We give also a specimen of the typical Dickensian style. The reader should observe in it the qualities of ease, perspicuity, and humor:

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811–63)

1. His Life. Thackeray was born at Calcutta, and was descended from an ancient Yorkshire family. His father having died in 1816, the boy was sent to England for his education; and on the voyage home he had a glimpse of Napoleon, then a prisoner on St. Helena. His school was the Charterhouse, and his college was Trinity College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1829. Both at school and college he struck his contemporaries as an idle and rather cynical youth, whose main diversions were sketching and lampooning his friends and enemies. For a time Thackeray had some intention of becoming an artist, and studied art in Paris. Then the loss of his entire fortune drove him into journalism for a living. He contributed both prose and light verse to several periodicals, including Punch and Fraser’s Magazine, winning his way slowly and with much difficulty, for his were gifts that do not gain ready recognition. It was not till nearly the middle of the century that Vanity Fair (1847) brought him some credit, though at first the book was grudgingly received. Thenceforward he wrote steadily and with increasing favor until his death, which occurred with great suddenness. Before his death he had enjoined his executors not to publish any biography, so that of all the major Victorian writers we have of him the scantiest biographical materials.

2. His Novels. For a considerable number of years Thackeray was groping for a means of expression, and wavered between verse, prose, and sketching. His earliest literary work consisted of light and popular contributions to periodicals. The most considerable of these are The Yellowplush Papers (1837), contributed to Fraser’s Magazine and dealing with the philosophy and experiences of Jeames, an imaginary footman, and The Book of Snobs (1846), which originally appeared in Punch as The Snob Papers. Snobs, who continued to be Thackeray’s pet abhorrence, are defined by him as those “who meanly admire mean things,” and in this early book their widespread activities are closely pursued and harried. The History of Samuel Titmarsh (1841), The Great Hoggarty Diamond (1841), and The Fitzboodle Papers (1842) appeared first in Fraser’s Magazine. They are deeply marked with his biting humor and merciless observation of human weaknesses, but they found little acceptance. The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon (1842) is a distinct advance. It is a species of picaresque novel, telling of the adventures of a gambling rascal, an amiable scapegrace who prowls over Europe. In range the book is wider, and the grasp of incident and character is more sure. In Vanity Fair (1847) the genius of Thackeray reaches high-water mark. In theme it is concerned chiefly with the fortunes of Becky Sharp, an adventuress. In dexterity of treatment, in an imaginative power that both reveals and transforms, and in a clear and mournful vision of the vanities of mankind the novel is among the greatest in the language. Pendennis (1848) continues the method of Vanity Fair. Partly autobiographical, it portrays life as it appears to the author. Thackeray refuses to bow to convention and precedent, except when these conform to his ideals of literature. In this book Thackeray openly avows his debt to Fielding, the master whom he equals and in places excels. Henry Esmond (1852) is a historical novel of great length and complexity, showing the previous excellences of Thackeray in almost undiminished force, as well as immense care and forethought, a minute and accurate knowledge of the times of Queen Anne, and an extraordinary faculty for reproducing both the style and the atmosphere of the period. By some judges this book is considered to be his best. His novel The Newcomes (1854) is supposed to be edited by Pendennis. In tone it is more genial than its predecessors, but it ends tragically with the death of the aged Colonel Newcome. With The Virginians (1857) the list of the great novels is closed. This book, a sequel to Henry Esmond, is a record of the experiences of two lads called Warrington, the grandsons of Henry Esmond himself. In the story, a pale shadow of her former self, appears Beatrix Esmond, the fickle heroine of the earlier book.

In 1860 Thackeray was appointed first editor of The Cornhill Magazine, and for this he wrote Lovel the Widower (1860), The Adventures of Philip (1861), and a series of essays, charming and witty trifles, which were reissued as The Roundabout Papers (1862). Both in size and in merit these last novels are inferior to their predecessors. At his death he left an unfinished novel, Denis Duval.

