and kingship.

Whether we agree with Carlyle or not, we must accept for the moment his
peculiar view of history, else _Heroes_ can never open its treasures to us.
The book abounds in startling ideas, expressed with originality and power,
and is pervaded throughout by an atmosphere of intense moral earnestness.
The more we read it, the more we find to admire and to remember.

Carlyle's _French Revolution_ (1837) is to be taken more seriously as a
historical work; but here again his hero worship comes to the front, and
his book is a series of flashlights thrown upon men in dramatic situations,
rather than a tracing of causes to their consequences. The very titles of
his chapters--"Astraea Redux," "Windbags," "Broglie the War God"--do
violence to our conception of history, and are more suggestive of Carlyle's
individualism than of French history. He is here the preacher rather than
the historian; his text is the eternal justice; and his message is that all
wrongdoing is inevitably followed by vengeance. His method is intensely
dramatic. From a mass of historical details he selects a few picturesque
incidents and striking figures, and his vivid pictures of the storming of
the Bastille, the rush of the mob to Versailles, the death of Louis XVI,
and the Reign of Terror, seem like the work of an eyewitness describing
some terrible catastrophe. At times, as it portrays Danton, Robespierre,
and the great characters of the tragedy, Carlyle's work is suggestive of an
historical play of Shakespeare; and again, as it describes the rush and
riot of men led by elemental passion, it is more like a great prose epic.
Though not a reliable history in any sense, it is one of the most dramatic
and stirring narratives in our language.

Two other historical works deserve at least a passing notice. The _History
of Frederick the Great_ (1858-1865), in six volumes, is a colossal picture
of the life and times of the hero of the Prussian Empire. _Oliver
Cromwell's Letters and Speeches_ is, in our personal judgment, Carlyle's
best historical work. His idea is to present the very soul of the great
Puritan leader. He gives us, as of first importance, Cromwell's own words,
and connects them by a commentary in which other men and events are
described with vigor and vividness. Cromwell was one of Carlyle's greatest
heroes, and in this case he is most careful to present the facts which
occasion his own enthusiasm. The result is, on the whole, the most l