Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 2: Carlyle

The essay assesses Thomas Carlyle's literary achievements, moral influence, and stylistic eccentricities, arguing that he powerfully diagnosed social and moral disorder, kindled moral energy, and popularised appreciation of foreign authors while also exhibiting faults—overwrought mannerisms, reticence on some issues, a strained fatalism that fosters contempt for moral niceties and limited sympathy with large classes, and solutions judged impractical. It balances praise for imagination and historical exposition with doubts about long-term durability, acknowledging important services to letters while warning of the hazards in his methods and temperament.