pious historian was apprehensive of exposing that incomprehensible mystery to the cavils and objections of unbelievers; and he durst not, "seeing the nature of this book, venture it abroad in so wanton and lewd an age. "1

In the fifth and sixth volumes the revolutions of the empire and the world are most rapid, various, and instructive; and the Greek or Roman historians are checked by the hostile narratives of the barbarians of the East and the West.2

It was not till after many designs and many trials that I preferred, as I still prefer, the method of grouping my picture by nations; and the seeming neglect of chronological order is surely compensated by the superior merits of interest and perspicuity. The style of the first volume is, in my opinion, somewhat crude and elaborate; in the second and third it is ripened into ease, correctness, and numbers; but in the three last I may have been seduced by the facility of my pen, and the constant habit of speaking one language and writing another may have infused some mixture of Gallic idioms. Happily for my eyes, I have always closed my studies with the day, and commonly with the morning; and a long but temperate labour has been accomplished without fatiguing either the mind or body; but when I computed the remainder of my time and my task, it was apparent that, according to the season of publication, the delay of a month would be productive of that of a year. I was now straining for the goal, and in the last winter many evenings were borrowed from the social pleasures of Lausanne. I could now wish that a pause, an interval, had been allowed for a serious revisal.

I have presumed to mark the moment of conception: I shall now commemorate the hour of my final deliverance. It was on the day, or rather night, of the 27th of June 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I took several turns in a berceau, or covered walk of acacias, which commands a prospect of the country, the lake, and the

1 See preface to the Life of Mahomet, p. xxi.

GIBBON.

2 I have followed the judicious precept of the Abbé de Mably (Manière d'écrire l'Histoire, p. 110), who advises the historian not to dwell too minutely on the decay of the eastern empire; but to consider the barbarian conquerors as a more worthy subject of his narrative. "Fas est et ab hoste doceri."

of

mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and perhaps the establishment my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.

THOMAS CARLYLE

LIFE IN LONDON

[From "Jane Welsh Carlyle," written in 1866, Reminiscences, Vol. I, pp. 171-175, 185-203. Edited by C. E. Norton, Macmillan & Co., London, 1887.

CARLYLE, THOMAS (1795-1881), essayist and historian; son of a mason at Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire; educated at the parish school, and (1805) at Annan academy; entered Edinburgh University, 1809; studied mathematics; intended for the church; mathematical teacher at Annan, 1814; schoolmaster at Kirkcaldy, 1816, where he became intimate with Edward Irving; read law in Edinburgh, 1819, where he developed extreme sensitiveness to physical discomforts; took pupils; read German; met his future wife [see JANE BAILLie Welsh CaRLYLE], 1821; tutor to Charles Buller at Edinburgh and Dunkeld, 1822-4; contributed a 'Life of Schiller to the 'London Magazine,' 1824; translated Legendre's 'Geometry' and Goethe's 'Wilhelm Meister,' 1824; visited Paris, 1824; lodged in Islington, 1825; retired to Dumfriesshire, 1825; married and settled in Edinburgh, 1826; contributed to the 'Edinburgh Review,' 1827-9; unsuccessful candidate for the moral philosophy chair at St. Andrews; removed to Craigenputtock, Dumfriesshire, 1828, where he wrote on German literature for the magazines; in great monetary difficulties, 1831; in London, 1831, where he failed to get ‘Sartor Resartus' published; returned to Craigenputtock, 1832; removed to Cheyne Row, Chelsea, 1834; the manuscript of the first volume of his 'French Revolution' accidentally burnt by John Stuart Mill, March 1835; met John Sterling, 1835; published his 'French Revolution,' 1837, and made his reputation; gave four lecturecourses in London, 1837-40, the last on 'Hero-worship' (published 1841); urged formation of London Library, 1839; published 'Chartism,' 1839, 'Past and Present,' 1843, and 'Oliver Cromwell,' 1845; visited Ireland, 1846 and 1849; published 'Life of Sterling,' 1851; wrote 'Frederick the Great,' 1851-1865 (published 1858-65); travelled in Germany, 1852 and 1858; lord rector of Edinburgh University, 1865-6; lost his wife, 1866; wrote his 'Reminiscences' (published 1881); published pamphlet in favour

of Germany in regard to Franco-German war, 1870; his right hand paralysed, 1872; received the Prussian order of merit, 1874; buried at Ecclefechan; benefactor of Edinburgh University. His 'Collected Works' first appeared 1857-8. His 'life' was written with great frankness by his friend and disciple, James Anthony Froude. - Index and Epitome of D. N. B.

"The paper of this poor Notebook of hers is done; all I have to say, too (though there lie such volumes yet unsaid), seems to be almost done: and I must sorrowfully end it, and seek for something else. Very sorrowfully still; for it has been my sacred shrine, and religious city of refuge from the bitterness of these sorrows, during all the doleful weeks that are past since I took it up: a kind of devotional thing (as I once already said), which softens all grief into tenderness and infinite pity and repentant love; one's whole sad life drowned as if in tears for one, and all the wrath and scorn and other grim elements silently melted away. And now, am I to leave it; to take farewell of Her a second time? Right silent and serene is She, my lost Darling yonder, as I often think in my gloom; no sorrow more for Her, there long be for me." CARLYLE, Note at end of Reminiscences of Jane Welsh Carlyle.

nor will

"Two hours of hysterics can be no good matter for a sick nurse, and the strange, hard old being, in so lamentable and yet human a desolation crying out like a burnt child, and yet always wisely and beautifully how can that end, as a piece of reading, even to the strong - but on the brink of the most cruel kind of weeping? I observe the old man's style is stronger on me than ever it was, and by rights, too, since I have just laid down his most attaching book. God rest the baith o' them! But even if they do not meet again, how we should all be strengthened to be kind, and not only in act, in speech also, that so much more important part. See what this apostle of silence most regrets, not speaking out his heart.' ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, Letter to Colvin, "Spring, 1881," Letters, Vol. I, p. 231. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1899.]

