that in a single instance he was 
 unfaithful to his amiable queen ; but he glides over 
 these matters as skilfully as would a lawyer in court 
 when he is obliged to touch on points unfavorable to 
 
Macautay. 43 
 
 his client. Mary also is represented to be a pattern 
 of all social virtues, although she was the daughter 
 of James and must have inherited some of the Stuart 
 peculiarities; but they are known in the English 
 household rhyme as " good William and Mary," 
 and we will not gainsay their right to the title. 
 
 It is rare good fortune when the best man comes 
 to the top of affairs, either in a monarchy or any 
 other form of government. Even Emerson, whose 
 democratic sentiment was unquestionable, said that 
 if we could once get the best man in the presi- 
 dential chair we should be only too glad to turn 
 everything over to him. It is well stated by Ma- 
 caulay that William's stern features were ennobled 
 and softened by the general rejoicing on his entry 
 to London. William was not unlike Cromwell, and 
 the characters of both were largely moulded by the 
 times in which they lived ; although this is rather the 
 exception than the rule among great men. Both 
 knew when it was necessary to be severe and abso- 
 lute, and they both showed the noblest strength of 
 character by their moderation in success. William 
 was wiser than Cromwell in this, that he anticipated 
 his own fate, and knew how to provide for the fu- 
 ture ; a matter which private individuals often find 
 difificult enough, but in William's case, with only a 
 weak Anne of Denmark and an unscrupulous Duke 
 of Marlborough to depend on, it might be looked on 
 as a most slender thread of fortune. 
 
 Men of less experienced judgment would have 
 attempted some other alternative, but William of 
 Orange always saw his objects at shooting distance. 
 
44 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 and, as Macaulay remarks, " No statesman of mod- 
 ern times has conceived greater designs, or carried 
 them out in a more determined manner," He was 
 more powerful after his death than during his life. 
 He baffled the ambition of Louis XIV. and prevented 
 the Stuart family from ever returning to England. 
 
 The revolution of 1688 resembled the change 
 from Buchanan to Lincoln. William found all the 
 minor government offices, which were not filled with 
 rebel sympathizers, occupied by incapable parasites. 
 They could not all be removed at once, neither 
 could the king interfere beyond a certain point in 
 the different departments of his ministry. It was 
 like clearing out the Augean stables. Everywhere, 
 even among the highest officials, there was prejudice 
 against him as a Dutchman; yet in the course of 
 eight months, even with his delicate health he suc- 
 ceeded in inspiring such energy and efficiency 
 throughout the government service as had not been 
 known since Oliver's time. Sinecures were abol- 
 ished, parasites and incapables suppressed, while 
 men of character and integrity were again brought 
 to the front. Most remarkable of all William suc- 
 ceeded in persuading English troops to serve under 
 Dutch commanders. 
 
 It was William's fine policy to give the armies 
 under his control a mixed composition by importing 
 Dutch troops to England, and transporting English 
 troops to the Netherlands. The regiment of High- 
 landers whose loyalty was most subject to suspicion 
 was the first ordered to embark. They mutinied, 
 and started for Scotland, carrying their cannon 
 
Macaulay. 45 
 
 along with them. If they had been Englishmen 
 they would have obtained many recruits from the 
 counties to which they belonged, but being Scotch- 
 men, nobody in England gave them aid or comfort. 
 The king sent Dutch Ginkell after them with what 
 was considered a sufificient force. The Highlanders 
 took up a position in a morass, whose only approach 
 was commanded by their cannon ; but Ginkell soon 
 proved that he was master of the situation. His 
 cavalry swam the morass where the water was deep- 
 est, and the Highlanders, finding themselves defeated 
 before the fight had begun, surrendered without a 
 shot, and were taken back to London like a gang of 
 convicts. They were all guilty of treason, and it 
 is to be feared that in the reign of William I. 
 they would all have suffered for it; but William 
 III., judging that they were suflfiiciently cowed and 
 humiliated already, pardoned them all, and the regi- 
 ment went over to Holland in a docile and submis- 
 sive manner. 
 
 This may be remarked as a rare instance of judi- 
 cious clemency; for it does not always pay to be 
 merciful, as even Caesar discovered at the base of 
 Pompey's statue. 
 
 Still more creditable was William's treatment of 
 the church question as exemplified by the appoint- 
 ment of Burnet as Bishop of Salisbury ; and Macau- 
 lay's clear, impartial account of this affair, and his 
 remarks on Burnet's character and work are much 
 better than the parliamentary eloquence in which 
 he so often indulges. The following statement de- 
 serves a special commendation. 
 
46 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 " Though, as respected doctrine, Burnet by no means 
 belonged to the extreme section of the Latitudinarian 
 party, he was popularly regarded as the personification of 
 the Latitudinarian spirit. This distinction he owed to 
 the prominent place which he held in literature and poli- 
 tics, to the readiness of his tongue and of his pen, and 
 above all to the frankness and boldness of his nature, 
 frankness which could keep no secret, and boldness 
 which flinched from no danger." 
 
 William of Orange was really a Lutheran ; but so 
 liberal in his views that he might almost be called 
 unsectarian. Therefore the appointment of Burnet 
 was considered an attempt to enforce his own liber- 
 alism on the High Church of England. Next to the 
 obstinacy of a priest, there is nothing like the tenacity 
 of higher prelates in regard to the least important 
 articles of their faith, for concerning these there is 
 always the most contention. The Archbishop of 
 Canterbury absolutely refused to consecrate Burnet ; 
 but the king was equally firm, and the archbishop 
 having at length wound himself up in a net of his 
 own casuistry, was finally obliged to yield. 
 
 William might not have accomplished what he did 
 if there had not been a united England behind him. 
 In Cromwell's time, the lines were sharply drawn. 
 The nation was, so to speak, full of fight ; but the 
 most bitter animosities entirely wear themselves out 
 and a reactionary feeling takes place in favor of ouif 
 former enemies. England had at last, after a hun-' 
 dred and fifty years, learned the lesson of religious 
 toleration, and both sides were willing to accept 
 such a fair-minded arbiter as William proved himself. 
 
Macaulay. 47 
 
 Even more to his advantage was the policy of his 
 ancient enemy the king of France. Louis XIV. 
 was an able administrator, in fact one of the ablest, 
 but he lacked foresight, without which there is no 
 fine statesmanship. His aggressive Catholicism, for 
 which Madame de Maintenon has been largely held 
 responsible, stirred up against himself the class of 
 people in England who would have considered his 
 conquests in Belgium with the least dissatisfaction, 
 and those conquests startled the English nobility 
 and gentry into a sense of the danger which menaced 
 the Protestant religion. The ten million dollars or 
 more which Louis had expended on the Stuart fam- 
 ily might as well have been thrown into the British 
 Channel. He succeeded in enlarging the boundaries 
 of France, but he impoverished the country and 
 made a hollow shell of it. 
 
 Westminster and the adjacent neighborhood was 
 Macaulay's native heath, and when he escapes to a 
 distance from it his narrative loses force. The ac- 
 count of William's Irish campaign is not altogether 
 satisfactory. Macaulay does not appear to have had 
 a very clear conception of the course of events in 
 that expedition. He does not give us a scientific 
 statement of the positions of the two armies previ- 
 ous to the battle of Boyne River, or of the manner 
 in which the victory was finally won. Both armies 
 appear to have been equally heterogeneous in char- 
 acter, and to have behaved in an equally disorderly 
 and irregular manner. According to Macaulay, the 
 Irish volunteers fled at the first fire; yet in spite of 
 this the English were only saved from defeat by the 
 
48 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 courage of William, and the heroism of Schomberg. 
 William was obliged to expose himself as no com- 
 manding officer should do except in the most urgent 
 necessity. He was grazed by a cannon shot on his 
 right shoulder. 
 
 There is no false patriotism, however, or national 
 self-conceit, about Macaulay. If he sometimes in- 
 dulges in parliamentary rhetoric, he never troubles 
 us with a Fourth of July oration. In this respect at 
 least he rises above either praise or censure ; for it is 
 no trifling virtue. Nothing so perverts the sense of 
 a whole people, or debilitates national character, like 
 the habit of perpetual self-laudation. It is worse 
 than either whiskey or opium. If it is bad for the 
 individual, how can it possibly be good for the mul- 
 titude ? Demagogues make use of it to bring about 
 their selfish ends in opposition to the public good ; 
 and even real statesmen descend to it as a last resort 
 in times of emergency. In spite of the mischief 
 it has done, no people, taken collectively, has ever 
 yet learned to recognize the evil and guard against 
 it. Writers and speakers of the highest order have 
 always preferred to point out those qualities in other 
 nations and races which it would be well to imitate, 
 rather than to celebrate the virtues of their own. 
 We should consider what Shakespeare says of Eng- 
 lishmen in the Merchant of Venice, and recollect that 
 they were our ancestors as well. 
 
 Here Macaulay takes his stand on firm ground. 
 He was proud of being an Englishman, but he never 
 dwells on the fact ; and evidently wishes to do full 
 justice to all nations and races, even to the savages. 
 
Macaulay. 49 
 
 If he does not always succeed in this, yet his good 
 intentions are commendable. He believed that the 
 nineteenth century was an improvement on previous 
 ages that had gone before it on the whole ; but he 
 desired his countrymen to remember that they did 
 not make themselves what they were, but were in- 
 debted for it mainly to their ancestors, and it de- 
 pended upon them whether or no their descendants 
 should be equally civilized. ' ' You should consider 
 the past," he said, " as well as the future." He 
 never quite escaped from his fine, classical scholar- 
 ship, and valued Greek and Roman literature too 
 highly perhaps ; but it was a fault in the right direc- 
 tion. There were no living orators or philosophers 
 like the Greeks; and the militia of Athens and 
 Sparta was probably the best that has ever been 
 known. Those who fought at Marathon and Salamis 
 were as good soldiers as Wellington's Peninsula 
 veterans. He takes particular pains to point out 
 that the cowardice of the Irish infantry at Boyne 
 River is not characteristic of their race, which has 
 often proved a courage equal to any, but clearly re- 
 sulted from the bad discipline and irregular methods 
 of King James's army. The Danish contingent, he 
 thinks, were the troops that the Irish were most 
 afraid of. 
 
 Germany was to Macaulay an unknown territory, 
 but he greatly admires the art and intellect of the 
 Italians, as well as the ingenuity and social elegance 
 of the French. William was by no means to blame, 
 he says, for preferring his faithful Dutch ofificers to 
 unknown and untried Englishmen whom he had 
 
50 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 only too much reason to distrust. Again he says, 
 ' ' Among the English councillors such fidelity was 
 rare. It is painful, but it is no more than just, to 
 acknowledge that he had but too good reason for 
 thinking meanly of our national character. That 
 character, indeed, was essentially what it has always 
 been. Veracity, uprightness, and manly boldness 
 were then, as now, qualities eminently English. 
 But those qualities, though widely diffused among 
 the great body of the people, were seldom to be 
 found in the class with which William was best 
 acquainted." There are passages of similar import 
 in some of his essays. 
 
 Macaulay says, in one of his earlier magazine 
 articles, that the historian should not take too much 
 pains to be accurate, lest his writing become dry, 
 and he should thus lose the interest of his readers. 
 This is vicious doctrine certainly, and by no means 
 warranted by experience; for a writer who collects 
 the largest quantity of fresh information will always 
 be the most interesting, — even if he does not express 
 himself with elegance. Many instances of this might 
 be mentioned, but it is only necessary to state here 
 that Macaulay's history is constructed on a better 
 principle. To make a work of such extent abso- 
 lutely faultless would be an impossibility, but even 
 reading it in a most unfriendly manner is enough to 
 convince one that Macaulay's desire to tell the truth 
 is superior to his love of fine writing. In fact his 
 performance is better than his promise. The rank 
 and file of the material he collected testify to the 
 fulness of his preparation. They are so great that 
 
Macaulay. 5 1 
 
 only a man of rare capacity could assimilate them, 
 and it cannot be denied that he has made a skilful 
 disposition of them. His intellectual brightness is 
 such that it carries us onward through the most pro- 
 saic affairs, and we read until the setting sun apprises 
 us how swiftly the time has passed. 
 
 Macaulay has been called to account for various 
 errors which are not so much mis-statements of facts 
 as mis-representations of character. John Paget has 
 questioned the justice of his estimate of William 
 Penn. Hon. Mr. Canning and Mr. Morrison have 
 made a general critical review of his writings, not 
 without finding some flaws to quarrel over ; and old 
 Hugh Miller, the geologist, attacked him in vigorous 
 Scotch fashion for his evil report of the Highlanders' 
 mode of living. Considering the magnitude of the 
 work, however, these complaints of Macaulay's 
 critics are not highly important, nor do they make 
 a strong impression. They are such exceptions as 
 prove that Macaulay's History of England is a sub- 
 stantial and veracious book. 
 
 Wasson says in his essay on Whittier that Quaker- 
 ism and Puritanism are the two richest soils of 
 historical times; and William Penn was the repre- 
 sentative Quaker, both in his virtues and his peculi- 
 arities. He was a great man more than four 
 thousand years too soon. Human nature requires 
 a certain amount of self-satisfaction, and the right 
 form of this is to be found in an elevated self- 
 respect. Quakerism, in trying to repress it altogether, 
 only succeeds in diverting it into unusual channels. 
 The true nature of a man breaks through his arti- 
 
52 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 ficial nature under excitement, or when he is placed 
 in a peculiar position. The self-complacent ob- 
 sequiousness of Penn at the court of James II., of 
 which Macaulay complains, would be the natural 
 reaction of a character developed in private, and 
 untried by ^ the discipline of public affairs. The 
 tendency of Quakerism is to extract the natural 
 manliness from a character, and replace it by an 
 almost fanatical regard for principle. 
 
 Whether this were true of Penn or not, Macaulay 
 works up the case and exaggerates it to a sensational 
 degree. His antipathy to Penn evidently arose 
 from other causes, and is as much a mystery as 
 King James's partiality for the Quakers, who were 
 the only Protestant sect that he treated with liberal- 
 ity. Mr. Canning suggests that this may have been 
 because they were disliked, and persecuted socially, 
 by the other Protestants. 
 
 The description of life among the Highlanders is 
 a repulsive exaggeration of the pen, — almost splen- 
 etic in violence. It would do shabby justice to the 
 wigwam of the American Indian, 
 
 The Essays. 
 
 Macaulay's essays are lively and entertaining, but 
 their literary merit has been overestimated. They 
 are really the chips and debris of his history, and 
 though there are brilliant passages among them, 
 they are for the most part carelessly written. The 
 best that can be said of some of them, is that they 
 are more interesting than the books which Macaulay 
 pretended to review. In others, serious subjects are 
 
Macaulay. 53 
 
 treated in a wanton and superficial manner. They 
 are rather dangerous reading for young people, or 
 indeed for any who cannot discriminate readily be- 
 tween the true and false in literature. He has a bad 
 habit of cumulative repetition, and deals too fre- 
 quently in sharp antitheses. His style of argument 
 in reply to what he calls Sadler's Refutation is in , 
 the most domineering parliamentary vein. We feel : 
 less compunction in exposing the errors in Macau- j 
 lay's writing, for he was always most unmerciful | 
 in his criticism of others. 
 
 The best of his essays are those which relate to 
 English history; as might be expected. Of these 
 the most interesting is the lengthy review, or ab- 
 stract, of Lord Mahon's War of the Succession in 
 Spain, which is properly an afterpiece to his own 
 history, although it appears to have been written 
 before it. It contains an account of the Earl of 
 Peterborough in Macaulay's handsomest style. 
 The essays on the Earl of Chatham and William 
 Pitt are also valuable, as coming from an experi- 
 enced politician. That Macaulay should have been 
 impartially just to Napoleon was not to be antici- 
 pated, although he may have desired it; and his 
 animadversion against Chatham, as an example of a 
 man of genius who was also self-conceited, should 
 be considered with some hesitation. It is doubtful 
 if Macaulay had a clear conception of the nature of 
 self-conceit. Nothing could be more conceited than 
 the remark credited to him in regard to some pam- 
 phleteer who made a violent attack on him. " The 
 man intended murder, but has committed suicide." 
 
54 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Macaulay wonders why it is, that we leave the 
 stage-coach and ride outside in the rain, in order to 
 escape from the egotistic revelations of a fellow- 
 passenger, and at the same time admire an equal 
 amount of personal confession in Petrarch's sonnets, 
 of which he has no very good opinion himself. He 
 appears to have been ignorant that the true nature 
 of a sonnet should be a refined subjectivity ; and he 
 might have learned from Schiller that the spirit in 
 which a man says or does anything is the main mat- 
 ter, — that egotism does not necessarily consist in the 
 use of the first pronoun, and that the self-commun- 
 ings of a noble mind, expressed poetically, are 
 among the most costly treasures of literature. 
 Macaulay's literary criticism is bright and interest- 
 ing, but as we perceive herein not always trust- 
 worthy. If he had been well grounded in the 
 proper knowledge of a critic he would not have ex- 
 posed himself in so vulnerable a manner. His re- 
 marks on English comedy, and on the comedies of 
 Macchiavelli, are well worth reading. So also is 
 much that he wrote about Milton, a poet for whom 
 he had a creditable admiration. 
 
 His reckless essay on Frederick the Great was a 
 most unfortunate blunder, for it has prejudiced the 
 larger portion of the German people against him as 
 an historian. This may perhaps result in causing the 
 French to consider him with more favor; but it has 
 been the Germans heretofore who have appreciated 
 English literature, and the French who have con- 
 temned it. Grimm has exposed the undignified 
 character of the essay on Frederick in a single scath- 
 
Macaulay. 55 
 
 ing paragraph ; for to do this it was only necessary 
 to quote the opening sentences of Macaulay's essay, 
 which was based on an unfinished life of Frederick 
 by the poet Campbell, of which Macaulay says, " It 
 professes, indeed, to be no more than a compilation ; 
 but it is an exceedingly amusing compilation, and 
 we shall be glad to have more of it." Any German 
 writer, who might have perpetrated such a piece of 
 charlatanism in Macaulay's time, would have been 
 hooted out of the literary arena at very short notice ; 
 but the time is not yet past in England or America 
 when a man with a handle to his name can obtain 
 publication for any quantity of trash. 
 
 His account of Frederick contains many errors 
 which any good German scholar would certainly 
 have avoided. Campbell's biography which has 
 since been relegated to the dust archives, and is no 
 longer heard of, was no doubt equally inaccurate. 
 Macaulay was not aware that the ill treatment of 
 Frederick by his father was caused by an Austrian 
 intrigue, and that he made war on Austria partially 
 in retaliation for this. Macaulay seems to delight 
 in representing men of the highest ability as being 
 also the most unprincipled ; and no doctrine could 
 be more cynical or injurious to the minds of youth- 
 ful readers. 
 
 In this connection it is our unpleasant duty to re- 
 flect on Macaulay's readiness to circulate scandal, 
 which is indeed the worst side of him. . .^Eschylus 
 says that there is no escape from calumny ; and the 
 stronger opposition men excite, the more liable they 
 are to suffer from it. During the siege of Paris in 
 
56 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 1870, French newspapers published most atrocious 
 charges against Bismarck, not one of which had the 
 smallest foundation in fact. You would suppose 
 that he was a second Louis XV. In like manner, 
 Macaulay has repeated and supported with his au- 
 thority a vile newspaper slander on Frederick the 
 Great, for which no evidence or justification has 
 ever been discovered. In describing the character 
 of the Duke of Orleans, grandson of Louis XIV., 
 he says that, like Charles II., he cared more for his 
 female relatives than for any other persons about 
 him, and it was suspected in both cases that this 
 interest was not entirely innocent. Could suspicion 
 be more atrocious ? 
 
 In fact Macaulay was very much like Voltaire. 
 Both were bright, witty, and good historians; but 
 also possessed of a rather low standard of morality, 
 with a tendency to cynicism. Voltaire was cynical 
 with respect to religion ; Macaulay with respect to 
 human nature, and this is the more dangerous poison 
 of the two. If he had known human nature better 
 he would have been aware, that it was because the 
 near relatives of Charles and the Duke of Orleans 
 were innocent and virtuous that they were so influ- 
 ential. A libertine is scarcely more to be despised 
 than he is to be pitied, for his only moments of 
 genuine happiness are those in which he can escape 
 from the fetters he has forged for himself. 
 
 Of similar character is his essay on Lord Bacon, 
 which was ably analyzed by Wasson in the Christian 
 Examiner many years ago. A magazine article, 
 however, does not make so lasting an impression as 
 
Macaulay. 5 7 
 
 a book ; though its circulation may be wider for the 
 time being. The reviews of Dumont's Mirabeau 
 and Nares's Burleigh must have been written with- 
 out collateral information on those subjects. 
 
 It is with relief therefore that we turn to Macau- 
 lay's controversy with John Stuart Mill, and the 
 question of representative government. Without 
 taking sides either with or against him in this mat- 
 ter, we are pleased to admire the clear logic and 
 forcible language with which he supports his posi- 
 tion. The following statement can be recommended 
 to those who deal in a priori theories of government. 
 
 " How, then, are we to arrive at just conclusions on a 
 subject so important to the happiness of mankind ? 
 Surely by that method which, in every experimental 
 science to which it has been applied, has signally in- 
 creased the power and knowledge of our species, — by that 
 method for which our new philosophers would substitute 
 quibbles scarcely worthy of the barbarous respondents 
 and opponents of the middle ages, — by the method of 
 Induction ; — by observing the present state of the world, 
 — by assiduously studying the history of past ages, — by 
 sifting the evidence of facts, — by carefully combining 
 and contrasting those which are authentic, by generaliz- 
 ing with judgment and dififidence, — by perpetually bring- 
 ing the theory which we have construtted to the test of 
 new facts, — by correcting, or altogether abandoning it, 
 according as those new facts prove it to be partially or 
 fundamentally unsound. Proceeding thus, — patiently, 
 diligently, candidly, — we may hope to form a system as 
 far inferior in pretension to that which we have been 
 examining and as far superior to it in real utility as the 
 
58 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 prescriptions of a great physician, varying with every 
 stage of every malady and with the constitution of every 
 patient, to the pill of the advertising quack which is to 
 cure all human beings, in all climates, of all diseases. 
 
 "This is the noble Science of Politics, which is 
 equally removed from the barren theories of the Utili- 
 tarian sophists, and from the petty craft, so often mis- 
 taken for statesmanship by minds grown narrow in 
 habits of intrigue, jobbing, and official etiquette; — which 
 of all sciences most tends to expand and invigorate the 
 mind, — which draws nutriment and ornament from every 
 part of philosophy and literature, and dispenses in 
 return nutriment and ornament to all." 
 
 This passage is worthy of Alexander Hamilton, 
 and no higher praise could possibly be given it. 
 
' ' ' " ■,■•■■. I 
 
 CARLYLE 
 
 Grand, rough old Martin Luther 
 
 Bloomed fables, flowers on furze. 
 The better the uncouther, — 
 
 Do roses stick like burrs ? 
 
 Browning. 
 
 SO he might have said, " Grand, rough old 
 Thomas Carlyle ' ' ; who was a kind of 
 Luther to his generation of Anglo-Saxons, breaking 
 through old traditions and venerable, musty stupidi- 
 ties to a new reformation, moral and intellectual, — 
 such as was greatly needed in the time he lived. 
 Of intellectual life in England in Carlyle's early 
 manhood there was very little. Philosophy, which 
 is always the corner-stone of mental activity was 
 nearly dead, or at best dragging out an invalid exist- 
 ence. Of sentimental poetry there was perhaps too 
 much; but of sensible, refreshing, and invigorating 
 prose, little enough. The arts of painting and sculpt- 
 ure, which have never flourished extensively in 
 Great Britain, had not been at so low an ebb for 
 centuries. The taste in architecture was never so 
 conventional, insipid, and meaningless. Byron and 
 Wordsworth had introduced a few fresh ideas, but 
 
 59 
 
6o Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 only a few, and those Avere neither resented nor ac- 
 cepted by the British public. There was no fresh 
 thought, either in the form of German spiritual be- 
 lief, or keen ironical French disbelief. Great Britain 
 shut up for twenty years from the continent by the 
 wars of Napoleon, had learned little of the great 
 changes there. Madame De Stael had indeed 
 brought by way of Russia, as a sort of feminine 
 perfume to her intellectual attire, a rumor that cer- 
 tain wise men in Germany knew things not hereto- 
 fore spoken of or taught in the schools ; but it was 
 only a small circle of social acquaintances who paid 
 c any attention to this. 
 
 The invention of new machines, and especially 
 the application of steam as a new motor, engrossed 
 the minds of men with the prospect of rapidly in- 
 creasing the material possessions. In accordance 
 with this, the doctrine had grown up that utility was 
 the chief good of all things, including man himself, 
 and that ideas were only of value so far as they 
 proved conducive to this end. The times were ma- 
 terialistic, and the long conflict with France had 
 dulled the sensibility of men, as protracted wars 
 always do, and rendered them almost impervious to 
 fresh impressions. It is most dangerous either for 
 individuals or a civilized people when their mental 
 habits become wholly stereotyped, and their course 
 of life mechanical ; and while this lasts no progress 
 is possible. 
 
 Almost with the beginning of the century the 
 child was born in the cottage of a stone-mason at 
 Ecclefechan, whose determination it was to break 
 
Carlyle. 6i 
 
 through this hard shell of traditionalism, and let in 
 the light and fresh air again, as into a building which 
 has grown damp and musty from being long closed 
 and bolted. The simple pictures he gives us in the 
 reminiscences of his boyhood, and his family, are as 
 distinct and interesting as wood-cuts. Half the honor 
 of the man belongs to his parents ; and so also the 
 dishonor, if the children prove unworthy of their 
 place in life. " Ah, my honored, peasant father," 
 he said, " where among the so-called great of this 
 world have I ever found the like of thee ? " Of his 
 mother, also, he had small cause to complain, though 
 his respect for his father was evidently above that 
 of others. At home he was happy, but at school 
 the boys quickly discovered that he belonged to a 
 different species from their own, and united against 
 him as the small birds do against an owl. There is 
 nothing in life more difificult to endure than this 
 school-boy persecution, for it is the first taste of the 
 world's injustice. 
 
 As he grew older, the strength of his character 
 earned the respect of his fellow-students, and then 
 the trouble began with his teachers. One of them 
 must have been rather dull-witted, for Carlyle tells 
 us he could never distinguish between him and an- 
 other Carlyle youth, who had " red, carrotty hair, a 
 scorched complexion, wild buck teeth, and was the 
 worst Latin scholar in school. ' ' This may be taken as 
 a caricature of Carlyle himself at fifteen or so ; for un- 
 less the instructor was purblind there must have been 
 some closer resemblance between the boys than their 
 family name ; yet within this rugged and uncomely 
 
62 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 exterior was a soul so fearless, puissant, aspiring, and 
 so tender and devoted, that for two hundred years the 
 like had hardly been known in Britain. These and 
 fine perceptions are indeed the qualities of which 
 genius is compounded. They begin to work at an 
 early age, developing an internal something, like the 
 pearl in the oyster, which only after long years be- 
 comes externally apparent. 
 
 For Carlyle was distinctively a man of genius. 
 There are writers whom we admire and who fill a 
 position in the literature of their country, and yet 
 of whom we certainly cannot say this. Macaulay 
 had a rare faculty of statement, and Addison was 
 an elegant essayist, yet we hesitate to call them 
 geniuses. In the London National Gallery there are 
 two paintings of the same subject, one by Guido, 
 and one by Caracci. They hang side by side, and 
 we perceive at once that Guido's is a work of genius, 
 but in regard to Caracci we do not feel sure. In 
 Carlyle's case we feel as certain of it as that the sun 
 will rise to-morrow. His work was sui generis, and 
 in his peculiar line he is without a rival. 
 
 Peculiar is the word for it. He was a sublime 
 kind of man, but peculiar also. What a strange sort 
 of genius he had ! Taine, who more than half ap- 
 preciated him, was not far wrong in comparing 
 Carlyle to a mastodon. He was truly a huge crea- 
 ture, and walked the earth with an elephantine 
 tread ; yet he walked quietly and harmlessly among 
 his fellow-men, — looked at on all sides with aston- 
 ishment and with not a little fear. He was saga- 
 cious also ; minding his own affairs, and would cross 
 
Carlyle. 63 
 
 no shaky bridges, preferring to flounder through 
 the river beneath. He scorned the highways and 
 beaten paths of mankind; but crossing the fields 
 instead, and breaking his way through the woods, — 
 occasionally uprooting a tree in his progress, and 
 leaving a broad track behind him. A rather dan- 
 gerous animal to irritate also, for he sometimes 
 avenged himself quite out of proportion to the 
 offence. 
 
 He had a mastodon-like way of devouring know- 
 ledge, literature, science, — anything that was intel- 
 lectual. He read books by the hundred in five or 
 six different languages, and always systematically. 
 Glhhon's Decline and Fall, which it requires nearly 
 a year for an ordinary man to assimilate, he mas- 
 tered in twelve days, and never needed apparently 
 to look at it again. It is doubtful if he bored people 
 with his conversation — it was much too interesting 
 for that, — but his friends often felt as fatigued after 
 leaving his house as if they had accomplished a long 
 journey. 
 
 While Carlyle was at work on the French Revolu- 
 tion, the poet Longfellow went to London with his 
 family, and called on him. The mastodon did not 
 happen to be at home ; but almost as soon as Long- 
 fellow had returned to his hotel Carlyle appeared 
 there also, and half an hour later, when a lady of 
 Longfellow's party entered the parlor, she saw there 
 (as she described it twenty years later) this strange 
 man talking continuously about the French Revolu- 
 tion, while every eye in the room, young and old, 
 was riveted on him with rapt attention. He ex- 
 
64 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 cused himself for this finally, by saying that those 
 pictures hovered before him day and night, and that 
 he could not divert his mind from them. 
 
 How early he became conscious of his own superi- 
 ority, Carlyle does not inform us. At about the 
 age of twenty-two he wrote to his brother John, 
 who afterwards made the finest translation of Dante's 
 Inferno, " Two boys from Annandale will show the 
 world what stuff there is in the Carlyles ' ' ; but it is 
 likely that the truth came to him slowly and through 
 many fears and misgivings. 
 
 A young lady whom Carlyle met while on a travel- 
 ling circuit with Edward Irving was the first to 
 announce to him his future good fortune, the high- 
 est perhaps attainable by man, — unless we except 
 the hero's blood-stained laurel. Was it from look- 
 ing into her pure, sympathetic eyes that Carlyle was 
 stimulated on this occasion to exceptional elo- 
 quence ? It is love always that applies the torch to 
 genius; and what a summer afternoon that must 
 have been to her in the gray Scotch fells, — a day re- 
 membered so long as she lived, and growing con- 
 tinually brighter as the fame of Carlyle increased 
 until it filled all Britain. Let us hope that she lived 
 to read his own account of it, and knew that in his 
 old age he still remembered her. How much wiser 
 was this girl than Carlyle's pedagogues, — perhaps 
 than his most intimate friends. She proved a true 
 prophetess, and her portrait ought to have been 
 painted by Michel Angelo. There are no pictures 
 like those from real life if we have eyes to see them. 
 
 Broad natures make broad plans instinctively ; as 
 
Carlyle, 65 
 
 the beaver builds his dam high enough to flood a 
 sufficient area. Whether Carlyle foresaw his destiny 
 or not, he prepared himself for it by a foundation 
 of thoroughness and impartiality. He learned ac- 
 curacy from mathematics, and a mental flexibility 
 in the study of foreign languages. During the first 
 half of the present century there was a feeling of 
 profound contempt in Great Britain for everything 
 that was not British. An hereditary respect was 
 still paid to the ancient Greeks and Romans, but 
 other modern nations were of no account at all. 
 
 Nothing is more repugnant to a high-minded soul 
 than provincial intolerance ; and when young Carlyle 
 heard his instructors condemn a writer or a book, he 
 felt the more inclined to make an examination for 
 himself and learn whether or not the disparagement 
 was just. In this way he was led to examine Vol- 
 taire and the French philosophes of the eighteenth 
 century, which in course of time induced him to 
 discern the causes underlying the revolution of 1789. 
 In Germany he discovered a mine of literature, which 
 not only gave the tone to his own writing, but served 
 him as a strategic base from which to carry on his 
 conflict with the traditionalism of his time. 
 
 If you will look in the New British Cyclopedia for 
 the article on Goethe you will find the word printed 
 between the columns in such large capitals as are 
 used' for the names of continents and nations. What 
 a change is this since the erudite Mr. Dunlop desig- 
 nated the Oberon of Wieland as the finest poem in 
 the German language. Byron, it is true, had offered 
 a premium for a translation of Faust, but he did not 
 
66 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 know German enough to read Goethe himself, and 
 the slight sensation caused by this had subsided 
 again. Carlyle in his bold investigation of foreign 
 writers read Wilhelm Meister, and recognized the 
 true value of this author. He thus became the 
 herald of a new intellectual era to the Anglo-Saxon 
 race. 
 
 He wrote essays on Goethe, Lessing, Jean Paul, 
 Voltaire, Diderot; translated Wilhelm Meister, and 
 wrote a life of Schiller (which he afterwards 
 criticised as " rose-water nonsense "). He had a 
 monopoly of German literature in England, and no 
 writer before had dealt with French literature from 
 so thorough an understanding of the language. 
 Such vigorous, earnest prose, so modest, and at the 
 same time so keenly appreciative, had not been 
 seen since John Milton's time. The clear, good 
 sense which formed the tissue of his writing was 
 enlivened by flights of imagination, and occasional 
 snatches of humor, of a quality little inferior to 
 the wit of Cervantes. These essays served as an 
 entering wedge for his cause in the good opinions of 
 the English public. Thirty years before Matthew 
 Arnold set forth his dictum, that the true office of 
 the critic was to celebrate the best that is thought 
 and known in the world, Carlyle made a practical 
 application of it. 
 
 The Life of Schiller was good material from the 
 same mould. It was a youthful work but suitable to 
 the subject ; and three-fourths of mankind are more 
 likely to sympathize with an ardent, impetuous hero, 
 who sacrifices himself to achieve a great and glorious 
 
Carlyle. 67 
 
 triumph, than the more calculating sort, who ac- 
 complish their ends with less friction to themselves 
 and others. The hardship of Schiller's life was not 
 owing to a lack of appreciation, but to an almost 
 Quixotic idea of independence; and Carlyle could 
 appreciate this feeling, although he could not sym- 
 pathize with it ; believing that the relation between 
 man and man is best cemented by mutual obliga- 
 tions, and that it is as much our duty to accept 
 benefits as to confer them. He might have laid 
 more stress on this point if he had written the biog- 
 raphy later in life, but his estimate of Schiller's 
 genius and the value of his writings is just and deU- 
 cately appreciative. He perceived that Byron and 
 even Burns were in natural talent richer than their 
 German contemporary, but that Schiller, led by a 
 more elevated conception of life, had made a better 
 use of his gifts and achieved results on a higher 
 plane. Like Byron he was not only the popular 
 poet of his own time, but has since continued to be 
 so ; yet there can be do doubt that the influence of 
 Schiller is the deeper and more enduring of the two. 
 It is Schiller's pathos, his sympathy with sorrow and 
 suffering, which makes him dear to the heart of the 
 German people; and in this respect he is at least 
 superior to the best French dramatists. Carlyle's 
 biography of him received the exceptional compli- 
 ment of a German translation, and attracted the 
 attention of Goethe, who quickly perceived the 
 advantage of so able an ally. 
 
 It has been said that Carlyle's English was never 
 so pure as when he translated Wilhelm Meister; and 
 
68 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 we may suspect the cause of this in the purity of 
 the original. Carlyle did not develop the peculiar 
 style by which he is proverbially known until some 
 time afterwards, but he already had a style of his 
 own, though not a very decided one. It was always 
 different from the calm, self-possessed poise of 
 Goethe, who in mastery of form has no modern rival 
 excepting Voltaire. What is it that constitutes 
 style except the individual taste of an author in his 
 selection of words, and these, if properly translated 
 into a language of similar construction, as from 
 French or German to English, must produce nearly 
 the same effect. The egotism of the translator, 
 however, too often interferes with this, and the self- 
 devotion of Carlyle to his work appears in total ab- 
 sence of his own personality in his rendering of the 
 text. Dr. Hedge discovered a few slight mistakes 
 in it, but that is of small account compared with the 
 general character of the whole. It might be ac- 
 cepted as a standard of genuine, living English. 
 There is no book which people stand so much in 
 awe of it, though there are comparatively few who 
 read it. 
 
 Carlyle's essays are the best account of eighteenth- 
 century French and German literature that we have ; 
 and I suppose it may be added that Carlyle is the 
 finest English critic either of our own or previous 
 times. Wasson perhaps could have equalled him 
 in a different way, but Wasson 's work was of a more 
 philosophical character. Dr. Johnson or Matthew 
 Arnold cannot be compared to him. Lowell might 
 be admitted to the second place, and his essays on 
 
Carlyle. 69 
 
 the standard English poets may be credited as an 
 authority; but Lowell's prose writing, though bril- 
 liant, is too labored and self-conscious to be alto- 
 gether inspiring. His lectures on literature at 
 Harvard University never created the enthusiasm 
 among the students, for himself or his subject, which 
 might have been expected. A large share of the 
 satisfaction in reading Carlyle's essays comes from 
 their freshness and spontaneity. He is too much 
 interested in the subject to think of himself, and 
 too much in earnest to think of his readers. He 
 scorns all tricks of rhetoric, or attempts to make 
 an impression on his audience. Truth is to him the 
 finest of all rhetoric, and human sympathy the most 
 persuasive eloquence. 
 
 I have often wondered how so rugged a nature 
 could be united to such delicate perceptions. There 
 is a chiaroscuro in his writing almost like that of 
 Rembrandt. He goes straight to the character of 
 his author, then estimates his talent, and observes 
 how the two are woven together in the tissue of his 
 writing. He seizes always on the salient point, 
 stripping off what is either accidental or common, 
 as a mathematician eliminates numbers that are 
 common to his equation. Yet he would sometimes 
 devote half a page to the elaboration of a single 
 point if he thought it of sufficient importance ; and 
 then sum up the man in a sentence, — always hold- 
 ing fast to the spiritual side of things, which is his 
 point of view, — whence the light comes for his pict- 
 ure. " Only the visible has value," he said, " when 
 it is based on the invisible." 
 
70 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Although prone to scepticism in his youth, he 
 penetrated the incredulous French philosophy — 
 which it is not difficult to do — and accepted it for 
 its true value, as a disintegrating element, instead of 
 repudiating it as false doctrine. It was at least more 
 intellectually quickening than the dogmatic Scotch- 
 English philosophy. He had no anti-Gallic preju- 
 dice; saw Voltaire, Rousseau, Mirabeau, and the 
 encyclopedists very clearly as they were. " Voltaire 
 was not the wisest of men, but the most adroit." 
 Again Carlyle writes of him : " Given a subject, and 
 he plunges boldly into it, to quickly reappear again 
 perfectly satisfied that he has touched bottom, which 
 is from three to ten miles lower down." Nothing 
 could describe better than this Voltaire's literary 
 method. Likewise, Mirabeau, who was in his way 
 the Hampden of France, Carlyle accepted for such 
 a torch-light hero as he was, burning himself out, 
 when the revolution came, in smoke and glare, like a 
 tar-barrel. They were not an attractive set of men, 
 half-demoralized themselves, — except Voltaire, who 
 belonged to an earlier and stricter period. Only 
 their humanity and their patriotism have preserved 
 them from oblivion. Even Rousseau, the most dis- 
 interested of them, was by no means a sound kind 
 of man, and yet his influence on the world has been 
 enormous. 
 
 In Germany at the same time a group of men 
 sprang up who were an historical contrast to the 
 French; men of true constructive quality, with 
 whom Carlyle could feel a much closer sympathy. 
 The age of Louis XIV. resembled a great Strasburg 
 
Carlyle. 71 
 
 clock, h\ which even poets and field-marshals played 
 their parts as puppets and cog-wheels. This created 
 great astonishment among mankind and was very 
 effective in its way, but after a while the machinery 
 became disordered, and the world heartily sick of it. 
 The French naturalistic, or realistic, reaction took 
 place, which was represented in America by the poli- 
 tics of Jefferson, and in a measure by the philosophy 
 of Emerson. 
 
 In Germany, Winckelmann and Lessing laid the 
 foundation of art and literary criticism, by recogniz- 
 ing the twofold principle of the natural as dis- 
 tinguished from the artificial, and the artistic as 
 distinguished from the natural. Because art and 
 nature are united in man, we should be the more 
 careful not to confound them. " Art is called art," 
 said Goethe, " to distinguish it from nature " ; and 
 yet no poetry is more true to nature than Goethe's. 
 As prudent lawyers go back for precedents to cases 
 under the best jurisdiction, so Lessing and Winckel- 
 mann returned to the great masters of antiquity, and 
 from the principles thus evolved, laid the foundations 
 for Goethe and Schiller to build upon. Carlyle, who 
 never adopted Emerson's naturalistic views, recog- 
 nized the validity of this method. 
 
 In personal character they pleased him better than 
 the French, and were more in harmony with his 
 Scotch notions of propriety. They respected 
 morality for its own sake; and though they dis- 
 agreed somewhat with the conventional religion of 
 their time, they held in reverence the religious spirit 
 of all times, as did Carlyle himself. Even Goethe, 
 
72 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 who, in assimilating French elegance, also adopted 
 something from the French domestic idea, was alto- 
 gether more of a Stoic than a voluptuary, and never 
 lived, like Voltaire, in open intimacy with another 
 man's wife. Schiller, Lessing, and Jean Paul are 
 supposed to have been models of social uprightness. 
 Heine, who formed himself wholly on French 
 models, Carlyle did not like so well. 
 
 He also wrote essays on Burns, Walter Scott, Dr. 
 Johnson : each the best of its kind, so far as I know, 
 though the statement of Dr. Johnson might be im- 
 proved on. Goethe was particularly pleased with 
 his account of Burns, a poet whose pure, spontane- 
 ous melody was most like Goethe's own, and he 
 made the following extract from it for his introduc- 
 tion to the German translation of Carlyle's Schiller, 
 as a testimonial of the genius of this young Scotch- 
 man, and of the value of Scotch literature in general : 
 
 " Burns was born in an age the most prosaic Britain 
 has yet seen, and in a condition the most disadvan- 
 tageous, where his mind, if it accomplished aught, must 
 accomplish it under the pressure of continual bodily 
 toil, nay of penury and desponding apprehension of the 
 worst evils, and with no furtherance but such knowledge 
 as dwells in a poor man's hut, and the rhymes of Fergu- 
 son or Ramsay for his standard of beauty, he sinks not 
 under all these impediments : through the fogs and 
 darkness of that obscure region, his lynx eye discerns 
 the true relations of the world and human life ; he grows 
 into intellectual strength, and trains himself into intellect- 
 ual expertness. Impelled by the expansive movement 
 of his own irrepressible soul, he struggles forward into 
 
Carlyle. 73 
 
 the general view ; and with haughty modesty lays down 
 before us, as the fruit of his labor, a gift, which Time 
 has now pronounced imperishable. 
 
 "A true Poet, a man in whose heart resides some 
 efifluence of Wisdom, some tone of the ' Eternal Melo- 
 dies,' is the most precious gift that can be bestowed on a 
 generation : we see in him a freer, purer development of 
 whatever is noblest in ourselves — his life is a rich lesson 
 to us ; and we mourn his death as that of a benefactor 
 who loved and taught us." 
 
 This has a tone of youthful ardor and fresh en- 
 thusiasm, which after all is quite as valuable as the 
 sagacious gravity of age. No wonder that Goethe 
 admired it, for it bears close relationship to the handi- 
 work of his own early days. Carlyle always insisted 
 that Goethe saved his life, and when we consider the 
 difficulties and embarrassment which surrounded 
 him at this time, like a thorny hedge, we can readily 
 believe it. What an encouragement it must have 
 been to him, — like a message from the Delphic 
 oracle predicting a glorious future. 
 
 Goethe concludes one of his last letters to Carlyle 
 with the words, " So then — onward." 
 
 As a standard of the most pertinent criticism of 
 his later years, we may consider this casual opinion 
 of Gibbon, expressed in his Reminiscences: 
 
 " Gibbon's Decline and Fall was perhaps of all the 
 books the most impressive on me in my then stage of 
 investigation, and state of mind. I by no means com- 
 pletely admired Gibbon, perhaps not more than I now 
 do ; but his winged sarcasms, so quiet and yet so con- 
 
74 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 clusively transpiercing and killing dead, were often ad- 
 mirable, potent, and illuminative to me. Nor did I fail 
 to recognize his great power of investigating, ascertain- 
 ing, grouping, and narrating ; though the latter had 
 always, then as now, something of a Drury Lane char- 
 acter, the colors strong but coarse, and set off by lights 
 from the side scenes." 
 
 This is all there is of Gibbon, all the mental faculty 
 that he brought to his work. Though it is not to 
 be despised, it was not fine enough or complete 
 enough for the universal subject which he undertook 
 to deal with. England, especially in his time, was 
 a fraction, say one-fourth, of modern civilization, — a 
 large one it is true, — but the Roman Empire was the 
 summing up of ancient times. 
 
 Carlyle's struggles, doubts, despair, and final 
 spiritual victory are related in a peculiar dramatic 
 allegory, full of pathos and enlivened by penetrating 
 jets of wit. How many have been through this ex- 
 perience, and yet only Carlyle, even in such an odd 
 manner, has been able to describe it in perfect ful- 
 ness. It is a dangerous state to fall into : it is not 
 every one who comes out of it victorious, and there 
 are those who have been killed by it ; but it is neces- 
 sary to the full mental development of the man. 
 Some it touches lightly, so lightly that they hardly 
 realize the fact ; but deep, heart-throbbing natures, 
 especially if their surroundings are unfavorable, it will 
 often seize on like a violent fever. The simple faith 
 we are taught in childhood will not serve us when we 
 have become men and women. We are told that if 
 
Carlyle. 75 
 
 we are diligent and virtuous success will be easy, 
 but we find that kisses go by favor, and the world is 
 not what we expected it. The indigent scholar, 
 who has studied and toiled with his life in his hands, 
 finds at last that all he has learned will not avail to 
 keep him from starving. The maiden of cloudless 
 skies suddenly discovers that the father whom she 
 has loved and trusted is the eneniy of her lover and 
 her happiness. Neither do people who are more 
 fortunate escape this mental-moral disorder, which 
 has become well known as the Wertherian condition. 
 Even the doctors are beginning to recognize it, and 
 find that a simple change of air is not sufficient to 
 cure it. 
 
 The Sorrows of Wertherxe^xe^ents the same subject 
 treated in a poetical and sensuous manner ; whereas 
 Sartor Resartus is internal and ethical. Goethe was 
 rather too close to his own experience to do abstract 
 justice to it, and afterwards rather disapproved of 
 his own work, though it was the most universally 
 popular romance that has ever been published. As 
 an explanation of the matter, Carlyle's statement is 
 the more valuable of the two ; the more serious and 
 of wider application. The book made a profound 
 impression when it was published, for the world was 
 ripe for it. A beautiful lady almost on her death- 
 bed wrote, " I have no patience with some of Car- 
 lyle's writings, but Sartor Resartus is the beloved 
 of my heart. ' ' 
 
 It is not written in so natural a style as many of 
 his essays, more involved and tortuous in expression, 
 — it would seem unnecessarily so ; but the thought 
 
^6 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 is fresh and genuine, and goes to the heart. We 
 recognize in Sartor Resartus a human soul pleading 
 its own cause before a jury of immortals. Three 
 chapters contain the substance of it, and they are 
 powerfully written: the everlasting N O, th e centre 
 of indifference, and the everlasting (ayeT) These 
 names afford their own explanation. Fortunate is 
 he who remains loyal to the truth and says with grim 
 determination, " No, I cannot believe this, even if 
 it lead him into the abyss of despair " : still more 
 fortunate if he can say afterward, " There is some- 
 what I can believe, ' ' and then make this the corner- 
 stone of his life edifice. The longer the night and 
 deeper the gloom, the brighter will be that day to 
 him, illumined by a sun that will warm his heart 
 forever. 
 
 Such a man was Thomas Carlyle. He who would 
 command others must first learn self-control; and 
 he who is destined to reconstruct a race of men is 
 first obliged to reconstruct himself ; — for what is he 
 with all his habits and traditions, and accomplish- 
 ments, and second nature, but a sum of the world 
 as it is. It is a most painful process, like the tear- 
 ing out of the inside of a house in which even the 
 laths and plaster have a sensation of their own ; nor 
 is the re-building accomplished without stren^^ous 
 labor and sleepless nights, the spiritual occupant 
 meanwhile being very uncomfortably situated. Car- 
 lyle expresses it thus : 
 
 " Some comfort it would have been, could I, like 
 Faust, have fancied myself tempted by the Devil ; for a 
 
Carlyle. 77 
 
 Hell, as I imagine, without Life, though only diabolic 
 Life, were more frightful : but in our age of DownpuU- 
 ing and Disbelief, the very Devil has been pulled down ; 
 you cannot so much as believe in a Devil." 
 
 The most gloomy prophecy of our own time is 
 that our educated young men use chloroform or 
 laughing gas, of the moral sort, to go through this 
 operation; and then, having suffered Httle pain, are 
 content to believe for the future in nothing at all, — 
 except such things as are plainly apparent to the 
 senses; and thus go through life heartlessly con- 
 forming for the sake of appearances, and the mighty 
 dollar. How different from the time when Carlyle's 
 name was a spell to conjure with, even in the streets 
 of New York ! Now the Sunday newspaper takes 
 its place. 
 
 Beneath the obelisk in front of St. Peter's Church 
 at Rome, there is an inscription which says, " Christ 
 preserves his people from abomination." We could 
 wish that the Sunday newspaper were included. 
 
 The ' ' Everlasting Aye ' ' was a glorious assertion 
 of the spiritual nature of man ; an eloquent outburst 
 of belief such as not even Jeremy Taylor could 
 equal. That matter is nothing and spirit is every- 
 thing, was the keynote of Carlyle's teaching, as it 
 was of Emerson's ; only Emerson uttered it like a 
 penetrating tenor recitative, while Carlyle gave it 
 forth like a grand Messianic chorus. In Sartor 
 Resartus, as in the Vedic hymns, poetry, philosophy, 
 and religion are one. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton, and other high-church 
 
78 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 metaphysicians of Carlyle's time, considered an 
 elevated happiness the true end and object of human 
 existence. Carlyle rises above that. He scorns 
 happiness, as a serious man well may. Life means 
 to him the service of truth and celestial obligation. 
 He says : 
 
 " There is in man a higher than Love of Happiness : 
 he can do without Happiness, and instead thereof find 
 Blessedness ! Was it not to preach forth this same 
 HIGHER that sages and martyrs, the Poet and the Priest, 
 in all times, have spoken and suffered ; bearing testi- 
 mony, through life and through death, of the Godlike 
 that is in Man, and how in the Godlike only has he 
 Strength and Freedom ? " 
 
 Did Leonidas think of happiness at Thermopylae ; 
 or Dante, in composing the Inferno; or Duperron, in 
 his heroic quest for the Zend Avesta ; or Washington, 
 at Valley Forge ? These men were impelled by a 
 wholly different impulse than that which carries 
 people to the theatre. It seemed to them that they 
 could not do otherwise, and it was in this obedi- 
 ence to a divine necessity that they became heroic. 
 Much happiness no doubt they had — moments of 
 supreme joy and satisfaction, but much more care, 
 weariness, and pain. In healthy, active natures, 
 happiness and discontent succeed one another as 
 regularly as day and night. The true end of life is 
 rational development, in the individual and in the 
 race. Happiness is incidental, and an uncertain 
 possession. 
 
Carlyle. 7g 
 
 The French Revolution. 
 
 A broad, capacious mind requires great oppor- 
 tunities, and Carlyle was never altogether himself 
 until he began to work on this subject. Then in- 
 deed he astonished the literary public only as Childe 
 Harold had astonished it before him. The wonder 
 is that such a strangely original work, strange in 
 form and so difificult of apprehension, should have 
 found a publisher. Here John Stuart Mill was 
 Carlyle 's good genius. His interest in Carlyle 's 
 work, and brotherly solicitude for Carlyle himself, 
 is the best part of Mill's philosophy. They were 
 both champions of liberalism, but Carlyle's deeper 
 nature saw that liberalism was only a temporary 
 phase of world history, whereas Mill conceived it as 
 a permanent condition. It was Mill who first inter- 
 ested him in Mirabeau, and this led the way to the 
 French Revolution. He was so actively interested 
 in the subject, that he borrowed the first volume 
 in manuscript of Carlyle, and it was burned up by 
 some stupidity or other. The conflagration cost 
 Mill a thousand dollars (for he assessed the damages 
 on himself), and was something of an injury to that 
 portion of the book. 
 
 Carlyle describes the re-writing of it as like walk- 
 ing on very thin ice. It is difificult enough to re- 
 write a single page of manuscript that has dropped 
 out and disappeared mysteriously ; but to re-write 
 a volume, what task were equal to it ? We find 
 accordingly an undercurrent of weariness and some- 
 thing like mannerism in the first few chapters, as of 
 
8o Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 a man whose vitality has been exhausted ; and it is 
 not until Louis XIV. is fairly dead and buried that 
 the spirits of the writer revive again. 
 
 Not a few of the finest passages are in the last por- 
 tion of the first volume. 
 
 There is something magnificent in Carlyle's con- 
 tempt for his audience. He writes to tell you what 
 he thinks and knows, and if you do not understand 
 him that is no concern of his. How different from 
 Macaulay's advice to historians, that they should 
 not take too much pains to be accurate for fear of 
 losing popularity. Carlyle's scorn is like nature 
 itself ; or like a monarch of the old style who refuses 
 to make explanations. For my part I find the effect 
 of this healthy and invigorating. 
 
 Stuart Mill prided himself justly enough in having 
 anticipated the critics of Carlyle's French Revolution, 
 and prepared the public mind for it before print and 
 paper were yet dry. We doubt, however, if Mill or 
 any other man has ever understood the whole of it, 
 even with a biographical dictionary on his table. 
 How, for instance, will the average Latin scholar 
 know what is meant by " A sir ma Redux," unless he 
 discovered the phrase in some author unknown to 
 the schools. There ought to be a glossary appended 
 to the book, such as there is to the Waverley novels. 
 
