unconsciously, treated certain incidents and certain men with a poet's
license or with a distorted vision. This too is more apparent toward
the close of his work, when he begins to show signs of fatigue and
exhaustion. Nay, it is to be feared that we are still suffering from
the outrage committed on Victorian literature by Mr. Mill's incendiary
housemaid. We may yet note marks of arson in the restored volume. At
the same time, there are large parts of his work which are as true
historically as they are poetically brilliant. Part I.--"The
Bastille"--is almost perfect. The whole description of Versailles, its
court, and government, of the effervescence of Paris--from the death of
Louis XV. to the capture of Versailles--is both powerful and true.
Part II.--"The Constitution"--is the weakest part of the whole from the
point of view of accurate history. And Part III.--"The Terror"--is
only trustworthy in separate pictures and episodes, however splendid
its dramatic power.

It would need an essay, or rather a volume, on the French Revolution to
enumerate all the wrong judgments and fallacies of Carlyle's book, if
we bring it to the bar of sober and authentic history. First and
foremost comes his fundamental misconception that the Revolution was an
anarchical outburst against corruption and oppression, instead of
being, as it was, the systematic foundation of a new order of society.
Again, he takes it to be a purely French, local, and political
movement, instead of seeing that it was an European, social, spiritual
movement toward a more humane civilisation. And next, he regards the
Revolution as taking place in the six years between the taking of the
Bastille and the defeat of the Sections by Bonaparte; whereas the
Revolution was preparing from the time of Louis XIV., and is not yet
ended in the time of President Faure. Next to the capital mistake of
misconceiving the entire character and result of the Revolution, comes