ly trustworthy in separate pictures and episodes, however splendid
its dramatic power.

It would need an essay, or rather a volume, on the French Revolution to
enumerate all the wrong judgments and fallacies of Carlyle's book, if
we bring it to the bar of sober and authentic history. First and
foremost comes his fundamental misconception that the Revolution was an
anarchical outburst against corruption and oppression, instead of
being, as it was, the systematic foundation of a new order of society.
Again, he takes it to be a purely French, local, and political
movement, instead of seeing that it was an European, social, spiritual
movement toward a more humane civilisation. And next, he regards the
Revolution as taking place in the six years between the taking of the
Bastille and the defeat of the Sections by Bonaparte; whereas the
Revolution was preparing from the time of Louis XIV., and is not yet
ended in the time of President Faure. Next to the capital mistake of
misconceiving the entire character and result of the Revolution, comes
the insolence which treats the public men of France during a whole
generation as mere subjects for ribaldry and caricature. From this
uniform mockery, Mirabeau and Bonaparte, two of the least worthy of
them, are almost alone exempted. This is a blunder in art, as well as
a moral and historical offence. Men like Gondorcet, Danton, Hoche,
Carnot, not to name a score of other old Conventionels, soldiers, and
leaders were pure, enlightened, and valorous patriots--with a breadth
of soul and social sympathies and hopes that tower far above the
insular prejudices and Hebrew traditions of a Scotch Cameronian
_litterateur_--poet, genius, and moralist though he also was himself.

But though the _French Revolution_ is not to be accepted as
historical authority, it is profoundly stimulating and instructive,
when we look on it as a lyrical apologue. It is an historical
phantasmagoria--which, though hardly more literally true than
Aristophanes' _Knights_ or _Clouds_, may almost be placed beside these
immortal satires for its imagination, wisdom, and insight. The
personages and the events of the French Revolution in fact succeeded
each other with such startling rapidity and such bewildering variety,
that it is difficult for any but the most patient student to keep the
men and the phases steadily before the eye without confusion and in
distinct form. This Carlyle has done far better than any ot