 While the work was in progress, Carlyle wrote to 
 Emerson : " I believe the true poetry is to be found 
 in history," and this gives us the key to the stand- 
 point from which he considered it. Long before 
 this was known, Carlyle's admirers had denominated 
 it as the prose epic of modern times. It is indeed 
 
Carlyle. 8 1 
 
 an epic which describes not the wrath of Achilles 
 but that of God Almighty and Divine Justice 
 poured forth like hot lava upon political malefactors 
 and other assassins of society. No other writer of 
 the century could have done this with equal elo- 
 quence or power. A nature of sterling veracity 
 finds itself brought in contact from its earliest years 
 with imposture and small knavery, which it hates 
 continually more and more until a reserve fund of 
 indignation is accumulated ; and only waits a fitting 
 opportunity to break forth in words or action. Per- 
 haps the French Revolution served Carlyle as a sub- 
 stitute for subjects nearer home, and afforded him 
 that relief which every warm-hearted man requires 
 at times for his righteous indignation. There is 
 a certain satisfaction in seeing long-standing in- 
 iquity brought to its last account. Even merciful 
 Shakespeare says: "The judgment of the gods 
 which makes us tremble, touches us not with pity." 
 Such burning words had not been uttered since 
 Dante composed the Inferno in his graceful Tuscan 
 melody. Was it not a genuine Inferno, or hell on 
 earth, which Carlyle set himself to describe. He 
 was not a singer like Dante ; but there is a rough 
 sort of cadence in his sentences, not unHke the roll 
 of the hexameter, — with an occasional crash in it 
 too like a collision of the forces of nature, or like 
 the waves of time breaking upon the rocks of fate. 
 Otherwise its style is not unlike Browning's poetry, 
 so that these two writers sometimes approach each 
 other closely. It is a dramatic, pictorial style, well 
 suited to the various phases and Tartarean horrors 
 
82 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 of the Revolution, which have no apparent logical 
 sequence, but appear successively like the shifting 
 scenes of a stereopticon. That there was a logical 
 connection between them cannot be doubted, but 
 he will be a wonderful analyst who shall discover it. 
 No other book has been written in such a style, and 
 it would be a dangerous attempt to imitate it. 
 
 When Titian had nearly finished a picture, it was 
 his custom to turn it to the wall and leave it so for 
 months, until he had forgotten how it looked ; then 
 he would turn it round and scrutinize it in a search- 
 ing manner to discover by what changes it might be 
 benefited. This is the cause perhaps why, of all the 
 great painters, Titian's work is of the most uniform, 
 unvarying excellence ; and it is this keenly observing 
 expression which he has perpetuated in his own 
 portrait. 
 
 It were well if Carlyle could have adopted such a 
 practice as this. It were well if he could have spent 
 ten years on his History of the French Revolution ; 
 and could have in the course of time detected the 
 arid, uninspired passages in it, and brought them 
 all to an equal standard with the rest. Then he 
 might have produced an imperishable work, an Iliad 
 in prose; but there was no possibility of this. 
 Homer could hve like the birds in that bountiful 
 climate, which gave the tone to his poetry, but Car- 
 lyle required coal for his winter fire, and dresses for 
 his wife to entertain distinguished visitors in, — the 
 one experience which Emerson thought never lost 
 its charm. Pegasus was harnessed to a horse-car 
 and obliged to go forward at an even pace. How- 
 
Carlyle. 83 
 
 ever, we need not find fault if the whole of it does 
 not rise to the level of Carlyle's description of the 
 flight of Louis XVI. and his Queen from Paris ; for 
 he nowhere falls below excellence, and is at the 
 worst superior to mediocrity. A cotemporary 
 critic called it ' ' History revealed in flashes of light- 
 ning." 
 
 The sole cause of the French Revolution of 1789 
 was misgovernment ; so Macaulay says. True 
 enough, and let our legislators at Washington 
 remember the fact ; but was there something behind 
 this ? What was the cause of the misgovernment ? 
 It was not the abuse of a single reign, nor of a 
 series of ministers; for it had been going on for 
 nearly a century. In Martin's History of France 
 (which is very good, as national histories go), the 
 origin of the revolution is traced back deep into the 
 reign of Louis XIV., at the very time that France 
 seemed to culminate intellectually and materially. 
 If a decline was necessary after this, why was it so 
 rapid ? The misgovernment was realized and ap- 
 preciated, and various attempts at reform were made 
 before the final crash came, but they proved as futile 
 a barrier as a board fence might against a tornado. 
 Carlyle gives a more profound explanation. 
 
 " Faith is gone out ; Scepticism is come in. Evil 
 abounds and accumulates ; no man has Faith to with- 
 stand it, to amend it, to begin by amending himself ; it 
 must ever go on accumulating. While hollow languor 
 and vacuity is the lot of the Upper, and want and stag- 
 nation of the Lower, and universal misery is very certain, 
 
84 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 what other thing is certain ? That a Lie cannot be 
 believed ! Philosophism knows only this : her other 
 belief is mainly, that in spiritual supersensual matters no 
 Belief is possible. Unhappy ! Nay, as yet the Contra- 
 diction of a Lie is some kind of a belief ; but the Lie 
 with its Contradiction once swept away, what will re- 
 main ? The five unsatiated Senses will remain, the sixth 
 insatiable Sense (of vanity) ; the whole dcemoniac nature 
 of man will remain, — hurled forth to rage blindly without 
 rule or rein ; savage itself, yet with all the tools and 
 weapons of civilization : a spectacle new in History." 
 
 The compact between church and state during 
 the Middle Ages was highly favorable for maintain- 
 ing our public order. The influence of the priests 
 over the laboring classes was the greater in propor- 
 tion to the ignorance of the latter; and the doctrine 
 that they inculcated, that every man should be con- 
 tented with his position in life, and that it was wrong 
 to envy those who were more fortunate, had great 
 effect in supporting the strict subordination of 
 classes. So long as the different classes realize that 
 they are essential to one another and act on this 
 principle, the nation as a whole may be considered 
 in a healthy condition ; but as soon as the different 
 orders of society become antagonistic, demoraliza- 
 tion sets in. 
 
 The absolute contempt of the French nobility for 
 man, as a human being, would seem to surpass any- 
 thing recorded in history, — certainly among Chris- 
 tian nations. To a French nobleman, a man was 
 not a man but a dog; and to his wife, a still more 
 degraded object. 
 
Carlyle. 85 
 
 This contempt for human nature, as such, had 
 penetrated all classes of society more or less, and 
 carried with it inevitably a disrespect for religion ; 
 for if you divest man of his spirituality he becomes 
 simply an animal, and society reduced to such a 
 level is, as Carlyle says, nearly cannibal. Voltaire's 
 saying that the church is the beggar's opera, struck 
 the keynote of French philosophy. French posi- 
 tivism, with its ally of literary realism, was perform- 
 ing the same work of disintegration. Whatever the 
 ' priests might say, the mass of the French people 
 recognized the fact that the human race existed only 
 for the benefit of the few, and the more obstinately 
 this was denied, the less respect was felt for the 
 sacerdotal orders. 
 
 On the other hand, genuine constructive intelli- 
 gence was absolutely wanting. If there was such 
 discernible anywhere, it was to be found among a 
 few isolated individuals, of whom Mirabeau was the 
 chief. Constructive intellect (or we may call it 
 common sense if we like) was replaced by a wild 
 visionary sentiment ; of which we know a little also 
 on this side of the ocean. Wars were to cease for- 
 ever; felons to be moulded into saints; capital pun- 
 ishment to be abolished ; and a higher civilization to 
 be produced like magic out of this rapidly decom- 
 posing chaos. An era of universal peace and good- 
 will to men, with money enough for his majesty's 
 humblest subjects, was to be brought about as if by 
 enchantment. Meanwhile Napoleon was reading 
 Plutarch's Lives and studying military tactics. 
 
 It was significant of the times that, among num- 
 
86 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 berless works on government and political economy 
 published during the reign of Louis XVI., the one 
 which received public approval and has continued 
 to be of historical importance was not written by a 
 Necker or a Turgot, men trained and experienced in 
 the affairs of state, but by the morbid, enthusiastic 
 novelist-cdtic, Jean Jacques Rousseau. Carlyle re- 
 fers to it repeatedly as the " gospel according to 
 Jean Jacques." It certainly was a political evangel 
 to the Frenchmen of that day ; one that when the 
 time came to put it to the test proved a fallacious 
 and misleading guide. 
 
 Rousseau's Social Compact, assimilated by Jeffer- 
 son, formed the basis of what was called the glorious 
 revolution of 1800, which finally resulted in state 
 rights, nullification, and the glorious secession of 
 the Southern slave-holding states. Perhaps no 
 other small book has ever accomplished an equal 
 sum of mischief. The very first sentence of it is a 
 non-sequitur. Yet the fundamental truth that there 
 is an unwritten contract between the governing and 
 governed, like the unwritten code of personal honor, 
 is eloquently expounded in it. 
 
 The chapter that Carlyle devotes to The Social 
 Compact is rather a brilliant one, and he makes a 
 strong point of the fact that in the popular romance 
 of Paul and Virginia, it is for the sake of etiquette 
 that the catastrophe takes place; but I believe 
 there is not one word in it concerning Rousseau's 
 book. This brings to our notice an idiosyncrasy of 
 the man. We have observed before that Carlyle had 
 the mind of an artist. He looked at life pictorially, 
 
Carlyle. 87 
 
 and at history as a subject for his art. This did not 
 prevent him from sympathizing profoundly with 
 the sufferings and aspirations of mankind ; but noth- 
 ing could be more wearisome to him than to attempt 
 to trace out a train of logical sequences. " Poor 
 John Mill," he said, " is writing away in the Fort- 
 nightly Review on what he calls the philosophy of 
 history. As if any man knew what road he was go- 
 ing to take with such a horse as that ! " Political 
 science as well as practical politics were positively 
 hateful to him. 
 
 It is not likely that he read ten pages of The 
 Social Compact. His only idea of government 
 seems to have been absolute monarchy; not so 
 much an hereditary monarchy as the natural im- 
 perialism of Cromwell and Napoleon. It seems 
 strange that he should not have perceived that, 
 even if a succession of such men could be obtained, 
 their form of administration would seriously inter- 
 fere with the changing needs and habits of mankind. 
 So far as Great Britain is concerned at the present 
 time, however, he may not have been far wrong. 
 What is evidently needed there now is a Cromwell, 
 or a Von Stein, who will remove the time-honored 
 excrescences, and do for England, and more par- 
 ticularly for Ireland, what the Revolution did for 
 France, and Von Stein accomplished in a fair meas- 
 ure for Prussia. 
 
 Robespierre was an autocrat of a remarkable 
 type, — an Utopian Cromwell. In his youth he re- 
 fused to condemn a prisoner to the gallows ; did not 
 believe in capital punishment; was a reformer by 
 
88 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 profession ; a theorizer on social science and model 
 government, not unlike the abolitionists of 1832, — 
 a class of men whom Carlyle always disliked. 
 Hegel, who better understood the logic of the Revo- 
 lution, asserts that Robespierre wished to establish 
 a republic of virtue, and exerted himself to that end 
 with unselfish devotion; and it is true that the 
 younger Robespierre, who was at least the better 
 man of the two, exclaimed when he was indicted by 
 the Assembly, " I have tried to emulate my 
 brother's virtues, and now I wish to share his fate." 
 This is strong evidence. Unfortunately, in the heat 
 of partisan politics virtue soon becomes a matter of 
 opinion. The good were those who agreed with 
 Robespierre, and the bad were those who disagreed 
 with him. There is no blood-poison like a political 
 or philanthropic theory, when it has once obtained 
 complete possession of a man. He was the incor- 
 ruptible Robespierre, but his eye was cold and 
 stony. 
 
 After all, Mirabeau, Robespierre, and Napoleon 
 were the three great figures of the Revolution, and 
 Carlyle paints their portraits with a bold, vigorous 
 handling. The first represented resistance to op- 
 pression ; the second, chaos ; and the third, a return 
 to common sense. Only Mirabeau 's death saved 
 him from the guillotine ; but he died because he also 
 had drunk too deeply in the immorality of his time. 
 Carlyle only gives Napoleon a few touches (" his 
 bronze lips, " " the whiff of grape shot ' '), but there 
 is more about him in Heroes and Hero-Worship, a 
 volume in which Carlyle' s peculiar style becomes 
 
Carlyle. 89 
 
 positive mannerism ; nor has it much except a few 
 brilliant passages to recommend it. All long-pro- 
 tracted and bloody revolutions have been followed 
 by imperialism, and Napoleon happened to be the 
 right man. He disciplined the French, and 
 brought them to their senses. 
 
 Oliver Cromwell. 
 
 History takes its course from social and political 
 movements, which either succeed or fail according 
 to the momentum which they acquire and the skill 
 with which the force thus developed is directed. 
 The success of the Revolution of '89 was a foregone 
 conclusion. It did not even require a Mirabeau to 
 guide it ; but to reap and secure the fruits of that 
 Revolution required the most remarkable executive 
 ability ever born in modern times. 
 
 Carlyle appreciated this, as one of the few Eng- 
 lishmen of his time, but he did not perceive it clearly 
 enough to describe it, and it would hardly have been 
 patriotic for him to have done so ; for that, appar- 
 ently, would have placed his own country in a false 
 position with regard to history, — only apparently, 
 however; for is not the spark that is struck from 
 flint by steel a symbol of all light and enlightment, 
 by which all mankind improves and progresses ? So 
 by the same instinct which instructs the birds to fly 
 southward in cold weather, he returned to a situa- 
 tion in English history closely allied to the position 
 of France in 1795. 
 
 Mommsen compares Caesar with Henry IV. and 
 
go Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 William of Orange : truly a weak comparison. He 
 had better have compared him with Cromwell and 
 Napoleon, both of whom acquired the utmost power 
 by mental force and strength of character, without 
 the help of hereditary right. Cromwell, though he 
 never wore a crown, was the greatest of English 
 kings, and, like Frederick of Prussia, was equally 
 admirable either as a statesman or a soldier, Marl- 
 borough and Wellington may have carried on war 
 on a larger scale, but they were not more successful, 
 nor did their victories produce such important 
 results. 
 
 The Life of Cromwell is an invaluable book, and 
 the student of history should by no means neglect 
 it ; but of Carlyle's more important works it is the 
 least entertaining ; the larger part of it being made 
 up of Cromwell's letters and speeches which are 
 practical, sensible, and often interesting, but unim- 
 aginative and full of religious repetition,* which 
 has frequently been mistaken for cant ; and it seems 
 as if Cromwell might have spared us a portion of it. 
 His letters are not as interesting as Napoleon's; 
 whose grand ideas and comprehensive views, ex- 
 pressed so simply and forcibly, constitute a classic 
 in French literature. Carlyle's interludes are often 
 brilliant and witty. 
 
 Metternich, who was at the university when Louis 
 XVI. was beheaded, never could see anything be- 
 hind the French Revolution except a revolt of the 
 lower classes against their more fortunate superiors ; 
 
 •According to Cicero the word "religion" is derived from 
 relegere — to repeat. 
 
Carlyle. 91 
 
 and there may be mossy old aristocrats in Europe 
 now who view it in the same light. Their number, 
 however, must be small. In dealing with that sub- 
 ject, Carlyle had public opinion wholly on his side, 
 but in writing of Cromwell he was forced to contend 
 against it. The Tories had always considered Crom- 
 well the Satanic adventurer and arch-regicide, miti- 
 gated by his superior administrative abilities ; while 
 the Whigs regarded him as an ambitious usurper, 
 and the Judas of his own party, Carlyle from his deep 
 sense of brotherhood with all true greatness, recog- 
 nized the man as he was. He combatted public 
 opinion and won a signal victory. He is credited 
 with having reversed the judgment of mankind in 
 Cromwell's favor. 
 
 The chief critical interest of the book lies in Car- 
 lyle's explanations of Cromwell's assumption of 
 autocratic power ; and in this we find the same in- 
 difference to political science heretofore recorded. 
 He says : 
 
 " Great lakes of watery Correspondence relating to the 
 History of this Period, as we intimate, survive in print ; 
 and fresh deluges are occasionally issued upon man- 
 kind : but the essence of them has never yet in the 
 smallest been elaborated by any man ; will require a 
 succession of assiduous series of many men to elaborate 
 it. To pluck-up the great History of Oliver from it, like 
 drowned Honor by the locks ; and to show it to much- 
 wondering and, in the end, right-thankful England ! 
 The richest and noblest thing England hitherto has." 
 
 " And now, if we practically ask ourselves, What is to 
 
92 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 become of this small junto of men, somewhat above a 
 Hundred in all, hardly above Half-a-hundred the active 
 part of them, who now sit in the chair of authority ? the 
 shaping-out of any answer will give rise to considerations. 
 These men have been carried thither by miraculous in- 
 terpositions of Providence ; they may be said to sit 
 there only by a continuance of the like. They cannot 
 sit there forever. They are not Kings by birth, these 
 men ; nor in any of them have I discovered qualities as 
 of a very indisputable King by attainments." 
 
 He concludes briefly that a body of men so con- 
 stituted was not capable of governing the country, 
 whereas Cromwell was so. Might became right, 
 and the weaker party was obliged to retire from the 
 field. 
 
 This is good and true enough, but there is more 
 to this subject. Neither the Parliament nor Crom- 
 well were legally constituted authorities. As early as 
 April, 1649, Lord Fairfax had requested Parliament 
 to fix a day for its dissolution and arrange for a fresh 
 election according to law. Parliament had ap- 
 pointed a day for adjournment, but when the time 
 came declined to adjourn, and two years later the 
 same Parliament was still sitting. There were only 
 something more than half the original number repre- 
 sented in it. It exercised its authority as Cromwell 
 did his, by the right of revolution. Charles Stuart, 
 the only lawful authority for the kingdom by whom 
 the summons for a new Parliament could be issued, 
 was in exile. Yet there was a government in Eng- 
 land ; and the question arises. Was the real governing 
 
Carlyle. 93 
 
 power vested in Parliament, or in the army of which 
 Cromwell was the head ? 
 
 Carlyle might have hit closer to the truth by call- 
 ing the Parliament a set of popes, rather than a set 
 of kings. In addition to the fact that its members 
 were more given to religion than to statecraft, par- 
 liamentary government as we now understand it had 
 not yet been invented. The honest gentry and 
 yeomanry of England would have been greatly 
 puzzled at the notion of being governed by a party 
 leader in the House of Commons. The office would 
 have possessed small dignity in their estimation. 
 The situation was analogous to that of France 
 when Napoleon was chosen consul for life. The 
 civil war was ended, it is true, but insurrection was 
 liable to break out at any time. Prince Rupert was 
 in command of a squadron of war-ships, and the 
 young princes had established a permanent basis 
 for future operations at the court of Louis XIV. 
 Meanwhile the Dutch were taking advantage of the 
 national evils to secure for themselves the foreign 
 trade of Europe. There was peril without, and 
 poverty within the realm. To attempt the forma- 
 tion of a republic would have been a tentative ex- 
 periment, fraught with danger, as all political 
 experiments are. 
 
 The popular impression has been that the Parlia- 
 ment was in favor of a republic, and that the army 
 supported Cromwell in aspiring to the sovereignty. 
 It is true that the army supported Cromwell first, 
 last, and always; but the officers of the army, ac- 
 cording to Bulstrand, favored a republic ; while the 
 
94 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 members of Parliament favored a return to mon- 
 archy. The conversation reported by Bulstrand at 
 Cromwell's levie, after the battle of Worcester, is 
 intensely interesting. All the speakers but one 
 favored a mixture of republic and monarchy, and 
 Cromwell himself thought that " a republic, with 
 something of a monarchy in it, would be more 
 effectual." 
 
 It was Colonel Desborow who inquired why Eng- 
 land could not, like other nations (that is, Holland), 
 be governed in the way of a republic ; and Whit- 
 locke replied to him, that the laws of England were 
 so interwoven with the power and practice of mon- 
 archy, that to arrange a government without some- 
 thing of a monarchy in it, would cause too great an 
 alteration in the legal proceedings of the realm. 
 Cromwell introduced the discussion with a request 
 that those present should consult for the interest of 
 the nation, so as to form a government that would 
 preserve the civil and religious liberty which had 
 been won by the sword. 
 
 There were not a few speakers on this occasion 
 who favored the recall of the Stuarts, although hav- 
 ing just defeated them on the field of battle; — 
 enough to startle Cromwell into a knowledge of 
 what dangerous stuff human nature may be, espe- 
 cially in the hour of triumph. He must have clearly 
 foreseen, then and there, that the recall of the Stu- 
 arts would eventually be death to the regicides ; and 
 so it proved to be after the Restoration. He knew 
 also that if they returned through the support of 
 the French king, they would bring with them the 
 
Carlyle. 95 
 
 despotic politics of the French court. The revolu- 
 tion would have to be fought over again. Shall we 
 blame Cromwell because, with such a prospect be- 
 fore him, he concluded that the only person in 
 England to be altogether trusted was himself, and 
 that he must keep the reins of the government in 
 his own hands ? It was the most patriotic course 
 that he could have adopted. 
 
 " In a multitude of counsellors there is safety." 
 There was never such another solecism. In the 
 multitude of counsellors there is confusion, inde- 
 cision, vacillation, and compromise. A captain 
 when he is guiding a ship in a storm does not want 
 to be troubled with the advice of a select board of 
 passengers. The question between Cromwell and 
 the Parliament was one of life or death. The ease 
 with which the Parliament was dispersed, and the 
 strong support which public opinion gave Cromwell 
 from that time forward, justify the measure, though 
 an arbitrary and dangerous one. His army was the 
 same irresistible army after his death that it was 
 before; but it lacked a head, was irresolute and 
 powerless, 
 
 Carlyle's formula, that might makes right, would 
 seem to have been an awkward argument for the 
 justification of arbitrary acts by Cromwell, Fred- 
 erick, and others ; and his constant repetition of it 
 became a standing grievance with friends, like Emer- 
 son and John Sterling, who never could understand 
 his meaning. The exercise of arbitrary power is not 
 to be justified in that manner. The original object 
 of government and of the development of law was 
 
96 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 to prevent might from becoming right : and so it 
 always will be. Much better is Macchiavelli's state- 
 ment that a necessary war is always a just one. 
 The true justification of Cromwell is found in what 
 Secretary Seward called the " higher law," and 
 Webster the " right of revolution." When, as in 
 England during the reign of Charles I., or in the 
 United States under President Buchanan, law and 
 government are turned into an engine of oppression, 
 and there is no near expectation of a remedy, — then 
 revolution is in order, and men like Cromwell and 
 John Brown come to the front. The grand convo- 
 cation of pedantic stick-in-the-muds may carp at 
 this till doomsday, and cry out in perpetual chorus 
 that the trouble would have cured itself in due 
 time; but good historians, and intrinsically great 
 lawyers, have always recognized this principle. 
 
 I cannot refrain from introducing here Emerson's 
 lines on Cromwell, supposed to have been inspired 
 by reading Carlyle's history. It is a shame that so 
 few readers are acquainted with them. 
 
 " Unknown to Cromwell as to me 
 Was Cromwell's measure and degree : 
 Unknown to him as to his horse, 
 Whether he or the groom are better or worse. 
 He works, plots, fights 'mid rude affairs. 
 With squires, knights, kings his craft compares, 
 Till late he learned through doubt and fear 
 Broad England harbored not his peer ; 
 Unwilling still the last to own 
 The genius on his cloudy throne." 
 
Carlyle. 97 
 
 Frederick the Great. 
 
 How grandly did Carlyle map out the work of his 
 life, — if it were not after all the measure of his own 
 mental depths. The three great events in history 
 since the Reformation (of which Cromwell was the 
 last champion) have the been the rise of Prussia, the 
 French Revolution, and the growth of the United 
 States of America. Two of these Carlyle has chroni- 
 cled in such a manner that it will be long before 
 any one will attempt to do his work over again. 
 
 Carlyle does not paint Frederick as a rose-colored 
 ideal. In the very beginning he says : 
 
 " Friedrich is by no means one of the perfect demi- 
 gods, and there are various things to be said against him 
 with good ground. To the last a questionable hero, 
 with much in him which one could have wished not 
 there, and much wanting which one could have wished. 
 But there is one feature which strikes you at an early 
 period of the inquiry. That in his way he is a Reality ; 
 that he always means what he speaks ; grounds his 
 actions, too, on what he recognizes for the truth ; and, 
 in short, has nothing whatever for the Hypocrite or 
 Phantasm — which some readers will admit to be an 
 extremely rare phenomenon." 
 
 This is what the stockbrokers call a conservative 
 statement. Elsewhere he says, " Friedrich was not 
 a great luminous intelligence," seeing deeply into 
 the mystery of life and human affairs, " but rather 
 a steel-bright soul," reflecting the best intelligence 
 of his time with a basis of strength and tenacity to 
 7 
 
98 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 resist the shocks and endure the conflicts of nations. 
 This was what was wanted for a man in his position ; 
 especially for such times as Frederick lived in. A 
 Dante or a Goethe, vibrating to the cordex with 
 tender sensibilities, could not have commanded an 
 army or even supported the daily strain of govern- 
 ment business. 
 
 There is a prejudice against success as well as for 
 it. Gustavus Adolphus loses his life by rashness on 
 the field of Liitzen, and is canonized as the ideal 
 hero; Frederick, who was not more daring than 
 prudent, pulls safely through seven terrible years of 
 warfare, enlarges his dominions, and is looked upon 
 as an ambitious potentate greedy for conquest. 
 Charles Sumner made use of Frederick as an ex- 
 ample of the menace which arises to the peace of 
 nations from the maintenance of standing armies. 
 
 After all, did not Frederick accomplish the 
 toughest piece of work which it was ever given to 
 mortal man to succeed in. The whole continent of 
 Europe, except Spain and Holland, was leagued 
 against him ; he had only three millions of people, 
 and a country as large as New England, to draw his 
 resources from ; and yet his enemies could not crush 
 him. At Rossbach, with an army of twenty-six 
 thousand, he utterly routed a French force of 
 seventy-five thousand. At Leuthen he so dispersed 
 an Austrian army of eighty thousand men that they 
 never came together again until within sight of 
 Vienna. Only Napoleon, in his Italian campaign, 
 has ever achieved such successes. Certainly this is 
 one kind of heroism, and if not of the highest order 
 
Carlyle. 99 
 
 it was a kind exceedingly useful to Prussia, and to 
 all Protestant Germany. Gustavus also might have 
 wished for territory, and the Swedes certainly 
 claimed it when the Thirty Years' War was ended. 
 
 Frederick did not go to war because he had a 
 well-disciplined army. A standing army may supply 
 the means of warfare more readily, but it is also the 
 most effective means of preserving peace. If the 
 United States government had possessed a regular 
 army of sixty thousand in 1861, we should not have 
 had four years of fratricidal strife in this country. 
 By the treaty of Westphalia nearly one half of 
 Silesia had been conceded to Prussia, but after the 
 Swedes had evacuated Germany the Austrian gov- 
 ernment refused to surrender it. Such a claim 
 could not be outlawed in less than a hundred years, 
 and Frederick finding himself in a strong position 
 demanded his rights, and marched his army in to 
 take possession, — to the great rejoicing of the in- 
 habitants. The act, however, had an effect on the 
 course of Prussian history which Frederick could not 
 have foreseen. 
 
 In the perpetual wars which occurred between 
 France and Austria from that time until 1859, 
 Prussia had been obliged to act an apparently dubi- 
 ous part. To permit France to obtain a sufficient 
 advantage to seize on German territory would not 
 have been patriotic, and Prussian statesmen, with 
 the exception of Haugwiz, have always recognized 
 this as an absolute principle of their policy. At the 
 same time it was important that Austria should not 
 become powerful enough to deal at pleasure with 
 
lOO Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 the other German states. This gave a superficial 
 appearance of fickleness to Frederick's policy, which 
 the facts did not justify. He was not the ally of 
 France in the first Silesian war, and had a perfect 
 right to make peace without consulting the French 
 government. Afterwards, when the French were 
 overmatched, and Frederick saw there was danger 
 that the victorious Austrian army would be turned 
 against him, he attacked the Austrians again. 
 
 So, in 1858, when Napoleon III. had defeated the 
 Austrians in two engagements, the king of Prussia 
 placed his army on the Rhine, and both sides hast- 
 ened to make peace; Napoleon, for fear of losing 
 what he had gained, and Franz Josef, because he 
 did not like to be under obligations to Prussia for 
 assistance. You will often hear of the unprincipled 
 policy of Prussia, and this is the explanation of it. 
 The present reorganization of Germany has brought 
 it to an end. 
 
 There seem to have been various underlying 
 causes for the Seven Years' War. It was an alliance 
 of all the Catholic powers of Europe against the 
 Protestant powers. This fact has attracted much 
 attention of late among German writers ; and Carlyle 
 also notices that France, Spain, Austria, and Russia 
 were governed by women, or their parasites, at that 
 time, and Prussia and Great Britain by men. Both 
 Carlyle and Macaulay exonerate Frederick from the 
 responsibility of the war, and it is amazing that 
 Sumner or anyone else should have held him re- 
 sponsible for it. 
 
 Looked at broadly, it was a war of sham against 
 
Carlyle. loi 
 
 reality, of pretension against plain dealing, of super- 
 stition against intelligence, of stagnation against 
 progress, of mis-government against good govern- 
 ment, and of injustice against justice. Frederick 
 did not pretend to be a high-minded man. He was 
 more like Augustus than Aurelius; but he knew 
 how to govern, and succeeded better in the reforms 
 he undertook than Joseph II., who was the nobler 
 nature of the two. It may be said to the everlast- 
 ing glory of Frederick, that he was the first to estab- 
 lish popular education on a broad foundation ; which, 
 if looked upon as a human invention, may be com- 
 pared to the motive power of steam, or to the uses 
 of electricity. He not only provided the essential 
 means of it, but had the law enforced, so that it was 
 impossible for a boy to grow up ignorant in Prussia, 
 as it is still in France and Italy. He reformed 
 the Prussian law, which was more involved than 
 those of most other countries, fifty years before Na- 
 poleon's code; abolishing the profession of attor- 
 ney altogether, and compelling all suits before the 
 courts to be finished within one year, — ^two highly 
 important reforms. 
 
 Prussia thus became the first nation in the world's 
 history founded on universal intelligence ; and when 
 we consider that fact we need not be surprised at any 
 events which have since taken place there. There 
 is a remarkable prediction in the preface to Carlyle's 
 Life of Frederick, which I believe was written 
 about 1855 ; a prediction fulfilled in the Franco- 
 German war, and the hegemony of Bismarck. Met- 
 ternich was filled with jealous admiration for the 
 
I02 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 progress of Prussia in his own time, and attributed 
 it to the energy, and administrative faculty of the 
 early Prussian kings. An English writer on tactics 
 considers the Prussian staff the most formidable 
 military organization since the time of the Romans. 
 
 Frederick could not have accomplished what he 
 did without the earnest support of all Protestant 
 Germany. A strong military power was necessary 
 as the basis for that grand epoch of German litera- 
 ture and scholarship which has since astonished the 
 world. Nations instinctively feel their destiny, and 
 Frederick was as much the product of German con- 
 sciousness, as Goethe and Beethoven. Goethe's 
 father was an ardent partisan of Frederick, although 
 he dwelt far from the Prussian boundary ; and thou- 
 sands of recruits were gathered to Frederick's stand- 
 ard from Swabia and the Rhineland, just as the 
 young men of Maryland went over to Lee's army, 
 and the mountaineers of Tennessee enlisted with 
 General Thomas. Rossbach was to Goethe what 
 the battle of Marathon was to Sophocles. 
 
 Such was Carlyle's work : to describe this man 
 who was the most important person living in that 
 time ; and he has done it without palliation for his 
 faults, or exaggeration for his virtues ; — the most 
 veritable presentment of a great administrator known 
 to literature. Emerson wrote to Carlyle after read- 
 ing the book, " It is easily the greatest of histories," 
 and that is what I said myself half a dozen times 
 while perusing it. Whether I should say so now I 
 do not feel sure. They told me in Berlin that it 
 was one of the best biographies of Frederick; but 
 
Carlyle. 103 
 
 what German literary genius has been born in this 
 century equal to Carlyle. There may be German 
 historians who represent the logic of events better 
 than he, but it is doubtful if any have given such a 
 grand pictorial account of the Seven Years' War. 
 The sketch of German history also which fills his 
 first volume, and through which he traces the rising 
 fortunes of the Hohenzollern family, is most in- 
 teresting reading, — animated and full of wit. Noth- 
 ing entertains like imagination. 
 
 The severity of Lowell's critique on Carlyle,* and 
 deliberate depreciation of the Life of Frederick, is 
 measurably excused by its being written during the 
 war for the Union, when Carlyle's lukewarm sym- 
 pathy with the slaveholders' revolution was only 
 too notorious. Had the essay been written ten 
 years earlier, or ten years later, it must have ex- 
 pressed a different and a better feeling. Cynicism 
 has often been charged against Carlyle, but I think 
 it must have arisen from a misunderstanding of the 
 difference between satire and cynicism. Of deeply 
 enjoyable, heart-warming humor he has always 
 enough, and also some pretty keen satire ; but I do 
 not remember any cynicism. A cynical writer is my 
 abhorrence. It is the language of Mephistopheles. 
 It is one with snobbishness ; and who would suspect 
 Carlyle of that ? 
 
 Satire often seems rather sharp when it is used as 
 an argument against us. Carlyle said during the 
 civil war to some New Englander, " Why don't you 
 
 ♦ See Appendix A. 
 
104 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 let those bad people in the South go to the devil if 
 they will, and then you good people in the North 
 get to heaven if you can. ' ' This is very witty, and 
 seems sensible enough from an outside point of view ; 
 but here political science steps in to tell us that a 
 government will never permit its authority to be 
 disputed so long as it can prevent it. The sense of 
 national unity lies at the base of patriotism, and 
 when a people once become divided they cease to 
 have much historical value. In his old age Carlyle 
 read the Harvard Memorial biographies, and said in 
 a contemplative manner, " I doot I have been 
 wrang. ' ' 
 
 His support of negro slavery was a strange thing. 
 How could the man who sympathizes so closely 
 with the sufferings of the French peasantry under 
 the old regime, who in Sartor Resartus venerates the 
 hand hardened by manual labor, and who could 
 speak of the humble toil of the Silesian farmers as 
 something beautiful to him, — how could he refuse 
 an equal sympathy to other suffering millions 
 merely because they were black ? His friends 
 argued this question with him all through life, but 
 without ever persuading him to change his position. 
 He thought slavery was the best thing for "Sambo." 
 Elizur Wright, a tough Ohio utilitarian radical, once 
 shook him a little in argument by asserting that 
 slavery was worse for the white owner than it was 
 for the negro chattel. 
 
 Despite the peculiarities of Carlyle 's style, which 
 became a kind of mannerism as he advanced in life, 
 the History of Frederick is written in a plainer and 
 
Carlyle. 105 
 
 less poetic language than the French Revolution; 
 and though it contains more than three thousand 
 pages, the last chapter is as instinct with vitality as 
 the first. There may be dead sentences in it, but 
 no dead paragraphs. No other work of equal length 
 is so well sustained, and so free from monotone. 
 Lowell did not find the subject an interesting one, 
 but I think we may conclude this to have been his 
 own fault. It is impossible for an unprejudiced 
 reader not to sympathize with Frederick in his bar- 
 barous treatment by an eccentric father (instigated 
 by the Austrian court in one of the vilest intrigues 
 in history), with his love for his noble-hearted sis- 
 ter, with his respect for learning and literature, and 
 finally with the almost superhuman struggle of the 
 Seven Years' War. Frederick's friends were mostly 
 a disappointment to him, and this may have been 
 largely his own fault ; but it is a rare chance when a 
 man elevated by both rank and genius above his 
 cotemporaries can make intimate friends for him- 
 self. He was beloved by his own people, and I 
 have been enough with the common people of 
 Prussia to know that they regard his memory much 
 as we do the name of Washington. He was not so 
 virtuous as Washington, but he was one of the 
 bravest, wisest, and most skilful of men. 
 
 Memoirs and Correspondence : 
 
 When Carlyle's friends desired him to write an 
 autobiography, he replied that he did not consi- 
 der that his biography was worth writing. Fortu- 
 
io6 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 nately he reconsidered the matter and wrote his 
 Reminiscences ; divided into sections, and inscribed 
 respectively to his father, to Edward Irving, to his 
 wife, and to Lord Jeffreys. It is the most modest 
 account that any celebrated man has given of himself, 
 and an equally graceful tribute to his relatives and 
 friends. His pictures of Scottish country life, of his 
 schoolmates and his school-teachers, of the struggles 
 of his youth and the distinguished acquaintances of 
 his later years, are drawn with the quiet, simple 
 fidelity of Albert Durer's woodcuts. How vivid is 
 his description of Wordsworth, quietly eating his 
 dates behind a green shade, amid the glare and 
 clatter of a London dinner-party. How clearly that 
 incident stands forth to the mind's eye. How 
 amusing his account of the Scotch merchant who 
 informed Carlyle that " Poetry was the proodooc- 
 tion of a rude aage," which his auditor listened to 
 without remonstrance. 
 
 Matthew Arnold estimated the Carlyle and Emer- 
 son correspondence so highly that he ventured to 
 predict that the two authors would survive in it 
 rather than in their deliberate publications. With- 
 out believing this too readily, we can recognize it as 
 the capstone of a literary and artistic edifice, such 
 as there are few enough examples of. Whether the 
 future generations will find the same interest in it that 
 we do, who have felt the personality of these two 
 mighty men, is somewhat uncertain. Meanwhile let 
 those read it who wish to know what Emerson and 
 Carlyle really were at heart; remembering always 
 that what was written therein was never intended 
 
Carlyle, I07 
 
 for the public eye. Emerson especially it places 
 before the world in so favorable a light that none can 
 refuse to recognize. The strong, sensible kindliness 
 and friendliness of these letters is their chief attrac- 
 tion, but they are also full of delicious humor. Car- 
 lyle thought that Emerson was the whitest soul on 
 the planet ; but he should have known Rev. Samuel 
 Johnson of Salem. 
 
 Carlyle's correspondence with Goethe is more 
 formal and less sympathetic. Goethe was over 
 eighty at the time, and some of his letters are a 
 trifle drowsy ; but there are passages also full of in- 
 tellectual fire which proclaim the superiority of the 
 great master. It is, if anything, the more valuable 
 book of the two. 
 
 Froude's Biography. 
 
 Carlyle's Reminiscences left small need of a biog- 
 raphy ; and the story which Froude has told in three 
 bulky volumes is not so well expressed there as in 
 the two smaller ones. Froude deserves credit for 
 his sincerity, especially as he was the most trusted 
 of Carlyle's friends ; but it is still an open question 
 how far the biographer has a right to reveal the 
 secrets of domestic life to the public eye. There 
 certainly must be a limit, and if we ask where the 
 line is to be drawn the answer must be, " Only good 
 judgment can decide." A finer sense of delicacy 
 than Mr. Froude's would have refrained from lifting 
 the curtain from over the Carlyle household in the 
 way he has done. His determination to tell the 
 
io8 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 truth has resulted in producing an erroneous im- 
 pression. 
 
 Carlyle never talked against his wife, and his 
 tribute to her in his Reminiscences is most tender 
 and appreciative. It is enough to say of it that 
 there are no finer passages in modern prose. 
 
 Jane Carlyle was not only devoted to her hus- 
 band's well-being, but she could give him full sym- 
 pathy in his intellectual strivings ; and this rarely 
 happens to a man of genius. 
 
 Carlyle's life, however, was one of unremitting 
 toil. His writings brought him little money, so that 
 it was not often that he could look forward with 
 certainty to the means of subsistence. His nerves 
 were as sensitive as Bismarck's, without Bismarck's 
 excellent digestion. Such dyspepsia as he suffered 
 from has led weaker men to suicide. No wonder if 
 his writing assumes a gloomy tinge in places, and 
 that he was troubled with unhappy forebodings. 
 He must have possessed an heroic constitution to 
 have lived through it all; for it is said that the 
 German who translated Frederick into his own 
 language was killed by the exertion. It was Jane 
 Carlyle's fate also to fall by the way, in this life- 
 long campaign of forced marches. 
 
 There is even more to be said on the other side. 
 Mrs. Ireland's admirable biography of Jane Carlyle 
 has certainly succeeded in vindicating Carlyle himself 
 from ill-treatment or neglect of his wife. You may 
 read the book through, and then ask yourself 
 what cause for complaint Mrs. Carlyle might have 
 had. She was jealous of Lady Ashburton, at whose 
 
Carlyle. 109 
 
 house Carlyle received the only social recognition 
 of his life; and she was even jealous of Emerson, 
 whom Carlyle never met but three times, at long 
 intervals apart. In such cases the irritating cause is 
 something that never appears on the surface. Mrs. 
 Ireland, with exceptional frankness, gives even 
 stronger testimony. 
 
 " She, as well as Carlyle, had a strong disposition and 
 fiery temper. When provoked she showed a thoroughly 
 unamiable side of her nature — inflexible she was — and 
 her words cut like knives. Another element of her 
 blood, pointed out by Dr. Japp, does much, in his idea 
 (and I agree with him), to account for many traits in her 
 character. It has been somewhat overlooked, though 
 told with some pride by Mrs. Carlyle in speaking of her 
 own ancestry, that she had a decided strain of gipsy 
 blood. That famous gipsy chieftain, Matthew Baillie, 
 who could steal a horse from under the owner, if he 
 liked, was yet said to be a thorough gentleman in his 
 way." 
 
 Only the Reign of Terror could equal such a 
 piece of human mechanism : a woman attractive as 
 a siren, a true heroine withal ; yet with the reckless 
 idiosyncrasy of a gipsy, and a tongue in her like a 
 whip-lash. Truly a man who has endured such an 
 infliction on earth might require small punishment 
 hereafter. Is there need of further explanation on 
 this subject? If Carlyle sometimes became enraged 
 with her, it is no more than other men would have 
 done. Honors were even. They both struggled 
 faithfully, if not always successfully, and we cor- 
 
no Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 dially respect them in spite of their inherited weak- 
 nesses. 
 
 What I feel especially in regard to Carlyle is that 
 he was a man with a Heart in him. He meant what 
 he said and felt what he wrote, more than Emerson 
 or Byron or Thackeray or Tennyson. He has often 
 been called a pessimist, but the question is whether 
 the effect of his words is cheering or discouraging. 
 In this world of perversion and misrepresentation 
 such a truth-teller shines like a light-house to the un- 
 certain and dubious mariner, giving assurance that 
 civilization lies not far beyond. 
 
 Carlyle sometimes sacrificed truth to his love of 
 humor. What he wrote Emerson about Sterling's 
 Secret of Hegel v^d& exceedingly witty, but although 
 it might apply to Hegel's own writings, it was not 
 appropriate for Sterling's book at all. He was also 
 fond of practical jokes. About six years before his 
 death an adventurous young lady from Boston re- 
 quested the permission of an interview with him. 
 This having been granted, after a long conversation 
 she produced an album, at which he laughed and 
 volunteered to write in it of his own accord. " I 
 will give you," he said, " an old Scotch proverb, 
 which contains the wisdom of the world in four 
 lines ' ' ; and then wrote the following : 
 
 " Jamie Geddes had a coo : 
 
 He lost his coo, and nowhere could he find her. 
 When he had done a' mon could do, 
 The coo came home, and brought her tail behind her.'' 
 
FROUDE 
 
 WHENCE do we obtain our historical opin- 
 ions ? Are they not mostly instilled in us 
 in our homes in early years, or at the first schools 
 which we attend, before we are able to reason 
 with regard to them ? The impressions of our 
 childhood are the most lasting, and if erroneous 
 the most difficult to eradicate. What we learn at 
 home becomes a matter of feehng with us, stimu- 
 lates patriotism, and assists in the formation of a 
 national character. This is very valuable; but what 
 we learn at school from immature and abbreviated 
 text-books often warps the mind and stultifies the 
 judgment. Books that are written in order to make 
 history entertaining and popular to young people, 
 also frequently do a deal of mischief. 
 
 Dickens's Child's History of England belongs to 
 the latter class. At the time it was published, forty 
 years ago, Dickens was the most popular writer on 
 either side of the Atlantic, and the book was every- 
 where given to children as a highly moral and amus- 
 ing work. It was bright, witty, sentimental, and 
 the young people liked it. Their parents also read 
 it, as they afterwards read Miss Alcott's Little 
 
 111 
 
1 1 2 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Women. I think the popular opinion of English 
 history in this country, until within the last ten 
 years, was derived from Dickens rather than any 
 other source. I feel as if I had scarcely yet re- 
 covered from the impression his book made on me ; 
 though it was no more deserving of respect than the 
 tales of an uneducated nursery woman. The manner 
 in which he speaks of the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, 
 for one item, shows conclusively that he was writing 
 at hazard and cared little for the truth. 
 
 On one occasion, after the reading of Shakespeare's 
 King John, a lady present quoted Dickens's opinion 
 of John's brother Richard to this effect: " He was 
 a king who seemed to have but one idea in his head, 
 and that, the rather uncomfortable idea of breaking 
 the heads of other people. He is said to have had 
 the heart of a lion, but I think it would have been 
 much better if he had had the heart of a man." 
 This sounded well, and was applauded by the 
 company ; but nothing could have been more unjust 
 or mean-spirited, — for Richard the First, though he 
 was fond of fighting, always fought in a good cause, 
 and it should never be forgotten that he forgave and 
 liberated the man who caused his death. What 
 other king, potentate, or soldier has done the like ? 
 
 Dickens regarded history as a humanitarian, and 
 as material for his pen ; but Froude, like Macaulay 
 before him, from the standpoint of a statesman. 
 When his History of England was published and 
 reasons were discovered in it for supposing that 
 Henry VHI. was not so bad a man as had been be- 
 lieved, a storm of indignation arose which raged 
 
Froude. 113 
 
 along the whole Atlantic coast. Fair-minded per- 
 sons, who liked to hear both sides of the contro- 
 versy, and have the case thoroughly sifted, were 
 unable to speak in Mr. Froude's defence. In pub- 
 lic and private alike their mouths were stopped by 
 an universal clamor. Even at his own hearthstone 
 a man's wife would say to him: " Don't talk to me 
 of a king who had six wives, and put two of them to 
 death: the thing speaks for itself." It would seem 
 as if public opinion was afraid of being cheated of 
 its prey; and this would have been reasonable 
 enough, if anything had been known of Henry 
 VIII. except the external facts; and the external 
 facts of history are like pictures in an old illustrated 
 paper or magazine, which we have to be informed 
 about before we can understand them. 
 
 James Anthony Froude was an English gentleman 
 of fairly independent fortune, born at Dartington in 
 the county of Devon on April 3, 1818, — the anniver- 
 sary of Shakespeare's birth, as has been supposed. 
 He studied at Oriel College, Oxford, and there came 
 under the influence of Francis Newman, whose exal- 
 ted spirituality collected about him the most high- 
 minded young men of that day. It was evidently 
 from Francis Newman that Froude derived the 
 liberal theology which marked his earlier publica- 
 tions, and which may be perceived as an undercurrent 
 in his later and more mature writing. He cannot 
 be considered liberal so far as Catholicism is con- 
 cerned ; but as between Puritanism and the Estab- 
 lished Church of England, it would not be easy to 
 find a fairer or more discriminating judge; though 
 
114 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 he considered Puritanism the sheet-anchor of the 
 Protestant cause, without which it would have been 
 lost forever. 
 
 The apostasy of John H. Newman and his im- 
 posing train of followers (chiefly persons of rank and 
 fashion), between 1850 and 1870, may have led 
 Froude to investigate the period of the Reformation 
 in England, and to give the result of his researches 
 an historical form. Froude considered if he re- 
 minded his countrymen of the high price their an- 
 cestors had paid for their religious faith, with its 
 established church and thirty-nine articles, that they 
 would value it better ; and his expectation was not 
 disappointed. Napoleon said at St. Helena that, as 
 a rule, it was best for men to continue in the religion 
 in which they were brought up. How sensible and 
 far-sighted this is. All forms of religion have their 
 value, and are suited to different races and nationali- 
 ties ; the Catholicism of to-day is not the Catholicism 
 of Leo and Clement ; but that an educated Protest- 
 ant should return to the Catholic faith would seem 
 to show a lamentable weakness. Human souls fall- 
 ing down an abyss of time are ready to clutch at 
 anything that will give them a temporary support. 
 
 Froude's father was an archdeacon, and he con- 
 templated taking orders himself, but he found after 
 graduating at Oxford that he could not do this with 
 a clear conscience. He foresaw that he would be 
 obliged to preach what he did not believe, as 
 so many of the clergy are doing at the pres- 
 ent time. In this emergency Carlyle appeared to 
 him as the type of an independent life, of all others 
 
Froude. 1 1 5 
 
 most worthy of imitation. He therefore resolved 
 to follow Carlyle's example, and fought his way 
 boldly and bravely. 
 
 The London Times published rather a mean 
 obituary of Froude, but it confessed that after all 
 " he was to be classed among the ' immortals.' " If 
 his History of England was not received by English 
 critics with unanimous approval, yet a substantial 
 majority gave it a hearty commendation ; and it may 
 now be looked on as a standard work. The Catholic 
 party naturally attacked it in a vehement manner.* 
 
 Froude's style as a writer is much in his favor. 
 It is not so impressive as Carlyle's, nor so pleasant- 
 flavored as Thackeray's; neither does it have the 
 splendor of Burke and Bacon ; but for clear crystal- 
 line English there is hardly its superior in the 
 present century. Froude is sometimes slightly 
 melodramatic in feeling, but the purity of his lan- 
 guage is beyond dispute. It would seem as if he 
 wished to place his case before the world in the 
 plainest possible manner, considering good sense the 
 finest ornament of speech. His writing can be read 
 with great rapidity and yet be perfectly intelligible. 
 
 If we are to suppose that the faults in Macaulay's 
 style result from peculiarities in his character, we are 
 justified in believing that Froude's English is repre- 
 sentative of the man himself. This corresponds 
 with what we know of his character. I met him in 
 
 * The daughter of Byron's old friend Trelawney wrote to a friend 
 in 1872 : " Of course I pin my faith on Froude. I think his style is 
 perfect," — which I give as an example of English opinion. The 
 Trelawneys were liberals. 
 
1 16 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Boston in the winter of 1873 ; the lean, angular type 
 of Saxon, reminding one slightly of Emerson in the 
 cast of his features and in the cheerful serenity of 
 his expression : a fine example of a modest, self- 
 possessed gentleman, who preferred the quiet pleas- 
 ure of his work, and the society of his friends, to 
 public performances and fashionable entertainments. 
 Especially was the sincerity of the man apparent in 
 everything he said and did. 
 
 At a banquet given in his honor .in the city of 
 New York, Emerson said, ' ' Mr. Froude surprises us 
 by the novelty of his conclusions, but we cannot 
 help respecting the earnestness and sincerity of his 
 argument." 
 
 There is no shadow of ostentation in his writing, 
 nor any sophistical attempt to force an unfair con- 
 clusion on the reader ; and yet it is not without a 
 slight peculiarity. If the tendency of Macaulay was 
 to turn history into an oration, and Carlyle to make 
 poetry out of it, Froude's danger irf continually to 
 give it the form and character of a novel. This is 
 not apparent in his first two volumes, and may have 
 resulted from the enjoyment of his work, and the 
 overflow of genius, which led him to a fancied per- 
 ception of the thoughts and motives of his actors 
 beyond what a prudent judgment should permit. 
 The dramatic poet can take historical characters and 
 mould them at his will. He can expose their most 
 secret thoughts, and the desires which He closest to 
 their hearts ; for they are after all men and women 
 of his own creation. The historian must also do 
 something like this, but he should beware of carry- 
 
Froude. 1 1 7 
 
 ing analysis too far. We are too often mistaken 
 in regard to the motives of those with whom we 
 live, to judge with certainty of persons whom we 
 have never seen. Two notable instances of this kind 
 are, Froude's account of the regent Murray of Scot- 
 land and his diagnosis of Cicero. The historian has 
 a right to his opinions, and may bring forward argu- 
 ments in support of them, but he should be cautious 
 of too didactic an assertion. 
 
 If, however, Froude sometimes idealizes his char- 
 acters, he never romances in regard to his facts. 
 Perfect accuracy would seem to be a human im- 
 possibility where the ground to be covered is so ex- 
 tensive and the information has to be obtained from 
 documents in three or four different languages, but 
 Froude has at least not fallen short in this respect 
 of what might be expected of him. Macaulay is 
 continually being cross-examined by critics of the 
 present day, and Carlyle also made some mistakes, 
 which he was ever ready to acknowledge. The 
 numerous foot-notes in Froude's history referring 
 to a variety of writers, state papers, and other ma- 
 terial, such as no historian had ever collected 
 before, bear strong testimony in favor of his truth- 
 fulness. When in 1873 an American priest, assisted 
 by Wendell Phillips, attacked his veracity, Froude 
 came forward with an offer to any person who 
 might consider himself an impartial judge, to ex- 
 amine any hundred pages of his history in all the 
 languages from which his information was derived, 
 for which he (Froude) would pay the whole expense, 
 including a suitable compensation, on condition that 
 
1 1 8 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 the investigator would make a public statement of 
 the result of his inquiry. No one accepted the 
 challenge, but it produced an excellent impression; 
 for people realized better how difificult it is to ascer- 
 tain the truth in regard to past events. 
 
 Son of man has rarely set for himself a more diffi- 
 cult task than this of analyzing the course of the re- 
 ligious reformation. The chief distinction between 
 the English and Germans lies in this, that the Eng- 
 lish care more for the form than the spirit, and the 
 Germans more for the spirit than the form. In 
 Germany, owing to the clear popular perception of 
 right and wrong, and with the help of some enlight- 
 ened princes, the revolution was quickly accom- 
 plished and without much confusion or loss of life. 
 For this same reason the German Protestants were 
 less prepared for the counter revolution a hundred 
 years later. 
 
 In England events took a wholly different course. 
 The English respect for custom and tradition is the 
 true safeguard of English political freedom, but it 
 makes them as a people slow to accept innovations 
 and even salutary improvements. Horse-cars, which 
 are a decided advantage to the weaker sex, were 
 readily adopted in Paris, and christened with inter- 
 national courtesy, " chemin de fer Am&icaine," but 
 they did not succeed in London. The useless and 
 troublesome distinction in England between ' ' bar- 
 rister ' ' and ' ' attorney ' ' was abolished in Prussia 
 by Frederick a hundred and twenty years ago. 
 The English people in the sixteenth century were 
 as much alive as the Germans to the corrupt admin- 
 
Froude, 119 
 
 istration of the Catholic Church. They recognized 
 the inconsistency between the sensual lives of the 
 priests and nuns, and the doctrine they professed ; 
 they suspected, justly enough, that the money ex- 
 pended in building magnificent Roman palaces had 
 been filched from the superstition of the poor ; and 
 they cordially supported their king in his effort to 
 cleanse this Augean stable. They wished, however, 
 to preserve their allegiance to the pope, to rehabili- 
 tate the old structure, to purify the Catholic Church 
 within itself; and when this was found impossible 
 they tried to establish an English Catholic Church, 
 in which their king should be the highest spiritual, 
 as well as temporal authority. At one time they 
 approximated to German Lutheranism, and again 
 recoiled violently from it. It was not until the reign 
 of Elizabeth, and after Mary had attempted to re- 
 establish the old creed with all its enormities, that 
 English Protestantism adopted a form like that by 
 which we now know it. 
 
 Religious toleration was a thing unknown, and 
 men were more likely to become intolerant while 
 stimulated by party passion. Heresy, even in re- 
 gard to a single article of faith, was a higher crime 
 than high treason. Fire was the only punishment it 
 was supposed that would eradicate it. Thus those 
 high-minded, patriotic souls who foresaw the ultimate 
 result, and had labored to bring it to pass, were the 
 ones most in danger. The confusion that each suc- 
 cessive change produced in the community may be 
 imagined. The king himself was not safe unless he 
 could steer his course so as to always secure the sup- 
 
1 20 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 port of a majority of his nobles. The man who only 
 cared for his own life could not tell what to believe 
 or say ; and he who was at the top of affairs to-day 
 might be decapitated to-morrow. " The idea of a 
 people changing their religion," says Macchiavelli, 
 " is enough to strike terror into the stoutest heart." 
 
