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Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, which was favourably received. married Miss Jane Welsh in 1825. She was a descendent of John Knox, a daughter of Dr. Welsh, Haddington; and through her Carlyle acquired the small property of Craigenputtoch, in Dumfriesshire, at which he resided for eight years. In this retired residence he wrote articles for the Foreign Review, and his Sartor Resartus, which first appeared in Fraser's Magazine in 1833-34. Carlyle left Craigenputtoch in 1834 and went to London, and finally settled in the famous House, No. 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea. In 1837 he delivered a series of lectures on German Literature in London, and in the following year another course on the Successive Periods of European Culture. Again in 1839 he delivered a course of lectures on the Revolutions of Modern Europe, and another on Heroes and Hero Worship in 1840. These lectures greatly extended his popularity. The lectures on Heroes and Hero Worship were published in book form, and widely read.

Carlyle wrote on many branches of literature, embracing critical essays, political and satirical pamphlets in various forms, and biography and history. His critical and miscellaneous essays extend to seven volumes, and treat on many subjects. Some of them are exceedingly good, such as those on Burns, Edward Irving, Voltaire, Goethe, and others; and the whole of his essays are characteristic and interesting. His political views were presented in a pamphlet entitled "Chartism," published in 1839, and in another, "Past and Present," which appeared in 1843. In these he enunciated some important truths, and made scathing observations against all shams, cant, formulas, and so on; yet he has very little to offer in the form of constructive remedies for the existing evils of society, either political or social. He issued another series of political tracts in 1850, entitled "Latter-day Pamphlets," and in these he appeared as the vehementand irate Censor, with all the exaggerating peculiarities of his style in greater profusion. He assumed the characteristics of a mere worshipper of force, and an ardent advocate of all coercive measures. Improved prisons and schools for the reform of criminals, poor laws, the churches, the aristocracy, Parliament, and other institutions, as then constituted, were all attacked and ridiculed in a scathing style. On some political points and administrative abuses, however, his bold and stinging satire was quite justifiable.

It was chiefly in biography and history that Carlyle attained distinction and fame as a writer. In 1837 his famous work, The

French Revolution, a History, was published. It is the best of all Carlyle's works, and is a very remarkable book. It presents a masterly and vivid panoramic view of the Revolution. He exerted his great powers of description in this work with striking effect. 15 As a specimen of his style, I will quote the passage on the death of Marie Antoinette ::

"Is there a man's heart that thinks without pity of those long months and years of slow-wasting ignominy; of thy birth, selfcradled in imperial Schonbrunn, the winds of heaven not to visit thy face too roughly, thy feet to light on softness, thy eye on splendour; and then of thy death, or hundred deaths, to which the guillotine and Forquier-Tinville's Judgment-bar was but the merciful end? Look there, O man born of woman! The bloom of that fair face is wasted, the hair is gray with care; the brightness of those eyes are quenched, their lids hang drooping, the face is stony pale, as of one living in death. Mean weeds, which her own hand has mended, attire the Queen of the World. The death-hurdle where thou sittest pale, motionless, which only curses environ, has to stop; a people, drunk with vengeance, will drink it again in full draught, looking at thee there. Far as the eye reaches a multitudinous sea of maniac heads, the air deaf with their triumph yell! The living-dead must shudder with yet one other pang; her startled blood yet again suffuses with the hue of agony that pale face which she hides with her hands! There is there no heart to say, God pity thee! O think not of these; think of Him whom thou worshippest, the crucified-who also treaded the wine-press alone, fronted sorrow still deeper; and triumphed over it and made it holy, and built of it a sanctuary of sorrow for thee and all the wretched! Thy path of thorns is nigh ended, one long last look at the Tuilleries, where thy step was once so light, where thy children shall not dwell. The head is on the block, the axe rushes-dumb lies the world; the wild yelling world and all its madness is behind thee."

Carlyle's collection of Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches, with Elucidations, appeared in 1845, in two volumes. It is an excellent work, and a valuable contribution to the historical materials of the seventeenth century. His own additional Elucidations, historic and descriptive, are important, and often very characteristic and interesting.

15 A very fair analysis and criticism of Carlyle's style is given in the late Professor Minto's Manual of English Prose Literature.

His Life of John Stirling was published in 1851. It is a warm tribute by Carlyle to the memory of a personal friend. Stirling was an amiable and accomplished man, and his friends were much attached to him. He had written some attractive volumes in prose and verse; and he died in 1844, in his thirty-eighth year.

Carlyle had been long working on his History of Friedrich the Great of Prussia, and in 1858 the first and second volumes of it appeared, the third and fourth in 1862, and the fifth and sixth completing the work in 1865. It is a work evincing great research, admirable descriptions of battle-fields and historic scenes, vivid and sage remarks on men and things, and touches of pathos and humour. Yet, viewed according to a recognised standard, it fails to reach the higher and genuine characteristics of history; and in truth, it is rather a personal biography and a glorification of the hero, Friedrich II., enlivened and widely varied by the writer's rare genius. If Carlyle was not a pure worshipper of mere force and might, he had, at least, an excessive veneration of individual great men-heroism; so he made them the central conception and wove events and movements around them for their special glorification, treating other men with scorn, and ignoring many important historic influences. He scouted the idea of tracing the relation of causes and effects in history, or the gradual development of political institutions. For the sake of the central hero, he sums up an estimate of the eighteenth century thus "What little it did, we must call Friedrich; what little it thought, Voltaire."

