The several follies I was naming. Alma, when she has reached the head, is subject to an entirely new class of feelings. The reign of passion being over, Avarice becomes predominant as the desire of appropriation survives the power of enjoyment. Locomotive energy having ceased, Alma lives in the recollection of the past, or is content with any trifle that comes to afford present amusement: "A print, a bronze, a flower, a root, Even a romance, a tune, a rhyme, The full development of Mat's system does not proceed all this time without strenuous opposition from his companion, who tries in the middle of the disscussion to set up the rival theory that the seat of the soul is the stomach : "I say, whatever you maintain Of Alma in the heart or brain; The doctrine is sought to be illustrated by the effect of different kinds of diet on national character: These, too, however, lose at last their pow- "Observe the various operations er, and Alma approaches her end : "Wearied of being high or great, And nodding in her chair of state,- The picture and reflections that follow are in Prior's best style of easy elegance : "O Richard, till that day appears, Of food and drink in several nations. Richard, in following out the same view, compares the human frame to a complicated. clock, where besides the "horal orbit" that tells the time of day, there are a number of "added movements" showing the day of the month, the moon's age, and other particulars, all of which, however, depend on the mair spring: "So, if unprejudiced you scan The goings of this clock-work, man, The jest, alas! is at an end: Soon ceases all this worldly bustle; The argument ends, as usual, in neither | ART. III.-History of Friedrich II. of party being convinced by his opponent; but "Sir, if it be your wisdom's aim For Plato's fancies what care I? Dear Drift,f to set our matters right, Such is an outline of that poem, of which Pope is said to have declared it was the only one he knew that he would like to have written. An elaborate translation of Prior's Alma in Latin verse was published in 1763 by Thomas Martin, Master of the Grammar School in Warminster, Wilts; but it has not sufficient merit to justify quotation. The inquiry as to the Seat of the Soul is now obsolete. The rise and prevalence of the Ideal Philosophy tended to extinguish such a speculation, and the opposite doctrine of Materialism was equally fatal to it. No question of that kind can be entertained, unless we believe both that there is a Soul that can have a seat, and a Body in which that seat can be located. But even those who hold, with a firm persuasion, that there is Something we can call spiritual, and Something else we can call corporeal, are now satisfied that the how and whereabouts of their contact and connexion lie beyond our powers of discovery. Important and increasing light has been thrown upon the operations of dif ferent portions of the nervous system, but by what link the two distinct and separable elements are united, and in what way they act and react upon each other, is still as great a mystery as ever, and is likely to remain so, Prussia, called Frederick the Great. By MR. CARLYLE'S History of the French Re- "And so here, O reader, has the time come for us two to part. Toilsome was our journeying together; not without offence; but it is done. To me thou wert as a beloved shade, the disembodied or not yet embodied spirit of a Brother. To thee I was but as a Voice. Yet was our relation a kind of sacred one; doubt not that! For whatsoever once sacred things become hollow jargons, yet while the voice of man speaks with man, hast thou not there the living fountain out of which all sacrednesses sprang, and will yet spring? Man, by the nature of him, is definable as an incarnated word.' Ill stands it with me if I have spoken falsely thine also it was to hear truly. Farewell." The History of Frederic closes with a very different leave-taking: "I define him to myself as hitherto the Last of the Kings;-when the Next will be, is a very long question! But it seems to me as if Nations, probably all Nations, by and by, in their despair,-blinded, swallowed like Jonah, in such a whale's-be ly of things brutish, waste, abominable (for is not Anarchy, or the Rule of what is Baser over what is Nobler, the one life's misery worth complaining of, and, in fact, the abomination of abominations, springing from and producing all others whatsoever?)-as if the Nations universally, and England too if it selves of such a Man and his Function and Peron, may more and more bethink themformance, with feelings far other than are possible at present. Meanwhile, all I had to say of him is finished: that too, it seems, was a bit of work appointed to be done. Adieu, good readers; bad, also, adieu," hold In the tone and spirit of these two passages which has taken place in Mr. Carlyle; a we seem to discern clear marks of a change which has taken place in Mr. Carlyle; a change not for the better. He has grown hardened in self-confidence; a grim yet not intolerance; the deep and warm sympathies unkindly humour has given place to savage which ever and again relieved his sternest moods of indignation have sunk out of sight, and there remains a cheerless uniformity of when some of the strange favourites of his harshness and contempt,-forgotten only hardly too much to say that he appears to wayward fancy step upon the scene. have lost what was once his leading characteristic-a genuine insight into what is really *Humphrey Wanley, librarian to the