 The picture reminds us of France in 1793, but 
 with this difference: what was condensed in the 
 French Revolution within a space of two years, was 
 spread out in the English Reformation like a long 
 panorama, and all the more trying and difficult on 
 that acount. 
 
 It was a transition period, and such are of all 
 periods of history the most troublesome to deal with. 
 What was the dark ages but a transition period ? 
 A hundred years afterward both Catholics and Prot- 
 estants looked back on the English Reformation 
 with intense disgust; for, superficially considered, 
 neither party could take much credit for it. Both 
 sides agreed, however, in heaping obloquy on Henry 
 VIII. ; for he had persecuted both Catholics and 
 Protestants. Of course there was a reason for this, 
 as there is for all things; but the reason lay con- 
 cealed. All the engines of party virulence were 
 therefore set to work to blacken his memory. To 
 clear away this historical rubbish, and discover the 
 true lineaments of the man, was a task of the first 
 magnitude. 
 
 It were well if we could congratulate James An- 
 thony Froude on his success in dealing with this 
 fourfold problem, but a thorough-going justification 
 of Henry's career is more than we can readily accept ; 
 
Froude. 1 2 1 
 
 yet it is a natural error for a writer to fall into when 
 he is obliged to contend against preconceived preju- 
 dices. It is certainly better than a thorough-going 
 condemnation, for there is much that can be said 
 in Henry's favor, from whatever point of view we 
 choose to look at him. Dr. Frederick H. Hedge, 
 who was one of the most learned of American scholars 
 in the literature of the Reformation, has given Henry 
 the chief credit of establishing the Protestant faith 
 in the British Islands. 
 
 We should distinguish somewhat between his 
 character as an individual and the peculiar traits of 
 his family. The Tudors were different from the 
 Plantagenets, who were a warlike, adventurous, free- 
 hearted, and almost reckless race of monarchs. 
 Henry VII., Henry VIII., Mary, and Elizabeth 
 form a series in which the first and the last are the 
 most alike, and decidedly the best of the four. 
 They were all peaceable, and preferred cultivating 
 their own territory to interfering with that of their 
 neighbors. They encouraged improvements in 
 manufactures and the arts, and, with the exception 
 of Mary, proved good shepherds of the people. 
 During the hundred years and more of their admin- 
 istrations, England made rapid progress in civiliza- 
 tion ; else we should never have had Shakespeare and 
 Bacon and Johnson. They were, however, re- 
 served, suspicious, and extremely self-willed, as 
 well as the most unmerciful race of sovereigns that 
 Europe had seen since the dark ages. Their vic- 
 tims were put to death according to form of law, 
 whether justly or not it is now impossible to tell ; 
 
122 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 but even Elizabeth rarely made use of the pardoning 
 power ; Mary and Henry VIII., perhaps never. 
 They were perhaps the first, and certainly the last, 
 rulers in England who sent women to the scaffold 
 for political reasons ; that is, for sympathy with the 
 treason of their relatives. The conjugal infidelity 
 of a queen is high treason and punishable by 
 death ; but other sovereigns have commuted it to 
 banishment to some remote castle, where the 
 offender might wear out the rest of her life in small 
 conversation with her retinue of servants. On this 
 point, also, the Tudors were inexorable. 
 
 Giustiniani, a Venetian envoy at the English 
 court, has left an invaluable description of Henry 
 VIII., written in 1519, seven years before his divorce 
 from Catherine was first mooted. It is in a report 
 addressed to the Venetian Senate that he says : 
 
 " And first of all, his Majesty is twenty-nine years old, 
 and extremely handsome ; nature could not have done 
 more for him ; he is much handsomer than any other 
 sovereign in Christendom, a great deal handsomer than 
 the King of France ; very fair, and his whole frame is 
 admirably proportioned. On hearing that Francis I. 
 wore a beard, he allowed his own to grow, and as it is 
 reddish, he has now got a beard which looks like gold. 
 He is very accomplished ; a good musician ; composes 
 well ; is a capital horseman ; a fine jouster ; speaks 
 good French, Latin, and Spanish ; is very religious ; 
 hears three masses daily when he hunts, and sometimes 
 five on other days : he hears the office every day in the 
 Queen's chamber, that is to say, vespers and complins. 
 He is very fond indeed of hunting, and never takes thi? 
 
Froude. 123 
 
 diversion without tiring eight or ten horses, which he 
 causes to be stationed beforehand along the line of 
 country he expects to take, and when one is tired he 
 mounts another, and before he gets home they are all 
 exhausted. He is extremely fond of tennis ; at which 
 game it is the prettiest thing in the world to see him play, 
 his fair skin glowing through a shirt of finest texture. 
 
 " He is affable, gracious ; harms no one ; does not 
 covet his neighbor's goods, and is satisfied with his own 
 dominions, having often said to the ambassador : ' Do- 
 mine Orator, we want all potentates to content themselves 
 with their own territories ; we are satisfied with this 
 island of ours.' " 
 
 This is a brilliant Venetian picture, and gives one 
 rather a pleasant impression of this young monarch 
 with the golden beard : a strongly objective nature, 
 serious and yet fond of pleasure, one who enjoys life 
 and wishes others to enjoy it. If he was handsomer 
 than Francis I. he must have been a remarkably 
 fine-looking person at this time ; for Titian's portrait 
 of the French king is one of the most attractive 
 in the Louvre. How differently does Henry appear 
 in Holbein's portrait painted fifteen or twenty years 
 later: a blear-eyed, truculent, beefy-looking man, 
 yet not without a certain stamp of sincerity to his 
 face. Great changes must have taken place within 
 him during that time. 
 
 His interest in religion is remarkable and rather 
 surprising. His controversy with Luther is a still 
 further evidence in this direction. It was evidently 
 a serious matter to him, and no little to his credit to 
 condescend to such an effort with a German monk. 
 
1 24 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 It is easy to say that his bishops may have supplied 
 the arguments. We may suppose that they assisted 
 him, but why should he claim the work if it was not 
 his own ? We do not hear that Henry was vain, 
 and he certainly was not ambitious. Luther's forci^ 
 ble logic may have made an impression on him. It 
 was the beginning of the change in his belief. A 
 king, born to rule by natural right, he certainly was 
 not. At twenty-nine we still find him leaving the 
 affairs of state chiefly to his ministers, and so he con- 
 tinued until after he was forty; he was not like 
 Louis XIV., Frederick II., or the present Emperor 
 of Germany. Of all forms of activity, statecraft is 
 the most interesting and absorbing, and no one who 
 has the capacity for it will ever willingly relinquish it. 
 Neither was Henry a soldier by temperament. We 
 do not hear that he was lacking in physical courage. 
 He was in fact the average Englishman of his time : 
 frank, fearless, good-humored, and unimaginative ; 
 living in his nervous and muscular system rather 
 than his intellect. 
 
 This appears to me the true explanation of Henry 
 VIII. He was a strong-willed and determined man, 
 but lacked the foresight and sound judgment which 
 are required for a statesman. Such a man necessa- 
 rily was obliged to depend on others, and where he 
 placed his confidence he placed it for the time being 
 absolutely. Wolsey, Anne Boleyn, Cromwell, and 
 Catherine Parr all had the same experience with 
 him. He trusted them implicitly, indulged them, 
 encouraged them to become autocratic, and as soon 
 as they overstepped the limits of their proper posi- 
 
Froude. 125 
 
 tion he turned on them and destroyed them. Shake- 
 speare recognized this peculiar method in him, and 
 has so represented him in the noted scene between 
 Henry and Wolsey, " By your leave, Lord Cardinal, 
 we '11 have but one king here." 
 
 There are few people living who heard one of 
 Daniel Webster's speeches, but Webster's manner 
 was so impressive that an imitation even at second 
 hand may still give us a fairly good conception of 
 his style. Henry the Eighth is the most highly in- 
 dividualized of Shakespeare's plays, and by following 
 such traditions no doubt he has made the man so 
 life-like that we may almost hear the tones of his 
 voice. As Shakespeare has delineated him, and so 
 far as he has done so, we may trust he actually was. 
 
 Neither has Shakespeare been unjust to Cardinal 
 Wolsey. Here also the Venetian ambassador comes 
 to the support of the dramatist with a telling piece 
 of evidence. 
 
 " This Cardinal is the person who rules both the King 
 and the entire Kingdom. On the ambassador's first 
 arrival in England he used to say to him, — ^ His Majesty 
 will do so and so ' ; subsequently, by degrees, he began 
 to forget himself, and commenced saying, ' We shall 
 do so and so ' ; at this present he has reached such a 
 pitch that he says, ' I shall do so and so.' " 
 
 Froude gives Wolsey credit for great designs ; for 
 planning an alliance with the king of France to re- 
 lease the pope from the power of the emperor, and 
 protect Christians in the East from the increasing 
 tide of Turkish conquest. This may have been the 
 
126 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 reason for his accumulating such an amount of prop- 
 erty, though the plan of course included his own 
 elevation to the papacy if possible. Froude does 
 not seem to have noticed Giustiniani's statement, 
 which is in the appendix to his Letters from 
 England. 
 
 Wolsey was a man " learned, eloquent, indefatig- 
 able, and of vast ability. ' ' We may presume that 
 he governed England as well as it ever has been 
 governed ; but for all that the king could not permit 
 the royal authority to be overshadowed by him. He 
 presumed too much on Henry's favor and was in- 
 stantly hurled down. 
 
 There has been little difference of opinion in re- 
 gard to Wolsey's fate ; but the divorce from Queen 
 Catherine is a more delicate and difficult question. 
 The common opinion, that Henry was infatuated 
 with Anne Boleyn, and therefore wished to separate 
 from his wife, is a woman's reason. No man who is 
 possessed of large properties would entertain it for a 
 moment. An English nobleman would remind you 
 of the reply of George II. to his dying wife when 
 she advised him to marry again. " Nan, j'aurai 
 mattresses." The family of Anne Boleyn might 
 have felt proud of such a relationship. 
 
 A lawyer who wished to ascertain Henry's mo- 
 tives would look for parallel instances. Now, 
 divorces among royal families are rare, for they are 
 sure to occasion political complications, even at 
 the present day; and in the sixteenth century, 
 when kingdoms lost their independence through 
 the hereditary principle, they were simply a thing 
 
Froude. ii"] 
 
 unknown. Charlemagne, however, divorced two 
 wives, and Napoleon one, and both for political 
 reasons. Napoleon's avowed object was to obtain 
 an heir to the throne, and so was Henry's. If such 
 an act can be justified, this is the only true justifica- 
 tion; and he would be a narrow moralist who did 
 not hesitate before such a problem. 
 
 Napoleon's divorce has been generally condemned 
 in America, because we feel there was no need of his 
 founding a dynasty, if for no other reason; but 
 Henry had firmer ground to stand on. He had 
 been married, while still a minor, to his brother's 
 widow, and this was contrary to English law. It is 
 a sufificiently absurd law,* quite contrary to common 
 sense, but the English people clung to it, and still 
 cling to it with the same tenacity that they do to 
 their barristers and omnibuses. 
 
 Pope Julius II. had granted the young pair a dis- 
 pensation from the law; but there were many in 
 England who doubted if he had the right to do 
 this, and the fact that all their children except- 
 ing "Bloody Mary " (who was frail and delicate 
 enough) died in early youth, gave strength to the 
 
 * Sumner Maine says of inheritance under the Salic law : " When 
 it was transplanted to England, the English judges, who had no clue 
 to its principle, interpreted it as a general prohibition against the 
 succession of the half-blood, and extended it to consanguineous 
 brothers ; that is to sons of the same father by different wives. In 
 all the literature which enshrines the pretended philosophy of law, 
 there is nothing more curious than the pages of elaborate sophistry 
 in which Blackstone attempts to explain and justify the exclusion of 
 the half-blood." The law against marrying a brother's widow may 
 have originated in the same manner. 
 
128 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 idea, in those superstitious times, that it was the 
 judgment of Heaven on an iniquitous marriage. 
 Whether Henry shared in this belief is uncertain ; 
 but a man who wishes to obtain release from an un- 
 favorable contract would be likely to catch at all 
 Such spiritual straws. 
 
 Henry appealed to Pope Clement VII. to sanction 
 his divorce by granting him a dispensation from his 
 previous marriage, and Clement might have done 
 this willingly enough; but unfortunately he was 
 wholly in the power of Charles V., who was Cathe- 
 rine's brother. The Pope therefore could not and 
 would not give a definite answer. Years were wasted 
 in fruitless negotiations : Clement had a genius for 
 equivocation, and the hope that the emperor's power 
 might in some way be diminished proved a fallacious 
 dream. The universities of Europe were appealed 
 to, to attest the validity of Henry's claim, but there 
 the agents of Charles again met and defeated him ; 
 shameless bribery having been resorted to on both 
 sides. Clement died and Paul III. became pope 
 without the question coming nearer to a settlement. 
 Then Henry called together his parliament; and 
 the representatives of the English people solemnly 
 decreed the well-known Act of Supremacy, which 
 placed their king at the head of the Anglican Church, 
 and separated themselves forever from the Roman 
 See. The divorce followed as a matter of course. 
 
 Froude perhaps goes too far in supposing that 
 Henry acted in this matter from a sense of the jus- 
 tice of his cause. His motives, if they could be 
 known, would probably be found a good deal mixed, 
 
Froude. 129 
 
 — as the motives of most men are. He appears to 
 me to have acted rather from a feeling of necessity, 
 than of justice. His anxiety to place himself be- 
 fore the world in a favorable light is significant, and 
 shows that he must have had a conscience, and that 
 his conscience troubled him. 
 
 If Henry waited six years to make Anne Boleyn 
 his wife, we can at least admire his constancy, such 
 as it was ; for a middle-aged man is not likely to re- 
 tain an attachment for a woman longer than a year 
 or eighteen months, unless it be consummated by 
 marriage or otherwise. He knows the nature of 
 women better than a younger man and does not 
 enjoy the same hopes or the same illusions. The 
 act was justified in an historical sense ; for the 
 result of his second marriage was Queen Elizabeth, 
 who inherited the best qualities of both her parents, 
 and to whom the Anglo-Saxon race is as much in- 
 debted as the Germans are to that electoral prince 
 of Saxony who protected Luther. 
 
 Now if Henry VHI. had only lived happily with 
 Queen Anne until the close of his life, posterity 
 might have condoned his divorce. Unfortunately 
 this was not to be. Who was rightly to blame, it is 
 no longer possible to tell. Superficial opinion says, 
 as before, he became tired of her and wished to 
 marry Jane Seymour, — not noticing the inconsist- 
 ency of a man's becoming tired in one year of a 
 woman whose society he had been accustomed to 
 for eight or ten years. Although in fact he did 
 marry Jane Seymour after Anne Boleyn, the disap- 
 pearance of the Spanish nun was not a stranger mys- 
 
1 30 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 tery than the tragic fate of this unfortunate woman. 
 That she should have been guilty of the terrible crimes 
 imputed to her seems as incredible as that, in honest 
 and manly England, she could have been unjustly 
 convicted before the highest tribunal of the realm. 
 
 The fatal mistake in dealing with the history of 
 this period arises from the supposition that Henry 
 was an absolute despot ; like a Roman emperor, who 
 could send people to the Tower and the scaffold at 
 his will. He was a constitutional sovereign, and, 
 what was most remarkable for those revolutionary 
 times, he never attempted to infringe upon the con- 
 stitution, but in the most desperate passes of his life 
 always acted according to the form of law. He had 
 no standing army, and his household troops were 
 hardly a more effective force than the present Lon- 
 don police. His nobles were not more afraid of him 
 than he was of them. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that, of the Plantagenet 
 kings from Richard I. to Richard HI., all who proved 
 themselves culpably weak or vicious were either de- 
 posed or subjugated by their nobles. There had 
 never been a time when English manliness and sense 
 of honor had not risen to the public need. The 
 national loyalty was fully equalled by the national 
 love of justice. Wrong-doers might be able to sus- 
 tain themselves for a time ; but it rarely happened 
 that they escaped punishment in the long run. 
 The number of executions ordered by Henry VHI. 
 greatly surpassed those of Richard HI. ; and yet 
 during his long reign there was never a serious 
 rebellion against him, nor popular discontent. 
 
Froude. 131 
 
 I was once acquainted with a worthy merchant 
 who purchased a handsome edition of Froude's 
 History of England, and read it until he came to the 
 statement of Anne Boleyn's trial. There he closed 
 the book, and would never open it again. 
 
 This is an illustration of the way in which we may 
 be dominated by preconceived opinions; for no- 
 where has Froude made a clearer or more impartial 
 statement than in regard to this sad affair. He evi- 
 dently believes that Anne was guilty ; but he never 
 relinquishes the possibility that she may have been 
 innocent, and the whole business a terrible mistake. 
 It is true he prepares the mind of the reader by 
 some unfavorable statements concerning Anne 
 Boleyn's early life, but he purposely nullifies this 
 again by saying, " We are unable to form any trust- 
 worthy judgment of Anne Boleyn before her mar- 
 riage." He describes her conduct when taken to 
 the Tower with tender and pathetic delicacy. It 
 is like a scene from one of the plays of Sophocles ; 
 but he justly adds, " While she wins our sympathy, 
 there is nothing in it which helps us to decide whether 
 she was innocent or guilty." 
 
 This is true enough. Not many years ago a New 
 England woman was brought to trial for the murder 
 of her nearest relatives. It seetned impossible that 
 she should not have committed the deed; the evi- 
 dence was strongly against her; and yet she was 
 acquitted on her trial on account of her beautiful 
 behavior in the court-room. If Anne Boleyn had 
 been tried before a jury of Massachusetts mechanics 
 and shopkeepers, she would probably have been 
 
132 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 acquitted likewise. But she appeared before a 
 sterner tribunal. The jury that indicted her Was 
 composed of the highest nobles of the kingdom, and 
 the most trusted servants of the state. Her own 
 uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, the conqueror of Flod- 
 den, was president of the investigation, and foremost 
 in catechising his niece. Francis Bacon at a later 
 time was obliged to appear against his former patron 
 in order to avoid the suspicion of being implicated 
 in his foolish insurrection against Elizabeth. This 
 was a sorrowful thing to do, but there was no reason 
 why he should throw away his life for the sake of an 
 unworthy friend. But there does not seem to have 
 been any occasion for such humiliation at the trial 
 of Anne Boleyn. The Duke of Norfolk held the 
 highest reputation of any man among the English 
 people, and if any man could afford to decline serv- 
 ing on this jury, he was the one to do it. 
 
 The court was composed of a mixed commission 
 of nobles and gentlemen commoners. It could not 
 be compared with the courts held by the infamous 
 Jeffreys in the reign of James II. ; nor is there any 
 reason to suppose that Anne was refused a fair trial. 
 The testimony of witnesses, which would now be 
 more interesting than any other portion of the pro- 
 ceedings, has not been preserved ; but the queen 
 was convicted on every indictment. 
 
 If the gentlemen on this tribunal stultified and in- 
 criminated themselves by assisting Henry VIII. to 
 judicially murder his wife, the case is not only 
 exceptional in England, but the pontifical tribunal 
 which condemned Beatrice Cenci Ls the only one 
 
Froude. 133 
 
 with which it can be compared. I cannot believe there 
 has ever been a time since Richard I. when such a 
 deed could be perpetrated in England ; when, from 
 among twelve respectable men selected in this man- 
 ner, half of them would not prefer to be themselves 
 put to death rather than commit such an enormity. 
 The probability would seem to indicate wrong on 
 both sides. Either the king was unfaithful to Anne 
 Boleyn, or gave her reason to believe so by his 
 conduct towards other ladies ; and she either retali- 
 ated by making reprisals or incurred grave suspicion of 
 doing so. We have learned from a notorious scandal 
 in the present century, how impossible it is some- 
 times to eliminate the truth in such matters. The 
 jury disagreed, but the opinion of the legal fraternity 
 was against the defendant. The letters said to have 
 been written by Anne to the king, while she was 
 confined in the Tower, are either forgeries or sup- 
 port the view we have just now advanced. They 
 are not such letters as Desdemona or Hermione would 
 have written to a jealous and merciless husband ; 
 yet Anne Boleyn may have been the victim of an 
 unjust suspicion as well as Henry Ward Beecher. 
 
 In the midst of these horrid details there are pas- 
 sages in Froude's history which give us the pleasant 
 sensation of green, sequestered valleys among barren 
 and horrific mountains. One such is his account of 
 the early life of Bishop Latimer, and another his 
 sympathetic narrative of the martyrdom of the monks 
 of Charter House. The two taken together are 
 convincing proof how Froude could be just and fair 
 
1 34 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 to both sides of the same question. In delicacy of 
 feeling and simple earnestness of statement his 
 language reminds me of no one so much as Presi- 
 dent Lincoln, whose Gettysburg address has become 
 as famous as the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 Latimer was the noblest man of his time ; of finer 
 mental quality, and infinitely more useful than Sir 
 Thomas More. His charming humility was only 
 equalled by his fearlessness in the service of truth. 
 His independent speech attracted the attention of 
 the old devouring bishops, who persecuted him with 
 academic intolerance, and would have destroyed him 
 like tigers in the arena of the Coliseum, but for the 
 interposition, first of Wolsey, and afterwards of the 
 king himself. There is no other proof so convincing 
 of Henry's veracity of character than his protection 
 and support of Latimer from first to last. 
 
 Of that self-education, which, in forming a man 
 of true intellectual power, is more important than 
 any university training, Froude says: " Like the 
 physician, to whom a year of practical experience 
 in a hospital teaches more than a life of closet study, 
 Latimer learnt the mental disorders of his age in the 
 age itself ; and the secret of that art no other man, 
 however good, however wise, could have taught 
 him." 
 
 It is only by taking a share in the practical activ- 
 ity of mankind that the scholar can escape from the 
 benumbing influence of continuous study. Other- 
 wise he stagnates, and his learning becomes like a 
 lump of lead. 
 
 The Act of Supremacy, passed by Parliament in 
 
Froude. 135 
 
 1534, served as a temporary expedient, like Sumner's 
 civil-service bill, to give the Anglican Church a sub- 
 stitute for papal authority during its first years of 
 separation from the Roman pontiff. That Henry 
 VIII. could no more mould Parliament to his will 
 than Charles I. was able to, appears from the stout 
 resistance which Thomas Cromwell gave to a bill of 
 impeachment against Wolsey which had already 
 passed the House of Lords; and it was not long 
 after that when Cromwell was chosen Lord Keeper 
 in Wolsey' s place. 
 
 All other religious fraternities bent before the 
 storm, but the Charter House monks of London 
 alone preserved their allegiance to the pope. They 
 were an isolated community of the sixth century 
 cast down into the sixteenth, the living embodiment 
 of that heroic self-sacrifice which converted the semi- 
 barbarous hoards that overran and destroyed Roman 
 civilization. Inclosed by the walls of their monas- 
 tery, what did they know of the progress of events ? 
 Their world was stationary, and they supposed the 
 church of Borgia and Clement was filled with the 
 same holy spirit as that of Augustine and Gregory. 
 Neither threats nor entreaties could induce them to 
 subscribe to the Act, and they were broken into 
 fragments : as the Southern army was in defence of 
 Richmond, fighting gloriously for the preservation 
 of African slavery. It would seem as if such heroic 
 devotion to a petrified idea was only a waste of 
 noble material, but Froude perceived in it a higher 
 significance. He says : ' ' They fell gloriously and 
 not unprofitably. They were not allowed to stay 
 
136 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 the course of the Reformation ; but their sufferings, 
 nobly borne, sufficed to recover the sympathy of 
 after-ages for the faith which they professed. Ten 
 righteous men were found in the midst of the cor- 
 ruption to purchase for Romanism a few more cen- 
 turies of tolerated endurance." 
 
 These ten were executed for treasonable opposi- 
 tion to the government, according to the barbarous 
 method of the age, and the rest were distributed 
 among different monasteries. 
 
 Still more worthily does he speak of the unfor- 
 tunate Anabaptists, who were sacrificed for differ- 
 ences of faith which would even now excite horror 
 in the minds of strictly devotional persons ; though 
 one of them, namely that children born of infidels 
 may be capable of salvation, shows a spirit of 
 enlightenment beyond that of Luther and Melanch- 
 thon. On the other hand their doctrine of irre- 
 deemable sin after baptism would be subversive of 
 all morality. 
 
 " For them no Europe was agitated, no courts were 
 ordered into mourning, no papal hearts trembled with 
 indignation. At their deaths the world looked on com- 
 placent, indifferent, or exulting. Yet here, too, out of 
 twenty-five common men and women were found four- 
 teen who, by no terror of stake or torture, could be 
 tempted to say that they beheved what they did not be- 
 Heve. History for them had no praise ; yet they too 
 were not giving their blood in vain. Their lives might 
 have been as useless as the lives of most of us. In their 
 deaths they assisted to pay the purchase-money for 
 England's freedom," 
 
Froude. 137 
 
 This is one of Froude's finer passages which are 
 like music in the ear. 
 
 He is perhaps too zealous in his praise of Sir 
 Thomas More and Bishop Fischer. They were men 
 of pure minds and uprightness of character, but they 
 had not the same excuse as the Charter House monks, 
 that they were ignorant of the world and the great 
 changes that were taking place in it. It is a sin 
 of itself, to be internally blind, when we have not 
 only eyes to see with, but an intellect to reflect on 
 the objects of our vision. A German writer, Pro- 
 fessor Lotze, thinks that tragedy does a finer kind of 
 justice than historians, by condemning those who 
 set themselves against the general order of things. 
 Thus Egmont, More, and Anne Boleyn were natur- 
 ally tragic characters. More and Fischer were per- 
 mitted comfortable imprisonment so long as they 
 would remain quiet; but they continued to write 
 and agitate, and so the axe was sharpened for them. 
 More's virtues were of the domestic order, and in 
 that light he appears to great advantage. For 
 Froude to call More the most illustrious man of his 
 time is rather a rash statement while Luther and 
 Michel Angelo were still living. It is the Latimers 
 and Cromwells and Sewards, who help civilization 
 forward ; the Mores and Metternichs and Everetts, 
 who retard it. Even Henry VIII. was a more use- 
 ful personage. 
 
 Henry's marriages certainly are a bog for any 
 historian to navigate, and the general public is not 
 to be blamed for holding an evil opinion of him for 
 
138 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 them. However, if we accept the sincerity of his 
 explanation for the first divorce, all succeeding cases 
 can be explained in a similar manner. His wedding 
 with Jane Seymour, so soon after the execution of 
 Anne, is suspicious enough ; but the fact that Jane 
 Seymour was willing to marry him is also suspicious. 
 No one could have known his true character better 
 than she did. Parliament passed a resolution at 
 once requesting the king to marry again for the sake 
 of an heir to the throne ; and there is no reason to 
 doubt the sincerity of this. For England to have 
 been left without a king in those days would have 
 been as great a calamity as for the United States of 
 America to have one now. The people could not 
 imagine any other form of government. 
 
 Anne of Cleves was another bad blunder. The 
 king declared that he could not live with her, and 
 thought Cromwell had deceived him by a flattering 
 portrait. No one has ever doubted Catherine Parr's 
 guilt, and that completes the sorrowful list. The 
 court of Henry VHI. must have been a fearful place ; 
 but not worse, perhaps, than some private habi- 
 tations in our own time. 
 
 The fall of Cromwell has been considered the most 
 enigmatic of all the terrible incidents in Henry's 
 reign ; but I think we may find in it the true solu- 
 tion of other enigmatic cases. Froude stated it just 
 as it appears to have happened, and his only com- 
 mentary is that Cromwell, like Wolsey before him, 
 had presum.ed on the king's favor, and that he made 
 free use of the public funds. His foisting Anne of 
 Cleves on Henry with the help of a flattering por- 
 
Froude. 1 39 
 
 trait, for the sake of a shallow German alliance, was 
 the blunder which precipitated his fall; but more 
 serious causes lay in the background. 
 
 Cromwell had risen from being a poor adventurer 
 to be Earl of Essex; and the hereditary nobility 
 were not only jealous of him for this, but they were 
 terribly afraid of him. He had destroyed the Earl 
 of Exeter and most of his family. Where would 
 the next blow fall ? He was trusted implicitly by 
 the king, for it was one of Henry's peculiarities that 
 where he placed his confidence he placed it wholly. 
 Cromwell's enemies only waited for an opportunity, 
 and the king's disaffection for Anne of Cleves ex- 
 actly suited their purpose. The man who came for- 
 ward in this emergency was the Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 Shakespeare represents the Dukes of Norfolk and 
 Suffolk as conspiring against Wolsey. It was the 
 Duke of Norfolk who presided at the trial of Anne 
 Boleyn. He was considered the best soldier in Eng- 
 land, and appears to have possessed the entire con- 
 fidence of the English nation. He may have been 
 the power behind the throne. He was always a 
 member of the king's council, and remained in favor 
 to the last. He arraigned Cromwell at a meeting of 
 the council. 
 
 Thomas Cromwell possessed some noble qualities, 
 and his actions may have been prompted by motives 
 of public expediency. The fact remains, however, 
 that most of the so-called atrocities in the reign of 
 Henry VHI. — and the execution of the Countess of 
 Salisbury certainly was such — were perpetrated dur- 
 ing Cromwell's administration, and after his death 
 
140 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 they came pretty much to an end. His fate resem- 
 bles that of Robespierre, and would have been called 
 in the East a revolution in the palace. 
 
 The practice of decapitating an outgoing chancel- 
 lor during the Middle Ages was not peculiar to 
 England ; though there was much less of it in 
 France, and in Germany the numerous princes, land- 
 graves, and grand dukes lived with their subjects in 
 an amiable, patriarchal manner, like the Hebrew 
 kings of old. The banishment of Dante is an ex- 
 ample of the treatment that defeated candidates re- 
 ceived in the Italian cities, — Venice always excepted. 
 
 It is equally a mistake to consider princes as ex- 
 ceptional persons, and to judge of their actions as if 
 they were ordinary men. They are mentally and 
 physically like other men, but their lives are very 
 different. Henry VIII. might have been president 
 of the Metropolitan Bank without ever attracting 
 attention except for his fine physique and proud 
 bearing. Judged by the standard of his time, he 
 does not appear to have been a very bad, or a par- 
 ticularly good man. He was not a great statesman, 
 but a more fortunate king for England than Edward 
 IV., Charles I., or George III. would have been in 
 his time. That a man is known by the company he 
 keeps, is an adage which throws light on many a 
 political problem, and Henry's association with 
 Wolsey, Cranmer, Latimer, and Hertford should 
 always be remembered to his credit. 
 
 There is rather too much of Froude's history, as 
 there is of Macaulay's. It might have been condensed 
 into ten volumes, if not into eight. We feel this 
 
Froude, 141 
 
 especially in his account of the brief reign of Edward 
 VI. and in the intermittent chapters on Irish affairs. 
 It is all interesting, however, and much of it highly 
 entertaining. Froude is not a humorist himself, but 
 he appreciates humorous situations. One of the 
 best of these is his description of an Irish woman, a 
 female corsair, called Grannie O'Neal, six feet in 
 height, who sailed about the coast with a cutlass 
 strapped to her waist, and who gave the English 
 authorities more trouble than any man in the coun- 
 try. Neither can we avoid a smile, in spite of the 
 awful gravity of the occasion, at the Spanish mer- 
 chant in Antwerp who offered to assassinate the 
 Prince of Orange for eighteen thousand dollars, and 
 who sold out the business for three thousand to his 
 " undersized, paltry-looking clerk," who thought he 
 could become invisible because the priest had stuffed 
 a dried toad in his pocket. 
 
 People who read for entertainment always have 
 plenty of time, but those who are in quest of know- 
 ledge find life short enough. 
 
 The most brilliant and also most interesting por- 
 tion of Froude's history is his last five volumes on 
 the reign of Elizabeth. He may be said here to have 
 cultivated virgin soil ; for a comparison with Hume, 
 Smollett, and others shows almost at a glance how 
 little has previously been known of this period. The 
 material which he collected for this portion of his 
 work will be the wonder of investigators for centuries 
 to come. Not only has he resurrected Elizabeth her- 
 .self, with her two great coadjutors, Burleigh and 
 
142 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Walsingham ; but he has obtained the reports of the 
 Spanish ambassador, together with cipher dispatches 
 in the archives of Madrid, the secret diplomacy of 
 France and Scotland, letters from William of Orange, 
 all sifted and distributed in their proper places; so 
 that we seem to stand in England in the sixteenth 
 century, and receive telegraphic dispatches from all 
 parts of the world, — not bare external facts, but 
 messages laden with significance. As a literary feat 
 this formerly seemed so incredible, that even such 
 a scholar as George S. Hillard doubted its possibil- 
 ity; but after he became acquainted with Froude 
 himself, he changed his opinion. These volumes 
 contain, besides, the best account of Mary Queen of 
 Scots, as she is poetically called; and if it is not 
 altogether sympathetic, it is nevertheless so clear 
 and complete as to enable us to form a just opinion 
 of her. The history closes with a description of the 
 Spanish armada, whose destruction represented the 
 final triumph of Protestantism in Great Britain and 
 the Netherlands. 
 
 Froude did not understand women much better 
 than Henry VIII. himself. He criticises Elizabeth 
 exactly as if she were a man, and though his portrait 
 of her is lifelike and real, we feel on that account 
 that he has barely done her justice. A good deal 
 has been said about the sphere of woman, and there 
 is some truth in it. Her proper sphere is domestic 
 and social life ; and that is certainly enough. It is 
 the best part of life. A banker said to me : " I leave 
 the management of everything in my house to my 
 wife. She sometimes consults me, but I rarely inter- 
 
Froude. 143 
 
 fere with her. In that way, as soon as I leave my 
 office I am free from care." Women can write 
 poetry and novels, paint pictures, and do many other 
 things that men can ; they even make good doctors ; 
 but they cannot go to war, nor understand politics ; 
 and this is perhaps the reason why no woman has 
 yet written a good history even as a text -book. If 
 you meet with a woman who talks well on political 
 subjects, you may be sure it is the echo of some 
 talented man of her acquaintance. 
 
 When women interest themselves in politics it is 
 as often for evil as good. In the arts of persua- 
 sion and dissimulation they are more skilful than 
 men ; for they are obliged to be so. Persuasion and 
 dissimulation are necessary in politics because un- 
 reasonable men have to be won over and bad men 
 have to be deceived ; but they make only a small 
 part of the true statesman, and are more likely to be 
 associated with a political charlatan. They are the 
 devil's machinery, though sometimes used for good 
 purposes. 
 
 When, however, a woman is obliged to fill the 
 position of a man, and does it to the best of her 
 ability and with good intent, the admiration she wins 
 for her partial success is enhanced by our sympathy 
 for her disadvantages. It is thus that Elizabeth of 
 England and Maria Theresa of Austria have obtained 
 places in history beside the most renowned. 
 
 Elizabeth was not without serious faults. She was 
 as obstinate and implacable as her father. Her par- 
 simony was such as to be almost ruinous to the civil 
 service ; and while she enriched worthless favorites 
 
144 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 like the Earl of Leicester, she permitted Walsingham 
 to impoverish his estates, and die without reward for 
 his splendid public services. She gave stingy and 
 ineffective succor to the Netherlands in their mortal 
 struggle with Spain, though everyone but herself 
 could foresee that the conquest of Holland would be 
 followed by a three-cornered attack on England by 
 the Spanish, Irish, and Catholic Scotch, for the pur- 
 pose of deposing Elizabeth, and making Mary Stuart 
 queen of a Catholic Britain. 
 
 Elizabeth's whole diplomacy (on which she greatly 
 prided herself) consisted of continued procrastina- 
 tion, and such small intrigues as jealous women 
 practise in the social warfare of a provincial city. 
 Froude says : 
 
 " Elizabeth saw no reason to risk her throne for a 
 cause for which at best she had but a cold concern. She 
 preferred to lie and twist, and perjure herself, and betray 
 her friends, with a purpose at the bottom moderately 
 upright ; and nature in fitting her for her work had left 
 her without that nice sense of honor which would have 
 made her part too difficult." 
 
 This seems like rather harsh language. It is true 
 that she worried her ministers almost to insanity, by 
 interfering with their well arranged plans at the last 
 moment, and upsetting their work like a house of 
 cards. But these are mainly feminine traits, suited 
 to domestic life, but exaggerated to ugliness upon 
 a throne. Froude does not fail to point out that 
 but for her constancy to Burleigh and Walsingham 
 they would not have been able to accomplish, what 
 
Froude. 145 
 
 they finally did. This too was a feminine trait, for 
 it is in the nature of a true woman always to main- 
 tain her confidence where she has once placed it. It 
 is the true glory of Elizabeth, and of Maria Theresa 
 as well, that they accepted the wisest men of their 
 times as counsellors, and held fast to them through 
 all changes of fortune and public opinion. This is 
 the reason why Elizabeth's reign is more illustrious 
 than that of any English kings excepting Henry II., 
 Edward III., and Cromwell. So far as she herself 
 interfered in public affairs it was only to create mis- 
 chief. Froude has made this somewhat too painfully 
 evident. 
 
 The honor of guiding the ship of state through 
 those dangerous seas belongs to Burleigh before all 
 others. Macaulay speaks of him carelessly, as be- 
 longing to the adroit class of politicians who knew 
 how to adapt themselves to the humors of their 
 sovereigns, and therefore remain in power when bet- 
 ter men would be displaced. Burleigh possessed this 
 faculty, but also all other faculties pertaining to the 
 thorough statesman. Froude has separated his line 
 of personal activity from the general medley of Eng- 
 lish affairs, as an anatomist dissects a nerve or an 
 artery; and as he has presented him, Burleigh ap- 
 pears before us one of the grandest figures in Eng- 
 lish history. It was a terrible element he had to 
 deal with, — the order of the Jesuits poisoning mind 
 and body, conjuring up superstition as an engine of 
 destruction, worse than dynamite. The noblest men 
 of that period fell by the hand of the assassin, and 
 Elizabeth's life was only saved by Burleigh's inces- 
 
146 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 sant watchfulness. Open war would have been a 
 relief to him ; but he was obliged to fight an invisible 
 enemy, countermining underground through quick- 
 sands and fire-damp. We see the reflection of it in 
 the portraits of him. 
 
 Elizabeth's true work, which Froude, absorbed 
 in tracing the course of politics, allows her small 
 credit for, was giving to English society a more ele- 
 vated tone. Her court may not have been as ele- 
 gant as that of Louis XIV., but it was more moral, 
 learned, and intellectual. English manners had 
 been at their best from Edward I. to Henry V. 
 During the War of the Roses they had suffered a 
 serious decline, which had only been partially arrested 
 by the good example of Henry VH. In such mat- 
 ters a queen is much more influential than a king, 
 and the good effect of Elizabeth's discipline becomes 
 apparent in the dignified language and fine courtesy 
 of the characters in Shakespeare's plays, — which may 
 have been partly due to Spanish influences. The 
 manners of Hamlet, Othello, and Rosalind and 
 Portia are not what we should call well bred, but 
 more in the fashion of noble manners. It was only 
 this social background of magnificent men and wo- 
 men that could give Shakespeare the material for 
 his dramatic work. It was then also that the Eng- 
 lish language is supposed to have been at its best. 
 
 It is a poetic picture that we have of Mary Stuart, 
 the beautiful girl scarce twenty-one, sailing across 
 from France to Scotland to take possession of her 
 royal inheritance. She was a courageous young 
 
Froude. 147 
 
 woman and charming to everyone, but her life was 
 being involved in a contradiction which could only 
 lead to one misfortune after another. How could 
 she, a Catholic and so inexperienced, succeed in rul- 
 ing the sternest of all Protestant communities ? If 
 she had possessed Elizabeth's intellectual fibre, and 
 been prudent enough to surround herself with wise 
 counsellors, she might have prospered for a term of 
 years; but she was injudicious from the first. Her 
 choice of Darnley was an unlimited blunder. Carlyle 
 thought that she preferred him on account of his 
 handsome legs. That she was in love with him is 
 not likely; and we must contrast this with the 
 veracity of Elizabeth, who often tried to make a 
 match for herself, but never could find a man whom 
 she liked sufficiently. Mary's familiarity with 
 Rizzio, innocent and harmless as we suppose it, was 
 certainly imprudent. A young wife who causes her 
 husband to be jealous lacks both judgment and con- 
 sideration. The murder of Rizzio was fearfully 
 atoned for by the homicide of her husband, — whether 
 justly or not it is impossible to decide. Of course 
 she could not live with Darnly after the death of her 
 favorite, nor could she separate from him after the 
 manner of private persons. Her second marriage 
 with the Earl of Bothwell was equally injudicious, 
 and in its manner discreditable. 
 
 It is easy for a beautiful young woman to be 
 pleasant and amiable while those about her are pay- 
 ing her incessant homage. In such cases her amia- 
 bility is nothing more than an external reflection. 
 Both men and women often possess a charming man- 
 
148 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 ner, which makes them popular, and yet is all the 
 capital they have. Mary Queen of Scots appears 
 much like George Eliot's character of Gwendolen, a 
 woman of fine physique, good spirits, and not with- 
 out a share of intelligence, but indifferent to every- 
 thing outside the small circle of her own affairs. 
 
 We would not say that the sympathy that has 
 been excited by her misfortunes has been wasted, 
 but it might have been better expended on her uncle 
 the Earl of Murray. It is the privilege of historians 
 to disinter illustrious characters who have been buried 
 under the ddbris of time, and set them forth again in 
 the clear light of day. Such a hero is the Earl of 
 Murray, who was regent of Scotland after the flight 
 of Mary into England. When Froude becomes 
 melodramatic, we know that his cup of admiration 
 is full to overflowing, and we even like him better 
 for this weakness. He has not represented Murray, 
 however, as a general type of hero, but so highly in- 
 dividualized that we readily place confidence in the 
 portrait he has painted for us. Murray was one of 
 those men that come so rarely to the head of affairs, 
 who are determined to have right and justice done, 
 even if the skies should fall, — which they did before 
 very long in the form of an assassin's bullet. He 
 shared the fate of William of Orange and Henry of 
 Navarre. 
 
 Froude's veracity has been persistently called in 
 question in regard to the execution of Mary of Scot- 
 land, whom he holds to have been justly condemned 
 for high treason. The prevailing opinion has been 
 that she was judicially murdered in order to protect 
 
Froude. i49 
 
 Elizabeth from assassination ; the vulgar notion, that 
 Elizabeth put her to death from motives of jealousy. 
 As the evidence on which Froude mainly relies is 
 taken from the dispatches of the Spanish ambassador, 
 which it would require a journey to Madrid to ex- 
 amine, the question is likely to remain open in this 
 country a long time. The testimony of Throgmor- 
 ton, which implicated her, was obtained through 
 the use of torture, and such testimony is not wholly 
 reliable ; for even a brave man will finally be driven 
 by suffering to say almost anything that will end 
 the pain. Froude afifirms, however, that Throgmor- 
 ton's disclosures were substantiated by the reports 
 of Mendoza, and there is no reason why we should 
 not believe him. At the last he is unnecessarily 
 severe with poor Mary, and his account of the death 
 scene seems pitiless. 
 
 From Mary's standpoint, the conspiracy was not 
 a crime but an attempt at revolution ; and she was 
 led into it by her friends. 
 
 Froude says that when Throgmorton had finished 
 his confession he drew himself up on his seat and 
 sobbed in misery : " Now I have disclosed the secrets 
 of her who was the dearest Queen to me in the 
 world, whom I thought no torments could have 
 forced me so much to have prejudiced. I have 
 broken faith with her, and I care not if I were hang- 
 ed." No tragedy could be more pathetic than this. 
 
 Queen Elizabeth went from a prison to a throne ; 
 Mary of Scotland, from a throne to a prison. Fred- 
 erick and Napoleon also knew what imprisonment 
 was like before they began to rule. 
 
150 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 There are occasional sentences in Froude's history, 
 so compressed with deep significance that they ele- 
 vate him for the moment above all other historians 
 of the century. One such is the following: " Inno- 
 cent persons have suffered by millions in this world, 
 but the community which permits the injustice to be 
 perpetrated will afterwards be obliged to compensate 
 for it, to the last drop of blood that has been shed." 
 This reminds us of the course of the slavery question 
 in America. 
 
 Julius CcBsar. 
 
 If you would distinguish good historical work 
 from that which is not, compare Froude's Life of 
 Caesar with the one by Napoleon III. Napoleon's 
 book is written in a fair literary style, and some 
 chapters in it show decided ability, — it has a tribute 
 to Caesar's mother (which was probably intended for 
 his own) which does him credit as a man of sensi- 
 bility ; but we cannot obtain from it either a clear 
 conception of Caesar, or of the times in which he 
 lived. Louis Napoleon was not the astute gentle- 
 man whom a New York editor supposed in 1866 
 would make a dupe of Bismarck. He succeeded in 
 the earlier part of his career by the good genius of 
 Count Cavour; and it will be observed that after 
 Cavour's death all his undertakings failed. He may 
 have left the Life of Ccesar unfinished because he re- 
 alized that, after all, he did not understand the sub- 
 ject. If Froude had been the controlling authority 
 of France from 1850 to i860, there would have been 
 no Mexican expedition nor a Franco-Prussian war. 
 
Froude. 151 
 
 Froude's Life of Ccesar is the most brilliant of his 
 works, and one of the most entertaining books in 
 the English language. It is a book that everyone 
 should read, for nowhere else is so much political 
 wisdom presented in such an attractive form. His 
 view of the subject is not a new one, being directly 
 traceable to Mommsen, and before Mommsen to 
 Hegel, who perceived in Caesar not only the greatest 
 soldier, but the greatest statesman of antiquity. 
 Froude has however given it a finer and more com- 
 plete development than any writer before him. He 
 calls this biography a sketch, but he could not 
 have made a more full use of his material unless 
 he had included two or three of Cicero's orations. 
 The ancients had a happy faculty of concentra- 
 tion which characterizes everything pertaining to 
 them. 
 
 Rome itself was a political concentration, such as 
 the world has not seen since, except during that 
 short period when Napoleon was master of the con- 
 tinent of Europe. It is that which makes their great 
 men stand out before us in such prominent relief. 
 From the destruction of Carthage in the second 
 century before Christ, to the defeat of Maxentius 
 by Constantine in the fourth century after Christ, 
 the fortunes of civilization were dependent on the 
 fate of a single city ; and men were produced there to 
 correspond with the vast political forces which were 
 brought into play. In the sequence of events thus 
 effected, there came a time where the further prog- 
 ress of affairs depended on the exertion of a single 
 individual, and this person was Julius Caesar. He 
 
152 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 would seem to have been ordained by divine provi- 
 dence for the purpose. 
 
 Froude was not an imperialist, like Carlyle ; and 
 it is a fatal mistake to suppose this. Like nineteen 
 Englishmen out of twenty, he believed constitutional 
 monarchy to be the best form of government, though 
 the Austrian or Italian governments would probably 
 be nearer to his pattern than the English. Above 
 all things, however, he believed that a government 
 should be justly administered; and if justice could 
 not be obtained in one form, the time for revolution 
 was at hand. This is the cardinal principle in his 
 biography of Caesar, as it was of Caesar himself. 
 The government of Rome during the third century 
 B.C. was the best that had been devised in ancient 
 times, but it had become like a ship whose timber 
 had been honeycombed by borers. Governments, 
 like men, have their periods of youth, maturity, and 
 decrepitude ; and change is the universal law of 
 creation. Caesar perceived that the rotten old struc- 
 ture could not last much longer, and he recognized, 
 like Bismarck, that the only remedy was blood and 
 iron. Cicero perceived it, but lacked courage to 
 deal with the situation. Cato, who was an earlier 
 Sir Thomas More, shut his eyes obstinately and 
 went over the cataract. 
 
 Napoleon III. should be credited with one very 
 wise statement. He condemns the destruction of 
 Carthage by Rome (which was indeed a political 
 crime only avenged at last by Genseric and his Van- 
 dals), and alleges as the reason for it that nations lose 
 their mental balance like individuals. It was caused 
 
Froude. 153 
 
 by the jealousy of the Roman mercantile interest. 
 The Roman Senate, which, in the time of Pyrrhus, 
 had been an assemblage of kings, an hundred years 
 later had changed into a combination of greedy capi- 
 talists who cared little for the honor or welfare of 
 the state, and were altogether absorbed in the accum- 
 ulation of wealth. By the introduction of slave 
 labor they ruined the small free-hold farmers, who 
 were the backbone of the Roman army, and drove 
 them to the cities, where they were obliged to live 
 largely by crime and vice. At the same time, these 
 lords of creation demoralized the community in an- 
 other way, by the introduction of Asiatic luxury and 
 extravagance. They corrupted the public elections 
 by every use to which money can be applied, and 
 gained an illegal possession of the public lands. It 
 was as impossible for a plebeian to obtain justice 
 against a patrician as if he had been a negro slave. 
 
 Froude is, as usual, clear, logical, and penetrating. 
 He detects the gradual growth of the monarchy out 
 of the republic, and makes this so plain that only a 
 strongly prejudiced person can fail to perceive the 
 fact. It began ninety years before the battle of 
 Philippi, with the proposal of Tiberius Gracchus 
 compelling the patricians to restore the public lands 
 which they had illegally occupied. He carried his 
 point for the time being, but as consul his power 
 was limited to a single year, while the senators held 
 their office for life. He foresaw that his work would 
 be overturned as soon as his successor was elected, 
 and to prevent this he illegally stood for the consul- 
 ship a second year. The patricians consequently 
 
154 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 declared him an enemy to the state, and he was 
 killed like a dog. Ten years later his brother Gaius 
 came forward with equal heroism in support of the 
 same cause, and obtained a longer period of success ; 
 but was finally disposed of in the same manner. In 
 both instances the offence which the brothers were 
 charged with, was the crime of seeking arbitrary 
 power. 
 
 First of the Romans, Gaius Gracchus obtained the 
 passage of a law that no citizen should be put to 
 death without a public trial. In this connection it 
 is noteworthy that the rights of man as an individual 
 were first established and carried to perfection under 
 the Roman empire ; inconsistent as this seems with 
 the proceedings of the bad emperors.* 
 
 The invasion of the Germanic hordes brought a 
 cessation of hostilities between the two classes, but 
 as soon as the danger was over, civil dissension broke 
 forth again with fresh fury. The plebeians had saved 
 Italy from the greatest danger that ever threatened 
 civilization. They were united and confident and 
 soon had everything their own way. If the patri- 
 cians however had proved themselves unfit to gov- 
 ern, the plebeians in their popular assembly were 
 still more so. As in all such cases, they immedi- 
 ately became the prey of demagogues — proceeded 
 to violent and short-sighted measures, which brought 
 about the aristocratic reaction under Sulla. 
 
 History in its more perfect development is gov- 
 erned by the same principles as a work of art ; and 
 
 * My authority for this statement is Professor Burgess of Columbia 
 College. 
 
Froude. 155 
 
 from the time of Caesar's birth until his death was 
 revenged by Anthony and Augustus, the Roman 
 republic was in a state of intermittent revolution. 
 First came the discord just referred to; then the 
 war broke out between the Roman state and its allies 
 in southern Italy ; next came the civil war between 
 Sulla and Cinna, and their respective dictatorships — 
 a reign of terror over Italy like that of France in 
 1 793 ; then came the servile insurrection, and after- 
 wards an insurrection of the debtor class against 
 their exorbitant creditors, the rate of interest be- 
 ing one per cent, a month. The compact between 
 Caesar and Fompey restored order for a time ; but as 
 soon as Caesar had taken his departure for Gaul the 
 popular outbreaks in Rome were renewed, and chaos 
 reigned supreme, until at last the war between Caesar 
 and the Senate put an end to it by the establishment 
 of a military despotism, — just as Napoleon gave a 
 quietus to the disorders of France. 
 
 Now are there any so blind that they cannot read 
 this handwriting on the wall, — a government con- 
 vulsed and writhing in the agony of death ? Yet 
 educated men have written histories without num- 
 ber, and treated this subject as if all the trouble had 
 been caused by the rivalry of Sulla and Marius, and 
 the ambition between Pompey and Caesar. That 
 there were enormous political forces behind these 
 men, driving them onward with an irresistible pres- 
 sure, was not dreamed of even by Shakespeare, who 
 looked at the matter as a dramatist, and not as a 
 statesman. 
 
 Though there were many opportunities during the 
 
156 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 following century to restore the republic, no attempt 
 was made to do so, even by men who died under the 
 tyranny of Nero and Caligula with heroic fortitude ; 
 and Galba, in his speech on the adoption of Piso, is 
 represented by Tacitus as saying that he would 
 gladly restore the republic if he thought the Roman 
 empire could be possibly governed in that manner.* 
 
 The first two pages of the Annals of Tacitus are 
 the best justification of Caesar's policy ; for he says 
 that Augustus demanded the tribunitial authority 
 for the protection of the plebeians, and this testi- 
 mony is the more valuable since Tacitus himself be- 
 longed to the senatorial party. It was not Caesar's 
 purpose to establish a military despotism, and it was 
 in trying to avoid this that he lost his life. The 
 military despotism began in the reign of Tiberius. 
 
 For the last twenty years in America, writers have 
 been busy trying to prove that our civil war was an 
 unnecessary extravagance, and that a little diplomacy 
 and a few more concessions to the Southern slave- 
 holders might have prevented it ; that the invasion 
 of Virginia by John Brown and the election of Lin- 
 coln were the sole causes of a conflict which cost five 
 hundred thousand lives and seven thousand milHon 
 dollars. 
 
 Nothing can be more frivolous than such calcula- 
 tions. If a five-story house is about to fall, as hap- 
 pened not long since in New York City, can a man 
 prop it up with a pole ? If an elephant dies, can we 
 
 * " If the mighty fabric of this empire could subsist and balance 
 itself without a ruler, the glory of restoring the old republic should 
 be mine," — Tacitus, ^STjjfcWa, 116. 
 
Froude. 1 5 7 
 
 prevent his body from decomposing ? A book has 
 lately been published applying the same principle to 
 the French Revolution, which the author supposes 
 resulted chiefly from the weakness and indecision of 
 Louis XVI. Such considerations are puerile. The 
 true historian does not ask himself what might have 
 happened, but how did it happen ; and he usually 
 finds this a problem sufficient to tax his whole 
 strength. 
 
 Louis XVL represented the time in which he 
 lived. It was a period of weakness and vacillation. 
 So Webster and Clay were compromisers, because 
 their political education belonged to a period when 
 compromise with slavery seemed possible. Success 
 in politics is only practicable on a large scale for men 
 who represent and sympathize with the spirit of the 
 age ; and a king feels this on his throne as much as 
 a senator in Congress. " The world," Froude says, 
 " is not ruled by intrigue and diplomacy, but by 
 right and justice. ' ' There is at least a constant tend- 
 enty to right and justice in progressive races, which 
 continually interferes with the schemes of politicians. 
 
 Mommsen compares the Roman patricians to the 
 slave-holding oligarchy of America, which fortu- 
 nately is now extinct. There is still a class of per- 
 sons, however, in this country, who resemble the 
 great land-owners of Italy, and it is remarkable how 
 close a sympathy exists between the Roman aristo- 
 crat of two thousand years ago and this native aris- 
 tocrat of the present time. One of the latter, who 
 was formerly a professor in Harvard University, in- 
 formed his class every year that " Mr. Mommsen 
 
158 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 never lost an opportunity of kneeling down to lick 
 Julius Caesar's boots," 
 
 The best results in ancient Greece were obtained 
 after the change of monarchy to democracy ; and the 
 best results in Rome after the change from a repub- 
 lic to an empire. In both instances some credit 
 should be allowed to the preceding period ; ' ' for, ' ' 
 as Thucydides observes, " the influence of new laws 
 and political methods does not take effect until some 
 years after they have been in operation." 
 