Like Dickens, Thackeray had much success as a lecturer on both sides of the Atlantic, though in his methods he did not follow his fellow-novelist. Two courses of lectures were published as The English Humourists (1852) and The Four Georges (1857). All his life he delighted in writing burlesques, the best of which are Rebecca and Rowena (1850), a comic continuation of Ivanhoe, and The Legend of the Rhine (1851), a burlesque tale of medieval chivalry.

3. His Poetry. On the surface Thackeray’s verse appears to be frivolous stuff, but behind the frivolity there is always sense, often a barb of reproof, and sometimes a note of sorrow. The Ballads of Policeman X is an early work contributed in numbers to Punch. Others, such as The White Squall and The Ballad of Bouillabaisse, have more claim to rank as poetry, for they show much metrical dexterity and in places a touch of real pathos.

4. Features of his Works. (a) Their Reputation. While Dickens was in the full tide of his success Thackeray was struggling through neglect and contempt to recognition. Thackeray’s genius blossomed slowly, just as Fielding’s did; for that reason the fruit is more mellow and matured, and perhaps on that account it will last the longer. Once he had gained the favor of the public he held it, and among outstanding English novelists there is none whose claim is so little subject to challenge.

(b) His Method. “Since the writer of Tom Jones was buried,” says Thackeray in his preface to Pendennis, “no writer of fiction among us has been permitted to depict to the best of his power a MAN. We must shape him and give him a certain conventional temper.” Thackeray’s novels are a protest against this convention. He returns to the Fielding method: to view his characters steadily and fearlessly, and to set on record their failings as well as their merits and capacities. In his hands the results are not flattering to human nature, for most of his clever people are rogues and most of his virtuous folk are fools. But whether they are rogues, or fools, or merely blundering incompetents, his creations are rounded, entire, and quite alive and convincing.

(c) His Humor and Pathos. Much has been made of the sneering cynicism of Thackeray’s humor, and a good deal of the criticism is true. It was his desire to reveal the truth, and satire is one of his most potent methods of revelation. His sarcasm, a deadly species, is husbanded for deserving objects, such as Lord Steyne and (to a lesser degree) Barnes Newcome. In the case of people who are only stupid, like Rawdon Crawley, mercy tempers justice; and when Thackeray chooses to do so he can handle a character with loving tenderness, as can be seen in the case of Lady Castlewood and of Colonel Newcome. In pathos he is seldom sentimental, being usually quiet and effective. But at the thought of the vain, the arrogant, and the mean people of the world Thackeray barbs his pen, with destructive results.

(d) His style is very near to the ideal for a novelist. It is effortless, and is therefore unobtrusive, detracting in no wise from the interest in the story. It is also flexible to an extraordinary degree. We have seen how in Esmond he recaptured the Addisonian style; this is only one aspect of his mimetic faculty, which in his burlesques finds ample scope. We add a typical specimen of his style:

GEORGE MEREDITH (1828–1909)

Of the later Victorian novelists Meredith takes rank as the most noteworthy.

1. His Life. The known details of Meredith’s earlier life are still rather scanty, and he himself gives us little enlightenment. He was born at Portsmouth, and until he was sixteen he was educated in Germany. At first he studied law, but, rebelling against his legal studies, took to literature as a profession, contributing to magazines and newspapers. Like so many of the eager spirits of his day, he was deeply interested in the struggles of Italy and Germany to be free. For some considerable time he was reader to a London publishing house; then, as his own books slowly won their way, he was enabled to give more time to their composition. In 1867 he was appointed editor of The Fortnightly Review. He died at his home at Boxhill, Surrey.

2. His Poetry. During all his career as a novelist Meredith published much verse. Chillianwallah (1849), his first published work, contains much spirited verse; other works are Modern Love (1862), Ballads and Poems (1887), and Poems (1892). Like his novels, much of Meredith’s poetry is almost willfully obscure, as it undoubtedly is in Modern Love; but in the case of such poems as The Nuptials of Attila he is clear and vigorous. He loved nature and the open air, and in poems like the beautiful Love in the Valley such affection is brightly visible. Like Swinburne, he was always eager to champion the cause of the oppressed.

