her
historian of the period, perhaps even better than any historian
whatever. That so many Englishmen are more familiar with the scenes
and the men and women of the French Revolution than they are with the
scenes and the men and women of their own history, is very largely the
work of Carlyle. And as to the vices and weakness of the Old Regime,
the electric contagion of the people of Paris, the indomitable
elasticity of the French spirit, the magnetic power of the French
genius, the famous _furia francese_, and the terrible rage into which
it can be lashed--all this Carlyle has told with a truth and insight
that has not been surpassed by any modern historian.

It being then clearly understood that Carlyle did not leave us the
trustworthy history of the French Revolution, in the way in which
Thucydides gave us the authentic annals of the Peloponnesian war, or
Caesar the official despatches of the Conquest of Gaul, we must
willingly admit that Carlyle's history is one of the most fruitful
products of the nineteenth century. No one else certainly has written
the authentic story of the French Revolution at large, or of more than
certain aspects and incidents of it. In spite of misconceptions, and
such mistaken estimates as those of Mirabeau and Bonaparte, such
insolent mockery of good and able men, such ridiculous caricatures as
that of the "Feast of Pikes" and the trial of the King, such ribald
horse-play as "Grilled Herrings" and "Lion Sprawling," in spite of
blots and blunders in every chapter--the _French Revolution_ is
destined to live long and to stand forth to posterity as the typical
work of the master. It cannot be said to have done such work as the
_Cromwell_; for it is far less true and sound as history, and it is
only one out of scores of interpreters of the Revolution, whereas in
the Cromwell Carlyle worked single-handed. But being far more organic,
far more imaginative, indeed more powerful than the _Cromwell_ in
literary art, the _French Revolution_--produced, we may remember,
exactly in the middle of the author's life--will remain the enduring
monument of Carlyle's great spirit and splendid brain.

The book entitled _Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History_
(1840), to give it its full and original title, comes next in order of
time, and perhaps of abiding value. It is a book rather difficult for
us now to estimate after more than half a century, for so very much has
been done in the interval