 We should not fail to remember that the republic 
 only existed for Rome itself, and the territory about 
 it. The government of Italy, and of the provinces, 
 was as autocratic in the days of the Gracchi as in the 
 time of Domitian; and even more so, though the 
 names "justice" and "virtue" may have been 
 hateful to such a man, for it was not for the em- 
 peror's interest to permit his subordinates to enrich 
 themselves in the way the senators had formerly 
 done. It was under the empire that the develop- 
 ment of the Roman law took place which must have 
 been the greatest possible blessing to the Mediter- 
 ranean world. Nevertheless, after this was accom- 
 plished, civilization steadily declined. 
 
 Mommsen estimates Caesar as a statesman; but 
 Froude also as a man. We may not go so far in our 
 admiration of him as this author does ; but there can 
 be no doubt that he was one of the best-hearted men 
 that ever lived. His unfailing kindness and fidelity 
 to his friends is a less signal proof of this than his 
 merciful disposition toward his enemies. There was 
 no one in antiquity comparable to him for magna- 
 
Froude. 159 
 
 nimity of this kind, and even the best Greek and 
 Roman writers could not understand it. He antici- 
 pated the spirit of Christianity fifty years before the 
 birth of Christ. Froude's comparison of Caesar with 
 the Messiah is rather startling. One hardly feels 
 that he was a philanthropist ; but the fact that he 
 virtually gave his life for the benefit of the poor and 
 oppressed cannot be gainsaid. The common people 
 of Italy still reverence his memory as a helper of 
 mankind. Strangely enough Dante tacitly made 
 the same comparison as Froude, associating in the 
 last canto of the Inferno Judas Iscariot with Brutus 
 and Cassius ; but this shows plainly how Caesar was 
 considered in Dante's time.* His bequest of seventy- 
 five drachmae to every citizen of Rome, friends and 
 enemies alike, is an affecting testimony to his patri- 
 otic good-will. 
 
 Froude makes rather too much of an effort in at- 
 tempting to defend Caesar from the small accusations 
 and calumnies of his time. They seem dreadful 
 enough to an Anglo-Saxon ; but they were nothing 
 to a Roman, or even to a modern Italian. Sue- 
 tonius retails similar scandals of Augustus, Titus, 
 and Nerva, who were all the best men of their time. 
 Caesar seems to have been like Napoleon, a man 
 naturally gentle and amiable. He was a greater 
 historian than either Froude or Macaulay, and he 
 was even a better writer. The account of the con- 
 quest of Gaul is rather dry but nevertheless invalu- 
 
 * Satan is represented in Dante's Inferno with three mouths ; in 
 one of which he is chewing Judas, and in the others Brutus and 
 Cassius. 
 
1 6o Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 able, and his history of the civil war is intensely 
 interesting. His sentences sometimes remind me of 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Froude has improved on Mommsen's judgment 
 with respect to Marius and Cicero. In spite of 
 Mommsen's breadth of view he is a good deal of a 
 pedant. Like most German professors of his time, 
 he knew little of practical politics, — no more perhaps 
 than Marius himself, who spent his whole life in war 
 and should not properly be called to account for the 
 extravagancies of his party after the defeat of the 
 Cimbri. Froude recognizes this fact, and also the 
 advantage it was to Caesar that he should have been 
 a politician before he became a general. Cicero was 
 a rare man. Mommsen condemns him as an equally 
 empty and voluminous writer; but Matthew Arnold, 
 whose opinion is certainly of equal weight, consid- 
 ered him a very valuable author, and Froude admits 
 that we are chiefly indebted to Cicero for our infor- 
 mation of this remarkable period. Such a writer can 
 not properly be called empty ; in fact, his orations 
 light up the era in which he lived, so that no other 
 portion of Roman history is so plainly visible to us. 
 Froude makes use of him too much as a contrast 
 and a foil to Csesar ; dilates too much on his vacilla- 
 tion, his indecisiveness, his vanity: but the condi- 
 tions in which Cicero found himself were not such 
 as are favorable to a man of letters. They required 
 a man of the sword. For some mysterious reason, 
 great orators seem to be always the precursors of 
 political catastrophes ; and the game they play is a 
 losing one. Cicero's death was heroic even for a 
 
Froude. i6i 
 
 Roman; and one of the noblest pieces of antique 
 sculpture is a bas-relief of Cicero holding the hand 
 of his daughter. 
 
 Ireland. 
 
 Froude came to America to lecture on Irish his- 
 tory at an unfavorable time — while the memory of 
 English assistance to the Southern Confederacy was 
 still active in the public mind, — and the newspapers 
 condemned his argument even before he had begun 
 to deliver it. Many went to hear him from curiosity, 
 and a few also to hear both sides of the question ; 
 and they found him a lecturer in manner not unlike 
 Emerson and quite as vigorous in his language. He 
 was calm, dispassionate, earnest, and, as well as one 
 could judge, fair and unprejudiced in his statements. 
 His lectures were a brilliant success.' 
 
 He showed that the English occupation of Ireland 
 was both an historical and a military necessity; but 
 he did not deny that English statesmen had made 
 grave mistakes in legislating for the Irish people. 
 Especially the English Bishops had caused serious 
 mischief in their zeal for propagandism ; and rapa- 
 cious acts of Parliament had been passed intended 
 for the advantage of English commerce at the ex- 
 pense of Irish trade. He credited the Irish people 
 with many virtues, — the men are brave and gener- 
 ous, the women faithful and kind ; but they are even 
 more inflammable than the French, and lack the self- 
 control which is requisite for popular government. 
 The difficulties in dealing with the Irish question 
 ' See note B in Appendix. 
 
1 62 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 were three: their religion, their temperament, and 
 the constitution of Parliament, which was so dis- 
 tracted by political parties as to prevent any con- 
 tinuous and systematic treatment of the case. Mr. 
 Froude's audiences were satisfied that he had the 
 sense of the matter; as the course of events has 
 subsequently proved. 
 
 These lectures were afterwards elaborated into a 
 work of four volumes, which is of equal value and 
 interest as Froude's English history. The London 
 Daily News did not consider that Froude was alto- 
 gether just and fair to the Irish character; and in a 
 certain sense this is true, because he looked at it 
 from a political point of view. Froude was a Stoic 
 and a severe moralist, and he did not seem to under- 
 stand that it is possible to err by being too frugal as 
 well as too luxurious. 
 
 In 1880 he addressed a letter to the English public 
 in which he said: "If the Irish are a reproach and a 
 byword here, and in America and Australia, it is we 
 who have made them so, and the reproach is our re- 
 proach. If we cannot take the responsibility we 
 had better let it go altogether." He concluded, 
 however, that the net result of leaving Ireland to 
 the Irish would be a civil war ; the English govern- 
 ment would have to interfere to preserve order; and 
 the previous condition of affairs would commence 
 again, 
 
 Froude's grammar is not always accurate. He 
 writes " eldest " where it should be " elder," and 
 " each other " where he should say " one another," 
 
Froude. 
 
 163 
 
 and such occasional lapses, — which are rather a com- 
 fort to the rest of us ; but his English, as a rule, is 
 purer than that of more fastidious writers; for lan- 
 guage, like water, requires (mental) activity to pre- 
 vent it from stagnating and becoming insipid. 
 
WALTER SCOTT 
 
 A MAN'S activity in the world might be repre- 
 sented by an irregular figure, in which the 
 length corresponds to the extent of his 
 work, the breadth to the ground which it covered at 
 any particular time, and the height, or depth, to its 
 superiority or weight. The extent of his work may 
 be measured in years of public service, either in 
 some political capacity, or what is quite as important 
 as a director in banks, railroads, or insurance com- 
 panies; or it may be counted by the number of 
 books he has written, the pictures or other works of 
 art he has produced ; or by his usefulness in a pri- 
 vate capacity as a faithful husband, a wise father, 
 and a patriotic citizen. In like manner may the 
 sphere of his activity be limited to a farm, or to a 
 small neighborhood ; or it may extend over a large 
 district, or even over a continent. Likewise his 
 occupation may be so humble as not to attract pass- 
 ing attention, or it may be so exalted as to serve for 
 a beacon-light in his own time, and become a monu- 
 ment to after ages ; it may be so trifling as not to 
 make the weight of a feather in the balance of hu- 
 man economy, or it may have such a weighty char- 
 acter that it determines the destiny of millions, 
 
 ]64 
 
Walter Scott. 165 
 
 All bodies, however, are distinguished by quality 
 as well as quantity, and it is quality which gives 
 them a permanent value. The Tartar king who re- 
 conquered the empire of Alexandria had as ephem- 
 eral an existence as the day-laborer or the news 
 reporter ; while the words of Ruth to Naomi are as 
 enduring as precious stones* and as beautiful to-day 
 as a fresh-blown rose. It is the unlimited combina- 
 tion of these different conditions which causes the 
 infinite variety we observe in human life. 
 
 It is a temptation to apply this form of measure- 
 ment to Walter Scott, for few other writers could 
 so well illustrate the value of it. Homer, Dante, 
 and Shakespeare seem almost immeasurable. They 
 are not everything certainly ; but in that which they 
 are, they seem almost beyond human reach, and 
 even in Browning we meet with qualities which 
 border on the infinite ; but it is not the same with 
 Scott. Although he lived in an age the most re- 
 dundant of great men since the Reformation, atid 
 Ivas more widely known as a genius than any others, 
 except Goethe and Byron, he never aroused enthu- 
 siasm, nor is he spoken of in that undertone of affec- 
 tion used by admirers of Wordsworth and Schiller. 
 Although a cordial and warm-hearted man, univer- 
 sally liked by those about hiin, he never sympathized 
 deeply with his fellow-men, nor does he appear to 
 have taken more than a passing interest in those 
 humanitarian movements which distinguished the 
 close of the eighteenth century. He accepted the 
 world as he found it, with perfect confidence that 
 everything would go on as it had done formerly, 
 
1 66 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 and that the future would provide for itself without 
 any particular effort on his part. He was conserva- 
 tive in politics and religion; but he also accepted 
 liberalism, not with any high-toned impartiality, but 
 simply as an inevitable opposition. He was a poet 
 without being impassioned, a thinker without being 
 profound, and a patriot without being ardent. 
 Although he belongs to the nineteenth century and 
 is quite modern both in style and material, he lived 
 actually in the past, and was more interested in a 
 mediaeval castle, than in the strategy of Napoleon. 
 
 Scott was in fact the type of a popular writer ; and 
 as a writer so he was a man, — sensible, good- 
 humored, with a fund of cheerfulneess in him, and 
 not likely to say anything that would puzzle his 
 hearers, or go over their heads. He had a natural 
 inclination for the bright side of life, and avoided 
 the dark and gloomy side, except so far as it was 
 necessary for his own moral well-being, and to give 
 a kind of relief to the figures that he drew. Such a 
 person can have no divine message for mankind ; but 
 what he could do Scott accomplished to perfection, 
 to provide his countrymen with pleasant, wholesome 
 entertainment. Carlyle considers the best quality in 
 Scott's writing to be its healthfulness, and this goes 
 to the root of the question. Compared with Scott, 
 Hawthorne, Dante, and sometimes even Goethe, are 
 morbid writers. No man ever preserved a more 
 perfect mental balance, — until near the close of his 
 life. The basis of this is his unfailing good judg- 
 ment, which carries him through the artistic difficul- 
 ties of his work in an easy and graceful manner. I 
 
Walter Scott. 167 
 
 have heard his novels recommended as a cure for 
 insomnia, and I should think this quite possible ; for 
 his writing is like a stimulant and a sedative com- 
 bined, which produces a healthful tone, by energiz- 
 ing the mental faculties, while avoiding all superfluous 
 excitement, — a favorable mental condition for a 
 good sleep, as it is for noonday work. A monstrous, 
 morbid production, like Victor Hugo's Hans of Ice- 
 land, would keep the reader awake more than half 
 the night. Scott was also the first to introduce that 
 refinement and chastity in the writing of fiction 
 which has so greatly enlarged as well as improved 
 its influence. Young ladies now go to the theatre 
 instead of to a convent, and perhaps it is better for 
 us all that we are obliged to respect them. 
 
 So much for the quality of Scott's prose, which 
 has given it a permanent value ; and though in our 
 own time he is not so much admired as formerly, 
 this is true also of Milton himself, and there can be 
 no doubt that public taste will come around to him 
 again in due course. With respect to the extent of 
 his work, he is even more remarkable, for few have 
 ever exceeded him in the amount performed, and as 
 few may be said to have equalled it. Quantity also 
 has its value, and as one swallow does not make a 
 summer, so neither will a single volume constitute 
 authorship. 
 
 There is not much variety in the character of 
 his work, whether prose or verse, and Waverley, 
 Ivanhoe, and the Heart of Midlothian may be 
 taken as types of all his novels ; but the quantity 
 is undeniable. 
 
1 68 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Yet it is in breadth that Scott makes evident the 
 true greatness of his mind. If he does not show 
 much variety in plan, the variety in detail is inex- 
 haustible. It would seem as if few men were so free 
 from personal ambition ; for he did not begin to pub- 
 lish as a poet until nearly thirty, and was close to the 
 half-way house of life when he wrote his first novel. 
 Meanwhile he was laying up a wonderful store of 
 material from which he drew afterwards for twenty 
 years before the supply became exhausted. He 
 was a prodigious student, an insatiable reader, and 
 his historical or antiquarian researches were like those 
 of Gibbon or Hallam. His wanderings, too, about 
 Scotland supplied him with an extensive topographi- 
 cal knowledge; and his love of nature, which gave 
 him an interest in everything living and beautiful, 
 added to this an extensive local information. At 
 the same time, he studied human nature in all its 
 different phases ; and if not so profoundly as some, 
 yet in their variety and wide range the sum total of 
 his characters exceeds that of any other novelist. If 
 they are not delineated with the skill of a Titian ; if 
 they are somewhat shadowy, and unfinished in de- 
 tails yet they have the rare merit of existing alto- 
 gether separately and distinct from their author, and 
 for the most part so individualized that they would 
 seem to have been portraits from life, and to have 
 lived at the time in which he represents them. 
 They have, as we say in painting, a very good 
 chiaroscuro. Walter Scott was a genius of the con- 
 tinental order. 
 
 There are four great English novelists and only 
 
Walter Scott. 169 
 
 four — Fielding, Scott, Thackeray, and George Eliot 
 or Miss Evans. Dickens came close to making the 
 fifth, but he missed it from an insufficient love of 
 truth. Better judges than the present writer have 
 considered Fielding as the greatest of them all. As 
 an English humorist he has either the first or the 
 second place, and it matters little which ; his char- 
 acters are depicted with the solidity of a Van Dyck ; 
 and the essays which are interspersed in his novels 
 would alone give him high literary rank. To de- 
 lineate a pure-minded young woman, so that we may 
 even perceive the beating of her pulse and the blue 
 veins of her wrist, there is nobody like him; but 
 Fielding lived in an immoral age which was steadily 
 gravitating toward the " general overturn " of so- 
 ciety, and his work partakes of the strangely con- 
 trasted good and evil of his time. A portion of his 
 material is so low and coarse as to be positively 
 offensive, and his volumes have been relegated to 
 the highest shelves, where they will attract the 
 least attention. The gap between Fielding and 
 Scott is a wide one, and is filled in by as great an 
 intellectual revolution as that of '93. Goethe was 
 of course the leading spirit in this, and it is note- 
 worthy that one of Scott's earliest publications was 
 a translation of Goethe's earliest play. He had, 
 however, neither the courage nor the inclination to 
 follow the skyward track of Goethe's chariot, but 
 relapsed rather into the amiable conservatism of 
 Chateaubriand. But the Revolution had its effect 
 on him, and though he did not learn from it what 
 Carlyle and Wordsworth learned, that is, ideality of 
 
1 70 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 thought, he did learn ideality oi form. He acquired 
 that dignified, self-respectful style which distin- 
 guishes him both from French and English fiction 
 of the eighteenth century. Scott was a gentleman 
 of the old school of punctilious manners ; and yet, 
 intellectually, he belongs to the new epoch. He was 
 to Great Britain almost exactly what Chateaubriand 
 was to France. Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth 
 formed a period of their own, and differ essentially 
 from the writers we have hitherto been considering. 
 Coleridge and Charles Lamb may perhaps be placed 
 with them. 
 
 Before we consider Scott as a novelist we should 
 first understand him as a poet, for it was in poetry 
 that he made a beginning in literature. Burns and 
 Scott are the two most distinguished names in the 
 literature of their country, but they are different 
 from one another as poets well could be. It might 
 almost be said that since the Iliad there has been 
 no such natural, genuine poetry as that of Robert 
 Burns. This was partly owing to his lack of edu- 
 cation, which saved him from any preconceived 
 notions of poetic composition. His verses are like 
 roses that have grown up among weeds and stones 
 by the wayside. Scott's poetry, on the contrary, 
 is, I believe, wholly imitative ; a scholarly imitation 
 of mediaeval lays and ballads. It may pass for 
 very fine poetry, but it is to the original what 
 moonlight is to the light of day. It possesses a 
 romantic charm, but is not warming or fructifying. 
 Compare the opening of Scott's ballad called Loc- 
 hinvar ; 
 
Walter Scott. lyi 
 
 " O young Lochinvar is come out of the West ; 
 Through all the wide Border his steed was the best ; 
 And save his good broadsword, he weapon had none ; 
 He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone " — 
 
 with the first verse of the Childe of Elle, a poem of 
 those rude ages which we are taught to look back 
 on with self-complacent horror: 
 
 " The Childe of Elle to his garden went 
 And stood by his garden pale, 
 When he was aware of a little foot-page 
 Come tripping down the dale." 
 
 The former is a spirited description, but also slightly 
 rhetorical. How much more simple and sympa- 
 thetic and humanly tender is the description by 
 this unknown minstrel. His unconsciousness is de- 
 lightful. One of the finest passages in Scott's idyls 
 is the hunting scene in the Lady of the Lake. 
 
 " The st^ at eve had drunk his fill 
 Where sleeps the moon on Monan's rill. 
 And deep his midnight lair had made 
 In lone Glenartney's hazel shade." 
 
 And though it seems as if this description of a deer 
 hunt could not be excelled, when we recollect Men- 
 delssohn's hunting song we recognize a similarity be- 
 tween the two, and that Scott, though spirited and 
 musical like Mendelssohn, has not much strength. 
 The octosyllabic couplet, which he uses, is in itself 
 a limitation. It is an excellent metre for concen- 
 trated poets like Pope and Emerson, but Scott is 
 not concentrated, — rather the reverse. It is much 
 
172 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 to his credit that he could use this sing-song verse, 
 and produce so spirited and even dignified effect. 
 In strong dramatic contrast, however, the old Eng- 
 lish ballad singers have the advantage. If you want 
 the life of the Middle Ages, you must go to them or 
 to the German JSfiebelungen, rather than to Scott's 
 Marmion and Rokeby. The old ballads have not 
 Scott's nicety of diction or form, but they have 
 much more powerful light and shade ; they are more 
 circumstantial, and hold a deeper pathos. 
 
 Such by a natural transition from poetry to prose 
 was the foundation of the romantic novel; which 
 differs from the mediaeval romance in always keep^ 
 ing within the bounds of probability, and from the 
 modern or classic romance in its fulness and variety 
 of incident. It is in fact a compromise, or perhaps 
 rather a combination, between the novel of Fielding 
 and the romance of Goldsmith. Bulwer, Dickensj 
 Charlotte Brontd, Disraeli, Miss Sheppard, and to a 
 certain extent also George Eliot, as Well as many 
 lesser lights of fictiori, all belollg to this class. The 
 romantic novdl has fun through a career of nearly 
 eighty years, but latterly it has fallen into the hands, 
 almost entirely of the more gentle sek, and now 
 seems to be dying out. It has had its imitators also 
 in France and Germany, but not of much celebrity^ 
 Victor Hugo was largely influenced by it; though 
 in his case, as also in Dickens's, it was combined 
 with the philanthropic element. 
 
 Although Scott's poetry is imitative it is still 
 sufficiently original to pass for genuine verse ; but 
 it was in novel-writing that his spirit first, found 
 
Walter Scott. 1 72> 
 
 freedom and the largeness of his nature a sufificient 
 field for its growth and development. I am aware 
 that his prefaces are of extraordinary length, — as 
 the sailors say, long as a bowline, — and that there 
 are descriptive passages here and there which may 
 be compared to them ; but it is all good, and the 
 freshness and vigor of his mind make even common 
 situations interesting. What Scott tells us in his 
 plain straightforward manner, without any ornament 
 or more than an occasional touch of rhetoric, is fre- 
 quently more surprising than the most skilfully de- 
 vised plots of French novelists. 
 
 This is particularly noticeable in Waverley. With 
 female novelists it often happens .that their first 
 work of fiction is their best ; and the reason is that 
 there has been a long accumulation of pictorial ideas 
 and fancies before the first concentration takes place, 
 and afterwards they have no such large store to 
 draw from. Charlotte Bronte, Miss Sheppard, Miss 
 Mulock, and Mrs. Stowe are examples of this. 
 Waverley is not the best of Scott's novels, but it 
 contains almost a superabundance of intellectual 
 material, which the writer has not yet quite learned 
 how to dispose of. The first half of the book may 
 be considered experimental : the writer is endeavor- 
 ing to find his way into his work, and to learn the 
 secrets of his art at the same time that he applies 
 them. It was the same with Raphael's dramatic 
 picture of the Entombment. While Scott's account 
 of the old manor house of Bradwardine, and its 
 occupants, is exceedingly picturesque, we notice that 
 Waverley's first two days there occupies nearly fifty 
 
1 74 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 pages, and meanwhile small progress has been made 
 in the movement of the plot, or in the exposition of 
 Waverley's character. The repeated expression of 
 " our hero," for Waverley, is ingenuous and faulty, 
 but it does not occur elsewhere to the same extent, 
 and it would be quite unfair to judge of Scott's lit- 
 erary method by this portion of his work. 
 
 Waverley, Ivanhoe, Henry Smith, Osbaldistone, 
 the Knight of the Leopard, and perhaps others in 
 Scott's novels, are substantially the same person. 
 It is an ideal type of youthful excellence, a com- 
 paratively faultless young man around whom all the 
 other characters in the story, with their various 
 peculiarities, are grouped. There are such person- 
 ages in real life, though they are not common, and 
 do not usually make the ablest and most serviceable 
 men. It is the type of Christian manhood which 
 belongs to romantic art ; an ideal which may be said 
 to have been grandfather to the modern gentleman. 
 
 Shakespeare introduces such characters some- 
 times, — as Orlando in As You Like It, as Ferdinand, 
 in The Tempest, and as secondary characters in other 
 plays. Generally, however, they do not serve the 
 purpose of dramatic poetry. In the novel we follow 
 them, stand by their side, and view the other dra- 
 matis personce from their perspective. We become 
 attached to them from the closeness of their relation 
 to us, but for that very reason we do not perceive 
 them so distinctly as the others. 
 
 Such is the peculiarity of the romantic novel ; and 
 its writer as well as its reader acquires a partisan 
 feeling for the so-called hero which prevents him 
 
Walter Scott. 1 75 
 
 from doing full justice to human nature. It is well 
 enough to introduce perfect characters into fiction, 
 but to call them heroes, and refer to them as heroes, 
 is a mistake. Anything which tends to dispel the 
 illusion produced by a work of art is an injury to it ; 
 though I am aware that in making this rule I am 
 placing myself in opposition to some of the highest 
 judges. It should be left to the reader to decide 
 whether the leading character in a novel, or play, 
 deserves to be called a hero or not. The word itself 
 should always be respected. 
 
 Neither can I agree with those who consider Sir 
 Walter the true standard of a Scotchman. He seems 
 to me much more English than Scotch ; and this is 
 an advantage to him in rendering an account of his 
 countrymen. He looks at them from an outside 
 standpoint. The bona fide Scotchman, if he has in- 
 tellect, is either a philosopher or a humorist. Car- 
 lyle was both, and Scott was neither. He was, 
 however, enough of a Scotchman to sketch humorous 
 situations, though we cannot be confident that he 
 was always aware of this. 
 
 One such is the arrival of young Waverley at 
 Bradwardine Manor. With the feeling of uncertainty 
 which a young man has on strange grounds, he ap- 
 proaches the massive knocker on the hall-door, uses 
 it more and more vigorously but with no response. 
 Then he finds his way around the corner of the 
 house into a court where jtwo young women are 
 washing clothes with their feet ; and these dart away 
 at the first sight, leaving Waverley in possession of 
 the wash-tubs. Feeling now somewhat embarrassed, 
 
1 76 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 he proceeds farther, and meets with a half-witted 
 fellow dancing and singing, who detains and ham- 
 pers him after the manner of such characters ; and at 
 length, when he is quite in despair, conducts him to 
 the butler, who gives an intelligent answer to his in- 
 quiries. The baron himself is of course the last 
 person that he meets with. The twofold significance, 
 also, of the motto on the baron's ancestral drinking 
 cup, " Beware the Bar," is a second case in point. 
 There is a genial, hospitable tone running through 
 Scott's writing which is a fair substitute for humor. 
 He is never severe or satirical, but endures the follies 
 and trespasses of mankind with the patience of an 
 ox at the plough. 
 
 Old Bradwardine reminds us of Fielding's Colonel 
 Bath in his sincerity, stilted manners, and bellicose 
 spirit ; but he is amplified and elevated. Only Scott, 
 perhaps, could have handled such a character. A 
 letter of introduction carried by an eligible young 
 gentleman to an old family friend, living with an 
 only daughter, is rather suspicious of the way in 
 which the story may end ; and we begin to wonder 
 how the author will obviate such a transparent open- 
 ing; when Waverley is suddenly spirited away by 
 Scott to a castle in the Highlands, where he en- 
 counters another young woman of stronger will, and 
 more magnetic, than Rose Bradwardine. After a 
 series of lifelike and quite probable adventures, fate 
 leads him back to his first acquaintance, who has all 
 the while been secretly in love with him. 
 
 Though the plot is a simple one, its development 
 is, or was at that time, quite original. The tender, 
 
Walter Scott. i "]"] 
 
 easily blushing Rose is finally contrasted with the 
 spirited and brilliant Flora Mac-Ivor, a character 
 almost worthy of a place among Shakespeare's hero- 
 ines. Both are intellectual and high-minded, and 
 yet the distinction between them is strongly marked. 
 Fergus Maclvor is also a grand character; and if 
 Scott's description of the Highlanders is somewhat 
 idealized, it is much more credible, as well as credit- 
 able, than Macaulay's. 
 
 Such is Wavcrley in general terms ; and of similar 
 quality are the majority of Scott's novels. Guy 
 Mannering, the Heart of Midlothian, the Bride of 
 Lammermoor, and perhaps Rob Roy, rise above it; 
 the Antiquary and some others fall below it. 
 
 The picturesque variety of English, and especially 
 Scotch Hfe, in the eighteenth century is what gives 
 Scott the advantage over either French or American 
 novelists of the nineteenth century. Especially at 
 the present time people are (as it were) so nearly run 
 in a mould, like leaden figures, — social regulations 
 are so exacting, that both eccentricity and its corre- 
 sponding virtue, originality, are nipped in the bud 
 while men and women are almost too young to be 
 aware of the fact. Independence of character thus 
 becomes an obstacle to advancement in life. A 
 young man who is obliged to make his own way in 
 the world soon finds, if he has opinions of his own, 
 that he had better keep them to himself. 
 
 A former editor of the Springfield Republican was 
 accustonied to say to his assistants: " I shall not tell 
 you how you are to write this, but if you do it 
 otherwise than as I like, I shall complain." This 
 
1 78 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 of course made them servile imitators of his mental 
 methods. A younger partner in a banking-house 
 wished to subscribe to a testimonial to Walt Whit- 
 man the poet, but he was advised against doing so 
 by the chief magnate of the firm as it might slightly 
 discredit the character of their house. Edwin Booth 
 the actor was fond of dressing in a crimson vest, but 
 it made so much comment and unfavorable criticism 
 that he was obliged to relinquish it. The railroad 
 carries the formulated life of the city into the coun- 
 try : the servant girl imitates the dress of her mis- 
 tress ; and one has to go among wood-choppers or 
 plantation negroes for a picturesque subject either 
 in poetry or painting. The time is approaching 
 when it will be difficult to distinguish a yachtsman 
 from the skipper of a Cape Ann schooner. 
 
 This similarity of different people and different 
 classes makes it difficult to give the characters in a 
 novel such a description as may serve for artistic 
 contrasts. Walter Scott met with no trouble of 
 that kind. The dramatis persona of Guy Manner- 
 ing are even more firmly drawn and strongly 
 marked than those in Waverley. In what other 
 novel are such dramatic characters as Meg Merri- 
 lees, Dominie Sampson, Dandy Dinmont, and Mrs. 
 McCandlish grouped together. Meg Merrilees alone 
 would suffice to give energy to the plot, and will 
 long be associated with one of the noblest of Ameri- 
 can women, who made a sanctuary of the green- 
 room, and almost converted the theatre into a 
 temple of the virtues. When a distinguished actor 
 was regretting that there were no ladies on the 
 
Walter Scott. 1 79 
 
 stage, he added, " I must of course except Miss 
 Charlotte Cushman." Scott himself might have 
 felt a full measure of gratitude for her impersona- 
 tion of Meg Merrilees. 
 
 Perhaps the opening of Guy Mannering was inten- 
 tionally a contrast to the long introductory descrip- 
 tion in Waverley. The story certainly begins in a 
 bold manner, and the reader finds himself involved 
 in the fortunes of the Bertram family before he has 
 time to consider whether he likes them or not. In 
 both instances, however, the leading character, or 
 nominal hero, is a young Englishman who is wan- 
 dering in Scotland for amusement or adventure; 
 but the appearance of Meg in the second chapter 
 shows the forethought of genius and sounds the key 
 note of the book. 
 
 I am not aware of any realism which equals for 
 imaginative reality the scene between Meg Merril- 
 lees and Dominie Sampson in the hut ; in which she 
 first throttles him, — in order to make a reasonable 
 man of him, — and afterwards makes him comfortable 
 and happy over a good supper. A still more remark- 
 able passage is that in which young Bertram suddenly 
 appears before Guy Mannering, — who supposes him 
 to have been killed in a duel, — his own sister, who 
 does not recognize him and takes him for an assas- 
 sin, — and Miss Mannering, who is in love with him, 
 and afraid of divulging it to her father. The varied 
 emotions and ideas which his presence inspires, are 
 so vividly depicted that not even a greater genius 
 than Scott could have added anything to the scene. 
 As an example of the perfect disinterestedness with 
 
i8o Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 which Scott could place himself in the position of 
 another person, take the speech of Dirk Hatterick, 
 when, the villain Glossin inquires of him if the lost 
 heir of EUengowan is not in India: " In India, — a 
 thousand deyvils, no : here on this dirty coast of 
 yours. ' ' 
 
 Now the coast of Scotland nearly resembles the 
 eastern coast of Maine, and a cultivated Scotchman 
 is naturally proud of its picturesque scenery. Not 
 a few sea captains may also be found who can appre- 
 ciate this. A landsman certainly would never think 
 of it as a dirty coast ; but a smuggler would only 
 have in mind its heavy tides, dangerous promon- 
 tories, and the difficulty of landing on it. 
 
 The story would be more according to probability 
 if young Bertram had also been killed at the close 
 of it ; for in real life tragedies are much more com- 
 mon than melodramas; but this would have been 
 too great a tax on the sympathies of the reader, 
 who also has to be considered. The course of a 
 novel is too long drawn out for it to end unfavor- 
 ably. Tragedy should be swift, and hasten by rapid 
 strides to its completion. 
 
 If Scott has anywhere risen to a higher plane than 
 Guy Mannering, it is in the Heart of Midlothian, for 
 there he has delved more deeply into human miseries 
 and sorrows than anywhere else. The principle of 
 Guy Mannering might be called virtue blindfolded, 
 and wrestling with open-eyed avarice; but in the 
 Heart of Midlothian there may be noticed two dis- 
 tinct principles from which the story is evolved. 
 One is the same that Miss Evans has treated so 
 
Walter Scott, 1 8 1 
 
 powerfully in Adam Bede, — the danger to which 
 young women of the lower classes are exposed from 
 the ignorance of their parents and the superior fasci- 
 nation of more cultivated young men ; and the other 
 is the same on which the tragedy of King Lear is 
 founded, — the pride of innocence which makes self- 
 defence hateful to it. He has mapped out these 
 two lines of fate in all their intricate windings, so 
 that they may be legible till the day of judgment. 
 It is sometimes to the advantage of the novelist that 
 he can comment on his own dialogue, and give ex- 
 planations such as the dramatic poet is unable to do. 
 
 As the plot reminds us of Miss Evans, so Dickens 
 is foreshadowed in much of the detail. Many writ- 
 ers since Aristophanes have questioned satirically 
 the wisdom in certain cases of legal procedure, but 
 neither Fielding nor Dickens has exposed the un- 
 certainty or abuse of a legal tribunal in so clear and 
 comprehensive a manner as Scott has done, in the 
 examination of Rev. Mr. Butler before the Edin- 
 burgh magistrate. It was only necessary for this 
 purpose to give a quite credible account of the 
 course pursued in taking the clergyman's testimony, 
 and the conclusion arrived at by his examiners; 
 which the reader involuntarily compares with the 
 true facts of the case as narrated in the previous 
 chapter. Legal pedantry is one of the sorest evils 
 of society, and never has it been penetrated by 
 keener sarcasm than in this instance. 
 
 In spite of Scott's conservatism, he was too much 
 of a poet, and Hved too close to nature, not to have 
 a very friendly feeling for those rugged, earnest 
 
iS2 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 characters who oppose conventional right and take 
 the law into their own hands, for the benefit of man- 
 kind. A chord of this sort vibrates throughout his 
 literary work. He carries it perhaps too far in the 
 Pirate, but it is the mainspring of Rob Roy, and both 
 Meg Merrilies and Robin Hood belong to that reso- 
 lute class. Probably the most eloquent passage in 
 the length and breadth of Scott's prose is a speech 
 of Rob Roy to Osbaldistone in which he defines his 
 position with regard to civil authority : ' ' They shall 
 hear of my vengeance who refused to listen to the 
 story of my wrongs." It begins vehemently, but 
 ends sadly enough : it hurts him to think of his sons 
 leading their father's life. Scott's sympathy with 
 Rob Roy is complete, and he comprehends with 
 broad vision the exceptional situation in which he 
 was placed. It is this, quite as much as the novelty 
 of his scenes, which makes the Waverley novels so 
 refreshing. A narrow, pettifogging moralist is be- 
 numbing to the intellect, and a weariness to the 
 spirit. Such characters as Madge Wildfire and Davy 
 Gellatley serve Scott the same purpose that the 
 clown does in Shakespeare's plays. 
 
 There may be observed three distinct classes in 
 the Waverley novels: the romantic novel, such as 
 we have been considering; novels like Scott's poetry 
 in imitation of mediaeval romances, such as Ivanhoe 
 and the Tales of the Crusaders ; and true historical 
 novels, which both in time and character are midway 
 between the two others. 
 
 Ivanhoe is properly a book for boys; for only a 
 youthful imagination is likely to indulge itself in the 
 
Walter Scott. 183 
 
 illusion that it creates. It is so much a romance as 
 to border closely on fairyland. Yet it is full of such 
 vivid scenery, and gorgeous descriptive pageantry, 
 that even the most mature mind can hardly escape 
 its influence. In no other novel are there such bold 
 contrasts of character; and yet they are figures 
 drawn in outline, which need to be filled up to give 
 them solidity. Those portions of history which are 
 sufficiently lighted up for us to see how men and 
 women lived in them are few and far apart. Even 
 the dark ages are not more obscure to us than that 
 great integrating period of modern Europe, during 
 which the cathedrals were built, constitutional gov- 
 ernment arose in England, and jurisprudence again 
 became a science. We recognize from these monu- 
 ments that it was one of the most vigorous ages 
 since Rome was founded, but of the lives which men 
 and women lived in that time we know very little. 
 
 The Talisman has something of the same splendor 
 as Ivanhoe, but Count Robert of Paris and Castle 
 Dangerous possess small value either as romance or 
 history. The introduction of an ape for dramatic 
 effect in the Count of Paris is sensational, and has 
 been rightly characterized by Ruskin as an evidence 
 of waning mental vigor. 
 
 Scott may not have been the first writer of his- 
 torical novels, but he was the first to give that species 
 of fiction a decided stamp. His followers and imi- 
 tators in that line have been as numerous as the pin- 
 nacles on Milan Cathedral. None of his books have 
 received less admiration, and with good reason. The 
 mixture of great historical personages with what one 
 
184 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 may call every-day characters, as in Kenilworth or 
 Quentin Durward, give a sense of disproportion such 
 as we feel when we see a few grown persons dancing 
 with a number of children. This is avoided in the 
 Talisman and Ivanhoe by the antiquity of the sub- 
 ject. Is not the swineherd hero of Ulysses as 
 precious and remarkable to us as an old Greek coin ? 
 So Gurth and Wamba and Friar Tuck become only 
 less illustrious than Richard Plantagenet. 
 
 Guizot complains that Scott has done injustice to 
 the burgher class of the Middle Ages, in his descrip- 
 tion of a citizen of Ghent in Quentin Durward ; and 
 this may be well-grounded, for Scott gave the landed 
 gentry rather more respect than they perhaps de- 
 served. His reverence for George IV. as hereditary 
 monarch does not appear to have been mitigated by 
 an appreciation of the weakness of that unworthy 
 figure-head. A little of Byron's dash and independ- 
 ence would often be efficacious in Scott's prose and 
 verse. 
 
 The poetical extracts with which he adorns the 
 chapters of his novels have rather a stilted effect, 
 and I think his readers usually pass them by without 
 taking much notice of them. Miss Evans also 
 adopted the custom in one or two of her novels, and 
 in her case it must be considered a success. There 
 is no reason why a poetical heading should not be 
 given to a new chapter, if one that is particularly 
 appropriate chances to enter the author's mind. At 
 the same time this is not likely to occur on all occa- 
 sions, and there is no need of going to market for 
 such culled flowers of erudition. The original verses, 
 which are interspersed through the Waverley novels, 
 
Walter Scott. 185 
 
 are an ornament, and an advantage, and may well 
 be envied by such prose writers as do not possess 
 the rhyming .gift. 
 
 Scott's Life of Napoleon, though intentionally 
 honest, was written under the influence of strong 
 party prejudice, and may now be fairly called obso- 
 lete. Its sole value is the evidence it affords 
 concerning the means employed by the British gov- 
 ernment to contend against their greatest enemy. 
 That a cargo of assassins should have been landed 
 on the coast of France by a British man-of-war is 
 only rendered credible by Scott's repeating this 
 statement without perceiving the enormity of the 
 transaction. It is also true, however, that Charles 
 James Fox wrote to Talleyrand to warn him that a 
 conspiracy was on foot, and it was by this means, 
 and by Napoleon's own sagacity, that the plot was 
 frustrated. Fox thus absolved the British nation, 
 and left the ignominy to Pitt.* 
 
 There are no better books to place before young 
 people than the Waverley novels. We read them 
 at sixteen for pleasure; at thirty for appreciation; 
 and in our old age for comfort, and, as Pericles said, 
 to chase away the sadness of life. Scott was a great 
 artist, — much greater in prose than, in verse. If he 
 had no special mission to mankind, yet he was true 
 to himself and true to his art; and much may be 
 learned from him from this very fact. We may also 
 learn this (which there is much need of at the present 
 time), a respect for individuality as the basis of all 
 sound character. 
 
 * For further information see John C. Ropes's Napokon. 
 
THACKERAY 
 
 THERE is a bust of Thackeray in Westminster 
 Abbey, and it is the only one there, whose 
 expression I recollect distinctly ; chiefly from 
 the lines about the mouth, which are similar to 
 those of a doctor who is prepared to undertake a 
 surgical operation. Otherwise the face is remark- 
 able for its fulness and tenderness, — a thoroughly 
 human face, — and the eyes have an expression of 
 brooding observation. It is not a portrait of rare 
 excellence, but so much can be distinguished from it. 
 
 Carlyle mentions him in a letter to Emerson as 
 calling at Cheyne Row, but the only remark that he 
 makes about Thackeray is that he was a very " hun- 
 gry man," a man who is fond of a good dinner. 
 How did it happen that Carlyle, who often took 
 such pains to describe personages of whom we know 
 nothing, should have missed the opportunity of re- 
 vealing to us the character of such an interesting 
 man. 
 
 Thackeray himself relates that in his childhood, 
 while on the voyage from India to England, he dis- 
 embarked at St. Helena and went with his preceptor 
 to a place from which they could see Napoleon walk- 
 ing back and forth in an enclosed garden, — a sight 
 
 i8^ 
 
Thackeray. 187 
 
 never to be forgotten. Subsequent to his university 
 life he went to Weimar, as the capstone of his edu- 
 cation, and there saw and was introduced to Goethe 
 in his old age. What a meeting was that! We 
 might almost call it the setting sun looking to the 
 rising moon. Only once in his whole life had 
 Goethe clasped the hand of such a genius. It is 
 not likely that either of them was aware of this. 
 " His complexion," says Thackeray, " was still 
 bright and fair; his eyes were remarkably large, 
 dark and brilliant. " He was too young at that time 
 to make Goethe's acquaintance. 
 
 What influence these two spectacles may have 
 had on Thackeray's future life, does not appear on 
 the surface. He satirized the Sorrows of Werther, 
 and spoke of Wilhelm Meister as an immoral book ; 
 though there are passages in his own writing which 
 are quite as immoral, — if that be the proper word 
 for it. Yet he is distinguished above all his con- 
 temporaries except Carlyle, for his breadth and 
 catholicity of mind; and no other English writer 
 has described a Frenchman with such a clear appre- 
 ciation of the national character. He understood 
 the strong points and the fine points of the French, 
 as well as their weaker side. 
 
 Carlyle was right in calling Thackeray a ' ' hungry 
 man." He had a great physique, which, with his 
 active temperament, required fuel to keep it going. 
 In early life he wasted a small competency in con- 
 vivial entertainments. He was fond of dinners, 
 clubs, evening parties, and junketing. He was not 
 only a " hungry man," but a very sociable one. 
 
1 88 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 He not only liked fine conversation, but also the 
 coarser kind, if it had a background of human nature 
 behind it. However, this dissipation, as it seemed 
 to his friends, proved in the end a paying invest- 
 ment ; for it was thus that he obtained his peculiar 
 insight into the character of men and women, 
 Hawthorne learned the secrets of human nature by 
 silent observation, but Thackeray drew people out 
 of themselves by genial discourse, and tempted 
 them to be confidential. Probably no one, except 
 the greatest dramatists, has known human nature 
 so well. He might even be called an every-day 
 Shakespeare. In this respect Milton, Goldsmith, or 
 Byron hold no comparison with him. The London 
 society in which he was immersed is the richest 
 soil for studying life to be found anywhere. His 
 acquaintance was one of the largest in the city. He 
 was a favorite with English noblemen, was acquainted 
 with all the distinguished writers and artists, be- 
 longed to an exclusive circle in the upper middle 
 class ; and at the same time was on friendly terms 
 with actors, news reporters, and all sorts of im- 
 pecunious Bohemians. Yet he never laid aside his 
 dignity : he was always the same Thackeray under 
 all conditions, and could smile withput condescen- 
 sion on an acquaintance of the wine cellar, if he were 
 walking with an earl. 
 
 The gap between Scott and Thackeray is as wide 
 as that between Fielding and Scott. In fact Thack- 
 eray abjured Scott and his methods altogether, and 
 went back to Fielding for his models, — so far as he 
 did not take them from actual life. Like Fielding, 
 
Thackeray, 1 89 
 
 he was by nature an humorist; and humor is the 
 natural enemy of romance, for as soon as we begin 
 to laugh the fine illusion disappears. The humorous 
 novel, therefore, is essentially realistic ; but it is no 
 hard, uncomfortable realism. We find relief from 
 the actual in one of two ways ; either by creating an 
 ideal for ourselves, which we follow as a guide and 
 strive to accomplish, or by comparing the present 
 state of things with a possible ideal, thus taking re- 
 venge on its deformities. Shakespeare made use of 
 both these methods, but I believe never at the same 
 time. His comedies are never heroic, and the comic 
 scenes in his tragedies are taken from the lowest life, 
 A plain, prosaic realist like Tolstoi may interest and 
 even instruct, but he can never quite satisfy us ; for 
 he cannot go beyond a certain point. A writer, to 
 be really great, must possess ideality. Without 
 that he is like a bird with clipped wings. 
 
 The line between romance and poetry is difificult 
 to define, but it can be illustrated by the subject 
 before us ; though there is as much poetry in Thack- 
 eray, perhaps, as in Scott, the few poems which 
 he published, albeit on ordinary subjects, are the 
 more distinctly poetic on that account. On the 
 other hand, Scott's poetry depends on romance for 
 its consistency. Scott's humor, when he is humor- 
 ous, is usually so introduced as to have the effect of 
 very sharp irony. An instance of this in the Heart 
 of Midlothian is Captain Knockdunder's asking Mr. 
 Butler for his " pell ropes " with which to hang 
 Jeannie Deans's nephew. Holbein's Dance of Death 
 has nothing in it so trenchant as that. Where a 
 
IQO Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 situation is naturally comic, like young Lochinvar's 
 carrying off another man's bride, right from the 
 altar, Scott treats the subject in such a high-toned 
 manner that the humorous side of it, though plainly 
 seen, is kept in the background. Readers of Thack- 
 eray can well imagine how he would have described 
 such an event; but he wrote in an age when such 
 events were no longer possible. 
 
 The sudden meeting of an old acquaintance in 
 altered conditions is a trying circumstance, and the 
 discovery of Colonel Newcome by Pendennis as an 
 indigent Brother of Greyfriars might be called a 
 piece of high comedy, not unlike the return of Rip 
 Van Winkle after his protracted sleep ; but Thack- 
 eray draws forth from it the noblest poetry, and it 
 is doubtful if Scott would have succeeded so well. 
 
 Thackeray proves his ideality in his humor, his 
 style, and the quality of his thought. Like Albert 
 Durer, he drew his figures from real life, imitating 
 every peculiarity, so as to make them the more indi- 
 vidual ; but as Diirer gave his faces an ideal expres- 
 sion, so Thackeray surrounded his characters with 
 an atmosphere which emanated from himself. His 
 style I conceive to be one of the finest in English 
 literature : so simple, flexible, and expressive. His 
 writing is as pleasant as a wood-fire, full of English 
 warmth and cheerfulness. It has not the grave 
 dignity of Hume, or the high-spirited tone of Froude, 
 for these would have been unsuited to his subject. 
 He wrote not of public life, but of social life, and his 
 manner is conversational. It is a lively colloquial 
 style, which carries the reader onward at a good pace. 
 
Thackeray. 1 9 1 
 
 The incidents of human life are of little conse- 
 quence to him. He calls Vanity Fair a novel with- 
 out a hero, and he might have said as truthfully, 
 that it was a novel without a plot. His plots are of 
 the simplest description ; such experiences, for the 
 most part, are familiar to all of us. George Sedley 
 was killed in battle, but he might as well have been 
 lost on a sea voyage, — a fatality which has hap- 
 pened to a number of my acquaintances. Neither 
 are his characters more remarkable. There are 
 worse women than Becky Sharpe and better men 
 than Henry Esmond. They are not remarkable 
 people, but such as one meets with every day. At 
 the same time they are not commonplace, but usu- 
 ally interesting; and after we have followed the 
 course of their lives, in one novel, we are pleased to 
 meet with them again, incidentally, in another. 
 They have their peculiarities, as we all have, but 
 they are not ear-marked by any eccentricity. There 
 are neither born fools nor lunatics among them. 
 They are highly inividualized portraits, and so repre- 
 sented that we know them not by one characteristic 
 but by many. They neither say nor do remarkable 
 things, and yet their proceedings always have an in- 
 terest for us. We live with them and see them in 
 flesh and blood. It is their behavior toward one an- 
 other which Thackeray records, and those mental 
 conditions which influence their behavior. We 
 perceive the whole machinery of their lives, as if 
 their minds were transparent. It is only genius that 
 could do this. 
 
 He was not only an humorist, but a satirist ; and 
 
192 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 this accounts, perhaps, for the expression of his 
 mouth. Satire is a keen weapon, and a satirist is 
 truly a spiritual surgeon, who operates on the tumors 
 and diseased members of society. It was after the 
 first hundred years of the Roman Empire that satire 
 first made its appearance, and since then it has been 
 customary to associate the prevalence of satire with 
 national decline. This was certainly the case in 
 France during the eighteenth century and perhaps 
 also, in Spain during the seventeenth; whether the 
 rule applies to England is doubtful. The position 
 of India, the extension of British commerce, and 
 the increase of manufacturing capacity by the use 
 of steam power, caused a rapid accumulation of 
 wealth in Great Britain, the larger portion of which 
 fell into the hands of those who were ignorant of 
 its uses. This produced, or inflicted, a congested 
 condition of society, such as was sure to lead to 
 great extravagance and folly ; a condition of affairs 
 not unlike that in Rome during the period when 
 Juvenal and Persius flourished. The body-politic 
 had become too full-blooded and required cupping. 
 So Carlyle, Ruskin, Thackeray, and Matthew 
 Arnold appeared, and were politely paid for their 
 services. 
 
 People who are themselves fit subjects for satire, 
 such as snobs, gourmands, and parasites, never like 
 to read it, but there are many others who consider 
 its employment uncharitable, unchristian, and ill- 
 natured. Truly enough, it is so when misapplied; 
 but when all kind and conciliatory methods have 
 failed, what are we to do ? A spoiled child of 
 
Thackeray. 193 
 
 fashion, arrogant with prosperity, and infatuated 
 with self-love, is hardly a subject for kindness. 
 Conciliatory methods are wasted on him ; he spurns 
 interference no matter how well intended ; and if he 
 laughs contemptuously at our feeble efforts to reform 
 him, it is after all no more than we deserve. He 
 may puff tobacco smoke in our face, and scoff at 
 the virtue of respectable women. How are we to 
 protect ourselves from his contempt and insolence ? 
 How shall we deal with the self-infatuated person 
 who cannot be made to understand the simple reason 
 of things, but continues to insist that black is white? 
 Satire is the only refuge we have, — except profanity ; 
 and it is certainly better than that. " Make way for 
 me, sir " said John Randolph to the impudent officer 
 who blocked his way on the sidewalk. " I never 
 make way for an infernal rascal," was the reply. 
 " I always do, sir," said Randolph, bowing and 
 passing to one side. This contains the whole ques- 
 tion in a nutshell. We are not all as ready-witted 
 as the satirical Virginian, but even the record in a 
 book of such an adventure will do much good and 
 finally reach the ears for which it was intended. 
 The only vulnerable point in such people is their 
 self-love. 
 
 An aristorcratic lady had a favorite pug that after 
 a time became sickly and declined to eat. So 
 she consulted a skilful doctor on the subject, who 
 carried the dog to his own house for a fortnight; 
 where, according to his statement afterward, he 
 starved him and whipped him around a tree. He 
 then returned the dog in a frisky and healthful condi- 
 
194 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 tion. Human nature, also, sometimes requires treat- 
 ment of this sort. 
 
 Although Thackeray did not spare the clergy 
 when he met with an undeserving incumbent, and 
 even if he did inquire of Prof. Ticknor, while in 
 Boston, for an introduction to Theodore Parker, 
 no one who has read the last five chapters of The 
 Newcomes would suspect him of being irreligious. 
 He was not the first to reprehend the practice of 
 shoving younger sons of the gentry into the fold of 
 the church, so that they might be provided for, irre- 
 spective of their fitness for the holy office. We 
 recollect some fine lines of Milton, which come to 
 this point also ; and it has been said in America that 
 not a few young men studied divinity, because they 
 knew not what else they might do. In this way a 
 kind of life-long pretence is created which often 
 leads to pathetic, as well as to humorous situations. 
 Clergymen are human beings, and if they cannot 
 obtain honest work, or, as the saying is, are thrown 
 out of line, they are obliged to live by begging, or 
 stealing, or some other knavery. Rev. Mr. Honey- 
 man places himself in the hands of a Jew, who 
 organizes a congregation for him, and advises him 
 to cough so that the ladies shall think he is con- 
 sumptive and feel more sympathy for him. This is 
 a terrible sarcasm, but we may trust Thackeray for 
 its truthfulness, and in real life we could point to 
 an instance quite as sacrilegious. Still more impres- 
 sive is his description of the squalid Hunt, parasite, 
 gambler, and prospective felon, dragged before a 
 police court to pay the fine of a common drunkard. 
 
Thackeray. 195 
 
 Truly an awful warning this for youthful follies and 
 levity. It may be regretted, perhaps, that Thack- 
 eray did not pay more consideration to the brighter 
 side of clerical life, and give us examples worthy of 
 imitation in that line. 
 
 He was no respecter of surplices nor of hidalgos. 
 The proverbial cloak of respectability which covers 
 so many sins, was a perpetual target for the shafts 
 of his wit, and his keen arrows penetrated all pre- 
 tences and protections, which were not of genuine 
 metal. A favorite of George IV. , noted for his vices 
 and daring misdeeds, he has held up to the detest- 
 ation of posterity, under the name of the Marquis 
 of Steyne. Even royalty could not escape from 
 him, and his criticism of George IV. was so severe, 
 that many of his friends blamed him for it ; on the 
 ground that the office ought to be respected even if 
 the incumbent proved unworthy, and the publica- 
 tion of his censures had all the effect of an argument 
 for republicanism. A few of his titled acquaintances 
 fell away from him, but this did not concern him 
 much. He considered that his business was to tell 
 the truth, and that his excoriation of George IV. 
 might serve as a warning to Victoria's son. 
 
 Thackeray always felt a particular aversion to 
 snobs, and no other writer has analyzed this species 
 of civilized humanity so thoroughly^,. His treatise 
 on this subject is one of theTnost amusing of his 
 books, though he has perhaps given it more import- 
 ance than it altogether deserves. A man whose 
 social position is clearly defined, and whose mind is 
 occupied with important affairs, does not trouble 
 
196 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 himself much, whether casual acquaintances treat 
 him with the respect he deserves or not. If they 
 are not polite to him, so much the worse for them, 
 Emerson would say. Thackeray's social position, 
 however, was not fixed, but fluctuating. His asso- 
 ciation with people of various classes, and different 
 professions, may have caused a feeling of uncer- 
 tainty, in the minds of his friends' relatives, as to 
 how they ought to behave toward him. Thackeray 
 was not only a writer, but an artist, in a literal sense, 
 and like all artists, as he says himself, sensitive, im- 
 pulsive, excitable. The expression of his face gives 
 evidence of rare tenderness of feeling. His sensi- 
 bility may often have been wounded, — humiliated 
 he could not have been, — without his realizing the 
 cause of it ; but he also must have suffered from a 
 great deal of impudence, bad manners, and the 
 patronizing airs of people who were actually his in- 
 feriors. At the time of the exclusion of a Jewish 
 banker from a Saratoga hotel, a venerable Boston 
 lawyer said to me, " Purse-proud millionaires are 
 very disagreeable, whether they are Jews or not." 
 In all large cities there are self-important people, 
 male or female, who go about tramping on the toes 
 of others, with haughty indifference, — like the heavy 
 bodies whom Goethe describes in the Walpurgis 
 Night who wear out the sod on the Brocken. No 
 person is to be blamed for taking an amiable and just 
 revenge on these folk, and no one could be better 
 qualified to do it than Thackeray. 
 