3. His Novels. Meredith’s first novel of importance is The Ordeal of Richard Feverel (1859). Almost at one stride he attains to his full strength, for this novel is typical of much of his later work. In plot it is rather weak, and almost incredible toward the end. It deals with a young aristocrat educated on a system laboriously virtuous; but youthful nature breaks the bonds, and complications follow. Most of the characters are of the higher ranks of society, and they are subtly analyzed and elaborately featured. They move languidly across the story, speaking in a language as extraordinary, in its chiseled epigrammatic precision, as that of the creatures of Congreve or Oscar Wilde. The general style of the language is mannered in the extreme; it is a kind of elaborate literary confectionery—it almost seems a pity on the part of the hasty novel-reader to swallow it in rude mouthfuls. Nevertheless, behind this appearance of artificiality there ranges a mind both subtle and sure, an elfish, satiric spirit, and a passionate ideal of artistic perfection. Such a novel could hardly hope for a ready recognition; but its ultimate fame was assured.

The next novel was Evan Harrington (1860), which contains some details of Meredith’s own family life; then followed Emilia in England (1864), the name of which was afterward altered to Sandra Belloni, in which the scene is laid partly in Italy. In Rhoda Fleming (1865) Meredith tried to deal with plebeian folks, but with indifferent success. The heroines of his later novels—Meredith was always careful to make his female characters at least as important as his male ones—are aristocratic in rank and inclinations. Vittoria (1867) is a sequel to Sandra Belloni, and contains much spirited handling of the Italian insurrectionary movement. Then came The Adventures of Harry Richmond (1870), in which the scene is laid in England, and Beauchamp’s Career (1874), in which Meredith’s style is seen in its most exaggerated form. In The Egoist (1879), his next novel, Meredith may be said to reach the climax of his art. The style is fully matured, with much less surface glitter and more depth and solidity; the treatment of the characters is close, accurate, and amazingly detailed; and the Egoist himself, Sir Willoughby Patterne—Meredith hunted the egoist as remorselessly as Thackeray pursued the snob—is a triumph of comic artistry. The later novels are of less merit. The Tragic Comedians (1880) is chaotic in plot and over-developed in style; and the same faults may be urged against Diana of the Crossways (1885), though it contains many beautiful passages; One of our Conquerors (1890) is nearly impossible in plot and style, and The Amazing Marriage (1895) is not much better.

We add a short typical specimen of Meredith’s style. Observe the studied precision of phrase and epithet, the elaboration of detail, and the imaginative power.

OTHER NOVELISTS

1. Charlotte Brontë (1816–55) is the most important of three sisters, the other two being Emily Brontë (1818–48) and Anne Brontë (1820–49). They were the daughters of an Irish clergyman who held a living in Yorkshire. Financial difficulties compelled Charlotte to become a schoolteacher and then (1832) a governess. Along with Emily she visited Brussels in 1842, and then returned home, where family cares kept her closely tied. Later her books had much success, and so she was released from many of her financial worries. She was married in 1854, but died in the next year. Her two younger sisters, brilliant but erratic creatures, had predeceased her.

The three sisters began their career jointly with a volume of verse, in which they respectively adopted the names of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. The poems, which appeared in 1846, are unusually fine in parts, especially the pieces ascribed to Emily. Charlotte’s first novel, The Professor, which was written before the poems were published, had no success, and was not published till after her death. Jane Eyre (1847), which was given to the world after The Professor had failed to find a publisher, created a stir by its unusual candor, passion, and power. It was based on the work of Thackeray, whom Miss Brontë, in the second edition of the book, acknowledged as her Master in the art of fiction. Her other novels were Shirley (1849) and Villette (1853).

The truth and intensity of Charlotte’s work are unquestioned: she can see and judge with the eye of a genius. But these merits have their disadvantages. In the plots of her novels she is largely restricted to her own experiences; her high seriousness is unrelieved by any humor; and her passion is at times overcharged to the point of frenzy. But to the novel she brought an energy and passion that gave to commonplace people and actions the wonder and beauty of the romantic world.

