single moment attempted to do. All other vileness and profligacy in the rulers of a country were but the inevitable consequences of this inherent vice in the condition of their existence. And, this continuing for centuries, the government growing ever more and more consciously a Lie, the people ever more and more perceiving it to be such, the day of reckoning, which comes for all impostures, came for this: the Good would no longer obey such rulers, the Bad ceased to be in awe of them, and both together rose up and hurled them into chaos."*

lution.

John Sterling in a later number of the same Review pays similar enthusiastic tribute to the genius shown in this work, John Sterling with which Carlyle's name caine on Carlyle's French Revo- definitely before the public for the first time. He says: "Of all books in the English language which the present age has given birth to, it is that which, most surprising and disheartening men at first sight, seems afterwards, so far as can be judged from the very many known experiments, the most forcibly to attract and detain them. The general result appears to be an eager, wide ebullience of the soul, issuing in manifold meditations, and,

• London and Westminster Review, April 1837.

in an altered and deepened feeling of all human life. The book has made no outward noise, but has echoed on and on within the hearts of men. Instances might be cited, without probably one exception, of persons of the most oddly diverse characters, and of kinds and degrees of cultivation no less unlike, from, as it were, the grass beneath our feet and the hidden flowers in cold green nooks, to the pine and oak of amplest growth above our heads-all equally, though most differently, affected by that electric blaze. This history is, in fact, a genuine breathing epic. Complete and fixed in its design, it thrills with life-blood through and through. It shows how the most golden fancy, and the most vivifying imagination, may be exercised, in all their glory and fullest flood, within the bounds of the literally true, of that which was transacted in the lives of our fathers, and which filled with its jar and smoke, and diurnal apparitions, the pages of hundreds of newspapers.'

Of the French criticisms of Carlyle it is our intention to speak later on; but here, following the laudatory notices of the two English critics, may be inserted M. Taine's account of the effect

London and Westminster Review, October 1839 (vol. xxxiii. pp. 59, 60); Essays and Tales, by John Sterling (London, 1848), vol. i. pp. 364

366.

M. Taine on Carlyle's French Revolution.

upon himself of a perusal of The French Revolution. "Even history-that of the French Revolution-is like a delirium. Carlyle is a Puritan seer, before whose eyes pass scaffolds, orgies, massacres, battles, and who, besieged by furious or bloody phantoms, prophesies, encourages, or curses. If you do not throw down the book from anger or weariness, you will lose your judgment; your ideas depart, nightmare seizes you, a medley of contracted and ferocious figures whirl about in your head; you hear the howls of insurrection, cries of war; you are sick; you are like those listeners to the Covenanters, whom the preaching filled with disgust or enthusiasm, and who broke the head of their prophet, if they did not take him for their leader."*

It has been said that few men besides Carlyle have so perfectly combined the logical and intuitional faculty; and in the same way very few historians have possessed Carlyle's enormous power of taking pains, his absolute accuracy of research, combined with his unrivalled powers of style, his magnificence of imagery, and his perhaps unique faculty of presenting effective

History of English Literature. By H. A. Taine. Translated from the French by H. Van Laun (Ed. 1872), vol. ii. p. 438.

Sinking of

groups by working up all the details of a picture. Numerous as have been the criticisms of The French Revolution, both in England, France, and America, we are not aware that the substantial accuracy of the narrative has ever, in any material point, been impeached. One instance, indeed, there was of error, and that a remarkable one. Its prompt correction, as soon as discovered, was a signal illustration of Carlyle's conscientious accuracy. In the first edition of The French Revolution, published in three volumes in 1837, there appeared, the engeur at the end of Chapter VI. ("Do episode. thy Duty") of Book V. in the third volume, an account of the sinking of the French war-ship Vengcur during a battle in June 1794, between the French and English fleets, commanded respectively by VillaretJoyeuse and Lord Howe. The passage, which is one of the most vigorous in the whole work, runs as follows:-"Nevertheless, what sound is this that we hear, on the 1st of June 1794; sound as of war-thunder, borne from the Ocean too, of tone most piercing? War-thunder from off the Brest waters: Villaret-Joyeuse and English Howe, after long manoeuvring, have ranked themselves there; and are belching fire. The enemies of human nature are on their own

element; cannot be conquered; cannot be kept from conquering. Twelve hours of raging cannonade; sun now sinking westward through the battle-smoke: six French ships taken, the battle lost; what ship soever can still sail, making off! But how is it, then, with that Vengeur ship, she neither strikes nor makes off? She is lamed, she cannot make off; strike she will not. Fire rakes her fore and aft, from victorious enemies; the Vengeur is sinking. Strong are ye, Tyrants of the Sea; yet we also, are we weak? Lo! all flags, streamers, jacks, every rag of tricolour that will yet run on rope, fly rustling aloft: the whole crew crowds to the upper deck; and, with universal soul-maddening yell, shouts Vive la République,' sinking, sinking. She staggers, she lurches, her last drunk whirl; Ocean yawns abysmal down rushes the Vengeur, carrying Vire la République' along with her, unconquerable, into Eternity! Let foreign Despots think of that. There is an Unconquerable in man, when he stands on his Rights of Man: let Despots and Slaves and all people know this, and only them that stand on the Wrongs of Man tremble to know it." So the story stood for some time, Carlyle citing as his authorities for it, "Barrère (Choix des Rapports xvi. 416-21); Lord Howe (Annual Register of 1794, p. 86), &c.'