 In America we pretend not to recognize distinc- 
 tions of classes, though such distinctions exist in all 
 
Thackeray. 197 
 
 communities, except the most barbarous, whether 
 they are recognized or* not. There are decided ad- 
 vantages in this unformulated condition of society, 
 but it also increases the difficulty for modest men 
 and women to maintain the position that belongs to 
 them. This it is that gives an American gentleman 
 the suspicious, unfriendly look with which he re- 
 gards others. This is not so bad as formerly, but 
 it cannot be wholly avoided in a community where 
 no authority exists to decide on social rights and 
 privileges. Distinguished people, very wealthy peo- 
 ple, and men of political and mercantile importance 
 are obliged to cultivate a fair amount of reserve in 
 self-protection. The best people are accused of 
 exclusiveness, because they are the ones whom 
 everybody wants to know. The problem is largely 
 a physical one : it is a question of time and strength ; 
 though some allowance must also be made for per- 
 sonal taste and inclination. So there is much com- 
 plaint on this head which is quite unreasonable, and 
 by persons who would be even more exclusive were 
 they in the same position. Everybody knows the 
 governor, but the governor cannot be expected to 
 know everybody. 
 
 Yet there is much real snobbishness in America, 
 ill-mannered and disgusting enough to every person 
 of refined sensibility. I remember at the university, 
 a young man from one of the oldest Boston fami- 
 lies, otherwise a pleasant and sensible fellow, but 
 who was in the habit of speaking of his suburban 
 classmates as the " dirty little King," the " dirty 
 little Thompson," etc. Still worse was the speech 
 
198 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 of a literary man at a public dinner, given in honor 
 of a most democratic novelist, stigmatizing a portion 
 of his own city, which was inhabited by respectable 
 shopkeepers, as the " abomination of desolation." 
 Another instance might be taken from a lady at a 
 sea-shore hotel, who said, referring to a group of 
 ladies and gentlemen from central New York: " They 
 seem to be enjoying themselves, and it is interesting 
 to meet with people so different from those we are 
 accustomed to, but of course we do not think of 
 speaking to them. ' ' There is the New York woman 
 who thought that no lady could be said to be dressed 
 unless she had on her diamonds ; and the Philadel- 
 phian notion that, in order to be genteel, people must 
 live between Chestnut Street and Spruce Street, no 
 matter how inconvenient this may be, or how diffi- 
 cult to obtain a suitable residence. Such cases 
 would be humorous, if they were not so lamentable. 
 Snobs are always the readiest victims of adventurers 
 and impostors ; for, as they have no true criterion 
 of worth and culture, they are easily deceived by 
 external appearances. 
 
 . If, as stated by Thackeray, the word humbug was 
 derived from the city of Hamburg, it must have 
 been a malicious libel on the most honorable class 
 of merchants in Europe. Both Hamburg and 
 Bremen, before their consolidation with Prussia, 
 were diminutive but model commonwealths ; as per- 
 haps they are even now. Absolute poverty was un- 
 known in them ; crimes were of the rarest occurrence ; 
 and property holders were so honest that they were 
 permitted to assess their own taxes. However that 
 
Thackeray. 1 99 
 
 may have been, the word came into use at the time 
 when it was needed, — about one hundred and fifty 
 years ago, — to express a new phase in the history of 
 civilization. 
 
 After the accession of WiUiam of Orange, great 
 improvement in legal administration took place in 
 England, and this has continued ever since. The 
 same thing happened in Prussia during the reign of 
 Frederick, and somewhat later in other countries. 
 Previous to that time nine points of the law, so far 
 as practical application was concerned, might be 
 summed up in the formula, might equals right. 
 Acts of robbery and acts of violence were open and 
 high-handed, but there does not appear to have been 
 so much secret knavery : at least the work that was 
 done in old times was remarkable for its honesty, 
 and it is significant that Voltaire could have accumu- 
 lated a fortune by such methods as are now too 
 transparent to be imitated with success. Human 
 nature, however, is extremely plastic. If repressed 
 in one direction, it will always expand in another. 
 So when open robbery could no longer prosper, all 
 sorts of impostures were practised by which covet- 
 ous persons could defraud others without coming 
 within the danger of legal indictment. The form of 
 imposition by which offices, preferment, and social 
 advancement were gained, is called humbug; and 
 this has increased to such a degree, that it is al- 
 most impossible now for a young man to rise in 
 life without the help of it. The excuse of Barnum, 
 the showman, for his stuffed mermaids and other 
 impostures, was that people like humbug, and if he 
 
200 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 did not provide it for them, others would do so and 
 take his business away from him. 
 
 Thackeray was the first writer of English to realize 
 the extent to which this evil had permeated society, 
 and his attacks on it were vigorous and incessant. 
 If he has not accomplished its reformation, it is not 
 from lack of a thorough exposure. He has at least 
 taught us better how to recognize it in all its various 
 forms and protean disguises. A great deal of his 
 finest humor is derived from this subject. In fact, 
 some of his characters seem to be wholly made up 
 of it, like Blanche Amory in Pendennis, of whom he 
 says: " a sham enthusiasm which she had, a sham 
 hatred, a sham love, a sham taste, a sham grief, each 
 of which flared and shone very vehemently for an 
 instant, but subsided and gave place to the next 
 sham emotion. ' ' There are persons more or less like 
 this, of various gradations, shading off to reality on 
 one side of their character, and back again to preten- 
 sion on the other. 
 
 It has been said to me, " I do not like Thackeray, 
 because he makes everybody appear so mean and 
 selfish, and if I read him I seem to see selfish mo- 
 tives in what everyone says and does." It is true 
 that he helps us to see the selfish motives of action, 
 but we should not see them if they did not exist. 
 The man who knows human nature thoroughly, 
 must realize how large a part self-interest plays in 
 it ; but he also knows that this is to a great extent 
 justifiable. The question properly is not whether 
 selfishness is right, but when it is right : time and 
 circunistances making all the difference between vir- 
 
TTiackeray. 201 
 
 tue and vice. Thackeray was no conventional moral- 
 ist, and his philosophy was rather Epicurean than 
 Stoical. He com'posed a song which has for a re- 
 frain : 
 
 " Then sing, as Dr. I,uther sang : 
 Who loves not women, wine, and song, 
 He is a fool his whole life long." 
 
 As Martin Luther perceived that chastity did not 
 consist in celibacy, but rather in a virtuous married 
 life ; so Thackeray knew that true virtue was not to 
 be found in conventional forms, but in the moment- 
 ary decision which precedes every important action. 
 He considered habitual self-denial as vicious as self- 
 indulgence; and to the young man who said he 
 never allowed himself to eat cake, he replied : " The 
 reason is, because you are a glutton." The seven 
 cardinal virtues were reduced in his mind to one; 
 that of doing the right thing at the right moment. 
 If he was relentless in railing at the follies of 
 mankind, he delighted ^Iso in representing human 
 nature at its best, when the plot of 'his story made 
 this admissible. He delineated virtue with so fine 
 a point, and shaded it so delicately, that many of 
 his readers pass it by without recognition. The last 
 portion of The Newcomes, is all aglow with moral 
 enthusiasm ; and I think there is no other writer 
 that discriminates more clearly between the genuine ■ 
 article, and its contrary. 
 
 ' ' And marked so well the high behavior of man or maid 
 That he from speech refrained, nobility more nobly to repay.'' 
 
202 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 This quiet and elevating manner of representing vir- 
 tue is nowhere more conspicuous than in Pendennis, 
 which is much of an autobiography, though not to 
 be trusted in regard to details. He published his sub- 
 sequent novels under the name of Arthur Pendennis 
 and was often called Pendennis familiarly by his 
 friends. The prodigality of this young man, — Thack- 
 eray never calls him a hero, — his period of idleness 
 after leaving college, and his readiness to fall in with 
 h^is uncle's plans for a lucrative match are all set forth 
 in bold relief ; but we should also notice the hand- 
 some manner in which he retrieves his character and 
 fortune, the sincerity of his nature, by which he 
 escapes from the matrimonial snare, and the magna- 
 nimity he shows to his clannish townsman who had 
 previously spread evil reports of him. Pendennis is 
 not an ideal character, certainly, but if there are 
 some better young men, there are many more who 
 are worse. He is a more favorable subject for the 
 central figure of a novel than his friend Warrington, 
 who spoiled his own life from a sense of duty, would 
 have been. Thackeray does not condone his own 
 faults, and leaves us to discover his real merit. 
 
 The Fotheringay incident, with which the book 
 opens, could not be exceelled. The ardent, imagin- 
 ative schoolboy falls in love with a beautiful Irish 
 actress, who cares nothing for him, but accepts him 
 for the benefit of her family. She has neither head 
 nor heart; her acting is mere machinery, and she 
 only understands in a dim way the meaning of the 
 part she plays. Then the circumspect manner in 
 which the old major undertakes to extricate his 
 
Thackeray. 203 
 
 nephew from the trap he has fallen into, which he 
 finally succeeds in doing by an incident which no 
 one could have foreseen, — the apparition of a law- 
 yer who has a list of debts against the theatrical 
 company. 
 
 Pendennis is not written in the best English, and 
 there is a good deal of slang in it, a reflection of 
 academic life; but it has a youthful freshness and 
 buoyancy which we prize more highly the farther we 
 advance in years. It is remarkable that Thackeray, 
 who was so much given to clubs and male society, 
 should have understood so well the nature of women. 
 Laura, Blanche, Lady Rockminster, and Fanny are 
 all sufificiently feminine, and yet very different from 
 one another, without being in the least typical char- 
 acters. Pendennis does not fall in love with Laura, 
 simply because he has always lived in the house with 
 her ; but after he has been separated from her, and 
 has had experience of the frailty of other women, he 
 appreciates her superiority. 
 
 Vanity Fair is the most powerful of Thackeray's 
 novels, if not the most powerful of all works of fic- 
 tion ; but it is also the most terrible. Taken by 
 itself, it would seem to be too cynical a representa- 
 tion of society, but considered as a part or section 
 of a whole series, we recognize that it has a right to 
 existence. The Marquis of Steyne was taken from 
 real life and is not overdrawn. In my youth there 
 was such a man in Boston, who used his wealth for 
 most shameful purposes, and that in an open and 
 flagrant manner ; and yet was able to maintain hirrt^ 
 
5o4 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 self in society. Becky Sharpe, that is, "a sharp 
 beak," is his proper feminine counterpart, and, as the 
 personation of an adventuress, will no doubt last 
 while the English language lives. Shakespeare de- 
 lineated lago and Shylock and Richard III., but 
 he did not find occasion to picture such women as 
 might correspond to them. Women exist, however, 
 or have existed, quite as wicked as the worst male 
 specimens, and it remained for Thackel-ay to repre- 
 sent these. His Campaigner in The Nfwcomes out- 
 shines or outblackens Becky Sharpe, and Beatrix 
 Esmond is at least as heartless and unprincipled. 
 The mischief that women do is more secret and 
 easily concealed than the evil deeds of men, and, 
 therefore, there is even more reason why it should 
 be exposed. The talent that some women have for 
 covering up their tracks surpasses that of the cuttle- 
 fish. 
 
 The Newcomes is delightful. It is generally con- 
 sidered the best of Thackeray's novels, and it surely 
 deserves that reputation. A mild radiance pervades 
 it throughout ; the intelligence of a warm-hearted, 
 clear-sighted, sympathetic man who has attained the 
 full fruition of his power, — who knows the world 
 and knows himself. Its tone is as tranquillizing as 
 some of Raphael's pictures : there are no void pas- 
 sages in it, and few inequalities. The book has a 
 mellow tone, and the knowledge of human nature 
 displayed in it is marvellous. Colonel Newcome 
 would endure for ages as the standard of an English 
 gentleman; and his mental limitations only serve 
 to make this more conspicuous. I do not know how 
 
Thackeray. 205 
 
 many American girls have been named for Ethel 
 Newcome. She is a lily, growing among tares, a 
 gazelle among jackals, and we watch the course of 
 her fortune, her dangers and narrow escapes, with 
 breathless interest. She is the queen of English fic- 
 tion, unless we except Sophia Western, who is not 
 nearly so well known. Ethel is a true heroine, but 
 still a human being, and her pride prevents her from 
 forming an alliance with her half -cousin Clive, at the 
 moment when she might have done so. For this 
 mistake she is obliged to suffer years of sorrow and 
 loneliness, but finally triumphs by a grand stroke of 
 magnanimity. The true character of the Campaigner 
 is kept in reserve until near the close, when she 
 springs into notice like a tigress from her den. This 
 terrible woman caused the death of Colonel New- 
 come, her daughter, and daughter's child ; and, but 
 for the interference of Ethel, would evidently have 
 destroyed Clive also. This is explained so clearly 
 that we can see the mental and physical working of 
 it, even to the last pulsation of the heart. The last 
 scenes in The Newcomes might not unjustly be com- 
 pared to the last scenes in Faust; and it should 
 always be remembered that Hawthorne and all his 
 family wept over this portion of the novel. The 
 arrangement is rather too artistic to be wholly 
 natural, and yet we could not wish it to be different 
 from what it is. 
 
 The Adventures of Philip has its faults, but is 
 smelted from the same ore as The Newcomes, and is 
 even more remarkable, as a study of human nature. 
 
2o6 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Brandon, who is to fight a duel, on the following 
 day, with the young painter Fitch, looks very pale 
 at the evening entertainment, but as soon as he 
 drinks a glass of punch his face turns very red. 
 This is the way stimulants affect people while in a 
 state of nervous agitation ; but how did Thackeray 
 know it, and how did he happen to think of it at the 
 right moment ? He must have realized the scene 
 pictorially as he wrote. When we read the chapter 
 in which is described the family battle at the French 
 boarding-house, and Colonel Bunch challenges Gen- 
 eral Baynes, " his face as red as a lobster, and eyes 
 starting out of their sockets, ' ' we lay down the book 
 and exclaim, How could he know so much. Read 
 his description of wicked old Mrs. Baynes after the 
 defeat of her mercenary scheme: her grim loveli- 
 ness, her rebellious tears, and sullen grief at the ob- 
 stinacy of her husband in not breaking his word to 
 Philip Firmin and rendering his daughter miserable 
 for life. Thackeray places himself so perfectly in 
 her position, that he says finally, " I shall have to 
 stop or I shall sympathize with her," — and we feel 
 so ourselves. " One, two, three rattling sonatas 
 Minna and Brenda played ' ' ; how much more poor 
 music there is in the world than good music, and 
 how often does a pianoforte become an instrument 
 of torture. There is more mannerism in Philip 
 than in any of his novels except The Virginians; but 
 the character of the Little Sister is unique, and 
 stands by itself. 
 
 Lovell the Widower is a short story, but compact 
 with humor. The prudent and enterprising young 
 
Thackeray. 207 
 
 woman, who dances in the ballet to support her 
 family, and afterwards becomes governess to Mr. 
 Lovell, keeps three or four admirers on the very 
 edge of acceptation until Lovell himself offers to 
 marry her, — when she takes him in a twinkhng, and 
 leaves her former suitors to their various reflections. 
 Here satire sits enthroned ; and yet there is an under- 
 current of pathos in the story which elevates and 
 beautifies it. 
 
 Celebrity always has its effect on a man. If he 
 does not become vain from it, he loses interest in 
 his former pursuits, neglects his friends, or becomes 
 more ambitious. Its effect on Thackeray evidently 
 was to make him desire a place among classic 
 authors. He had already obtained this distinction, 
 but was not aware of it. For the attainment of his 
 purpose he considered the classic style essential, and 
 so he wrote Henry Esmond, a tale of the last cen- 
 tury, in the manner of Scott and Fielding, or some- 
 thing between the two. Though in this way his 
 writing acquired a more dignified style, in a certain 
 sense it was a mistake ; for he lost by it both humor 
 and fluency. When a writer deserts his own manner 
 for another, he loses power. Yet in its way, it is 
 the most perfect of Thackeray's works, and its free- 
 dom from satire recommends it to a large class of 
 readers; and those who cannot perceive the finer 
 points in Thackeray, prefer it to The Newcomes. 
 We do not, however, find the same comfort and re- 
 freshment in it. Esmond himself is an ideal char- 
 acter; a small, compact, handsome, and alert man, 
 
2o8 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 without a fault. Perhaps this is the reason why he 
 does not engage our sympathy to the same extent 
 as Clive Newcome and Philip Firmin. Beatrix 
 Esmond, a portrait of great solidity, is as unprinci- 
 pled as Becky Sharpe, but this want of principle is 
 united with a feminine charm which Becky did not 
 possess. The novel concludes in a manner as sur- 
 prising as the events of real life. 
 
 There never was a sequel equal to its original, 
 whether it be the second part of Faust, Paradise 
 Regained, or Thackeray's Virginians. In the latter 
 instance this may have been partly because the story 
 was written for a New York magazine. In Virginia, 
 Thackeray feels himself on foreign ground, and pro- 
 ceeds accordingly with slowness and caution ; as 
 soon as he succeeds in bringing over the two 
 grandsons of Henry Esmond to England, the tale 
 becomes more interesting. Beatrix appears in it 
 again, to prove how even such a woman can be of 
 use, though unrepentant ; and the determined little 
 American heiress who marries Lord Castlewood, and 
 tyrannizes over his whole family, is admirable. 
 Thackeray did not live very long after writing The 
 Virginians, and there are places in it which indicate 
 that he was losing interest in his work. The worst 
 of his faults is always the confidential attitude 
 which he sometimes assumes toward the reader. 
 
 M. Taine's account of Carlyle, Byron, and Tenny- 
 son, though inadequate, is interesting; but his criti- 
 cism of Thackeray is no better than a rigmarole. It 
 seems a shame to apply this word to the work of so 
 
Thackeray. 209 
 
 amiable a writer, but there is no other that suits the 
 case. He writes and writes continually, attempting 
 to grasp his subject, but always without success. 
 He quarters the ground like a hound, in search of a 
 lost scent ; but without coming to any conclusion of 
 importance. He quotes long passages, comments 
 on them, and just as we expect to learn something 
 from him, he starts off in another direction. It is 
 doubtful if any Frenchman could understand Thack- 
 eray to the same degree that he appreciated the 
 French. Only the author of Tristram Shandy has 
 done them equal justice. 
 
 I once said to a noted Berlin critic, " Thackeray 
 is the most dramatic of our English novelists." 
 " No," he replied, " he explains too much." This, 
 however, is only true of the form of his statement, 
 which is not dramatic in narrative. He is always 
 sketching dramatic situations. 
 
 There was formerly a ship-owner in Boston, a 
 grave, taciturn man of business, who never told his 
 joys or his sorrows, but when he came home at 
 night and took The Newcomes from his bookcase, 
 his family knew that something, that day, had gone 
 wrong with him. Is not this the best criticism we 
 can make on Thackeray. Yet I think we can also 
 add what Wasson says in his essay on Wilhelm 
 Meister, that Thackeray opens the door into a hos- 
 pital, and Goethe opens the door out of a hospital, 
 into the fresh air and sunshine. There is this limi- 
 tation to satire : it corrects, but it does not invigorate. 
 
DICKENS 
 
 I HAVE heard a story, though it may be a myth, 
 that at the time when Dombey and Son was be- 
 ing published in monthly instalments, while an 
 English steamer was closely approaching the wharf 
 at Jersey City, some person called out to those on 
 board, ' ' What is the news from Europe, ' ' and the 
 reply came back, ' ' Paul Dombey is dead. ' ' Whether 
 true or not, the story serves to prove how widely ex- 
 tended was the interest in Dickens's novels forty 
 years ago. The death of Paul Dombey was of inter- 
 national importance. 
 
 Dickens is the Macaulay of novelists; vigorous, 
 careless, rhetorical, with a good deal of mannerism ; 
 but nevertheless valuable from real and intrinsic 
 merit, which it would be useless to deny. His vir- 
 tues outweigh his faults, and from the satisfaction 
 which two generations of English readers in both 
 hemispheres have derived from his novels it seims 
 probable that Dickens will hereafter be coujifced 
 among English classic writers, though hardly a 
 classic himself. 
 
 There are said to be seventeen distinct classes in 
 Russian society, — that is, those who are in it, and 
 those who are not, — but in Christian countries the 
 
 310 
 
Dickens. 211 
 
 people may be divided into those who are very 
 wealthy; and the upper-middle class, the lower- 
 middle class, tradespeople, and peasants. Now 
 Thackeray belonged to the upper-middle class, and 
 Dickens very decidedly to the lower. He was not 
 well educated, and if his mother was really the proto- 
 type of Mrs. Nickleby, she must have been a foolish 
 and rather vulgar woman ; or her son has done her 
 great injustice. This is the more surprising as 
 Dickens, speaking of the best of England's early 
 kings, says that, like most great men, he had a good 
 and intelligent mother. The influence of a wise 
 mother on the moral development of her children 
 cannot be overestimated ; but there have been men 
 who rose to greatness without this advantage, and 
 Dickens would seem to be one of them. The vicis- 
 situdes of orphan boys and girls were a favorite 
 theme with him ; and though David Copperfield has 
 a mother, she is a gentle, timid, and rather shadowy 
 figure, quite unable to protect her son from the rude 
 world in his tender years, or to provide against the 
 dangers that threatened him. No one could sym- 
 pathize with the sorrows and troubles of childhood 
 better than Dickens, for he had known its neglect, 
 its injustice, its unprotected weakness, and the lack 
 of sympathy and consideration which properly be- 
 longed to it. 
 
 The lower-middle class, then, was the material 
 from which Dickens elaborated his romantic tales, 
 and, to judge correctly of his work, we must know 
 something of that element ourselves ; yet nothing is 
 more difficult. If a cultivated man goes into one of 
 
2 1 2 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 our country towns, at a distance of fifty to one hun- 
 dred miles from the Metropolis, and makes it his resi- 
 dence for a short time, he will find at first that 
 the people whom he meets there seem to be under 
 a kind of enchantment. Wherever he goes, silence 
 precedes him. People are pleased to meet him and 
 will talk with him, but not apparently of their own 
 free will. If he enters the tavern of an evening, and 
 finds six or eight men conversing together, they wind 
 up their talk as soon as he appears and only recom- 
 mence it in a languid manner, while two or three go 
 into a corner of the room, and the circle soon breaks 
 up. If he calls on their wives and daughters, he is 
 received with much appearance of satisfaction, but 
 presently there comes a chilling pause, and before 
 long he becomes aware of the relief that will be felt 
 after his departure. This class of people corresponds 
 nearly to the army of shopkeepers and clerks in the 
 large cities. Shopkeepers and clerks are continually 
 dying off, from their unhealthy mode of life, and 
 their ranks are recruited from the country. 
 
 If, however, he remains long enough with them to 
 make them feel assured that he is a good-hearted 
 man, who means well by them, and respects people 
 for what they are worth, he will in course of time 
 discover much that is interesting and admirable. 
 He will encounter narrow prejudices in plenty; but 
 he will meet with men and women of such solidity 
 of character as he has rarely known before. He will 
 discover families in which religious devotion is as 
 sincere as among the early Christians ; and where the 
 economy is not more strict than the practice of 
 
Dickens. ^i% 
 
 virtue. He will find young men, perhaps studying 
 for a profession, whose self-denial borders on hero- 
 ism, and young women whose perfect modesty would 
 shame many of his fashionable acquaintances. He 
 will also encounter mixed characters enough, as well 
 as rudeness, coarseness,' and provincial bigotry. The 
 one thing he is not likely to meet with, is a sense of 
 beauty and elegance. 
 
 Isolated individuals of natural refinement and a 
 keen sense of beauty may appear anywhere. Haw- 
 thorne came from the lower-middle class of New 
 England, like a lily in a cornfield ; Turner was born 
 in the same class of Englishmen ; Carlyle was the son 
 of a stone-mason, and Burns of a peasant : but the 
 rule is, that the sense of beauty and elegance comes 
 either with domestic culture, or is an inherited tend- 
 ency, or is developed by a liberal education. At 
 the university a young man first learns to associate 
 objects in harmonious groups ; he perceives that the 
 physical sciences are co-ordinated in a harmonious 
 manner, and the abstract beauty of this appeals 
 strongly to his sense of fitness and his idea of things 
 as they should be. If he finds pleasure in writing 
 letters to his friends or family, or has any other liter- 
 ary taste, the translation of Greek and Latin authors 
 gives him a sense of style, and he discovers that a 
 graceful method is both the easiest and most effec- 
 tive. Beauty, says one of my friends, is the line of 
 the least resistance. It is only through a liberal edu- 
 cation that a man first learns the value of knowledge 
 for its own sake, independent of any use he may be 
 able to make of it. Before that, everything has 
 
214 Modern English Prose Writers, 
 
 been to him a matter of utility ; but it is only by 
 rising above utility that we can appreciate the beau- 
 tiful. Wealth is not essential to it, but a certain 
 amount of leisure is essential. The Alcott family 
 lived for many years in Concord, on an income like 
 that of a ship-carpenter ; but their house was not only 
 beautiful internally but all its suroundings were so. 
 
 Dickens, therefore, could not have derived much 
 sense of beauty and elegance from either of these 
 sources. It was not a part of his birthright; nor 
 could he obtain it from the home culture; nor from 
 a higher education, except such as he might find for 
 himself, on the way through Hfe. Consequently his 
 work was deficient in this respect. His style is 
 heavy and lumbering, — somewhat like an olcLstage- 
 coac h on a bad xoad. His manner of reading narra- 
 tive passages was similar to this, as some people 
 may recollect ; though in the dramatic portions he 
 was in voice and expression equal to the best comic 
 actors. His Child's History of England is more 
 smoothly written than his novels, and I think this is 
 to be accounted for by the necessity of condensation ; 
 whereas most of his writing if not diffuse, has at 
 least a great deal of language in it. There is a sen- 
 tence at the close of his first chapter in the Child 's 
 History which is quite exceptional of its kind. " On 
 Salisbury Plain Stonehenge yet stands, a monument 
 of the olden time, when the Roman name was un- 
 known in Britain, and the Druids with their best 
 magic wands could not have written it in the sands 
 of the wild sea-shore. ' ' This is poetry, and it would 
 only require a few changes to transform it into verse. 
 
Dickens. 215 
 
 His Christmas stories, ^s'^^zviOa^y Marley s Ghost , and 
 The Haunted Man, rank next to the Child' s History 
 in purity of style. 
 
 Neither could Dickens find much that was beauti- 
 ful in his material. He did not, like Schiller, idealize 
 the common people, but exaggerated rather than 
 diminished their peculiarities. As a picture of Eng- 
 lish life he has even done them injustice ; though as an 
 accomplished American lady said on her first day at 
 Liverpool and Chester, " You cannot caricature 
 these people. ' ' Many of his characters are interest- 
 ing, but few of them are attractive. Even David 
 Copperfield is not attractive as Clive Newcome and 
 Daniel Deronda are attractive. Is there any char- 
 acter in that story that we respect so much as Betsy 
 Trotwood ; and yet her very name suggests a person 
 who prefers to work like a servant cleaning pots and 
 mending clothes, rather than to employ her leisure 
 in the higher uses of social life. If Dickens has rep- 
 resented a gentleman anywhere, it is Arthur Clen- 
 ham in Little Dorrit, and he may very well pass for 
 one ; but he is rather like Scott's Waverley, a cen- 
 tral point from which we view the circus, than a 
 tangible person. It was a deficiency in the man 
 himself. One could hardly imagine inviting Dickens 
 to look at a fine picture, or to go out of his way to 
 listen to the Prussian band. When Longfellow in- 
 vited him to dinner, he walked from Boston to Cam- 
 bridge, at so rapid a rate, that the college students 
 whom he passed on the way were unable to keep up 
 with him, though several tried to do so. His pub- 
 lisher, Mr. Fields, tells similar anecdotes of him in 
 
2 16 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Yesterdays with Authors, which had better have 
 been left to private circulation. 
 
 As Thackeray went back to Fielding for his 
 models, so Dickens returned to Scott; but in his 
 hands the romantic novel underwent strange modifi- 
 cations. It became more romantic and poetic than 
 ever before, but also more realisitc. Ivanhoe itself 
 is not more of a romance than the adventures of 
 Oliver Twist ; and yet in Oliver Twist, if there is 
 any ideality at all, it is expended on inanimate ob- 
 jects instead of human beings. Dickens possessed a 
 vivid imagination: he saw everything before him 
 with terrible precision ; but he saw it as if it were 
 fixed and stereotyped. On this account he succeeds 
 better in describing natural objects than in represent- 
 ing the actions of men and women, which are not 
 fixed, but continually fluctuating like the colors on 
 water. He had the heart of a poet, but his intellect 
 did not correspond to this. What he sees is con- 
 tinually at variance with what he feels, and this 
 produces a conflict which only can be reconciled by 
 humor. If it were not for his humor, Dickens would 
 be unendurable. 
 
 The intensity of his feeling cannot find an outlet 
 in forms of beauty, for with these his intellect is not 
 acquainted, so it takes possession of the stereotyped 
 pictures in his mind, and exaggerates the prominent 
 features in them. This produces what we call cari- 
 cature ; which can only be properly applied to ob- 
 jects such as are themselves ridiculous or faulty in 
 some respect. By exaggerating the appearance of 
 the fault, we make it more conspicuous and open 
 
Dickens. 2 1 7 
 
 the way for its reformation. This is the justification 
 of Punch and the New York comic periodicals. If, 
 however, these papers caricature a worthy man 
 whom the community respects, as Carl Schurz was 
 treated by Thomas Nast, we feel that virtue has 
 been insulted. It is the same with any beautiful 
 object. 
 
 The French painter, Gustave Dor6, resembled 
 Dickens strikingly. He had, for a Frenchman, a 
 decided love for virtue, and hatred of vice ; he was 
 prolific in his designs, and drew with the same 
 energy that Dickens wrote ; but he was a born cari- 
 caturist, and the treatment of serious subjects was 
 not suited to him. The classic grace of Dante could 
 only be represented in form by an artist whose style 
 possessed the same qualities, — an artist like Raphael 
 or Fra Angelico. This has not yet been done suc- 
 cessfully, and Dord's exaggeration of the intense 
 seriousness of the Inferno only serves to make it 
 absurd. His illustrations of Don Quixote, which 
 caused Ruskin to lose his appetite for dinner, have 
 a thin kind of humor, but it is not the genial, pene- 
 trating humor of Cervantes. It is rather a light 
 sort of wit; whereas Dickens's humor comes from 
 the heart and is deep-seated. There is that kind 
 of good cheer in it, from which the phrase originated 
 centuries ago of " merry England." It seems to 
 say to the reader " peace on earth and good will to 
 all men." 
 
 The mental habit of giving vitality to inanimate 
 objects has long since been considered the true test 
 of the poet. Was it not thus that Grecian myth- 
 
2i8 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 ology originated — at least to a large extent, — at a 
 time when poets and prophets were one and the 
 same. It is thus also that imaginative children 
 people the world with inhabitants of their own 
 making. Homer says " the dark wave roared loudly 
 around the hollow ship, ' ' and I once heard a boy of 
 five years say, ' ' I know what it is that the hoe says 
 to the gravel," and then he imitated phonetically 
 the sound of a hoe scraping the ground. He be- 
 lieved that the hoe could speak; and did Homer 
 also believe that the wave could roar of its own 
 accord ? That is not likely ; but we may feel sure 
 that some remote ancestor of his thought so. The 
 farmer talks to his plough, the buffalo-hunter to his 
 rifle, and the sea-captain to his ship. They become 
 children again, and are so much the wiser for it. 
 Now what his gun is to the hunter, and his ship to 
 the sailor, all external nature is to the poet : his in- 
 terests are universal. 
 
 I can think of no prose writer in whom this 
 anthropomorphic tendency is so strong as in Dick- 
 ens. Hawthorne had a great deal of it. I never 
 look at a squash blossom without recollecting the 
 poetry he drew forth from one in his garden at the 
 Old Manse. Hawthorne, however, was always 
 classic, and selected his material with the greatest 
 care. Dickens was quite the reverse: everything 
 was grain for his hopper, and the ruder and more 
 common an object was, the better it served his pur- 
 pose. Plates on the breakfast-table smiled compla- 
 cently on him ; the brass head on the poker nods to 
 him ; old posts place themselves in his way, as if to 
 
Dickens. 2 1 9 
 
 beg alms of him ; ships on the sea are bringing mes- 
 sages to him ; the wind runs its fingers through his 
 hair, and closes his blinds for him with human 
 hands. As an instance of the heaviness of Dickens's 
 style, I would point to the opening chapter of 
 Martin Chuzzlewit, a piece of composition, equally 
 vicious in matter and manner; but in the second 
 chapter there is a description of a frolicsome autumn 
 wind which is one of the best anthropomorphic 
 passages that he ever wrote. It is too long and 
 copious to quote more than the final paragraph : 
 
 " The scared leaves only flew the faster for all this, 
 and a giddy chase it was ; for they got into unfrequented 
 places where there was no outlet, and where their pur- 
 suer kept them eddying round and round at his pleas- 
 ure ; and they crept under the eaves of houses and clung 
 tightly to the sides of hay-ricks, like bats ; and tore in at 
 open chamber windows, and cowered close to hedges ; 
 and in short went anywhere for safety. But the oddest 
 feat they achieved was to take advantage of the sudden 
 opening of Mr. Pecksniff's front door, to dash wildly 
 into his passage ; whither the wind following close upon 
 them, and finding the backdoor open, incontinently 
 blew out the lighted candle held by Miss Pecksniff 
 and slammed the front-door against Mr. Pecksniff who 
 was at that moment entering, with such violence, that in 
 the twinkling of an eye he lay on his back at the bottom 
 of the steps. Being by this time weary of such trifling 
 performances, the boisterous rover hurried away rejoic- 
 ing, roaring over the moor and meadow, hill and flat, 
 until it got out to sea, where it met with other winds 
 similarly disposed, and made a night of it." 
 
2 20 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 This is admirable, so far as the autumnal wind 
 is concerned; but we notice that Mr. Pecksniff 
 is overthrown in this rather exceptional manner, 
 wholly for the amusement of the reader. The inci- 
 dent does not, in any way, expedite the action of 
 the story, nor has it any moral effect on the man 
 himself. It is doubtful if such an incident could be 
 found in any French novel. An American walking 
 in the streets of Rome was struck by a chain, so 
 that he fell on his hands. There were quite a num- 
 ber of Italians, men and boys, standing by, and they 
 all stared at him, but not one of them laughed. 
 The same thing might have happened in Paris. I 
 think amusement at the commonplace mishaps of 
 others is a Saxon, or at the best a Germanic, pecu- 
 liarity. 
 
 Dickens's poetizing faculty did not pass beyond 
 inanimate objects, and to some extent what Gold- 
 smith calls animated nature. Hawthorne in the 
 Marble Faun represents every scene with a back- 
 ground graceful and atmospheric as a Claude Lor- 
 raine, and each of the four characters is a romance 
 by itself; but Dickens's men and women are not 
 poetic types. The best of them may be slightly 
 romantic, and the rest are decidedly prosaic. The 
 poetic element plays about The Haunted Man and a 
 few others, but it does not emanate from them. 
 
 Though his characters seem real enough, they are 
 nevertheless human beings whose life is based_Qn_a 
 single idea, only one side of which is stamped — 
 like a coin, — and which they always present to the 
 reader. Dombey is a purse-proud capitalist whose 
 
Dickens. 221 
 
 sole object in life is to maintain the prestige of 
 his family. He runs on this one idea, like a loco- 
 motive on its rails, pitching everything aside that 
 comes in its way. He has no consciousness of 
 anything else : he sees nothing, and knows nothing, 
 of the thoughts and feelings of other people, even 
 of those who are personally related to him. He 
 supplies the physical wants of his family, but it 
 never occurs to him, that there are other necessities 
 of human existence, which it is his duty to provide. 
 He has lost the faculty of comunicating with other 
 minds, and is in all respects a machine man ; such 
 as are not uncommon in commercial life. His family 
 die about him, through the lack of spiritual nourish- 
 ment ; but it never occurs to him, that he, Dombey, 
 is in any way to blame for it. When a " divine serv- 
 ing woman," as Homer would have called her, noti- 
 fies him of the fact, he is merely astonished at her 
 impudence, and moves forward to his own destruc- 
 tion with as much self-confidence as ever. Murd- 
 stone and his sister are similarly self-absorbed charac- 
 ters, perfectly satisfied in their own minds because 
 they follow certain fixed laws of conduct, which 
 have become habitual with them. 
 
 Mrs. Clenham is another. She lies on her invalid 
 bed, and rules her house with an iron rod. The 
 only enjoyment she finds in life consists in having 
 her will prevail, — in things great and small, but 
 more frequently in small things. The natural affec- 
 tion for her son is replaced by a love of the infinitely 
 little. It was Dickens's prime object to prove that 
 a person might live within the bounds of the law, 
 
2 2 2 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 and also according to the conventional code of soci- 
 ety, and yet fail to all intents and purposes of being 
 a virtuous man or woman. " The spirit in which 
 we act is the main thing," says the sage. And in 
 this instance it must be admitted that Dickens per- 
 formed society an incalculable service. His second- 
 ary object was, to show that those who are good at 
 heart will always attain a moderate share of happi- 
 ness, even under unfavorable circumstances. He, 
 perhaps, considered this his duty as a Christian ; but 
 the exceptions to it, if he could have portrayed 
 them with fidelity, would be more interesting than 
 any of the characters that he has actually created. 
 
 Dombey, Murdstone, and others like them, are the 
 most genuine of Dickens's creations, because only 
 having one side to their character, and only present- 
 ing one side to the public, his method does them no 
 injustice. Next in order come the humorous men 
 who serve as encouragers to the weary spirits of the 
 hero beset with difficulties, and also sometimes to 
 encourage the reader. Traddles, Mark Tapley, Sam 
 Weller, Captain Cuttle, and Cheryble Brothers have 
 all a family likeness, and yet are sufficiently original 
 to give the sense of distinct characters. Traddles, 
 being a gentleman, is brought within the line of 
 comedy only by the stiffness of his hair, which 
 rises up as soon as he takes off his hat. We like 
 him all the better on this account. A true sense of 
 humor is always founded on humanity, and these 
 comic people are the kindest of the kind. If we 
 only see these two sides of them, which are parts of 
 the same quality, it is enough. 
 
Dickens. 223 
 
 It is not in Dickens's favor as an artist, however, 
 that the majority of his characters have a tendency 
 to abstract types. In Martin Chuzzlewit this is car- 
 ried so far that we readily distinguish the qualities for 
 which they are intended. Pecksniff represents hypo- 
 crisy ; Jonas Chuzzlewit, brutaHty ; Tom Pinch, self- 
 distrust ; Mark Tapley, cheerfulness ; and Tigg Mon- 
 tague, mercantile knavery. The first three are very 
 well drawn, but the other two are not so good, and 
 are evidently not studied from life. Jonas murders 
 Montague to escape from his clutches; but he is 
 also supposed to have poisoned his father. The de- 
 lineation of such a monster would be a rare study 
 in human nature. Thackeray says, in the preface 
 to Pendennis, that it had been a part of his plan to 
 represent the father of Blanche Amory as a mur- 
 derer, and have him removed out of Lady Claver- 
 ing's way by legal process; but as he had never 
 been acquainted with a murderer, he did not feel 
 able to do justice to such an exceptional subject. 
 There is nothing in the description of Jonas Chuz- 
 zlewit which might lead us to suppose that he would 
 be capable of such a frightful crime. Brutality 
 alone is not enough to account for it. 
 
 A party of us used to spend our summers at a 
 hotel on the sea-shore, kept by a man who after- 
 wards committed murder, and then failed in an 
 attempt at suicide. He is now in the Maine peni- 
 tentiary for life. This is, of course, a different case 
 from that of Jonas, and yet something may be 
 learned from the consideration of it. The cause 
 which led to the act would seem to have been dis- 
 
224 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 couragement from several unsuccessful seasons, 
 which had left the man heavily in debt ; but there 
 was no real need of his being discouraged. He was 
 not a brutal person at all, but rather amiable and 
 kindly. We heard him complained of for his lazi- 
 ness, and also for his mendacity, — in short he was 
 the biggest liar in all that region. He sometimes 
 wore a very determined expression, and he was 
 often heard to say that he wished such or such a 
 person was at the bottom of the sea. 
 
 In fact, Jonas Chuzzlewit is a decidedly sensa- 
 tional character. The description of a bogus life- 
 insurance company also is not sufficient to give it 
 credibility. There is need of something more than 
 the figure of Tigg Montague installed in a large 
 arm-chair, with a mahogany desk in front of him. It 
 is, however, when young Martin, and Mark Tapley, 
 come to America that we recognize the lack of study 
 and the audacious caricature. Yet Dickens' satire 
 on the public receptions of that time, presidential 
 and otherwise, is rather a keen one; and quite as 
 much so the feeling of familiarity of American trav- 
 ellers with the English gentry. Dickens was often 
 nonplussed during his visit to this country, by find- 
 ing that his entertainers were well acquainted with 
 a class of English people who had never recognized 
 him as a writer and a man of genius. On the other 
 hand, to represent an Irish priest as a general of 
 American militia, is drawing altogether too long a 
 bow ; and there are other statements scarcely more 
 credible. 
 
 A book made up of such materials cannot be called 
 
Dickens. 225 
 
 a success, and yet there is always something in Dick- 
 ens's novels which atones in a measure for his faults. 
 The midnight colloquy between Sarah Gamp and 
 Betsey Prigg is a genuine piece of hearty vigorous 
 humor, not of the most reiined sort, it is true, but 
 as refreshing as a glass of beer. This indeed is the 
 general quality of his humor; whereas Thackeray's 
 is more like a Rhine wine, — clear, quietly spark- 
 ling, delicate in flavor, and slightly acid. Who- 
 ever has acquired a sense of humor does not 
 need to go to the theatre for entertainment, for 
 he sees comedies continually going on about him. 
 If the serving-man blacks boots which are not 
 mated, and the serving-woman spreads the table- 
 cloth on the wrong side, he laughs, and his amuse- 
 ment compensates for the temporary inconven- 
 ience. The conventionalities of society are a per- 
 petual entertainment to those who perceive the 
 unwilling manner in which poor human nature is 
 frequently forced through their performance; or 
 how their signiiicance and rational purpose can be 
 misunderstood. A young man playing cards in a 
 railway train is tapped on the shoulder by a clergy- 
 man and informed that he is on the road to a very 
 hot place. " Why," said he', I^^upposed this train 
 went to Indianapolis." This is the spirit in which 
 three-fourths of the misadventures of life should be 
 accepted. Humor reconciles antipathies, smooths 
 over disagreements, and renders co-operation possi- 
 ble between people of different opinions. The ex- 
 pression, " to humor a man," has much in it for 
 philosophers to reflect on. Fortunate is the family 
 
226 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 in which humor flows from he deep strata like a 
 fountain which neither dries in summer nor con- 
 geals in winter. A good joke often compensates for 
 a bad dinner. 
 
 Pickwick Papers is altogether a work of humor. 
 It has no particular plot, but consists of a series of 
 adventures like Don Quixote's. Pickwick himself 
 is a quixotic person ; a brave man who has no chance 
 to prove his courage ; a learned man who has no use 
 for his knowledge ; a warm-hearted man who misap- 
 plies his kindness ; and a modest man, who is self- 
 important through the veneration of his inferiors. 
 It was Dickens's first work, and in many respects 
 his best. It is written in purer English than many 
 of his novels, and besides this, it represents a fund 
 of humor which had been accumulating for several 
 years before he began to write. You may open the 
 book anywhere, and find refreshment for the weary 
 spirit. The notable adventure of Mr. Winkle with 
 his horse might have been more amusing than it is, 
 but it brings into prominence a fact well known to 
 grooms and stable-keepers, but little thought of by 
 others, that the horse, though among the most intel- 
 ligent of animals, is also one of the most peculiar. 
 The humor of the scene is quite as much due to this 
 as to the inexperience of Mr. Winkle and Mr. Pick- 
 wick. Dickens was fond of reading the court scene 
 in the Bardell breach of promise case, and he did it 
 most effectively. Carlyle, who could see no wit in 
 Sydney Smith's jokes, roared with laughter at Dick- 
 ens's reading of Pickwick, and his imitation of the 
 great Sergeant Buzfuz, The name, however, is a 
 
Dickens. 227 
 
 caricature in itself, and how far such severe satire on 
 legal procedure is justified would be an excellent 
 subject for a debating society. Quite as much of a 
 caricature is his description of an English parliamen- 
 tary election. 
 
 One satisfaction which we enjoy in Pickwick Papers 
 is, that we find no crazy people in it. The amount 
 of eccentricity in the different characters, would, 
 perhaps, be more than equal to one insane person ; 
 but the eccentricity is not so strongly marked in any 
 one of them as to produce an unpleasant effect. 
 This element, in the way Dickens uses it, borders 
 on the sensational, and though it may be said that 
 the interests of humanity demand that we should 
 recognize these unfortunate persons who are suffi- 
 ciently numerous in real life, and not try to hide 
 from ourselves the fact of their existence, even this 
 extreme view does not justify him in using one of 
 them as the mainspring of a story, and setting Bar- 
 naby Rudge on a pedestal, like the statue of a great 
 man, for all people to gaze at. Ruskin wrote a 
 spirited and amusing attack on Barnaby, in which 
 his own peculiarities were interwoven with those of 
 his subject in a most curious manner. We do not 
 object to the amiable Mr. Dick flying his kites, nor 
 to Mr. F. 's aunt in Little Dorrit, with her crust of 
 bread ; but in the whole series there is too much of 
 it. There is a lack of balance in Dickens's writing 
 which gives even characters like Murdstone and 
 Dombey a kind of stability. Strong, healthy na- 
 tures like Dandie Dinmont and Henry Esmond he 
 knew not of. 
 
228 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Women remember their childhood much better 
 than men. The struggle that comes with early man- 
 hood to some, and the pleasures that come to others, 
 obliterate the past life of a man as if it had never 
 been. Stranded in some lonely shoal in after-life, 
 he may be able to recollect something of it, but the 
 larger portion is gone forever. Women, on the con- 
 trary, always preserve their relation with childhood, 
 through their interest in children ; and thus it hap- 
 pens that Louisa Alcott's representation of girls is 
 more true to life than Dickens's representation of 
 boys. Thackeray has little to say in regard to this 
 side of human nature, but the spoiled Clavering boy 
 in Pendennis could not be improved on; Dickens 
 says a great deal, and sometimes he hits the mark, 
 and at others he misses it. We can be grateful for 
 the attempt that he has made, and hope that others 
 may come hereafter to improve on it. A physician, 
 writing in one of our magazines, has stated that 
 Pendennis is the best account of an invalid which he 
 knows of in fiction, and that Little Nell in the Old 
 Curiosity Shop is the worst. This should not be 
 accepted, however, as a conclusive judgment. Why 
 should we conclude at all. Every one has peculiar 
 likes and dislikes : let us leave our minds open con- 
 tinually for reconsideration. 
 
 I have been told that the same books which Car- 
 lyle made use of in studying the Revolution of 1789 
 served Dickens for his Tale of Two Cities. Dickens, 
 wishing to write a novel on that subject, consulted 
 Carlyle, who gave him ready assistance. The book 
 is more remarkable for its grand prophetic back- 
 
Dickens. 229 
 
 ground than for the direct course of the narrative. 
 The first scene in which the cask of wine is broken 
 in the street, and the poor, thirsty third estate en- 
 deavors to sop up the purple streams, and get what 
 taste he can, is an impressive prediction of the 
 streams of blood which were soon to flow at the bid- 
 ding of an outraged people. The colloquy with the 
 prisoner in the Bastille reappears throughout the 
 story, like a solemnly vibrating chord in a musical 
 composition. " ' How long have you been here ?' 
 — ' I cannot recollect. ' ' Do you wish to come out ? ' 
 — ' I do not know.' " 
 
 Dickens's politics were essentially those of the Eng- 
 lish lower-middle class, and seem to us rather pecul- 
 iar, if not contradictory. He believed in Parliament 
 and the British monarchy, but was inimical to the 
 aristocracy. He never speaks of the nobility except 
 in terms of ridicule. Yet he was not in the least a 
 republican. He held our American government in 
 very slight esteem. He went into the halls of Con- 
 gress, during the debates on the repeal of the Mis- 
 souri Compromise, and it seemed to him like the 
 uproar of a school of noisy boys while the teacher 
 is absent. As he knew nothing of our affairs, like 
 most of his countrymen, he could not understand 
 that one of the toughest problems of history was 
 there under discussion; and he supposed that all 
 the excitement was caused by the clashing of local 
 and personal interests. A person in Dickens's posi- 
 tion was not so much to blame for this opinion, as the 
 peers and statesmen of the British realm might be. 
 It was Gladstone himself, unless the reporter did 
 
230 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 him injustice, who spoke of De Tocqueville as hav- 
 ing written a History of the United States ; and this 
 was after Von Hoist's great work had been made 
 public to the world. It might be a good plan for 
 some American Arnold to visit England, and de- 
 liver a course of lectures there on universal history 
 and international politics. 
 
 Dickens resembles Victor Hugo more closely than 
 he does the novelists of his own country. He is 
 not grandiloquent like Hugo, and though he uses 
 some rhetorical devices, his diction is plain and un- 
 pretending. Otherwise their differences are chiefly 
 those of nationality. The morality of Dickens is 
 English, and Victor Hugo would probably have 
 criticised it as severely as he would have criticised 
 Victor Hugo's. They both belong to the emotional, 
 philanthropic class of writers, which began with 
 Rousseau and contains some of the most illustrious 
 names in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 
 It has been represented in America by Jefferson, L. 
 Maria Child, Wendell Phillips, and Harriet Beecher 
 Stowe. However much worldlings and cynics may 
 scoff at these humanitarians, or more impartial critics 
 may complain that they sacrifice art to practical ex- 
 pedients, it must be admitted that they have exer- 
 cised great influence, in their day and generation, 
 and that the most important reforms have been ac- 
 complished by their instrumentality. They have no 
 successors at the present time, and the tide appears 
 to be setting strongly in another direction. 
 
MARIAN EVANS 
 
 THE author of the Hans Breitman Ballads once 
 went to dinner, at a party, with a lady to 
 whom he had just been introduced without 
 catching her name (as is usual in such cases), and 
 his first remark was, ' ' Why is it that no woman can 
 write a good novel ? ' ' Soon afterward he discov- 
 ered that his companion was herself a novelist of 
 good repute, and he spent the rest of the dinner- 
 time in making amends for this rash statement. 
 
 When the Indians gather around their camp-fires in 
 winter, the old chiefs entertain the younger members 
 of the community not only with tales of hunting and 
 adventures by flood and field, but with genuine his- 
 torical traditions of wars, alliances, and treaties be- 
 tween different tribes, which bear some resemblance 
 to those of civilization. It is the special duty of the 
 Indian women to remember as much as possible of 
 these accounts, and repeat them again to the chil- 
 dren ; and thus unwritten traditions are handed down 
 for a century or more. 
 
 It is thus that mothers and elder sisters naturally 
 become story-tellers, both in barbarous and civilized 
 countries. It is an essential and important part of 
 the home culture, and has a marked influence in the 
 
 231 
 
232 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 formation of family character. Does not that por- 
 tion of patriotism which may be called national pride 
 originate in this manner ? But an intelligent and 
 educated mother will not only tell her boy of Wcish- 
 ington crossing the Delaware, and the death of Lin- 
 coln, but also of the battle of Marathon, the death 
 of Caesar, and of Rome pillaged by the Vandals, and 
 thus inspire him with a desire for a liberal educa- 
 tion, much more fruitful than the spirit of emula- 
 tion which is instilled into him at school. Old 
 family chronicles also become part of a narrative 
 store, and if she has any inventive talent, she de- 
 velops these so as to give them something of the 
 fashion of a novelette. 
 
 So it was formerly, and, to some extent, is still 
 in those quiet places where domestic privacy yet 
 lingers. Women properly look at life in a conver- 
 sational, rather than a logical manner. Many are 
 called and few are chosen : there is a great deal of 
 poor fiction written by women, and some also that 
 ranks among the best. No account of French liter- 
 ature would be complete without the name of 
 Madame de Stael; and though the descendant of 
 Augustus of Saxony, who published under the name 
 of George Sand, does not equal her as an artist, she 
 has nevertheless an earnestness of thought and a 
 tenderness of feeling which give her a kind of 
 superiority over the more gifted daughter of M. 
 Necker. In America as a humanitarian writer, 
 Mrs. Stowe surpassed all others of her time, and 
 Louisa Alcott introduced such wisdom in her stories 
 for young people that philosophers went to them 
 
Marian Evans. 233 
 
 for instruction. The English Charlotte Bront6 has 
 given to the world in Jane Eyre an example of 
 womanly devotion such as the world had become 
 quite sceptical of, though we may trust Shake- 
 speare for its possibility ; and Miss Sheppard has 
 shown in Charles Auchester what a profound influ- 
 ence fine music can have on the lives of men and 
 women. Miss Austen, also, is a perfect artist within 
 her own limited field. 
 
 None of these writers, however, can take rank 
 with geniuses like Scott, Hawthorne, and Thackeray. 
 Only two great names are known to feminine liter- 
 ature, — Sappho, and the writer who is generally 
 known as George Eliot. The fragments of Sappho's 
 poetry which remain to us fully explain the high 
 estimate in which she was held by her contempo- 
 raries; and in depth of feeling and a thorough 
 knowledge of human nature, Miss Evans closely ap- 
 proaches the great dramatic poets. 
 
 Mary Ann Evans was born at Arbury Farm in 
 Warwickshire, oit the twenty-second of November, 
 1 8 19. The manager of a large farming estate in 
 England is commonly a more responsible person 
 than our American farmers require to be, and though 
 the Evans family lived in a quiet and unpretending 
 style, Mary, who was an attractive girl and indicated 
 her superiority as soon as she began to walk, had the 
 advantage of cultivated society, and as substantial 
 an education as any young woman in England. 
 The groundwork was good, and she ultimately at- 
 tained a scholarship fully equal to Scott's, and bet- 
 ter than Thackeray's. During middle life she was 
 
234 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 accustomed to read books in French, German, 
 Italian, and Spanish, while she was as well ac- 
 quainted with Latin and Greek as most of our 
 college graduates. Then, such authors as she read ; 
 long-neglected men of genius, writers on ethics, 
 metaphysics, politics, and sociology ! Among a list 
 of books which she gives as having spent a London 
 winter with, there are few that any one reader of 
 her biography would be likely to know, or even to 
 have heard of. Their influence does not appear 
 directly in her work, as it did evidently on Scott's 
 prose writing, but this strongly intellectual tendency 
 was an important factor in determining the quality 
 of it. 
 
 She waited long to know herself and learn her own 
 resources ; writing continually letters to her friends 
 and acquiring in that manner facility in the use of 
 language. Her first public attempt was a review of 
 Froude's Nemesis of Faith, a book now beyond the 
 reach of purchasers, and one that ought to be re- 
 published. The influence of Francis Newman is 
 directly traceable in it, and its influence is also 
 traceable in Adam Bede, Felix Holt, and Middle- 
 march. This was in 1849, ^"<i two years later, she 
 obtained the appointment of assistant editor to the 
 Westminster Review, and for the first time found her 
 proper element in the invigorating life of London's 
 literary society. 
 