Emily wrote a novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), a wild effort, hit or miss, at the tragical romance. Where she is successful she attains to a tragical emphasis that is almost sublime; but as a whole the book is too unequal to rank as very great.

The third sister, Anne, in her short life wrote two novels, Agnes Grey (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1847). They are much inferior to the novels of her sisters, for she lacks nearly all their power and intensity.

2. Charles Reade (1814–84) was born in Oxfordshire, being the youngest son of a squire. He was educated at Iffley and Oxford, and then, entering Lincoln’s Inn, was called to the Bar. He was only slightly interested in the legal profession, but very fond of the theater and traveling. After 1852 he settled down to the career of the successful man of letters. He died at Shepherd’s Bush.

He began authorship with the writing of plays. As a playwright he had a fair amount of success, his most fortunate production being Masks and Faces (1852), written in collaboration with Tom Taylor. Peg Woffington (1853) was his first novel, and was followed by Christie Johnstone (1853), which deals with Scottish fisherfolk. It’s Never too Late to Mend (1856), sometimes considered to be his masterpiece, treats of prisons and of life in the colonies. The Cloister and the Hearth (1861), one of his best novels, is a story of the later Middle Ages, and shows the author’s immense care and knowledge; Hard Cash (1863) is an attack upon private lunatic asylums; and Griffith Gaunt (1866), Foul Play (1869), and some other inferior books are in the nature of propaganda against abuses of the time.

When he is at his best Reade tells a fine tale, for he can move with speed and describe with considerable power. But he tends to overload his narrative with historical and topical detail, of which he collected great masses. His style, too, is frequently marred by annoying tricks of manner, such as over-emphasis and mechanical repetition. Since his own day his reputation has declined.

3. Anthony Trollope (1815–82) is another Victorian novelist who just missed greatness. The son of a barrister, he was born in London, educated at Harrow and Winchester, and obtained an appointment in the Post Office. After an unpromising start he rapidly improved, and rose high in the service.

In all Trollope wrote over fifty novels, the best of which are The Warden (1855), Barchester Towers (1857), Doctor Thorne (1858), Framley Parsonage (1861), and The Last Chronicle of Barset (1867). He is at his best when he deals with the lives of the clergymen of the town that he calls Barchester, which has been identified with Salisbury. His novels, owing to the rapidity of their output, tend to become mechanical and ill constructed; but he has a genial humor, a lively narrative method, and much shrewd observation. Barchester Towers contains several characters not unworthy of Dickens.

4. Wilkie Collins (1824–89) is considered to be the most successful of the followers of Dickens. At one time, about 1860, his vogue was nearly as great as that of Dickens himself. Collins was born in London, and was a son of a famous painter. After a few years spent in business he took to the study of the law, but very soon abandoned that for literature. He was a versatile man, dabbling much in journalism and play-writing.

Collins specialized in the mystery novel, to which he sometimes added a spice of the supernatural. In many of his books the story, which is often ingeniously complicated, is unfolded by letters or the narratives of persons actually engaged in the events. To a certain extent this method is cumbrous, but it allowed Collins to draw his characters with much wealth of detail. His characters are often described in the Dickensian manner of emphasizing some humor or peculiarity. He wrote more than twenty-five novels, the most popular being The Dead Secret (1857), The Woman in White (1860)—the most successful of them all—No Name (1862), and The Moonstone (1868). The Moonstone is one of the earliest and the best of the great multitude of detective stories that now crowd the popular press. Collins was in addition one of the first authors to devote himself to the short magazine story; After Dark is a little masterpiece.