In spite of his veneration of might, and some unreasoned impulses, he was a great historical biographer. His fine power of description, insight of character, and the power of seizing reality, the faculty of discerning and selecting appropriate facts and incidents, and weaving these into a stirring narrative, enabled him to attain a marked distinction in this branch of literature. He had many readers and admirers, and his influence has been widely felt.

He was elected Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh, and on the 2nd of April 1866, delivered his installation address. Before he returned home, his wife died at London, on the 21st of April. His subsequent writings mostly consisted of short addresses and articles on the topics of the day; and a History of the Early Kings of Norway, published in 1875. He died on the 4th of February, 1881.16

16 His Reminiscences, edited by Mr. Froude, were published in 1881, in two volumes.

Dr. John Hill Burton, a native of Aberdeen, was born in 1809; and having studied law, was called to the bar in 1833. He was a hard working student, and at an early period of his life, produced a work on the Scottish Bankruptcy Law, and a Manual of the Law of Scotland. He was also the author of a small volume, now much sought after, On Political and Social Economy, published in 1849. He was an exceedingly industrious writer, chiefly in the field of Scottish history and biography.

In 1846, his Life and Correspondence of David Hume was published in two volumes; and the following year, his Lives of Lord Lovat and Duncan Forbes of Culloden appeared. Both works are valuable contributions to the historic literature of Scotland. In 1864, his work entitled The Scot Abroad appeared in two volumes; it consists of an account of the relations of Scotland and Scotsmen to foreign countries, and contains many interesting sketches and anecdotes.

His longest work is The History of Scotland, from Agricola's Invasion to the Revolution of 1688, which appeared in 1867-70; he had before written a History of Scotland from the Revolution to the extinction of the last Jacobite Insurrection, which was published in 1853. Thus, presumably following the example of Hume, he wrote and published the latest part of his history first.17 This History is much marred by the author's prejudice against the Celtic people of Scot land. A revised edition of the whole work has been published.

Besides the important works mentioned above, Dr. Burton occasionally contributed papers to the Westminster Review, Blackwood's Magazine, and other literary journals, and sometimes articles to the Scotsman. Moreover, he edited several of the volumes of the Records of the Scottish Privy Council of the Sixteenth Century, and wrote a preface to the first volume. He also contributed many articles to biographical dictionaries. His last work was a History of Britain in the Reign of Queen Anne, in three volumes, published in 1880. He died in 1881.

The late Robert Blakey was the author of a number of works :— History of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, in four volumes, in which a pretty complete account of works on philosophy, especially British works in this department, is given down to about the middle of the present century. His History of Political Literature, published

17 One of Hume's opponents, who had a waggish turn, once said that he had written his history backwards.

in 1855, in two volumes, is a very useful and interesting work, written in a clear, animated, and vigorous style.

Dr. William F. Skene was born on the 7th of June 1809. Having studied for the profession of law, he became a member of the Society of Writers to the Signet in 1831. After the death of Dr. John H. Burton, Dr. Skene was appointed Historiographer Royal for Scotland.

He edited a publication entitled The Four Ancient Books of Wales, which appeared in 1868. The work contains an English translation, rendered by two eminent Welsh scholars, of the Cymric poems, tales, and romances connected with the early history of Wales. The translation is from the oldest known Welsh MSS., and the work has considerable historical value. Dr. Skene edited another volume under the title of The Chronicles of the Picts and Scots, which consists of a number of short pieces, fragments, and some extracts from early Irish chronicles, to which he wrote a long and interesting preface. He also edited and wrote introductions to several of the series of volumes known by the title of The Historians of Scotland.

His chief work is the History of Celtic Scotland, published in 1876-81, in three volumes, of which a second edition has been issued. He announced that this work was designed to ascertain all that could be extracted from the early authorities; and it may be granted that when he had written matter to work upon, his conclusions were fairly satisfactory. He was very industrious and painstaking; but his mind was narrow and glimmering. He had no philosophic grasp, and very little of the critical faculty. He shows lamentable defects in the discrimination and estimation of historical evidence, and seemed to be unconscious of the value of circumstantial evidence, and its use for limiting, correcting, or confirming, incomplete and erroneous statements of facts and events. Thus he often placed too much reliance on fragments of writings, old chronicles, and traditions. He introduced into his History a fanciful body, viz., "The Seven Earls of Scotland," who enjoyed the privilege of controlling the Kings in early times. In truth, his Celtic Scotland has been rather much praised. He died in August, 1892.

In a chapter on Scottish historical literature, it seems requisite to give some account of the Record scholars, and those who have worked in order to place important historical materials within the reach of historical students. The first who claims to be remembered is Mr. Thomas Thomson, the able and careful editor of the Scots Acts of Parliament, and other national records. For many years he