 Shortly after this, we find in one of her letters a 
 reference to George H Lewes, as if he were a per- 
 son constantly at her side. Lewes is not better 
 l?nown as the husband of George Eliot than for his 
 
Marian Evans. 235 
 
 biography of Goethe, concerning which Margaret 
 Fuller had predicted some years before, that he was 
 as unfit to write it as a coarse nature and self-conceit 
 could make him. What attraction he had for Mari- 
 an Evans has always been a mystery to her most 
 intellectual admirers. His writings have a certain 
 kind of brightness, like the reflection of the sun on 
 a field of ice, — not a pleasant sort of brilliancy at all. 
 Miss Evans recognized his peculiarities, as appears 
 from a letter dated i6th April, 1853, in which she 
 says: " Mr. Lewes, especially, is kind and atten- 
 tive, and has quite won my regard, after having had 
 a good deal of my vituperation. Like a few other 
 people in the world, he is much better than he 
 seems. A man of heart and conscience, wearing a 
 mask of flippancy. ' ' 
 
 Lewes married early in life, and made an un- 
 fortunate selection. I have been informed that his 
 wife deserted him; that he condoned her offence, 
 and then she deserted him again; after which, the 
 law could not help him. At the time of Miss Evans's 
 marriage to Mr. Cross, a certain wise lady gave as 
 her explanation of this, that " love was necessary to 
 George Eliot, and I do not believe she could live 
 without it." She had become much attached to a 
 gentleman while staying at Geneva, who must have 
 been interested in her, but did not realize her value. 
 What a treasure for any man to possess, this large- 
 hearted, sympathetic, high-minded woman ! How 
 we all throw away our chances in life. We entertain 
 angels and we know them not. This much at least 
 may be said of Lewes, that he appreciated Miss 
 
236 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Evans better than those who had previously known 
 her. She dedicated the manuscript of several of her 
 books to him in a most affectionate manner, and 
 credited him with being the chief inspiration of them. 
 
 We may suppose that he said to her something 
 like this: "It is because I was too generous, too 
 forgiving, and too much of a Christian with regard 
 to my unfaithful wife, that I am not able to marry 
 you ; and now, what are we to do about it ? " ; and 
 that she replied, " I am not afraid to do anything 
 that is honorable for the sake of the man I love. ' ' 
 Though London society shut its cast-iron gates on 
 her, her intimate friends all gave her cordial sup- 
 port, especially Mrs. Peter Taylor, one of the 
 noblest women of that time, — and I have never yet 
 met the person who blamed her for the course she 
 pursued. Her own friends, and those of her hus- 
 band, were society enough for her : for the babble- 
 ment of tongues, and the uniforms of silk and 
 broadcloth, which are supposed to constitute society, 
 she never had much relish. She often went into 
 company on the continent, and in Germany was 
 always treated with great respect. 
 
 She was known henceforth, among her friends, as 
 Mrs. Lewes, but to the public only as George Eliot. 
 The publication of her novels as the works of Mrs. 
 Cross seems like a mistake. There are no such 
 names as Cross, Bragg, and Higgins among good 
 writers : nature takes care of that. She was christ- 
 ened Mary Ann, but she claimed the privilege of 
 changing it to Marian ; and I think Marian Evans 
 is the best name for us to remember her by. 
 
Marian Evans. 237 
 
 Adam Bede was her first serious undertaking. Both 
 she and her husband were in doubt as to the success 
 of the enterprise, but the result astonished them and 
 the rest of the world. It was written at between 
 thirty-three and thirty-five, in the full strength of 
 her maturity, and the added glow of the newly mar- 
 ried life. Next to Middlemarch, it is the most 
 powerful of her stories, and the narrative English of 
 it is more direct, vigorous, and clear-cut than in her 
 last two novels. The plot is substantially the same 
 as that of The Heart of Midlothian; and if Scott has 
 succeeded in giving more picturesque character to 
 his version of the story and has enlivened it with more 
 varied and interesting details, Miss Evans has treated 
 the subject with deeper feeling and given to it an 
 earnestness which goes right to the heart of every 
 reader. Her treatment is more realistic and perhaps 
 nearer to the truth. The ground which Scott passes 
 over lightly, in order to avoid giving offence, is 
 sacred ground to Miss Evans, and she dwells on it at 
 greater length, from the very delicacy of her wo- 
 manly nature. Otherwise, Dinah corresponds to 
 Jeannie ; her cousin Hettie to Efifie Deans ; Arthur 
 Donnithorne to Staunton, the seducer; and Adam 
 Bede — ^who is said to have been taken from Miss 
 Evans's father, and a grand piece of realism — to the 
 clergyman Butler who marries Jeannie Deans. 
 
 The plot is more simple than that of Waverley, 
 and the action moves with the slowness and with 
 something of the irresistible force of Greek tragedy. 
 
 Infanticide has been more common in Great Brit- 
 ain than in other European countries, and this has 
 
238 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 been owing to the severity of public opinion toward 
 the mothers of illegitimate children. Whether the 
 moral tone of society has been elevated in this way, 
 and whether these unfortunate women ought to be 
 looked on as sacrifices for the public good, is a de- 
 batable question. Macaulay blamed his countrymen 
 for it, and declared boldly that the remedy was more 
 intolerable than the disease. Thackeray, also, more 
 than once ventured the opinion that the Engish of 
 the eighteenth century were better than they pro- 
 fessed, and the English of the present century 
 seemed to be better than they were. Recent revela- 
 tions certainly tend to support this view, and cases 
 of infanticide have greatly diminished since the 
 establishment of foundling hospitals. " The path 
 of love is all too smooth for mortal feet to tread. ' ' 
 
 How far Marian Evans realized this, does not 
 appear in the text. She was too good an artist to 
 reveal herself. She did not belong to the humani- 
 tarian school ; or if she sympathized with Dickens's 
 effort for the alleviation of human misery, she never- 
 theless considered that more could be accomplished 
 indirectly by high art than by rhetorical appeals. 
 She believed that humanity would be better served 
 by adhering to the truth, than by distorting truth in 
 the interest of humanity. When, however, Dickens 
 wrote to her a complimentary letter in return for a 
 copy of Adam Bede, — and a highly creditable letter 
 it was, — she replied that there was no one whose 
 good opinion of her book could be so valuable to 
 her. Although we may judge from this that she 
 preferred Dickens to Thackeray, she was in no sense 
 
Marian Evans, 259 
 
 an imitator of his method, but kept on her own way, 
 as independent as she was original. She is not ro- 
 mantic, as Scott and Dickens were romantic; that 
 is, by carrying the hero and heroines through a series 
 of trials to ultimate prosperity. She chose a higher 
 method, and the goal which her finest characters 
 arrive at is that of self-renunciation, the only reward 
 of which is the consciousness of right. This is the 
 keynote of Romola, Felix Holt, Middlemarch, and 
 Daniel Deronda, and its presence may be detected 
 as an undercurrent in all the others. It is the ro- 
 mance of the inner life. He who loves God, says 
 Spinoza, must not expect to be loved in return. 
 
 Most of the conversation in Adam Bede is given 
 in the English peasant dialect, which is not so inter- 
 esting as Scott's native vernacular, and would be 
 tiresome if it were not for the pith and sense which 
 the writer has infused into it. In Miss Evans's 
 hands, even the ordinary table-talk of workingmen, 
 during their hour of lunch and recreation, is made to 
 have a significance, and helps out the action of a 
 story. She must have kept her eyes and ears well 
 open, while living on her father's farm. She can 
 hardly be called a humorist, though there is much 
 wit and humor in the conversation which she has re- 
 ported for us. No author who represents human 
 nature correctly can well escape this side of it, but 
 the humor seems to be rather in her subject than 
 herself. She was not the first to discover a comical 
 side to the exhortations of the Methodists and what 
 are called religious revivals. " Oh, that blessed 
 word Mesopotamia!" cried an excited and wild- 
 
240 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 looking woman on the verge of an impromptu taber- 
 nacle. Human nature when it goes to extremes, is 
 always in danger of appearing ridiculous; but the 
 true humorist does not seek his material so much 
 in the extravagances as in the follies and solecisms 
 of mankind. Thackeray's account of an English 
 election in The Newcomes is witty beyond measure, 
 but the wit comes from Thackeray himself and de- 
 pends on the point of view from which he regards it. 
 We are not only amused at his keen insight in pene- 
 trating the artifices, by which others are cajoled, but 
 we admire him for his admirable indulgence toward 
 all concerned. Miss Evans has also given in Middle- 
 march a most entertaining picture of an election, but 
 its value consists in the truthfulness of the repre- 
 sentation. If she invented the scene, so much the 
 better. Its humor, however, is not subjective, but 
 objective, and must have been based on reality in 
 the first place. The author describes the methods 
 used as if she were in opposition to them, not as if 
 she had condoned the wrong, and accepted it as 
 part of the universe, — and of herself. It is the 
 charm of Cervantes, Thackeray, and Jean Paul, that 
 they never seem to forget their personal share in the 
 weaknesses of mankind. 
 
 We feel that there is rather an effort to be witty 
 in Adam Bede and Silas Marner, and this is the only 
 sign of immaturity we find in them. When Nancy 
 says to Priscilla, in the latter story, " If sisters ought 
 not to dress alike, I don't know who should," we 
 very naturally smile ; but when, in the former, one 
 man speaks in a loud voice to another who is stone- 
 
Marian Evans. 241 
 
 deaf and cannot hear a word, because he considers 
 such a tone appropriate to the occasion, a question 
 arises in our minds whether this would be the case. 
 Such infelicities are usually the result of habit. 
 Errors in Adam Bede, however, are the exception : 
 artistic skill and truthfulness to nature are the rule. 
 Mrs. Poyser, as a thrifty, practical housewife, who 
 knows the small world about her as thoroughly as 
 strong men of affairs understand the great world; 
 who has the good points and the weak points of her 
 neighbors laid away in her head like entries in a 
 ledger, ought to last as a typical character. The 
 manner in which simple Hetty Sorrel contrives to 
 elude her vigilance, and to conceal her affection for 
 young Donnithorne, is equally well contrived. Of 
 Adam himself she says : 
 
 " A nature like Adam's with a great deal of love and 
 reverence in it, depends for so much of its happiness on 
 what it can believe and feel about others. And he 
 had no ideal world of dead heroes ; he knew little of the 
 life of men in the past ; he must find the beings to whom 
 he could cling with loving admiration among those who 
 came within speech of him." 
 
 This is a truth that lies at the foundation of society, 
 and is its best safeguard against the numerical superi- 
 ority of barbarism. Poor Hetty's grief, remorse, 
 terror, and despair are depicted with an affectionate 
 fidelity; such as Scott could not have known, or 
 dared not to attempt. 
 
 Silas Marner and The Mill on the Floss contain 
 similar episodes of common English country life, 
 
242 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 and are full of interesting scenery. Miss Evans 
 always deals with her subject in a vigorous manner. 
 Her designs have breadth, and the handling is mas- 
 terly. Like Matthew Arnold, she always goes to 
 the heart of her subject, and develops it from within. 
 She is a great social leader, and draws thousands of 
 willing followers in her train. Her sympathies are 
 world-wide; not limited to any race or people, or, 
 as in the case of Dickens, to a particular class. 
 Having done full justice to English farmer life, she 
 seeks abroad for new fields of conquest. She finds 
 a fresh and elevating subject in the Italian novel 
 called Romola, and a poem called The Spanish Gypsy. 
 Then she returns to England to deal with the coun- 
 try gentleman in Middlemarch, and with the more 
 intellectual life of London in Daniel Deronda. Such 
 was her literary career. 
 
 The Mill on the Floss has been considered her most 
 perfect book as a work of art, — a faultless study of 
 the English tongue. It was selected as a text-book 
 on English for the examination of students entering 
 Harvard College. Perfection, however, is rather a 
 dry attribute. When I hear of a perfect book or a 
 perfect picture, it always leads me to think of a man 
 of perfect behavior and a small soul. Perfection 
 on a grand scale would seem to be unattainable. It 
 is like the phenomena of history whose incomplete- 
 ness opens the way to new phenomena. An ode of 
 Horace may be more perfect than Hamlet or King 
 Lear; but is it as great ? Echo answers, " is it?" 
 The Mill on the Floss is rather pleasanter reading 
 than Adam Bede, but it is not so powerful a work. 
 
Marian Evans. 243 
 
 Still, this artistic quality has a value, and indicates 
 a certain progress in the writer, a better appreciation 
 of form. 
 
 The kernel of the story is the same as that in 
 Goethe's Elective Affinities, but the treatment of it 
 is not as bold. Maggie Tulliver, an ardent, impetu- 
 ous, and heroic nature, is one of the best drawn 
 characters in fiction. She is exactly the opposite of 
 Goethe's Ottilie, whose quiet, steadfast affection is 
 equalled by such purity of nature, that all temptation 
 flies away from her. Maggie also resists temptation 
 at the last moment through the clearness of her in- 
 tellectual perceptions. The account of her escapade 
 in the Dutch schooner is a marvellous piece of psy- 
 chological analysis. Both stories end tragically, as 
 cases of strong magnetic attraction are likely to do. 
 The end of the Mill on the Floss is, however, melo- 
 dramatic, and highly improbable. Tom Tulliver 
 might easily have escaped the floating mass of tim- 
 ber by rowing directly away from it. Such imprac- 
 ticalities are not easily avoided by feminine writers ; 
 but it is more difficult to decide how the story ought 
 to have ended. Similar cases in real life are not 
 always fatal. There has been an instance in the 
 most fastidious New England society, where a mar- 
 ried lady met a gentleman one evening for whom she 
 experienced such an irresistible attraction that she 
 concluded next day to desert her husband for him. 
 This brought her, of course, into social ostracism for 
 some years ; but society finally decided to condone 
 the offence ; as did also her previous husband, who af- 
 terwards married another wife. After the temporary 
 
244 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 confusion, all parties concerned would seem to have 
 been happier for this readjustment. It would re- 
 quire rare courage in an English novelist to adopt 
 such an incident, but we should not narrow our- 
 selves by being too moral. 
 
 To represent a man — in the Mill on the Floss — ^as 
 saying that he married his wife, because she was 
 dull-witted, and would not be likely to tyrannize 
 over him at his own fireside, is truly an amusing 
 sarcasm against the male sex. Intellectual women 
 have been heard to make similar statements before 
 now; but they do not consider that men of genius 
 have quite as much difficulty in obtaining wives. 
 What a wife Marian Evans would have made for 
 Carlyle ; and yet it is by no means certain that she 
 would have accepted him. 
 
 Romola marked a new departure, and is a work of 
 a higher order. The author explains in her letters 
 in what way she prepared herself for it. She went 
 with Mr. Lewes to Florence, and there worked day 
 after day in the Laurentian Library, looking through 
 books of the fifteenth century to obtain ideas of eld 
 Florentine Hfe. When the library was closed, she 
 walked about the city to obtain a clear notion of its 
 topography; then rushed back to England with a 
 full mind to begin her work. During her visit she 
 had obtained foreign standing ground, from which 
 to view her own country ; and this was of great ad- 
 vantage to her, when she came again to deal with 
 English Hfe. 
 
 Romola has a romantic background, and the most 
 poetic that could have been selected. Florence, 
 
Marian Evans. 245 
 
 the City of Flowers, and itself the flower of mediaeval 
 civilization, has a twofold background: the purple 
 Apennines, with their olive-clad slopes and turreted 
 foothills, as well as its own poetico-tragic history, 
 full of all that is beautiful and inspiring. This is an 
 ever-present idea to us in reading the book, although 
 it is nowhere mentioned, and it is due to Miss Evans's 
 fine taste and elevated tone that we can feel it. 
 
 I think it can be considered the most successful 
 of historical novels. Macchiavelli, Savonarola, and 
 others are brought back to us, not in outline draw- 
 ing, like Scott's crusaders, but as veritable person- 
 ages, and Florence is peopled with men and women 
 better suited to its art and architecture than its pres- 
 ent inhabitants are. We hear their voices; we see 
 the morning company at the barber's shop; and are 
 present at the discussions in the market-place. 
 Then we are taken to the retired dwelling of the 
 blind old scholar Bardo de' Bardi, and see him in 
 the midst of his books and manuscripts, which his 
 beautiful daughter is reading to him. He does not 
 know that the Parthenon was still in existence at 
 Athens, until Tito, the nimble young Greek, in- 
 forms him of it. 
 
 I have been told that there is no such name as 
 Romola in Italian; and that there are those who 
 think that the character is not a real one, because 
 no woman could be so unselfish as to take the nat- 
 ural children of her husband into her own home. 
 This of course no woman would do while her hus- 
 band was alive, unless she were wholly devoid of 
 self-respect ; but there is a famous precedent in his- 
 
246 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 tory, which proves that it may be possible after his 
 death. Octavia, the sister of Augustus, cared for 
 the children of Antony and Cleopatra as if they 
 were her own; and Plutarch says, that the noble 
 behavior of Octavia, previous to Antony's death, 
 greatly exasperated the people of Rome against him. 
 It is more than possible that Octavia was the type 
 which Miss Evans had in her mind, and that she 
 chose the name of Romola as most appropriate to 
 her. On the Via dei Quattro Fontane in Rome, 
 there was formerly a sign, " Baldassare, Antiquary," 
 and this Miss Evans must have noticed on her pre- 
 vious visit to Rome, and made use of as the name 
 of the antiquary who was victimized by Tito Me- 
 lema. The latter is one of the most clear-cut char- 
 acters in fiction, and is supposed to have been a 
 study from the same adventurer who plays the vil- 
 lain in Winthrop's romance of Cecil Dreme : a man 
 of amiable disposition, frank, healthful, and virtuous 
 so long as it serves his purpose to be so, but not 
 only unprincipled, but without perception of the 
 nature of a principle. He is one of the hungry little 
 Greeks mentioned by Horace, of whom a second 
 edition was distributed over Europe after the capt- 
 ure of Constantinople by the Turks. They were 
 equally useful and untrustworthy. 
 
 In addition to its poetic background, Romola has 
 the advantage of a more lively and interesting action 
 than an English novel of the present day possibly 
 could have. I mean, of course, a novel taken from 
 English life. It is like the difference between the 
 costumes of the Middle Ages, and our modern pun- 
 
Marian Evans. 247 
 
 tanic dress, which condemns men, at least, to the 
 gravest colors, and to the greatest possible conceal- 
 ment of their figures. There can be no objection 
 to the introduction of an historical person in fiction, 
 when treated with the natural skill of Miss Evans's 
 Savonarola. No one has better understood the 
 peculiar strength and the essential weakness of this 
 Italian prophet ; and the argument between him and 
 Romola, in which the latter warns him against the 
 course he intends to pursue, is the most brilliant 
 passage in the book. His career was as character- 
 istic of Italy as Luther's was of Germany, and the 
 failure of the one is as significant as the success of 
 the other. The attempt to repress human nature in 
 the way Savonarola wished to do, was like trying to 
 dam the Mississippi. 
 
 The close of the book is rather melodramatic ; and 
 the writer would seem to have lost her interest in 
 the work after the death of Savonarola, and only to 
 have recovered it after the death of Tito. Romola's 
 floating down the Arno in a boat without oars, in 
 careless desperation, is a decided fault in the plot, 
 and not in accordance with her self-reliant character. 
 The manner in which Tito came by his fate, and the 
 struggle on the bridge, is well contrived, but that 
 Baldassare should have dealt him the final blow, and 
 then died in the effort, is too much like a tale of 
 King Arthur's Court. At the very close the writer 
 recovers her spirits, and the last scene between 
 Romola and Lillo is beautiful. 
 
 Next to Romola the most picturesque of Miss 
 
248 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Evans's novels is Felix Holt ; but it is a terrible 
 satire on the landed gentry. She describes in it 
 two respectable old families: that of Sir Maxim us 
 De Barry, whom she describes as belonging to the 
 long-tailed saurian species; and the Durfey Tran- 
 somes, who were in a condition of decrepitude, and 
 only saved from extinction by the smart illegitimate 
 son of a local lawyer. The true heir of the Tran- 
 some family is an under-witted fellow, killed in a 
 sort of riot at a parliamentary election. After 
 this catastrophe, an heiress appears, who has been 
 for some time hidden in the lower-middle class, but 
 she heroically resigns her right to the property. 
 The opening pages of scenic description are scarcely 
 excelled in English, and seem like an effort of na- 
 ture to conceal the shame of the Transome family. 
 Otherwise the book is remarkable for a speech by 
 the rector of Little Treby, who says, ' ' There are two 
 kinds of radicals, — those who never can see an ob- 
 ject nearer than the moon, and those like my nephew 
 here, who only see things at shooting distance." 
 To see things at shooting distance shows the practi- 
 cal man. 
 
 Felix Holt was not well liked by English society, 
 and either to atone for that, or because her powers 
 had reached their full completeness. Miss Evans 
 next wrote Middlemarch, and astonished even her 
 warmest admirers. It has been said of the opera 
 Don Giovanni, that the first note of it lifts the audi- 
 ence off their feet, and keeps them suspended until 
 the curtain falls. The first sentence in Middle- 
 march, " Dorothea Brooke had that sort of beauty 
 
Marian Evans. 249 
 
 which is thrown into relief by poor dress," is a key- 
 note which interests the reader as fine music miglit, 
 and this interest is sustained throughout the book. 
 Dorothea is the sister of Romola, but more human, 
 more impassioned, and more like a real presence. 
 Romola has an ideal personality and we may picture 
 her to ourselves with the classic features and ruddy 
 complexion of the Sistine Madonna. We imagine 
 Dorothea of the dark Saxon type, without much 
 color in her face but with eyes deep, lustrous, and 
 eloquent, a voice musical and penetrating. If not 
 herself an ideal, she is full of ideality, and at first is 
 led astray by this, blundering badly in the most 
 important step of a woman's life, — choosing a hus- 
 band. She escapes the substantial but commonplace 
 country gentleman, and falls into the snare of a 
 desiccated pedant, whose heart is like a scroll of 
 parchment. He is, however, an illusion to himself, 
 as he was to her, and being disillusioned with her 
 help, — he dies. Thus Dorothea escapes a second 
 time, and finds her affinity at last in the generous 
 Ladislaw, to whom she can only be united by the 
 renunciation of her worldly goods. 
 
 Another sterling woman in this book is the sensi- 
 ble, kind-hearted Mary Garth; who also renounces 
 social position and worldly goods for the sake of a 
 long-cherished schoolmate, Fred Vincy. It is a rare 
 novel that contains two such splendid women. Rosa- 
 mond Vincy is a brilliant contrast to both ; the ex- 
 quisitely finished beauty, with eyes of heavenly blue 
 but with a heart of ice, who captures Dr. Lydgate 
 and makes his life a burden to him until death re- 
 
250 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 lieves him from her merciless tyranny. She is the 
 most highly individualized of all Miss Evans's cre- 
 ations, and enough to frighten any young man who 
 is contemplating matrimony. Lydgate has not quite 
 the veracity of Ladislaw, and is lacking in foresight ; 
 but his courtship of Rosamond begins with a harm- 
 less flirtation ; and it may be remarked here that this 
 is the only way in which a cold, selfish woman is 
 likely to succeed in coming to intimate terms with a 
 man. Beware therefore of coquetry and the voices 
 of sirens. 
 
 The influence of Mr. Lewes's metaphysical con- 
 versation is plainly apparent in the narrative of 
 Middlemarch, and still more so in the subsequent 
 novel of Daniel Deronda. Miss Evans no longer 
 writes such plain, straightforward English as in 
 Adam Bede, or only writes it in detached passages. 
 Her style has become circuitous, and her ideas are 
 often of the hair-splitting variety: but when she 
 makes her characters speak, she is wonderful. I do 
 not know any book in which you hear the human 
 voice more distinctly than in Middlemarch; and the 
 variety is also remarkable. There are minor faults 
 of plot in it ; especially where Dorothea enters 
 Lydgate's house to find Rosamond toying with 
 Ladislaw, — a mechanical contrivance to expedite 
 the course of the story, and rather awkwardly intro- 
 duced, — but these do not vititate the whole any 
 more than similar errors could spoil the Vicar of 
 Wakefield. 
 
 Daniel Deronda is not the peer of Middlemarch, 
 
Marian Evans. 251 
 
 and yet it proves a certain progress in the mind of 
 this woman who never rested on her laurels, but 
 continued to advance so long as she lived. In Mid- 
 dlemarch we have fairly good provincial society, but 
 in Daniel Deronda we are introduced to the more 
 vigorous London life, in which the forcible collision 
 between human beings is softened or deadened by a 
 higher style of manners. We meet also, in the book, 
 with a new element which points towards the future, 
 — the evolution or moral development of character, 
 and this is elaborated, so that we perceive the change 
 taking place, as we see the growth of the wings in an 
 apple moth. Again, there is a kind of splendor in 
 the opening chapter, the splendor of highly stimu- 
 lated life — the gambling-room at Baden ; and there 
 are glimpses of this here and there throughout the 
 book. Otherwise the tissue of the novel is too 
 analytical, and some of the speeches are so ingenious 
 that we wonder if anyone except Miss Evans could 
 possibly have uttered them. The action of the story 
 does not always flow naturally, but in places seems 
 too much forced. I have heard ladies criticise De- 
 ronda himself as being too much of a prig. 
 
 Gwendolen Harleth's conversion is the strong 
 point of the book, but Gwendolen herself is hardly 
 worth the trouble that she causes. She is a fine 
 animal, but mentally and morally of ordinary calibre, 
 and is not the material out of which a superior 
 woman can be made. She is precisely the sort of 
 young woman that is popularly called " superior," 
 and this is the best possible proof that she is not so 
 intrinsically. Her appeal to Deronda, as to one 
 
252 Modern English Prose Writers, 
 
 who is better than herself, is in her favor; but we 
 fear that the dark, Semitic glance of Deronda's eye 
 had much to do with it. She does not affiliate with 
 Miss Arrowpoint, who is a superior woman in the 
 true sense, and proves the fact before us in a mag- 
 nificent way. She becomes a victim of the despotic 
 Grandcourt as naturally as Lydgate became the vic- 
 tim of Rosamond Vincy. Grandcourt is superbly 
 drawn : a petty Asiatic tyrant, accidentally born in 
 England. He knows how to command, and to gain 
 his ends, but within he is like the desert of Gobi. 
 He would have made a good captain of cavalry, but 
 is a burden on society. To permit such a man to 
 be drowned is a kindness. 
 
 Is it a fault in this story, that we have glimpses 
 in it of two characters, who are far more interesting 
 than the leading figures ? Is it not rather like real 
 life? Do not magnificent men and glorious women 
 appear before us like meteors, and then vanish leav- 
 ing an ineffaceable impression ? They were magnifi- 
 cent, because we saw them at their best, and knew 
 only this of them. Looking out from a railway- 
 train on the Lake of Geneva, I formerly beheld 
 the castle of Chillon sharply defined in grand masses 
 of light and shadow against the moonlit water. 
 Twenty years have not dimmed that impression, nor 
 could I wish to have it renewed. 
 
 Daniel Deronda is worth reading for the engage- 
 ment scene between Klesmer and Miss Arrowpoint 
 alone ; for there is nothing like it anywhere else. It 
 is curious that of the two finest male characters in 
 this whole series of novels, one is a half-Pole, and 
 
Marian Evans, 253 
 
 the other a Slavonic Jew. Klesmer's portrait may- 
 have been taken from the pianist Rubinstein. 
 Whenever we meet with him he gives a deh'ghtful 
 sensation of strength, — of power apph'ed in the 
 best manner. Such characters are above the reach 
 of the novelist, as they are above pleasure and pain. 
 When Klesmer enters Mrs. Meyrick's little house, 
 the room seems diminished to a nutshell before his 
 gaze. Vast audiences are seen to be in the aspect 
 of his face. He can not only play the piano, but 
 talk as well; and the parliamentary hack, Mr. Bult, 
 is confounded by his graphic sentences. 
 
 Only Miss Arrowpoint is a match for this man. 
 She recognizes him at his true value, and seizes the 
 critical moment, though it comes to her unexpect- 
 edly. She gives him her word, and the remon- 
 strances of her parents cannot shake her, for she 
 sees at once that their shots are wide of the mark. 
 She leaves her father's house, and goes off to marry 
 Klesmer, as calmly and quietly as if it were a call 
 on her nearest friend. Such women are as rare as 
 the great poets. The chapter called " Maiden's 
 Choosing " is immortal. 
 
 That portion of Daniel Deronda which treats of the 
 Jews is by no means so successful. Miss Evans had 
 exceptional facilities for studying this remarkable 
 people. Her husband was a Jew, at least by de- 
 scent, and associated with Jews as well as Christians. 
 The life-like description of the meeting of a Jewish 
 club, and the discussion among its members, may 
 have been taken from her husband's lips; but we 
 had a right to expect something more concerning 
 
254 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 the only Semitic race which has kept itself abreast 
 of civilization, and whose spirit has never been 
 broken on the wheel of time. The result is nothing. 
 Her delineation of the Jewish boy in a pawnbroker's 
 shop is a bright and amusing picture ; but what shall 
 we say of the elderly brother of Deronda's pretty 
 foundling, — the invalid with a complexion like old 
 ivory ? He has a veracious nature, but not the brain 
 of a statesman. We close the book with some regret 
 at the fool's errand on which he has despatched 
 Deronda, and with a feeling of wonder as to how 
 Deronda will finally escape from his delusion. 
 There could not be a more impracticable notion 
 than that of the Jews returning to Jerusalem. Even 
 if they could be independent of the Turkish govern- 
 ment, what employment, what industries could they 
 find there ? It is doubtful if Judea and the adjacent 
 districts could support more than two hundred thou- 
 sand of them. Indeed, the whole race ought to be 
 grateful to Titus for having dispersed them through 
 the western empire ; for it was thus they escaped the 
 Saracen conquest, and obtained a foothold among 
 Christian nations. 
 
 When we read Hawthorne, we wonder why he 
 was not the first poet of his time. It also seems 
 natural for Scott to break forth sometimes into 
 verse. Nor would Dickens have surprised the world 
 by writing very good poetry. Miss Evans, however, 
 is essentially a prose writer. It is a high order of 
 prose, but not poetic. Even the boat scene in the 
 Mill on the Floss could hardly be transformed into 
 
Marian Evans. 255 
 
 poetry. It is not surprising, therefore, that her at- 
 tempt to tell a long story in verse should not have 
 been considered a success. The Spanish Gypsy is 
 quite as interesting as Tennyson's Princess, but in a 
 different way. It would be more readable if it were 
 not on rhythmical stilts. Marian Evans seems to 
 have had but few intimate friends, and to have been 
 contented with those she had. Where she obtained 
 her extensive knowledge of human nature is a mys- 
 tery ; but there is a mystery of one kind or another 
 connected with all great artists. At the same time, 
 in spite of her genius, she does not belong with the 
 highest class of minds. This becomes apparent in 
 her letters in general. She goes to Rome, but she 
 does not claim fellowship with Raphael and Michel 
 Angelo. She admires the genius of G^orgione and 
 Titian's Annunciation (which the best critics con- 
 sider to have been coldly painted) and she passes by 
 Tintoretto's Divine Tragedy without consideration. 
 She stands before Michel Angelo's Moses, and thinks 
 the expression must be an effort for effect. She 
 should have read the book of Exodus before she 
 went to the Church of " St. Peter in Prison." She 
 finds nothing in Michel Angelo's own portrait but 
 a very sad expression. She does not even appreciate 
 Fielding. It is easy to perceive this from the way 
 in which she speaks of him. His admirable essays, 
 with which he begins the successive books of Tom 
 Jones, " belong to a period when people had infinite 
 leisure. ' ' It would be better for the present genera- 
 tion, perhaps, if they read more essays and fewer 
 novels. One page of Tom Jones contains more than 
 
256 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 three average pages of Adam Bede. We miss in her 
 writing such tributes as Goethe pays to Shakespeare, 
 and Thackeray to Carlyle. 
 
 She insists on calling Titus a Roman brute, on 
 account of his treatment of Berenice. Now Berenice 
 was rather a questionable character — if her name 
 be found among the constellations; and Suetonius 
 speaks of Titus as we in America do of President 
 Lincoln. He counted a day lost in which he had 
 failed to relieve some person from distress. More 
 true but undiscriminating was her reply to Mrs. 
 Beecher Stowe, who wrote her a defence or apology 
 for the magnetic table-tipping and trance-medium 
 writing, which passes by the name of spiritualism. 
 She wrote : 
 
 " Your view as to the cause of that great wave of 
 spiritualism which is rushing over America — namely, 
 that it is a sort of Rachel-cry of bereavement toward the 
 invisible existence of the loved ones, is deeply affecting. 
 But so far as " spiritualism " (by which I mean, of 
 course, spirit-communication, by rapping, guidance of 
 the pencil, etc.) has come within reach of my judgment 
 on our side of the water, it has appeared to me either as 
 degrading folly, imbecile in the estimate of evidence, or 
 else as impudent imposture. So far as my observation 
 and experience have hitherto gone, it has even seemed 
 to me an impiety to withdraw from the more assured 
 methods of studying the open secrets of the universe any 
 large amount of attention to alleged manifestations which 
 are so defiled by low adventurers, and their palpable 
 trickeries, so hopelessly involved in all the doubtfulness 
 of individual testimonies as to phenomena witnessed, 
 
Marian Evans, 257 
 
 which testimonies are no more true objectively because 
 they are honest subjectively, than the Ptolemaic system is 
 true because it seemed to Tycho Brahe a better explana- 
 tion of the heavenly movements than the Copernican." 
 
 This is too much in the style of G. H. Lewes ; but, 
 if you would think of Marian Evans af her best, re- 
 member the scene in which Maggie Tulliver meets 
 her mother after her escapade in the boat, " more 
 helpful than all wisdom, is one draught of simple 
 human pity that will not forsake us. ' ' Go out under 
 the stars in a winter night and think of that. 
 
RUSKIN 
 
 THE outward aspect of London, as an Ameri- 
 can who enters the city by the North-West- 
 ern Railway first beholds it, is not an attractive one. 
 As he leaves the station he sees before him two 
 hotels of similar figure, in what was formerly called 
 the Grecian style of architecture, covered with 
 dusky brown stucco, with no ornament except a 
 meagre conventional moulding and the iron railing 
 in front of them ; gloomy and uninviting. Between 
 them, as the substitute for an arch, are two upright 
 posts, and a horizontal beam with " Euston "on it, 
 in bold gilt letters. If he proceeds farther, he comes 
 to a plain stone church with a steeple divided into 
 three nearly equal sections, the first supported by 
 Doric columns, the second by Ionic, and the third 
 by Corinthian. Beyond this there is no evidence 
 of artistic skill or intellectual effort in the construc- 
 tion of the building. 
 
 In front of the church there is an open space or 
 square, which formerly, at least, was inclosed by a 
 cheap iron railing, and within is a statue of Stephen- 
 son, the engineer, in an attitude as if he were com- 
 ing forward to address an audience, and with his hair 
 as carefully brushed as if he had prepared himself 
 
 258 
 
Ruskin. 259 
 
 for a dinner-party at Holland House. Beyond there 
 is nearly a square mile of dwelling-houses, brick and 
 stucco, quite devoid of anything like elegance, — 
 smoky, economical, and monotonous. If the trav- 
 eller proceeds to Waterloo Place and Trafalgar 
 Square, he will find the same order of affairs as at 
 Euston — on a larger scale, it is true, and with a good 
 deal of old-fashioned English dignity ; but cold and 
 unattractive still. 
 
 This was the style of architecture which prevailed 
 during the first half of the nineteenth century. We 
 had it also in America at that time, — where we had 
 anything at all, — in the Astor House at New York, a 
 Boston custom-house, and country residences with 
 pretentious wooden columns in front of them to keep 
 the sunlight out of parlor windows. How different 
 it is from the impression we receive on our entrance 
 into Paris, Brussels, Milan, or even mediaeval Nu- 
 remburg with its numerous gables and cozy balco- 
 nies. Never since William I. built the Tower of 
 London, had English taste in art and architecture 
 been so barren, dull, and insipid. 
 
 In February, 1819, John Ruskin was born in Lon- 
 don, a man destined by fate to smash this order of 
 things as completely as King Olaf's strong warrior 
 demolished the Norwegian idol. John Ruskin's 
 father, who was originally of Scotch extraction, was 
 an English wine merchant, and fortunately died in 
 time to give his more gifted son an opportunity 
 for the work which he was destined by tempera- 
 ment and inclination to perform. John Ruskin's 
 biographer is no doubt an excellent person, but I 
 
26o Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 can make little from his account of the boyhood 
 of this genius, except that he composed verses be- 
 fore the age of ten, and visited Scotland where he 
 had cousins to play with. His parents travelled 
 with him on the Continent at an early age, and 
 his vivid imagination was strongly impressed with 
 the great spectacles he saw there. At the age of 
 seventeen he fell desperately in love with a Parisian 
 girl two years younger, but instead of enjoying the 
 happiness which often comes with such transitory 
 attachments, the ardor and extreme sensitiveness 
 of his nature showed itself in a shy and eccentric 
 demeanor, which gave the young woman a feeling 
 of repulsion toward him, and caused them both no 
 little discomfort. 
 
 There is no genius without intensity of feeling, 
 and such an early experience as this was the true in- 
 dication of young Ruskin's energy. We notice the 
 same thing in Byron's case; and Miss Evans, in 
 Daniel Deronda, predicts for the immature lover of 
 Gwendolen a distinguished career, proving her own 
 deep insight into human nature. Was not Shake- 
 speare himself said to have been carried off his feet 
 in much the same manner ? 
 
 Ruskin's sensitiveness, however, was essential for 
 the work for which nature had designed him. His 
 literary talent was equally precocious. He began 
 to write and publish at sixteen— sketches of the Alps 
 and other small booklets, preparatory for a more seri- 
 ous effort ; in which his wonderful faculty for descrip- 
 tion, unsurpassed in English prose, quickly gained 
 for him a good reputation. Meanwhile, he travelled 
 
Ruskin. 261 
 
 continually, and went through Oxford without pro- 
 ducing any particular sensation there. In the autumn 
 of 1 842 the first volume of Modern Painters was ready 
 for the publisher. 
 
 Painting. 
 
 In judging of Modern Painters, the tender age at 
 which the book was written should always be con- 
 sidered. It was certainly a daring attempt, and it 
 is equally surprising that it should have proved so 
 successful. Only genius could have carried it through. 
 The powers of observation develop themselves more 
 rapidly than the reflective faculty, and beautiful 
 poetry of that sort has been written at even an 
 earlier period; but critical prose requires maturity 
 of judgment, and what we wonder is, not that these 
 early opinions are sometimes fallacious, but that 
 they are worth anything at all. The work abounds 
 with brilliant descriptive passages and keen bits of 
 artistic insight, but also with sharp contrasts of praise 
 and censure, ingenious partisan arguments, harsh 
 condemnations, and not a few cobwebby notions. 
 The faults of the book are the faults of youth, but 
 its exceptional interest comes from the brilliant 
 imagination of the writer. It is the outpouring of 
 an ardent, enthusiastic nature ; a freshet of pictorial 
 ideas which carries the reader along through eddies 
 and a tumult of waters, even against his own will. 
 Its earnestness convinces him against his more sober 
 judgment. If he does not find a strong character 
 between the lines, he discovers one with noble im- 
 
262 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 pulses and lofty aspirations, — a soul palpitating with 
 impressions of all that is pure, beautiful, and holy. 
 
 Charles Lamb says of his imaginary Sarah Battles, 
 that when she spoke of games for four persons she 
 always meant whist ; and Ruskin's defense of mod- 
 ern English painters is evidently intended for a de- 
 fense of Turner, who was not so well appreciated in 
 1840 as he is at present. In his travels on the Con- 
 tinent he had probably met with numerous conven- 
 tional art critics and connoisseurs, who criticised 
 Turner, and the English landscape-school, in rather 
 a severe manner. Claude Lorraine had long been 
 accepted as the standard of what a landscape-painter 
 ought to be, and all differences between his work and 
 Turner's were held to the disadvantage of the latter. 
 
 It was the oft-repeated story of conventionality 
 against progress. Turner was judged as Tintoretto 
 had been by the cotemporaries of Titian, and as he 
 now is judged by German academic critics. It 
 was the way in which Emerson was criticised by 
 Arnold and Lowell. Byron's English Bards and 
 Scotch Reviewers corresponds to Ruskin's Modern 
 Painters, and represents the same spirit of independ- 
 ence breaking through the restraints of a hide-bound 
 Toryism. Nothing is more exasperating to an intel- 
 lectual person, than the continual reiteration that 
 men were made for the laws, rather than laws for 
 men. The rules for writing poetry were held by 
 Byron in high contempt. " What was chiefly 
 needed," he said, " was a knowledge of good 
 society," by which I suppose he meant, human 
 nature as we meet with it in large cities. 
 
Ruskin. 263 
 
 In regard to Turner it has been admitted that 
 Ruskin was mainly in the right ; but in the course of 
 his argument he is often so unjust to the classical 
 school of landscape-painting as to affect many of his 
 readers disagreeably, and lead them to condemn his 
 whole work on that account. Of Claude he says 
 that he had a fine feeling for beauty of form, and his 
 foliage is seldom ungraceful, but with regard to es- 
 sential truth, his painting is only a mass of error. 
 Cuyp, on the contrary, had little feeling for beauty, 
 but more regard for truth. Poussin, more ignorant 
 of truth than Claude, and with small sense of beauty, 
 yet has more of the moral or human element than 
 either. 
 
 There is a basis of fact in these statements, and I 
 think he hits Cuyp pretty close to the mark, but it 
 is not the way to dispose of such distinguished 
 artists. Turner might also be criticised with regard 
 to essential truth and the representation of nature, 
 — in fact he often is so criticised. Both Turner and 
 Claude have their peculiarities, and both rise above 
 them ; and the cork will float whether the water it is 
 in is pure or muddy. 
 
 The charm of Claude lies chiefly in his atmosphere. 
 It is the atmosphere of Southern France, and has a 
 climate something more genial than our best October 
 days. You feel its influence on approaching his 
 canvas, and are transported mentally into the scene 
 which he represents. Next to this he is noted for 
 the pensive grace of his foliage, which seems to be 
 possessed of a dreamy melancholy almost human. 
 There is one of Claude's landscapes in the Berlin 
 
264 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 museum which may be taken as a type of the greater 
 number of his pictures. On one side a stately edi- 
 fice, half-seen, is partially shaded by symmetrical 
 trees, in form not unlike American elms. In front, 
 a sunny slope, on which there is a small group of 
 men and women, leads down to a more rustic sort of 
 scenery in the middle distance; and beyond, the 
 lines grow fainter and fainter, and the colors continu- 
 ally more delicate, until both seem to fade away in 
 the hazy horizon. Goethe said, " Such scenes as 
 Claude represents are rare in nature, but he had all 
 the details of a landscape at his command, and could 
 unite them in any way he chose. ' ' This would seem 
 to have been the manner in which he worked ; and 
 though the result is exceedingly pleasant, if all his 
 pictures were brought together in one collection, as 
 so many of Turner's are in London, the effect might 
 be rather monotonous. 
 
 Gaspar Poussin had not the atmosphere of Claude 
 Lorraine, and his coloring is comparatively cold, but 
 there is much more variety in his work ; not only in 
 his subjects, but in his treatment of details. Claude's 
 foliage always seems to be much the same, and some 
 of his trees are of a species known only to himself. 
 How far Ruskin is right in his strictures on Claude's 
 herbarium it would be difiScult to determine ; but his 
 chapters on the beauty of trees, clouds, and stones, 
 show a profound study of the subject, and are among 
 the most valuable contributions to the literature of 
 art. 
 
 Where half a square mile of ground has to be rep- 
 resented on eight square feet of canvas, an amount 
 
Ruskin. 265 
 
 of abbreviation has to take place which prevents us 
 from deciding in many cases whether the truth of 
 nature has been violated or not. In regard to the 
 tapering trunks of Claude's trees, Ruskin would ap- 
 pear to be correct ; for, though some trees grow in 
 that manner, elms, maples, walnuts, oaks, and many- 
 others have nearly equilateral trunks, until they are 
 divided into branches. 
 
 It is wonderful what clearness of perception and 
 independence of judgment Ruskin had at twenty- 
 three. He paid no reverence to the so-called au- 
 thorities on art and literature — as if there could be 
 such a thing on such subjects — but used his own 
 eyes and came to his own conclusions, blinded by 
 no great reputations, or even the prestige of cen- 
 turies. He discriminates between Titian and Tin- 
 toretto in such judicious manner as this : 
 
 " Of Titian and Tintoretto I have spoken already. The 
 latter is every way the greater master, never indulging in 
 the exaggerated color of Titian, and attaining far more 
 perfect light ; his grasp of Nature is more extensive, and 
 his view of her more imaginative (incidental notices of 
 his landscape will be found in the chapter on " Imagina- 
 tion Penetrative," of the second volume), but he is usu- 
 ally too impatient to carry his thoughts as far out, or to 
 realize with as much substantiality as Titian." 
 
 It is perfectly true that Tintoretto's chiaroscuro is 
 of a finer quality than Titian's, or than any other 
 painter except Correggio, and that Titian's coloring 
 is frequently too bright for a refined taste, — if yoy 
 
266 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 remember the two Venuses in Florence, or even the 
 Tribute Money, you will recognize this, — but the 
 statement is a severe blow to all German and Italian 
 art criticism, which would make out Tintoretto to 
 be the inferior artist because he was born after the 
 grand culmination. 
 
 The difference between Claude and Turner is simi- 
 lar to that between Titian and Tintoretto ; and it is 
 a difference which divides the German and French 
 schools of art in the present century, and which is 
 like the difference between Milton and Shakespeare. 
 It is the difference between the classic and romantic 
 methods; the former of which permits of greater 
 perfection, and the latter gives more freedom and 
 variety. The varied character of Turner's work is 
 one of its chief merits; and his brilliant flights of 
 imagination, even where they are imperfectly ex- 
 pressed, are invigorating, and most refreshing to the 
 sight. He may sometimes have repeated himself, 
 but I do not remember an instance of it. Like 
 Tintoretto, his mind was steeped in originality. 
 
 Dr. Liibke, in his history of art, affords Turner a 
 rather scanty notice, in which he speaks of him as 
 celebrated for his fine effects of light, but in his later 
 years degenerating into a misty vagueness and loss 
 of form. This is the Alpha and Omega of Turner, 
 it is true, but the rest of the alphabet has been left 
 out. Toward the close of his life he acquired a kind 
 of chromatic mania, and the pictures he painted in 
 this state of mind, though very interesting, are not 
 so satisfactory as the more orderly work of his bet- 
 ter years; but his rare effects of light continued till 
 
Ruskin. 267 
 
 the close, and were even more conspicuous in his 
 later than his earlier work. 
 
 One of the prettiest examples of this Turneresque 
 style is the little painting in the National Gallery 
 called Wind, Rain, and Speed. A railway train is 
 approaching the station in a severe storm, almost en- 
 veloped in a whirl of rain, mist, and its own steam. 
 Only the front of the locomotive is distinctly visible ; 
 and so far the picture is perfectly true to nature. 
 The colors, however, which Turner has introduced 
 into that whirling mist, are such perhaps as no other 
 artist would have thought of. Ruskin tells us that 
 Turner could see colors on a turbot which no one 
 else could perceive, and this may have been true in 
 many other cases. Whether the colors were really 
 on the turbot is a dubious problem. 
 
 Although Turner gradually fell into this manner- 
 ism, Ruskin is mainly right in regard to his truthful- 
 ness to nature. His skies- are an evidence of this. 
 Such skies as Turner's have never been painted since 
 the sixteenth century ; and then only by a few great 
 Venetians. They are not only atmospheric, but 
 pellucid, and we see into them for miles. His sun- 
 sets, likewise, stand apart, — as they are indeed a part 
 of his skies. Other painters make a warm glow 
 above the horizon, but Turner attempted to repro- 
 duce the splendor of the twilight hour in all its mag- 
 nificence. The means by which he accomplished 
 this were peculiar to him. The setting sun in his 
 Decline of Carthage is a mass of paint, built out upon 
 the canvas nearly a quarter of an inch thick; and if 
 you look at it long enough it will make your eyes 
 
268 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 water like the sun itself. He delighted in those 
 long gossamer streamers which often fill the western 
 skies in summer, and reproduced them in a most 
 skilful manner. 
 
 One of the brightest of Ruskin's smaller publica- 
 tions is his Elements of Drawing, which is not only 
 instructive, but as entertaining as most of his books. 
 It includes an analysis of Turner's picture of Coblenz 
 on the Rhine, and from this rather simple subject he 
 educes rules of composition such as Leonardo da 
 Vinci never dreamed of. His description of the 
 Slave Ship, owned by Mr. Quincy Shaw's family of 
 Boston, is rather redolent of adjectives, but I believe 
 he hits the mark in saying that it contains the 
 noblest sea ever painted by man; though only a 
 person who has watched the heaving and rolling of 
 the sea in mid-ocean after a storm would be likely 
 to appreciate this. 
 
 Ruskin says : 
 
 " If we look at Nature carefully we shall find that her 
 colors are in a state of perpetual confusion and indis- 
 tinctness, while her forms, as told by light and shade, 
 are invariably clear, distinct, and speaking. The stones 
 and gravel of the bank catch green reflections from the 
 boughs above ; the bushes receive grays and yellows 
 from the ground ; every hairbreadth of polished surface 
 gives a little bit of the sky or the gold of the sun, like a 
 star upon the local color ; this local color, changeful 
 and uncertain in itself, is again disguised and modified 
 by the hue of light, or quenched in the gray of the 
 shadow ; and the confusion and blending of tint is alto- 
 gether so great, that were we left to find out what objects 
 
Ruskin. 269 
 
 were by their colors only, we would scarcely in places 
 distinguish the boughs of a tree from the air beyond 
 them, or the ground beneath them." 
 
 This is one out of a hundred passages in Modern 
 Painters, bright with the freshness of youth, and 
 keen with the clear perceptions of maturity. 
 
 Go to Italy; read the guide-books, the art his- 
 tories; examine all the celebrated statues, paintings, 
 and churches ; then return to England or America 
 and read Ruskin to discover how little you have 
 seen. The originality of his work, the extent of his 
 researches in fields before unthought of, is fairly 
 astonishing. In Verona, a city usually visited out 
 of respect to the memory of Romeo and Juliet, he 
 finds a whole storehouse of fresh material, not less 
 interesting to the true lover of art than Shake- 
 speare's plays. He notices a stone griffin of the 
 fourteenth century supporting a column of the ca- 
 thedral porch, and he compares it with a griffin 
 which he saw in Rome on the temple of Antoninus 
 and Faustina, — a griffin of the second century. He 
 introduces them both into his book as examples of 
 the true and false in composition. 
 
 This gives him also an opportunity such as he 
 rarely neglects, of penetrating to the intellectual 
 well-springs of the unknown sculptors who carved 
 them. His exposition of this is rather ingenious and 
 very amusing. In a general way he is right enough. 
 The Antonine griffin is made up of the body of a 
 lion (not very well imitated), the neck of a horse, 
 and the head and wings of an eagle. His right foot 
 
2 JO Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 rests lightly on a flower, and is twice as long as the 
 left. He looks as tame and peaceable as the Roman 
 patrician under the Empire. The Lombardic griffin 
 is at once lion and eagle all over, and is full of life, 
 ferocity, and energy. His feet are so compounded 
 that it would be difficult to say whether they most 
 resemble claws or paws. He is holding some kind 
 of a reptile in them, so as to give the impression 
 that he is a useful, rather than a harmful monster. 
 His eyes seem to be looking into the far distance, 
 and the aspect of his head suggests swiftness and 
 power. The Antonine griffin is conventional. 
 
 Conventionality is the most dangerous enemy of 
 art ; for as soon as art begins to imitate itself, and 
 ceases to be original, it becomes like stagnant water. 
 As the mere imitation of nature, it has only a secon- 
 dary value : only thought and feeling can elevate it. 
 The formula is: Thought plus nature equals art. 
 This, in fact, was the keynote of Ruskin's teaching; 
 and he attacked conventionality not only in art and 
 architecture, but in the higher forms of mechanical 
 industry. He pointed out that so long as a man's 
 work is honest, intelligent, and constructive, he lives 
 and enjoys himself in a normal manner; but when 
 he does cheap, mechanical, or fraudulent work, he 
 will never find pleasure in its performance, and will 
 be sure to seek abnormal enjoyment in drinking, 
 gambling, or other vicious courses. 
 
 The freedom and fearlessness with which Ruskin 
 advanced his views made a host of small enemies for 
 him, and he soon became a centre of innumerable 
 personal attacks. He was persecuted by the Eng- 
 
Ruskin. 2 7 1 
 
 lish press, much as the abolitionists were, formerly, 
 by the American press. This, however, was only so 
 much fuel for his fire. His attack on the architect- 
 ure of London Bridge almost produced a national 
 conflagration, — no matter, his eloquence waxed four- 
 fold. Ruskin was clad in cerulean armor, and the 
 shafts of his assailants recoiled on themselves. 
 When some newspaper critic asserted that art was 
 an effeminate study, and that Ruskin himself was a 
 sentimentalist, he replied nearly as follows : 
 
 " What we need at this hour in Great Britain is 
 true manliness and the respect for manliness ; and to 
 take so poor an instance as my own poor life, — be- 
 cause I have pointed to the pictures of Turner and 
 Luini and praised them, instead of attracting atten- 
 tion to anything I could do myself ; and because I 
 have always obeyed my mother, and have never 
 treated the meanest woman but with respect, the 
 poor wretch who pawns the dirty linen of his soul 
 for a cigar and a glass of beer, talks about the effem- 
 inate sentimentality of Ruskin." 
 
 After this scorching rejoinder he was left in peace 
 for a considerable time. 
 
 Together with his vindication of Turner, Ruskin 
 wove a more discriminating criticism of Tintoretto, 
 whose mighty works he found also lacking the ap- 
 preciation they deserve — apparently because they 
 are all collected in one city, instead of being divided 
 among the different museums, where connoisseurs 
 could see them conveniently and compare them with 
 other masterpieces. Tintoretto was, in fact, an earlier 
 and grander sort of Turner, who looked at life in an 
 
272 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 independent manner and designed his pictures to 
 suit his own ideas instead of those of his patrons. 
 He was complained of for not painting like Titian, 
 as Turner was for not painting like Claude ; though 
 it would have been as fair to complain of Titian 
 for being different from Michel Angelo. In fact 
 Michel Angelo himself considered Titian decidedly 
 lacking in the nobler qualities of design. 
 
 Ruskin might well be named the discoverer of 
 Tintoretto's genius, and it is no mean honor to have 
 done this. His descriptions of Tintoretto's pictures 
 in Modern Painters are not so fine as those which he 
 afterwards published in the appendix to the Stones 
 of Venice. They have not the same cool, judicious 
 tone. We have discussed this subject in the Life of 
 Tintoretto and there is no occasion to dwell on it 
 here. In regard to connoisseurs, Ruskin troubled 
 himself very little. He did not wish to be called a 
 connoisseur himself, although he was better ac- 
 quainted with the technicalities of art than most of 
 them. For that matter you will hear much less 
 about the technicalities in Sir Joshua Reynold's lec- 
 tures than in the writings of more recent critics, who 
 are neither writers nor artists. Ruskin keeps techni- 
 calities well out of sight, and does not trouble him- 
 self whether the vehicle was thin or viscous. 
 
 Later in life he interested himself also in the 
 genius of Luini, in whom he discovered admirable 
 qualities not sufficiently considered hitherto. Finally 
 he seems to have preferred the Bellini. He admired 
 and respected the Roman school, but was more at- 
 tracted personally by the Venetians. Their warm, 
 
Ruskin. 273 
 
 luminous coloring evidently appealed to something 
 in Ruskin's own nature. 
 
 Architecture. 
 
 It was in architecture that Ruskin achieved his 
 greatest triumph. Progress and civilization may be 
 described as a continual breaking through of con- 
 ventional forms in order to reconstruct them again in 
 a more comprehensive manner. No one man can do 
 this by himself alone. It requires a popular impulse ; 
 but to the leader of the movement belongs excep- 
 tional honor, for it demands rare intelligence and 
 courage to guide it in the right direction. Ruskin 
 was the pioneer in a constructive movement which 
 has made our cities interesting, and to some degree 
 beautiful, instead of being commonplace and dreary. 
 His instruction has borne better fruit in America 
 than in his own country; partly because there was 
 more building to be done here, and partly because 
 there was less prejudice to be removed. 
 
 Thus it happens that Ruskin's writings have always 
 an antagonistic quality. He is in the position of an 
 advocate, who has to make an appeal for his client 
 in an unfriendly court. Like Frederick of Prussia 
 he was obliged to fight against a coalition, and if he 
 sometimes had to resort to desperate arguments, and 
 his voice became sometimes shrill and unmusical, 
 can he fairly be blamed for it ? 
 
 His opponents may be divided into three classes. 
 
 First: such as may be called the architectural 
 
 Tories ; who considered the Grecian style the only 
 
 18 
 
274 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 respectable thing, and who looked upon all other 
 styles of architecture, as Carlyle's Scotchman con- 
 sidered poetry, as the productions of a semi-barbar- 
 ous period. 
 
 Secondly: the disciples of John Stuart Mill's 
 philosophy, who believed that industry and economy 
 were the chief virtues of man, and that the true 
 measure of civilization always should be the number 
 of inhabitants to the square mile. 
 
 Thirdly : those who looked on wealth chiefly as a 
 means of self-gratification ; who held the fashions to 
 be paramount to beauty, and filled their houses with 
 expensive ornaments for the sake of ostentation. 
 
 Among these, the second class was the most for- 
 midable in its opposition ; for its doctrines were as 
 adverse to everything like elegance and ornament as 
 the doctrines of Diogenes himself, and they were 
 held by its proselytes with the zeal and tenacity of 
 a religious creed. 
 
 Ruskin entrenched himself upon high ground. 
 He fortified himself against philosophy by reference 
 to Holy Writ, and made the words of the Psalmist, 
 " Thy word is a lamp unto my feet," the founda- 
 tion of his argument. He showed that a building 
 erected to protect man from the elements might not 
 be architecture at all, and, as an historical fact, true 
 architecture only began with the consecration of 
 buildings for religious purposes. Thus it became, 
 like music and poetry, a divine message and means 
 of instruction to mankind. So far as architecture 
 fulfills this demand, it will be vital, beneficial, and 
 beautiful ; but when it fails to do this it will become 
 
Ruskin. 275 
 
 lifeless and worthless. Thus, even from the stand- 
 point of utility, some sacrifice is required to the 
 Graces and Muses. 
 
 Raskin's argument is always for Gothic architect- 
 ure, as against French and Italian Renaissance; 
 and the so-called American Gothic may be fairly 
 claimed as his offspring. The value of Grecian 
 architecture consisted in its columns and its orna- 
 mental sculpture. Their volutes and triglyphs may 
 have had a meaning also to the Greeks; but it is 
 now lost to us, as well as the sculpture which taught 
 them heroism and piety from the pediments of their 
 temples. As domestic architecture it was nothing, 
 and as adapted to modern uses it is simply Hamlet 
 without the Prince of Denmark. It is for this reason 
 wholly uninteresting in its modern dress. We may 
 admire the proportions of a building in the Grecian 
 style, but there our pleasure in it ceases, for there 
 is nothing to examine, nothing to study. 
 
 With the Romans, architecture began in its true 
 sense; that is, according to the meaning of the 
 word. As Christianity itself became established 
 through the supremacy of the Roman empire, so 
 the Roman arch and basilica served for the construc- 
 tion of its edifices until the twelfth century, when 
 true Christian architecture with its pointed arch, 
 lofty spire, and Gothic dome, came into vogue. 
 Here was a lesson for mankind which has lasted 
 ever since. It is doubtful if even the frescos of 
 Michel Angelo are more impressive than the view 
 from the central aisle of Cologne Cathedral. Man 
 has never since constructed anything so wonderful 
 
276 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 (considering the grandeur of the whole and the per- 
 fection of its different parts, to the minutest details), 
 and it hardly seems possible that he ever can. The 
 men who worked on these wonderful structures, says 
 Ruskin, who carved the ornaments for the pinnacles 
 and the myriad forms of animal and floral life, were 
 fortunate compared with the modern stone-cutter, 
 who chisels day after day in a straight line, to hollow 
 a moulding which nobody cares to look at. The 
 carving on the capitols, and the stained pictures on 
 the windows, were alike interesting to the educated 
 and the ignorant. 
 
 Gothic, or Prankish, architecture (as it ought prop- 
 erly to be called) not only reflects the Christian 
 spirit in its heaven-pointing spires and pinnacles, but 
 also in the sincerity of its construction. It shows 
 on the surface what it was designed for, and the way 
 in which it was built ; so that unfaithful or fraudu- 
 lent work is barely possible in it ; and if possible can 
 easily be detected. The pointed arch permits of 
 universal application and infinite variety. The alle- 
 gation that it is not suited to the needs of modern 
 life, Ruskin refuted by practical experiment. He 
 obtained apartments in a Gothic Venetian palace, 
 and found himself as pleasantly situated there as he 
 ever had been in his life. Cathedrals like Strasburg 
 and Cologne would not serve for places of Protestant 
 worship, it is true, but a building like the Duomo 
 at Florence could hardly be excelled as an audi- 
 torium. 
 
 The decline in Gothic architecture was coincident 
 with the religious decline of the fifteenth century, — 
 
Ruskin. 277 
 
 the separation of religion from morality. Then, 
 Ruskin says, came the foul blood of the Renaissance 
 and swept it all away. We must admit, however, 
 that it is a mistake to condemn any particular style 
 of architecture which has stood the test of time. 
 The Roman Renaissance of Bramante and San Gallo 
 has a broad simplicity — we might say, perhaps, an 
 intelligent simplicity — which recommends it to our 
 favor. Change is a necessity of human nature, and 
 the palaces of the Corso are a refreshing change from 
 the fretted architecture of Pisa and Nuremberg. It 
 is easy to imagine how interesting any small bit of 
 legendary sculpture would be to the common people 
 of a city, before the invention of printing. The de- 
 mand for books in the sixteenth century replaced 
 the popular demand for pictures and images, and 
 may have had an effect also on the external appear- 
 ance of buildings. 
 
 There is no reason, however, why we should not 
 return to the Gothic and Romanesque forms, as the 
 great builders of the sixteenth century returned to 
 classic forms. This, in fact, has now been done to a 
 considerable degree. An arch is always an interest- 
 ing object, whether it be the entrance to a tunnel or 
 the door-way to a church ; and no traveller who has 
 passed over the Tite Noir in Switzerland ever forgets 
 that single pointed arch, cut through the mountain 
 flank, as the road descends into the valley of the 
 Rhone. The only question that arises is whether, 
 if arches were more numerous, we should become 
 tired of the sight of them. The tendency at present 
 seems to be to give an impartial consideration to all 
 
278 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 the different styles of architecture. Although Rus- 
 kin carries his antagonism toward the Renaissance 
 rather too far, he has certainly proved two cardinal 
 points in the Stones of Venice, and in a most con- 
 vincing manner. 
 
 First, that the best architecture in Europe arose 
 during the Hfetime of Dante, or during the last half 
 of the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth 
 centuries. It was then that the Rouen and Cologne 
 Cathedrals, the Duomo at Florence, and the Ducal 
 Palace in Venice, as well as the finest English abbeys, 
 were built. We have no sense of disappointment on 
 beholding these mighty structures, such as we feel in 
 St. Peters, at Rome, but rather a feeling of exalta- 
 tion. The truly noble in architecture impresses us 
 with a sense of awe. 
 
 Secondly, he has shown beyond a doubt that while 
 Gothic architecture * had a gradual rise of more than 
 a century and a half, and almost as gradual a decline, 
 the best Renaissance architecture in France and 
 Italy came at first, and it has been gradually declin- 
 ing in elegance and beauty ever since. The palaces 
 designed by Bramante and San Gallo are certainly 
 superior in every way to the Rococo churches of 
 the eighteenth century ; and so is the Louvre built 
 by Francis I. and Henry II. more chaste at least 
 than the palaces of Louis XIV., or the Opera 
 House of Louis Napoleon. The best English 
 Renaissance belongs of course to the time of Sir 
 
 * A Boston gentleman, inspired by Ruskin's writing, built a Gothic 
 porch to his front door on Columbus Avenue, and it is really the one 
 attractive piece of architecture in the street. 
 
Ruskin. 2 79 
 
 Christopher Wren, since which there has been a 
 steady decline till the middle of the present century. 
 It seems time that a new style of architecture was 
 evolved : but whence can it come ? Society is weak 
 because there is no agreement of opinion. New 
 languages grow out of ignorance, and before we can 
 have a really original architecture in America we 
 must forget all that we know of Europe. 
 
 The Seven Lamps of Architecture is an exposition 
 of what may be called the transcendental principles 
 of building. Many architects have confessed to me 
 their indebtedness to this little book. Each chapter 
 in it is a lamp, as bright and sparkling with spirituality 
 as one of Emerson's essays. In t\ie Lamp of Power 
 he analyzes those forms of construction which make 
 the strongest impression on us; in the Lamp of 
 Beauty, those which give us the most agreeable sen- 
 sations ; and in the Lamp of Life he treats those 
 mental conditions which give vigor and vitality to 
 inanimate forms. 
 
 The Stones of Venice is Ruskin's finest work, sur- 
 passing Modern Painters in greatness of design, 
 clearness of statement, and maturity of thought. 
 The first volume is occupied with a discussion of 
 architectural principles and is consequently as inter- 
 esting and dry as the higher mathematics. I think 
 few people who read for information (as distinguished 
 from knowledge) ever get through with it. The 
 second and third volumes belong to English litera- 
 ture, and they are written in a style of such grace 
 and flexibility as is rare enough in any language. 
 Ruskin's narrative has a tender pathos, and his 
 
28o Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 argument a persuasive coquetry which is like the 
 pleading of an affectionate woman. The introduc- 
 tory chapter on Venice itself is a wonderful piece of 
 description, and a refutation to those who assert 
 that pictures cannot be painted with a pen. It is in 
 prose what Childe Harold is in poetry ; for in it the 
 smallest details and most delicate impressions are 
 thrown into relief and given vitality. The early 
 Venetians, he said, had no stone quarries to draw 
 from, but they could obtain clay for bricks, and their 
 ships brought beautiful marbles from other coun- 
 tries, with which they gave their dwellings a coating 
 of enamel as the mollusks do their shells. 
 
 With all this poetry he makes a thorough and prac- 
 tical investigation of Venetian architecture from the 
 earliest times. He goes first to the old church at 
 Torcello, seven miles away — a church dating per- 
 haps from the seventh century — and finds in it the 
 invigorating influence of the Gothic occupation, 
 which changed the Italian language and laid the 
 foundation for Mediaeval Italy. In the old Roman- 
 esque church at Murano he also discovered marvel- 
 lous things; the floor one great mosaic, " dyed like 
 the neck of a dove," and pieces of rare marble in- 
 serted under the windows of the apse, like jewels in 
 a diadem. He identifies six distinct styles of Vene- 
 tian architecture : the Romanesque, the Byzantine, 
 the Gothic, the Roman Renaissance, the Byzantine 
 Renaissance, and the grotesque Renaissance ; be- 
 sides which the Doge's palace, the noblest building 
 in the city, is a composite of Byzantine, Gothic, and 
 Roman Renaissance. The tendency of transition 
 
Ruskin. 281 
 
 types however is to die out, as Darwin shows us in 
 animal life. 
 
 All of these forms except the grotesque Renais- 
 sance are to be seen side by side on the Grand Canal, 
 and though there are some fine Renaissance palaces 
 there, the general verdict is that they are excelled 
 by the Gothic, and that the old Byzantine palace, 
 now called the Fondaco dei Turchi is the most inter- 
 esting of them all. The Palazzo del Camello, where 
 Tintoretto lived, is one of the finest examples of 
 Italian Gothic in the city; while the Casa d'oro, 
 which is always pointed out to travellers, is a showy 
 building and badly designed. 
 
 Ruskin points out that the greatest architects of 
 Venice are now unknown even to the Venetians, 
 and that Palladio, with whose name we are all 
 familiar (perhaps on account of its pleasant sound), 
 was in truth very Jittle of an architect. His chief 
 work, the church of San Georgia Maggiore, has a 
 commanding position, certainly, and an imposing 
 appearance; but who cares to look at it twice ? If 
 it attracts attention from the Hotel Anglais it is for 
 the bad proportion between its four great columns 
 and the portico above it, — a huge, gaunt, unedifying 
 building. And here let us observe the one import- 
 ant omission which Ruskin makes is, that the quality 
 of architecture depends much less on the style, than 
 on the sense of beauty in the architect. That is 
 something for which no rule can be given. A fine 
 sense of proportion is necessary for a good general 
 effect, and a refined taste for the selection of orna- 
 ment; but even these two united will not always 
 
282 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 produce a satisfactory result. I believe the best archi- 
 tecture in Harvard University is Holden Chapel, 
 the oldest and smallest building on the grounds; 
 and yet it belongs to the later English Renaissance, 
 closely resembling Roman Rococo. How many 
 fruitless attempts have been made to engraft Egyp- 
 tian architecture on modern life ; and yet the New 
 York jail called " the Tombs " is perhaps the most 
 impressive building in that city. 
 
 The Venetians became weary of their pompous, 
 palatial Palladio in the seventeenth century, and re- 
 verted to Byzantine types, with which they formed 
 a mixture called the Byzantine Romanesque; and 
 it extended itself over a large portion of Southern 
 Europe, even to the Azores, and is often improperly 
 called Moorish. It has neither the dignity of Ro- 
 man Renaissance nor the originality and vigor of the 
 true Byzantine. After its day was over came the 
 grotesque Renaissance, the most degraded style of 
 architecture of which there is any record. 
 
 Refined taste always accompanies a high standard 
 of morality, and bad taste the reverse.* The for- 
 mula is: first, excellence; then, weakness; and 
 finally, degradation. We read of the decline and 
 fall of the Roman Empire and do not yet feel cer- 
 tain of the causes which produced it. There was 
 quite as decided a decline of civilization in Catholic 
 Europe from the fifteenth to the eighteenth cen- 
 turies. At the time that Napoleon put an end to 
 the Venetian state it was little better than a clan of 
 
 * The early Puritan church architecture of New England was 
 in much finer taste than that of the first half of the present century. 
 
Ruskin. 283 
 
 barbarians, doing nothing, producing nothing, and 
 without skill or virtue in its individual members. If 
 we investigate the causes of this more recent decline, 
 we shall perhaps understand better the character of 
 the preceding one. 
 
 Ruskin's investigation of the Venetian funereal 
 monuments is invaluable to the historian, and comes 
 to the same result. Who has entered the Church of 
 the Templars at London, and seen those old warriors 
 of the Cross resting in their coats of mail, without 
 feeling a deeper sense of the earnestness of life. 
 Those are the noblest monuments in Europe, and if 
 the sculpture is somewhat rude, it is none the less 
 suitable for those grim heroes in their eternal silence. 
 From the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries the 
 monuments of the dead declined in seriousness, but 
 increased in artistic skill : from the sixteenth to the 
 nineteenth centuries they declined in both. Noth- 
 ing is more disgusting than the least touch of osten- 
 tation or vanity about the grave ; and there are some 
 sad examples of it in the Venetian churches. I 
 recollect in one of them the group of a Doge and 
 two ladies, all attired in the highest kind of French 
 millinery, their hair dressed as if for a dancing party, 
 and with a simper on their faces as if they were at 
 that moment entering the ball-room. This was to 
 ornament the Doge's own sepulchre. The sarcophagi 
 in the Roman churches adorned with variegated 
 marbles are sufificiently showy, but this Doge and his 
 ladies are beyond expression in respectable English. 
 
284 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Miscellaneous Work. 
 
 After architecture Ruskin turned to sculpture, but 
 did not succeed so well. In 1873, I purchased in 
 London the most beautiful book that I have ever 
 seen, called Aratra Pentelici, or the Quarrying of 
 Pentelicus, A fine name, and a still finer book, 
 bound in plum-colored calf, (evidently Ruskin's 
 own design,) with matchless illustrations, mostly 
 taken from ancient coins; but the reading matter 
 was not so interesting. 
 
 Ruskin tells a pretty anecdote in the book, of a 
 little beggar-girl who was brought into his kitchen, 
 and amused herself by modelling cats and mice out 
 of scraps of pastry. 
 
 This he declares to be the origin of sculpture ; but 
 in saying so, he contradicts his previous statements 
 in regard to architecture. The mere imitation of 
 natural objects in wood or stone may have led to 
 sculpture, as the erection of a hut led to the building 
 of a temple ; but in order to become sculpture it re- 
 quires the addition of ideality, either in the form of 
 an elevated purpose like an Egyptian deity, or of 
 superior excellence as in the Wild Boar at Florence. 
 An Egyptian idol may be considered a work of art, 
 in spite of its stiffness and crudeness, because it is a 
 definite attempt to represent an idea; whereas a 
 Malay idol only represents a hideous confusion. 
 
 Ruskin had an essentially pictorial mind. In 
 Aratra Pentelici he deals chiefly with coins and relief- 
 work, which approach most nearly in treatment to 
 the art of painting. His criticism of the sculptured 
 
Ruskin. 285 
 
 ornaments on architecture is also interesting, but 
 when he reverts to the masterpieces of classic sculp- 
 ture his remarks are not always pertinent. He does 
 not like the St. George of Donatello, or the Night, 
 and Moses, of Michel Angelo. He may be correct 
 in supposing that the face of the Venus of Milo is 
 not exceptionally beautiful, and that the statue owes 
 its pre-eminence to the expression which the sculptor 
 has given it. 
 
 Ruskin's later writings correspond to Carlyle's 
 latter-day pamphlets, and also resembled Turner's 
 later work ; being characterized by vagueness, impa- 
 tience, and also a slight eccentricity. Brilliant pas- 
 sages may be found in them ; but they are like roses 
 choked among weeds. Inconsiderate people have 
 judged him by this, instead of his earlier and better 
 sort of industry. He published a number of small 
 volumes in the same exquisite style as Aratra Pen- 
 telici. One was called the Eagle's Nest, or Hints to 
 Young Housewives ; another, Sesame and Lilies, con- 
 taining two admirable lectures on education for the 
 sake of education, — instead of education for mer- 
 cenary purposes, or for the sake of distinction. If 
 he had gone to Germany he could have found thou- 
 sands of well-equipped scholars, who have studied 
 devotedly without the slightest hoped of distinction ; 
 but Ruskin always had a prejudice about Germany. 
 He disliked German painting, and condemned 
 German philosophy, of which he had imbibed 
 much himself through Carlyle, without studying 
 it. He never learned that a writer should confine 
 
286 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 himself to those subjects with which he is best ac- 
 quainted. 
 
 His political economy is pretty mad stuff ; yet he 
 half consciously made a satire of it on that arrogant 
 young science, which is still in its school-boy days. 
 His fundamental principle, that the true wealth of 
 a nation consists rather in superior men and women 
 than in gold and silver — that we should subsidize 
 character and talent rather than steamship lines, and 
 not leave them to the mercy of Darwinian evolution 
 — is something that our legislators would do well to 
 consider. His literary criticism (published only in 
 magazines) was interesting, but decidedly erratic. 
 He liked Byron for his mental breadth, and disliked 
 Wordsworth, who was after all the Fra Angelico of 
 poets. He admired Scott, and railed against 
 Dickens. 
 
 I have said nothing of Ruskin's Oxford lectures, 
 which aroused such enthusiasm among the students, 
 instead of chilling the blood in their veins ; nor of his 
 philanthropy, which was enough of itself to adorn 
 and distinguish him. Nearly at the close of his life 
 he performed a graceful act of kindness, by interest- 
 ing himself in an American artist, Miss Frances 
 Alexander, living in Florence. With one word he 
 made her famous. This was partly because she had 
 carried to perfection the principles he elaborated 
 long since in his Elements of Drawing; but it was 
 also" well deserved. He edited her Story of Ida, 
 which has become an American classic; and her 
 simple but interesting tales of Tuscan life. About 
 the same time he published a small book called 
 
Ruskin. 287 
 
 Mornings in Florence, which contains some of his 
 purest and most delicate art-criticism. 
 
 We feel the highest obligation to seers like Goethe 
 and Carlyle, who point out the way for us to a 
 better future ; and next to them we are indebted to 
 those who recall the mighty past, to check the arro- 
 gance and self-sufficiency of the present time. This 
 was Ruskin's privilege in life, and he felt it to be a 
 privilege. He taught most emphatically the lesson, 
 that the progress of a people in civilization does not 
 depend so much on their institutions, as on their 
 being animated by the right mental tone. This it 
 is on which the permanence or improvement of all 
 institutions will depend. 
 
F. MAX MULLER 
 
 FICTION, written by a man or woman of genius, 
 will contain more valuable truth than those 
 facts of nature which we collect for the purposes 
 of generalization and which we could collect again 
 if the dog Diamond, or a servant-girl, should de- 
 stroy them for us; but there is no romance yet 
 written so stimulating to the imagination as the 
 story of the migration of the Aryan races from 
 their primeval home in Central Asia. How they 
 started from a small community, perhaps from a 
 single family, multiplied and increased through the 
 wisdom which destiny had given them as a birth- 
 right, until now they have inherited the whole globe, 
 with the exception of China, Turkey, and Farther 
 India. The Aryan, or ploughing races, began by 
 cultivating the soil, and afterwards proceeded to cul- 
 tivate themselves ; and this application of the word 
 both in a physical and spiritual sense, is thoroughly 
 characteristic of their history. It is through lan- 
 guage alone, and their respect for language, that we 
 are able to learn the course of their development 
 and their migrations. Otherwise, it would never 
 have been suspected that the light-haired English 
 
 s88 
 
/^ Max Muller. 289 
 
 were related to the dark-skinned inhabitants of 
 India. 
 
 If we return to Asia, however, to find the ancient 
 domicile of our distant ancestors, we are disap- 
 p®inted. The house is no longer standing. We like 
 to think that they came from the vale of Cashmir, 
 the most beautiful spot of ground in Asia, if not in 
 the world ; but there is no certainty of it. Neither 
 have we discovered the parent tongue of which 
 Sanskrit, Zend, Greek, Roman, and all European 
 languages are the progeny. We can approximate 
 it closely, but cannot say decisively what it was. 
 We cannot conjugate to be or to have in ancient 
 Aryan. We see the oak-tree that has grown up and 
 spread its branches to the sky, but if we uncover its 
 roots we find no trace of the acorn from which it 
 sprang. Even the Greeks, who were among the last 
 of the many offshoots from the parent stem, and the 
 first to become intelligent in the modern sense, re- 
 membered nothing, and had no tradition of their 
 original birthplace. It is only through comparative 
 philology that we are able to make out something 
 of these prehistoric movements, and can determine 
 nearly the degree of relationship which one branch 
 in this large family bears to another. We know, for 
 instance, that we Anglo-Saxons are more nearly re- 
 lated to the Greeks and Romans than we are to the 
 Russians, or, perhaps, to the French and Spaniards. 
 
 These grand results of comparative philology, as 
 determined by Oriental societies, were known, in a 
 general way, before the publication of Max Miiller's 
 work on the Science of Language, in 1861; but the 
 
 J9 
 
ago Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 honor belongs to him of being the first to give a 
 definite and elaborate form to this subject, and to 
 develop from it a literature similar to that which 
 Ruskin founded on art. 
 
 Max Miiller, as he is universally called, was born 
 at Dessau, in 1822, and graduated at Leipzig in 
 1843 — ^"^ early age for a German university. From 
 his earliest years he showed rare facility in the acqui- 
 sition of knowledge, and became so thoroughly 
 versed in philosophy, history, and literature, that he 
 might soon have obtained a professorship in either 
 of those branches. This universality of acquirements 
 lasted him through life, and is a distinguishing fea- 
 ture of his career as a scholar and man of letters. 
 German universities are admitted to be the best in 
 the world, but Muller was a cosmopolitan by nature. 
 He accordingly went to Paris to learn the best that 
 was to be had there and soon fell under the influence 
 of Eugene Burnouf, the Nestor of oriental scholar- 
 ship. He made such progress in the study of 
 Sanskrit, that, depending on his splendid constitu- 
 tion, he determined to attempt a complete transla- 
 tion of the Rig-Veda, a gigantic work, such as man 
 has rarely attempted without assistance. In order to 
 do this he was obliged to change his nationality once 
 more, for the only complete manuscripts of the Vedas 
 were in the Bodleian Library. He became professor 
 of modern languages at Oxford in 1854, and the 
 chair of comparative philology was tardily bestowed 
 in 1868. He has, however, remained a German at 
 heart, as appeared from his patriotic feeling for his 
 native country during the Franco-German war. 
 
F. Max Mailer. 291 
 
 He is probably the most distinguished scholar 
 living, and one of the most famous of the century. 
 That he is an honorary member of the French 
 Academy, and associate of some forty other learned 
 societies, may be taken for what it is worth. No 
 man's celebrity is increased by such honors. The 
 true honor consists in deserving them without re- 
 ceiving them. But Muller is not only a scholar; he 
 is also an excellent writer. His English is not 
 studied, but rather careless, and the great number 
 of his publications would indicate that he wrote 
 without taking much pains to revise his manuscript. 
 We like him the better for this, for it shows that he is 
 aiming at the exposition of his subject rather than 
 for literary reputation. We much prefer such a 
 style to the elaborate periods of Macaulay, for it 
 leaves the reader more free to form his own impres- 
 sions. He is as fluent as Cardinal Newman, aad at 
 the same time more frank and manly. Standing 
 almost alone among Englishmen in regard to some 
 of his opinions, he has always expressed them in a 
 fearless and candid manner. It is remarkable how 
 perfectly at home he has made himself in a foreign 
 tongue. Although he deals with the most marvel- 
 lous subject since the discovery of the planetary 
 system, he never loses himself in the marvellous, 
 but is always cool-headed and self-contained. At 
 the same time he has a pleasant enthusiasm for his 
 subject, which he communicates to the reader. 
 
 Miiller's sense of fine literature, which is not so 
 very common, even among the educated, has three 
 distinct advantages, — one for him, one for his subject, 
 
292 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 and one for his audience. It has made an import- 
 ant difference, whether our knowledge of the Vedic 
 Hymns, Zend-Avesta, and of the Buddhist sacred 
 writings, came to us through the medium of a hber- 
 ally cultivated mind, or from the hands of a narrow 
 and intolerant pedant. It is not only scholars who 
 wish to know about them ; they profoundly interest 
 the general public, especially clergymen, and other 
 serious thinkers. A great religious revolution has 
 been taking place in the nineteenth century, only 
 surpassed by that of the sixteenth. It has been a 
 quiet revolution, but none the less deep-seated and 
 radical. Even the Catholic Church felt it, and has 
 remodelled itself somewhat in consequence. For- 
 tunately, the religious toleration which we learned 
 of our ancestors has prevented it from being as 
 bloody as the political revolutions which have 
 taken place during the same period. This may be 
 owing to indifference as well as toleration ; but mod- 
 erate indifference is better than that kind of religious 
 devotion which leads a man to sacrifice his life for 
 the sake of small distinctions in creed. The liberal 
 movement has had its martyrs, however, none the 
 less devoted because their torture has been slow and 
 gradual. Men have starved and finally died for it, 
 without attracting public attention in a considerable 
 degree. 
 
 It should be noticed that all established forms of 
 Christianity, have been based, not on the teachings 
 of Christ, but on their interpretation by synods 
 or councils of ecclesiastics. This was found neces- 
 sary as soon as the new faith had acquired the as- 
 
F. Max Muller. 295 
 
 cendancy over paganism ; because where every man 
 was allowed to make his own interpretation, such 
 wide differences of opinion arose that the Christian 
 church was in danger of being disintegrated and 
 swamped by them. With the progress of knowl- 
 edge, and scientific inquiry, as the world became 
 more enlightened, continual revision of the proceed- 
 ings of the councils was required. Thus there has 
 been constant change from one century to another, 
 until a great division came in the sixteenth century, 
 which ultimately reformed the Catholic Church, as 
 well as those sects which had seceded from it. Now 
 comes the nineteenth century with its formidable 
 array of scientific facts, which the stoutest believers 
 are unable to ignore. They may explain passages in 
 the Bible allegorically or poetically, but their con- 
 sciences are not satisfied. So we have Unitarianism, 
 Transcendentalism, and Andover Heresy; and in 
 Europe an undertone of radical distrust threatens to 
 break forth at any moment, in revolt against estab- 
 lished usages. 
 
 The breaking down of so many old beliefs and 
 traditions, has brought with it a desire to reconsider 
 the whole subject and to find out not only where 
 Christianity stands to-day in its relation to the pres- 
 ent needs of humanity, but also to learn what is its 
 relation to other important religions. The idea 
 gains ground continually, that, as the human race 
 constitutes one great body, whose interests are 
 identical, and from which no one part can effectually 
 separate itself, so that, (as President Lincoln said in 
 his Proclamation), by giving freedom to the black 
 
294 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 man, we insure its preservation to the white, — thus, 
 likewise, do all the religions of the earth form a 
 complete whole, a code of sacred laws, in which one 
 part bears a distinct relation to every other, and in 
 which not even the most degraded creed can properly 
 be treated with contempt. When Christianity was 
 struggling for existence, the case was different ; but 
 we have recovered from the notion that all men are 
 condemned to hell-fire who have not been baptized 
 in the name of Jesus; and in the day of their su- 
 premacy Christians can well afford to look with im- 
 partial eye on other forms of faith. Has not even 
 the rude fetich of the South African a representative 
 character by which it is closely allied to words like 
 spirit, understanding, perdition, which from a material 
 significance have passed to a spiritual one ? Max 
 Miiller says in his lecture on the Vedas : 
 
 " In the study of mankind there can hardly be a sub- 
 ject more deeply interesting than the study of the differ- 
 ent forms of religion ; and much as I value the Science 
 of Language for the aid which it lends us in unravelling 
 some of the most complicated tissues of the human in- 
 tellect, I confess that to my mind there is no study more 
 absorbing than that of the Religions of the World, — the 
 study, if I may so call it, of the various languages in 
 which man has spoken to his Maker, and of that lan- 
 guage in which his Maker " at sundry times and in divers 
 manners " speaks to man. 
 
 " One religion, Mohammedanism, is so well known to 
 us that we may almost say we have seen it rise and pro- 
 gress with our own eyes. It is the latest of all the im- 
 portant rehgious faiths, and the most aggressive. As a 
 
F. Max Mailer. 295 
 
 creed it has noble qualities ; as Hegel says : * Modern 
 Europe has produced no grander personalities than some 
 of the Saracen monarchs ; but the literature of Moham- 
 medanism is confined to a set of rules of conduct and a 
 record of religious observances ; and for that reason, we 
 suspect, is incapable of progress.' Brahmanism how- 
 ever, has an extensive literature ; probably the old- 
 est records of human thought and feeling in existence. 
 When we read Homer we realize that we have a very old 
 book before us. If we next go to the Book of Genesis, we 
 feel that to be still older. It is like the speech of a man 
 of ninety ; but the hymns of the Vedas have the vague- 
 ness and nebulosity of thought that has been crystal- 
 lized into speech gradually, and for the first time. As a 
 record of the earliest spiritual consciousness of the human 
 race, they are invaluable. Portions of Genesis may be 
 as old or even older ; but the Vedas represented to the 
 Hindoo mind what Exodus and the Psalms meant to the 
 Hebrews. Buddhism and the Persian Sun-worship also 
 have a literature, less extensive than Brahmanism, and 
 more limited than the Hebrew ; but still no honest per- 
 son can study them without admiration and wonder. 
 The five commandments of Buddha correspond, with 
 some limitations, to the Ten Commandments of Moses. 
 The story of his life is a religious romance of the highest 
 order." 
 
 Thus Max Miiller became not only the translator 
 of these sacred texts, but their commentator, and 
 brought their significance within the reach of all 
 intelligent English-speaking persons. The Zend- 
 Avesta, it is true, had already been translated, but he 
 has given us the most impartial and penetrating criti- 
 cism of it, — unless a more elaborate is to be found 
 
296 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 in Samuel Johnson's Oriental Religions. An English 
 reviewer says, " Max Muller is always a little bit of 
 a preacher, and ready to let his arguments stray into 
 broad theology, a fact which endears him to those 
 who are seeking a safe channel between the Scylla, 
 of Newman, and the Charybdis, of Huxley." There 
 is suiificient truth in this, and the reason for it is, that 
 he brought with him to England the philosophy of 
 his native country. It is the transcendental philos- 
 ophy which forms the basis of Max Miiller's critical 
 work, and has made him what he is as a writer. 
 
 This is not the place to open a discussion on the 
 merits of German philosophy, but in the very first 
 consideration of the subject we are met by a curious 
 anomaly. It is the only notable school of meta- 
 physics in the nineteenth century, which has not 
 extended itself over France, England, and America. 
 It has gained a foothold in Edinburgh and Dublin ; 
 it has been taught at Harvard College; but, I be- 
 lieve, never at Oxford or Cambridge, in England. 
 In England and America it has been treated with 
 ridicule, contempt, and something like abhorrence. 
 Yet it has proved the one source of mental inspira- 
 tion of the century. In America, Longfellow, 
 Lowell, Emerson, and Channing have all depended 
 on it; and so have Carlyle, Byron, Coleridge, 
 Wordsworth, Matthew Arnold, and Tennyson, in 
 England. Horace Mann was a transcendentalist ; 
 and so is William T. Harris, the chief of our na- 
 tional bureau of education at Washington. Many 
 have felt its influence who never heard its name; 
 and in proof of this general assertion I will summon 
 
F. Max Mailer. 297 
 
 a single witness whose orthodoxy is beyond question 
 and whose nanae carries with it the profound respect 
 of millions of admirers. William E. Gladstone says 
 in his Romanes Lecture : 
 
 " As the German philosophy has in recent times largely 
 dominated the thought of the world, it is matter of in- 
 terest for us all to look back to its fountain heads. In 
 a work of authority by Zant, on the amount of influ- 
 ence brought to bear on that philosophy during the 
 eighteenth century by English writers, from Bacon on- 
 wards, that influence is stated to have largely exceeded 
 any that was drawn from other foreign sources. Fur- 
 ther, we learn that the power exercised by Locke, and 
 familiarly known to have been extensive in France, went 
 far beyond that of any other British writer, and, indeed, 
 reached such a height in Germany also, and in America, 
 as well as in England, that it can only be compared with 
 the dominion of Aristotle over the middle age, or that 
 of Kant over the German writers of the present century." 
 
 Two points are conspicuous in this statement : first, 
 that the influence of German philosophy is considered 
 proven ; second, that German metaphysics have also 
 been largely influenced by the earlier English philos- 
 ophers, from Bacon to Locke and Hume. The two 
 taken together prove that Kant and his successors 
 hold an established position in the history of phil- 
 osophy, which no student in that field can safely 
 disregard. 
 
 - Why is it that the English critic speaks of Miiller 
 as offering a safe deliverance between Newman and 
 Huxley, — between blindly following in the foot- 
 
298 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 steps of tradition, and falling back on the absolutism 
 of physical science ? The reason is, that German 
 philosophy is the only school which recognizes spirit 
 or mind, as an entity. " There is one mind," said 
 Emerson, " common to all individual men." " I 
 know only two things," said Wasson, " mind and 
 matter; and it is the mind in the Universe which 
 makes it go." Mind is the master and matter is 
 the slave. The positivist afifirms the opposite of 
 this. He goes outside of himself, and takes his 
 stand on terra-firma. He classifies all things as 
 either animate or inanimate; but both to him are 
 physical. He cannot understand what constitutes 
 the difference between these two, because he has 
 gone out from himself, and left spirit behind him. 
 He is like a man looking for his hat while it is on 
 his head. 
 
 " Thou seekest Him through globes and fires? 
 He is the essence that inquires." 
 
 The English utilitarian recognizes the existence of 
 spirit, but treats the subject objectively, instead of 
 subjectively, and by his doctrine of usefulness, a 
 doctrine which cannot be carried to the length of 
 self-renunciation, gives the dominion to physical 
 causes. 
 
 The sentence which we have seen so often on the 
 Journal of Speculative Philosophy, a saying of No- 
 valis, " Philosophy can bake no bread, but it will 
 give us God, freedom, and immortality," sounds 
 the key-note of German metaphysics. It is based, 
 as all constructive philosophy must be based, on the 
 
F. Max Mailer. 29^ 
 
 validity of consciousness. We know the world is 
 real, and that life is not an empty dream, because 
 we are conscious of its reality. We know that we 
 possess freedom of choice and action, because we 
 are concious of free-will. We believe that the soul 
 is immortal, because we are conscious of ourselves 
 as spiritual entities ; and in like manner we are con- 
 scious of a central spiritual power, which we denom- 
 inate God. As soon as we commence to doubt this, 
 everything becomes unreal and the world goes to 
 pieces before our eyes. A fact of consciousness can 
 never be proved like a scientific fact. Endless dis- 
 cussions on the subject come to no result. We 
 must either believe or disbelieve, as we do in 
 religion. 
 
 Thus German metaphysics became the religious 
 philosophy of the nineteenth century, as Platonism 
 was the religious philosophy of the Greeks. Even 
 Cardinal Newman is ready to admit the influence 
 of Greek philosophy, and especially Platonism, on 
 the first centuries of Christianity. This faith in the 
 spiritual unseen, may not have an equal value with 
 absolute truth, but it stands next to it; and there 
 are many who will always believe that it has a 
 greater value. There can be no doubt, for instance, 
 that the influence of a belief in hell-fire on the bar- 
 barous Franks and Goths, when first converted to 
 the Roman Church, was favorable and beneficial. 
 The relation between Transcendentalism and Pla- 
 tonism is a very close one, — Emerson probably 
 knew more of Plato than he did of Kant, — and if 
 we go back two thousand years, we find in the 
 
30O Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Vedas a religious philosophy of the same general 
 character. Hegel says, " Since vastness of imagina- 
 tipn is the true measure of poetry, if the form of 
 these hymns were equal to the content, they would 
 be the greatest of poems." Their grandeur is be- 
 yond question, though, as in all poetry, it requires 
 imagination to appreciate this ; but they are vague, 
 cloudy, and almost incoherent to our modern sense. 
 Dark and indefinite as they are in expression, here 
 and there the light breaks through them, with such 
 clear-shining intelligence that we seem to pene- 
 trate to the very arcana of creation. There are 
 glorious vistas in them. The passage which has been 
 rendered into modern verse, with the title oi Brahma, 
 still remains the noblest description of divine power 
 in all ages. There is nothing in Dante or Milton to 
 be compared with it for philosophic depth and pic- 
 torial grandeur. The rays of morning light which 
 the Greeks called the arrows of Phoebus (shafts of 
 intelligence slaying the monsters of darkness, — a 
 figure which Carlyle makes use of) were a perpetual 
 object of veneration with the Vedic poets, though 
 they were not worshipped literally, — or at least not 
 till the later traditional age, — but in their represen- 
 tative character. They are symbolized as the " fast- 
 running hounds" and by other metaphors which 
 seem to us curious enough. The disappearance of 
 the sun in the west, and its re-appearance in the east, 
 was a constant source of wonder to these primeval 
 sages ; as it well might be to any one who reflected 
 on the subject, and was at the same time ignorant 
 of physical causes. The fables by which they ac- 
 
F. Max Mailer. 301 
 
 counted for this are among the strangest and most 
 monstrous in all mythology ; but the fact evidently 
 signified to them the conflict and triumph of the 
 powers of light over darkness, or, carried a step 
 further, of intelligence over ignorance and dullness. 
 The Sanskrit Devi, which was collateral with detis, 
 from which we derive deity, is derived from a root 
 meaning bright or shining. 
 
 Nor does the fact appear improbable. The less 
 the primitive man knew of natural causes, the nearer 
 he would feel to the supreme power (if he once 
 recognized it) which presides over nature, and which 
 appeared to him in the lightning and the storm, the 
 beneficent rain, and the deadly bite of the serpent. 
 As these phenomena came gradually to have a phys- 
 ical aspect, and their action appeared more intelli- 
 gible, he would lose that sense of deity, with which 
 they were at first connected, until the undevout 
 master of sciences ceases to find a deity anywhere 
 in the universe. The philosopher, however, per- 
 ceives in the correlation and conservation of forces 
 that there must be an originating rationality at the 
 other end of the chain ; a mental power, immeasur- 
 able, but still like his own; and he returns at a 
 single leap to the same point from which the Hindoo 
 seer started in the dawn of civilization. Let us not 
 forget, however, the words of the Psalmist, " If I 
 take unto myself the wings of the morning, and fly 
 to the uttermost parts of the earth, lo! Thou art 
 there"; an apostrophe unequalled and unsurpass- 
 able. 
 
 Max Miiller's various essays on Brahmanism and 
 
302 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 the worship of Zoroaster form a literature, that 
 might almost be called sacred literature, so pure are 
 they in thought and expression, so comprehensive 
 and impartial. The Orientals themselves might well 
 feel grateful to have found so candid an interpreter 
 of their creeds and rites. Not long since a vener- 
 able clergyman said to me, " Prof. Miiller is not 
 only an interesting writer, but he gives an elevated 
 character to whatever topic he touches." In fact, 
 he shows the finest qualities of a Christian. 
 
 One of his most valuable publications is the vol- 
 ume called Science of Religion, which also contains 
 a treatise on Buddhism, and a translation of the 
 Dhammapada, or Buddhist path of virtue. Tradi- 
 tional theologians were much disgusted at the title 
 of the volume, but I never heard that they succeeded 
 in discovering any flagrant heresy in it. Taking the 
 religions of the world as an organic whole, even if 
 we divide them into the primitive or natural, the 
 idolatrous, and the revealed, certain underlying prin- 
 ciples are discovered in them, which correspond to 
 the principles which Miiller has established in the 
 Science of Language ; not that there is any corre- 
 spondence between different languages and different 
 religions, but as Miiller makes out, the same process 
 of generaHzation may be applied to both. This is 
 his theory, and the natural result of taking so broad 
 a survey of the subject ; for the reflective mind will 
 always seek points of similarity from which to de- 
 duce general laws. It is thus that the most impor- 
 tant discoveries have been made. 
 
 If we look at the civilizations of Egypt, Palestine, 
 
F. Max Mailer. 303 
 
 and Greece, and compare them with those of India, 
 Persia, and China, the former have the same relation 
 to the latter that a man's right hand bears to his left. 
 We improve with our right hands continually, but 
 the left always remain subordinate, and rarely at- 
 tains an equal dexterity in any respect. The Egyp- 
 tians, like the Brahmans, were polytheists, but the 
 Persians were monotheists, though their religion had 
 not the same elevation as that of the Jews, whose 
 deity could not be expressed in outward form, or by 
 a natural symbol. The Persians despised the poly- 
 theism of the Greeks, as monotheists always despise 
 it. The correspondence between Buddhism and 
 Christianity, even to the doctrine of the Immaculate 
 Conception, is almost startling. It is, however, a 
 negative correspondence, like the wrong side of a 
 carpet, teaching a submissive goodness instead of 
 active, energetic virtue. Nirvana is a negative 
 heaven; the inactive goal of all human activity. 
 Buddhism was the protest and reaction against the 
 iron-bound traditionalism of the Hindoos ; and like 
 Christianity, it was cast out from the people among 
 whom it originated, and adopted by alien races. 
 While, however, the converts to Christianity were, 
 if anything, superior to the Hebrews, the converts 
 to Buddhism were decidedly inferior to the Aryan 
 race from which it sprang. Whether its lack of 
 progress is due to this fact, or is inherent in the 
 character of the faith, it is not easy to decide. As 
 Samuel Johnson says, " Modern European civiliza- 
 tion is compounded of Christianity, the Roman Law, 
 the Grecian art, and German manliness," while the 
 
304 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Buddhist races have only the advantage of a pure, 
 but Hmited religious faith. The Dhammapada is an 
 elevated gospel, so far as it goes, and contains much 
 practical wisdom. It says, " Run not after the 
 pleasures of love; in contemplation there is sufifi- 
 cient joy " ; and those who have had experience can 
 testify that there is no pleasure like reflection, — of 
 thinking on elevated subjects. 
 
 We have not yet exhausted Plato and Aristotle. 
 The idea contained in Plato's _/"^r»2J — that the form 
 of an object, like a cup, for instance, is as real as the 
 material of which it is made — is a lesson that ought 
 to be taught to every school-boy. Aristotle believed 
 that the ultimate reality is self -activity; and this is 
 the problem which scientific men are now attempt- 
 ing to solve — the difference between animate and 
 inanimate. The most powerful microscope, how- 
 ever, does not bring them any nearer to it than the 
 naked eye; and it is safe to predict that it never 
 will. Quite as deep a chasm exists between self- 
 conscious and unconscious life. Of all the distinc- 
 tions between man and brute, this is the primary 
 and all-including. Only through self-consciousness 
 could language become possible, and the origin of 
 both language and consciousness is the most im- 
 portant problem that philosophers have now to deal 
 with. It is the intellectual correlative of the Dar- 
 winian theory. I understand Prof. Muller's opinion 
 to be, that language forms a barrier between man 
 and brute that the latter, as such, will never be able 
 to cross. This seems like an opposition to Darwin- 
 
F. Max Mailer. 305 
 
 ian evolution, and has brought him into conflict with 
 the school of Huxley and Darwin, who wished to 
 explain everything in nature by physical causes. At 
 the same time Miiller does not deny the probability 
 of the human race being descended from even the 
 ichthyosaurus. The distinction is a puzzling one, 
 and to those who do not recognize Aristotle's self- 
 activity, it seems like a contradiction. 
 
 J. K. Paine affirms that there is no music in na- 
 ture ; that the songs of birds are melodious, but they 
 are not melody. When we think of it, it seems 
 difificult to decide whether the song of a mocking- 
 bird is music or not ; but real music has a definite 
 form and arrangement, to which the songs of birds 
 do not correspond. The songs of mankind are not 
 derived from birds, and they require a high degree 
 of civilization. One is the result of nature and the 
 other of art. There is a gap between the two of a 
 hundred thousand years. Both kinds of singing are 
 produced in the same manner, however; and so are 
 the words of men and the cries of brutes. But the 
 latter do not subserve the purpose of language in the 
 smallest degree, for they are not intended for com- 
 munication. This is the important point. 
 
 One of Emerson's fanciful notions was, that the 
 time might come when we could communicate with 
 birds and beasts as we do with one another. I think 
 we already communicate with them, much more than 
 they do with one another. The cries of animals ex- 
 press affection, pleasure, fear, and rage, and they are 
 uttered simply as interjections. There is evidently 
 more communication between an intelligent horse 
 
3o6 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 and his groom, than between two horses in the same 
 pasture. If a calf is alarmed, it runs to the cow ; not 
 the cow to the calf. There are mice too shrewd and 
 cunning to enter a trap, but they do not know how to 
 prevent their own offspring from doing it. The in- 
 stinct of animals is a wonderful thing, and among 
 them all there is nothing more remarkable than the 
 regulation in a hive of bees. Yet we can hardly 
 suppose it owing to reason; and it is to be feared 
 that many of the anecdotes illustrating the sagacity 
 of animals, which Darwin collected, have an ex parte 
 character. 
 
 If we take it for granted, or as already proven, 
 that man is descended from the gorilla, the origin 
 of consciousness and the origin of language still re- 
 main to be explained. Neither do I believe they 
 can be explained by physical phenomena. To say 
 that they are the natural concomitant of the physi- 
 cal change, might be called stealing the question. 
 The gorilla still roams through the forests of Africa, 
 without any need, and apparently without any desire, 
 for a change in his condition. Do we not perceive 
 in our own lives that the mental change always pre- 
 cedes the physical ? A young man finds that his 
 arms are weak, and entertains an ambition for good 
 muscular development. Nothing is easier than to 
 obtain this if he is assiduous and persevering. Such 
 is the history of civilization ; but where does the im- 
 pulse come from ? It is like the impulse of the poet 
 or hero, and when it attains universal importance, we 
 call it inspiration. It is easy to imagine that the 
 first word was spoken from the urgent desire of a 
 
F. Max Mailer. 307 
 
 father to warn his family of approaching danger ; or 
 it may have been from the feeHng of awe at some 
 exceptional convulsion of nature. Whether the in- 
 spiration came from without, or was concealed in the 
 germ of the earliest protoplasm, or earliest monad, 
 it certainly was not a physical impulse. The voice 
 of man is not like the sound of a hollow tree. If 
 language originated, as Max Muller thinks, out of 
 such cries as workmen make use of to one another, 
 yet these cries are wholly different from the exclam- 
 ations of animals. They have a deliberate inten- 
 tion, which the cries of animals never have. Children, 
 and men under excitement, think aloud, and we 
 may infer from this that in the beginning, thought 
 and language came simultaneously. As it is now we 
 do not wholly think in words, nor are we able to 
 think without them. 
 
 This may seem like a digression, but it was neces- 
 sary in order to make the character of Prof. Miiller's 
 work intelligible, and to explain his position in the 
 intellectual life of the century. Although he has 
 excited strong opposition, standing almost alone 
 among academic men, his influence has been second 
 to that of few. The number of sermons that have 
 been constructed from his Chips from a German 
 Workshop would be almost beyond estimate — and 
 so much the better. Thus his ideas and rare in- 
 formation have been scattered broadcast over the 
 Anglo-Saxon world. He has been looked upon as 
 a dangerous Radical by some, and by others he has 
 been considered the enemy of progress ; but he has 
 held his course consistently to his own thought and 
 
3o8 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 belief, for forty years, without swerving from the 
 ideal of high-minded scholarship, which he set for 
 himself in the beginning. Like Froude he has con- 
 sidered that his business in life was to extend the 
 knowledge of mankind, and not to waste time in 
 fruitless controversies. When he has found occasion 
 to answer his opponents, his replies have been spirited 
 and entertaining. His final retort to Prof. W. D. 
 Whitney caused amusement, even at Yale Univer- 
 sity, where public opinion was naturally in favor of 
 its own savant. As the venerable clergyman said, 
 " Whitney and Muller did not disagree so much, as 
 Prof. Whitney supposed." * 
 
 If we were to quarrel with Max Muller on any 
 one point, it would be on his opinion that national- 
 ity is the result of a common language. This is so 
 near the truth, that we have to admit that nationality 
 is impossible without a common language ; but if we 
 look at it from the other side, we see that it is na- 
 tionality, and that only, which gives language a 
 definite form, merging a number of similar dialects 
 into a common vernacular. The two are insepar- 
 able, though it is true that a language may survive 
 after its nationality has become extinct. A com- 
 mon descent, however, and community of interests, 
 also have their share in constituting nationality. 
 The French have many of the same traits now, which 
 Csesar describes as belonging to the Gauls, and yet 
 the Gallic race has changed its language twice since 
 that time. The Irish race in Great Britain, America, 
 
 * However, as an English reviewer noticed, we should always 
 remember the priority of Professor MflUer's work. 
 
F. Max Mailer. 309 
 
 and Australia constitute a nationality of their own. 
 They have a language of their own, but compara- 
 tively few of them speak it. In this country they 
 do not consider themselves Americans, and though 
 they take an interest in national affairs it is only 
 for the benefit of their own race. There is some- 
 thing in the nature of language which defies analysis 
 It is the most ingenious of human inventions, and 
 yet it seems like a natural growth. 
 
 Professor Miiller is now engaged upon a large work 
 on mythology, but he doubts if his time will be ex- 
 tended until he can finish it. "I have spent my 
 life," he says, " in quarrying a big stone — the trans- 
 lation of The Vedas ; but it has made a slave of me 
 and cost me dear. Now I want to say a few things, 
 but I fear it is too late. 
 
 " I have always remained a German; but I have 
 never regretted pitching my tent in England, I 
 have lived here till over seventy without being inter- 
 fered with. I consider England a sine qua non of 
 Europe." 
 
MATTHEW ARNOLD 
 
 WHEN we were boys at school in Concord we 
 read, at Emerson's suggestion, a book by 
 Thomas Hughes, called School Days at Rugby ; much 
 the best book of its kind that has yet appeared 
 in English. In it there was a character different 
 from all the rest, a boy named Arthur, of a poetic 
 nature, and superior to his companions in sincerity 
 and purity of manners. When the sequel to School 
 Days at Rugby was published, we missed Arthur in 
 its dramatis personm, and regretted that he had dis- 
 appeared from our view. I have long supposed that 
 this high-minded youth, who assisted Dr. Arnold 
 in reforming Tom Brown, was intended for Dr. 
 Arnold's own son, who must have been at school 
 at about the same time with Thomas Hughes. 
 
 Very few of the external facts of Matthew Arnold's 
 life have yet been made public. In the necrology 
 of the London Times for 1888, his name appears as 
 the most distinguished of that year. We only learn 
 that he was born in 1822; that he studied at Lale- 
 ham and Rugby ; that he was chosen a Fellow of 
 Oriel at Oxford ; that he served the Marquis of 
 Lansdowne for a time as private secretary ; was ap- 
 
 310 
 
Matthew Arnold. 311 
 
 pointed on a commission to examine the systems of 
 education in France and Germany; and suddenly 
 fell dead in the streets of Liverpool on the 1 5th of 
 April. The Times did not notice the fact that 
 Arnold had been professor of poetry at Oxford for 
 nearly twenty years ; a position comparable to that 
 held by James Russell Lowell at Harvard Univer- 
 sity. Perhaps it was more than comparable; for 
 while Lowell only delivered a few lectures on litera- 
 ture to the students during the spring term, Arnold's 
 duties extended during the whole academic year. 
 
 He belonged to the same class of minds as Lowell 
 and David A. Wasson, and it is difficult to say which 
 of the two he most nearly resembled. He was more 
 like Lowell in his poetry and like Wasson in his 
 prose, without being as witty as Lowell or as pro- 
 found as Wasson. He also resembled Emerson in 
 his earnestness and his practical adaptation to the 
 needs of his time. While he united in himself the 
 best qualities of these three, he scarcely equalled 
 them in their several excellencies. He certainly 
 had not the moral power of Emerson, or the con- 
 templative depth of Wasson. 
 
