feel grateful to a citizen are permitted and enjoined to testify that feeling each in such manner as he can. Let this poor labour of mine be a small testimony of that sort to a late great and valiant labour of yours, and claim reception as such. The book, should you ever find leisure to read and master it, may perhaps have interest for you-may perhaps who knows?-have admonition, exhortation, in various ways instruction and encouragement for yet other labours which England, in a voiceless but most impressive manner, still expects and demands of you. The authentic words and actings of the noblest governor England ever had may well have interest for all governors of England; may well be, as all Scripture is, as all genuine words and actings are, 'profitable'—profitable for reproof, for correction, and for edifying and strengthening withal. Hansard's Debates are not a kind of literature I have been familiar with; nor indeed is the arena they proceed from much more than a distress to me in these days. Loud-sounding clamour and rhetorical vocables grounded not on fact, nor even on belief of fact, one knows from of old whither all that and what depends on it is bound. But by-and-by, as I believe, all England will say what already many a one begins to feel, that whatever were the spoken unveracities of Parliament, and they are many on all hands, lamentable to gods and men, here has a great veracity been done in Parliament, considerably our greatest for many years past a strenuous, courageous, and needful thing, to which all of us that so see it are bound to give our loyal recognition and furtherance as we can. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obliged fellow-citizen and obedient servant, Peel answered : Whitehall: June 22, 1840. Sir, Whatever may have been the pressure of my public engagements, it has not been so overwhelming as to prevent 1 There are two versions of this letter among Carlyle's papers, not quite identical; I do not know which was sent. The differences are unimportant, except to show that the letter was carefully composed. me from being familiar with your exertions in another department of labour, as incessant and severe as that which I have undergone. I am the better enabled, therefore, to appreciate the value of your favourable opinion; and to thank you, not out of mere courtesy, but very sincerely, for the volumes which you have sent for my acceptance; most interesting as throwing a new light upon a very important chapter of our history; and gratifying to me as a token of your personal esteem. I have the honour to be, Sir, T. Carlyle, Esq. Your obedient servant, ROBERT PEEL. The success of this book had been a real enjoyment to Carlyle-enjoyment in the true noble sensehe felt that he had done a good work, and had done it effectively. To T. Erskine. 6 Chelsea: July 11, 1846. The second edition of Cromwell' which has kept me sunk all spring and summer in a very ignoble kind of labour, is now off my hands for ever. The lively interest the people have taken in that heavy book-the numbers that read, and in some good measure understand something of it; all this is really surprising to me. I take it as one other symptom of the rapidly deepening seriousness of the public mind, which certainly has call enough to be serious at present. The conviction, too, among all persons of much moment seems to be pretty unanimous, that this is actually the history of Oliver; that the former histories of him have been extraordinary mistakes-very fallacious histories-as of a man walking about for two centuries in a universal masked ball (of hypocrites and their hypocrisies spoken and done), with a mask upon him, this man, which no cunningest artist could get off. They tried it now this way, now that: still the mask was felt to remain: the mask would not come off. At length a lucky thought strikes us. This man is in his natural face. That is the mask of this one! Of all which I am heartily glad. In fact, it often strikes me as the fellest virulence of all the misery that lies upon us in these distracted generations, this blackest form of incredulity we have all fallen into, that great men, too, were paltry shuffling Jesuits, as we ourselves are, and meant nothing true in their work, or mainly meant lies and hunger in their work, even as we ourselves do. There will never be anything but an enchanted world, till that baleful phantasm of the pit be chased thither again, and very sternly bidden abide there. Alas! alas! It often seems to me as if poor Loyola and that world Jesuitry of which he is the sacrament and symbol, was the blackest, most godless spot in the whole history of Adam's posterity: a solemn wedding together in God's high name of truth and falsehood-as if the two were now one flesh and could not subsist apart-whereby, as some one now says, we are all become Jesuits, and the falsity of them. has, as it were, obtained its apotheosis and is henceforth a consecrated falsity. My wife went off a few days ago to Lancashire. She had been in a very weakly way ever since our summer heats came on, had much need of quiet and fresh air. . . . I, too, am tattered and fretted into great sorrow of heart; but that is partly the nature of the beast, I believe-that will be difficult to cure in this world. CHAPTER XIV. A.D. 1846-7. ET. 51-52. Domestic confusions-Two letters from Mazzini-Mrs. Carlyle at Seaforth-Clouds which will not disperse-Gloriana-Tour with the Barings in Dumfriesshire-Moffat and its attraction-Carlyle at Scotsbrig. It was hard on Carlyle that, while engaged with work into which he was throwing his entire heart and soul, he should be disturbed and perplexed with domestic confusions. But it was his fate-a fate, perhaps, which could not be avoided; and those confusions were to grow and gather into a thick black cloud which overshadowed his life for many weary years. When Mrs. Carlyle returned to him from Addiscombe, it was, as she said, 'with a mind all churned to froth' -not a pleasant condition. Carlyle, in spite of his good resolutions, was occasionally a little ill-haired.' At last things went utterly awry. She set off alone to the Paulets at the beginning of July. There was a violent scene when they parted. Her words, if seldom smoother than oil, were very swords' when she was really angry. She did not write on her arrival, as she had promised to do, and she drew these sad lines from him in consequence : To Jane Welsh Carlyle, Seaforth. My Dear, I hope it is only displeasure or embarrassed estrangement from me, and not any accident or illness of your own, that robs me of a note this morning. I will not torment myself with that new uneasiness. But you did expressly promise to announce your arrival straightway. This is not good: but perhaps an unfriendly or miserable letter would have been worse, so I will be as patient as I can. Certainly we never parted before in such a manner; and all for-literally nothing. But I will not enter upon that at all. Composure and reflection at a distance from all causes of irritation or freaks of diseased fancy will show us both more clearly what the God's truth of the matter is. May God give us strength to follow piously and with all loyal fidelity what that is! On coming home on Saturday in miserable enough humour, the saddest I think I have been in for ten years and more, I directly got out my work and sate down to it, as the one remedy I had. Yesterday I suppose you fancied me happy at Addiscombe. Alas! I was in no humour for anything of that laughing nature. I sate digging all day in the rubbish heaps, &c. It was a day of the resurrection of all sad and great and tender things within me-sad as the very death, yet not unprofitable, I believe. Adieu, dearest for that is, and if madness prevail not may for ever be, your authentic title. Be quiet; do not doubt of medo not yield to the enemy of us all, and may God bless thee always. T. C. Among Mrs. Carlyle's papers are two letters—the first of them dated only July, yet in answer to one which she must have written before leaving London, showing that in her distress she had taken the strong step of consulting a friend on the course which she |