The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1881-02-16
MIR. Carlyle Impeached.

Mr.. Carlyle Impeached.
The worst is that Mr.. Carlyle usually
produces his effects at the expense OF
truth. | do not mean to charge him
with misstating facts. He is no doubt as
careful about correctness, particularly in
costume, as modern stage manager, but
in greater matters, particularly in. the
greatest of all, in his estimate of great
events and characters, he seems to me
entirely astray. 1 regard him as the
principal representative of that false
tendency in history which Macaulay
made fashionable, the tendency to substi-
tute literary for a political estimate.
He makes no secret Of this tendency, but
everywhere avows it as if he were intro
ducing reform and not new abuse.
And yet, as | have said, this literary es-
innate positively turns history upside
down. 1t teaches us to admire in the
past whatever we most disapprove in the
present-bloody catastrophes, desperate
policies, revolutions. Nothing can ex-
coed the simplicity with which Mr..
Carlyle avows that he takes no interest
In any wise, successful statesman who
has brought happiness to his country,
and that he feels no admiration for such
a character. In his Essay on Mira
beau" he ridicules the English public for
continuing to repeat the names of Pitt
and Fox when heroes like the leaders OF
the French Revolution were soliciting
their homage. OF these leaders he
selects three, Mirabeau, Danton, and Ma
poleon, whom he is prepared to maintain
to be characters of an altogether higher
order than Pitt and Fox. Now, on what
ground? Evidently because of the ter
rible events with which they were mixed
up. Mr.. Carlyle means to say that
stormy scenes in the Tennis Court or in
the Paris streets, September massacres,
battles of Austerlitz, excite his magma
ton, while Regency debates and the like
put him to sleep. So feels, no doubt the
literary man In search of subject. 1t
ls little to say that the historian proper
judges differently. He reverses the
judgment. To him the enormous dis
quiet of France is the strongest presump-
tive evidence against the revolutionary
statesmen, and the comparative tran
guilty of England the best proof of the
merit of Pitt and Fox. These general
observations upon Mr.. Carlyle as his
torain have been intended to lead to some
remarks on his famous achievement, the
rehabilitation of Cromwell. We know
what was the old constitutional view OF
the great rebellion; on one side of politics
there was, Of course, total disapproval,
on the other side vindication and admira-
ton, but most carefully qualified. Hal
lam, the Wing, qualities his appreciation
of Pym and Hampden SO far as to hint
that even at the beginning of the civil
war their case was already bad one.
AS for the military party, which in the
course Of 1913 became predominant with
Cromwell at its head, he condemns them
altogether, and his estimate of Cromwell
is singularly severe, though he does JUS
tice to his ability. Hallam may be taken
to represent the purely political view.
In Macaulay the tone taken is degree
more literary. He avoids, apparently
with intention, giving any deliberate es-
innate of Cromwell, but is always warm
er and more eloquent than Hallam in
speaking Of his achievements. Now
comes Mr.. Carlyle with the purely lite
rary view. He tells us that he has sin
cerely tried to admire the Pyms and the
Hampdens, but at the bottom che has
found that it would not do" Of course
not we are quite prepared to hear that
Cromwell seems to him as much superior
TO Pym and Hampden as Mirabeau, Dan
ton, and Napoleon to Pitt and Fox.
For he is thinking of the subject purely
90 li4aroru man on1 bo eoog ~ - e. :.
literary point of view there can be no
comparison between the hero Of Naseby
and Dunbar and two civilians, even
though those two civilians did set on foot
civil war. Accordingly he throws
aside entirely the received opinion and
sets up the military party, rejected be-
fore by Wings and Tories alike, for our
admiration. In the midst Of this mill
tary party, like Charlemagne among his
peers or Napoleon anoono bie Morsba1s