Earl of noble in human action, and exalted in human until the Great Teacher Death" shall remove the veil from our eyes. Oxford. Mr. Prior's secretary and executor. character. It is Worst of all is that, in the theme Mr. We do not propose, in these pages, to give any continuous sketch of the events of Frederic's life. That has been already done by many reviewers, and the book itself has been widely read, at least those parts of it which bear directly on Frederic's career. Our concern is rather with Mr. Carlyle than with his hero; more with the causes and the political results of Frederic's wars than with the details of the wars themselves. For, as it seems to us, the great interest of this book lies in the fact that it is the final and complete development of Mr. Carlyle's views,the latest exposition of the doctrine of heroworship. What manner of man then is the chosen hero, according to this doctrine in its perfection? To what form of government does it lead us? And what effects does it tend to produce on the history of a nation? If we can catch any glimpse of a satisfactory answer to these questions, we may be able to appreciate the political value of the doctrine itself. Carlyle has here chosen, these unhappy ten- | in which he is fated to live is not corrupt dencies will have peculiar power to work and effete, that the country to which he mischief. Except religion, there is no sub- belongs is not utterly degraded or hopelessly ject on which the people of this country ruined. think so much as politics; and it is a subject on which, fortunately for them, though greatly to Mr. Carlyle's disgust, their thoughts can be carried out into action. It is plainly, then, a matter of no small moment that they should think rightly on political questions; and Mr. Carlyle has here done all in his power to make them think wrongly. In his life of Sterling he treated the religious beliefs of his countrymen in a manner that even a critic so favourable as Mr. Brimley was forced to condemn as "wholly unjustifiable;" and now he is doing all he can to upset their political creed. We shall hardly be suspected of affectation when we say that to mark Mr. Carlyle's errors is not a grateful task. It is difficult to do so without misgiving; it is impossible to do so without regret; it is hopeless to do so without incurring the charge of presumption. Yet Mr. Carlyle is not a writer whose errors, if they be such, should be passed in silence. A man of genius preaching a morality at once pretentious and unsound, is the most dangerous Beyond doubt, Mr. Carlyle has chosen a of all teachers. And he is never more dan- theme well suited to a full and clear illustragerous than when he teaches by means of tion of his theory, both as regards the chahistory. Such diatribes as the Latter-Day racter of his hero, and of the period in Pamphlets carried with them their own refu- which he lived. The eighteenth century Mr. tation. The subjects were familiar, and their Carlyle knows thoroughly, and does not in fallacies were therefore powerless. But it is the least admire. It is, in his eyes, a disa very different matter when an unrivalled astrous, wrecked inanity, not useful to dwell knowledge of a past time is devoted to the upon." It was 66 opulent in accumulated work of setting the present in a false light. falsities," had, indeed, grown so false as to And this is what Mr. Carlyle has done. He have lost the consciousness of being false, was is never weary of driving home the moral of "steeped in falsity, and impregnated with it his tale, which is simply the manifold infe- to the very bone." Some critics have reriority of his own country and time. Now sented such sweeping condemnation, and it is no light thing that historical facts should have stood up for this so much abused cenbe distorted in order that false opinions may tury. They maintain that it must have had be inculcated; that some chosen period or something good in it, because much good some favourite hero should be painted in came after it; and then they run over the colours unduly bright, in order that the days great names of which it can boast in literawe live in may appear more gloomy, and the ture, statesmanship, and war; and ask if a men who rule us more incapable; in a word, tree altogether bad could bring forth such that erroneous convictions should be fostered fruit? Neither argument is very conclusive. and groundless discontent awakened. Mr. The former is an old and well-worn fallacy; Carlyle, in Past and Present, sketched a and as for the latter, it proves nothing at all. lordly abbot of the middle ages, whose muni- The truth is that, as Mr. Carlyle puts it, ficence might contrast with the cold charities during the eighteenth century, and especially of the nineteenth century; he now brings the latter part of it, the whole fabric of soFrederic before us in beautiful and command-ciety was unsound and decaying. Many of ing proportions, which may dwarf into insignificance the puny rulers of the present day. In both instances the representations are unreal and the contrast misleading; nor would it be a useless service to convince any reader that the morality in which he has been taught to believe is not a dream, that the age the men whose names are quoted as the ornaments of the time gained their greatest fame by their efforts to pull that fabric down. The ruling classes were not only corrupt, but were in a position utterly unreal, and impossible to be maintained. That they were blind to this, and went fiddling and dancing