odel historian than is Shakspeare a model dramatist. The
merest tyro can count the faults of either on his clumsy fingers. That
born critic, the late Sir George Lewis, had barely completed his tenth
year before he was able, in a letter to his mother, to point out to her
the essentially faulty structure of _Hamlet_, and many a duller wit, a
decade or two later in his existence, has come to the conclusion that
_Frederick the Great_ is far too long. But whatever were Carlyle's
faults, his historical method was superbly naturalistic. Have we a
historian left us so honestly possessed as he was with the genuine
historical instinct, the true enthusiasm to know what happened; or one
half so fond of a story for its own sake, or so in love with things, not
for what they were, but simply because they were? 'What wonderful things
are events!' wrote Lord Beaconsfield in _Coningsby_; 'the least are of
greater importance than the most sublime and comprehensive speculations.'
To say this is to go perhaps too far; certainly it is to go farther than
Carlyle, who none the less was in sympathy with the remark; for he also
worshipped events, believing as he did that but for the breath of God's
mouth they never would have been events at all. We thus find him always
treating even comparatively insignificant facts with a measure of
reverence, and handling them lovingly, as does a book-hunter the
shabbiest pamphlet in his collection. We have only to think of Carlyle's
essay on the _Diamond Necklace_ to fill our minds with his qualifications
for the proud office of the historian. Were that inimitable piece of
workmanship to be submitted to the criticisms of the new scientific
school, we doubt whether it would be so much as classed, whilst the
celebrated description of the night before the battle of Dunbar in
_Cromwell_, or any hundred scenes from the _French Revolution_, would, we
expect, be catalogued as good examples of that degrading process whereby
history fades into mere literature.

This is not a question, be it observed, of style. What is called a
picturesque style is generally a great trial. Who was it who called
Professor Masson's style Carlyle on wooden legs? What can be drearier
than when a plain matter-of-fact writer attempts to be animated, and
tries to make his characters live by the easy but futile expedient of
writing about them in the present tense? What is wanted is a passion for
facts; the style may be left to take