of too many eminent Englishmen of our time. Language such as was, at
one time, almost habitual with Mr. Ruskin, is a national humiliation,
giving point to the Frenchman's sneer as to our distinguishing
literary characteristic being '_la brutalite_.' In Carlyle's case
much must be allowed for his rhetoric and humour. In slang phrase, he
always 'piles it on.' Does a bookseller misdirect a parcel, he
exclaims, 'My malison on all Blockheadisms and Torpid Infidelities of
which this world is full.' Still, all allowances made, it is a
thousand pities; and one's thoughts turn away from this stormy old man
and take refuge in the quiet haven of the Oratory at Birmingham, with
his great Protagonist, who, throughout an equally long life spent in
painful controversy, and wielding weapons as terrible as Carlyle's
own, has rarely forgotten to be urbane, and whose every sentence is a
'thing of beauty.' It must, then, be owned that too many of Carlyle's
literary achievements 'lack a gracious somewhat.' By force of his
genius he 'smites the rock and spreads the water;' but then, like
Moses, 'he desecrates, belike, the deed in doing.'

Our third requirement was, it may be remembered, the gift of the
storyteller. Here one is on firm ground. Where is the equal of the man
who has told us the story of 'The Diamond Necklace'?

It is the vogue, nowadays, to sneer at picturesque writing. Professor
Seeley, for reasons of his own, appears to think that whilst politics,
and, I presume religion, may be made as interesting as you please,
history should be as dull as possible. This, surely, is a jaundiced
view. If there is one thing it is legitimate to make more interesting
than another, it is the varied record of man's life upon earth. So
long as we have human hearts and await human destinies, so long as we
are alive to the pathos, the dignity, the comedy of human life, so