5. George Eliot—the pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819–80)—was during her lifetime reckoned to be among the greatest authors, but time has dealt rather unkindly with her reputation. Even yet, however, she ranks among the greatest of women novelists. The daughter of a Warwickshire land-agent, she was born near Nuneaton, and after being educated at Nuneaton and Coventry lived much at home. Her mind was well above the ordinary in its bent for religious and philosophical speculation. In 1846 she translated Strauss’s Life of Jesus, and on the death of her father in 1849 she took entirely to literary work. She was appointed assistant editor of the Westminster Review (1851), and became the center of a literary circle. In later life she traveled extensively, and married (1880) Mr. J. W. Cross. She died at Chelsea in the same year.

Her first fiction consisted of three short stories published in Blackwood’s Magazine and reissued under the title of Scenes from Clerical Life (1857). Adam Bede (1859), her second book, was brilliantly successful. It is a story of country life, subtly yet powerfully told. To this succeeded The Mill on the Floss (1860), partly autobiographical. This book is longer and heavier than its predecessor, but it has much tragic force and acute observation, and a placidly caustic humor. Silas Marner (1861) is shorter, crisper, and exceedingly effective, but Romola (1863), a laborious story of medieval Florence, is overweighted with learning and philosophizing. After this point the decline is rapid in Felix Holt (1866), Middlemarch (1872), Daniel Deronda (1876), and The Impressions of Theophrastus Such (1879).

In some respects George Eliot is first rate: in humorous observation of country folk, in keen analysis of motive, and in a curious kind of grim subdued passion. But she lacks fire and rapidity, and is deficient in the warmer kind of humanity. The consequence is that, especially in the later books, when the heart became subordinated to the head, her people are icily unreal. In these last books, moreover, she allowed her religious, racial, and political theories to run away with her, and thus to ruin her work as artistic fiction.

6. Charles Kingsley (1819–75) was a Devonshire man, being born at Holne and brought up at Clovelly. He completed his education at Oxford (1842), where he was very successful as a student, and took orders. During his early manhood he was a strenuous Christian Socialist, and for the first few years of his curacy he devoted himself to the cause of the poor. All his life was spent, first as curate and then as rector, at Eversley, in Hampshire. In the course of time his books brought him honors, including the professorship of history at Oxford and a chaplaincy to the Queen.

His first novels, Alton Locke (1849) and Yeast (1849), deal in a robust fashion with the social questions of his day. They are crude in their methods, but they were effective both as fiction and social propaganda. Hypatia (1853) has for its theme the struggle between early Christianity and intellectual paganism; in workmanship it is less immature, but the cruelly tragic conclusion made it less popular than the others. Westward Ho! (1855), a tale of the good old days of Queen Elizabeth, marks the climax of his career as a novelist. At first the book strikes the reader as being wordy and diffuse, and all through it is marred with much tedious abuse of Roman Catholics; but once the tale roams abroad into exciting scenes it moves with a buoyant zest, and reflects with romantic exuberance the spirit of the early sea-rovers. Two Years Ago (1857) and Hereward the Wake (1866) did not recapture the note of their great predecessor.

Kingsley excels as the manly and straightforward story-teller. His characters, though they are clearly stamped and visualized, lack delicacy of finish, yet they suit his purpose excellently. In treatment he revels in a kind of florid description which is not always successful.

As a poet Kingsley achieved some remarkable results, especially in his short poems. Of these a few, including the familiar Sands of Dee, The Three Fishers, and Airly Beacon, are of the truly lyrical cast: short, profoundly passionate, and perfectly phrased. His longer poems, such as The Saint’s Tragedy (1848), are not nearly so good. Kingsley could write also a rhythmic semi-poetical prose, as is seen in his book of stories from the Greek myths called The Heroes (1856) and to a less degree in his delightful fantasy The Water Babies (1863).

7. Walter Besant (1836–1901) is a good example of the class of light novelist that flourished in the later Victorian epoch. He was born at Portsmouth, educated at London and Cambridge, held a professorship in Mauritius, and then, returning to England (1868), settled down to the life of a novelist. Along with James Rice (1844–82) he wrote many novels, including Ready-Money Mortiboy (1872) and The Golden Butterfly (1876). These books do not aspire to be great literature, but they are healthy and amusing productions.

