certain to be read for a generation or two to come. But they are not
read to-day with the passionate delight in the wonderful originality,
nor have they the commanding authority they seemed to possess for the
faithful disciples of the forties and the fifties. Nor can any one
suppose that the next century will continue to read them, except with
an open and unbiassed mind, and a willingness to admit that even here
there is much dead wood, gross error, and pitiable exaggeration. When
we begin to read in that spirit, however splendid be the imagination,
and however keen the logic, we are no longer under the spell of a
master: we are reading a memorable book, with a primary desire to learn
how former generations looked upon things.

Thomas Carlyle, like all other voluminous writers, wrote very much that
cannot be called equal to his best: and it cannot be denied that the
inferior pieces hold a rather large proportion of the whole. Nothing
is less fatal to true criticism than the popular habit of blindly
overvaluing the inferior work of men of genius, unless it be the habit
of undervaluing them by looking at their worst instead of at their
best. Great men are to be judged by their highest; and it is not of
very great consequence if this highest forms a moderate part of the
total product. Now, what are the masterpieces of Thomas Carlyle? In
the order of their production they are _Sartor Resartus_, 1831; _French
Revolution_, 1837; _Hero-Worship_, 1840; _Past and Present_, 1843;
_Cromwell_, 1845. We need not be alarmed if this list forms but a
third of the thirty volumes (not including translations); and if it
omits such potent outbursts as _Chartism_, 1839; and _Latter-Day
Pamphlets_, 1850; or such a wonderful piece of history as _Friedrich
the Second_, 1858-1865. _Chartism_ and the _Latter-Day Pamphlets_ are
full of eloquence, insight, indignation, and pity, and they exerted a
great and wholesome effect on the generation whom they smote as with