to destruction illustrates more plainly than | cacies of diplomacy, and he has little symanything else what Mr. Carlyle calls "the pathy with those who do not share this falsity" of the time. Under them, indeed, abhorrence. He directs divers sneers, not influences were gathering, and forces were always in the best taste, against "ingenious rising which they recked not of,-here to Herr Professor Ranke," whose history of gain a calm success, there to burst forth in Frederic, we are told, "affords mankind a storm; but these things belong, not to the wondrously distilled astral spirit, a ghostlife of the eighteenth century, but to its like facsimile (elegant grey ghost, with stars destruction. No; the latter half of that dim twinkling through), of Frederic's and century was artificial, unreal, undignified, other people's diplomatizings in this world." the only thing grand about it was the Revo- A man like Ranke deserved more respectful lution in which it closed. And it is precisely mention. His researches have thrown a light because of these characteristics that it forms on Frederic's policy and career which we susa background against which heroism, or the pect Mr. Carlyle would have more highly semblance of it, stands out in strong relief. appreciated, had it not been for the fact that the more this hero's diplomacy is investigated, and the more his treaties are studied, the less apparent will become the "moderation and veracity" ascribed to him by his English biographer. And while we are on this subject, we must say, once for all, that Mr. Carlyle expresses his contempt for the Prussian "Dryasdust," including in this borrowed phrase such men as Preuss and Ranke,in terms which are quite unbecoming. The Prussian Dryasdust may be tedious, and much in want of an index, as well as of things more important; but surely be is laborious and accurate, and so far as facts are concerned, makes rough places smooth for those who follow after him in a manner which deserves thankful acknowledgment rather than rude and scornful abuse. Even "ghost-like facsimiles" are something to have ready made to one's hand. Many points, too, in Frederic's character become almost heroic from contrast with the weakness and meanness of his epoch. He was eminently clear, direct, resolute, and largely endowed with "veracity," in the Carlylian sense of the word; that is, the faculty of seeing things as they really are, a faculty by no means to be confounded with the more vulgar virtue of telling the truth. On the other hand, his bad qualities bring out the doctrine of hero-worship in its full force. In judging of characters like Mohammed and Cromwell, whose thoughts were other than the thoughts of common men, we are easily led into a feeling of vague reverence, seeing much that we cannot comprehend, and would not hastily condemn. But Frederic's was no such mixed character. All his faults, his selfishness, his tyranny, his faithlessness, are quite apparent; and therefore we say that Mr. Carlyle has at last chosen a hero whose character is well calculated to bring out the weakness as well as the strength of the gospel of hero-worship. Which of the two it brings out more completely we shall hereafter see. But if some students might desire fuller information regarding great treaties, none can wish for anything more regarding the fighting which is too often the result of treaties. All Frederic's battles are set forth with surprising lucidity, and in the most Of the literary merits of the Life of Frede-minute detail. Even without the accomparic widely different opinions will be entertained. Of course, like all the works of Mr. Carlyle, it bears unmistakably the stamp of genius. Laborious research, no uncertain mark of genius, is apparent on every page. Certainly Mr. Carlyle does not hide this light under a bushel. He is for ever bewailing his mighty toils, as if he were another Hercules, and glorifying his persevering industry. On one point connected with Frederic's public life we should have liked greater fulness of detail,--we mean what Mr. Carlyle calls "hypothetic diplomatic stuff." We have several sketches, always wonderfully graphic, of diplomatic interviews; but we sadly want definite accounts of the exact nature of the negotiations carried on, and of the treaties actually concluded. But Mr. Carlyle avoids these things, not from laziness but from distaste. His soul abhors the intri nying plans, the careful reader can, from the verbal description, take in the lie of the ground, can comprehend the general plan of the action, and can see how each formation and manoeuvre bears upon that plan. Minute as Mr. Carlyle sometimes is, he never descends to the details which make Mr. Kinglake's battle of the Alma at once tedious, confused, and ridiculous. On the whole, so far as we can judge, he does not exhibit the power of seizing upon and vividly representing the essence, as it were, of an action which was possessed in so remarkable a degree by Sir William Napier; but some of his battle-pieces, as Prague, Dettingen, Fontenoy, seem to us not unworthy of the historian of the Peninsular war. We have said that Mr. Carlyle's research is visible on every page of his book. In no way is it more pleasantly visible than when he brings up from the great stores of his knowledge some lively anecdote or familiar allusion which serves to cheer the reader during his long and sometimes weary journeying. We catch bright glimpses into the domestic life of the Prussian Princesses; bitterly sarcastic pictures