8. George Borrow (1803–81) had a curious career which did not lose its interest from his method of telling its story. He was born in Norfolk, and was the son of a soldier. From his earliest manhood he led a wandering life, and consorted with queer people, of whose languages and customs he was a quick observer. At one stage of his career he was a colporteur for the Bible Society, visiting Spain and Morocco (1835–39). Then he married a lady with a considerable income, and died a landed proprietor in comfortable circumstances.

His principal books were The Bible in Spain (1843), telling of his adventures as an agent of the Bible Society; Lavengro (1851) and The Romany Rye (1857), dealing with his life among the gypsies; and Wild Wales (1862). His books are remarkable in that they seriously pretend to tell the actual facts of the author’s life, but how much is fact and how much is fiction will never be accurately known, so great is his power of imagination. Taken as mere fiction, the books exert a strong and strange fascination on many readers. They have a naïve simplicity resembling that of Goldsmith, a wry humor, and a quick and natural shrewdness. As a blend of fact and fiction, of hard detail and misty imagination, of sly humor and stockish solemnity, the books stand apart in our literature.

9. Richard D. Blackmore (1825–1900) was born in Berkshire, and educated at Tiverton and Oxford. He was called to the Bar, but forsook the law for the occupation of a farmer, which suited him much better. He died at Teddington-on-Thames.

He began authorship by writing verse of little value; then turned to writing novels, which are much worthier as literature. The best of these are Lorna Doone (1869), an excellent historical romance of Exmoor, The Maid of Sker (1872), and Cripps the Carrier (1876). Blackmore had little skill in contriving plots, and many of his characters, especially his wicked characters, carry little conviction. Yet he has a rare capacity for tale-telling, a real enthusiasm for nature, and a romantic eloquence of style that falls little short of greatness. Lorna Doone stands high among historical novels.

10. Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) was born at Edinburgh, and was called to the Scottish Bar. He had little taste for the legal profession, and a constitutional tendency to consumption made an outdoor life necessary. He traveled much in an erratic manner, and wrote for periodicals. Then, when his malady became acute, he migrated to Samoa (1888), where the mildness of the climate only delayed a death which came all too prematurely. He lies buried in Samoa.

His first published works were of the essay nature, and included An Inland Voyage (1879), Travels with a Donkey (1879), and Virginibus Puerisque (1881). His next step was into romance, in which he began with The New Arabian Nights (1882), and then had real success with Treasure Island (1883), a stirring yarn of pirates and perilous seas. Then came Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), a fine example of the terror-mystery novel, and several historical novels: Kidnapped (1887), The Black Arrow (1888), The Master of Ballantrae (1889), and Catriona (1893), which was a sequel to Kidnapped. With the exception of The Black Arrow, the historical novels deal with Scotland in the eighteenth century. At his death he left a powerful fragment, Weir of Hermiston.

In the novel Stevenson carries on the tradition of George Meredith. He applies to the novel a cultivated style and a laborious craftsmanship. These features would in themselves have made his novels unattractive, but to them he added a pawky sense of humor, a swift and brilliant descriptive faculty, and a wide knowledge of and a deep regard for the lore of his native land. Compared with Scott he seems cramped and finicking in his methods, and his outlook is sometimes crude and juvenile, but his finer qualities more than atone for his shortcomings.

Stevenson’s poetry is charming and dexterous, excelling in its treatment of child-nature. His best volumes are A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885), Underwoods (1887), and Ballads (1889).

11. Samuel Butler (1835–1902) was born in Nottinghamshire, and educated at Shrewsbury and Cambridge. In 1860 he emigrated to New Zealand, where a few years’ successful sheep-farming allowed him to return to England and live a modest literary life. Butler was a man who harbored unusual ideas on music, art, education, and social conditions in general. His mind was at once cultured and credulous; and his gift of pungent language gave him much influence among the more ardent and advanced minds of his day.

