The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-03-02
Omr Contributors.
Thomas Carlyle.
BY REV. Il. c. ALEXANDER, d.

writer of the latter half of the nineteenth
century has just gone from us. With the
solitary exception of Coleridge, there has
been no such influence exerted by any
prose writer since Burke. The reference,
of course, is to writers of English, but
where shall we look for more effective
pens elsewhere? Since Goethe, it is like
ly, no man has so wildly and perma-
nently moved all Germany and Austria
as Carlyle has moved all England and
America. Victor Hugo has exerted
kindred, but more superficial and less
sagacious, power over France. 1t is not
maintained as yet that the influence of
the rugged Scot was good or was bad.
1t is not maintained that what he said
was true or was false. What IS Just now
maintained is that he made himself felt
as power in literature, beyond any man
of our time and of the English speaking
race. There is some force in Mr.. Seeley's
notion (though it is getting to be too
much hobby with him) that the style
of the historian ought to be dull. 1t was
Montesquieu (was it not) who congratu-
lated any country when its annals were
tiresome2 This is not Mr.. Seeley's idea
According to Mr.. Seeley all true annals
are tiresome: that narrative of alleged
facts which is throughout couleu de rose
is not history, but romance. Unfortun-
ately the rule does not work both ways
otherwise Rapin and Smollet would take
precedence of Livy and Herodotus. Ac-
cording to the clever author of that dan
gerous and seductive book Ecce Homo"
(who is as charming writer of English
himself as any one of our day., the tints
of graphic description like those of the
London wallpapers now coming into
fashion should be toned down to dead
uniformity of foggy gray or dingy brown.
We may cordially agree to this, but on
one memorable condition; and that is
that the same measure be extended to all
other forms of didactic literature. The
only thing that makes one hesitate, is
that in the case supposed there would
appear but little reason of being for such
fascinating but injurious works as Ecce
Homo" But ! am allowing myself to
wander. Certain it is that if Mr.. Seeley's
criterion be suffered to prevail Thomas
Carlyle stands no chance whatever with
posterity, at least as a historian; for no
other of modern Englishmen could so
rivet the attention and dazzle both the
imagination and the Judgment, as could
this uncouth and petulant, and vieful
giant amongst pigmies. Yet those grand
bones will not accommodate themselves
to the Procrustean bed on which Mr.
Seeley tries to stretch them. The sin of
the literary historians that is pointed out
by the scholar-like critic is their rhetoric:
(and rhetoric, let us whisper again, has
destroyed many another brave venture
besides such as those of Theirs and Ma
caulay, of Guiccraidini and Tacitus.) But
of all other writer's, rhetoric, in the ordin-
airy sense of the term, is precisely the
one thing Of which Carlyle is guilelessly
innocent. His most imposing diction is
upon a very charitable estimate of it,
nothing but violent protest against
everything that bears the, name of Eng
lish style. Yet it cannot be denied that
this strange genius wrought at least one
half his startling effects by means of the
astonishing and unhackneyed popularity
of his own unspeakable" Carlylese.-
England, he once exclaimed q am try
ing to give the se1ase) in one of his most
savage moods, and with much of untruth,
cannot build, she has no Michel Angelo,
only Sir Christopher Wren; she cannot
paint, she has no Raphael, only Mr.. Hol-
man Hunt; she cannot sing, she has no
Malibran, only Miss Bishop she cannot
write; but she has manufactures and
commerce." England her neork'I So
if the sage of Ecclefechan could not oOrite,
in the usual acceptation Of that term, he
has certainly made prodigious mark on
the generation in the midst Of which he
lived and moved, at which he bitterly
scoffed, but over which also he YEARLY
sighed and yearned. All this raises
question that has often been debated :