of the follies of the French Court awake our scorn and laughter; grimly humorous, but yet indulgent sketches of the Court of St. Petersburg, in the days of Peter the Great, of infâme Catin, and of the more notorious Catharine II., excite we hardly know what various emotions, but among them certainly that of amusement. Some of these Court-scenes, for example such as illustrate the life and conversation of Peter the Great, or of Augustus the Strong, are hardly suited for quotation; but we cannot resist giving the following sketch of the great Czarina and her band: ... perilous intricacies, the big star, Autocracy of all the Russias,-through what horrors of intricacy, that last! She had hoped always it would steady head, would be Autocrat: but the intribe by Husband Peter that she, with the deeper cacies kept increasing, grew at last to the strangling pitch; and it came to be, between Peter and her, 'Either you to Siberia (perhaps farther), or else I!' And it was Peter that had to go;-in what hideous way is well enough known; no Siberia, no Holstein thought to be far enough for Peter:-And Catharine, merely weeping a little for him, mounted to the Autocracy herself. And then, the big star of stars being once hers, she had, not in the lover kind alone, but in all uncelestial kinds, whole nebulæ and milky-ways of small stars. A very Semiramis, or the Louis-Quatorze of those Northern Parts. 'Second Creatress of Russia,' second loveliest objects; yet there are uglier, how infiPeter the Great in a sense. To me none of the nitely uglier: object grandiose, if not great."hus-nitely uglier: object grandiose, if not great."(Vol. vi. pp. 248-9.) "Catharine too had an intricate time of it under the Catin; which was consoled to her only by a tolerably rapid succession of lovers, the best the ground yielded. . . . In fine, there has been published, in these very years, a Fragment of early Autobiography by Catharine herself-a credible and highly remarkable little Piece; worth all the others, if it is knowledge of Catharine you are seeking. A most placid, solid, substantial young Lady comes to light there; dropped into such an element as might have driven most people mad. But it did not her; it only made her wiser and wiser in her generation. Element black, hideous, dirty, as Lapland Sorcery;-in which the first clear duty is to hold one's tongue well, and keep one's eyes open. Stars, not very heavenly, but of fixed nature, and heavenly to Catharine,-a star or two, shine through the abominable murk: Steady, patient; steer silently, in all weathers, towards these! "Young Catharine's immovable equanimity in this distracted environment strikes us very much. Peter is careering, tumbling about, on all manner of absurd broomsticks, driven too The wretched Peter is disposed of in a few inimitable sentences- "Peter is an abstruse creature; has lived, all which would have gone altogether mad except this while, with his Catharine an abstruse life, An awkward, for Catharine's superior sense. ardent, but helpless kind of Peter, with vehement desires, with a dash of wild magnanimity amid such darkness, such provocations of uneven: but in such an inextricable element, manageable opulence, such impediments, imaginary and real,-dreadfully real to poor Peter, -as made him the unique of mankind in his to do the maddest-looking things (in his late time. He used to drill cats,' it is said, and to buried-alive condition);-and fell partly, never quite, which was wonderful, into drinking, as the solution of his inextricabilities. Poor Peter: of vulturous vulpine neighbours, withal; which always, and now more than ever, the cynosure infinitely aggravated his otherwise bad case!" -(Vol. vi. p. 256.) Bankrupt, chaotic, opulent in falsities, and above all, miserably wanting in the kingly element, as the eighteenth century undoubt edly was, there were yet a few statesmen and soldiers in Prussia, and even in other countries, whose occasional presence gives life and dignity to the record. Walpole and Fleury, unable to avert the coming evil, not brave enough to avoid the guilt of participat surely by the Devil; terrific-absurd big Lapland Witch, surrounded by multitudes smaller, and some of them less ugly. Will be Czar of Russia, however;-and is one's so-called Husband. These are prospects for an observant, immovably steady-going young Woman! The reigning Czarina, old Catin herself, is silently the Olympian Jove to Catharine, who reveres her very much. Though articulately stupid as ever, in this Book of Catharine's, she comes outing in a policy they disapproved by a volunwith a dumb weight, of silence, of obstinacy, of intricate abrupt rigour, which-who knows but it may savour of dumb unconscious wisdom in the fat old blockhead? The Book says little of her, and in the way of criticism, of praise, or of blame, nothing whatever; but one gains the notion of some dark human female object, bigger than one had fancied it before. Catharine steered towards her stars. Lovers were vouchsafed her, of a kind (her small stars, as we may call them); and, at length, through tary relinquishment of power, are nevertheless forced to give place to more fiery spirits. Kaunitz, hailed in his own day as the greatest of diplomatists, with his rides under glass cover, and his rash dinners on boiled capons insolent shadow-king;" Belleisle, vain, un"a most high-sniffing, fantastic, slightly principled, blustering, yet likeable in a way, as the last of the grand old Frenchmen; "Fiery" Loudon, and "Cunctator" Daun; |