 He began life as a critical poet and ended it as a 
 poetical critic. We are reminded of this by his 
 statement that poetry is at heart a criticism of life. 
 It was the freshness and beauty of his early poems 
 that first gave him distinction. He called them 
 new poems; and certainly they are new, fresh, and 
 original. They contained no hackneyed phraseology 
 — there is nothing in them about the oak and the 
 ivy, or the canker in the rose, or like Byron's " thy 
 
312 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 dear hands still clasped in mine." Exceptional 
 words are introduced it is true, but always in just 
 the right manner. They are simple and yet intel- 
 lectual. What they lack is eloquence ; and it is re- 
 markable that without this they should have become 
 popular. If there is an exception it is Sohrab and 
 Rustum — a battle-piece with its tragic termination, 
 which has something of the grandeur and elevation 
 of Milton. His Tristram and Iseult is also a most 
 interesting treatment of that oft-repeated tale ; full 
 of tenderness and briUiant glimpses of mediaeval life. 
 None of his poems, however, make an impression 
 like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, or Emerson's 
 Problem. 
 
 Now the manner in which Matthew Arnold made 
 use of his popularity and influence gives the key- 
 note of his character and his writing. In his essay 
 on a French Eton, he praises Father Lacordaire for 
 absenting himself from France at the height of his 
 celebrity, and devoting himself to missionary work 
 in other countries. This is what Arnold did himself, 
 with an improvement on his predecessor. He dis- 
 continued writing poetry, considering, like Carlyle, 
 that there was more important work to be done ; and 
 he became a self-appointed censor of public morals, 
 than which nothing was more likely to stir up pub- 
 lic animosity against him. Yet he went about this 
 in such an intrepid manner, with such amiability, 
 and in so impartial a spirit, that where he lost his 
 admirers by it he gained substantial friends. The 
 true strength of England resides not in her wealth, 
 nor in her control of the sea, so much as in the 
 
Matthew Arnold. 313 
 
 national respect for manliness and character; and 
 Matthew Arnold received full credit for his moral 
 fearlessness. When, in 1886, a London paper made 
 the experiment of a trial vote for members of an 
 English Academy, based on the principles of the 
 French Academy, Matthew Arnold's name stood 
 third upon the list; Gladstone being first, and 
 Tennyson second. Nevertheless he continued on 
 the unpopular side, and never retreated from his in- 
 dependent position. 
 
 He constructed his platform on a broad basis — on 
 the basis of impartiality. He would not criticise 
 from any one standpoint, but looked at a subject 
 from all standpoints. He would even run the risk 
 of being unpatriotic in order to be just. This was 
 the ideal method which Matthew Arnold has un- 
 folded to us in his essay on the function of criti- 
 cism ; and though he finally fell somewhat short of 
 this, it cannot be denied that he made a brave effort 
 to realize his plan. When employed on the educa- 
 tional commission, he perceived that the system of 
 education in Germany was, as a whole, superior to 
 that in England, and that there were points in 
 French education which might be considered to ad- 
 vantage by both nations. On his return he stated 
 these facts, with suitable arguments, frankly and 
 boldly, in a report which has become an historical 
 document. So he laid down the rule that a literary 
 critic who is only acquainted with the literature of 
 his own country may almost be said to be acquainted 
 with none. If he is an Englishman he should also 
 know French and German literature, and if possible 
 
314 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 Italian and Spanish. The danger always is, that he 
 will take his own time and country as a measure for 
 all things. He should go to the best classic periods ; 
 nor even accept these as absolute. In fact, it is 
 only by avoiding everything like dogmatism that 
 the critic's work can become of service to his time 
 and generation. The poet, the orator, and the 
 statesman may be partisan and prejudiced ; but the 
 critic who does not rise above party passion fails 
 from the start. He must try to divest himself even 
 of hereditary tendencies. He must separate himself 
 from his surroundings, and regard them from an ex- 
 ternal point of view; as one who is departing on a 
 sea voyage looks back on the country he has left. 
 This gives his vocation a noble and elevated charac- 
 ter. The true critic thus comes to be the equal of 
 poets and orators, by rising above them in this one 
 respect. We are not troubled by Shakespeare's in- 
 justice to Joan of Arc, or Hawthorne's contempt for 
 John Brown, as we should if Lowell or Matthew 
 Arnold had expressed such opinions. 
 
 It is very difficult to maintain this perfect equilib- 
 rium of thought and feeling, and it necessitates a life 
 of constant self-denial. Matthew Arnold says, that 
 he who would see things as they are in themselves, 
 will soon find himself one of a very small company. 
 Those who have attempted this can bear witness to 
 it ; but if their associates are few, and they separate 
 themselves in a manner from the sympathy of man- 
 kind, their intellectual horizon is widened immensely. 
 He who has attained the intellectual centre of the 
 universe finds the world greatly changed for him, 
 
Matthew Arnold. 315 
 
 Burdens are lifted from his shoulders, animosities 
 and antagonisms vanish into thin air ; what seemed 
 before ugly and deformed, becomes, if not beauti- 
 ful, at least interesting ; he finds peace and repose 
 where there was strife and vexation. There is no 
 escape from disappointments; there will be disap- 
 pointments in the future but like those of the past : 
 but it is a breaking of , false idols, and an escape 
 from delusions. 
 
 Matthew Arnold defines the function of criticism 
 as " an effort to discover and celebrate the best that 
 is thought and known in the world." This lifts the 
 profession at once above all carping and small fault- 
 finding. The genuine critic is a truth-seeker quite 
 as much as the devotee of science is. Among the 
 enormous quantity of chaff which is thrown upon 
 the public, he should be always on the watch to de- 
 tect anything of real value, and to distinguish it from 
 that which is cheap and commonplace. He should 
 also remember Lessing's suggestion of a review for 
 forgotten books, and on fit occasions endeavor to 
 revive an interest in them. It is not always the 
 stars of the first magnitude which are most interest- 
 ing to astronomers: those which have no popular 
 names are sometimes quite as important as Rigel or 
 Arcturus. Critics are the proper guardians of litera- 
 ture, and they should never cease to call attention 
 to that in the past which is positively great; for 
 otherwise it is too likely to be forgotten ; and they 
 should be equally persistent in demanding that the 
 future shall improve upon the present. 
 
 Nothing is more interesting than good literary 
 
3i6 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 criticism, and yet how little there is of it. After we 
 have visited a foreign country we read with eager- 
 ness anything that will recall its customs, scenery, 
 or art. After we have studied Faust or the Inferno 
 we wish to know how such mighty works have im- 
 pressed the minds of others; but where can we find 
 vitally appreciative commentaries on either ? None 
 such are at least accessible to the English-speaking 
 public. We like to read criticisms on works of art, 
 as we do to hear the praises of an absent friend. 
 
 Such then are the cardinal points in his essay on 
 the Function of Criticism, ; and he illustrates them 
 by a number of essays in the same volume on French, 
 German, and even Latin authors. This is the best 
 book that Matthew Arnold ever published, and it 
 were well if more heed were given to it than now is 
 or has been. Like his poetry, his prose (though 
 there are beautiful passages in it) never quite reaches 
 eloquence, but he atones for this by his clear-sighted 
 penetration. If he does not always touch bottom, 
 he at least swims in pretty deep water. His earnest- 
 ness and sincerity are everywhere conspicuous : above 
 all his friendliness to his subject. He does not write 
 such clear English as Froude, but his style is pleas- 
 ant, and encourages the reader to turn over fresh 
 pages. It is true he has something of Macaulay's 
 habit of repetition, but he makes a better use of it ; 
 not to produce a cumulative rhetorical effect, but to 
 impress the reader with some particular statement 
 which he considers of exceptional value. 
 
 In regard to exceptional writers of slender fame, 
 Matthew Arnold says : 
 
Matthew A mold. 3 1 7 
 
 " Now in literature, besides the eminent men of genius, 
 who have had their deserts in the way of fame, besides 
 the eminent men of ability who have often had far more 
 than their deserts in the way of fame, there are a certain 
 number of personages who have been really men of 
 genius, — by which I mean, that they have had a genuine 
 gift for what is true and excellent, and are therefore 
 capable of emitting a life-giving stimulus, — but who, for 
 some reason or other, in most cases for very valid rea- 
 sons, have remained obscure, nay, beyond a narrow 
 circle in their own country, unknown. It is salutary 
 from time to time to come across a genius of this kind, 
 and to extract his honey." 
 
 When we read this" in the light of Matthew 
 Arnold's popularity, the lines become illuminated, 
 and we perceive between them an earnest desire to 
 celebrate those whose merit has escaped the caprice 
 of popular attention. The love of justice is the 
 noblest quality in man, and the best argument of 
 his immortality. It is also the parent and fountain- 
 head of earnestness, from which we derive immor- 
 tality on earth. Was it not the foundation originally 
 of the Roman Law and the Roman Empire ? 
 
 Perhaps the finest of these lay sermons is the one 
 on Marcus Aurelius, of whom Arnold writes in the 
 true vein of a poet " who loves another's song more 
 than his own singing." The nature of this remark- 
 able man, of whom it has been admitted that he was 
 the one person fit to rule the world, and combined 
 in himself the finest qualities of the saint and the 
 statesman, was particularly attractive to Matthew 
 Arnold. He quotes from his contemplations again 
 
J 
 
 1 8 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 and again, until the measure of his essay is full, pre- 
 ferring to let the hero-sage speak for himself, rather 
 than to be his interpreter. Finally he concludes: 
 
 " In general, the action he prescribes is action which 
 every sound nature must recognize as right, and the mo- 
 tives he assigns are motives which every clear reason 
 must recognize as valid. . . . Yet no, it is not on 
 this account that noble souls love him most ; it is rather 
 because of the emotion which gives to his voice so touch- 
 ing an accent ; it is because he, too, yearns as they do, for 
 something unattained by him. What an affinity for 
 Christianity had this persecutor of the Christians ! What 
 would he have said to the Sermon on the Mount and the 
 twenty-sixth chapter of St. Matthew ? Vain question ! 
 Yet the greatest charm of Marcus Aurelius is that he 
 makes us ask it. We see him wise, just, self-governed, 
 tender, thankful, blameless ; yet, with this, agitated, 
 stretching out his arms for something beyond." 
 
 Arnold makes a mistake, however, when he blames 
 Aurelius for not having greater influence over his 
 son, and moulding him to better purposes. It is 
 part of the irony of nature that high-minded men 
 should beget base children ; and it was chiefly be- 
 cause Aurelius was so far above Commodus that he 
 had so little influence over him. 
 
 We notice his opinion (or Joubert's) of Madame 
 de Stael, that she had more vehemence than truth, 
 and more heat than light. Schiller wrote to Goethe, 
 " what we call poetry does not exist for Madame de 
 Stael." 
 
 The chapter on translating Homer does not prop■^ 
 
Matthew Arnold. 319 
 
 eriy belong with Essays in Criticism, and was omit- 
 ted from a subsequent edition. This may have 
 happened from the complaints that were made that 
 Matthew Arnold, after declaiming against English 
 Philistines, had proved himself in his argument 
 against Francis Newman's translation to be also 
 something of a Philistine. For Newman himself, 
 Arnold had felt always a filial respect ; but he be- 
 lieved that his translation of the Iliad was grounded 
 on erroneous principles, and he did not hesitate to 
 expose this. In truth, he carried the matter to an 
 extreme, and does not appear like a considerate 
 friend. His enemies exaggerated this small fault, 
 and never ceased to harp on it ; so that even now if 
 Matthew Arnold's name is mentioned in any small 
 company, some one will be likely to say, " I think 
 he was a good deal of a Philistine himself"; the 
 real objection in the mind of that person being 
 something else. 
 
 Whether Matthew Arnold's theory in regard to 
 translating Homer in English hexameters can be 
 made to hold water, is yet to be proved. To judge 
 by the extracts of his own which he has left to us it 
 is much to be regretted that he did not attempt the 
 work himself. Chapman's translation of the Iliad 
 is thus far the most poetic, but it suffers from the 
 involved phraseology of the Elizabethan period ; 
 Pope's is equally spirited, and more readable, but 
 lacks gracefulness, and repose ; Lord Derby's comes 
 more closely to the original sense, but it is not poetic. 
 The passages Matthew Arnold has translated for 
 us, are, however, free from those objections; and I 
 
320 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 have always felt that they were the only adequate 
 rendering of Homer's language and style to be met 
 with in English. They possess the particular merit 
 of being more like Homer than they are like Matthew 
 Arnold; whereas, with Chapman, Pope, Newman, 
 and Derby it is just the reverse. Consider this piece 
 of scenic description, in which Homer compares the 
 fires of the Trojans to the stars in the sky. Matthew 
 Arnold considered the first portion of this pas.sage 
 too difificult for him, but he has rendered the last six 
 lines with Homer's beautiful plainness : 
 
 " So shone forth, in front of Troy, by the bed of the Xanthus. 
 Between that and the ships, the Trojans' numerous fires. 
 In the plain there were kindled a thousand fires : by each one 
 There sat fifty men, in the ruddy light of the fire : 
 By their chariots stood the steeds and champed the white barley, 
 While their masters sat by the fire and waited for Morning." 
 
 This is pleasant to the ear, and stimulating to the 
 imagination; which are the two prerequisites of 
 good poetry. An English critic, Joseph Jacobs, 
 doubts if there exists such a metre as English 
 hexametre. Could he have been oblivious to Long- 
 fellow's Evangeline; if this short passage did not 
 satisfy him ? 
 
 Emerson's essays are interesting from the fresh- 
 ness of his thought, but Matthew Arnold's from the 
 fulness of his scholarship. The former stimulate 
 like mountain air, and the latter are as refreshing as 
 a sea-breeze in August. A first-rate scholar may be 
 the most interesting or the most tiresome of men, 
 according to the character of his studies, and the 
 
Matthew A mold. 321 
 
 spirit in which he deals with them. Matthew Ar- 
 nold was a born investigator; he wished to know 
 what the world is made of. So long as he lived he 
 continued to read, study, and inquire. He sub- 
 scribed to French and German newspapers such as 
 were otherwise unknown in England ; he read foreign 
 periodicals of all kinds, and mixed with all classes of 
 people, continually trying to learn what their intel- 
 lectual life might be, and what were the tendencies 
 of their thoughts and wishes. Like the Caliph of 
 Bagdad, he liked to travel in a disguise which any 
 man may assume in our time, the disguise of an 
 amiable gentleman, and to talk with people who 
 could not know of his celebrity. 
 
 For his enthusiastic admirers he had small indul- 
 gence, and social entertainments easily wearied him. 
 The Longfellow party met Matthew Arnold wander- 
 ing about Italy in 1869, and found little satisfaction 
 in him; but some time afterward two American 
 clergymen, voyaging up the Rhine, made the ac- 
 quaintance of a gentleman from London, with whom 
 they talked over social and political problems of the 
 time, and spent a very pleasant day with him. As 
 he was about to take leave of them he remarked, 
 ' ' About a month ago I was in Switzerland and spent 
 an evening at Lucerne with a gentleman who held 
 nearly the same ideas on these subjects that you do. 
 I did not know who he was at the time, but next 
 day the people informed me that it was Matthew 
 Arnold." 
 
 There appears to have been a gradual change in 
 Matthew Arnold from poetry to literary prose, and 
 
322 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 from that to politics and sociology. He wrote con- 
 stantly for the magazines, but published few books. 
 His volume of Mixed Essays appeared about twelve 
 years after the Essays in Criticism, and as literature 
 it indicated a slight falling off, both in style and 
 temper. The book is a mixture of literary and 
 political discussions. It is the inevitable fate of a 
 critic to become with years more fastidious, more 
 suspicious of excellence, and ever more difficult to 
 please. The essay on " Democracy," with which 
 this later series begins, is one of the fairest, most 
 impartial reviews of that political doctrine that has 
 ever been published; but what he calls French 
 criticism of Goethe is equally narrow and unsym- 
 pathetic. 
 
 We all have our individual tastes in arts and poetry, 
 but it seems as if much of Matthew Arnold's later 
 criticism was capricio-us, if not prejudiced. We in 
 America think of Whittier's pretty school-mate 
 rather as the friendly spectre of his verses, and 
 Matthew Arnold's Boston audience smiled at his 
 judgment that Whittier's &^w/Z?a;>/j was worth the 
 whole body of Emerson's verse. This was a non 
 sequitur which did not require Doctor Holmes's cut- 
 ting exposure to make it plain to us. Of similar 
 tone was Arnold's unfavorable commentary on 
 Shelley, published soon afterward in an English 
 magazine. Shelley was not the greatest poet of the 
 century, but he is worth his reputation, and here and 
 there in his verses there are touches of true gran- 
 deur. Why not let him flourish, and permit his 
 fond admirers to enjoy his poetry unmolested ? 
 
Matthew Arnold. 323 
 
 In his Mixed Essays Matthew Arnold has ap- 
 parently joined hands with a French critic, M. 
 Scherer, in an ill-disguised attack on Milton and 
 Goethe. We do not find Scherer to be a profound 
 or luminous writer, but rather ingenious and super- 
 ficial. What value can we place on a criticism which 
 condemns Hermann and Dorothea, the world's finest 
 pastoral, as a cold, eclectic work ? Neither does 
 he speak more favorably of Tasso and Iphigenia, 
 which for pure classic beauty are at lea^t the rivals 
 of Samson Agonistes. He says of the autobiography, 
 " when Goethe goes in for being tiresome he does 
 it with a vengeance." It is to be feared that the 
 battle of Sedan had much to do with this unfavor- 
 able judgment; and if Matthew Arnold did not ap- 
 prove of it he should have made a suitable protest 
 at the time. It is with regret that we meet him in 
 such company. 
 
 In his Discourses in America, Matthew Arnold ap- 
 pears again in a more favorable light, and as it were 
 renews the vigor and freshness of his earlier work. 
 He is not as careful of his English as he might have 
 been, and each of these essays has some special 
 point of weakness; but they are replete with pas- 
 sages of lofty thought and fine discrimination. 
 Even the lecture on Emerson, which is the least 
 satisfactory, opens with an intellectual vista rarely 
 beautiful and significant. There was a discussion 
 going on at that time in regard to the respective 
 value of classical and scientific study, and into this 
 he entered with all the ardor of a young debater. 
 " The final value of all study," he said, " must be 
 
324 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 its effect on character " ; a proposition which, 
 although used in the interest of the classics, may be 
 said to have a scientific value. An equally valuable 
 statement is his distinction, in the lecture on Num- 
 bers, between true and false patriotism, though he 
 does not give us credit for the political organization 
 which makes great numbers possible. 
 
 The little volume named Friendship's Garland 
 might have been called the Book of Philistines, and 
 though rather sensitive in places, contains some keen 
 political satire ; especially his presentation of Dr. Rus- 
 sell of the London Times, formerly known'in America 
 as " Bull Run" Russell, whom Matthew Arnold 
 boldly describes mounting his war-horse with the 
 assistance of the German Emperor, while Bismarck 
 holds the bridle and the Crown Prince is patting the 
 animal on the flank. Such a caricature is rather 
 startling, even when well deserved. Matthew Ar- 
 nold's modern Arminius would make the London 
 Times and Telegraph responsible in part for the 
 Franco-Prussian war; but I have never encountered 
 a Prussian so blunt and slashing as Arminius is rep- 
 resented. They are a frank people, but prudent in 
 speech. 
 
 The purity of motive, which is essential to a poet, 
 often enables him to see more clearly into public 
 affairs than those who make politics their business. 
 Matthew Arnold was remarkable for this. His 
 writings on political subjects have not only an ele- 
 vated tone, but they show a clear comprehension of 
 the case before him. ^ie appears to have always 
 been on the right side. He did not follow Glad- 
 
Matthew Arnold. 325 
 
 stone in eulogizing Jefferson Davis in 1861, but, like 
 John Bright and a few others, gave his moral sup- 
 port to the Union cause-JJIn 1886 he perceived at 
 once that Gladstone's scheme for the settlement of 
 the Irish question was one which could bring no last- 
 ing good to that country, and was such a measure as a 
 majority of the English peeple would never support. 
 His own proposition, that Ireland should be divided 
 into states, such as we have in America, each with 
 a legislature of its own and representatives in Parlia- 
 ment, commends itself to every prudent and sensible 
 mind. At" that time the same writers here who ad- 
 vocated free-trade for America were clamoring for 
 protection for Ireland. What Matthew Arnold said 
 of Gladstone, that he had no foresight because he 
 lacked insight, was generally true. 
 
 The dangers which he foresaw from Democracy 
 are such as appertain rather to the present French 
 government, which is more highly centralized than 
 any European government except the Russian, and 
 in which public opinion acts too rapidly and vio- 
 lently, than to a government of checks and balances 
 like our own. The more serious dangei', which he 
 finds applicable to all popular governments, is the 
 difiSculty in maintaining a high national ideal. 
 
 " Nations are not truly great," he says, " because the 
 individuals composing them are numerous, free, and 
 active ; but they are great when these numbers, this 
 freedom, and this activity, are employed in the service 
 of an ideal higher than that of an ordinary man, taken 
 by himself. Our society is probably destined to be- 
 
326 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 come much more democratic. Who or what will give 
 a high tone to the nation then ? That is the grave 
 question." 
 
 Arnold's critical essays on civilization in America 
 present a curious discrepancy, which illustrates hovir 
 large a share the personal element sometimes claimed 
 in his opinions. His first essay on this country was 
 in a measure contradicted by the second, and that in 
 turn by the third. 
 
 Lowell was so often disappointed in his hope of 
 finding an Englishman who could understand Amer- 
 ica, that he finally concluded that it was no use for 
 them to try to understand us. The reason for this, 
 however, is not remote. We have a class of people 
 in New York and Boston not to be met with in 
 other countries, who spend every alternate year in 
 Europe, and who naturally lose much of their affec- 
 tion for, and interest in, their native land. An 
 English traveller of note coming to the United 
 States inevitably falls into their hands. His banker 
 belongs to this class of people, and very likely he 
 has been acquainted with others in Europe. So he 
 is handed about from one to another, and after some 
 months returns to England without seeing anything 
 of genuine American life. When Prof. Tyndall 
 came to Boston it was some weeks before he could 
 discover where his friends and admirers were to be 
 found; and Thomas Hughes complained that the 
 people he met in America did not appreciate 
 Lowell's poetry. Matthew Arnold's first essay on 
 America was incautiously based on the statements 
 of the New York Nation, an English paper with a 
 
Matthew Arnold. 327 
 
 foreign editor transplanted to American soil, for the 
 benefit of this half-foreign population. 
 
 The first essay on America, therefore, was what 
 might have been expected, considering the sources 
 from which it came. Matthew Arnold culled from 
 the Nation the following statement, which he used 
 as the major premise for a lengthy argument : 
 
 " In America, scarcely any man who can afford it likes 
 to refuse his son a college education if the boy wants it ; 
 but probably not one boy in a thousand can say five 
 years after graduating, that he has been helped by his col- 
 lege education in making his start in life. It may have 
 been never so useful to him as a means of moral and 
 intellectual culture, but it has not helped to adapt him 
 to the environment in which he has to live and work ; 
 or, in other words, to a world in which not one man in a 
 hundred thousand has either the manners or cultivation 
 of a gentleman, or changes his shirt more than once a 
 week, or eats with a fork." 
 
 Now " world " in this connection must be in- 
 tended for the United States, for otherwise the 
 passage would have no sense, and it was so that 
 Matthew Arnold understood it. We may not like 
 to hold an editor responsible for everything that ap- 
 pears in his columns; but this looks too much like 
 a libel on a sober and cleanly people. The true 
 cause of the difficulty is that too many of our young 
 men go to college without considering sufficiently 
 what they will do next. 
 
 Matthew Arnold was not the man to be tied down 
 by letters of introduction. As soon as he arrived in 
 
J 
 
 28 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 America he began to look around for himself, and to 
 make his own investigations. The results he ob- 
 tained were in marked contrast to the opinions he 
 had previously formed of us. He discovered that 
 the people of the United States were at least an in- 
 genious, frank, manly, and generous race. He saw 
 that our government had been framed with great 
 skill, and was suited to the conditions of the coun- 
 try ; and that we felt free and unconstrained in our 
 social and political life. He saw, also, that the 
 Anglo-Saxon race, in crossing the Atlantic, had 
 escaped from a large encumbrance of mediaeval con- 
 ditions, which still fetter the activity of European 
 nations. He considered it a decided advantage, 
 that the distinctions of classes in America are neither 
 arbitrary nor stereotyped. Americans, he says, 
 think straight to their object, and see it clearly. 
 
 In a second visit to this country he was not so 
 fortunate. His health was bad, and he knew that 
 his time on earth was limited. This, perhaps, gave 
 his thoughts a gloomy caste, and the antagonism of 
 the newspapers to his views in regard to Ireland, 
 irritated him. As he had previously represented 
 the bright side, so now he dwelt more earnestly on 
 the unfavorable side of American life, — for there is 
 an unfavorable side in all times and countries. The 
 essay, however, was hypercritical, and of a despond- 
 ent tone. Many of his complaints were in respect 
 to matters of trifling importance. It is true that 
 great quantities of unripe fruit are sold in America, 
 but the reason is that the laboring classes in this 
 country can afford to purchase fruit, which they arq 
 
Matthew Arnold. 329 
 
 not able to do in Europe; and Matthew Arnold was 
 mistaken in supposing that peaches raised under 
 glass are better than those which ripen in the open 
 air. I have heard other Englishmen express this 
 opinion, but there is no comparison so far as flavor 
 is concerned. 
 
 In what he said of our newspapers, however, there 
 was only too much truth. He does not appear to 
 have read our best periodicals. The New York 
 Times is better than the London Times, and the 
 New York Tribune will compare favorably with the 
 London Daily News ; the Boston Transcript, the 
 Providence Journal, and the Philadelphia Ledger 
 are excellent newspapers ; and there are others also 
 which deserve respect ; but there are a multitude of 
 cheap, licentious, rowdy papers published here, 
 such as are not to be met with in France, Germany, 
 or England. They are a disgrace to the country, 
 debilitating the minds of our young men, and vul- 
 garizing our women, with unspeakable trash. Since 
 the Roman amphitheatre there has been no such 
 engine of public demoralization as the Sunday news- 
 paper. It replaces religious worship and serious 
 reading with the most frivolous of conceivable enter- 
 tainments. If we are to take our choice between 
 the Sunday newspaper and the prize-ring, by all 
 means let prize-fighting flourish. 
 
 Immediately after Matthew Arnold's death, all 
 the living poets in Great Britain, with the exception 
 of Tennyson, met together and united in a request 
 that he should have a monument in Westminster 
 Abbey. We all feel that he deserved this. He was 
 
33° Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 the apostle of intellectual culture, as distinguished 
 from mere scholarship and erudition. He belonged 
 to the simple and refined civilization of the future ; 
 and his writings will continue valuable, until the 
 slowly gravitating world has come round to his 
 position. 
 
 sji<r; 
 

 APPENDIX 
 
 It is remarkable that a scholarly gentleman, who has 
 given us such fine poetry as James Russell Lowell, should 
 not have written more graceful and elegant prose ; as his 
 friend Cranch remarked, his style is labored, his sen- 
 tences frequently long-winded, and his choice of words 
 not such as would seem to indicate an artistic dis- 
 crimination. Such expressions as, " The preacher up of 
 sincerity '' and, " The oddity becomes odder," would 
 certainly suffer correction at the hands of a professor of 
 English in a college theme. Nor is this the whole of it. 
 As a literary critic he was perhaps without a superior, 
 but he was often tempted to deal with subjects of which 
 he knew too little to do them moderate justice. His 
 essay on Lincoln and his criticism of Carlyle's Frederick 
 are instances in point. 
 
 Frederick deserved the admiration of his age, and we 
 should not think less of him because he was born on 
 a throne. He was a king not only by hereditary but 
 natural right, — if there be such a thing. Lowell says 
 that " he looked on Prussia as his patrimony, of which 
 not even his subjects had the right to dispossess him " ; 
 but, to judge from his actions, Frederick did not con- 
 sider the kingdom of Prussia as so much property that 
 
 331 
 
332 Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 he could dispose of as he pleased. He treated it rather 
 after the fashion of the good servant who was entrusted 
 with the ten talents of gold, and who gained with them 
 other ten talents. He called himself " the humble serv- 
 ant of the state," a title quite equal to that of Webster's 
 " servant of the people." The population of Prussia was 
 quadrupled in his lifetime. 
 
 " He was not so great a soldier as Napoleon," said 
 Minister Bancroft, " but a much better statesman." At 
 the close of the second Silesian war, when he had de- 
 feated Austria and Saxony in four brilliant engagements, 
 and was applied to for terms of peace, Frederick re- 
 plied, " I want nothing of you but peace." It would 
 have been better for Napoleon perhaps if he had some- 
 times made the same conditions. Lowell thinks Freder- 
 ick was a better general than Wellington but not equal 
 to Turenne, and that " he succeeded chiefly from the 
 weakness of his adversaries '' ; that to compare him with 
 Csesar and Alexander was ridiculous ; and that " the 
 fact that one of his intimate friends called him an 
 ' old tyrant,' is worth considering." 
 
 It is hot customary to compare modern generals with 
 ancient, since the discovery of gunpowder has so com- 
 pletely changed the art of war ; but it is customary 
 among writers on military affairs to place Frederick next 
 to Napoleon, on account of the number of his cam- 
 paigns, the novelty of his tactics, and the decisiveness 
 of his victories. For six years he was obliged to contend 
 against forces three or four times greater than his own, 
 well trained and disciplined, and commanded, if not by 
 the greatest generals, yet by officers of no mean ability. 
 Count Daun was the Fabius of Austria, and General 
 Loudon might well be compared with Lee or Sheridan. 
 Such a long stretch of camp life necessarily had a brutal- 
 
Appendix A. 
 
 333 
 
 izing effect on Frederick (and Napoleon also suffered 
 from it), but he remained to the last an indefatigable 
 worker, and lover of justice. 
 
 Lowell considers Frederick's preference for French 
 literature, and contempt for German writers of his time, 
 superficial and unpatriotic ; but Goethe thinks that he 
 accomplished by this a great deal of good, calling the 
 attention of his countrymen to a class of virtues as differ- 
 ent as possible from their own. The writings of Fred- 
 erick himself, especially his poetry, have little enough 
 value, but his interest in literature and in the advance- 
 ment of science will always be a credit to him. 
 
APPENDIX 
 B 
 
 Froude's American Critics. 
 
 The Irish take a natural pride in the fact that Roman 
 civilization survived in Ireland during the dark ages, 
 after it had been crushed out in Britain and Gaul. 
 They did not like, therefore, Froude's picture of medi- 
 aeval Ireland, and while he was lecturing in America an 
 Irish priest named Burke attacked him with a series of 
 articles in newspapers and magazines ; while Wendell 
 Phillips, who was irritated by Froude's animadversions 
 on O'Connell, joined in the conflict. The hotel waiters 
 also mutinied and refused to serve Mr. Froude. 
 
 Burke's criticism was finally published in a book, and 
 is now chiefly valuable for its evidence in favor of 
 Froude's theory of the Irish character. His argument 
 is heated and blustering, and the following extract is a 
 fair specimen of it : 
 
 " Mr. Froude says : ' I hold the Catholic Church accountable for 
 al] the blood that the Duke of Alva shed in the Netherlands ' ; and I 
 say to Mr. Froude I deny it. Alva fought in the Netherlands against 
 the subjects that rebelled against Spain. Alva fought in the Nether- 
 lands against a people, the first principle of whose new religion 
 seemed to be an uprising against the authority of the state. With Alva 
 
 335 
 
33^ Modern English Prose Writers. 
 
 or his state questions the Catholic Church had nothing to do ; and if 
 Alva shed the blood of rebels, and if those who rebelled happened to 
 be Protestants, that is no reason to father the shedding of that blood 
 upon the Catholic Church." 
 
 We wonder what Father Burke would say to the 
 Thirty Years' War : whether he would say that was 
 caused by the opposition of the German states to the 
 authority of the emperor. While Froude was fighting 
 Burke and Phillips he was assailed in the rear by a more 
 dangerous enemy, the editor of the Nation, who was not 
 generally known to be an Irishman, and whose state- 
 ments, therefore, escaped from the suspicion of party 
 prejudice. The Nation summed up its review with the 
 defiant assertion that Father Burke had not left Froude 
 a leg to stand on ; and educated people, supposing the 
 editor was an Englishman, looked on this as good 
 authority. 
 
 E. A. Freeman. 
 
 In an obituary notice of James A. Froude, published 
 in the London Times of October 22, 1894, I find the 
 
 following statement : 
 
 " The feeling which these men, and others, entertained for 
 Froude was one of the most pronounced hostility, and in Freeman's 
 case it continued till his death, some five-and-thirty years after the 
 appearance of the first volumes of the History . For years and years 
 at regular intervals, the columns of the Saturday Review contained 
 Freeman's attack upon Froude, in which his blunders of fact were 
 castigated as if they had been offences against the fundamental laws 
 of morals. Freeman, indeed, always maintained that they were ; 
 and that Froude either did not know the difference between truth 
 and falsehood, or wilfully ignored it." 
 
 This reminds us of the Muller and Whitney contro- 
 versy, which was carried on about the same time and in 
 
Appendix B. 337 
 
 a similar manner, in which Professor Whitney played 
 the same part as Mr. Freeman. People do not like such 
 obstinate reiteration, and Mr. Freeman would have done 
 better to have adopted different tactics. 
 
 When Henry Adams was professor of English at Har- 
 vard University, he gave his class Freeman's text-book 
 on early English history, with a sort of apology for it 
 that it was the only one to be had. His students, look- 
 ing up subjects at the college library, discovered a num- 
 ber of errors or misstatements that Mr. Freeman had 
 made ; while the professor himself was only too well 
 pleased to expose the unpractical character of Mr. Free- 
 man's political ideas. It would seem doubtful if Free- 
 man were more accurate than Froude. 
 
 The letters on historical subjects written by Mr. 
 Freeman for the Boston Transcript in 1888 were of the 
 same illogical and inexperienced character. Mr. Free- 
 man's researches will always have a substantial value, 
 but, so far as the understanding of history is concerned, 
 he is, compared with Froude, merely an undergraduate. 
 The character of Froude's opponents is as significant as 
 the intellectual quality of his friends, Carlyle, Max 
 Miiller, and Mathew Arnold. 
 
 Mr. Freeman is reported to have given an opinion 
 that the proper cure for the political troubles in the 
 United States, would be for every Irishman to kill a 
 negro and be hung for it. As Professor Adams used to 
 say, " I make no comment." 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Abelard, 8, g 
 
 Adams, Henry, 337 
 
 Addison, 62 
 
 Adolphus, Gustavus, g8, loi 
 
 Adventures of Philip, Z05 
 
 ^schylus, 55 
 
 Alcott, Louisa M., in, 228, 232 
 
 Alexander, Miss Frances, 286 
 
 Alexander the Great, 332 
 
 American Gothic, 275 
 
 Ancient Mariner, The, 312 
 
 Animals, cries of, 307 
 
 Anne of Cleves, 138, 139 
 
 Anne of Denmark. 43 
 
 Anthrom orphism, 218 
 
 Aratra Pentelici, 284 
 
 Architecture, 273 
 
 Aristotle, 2, 297, 304 
 
 Arnold, Matthew, 2, 10, 14, 15, 
 66, 68, 106, 160, 192, 242, 262, 
 296, 310 ; on Philistines, 319 ; 
 on politics, 319 ; as a poli- 
 tician, 325 
 
 Arnold's, mental characteristics, 
 312 ; literary creed, 316 ; Dis- 
 courses in America, 323 ; 
 Mixed Essays, 323 ; preju- 
 dices, 323 
 
 Aryan races, 288 
 
 Ashburton, Lady, 108 
 
 Augustus, Caesar, 23, 155, 156, 
 246 
 
 Aurelius, Marcus, 101, 317, 318 
 
 Austen, Jane, 4, 5, 233 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 3, 56, 115, 121, 
 
 132, 297 
 Barnaby Rudge, 227 
 Bede, Adam, 234, 237-339, 241, 
 
 250 
 Beethoven, 102 
 Bismarck, 12, 56, loi, 108, 150, 
 
 152. 324 
 Boleyn, Anne, 124, 126, 129, 
 
 131-134, 138 
 Booth, Edwin, 178 
 Boswell, 13 
 Bothwell, Earl of, 147 
 Brahmanism, 301 
 Bramante, 278 
 Bright, John, 325 
 Bronte, Charlotte, 4, 172, 173, 
 
 233 
 Brooke, Rev. Stopford, 12 
 Brooks, Rev. Phillips, 11 
 Brown, John, 96, 156, 314 
 Browning, 10, 59, 81, 165 
 Brutus, 158 
 Buckle, II 
 Buddhism, 303 
 Burke, Edmund, 115 
 Burke, Father, 335, 336 
 Burleigh, Lord, 32, 57, 141, 
 
 I44> 145 
 Burnett, (Bishop of Salisbury), 
 
 45. 46 
 Burns, Robert, 62, 72, 170, 213, 
 
 339 
 
340 
 
 Index. 
 
 Byron, i, 65, 67, no, 165, 170, 
 184, 188, 208, 260, 262, 286, 
 296, 311 
 
 Caesar, Julius, 17, 45, 89, 150, 
 232, 332 
 
 Caligula, 156 
 
 Camello, Palazzo del, 281 
 
 Campbell, the poet, 55 
 
 Canning, 26, 51, 52 
 
 Canterbury, Archbishop of, 46 
 
 Carlyle, Jane, 108 
 
 Carlyle, John, 64 
 
 Carlyle, Thomas, 2, 3, 13, 28, 
 59, 114, 228, 244, 256, 274, 
 285, 287, 296, 300 
 
 Carlyle's, parentage, 61 ; pecul- 
 iarities, 62 ; conversation, 63 ; 
 correspondence with Goethe, 
 72, with Emerson, 105 ; remin- 
 iscences, 73, 107 ; despair, 74 ; 
 essays, 88 ; satire, 103, no ; 
 marriage, io8 
 
 Carthage, Decline of, 267 
 
 Casa d'Oro, 281 
 
 Castle Dangerous, 183 
 
 Cato, 152 
 
 Cervantes, 14, 66, 217, 240 
 
 Charlemagne, 32, 127 
 
 Charles Attckester, 233 
 
 Charles I., 28, 30, 31, 92, 140 
 
 Charles II., 28, 32, 34-41, 56 ; 
 character of, 36 
 
 Charles V., 32, 128 
 
 Chateaubriand, 169, 170 
 
 Chatham, Earl of, 53 
 
 Childe Harold, 79, 280 
 
 Chips from a German Work- 
 shop, 307 
 
 Cicero, 2, 90, 117, 151, 160 
 
 Clay, Henry, 157 
 
 Clement, VII., Pope, 12B 
 
 Cleopatra, 246 
 
 Coblenz on the Rhine, 268 
 
 Coleridge, 13, 170, 296, 312 
 
 Collins, Wilkie, 4, 5 
 
 Constantine, 151 
 
 Cranmer, 140 
 
 Criticism, Essays in, 319, 322 ; 
 Function of, 316 
 
 Cromwell, 28, 34, 38, 43, 46, 87, 
 89, 124. 135, 138, 139. 145 
 
 Daniel Deronda, 239, 242, 250, 
 
 252, 253 
 Dante, 78, 81, 98, 140, 158, 
 
 165, 217, 300 
 Darnley, Lord, 147 
 Darwin, Charles, 3, 281, 305, 
 
 306 
 Daun, Count, 332 
 David Copperfield, 211 
 Davis, Jefferson, 325 
 Decline and Fall (Gibbon's), 
 
 63, 73 
 Demosthenes, 20 
 Derby, Lord, 319 
 Dickens, Charles, 5, in, 112, 
 
 172, 181 ; social position, 211 ; 
 
 poetizing faculty, 220 ; as a 
 
 caricaturist, 227 
 Diderot, 66 
 Disraeli, 4, 172 
 Dombey and Son, 210 
 Don Quixote, 217 
 Dore, Gustave, 217 
 Drawing, Elements of, 268, 286 
 Dutch Republic, Rise of the, i8 
 Dyck, Van, 2, 169 
 
 Eagle's Nest, or Hints to Youtig 
 
 Housewives, 285 
 Eastlake, Sir Charles, 6 
 Edward I., 146 
 Edward III., 145 
 Edward IV., 140 
 Edward VI., 141 
 Eliot, George, i, 5, 15, 28, 148, 
 
 169, 172, 235 
 Elizabeth, Queen, 21, 119, 141 
 Emerson, 2, 4, 43, 71, 77, 82, 
 
 95, 102, 106, 107, 109, 116, 
 
 171, 186, I96, 262, 279, 296, 
 
 298, 305, 310 
 England, History of (Hume's), 
 
 17 ; Child's History of, 214, 
 
 215 
 Esmond, Henry, 207 
 Essex, Earl of, 139 
 Evangeline, 320 
 
Index. 
 
 341 
 
 Evans, Marian, 169, 180, 184, 
 231, 290 ; her education, 234 ; 
 her marriage, 235 ; her quality 
 as A writer, 240 ; her limita- 
 tion, 255 
 
 Fairfax, Lord, g2 
 Felix Holt, 234, 239, 24S 
 Ferdinand the Catholic, 32 
 Fielding, Henry, 31, 169, 172, 
 
 176, 181, 188, 207, 216, 255 
 Fields, James T., 216 
 Fischer, Bishop, 137 
 Fondaco dei Turchi, 281 
 Fox, Charles James, 185 
 Francis I., 123-278 
 Frankish Architecture, 276 
 Frederick the Great, 12, 38, 54, 
 
 55, 90, 95, 97. "8, 149. 33i, 
 
 332, 333 
 Freeman, E. A., 336, 337 
 French Revolution, 63, 7g, 82, 
 
 97. 228 
 Friendship' s Garland, 324 
 Froude, 2, 3, 10, 13, 107, ill, 
 
 190. 234, 308, 316, 335, 336, 
 
 337 
 Fronde's Biography, 107 
 Fuller, Margaret, 235 
 
 George I., 126 
 George III., 149 
 George IV., 184, 195 
 German philosophy, 296 
 Gibbon, 18, 27, 63, 73, 74 
 Giustiniani, 122, 126 
 Gladstone, 39, 229, 297, 313, 
 
 324 
 Goethe, 29, 66, 71, 73, 98, 102, 
 
 107, 165, 169, 187, 196, 209, 
 
 243, 256, 264, 318, 323 . 
 Goldsmith, Oliver, 172, 188, 
 
 220 
 Gracchus, Gaius, 154 
 Gracchus, Tiberius, 153 
 Greene's History of England, 3 
 Grimm, Hermann, 54 
 Guizot, 19 
 Guy Mannering, 177-180 
 
 Hallam's Middle Ages, i, 19, 
 
 168 
 Hamilton, Sir William, 12, 77, 
 
 89 
 Hamlet, 31, 146, 242, 275 
 Hampden, 70 
 
 Harris, Dr. Wm. T., 296, 297 
 Haunted Man, The, 215, 220 
 Hawthorne, 166, 188, 205, 213, 
 
 218, 220, 254, 314 
 Heart of Midlothian, 167, 177, 
 
 180, 237 
 Hedge, Dr. F. H., 68 
 Hegel, 29 
 Heine, i, 72 
 Henry II., 145, 278 
 Henry IV., 35 
 Henry V., 146 
 Henry VII., 3, 17, 121, 146 
 Henry VIII., 17, 112, 120, 132, 
 
 138, 142 
 Hermann and Dorothea, 323 
 Heroes and Hero Worship, 88 
 Hillard, George S., 142 
 Hoist, Dr. H. Von, 3, 19, 230 
 Homer, 20, 82, 165, 218, 221, 
 
 295, 318 
 Horace, 4, 242, 246 
 Hugo, Victor, 167, 172, 230 
 Hume, 17, 27, 141, 190, 297 
 Huxley, 3, 296, 305 
 
 Ida, Story of, 286 
 
 Iliad, Lord Derby's translation, 
 319 ; Chapman's translation, 
 319; Pope's translation, 319; 
 Francis W. Newman's transla- 
 tion, 319 
 
 Inferno, J. Carlyle's translation, 
 
 64 
 Iphigenia, 323 
 Ireland, Mrs., 108 
 Irving, Edward, 64, 106 
 Italian Renaissance, 275 
 Ivanhoe, 167, 182, 216 
 
 Jackson, Andrew, 23 
 James II., 40, 41, 52, 132 
 yane Eyre, 233 
 Jefferson, "Thomas, 71, 230 
 
342 
 
 Index. 
 
 Jeffreys, Judge, 40, 132 
 Jeffreys, Lord, 106 
 Johnson, Dr., 13, 68, 72, 121 
 Johnson, Rev. Samuel, 107, 296, 
 
 393 
 Josephus, 17 
 
 Justification of Cromwell, 93 
 Justinian, 18 
 
 Kant, 297, 299 
 Kenilworth, 184 
 Kingsley, Charles, 4, 5 
 
 Lacordaire, Father, 312 
 
 Lady of the Lady, 171 
 
 Lamb, Charles, 14, 15, 170, 
 
 262 
 Landor, W. S., 15 
 Language and nationality, 308 
 Latimer, Bishop, 133, 140 
 Leasing, 66, 71, 72, 315 
 Lewes, George H., 234, 244, 
 
 257 ; influence of, on his wife, 
 
 250 
 Lincoln, President, 44, 134, 156, 
 
 232, 256, 293, 331 
 Little Dorritt, 215, 227 
 Livy, 17 
 Lochinvar, 171 
 Locke, John, 297 
 Longfellow, H. W., 63, 215, 
 
 296, 320 
 Lorraine, Claude, 262, 263, 264 
 Lotze, Professor, 137 
 Louis XIV. 85, 157 
 Louis XV., 36 
 Louis XVI., 85, 157 
 Lovell, the Widower, 206 
 Lowell, James Russell, 2, 15, 69, 
 
 103, 262, 296, 311, 314, 326 
 Lower middle class, 212 
 LUbke, Dr. Wilhelm, 266 
 Luther, Martin, 9, 123, 124, 129, 
 
 134. .136, 201, 247 
 Lytton, Lord, 3 
 
 Macaulay, Lord, 3, 4, 13, 23, 62, 
 100, 112, 115, 140, 145, 159, 
 I77> 238, 2gi, 316 ; genius, 25: 
 literary method, 27, 28 : limi- 
 
 tation, 29 ; analysis of charac- 
 ter, 30 : patriotism, 48 ; injus- 
 tice to the Quakers, 51 ; 
 essays, 52 ; carelessness, 54 ; 
 love of scandal, 55 ; pecu- 
 liarity, 62 
 
 Macchiavelli, 17, 54, 96, 120, 
 245 
 
 Maintenon, Madame de, 47 
 
 Mann, Horace, 296 
 
 Manning, Cardinal, 11 
 
 Marble Faun, The, 220 
 
 Marius, 160 
 
 Marlborough, Duke of, 43, 90 
 
 Mar ley's Ghost, 215 
 
 Martin Chuzzlewit, 219 223 
 
 Martineau, Harriet, 5 
 
 Mary, Queen of Scots, 33, 119, 
 121, 122, 142, 144, 146, 147, 
 149 
 
 McCarthy, Justin, 10 
 
 Melanchthon, 9, 136 
 
 Mendoza, 149 
 
 Metternich, 90 
 
 Michel Angelo, 21, 64, 134, 255, 
 272, 275, 285 
 
 Middlemarch, 234, 237, 239, 242, 
 250 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, 3, 57, 79, 80, 
 87, 274 
 
 Mill on the Floss, 241, 242, 244, 
 254 
 
 Miller, Hugh, 51 
 
 Milton, 54, 66, 167, 188, 194, 
 266, 300, 312, 323 
 
 Mind and matter, 298 
 
 Mirabeau, 57, 70, 79, 85, 88, 89 
 
 Modem Grecian architecture, 258 
 
 Modern Painters, 262, 269, 279 
 
 Modern social life, 171 
 
 Moli^re, 31 
 
 Mom^isen, 19, 8g, 151, 157 
 
 More, Sir Thomas, 134, 137, 152 
 
 Motley, J. Lothrop, 18 
 
 Mozart, 20 
 
 Mtiller, F. Max, 288, 336, 337 ; 
 his education, 290 ; his literary 
 style, 299 
 
 Mulock, Miss, 4, 5, 173 
 
 Murray, Earl of, 148 
 
Index. 
 
 343 
 
 Music of the Birds, 305 
 
 Napoleon, 3, 19, 30, 38, 53, 60, 
 85, 87, g8, 100, 114, 149, 151, 
 155, 165, 186, 332 ; Life of 
 (Scott's), 185 ; Louis, 15, 150, 
 152, 278 
 
 Navarre, Henry of, 148 
 
 Nerva, 159 
 
 Newcomes, The, 194, 201, 204, 
 209, 240 
 
 Newman, Francis W., 6, 10, 14, 
 
 "3. 234, 319 
 Newman, John H., 6, 11, 12, 14, 
 
 114, 127, 291, 296, 297 
 Niebelungen, The, 172 
 Norfolk, Duke of, 132, 139 
 Novalis, 298 
 
 O'Connell, Daniel, 335 
 
 Old Curiosity Shop, 228 
 
 Oliver Twist, 216 
 
 Orange, Prince of, 40, 42, 46, 90, 
 
 141, 148, 199 
 Oriental Religions, 296 
 Orleans, Duke of, 56 
 
 Parker, Theodore, 194 
 
 Parr, Catherine, 124, 126, 128, 
 
 130 
 Pater, Walter, 6 
 Paul, Jean, 66, 72, 240 
 Paul III., Pope, 128 
 Pendennis, 200, 203 
 Penn, William, 51, 52 
 Petrarch, 53 
 Philip II., 32 
 Phillips, Wendell, 7, 117, 230, 
 
 335. 336 
 Pickwick Papers, 226 
 Pitt, William, 30, 53, 185 
 Plato, 2, 299, 304 
 Plutarch, 17, 85, 246 
 Pompey the Great, 155 
 Poussin, Caspar, 264 
 Princess, The (Tennyson's), 255 
 Prussia, History of (Seelye's), 3 
 
 Quincey, De, I2, 15 
 
 Randolph, John, 193 
 
 Ranke, Von, 19 
 
 Raphael Santi, 2, 19, 255 
 
 Reade, Charles, 4, 5, 15 
 
 Reform in English law, 199 
 
 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 272 
 
 Richard I., 130, 133 
 
 Richard III., 204 
 
 Rig-Veda, 288 
 
 Robespierre, 87, 88, 140 
 
 Robinson, Crabbe, 14 
 
 Rob Roy, 177 
 
 Romola, 239, 242, 244, 247 ; 
 evolution of, 245 
 
 Rousseau, 70, 86, 87 ; Social 
 Compact, 86, 87 
 
 Ruskin, 6, 13-15, 183, 192, 217, 
 227, 259 ; his boyhood^ 
 260 ; and his critics, 271 ; his^\ 
 temperament, 271 ; on Greek 
 sculpture, 284 ; literary criti- 
 cism, 286 
 
 Russell, Dr. ("Bull Run"), 324 
 
 Salisbury, Countess of, 139 
 
 Sallust, 16, 20 
 
 Samson Agonistes, 323 
 
 Sand, George, 232 
 
 Sartor Resartus, 75, 104 
 
 Savonarola, 245, 247 
 
 Scherer, M., critic, 323 
 
 Schiller, 20, 26, 54, 66, 71, 72, 
 165, 215, 318; Life of (C3.T- 
 lyle's), 62, 72 
 
 Schomberg, Marchal, 48 
 
 Science of Language, 288, 302 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 5, 41, 72, 164, 
 188, 207, 215, 233,237, 254, 
 286 ; gtenius, 165 ; as a poet, 
 170; dramatic quality, 179; 
 historical novels, 184 
 
 Secret of Hegel, no 
 
 Seelye, Prof., 3 
 
 Seven Lamps of Architecture, 
 729 
 
 Seymour, Jane, 129, 138 
 
 Shakespeare, 4, 17, 20, 31, 48, 
 81, 112, 113, 121, 125, 139, 
 146, 153, 155. 165- 174- 188, 
 204. 233> 356. 260. 266, 269, 
 314 ■ 
 
344 
 
 Index. 
 
 Sheppard, Miss, 4, 5, 172, 173, 
 
 233 
 Silas Marner, 239, 241 
 Slave Skip, The, 268 
 Spanish Gypsy, The, 242, 255 
 Spencer, Herbert, 3 
 Spinoza, 239 
 Stael, Madame de, 15, 60, 232, 
 
 318 
 Stein, Von, 3, 87 
 Stones of Venice, 272, 278, 279 
 Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 173, 
 
 230, 232, 256 
 Suetonius, 159 
 Sumner, Charles, 98, 100, 135 
 
 Tacitus, 17, 156 
 
 Taine as a critic, 20S 
 
 Tale of Two Cities, 228 
 
 Tales of the Crusaders, 182 
 
 Talleyrand, 185 
 
 Tasso, 323 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 77 
 
 Tennyson, i, 2, 10, no, 208, 
 255, 296, 313, 329 
 
 Thackeray, i, 5, 10, 13, 14, 
 no, 115, 169, 186 ; the West- 
 minster liust of, 186 ; his edu- 
 cation, 187 ; quality as a writer, 
 189, 191 ; religious views, 194 ; 
 as a novelist, 201 
 
 Thiers, 19 
 
 Throgmorton Conspiracy, The, 
 149 
 
 Thucydides, 17, 19, 20, 27, 158 
 
 Tiberius, 156 
 
 Ticknor, Prof., 194 
 
 Tinteretto, 255, 262, 265, 266, 
 271, 272 
 
 Titian, 2, 262, 265, 266, 272 
 
 Titus, 159, 254, 256 
 
 Tocqueville, De, 230 
 
 Tolstoi, Count, 189 
 
 Translating Homer, 319 
 
 Tristram and Iseuli, 312 
 
 Trollope, Anthony, 4, 5 
 
 Turchi, Fondaco dei, 281 
 
 Turgot, 86 
 
 Turner, 213, 262, 266, 271, 285 
 
 Tyndall, Prof. J., 3. 326 
 
 United States, History of the 
 (De Tocqueville), 230 
 
 Vanity Fair, 191, 203 
 
 Vedas, The, 300 
 
 Venetian funereal monuments, 
 
 283 
 Virginians, 206, 208 
 Voltaire, 19, 56, 66, 68, 70, 72, 
 85, 199 
 
 Wallenstein, 21 
 
 Walpurgis Night, ig6 
 
 Walshingham, 142, 144 
 
 War of the Succession in Spain, 
 
 53 
 Washington, George, 12, 26, 78, 
 
 105, 232 
 Wasson, David A., 51, 56, 68, 
 
 209, 298, 311 
 Waverley, 167, 173, 237 
 Webster, Daniel, 24, 42, 96, 125, 
 
 157 
 Wellington, Duke of, 23, 49, go, 
 
 332 
 Werther, Sorrows of, 75 
 Whitman, Walt, 178 
 Whitney, Prof. W. D., 308, 336, 
 
 337 
 Whittier, 51 
 Wilhelm MeisUr, 66, 67 
 William I., 45, 259 
 William III., 42, 47, 49 
 Winckelmann, 71 
 Wind, Rain, and Speed, 267 
 Witt, John De, 40 
 Wolsey, Cardinal, 124, 125, 134, 
 
 138, 140 
 Wordsworth, 106, 160, 165, 169, 
 
 170, 286, 296 
 Wren, Sir Christopher, 279 
 
 Xenophon, 20 
 
 Zend Avesta, 78, 292, "95 
 Zoroaster, 302 
 
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