His first work, Erewhon (1872), appeared originally in a newspaper in New Zealand. It is a combination of Gulliver’s Travels and Utopia adapted to modern life, and full of Butler’s odd prejudices and sardonic wit. Its acute thinking and solid narrative gifts are also very apparent. His great novel The Way of All Flesh was published posthumously in 1903. It is modern enough in its keen satire upon conventional education and parental methods of control and in its candid personal disclosures. As time goes on the work will probably take its place as one of the outstanding novels of the period.

THOMAS CARLYLE (1795–1881)

1. His Life. Carlyle, who was born at Ecclefechan, in Dumfriesshire, was the son of a stonemason. He was educated at Annan and at Edinburgh University, and, giving up his intention of entering the Church, became for a time a schoolteacher in Kirkcaldy. After a few years’ teaching, during which he saved a little money, he abandoned the profession and removed to Edinburgh, where he did literary hack-work for a living. At this time (1818) he was poor in means and wretched in health, and his spiritual and bodily torments are revealed in Sartor Resartus. In 1828 he married Jane Welsh, an able woman who possessed a little property of her own; and after a brief spell of married life in Edinburgh they removed to Craigenputtock, a small estate in the wilds of Dumfriesshire owned by Mrs. Carlyle. Here they lived unhappily enough, but here Carlyle wrote some of his best-known books. In 1834 they removed to London, and settled permanently in Chelsea. Carlyle’s poverty was still acute, and as a means of alleviating it he took to lecturing. He was moderately successful in the effort. Then his books, at first received with complete indifference or positive amazement and disgust, began to find favor, and for the last twenty years of his life he was prominent among the intellectual leaders of the time. His wife died in 1866, and in his latter years he was much afflicted with illness and by his deep concern for the state of public affairs. He died at Chelsea, and was buried among his own people at Ecclefechan.

2. His Works. Carlyle’s earliest work consisted of translations, essays, and biographies. Of these the best are his translation of Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister (1824), his Life of Schiller (1825), and his essays on Burns and Scott. Then Sartor Resartus (1833) appeared piecemeal in Fraser’s Magazine. It is an extraordinary book, pretending to contain the opinions of a German professor; but under a thin veil of fiction Carlyle discloses his own spiritual struggles during his early troubled years. The style is violent and exclamatory, and the meaning is frequently obscured in a torrent of words, but it has an energy and a rapturous ecstasy of revolt that quite take the breath away. Carlyle then turned to historical writing, which he handled in his own unconventional fashion. His major historical works are The French Revolution (1837), a series of vivid word-pictures rather than sober history, but full of audacity and color; Oliver Cromwell’s Letters and Speeches (1845), a huge effort relieved from tedium only by Carlyle’s volcanic methods; The Life of John Sterling (1851), a slight work, but more genial and humane than his writing usually is; and The Life of Frederick II (1865), enormous in scale and heavy with detail. His works dealing with contemporary events are numerous, and include Chartism (1839), Past and Present (1843), and Latter-day Pamphlets (1850). The series of lectures he delivered in 1837 was published as Heroes and Hero-worship (1840).

3. Features of his Works. (a) His Teaching. It is now a little difficult to understand why Carlyle was valued so highly as a sage in moral and political affairs. Throughout his works there is much froth and thunder, but little of anything that (to a later age) is solid and capable of analysis. Carlyle, however, was a man of sterling honesty, of sagacious and powerful mind, which he applied without hesitation to the troubles of his time. His influence, therefore, was rather personal, like that of Dr. Johnson, and cannot be accurately gauged from his written works. His opinions were widely discussed and widely accepted, and his books had the force of ex cathedra pronouncements. In them he sometimes contradicted himself, but he did great service in his denunciation of shams and tyrannies, and in his tempestuous advocacy of hard work and clear thinking.

(b) His Historical Method. Carlyle’s method was essentially biographical—he sought out the “hero,” the superman who could benevolently dominate his fellows, and compel them to do better. Such were his Cromwell and his Frederick. His other aim was to make history alive. He denounced the “Dryasdust” who killed the living force in history. To achieve his purpose he sought out and recorded infinite detail of life and opinion, and by means of his own masculine imagination and pithy style he brought the subject vividly before his reader’s eye.