She1 liked London constantly; and stood in defence of it against me and my atrabilious censures of it; never had for herself the least wish to quit it again, though I was often talking of that, and her practice would have been loyal compliance for my behoof. I well remember my first walking her up to Hyde Park Corner in the summer evening, and her fine interest in everything. At the corner of the Green Park, I found something for her to sit on; "Hah, there is John Mill coming!" I said; and her joyful ingenuous blush is still very beautiful to me. The good Child! It did not prove to be John Mill (whom she knew since 1831, and liked for my sake): but probably I showed her the Duke of Wellington, whom

1 Mrs. Carlyle.

one often used to see there, striding deliberately along, as if home from his work, about that hour: him (I almost rather think, that same evening), and at any rate, other figures of distinction or notoriety. And we said to one another, "How strange to be in big London here; isn't it?" - Our purchase of household kettles and saucepans etc. in the mean Ironmongery, so noble in its poverty and loyalty on her part, is sad and infinitely lovely to me at this moment.

We had plenty of "company" from the very first: John Mill, down from Kensington once a week or oftener; the "Mrs. Austin " of those days, so popular and almost famous, on such exiguous basis (Translations from the German, poorly done, and of original nothing that rose far above the rank of twaddle): “femme alors célèbre,” as we used to term the phenomenon, parodying some phrase I had found in Thiers: Mrs. Austin affected much sisterhood with us (affected mainly, though in kind wise); and was a cheery, sanguine, and generally acceptable member of society, already up to the Marquis of Lansdowne (in a slight sense), much more to all the Radical Officials and notables: Charles Buller, Sir W. Molesworth, etc. etc. of "alors." She still lives, this Mrs. Austin, in quiet though eclipsed condition: spring last she was in Town for a couple of weeks; and my Dear One went twice to see her, though I couldn't manage quite. Erasmus Darwin, a most diverse kind of mortal, came to seek us out very soon ("had heard of Carlyle in Germany" etc.); and continues ever since to be a quiet housefriend, honestly attached; though his visits latterly have been rarer and rarer, health so poor, I so occupied, etc. etc. He has something of original and sarcastically ingenious in him; one of the sincerest, naturally truest, and most modest of men. Elder brother of Charles Darwin (the famed Darwin on Species of these days), to whom I rather prefer him for intellect, had not his health quite doomed him to silence and patient idleness;- Grandsons, both, of the first famed Erasmus ("Botanic Garden" etc.), who also seems to have gone upon "species" questions; "Omnia ex Conchis" (all from Oysters) being a dictum of his (even a stamp he sealed with, still extant), as the present Erasmus once told me, many long years before this of "Darwin on Species" came up among us! Wonderful to me, as indicating the capricious stupidity of mankind;

never could read a page of it, or waste the least thought upon it. Erasmus Darwin it was who named the late Whewell, seeing him sit, all ear (not all assent) at some of my Lectures, “The Harmonious Blacksmith;" a really descriptive title. My Dear One had a great favour for this honest Darwin always; many a road, to shops and the like, he drove her in his Cab (Darwingium Cabbum, comparable to Georgium Sidus), in those early days, when even the charge of Omnibuses was a consideration; and his sparse utterances, sardonic often, were a great amusement to her. "A perfect gentleman," she at once discerned him to be; and of sound worth, and kindliness, in the most unaffected form. "Take me now to Oxygen Street; a dyer's shop there!" Darwin, without a wrinkle or remark, made for Oxenden Street and drew up at the required door. Amusingly admirable to us both, when she came home.

Our commonest evening sitter, for a good while, was Leigh Hunt, who lived close by, and delighted to sit talking with us (free, cheery, idly melodious as bird on bough), or listening, with real feeling, to her old Scotch tunes on the Piano, and winding up with a frugal morsel of Scotch Porridge (endlessly admirable to Hunt) - I think I spoke of this above? Hunt was always accurately dressed, these evenings, and had a fine chivalrous gentlemanly carriage, polite, affectionate, respectful (especially to her) and yet so free and natural. Her brilliancy and faculty he at once recognised, none better; but there rose gradually in it, to his astonished eye, something of positive, of practically steadfast, which scared him off, a good deal; the like in my own case too, still more; which he would call "Scotch," "Presbyterian," who knows what; and which gradually repelled him, in sorrow, not in anger, quite away from us, with rare exceptions, which, in his last years, were almost pathetic to us both. Long before this, he had gone to live in Kensington; and we scarcely saw him except by accident. His Household, while in "4 Upper Cheyne Row," within few steps. of us here, almost at once disclosed itself to be huggermugger, unthrift, and sordid collapse, once for all; and had to be associated with on cautious terms; while he himself emerged out of it in the chivalrous figure I describe. Dark complexion (a trace of the African, I believe), copious clean strong black hair, beautifully-shaped head, fine beaming serious hazel