comrades and companions from first to last, when at home together. For a considerable period after the publication of the Life of Cromwell, Carlyle was apparently idle. He wrote for several years nothing of note except his "Latter Day Pamphlets" (1850), and a Life of his friend John Sterling (1851), to whom he was tenderly attached. It would seem that he was now in easy circumstances, although he retained to the end his economical habits. He amused himself with travelling, and with frequent visits to distinguished people in the country. If not a society man, he was much sought; he dined often at the tables of the great, and personally knew almost every man of note in London. He sturdily took his place among distinguished men, the intellectual peer of the greatest. He often met Macaulay, but was not intimate with him. I doubt if they even exchanged visits. The reason for this may have been that they were not congenial to each other in anything, and that the social position of Macaulay was immeasurably higher than Carlyle's. It would be hard to say which was the greater man. It was not until 1852 or 1853, when Carlyle was fifty-eight, that he seriously set himself to write his Life of Frederic II., his last great work, on which he perseveringly labored for thirteen years. It is an exhaustive history of the Prussian hero, and is regarded in Germany as the standard work on that great monarch and general. The first volume came out in 1858, and the last in 1865. It is a marvel of industry and accuracy, the most elaborate of all his works, but probably the least read because of its enormous length and scholastic pedantries. It might be said to bear the same relation to his "French Revolution" that "Romola" does to "Adam Bede." In this book Carlyle made no new revelations, as he did in his Life of Cromwell. He did not change essentially the opinion of mankind. Frederick the Great, in his hands, still stands out as an unscrupu lous public enemy, a robber and a tyrant. crimes are only partially redeemed by his heroism, especially when Europe was in arms against him. There is the same defect in this great work that there is in the Life of Cromwell, the inculcation of the doctrine that might makes right; that we may do evil that good may come, thus putting expediency above eternal justice, and palliating crimes because of their success. It is difficult to account for Carlyle's decline in moral perceptions, when we con sider that his personal life was so far above reproach. -- His Although the Life of Frederick is a work of transcendent industry, it did not add to Carlyle's popu larity, which had been undermined by his bitter attacks on society in his various pamphlets. At this period he was still looked up to with reverence as a great intellectual giant; but that love for him which had been felt by those who were aroused to honest thinking by his earlier writings had passed away. A new generation looked upon him as an embittered and surly old man. His services were not forgotten, but he was no longer a favorite,—no longer an inspiring guide. His writings continued to stimulate thought, but were no longer regarded as sound. Commonplace people never did like him, probably because they never understood him. His admirers were among the young. the enthusiastic, the hopeful, the inquiring; and when their veneration passed away, there were few left to uphold his real greatness and noble character. One might suppose that Carlyle would have been unhappy to alienate so many persons, especially old admirers. In fact, I apprehend that he cared little for anybody's admiration or flattery. He lived in an atmosphere so infinitely above small and envious and detracting people that he was practically independent of human sympathies. Had he been doomed to live with commonplace persons, he might have sought to conciliate them; but he really lived in another sphere, not perhaps higher than theirs, but eternally distinct, in the sphere of abstract truth. To him most people were either babblers or bores. What did he care for their envious shafts, or even for their honest disapprobation! Hence, the last days of this great man were not his best days, although he was not without honor. He was made Lord Rector of the University of Edinburgh, and delivered a fine address on the occasion; and later, Disraeli, when prime minister, offered him knighthood, with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath and a pension, which he declined. The author of the "Sartor Resartus" did not care for titles. He preferred to remain simply Thomas Carlyle. While Carlyle was in the midst of honors in Edinburgh, his wife, who had long been in poor health, suddenly died, April 21, 1866. This affliction was a terrible blow to Carlyle, from which he never recovered. It filled out his measure of sorrow, deep and sad, and hard to be borne. His letters after this are full of pathos and plaintive sadness. He could not get resigned to his loss, for his wife had been more and more his staff and companion as years had advanced. The Queen sent her sympathy, but nothing could console him. He was then seventy-one years old, and his work was done. His remaining years were those of loneliness and sorrow and suffering. He visited friends, but they amused him not. He wrote reminiscences, but his isolation remained. He sought out charities when he himself was the object of compas sion, a sad old man who could not sleep. He tried to interest himself in politics, but time hung heavy on his hands. He read much and thought more, but assumed no fresh literary work. He had enough to do to correct proof-sheets of new editions of his works. His fiercest protests were now against atheism in its varied forms. In 1870, Mr. Erskine, his last Scotch friend, died. In 1873 he writes: "More and more dreary, barren, base, and ugly seem to me all the aspects of this poor, diminishing quack-world, fallen openly anarchic, doomed to a death which one can wish to be speedy." Poor old man! He has survived his friends, his pleasures, his labors, almost his fame; he is sick, and weary of life, which to him has become a blank. Pity it is, he could not have died when "Cromwell" was completed. He drags on his forlorn life, without wife or children, and with only a few friends, in disease and ennui and discontent, almost alone, until he is eighty-five. "To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow, |