(c) His style is entirely his own. At the first glance a typical passage seems rude and uncouth: with many capital letters in the German fashion, with broken phrases and ejaculations, he proceeds amid a torrent of whirling words. Yet he is flexible to a wonderful degree: he can command a beauty of expression that wrings the very heart: a sweet and piercing melody, with a suggestion, always present, yet always remote, of infinite regret and longing. In such divine moments his style has the lyrical note that requires only the lyrical meter to become great poetry.[223]

The following are two specimens of his style. The first, based on German models, is in his cruder early manner; the second is more matured and restrained. Note in this the quizzical humor.

THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY (1800–59)

1. His Life. Macaulay was born in Leicestershire, his father being Zachary Macaulay, the earnest upholder of negro emancipation. Macaulay was educated privately, and then at Cambridge. From his infancy he was remarkable for his precocity and his prodigious memory. At Cambridge he twice won the Chancellor’s Medal for English verse; and after taking high honors he was called to the Bar. By this time his father’s business had collapsed, and Macaulay had to depend partly upon his pen for a living. At first he contributed to Knight’s Quarterly, but later he began writing his famous essays for The Edinburgh Review. Having entered Parliament as a Whig (1830), a very promising political career seemed to be opening before him when he accepted a lucrative legal post in India. He was in India for four years; then, returning to England, he re-entered political life, and became in turn Secretary of State for War and Paymaster of the Forces. In 1857 he was raised to the peerage, and died when he was still busy with his History.

2. His poetry was nearly all written early in his career, and most of it is included in his Lays of Ancient Rome (1842). In style the poems resemble the narrative poems of Scott, and in subject they are based upon the legends of early Rome, the best-known dealing with the story of Horatius. His verse is virile stuff, moving with vigor and assurance, and is full of action and color. Like his prose, however, it is hard and brassy, and quite lacking in the softer qualities of melody and sweetness and in the rich suggestiveness of the early ballad. It is not great poetry, but it will always be popular with those who like plenty of action and little contemplation.

3. His Prose Works. Before he left for India Macaulay had written twenty-two essays for The Edinburgh Review; he added three during his stay in India, and finished eleven others after he returned to England. With the five biographies that he contributed to The Encyclopedia Britannica, these include all his shorter prose works. The essays are of two kinds—those dealing with literary subjects, such as those on Milton, Byron, and Southey, and the historical studies, including the famous compositions on Warren Hastings and Lord Clive. His method of essay-writing was as follows: he brought under review a set of volumes that had already been published on the subject, then, after a survey, long or short as the case might be, of these volumes, gave his own views at great length. His opinions were often one-sided, and his great parade of knowledge was often flawed with actual error or distorted by his craving for antithesis and epigram; but the essays are clearly and ably written, and they disclose an eye for picturesque effect that in places is almost barbaric.

His History of England, the first volume of which was published in 1849, was unfinished at his death. After two long preliminary chapters, it began with the Whig revolution of 1688, and Macaulay intended to carry the story down to his own time. But he managed to compass within the three completed volumes only the events of a few years. His historical treatment is marked by the following features: (a) There are numerous and picturesque details, which retard his narrative while they add to the general interest. (b) The desire for brilliant effect resulted in a hard, self-confident manner, and in a lack of broader outlines and deeper views. These defects have deprived his History of much of its permanent value. (c) To this he added such a partiality for the Whig point of view that his statements, though they are always interesting and illuminating, are generally distrusted as statements of fact. To sum up, he said, “I shall not be satisfied unless I produce something which shall for a few days supersede the last fashionable novel on the tables of young ladies.” He had full reason to be satisfied; his book had an instant and enormous success, which, however, has been followed by distrust and neglect.

The extract given below gives some idea of his style. It is entirely direct and clear, and free from any shade of doubt and hesitancy. Observe the use of the short detached sentence, and the copious and expressive vocabulary: