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THE ATHEN/^IUM PRESS SERIES

(1 L. Kl TTRErXiE AND C. T. WINCHESTER

GHNHRAL HOITORS

iv : :

Btbenicum press Series

CARLYLE

ON HEROES. HERO-WORSHIP, AND THE
HEROIC IN HISTORY

EDITEIJ BY

ARCHIBALD MacMECHAN

GlOIIGB MUNKO 1'hiiK|:sS(1K (IK KN(il.ISll I.AN<a A(.K AMI I.ITKK ATI'DR

IN Ualhuusib Coi.i.KiiK, KiirroR ok "Saktok Rksakiis"

GINN & COMPANY

BOSTON ■ NEW YORK • CHICAGO • LONDON

CoI'VHinilT, iqnl

Bv ARCIIIilAM) M.mMM'IIAN

Al.t NirtllTS KRKKKVItU

GINN \- 1 OMPANY • PRt)-
rHlUTUKS • UUSTON • V^-A.

MY FATHER

WHO FIRST TAUGHT ME BY WORD AND DEED
THE MEANING OF "HEROIC"

r »

: i

PREI ACE

The task of the commentator on the trail of his facts is like
that set the Irish herd-boy in t» - folk-tale, when he lost the
heifers, namely, to search " every place likely and unlikely for
them all to be in." The first part of this roving commission,
It IS possible, with lime and luck, to execute ; but t) hunt the
shy allusions, the remote quotations, the deep-lurking bits o'
mformation. through every " unlikely " covert, forms a too
extensive programme. Indeed, the editor comes at last to a
pomt. when h. -els that nothing further can be effected by
organized search. It is only by pure chance, when looking for
other thmgs. that he can hope to run across the fugitive erudi-
tion which will make his commentary as full as it should be
This IS sadly true of any one who would edit Carlyle In
annotating Hmn-s, I have aimed at compression, and striven
as in Sartor Mes.irtus, to make the author supply the com-
ment on his own work. Some things which would tend to
enlightenment I have not beui able to find and I have said
so m my Not.^s. in the hope that better sch s will discover
them. Only after many toilsome hours dir give over the
pursuit of any one. Fortunatel- J/rroc. needs little expla-
nation ; the difficulties are few.

The text used as a ba is is that of ihe People's Edition,
187 «-j874. It has been dmgontly compared with those of the
first three editions, of ,84.. ,842, and ,846 ; and the results
of the collation are placed at the foot of the page. In the
process of reprinting, year after year, some score or so of
prmter's errors had crept in. These have been silently
corrected; otherwise the text is as Carlyle left it.

vii

f~ 'I

--fit

LECTURES ON HEROES

In the Introduction, I have tried, by using contemporary
evidence, to show what Carlyle was like as a lecturer, and
to recover his audience. The whole story is, I believe, told
here for the first time. Thanks to a member of the Carlyle
clan, it has been possible to establish, also for the first time,
the relation between Heroes, the lectures delivered, after
careful preparation, without notes, and Heroes, the elaborated
book. As a book, it is, perhaps, the hastiest and slightest
of his works, and contains a large number of petty errors
which can lessen its value only in the bisson conspectuities
of niggling pedants. Still, in the interests of the under-
graduate, for the safe-guarding of his literary morals, these
errors must be exposed. The young bow too readily to the
authority of the printed page. Certain points in the bibli-
ography of Heroes, previously obscure, are now made clear.
These are the chief results of two years' study.

My thanks and gratitude are due to the many unknown
friends who responded so promptly and generously to my
note of inquiry in The Nation, June 13, 1898 ; to Dr. Samuel
A. Jones of Ann Arbor, Carlylean professed, for aid heartily
given forth from his stores of information and his unrivalled
collection of Carlyleana ; to Professor Kittredge, my Kditor-
in-Chief, for constant help of all kinds ; to Mr. Alexander
Carlyle, of 30. Newbattle Terrace, Edinburgh, for his kindness
in furnishing extracts from his great kinsman's unpublished
letters ; and to my friend and colleague. Dr. John Johnson,
Professor Emeritus of Classics in this collej::e, for unfailing
patience and accuracy in reading proof. In this most difficult
art, he hath no Tellow.

A. M.

Dalhousie College, Halifax, N.S.,
Jan. 22, 1901.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. Carlyle as a Lecturer, the First Three Courses

II. Heroes, the Lectures

III. Heroes, the Book. Composition and Diffusion

IV- Style ■ ,j^

V. Ideas . ••

VI. Value. Influence . \\xv\\

I'AliR

XXXV

On Heroes, Hkro-Wokshh., and thk Heroic in

History

LECTURK I

The Hero AS Divinity. Odin. 1>a(;anis.m : Scandinavian
Mythology ....

LECTURE II
I The Hero as Prophkt. Mahd.mkt: Islam

LECTURE III
The Hero as Poet. Dantk; Shaksieake .

LECTURE IV

. . 89

The Hero as Priest. Lumii k : R.:kormat(..n : Knox; Phki-
tanism ....

I 'I

I )

V i

- ■ \-\

X CONTENTS

LECTURE V

PACK

The Hero as Man of Letters. JoirxsoN, Rousseau, Hurns 177

LECTURE VI

The Hero as King. Cromwei.i., Napoleon : Modern Revo-
lutionism 225

Cari-yle's Summary 283

Notes ,„-,

Cari.ylk's Index 367

Index to Introduction and Noiks yj\

INTRODUCTION

Whether or not it is true, that the noblest prospect a
Scotchman ever sees is the highroad that leads him to
England, many a man of the north country has acted as if
it were, ever since James the First set the fashion, and has
taken, for good and all, the southward way. In three cen-
turies, the band of exiles has grown large and numbers many
famous names, but none more illustrious than Thomas
Carlyle. In 1834, in the summer that saw the death of
Coleridge and the completed publication of Sartor, after
a sequestration of six mystic years at Craigenputtoch,
Carlyle, on his wife's advice, burnt his ships and flitted,
with bag and baggage, to the great Babylon, from which,
although he railed against it incessantly, he could no more
tear himself away than his hero Johnson. In the suburb of
Chelsea, in an old-fashioned house that had stood since the
days of Addison, he made his home. There he was destined
to pass the remaining sever and forty years of life allotted
to him, and to make that humble lodging a point of light in
the great murky city, whither, for years to come, the eyes
of earnest men and women were to turn with interest, with
eagerness, with reverence. There, he did the work appointed
him, the building of his three great histor -s ; there, he
thought and wrote and triumphed and suffered. That
house is known, room by room, from kitchen to suund-proo.
study, by thousands who never saw it with their bodily eves.
Like the two lives passed within it, that house lies open and

M!..

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(,ii

LECTURES ON HEROES

\\ 1

naked to all who wish to explore it. Mean souls are aware
of nothing but a cage for spiritual squalor; but others,
clearer-eyed, find it, in the prophet's own words, forever
venerable. For here lived one who taught, and with
authority.

Number 5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, was a fit home for a
man of letters like Carlyle. In a ruined house, a stone's
throw away, Smollett, another exiled Scottish author with a
temper, wrote Count Fathom, Even nearer was the place
where More had entertained Erasmus, when he came to
England to study (ireek. The very coffee-house in which
Mr. Bickerstiiff saw Pontius Pilate's Wife's Chambermaid's
Sister's Hat, and entertained doubts thereon, was still flour-
ishing. In Chelsea once lived Bolingbroke, the friend of
Pope and teacher of Voltaire ; and earlier still, the Count
de Grammont. Not far away, at 4 Upper Cheyne Row,
lived Leigh Hunt, the lampooner of the Regent, — he spent
two years in prison for calling a prince "a corpulent Adonis of
fifty " ! — the peculiar friend of Byron, the original of Harold
Skimpole, the enviable hero of Jenny Kissed Me. The win-
dows afforded glimpses of the Thames, Turner's own river,
of Westminster Abbey, even of the ball and cross above
Wren's monument, and, at nights, far away in the west, of
the lights of Vauxhall. Here, friends, neither too many nor
too few, Mill, Hunt, Sterling, Taylor, Allan Cunningham,
gathered round the man and woman of genius ; they never
wanted friends; and the letters of that time show that it
was a time of peace.

As soon as he was settled in his new home, Carlyle set to
work, with good heart, upon his first great book. The French
Revolution, itself, as he says, a kind of French Revolution,
labored over it late and early, lost the first book by the neg-
liijence of Mrs. Taylor's maid, according to the famous
story, rewrote it, and then, at the end of two years' work,

JIVTRODUCTIOX

Xltt

found that the London booksellers were willing to publish
it on the munificent half-profits system, which meant that
they got everything and the author, nothing. Three pub-
lishers besieged Harriet Martineau in her own house for her
book on America ; but, for the history that is among the
others, as a living man among corpses, no one would offer a
shilling. Carlyle made literature his crutch, not his walking-
stick, and it served him ill. His letters show depressioa,
natural enough. Of his genius there could be no doubt,
still less, of his infinite capacity for taking pains ; his
achievement was already great and solid ; he was thrifty
with Scottish thrift and proud with Scottish pride ; and yet
he had turned forty and had not grasped success. With all
his gifts he could not, with the most strenuous efforts, do
what a hundred thousand tradesmen in London were doing,
make his home secure against poverty. It was in this crisis
that his friends found for him a way of escape.

From the first, all who knew him were struck with Carlyle's
power of the tongue. For a long time, it was greater than
his power of the pen ; and when he did master that difficult
instrument, his very originality, the thing the world clamors
for and when found, abuses, stood in the way of his success.
The Edinburgh address almost makes us wish that he had
obtained, in time, one of the positions he applied for. Thomas
Carlyle, Professor of History, of Moral Philosophy, of Litera-
ture, of Things in General, would have been a force in any
university ; he might have been the kind of inspired teacher
he hoped as a lad to find in Edinburgh, Blackie, Jowett,
and Fichte in one. He might st.ill have written all his
books and have been a happier man, for hriving an assured
livelihood, and regular work, and the constant inspiration o'
young disciples. As it was, in the year that Queen VictoriL
came to the throne, the year in which 'her little majesty'
and The French Revolution began to reign together, Carlyle

«!'l

1*1:

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h ;l

1 -

3! J I 1

B ' * i 'I

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XIV

LECTURES OX HEROES

came before the world as a teacher by word of mouth. His
friends found for him a new profession, which he was to
follow, for four years, with complete success. This was
lecturing.

As early as the year of Carlyle's hegira to London, " to
seek work and bread," Emerson, his spiritual son, who had
sought out the nook-shotten philosopher in the wilds of
Dumfries, suggested his coming to America to lecture ; and,
for six years, the prospect was not without allurement for
him. Spurzheim and Silliman, he was told, had made their
thousands by lectures ; and ' the surprising Yankeet ' who
bought his books would, no doubt, have supported the
lecturer as loyally as they rallied to the struggling author,
for whom his own country had not recognition, and scarcely
bread. There was warrant for such an undertaking. The
poet of The Ancient Mariner, who followed Johnson and pre-
ceded Cariyle himself in the office of literary dictator, oracle,
and prophet, had given the world his criticisms of Shakspere
and Milton, first, in the form of lectures ; and the young De
Quincey had then seen the street in front of Count Rumford's
Royal Institution blocked with the carriages of women of
distinction. Hazlitt had lectured on the English poets;
Sydney Smith lectured ; Owen, Airey, Faraday gave popular
courses of lectures. Chalmers was to lecture in London at
the same time that Cariyle gave his second course. Emer-
son was to follow him, and Froude was to hear Carlyle's
loud but not unkindly laugh at the 'rather moonshiny close'
of one of his discourses. Thackeray, when he damned the
four Georges to everlasting fame, occupied the very room in
which Cariyle gave his first course ; and it is computed that
he talked to the tune of about a guinea a minute. The first
half of the nineteenth century, now dead and buried, was,
in fact, the Golden Age of lecturing. Cariyle, too, became
a lecturer, but he never saw America.

INTRODUCTION

The launching of the lecturer was eflfected by purely
human methods. At first, the Royal Institution was thought
of ; but their pay was small and their programme was full
for the wmter. Then came a bolder conception. Instead
of giving a winter course, under the wing of any institution
Carlyle should come forward as an independent lecturer in
the height of the London SLa>r,n. His friends left little to
chance. They circulated a prospectus, opened a subscription
book at Saunders and Ottley's, printed tickets, price one
gumea, and user" their personal inHuence to gather an audi-
ence together. Looking back upon this period, from the
time of his great sorrow, Carlyle does not remember clearly
whether there were three courses or four, but he does recall
the names of those who helped him. These were Miss and
Mr. Thomas Wilson of Eccleston Street, "opulent fine
Church of England people," deaf Harriet Martineau \ suc-
cessful authoress in the first Hush of her popularity, fresh
from America and the Abolition riots in Uoston, Frederick
LIlK.t, and Henry Taylor, the author of /'////// van Artai'cUe
On March 24, ,837, Carlyle writes to his brother John in
high spirits. The Marchioness of Lansdowne and honorable
women not a few have put down their names for his course •
he IS to have an " audience of Marchionesses, Ambassadors ''
''all going hke a house on fire." The prospect is so bright
that he inserts a brief ejaculatory prayer against "the mad-
ness of popularity." This, perhaps, Carlyle might have
omitted, had he known how diligently his friends were drum-
ming up recruits for him. A characteristic letter from Sped-
ding shows how these little things are managed. On April 4
he invited Monckton Milnes, the "Cool of the evening"
the "beautiful little Tory," who, Carlyle thought, should be
'-perpetual president of the Heaven and Hell Amalgamatior.
i^ociety," to come up to London and help him to roll a log
' I take the opportunity of writing to make you know, if you

[' af 'i

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( »■

XVI

LEC TUNES OiV HEROES

do not know already, that Carlylc lectures on German litera-
ture next month ; the particulars you will find in the enclosed
syllabus, which, if it should convey as much knowledge to
you as it does ignorance to me, will be edifying. Of course,
you will be here to attend the said lectures, but I want you
to come up a little before they begin, that you may assist in
pr uring the attendance of others. The list of subscribers
is at present not large, and you are just the man to make it
grow. As it is Carlyle's first essay in this kind, it is impor-
tant that there should be a respectable number of hearers.
Some name of decided piety is, I believe, rather wanted.
Learning, taste, and nobility are represented by Hallam,
Rogers, and Lord Lan?downe. H. Taylor has provided a
large proportion of family, wit, and bea tty, and I have
assisted them to a little Apostlehood. We want your name
to represent the great body of Tories, Roman Catholics,
High Churchmen, metaphysicians, poets, and Savage Lan-
dor. Come ! " ' The only phrase here that may not be
plain is a " little Apostlehood " ; it refers to the brilliant
circle of Cambridj^e men, of which Arthur Hallam was the
centre. He had been dead four years. The others were
Tennyson, James Spedding himself, Milnes, Trench, future
Archbishop of Dublin, Alford, John Sterling, F. D. Maurice,
Venables, FitzCierald, the translator of Omar, Kinglake, the
historian of the Crimean war, and the two Lushingtons.
How many of these Spedding induced to attend, is not
known ; but the fact remains that the friends of Carlyle
worked well, and when the hour came and the man, there
was an audience awaiting him.

Carlyle's preparation for the course was not so thorough.
Up to the day before the lectures began, he was busy with
the proofs of The Fraiih RcvolutioH. I'esides, his wife was
ill ; he could hear the cough on the other side of the wall,

^ The Life of Lord Iloughton, I, 192. N.Y., n.d.

INTRODUCTIOX

XVll

as he sat up to the ears in books and pamphlets. How-
ever, he had large stores of knowledge long laid up, and he
chose to draw upon the largest and richest of all. For
years, he had been studying, translating, and writing essays
on German literature. The extent and intimacy of his
knowledge surprised even Goethe, who pronounced him to
be "almost more at home in our literature than we our-
selves." ' He proposed to cover the whole field of German
literary history from Ulfilas to Jean Paul, beginning with the
origins of the Teutonic people and ending with forecasts of
literature to come.'^ One thinks of Huxley giving a whole
lecture on a piece of chalk, and wonders at the distance
traversed in a single address; but discursiveness was the
note of lecturing then ; one of Coleridge's courses included
"Architecture, Gardening, Dress, Music, Painting, and
Poetry." There was one great advantage, however. Judg-
mg from Spedding's letter, Carlyle was to break up virgin
soil. He was to have the rare privilege of addressing an

1 Eckermann, Oct. it, tSaS.

*» These were the topics of the six lectures:

..On the Teutonic People, the German Language. Ulfilas. the
xXorthern Immigration, and the Nibelungen Lied.

2 On the Minnesinger, Tauler, Reineke Fuchs, the Legend of Faust,
the Reformation, Luther, Ulrich von Ilutten.

3- On the Master Singers Hans Sachs. Jacob H.ihme, Decay of
German Literature, Anton Ulrich Duke of IJrunswick, Opitz, I^ibnltz

4. On the Resuscitation of German Literature, Lessing, Klop-
stock, Gellert, Uvater. Efflorescence of (German Literature. Werther^
iioetz.

S- On the Characteristics of New-German Literature, Growth and
Decay of Opinion. Faust, I'hilosophy, Kant. Fichte, Schelling. Art and
nehef. Goethe.

6. On the Drama, Schiller: Pseudo-Drama. Klinger, Kot/ehnc
\Verner: Romance, Tieck, Novalis : Pseudo-Romance. Hoffmann:
loetry and German Literature, Herder, Wieland. the Schlegels, Jean
i'aul : Results, Anticipations. C.Z.Z. L 1.5.

i»- -U f

• ••

XVIll

LECrUHES Of/ HEROES

ilil

audience on a subject, about which they knew nothing, » d
he knew everything.

There were minor difficulties. He was resolved not to
read his lectures, but to speak extempore, an orde.il doubly
dreadful to a nervous man and one inexperienced in the
art. Another cause for apprehension was that he, the peas-
ant scholar, was to address an audience of fashionable and
titled people at Almack's, the gathering-place of London
society. One of his lady admirers was afraid he might even
sin against the conventionalities, perhaps go so far as to
begin with "Gentlemen and Ladies," instead of the usual
formula. His wife knew that he was more likely to open
firt with "Men and Women," or "Fool creatures come hither
for diversion." As his nervousness increased with the
approach of the fated day, Carlyle, to keep up his mother's
spirits and his own, drafted the humorous valedictory which,
after all, he did not need to use : " Good Christians, it has
become entirely impossible for me to talk to you about
German or any literature or terrestrial thing; one request
only I have to make, that you would be kind enough to
cover me under a tub for the next six weeks and to go your
ways with all my blessing." A more important matter was
punctuality. By putting on all the clocks and watches,
Mrs. Carlyle knew that she could insure his being at " the
place of execution " at the appointed time. How to stop
him at "four precisely" was something harder. One device
that suggested itself was to lay a lighted cigar upon the
table just as the clock struck the hour. Happily all these
fears and apprehensions were groundless.

May the First, 1837, was a notable day. In the afternoon,
Carlyle lectured at A'mack's ; and in the evening Macready
produced young Mr. Robert Browning's Strafford, for the first
time, at Covent Garden. Hallam, of the Middle Ages, "a
broad, old, positive man, with laughing eyes," was chairman

INTRODUCTION

XIX

and brought the lecturer face to face with his first audience,
the two hundred ho ers of guinea tickets. It was made up
of the elements referred to in Spedding's letter. Learning,
taste, nobility, family, wit and beauty were all represented in
that assembly ; •• composed of mere quality and n..tabilities."
.ays Carlyle. ^ It is easy to figure the scene ; the men all
clean shaven, in the clumsy coats, high collars, and enor-
mous neck-cloths of the period, the ladies, and there were
naturally more ladies ..an men, following the vn tries of
fashion in "bishop" sleeves and the -pretty church-and-
stnte bonnets," that seemed to Hunt, at times, "to think
through all their ribbons." We call that kind of bonnet
"coal-scuttle" now, but Maclise's portrait of L.ady Morgan
trying hers on before a glass justifies Hunt's epithet. The
lecturer was the lean, wiry type of Scot, within an inch of
six feet. In face, he was not the bearded, broken-down,
broken-hearted Cariyle of the Fry photograph, but the
younger Carlyle of the Emerson portrait. Clean-shaven,
as was then the fashion, the determination of the lower jaw
lying bare, the thick black hair brushed carelessly and
coming down low on the bony, jutting forehead, violet-blue
eyes, deep-set and alert, the whole face shows the Scot and
the peasant in every line. It was a striking face, the union
of black hair, blue eyes, and, usually, ruddy color on the
high cheek bones, "as if painted ... at the plough's tail."
Lady Eastlake remarked, and she w.is an artist. Harriet
Martineau notes that he was "yellow as a guinea." but this
would be due to some temporary gastric disturbance.' He
was very nervous, as was most natural, and stood with down-
cast eyes, his fingers picking at the desk before him. At the

» Mr. Cro7ier remarked the ruddiness of Carlyi^-s face, even n
extreme old age. .See John Heattie Crozier. .1/,. Inner /.,/e, p. ,8j,
I-ond.. 1898; and also Mtv.oirs of La<iy Eastlake, cap. vii. p. ,,c
Lond., 1895.

'^\

LECTURES OA' JlEkOES

beginning, his speech wai broken, and his throat was dry,
drink as he would ; but his desperate determination not to
break down curried him throujjh. The society people were
" very humane " to him, and the lecturer had a message for
them ; his matter was new, his manner was interesting ; he
knew his subject. The rugged Scottish accent came like a
welcome draught of caller air from the moorlands of (lallo-
way, to the dwellers in London drawing-rooms; and "they
were not a little astonished when the wild Annandale voice
grew high and earnest."

No report of this course has come down, but Carlyle
admits in a letter to his brother John, that " they went off
not without effect." His wife's postscript puts the matter in
the true light : " I do not fuid thnt my husband has given
you any adecjuate notion of the success of his lectures ; but
you will make large allowance for toe known modesty of the
man. Nothing he has ever tried seems to mo to have car-
ried such conviction to the public heart tlv.t he is a real
man of genius and worth being kept alive at a moderate
rate." Mr:.. Carlyle knew, for she was wfil) enough to
attend the last four lectures and "did not faint." The
result in money was £\n after all expenses were paid,
and they were heavy ; and this sum put the Carlyle
household beyond the fear of want, "-ong after, Carlyle
remembered the pleasure of coming home from the first
lecture and handing his wife and her mother a gowden
guinea each, like a medal struck to commemorate his
triumph.

The success of their bold enterprise encouraged Carlyle
and his friends to try again ; and the following year they
undertook a course, double the magnitude of the first.
Instead of six lectures, the author of Tlu French Revolu-
tion, a book which was beginning to be talked about, was to
give a course of twelve, at a charge of two guineas a head,

INTKOnVCTlON

XXI

instead of one. The theme was the History of Literature/
or, as ti lecturer himself put it, unofFicially, "about all
things i. the world; '• > whole spiritual history of man
from the earliest times to ;he present." Carlyle was some-
limes in doubt, his wife tells us, as to whether his audience
thought he was pi\ inj; thtni enough for their guine.n ; but
surely such a progranune must have satisfied the greediest.

This time his preparation was careful. Although he had
not made up his mir.d, even as late as February, what he
should lecture on, he was reading Dante daily and hoped
"to gi\e a .sharp lecture on him for one." A fortnight
later, he tells Aitken that his main business is getting
something ready in the shape of lectures ; and when he
announced to Mrs. Aitken the success of the first of the
scries, he couples the " much preparation " with the " trem-
bling " that always went before, and was, in part, the secret
of his success. He rubbed up his Thucydides and Herod-
otus, and found profit in the labor ; but much less in reading
Nitbuhr and Michelet. A better lecfire-room than Willis's,
ciuiet, lighted from the ceiling, properly seated, was secured
at 17 Edward St., Portman Square. In March, Wilson and
Darwin are again busy, engineering; but there seems to
h;ive been little ditliculty in getting an audience. As the
lime drew near, Carlyle .<?re\v nervous, as usual, but he felt
that this was "the harvest of the whole y r," and he was
not going to allow mere panic to keep him from filling his
garner.

1 These are the subjects and dates of the various lectures, as given
in I'rofessor Greene's edition of Anstey's reports ;

Ucture I. Atril z-,tl,. i .rst Period. Of Literature in General —
Unguage. Tradition, Religions, Races — The Greeks: Their Charac-
ter in History, Their Knrtiine, T'.rformance — Mythologies — Origin of
Gods.

lecture II. A/„y .,//,. First Veriod — con/htu.,/. Homer: The
Heroic Ages— From .tschylus to Socrates — Decline of the Greeks.

IS*:..

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xxu

LECTURES OJV HEROES

Portman Square was not so convenient as Almack's for
the fashionable people ; but the fashionable people came
again. It was a notable gathering. The Tinus reporter,
who may have been Thackeray, observed "the cultivated
and intelligent aspect of the audience, of whom an unusually
large proportion appeared to be of a high order, both as to
station and education, and in whom there was consequently
a great number of pleasing and expressive countenances."
In the raffish Examiner, Leigh Hunt " suspects " '« it would
not be easy to match the audiences which this gentleman
has brought together, either on this or the former occasion,
for a union of what is usually called respectability with

i ^ !

lecture ITT. May "jth. First VexioA — continued. The Romans:
Their t:haracter, Thei' Fortune, What They Did— From Virgil to
Tacitus — End of I'aganism.

I.ecture IV. May wth. .Second Period. Middle Ages — Chris-
tianity; Faith — Inventions — Pious Foundations — Pope Ilildebrand

— ('rusades — Troubadours — Niebelungen Lied.

lecture V. May 14///. .Second Period — continued. Dante — The
Italians — Catholicism — Purgatory.

Lecture VI. May x'f^th. Second Period — (■<'«//;/«<■(/. The Spaniards

— Chivalry — fireatness of the Spanish Nation — Cervantes, His Life,
His Hook — Lope — Calderon — Protestantism md the Dutch War.

Lecture VII. May 2\st. Second V'^xwA — continued. The Ger-
mans — What They Have Done — Reformation — Luther — Ulrich
von I lutten — Erasmus.

lecture VIII. May 2^th. Second Period — (-(>«/'/««,v/. The Eng-
lish : Their Origin, Their Work and Destiny — Elizabethan Era —
Shakespeare — John Knox — Milton — P.eginning of Scepticism.

Lecture IX. May 2%t/i. Third Period. Voltaire — The French —
Scepticism — P'rom Rabelais to Rousseau.

lecture X. June i,f/. Third Period — continued. Eighteer Cen-
tury in England — Whitfield — Swift — Sterne — Johnson — Hume.

Ixxture XL Friday, June ?,th. Third Period — r(W/'/;/7/i.v/. Con-
summation of .Scepticism — W'ertherism ^ The French Revolution.

Lt'iture XII June I !///. Fourth Pe>iod. Of Modern (krmnn
Literature — Goethe aiid His Works.

INTKODUCTIO.V

XXltl

selectness of taste and understanding." The lecturer him-
self is of the same opinion. " My audience was supposed to
be the best for rank, beauty and intelligence, ever collected
in London. I had bonnie braw dames, Ladies this. Ladies
that, though I dared not look at them lest they should put
me out. I had old men of four score; men middle-aged,
with fine, steel-grey beards ; young men of the Universities^
of the law profession, all sitting quite mum there, and the
Annandale voice goUying at them." The lecturer's wife is
not to be described as gushing ; but she goes beyond even
Carlyle himself. " The audience is fair in quantity (more
than fair . . .), and in quality it is unsurpassable ; there are
women so beautiful and intelligent, that they look like
emanations from the moon ; and men whose faces are his-
tories, in which one may read with ever new interest."
Maurice was of this audience and confessed himself more
edified by the lectures than by anything he had heard for
a long while.' Monckton Milnes wrote to Aubrey de Vere
of the interest they aroused. " He talks as graphically as
his French Revolution; his personality is most attractive,
i'here he stands simple as a child, and his happy thought
dances on his lips, and in his eyes, and takes word and goes
away, and he bids it (lod speed, whatever it may be."^
Handsome George Ticknor, enjoying himself very much in
London, found time to look in at the tenth lecture, just
l)ffore he took ship for the United States ; he was only mod-
erately pleased with Carlyle. He thought him ugly and his
accent unpleasant ; but he remarked the careful preparation,
although the lecturer spoke without notes. " He was impress-
ive, I think, though such lecturing could not very well be
popular; and in some parts, if he were not poetical, he
was picturesque. He was nowhere obscure, nor were his

Tnr IJjc ,y ludfiuk Ih-nison M.iurue, I, 250. J.oiul., 1S84.
2 Life of Lord Ifoii;^hlon, \, 210,

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XXIV

LECTURES ON HEROES

i ^

sentences peculiarly constructed, though some of them, no
doubt, savored of his peculiar manner." ^ The success of
the course was most unmistakable. At the last, Carlyle had
some of his audience, ladies undoubtedly, weeping ; others,
undoubtedly men, wanted to give him a dinner to express
their sense of obligation ; but he declined the honor. More
lasting than "the glory of Portman Square" was the net
result in money, nearly 300 guineas. The London season
and the cosmic programme for 1838 included, as two of
their chief events, the coronation of the girl queen of
nineteen and the lectures of Thomas Carlyle.

Of this course, we know more than of any other, except
Heroes. Thackeray, we may be almost sure, attended the
first lecture, and wrote the fine compliments in the Times,
which pit ised Carlyle so much. Leigh Hunt reported him
in the Examiner, after a fashion that pleased him much less.
Instead of giving a clear summary of what was said, Hunt
argued in print with the lecturer and disputed his various
propositions. The most characteristic thing is his disallow-
ing Carlyle's praise of thrift, after borrowing two of Carlyle's
hard-earned guineas. The Examiner reports have a distinct
value and interest ; but there is an even fuller account to be
had. Sterling laughed with Caroline Fox over the ladies
who attended Carlyle's lectures and took notes, not of the
uioughts, but of the dates, " and these all wrong "; but there
was another taker of notes at this course, who worked to
some purpose.

In 1892, Professor J. Reay Greene edited, with preface
and notes, " Lectures on the History of Literature Delivered
by Thomas Carlyle April to July, 1838." ^ The account the
editor gives of them is not quite clear ; we would gladly

^ Life of George Ticknor, sub dat. June i, 183S.

* Significant extracts had been published, in an article by Professor
Dowden, in The Nineteenth Century, April, 188 1.

INTRO D UC TION

XXV

know more. Apparently they were taken down in shorthand,
by Mr. Thomas Chisholm Anstey, a Roman Catholic bar-
rister, who became M. P. for Youghal. How the manuscript
travelled to India is not explained ; and no notice is taken
of an instructive statement of Mrs. Carlyle's in regard to it.
Writing to her husband on Sept. lo, 1838, she says of
Sartor Resartus, then in its first English edition : " The
individual most agog about it seems to be the young Cath-
olic whose name, I now inform and beg you to remember,
is Mr. T. Chisholm Anstey. He sat with me one forenoon,
last week, for a whole hour and a half, rhapsodising about
you all the while; a most judicious young Catholic, as I
ever saw or dreamt of. . . . He has written an article on
you for the ' Dublin Review.' which is to be sent to me as
soon as published, and the Jesuits, he says, are enchanted

with all they find in you I told Mr. Chisholm Anstey

I could not give him the lecture-book as I was copying it.
' You copying it ! ' he exclaimed in enthusiasm ; ' indeed
you shall not have the toil ; I will copy it for you ; it will
be a pleasure to me to write them all a second time ! ' So
you may give him the ten shillings ; for he actually took
away the book, and what I had done of xi, par 7'i-e force." ^
From this, it is reasonable to infer that Mr. Anstey had
written out his notes in full, shown them to Carlyle, who
wanted to keep them and employed Ivs wife as copyist.
This proceeding throws light on Ca.Iyle's publication of
Heroes. With the exception of the ninth lecture, which Mr.
Anstey was too ill to attend, these reports are complete. All
Carlyle's lectures occupied an hour, seldom ...ore; and,
compared with Iferoes, these of '38 fill only half the space in
print. They are valuable for aiding us to understand the
last course ; and, as showing the difference between Carlyle
the speaker and Carlyle the writer.

1 Z. and M. I, 107.

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XXVI

LECTURES OJV HEROES

Between the meagre reports of Leigh Hunt and the fuller
accounts of Anstey there are curious and significant dis-
crepancies. For instance, Anstey makes Carlyle call Philip
of Macedon " a strong active man " ; while Hunt says " a
managing, diagrammatic man." The merest tyro can decide
which is the real Carlylese. Again, Anstey reports Carlyle
as saying in regard to the Greeks : " They recognised a des-
tiny, a great dumb black power, ruling time, which knew
nobody for its master, and in its decrees was as inflexible
as adamant, and every one knew it was there." Hunt's
version is : " The Greek religion which he looks upon as
originating in the "worship of heroes" ultimately "shaped
by allegory " with Destiny at the back of it (a great dumb
black divinity that had no pity on them, and they knew not
what it was, only that it pitied neither gods nor men)."
Here, it seems to me. Hunt comes nearer to what was
actually uttered. Instances might be multipucd to show
that Anstey's reports must be taken with great caution as
representing the very words spoken by Carlyle in 1838.
This was the longest of the four courses, and the best paid ;
and by the end of the year Carlyle was looking forward to a
third course, which should bring him "board-wages" for
another twelvemonth.

In April, 1839, he was able to tell Emerson that he was
richer than he had been for ten years ; but, though he was
no longer driven to it by poverty, he was again to lecture.
His subject was chosen: "The Revolutions of xModern
Europe." The place was again Portman Square ; the hour,
from three to four on Wednesdays and Saturdays, begin-
ning on the first Wednesday in May; the number of the
lectures, six.'

1 As to the sul)jects of the lectures, I have been .ihle tn find little
beyond Carlyle's own statement th?t Protestantism, Puritanism, and
the French Revolution were to have two apiece. See E.-Corr. I, 230.

INTkOnuCTWX

xxvu

Of this course we know tlie least of all. Leigh Hunt
was very late for the first lecture, because his omnibus ran
a waiting race with another ; and he reports it in one vajjue
sentence. The second, on "Protestantism. Faith in the
IJible, Luther, Knox, (iustavus Adolphus." he reports at
some length ; ' and one of Mrs. C:arlyle's lively letters ''■
deals with some of its aspects. The two are worth compar-
ing. Hunt notices his manner and its effect on his audience.
"There is frequently a noble homeliness, a passionate sim-
plicity and familiarity of speech in the language of Mr.
Carlyle, which gives startling effect to his sincerity, and is
evidently received by his audience, especially the fashionable
part of it (as one may know by the increased silence), with
a feeling that would smile if it could, but which is fairly
dashed into a submission, grateful for the novelty and the
excitement by the hard force of the very blows of truth."
One of the passages which had this effect was Carlyle's
denunciation of the degenerate Papacy. The heartiness of
the speaker's convictions, uttered in simple, truthful words,
had full weight with his audience. " E\ cry manly face
seems to knit its lips, out of a severity of s\mpathy, whether
it would or no; and all the pretty church-and-state bonnets
seem to think through all their ribbons." Hunt was plainly
a most sympathetic listciK r. sensitive to moods and impres-
sions. One paragraph of commLndaticm and summary is
given to the account of Luther, which shows much the same
treatment as in Heroes.

Mrs. Carlyle is not concerned with the matter of the
lecture, but with its effect. Writing to old Mrs. Carlyle at
Scotsbrig on May 6, she says: "Our ;,econd lecture 'trans
pired ' yesterday, and with surprising success — literally
surprising, for he was imputing the profound attention with

^ The F.xaminn-, Smulay, May \i, iSjrj.
2Z. a W.J/. I, 112.

XXVIU

LECTURES ON HEROES

1 :

I*-

which the audience listened, to an awful sympathising expec-
tation on their part of a momentary break-down, when all at
once they broke into loud plaudits, and he thought they must
all have gone clean out of their w.ts ! But, as does not
happen always, the majority were in this instance in the
right, and it was he that was out of his wits to fancy himself
making a stupid lecture, when the fact is he really cannot
be stupid if it were to save his iife." She did not think he
was talking his best; but she heard "splendid," "devilish
fine," "most true" "heartily ejaculated," on all sides.
"The most practical good feature in the business was a
considerable increase of hearers — even since last day ; the
audience seems to me larger than last year, and even more
distinguished." As in the days of Coleridge, the whole
street was blocked with carriages of people who maintained
servants in livery. The English aristocracy are the most
open to light of any class Carlyle has to do with, thinks
Mrs. Carlyle; and gives an instance of their openness to
truth. "Even John Knox, though they must have been
very angry at him for demolishing so much beautiful archi-
tecture, which is quite a passion with the English, they were
quite willing to let good be said of, so that it were indis-
putably true. Nay, it was in reference to Knox that they
first applauded yesterday." The whole letter shows sincere
elation at her husband's success.

Hunt's notice of the third lecture,' the first on Puritanism,
is a mild rebuttal of Carlyle's special pleading for Cromwell.
To blame Charles for deception, while protesting that Crom-
well could not get on without it, seemed inconsistent. Hunt
is very careful to qualify his disapproval, in such a way as
this : " Had Mr. Carlyle taken pains to draw a distinction ho
might doubtless have done so." Or else he softens his remon-
strance with compliments like this. " Not that Mr. Carlyle

1 The Examiner, .Sunday, May 12, 1839.

INTRODUCTION

XXIX

is ultimately intolerant to this victim of i father's king-craft
and the rising light of the age. He never is to anything in
a hard inhuman sense. He is too wise and kind a man.
Hut as we have just observed, we think it due from him to
his audience to explain himself on occasions like these, and
not to run the chancr of their going away with mistaken
impressions." The chief impressions which Hunt himself
carried away from this lecture were Carlyle's freedom from
prejudice in depicting Puritanism, " which would have made
■3 world a planet all over brambles," his portraiture of
I'rynne and Laud, his doing more than justice to Strafford,
and his complete silence on Vane and Milton. He notes
that the audience seems to increase at every lecture; and
(liiotes characteristic sentences, such as " iJoth sides mean
something that is right in all battles" and "All revolutions
are the utterance of some long-felt truth in the minds of
men." It is plain that Carlyle is once more traversing
well-trodden ground.

The Examiner for Sunday, May 19, contains a brief
apology for omitting to notice the lectures, and promises to
report them next week, when they are over. The promise
is well kept, and the report given is one of Hunt's best.

}{e again apologizes for having missed the greater part of
the fourth lecture, but he preserves the title, " The English
Restoration, Europe till 1789, Voltaire and Arkwright." His
recollections are hazy. The lecturer, for one thing, broke
up •' the wretched administration in France under Cardinal
I)u Bois, like so much tinsel paper, or an old bonnet, or
rather like an old hair-powder box in which the powder was
poisoned, — at once the lightest and guiltiest thing in the
world." He defends Voltaire against Carlyle's charge of
being " a mere scoffer " by adducing his " sympathies with
the pleasurable and the good-natured," and mentions his
service to the Calas family. He does not deny that Voltaire

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V » tI

XXX

LFX TURKS ON HEROES

J : ;i

was a " Frenchman all over," but urges in extenuation of
this offence, that "a Frenchman, with all his faults, has
infinite social virtues, and is nr small constituent part of the
great human family," — surely a reasonable plea. Arkwright,
he does not recall, but he cannot for'T--' . C.'arlyle said of
the melancholy spectacle of a hum; iig willing \i labor

but forced to starve, — " a thing not endurable, or which
ought not to be endurable, to human eyes " ; and such a
calamity as does not occur to a beast of the field.

The Examiner reports of the last two lectures are so full,
and preserve so many of Carlyle's characteristic sayings, that
they are given here except for the omission of various Skim-
polean disclaimers, as originally printed.

"The fifth lecture (on the " French Revolution, Faith in
the Rights of Man, Girondism, France till 1793, Mirabeau,
and Roland") was "full of matter." A new Duke, as good
and wise as he of As Yon Like Jt, would have been glad to
" cope " with our philosopher on this subject. The French
Revolution he described as the catastrophe of many past
centuries, the fountain of many that are to come, the crown-
ing phenomenon of our modern time. Bayle said of him-
self, that he was a Protestant "because he protested against
all beliefs"; Mr. Carlyle is a Protestant of a very different
sort from that ; he protests only against pretended beliefs ;
and he considers the French Revolution, much and bitter
fault as he has to find with it, as a consummation of Protes-
tantism in that respect. Luther, he says, protested against
a false priesthood ; Cromwell (putting, we suppose, the man
and the stconi for the spirit of the time that wielded it)
against a false priesthood and kingship; the French Revo-
lution against a false priesthood, kingship, and noblesse. It
was the general fearful protestation of a great nation against
whatsoever was false in its arrangements, and a determina-
tion to have them rectified. " A great price it was," — cries

INTRODUCTION

XXXI

our candid, out-speaking man of no party (for such he is, and
let his great truths be listened to accordingly); — "a great
price it was, but for a thing absolutely needed ; for cost
what it may, men must, and will return to reality, — to fact
and truth; they cannot live upon shams" The French
Revolution began appropriately in bankruptcy. " When a
delusion has no money in its purse, it must die. No one
will pull a trigger, or write a pamphlet for it. Nature has
said, — Go!" Unfortunately the French thought that a
Constitution was a thing, not to grow, but to be " made."
The faith in that extempore, full-grown creation of new
habits, ideas, and securities was the product of a sceptical
logic on the one hand (believing i.. very proportion to its
notion that it believed nothing), and of a senti^nental political-
economy on the other (taking the self-complacency for the
deed). But it was the universal faith of France ; the soul
of that great movement. Hope was the universal feeling ;
all men believed that a millennium was at hand, if one con-
stitution were "made." The Federation of the Champ de
Mars was "a strange outbreak of child-like hope in this
sort"; the constitution was made, "and sworn to, as no
made constitution can ever hope to be again, and it lasted
simply eleven months." This is the reign of Constitutional-
ism, called more strictly Girondism. The "Girondists"
were analogous to the Presbyterians, the " Montagne " to
the Independents, of Cromwell's time. There are two simi-
lar parties in all revolutions. The character of Louis was
that of a man "innocent and pitiable, but inert, without
will ; incapable of being saved." The lecturer gave a slight
sketch of the progress of things under him, till the Bastile
fell, "and the women brought him to Paris." The " strong-
est man" of the eighteenth century was Mirabeau, — "a
very lion for strength, — unsubduable, — who could not be
beaten down by difficulty or disaster, but would always rise

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XXXII

LECTUKKS OiW JIEKOES

%.'

again : — an institutive man, — better than a premeditative ;
your profesHiunal benefactor of mankind being always a
questionable person." Mirabeau would have been the Crom-
well of the French Revolution had he lived. *' A gigantic
heathen was he, who had * swallowed all formulas ' ; — a man
whom we must not love, whom we cannot h."4te, and can only
lament over, and wonder at." Up to this point, concluded
Mr. Carlyle, the French Revolution resembled the English
in its course ; but the rest of it was altogether peculiar,
unlike anything in history for a thousand years and more."
"The concluding lecture (on " Sansculottism, France till
1795, Robespierre, Danton. Marat, Napoleon, Results and
Prospects") added little new to the one just noticed, but
was perhaps the .nost interesting of the series, from the num-
ber of portraits painted. Mr. Carlyle excused the French
emigrant noblesse, as men who could not think otherwise
than they did in domestic politics from habit and breeding,
but strongly condemned them for calling in foreign aid and
quitting their country. If they were compelled in this, it
was only by their want of patriotism. Claiming to be
worthy, they should have shown how they could still interest
their country and stand by it ; " if unworthy, nnd nobody
would stand by them," they had, to be sure, ' nothing to
do for it, but to go." He defended the Queen, who was
accused of being the centre of all the intrigues, and thought
her life the most tragical on record ; — a mistake of memory
surrly. Most touching was Mr. Carlyle's story of the needle
she borrowed of the gaoler's wife the night before her death,
that she might mend ^ her clothes and be decently dressed
at the scaffold. The lecturer, we think, was too hard upon
the Girondists, in ar.cusing them of being actuated, in their
" elegant extracts " of constitutionalism, by nothing but

1 This incident impressed Carlyle. See Memoirs of Lady Eastlake,
Marcl 3, 1844. Lond., 1895.

INTROnrcTtOX

XXXIII

vanity. Not the less, however, do we belipve with \fr.
larlyle. that the sterner virtues of such men as Danton were
required, in the then state of France, to overawe interference
and K'ive a conscious strength to every man that had an arm ;
and so -veil did the lecturer defend that homely old hero of
the Revolution, one of its supposed "wretches." that his
audience, though, from their fashionable aspect, supposed to
be three paits Tory, heartily respc Jed to the manly call
upon their sympat-^ies. •' Poo,- Marat " also, even he, with
all that was repulsive in him, found sympathy, because he
himself was not without it; and justice was done to the
I supposed reprobate but real " formalist " and moral pedant,
I Robespierre, who was nevertheless ultimately given up as a
" miserable screech-owi fanatic," that had a face which Mira-
beau described as that of a " cat Kipping vinegar." " Let
my name be blasted," said Danton, " so that France be free."
t 'That is a virtue," said Mr. Carlyle, -which goes higher
than many a lauded virtue. Clean washed decency may stand
I rebuked beside it." We wish we could agree as heartily
I with what he said respecting "sin " and "God's judgment."
I N:;poleon was depreciated in proportion, because he seemed
I to have"nc sympathies"; qualities, truly, in which great
soldiers have never been apt to abound. Napoleon's healthy
bronze at all events enabled him to play a much grander
part than the dreary, bad blood of Cromwell. iJut we should
■ do great injustice to these lectures if we did not conclude by
; saying, that where Mr. Carlyle piqued the understanding to
differ with him now and then, through its very desire to have
- the pride and pleasure of agreeing with him in all things, he
, obtained its admiration a hundred-fold at all other tim^s;
I nor can we now take leave of the series of lectures this yeari
i without wishing there was an autumn as well as a spring
course, to set the heads of his hearers thinking, and their
hearts swelling with the love of truth and their species "

I !

4.: y

xxxiv

I.KCTVPES ON UK ROES

As usP \I larlylf was KlaU when the course was over, though
he mip' have been satisfied "with tolerable /<M and %
clr ..n of very nearly /:3oo." " My audience." he tells
his jrother John, '• was visibly more numerous than ever,
and of more distinguished people; my sorrow in delivery
was less ; my remorse after delivery was much greater. I
gave one very bad lecture (as I thought) ; the last but one.
It was on the French Revolution. I was dispirited — in
miserable health. My audience, mainly Tory, could not be
expected to sympathise with mc. In short, I felt, after it
was all over, like a man who had been robbing hen-roosts.
In which circumstances, I, the day before my finale, hired a
swift horse, galloped out to Harrow like a Faust's fiight
through an ocean of green, went in a ! ind of r.ige to the
room the next day, and made on Sansculottism itself very
considerably the nearest approach to a good lecture they
ever got of me, carried the whole business glowing before
me, and ended half an hour beyond my time, with universal
decisive applause sufficient for the occasion." > Our lecturer
was not a man to brag : but the facts are almost too strong
for his nodesty. His grudging admissions are set in their
true light by his best critic, his kt-en. clear-headed wife.
Writing to his mother, there is no re.ison why siie should
restrain her pride. " The last lectur. was indeed the most
splendid he ever delivered, and the people were all in a
heart-fever over it ; on all sides of me people, who did not
know me, and might therefore be believed, were expressing
their raptures audibly. One man (a person of originally
large fortune, which he had got through in an uncommon
way, namely, in acts of benevolence) was saying, ' He 's a
glorious fellow ; I love the fellow's very faults,' etc., etc. ;
while another answered, ' Aye, faith, is he ; a fine, wild,
chaotic cnap,' and so on all over the whole room. In short

1 C.L.L. I, 171. corrected.

ts'rK'O'HTcrioN

XXXV

we left the concern in :i sort of whirlwind of 'glory,' not
without 'bread.'" She notes a carriage with the Royal
arms and liveries, which had hroujjht a court-official to
I'ortnian Square ; and, in s ul contrast to her triumph, the
widow of Edward Irving sitting opposite in her weeds. As
a girl, she had loved Irving herself: this woman had taken
him from her ; Irving had had his brief day of glory, and
now he was beyond it all. The letter ends sadly ; the sun
his gone under a cloud. Kven clearer testimony to the
success of this course is given by C'arlyle himself, uncon-
sciously. Ten day s after it was ended, he wrote to Emerson
much as he had to his brother ; but he has discovered that
public speaking is an art, and he thinks of learning it by
practice. "Repeatedly it has come into my head, that [
should go to America this very Fall and beiecture you from
Xorth to South till I learned it." ' This shows how Emer-
son's invitation still tempted Carlyle; and the temptation
lasted until the publication of Heroes. America remained
Carlyle's Carcassonne.

These three courses were I.ut the three steps by which he
ascended to his last and greatest triumph, the course On
We/yies. Every year he gained in mastery over himself and
bis subject and the art of public speaking ; every year his
kudience was larger, more distinguished, and more enthu-
liistic. His last course was his best, and he forsook his
' new profession " at the very moment of his greatest success.
h- looked upon his performance on the platform as a
' mixture of prophecy and play-acting " ; felt the taint of
[ismcerity which seems to haunt oratory ; and, as he could
Ive without it, he gave it up.

' K.-Corr. I, 252.

W:.=

\ i

XXXVl

LECTURES ON HEROES

■I 1

('!■'

Heroes took shape in Carlyle's mind within four days,
between the 27th of February and the 2d of March, 1840.
On the first date he writes to his brother John : " I am
beginning seriously to meditate my Coiine of Lectures, and
have even, or seem to have got, the primordium of a subject
in me, — the' not nameable as yet." On the second date
he is able to give the course in outline : " My subject for
Lecturing on ought hardly yet to be named ; lest evil befall
it. I am to talk about gods, prophets, priesis, kings, poets,
teachers {six sorts of men) ; and may probably call it ' On
the Heroic' Odin, Mahomet, Cromwell, are three of my
figures ; I mean to show that ' Heroworship never ceases,' that
it is at bottom the main or only kind of worship." On All
Fools' Day he calls on Emerson to sympathize with him on
his " frightful outlook " in having to give a course of lectures
'"On Heroes and Hero-Worship,' — from Odin to Robert
Burns " ; and on April 8, he announces the title in its pres-
ent form, except for one word, and calls it " a great, deep,
and wide subject, if I were in heart to do it justice."

Just how he prepared for this course has never been made
quite clear. Neither Mr. Traill ' nor Mr. Gosse,^ his latest
editors, explain the matter, or establish the relation between
the spoken lectures and the written book. That it is now
possible to do both is due to the courtesy of Mr. Alexander
Carlyle, who has made for the present tdition extracts from
his great kinsman's unpublished letters, which place the
matter beyond a doubt.

Froude gives a hint, quoting from Carlyle's own journal for
April 23, 1840: "I have been throwing my lectures upon

1 Thomas Carlyle, On J /•.■rocs, Ifero-lVors'p, and the Heroic in
History (Centenary ed.), Introduction. Lond., 1S97.

■^ On J/cr,:cs and Hrro-lVc-'-'hif' <uui the Ihroic in History. Ws
Thomas Carlyle. With an Introduction by lulmund Gosse. Nine-
teenth Century Classics. Introduction, p. x. I.ond., 1896.

■•1

INTRODUCTION

XXX vu

paper — lectures on Heroes. I know not what will become
of them." ' Precisely what the process of throwing lectures
on paper was, this passage would not by itself make clear ;
but. taken with another bit of C'arlyle's own inimitable
description, now printed for the first time, the process
Hashes to our eyes. ' I splash down (literally as fast as my
pen will go) sor. kind of pMr-i-^^raph on some point or other
of my ' Course' ihai has hec) iie salient and visible to me;
paragraph after i ain^raph, t d at least four pages daily are
full: in this way 1 put dowii legibly, if not something that I
shall say, yet something that I might & should say. I can
clip the paragraphs out and string them together any way I
like. I am independent or nearly so of Reporters. I shall
be better able to spciii: of the things written of even in this
way. It seems the best I can do." - Such a method of com-
position is the reverse of orderly ; but it is thoroughly natu-
ral. The salient points dashed down, as each is fresh in the
mind, and arranged in coherence afterwards, ensure fresh-
ness and interest. Carlyle wrote a neat, minute, vertical
hand, a gr»*at many words to the page ; and ' at least four
pages daily ' would soon grow to a heap of close-wrought
manuscript. It is fair to infer that the lectures were written
out in great part before they were delivered ; written out
and left at home, just as many a preacher prepares his
sermon.

The lectures were given in the month of May, on Tues-
days and Fridays, at Portman Square, at three o'clock in the
afternoon. The audience was, as usual, aristocratic in rank
and intellect, between two and three hundred in number
and, — significant fact, — grew larger after the first lecture.
Carlyle expected to clear i^2oo by the venture and was not
disappointed. In reporting, we miss greatly Leigh Hunt

' r /../.. I, 192.

- Letter to Dr. Carlyle, lytli April, 1S40.

I'm

xxxvm

LECTURES ON HEROES

and Mrs. Carlyle. The Letters and Memorials are an abso-
lute blank for this period, why I do not know, except that
Mrs. Carlyle hated letter-writing. Leigh Hunt's silence is
explicable. On the morning of May 5, Antoine Courvoisier,
the Swiss valet of Lord William Russell, cut his master's
throat, and set all London agog. The Examiner has col-
umn after column on this crime; but not a word for the
lectures. These two are silent ; but others take up the tale.
The first lecture was not the best of the series. Carlyle's
qualifications for dealing with Norse mythology were not so
plain as in other cases. He had not written or spoken on
the subject before ; nor is there any record of when or how
he read upon it. Carlyle had time to keep his mother '
informed of his lectures. On the day following the delivery
of the first, he gives her cheering news. His lecture-room
is fuller than ever before, of " — the bonniest and brawest of
people." He was not well, had been awake since half-past
four, could not unfold more than a tenth of his meaning;
and yet " the beautiful people " seemed content and sat
silent, listening to her boy's words, as if they had been
gospel. Trench- writes to Wilberforce in May, begging him
"to string a few of Carlyle's choicest pearls and send them
to us unfortunate people who cannot gather them as they
drop from his lips." He hears that the first lecture, "not-
withstanding the many delightful things in it, was partially
a failure ; as indeed they always are, unless he works him-
self up into true Berserkr fury, which on that occasion
(though it would have been one of the meetest) he certainly
failed to do."

1 Carlyle is among the literary men whose filial devotion to their
mothers is a strong feature in their character ; Pope, Cowper, Gray,
Johnson.

* Richard Chevenix Trench. Archbishop. Letters and Memorials, I,
248. Lond., 184.S.

INTRODUCTION

XXXIX

With the second lecture it was far different. He was
loolcing forward to the opportunity of speaking on the sub-
ject, for he felt he had a message on Mahomet, " not a
very intimate friend to any of us." The subject was new
to the lecturer himself. He had made its acquaintance only
the year before. He notes in his journal, October, 1839,
reading "Arabian Tales by Lane," and this was the first
edition. His comment gives the kernel of the lecture.
" No people so religious, except the English and Scotch
Puritans for a season. Good man Mahomet, on the whole ;
sincere ; a fighter, not indeed with perfect triumph, yet with
honest battle. No mere sitter in the chimney-nook with
theories of battle, such as your ordinary ' perfect ' characters
are. The ' vein uf anger ' between his brows, beaming black
eyes, brown complexion, stout middle figure ; fond of cheer-
ful social talk — wish I knew Arabic."* In its printed
form, the lecture shows that Carlyle had also used Sale, and
especially Gibbon, which he had read greedily, in Irving's
copy, twelve volumes, at the rate of a volume a day. when
he and his friend were two unknown village schoolmasters,
at Kirkcaldy, twenty-four years before.

The fam'' ' this lecture penetrated even to Botley Hill,
where Trt , ird that it was good. Carlyle himself was

pleased for .- with what he said, although he paid for
his earnestness with a sleepless night. He had learned that
success in public speaking depends on luck, a thousand
things producing the fit emotional state ; and on this occa-
sion he was thoroughly in tune. The audience was larger
than ever; "bishops and all kinds of people" were his
hearers ; thev heard something new, and " seemed greatly
astonished ^ greatly pleased. They laughed, applauded,
ivc. In short it was all right, and I suppose it was by much
the best lecture I shall have the luck to give this time."

1 C.L.L. I, 187.

^;i:

„■{■

(X.

V 1^

:i (i»l

LECTURES ON llEKOES

\ i

I I

"I vomited it forth on them like wild Annandale grapeshot."
" I gave them to know that the poor Arab had points about
him which it were good for them all to imitate ; that probably
they were more of quacks than he." ' Macready took this
afternoon as a holiday, between rehearsal and performance,
and "was charmed and carried away" by the lecturer.
The professional speaker notes that the amateur " descanted "
on his theme " with a fervour and eloquence which only a
conviction of truth could give."- Here he met Browning;
but his opinion is not recorded. One dissenting voice is
heard, the voice of Frederick Denison Maurice.* He
admired Carlyle, attended his lectures, but felt what was
the fact, that CarlyU- did not like him. He and his sister
Prisciila attended this one together. Both the Bishop of
Salisbury and VVilberforce spoke to him of the lecture with
interest, although the lecturer had said things to shock " the
shovel-hatted." Mrs. Denison asked his opinion, which he
had not time to give ; he had an errand to Westminster. The
audience seemed willing to pick the wheat from the chaff,
the truth from among his inconsistencies. Maurice is dis-
tinctly critical in his attitude. "The miserable vagueness
into which he sometimes fell, his silly rant about the great
bosom of Nature, which was repeated in this lecture several
times, which, as you observed, he would laugh to scorn in
any other man, together with the most monstrous confusions
both moral and intellectual, even while he wished to assert
the distinction between right and wrong, convinced me
whither his tolerance would lead in any mind in which it was
not corrected, as it is in his, by a real abhorrence of what is
base and false, and by a recklessness of logical consistency,
if so be he can bring out his different half-conceptions

' C.I..L. I, 93. See also E.-Coir. I, 319.
2 Afacready^s Diaries, sub dat. May 8, 1840.
•'' Life of E. D. Maurice, I, 282. Lond., 1884.

INTRODUCTION

xX\

in some strong expressive language." His objections are
natural enough in a clergyman ; for the lecturer regarded
the supernatural heart of the Christian religion as myth.
Maurice adds his testimony to Carlyle's eloquence. " The
lecture was by far the most animated and vehement I ever
heard from him. It was a passionate defence of Mahomet
from all the charges that have been brought agiinst him
and a general panegyric upon him and his doctrine. He
did not bring out any new maxim, but it was a much clearer
and more emphatic commentary than the former lecture
upon his two or three standing maxims ; that no great man
can be insincere ; that a doctrine which spreads must have
truth in it ; and that this particular one was a vesture fitted
to the time and circumstances of the common truths which
belong to all religions." Dr. Garnett mentions a very dif-
ferent kind of dissenter, who created a mild " scene " at this
lecture.* I find no record of it elsewhere, and it shows Car-
lyle's hold over his audience. John Stuart Mill, the logician,
the calm Mill of the Autobiography, was guilty of interrupting
his friend the speaker. Carlyle could not abide utilitarianis .i
and, led away by his own vehemence, " without prior pur-
pose," denounced Bentham's ethics compared with Mahomet's
as " the beggarlier and falser view of Man and his Destinies
in this Universe."^ As he uttered "beggarlier," Mill rose
to his feet with an emphatic " No ! " The lecture evidently
struck contemporaries in quite different ways; but all agree
as to the force of the impression.

On the Hero as Poet, Dante and Shakspere, Carlyle had
special right to speak. Everything he says of Shakspere

1 Life of Carlyle, p. 171. Great Writers Series. Lond., 1895. It is
a pleasure to call attention again to the solidity and humorous wisdom
of this, the best " short view " of Carlyle, and surely one of the best
brief biographies ever written.

^ See Heroes, 87 19.

xlii

LECTURES ON HEROES

iii

I! : :

shows insight and warm appreciation ; ' he made a pilgrimage
to Stratford-on-Avon in 1824, and some lines, like the famous
"cloud-capped" passage in 77ie Tempest, he is never wearied
of quoting. Knowledge of Shakspere may be assumed in
the case of all the great ones. He had already lectured on
him in the course of '38,'' when the treatment and general
plan were much the same as in Heroes.^ When Carlyle
began Italian, I cannot find ; but he and his wife were both
studying that language in 1834, after they were settled in
their London home, and used to walk together at evening
along the river and past Chelsea Hospital. He was then
reading Dante, as he was in the winter of 1837. In the
course of '38, he devoted an entire lecture,* the fifth, to
Dante , and here again, he was going over the same ground.
A second time he succeeded in giving a " sharp lecture " on
the passionate Florentine.

This lecture had the strange fortune to be reported in
the Times next morning, by some one who spelled the lec-
turer's name 'Carlisle.' His account may be accurate, but
it is not emotional. " There were present a great number of
persons, principally ladies. The lecture was on the char-
acters of Dante and Shakspeare, and the effect which their
productions had produced on society, and the estimate which
posterity had made of their abilities. The lecturer began
with showing the connexion between the prophet and the
poet, and by comparing the characteristics of the two. The
prophet taught what was good ; the poet what was beautiful.
He then proceeded to expatiate on the genius of Dante, and
gave a short account of his history. Dante's excellence he
described to consist in intensity. In every relation of his

1 See C.E.L. I, 244, and Historical Sketches, 22, 76, 103.

« See L.L. 147-152.

^ See A'otes for confirmation.

< See L.L. So-ioo.

INTRODUCTION

xliii

life he was intense; in liis love for iieatrice he was intense ;
in his political career at Florence he was intense; and
in his poetry his intensity was concentrated. The Divina
Commedia was a mirror of the catholicitv of theajje in which
he lived and was valuable as a record of the modes of think-
ing on the spiritual subjects of tiie ten centuries by which
he was preceded. Mr. Carlisle then proceeded to give his
notions on the character of Shakspeare, whom he considered
the man of the greatest intellect of any age ; he exemplified
the grandeur of his ideas by the words inscribed on his
tomb, taken from his own writings, 'The cloud-capped
towers &c.,' and described him as the historian of the
practical world, as Dante was of the spiritual. The lecturer
concluded by saying that no Englishman would resign
Shakspeare for any price whatever ; he would sooner give
up possession of the Indian empire than part with the great
poet of his country." Carlyle is hardly recognizable in this
guise ; but, wooden as it is, it shows that Carlyle followed a
plan which is the same in the spoken address as in the
book form. The reporter remains outside the sphere of
Carlyle's influence, and finds little to praise. He notes the
applause at the close, but seems to think it hardly justified.
'• The lecture, though it contained little that was particularly
novel in idea, was enforced with a rugged simplicity of
thought and diction that occasionally became elocjuent, and
secured the attention and perhaps the admiration of his
audience."' Maurice was again in attendance and again
in revolt. He felt that the time was critical, and that the
guiding lights were leading astray ; and he too reported the
lecture next day, to a limited public, his wife, in these terms:
" I know not how to tell you what apprehension I sometimes
feel at the thought of what is coming to this generation. I
feel it at Carlyle's lectures, especially in such wild pantheistic
1 For this reporter's correction of Carlyle, see Notes.

pi? W-

(■■k 1

*.'4

III

xliv

LECTURES ON HEROES

rant as that into which he fell at the close of yesterday's.
And then I wonder how I can ever indulge in little bickerings
and childish pettiness when such perils are threatening some
of the noblest anc' lest spirits in the land." ' Ky joining the
two statements, it is plain that the audience was attenti\ *
and appreciative, and that the lecturer was equal to himseh,
even if he did not rise to the height of his great argument
on Mahomet.

Of the fourth lecture, I have not been able to find any-
thing either in the way of record or impression, beyond Car-
lyle's statement that his wife thought that it and the fifth
were among the very best he ever gave. He is always nerv-
ous and anxious until they are delivered at the appointed
time ; but suffers " no excessive shattering " of himself to
pieces in consequence. His heart is in his subject, and his
interest gives vigor to his words. " I am telling the people
matters that belong much more to myself this year." Luther
and Knox " belonged " to him. At one time he contem-
plated writing a life of Luther, and he had lectured upon
him in every one of the preceding courses. On Knox, he
could also speak with authority ; and he had given the sub-
stance of what he said now, in '38 and in '39.

In the audience that heard the last two lectures sat a
Quaker girl of twenty-one, from Cornwall, deeply religious,
cultivated, alert, belonging to a wealthy family well known
in the Society of Friends, by name Caroline Fox. The
provincial world into which her ch'xxmwi^ Journal s bring the
lucky reader is as delightful, as the London world, which
Carlyle and Thackeray and Harriet Martineau saw and
lashed, is kideous. It is a sane, kindly, unaffected world,
with broad, unselfish, human interests. Caroline Fox was
the friend of Carlyle's friend, John Sterling ; she had long
Wtifrtm and admired Carlyle's books, and came up to

I /,//<■ .//•". n. Maurice, F, 283. Lond., 1884.

INTKODUCTIOX

xlv

London at the time of the May meetings, fresh from reading
Chartism, which had not "lessened the excitement" with
which she anticipated seeing and hearing the author. She
had eager eyes and a ready pen, and she makes such good
use of them, recording much in her diary, but never a mean
or ungenerous thought, that the professed Carlylean sighs
to think she was not able to attend this whole course.

At "The Hero as Man of Letters," on May 19, she sat
beside Harriet Mill, who introduced her next neighbor,
the lecturer': wife. In the audience she "discovered"
Whewell, the great Cambridge don, Samuel VVilberforce
(" Soapy Sam "), and his beautiful wife. The audience was
" very thoughtful and earnest in appearance." Her first
impressions of the lecturer himself must not be given in any
words but her own. " Carlyle soon appeared, and looked""
as if he felt a well-dressed London audience scarcely the
arena for him to figure in as a popular lecturer. He is a
tall, robust-looking man ; rugged simplicity and indomitable

strength are in his face, and such a glow of genius in it

not always smouldering there, but flashing from his beautiful
grey eyes, from the remoteness of their deep setting under
that massive brow. His manner is very quiet, but he speaks
like one tremendously convinced of what he utters, and who
hud much — very much — in him that was quite unutterable,
quite unfit to be uttered to the uninitiated ear ; and when
tile Englishman b sense of beauty or truth exhibited itself in
vociferous cheers, he would impatiently, almost contemptu-
ously, wave his hand, as if that were not the kind of homage
which Truth demanded. He began in a rather low and
nervous voice, with a broad Scotch accent, but it soon grew
firm, and shrank not abashed from its great task." ' This,
une feels, is the true view of Carlyle and his audience. It
.vas no ordinary young lady noting the dates, " and these all
1 Caroline Fox, Her Journals and Letters, I, 182 f.

xlvi

I.HCTUKES 0\' irEROF.S

;i«

wrong, " who could so quickly penetrate the spirit of the
gathering, catch the speaker's accent of conviction, divine
his many reticences, and preserve and interpret that char-
acteristic little gesture. Perhaps no one in the room was
more delicately .ittuned to a lecture on the cult of the hero,
when he comes as man of letters.

Her outline of the lecture is too long to quote in full, but
it shows the same course of thought, in many cases the same
words are used as in the book. More important are the
differences. The phrases which she jotted down that very
day, when they were still ringing in her ears, and which do
not appear in Heroes, the book, are striking. For example :
" Some philosophers of a sceptical age seemed to hold that
the object of the soul's creation was to prevent the decay
and putrefaction of the body, in fact, a rather superior sort
of salt." Or again : " iJefore others had discovered any-
thing sublime, lioswell had done it and embraced his knees
when his bosom was denied him." The spoken account of
Roa !^\u differed from the written, apparently, both by
omisoion and addition. The entry in the diary for this day
makes no mention of the de Genlis anecdote, for example,
and does record Carlyle's private view of the most infamous
of autobiographies. " The Confessions are the only writings
of his which I have read with any interest ; there you see
the man as he really was, though 1 can't say that it is a duty
to lay bare the Bluebeard chambers of the heart." From
the future writer of the Reminiscences, the editor of the Letters
ami Memorials, this is unconscious irony. The accuracy of
the reporter being assumed, this part of the lecture differed
widely from the final form. The characterizations of Johnson
and Burns, on the other hand, must have been substantially the
same, as in the printed Heroes. This may be easily accounted
for. Carlyle's essays on Johnson and Burns are documents
of great and permanent value ; and in the process of their

IXTKODUCTION

xlvii

making, his ideas regarding both heroes had become fixed
and crystallized ; and he would inevitably give them forth
again and again in the original order and proportion. With
Rousseau he was not so much at home, and might very well
draft and say things about him which he would not think
good enough to print. In Mrs. Carlyle's opinion, this was
one of the very best of his lectures, and the lecturer was
inclined to agree with her.

If the final lecture did not succeed, it could not be for
want of adequate preparation. From 1822 he had been
reading on the history of Puritanism, beginning with Claren-
don, and hail meditated a history of the movement. The
fragments of that work, edited with pious care by Mr.
.Alexander Carlyle, show us what we have lost. As he read
and thought and wrote, the conviction grew on him that the
traditional view of the great central figure in the rise of
Puritanism, upheld by every historian for nearly two centu-
ries, was grotesquely absurd, a deliberate putting of black
for white. The two hundred and odd holders of guinea
tickets that Friday afternoon, May 22, 1S40, had the privi-
lege of being the first to learn a great historical truth. For
Napoleon, Carlyle also had special knowledge. lie was a
man of twenty, out of college, in the Waterloo year, and had
itarned the Corsican's history in the process of making,
lie had already lectured twice on the French Revolution,
and, although his great prose poem on the time ends with
the "whiff of grape-shot" at the beginning of Napoleon's
career, he had read largely on the subject. The lecture is
out of proportion ; the rehabilitation of Cromwell leaves
little room for the wonderful man, whose daimonic power
has enlarged the world's conception of the possibilities of
the human spirit.

Caroline Fox's report shows the same course of thought
as in the book ; and, in spite of a couple of slips, such as

!lw.

\ ''Si

xlviii

LECTURES ON HEROES

'lf

noting ' nymph,' for ' imp,' probably, in Cromwell's reputed
vision of his coming greatness, and giving the anecdote of
Cromwell's mother to Napoleon's mother, it impresses the
reader with its essential accuracy. One note at least could
be ill spared, her impression of the climax. " After many
other effective touches in this sketch, which compelled you
to side with Carlyle as to Cromwell's self-devotion and mag-
nanimity, he gave the finishing stroke with an air of most
innocent wonderment. . . . 'And yet I believe I am the
first to say that Cromwell was an honest man ' ' " Car-
lyle's very words are reproduced : " Cromwell comes before
us with a dark element of chaos round him," is unmistak-
able, as is the Scotticism in " but I (huH that this vision
was only the constant sense of his power to which a visible
form was given." The lecturer was not above allusions to
contemporary politics, which would lose their point in print,
and would be made general. The passage on Cromwell's
great difficulty runs, " Prime Ministers have governed coun-
tries, Pitt, Pombal, Choiseul ; and their word was a law
while it held ; but this Prime Minister was one that could not
get resigned,'' but it has another complexion in the Journals,
"He was in a position similar to the present Ministry — he
could not resign." Again, what Caroline Fox heard regard-
ing the education of Napoleon is different in form, though
not in idea, from the passage in Heroes. " Napoleon was
brought up, believing not the (lospel according to St. John,
but the Gospel according to St. Diderot," is hardly recog-
nizable in, " He had to begin, not out of the Puritan Bible,
but out of poor sceptical Kncydopidies"

From the lecturer himself we get the performer's point of
view, very different from the spectator's. " On the last day
— Friday last — I went to speak of Cromwell with a head
full of air ; you know that wretched physical feeling; I had
been concerned with drugs, had awakened at five, etc. It is

/XrKO/)L'CT/OX

absolute martyrdom. My tofiKuc would l.irdly wag at all
when I Kot done. \'et the Kood people v .te breathless, or
broke out into all kinds of te.stimonies of jjoodwill ; seemed
to like very much indeed the hu^e ra;,'ged image I gave them
of a believing Calvinistic soldier and reformer. • Sun-clear,
initleus of intellect and force and faith, in its wild circum-
ambient element of darkness, hypochondriac misery and
quasi-madness, in direct communication once more with the
innermost deep of things.' In a word, we got right hand-
somely through." ' The last sentence is significant ; he can
conceal the fact neither from his brother nor himself. " The
lecturing business went ofT with sufficient f,/at. The course
was generally judged, and I rather join therein myself, to
be the bad /ust I have yet given."- He reluctantly con-
fesses his success in his diary. " 1 got through the last
lecture yesterday in very tolerable style, seeniingly much to
the satisfaction of all parties ; and the people all expressed
very genuine-looking friendliness for me. I contrived to
tell them .something,' about poor Cromwell, and I think to
convince them that he was a great and true man, the valiant
soldier in England of what John Knox had preached in
Scotland. In a word, the people seemed agreed that it was
the best course of lectures, this.'"' All this is, of course,
the thoroughly ScottiMi under-statement.* The best course
of the four ended in a blaze of fireworks, people weeping at
tlie earnest tone in which they were addressed. As the audi-
ence grew, year by year, in appreciation of the speaker, the
speaker grew in appreciation of his audience. The "dan-
diacal," " Dryasdustical," •• superfine " people were at last the

' Letter to Dr. Jolin Carlyle. May 26. 1840, C.L.L. I, loc

"^ n<ij. ^^'

' C.L.L. I, 194.

♦ Compare T/u Cunning Sptah of Drumtochty, and A mndow in
fnrums, passim.

1
i

F
4

LECTURES ON HEROES

"humane," the "good," the "beautiful " people. His atti-
tude towards his audience is as different as possible from
Ruskin's, for instance ; his appeals to " your candour," his
sharing " our " Shakspere contrast strangely with the fierce
invectives of " The Crown of Wild Olive " ; and the courtly
compliment, with which he took his leave, was true and came
from his heart. Success, popular success, after long years
of waiting had come at last. Only, he had waited for it too
long, and now he found it short in measure. What youth
desires, age has in satiety.

It is hard to resist the conclusion that there were few
better investments for a guinea that May in London than a
ticket for Mr. Carlyle's course, (?« Heroes. It is not every
season that one can, by any payment of money, hear a lec-
turer who makes people, least of all a mob of London
society, knit their brows in thought, makes; inem laugh,
makes them cry, makes them applaud, makes them forget
their trained self-repression in cries of ' devilish fine ! '
' splendid ! ' ' most true ! ' who rouses them to the point of
wanting to dine him, a lecturer who does this for four years
in succession. The Carlylean professed would almost be
content to stand on the threshold of the wonderful new cen-
tury, a doddering octogenarian, if so, in his hot youth. Fate
had deemed him worthy to be numbered in the ranks of
those who beheld those " emanations from the moon," and
sustained gladly the salvos of " wild Annandale grapeshot."

Ill

Heroes, the series of lectures, is one thing, and Heroes.
the printed book, is quite another. Even without the evi-
dence of Caroline Fox's Journals and of the letter to Dr.
Carlyle, both containing good things which do not appear
in the authorized version, the briefest reflection shows that

IN TROD UC TION

it would be absurd to expect the two versions to be exactly
the same. Carlyle did not recite lectures previously com-
mitted to memory, but he spoke extempore, after careful
preparation.! His memory was amazing, but even his mem-
ory would not be equal to the task of recalling the very
words he used in the heat of impassioned harangue. Nor
would he think of trying to do so. But he did think that
somebody else might do this for him.

Carlyle, curiously enough, entertained singular hopes
regarding reporters, remembering, no doubt, the devotion
of Mr. Anstey in 1838. Before the lectures begin, he con-
gratulates himself on the fact of having written them out ;
he will thereby be ' independent or nearly so of reporters ' ,'
but the phrase shows that he considered a report of them a
possibility. While they are in progress he writes ■^ : " There
is no newspaper that I know of hitherto which gives any
Report of my Lectures this year.' ... A reporter of Fraser
the Bookseller's does attend, and make a kind of Note or
Draft of the business; a diligent, intelligent man ; but what
can any reporter do ? I have seen his ' First Lecture,' and
would not have it printed with my name to it for any hire
whatsoever. My only chance . . . will be to work the sub-
ject up by myself, and print it by and by as a kind of book."

1 Mr. Moncure Conway states that Carlyle brought a manuscript and
found It much in the way; and that on the " next evening" he brought
some notes, but these tripped him till he left them. Thomas Carlyle,
I). 24. N.Y., 1881. The statement is vague, no authority is cited- and
the mention of evening is a slip, for Cariyle lectured in the afternoon.
In any case, the last four lectures were delivered extempore, as those
of the first three courses certainly were. Finding the MS. in the way
would account for the comparative failure of the first lecture, which
1 rench heard of.

- letter to T!,omas Ballantyne, May 11, 1840, copied by Mr. Alex-
ander Cariyle for the editor.

=' Being full of the Courvoisier murder.

ll.''""; !

lii

LECTURES ON HEROES

Carlyle had evidently thought it possible for a merely human
reporter, let him be diligent and intelligent, to catch the
' wild Annandale grapeshot ' as it flew, and present it in a
shape which he himself would recognize and acknowledge.
Of course, the vaulting ambition of Fraser's hack was fore-
doomed to failure. Carlyle had to be his own reporter, and
he says as much on the title-page of the first edition.' There
the sub-title runs, " Six Lectures. Reported with Emenda-
tions and Additions. By Thomas Carlyle."- In other
words, the author himself wishes it to be understood that
the relation between the finished book and the eloquence
of Portman Square is really faint and far away.
How he managed to

" recapture
The first fine careless rapture "

of those winged words that set the fine, prim southron bodies
laughing and crying and clapping their hands, is a ques
tion easier to ask than to answer. One thing is certain ;
he could not sing his song twice over. The thing written
to be read differs widely from the thing written to be
spoken. The eye is a more exacting critic than the ear;
and the spoken word that stirred the blood often looks piti-
able enough in cold print. The thing to be read must have
finish, if it is to be read more than once ; but finish tends
to make the spoken thing ring hollow. Besides, as every
one knows who has tried it, the process of recasting a lec-
ture into an essay is slow and disagreeable. Carlyle felt
that the • subject ' must be ' worked up,' and, as he labored
Heroes through the heat of a London summer, he found it

1 Also in the second, 1842, and the third, 1846.

2 Sir Frederick Pollock, in recommending Heroes as a new book
(April 16, 1S41) to a friend, draws the natural inference and writer:
" They are printed from shorthand notes." See his Reminiscences, i,
172. Lond., 1887.

INTRODUCTION

liii

'toilsome to produce.' He was, however, not without aids.
His main reliance must have been the rough draft, the para-
graphs ' splashed down,' and then ' clipped out ' and ' strung
together ' in logical order ; for it is plain that the thought
followed the same course in the lectures that it does in the
book. In 1838, he had gone over much the same ground,
and he still had, in all probability, Anstey's copy of the
lectures to borrow from. We know that in Sartor he used
old printed and written material freely ; and it is natural to
suppose that he might do so again. The notes to this edi-
tion show a good many parallels drawn from the Lectures
on Literature; and in every case the advantage in finish lies
with the phrase of LLeroes. The necessity of ' emendations '
is plain enough. Even if he had been reported by short-
1 hand or phonograph, Carlyle would not print the result as it
stood. Comparison, wherever possible, ind= -ates what might
i)e reasonably expected ; that the richer more elaborated
phrase is not what he spoke in his haste, at the rostrum,
but what he meditated, pen in hand, in his quiet study. If
we assume, for instance, that Anstey's report gives the very
words spoken by him in .S38, the book, as Lectures on
Literature, shows thin and anaemic beside the full-blooded
Heroes. Many things he would no doubt remember. The
spurt at Benthamism that roused Mill was unpremeditated,
spoken 'without prior purpose'; but Carlyle retains both it
nul the apology. And this could hardly be the only case.
On some of his heroes he had repeated himself in lecture
twice or thrice already ; on some he had made elaborate
studies ; and his mind was full of them. As for 'additions,'
one single fact shows that they must have been very
^Tcat. All Carlyle's lectures lasted one hour, and they rarely
exceeded > these limits. Anstey's reports give about twenty

' The la.t and best lecture of the 18.59 course lasted an hour and a
l>aif. See C.L.L.l, 171.

''^'

LECTURES ON HEROES

',i

!r:

lii

i< i

pages to each lecture; but each lecture on Heroes fills more
than forty. Even if Anstey did not catch or record every
word, the difference is striking.

But while insisting on the differences between the book and
the lectures, it is possible to make too much of them. The
two modes of expression, the lecture and the essay, of neces-
sity, differ widely ; * the " emendations and additions " were
many ; and it is plain that there were omissions ; but in
both the general plan is the same; that is plain from the
reports of Caroline Fox, and whenever there is the chance
of comparing the versions of different hearers. The deliv-
erances at Portman Square served as framework, which he
built upon and filled in and finished.

In the Carlylean chronology, 1840 is the year of Heroes.
Eight months out of the twelve went to the shaping of it.
In February came the conception, the serious meditation of
the course, when Carlyle seemed to himself to have attained
to the primordium of a subject. By the end of March he
records his intention of writing his lectures down, " and
then flaming about over both hemispheres with them."
That is, he has in mind Emerson's invitation, now six years
old, and composes his course with an eye to the American
platform. In April he was splashing down, in paragraphs,
as fast as he could write, his rough first draft, then cutting
it up and stringing the slips into orderly succession. May,
from the fifth to the twenty-second, was taken up with the
delivery of the lectures, and at the end of the month the
work of writing them out began. The first two were com-
posed in June. About the twenty-third of August, Carlyle
writes that ten more days will see him at the end of his
wearisome task, and, by the end of September, he is able
to announce to Emerson that the work is done. " On the
whole, I have written down my last course of lectures, and
1 Sc. Kuskin, Sesame and Lilies, (second) Preface,io^xxKV paragraph.

Mi*

INTRODUCTION

shall probably print them ; that will be the easiest way of
lecturing in America." But even earlier, he had given up
the project of a lecture tour abroad. His success had been
so complete that he had thought of perfecting himself in the
art of public speaking and repeating the course outside of
London. " In the fire of the moment I had all but decided
on setting out for America this autumn and preaching far
and wide like a very lion there. . . . Thus did I mean to
preach, on " Heroes, and Hero- Worship, and the Heroic";
in America too. Alas the fire of determination died away
again : all that I did resolve was to write these Lectures
down, and in some way promulgate them farther." * In the
last quarter of the year various attempts were made to pub-
lish them, but without success. Saunders and Ottley offered
;^5o lor the book, while Fraser would definitely offer nothing.
Carlyle learned, with surprise, that a man might be famous
and yet not be regarded favorably by booksellers. His
mood was one of indifference ; he was reading for his
Cromwell, and he felt that, if the book were worthy, it would
sooner or later see the light.*

What terms Fraser did offer at last I have not discovered,
but an edition of a thousand copies appeared with his im-
print, during the first quarter of 1841. By May 21, he paid
Carlyle ;^i5o for Heroes and Sartor, which the recipient
regards as a miracle.^ The cdttio prineeps is a comely duo-
decimo, plain in type, strong in paper, modest in binding, at
all points such a vesture for his thought as the Lover of the
V'erities would not be ashamed to own. Through Emerson's
brotherly kindness, America had been for Carlyle, El Dorado.
It was through him alone that Sartor, the Miscellanies, the
French Revolution had been published in the United States,

' E.Corr. I, 319 f. July 2, 1S40.
■' The first edition of Heroes sold for los. 6d.
foi 9s.

2 C.L.L. I, 214.
the second and third

.■^jir

I' i

tf-

M ::;

ivi

LECTURES ON HEROES

to the greater glory of their author, and to the plenishing of
his purse. Naturally, Carlyle hoped to profit by this book
also, and sent the advanced sheets to Emerson by one of
the early Cunarders, to be bound up and sold, as the other
works had been, for his benefit. But his growing fame was
a distinct disadvantage in the brave days of old, before
international copyright was thought of. Let Emerson tell
the tale.* " I am sorry to find that we have been driven
from the market by the New York Pirates in the affair of
the Six Lectures. The book was received from London and
for sale in New York and Boston before my last sheets
arrived by the Columbia. Appleton, in New York, braved
us and printed it, and furthermore told us that he intends to
print in future everything of yours that shall be printed in
London." And he begs his friend to send him a duplicate
manuscript of the next book he intends to publish, and
promises, in that event, " to keep all Appletons and Corsairs
whatsoever out of the lists." He mentions, besides, a curi-
ous instance of Carlyle's popularity. " The New York news-
papers print the book in chapters, and you circulate for six
cents per newspaper at the corners of all the streets in New
York and Boston, gaining in fame what you lose in coin." *

The early bibliography of Heroes has been up to this
time obscure. Even Mr. Anderson, with the resources of
the British Museum to draw on, makes no mention of the
second and third editions, in the most complete bibliography
of Carlyle yet published.* Of the early American editions

1 ErCorr. I, 348 f. April 30, 1841.

* E.-Corr. I, 349. April 30, 1841.

* Garnett's Thomas Carlyle, flreat Writers Series, Appendix. It
would be a boon to all Carlyleans if Dr. S. A. Jones, of Ann Arbor,
could be induced to publish his bibliography of Carlyle. It contains at
least a hundred items more than Anderson's.

INTNODVCTION

Ivii

and their relation to the English editions, there is, to the
best of my knowledge, no printed information. It will,
therefore, not be amiss to offer some explanations. Two
first and two second editions of the same book, to say noth-
ing of the one ' third ' edition appearing four years before
a second ' third ' edition, are rather puzzling.

Appleton's reprint, the first American edition, appeared
very shortly after the original London edition. It is also
a duodecimo, much the same in appearance as the honest
book ; imitating the title-page, but adding to the name
of the author the names of two of his best known works.
The French Revolution and Sartor Resartus. Carlyle found
the copy sent to him, " smart on the surface ; but printed
altogether scandalously." Towards the end of 1841, Fraser
died, and Carlyle transferred his business to the firm
which still prints his works, Chapman and Hall. The
second English edition was called for in the following
year. It was a tim. of distress for Carlyle. Mrs. Welsh,
his wife's mother, died in March, and he was obliged
to spend some time at Templand, winding up her estate.
Mrs. Carlyle was for a long time prostrated by the blow,
and probably Carlyle had not the time to give the book the
thorough revision which he gave later. He was very sensi-
tive as to all printer's errors ; and the careless printing of the
American pirates angered him more than their high-handed
spoiling of his goods. In this second edition, some slips in
matters of fact were correctec and some interesting additions
made.^ The largest change was in the passage relating to
Cromwell's vision, on page 243, which was twice revised before
it suited the author. The Cromw jll pr.rt of Lecture VI bears
.><o many marks of the file, because Carlyle was now at work

' See various readings at foot of pp. 5, 74, -8, 98, 108, 144, 153, 162,
172. 179. >97-

'^'

IVlll

LECIUKES ON HEROES

upon the Letters and Speeches. An unauthorized "seccnd
edition " appears with Applcton's imprint in the same year.
It is not the same as the first edition, but is set up by a
different printer,' and conta'ns a greater number of pages,
all of which goes to prove that the American as well as the
English " first editions " were exhausted within the year of
publication. Both American editions deserve Carlyle's abuse
for bad printing, and both take liberties with his text. It
may interest students of American spelling to know that this
"second edition "of Appleton'sis moreold-fashionedthan Car-
lyle, correcting ' chemistry ' to ' chymistry,' and resolving his
revolutionary ' forever ' into the two words of our rude fore-
fathers. I have by me also an American "third edition,"
so-called, of this year, bearing the imprint " Cincinnati :
Published by U. P. James, No. 26 Pearl St." This is simply
Appleton's second edition, with another title-page, which
bears, however, Appleton's cut of the Aldus dolphin and
anchor, with the proud motto ' Aldi Discip. Americ' The
real third edition did not appear until 1846. In that year,
Chapman and Hall published Heroes in a small, handsome,
nine-shilling edition, a well-made book in all respects. This,
Carlyle had leisure to revise carefully ; and the text is prac-
tically the same as that of the present edition. At some later
period, he broke up his long paragraphs into short ones, and
illustrated the agglutinative theory of language by dropping;
the hyphen in words he had joined by this tie, while other
people still keep them asunder ; for example, ' such like ' is
first 'such-like' and then 'suchlike.' This love of hyphens
grew upon him, for in these first three editions, 'widely-distant,'
' shining-down,' etc., are still distinct words. None of these
editions contains either the summary or index. The third
American edition was issued also in 1846, by Wiley & Putnam,

1 The first American edition was set up by II. Ludwig, 72 Vesey
St., and the second by F. C. Gutierrez.

INTRODUCTION

in their " Library of Choice Reading," by an honorable
arrangement with the author.' Four other English editions
appeared during Carlyle's lifetime. The fourth and last
separate edition appeared in 1852 ; and the three others, in
the collected editions, known as the " Collected Works "
(1856-1858), bound with Sartor Jiesartns, the "Library"
(1869-1871), and the "People's" (1871-1874). In the
" People's Edition," Heroes has been selling for more than
twenty years at the rate of 5000 copies per annum, faster
than most novels. Of the various editions since his death,
both in England and in the United States, I am unable to
give here a complete account. Since the expiration of the
copyright, the separate editions swarm. Few books written
in the first half of the nineteenth century still live, fewer
still have been more widely diffused.

" Nothing which I have ever done pleases me so ill. They
have nothing new, nothing that to me is not old. The style
of them requires to be low-piiched, as like talk as possible."
In this, his private view of Heroes, Carlyle sums up and
forestalls much later criticism. He was not easily pleased
with men or things, with himself, or his work. In Sartor
there were, in his opinion, only some ten pages "rightly
fused " ; the article on Scott was " a long rigmarole,"
"deserving instant fire-death," and Heroes, "a wearisome

' On the reverse of the title is printed " Imprimatur. This Book,
• Heroes and Hero-Worship,' I have read over and revised into a cor-
rect form for Messrs. Wiley & Putnam, of New York, who are hereby
authorised, they and they only, so far as I can authorise them, to print
;i!id vend the samf> in the I'nifcd States. Thomas Carlyle." For the
stdry of the negotiations with tliis firm, see E.-Corr. I, 1 19 ff. In spite
of Carlyle's care, it is not impeccable and contains such misprints as
' Woutan ' for ' Wuotan ' twice, and ' Neutonic ' for ' Teutonic'

-^'%

i; 1^

LECTURES ON HEROES

:^ir-

1 1 :f

it'

triviality." He revised this verdict when he read the book
in print ; but this first impression dcst-rves closer scrutiny.

From the beginning, the style of Carlyle was a rock of
oflfence to the critics ; and their remonstrances or abuse
forced him to consider it. His manner of expression was
unique ; it had grown with his growth ; it was not a coat to
be put on and off, to be cut and changed, at the demands
of fashion ; it was his skin, in which he must live and die.
In Heroes he had taken thought of this matter, and worked
to attain certain ends. "The style requires to be low-
pitched, as like talk as possible." This requirement he had
striven to satisfy. That is, Carlyle's ordinary style, the
genuine Carlylese, was, for once, consciously modified by
the author.

In my examination of what is generally recognized as
Carlyle's distinctive manner, the manner of S,irior Kcsnrlus,''
the chief marks of it were found to be the constant impres-
sion of an audible voice, the wealth of allusion, and love of
the concretely picturesque. Next in importance were three
other traits, the .stern, strenuous tone of that voice sounding
through it, the tone of one with whom Ernst ist <las Lehcn
was a favorite saying, the departure from Johnsonian tra-
dition, which I)e Quincey and Macaulay r ntain, in the
looser structure of the sentence, and the .n.Moyment of
humor, the genial juxtaposition of thin'Ts mote. Further
analysis revealed certain formal peculiarities ; a habit of
grouping words, phrases, and sentences in threes, a triadic
or pyramidal device which is found in all literature ; a freer
use of capitals than now obtains, making Carlyle's page
resemble a page f f old-fashioned German, or of Addison's
Spectator; a strong tendency to join words by hyphens, and
even t< un them together without any connecting link, a
practice which subtly modifies the meaning ; a fashion of
1 Sartor, /ntroduitioii, § vi.

INTNODUCTION

ixi

jingling words by merins of rhyme or alliteration ; a bewil-
dering way of quoting from his own works without refer-
ence, and a trick of reducing proper nouns to the ranks, by
milking them plural for the sake of picturesque effect.

Ail these marks of his style, all these mannerisms are
prt.'sent in Heroes. The tone is even more consistently
earne-st than in Sartor ; it is the tone of the preacher, who
feels that he stands between the living and the dead. In
consequence, the How of humor is under restraint, for these
two are contrary, the one to the other. There is nothing in
llnocs like the "Miscellaneous-Historical," "Adamitism,"
or "Tailors" chapters of Sartor. Almost the furthest
length our author goes in this direction is the mild reference
to "Conservative' and ' Reform' in the tale of King Olaf's
encounter with Thor. Nothing could be further from his
nature than to sow his discourse with jokes, after the ordi-
nary lecturer's fashion, ad captamiiim vul^us.

Allusion is a schoolmaster's trick, -\nd must be always
more or less puzzling. In popular c. scourse the device
must be used sparingly, and it must not be far-fet, or it will
prrplex and obscure, instead of aiding and enlightening the
understanding. In Heroes the references, open or veiled,
to things the speaker and the audience both have in com-
mon are, as compared with those in Sartor, few and scanty.
They are generally references to what educated Londoners
niij;ht be supposed to know, or to matters dealt with in the
earlier lectures of the course. The allusions to the Bible
are perhaps the most frequent.

What is true of allusion is true of metaphor. In this
book, where the effort is made to be plain and popular,
Carlyle's natural tendency to utter his thought in parable
and picture is kept weil in hand.

Again, if through the close-woven texture of Sartor, the
written thing, the tones of a human voice sound clear in

' n

Isii

LECTURES OAT HEROES

once iT'ui
lis's an('
instiiK I
chamber;

mirth, in wail, in passion, in sadness, how much more in
Herots, il'< ipoken thing. The abrupt rouj^hncss, the want
of finish, thi- sudden turns of impassioned harangue are al!
given back h -re to the life. I'itch, emphasis, accent are all
indicate'' • the devices of the printer, capitals, it.ilics.
dasnes, n irks t exclamation, are lavished lest the reader
shouKt iii.ss i. siiade of moaning. It requires no force of
imagii. ti >;. to hear through all the lines, as unc re.»ds in
his qui. Si i , the hijr'i, earnest Annandaic voice barkin-
a- • !)arkp 1 It 'ho breathless Londoners, at Wil
'rrt|),,n ■ 1 .TL. The words are winged words.
Lit ' I ! :y ring in our ears and haunt the fin.'
of tli - 'n ; they insist on the memory, and will
not be p '. asifl'.

Carlyle achieves in Heroes a difficult feat, the artistic ren
dering ..f oral speech. For these are not really six essays,
but six glorified versions of the six lectures, in something
like the ideal form Carlyle would have liked to give them,
had time and the art of public speaking been fully at his
comm-ind. Now, all these things, restraint in the use of
allusion and metaphor on the one hand, and the approach
to the diffuse, direct, plain manner of oral speech on the
other, make for popularity and help to explain why the book
sells better, year after year, than most novels. In Heroes
the strong wine of Carlyle's style is allayed and softened tu
the general taste, after the fashion of the temperate Greek ,.
Nothing distinctive is given up ; the minor peculiarities
are ail retained. The triadic structure is perhaps even
more protiounced than in Sartor, as it is a favorite device
of orator and preacher for securing emphasis and a satisfy-
ing rotundity of tone. The triads may be threefold groups
ot adjectives, as ' The Pilgrim's Progress is an Allegory, and
a beautiful, just and serious one'; or of nouns, as 'mere
quackery, priestcraft and dupery ' ; or of nouns and their

wmoiwcrioN

IxiU

adjectives, as ' sheer falsehoofi, idle fables, allegory afore-
thought.' These are hy f;ir the most common. More rarely
the triads consist of .absolute phrases, as • Hattles with the
Koreish and Heathen, quarrels among his own people,
backslidings of his own wild heart ' ; or of present parti-
ciples, as ' fighting, counselling, ordering.' ( )ccasionally the
verbs heap up according to this rule ; for instance, ' I he
number Twelve . . . which could be halved, quartered, parted
into three, into six,' where the last verb ts not really needed.
And .^gain, three sentences m.iy form a symmetrical group,
•IS, • what was done, what is doing, what will be done.' 'I'his
triadic structure is modified by lengthening or varying one
of the three members; and s«imetimes an entire passage
m.iy be all -cted by it. In the short portr.iit of Dante in
black and white, there are five tn.ds.

The picturesque cipitals are hire, though not sown with
as free .i hand as in S.irtor. Only important words arc so
singled out. Allied to this is the trick of making proper
nouns plural, .u denote vividly things like them ; for instance,
'delivtring Calases,' 'its Councils of Trebisond, Councils of
Trent, Athanasiuses, iJantes, Luthers' 'our own HIakes and
N' >ns,' 'the Shakspeares, the Goethes,' ' Sh.ikspeares,
Danios, Goethes'; but such plurals are noi frequent, these
live being the only examples iu the first lecture. .Vor is the
hyphenation of words, with the corresponding shift of icceti'
quite so frequent ; but it occurs and has its uses. In such
phrase as 'that strange island Iceland, - burst-urr the geol-
ogists tell us, by fire,' the hyphen is necessary : '■ burst-up*
conveys a shade of Carlylean meaninjr. whic' • hurst up
would not convey. The rhymes and all era .ons are no;
many ; but there are plenty of quotations i ..n himself.

One distinctive and peculiar mark ' Carlyle's style, both
here and elsewhere, is his free use <.f the subjunctive,
especially of -were' and 'had' without tie sign of the

Ixiv

LECTURES ON HEROES

ill:

subjunctive ; for example, ' That great mystery of Time, were
there no other,' etc. ; ' much would have been lost, had not
Iceland been burst-up from the sea.' Sometimes they are
combined with more usual forms ; as, ' Were there no books,
any great man would grow mythic'' ; ' Had this lasted. Lope
would have grown,' etc. He even writes ' let him live where
else he like, in what pomps and prosperities he like.'

" The style requires to be low-pitched, as like talk as pos-
sible." By keeping this in mind, by refraining from too
great elaboration of his first sketch, Carlyle succeeded in
making his style more popular, more readable ; but he went
too far. In some respects the style of Heroes is pitched too
low, and is too much like talk.

Carlyle's work has stood the test of time ; the years have
not impaired its solidity. The battle of Leuthen from Frcil-
erkk is the best text-book the German military schools can
put into the hands of young officers ; the pettiness and the
futility of the younger historians' attacks upon the French
Revolution is one of Mr. Saintsbury's constant joys ; ^ and
even the boldest iconoclast has not raised his hammer
against the Cromwell. In spite of its name, the texture of
Sartor is closely woven and firm ; but it is not so with
Heroes. Compared with the masterpieces, it is almost
flimsy. It is an ungrateful task to discover the .skirts of the
master ; but a critical edition is like lago, nothing if not
critical. Wherever errors in matter of fact have been dis-
cernible, they have been brought to book in note or various
reading, and, as far as possible, corrected. The curious
may find them in the proper places; they are not few, but
they shall not be mustered and paraded together by the
present editor. Comparison with the earlier texts shows
that Carlyle, like any other man working at speed, would
blunder now and then. He was capable of misquoting, ut

^ See Corrected Impressions.

INTKOD UC r/OJV

mistaking one word for another, of confusing Plato with
Aristotle, and ' euphuism ' with ' euphemism.' He was not
in advance of his age, in his knowledge of Norse, for instance ;
he is fond of convenient etymologies, and supports and op-
poses the fancies of Grimm in no scientific fashion. Some-
times he fails in matter of fact. Most of these mistakes he
corrected himself ; but some he overlooked, like his mis-
direction of the Hegira. Besides, in repeating himself in his
lectures from year to year, his memory played him a famil-
iar but scurvy trick. Every one who gives a course of lec-
tures knows how familiar material, by dint of frequent
handling, loses its freshness, how the sharp angles and clear
lines are worn down and worn out, until the fact which looks
the same, and seems to be the same as of yore, has become
by imperceptible degrees not the same. Carlyle worked
fast, trusted to his memory, and did not take pains to verify
every reference.

The errors in matters of fact are not really important.
They do not detract from the value of the book as a whole,
or modify in any way its teaching. Hut there s another
class of error which cannot be passed over so easily. Car-
lyle was anything but a worshipper of use and wont ; and
it is therefore not surprising that in Heroes he takes liber-
ties with the code of usage we call English grammar. In
an edition of this kind, intended chiefly for readers in their
pupilage, when the authority of print is rarely questioned,
it becomes a plain duty to note such deviations from rule.

Intentionally pitching the style low, and trying to make
it " as like talk as possible," Carlyle becomes colloquial.
His Letters show that he was fond of the common illegiti-
mate use of 'get'; and it frequently blemishes the text.
Such examples as ' when one soul has . . . ji^ot its sin and
misery left behind,' 'Luther could not get lived in honesty
for it,' ' it will never rest till it get to work free,' can hardly

E'lPi

\m-

1 :^

m ■ *•'

Ixvi

LECTURES ON HEROES

be justified. He is fond of such expressions as ' this of,'
'that of,' 'the like' and 'suchlike'; for example, 'It has
always seemed to me extremely curious this of Voltaire.'
Although in general his force of phrase rivals Shakspere's,
he is not always happy or exact in the use of single words ;
for instance, 'it is competent to all men,' 'so I'-'cumstanced,'
'there is no vocation in them for singing it,' 'by which man
works all things whatsoever.' From haste or carelessness,
he is guilty at times of downright awkwardness, a disagree-
able huddle of words, which he would not wait to set in fair
order. Such collocations as * what the kind of thing he will
do is,' ' the sure precursor of their being about to die,' ' till
they had learned to make it too do for them,' ' It lies there
clear, for whosoever will take his spectacles off his eyes and
honestly, look to know ' must be surrendered to the literary
executioner without a protest. How Carlyle would justify
or defend them, I do xnA know. Even Johnson's defence of
the way he defined ' pastern ' is barred him.

Again, in hurried, eager speech, imperfections in the
structure of the sentences may not only be forgiven, they
may even be welcomed, as tokens of sincerity. The speaker
is so intent upon his meaning that he will not stop to pick
and choose his words, and build his sentences by rule. But
when he sets forth his burning words in ordered and deliber-
ate prose, he must submit to the laws that govern that method
of expression. But these laws Carlyle, in Heroes, cannot, or,
more probably, will not obey. The gerund-grinder finds, on
laying the ordinary measuring rod of grammar to Carlyle's
sentences, that many are, properly speaking, not sentences at
all, but the unorganized material for sentences. There is
inner coherence ; the meaning is clear ; but too often they
are bundles of phrases from which sentences are made. Fur
example, the third sentence of the first lecture, though con-
veying a plain enough meaning, conforms to no grammatica 1

INTRODUCTION Ixvii

definition : "A large topic ; indeed, an illimitable one • wide
as Universal History." Such fragmentary, abrupt, irregular
exclamatory sentences abound. Perhaps the climax in abrupt-
ness IS the last sentence in Lecture V, on Burns. Of the
nme sentences which make up the portrait of Dantes face
and soul, four contain no verb, assert nothing. The picture
will not out of the memory, and yet a fundamental law of
usage is violated. The gerund-grinder feels his conventional
world of grammar crumbling around him.

It almost looks as if Macaulay were right about the London
prentice. Jealous for the fame of the master, but still faith-
ful to the craft whereby he has his living, the poor gerund-
grinder falters where he firmly trod. He can only conclude
that the laws of grammar are no more binding on genius than
the laws of morality ; and that Carlyle's injuries to Priscian's
head are to be condoned, like the great Goethe's amours
passagens. Another form of apology suggests itself. Our
author defended Mahomet, on good Goethean grounds
namely, that restriction in one direction excuses greater
indulgence on all other sides ; and the argument fits the
...atter in hand. Carlyle restricted himself on many sides •
but he took his license in the fields of, — grammar.

But all such blemishes are no more than spots upon the
sun hardly seen by the unassisted eye, and in no way
hindering the radiation of light and life

In Heroes the series of lectures, as well as in each sepa-
rate discourse, the plan is simplicity itself. Ruskin's lee
tares, on the other hand, are elaborate. His subject is
tjradually unfolded, touch upon touch, surprise after surprise
sometimes the main theme is apparently abandoned mid-
way, and the speaker turns passionately to something more

«1

• r-

Ixviii

LECTURES OX HEROES

important, as in Kinds' Treasuries. Generally, he begins
low in tone and rises in emotion from height to heifjht to tht
final supreme lyrical appeal, as in Queens" Gardens. There
is little or nothin?; of this " wanton heed " in Carlyle.

His heroes are of six kinds, simply and solely because hi
was booked to give two lectures a week for three weeks,
half a dozen being a sort of sacred number in this respect.
If he had been required to give seven lectures he might have
included Heyne and Copernicus under the head of the Hero
as Man of Science ; or if eight, he might have dared, in his
ignorance of art, to discourse on Michael Angelo as the
Hero-Artist. His classification is not supposed to be com-
plete ; and it is nothing to say that he has left niches in hi>
Pantheon unfilled, when he was strictly limited by such .i
commonplace fact as the length of the lecture course, as
established by convention. In the order of the lectures we
are conscious of a descending scale ; the hero is first a
divinity, then a prophet, then a rates, poet-prophet, then a
reforming priest, then the man of lette'-s, who is both priest
and poet, if necessary, and finally, in the words of Byron,

The Hero sunk into a King.

Such a plan may be called artificial, but it is as plain as a
diagram.

The same is true of each lecture. In the interests of the
wayfaring man, apparently, Carlyle made a summary for this
book ; but it is not really needed. There is nothing Emer-
sonian about the plan of each division. In the phrase of
the pulpit, each discourse falls naturally under three heads.
First comes a general introduction ; the subject is put for-
ward nakedly, without any artifice, or else the lecture is
linked to the previous one by a brief recapitulation. In
cases where the facts were not generally known, the proper
preface is a luminous account of the hero's environment, tlie

JNThODUCTION

Ixix

'(uintry and the people from which he sprang. Such a
review would Ix- espet ialiy necessary in approaching Odin
and Mahomet. Next in order is a brief account of the hero's
life and labors. If the biographical facts are generally
known, as in the case -if Siiakspere and Napoleon, or dis-
creditable, as in the case of Rousseau, they are passed over
lightly. Then in the third place, a characterization of the
hero's activity, or a summing up of his achievement, or an
explanation of his signili( ance, or, in the case of Cromwell
and Mahomet, a warm-hearted defence of men misunder-
stood, rounds out and ends the lecture.

Two recent editf)rs of Jkrois, Mr. Edmund (Josse and Mr.
H. I). Traill, feel compelled to adopt an apologetic or patron-
izing air towards the book, for which the inaiics of Diogenes
Tt'ufelsdrockh must feel grateful. Mr. Gosse finds a con-
trast between the " squalid egotism " of Carlyle's character
and the heroic doctrine he preached, though this opinion is
not maintained until the end of his preface. It is time to
enter a protest against this facile disparagement of a great
man. His books may be bad or good ; his doctrines may
l)e true or false ; but the man, Thomas Carlyle, deserves the
respect of his kind. The main authority for his life is
Froude. Xot only is his general view of Carlyle's character
perverse and distorted, as of a "concave-convex mirror," but
he cannot be depended on to tell the truth about the simplest
fict; he cannot even copy a letter.' He has, however, the
|)ul)lic ear and by means of a readable style has succeeded
in blackening every blot in his friend's character. Kut in
spite of all he has done, when all is known and after the

' See David Wilson, Mr. Fronde and Carlyle (Loud., 1S9S), for a
(omplfte demolition of Froude, tiuniyh the book cannot be commended
\vii:ioiu re.Neue fui lone and temper. It would be most desirable if
I'lnfissor Norton would write the life of Carlyle, or at least publish his
personal reminiscences of him.

? If

■11
ii

^Ef ''

Hfiji^ M

Ixx

LECTURES ON HEROES

\ 1

% I

1'*'

worst has been said, the real c:arlyle is emerging, growing
clearer and greater in sight of all who have eyes and will use
them. As to Mr. (iosse's charge of want of heroism, of his
life being a sad contrast to the high and passionate thought
of Heroes, Carlyle's own words are his loudest accusers.
Over against the wild and whirling words, set one action
which puts them all to silence. Let a man who lives by his
pen, and who puts his heart and his life-blood into his work
lose the best manuscript he ever wrote, the unborn book
that is to bring him fame and gold, as Carlyle lost the first
volume of The French Rei'olution, and let him bear the loss
as Carlyle did. He will then have earned the right to cast
the first stone at him for want of fortitude, but not before.
The judgment of the gentle natures, of men like Leigh Hunt,*
of women like Mrs. Browning, who knew him closely at
diff'"'ent periods of his life, is unanimous, and is at least to
be set over against second-hand opinions, mere echoes from
the most misleading of biographies.

Mr. Traill is also disparaging and warns off intending
readers. His short introduction shows uncertainty of touch,
as well as downright error ; but it brings up objections to
Heroes which at least deserve consideration. He goes so
far as to admit that there are, " of course, some fine and strik-
ing things in the volume " ; but he finds that the main idea
has now become a commonplace. There is, besides, "endless
repetition"; the subdivisions of the subject are "obviously

1 " Thomas Carlyle, one of the kindest and best, as well as most
eloquent of men ... I believe that what Mr. Carlyle loves better
than his faultfinding, with all its eloquence, is the face of any human
creature that looks suffering and loving and sincere." Leigh Huni,
Autobiography, III, 227-231. Lond., 1850.

"All his bitterness is love with the point reversed" "You come to
understand perfectly when you know him, that his bitterness is only
melancholy, and his s^com sensibility." Letters of Mrs. Browning, II,
25, 27. Lend., 1897.

INTRODUCTION

Ixxi

artificial " ; and " a sixfold classification of the various forms
of the heroic . . . has only been accomplished by dint of
varying the definition of the word." There is undoubtedly
something in these charges, especially the last two counts
in the indictment. Carlyle himself foresaw such an objec-
tion ; he felt that the " shapes " his heroes " assume " are
" immeasurably diverse " ; and he ascribed the immeasur-
able diversity to the world's reception of them. Whether he
proved his point, may be questioned. It is first necessary
to examine the main idea of the book.

The theory of Heroes is as simple as the plan ; the main
idea is in Hume. In his discussion of polytheism, the great
sceptic says : " The same principles natu rally deify mort als,
supe rior in power, cou rage, or understanding, zmd produce
litT o-worshipT^ After dealing for three years as a public
teacher with some of the most important " mortals superior
in power, courage, or understanding," Carlyle, in meditating
his fourth course, thinks that he has attained to some general
truth regarding them, that he has discovered a new category,
within which the most diverse personalities may be ranged.
This generalization was reached, not by a process of reason-
ing, experiment, deduction, but by, apparently, a flash of
insight, which, though it came suddenly, had been long in
preparation. The seed-thought had been lying in his mind,
unregarded for years. In his essay, C(W//f V Works {1^,2,2), he
quotes several long extracts from the work of a " continental
humorist " called Teufelsdrockh, in whose book, Die Kleider,
Ihr Wcrden mid JVirken, is to be found a chapter, " On the
<;reatness of Great Men." None of the passages quoted are
t(j be found, in the form there taken, in the completed Sartor,
l)ut they may well be parts of the rejected Fraser article,
which was afterwards expanded into that famous book.
l!ut whether the extracts are what they pretend to be, or
arc made for the occasion, they contain Heroes in embryo.*
1 Essays, Coethe''s Works, III, i6o.

Ixxii

LECTURES ON HEROES

\m\\

III!

I' '

I* i

'II \

1 1

" And now," continues the Professor, ..." is there not still
in the world's demeanour towards Great Men, enough to
make the old practice of Hero-worship intelligible, nay sig-
nificant? Simpleton! I tell thee Hero-worship still con-
tinues; it is the only creed which never and nowhere grows
or ca n grow obsoje te." He repeats the idea in~his essay on
Boswell,^ published in the same year. The devotion of
Boswell to Johnson is "A cheeringji roof . . .that Loyal ty,
Disciple^ihip, all that was e ver meant by Hero- Wors hip,
lives perermiaLly jn the human^ b osom ." Hero-worship is
undoubtedly an offshoot of Teufelsdrockhian philosophy.
The chapter Or^^anic Filaments in Sartor sets forth clearly
the main tenets of the cult. The primary thought is that the
gre at man, of n ecessit y, calls for th the h<>mageo£hrs fellows.
JT andjajnade^a hero, or demi-god, by tHem. The extended
application of the word comes later.

In 1840, " hero" meant, most probably, to nine Englishmen
out of ten, a general officer who had served in the Peninsula,
or taken part in the last great fight with Napoleon, and who
dined year by year with " the Duke," at Apsley House, on
the anniversary of Waterloo. To most people " hero " means
simply^ sol djer " and i mplies a hum an^oiijj;;reafly da ring, o r
greatly enduring. At the very least, the idea of moral excel-
lence is attached to it ; and for good reason. To apply the
term to a wretched impostor, the founder of a false religion,
to two great poets, one an Englishman, the other an Italian,
to a German monk, to a Scottish preacher who was rude to
his queen, to an English Puritrn rebel who killed his king,
to the pompous maker of a dictionary, to a miserable
immoral Frenchman, to the Corsican fiend who nearly
destroyed England, must have seemed at first I: h to
Carlylc's public, monstrous or unintelligible. In A: rice,
as we have seen, he had at least one hearer he could not
* Essays, BoswelTs Life of Johnson, III, 82.

INTKOnUCTlON

Ixxiii

convince. And Mj^. Traill, in thinking that the term " hero "
can applj Mo Carlyle's six classes only by constantly varying
its meani ng, is not alone.

The critic who cavils at Carlyle's choice might well go
further. If the sphere of heroism is widened to include the
world of letters, for example, is not the " great and gallant
Scott " a truer hero in that kind than Goethe, or Johnson, or
Burns, or Rousseau ? Does he not meet the requirements of
Greek tragedy, — the just man, for some flaw in character,
struck down by Fate in his prosperity, and moving all who
behold the spectacle to terror and pity > If Carlyle wanted
a hero, surely "the old struggler," who was so true to the
fighting Border blood he came of, and died like one of his
own spearmen at Flodden, for honor, in the lost battle he
would never own was lost, is a nobler figure than the com-
fortable Ho/rath, the weak-willed gauger, the "dusty, irascible
pedagogue," or the half-mad mate of the cretinous Levasseur.
If " hero " implies ethical dignity and lofty bearing in time
of deadliest trial, Scott deserves the title. And Carlyle has
slight excuse for passing him by. He had been a witness
of his great career, he had followed out the loving and
masterly record of his life ; he had even the privilege that
Tennyson longed for, he had seen the white-faced, shaggy
figure limping down Princes Street. But the mountain
stood too close to his own door; he lived too near it to
see its true proportions.

Dismissing, however, for the moment the notion that the
little critics must necessarily be right, let us consider the
startling alternative. Let us suppose, for the sake of argu-
ment, tiiat Carlyle may not be wrong. There is at least a
b.ire jjossibility that his conception of heroism may, after all,
be greater than ours ; and that there may be a definition,
otiier than the popular one, which will apply, that will
embrace personalities "so immeasurably diverse."

fh:

Ixxiv

LECTURES ON HEROES

1 11

Carlyle did not really live at Cheyne Row ; his home was
in Teufelsdrockh's attic in the Wahni^asse, or higher still, on
Pisgah. He lived upon the heights of life, and saw, from
his eyrie, the vision of the world pass before him. It was an
unsubstantial pageant, frail as the cloud wreath ; but it was
also the manifestation of (lod, and the seer's mind was filled
with unceasing wonder at the terror and splendor of it. He-
saw more of it than we purblind dwellers in the valley, and
he saw more clearly ; he had what we call insight. He has
tried to tell us what he discerned to be the fact. Amonj;
the undistinguished ant-like masses are "representative men,'
"men of light and leading," "mortals superior in power,
courage, or understanding." The history of mankind is the
biography of these, its great men. Their moral character
may be imperfect, their courage may not be the main thing :
but they are " superior," and their fellows do follow them,
admire and obey them to the point of worship. Carlyle
simply states the fact. Is such a use of the term altogether
wrong ? Take the most unlikely " h*ro " of all, poor demented
Rousseau. All that ordinary eyes perceive is the moral
squalor of his life ; but Carlyle sees further, and discerns
the horrible anti-climax of such a life. The creature starves
in a garret ; but his thought goes out from him and touches
man after man and converts him ; he has fire enough in his
brain to set France ablaze. The governors of the world
could do nothing for him ; but he could not be hindered
from sending a great many of them to the guillotine. Uy
virtue of his " understanding," he, the one " superior " mortal,
wrought on his fellow-mortals to do this thing. In their
hero-worship, they offered human sacrifices.

For a clear definition, we have, as usual, to go to France.
As early as 1850, Emile Monte'gut framed one which is worth
consideration. "Heroes," he says, "are those men who
draw up into themselves and concentrate the qualities and

INTtiODVCTION

Ixxv

thoughts of masses of men, who sum up an epoch or create
it, ;ind so render themselves immortal by making themselves
the masters of their tin»e."' Carlyic's henjes are all "mas-
ters of thtir time." It is hard to see to which of them this
definition does noi apply, and why " hero," in this sense, may
not be regarded as a lawful extension of the idea, as it pre-
sented itself first to Carlyle's mind in the phrase of Hume.
It is not so far removed from the popular idea of the hero,
the soldier soul, greatly daring or enduring greatly. Courage
is an outstanding trait in almost all. Even Rousseau must
have needed resolution, before he

. . . (i.isird his angry heart
Against the desolations of ll>e world.

.Nor is the idea of moral excellence omitted ; Carlyle's com-
prehensive term for it is sincerity.

This, then, is the central thought of the book. The corol-
laries are perhaps more open to question. Not only were
these "diverse-looking'' characters all heroic, but they were
all of the same essential stuff ; and that essence is sincerity.
"Sincerity," in the Carlylean sense, implies superior insight.
These ''heroes " did really see into the heart of things, and
they acted " sincerely " on the conviction thereby produced.
Hy this, thj!Y_m oved and moulded whole masses of th e
r a^ej__and left th^ mark upon their time. Sincerity is
hi s^reat theme . There was sincerity in'paganism, sin-
cerity in Mohammedanism, in the doctrine of Rousseau,
i n Naooleo n's- earlv simnnrt of the pri nciples of the Revo -
l ution.^ That the " hero " might have taken any shape,
that the warrior might have been a poet, and the poet

' " Les individus qui toncentrent et absorlient en eux les qualites et
les pensees des masses, qui riisument toute une epoque ou qui la creent,
tt (|ui se font ainsi immortels en se faisant les maitres du temps."
Rr.tii- des Deux MonJci, p. 722, 1850.

Ixxvi

LKCTUttES ON HEKOES

\ f

a statesman, is a harder saying. Curlyie says he mi^^fit ;
and there is much virtue in the word ; it certainly leaves
ample r(X)ni and verge enough for possibility. The versa-
tile men of the Renaissance might be brought fcjrward
in support of this position. If any one wishes to insist
that the hero must have been what he was and nothin-:
else, it is a pretty quarrel, but it cannot be settled by a
sentence or two in a preface. Another cardinal doctrine
is that "hero-worship,'" this reverence for "mortals superior
in pow er, cou i age. or understanding " exists always and
eve rywhe re. In proof, he chooses his " heroes " from widely
different ages, races, and religions. In the sixty years that
have elapsed since the lectures were given, such men
as Kossuth, Garibaldi, Gladstone, Lincoln, Hismarck art-
further proofs that the history of races is to be read in tht
biographies of their great men.

Another basal idea was not new. It had been uttered
by him in many shapes before, and was, perhaps, the deepest
of his convictions. This was the unreality of the things
seen. He felt not only that the things that were seen were
temporal, but that they were spectral, the mere shadow of
a vast hidden Unnamable Reality, to which old-fashiontd
people had no hesitation in giving a name. This is not
with him a literary pose, an effective philosophy for the
purposes of book-making : it is his constant thought, alonc
with hill and sky, among the crowd, in his pensive citadel.
The thought runs through all his correspondence, giving it
distinction and melancholy grace, and finds its most elo
quent expression in the famous chapter on Natural Super
naturalism in Sartor. It is, as he points out, a very old
thought. It haunted him all his life. Closely allied to it
is his conception of the cosmos, not as a vast whirligig, :i
well-contrived, immeasurable orrery, but as a vital, chang
'"g. growing unity ; not a machine, but a tree. A third

IXTKOtnCTJOtV

Ixxvii

itnportaiit idea is that " Nature is a just umpire." This is
not very unlike the more familiar formula, "survival of the
titltst," which in turn is not unlike the old phrase about
•ilje finger of (Jod in history." The Carlylean .statement
that every system that was ever firmly held had an element
of truth in it is more widely recognized since the theory of
(Volution has been applied to the history of religion.

In one respect, the true Carlylean doctrine of hero-
worship has been much misunderstood. Mr. Traill speaks
of Carlyle's *• exhortation to hero-worsh p." And the general
iiijprgssM LJs that Ca; -lyle wish«j!s iis_tn wnrg^j p 1,;^ ti frTTi"i
1) y i mi tation, and it is uointed_oui that this is impoitsible
or undesir.il)le. Carlyh- preaches'~no such absurdity. He
insists on the necessity of sinc»rit>, and, for once an
optimist, holds out the alluring prosp.-ci that all iiavc the
power to be sincere, and so forming a .. 'ievin^ nation, a
nation of heroes. Hut the notion that the ma^^s of man-
kind must worship these heroes, by imitating them, by
(loiuLj their deeds, is diametrically opposed to Carlyle's
m.im thesis, that ih^UiistoixoLihj^raceJs the history of
its great men.

It is curious to notice how early the first aim and purpose
of Heroes dropped out of sight. From the outset people
accepted hero-worship " with open mouth and flashing eyes,"
says Mr. Gosse, as a new gospel. Maurice, to his disgust,
found men " ranting and canting after Carlyle in all direc-
tions." In other words, there was at once wide recognition
of the ethical appeal in the book, but the first intention was
not really ethical. Carlyle's aim, as set forth in his own
words, was " to afford some glimpses into the very marrow
of the world's history." It is true that he speaks of "the
divine relation . . . which at all times unites a Great Man to

Ixxviii

LECTURES ON HEROES

III

I i! M

) I

\ !

Other men," and of the profit to be got by the company of
the great, giving the idea the prestige of words borrowed
from the story of the Transfiguration. But he wants, first
and foremost, to interpret history and to force upon a theory
a sixfold application.

The value of history as the first requisite of culture is too
well known to be insisted on. Mr. Mallock's pleasant argu-
ment in The Ncth Republic leaves little to be added. History
gives us background, perspective, prevents us from beinj;
merely temporal people, living only in the present, and scj
helps to form the broader, more open mind, which marks the
man of true cultivation. There is, then, a great and mani-
fest advantage in going to a teacher who professes to give
us, not the flesh and outward coverings, much less the dry
bones, of history, but the " very marrow " of it. If he is
able to fulfill his large promises, he will not only shorten the
time of learning most difficult lessons, especially if we come
to him early in our intellectual rise and progress, but he
will make us "lords of truth," by which we shall live
and grow. Few things can be better worth knowing than
the inner meaning of what the race has done upon this
planet.

As Carlyle reads history he finds that the " marrow " of it
is the heroism of the " mortals superior in power, courage, cjr
understanding." This he advances, not with hesitation as
a working hypothesis, but confidently as a final generaliza
tion. Even if it be granted that it is only a working hypoth
esis, the history of every department of human knowledge
is largely an accoynt of excellent hypotheses, which served
their day and helped to advance the science one sta;;e
further. That this is an exploded theory, however, the
critics do not contend. Mr. Frederic Harrison thinks'
that Heroes is "apt to seem obvious, conntt, the emphatic

» Studies in Early Victorinn Literature, 54 f. Lond., 1895.

INTRODUCTION

Ixzix

assertion of a truism, that no one disputes." He further
asserts that "nearly all the judgments" Carlyle passes in
this book " are not only sound, but now almost universally
accepted."

To call Heroes an introduction to the study of history
would be an injustice. The name suggests the dry, cautious
handbooks of the specialists, intended for the use of stu-
dents; but an introduction to the study of history it is none
the less. It is meant for all classes whose reading extends
beyond the newspaper and the novel. For all but the severe
student its value must long be undiminished. Errors it
contains of the lesser kind in matters of fact ; but they
spring from haste and over-familiarity with the subject,
never from ignorance or shallow study. Carlyle never takes
your breath away, as Emerson does when he makes Chaucer
borrow from Caxton.' The results in I/erocs were gathered
slowly through long years of study; and the student
brought to his work the patience of the scholar and the
strange endowment we call genius.

Even Mr. Traill, the least enthusiastic of recent editors,
confesses that there are » fine and striking things " in Heroel
a statement which is quite safe. Among the purple passages
must be reckoned the sketch of Arabia and the Arabs, the
portraits of Dante and I.uther, the paragraphs containing
tlie essence of the Koran, the CommeJia, and the Thrhredci,
the story of Francesca da Rimini, the defence of Luther,'
bf^Mnning, " I, for one, pardon," the defence of Knox, begin-
niiif,', " It seems to me hard measure," the praise of the
new power of literature, the view of Shakspere's kingship
over the Anglian world, the perorations on Mahomet and
( roinwell, and almost the whole account of Burns. To

' •Hut Chaucer is a great borrower. Chaucer, it seems, drew con-
tinual,)' through Lydgat- and Caxton, from (Juido di Colonna." K^pre-

"■"I"', e Men, ShaksfvareA, y>,G. I..,n(l.. 1X76.

Nil

' 3
I

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IXXX

LECTURES ON HEROES

appreciate the power and freshness of such a book, we must
put ourselves in the place of Carlyle's audience and his first
readers. To them every one of Carlyle's heroes was pre-
sented in a new and startling light. There was, first, the
outstanding feat of completely reversing the general esti-
mate of Mahomet and Cromwell. The consecrated verdict
of centuries was shown to be utterly false ; and the tide of
public opinion was turned back and set flowing in thie con-
trary direction to that which it had followed so long. Only
a Hercules could perform two such labors. In his essay on
Burns, in 1828, he had really set the outside world right
about Scotland's darling poet, and here he follows up his
work by giving the essay in brief. Both he and Macaulay
wrote articles on Croker's Boswell, and, without question,
Carlyle's treatment of the great doctor and his biographer
is the wiser and kindlier of the two. In Heroes he repeats
himself with marked effect. The world has gone with
Carlyle, not with Macaulay. At this time Knox was un-
known or misunderstood ; Carlyle gives him at least his
due. In 1840 neither the glory of Norse literature nor the
power of Dante was rightly valued ; but Carlyle is their
first great interpreter. To have done these separate feats
would have made the fortune of half a dozen books of
half a dozen authors ; Carlyle combines them all within the
covers of one small duodecimo. Nor does the book lack
the good word of specialists. Vigfusson notes with warm
approval Carlyle's insight in reading aright the tale of Olaf's
meeting with Thor, whereas the pedants had been content
to point out that the incident was spurious. Again, Sycd
Ameer AH • ranks Carlyle with Sedillot, CKlsner, Deutsch.
and Bartht'lemy St. Hilaire, as those to whom the world owes
right ideas regarding Islam.

1 See A Critical Examination of the Life and Teachiti^s of Mohammed,
V, viii. Lond., 1873.

/ArTA'ODCrcr/ON

Ixxxi

Perhaps the twentieth century may rem.mW r-.,...i. o„,
the m.m.tahle portn^r^aint^r' pf Ju^^.e. E^i^^T^^n
pra.sed h.s " portrait-eating. portrait-painting eyes," and his
power .r this art is beyond d.spute. When he sets himself
to work dehberately. as in the full-length portraits, body, soul,
and sp.nt, of Wordsworth or Southey, in the Iir„:oLnJ,
the result ,s hardly more admirable than when he dashes off
h.s careless sketches in a familiar letter, as when he limns to
the hfe D.ckens and Lord and Lady Holland in a pa<.e "
He .s a master of the adjective and can render a face
figure, and character in half a line." Who can forget the
refractory juryman, "a thick-sot, flat-headed w>(."-who
;'erected himself in his chair," and owned "a head all cheeks
jaw, and no brow ; of shape somewhat like a great ball of
putty dropped f^om a height"? /ferocs may be regarded
as a portrait gallery ; but the sitters were not merely^^men •
they were also great movements of the race. The roll of
names is long and august; Odin, or better still, in Car-
lyle s own phrase, the type-Norseman, and one aspect of
pr.mmve religion, for fear played as great a part as won-
der m the makmg of it ; Mahomet and the rise of Islam •
)ante "the voice of ten silent centuries," and mediaeval
Catholicism ; the Reformation, with Luther and Knox as
>ts priests and Cromwell as its soldier ; Johnson and Burns
as representing the new literature of power, which is doing
he work of church, and university, and parliament; and
».nally the trench Revolution, with Rousseau for its evan-
gelist and Napoleon for its champion. To go to Heroes

.lu'.?e can'dn"""^ "'"" \ ''"'" ^'' ^'"g-Phi-. F do not think
ZnrT\ T '"'"^ ^" occaslo„al addition to the fine gallerv of

, ^. ; - -'^ee C. /../.. I, ,89.

'•Ro.eL /''' '^^'^'"'"'"'''^-^ oi Hallam, a„U. xviii, foot; and
Rogers (an elegant, politely malignant old lady) " CI L II ^2.^

Ixxxii

LECTURES ON HEROES

1 1

ii !

for minute, solid, moderate statements, as one would go to
Gardiner or von Ranke, is a mistake ; but for suggestion,
and stimulus to seek further into the spiritual history of
the race, there is simply no one book like it. The whole
theory of hero-worship may be thrown overboard without
really injuring the book. Where else between two covers,
within such narrow compass, can be found so many start-
ing points for thought on the story of mankind? Repre-
sentative Men is like it, and a book of value in its way,
but plainly derived from Heroes. Rich as it is in thought,
it does not kindle, it does not convince, notably in the
case of Swedenborg. The tone is contemplative ; the
writer does not seem to care whether you take his teach-
ing or leave it. Heroes is charged with emotion which
carries the reader along with it ; it has the accent of
one who is in deadly earnest and believes every word
he says.

This, the first intention of Heroes, readers and critics
have, with one consent, allowed to take second place ; and
one and all pay its author the compliment of taking him
not for a teacher of history but a teacher of righteousness.
The question of some critics, " What are we to learn from
all this ? " need not remain long unanswered. Much every
way. There are three ways of regarding the book. It is a
new interpretation of history, or a vantage ground for fresh
points of view, or a new gospel of and for the individual.
At lowest, the argument of Matthew .\rnold for Byron, that
the mere spectacle of such splendid energy of heart and
brain at work strengthens the beholder, applies more aptly
to Carlyle. His view of history is distinctly religious ;
to him history is an " inarticulate Bible " ; and it is natural
and just to recognize in him the English moralist of the nine-
teenth century, as in Addison the moralist of the eighteentli.
The ethical appeal of Heroes is felt throughout ; but there is

INTRODUCTION

Izxziii

surprisingly little of direct "exhortation to hero-worship"
in it. The exhortation is unspoken, implicit.
Some adverse opinions dematid attention a^ this

j|flU}t.

One of the latest appreciations of Carlyle is by Mr. Frederic
Harrison.' uHe considers The French Rnolution to be his
masterpiece and puts Heroes next, an opinion in which he
probably stands alone. After commending Heroes for good
work done, especially on its first appearance, he offers two
objections. First, the "whole idea" of Heroes is "per-
verted" because it finus room for no Catholic chief or
priest. Mr. Harrison mentions Dante, but seems to forget
that he is, in the world of literature, the grand spokesman
of the Old Faith, and that to appreciate him aright is to
appreciate aright the religion for which he stands. Our
critic forgets also that when Heroes appeared the Oxford
Movement and the "no Popery" cry were engaging the
mind of England. Carlyle goes out of his way to speak of
tiiese in his lecture on the great schismatic, Luther, and he
certainly does Catholicism justice. Every reference to it is
marked by moderation. This is an imperfect world ; and
when an Ultramontane or a Comtist, for that matter, esti-
ni.ites Puritanism as fairly, it will be time to quarrel with
Carlyle, the born Presbyterian, for his " unjust hatred of the
Catholic religion."

In the next place, Mr. Harrison rebukes Carlyle for
'incoherence" in calli ng Burns "the most gifted Rrif ioh
$oul " of the eJP^htppnth rpnf.ry , ^r^^ says fiij -f hpr » Perhaps
the whole cycle of Sartorian extravaganza contains no say-
ing so futile as the complaint that the British nation in the
great war with France entrusted their destinies to a phan-
tasmic Pitt, instead of to ' the thunder-god, Robert Burns.' "
It IS well in some cases to verify your references. Carlyle
belongs to a nation noted for its caution. The statement

1 Studies in Early Victorian Literature, 53-58. Lond., 1895.

•M

,'J i

Ixxxiv

LECTURES ON HEROES

11'

ii.

11 li

of Burns's natural endowment he offers tentatively; and
the second he did not make at all, A reference to the
lecture will show that what Carlyle did say was that he
could not rejoice at the spectacle of a Europe on the verge
of a P'rench Revolution, and finding no use for a Robert
Burns except in gauging beer. The " incoherence " is not
Carlyle's. Indeed, "incoherence" is hardly the term for
such an error ; but it is thus that criticism is written.*

Matthew Arnold " never much liked Carlyle." " He
seemed to me to be carrying coals to Newcastle, as our
proverb says; preaching earnestness to a nation which had
plenty of it by nature." ^ In the lecture on Emerson, he
disposes of Carlyle in the high Arnoldian fashion we know
so well. There he defines the articles of the true Carlylean
faith as four, — the dignity of labor, the necessity of right-
eousness, the love of veracity, the hatred of shams, — and
uses them to upset Carlyle's thesis that happiness is not
the main thini;.' Against his first statement it is sufficient
to set the opinion of Harriet Martineau, who certainly knew
her world. " He has . . . infused into the mind of the
English nation a sincerity, earnestness, herlthfuhiess, and
courage which can be appreciated only by those who art-
old enough to tell what was our morbid state when Byron
was the representative of our temper, the Clapham Church
of our religion, and the rotten-borough system of our politi-
cal morality." * Compared with the second statement, Mr.
Leslie Stephen's view is much more satisfactory. In his

' A similar error which tends to throw doubt on all that is good in
the book is the egregious statement "that no one of Shakspere's play-
was published with his name in his lifetime." Choice of Hooks, 6(
Lend., 1 886.

'^ Letters of Matthew Arnolii, II, 191.

^ Discourses in America, 199. l.ond., lSg6.

* Autobiography, I, 292. Boston, 1 878.

INTRODUCTION

Uucxv

opinion, Carlyle's essential teaching is, first, that morality
or justice is the one indispensable thing; justice means
the law of God ; the sole test of any human law is con-
formity to the divine law; and, last, "all history is an
inarticulate Bible, and in a dim, intricate way reveals the
divine appearances in this lower world." > In other words,
Carlyle discerns as ultimate truth a moral order in the
universe ; and nowhere does he preach this doctrine more
directly and emphatically than in Heroes. It is this, rather
than "exhortation to hero-worship," which explains the
ethical appeal of the book.

The parents of Carlyle chose wisely in bringing him up
for the ministry. Though he never wagged his paw in an
orthodox pulpit, he was a preacher of righteousness all his
days ; and he succeeded better than most in the matter of
practice. The very " repetition " Traill objects to is part
of the preacher's art ; Landor's heroine beat her words in
upon her nurse's knee; and Arnold himself favors an itera-
tion that sometimes deserves the epithet Falstaff fitted to
Prince Hal's. Years before his power was generally recog-
nizfd, Goethe saw this preaching gift in his obscure Scottish
translator and correspondent, and spoke a prophecy or ere
he went. "Carlyle is a moral force of great si-.nficance.
He has a great future before him, and indeed one can see
no end to all that he will do and effect by his influence.'"
(Joethe died without seeing more than the dawn of that
mrtu.;nce ; but now, across the gap of seventy years, we can
see how true a word that was.

To estimate rightly Carlyle's influence, it is necessary to
revert once more to his first audience and the ideas of 1840.
The England of that day had Just passed through the blood-
less revolution of the Reform I5ill, which shifted the power

1 llmirs in ii Lihrary, Carlyle's Kt/n,s, IH, 285. Lond., 1892.
- Lch.niiiinii and O'. Coir. (July -3, iS::;), 5^.

i. r

i:.

l»

Ixxxvi

LECTURES ON HEROES

once for all from the aristocracy to the middle class. There
was further revolution brewing in the spread of Chartism.
Undue value was set on the new machinery of government by
ballot-box ; and undue importance was attached to the action
of the masses. The prevailing social ideals were not earnest,
Matthew Arnold notwithstanding. They were limited and
conventional. It was the era of the dilettante and the
dandy. The Book of Snobs was unwritten ; but the snobs
were all ready to be caught and caged and exhibited in the
famous stiii'Num gatherum. The prevailing tone of English
society as given by Jane Austen is tiie same as in The New-
comes and yanity Fair. Harriet Martineau indicts in plain
terms the London she knew, literary London, for flattery,
flirtation, insincerity, selfishness, and supports each count
with very strong evidence. Tennyson, who had not yet come
to his own, was finding reasons for cursing " the social wants
that .sin against the strength of youth," as well as "the
social lies." Dickens and Kingsley were gathering knowl-
edge and experience to be used in their crusades. Tlit
London of the Fraserians, of D'Orsay and the Countess of
Blessington, of Bulwer, of "Black Bottle" Cardigan, of
Theodore Hook, of the various " Circumlocution Offices,"
the drinking, duelling, practical-joking London of the day, for
which the aristocracy set the tone, was not unduly earnest.
London society was then small ; at a much later period, L.idy
Palmerston was able to write the invitations for h r p srtics
with her own hand. It was from this small upper class th;U
Carlyle's audiences were drawn ; and it is his triumph that
with everything against him, nationality, accent, manner, and,
most of all, his message, which ran directly counter to the tend-
encies of the time, he not only secured a hearing but engaged
a host of enthusiastic followers. The two great voices of the
time were Newman and Carlyle ; the one insisting on the
value of the oldest clothes, and the other, on getting rid of

iNTRODUCTIOff

Ixxxvii

them. Now Newman appeals chiefly to a church, to a literary
remnant ; but Carlyle still speaks to the mass of men.

Herm made itself felt as an influence at once.
Maurice's complaint shows how soon the leaven began to
work. Nine years later an acute foreign observer notes
how far it had spread through the whole lump. "This
rehabilitation of the hero is to-day of all Carlyle's ideas the
most widely spread, and the one which has made head most
rapidly. At the present time it is to be met everywhere in
England. You cannot open a book dealing with philosophy,
or read an ordinary review article, without encountering it,'
at one time combated, at another celebrated with enthusi-
asm. This idea is the basis of Emerson's philosophy, and
has inspired all his essays on confidence in oneself, and the
power of the individual. " > The last part of this assertion
is, perhaps, too strong, but the idea of Heroes influenced
Emerson without doubt. One biographer of Ruskin is
inclined to set down his early resolution to do something,
and to be something, to having read Heroes^ Professor
Allen traces a similar influence in the case of Phillips
Brooks. If Carlyle through Hero,s had done no more than
teach these three teachers of men and to touch through
them the thousands who have felt the power of their written
or spoken words, his service to the race would be quite
intalculable. Hut these are not the only three mighty men ;
and the book still sells by thousands of copies every year!
In spite of critics' sneers or faint praise, in spite of the
anxious followers of literary fashions, the book still lives
and works Publishers do not distribute their wares out of
pure love of humanity, nor do the thousands of annual pur-
chasers put their copies of Heroes away unread.

' Emik Montegut, Revue des Deux MonJes, Tom. ii, p. 314, 1849.
-W. G. follingwood, The Life and Work 0/ John Ruskin, I, 94
Ix)nd., 1893.

1 '

vWi

1 *

■i

* ,

-ft

V' i

fcr'i ;

LiM

l*K<

buuviii

LECTURES ox HEROES

"The field is the world." Hume cast a chance word
carelessly into the great seed-field. \\\ the fullness of timr
it found lodgment in the brain of a hiolher Scot, and bore
fruit in a new thought about history, a new impulse to
earnest life. The new thought was given by word of mouth
to a ha.iuful if people iii .. Luiuion room. It was "^pre m1
abroad the next year and the next in the form ot ;i printed
book. From Engl.md it crossed the sea to New Kngland.
It helped to shape tho lives (i ai least three great men
who had power to teach their U Hows. And year by year,
the re.iders spread abroad in evei cxpandmg circles, Sucii
is the history of Heroes.

" It is a goustrous determined speaking out of the truth
about ;^' veral things," was the final judgment of ( arlyle on
the work of his hand. True wc rds spoken with determination
do not lose themselves in the air. Carlyle appeals to the
young and to the young in iieart. His trumpet call is whai
the unspoiled nature eagerly responds to ; for whoever else
bids crouch, he bids aspire.

HHROHS. HERO-WORSHIP.

ANO

THE HEROIC IN HISTORY

LECTURE I

niK HKR«> AS UIVINITY. ODIN. PAGANISM: SCANDINAVIAN

MYTHOLOGY

[Tuesday, 5th May 1840.] »

VVk have undertaken to discourse here for a little on
(Jrcat Men, their manner of appearance in our world's busi-
ness, how they have shaped themselves in the world's
history, what ideas men formed of them, what work they
(lid ; — on Heroes, namely, and on their reception and
performance ; what I call Hero-worship and the Heroic in
human affairs. Too evidently this is a large topic ; deserv-
ng quite other treatment than we can expect to give it at
present. A large topic; indeed, an illimitable one; wide
IS Universal History itself. For, as I take it. Universal 10
History, the history of what man has accomplished in this
world, is at bottom the History of the Great Men who
have worked here. They were the leaders of men, these
fjreat ones ; the modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense
creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrived
' W »' }{> Date set abme title.

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Z LECTURES OAT HEROES

to do or to attain; all things that we see standing accom.
/-^hshed in the world are properly the outer material result
f the practical realisation and embodiment, of Thoughts that
dwelt in the Great Men sent into the world: the soul of
the whole world's history, it may justly be considered, were
Jhe history of these. Too clearly it is a topic we shall do
no justice to in this place !

One comfort is, that Great Men, taken up in any way, are
profitable company. We cannot look, however imperfectly
10 upon a great man, without gaining something by him. He
IS the living liglU-fountain, which it is good and pleasant
to be near. The light which enlightens, which has enlight-
ened the darkness of the world; and this not as a kindled
lamp only, but rather as a natural luminary shining by the
gift of Heaven ; a flowing light-fountain, as I say, of native
ongmal insight, of manhood and heroic nobleness •- in
-whose radiance all souls feel that it is well with them' On
any terms whatsoever, you will - .t grudge to wander in such
neighbourhood for a while. T .ese Six classes of Heroes
20 chosen out of widely-distant' countries and epochs, and
in mere external figure differing altogether, ought, if we
00k faithfully at them, to illustrate several things for us
Could we see then well, we should get some glimpses into
he very marrow of the world's history. How happy, could
I but, in any measure, in such times as these, make manifest
to you the meanings of Heroism; the divine relation (for
I may well call it such) which in all times unites a Great
Man to other men; and thus, as it were, not exhaust my
subject, but so much as break ground on it ! At all events
30 I must make the attempt. '

It is well said, in every sense, that a man's religi. s
the chief fact with regard to him. A man's, or a natic f
men's. By religion I do not mean here the church-creed
Ul'tPIP widely distant

THE riERO AS /Ur/X/TV

which he professes, the articles of faith whicli he will sign
and, in words or otherwise, assert; not this wholly, in many
cases not this at all. We see men of all kinds of professed
creeds attain to almost all degrees of worth or worthlessness
under each or any of them. This is not what I call religion,
this profession and assertion ; which is often only a profes-
sion and assertion from the outworks of the man, from the
mere argumentative region of him, if even so deep as that.
But the thing a man does practically believe (and this is
often enough without asserting it even to himself, much less ic
to others) ; the thing a man does practically lay to heart,
and know for certain, concerning his vital relations to this
mysterious Universe, and his duty and destiny tiiere, that
is in all cases the primary thing for him, and creatively
determines all the rest. That is his /v7/i,w//,- or, it may
be, his mere scepticism and no-irligioii : the manner it is in
which he feels himself to be spiritually related to the Unseen
World or No- World ; and I say, if you tell me what that is,
you tell me to a very great extent what the man is, what the
kind of things he will do is. Of a man or of a nation we 20.
inquire, therefore, first of all. What religion they had?
Was it Heath'jnism, — plurality of gods, mere sensuous rep-
resentation of this Mystery of Life, and for chief recognised
element therein Physical Force.' Was it Christianism ;
faith in an Invisible, not as real only, but as the only
reality ; Time, through every meanest moment of it, resting
on Eternity ; Pagan empire of Force displaced by a nobler
supremacy, that of Holiness ? Was it Scepticism, uncer-
tainty and inquiry whether there was an I'nseen World,
any Mystery of Life except a mad one ; - doubt as to all 3c
this, or perhaps unbelief and flat denia'I ? Answering of
this question is giving us the soul of the history of the
man or nation. The thoughts they had were tht' parents
of the actions they did ; their feelings were parents of their

'f'M

LECTURES OA' HEROES

thoughts: it was the unseen and spiritual' in them that
determined the outward and actual ; — their religion, as I
say, was the great fact about them. In these Discourses,
limited as we are, it will be good to direct our survey
chiefly to that religious phasis of the matter. That once
known well, all is known. We have chosen as the first
Hero in our series, Odin the central figure of Scandinavian
Paganism ; an emblem to us of a most extensive province
of things. Let us look for a little at the Hero as Divinity,
10 the oldest primary form of Heroism.

Surely it seems a very strange-looking thing this Pagan-
ism ; almost inconceivable to us in these days. A bewilder-
ing, inextricable jungle of delusions, confusion, falsehoods
and absurdities, covering the whole field of Life^*! A
thing that fills us with astonishment, almost, if it were
possible, with incredulity, — for truly it is not easy to
understand that sane men could ever calmly, with their
eyes open, believe and live by such a set of doctrines.
That men should have worshipped their pr .ellow-man
20 as a God, and not him only, but stocks and stones, and all
manner of animate and inanimate objects ; and fashioned
for themselves such a distracted chaos of hallucinations by
way of Theory of the Universe: all this looks like an
incredible fable. Nevertheless it is a clear fact that they
did it. Such hideous inextricable jungle of misworships,
misbeliefs, men, made as we are, did actually hold by, and
live at home in. This is strange. Yes, we may pause in
sorrow and silence over the depths of darkness that are in
man ; if we rejoice in the heights of purer vision he has
30 attained to. Such things were and are in man ; in all
men ; in us too.

Some speculators have a short way of accounting for the
Pagan religion: mere quackery, priestcraft, and dupery,

^ H' H' unseen spiritual

2 H' IP life there.

THE HERO AS DIVINITY S

say they; no sane man ever did believe it— merely con-
trived to persuade other men, not worthy of the name of
sane, to believe it ! It will be often our duty to protest
against this sort of hypothesis about men's doings and his-
tory ; and I here, on the very threshold, protest against it
in reference to Pay-nism, and to all other isms by which
man has ever for a length of time striven to walk in this
world. They have all had a truth in them, or men would
not have taken them up. Quackery and dupery do abound ;
, in religions, above all in the more advanced decaying la
stages of religions, they have fearfully abounded: but
quackery was never the originating influence in such
things ; it was not the health and life of such thin-s, but
their disease, the sure precursor of their being about to
die ! Let us never forget this. It seems to me a most
mournful hypothesis, that of quackery giving birth to any
faith even in savage men. Quackery gives birih to nothing ;
gives death to all things.^ We shall not see into the true
heart of anything, if we look merely at the quackeries of it ;
if we do not reject the quackeries altogether ; a- mere dis- 20
eases, corruptions, with which our and all men s sole duty
is to have done with them, to sweep them out of our
thoughts as out of our practice. Man everywhere is the
born enemy of lies. I find ('.rand Lamaism itself to have
a kind of truth in it. Read the candid, clear-sighted,
rather sceptical Mr. Turner's - Account of his Embassy to *
that country, and see. They have their belief, these poor
Thibet people, that Providence sends down always an
Incarnation of Himself into every generation. At bottom
jme belief in a kind of Pope! At bottom still better, 30
belief that there is a Greatest Man; that //r is discoverable ;
that, once discovered, we ought to treat him with an obedi-
ence which knows no bounds ! This is the truth of Grand

» H' H» all.

II' Hamilton's Travels into

O LRCTURES OX IIKNOF.S

I-amaisin ; the 'discoverability ' is the only error here. The
Thibet priests have methods .A their own of discovering
what Man is (ircatest, fit to be supreme ever them. Bad

methods : but are they so much worse than our methods ,

of understandin<r hiir: to be always the eldest-born of
a certain gen-ilogy? Alas, it is a difficult thing to

find good methods for! We shall begin to have a

chance of understanding Paganism, when we first admit
that to its followers it was, at om. time, earnestly true.
lo Let us consider it very certain that men did believe in
Paganism ; men with open eyes, sound senses, men made
altogether like ourselves; that we, had we boen there,
should have believed in it. Ask now. What Paganism could
have been .-'

Another theory, somewhat more respectable, attributes
such things to Allegory. It was a play of poetic minds,
say these theorists ; a shadowing-forth,' in allegorical fable,
in personificafon and visual form, of what such poetic
minds had known and felt of this Universe. Which agrees,

20 add they, with a primary law of human nature, still every-
where observably at work, though in less important things,
'I'hat what a man feels intensely, he struggles to speak-out''
of him, to see represented before him in visual shape, and
as if with a kind of life and historical reality in it. Now
doubtless there is such a law, and it is one of the deepest
in human nature ; neither need we doubt that it did operate
fundamentally in this business. The hypothesis which
ascribes Paganism wholly or mostly to this agency, I call
a little more respectable ; but I cannot yet call it the true

30 hypothesis. Think, would 7vc believe, and take with us as

our life-guidance, an allegory, a poetic sport .? Not sport

but earnest is what we should require. It is a most earnest

thing to be alive in this world ; to die is not sport for a

1 IP IF H^ shadowing forth 2 II« H» H^ speak out

THE HERO AS D/l'/X/TY

man. Man's life never was a sport to him ; it was a stern
reality, altogether a serious matter to be alive' !

I find, therefc-?, that thoi-gh these Allegory theorists" are
on the way towards truth in this matter, they have not
reached it either. Pagan Religion is indeed an Allegory,
a Symbol of what men felt and knew about the Universe ;
and all Religions are symbols' of that, altering always as
that alters : but it seems to me a radical perversion, and
even /wversion, of the business, to put that forward as the
origin and moving cause, when it was rather the result and lo
termination. To get beautiful allegories, a perfect poetic
symbol, was not the want of men ; but to know what they
were to believe about this Universe, what course they were
to steer in it ; what, in this mysterious Life of theirs, they
had to hope and to fear, to do and to forbear doing. The
Pilgrim's Progress is an Allegory, and a beautiful, just and
serious one : but consider whether Bunyan's Allegory could
have preceded the Faith it symbolisesM The Faith had to
be already there, standing believed by everybody ; — of
which the Allegory could then become a shadow ; and, with 20
all its seriousness, we may say a sportful shadow, a mere
play of the Fancy, in comparison with that awful Fact and
scientific certainty which it poetically strives to emblem.
The Allegory is the product of the certainty, not the
producer of it; not in Bunyan's nor in any other case.
For Paganism, therefore, we have still to inquire, Whence
came that scientific certainty, the parent of such a bewil-
dered heap of allegories, errors and confusions ? How was
it, what was it .''

Surely it were a foolish attempt to pretend 'explaining,' 30
in this place, or in any place, such a phenomenon as that
far-distant distracted cloudy imbroglio Paganism, — more

» H« H* H^ no paragraph.
2 H' H» Allegory-theorists

■;

!r .1

I \%

MC Symbols

* H' H» H^ symbolizes

!(.

• LECTURES OAT HEROES

like a cloudfield than a distant continent of firm land> and
facts ! It ,s no longer a reality, yet it was one. We ou-ht
to understand that this seeming cloudrteld was once a
reality; that not poetic allegory, least of all that dupery
and deception was the origin of it. Men, I say, never did
believe idle songs, never risked their soul's life on allegories-
men in all times, especially in early earnest times, have had
an instmct for detecting quacks, for detesting quacks Let
us try If, leaving out both the quack theory^ and the
.o allegory one. and listening with affectionate attention to
that far-off confused rumour of the Pagan ages, we cannot
ascertain so much as this at least. That there was a kind of
fact at the heart of them ; that they too were not men-
dacious and distracted, but in their own poor way true
and sane I

i-iS

You remember that fancy of Plato's," of a man who had
grown to maturity in some dark distance, and was ^ brought
on a sudden into the upper air to see the sun rise. What
wov d his wonder be,^ his rapt astonishment at the si-ht we
^o daily witness with indifference ! With the free open sense
of '-^ child yet with the ripe faculty of a man, his whole
heart would be kindled by that sight, he would discern it
well to be Godlike, his soul would fall down in worship
before it. Now, just such a childlike greatness was in the
primitive nations. The first Pagan Thinker among rude
men the first man that began to think, was precisely this"
child-man of Plato's/ Simple, open as a child, yet with
the depth and strength of a man. Nature had as yet no
name to him ; he had not yet united under a name the

» H' W firm-land
« H' II' quack-theory

• H« H» H3 Aristotle's n \v IP IP the

' H« H» H' Aristotle.

*H' IP IP were

•' IP IP IP says the Philosopher,

Tl/F. HERO AS DlllX/jy

infinite variety of si-lits, sounds, .■,!iapes and motions, which
we now collectively name Tniverse, Nature, or the like, —
and so with a name dismiss it from us. To the wild deep-
hearted man all was yet new, not veiled ' under names or
formulas; it stood naked, (lashinj;.in - on him there, beauti-
ful, awful, unspeakable. Nature was to this man, what to
the rhinker and Prophet it forever is, /yvA/natural. This
green flowery rock-built earth, the trees, the mountains,
rivers, many-sounding seas; — that great deep sea of azure
that swims overhead; the winds sweeping through it; the lo
black cloud fashioning itself together, now pouring out fire,
now hail and rain ; what is it ? Ay, what .> At bottom we
do not yet know ; we can never know at all. It is not by
our superior insight that we escape the difficulty ; it is by
our superior levity, our inattention, our jkhviI of insight. It
is by not thinking that we cease to wonder at it. Hardened
roui.d us, encasing wholly every notion we form, is a wrap-,
page of traditions, hearsays, mere 7oords. We call that tire of '
the black thunder-cloud 'electricity,' and lecture learnedly
about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk : but 20
■u>:.at is it ? What made it ? Whence comes it ? Whither
goes it ? Science has done much for us ; but it is a poor
that would hide from us the great deep sacred
-ue of Nescience, whither we can never penetrate,
.1 all science swims as a mere superricial film. This
..^.iJ, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle;
wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will
think of it.

That great mystery of TrMK, were there no other; the
illimitable, silent, never-resting thing called Time, rolling, 3c
rushing on, swift, silent, like an all-embracing ocean-tide,
on which we and all the Universe swim like exhalations,'
like apparitions which arc, and then are not: this is forever
1 II" Ii» unveiled -^ H' H» H^ flasliing in

►I/'-'!

lAC'/'fA/uS- i>X /MA'OA.V

very literally a miracle ; a thing to strike us dumb, — for we
have no word to speak about it. I'his I'niverse, ah me ' —
what could the wild man know of it ; what can we yet
know ? That it is a lorce, and thousandfold Complexity of
Forces ; a Force which is w/ 74V. That is all ; it .< not we,
it is altogether dilferent from us. Force, Force, every-
where Force ; we ourselves a mysterious Force in the centre
of that. 'There is not a leaf rotting on the highway but
has Force in it : how else could it rot .> ' Nay surely, to

:o the Atheistic I'hinker, if such a one were possible, it must
be a miracle too, this huge illimitable \'liirlwind of Force,
which envelops" us here ; never-resting whirlwind, high as
Immensity, old as Eternity. . What is it ? God's creation,
the religious people answer; it is the Almighty God's I
Atheistic scieiue babbles poorly of it, with scientific no-
menclatures, experiments and what-not,' as if it were a poor
dead thing, to be bottled-up* in Leyden jars and sold over
counters : but the natural sense of man, in all times, if he
will honestly apply his sense, proclaims it to be a living

2o thing, —ah, an unspeakable, godlike thing; towards which
the best attitude for us, after never so much science, is
awe, devout prostration and humility of soul ; worship if
not in words, then in silence.

But now I remark farther : Wh.at in such a time as ours
it requires a Prophet or Poet to teach us, namely, the
stripping-otT* of those poor undevout wrappages, nomen-
clatures and scientific hearsays, -this, the ancient earnest
soul, as yet unencumbered with these things, did for itselt.
The world, which is now divine only to the gifted, was

30 then divine to whosoever would turn his eye upon it. He
stood bare before it face to face. 'All was (iodlike or

1 II' II'H^me!- 3 111 H»H3 what not

2 IV U- If envelopes -t II' IP H' l„,tileil up

s 11 « IP II' stripping off

HIE III. NO AS v/r/x/ry

God:' —Jean Paul ssill finds it so; the jjiant Jean Paul,
who has power to escape out of hearsays : but there then *
were no hearsays, • anopus shininjj-dosvn -' over the desert,
with its blue diamond brij^htness (that wild blue spirit-like
brightness, far brighter than we ever witness here), would
pierce into the hear o* the wild Fshmaelitish mai», whom
it was guiding through the solitary waste there. To his wild
heart, with all feelings in it, with no s/'cirh for any feeling, it
might seem a little eye, that (anopus, glancing-out" on him
from the great deep I'-tcrnity; revealing the inner Splendour lo
to him. Cannot we understand how these men UMrshippnl
Canopus ; became what we call Sabeans, worshipping the
stars ? Such is to me the secret of all forms of I'aganism.
Worship is transcendent wonder ; wonder for which there is
now no limit or measure ; that is worship. To these primeval
men, all things and everything they saw exist beside them
were an emblem of the (Jodlike, of some (iod.

And look what perennial fibre of truth was in that. To
us also, through every star, through every blade of gra.ss, is
not a (rod made visible, if we will open our minds and ao
eyes ? We do not worship in that way now : but is it not
reckoned still a merit, proof of what we call a 'poetic
nature,' th we recognise how every object has a divine
beauty iu .; how every object still verily is *a window
through which we may look into Infmitude Mtself ' ? He
that can discern the loveliness of things, we call him Poet,
Painter, Man of (Jenius, gifted, lovable."' These poor
Sabeans did even what he does, — in their own 'ashion.
That they did it, in what fashion soever, was a merit ; bet-
ter than what the entirely stupid man did, what the horse 30
and camel did, - namely, nothing!

' If IP III ihen there * II' IP W glancinsr down

MI' iP IP shining d .vn ^ IPintinitude

* h' IP lPh)vcal>le.

Lf-U'TCh'J'lS OX f/KfiOhS

Hut now if all things whatsoever th.it we look upon arc
emblems to us of the Highest God, I add that inoreso than
•ny of them is man such an emblem. Vou have heard o'
St. Chrysostom's celebrated sayinj; in reference to the She-
kinah, or .\rk of festimony, visible Revelation of God,
among the Hebrews ; "The true Shekinah is .Man! " Yes,
it is even so : this is no vain phrase ; it is veritably .so. The
essence of our being, the mystery in us that calls itiielf " I,"
— ah, what words have we for such things ? - is a breath

lo of Heaven; the Highest Ik-ing rc/eals himself in man.
This body, these faculties this life of ours, is it not all as
a vesture for that Unnamed } •Ihere is but one Temple
in the Universe,' says the devout Novalis, 'and that is the
Body of Man. Nothing is holier than that high form.
Itending before men is a reverence done to this Revelation
in the Flesh. We touch Heaven when we hay our hand on
a human body!' This sounds much like a mere flourish
of rhetoric ; but it is not so. If well meditated, it will turn
out to be a scientific fact ; the expression, in such words

20 as can be had, of the actual truth of the thing. We are
the miracle of miracles, —the great inscrutable mystery of
Clod. We cannot understand it, we know not how to speak
of it ; but we may feel and know, if we like, that it is
verily so.

Well ; these truths were once more readily felt than now.
The young generations of the world, who h.ad in them the
freshness of young children, and yet the depth of earnest
men, who did not think that they had finished-off* all
things in Heaven nnd Karth by merely giving them scien-
30 tific names, but ha. gaze direct at them there, with awe
and wonder : they felt better what of divinity is in man
and Nature ; — they, without being mad, could rvors/iip
Nature, and man more than anything else in Nature. Wor-
1 M' W H» finished off

/•///•; iihKo IS oniMiY

ship, that is, .is F said jibove, admire witluiiit limit : liiis,
itj tlie full use «>f their f.iciiltics, \vi' i .ill sincerity of heart,
they could do. I consider Jlcro-worship to be the yrand
modifying element in that ancient system of thoujrht.
What I called the |)erplexed jungle of I'.ayanism spranj;, we
may say, out of niany roots: every admiration, adoration
of a star or nitural object, w.is a root or fibre of a root ;
l)ut Hero-worship is the deepest root of all ; the tai>root,
from which in a great dej;reo all the rest were nourished
and grown.

And now if worship even of a star had some meaning
in it, how much more might that of a Hero ! Worship of
a Hero is transcerd.. n admiration of a Great Man. I say
great men are still admirable ; I say there is, at bottom,
nothing else admirable! No nobler feeling than this of
admiration for one higher than himself dwells m the breast
of man. It is to this hour, and at all hours, the vivifying
inHuence in man's life. Religion I find stand upon it; not
Paganism only, but far higher and truer religions, — all
religion hitherto known. Hero-worship, heartfelt prostrate 20
admiration, submission, burning, boundless, for a noblest
godlike I'orm of Alan, - is not thai the germ o^ instianity
itself .' The greatest of all Heroes is ( >ne — om we do
not name here! Let sacred silence meditite that sacred
matter; you will find it the ultimate p«Mif«ction of a princi-
ple extant throughout man's -vi.ole histc i v on earth.

Or coming into lower, less /«//:^;peakab'c provinces, is not
all Loyalty akin to religious l-aith also? Kaith is loyalty
to some inspired ("eacher, some spiritual Hero. .And what
therefore is loyalty proper, the life-breath of all society, but
x\\ efiluence of Hero-worship, submissive admiration for the
truly great ? .Society is founded on Hero-worship. All
dignities of rank, ou which luuu.in association rests, are
what we may call a //<7-<;archy ((Government of Hero*s), —

r f

If- f

jiii

LECTURES OAT HEROES

or a Hierarchy, for it is « sacred ' enough withal ! The
Duke means Dux, Leader ; King is Kon-nins;, A'an-ning, Man
that A-noivs or cans. Society everywhere is some represen-
tation, not ///supportably inaccurate, of a graduated Worship
of Heroes ; — reverence and obedience done to men really
great and wise. Not ///supportably inaccurate, I say!
They are all as bank-notes, these social dignitaries, all
representing gold; — and several of them, alas, always are
/or^e(/ notes. We can do with some forged false notes;
10 with a good many even ; but not with all, or the most of
them forged ! No : there have to come revolutions then ;
cries of Democracy, Liberty and Equality, and I know not
what : — the notes being all false, and no gold to be had for
them, people take to crying in their despair that there is no
gold, that there never was any ! — 'Gold,' Hero-worship, is
nevertheless, as it was always and everywhere, and cannot
cease till man himself ceases.

I am well aware that in these days Hero-worship, the
thing I call Hero-worship, professes to have gone out, and
20 finally ceased. This, for reasons which it will be worth
while some time to inquire into, is an age that as it were
denies the existence of great men ; denies the desirableness
of great men. Show' our critics a great man, a Luther for
example, they begin to what they call 'account ' for him;
not to worship him, but take the dimensions of him, —and
bring him out to be a little kind of man! He was the
'creature of the Time,' they say; the Time called him
forth, the Time did everything, he nothing — but what we
the little critic could have done too ! This seems to me
30 but melancholy work. The Time call forth ? Alas, we
have known Times ca// loudly enough for their great man ;
but not find him when they called ! He was not there \
Providence had not sent him ; the Time, m/////^r jts loudest,'

^\V\V\V Shew

THE HEKO AS Dili MTV

had to go down to confusion and wreck because he would
not come when called.'

For if we will think of it, no Time need have gone to
ruin, could it have foiiiiJ a man great enough, a man wise
and good enough : wisdom to discern truly what the Time
wanted, valour to lead it on the right road thither ; these
are the salvation of any Time. But I liken common languid
Times, with their unbelief, distress, perplexity, with their lan-
guid doubting characters and embarrassed circumstances,
impotently crumbling-down- into ever worse distress towards ic
final ruin ; — all this I liken to dry dead fuel, waiting for
the lightning out of Heaven that shall kindle it. The great
man, with his free force direct out of (Jod's own hand, is the
lightning. His word is the wise healing word which all
can believe in. All blazes round him now, when he has
once struck on it, into tire like his own. The dry mould-
ering sticks are thought to have called him forth. They
did want him greatly; but as to calling him forth — ! —
Those are critics of small vision, I think, who cry: "See,
is it not the sticks that made the (ire ? " No sadder proof 20
can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief
in great men. There is no sadder symptom of a genera-
tion than such general blindness to the spiritual lightning,
with faith only in the heap of barren dead fuel, it is the
last consummation of unbelief. In all epochs of the world's
history, we shall find the (Ireat Man to have been the indis-
pensable saviour of his epoch ; the lightning, without
which the fuel never would have burnt. The History of
the World, I said already, was the Biography of Great
Men.

Such small critics do what they can to promote unbelief
and universal spiritual paralysis : but happily they cannot
always completely succeed. In all times it is possible for

' 11' IP IP uo pantpaph. - II' 11^ IP crumbling down

3^-'

LECTU:;ES ok l/RRORS

a man to arise great enough to feel that they and their
doctrines are ciiimeras and cohwelxs. And what is notable,
in no time whatever can they entirely eradicate out of liv-
ing men's hearts a certain altogether peculiar reverence for
Great Men ; genuine admiration, loyalty, adoration, how-
ever dim and perverted it may be. Hero-worship endures
forever while man endures. IJoswell venerates his Johnson,
right truly even in the Eighteenth century. The unbeliev-
ing French believe in their Voltaire ; and burst-out ' round
'o him into very curious Hero-worship, in that last act of his
life when they 'stifle him under roses.' It has always
seemed to me extremely curious this of Voltaire. Truly,
if Christianity be the highest instance of Hero-worship'
then we may find here in Voltaireism - one of the lowest !
He whose life was that of a kind of Antichrist, does again
on this side exhibit a curious contrast. No people ever
were so little prone to admire at all as those French of
Voltaire. Persiflage was the character of th.ir whole mind ;
adoration had nowhere a place in it. Yet see ! The old
20 man of Ferney comes up to Paris ; an old, tottering, infirm
man of eighty-four years. They feel that he too is a kind
of Hero; that he has spent his life in opposing error and
injustice, delivering Calases, unmasking hypocrites in high
places ; — in short that he too, though in a strange wa^y,
has fought like a valiant man. They feel withal that, 'if
persiflage be the great thing, there never was such a persi-
fletir. He is the realised '• ideal of every one of them ; the
thing they are all wanting to be ; of all Frenchmen the
most French. He is properly their god, — such god as
30 they are fit for. Accordingly all persons, from the (^ueen
Antoinette to the Douanier at the Porte St. Denis, do'^they
not worship him ? People of quality disguise themselves as

1 II' IP IP hurst out ■^- II' 11^- Hi Voltairism

8 H' IP IP realized

THE HERO AS DIVIXITY

tavern-waiters. The Maitre do I'oste, with a broad oath,
orders his Postillion,* " Va bon train; thou art driving M.
de Voltaire." At Paris his carriage is 'the nucleus of a
comet, whose train fills whole streets.' The ladies pluck
a hair or two from his fur, to keep it as a sacred relic.
There was nothing highest, beautifulest,* noblest in all
France, that did not feel this man to be higher, beauti-
fuler,' nobler.

Yes, from Norse Odin to English Samuel Johnson, from
the divine Founder of Christianity to the withered I'ontiff ic
of Kncyclopedism, in all times and places, the Hero has
been worshipped. It will ever be so. We all love great
men ; love, venerate and bow down submissive before great
men: nay can we honestly bow down to anything else?
Ah, does not every true man feel that he is himself made
higher by doing reverence to what is really above him ?
No nobler or more blessed feeling dwells in man's heart.
And to me it is very cheering to consider that no sceptical
logic, or general triviality, insincerity and aridity of any
Time and its influences can destroy this noble inborn loy- 20
alty and worship that is in man. In times of unbelief,
which soon have to become times of revolution, much
down-rushing, sorrowful decay and ruin is visible to every-
body. For myself in these days, I seem to see in this
indestructibility of Hero-worship the everlasting adamant
t lower than which the confused wreck of revolutionary things
cannot fall. The confused wreck of things crumbling and
even crasning and tumbling all round us in thes^ revolu- .
tionary ages, will get down so far; no farther. It is an!
eternal corner-stone, from which they can begin to build jc
themselves up again. That man, in some sense or other, '
worships Heroes ; that we all of us reverence and must ever

1 H« H* H' Postilion : " H" IP IP beautifullest

a 11' H= IP beautifulier

I.ECTUKI'IS ON HEROES

reverence fireat Men : this is, to me, the living rock amid
all rushings-down ' whatsoever ; — the one fixed point in
modern revolutionary history, otherwise as if bottomless
and shoreless.

So much of truth, only under an ancient obsolete vesture,
but the spirit of it still true, do I find in the Paganism'
of old nations. Nature is still divine, the revelation of the
workings of God ; the Hero is still worshipable : this, under
poor cramped incipient forms, is what all Pagan religions

lo have struggled, as they could, to set forth. I think Scandi-
navian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting than any
other. It is, for one thing, the latest ; it continued in these
regions of Europe till the eleventh century: eight-hundred »
years ago the Norwegians were still worshippers of Odin.
It is interesting also as the creed of our fathers ; the men
whose blood still runs in our veins, whom doubtless we still
resemble in so many ways. Strange : they did believe that,
while we believe so differently. Let us look a little at this
poor Norse creed, for many reasons. We have tolerable

20 means to do it ; for there is another point of interest in
these Scandinavian mythologies : that they have been pre-
served so well.

In that strange island Iceland, — burst-up,^ the geologists
say, by fire from the bottom of the sea; a wild land of bar-
renness and lava ; swallowed many months of every year in
black tempests, yet with a wild gleaming beauty in summer-
time; towering up there, stern and grim, in the North
Ocean; with its snow jokuls,* roaring geysers, sulphur-
pools* and horrid volcanic chasms, like the waste chaotic
30 battle-field of Frost and Fire;— where of all places we

» H' 11= IP rushings down a H' H* W burst up

^ II' IP \V eight hundred « H' H» IP snow-jokuls

6 H' IP W sulphur pools

THE IfERO AS n/rfX/TV

least looked for Literature or written memorials, the
record of these things was written down. On the seaboard
of this wild land is a rim of grassy country where cattle
can subsist, and men by means of them and of what the
sea yields ; and it seems they were poetic men these, men
who had deep thoughts in them, and uttered musically
their thoughts. Much would be lost, had Iceland not been
burst-up ' from the sea, not been discovered by the North-
men ! The old Norse Poets were many of them natives of
Iceland.

Sa;mund, one of the early Christian Priests there, who
perhaps had a lingering fondness for Paganism, collected
certain of their old Pagan songs, just about becoming obso-
lete then, — Poems or Chants- of a mythic, prophetic,
mostly all of a religious character: that is what Norse
critics call the FJ<ier or Poetic Edda. Ed</,i, a word of
uncertain etymology, is thought to signify Ancestress.
Snort-o Sturleson, an Iceland gentlemau, an extremely
notable personage, educated by this Sitmund's grandson,
took in hand next, near a century afterwards, to put 20
together, among several other books he wrote, a kind of
Prose Synopsis of the whole Mythology ; elucidated by
new fragments of traditionary verse. A work constructed
really with great ingenuity, native talent, what one might
call unconscious art ; altogether a perspicuous clear work,
pleasant reading still : this is the FfW/^v/- or Prose EMci.
By these and the numerous other Sc^^as, mostly Icelandic,
with the commentaries, Icelandic or not, which go ou zeal-
ously in the North to this day, it is possible to gain some
direct insight even yet ; and see that old Norse system of 3c
Belief, as it were, face to face. Let us forget that it is
erroneous Religion ; let us look at it as old Thought, and
try if we cannot sympathise witii it somewhat.

1 II' 11= IP burst up * II' IlMI^ Chaunts

'.flj

:■ ill I

i ; ;-:

LECTURES OK HEROES

The primary characteristic of this old Northland Mythol-
ogy I find to be Impersonation of the visible workings of
Nature. Earnest simple recognition of the workings of Phys-
ical Nature, as a thing wholly miraculous, stupendous nd
divine. What we now lecture of as Science, they wondered
at, and fell down in awe before, as Religion. The dark
hostile Powers of Nature they figure to themselves as
'Jotuns,' Giants, huge shaggy beings of a demonic charac-
ter. Frost, Fire, Sea-tempest; these are Jotuns. The

lo friendly Powers again, as Summer-heat, the Sun, are Oods.
The empire of this Universe is divided between these two ;
they dwell apart, in perennial internecine feud. The Gods
dwell above in Asgard, the Garden of the Asen, or Divin-
ities ; Jotunheim, a distant dark chaotic land, is the home ^
of the Jotuns.

Curious all this ; and not idle or inane, if we look at the
foundation of it ! The power of Fire, or Flame, for instance,
which we designate by some trivial chemical name, thereby
hiding from ourselves the essential character of wonder

20 that dwells in it as in all things, is with these old North-
men, Loke, a most swift subtle Demon, of the brood of the
Jotuns. The savages of the Ladrones Islands too (say
some Spanish voyagers) thought Fire, which they never
had seen before, was a devil or god, that bit you sharply
when you touched it, and that lived upon dry wood. From
us too' no Chemistry, if it had not Stupidity to help it,
would hide that Flame is a wonder. What is Flame .> —
Frost the old Norse Seer discerns to be a monstrous hoary"
Jotun, the Giant T/irym, Hrym ; or Rimr, the old word now

30 nearly obsolete here, but still used in Scotland to signify

hoar-frost. Ritne was not then as now a dead chemical

thing, but a living Jotun or Devil ; the monstrous Jotun

Rime drove home his Horses at night, sat • combing their

» H' H» H* Home ^ H' li* W too, » H' H« H^ Hoaiy

THE HERO AS DIVINITY

manes,' — which Horses were Hail-Clouds, or fleet Frost-
Winds. His Cows — No, not his, but a Itinsman's, the
Giant Hymir's Cows are Icchei};s: this Hymir 'looks at the
rocks' with his devil-eye, and they ^Mit in the glance of it.

Thunder was not then mere Electricity, vitreous or
resinous ; it was the God Donner (Thunder) or Thor, —
God also of beneficent Summer-heat. The thunder was
his wrath ; the gathering of the black clouds is the drawing-
down ' of Thor's angry brows ; the fire-bolt bursting out of
Heaven is the all-rending Hammer flung from the hand of lo
Thor : he urges his loud chariot over the mountain-tops,- -
that is the peal ; wrathful he ' blows in his red beard,' —
that is the rustling stormblast before the thunder begin.
Balder again, the White God, the beautiful, the just and
benignant (whom the early Christian Missionaries found
to resemble Christ), is the Sun, — beautifulest " of visible
things ; wondrous too, and divine still, after all our Astron-
omies and Almanacs ! But perhaps the notablest god we
hear tell-of ' is one of whom Grimm the German Etymolo-
gist finds trace: the God IViiiisc/i, or Wish. The God 20
IVish ; who could give us all that we wished! Is not this
the sincerest and yet rudest voice of the spirit of man ?
The rudest ideal that man ever formed ; which still shows *
itself in the latest forms of our spiritual culture. Higher
considerations have to teach us that the (Jod Wish is not
the true God.

Of the other Gods or Jotuns I will mention only for ety-
mology's sake, that Sea-tempest is the Jotun Aegir, a very
dangerous Jotun ; — and now to this day, on our river
Trent, as I learn, the Nottingham bargemen, when the 3c
River is in a certain flooded state (a kind of backwater, or
eddying swirl it has, very dangerous to them), call it Eager;

1 H' IV IP drawing down

2 H« H» H* beautifuUest

s H' H» IP tell of
* W W H^ shews

p. \-

♦ '

W'- f -i

/./a/rA-As ox ///■:a'o/-:s

they cry out, ♦' Have a c.irc, there is the A>^v/- coming ! "
Curious ; that word survivinj,', like the peak of a submerged
world ! The ,>A/,s/ Nottingham bargemen had believed in
the God Ae<'ir. Indeed our Knglish blood too in good
part is Dani , Norse; or rather, at bottom, Danish and
Norse and Saxon have no distinction, except a superficial
one, — as of Heathen and Christian, or the like. But all over
our Island we are mingled largely with Danes proper, —
from the incessant invasions there were : and this, of course,
'o jn a greater proportion along the east coast ; and greatest
of all, as I find, in the North Country. From the Humber
upwards, all over Scotland, the Speech of the commo : peo-
ple is still in a singular degree Icelandic; its Germanism
has still a peculiar Norse tinge. They too are ' Normans,'

Northmen, - if that be any great beauty !

Of the chief god, ( )din, we shall speak by and by. Mark
at present so much ; what the essence of Scandinavian and
indeed of all Paganism is : a recognition of the forces of
Nature as godlike, stupendous, personal Agencies, — as
20 (Jods and Demons. x\ot inconceivable to us. It is the
infant Thought of man opening itself, with awe and won-
der, on this ever-stupendous L'niverse. To me there is in
the Norse System something very genuine, very great and
manlike. A broad simplicity, rusticity, so very different
from the light gracefulness of the old (Ireek Paganism, dis-
tinguishes this Scandinavian System. It is Thought ; the
genuine Thought of deep, rude, earnest minds, fairly opened
to the things about them ; a face-to-face and heart-to-heart
inspection of the things, —the first characteristic of all
30 good Thought in all times. Not graceful lightness, half-
sport, as in the Greek Paganism ; a certain homely truth-
fulness and rustic strength, a great rude sincerity, discloses
itself here. It is strange, after our beautiful Apollo statues
and clear smiling mythuses, to come down upon the Norse

THK ///hO AS nil- IS' I TV

Gods ' brewing ale ' to hold their feast with Aegir, the Sea-
Jotun ; sending out Thor to get the caldron ' for them in the
Jotun country ; Thor, after many adventures, clapping the
Pot on his head, like a huge hat, and walking off with it, —
quite lost in it, the ears of the Pot reaching down to his
heels I A kind of vacant hugeness, large awkward giant-
hood, characterises that Norse System ; enormous force, as
yet altogether untutored, stalking helpless with large uncer-
tain strides. Consider only their primary mythus of the
Creation. The Gods, having got the Giant Ymer slain, a lo
(iiant made by 'warm wind,' -'and much confused work,
out ' of the conflict of Frost and Fire, determined on
constructing a world with him. His blood made the Sea;
his riesh was the Land, the Rocks his bones ; of his eye-
brows they formed Asgard their Gods'-Dwelling ; his skull*
was the great blue vault of Immensity, and the brains of it
became the Clouds. What a Hyper-Urobdignagian business !
Untamed Thought, great, giantlike, enormous ; ~ to be
tamed in due time into the compact greatness, not giant-
like, but godlike and stronger than gianthood, of the 20
Shakspeares, the Goethes ! — Spiritually as well as bodily
these men are our progenitors.

1 like, too, that representation they have of the Tree
Igdrasil. All Life is figured by them as a Tree. Igdrasil,
the Ash-tree of Fxistence, has its roots deep-down* in the
kingdoms of Hela or Death ; its trunk reaches up heaven-
liigh, spreads its boughs over the whole I'niverse: it is the
Tree of Existence. At the foot of it, in the Death-kingdom,
sit Three Nonuxs, Fates, — the Past, Present, Future ; water-
ing its roots from the Sacred Well. Its ' boughs,' with their 30
buddings and disleatings, — events, things suffered, things

1 IP H* H^ cauldron •> II' IP .nrk out

« H' W winds IP wind * IP IP .^cull IP skull

5 H' H» H' deep down

I -Ml

fg-J:.

LECTURES OX HEROES

done, catastrophes, — stretch through all lands and times.
Is not every leaf of it a biography, every fibre there an act
or word ? Its boughs are Histories of Nations. The rustle
of it is the noise of Human Kxistence, onwards from of
old. It grows there, the breath of Human Passion rustling
through it ; — or stormtost, the stormwind howling through
it like the voice of all the gods. It is Igdrasil, the Tree of
Flxistence. It is the past, the present, and the future;
what was done, what is doing, what will be done; 'the
10 infinite conjugation of the verb To ito.' Considering how
human things circulate, each inextricably in communion
with all, — how the word I speak to you today is borrowed,
not from Ulfila the Mitsogoth only, but from all men since
the first man began to speak, — I find no similitude so
true as this of a Tree. Beautiful ; altogether beautiful and
great. The *^ Machine of the l^niverse,' — alas, do but think
of that in contrast !

Well, it is strange enough this old Norse view of nature ;
different enough from what we believe of Nature. Whence

ao i. specially came, one would not like to be compelled to
say very minutely ! One thing we may say : It came from
the thoughts of Norse men ; — from \\vi thought, above all,
of theyfrj/ Norse man who had an original power of think-
ing. The First Norse 'man of genius,' as we should call
him ! Innumerable men had passed by, across this Universe,
with a dumb vague wonder, such as the very ani aals may
feel ; or with a painful, fruitlessly inquiring wonder, such
as men only feel ; — till the gre.t Thinker came, the original
man, the Seer ; whose shaped spoken Thought awakes the

30 slumbering capability of all into Thought. It is ever the
way with the Thinker, the spiritual Hero. What he says,
all men were not far from saying, were longing to say.
The Thoughts of all start up, as from painful enchanted

THE I/EA''^ .IS DIVIXITY

sleep, round his Thought; answering? to it, N'es, even so!
Joyful to men as the dawning of day from night;— /> it
not, indeed, the awakening for them from no-being into
being, from death into life ? We still honour such a man ;
call him Poet, (lenius, and so forth : but to these wild men
he was a very magician, a worker of miraculous unexpected
blessing for them ; a Prophet, .i Ood ! — Thought once awn^;
ened does not again slumber ; unfolds itself into a System of
Thought ; grows, in man after man, generation after genera-
tion, — till its full stature is reached, and such System of la
Thought can grow no farther, but must give place to another.
For the N'orse people, the man now named Ddin, and
Chief Norse (lod, we fancy, was such a man. A Teacher,
and Captain of soul and of body ; a Hero, of worth /wmeas-
urable ; admiration for whom, transcending the known
bounds, became adoration. Hns he not the power of
articulate Thinking ; and many other powers, as yet mirac-
ulous ? So, with boundless gratitude, would the rude
Norse heart feel. Has he not solved for them the sphinx-
tnigma ' of this Universe ; given assurance to them of their 20
own destiny there ? Hy him they know now what they
have to do here, what to look for hereafter. Kxistence has
become articulate, melodious by him ; ho first has made
Life alive! — We may call this Odin, the origin of Norse
Mythology: Odin, or whatever name the First Norse
Thinker bore while he was a man among men. His view
of the ITniverse once promulgated, a like view starts into
being in all minds; grows, keeps ever growing, while it
continues credible there. In all minds it lay written, but
invisibly, as in sympathetic ink ; at his word it starts into 30
visibility in all. Nay, in every epoch of the world, the
j^reat event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a
Thinker in the world ! —

* H' Sphinx-enigma

/.HCri'K/iS OX //AA'OAS

•5

One other thing we must not forget; it will explain, a
little, the confusion of these Norse Kddas. They are not
one coherent System of Thought ; but properly the summa-
tion of several successive systems. All this of the old
Norse Ikjiief which is Hungout ' for us, in one level of
distance in the Kdda, like a picture painted on the same
canvas,'' does not at all st.;nd so in the reality. It stands
rather at all manner of distances and depths, of successive
'generations since the Belief first began. All Scandinavian

10 thinkers, since the first of them, contributed to that Scan-
dinavian System of Thought ; in ever-new '' elaboration
and addition, it is the combined work of them all. What
history it had, how it changed from shape to shape, by one-
thinker's contribution after another, till it got to the full
final shape we see it under in the Juiiia, no man will now
ever know ; its Councils of Trebisond, Councils of Trent,
Athanasiuses, Dantes, Luthers, are sunk without echo in
the dark night ! Only that it had such a history we en all
know. Wheresoever a thinker appeared, there in the thin^'

2o he thought-of * was a contribution, accession, a change or
revolution made. Alas, the grandest 'revolution' of all.
the one made by the man Odin himself, i:: ..v>i this too
sunk for us like the rest ! i)f Odin what history ? Strange
rather to reflect that he /i,i,/ a. history ! That this Odin, in
his wild Norse vesture, with his wild beard and eyes, his
rude Norse speech and ways, was a man like us ; with our
sorrows, joys, with our limbs, features ; — intrinsically all
one as we : and did such a work ! But the work, much of
it, has perished ; the worker, all to the name. " Wednes-

30 day, * mtn will say tomorrow ; Odin's day ! Of Odin
there exists no history , no document of it ; no guess about
it worth repeating.

MI' HMI^ flung out - II" IP FI' canvass MI' H» IP ever new
* H' Ii= II' thought of 4 H' H- IP Wednesday

T'fF iiKKo AS n/i'/x/ry

Snorro indeed, in the quietest .nanner, almost in .1 brief
businesH style, writes down, in his //,/«/./•////<,'/(/, how ( )din
was a heroic Prince, in the iJlack-Sea rejjion, with Iwelve
Peers, and a great people straitened for room. How he
led these Asm (Asiatics) of his out of Asiii ; settled them
in the North parts of Kurope, by warlike conquest ; invented
Letters, Poetry and so forth, — and came by and by to be
worshipped as ' hief (Jod by these Scandinavians, his
Twelve Peers made into Iwelve Sons of his own, (iods like
himself: Snorro has no doubt of this. Saxo (Irammaticus. ir
a very curious Northman of that same century, is still
more unhesitating; scruples not to find out a historical
fact in every individual mythus, and writes ii down as a
terrestrial event in Denmark or elsewhere. Torfaus, learned
and cautious, some centuries later, assigns by calculation a
i/aU for it : Odin, he says, came into Kurope about the Year
70 before Christ. ( )f all which, as grounded .n\ mere uncer-
tainties, found to be untenable now, I need say nothing.
Far, very far beyond the Year 70 ! Odm's date, adventures,
whole terrestrial history, figure and environment are sunk 20
from us forever into unknown thousands of years.

Nay Crimm, the (lerman Antiquary, goes so far as to
deny that any man Odin ever existed. He pro s it by
etymology. The word li'ui>/,ni, \\\\\c\\ 's the original form
of Oiiiii, a word spread, as name of their chief Divinity, over
:ill the Teutonic Nations everywhere; this word, which
connects itself, according to Grimm, with the Latin rut/ere,
with the English idhh' and suchlike,'- - means primarily
Movement, Source of Movement, Power ; and is the fit name
of the highest god, not of any man. The word signifies 3c
Divinity, he says, among the old Saxon, German and all
Teutonic Nations ; the adjectives formed from it all signify
iiivine, supreme, or something pertaining to the chief god.
1 H' H» IV such like

LEC TURKS ON HEROES

Like enough ! We must bow to Grimm in matters ety-
mological. Let us consider it fixed that Wiiotan means
l/(i(/iii!^, force of Movement. And now still, what hinders it
from being the name of a Heroic Man and Afovcr, as well
as of a god ? As for the adjectives, and words formed from
it, — did not the Spaniards in their universal admiration
for Lope, get into the habit of saying 'a Lope flower,' 'a
Lope t/ama,' if the flower or woman were of surpassing
beauty ? Had this lasted, Lo/>i- would have grown, in Spain,

f to be an adjective signifying godlike also. Indeed, Adam
Smith, in his r'.ssay on lAinguagc, surmises that all adjectives
whatsoever were formed precisely in that way: some very
green thing, chiefly notable for its greenness, got the appel-
lative name Green, and then the next thing remarkable for
that quality, a tree for instance, was named the green tree, - -
as we still say 'the steam coach,' 'four-horse coach,' or the
like. All primary adjectives, according to Smith, were
formed in this way ; were at first substantives and things.
We cannot annihilate a man for etymologies like that !

20 Surely there was a First Teacher and Captain ; surely there
must have been an Odin, palpable to the sense at one time ;
no adjective, but a real Hero of flesh and blood ! The voice
of all tradition, history or echo of history, agrees with all
that thought will teach one about it, to assure us of this.

How the man Odin came to be considered a^W, the chief
god? — that surely is a question which nobody would wish
to dogmatise upon. I have said, his people knew no iimtts
to their admiration of him ; they had as yet no scale to
measure admiration by. Fancy your own generous heart's-

30 Ic .' of some greatest man expanding till it tramrended all
bounds, till it filled and overflowed the whole field of your
thought ! Or what if this man Odin, — since a great deep
soul, with the afflatus and mysterious tide of vision and
impulse rushing on him he knows not whei._v., is ever an

THE HEKO AS DIVIiVITY

enigma, a kind of terror and wonder to himself, — should
have felt that perhaps he was divine ; that he was some
effluence of the «\Vuotan,' ' Mo;cmciit,'' Supreme Power and
Divinity, of whom to his rapt vision all Nature was the
awful Flame-irnage; that some effluence of Wiiotan dwelt
here in him ! He was not necessarily false ; he was but
mistaken, speaking the truest he knew. A great soul, any
sincere soul, knows not tvhat he is, — alternates between the
highest height and the lowest deptii ; can, of all things, the
least measure — Himself ! What others take him for, and lo
what he guesses that he may be ; these two items strangely
act on one another, help to determine one another. With
all men reverently admiring him; with his own wild soul
full of noble ardours and affections, of whirlwind chaotic
darkness and glorious new light ; a divine Universe burst-
ing all into godlike beauty round him, and no man to whom
the like ever had befallen, what could he think himself to
be .' " Wuotan ? " All men answered, " Wuotan ! "

.\nd then consider what mere Time will do in such cases ;
how if a man was great while living, he becomes tenfold 20
greater when dead. What an enormous canura-ohscura
magnifier is Tradition ! How a thing grows in the human
Memory, in the human Imagination, when love, worship
and all that lies in the human Heart, is there to encourage
It. And in the darkness, in the entire ignorance; without
date or document, no book, no Arundel-marble; only here
and there some dumb monumental cairn. Why, in thirty
or forty years, were there no books, any gre.it man would
grow mythic, the contemporaries who had seen him, being
once all dead. And in three-hundred ' years, and in three- jc
Ihousand^years — ! — To attempt theorising oi\ such matters
would profit little : they are matters which refuse to be theo-
remedTm^ diagramed ; which Logic ought to know that she
' II' H' IP three hundred 2 jp H2 jp three thousand

f«'t

LECTURES OiX HEROES

\ s

cannot speak of. Enough for us to discern, far in the utter
most distance, some gleam as of a small real light shining
in the centre of that enormous camera-obscura image ; to
discern that the centre of it all was not a madness and
nothing, but a sanity and something.

This light, kindled in the great dark vortex of the Norse
mind,' dark but living, waiting only for light ; this is to mc
the centre of the whole. How such light will then shine-
out, and with wondrous thousandfold expansion spread

10 itself, in forms and colours, depends not on //, so much as
on the National Mind recipient of it. The colours and
forms of your light will be those of the cut-glass it has to
shine through. — Curious to think how, for every man, any
the truest fact is modelled by the nature of the man ! I
said. The earnest man, speaking to his brother men, must
always have stated what seemed to him z.fact, a real Appear-
ance of Nature. But the way in which such Appearance or
fact shaped itself, — what sort oi/act it became for him, -
was and is modified by his own laws of thinking; deep,

20 subtle, but universal, ever-operating laws. The world of
Nature, for every man, is the Phantasy^ of Himself; this
world is the multiplex 'Image of his own Dream.' Who
knows to what unnameable subtleties of spiritual law all
these Pagan Fables owe their shape ! The number Iwchc,
divisiblest of all, which could be halved, quartered, parted
into three, into six, the most remarkable number, — this
was enough to determine the Signs of the Zodiac, the number
of Odin's Sons, and innumerable other Twelves. Any vague
rumour of number had a tendency to settle itself into

50 Twelve. So with regard to every other matter. And quite
unconsciously too, — with no notion of building-up' 'Allego-

ries

i' t

But the fresh clear glance of those First Ages would

1 IP IF II' Mind •■* IP IP H^ Fantasy

3H' IP HMmildingup

THE HERO AS DIVINITY

be prompt in discerning tiie secret relations of things, and
wholly open to obey these. Schiller finds in the Ccstus of
Venus an everlasting .-vsthetic truth as to the nature of all
Beauty ; curious : - but he is careful not to insinuate that
the old Greek Mythists had any notion of lecturing about

the ' Philosophy of Criticism' ! On the whole, we must

leave those boundless regions. Cannot we conceive that
Odin was a reality ? Error indeed, error enough : but sheer
falsehood, idle fables, allegory aforethought, — we will not
believe that our Fathers believed in these. lo

Odin's KiiiiiS are a significant feature of him. Runes,
.md the miracles of ' magic ' ho worked by them, make a
great feature in tradition. Runes are the Scandinavian
Alphabet; suppose Odin to have been the inventor of
I.etters, as well as 'magic,' among that people! It is the
greatest invention man has ever made, this of marking-
down^ the unseen thought that is in him by written char-
acters. It is a kind of second speech, almost as miraculous
as the first. Vou remember the astonishment and incre-
dulity of Atahualpa, the Peruvian King ; how he made the 20
Spanish Soldier who was guarding him scratch Dios on his
thumb-nail, that he might try the next soldier with it, to
ascertain whether such a miracle was pos:,ible. If Odin
brought Letters among his people, he might work magic
enough !

Writing by Runes has some air of being original among
the Norsemen: not a I'httnician-' Alphabet, but a native
Scandinavian one. Snorro tells us farther that Odin
invented Poetry ; the music of human speech, as well as
that miraculous runic marking of it. Transport yourselves 3°
into the early childhood of nations ; the first beautiful
morning-light of our Europe, whv-'n all yet lay in fresh young
radiance as of a great sunrise, and our Europe was first

1 JF IF 1 1 ' marking down -11' IP II' I'henician

f 4

, \

W-

Y ■■ »

I:.!!!

LECTLRES ON HEROES

%:.

•!?'

I*:

beginning to think, to be ! Wonder, hope ; infinite radiance
of hope and wonder, as of a young child's thoughts, in the
hearts of these strong men ! Strong sons of Nature; and
here was not only a wild Captain and Fighter; discerning
with his wild flashing eyes what to do, with his wild lion-
heart daring and doing it ; but a Poet too, all that we mean
by a Poet, Prophet, great devout Thinker and Inventor,
as the truly Great Man ever is. A Hero is a Hero at all
points ; in the soul and thought of him first of all. I'his

»o Odin, in his rude semi-articulate way, had a word to speak.
A great heart laid open to take in this great Universe, and
man's Life here, and utter a great word about it. A Hero,
as I say, in his own rude manner; a wise, gifted, noble-
hearted man. And now, if we still admire such a man
beyond all others, what must these wild Norse souls, fi .
awakened into thinking, have made of him ! To them, is
yet without names for it, he was noble and noblest ; Hero,
Prophet, God ; Wttotan, the greatest of all. Thought is
Thought, however it speak or spell itself. Intrinsically, I

20 conjecture, this Odin must have been of the same sort of
stuff as the greatest kind of men. A great thought in the
wild deep heart of him ! The rough words he articulated,
are they not the rudimental roots of those English words
we still use .' He worked so, in that obscure element. I5ut
he was as a light kindled in it; a light of Intellect, rude
Nobleness of heart, the only kind of lights ' we have yet ;
a Hero, as I say : and he had to shine there, and make his
obscure element a little lighter, — as is still the task of us all.
We will fancy him to be the Type Norseman^; the finest

30 Teuton whom that race had yet produced. The rude Norse
heart burst-up ^ into /'('////r/'/fjj- admiration round him; into

iH' 11= the only light

''H' Type-Norseman; 11= Type-Northman;

3H' H=H^ burst up

THE IIEKO AS DIVINITY

)

adoration. He is as a root of so many great tilings ; the
fruit of liim is found growing, from deep thousands of ycHrs,
over the whole field of 'i'eutonic Life. Our own Wednes-
day, as I said, is it not still Odin'.s Day' Wcdnesbury,
Wansborough, Wanstead, Wandsworth: Odin grew into
Kngland too, these are still leaves from that lOot ! He v as
the Chief (lod to all the Teutonic I'eoples, their I'attein
Norseman ; - in such way did tliiv admire their Pattern
Norseman'; that was the fortune he had in the world.

Thus if the man Odin himself have vanished utterly, lo
there is this huge Shadow of him which still projects it.self
over the whole History of his I'eople. For this Odin
once admitted lo be God, we can understand well that the
whole Scandinavian Scheme of Nature, or dim No-scheme,
whatever it might before have been, would now begin to
develop'^ itself altogether differently, and grow thenceforth
in a new manner. What this Odin saw into, and tausrht
with his runes and his rhymes, the whole Teutonic People
laid to heart and carried forward. His wav of thought
became their way of thought : — such, under now conditions, 20
is the history of every great thinker still. In gigantic
confused lineaments, like some enormous camera-c bscura
shadow thrown upwards from tlic dead deeps of the Past,
and covering the wliole Northern Heaven, is not that
Scandinavian Mythology in soiae sort the Portraiture of
this man Odin ? The gigantic image of his natural face,
legible or not legible ther*;, expanded and confused in that
manner! .\h, 'Thought, I say, is always Thought. No great
man lives in vain. 'The History of the world is but the
Biography of great men. ;,c

To me there is something very touching in this primeval
tigure of Heroism ; in such artless, helpless, but hearty entire
leeeption of a iiero by his fellow -men. Never so iielpless

' IP If Northman -II' IT ; I ' tUvt'loiJe

mam

LECTURES ON HEROES

IK. '■'

in shape, it is the noblest of feelings, and a feeling in some
shape or other perennial as man himself. If I could show '
in any measure, what I feel deeply for a long time now,
That it is the vital element of manhood, the soul of man's
history here in our world, — it would be the chief use of this
discoursing at present. We do not now call our great men
Gods, nor admire loitlwiit limit ; ah no, with limit enough !
But if we have no great men, or do not admire at all, — that
were a still worse case.

n This poor Scandinavian Hero-worship, that whole Norse
way of looking at the Universe, and adjusting oneself there,
has an indestructible merit for us. A rude chi'dlike way of
recognising the divineness of Nature, the divineness of
Man ; most rude, yet heartfelt, robust, giantlike; betokening

what a giant of a man this child would yet grow to ! It "

was a truth, and is none. Is it not as the half-dumb stifled
voice of the long-buried generations of our own Fathers,
calling out of the depths of ages to us, in whose veins their
blood still runs: "This then, this is what u>c made of the

;o world : this is all the image and notion we could form to
ourselves of this great mystery of a Life and Universe.
Despise it not. You are raised high above it, to lar"-e free
scope of vision ; but you too are not yet at the top. No,
your notion too, so much enlarged, is but a partial, imper-
fect one : that matter is a thing no man will ever, in time
or out of time, comprehend; after thousands of years of
ever-new expansion, man will find himself but struggling to
comprc-hend again a part of it: the thing is larger than
man, not to be comprehended by him ; an Infinite thing ! "

30 The essence of the Scandinavian, as indeed of all Pagan
Mythologies, wl- found to be recognition of the divineness
of Nature ; sincere comnuinion of man with the mysterious
'II' 11^ IP shew 2Ii' \v II' to! It

THE HERO AS DIVINITY

invisible Powers visibly seen at work in the world round
him. This, I should say, is more sincerely done in the
Scandinavian than in any Mythology I know. Sincerity
is the great characterist'.J of it. Superior sincerity (far
superior) consoles us for the total want of old (Irecian
grace. Sincerity, I think, is better than grace. I feel that
these old Northmen were looking into Nature with open eye
ana ^oul : most earnest, honest ; childlike, and yet manlike ;
with a great-hearted ' simplicity and depth and freshness, in
a true, loving, admiring, unfearing way. A right valiant, ic
true old race of men. Such recognition of Nature' one-
finds to be the chief element of Paganism: recognition of
Man, and his Moral Duty, though this too is not wanting,
comes to be the chief element only in purer forms of reli-
gion. Here, indeed, is a great distinction and epoch in
Human Beliefs; a great landmark in the religious develop-
ment of Mankind. Man lirst puts himself in relation with
Nature and her Powers, wonders and worships over those;
not till a later epoch does he discern that all Power is
Moral, that the grand point is the distinction for him of 20
Good and F.vil, of Thou sJuilt and Tltoii shalt not.

With regard to all these fabulous delineations in the
EMi, I will remark, moreover, as indeed was already hinted,
that most probably they must have been of much newer
date ; most probably, even from the first, were compara-
tively idle for the old Norseman, and as it were a kind of
Pot^'^" sport. Allegory and Poetic Delineation, as I said
above, cannot be religious Faith ; the Faith itself must
first be there, then Allegory enough will gather round it,
as the fit body round its soul. The Norse Faith, I can well 30
suppose, like other Faiths, was most active while it lay
mainly in the silent state, and \vm\ not yet much to say
about itself, still less to sing.

Ill' 1'- II'grcalhL-artfd

! I

LECTURES ON ItEKOES

iiH

Among those shadowy R,ida matters, a.r.iJ all that fan
tastic congeries of assertions, and traditions in their m-isiral
Mythologies, the main practical belief a man - ave

was probably not much more than this: of the . . . ./-jand
the Ilall of Oiiiii; of an inflexible Destiny; and that th ■
one thing needful for a man was to be hrmc The I'alkyrs
are Choosers of the Slain: a Destiny inexorable, which it
is useless trying to bend or soften, has appointed who is
to be slain; this was a fundamental point for the Norse
10 believer; — as iiuleed it is for all earnest men everywhere,
.for a Mahomet, a Luther, for a Napoleon too. It lies at
the basis this for every such man ; it is the woof out of
which his whole system of thought is woven. The Valkxrs ;
and then that these Choosers lead the brave to a heavenly
Hall of Odin; only the base and slavish being thrust else-
whither, into the realms of Hela the Death-goddess . I take
this to have been the soul of the whole Norse Belief. They
understood in their heart that it was indispensable to be
brave; that Odin would have no favour for them, but
20 despise and thrust them out, if they were not brave. Con-
sider too whether there is not something in this ! It is an
everlasting duty, valid in our day as in that, the duty of
being brave. Valour is still value. The first duty for a
man is still that of subduing Fear. We must get rid of
Fear; we cannot act at all till then. A man's acts are
slavish, not true but specious ; his very thoughts are false,
he thinks too as a slave and coward, till he have got Fear
under his feet. Odin's creed, if we disentangle the real
kernel of it, is true to this hour. A man shall and must be
30 valiant ; he must march forward, and quit himself like a
man, — trusting imperturbably in the appointment and
choice of the upper Powers ; and, on the whole, not fear at
all. Now and always, the completeness of his victory over
Fear will determine how much of u man he is.

THE HERO AS D/r/X/TY

It is doubtless very savage that kind of valour of the old
Northmen. Snorro tells us they thouj^ht it a shame and
misery not to die in battle ; and if natural death seemed to
be coming on, they would cut wounds in their flesh, that
Odin might receive them as warriors slain. Old kings,
about to die, had their body laid into a ship; the ship sent
forth, with sails set and slow fire burning it ; that, once
out at sea, it might blaze-up' in flame, and in such manner
bury worthily the old hero, at once in the sky and in the
ocean ! Wild bloody valour ; yet valour of its kind ; better, lo
I say, than none. In the old Sea-kings too, what an indom-
itable rugged energy ! Silent, with closed lip>, as I fancy
them, unconscious that they were specially brave ; defying
the wild ocean with its monsters, and all men and things ;

— progenitors of our own IMakes and Nelsons ! No Homer
sang these Norse Sea-kings ; but Agamemnon's was a small
audacity, and of small fruit in the world, to some of them ;

— to Hrolf's of Normandy, for instance ! Hrolf, or Rollo
Duke of Normandy, the wild Sea-king, has a share in gov-
erning England at this hour. 20

Nor was it altogether nothing, even that wild sea-roving
and battling, through so many generations. It needed to
be ascertained which was the strt>/ii^i-sl kind of men ; who
were to be ruler over whom. Among the Northland Sover-
eigns, too, I find some who got the title IVootf-cuttcr ;
Forest-felling Kings. Much lies in that. I suppose at
bottom many of them were forest-fellers as well as fighters,
though the Skalds talk mainly of the latter, — misleading
certain critics not a little ; for no nation of men could ever
live by fighting alone; there could not produce enough 30
come out of that ! I suppose the right good fighter was
oftenest also the right good forest-feller, the right good
improver, discerner, doer and worker in every kind ; for

i t :-"*J

I: I

1 H« W IV blaze up

LKCTURKS OX l/EROKS

1 ,■'

true valour, different enouprh from ferocity, is the basis of
all. A more L-itimate itind of valour that ; showing' ' itself
against the untamed lorests and dari< brute Powers of
Nature, to conquer Nature for us. In the same direction
have not we their descendants since carried it far .' May
.such valour last forever with us !

That the man Odin, speaking with a Hero's voice and
heart, as with an impressiveness out of Heaven, told his
People the infinite importance of Valour, how m.an thereby
to became a god ; and that his People, feeling a response to it
in their own hearts, believed this message of his, and thought
it a message out of Heaven, and him a Divinity for telling
it them: this s.jems to me the primary seed grain of the
Norse Religion, from which all manner of mythologies, sym-
bolic practices, speculations, allegories, songs and sagas
would naturally grow. (Jrow, - how strangely ! I called
it a small light shining and shaping in the huge vortex of
Norse darkness. Yet the darkness itself was ulirc ; con-
sider that. It was the eager inarticulate uninstructed Mind
20 of the whole Norse People, longin- only to become articu-
late, to go on articulating ever farther ! The living doctrine
grows, grows; — like a Hanyan-tree ; the tirst sad is the
essential thing: any branch strikes itself down into the
earth, becomes a new root ; and so, in endless complexity,
we have a wh le wood, a whole jungle, one seed the parent
of it all. Was not the whole Xorse Religion, accordingly,
in some sense, what we called 'the enormous shadow of
this man's likeness'.' Critics trace some affinity in some
Norse mythuses, of the Creation and suchlike,* with those
3° of the Hindoos. The Cow .Adumbia, 'licking the rime
from the rocLs,' has a kind of Hindoo look. A Hindoo
Cow, transported into frosty countries. Probably enough ;
indeed we may say undoubtedly, these things will have a
» II' IP Hi shewing ^ II> IP Hi such like

r///; iiEh'o AS /i/r/x/ry

j'>

kindred with the remotest linds, with the earliest timea.
Thoiijjht does not die, Init only is changed. I'he Hrst man
that be«;m to think in this I'lanet of ours, he was the
beginner ot all. And then the second man, and the third
man; — nay, every true Thinker to this hour is a kind of
Odin, teaches men ///.r way of tliouj, .. spreads a shadow
of his own likeness over sections of the History of the
World.

Of the distinctive poetic character or merit of this Norse
Mythology I have not room to speak ; imr does it concern "c
us much. Some wild I'rophecies we have, as the Voluspa ' in
the I'.l.lir /u/ifti ; of a rapt, earnest, sil)\ Mine sort. iJut they
were comparatively an idle adjunct of tiie matter, men who
as it were but toyed with the matter, these later Skalds ;
and it is t/uir son<,'s chiefly that survive. In later centu-
ries, I suppose, they would <,'o on sinj^'inj;, poetically symbol-
ising,'' as our modern I'ainters paint, wiien it was no longer
from the innermost heart, or not from the heart at all.
This is every here to be well kept in mind.

Gray's fragments of Norse Lore, at any rate, will give :;c
one no notion of it ; — any more than i'ope will of Homer.
It is no square-built gloomy palace of black ashlar marble,
shrouded in awe and horror, as Oray gives it us : no ; rough
as the North rocks, as the Iceland deserts, it is ; with a
heartiness, homeliness, even a tint of good humour ' and
robust mirth in the middle of these fearful things. The
strong old Norse heart did not go upon theatrical sublimi-
ties; they had not time to tremble. I like much iheir
robust simplicity ; their veracity, directness of conception.
Thor 'draws down his brows' in a veritable Norse rage; 3'
•grasps his hammer till the i-'fUiMs- ^r'tno ivh.Ht-: Heautiful

' II' IF II' ILtvawal '^ 11' II-' II ' synil.olizing

• II' HMI'goodhumour

i n

/.KCTirRt-S ox /fHKOFS

■I

traits of p'' oo, an hone»t pity. Ibhlcr • the white (lod '
dies; ♦' . -tMutifuI, l»eni},'nant ; he is the Sungod. They
try all Nature for a remedy ; but he is dead. Frigga, his
mother, sends Hermoder ' to seek or see him: nine days
and nine nights he rides through gloomy deep valleys, a
labyrinth of gloom ; arrives at the Bridge with its gold
roof : the Keeper says, " \es, Haider did pass here ; but
the Kingdom of the Dead is down yonder, far towards
the North." Hermodtr "^ rides on ; leaps Hell-gate, Mela's
10 gate ; does see Haider, and speak with him: Haider cannot
be delivered. Inexorable ! Hela will not, for ( )din or any
God, give him up. The beautiful and gentle has to 'emain
there. His Wife had volunteered to go with him, to die
with him. They shall forever remain there. He sends
his ring to Odin; Nanna his wife sends her thimble to
Frigga, as a remembrance'' — Ah me ! —

For indeed Valour is the fountain of I'ity too; — of
Truth, and all that is great and good in man. The robust
homely vigour of the Norse heart attaches one much, in
20 these delineat.ons. .s it not a trait of right honest strength,
says Uhland, who has written a tine Ajj./.i -t I'hor, tiiat
the old N(jrse heart finds its friend in the Thunder-god ?
'rh.a it is not frightened away by his thunder ; but finds
that Summer-heat, the beautiful noble summer, must and
will have thunder withal ! The Norse heart loves this i'hor
and his hammer-bolt ; sports with him. Thor is Summer-
heat ; the god of Peaceable Industry as well as Thunder.
He is the Peasant's friend ; his true henchman and attend-
ant is 'ThiaUi, Mamuil Labour. I'hor himself engages in
30 all manner of rough manual work, scorns no business for
its plebeianism ; is ever and anon travelling to the country
of the Jotuns, harrying those c'^.aotic Frost-monsters, sub-

1 H' 11=' llerniode - II' H^' llermode

' II* W IP remembrance. —

Tllh tlllh'O AS nirixiTY

duinjj them, at least .straitening and damaging them.
The 2 is a great hroad humour in «,ome of these things.

Thor, as we saw above, goes to jotun-land, to seek
Hymir's Caldron,' that the (lods may brew beer. Hymir
the huge (Jiant tnters his gray beard all full of hoar-frost ;
splits pillars with the very glance of his eye ; I'hor, after
much rough tumult, snatches the I'ot, claps it on his head ;
the 'handles of it reach down to his heels' The Norse
Skald has a kind of loving sport with i'hor. This is the
Hymir whose cattle, the critics have discovered, arc Ice- lo
bergs. Huge untutored Ilrobdignag genius, needing only
lo be tamed-down-; into Shakspeares, Dantes, (loethes!
It is all gone now, that old N'orsc work, — I'hor the
Thunder-god ' changed into J.u;k the (liant-killcr : but the
mind that made it is here yet. How strangely things grow,
and die, and do not die ! There are twigs of that great
world-tree of Norse Belief still curiously traceable. This
poor Jack of the Nursery, with his miraculous shoes of
swiftness, coat of darkness, sword of sharpness, he is one.
Ilymh- Etbi,^ and still more decisively Kid Ktin <>/ /tr/anJ, in 20
the Scottish Hallads. these a»e both derived from Norseland ;
/■Ifin is evidently a Jotitn.'' Nay, Shakspeare's Iliimkt is a
twig too of this same world-tree ; there seems no doubt of
that. Hamlet, Amktli, I find, is really x mythic person.age ;
and his Tragedy, of the poisoned Father, poisoned asleep
by drops in his ear, and the rest, is a xNorse mythus ! Old
Saxo, as his wont was, made it a Danish history ; Shaks-
peare, out of Saxo, made it what we see. That is a twig
of the world-tree that has ^vvti-//, I think; -by nature or
accident that one has grown ! 30

.1 .,

m^ -^

' H' 11= IP Cauldron J !!• \\- \V tamed down

^ 11' H- ll^Thundergod

* < IP W IP Chil.if Etitt in the .Scottish IJallads is a Xorse mythus;
l:tiH was a Jotuii.

l:i

■1

''i

1 S

|; iV

LECTURES OX HEROES

In fact, these old Norse songs have a /////// in them, an
inward perennial truth and greatness, — as, indeed, all
must have that can very long preserve itself by tradition
alone. It is a greatness not of mere body and gigantic
bulk, but a rude greatness of soul. There is a sublime
uncomplaining melancholy traceable in these old hearts.
A great free glance into the very deeps of thought. They
seem to have seen, these brave old Northmen, what medi-
tation has taught all men in all ages. That this world is
lo after all but a show,' — a phenomenon or appearance, no
real thing. All deep souls see into that, -the Hindoo
Mythologist, the (lerman Philosopher, — the Shakspeare,
the earnest Thinker, wherever he may be :

' We are such stuff as Dreams are made of ! '

One of Thor's expeditions, to Utgard (the (9// /tv- Garden,
central seat of Jotun-land), is remarkable in this respect.
Thialfi was with him, and Loke. After various adventures,
they entered upon Giant-land ; wandered over plains, wild
uncultivated places, among stones and trees. At nightfall

20 they noticed a house ; and as the door, which indeed formed
one whole side of the house, was open, they entered. It
was a simple habitation ; one large hall, altogether empty.
They stayed '■' there. Suddenly in the dead of the night loud
noises alarmed them. Thor grasped his hammer; stood in
the door, prepared for fight. His companions within ran
hither and thitlier in their terror, seeking some outlet in
that rude hall ; they found a little closet at last, and took
refuge there. Neither had Thor any battle : for, lo, in
the morning it turned-out* that the noise l.id been only

30 the sHori/if^ of a certain enormous but peaceable Giant, the
Giant Skrymir, who lay peaceably sleeping near by ; and

» il' IIMl^shew - 11' ll^staiil Unstayed

' H' 11== H' turned out

TJiK ih-:ko as D/y/jv//y

this thai they took for a h(jusc was merely his G/otc, thrown
aside there ; the door was tliu (ilove-wrist ; the little closet
they had Hed into was the Thumb! Such a glove ; — I
remark too that it 'lad not tin-ers as ours have, but only a
thumb, and the • ct ujuiivld^^d : a most ancient, rustic glove !
Skrymir no- carried thc.r portmanteau all day; Thor,
however, had .is own suspi :ions, did not like the ways of
Skrymir; deter... .t.^d ^i n'"ght to put an end to him as he
slept Raising his hammer, he struck down into the Giant's
face a right thunderbolt blow, of force to rend rocks. The lo
Giant merely awoke; rubbed his check, and said. Did a
leaf fall ? Again Thor struck, so soon as Skrymir again
slept; a better blow than before; but the Giant only mur-
mured, Was that a grain of sand ? Thor's third stroke was
with both his hands (the 'knuckles white ' I suppose), and
seemed to dint deep into Skrymir's visage ; but he merely
checked his snore, and remarked. There must be sparrows
roosting in this tree, I think ; what is that they have dropt ?
— At the gate of Utgard, a place so higli that you had
to 'strain your neck bending back to see the top of it,' 20
Skrymir went his ways. Thor and his companions were
admitted ; invited to take share in the games going on.
To Thor, for his part, they handed a Drinking-horn; it
was a common feat, they told him, to drink this dry at one
draught. Long and fiercely, three times over, Thor drank;
but made hardly any impression. He was a weak child,
they told him : could he lift that ("at he saw there ? Small
as the feat seemed, Thor with his whole godlike strength
could not ; he bent-up' the creature's back, could nf)t raise
its feet off the ground, could at the utmost raise one foot. 30
Why, you are no man, said the Utgard people ; there is an
f )ld Woman that will wrestle you ! Thor, heartily ashamed,
seized this haggard Old Woman ; but cuuld not ihrow her.'
> H' IF H^ bent up

•^■t"'Hl

1 1;

LECTURES OX HEROES

And now, on their quitting Utgard, the chief Jotun,
escor'ing them politely a little way, said to Thor: "You
are beaten then : — yet be not so much ashamed ; there was
deception of appearance in it. That Horn you tried to
drink was the Sea ; you did make it ebb ; but who could dr.nk
that, the bottomless ! The Cat you would have lifted, —why,
that is the Mids^ard-snakc, the Great World-serpent, which,
tail in mouth, girds and keeps-up* the whole created world;
had you torn that up, the world must have rushed to ruin !

10 As for the Old Woman, she was Thne, Old Age, Duration :
with her what can wrestle ? No man nor no god with her ;
gods or men, she prevails over all ! And then those three
strokes you struck, — look at these ///m- T'«//fj.f ; your three
strokes made these ! " Thor looked at his attendant Jotun :
it was Skrymir; it was, say Norse critics, the old chaotic
rocky Earth in person, and that glove-Zw/ziV was some
Earth-cavern! But Skrymir had vanished; Utgard with
its skyhigh gates, when Thor grasped his hammer to smite
them, had gone to air ; only the Giant's voice was heard

20 mocking : " Better come no more to Jotunheim ! " —

This is of the allegoric period, as we see, and half play,
not of the prophetic and entirely devout : but as a mythus
is there not real antique Xorse gold in it ? More true
metal, rough from the Mimer-stithy, than in many a famed
Greek Mythus shaped far better ! A great broad Brobdig-
nag grin of true humour is in this Skrymir; mirth resting
on earnestness and sadness, as the rainbow on black tem-
pest : only a right valiant heart is capable of that. It is
the srrim humour of our own ISen Jonson, rare old Ben ;

30 runs in the blood of us, I fancy : for one catches tones of

t of the American Back-

it, under a still other
woods.

ipe.

That is also a very striking conception that of the Kag
1 11' H^ 11' keeps up

THE HERO AS DIVINITY

narok, ( onsummation, or 'Iwiliglit of the Gods. It is in the
Voluspa ' Song ; seemingly a very old, prophetic idea. The
Gods and Jotuns, the divine I'owers and the chaotic brute
ones, after long contest and partial victory by the former,
meet at last in universal world-embracing wrestle and duel ;
World-serpent against Thor, strength against strength ;
mutually extinctive ; and ruin, 'twilight ' sinking into dark-
ness, swallows the created Universe. The old Universe
with its Gods is sunk; but it is not final death : there is to
be a new Heaven and a new Karth ; a higher supreme (iod, ic
and Justice to reign among men. Curious: this law of
mutation, which also is a law written in man's inmost
thought, had been deciphered by these old earnest Thinkers
in their rude style ; and how, though all dies, and even
gods die, yet all death is but a phcenix - tire-deaih, and
new-birth into the Greater and the Better! It is the fun-
damental Law of Being for a creature made of lime, living
in this Place of Hope. All earnest men have seen into it ;
may still see into it.

And now - .nnected with this, let us glance at the last 20
mythus oi tearance of Thor ; and end there. I fancy

it to be the a in date of all these fables ; a sorrowinijr

protest against the advance of Christianity, -set forth
reproachfully by some Conservative Pagan. King Olaf
has been harshly blamed for his over-zeal in introducing
Christianity; surely I should have blamed him far more
for an under-zeal in that ! He paid dear enough for it ;
he died by the revolt of his I'agan people, in battle, in the
year 1033, .- -'cickelstad, near that Drontiieim, where the
chief Cathedral of the North has now .stood for many cen- 3c
turie-s, dedicated gratefully to his memory as Saint Olaf.
The mythus about Thor is to this effect. King Olaf, the
Christian Reform King, is sailing with fit escort along the

1 11' 11= IP Ilavamal 2 IP IV W riiccnix

i '■■

I n

LECTURES ON HEROES

fA'^'

shore of Norway, from haven to haven ; dispensinjj justice,
or doinj5 other royal work : on leaving a certain haven, it
is found that a stranger, of grave eyes and aspect, red
beard, of stately robust figure, has stept in. The courtiers
address him ; his answers surprise by their pertinency and
depth : at length he is brought to the King. The stranger's
conversation here is not less remarkable, as they sail along
the beautiful shore ; but after some time, he addresses
King Olaf thus: "Yes, King Olaf, it is all beautiful, with

10 the sun shining on it there ; green, fruitful, a right fair
home for you; and mary a sore day had Thor, many a
wild fight with the rock Jotuns, before he could make it so.
And now you seem minded to put away Thor. King Olaf,
have a care ! " said the stranger, drawing-dov.n * his brows ;
— and when they looked again, he was nowhere to be
found. — This is the last appearance of Thor on the stage
of this world !

Do we not see well enough how the Fable might arise,
without unveracity on the part of any one t It is the way

20 most (iods have come to appear among men : thus, if in
Pindar's time ' Neptune was once seen at the Nemean
Games,' what was this Neptune too but a ' stranger of noble
grave aspect,' — fit to be 'seen'! I'liere is something
pathetic, tragic f(>r me in this last voice of Paganism.
Thor is vanished, the whole Norse world has vanished ;
and will not return ever again. In like fashion to that pass
away the highest things. All things that have been in
this world, all things that are or will be in it, have to van-
ish : we have our sad farewell to give them.

30 That Norse Religion, a rude but earnest, sternly impres-
sive Consecration of Valour (so we may define it), sufficed
for these old valiant Northmen. Consecration of Valour
is not a bad thing ! Wo will take it for good, so far as it

II' W IF drawing down

THE IIEKO AS DIVINITY

goes. Neither is there no use in knowing something about
this old Paganism of our Fathers. Unconsciously, and
combined with higher things, it is in us yet, that old Faith
withal ! To know it consciously, brings us into closer and
clearer relation with the Past, — with our own possessions
in the Past. For the whole Past, as I ke» ,j repeating, is
the possession of the Present ; the Past had always some-
thing tnu\ and is a precious possession. In a different
time, in a different place, it is always some other side of
our common Human Nature that has been developing 'c
itself. The actual True is the sum of all these ; not any
one of them by itself constitutes what of Human Nature is
hitherto developed. Better to know them all than misknow
them. " To which of these Three Religions do you spe-
cially adhere ? " inquires Meister of his Teacher. " To all
the Three ! " answers the other : " To all the Three ; for
they by their union first constitute the True Religion."

\ r

LKCTURK [l

TUK UKRO AS I'ROIMIKI'.

MAiioMr.r: islam

[Friday, 8th May 1.S40.] '

From the first rude times of I'aganism among the Scan-
dinavians in the North, we advance to a verv different
epoch of religion, among a very ditierent people: Mahom-
etanism among the Arabs. A great change ; what a change
and progress is indicated here, in the universal condition
and thoughts of men !

The Hero is not now regarded as a God among his fel-
low-men ; but as one God-inspired, as a Prophet. It is the
second phasis of Hero-worship : the first or oldest, we
10 may say, has passed away without return ; in the history
of the world there will not again be any man, never so
great, whom his fellow-men will take for a god. Nay we
might rationally ask, Did any set of human beings ever
really think the man they sa-to there standing beside them
a god, the maker of this world .' Perhaps not ; it was
usually some man they remembered, or had seen. Hut
neither can this" any more" be. The Great Man is not
recognised henceforth as a god any more.

It was a rude gross error, that of counting the (ireat

20 Man a god. Yet let us say that it is at all times difficult to

know 7i<hat he is, or how to account of him and receive

him ! The most significant feature in the history of an

epoch is the manner it has of welcoming a Great Man.

1 11' H' W dale ahmr till,-

211' IP IP this, anymore.

THE Iff: NO AS Ph'OrifET

Ever, to the true instincts of men, there is something god-
like in him. Whether they shall take him to he a god, to
be a prophet, or what they shall take lum to l)e ? that is
ever a grand (piestion ; by their way of answering that, we
shall see, as through a little window, into the very heart of
these men's spiritual condition, lor at bottom tlie (Ireat
Man, as he jomes from tlie hand of Nature, is ever th';
same kind of thing: Odin, I.uther, Johnson, IJurns ; I
hope to make it appear that these are all originally of one
stuff ; that only by the world's reception of them, and the ic
shapes they assume, are they so immeasurably diverse.
The worship of Odin astonishes us, — to fall prostrate
before the Great Man, into iLliqitium of love and wonder
over him, and feel in their hearts that he was a denizen of
the skies, a god ! This was imperfect enough : but to wel-
come, for example, a Burns as we did, was that what we
can call perfect .' The most precious gift that Heaven can
give to the Earth; a man of 'genius' as we call it; the
Soul of a Man. actually sent down from the skies with a
God's-message TO us, — this we waste away as an idle arti- 20
ficial firework, sent to amuse us a little, and sink it into
ashes, wreck and ineffectuality : such reception of a Great
Man I do not call very perfect ' either ! Looking into the
heart of the thing, one may perhaps call that of lJurns a
still uglier phenomenon, betokening still sadder imperfec-
tions in mankind's ways, than the .Scandinavian method
itself ! To fall into mere unreasoning delitjiiium of love
and admiration, was not good ; but such unreasoning, nay
irrational supercilious no-love at all is perhaps still worse !
— It is a thing forever changing, this of Hero-worship: 3c
different in each age, difficult to do well in any age. Indeed,
the heart of the whole business of the age, one may say, is
to do it well.

' H' IP I all perfect 11' call very perfect

LECTURES OX HEROES

VN'c have chosen Mahomet not as the most eminent
Prophet ; but as the or we are freest to speak of. He is by
no means the truest of I'rophets ; but I do esteem him a
true one. Farther, as there is no danjjtr of our becominj^,
any of us, Mahometans, I mean to say all the good of him
I justly can. It is the way to <jet at his secret: let us
try to understand what he meant with the world ; what
the world meant and means with him, will then be a
more answerable question. Our current hypothesis about

10 Mahomet, that he was a scheming Impostor, a Falsehood
incarnate, that his religion is a mere mass of quackery and

* fatuity, begins really to be now untenable to any one. The
lies, which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man,
are disgraceful to ourselves only. When Pococke inquired
of (Irotius, Where the proof was of that story of the pigeon,
trained to pick peas from Mahomet's ear, and pass for an
ano-el dictatin<£ to him ? Grotius answered that there was
no proof ! It is really time to dismiss all that. The word
this man spoke has been the life-guidance now of a hundred-

20 and-eighty ' millions of men these twelve-hundred" years.-
These hundred-and-eighty millions were made by God as
well as we. A greater number of God's creatures believe
in Mahomt-f s word at this hour than in any other word
whatever. .\rc we to suppose that it was a miserable piece
of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of
the Almighty have lived by and died by ? I, for my part,
cannot form any such supposition. I will believe most
things sooner than that. One would be entirely at a loss
*hat to think of this world at all, if quackery so grew and
JO wcf*' sanctioned here.

Ala* such theories are very lamentable. If we would
attain to Knowledge of anything in God's true Creation, lei
us disbelieve them wholly! They are the product of an
> H' H' H' hundred and eighty - 11' II' IF twelve hundred

Till. iiEKo AS rnoriiiyr

Age of Scepticism ; they ' indiciitc the siuUicsl spiritual
paralysis, and mere death-life of the souls of men : more
godless theory, I think, was never promulgated in this
Karth. A false man found a religion ? Why, a false man
cannot build a brick house ! If he do not know and follow
tritly the properties of mortar, burnt clay and wIkxI else he
works in, it is no house that he makes, but a rubbish-heap.
It will not stand for twelve centuries, to lod;;e a hundred-
and-eighty- millions; it will fall strai-^htway. A man must
conform himself to Nature's laws. A- verily in connnunion lo
with Nature and the truth of thinj^s, or Nature will answer
him, No, not at all! Speciosities are specious - ah me!
— a C'agliostro, many Cagliostros, prominent world-leaders,
do prosper by their cpiackery, for a day. It is like a forged
bank-note ; they get it passed out of ///(V/ worthless hands:
others, not they, have to smart for it. Nature bursts-up'' in
fire-flames, French Revolutions and suchlike,^ proclaiming
with terrible veracity that forged notes are forged.

But of a (ireat Man especially, of him I will venture to
assert that it is incredible he should have been other than 20
true. It seems to me the primary foundation of him, and
of all that can lie in him, this. No Mirabeau, Napoleon,
Burns, Cromwell, no man adequate to do anything, but is
hrst of all in ri.,iit earnest about it; what I call a sincere
man. I should say sincerity, a deep, great, genuine sincTfr^ ^
ity, is the first characteristic of all men in any way heroic, j
Not the sincerity that calls itself sincere; ah no, that is a'
very poor matter indeed ; —a shallow br.aggart conscious'
sincerity; oftenest self-conceit mainly. The (Ireat Man's
sincerity is of the kind he cannot speak of, is not conscious 3°
of: nay, I suppose, he is conscious rather of ///sincerity;
for what man can walk accurately by the law of truth for

Pi^ A

i«<.///;H'. IP HMhey

2 H" II' IP hundred and eighty

' IP H= H' bursts up
< H' W IP such like

■■■

1, 1

'^'•ri . I

LECTL'KES OX IH.KOF.S

one day ? No, the (ireat Man does not boast iiimself sin-

I cere, far from that ; perha|)s does not ask himself if he is
so : I would say rather, his sincerity does not depend on

/ himself; he cannot help bLin<; sincere! The j;reat Fact of
Kxistence is jjreat to him. i'ly as he will, he cannot get
out of the awful presence of this Reality. His mind is so

I made ; he is jjreat by that, first of all. Fearful and won-

I derful, real as F-ife, real as Death, is this Universe to h\m.

Though all men shou'd forget its truth, and walk in a vain

lo show, he cann(»t. At all moments the Flame-ima^e glares-

J in' upon him; undeniable, there, there! — I wish you to

/ take this as my primary definition of a Great Man. A

, little man may have this, it is competent to all men that

(Jod has made; but a (Ireat Man cannot be without it.

Such a man is what we call an ori^iiiii/ man ; he comes
to us at first-hand." A messenger he, seht from the Infinite
Unknov, i with tidings to us. We may call him I'oet,
I'ropliiit, (od ; — in one way or other, we all feel that the
words he utters are as no other man's word.s. Direct from

.:o the Inner Fact of things; — he lives, and has to live, in
daily communion with that. Hearsays cannot hide it from
him; he is blind, homeless, miserable, following hearsays;
// glares-in " upon him. Really his utterances, are they not
a kind of 'revelation ;' — what we must call such for want
of some other name ? It is from the heart of the world
that he comes ; he is portion of the primal reality of things.
God has made many revelations : but this man too, has
not God made him, the latest and newest of all ? The
'inspiration of the Almighty giveth /lim understanding:'

30 we must listen before all to him.

This Mahomet, then, we will in no wise consider as an
Inanity and Theatricality, a poor conscious ambitious

» H' 11= H' glares in M I' 11= H> first hand 'i II' H' H^ glares in

W^.

\ ■ tf

THE nh.Ko AS rh'o /'///■:/'

schemer; \vi: cannot conceive him so. The riule message
he delivered was .a real one withal ; an earnest confused
voice from the unknown Deep. The man's words were not
false, nor his workinjjs here below ; no Inanity and Simula-
crum ; a fiery mass of F,ife cast-up' from the j;reat bosom of
Nature herself. To kin,//,- the world; the world's Maker
had ordered it so. Neither can the faults, imperfections,
insincerities even, of Mahomet, if such were never so well
proved against him, shake this ,,rimary fact about him.

On the whole, we make too much of £4n,lts ; the details lo
of the business hide the real centre of it. Faults? The
greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none.
Readers of the Hible above all, one would think, might
know bett'-'r. Who is called there 'the man according to
(lod's own heart'? David, the Hei)rew Kia;;, had fallen
into sins enough; blackest crimes; there was no want (»f
sins. And thereupon the unl)elievers sneer and ask, Is this
your man according to (lod's heart? The sneer, I must
say, seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults, what
are the outward details of a life; if theTnner secret "of it, 2a
the remorse, "temptations, true, often-baflled, never-ended
struggle of it, be forgotten ? ' It is not in man that walketii
to direct his steps.' Of all acts, is not, for a man, y.-peitUvhc
the most divine ? The deadliest sin, I say, were that same
supercilious consciousness of no sin ; that is death ; the
heart so conscious is divorced from sincerity, humility and
fact ; is dead : it is ' pure ' as dead dry sand is pure. I )avid's
life and history, as written for us in those Psalms of his, I
consider to be the truest emblem ever given of a man's moral
progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will jc
ever discern in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human
soul toward.s what is good and best. Struggle often baftled,
sore baffled, down as into entire wreck ; yet a struggle never

Mf 11= IP cast up

s»

/./urtK'f'S ox m-.h'ois

ended ; ever, with tears, re|>entance, true iinct>n(|ucral)]e
purpose, he};un anew. Poor human nature ! Is not a man's
walkinj;, in truth, always that: 'a succession of falls'? Man
can do no other. In this wild element of a Life, he has to
struj;gle onwards ; now fallen, deep-abased ; and ever, with
tears, repentance, with bleedin;; heart, he has to rise again,
struggle again still onwards. I'hat his struggle l>c a faithful
unconquerable one : that is the cpiestion of questions. We
will put-up ' with many sad details, if the soul of it were
lo true. Details by themselves will never teach us what it is.
I believe we misestimate- Mahomet's faults even as faults;
but the secret of him will never be got by dwelling there.
We will leave all this behind us; and assuring ourselves
that he did mean some true thing, ask candidly what it was
or might be.

v^S

These .Vrabs Mahomet was born among arc certainly a
notable peo])le. I'heir country itself is notable; the fit
habitation for such a race. Savage inaccessible rock-moun-
tains, great grim deserts, alternating with beautiful strips

20 of verdure: wherever water is, there is greenness, beauty;
odoriferous balm-shrubs, date-trees, frankincense-trees. Con-
sider that wide waste horizon of sand, empty, silent, like a
sand-sea, dividing habitable place from habitable. You are
all alone'there, left alone with the Tniverse ; by day a fierce
sun blazing down on it with intolerable radiance ; by
night the great deeji Heaven with its stars. Such a country
is fit for a swift-handed, deei^-Iiearted race of men. There
is something most agile, active, and yet most meditative,
enthusiastic in the Aral) character. The Persians are

30 called the French of the Fast ; we will call the Arabs
Oriental Italiatis. A :;iftLil iiiibic pciiplc; a people of wild
strong feelings, and of iron restraint over these : the char-

» H' H» W put up a H' mis-estimate

■\

/■/// HI hit AS /'Ai'/'Z/f-:/'

5.<

.icteristic of nohlcmindfdness, ui Kcnius. The wild Itedotiin
welcomes the .stranger to his tent, .is one having ri^^ht lo all
that is there; were it his worst enemy, he will sUy his foal
to treat him, will serve him with sacred hospitality for three
days, will set him fairly on his way ; -and then, by another
law as sacred, kill him if he can. In words too, as in
action. They are not a Nniuacious |)eo|)le, taciturn rather ;
but eloquent, gifted when they do speak. An earnest,
truthful kind of mun. Ilu;y are, as we know, of Jewish
kindred : but with that deadly terrible earnestness of the lo
lews they seem to combine something graceful, brilliant,
which is not Jewish. I hey had ' I'oetic contests ' among
them before the time of .Mahomet. .Sale says, at Ocadh, in
the South of .Arabia, there were yearly fairs, and there, when
the merchandising was done, I'oets sang for prizes: — the
wild people gathered to hear that.

One Jewish quality these .Xrabs manifest ; the outcome of
many or of all high qualities : what we may call religiosity.
From of old they had been zealous worshippers, acc^ording
to their light, rhey worshipped the stars, as .Sabeans ; 20
worshipped many natural objects, ^ recognised them as
symbols, immediate manifestations, of the Maker of Nature.
It was wrong ; and yet not wholly wrong. .Ml (iod's works
are still in a sense symbols of (iod. Do we not, as I urged,
still account it a merit to recognise a certain inexhaustible
significance, 'poetic beauty ' as we name it, in all natural
objects whatsoever ? A man is a poet, and honoured, for
doing that, and speaking or singing it, — a kind of diluted
worship. They had many Prophets, these Arabs ; Teachers
each to his tribe, each according to the light he had. Hut .^0
indeed, have we not from of old the noblest of proofs, still
palpable to every one of us, of wliat devoutness and noble-
mindedness ' had dwelt in these rustic thoughtful peoples >
MI' nohlf-mindedness

!f !

I t

5 !"

5C.

LECTURES OX llEROIiS

Hiblical critics seem aj;;reed that our own Booi of Job^
was written in that region of the world. I call that, apart
from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever
written with pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not
Hebrew ; such a noble universality, different from noble
patriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble Book ;
all men's Book! It is our first, oldest statement of the
never-ending Problem, — man's destiny, and God's ways
with him here in this earth. And all in such free flowing

lo outlines ; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity ; in its
epic melody, and repose of reconcilement. There is the
seeing eye, the mildly understanding heart. So true every-
way ; true eyesight and vision for all things ; material
things no less than spiritual: the Horse, — 'hast thou

I clothed his neck with tliniuh'! f — he 'laiig/is dii the sl.aking
of the spear!' Such living likenesses were never since

/ drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation ; oldest
choral melody as of the heart of mankind ; — so soft, and
great; as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas

20 and stars ! There is nothing written»_I^ think, in the Bible
or out of it, ofequal^terary merit. —

To tTie idolatrous Arabsone of the most ancient universal
objects of worship was that lilack Stone, still kept in the
buildin<r called C'aabah at Mecca. Diodorus Siculus men-
tions this ("aabah in a way not to be mistaken, as the oldest,
most honoured temple in his time ; that is, some half-century
before our Kra. Silvestre de Sacy says there is some likeli-
hood that the Black Stone is an aerolite. In that case,
some man might src it fall out of Heaven ! It stands now

30 beside the Well Zenizem ; the (aabah is built over both.
A Well is in all places a beautiful affecting object, gushing
out like life from the hard earth ; — still more so in those -
hot dry countries, where it is the first condition of being.

1 II' 11= liook of Job

2 IP H» these

THE HERO AS PROPHET

The Well Zemzem has its name from the bubbling sound of
the waters, zcm-zem; they think it is the Well which Hagar
found with her little Ishmael in the wilderness : the aerolite
and it have been sacred now, and had a Caabah over Them,
for thousands of years. A curious object, that Caabah !
There it stands at this hour, in the black cloth-covering
the Sultan sends it yearly; 'twenty-seven cubits high;'
with circuit, with double circuit of pillars, with festoon-rows
of lamps and quaint ornaments : the lamps will be lighted
again this night, — to glitter again under the stars. An lo
authentic fragment of the oldest Past. It is the Kcblah of
all Moslem : from Delhi all onwards to Morocco, the eyes of
innumerable praying men are turned towards //, five times,
this day and all days : one of the notablest centres in the
Habitation of Men.

It had been from the sacredness attached to this Caabah
Stone and Hagar's Well, from the pilgrimings of all tribes
of Arabs thither, that Mecca took its rise as a Town. A
great town once, tiiough much decayed now. It has no I
natural advantage for a town; stands in a sandy hollowirc
amid b^rejparren hills, at a^distanc^ from the sea; its'
provisions, its very bread, have to be imported. But so'
many pilgrims needed lodgings: and then all places of pil-
grimage do, from the first, become places of trade. The
first day pilgrims meet, merchants have also met : where
men see themselves assembled for one ol)ject, they find that
they can accomplish other objects which depend on meet-
ing together. Mecca became the Fair ot all Arabia. And
thereby indeed the chief staple and warehouse of whatever
Commerce there was between the Indian and the Western 3c
countries, Syria, Egypt, even Italy. It had at one time a
population of 100,000; buyers, forwarders of those Eastern
and Western products; importers for their own behoof of pro-
visions and corn. The government was a kind of irregular

..ri

1^ ^

i. '_
'* ■

»-i

: i

LECTURES ON HEROES

1^
aristocratic republic, not witiiout a touch of theocracy.

Ten Men of a chief tribe, chosen in some rough way, were
Governors of Mecca, and Keepers of the Caabah. The
Koreish were the chief tribe in Mahomet's time ; his own
family was of that tribe. The rest of the Nation, frac-
. tioned and cut-asunder ' by deserts, lived under similar rude
patriarchal governments by one or several : herdsmm, car-
riers, traders, generally robbers too; being oftenest at war'*
one with another, or with all: held together by no open

10 bond, if it were not this meeting at the Caabah, where all
forms of Arab Idolatry assembled in conmion adoration ; —
held mainly by the inwqrd indissoluble bond of a common
blood and language. In this way had the Arabs lived for
long ages, unnoticed by the world ; a people of great quali-
ties, unconsciously waiting for the day when they should
become notable to all the world. Their Idolatries appear
to have been in a tottering state ; much was getting into
confusion and fermentation among them. Obscure tidings
of the most important Event ever transacted in this world,

20 the Life and Death of the Divine Man in Judea, at once
the symptom and cause of immeasurable change to all
people in the world, had in the course of centuries reached
into Arabia too ; and could not but, of itself, have produced
fermentation there.

It was among this Arab people, so circumstanced, in the
year 570 of our Kra, that the man Mahomet was born. He
was of the family of Hashem, of the Koreish tribe as we
said ; though poor, connected with the chief persons of his
country. Almost at his birth he lost his Father; at the
30 age of six years his Mother too, a woman noted for her
beauty, her worth and sense : he fell to the charge of his
Grandfather, an old man, a hundred years old. A good old

1 H' W H' cut asunder

2 H' H' IP war,

TfJK HERO AS PKOPHET

man : Mahomet's Father, Abdallah, had been his youngest
favourite son. He saw in Mahomet, with his old life-worn
eyes, a century old, the lost Abdallah come back again, all
that was left of Abdallah. He loved the little orphan Boy
greatly ; used to say, They must take care of that beautiful
little Boy, nothing in their kindred was more precious than
he. At his death, while the boy was still but two years
old, he left him in charge to Abu Thaleb the eldest of the
Uncles, as to him that now was head of the house. By this
Uncle, a just and rational man as everything betokens, lo
Mahomet was brought-up ' in the best Arab way.

Mahomet, as he grew up, accompanied his Uncle on
trading journeys and suchlike **; in his eighteenth year one
finds him a fighter following his Uncle in war. But per-
haps the most significant of all his jourr, ys is one we find
noted as of some years' ^ earlier date : a journey to the F'airs
of Syria. The young man here first came in contact with
a quite foreign world, — • with one foreign element of endless
moment to him : the Christian Religion. I know not what
to make of that ' Sergius, the Nestorian Monk,' whom Abu 20
Thaleb and he are said to have lodged with ; or how much
any monk could have taught one still so young. Probably
enough it is greatly exaggerated, this of the Nestorian
Monk. Mahomet was only fourteen ; had no language but
his own : much in Syria must have been a strange unintel-
ligible whirlpool to him. But the eyes of the lad were
open ; glimpses of many things would doubtless be taken-
in,^ and lie very enigmatic as yet, which were to ripen in a
strange way into views, into beliefs and insights one day.
These journeys to Syria were probably the beginning of 30
much to Mahomet.

One other circumstance we must not forget : that he had

» H" H» H^bro^Rht up
» W IF IP such like

■' II' years

MI' IP IP taken in

!4l

^ 7

ill

i I

i' .

t f^

f t

LECTURES ON HEROES

no school-learning ; of the thing we call school-learning
none at all. The art of writing was but jusf introduced
into Arabia ; it seems to be the true opinion that Mahomet
never could write^ Life in the Desert, with its experiences,
was all his education. What of this infinite Universe he,
from his dim place, with his own eyes and thoughts, could
take in, so much and no more of it was he to know.
Curious, if we will reflect on it, this of having no books.
Except by what he could see for himself, or hear of by

lo uncertain rumour of speech in the obscure Arabian Desert,
he could know nothing. The wisdom that had been before
him or at a distance from him in the world, was in a man-
ner as good as not there for him. Of the great brother
souls, flame-beacons through so many lands and times, no
one directly communicates with this great soul. He is
alone there, deep down in the bosom of the Wilderness ;
has to grow up so, — alone with Nature and his own
Thoughts.

But, from an early age, he had been remarked as a thought-

20 ful man. His companions named him ' Al Amiii, The
Faithful.' .A. man of truth and fidelity ; true in what he
did, in what he spake and tho ight. The^jiojted that /ic
always meant something. A man rather taciturn in speech ;
silent when there was nothing to be said ; but pertinent,
wise, sincere, when he did speak ; always throwing light
on the matter. This is the only sort of speech wort/i
speaking ! Through life we find him to have been regarded
as an altogether solid, brotherly, genuine man. A serious,
sincere character; yet amiable, cordial, companionable,

30 jocose even ; — a good laugh in him withal : there are men
whose laugh is as untrue as anything about them ; who can-
not laugh. One hears of Mahomet's beauty : his fine saga-
cious honest face, brown florid complexion, beaming black
eyes ; — 1 somehow like too that vein 'on the brow, which

THE HERO AS PROPHET

swelled-upi black when he was in anger: like the 'horse-
shoe vein ' in Scott's Kc^i^imntlet. It was a kind of feature in
the Hashem family, this black swelling vein in the brow ;
Mahomet had it prominent, as would appear. A sponta-
neous, passionate, yet just, true-meaning man ! Full of
wild faculty, fire and light ; of wild worth, all uncultured ;
working out his life-task in the depths of the Desert
there.

How he was placed with Kadijah, a rich Widow, as her
Steward, and travelled in her business, again to^* the Fairs lo
of Syria ; how he managed all, as one can well understand,
with fidelity, adroitness ; how her gratitude, her regard for
V.va. grew : the story of their marriage is altogether a grace-
ful intelligible one, as told us by the Arab authors. He
was twenty-five; she forty, though still beautiful. He
seems to have lived in a most affectionate, peaceable,
wholesome way with this wedded benefactress ; loving her
truly, and her alone. It goes greatly against the impostor

I theory,'' the fact that he lived in this entirely unexception-
able, entirely quiet and commonplace way, till the heat of 20
his years was done. He was forty before he talked of any
mission from Heaven. All his irregularities, real and sup-
posed, date from after his fiftieth year, when the good!
Kadijah died. All his 'ambition,' seemingly, had been, -
hitherto, to live an honest life; his 'fame,' the mere good,
opinion < of neighbours that knew him, had been sufficient'
hitherto. Not till he was already getting old, the prurient
heat of his life all burnt out, and peace growing to be the
chief thing this world could give him, did he start on the
'career of ambition;' and, belying all his past character 30
and existence, set-up* as a wretched empty charlatan to

» H' H» H' swelled up a H" II' impostor-theory

" H' H» H» business to MI' IF IP good-opinion

MI' H' IP set up

Ill

LF.CTURtlS ON HEROES

J'-

acquire what he could now no longer enjoy ! For my share,
I have no faith whatever in that.

Ah no : this deep-hearted Son of the Wilderness, with
his beaming black eyes and open social deep soul, had other
thoughts in him than ambition. A silent great soul ; he
was one of those who cannot hut be in earnest ; whom
Nature herself has appointed to be sincere. While others
walk in formulas and hearsays, contented enough to dwell
there, this man could not screen himself in formulas ; he

'o was alone with his own soul and the reality of things. The
great Mystery of Existence, as I said, glared-in * upon him,
with its terrors, with its splendours ; no hearsays could
hide that unspeakable fact, " Here am I ! " Such sincerity^
as we named it, has in very truth, something of divine.
The word of such a man is a Voice direct from Nature's
own Heart. Men do and must listen to that as to noth-
ing else ; — all else is wind in comparison. From of old, a
thousand thoughts, in his pilgrimings and wanderings, had
been in this man : What am I ? What is this unfathom-

20 able Thing I live in, which men name Universe ? What
is Life ; what is Death ? What am I to believe ? What am
I to do ? The grim rocks of Mount Hara, of Mount Sinai,
the stern sandy solitudes answered not. The great Heaven
rolling silent overhead, with its blue-glancing stars, answered
not. There was no answer. The man's own soul, and what
of God's inspiration dwelt there, had to answer !

It is the thing which all men h.ave to ask themselves ;
which we too have to ask, and answer. This wild man felt
it to be of iiijhtitc moment ; all other things of no moment

30 whatever in comparison. The jargon of argumentative
Greek Sects, vague traditions of Jews, the stupid routine of
Arab Idolatry: there was no answer in these. .V Hero,
> this first distinction, which indeed we may

jpeat.

1 II' IP IP glared ii

rilK IlKKO AS PROPHET

call first and last, the Alpha and Omega of his whole Hero-
ism, That he looks through the shows' of things into
Ihini^s. Use and wont, respectable hearsay, respectable
formula: all these are* good, or are'' not good. There
is something behind and beyond all these, which all these
must correspond with, be the image of, or they are— AA;/-
atrics; 'bits of black wood pretending to be God; ' to the
earnest soul a mockery and abomination. Idolatries never
so gilded, waited on by heads of the Koreish, will do noth-
ing for this man. Though all men walk by them, what lo
good is it ? The great Reality stands glaring there upon
him. He there has to answer it, or perish miserably. Now,
even now, or else through all Eternity never! Answer it;
llion must find an answer. — Ambition ? What could all
Arabia do for this man ; with the crown of (Jreek Heraclius,
of Persian Chosroes, and all crowns in the Earth ; — what
could they all do for him.' It was- not of the Earth he
wanted to hear tel it was of the Heaven above and of the
Hell beneath. All crowns and sovereignties whatsoever,
where would they in a few brief years be .> To be Sheik * of 20
Mecca or Arabia, and have a bit of gilt wood put into your
hand, — will that be one's salvation? I decidedly think,
not. We will leave it altogether, this impostor hypothesis,*
as not credible ; not very tolerable even, worthy chiefiy of
dismissal by us.

Mahomet had been went to retire yearly, during the
month Ramadhan, into s.iiitude and silence; as indeed
was the Arab custom ; a praiseworthy custom, which such
a man, above all, would find natural and useful. Com-
muning with his own heart, :n the silence of the moun- 30
tains ; himself silent ; open to the ' small still voices : ' it

1 H« W W shews 3 H" W is

2 H' IP this is 4 H' IP H^ Shiek

* H' IP impostor-hypothesis

^Bk

J*'

if' ' I

i :;

II f^

LECTURES ON HEROES

was a right natural custom ! Mahomet was in his fortieth
year, when havinj; withdrawn to a cavern in Mount Hara,
near Mecca, durinjj this Ram tdhan, to pass the month
in prayer, and meditation on those great questions, he
one day told his wife Kadijah, who with his household
was with him or near him this year, That by the un-
speakable special favour of Heaven he had now found it
all out ; was in doubt and darkness no longer, but saw it
all. That all these Idols and l-'ormul is were nothing,

10 miserable bvts of wood ; that there was One God in and
over all; and we must leave all Idols, and look to Him.
That God is great ; and that there is nothing else great !
He is the Reality. Wooden Idols are not real ; He is real.
He made us at first, sustains us yet ; we and all things are
but the shadow of Him ; a transitory garment veiling the
Eternal Splendour. '■Allah <ikluv; God is great;' — and
then also ' Ishvii' That we must submit to (iod. That our
whole strength lies in resigned submission to Him, whatso-
ever He do to us. l"'or this world, and for the other ! The

20 thing He sends to us, were it death and worse than death,
shall be good, shall be best ; we resign ourselves to God. —
* If this be Jsl(vn,' says Goethe, 'do we not all live in Islam I '
Yes, all of us that have any moral life ; we all live so. It
has ever been held the highest wisdom for a man not merely
to submit to Necessity, — Necessity will make him submit,
— but to know and believe well that the stern thing which
Necessity had ordered was the wisest, the best, the thing
wanted there. To cease his frantic pretension of scanning
this great (iod's-World in his small fraction of a brain; to

30 know that it had verily, though deep beyond his soundings,
a Just Law, that the soul of it was Good ; —that his part
in it was tu conform to the Law of the Whole, and in
devout silence follow that ; not questioning it, obeying it
as unquestionable.

■ i ^

THE HERO AS PROPHET

I say, this is yet the only true morality known. A man
is right and invincible, virtuous and on the road towards
sure conquest, precisely while he joins himself to the great
deep Law of the World, in spite of all superficial laws,
temporary appearances, profit-and-loss calculations ; he is
victorious while he cooperates ' with that great central
Law, not victorious otherwise : — and surely his first
chance of cooperating* with it, or getting into the course
of it, is to know with his whole soul that it is ; that it is
good, and alone good I This is the soul of Islam ; it is ic
properly the soul of Christianity ; — for Islam is definable
as a confused form of Christianity; had Christianity not
been, neither had it been. Christianity also commands us,
before all, to be resigned to God. We are to take no
counsel with flesh-and-blood," give ear to no vain cavils,
vain sorrows and wishes : to know that we know nothing ;
that the worst and cruelest^ to our eyes is not what it
seems ; that we have to receive whatsoever befalls * us as
sent from God above, and say, It is good and wise, God is
great! "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." 20
Islam means in its way Denial of Self, Annihilation of Self.
This is yet the highest Wisdom that Heaven has revealed
to our Earth.

Such light had come, as it could, to illuminate the dark-
ness of this wild Arab soul. A confused dazzling splen-
dour as of life and Heaven, in the great darkness which
threatened to be death : he called it revelation and the
angel Gabriel ; — who of us yet can know what to call it .'
It is the * inspiration of the Almighty ' that giveth us under-
standing. To kiunv: to get into the truth of anything, is 30
ever a mystic act, — of which the best Logics can but babble

» H» 11^ H3 cooperates » H' H= W flesh and blood

2 H' W \V cooperating < H' IP IP cruellest

6 IP Ii« H3 befals

LECTURES ON HEROES

H: il

on the surface. 'Is not Iteiief the true god-announcing
Miracle ? ' says Novalis. —That Mahomet's whole soul, set
in flame with this grand Truth vouchsafed him, should feel
as if it were important and the only important thing, was
very natural. That Providence had unspeakably honoured
him by revealing it, saving him from death and darkness ;
that he therefore was bound to make known the same to
all creatures: this is what was meant by 'Mahomet is
the Prophet of (Jod ; ' this too is not without its true

lo meaning. —

The good Kadijah, we can fancy, listened to him with
wonder, with doubt : at length she answered : Yes, it was
true this that he said. One can fancy too the boundless
gratitude of Mahomet ; and how of all the kindnesses she
had done him, this of believing the earnest struggling word
he now spoke was the greatest. • It is certain,' says
Novalis, 'my Conviction gains infinitely, the moment
another soul will believe in it.' It is a boundless favour.
— He never forgot this good Kadijah. Long afterwards,

20 Ayesha, his young favourite wife, a woman who indeed
distinguished herself among the Moslem, by all manner of
qualities, through her whole long life ; this yr g brilliant
Ayesha was, one day, questioning him : " >' . am not I
better than Kadijah ? She was a widow ; jld, and had
lost her looks: you love me better than you did her?" —
" No, by Allah ! " answered Mahomet : " No, by Allah !
She believed in me when none else would believe. In the
whole world I had but one friend, and she was that ! " —
Seid, his Slave, also 'relieved in him ; these with his young

30 Cousin All, Abu Thaleb's son, were his first converts.

He spc of his Doctrine to this man and that ; but the
most treated it with ridicule, with indifference; in three
years, I think, he had gained but thirteen followers. His
progress was slow enougli. His encouragement to go on,

THR UK HO AS PKOrHET

(>7

was altogether the usual encourafjement that such a man
in such a case meets. After some three years of small
success, he invited forty of his chief kindred to an enter-
tainment ; and there stood-up ' and told them what his
pretension was: that he had this thin;; to promulgate
abroad to all men ; that it was the highest thing, the one
thing: which of them would second him in t'lat? Amid
the doubt and silence of all, young Ali, as yet a lad of six-
teen, impatient of the silence, started-up,- and exclaimed in
passionate fierce language, Ihat he would ! ihe assembly, lo
among whom was Abu Thaleb, Ali's lather, could not be
unfriendly to Mahomet ; yet the sight there, of one unlet-
tered elderly man, with a lad of sixteen, deciding on such
an enterprise against all mankind, appeared ridiculous to
them; the assembly broke-up' in laughter. Nevertheless
it proved not a laughable thing; it was a very serious
thing! As for this young Ali, or» cannot but like him.
A noble-minded creature, as he sh ws^ himself, now and
always afterwards ; full of atleotion, of tiery daring. Some-
thing chivalrous in him ; brave as a lion ; yet with a grace, 20
a truth and affection worthy of Christian knighthood. He
died by assassination in the Mosque at liagdad; a death
occasioned by his own generous fairness, confidence in the
fairness of others: hesaid, If the wound proved not unto
death, they must pardon the Assassin ; but if it did, then
they must slay him straightway, that so they two in the
same hour might appear before Cod, and see which side of
that quarrel was the just one !

Mahomet naturally gave otTence to the Koreish, Keepers
of the Caabah, superintendents of the Idols. One or two 30
men of influence had joined him : the thing spread slowly,
but it was spreading. Naturally he gave ofTence to every-

til

' H' IP IP stood up
MI' 11 IP started up

, Ijl,

3 H' W IPInoke up
MP IP IP. shews

'■:^

lip i

«• LECTURES ON HEROES

body : Who Uiis that pretends to be wiser than we all ;
that rebukes us wW, as mere fouls and worshippers of wood !
Abu Thaleb the vod Uncle spoke with him : Could he not
be silent ab ' ti hat ; believe it all for himself, and not
trouble other . ;^" ;> r the chief men, endanger himself and
them all, • kinj li it? Mahomet answered: If the Sun
stood on h - i;',iit I \nd and the Moon on his left, orderinji
him to holo his v. .re, he r^uld not obey ! No ; there was
something n i ).■ 1 n'rh ' ! . I got which was of Nature

10 herself; en.i n f-;'. ; . oun, or Moon, or whatsoever
thing Naiur h lu .. * . It would speak itself there, so
long as the .' Imigh . 'owed it, in spite of Sun and Moon,
and all Koi ish :tuJ ili men and things. It must do that,
and could do no other. Mahomet answered so ; and, they
say, 'burst into tears.' liurst into tears: he felt that Abu
Thaleb was good to him ; that the task he had got was no
soft, but a stern and great one.

He went on speaking to who would listen to him ; pub-
lishing his Doctrine among the pilgrims as they came to

20 Mecca ; gaining adherents in this place and that. Contin-
ual contradiction, hatred, open or secret danger attended
him. His powerful relations protected Mahomet himself;
but by and by, on his own advice, all his adherents had
to quit ' Mecca, and seek refuge in Abyssinia over the
sea. The Koreish grew ever angrier ; laid plots, and swore
oaths among them, to put Mahomet to death with their
own hands. Abu rh;ileb was dead, the good Kadijah was
dead. Mahomet is not solicitous of sympathy from us :
but his outlook at this time was one of the dismalest.'- He

30 had to hide in caverns, escape in disguise ; fly hither and
thither ; homeless, in continual peril of his life. More than
once it seemed all-over' with him; more than once it
turned on a straw, some rider's horse taking fright or the

1 H' quite « m ^a h^ dismallest » H» II» H^ aU over

THK HKKO AS PKOPltKT

like, whether Mahomet and his Doctrine had not ended
there, and not been heard of at all. Hut it was not to
end so.

In the thirteenth year of his mission, finding his enemies
all banded aj^ainst him, forty sworn men, one out of every
tribe, waiting to take his life, and no continuance possible
at Mecca for him any longer, Mahomet Hed to the place
then called \athreb, where he had gamed some adherents;
the place they now call Medina, or ' A/ciwit a/ AaN, the
City of the Prophet,' from that circumstance. It lay some .c
200 miles off, through rocks ind deserts ; not without great
dirticulty. in such mor.d a. we may fancy, he escaped
thither, and found welcome. The whole Kast dates its era
from this Flight, J/igh,7 as th y name it: the Year i of
this Hegir.i is 622 of our Kr.i, the tifty-third of Mahomet's
life. He vas now becoming an old man : his friends sink-
in- round ^um one by one ; his path desolate, encmpassed
with dan-ur: unless he could find hope in his own heart,
the outward face of things was but hopeless for him. It is
so with all men in the like case. Hitherto Mahomet liad 20
rr-.fessed to publish his Religion by tlu- way of preaching
anti persuasion alone. Hut now, driven foully out of his
native country, since unjust men had not only ^iven no ear
to his earnest Heaven •s-mess;ige, the deep cry of I is ht =1.
but would not even let him live if he kept speaking it, -
the wild Son of the Desert r. solved t.. defend niself like
a man and Arab. If the Koreish will have it so, they shall
have it. Tidings, felt to be of infinite m. ment to them
and all men, tiiey would not listen to th se : would trample
them down by sheer violence, steel am n irder well let 30
steel try it then ! Ten years more 'ns M ihomet had ; all
of righting, of breathless impetuous t< il and struggle; with
what result we know.
Much has been said of Mahomet's pro; gating his Keli-

LECTURES ON HEROES

gion by the sword. It is no doubt far nobler what we
have to boast of the Christian Religion, that it propagated
itself peaceably in the way of preaching and conviction.
Yet withal, if we take tliis for an argument of the truth or
falsehood of a religion, there is a radical mistake in it. The
sword indeed : but where will you get your sword ! Every
new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.
In one man's head alone, there it dwells as yet. One man
alone of the whole world believes it ; there is one man
lo a<rainst all men. That he take a sword, and try to propa-
gate with that, will do little for him. You must first get
your sword ! On the whole, a thing will propagate itself
as it can. We do not find, of the Christian Religion either,
that it always disdained the sword, when once it had got
one. Charlemagne's conversion of the Saxons was not by
preaching. I care little about the sword : I will allow a
thing to struggle for itself in this world, with any sword or
tongue or implement it has, or can lay hold of. We will
let it preach, and pamphleteer, and fight, and to the utter-
20 most bestir itself, and do, beak and claws, whatsoever is in
it ; very sure that it will, in the long-run, conquer nothing
which does not deserve to be conquered. What is better
than itself, it cannot put away, but only what is worse.
In this great Duel, Nature herself is umpire, and can do no
wrong: the thing which is deepest-rooted in Nature, what
we call truest, that thing and not the other will be found
growing at last.

Here however, in reference to much that there is in
Mahomet and his success, we are to remember what an um-
30 pire Nature is ; what a greatness, composure of depth and
tolerance there is in her. You take wheat to cast into the
Earth's bosom : your wheat may be mixed with chaff,
chopped straw, barn-sweepings, dust and all imaginable
rubbish ; no matter : you cast it into the kind just Earth ;

THE IIEKO AS PROri/ET

she grows the wheat, — the whole rubbish she silently ab-
sorbs, shrouds // in, says nothing of the rubbish. The
yellow wheat is growing there; the good Earth is silent
about all the rest, —has silently turned all the rest to some
benefit too, and makes no complaint about it ! So every-
where in Nature ! She is true and not a lie ; and yet so
great, and just, and motherly in her truth. She requires of
a thing only that it be genuine of heart ; she will protect it
if so ; will not, if not so. There is a soul of truth in all the
things she ever gave harbour to. Alas, is not this the his- lo
tory of all highest Truth that comes or ever came into the
world t The body of them all is imperfection, an element of
light hi darkness : to us they have to come embodied in mere
Logic, in some merely scientific Theorem of the Universe ;
which cannot be complete; which cannot but be found,'
one day, ///-complete, erroneous, and so die and disappear!
The body of all Truth dies ; and yet in all, I say, there is
a soul which never dies; which in new and ever-nobler
embodiment lives immortal as man himself ! 't is the way
with Nature. The genuine essence of Truth never dies. 20
That it be genuine, a voice from the great Deep of Nature,
there is the point at Nature's judgment-seat. What we
call pure or impure, is not with her the final question. Not
how much chaff is in you; but whether you have any
wheat. Pure >. I might say to many a man : Yes, you are
pure ; pure enough ; but you are chaff, — insincere hypothe-
sis, hearsay, formality ; you never were in contact with the
great heart of the Universe at all ; you are properly neither
pure nor impure ; you an nothing, Nature has no business
with you.

Mahomet's Creed we called a kind of Christianity ; and
really, if we look at the wild rapt earnestness with which it
was believed and laid to heart, I should say a better kind
than that of those miserable Syrian Sects, with their vain

iriti

."I ■ .

Xf: .

■y . ■{.

LECTURES OAT HEROES

janglings about Hotnoiousion and Homoousion, the head full
of worthless noise, the heart empty and dead ! 'I'he truth
of it is embedded in portentous error and falsehood : but
the truth of it makes it be believed, not the falsehood : it
succeeded by its truth. A bastard kind of Christianity,
but a living kind ; with a heart-life in it ; not dead, chop-
ping barren logic merely ! Out of all that rubbish of Arab
idolatries, argumentative theologies, traditions, subtleties,
rumours and hypotheses of Greeks and Jews, with their idle

10 wiredrawings, this wild man of the Desert, with his wild
sincere heart, earnest as death and life, with his great
flashing natural eyesight, had seen into the kernel of the
matter. Idolatry is nothing: these Wooden Idols of yours,
'ye rub them with oil and wax, and the Hies stick on them,'
— these are wood, I tell you ! They can do nothing for
you; they are an impotent blasphemous pretence; a horror
and abomination, if ye knew them. God alone is ; God
alone has power ; He made us. He can kill us and keep us
alive: ''Allah akbar, God is great.' Understand that His

20 will is the best for you ; that howsoever sore to flesh-and-
blood,' you will find it the wisest, best : you are bound to
take it so ; in this world and in the next, you have no other
thing that you can do*!

And now if the wild idolatrous men did believe this,
and with their fiery hearts lay hold of it to do it, in what
form soever it came to them, I say it was well worthy of
being believed. In one form or the other, I say it is still
the one thing worthy of being believed by all men. Man
does hereby become the high-priest of this Temple of a

30 World. He is in harmony with the Decrees of the Author
of this World; cooperating'' with them, not vainly v/ith-
standing them : I know, to this day, no better definition of

1 H' W \V flesh and blood 2 h' W \V fw paragraph.

8 H' H' H' cooperating

TJIE JIhRO AS PROPHET

Duty than that same. All that is ;-/>/// inchides itself in
this of cooperating ' with the real I'cndency of the World •
you succeed by this (the World's iendency will succeed)
you are good, and in the rigju course there. Jfomoiousiou
//omoousw,,, vain logical jairgie, then or before or at any
time, may jangle iiselt out, and go whither and how it likes ■
this is the f/iwi^r it all struggles to mean, if it would mean
anything. If it do not succeed in meaning this, it means
nothmg. Not that Abstractions, logical Propositions, be
correctly worded or incorrectly ; but the living concrete .o
Sons of Adam do lay this to heart: that is the important
point. Islam devoured all these vain jangling Sects ; and
I think had right to do so. It was a Realitv, direct 'from
the great Heart of Nature once more. Arab idolatries,
Syrian formulas, whatsoever was not equally real, had to go
up in flame, — mere dead >•/, in various senses, for this
which was yfn*.

It was during these wild warfarings and strugglin<Ts,
especially after the Flight to Mecca, that Mahomet dk-
uited at intervals his Sacred IJook, which thev name Koran, 20
or /^ea,/i>,jr, 'Thing to be read.' I'his is the' Work he and
his disciples made so much of, asking all the world. Is not
that a miracle .' I'he Mahometans regard their Koran with
a reverence which few ( hristians pay even to their iJible.
It is admitted everywhere as the standard of all law and
all practice ; the thing to be gone-uijon - in speculation and
hfe: the message sent direct out of Heaven, which this
Karth has to conform to. and walk by; the thing to be
read. Their Judges decide by it ; all Moslem are bound to
>tudy it, seek in it for the light of their life. Thev have 30
mosques where it is all read daily ; thirty relays of priests
take it up in succession, get through the whole each dav

' II' 11= II' coo])erating
2H' IIMlJgoneupon

f ■>

LECTURES OS' HEROES

iJi

There, for twelve-hundred ' years, has the voice of this
Book, at all moments, kept sounding through the ears and
the hearts of so many men. We hear of Mahometan Doc-
tors that have read it seventy-thousand" times!

Very curious: if one sou^t for 'discrepancies of na-
tional taste,' here surely were the most eminent instance
of that ! We also can read the Koran ; our Translation of
it, by Sale, is known to be a very fair one. I must say, it
is as toilsome reading as I ever undertook. A wearisome
10 confused jumble, crude, incondite ; endless iterations, long-
windedness,' entanglement; most crude, incondite ; — in-
supportable stupidity, in short ! Nothing but a sense of
duty could carry any F.uropean through the Koran. We
read in it, as v.c might in the State-l'aper Office, unreadable
masses of lumber, that perhaps we may get some glimpses
of a remarkable man. It is true we have it under disad-
vantages : the Arabs see more method in it than we. Ma-
homet's followers found the Koran lying all in fractions, as
it had been written-down * at first promulgation ; much of
20 it, they say, on shoulder-blades of mutton, flung pell-mell
into a chest : and they published it, without any discover-
able order as to time or otherwise ; — merely trying, as
would seem, and this not very strictly, to put the longest
chapters first. The real beginning of it, in that way, lies
almost at the end : for the earliest portions were the short-
est. Read in its historical sequence it perhaps would not
be so bad. Much of it, too, they say, is rhythmic ; a kind
of wild chanting '■ song, in the original. "Ihis may be :i
great point ; much perhaps has been lost in the Translati.ni
30 here." Vet with every allowance, one feels it difficult to sec
how anv mortal ever covild consider this Koran as a Hock

' IP n= H' twuvc hundred ♦ IP IP H^ writt.-n down

'-; IP IP W seventy thousand '•> IP 11^ H' chaunting

'» H' n^ FP lon^windedness " * rot in \\\,i/</'tars in H' IVas/un:

THE IfRRO AS PROPHET

written in Heaven, too good for the Earth ; as a well-written
book, or indeed as a hook at all ; and not a bewildered
rhapsody ; wnthn, so far as writing goes, as badly as almost
any book ever was : So much for national discrepancies,
and the standard of taste.

Yet I should say, it was not unintelligible how the Arabs
might so love it. When once you get this confused coil of
a Koran fairly off your hands, and have it behind you at a
distance, the essential type of it begins to disclose itself;
and in this there is a merit quite other than the literary one.' lo
If a book come from the heart, it will contrive to reach
other hearts ; all art and authorcraft are of small amount to
that. One would say the primary character of the Koran
is this of its genuineness, of its being a bona-fide^ book.
Hrideaux, I know, and others have represented it as a mere
bundle of juggleries ; chapter after chapter got-up ■' to excuse
and varnish the author's successive sins, forward his am-
bitions and quackeries: but really it is time to dismiss
all that. I do not assert Mahomet's continual sincerity :
who is continually sincere .' But I confess I can make 20
nothing of the critic, in these times, who would accuse him
of deceit //-,/.7/j<,- of conscious deceit generally, or perhaps
at all ; — still more, of living in a mere element of conscious
deceit, and writing this Koran as a forger and juggler
would have done ! Every candid eye, I think, will readlhe
Koran far otherwise than so. It is the confused ferment
of a great rude human sou! ; rude, untutored, that cannot
even read ; but fervent, earnest, struggling vehemently to
utter itself in words. With a kind of breathless intensity
he strives to utter himself ; the thoughts crowd on him pell- 30
mell: for very multitude of things to say, he can get
nothing said. The meaning that is in him shapes itself
mto no form of composition, is stated in no sequence,
1 I!' In'nA-fide 2 IF U= [ji got i,p

'1
I

.1- --'i

"I ■

' '

LECTURES OX HEROES

method, or coherence ; — they are not shaped at all, these
thoughts of his; fliinj,'-out ^ unshavied, as they struggle
and tumble there, in their chaotic inarticulate state. We
said 'stupid': yet natural stupidity is by no means the
character of Mahomet's liook ; it is natural uncultivation
rather. The man has not studied speaking ; in the haste
and pressure of continual fighting, has not time to mature
himself into fit speech. The panting breathless haste and
vehemence of a man struggling in the thick of battle for
10 life and salvation ; this is the mood he is in ! A headlong
haste ; for very magnitude of meaning, he cannot get him-
self articulated into words. The successive utterances of
a soul in that mood, coloured by the various vicissitudes of
three-and-twenty years ; now well uttered, now worse : this
is the Koran.

For we are to consider Mahomet, through these three-
and-twenty years, as the centre of a world wholly in con-
flict. Battles with the Koreish and Heathen, quarrels
among his own people, backslidings of his own wild heart;
20 all this kept him in a perpetual whirl, his soul knowing rest
no more. In wakeful nights, as one may fancy, the wild
soul of the man, tossing amid these vortices, would hail
any light of a decision for them as a veritable light from
Heaven ; any making-up- of his mind, so blessed, indispen-
sable for him there, would seem the inspiration of a Gabriel.
Forger and juggler? No,'' no! This great fiery heart,
seething, simmering like a great furnace of thoughts, was
not a juggler's. His life* was a Fact to him; this God's
Universe an awful Fact and Reality. He has faults enough.
30 The man was an uncultured semi-barbarous Son of Nature,
much of the Bedouin still clinging to him : we must take
him for that. But for a wretched Simulacrum, a hungry

» H' H" H» flung out
2 H« H* IP making up

» H« IP Ah
* H» IP H' Life

a h
^ n

T//£ HERO AS PROPHET

Impostor without eyes or heart, practisicg for a mess of
pottage such blasphemous swindlery, forgery of celestial
documents, continual high-treason against hiS- Maker and
Self, we will not and cannot take him. •»•

Sincerity, in all senses, seems to me the merit of the
Koran ; what had rendered it precious to the wild Arab
men. It is, after all, the hrst and last merit in a book •
gives rise to merits of all ki.ids,-- nay, at bottom, it alone
can give rise to merit of any kind. Curiously, throu-h
these incondite masses of tradition, vituperation, complaint, re
ejaculation in the Koran, a vein of true direct insight, of
what we might almost call poetry, is found stragglin-
The body of the JJook is made-up' of mere tradition, and
as It were vehement enthusiastic extempore preaching. He
returns forever to the old stories of the I'rophets as they
went current in the Arab memory: how Prophet after
Prophet, the Prophet Abraham, the Prophet Hud, the
Prophet Moses, Christian and other real and fabulous
Prophets, had come to this Tribe and to that, warning men
of their sin; and been received by them even as he Mahomet =o
was, — which is a great solace to him. These things he
repeats ten, perhaps twenty times ; again and ever a^gain,
with wearisome iteration ; has never done repeating them.'
A brave Samuel Johnson, in his forlorn garret, might con-
over - the Biographies of Authors in that way ! This is the
great staple of the Koran. But curiously, through all this,
comes ever and anon some glance as of the real thinker
and seer. He has actually an eye for the world, this Ma-
homet : with a certain directness and rugged vi-our, he
brings home still, to our heart, the thing his own heart has 30
been opened to. I make but little of his praises of \llah
which many praise: they arc borrowed I suppose mainly
from the Hebrew, at least they are far surpassed there.
• H' tP Hi made up -^ in u-- .study \V con over

I. A

1 J i'

' li

|;i

III

LECTURES OX IIEKOES

But the eye that flashes direct into the heart of things, and
sees the truth of them; this is to me a highly interesting
object. Great Nature's own gift ; which she bestows on
all ; but which only one in the thousand does not cast sor-
rowfully away : it is what 1 call sincerity of vision ; the test
of a sincere heart'

Mahomet can work no miracles; he often answers im-
patiently : I can work no miracles, I ? ' I am a Public
Preacher ; ' appointed to preach this doctrine to all crea-

lo tures. Yet the world, as we can see, had really from of old
been all one great miracle to him. Look over the world,
says he; is it not wonderful, the work of Allah ; wholly 'a
sign to you,' if your eyes were open ! This Karth, God
made it for you ; • appointed paths in it ; ' you can live in
it, go to and fro on it. — The clouds in the dry country of
Arabia, to Mahomet they are very wonderful : Great clouds,
he says, born in the deep bosom of the Upper Immensity,
where do they come from ! They hang there, the great
black monsters ; pour-down " their rain-deluges ' to revive a

20 dead earth,' and grass springs, and 'tall leafy palm-trees
with their date-clusters hanging round. Is not that a
sign ? ' Your cattle too, — Allah made them ; serviceable
dumb creatures; they change* the grass into milk; you
have your clothing from them, very strange creatures ;
*they come ranking home at evening-time,^ 'and,' adds he,
♦and' are a credit to you ! ' Ships* also, - he talks often
about ships : Huge moving mountains, they spread-out '
their cloth wings, go bounding through the water there,
Heaven's wind driving them ; anon they lie motionless,

30 God has withdrawn the wind, they lie dead, and innot

:i\

1 I'' H' H' no faracraph. *♦ not in H'

2 H' H» \V pour down ^ IP and they
•H'make « H' IP Ships,—

' H' IP H' spread out

THE l/F.KO AS PKOrtlEr 79

stir ! Miracles? crit-s he: Wh.U miracle would you have?
Are not y(.u yourselves there? (;o(l made .vv/,' 'shaped
you out of a little clay.' \ e were small once'; a few years
a-o ye were not at all. \ e have beauty, stren.Ljth. thou^dits,
'ye have compassion on one another.' ( )|(| .i^r,.. comes-.m -
you, and grayMiairs; your stren-th fades into feebleness;
ye sink down, and again are not. ' \e have c(,mpassion on'
one another:' this struck me much: .Allah might have
made you having no compassion on one another, how
had it been then ! This is a great direct thought, a glance .o
at first-hand mto the very fact of things. Rude vestiges of
poetic genius, of whatsoever is best and truest, are visible
m this man. A strong untutored intellect ; eyesight, heart :
a str .,ig wild man, — might have shaped himself into Poet,
King, Priest, any kind of Hero.

To his eyes it is forever clear that this world wholly is
miraculous. He sees what, as we said once before, all
great thinkers, the rude .Scandinavians themselves, in one
way or other, have contrived to see : That this so solid-
looking material world is, at bottom, in verv deed, Nothm^ • 20 /
IS a visual and tactual Afanifcstation of God's power ami /
I^rt'sence, — a shadow hung-outMjy Him on the bosom of /
the void Infinite ; nothing more. The mountains, he says,
these great rock-mountains, they shall dissipate themselves
' like clouds ; ' melt into the Jilue as clouds do, and not be '
He figures the Karth, in the Arab fashion. Sale tells us, as
an immense Plain or fiat Plate of ground, the mountains
arc set on that to slca,iy it. At the Last Dav thev shall
a:. appear ' like clouds ; ' the whole Karth shall go spinning,
\vhirl it.self off into wreck, and as dust and vapour vanis^i 30
HI the Inane. Allah withdraws his hand from it, and it
ceases to be. The universal empire of Allali, presence

V,\

> H'you

- H' FIMI'cnn..

II' H-' tfigrey
* IP \\- HMiunrrout

LECTURES ON IIENOES

•i ,(

i L

ii'
1^

! W

everywhere of an unsiJeakahU; I'ower, a Splendour, and a
Terror not to be named, as the true force, essence and re-
ality, in all things whatsoever, was continually clear to this
man. What a modern talks-of ' by the name, !• orces of
Nature, Laws of Nature; and does not figure as a divine
thing; not even as one thing at all, but as a set of things,
undivine enough, saleable, curious, good for propelling
steam-shii)s ! With our Sciences and Cyclopa'dias, we are
apt to forget the tihunawis, in those laboratories of ours.

10 We ought not to forget it ! That once well forgotten,
I know not what else were worth remembering. Most
sciences, I think, were then a very dead thing; withered,
contentious, empty ; a thistle in late autunui. I'he best
science, without this, is but as the dead timber ; it is not
the growing tree and forest, which gives ever-new timber,
among other things! Man cannot huow either, unless he
can wors/iip in some way. His knowledge is a pedantry,
and dead thistle, otherwise.

Much has been said and written about the sensuality

20 of Mahomet's Religion ; more than was just. 'I'he indul
gences, criminal to us, which he permitted, were not of his
appointment ; he found them practised, unquestioned from
immemorial time in .\rabia ; what he did was to curtail
them, restrict them, not on one but on many sides. His
religion is not an easy one: with rigorous fasts, lavations,
strict complex formulas, prayers five times a day, and
abstinence from wine, it did not 'succeed by being an easy
Religion.' As if indeed any religion, or cause holding of
religion, could succeed by that! It is a calumny on men

3° to say that they are roused to heroic action by ease, hoi^c
of pleasure, recompense, sugar-plums of any kind, in this
world or in the next! In the meanest mortal there lies
something nobler. The poor swearing soldier, hired to

1 II' W IV talks of

THE I/EA'O AS PROPHET

be shot, has his 'honour of .1 soldier,' different from drill-
regulations and the shilling a day. It is not to taste sweet
things, but to do noble and true things, and vindicate him
self under (Jod's Heaven as a god -made Man, that the
poorest son of Adam dimly longs. .Show ' him the way of
doing that, the dullest daydrudge kindles into a hero.
Ihey wrong man greatly who say he is to be seduced
by ease. Difficulty, abnegation, martyrdom, death are the
iilliimnaits that act on the heart of man. Kindle the inner
genial life of him, you have a riame that burns-up- all lower 10
considerations. Not happiness, but something higher : one
seos this even in the frivolous classes, with their 'point of
honour ' and the like. Not by Hatlering our appetites : no,
by awakening the Heroic that slumbers in every heart, can
any Religion gain followers.

Mahomet himself, after all that can be said about him,
was not a sensual man. We shall err widely if we consider
this man as a common vtjluptuary, intent mainly on base
enjoyments, - nay on enjoyments of any kind. His house-
hold was of the frugalest ^ his common diet barley-bread -0
and water : sometimes for months there was not a fire once
lighted on his hearth. They record with just pride that he
would mend his own shoes, jxitch his own cloak. A poor,
hard-toiling, ill-provided man ; careless of what vulgar men
toil for. Not a bad man. I should say ; something better
in him than hun;r^,- of any sort, — or these wild .Arab men,
righting and jostling three-and-twenty * years at his hand,
in close contact with him always, would not have rever-
enced him so! They were wild men, bursting ever and
anon into quarrel, into all kinds of rierce sincerity ; with- jo
out right worth and manhood, no man could have com-
manded them. They called him Prophet, you say >. Why,

Ml' IF IP .Shew
■^ H' H> IP burns up

» H' frugallfst

* H' three and twenty

^y ■11

LECrUKhS ox HtKOtS

he stood there face to face with thcni ; l),ire, not enshrined
in any mystery ; visibly cloiitin;^ his (jwn cloak, cobblinji;
his own shoes; tif^htin;;, cDimsellin;;, orderinj^ in the midst
of them : they must iiave sctii w hat kind of a man ' he 74'</i,
let him be <<///?</ what you like ! No emperor with his tiaras
was obeyed as this man in a cloak of his own clouting.
During; three-and-twenty ^ years of rou;;h actual trial. I
find something of a veritable Hero necessary for that, of
itself.

lo His last words are a prayer ; broken ejaculations of a
heart struggling-up'' in trembling ho|K*, towards its Maker.
We cannot say that his religion made him 7i>orsr ; it made
him better; good, not bad. (lenerous things are recorded
of him: when he lost his Daughter, the thing he answers
is, in his own dialect, everyway * sincere, and yet equivalent
to that of Christians, • The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh
away; blessed be the name of the Lord.' He answered in
like manner of Seid, his emancipated well-beloved Slave,
the second of the believers. Seid hatl fallen in the War of

20 Tabuc, the first of Mahomet's fightings with the (Ireeks.
^L1homet said, It was well; Seid had done his Master's
work, Seid had now gone to his >Lister; it was all well
with Seid. Vet Seid's daughter found him weeping over
the body; — ^the old gray-haired"' man melting in tears!
"What do I see .' " said she. — " Vou see a friend weeping
over his friend." — He went out for the kist time into the
moscpie, two days before his death ; asked, If he had in-
jured any man ? Let his own back bear the stripes. If
he owed any man? A voice answered, "Ves, me thnci

30 drachms," borrowed on such an occasion. Mahomet or-
dered them to be paid : " Better be in shame now," said

» H" W W of man » H' H» IP struggling up

^ \V three and twenty * IP H' IP every way

5 H^ grey-haired

nui ni'iho AS j-A'o/ ///./'

he, "than at the Day of h.d-.nent." \ .„. r.nu-mber
Kadijah. and the "No, hy Allah:" Traits of that kind
show us the jrenuinc man. the brother of ,.s all. l.rouKht
visible thr.,„f;h twelve centuries, the veritable Son of
our common Mother.

Withal I like Mahomet for his total frcKJo/n from cant
He IS a ro»-h, self-helj.injr s<m of the wilderness ; does not
pretend to be what he is not. iln re is no ostentatious
pride in h.m ; but neither does he -o much upon humility •
he IS there as he can be, in cloak an>l shoesof his own clout- .0
injr; s|3eaks plainly to all main... r ol Persian Kin-s. (Ireek
Kmperors, what u is they arc bound to do; kn'ows well
enough, about hims If, 'the rc^pc t due uni.. ihtx.' In a
life-and-death war with iJedouins. cruel tl.m.s cul.l not fail •
but neither are acts of mercy, of nob! ■ nati.r.l pitv and -en-
erosity wantin- Mahomet makes .„. ap.,lu"v fo'r the one
no boast of the other. They were each the ftee dictate of
his heart ; each called for,' there and tiien. Not a mealv-
mouthed man ! A candid feroc.ty. if the case call for it. is
m him ; he does not mince matters ! The War of Tabi c 'o
IS a thing he often six-aks of: his men refused, many of
them, to march on that occasion ; pleaded the heat of the
weather, the harvest, and so forth ; he can never for-et
that. \our harvest .> It lasts for a dav. What will be-
come of your harvest through all Kternit v ? I lot weather '
Ves, it was hot; 'but Hell will be hotte'r ! ' Sometimes a
rough sarcasm turns-up«: He says to the unbelievers. Ye
shall have the just measure of your deeds at that (Ireat Day
They will be weighed-out » to you; ye shall not have short
weight ! — Everywhere he fixes the matter in his eye ; he 30
.wj It: his heart, now and then, is as if struck dumb by
the greatness of it. • Assuredly, " he says : that word, in the

»H«H»H3 called for » H" H» IP turns up

•■' ri' IP IP weighed out

I i

J; ■ '

..jl 1 1

-1 '

LECTURES ON HEROES

V -i

! :

Koran, is written-down sometimes as a sentence by itself :
• Assuredly.',^ ., ,

No Dilettantism in this Mahomet ; it is a business of
Reprobation and Salvation with him, of Time and Eternity :
he is in deadly earnest about it ! Dilettantism, hypothesis,
speculation, a kind of amateur-search for Truth, toying and
coquetting with Truth : this is the sorest sin. The root of
all other imaginable sins. It consists in the heart and soul
of the man never having been open to 'Truth ; — ' living in a

lo vain show.' Such a m.in not only utters and produces false-
hoods, but is himself a falsehood. 'I'he rational moral
principle, spark of the Divinity, is sunk deep in him. in
quiet paralysis of life-death. The very falsehoods of Ma-
homet are truer than the truths of such a man. He is the
insincere man : smooth-polished, respectable in some times
and places; inoffensive, says nothing harsh to anybody;
most cleanly, — just as carbonic acid is, which is death and
poison.

We will not praise Mahomet's moral precepts as always

20 of the superfinest sort ; yet it can be said that there is
always a tendency to good in them ; that they are the
true dictates of a heart aiming towards what is just and
true. The sublime forgiveness of Christianity, turning of
the other cheek when the one has been smitten, is not here :
you are to revenge yourself, but it is to be in measure, not
overmuch, or beyond justice. On the other hand, Islam,
like any great Faith, and insight into the essence of man,
is a perfect equaliser ' of men : the soul of one believer out
weighs all earthly kingships; all men, according to Islam

30 too, are equal. Mahomet insists nut on the propriety of
giving alms, but on tlie necessity of it : lie marks-down * by
law how much nou arc to give, and it is a^ your peril il
you neglect. I'he tenth part of a man's annual irtcomc,

1 II' II- II « e(iiKili/ti - II' IF II' marks down '

THR HF.RO AS PROPl/ET

whatever that may be, is the property of the poor, of those
that are afflicted and need help. Good all this : the natural
voice of humanity, of pity and equity dwelling in the heart
of this wild Son of Nature speaks so.

Mahomet's Paradise is sensual, his Hell sensual : true ;
in the one and the other there is enough that shocks all
spiritual feeling in us. lUit we are to recollect that the
.\iabs already had it so ; that Mahomet, in whatever he
changed of it, softened and diminished all this. The worst
sensualities, too, are the work of doctors, followers of his, lo
not his work. In the Koran there is really very little said
about the joys of Paradise ; they are intimated rather than
insisted on. Nor is it forgotten that the highest joys even
there shall be spiritual; the pure Presence of the Highest,
this shall infinitely transcend all other joys. He says,'
' Your salutation shall be, Peace.' Salam, Have Peace ! —
the thing that all rational souls long for, and seek, vainly
here below, as the one blessing. « Ve shall sit on seats,
facing one another : all grudges shall be taken away out
of your hearts.' All grudges ! Ve shall love one another 20
freely ; for each of you, in the eyes of his brothers, there
will be Heaven enough !

In reference to this of the sensual Paradise and Mahom-
et's sen-uality, the sorest chapter of ail for us, there were
many things to be said ; which it is not convenient to enter
upon here. Two remarks only I shall make, and therewith
leave it to your candour. The first is furnished me by
(Joethe; it is a casual hint of his which seems well worth
taking note of. In one of his Delineations, in Master's
Travels it is, the hero comes-upon ' a .Society of men with 30
very strange ways, one of which was this: "We require,"
says the Master, " that each of our people shall restrict
l.imself in one direction," shall go right against his desire
' H' IIMT'coiTiHs ujxm

■Sfes

s r

f - ■ V

I.ECTURLS OX HEROES

i¥;

in one maticr, and make himself do the thing he does not
wish, " should we allow him the greater latitude on all other
sides." There seems to me a great justness in this. En-
joying things which are pleasant ; that is not the evil : it
is the reducing of our moral self to slavery by them that is.
Let a man assert withal that he is king over his habitudes ;
that he could and would shake them otlf, on cause shown ' :
this is an excellent law. I'he Month Ramadhan for the
Moslem, much in Mahomet's Religion, much in his own

10 Life, bears in that direction ; if not by forethought, or clear
purpose of moral improvement on his part, then by a certain
healthy manful instinct, which is as good.

But there is another thing to be said about the Mahom-
etan Heaven and Hell. This namely, that, however gross
and material tiiey may be, they are an emblem of an ever-
lasting truth, not always so well remembered elsewhere.
That gross sensual Paradise of his ; that horrible flaming
Hell ; the great enormous Day of Judgment he perpetually
insists on : what is all this but a rude shadow, in the rude

20 Bedouin imagination, of that grand spiritual Fact, and
Beginning of lacts, which it is ill for us too if we do not
all know and feel : the Infinite Nature of Duty ? That man's ^
actions here are of infinite moment to him, and never die or /
end at all ; that man, with his little life, reaches upwards
high as Heaven, downwards low as Hell, and in his three-
score years of Time holds an Ktcrnity fearfully and wonder-
fully hidden : all this had burnt itself, as in flame-charac-
ters, into ihe wild Arab soul. As in flame and lightning,
it stands writlon there; awful, unspeakable, ever present to

30 him. Witii l)urstini,f earnestness, with a tierce savage sin-
cerity, half-articulating, not able to articulate, be strives
to speak it, bodies it forth in that Heaven and that Hell.
Bodied forth in what way you will, it is the lirst of all

'■ ii' 11- i I '.-hewn

THE HE NO AS PKOP//ET

fit

truths. It is venerable under all embodiments. What is
the chief end of man here below } Mahomet has answered
this question, in a way that might put some of us to shame!
He does not, like a Hentham, a Paley, take Right and
Wrong, and calculate the profit and loss, ultimate pleasure
of the one and of the other; and summing all up by addi-
tion and subtraction into a net result, ask you, Whether on
the whole the Right does not preponderate considerably ?
No ; it is not In-tla- to do the one than the other ; the one is
to the other as life is to death, —as Heaven is to Hell. lo
Ihe one must in nowise be done, the other in nowise left
undone. You shall not measure them ; they are incom-
mensurable : the one is death eternal to a man, the other
is lite eternal. IJenthamee Utility, virtue by Profit and
Loss; reducing this (lod's-world to a dead brute Steam-
engine, the infinite celestial Soul of Man to a kind of Hay-
balance for weighing hay and thistles on, pleasures and
pains on : -- If you ask me which gives, Mahomet or they,
the beggarlier and falser view of Man and his Destinies in

this Universe, I will answer, It is not Mahomet! 20

On the whole, we will repeat that this Religion of Ma-
homet's is a kind of Christianity; has a genuine element
of what is spiritually highest looking through it, not to be
hidden by all its imperfections. The Scandinavian (lod
Wish, the god of all rude men, — this has been enlarged
into a Heaven by Mahomet; but a Heaven symbolical" of
sacred Duty, and to be earned by faith and welldoing, by
valiant action, and a divine patience which is still more
valiant. It is Scandinavian Paganism, .ind a truly celestial
element su^ieradded to that, fall it not false ; look not at 30
the falsehood of it, look at the truth of it. For these
twelve centuries, it has been the religion and life-guidance
of the fifth part of the wholt- kindred of Mankind. Above
all things, it has been a religion heartily helured. These

LECTURES ON HEROES

\ I

Arabs believe their religion, and try to live by it ! No
Christians, since the early ages, or only perhaps the Eng-
lish Puritans in modern times, have ever stood by their
Faith as the Moslem do by theirs, -believing it wholly,
fronting Time with it, and Kternity with it. This night
the watchman on the streets of Cairo when he cries, "Who
goes ? " will hear from the passenger, along with his an-
swer, "There is no (iod but (iod." Allah akl>ai% hhm.
sounds through the souls, and whole daily existence, of

10 these dusky millions. Zealous missionaries preach it abroad
among Malays, black Papuans, brutal Idolaters; — displac-
ing what is worse, nothing that is better or good.

To the Arab Nation it was as a birth from darkness into
light ; Arabia first became alive by means of it. A poor
shepherd people, roaming unnoticed in its deserts since the
creation of the world : a Hero-Prophet was sent down to
them with a word they could believe: see, the unnoticed
becomes world-notable, the small has grown world-great ;
within one century afterwards, Arabia is at Grenada on

20 this hand, at Delhi on that ; —glancing in valour and
splendour and the light of genius, Arabia shines through
long ages over a great section of the world. Belief is great,
life-giving. The history of a Nation becomes fruitful, soul
elevating, great, so soon as it believes. These Arabs, the
man Mahomet, and that one century, — is it not as if a
spark had fallen, one spark, on a world of what seemed
black unnoticeable sand ; but lo. the sand proves explosive-
powder, blazes heaven-high from Delhi to Grenada ! I said,
the Great Man was always as lightning out of Heaven ; the

30 rest of men waited for him like fuel, and then they too
would flame.

h *

LECTURE III

THE HKR') AS POKT. KANTK; SHAKSPKARE

[T- esday, i;th May 1.S40.J '

'The Hero as Divinity, the Hero as Prophet, are produc-
tions of old ages ; not to be repeated in the new. I'hey
presuppose a certain rudeness of conception, which the
progress of mere scientific knowledge puts an end to.
There needs to be, as it were, a world vacant, or almost
vacant of scientific forms, if men in their loving wonder are
to fancy their fellow-man - either a god or one speaking
with the voice of a god. Dhinity and I'rophet are past.
We are now to see our Hero in the less ambitious, but also
less questionable, character of I'oet ; a character which 10
does not pass. I'he Poet is a heroic figure belonging to all
ages; whom all ages possess, when once he is produced,
whom the newest age as the oldest may produce; — and
will produce, always uhen Nature pleases. Let Nature
send a Hero-soul ; in no age is it other than possible that
he may be sl^aped into a Poet.

Hero, Prophet, Poet, — many different names, in differ-
ent times and places, do we give to Great Men ; according
to varieties we note in them, according to the sphere in
which they have displayed themselves ! We might give --o
many more names, on this same principle. I will remark
agam, however, as a fact not unimportant to be understood,
that the different sphere constitutes the grand origin of such

M I' 1 1= M ' d„te ,/Mv title. M I ' 1 1- H^ fellow man

I •:

■;2t

n? J

IIP

1 1 ■ i

, f

ili'l

nti

LECTURES ON J/EKOES

distinction ; that the Hero can be Poet, Prophet, King,
Priest, or what you will, according to the kind of world he
finds himself born into. I confess, I have no notion of a
truly great man that could not be a// sorts of men. The
Poet who could merely sit on a chair, and compose stanzas,
would never make a stanza worth much. He could not
sing the Heroic warrior, unless he himself were at least a
Heroic warrior too. I fancy there is in him the Politician,
the Thinker, Legislator, i'hilosopher ; — in one or the other

lo degree, he could have been, he is all these. So too I can-
not understand how a Mirabeau, with that great glowing
heart, with the tire that was in it, with the bursting tears
that were in it, could not have written verses, tragedies,
poems, and touched all hearts in that way, had his course
of life and education led him thitherward. The grand fun-
damental character is that of (Ireat Man ; that the man be
great. Napoleon has words in him which are like Auster-
litz Battles. Louis Fourteenth's Marshals are a kind of
poetical men withal ; the things Turenne says are full of

20 sagacity and geniality, like sayings of Samuel Johnson.
The great heart, the clear deep-seeing eye : there it lies ;
no man whatever, in what province soever, can prosper at
all without these. Petrarch .nd Boccaccio did diplomatic
meijsages, it seems, quite wdl : one can easily believe it :
they had done things a little harder than theseM Burns,
a gifted song-writer, might have made a still better Mira
beau. Sh?kspeare, — one knows not what /le could not
have made, in the supreme degree.

True, there are aptitudes of Nature too. Nature docs

30 not make all great meif5 more than all other men, in the
self-same mould. Varieties of aptitude doubtless ; but in
finitely more of circumstance; and f.r oftenest it is tlic
latter only that are looked to. But it is as with common

» ir li- that!

TtfE t/EkO AS POKT

men in the learning of trades. You take any man. as yet a
vague capabiluy of a man. who could be any kind of crafts-
man; and make him into a smith, a carpenter, a mason:
he .s then and thenceforth that and nothing else. \nd if
as Addison complains, you sometimes see a street-porter
staggering under his load on spindle-shanks, and near at
hand a ta.lor with the frame of a Samson handling a bit of
cloth and small Whitechaix-l needle, - it cannot be con-
sidered that aptitude of Nature alone has been consulted
here either ! -^ The Great Man also, to what shall he be ,o
bound apprentice? Given your Hero, is he to become
( onqueror. King. Philosopher. Poet ? It is an inexplicably
complex controversial-calculation between the world and
h.m ! He will read the world and its laws ; the world with
Its laws will be there to be read. What the world, on t/.is
matter, shall permit and bid is, as we said. th« most impor-
tant fact about the world. —

Poet and I'rophet differ greatly in our loose modern no-
t.ons of them. In some old languages, again, the titles are
synonymous; Vatcs means both Prophet and Poc-t : and 20
indeed at all times, Prophet and Poet, well understood,
have much kindred of meming. Fundamentallv indeed
they are still the same ; in this most important respect
especially. That they have penetrated both of them into the
sacred mystery of the Tniverse ; what (loethe calls 'the
open secret.' "Which is the great secret.'" asks one -
"I he open secret,"- open to all, seen by almost none -
I hat divme mystery, which lies everywhere in all Hein.^s
'the Divme Idea of the World, that which lies at the'
bottom of Appearance,' as Fichte styles it; of which all 30
Appearance, from the starry sky to the grass of the field
but especially the Appearance of Man and his work, is buJ
the vesture, the embodiment that renders it visible This

«^

CE)

LECTURRS ON HEROES

\\k

divine mystery h in all times and in all places ; veritably
is. In most times and places it is greatly overlooked ; and
the Universe, definable always in one or the^t her dialect,
as the realise d Thought of God , is considered a trivial, inert,
commonplace matter, — as if, says the Satirist, it were a
dead thing, which some upholsterer had put together ! It
could do no good, at present, to speak much about this ;
but it is a pity for every one of us if we do not know it, live
ever in the knowledge of it. Really a most mournful pity ;
10 — a failui',' to live at all, if we live otherwise !

But now, 1 say, whoever may fort^et this divine mystery,
the Fr. 4j, whether Prophet or Poet, lias penetrated into it ;
is a man sent hither to make it more impressively known to
us. That always is his message ; he is to reveal that to us,
— that sacred mystery which he more than others lives
ever present with. While others forget it, he knows it ; -
I might say, he has been driven to know it ; without con-
sent asked of ///>«, he finds himself living in it, bound to
live in it. Once more, here is no Hearsay, but a direct
20 Insight and Belief ; this man too could not help being a
sincere in.in ! Whosoever may live in the shows' of things,
it is for him a necessity of nature to live in the very fact ol
things. .V man once more, in earnest with the Universe,
though all others were but toying with it. He is a Vates,
first of all, in virtue of being sincere. So far Poet and
Prophet, participators in the 'open secret,' are one.

With respect to their distinction again: The Witt^
Prophet, we might say, has seized that sacred mystery
rather on the moral side, as Good and Evil, Duty and Pro
30 hibition ; the Vatcs Poet on what the Germans call th'
aisthetic side, as Beautiful, and the like. The one wc nia\
call a revealer of what we are to do, the other of what w'
are to love. iJut indeed these two provinces run into one

» H'HJshews

■ n-

rt/E jii.tio AS roEi-

another, and cannot be disjoined. The Prophet too has
h.s eye on what we are to love : how else shall we know
what it IS we are to do ? The highest Voice ever heard on
this earth' said withal, "Consider the lilies of the field-
they toil not, neither do they spin : yet Solomon in all his
glory was not arrayed like one of these-." A glance that
into the deepest deep of IJeauty. ' The lilies of the 'field '
-dressed finer than earthly princes, springing-up-' there in
the humble furrow-field ; a beautiful eye looking-out " on you
from the great inner Sea of Ifeauty I How could the rude .c
Karth make these, if her Kssence, rugged as she looks and
IS, were not inwardly Heauty .' In this point of view, too
a saying of Goethe's, which has staggered several, may
have meaning: 'The I5eautiful,' he intimates, 'is higher
than the (lood ; the Heautiful includes in it the (lood '
Ihe/r//^ Beautiful; which however. [ have said some-
where, 'ditters from the >/.v,- as Heaven does from V.mx-
hall ! • So much for the distinction and identity of J'oet
and Prophet. —

In ancient and also in modern periods we find a few Poets 20
who are accounted perfect ; whom it were a kind of trea-
son to hnd fault with. This is notewoithv ; this is right •
yet in strictness it is only an illusion. At bottom, cleariv
enough, there is no perfect Poet ! A vein of Poetry .vists
in the hearts of all men; no man is made alto^rether of
J oetry. We are all poets when we /,„,/ a poem well. The
'imagination that shudders at the Hell of Dante,' is not
'^lat the same faculty, weaker in degree, as Dante's own?
No one b. t Shakspeare can embodv, out of Saxo aninwuU-
"V/>-. the story of Hamlet as Shakspeare did : but everv one 3c
models some kind of story out of it; every one embodies
•t better or worse. We need not spend time in defininij.

»II"ll-||'l.;a„h -H'H= re. springing up

» II' IM IP looking out

t '

■ f

!j *'

! i

LKCTUKES OAT //f-JtO/iS

!l.t

^' t.

Where thirc is no specific difference, as between round and
square, all definition must be more or less arbitrary. A
man that has so much more of the poetic element developed
in him as to have become noticeable, will be called I'oet by
his neighbours. World- i'oets t 10, those whom we are t<)
take for perfect I'oets, are »ettl«;d by critics in :he same
way. One who rises so f.it al>ove the general level of I'oets
will, to such and such critics, sf'em a Universal I'oet ; as
he ought to do. And yet it is. .md must be, an arbitrary

10 distinction. All PcK'ts all men, have some touches of the
Universal ; no man is wholly made of that. Most I'oets
are very soon forgotten : but not the noblest Shakspeare or
Homer of them can be remembered yi»/*«'<r,- — a day comes
when hi: too is not !

Nevertheless, you will say, there must be a difference
lietween true Poetry and true Speech not poetical : what
is the dilTerence ? On this point many things have been
written, especially by late German Critics, some of which
are not very intelligible at fi-st. They say, for example,

20 that the I'oet has an inftnitinte in him ; communicates an
I lU'ihllii/iki-it, a certain character of ' infinitude,' to whatso-
ever he delineates. Ihis, though not very precise, yet on
so vague a matter is worth remembering: if well mediiated,
some meaning will gradually be found in it. For my own
part, I find considerable meaning in the old vulgar distinc-
tion of Poetry being m.trkal, having music in it, being a
Song. Truly, if pressed to give a definition, one might say
this as soon as anything else: If your delineation be au-
thentically musical, musical not in word only, but in heart

30 and substance, in all the thoughts and utterances of it, in
the whole conception of it, then it will be poetical ; if not,
not. Musical : how much lies in that ! A wwiw// thought
is one spoken by a mind that has p.- letrated into the inmost
heart of the thing ; detected the inmos' liiystery of it,

''I
II

THE HEKO AS POET

namely the w//<>,/i that lies hidden in it; the inward har-
mony of coherence which is its soul, whereby it exists, and
has a right to be,' here in this world. All inmost things,
we may say, are melodious; naturally utter themselves in
Song. The meaning of Song gcjes deep. \\'ho is there
that, in logical words, can express the effect music has on
us? A kind of inarticulate unfathomable speech, which
leads us to the edge of the Inlinite, and lets us for moments
gaze into that !

Nay all speech, even the commonest speech, has some- ro
thing of song in it : not a parish in the world but has its
parish-accent;- the rhythm or /////. to which the jK'ople
there sing what they have to say ! Accent is a kind of
chanting =*; all men have accent of their own, though
they only notia- that of others. Observe too how all pas-
sionate language does of itself become musical, — with a
liner nmsic than the mere accent ; the siK-ech of a man
even in zealous anger becomes a chant,' a song. All deep
things are Song. It seems somehow the very central es-
sence of us. Song ; as if all the rest were but wrappages and 20
hulls ! The primal element of us ; of us, and of all things.
I'he Greeks fabled of Sphere-Harmonies : it was the feeling
they had of the inner structure of Nature; that the soul of
all her voices and utterances was perfect music. Poetry,
therefore, we will call mitUinl Thought. The Poet is he who
thinks in that manner. At bottom, it turns still on power
of intellect ; it is a man's sincerity and depth of vision that
makes him a Poet. See deep enough, and you see music-
ally ; the heart of Nature being everywhere music, if you
can only reach it. 30

The Witcs Poet, with his melodious Apocalypse of Nature,
M-ems to hold a jioor rank among us, in comparison with

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/' 'If^,

LECTURES ON HEROES

,t '

!J *

the Vates Prophet ; his function, and our esteem of him for
his function, aliice slight. 'I'he Hero taken as Divinity ;
the Hero taiien as Prophet ; then next the Hero taken only
as Poet : does it not look as if our estimate of the (Ireat
Man, epoch after epoch, were continually diminishing?
We take him first for a god, then for one god-inspired ; and
now in the next stage of it, his most miraculous word gains
from us only the recognition that he is a Poet, beautiful
verse-maker, man of genius, or suchlike'! — It looks so;
lo but I persuade myself that intrinsically it is not so. If we
consider well, it will perhaps appear that in man still there
is the same altogether peculiar admiration for the Heroic
Gift, by what name soever called, that there at any time

was.*

I should say, if we do not now reckon a Great Man
literally divine, it is that our notions of (iod, of the supreme
unattainable Fountain of Splendour, Wisdom and He'-'^ism,
are ever rising higher; not altogether that our revt .-nee
for these qualities, as manifested in our like, is getting
o lower. This is worth taking thought of. Sceptical Dilet-
tantism, the curse of these ages, a curse which will not last
forever, does indeed in this the highest province of human
things, as in all provinces, make sad work; and in cur
reverence for great men, all crippled, blinded, paralytic as
it is, comes out in poor plight, hardly recognisable. Men
worship the shows '' of great men ; the most disbelieve that
there is any reality of great men to worship. The drear-
iest, fatalest* faith; believing which, one would literally
despair of human things. Nevertheless look, for example,
Napoleon ! A Corsican lieutenant of artillery ; that is
: show ^ of him : yet is he not obeyed, worshipped after

» H' H' H3 such like » H= H^ shews

2 no paragraph in W H= W * H^ fatallest

6 H^ H^ shew

i »,

TIN: nr.KO AS POET

his sort, as all the Tiaraed and Diademed of the world put
together could not be? Hi-.h Duchesses,' and ostlers of
inns, gather round the Scottish rustic, liurns ; -a strange
feeling dwelling in each that they never heard a man like
this; that, on •^ the whole, this ' is the man ! In the scc.vt
heart of these people it still dimly reveals itself, thou-h
there is no accredited way of uttering it at present, th'iit
this rustic, with his black brows and Hashing sun-eves, and
strange words moving laughter and tears, is of a dignitvfar
beyond all others, incommensurable with all others. Do lo
not we feel it so ? IJut now, were Dilettantism, Scepticism,
Triviality, and all that sorrowful brood, cast-out * of us, —
as, by God's blessing, they shall one day be ; were faith in
the shows » of things entirely swept-out," replaced by clear
faith in the thhv^s, so that a man acted on the impulse of
that only, and counted the other non-extant; what a new
livelier feeling towards this liurns were it !

Nay here in these ages, such as they are, have we not
two mere Poets, if not deified, yet we may say beatified ?
Shakspeare and Dante are Saints of Poetry; really, if we 20
will think of it, avionisc,/,' so that it is impiety to' meddle
with them. The unguided instinct of the world, working
across all these perverse inii;ediments. has arrived at such
result. Dante and Shakspeare are a peculiar Two. 'I'liey
dwell apart, in a kind of royal solitude ; none cHjual, none
second to them: in the general feeling of the world, a
certain transcendentalism, a glory as of complete perfec-
tion, invests these two. They cvr canonised," though no
Pope or Cardinals took hand in doing it ! Sucn, in^'spite
of '- ry perverting influence, in the most unheroic times, 30

» H' H» \V duchesses
= H' IP that on
3 H' IP whole this
* IP IP IP cast out

' IP H3 shews
•■ IP IP Il'swepfou^
■ IP IP H' ca>w,tizfd
'" H' IP IP canonized

ii| ^1

s!|

"J
*'

LECTIKES ON llEKOES

is still our indestructible reverence for heroism. We will
look a little at these Two, the I'oet l),\nte and the I'oet
Shakspeare : Avhat little it is permitted us to say here of
the Hero as Poet will most fitly arrange itself in that
fashion.

i \

Many volumes have been written by way of commentary
on Dante and his Book; yet, on the whole, with no great
result. His Biography is, as it were, irrecoverably lost for
us. An unimportant, wandering, sorrowstricken man, not

10 much note was taken of him while he lived ; and the most
of that has vanished, in the long space that now intervenes.
It is fiv-j centuries since he ceased writing and living here
After all commentaries, the Book itself is mainly what we
know of him. The Book ; — and one might add that Por-
trait commonly attributed to Giotto, which, looking on it,
you cannot help inclining to think genuine, whoever did it.
To me it is a most touching face ; perhaps of all faces that
I know, the most so. Lonely ' there, painted as on ^ va-
cancy, with the simple laurel wound round it ; the death-

20 less sorrow and pain, the known victory which is also
df^athless; — significant of the whole history of Dante! I
think it is the mournfulest '" face th.it ever was painted from
reality ; an altogether tragic, heart-affecting face. There
is in it, as foundation of it, the softness, tenderness, gentle
affection as of a child ; but all this is as if congealed into
sharp contradiction, into abnegation, isolation, proud hope-
less pain. A soft ethereal soul looking-out ^ so stern, im-
placable, grim-trenchant, as from imprisonment of thick-
ribbed ice ! Withal it is a silent pain too, a silent scornful

3° one: the lip is curled in a kind of godlike disdain of the
thing that is eating-oul his heart,* — as if it were withal

' li' IJlank -i \V i.ainted uii

Mr IF IP looking out

"' \\^ mournfullest

5 II' IP IP eating out

K: A

THE JIEKO AS POET

a mean insignificant thing, as if he whom it had power to
torture and strangle were greater than it. The face of one
wholly in protest, and life-long unsurrendering battle,
against the world. Affection all converted into indig-
nation: an implacable indignation; slov . equable,' silent,'
like that of a god ! The eye too, it looks-out - as in a kind
of surprise, a kind of inquiry, Why the world was of such
a sort.' This is Dante: so he looks, this 'voice of ten
silent centuries,' and sings us 'his mystic unfathomable
scng.' ,0

The little that we know of Dante's Life corresponds well
enough with this Portrait and this Book. He was born at
Florence, in the upper class of society, in the year 1265.
His education was the best then going; much school-
divinity, Aristotelean logic, some Latin classics, — no in-
considerable insight into certain provinces of things : and
Dante, with his earnest intelligent nature, we need not
doubt, learned better than most all that was learnable.
He has a clear cultivated understanding, and of great
subtlety ; this best fruit of education he had contrived to 20
realise « from these scholastics. He knows accurately and
well what lies close to him ; but, in sucli a time, without
printed books or free intercourse, he could not knov well
what was distant : the small clear light, most luminous for
what is near, breaks itself into singular chiaroscuro striking
on what is far oil. This was Dante's learning from the
schools. In life, he had gone through the usual destinies ;
been twice out campaigning as a soldier for the Florentine
State, been on e .ssy ; had in his thirty-fifth year, by
natural gradation of talent and service, become one of the 30
Chief Magistrates of Florence. He had met in boyhood a
certain Beatrice Portinari, a beautiful little girl of his own

* 1 H' IPequable.itnplaLahl.-, silent ^ M' \\- W luoks out

•' II' JP IPrcaluc

i .11

i:i

»*1J

100

HiCTUhKS OX hkkoes

age and rank, and grown-up * thenceforth in partial sight
of her, in some distant intercourse with her. All readers
know his graceful affecting account of this : and then of
their being parted ; of her being wedd"d to another, and
of her death soon after. She makes a gi ,:at figure in Dante's
Poem; seems to have made a great figure in his life. Of
all beings it might seem as if she, held apart from him, far
apart at last in the dim Eternity, were the only one he had
ever with his whole strength of affection loved. She died :
'o Dante himself was wedded ; but it seems not happily, far
from happily. I fancy, the rigorous earnest man, with
'■ 's keen excitabilities, was not altogether easy to make
happy.

We will not complain of Dante's miseries: had all gone
right Yith him as he wished it, he might have been Prior,
PodestJl, or whatsoever they call it, of Florence, well ac-
cepted among neighbours, — and the world had wanted one
of the most notable words ever spoken or sung. Florence "
would have had " another prosperous Lord Mayor; and the
20 ten dumb centuries continued voiceless, and the ten other
listening centuries (for there will be ten of them and more)
had no Divina Commcdia to hear ! We will complain of
nothing. A nobler destiny was appointed for this Dante ;
and he, struggling like a man led towards death and cruci-
fixion, could not help fulfilling it. Give him the choice of
his happiness ! He knew not, more than we do, what was
really happy, what was really miserable.

In Dante's Priorship, the Guelf-(ihibelline, Bianchi-Neri,
or some other confused disturbances rose to such a height,
30 that Dante, whose party had seemed the stronger, was
with his friends cast unexpectedly forth into banishment ;
doomed thenceforth to a life of woe and wandering. His
property was ail confiscated and more ; he had the fiercest
» H' IP W grown up 22 H' H» Florence had

THE UKKO AS POET

101

feeling that it was entirely unjust, nefarious in the sight of
God and man. He tried what was in him to get reinstated ;
tried even by warlike surprisal, with arms in his hand : but
it would not do ; bad only had become worse. There is a
record, I believe, still extant in the Florence Archives,
dooming this Dante, wheresoever caught, to be burnt alive.
Burnt alive ; so it stands, they say : a very curious civic
document. Another curious document, some considerable
number of years later, is a letter of Dante's to the Floren-
tine Magistrates, written in answer to a milder proposal of lo
theirs, that he should return on condition of apologising '
and paying a tine. He answers, with fixed stern pride:
" If I cannot return without calling myself guilty, I will
never x<i\.\xxn, nutu/uam rcvcrtar.''''

For Dante there was now no home in this world. He
wandered from patron to patron, from place to place ; prov-
ing, in his own bitter words, ' How hard is the path, Come
c tiuro calk: '{"he wretched are not cheerful company.
Dante, poor and banished, with his proud earnest nature,
with his moody humours, was not a man to conciliate men. 20
I'etrarch reports of him that being at (an della Scala's
court, and blamed one day for his gloom and taciturnity,
he answered in no courtier-like way. Della Scala stood
among his cou. tiers, with mimes and butToons {tubulonrs ac
liistriones) making him heartily merry; when turning to
Dante, he said : " Is it not strange, now,- that this poor
fool should' make himself so entertaining'; while you, a
wise man, sit there day after day, and have nothing to
amuse us with at all .' " Dante answered bitterly : " No,
not* strange; your Highness is to recollect the I'roverb,* 30

> H' W W apologizing 2 H' JP strange now

* " H' IP siiould do so much to amuse us,

* * II' it is not strange, if you think of the I'roverb,

H" it is not strange ; you are to recollect the Proverb,

i 1 i

ji'

: I

102

LECTURES ON HEROES

W r;

Li/:e to //^t- ," — given the amuser, the amusee must also
be given ! Such a man, with his proud silent ways, with
his sarcasms and sorrows, was not made to succeed at
court. By degrees, it came to be evident to him that he
had no longer any resting-place,' or hope of benefit, in this
earth. The earthly world had cast him forth, to wander,
wander; no living heart to love him now; for his sore
miseries there was no solace here.

The deeper naturally would the Eternal World impress
'o itself on him; that awful reality over which, after all, this
Time-world, with its Florences and banishments, only flutters
as an unreal shadow. Florence thou shalt never see : but
Hell and Purgatory and Heaven thou shalt surely see!
What is Florence, Can della Scala, and the World and Life
altogether? Eternitv: thither, of a truth, not elsewhither,
art thou and all things bound ! The great soul of Dante,
homeless on earth, made its home more and more in that
awful other world. Naturally his thoughts brooded on
that, as on the one fact important for him. Bodied or bodi-
20 less, it is the one fact important for all men : — but to Dante,
in that age, it was bodied in fixed certainty of scientific
shape ; he no more doubted of that Malcbolge Pool, that it
all lay there with its gloomy circles, with its alii guai, and
that he himself should see it, than we doubt that we should
see Constantinople if we went thither. Dante's heart, long
filled with this, brooding over it in speechless thought and
awe, bursts forth at length into ' mystic unfathomable song ; '
and this his Divine Comedy, the most remarkable of all
modern Books, is the result.*

It must have been a great solaceuient to Dante, and was,

as we can see, a proud thought for him at times. That he,

here in exile, could do this work ; that no Florence, nor no

man or men, could hinder him from doing it, or even much

^ H» H' IP resting place 2 no paragraph ,« 11' IF H^

/'///; HERO AS roET

103

l>clp h.m m doing it. He knew too, partly, that ,t was
great; the greatest a man could do. Mf thou follow thy
star, S. tu segui tua stc/u,: so could the Hero, in his
orsakenness, in his e.xtren.e need, still say to himself:
hollow thou thy star, thou sh.ilt not fail of a glorious
haven !" The labour of writing, we find, and indeed
could know otherwise, was great and painful for him • he
says, I h.s liook, 'which has made me lean for many years '
Ah yes, ,t was won, all of it, with pain and sore toil, - not
•n sport, hut in grim earnest. His IJook, as indeed most .o
good Looks are, has been written, in n,any senses, with his
heart s blood. It is his whole history, this liook. He died
after f.n.shing it; not yet very old, at the age of fifty-six-
-- broken-hearted rather, as is said. He lies buried in his'
death-c.ty Ravenna: Hie ch.oior Dantcs p,Unis e.torris ah
ons. I he Florentines begged back his body, in a century
alter ; the Ravenna people would not give it. " Here am I
Dante laid, shut-out - from my native shores."

I said, Dante's Poem was a .Song : it is Tieck who calls
1 a mystic unfathomable .Song; ' and such is literally the ^c
chanacter of it. Col- -marks very pertinently some-

where, that wherever : a sentence nmsically worded,

of true rhythm and n, . .he words, there is something

deep and good in th. .ning too. For body and souK
word and .dea. go strangely together here as everywhere.
Song: we said before, it was the Heroic of Speech! All
-'/'/loems, Homer's and the rest, are authenticallv .Songs.
I would say, in strictness, that all right Poems a're ; tlmt
whatsoever is not su., is properly no Poem, but a piece of

rose cra,nped into jingling lines, to the great injury of 30
the grammar, to the great grief of the reader, for most part '
V^hat we want to get at is the t/n>u./,f the man h.ad, if he

'"'''«'*^^" ^'H' IP IP shut out

'a. '

1*^1 it

Uk.J ..i

ir m

/./•CTCk'hs ox ///:h'o/:s

hiu

had any : why should he twist it into jinjj;le, if he foulii
speak it out plainly ? It is only when the heart of him is
rapt into true passion of melody, and the very tones of
him, according to ('oieridj;e\ remark, become nmsical by
the greatness, depth and music of his Uioiijjhts, tiiat we can
give him right to rhyme and sing ; that we call him a Poet,
and listen to him as the Heroic of S|)eakers, — whose s|)eech
is Song. Pretenders to this are many ; and to an earnest
reader, I doubt, it is for most part a very melanciioly, not

10 to say an insujjportable business, that of reading rhyme !
Rhyme that had no inward necessity to be rhymed ; — it
ought to have told us plainly, without any jingle, what it
was aiming at. I would advise all men who uin speak
their thought, not to sing it ; to undei-stand that, in a .serious
time, among serious men, there is no vocation in them for
singing it. Precisely as we love the true song, and are
charmed by it as by something divine, so shall we hate the
false .song, and account it a mere wooden noise, a thing
hollow, superfluous, altogetlier an insincere and offensive

20 thing.
v> I give Dante my highest praise when I say of his Divhw
Comciiy that it is, in all .senses, genuinely a Song. In the
very sound of it there is ^ i\nito J'cnito ; it proceeds as by
a chant.' The language, his simple tcrza ritna, doubtless
helped him in this. One reads along naturally with a sort
of li/t. But I add, that it could not be otherwise ; for the
essence and material of the work are them.selves rhythmic.
Its depth, and rapt passion and sincerity, makes it musical ;
— go tk, *• enough, there is music everywhere. A true inward

30 symmetry, what one ca'.s an architectural harmony, reigns
in it, proportionates it all : architectural ; which also par
takes of the character of music. The three kingdoms,
InfermK Pttrgaforio^ Piinidiso, look-out -' on one another like

1 H" 11^ W chaunt - IP H» IP look out

IHI: llh.KO AS j'o/:r

105

compartments of a yrcal Ldificf; .1 ;,'rf,it su|X!rnatural
world-cathedral, |)ilcd-u|)' there, stern, solemn, awful;
Dante's World of Souls! It is, at bottom, the sman-if o(
all Poems ; sincerity, here too, we find to be the measure
of worth. It came deep out of the author's 'uMrt of hearts ;
and it goes deep, and through long generations, into ours.
The people of Verona, when they saw him on the streets,
used 10 say, " /;,vv>r / /' //,//// ,//' /■ s/,i/.> „//' liifttno, See, there
is the man that was in Hell!" Ah yes, he had been in
Hell ; — in Hell enough, in long severe sorrow and struggle; 10
as the like of him is pretty sure to have been. Comme-
dias that comeout ' -//,/>/<• are not accomplished otherwise,
rhought, true labour of any kind, highest virtue itself, is it
not the daughter of I'ain ? Horn as out of the black whirl-
wind ;— true effort, in f.ict, as of a captive struggling to
free himself: that is Thought. In all ways we are 'to
l)ecome perfect through suffam^r,' _. jjut^ ^^ j ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^^
known to me is so elaborated ;'s this of Dante's. It has
all been as if molten, in the hottest furnace of his soul. It
had made him 'lean' for maiy years. Not the general ao
whole only ; every compartment of it is worked-out, with
intense earnestness, into truth, int) clear visuality. Each
answe. . to the other; each fits s place, like a marble

stone accurately hewn and polished. 1 1 is the soul of Dante,
and in this the soul of the middle ages, rendered forever
rhythmically visible there. No light task ; a right intense
one. but a task which is (/o/tc

Perhaps one would say, intnisity, with the much that
depends on it, is the prevailing character of Dante's
genius. Dante does not come before us as a large catholic 30
mind ; rather as a narrow, and even sc arian mind : it is
partly the fruit of his age and position, but partly too of
his own nature. His greatness has, in all sen js, concen-
' H' \V \V piled up -i H' n» HHome out

l\\ \

i f{

106

LEcrv/a-a on f/AA'u/-:s

i^:

\t 1

I !

it ti

tered itself into fiery emphasis and depth. He is world-great
not because he is world-wide, but because he is world-deep.
Through all objects he pierces as it were down into the heart
of Being. I know nothing so intense as Dante, ('onsider,
for example, to begin with the outermost development of
his intensity, consider how he paints. He has a great
power of vision ; seizes the very tyjie of a thing ; presents
that and nothing more. You remember that first view he
gets of the Hall of Dite : rei/ pinnacle, redhot cone of iron

10 glowing through the dim immensity of gloom;- so vivid,
so distinct, visible at once and forever ! It i -. as an emblem
of the whole genius of Dante. I'here is a brevity, an abrupt
precision in him: Tacitus is not briefer, more condensed;
and then in Dante it seems a natural condensation, spon-
taneous to the man. One smiting word ; and then there is
silence, nothing more said. His silence is more eloquent
than words. It is strange with what a sha.p decisive grace
he snatches the true likeness of a matter : cuts into the
matter as with a pen of fire. Plutus, the blustering giant,

so collapses at Virgil's rebuke; it is 'as the sails sink, the
mast being suddenly broken.' Or that poor Brunetto Latini,'
A'ith the C0//() aspettOy 'face bakeii^' parched brown and lean ;
and the ' fiery snow ' that falls on them there, a ' fiery snow-
without wind,' slow, deliberate, never-ending ! Or the lids
of those Tombs ; square sarcophaguses, in that silent dim-
burning Hall, each with its Soul in torment ; the lids laid
open there ; they are to be shut at the Day of Judgment
through Kternity. And how Farinata rises ; and how
Cavalcante falls — at hearing of his Son v' the past tense

30 '///^ ' ! I The very movements in Dante have something
brief ; swift, decisive, almost military. Lt is of the inmost
essence of his genius this sort of painting. The fiery, swift
Italian nature of the man, so silent, passionate, with its

• IP W IP Sordello

THE ///:ko .is poet

107

quick abrupt movements, it, nilent 'pale rages/ Hi^^ak,
Itself 'T these things.

For though this of painting is one of the outermost
deyelopments of a man. it comes like all else from the essen-
t.al acuity of hi:n ; it is physiognomical of the whole man
J.nd a man whose words paint you a likeness, you have
found a man worth something; mark his manner of doing
.t. as very characteristic of him. In the hrst place, he
could not have discerned the object at all. or seen the vital

wi^' ir '''H""^" '' u"'' "'^'^ "''* "'•'>• ^■^^"' W''/>'"--/' 'o
witli a, - had sympathy in him to hcMow on objects Me

must have been sina;. about it too; sir. re and syn.p.^.
thet.c: a man without worth cannot give you the likeness
of any object ; he dwells in vague outwardness, fallacy and
tr.v.al hearsay, about all objects. .And indeed may we not
say that intellect altogether expresses itself in this power of
discerning what an object is? Whatscx^ver of faculty .
man s mind may have will come out here. Is it even of
business, a matter to be done .' The gifted man is he who
sees the essential point, and leaves all the rest aside as sur- .o
plusage: It is his faculty too. the man o{ businesses facult,
that he discern the true l.keness, not the false superficial'
one, of the thing h . has got to work in. And how much of
morahty ,s in the kind of insight wc get of anythin-- -the
eye seeing in all things what it brought with it, the '-c.ltv
of seeing'! To the mean eye all things are triv..".. I
certainly as to the jaundiced they are yellow. Raphael
the Painters tell us. is the best of all I'ortrait-painters withal.'
Xo most gifted eye can e.xhaust the significance of any
"p T" , n'^"' co'n'Tionest human face there lies more than 30
Raphael will take-away - with him.

Dante's painting is not graphic only, brief, true, and of a
vividness as of tire in dark night ; taken on the wider scale.
» H' H» H' sympathized s w ,p 1,3 ^^^^ ^^^^

'• >

'II.

108

LECTURES OX HEROES

it is everyway noble, and the outcome of a great soul.
Francesca and her Lover, what qualities in that! A thing
woven as out of rainbows, on a ground of eternal black. A
small flute-voice of infinite wail speaks there, into our very
heart of hearts. A touch of womanhood in it too : della '
bella pcrsonn, (he mi fit tolta ' ; and how, even in the Pit of
woe, it is a solace that he'- will'' never part from her'!
Saddest tragedy in these aiti i;uai. And the racking winds,
in that acr Itnino, whirl them away again,* to wail forever* !

10 — Strange to think : Dante was the friend of his poor Fran
cesca's father ; Francesca herself may have sat upon the
Poet's knee, as a bright innocent little child. Infinite pity,
yet also infinite rigour of law : il is so Nature is made ; it is
so Dante discerned that she was made. What a paltry
notion is that of his Divine Comedy's being a poor splenetic
impotent terrestrial libel ; putting those into Hell whom he
could not be avenged-upon * on earth ! I suppose if ever
pity, tender as a mother's, was in the heart of any man, it
was in Dante's. But a man who does not know rigour can-

20 not pity either. His verv pity will be cowardly, egoistic,
— sentimentality, or little better. I know not in the world
an affection equal to that of Dante. It is a tenderness, a
trembling, longing, pitying love : like the wail of .^^^olean
harps, soft, soft; like a child's young heart ; — and then that
stern, sore-saddened heart ! These longings of his towards
his Beatrice; their meeting together in the . aradiso ; his
gazing in her pure transfigured eyes, her that had been puri-
fied by death so long, separated from him so far: — one"

1 1 I P she speaks of ' qtiesta formu ' ; — so innocent

2 H' he

3 3 H* ' will never part from her '
* * IP again, forever

6 H' li- 11^ avenged upon
6 H' IP far : ah.

THE HE KG AS I'OET

109

likens it to the song of angels ; it is among the purest utter-
ances of affection, perhaps the very purest, that ever came
out of a human soul.

For the iuteiisc Dante is intense in all things ; he has got
into the essence of all. His intellectual insight as paintLr,
on occasion too as reasoner, is but the result of all other
sorts of intensity. Morally great, above all, we must call
him ; it is the beginning of all. His scorn, his grief are as
transcendent as his love; -as indeed, what are they but
the imcrse or converse of his love .> •./ Dio spincaiti cJ a ic
m-mici siii, Hateful to (lod and to the enemies of Clod : '
lofty scorn, unappeasable silent reprobation and aversion ;
'Noil ragionam di lor. We will not speak of tfirm, look only
and pass.' Or think of this; -They have not the //,;/.• to
die, iXon han sprranza di wort,:' One day, it had risen
sternly benign on the scathed heart of l')ante, that he,
wretched, never-resting, worn as he was, would full surely
die; 'that Destiny itself could not doom him not to die''
Such words are in this man. For rigour, earnestness and
depth, he is not to be paralleled in the modern world ; to 20
seek his parallel we must go into the Hebrew Bible, and
live with the antique Prophets there.

I do not agree with much modern criticism, in greatly
preferring the /n/rr„o to the two other parts of the Divine
Commedia. .Such preference belongs, I imagine, to our
general Kyronism of taste, and is like to be a transient feel-
ing. 'I'he Puri^'.iforio and /',tntdiso. especially tli- former,
one would almost say, is even more excellent than it. It
is a noble thing that Purj-atorio. 'Mountain of Purifica-
tion;' an emblem of the noblest conception of that age. 30
If Sin is so fatal, and Hell is and must be so rigorous,
awful, yet in Repentance too is man

punt

pent an ce

is the grand Christian act. ft is beautiful how Dante
works it out. The tremohir dclP ondc, that 'tremblin-r' of

.. O

'\i .H

110

LECTURES OAT HEROES

the ocean-waves, under the first pure gleam of morning,
dawning afar on the wandering Two, is as the type of an
altered mood. Hope has now dawned; never-dying Hope,
if in company still with heavy sorrow. The obscure
sojourn of damons and reprobate is underfoot ' ; a soft
breathing of penitence mounts higher and higher, to the
Throne of Mercy itself. " I'ray for me," the denizens of
that Mount of Pain all say to him. "Tell my Giovanna
to pray for me," my daughter Giovanna; "I think her

10 mother loves me no more!" They toil painfully up by
that winding steep, ' bent-down - like corbels of a building,'
some of them, — orushed-together '^ so ' for the sin of pride ; '
yet nevertheless in years, in ages and *ons, they shall have
reached the top,* which is Heaven's * gate, and by Mercy ^
shall have been '" admitted in. The joy too of all, when
one has prevailed ; the whole Mountain shakes with joy,
"nd a psalm of praise rises, when one soul has perfected
repentance and got its sin and misery left behind ! I call
all this a noble embodiment of a true noble thought.

20 But indeed the Three compartments mutually support
one another, are indispensable to one another. The Para-
diso, a kind of inarticulate music to me, is the redeeming
side of the Iiifcnio : the Inferno without it were untrue.
All three make-up" the true Unseen World, as figured in
the Christianity of the Middle Ages ; a thing forever
memorable, forever true in the essence of it, to all men.
It was perhaps delineated in no human soul with such
depth of veracity as in this of Dante's ; a man sent to sing
it, to keep it long memorable. Very notable with what

3° brief simplicity he passes out of the every-day reality, into
the Invisible one ; and in the second or third stanza, we

1 II'HMP underfoot
« H'HMIMjent down
8 II' H»H* crushed together

«•• II' IF top, Heaven's
5 6 H'H^ Mercy been
« H' II» IP make up

THE HERO AS POET

find ourselves in the World of Spirits ; and dwell there, as
among things palpable, indubitable ! Jo Dante they v>ere
so ; the real world, as it is called, and its facts, was but the
threshold to an infinitely higher Fact of a World. At bot-
tom, the one was as //-^Arnatural as the other. Has not
each man a soul .' He will not only be a spirit, but is one.
I o the earnest Dante it is all one visible Fact ; he believes
it, sees it ; is the Poet of it in virtue of that. Sincerity, \
say again, is the saving merit, now as always.

Dante's Hell, Purgatory, Paradise, are a symbol withal, .c
an emblematic representation of his Belief about this
Universe:— some Critic in a future age, like those Scan-
dmavian ones the other day, who has ceased altogether to
think as Dante did, may find this too all an 'Allegory,'
perhaps an idle Allegory! It is a sublime embodiment,
or ' sublimest, of the soul of ( hristianity. It expresses, as
in huge worldwide-^ architectural emblems, how the Chris-
tian Dante felt (iood and Fvil to be the two polar elements
of this Creation, on which it all turns; that these two
differ not hy p,rj\rahility ol one to the other, but by incom- 20
patibility absolute and infinite ; that the one is excellent
and high as light and Heaven, the other hideous, black is
(iehenna and the Pit of Hell ! Kverlasting Justice, yet
with Penitence, with everlasting Pity, -all Christianism,
as Dante and the Middle Ages had it, is emblemed here.
Kmblemed : and yet, as I urged the other day, with what
entire truth of purpose ; how uncc nscious of any emblem-
ing ! Hell, Purgatory, Paradise: these things were not
fashioned as emblems ; was there, in our Modern Furopean
Mind, any thought at all of their being emblems! Were 30
they not indubitable awful facts ; the whole heart of man
taking them for practically true, all Nature everywhere
confirming them ? So is it always in these things.' Men
^ H' H' our 2 H' H» H' world-wide

kit ;

■» 'Mi
f* 4 'VI

rr ,
Mi

112

LECTURES ON HEROES

do not believe an Allegory. The future Critic, whatever
his new thought may he, who considers this of Dante to
have been all got-up * as an Allegory, will commit one sore
mistake ! ~ Paganism we recognised as a veracious expres-
sion of the earnest awe-struck feeling of man towards the
Universe ; veracious, true once, and still not without worth
for us. But mark here the difference of Paganism and
Christianism ; one great difference. Paganism emblemed
chiefly the Operations of Nature ; the destinies, efforts,
lo combinations, vicissitudes of things and men in this world ;
Christianism emblemed the Law of Human Duty, the
Moral Law of Man. One was for the sensuous nature: a
rude helpless utterance of the first Thought of men, — the
chief recognised virtue. Courage, Superiority to Fear. The
other was not for the sensuous nature, but for the moral.
What a progress is here, if in that one respect only ! —

L '

I \

111

And so in this Dante, as we said, had ten silent centu-
ries, in a very strange way, found a voice. The Dirtna Cum
media is of Dante's writing ; yet in truth // belongs to ten

20 Christian centuries, only the finishing of it is Dante's. So
always. The craftsman there, the smith with that metal of
his, with these tools, with these cunning methods, — how
little of all he does is properly his work ! All past invent-
ive men work there with him; — as indeed with all of us,
in all things. Dante is the spokesman of the Middle Ages;
the Thought they lived by stands here, in everlasting music.
These sublime ideas of his, terrible and beautiful, are the
fruit of the Christian Meditation of all the good men who
had gone before him. Precious they ; but also is not he

30 precious ? Much, had not he spoken, would have been
dumb ; not dead, yet living voiceless.

On the whole, is it not an utterance, this mystic Song, at

1 H'H'H'got up

ivr^^

TI/E HRK'O AS /'()/■:/■

11?

once of one of the

greatest human souis, and of the highest
thing that Kurope had hitherto reahsed for itself > ( hris
t.anism. as Dante sinfjs it, is another than Paganism in th-
rude Norse n,ind ; another than « liasiard Chris.ianism '
half-art.culately spoken in the Arab Desert seven-htmdred '
years before .'-The noblest /V-vMnade .>„/ hitherto amon..
men is sung, and emblemed-forth ^' a!,i,linglv, bv one of the
noblest men. In the one sense and in the o'ther, are we
not right glad to possess it? As 1 calculate, it mav last
yet for long thousands of years. For the thing that is ,o
uttered from the inmost parts of a man's soul, dilTers alto-
gether from what is uttered by the outer part. The outer
IS of the day, under the empire of mode; the outer pisses
away, ,n swift endless changes -. the inmost is the same ves-
terday, today and forever. True souls, in all generati;,ns
of the world, who look on this Dante, will ,i„d a brother-
hood .n him; the deep sincerity of his thoughts, his woes
and hopes, will speak likewise to their sinceritv ; thev will
fee that this Dante too was a brother. Napolc-on in Saint-
Helena ,s charmed with the genial veracity of old Homer. .0
The oldest Hebrew Prophet, un<ler a vesture the most
diverse from ours, does yet, because he speaks from the
heart of man, speak to all men's hearts. It is the one sole
secret of continuing long memorable. Dante, for depth of
sincerity, is like an antique Prophet too, iiis words, like
theirs, come from his very heart. One need not wonder if
It were predicted that his Poem might be the most endur-
mg thing our F.rope has yet made ; for nothing so endures
as a truly spoken word. All cathedrals, pontiticalities.
brass and stone, and outer arrangement « never so lastin^r ,c
are brief in comparison to an unfathomable he..,t-son.^ lik"
this: one feels as if it might survive, sti!] of importan'Ie to

^ H' 11= H' seven hundred iiU'M^iii m ■,

'^ II' \l- arrangement,

.j.J-sJ'riM
\^%

• r ^:

■i
I

i .

ir-

lil

114

LECTURES OX HEROES

m^ ;

men, when these had all sunk into new irrecognisable com
binations, and had ceased individually to be. Kurope has
made much ; great cities, great empires, encyclopaedias,
creeds, bodies of opinion and practice: but it has made
little of the class of Dante's Thought. Homer yet is, veri-
tably present face to face with every open soul of us ; and
Greece, where is /// Desolate for thousands of years;
away, vanished ; a bewildered heap of stones and rubbish,
the life and existence of it all gone. Like a dream ; like

lo the dust of King Agamemnon ! Greece was ; Greece, except
in the words it spoke, is not.

The uses of this Dante.' We will not say much about
his 'uses.' .V human soul who has once got into that
primal element of Soii\;, and sung-forth ' fitly somewhat
therefrom, has worked in the t/t'/<t/is of our existence ; feed-
ing through long times the WiQ-roois of all excellent human
things whatsoever, — in a way that 'utilities' will not suc-
ceed well in calculating! We will not estimate the Sun by
the quantity of gas-light it saves us; Dante shall be inval-

20 uable, or of no value. One remark 1 may make : the
contrast in this respect between the Hero-1'oet and the
Hero-Prophet. In a hundred years, Mahomet, as we saw,
had his Arabians at Grenada and at Delhi; Dante's
Italians seem to be yet very much where they were. .Shall
we say, then, Dante's effect on the world was small in
comparison ? Not so : his arena is far more restricted ;
but also it is far nobler, clearer ; perhaps not less but
more important. Mahomet speaks to great masses of men,
in the coarse dialect adapted to such ; a dialect filled with

30 inconsistencies, crudities, follies : on the great masses alonu
can he act, and there with good and with evil strangely
blended. Dante speaks to the noble, the pure and great, in
all times and places. Neither does he grow obsolete, as

1 H' W \V sung forth

THE HERO AS roET

115

the other does. Dante hums as a pure star, fixed there in
the firmament, at which the great and the hijjh of all ages
kindle Miemselves: he is the possession of all the chosen of
the world for uncounted time. Dante, one calculates, may
long survive Mahomet. In this way the balance may be
made straight again.

But, at any rate, it is not by what is called their effect
on the world : v what nv can judge of their effect there,
that a man and his work are measured. Effect.' Influ-
ence } Utility ? Let a man Jo his work ; the fruit of it
is the care of Another than he. It will grow its own fruit ;
and whether embodied in Caliph Thrones and .\rabian
Conquests, so that it 'fills all Morning and Kvening News-
papers,' and all Histories, which are a kind of distilled
Newspapers; or not embodied so at all; — what matters
that? That is not the real fruit of it! The .\rabian
Caliph, in so far only as he did something, was something.
If the great Cause of Man, and Man's work in (iod's Earth,
got no furtherance from the Arabian Caiiph, then no mat-
ter how many scimetars he drew, how many gold piasters ' 20
pocketed, and what uproar and blaring he made in this
world, — //<- was but a loud-sounding inanity and futility;
at bottom, he 7iHis not at ail. Let us honour the great em-
pire of Silmce, once more ! The boundless treasury which
we do not jingle in our pockets, or count up and present
before men ! It is perha,.s, of all things, the usefulest" for
each of us to do, in these loud times.

As Dante, the Italian man, was sent into our world to
embody musically the Religion of the Middle Ages, the
Religion of our Modern Europe, its Inner Life'; so 30
Shakspeare, we may say, embodies for us the Outer
Life of our Europe as developed then, its chivalries,
Ul' piastres « tP uscfallest

i < :B

• I'

116

l.ECTUKES OX IlKKOKS

courtesies, humours, ambitions, what practical way of
thinking, actin;,', looking at the world, men then had.
As in Homer we may still construe Old (Ireece; so in
Shakspeare and Dante, after thoc ids of years, what our
modern ' Kurope was, in i-'aith and Practice, will still oe
legible. Dante has given us the Faith or soul; Shaks-
jMiare, in a not less noble way, has given us the Tractite
or body. 'I'his latter also we were to have ; a man was
sent for it, the man Shakspeare. Just when that chivalry

10 way* of life had reached its last finish, and was on the
point of breaking down into slow or swift dissolution, as
we now see it everywhere, this other sovereign Poet, with
his seeing eye, with his perennial singing voice, was sent
to take note of it, to give long-enduring record of it. Two
fit men : Dante, deep, fierce as the central fire of the
world; Shakspeare, wide, placid, far-seeing, as the Sun,
the upper light of the world. Italy produced the one
world-voice ; we Knglish had the honour of producing the
other.

20 Curious enough how, as it were by mere accident, this
man came to us. I think always, so great, quiet, complete
and self-sufticing is this Shakspeare, had the Warwickshire
Squire not prosecuted him for deer-stealing, we had perhaps
never heard of him as a Poet ! The woods and skies, the
rustic Life of Man in Stratford there, had been enough for
this man ! But indeed that strange outbudding of our
whole Knglish Existence, which we call the Elizabethan
Kra, did not it too come as of its own accord } The ' Tree
Fgdrasil ' buds and withers by its own laws, — too deep for

30 our scanning. \'ft it does bud and wither, and every
bough and leaf of it is there, by fixed eternal laws ; not a
Sir Thomas Lucy but comes at the hour fit for him. Curi-
ous, I say, and not sufficiently considered : how everything

1 H' H» H^ Modern 2 H« H* chivalry-way

>* •■'■

/•///; IIKKO AS roKi'

117

does cooperate • with all ; not a leaf rotting on the high-
way but is indissoluble portion of solar and stellar systems;
no thought, word or act of man but has sprung withal out of
all men, ar.u works sooner or later, recognisably or irrecogni-
sably, on all men ! It is all a Tree : circulation of sap and
mfluences, mutual communication of every minutest leaf
with the lowest talon of a root, with every other greatest
and minutest portion of the whole. The Iree Igdrasil,
that has its roots dcwn in the Kingdoms of }lela and
Death, and whose boughs overspread the highest Heaven !— lo

In some sense it may be said that this glorious Kliza-
bethan Kra with its Shakspeare, as the outcome and Hower-
age of all which had preceded it, is itself attributable to
the ("atholicism of the Middle Ages. The Christian Faith,
which was the theme of Dante's Song, had produced this
Practical Life which Shakspeare was to sing. For Religion
then, as it now and always is, was the soul of Practice •
the primary vital fact in men's life. And remark here, as
rather curious, that Middle-Age Catholicism was abolished,
so far as Acts of Parliament could abolish it, before .Shaks- 20
peare, the noblest product of it, made his appearance. He
did make his appearance nevertheless. Nature at her own
time, with Catholicism or what else might be necessary,
sent him forth ; taking small thought of Acts of Parlia-
ment. King-Henrys,-' Queen-Flizal)eths' go their way;
and Nature too goes hers. Acts of Parliament, on the'
whole, are small, notwithstanding the noise thev make.
What Act of Parliament, debate at St. Stephen's,' on the
hustings or elsewhere, was it that brought this Shakspeare
into bei:.g.> No dining at Freemasons' Tavern, opening jc
subscription-lists, selling of shares, and infinite other jan-
gling and true or false endeavoring ! This Elizabethan Era,

H' H» IF cooperate

H' Queen Elizabeth

II' King Henrys

' >i|

LECTURES OX HEROES

and all its nobleness and blessedness, came without proc-
lamation, preparation of ours. Priceless Shakspeare was
the free gift of Nature ; given altogether silently ; — re-
ceived altogether silently, as if it had been a thing of little
account. And yet, very literally, it is a priceless thing.
One should look at that side of matters too.

Of this .Shakspe- e of ours, perhaps the opinion one some-
times hears a little idolatrously expressed is, in fact, the
right one ; I think the best judgment not of this country

«o only, but of Kurope at large, is slowly pointing to the con-
clusion, That Shakspeare is the chief of all I'oets hitherto;
the greatest intellect who, in our recorded world, has left
record of himself in the way of Literature. On the whole,
I know not such a power of vision,' such a faculty ' of
thought, if we take all the characters of it, in any other
man. .Such a calmness of depth ; placid joyous strength ;
all things imaged in that great soul of his so true and clear,
as in a tranquil unfathomable sea ! It has been said, that
in the constructing of Shakspeare's Dramas there is, apart

ao from all other 'faculties' as they are called, an understand-
ing manifested, equal t, that in Bacon's Novum Or);ivium.
That is true; and it is not a truth that strikes every one.
It would become xixkag apparent if we tried, any of us for
himself, how, out of Shakspeare's dramatic materials, r./
could fashion such a result ! The built house seems all sd
fit, —everyway - as it should be, as if it came there by its
own law and the nature of things,'— we forget the nuic
disorderly quarry it was shaped from. The very perfec-
tion of the house, as if Nature herself had made it, hides

30 the builder's merit. Perfect, more perfect than any other
man, we may call Shakspeare in this : he discerns, knows
as by instinct, what condition he works under, what his

» » H' W vision, faculty 3 H« H' things ;

2 H' H* fit, every way H* fit, — every-way

THE ttEkO AS POET

materials are, what h

them

IS.

It is not a transitory

IS own force and its rcl

119

iition to

suffice; it is deliberate ill

glance of insight that will

umination of the whole mattei

"t .s a calmly seeing eye ; a great intellect, in short

„„^ , .. ' 0-- 'V.IILWI, III snori. tlow .1

man. of somew.de thing that he has witnessed, will cons tct
a narru.ve. what kind of picture and delin atio "

ect .s .n the man. Which circumstance is vital and shall
stand prominent; which unessential, tit to be suppresse

lo hnd out this, you task the whole force of insight tint

oThfd::h"of"h^ '""? '""''"'"' ''' ^'""«' --^i

to the depth of h.s understanding, will the fitness of his
answer be. Vou will try him so. Does like joi.. Use f t

tha us embrodment becomes order? (a., the man say.

wo df 'l' • f " '^" ''-^'^''^ *^"^^ -^ ^^ chaos make 'a
world .> Precisely as there is A^/,/ in himsel.; will he
accomplish this.

trahUinrn' "h T' "' '''""' '^ " '" ^^'^•^^ ^ -"^'d Por- .o
men. that Shakspeare .s ,vv<,/. All the greatness of 'the
nan comes out decisively here. It is unexampled. I think
that calm creative perspicacity of Shakspeare. The thin.:
he looks at reveals not this or that face of it. but its inmost
htart. and generic secret: it dissolves itself as in light
^ fore h.m. so that he discerns the perfect structure of i,
^ reat.ve. we said .- poetic creation, what is this too but
7CV ?u^ ^efficiently ? The r.w,/ that will describe
he thmg. follows of itself from such clear intense sight of jo
the thing. And is not Shakspeare's ».>r,r//n, his valour
IZtTu '°!f ''"''• ^^"^hfulness: his whole victorious
=>trength and greatness, which can triumph over such

• •>• '

120

i./:cruA'Ks oa; ///-lA'O/is

obstructions, visible tht-re too ? (Ireat as the world! No
fu'ts/,/, [Mjor convex-conc.ive mirror, reflecting; all objects
with its own convexities and concavities; a jxjrfectly /nr/
mirror; - -that is to »ay withal, if we will understand it,
a man justly related to all thin^^s and men, a ^(X)d man.
It is truly a lordly spectacle how this ■;reat soul take»-in '
all kinds of men and objects, a Kalstalf, an OthelK-, a Juliet,
a Coriolanus; sets them all forth to us in their round com-
pleteness; lovin;^, just the equal brother of all. Airv/w

10 Orj^tinHm, and all the intellect you will tind in Hacon, is of
a quite secondary order ; earthy, material, poor in com-
parison with this. Amonj; modern men, one finds, in
strictness, almos.. nothinj; of the same rank, (loethe alone,
since the days of Shaksjieare, reminds me of it. Of him
too you say that he sdjo the object ; you may say what
he himself says of Shakspeare : 'His characters are like-
watches with dial-plates of transparent crystal; they show
you the hour like others, and the inward mechanism als(»
is a'l visible.'

20 The seeing eye ! It is this that discloses the inner
harmony of things ; what Nature meant, what musical idea
Nature has wrappcd-up" in these often rough embodiments.
Something she did mean. To the seeing eye that some
thing were discernible. .\re they base, miserable things.'
\ ou can laugh over lliein, you can weep over them ; you
can in some way or otlier genially relate yourself to them;
■ — ^you can, i. t lowest, hold your peace about them, turn
away your own and others' face from thcin, till the hour
comt for practically exterminating and extinguishing them '.

30 At bottom, it is the Poet's first gift, as it is all men's, that
he have intellect enough. He will be a Poet if he have :
a Poet in word; cr failing that, perhaps sti" better, ^ Fret
in act. Whether he write at all ; and it so, whether in

» II' IP IP takes in ^ II' 11= IP wrapped up

//// ///■/•()

I'rc.scor in vtrso, will t|ir|H.n<l
what cKtrefT»,;|y trivial

.^.s P, .:r ,2,

>n accidt-nts: who knows on

hul . .in • *' '"'''^'' "''■""'^•"'^' - I'^^'-h'PH on hU having

..ul a H nKm^-mastcr. on his l,c-in« ,,.„;,ht to .in« in his

.oyhoo.II ,u.t the faculty which .nahlcs hin, to'lisccrn

e .nncr heart of thin,., and the harmony that dwells

.ere for whatsoc-ver exists has a har.nony in the heart of

• ';;;t -»"<' -'t hoUl together and exi.t,. is not the result

of hah.ts or accidents, hut the ,nft of Nature herself ; the

prunary outht for a Heroic M..n in what .ort .soever. To

the I oet as to every other, we say (irst of all. S.-.-. If you

c.nnot do that, it is of no use .o keep strin.in, rhv me"

oursclt a I'oet; there .s no hope f<.r you. If you can.
.ere .s. .n prose or verse, in action or speculation, al
..nner of hope. The crabbed old .Schoohnaster usJd to
ask w.,en they breu^du hi.n a new pupil. " lu.t are ye sure
he s „,, „ „ .,,,.. ,vhy, really one n,i,ht ask the same
h.n«. m regard to every nun proposed for whatsoever
function; and consider it as the one inquiry needful: .Are
}e sure he s not a dunce' Thero is. in this world, no .
'Jther entirely fatal person.

J'or, in fact, I say the dejjree of vision that dwells in a
nun .s a correct measure of the man. If called to define
Shakspeares faculty. I should say superiority of Intellect
and think I l,ad included all under that. What indeed arc'
faculties > We talkof facultx-s as if they were distinct, thing
separable ; as if a man had intellect, imagination, fancy, .<ct
as he has hands, feet and arms. That is a capi-al error.
Then again, we hear of a man's • intellectual nature,' and of
h.s moral nature.' as if these a,.un were divisible, and 30
exited apart Necessities of language do perhaps ' prescribe
such forms of utterance ' ; we must speak, I am aware, in that
way. tf we are to speak at ail. But words ought not to hard
" H' H^ indeed require us so to speak ;

len

M il

I '

;

122

LECTURES ON HEROES

into things for us. It seems to me, our apprehension of
this matter is, for most part, radically falsified thereby. We
ought to know withal, ai i to keep forever in mind, that
these divisions are at bottom but mimes ; that man's spiritual
nature, the vital Force which dwells in him, is essentially
one and indivisible ; that what we call imagination, fancy,
understanding, and so forth, are but different figures of the
same Power of Insight, all indissolubly connected with each
other, physiognomically related ; that if we knew one of

10 them, we might know all of thern. Morality itself, what we
call the moral quality of a man, what is tiii^ but another sii/r
of the one vital Force whereby he is and works ? Ml that
a man does is physiognomical of him. Y'ou may see how a
man would fight, by the way in which he sings ; his couragf,
or want of courage, is visible in the word he utters, in the
opinion he has formed, no less than in the stroke he strikes.
He is <»h' ; and preaches the same Self abroad in all these
ways.

Without hands a man might have feet, and could still

2o walk: but, consider it,' — without morality, intellect were
impossible for him; a'^ thoroughly immoral vian'- could not
know anything at all ! To know a thing, what we can call
knowmg, a man must first /o-r the thing, symjiathise'' with
it: that is, be virtuously related to it. If he have not the
justice to put down his own selfishness at every turn, the
courage to stand by the dangerous-true at every turn, how
shall he know ? His virtues, all of them, will lie recorded in
his knowledge. Nature, with her truth, remains to the bad,
to the .selfish and the pusillanimous forever a sealed book :

30 what such can know of N *:ure is mean, superficial, small ;
for the uses of the day merely. — But does not the very Fox
know something of Nature ? Exactly so : it knows where

1 11' HMt, IPit, —

^ IP IP W he

» H' IP H' sympathize

THE HEKO AS POET

123

the geese lodge ! The human Reynard, very frequent every-
where in the world, what more does he know but this and
the like of this ? Nay, it should be considered too, that if
the Fox had not a certain vulpine vwralih; he could not
even know where the geese were, or get at the geese ! If he
spent his time in splenetic atrabiliar reflections ' on his own
misery, his ill usage by Nature, Fortune and other Foxes,
and so forth ; and had not courage, promptitude, practi-
cality, and other suitable vulpine gifts and graces, he would
catch no geese. We may say of the Fox too, that his .o
morality and insight are of the same dimensions ; different
faces of the same internal unity of vulpine life ! — These
things are worth stating ; for the contrary of them acts with
manifold very baleful perversion, in this time : what limita-
tions, modifications they require, your own candour will
supply.

If I say, therefore, that Shakspeare is the greatest of
Intellects, I have said all concerning^ him. Hut there is
more in Shakspeare's intellect than we have yet seen. It '
is what I call an unconscious intellect ; there is more virtue 20
in it than he himself is aware of. Novalis beautifully
remarks of him, that those Dramas of his are Products of
Nature too, deep as Nature herself. I find a great truth in
this saying. Shakspeare's Art is not Artifice ; the noblest
worth of it is not there by plan or precontrivance. It
grows-up" from the deeps of Nature, through this noble
sincere soul, v .10 is a voice of Nature. The latest genera-
tions of men will find new meanings in Shakspeare, new
elucidations of their own human being ; ' new harmonies
witii the infinite structure of the Universe ; concurrences 30
with later ideas, affinities with the higher powers and
senses of man.' This well deserves meditating. It is

* H" W reflexions a H' H^ aljout

» H' H» \V grows up

I *M

^.:>

1 '-"1

124

LECTURES OX HEROES

Nature's hijjhest reward to a true simple great soul, that he
get thus to be a />ivt of herself . Such a man's works, whatso-
ever he witli tmost conscious exertion and forethought
shall accomj ,h, grow up withal ////consciously, from the
unknown deeps in him; as the oak-tree grows from the
Earth's bosom, as the mountains and waters shape them-
selves; with a symmetry grounded on Nature's own laws,
conformable to all Truth whatsoever. How much in Shaks-
peare lies hid ; his sorrows, his silent struggles known to

10 himself; much that was not known at all, not speakable at
all : like roots, like sap and forces working underground '.
Speech is great ; but Silence is greater.

Withal the joyful tranquillity of this man is notable, i
will not blame Dante for his misery : it is as battle without
victory; but true battle, --the tirst, indispensable thini;.
Vet I call Shakspeare greater than Dante, in that he fought
truly, and did conquer. Doubt it not, he had his own
sorrows : those Sonn./s of his wiJl even testify expresslv in
what deep waters he had waded, and swum struggling for

-o his life; — -as what man like him ever failed' to have' to
do ? It seems to me a heedless notion, our common one
that he sat like a bird on the bou ,1 ; and sang forth, free and
offhand,^ never knowing the troubles of other men. Not
so ; with no man is it so. How could a man travel forward
from rustic deer-poaching to such tragedy-writing, and not
fall-in '' with sorrows by the way ? Or, still better, hov,
could a man delineate a Hamlet, a ("oriolanus, a Macbeth.
so many suffering heroic heart.s, if his own heroic heart h;i(l
never suffered ? .\nd now, in contrast with all this, observe

30 his mirthfulness, his genuine overflowing love of laughter!
You would say, in no point does he exaggerate but only in
laughter. Fiery objurgations, words that pierce and burn.

1 1 H'UMiadnot

•^ H3 off hand

3H' IF HJ fall in

THE HERO AS POET

J25

are to be found in Shakspeare ; yet he is always in measure
here; never what Johnson would remark as a specially
'good hater.' But his laughter seems to pour from him in
floods ; he heaps all manner of ridiculous nicknames on the
butt ' he is bantering, tumbles' and tosses him in all sorts of
horse-play; you would say, with- his whole hfjart - laughs.
And then, if not always the finest, it is always a genial
laughter. Not at mere weakness, at misery or poverty;
never. Xo man who can laugh, what we call laughing, will
laugh at these things. It is some poor character only .0
di'siriiDi^o laugh, and have the credit of wit, that does so,
Laughter means sympathy; good laughter is not 'the
crackling of thorns under the pot.' Kven at stupidity and
pretension this Shakspeare does not laugh otherwise than
genially. Dogberry and \erges tickle our very hearts;
and we dismiss them covered with explosions of laughter:
but we like the poor fellows only the better for our laugh-
ing ; and hope they will get on well there, and continue
Presidents of the City-watch. Such laughter, like sun-
shine on the deep sea, is very beautiful to me. 20

M. ,><

■, 't •

We have no room to speak of Shakspeare's individual
works; though perhaps there is much still waiting to be
said 'on that head. Had we, for instance, all his plays''
reviewed as Hamht, in Willirhn Mrist.r, is ! A thing which
might, one day, be done. August Wilhelni Sclilegel has a
remark on his Historical Plays, Hrnry /v///- and tlie others,
which is worth remembering. He calls them a kind of
National Epic. Marlborough, you recollect, said, he knew
no English History but what he had learned from Shaks-
peare. There are really, if we look to it, few as memorable 3c
Histories. The great salient points are admirably seized ;

' ' 11' W butt. tuml.l.,< - - IP IP IP ruar^ ..lul

» II' 11= IP Flays

!> .

126

LECTURES ON HEROES

t! (

all rounds itself ofiF, into a kind of rhythmic coherence ; it
is, as Schlegel says, e/>ic; — as indeed all delineation by a
great thinker will be. There are right beautiful things in
those Pieces, which indeed together form one beautiful
thing. That battle of Agincourt strikes me as one of the
most perfect things, in its sort, we anywhere have of Shaks-
peare's. The description of the two hosts : the worn-out,
jaded English ; the dread hour, big with destiny, when the
battle shall begin ; and then that deathless valour : " Ye

lo good yeomen, whose limbs were made in England ! " There
is a noble Patriotism in it, — far other than the ' indiffer-
-e ' you sometimes hear ascribed to Shakspeare. A true
English heart breathes, calm and strong, through the whole
business ; not boisterous, protrusive ; all the better for that.
There is a sound in it like the ring of steel. This man too
had a right stroke in him, had it come to that !

But I will say, of Shakspeare's works generally, that we
have no full impress of him there; even as full as we have
of many men. His works are so many windows, through

20 which we see a glimpse of the world that was in him. All
his works seem, comparatively speaking, cursory, imperfect,
written under cramping circumstances ; giving only here
and there a note of the full utterance of the man. Passages
there are that come upon you like splendour out of Heaven ;
bursts of radiance, illuminating the very heart of the thing :
you say, " That is true, spoken once and forever ; whereso-
ever and whensoever there is an open human soul, that will
be recognised as true ! " Such bursts, however, make us
feel that the surrounding matter is not radiant ; that it is,

30 in part, temporary, conventional. Alas, Shakspeare had tu
write for the Globe Playhouse : his great soul had to crush
itself, as it could, into that and no other mould. It was
with him, then, as it is with us all. No man works save
under conditions. The sculptor cannot set his own free

THE HERO AS POET

Thought before us ; but his Thought as he could translate
it into the stone that was given, with the tools that were
given. Disjecta membra are all that we find of any Poet, or
of any man.

Whoever looks intelligently at this Shakspeare may
recognise that he too was a rroplut, in his way ; of an
insight analogous to the Prophetic, though he took it up in
another strain. Nature seemed to this man also divine;
««speakable, deep as Topht-t, high as Heaven : ' We are
such stuff as Dreams are made of!' That scroll in West- lo
minster Abbey, which few read with understanding, is of
the depth of any seer. Hut the man sang ; did not preach,
except usically. We called Dante the melodious Priest of
Middle-Age Catholicism. May we not call Shakspeare the
still more melodious Priest of a tnte Catholicism, the ' Uni-
versal Church ' of the Future and of all times .' No narrow
superstition, harsh asceticism, fanatical fierceness or perver-
sion : a Revelation, so far as it goes, that such a thousand-
fold hidden beauty and divineness dwells in all Nature;
which let all men worship as they can! We may say 20
without offence, that there rises x kind of universal Ps.ilni
out of this Shakspeare too ; not until to make itself heard
among the still more sacred Psalms. Not in disharmony
with these, if we understood them, but in harmony ' ! I
cannot call this Shakspeare a -Sceptic,- as some do; his
indifference to the creeds and theological quarrels of his
time misleading them. No : neither unpatriotic, ihoagh he
says little about his Patriotism ; nor - sceptic, though he'says
little about his Faith. Such ' indifference ' was the fruit of
his greatness withal : his whole heart was in his own grand .30
sphere of worship (we may call it such ) ; these other contro-
versies, vitally important to other men, were noi vital to hitn.
1 II' H- H^ unison -^ \\\ no

! '.

.-••J

—'it

•

il.1

tiM

128

LECTURES ON IIEKOES

But call it worship, call it what you will, is it not a right
glorious thing, and set of things, this that Shakspeare has
brought us ? For myself, I feel that there is actually a kind
of sacredness in the fact of such a man being sent into this
P^arth. Is he not an eye to us all ; a blessed heaven-sent
Bringer of Li<,'ht ?— And, at bottom, was it not perhaps far
better that this Shakspeare, everyway ' an unconscious man,
was conscious of no Heavenly message ? He did not feel, li kc
Mahomet, because he saw into those internal Splendours,

10 that he specially was the ' Prophet of dod:' and- was he
not greater than Mahomet in that ? C.reater ; and also, if
we compute strictly, as we did in Dante's case, more success-
ful. It was intrinsically an error that notion of Mahomet's,
of his supreme Prophethood ; and has come down to us
inextricably involved in error to this day ; dragging along
with it such a coil of fables, impurities, intolerances, as
makes it a questionable step for me here and now to say, as
I have done, that Mahomet was a true Speaker at all, and
not rather an ambitious charlatan, perversity and simula

20 crum ; no Speaker, but a Babbler I F.ven in Arabia, as 1
compute, Mahomet will have exhausted himself and become
obsolete, while this Shakspeare, this Dante may still be
young; while this Shakspeare may still pretend to be a
Priest of Mankind, of Arabia as of other places, for unlimited
periods to come ! '

Compared with any speaker or singer one knows, even
with .Eschylus or Homer, why should he not, for veracity
and universality, last like them ? He is sincere as they ;
reaches deep down like them, to the universal and peren

30 nial. But as for Mahomet, f think it had been better for
him not to be so conscious ! Alas, poor Mahomet ; all that
he was conscious of was a mere error ; a futility and trivial

» H' IP 1[^ every way ■: H' IP I ask

•^ no pa nigra/' /t in H' I|- W

THE IIEKO AS POET

12V

ity, —as indeed such ever is. I'he truly great in him too
was the unconscious : that he was a wild Arab lion of the
desert, and did speak-out ' with that great thunder-voice of
his, not by words which he thought to be great, but by
actions, by feelings, by a history whicii wnr great ! His
Koran has become a stujiid piece of prolix absurdity ; we
do not believe, like him, that r'.od wrote that! The C.reat
Man here too, as always, is a lorceof Nature: whatsoever
is truly great in him springs-up- from the ///articulate deeps.

Well : this is our poor Warwickshire Peasant, who rose 'o
to be Manager of a Playhouse, so that he could live with-
out begging ; whom the Karl of .Southampton cast some
kind glances on : whom Sir Thomas Lucy, many thanks to
him, was for sending to the I'readmill ! We did not account
him a god, like Odin, while lie dwelt with us; on which
point there were nuich to be said. Put i will say rather,
or repeat : In spite of the sad state Hero-worship now lies
in, consider what this Shakspeare has actuallv become
among us. Which Knglishman we ever made, in this land
of ours, which million of Knglishmen, would wc not give- 20
up' rather than the Stratford Peasant.' There is no regi-
ment of highest Dignitaries that we would sell iiini for.
He is the grandest thing we have yet done. Kor our
honour among foreign nations, as an ornament to our
Knglish Household, what item is tliere that we would not
surrender rather than him.' V -.sider now. if they asked
us, Will you give-up^ your Indian Kmiiire or your Shak.s-
peare, you Knglish ; never have had any Indian Kmpire,
or never have had any Shaksjieare .' Really it were a grave
question. ( )fficial persons would answer doubtless in offi- 30
cial language ; but we, for our part too. should not we be

» H' IP H3 speak out
^ H' H- H^ springs uj)

■' H' il- ir' give up
Ml' 11^ IP give up

■*i

■ !

130

LECTURES ON HEROES

forced to answer: Indian Empire,' or no' Indian Kmpire ;
we cannot do without Shakspeare ! Indian Kmpire will go,'
at any rate, some day ; but this Shakspeare does not go,'
he lasts forever with us; we cannot give-up* our Shaks-
peare!

Nay, apart from spiritualities; and considering him
merely as a real, marketable, tangibly-useful ' possession.
England, before long, this Island of ours, will hold but a
small fraction of the English : in America, in New Holland,
•o east and west to the very Antipodes, there will be a Saxon-
dom covering great spaces of the Cllobe. And now, what
is it that can keep all these together into virtually one
Nation, so that they do not fall-out* and fight, but live
at peace, in brotherlike intercourse, helping one another ?
This is justly regarded as the greatest practical problem,
the thing all manner of sovereignties and governments are
here to accomplish : what is it that will accomplish this ?
Acts of Parliament, administrative prime-ministers cannot.
America is parted from us, so far as Parliament could part it.
20 Call it not fantastic, for there is much reality in it : Here,
I say, is an English King, whom no time or chance. Parlia-
ment or combination of Parliaments, can dethrone ! This
King Shakspeare, does not he shine, in crowned sover-
eignty, over us all, as the noblest, gentlest, yet strongest of
rallying-signs ; ///destructible ; really more valuable in that
point of view than any other means or appliance whatso-
ever .? We can fancy him as radiant aloft 6ver all the
Nations of Englishmen, a thousand years hence. From
Paramatta, from New York, wheresoever, under what sort
30 of Parish-Constable soever, English men and women are,
they will say to one another: "Yes, this Shakspeare is
ours ; we produced him, we speak and think by him ; we

1 1

H' Empire, no
2 H' H» IP give up

3 H' H= H' tangibly useful
* II' IP IP fall out

nit: liEKO AS POET

are of one blood and kind with him." The most common-
—"•'e politician, too, if he pleases, may think of that.

iTes, tru'y. it is a great thing for a Nation that it get an
articulate voice; that it produce a man who will speak-
forth ' melodiously what the heart of it means! Italy, for
example, poor Italy lies dismembered, scattered asunder,
not appearing in any protocol or treaty as a unity at all ;
yet the noble Italy is actually one: Italy produced its
Dante; Italy can speak! The Czar of all the Russias, he
is strong, with so many bayonets, Cossacks and cannons; ir
and does a great feat in keeping such a tract of Earth polit-
ically together ; but he cannot yet speak. Something great
in him, but it is a dumb greatness. He has had no voice
of genius, to be heard of all men and times. He must
learn to speak. He is a great dumb monster hitherto. His
cannons and Cossacks will all have rusted into nonentity
while that Dante's voice is still audible. The Nation that
has a Dante is bound together as no dumb Russia can be.
— We must here end what we had to say of the Hero- Poet

^W II» IP speak forth

ill

LECTURK IV

THK IIKRo AS I'HIKSI. r.tilHKK; RKKORMATION :
KNOX; I'lIRriANISM

[Friday, i5tli May 1S40.] >

Our present discourse is to be of the (Ire.it M<in as
I'ric^l We have repeatedly endeavoured to explain that
all sorts of Heroes are intrinsically of the same material ;
that given a great soul, o\K'U to the Divine Significance of
Life, then there is given a man tit to speak of this, to sing
of this, to tight and work for this, in a great, victorious,
enduring manner; there is given a Hero, -the outward
shape of whom will depend on the time and the environ-
ment he finds himself in. I'ho Priest too, as I understaml

10 it, is a kind of I'rophet ; in him too there is required to he
a light of inspiration, as we must name it. He presides
over the worship of the people ; is the I'niter of them with
the Unseen Holy. He is the spiritual Captain of the
people; as the I'rophet is their spiritual King with many
captains: he guides them heavenward, by wise guidance-
through tiiis Karth and its work. The ideal of liim is, that
he too be what we can call a voice from the unseen Heaven ;
interpreting, even as the I'rophet did, and in a more familiar
manner unfolding the same to men. The unseen Heaven,

20 — the 'open secret of the I'niverse,' - which so few have
an eye for ! He is the I'rophet shorn of his more awful
splendour; burning with mild equable radiance, as the

> H' IF \V ./aU ahcwe titU.
'32

»'l

77//. HERO AS PKIEST

133

enhghtener of daily life. This, I s.iy, is the ideal of a
Priest. So in old nines; s.. in these, and in ill times.
One knows very well that, in n-l icin;; ideals to practice,
great latitude of tolerance is needful ; very K'rt-'at! Hut a
Priest who Is not this at all, who «loes not any lon^'er aim
or try to be this, is a character -of whom we had rather
not s|H!ak in this place.

Luther and Knox were by express vocation Priests, and
did faithfully perform that function in its common sense.
Yet it will suit us better here to consider them chiefly in .^
their historical character, rather as Reformers t'.. n Priests.
There have been other Priests perliaps equally notable, in
cilmer times, for doinj,' faithfully the oOice of a Leader of
Worship; bringing down, by faithful heroism in that kintl.
.1 light from Heaven into the daily life of their people;
leading them forward, as under Ood's guidance, in the way
wherein they were to go. Hut when this same n'nv was a
rough one. of battle, confusion and danger, the spiritual
Captain, who led through that. I)eco,„es, especially to us
who live under the fruit of his leading, more notable than 20
any other. He is the warfarin- and battling Priest ; who
led his people, not to cpiiet faithful labour as in smooth
times, but to faithful valorous conflict, in times all violent,
dismembered : a more i)erilous service, and a more memo-
rable one, be it higher or not. These two men we will
account our best Priests, inasmuch as thev were our best
Reformers. Nay I may ask. Is not every' true Reformer,
by the nature of him, a l'ri,st first of all? He appeals
to Heaven's invisible justice against Karth's visible force;
knows that it, the invisible, is strong and alone strong. 30
He is a believer in the divine truth of things ; a .urr, seeing
through the shows ' of things; a worshipper, in oneway or
the other, of the divine truth of things ; a Priest, that is.

1 H» IP shews

ill

tfi

134

LECrUK/iS OA' ItEROKS

^^H !

ail

^■t

If he be not first a Priest, he wi" ^er be good for much
as a Reformer.

Thus then, as we have seen (>reat Men, in various situa-
tions, building-up ' Religions, heroic Forms of human Exist-
ence .n this world. Theories of Life worthy to be sung by
a Dante, Practices of Life by a Sh.ikspcare, — we are now to
see the reverse process ; which also is necessary, which
also may be c;i''ried-on * in the Heroic manner. Curious
how this should be necessary : yet necessary it is. The

10 mild shining of the Poet's light has to give place to the
fierce lightning of the Reformer : unfortunately the Reformer
too is a personage that cannot fail in History ! The Poet
indeed, with his mildness, what is he but the product and
ultimate adjustment of Reform, or Prophecy, with its fierce-
ness? No wild Saint Dominies and Thebaid ' Kremites,
there had been no melodious Danta; rough Practical
Endeavour, Scandinavian and other, from Odin to Walter
Raleigh, from Ulfila to Cranmer, enabled Shakspeare to
speak. Nay the finished Poet, I remark sometimes, is a

io symptom that his epoch itself has reached perfection and
is finished ; that before long there will be a new epoch,
new Reformers needed.

Doubtless it were finer, could we go along always in the
way of music ; be tamed and taught by our Poets, as the
rude creatures were by their Orpheus of old. Or failing
this rhythmic viiisical way, how good were it could we get
so much as into the equable way ; I mean, if peaceable Priests,
reforming from day to day, would always suffice us ! But
it is not so ; even this latter has not yet been realised.

30 Alas, the battling Reformer too is, from time to time,
a needful and inevitable phenomenon. Obstructions are
never wanting : the very things that were once indispen-

» 1I» II» W building up - M' WW carried on

» H« H» Thebaid

'^ I

THR HERO AS PKIEST

sable furtherances become obstructiotiH ; and need to Iw
shaken-oJt,' and left behinu us -a businesH often of enor-
tnouH difficulty. It is notable enough, surely, how a Thee
rem or spiritual Representation, so we may call it. which
once took-in the whole Universe, and was completely satis-
factory in all pan if it to the highly-tliscursive' acute
intellect of Dante, one of the greatest in the world, had
in the course bf another century become dubitable to com-
mon intellects ; become deniable ; and is now, to every one
of us. Hatly incredible, obsolete as Odin's Theorem! ro lo
Dante, human Existence, and (lod's ways with men, were
all well represented by those MahM^cs, J'lux.Uorios ; to
Luther not well. How was this .» Why could not Dante's
Catholicism continue; but Luther's Protestantism must
needs follow > Alas, nothing will umtinuf.

I do lot make much of ' Progress of the Species,' as
handled in these times of ours ; nor do I think you would
care to hear much about it. The talk on that subject is
too often of the most extravagant, confused sort. Yet
I may say, the fact itself seems certain enough ; nay we 20
can trace-out'' the inevitable ntcessity of it in the nature
of things. Kvery man, as I have stated somewhere, is
not only a learner but a doer : he learns with the mind
given him what has been; but with the same mind he
discovers farther, he invents and devises somewhat of his
own. Absolutely without originality there is no man. No
man whatever believes, or can believe, exactly what his
grandfather believed : he enlarges somewhat, by fresh dis-
covery, his view of the ITniverse. and consequently his
Theorem of the Universe, — which is an /////////,■ Universe, 30
and can never be embraced wholly or finally by any view
or Theorem, in any conceivable enlargement : lie enlarges

> H" H- IP shaken off J H' !F IP highly discursive

3 H' H» H' trace out

136

LF.C TUNES ON IIKKO/.S

r I

i .,
I i

somewhat, I say : iiiids somewhat that was credible to his
grandfather incredible to him, false to him, inconsistent
with some new thing he has discovered or observed. It is
the history of every man ; and in the history of Mankind
we see it summed-up ' into great historical amounts, —
revolutions, new epochs. Dante's Mountain of I'urgatory
doe i //()/ stand 'in the ocean of the other Hemisphere,'
when Coluinhus has once sailed thither ! Men find no such
thing extant in the other l^Iemisphere. It is not there.

13 It must cease to be believed to be there. Sr with all
beliefs whatsoever in this world,— all Systems of IJelief,
and Systems of I'r.ictice that spring from these.

If we add now the melancholy fact, that when Belief
waxes uncertain, i'ractice too becomes unsound, and errors,
injustices and miseries everywhere more and more prevail,
we shall see material enough for revolution. At all turns,
a man who will ,/(f faithfully, needs to believe firmly. If he
have to ask at every turn the world's suffrage ; if he cannot
dispense with the world's suffrage, and make his own suf-

23 frage serve, he is a poor eye-servant ; the work committed
to him will be wmlone. F-very such man is a daily con
tributor to the inevitable downfall.- Whatsoever work ho
does, dishonestly, with an eye to the outward look of it, is
a new offence, parent of new misery to somebody or other.
Offences accumulate till they become insupportable; and
are then violently burst through, cleared off as by explo-
sion. Dante's sublime Catholicism, incredible now in the-
ory, and defaced still worse by faithless, doubting anddishon
est practice, has to be torn asunder by a Luther ; Shaks

30 peare's noble Feudalism, as beautiful as it once looked and
was, has to end in a French P evolution. The accumulation
of offences Is, as we say, too literally exploded, blasted

1 II' IP IP summed up
a H« H» downfal

l^tl

THE HEKO AS PRfEST

137

asunder volcanically ; and there are long troublous periods
before matters come to a settlement again.

Surely it were mournful enough to look only at this face
of the matter, and find in all human opini .v., and arrange-
ments merely ' the fact that they were i icertain, icmj .rary,
subject to the law of death ! At bot* .ai, u is not io : all
death, here too we find, is but of tl> b^dv, not of the
essence or soul ; all destruction, by violent revo.ution or
howsoever it be, is but new creation on a wider scale.
Odinism was Valour; Christianism was Humility, a nobler lo
kind of Valour. No thought that ever dwelt honestly as
true in the heart of man but loas an honest insight into
God's truth on man's part, and has an essential truth in it
which endures through all changes, an everlasting posses-
sion for us all. And, on the other hand, what a melan-
choly notion is that, which has to represent all men, in all
countries and times except our own, as having spent their
life in blind condemnable error, m^re lost Pagans, Scandi-
navians, Mahometans, only that we might have the true
ultimate knowledge ! All generations of men were lost and 20
wrong, only that this present little section of a generation
might be saved and right. They all marched forward
there, all generations since the beginning of the world, like
the Russian soldiers into the ditch of Schweidnitz Fort,
only to fill-up'' the ditch with their dead bodies, that we
might march-over ' and take the place ! It is an incredible
hypothesis.

Such incredible hypothesis we have seen maintained with
fierce emphasis ; and this or the other poor individual man,
with his sect of individual men, marching as over the dead 30
bodies of all men, towards sure victory : but when he too,
with his hypothesis and ultimate infallible credo, sank into

1 H* only •>■ \V If H' fill up

• H' H» H^ march over

..pj

S-«J

■'■At

■:•: .:r

^11 il

138

LECTURES OX HEROES

the ditch, and became a dead body, what was to be said ? —
Withal, it is an important fact in the nature of man, that
he tends to reckon his own insight as final, and goes upon
it as such. He will always do it, I suppose, in one or the
other way ; but it must be in some wider, wiser way than
this. Are not all true men that Hve, or that ever lived, sol-
diers of the same army, enlisted, under Heaven's cap-
taincy, to do battle against the same enemy, the empire
of Darkness and Wrong? Why should we misknow one

10 another, fight not against the enemy but against ourselves,
from mere difference of uniform? All uniforms shall be
good, so they hold in them true valiant men. All fashions
of arms, the Arab turban and swift scimetar, Thor's strong
hammer smiting down Jofuiis, shall be welcome. Luther's
battle-voice, Dante's march-melody, all genuine things are
with us, not against us. We are all under one Captain,
soldiers of the same host. — Let us now look a little at this
Luther's fighting ; what kind of battle it was, and how he
comported himself in it. Luther too was of our spiritual

20 Heroes ; a Prophet to his country and time.

As introductory to the whole, a remark about Idolatry
will perhaps be in place here. One of Mahomet's charac-
teristics, which indeed belongs to all Prophets, is unlimited
implacable zeal against Idolatry. It is the grand theme of
Prophets: Idolatry, the worshipping of dead Idols as the
Divinity, is a thing they cannot away-with,' but have to'
denounce continually, and brand with inexpiable reproba-
tion ; it is the chief of all the sins they see done under the
sun. This is worth noting. We will not enter here into
30 the theological question about Idolatry. Idol is Eidolon, a
thing seen, a symbol. It is not God, but a Symbol of (lod ;
and perhaus one may question whether any the most bc-
1 1 H' IP H' away with, but must

THE HERO AS PRIEST

139

H , \

nighted mortal ever took it for nore than a Symbol. I
fancy, he did not think that the poor image his own hands
had made was God ; but that God was emblemed by it, that
God was in it some way or other. And now in this sense,
one may ask, Is not all worship whatsoever a worship by
Symbols, by eidola, or things seen ? Whether seen, ren-
dered visible as an image or picture to the bodily eye ; or
visible only to the inward eye, to the imagination, to the
intellect : this makes a superficial, but no substantial dif-
ference. It is still a Thing Seen, significant of Godhead^; lo
an Idol. The most rigorous Puritan has his Confession of
Faith, and intellectual Representation of Divine things, and
worships thereby ; thereby is worship first made possible
for him. All creeds, liturgies, religious forms, conceptions
that fitly invest religious feelings, are in this sense eidola,
things seen. All worship whatsoever must proceed by Sym-
bols, by Idols: -we may say, all Idolatry is comparative,
and the worst Idolatry is only more idr>iatrous.

Where, then, lies the evil of it ? Some fatal evil must lie
in it, or earnest prophetic men woulr* )t on all hands so 20
reprobate it. Why is Idolatry so h;. .'Prophets? It

seems to me as if, in the worship of th ■ j^oor wooden sym-
bols, the thing that had chiefly provoked the Prophet, and
filled his inmost soul with indignation and aversion, was
not exactly what suggested itself to his own thought, and
came out of him in words to others, as the thing. 'I'he
rudest heathen that worshipped C'anopus, or the ("aabah
Black-Stone,'^ he, as we saw, was superior to the horse that
worshipped nothing at all ! Nay the ..'as a kind of last-
ing merit in that poor act of his ; analogous to what is still 2,0
meritorious in Poets : recognition of a certain endless
divine beauty and significance in stars and all natural
objects whatsoever. Why should the Prophet so merci-

1 H' IP Godhood •* H' Black-stone

0-
....

2v.

ir'-'i

140

LECTURES ON HEROES

lessly condemn him ? The poorest mortal worshipping his
Fetish, while his heart is full of it, may be an object of
pity, of contempt and avoidance, if you will ; but cannot
surely be an object of hatred. Let his heart be honestly
full of it, the whole space of his dark narrow mind illumi-
nated thereby ; in one word, let him entirely bdirrc in his
Fetish, - it will then be, I should say, if not well with him,
yet as well as it can readily be made to be, and you will
leave him alone, unmolested there.
10 But here enters the fatal circumstance of Idolatry, that,
in the era of the Prophets, no man's mind is any 'onger
honestly tilled with his Idol or Symbol. Before the
I? Prophet can arise who, seeing through it, knows it to

I be mere wood, many men must have begun dimly to doubt

that it was little more, ("ondemnable Idolatry is insimerc
Idolatry. Doubt has eaten-out' the heart of it : a human
soul is seen clinging spasmodically to an Ark of the tove-
nant, which it half-feels now to have become a Phantasm.
This is one of the balefulest - sights. Souls are no longer
20 jilhd with their Fetish ; but only pretend to be filled, and
would fain make themselves feel that they are filled. " Vou
do not believe," said Coleridge; "you only believe that
you believe." It is the final scene in all kinds of Worship
and Symbolism; the sure symptom that death is now nigh.
It is equivalent to what we call Formulism, and Worship of
Formulas, in these days of ours. No more immoral act
can be done by a human creature ; for it is the beginning
of all immorality, or rather it is the impossibility hence-
forth of any morality whatsoever : the innermost moral
30 soul is paralysed " thereby, cast into fatal magnetic sleep !
Men are no longer sincere men. I do not wonder that the
earnest man denounces this, brands it, prosecutes it with

1 11' 11- IP eaten out - FP balefuUest

» W 11= paralyzed

THE I'KNO AS PRIEST

inextinguishable aversion. He and il, ail good and it, are
at death-feud. iJlamable ' Idolatry is L\iiit, and even what
one may call Sincere-Cant. Sincere-! ant : tliat is worth
thinking of! Every sort of Worship ends with this
phasis.-'

I find Luther to have been a Breaker of Idols, no less
than any other Prophet. The wooden gods of the Koreish,
made of timber and bees-wa.x,' were not more hateful to
Mahomet than Tetzel's Pardons of Sin, made of sheepskin
and ink, were to Luther. It is the property of every Hero, lo
in every time, in every place and situation, that he come
back to reality ; that he stand upon things, and not shows '
of things. According as he loves, and venerates, articu-
lately or with deep speechless thought, the awful realities
of things, so will the hollow shows"' of things, however reg-
ular, decorous, accredited by Koreishes or Conclaves, be
intolerable and detestable to him. Protestantism too is
the work of a Prophet : the prophet-work of that sixteenth
century, v The first stroke of honest demolition to an
ancient thing grown false and idolatrous ; preparatory afar 20
otT to a new thing, which shall be true, and authentically
divine ! —

At first view it might seem as if Protestantism were
entirely destructive to this tliat we call Hero-worshi]), and
represent as the basis of all possible good, religious or
social, for mankind. One often hears it said thai Protes-
tantism introduced a new era, radically different from any
the world had ever seen before: the era of ' private judgment,'
as they call it. v By this revolt against the Pope, every man
became his own Pope; and learnt, among other things, 30
that he must never trust any Pope, or spiritual Hero-

t H' H- IJlameahlc ■> II' II- i)ut>-\v.ix

« no paragraph in II' IP IP « IP I P >luvvs

5 IP IP IPsluws

kit f'

f.r.

Js -

f T

I'"

142

LECTURES ON HEROES

captain, any more ! Whereby, is not spiritual union, all
hierarchy and subordination among men, henceforth an
impossibility ? So we hear it said. - Now I need not deny
that Protestantism was a revolt against spiritual sovereign-
ties. Popes and much else. Nay I will grant that Eng-
lish Puritanism, revolt against earthly sovereignties, was
the second act of it ; that the enormous French Revo-
lution itself was the third act, whereby all sovereignties
earthly and spiritual were, as might seem, abolished or

lo made sure of abolition. Protestantism is the grand root
from which our whole subsequent European History
branches out. For the spiritual will always body itself forth
in the temporal history of men ; the spiritual is the begin-
ning of the temporal. And now, sure enough, the cry is
everywhere for Liberty and Equality, Independence and so
forth; instead of Kings, Ballot-boxes and Electoral suf-
frages : it seems made out that any Hero-sovereign, or loyal
obedience of men to a man, in things temporal or things
spiritual, has passed away forever from the world. I should

20 despair of the world altogether, if so. One of my deepest
convictions is, that it is not so. Without sovereigns, true
sovereigns, temporal and spiritual, I see nothing possible
but an anarchy ; the hatefulest ' of things. But I find
Protestantism, whatever anarchic democracy it have pro-
duced, to be the beginning of new genuine sovereignty and
order. I find it to be a revolt against /^//.f<' sovereigns ; the
painful but indispensable first preparative for true sover-
eigns getting place among us! This is worth explaining a
little.

y Let us remark, therefore, in the first place, that this of
' private judgment ' is, at bottom, not a new thing in the
world, but oni_, new at that epoch of the world. There is
nothing generically new or peculiar in the Reformation ; it

1 IP hatefuUest

THE //KA'O AS rh'/EST

143

was a return to Irutli and Reality in opposition to lalse-
hood and Sen>l)lance, as all kinds of Improvement and
•'enuine I'eaehing are and have been. Liberty of private
judgment, if we will consider it, must at all times have
existed in the world. Dante iiad not put-out' his eyes, or
tied shackles on himself; he was at home in that ( atholi-
cism of his, a free-seeing soul in it, — if many a poor liogs-
traten, I'etzel and Dr. Kck had now become slaves in il.
Liberty of judgment ? No iron chain, or outward force of
any kind, could ever compel the soul of a man to believe lo
or to disbelieve : it is his own indefeasible light, that judg-
ment of his ; he will reign, and believe there, by the grace
of (lod alone ! The sorriest sophistical IJellarmine, preach-
in" si-rhtless faith and passive obedience, must first, by
some kind of amridion, have abdicated his right to be con-
vinced. His 'private judgment' indicated that, as the
advisablest step he could take. The right of private judg-
ment will subsist, in full force, wherever true men subsist.
A true man lu-lir,\-s with his whole judgment, with all the
illumination and discernment that is in him, and has always 20
so believed. A false man, only struggling to 'believe that
he believes,' will naturally manage it in some other way.
Protestantism said to this latter. Woe ! and to the former,
Well done ! At bottom, it was no new saying ; it was a
return to all old sayings that ever had been said, lie gen-
uine, be 'sincere: that was, once more, the meaning of it.
Mahomet believed with his whole mind; Odin with his
whole mind, —he, and all true Followers of Odinism.
They, by their private judgment, had ' judged '-- at?.

And now I venture to assert, that the exercise of private 30
judgment, faithfully gone about, does by no means neces-
sarily end in selfish independence, isolation - ; but rather
ends necessarily in the opposite of that. It is not honest
1 W H' IP put out - H' H^ isolation,

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LECTURES ON HEROES

t
i

inquiry that makes anarchy ; but it is error, insincerity,
half-belief and untruth that make • it. A man protesting
against error is on the way towards uniting himself with all
men that believe in truth. There is no communion pos-
sible among men who believe only in hearsays. The heart
of each is lying dead ; has no power of sympathy even with
things, — or he would believe them and not hearsays. No
sympathy even with things ; how much less with his fellow-
men ! He cannot unite with men ; he is an anarchic man.

lo Only in a world of sincere men is unity possible ; — and
there, in the longrun,' it is as good as certain.

For observe one thing, a thing too often left out of view,
or rather altogether lost sight of, in"* this controversy:
That it is not necessary a man should himself have discov-
ered iht truth he is to believe in, and* never so sincerely to
believe in.* A Great Man, we said, was always sincere, as
the first condition of him. But a man need not be great
in order to be sincere ; that is not the necessity of Nature
and all Time, but only of certain corrupt unfortunate

20 epochs of Time. A man can believe, and make his own,
in the most genuine way, what he has received from an-
oth4er ; — and with boundless gratitude to that other ! The
merit of originality is not novelty : it is sincerity. The
believing man is the original man ; whatsoever he believes,
he bdkves it for himself, not for another. Every son of
Adam cafl become a sincere man, an original man, in this
sense ; no nuy*-tal is doomed to he an insincere man. Whole-
ages, what we call ages of Faith, are original ; all men in
them, or the most of men in them, sincere. These are the

30 great and fruitful ages : ev«ry worker, in all spheres, is .1
worker not on semblance but vn substance ; every work
issues in a result

the general sum -->f such work is great ,

1 II' II' H^ makes
* M' H» HMong-run

=' W IPo<in

* < H' never -lo sincerely.

THE HERO AS PKIEST

145

for all of it, as genuine, tends towards one goal ; all of it
is addith'e, none of it subtractive. 'I'here is true union, true
kingship, loyp'ty, all true and blessed things, so far as the
poor Karth ca.i produce blessedness for men.'

• Hero-worship ? Ah me, that a man be self-subsistent,
original, true, or what we call it, is surely the farthest in
the world from indisposing him to reverence and believe
other men's truth ! It only disposes, necessitates and in-
vincibly compels him to ^//jbelieve other men's dead for-
mulas, hearsays and untruths. A man embraces truth with lo
his eyes open, and because his eyes are open : does he
need to shut them before he can love his Teacher of truth .'
He alone can love, with a right gratitude and genuine loy-
alty of soul, the Hero-Teacher who has delivered him out
of darkness into light. Is not such a one a true Hero and
Serpent-queller ; worthy of all reverence! The black mon-
ster. Falsehood, our one enemy in this world, lies prostrate
by his valour ; it was he that conquered the world for us !
— See, accordingly, was not Luther himself reverenced as
a true Pope, or Spiritual Father, M'//^' verily such ? Napo-
leon, from amid boundless revolt of Sansculottism, became
a King. Hero-worship never dies, nor can die. Loyalty
and Sovereignty are everlasting in the world : — and there
is this in them, that they are grounded xA on garnitures
and semblances, but on realities and sincerities. \ot by
shutting your eyes, your ' private judgment ; ' no, but by
opening them, and by having something to see ! Luther's
message was deposition and abolition to all false Popes and
Potentates, but life and strength, though afar off, to new
genuine ones.

All this. of Liberty and Equality, Electoral suffrages,
Independence and so forth, \vc will take, therefore, to be a
temporary phenomenon, by no means a final one. Though

' no paragraph tn II' IP IP

1 ,

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146

I.ECrUKES ON lltlKOh.S

likely to last a long time, with sad enou;,'h umltroilrnc-nts for
us all, we must welcome it. as the pen.ilty of sins that are
past, the pledge of inestimable benefits that are comin;,'.
In all ways, it behovetl men to c|iiit simulacra and return
to fact; cost what it might, that did behove to be done.
With spurious I'opes, and Helievtrs ' having no private
judgment, —quacks pretending to command over dupes, -
what can you do? Misery and mischief only. Vou can
not make an association out of insincere men ; you cannot

lo build an edifice except by plummet and level, — at rit^ht-
angles to one another ! In all this wild revolutionary work,
from Protestantism downwards, I see the blessedest result
preparing i .[-. not abolition of Hero-worship, but rather
what I would call a whole World of Heroes. If Hero mean
sincere man, why may not every one of us be a Hero ? .\
world all sincere, a believing world : the like has been ; the
like will again be, — cannot he!;- i eing. That were the
right sort of Worshippers for licjoes: never could the
truly Better be so reverenced as where all were True and

20 Good ! — But we must hasten to Luther and his Life.

Luther's bl.-thplace was Kisleben in Saxony ; he came
into the world there on the loth of November 14H3. It
was an accident that gave this honour to Kisleben. His
parents, poor mine-labourers in a village of that region,
named Mohra, had gone to the Kisleben Winter-Fair : in
the tumult of this scene the Krau Luther was taken with
travail, found refuge in some poor house there, and the boy
she bore was named Martin LirrnKK. Strange enough to
reflect upon it. This poor Frau Luther, she had gone with
30 her husband to make her small merchandisings ; perhaps
to sell the lock of yarn she had been spinning, to buy the
small winter-necessaries for her narrow hut or household :

^ H' believers

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TIN: IIEKO AS PNIEST

147

in the whole world, that day, there w;is not .1 more entirely
unimportant-looking pair of i)eople than this Miner and
his Wifo. And yet what were all Kmperors, I'ojjes and
Potentates, in comparison ? i'liere was born here, once
more, a Mijjhty Man ; whose li};ht was to tlame as the bea-
con over long centuries and epochs of the world ; the whole
world and its history was waiting for this man. It is
strange, it is great. It leads us back to another Hirth-
hour, in a still meaner environment, Kighteen Hundred
years ago, — of which it is fit that we say nothing, that 10
we think only in silence ; for what words are there ! The
Age of Miracles past.' The .Age of Miracles is forever
here ! -

I find it altogether suitable to Luther's function in this
Earth, and doubtless wisely ordered to that end by the
Providence presiding over him and us and all things, that
he was born poor, and brought-up ' poor, one of the poorest
of men. He had to beg, as the scliool-children in those
times did ; singing for alms and brt-ad, from door to door.
Hardship, rigorous Necessity was the poor boy's compaii- 20
ion ; no man nor no thing would put-on a false face to
flatter Martin Luther. Among thinj^s, not among the
shows* of things, had he to grow. A hoy of rude figure,
yet with weak health, with his large greedy soul, full of all
faculty and sensibility, he suffered greatly. Hut it was his
task to get acquainted with rcalitits, and keep acquainted
with them, at whatever cost : his task was to bring the
whole world back to reality, for it had dwelt too long with
semblance! A youth nursed-up'^ in wintry whirlwinds, in
desolate darkness and difficulty, thai he may step-forth * at 3°
last from his stormy Scandinavia, strong as a true man, as
a god : a Christian Odin, — a right Thor oncc more, with

!■:,■■■
:;5 •

■'I

» H' H» W brought up
!»H' IP shews

•M!" n- IP nursed up
Ml' H' IP step forth

148

LECTUKES ON ItEROES

his thunder-hammer, to smite asunder ugly enough Jolum
and (Mant-monsters !

I'erh.ips the turning incident of his life, we may fancy,
was that death of his friend Alexis, »)y lightning, at tin-
gate of Krfurt. Luther had struggled-up ' through boyhood,
better and worse; displaying, in spite of all hindrances,
the largest intellect, eager to learn : his father judginj;
doubtless that he might promote himself in the world, set
him upon the study of Law. This was the path to rise ;

lo Luther, with little will in it either way, had consented : he-
was now nineteen years of age. Alexis and he had been
to see the old Luther people at Mansfeldt ; were got back
again near Krfurt, when a thunderstorm came on ; the bolt
struck Alexis, he fell dead at Luther's feet.^ What is this
Life of ours ?•■'—- gone in a minute, burnt-up * like a scroll.
into the blank Eternity ! What are all earthly preferments,
Chancellorships, Kingships ? They lie shrunk together
there ! The Earth has opened on them ; in a moment
they are not, and Eternity is. Luther, struck to the heart.

ao determined to devote himself to (lod and (lod's servict
alone. In spite of all dissuasions from his father and
others, he became a Monk in the Augustine Convent at
Erfurt.

This was probably the first light-point in the history ot
Luther, his purer will now first decisively uttering itself ;
but, for the present, it was still as one light-point in an cle
ment all of darkness. He says he was a pious monk, i.'
bin ein fromnur Moiuh frnerscn ; faithfully, painfully strui;
gling to work-out'' the truth of this high act of his; but it

30 was to little purpose. His misery had not lessened; ha

rather, as it were, increased into infinitude.

I'he drudgcr

1 H' IP W struggled up Ml' ours ; —

^H' Unhand MI' IP H^ burnt up

' 11' II- W work out

THE llEkO AS I'klEST

149

ics he had to do, as novice in his ( onve nt, all sorts of
slave-work, were not his grievance; the deep earnest soul
of the man had fallen into all manner uf black scruples,
dubitations ; he believed himself likely tu die soon, and far
worse than die. One hears with a new interest for j)oor
Luther that, at this time, he lived in terror of the un-
speakable misery ; fancied that he was doomed to eternal
reprobation. Was it not the humble sincere nature of the
man ? What was he, that he should be raised to Heaven !
He that had known only misery, and mean slavery : the lo
news was too blessed to be credible. It could not become
clear to him how, by fasts, vi>;ils, formalities and mass-
work, a man's soul could be saved. He fell into the
blackest wretchedness ; had to wander staggering as on
the verge of bottomless Despair.

It must have been a most blessed discovery, that of
an old Latin Bible which he found in the Krfurt Library
about this time. He had never seen the Hook before. It
taught him another lesson than that of fasts and vigils.
A brother monk too, of pious experience, was helpful. 20
Luther learned now that a man was saved not by singing
masses, but by the infinite grace of (lod: a more credible
hypothesis. He gradu.ally got himself founded, as on the
rock, "^o wonder he should venerate the Bible, which had
brought this blessed help to him. He prized it as the
Word of the Highest must be prized by such a man. He
determined to hold by that ; as through life and to death
he firmly did.

This, then, is his deliverance from darkness, his final
triumph over darkness, what we call his conversion ; for 3°
himself the most important of all epochs. That he should
now grow daily in peace and clearness ; that, unfolding
now the great talents and virtues implanted in him, he
should rise to importance in his Convent, in his country,

, 5 ^>{l

ISO

LECTURES OiX JtEROES

and be found more and more useful in all honest business
of life, is a natural result. He was sent on missions by his
Augustine Order, as a man of talent and fidelity fit to do
their business well : the Elector of Saxony, Friedrich,
named the Wise, a truly wise and just prince, had cast his
eye on him as a valuable person ; made him Professor in
his new University of Wittenberg. Preacher too at Witten-
berg ; in both which capacities, as in all duties he did, this
L'lther, in the peaceable sphere of common life, was gaining

lo more and more esteem with all good men.

It was in his twenty-seventh year that he first saw Rome ;
being sent thither, as I said, on mission from his Convent.
Pope Julius the Second, and what was going-on ' at Rome,
must have filled the mind of Luther with amazement.
He had come as to the Sacred City, throne of (Jod's High-
priest on Karth ; and he found it — what we know ! Many
thoughts it must have given the man ; many which we
have no record of, wnich perhaps he did not himself know
how to utter. This Rome, this scene of false priests,

20 clothed not in the beauty of holiness, but in far other ves-
ture, \% false: but what is it to Luther? A mean man he,
how shall he reform a world ? That was far from his
thoughts. A humble, solitary man, why should he at all
meddle with the world ? It was the task of quite higher
men than he. His business was to guide his own footsteps
wisely through the world. Let him do his own obscure
duty in it well ; the rest, horrible and dismal as it looks, is
in Cod's hand, not in his.

It is curious to reflect what might have been the issue,

30 had Roman Popery happened to pass this Luther by ; to
go on in its great wasteful orbit, and not come athwart
his little path, and force him to assault it ! Conceivable
enough that, in tuis case, he might have held his peace

» H» H» H3 going on

THK IIIIKO AS PKIKST

151

about the abuses of Rome ; left Providence, and (lod on
high, to deal with them ! A modest quiet man ; not prompt
he to attack irrevcently persons in authority- His clear
task, as I say, was to do his own duty ; to walk wisely in
this wor'd of confused wickedness, and save his own soul
aiive. But the Roman High priesthood did come athwart
him : afar off at Wittenberg he, Luther, could not get lived
in honesty for it ; he remonstrated, resisted, came to ex-
tremity ; was struck-at,* struck again, and so it came to
wager of battle between them ! This is worth attending to lo
in Luther's history. I'erhaps no man of so humble, peace-
able a disposition ever tilled the world with contention.
We cannot but see that he would have loved privacy, quiet
diligence in the shade ; that it was against his will he ever
beca..ie a notoriety. Notoriety : what would that do for
him ? I'he goal of his march through this world was the
Infinite Heaven; an indubitable goal for him: in a few
years, he should either have attained that, or lost it for-
ever ! We will say nothing at all, I think, of that sorrow-
fulest * of theories, of its being some mean shopkeeper 20
grudge, of the Augustine Monk against the Dominican,
that first kindled the wrath of Luther, and produced the
Protestant Reformation. We will say to the people who
maintain it, if indeed any such exist now : Clet first into
the sphere of thought by which it is so much as possible to
judge of Luther, or of any man like Luther, otherwise than
distractedly; we may then begin arguing with you.

The Monk Tetzel, sent out carelessly in the way of
trade, by Leo Tenth, — who merely wanted to raise a
little money, and for the rest seems to have been a Pagan 3°
rather than a Christian, so far as he was anything,
arrived at Wittenberg, and drove his scandalous trade
there. Luther's flock bought Indulgences; in the confes-

1 H' H" IP struck at « H' sorrowfullest

%'•■

'It;

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1 tr.

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'Lit'J

152

LECTURES ON HEROES

sional of his Church, people pleaded to him that they had
already got their sins pardoned. Luther, if he would not
be found wanting at his own post, a false sluggard and
coward at the very centre of the little space of ground that
was his own and no other man's, had to step-forth ' against
Indulgences, and declare aloud that they were a futility and
sorrowful mockery, that no man's sins could be pardoned
by them. It was the beginning of the whole Reformation.
We know how it went ; forward from this first public chal-

10 lenge of Tetzel, on the last day of October 1517, through
remonstrance and argument ; — spreading ever wider, rising
ever higher ; till it became unquenchable, and enveloped
all the world. Luther's heart's-desire * was to have this
grief and other griefs amended ; his thought was still far '
other than that of introducing' separation in the Church,
or revolting against the Pope, Father of Christendom. —
The elegant Pagan Pope cared little about this Monk and
his doctrines ; wished, however, to have done with the
noise of him : in a space of some three years, having tried

20 various softer methods, he thought good to end it by fire.
He dooms the Monk's writings to be burnt by the hang-
man, and his body to be sent bound to Rome, — probably
for a similar purpose. It was the way they had ended with
Huss, with Jerome, the century before. A short argument,
fire. Poor Huss: he came to that Constance* Council,
with all imaginable promises and safe-conducts ; an earnest,
not rebellious kind of man : they laid him instantly in a
stone dungeon * three-feet * wide, six-feet ® high, seven-feet '
long;' burnt the true voice* of him out* of this world;

30 choked it in smoke and fire. That was not well done I

1 H" H'' H' step forth

2 H' heart's desire

• * H' H* far from introducing

* H» Constant

6IP n» HMhreefeet
»H' IP IP six feet
7 H" H» H» seven feet
•«H' H* voice out

THE HERO AS PRIEST

153

I, for one, pardon Luther for now altogether revolting
against the Pope. The elegant Pagan, by this fire-decree
of his, had kindled into noble just wrath the bravest heart
then living in this world. The bravest, if also one of the
humblest, peaceablest ; it was now kindled. These words
of mine, words of truth and soberness, aiming faithfully, as
hunun inability would allow, to promote God's truth on
Earth, and save men's souls, you, God's vicegerent on earth,
answer them by the hangman and fire ? You will burn me
and them, for answer to the God's-message they strove lo
to bring you ? You are not God's vicegerent ; you are
another's ' than his,* I think ! I take your Bull, as an
emparchmented Lie, and burn //. You will do what you
see good next : this is what I do. — It was on the loth - of
December 1520, three years after the beginning of the
business, that Luther, 'with a great concourse of people,'
took this indignant step of burning the Pope's fire-decree
'at" the Elster-Gate of Wittenberg.'" Wittenberg looked
on ' with shoutings ; ' the whole world was looking on.
The Pope should not have provoked that 'shout ' ! It was 20
the shout of the awakening of nations. The quiet German
heart, modest, patient of much, had at length got more
than it could bear. Formulism, Pagan Popeism,* and
other Falsehood and corrupt Semblance had ruled long
enough : and here once more was a man found who durst
tell all men that God's-world stood not on semblances but
on realities; that life was a truth, and not a lie !

At bottom, as was said above, we are to consider Luther
as a Prophet Idol-breaker; a bringer-back* of men to
reality. It is the function of great men and teachers. 30
Mahomet said. These idols of yours are wood ; you put

1 » H' another s W} another's * H' H= H' Popism

4 H' H» H' tenth s n« H» H* bringer back

* * H' in the market place of Wittenberg

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LECTURES ON HEROES

wax and oil on them, the flies stick on them : they are not
God, I tell you, they are black wood ! Luther said to the
Pope, This thing of yours that you call a Pardon of Sins,
it is a bit of rag-paper with ink. It is nothing else ; it,
and so much like it, is nothing else. God alone can par-
don sins. Popeship, spiritual Fatherhood of God's Church,
is that a vain semblance, of cloth and parchment ? It is an
awful fact. God's Church is not a semblance. Heaven and
Hell are not semblances. I stand on this, since you drive

10 me to it. Standing on this, I a poor German Monk am
stronger than you all. I stand solitary, friendless,' but on '
God's Truth ; you with your tiaras, triple-hats, with your
treasuries and armories, thunders spiritual and temporal,
stand on the Devil's Lie, and are not so strong ! —

The Diet of Worms, Luther's appearance there on the
17th of April 1 52 1, may be considered as the greatest scene
in Modern European History ; the point, indeed, from
which the whole subsequent history of civilisation ■* takes
its rise. After multiplied negotiations, disputations, it had

20 come to this. The young Emperor Charles Fifth, with all
the Princes of Germany, Papal nuncios, dignitaries spiritual
and temporal, are assembled there : Luther is to appear and
answer for himself, whether he will recant or not. The
world's pomp and power sits there on this hand : on that,
stands-up ' for God's Truth, one man, the ^ poor miner Hans
Luther's S .» Friends had reminded him of Huss, advised
him not to go ; he would not be advised. A large company
of friends rode-out * to meet him, with still more earnest
warnings; he answered, "Were there as many Devils in

1 1 H'H* friendless, one man, on

2 H' H» civilization
SH' H=H^ stands up

* ♦ H' Hans I^nther the poor miner's son
s H" IP ir todeout

THE HERO AS PRIEST

155

Worms as there are roof-tiles, I would on." The people, on
the morrow, as he went to the Hall of the Diet, crowded
the windows and housetops, some of them calling oui to
him, in solemn words, not to recant : " Whosoever denieth
me before men ! " they cried to him, — as in a kind of
solemn petition and adjuration. Was it not in reality our
petition too, the petition of the whole world, lying in dark
bondage of soul, paralysed under a black spectral Night-
mare and triple-hatted Chimera, calling itself Father in
God, and what not : " Free us ; it rests with thee ; desert lo
us not!'"

Luther did not desert us. His speech, of two hours,
distinguished itself by its respectful, wise and honest tone ;
submissive to whatsoever could lawfully claim submission,
not submissive to any more than that. His writings, he
said, were partly his own, partly derived from the Word of
God. As to what was his own, human infirmity entered
into it ; unguarded anger, blindness, many things doubtless
which it were a blessing for him could he abolish altogether.
But as to what stood on sound truth and the Word of God, 20
he could not recant it. How could he? "Confute me,"
he concluded, "by proofs of Scripture, or else by plain just
arguments: I cannot recant otherwise. For it is neither
safe nor prudent to do aught against conscience. Here
stand I ; I can do no other : God assist me ! " — It is, as
we say, the greatest moment in the Modern History of
Men. English Puritanism, England and its Parliaments,
Americas, and vast work these two centuries ; French Revo-
lution, Europe and its work everywhere at present: the
germ of it all lay there : had Luther in that moment done 3°
other, it had all been otherwise ! The European World was
asking him : Am I to sink ever lower into falsehood, stagnant
putrescence, loathsome accursed death ; or, with whatever
1 no paragraph in H» H* H'

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156

LECTURES ON HEROES

paroxysm, to cast the falsehoods out of me, and be cured
and live ? —

Great wars, contentions and disunion followed out of this
Reformation ; which last down to our day, and are yet far
from ended. Great talk and crimination has been made
about these. They are lamentable, undeniable ; but after
all, what has Luther or his cause to do with them ? It
seems strange reasoning to charge the Reformation with all
this When Hercules turned thi purifying river into King

10 Augeas's stables, I have no doubt the confusion that resulted
was considerable all around : but I think it was not Her-
cules's blame ; it was some other's blame ! The Reforma-
tion might bring what results it liked when it came, but the
Reformation simply could not help coming. To all Popes
and Popes' advocates, expostulating, lamenting and accus-
ing, the answer of the world is : Once for all, your Pope-
hood has become untrue. No matter how good it was, how
good you say it is, we cannot believe it ; the light of our
whole mind, given us to walk-by ' from Heaven above, finds

20 it henceforth a thing unbelievable. We will not believe it,
we will not try to believe it, — we dare not ! The thing is
untrue; we were traitors against the Giver of all Truth, if
we durst pretend to think it true. Away with it ; let what-
soever likes come in the place of it : with it we can have
no farther trade! — Luther and his Protestantism is not
responsible for wars ; the false Simulacra that forced hini to
protest, they are responsible. Luther did what every mar
that God has made has not only the right, but lies under
the sacred duty, to do : answered a Falsehood when it ques-

30 tioned him, Dost thou believe me ? — No ! — At what cost
soever, without counting of costs, this thing behoved to be
done. Union, organisation spiritual and material, a far

1 H' W W walk by

THE HERO AS PRIEST

157

nobler than any Popedom or Feudalism in their truest
days, I never doubt, is coming for the world ; sure to come.
But on Fact alone, not on Semblance and Simulacrum, will
it be able either to come, or to stand when come. With
union grounded on falsehood, and ordering us to speak
and act lies, we will not have anything to do. Peace ?
A brutal lethargy is peaceable, the noisome grave is peace-
able. We hope for a living peace, not a dead one !

And yet, in prizing justly the indispensable blessings of
the New, let us not be unjust to the Old. The Old was lo
true, if it no longer is. In Dante's days it needed no
sophistry, self-blinding or other dishonesty, to get itself
reckoned true. It was good then ; nay there is in the soul
of it a deathless good. The cry of ' No Popery ' is foolish
enough in these days. The speculation that Popery is on
the increase, building new chapels and so forth, may pass
for one of the idlest ever started. Very curious: to count-
up* a few Popish chapels, listen to a few I - jtestant logic-
choppings, — to much dull-droning drowsy inanity that still
calls itself Protestant, and say : See, Protestantism is dead; 20
Popeism^is more alive than it, will be alive after it! —
Drowsy inanities, not a few, that call themselves Protestant
are dead ; but Protestantism has not died yet, that I hear
of ! Protestantism, if we will look, has in these days pro-
duced its Goethe, its Napoleon ; German Literatu.eand the
French Revolution ; rather considerable signs of life ! Nay,
at bottom, what else is alive hut Protestantism ? The life of
most else that one meets is a galvanic one merely, — not a
pleasant, not a lasting sort of life !

Popery can build new chapels ; welcome to do so, to 30
all lengths. Popery cannot come back, any more than
Paganism can, — whieh also still lingers in some countries.
But, indeed, it is with these things, as with the ebbing of the

' H' H' H* count up 2 H' ir IP Popism

^ K

S \\

!■» :

158

LECTURES ON HEROES

sea: you look at the waves oscillating hither, thither on
the beach ; for minutes you cannot tell how it is going ,
look in half an hour where it is, — look in half a century
where your Popehood is ! Alas, would there were no
greater danger to our Europe than the poor old Pope's
revival ! Thor may as soon try to revive. — And withal
this oscillation has a meaning. The poor old Popehood
will not die away entirely, as Thor has done, for some time
yet ; nor ought it. We may say, the Old never dies till

lo this happen. Till all the soul of good that was in it have
got itself transfused into the practical New. While a good
work remains capable of being done by the Romish form ;
or, what is inclusive of all, while a pious life remains cap-
able of being leu by it, just so long, if we consider, will
this or the other human soul adopt it, go about as a living
witness of it. So long it will obtrude itself on the eye of
us who reject it, till we in our practice too have appro-
priated whatsoever of truth was in it. Then, but also not
till then, it will have no charm more for any man. It lasts

20 here for a purpose. Let it last as long as it can. —

Of Luther I will add now, in reference to all these wars
and bloodshed, the noticeable fact that none of them began
so long as he continued living. The controversy did not
get to fighting so long as he was there. To me it is proof
of his greatness in all senses, this fact. How seldom do
we find a man that has stirred-up' some vast commotion,
who does not himself perish, swept-away ^ in it ! Such is
the usual course of revolutionists. Luther continued, in a
good degree, sovereign of this greatest revolution ; all
30 Protestants, of what rank or function soever, looking much
to him for guidance : and he held it peaceable, continued
firm at the centre of it. A man to do this must have a

1 Ix' \V H' stirred up

II" H' IP swept away

THE III: NO AS I'NlESr

159

kingly faculty: he must have the gift to discern at all turns
where the true heart of the matter lies, and to plant him-
self courageously on that, as a strong true man, that other
true men may rally round him there. He will not continue
leader of men otherwise. Luther's clear deep force of
judgment, his force of all sorts, of silence, of tolerance and
moderation, among others, are very notable in these cir-
cumstances.

Tolerance, I say ; a very genuine kind of tolerance : he
distinguishes what is essential, and what is not ; the unes- lo
sential may go * very much as ' it will. A complaint comes
to him that such and such a Reformed Preacher ' will not
preach without a cassock.' Well, answers Luther, what
harm will a cassock do the man ? ' Let him have a cassock
to preach in ; let him have three cassocks if he find benefit
in them ! ' His conduct in the matter of Karlstadt's wild
image-breaking; of the Anabaptists ; of the Peasants' War,
shows* a noble strength, very different from spasmodic
violence. With sure prompt insight he discriminates what
is what : a strong just man, he speaks-forth " what is the 20
wise course, and all men follow him in that. Luther's
Written Works * give similar testimony of him. The dialect
of these speculations is now grown obsolete for us ; but one
still reads them with a singular attraction. And indeed the
mere grammatical diction is still legible enough ; Luther's
merit in literary history is of the greatest ; his dialect
became the language of all writing. They are not well
written, these Four-*and-twenty (Quartos' of his; written
hastily, with quite other than literary objects. Hut in no
Books have I found a more robust, genuine, I will say noble 3°
faculty of a man than in these. A rugged honesty, home-

1 1 H" W go as 3 H" H= IP speaks forth

2 H' H» W shews * H' H- written works

6 8 w} IJ2 four-andtwenty quartos

ill

il:

I-' i| i

LECTURES ON HEROES

liness, simplicity ; a rugged sterling sense and strength. He
flashes-out ' illumination from him ; his smiting idiomatic
phrases seem to cleave into the very secret of the matter.
Good humour too, nay tender affection, nobleness, and
depth : this man could have been a Poet too ! He had to
work an Kpic Poem, not write one. I call him ? great
Thinker; as indeed his greatness of heart already betokens
that.

Richter says of Luther's words, 'his words are half-

10 battles.' They may be called so. ' The essential quality of
him was, that he could fight and conquer ; that he was a
right piece of human Valour. No more valiant man, no
mortal heart to be called braver, that one has record of,
ever lived in that Teutonic Kindred, whose character is
valour. His defiance of the • Devils' in Worms was not a
mere boast, as the like might be if now spoken. It was a
faith of Luther's that there were Devils, spiritual denizens
of the Pit, continually besetting men. Many times, in his
writings, this turns-up ; and a most small sneer has been

20 grounded on it by some. In the room of the Wartburg
where he sat translating the Bible, they still show ^ you a
black spot on the wall ; the strange memorial of one of
these conflicts. Luther sat translating one of the Psalms ;
he was worn-down ' with long labour, with sickness, absti-
nence from food ; there rose before him some hideous inde-
finable Image, which he took for the Evil One, to forbid his
work: Luther started-up* with fiend-defiance; flung his
inkstand at the spectre, and it disappeared ' The spot
still remains there ; a curious monument of se /eral things.

30 Any apothecary's apprentice can now tell us what we are
to think of this apparition, in a sc ntilic sense: but the
man's heart that dare rise defiant, face to face, against Hell

» H' W H» flashes out
2 H' H» H^ shew

« \V W W worn down
MI" IP IP started up

THE HKKO AS F HI EST

\u\

itself, can give no higher proof of fearlessness. The thing
he will quail before exists not on this Karth or under it. —
Fearless enough I 'The ' Devil is aware,' writes he on one
occasion, 'that this does not proceed out of fear in me. I
have seen and defied innumerable Devils. Duke George,'
of Leipzig, a great enemy of his, ' Duke George is not equal
to one Devil,' — far short of a Devil! • If I had business
at Leipzig, I would ride into Leipzig, though it rained
Duke-Georges for nine days running.' What a reservoir
of Dukes to ride into M — to

At the same time, they err greatly who imagine that this
man's courage was ferocity, mere coarse disobedient obsti-
nacy and savagery, as many do. Far from that. There
may be an absence of fear which arises from the absence of
thought or affection, from the presence of hatred and stupid
fury. We do not value the courage of the tiger highly !
With Luther it was far otherwise ; no accusation could be
more unjust than this of mere ferocious violence brought
against him. A most gentle heart withal, full of pity md
love, as indeed the truly valiant heart ever is. The tiger ao
before a stronger foe — flies : the tiger is not what we call
valiant, only fierce and cruel. I know few things more
couching than those soft breathings of affection, soft as a
child's or a mother's, in this great wild heart of Luther.
So honest, unadulterated with any cant ; homely, rude in
their utterance; pure as water welling from the rock.
What, in fact, was all that downpressed mood of despair
and reprobation, which we saw in his youth, but the out-
come of pre-eminent thoughtful gentleness, affections too
keen and fine ? It is the course such men as the poor Poet 30

11 III |i» They spoke once about his not being at Leipzig, as if
' Duke George had hindered him,' a great enemy of his. It was not for
Duke George, answered he: No; "if I had business at Leipzig, I
would go, though it rained Duke Georges tor nine days running."

■X-A

16?.

LECTURES OX UEROl.S

rrcd-up' into

(»! )t anecdotes
II 1 t interesting
h.ive inany

■•,■»" , >f

\ 1.1 little

^ Jie most

^' T[dalene^

Cowper fall into. Luther to a slight >.» rver might have
seemed a timid, weak man ; modrsty, aiitctinnate shrinking
tenderness the chief distinction of him. I ( i a noble valour
which is roused in a heart like this,
defiance, all kindled into a heavenly

In Luther's Tahlc-Talk^ a posthun <
and sayings collected by his friends, i
now of all the Books proceeding froii Iuim. .'
beautiful unconscious displays of the in i i,

10 nature he had. His behaviour at th ' 'I iliix
Daughter, so still, so great and loving i'^ a' i
affecting things. lie is resigned that lis litt.''
should die, yet longs inexpressibly tha she ini^lu live; —
follows, in awestruck thought, the flight of her liitle soul
through those unknown realms. ANvestruck ; most heart-
felt, we can see; and sincere, — for after all dogmatic
creeds and articles, he feels what nothing it is that we
know, or can know. His little Magdalene'' shall be with
God, as God wills ; for Luther too that is all ; /»/./;« is all.

2o Once, he looks-out ^ from his solitary I'atmos,* the ("astle "
of Coburg,* in the middle of the night : The great vault of
Immensity, long flights of clouds sailing through it, ^
dumb, gaunt, huge : — who supports all that ? " None ever
saw the pillars of it; yet it is supported." God supports
it. We must know that God is great, that Gud is good :
and trust, where we cannot see. - Returning home from
Leipzig once, he is struck by the beauty of the harvest
fields ; How it stands, that golden yellow corn, on its fair
taper stem, its golden head bent, all rich and waving there,

3° — the meek Earth, at God's kind bidding, has produced it
once again ; the bread of man ! — In the garden at Witten-

iH' IP IP stirred up
2 H" Margaret
* H' Margaret

♦ H" W II' looks out
« II' ' I'atmos'
6 6 H> Wartburg

THE IIEKO AS i'KIEST

U>3

berj; one cvcninjj .it sun^»t•l, \ little bird has |»erchetl for the
night : I hat little bird, says Luther, above it are the star*
and deep Heaven of worlds ; yet it has folded its little
wings; gone trustfu'iy to rest there as in its home: the
Maker f»t it has given it too a home ! — ~ Neither are mirth-
ful turns wanting: there is a great free human heart in this
man. The common s|)eech of him has a rugged nobleness,
idiomati*. expressive, genuine; gleams here and there with
beautiful jjoetic tints. One feels him to be a gre.it brother
man. His love of Music, indei-d, is not ihis, as it were, the ic
summary of all these affections in him ? Many .1 wild
unutterability he spoke-forth ' {\ova him in the t'>nes of his
flute. The Devils ried from hi- Hute, he says. Death-
deAance on the one hand, ;xnd such love of music on 'he
other; I could call these the two opposite loles of a great
soul; between these tw(y all great hings had room.

Luther's face is to me expressi' <_• of him ; in Kranach's
best jwrtraits I find the true Luther. A rude plebeian face ;
with its huge crag-like brows and bones, the emblem of
rugged energy ; at first, almost a repulsive face. Net in 20
the eyes especially ther( a wild silent sorrow ; an unnam-
able'^ melancholy, the clement of all gentle and fine affec-
tions; giving to the rest the true stamp of nobleness.
Laughter w.is in this Luther, as we said; but tears also
were there. Tears also were appointed him; tears and
hard toil. The basis of his life was Sadness, Karnt ^tness.
In his latter days, after all triumphs and victories, he ex-
presses himself heartily weary of living ; he considers that
God alone can and will regulate the course things are tak-
ing, and that perhaps the Day of Jud.^jment is not far. .\s 30
for him, he longs for one thing: that God would releav
him from his labour, and let him depart and be at rest.
They understand little of the man who cite this in ^/wcredit

1 H' H- W spoke forth - H' W unnameable

S:, ..'I

! I-

■m

164

LECTURES ON HEROES

of him ! — I will call this Luther a true Great Man ; great
in intellect, in courage, aifection and integrity ; one of our
most lovable ' and precious men. Great, not as a hewn
obelisk; but as an Alpine mountain, — so simple, honest,
spontaneous, not setting-up =* to be great at all ; there for
quite another purpose than being great ! Ah yes, unsub-
duable granite, piercing far and wide into the Heavens ;
yet in the clefts of it fountains, green beautiful valleys with
flowers ! A right Spiritual Hero and Prophet ; once more,
lo a true Son of Nature and Fact, for whom these centuries,
and many that are to come yet, will be thankful to
Heaven.

The most interesting phasis which the Reformation any-
where assumes, especially for us English, is that of Puri-
tanism. In Luther's own country, Protestantism soon
dwindled into a rather barren affair: not a religion or
faith, but rather now a theological jangling of argument,
the proper seat of it not the heart ; the essence of it scep-
tical contention : which indeed has jangled more and more,
20 down to Voltaireism ^ itself, — through Gustavus-Adolphus
contentions onward to French- Revolution ones! But in
our Island there arose a Puritanism, which even got itself
established as a Presbyterian ism and National Church
among the Scotch ; which came forth as a real business of
the heart ; and has produced in the world very notable
fruit. In some senses, one may say it is the only phasis of
Protestantism that ever got to the rank of being a Faith, a
true heart-communication with Heaven, and of exhibiting
itself in History as such. We must spare a few words for
30 Knox ; himself a brave and remarkable man ; but still more
important as Chief Priest and Founder, which one may
consider him to be, of the Faith that became Scotland's,

> H' W loveahle -• H» H» W setting up

« H' IP If> Voltairism

; i;''

THE HERO AS PKIEST

165

New England's, Oliver Oomwell's. History will have
something to say about this, for some time to come !

We may censure Puritanism as we please ; and no one
of us, I suppose, but would find it a very rough defective
thing. But we, and all men, may understand that it was a
genuine thing ; for Nature has adopted it, and it has grown,
and grows. I say sometimes, that all goes by wager-of-
battle ' in this world ; that strengt/i, well understood, is the
measure of all worth. Give a thing time ; if it can succeed,
it is a right thing. Look now at American Saxondom ; lo
and at that little Fact of the sailing of the Mayflower, two-
hundred * years ago, from Delft Haven in Holland ! Were
we of open sense as the Greeks were, we had found a Poem
here ; one of Nature's own Poems, such as she writes in
broad facts over great continents. For it was properly the
beginning of America: there were straggling settlers in
America before, some material as of a body was there ; but
the soul of it was first this. These poor men, driven-out *
of their own country, not able well to live in Holland, de-
termine on settling in the New World. Black untamed 20
forests are there, and wild savage creatures; but not so
cruel as Starchamber hangmen. They thought the Earth
would yield them food, if they tilled honestly ; the ever-
lasting heaven would stretch, there too, overhead; they
should be left in peace, to prepare for Eternity by living
well in this world of Time; worshipping in what they
thought the true, not the idolatrous way. They clubbed
their small means together; hired a ship, the little ship
Mayflower, and made ready to set sail.*

In Neal's* History of the Puritans* is an account of the 30
ceremony of their departure : solemnity, we might call it

» H' H» H' wager of battle
« H' W H* two hundred
»H' H'H' driven out

* no paragraph in W H' H*
6 H» H» Neale's

• Neal (London, 1755), i. 490.

'^ .

166

LECTVKKS OX HEROES

rather, for it was a real act of worship. Their minister
went down with them to the beach, and their brethren
whom they were to leave behind; all joined in solemn
prayer,' That God would have pity on His poor children,
and go with them into that waste wilderness, for He also
had made that, He was there also as well as here. — Hah !
These men, I think, had r work ! The weak thing, weaker
than a child, becomes strong one day, if it be a true thing.
Puritanism was only despicable, laughable then ; but no-
lo body can manage to laugh at it now. Puritanism has got
weapons and sinews ; it has fire-arms, war-navies ; it has
cunning in its ten fingers, strength in its right arm ; it can
steer ships, fell forests, remove mountains ; — it is one of
the strongest things under this sun at present !

In the history of Scotland, too,* I can find properly but
one epoch : we may say, it contains nothing of world-inter-
est at all but this Reformation by Knox. A poor barren
country, full of continual broils, dissensions, massacrings ;
a people in the last state of rudeness and destitution, little
20 better perhaps than Ireland at this day. Hungry fierce
barons, not so much as able to form any arrangement with
each other him to divide what they fleeced from these poor
drudges ; but obliged, as the Columbian Republics are at
this day, to make of every alteration a revolution ; no way
of changing a ministry but by hanging the old ministers on
gibbets : this is a historical spectacle of no very singular
significance ! ' Bravery ' enough, I doubt not ; fierce fight-
ing in abundance : but not braver or fiercer than that of
their old Scandinavian Sea-king ancestors ; 7ohose exploits
30 we have not found worth dwelling on ! It is a country as
yet without a soul: nothing developed in it but what is
lude, external, semi-animal. And now at the Reformation,
the internal life is kindled, as it were, under the ribs of this
1 H' W (the prayer too is given) « H' H» IP Scotland too.

II-

THE HERO AS J'A/EST

167

outward material death. A cause, the noblest of causes
kindles itself, like a beacon set on high ; high as Heaven,
yet attainable from Earth ; — whereby the meanest man
becomes not a Citizen only, but a Member of Christ's
visible Church ; a veritable Hero, if he prove a true
man !

Well ; this is what I mean by a whole ' nation of heroes ; '
a be/ia'int; nation. There needs not a great soul to make
a hero ; there needs a god-created soul which will be true
to its origin ; that will be a great soul ! The like has
been seen, we find. The like will be again seen, under
wider forms than the Presbyterian : there can be no lasting
good done till then. — Impossible! say some. Possible.^
Has it not bce/i, in this world as a practised fact ? Did
Hero-worship fail in Knox's case ? Or are we made of
other clay now ? Did the Westminster Confession of Faith
add some new property to the soul of man .' God made
the soul of man. He did not doom any soul of man to
live as a Hypothesis and Hearsay, in a world filled with
such, and with the fatal v. oik and fruit of such !

But to return : This that Knox did for his Nation, I say,
we may really call a resurrection as from death. It was
not a smooth business ; but it was welcome surely, and
cheap at that price, had it been far rougher. On the
whole, cheap at any price ; — as life is. The jjeople began
to Ihr : they needed first of all to do that, at what cost and
costs soever. Scotch Literature and Thought, Scotch In
dustry ; James Watt, David Hume, Walter Scott, Robert
Burns: I find Knox and the Reformation acting in the
heart's core of every one of these persons and phenomena ; 30
I find that without the Reformation they would not have
been. Or what of Scotland ? The Puritanism of Scotland
became that of England, of New England. .\ tumult in
the High Church of Edinburgh spread into a universal

t ,

168

LECrUKEH ON HEROES

battle and struggle over all these realms ; — there came
out, after fifty-years ' struggling, what we all call the ' Glo-
rious Revolution,' a Habeas-Corptts Act, Free Parliaments,
and much else! — Alas, is it not too true what we said,
That many men in the van do always, like Russian soldiers,
march into the ditch of Schweidnitz.^* and fill it up with their
dead bodies, that the rear may pass-over * them dry-shod,
and gain the honour ? How many earnest rugged Crom-
wells, Knoxes, poor Peasant Covenanters, wrestling, bat-

lo tling for very life, in rough miry places, have to struggle,
and suffer, and fall, greatly censured, bemired, — before a
beautiful Revolution of Eighty-eight can step-over * them in
official pumps and silk-stockings, with universal three times-
three !

It seems to me hard measure that this Scottish man, now
after three-hundred* years, should have to plead like a
culprit before the world ; intrinsically for having been, in
such way as it was then possible to be, the bravest of all
Scotchmen ! Had he been a poor Half-and-half, he could

20 have crouched into the corner, like so many others ; Scotland
had not been delivered ; and Knox had been without blame.
He is the one Scotchman to whom, of all others, his coun-
try and the world owe a debt. He has to plead that Scot-
land would forgive him for having been worth to it any
million 'unblamable '* Scotchmen that need no forgiveness!
He bared his breast to the battle ; had to row in French
galleys, wander forlorn in exile, in clouds and storms ; was
censured, shot-at ^ through his windows ; had a right sore
fighting life : if this world were his place of recompense, he

30 had made but a bad venture of it. I can. ot apologise " for

» H' W fifty years

2 1I« IP W Schwiednitz

* H' H* H* pass over

* H' H« H' step over

» H' H* H' three hundred
« H' H= unblameable
' H' H» H' shot at
» H' H* apologize

THE HERO AS PKIKST

169

Knox. To him it is very indifferent, these two-hundred-
and-tifty ' years or more, what men say of him. But we,
having got above all those details of his battle, and living
now in clearness on the fruits of his victory, we, lor ^ our
own sake, ought to look through the rumors and controver-
sies enveloping the man, into the man himself.

For one thing, 1 will remark that this post of Prophet
to his Nation was not of his seeking ; Knox had lived forty
years quietly obscure, before he became conspicuous. He
was the son of poor parents ; had got a college education*; lo
become a Priest ; adopted the Reformation, and seemed
well content to guide his own steps by the light of it,
nowise unduly intruding it on others. He had lived as
Tutor in gentlemen's families ; preaching when any body
of persons wished to hear his doctrine: resolute he to walk
by the truth, and speak the truth when called to do it ;
not ambitious of more ; not fancying himself capable of
more. In this entirely obscure way he had reached the
age of forty; was with the small body of Reformers who
were standing siege in St. Andrew's Castle, — when one 20
day in their chapel, the Preacher after finishing his exhor-
tation to these fighters in the forlorn hope, said suddenly.
That there ought to be other speakers, that all men who
had a priest's heart and gift in them ought now to speak ;
— which gifts and heart one of their own number, John
Knox the name of him, had : Had he not ? said the
Preacher, appealing to all the audience : what then is his
duty .' The people answered affirmatively ; it was a criminal
forsaking of his post, if such a man held the word that was
in him silent. Poor Knox was obliged to stand-up * ; he 30

1 IP W H' two hundred and fifty
- H' IF we for
■' IP IP I P college-education
< IP IP IP stand up

5 * *

„ .r,1

170

LECrUNES ON JIEKOES

attempted to reply ; he could say no word ; — burst into
a flood of tears, and ran out. It is worth remembering,
that scene. He was in grievous trouble for some days. He
felt what a small faculty was his for this great work. He
felt what a baptism he was called to be baptised ^ withal.
He 'burst into tears.'

Our primary characteristic of a Hero, that he is sincere,
applies emphatically to Knox. It is not denied anywhere
that this, whatever might be his other qualities or faults,

lo is among the truest of men. With a singular instinct he
holds to the truth and fact ; the truth alone is there for
him, the rest a mere shadow and deceptive nonentity.
However feeble, forlorn the reality may seem, on that and
that only can he take his stand. In the Galleys of the
River Loire, whither Knox and the others, after their
Castle of St. Andrew's was taken, had been sent as (ialley-
slaves, — some officer or priest, one day, presented them
an Image of the Virgin Mother, requiring that they, the
blasphemous heretics, should do it reverence. Mother ?

20 Mother of God } said Knox, when the turn came to him :
This is no Mother of God : this is ' ■xpentcd IncJd,' — a piece
of wood, I tell you, with paint on it ! She is fitter for
swimming, I think, than for being worshipped, added
Knox ; and flung the thing into the river. It was not very
cheap jesting there : but come of it what might, this thing
to Knox was and must continue nothing other than the real
truth; it was z. pented brcdd : worship it he would not.*"

He told his fellow-prisoners, in this darkest time, to be
of courage ; the Cause they had was the true one, and must

30 and would prosper ; the whole world could not put it down.

Reality is of God's making ; it is alone strong. How many

pented bredds, pretending to be real, are fitter to swim than

to be worshipped ! — This Knox cannot live but by fact :

1 II' IP baptized * no paraipaph in IP IT IP

k *,

THE HEKO AS PA'/EST

\1\

he clings to reality as the shipwrecked sailor to the cliff.
He is an instance to us how a man, by sincerity itself,
becomes heroic : it is the grand gift he has. We find in
Knox a good honest intellectual talent, no transcendent
one; — a narrow, inconsiderable man, as compared with
Luther : but in heartfelt instinctive adherence to truth, in
sincerity, as we say, he has no superior ; nay, one might ask,
What equal he has? The heart of him is of tie true
Prophet cast. "He lies there," said the Karl of Morton
at his grave, "who never feared the face of man."' He lo
resembles, more than any of the moderns, an Old-Hebrew
Prophet. The same inflexibility, intolerance, rigid narrow-
looking adherence to (iod's truth, stern rebuke in the name
of Cod to all that forsake truth: an Old-Hebrew Prophet
in the guise of an Edinburgh Minister of the Sixteenth
Century. We are to take him for that ; not require him
to be other.

Knox's conduct to Queen Mary, the harsh visits he used
to make in her own palace, to reprove her there, have been
much commented upon. Such cruelty, such coarseness 20
fills us with indignation. On reading the actual narrative
of the business, what Knpx said, and what Knox meant, I
must say one's tragic feeling is rather disappointed. They
are not so coarse, these speeches ; they seem to nie about
as fine as the circumstances would permit ! Knox was not
there to do the courtier; he came on another errand.
Whoever, reading these colloquies of his with the (Jueen,
thinks they are vulgar insolences of a plebeian jiriest to a
delicate high lady, mistakes the purport and essence of
them altogether. It was unfortunately not possible to be 30
polite with the Queen of Scotland, unless one proved untrue
to the nation and Cause of Scotland. A man who did not
wish to see the land of his birth made a hunting-field for
intriguing ambitious (kiises, and the Cause of (Jod trampled

:.j I

..I •:

■I!

172

LECTURES ON HEROES

underfoot ' of Falsehoods, Formulas and the Devil's Cause,
had no method of making himself agreeable ! " Better that
women weep," said Morton, "than that bearded men be
forced to weep." Knox was the constitutional opposition-
party in Scotland : the Nobles of the country, called by
their station to take that post, were not found in it ; Knox
had to go, or no one. The hapless Queen ; — but the still
more hapless Country, if she were made happy ! Mary
herself was not without sharpness enough, among her

10 other qualities : "Who are you," said she once, "that pre-
sume to school the nobles and sovereign of this realm ? "
— " Madam, a subject born within the same," answered he.
Reasonably answered ! If the 'subject ' have truth to speak,
it is not the 'subject's ' footing that will fail him here. —

We blame Knox for his intolerance. Well, surely it is
good that each of us be as tolerant as possible. Yet, at
bottom, after all the talk there is and has been about it,
what is tolerance ? Tolerance has to tolerate the ////essen-
tial ; and to see well what that is. Tolerance has to be

-'3 noble, measured, just in its very wrath, when it can toler-
ate no longer. But, on the whole, we are not altogether
here to tolerate ! We * are here to resist, to control and
vanquish withal." We do not 'tolerate,'" Falsehoods,* Thiev-
eries, Iniquities,* when they fasten on us ; we say to them,
Thou art false, thou "' art not tolerable * ! We are here to
extinguish* Falsehoods, and' put an end to them,' in some
wise way ! I will not quarrel so much with the way ; the
doing of the thing is our great concern. In this sense
Knox was, full surely, intolerant.

30 A man sent to row in French Galleys, and suchlike," for

1 ir IP H-' underfoot

^"^ not in ir

« IP tolerate

** IP Falsehoods, Iniquities

I!' and unjust
" IP extiHi^uish
' "^ not in IP
8 IP IP IP such like

THE HERO AS PKIEST

173

teaching the truth in his own land, cannot always he in
the mildest hiiniour! I am not prepared to say that Knox
had a soft temper ; ncr do I know that lie had what we
call an ill temper. An ill nature he decidedly had not.
Kind honest affections dwelt in the much-enduring, hard-
worn, ever-battling man. That he could rebuke Queens,
and had such weight among those proud turbulent Nobles,
proud enough whatever else they were ; and could maintain
to the end a kind of virtual Presidency and .Sovereignty in
that wild realm, he who was only 'a subject born within lo
the same : ' this of itself will prove to us that he was found,
close at hand, to be no mean acrid man ; but at heart a
healthful, strong, sagacious man. Such alone can bear
rule in that kind. They blame him for puUing-down '
cathedrals, and so forth, as if he were a seditious rioting
demagogue : precisely the reverse is seen to be the fact, in
regard to cathedrals and the rest of it, if we examine !
Knox wanted no pulling-down '■'of stone edifices ; he wanted
leprosy and darkness to be thrown out of the lives of men.
Tumult was not his element; it was the tragic feature of ::o
his life that he was forced to dwell so much in that. Kvery
such man is the born enemy of Disorder ; hates to be in it :
but what then ? Smooth Falsehood is not Order; it is the
general sumtotal of /-^/.forder. Order is 7/7////, each
thing standing on the basis that belongs to it: Order and
Falsehood cannot subsist together.

Withal, unexpectedly enough, this Knox has a vein of
drollery in him ; which I like much, in combination with
his other qualities. He has a true eye for the ridiculous.
H fJistory,, with its rough earnestness, is curiously enliv- 3°
enc with this. When the two Prelates, entering (Ilasgow
Cathedral, quarrel about precedence ; march rapidly up,
take to hustling one another, twitching one another's

1 II' II' H' pulling down ^ h' H« H^ pulling dovm

1^'

174

LECTUKES OX HEkOES

rochets, and at last flourishing their crosiers like quarter
staves, it is a great sight for him everyway ' ! Not mockery,
scorn, bitterness alone ; though there is enough of that too.
But a true, loving, illuminating laugh mounts-up ^ over the
earnest visage ; not a loud laugh ; you would say, a lau<4h
in the eyes most of all. An honest-hearted,'' brotherly man ;
brother to the high, brother also to the low ; sincere in his
sympathy with both. He had his pipe of liourdeaux too,
we find, in that old Edinburgh house of his ; a cheery social

lo man, with faces that loved him ! They go far wrong who
think this Knox was a gloomy, spasmodic, shrieking fanatic.
Not at all : he is one of the solidcst of men. I'ractical.
cautious-hopeful, patient ; a most shrewd, observing, quietly
discerning man. In fact, he has very much the type of
character we assign to the Scotch at present : a certain
sardonic taciturnity is in him ; insight enough ; and a
stouter heart than he himself knows of. He has the power
of holding his peace over many things which do not vitally
concern him, — "They ? what are they?" Hut the thinj,'

20 which does vitally concern him, that thing he will speak
of; and in a tone the whole world shall be made lo hear;
all the more emphatic for his lonj^ silence.
. This Prophet of the Scotch is to me no hateful man ! —
He had a sore tight of an existence: wrestling with l'oi)es
and Principalities ; in defeat, contention, life-long strugjjic ;
rowing as a galley-slave, wandering as an exile. A son-
fight : but he won it. " Have you hope ? " they asked him
in his last moment, when he could no longer speak. He
lifted his finger, 'pointed upwards with his finger,' and so

30 died. Honour to him*! His works have not died. The
letter of his work dies, as of all men's ; but the spirit of it
never.

• 11' W W every way
a H" H' IP mounts up

f II' II» IPhonesthearted
« H' W IP him.

I HE Ui:.kO AS FRIES T

17"!

One word more as to the letter of Knf)x's work. The
unforgivable ' ottence in him is, that he wished to set-up ^
Priests over the head of Kings. In other words, he strove
to make the (iovernment of Scotland a Tluvcracy. This
indeed is properly the sum of his offences, the essential
sin; for which what pardon can there be? It is most
true, he did, at bottom, consciously or unconsciously, mean
a Theocracy, or (iovernment of (lod. He did niean that
Kings and Prime Ministers, and all manner of persons, in
public or private, diplomatising or whatever else they might lo
be doing, should walk according to the (jospel of Christ,
and understand that this was their Law, su|)nme over all
laws. He hoped once to see such a thing realised ; and
the Petition, Thy Kingdotn comcy no longer an empty word.
He was sore grieved when he saw greedy worldly Barons
clutch hold of the ( 'hurch's property ; when he expostulated
that it was not secular property, that it was spiritual prop-
erty, and should be turned to ////(• churchly uses, education,
schools, worship ; -and the Regent Murray had to answer,
with a shrug of the shoulders, "It is a devout imagina- 20
tion ! " This was Knox's scheme of right and truth ; this
he zealously endeavoured after, to realise it. If we think
his scheme of truth was too narrow, was not true, we may
rejoice that he could not realise it ; that it remained after
two centuries of effort, unrealisable, and is a 'devout imagi-
nation ' still. But how shall we blame /lim for struggling
to realise it ? Theocracy, Government of (lod, is precisely
the thing to be struggled for ! All Prophets, zealous Priests,
are there for that purpose. Hildebrand wished a Theocracy ;
(.Tomwell wished it, fought for it; Mahomet attained it. 3°
Nay, is it not what all zealous men, whether called Priests,
Prophets, or whatsoever else called, do essentially wish, and
must wish ? That right and truth, or (lod's Law, reign

» H' 11^ unforgiveable » IP IP IP set up

# '

176

LECTVA'KS ON nhKOHS

supreme among men, this is the Heavenly Ideal (well namt-cl
in Knox's time, and namable ' in all times, a revealed * Will
of Ood') towards which the Reformer will insist that all
be more and more approximated. VAIl true Reformers, as
I said, are by the nature of them Priests, and strive for
a Theocracy.

How far such Ideals can ever be introduced into Prac-
tice, and at what point our impatience with their non
introduction ought to begin, is always a question. I think
10 we may say safely, Let them introduce themselves as far as
they can contrive to do it ! If they are the true faith of
men, all men ought to be more or less impatient always
where they are not found introduced. There will never be
wanting Regent-Murrays enough to shrug their shoulders,
and say, " A devout imagination ! " We will praise the Hero-
priest rather, who does what is in him to bring them in ;
and wears-out,* in toil, calumny, contradiction, a noble life,
to make a God's Kingdom of this Karth. The Karth will
not become too godlike !

» H« H» nameable

»H' H* HI wears out

LKCTIRK V

, :^

THE HEKO AS MAN OK I.KTTl.Ks.

lOIIV^ON, IKirsSKAf, IHIRNS

[Tuenday, 19th May 1S40.] •

Hkr<m;()Ds, Prophets, I'oets, Priests are forms of Hero-
ism that belong to the old ajjes, make tlieir app<;ai,inct
in the remotest times; some of them ha\ ceased t(. Ix
jjossible long since, and cannot any more show - them.selve^
in this world. The Hero as Man c/ /.if/,-rs, ajjain, of which
class we are to s|jeak today, is altogi tiier a product of thehc
new ages; and so long as the wondrous art of If'ritin;,^, or
of Ready-writing which we call I'nntni.^, subsists, he may
i)e expected to continue, as one of the main forms of
Heroism for all future ages. He is, in various respects, a 10
very singular phenomenon.

He is new, I say; he has hardly lasted above a century
in the world yet. Never, till about a hundred years ago,
was there seen any figure of a (Ireat Soul living apart in
that anomalous manner ; endeavouring to speak-forth the
inspiration that was in him by i'rinted liooks, and find
place and subsistence by what the world would i)lea.se to
give him for doing that. Much had been sold and bought,
and left to make its own bargain in the marketplace; but
the inspired wisdom of a Heroic Soul never till then, in ;o
that naked manner. He, with his copy-rights and copy-
wrongs, in his squalid garret, in his rusty coat ; ruling (for

> H* W IP date abme title. - M' IP IP shew

»H" IP IP speak forth
«77

,4 ,,

178

LECTURES OA I/EKOES

this is what he does), from his grave, after death, whole
nations and generations who would, or would not, give him
bread while living, — is a rather curious spectacle ! Few
shapes of Heroism can be more unexpected.

Alas, the Hero from of old has had to cramp himself into
strange shapes : the world knows not well at any time what
to do with him, so foreign is his aspect in the world! It
seemed absurd to us, that men, in their rude admiration,
should take some wise great Odin for a god, and worship

10 him as such ; some wise great Mahomet for one god-
inspired, and religiously follow his Law for twelve centu-
ries: but that a wise great Johnson, a IJurns, a Rousseau,
should be taken for some idle nondescript, extant in the
world to amuse idleness, and have a few coins and ap-
plauses thrown him, that he might live thereby ; this per-
haps, as before hinted, will one day seem a still absurder
phasis of things ! — Meanwhile, since it is the spiritual
always that determines the material, this same Man-of-
Letters Hero must be regarded as our most important

20 modern person. He, such as he may be, is the soul of ail.
What he teaches, the whole world will do and make. The
world's manner of dealing with him is the most signiticanl
feature of the world's general position. Looking well at
his life, we may get a glance, as deep as is readily possible
for us, into the life of those singular centuries which have
produced him, in which we ourselves live and work.

There are genuine Men of Letters, and not genuine ; as
in every kind there is a genuine and a sjuirious. If lli >i<
be taken to mean genuine, then I say tlie Hero as Man ot

30 Letters will be found discharging a function for us whiili
is ever honourable, ever the highest: and was once well
known to be the highest. He is uttering-forth,' in such
way as he has, the inspired soul of him ; all that a man, ii;

> H' II- 11' ullcring forth

THE HERO AS MAX OF LETTERS

17'J

any case, can do. I ^tl^ inspired ; for what we call 'origi-
nality,' 'sincerity,' 'genius,' the heroic quality we have no
good name for, signifies that. The Hero is he who lives
in the inward sphere of things, in the True, Divine and
Kternal, which exists always, unseen to most, under the
Temporary, Trivial : his being is in that ; he declares that
abroad, by act or speech as it may be, in declaring himself
abro.ad. His life, as we said before, is a piece of the ever-
lasting heart of Nature herself: all men's life is, -but the
weak many know' not the fact, and are untrue to it,' in lo
most times ; the strong few are strong, heroic, perennial,
because it cannot be hidden from them, 'ihe Man of Let-
ters, like every Hero, is there to proclaim this in such sort
as he can. Intrinsically it is the same function which the
old generations named a man Prophet, I'riest, Divinity for
doing; which all manner of Heroes, by speech or by act,
are sent into the world to do.

Fichte the (lerman I'hilosopher delivered, some forty
years ago at Krlangen,- a highly remarkable Course of
Lectures on this subject: *■ Leber das Wcsen des (,e/ehrteti, 20
On the Nature of the Literary Man.' Lichte, in conform-
ity with the Transcendental Philosophy, of which he was
a distinguished teacher, declares first : i'hat all things
which we see or work with in this Karth, especially we
ourselves and all persons, are as a kind of vesture or sensu-
ous Appearance: that under all there lies, as the essence
of them, what he calls the ♦ Divine Idea of the World ; ' this
is the Reality which 'lies at the l)ottom of all Appearance.'
To the mass of men no such Divine Idea is recognisable in
the world ; they live merely, says Fichte, among the sujier- 30
ticiaiities, practicalities and shows' of the world, not
dreaming that there is anything divine under them. But

• 1 II' know it not H^ W know not llie fact, and arc untrue to it
-il'll-Juna » II' HMP shews

.t '■

I :
'•.1

!* ^i

180

I.ECTUNES ON IfKKOKS

the Man of Letters is sent hither specially that he may
discern for himself, and make manifest to us, this same
Divine Idea : in every new generation it will manifest itself
in a new dialect ; and he is there for the purpose of doinj;
ihat. Such is Fichte's phraseology; with which we need
not quarrel. It is his way of naming what I here, by other
words, am striving imperfectly to name ; what there is at
present no name for : The unspeakable Divine Significance,
full of splendour, of wonder and terror, that lies in the

10 being of every man, of every thing, — the Presence of the
God who made every man and thing. Mahomet taught this
in his dialect ; Odin in his : it is the thing which all think-
ing hearts, in one dialect or another, are here to teach.'

> Fichte calls the Man of Letters, therefore, a Prophet, or
as he prefers to phrase it, a Priest, continually unfoldini;
the Godlike to men : Men of Letters are a perpetual Priest-
hood, from age to age, teaching all men that a Ciod is still
present in their life; that all 'Appearance,' whatsoever we
see in the world, is but as a vesture for the ' Divine Idea of

20 the World,' for 'that which lies at the bottom of Appear-
ance.' In the true Literary Man there is thus ever,
acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness : he is the
light of the world; the world's Priest; — guiding it, like ;i
sacred Pillar of Kire, in its dark )Mlgrimage through tiie
waste of Time. Fichte discrin^inates with sharp zeal tlie
true Literary Man, what we here call the Ifiio as Man of
Letters, from multitudes of false unheroic. Whoever lives
not wholly in this Divine Idea, or living partially in it.
struggles not, as for the one good, to live wholly in it, -he

30 is, let him live where else he like, in what pomps and pros
perities he like, no Literary Man ; he is, says Fichte, a
'Bungler, Stumper.'' Or at best, if he belong to the prosaii
provinces, he may be a ' Hodman ; ' Fichte even calls him

^no panis^raf^h in II' 1 1-' II^

TIIK ItERO AS MAX OF LETTERS

181

elsewhere a * Nonentity,' and has in short no mercy for
him, no wish that he should continue happy among us !
This is Fichte's notion of the Man of Letters. It means,
in its own form, precisely what we here mean.

In this point of view, I consider that, for the last hun-
dred years, by far the notablest of all Literary Men is
Fichte's countryman, Goethe. To that man too, in a
strange way, there was given what %ve may call a life in the
Divine Idea of the World; vision of the inward divine
mystery : and strangely, out of his Books, the world rises lo
imaged once more as godlike, the workmanship and temple
of a (lod. Illuminated all, not in fierce impure tire-splen-
dour as of Mahomet, but in mild celestial radiance; —
really a Prophecy in these most unprophetic times; to my
mind, by far the greatest, though one of the quietest,
among all the great things that have come to pass in them.
Our chosen specimen of the Hero as Literary Man would
be this Goethe. And it were a very pleasant plan for me
here to discourse of his heroism : for I consider him to be
a true Hero ; heroic in what he said and did, and perhaps 20
still more in what he did not say and did not do ; to me a
noble spectacle : a great heroic ancient man, speaking and
keeping silence as an ancient Hero, in the guise of a most
modern, high-bred, high-cultivated Man of Letters ! We
have had no such spectacle ; no man capable of affording
such, for the last hundred-and-fifty ' years.^

But at present, such is the general state of knowledge
about Goethe, it were worse than useless to attempt speak-
ing of him in this case. Speak as I might, Goethe, to the
great maj )rity of you, would remain problematic, vague ; 30
no impression but a false one could be realised. Him we
must leave to future times. Johnson, K'.irns, Rousseau,
three great figures from a prior time, from a far inferior

'1!' 11- IP liiiiulred ami fifty "- no paragraph in II' II- II'

i '

: -l

"l!

fir

182

LECTURES OX HEROES

State of circumstances, will suit us licltcr here. Three men
of the Eighteenth Century ; the conditions of their life far
more resemble what those of ours still are in Kngland, than
what (Joethe's in (lermany were. Alas, these men did not
conquer like him; they fought bravely, and fell. They
were not heroic bringers of the light, but heroic seekers of
it. They lived under galling conditions; struggling as
under mountains of impediment, and could not unfold
themselves into clearness, or ' victorious interpretation of
10 that 'Divine Idea.' It is rather the Tombs of three Liter-
ary Heroes that I have to show'- you. There'* are the
monumental heaps, under which three spiritual giants lie
buried. Very mournful, but also great and full of interest
for us. We will linger by them for a while.

Complaint is often made, in these times, of what we
call the disorganised condition of society : how ill many
arranged forces of society fulfil their work ; how many
powerful forces are seen working in a wasteful, cliaotic,
altogether unarranged manner, it is too just a complaint,

20 as we all know. But perhaps if we look at this of Hook-,
and the Writers of Hooks, we shall find here, as it were.
the summary of all other disorganisation*; a sort ol
heart, from which,* and to whicli,' all other confusion circu
lates in the world I Considering what Hook-writers do in
the world, and what the world does with Hook-writers, !
should say. It is the most anom:ilous thing the world u
present has to show." We should get into a sea far Ik
yond sounding, did we attempt to give account of tlii>
but we must glance at it for the sake of our subject. I'lii

3° worst element in the life of these three Literary Heroes

' not in II' 11=
«n' IP IP shew
"IP These

■• IP (hsi)r>;ani/ation

■'■'•• IP II- IP \viii(h iiiul to wliiili

Ml' IP ll^shdW

TIJE JIEKO AS MAX Of- l.ETTJ-.NS

183

was, that they found their business and position such a
chaos. On the beaten road there is tolerable travellinjj;
but it is sore work, and many have to perish, fashioning a
path through the impassable !

Our pious I'athers, feeling well what importance lay in
the speaking of man to men, founded churches, made en
dowments, regulations; everywhere in thr civilised world
there is a I'ulpit, environed with all manner of complex
dignified appurtenances and furtherances, tha therefrom a
man with the tongue may, to best advantage, address his lo
fellow-men. They felt that this was the most important
thing; that without this there was no good thing. It is a
right pious work, that of theirs ; beautiful to behold ! Hut
now with the art of Writing, with the art of Printing, a
total change has come over that business. The Writer of
a Hook, is not he a J'reacher preaching not to this parish
or that, on this day or that, but to all men in all times and
places ? Surely it is of the last importance that In- do his
work right, whoever do it wrong; that the nv report not
falsely, for then all the other members are astray ! Well ; 20
how he may do his work, whether he do it right or wrong,
or do it at all, is a point whicii no man in the world has
taken the pains to think of. lo a certain shopkeei^T, try-
ing to get some money for his Ijooks, if lucky, he is of s(mie
importance ; to no other man of any. Whence he came,
whither he is bound, by what ways he arrived, by what he
might be furthered on his course, no one asks. He is an
accident in society. He wanders like a wild Ishmaelite, in
a world of which he is as the spiritual light, either the
guidance or the misguidance !

Certainly the .Art of Writing is the most miraculous of all
tilings man has devised. Odin's Riin,s were the first form
of the work of a Hero ; Books, written words, .ire still mi-
raculous Riiius, the latest form ! In Hooks lies the soul of

\ ?

l.l:CTri:]:S ox IIKKOES

the whole Past Time

the articulate audible voice of the

Past, when the body and material substance of it has alto-
gether vanished like a dream. Mighty Heets and armies,
harbours and arsenals, vast cities, high-domed, many-
engined, — they are precious, great: but what do they
become ? Agamemnon, the many Agamemnons, Pericleses,
and their Greece; ail is gone now to some ruined frag-
ments, dumb mournful wrecks and blocks : but the Books
of Greece! There Greece, to every thinker, still very
10 literally lives ; can be called-up' again into life. No magic
Rune is stranger than a Hook. All that Mankind has done,
thought, gained or been : it is lying as in magic preserva-
tion in the pages of Hooks. They are tiie chosen posses-
sion of men.

Do not Hooks still accomplish ?iur<ui,s, as h'uncs were
fabled to do ? They persuade men. Not the wretchedest
circulating-library novel, which foolish girls thumb and con
in remote villages, but will help to regulate the actual prac-
tical weddings and households of those foolish girls. So
20 «(elia' felt, so 'ClifTord' acted: the foolish Theorem of
Life, stamped into those young brains, comes out as a
solid Practice one day. Consider whether any /\uii<- in the
wildest imagination of Myth >logist ever did such wonders
as, on the actual tii m Karth, some Hooks have done !
What built St. Paul's Cathedral? Look at the heart of
the matter, it was that divine Hebrew Hook,^ — the word
partly of the man Moses, an outlaw tending his Midianitish
herds, four-thousand ' years ago, in the wildernesses of
Sinai! It is the strangest of things, yet nothing is truer.
30 With the art of Writing, of which Printing is a simple, an
inevitable and comparatively insignificant rorollary, the
true reign of miracles for mankind commenced, it related,

1 M' 11=^ II' called u]) - II' W \V llKHKiw I'.ook

■' 11" H- II' four thousand

I ■!

THE HERO AS AfAX OF LETTEKS

18S

with a wondrous new contifjuity and iK'r|)etiiaI closeness,
the Past and Distant with tiic Tresent in time and place;
all times and all places with this our actual Here and Now.
All things were altered for men ; all modes of important
work of men: teachinjj, preaching;, },'ovcrnin{,', and all else.

'lo look at Teachinj;, for instance. Tniversities are a
notable, respectable product of the modern aj;es. Their exist-
ence too is modified, to the very basis of it, by the existence
of Hooks. I'niversiiies arose while there were yet no Mooks
procurable; while a man, for a sin-,'le liook, had to give an lo
estate of land. I'hat, in those circumstances, when a man
had some knowledge to communicate, he should do it by
gathering the learners round him, face to face, was a neces-
sity for him. If you wanted to know what Abelard knew,
you must go and listen to Abelard. rhou.sands, as many
as thirty-thousand,' went to hear Abelard and that meta-
physical theology of his. And now for any other teacher
who had also something of his own to teach, there was a
great convenience opened : so many thousands eager to
learn were already assembled yonder; of .ill places t!ie best 20
place for him was that. I-'or any third teacher it was better
still; and grew ever the better, the more teachers there
came. It only needed now that the King took notice of
this new phenomenon ; combined or agglomerated the
various schools into one school ; gave it edifices, i)rivileges,
encouragements, and named it I nirersitiU, or School of all
Sciences : the University of Paris, in its essential char-
acters, was there. The model of all subsequent Iniversi-
ties; which down even to these days, for six centuries now,
have gone on to found themselves. Such, I conceive, was 30
the origin of I'niversities.

It is clear, however, that with this simple circumstance,
facility of getting Hooks, the whole conditions of the busi-
1 II' II' IP thirty thousand

i| til

'I,,
•I

186

LECTURES ON HEROES

nc'ss from top to bottom were changed. Once invent Print-
ing, you metamorphosed all Universities, or sujierseded
them ! The Teacher ' needed not now to gather men
personally round him, that he might s/>ctik to them what he
knew : print it in a Book, and all learners far and wide, for
a trifle, had it each at his own flreside, much more effectu-
ally to learn it ! — Doubtless there is still i)eculiar virtue in
Speech ; even writers of Hooks may still, in some circum-
stances, fmd it convenient to speak also, — witness our
10 present meeting here! There is, une would say, and must
ever remain while man has a tongue, a distinct province
for Speech as well as for Writing and Printing. In regard
to all things this must remain ; to Universities among others.
IJut the limits of the two have nowhere yet been pointed
out, ascertained; much less put in practice: the University
which would completely take-in- that great new fact, of the
existence of Printed Books, and stand on a cle.ar footing
for the Nineteenth Uentury as the Paris one did for the
Thirteenth, has not yet come into existence. If we think
20 of it, all that a University, or final highest School can do
for us, is still but what the first School began doing, —
teach us to ;vvr/. We learn to rani, in various languages, in
various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all
manner of Books. But the place where we are to get know-
ledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the liooks themselves !
It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors
have done their best for us. The true University of these
days is a Collection ot Books.

But to the Church itself, as I hinted already, all is
30 changed, in its preaching, in its working, by the introduc-
tion of Books. The Church is the working recognised
Union of our I'riests or Prophets, of those who by wisi-

While there was no Writ-

teaching guide the souls of men.
1 II' ttaiher

•^ II' IP I (Make in

THE HEKO AS A/.tX OF LI-.TTEKS

187

ing, even while there w;is no K.isy-\vritinj; or /'rhitini;;, the
preaching of the voice \v;i.s the natural sole method of per-
forming this. Ittit now with Itooks! - He that can write a
true Hook, lo persuade Kngland, is not he the Itishop and
Archbishop, the Primate of Kngland and of All ' Kngland ?
I many a time say, the writers of Newspapers, Pamphlets,
Poems, Hooks, these if/v the real working effective Church
of a modern country. Nay, not only our preaching, but
even our worship, is not it too accomplished by means of
Printed Hooks ? The noble sentiment which a gifted soul lo
has clothed for us in melodious words, which brings meloily
into our hearts, — is not this essentially/ if we will under-
stand it, of the nature of worship .' I'here are many, in all
countries, who, in this confused time, have no other method
of worship. He who, in any way, shows'* us better than we
knew before that a lily of the fields is beautiful, does he not
show '^ it us as an eflluenco of tiie I'ountain of all He.auty ;
as the hiVidwritin:^, made visible there, of the great Maker
of the Universe "i He has sung for us, made us sing with
him, a little verse of a sacred i'saliu. Kssentially so. How 20
much more he who sings, who says, or in any way brings
home to our heart the noble di)iiiLjs. feelings, darinj^s and
endurances of a brother m;iu ! He lias verily touched our
hearts as with a live coal from tlir ,iltar. Perhaps there is
no wot-shap more authentic'

Lit(-rature, so far as it is Literature, is an ' apocalypse of
Nature,' a revealing of the 'open secret.' It may well
enough be named, in Fichte's style, a 'continuous revela-
tion ' of the (lodlike in the Tei'estrial and Common The
(IrKllike does ever, in very truth, endure there; is brought ,30
out, now in this dialect, now in that, with varit)us degrees
of clearness: all true giftetl Singers and Speakers are, con-

1 II' W II' all

2 IP II- IP shews

•' II' (I IP show

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188

LECTURES O.V HEKOES

sciousky or unconsciously, doinjj so. \\\c d.irk stormful
indignsition of a Byron, so waywird and perverse, m.iy
have touches of it ; nay the witlicred mockery of a French
sceptic, — his mockery of the h aise, i love and worship of
the True. How much more the sphere h «rm('iiy of a Sh.iks-
peare, of a Cloethe ; the cathedral-music of a Milton! I'hey
are something too, thosi' humble genuine lark-notes of a
Burns, — skylark, startin<j from thehuiid)le fun. »\\. f.irove'
head into the blue depths, ai <1 siufjini^ to us >w yenuint ly

10 there! For' all true singin;; is of the nature of worslup:
as indeed all true worA-iii!^ may be said to In;, — whereat
such shij^iH)^ is but the record, and tit melodious representa-
tion, to us.' Fragments of real Mhutdi Litur>j;y ' and
« Body* of Homilies,' strangely ci sguised from the common
eye, are to be found weltering in that huge froth-ocean of
Printed Speech we loosely call Literature! Hooks are our
Church too.

Or turning now to the (Government of men. Witenage-
mote, old rarliament, was a great thing. The affairs of

20 the nation were there deliberated and decided ; what we
were to do as a nation. But does not, thougii the name
Parliament subsists, the parliamentary ilebate go on now,
everywhere ar.d at all times, in a far more co.nprchensive
way, out of Parliament altogether? Burke said tlicre were
Three Estates in Parliament ; but, in the Reporters' (Jallery
yonder, there sat a I'oiDtli KsUitc more important far than
they all. It is not a figure of sixiech, or a witty saying ; it
is a literal fact, — very momentous to us in these times.
Literature is our Parliament too. Printing, which comes

30 necessarily out of Writing, I say oiten, is equivalent to De-
mocracy: invent Writing, Democracy is inevitable. Writ-
ing brings Printing; brings universal everyday extempore
Printing, as we see at present. Whoever can speak, speak
» 1 not in IP • H' body

THE IIEKO AS MAX OF LETTF.RS

189

ing now to the whole nation, becomes i i)owt'r, .1 branch of
government, with inalienable weight in law-making, in all
acts of authority. It matters not what rank he has, what
revenues or garnitures: the requisite thing is, that he have
a tonjjuj' Ahich others will listen to; this and nothing more
i> requisite. The nation is governed by all that has tongue
in the nation: Democracy is virtu.ally thire. Add only,
that whatsoever power exists will hav»* itself, by and by,
organised ; working secretly under bandages, obscurations,
obstructions, it will never rest till it get to work free, unen- 10
cumbered,' visible to all. Democracy virtually extant will
insist on becoming palpably extant. —

On all sides, are we not driven to the conclusion that, of
tlie things which man can do or make here below, by far
tlie most momentous, wonderful and worthy are the things
we caU Itooks! Those poor bits of rag-paper with black
ink on them; — from the Daily Newspaper to the sacred
Hebrew B<i()K, what have they not done, what are they not
doing ! — For indeed, whatever be the outward form of the
tiling (bits of paj)er, as we say, and bl.ick ink), is it not 20
verily, at bottom, the highest act of man's faculty that pro-
duces a Book? It is the Thoiv^ht of man; the true thau-
maturgic virtue ; by which man works all things whatsoever.
All that he does, and brings to pass, is the vesture of a
Thought. 'I'his London City, with all its houses, palaces,
steamengines, cathedrals, and huge immeasurable tratbc and
tumult, what is it but a Thought, hut millions of Thoughts
made into One ; — a huge imme;isurable Spirit of a Thoucht,
embodied in brick, in iron, smoke, dust, I'alaces, Parlia-
ments, Hackney Coaches, Kallierine Docks, and the rest of 30
it ! Not a brick was made but some man had to think of the
making of that brick. — The thing we called 'bits of paper
with traces of bhick ink,' is the ////-(■,(/ embodiment a Thought

* H' IP II-* unincumbered

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(ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No. 2)

A >1PPLIED IIVHGE Ir

1653 East Main Street

Rochester. Neur York 14609 USA

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(716) 288 - 5989 - Fax

190

LECTURES ON IIKKOKS

of man can have. No wonder it is, in al! ways, the activest
and noblest.

All this, of the importance and supreme importance of
the Man of Letters in modern Society, and how the Press is
to such a degree superseding the Pulpit, the Senate, the
Senattis Acailcmkus and much else, has been admitted for a
good while; and recognised often enough, in late times,
with a sort of sentimental triumph and wonderment. It
seems to me, the Sentimental by and by will have to give

10 place to the I'ractical. If Men of Letters an- so incal-
culably influential, actually performing such work for us
from age to age, and even from day to day, then I think we
may conclude that Men of Letters will not always wander
like unrecognised unregulated Ishmaelites among us ! What-
soever thing, as I said above, has virtual unnoticed power
will cast-off ' its wrappages, bandages, and step-forth ^ one
day with palpably -rticulated, universally visible power.
That one man wea the clothes, and take tlie wages, of a
function which is done by quite another: theie can be no

20 profit in this ; this is nijt right, it is wrong. And yet, alas,
the making oi it right, — what a business, for long times to
come! Sure enough, this that we call Organisation of the
Literary Guild is still a great way off, encumbered ^ with
all manner of complexities. If you asked me what were
the best possible organisation for the Men of Letters in
modern society ; the arrangement * of furtherance and regu-
lation, grounded the most accurately on the actual facts of
their position and of the world's position, — I should beg
to say that the problem far exceeded my faculty ! It is not

30 one man's faculty ; it is that of many succc e men turned
earnestly upon it, that will bring-out* even approximate

1 IP IF IP cast off ni' 11= IPincumlxTed

2 H' JI^ IPstepfcirth * II' II- IP arrangement,

'^W W- IP bring out

<' i

Till: HERO AS MAX 01 LETTI-.NS

191

solution. What the best arrangement were, none of us
could say. IJut if you ask, \\ hich is the worst t I answer :
This which we now have, that Chaos should sit umpire in
it ; this is the worst. I"o the best, or any good one, there
is yet a long way.

One remark I must not omit, That royal or parliamentary
grants of money are i^y no means the chief thing wanted !
To give our Men of Letters sti|)ends, endowments and all
furtherance of cash, will do little towards the business. ^ On
the whole, one is weary of hearing about the omnipotence lo
of money. I will say rather that, for a genuine man, it is
no evil to be poor ; that there ought o Le Literary Men
poor, — to show ' whether they are g luiine or not ! Men
dicant Orders, bodies of good men doomed to A;', were
instituted in the Christian Church; a most natural and
even necessary development of the spirit of ( hristianitv.
It was itself founded on Poverty, on Sorrow, Contradiction,
Crucifixion, every species of worldly Distress and Degrada-
ticm. We may say. that he who has not known those
things, and learned from them the priceless lessons they -o
have to teach, has missed a good opportunity of schooling.
To beg, and go barefoot, in co;irse woollen cloak with a
rope round your loins, and be despised of all the world,
was no beautiful business; — nor an honourable one in any
eye, till the nobleness of those who did so had made it
honoured of some I"

Begging is not in our course at the present time: but
for the rest of it, who will say that a Johnson is not per-
haps the better for being poor.' It is needful for him, at
all rates, to know that outward profit, that success of any ,lo
kind is not the goal he has to aim at. Pride, vanity, ill-
conditioned egoism of all sorts, are bred in his heart, as in

■ 1

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, \

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' 11 II- ir;,hcw

* no paragraph in II' W IP

l'J2

LECTURES OiX HEROES

every heart ; need, above all, to he cast-out ' of his heart,—
to be, with whatever pangs, t(jrn-out'of it, cast-forth '■ from
it; as a thing worthless. IJyron, born rich and noble, made-
out * even less than Hums, poor and plebeian. Who knows
but, in that same 'best possible organisation 'as yet far o IT,
Poverty may still enter as an important element.' What if
our Men of Letters, men setting-up "' to be .Spiritual Hero«:s,
were still then, as they row are, a kind of ' involuntary monas-
tic order;' bound still to this same ugly Poverty, - till they
lo had tried what was in it too, till they had learned to make
it too do for them ! Money, in truth, can do much, but it
cannot do all. We must know the province of it, and con-
fine it there ; and even spurn it back, when it wishes to get
farther.

Besides, were the money-furtherances, the proper season
for them, the tit assigner of them, all settled, -how is the
Burns to be recognised that merits these .> He must pa.ss
through the ordeal, and prove hi- If. 77//.f ordeal ; this
wild welter of a chaos which is crJled Literary Life : this

20 too is a kind of ordeal ! There is clear truth in the idea
that a struggle from the lower classes of society, towards
the upper regions and rewards of society, must ever con-
tinue. Strong men are born there, who ought to stand
elsewhere than there. The manifold, inextricably complex,
universal struggle of these constitutes, and must constitute,
what is called the progress of society. For Men of Letters,
as for all other sorts of men. How to regulate that strug-
gle .' There is the whole question. To leave it as it is, at
the mercy of blind Chance; a whirl of distracted atom

30 one cancelling the other; one of the thousand arriving
saved, nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine « lost by the way ; your

> H' IP IP cast out 4 H> IIMP made out

2 IP W IP torn out •> II' fr^ IP setting up

3 IP 11= IP ca.st forth ' H' IP IP nine hundred and ninety nine

THE HKKO AS MAX Ol- LETTERS

V)i

royal Johnson lan<;uisliini2j inactive in jjarrcts, or harnessed
to the yoke of I'rinter (ave'; your Hums dyin;; broken-
hearted" as a danger ': your Rousseau driven into mad
exasperation, kindling Irench Revolutions by his para-
doxes : this, as we said, is clearlv enougii the 'i^vrst reirula-
tion. I'he A'.f/, alas, is far from us !

And yet there can be no doubt but it is coming ; advanc-
ing on us, as yet hidden in the bosom of centuries: tliis is
a prophecy one can risk. I'or so soon as iiieii get to dis-
cern the importance of a thing, they do infallibly set about \c
arranging it, facilitating, forwarding it ; and rest not till,
in some approximate degree, they have accomplished that.
I say, of all Priesthoods, Aristocracies, (Governing (lasses
at present extant in the world, there is no class comparable
for importance to that Priesthood of the Writers of Hooks.
This is a fact which he who runs may read, - and draw
inferences from. "Literature will take care of itself,"
answered Mr. Pitt, when applied-to* for seme help for
I'.urns. " Ves," adds*^ Mr. Soutliey, "it will lake care of
itself; and of yoH too, if you do not look to it ! " 20

'I'he result to individual Men of Letters is not the momen-
tous one ; they are but individuals, an int'.nitesimal fraction
of the great body; they can struggle en, and live or else
die, as they have been wont. Put it deeply concerns the
whole society, whether it will set its li:^ht on high places,
to walk thereby; or trample it under foot, and scatter it
in all ways of wild waste (not without conilagration ), as
heretofore! Light is tlie one th;ng wanted for the world.
Put wisdom in the head of the world, the world '' will tight
its battle victoriously, and be tin best world man can make 30
it. I call" this anomaly of a disorganic Literary (lass

i I

t •« f

1. 1

' II" H= Cavf. ■ U' 11= Causer, ■ IM .niswtrs

- IP IP' bn.kenlitartucl ^ IP IP IP applied tu '■ IP it
■ IP li^- rP.aiiul

:mi

194

LhCTUKES OX tH':iiOES

the heart of all othei anomalies, at once product and
parent ; some good arrangement f.>r tliat would be as the
puiutHm salicns of a new vitality and just arrangement for
all. Already, -n some European countries, in France, in
Prussia, one traces some beginnings ot an arrangement for
the Literary ("lass; indicating the gradual possibility of
such. I believe that it is possible ; that it will have to he
possible.

By far the most interesting fact I hear about the ( lii-

10 nese is one on which we cannot arrive at clearness, but
which excites endless curiosity even in ti.e dim state: this
namely, that they do attempt to make their Men of Letters
their Governors ! It would be rash to say, one understood
how this was done, or with what degree of success it was
done. All such things must be very ////successful ; yet a
small degree of success is precious; the very attempt how
preciou. ! There does seem to be, all over China, a more
or less active search everywhere to discover tiie men of
talent that grow up in the young generation. .Schools there

20 are for every one: a foolish sort of training, yet still a sort.
The youths who distinguish themselves in tlie lower school
are promoted into favourable stations in the higher, that
they may still more distinguish themselves, — forward and
forward: it appears to be out of these that the Official
Persons, and incipient Governors, are taken. These are
they whom they try first, whether they can govern or not.
And surely with the best hope : for they are the men that
have already shown ' intellect. Try them ': they have not
governed or administered as yet ; perhaps they cannot ;
30 but there is no doubt they Iui7e some Understanding,* -
without which no man can ! Neither is Understanding a
tool^ as we are too apt to figure ; ' it is a //(///(/ which can

I 11' HMI^ shewn Ml' thtm,

3 H' H» H^ understanding

THE HEKO AS MAX Ol- I.KTTENS

195

handle any tool' Try these men : they .ire of all others
the best worth trying. - Surely there is no kind of {govern-
ment, constitution, revolution, social apparatus or arranj;e-
ment, that I know of in this world, so promising to one's
scientific curiosity as this. The man of intellect at the top
of affairs : this is the aim of .all constitutions and revolu-
tions, if they have any aim. For the man cf true intellect,
as I assert and believe always, is the noblehearted man
withal, the true, just, humane and valiant man. (let liim
for governor, all i.i got ; fail to get him, though you had lo
Constitutions plentiful as bl.ackberries, and a Parliament in
every vilLage, there is nothing yet got ! —

These things look strange, truly ; and are not such as we
commonly speculate upon. Hut we are fallen into strange
times ; these things will require to be speculated upon ; to
be rendered practicable, to be in some way put in practice.
These, and many others. On all hands of us, there is the
announcement, audible enough, that the old Kmpire of
Routine has ended ; that to say a thing has long been, is
no reason for its continuing to be. The things which have 20
been are fallen into decay, are fallen into incompetence;
large masses of mankind, in every society of our Kurope,
are no longer capable of living at all by the things which
have been. When millions of men can no longer by their
utmost exertion gain food for themselves, and 'the third
man for thirty-six weeks each year is short of tiiird-rate
potatoes,' the things which have been must decidedly pre-
pare to alter themselves ! — I will now quit this of the
organisation of Men of Letters.

'•'1

''•7

Alas, the evil that press( ' heaviest on those Literary 30
Heroes of ours was not the vvant of organisation for Men
of Letters, but a far deeper one; out uf which, indeed, this
and so many other evils for the Literary ^Lan, and for all

196

LECTUNES OX HEROES

men, had, ns from their fountain, taken rise. That our
Hero as Man of letters had to travel without hij,'hway,
companionless, through an inorganic chaos, -and to leave
his own life and faculty lying there, as a partial contribu-
tion towards /«j///><;' some highway through it: this, had
not his faculty itself been so perverted and paralysed, he
might have put-up • with, might have considered to be but
the common lot of Heroes. His fatal misery was the spirit-
ual paralysis, so we may name it, vjf the Age in which his

10 life lay ; whereby his life too, do what he might, was half-
paralysed ! The Eighteenth was a .s;<y»//,v?/ Century ; in
which little word there is a whole Pandora's Box of miser-
ies. Scepticism means not intellectual Doubt alone, but
moral Doubt; all sorts of ///tidelity, insincerity, spiritual
paralysis. Perhaps, in few centuries that one could specify
since the world began, was a life of Heroism more difficult
for a man. That was not an age of Faith, - an a<fe of
Heroes ! The very possibility of Heroism had been, as it
were, formally abnegated in the minds of all. Heroism

20 was gone forever; Triviality, Formulism and Common-
place were come forever. The 'age of miracles' had
been, or perhaps had not been ; but it was not any
longer. An effete world; wherein Wonder, Greatness,
Godhood could not now dwell ; — in one word, a godless
world !

How mean, dwarfish are their ways of thinking, in this
time, —compared not with the Christian Shakspeares and
Miltons, but with the old Pagan Skaldi, with any species
of believing men ! The living Trke Igdrasil, with the
30 mv;lodious prophetic waving of its world-wide boughs, deep-
rooted as Hela, has died-out ^ into the clanking of a World-
Machine. ' Tree ' and ' Machine : ' contrast these two

» H' IP IP put up
* IP IP IP died out

mi£i,=

l| I

THE llENO AS MAX OF l.l-.TIIN.S

197

things.

I,' for my share, declare the world to he no
machine! i say that it does not j,'() by wheel-i.nd-pinion
'motives,' self-interests, checks, balances; that there is
something far other in it than the clank of spinning-jennies,
and parliamentary majorities ; and, on the whole, that it
is not a machine at all ' ! The old Norse Heathen had a
truer notion of (Jod's-world than these poor Machine-
Sceptics: the old Heathen \orse were siiiuir men. Hut
for these poor .Sceptics there was no sincerity, no truth.
Half-truth and hearsay was called truth. I'ruth, for most ic
men, meant plausibility ; to be measured by the number of
votes you could get. Ihey had lost any notion that sin-
cerity was possible, or of what sincerity was. How many
IMausibilities asking, with unaffected surprise and the air
of offended virtue. What ! am not I sincere .» Spiritual
Taralysis, I say, nothing left l)ut a Mechanical life, was the
characteristic of that century. For the common m-.n,
unless happily he stood Ih-low his century and belonged to
another prior one, it was imjxjssible to be a IJeliever, a
Hero ; he lay buried, unconscious, under these baleful inHu- 20
ences. I'o the strongest man, only with infinite struggle
and confusion was it possible to work himself half-loose;
and lead as it were, in an enchanted, most tragical way, a
spiritual death-in-life, and be a Half-Hero !

Scepticism is the name we give to all this ; as the chief
symptom, as the chief origin of all this. ( oncerniug which
so much were to be said ! It would take many Discourses,
not a small fraction of one Discourse, to state what one
feels about that Eighteenth Century and its ways. .As
indeed this, and the like of this, which we now call Scepti- 2,0
cism, is precisely the black malady and life-foe, against
which all teaching and discoursing since man's life began

' Ml' i. forniy share, declare the world to be no Machine ; it does
not go by wheels and pinions at all !

.1 !t

$ ii

196

LEC TUNES OX llEKOES

has directed itself: the battle of Helief against rnbelief is
the never-ending battle! Neither is it in the way of crim-
ination that one would wish to s|)eak. Scepticism, for that
century, we must consider as the J;~ay of old ways of
believing, the preparation afar otT for new better and wider
ways, —an inevitable thing. We will not blame men for
it; we will lament their hard fate. We will understand
that destruction of o\A. forms is not destruction of everlast-
ing suhstiviccs ; that Scepticism, as sorrowful and hateful as

10 we see it, is not an end but a beginning.

The other day speaking, without prior purpose that way,
of Ikntham's theory of man and man's life, 1 chanced to
call it a more beggarly one than Mahomet's. I am bound
to s. /, now when it is once uttered, that such is my delib-
erate opinion. Not that one would mean offence against
the man Jeremy Hentham, or those who resiJect and believe
him. lientham himself, and evin the creed of Bentham,
seems to me comparatively worthy of praise. It is a deter-
minate bein;^ what all the world, in a cowardly half-and-half

::ri manner, was tending to be. Let us have the crisis ; we
shall either have death or the cure. I call this gross, steam-
engine Utilitarianism an approach towards new I'aith. It
was a laying-down' of cant; a saying to i- jself: "Well
then, this world is a dead iron machine, the god of it (Irav-
itation and seltish Hunger ; let us see what, by checking
and balancing, and good adjustment of tooth and pinion,
can be made of it ! " Benthamism has som thing complete,
manful, in such fearless committal of itself to what it finds
true ; you may call it Heroic, though a Heroism with its

30 eyes put out ! It is the culminating point, and fearless
ultimatum, of what lay in the half-and-half state, pervading
man's whole existence in that Eighteenth Century. It
seems to me, all deniers of Godhood, and all lip-believers

1 IP IP IP laying down

THE HE NO AS MAX OF LETTEKS

199

«)f it, are Ixniinl to he liL-nthamites, if thty iiavc couraj^c
uul lidiusty. l!c'nth;unisin is an tyclcss Heroism: the
lluin;in Species, like ;i li;ipless blinded S.unson grinding in
the I'hilistiiie Mill, ehisps convulsivelj the pillat A its
Mill; hrir.i;s huge ruin down, l)ut ultimately deliverance
withal. (I .•..ntham I meant to say no iiarm.

IJut this 1 do say, and would wish all men to know and
lay to heart, that he who discerns nothing but Mechanism
in the Universe has in the fatalest ' way missed the secret
of the I'niverse altogether. That all (lodhood should van- lo
ish out of men's conception of this Universe seems to
tiie jirecisely the most brutal error, — I will not dispar-
age Heathenism by calling it a Heathen error,- that men
could fall into. It is not true ; it is false at the very heart
of it. A man who thinks so will think 7i'/v^//j,' about all
things in the world ; this original sin w ill vitiate all other
conclusions he can form. One might call it the most
lamentable of Delusions, — not forgetting Witchcraft it-
self! Witchcraft worshipped at least a living Devil; but
this worships a dead iron Devil ; no dod, not even a Devil I 20
— Whatsoever is noble, divine, inspired, drops thereby out
of life. There remains everywhere in life a despicable

iit-mortiium : the mechanical hull, all soul fled out of it.
now can a man act heroically? The 'Doctrine of Mo-
tives' will teach him that it is, under more or less disguise,
nothing but a wretched love of Pleasure, fear of I'ai.i ; that
Hunger, of applause, of cash, of whatsoever victual it may
be, is the ultimate fact of man's life. Atheism, in brief; —
which does indeed frightfully punish itself. The man, I
say, is become spiritually a paralytic man ; this godlike 3°
I'nivf se a dead mechanical steamengine,- all working by
motives, checks, balances, and I know not wh..t ; wherein,

» W fatallest

* H' Steameneine H' Steam-engine

\ ..i

■'i

;

200

/./.C/rAV.V ox ///-.A'O/S

as in the dctcstablt; belly of some Phalaris'-lUill <.( in> in\:\
contrivinj,', he, the pour I'h.il.iris nils tniscr.ibly 'lyiii};'!

Ik-'licl I tictine to he the healthy act of a man^ mind. It
is a mysterious indescrilj.ihle process, that of },'ettinj{ to
believe; indescribable, as all vital acts are. We have
our mind «iven us, not that it may cavil and aryue, but
that it may s^e into somethini,', ;,'ive us clear belief and
understandin;; about something', whereon we are then to
proceed to act. Doubt, truly, is not itself a crime. ( cr-

lo tainly we do not rush out. cluuhup- the lirst thin;; we
(ind, and stt iij;htway believe that ! All manner of doubt,
inquiry, fr*ctVi< as it is named, about all manner of objects,
dwells in every reasonable mind. It is the mystic working
of the mind, on the object it is j,',/////;' to know and believe,
lielief conns out of all this, above j,'round, like the tree
from its hidden r,>,>/s. Hut now if. even on common things,
we require that a man keep his doubts si/r/i/, and not babble
of them till they in some measure become atVirmations or
denials; how much more in regard to the highest things,

:3 impossible to speak-of ' in words at all! I'hat a m:u\
parade his doubt, and get to imagine that debating and
logic (which nieans at best only the manner of /,/////^' us
your thought, your^ belief or disbelief, about a thing) is
the triumph and true work of what intellect he has: alas,
this is as if you should orcrtuni the tree, and instead of
green boughs, leaves and fruits, show* us ugly taloned roots
turned-up" into the air, —and no growth, only death and
misery going-on ^1

I-'or tiie ' ■•.'pticism, as I said, is not intellectual only ; it
2P is m^ral :i..,o ; a chronic atrophy and disease of the whole

' IM II- dying!— ♦«<-//// W

MI' IP IPclutch up ' H' II- H^shew

8 ir H- H^ siJtak of •• II' 11^ HJ turned up

' H« H» H3 going on I

Tin: llh.k'O AS MAX ,)/. It TTINS

2<>l

soul. A man liv«-s l.y htlievin;; snmrthin- ; not |.\ ,l,.|,.tt-
iriK and .irfiuin;,' .ilu.ut m , ,y tl.in-s. A vi.l i-.,sc f<.r him
whi-n ill that he can m.in,i«f to hciifvu is v.nu'thinn '>«'
can button in hin |).H.ket, an<l with (.n.- or thf otht-r or-an
eat and dijrfM ! I.owit than ili.u W will not ;;.t. We call
those a^jes in which he «ets l„w the mouriifiilest.' sickest
and meanest of all a-es. Ihe w.^rld's heart is palsie<l. sick :
how can any limb of it be whole ' (Jenuine Actin- ceases
in all departments of the world's work; dextrous- Sin)='
tude of Actinj; bejjins. Ihe world's wa^es are pockt, i ■
the world's work is not done. Heroes have «.>ne-oiu ;
Quacks have comein.* Accordin-iy. what ( entury. sincJ
the end ol uie Roman world, which also was a time of
scepticism, simulacra and universal decadence, so abounds
with (Quacks as that Ki-hteentl. .' Consider them, with
their tumid sentimental va|)ourin;,' about virtue, benevo-
lence, -the wretched <Juacks(|uadron, ( .ajjiiostro at the
head of them ! Few men were without ([uackery ; they had
;,'ot to consider it a necessary in<;redient and amalfiam for
truth. Chatham, our brave Chatham himself, comes down 2'
to the IJouse. all wrapt ,ind banda;,'e'' : he 'has crawled
out in great bodily sutTering,' and s( •, ; /'/-,•/•, says
Walpole, th.it he is actinj; th-j .-,ick i. ,.. ; in the tire ot
debate, snatches his arm fr:,m '!ie slini,'. and oratorically
swings and brandish<-s it! ( ' wli.mi himself lives the
strangest mimetic life. I. If-hero, i: rlf-tiuack, all ,ilon-. lor
indeed the world is full of dupes; and you have to gain
the 7i>orl,rs suffrage ! How the duties of 'the world will he
done in that case, what (piantities of error, which means
fadure, which means sorrow and miser-, to some atul to 30
many, will gradually accumulate in all provinces of the
world's business, we need not compute.

H 11

' IP mournfullest

2 H' W W dexterous

' If 11= IP Ron., out
* II' H-- IP come in

202

LECTURES OX HEROES

It seems to me, you lay your finjjer here on the heart of
the world's maladies, when you call it a Sceptical World.
An Insincere world ; a godless untruth of a world ! It is
out of this, as I consider, that the whole tribe of social
pestilences, French Revolutions, Chartisms, and what not,
have derived their being, - their chief necessity to be.
This must alter. Till this alter, nothing can beneficially
alter. My one hope of the world, my inexpugnable conso-
lation in looking at the miseries of the world, is that this
10 is altering. Here and there one does now find a man who
knows, as of old, that this world is a Truth, and no Plau-
sibility and Falsity ; that he himself is alive, not dead or
paralytic; and that the world is alive, instinct with (lod-
hood, beautiful and awful, even as in the beginning of days !
One man once knowing this, many men, all men, must by
and by come to know it. It lies there clear, for whosoever
will take the spectacles off his eyes and honestly look, to
know ! For such a man the Unbelieving Century, with its
unblessed Products, is already past: a new century is
;-• already come. The old unblessed Products and Perform-
ances, as solid as they look, are Phantasms, preparing
speedily to vanish. To this and the other noisy, very great-
lookinjr Simulacrum with the whole world huzzahing at its
heels, he can say, composedly stepi)in,^ aside: Thou ail
not true; th ^u art not extant, only semblant ; go thy way '
— Yes, hollow Formulism, gross l?enthamism, and other
unheroic atheistic Insincerity is visibly and even rapidly
declining. .\n unbelieving F-ighteenth Century is but an
excejition, - such as now and then occurs. I prophesy
30 that the world will once more become sincere: a believin'^
world ; with iiiiViy Heroes in it, a heroic world ! It will
then be a victorious world ; never till then.

Or indeed what of the world and its victories ' Men
speak too much about the world. F.ach one of us here, let

/•///•; //A7v'(> ./.-, M.i.v i>i- ijyrrr.h'S

203

I
■J

the world go how it will, and be victorious or not victori-
ous, has he not a Life f)f his own to lead ? One Life ; a
little gleam of i'ime between two Kternities ; no second
chance to us foreverniore I It were well for us to live not
as fools and simulacra, but as wise and realities. The
world's being saved will not save us ; nor the world's being
lost destroy us. We should look to ourselves: there is
great merit here in the 'duty of staying at home'! And,
on the whole, to say trutii, I never heard of ' worlds ' being
'saved ' in any other way. That mania of saving worlds is lo
itself a piece of the Kighteenth Century with its windy sen-
timentalism. Let us not follow it too far. For the saving
of the 7iV'/7r/ I will trust confidently to the NLiker of the
world; and look a little to my own saving, which I am
more comjjetent to! In brief, for the world's sake, and
for our own, we will rejoice greatly that Scepticism, Insin-
cerity, Mechanical Atheism, with all their poison-dews, are
going, and as good as gone.

Now it was under sucii conditions, in those times of
Johnson, that our Men of Letters had to live. Times in 20
which there was properly no truth in life. Old truths had
fallen nigh dumb; the new lay yet hidden, not trying to
speak. That Man's Life here below was a Sincerity and
l-'act, and would forever ccjiitinue such, no new intimation,
in that dusk of the world, had yet dawned. No intimation ;
not even any I'"rench Revolution, — which we define to be .
a Truth once more, though a iruth clad in helltire I How
different was the laither's pilgrimage, with its assured goal,
from the Johnson's,' girt with mere traditions, sujjposi-
tions, grown now incredible, unintelligible ! Mahomet's 30
Formulas were of 'wood waxed and oiled,' and could be
/'///7// out of one's way: poor Johnson's were far more
(lifTicuIt to burn. — The strouLf man will ever tind iiwrk.

■i "

•I

MwBWH

Ml' 11-^ l.-hiK-^un's

204

r. EC TURKS OX IfKKOES

which means difficulty, pain, to the full measure of his
strength. But to make-out ' a victory, in those circum-
stances of our poor Hero as Man of Letters, was perhaps
more difficult than in any. Not obstruction, disorganisa-
tion, Bookseller Osborne and Four-pence-halfpenny a day ;
not this alone ; but the light of his own soul was taken from
him. No landmark on the Karth ; and, alas, what is that
to having no loadstar in the Heaven ! We need not won-
der that none of those Three men rose to victory. That
lo they fought truly is the highest praise. With a mournful
sympathy we will contemplate, if not three living victori-
ous Heroes, as I said, the Tombs of three fallen Heroes !
They fell for us too ; making a way for us. There are the
mountains which they hurled abroad in their confused War
of the Giants ; under which, their strength and life spent,
they now lie buried.

I have already written of these three Literary Heroes,
expressly or incidentally ; what I suppose is known to most
of you; what need not be spoken or written a second time.

20 They concern us here as the singular J^rophcts of that singular
age ; for such they virtually were ; and the aspect they and
their world exhibit, under this point of view, might lead us
into reflections- enough! I call them, all three, Genuine
Men more or less ; faithfully, for most part unconsciously,
struggling, to'' be genuine, and plant themselves on the
everlasting truth of things. This to a degree that emi-
nently distinguishes them from the poor artificial mass of
their contemporaries ; and renders them worthy to be con-
sidered as Speakers, in some measure, of the everlasting

30 truth, as Prophets in that age of theirs. By Nature herself
a noble necessity was laid on them to be so. They were

1 II' W Y\} make out « H' H* reflexions

* H' struggling to

THE IIKRO AS MAX OF LETTERS

205

men of such magnitude that they could not live on unreal-
ities, — clouds, froth and all inanity gave-way ' under them :
there was no footing for them but on firm earth ; no rest
or regular motion for them, if they got not footing there.

the

1 o a certain extcm, mey were rions oi mature once
an age of Artitice ; once more, ( )riginal Men.

As for Johnson, I have always considered him to be, by

nature, one of our great Knglish souls. A strong and
noble man ; so much left undeveloped in him to the last :
in a kindlier element what might he not have been, — Poet, ic

Priest, sovereign Kuler ! On the whole, a man must not
complain of his 'element,' of his 'time,' or the like; it is
thriftless work doing so. His time is bad: well then, he
is there to make it bettei ! — Johnson's youth was poor,
isolated, hopeless, very miserable. Indeed, it does not
seem possible that, in any the favourablest outward circum-
stances, Johnson's life could have been other than a pain-
ful one. The world might have had more of profitable ivork
out of him, or less ; but his effort against the world's work
could never have been a light one. Nature, in return for 20
his nobleness, had said to him, Live in an element of dis-
eased sorrow. Nay, perhaps the sorrow and the nobleness
were intimately and even inseparably connected with each
other. At all events, poor Johnson had to go about girt
with continual hypochondria, physical and spiritual pain.
Like a Hercules with the burning Nessus'-shirt on him,
which shoots-in - on him dull incurable misery : the Ncsmis'-
shirt not to be stript-olf.'^ which is his own natural s' in !
In this manner he had to live. iMgure him there, wi . his
scrofulous diseases, with his great greedy heart, and un-
speakable chaos of thoughts; stalking mournful as a
stranger in this Karth ; eagerly devouring what sjjiritual

» H' II- IIJ gave way - IP II- II ' sli.-ots in

» IP II- IPstript off

( ■ r

'-'.I

.; i

i I

206

I.ECrUKHS 0\ HEROES

thing he could come at ; school-languages and other merely
grammatical stuff, if there were nothing better! The larg-
est soul that was in all Kngland ; and provision made for
it of 'fourpence-halfpenny ' a day.' Vet a giant invincible
soul ; a true man's. < )ne remembers always that story of
the shoes at Oxford: the rough, seamy-faced, rawboned
College Servitor stalking about, in winter-season, with his
shoes worn-out - ; how the charitable (lentleman ( 'ommoner
secretly places a new pair at his door ; and the raw boned

10 Servitor, lifting them, looking at liiem near, with dim eyes,
with what thoughts, — pitches them out of window ! Wet
feet, mud, frost, hunger or what you will: but not beggary:
we cannot stand beggary ! Rude stubborn self-help here ;
a whole world of scjualor, rudeness, confused misery and
want, yet of nobleness and manfulness withal. It is a type
of the man's life, this pitching-away " of the shoes. An
original man ; — not a secondhand, borrowing or begging
man. Let us stand on our own basis, at any rate ! On such
shoes as we ourselves can get. On frost and nmd, if you

20 will, but hf)ncstlv on tiiat; on the rcalitv and substance
which Nature gives //>, not on the semblance, on the tiling
she has given another than us I

iVnd yet with all this rugged ])ride of maniiood and self-
help, was there ever soul more tenderly affectionate, loyally
submissive to what was reallv hij^her than he ? (Ireat souls
are always loyally submissive, reverent to what is over
them; only small mean souls are otherwise. I could not
find a better proof of what I said the other day, That \.\\v
sincere man was by nature the obedient man ; that only in

30 a World of Heroes was there loyal'Obedience to the Heroic.
The essence of orii^iiutlity is not that it be iic-u< : Johnson
believed altogether in the old ; he found the old opinions

' H' 11- fourpence lialfi)enny - II' IP H ' \vf)rn out

' 11' 11- W pitrhing ,T\v;iy

Til/: llhKO AS MAX Of IJ:ni:KS

credible for him, fit for him ; aiul in a ri^ht licroic manner
lived under tiicm. He is well wortli study in rt.'L;ard to
that. 1 or we are to say that johnNon was far other tiian a
mere man of words anil formulas; lie was a man of truths
and facts. He stood liy the old formulas: tl)e liipjiier
was it for him that he could so stand ; hut in ail formulas
that //(• could stand hy. there needed to he a most j;enuine
substance. Very curious how, in that poor {'ajier-aLje, so
barren, artificial, thick-(]uille(l \\ith Pedantries, Hearsays,
the great l-'act of tliis I'niverse glared ' in, forever ' wonder- lo
ful, induliitable, unspeakable, divine-infernal, upon this
man too! How he harmonised his formulas with it. how
he managed at all under sucii circumstances : that is a thin.;
worth seein;;. A tiling 't«j be looked at with reverence,
with pity, with awe.' i'hat (hurch of St. (lenient Danes,
where Johnson still 7i',>rs/i/f<p,;f \\\ tlie era of X'oltaire, is to
me a venerable place.

It was in virtue of his snirrrify. uf his s|)eaking still in
some sort from the heart of N.iiure, liiougii in tlie current
artificial dialect, that Johnson was a rrophet. Are not ill jo
dialects 'artificial'? Arlilicial things aie not all fa!>e ;
nay every true I'roduct of .Nature will inf.il!il)ly i/v//. itself;
we may say all artificial things are. at tin; starting of tlii;iii,
tnir. What we call ' i''ormuias ' are not in tiieir origin b.id ;
they are indispensably good. I'ormula is n'cth^hl, liabitude ;
found wherever man is found, formulas fashion them-
selves as i'aths do, as beaten Highways, leading towards
some sacred or higii object, whitlier many men .ire bent.
Consider it. One man, ful! of heartfelt earnest iuipi:' ■
finds-out ^ a way of doingsomewli.it, were it of uttei jC

his soul's reverence for tiie Highest, were it but of titiy
saluting his fellow-man. .\n inventor was needed to do

Id ,

LI? H

n ^

that,

■/•'

■ I,..

has articulated tiie dim-struggling timught

' ' II' H- H- "larcilin forever

- II' !!-■ iP tiiul.- <.ut

2US

LECTURES ON HEROES

that dwelt in his own and many hearts. This is his way
of doing that ; these are his footsteps, the beginning of a
• Path.' And now see : the second man travels naturally in
the footsteps of his foregoer, it is the cusicst meti. ;d. In the
footsteps of his foregoer; yet with unprovements, with'
changes where such seem good ; at all events with enlarge-
ments, the Path ever 7t7V<7//>/:,' itself as more travel it ; -
till at last there is a broad Highway whereon the whole
world may travel and drive. While there remains a k itv

10 or Shrine, or any Reality to drive to, at the farther encl,
the Highway shall be right welcome! When the City is
gone, we will forsake the Highway. In this manner all
Institutions, Practices, Regulated Things in the world have
come into existence, and gone out of existence. Formulas
all begin by being ///// of substance ; you may call them
the skin, the articulation into shape, into limbs nnd skin, of
a substance that is already there : tiny had not been there
otherwise. Idols, as we said, are not idolatrous till they
become doubtful, empty for the worshii)iier's heart. Much

20 as we talk against I'ormulas, I hope no one of us is ignorant
withal of the high significance of true l-ormulas ; that thcv
were, and will ever be, the indispensablest furniture of our

habitation in this world.

Mark, too, how little Johnson boasts of his 'sincerity."
He has no suspicion of his being particularly sincere, — of
his being particularly anything ! A hard-struggling, weary-
hviarted man, or 'scholar' as he calls himself, trying hard
to get some honest livelihood in the world, not to starve,
but to live — without stealing! A noble unconsciousness

30 is in him. He does not 'engrave Truth on his watch-seal ; '
no, but he stands by truth, speaks by it, works and lives
by it. Thus it ever is. Think of it once more. The man
whom Nature has appointetl to do great things is, lirst of

1 no! ill 1 1 '

THE l/ENO AS MAX Ol- I.ETT/:h'S

all, fiirnishcd with that opcnnc-ss to Nature which rondcrs
him inc:ipal)lc of i)i;in^' ///sincere ! i'o his lar^'c, open,
deep-feel inj; heart Nature is a laci: ai! hearsay is hear-
say; tile unspeakable {,nc.aiiess (it this Mystery of Life, let
him acknowledge it or not, nay even thou;^h he stem to
forget it or deny it, is ever present to //////, fearful and
wonderful, o.i this hand and on that. He has a basis of
sincerity ; unrecoj;nised, because never questioned or capa-
ble of question. Mirabe.ui, Mahomet, ( roniwell, Napoleon :
all the (;reat Men I ever heard-of ' have this as t le primary lo
material of them. Innumerable commonplace men are
debating, are talkin-j; everywhere their commoniilace doc-
trines, which they have learned by loi;ic, by rote, at sec-
ondhand -': to that kind of man all this is still nothing;, lb-
must have truth ; truth which //,• feels to be true. How-
shall he stand otherwise .' His whole soul, at all moments,
in all ways, tells him that there is no standing. He is under
the noble necessity of being true, (ohnson's way of think-
ing about this world is not mine, any more tlian Mahomet's
was: but I recognise the everlasting element of heart- ::o
siiurrity in both ; and see with pleasure Ikav neitiier of them
remains ineffectual. Neither of tliem is as (//,///' sown ; in
both of them is something wiiiili the seed-tield will ,;vv/,-i'.

Johnson was a Prophet to his people; jireached aClospel
to them, -as all like him always do. The highest Oospel
he preached we may describe as a kind of Moral I'rudence ;
'in a world where much is to be done, and little is to be
known,' see how you will ,//- it : A tiling well worth ])reach-
ing. 'A world where much is to be clone, and little is to
be known : ' do not sink yourselves in boundless bottomless 30
abysses of Doubt, of wretched god-forgetting' I nl)eiief;
— you were miserable then, powerless, ni ul ; h'nv could vou

» H' H- II' heard of - IP .SLcmd-Iiam!

1-^

li ■' 1

:!ih!

210

/./■:c7'i'h'f-:.s ox iiiiNoi-.s

do or work at all ? Such (lospol [olinson prciclied and
taight ;-- coupled, theoretically and practically, with this
other great (lospcl, ' ( lear your mind ol (ant ! ' Have no
tra with Cant: stand on the cold mud in th. frosty
weather, but let it be in your own iwil torn shoes: 'that
will bt bjtter for vou,' as Mahomet savs ! I call this, I
call these two thinj^s joiiUii to^,tlui\ a great (lospel, the
greatest perhaps that was possible at that time.

Johnson's Writings, which once had such currency and

10 celebrity, are now, as it were,' disowned by the yoimg
generation. It is not wonderful ; Johnson's opinions are
fast becoming obsolete : but his style of thinking and of
living, we may hope, will never become obsolete. I lind in
Johnson's IJooks the indisputablest traces of ,i great intel-
lect and a great heart ; e\'.'r welcome, under what obstruc-
tions and perversions soever. They are sin,; ■ • words, those
of his; he means things by them. A wondrous buckram
style, —the best he could get to then : a measured grandilo-
quence, stejiping or rather stalking along in a very solemn

2D way, grown obsolete now; sometimes a tumid size of
phraseology not in proportion to the cf)ntents of it: all this
you will put-up- with. I'or the pjiraseoloi^y, tumid or not,
has always soimt/iiiii' iK'itliin it. S(j manv beautiful slvUs
and books, with not/tin,:; in them ; — a man is a w.//. factor to
the world who writes such ! 'J'/irv are the avoidable kind I
— Had Johnson left nothing but his /)ii/ii>ii,tr\\, one might
have traced there a great intellect, a getiuinc m.m. I-ook
ing to its clearness of detinitifiu, its general solidity, honesty,
insight and successful method, it may be called the !>est of

30 all Dictionaries. There is in it a kind of ar-jliitectural
nobleness; it stands there like a great solid stjuare-built
edifice, finished, symmetrically complete : you judge that a
true Builder did it.

1 li' 11= IPweic

- U'll- irjmt up

rur. II I: NO AS MAX Ol- /./.Jn-.h'S

!11

One word, in spite of our haste, must be t;r.inte«l to poor
Bozzy. He passes for a mean, intiated.jjluttonoiis creature;
and was so in many senses. \ et the fact of his reverence
for Johnson will ever remain noteworthy. The foolisli con-
ceited .Scotch Laird, the most conceited man of his time,
approaciiinj; in such awestruck attitude tlie <;reat (histy
irascible redagof^ue in his mean {garret there : it is a j;enuine
reverence for Kxcelience : a 7t.u>rs/iip for Heroes, at a tinie
when neither Heroes nor worship were surmised to exist.
Heroes, it would seem, exist always, and a certain worship lo
of them ! We will also take the liberty to deny altoj;ether
that of the witty Frenchman, that no man is a Hero to his
valet-de-chambre. Or if .so, it is not the Hero's blauje, but
the N'alet's : that his soul, namely, is a mean ;v/(/-soul I
He expects his Hero to advance in royal staj^e-trappin^^s,
with measured step, trains borne behind hin>, trumi)ets
soundin<{ before him. It should stand rather. No man can
be a (iriin,/-.\/))Hitrt/itr to his valet-de-chambre. .Strip your
Louis (Juatorze of his kin^-f;ear, and there la left nothinij;
but a poor forked raddish ' witii a head fantastically carved ; 20
— admirable to no valet. The \'alet does not know a Hero
when he sees him ! Alas, no : it requires a kind of J/, > > to
do tiiat ; — anfl one of the world's wants, in ////> as in otiier
senses, is for most part want of such.

(^n the whole, shall we not say, that Jioswell's admiration
was well bestowed; that he could have found no soul in all
Knj^land so worthy of bendinj; Jiown before ? Sliall we not
say, of this j^reat mournful Johnson too, that he f:;ui<led his
dilTicult confused existence wisely ; led it 7i>c//, like a rij^ht-
valiant - man .' That waste chaos of .\uthorshi]) by trade '' : 30
that waste chaos of Scepticism in religion and politics, in
life-theory and life-practice : i 1 his ]Joverty, in \n^ dust and

MP n= 11'r.vli.h 2 H« H= II' right valiant

•' IP IP IP Trade

I v|

•r ii

•r

212

LKCn'Rl.S ox IllKOES

dimness, with the sick body ;ind the rusty co.it : he made
it do for him, like \ brave man. Not wholly without a
loadstar in the Kternal ; he had still a loadstar, as the
brave all need to have : with his eye set on that, he would
rhanye his course for nothinj; in these confused v«)rtices of
the lower sea of Time. 'To the Spirit of Lies, bearinj";
death and hunger, he would in no wise strike his flag.'
Hravc old Samuel : ultitnus Ronuiiiorum .'

Ok' Rousseau and his Heroism I cannot say so much. He
10 is not what I call a strong man. A morbid, excitable, spas-
modic man ; at best, intense rather than strong. He had
not 'the talent of Silence,' an invaluable talent ; which few
Frenchmen, or indeed men of any sort in these times, excel
in ! The suffering man ought really 'to consume his own
smoke ; ' there is no good in emitting sniolu' till you have
made it into //"/v, — which, in the metaphorical sense too,
all smoke is capable of becoming ! Rousseau has not deptii
or width, not calm force for difficulty ; the first character
istic of true greatness. A fundamental mistake to call
20 vehemence and rigidity strength ! A man is not strong
who takes convulsion-fits ; though six men cannot hold him
then. He that can walk under the heaviest weight with-
out staggering, he is the strong man. \V<,' need forever,
especially in these loud-shrieking days, to remind ourselves
of that. A man who cannot /lo/ii /ih ptutir, till the time conu-
for speaking and acting, is no right man.

I'oor Rousseau's face is to me expressive of him. A higli
but narrow contracted intensity in it : bony brows ; deep,
strait-s2t eyes, in which there is something bewildered
Z° looking, — bewildered, peering with lynx-eagerness. A fact-
full of miserv. even isrnoble miserv. and also of the antago-
nism against that ; something mean, plebeian there, re
deemed only by intciisily : the face of what is calletl a

THE rh.RO AS MAX Ol- I ETTEKS

21.)

Fanatic, a sadly lontntiUi/ lleio! \\u n.iiiu- hint here
because', witli all his dr iwhacks, and thi y arc lu.my, he
has the ftrst and chief characteristic dI a Hero: he is
heartily in eaiiust. In earnest, if ever man was; as none
of these French Phijosophes were. Nay, one would say,
of an earnestness nio ^'reat for his otherwise sensitive,
rather feeble natine; and which indeed in tii« nA drove
him into the stranyest inc(»iierencL ., almost delirations.
I'here had come, at last, to be a kind of madness in iiim:
his I deas /*MX<xv(v/ him like demons; hurried him so about, lo
drove him over steep places !

The fault and misery of Rousseau was what we easily
name by a single word, J-.^oism ; which is indeed the source
and summary of all faults and miseries whatsoever. He
had not perfected himself into victory over mere Desire; a
I lean Hunger, in many sorts, was still the motive principle
of him. I am afraid he was a very vain man ; hungry for
the praises of men. Vou remember (]enlis\ experience of
him. She took Jean Jacques to the Iheatre ; he bargain-
ing for a strict incognito, " lie would not be seen there -'o
for the world ! " The curtain did hajjpen nevertheless to
be drawn aside: the Pit recognised Jean Jacques, but took
no great notice of him ! He expressed the bitterest indig-
nation; gloomed all evening, sjiake no other than surly
words. The glib Countess remained entirely convinced
that his anger was not at being seen, but at not being
applauded when seen. How the whole nature of the man
is poisoned ; nothing but suspicion, self-isolation, tierce
moody ways ! He could not live with anybody. A man
of some rank from the country, who visited him often, and 30
used to sit with him, expressing all reverence and affection
for him, comes one day, finds Jean Jacques full of the
sourest unintelligible humour. "Monsieur," said Jean
Jacques, with flaming eyes. " I know why you come here.

If"

'■•I . .

'I =«

214

/.ficrvh'^:s i»\ ni:Kois

You come to Hcc whiit a poor life I le;ul ; how little is in
my |MM)r |K)t that is l>oilinj( there. Well, look in«o tl" pot '
There is hiilf a p(»un(l o( meat, one carrot and three onions ;
th.1t is all; jj(» and tell the whole worUI that, if you like,
Monsieur!" A man of this stirt was far ;^one. The
whole world j,'ot itself supplied with anecdotes, for light
laughter, for a certain theatrical interest, fr«m) these per-
versions and contortions of |M)or Jean Jactpies. Alas, to
him they were not laughing or tlu;atrical ; too real to him !

10 The contortions of a dying gladiator: the crowded am|)hi-
theatre looks-on ' with entertainment ; but the gladiator is
in agonies and dying.

.\nd yet this Umisseau, as we -iay, with his passionate
apix'als to Mothers, with his Contr,tt-siniii/, with his celebra-
tions of Nature, even of savage life in Nature, did once
more touch upon Reality, struggle towards Reality; was
doing the function of a I'rophet to his Time. As /i. „ould,
and as the I'ime cmild ! Strangely through a'.i that deface-
ment, degratlation and almost madness, there is in the

20 inmost heart of poor Kousseau a spark of real heavenly
tire. \ Once more, out of tin- element i>' hat withered mock
ing I'hilosophism, Scepticism and rersillage, there has
arisen in this man the ineradical)lc feeling and knowletlgc
that this Life of ours is triif : not a Scepticism, I'heorem,
or I'ersillage, but a I'act, an awfii! Reality. Nature had
made that revelation to him : had ordered liim to speak it
out. He got it spoken out ; if not ncll and clearly, then
ill and diml\, — as clearly as he could. Nay what are all
errors and perversities of his, even those stealings of rib-

30 bons, aimless confused miseries and vagabondisms, if we
will interpret them kindly, but the blinkard dazzlement
and stagger; igs to ar' iro of a man sent on an errand he
is too weak for, by a path he cannot yet find .' Men are

' H' II' IPloukson

rill: III hO AS M.I.X <ll- I.I: II IAS

21 <

li-(l hv Strang;*' w.iys. ' »Mf sinnild line tolerance f«)r ;i man,
|ji»|>e of him; Ic.ivf hiiii to try yi-l wli.it In- ssill <l<». While
life Lists hope last-, for every mill.

Of K(ni>se.ur«. liter.iry t.iUnts. ;;re.itly telel»r;ite(l still
.iiiioii^ his eountrymeii, I <io imt s.iy iiiiuli. His Itooks,
like himself, .ire wii.it I < .ill unhealthy ; not the ;;iio(l sort
of hooks. There is a seiisuility in Rousseau. ( oinhined
with Mu:h an inteileclu.ii ;iilt is his, it m.ikes pietures of a
certain ^orj;eous attr.ietivenes^ : hut they are not jjemiincly
poetiial. Not wh.ile sunli;4ht : soinethinji ,>/>,>;///,■; a kind m
of rosepink, artitiri.ii i)eili/ iinient. It i- fretjuent, or rather
it i-. universal, inioii, the I rem h ^iiui- his time. .Madame
de Stael has siimclhin;; of it ; .st. Pierre ; and down onwards
to tile present isloiiishin.; eonviilsionary 'Literature of
I )esi)erati<»n.' it is everywhere ahund.mt. I h.it s.ime/vMc
yi////' is not the riLjlit hue. Look at a Sh.iksjje.ire, at a
(loethe, even ,il a W. liter Seoti ! lie who h.is onee seen
into this, has seen the diliereme of the True from the
.Sham- True, and will iliscrimin.ite them ever aflerw.irds.

We had to observe in lolin.soii how nnuliLjood.i i'rophet, -o
under all dis.ulv mlaiies .uid «li>or;Mnii,iti(»iis. e.in accom-
plish for the world. In Kousseau wi- .ue i.illed to look
r.ither at the fearful .imount ol evil ■ ' iili, under siu h dis-
orL; inis.ition, ni.iv .uidmp.inv tlu' ;:;iiod. Historically it is
a most pre^nanl spectacl--, ihu of Rousse.ui. lianished
into Paris ^^arrets, in the ;;Ioomy coininny of his own
Thoui^dUs and N—essities there : driven from post to
l)il!ar; fretted, exasperated till the heart of him went
mad, he had ;xrowii to feel deeply that the world was not
his friend nf>r the world's law. It was e.\pedient. if anyway' 3°
possible, that such a man should // / hive been set in flat
hostilitv with t!u; world. He could be cooped into . garrets,
lau;.;hed at as a maniac, left to starve like a wilil-beast- in
1 11" II- ll'anv WHV -• II' II ir wild l>c.ist

K.i>

^' .\

l.KCTVKl:<; OX IlEROhS

his cage; but he could not he hindered from setting the
world on lire. I'he French Revolution found its Kvangel-
ist in Rousseau. If is semi-delirious speculations on the
miseries of civilised life, the prcferahility of the savage to
the civilised, and suchlike,' helped wcl! to produce a whole
delirium in France generally. Irue, you m.iy well ask.
What could the world, the governors of the world, do with
such a man.' Difficult to say what the governors of the
world could do with him ! What he could do with them is
10 unhappily clear enough, ~,i;uillotin,- a great many of them !
Enough row of Rousseau.

It was a curious phenomenon, in the withered, unbelieving,
secondhand Eighteenth Century, that of a Ifero starting
up, among the artificial pasteboard figures and productions,
in the guise of a Robert iiurns. Eike a little well in the
rocky desert places, — like a sudden splendour of Heaven
in the artificial Vauxhall ! I'eojjle knew not what to make
of it. They took it for a piece of the Vauxhall fire-work ;
alas, it /<•/ itself be so taken, though struggling half-

20 blindly, as in bitterness of death, against that ! Perhaps
no man had such a false reception from his fellow-men.
Once more a very wasteful life-drama was enacted under
the sun.

'i'he tragedy of liurns's life is known to all of you.
Surely we may say, if discrepancy between place held and
])lace merited constitute perverseness of lot for a man lo
lot could be more perverse than Ikirns's. Among those
secondhand acting-figures, fnimcs for most part, of the
Eighteenth Century, once more a giant Original Man ; one

3" of those men who reacii down to the i erennial iJeeps, who
take rank with the Heroic among men: and he was born
in a poor Ayrshire hut. ['he largest soul of all the British
1 IP \V IP such like

rilK IIKKO AS MAX (>/■■ LETT/IRS

lYl

-■;«

lands c.iine among us in the shape of a hard-handed Scot-
tish I'easant.'

His I'atiier, a poor toilinjf man, tried various things; did
not succeetl in any ; was involved in continual difficulties,
'i'he Stewartl, lactor as the Scotch call him, used to send
letters and threatenings, Uurns says, 'wiiich threw us all
into tears.' Ihe brave, hard-toiling, hard-suffering Father,
his brave heroine of a wife ; and those children, of whom
Robert was one! In this Karih, so wide otherwise, no
shelter for ///,;;/. The letters ' threw us all into tears : ' tigure lo
it. i'he brave Father, I sav alwavs; — a sihiit Hero and
Poet ; without whom the son had never been a speaking
one ! liurns's Schoolmaster caine afterwards to London,
learnt what good society was ; but declares that in no
meeting of men did he ever enjoy better disccnuse than at
the hearth of this peasant. And his poor 'seven acres
of nursery-ground,' — not ^ that,- nor the miserable patch
of clay-farm, nor anything he tried to get a living by, would
pr(jsper with him ; he had a sore unecjual battle all his
days. Hut he stood to it valiantly ; a wise, faithful, uncon- 20
(juerable man ; - swallowing-down ' how many sore suffer-
ings daily into silence ; lighting like an unseen Hero, —
nobody publishing newspaper paragraphs* about his noble-
ness ; voting pieces of plate to him ! However, he was not
lost : nothing is lost. Robert is there ; the outcome of
him, -and indeed of many generations of such as him.

This Uurns appeared under every disadvantage: unin-
structed, poor, born only to hard manual toil ; and writing,
when it came to that, in a rustic special dialect, known
only to a small province of tiie country he lived in. Had 30
he written, even what he did write, in the general language
of England, 1 doubt not he had already become universally

^ m> /•iira;^raf'h in H' IP IP
"'■^„ot h, 11'

•' IP IP IP swallowing flown

* II' IP IP ncwspaiK'r-paiagraphs

f-\ H

21S

LECTURES OX HEROES

recognised as bein^, or capable to be, one of our greatest
men. That he should have tempted so many to penetrate
through the rough husk of that dialect of his, is proof that
there lay something far from common within it. He has
gained a certain recognition, and is continuing to do so
over all quarters of our wide Saxon world : wheresoever a
Saxon dialect is spoken, it begins to be understood, by
personal inspection of this and the other, that one of the
most considerable Saxon men of the Eighteenth century

10 was an Ayrshire Peasant named Robert liurns. Yes, 1
will say, here too was a piece of the right Saxon stuff :
strong as the Harz-rock, rooted in the depths of the world ;
— rock, yet with wells of living softness in it! A wild
impetuous whirlwind of passion and faculty slumbered
quiet there ; such heavenly melody dwelling in the heart of
it. ^ A noble rough genuineness ; homely, rustic, hunest ;
true simplicity of strength ; with its lightning-fire, with its
soft dewy pity; — like the old \orse Thor, the Peasant-
god!—

20 Burns's Brother Gilbert, a man of much sense and worth,
has told me that Robert, in his young days, in spite of
tlu ir hardship, was usually the gayest of speech; a fellow
of infinite frolic, laughter, sense and heart ; far pleasanter
to hear there, stript cutting peats in tlie bog, or suchlike,'
than he ever afterwards knew him. I can well believe it.
This basis of mirth {'fond g,Ti//an/,' as old Marquis Mira-
beau calls it), a primal-element of sunshine and joyfulness,
coupled with his other deep and earnest qualities, is one of
the most attractive characteristics of Ikirns. A larse fund

30 of Hope dwells in him ; spite of his tragical history, he is
not a mourning man. He shakes his sorrows gallantly
aside; bounds forth victorious over them. It is as the
lion shaking 'dew-drops from his mane;' as the swift

UI' IF I P. such like

THE HERO AS MAX ()/■ LETTERS

219

bounding horse, that laughs at the shaking of the spear. ~
But indeed, Hope, Mirth, of the sort like Rurns's, are they
not the outcome properly of warm generous affection, —
such as is the beginning of all to every man ?

You would think it strange if I called Hums the most
gifted British soul we had in all that century of his : and
yet I believe the day is coming when there will be little
danger in saying so. His writings, all that he ,iiJ under
such obstructions, are only a poor fragment of him. Pro-
fessor Stewart remarked very justly, what indeed is true lo
of ai; Poets good for m.uoh, that his poetry was nut any
particular faculty ; but the general result of a naturally
vigorous original mind expres„.ng itself in that way.
Burns's gifts, expressed in conversation, are the theme of
all that ever heard him. All kinds of gifts: from the
gracefulest ^ utterances of courtesy, to the highest tire of
passionate speech ; loud floods of mirth, soft wailings of
affection, laconic emphasis, clear piercing insight ; all was
in him. Witty duchesses celebrate him as a man whose
speech 'led them off their feet.' This is beautiful: but 20
still more beautiful that which Mr. Lockhart has recorded,
which I have more than once alluded to, How the waiters
and ostlers at inns would get out li oed, and come crowd-
ing to hear this man speak ! Waiters and ostlers : — they
too were men, and here was a man ! I have heard mucii
about his speech ; but one of the best things I ever heard
of it was, last year, from a venerable gentleman long famil-
iar with him. That it was speech distinguished by always
having something in it. " He spoke rather little than much,"
this old man told me; "sat rather silent in those earl) 30
days, as in the company of persons above him : and always
when he did speak, it was to throw new light on the mat-
ter." I know not why any one should ever speak other-

' H' gracefullest

^ A

220

LECTURES OX HEROES

wise ! — But if we look at his general force of soul, his
healthy robustness everyway, the rugj^ed downrightness,
penetration, generous valour and manfulness that was in
him, — where shall we readily tind a better-gifted man ?

Among the great men of the Kighteenth Century, I some-
times feel as if Hums might be found to resemble Mirabeau
more than any other. They differ widely in vesture; yet
look at them intrinsically. I'here is the same burly thick-
necked ' strength of body as of soul ; — built, in both cases,

to on what the old Marquis calls a fond i^aillard. By nature,
by course of breeding, indeed by nation, Mirabeau has
much more of bluster ; a noisy, forward, unresting man.
But the characteristic of Mirabeau too is veracity and sense,
power of true insii^/if, superiority of vision. Th' 'ling that
he says is worth remembering. It is a flash of iiisight into
some object or other: so do both these men speak. The
same raging passions ; ca]Dable too in both of manifesting
themselves as the tenderest noble affections. Wit, wild
laughter, energy, directness, sincerity : these were in botii.

20 The types of the two men are not dissimilar. Burns too
could have governed, debated in National Assemblies ;
politicised, as few could. Alas, the courage which had to
exhibit itself in capture of smuggling schooners in the Sol-
way Frith ; in keeping si/auc over so much, where no good
speech, but only inarticulate rage was possible: this miglit
have bellowed forth Tshers de Brezc and the like ; and made
itself visible to all men, in managing of kingdoms, in ruling
of great ever-memorable epochs ! But they said to him
reprovingly, his ( )fficial Superiors said, and wrote : ' V'ou

30 are to work, not think.' (^f your ///////7//i,'--faculty, the great-
est in this land, we have no need ; you are to gauge beer
there ; for that only are yon wanted. Very notable ; — and
worth mentioning, though we know what is to be said and

1 H' IP W thicknecked

niJ: m.HO AS MAX Oi' /./ ///AS

221

answered ! As if Thouyht, I'ower of Jliinkin- were not,
at .all times, in all places and situations of tlit- world, jiro-
cisely the thing that 7.',/.- wanted. j-he f;,t;il man, is he not
always the ////thinkinjj man, the man who cannot think and
sec; but only <,'ro])e, and iKiilucinate. aid y/z/vsee tlu- nature of
the thing he works with ? He missecs it, and mxsf.drs it as
we say ; takes it for one thing, ;tnd it />• anotlier thing, and
leaves him standing like a Futility there ! He is 'the fatal
man; unutterably fatal, put in the high places of men. ~
" Why ' complain of this .' " • say some : - Strength - is mourn- m
fully denied its arena ; that was true from of old." - ! )ouIh
less ; and the worse for the iin-nu, answer ' I ! Comf^lainint^
profits little; stating of the truth may |)roftt. That a
Kurope, with its French Revolution just breaking out,
finds no need of a Hums e.xcept for gauging beer, -is a
thing I, for one, cannot n-joUc at !

Once more we nave to say here, that the chief .juality of
liurns is the sincerity of him. So in his Poetry, so' in his
Life. The Song he sings is not of fan'asticalities ; it is of
a thing felt, really there; the prime merit of this, .is of all jo
in him, and of his Life generally,, is truth. i'he I,ife
of Hums is what we may call a great tragic sincerity. A
sort of savage sincerity, not cruel, far from that'; but
wild, wrestling naked with the truth of things. In that
sense, there is something of the savage in all great men.

Hero-worship, — Odin, Hums? Well: these NFen of
I-etters too were not without a kind of Hero worship : but
what a strange condition has that got into now 1 The wait-
ers and ostlersof Scotch inns, prying about tiie door, eager
to catch any word that fell from Hums, were doing uncon- ;,'■
scions reverence to the Heroic. Johnson had his Hoswell
for worshipper. Rousseau had worshippers enough : princes

■■ k

' ' Quotation nutrk-s ii, t in W \\-
2 ^ Quotation maris not in II' IF

MI' .say
* not in IV

222

LKC TURKS ON HEROES

calling on him in his mean garret; the great, the beautiful
doing reverence to the poor moonstruck man. For himself
a most portentous contradiction ; the two ends of his life
not to be brought into harmony. He sits at the tables of
grandees ; and has to copy music for his own living. He
cannot even get his music copied. " IJy dint of dining
out," says he, " I run the risk of dying by starvation at
home." For his worshippers too a most questionable
thing! If doing Hero-worship well or badly be the test of

10 vital wellbeing or illbeing to a generation, can we say that
//icu- generations are very first-rate.' — And yet our heroic
Men of Letters do teach, govern, are kings, priests, or what
you like to call them ; intrinsically there is no preventing
it by any means whatever. The world /ids to obey him who
thinks and sees in the world. The world can alter the
manner of that ; can either have it as blessed continuous
summer sunshine,' or as unblessed black thunder and tor-
n.ado, — with unspeakable difference of profit for the world!
The manner of it is very alterable ; the matter and fact of"

2o it is not alterable by- any power under the sky. Light;
or, failing that, lightning: the world can take its choice.
Not whether we call an Odin god, prophet, priest, or what
we call him; but whether we believe the word he tells us:
there it all lies. If it be a true word, we shall have to
believe it ; believing it, we shall have to do it. What //./we
or welcome we give him or it, is a point that concerns our-
selves mainly. //, the new Truth, new deeper revealing of
the Secret of this I'niverse, is verily of the nature of a mes-
sage from on high ; and must and will have itself obeyed. -

JO My last remark is on that notablest phasis of Burns's
history," -his'' visit to Fdinburgh. Often it seems to me
as if his demeanour there were the highest proof he gave of

1 II' IP IP summer-sunshine - - II' Il^o^ it not; by

' ' II' history his

THE HERO AS MAX OE LETTEKS

223

what a fund of worth and genuine manhood was in him. Ff
we think of it, few heavier burdens could be laid on the
strength of a man. So sudden ; all common Lionism, which
ruins innumerable i..en, was as nothing to this. It is as if
Napoleon had been made a King of, not gradually, but at
once from the Artillery Lieutenancy in the Regiment La
Fere. IJurns, still only in his twenty-seventh year, is no
longer even a ploughman; he is flying to the West Indies
to escape disgrace and a jail. This month he is a ruined
peasant, his wages seven pounds a year, and these gone lo
from him : next month he is in the blaze of rank and beauty,
handing down jewelled Duchesses to dinner; the cynosure
of all eyes! Adversity is sometimes hard upon a man;
but for one man who can stand prosperity, there are a
hundred that will stand adversity. I admire much the way
in which Hums met all this. Perhaps no man one could
point out, was ever .so sorely tried, and so little forgot him-
self. Tranquil, unastonished ; not abashed, not inflated,
neither awkwardness nor affectation : he feels that /if there
is the man Robert IKirns : that the 'rank is but the guinea- 20
stamp;' that the celebrity is but the candle-light, which
will show ' 7i'//(7/ man, not in the least make him a better or
other man ! Alas, it may readily, unless lie look to it, make
him a icorse man ; a wretched inflated windbag, — inflated
till he /'itrst, and become a titui/ lion ; for whom, as some
one has said, 'there is no resurrection of the body ; ' worse
*han a living dog ! — Hums is admirable here.

And yet, alas, as I have observed elsewhere, these Lion-
hunters were the ruin and death of liurns. It was they
that rendered it impossible for him to live ! They gathered 30
round him in his Farm ; hindered his industry ; no place
was remote enough from them. He could not get his
Lionism forgotten, honestly as he was disposed to do so.

1 II' n- IP shew

) *■

224

LECTLkliS OX JiE'^OKS

He falls into discontents, into niiscries, faults; the world
getting ever more desolate for him ; health -t^-racter, peace
of mind all gone ;— solitary enough It is t!;i','ical

to think of ! These men came but to .,, .nm ; it was out of
no sympathy with him, nor no hatred to him. 1 Ijey came
to get a little amusement : they got their amusement ; -
and the Hero's life went for it !

Richter says, in the Island of Sumatra there is a kind of
M.ight-chafers,' large Fire-Hies, which people stick upon
10 spits, and illuminate the ways with at night. I'ers(jns of con-
dition can thus travel with a ple.asant radiance, which the\
much admire. Great honour to the Fire-flies. But ! —

!^-

LECTITRK VI

THF. IlKKd AS KING. ( KOMWKI.I., XAI'OI.KON : MODERN
HKVOl.tTIONlSM

[Friday, 22( .lay 1840.] '

Wk come now to the last form of Heroism ; that which
we call Kingship. The Commander over Men; he to
whose will our wills are to be subordinated, and loyally
surrender themselves, and find their welfare in doing so,
may be reckoned the most important of C.reat Men. He
is practically the summary for us of all the various figures
of Heroism ; Priest, Teacher, whatsoever of earthly or of
spiritual dignity we can fancy to reside in a man, embodies
itself here, to command over us, to furnish us with constant
practical teaching, to tell us for the day and hour what we 10
are to do. He is called Rex, Regulator, Jioi . our own
name is still better ; King, Konning, which means Ciin-n'mg,
Able-man.

Numerous considerations, pointing towards deep, ques-
tionable, and indeed unfathomable regions, present them-
selves here : on the most of which we must resolutely for
the present forbear to speak at all. As Hurke said that
perhaps fair Trial by Jury was the soul of (lovernment, and
that all legislation, administration, parliamentary debating,
and the rest of it, went on, in order ' to bring twelve impar- 20
tial men into a jury-box;' — so, by much stronger reason,
may I say here, that the finding of your Ableman and

» ir IP \V date abmje title.
225

't
it

•f

»l

226

t.ECTUKKS ON UEKOES

getting him invested with the symMs of ,i/>i/ity, with dignity,
worship (TiwM-ship), royalty, kinghood, or whatever wo
call it, so that /le may actually have room to guide accord-
ing to his faculty of doing it, — is the business, well or ill
accomplished, of all social procedure whatsoever in this
world ! Hustings-speeches, Parliamentary motions. Reform
Bills, French Revolutions, all mean at heart this ; or el.^c
nothing. Kind in any country the Ablest Man that exists
theie ; raise /lim to the supreme place, and loyally reverence
'o him : you have a perfect government for that country ; no
ballot-box, parliamentary eloquence, voting, constitution-
building, or other machinery whatsoever can improve it
a whit. It is in the perfect state ; an ideal country. The
Ablest Man ; he means also the truest-hearted, justest,
the Noblest Man : what he hi/s us h do must be precisely
the wisest, fittest, that we could anywhere or anyhow learn ;
— the thing which it will in all ways behove us, with right
loyal thankfulness, and nothing doubting, to do ! Our doini;
and life were then, so far as government could regulate it,
20 well regulated ; that w.rc the ideal of constituiions.

Alas, we know very well that Ideals can never be com-
pletely embodied in practice. Ideals must ever lie a very
great way off; and we will right thankfully content our-
selves with any not intolerable approximation thereto !
Lei no man, as .Schiller says, too querulously ' measure by
a scale of perfection the meagre product of reality ' in this
poor world of ours. We will esteem him no wise man ; wc
will esteem him a sickly, discontented, foolish man. And
yet, on the other hand, it is never to be forgotten that
3° Ideals do exist ; that if they be not approximated to at
all, the whole matter goes to wreck ! Infallibly. No
bricklayer builds a vitlW perfectly perpendicular, mathemati-
cally this is not possible ; a certain degree of perpendicular-
ity suffices him ; and he, like a good bricklayer, who must

THE HERO AS KING

have dnne with his job, leaves it so. And yet if he sway
/oo muth from the iwrpendicular ; above all, If he throw
plummet and level quite away from him, and pile brick on
brick heedless, just as it comes to hand — I Such brick-
layer, I think, is in a bud way. J/e has forgotten himself:
but the Law of Gravitation does not forget to act on him ;
he and his wall rush-down ' into confused welter of niin ! -

This is the history of all rebellions, l-rench Revolutions,
social explosions in ancient or modern times. \om have mt
the too 6'>rable Man at the head of adairs ! The too ignoble, lo
unvaliant, fatuous man. You have forgotten that there is
any rule, or natural necessity whatever, of putting the .Able
Man there. Brick must lie on brick as it may and can.
Unable Simulacrum of Ability, quack, in a word, must adjust
himself with quack, in all manner of administration of
human things ; — which accordingly lie unadministered,
fermenting into unmeasured masses of failure, of indigent
misery: in the outward, and in the inward or spiritual,
miserable millions stretch-out'' the hand for their due supply,
anu ?t is not there. The * law of gravitation ' acts ; Nature's -o
laws do none of them forget to act. The miserable millions
burst-forth " into Sansculottism, or some other sort of mad-
ness: bricks and bricklayer lie as a fatal chaos! —

Much sorry stuff, written some hundred years ago or
more, about the 'Divine right of Kings,' moulders unread
now in the Public Libraries of this country. Far h". it
from us to disturb the ca'-n process by which it is disapi)ear-
ing harmlessly from the earth, in those repositories ! .\t
the same time, not to let the immense rubbish go without
leaving us, as it ought, some soul of it behind — I will say 3°
that it did mean something; something true, which it is
important for us and all men to keep in mind. To asst-rt

1 IP H» IP rush down * H' H' H' stretch out

8 W W W burst forth

i^.

!».(

■HlflBI

III

228

Liicn'A'/-:s ox ///i/fOA.s

n whatever man you chose to lay hold of ( hy thin or
other plan of clutching at him); and clapt a round
,)iece of metal on the head of, and called King, there
straightway came to reside a divine virtue, so that /„■ became
a kind of god, and a Divinity inspired him with faculty and
right to rule over you to all lengths : this, what can we do
with this but leave it to rot silently in the Public F.ibraries >
Milt I will say withal, and that is what these Divine-right
men meant, That in Kin-., and in all human Authorities,
ro and relations that men godcrcatcd can form amon- «ich
other, there is verily either a Divine Right or else a Di"aholic
Wrong; one or the other of these two! For it is false
altogether, what the last Sceptical ( entury taught us, that
this world is a steam-engine. There is a (lod in this world
.ind a (lod's-sanction, or else the violation of such, does
look-out ' from all ruling and obedience, from all moral acts
of men. I'here is no act more moral between men than
that of rule and obedience. Woe to him that claims obedi
cnce when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when
20 ,t is! (lod's law is in that. I .say, h..v^ever the I'archment-
biws may run : there is a Divine R.g,.t or else a Diaboli-
Wrong at the heart of every claim that one man makes
upon another.

It can do none of us harm to reflect cm this: in all the
relations of life it will concern us ; in f.ovaltyand Royalty
the highest of these. I esteem the moelern error, That all
goes by self-int^-rest and the checking; and balancing <.(
greedy knaveries, and that, in short, there is nothing divine
whatever in the association of men, a still more despicable
30 error, natural as it is to an unbelieving century, than that
of a 'divine right ' in people nM,/ Kings. I say, Find me
the true AV;/////,/.^ King, r Able-man. and he Jinx a divine

right over nie.

That we knew in some tolerable measure
' W IIMP lookout

Till-: rth.No AS kim:

22^)

how to linil him, and th.il all men were ready to acknowl-
edge his divine 'ight \»iien found: this is precisely the
healinjj which a sick world is everywhere, in these ages,
seeking after! t'I'he true Kin-^, as ;;iiide ol the |)ractical,
has e\er something of the I'ontitT in him, guitie of the
spiritual, from which all practice has its rise. This too is a
true saying, That the A'/m^' is head tif the C'/n/n//. Itut we
will leave the Polemic stulT of a iiead century to lie (|uiet
on its bookshelves.

Certainly it is a fearful business, thai of having your lo
Able-man to .uri', and not knowing in what manner to pro-
ceed about it ! That is the world's sad predicament in
these times of ours. They are times of revolution, and
have long been. The bricklayer with his bricks, no longer
heedful of plununet or the law of {gravitation, have toppled,
tumbled, and it all welters as we see! Ihit the beginning
of it was not the I'rench Revolution ; that is rather the (•//,/,
we can hope. It were truer to say, the ih-i^iiiuim; was three
centuries farther back: in the Reformation of Luther. That
the thing which still called itself Christian Church had 20
become a Falsehood, and brazenly went about pretending
to pardon men's sins for metallic coined money, and to do
much else which in the everlasting truth of Nature it did
//('/ now do : here lay the vital malady. The inward being
wrong, all outward went ever more and more wrong. lielief
died away; all was Doubt, Disbelief. The buildjr ui^t
<i7i>(iv his j)lummet ; said to himself, " What is gravitation .'
IJrick lies on brick there ! " Alas, does it not still sound
strange to many of us, the assertion that there /'.< a (lod's-
truth in the business of god-created men; that all is not a 30
kind of grimace, an 'expediency,' diplomacy, one knows
not what ! —

From that first necessary assertion of Luther's, " ^'ou,

i ?

230

LECTURES OX HEROES

self-styled Papa, you are no Father in God at all ; you are
— a* Chimera, whom I know not how to name in polite
language ! " — from that onwards to the shout which rose
round Camille Desmoulins in the Palais-Royal, '' Anx
armes!" when the people had burst-up^ against a// manner
of Chimeras, — I find a natural historical sequence. That
shout too, so frightful, half-infernal, was a gr at matter.
Once more the voice of awakened nations ; — starting con-
fusedly, as out of nightmare, as out of death-sleep, into
10 some dim feeling that Life was real ; that God's-world was
not an expediency and diplomacy ! Infernal ; — yes, since
they would not have it otherwise. Infernal, since not
celestial or terrestrial ! Hollowness, insincerity has to
cease ; sincerity of some sort has to begin. Cost what it
may, reigns of terror, horrors of French Revolution or what
else, we have to return to truth. Here is a Truth, as I
said : a Truth clad in hellfire, since they would not but
have it so ! —

A common theory among considerable parties of men in
20 England and elsewhere used to be, that the French Nation
had, in those days, as it were gone mad; that the French
Revolution was a general act of insanity, a temporary con-
version of France and large sections of the world into a
kind of Bedlam. The Event had risen and raged ; but was a
madness and nonentity, — gone now happily into the region
of Dreams and the Picturesque ! — To such comfortable
philosophers, the Three Days of July 1830 must have been
a surprising phenomenon. Here is the French Nation risen
again, in musketry and death-struggle, out shooting and
30 being shot, to make that same mad French Revolution
good ! The sons and grandsons of those men, it would
seem, persist in the enterprise: they do not disown it;
they will have it made good ; will have themselves shot, if
» H' are a » H' H* H' burst up

THE I/JIKO AS KIXC

231

it be not made good ! To philosophers who had made-up »
their life-system on that ' madness ' quietus,- no phenome-
non could be more alarming. Poor Niebuhr, they say, the
Prussir;, i'-r.fc..sor and Historian, fell broken-hearted in
conse luence : sinki.njd, if we can believe it, and died of the
Threv l\iys ' !t vas surely not a very heroic death ; —
little b ..• ili.ri kacine's, dying because Louis Fourteenth
looked sternly on him once. The world had stood some
considerable shocks, in its time ; might have been expected
to survive the Three Days too, and be found turning on its ic
axis after even them! The Three Days told all mortals
that the old French Revolution, mad as it might look, was
not a transitory ebullition of liedlam, but a genuine prod-
uct of this Earth where we all live; that it was verily a
Fact, and that the world in general would do well every-
where to regard it as such.

Truly, without the French Revolution, one would not
know what to make of an age like this at all. We will hail
the French Revolution, as shipwrecked mariners might the
sternest rock, in a world otherwise all of ba.seless sea and 2c
waves. A true Apocalypse, though a terrible one, to this
false withered artificial time; testifying once more that
Nature is //r/^matural ; if not divine, then diabolic: that
Semblance is not Reality ; that it has to become Reality, or
the world will take-tire " under it, — burn // into what it is,
namely Nothing ! Plausibility has ended ; empty Routine
has ended ; much has ended. I'his, as with a Trump of
Doom, has been proclaimed to all men. They are the
wisest who will learn it soonest. Long confused genera-
tions before it be learned ; peace impossible till it be ! The 30
earnest man, surrounded, as ever, with a world of incon-
sistencies, can await patiently, patiently strive to do his

' IP W^W made up 2 IP ip madness-quietus

* H' II' H^ take fire

• % .n . !

icfsi

ir
It i

232

LECTURES OK HEROES

work, in th*^ midst of that. Sentence of Death is written
down in Heaven against all that ; sentence of Death is now
proclaimed on the Earth against it : this he with his eyes
may see. And surely, I should say, considering the other
side of the matter, what enormous difficulties Ue there, and
how fast, fearfully fast, in all countries, the inexorable
demand for solution of them is pressing on, — he may easily
find other work to do than labouring in the Sansculottic
province at this time of day !
10 To me, in these circumstances, that of ' Hero-worship
becomes a fact inexpressibly precious ; the most solacing
fact one sees in the world at present. There is an everlast-
ing hope in it for the management of the world. Had all
traditions, arrangements, creeds, societies that men ever
instituted, sunk away, this would remain. The certainty of
Heroes being sent us ; our faculty, our necessity, to rever-
ence Heroes when sent : it shines like a polestar» through
smoke-clouds, dust-clouds, and all manner of down-rushing
and confi i^ration.
20 Hero-worship would have sounded very strange to those
workers and fighters in the French Revolution. Not rever-
ence for Great Men ; not any hope- or belief, or even wish,
that Great Men could again appear in the world ! Nature,
turned into a ' Machine,' was as if effete now ; could not
any longer produce Great Men : — I can tell her, she may
give-up » the trade altogether, then; we cannot do without
Great Men! — But neither have I any quarrel with that of
' Liberty and Equality; ' with the faith that, wise great men
being impossible, a level immensity of foolish small men
30 would suffice. It was a natural faith then and there.
"Liberty and Equality; no Authority needed any longer.
Hero-worship, reverence for such Authorities, has proved

1 n- H* IP pole-star * h« IP H' hope,

« H' IP 11' give up

r/iF. nr.Ro as a/xg [ 233 \

filse, is itself a falsehofxl ; no more of it! We have had
such fori^crii-s, we will now trust nothing'. So many base
plated coins passin-^ in the market, the belief has now

become common that no gokX any longer exists, and even

that we can do very well without gold ! " I find this, among
other things, in that universal cry of Liberty and Equality ;
and find it very natural, as matters then stood.

And yet surely it is but the transition from false to true.
Considered as the whole truth, it is false altogether ; -
the product of entire sceptical blindness, as yet only strug- lo
gling to see. Hero-worship exists forever, and everywhere :
not Loyalty alone; it extends from divine adoration down
to the lowest practical regions of life. ' lending before
men,' if it is not to be a mere empty grimace, better dis-
pensed with than practised, is Hero-worship, — a recogni-
tion that there does dwell in that presence of our brother
something divine; that every created man. as Xovalis
said, is a 'revelation in the Flesh.' They were Poets too,
that devised all those graceful courtesies which make life
nol-' Courtesy is not a falsehood or grimace; it need 20

no, ch. And Loyalty, religious Worship itself, are

still ,.^.-,ii)le; nay still inevitable.

May we not say, moreover, while so many of our late
Heroes have worked rather as revolutionary men, that
nevertheless every (Jreat ^Lln, every genuine man, is by
the nature of him. a son of Order, not of Disorder? It is
a tragical position for a true man to work in revolutions.
He seems an anarchist; and indeed a painful element of
anar .^ does encumber him at every step, - him to whose
whole soul anarchy is hostile, hateful. His mission is 30
Order; every man's is. He is here to make what was dis-
orderly, chaotic, into a thing ruled, regular. He is the
missionary of Order. Is not all work of man in this world
a making of Order 1 The carpenter finds rough trees;

V :

234

LECTUKES OX HENOES

shapes them, constrains them into s(iuare fitness, mto pui-
pose and use. We are all born enemies oi Disorder : it is
tragical for us all to be concerned in image-breaking and
down-pulling; for the Great Man, more a man than we, it

is doubly tragical.

Thus too all human things, maddest French bansculot-
tisms, do and must work towards Order. I say, there is
not a man in them, raying in the thickest of the madness,
but is impelled withal, at all moments, towards Order.
10 His very life means that; Disorder is dissolution, death.
No chaos but •:. seeks a centre to revolve round. While man
is man, some Cromwell or Napoleon is the necessary finish
of a Sansculottism.- Curious: in those days when Hero-
worship was the most incredible thing to every one, how it
does come-out' nevertheless, and assert itself practically,
in a way which all have to credit. 1 )ivine right, take it on
the great scale, is found to mean divine mi^^ht withal !
While old false Formulas are getting trampled everywhere
into destruction, new genuine Substances unexpectedly
20 unfold themselves indestructible. In rebellious ages, when
Kin-ship itself seems dead and abolished, C^romwell, Napo-
leon'step-forth - again as Kings. The history of these men
is what we have now to look at, as our last phasis of Hero-
ism The old ages are brought back to us ; the manner in
which Kings were made, and Kingship itself tirst took rise,
is again exhibited in the history of these Two.

We have had many civil-wars in Fngland ; wars of Red
and White Roses, wars of Simon de Montfort ; wars enough,
which are no , very memorable. Hut that war of the Pun-
30 tans has a significance which belongs to no one of the
others. Trusting to your candour, which will suggest on
the other side what I have not room to say, I will call it a
UIMIMP come out MP IF IP step forth

Till-: lll:RO AS A'/XC

Ji.^

^:i

section uiicu more of that -ic.u uiiivcrsal war whicli alone
niakes-up' the true History of tlie World, —the war of
ISelief acjainst Unbelief! Ihe stru^^'Me of

the

real essence o

f tl

im;

blances and forms of tl

men intent on
;s. aj,Minst men intent on the sein-

I'iie I'uritans, ti

) manv, seem

re savage Iconoclasts, tierce de .trovers (;f Forms- 1

)iit

It were more just to call them haters of un/ru^ Forms. I
hope we know how t(. respect Laud and his Kin^r as well
as them. I'oor Laud seems to me to have been weak and
ill-starred, not dishonest ; an unfortunate Pedant rather
than anythinjr worse. His 'Dreams' and superstitions,
at which they lau-h so, have an atfectionate, lovable- kind
of character. He is like a ( ollei^e-Tutor, whose whole world
is forms, ( 'ollege-rules ; whose n(jtion is that these are the life
and safety of the world. He is placed suddenly, with that
unalterable luckless notion of his, at the iiead not of a Col-
lege but of a Nation, to regulate the most complex deep-
reaching interests of men. He thinks they oug' t to go by
the old decent regulations; nay that their salvation will
lie in extending and improving these. Like a weak man, 30
he drives with spasmodic vehemence towards iiis purpose;
cramps himself to it, heeding no voice of prudence, no cry
of pity : He will have his College-rules obeyed by his Col-
legians; that first; and till tliat, nothing. He is an ill-
starred I'edant, as [ said. He would have it tlie world was
a College of that kind, and the world 7k<cis not tl;<i. Alas,
was not his doom stern enough t Whatever wrongs he did,
were they not all frigiufully avenged on him ?

It is meritorious to insist on forms ; Religit)n and all else
naturally clothes itself in forms. I'.verywhere ihe form ' 30
world is the only habitable one. The naked formlessness
of Puritanism is not the thing I praise in the Puritans; it
IS the thing I pity, — praising only the spiiit which had
' H' 11^ II ' makes mi. - ||' H- l.,veal.le

if^

!:i

i i

2.16

i.Ecrrm.s ox heroes

rendered thnt inevitable ! All substances clothe themselves
in forms •. but there are suitable true forms, and then there
are untrue unsuitable. As the briefest definition, one might
say, lorms which ^nn.' round a substance, if we rightly
understand that, will correspond to the real nature and
purport of it, will be true, good ; forms which are con-
sciously//// round a substance, bad. I invite you to reflect
on this. It distinguishes true from false in Ceremonial
Form, earnest solemnity from empty pageant, in all human

lo things.

There must be a veracity, a natural spontaneity in forms.
In the commonest meeting of men, a person making, what
Nve call 'set speeches,' is not he an otfence ? In the mere
drawing-room, whatsoever courtesies you see to be grimaces,
prompted by no spontaneous reality within, are a thing you
wish to get away from. Hut suppose now it were some
matter of vital concernment, some transcendent matter (as
Divine Worship is), about which your whole soul, struck
dumb with its excess of feeling, knew not how to>-;« itself
zo into utterance at all, and preferred formless silence to any
utterance there possible, - what should we say of a man
comin<- forward to represent or utter it tor you in the way
of uphoistercr-mummery ^ Such a man, — let him depart
swiftlv, if he love himself ! Vou have lost your only son ;
are mute, struck down, without even tears: an importunate
man importunUely oJers to celebrate Funeral (iames for
him in the manner of the Creeks ! Such mummery is not
onlv not to be accepted,' - it ' is hateful, unendurable. It
is what the old Prophets called ' Idolatry,' worshipping of
30 hollow slum's ' : what all earnest men do and will reject. W e
can partlv understand what those poor Puritans meant.
Laud dedicating that St. Catherine C'reed's Church, in the
manner we have it described ; with his multiplied ceremo-
1 I 1 P HMP accepted ; it ^ H» H^ shews

Till: lll-Rl) AS K/\i;

nial bowinj^s, j^e.sticul.xtio!i>., i-\t:!,iin uiuii> ; Miiciy ii i^ r.uliur
the- rij^orous formal /',./. t/i\ intriit i.n !i!> • ( Diit-f-ru'cs,'
than the earnest I'rophet, imeiit -mi tlie essence of the
matter !

Turitanism found sih/i forms iMsiii)portal)le ; tr.impled on
such forms; -we have to e\cu>.e it for savin-. No form
ai all rather tiian sucli ! It stood preatliin- in it> hare
pulpit, with nothini,' but the ilihle in its iiand. Nav, a man
preaching from his earnest .»,//// into tiie earnest s.'u.'s of
men: is not this virtually tlie essence of all ( luirclio w hat-
soever ? 'I'he nakedest, savaj;esl reality, 1 say. i^ pnfer-
able to any semblance, howewr diijnirud. Ilesidcs. it will
clothe itself with </in- semhiani e bv ami 1)\ , if it be real.
N'o fear of that; actually no tear at all. (;iven tht. living,'
nuvi, there will be found </'///,> for him : he w ill lind himself
clothes. Hut the suit-of-clothes pretend in- that .7 i-, both
clothes and man — ! — We cannot • li-ht tin- I'rinih' by
three-hundred-thousand' n;(l uniforms: tlu-re mu^t be m,/i
in the inside of them \ Semblance, I assert, nmsi actually
w/ divorce itself from Reality. If Semblance do, why
then there must be men found to rebel aL:;ainst Semblance.
for it has become a lie! i'hese two Antaironism^ at w.ir
here, in the case of Laud and the Puritans, are as old nearly
as the world. 'I'hey went to tierce battle over Kn-land in
that age ; and fought-out - their confused controversy to a
certain length, with many results for all of us.

f i

In the age which directly followed that of the Puritans,
their cause or themselves were little likely to h.ive justice
done them. Charles Second and his Kochesiers were not
the kind of men you would set to judge what the worth or 3c
meaning of such men might havi^ been. Th-t tbere could
be any faith or truth in the life of a man. was what these

. «

' tV IV IV three hundred thousand - H' H- U" f.ught out

2iS

i.i:cTiu<i:s ox /n-.KOhS

poor Roches'.;rs, and tlic a-e they ushcrcd-in,' had forgot-
ten. I'uritanism was luin,;; on gil)bels, - like the bones of
the leadin-; I'uritans. Its work nevertheless went on ocom-
plishin- itself. All true work of a nnm, han- the author of
it on wliat -ibbet you like, must and will accomplish itself.
We have our /f,iln,is-Cor/'iis, our free Representation of the
I'eople; acknowled<,Mnent, wide as the world, that all men
are, or else must, shall, and will become, what we call /nv
men ; - men with their life <,'rounded on reality and justice,
10 not on tradition, which has become unjust and a chimera!
This in part, and much besides this, was the work of the

Puritans.

And indeed, as these things became j^radually manifest,
the character of the I'uritans beijan to clear itself. iheir
memories were, one after another, taken Mon from the -ib-
bet ; nay a certain i)ortion of them are now, in these days,
as good as canonised.- Kliot, Haminlen, I'ym, nay Lud-
low? Hutchinson,' Vane himself, are admitted to be a kind
of Heroes; political Conscript Fathers, to whom in no

20 small degree we owe what makes us a free I'.ngl md : it
would not be safe for anybody to designate the.-,e men
HS wicked now." Few I'uritans of note but liud their apol-
ogists somewhere, and have a certain reverence paid tliem
by earnest men. One I'uritan, I think, and almost he alone,
our poor Cromwell, seems to hang yet on the gibbet, and
find no hearty apologist anywhere. Him neither saint nor
sinner will acijuit of great wickedness. A man of aliility,
infinite talent, ccmrage, and so forth: but he betrayed the
Cause. Selfish ambition, dishonesty, duplicity; a tierce.

30 coarse, hypocritir al T,>rt>if-' i turning all that noble strug-
gle for constitutional Liberty into a .sorry farce played for

1 IP 11= IP ushered in ■' H' IF lluuhesdi

■i \V IPcanoni/.ecl ' :i"l >" H'

■■' IP II- f\.,lu(U-

THE IIEHO AS hl.W:

2,V>

his own benefit : this and worse is the character they };ive
of Cromwell. And then there come contrasts with Wash-
ington and others ; above all, with these noble i'yius and
Hampdens, whose noble work he stole for himself, and
ruined into a fiitilitv and deformity.

This view of Cromwell seems to me the not unnatural
product of a century like the Ki^hteenth. '. As we said of
the V.ile;. so of the Sceptic: He does not know a Hero
when he sees him ! The X'alet expected puri)le mantles,
yilt sceptres, body {guards and flourishes of trumpets : the «o
Sceptic of the Kijjhteenth century looks for regulated
respectable Formulas, ' Principles,' or what else he may
call them ; a style of sjieech and conduct which has got to
seem ' respectable,' which can jilead for itself in a hand-
some articulate manner, and gain the suffrages of an en-
lightened sceptical Kighteenth century! It is, at bottom,
the same thing that both the Valet and he expect: the
garnitures of some tukiunvlcii^iJ royalty, which t/icn they
will acknowledge ! i'he King coming to them in the
rugged ////formulistic state shall be no King. 20

For my own share, far be it from me to say or insinuate
a word of disparagement against such characters as Hamp-
den, Fliot, I'ym ; whom I believe to have been right worthy
and h-^eful men. i have read diligently what books and
documents about them I could come at ;- with the honest-
est wish to admire, to love and worship them like Heroes;
but I am sorry to say, if tiie real truth must be told, with
very indifferent success ! At bottom, I found tliat it would
not do. They are very noble men, these ; step along in
their stately way, with their measured euphemisms,' philos- 30
ophies, parliamentary eloquences. Ship-moneys,'^ J/wwrr^/Vj
i]f Man: a most constitutional, unblamable," dignified set of

■5.

» H' II* H' euphui

H' M" Sliinnionies

II' II- unhlanie.'iMc

• i

240

LECTURES OiW HEROES

men. But the heart remains cold before then); the fancy
alone endeavours to yet-up' some wcirsliij) of them. What
man's heart does, in reality, break-forth * into any lire of
brotherly love for these men ? ihey are become dread-
fully dull men! One breaks-down' often enoujjh in the
constitutional eloquence (jf the admirable I'ym, with his
•seventhly and lastly.' N'ou find that it may be the admi-
lablest thing in the world, but that it is heavy, -heavy as
lead, barren as brick-clay ^ that, in a word, for you there

10 is little or nothing; now survivinj; there! One leaves all
these Nobilities standinj; in their niches of honour: the
rugged outcast Cromwell, he is the man of then) all in
whom one still finds human stutT. The great savage lUuc-
sark : he could write no euphemistic' Momuihy of Man ;
did not speak, did not work with glib regularity; had no
straight story to tell for himself anywhere, liut he stood
i;are, not cased in euphe)nistic " coat-of-mail ; he grajiplcd
like a giant, face to face, heart to heart, with the naked
truth of things ! That, after all, is the sort of nian for

20 one. I plead guilty to valuing such a man beyond all
other sorts of men. Smooth-shaven Respectabilities not a
few one finds, that are not good for much. Small thanks
to a man for keeping his hands clean, who would not
touch the work but with gloves on !

Neither, on the whole, does this constitutional tolerance
of the Eighteenth century for the other happier Puritans
seon to be a very great matter. One might say, it is but
a piece of Formulism and Scepticism, like the rest. They
tell us, It was a sorrowful thing to consider that the foun-

30 dation of our English Liberties should have been laid by
'Superstition.' These Puritans came forward with t'alvin-

I H' H* H^ get up

■-• H' H' IP break forth

» H' H» IP breaks down

< II' 11= llM)rick day
6 IP IP IPeuphuistic
« H' IP H^ euphuistic

77//; HERO AS KIXG

241

istir incredible Creeds .Anti-Laudisms, Westminster r un
fessions ; demanding. chieHy of all, that they should hive
liberty to ivonhip in their own way. Liberty to Uix them-
selves : that was the thing they should have demanded ! It
was SuiH-Tstition, Fanaticism, disgraceful ignorance of Con-
stitutional Philosophy to insist on the other thing ! - Liberty
to tax oneself? Not to pay-out 'money from your pocket
except on reason shonn-? No century, I think, but a
rather barren one woulu have fixed on that as the first right
of man ! I should say, on the contrary, A just n>an will lo
generally have I)etler cause than motuy in what shape
soever, before deciding to revolt against his (lovernment.
Ours is a most confused world ; in which a good man will
be thankful to see any kind of (Jovernment maintain itself
in a not insupportable manner: and here in Kngland, to
this hour, if he is not ready to pay a great many taxes
which //(• can see very small reason in, it will not go well
with him, J think! He must try some other climate than
this. Taxgatherer .> Money.' Fie will say : "Take my
money, since you fan, and it is so desirable to you ; take zo
it, — and take yourself away with it; and leave me alone
to my work here. / am still here ; can still work, after all
th'j money you have taken from me ! " lUit if they come to
iiim, and say, " Acknowledge a Lie ; pretend to say you are
worshipping (lod, when you are not doing it : believe not
the thing that yon find true, but the thing that I find, or
pretend to find true!" He will answer : "No; by Clod's
help, no''! You may take my purse; but 1 cannot have
my moral Self annihilated. The pursers any Highway-
man's who might meet me with a loaded pistol : but the ,3c
Self is mine and God my Maker's; it is not yours; and I
will resist you to the death, and revolt aira

agr

you, and,

» II' IF IP

pay out

» H' H» H' shewn

» IP \o
« H< cash

^ .

£U

l.HCIl'NIS iK\ III SOI. S

'V\

I ill

HI!

the whole, front all iminniT of extremities, accusations and
confusi«)ns, in defence of that ! "

Really, it seems to ine the one reas«)n which could justify
revolting;, this of the I'uritans. It has been the soul of ail
jijst revolt', amonjj men. Not //w«i,'<' alone produced even
the l-'rench Kevolution ; no, but the feelini,' of the insu)-
portable all-i>ervadin;; /;?/>,//,»,',/ which had now endxuliiil
itself in nunj,'er, in universal material Scaicity and Non-
entity, and thereby become i>ii/is/^itt,tMy false in the eyes
lo of all'l We will leave the Ki^hteenth century with its 'lib-
erty to tax itself.' We will not astonish ourselves that the
meaninjj of such men as the I'uritans remained dim to it.
To men who believe in no reality at all, how shall a ir,il
human soul, the intensest of all realities, as it were the
Voice of this world's Maker still sjjeakin;,' to w.f, - be in-
telligible? What it cannot reduce into < onstitulional doc-
trines relative to 'taxing,' or other iIk- like material inter-
est, gross, palpable tf) the sense, such a century will needs
reject as an amori^hous heap ot rubbish. Ilampdeiis, I'yms
20 and Ship-numey will be the theme ot much constitutional
eloquence, striving to be fervid ; which will glitter, if not
as fire does, then as i,y does: and the irreducible ( rom-
well will remain a chaotic ni.iss of 'madness," ' hypocrisy,' -
and much else.

From of old, I will confess, this theory of Cromwell'^
falsity has been incredible to me. Nay I cannot believe
the like, of any (Ireat Man wiiatever. Multitudes ot (i«Mt
Men figure in History as false seltish men ; but if we •ill
consider it. they arc but /;'//^« for us, unintelligible
30 shadows; we do not see into them as men that could have
existed at all. .\ superficial unbelieving generation only,
with no eye but for the surfaces and semblances of things,
could form such notions of (Ireat Men. fan a great .soul

II' 11= II' 'M.11I1U

- 11' IF ir -llyiJucrisy'

I llh III Ai> \ AlXi,

l\\

)c I

)o.ssi

Ml- witlnHit .1 ii'iisiiii,!' in it, tin* t-sscncc of all rni/

souls, >;riMt or mhiII ' N", wt- cannot hgiire i'mmwell ns
;i F'llsity :\n«l Kntiiily ; tlu- longer I study him and his
career. I lu-lifvi- this the iis«.. Why should we ? There is
nn evidenre of it. Is it nut str.uim' that, after all the
int»imt lins of eahimny this mm his heen snbtert tn. after
beiif^ represented as the very prinre of liars, who never, or
hardly ever, spoke tnilli, l)tit always some ctinnin'^ mun-
terfeit of truth, there should not yi-t have hocn one false-
liof>d broiijfht clearly lH>me to him ?■ A prince of li.irs, and lo
no lie spoken by him. Not one that I eould yet ^el sij^ht
of. It is like I'oeoeke askin;^ (Irotiu^. Where is your /■/-''y'
of Mahomet's l'i;4eon .' No proof I I.et us leave all these
calumnious chimeras, as chimeras oii;^lit to he left. They
are not portraits of the man ; they are distracted jihantasms
of liim, the joint product of hatred ami darkness.

|,ookiii4 at the man's life with our own eyes, it seems to
me. a very dillcrenl hvpothesis sn;;;;ests itself. What little
we know of his earlier oliscure years, distorted as it has
come down to us, does it not all betoken an eirnest, atfet- 20
tionate.' situert; kind of mm? His nervous melancholic
temper.iUK nt intlic.Ues r.ither a seriousness l'i> deei) for
him. ( )f ■' those stories ot '.Spectres'; of the white Spectre

1 II' il' iiuarty.

-'-11' ^'<)u rL-niuniliiT that story of lii> h.ivint; ;i visii.n of tin- Kvil
.S|iiiit, |)rLilii \w<^ that lu- woulil Ix- SovcrclL;!) of Ijifjl.ind. ;iii<l so forth.
In l.ro.ifl (laylit;ht, >oiiu: huge wliiti- Spo trr. wliii h lie took to he tlic
lli\il. with pittLTii itur.il inoiiiiioiis of >omi' >oit.,lH'\vs it-rlf tn liim ; tlie
Koyali-'t^ 111. uK iininrn-'' K.ihKk- ahoiit it; hut ai)itrl from tli>ir >])t 1 illa-
tions, \V' , ,111 si.piM.^t.- this story f'f the Sptttrf to Kf true. Thin there are
afterwards tho-t hjpoLhondriai al vi>ion- : th.e lioUnrstnt for: ( )livir
imaf;inin{; iIm! •• t!i" -tieple of I luntint,'(hin was about to tumlilt- on him."

i- 'Kivin-? a \isi.>i

li' V.

:L-iii;-m")rr

irfdi( tini; that he would lie Sovereign '

that
Id U

f hi-

onu-

Spirit,
lylinht,
white Spiitre. which he took to he tln' Divil, with priter-

.f i:i

i^laiK

1. In

th.- I-
hroa(

:' I

! ,
1'

ii.itui.il munition.-, of some sort, shews it.'-rlf to him: it

a umversa

244

LECTURES ON HEROES

in broad daylight, predicting that he should be King of
England, we are not bound to believe much ; — probably
no more than of the other black Spectre, or Devil in person,
to whom the Officer saw him sell himself before Worces-
ter Fight ! But the mournful, over-sensitive, hypochondriac
humour of Oliver, in his young years, is otherwise indispu-
tably known. The Huntingdon Physician told Sir Philip
Warwick himself, He had often been sent for at midnight ;
Mr. Cromwell was full of hypochondria, thought himself

10 near dying, and "had fancies about the Town-cross."
These' things are significant.- Such an excitable deep-
feeling nature, in that rugged stubborn strength -' of his,'
is not the symptom of falsehood ; it is the symptom and
promise of quite other than falsehood ^ !

The young Oliver is sent to study Law ; falls, or * is said
to have fallen,* for a little period, into some of the dissipa-
tions of youth; but if' so,' speedily repents, abandons all
this : not much above twenty, he is married, settled as an
altogether grave and quiet man. ' He " pays-back ' what

20 money he had won at gambling,'* says* the story";— he
does not think any gain of that kind could be really his.
It is very interesting, very natural, this 'conversion,' as
they well name it ; this awakening of a great true soul from
the wordly slough, to see into the awful truth of things ; —
to see that Time and its shows '■' all rested on Eternity, and

story of those times ; and, apart from all Royalist ami other speculations
on it, we can well suppose this story of the Spectre to bo true. Then
there are afterwards those other hypochondriacal visions : the Doctor
sent for; Oliver 'has fancies about the town-cross of Huntingdon.'

1 11^ The '' '' no marks of quotation in W IP

2 II' bulk " IP UMP pays back

!* * H' his; in other words, a soul of such intensity, such sensibility,
with all its strength ! " " not i» H' IP

**notinlVW 9 H' IP shews

» » not in IV H»

THE HERO AS KING

245

this poor Earth of ours was the threshold either of fieaven
or of Hell ! Oliver's life at St' Fves and ' Ely, as a sober
industrious Farmer, is it not altogether as that of a true
and ^ devout man ? He has renounced the world and its
ways ; its prizes are not the thing that can enrich him. He
tills the earth ; he reads his Bible ; daily assembles his ser-
vants round him to worship God. He comforts persecuted
ministers, is fond of preachers; nay can himself preach, —
exhorts his neighbours to be wise, to redeem the time. In
all this what ' hypocris)-,' ' ambition,' ' cant,' or other falsity ? lo
The man's hopes, I do believe, were fixed on the other
Higher World ; his aim to get well t/tithcr, by walking well
through his humble course in tins world. He courts no
notice: what could notice here do for him? 'Ever in his
great Taskmaster's eye.'"

It is striking, too, how he comes-out once into public
view ; he, since no other is willing to come : in resistance
to a public grievance. I mean, in that matter of the
Bedford Fens. No one else will go to law with Authority ;
therefore he will. That matter once settled, he returns 20
back into obscurity, to his Bible and his Plough, '(iain
influence ' .' His influence is the most legitimate ; derived
from personal knowledge of him, as a just, religious, reason-
able and determined man. In this way he has lived tHl
past fort}- ; old age is now in view of him, and the earnest
portal of Death and Eternity ; it was at this point that he
suddenly became 'ambitious ' ! I do not interpret his Par-
liamentary mission in that way !

His successes in Parliament, his successes through the
war, are honest successes of a brave man ; wh3 has more 3c
resolution in the heart of him, more light in the head of
him than other men. His prayers to God; his spoken

^^ not in II' 2 „ot in H' IP

^ HO paragraph in H'

■s 1

i\-

il'i

246

LECTURES ON HEROES

thanks to the God of Victory, who had preserved him safe,
and carried him forward so far, through the furious clash
of a world all set in conflict, through desperate-looking
envelopments at Dunbar; through the death-hail of so
many battles ; mercy after mercy ; to the 'crowning mercy '
of Worcester Fight : all this is good and genuine for a deep-
hearted C'alvinistic Cromwell. Only to vain unbelieving
Cavaliers, worshipping not Cod but their own 'lovelocks,'
frivolities and formalities, living quite apart from contem-

10 plations of God, living uuthotit God in the world, need it
seem hypocritical.

Nor will his participation in the King's death involve
him in condemnation with us. It is a stern business killin|r
of a K-ing ! 15ut if you once go to war with him, it lies
there ; this and all else lies there. Once at war, you have
made wager of battle with him : it is he to die, or else you.
Reconciliation is problematic ; may be possible, or, far
more likely, is impossible. It is now pretty generally
admitted that the Parliament, having vantpiished Charles

20 First, had no way of making any tenable arrangement with
him. The large Presbyterian party, apprehensive now of
the Independents, were most an.xious to do so; anxious
indeed as for their own existence ; but it could not be.
The unhappy Charles, in those iinal Hampton-Court nego-
tiations, shows' himself as a man fatally incapable of being
dealt with. A man who, once for all, could not and would
not «//(/( yjA?//*/; -whose thought did not in any measure
represent to him the real fact of the matter ; nay worse,
whose word did not at all represent his thought. We may

30 say this of him w ithout cruelty, with deep pity rather : but
it is true and undeniable. Forsaken there of all but the
name of Kingship, he still, finding himself treated with
outward respect as a King, fancied that he might play-otf-

1 II' II- IP shews ^li' 11= IF play off

THE j//:a'(> as a/xc

247

party against party, and snui-glu himself into his old power
by deceiving l,oth. Ahis, they botii ./iscoier,,/ that he was
deceiving them. A man whose avv,/ will not inform you
at all what he means or will do, is not a man you can bar-
gain with. Vou must get out of that man's wav, or put him
out of yours! The I'resbyterians, in their desi)air, were
still for believing Charles, though found false, unbelievable
again and again. Not so ( romwell : " For all our lighting,"
says he, " we are to have a little bit of paper ? " * No ! — '
' In fact, everywhere we have to note the decisive practical .0
eye of this man ; how he drives towards the practical and
practicable ; has a genuine insight into what is fact. Such
an intellect, I maintain, does not belong to a false man:
the false man sees false shows,' plausibilities, expediencies:
the true man is needed to disc n even practical truth.
Cromweirs advice about the Parliament's Army, early in
the contest, How they were to dismiss their city-tapsters,
flimsy riotous persons, and choose substantial yeomen,
whose heart was in the work, to be soldiers for them : this
is advice by a man who s<m'. J'act answers, if you see into 20
Fact! Cromwell's /nmsUes were the embodiment of this
insight of his; men fearing (Jod; and without any other
fear. No more conclusively genuine set of fighters ever
trod the soil of England, or of any otlier land.

Neither will we blame greatly that word of Cromwell's to
them ; which was so blamed : " If the King should meet
me in battle, I would kill the King." Why not? ihese
words were spoken to men who stood as before a Higher
than Kings. They had set more than their own lives on
the cast. The Parliament may call it, in ottkial language, 30
a fighting '/v- the King;' but we, for our share, cannot "^
understand that. To us it is no dilettante work, no sleek
officiality ; it is sheer rough death and earnest. Iliey have

1 IV II

lews

i I

248

LECTURES ON HEROES

brought it to the calling-forth ' of War; horrid internecine
fight, man grappling with man in tire-eyed rage, — the
////77/<7/ element in man called forth, to try it by that ! Do
that therefore ; since that is the thing to be done. — The
successes of Cromwell seem to me a very natural thing!
Since he was not shot in battle, they were an inevitable
thing. That such a man, with the eye to see, with the
heart to dare, should advance, from post to post, from
victory to victory, till the Huntingdon Farmer became, by

10 whatever name you might call him, the acknowledged
Strongest Man in England, virtually the King of England,
requires no magic to explain it ! —

Truly it is a sad thing for a people, as for a man, to fall
into Scepticism, into dilettantism, insincerity ; not to know
a Sincerity when they see it. For this world, and for all
worlds, what curse is so fatal ? The heart lying dead, the
eye cannot see. What intellect remains is merely the vul-
pine intellect. That a true King be sentjhernjs_of_small
use ; they do not know him when sent. They say scorn-

20 fully. Is this your King-i" — TKeTHero wastes hjs heroic
faculty in bootless contra diction from t^he unworthy ; and
can accomplish Httle. For himself he does acc ompl ish a
heroic life, \vhich is much, whi c h is all; but for the world
he accomplisTies comparatively nothing. The wild rude
Sincerity, direcT fromNature, iF not glib in answering
from the witness-box : in your small-debt pie-pincder court,
he is scouted as a counterfeit. The vulpine intellect 'de-
tects ' him. F'pr being a man worth any thousand men, the
response your Knox, your Cromwell getspTs an argument

30 for two centuries whether he was a man at all. God's
greatest gift to this Earth is sneeringly flung away. The
miraculous talisman is a paltry plated coin, not fit to pass
in the shops as a common guinea.

» W H» H^ calling forth

THE J/EKO A.^ KIXG

249

Lamentable this! I say, this must he remedied. Till
this be remedied in some measure, there is nothing reme-
died. * Detect quacks ' ? Ncs do, for Heaven's sake ; but
know withal the men that are to be trusted! Till „e know
that, what is all our knowledge; how shall we even so
much as 'detect'? For' the vulpine sharpness, which
considers itself to be knowledge, and 'detects' in that
fashion, IS far mistaken. Dupes indeed are many: but, of
all dupes, there is none so fatallv situated as he who lives
m undue terror of being duped. The world does exist ; the .o
world has truth in it, or it would not e.xist ! I'irst recog-
nise what is true, we shall ///,// discern wjiat is false ; and
properly never till then.

' Know the men that are to be trusted : ' alas, this is yet,
m these days, very far from us, The sincere alone can
recognise sincerity. Not a Hero only is needed, but a
world ht for him ; a world not of Wihh .-the Hero comes
almost m vain to it otherwise ! Ves, it is far from us : but
It must come ; thank God, it is visibly coming. Till it do
come, what have we } Ballot-boxes, suffrages, l-rench Revo- 20
lutions: — if we are as Valets, and do not know the Hero
when we see him, what good are all these '. A heroic ( rom-
well comes; and for a hundred-and-tifty •' years he cannot
have a vote from us. Why, the insincere^ unbelieving world
is the natural property of the Quack, and of the I'ather of
quacks •■' and quackeries"! Misery, confusion, un veracity
are alone possible there. By ballot-boxes we alter the figure
of our Quack; but the substance of him continues. The
Valet-World has to be governed by the Sham-Hero, by the
King merely dressed in King-gear. It is his; he is its! 30
In*^ brief,^ one of two things: We shall either learn to

' fiot in W IF

2 H' IP If hundred and fifty

* 5 not ill W

■ II' Ouaiks
MI' ( )uackerics

I- n

t ■ '■'; I

2S0

LECTURES ON HEROES

know a Hero, a true (lovernor and Captain, somewhat
better, when we see him; or else go on to be forever
governed by the Unheroic ; — had we ballot-boxes clatter-
ing at every street-corner, there were no remedy in these.

Poor Cromwell, — great Cromwell ! The inarticulate
Prophet ; Prophet who could not speak. Rude, confused,
struggling to utter himself, with his savage depth, with his
wild sincerity; and he looked so strange, among the ele-
gant Euphemisms,' dainty little Falklands, didactic Chilling-

lo worths, diplomatic Clarendons ! Consider him. An outer
hull of chaotic confusion, visions of the Devil, nervous
dreams, almost semi-madness ; and yet such a clear deter-
minate man's-energy working in the heart of that. A kind
of chaotic man. The ray as of pure starlight and fire,
working in such an element of boundless hypochondria, //;/-
formed black of darkness ! And yet withal this hypochon-
dria, what was it but the very greatness of the man ? Th<-
depth and tenderness of his wild affections : the quantity
of sympathy he had with things, — the quantity of insight he

20 would yet get into the heart of things, the mastery he would
yet get over things: this was his hypochondria. The man's
" misery, as man's misery always does, came of his greatness.
Samuel Johnson too is that kind of man. Sorrow-stricken,
half-distracted ; the wide element of mournful black envel
oping him, -wide as the world. It is the character of
a prophetic man ; a man with his whole soul seeing, ami
struggling to see.

On this ground, too, I explain to myself Cromwell's
reputed confusion of speech. To himself the internal

30 meaning was sun-clear; but the material with which h-

was to clothe it in utterance was not there. He had Ihwi

silent ; a great unnamed sea of Thought round him all his

days ; and in his way of life little call to attempt naming or

I II' 11= IP Euphuisms

i'l't

THE IfERO AS A'/XG

251

Uttering that. With his sharp power of vision, resolute
power of action, I doubt not he could have learned to write
Books withal, and speak fluently enoujjh ; he did harder
things than writing of Hooks. This kind of man is pre-
cisely he who is tit for doing manfully all things you will
set him on doing. Intellect is not speaking and logicising ' ;
it is seeing and ascertaining. Virtue, I'ir-tus, manhood,'
hero-hooA, is not fair-spoken- immaculate regularity; it is
first of all, what the Germans well name it, Tu)^en,i {Tau^end,
do7i>-\ng or Z>^;//4-//-tiness''), Courage and the Faculty to do. ro
This basis of the matter Cromwell had in him.

One understands moreover how, though he cou'd not
speak in Parliament, he might /m*.//, rhapsodic preaching;
above all, how he might be great in extempore prayer.
These are the free outpouring utterances of what is in the
heart: method is not required in them; warmth, depth,
sincerity are all that is required. CromweH's habit of
prayer is i notable feature of him. All his great enter-
prises were commenced with prayer. In dark inextricable-
looking difficulties, his Officers and he used to assemble, 20
and pray alternately, for hours, for days, till some definite
resolution rose among them, some 'door of hope,' as they
would name it, disclosed itself. ( onsider that. In tears, in
fervent prayers, and cries to the great (]od, to have pity on
them, to make His light shine before them. They, armed
Soldiers of Chri.t, is they felt themselves to be; a little
band of Christian brothers, who had drawn the sword
against a great black devouring world not Christian, but
Mammonish, Devilish, — they cried to Cod in their straits,
in their extreme need, not to forsake the Cause that was 30
His. The light which now rose upon them, —how could

^ II' II- logiti/iiig
MP HMP fairspoken
» H' H= H^ i9^/<f/itiness

I * V

252

LECTURES ON HEROES

a human soul, by any me.ins ;it all, get better lijjlit? Was
not the purpose so formed like to be precisely the best,
wisest, the one to be iollowed without hesitation any more ?
To them it was as the shining; of Heaven's own Splendour
in the waste-howlinj; darkness; the I'illarof Fire by night,
that was to guide th(;m on their desolate perilous way.
Was it not such ? Can a man's soul, to this hour, get guid-
ance by any other method than intrinsically by that same,
— devout prostration of the ear lest struggling soul before

10 the Highest, the Giver of all Light ; be such/>r(?ir/- a spoken,
articulate, or be it a voiceless, inarticulate one ? 'There is
no other method. • Hypocrisy ' ? One begins to weary of
all that. They who call it so, have no right to speak on
such matters. They never formed a purpose, what one can
call a purpose. They went about balancing expediencies,
plausibilities ; gathering votes, advices ; they never were
alone with the truth of a thing at all. — Cromwell's prayers
were likely to be 'eloquent,' and much more than that.
His was the heart of a man who <"f'«/(/ pray.

20 But indeed his actual Speeches, I apprehend, were not
nearly so ineloquent, incondite, as they look. We find he
was, what all speakers aim to be, an impressive speaker,
even in Parliantent ; one who, from the first, had weight.
With that rude passionate voice of his, he was always un-
derstood to mean something, and men wished to know what.
He disregarded eloquence, nay despised and disliked it :
spoke always without premeditation of the words he was to
use. The Reporters, too, in those days seem to have been
singularly candid ; and to have given the Printer precisely

30 what they found on their own note-paper. And withal,
what a strange proof is it of Cromwell's being the premedi-
tative ever-calculating hypocrite, acting a play before the
world. That to the last he took no more charge of his
Speeches ! How came he not to study his words a little,

THE ///-h'O AS A/A-i;

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U'tore flinging thum out to the public ? If the words were
true words, they could be left to shift for themselves.

Hut with regard to Cromwell's 'lying,' we will mnke one
remark. Tliis, I suppose, or something like this, to have
been the nature of it. .MI parties found themselves de-
ceived in him ; each party understood him to be meaning
//lis, heard him even say so, and behold he turns-out ' to
have been meaning //i,rf .' He was, cry they, the chief of
liars. Hut now, intrinsically, is not all this the inevitable
fortune, not of a false man in such times, but simply of a lo
superior man .' Such a man must have n-thrnos in him.
If he walk wearing his heart upon his sleeve for daws to
peck at, his journey will not extend far! There is no use
for any man's taking-up - his abode in a house built of glass.
.V man always is to be himself the judge how much of his
mind he will show ■■ to other men ; even to those he would
have work along with him. There are impertinent inquiries
made: your rule is, to leave the inquirer ////informed on that
matter; not, if you can help it, w/.vinformed, but precisely
as dark as he was ! This, could one hit the right phrase of 20
response, is what the wise and faithful man would aim to
answer in such a case.

OomweH, no doubt of it, spoke often in the dialect of
small subaltern parties : uttered to them a/</A/of his mind.
Kach little party thought him all its own. Hence their
rage, one and all, to find him not of their party, but of his
own party ! Was it his blame .» At all seasons of his his-
tory he must have felt, among such [leople, how, if he ex-
plained to them the deeper insight he had, they must either
hive shuddered aghast at it, or believing it, their own little 30
compact hypothesis must have gone wholly to wreck. They
could not have worked in his province any more ; nay per-

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LECTURES ON HEROES

haps they could not now h.ivc worked in their own province.
It is the inevitable position of a great man among small
men. Small men, most active, useful, are to be seen every-
where, whose whole activity de|K:nd.s on some conviction
which to you is palpably a limited one; imperfect, what we
call an I'nor, Uut would it be a kindness always, is it a
duty always or often, to disturb them in that ? Many a
man, doing loud work in the world, stands only on some
thin traditionality, conventionality ; to him indubitable, to

lo you incredible : break that beneath him, he sinks to endless
depths! •• I might have my hand full of truth," said Fon-
tenelle, '*and open only my little finger."

And if tiiis be the fact even in matters of doctrine, how
much more in all departments of practice ! He that cannot
withal keep his niiiiii to />iws,-// cannot practise any consid-
erable thing whatever. And we call it 'dissimulation,' all
this? What would you think of calling the general of an
army a dissembler because he did not tell every corporal
and private soldier, who pleased to put the question, what

20 his thoughts were about everything? — Cromwell, I should
rather say, managed all this in a manner we must admire
for its perfection. An endless vor* of such questioning
•corporals' rolled confusedly roun \ \ through his whole
course; whom he did ansvver. must have been as a

great true-seeing man that he managed this too. Not one
proved falsehood, as I said ; not one ! Of what man that
ever wound himself through such a coil of things will you
say so much ? —

But in fact there are two errors, widely prevalent, which

y. , ervert to the very basis our judgments formed about such

men as Cromwell; about their 'ambition,' 'falsity,' and

suchlike.' The first is what I might call substituting the

1 11' IP IV such like

m'M

7//A //hko .IS A/xi;

1^^

f^oal of their career for the course and starlini^-point of it.
The vulvar Historian of a ( roinweil fancies that he had
determined on being I'rotector of Knjjiand, at the time
when he was ploiijjhing the marsh lands of ( ami)rid;;Lshire.
His career hiy all niappedoul ' : a proj^rain of the whole
drama; which he then step l)> step dramatically iinfoUkd,
with all manner of cuniiin;;, deceptive dramaturgy, as he
went on, - the hollow, scheminj; 'Yttok/jitj/v, or I'lay-actor,
that he was! This is a radical perversion ; all hut univer-
sal in such cases. .\nd think for an instant how dilterent lo
the fact is ! How much does one of us foresee of his own
life ? Short way ahead of us it is all dim ; an ////wound
skein of possibilities, of apprehensions, attemptabilities,
va-jue-loominji hopes. This Cromw.-il had not his life
lying all in that fashion of l'roj,'rain, which he needed
then, with that unfathomable cunning of his, only to enact
dramatically, scene after scene! Not so. We see it so;
but to him it was in i. measure so. What absurdities
would fall-away^ of themselves, were this one undeni ii)lc
fact kept honestly in view by History ! Historians indeed 20
will tell you that they do keep it in view ; but look
whether such is practically the fact! Vulgar History, as
in this {'romwell's case, omits it altogether; even the best
kinds of History only remember it ncnv and then. To
remember it duly with rigorous perfection, as in the fact it
stooii, requires indeed a rare faculty ; rare, nay impossible.
.\ very Shakspeare for faculty ; or more than .Shaksi)eare ;
who could Ohut a brother man's biograjihy, see with tlie
brother man's eyes at all points of his course what things
//f saw ; in short, kmn^' his course and him, as few 'Histo- 50
rians' a^e like to do. Half or more of all the thick-plied
perversions which distort our image of Cromwell, will dis-
a).pcar, if we honestly so much as trv to represent tiiem so :

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kl MCiiience, as they r.r/v, not in tlit- lump, .is ihcy arc
thrj'Ati down ' licfurc us.

Ill I .1 .'cond error, which I think the cenerality commit,
refers • his same 'ambition* itself. U c ex x;,'-rr ite the
am I li.i, r (ireat .Men; we mistake what the nature of it
i'- <i • 't Men are not ambitious in that cerise; he is a
S.I 1,1 wu; man that is ambitious so. !• x.miin*- the man
wf • i.-'. ,1 misery i)ecause he docs n..; shine above other
m< I V 'h, ...jes al out oroducinj; himself, pruriency anxious
10 abc . Ins ^'if, ,,'! , ;inis; strugj,'bn;: t<> force everybod),
as j; ',\'.r.- i - . M ,:; everybody for (lod's sake, to .acknowledj^a.
him I grc.t ■ i, and set him over the heads of men ! .Such
a criture s ■ .m<j the wretchedest sij;hts seen under this
sun .\ ,i;n,tt iii.n .' .V |)oor morbid prurient empty man,
fitt<r for the war.! of a hospital, than for a llirone amonjj
men. I advise you to keep-out - of his way. He cannot
walk on (piiet paths; unless you will look at him, wonder
at him, write paraj^raphs about him, he cannot live. It is
the cmptiiuss of the man, not his <,'reatness. IJecause there
20 is nothin-,' in himself, he hummers and thirsts that you would
find something in him. In -ood truth, I believe no great
man, not .so much as a genuine man who had health and
real substance in him of whatever magnitude, was ever
much tormented in this way.

Your ( "romwell, what good could it do him to l)o ' noticed '
by noisy crowds of people .' ( lod his Maker ain-ady noticed
him. He, ("romwell, was already there; no notice would
make him other than he already was. lill his hair w.is
grown gray; and Life from the downhill .sIoik- was all seen
30 to be limited, not infinite but finite, and all a measurable
matter //^'a' it went, — he had been content to plough the
ground, and read his Mible. He in his old days could not
support It any longer, without selling himself to I'alsehood,
1 II' IP W thrown down a IP IP IP keep out

IIIH ilfK'O XS KlXii

2^7

til tt hf mijilit ride in <;ilt <\uri.»-fs ir. W hitih.ill, .iiul li.ivo
clerks with Inmdles of p.nx'rs huintin;,' him. '• jJecidi- this,
decide that." which in utnm-t sormw nf lu-.irt no in.ui cm
perfectly decide! W li.it «uiild i^ilt (Mrri.i;;es do for thi-i
man ' I'ronj uf old, w.is there not in his life ;i >•. eij;ht of
nie:inin<;, ;i terror i\u\ i >|.lendour as of ll.Mven itself?
His existence there as inu) set hint heyond the need of
j^ildin;,'. heath, |ud;;tnent uul Iternitv: these already
lay as the background of wiiatsoever he tliou;;lil or did.
All his life l.t v begirt as in a sea of nameless I hoii;4hts, lo
which no speecii ol i mortal coiiUI name. Ciod's ^^ ord, as
the l'urit.in prophet>of that time navl read it: this was
:zrcat, and all else was little t" him. In .ill ^uch a man
'ambitious,' to ti„'ure I, m as tii |)riirient windl. 14 described
I'love, set U1S to me the |)oorest s>.k-cism. .Sik h a man will
s .y : "Keep your };ilt carria;^^ and Im/zaiii:; mobs, k'ep
\* ur red-tape clerks, your inlluiiuialities, voui imimrtint
itusinesses. Leave me alone, leave me alone: there is , v
w//r/i i>/^ ///•■ in mi- already!" (Mil Samuel lohnson, the
■greatest .soul in |-.ni,'l,in(l in his d v, was iu<- and)itious. 20
'Corsica Hoswell ' daunted at niblic shows ■ wiiii printed
ribbons round his hat; but tlii '^rcn old S.iunicl stayed •
at home. The wt)rld-witle soid wra] up ' in it^ thoughts,
in its sorrows;- what could paradin^~. aid rii tys in the
hat,' do for it ?

Ah yes, 1 will sa\ aj^ain: i he j^re • u/./// men! Look-

in;: round on the nojsv in uiifv ot tiie worl

woi ds wi

little meanin;j;, actions with !ittU- w ri;

me lovfs t reflect
on the jjreat Kmpire of .Vv, . The noble silent men,
scattered here and there, each n lis d.nattnient ; silently 30
thinkiny:, silently working win

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LECTURES ON HEROES

makes mention of! They are the salt of the Earth. A
country that has none or few of these is in a bad way.
Like a forest which had no roots; which had all turned
into leaves and bou};hs ; -which must soon wither and be
no forest. Woe for us if we had nothing but what we can
sho7i>,^ or speak. Silence, the great Empire of Silence:
higher than the stars; deeper than the Kingdoms of
Death ! It alone is great ; all else is small. — I hope we
English will long maintain our s^nvid t,i/,:iit f^oiir Ic sih-ncc.

10 Let others that cannot do without standing on barrel-
heads, to spout, and be seen of all the market-place, culti-
vate speech exclusively, — become a most green forest
without roots ! Solomon says, There is a time to speak ;
but also a time to keep silence. Of some great silent Sam-
uel, not urged to writing, as old Samuel Johnson says he
was, by ik'ant of tnoury, and nothing other, one might ask,
" Why do not you too get up and speak ; promulgate your
system, found your sect?" "Truly," he will answer, "I
am iontinait of my thought hitherto; happily* I - have yet

ZQ had the ability to keep it in me, no compulsion strong
enough to speak it. My 'system ' is not for promulgation
first of all ; it is for serving myself to live by. That is the
great purpose of it to me. And then the ' honour '.> Alas,
yes; —but as Cato said of the statue: So many statues in
that Forum of yours, may it not be better if they ask, Where

is ( "ato's statue ? ' "

Hut now, by way of counterpoise to this of Silence, let
me say that there are two kinds of ambition ; one wholly
blamable,* the other laudable and inevitable. Nature has
30 provided that the great silent Samuel shall not be silent
too long. 'The selfish wish to shine o"er others, let it be
accounted altogether poor and miserable. 'Seekest thou

•'' * \V H» I happily

Ml' H=than say, There ills.
Ml' Il=blanieable

THE HEKO AS KING

259

great things, seek them not : ' this is most true. ,^d yet,
I say, there is an irrepressible tendency in every man to
develop^ himself according to the magnitude which Nature
has made him of; to speak-out,- to act-out,' what Nature
has laid in him. This is proper, lit, inevitable ; nay, it is
a duty, and even the summary of duties for a man. The
meaning of life here on earth might be defined as consist-
ing in this: To unfold your self, to work what thing you
have the faculty for. It is a necessity for the human being,
the first law of our existence. Coleridge beautifully remarks lo
that the infant learns to speak by this necessity it feels. —
We will say therefore : To decide about ambition, w hether
it is bad or not, you have two things to take into view.
Not the coveting of the place alone, but the fitness of the
man for the place withal : that is the question. Perhaps
the place was his; perhaps he had a natural right, and
even obligation, to seek the place ! Mirabeau's ambition to
be Prime Min ter, how shall we blame it, if he were 'the
only man in France that could have done any good there ? '
Hopefuler* perhaps had he not so clearly/// how much 20
good he could do ! But a poor Necker, who could do no
good, and had even felt that he could do none, yet sitting
broken-hearted because they had Hung him out, and he was
now quit of it, well might (libhon mourn over him. Na-
ture, I say, has provided amply that the silent great man
shall strive to speak withal ; too amply, rather !

Fancy, for example, you had revealed to the brave old
Samuel Johnson, in his shrouded-up existence, that it was
possible for him to do priceless divine work for his country
and the whole world. That the perfect Heavenly Law 30
might be made Law on this F.arth ; that the prayer he
prayed daily, ' Thy kingdom come,' was at length to be

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LECTURES OAT I/EROES

«4

fulfilled ! If you had convinced his judgment of this ; that
it was possible, practicable; that he the mournful silent
Samuel was called to take a part in it ! Would not the whole
soul of the man have flamed-up » into a divine clearness,
into noble utterance and determination to act ; casting all
sorrows and misgivings under his feet, counting all afflic-
tion and contradiction small, — the whole dark element of
his existence blazing into articulate radiance of light and
lightning ? It were a true ambition this ! And think now

10 how it actually was with Cromwell. From of old, the suf-
ferings of God's Church, true zealous Preachers of the
truth flung into dungeons, whipt, set on pillories, their ears
cropt-oft,' (Jod's Gospel-cause trodden under foot of the
unworthy: all this had lain heavy on his soul. Long
years he had looked upon it, in silence, in prayer ; seeing
no remedy on E;irth ; trusting well that a remedy in
Heaven's goodness would come, — that such a course was
false, unjust, and could not last forever. And now behold
the dawn of it ; after twelve years silent waiting, all Eng-

20 land stirs itself ; there is to be once more a Parliament,
the Right will get a voice for itself: inexpressible well-
grounded hope has come again into the Karth. Was not
such a Parliament worth being a member of .> Cromwe"
threw down his ploughs, and hastened thither.'

He spoke there, — rugged bursts of earnestness, of a
self-seen truth, where we get a glimpse of them. He
worked there; he fought and strove, like a strong true

giant of a man, through cannon-tumult and all else, on

and on, till the Cause triumphcJ, its once so formidable

30 enemies all swept from before it, and the dawn of hope

had become clear light of victory and certainty. That he

stood there as the strongest soul of England, the undisputed

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THK JIENO AS A'/XG

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Hero of all England, — what of this ? It was possible that
the Law of Christ's (lospcl could now establish itself in
the world ! The Theocracy which John Knox in his pulpit
might dream of as a 'devout imagination," this practical
man, experienced in the whole chaos of most rough prac-
tice, dared to consider as capable of being im/is.:/. Those
that were highest in Christ's Church, the devoutest wisest
men, were to rule the land : in some considerable degree,
it might be so and should be so. Was it not ////,-, (lod's
truth ? And if inic, was it not then the very thing to do? lo
The strongest practical intellect in Kngland dared to
answer, Ves ! This I call a noble true purjiose ; is it not,
in its own dialect, the noblest tiiat could enter into the
heart of Statesman or man ? For a Knox lo take it uj) was
something; but for a Cromwell, with his great sound sense
and experience of what our world i.uts, — History, I think,
shows 1 it only this once in such a degree. I account it
the culminating jjoint of Protestantism ; the most heroic
phasis that 'Faith in the I'.ible ' was appointed to exhibit
here below. Fancy it: that it were made manifest to one 20
of us, how we could make the Right supremely victorious
over Wrong, and all that we had longed and jirayed for, as
the highest good to Kngland and all lands, an attainable
fact!

Well, I must say, the rii/piiir intellect, with ils knowing-
ness, its alertness and expertness in 'detecting hypocrites,'
seems to me a rather sorry business. We have had but
one such Statesman in Kngland ; one man, that I can get
sight of, who ever had in the heart of him any such pur-
pose at all. One man, in the course of rifteen-hundred - 30
years; and this was his welcome. He had adherents by
the hundred or the ten ; opi)oneats by the million. Had
Kngland rallied all round hi»i, — why, then, Kngland might
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LECTURES OX HEROES

li;

If
1 4:

i
I-

have been a Christian land 1 As it is, vulpine knowingness
sits yet at its hopeless problem, 'Given a world of Knaves,
to educe an Honesty from their united action'; -how
cumbrous a problem, you may see in Chancery Law-Courts,
and some other places ! V'xW at length, by Heaven's just
anger, but also by Heaven's great grace, the matter begins
to stagnate ; and this problem is becoming to all men a
palpably hopeless one. —

But with regard to Cromwell and his purposes : Hume,
lo and a multitude following him, come upon me here with
an admission that Crumwell 7i<as sincere at first ; a sincere
« Fanatic ' at first, but gradually became a ' Hypocrite ' as
things opened round him. 'I'his of the Fanatic-Hypocrite
is Hume's theory of it; extensively applied since, — to
Mahomet and many others. Think of it seriously, you
will find something in it; not much, not all, very far from
all. Sincere hero hearts^ do not sink in this miserable
manner. The .Sun flings-forth ^ impurities, gets balefully
incrusted with spots; but it does not quench itself, and
20 become no Sun at all, but a mass of Darkness! I will
venture to say that such never befell a great deep Crom-
well ; I think, never. Nature's own lion-hearted Son ;
Antanis-like, his strength is got by toitfliiufi the Earthy his
Mother; lift him up from the Earth, lift him up into
Hypocrisy, Inanity, his strength is gone. We will net
assert that Cromwell was an immaculate man ; that he
fell into no faults, no insincerities among the rest. He
was no dilettante professor of 'perfections,' 'immaculate
conducts.' He was a rugged Orson, rending his rough
30 way through actual true work, — doubtless with many a
fall therein. Insincerities, faults, very many faults daily
and hourly : it was too well known to him ; known to God
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TIfK IlEKO AS KING

263

and him ! The Sun wis dimmed many \ time ; but the
Sun had not himself j^rown a Dimness. Cromwell's last
words, as he lay waitinjj for dj ih, are those of a Christian
heroic man. Broken prayers to (lod, that He would jadj;e
him and * this Cause,' He since man could not, in justice
yet in pity. They are most touching words. He breathed-
out'' his wild great soul, its toils and sins all ended now,
into the presence of his Maker, in this manner.

I, for one, will not call the man a Hypocrite ! Hyiiocrite,
mummer, the life of him a mere theatricality; empty barren lo
quack, hungry for the shouts of mobs ? The man had made
obscurity do very well for him till his head was gray"";
and now he liHts, there as he .stood recognised unblamed,
the virtual King of England. Cannot a man do without
King's Coaches and Cloaks.' Is it such a blessedness to
have clerks forever pestering you with bundles of pajjcrs
in red tape ? A simple Diocletian prefers planting of cab-
bages ; a George Washington, no very immeasurable man,
does the like. One would say, it is what any genuine man
could do ; and would do. The instant his real work were 20
out in the matter of Kingship, - away with it !

Let us remark, meanwhile, how indispensable every-
where a A'/V/i,-- i.s, in all movements of men. It is strikingly
shown,* in this very War, what becomes of men when they
cannot find a Chief Man, and their enemies can. The
Scotch Nation was all but unanimous in Puritan: 1;
zealous and of one mind al)out it, as in this Knglish c.id
of the Island was always far from being the ca.-.j. Hut
there was no great Cromwell among them ; poor tremulous,
hesitating, diplomatic Argyles and suchlike '; none of them 30
had a heart true enough for the truth, or durst commit

H 'I

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out

' H' 11^ H'grL-y
" II' H» H^shewr

5 H' H" H^ such like

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LECTURES ON IIEKOES

himself to the truth. They had no leader; and the
scattered Cavalier party in that country had one: Mont-
rose, the noblest of all the Cavaliers; an accomplished,
tjallant-hearted, splendid man ; what one may call the
Hero-Cavalier. Well, look at it; on the one hand sub-
jects without a King; on the other a King without sub-
jects! The subjects without King can do nothing; the
subjectless King can do something. This Monirose, with
a handful of Irish or Highland savages, few of them so

10 much as guns in their hands,' dashes at the drilled Puritan
armies like a wild whirlwind ; sweeps them, time after time,
some five times over, from the field before him. He was at
one period, for a short while, master of all Scotland. One
man ; but he was a man : a million zealous men, but loil/ioiit
the one ; they against him were powerless ! Perhaps of all
the persons in that Puritan struggle, from first to last, the
single indispensable one was verily Cromwell. To see and
dare, and decide ; to be a fixed pillar in the welter of un-
certainty ; — a King among them, whether they called him

2o so or not.

Precisely here, however, lies the rub for Cromwell. His
other proceedings have all found advocates, and stand
generally justified ; but this dismissal of the Rump Parlia-
ment and assumption of the Protectorship, is what no one
can pardon him. He had fairly grown to be King in Eng-
land ; Chief Man of the victorious party in England : but
it seems he could not do without the King's Cloak, and
sold himself to perdition in order to get it. Let us see a
little how this was.

England, Scotland, Ireland, all lying now subdued at the
feet of the Puritan Parliament, the practical question arose,
What was to be done with it .> How will you govern these

» H» IP hand,

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THE IIKKO AS KIXC

265

Nations, which I'rovidfncc in a wondrous way has siven-
up» to your disposal? Clearly those hundred surrivin-
members of the Long Parliament, who sit there as supreme
authority, cannot continue forever to sit. What is to be
done?— It was a question which theoretical constitution-
builders may find easy to answer ; but to ( romwell, look-
ing there into the real practical facts of it, there could
be none more complicated. He asked of the Parliament,
What it was they would decide upon.' It was for the
Parliament to say. Vet the Soldiers too, however contrary lo
to Formula, they who had purchased this victory with their
l)lood, it seemed to them that they also should have some-
thing to say in it ! We will not " I-or ^' all our fightin- have
nothing but a little piece of paper." We understand that
the Law of (lod's (lospel, to which He through us has
given the victory, shall establish itself, or trv to establish
itself, in this land !

For three years, Cromwell says, this question had been
sounded in the ears of the Parliament. They could make
no answer; nothing but talk, talk. Perhaps it lies in the -^o
nature of parliamentary bodies; perhaps no Parliament
could in such case make any answer but even that of
talk, talk! Nevertheless the question must and shall be
answered. You sixty men there, becoming f.ist odious,
fven despicable, to the whole nation, whom tlie nation
already calls » Rump Parliament, yo„ cannot continue to
sit there: who or what then is to follow? 'Free Parlia-
ment,' right of Election, Constitutional Formulas of one
sort or the other, — the thing is a hungry lact coming on
us, which we must answer or be devoured by it ! And who 30
are you that prate of Constitutional Formulas, rights of
Parliament? You have had to kill your King, to make

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LF.C TURKS OJSr I/EKOES

j 1.

li 't

Pride's Purges, to expel and banish by the law of the
stronger whosoever would not let your Cause prosiier :
there are but fifty or three-score of you left there, debating
in these days. Tell us what we shall do ; not in the way
of Formula, but of practicable Fact I

How they did finally answer, remains obscure to this
day. The diligent (Jodwin himself admits that he cannot
make it out. The likeliest is, that this poor Parliament
still would not, and indeed could not dissolve and disperse ;

10 that when it came to the point of actually dispersing, they
again, for the tenth or twentieth time, adjourned it, — and
Cromwell's patience failed him. Hut we will take the
favourablest hypothesis ever started for the Parliament ;
the favourablest, though I believe it is not the true one,
but too favourable.'

According to this version : At the uttermost crisis, when
Cromwell and his Officers were met on the one hand, and
the fifty or sixty Rump Members on the other, it was
suddenly told Cromwell that the Rump in its despair was

20 answering in a very singular way ; that in their splenetic
envious despair, to keep-out '' the Army at least, these men
were hurrying through the House a kind of Reform Bill, —
Parliament to be chosen by the whole of England ; equable
electoral division into districts ; free suffrage, and the rest
of it ! A very questionable, or indeed for them an unques-
tionable thing. Reform Hill, free suffrage of Englishmen ?
Why, the Royalists themselves, silenced indeed but not
exterminated, perhaps onViumber us; the great numerical
majority of England was always indifferent to our Cause,

30 merely looked at it and submitted to it. 't is in weight

and force, not by counting of heads, t, .. we are the

n«..jority ! And now with your Formulas and Reform

Bills, the whole matter, sorely won by our swords, shall

1 no paragraph in IP H» H' « H' H» H' keep out

////■: HE NO AS KIXU

l«l

again launch itself to sea ; become a mere hope, and like-
lihood, jw.///even as a likelihood? And it is not a likeli-
hood; it is a certainty, which we have won, by (lod's
strength and our own right hands, and do now hold hen:
Cromwell walked down to these refractory Members ; inter-
rupted them in that rapid speed of their Reform Hill ; —
ordered them to begone, and talk there no more. —Can
we not forgive him ? (^an we not understand him ? John
Milton, who looked on it all near at hand, could applaud
him. The Reality had swept the Formulas away before it. lo
I fancy, most men who were realities ' in Kngland might
see into the necessity of that.

The strong daring man, therefore, has set all manner of
Formulas and logical superficialities against him ; has dared
appeal to the genuine Fact of this Kngland, Whether it
will support him or not? It is curious to see how he
struggles to govern in some constitutional way; find some
Parliament to support him ; but cannot. His first Parlia-
ment, the one they call Harebones's Parliament, is, so to
speak, a Convocation of tfie XouibliS. From all quarters of 20
England the leading Ministers and chief Puritan Officials
nominate the men most distinguished by religious reputa-
tion, influence and attachment to the true Cause: these
are assembled to shai)c-out - a plan. They sanctioned
what was past ; shaped as they could what was to come,
riiey were scornfully called Barehoiu-ss Parlhincnt : the

man's name, it seems, was not Bareboms, but l5arbone,

a good enough man. Nor was it a jest, their work; it
was a most serious reality, - a trial on the part of these
J'uritan Notables how far the Law of Christ could become 30
the Law of this Kngland. There were men of sense among
them, men of some quality ; men of deep piety I suppose
the roost of them were. They failed, it seems, and broke-

* H' II' IP Realities

II' H-^ 11' shape out

268

LECTUKKS OAT I/KA'OJiS

- W

" m

■J ' '
% *

down,' endeavouring to reform the Court of Chancery!
They* dissolved themselves, as incompetent; deliveredup
their power again into the hands of the Lord (General
Cromwell, to do with it what he liked and could.*

What ' 7iv7/ he do with it ? I'he Lord (leneral Cromwell,
•Commander-in-chief of all the Forces raised and to be
raised;' he hereby sees himself, at this unexampled junc-
ture, as it were the one available Authority left in Kngland.
nothing between Kngland and utter Anarchy but him alone.

10 Such is the undeniable Fact of his position and Kngland's,
there and then. What will he do with it ? After delibera-
tion, he decides that he will acct// it ; will formally, with
public solemnity, say and vow before (lod and men, "Yes,
the Fact is so, and I will do the best I can with it ! " Pro-
tectorship, Instrument of (lovernment, — these are the
external forms of the thinjr; worked out and sanctioned
as they could in the circumstances be, by the Judges, by
the leading Official people, • Council of Officers and Persons
of interest in the Nation : ' and as for the thing itself, un-

2o deniably enough, at the pass matters had now come to, there
was no alternative but Anarchy or that. Puritan Kngland
might accept it or not ; but Puritan Kngland was, in real
truth, saved from suicide thereby ! — I believe the Puritan
People did, in an inarticulate, grumbling, yet on the whole
grateful and real way, accept this anomalous act of Oliver's;
at least, he and they together made it good, and always
better to the last. But in their Parliamentary articulate
way, they had their difficulties, and never knew fully what
to say to it ' ! —

30 Oliver's* second Parliament, properly^ his yir>j/ regular

» H' H» IP broke down

22 iji ijs XJiL-y appuintcd Cromwell Protector, and went their ways.

'* This entire paragraph appear: first in IP

♦H' IP The ^^ not in WW

TtlK llKh'O AS KIXG

I'arli.imtnt,' chosen by the rule liid-down ' in the Instru-
ment of (iovcrninnit,' did assemble, and worked;- but
got, before long, into bottomless questions is to the Pro.
tector's ni;/it, as lo 'usurpation,' and so forth; and had
at the earliest legal day to be dismissed. Cromwell's con-
cluding SiK-ech to tiuse men is a remarkable one. So-
likewise to his third rarliainent, in similar n-bukc for their
pedantries and obstinacies.'' Most rude, chaotic, all these
SjK'eches are ; but most earnest-looking. \ou would say,
it was a si.ncerf helpless man ; not used to s/<,;tk the great ic
inorganic thought of him, but to act it rather I .\ helpless-
ness of utter, uicc, in such bursting fulness of meaning. He
talks much about 'births of Providence : ' All these changes,
so many victories and events, were nr)t forethoughts, and
theatrical contrivances of men, of w, or of men ; it is blind
blasphemers that will persist in calling them so! He in-
sists with a heavy sulphurous wrathful emphasis on this.
As he well might. As if a Cromwell in that dark huge
game he had been playing, the w(jrld wholly thrown into
chaos round him, had foirurn it all, and played it all off 20
like a jjrecontrivcd puppetshow ' by wood and wire ! These
things were foreseen by no man, he says ; no man could
tell what a day would bring forth: they were 'births of
Providence,' (lod's finger guided us on, and we came at
last to clear height of victory, C.od's Cause triumphant in
these Nations ; and you as a Parliament could assemble
together, and say in what manner all this could be (>r^',inhe<f,
reduced into rational feasibility among the affairs of men.
Vou were to help with your wise counsel in doing that.
" Vou have had sucii an opportunity as no Parliament in 30
England ever had." Christ's Law, the Right and True,
w.as to be in some measure made the T.aw of this land. In

" H' W these N'otal)lts h.ul fixed upon: H' as //.•/•••. fxcept laid
elown 2 -• not in WW- ^n-\V puppetshcw

270

LF.CTL'h'hS OX m-.KOES

place of that, you hiivu ){ot into your idle |H.*(t.uitric.s con-
stitutionalitius, l>oltonileNs cavillings und ((ucstionin^^ about
written laws for my coming hcru ; and would send the
whole matter in ( haos a};ain, iHrcausc I have no \olary'>»
parchment, but only (iod's voice from the battle-whirlwind,
for bein}; President amon^ you ! That opiMirtuuity is ^onc ,
and wc know not when it will return. Vou have had your
constitutional Lo^ic ; and Mammon's Law, not Christ's
Law, rules yet in this land, "(lod be judge between ymi

10 and me ! " These are his final words to them : Take yoii
your constitution-formulas in your hand ; and I my ///formal
struggles, purposes, realities and acts; and "(Jwl Ix; judge
between you and me ! " —

We said above what shapeless, involved chaotic things
the printed Sjieeches of ( romwell ' are. Wilfully ambigu
ous, unintelligible, say the most : a hypocrite shroudin;;
himself in confused Jesuitic jargon ! To me they do not
seem so. I will say rather, they afforded the first glimpses
I could ever get into the reality of this Cromwell, nay into

20 the possibility of him. Try to believe that he means some-
thing, search lovingly what that may be: you will find a
real speech lying imprisoned in these broken rude tortuous
utterances; a meaning in the great heart of this inarticu-
late man ! Vou will, for the first time, begin to see that hi-
was a man; not an enigmatic chimera, unintelligible t(t
you, incredible to you. I'he Histories and Hiographies
written of this Cromwell, written in shallow sceptical gen-
erations that could not know or conceive of a deep believ-
ing man, are far more obsiitn- than Cromwell's Speeches.

30 You look through them only into the infinite vague of
Black and the Inane. 'Heats and jealousies,' says Lord
Clarendon himself: 'heats and jealousies,' mere crabbed
whims, theories and crotchets ; these induced slow sober

1 ir IP Cromwell's

I ii

rill. iti:f.'o AS KixG

271

quiet Kn^liHhincn lo lay dcjvvn im ir |)lt)ii;»hH uiul work;
and (ly into red fury of confu.scd \\\x against the best-con-
ditioned of Kinj^s! I'ly if yon t.in find th.it true. Stepti-
cisnj writing; ahoiit Ik-lief iniy have ;;rLMt ^ift^ ; Imt it i!%
really /////<» -ins there. It is llliiuiness layin^-down ' the
Laws of Optics.

CromweH's third Parliament split on the >,anie rock as
hi.H second. Kver the con^tiiutional I ornnil.i llow(anK'
you there.' Show- us M)ine Notary parcliinciil ! Ulind
pedants: — "Why, sup.In the same power which makes lo
you a Parliament, tint, uid somethin;^ more, made me a
i'roteclor ! " If my Protcclorship is notliiii;^, wh.it in the
name of wonder is your l'arliamenie<''"'>hip, i rellex and
creation of thai . -

Parliaments havin^r fiil •'', th< re remained nolhinj; but
the way of Despotism. .\Iilj;Hy I M.tators, each with iiis
district, to cot-rce th»r Ko\,ilisi and oih.. r ^ainsayers, to
govern them, if not by ait of I'.irliament, then by the
sword. Fonnula sh ill not carry it, while the Reality is
here! I will go on, jiroteclinf^ ojjpressed I'rotesi.i'its :o
abroad, appointinj; just judj^es, wise manaj^ers, at lior.)'-.
cherishinjj true (iospel ministers; doiui^ the best I car. i,.
make Kngland a Christian Kn;j;lan(l, gre.iter than (;ld ki-v ^
the (^ueen of i'rotestant Christianity; I, since you wi!! w >'
help me; I while Cod leaves nic lite I Why did he noi
j;ive it up; retire into obscurity ajriin. >ince the Law would
not acknowledf^e him ? cry several. Ill it is where they
mistake. For him ther*.- was no ;^ivin<; of it up! i'rime
Ministers have governed countries, Pitt. Pombal, Choiseul ;
and their word was a law while it held : but this Prime 30
Minister was one that louhl iu>l ^,t ii-^ii^iicil. Let him once
resign, Charles .Stuart and the Cavaliers waited to kill him;
to kill the Cause and him. Unce embarked, there is no

. '1

^ r

' H' II' 111 laying down

^ II' II-" IP Shew

I I

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272

LECTUKES ON HEROES

retreat, no return. This Prime Minister could retire no
whither except into his tomb.

One is sorry for Cromwell in his old days. His com-
plaint is incessant of the heavy burden Providence has laid
on him. Heavy ; which he must bear till death. Old Colo-
nel Hutchinson,' as his wife relates it, Hutchinson,* his old
battle-mate, coming to see him on some indispensable busi-
ness, much against his will, — Cromwell 'follows him to
the door,' in a most fraternal, domestic, conciliatory style;
10 begs that he would be reconciled to him, his old brother
in arms ; says how much it grieves him to be misunderstood,
deserted by true fellow-soldiers," dear to him from of old :
the rigorous Hutchinson,* cased in his Republican ' formula,
sullenly goes hisway. — And the man's head now white;
his strong arm growing weary with its long work ! I think
always too of his poor Mother, now very old, living in that
Palace of his; a right brave woman; as indeed they lived
all an honest Cod-fearing Household there: if she heard a
shot go-olT," she thought it was her son killed. He had to
20 come to her at ' least once' a day, that she might see with
her own eyes that he was yet living. The poor old Mother !

What had this man gained ; what had he gained .' Fie

had a life of sore strife and toil, to his last day. Fame,
ambition, place in History? His dead body was hung in
chains ; his 'place in History,' —place in History forsooth !
— has been a place of ignominy, accusation, blackness and
disgrace; and here, this day, who knows if it is not rash
in me to be among the first that ever ventured to pronounce
him not a knave and liar, but a genuinely honest man!
30 Peace to him. Did he not, in spite of all, accomplish much

' "' "' Ilutrhesoii 4 n. ||2 Hii^-heson

" "' "' llutclics..n & H' IP Presbyterian

" H' IP IPfcllcjw SDlditr^, ''' II' II- IPyo off,

' " 11' 11- twice

THE IIKKO AS A/XG

273

for us ? in- walk smoothly over his j,'rcat rouj;h heroic life ;
step-over' his body sunk in the ditch tlu-re. We need not
.>////-« it, as we stej) on it ! - Let the Hero rest. It was not
to f/ufi's judgment that he appealed ; nor have men judged
him very well.

Precisely a century and a year after this of Puritanism
had got itself hushed-up- into decent composure, and its
results made smooth, in ir)SS, there hrokeout a far deeper
explosion, much more ditficult to hushup,^ known to all
mortals, and like to he long known, by the name of i'rench lo
Revolution. It is properly the third and final act of Prot-
estantism ; the explosive c(jnfiised return of mankind to
Reality and Pact, now that they were iierishing of Sem-
blance and .Sham. We call our l.n-lish Puritanism the
second act: "Well then,' the i;il)!e is true; let us go by
the liible ! " " In ( hurch," said Luther ; " In ( hurch and
State," said Cromweil, "k-t us go by what actually /, (iod's
Truth." Men have to return to reality: they cannot live
on semblance. The I'rench Kev(jlutioii, or third act, we
may well call the linal one ; for lower than that savage S,n/.s- jo
adoltism men cannot go. They stand there on the nakedest
haggard Pact, undeniable in all seasons and circumstances;
and may and must begin ;igain confidently to build-up'' from
that. The Prench explosion, like the P.nglish one. got its
King, -who had no Notary i)archmi-nt to show ■ for him-
self. W'e have still to glance for a moment at Napoleon,
our second modern King.

Napolef»n tloes by no means si-cm to me so great a man
as fromwell. His enormous victories which reached over

S 'i

' II' II- ll'lni.h ii|.,
• II' 11-^ llim

' IP II- H'str|>.,vel
"- IP 11- IP Imshca up
^IP 11= IPl;r..ki-...:! • If \V ll'l.mid uj

■ IP H- II'>law

i5-

li II

• 1.

274

I.ECTUKF.S ON Hl.KOES

all Europe, while Cromwell abode mainly in our little Enj;-
land, are but as the high slilts on which the man is seen stand
ing ;' the stature of the man is not altered thereby. 1 find
in him no such simcily as in Cromwell ; only a far inferior
sort. No silent walking, through long years, with the
Awful ' Unnamable ' of this Universe ; ' walking with God,'
as he called it ; and faith and strength in that alone : lalcnt
thought and valour, content to lie latent, then burst out as
in blaze of Heaven's lightning ! Napoleon lived in an a^je
,o when God was no longer believed ; the meaning of all
Silence, Latency, was thought to be Nonentity : he had to
bogin not out of the Puritan Bible, but out of poor Scepti-
cal Encvchpedies. This was the length the man carried it.
Meritorious to get so far. His compact, prompt, everyway -
articulate character is in itself perhaps small, compared with
our great chaotic ///articulate Cromwell's. Instead of 'dumb
Prophet struggling to speak,' we have a portentous mixture
of the Quack withal ! Hume's notion of the Fanatic-Hypo-
crite, with such truth as it has, will apply much better to
2o Napoleon than it did to Cromwell, to Mahomet or the like,
— where indeed taken strictly it has hardly any truth at
all. An element of blamable » ambition shows * itself, from
the first, in this man ; gets the victory over him at last, and
involves him and his work in ruin.

' False as a bulletin ' became a proverb in Napoleon's
time. He makes what excuse he could for it : that it was
necessary to mislead the enemy, to keep-up^ his own men's
courage, and so forth. On the whole, there « are no excuses.
A man in no case has liberty to tell lies. It had been, in
30 the long-run, better for Napoleon too if he had not told any.

1 1 IP IP Awful, rnnanieal.le II' Awful. Unnamable
■i |i' IP IPevtry-way * H' H' H' shews

« ll« IP blameabk MP IP 11^ keep up V

6 11" IP these

TlfE I fF.no AS KING

27S

In fact, if a man have any purpose reachinj; beyond the
hour and day, meant to be found extant luwl day, what
good can it ever be to iiromulgate lies ? I'he lies are found-
out ' ; ruinous penalty is exacted for them. No man will
believe the liar next time even when he speaks truth, when
it is of the last importance that he be believed. The old
cry of wolf ! *- A Lie is //c-thing ; you cannot of nothinj.'
make something ; you make nothing at last, and lose your
labour into the bargain.

Vet Napoleon luiJ a sincerity: we are to distinguish be- ic
tween what is superficial and what is fundamental in insin-
cerity. Across these outer manctuverings- and quackeries
of his, which were many and most blamable,^ let us discern
withal that the man had a certain instinctive ineradicable
feeling for reality ; and did base himself upon fact, so long
as he had any basis. He has an instinct of Nature better
than his culture was. His savnns, Hourrienne tells us, in
that voyage to Kgypt were one evening busily occupied
arguing that there could be no (lod. They had proved it,
to their satisfaction, by all manner of logic. Napoleon ::o
looking up into the stars, answers, " \\.ry ingenious. Mes-
sieurs : but w/io made all that ? " The Atheistic logic runs-
ofT* from him like water; the great I-'act stares him in the
face: "Who made al! that?" So too in Practice: he, as
every man that can be great, or have victory in this world,
sees, througii all entanglements, the i)ractical heart of the
matter; drives straight towards tliat. When the steward
of his Tuileries Palace was exhibiting the new upholstery,
with praises, and demonstration how glorious it was, and
how cheaj) withal. Napoleon, making little answer, asked 30
for a pair of scissors, dipt one of th>' gold t,i^>.cls frf»m a
window-curtain, ])ut it in his pocket, and walked on. Some

' II' 11= H' found Mut
- II' II- II' maii(LUvriiu;s

' M' ir 1.!..iiil:.!.Iu.
* II' II- IP runs off

■ f

276

LECTURES OxY HEROES

days afterwards, he produced it at the right moment, to the
horror of his upholstery functionary ; it was not gold but
tinsel ! In Saint Helena, it is notable how he still, to his
last days, insists on the practical, the real. "Why talk
and complain ; above all, why quarrel with one another ?
There is no result^ in it ; it comes to nothing that one can
do. Say nothing, if one can do nothing ! " He speaks
often so, to his poor discontented followers ; he is like a
piece of silent strength in the middle of their morbid

10 querulousness there.

And accordingly was there not wiiat we can call a faith
in him, genuine so far as it went ? That this new enor-
mous Democracy asserting itself here in the French Revo-
lution is an insuppressible Fact, which the whole world,
with its old forces and institutions, cannot put down ; this
was a true insight of his, and took his conscience and en-
thusiasm along with it, — -x faith. And did he not iTiterpret
the dim purport of it well ? '■I. a carricre ouverte a//.\ takns,
The implements to him who can handle them : ' this actu-

20 ally is the truth, and even the whole truth ; it includes what-
ever the French Revolution, or any Revolution, could mean.
Napoleon, in his fir:,t period, was a true F)emocrat. .And
yet by the nature of him, fostered too by his military trade,
he knew that Democracy, if it were a true thing at all, could
not be an anarchy : the ni.ui had a heart-hatred for anarchy.
On that Twentieth of June ( 1792), 15ourrienne and he sat
in a coffee-house, as the nioh rolled by : Napoleon expresses
the deejjest contempt for persons in authority that they do
not restrain tliis rabble. On the Tenth of .\ugust he won-

30 ders wliy there is no man to command these poor Swiss :
they would concn'.er if tliere were. Such a faith in Demor
racy, yet hatred of anarchy, it is that carries Napoleon

through all his great work.

1 ir 11-^

Throujih his brilliant Italian

I csultut

Tl/K HE NO AS A'/XO

277

Campaigns, onwards to the Peace of Leoben,' one would
say, his inspiration is ; ' i'riuiuph to the French Revolution;
assertion of it against these Austrian Simulacra that pre-
tend to call it a Simulacrum ! ' Witlial, however, he feels,
and has a right to feel, how necessary a strong Authority
is ; how the Revolution cannot prosper or last without such.
To bridle-in - that great devouring, self-devouring French
Revolution ; to /<////<■ it, so that its intrinsic purpose can be
made good, tl. t it may Ijcconie ori^'.ini,; and be able to live
among other organisms and /ivwcv/ things, not as a wasting lo
destruction alone- is nut this still what he partly aimed
at, as the true purfwrt of his life: nay what he actually
managed to do ? "Through \\ agrams, Austerlitzes ; triumph
after triumph, — he triumphed so far. There was an eye
to see in this man, a soul to dare and do. lie rose natu-
rally to be the King. All men saw that he liUis such. The
common soldiers used to say on the march : *• i'hese bab-
bling Ai'Ourts, up at Paris ; all talk and no work ! What
wonder it runs all wrong .' We shall have to go and put our
J\tit Caporal there ! " Tiiey went, and put him there ; they 20
and France at large. Chief-consulship, Emperorship, vic-
tory over Europe ; — till the poor Lieutenant of La Fere, not
unnaturally, might seem to himself the greatest of all men
that had been in the world for some ages.

but at this point, I think, the fatal charlatan-element got
the upper hand. He apostatised from his old faith in I'acts,
took to believing in .Semblances; strove t> connect him-
self with Austrian Dynasties, Pojiedoins, witli the old false
Feudalities, which he once saw clearly to be f iImc ; con-
sidered that //<■ would found "his Dynasty" and so forth ; 30
that the enormous French Revolution nu-ant (mlv tiiai!
The man was 'given-up' to strong delusion, iliat he sliould

' IP \mi\m\ - 11' l,rull<; Ml

•' II' H- II 'given up

1-f

278

I.F.CTrKF.S OX IIF.KOI.S

Cf^

believe a lie;' a fearful but most sure thing. He did not
know true from false now when he looked at them, — the
fearfulest' penalty a man pays for yielding to untruth of
heart. Self-xnA false ambition had now become his god :

* «/>^deception once yielded to, all other deceptions follow
naturally more and more. What a paltry patchwork of
theatrical paper-mantles, tinsel and mummery, had this
man wrapt his own great reality in, thinking to make it
more real thereby! His hollow I'()pe's-6W<-^'/-//«/, pretend-

10 ing to be a re-establishment of Catholicism, felt by himself
to be the method of extirpating it, "/</ liiccinc lie la religion."
his ceremonial Coronations, consecrations by the old Italian
Chimera in Notre-Dame, —"wanting nothing to complete
the pomp of it," as Augereau said, "nothing but the half-
million of men who had died to put an end to all that"!
tTomwell's Inauguration was by the Sword and Bible;
what we must call a genuinely trut' one. Sword and Bible
were borne before him, without any chimera: were not
these the ;<V7/ emblems of Puritanism; its true decoration

20 and insignia? It had used them both in ^. very real man-
ner, and pretended io stand by them now ! But this poor
Napoleon mistook : he believed too much in the Diipe-
tibility of men ; saw no fact deeper in man than Hunger
and this! He was mistaken. Like a man that should
build upon cloud ; his house ;ind he tall down in confused
wreck, and depart out of llie world.

Alas, in all of us this charlatan-element exists; and might
be developed, were tiio temptation strong enough. » Lead
us not into temptation ' ! I'.ut it is fatal, I say, that it be

30 developed. The thiuLj into which it enters as a co<inisable
ingredient is ilooniod tf) be altogetlier transitory ; and.
however hu;,'e it may /''.'/(•, is in itself small. Napoleon's
working, accordingly, what was it with all the noise it

IlMcaifulhst

TllK HKKO AS k/Xa

279

made? A flash as of gunpowdtT wide-spread; a blazing-
up as of dry heath. For an hour the whole Universo
seems wrapt in smoke and flame; but only for an hour.
It goes out : the Universe with its old mountains and
streams, its stars above and kind soil beneath, is still there.

The Duke of Weimar told his friends always, To be of
courage; this Napoleonism was unjust, a falsehood, and
could not last. It is true doctrine. The heavier this
Napoleon trampled on the world, iioldin^ it tyrannously
down, the flercer would the world's recoil against him be, \o
one day. Injustice pays itself with frightful compound-
interest. I am not sure but he had better have lost his
best park of artillery, or had his best regiment drowned in
the sea, than shot that poor (lerman Hookseiler, I'alm!
It was a palpable tyrannous murderous injustice, which no
man, let him paint an inch thick, could make-out' to be
other. It burnt deep into the hearts of men, it and the
like of it; suppressed tire flashed in the eyes of men, as
they thought of it, — waiting their day ! Which day <•<////<••
(lermany rose round him. — What Napoleon <//</will in the 20
long-run amount to what he d\A Jiisf/y; what Nature with
her laws will sanction. To what of reality was in him ; to
that and nothing more. The rest was all smoke and waste.
/.<i iiirrihr ourcrfi- aux fii/ins : that great true Message,
which has yet to articulate and fultil itself everywhere, he
left in a most inarticulate state. He was a great ehanche,
a rude-draught never- completed-; as indeed what great
man is other''? Left in too rude a state, alas!

His notions of the world, as he expresses them there at
•St. Helena, are almost tragical to consider. He seems to 30
feel the most unaffected surprise that it has all gone so ;
that he is flun^r-out ' on the rock here, and the World is

I M

1 W W II" make out
^•-' not III 11' IP

■'■ II' H' nut

* 11' 11- IPriunguut

280

I.IICTIKKS OX HEROES

I f

I-

Still moving' on its axis. France is great, and all-great ;
and at bottom, he is France. Fn},'iand itself, he says, is
by Nature only an api^ndaye of France; "another Isle of
Oleron to France." So it was h Xifun; by Napoleon-
Nature ; and yet look how in fact — Hkrk am I ! He can-
not understand it : inconceivable that the reality has not
corresponded to his pro<,'ram of it ; that France was not
:ill-}jreat, that he was not France. '.Strong delusion,' that
he should believe the thing to be which is not ! The com-
10 p.ict, clear-seeing, decisive Italian nature of him, strong,
genuine, which he once had, has enveloped itself, half-
dissolved' itself, in a turbid atmosphere of French fanfar-
onade.'' The world was not disposed to be trodden-down '
underfoot ; to be bound into masses, and built together, as
/le liked, for a pedestal to France and him : the world had
quite other purposes in view! Naiwleon's astonishment is
extreme. Hut alas, what help now .> He had gone that
way of his; and Nature also had gone her way. Having
once parted with Reality, he tumbles helpless in Vacuity':
^o no rescue for him. He had to sink there, mournfully as
man .seldom did ; and break his great heart, and die,—
this poor Napoleon : a great im])Iement too soon wasted,
till it was useless • our last Great Man !

Our last, in a double sense. For here linailv these wide
roamings of ours through so many times and places, in
search and stu.ly of Heroes, arc to terminate. I am sorry
for it: there was pleasure for me in tliis business, if also
much i)ain. It is a great subject, and a most grave an<l
wide one, this which, not to be too gnive about it, I have
30 named /f,-ro--a<ors/iip. It enters deeitiy, as 1 think, into
the secret of Mankinds ways and vitaiest ' interests in

' H' 11^ IPhalf .lissolvcd
MI« IIMP Fanfaronade.

■' II' II- !I' trixldLii down
•• IP vilallest

THE ni-.NO AS KING

281

this \v(trl(l, iind is well worth L'xi)!.iininx it present. With
six months, instead tif six d.iys, we x\\v^\\\ have done better.
I promised to breiik-;;roiind ' on it ; I know not whether I
have evin manaj;ed to do that. I have had to tear it u|>
in the rudest manner in order to j;et into it at all. Often
enou;,di, with these al)riii)t utterances throw n-ouf isolated,
unexplained, has your tolerance been put to the trial.
Tolerance, p;'tient candour, all hopinj; favour and kindness,
which I will not sjieak of at i)resent. ihe .accomplished
and distinj,'uished, the beautiful, tiic wise, somethinj; of lo
what is best in Kn<;Iand, have listened patiently to my rude
words. With many feelin;,'s, I heartily thank you all; and
say, (lood be with you ail !

' II' II-' IPlmak Kroumi

II' II- IP thrown out

X . IJ

I .

i:
f I;

■v-f- \\

if'

"ij

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CARLYF.KS SCMMAkY

ft*

LKCTiJki: I

THE HERO AS OIVIMTV. or»t\. lAOAMSM : S( AMHXAVU.V

MVTIIOI.CMiV

Heroes: Universal History consists essentiallv nf their unitt-.l
IMoKraphies. Kelinion not a man's iliiir. ii-i nid. hut liis pr.u tit al
6t/ie/A\yout himself and tlie I nivers.. : Untli with Mm and Nations
it is the One fact aljout them whirl, crcativtiv d.tcrmiius all the
rest. Heathenism: Christianity: Mod, rn Snptii i>ni. The Hero
as Divinity. Pajjanism a fai t ; not Ouai kcrv. nor .MiLuorv : Not
to be pretentiously -explained '; to he h)oked at as old Thought.
and with sympathy (p. i ).

Nature no more seems divine except to the I' rojjhet or Poet,
because men have ceased to //»;/>(•.• To the I'ayan Thinkir. as t.,
a child-man, all was either godlike or (Jod. Canopus : Man.
Hero-worship the basis of Religion. I.oyaltv. Society. A Hero
not the 'creature of the time": Hero-worship indestructihi.'.
Johnson : Voltaire (8).

.Scandinavian Paganism the Kelij,don of our Fathers. Ireland,
the home of the Xorse I'oets. described. TIk- /CMi. Ihe prin,..ry
characteristic of Xorse Paganism, the impensonation of tiie vi.sihie
workings of Nature. Jotuns and the < iods. Kire : IVost : 'riiunder :
The Sun : Sea-Tempest. Mythus of the Creation : The Life-
Tree Igdrasil. The modern ^ Afni/iiiu- of the Universe' ( i,S).

The Norse Creed, as recorded, the summation of several suc-
cessive sy.stems : Originally tlie shape ^iven to the national thought
hy their first • Man of C.enius.' Odin : He has no history or date ;
yet was no mere adjective, but a man of tiesh and l)lood. Ilou
deified. The World of Nature, to every man a Fantasy of Him-
self (24).

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Bf:

284

LECTURES ON HEROES

Odin tlie inventor of Runes, of Letters and Poetry. His recep-
tion as a Hero : tlie pattern Norse-Man ; a Cod : His shadow over
the whole History of his People (31).

The essence of Norse Paganism, not so much Morality, as a
sincere recognition of Nature: Sincerity Ijetter than ( Gracefulness.
The Allegories, the after-creations of the Faith. Main practical
IJelief: Hall of Odin: Valkyrs: Destiny: Necessity of Valour.
Its worth : Their Sea-Kings, Woodcutter Kings, our spiritual
Progenitors. The growth of Odinism (34).

The strong simplicity of Norse lore cjuite unrecognised by Gray.
Thor's veritable Norse rage : ISalder, tlie wliite Sungod. How
the old Norse heart loves the Thunder-god, and sports with him :
Huge Brobdingnag genius, needing only to be tamed-down into
Shakspeares, Goetlies. Truth in the Norse Songs : This World a
show. Thor's Invasion of Jotunheim. The Ragnarok, or Twi-
light of the Gods : The Old must die, that the New and Better
may be born. Thor's last appearance. The Norse Creed a Con-
secration of Valour. It and the whole Past a possession of the
Present (39).

LECi JRE II

THE HERO AS PROPHET. MAHOMET: ISLAM

The Hero no longer regarded as a God, but as one god-inspired.
All Heroes primarily of the same stuff ; differing according to their
reception. The welcome of its Heroes, the truest test of an epoch.
Odin : Burns (p. 48).

Mahomet a true Prophet; not a scheming Impostor. A Great
Man, and therefore first of all a sincere man : No man to be
judged merely by his faults. David the Hebrew King. Of all
acts for man repentance the most divine : The deadliest sin, a
supercilious consciousness of none (50).

Arabia described. The Arabs always a gifted people ; of wild
strong feelings, and of iron restraint over these. Their Religiosity ;
Their Star-worship : Their Prophets and inspired men ; n Job
downwards. Tlieir Holy Places. Mecca, its site, hi y and
government (54).

Mahomet. His youth : His fond Grandfather. Had no book-
learning : Travels to the Syrian Fairs ; and first comes in contact

CARL VLB'S Si'ALUAK V

2S5

with the Christian Religion. An aitojjethcr solid, hrotherly, genu-
ine man : A good laugh, and a good Hash of anger in him withal
(S8).

Marries Kadijah. Hegins his I'rophet-career at forty years of
age. Allah Akbar ; ('.oi\ is great: Islam; we must submit to
Clod. Do we not all live in Islam.? .Mahomet, -the Prophet of
God' (6 1).

The good Kadijah believes in him : Mahomet's gratitude. His
slow progress: Among forty of liis kindred, young Ali alone
joined him. His good Uncle expostulates with" him: Maliomet,
bursting into tears, persists in his mission. The Hegira. Propa-
gating by the sword : First get your sword : A thing will propagate
itself as it can. Nature a just umpire. Mahomet's Creed un-
speakably better than tiie wooden idolatries and jangling Syrian
Sects extirpated by it (66).

The Koran, the universal standard of Mahometan life: An
imperfectly, badly written, Ijut genuine book : Ivnthusiastic extem-
pore preaching, amid the hot haste of wrestling with tiesh-an.l-
blood and spiritual enemies. Its direct poetic insight. The
World, Man, human Compassion ; all wliolly miraculous to Ma-
homet (73).

His religion did not succeed by ' being easv ' : None can. The
sensual part of it not of Mahomet's making. He himstlf, frugal ;
patched his own clothes ; proved a hero in a rough actual trial of
twenty-three years. Traits of his generosity and resignation.
His total freedom from cant (So).

His moral precepts not always of the superfinest sort ; yet is
there always a tendency to good in them. His Heaven and Hell
sensual, yet not altogether so. Infinite Nature of Duty. The
evil of sensuality, in the slavery to jjlea.sant things, not in the en-
joyment of them. Mahometanism a religion heartily hilieved.
To the Arab Nation it was as a birth from darkness ii.to light:
Arabia first became alive by means ol it (S4).

^ M

286 LECTURES ON HEROES

LECTURE HI

THE HERO AS POET. DANTE; SHAKSPEARE

The Hero as Divinity or Prophet, inconsistent with the modern
progress of science: The Hero I'oet, a figure common to all ages.
All Heroes at bottom the same ; the different sphere constituting
the grand distinction: Examples. Varieties of aptitude (p. 89).

Poet and Prophet meet in I'ates : Their (iospel the same, for
the Beautiful and the ( iood are one. All men somewhat of poets ;
and the highest Poets far from perfect. Prose, and Poetry or
musical Thoiii^ht. Song a kind of inarticulate uiifathomaI)le
speech: All deep things are Song. The Hero as Divinity, as
Prophet, and then only as Poet, no indication chat our estimate
of the Great Man is diminishing: The Poet seems to be losing
caste, but it is rather that our notions of God are rising higher (91 ).

Shakspeare and Dante, Saints of Poetry. Dante : His history,
in his Book and Portrait. His scholastic education, and its fruit
of subtlety. His miseries: Love of Beatrice: His marriage not
happy. A banished man : Will never return, '* to plead guilty
be the condition. His wanderings: ''■Come uuro calie" At
the Court of Delia Scala. The great soul of Dante, homeless on
earth, made its home more and more in Eternity. His mvstic,
unfathomable Song. Deatli : Buried at Ravenna (98).

His Divina Commedia a Song: (Jo lieep enough, there is music
everywhere. The sincerest of Poems : It has all been as if molten,
in the hottest furnace of his soul. Its Intensity, and Pictorial
power. The three parts make-up the true Unseen World of the
Middle Ages: How the Christian Dante felt Good and Evil to he
the two polar elements of this Creation. Paganism and Christian-
ism (103).

Ten silent centuries found a voice in Dante. The thing that is
uttered from the inmost parts of a man's soul differs altogether
from what is uttered by the outer. The ' uses ' of Dante : We
will not estimate the Sun by the quantity of gas it saves us. Ma-
homet and Dante v-ontrasted. Let a man tfo his work ; the fruit
of it is the care of .Anotlier than lie (112).

As Dante iml)0(lies musically the Inner Life of the Middle
Ages, su does Shaks))e;ue embody the Outer Life which grew

CAKLVLE'S SUMMARY

287

therefrom. The strange outbudding of English Existence which
we call ' Elizabethan Era.' Shakspeare the chief of all Poets :
His calm, all-seeing Intellect : His marvellous Portrait-painting

(HS).

The Poet's first gift, as it is all men's, that he have intellect
enough, — tliat he be able to see. Intellect the summary of all
human gifts : Human intellect and vulpine intellect contrasted.
Shakspeare's instinctive unconscious greatness: His works a part
of Nature, and partaking of her inexhaustible depth. Shakspeare
greater than Dante ; in that he not only sorrowed, but triumphed
over his sorrows. His mirthfulness, and genuine overflowing love
of laughter. His Historical Plays, a kind of National Epic. The
IJattle of Agincourt : A noble Patriotism, far other than the ' in-
difference ' sometimes ascribed to him. His works, like so many
windows, tlirough which we see glimpses of the world that is in
him (120).

Dante the melodious Priest of Middle-Age Catholicism: Out
of this Shakspeare too there rises a kind of Universal Psalm,
not unfit to make itself heard among still more sacred Psalms.
Shakspeare an 'unconscious Prophet'; and therein greater and
truer than Mahomet. This poor Warwickshire Peasant worth
more to us than a whole regiment of highest Dignitaries: Indian
Empire, or Shakspeare, — which ? An English King, whom no
time or chance can dethrone : A raliying-sign anu bond of brother-
hood for all Saxondom : Wheresoever English men and women
are, they will say to one another, ' Yes. this Shakspeare is ouxsT

(127).

LECTURE IV

THE HKRO AS PRIKST. LUTHER; REFORMATION: KNOX;
PURITANISM

The Priest a kind of Prophet ; but more familiar, as the daily
enlightener of daily life. A true Reformer he who appeals to
Heaven's invisible justice against Earth's visible force. The
finished Poet often a symptom that his epoch iteelf has reached
perfection, and finished. Alas, the battling Reformer, too, is at
times a needful .nnr! inevitable jilicnomenon : Offences do accu-
mulate, till they become insupportable. Forms of Belief, modes

"51

288

Vtli

i: J

LECTUKES ON HEKOEi

of life must perish ; yet the (;,„ ' of the I'ast survives, an ever
lasting' possession for us all (p. 132).

Idols, or visible recognised Syml.ols. conim.n to ail Relii,nons-
Hateful only when insincere: The property of every Hero, that
he come back to sincerity, to reality: Protestantism and 'private
judgment Nr ming communion possiI,le a.nonj; men «h..

ou to7r ' '" ^^ '""' "-°-''---'>-' -ho delivers n,en

out of darkness mto l,«ht. \ot abolition of Hero-worship does
I rotestantism mean ; but rather a whole World of Heroes of ,i„.
cere, believing men (I3<S).

Luther; his obscure, seemin«ly.insi«nificant birth. His vouth
schooled m adversity and stern reality. Hecomes a Monk ' His
religious despair : Discovers a Latin IJible : Xo wonde • he should
venerate the IJible. He visits Rome. Meets the I'ope's fire llv
fire At the Diet of Worms : The greatest moment in the modern
History of men (146).

Tl^oM^u'r". '*'^°"°''"' ^"■' "°' '" '"= '''^'''^^'^ '" t''^ Reformation.
The Old Religion once true : The cry of • Xo Popery ' foolish enough

Frlnl p'^'"i '.'■°^^«'f *'«■" ""^ ^--^'1 = < German Literature and the
!• reach Revolution rather considerable signs of life' (156)

How Luther held the sovereignty of the Reformation and kept

strength: His d.akct became the language of all writing. X,',
mortal heart to be called braver, ever lived in that Teutonic- Kin-
dred, whose character is valour: ^■et a most gentle heart withal
full of pity and love, as the truly valiant heart ever is: Traits of
character from his Table-Talk : His daughter's Deathbed- The
miraculous in Xature. His love of Music. His Portrait r, vS)

I uritanism the only phasis of Protestantism that ripened into a
living faith : Defective enough, but genuine. Its fruit in the world
Tl,e sailing of the Mayflower from Delft Haven the beginnin-^ of
American Saxondom. In the history of .Scotland properly "but
one epoch of world-interest. - the Reformation by Knox- a
' nation of heroes ' : a believing nation. The Puritanism of .Scot-
land became that of England, of Xew England (164)

Knox 'guilty' of being the bravest of all Scotchmen: Did not
seek the post of Prophet. At tiie siege of St. Andrew's Castle
Lmphatically a sincere man. A (;alley-slavo on the River I oire'
An Old-Hebrew Prophet, in the gui.se of an Edinburgh Minister
ot the Sixteenth Century ( 1 6.S).

CARL YLK'S SUMMAR Y

289

Knox and (Juecn Mary : ' Who are you, that presume to school
the nobles and sovereijin of this realm ? ' ' Madam, a subject horn
within the same.' His intolc-..iice — of falsehoods and knaveries.
Not a mean acrid man : else he had never been virtual President
and Sovereign of .Scotland. His unexpected vein of drollery:
A cheery social man; practical, cautious-hopeful, patient. His
'devout imai^ination ' of a Theocracy, or (Government «)f Clod.
Hildebrand wished a Theocracy; Cromwell wished it, fought for
it : Mahomet attained it. In one form or other, it is the one thing
to be struggled for (171).

LKCTUKK V

TIIK HKKO .\S MAN OK I.KTTKKS. JOHNSON, KOUSSKAl', IIUKNS

The Hero as Man of Letters altogether a product of these new
ages : A Heroic Soul in very strange guise. Literary men ; genu-
ine and spurious. Fichte's 'Divine Idea of the World': His
notion of the True Man of Letters. Goethe, the Pattern Literary
Hero (p. 177).

The disorganised condition of Literature, the summary of all
otiier modern disorganisations. The Writer of a true Hook our
true modern Preacher. Miraculous inHuence of Hooks: The
I lebrew Bible. Books are now our actual I niversity, our Church,
our Parliament. With Books, Democracy is inevitable. TJioiiji^/tt
the true thaumaturgic influence, by which man works all things
whatsoever (1S2).

Organisation of the 'Literary Guild': Needful discipline;
' priceless lessens ' of Poverty. The Literary Priesthood, and its
importance to societ). Chinese Literary Governors, lalkn into
strange times ; and strange things need 10 he 'ipeculat'M uo'^n (190).

An age of Scepticism: The very possibility of H rc'sm for-
mally abnegated. Benthamism an rtv/i'Jj Heroism, ^icepticism.
Spiritual Paralysis, Insincerity: Heroes gone-out; Qu-'^'I^s come-
in. Our brave Chatham himself lived t' . strangest mimetic life
all along. X'iolent remedial revulsions : artisms. French Revo-
lutions : The Age of Scepticism passing away. Let each Man
look to the mending of his own Life {195;.

Johnson one of our Oeat English Souls. His miserable Youth

■^* it

# -

a , ■■
n; :

290

LECTUJiKS OX HEROES

and Hypochondria: Stubborn Stlf-hdp. His loyal submission
to what is really higher than himself. How he stood by the old
Formulas : Not less original for that. Formulas ; their Use and
Abuse. Johnson's unconscious sincerity. His Twofold (Josj^el,
a kind of Moral I'rudente and clear Hatred of Cant. His writings
sincere and full of substance. Architectural nol)leness of his
Dictionary. Hoswell, with all his faults, a true hero-worshipper
of a true Hero (204).

Rousseau a morbid, excitable, spasmodic man ; intense rather
than strong. Had not the invalual)le 'talent of Silence.' His
Face, expressive of his character. His Ego.sm : Hungry for the
praises of men. His books : Passionate appeals, which did once
more struggle towards Reality : A Prophet to his Time ; as he
could, and as the Time could. Ro.sepink, and artificial bedizen-
ment. Fretted, exasperated, till tiie heart of him went mad: He
could be cooped, starving, into garrets ; laugiicd at as a maniac ;
but he could not be hindered from setting the world on fire (212).
Burns a genuine Hero, in a withered, unl)elieving, secondhand
Century. The largest .soul of all the British lands, came among
us in the shape of a hard-handed Scottish Peasant. His heroic
Father and Mother, and tiieir sore struggle through life. His
rough untutored dialect: Affectionate joyousness. His writings
a poor fragment of him. His conversational gifts : High duch-
esses and low ostlers alike fa.scinated by him {216).

Resemblance between Burns and Alirabeau. Official Superiors :
The greatest ' thinking-faculty ' in this land superciliously dispensed
with. Hero-worship under strange conditions. The notablest
phasis of Burns's history his visit to Edinburgh. For one man
who can stand prosperity, there are a hundred that will stand
adversity. Literary Lionism (220).

LECTURE VI

THE .lERO AS KING. rUOMWEl.L, NAPOLEON
RKVOLUTIO.NISM

MODERN

The King the most important of (ireat Men ; the summary of
all the various figures of Heroism. To enthrone the Ablest Man,
the true business of all Social procedure ; The Ideal of Constitu-

ill

CAhJ.VI./.S St .UMAh\'

2f)\

tions. Tolerable and intolerabl- approximations. Divine KiKhls
ami Diabolic Wrongs (p. 2:15). ,,, ., .

The world's sad predicament: that of liaviny _its_Al)le-Mj>Ji t<>
seek, and' not knowing in vvl.at manner to pnn in^d aJ)oyL''- ' 'i*-'
e?i of Mod"ernl<?:olv.ti<.nism dates from Lutlier. I lie French
Revolution no mere act 01 (.en.ral Insanity: Truth cl;ul m hell-
tire- the Trump of Do..m to I'iausibiliti.s and i-mpty Routme.
The'cryof •l.il)ettv and K-iuaiity ' at l.ottum tho repudiation of
sham Heroes. 1 le'ro-worslii^ exists forey:i^aml_evci2wlicre ; Ijom
divine ador.itioii clownjojhe comnioiijjJiLrtes.ies «>l man and man:
The'soulof Order, to wliicli all tliin-s, Revolutions included, work.
Some Cromwell or .Vii.oleon the neccssan- tijiish .d Sanscul.mism.
The matiner in which Kind's were made, and Kiniishi^^UselMirst

took ri.se ^2 29).^ -,,,•.■ • ,

-FlBtanism a section ofth.. nnivers:d war ..t I'.eli.l a.i;amst
Make'-FeTiTve. Laud a weak ill-starred Pedant: in liis spasmodic
vehemence 'heeding no voice of prudence, no cry of pity. Uni-
versal necessitv for true Forms: How to distinguish between
True and False. Tlie nakedist R.ality prefend.le to any empty
Semblance, however di,i,'nitied (234).*

The work of tlie I'uritans. The Sceptical Kightecnth century,
and its constitutional estimate of Cromwell and his associates. No
wish to dispara-e such charactus as Hampden, l-.liot I'ym : a
most constitutional, unblamal .Ic, .li-niticl set of men. "I he ru.u..;cd
outcast Cromwell, the man of them all in wh-,.m one stdl linds
>,mian stuff. The One thin^ worth revolting t'-r (^37)-

Cromwell-s ■ hvi.o.Tisv.- an imimssil.K- the..ry. Ihs pious Life

. a Farmer until' forty years of ..-e. 1 1 is public successes honest

.accesses ..f a brave man. His parti.ipation in the km- s <leath

no .rround of condemnati..n. 1 1 is eye for f :icts no inpocnte s gift.

His Ironsides the c-mbodiment of this insi-ht ot h.s (zr~)-

Know the men that may be trusted : .Mas. this ,s yet. m these
days, verv far from us. Cromweirs lupochon.lnn : His reputed
confusion of speech: His habit of prayer. His speeches unpre-
meditated and full of meaning. His ,rtnc>,<rs ; called • ,.ig
and 'dissimulation': Not one f:dsehood proved against him

^'■^Foolish charge of ' ambition.' Tl:e gre:U E.npire of Silence :
Noble silent men. seattered hen- .n.! there, each m his depart-
ment: silendv thinking, silently hoping, silently wnri.u>g. U^O

ill

292

i-aCTU/iJiS ON HKfiOKS

• f\

Humes fanatic- Hypocrite thenrv u^ • ..
where a A'/Wi^is in nil n, I' ""^'^ '"dispensable every-

Puritanism ^o ^.■n: n?r?^"'r. ""' ^'"^l ^-'"well, a., Kin« . f

'•Ut the way of I)c , "tUm il ' •"""'""'' ""'"""t' for hin,
Mother. It\va., not o „•, 'll '^'-'"« /'«>-: His pcH,r ol.l
have men Ju.l^ed h.n, ^ryweU 7'ST ' '"^ '''''''''' ' "''^

The French Revolution, the 'third irt' of i.

H«

IP . .

C.A./,.
(•/../.. .

Hssity r

Hon .

I'.J.tll. .
Utt. . .
Mhluht .
E.-Corr. .
L.I.. . .

/..an,/ A/. .

Koran . .

C- Trans. .
Sartor . .
Tcut.Myth.

AHHRKVIATIONS

. (>n Hi-r<K%, ll».r..-W..r>lii|.. 4ml the H.rolc In IIMory. Six
l^tures; H.'portfd with Kntendithuw and Addition*. Hy
ThnMLiH Carlyk-. I.imd., 1841.
. <hi llcnic-s ll.r(.-\V>.Mhi|), and the Heroic in History. Six
Leitur.n: Ri.,«)rtid with Knicndatlons and A.lditi.ms. Hy
'Ihonian Carlyle. Sicond Kdition. I.ond., iS^j.
. On ll.riK-., H.ro.\Vnr),hlp, and tliu Htroic In History. Six
r-fcturen: Kf,Hirt.d with Knwnd.itlon* and Additions. Ity
Thonm Carlyli-. Tliird Edition. I.ond., 1.S46.
. Thonw!* tarlylf. A History of tlio First l"rty V.-ars of I 111
I.lfi', b) iniis Anthony Iroiidu. a vols. I.ond., iSiji.
■rhonus Crlyli.. A lli.torv of HU Lift- in l.omlon, by Janws
Anihonv Kroudo. 2 vols. I.ond., iSwi.
. Critii.il .,,,,1 .Ml,nll.,noous Kss-iys: ClU'ttrd and Kepublishi-d
by 'I li..in.is C.iilyl,.. 4 vols. Iloston, i.M.o.
Ken.lnis,,na-s by I honias Cirlyl.^. Kijitud by Charlt's Kllof

Norton. J vols. l.ond., I.S.S;.
l:.irly I .tttTs of I hom.iH Carlyle, !Si4-i,Sjr,. Kdlted by Charles
i;iiot Norton. I.ond., iS.Sr).
. I.etf.rs of Thomas C.irlylf, i,S2r,-,,Sj6. Kdlted by Charles Kllot
Norton. I.ond., i.S.S;.
lb.- I. if- of I.ntlKr Written by llinistdf. ColU-ctud and Arranst-d

by M. .Mil hilet. Tr.insLitud by Win. Il.izlitt. I..,nd., 184*,.
■riic Corrisix.ndfncc of Thomas Carlyl,. .md K.ilph Waldo

i:niers.in. i.S,4-i,S;2. 2 vols. Iloston, i.S,,,,.
I.ictuns on tlif History of l.lfer.itun.. Delivered by Thomas
Carlyle, April to July, iSjS. Now I'rinted for tlu; I'irst Time.
Kditfd, with I'refatu and Notes, by I'rof. J, Kcay Greene.
I.ond., iS(;2.
Lettirs and Memorials of J,,ne Welsh Carlyle. I'repared for
ri.l>lication by -ihom.is Carlyle. ICdited by James Anthony '
Kroude. 3 vols. I.ond., 1.SS3.
The Koran: Commonly Called the Alcoran of Mohammed;
Transl.i'.jd into Knglish . . . by GeorRe Sale, (Jent. A New
V.C\>' I.ond., William TeRg, n.d.

'.'"ales I., .vlnsaus. Tieck, Richfer. Translatetl fr.ini the German

by Tliom.is Carlyle. 2 vols. I.ond., 1874.
Carlyle, S.irtor Kes;irtus. Kdlted by Archibald MacMechan.

Iloston, i.S<)(). Atliena-um I'ress Series.
Teutonic Mytbolotv. l!y J.irob Grimm. Tr.-inslatid from the
Fourth Edition b> James Steven SUllybrass. 4 vols. Lond..
1882. '

NOTES

LECTURE 1. THE HERO AS DIVINITY

Park 1, Link 6 Hero-worihip. Hume makes uHe of thiM term. If
he did not invent it. In dis. ussinj,' polytheism, he says. •• The same
pnnciples naturally deify mortals superior in power, murage. ..r under-
standmK, and produ.-, ■ ero-worship." II. mk. Xatural lluton- of
Kthgton, Sect. iv. v. p. 144. Kciin.. 1S54. Cp. "The secnd opinion is.
that their gods were simply their kings and heroes, whom they after-
wards -eified." /../.. , ,. ..Is there .,ot .still in the worl "s demeanour
towards (Ireat Men enough to make the old practice of Ihro-lVorship
intelligible, nay significant .> " Essays, Goethe's Works, III. ifo. " I oy.
alty. iJiscipleship. all that was ever meant hy //erc-lfors/ii/', lives
perennially in the human bosom." Essays, Hos-wetVs L,/e of JoI.hsoh,

1 10 Universal History, etc. •' Hi-story is the essence of innumer-
able Biographies." Essays, 0„ Jf,sto,u II. 231. Cp. i\ nwiiraPhy,
III. 54, foot; and Heroes, n.

2 17 well with them. Adaptation of Matt. xvii. 4.
4 11 Surely it seems. Cp. infra, 6 I6 n.

4 33 mere quackery. Cp. "To tell fab-.u. stories of that
kind does not seem a natural proce.^- in the d:l. ■,.n -if .science No
man in such a case would have .^.r l„wn to ,, -ke out something
which all the while he knew to be a lie ; no serious mai, would do it "
L.L. II.

5 96 Turner's Account. Captain Samuel Turner. He reached
Thibet just after the death of one lama and the installation of another
a baby eighteen months old. See his Aaount of an F.p bassv to the
Court of the Teshoo Lama in ThiM, cap. viii, pp. 310-316. ' I.ond.,
1800. In H' this reads 'Hamilton's Travels into.' Kvidently Car-
iyle had in mind : "An Account of the A'in^^Jom of AVA//, „„,/ of the
terntortes annexed to this dominion by the House of Gorkka. By

293

t .'

Z9\

NOTES

[Lecture I

Francis Ifamilton {formerly Buchanan), Af.D., Fclhnv of the Royal
Societies of London and Edinburi^h, the Society of Antiquaries : and of
the Asiatic Society of Calcutta. Illustrated with Engravings." Julin.,
Constable & Co., 1819. 374 pp , 410. It was reviewed in The A'ew
Edinburgh Reruew, Ap. 1820, pp. 384-402.

6 9 Thibet-methods. " When one of these [skooshoks] is about
to die, he calls around him his disciples, and tells them where he will
be reborn, and all the circumstances of the rebirth. As soon as he is
dead the disciples repair to the place he has indicated and search for a
newly born child which bears the sacred marks, and is for other reasons
the most probable incarnation of the departed saint. Having found
the child, they leave him with his mother until he is four years old,
when they return, bringing with them a quantity of praying-books,
rosaries, praying-wheels, and other priestly articles, among which are
those that belonged to the late incarnation. Then the child has to
prove that he is the new incarnation by recognizing the property that
was his in his previous existence, and by relating reminiscences of his
past. If he is successful in this, as is nearly always the case, he is
acknowledged as the skooshok, and is carried off for ever from his
home and family, to be educated in the sacred mysteries." K. F.
Knight, H^here Three Empires Meet, a Narrative of Jie,, t Travel
in Kashmir, Western Thibet, etc., 130. Lond., 1893.

6 6 certain genealogy. Carlyle began as a Radical. In 1S31 he
wrote in his journal ; " What were the bet that King William were the
last of that profession in Britain, and Queen Victoria never troubled
with the sceptre at all.'" C.E.L. II, 97. In 1838 he wrote to his
brother John that he had seen " ' her little majesty ' coming in from
the daily ride. She is decidedly a pretty-looking little creature : health,
clearness, graceful timidity looking out from her young face, ' frail
cockle on the black bottomless deluges.' " C.L.L. I, 144. These
opinions look strange i*" the light of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations ;
but Chartism was a real danger, and Carlyle was meditating or writing
his French Revolutici.

6 16 Allegory. " Polytheism seems at first an inextricable mass of
confusions and delusions ; but there was no doubt some meaning in it
for the people. It may be explained in one of two ways. The first is
that the fable was only an allegory to explain the various relations of
natural facts (of spiritual facts and material), and much learning has
been expended on this theory." L.L. 11.

8 16 fancy of Plato's. See P/nedo, 109, r; and Republtc, bk. vii,

Lecture I] TIIF. HERO AS DIIIA'ITY

295

beginning. The first three editions read 'Aristotle's' here and 'Aris-
totle • in 1. 27, an evidence of haste in composition. It looks also as
if Carlyle had confused the famous ' den ' and ' shadows ' with the
' man dwelling in the depths of the ocean.'

9 ay mystery of Time. Cp. Sartor, Natural Supematuralism,
236 16; and /A, 231 lo n.

9 3y apparitions. Cp. Sartor, Natural Supematuralism, 240 30:
and ib., 241 lo n.

10 5 Force which is not we. Cp. " The Eternal, not ourselves,
that makes for righteousness," .M. Arnold, Cod and the Bible, 7,
Lond., 1S97; "The Eternal Power, not ourselves, that makes for
righteousness," ib., Literature and Dogma, 229, Lond., 1897.

10 H not a leaf. Cp. Sartor, Prospective, 63 ;)2-34 ; and infra, 117 1.
10 17 sold over counters. Cp. Sartor, Natural Supematuralism,
234 24-:t:).

10 2ti stripping-off. If Carlyle had rememl)ered his native proverb
about taking the breeks off a Highlandman, he would have avoided this
Irish bull. How could the '• ancient earnest soul " strip-off '< undevout
wrappages," it was " as yet unencuml)ered with " .>

10 31 All was Godlike. " I look up to the starry sky, and an
everlasting chain stretches thither, and over, and below; and all is Life,
and Warmth, and Light, and all is Godlike or God." Quintus Fixlein,
C.-Trans., end ; see Essays, Jean Paul l-riedrick Kic liter, I, 28.

11 1 Jean Paul. .See Carlyle's two appreciations, Essays, Jean
Paul Priedrich Richter, I, 5 ; and Essays, Jean Paul Priedrich Pichter
Again, II, 162.

11 la Sabeans. .See 55 an n.

11 24 window through which. - Rightly viewed no meanest
object is insignificant ; all objects are as windows, through which the
philosophic eye looks into Infinitude itself." Sartor, Prospectne, 64 2.

12 1 Shekinah or Ark. A mistake. The Shekinah was \tot the
Ark. but the glory that appeared upon it.

12 6 The true Shekinah. Ihe manifestation of God between the
cherubim of the ark; see Num. vii, 89. A favorite phrase of Carlyle's
(cp. Sartor, Pure Reason, 58 ly), which he may have got from Tristram
Shandy, vol. V, cap. i (orig. ed.). I have found the idea but not the
phrase in Chrysostom; see Sartor, 58 IK n.

12 » the mystery. Cp. "One forenoon, I was standing, a very
young child, in the outer dour and looking leftwaul at the stack of the
fuel-wood, — when, all at once, the internal vision, 'I am a me'

:?:

-i

y*i

296

NOTES

[Lecture I

l'.'

1* ■
1 =

-t

i,:.i

(iVA 3»« «'« fch), came like a flash from heaven before me." Richter,
of himself; see Essays, Jean Paul Fritdrich Richter, II, 177.

12 13 but one Temple. An adaptation of i Cor. iii, 16, 17. Cp.
Ncvalis Schriften, II, 126, Berlin, 1826; also Essays, Goethe's Works,
III, 161; Essays, Novalis, II, 118; Sartor, Old Clothes, 217 15; and
Heroes, 233 13, 18.

12 13 Novalis. See Carlyle's account, Essays, Novalis, II, 79.

13 3 Hero-worship. Cp. Essays, Goethe's Works, III, 160.

13 23 greatest of all. Cp. Sartor, Hdotage, 207 19-27.

14 s Kon-ning. This etymology, which Carlyle was fond of, is mis-
taken. Cp. Sartor, Organic Filaments, 226 86 and n. From O.K. cynn,
race, and ing, the patronymic ending, meaning ' a man of (noble) race.'
Kluge.

14 8 representing gold. Cp. Heroes, 233 a; Essays, Goethe's
Works, III, 164, top.

14 24 'account' for him. Cp. Essays, Signs of the Times, II, 154.
' Speak to any small man,' etc.

15 11 dead fuel . . . lightning. Cp. infra, 88 39.

15 98 History of the World. Cp. Heroes, i.

16 11 stifle him. Cp. Essays, Voltaire, II, 36; and ib., Goethe's
Works, III, 162.

16 18 Persiflage. Carlyle dwells on this in his account of Voltaire.
See Essays, Voltaire, II, 35, 44.

16 23 delivering Calases. Cp. Essays, Voltaire, II, 49 ; J. Mor-
ley, Voltaire, V.

16 30 Queen Antoinette. See Carlyle, French Revolution, The
Bastille, bk. ii, cap. iv, Maurepas. " Is not this, for example, our Patri-
arch Voltaire, after long years of absence, revisiting Paris ? . . . Her
majesty herself had some thought of sending for him, but was dis-
suaded. Let majesty consider it, nevertheless. The purport of this
man's existence has been to wither up and annihilate all whereon
majesty and worship for the present rests ; and it is so that the world
recognizes him."

16 31 Douanier. See Essays, Voltaire, II, 47.

17 1 tavern-waiters. See Essays, Voltaire, II, 47. This hap-
pened at the tavern "Golden Cross "of Dijon, where Voltaire rested
the first night of his journey to Paris. He was unaware of his wor-
shippers' devotion.

17 9 Va bon train. See Essays, Voltaire, II, 47.

17 3 nucleus of a comet. See Essays, Voltaire, 1 1, 48.

Lecture I] THE HERO AS DIVINITY

2y7

17 4 pluck a hair. See Essays, yoUaire, 11, so. Cp.
Vea,l)eg a Imir of him for memory,
And, flying mention it within their wills,
Bequeathing it as a rich legacy.
Unto their issue.

Julius Ctesar, iii, i.

17 10 Pontiff of Encyclopedism. In view of the fpct that this
phrase has been explained as " Reference to Johnson'.s Dictionary and
•Johnsonese ' style." it may l.e well to note that it refers to Voltaire as
the chief exponent of the sceptical philosophy, diffused by means of the
Encyclopidie.

19 11 Samund. "From the end of the thirteenth century comes
the earliest known copy of a collection, begun about the year i ^40, of
old mythical, religious, and heroic songs and tales. . . . That earliest
copy of them was a parchment book [Codex Re^-ius, Xo. 2.6; in
Copenhagen), which was sent in ,063 from Iceland as a present f^om
the Hishop Brynjulfr Sveins.son, of Skalhalt, to King Frederick III of
Denmark. The bishop had discovered it in a farmhouse in 1C43 This
work was ascribed to Sxmund .Sigfusson, who was priest, poet, and his-
torian, had a share in forming the ecclesiastical code in Iceland, and
died in the year 1135, a hundred years before the collection was made.
t has been known, therefore, as .S.xmund's IMda, or the Klder, or the
Poetical Edda." II. Mori.ky, EHf^lisli IV.iters, I, 273.

19 16 Edda. "Jacob Grimm traced the word ""lulda to a root
'azd. noble, with which he associated the Middle High (lerman'arf
the Anglo-Saxon 'ord,' a point, and the Icelandic 'o<ld.,' from which
he derived Edda as a feminine form, meap-ng that which stands at the
point or head of anything. Arne Magnusson. seeing that poetry
had been called, in poems of the fourteenth century, Kddu-list- the
art of Edda- and its rules Eddu-reglur, suggested that the word
Edda was derived from an old word, ' o.Nr,' meaning mind or poetry "
H. M0RI.EV, English IVrUers, II, 336. " Professor Rhys has suggested
Aideadh, a Ccl ic name given to old Irish tragic tales concern U with
' aitte,' death." lb., I, 274.

19 18 Snorro. "The Younger or Prose Edda- Snorri's Fdda-
was the book to which the name Edda was ti rst altach.d, and the author of
this was .Snorri Sturieson. Snorri Sturieson. poet and historian, was born
m U78, rose to high office in Iceland, and was murdered in i ^4 r I lis
book called 'Edda- was .an Ars Poetic.i, cntuining the old rules for
verse-making and poetic diction , but as the diction included a large

«»

298

JVOTES

[Lecture I

r. ■
«-

'I.

61'

number of allusions and phrases derived from the old Northern
mythology, a summary was also given of the myths from which they all
were drawn. First came two sections, Gylfaginning (the Delusion of
Gylfi) and Bragarce^ur (liragi's Tales), which gave larger and smaller
sketches of the old mythology; then came a third section called
Skaldskaparmal (the Ars Poetica), which described the conventional
circumlocutions and the other devices of the skalds, or Northern poets ;
the fourth and last section was called Ildttatal (Counting of Metres),
which was a Prosody ingeniously set forth by help of a Song of Praise
in a hundred and two lines, contrived as examples of all verse-measures
in use." 11. Morley, English Writers, I, 273 f. See Vigfusson,
Sturlunga Saga, Prolegomena, I, Ixxiii-lxxxi.

20 8 Jotuns. See 41 30 n.

20 23 Spanish yoyagers. It turns out that this whole story is a
fabrication. Pigafetta, the companion of Magellan, who discovered the
Ladrones in 1 521, does not mention the circumstance; it appears first
in Le Gobien, Ilistoire des Isles Maria nes, p. 44, Paris, 1700, and is a
modification of a statement of Herodotus (III, 16) regarding the
Egyptians. See Tylor, Researches into the Early History of Mankind,
234 f. Lond., 1870.

20 33 combing their manes. Literally, " And evened (smoothed)
the mane for his steeds." Sictn. Edd., j?rymskvi&a, 5.

21 3 Hymir. See Mallet, Northern Antiquities, 403 ; Gylfagin.,
5, Lond., 1859. "When returning from hunting, the old man came
into the hall, the icebergs sounded, and his beard froze ; at his glance
the doorpost sprang apart, — it is the shattering power of the frost."
Uhlani), Mythus von Thor, Gesam. IVerke, III, 94. Quoted from Sicm.
Edd., Ilymiskvi&a, 29.

21 6 Thor. See Mallet, AVM^;-« Antiquities, \\(i; Gylfagin., 21,
Lond., 1859; VjWzxiA, Mythus von Thor, Grimm, Tent. Myth^ I, viii,
Donar, Thunar, Thorr ; Corpus Poeticum Boreale, II, 463.

21 12 blows . . . red beard. The Old Norse " traditions every-
where define him more narrowly as red-bearded, of course in allusion
to the fiery phenomenon of lightning ; when the god is angry, he blows
in his red beard, and thunder peals through the clouds." Grimm, Teut.
Myth., I, 177.

21 14 Balder. See 40 1 n.

21 20 Wiinsch. The idea that " Wunsch " was an old German
deity is not now held. " The sum-total of well-being and blessedness,
the fulness of all graces, seems in our ancient language to have been

Lecture I]

THE HEKO AS DIVINITY

Z</)

expressed by a single word, whose meaning has since been narrowed
down; it was named ■wu>is<-/t (wish), . . . perfection in whatever Icind,
what we should call the Ideal." (;rimm. '/\„t. Mvth., I, 13S. Ix)nd.,
1882. Cp. infra, 87 a».

21 28 Aegir. See S(cm. liJJ., Lokauinta : Uhland, Mytkus von
Thor, /J Atgir. Eager. In Carlyle's article on Norfolk, in IJrewstir's
Edinburgh Emychpadia, this phenomenon was noticed. " About the
equinoxes in particular, and especially at the full moon of the autumnal
one, it is liable to a species of flood, which, from its impetuosity, the
inhabitants are accustomed to denominate an ea-er. The tide flows
up the channel with extraordinary fury, overwhelming every obstacle
and frequently causing extensive mischief; even the waterfowls shun
it on such occasions." C.\ri.yi.f., M.mtaigne ami other Essays, 177.
I.ond., 1S97. The regular tidal wave sweeping up the river is well
known in Nova Scotia on the l!ay of Fundy side. The local name Is
bore. Carlyle's later etymology, though endorsed by (Jrimm, is now
given up.

23 1 brewing ale. The tale is told in two poems of the Klder
Edda, Ilymiskvi&a and Lokasenna. of which loiulensed prose versions
are given in Mallet, Northern Antiquities, 375.

23 5 ears of the Pot. literally, "and the ring-formed lugs
sounded at his heels." S,rm. E,ld., I/ymiskriU'a, 34. Vigfusson notes
the Icelandic comparison of a threatening sky to a pot turned upside
down. .See Corpus Poeticiim Horcate, I, 514.

23 10 Creation.
p. 404.

23 24 Igdrasil.
p. 410.

23 29 Nomas. The Icelandic pi. of norti is nornir. Their names
are UrSr, Ver^andi, and Skuld. .See Grimm, Tent. .Vyth., I, 405-417;
and Mallet. Northern Antiquities, Prose Edda, 16, p. 4t2.

24 in infinite conjugation. " Understand it well, the Thing, that
Thing is an Action, the product and expression of exerted force : the
All of Things is an infinite conjugation of the verb To do." C.\R-
LYLE, The Erench Revolution, The Constitution, bk. iii, cap. i.

24 13 Ulfila. Or Vulfila, "wolfling," born 311, made bishop 341,
L-ibored among the Goths until his death at Constantinople in 381, the
tran.slator of the Bible into Gothic.

24 16 Machine. Possibly an allusion to suc'i works as Laplace's
Mecanique Celeste, and certainly to the Utilitarian conception of the

.See Mallet, Northern Antiquities, Prose Edda, 7,
See Mallet, Northern Antiquities. Prose Edda, 1 5,

■■'M

i I

'.I '

,'i

'4'.

300

l/OTKS

[Lecture I

universe. (J p. Kssavi, Si^'tis of tlie Times, II, 138 ; ih., Charactttistus,
111,46.

25 .10 sympathetic ink. A phra.s(; of Chalmers's, which struck
Carlyle. Christianity was "all written in us already," he said, "as in
symj alhelic ink ; Kii)le awakens it and you can read." Kei II, 73.
Used also by Carlyle, Sartor, Pros/^cith-e, 68 ao.

26 16 Councils of Trebisond. A characteristic mannerism of Car
lyle's is to pluralize proper names in ortler to avoid vagueness and to
attain picturesque effect. Here Carlyle has slipped. There was no
Council of Trebizond ; he may have had in mind Nicxa or Chalcedon

27 'J Heimskringla. " Ileimskringla, the world's circle, being the
first word of the manuscript that catches the eye, has been quaintly
used by the northern antiquaries to designate the work itself. . . .
Snorro iiimself . . . calls his work the Saga or Story of the Kings of
Norway." Lainc, Ifeimskringla, I, Prelim. Dissert. I. Lond., 1844.

27 2 Odin . . . Prince. " Odin was a great and very far travelled
warrior, who cimquered many kingdoms, and so successful was he that
in every battle the victory was on his side." Laing, Ileimskringla,
I, 217. Lond. 1S44. This is now regarded as myth.

27 .1 Asen. Carlyle's bracketing this with Asiatics may mislead ;
' Ass' in O.N. means ' god,' pi. ' .Ksir.' See (Irimm, Tcut. Myth., I, 24 ;
Mallet, Northern Antiquities, Glossary, j-Ksir, p. 546; Corpus Poeticiim
Boreale, II, 515. Carlyle gives here the view formerly held by Norse
scholars ; he is not solely responsible.

27 10 Saxo Grammaticus. Danish historian and poet, probably a
native of Zealand who l)egan his great work Gesta Danorum about
1 185. It was a favorite book in the middle ages. From it we get the
plot of Hamlet.

27 N Torfaeus. An Iceland scholar (d. 1719) who was first to
rev_al the wealth of the saga literature to the world.

27 i-i Grimm . . . Wuotan. " It can scarcely be doubted that the
word 's immediately derived from the verb O.W.Vt.watan wuot,i'i.'S.
va&a, <'!& signifying meare, transmeare, cum impetu ferri, but not
identical with Latin vadere." Grimm, Teut. Myth., I, 131. Lond.,
1882. This etymology is now given up.

28 7 Lope. " Krey Lojje Felix de Vega, whose name has become
universally a proverb for whatever is good," says Quevedo, in his Afro-
bacion to Tome de Hurguillos (Obras Sueltas de Lope, Tom. XIX.
p. xix). " It became a common proverb to praise a good thing by
calling it a Lope ; so that jewels, diamonds, pictures, etc., were raised

Lecture I]

THE HERO AS DIVINITY

301

into esteem by calling them his," says Montalvan (Obras Sueltas,
Tom. XX, p. S3). Cervantes intimates the same thing in his tntrtmh,
" La Guarda Cuidadosa." TicknoR, History of Sfanish Littraturt,
II, 250 n. 31. N. v., 1849.

28 II Smith . . . Essay. "Consilerations Concerning the First
Formation of Languages and the Different Genius of Original and
Compounded Languages" is the title of this "Essay." See The
Theory 0/ Moral Sentiments, etc., by Adam Smith, p. 510. Lond., 1861.

29 18 " Wuotan." See 27 aa n.

29 31 camera-obscura. " Let us suppose, for example, that the
window-shutters of a chamber being closed, so as to exclude the light,
a hole be made in them, in which a convex lens is inserted ; let a screen
made of white paper be then placed at a distance from the lens, e( ual
to its focal length, and at right angles to its axis ; a small picture will
be seen upon the screen, representing the view facing the window to
which the axis of the lens is directed ; this picture will be delineated in
its proper colours, and all moving objects, such as carriages or pedes-
trians, the smoke from the chimneys, and the clouds upon the sky, will
be seen moving upon it with their proper motions. The picture, how-
ever, will be inverted both vertically and laterally ; . . . this remarkable
optical phenomenon was discovered in about the middle of the sixteenth
century by Haptista-Porta.a Neapolitan philosopher." Lardner, .^aM</-
hook 0/ Natural Philosophy, § 539. Lond., 1861. Why "magnifier".'
The camera reduces in size.

29 86 Arundel-marble. Carlyle refers to the " Parian Chronicle "
among the marbles purchased by the Earl of .\rundel in 1624, and
presented by his grandson to the University of Oxford. This is in part
an inscription of the principal events in the history of Greece from
1582 to 264 B.C.

30 11 colours . . . cut-glass. Cp.

Life, like a dome of many<()loured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity.

Shells Y, Adonais, 4^3 f.

30 i22 ' Image of his own Dream.' Quoted from N'ovalis, Lehrlinge
zii Sais, cap. ii, translated by Carlyle, Essays, Xovalis, II, 113 : "They
know not that this so-called Nature of theirs is a Sport of the Mind, a
waste fantasy of their Dream. Of a surety, it is for them a horrible
Monster, a strange grotesque .Shadow of their own Passions." Cp.
Sartor, The World Out 0/ Clothes, 48 20.

•II

302

NOTES

[Lecturr

1;'

iV,

''.6

31 8 Cettus of Venui. See Schiller, Utber Anmuth und WUrde
Sammt. IVtrie, XI, 31 j. Stuttgart, 1S47.

31 4 careful not to iniinuate. " The delicat*; sensibility of thi
Greeks soon distinguished what the reason was not yet capable ol
explainin, vnd, striving to find expression, borrowed images from ..it
imaginatio.i, since the understandinfr could not as yet offer it ideas.'
Ih., 314.

31 II Runes. In recounting Odin's feats, the V'nglinga Saga says ;
" In all such things he was pre-eminently wise. He taught all these
arts in Uunes and songs, which are called incantations." I^ainc;,
Heimskringla, I, 222.

31 19 incredulity of Atahualpa. " Among ail the Kuropean arts,
what he admired most was that of reading and writing, and he long
deliberated with himself whether he should consider it a> x natural or
acquired talent. In order to determine this, he desired one of the sol-
diers who guarded him to write the name of God on the nail of his
thumb. This he showed successively to several Spaniards, asking its
meaning; and to his amazement they all, without hesitation, returned
the same answer." Robertson, History of America, fll, 153 f.
Lond., 1808.

31 38 Odin invented Poetry. " He spoke everything in rhyme,
such as now composed, and which we call scald-craft. He and his
temple gods were called song-smiths, for from them came that art of
song into the northern countries." LAlNfi, Ilcimskringla, I, 221.

33 4 Wednesbury. " In England we find : IVoodneshoro" in
Kent, near Sandwich ; IVedneshury and Weduesfield in Staffordshite."
Grimm, Tent. Myth., I, 158. Stallybrass adds in a note that the num-
ber might be swelled by looking up in a gazetteer the names beginning
with Wans-, Wens-, etc.

33 19 way of thought. Cp. ante, 24 ai-aa.

33 ihi camera-obscura. See 29 ai n.

33 29 History of the world. Cp. ante, 1 ij.

35 27 said above. Cp. ante, 1 i»-2a.

36 7 Choosers of the Slain. Carlyle translates Valkyrs (val-
kyrjor). " O.N. valr, A.S. wal, O.H.G. -wal, denotes the carnage c'
the batdefield, the sum of the slain : to take possession of this val, to
gather it in, was denominated kiosa, kiesen, to choose." Grimm,
Teut. Myth., I, 417. See if>., 417-426 ; Mallet, A'orthern Antiquities,
Prose Edda, 427.

37 a Snorro tells us. Unidentified.

Lecture I] THE HERO AS DIVINITY

303

37 r. Old king!. See the .wa Imrial of Scyld Scefing in the open-
ing of mowulf; and AV»v //„„„/•. Last HattU, in Lotd Uutterin's
Letters f torn llij^h Lattltuhs, xii.

37 1& No Homer lang. A rLference to

Vixere fortet ante ARaniemnona

Multi; seel omnes ilLicrinvibiles

IJrgentur igimticiue longa

Nocte, carent quia vate sacro,

HuK. r«r»«. IV, ly, 25-i8.

37 34 NorthUnd Sovereigns. "Olaf was soon joined by all who
were discontented with the change r.f dynasty, an.i although his enemies
tried to ridicule his proceedings l,y calling .him 'The Woodcutter'
(Tretelgia), his colony grew into a petty state of some importance."
.Mai.i.kt. Northern Auti,/uities, 86. See also I.aing. Ikimskrinela,
46-55-

38 S8 like a Banyan-tree. See Sartor, The World in Clothes,
34 31 n.

38 30 Cow AdumbU. See Mallet, Norther,, Autujuities, Prose
EJiia, 403.

39 II Voluspa. The first three editions read //./rww,,/. a curious
error. The Volus/a is translated almost completely by Professor Morley,
Eni^lish IVnters, II, 337-355. Cp. 1,,/ra, 45 a n.

39 30 Gray'8 fragments. An interesting confirmation of Carlyle's
view will be found in Dr. Vhe\p^'sSele.tlons/rom the Poetry and Prose of
Thomas Gray, Introd. Appendix, Oray's Knowledge of Old Norse, by
Prof. G. L. Kittredge. Cp. Corpus Poeticum Boreale, I, i8r, 259.

39 30 Thor ' draws . . . brows.' " It may readily be imagined
how frightened the peasant was when he saw Thor knit his brows, and
grasp the handle of his mallet with such force that the joints of his
fingers became white from the exertion." Mai-LKT, Northern Antiqui-
ties, Prose Edda, 436.

40 I Balder. See Mallet, Northern Antiquities, Prose Edda 22
p. 417-

40 4 Hermoder. Icelandic, //ermo&r. See Mallet, Northern Antiq-
uities, Prose Edda, 49, p. 446; and Sum. Edd.. l^luspd, 32-34; ib.,
Baldrs Draumar.

40 15 thimble. Another curious slip. •' Vanna also sent Frigga
a linen cassock and other gifts, and to Ku.la a gold finger-ring."
Mali.et, Northern Antiquities, Prose Edda, 49, p. 449.

1-'

{

3(H

xorKs

[I.EtTURr. I

40 ill UhUnd . . . Euay. /Vr Mylhin van nor {t^yb), UhlanJi
Gtsam. Werkt, III. Stuttgart (n <l )• lovet this Thor. "He U \.\\k
most human, tlit' most nutionni, tliv most fiiKUKinK of the Ases, (lie
'Ixilovcd (rieml ' "f his worshippers. . . . Whilst the apparition of Odin
always gives a glimpse of a glomiiy, tcrrililu background, the sagas of
Thor, even the more serious lays, have a touch of harmless jest. . .
Hut this dots love no harm." /A, i ji.

40 'W Tbialfi. See I'hland, ,\fythus von Thor, .|, Cesnin. ll'frke,
HI, 35-40. " Thialfi, der Arliciter, der mensthiiche Heiss Injim Anbaii
der Krde, zeigt sich in dieser Kigeiischaft am klarsten in der ebendarum
vorangestellten Kaljtl von Ilrungnir." /b., 36.

41 4 Bymir'i Caldron. Cp. ante, 23 1 n.

41 M Jack the Giant-killer. For an excellent biiiliographical not«
on this subject, sue J. Jacobs, Eiii^'lis/i /iiiry-Tales, Notes and KeUr
cnets, 237. Cn. Corf'tm Poeticiim Boreitle, I, 512.

41 90 Hynde Etin. (irimm connects O.N. />/«»«. »V'/«m« with O.K
toten, eten, M.K. etin, ttten,eti., and thinks it may Ik; derived from ( ».\
tia ; giant is then equivalent to Tolyphagos. See J. Jacobs, Englis)
Fairy- Tales, Red Ettin, and /(*., Xotes and Keferenees, 24 5.

41 *J Hamlet. For a good note on this siil)ject, -see I. Gollanc/
Hamlet (Temple ed.), xiv f. See also his Hamlet in Iceland. Lond.
1898.

42 1.'. Thor's expeditions. For the complete tale, see Mallet
Northern Antii/uities, Prose Eddii, 43-4.S, pp. 435-444.

42 :ii Skrymir. Cp. ante, 42 i.'> n.

43 ao strain your neck. " Thor and his companion.-* proceeded 01
their way, and towards noon descried a city standing in the middle o
a plain. It was so lofty that they were obliged to bend their neck
quite back on their shoulders ere they could .see to the top of it.
Mallet, Northern Antiipiities, Prose Edda, 46, p. 439.

44 24 Mimer-stithy. (Irimm connects this word with L. memoi
Mimir was the owner of the well of wisdom under the roo's of \'ggdra>i
" He is full of wi.sdom, because he drinks the waters ot the well fror
the horn (Ijoll every morning." Carlyle takes him as the represent;
tive of Norse wisdom. I can find no connection with 'stithy ' ; Volundi
the ' Wayland Smith ' of Kenilworth, was the Norse Tubal Cain.

44 .Ti American Backwoods. A "da-hing Kentuckian" informe
Harriet Martineau that .\merican soil was so rich, that if you planted
nail at night, it tame up a spike next muriiiiig. " Tiie quality of e.\a^
geration has often been remarked on as typical of American characte

Lv.cii;KK I]

TV/A Ui:i ' .IS DUIMTY

305

and eHpftially of Americuii humor In Dr. iVlri's ln<lntui;l,s Hand-
buck dtr J-rim<livi<rt,r, Wf art- twid tlul the w<iril humhui; i<. i ciniiiionly
U!<ecl for the ixaKKt^raliuiiH nf tliu \(»rth Anicrit.iiis. In !>< sun , nnu
would l)c t> iiipted lo tliink the (Ireani of tdliimliu.H half fulrilln!. and
that KuroiH! had fiiund in the Wtist a ntart-r wa) to ( (rii-ntalisni, at least
in dii tion. Hut it seemn to nv lh.it a j,Me.U deal nf what is set (hnvn a-*
mere extravagance is mnrelitly to'' tailed intensity and pii turev|uene.ss,
!<ym|>tomH of the Imaginative fai ,..., in full heallh and stronnth. thou 'i
producing as yet only the new and formless material in which [Mietry
i» to work." l,ii\VKI.I,, /■'/s'/.'M' /'//<•;. 1, S,; ,1)/,/ X I i,-t, Itilioiliutii'ii.

44 U3 Sagnarok. tirimm derives this word erroneously from
raginrath, council, and rok, li'kr. darkaess : N. /vr/r ((l. Kaucli, Kng.
reek, rack), thus making it e(|uivalent to ti.fnuula deomm, (lotter-
dammerung, Twilight of the (Jods. See Mallet, Xirt/ient A>iti</iuthi,
Prose Edda, 51-53, pp. 451- »5S.

45 u Voluspa. The first three e<litions read Uavamul; tp. 39 11 n.
i5 10 new Heaven. See \\c\. xxi, 1.

45 15 phoenix fire-death. < p.. v./; /,>;. 7//i/'//«r;/M especially 215 i>T.

45 94 'ting Olaf. See Vi{,'fuss..n, Stnrliiii^a Xi-,,, /',ol,xomi;M,
I, Ixxxvii. The story is found not in //,im>k-i im^lit, hut in Odd the
Monk's version of the saga of < »laf Tiynvassoii (;/.'/ of ( ,iaf the Saint),
(irimm, Teut. Myth., f, cap. Iv, 177. -It li.ippenid once when King
Olaf was sailing pa.st the shores, and he hiins.jf .sat heside the tiller,
ihat a man standing on a certain rock tailed out to iliein sailing past,
begging that the King would not disdain to give him a plan- in the ship.
When the King heard this, he stiend th< ,hip to wIumc the man stood ;
and when that was done, he got into the sliii) He ho.istcd gr<ally
(showed himself too insolent and free) and attacked the King's men
with many jeering speeches, showing great joy in his f.ice. lie was
goodly to look on, with a red heard ; the crew and he gaped at one
another; against many of them he llung about fre.ikish words in vari-
ous guise. When thi y asked him if he could tell anytliing wortii
remembering and done long ago, he showeil that he knew many tales ;
' For you shall ask me nothing,' he said, • which I cannot e.vplain.'
This they told to the Knig, saying; 'Tliid man, my lord, has many
memorable things to tell '; and they I)rouglu him to the King. When
asked by the King what he had tf) tell, • My lord,' says he, • this land
which we are sailing past was formerly inhabited by giants. Hut it hap-
pened by chance, by some hap which I know not, that those giants per-
ished by some sudden death, so that only two woineii were left alive.

:i-

• m ■

rff

SOTRS

[I.RCTl'ltK I

Then it lame atxtut, my lord, that men of human kind, iiprung from
the eautcrn partn of the world, In-Ran to <lwtll in thi» land; and them,
mjr lord, thooe name women greatly plagued and vexed In many wayi«.
Then the men took thi* counst-l, my lord, that there againnt they should
ask this red Ixiard for help, and I quickly took my hammer from my
lap and beat those women to death.' When he spoke theite word*, he
leaped from the bow, across the ship and flung himnclf off the poop, in
the sight of all. And the King himself saw the occurrence clearly,
how he flung himself headlong into the sea and vanished from the eyes
of the bystanders. Then said King olaf: ' liehold the effrontery of
the devH, who takes u|}on himself to come op«;nly into our presence.' "
4ti 41 NeptuM. There are at least Ave allusions to Neptune
(roseidon) in Pindar : Carlyle probably has in mind Ntm. v, 65-70,
and has confused the Isthmian games with the Xemean inles. The
passage says Poseidon visited lh«; games frequently (^m^). not once :
• stranger of noble grave aspect ' is a quotation from Carlyle himself,
not from Pindar ; cj). supra, 46 ;i. Carlyle is here repeating what he
said in his lectures on the history of literature in 1838. " Thiis I'in-
dar mentions that IlmrftJwi' (Neptune) appeared on one occasion at the
Nemean games. Here it is conceivable that if some agetl individual o.
venerable mien and few words had. in fact, come hither, his apj' arance
would have attracted attention ; people would have come to gaze on
him, and conjecture would have been busy." /,./,. 21. Professor
Greene in his note on the passage (juotes from 'a profane Greek
versifier*

When Ni'ptunc .ippeared at the Istlinii.iii g;ime»,
lie spoke nxist politely to numerous dimes.
Hut, not finding one free from frivolity.
He bowed and went back to his home in the sea.
' The mermaids,' he murnuired, 'are Ix'tter for nie.'

The same idea has recently taken the shape of an illustrated advertise-
ment in an American m.tgazine.

46 31 Consecration of Valour. In l.tfe and Writini^s of HWner,
Esj..ys. I, 131, 140, Carlyle refers to Werner's play, J/i/r//« Luther, odei
die IVeihe Jtr Kraft, which may have suggested this phrase.

47 15 Meistsr. See Meister's Travtls, cap. x. It is not the
"Teacher" who speak however bui 'they.' the mysterious Three,
whom Wilhelm met in^iele " the gate of a wooded vale." Passage
translated, Essays, Goethe, I, 244.

LccTirRR II]

THK l/SKO AS PKOPHKT

307

LECTURE n. THE HERO AS PROPHET

49 II M ImmMfttrably dlvtri*. In |ihra>iit like this. Carlyte
antkipfttet objection* (uch a» Mr. It. I). Traill o\iw% in his Introduc-
tion to the Centenary edition of J/troti, \x.

49 w •uch recaption, (p. /»//>,/, 193 a. 216 ai ; and alito "And
ihit was he for wh«im the world foi.nd no fitter ImstincM than (|uarrelling
with imugglers and vintnern, computing exrisf .<lue» on tullow. and gaug-
ing alebarrtU ! |r. Huch toiU was that mighty Spirit sorrowfully
wasted." A.^/j'/, Jhims, I, 273.

60 10 Mahomet . . . Impoitor " iH hiit la!<t y.ar«. ambition was
the ruling paimion ; and a politician will siinpt-c t that he sccreily smiled
(the victorious impostor!) at the enthusiasm .if his youth and the cre-
iiulity of his proselytes." (Iimhon, /ViZ/Wf- <;«■//■<///, tap. I. .See also
//', vol. IX, j;j, n. I.ond.. 1S07.

60 14 When Pococke inquired. "Ills auii-m ([u.v ah auctore no-
stro adducuntur, addiint alilejusdem f.irina multa. ile (juibus iiuid len-
sendum sit docet Xobilissimus et I loctissimus ///z^' iirotius in 6. /V
veriliUt rtligUmis t'liristiiimt libro, ubi et ipse, eoru'^i nonnulla recen-
sens, columlix ad Mohammtdis aurem a<lvolarc solit.v men.init ; cujus
cum nullam apud eo» mentionem npererim ac Clarissimum Virum ea de
re consulerem, se in hoc narraiido, non MohiimmeJislarum, sed nostro-
rum hominum fide, nixum di.\it, ac pracipue Scalij^'tri, in cujus ad
A/iitii/ium notis idem narratur." Sfinmut llistonj Arahiim ; Auiloiy
I- hardo Pjithkio, pp. 191 f.. ed. Joseph White. Oxon.. 1806.

60 15 atory of the pigeon. " I find some very grra men have
l)een too easy to swallow them, as particularly .SVr///i,',» . ^, otitis, and
.SV<)«/fc, have that of the J'ixvoiis." I'ridkai x, /'//.• /me Xaiutt of
finfoslure, etc., 50. I.ond., 1698. " Secuti tamcn sunt, (jji ei et miracula
attribuerent : at qualia.> N'emiM.', qux aut arte humana facile possunt
etfecta reddi, ut de columba ad aurem advolante." H. (Ikotm s, De
I'erit. Reli),'. Christ., lib. vi, cap. v.

51 I Age of Scepticism. This is Carlyle's usual name for the
eighteenth centuiy. It has this meaning in his course of lectures on
literature in i8j8.

51 13 Cagliostro. fluiseppe Ralsamo (i743-r705). See Carlyle,
Count Cagliostro (Essay.', Ill, 330), for a most interesting account of
this .swindlnr. It appeared in Fraser's Mai;azine, 1S33.

51 99 Mirabeau. For a full account, see Essays, Mirabeau, IV, 85.

308

NOTES

n.ECTURE II

«<■

52 9 in a vain show. See Ps. xxxix, 6. f'p. iu/ra, 84 9.
52 29 inspiration of the Almighty. See Job xxxii, 8.

52 :ti Mahomet . . . Inanity. " I gave them to know that the
poor Arab had points al)out him which it were good for all of them to
imitate ; that probably t/iiv were more of (juacks than he ; that, in
sliort, it was altogether a new kind of thing they were hearing to-day."
Carlyle's letter to his mother. C.L.L. I, lyj. Cp. infra, 61 1 n.

53 II according to God's own heart. The phrase is " after mine
own heart." See I Sam. xiii, 14, and .Vets xiii, 22.

53 yj man that walketh. See Jer. x, 23.

54 :) ' succession of falls.' ("p.

tlic |)itl)nl(l miscellany, man.

Bursts i)f great heart and slips in sensual niirc.

'I'bnnyson, Tlie J'rincess, V.

54 26 Heaven with its stars. For the same contrast, cp.

The day in his hotness,
The strife with the palm ;
Tlie nijjht in lier silence,
The stars in their calm.

M. Arnold, A">«/c</<'</« o« AV«(«, Oj///(7«.

55 i:i Sale . . . Ocadh. "To keep up an emulation among their
poets, the tribes had, once a year, a general assembly at ( »cadh, a place
famous on this account, and where they kept a weekly mart or fair,
which was held on our Sunday. Tills annual meeting lasted a whole
month, during which time they employed themselves, not only in trad-
ing, but re])eating their poetical compositions, contending and vying
with each (Jther for the prize; whence the place, it is said, took its
name." S.\i,i:, /\'i>>\iit, /'itHhi. Discourse, I.

55 till Sabeans. '-This sect say they took the name of Sabians
from the above-mentioned Sabi, though it seems rather to be derived
from . . . Saba or the iiost of heaven, which they worship. . . . The
idolatry of the Arabs then, as .Sabians, chiefly consisted in worship-
ping tile fixed stars and planets, and the angels and their images,
\\ ■•■'h they honoured as inferior (l<itie'^, and whose intercession they
begged, as their mediators with flod." S.\t,i:, A'oraii, Prflim. Dis-
course, I. ("p. Wiicii*^, Sptiimen IlistoriiP Arahum, 144. Oxon., 1806.

56 II the Horse. See Job xxxix. 19. The tirst phrase is quoted
accurately, but the seconu is taken from the descriptio" '' the leviathan.

Lecture II] THE HERO ASi PROPHET

309

Job xli, 29. What misled Tarlyle was his recollection of xxxix, 25,
"He saith among the trumpets I la, ha!"

56 iKt Black Stone. The sacred aerolite, or fetish stone, built into
the southeast corner of the Caabah at Mecca, just high enough from
the ground to be kissed conveniently by the pilgrims.

56 34 Diodorus Siculus. Noted by (Jibbon, I ), who refers to vol. I,
lib. ill, p. 21 1. Decline and Pall, cap. 1.

57 11 Keblah. "Among the theists who reject the use of images
it has been found necessary to restrain the wanderings of the fancy, by
directing the eye and thought towards a h\hh,, or visible point of the
horizon. The pro|)het was at first inclined to gratify the Jews by the
choice of Jerusalem; but he soon returned to a more natural partiality;
and five times every day the eyes of the nations at .Astracan, at Fez, at
Delhi, are devoutly turned to the holy temple of Mecca." Gihhon,
Decline and Eall, cap. 1. Cp. Sale, A'oniti, sum 10, p. 172 n./

59 -Ji) Sergius. " Hesides this Jew, the /mpos/or had also a Cliris-
tian Monk for his Assistant ; And the many particulars in his Alcoran,
relating to the Christian A'eli^-ion, plainly prove him to have had such
a helper. Theophanes, Zunoras, Cedreniis, Au,istasiiis, and the Author
of the Historia Miseella, tell us of him, without giving him any other
Xame than that of a A'estorian Monk. Hut the Author of the Dis/iuta-
//<w against a .1/(i//<//;/*'/.i«, which is epitomi/etl in Vincentius Pellova-
eensis's Speculum Historicuin, and from thence printed at tiie end
of Bibliander's Latin Alcoran [c. 13] calls him Seri^ius : . . . The
.Mahometans will have it, that he first took notice of Mahomet, while
a Hoy." Pridkaix, The True Nature of Impostitrc. etc., i,(^ f. Lond.,
1698. In his e.ssay on Voltaire (1.S-9). Carlyle alludes to this part of
.Mahomet's career, as an instance of how "little can we prognosticate,
with any certainty, the future nitluLnces from the present asjjecls of an
individual." E.ssays, I, 7.

61 1 horse-shoe vein. Of Mahomet, Muir says (/.//;■ ,/.]/,?/,,»///,/,
from Original Sources, ^^. 26. l.oiid., 1878): " When much e.\cited, the
vein between his eyebrows would mantle, and violently swell across his
ample forehead." Scott uses this device of the swelling vein in two
crises in Wandering Willie's Tale, to sujgest the ant;er <if Sir Robert
Redgauntlet, and of Sir John, his son. See Pedgauutlet, I ftt. XI.
Cp. "Goodman Mahomet, on the whole ; sincere; a fighter, not indeed
with perfect triumph, yet with honest battle. No mere sii.er in the
chimney-nook with theories of battle, such as your ordinary 'perfect'
characters are. The ' vein of anger ' between his brows, beaming black

310

A'OTES

[Lecture II

eyes, brown complexion, stout middle figure, fond of cheerful social
talk — wish I knew Arabic." C.L.L. I, 187 f.

63 7 bita of black wood. Cp. "Verily the idols which ye invoke,
besides God, can never create a single fly, although they were all
assembled for that purpose : and if the fly snatch anything from them,
they cannot recover the same from it." Sum, 22. .Sale's note is:
"The commentators say, that the Arabs used to anoint the images of
their gods with some odoriferous composition and honey, which the flies
ate, though the doors of the temple were carefully shut, getting in at
the windows or crevices." .See also 72 14, 141 8, 203 ;u.

63 15 Heraclius. The Greek emperor who overcame Chosroe, the
king of the Persians, 622-627, while Mahomet was waging war with the
Koreish.

63 .11 'small still voices.' An allusion to the 'still small voice'
heard by Elijah. I ivings xix, 12.

64 I;-. transitory garment. An allusion to the EiJgeisl {Faust,
sc. i). See Sartor, World Out of Clotlus, 48, where the phrase is ren-
dered " the Ik'iui^ risible Garment of God."

64 17 ' Islam.' "The true significance of the word Islam, . . . Salvi
{salama, in the first and fourth conjugations) means in the first instance
to be tranquil, at rest, to have done one's duty, to have paid up, to be at
perfect peace, and, finally, to hand oneself over to Him with whom peace
is made. The noun derived from it means peace, greeting, safety, sal-
vation. The word thus implies absolute submission to God's will —
as generally assumed — neither in the first instance, nor exclusively, but
means, on the contrary, one who strives after righteousness with his own
strength. Sykd Amkek Am, Critical Kxamination, cap. xi, p. 159.

64 28 pretension of scanning. Adaptation of

Know thon thyself, presume not Hod to sc.in,
The proper study of mankind is man.

PnlF, ):ssay an ^^aH, II, if.

65 14 take no counsel. Adaptation of " Immediately I conferred
not with flesh and blood." Gal. i, 16.

65 20 Though He slay. See Job xiii, 15.

65 21 Annihilation of Self. "The first preliminary moral Act.
Annihilati(m of Self (Sell>sttodtun!f), had been happily accomplished :
and my mind's eyes were now unsealed, and its hands ungyved." Sartor,
J'he Everlasting Yea, iCx). "The true philosophical Act is annihilation

Lecture II] THE HERO AS PROPHET i\\

of self {SclhtmtHux) : this is the real beginning of all Thilosophy. all
requisites for being a Disciple of Philosophy point hither." Sayim: of
Novahs, translated by Carlyle. Essays, A\walis, II, ,,8

66 au inspiration of the Almighty. See Job xxxii, 8

66 1 Is not Belief. "Can Miracles work Conviction? Or is not
real Conviction, this highest function of our soul and personality, the
only true God-announcing Miracle ? " Essays, A^ovalis, II m r

66 2 Novalis. Pseudonym of Friedrich von Ilardeiiberg (,77.-
kSoi). See Carlyle's appreciation. Essays, II, 79-134

66 16 It is certain. -Es ist gewiss.' dass eine Meinung sehr viel
gewinnt sobald ich weiss, dass irgend jemand davon iiberzeugt ist, sie
wahrhaft annimmt." Ncalis Schrifte»,\\,,o^. Kerl.. ,S.<,. Quoted
2\^o Sartor Resartus, 194, 28, and Essays, Characteristics, III. 1 =

66 19 the good Kadijah. See Irving. Mohammed and //is Sue
t-ssors, cap. XV, end.

67 « young Ali. Sale quotes this story as fact in his Preliminary
Discourse. Sect. ii. and .so does (libbon, but later authorities do not lend
.t their support. "The stories also of the Prophet taking his stand
upon Mount Safa, .summoning his relatives, family by family and
addressing to them the divine message; ... of the miraculous dinner
at which Mahomet propounded his claim to his relatives. Ali alone
standing forth as his champion and ' Vizier.' etc.. are all apocryphal."
MuiK, Z//<r of Mahomet, 66 n. i. *■ Jv

68 6 If the Sun. Syed Ameer Ali recounts this incident in his
I..fe and Teachings of Mohammed, p. 42 (L„nd.. 1S73), and refers to
the original sources in footnotes.

68.3 rider's horse. "The heavy price set u... Mohammed's
head had brought out many horsemen from Mecca. a.,a they were still
diligently seeking for the helpless wanderer. One. a wild and fierce
warrior, actually caught sigiit of the fugitives and pursue<l them. Again
the heart of Abu Bakr misgave him and he cried, ' We are lost ' • 'He
not afraid.' said the Prophet, 'God will protect us.' As the Idolater
overtook Mohammed, his horse reared and fell. Struck with awe he
entreated the forgiveness of the man whom he was pursuing, and asked
for an attestation of his pardon." Sykij Amkkk ,\i,i, /if and 7laeh-
i/i^s of Mohammed, 6$. Lond.. 1873.

69 14 Hegira. " The ' Hejira.' or era of the Ilijrat. was instituted
seventeen years later by the second Caliph. The commencement, how-
ever, ,s not laid at the real time of th.- departure ku,n .Mecca, which
happened on the 4th of Kahi I. but on the first day of the first lunar
month of the year -viz., Muharram - which day, in the year when the

312

NOTES

[Lecture II

*f'

era was established, fell on the isth of July." SVED Ameer Ali,
Life and Teachings of Mohammed, 67 n. 1.

70 15 conversion of the Saxons. Refers probably to Charlemagne's
forcible liaptism of the assembled Saxons at Paderborn, in 777. Gi;i-
zoT, History of France, I, 206. Lond., 1882. See also Gibbon, Decline
and Fall, IV, cap. xxxvii, 274. Paris, 1840.

72 1 Homoiousion. " In speaking of Gibbon's work to me he made
one remark which is worth recording. In earlier years he had spoken
contemptuously of the Athanasian controversy, of the Christian world
torn in pieces over a diphthong, and he would ring the changes in broad
Annandale on the llomcousion and the Ilomc/ousion. He told me now
that he perceived Christianity itself to have been at stake. If the Arians
had won, it would have dwindled away to a legend." C.L.L. II, 494.

72 n ye rub them. Cp. 63 7 n.

73 l!» Flight to Mecca. 'To,' for 'from,' an error never corrected.
Cp. ante, 69 C. " No continuance possible at Mecca for him any longer."

73 20 Koran . . . miracle. Cp. " Will they say, 'He hath f ed
the A'ordn ' } Answer, liring, therefore, ten chapters like unto it, fo:ged
fy yourselves, and call on whomsoever ye may to assist you, except lion,
if ye speak truth." Koran, sura it. "Say, Verily if men and genii
were purposely assembled, that they might produce one like it, although
the one of them assisted the other." Ih.,sura 12. "The devils did
not descend with the Koran, as the infidels give out. It is not for their
purpose, neither are they able to produce such a book." lb., sura 26.

74 5 'discrepancies of national taste.' Cp. "Here are strange
diversities of taste ; ' national discrepancies ' enough, had we time to
investigate them." Essays, Goethe, I, 236. In the August number of
the Edinburgh Review for 1825, Jeffrey " slated " Carlyle's translation
of IVilhelm Afeister. His criticism was directed not so much against
the English version as against the original. Such a sentence as the
following, near the end of the article, seems to have rankled. "We
hold out the work therefore as a curious and striking instance of that
diversity of national taste, which makes a writer idolized in one part of
polished Europe, who could not be tolerated in another."

74 14 unreadable masses. Apparently a "contamination" of
" With loads of learned lumber in his head," I'oi-K, Essay on Criti-
cism, 613, and "With all such reading as was never KdA" Dunciad.
iv, 250. Cp. ib., iii, 193 f.

A liimtx'rhoiiso of bonks in pvcry head
For ever reading, never to be read I

Lecture II] THE IfKRO AS PROPHET

313

See, on the other hand. Stanley I.ane-I'oole, The Sf^teihts and Table-
Talk of the Prophet Mohammed, Introduction, d. 1'. Scries.

74 20 shoulder-blades of mutton. " The word of God and of the
apostle was diligently recorded Ijy his disciples on palm leaves and the
shoulder blades of mutton ; and the patc^s. without order or connection,
were cast into a domestic (best in the i u-^tody of oi..- of his wives '
GlliiioN, Decline and Eall, cap. 1.

75 .-^i standard of taste. Cp. ante, 74 ,■> n.

75 I.-. Prideaux. Humphrey I'ridiau.x ($^i,%-iTi$, Orientalist,
author of polemical tract against the Deists, " The True Nature of
Imposture fully display'd in the life of Mahomet," etc.. 1697 ; often
since reprinted. See Diet. Nat. lUog. I'rideaux's letters were printed
in the publications of the Camden Society. For his criticism of the
Koran, see Ihe True Nature, etc., 53 ('jd ed.). I.ond., 1698.

77 11 He returns forever ... Hud. Sura 11 is entitled Hud.
This prophet is mentioned in suras 7 and ir. "Unto every nation
//(//// an ai)ostle been sent." Sura 10.

78 7 Mahomet ... no miracles. C]). " Signs are in the power of
(;f)i> alone ; and I am //,- mure than a public preacher." Koran, sura
29. " Unless ... an angel cor e with him, to bear witness unto him, we
'Mill not believe. Verily, thou art a i)reacher only ; and God is the gov-
ernor of all things." //-., sura 11. " The infidels say, Unl-.-ss a sign be
sent down unto him from his I,<jkii, w, wt/l not believe. Thou art com-
missioned to be a preai her only, ,/;/,/ not a worker of miracles." lb., sura 13.

78 14 appointed paths. C'l). " And we placed stable mountains on
the earth, lest it should move with i)m m ; and we made broad passages
between them for paths, that they might be directed in their journeys."
Koran, sura 21.

78 19 revive a dead earth. Cp. '• It is he who sendeth the winds,
driving abroad the pregnant clouds, as tlie foreninners of his mercy ;
and we send down jjiue water from heaven, that we may thereby revive
a dead country." Koran, sura 25.

78 20 tall leafy palm-trees. Cp. "It is he who .sendeth down
water from heaven, and we have thereby produced the springing buds
of all things, and have thereout produced the ^reen thing, from which
we produce the grain growing in rows, and i)alm-trees from whose
l)ranches proceed clusters of dates //,/;/.^/«- dose tugetner." Koran,
sura 6. A similar phrase occurs in sura 50.

78 S9 cattle . . . credit. Cp. - He hath iikevwse created cat tie for
you; from them ye have wherewith to keep yourselves warm, and

jj r I

314

NOTES

[I.KC-IURK H

•

•f

r'\

•*

other advantages; and of them do ye also eat. And they are likewise
a credit unto you, when ye drive them home in the nwttiug, and when ye
lead them forth to feed in the morning" Koran, sura l6.

78 96 Ships also. Ships and cattle are mentioned together in the
Koran, tor instance, in suras 40, 43. " Among his signs a/so are the
ships running in the sea, like high mountains: if he pleaseiii, he causeth
the wind to cease, and they lie still on the back of the water ; (verily
herein are signs unto every patient and grateful person)." Koran,
sura 42.

79 a shaped you. Cp. " O men, if ye be in doubt concerning the
resurrection, consider that vie/irst created you of the dust of the ground ;
. . . Then we brought you forth infants ; and afterwards we permit you
to attain your age of full strength ; and one of you dieth in his youth,
and another of you is postponed to a decrepit age, so that he forgettcth
whatever he knpw." Koran, sura 22. " God hath created you, and he
will hereafter cause you to die : and some of you shall have his life pro-
longed to a decrepit age, so that he shall forget whatever he knew; for
God is wise and powerful." lb., sura 16. " // is God who created
you in weakness, and after weakness hath given you strength; and
after strength, he will again reduce you to weakness and grey hairs."
Ih., sura 30.

79 7 Ye have compassion. Cp. " And of his signs, another is,
that he hath created you, . . . and hath put love and compassion
between you." Koran, sura 30.

79 23 mountains . . . clouds. Cp. " He hath created the heavens
without visible pillars to sustain them, and thrown on the earth moun-
tains firmly rooted, lest it should move with you." Koran, sura 31.
See also for the same thought, suras 16, 78. " And thou shall see the
mountains, and shalt think them firmly fixed ; but they shall pass away,
even as the clouds pass away." Ih., sura 27. "And the mountains
shall pass away and become as a vapour." Ih., sura 78. " On that day
men shall be like moths scattered abroad, and the mountains shall
become like carded wool of various colours driven hy the uiind." lb.,
sura toi.

81 16 Hahomei . . . not a sensual man. Carlyle's protest against
such statements as " His two predominant Passions were Ambition and
Lust." Prid*;aux, The True A'citure of Imposture, loi (3d ed.)
Lond., 169S.

82 lit His last words. "After a little he prayed in a whisper:
' Lord, grant me pardon ; and join me to the companionship on high."

I !!!!■>'

LKCTtTRK II] T/IE IlEKO AS PROPHET

315

Then at intervals: • Kternity in Paradise ! ' - ' Pardon ! ' < Ves; the
blessed companionship on high ! ' He stretched himself gently. Then
all was still •' M,. , R. Lip of Mahom.% cap. xxxiii. pp. joS f. I.ond.. ,878.
82 14 lost his Daughter, /einab. Muir records no sayings on this
event. '

to!h \I" !V^'*'^'- •''^"^ ''"^' ^'^' "-^ ^^''^'-"' "p- "vii.

l.ond., i»78 ; and Aonut, 154 n. , ,- and »/., 164 n. e,/, h

82 33 Seld'8 daughter. -He then went to the house of Zeid-
and .ds little daughter rushed into his arms, crying bitterly!
Mahomet was overcome, and wept until he sobbed aloud. A
bystander, thinking to check his grief, said to him: 'Why is this
Prophet ? • . This,' he replied, 'is but the fond yearning in the heart'
of fnend for fnend.- Mi„r, /,/. of Mahcnet, cap. xxui, p. 4,0.
I^nd., 1878.

82 ^ three drachms. "If there be any man," said the apostle
rom the pulp.t," whom I have unjustly scourged, I submit my own

back to the lash of humiliation. . . . Has any one been despoiled of
h.s goods .» the little that I possess shall compensate the principal and
interest of the debt." _" Ves." replied a voice in the crowd, "lam
entitled to three drachms of silver." Mahomet heard the complaint,
satisfied the demand, and thanked his creditor for accusing him in this
worid rather than at the day of judgment. Gibbon, Dedint and Fall
cap. 1. '

83 a Kadijah. Cp. ante, 66 19 n.
83 24 your harvest. Unidentified.

83 26 Hell will be hotter. Cp. "They who were left at home
n, 'In- cxpahtion of TaMc, were glad of their staying behind the apostle
of God, and were unwilling to employ their sub.stance and their per-
sons for the advancement of Goi.'s true religion; and they said, Go
not forth in the heat. Say, the fire of hell will be hotter' if they
understood t/iis." A'oran, sura 9.

83 29 weighed-out to you. Cp. " We wil! appoint just balances for
the day or resurrection ; neither shall any soul be injured at all :
although the merit or guilt of an action be of the weight of a grain
of mustard-seed only, we will produce it publicly ; and there will be
sufficient accountants with us." Koran, sura 21.

84 a Assuredly. See Koran, sura 75, p. 473; sura 82, p. 482 •
sura 83, p. 483.

84 t> ' living in a vain show.' Cp. ante, 52 9 n.

84 25 revenge yourself. " Neither slay the soul which God has

Ill

316

NOTES

[Lkctitrf. II

r !

forbidden you to tiny, unless for a just canst ; and whosoever shall lie
slain unjustly, we have given his heir power to demand satisfattion ; but
let him not exceed the bounds of modtration in f' . death Iht

mnrderer in too cruel a manner, or by reveiigifii^ his j Nood on at •

other than the person who killed him ; since he is assisted iy this law."
Koran, sura 17, p. 230.

84 31 giring alma. " Alms according to the prescriptions of the
Mohammedan law are to be given of five things. \. Of cattle, that is
to say, of camels, kine, and sheep. 2. Of money. 3. Of com. 4.
Of fruits, viz., dates and raisins. And 5. Of wares sold. Of each of
these a certain portion is to be given in alms, being usually one part in
forty, or two and a half per cent of the value." Sai.k, Prelim. Dis-
course, Sect. iv. (iibbon is the authority for the " tenth." I do not
find it in the Koran. See Decline and Fall, tap. 1.

86 5 Paradise . . . Hell sensiul. For Paradise, see Koran, sura
2, p. 4, etc., and especially sura 47, p. 411 ; sura 52, p. 425 ; sura 55,
p. 434 ; sura 56, p. 435; sura 76, p. 475; and also for Hell, ib., sura 4,
p. 67;/«ra 7, p. 119; sura 14, p. 206; ib., p. 20()\ sura 22, p. 275; sura
43, p. 401 ; sura 44, p. 404 ; siira 47, p. 41 1 ; sura 88, p. 487.

86 13 highest joys . . . spiritual. " Oon promiseth unto the true
believers, both men and women, gardens through which rivers flow,
wherein they shall remain for ever ; and delicious dwellings in the gar-
dens of perpetual abode : but good will from God shall be their most
excellent reward." Koran, sura 9.

85 16 salutation . . . Peace. " Hut as to those who believe, and
work righteousness, their Lord will direct them l)ecause of their faith;
they shall have rivers flowing through gardens of pleasure. Their
prayer therein shall be. Praise be unto thee O God ! and their saluta-
tion therein shall be Peace ! " Koran, sura 10, p. 166. Cp. ib., sura 14,
p. 207 ; sura 33, p. 347 ; sura 56, p. 43S ; '/'•- P- •137- " Peace is what all
desire, but all do not care for the things that pertain unto true peace."
Thomas a Kempis, /mit., lib. iii, cap. xxv.

85 19 all grudges. ' And we will remove all grudges from their
minds." A'oran, sura 7, p. 119. " The angels shall say unto them, Knter
ye therein in peace and security, and we will remove all grudges from
their breasts ; they shall he as brethren, sitting over against one another
on couches." /b., sura 1 5, p. 212.

85 31 "We require" . . . master. This quotation in this form I
have not been al>!e tr> hunt down ; the nearest approach to it is in
Meister's visit to the Educational Province. He observes that the

Lecturr III]

THE HEKO AS POET

317

dress of the pupils varies, apparently without reason. " Wilheim in-
quired the reason of this seeming contradiction. ' It will be explained,'
said the other, ' when I tell you, that l>y this means we endeavour to
find out the children's several characters. With all our ^'eneral Mrict-
ness and regularity, we allow in this point a certain latitude of choice.' "
MiUttr's Travels, xi. p. 215. I.ond., 1868. The thought seems to
have undergone with time, a process of sublimstion in the crucible of
Cariyle's brain. The translation of Meistcr lay sixteen years behind him.

88 8 Month Ramadhan. The Mohammedan Lent. "The month
of Ramadan shall ye Just, in which the Koran was sent down from
heavenr Koran, sura 2, p. 22. On account of the Mohammedan year
being the lunar year, this fast comes at different sea.sons. See Muir,
Life of ATahomet, 201. I.ond., 1878.

87 14 Benthamee Utility. This reference produc-d a mild scene.
" The onslaught on lienthaiiiism in ' Hero-Worship,' which as Carlyle
pronounced the word "beggarlier" brought Mill to his feet with an
emphatic No!" Oarnkit, Carlyle, p. 171. Great Writers Series.
Cp. Cariyle's apology, infra, 198 11-199 1-6.

87 34 God Wish. Cp. ante, 21 -M n.

88 14 Arabia first became alive. Carlyle says the same of Scot-
land. See infra, 166 3-,'-167 l-ya.

8829 lightmng out Of Heaven. C p. «.//.-, 15 T-as.

LECTURK III. THE HERO AS I'OET

90 17 Napoleon has words, (p. infra, 160 U. " Kichter says of
Luther's words, ' his words are half-battles,' " and n.

90 19 things Turenne says. I have not been aliie to find any of
his mots.

91 :. as Addison complains. I'nidentified.

91 30 Vates. Cp. " Xevertheless, taking up the rhararter of Vates
in its widest sense, Werner earnestly desires not only to he a jHiet but a
prophet." Essays, Life and Writini^s of Werner, I, \i\.

91 3.1 the open secret. The nearest approach to this ciuotation I
found in Wilheim Meister's Travels, xiii, 2t,-j (I.ond.. i.S(kS): "While
Nature unfolded the open secret of her l)eauty." It was a favorite
phrase of Cariyle's. Cp. infa, 132 2(1. 187 JT ; /•.w,,. .r. State of German
Literature, T, 45; ih., Goethe, I, 23:; ; ib., Jean Paidl'ricdiieh L'ic/iler, II,
•97; it; Goethe's Death, III, 148.

■'Hi

ii!
11

31S

NOTES

[LKintlKK III

Iff

III

91 99 the Oirlne Idea. "The whole material world, with all it.s
adaptations and ends, and in particular the life of man in this world are
by no means, in themsulvus and in deed and truth, that which thty
seem to be to the uncultivated and natural sense of man ; but there is
something hight-r, which lies concealed behind all natural appearance.
This concealed foundation of all appearance may, in its (greatest
univL-rsality, be aptly named the Divine /</,«." Ficiite, Tht Xiiture oj
t/ie Siholitr, 124. lx)nd., 1845. fp. iii/ia, 179 97.

92 :> the Satirist. Carlyle himself; see, for the same idea ex
panded, Siirtoi; Xtitural Sii/<i-rHiituriilisni, 232-234.

93 I Coniider the lilies. See Mait. vi, 28.
93 II Beautiful is higher. Unidentified.

93 IT I have said somewhere. In his article on Diderot in the
(Quarterly Ktview in «S33. See I-lssitys, III, 320. " How . . . shall it at
length Ih; made manifest . . . that the (Jood is not properly the highest,
but the Heautiful ; that the true Heautiful (differing from the false, ax
Heaven does from Vauxhall) comprehends in it the tlood.'"

03 -.>: imagination that shudders. Cailylc (juotes from himself.
"The feelings, the gifts that exist in the I'oet, are tho.se that exist, with
more or less development, in every human soul ; the imagination, whicii
shudders at the Hell of Dante, is the same faculty, wt^iker in degree,
whicli called tiiat picture into being." /•Assays, lUtrns, I, 285.

93 L*u Saxo Grammaticus. (p. </'//<, 27 ion.

94 .■• World-Poets. It was C .ethe wiio invented the term "world
literature," which Carlyle here modifies.

94 in all men. Cp. </«/.•, 93 -jt n.

94 IH German Critics. ". Again he talks too often of 'represent
ing the Infinite in the Finite,' of expressing the unspeakaiile and sui !i
high niattrrs. In fact Horn's style, though extremely readable, has om
great fauii ; it is, to speak it in a single word, an affected style."'
Essiiys, Stiiti- 0/ Cerman LiUrature, I, 31. "Time itself, which is tht
outer veil of Kternity, invests, of its own accord, with an authentic, felt
'infinitude,' whatsoever it has once embraced in its mysterious folds."
Essays, Hoswcll's Life of Jolinson, III, 87.

94 -jw delineation . . . musical. Cp. /////-,/, 104 ai-;i2. " In tiit
thinl place, his poem was so musical that it got up to the length of
singing it.self, his soul was in it; and when we read there is a tiiiv
which hurries itself .ilong. These (|ualities, a great heart, insight, and
song, are the •^t.-imp of a genuine potrm at all times." (Of the Dirm
Commcdui, LL. 87.) Mr. Swinburne and Carlyle had not many

Lkcturk HI]

77/A ItHKO AS POET

319

' world

points of contact. The p.-.t of /.,,„, i;;urh rcprovt.l tlic mrc ..f
ChfUea for inde. xncy ami calli'.l liim 'CoproMomos,' an evil nanu-,
which does not. howi-ver, offset ahufjctlKr Carlyl.'s .nrrKfti. (luscti|).
tion of hN opponent's attitud. ; l.ut thty aj-rto ..s„ntially in their
definition of jwetry. There is mu. h to be said for ' the old vul(;ar
distinction.'

96 :in A Corsican lieutenant. ( p. •• N , llf,iy Allian.e. thoush
plush and gilding and Lnealogi. al ;.ar. hment, !<• the utmost that the
time yields, lie hiiiiK round it. ran Rain for itself a dominion in the
heart of any man ; some thirty or forty millions <.f men's hearts !» iiig,
on the other hand, subdued into loyal revcreme l.y a Corsican
Lieutenant of Artillery." Esutys, Coitlu-'s Works. HI. \U\.

97 a High Duchesses, (p. hi/,. ,,219 il-j.-,. and /.Vt./im, /{ur„s. I,
v.] ; />., Gotlht's nWks, III, 164; l.ockhait, l.ife ,>f /{„,„<, n -o
l.ond.. 1828.

98 11 Portrait . . , Giotto. .Vot to he confounded with what is
generally known as the Ciotto portrait of Dante, as a young man, dis-
covereil in i8.}o, the year these le. tures were giv. n. under the whitewash
on a wall of the chapel of the palace of the I'odtsta at Florence. The
ordinary portraits are taken from the death mask. whi. h Professor
.Norton is inclined to consider jienuine. .See Longfelhiw, /hint,' 's Diviiie
Comedy, I, 350. C'arlyle has made a slip here.

99 8 ten silent centuries. Cp. in/,,,, 100 so.

99 9 mystiw unfathomable song < p. /;//><;, 102 r. Ouoted from
Carlyle's translation of Tiei k's opinion of Novalis. •• I le. al.me among
the moderns, resembles the lofty Dante; and sings us. like him. an
unfathomable, mystic song." F.ts.ivu A'.'t;i/is, 11, 13.'.

100 ;t graceful affecting account. The famous I'/f,, Xu,^,i : Car-
lyle does not err here, in the way of overpraise.

100 16 Podesti. From June 15 to August 15, 1300. Dante was
one of the st.\ Priors by election. 'I'odesta' was the term applied to
another otTicer in the complicated system of civic government at
Florence.

101 5 record . . . Archives. Dated March 10, 1302. With Dante
are included fourteen others. •• There is still to be seen an act of that
trnie in the an hives of Florence, charging all magistrates to burn Dante
alive when he should be taken, such vehement hatred had they con-
ceived against him." /,./,. .S (.

101 lu milder proposal. .Sonne not found.
101 17 How hard.

■».!,

3»'-i

i i

5 ' I

A'OTES

[Lkcturk III

Tu provtml tl cnnw rw di sale

l.o pane altriil, e com' t diiro calk)
I.O Mendere el lalir per I' altriil shaW.

l'»r»Jit«, ivil, %% l(.
Quoted also, F.ttnys, Afirahtau, IV, 102.

101 91 Can d«IU 8c«U. ThiM incide.tt U mentlonml in Haylc, art.
%»//, and Tetrarch's Ktrnm Memorandarum, lib. iv, is given as

authority. " Krant in eodum cunvictu hiittrioneii ac nebulones omnis
generi», ut mos est, quorum unu» procaciMimu* oliiiccrnia verbi.H ac gt--
■tibui, multuni apud omnes loci «t gratia: tenebat. Quod moleste ferre
Dantem aunpicatus Cania, producto illo in medium, & magnis laudibus
concelebrato, versus in Dantem : Miror, inquit, quid causx lubtit, cur
hie cum sit domens, nobis tamcn omnibus placere novit, & ab omni-
bus diligitur, quod tu qui sapiens diceris non potes .> Ille autem : Minimi-,
inquit, mirareris, si noss"s quod morum paritas & ». nilitudo animorum
amicitia- causa est."

102 !J9 Malebolge. Literally •• Kvil wallets." Panle gives this
name to the divisions of the eighth circle, on account of their narrow,
deep shape. Here the fraudulent are punished.

I.uogo t in inferno, dctto Malebolge.

iH/erno, xvUi, i.

102 33 alti giui. Literally "deep groan.s" heard by Dante on his
first entranct into 'h'- " citta dolente " ; not said specifically, of M,iU-
Mgt.

Qulvi sospiri.piantic'd aiti guai
Kinonavan piT 1' aer senza stelle.

Inferno, iil, ii (.

102 3H

103 u
to Dante,
astrology.

unfathomable song. C'p. ante, 99 9 n.

If thou follow. The beginning of llrunetto Latini's speech
Latini was Dante's schoolmaster and addicted to judicial

Se tu segui tua Stella
Non puui fallire a gloriosu porto.

iH/trno, XV, 55.

Cp. " His old schoolmaster tells him : ' If thou follow thy star, thou
canst not miss a happy harbour.' That was just it. That star occa
sionally shone on him from the blue eternal depths; and he felt he was
doing something good ; hut he soon lost it again as he fell hack into thi
trough of the sea, and iiad to journey on as before." L.L. 92.

Lecturk III]

TltR IIEKO AS POST

321

lOS • BUdf OM iMB.

S« nui contlnga che it poeni.i Mrro

A I qu»k- ha posti. nuno e ciein « terra

Si chc m' li.t fatti. ptr piii .iiinl maim,
Vinci U crmlvllX

I'ariiJiio, \\\, i-j

103 ift Hie cUudor DantM. Part of the epitaph Dann- tomponed
for hiniMlf ; carvcii in iiiicialii on his lomli .ii Ka\i.iin.i
Jur» miinarchia-, supcrox, phli-|{etont,i, I.kumiuu
l.iistrnndii n-cini, vuluvrunt f.ita (|in.iis(|uc;
S«l quia |nrt ressit mt'lliirilmi hospit.i caittris,
Auctnrfiii(|iie Aiium petiit, fehiinr astris
Hie claudor Dantht-s patrii'* txtorris ab oris,
Qut-m genuit parvi llurriitii mat.r aiiiDrli.

I!avi.«, nUtioHtiry, i.v., II, vu, .1. n.itei.

Hayle given as authority Poctiantius*, DtScrifl. flonnt.,^^. 45, 46, and
also PauluH Jovius, Kloi;., y.

103 JO unfathomable Song. C'p. nnu, 99 u n.
103 'J I Coleridge remarks, rnidentifitd.

104 93 canto fermo. " I'lie mtU.dy which remains firm to its
original shape, while the parts around it are varying with tlie counter-
point." (iRuVK, Diit. Musi,, I, 306.

104 'M makes it musical. I'p. iinu, 94 •.>» i,.

106 3 sincerest of poems. < oMiiJarc however, Kuskin's opinion,
Sis,ime and l.ihes, I'lu MysUiy <y I.ij,- ,'«,/' tis Arts, § iii.

106 7 people of Verona. lamtnn.iis says "Its fenmus de Flor-
ence." La J>iiine Comoiu, /iitttii/iiitti'ii, I.jj. I'aris, iNSj. kossetti
translates Moccaccio's Memoir: •• His complexion was brown ; his hair and
l)e.ird thick, black and crisp ; and ah\ay>. his counttiiancu melancholy
and thoughtful. \VhereI)y it happed one day in \i ron.i, the fame of
his works being already noised everywhcr.', and diiefly of that part of
his Comedy which he enitles Hell, and lie bring known l)y many men
and women, he passing before a door whereat several women were
sitting, one of them in under tone, but still well heard by him and such
as were with him, said to the other women : ' Sec y^' him who goes
through hell, and returns when he lists, and brings up hither news of
those who are down there .> ' Wliereto one of them replied in her sim-
phcity : 'Of a truth, thou must say true. Seest not how he has his
beard shrivelled up, and his complexion brown, through the heat and

) '■

1;1

322

NOTES

[Lecture III

the smoke which are there below ? ' Which words hearing said behind
him, and knowing that they came from pure credence in the women, he
pleased and as it were content that they should be in such belief, some
what smiling, passed on." W. M. Kosski n, The Comedy of Dante
AtighieriJ'art I. The I hi I, Trauslatedinto lUank Verse. Biographical
Memorandum, xii, f. Loud., 1865.

105 17 perfect through suffering. See Ileb. ii, 10.

106 9 red pinnacle. Literally " mosques," " vermilion."

Ed io : Maestro, gi.'l lu sue meschite
Li entro certo nella valle cerno
Verniiglie, come se di foco uscite

Fossero.

In/crtio, viii, 70-73.

Dr. John Carlyle notices them in his translation, Introduction, xxxiii.
N. v., 1849.

106 19 Plutus . . . collapses.

Quali dal vento le Ronfiatc vele

CaR^iono avvolte, poiche I'alber fiacca;
Tal cadde a terra Li fiera crudele.

In/erno, vii, 13-15.

106 21 Brunetto Latini. The first three editions read ' Sordello.'

Ed io, quando "1 suo braccio a me distese,
Ficcai gli occhi per Io cotto asiK'tto.

In/erno, xv, 26 (.

Cp. " Among these he sees his old schoolmaster who taught him gram
mar, he winks at him in the manner de.scrilied, but he is so burnt that
Dante can hardly recognise him." /,./. 89.
106 as fiery snow.

.Sovra tutto 11 sabbion d' un cader lento
Piovean di fuoco dilatate faide
Come di neve in alpe senza vento.

hiferno, xiv, 28-30.

Cp. "It brings one home to the subject; there is much reality in this
similitude. .So his description of the place they were in. Flakes of
fire came down like snow, falling on the skin of the people, and burn
ing i.iem black !" /./.. 89.

106 35 those Tombs. See fnjerno, ix, 112-x, i-iS. Cp. "The
description is striking of the sarcophagu.ses in which these people are

LKcnrRK IIIJ

THE I/EA'O AS I'OET

323

i
-z

enclosed, ' more or less heated,' ... the lids are to I.e kept ..pen till
the last day, and are then to be sealed down for ever." /../.. 91.

106 28 how Farinata rises. .See In/crno, x, 22-51. especially
1. 35 f. " And he dre- ■ isp his head and chest, as if he had Hell in
great disdain." V-,. " w ., „,ust not omit Farinata, the heautiful illus
tration of a char.- -.tor mu. h £,.,„!,: in Dante. Me is confined in the
hlack dome whcr. thr heretic.., <, .ell ... He hears Dante speaking
in the Tuscan dial. l. ,.nd he ac osts him. Me is a man of great
haughtiness (gran disfitto, .,./„v/,w). This spirit of defiance of
suffering, so remarkal.le in .llschylus, occurs tw.. or three times in
1 )ante. Farinata asks him, ' What news of Florence .> ' For in all his
long exile Dante himself thinks continually of Florence, which he loves
.so well, and he makes even those in torment anxious after what is doing
in Florence." L.I.. 91.

106 an how Cavalcante falls. Carlyk's memory plays him false
here. See fnjhno, x, 5J-72. The significant lines are: " Forse cui
Cuido vo.stro el)l,e a disdegno," 1. 6;„ and " Come Dicesti : egli elihe.!-
non viv' egli ancora .' " II. 67 f. In the lectures of iSjS, Carlyle remeni-
I.ers the exact word. "Then Cavalcanti asks Dante why he is there,
and not his son. Where is he .> .\nd Dante replies that perhaps hj
had disdain for Virgil. //„,/.? C-avakanti asks (/•/./„) : ' Does he not
live then ? ' And, as 1 )ante pauses a little without replying, he plunges
down and Dante sees him no more ! " /,./,. 91 f.

107 24 the eye seeing. Unidentified.

108 2 Francesca and her Lover. .Ste Jnfirno, v, 80-142. C'p.
"There are many of his greatest qualities in the celebrated passage
about Francesca, whom he finds in the cir.le of Inferno appropriated
to those who had erred in love. I many times s.iy 1 know nowhere of
a more striking passage ; if any one would .select a passage character-
i^itic of a great man, let him study that. It is as tender as the voice of
mothers, fall of the gei-tlest pity, though there is much stern tragedy
in it. It is very touching. In a place without light, which groaned like
a stormy sea, he .sees two shadows which he wishes to speak to, and
they come to him. He compares them to doves whose wings are open
and not fluttering. Francesca, one of these, utters her complaint, which
does not occupy twenty lines, though it is such an one that a man may
write a thousand lines about it and not d„ ill. It .ont.iins beautiful
touches of human weakness. .She feels that stern justice encircles her
all around. 'Oh, living creature.' she .says, 'who hast 1 ..me so kindly
to visit us, if the Creator of the World ' (poor Francesca ! she knew

■ * i

5»

1 1

-J if

324

NOTES

[Lecture III

that she had sinned against His inexorable justice) ' were our friend, we
would pray Him for thy peace ! ' Love, which soon teaches itself to a
gentle heart, inspired her Paolo (beautiful womanly feeling that).
' Love forbids that the person loved sliall not love in return.' And so
she loved Paolo. 'Caina awaits him who destroyed our life,' she adds
with female vehemence. Then in three lines she tells the story how
they fell in love. ' We read one day of Lancelot, how love possessed
him : we were alone, we regarded one another ; when we read of that
laughing kiss, he, trembling, kissed me ! Tiiat day,' she adds, 'we read
no further ! '

" The whole is beautiful, like a clear piping voice heard in the
middle of a whirlwind : it is so sweet and gentle and good."
L.L. 89 f.

108 :> della bella persona. " Love . . . took him with the fair body
of which I was bereft"; Literally: "Which was taken from me; and
in a way that continues to afiiict me." l>r. Carlyle's Translation, p. 61
and n. X. V., 1849. The reading of II ' ' qiiesta foiina ' is not found in
the passage ; it is apparently due to Carlyle's imperfect recollection of
the Italian.

108 7 he will never part. " Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso."
Inferno, v, 135.

108 8 alti guai. See 102 -2:1 n.

108 9 aer bruno. I iterally " the brown air." Inferno, ii, i.

108 i(i terrestrial libel. Cp. " This, too, is an answer to a criticism
against Dante, and a paltry criticism it is. Some have regarded the
poem as a kind of satire upon his enemies, on whom he revenged him
self by putting them into hell. Now nothing is more unworthy of
Dante than such a theory. If he had been of such an ignoble nature,
he could never have written the Divina Commedia. It was written in
the purest spirit of justice." L.L. 90 f.

109 10 A Dio spiacenti. These three famous lines relating to the
angels which were not rebellious and were not for (Jod, but for them-
selves, occur close together; see Inferno, iii, 63, 51, 46. Carlylc
grouped them in 1837, in his essay on Mirabeau. " Satan himself,
according to Dante, was a prai.seworthy object, compared with those
jtiste-milicii angels (so over-numerous in times like ours) who ' wen-
neither faithful nor rebellious,' but were for their little selves only ;
trimmers, moderates, plausible persons, who, in the Dantean Hell, are
found doomed to this frightful penalty, that ' they have not the hope to
die (non han speranza di morte),' but sunk in torpid death-life, in muii

Lecture III]

THE HERO AS POET

325

and the pla.' ue of flies, they are to doze and dree forever, — ' hateful to
God and to ihe Enemies of God ' :

' Non ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa ! ' "

Estays, Mirateau, iv, 91.

In 1835, Carlyle and his wife were both studying Italian. Cp. " We
had a great burst of bravura together over that class of Damned Souls
in Dante, A Dio spiacenti ed a" nemici sui, precisely 'the respectable
people' of this present generation of the world 1 Dante says, non
hanno speranza di morte, they have not the hojie to die ! A grand old
Puritan this Dante ; depth and ferocity without limit ; implacable, com-
posed ; as if covered with winter and ice, and like Hecla, his interior is
molten fire ! " Lett. 553.

109 13 Non ragionam. Cp. "These of whom he speaks were a
kind of trimmers ; men that had not even the merit to join with the
devil." He adds: ' A'on ragionam di lor, ma guarda e passa ." — ' Let
us say nothing of them, but look and pass ! ' L.L. 86.

109 15 non han speranza. Cp. '• That is a fine thing which he

says of those in a .state of despair, ' They have not the Hope to die '

'Non hanno speranza di morte!" What an idea that is in Dante's
mind there of death ! To most persons death is the dreaded being, the
king of terrors, Ljt to Dante to be imprisoned for ever in a miserable
complexity, without hope of release, is the most terrible of things 1
Indeed, I belie- withstanding the horror of death, no human crea-

ture but would , 1 be the most dreadful doom not to l)e suffered

to die, though . .aid be decreed to enjoy all youth and bloom

immortally ! For there is a boundlessness, an endless longing, in the
breast, which aspires to another world than this." L.L. SG.

109 18 that Destiny itself. Unidentified.

109 33 I do not agree. Carlyle had stated this opinion before in
Ills lectures of 1838. Cp. "The 'Inferno' has liecome of late times,
mainly the favourite of the three divisions of Dante's great poem. It
has harmonised well with the taste of the last thirty or forty years, in
which Europe ha- e°med to covet more a violence of emotion and a
strength of convi i.-,ion than almost any other quality. It is no doubt
a great thing ; but to my mind the ' Purgatorio ' is excellent also, and
I question even whether it is not a better and a greater thing on the
whole." Z.Z. 93.

109 .11 tremolar dell' onde. Again Carlyle trusts his memory and
misquotes. The phrase occurs in J'urgatorio, i, 117: " The dawn

i26

NOTES

II.kchkk III

conquered the morning hour, which fled before it, so that afar off I
recognized the treml)ling of the sea." Cp. " Very touching is that gen-
tle patience, that unspeaivable thankfulness with which the souls e.xpia
their release after thousands of years. Cato is keeping the gate. That
is a beautiful dawn of morning. The dawn drove away the darkness
westward, with a quivering of the sea on the horizon.

' Si the di lontano
Conobbi al tiuniolar duUa marina.'

■ **

iff

He seems to seize the word for it. .Anybody who has seen the sun rise
at sea will recognise it." L.L. 94. The meaningless ' al ' for ' il' is
probably due to the transcriber.

110 « Tell my Giova ja. See Piiixntorio, viii, 70-75. Cp. " One
man says: 'Tell my (uovanna that I think her mother does not love
me now,' — that she has laid aside her weeds I " /,.Z. 94.

110 n bent-down like corbels.

CoHK' j)er sostentar solaio o tetto

IVr nicnstila fcilvolt.i una tigura

.•^i veder guingt-r le ginocchia al petto,
La (jual fa del noii vurvera rancura

Nascere a chi la vi'de ; cosi f;itti

Vid' io color, quando posi ben cum.

I'tirgatorio, x, 130-135.

110 16 Mountain shakes. The incident of the mountain shaking
is given in J'lir^ntorio, xx, 121-151. Dante is very anxious to know
the reason why, but does not dare to ask. The explanation is given,
'6., xxi, 58-60.

111 26 as I urged. Cp. ««/,-, 7 .i-90.

112 17 ten silent centuries. Cp. ,;;//,•, 99 ».

113 14 yesterday, to-day. See Heb. xiii, 8.

113 19 Napoleon in St. Helena. " Ulliade est ainsi que la Gcm'sc
et la Bible le signe et le gage du temps. Homere, dans sa production,
est poete, orateur, historien, legislateur, geographe, tlieologien, c'est
I'encyclopediste de son epoque: Homere est inimitable. ... Du restt-,
jamais, je n'etais aussi frappe de ses beautes que maintenant : et ks
sensations qu'il me fait epronver me confirment la justes.se de I'appro-
bation universelle." Napoleon came back to the subject often : sc-
Las Cases, Memoirs, II, .37 (May i, 1816), III, 289 (Sept. 13, 1816),

Lecture III]

THE HERO AS POET

HI,

1816)

31 S (Sept. 22. 18.6), irr. i:,z (Sept. 25-27, iS.6), III,

J27

11^ (Oct. 8.

113 ai oldest Hebrew Prophet. Cp. a„u, 56 1-9.

114 13 uses of this Dante. I hu fir.st chapter of Kmerson's Repre-
sentattvf Ahn discu.s.ses '• Uses of (ireat Men."

114 a:i Arabians at Grenada, t]). „„/,•, 88 iii, 20.

115 1:1 fills all Morniug. Unidentified.

116*' Warwickshire Squire. < p. /;,/;,,, 1. 3, „.

116 -jrt Tree Igdrasil. C p. ,/«/,, 2.'J ai n.

116 yo Sir Thomas Lucy. .See Sidney I.ee, ./ L,/e of W,lUum
Shiikesptwe, 27 f. Lond., iSyg.

117 I not a leaf rotting, (p. ,(///.•, 10 - n.

117 30 Freemason's Tavern. ( ariyle met with a number ..f dis-
tinguished men, at this place, on J,u,e 24, ,.S,o, t., found the London
I.ihr.Try. See ('./,./,. F, 200.

118 i(< It has been said. Cp. /-.o./i.r, liuriis, [, rS-

119 17 Fiat lux. Se.On. i, 3. • • - :>•

120 ■> convex-concave mirror. A kichtcrian idea ; see SU-!.,„ka^
cap, 1. translated l.y ( ariyle, Essays, Jean Paul J-rudnch Kuhtc, A -am
11.225. Cp. " Is this beside me yet a Man .^ Unhappy ..ne! V<,ur little
life IS the .sigh of Nature, or only its echo ; . . ,,nve.x mirror throws its
rays into that dust-cloud of dead men's a>hes, '^un on tlie llarth ; nd
thus yon ch.ud-formed \va\eiiuj; pliantusnis arise." Cp. •• There' they
are gathered together, blinking up to it w,ih :,uch vision as they have,
scanning it from afar, hovering round it this wav and that, each cun-
ningly endenvouring. by all arts, to catch some r. Hex of it in the little
mirror of Himself; though many times thi> mirror is so twi.strd with
convexities and concavities, and, indeed, so extremelv small in Mze, that
to expect any true image whatever from it, is out' of the <p,eslion."
hssays,Jc-an J\iui FrudrLh Ru- liter, I. 6.

120 i.-i Goethe . . . says of Shakspeare This statement of Car-
lyle's was corrected next day in the 'limes, by an unknown reporter,
who spells the lecturer's name, ( onsistently, -Carlisle." He mentions
that the remark was applauded, and does not want Carlvle, but 15os-
well, to have the credit of originating it. Something very like it does
occur in RosweU. Johnson, in comi)aring Richardson and Fielding to
tlie latter's disadvantage, used this exp-ession, "that there was as great
a difference between them as between a man who knew h<,w a watch
was made, and a man who could tell the hour by looking on the dial-
piate." Uoswell thinks that " the neat watches of Fielding are as well

il'\

:li.

■it :

328

NOTES

[Lecture III

constructed as the large clocks of Richardson and that his dial-plates
are brighter." Boswcll, sul) ann., 1768. I have not been able to lind
the remark in Goethe.

121 Vo crabbed old Schoolmaster. " An old blind Schoolmaster
in Annan used to ask with endless anxiety when a new scholar was
offered him, ' I'liit are ye sure //t-'j not a Dunce?'' It is really the one
thing needful in a man ; for indeed (if we will candidly understand it)
all else is presupposed in that. Horace Walpole is no dunce, not a
fibre of him is dunci.sh." E.-Corr. I, 205.

121 an talk of faculties. -See 122 la n.

122 IJ All that a man does. Cp. •' I know that there have been
distinctions drawn between intellect, imagination, fancy, and so on, and
doubtless there are conveniences in such division, but at the same time
we must keep this fact in view, that the mind is one, and consists not
of Liinille' of faculties at all, showing ever the same features however
it exhibits itself — whether in painting, singing, fighting, ever the same
jihysiognomy." /-./. 14S.

123 17 Shakspeare . . . greatest of Intellects. Cp. " In a word,
if I w(!re bound to describe him, I should be inclined to say that his
intellect was by far greater than that of any other man who has given an
account of himself by writing books." L.L. 148.

123 ai) unconscious intellect. Cp. " And what is still more excel-
lent, I am sure that Shakspeare himself had no conception at all of
any such meaning in his poem; he had no scheme of the kind. He
would just look into the story, his noble mind, the serene depth of it,
would looI> in on it as it was by nature, with a sort of noble instinct,
and in no other way." L.L. 149.

12". ai Novalis beautifully remarks. •' When we speak of thf
aim and .Art observable in Shakspeare's works, we must not forget that
Art belongs to Nature; tliat it is, so to speak, self-vic'wing, self-imitat-
ing, self-fashioning Nature. The Art of a well-developed genius is far
different from the Artfulness of the Understanding, of the merely
reasoning mind. .Shakspeare was no calculator, no learned thinker ;
he was a niiglity many-gifted soul, whose feelings and works, like
products of Nature, bear the stamp of tiie same spirit; and in whiili
the last and deepest of observers will still find new harmonies witli
the infinite structure of the Universe; concurrences with later ideas,
affinities with the higher powers and senses of man. They are emblem-
atic, have many meanings, are simple and inexhaustible, like products
of Nature ; and nothing more unsuitable could be said of them than

LEtTURK III]

THE HERO AS J'OET

329

that they are works of Art. in the narrow n.t-. hanical acceptation of the
word." \..VAI.IS, lil„llu„st,u,h, ,|uotecl l.y Cariylo, Essays, H. mo.

''He- (Shakspere) "is strong .-.s \atua is strong, who lifts the
land into mountain slopes without effort, and by the same ruK- as she
floats a bubble in the air. and likes as well to do the one as the other "
hMKRSON. N,-/^,eseutatr.c AA„, SAahs/.-.ite : or Ihf Poet. "O mi-hty
poet ! Thy works are not as those of other men. simply and merely
great works of art ; but are also like the phenomena of nature,
hke the sun and the sea, the stars and the riowers; like frost and
snow, rain and dew. hailstorm and thunder, which are to be studied
with entire submission of our own faculties, and in the iH..rfect faith that
in them there can be no too nm< h or too little, nothing useless or inert
- but that, the fartiier we press in our discoveries, the more we shall
see proofs of ilesiyn anil self-supi,ortinj,' arrangement where the careless
eye had seen nothing but accident." De Qi inckv. 0» t/u Knockt,,^- at
the U.i/c- III MaJ'tUi. '"'

123 L'a new harmonies. See 123 ai n.

124 :, as the oak-tree grows. < >. " And thus when we hear of so
much said of the art of any .i;reat writer it is not a,t at all. it is properly
natun: It is not known to the author himself, but is the instinctive
behest of his mind. This all-producing earth knows not the symmetry
of the oak which springs from it. It is all beautiful, not a branch is out
of Its place, all is symmetry there ; but the earth has no conception of
It, and produced it solely by the virtue that was in itself." L.L. 149 f

124 lu Speech is great. Cp. -Words are good, but theyare not
the best." (;„KTI.K, WUhclm McisU;-s A/^r>:uluys/u/', bk. vii, cap. ix,
tarlyle's Translation. II, 60. I.ond., i.SOS.

125 3 ' good hater.' •• I )ear liathurst was a man to my very heart's
content: he hated a fool, and he hated a rogue, an.l he hated a Whig-
he was a very good imter." I'io/.i's Aii^r.wUs, Sj ; ,|uoted, Hirbeck
Mill's Bps-uv/1, T, 190, n. 2.

125 i;i crackling of thorns. .See Eccl. vii, G.

125 ai. Hamlet in Wilhelm Meister. See IHi/u'/m .Ueisfcr's
Atprenticship, bk. iv, cap. iii to bk. v, cap. xii. Cp. -'One of the
finest things of the kind ever produced is Coethe's criticism on Hamlet
•n his ' Wilhelm Meister,' which many among you are aware of. I may
call it the reproduction of Hamlet in a shape .uKlicssed to the intellect,
as Mamlet is already addressed to the imagination." /../.. 1 ,7. " Let
ns look into the scheme of his works, the play of Hamlet, for instance.
Ooethe has found out and has really made plausible to his readers, all

330

NOTES

[Lecture II

«•':!

sorts of harmonies in the structure of his plays with the nature o
things, and we have realised in this way all that could be dumandec
of him." lb., 149.

125 98 National Epic. " It is, as it were, an historical hero!
poem in the dramatic form ... of which the separate plays cunstitu
the rhapsodies." A. W. Schleoel, Lectures on Dramatic I.iteraturt
419. Lond., 1883.

125 98 Marlborough . . . aaid. " In a discussion with Hurnet upoi
some historical point, he displayed so incorrect a conception of thi
subject, that the BLshop asked him the source of his information. n(
replied that it was from Shakspeare's plays that he learnt all he knev
of English history." Woi.seley, Life of Marlhoroui^h, 1, H- Ixand.
1894. IvOrd Wolseley adds in a footnote : "This anecdote is told Ir
Dr. Warner in his ' Remarks on the History of Fingal ' on Dr. Hurnet':
authority." Cp. L.L. 149; Essays, On History, II, 230, where Carlyli
refers to the same fact.

126 5 battle of Agincourt. A. W. Schlegel commends this par
of Ihnry /'specially. Cp. 125 38 n.

126 9 ye good Yeomen. To be exact, " And you, good yeomen
Whose limbs," etc. Henry V, III, 1, part of the king's speech a
Harfleur, not at Agincourt.

127 3 Disjecta membra. Carlyle seems to have in mind " Inveniai
etiamdisjecti membra poetje," HoR. Sat.,\, 4,62 ; but there is adifferen
meaning in Horace. "The whole of it is rich in thought and imagery
and happy expressions ; and of the disjecta membra, scattered about,'
etr. Posweirs fohnson, sub ann., 1737, of Irene.

127 y We are such stuff. Reference to the statue by Kent ii
Westminster Abbey. The " scroll " contains the famous lines fron
The Tempest, IV, i, so often quoted by Carlyle.

127 38 little about his Patriotism. Carlyle must have forgotten
for the time, John of Gaunt's dying speech in Richard II.

129 6 prolix absurdity. Cp. ante, 74 9-16.

129 13 Sir Thomas Lucy. See 116 ,19 n.," sending to the Treadmill."
a humorous modernization of whatever was ihe Elizabethan punishmeiii
for poaching.

Lecti'hk IVJ

THE HERO AS PRIEST

331

LECTURE IV. THE HERO AS PRIEST

132 8(1 open secret. See 91 ati n.

133 so live . . . fruit of hit leading. Mixed metaphor; cp. "un-
ravel the kernol," ante, 26 St*.

134 15 wild Saint Dominies. An example of Carlyle's habit of
making proper nouns plural, to give pitturusqueiiess to his style. The
reference is to Domingo de (luzman, the founder of the famous order of
preaching friars, • 1 )omini canes,' as they called themselves. Thebaid
Eremites. Set Ki:igs: y, 'Jhc Hi-nnits.

135 16 Progress of the Species. '• What, for example, is all this
that we hear, iox the last generation or two. about the Improvement of
the Age. the Spirit of the Age. Destruction of Prejudice, Progress of
the Species, and the March of Intellect, but an unhealthy state of self-
sentience, self survey, the precursor and prognostic of still worse
health." Essays, Cluintcti-ristusAW, 22 i. On June i, iSj;, Carlyle
mentions in a letter to Emerson "a set of Essays on Progress of the
Species and such like by a man whom I grieved to see confusing him-
self with that. I'rogress of the species is a thing I can get no good of
at all." I'.Corr. I, 125.

136 T in the ocean. Xo^ so much a quotation as Carlyle's conden-
Nation of /n/,>ii,>, xxxiv, 106-1 j6.

137 U4 Schweidnitz Fort. Captured by General Loudon. Sept. 30.
17O1. "In another place, the Soo Russian Crenadiers came unexpectedly
upon a chasm or jjridgele'^s interstice Ix-'tween two ramparts ; and had
to'lialt suddenly, —till. (s:iys n.mour again, with still less certainty)
their Ofiicers insisting with the rearward part, 'Forward, forward!'
tiiouKh of men were timil.led in to make a roadway ! This was the
story current; grea y exaj-gerated, I have no doulit." Carlyi.E, //is-
tory of /yiedrich // of /'russia, VII, 394. N. V., 1898 (bk. xx, cap. vii).
( p. infra, 168 6.

138 13 Arab turban. A curious 'arm.' Could Carlyle have
written ' tulwar' .'

138 26 cannot away with. " Bring no more vain oblations ;
incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sab!)aths, the
calling of assemblies 1 cannot away with ; it is iniquity, even the solemn
meeting." isa. i, 13.

138 38 done under the sun. " I have seen all the works that are
done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit."
tccl. i, 14. The phrase occurs five times in this same book.

3)2

NOTES

[I.K IIKK IV

?»1

■f

•'%■■

139 a? Canopui. Caabah. Si c mil,; 1 1 n, and 60 -iw f.

140 14 dimly to doubt. •• Doubt " is laru a Sailtic ism, n|iiival> nt
to "suspect."

140 at You do not believe. Iiannot find v^lic- DrtowhomColtridgi
lays tliis. It occurs a^ain in liritf form in (Jarlylc's /.//;• c/.S/, 7 ////;,•, p,
47 (People's ed.). n. d., and may have l)een said of .Sterling; himself.

141 M timber and bees-wax. See ,/«/,. 72 i.i-i...
141 w TetzePs Pardons, .^ee /////-,/, 161 •,>« n.

143 7 Hogstraten. Jacobus lloogstraien.a Domiiiitan nmnk, whu
wished to convince I.uther of his errors by tiie short argument of the
stake; satirized in the EpistoliP Ohsiuroriim I'nonim. Mi,li,lit, 31 n.

143 s Eck. Johann I'ck (I4S()-| 543), I'rofessor of Theulojjy at
Ingolstadt, Master of tiie Apostolical Chamber at Rome and licenser
of books ; attacked I.uther on the subject of indulgences ; and went
to Rome to procure his condemnation ; and was one of his opponents
at the Diet of W Ornis.

143 1:1 Bellarmine. Robert I'.ellarmine (isij-ifiir) died Arch-
bi.shop of Capua, a famous Catholic theologian and controversialist,
noted for his learning, clear method, and moderation.

143 91 believe that. See 140 ai n.

14f ;. Serpent-queller. An allusion to the myth of Apollo as
the slayer of the Python ; or possibly in view of the next line, to Spen
ser's Red-cross Knight and his conquest of terror, h'aerie (hietiir, bk. i.
cant. i.

146 21 Luther's birthplace. "In these circumstances Martin
Luther was born. His parents were of the poorest people. Ills fath<i
was a poor miner of Moerha or Moer, near I'.isi nac h, in Ipper Saxony,
where I.uther was born on .N'ovember loth, i 1.S3." /,./,. 135.

147 n another Birth-hour. Carlyle's references to Jesus are uni
fornily reverent. Cp. Sitrtor, 203, 307.

147 la Age of Miracles past. A geneml reference to Hume on
miracles.

'47 IH He had to beg. " His father, who seems to have been w
remarkable man, contrived to send him to a school, where he struggled
on in his studies for a long time. It appears that he went with otii. r
of the boys, as was their custom, through the various villages in tin
intervals of study, singing ballads, and getting in this way a few copper>
thrown to him, till at last the widow of a rich burgher, hearing of hi-
aljility, .issisted him forward, and gut him placed at tlic University,
where he soon distinguished himself." L.L. xzd.

Lecturk IV]

THE HKRC AS PKIhST

333

148 I thunder-hammer. Thor miaiis • thuiulcr.' fp. ,/«/,, 21 mi
148 I death of his friend. •• lli^ fathi r wislud him t,, |,e a lawy.i.
and hi- was at lirM •.tudyinj. for ihat, Imi affc rwards. iipun .s.-einj,' a
companion struck Midtltidy dead l.y lu> tatln rV :>idr. I.utlur. naturally
a .serious, mtlantliolyniind.d man, \va> s.. slunk to ih.' heart at sutini,'
Ixfore his eyes a duar friiiid ut omu hurrinl away into l-.tcriiity and
inliniludc, that tiic l.iw and thcj |.ioinoti,,n> it ..||, red lilin sank into a

poor, miserahlf dream in comparison to th. un.it irdiiyl..! liim,

and hel)ecame a numk tliat lie niijdit occupy him-. It uh..)ly with piaver
and rehnion." /../.. \n\.

148 rJT a pioua monk. •■ !(.• iMcamr. .,, h. t.lU u-, -a strict ami
painful monk,' and this lifu cciainiiol many yeai-, n..i.iytcn years."
/,./.. i.'fi. " l).i/u mus/ er die wmt hsi,, ; <„, alle fremlxle M^-dancken

I vnd da.sz eis allcin horete ; viid dn- vmlih^r w.ir.n ^ nicht icli l»in
auch fin sokher frommer Munch jjt-wesen in die tin Iti/fheii J.iie ]
(lott vert;el) niirs." Ci<i/o,/tii,i Af<iii.u'i,i. M. p,,. j i.inkfort, i;;!.

149 7 he wa.S doomed. •• He was very mi,ei.d.!c in that hfe, ima^-
ininn himself doomed to cveri;i>tiiij; perchli..n. and hi couhl not see
how prayer, saying of masses, coidd save iiini or ^ct him to Ikavtn"
/../.. ij6.

149 17 an old Latin Bible. •• At last one of his !ii..ther monks, a
pious, good man, told him, what was ipiile mw to hnn at tile lini", tiiat
the real secret of the thiiii; lay in n pi ntaiue ami faith in lesiis ( lirist.
This was the first insight he ever got iiuo it, thai it was not pray« r nor
masses at all that couhl savi him, Imt failini; (h>wn in -pirii as Siriptnre
says at the foot of the ('ro-.>! At llii^ tun. , too, h, f,,un,l ;i |;il,le, an
old Vulgate Dihle, in the (onvent lil.rary, whi. h he uail. .md in this
way he got peace of mind at last, hiit he s' iiiis to h.ive iiiirodn, nl no
project of reform at the time." /../.. ij(,f. •• Mml, astonishment has
sometimes heen expressed at l.ntlur's -disi o\cry ' of the I'.iMu at tiio
C."onvcnt Library of Krfurt. 'Hie real e.vplanatioii of his previous igno-
rance of its contents is that l.ulher entered the ( )r(Ur a Masitr of Alts
who had nt^ver studied in a theological K.u iilty."' \< XsiihM i , Cnnvru-
tii-s of /un-o/'c in the Mi,/,//,- ,-/;■,•?, 1 1, pi. ii. -o\. ( ixford. i,So5. On the
other hand, Luther himself said that th. I'.ihlc was ,i hook laiely found
in the hands of the monks, who kiiuw .St. 'liicinas 1.. ttei than St. I'aul.
A/i,helft, i8, n., and i/>.. d, n. i. See D'Auliigne, //is/,i)v of tin- h'cfornui-
tton, l)k. ii, caps, v, vi.

160 4 Priedrich, the Wise. There is a portrait of Frederick in the
cheap English translation of Luther's Lift' by Kustlin.

I ■

•I'

3i4

XOTES

[Lkctiirk IV

160 n Profeaior In . . . Wittenberg. • He continued to grow in
eittecm with tveryl.o.lj. rhe IKnor of Saxony, hearing of hi« gnat
talents and harmony, lirought him to the lniverj.ity h.- hail ju.it founded,
and made him one of the professors tlxie." /../.. 1.7.

160 II he first aaw Rome. •• His convent afterwards sent him to
Rome, for he remained an Augustinian monk, to manage some affairs
of the convent : tliis was in the time of I'opc Julius II. lie was
deeply sho< ked at all he saw there, liut was not in the least aware then
of the work he was in a few years to do." /./,. 127.

160 Hi what we know. Carlyle's moderation is non worthy.
What l.uther found was the Italy of the Horgias. .See D'AuliiKue.
Ilistnty of tin- A'lj.iHhitii'ii, l)k. ii, tap. vi.

161 l!» sorrowfulest of theories. f'ompareCatlyle's generous indig-
nation at a similar interpnt.itiim of Xante's conduct, (p. ,////,, 108 u
"Again, turning in the ..th.r direction, he criticises Luther's Reforma-
tion, and repeats that old and inileed cpiite fooli>h story of the .\ugus
tine monks li.iving a merely lommercial grudge against the Dominican."
/•.■>.>, MM, 7'/l7iV V Sut~, ,y 01 (Urmiiu /.i ft ratine; II, .((I.

ir.l •,>« The Monk Tetzel. "Hut at last Tet/el, the (elel.rated
Dominican, i ,im«' int.. Sa.\..ny to sell indulgences, lie wis sent by
I'ope l,e<> X, who wanted money for some purpose, .some say to l.uy
jewels for a niece, and he sold them there he.side l.uther. I.uthei soon
found it out in the confessional, as he heard fri ijuently from tho.se who
came to confess, that they had no need of repentance for this or that
.sin, since they h.id bought indulgences for them ! This set Luther to
preach a sermon .igainst the sale of indulgtii. .s at all, in which he
asserted that the Church ha.s only ])<>wer to remit the penalties itself
imposes on sin, hut not to pardon sin, and that no man has any author
ity to do th.-it. let/el responded to this, .uid at last l.uther saw him
.self obliged to look deeper into the matter, and to publish Ids
ninety-five propositions as to indulgemes, denying the foundation of
the whole matter altogether, and challen^inj; Tet/el to prove it to him
either in reason or Scri])ture. This occc-ioned a great ferment in (ier
many, already in an unsettled state of opinion, and produced several
missions from the I'ope." /../.. ij; f. l.uther is himself the authority
for this statement ; see MuheU-t, So, 182.

152 24 Huss. The Hohenuan reformer and martyr; born about
1369, burnt at the stake. July (>, 1,(15. ^^^^ also 154 !:> n. Jerome.
The martyr of Prague, convert of Wyrliife and friend of IIuss, hrrn
between 1360- 1 370, burnt at the stake, May 30, 1416.

I.rrriTM IV]

yy/A //AA'o ,ts rNJi ST

.VJS

162 '£< CoBsUnce Council. This hdLiM.- mfeting (i4i4-i4i.S( wax
f.ir Ihc purpo-f of pnltiny .111 end to tin.- iirenul.ililicx in the t-ltUitui of
ilu' rii|H', and til pri'M'iit liif <lortrii)f> <\{ l|ii>'. Imm ..preatlJn^,

163 « words of truth. Sic Art> xwi, .'5

153 \* at the Elater-Gate. In II '. ( ail}l. w.i<. rmt a>Ltirdt( as to
tilt! placf. "Finally, lainn ixi i>niniiiiiii .itiil l>) tlif l'<)|>c, he pul)li> ly
buriieil the extoniiminiiation in ilu prtMnn; of Iih frion<U, and rxiilid
thtrehy a dwp murmur of a'«i'ii.i>lHil cxpittanty aiming tlif l>t;li.pliU r>,
l)iit n>>iliinj» moie then, thougli tlnyiiudd nni jj, |p fi-i jinj; that tlit;
ttiitli must lie with him." I. I i.».S.

153 :ii Mahomet said. Sll' 72 1 1 n.

154 I.'. Diet of Worms. -In tiif uar \\:\ . . he surnndirtd
himNttf to the Dit't of Wdini*. whun- the l.in|Hri'i li.id rtsnh.d to havu
hitn tried, although he rtnuniliert il liuw Ilu-.^ h:i<l l.i.ii liilr,i\id Ixfore,
•ind his -afe-ionduv t vioLiltd. It w.is In tin- ey> s uf .ill ,1 d.iim;^, j;rf.il,
ti.irfid I iitfrpri>e, hut not fe.irfiil Im l.uilui, wIxim' lite was n.it t" sink
into a downy sleep, while he heard llw .u'rt.it i.ill u\ .1 f.n otl„ r lif'- upon
iiini, so he determined to go. 'riii., w,i» on tin i;th of .\piii. i;.m.
( h.irli-s V, the l.niperoi. and th. -i\ l.ieiiors were >ittiii« there, and
there was he, a poor man, son of .1 p.oi niiiier, with noihinii Imt (Jod's
iriith for hi.s support." /. /.. ij.S f.

154 y.i as many Devils. " lli> frieiuU nu 1 him at t!ie gate and t.ld
him not to enter the 1 ity. as tlic ihin^ei was .;iiat; hut he told thmi
(lelil)erately 'that, upon the whole, he wonlil uo in, though there Wite
as many devils in \\orms as hoii-etiles." " /,./.. i;^. (^(uotcd alsfi,
A... ,;)■,, /.i.t'i.r's /'v./Zw, II 2.\2.

155 1 Whosoever denieth. See Matt. \, ^3. "Hi; aeeordingly
appeared, and went thiougli an exaniinati^p on matters of religion,
Willi h was wound up iiy the (piestion, • \\ oidd lie rr( .mt iii> opinions.-'

" The answer was to he given on the morrow ; he nie<lit.tted it all the
night. Next morning, as he p.is-ed through liie sini ts, the piople
were all on their hoiisetop>, <alliii^ on him not to deny the truth, and
saying, 'Whoso denieth Me before men, liim will I deny before My
K.ither.' And there weie (ther voices of th.it sort whiih spoke to his
heart, hut he passed on without a word." A /.. 1 .;i).

155 \h His writings. •• In the (Oumil he sjioke in reply for two
hours, and was admiiud hy everyhoily for his modest siiu erity. ' As to
the retractation, he first wished to have explained to him what was
vMoiig in the opinions.' They told him • tiiat liiey had nullmig to do
VMtli seholastie theology, the question was, Would he recant.'' To

•

336

NOTES

[Lecture IV

this he answered, 'that his book was duidtd into two portions, part of
it was his own, part was Scripture. In the former it was possible lliat
there was much error, which, if proved, he was not only willing, but
eager to retract; but as to the other part, he could not retract it. It
was neither .safe nor prudent to do anything against Conscience ; let me,'
he said, 'be convicted of error from the liiblt, or let the thing stand
as written. Here I take my stand ; it is neither safe nor prudent to do
anything against Conscience. Cod Ut; .ny lielj). Amen ! ' This speech
will be for ever memorable ; it was as brave a sjieech as was ever uttered
by man. It was the beginning of things not fully developed even yet,
but kindled then first into a flame, which shall never be extinguished. It
was the assertion of the right of consulting one's own conscience, which
every new founder of a civilisation must now take along with him, which
has entered largely into all the activity men have had since ! " L.L. \ 29 f.
Quoted also, Essays, Luther's Psalm, II. 243. See also if>., n.

157 14 No Popery. When Carlyle was giving these lectures, the
Anglo-Catholic Revival, or O.xford Movement, was almost at its height.
The next year (the year the lectures were published), Ntvvman issued
his famous Tnjct XC. In 1S42, he left the Anglican communion.
While Herccs remained in manuscript. Carlyle wrote to Kmerson (Dec.
9, 1840) : " To fly in the teeth of Knglish I'useyism, and risk such
shrill welcome as I am pretty sure of, is questionable; yet at bottom
why not.'" E.-Corr. I, 338.

158 2fi man that has stirred-up. For example, the men that made
the French Revolution. Carlyle notes also how Knox dominates the
Puritan movement in Scotland ; see infra, 173 !i.

159 I a preach without a cassock. " l.uthur thus writes to George
Duchholzer, an ecclesiastic of Uerlin, who had asked his opinion
respecting the changes recently introduced into ISrandenburg. 'Ast<.
the chasul)lf, the processions, and other external matters that your prin< t
will not abolish, my opinion is this: If he allows you to preach the go.-,
pel of Jesus CJirist in its purity, without any human additions, . . . then
I say, (;o through whatever cerenionies he recpiires, whether they relate
to carrying a gold or .silver cro.ss, to chasuble of velvet, of silk, or linen,
to cope, or what not. If he is not satisfied with one cope or chasu!)k,
put on three, after the fashion of the iiigh priest Aaron, who wore thi. e
robe.s, one upon the other, all beautiful and gorgeous garments.'"
Mkhclet, 456. To Carlyle, the born Presbyterian, the difference be
tween a chasuble and a cassock was trifling; both were articles of
ecclesiastical man-miilinerv.

LECTiJRK TV] THE IfEA'O AS PK/EST

337

li>n 10 Karlstadt's wild image-breaking. Tw., of the Koformers,
Storch and M.inzei, went l,ey,.ncl l.utl.er's teaching; aii.l a<lv.,catecl the
total banishment of priests and I'.il.les. They were driven away from
Zwickau and came to Wittenl.ery. where Karlstadt joined them. The
consequence of their prea, hinj,' was an attack on the churches, break-
ing of images, and general disor.ler. See I )'Aul.igne, //n/,.;-;' of the
K.fprmatioH, bk. ix. ,}'•, ; and MLIi.!,l, \s,,)^\-^o ; and //-., 36S f.

159 17 Anabaptists. Tlie shape which the Reformation tor.k at
Minister in 1532 was strange enough, opposition to infant baptism, calls
to repentance, and pulygamy. .See MuhcLt, 2J0-2.1S ; and ,h.. Appendix,
40 1 . ' '

159 IT Peasants' War. One consequence of the Reformation, a
ten months- struggle in .5.-5 of tlie peasants with the nolnlity to obtain
bare justice. Prof. T. M. Lindsay (E'uy,. j:,U.) holds that l.utherfailed
at this crisis, lost his head, and at last took the wrong side. For the
petition of the peasants and Luther's answer to them, see MicheUt,
161-1S0; and //'., Appendi.\, 370-37G.

160 r» Richter says. "Luther's prose is a half-battle; few deeds
are equal to his words." Esuiy<. /,„;, /'„„/ /■,„■,/,;, k Ruhter, If,
215; quoted from Voruhulr. s. 5,5. - Thougl, his wor<ls were half
battles, as Jean I'a.il says, stronger than anillevv. v, t among his friends
he was the kindest of men." /../.. ,3,. T!,„ p'l.r'.se is :.Ko quoted by
Carlyle, Ess.,ys, I.utJur's P.uilnu 11,24.- //'■, OWM,'. U'ork^, III
19;.

160 ir. « Devils ' in Worms, .'^ee 154 :.':) n.

160 3.T Luther sat. See Coleridge. The /-n.,!,/. l-ust I.a,,di„>^-
rtace. Essay 2. for a long discussion of this ini id, nt. " Lis. nach, with
its Wartburg, where Luther lay conre.ile.i transl.iting the i'ible : there
I spent one of the most interesting forenoons I ever got by trav-
elling They open a door, yr,u entr, a little apartment, a v.ry poor,

low room with an old le.ul. n lattire wi,„!ow, to nu. the ,no,t venerable
of all rooms I ev. r entered. ... I kj.s, cl his old oak tabh,., looked
out of his window -making tlum open it f,., me -and thought to
myself. 'Here once live.l one of ,;o,r, soldiers, be h<.„„u, .yiven
him.'" Carlvlk. to his luotlur, (pioted by llhint, T/ir C\uiv/,s'
Clulsfa Home, p. 46. I.r.nd , 1.S95. See C.I..I.. II, 1 17.

161 ;i The Devil is aware. In a letter to the i:iector. daicd Ash
Wednesday, 1522. •• The devil well knows it was not bar made me do
this: he saw my heart when I entered Worms, and knows perfectly
well, that, had the city been as full of devils as there are tiles on the

fi ii

4^^^^

338

NOTES

[Lecture IV

house-tops, I would joyfully throw myself among them. Now Duke
George is even less in my eye than a devil. ... If God called me to
J^eipzig, as he does to Wittenberg, I would go there, though for nine
whole days together it were to rain Duke Georges, and every one of
them were nine times more furious than this devil of a duke is."
MicheUt, ii8 f.

162 6 Luther's Table-Talk. Michelet's Life of Luther, translated
by Hazlitt (Bogue's European Library, Lond., 1846), furnishes the
English reader with the readiest means of understanding the Table-Talk,
as it is almost wholly constructed out of it. The references are given,
and there is a copious Appendix. " Luther's Table-Talk is still a vener-
able classic in our language." Essays, State of German Literature,

1.35-

162 13 He is resigned. Chapter i, book v, of Michelet's Life is
devoted almost entirely to this incident. The child died in 1 542 at the
age of fourteen ; her name was Magdalene, not Margaret, as Carlyle
put it both here and in 1. 18 of the first edition, H '. "When his
daughter was very ill, he said : ' I love her well ; yet, O my God ! if it
be thy will to take her hence, I will resign her without regret, into thy
hands.' As she lay in bed, he said to her : ' My dear little daughter,
my darling Magdalen, thou wouldst, doubtless, willingly remain here
with thy poor father, but thou wouldst also go hence willingly to thy
other Father, if he call thee to him .' ' " Michelct, 298.

162 20 his solitary Patmos. Luther dated his letters from the
Wartburg, "from the Isle of Patmos"; it is Carlyle's name for Craigen-
puttoch.

162 23 flights of clouds. " I have lately seen two signs in the
heavens: I was looking out of my window in tlie middle of the night.
and I saw the stars, the whole majestic vault of God, supporting itself,
without my being able to perceive the columns upon which the Master
rested it ; yet it fell not. ... In the morning I saw huge, heavily-ladin
clouds floating over my head, like an ocean. I saw no pillars support-
ing the enormous masses ; yet they fell not, hut, saluting me gloomily,
passed on ; and, as they passed on, I perceived, beneath the curve whicli
had sustained them, a delicious rainbow." Michelet, 307 f.

162 27 bMuty of the harvest-fields. "Another day, on his way tn
Leipzig, seeing the surrounding plains covered with the most lu.xuriant
crops of wheat, he fell to praying with the utmost fervour, exclaim
ing: 'O God of all goodness, thou hast bestowed upon us u vear of
plenty. . . . Thy voice causes to spring out of the earth, and out of thi

Leciure IV] THE HERO AS PRIEST

339

sand of the desert, these beautiful plants, these green blades, which so
rejoice the eye. (i Father, give unto all thy children their daily
bread.' " MichiUt, 266. cited from Lutlu-rs lUUfe, v, not the Tisch-
redcn. The passage also refers to spring, not harvest, and to Luther's
going to, not/rom, I.tipzig.

163 a That little bird. " f)ne evening, doctor Luther, seeing a
little bird perching on a tree, and taking up its rest for the night,
observed : ' That little bird has chosen its shelter and is about to go to
sleep in tranquillity: it has no disquietude, neither does it consider
where it shall rest to-morrow night, but it .sits in pea. e on that .slender
branch, leaving it to (lod to provide for it.' " Mic/ni.t, 266, cited from
Tischreden, ^T,. Frankfort. 1568.

163 13 The Devils fled. " .Music, too. is very good ; for the devil
IS a saturnine spirit, and music is hateful to him. and drives him far
away from it." Mic/ula, :iy., cited from risc/nrdn, 238. Cp
" .Sathan fleuhet die Musica." ColloquU, Mcnsalia, fol. 217. Frankfort
1571.

163 17 Luther's face. "The wild kind of fo , that was in him
appears in the physiognomy of the portrait by Luke Chranak. his
Iiainter and frien.l. the rough ])lel.eian countenance, with all sorts of
noble thoughts shining out through it. Ihat was precisely Luther as
he appears through his whole history." /../,. i y.

165 1 1 the Mayflower. The Mayjlo-.vcr .sailed from Southampton •
the ship that brought the Pilgrim Fathers from Delftshaven was the
Speedwell.

165 30 Neal's History of the Puritans. The account in Neal
does not correspond e.xactly to what farlyle gives here. The words of
the Rev. Mr. Robin.son. as quoted in the edition of 1754 („ot 1755). are
chiefly warnings against the Lutherans and falvinisi.s. and advice to
his flock to "shake off the name of Hrownists."

166 15 History of Scotland, fp, 88 u n.

166 17 Knox. In his tenth lecture of the course in 1838. Carlyle
notices incidentally the most common view of Knox: "A poor notion
of moral motives, he (Robertson) must have had; in his description of
Knox, for instance, he can divine no better motive for him than a mis-
erable hunger, love of plunder, and the influence of money; and such
was Hume's view also! The same is remarkable of Clibbon in a still
more contemptible way." /../. 176. Mrs, Carlyle was a descendant
of Knox, and Carlyle shows his admiration for him as a great Scots-
man, in his private letters and elsewhere.

-1

340

NOTES

[Lkcturf. IV

Of the Lady's song, Thyrsis

•' r

m
'if''

1-^

166 3,1 under the ribs of . . . death,
says:

I was all cnr
And took ii\ -trains that might create a soul
Undtr the ribs of death.

Comus, 560-562.

167 33 tumult in the High Church. .Arising from Jenny Geddes
flinging lier stool at the r.i.sh<.p'.s head, as a protest against the " Mass."
See Carlyle, llistoiical Skcttlus, 307-310 (l.ond., 1S98), for a lively
account of it.

168 i glorious Revolution, of 16SS. It was so styled officially.
See Carlyle's CiomuhU's Li-tlas an,! Sf^.-.ihi-s, end.

168 Ditch of Schweidnitz. Cp. aiit.\ 1S7 'J4 n.

168 i:( official pumps. Il.vplained in another edition of Heroes as,
" Reference to extravagant and alfecled dress of the age." Purnps and
silk stockings (with knee-tirecL-hes) are still part of " utticial" dress of
various kinds in Knghuul, a>, fur example, the "Windsor uniform."

168 i:t Universal three-times-three. As thi.s phrase has been
explained as '• Reference to the battle-cry, 'A Free Parlianient and the
Protestant religion,'" it may he wrll to mention that it denotes simply
the tripling of the usual tiin-' thecis, • hip hip-hurrah.' For an em-
barrassing multiplication of cheir.s, to express still greater enthu.siasni.
See T/iroN.;/! the Lookini^-Cliiss, end.

168 lit Half-and-half. In the political language of the day, the
middle term between Radic;cl and I'ltr.i ; lailii', mugwump.

168 JO in French galleys. See 170 11; n.

168 -js shot at. I cannot lind that Knox was .shot at through his
windows.

169 do St. Andrew's Castle. " Ti-ough a monk, he determined
now to have nothing to do witii Calliolicism, and lie withdrew from all
prominence in the world until he had reached the age of forty-three, an
age of quietude and composure. When he was besieged in the Castle
of St. Andrew's along witii his master, whose children he had educated,
he had many t onfrrences with his mastt r's oiiajjlain. The latter having
first consulted witli the people, who were an.xious to hear Knox preacii
too, suddenly addressed him from the pulpit, .saying that it was not
right for him to sit still when great things were being spoken ; that tlu'
harvest was great, but tiie laiiourers were few ; that he (the chaplaini
was not so great a man as Knox, and that all were doirous to hear the
latter; ' i.s it nut so, btelhrcn.^' i-,e a~kcd, to which lliey assented.

Lecture IV]

Tt/E 1/ERO AS PRIEST

341

Knox then had to got into the pulpit, treinl)ling. with a pale face, and
hnally burst into tears, and camu down, not having lieen able to sav
a word." L.L. 1 53 f . '

170 .-, baptism he was called. Adaptation of Luke xii. :o. See
also 170 ifi n.

170 6 « burst into tears.' Knox is the authority for this incident •
see his collected Works (td. I.aing,, 1. ,S6-i8,S. After stating kough'J
charge, Knox continues: "And in the end, he said to those that war
present. ' Was not this your charge to n.e ? And do ye not approve
this vocatioun.'' They answered, -It was and we approve it '
W hairat the said Johnne abashed, byrst forth in n.aist abundand tearis,
and withdrew him self to his chalmer." Works, I. iSS. Edin.. 1S46.
I'arlyle makes the scene a trifle nmre dramatic.

170 Hi Galley-slaves. •• It was a tiery kind <,f baptism that ini-
tiated him. He had becme a preaciier not three months, when the
ras.i. surrendered, and they were all taken prisoners and worked as

galley slaves on the river Loire, contined fur life there Seven

years after we find him escaping from the hrench galleys, when he came
to Kngland." /../.. ,54. .• lie never gave up, even in the water of the
ix^ire. . . . Their Virgin Mary was once brought fur some kind of
reverence to the people of the galley, and it was handed to Knox first-
but he saw nothing there but a painted piece of wood _a 'pented
bredd,' as he called it in his Scotch dialect; and on their pressing him,
lie threw it into the water, saying that ' the Virgin, being wooden, would
swim.'" //.., 155. See McCric, Uf, 0/ John Knox, I, 6S, Kdin..
1814,- and Hume lirown, /.//;/ K,wx, A Hu^f^'ni/^hv, \. 84. Original
authority. Knox's A',/orm„/ioii ni Scotlan,/, bk. i. See Works (ed.
I.aing), I. 227. Kdin.. 1S46.

170 L>8 told his fellow-prisoners. "The said Maister fames a.ui
lohne Knox being intill one galay, and being woun.lerous familiare
with him, would often tymes ask his judgement. - \{ he thought that
ever thei should be deliveied ?" Whose answer w,.s ever, fra'the day
that thei entered in thegalayl., -That Cod wold delive, thame from
that l!ondage, to his glorie, evin in this lyef." " K.vox, Reformation in
Siotlnnd. bk. i. Works, I. 22S.

171 !. He lies there. '• It was truly said of him on his deatii-bed
by tlie ^;arl of Morton, 'There he lies that never feared the face of
man!'" L.L. 156. Not cpiite accurate in form. -As he stood by
the grave, the Regent Murray, with that sentenli.)usness of speech for
which he was noted, pronounced the memorable eulogy on the dead —

ft?

•If

h '"

342

NOTES

[Lecturk I

'Here lies one who neither flattered nor feared any flesh.'" IIim
Brown, y<j//« Knox, A /Uoj^nt/ihy, II, 288. I.ond., 1895. For varian
see ib., n. 2. The form here given is from Melville's Diary, 4;
Carlyle follows McCrie; see the latter's Li/c of John Knox, II, 2j.
Edin., 1814.

171 21 actual narrative. See Knux, Works (ed. Laing, 1846), 1
277-392. " His rude, brutal way of speaking to Queen Mary. Now,
confess that when I came to read these very speat hes, my opinion <
these charges was that they are quite undeserved. It was (juite impi>.
sible for any man to do Kno.x's functions ami be civil too; he ha
either to be uncivil, or to give up f-coiland and Protestantism alt'
gether ! Mary wanted to make of Scotland a mere sliooting-groun
for her uncles, the Cluises." /,./,. 1 56.

V^l a Better that women weep. Original source not found.

172 H Mary herself, "((insidering the actual relations of the tw
parties, it is absurd to spi'ak of Knox as a coarse man of the peopli
bullying a defenceless (pieen. Tiie truth is, that if there was .mi
attempt at browl)eating, it was on Mary's part and not ;.n that >'■
Kno.x." Ifi:MK Hkiiwn./i";;/ A'//.'.r, ,/ Hioi^iaplty, 1, 196. I.ond., i8y;
Who are you? " What have ye to do," said sche, "with my marria,L,'c
Or wliat ar ye witiiin this Commoini wealth ? " " .\ subject born
within the same," said he, " Madam." Kni >\, KcjWntittion in Scotlau,,
bk. iv. Works (ed. Laing), H, 3SS.

172 is Tolerance has to tolerate. Here ("arlyle joins hands witi
Newman, who, he said, had not the brains of a ralil)it. t'p. •' We ar
none of us tolerant in wliat concerns us (l<-eply anil entirely." Cm ^
RincK, 'l\illf-7\ilk, izc). I.ond., i8S.(.

173 !i virtual Presidency. Cailyle notes tlie same thing o
Luther. Cp. aiiti-, 158 -Ji;.

173 10 subject born. Cp. suj^ra, 172 s n.

173 :in His History. Thr History <_/" th,- Ktformation in SiOtland
it occupies the first two volumes of the collected works, ed. Laini:
1S46. For a most interesting estimate of the work, see Hume Brown
John Knox, A /uo^ia/''iy, bk. v, crp. ii.

173 :ii two Prelaies. "Above all, there is in him a genuim
natural rusticity, a tiecided earnestness of purpose; the good naiiii!
and humour appear in a very striking way, not as a sneer altogetlu r
but as a real delight at seeing ludicrous objects. Thus wlien lu
describes two archbislio])s quarrelling, no doubt he was delighted to -u
the disgrace it brought on their church : but he was cliielly excitctl \i]

Lecture V] THE IIENO AS MAX OJ- LETTEKS

343

the really ludicrous spectacle of rochets flying alnrnt and vestments
torn, and the struggle each made to overturn the other." /,./,. 155.
•• Cuming furth, (or going in, all is one,) at the qweir doore of (Jlasgow
Kirk, begynnes stryving for state betuix the two croee heraris, so that
from glowmyng thei come to schouldering; frome schouldering. thei go
to huffettis, and from dry blawes, by neffis and nulfelling j and then for
cheriieis saik, thei crye, Disfcrsif, ,i,;lit /'ait/^.rihis, and assayis quhilk
of the croces war fynast mettall, which staf was strongast, and which
berar could best defend his maisteris pre-eminence; and that there
should lie no superioritie in that behalf, to ground gois boyth the
croces. And then begane no litill fray, but yitt a nieary game ; for
rockettis war rent, typpetis war tome, crounis war knapped." K.nox,
H'orks, I, 146 f.

174 10 faces that loved him. Cp. R. I.. Stevenson, Familiar
StuJies 0/ Men and Hooks, John Knox and his Relations to Women.

174 19 " They ? what are they ? " Not identified.

174 a- Have you hope ? " Asked to give a parting sign that he
was at peace, he lifted his hand, and apparently witliout pain passed
quietly away." Hume Hrown, /<;//// Knox, A Juox'ra/^/iy, 1 1, 288.

175 ao a devout imagination. Original source not found.

LECTURE V THE HERO A.S MAN OF LETTERS

This and the final lecture were written down by Caroline Fox in her
diary, immediately after hearing them ; see Journals and Letters, I,
181-195. Lond., 18S2. They show interesting differences.

179 l« Fichte. Johann Gottliel) (1762-1814), follower of Kant.
His influence is to be see'' in Characteristics and Sartor Kesartus as
well as here. See also Essays, State of German Literature, \, 62-66,
where the passages briefly referreii to below are quoted fully.

179 20 Wesen des Gelehrten. Delivered at Krlangen in 1805;
translated by William Smith, The Pof'itlar Works of Johann Gottlieb
i'iehte. The A'ature of the Scholar, pp. 239-363. Lond., Chapman
and Hall. 1848.

179 a? Divine Idea. " The whole material world, with all its
adaptations and ends, and in particular the life of man in this world,
are by no means, in themselve.s and in died and truth that which they
seem to be to the uncultivated and natural sense of man ; but there is

!•«

:!■!

344

NOTES

[Lecture

something higher, which lies concealed liehind all natural appeurano
This conceal.-(l foundation of all appearance may. in its greate^
universality, he aptly named the Divint JJai." The Popular Wo> i
ofjohann Gottlitb Fuhu, Tht Nature of the Scholar, I, 247. Lond
1848. "The Idea— the Divine Idea — that which lies at the bottor
of all appearance, — what may this mean ? " Ih., p. 256. Co Essav
Diderot, Uhz^l-

180 93 light Of the world. See Matt. v. 14 ; and John viii. 12.

180 94 Pillar of Fire. See Exod. xiv, 19, 20, 24.

180 39 Bungler. " If the striving lie only after the outward forn
— the mere letter of Learned Culture, th^n we have, if the rouiu
be finished — the complete -if it l>e unfinished - the progressiva
bungler." Hodman. " With labourers and hodmen it is otherwise : -
their virtue consists in punctual obedience, in the careful avoidance o
all independent thought, and in confiding the direction of their occu
pations to other men." The Popular Works ofjohann Gottlieb Fichtc
I, 250 f.

181 1 Nonentity. " He who has received this culture withoui
thereby attaining to the Idea, is in truth (as we are n..w to look upon
the matter) nothing." The Popular Works ofjohann Gottlieb Fieht,
L 249-

181 7 Goethe. No one was better fitted to bring Goethe before an
English audience, body and soul, than Carlyle. His reasons for n..t
doing so are disappointing. What did the British public know of Odin
or Mahomet? In 1832 Carlyle wrote: " Among ourselves especially,
Goethe had little recognition ; indeed, it was only of late that his exist
ence, as a man and not as a mere sound, became authentically known
to us ; and some shadow of his high endowments and endeavours, and
of the high meaning that might lie therein, arose in the general mind of
England, even of intelligent England. Five years ago. to rank hi.n
with Napoleon, like him. as rising unattainable beyond his class. lik<
him and more than he of quite peculiar moment to all Europe, would
have seemed a wonderful procedure." Essays, Goethe's Works III
170 f. '

181 22 heroic ancient uan. "Goethe's language, even to a for
eigner. is full of character and secondary meanings; polished, yet
vernacular and cordial, it sounds like the dialect of wise, ancient, and
true-hearted men." Essays, Goethe, Appendix, I, 463.

183 31 Art of Writing . . . miraculous. Cp. ant.-, 31 ir,-o5.

184 90 CelU. Can Carlyle mean Cecilia, Miss Burney's novel ?

LECT.TRE V] TlfE IIF.KO AS MAN OF LETTERS 345

Clilford i;o.Hil,Iynn allusion to I.yt.on'. novel r,ul r/j/?;w (,,S,o)
whKh Klealue, a highway rol.ber. Carlyle had alrea.ly jeered a Pe !
ham and h« au.hor in Sartor K^^sartus. Sir Kger.on ll>^ge« .'o.e 1
novel l/..,.,/,.cv.>./,i„ .800; and Sir Frederick l-oMock refer i."

184 .... What built. A variation of what larlyle said to Kmerson

on .s V.SU to Craigenputtoch. » Did not you tell „.e. Mr. ThoL'

aye. s..t.ng upon one of your broad hills, that it was Jesus ChX
Innlt Dunscore Kirk yonder?" E.Corr. \ 14 '•"'• v-nrist

185 6 Teaching. Caroline Fox summari^■cs this part of the lec-
t re as follows = " He spoke of education, and resolved it into the s n .
pie elen,en,s of teaching to read and write ; in its highest or univer i y
sense .t .s but the teaching to read and write on all subjects and in
many languages. Of all teaching the sublime.s, is to teach a tnan th "
he has a soul; the absolute appropriation of this fact gives Life an,
l.ght .0 what was before a <lull. cold, senseless muss. Some p lo
Lhers of a scept.cal age seemed ... hold that the object of thl s.Tr
creation was to prevent the decay and putrefaction of the iK^dy. in fact
a rather supenor sort of salt." Caroli.u- /;,.. //,, jj,,,, ,„„
Litters, I, 183 f. Lond.. 1S82.

186 .3 Abelard. Peter AWard (.079-^4.). famous as a philoso-
pher, as a umversity teacher, and as the lover of Klo.sa. See Long-
fellow. Tke Cold.n Lci^nuU iv. The K,f,ctory. ^

185 Qf. Universitas. Carlyle repeats a common error .• The
u^iT T.^ v"'T"^ ""''"' ' rmvcrsitas Facultatum -.;, School in
«h.ch all the Faculfes or branches of knowledge are repre.sente<l. .-
has, mdeed. long .s.nce disapjjeared from the pages of professe.l histo-
rians. . A glance into any collection of medieval documents reveals
the fact that the word • University ' means merely a number, a plurality.
an aggregate of persons. . . . We find the word applied to corpora!
..ons either of Masters or of students. ... I„ ,he earliest period it is
"ever used absolutely. The phra.se is always ' University of Scholars'
•University of Masters and Scholars,' 'University of Study,' or the
i.lv-e. RA.SH..AI..., Th,- Universities of Europe in the MUJle A.^es, I. 7
186 29 Church itself, . . . changed. Cp. -The true Church of
i-.ngland. at this moment, lies in the Kditors of its Newspapers These
preach to the people daily, weekly; admonishing kings themselves;
aclvismg peace or war, with an authority which onlv the first Reformers
and a long-past class of Popes were possessed of; inflicting moral
censure; impartmg moral enco.ragement, consolation, edification; in

ill

346

NOTES

[LrCTfRE \

all Mays, diligently administering the Discipline of the Church." Kstays
SigHi of the 7'inifs, II, i rT).

187 :> Primate of England. The 'styles' of tlic Archbishop o
York and of tlie Archbishop of Canterbury respectively.

187 'U live coal. .See Isa. vi, 6, 7.

187 'M apocalypse of Nature. See 179 •.>? n. open secret. Sei
91 !«! n. continuous revelation. See 17U t, w.

188 'X\ Church Liturgy. See Sartor, jjo ; and Essays, Signs of th
Tinii's, II, 156, for the same idea.

188 'Jl Burke said. Kliezer Edwards in his Words, Facts an,
l^krasis attributes this phrase to Carlyle himself, and cites this passag(
as his authority; but the discussions in Xotcs and Qut^rirs sei-m to shnv
that Itrougham originated the phrase, and used it in the House of Com
mons, as early a;: iS23 or 1824. I'arlyle employs the phrase in Essays
h'oxwi-t/'s l.ije of Jx'hnson, III, 121 (1832).

191 :i Chaos . . . umpire. Cp.

. . . Chaos umpire sits,

And by decisUm more enibruils the fray,

ISy which he reigns.

I'lirndiic Lest, li, ((07-9119,

191 10 omnipotence of money. Carlyle also discusses literary pov
erty in his Essays, Slate of German Literature, I, 47-49; and ib.,Jeai
I'ttil Eriedriih Kit /iter, II, 196-199.

192 5 best possible organisation. (,)uoted from himself. Cp
ante, 190 •.>.>.

192 H involuntary monastic order. Cp. " Tl rst Writers, bein;
Monks, were sworn to a vt)w of Poverty; the t. .on authors had w
need to swear it." Essays, Jioswel/'s Life of j Anson, III, 106; aiu
Qttiiitiis Eixlein, II, 156.

193 17 Literature will take care of itself. Source not found.

194 :» the Chinese. Carlyle shows Scotch caution in approachiiu
Mandarindom ; his praise is not lavisli. We have seen the results o
literati rule in China in the war with Japan.

194 w-i it is a hand. Quotation from Carlyle himself. "More
over (under another figure), intellect is not a tool, but a hand that c.u
hand! ny tool." Essays, Diderot, \\\, ^''i^.

195 •X\ the third man. " There is one fact which Statistic Scientt
lia.-, Loniniunicated, anil a most astonishing one ; the inference fiuii
which is pregnant to this matter. Ireland has near seven millions u

Lkcturk V, 77//; UEKO AS MAN OF LETTllKS 347

working pc-ople. ,h... thir.l uni. of whom. i. appear* I.y S.a.U.ic Sclcnco.
ha« not for thirty weelc. each year, as many thir.iraL p.„a,.„.H „ wil
.«t c. him." CV...>. ,v. Cp. ..We L Two Mi.L,,.. .h.; ,:'!
drecl thousanci m Ireland that have not potatoes enough." E.-Co,,.

196 ., Sceptical Century. So Carlyle clas.si.ieH the KiKhtcn.h

< entury; xee „,;/., 51 , n. ; a.ul his l.,,tu,.. „„ tlw /fni.ry .^ /,,,,,..

fur,. Lorn!.. iSo.r For what .an lie said .„, the ...hcr si.l. , ^.e I rederi.

larn.son^ ^ Fnu nW./s .,/..,„, ,/,, ,-„h,.,„t,, Century , /», x,„eu,„th

UHtury, March, iSSj), reprinted in T/u </„./.,• ,./•/;„„/•,.

196 39 Tree . . . Machine, I '..r the ...„.,.■ a.,iithcsi,, see „„t.; 23 a. f

198 ., without prior purpose. Carlylc-s ap^h.^y „. >,;„ ; ,p. „„/;,
oi M n. '

199 6 Of Bentham. fp. anu, 87 :i -xi

199 3. Doctrine of Motives. Cp. Carlylo-s .„„,..„.p, f..^ the
U d.tanan eth.cs n, the •• Motive-Millwright •' p.ssa.e in .S,,,... .s,.«.
Ms, 200-201. •

200 , PhaUris'-Bull. Carlyle has confused I Vrillus. , he inventor
<.f the bra^en bull, with l-halarLs, the tyrant who rouMe.l hin. in I. A
common error.

201 .7 Cagliostro. See /,V.,,,,r. fount ,./.„/,„. ,1,

202 .-.Chartisms, chartism was a mnvenunt really n.o.lerate in
.ts aims for popular rishts. It came to a hea.l in ,,S,,S. the ye ir of
revolutions. Carlyle saw the fiasco. •• April , o (immort.d day alr'eady
<lcad). day o Chart.st monster petition ; .00.000 special constables
swore themselves ,n. etc.. and Chartism . an.e to nothing-. Kiots since
hut the leaders all lodge,! in gaol, tried, imprisoned for two years etc '
and so ends Chartism for the present." C./.J.. 1. 474. I lis comment
"n the movement. C/nnt.sm, was published in ,83.,. the ve..r the ■• Teo-
pies Charter was proclai.ne.l. There were .lots in conse,uen, e. and

'uartereT ' '''• '''"' '"'"■'""■'' '" '*" ''""*^'"'' ''^^""' «'"'

203 4 not as fools. Adaptation of Kph. v, ,3
203 « duty of staying at home. Johnson "says .something like
•"s. In .777. he told lioswell of his pleasure on hrst entering Kane-
I'lgh. " Hut. as Xerxes wept when he viewed his i„,„„.„.e army and
'^"nsidered that not one .f that great multitu.le would be alive a hun-
dred years afterward., so it went to n.y heart to consider that there
•.vas not one fn all that brilliant circle, that was not afraid to go home

348

AfOTES

[LRCTI'RR V

208 :m v.K»t w«xtd and oiled, ('p. antf, 141 8.

904 5 FvJr-penct'hAlfpeniiy a day. Carlyle'H authority for thi>
generalization 1 I. ^ e not |}«en a!>lu to find in Hoswtll. Johnson tell>
how he UM;d lu li.ie for Ligiitpence at tlic Pine Apple, New Strret.
and his Of. ' ca .lins how to live in London on £,\o u year, liui
the sum of I nu'i. -half-penny as johnsonV daily expenses do«» n<>t
appear. , /, f, 'icswtU's Johnson, III, i2j.

204 9 'j.'t ! ( V; tory. Mr. Hirrell contra.sts Carlyle's
Johnson's li is r ^\ "ct, and shows Johnson's superii -'ty.
jyuta, Stcc ' '!■'!■ , Pr.Johf ton, 109-116. lA>nd., ISS;.
• lf»'»- . y ''p. ante, 204 a n.

Aieer wuli
Sc-o Obit ft

fO 1. P'.-

206 4

206 6 ! .K a' O't
that John .. .1
till hift povei y belt.,
feet appearcc thiou) '1 '
was perceivi.a l>y liic v

ri ','.. Itateman's lectures were so excelleni.

' iiul get tiicm at second-hand from Taylor,

:treine, that his .Hhoes were worn out, and hi>

1, he saw thut thiM humiliating circumstance

iiri t Church men. and he came no more. Hf

was, too proud to accept ' f money, and somebody having set a paii
of new shoes at hi.t door, hi- threw them away with indignation.'
fiosweWi /o/iMsoii, sub ann., 1729. For Hawkins's version, sue Kssays.
PosuH-ir s Life iffohnsoti. III, 102.

207 14 to be looked at. A (|uotation from Carlyle himself. Set
207 i.'> n.

207 \:> St. Clement Danes. "How a true man, in the midst ol
errors and uncertainties, shall work out for himself a sure Life-trutli

. . . how Samuel Johnson, in the era of Voltaire, i an purify and fortifj
his soul, and hold real coniniunion with the Highest, 'in the Church ol
St. Clement Danes'; this too stands all unfolded in his Biography, ami
is among the most touching and memoralih- tilings there; a thing to In
looked at with pity, uilniiration, awe." /.'j.i.;i'v, liosuu-Ws Life if John so,
III, 119 f.

208 :hi engrave Truth. "Sotinian i'reachers proclaim • Henev
lence' to all the four winds, and have Tki ill engraved on their wati li
seals: unhappily with little or no effect." Kssays, ChuracUristiis, III, r;

209 9 Mirabeau. See /■:ssiiys, IV, 85-162.

209 Jfi Moral Prudence. " Prudence is the highest virtue he '
(Johnson) "can inculcate; and for that finer portion of our natun-.
that portion of it which lielongs essentially to Literature strictly -
called, where our highest feelings, our Ijest joys and keenes! sorrows,
our Doubt, our iicligion reside, hu h.is no word to utter ; no rcmctiy.
no counsel to give us in our straits; ur at most, if, like poor lioswtll,

Lr.tiiiBK.VJ r//h //E/CO AS AfAX Of- LErrKKS 149

Ihc patient 1» importunate, will answer : • My dear Sir. endeavour to
ckar your mind of Cant.' " hst„ys, i.ofi/u, I. jji. " Higher liKht than
that immediately/ni«-/iV,//onej hiKher virtue than an hont-M rRii)K.N<lt.
he could not then communi.ate; . . . I low to thrta.l this lal.yrinthic
Time, the fallen and fulling Ruin of Times; to >ilemu vain .Scruple*,
hold firm to the last fraxments of old Iklitf. and with earnest ey.- still
discern some glimpses of a true path, and ro forward thereon. •,« a
world where there is much to Iw done, and htilf |.. Ihj known': this is
what Samuel Joht.son, hy act and word, tuugbt his Nation." fCssavs,
KosweU's I.ifi! of Jihnson, III. 1^9.

209 J!. A world where much. S»e 20» •» n. Irom a prayer of
Johnson^ : " And wl.ilc it shall pl, ase thee to continue mv in this world,
where much is to be done and littlt- to In known, teach me by thy Holy
Spirit." liosweirs Johnson (( .lol)e ^1 ). 1 1.

210 :i Clear your mind of cant. »>iins<.n, • ny dear friend, clear
your miml uf cant." l^oswdl ',> Johns.' M.iy 1 5, , 7S j. .And see 209 ,0 n.

210 , That Will be better. Unid. itified.

21 1 poor Bowy. For fuller defence of Ho-.wvll and counterblast
V-. Macaulas see Essoy^. Hoswetl's Life 0/ /o/:nu ,1, MI, 76-85. Cp.
"There is .s, mething fine and touching too, if we will consider it. in
fhat little, flini.y, flippant. %ain fellow, Hoswell. attaching himself as he
(lid to Johnson : before others had discovered anything >ublime. Hos-
well had donr it. and embraced his knees when the Inisoni was denied
him Hoswell was a true hero-worshipper, and does not deserve the

•mpt we are all so ready to east at him." Cirolni,- Fox, Her
Journals ami l.(ttt>s, I. 1S5 f.

211 \i Hero to his valet-de-chambre. In .somewi it its present
form, the saving is attril.utcd to ili<- Marshal ile Catin;. anc' Mdf - .
< 'ornuel, one of the famous Prkintsei. Huchmann tracts it ti. M ntaif
Essays, bk. iii. cap. 1. ( 'p. " Milton was still a li-ro to the p".d Llwooa."
Ess<tys, Schiller. II. 248.

211 19 strip your Louis Quatorze. In .\/.;fitat,.<,!s „/ Versa.lles
{The Paris Sket.h-Eook, 1.S40). Thackeray expaiiis tli s idea and illus-
trates it with one of his delightful drawings ot th (;r. A Monarque, as
"Rex, Ludovicus, I.udovicus Kex."

212 H brare old Samuel. " We have no Me:, ot Letters now, but
only Literary (Jentlemen. .Samuel Johnsoi as th. ia-t that ventured
to appear in that former character, and supr>ort himv.lf. on his (^.'n
leys, without any crutches, purcha.sed or stoki re, gh old .Samuel, the
last of all the Romans ! " Essays, Jean Paul /-, ej, Eu/iter, U, 196 f.

iff

350

NOTES

[Lecture V

ultimus Romanonim. According to Plutarch (Life of Krutus), the say-
ing of Brutus over the dead body of Cassius. " There he lamented over
his body, and called him the last of the Romans : intimating that Rome
would never produce another man of equal spirit." Lauglwrne, VI,
23C. Lond., 1823. (1^. Julius Casar, v, 3, 99.

212 ja talent of silence. Attributed to Napoleon in the form :
"C'es Anglais ont un grand talent pour le silence." Cp. 258 a.

212 17 Rousseau, t'arlyle read Rou.sseau in 1S19. See K.Lett.
112. Cp. "Carlyle did not much sympathise with his works; indeed
he said, ' The Confessions are the only writmgs of his which I have
read with any interest ; there you see the man such as he really was,
though I can't say that it is a duty to lay open the «lue-l)eard
chamliers of the heart. . . . Rousseau was a thorough Frenchman,
not a great man ; he knew nothing of that silence that precedes words,
and is so much grander than the grandest words, because in it those
thoughts are created of which words are the p»or clothing. I say
Rousseau knew nothing of this, but Johnson knew much ; verily, he
said but little, only just enough to show that a giant slept in that
rugged bosom.' " Caroline- /-ox, Ilcr Journals atid Letters, I, 1S6 f.

213 18 Genlis's experience. "Two months after M. de Sauvigny
had a play to be performed at the Theatre Fran^ais, entitled the JWsi-
Jleur. Rousseau h.-id told us that he did not frequent the theatre, and
that he carefully avoided showing himself in public ; but as he seemed
very fond of M. de Sauvigny, I urged him to go along with us the first
night of the play, and he consented, as I had obtained the loan of a
grated bo.K with a private staircase and entrance. It was agreed that
I was to take him to the theatre, and that if the play succeeded, we
should leave the house before the after piece, and return to our house
for supper. The plan rather deranged the usual habits of Rousseau,
hut he yielded to the arrangement with all the ease in the world. Tiie
night of the play, Rousseau came to me a little before five o'clock, and
we set out. When we were in the carriage, Rousseau told me, with a
smile, that I was very richly dressed to remain in a grated box. I
answered, with the same good humour, that 1 had dre.ssed myself for

him We reached the theatre more than half an hour Iwfore the

play began. On entering the box I l)egan to put down the grate, but
Rou.sseau was strongly opposed to it, .saying that he was sure I should
not like it. I told him that the contrary was the fact, and that we had
agreed upon it besides. FI.- answered that he would place himself
behind me, that I should conceal him altogether, which was all he wished

\ \

% %

LECTt/RE V] THE HERO AS .J/.I.V ()/■ LETTERS

351

for. I still insisted, but Rousseau li..l(l tlio .urate stronj^Iy, anil jirevented
mc putting it down. During tliis little discussion we were standing;
and the box was a front one nr.ir the ..uliustia and adjdiiiing the pit!
I was afraid of drawing the attention of the audience towards us; to
put an end to the dispute, I yielded and sat down. KMusseau placed
himself ])ehind nie, Imt a niomeiil afterwards put forward his head
l)etwixt M. de C.enlis and nie, so as to l)e .seen. I told him of it. He
twice made the same movement again, and was pii. eiveil and known.
I heard several persons, looking towards our bo.x and calling out,
' TJure is A\uimy,iu !' . . . all eyes were fixed on our I)ox, but nothing
further was done. The noise di.sappeared, 'vithout producing any
applause. The orchestra began, nothing w.is thought of but the play,
and kous.seau was forgotten. . . . The curtain rose, and the play began.
1 thought of nothing but the new pl.iy, whi. Ii succeeded. The' author
was several times called for, and his sun ess was complete.

" We left the box. Kou.sseau gave me his hand; but liis face was fright-
fully sombre. I told him the author mu>t be well pleased, and that we
should have a delightful evening. N(,t a word in uply. ( )n p aching my
carriage I mounted; M. de (lenlis came ,ift( r Kous-e.iu to let him pass
first, but the latter, turning round, told bin) that In should not return with
us. M. de (;enlis and 1 jnol ud against this ; but Kousseau, without
replying a word, made his bow, turned his back .iiul disapjv m-d.

"I knew that there was no sincerity in his « mplaint.- ; the fact is,
that with the hope of producing a lively .sensation, he desired to show
him.self, and his ill humour was excited by not finding his |)resence
l)roduce more effect. I never saw him afterwards." Mnnons ij the
Countess iic Cii/is, II, ii-i.). I.ond., i.Sj^.

213 ^><» man of some rank. Inidrntified,

214 11 appeals to mothers. See /.w//,-, bk. i, /■,/.>.!////.

214 !>!» stealings of ribbons. Tiie story of the stohn ribbon is told
in the Coii/i-ssu'iis, pt. i, bk. ii.

215 It Literatureof Desperation. ( arlyle refers to Miss Jewsbury
as "a notable young woman, . . . seeking passion.iti ly for some Paradise
to be gained by battle; fancying ( ieorge Sand and the 'literature of
desperation' can help her tlutherwaid." CI. I.. I. ii\.

215 17 even at a Walter Scott. < arlyle was never .piite just to
Scott. This dis|>ar.iging "even" is in harmony with his disparaging
review of I.ockhart's ///;•. Ilis verdict would no doubt have been
"lore lenient h.id W waitid to r.id !!•,.■ -cvi ntli volume. Me was
reading Dante at the same tinif.

352

NOTES

[Lecture V

216 99 world was not hU friend. See Rcmeo andJulUt, v, i. ^^

216 ai false reception. Cp. ante, 49 as.

217 6 which threw us. " My indignation yet boils at the recollec
tion of the scoundrel factor's insolent threatening letters, which used to
set us all m tears." Burns to Dr. Moore, August, 1787.

217 13 Burns's Schoolmaster. Mr. John Murdoch. This is
rather an unwarranted generalization from Murdoch's letter to Currie
of Feb. 22, 1799. '

217 16 seven acres of nursery ground. See 217 30 n.

217 30 Had he written. " Had this William Burns's small seven
acres of nursery-ground anywise prospered, the boy Robert had been
sent to school; had struggled forward, as so many weaker men do, to
some university; come forth not as a rustic wonder, but as a regular
well-tramed intellectual workman, and changed the whole course of
British Literature, — for it lay in him to have done this!" Essavs
Burns, I, 301.

S.18 36 fond gaillard. See Essays, Mirabeau, IV, 129, 136.

218 33 dew-drops from his mane. Adapted from Troilus and
Cressida, 3, 225 f.

And, like a dewdrop from a lion's mane,
Be shook to air.

219 1 shaking of the spear. A misquotation ; see ante, 56 13 n
219 9 Professor Stewart. "Among the poets whom I have hap-

pened to know, I have been struck in more than one instance, with the
unaccountable disparity between their general talents, and the occa-
sional inspirations of their more favourable moments. But all the
faculties of Burns's mind were, as far as I could judge, equally vigor-
ous ; and his predilection for poetry was rather the result of his own
enthusiastic and impassioned temper tnan a genius exclusively adapted
to that species of composition. From his conversation I should have
pronounced him to be fitted to excel in whatever walk of ambition he
had chosen to exert his abilities." Dugald Stewart. Sketch of Burns
contributed to Currie's edition of the poet's works; also quoted in
part by Carlyle, Essays, Burns, I, 284 f.
219 19 witty duchesses. See ante, 97 2 n.

219 23 ostlers at inns. See 219 19 n.

220 26 Ushers de Br&«. The incident is told in Essavs, Mirabeau,
IV, 159, and Erenck Eevolntion, the BastUle, bk. v, cap. ii. ' Mera,ri„s de
Brhi,

Lecture V] THE HEKO AS MAN OF LE TTERS

353

72-

220 30 work, not think. In 1792 Burns was in danger of dismissal
from the Excise (see his letter to R. Graham of Fintray, December,
1792). He gives a full account of his trouble in another letter to
Mr. J. F. Erskine of -Mar (.\pril 13, 1793) ; Carlyle's phrase seems based
on the following passage in it: ".Some such sentiments as these,
I stated in a letter to my generous patron, Mr. Graham, which he
laid before the Hoard at large ; where, it seems, my last remark gave
great offence; and one of our supervisors-general, a Mr. C^orbet, was
instructed to inquire on the spot, and to document me — "that my
business was to act, not to think ; and that whatever might be m a
or measures, it was for me to be silent and obedient." "

221 10 Strength is mournfully denied. See Quintus Eix/ein, Pre/-
aee. " Johnson came a little nearer the mark than Hums : but with
him, too, ' Strength was mournfully denied its arena'; he too had to
fight fortune at strange odds, all his life long." Ess,ns, Bos-we/i's Life
of Johnson, III, loi.

222 6 By dint of dining. Unidentified.

223 9 This month. The same contrast is drawn. Essays, Burns,

I, 304. seven pounds. See ib., 310.

223 12 cynosure of all eyes. Adaptation of rAi/egro, 80.
223 20 rank is but the guinea-stamp. From the first stanza of
Hurns's Marseillaise of Democracy, " Is there for honest poverty," etc.

223 28 observed elsewhere. See Essays, Bums, I, 311.

224 9 light-chafers. In Eraser's A/<rxa:i>te (Xos. 1, 4; 1830)
appeared Carlyle's translation of Kichter's ruvitw of .Mde. de Stael's
VAllemagne. In it occurs the phrase, which ( 'arlyle quotes inaccurately :
" From old our learned lights have been by the French, not adored like
light-stars, but stuck into like lijiht-chafers, as ])eoi)lt.' carry those of
Surinam, spitted through, for lighting of roads." E\savs, Appendix,

II, 460. Caroline Fox's version is: •• Wh.it a tragedy is this of Robert
Hums ! his father dying of a broken heart from dread of over-great
poverty; the son from cont.ict w-lh the great, who W(juld flatter him for
a night or two and then leave him unfriended. Amusement they must
have, it seems, at any expense, thougii one would have thought they
were sufficiently amused in the common way; hut no, they were like
the Indians we read of whose grandees ride in their palanquins at night,
and are not content with torches carried before tliem. but must have
instead fireflies stuck at the end of spears. ... lie then joW us he
had more than occupied utir tinn and rii^:hid down stairs." C.iro'im
Eox, //er Journals and Letters, I, 1S8.

i I

i'i- ^
I 'i r

■ i

354

NOTES

[Lecture VI

LECTURK VI. THE HERO AS KING

226 12 Konniag. See ante, 14 a n.

225 17 as Burke said. Unidentitieil.

226 9r, measure by a scale. I- rom a famous passage in Schiller's
A,sil„l,schc Krzuk.n,.,' dcs Ahns,Iuu, translated by (arlyle, /;..„„■.,
St^tc of German I.,t.,.,tnre, I, To. Of the artist, Schiller says: " Free
alike from the vain activity that longs to impress its traces on the fleet-
ing instant, and from the querulous spirit of enthusiasm that measures
by the scale of perfection the meagre product <.f reality, let him leave to
mere understanding, which is here at home, the province of the actual "
Evidently the first inverted comma in the text should come hefore ' too ' •
the querulousness is not Schiller';; in quotation, the sense has been
completely changed.

226 31 no bricklayer. Carlyle uses this figure in picturing the
Knghsh Tempi, of Fame (see Essay., Taylors S.n-.ev of German
Literature, 11,451); the endings are similar: "Such is the Temple of
fame . . . which nothing but a continued suspension of the laws of
gravity can keep from rushing erelong into a chaos of stone and dust "
Cf. in/ra, 229, 14-2S.

228 32 Kdnning. See ante, 225 13 n.

229 20 Christian Church, t'p. ante, 151 2k ff.

230 4 CamiUe Desmoulins. See /-rene/i Kevoh.tion, the Bastille
bk. v, cap. iv.

231 3 poor Niebuhr. "The last political occurrence in which Nie-
buhr was strongly interested was the trial of the ministers of Charles
the 1 enth ; it was indirectly the cause of his de.nth." ISinsin /.//
and Letters of liartkold Geony A.el.uAr, p. 4S7. N. N'., ,852.' ( )„
Christmas day, .S30, he spent several hours reading the papers i„ ,
close news-room, became overheated, caught a chill, and died a week
later, of inflammation of the lungs.

231 7 Racine's, dying. "The melodious, too soft-strung Racine
when his King turned his back on him. emitted one meek wail, ind
submissively - died." Essays, The Jhamond Xeeklaee, I V, 27. ( loethe
mentions the anecdote in IVilhelm Menters Lehr/ahre, bk. iii, cap. viii
L.-Jrans. I, 147.

233 3 plated coins. Cp. ante, 14 7 n.

233 13 Bending befoie men. Co. ante, 12 la n.

233 \^ revelation in the Flesh. Cp. „«/<?, 12 12 n

Lectttrk VI]

THE HEKO AS KING

355

235 .w not the thing. <'ar)ylt's moderation. Cp. irw/-,, 150 16.

236 ;w Laud dedicating. .\ full account of these ceremonies is
given by Hume ; Ilistorv of Gr,;il Hritaiii, vi, cap. Hi, pp. 287-289.
Kdin., 1818. The origin;)! lutl.orities cited are; Ru.shworth, H, 76, 77 ;
Welwood, p. 275; 1 ranklyn, p. 3,sr}.

238 17 Ludlow. Kilmund Ludlow, regicide and uncompromising
opponent of ('rom»<ll, \(u-;'>~\C)C)2\ for life see Diif. A'nt. A/V;^.

239 :)i Monarchies of Man. See Sir John Kliot, A /U(\t^'>;t/>hv. Lend.,
1.S64. The Appendix to vol. I contains a very full analysis of this work.

240 i;t Baresark. l!y this spelling, as well as by the opening of the
next sentence, Carlyle countenances this old etymology, and the mis-
take is often repeated. Kluge derives the woril from O.X. bcr- and
s,:rkr., i.e., bear-shirt, or clad in bear-skin.

241 3 Liberty to tax. Unidentified.

243 12 Pococke asking Grotius. See 50 i.-> n.

244 10 had fancies. The tendency of modern biographers is to
discredit these tales of (ronnveH's youth. Mr. Frederic Harrison, in
his short study {Tuhlvc Eiif^lis/i Stuhsmen), balances friendly memoirs
against hostile; and .Mr. C. M. Frith says {/)i,l. X,it. A'/oi,'-)'- "The
graver charges of early debauchery which they bring against him may
safely be dismissed."

245 14 Ever in . . .eye. See Milton, .Voww/ <'«//// /W«^'-(;;-/-mr/
/<( Ml.' (/j,r o/.sj.

246 5 crowning mercy. " The dimensions of this mercy are above
my thoughts. It is, for aught I know, a crowning mercy" Cromwell,
to Lenthall, of the battle of Worcester, Ldtas and Sf^cahcs (pop. ed.),
Ill, 158.

246 10 without God. See Kph. ii, 12.

246 24 Hampton-Court negotiations. •• In 1647, before the escape
of the king to the Isle of Wight, 'The iiimeasurable Negotiations with
the King,' ' Proposals of the Army,' ' Proposals of the .\djutators of
the Army,' still occupying tons of printed pajjir, the subject of intense
debatings and considerations in Westminster, in Putney Church, -nd
in every house and hut of Kngland, for many months past, — suddenly
contract themselves for us, like a universe of gaseous vapour, into one
small point : the issue of them all is failure. The Army Council, the
Army Adjutators, and serious Fngland at large, were in earnest about
one thing: the king was not in earnest, except about another thing:
there could be no bargain with the king." Cari.vle, Cromwell's
Letters and Speeches (pop. ed.), I, 263.

llfff

I ii

' )

356

NOTES

[Lecture V

247 8 For all our fighting. "The treaty that was endeavourec
with the king, whereby they would have put into his hands all that wt
had engaged for, and all our security should have been a little bit ol
paper. • Cari.vi.e, Cromweirs L.tUrs ami Sfccches, sfcr/. L

247 23 genuine set of fighters. The present commanderin-chief
of the Hntish army has expressed the same opinion, and his views are
shared by other writers on military history. See Lord Wolseley on
the Hntish army in Harper's Monlhly Magazine.

JAl 96 If the King, fireen quotes this saying as genuine (Short
History of the linglish People, cap. vii, Sect, vii, p. 539. N V 1870) •
but Cardiner. Great Civil War, III. ,96, asserts that there is no reason
for ascribing it to Cromwell.

248 ae small debt pie-powder court. "The Piepowder Courts

the lowest but most expeditious courts of Justice in the kingdom, as

Chitty calls them, were very ancient. The Conqueror's law De Fmho-

rns shows their pre-existence in Normandy. Their name was derived

from puJ fnUreux, Norman for pedlar. The lord of the fair or his

representative was the presiding Judge, and usually he was assisted by

'jury of traders chosen on the spot. Their jurisdiction was limited bv

the legal time and precincts of the fair, and to disputes about contracts'

' slander of wares,' attestations, the preservation of order," etc. Eueye
Brit., s.v. Fair.

249 14 Know the men. " The curtain dashed asunder faster than
before; an officer advanced and said in passing: 'Learn to know tlie
men who may be trusted.' The curtain closed." Carlvi.k. Meister's
Apprenticeship, bk. vii, cap. ix.

250 29 internal meaning. This is Carlyle's general form of justi-
fication in the Letters and Speeches.

251 9 Tugend. This etymology is generally accepted.

252 .is ever-calculating hypocrite. Victor Hugo's Cromwell is
an elaboration of this idea.

254 11 I might have. Cp. " There is, doubtless, a time to .speak,
and a time to keep silence; yet Fontenelle's celebrated aphorism /
might have my hand f nil of truth, and would open only mv little finger
may be practised to excess, and the little finger itself 'kept closed '•
hssays, Taylor's Sun'ey of German Poetry, \{, 450.

257 21 Corsica Boswell. What poor Hoswell really did, was to go to
a masquerade as a Corsican chief with the words " Viva La Libe'-a ' "
on his hat. Carlyle's version is, "He appeared at the Shakspear-
Jubilee with a riband, imprinted ' Corsica Boswell,' round his hat.'

Lecturr VI]

Essays,

THE IIEKO AS KING

357

h s Account of Corsica, w.th the Journal of a Tour to that Island "

Krerh\rd\'" "' I'"" '«"' '"' ''^ independence again te
French, and hero-worshipping Hoswell had "tied himself to the tail "
o General Pao h. " the land-louping scoundrel of a ( orsican." the leader
o the .nsurrecfon. before he " took up wi> " Johnson. Johnson advise"
h.m once, by letter, to empty his mind of Corsica (March .3. ,768). an

hu. reply explains why he was known as. Corsica Boswell.'
258 9 grand talent. See 212 is n.

258 13 Solomon says. See Krcl. vii.

258 16 want of money. - He uniformly adhered to that strange
opinion which his indolent disposition made him utter. " Xo ma^b!
b ock ead ever wrote except for money." " /,ww/ V p>..,son (ed
lull). Ill, 19 (a.i). 1776). ^

the'^ffmnl. ^; M**1\ '■*'° "^ ''''"^°' '"' ^ -^'^'"^ -'^^'^^ "> him. in
ond o7f h K "'^'"'"'^ •'"• ""' '^"«'^'^'' »' 'hose who were

Lt whi e 1 "• • • ; ./'"' '"^ ^''°^'-' "'^' -P--«' 'hei. wonder,

he said /A haJmuch rather it should 6.- ask.J, -.chy he h,ui not ., statue
than^v>hy he had one." L..c„ok.vk. /V„ W. V Les, 1 1 1, .5. I^nd..

258 .T9 Seekest thou great things. See Jar. xlv, y
^9.0 Coleridge remarks. Not found in 77.. /WW, ^/.,,.«.

phta Literaria, nx The Table-Talk.

in fl 'V,?f """ "°T- ,'''''^'^^''' '"' ''^•"•■^^^' ^-•" "^'^^ came
n 178.. Gibbon wrote his Memoirs towards the end of his life, about

.90. and refers to Necker in closing the account of his love aff a r S
Mde. Necker. when she was Mile. Curchod. .- The genius of h" hi
band as exalted him to a most conspicuous statio'n in Kurope I„
o afa hTff P-'-P-ity and disgrace he has reclined on the bo.som
Necke th m- :"' f '^^'"--"^ ^"-^od is now the wife of M.

0^489 A 7s,::: '^t ""'' "'" '""■'"' -f^'-^

wriM ; ■ *■'' "^''''y **^"'y ^^^'^ l^efore, Carlvle had

^^T ''" ""^^^'^ '°^ "^^^""'^ ^''""^""^^"^' ^>^a'< / Jl i'
a vUit '•'" P-^^^'^S^"""- •• " I could have wished." says Gibbon, after

exh r^ I t"^^ ""' ''"'•' •''^""'^ f°^ '^'-^ fi"^' ''-g^-ce], ..to have
demon f a"", ^' ^ ""^"'"^ '° ""^ ^^P'""^ >°"'h possessed with the

i.e IS the most miserable of human beings; the past, the present, and

3S8

NOTES

[Lkcture V

V '=

the future aru tf|ually odious to him. When I siiKj^ested some domesti
amusements, he answered with a diip tone of despair, ' In the state ii
which I am, I can feel nothinj; Imt the I>last that has overthrown me.' '
Cari.YI.K, Mimtaii(tu\ atiJ Otlur Esuiys Chiijly J{ioi;^ru/>hiial, Gz i
Lond., iS(j7.

260 l-,> ears cropt-off. See Carlyle, llistoricat Sketches, 271, f..
a most graphic account of this punishment executed upon liastwick
Iturton, and I'rynnc.

261 4 devout imagination. See .;«/■•, 175 90.

262 a Hume. In lus //ist,»y <</ Unit lUitain, cap. Ixi, Ilunti
{juotes Cowley on Cromwell and draws certain deductions from tha
estimate. .Such a sentence as tlie following is typical: " If he seduct(
the military fanatics, it is to he considered that their interests and iii
evidently concurred, that their ijjnorant x- and low education expose(
them to the grossest imposition, and tliat he himself was at Inittom a
frantic an enthusiast as the worst of them, and in order to obtain thei
confidence needetl hut to disi>l.'iy those vulgar and ridiculous hahit
which he had early accjuired, and on which he set so high a value."

263 -i Cromwell's last words. " Truly Cod is good ; indeed Ih
is; He will not " — Then his speech failed him, but as 1 apprehendeci
it was, " He will not leave nie." This saying, "Cod is good" he fn
cjuently used all along; and would speak it with much cheerfulne»
and fervour of spirit, in the mi<lst of his pain. Again he said: "
would be willing to be farthir serviceable to Cod and His people: bu
my work is done. \ ft Cod will be with His people." Carlyi.k
Olivir CromiViWs Litters aii.i Sp,i\ lies (pop. eil.), V, I 55.

263 17 Diocletian . . . cabbages. "His answer to Maximian ii
deservedly celebrated. He was solicited by that restless old man t'
reassume the reins (jf government and the imperial purple. He rejectr(
the temptation with a smile of pity, calndy observing, that if he coul(
show Maximian the cal)l)agi's he had planted with his own hands a
Sahina, he should no longi r be urged to relinquish the enjoyment o:
happiness for the pursuit of pu'ver. We are obliged to the youngci
Victor for this celebrated hou iiw:. liutropius mentions the same thinj
in a more general manner." Ciisiidn, neelnie and Fall, ch. xiii and n

264 9:1 dismissal of the Rump Parliament. Sje C 'yle, Olre.i
Cromwell's Letters ami S/'eeelies (pop. ed.). Ill, 195.

265 i:( For all our fighting. See 247 8 n.

266 . Pride's Purges. Dec. 6, 164S, "Colonel Rich's horse st:mi
ranked in I'alaceyard, Colonel Pride's foot in Westminster Hall aiic:

% %

LKCTtmit VI]

THE IIF.KO AS A/XG

,159

at all entrances to the Commons Itouse thw day: and in Colonel
[•nde'H hand is a written list of names, names of the chief among the
Hundred and twenty-nine; and at his side is my Ixjtd (Jrey of Grol.y.
who, as this memlx.r or that comes up, whispers or beckons, • lie is one
of them : he cannot enter ! ' and ITide gives the word. ' To the Queen's
( ourf; and member after member is marched thither, forty-one of
them th.s day; and kej.t there in a state bordering on rabidity"
( ARLYLK, Olivet Cromwell's /..Iters and Speeches (pop. ed.). Ill 89

266 7 diligent Godwin. William (lodwin. the father-in-law of
Shelley J author of Politual J„stiee, A //istory 0/ the CommoHwealth,
4 vols. IjonA., 1824-1828.

267 9 Milton, who looked. See sonnet,

Cromwell our chief of nifti. etc.

267 90 Convocation of the Notables. See Jre»,h K.-vol„tio», the
lUutitl , bk. iii, cap. iii : and Cromweirs Letters and Speeches, III, 200,
" In fact, a real Assembly of Notables in J'uritan Kngland."

267 97 Barebones. Clarendon scorns them for "mean" men.
"Truly it seems rather a distinguished I'arliament, even though Mr
I'raisegod Harbone, ' the Uather-merchant in Fleet-street.' be. as all
mortab must admit, a member of it. The fault. I hope, is forgivable
I'raise-od, though he deals in leather, and has a name which can be
misspelt, one discerns to be the son of pious parents ; to l)e himself
a man of piety, of understanding and weight, -and even of consider-
able private capital, my witty (h.nky friends ! " Cnmnuell '/ Letters and
Speeches, III. 200.

268 6 Commander-in-chief. "O,, U'cdnesJav zQh June, 1650,
the Act appointing -That Oliver Cromwell. Ilsquire, l,e constituted
Captain (leneral and Commander-in-chief of all the Forces raised or
to be raised by authority of I'arliament within the Commonwealth of
I'lngland.' w.is passed." Cromwell 's Letters ,iiut Speeches, I II. 8.

209 .^ Cromwell's concluding speech. See Cromwell's Letters and
ShcJies, V. 126-130. Carlyle's memory must have pj.iyed him false
tperej for this concluding speech as given in the Letters and Speeches
do«i not contain the phrase " births of Providence," nor yet the still
more striking sentence (below, 1. 30). " \ on have had such an oppor-
tunity," etc.

270 y God be judge, " And if tliis be the end of your sitting, and
this be your carriage — [AVv/Av/,,- lunv ail hcauti/iiliy hiaziiii;\, I think
It high time that an end be put to your sitting. And I do dissolve

Iii

360

NOTES

[Lkcturk \

S:2:

THIS Parliament. And let (JckI be judge lietween you and me,
Cromtotll't Utters and Speeches, sfe.uh jiviii.

270 31 Htats «Bd jMlouaiei. Passage not found.

372 6 Colonel Hutchinaon. The account in the Memoirs (ed. (
II. Frith, Lond., 1885) differs in some respect:* from Carlyle's accoun
Cromwell sent for Hutchinson to get information regarding a cm
spiracy against his life. The Protector " met him in one of the ga
leries, and received him with open arms and the kindest embraces tha
could be given, and complained that the colonul should lie so unkin
as never to give him a visit ... and with smooth insinuations led hir
along to a private place. . . . And after with all his arts he ha
endeavouretl to excuse his public actions, and to draw in the colom
who again had taken the opportunity to tell him freely his own and al
good men's discontents and dissatisfactions, he dismissed the colont
with such expressions as were publicly taken notice of by all his litti
courtiers then about hhn, when he went to the end of the gallery will
the colonel, and there embracing him, said aloud to him, ' Well
colonel, satisfied or dissatisfied, you shall be one of us, for we can ii<
longer exempt a person so able and faithful from the public servici
and you shall be satisfied in all honest ihings.' " II, 208.

272 16 his poor Mother. "Thou brave one, Mother of a Hero
farewell !— Ninety-four years old: tho royalties of Whitehall, sayi
Ludlow very credibly, were of small moment to her : ' at the sound o
a musket she would often he afraid her son was shot ; and could not b.
satisfied unless she saw him once a day at least.' " Cari.yi.k, C'/vw
weirs Letters unJ S/<ee<fyes, II I, 64 (Nov. 16, 1654). (p. /Iiwie, LXI, n.

274 6 walking with God. See Gen. v, 22, 24.

274 13 EncyclopMies. The Umous /■:/in:/o/'e'</ie ou £>/,tio»»ii/r,
Universel des Arts et Sciences, begun by John .Mills in 1743 as a tran^l.i
tion of Chambers's Cyclofudia, and taken up by Diderot and I)' Altni
bert. The first volume under the new conditions was published in
1751, and the second in 1752. They were suppressed as injurious t'
the king's authority and to religion, fp. " They taught many truths, his
torical, political, physiological, and ecclesiastical, and diffused theii
notions so widely, that the very ladies and hairdressers of Paris became
fluent Encyclopxdists ; and the sole price which their scholars paid for
these treasures of new information, was to believe Christianity an im
posture, the .Scriptures a forgery, the worship (if not the belief) of C.o.l
superstition, hell a fable, heaven a dream, our life without PiuvidciiLt,
and our death without hope." Coleridge, T/ie Friend, 6.

r'l

Lectube VI]

THE IfERO AS A'WG

361

274 16 dumb Prophet. The reference seen., to J« ,„ Cromwell',
"repu.fd confuHion of H,H,ech " (250 ■>) an.l thf " vthemc-nt. enthusi-
Mtic, extempore preaching" of the Aonin, 11 \\.

274 W5 F*Ue «• « bulletin. ( uriyle is l.a.l enough, but Kmerson
u very bold. ( p. - I le is a boun.lle.. liar. The official paper. hLs • .Monl-
tears, an.l all his bulletin., are proverb.s for saying what he wished to
l)e beheved; and worse -he sat in his premature old age, u. hi. lonely
island, coldly falsifying facts, and dates an.l characters and givinu t..
history a theatrical eclat." h\fnsv„t.,tir, .)/,«. //, Xa/>oh„,. '.The
historian of these times ought to put no faith in the I-ulletins. despatches
notes, proclamations, which have emanate.l from Honaparte, or passeil
through his hanils. For my part. I believe that the proverb • \s
great a liar as a bulletin,' has as much truth in it as the axiom. 'two
and two make four.' " H.,: uu.k.n.vk. A/,mo„s, M. j,^. i.ond.. i8jo
One good example of such falsification is th.. bulletin from Acre, giving
the French loss as five hundred kille.l and one tlw.u.sand wounded
when the loss was really three thousand; and the Knglish los.ses arc-
put at fifteen thousand. See Hourrienn.'. //-., I, cap. x.x. p. jjj.

275 17 MTans, Bourrienne tells. I have found this .story Teferre.1
to Hazlitt. I.i/t of NapoUoH, H. 97-1,4, J.ond.. 1S5;. „hich I have
not been able to verify; but see. however, the one volume liourrumu;
cap. X.

275 37 steward . . . TuUeries. Unidentified.

276 i In Saint Helena. The memoirs of Las Cases show the very
opposite temper : " We were all assembled round the Kmperor, an.l he
was recapitulating these facts with warmth : ' For what infamous treat-
ment are we re.served ! ' he exclaime.l. ' This is the anguish of death '
To mjustice and violence, they now add insult an.l protra, te.l tor-
ment At all events, make y.ur cmplaint.s. gentlemen ; kt indig-
nant Kurope hear them ! Complaints from me would be beneath my
dignity and character. I must command or be silent.'" I.\sC\sks
M.moin, I, 162. N. v., ,855. This was on his first arrival at St!
Helena, when his accommodations were at their worst.

276 18 La carriire ouverte. Cp. •' ISuonaparte himself was a reality
at first, though afterwards he turned out all wrong and fals*;. But
hU appreciation of the French Revolution was a good one, that it was
'the career open to talents," not simply as Sieves supposed, a thing
con.sisting of two Chambers, or of one Ch^.mhcr" Z./. 195. See
Montholon. Mhnoircs, ii. 145. It was a favorite saying of Napoleon's,
and is referred to his speech at the institution of the Ugion of Honor.

•tfl

361

NOTES

[I.rcruKK VI

276 9fl Twentieth of Jum. " While we were ipending our time in
a Romewliat vagal><>nd way, the 20th of June arrived. We met by
appointment at a restaurateur's in the Kue St. Ifonorc, near the I'alais
Koyal, to taltc one of our daily ramble*. On going out we saw
approaching, in the direction of the market, a mob, which Konapartc
calculated at live or six thousand men. They were all in rags, armed
with weapons of every description, and were proceeding hasttily towartls
the Tuilvries, vociferating all kinds of gross abuse. It was a collt.ction
of all that was most vile and abject in the purlieus of I'aris. ' Let us
follow the mob,' said Honaparti-. We got the start of them an(! took
up i>ur station on the terrace of the banks of the river. It was there
that he witnessed the scandalous scenes which took place ; and it
would l)e dilticult to descrilw the surpriHe and indignation which they
excited in him. When the King showed himself at the windows over
looking the garden, with the red cap, which one of the mob had put on
his head, he could no longer repress his indignation ; ' Che logliom: I ' he
loudly exclaimed ; Why have they let in all that rabble? Why don'l
they sweep off four or five hundred of them with the cannon; the
rest would then setoff fust enough." Hoiikkienni,, Memoirs, I, iS,
Lond., iSjo.

276 'J9 Tenth of August. " Heboid the fire slackens not : nor
does the Swiss rolling-fire slacken from within. Nay, they clutched
cannon as we saw ; and now from the other side, they clutch three
more ; alas, cannon without linstock ; nor will the flint-and-steel answer
though they try it. Had it chanced to answer! Patriot onlookers
have their misgivings ; one strangest patriot onlooker thinks that the
Swiss, had they a commander, would beat. He is a man not unqualified
to judge; the name of him Napoleon Honapartc." L'ari.vle, /K«,//
KiTolntioii, The Constitution, bk. vi, cap. vii.

277 J Peace of Leoben. Itetween Napoleon and the Austrians,
April 18, 1797. See .Montiiolon, Memoirs of the History of Frame, IV,
cap. xviii. Ix)nd., 1824.

277 17 these babbling Avocats. I.as Cases attributes a similar
remark to Napoleon himself. " That ... he should have exclaimeil :
' France will be lost through these fine talkers, these babblers : now i-
the time to save her.'" I, as Casks, Memoirs, 1, 144. N. V., 1S55.

277 93 Lieutenant of La Pfere. "Who does not pity the nol.l.'
chamlK-rlain that confesses his blood to have run cohl when he heani
Napoleon — seated at dinner at Dresden among a circle of crowned
heads — begin a story with when I tvas a Lieutenant in the regiment of

Lkciukk VIJ

/•//A IIEKO AH A/.\U

I.II F^rf." f-.imi/y /.linirv, /.//,■ of X„f'ol,on, II, 37 |,.i yin- \s a
' territoriiil • name for a rtijiinuni l,.iv.rs of SUviiiv,ii will ri-call the
town aa it o< cur* in Ah liilnid I ov./vc.

277 ya glyen up to a atrong delusion. Ste a Tu. »,. ii, 1 1 .

278 » Pope's-Concordat. riic a«r»Lirnni Utwicu N4|)olcon and
l'i>pe I'ius VII in 1S09, for the oltitial rciognition of the Irtncii kcpiil)-
lic by the Curia, and the Church of Rome by the K-public. The
full text ix given in Munthojon. M,nions ,^/ Ih, llntoiy ,fh,.nu.\ I.
Affem/ij. 307-J25. " The foncordat w.ns n. .fs^ary to reliRion. to (he
Kepulilic, to government : the temples w.ii' >liut up. the phesti* perse-
oued. The Concord.it rLJmilt the altars put an tnd to disorders. i om-
mandetl the faithful to pray foi the repul.l: . and dissipatid tlu- m ruple*
of the purchaseisof national doma'iKs." M >miiimiin. .1/ moin, I, rjo.

278 II vaccine de la religion, -one day he assured the prelates
that, in his opinion, th^ c \va.s no rtliL;! .11 but the C.nth« lie. nhiih wa.<»
truly founded on ancicu: tradition; dul -r. this n'.u" i he MMially dis-
played to them some erudition: tlien, vvh. 1. hi \.,s wiih the philoso-
phers, he said to Cabanis, " Ih, you Im ,w w Mii- ( n urdat is which
I have just sij^ned ? It is the vaccination 1 t 1, li^i. ,,. ai.ii m fifty years,
there will be none in France!"" Dk Siai i. loin II, p. 275. C.irlyle
was reading her IkioIc. i'.'u^uhr.itious sur /, r I'rnuif^mx J-.Viiumens
,h I.a KaolHtion Fran^ohi . in 1S19. See /:'./.</(. 102. Cp. .Scott, L//,-
of Xapoli-oii, cap. xxi, n.

278 1.1 wanting nothing. •• .\ sokmn /; D.um was chaunted at
the cathedral of N'ofre Dame, on Sunday, the iitii of April. ... On
the road from the Tuileries to Notre Dame, I.annes and .Xujiereau
wanted to alight from the carriage, .is soon as they s.iw that they were
being driven to mass, and it required an order from the l-irst Consul to
prevent their doing so. They went, therefore, to NOtn I )anif, and the
next day I'.onaparte asked .Augereaii what he thouKlu of the ceremony.
• Oh, it was all very fine,' replied the general ; ' thi re w.is iiothiiij,' want-
ing, except the million of men who have perished in the pulling down
of what you are setting ui».' lioiinpartf was mucli displeased at this
remark." ItncKkiKN.NK, Af.molru II. 27.}. .M.ulanit <le Sta.l gives
another version; see Cotisidi'mti'iis sur /, r /'nii, /.''.nix /■■; hi, iiiiiis Jc
Lit A'.vo/iithm /-ni/iiO/t,; II, 27S, Paris, l.SiS; ami the Duchess
d'.Xbrantes gives another; see A/.moirs of A',//.'/, v«. His Court ,itij
luimilv, cap. Ixxx; and credits Delmas with

s.iying.

ont

pense, mats avec un serrement de c<iur. ce mot <|ue ce brutal Del

disa\f en bouffonnant, lors du Sacre: II n'v ma

n(|ue que le

mas
million

■if I

364

NOTES

[Lecture VI

d'hommes qui se font taer pour supprimer tout cela 1 " Bourget,
Sensations d' Italic, 256.

278 16 Cromwell's Inauguration. " On the day appointed West-
minster Hall was prepared and adorned as sumptuously as it could be
for a day of coronation. A throne was erected with a pavilion, and a
chair of state under it, to which Cromwell was conducted in an entry,
and attendance of his officers, military and civil, with as much state <as
the sword carried before him) as can be imagined. When he was sat
in his chair of state, and after a short speech, which was but the pro-
logue of that by the .Speaker of the Pariiament, Widdrington, that this
promotion might not seem to be without any vote from the nobility, tl e
.Speaker, with the Earl of Warwick, and Whiilock, vested him with a
rich purple velvet robe lined with ermines ; the Speaker enlarging upon
the majesty and the integrity of that rol)e. Then the .Speaker presented
him with a fair Bible of the largest edition richly bound ; then he, in
the name of the people, girded a sword about him ; and lastly presented
him a sceptre of gold, which he put into his hand, and made him a
large discourse of those emblems of government and authority."
Clarendon, The Gnat Ribellion, bk. xv.

279 1 blazing-up. Cp. " Religion cannot pass away. The burn-
ing of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky ; but the stars are
there and will re-appear." Essays, I'oltaire, II, 78.

279 6 Duke of Weimar. Kari August (1775-1828), the friend and
patron of Goethe.

279 n Palm. Johann Philipp (1768-1806). A bookseller c,f
Nureml>erg. court-martialed and shot by Napoleon's orders, at Hr.iun.tu,
Aug. 26, 1806, for selling a pamphlet called Jhutschland in seiner li,j.
sten Eruiedri^^iing, which was directed against the French. He refused
to name the author of it. The assassination roused the Germans and
had its influence in bringing about the war of liljeration ; and Palm's
house, like Diirer's. is one of the sights of his city.

279 29 notions of the world. For example, " I should have
wound up the war with a battle of Actium, and afterwards what did I
want of England .> Her destruction .> Certainly not. I merely wanted
tiie end of an intolerable usurpation, the enjoyment of imprescriptiblt-.
and sacred rights, the deliverance, the liberty of the seas, the inde-
pendence, the honour, of flags I had on my side power, ", ^disput-
able right, the wishes of nations." Las Casks, Memoirs, July 15, iSiO.

280 ;t another Isle of Oleron. A remark made to las Cases, on
May 24, 1S16. " England . . . would in course of time become a mere

% \

Lecture VI]

THE HERO AS KING

365

appendage to France, had the latter continued under my dominion.
Kngland was by nature intended to be one of our Islands as well as
Oleron or Corsica." Las Casks, /^«r«rt/, vol. II, pt. ii, p. 330. Lond.,
1823. Cp. " Napoleon must have been merely jesting, at .St. Helena,
when he said, that four days would have enal)led him to reach London!
and that nature had made Kngland one of our islaiuls. like Oleron or
Corsica. I find these words in my notes : ' Remained with the First
Consul from half-past eleven to one o'clock.' During this hour and a
half he said not a word bearing any resemblance to his assertions at
.St. Helena." Bourriennk. Memoirs, II, 474 n. Ixind., 1830.

281 a The accomplished and distinguished. This compliment has
the rare merit of being both courtly and true. ( )ne of the ' beautiful ' in
the audience, thus records the close of this lecture: " He then told us
that the subject which he had endeavoured to unfold in three weeks
was more calculated for a six months' story; he had, however, been
much interested in going through it with us, even in the naked way he
had done, thanked us for our attenti.in :ind synii)athy, wished us a
cordial farewell, and vanished." Cmoline Fox, IL, Journals and Letters,
I, 193. Carlyle closed his lectures of i8j8 also, with gracious words.
" Nothing now remains for me but to take my leave of you — a sad
thing at all times that word, but doubly so in this case. When I think
of what you are and what I am, I cannot help feeling that you have
been very kind to me. I won't trust myself to say how kind ! Hut
you have been as kind to me as ever audiente was to man, and the
gratitude which I owe you comes from the bottom of my heart. May

God be with you all

LL.

l]\

i\' i

CARLYLE'S INDEX

Agincourt, Shakspeare's battle of, 126.

Ali, young, Mahomet's kinsman and
convert, 66.

Allegory, the sportful shadow of ear-
nest Faith, 6, 35.

Ambition, foolish charge of, 256 ; laud-
able ambition, 259.

Arabia and the Arabs, 54.

Balder, the white Sungod, 21, 40.

Belief, the true god-announcing mira-
cle, 66, 87, 167, 200; war of, 235.
See Religion, Scepticism.

Benthamism, 87, 198.

Books, miraculous influence of, 183,
189; our modem University, Church,
and Parliament, 186.

Boswell, 211.

Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, 7.

Bums, 216; his birth, and humble
heroic parents, 217; rustic dialect,
3i8; the most gifted Britisli soul of
his century, 2iij; resemblance to
Mirabeau, 220; his sincerity, 221;
his visit to Edinburgh, Lion-hunted
to death, 222.

Caabah, the, with its Black Stone and

Sacred Well, 56.
Canopus, worship of, 11.
Charles I fatally incapable of being

dealt with, 246.
China, literary governors of, i<>j.
Church. See Books.

Cromwell, 238 : his hypochondria, 243,
250 ; early marriage and conversion,
a quiet farmer, 244: his Ironshfes,
247; his Speedies, 252, 270; his
'ambition,' and the like, 254; dis-
misses the Kunip I'arliament, 264 ;
Protectorship a.id Parliamentary
Futilities, 2r,,S : his last days and
closing sorrows. 272.

Dante, 9S; bingraphy in his IJook and
Portrait, <>S : his birth, education,
and early career, i/j; love for IJea-
trice. unhappy marriage, banish-
ment, t/)-. uncourtier-like ways, loi ;

death,

his Dhina Commeilia

367

genuinely a song. 104; the Unseen
World as figurefl in the Christianity
of the Mi.ldle .\ges. iii ; -uses' of
Dante. 114.

D.ivifl, the Hebrew King. 53.

Divine Right of Kings, 227.

"u'y. M, 7,1; infinite n.iture of, 86;
sceptical spiritual paralysis, k/j,

F.ihla, the .'s<.indinavian, 19.
Kighteentli Century, the sceptical,

ii/)-J04. zy).
Elizabethan Km. 115.

Faults, his, not the criterion of any

man. 5^.
I'ichti's thedry of literary men, 179.
Fire, miraculous nature of, 20.

368

LECTURES ON IfEROES

Forms, necessity for, 236.
Frost. See Pire.

Goethe's 'characters,' 120; notablest

of literary men, 181.
Graphic, secret of t>eing, 105.
Gray's misconception of Norse lore, 39.

Hampden, 238, 230.

Heroes, Universal History the united
biographies of, 1, 33; how 'little
critics' account for great men, 14;
all Heroes fundamentally of the
same stuff, 32, 4:,, cp, 132, 177, 219;
Heroism possible to all, 146, 167 :
Intellect the primary outfit, 121 ; no
man a hero to a 7'(;A-/-soul, 211,
239. *49.

Hero-worship the tap-ioot of all Re-
ligion, 12, iS, </>; perennial in man,
16, 96, 145, 233.

Hutchinson and Cromwell, 238, 272.

Iceland, the home of Norse poets, 18.
Idolatry, 138 : criminal only when

insincero, 140.
Igdrasil, the I.ife-tree, 23, 116.
Intcllftt, the sumiiury of niun's gifts,

121, 195.
Islam, 64.

Job, the Book of, 56.

Johnson's difficulties, poverty, hypo-
chondria. 205 ; rude stlf-help. 2oh ;
stands genuinely by tlic old formulas,
207; his noble unconscious sincerity.
208; twofold (iosjH'l. of Prudence,
and hatred of Cant. 2o<): his Dic-
tionary, 210; the brave old .Samuel,
212, ::5V-

Jotuns. 20. 41.

Kadijah, the good, Mahomet's first
Wife, 61, 66.

King, the, a summary of all the various
figures of Heroism, 225 ; indispensa-
ble in all movements of men, 263.

Knox's influence on .Scotland, 166;
the bravest of Scotchmen, 168; hi-,
unassuming career, 169; is sent to
the French Galleys, 170; his collo-
quies with Queen Mary, 171; vein
of drollery, a brother to high and to
low, his death, 173.

Koran, thi.-, 73.

I.amaism, Grand, 5.

Leo .\, the elogant Pagan Pope, 152.

I.iljerty and Equal. cy, 145, 232.

Literary .Men. 17;: in China, 194.

Literature, ch.iotic condition -if, 182 ;
not our heaviest evil, 195.

Luther's birtli and parentage, \a,U:
hardship and rigorous m^cessity,
death of .Alexis, becomes monk, 147 ;
his religious despair, finds a Hible, de-
liverance from darkness, 149; Rome.
Tetzel. 150: burns the Popes Bull,
153 ; at thL' Diet of Worms, 1 54 ; King
of the Reformation, 1 58 ; ' Duke-
Georges nine days running,' 161 ; his
little daughter's deathbed, his soli-
tary Patmos, 162 ; his Portrait, 163.

Mahomet's birth, boyhood, and youth,
58: marries Kadijah; quiet, unam-
bitious lift', 61 ; divine commission,
('A, ■■ the good Kadij.ih believes him.
.Sfid. young .Mi, 66; offences and
sor.' strussles. 67 ; flight from Mecca :
beinp driven to take the sword, he
uses it, 69 ; the Koran, 73 ; a veri-
t.ible Hero; Seid's death, S2 ; free-
dom from Cant, 83; the infinite
nature of Duty, 86.

Mary. Queen, and Knox. 171.

Afn\/f<m'cr, sailing of the, 165.

Mecca, 57.

CAA'LYLE'S INDEX

3»

Middle Ages, ri-presented by Dante

and ShakHpeare, iii, 115.
Montrose, the llero-Cavalier, 264.
Musiral, all deep things, ()5.

Napoleon, a portentous mixture of
Quack and Iloro, 274; his iii-.tiiict
for the Practical, 275 ; his demo-
cratic faith and heart-hatred for
anarchy, 276; apostatised from Ills
old faith in Facts, .-jnd took to
believing in Scmlilances. 277. this
Napoleonism was unjust, and could
not last, 279.

Nature, all one great Miracle, S, 78,
if>2 ; a righteous umpire, 70.

Novalis. oil Man, 12; lielief, (^U\
Shakspeare, 123.

CJdin, the first Norse ' man of genius,'
24 ; historic rumours and guesses,
25 ; how he came to be deified, 2S :
invented ' runes," 31 ; Hero, I'rophet,
(iod, 32.

Olaf, King, and Thor, 45.

Original man tlie sincere man, 52, 144.

I'aganism, Scandinavian, 4 : not men.'
Allegory. ^: Nntiire-worsliip. S. ^4;
Hero-worship, 13; crc-ed of our
fathers, 18, 42, 44 : Impersonati. 1 of
the visil)le workings of .Nature. 20;
contrasted witli (Ireek Paganism, 22 ;
the first Norsi- i'liiiiker. 24 ; main
practical Ik-lief ; indispensable to be
brave, 3^1; lieart\ , homely, nigged
Mythology: lialder, 'I'lior. 311. 40;
Consecration of \'alour. 4(>.

I'arliaments. superseded bv lioi.k^, iSS ;
Cromwell's P.iiliaments. 2O4.

Past, the whoK' the possessiim of the
Present, 47.

Poi't. tlip. nnl I'roplift. 1,1, ii.|, \2-.

I'uetryand I'ro^e,distillCtionot,l;4, 103.

Popery, 157.

Poverty, advantages of, 117.

Priest, the true, a kind of Prophet, 132.

Printing, consequences of, 188.

I'rivate judgment. 142.

Progress of the .'^p<,xies, 135.

Prose. -See Poetry.

Protest intism, the root of modern
i:uroi)eaii History, 142; not dead
yet. 157: its living fruit, 165, 220.

I'liigatory, noble Catholic conception
of, lOi).

Puritaniini, founded by Knox, 164;
true beginning of .America, 1O5; the
one epoch of Scotland, 166; 'Iheoc-
r.acy, 175; Puritanism in England,
2.K. 237. 2''o.

(Ju.itkery origin.ites nothing, 5, 50;
age of, 201 ; Quacks and Dupes, 249.

Kii!:;nardl:. 44.

Kefornier, the true, 153.

Religion, a man's, the chief fact with
regard to him, 2; liased on Hero-
worship, 13; propagating by the
sword. 69; cannot succeed by being
'easy,' So.

Revolution, 227; the French, 229, 273.

Ricliter. 1 1.

Right and Wrong. S7, in.

Rousseau, not a strong man; hi> Por-
trait, egoism. 212: his passionate
ai)p,'als. 21 ( : his Urnks. like himself,
uuliealthy ; the Kvangelist of the
I'rench Revolution. 215.

Scepticism, a spiritual p.iralysis, 195,

204, 230.
Scotland awakened into life by Knox,

I'j'i.
Secret, tlie open, 91.
Seid. Mahomet's slave and friend, 60,

82.

370

LECTURES ON HEROES

Shalupeare and the Elizabethan Kra,
11$; his all-sufficing intellect, ii8,
lai ; his Characters, lao; his
Dramas, a part of Nature herself,
laj ; hi:; joyful tranquillity and over-
flowing love of laughter, 124; his
hearty Patriotism, 126; glimpses of
the world that was in him, ia6; a
heaven-sent Light- Uringer, ij8; a
King of Saxondom, 130.

Shekinah, Man the true, 13.

Silence, the great empire of, 115,
257.

Sincerity, better than gracefulness, 35 ;
the first characteristic of heroism
and originality, 51, 62, 144, 146, 179.

Theocracy, a, striven for by all true

Reformers, 175, 261.
Thor, and his adventures, 21, 39-44 ;

his last appearance, 45.

Thought, miraculous influence of, 24,

33, 189 ; musical Thought, 94.
Thunder. See Thor.
Time, the great mystery of, 9.
Tolerance, true and false, 159, 17a.
Turenne, 90.

Universities, 185.

Valour, the basis of all virtue, 36, 40 :
Norse consecration of, 46 ; Christian
valour, 137.

Voltaire-worship, 16.

Wish, the Norse god, 21 ; enlarged into

a heaven by Mahomet, 87.
Worms, Luther at, 1 54.
Worship, transcendent wonder, 11

See Hero-worship.

Zemzem, the Sacred Well, 56.

INDEX TO INTRODUCTION AND
NOTES

Abelard, 345.

d'Abrantes, Duchess, 363.

accomplished and distinguished,'
'the, 365.

'according to God's own heart,'
308.

' account ' for him, 296.

Account of Corsicit, Koswell's, 357.

' a devout imagination,' 343.

a Dio spiacenti, 324.

Ai/onais, quoted, 301.

advertisement, Neptune in, 306.

Aegir, 299.

aer bruno, 324.

Aesthttische Erziehuiig ties Men-
scheii, quoted, 354.

A Few Wonh about the Eight-
eenth Century, 347.

Age of Scepticism, 307.

Aire/ as a lecturer, xiv.

Alford, Dean, xvi.

Ali, Mahomet's vizier, 311.

Allegory, 294.

all, the, a trc;. Ixxvi.

■ All was (Godlike,' 295.

allusion, restrained in Heroes, Ixi.

Almack's, first series of lectures
at, xviii.

almsgiving, the Koran on, 316.

alti guai, 320.

America, Carlyle thinks of lectur-

ing in, liv, Iv ; project given
up, liv, Iv.

American exaggeration, 304.

American spelling, Iviii.

Anabaptists, 337.

Anderson, bibliography of Heroes,
defective, Ivi.

angels, Juste-mi/ieu, 324.

anger, Mahomet's vein of, xxxix.

An Inland Voyage, 363.

Annan, Schoolmaster in, 328.

Annihilation of Self, 310.

' another Isle of Oleron,' 364.

Anstey, T. C, reports second
course, xxv ; differences in
his reports and Hunt's, xxvi;
reports to be taken w'th cau-
tion, xxvi ; compared v.ith
Heroes, liii.

' Apostlehood ' in Carlyle's audi-
ence, xvi.

apparitions, 295.

Appleton's re])rints. hi, Ivii, Iviii.

'appointed patli^,' 513.

Arabia first became alive. 317.

Arabians at Crenada, 327.

Arabian Talts. Carlyle's acquaint-
ance with, xxxix.

Arabic, Carlyle's desire to know,
xxxix.

.Archives, Florence, 319.

■11

371

372

LECTURES ON HEROES

Arians, Carlyle on, 312.
aristocracy, open-minded, xxviii.
Arkwright, lecture on, xxix, xxx.
Arnold, CalluUs, quoted, jaS ; dis-
likes Carlyle's earnestness,
Ixxxiv; Luminary of ( arlylc '8
doctrine, Ixxxiv ; quoted, 295.
Arundel marble, 301.
Asen, AsiaticH, 300.
' A8:^uredly,' 315.
'as the uaktree grows,' 329.
Atahualpu. .ncredulity of, jo2.
Athanasian controversy, Carlyle

oii, 3i.«.
d'Aubignc, citt-d, m, 334, 337.
audience, ap|)earance of Carlyle's,
xix.
attitude of, Ixxx.
Carlyle on his fourth, xxxviii.
effect of Carlyle on, xxvii, 1.
elements of, xvi.
fourth, nature of, xxxvii.
growth of, xxviii, xxix, xxxix.
ideas of, Ixxxv, Ixxxvi.
sayings of, xxxiv.
second, i oUected easily, xxi ;
character of, xxii.
Augereau, crtiiited with mot, 363.
Augustinian monks against iJo-

miiiicans, jj.].
Austen, Jane, Ixxxvi.
away with, cannot, 331.

babbling Avocats. 362.
Backwoods, American, 304.
Balder, 303.

'ba|)ti-*m he was railed,' 341.
Barehones Parliament, 359.
'Baresark,' Carlyle's error as to,
3J5-

Hathurst, a 'good hater,' 329.

Hayle, a Protestant, xxx.

Bayle, Diclionary cjuoted, 320,

Beatrice, Dante's love for, intense.

xliii.
Beautiful higher than the Good,

318.
beauty of the harvest-fields, 338.
Bellarmine. 332.

Bentham, denounced by Carlyle
xli.

Itenliiamee Utility, 317.
Benthamism, spurt at, accidental,

liii.
lieowulf, 303.

' Better that women weep,' 342.
Bible, frequent allusions to, Ixi.
Bible references :

Gen., 360.

Exod., 344.

I Sam., 308.

I Kings, 310.

Job, 30S, 309. 3 '0.311.

Ps.. 308.

Eccl.. 329. 331, 357.

Jer., 30S, 357.

•Matt., 293, 3 IS, 335, 344.

Luke, 341.

John, 344.

Acts, 308, 335.

Gal., 310.

Eph., 347, 355.

2 Thess., 363.

Kev., 305.
bibliography of Heroes, defective,

Ki.
liiglim Pilfers quoted, 305.
Birrell, A., 348.

INDEX TO JNTRODVCTtOU AA'D NOTES 37J

Birth-hour, another, 331.

bits of black wood, 310.

Black Stone, 309.

blazing<up, 364.

' blows, red beard,' 298.

blunders, Carlyle's, Ixiv, Ixv.

Uliithenslaub of Novalis quoted,

329-
Boccaccio on Dante, 321.
Bolingbroke in Chelsea, xii.
Book of Snob\ significant, Ixxxvi.
bore, tidal wave, 299.
lioswell, Carlyle's review of, Ixxx.
Hoswell, on Fielding and Richard-
son, 327.
lioswiU quoted, 327, 329, 347,

348. 349. 357-
Boswell, remark on, xlvi.
Bourget, cited, 363.
Boiirrienne, Memoirs, quoted, 361,

362, 363, 365.
' brave old Samuel,' 349.
brewing ale, .\orse gods, 299.
Britain, Great, History oJ\ 360.
Brooks, I'hillips, intluence of

Heroes on, Ixxxvii.
brougham, 'fourth estate,' 346.
Brown, IIuniL. John Knox, A

Bio!;r„pAy, 341, 34 J, 343.
Browning at second lecture, xl.
Browning's, Mrs., opinion of Car-

lyle, Ixx, n.
Browning's Strafford, xviii.
iirunetto Latini, 320, 522.
bulletin, faisity of Acre, 361.
bungler, 344.
Bunsen, Life 0/ A'Ubuhr, quoted,

354-
Burke said, 346.
Bums, Carlyle on, Ixxx ; compared

with Scot I. Ixxui ; F. Harrison
on, Ixxxiii; not to think, 353;
Stewart on, 352.

Burns's family in tears, 352.

Bums's Schoolmaster, 352.

' but one Temple,' 296.

Byron and Hunt, xii.

Cagliostro, 347.

Calas, Voltaire and, 296.

camera-oljscura, 301.

fan della Scala, 320.

< ant. 349.

canto fermo, 321.

capitals, u.se of, Ixiii.

'career of ambition,' 310.

'careful not to insinuate,' 302.

'Carlisle' for 'Carlyle' in the
Times, xlii, xliii.

Carlyle, Alexander, has furni.shed
letters, xxxvi , editor of his-
torical sketches, xlvii.

Carlyle, Dr. John, translation of
Inji-riio, 322, 324.

Carlyle, John, letter from Thomas,

XV, .XX, xx.xi., xxxvi, xlviii.
Carlyle, Mrs., ill during lecture.-,,
xvi.
tells of success of first course,

XX.

attended last four lectures, xx.

husl)a:urs pre.seiit to, xx.

on Carlyle's second audience,
xxiii.

on T. C. .\nstey, xxv.

copying Anstey's report, xxv.

on the effect of the second lec-
ture, xxvii.
on the third course of lectures,
xxxiv.

LHCTVRES OJV f//- ffOKS

Carlylf, Mrn,, notes f yal carriagt .

XXXV.

tees Mrs. Ktmanl Irvlnj,' it It-c-

tiire, XA«\.
no reference to Herots., xxxvni.
iituileiit of Italian, xhi.
opinion .1 fifth icctun , O//

//f'/rtvf, xlvii.
Carlylc/riiotnas, moves to I ,<>ii''i>n

from t.'raigfiipnttotli in i ;4,

xi.
niukt:^ Ikjitiu in Clteliiea, xi.
hi.s frieiuls, xii

first worl< at « ht-ync Row. xii.
loses manusi ript of I In- /•////, //

Kevolutii'>t, xii.
I-iiMisliers Aiv.x to puljliNh \iii.
depression, period of, xiii.
ulofjuenre of, xiii, xii.
his K(li!it)ur);h address, xiii.
professorial positions applied

for, xiii.
might have been a great teacher,

xiii.
l)ublication of The J-'n-mh AVr

olution, xiii.
inviteil ti' lecture in -Ainirica.Niv.
considers the Royal Instituiiun.

XV.

as an indep> ndent lecturer, xv.
his own account of his audi-
ence. XV.
remembered those who helped

him, XV.
afraid of popul.irify, xv.
preparation for his tirst course,

xvi.
extent f)f first course, xvii.
difticulties of, in lecturiii.!,', x\i;i.
to lecture extempore, x^•iii.

< arlyli , Thtima*., methodn of <>pen.
ing. uiK onventional, xviii.
v^ltdi. t'lry for his mother, xviii.
puti, tuality of, ensured, xviii.
first lecture at Almack'a, iviii.
I' personal appearance, xix.
nci\ou.<incss, xx, xxi.
kind reception, xx.
sijc(( ss of first roune, xx.
pi eii!-, guinea.* to wife and

Mrs. Welsh, xx.
pr. jiaration for Hecond roume

xxi.
Ills opinion of his second audi

ence, xxiii.
success of second course, xxiv.
ottered a dinner, xxiv.
affects ludience to tears, xxiv.
reported by Anstey, xxv.
lectures occupied an hour, xxv.
richer than for ten years, xxvi.
looking forward to third cours. ,

xxvi.
manner, characterizeii by Hunt,

xxvii.
thought he gave a stupid lec

lure, xxviii.
enthu>,i.isn) amused by, xxviii.
apl)lauileil ill speaking of Knox.

xxviii.
impartiality of, xxix.
signilii ;int omissions, xxix.
Protestantism of, xxx.
on French Revolution, xxx.
on I.uther, xxx.
on Cromwell, xxx.
on the emigrant noblesse, xxxii.
defens<' of Marie Antoinette,

xxxii
hard on (iirondist.s, xxxii.

iffntix TO ff/TNonrcTiox axd notks 375

Carlyle, Thomas, defemU Marai,
xxxiii.
does justice to Robespierre,

xxxili.
eulogy of Danton, xxxiii.
praised by Hunt, xxxiii.
on hiM audience, xxxiv.
on his own lectures, xxxiv.
ride to Harrow, xxxiv
admitH his succes.s to l':merson,

XXXV.

thinks of lecturing in America,

XXXV.

successi of fourth course, xxxv.

opinion of lecturing, xxxv.

inception of Heroes, xxxvi.

journal quoted on Heroes, xxxvi.

natuif of hi.s manuscript, xxxvii.

success in fourth course, xxxvii.

describes fourth audience,
xxxviii.

successful when excited, xxxviii.

on Mahomet, xxxix.

reads 1-ane's "Arabian Tales,"
xxxix.

pleased with second lecture,
xxxix.

views on Mahomet, xl.

his view of Christianity, xli.

interrupted by Mill, xli.
on Dante, xli.
on Shaksperc, xli.
visited Stratford-on-Avon, xlii.
knowkdRe of .Shaksperc, xlii.
called • Carlisle,' xlii, 327.
reported in the Times, xlii.
on the Commedia, xliii.
third lecture praised, xliii.
repels Maurice, xliii.
reporter's opinion of, xliii.

<'arlyle, Thomas, on Knox and
Luther, xliv.
fourth lecture good, xHv.
destrilied by Caroline Fox, xlv.
Scottish accent noted, xlv.
on Boswell, xlvi.
on Rousseau, xlvi.
"n Johnson, xlvi.
on Kurns, xlvi.

growth of opinion on Cromwell,
xlvii.

special knowledge of Napoleon,

xlvii.
first to declare Cromwell honest,

xlviii.
varied phrases, xlviii.
opinion of sixth lecture, xlviii.
allusion to contemporary poli-
tics, xlviii.
his audience .ippreciative, xlix.
admits success to himself, xlix.
change of attitude to audience,

xlix, 1.
successful at last, I.
effect on audience, I.
method of lecturing, li.
use of manuscript, li, n.
re.solves to make Heroes a book,

li.
his own reporter, lii.
method of writing out lectures,

lii, liii.
repetition of lectures, liii.
retains impromptus, liii.
project of lecturing in America,

liv.
project given up, Iv.
at work on Cromwell, Iv, Ivii.
makes Chapman and Hall his
publishers, Ivii.

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376

LECTURES ON HEROES

Carlyle, Thomas, winding up Mrs.
Welsh's estate, Ivii.
sensitive to misprints, Ivii.
corrections in second edition of

Heroes, Ivii.
late changes in text, Iviii.
first opinion of Heroes, lix.
disparagement of his own work,

lix.
notion of style for, Ix.
restraint of humor, Ixi.

of metaphor, Ixi.
impression of his voice, Ixii.
fondness for triads, Ixii.
for plurals, Ixiii.
for capitals, Ixiii.
for hyphens, Ixiii.
for the subjunctive, Ixiii.
solidity of his work, Ixiv.
blunders in Heroes, Ixiv, Ixv.
errors not important, Ixv.
trusted too much to memory,

Ixv.
style colloquial, Ixv.
sentence structure careless, Ixvi.
excuse for errors, Ixvii.
method contrasted with Rus-

kin's, Ixvii.
objections of Gosse and Traill

to, Ixix.
argument against objections, Ixx.
action in regard to burnt manu-
script, Ixx.
varies meaning of heroic, Ixxi.
choice of heroes criticised, Ixxiii.
possibly right, Ixxiii.
nature of his insight, Ixxiv.
view of Rousseau, Ixxiv.
idea of hero justified, Ixxv.
on sincerity, Ixxv.

Cariyle, Thomas, sense of unreal
ity, Ixxvi.
aim in Heroes, Ixxvii.
his reading of history, Ixxviii.
view of heroism, Ixxviii.
judgments approved by F. Har

rison, Ixxix.
work approved by Traill, Ixxix.
reversed popular verdict on Ma

hornet md Cromwell, Ixxx.
review of Croker's BoswelL

Ixxx.
approved by Vigfusson, Ixxx;
and by .Syed Ameer Ali, Ixxv.
portrait-painting, Ixxxi.
portrayer of epochs, Ixxxi.
moralist of nineteenth century,

Ixxxii.
preacher of righteousness, Ixxxii.
criticised adversely by Harrison,

:xxii.
objections not valid, Ixxxiii.
alleged incoherence of, Ixxxiv.
Arnold's objection to, Ixxxiv.
H. Martineau on, Ixxxiv.
L. Stephen on his doctrim,

Ixxxiv.
his pr .aching talent, Ixxxv.
Goethe's opinion of, Ixxxv.
repetition of, Ixxxv.
compared with Newman, Ixxxvi
difficulties overcome, Ixxxvi.
his final view of Heroes, Ixxxviii.
nature of his appeal, Ixxxviii.
and London Library, 327.
apology to Mill, 347.
article on Xecker quoted, 357
compliment of, 365.
confuse.'^ I'halaris and PeriJlu-.
347-

INDEX TO INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 377

Carlyle, Thomas, corrected hy
Times reporter, 327.
dictum, omitted from JAroes,

350.
error as to ' Baresark,' 355.
error as to Hegira, 312.
error regarding Luther, 339.
errors of, 319. 322, 323, 324, 325,

345. 347-

inaccuracy of, 304, 305, 335, 336,

341.
in Luther's room, 337.
misquotation of Job, 308.
moderation of, 334, 355.
on the Arians, 312.
quotation from himself, 306, 318,

346, 348.
studying Italian, 325.
works quoted or cited :
Chartism, 347.

Cromwell, Letters and Speeches,

340, 3SS^ 356, 358. 359. 360.
E.Corr., 328, 331, 336, 345,

347-
E.-Lett., 350, 363.
Essays :

Appendix, 353.

Boswell 's Life of Johnson,

293.318.346,348.349.353.

357-
Burns, 307, 318, 319, 327, 352,

353-
Characteristics, 300, 311, 331,

343. 348.
Count Cagliostro, 207, 347.
Diamond Necklace, 354.
Diderot, 344, 346.
Goethe, 3c5, 312, 3r7, 344,

349-
Goethe's Death, ^ij.

Carlyle, Thomas, Assiiys:

(j'oct/ie's irorks, Ixxi, 293, 296,

3'9. 337. 344-
/can P,iul Fricdtich A'ichter,

=95. 296, 3 '7. 327. 337. 346,
349-
/can Pr.ul Friedrich Richter

Again, 295, 327.
Life and Writings of Werner,

306, 317.
Z«M^r'j />.„//«, 335, 336, 337.
Mirahcau, 307, 320, 324, 348,

352-
NiK.alis, 296, 301, 311, 3,9,

329-
On History, 293.
Schiller, 349.
Signs of the Times, 296, 300,

345. 346.
State of German Literature,
V7^l^'^^Zl^,lM, 346, 354.
Taylor 's Surrey of German

Literature, 334, 354, 356.
Voltaire, 296, 297, ^09, 364.
French RcTolution, The, 296,

2W, 352, 354. 359. 362.
Historical Sketches, 340, 358.
History of Friedrich II, ^i.
Lectwes on Literature {L.L.),
293. 294, 306, 308, 31S, 3r9,
320, 321, 322, 324, 325. 326,
328, 329, 330, 332, 233, 334.
335' 337. 339. 340, 341, 342,
3 7, 36'. 365-
Life of Sterling, 332.
Meister's Apprenticeship, 329,

354. 356-
Meister's Travels, t^i-J.
Mcnta.gne and other Essays, 299,
358-

378

LECTURES ON HEROES

Carlyle, Thomas, Essays :
Noz'alis, 296.
Reminiscences, 300.
Sartor Resartus, 295, 296, 300,
Z^'' 303. 305. 3'o, 311, 318,
332. 346, 347-
Carlyle'.s chairman, xviii.
Carlyles' Chelsea Home, The, 337.
Carlylean doctrine, summarized by
Arnold, Ixxxiv; and by
Stephen, Ixxxiv.
cassock, Luther's recommendation

regarding, 336.
Catinat, de. Marshal, 349.
Cato and his statue, 357.
Cavalcante falls, 323.
Cecilia, 344.
Celia, 344.

' certain genealogy,' 294.
Cestus of Venus, 302.
Chalmers as a lecturer, xiv.

phrase of, 300.
Chaos, umpire, 346.
Charles I, Carlyle on, xxviii.
Chartism, in Carlyle's time, Ixxxv,

347-
Chartisms, 347.
chasuble and cassock, confused by

Carlyle, 336.
Chaucer, Emerson's error regard-
ing, Ixxix.
Chelsea, literary associations of,

xii.
Cheyne Row, views from, xii.
Chinese methods, 346.
Choice of Books, The, 347.
Choosers of the Slain, 302.
Chosroes, 310.

Christianity, Carlyle on, 312.
Church, changed, 345.

Church Liturgy, 346.
Cincinnati imprint of Heroes, Ivii
Clarendon, on Harebones I'arli.i

ment, 359, 364.
' Clear your mind of cant,' 349.
Clifford, 345.
Coffee-house in Chelsea visitei

by Bickerstaff, xii.
Coleridge, as a lecturer, xiv.
dies in year of Cariyle's Ilegira

xi.
discursiveness of, xvii.
on Luther's ink-bottle, 337.
on the Encyclopedie j6o.
quoted, 342.
remark of, 357.
collocations awkward, Ixvi.
Colloquia Meusalia quoted, ly^,

339-
colloquial, Carlyle's style, Ixv.
'colours, cut-glass.' -■■
' combing their mane-^,' 298.
Comedy, The, of Dante Alighi.i 1.
322.
Ruskin on, 321.
Comtis quoted, 340.
Concordat, effect of, 363.
Confessions, Carlyle on Rousseau'^,

xlvi.
Consecration of Valour, 306.
' Consider the lilies,' 31 8.
Constance, Council of, 335.
constitution, the French, xxxi.
conversion of the .Saxons, 31::.
convex-concave mirror, 327.
Convocation of the Xotahles, :; ; 1.
Conway on Carlyle's use of ni:i:iii

script, li, n.
'Co])rostonios,'a naniefor Carly ■.
3'9-

jHr

INDEX TO INTRODUCTION AND NOTES 37')

corbels, bent like, 326.

Cornuel, de, Mde., 349.

Corpus Poeticum Boreale cited,

298. 299, 300, 303, 304.
Corsica Boswell, 356.
Corsican lieutenant, 319.
Councils of Tre])isond, 300.
Count Fathom, written in Chelsea,

xii.
Courvoisier murder, xxxviii.
Cow Adumbla, 303.
' crackling of thorns,' 329.
Craigenputtoch, Carlyle, six years

at, xi.
creation, Norse, 299.
Cromwell, Carlyle on, xxvii, xxx.

Carlyle's rehabilitation of, xlvii,
xlviii, xlix.

chosen as subject, xxxvi.

commantler-in-chief, 359.

concluding speech, 359.

confusion of speech, 361.

dissolves parliament, 359.

ever-calculating hypocrite, 356.

ftt.icies about, 355.

Hume on, 35S.

inauguration, 364.

last words, 358.

Milton on. 359.

mother, 3{)0.

opinion of, reversed, Ixxx.

passage in Heroes much revised,

s J regarding King Charles,

356.
crowning mercy, 355.
Crozier, J. H., cited, xix, n.
culture, value of history in,

Ixxviii.
cynosure of all eyes, 353.

d'Abrantes, Duchess, cited, iG^.
Dante, C-irlyle's knowledge of,
xlii.

Carlyle's service to, Ixxx.

Carlyle's study of, xxi.

'goes through hell," 321.

epitaph in full, 321.

historian of the spiritual worlil
xliii.

uses of, 327.
Danton, xxxii, xxxiii.
D'Aubigne, cited, m, 334, 337.
de (Irammont in Chelsea, xii.
delineation, musical, 318.
'delivering Calases,' 296.
' della bella persona,' 324.
Delmas, credited with mot, 363.
Denison, Mrs., at lectures On He-
roes, xl.
De Quincey, quoted, 329.

witness of Coleridge's success,
xiv.
Der Afythus von Thor, 2'/., 299,

304-
Desmoulins, Camillf, 354.
De Stael, on the Concordat, 363.
De Vere, T.iilnes to, xxiii.
Devil, 'the, is aware,' 337.
Devils, at Worms, 335.
Devils, ' the, fled,' 339.
' dew-drops from his mane,' 352.
Dickens, Ixxxvi.

Carlyle's portrait of, Ixxxi.
Diocletian, planting cabbages, 358.
Diodorus Siculus, 309.
'discrepancies of national taste,'

3'2-
discursiveness of lecturing, xvii.
Divine Idea, 318.
Doctrine of Motives, 347.

380

LECTUA'ES OAT /lEROES

Dominies, wild Saint, 331.
Douanier and Voltaire, 296.
•doubt,' a Scf^tticism, xlviii, 332.
Du Bois, Cardinal, Carlyle on,

xxix.
Duke George, Luther's defiance

of, 32,^.
Duke of Weimar, 364.
dumb Prophet, 361.
Dunce, not a, 328.
' duty of staying at home,' 347.

Eager, 299.
ears cropt-off, 358.
ears of the pot, 299.
earth steadied by mountains, 3r3.
Eastlake, Lady, on Carlyle's per-
sonal appearance, xix.
Memoirs of, cited, xix, n.
Eck, Johann, 332.
Edda, account of, 297.
' Edda,' fanciful etymologies of,

297.
Edda, Prose, cited, 297, 302, 303,

304. 305-
Edda, i>ryms^vifiu, quoted, 298,
299.
Hymiskvi^a, quoted, 299.
Educational Province, 316.
egotism of Carlyle, Ixix.
Eighteenth Century, A Few Words

abottt the, 347.
Eisenach, Carlyle at, 337.
Eliot, Sir John, 355.
Elliott, F., XV.
Elster-Gate, Luther at, 335.
Emerson, invites Carlyle to lecture
in America, xiv.
as a lecturer, xiv.
Carlyle at his lecture, xiv.

Emerson, letter of Carlyle to, xxxv
told subject of fourth courst
xxxvi.

completion of Heroes announcet

to, liv.
kindness to Carlyle, Iv.
tells of piracy, Ivi.

asks fortranscript of manuscript
Ivi.

curious error of, Ixxix.
philosophy based on Heroes,

Ixxxvii.
on Napoleon, 361.
quoted, 327, 329, 345.
Entile, cited, 351.
Encyclo/i^die, history of, 360.
England, in 1840, Ixxxv, Ixxxvi.
English Fairy- Tales, 304.
English society before Carlyle,

Ixxxiv.
Epistola Obscurorum Virorum.

332-
Erasmus in Chelsea, xii.
Eremites, 331.

Essay on Criticism, quoted, 312.
Essay on Man, quoted, 310.
'Ever in . . . eye,' 355.
exaggeration, American, 304.
Examiner, the, on Carlyle's
second audience, xxii.
reports Courvoisier murder.

xxxviii.
reports of Carlyle's lecturfs.
xxix, XXX, xxxi, xxxii, xxxiii
excuse for Carlyle's errors, Ixvii.

factor's letters to Burns's familv

352-
Faerie Queene, 332.
False as a bulletin, 361.

INDEX TO lyTKO/yUCTtON AND NOTES 381

Familiar Studiesof Men and Books,

343-

' Fancy of Plato's," 294.

Faraday, as a lecturer, xiv.

Farinata rises, 323.

Faust, cited, 310.

Fichte, quoted, 31S, 343, 344.

Fielding and kicliardson, com-
pared by Johnson, 327.

fiery snow, 322.

fire-worship, legend exploded, 298.

first course of lectures, receipts,

XX.

FitzGerald, Edward, xvi.
•flights of clouds.' 338.
' fond gaillard,' 352.
Fontenelle, saying of, 356.
• For ail our fighting,' 356.
' Force which is not wo,' 295.
' Four-pence-halfpenny a day,' 348.
Fox, Caroline, Sterling and, xxiv.

description of, xliv.

her world contrasted with Lon-
don, xliv.

friend of Sterling, xliv.

admirer of Carlyle, xliv.

reads Chartism, xlv.

report of fifth lecture, xlv, xlvi.

describes Carlyle, xlv.

penetration of, .\lv.

notes Carlyle's phrases, xlvi.

report of sixth lecture, xlvii.

accuracy of reports, xlviii.

evidence of, as to omissions,
liv.

on Lecture V, 353.

on end of Lecture VL 365.

Her Journals, 343, 345, 349, 350.
France needed Danton, xxxiii.
Fraticescu da Rimini, 323.

Eraser article, first draft of Sartor,

Ixxi.
Fraser, publishes Iteroet, Iv.

death of, Ivii.
Freemason's Tavern, 327.
French Revolution, bad lecture on,
xxxiv.
Carlyle on, xxx, xxxi.
Carlyle's knowledge of, xlvii.
like the Knglish, xxxii.
Ennch Rnolution, The, written at
Cheyne Row, xii.
first manuscript burnt, xii.
published in 1837, xiii.
Carlyle corrects proofs of,

xvi.
success of, XX.
Carlyle as graphic as, xxiii.
loss of manuscript of, shows

Carlyle's heroism, Ixx.
tjuoted, 299.
Friediich the \Vi.se, 333.
Friend, The, quoted, 360.
Frith, C. H., editor of Hutchin-
son Memoirs, 360.
on Cromwell, 355.
P'rost, Chartist leader, 347.
Kroude, at Emerson's lecture, xiv.
indicates Carlyle's preparation

for Heroes, xxxvi.
nature of his biography, Ixix.
Carlyle's Life in LoMdon(C.L.L.).
309. 3 '2. 347. 351-

Gardiner, Great ^ivil War, cited,

356.
Garnett, authoi y foj anecdote,

xii.
Thomas Carlyle, quoted, 317.
Geddes, Jenny, 340.

382

LKCTURKS ON HEROKS

de Genlw, Mde., and Rousseau,

350 f-
genuine set of fighters. 356.
German, Critics, ji8.
general ignorance of, xvii.
literature, Carlyle's proficiency
in, xvii.

Gibbon, mourning over Necker,
357-
on Diocletian, 358.
used by Carlyle, xxxix.
Decline and Fall, quoted, 307,

309. 3'3. 315-
cited, ^09, 312, J 1 6.
Memoirs, quoted, 357.
" Giovanna." " tell my," 326.
Girondism, subject of lecture, xxx,

xxxi.
Girondists, Carlyle on, xxxii.
' given up to a strong delusion,'363.
'glorious Revolution,' 340.
God and the Bible, quoted, 295.
•God be judge," 359.
Godwin, diligent, 359.
Goethe, compared with Scott,
Ixxiii.
his language, 344.
on Carlyle's moral force, Ixxxv.
on Hamlet, 329.
on Shakspere, 327.
opinion of Carlylt's knowledge

of German, xvii.
recognition of, little, 344.
Wilhelm MtisUr's Apprentice-
ship, 329.
Golden Legend, The, 345.
Gollancz, I., 304.
'good hater,' 329.
Gosse, failure to explain, xxxvi.
objections to fferoes, Ixix.

Gosse, success of I/erocs, according
to, Ixxvii.

grammar, Carlyle's liberties with,

Ixv, Ixvi.
grapeshot, Annandale, xl.
Gray's fragments, 303.
'greatest of all,' 296.
Greatness of Great Men, On the.

Ixxi.
Greek religion, Carlyle on, xxvi.
Green, Short I/istory 0/ the ling.

lish People, cited, 356.
Greene, Professor, editor of Car-
lyle's lectures, xxiv.
quoted, 306.
Grimm, erroneous etymology, 300
305-
Teutonic Mythology, 298, 3,^^,,
300, 302, 305.
Grotius. Dc Vent. Relig. Christ.,

quoted, 307.
Grove, Dictionary 0/ Music, quoted,

32'-
grudges all removed, y(^.
G uizot. History of France, <i\\.KA,i ' -

Half-and-half. 340.

Hallam and first audience, xvi.

Hamlet, 304.

Ilamht, (Joethe on, 329.

//it III let ill /cclaiut, 304.

'//amlit\n Wilhelm Meister,' y.,^

Hampton-Court negotiation;, 35V

Hardenberg, F. von (Xovalis), ji i.

Harper's Monthly Magazine cited,

356.
Harrison, Frederic, opinion of
Heroes, Ixxviii, Ixxxiii.
endorses judgments in //eroes,
Ixxix.

ixnt-x ro tXTKODcrriox .:x/> \„r/:s

3S,J

Harrison, Frederic, opinion of r/ie
Frtnch Revolution, Ixxxiii.
objections to /hroes, Ixxxiii.
modest refutation of them,

Ixxxiii.
curious error of, Ixxxiv, n.
cited, 347.

on Cromwell, cited, 355.
Harrow, Carlyle's ride to, xxxiv.
hater, a good, 329.
Hazlitt as a lecturer, xiv.
'Heaven with its stars,' 30S.
Hegira, 311.

Carlyle's error regarding, 312.
Heimskrini^la, 300, 302, 303, 305.
' he is resigned,' 338.
'he will never part,' 324.
' Hell will he hotter,' 315.
Heraclius, 310.
I/ermils, The, 331.
Hermoder, 303.
hero, defined hy Hume, Ixxi.
Carlyle's definition justified,

Ixxlv, Ixxv.
Men' 'j,'ft's definition. Ixxiv.
I Ixxv.

jn of, Ixxii.

,49-
iverse, 307.
inception of, xxxvi.
first subjects chosen, xxxvi.
relation of lectures to book,

xxxvi, XXX vii.
C'arlyle's description of writing-,

xxxvii.
first lecture not the best, x.vxviii,
Carlyle pleased with second lec-
ture, xxxix.
Macready's opinion of second
lecture, xl.

fc •
he 10^
Ilirocs,

//</<vf, phra.s>.soniitl. (I from, xlvi.
agreement betw.en lectures and

book, xlvi, liv.
difference, 1, lii.

reported partly by Fra.ser em-
ployee, li.
to be nuiile into a book. ft.
evidence of title-page, lii.
sources of, Ijii.
reasons for emendations, liii.
much exp.-jn(led, liii.
each lecture longer than those

of iSjS. liii.
1S40, tiiL- year of, liv.
process of composition, liv.
compluteil. liv,
booksellers' oiter, Iv.
first edition, icoo < opios, Iv.
payment for. I v.
sheets sent to .America, hi.
pirated in .Ww N'ork, hi.
printed in .New N ork ncvvs-

paper>, hi.
bibliography (,f, obx urc, hi.
different edition-, of. Mi.
first American edition dLs( ribt-d
Ivii.

second I-:n,t.;li-li edition, jvii.
changes in, hii and n.
rcvisi.iii c,f one pas^ag,'. hii.
second .\nierican ediiion. hiii.
third ,\meriean edition,. so-calkr!,
hiii.

third i:n,;;li>li cciiiion, hiii.
later < lianges in text, hiii.
third .American edition, hiii.
first .American printir^ of, hiii,n
later KiiRli^h editions, lix.
rapidity of >ale, lix.
many editions not noted, lix.

384

LECT'/KES OAT IlKKOES

iltrots, farlyle's first opinion of,
lix.

•tyle low-pitched, Ix.

usual Ntyk, modified for, Ix.

earnest tone of Ix, Ixi.

humor of, restrained, Ixi.

met^hor and allusion re-
strained, Ixi.

impression of voice, Ixi.

popularity accounted for, IxlL

triads in, Ixii, Ixiii. *'^

capitals in, Ixiii.

hyphenation in, Ixiii.
plurals in, Ixiii.
almost flimsy in texture, Ixiv.
faults of, l^v.
style colloquial, Ixv.
errors in grammar, Ixv.
awkward collocations in, Ixvi.
sentence-structure careless, Ixvi.
errors of, excused, Ixvii.
plan simple, Ixvii.

classification not exhaustive,
Ixviii.

descending scale in, Ixviii.
plan of each lecture. Ixviii, ixix.
critical objections to, Ixix.
Traill's admissions regarding,

Ixx, Ixxix.
theory of, simple, Ix^j.
main idea in Hume, Ixxi.
offshoot of Teufelsdrockhian

philosophy, Ixxi.
early statement of main ideas in,

jxxii.
novelty of Carlyle's theory in,

Ixxii.
meanTng of 'hero' varied in,

Ixxiii.
should include Scott, Ixxiii.

/ftroes, insight shown in, Ixxiv.
secondary ideas in, Ixxv.
first intention lost, Ixxvii.
success of, I xxvii .
ethical appeal of, Ixxvii.
aim of "marrow of hLtory,
Ixxvii.

critici-sed by F. Harrison, Ixxviii.
theory of hero-worship not es-
sential to, Ixxviii.
judgments of, endorsed by I-.

Harrison, Ixxviii.
Introduction to history, Ixxviii.
purple passages in, Ixxix.
heroes of, in new light, Ixxx.
regarded as a portrait gallery.

Ixxxi.
what it is not, Ixxxi
stimulus of, Ixxxii.
central doctrine may be dis

carded, Ixxxii.
and Kepresentative Mtn, Ixxxii
surcharged with emotion, ixx.xii.
threefol d aspect of, ixxxii .
ethical value of, Ixxxii.
Harrison' <,; ' "•ons to, Ixxxiii.
ethic of, i ;,\x\.

inflm n«:e of, in geneml, Ixx.wii
on Kuskin.Ixxxvii; onl'hilliji^
lirooks, Ixxxvii.
popularity of, Ixxxvii.
brief history of, Ixxxviii.
Carlyle's final opinion ..f.

j xxxviii.
Centenary edition, 307.
heroic, ancient man, Goethe, 31?

sixfold classification of, Ixxi.
heroism, Carlyle's want of, obj.(
tions met, Ixx.
the nuriow of history, Ixxviii.

tNDKX TO L\r/Ci>.'lX770A' AM) SO n-.S Js.S

hero-worship, detintil, Ixxi.

anticipated, l.xxiL

nt'vtr ceases, x xxvi, Ixxii, I xxvi.

proved by parliculars, Ixvvi. '

modern instunns, Ixwi,

Carlyleuri doctrini' <>f, misuiukr-
stood, Ixxvii.

may l)c- discarded from If, roes,
Ixxxii.

littledinct exhortation to, Ixxxii.

used liy lliinn-, 29J.

reference to, lijCi.
* Ilic cluudor Mantes,' j2t.
High Churrh, tumult in. 3(0.
High I)uche>SLs, jiy.
'his solitary I'atmos,' ;,;,S.
J/istoii, ,/,; A,', J .]/,,,,,,„, . ;fj,s
history, /Ahhs, an introiiui timi
to, Ixxix.

marrow of, Ixxvii

value of. Ixxviii.

verdicts of, re' t-rscd, 'wx.
History of Literature, s< . ond

course, xxi.
' His writiuKs.' JJ5.
Hodman, j 1 1.

Holland, lady, potn.iit of, l\\\i.
Holland, Lord, portrait ' i. Ixxvi
Holy Alliance, referenii- to, 319.
Homoiousion, 312.
Hoogstrateii. ;^^2.
Horace, f|uotL(l, 303, 3^0.
horse-shoe vrin, Malionitt's, 309.
house, Carlyli-'s. interest in, xi.
Hud, the pnjphet, 313.
Hugo's CrcmivfU c'Uijd, 35'
Hume, 352.
definitK n of hero, Ixxi.
influenre of his phrase, Ixxxvii,
on Cromwell, 358.

Hume (juoie<l. j-i;

llisloiy i'f Ihttit Unlatii cited,

J55. i'-y-
humor, rt>iraii\i li in //,;<', , Ixi.
Miiiil, l.iigli, neighbor ot t'arljV,

in ' liL-lst.i, xii.
fiiend of liyron, xii.
I.impoonir of the Regent, xii.
origin.d Harold Skimptjle, xii.
hero of /,«*/»' KituJ Mc, xii.
on ( atlyle's second audience,

xxii.
his URihoil of rejjorting. xxiv.
latf f. r lir-t lecture of third

• our^i , \\\ii.
nolii'- I .irlylu's manner, xxvii.
.1 syinpitiulic listener, xxvii.
argiie> a-ainst third lecture.

xxwii.
(|ualifii -, (li-,appro\ al. xxviii. xxix.
impressions of \ arlyle's I'uritan-

i-m, xxix.
<|uotations from Carlyle's lec-

I >iri.--, xxix.
(li fi lids \'oliaire a,i;ainst ( arlylc,

xxix.
til fi-iuU thi' (orondists. xxxii.
di-, Ibices with ('atlylc, xxxiii.
eulogy of ('arlyie, xxxiii.
no ri port of fourth course,

xxxvii.
judgment of (arlyie, Ixx, n.

''"^'*- .v>l. 3.55-

Hutc hinson, < ol.. 3^x3.

Huxley, lei lures compared with

' arlyle's, xvii.
Hymir, rigS,
Hyndt Ktin, 30).
hypbtraii-ii!. v.'urlyle's fondness

for, Ixiii.

.w,

/.AC/t'A'AS O.V ///Ao£S

icIialN, liiKlish. limitBil, Ixxxvi.

' If the Kinx," )56.

'If thf Sun," jii.

'If thiiifjc Mam,* jio.

• If ihou fo||„w thy star,' jjo.

Igdusil. .'yy, J..;.

' Image of his own Drtam,' 301.
' I might havf my han<l.' j^r..
•inarticulate Hible.' history. Uxxii.
i ncohere nee, t arlyk's alleged,

Uxxiii, Ixxxiv.
'incredulity of Atahmilpa,' 302.
In/trno, cited or (juoted, jjo, J2i,
3-3. J24.JJ I.
Carlyle'.H opinion regarding,
325-
'infinite conjugation,' 2(y.y.
infinitude, iritics on, ji8.
insight, Carlyle's, Ixxiv.
inspiration of the Almighty, 311.
intensity of Dante, xlii, xliii.
'internal meaning,' 356.
involuntary monastic order, 3jC).
Irving's library, Carlyle's use of.

xxxix.
Irving, Mrs., at lecture, xxxv.
Islam, meaning, 3ro.
' Is not Melitf,' 311.
Italian, Carlyle student of, xlii.
' It is a hand,* 346.
' It is certain,' 311.

Jack the (;iant-killer, 304.

jean I'aul. 293.

Jeffrey, review of mi helm AiaxUr,

3'2-
Jinny Kissed Me, xii.
Jerome, 334.

Jesus, Carlyle'.s references to, 332.
Jewsbury, Miss, reference to, 351.

John hmx ,n,J !„■. A'tl„t,oH< 1.,

Ifom.M, 34J.
John*on. Samuel, compartU with

Scott, Ixxiii.

comparing kichardson and
Fielding, 327.

contra.stid with Carlyle, 34S.

dining for cightpence, 34.S.

his prayer, 349.

on cant, 349,

on kanelagh, 347.
/■'///'/, etynjology of, 304.
Julius Citsitr, 297, 350.
juryman, Carlyle*s, Ixxxi.

Karl.stadt*s image-breaking, 337.

Keblah, 309.

i Kempis quoted. 316.

/■/'V ///<<-«', /,;,,/ /,'„///,., J03.

Kinglake, xvi.

Kingsley, Ixxxvi, 33t.

•AV//;'x* JW.nuries contrasted with
llerihs, Ixviii.

Kittredgt, O/wj-, A-nowl,,/j;r -y

OIJ t\'i>rst\ 503.
KUiihr, J),e, < arlyle'.s fjuotations

from, l.xxi.
Knight, 1:. !•., (juoted, 294.
Ktuxkiui; ,tt tlie date in A/,u/>,t/i

quoted, 32'^.
Know the men, ^iG.
Knox, John, a favorite subject
xiiv.

a galley slave. 341.

and Queen Mary. 342.

at .St. Andrew's castle, 340.

'burst into tears,' 341.

Carlyle's appreciation of, Ixxx.

Carlyh's opinion of, 339.

comforts fellow-prisoners, 341.

M7J/.V TO is'ri<oi)rcnox a, so xoteh

i87

F.nglish apprt- ( iate, \\s\\\
culoKy on, liy Murtun, 5.41
Knox, John. • faces that loved nim,'

his hi-ttory, j,|j.

hi.H partinRsign, jij.

■hot at. J40.

Workf qu.ited, 3,4?, 342, 343.
Kon-ning, (arlyli '» tiymolo^y of.

296.
Koran, the, a mirade. jij.

allu.Hion to prtai hing, 31 ;, j6i.

•Assuredly' in, 315.

•cattle, credit." 313.

clouds, reviving earth, 313.

highc-i joys, spiritual, 316.

on almsgiving, 316.

on grudges, 3i^>.

on revenge. 315.

on salutation of [K-acc, 316.

Paradise and Hell, 316.

'tall leafy palm trees.' 313.

'revive a dead earth,' 313.

'shaped you,' 314.

ships in, 314.

' V'e have compassion,' 314.

written on shoulder blades of
mutton, 313.
KonjH (juoted or cited, 309, 31;,

3'.)' !M. ,115. Ji'''. l\l.
Koran, J'tt-lini. />iuoursi-, quoted,

30S, 316.
Kfistlin, IJ/e of Luther, ht,.

• La carriere ouverte,' 361.
ladies at Tarlylc's lectures, xlii.

taking notes at, xxiv.
lady's song in Com us, 340.
La Fere, retjiment, 363.
V Allegro cited, 353.

lamcnn.iis. ei, .r of, rtgurdinR

Dante, 3:1.
I ancl'uole. Stanley, . iled, 31 5.
I.angliort'i's I'luiaidi, -jo. ',57.
I.angu.ige. .\d.iin Smitli on, 301.
Lansdowne, Man loness of, xv.
lardnef, ll.iutlhoi'k ,</ X.i'ur.tl

I'hih'U'fhy, (juoled, 301.
las Cases (pioted, ^i<\ 361, 362.

3'^>l. )^'5'

laud dedii ating church, 355

/..//// l\-neri\, 319,

leading, fruit «>f, 331.

I.tilurii mi til,- Uislcry 0/ I.itfra-
lure, pul)li>he(l in part liy
I'rofessor l>o\vden, xxiv, n.
used in /A >o,s, liii.
cited or ijuoted, 393. 21)4. 506,
31S. 319, 3J0. 5JI, ^22, J23,
.5-4. ,525, 5j6, 3j8. 32.> 350,

n^' J3J. 334. 335. iifi^ 3 i7.

340. 341. 34-^ 347. 36'. 3''5-
Lectures, first series, sul)jects of,
xvii, M

length of. liii,

not reported, li.

plan of eai h. Ixviii. |\ix
lecturing, t'ariyle's vi. >. oi. xxxv.

' i older Te <ti, xiv.
Lee, Sidii ■ ;j-.
/./■///////;■(■ zu Stii.f, 30?.
Lenihall, (rdniwil! to, 355.
Ixjohen. I'eace of. 363.
Letters from J/i,i,'/i Latitudes, 303.
Lieutenant of la Fire, 362.
light chafers. 353.
' like a I'iinviintree,' 303.
Lindsay.l'rof.T. M.on Luther, 337.
Literature auil I hK'ma, 29;.
'Literature of lJesper-\tion,' 351.

388

LRCTVKRS ON HEKOES

' Literature will take care,' 3,6.
'live coal,' 316.
'living in a vain show,' 315.
I^ckhart, Z(/5r of /Utrns, 319.
London Library, Carlyle and, ^z-j.
London of 1840 characterized,

Ixxxvi.
Longfellow, 345.

Divine Comedy, 319.
Lope de Vega, 300.
Loudon captures Schweidnitz, 331.
Louis, character of, xxxi.
I^well, J. R., quoted, 304.
Lucy, Sir Thomas, ^^z^.
Ludlow, Edmund, re jicide, 355.
Luther, a favorite subject, xliv.
birthplace of, 2,7^2.
had to beg, 332.
death of friend, t,t^t;^.
a pious monk, ^y^.
doomed to perdition, ^Zl-
finds Latin Hible, y^^.
professor in Wittenberg, 334.
at Rome. II ,.
opposition to Tetzel, 334.
at Klster-fJate, 335.
at the Diet of Worms, 335.
his recantation demanded, 335.
his defence, 335.
virtual ruler, 342.
Carlyle on, xxx.
K( k's attack on, y2.
defiance of Duke (;eorge, 338.
ink bottle, :^yj.
Kranach's portrait, 339.
prose, 337.
Richter on, 337.
Tahle- T,ilk, 33S.
LHth,r, Ma>ti„, Oder die IVei/ie
Jer Kraft, 306.

Macanlay on Boswell, Ixxx.
machine of the universe, 299.
Macready, opinion of second lec-
ture, xl.
'made me lean,' 321.
Mahomet, an impostor, 307.
can work no miracles, 313.
Carlyle's defence of, xli.
C arlyle's first view of, xxxix.
chosen as subject, xxxvi.
escapes, 311.

highest joys, spiritual, 316.
his Heaven and Hell, sensual.

3r6.
his last words, 314.
horse-shoe vein, 309.
Inanity, 30S.

lamentation over Seid, 315.
lecture, success of, xxxix.
not sensual, 314.
opinion of, reversed, Ixxx.
payment of three drachms, 315.
saying of, t,t^<^.
Malebolgf, 320.
Mallet, Northern Antiquities, cited,

299, 300. 302. 303, 304, 305.
Mallock, argument for history.

Ixxviii.
•man that walketh,' 308.
mannerisms in //eroes, Iviii.
manuscript, Carlyle's use of, li, n.
^^arat, xxxii, xxxiii.
Marie Antoinette, story of needle,

xxxii.
Martineau, Harriet, xv.
literary success of. xiii.
on Carlyle's appearance, xix.
on Carlyle's portraits. Ixxxi, n.
on Knglish society before Car-
lyle, Ixxxiv, Ixxxvi.

INDEX TO JNTKODUCTIOA- AND NOTES

:}89

Mary de Clifford, 345.
Mary Queen of Scnts, 342.
masters of their time, heroes, Ixxv.
Maurice, F. I)., i,, Carlyle's first

audience, xvi.
his opinion of the second course,

xxiii.

opinion of the Mahomet lecture,

xl, xli.
repelled by third lecture, xliii.
thinks Carlyle in danger, xliv.
his disgust at vogue of Heroes,

Ixxvii.

meaning of his complaint,

Ixxxvii.
Maurice, Priscilla, at lectures On

Heroes, xl.
Mayflower, error regarding, 339.
McCrie, Life of Knox. 341, 342.
* measure by a scale of perfection,'

354-
Mecca, flight from, 312.
Meditations at Versailles, 349.
Melville's Diary, 342.
' mere quackery,' 203.
metaphor restrained in Iferoes, Ixi.
Michelet, 332, i2,h 334. ll(^, 337.

l3^ 339-
Mill, Harriet, at Carlyle's lectures,

xlv.
Mill, J. S., interrupts Carlyle, xli,

(Carlyle's apology to, 347.
Milnes, Monckton, on success of
second course, xxiii.

to assist, XV.
Milton, sonnet, cited, 355.

on Cromwell, 359.
Mimer-stithy, 304.
Mirabeau, xxxi, xxxii, 307.

Miraiieau, a possible Cromwell,
xxxii.
subject of lecture, xxx.
Miracles, Age of, past, 332.

Mahomet no worker of, 313.
Mohammed, Life and Teachings
of, quoted, 310, 311.
Speeches and Table- Talk of,
cited, 313.
.Mohammedanism sincere, Ixxv.
Monarchies of Man, 355.
money, omnipotence of, 346.
Montaigne cited, 349.
Montegut, detiniti<m of 'hero,'
Ixxiv. Ixxv, n.
on influence of Heroes, Ixxxvii.
.Month Ramadhan, 317.
.Montholon, Memoirs, 361, 36-',

Moral Prudence, 348.
morbidity of Knglish life, Ixxxiv.
More in (iielsea, xii.
Morley, English Writers, quoted,

297.
Miinster, Anabaptists, 337.
Miin/er, image breaking. 337.
Muir, Life of Mohammed, 309,

3". 3'5. 3'7-
Murdoch, Burns's schoolmaster,

352-
Murray, Regent, eulogy on Knox,

34'
Music, devils fled from, 339.
My Inner Life cited, xix, n.
' mystery of 'lime,' 295.
mystic unfathomable song, 319.

Napoleon, xxxii.
compared with Cromwell, xxxiii.
delight in Homer, 326.

390

LECTURES ON HEROES

Napoleon, falsity of, 361.
ideas of, 364.

Lieutenant of La Fere, 362.
Life of, 363.

on English taciturnity, 350.
on the Tenth of August, 362.
on the Twentieth of June,

362.
sincere, Ixxv.
up-bringing of, xlviii.
•Napoleon has words,' 317.
Natural History of Relii;ioH

quoted, 293.
'Nature, a just umpire,' Ixxvii.
Neal's History of the Puritans,

339-
Necker, Gibbon on, 357.
Neptune, 306.
new Heaven, 305.
Newman, influence compared with

Carlyle's, Ixxxvi.
Niebuhr, his death, 354.
Nineteenth Century, The, 347.
no bricklayer, 354.
' No Homer sang,' 303.
No Popery, 336.
' non han speranza,' 325.
' non ragionam,' 325.
Nonentity, 344.
Nomas, 299.

Norse mythology, Carlyle's quali-
fications, xxxviii.
literature, Carlyle's service to,
Ixxx.
Northland Sovereigns, woodcut-
ters, 303.
'not a leaf,' 295.
' not as fools,' 347.
N^otes and Queries, 346.
' notions of the world,' 364.

Novalis, F. von Hardenberg,
quoted or cited, 296, 301,
311. 3'9. 328.

' nucleus of a comet,' 296.

Obiter Dicta cited, 348.

' observed elsewhere,' 353.

Ocadh, 308.

ocean, Purgatory in, 331.

Odd the Monk quoted, 305.

Odin, chosen as subject, xxxvi.

invented poetry, 302.

prince, 300.
official pumps, 340.
Olaf, King, 305.

and Thor, Ixxx, 305.
Olaf the Saint, Carlyle's error re-
garding, 305.
Old kings, sea-burial of, 303.
On the Knocking at the Gate in

Macbeth, 329.
open secret,' 'the, 317.
oral speech in Heroes, Ixii.
Owen as a lecturer, xiv.
Oxford Movement and Heroes,
Ixxxiii, 336.

Palm, court-martial of, 364.
Paoli, General, Hoswell and, 356.
Paradise Lost quoted, 346.
Paradiso quoted, 320, 321.
paragraphs in Heroes, shortened,

Iviii.
Parian Chronicle, 301.
Paris Sketch-Book, 349.
parts, best, of Heroes, Ixxix.
Patmos, Craigenputtoch, 338.
Paul Clifford, 345.
Peace, salutation, 316.
pearls, request forCarlyle's, xxxviiL

INDEX TO IXTRODUCTION AND NOTES 391

Peasants' War, 337.
' people of Verona,' 331.
perfect througli sufftrinj;, \Z2.
I'erilhis, Carlylu's error rugurding,

347-
Persiflagt; of Voltaire, zcfo.
I'etrarch, Rci uin MiinoranJiiriitii,

y.o.
riictiii} I it'd, 294.
Phalaris'-liiill, 347,
Phalaris, confused with Perillus,

347-
Phelps. ScL .ttoHsfiom Cniy, cited,

303-

Phili]) of Macedoii, Carlyle on,
xxvi.

phra-es omitted from //<•<•( v.,-, xlvi,
xlix.

pie-powder court, 356.

pigeon, story of, 307.

Pindar. Culyl'-'s inaccuracy re-
gardiiiLj, y.G.

Piozzi's Ai!,-(-(fi'f,-s quoted, ■jiq.

Pitt and Bums, Ixxxiii. Ixxxiv.

Plato, Carlyle's confusion regard-
ing. 295.

'pluck a hair.' 297.

phirals, Carlyle's fondness for.
Ixiii.

Plutarch (Langhorne's) quoted,

350' 357-
Plutus collapses, 322.
Pococke quotetl. 307.
Podesta. 319.

Pollock, Sir F., on Heroes, Hi, n.
Pontiff of Kncyclopedism, 297.
poor, the honest, ("arlyle on, xxx.
Pope and ISoIingbroke, xii.
Pope quoted. 310.

Z>««rwi/ quoted and £ited, 312.

Pope's-( 'oncordat, 363.
popularity of Heroes, Ixii.
I'ortman Scjuare, second course

at. xxi.
third course at, .xxvi.
Portrait of Dante, by (Wotto, 319.
portraits, Carlyle's, Ixxxi.
pretension of scanning, 310.
Prideaux, Humphrey, 313.

'True Nature of Imposture

quoted, 307, 309, 314; cited,

3'3-
Pride's Purges, 3 58.
I'riniate of Mngl-ind, 346.
Truuipaux l-.viiiemens, 363.
printers, American, of Heroes, Iviii.
I'rior, Dante as, 319.
Progress of Species, 331.
Protestantism of Carlyle. xxx.

mountain of, shakes, 326.
Piiri^atorio (juoted, 325, 326.
I'urgatory, in ocean, 331.
Puritanism, Carlyle's fairness to,

xxix.
("arlyle's study of, xlvii.
Cariyle on, xxviii.
Puritans, genuine set of fighters,

35^'-

Queen Antoinette and Voltaire,

296.
Queens' Gardens contrasted with

Heroes, Ixviii.
Qutiitus Fixiein, 295, 346. 353.

Racine's death. 354.
radicalism, Carlyle's. 294.
Ragnarok, 305.
Ranelagh, Johnson at, 347.
rank, the guinea-stamp, 353.

392

LECTURES ON HEROES

Rash-'all quoted, 1'^:^, 345.

recruiting for Carlylt's lectures, xv.

RedgauntUt cited, 309.

red pinnacle, 322.

Reformation, History of, cited, ^t,^,

334-
Reformation in Scotland quoted,

34'. 342.
Reform Bill, a revolution, Ixxxv.
Regent, ' Adonis of Fifty,' xii.
'Religion cannot pass away,' 364.
Reminiscences, portraits in, Ixxxi,

300.
reporters, Carlyle expects help

from, li.
Representative Men, 327, 329, 361.

derived from Iferoes, Ixxxii.
' representing gold,' 296.
Republic cited, 294.
Republic, The New, ciced, Ixxviii.
Researches into the Early I/ntory

of Mankind cited, 298.
revenge, the Koran on, 315.
revolution, men of, carried away
by it, 336.

Revolutions of Modern Europe,
xxvi.

ribs of death, 340.

Richardson and Fielding com-
pared by Johnson, 327.

Richter says, 337.
rider's horse, 311.

Robertson, History of America,

quoted, 302.
Robespierre, xxxii.
Robinson, address to Pilgrims, 339.
Rogers, in first audience, xvi.
Roland, subject of lecture, xxx.
Rome, Luther at, 334.
Rotneo and Juliet quoted, 352.

' rose to victory,' 348.
Rossetti, W. M., 321.
Rousseau and Mde. de Genlis,
350 f.
appeals to mothers, 351.
Carlyle's treatment of, xlvii.
Carlyle's insight into, Ixxiv.
compared with Scott, Ixxiii.
sincere, Ixxv.
stealing ribbon. 351.
Royal Institution, Cokridge at.
xiv.

Rump Parliament, dismissal, 35S.
Runes, 302.

Ruskin, influence of Heroes on,
Ixxxv ii.

method contrasted with far-

lyle's, Ixvii.
treatment of audience. I.
Russell, Lord William, nmrder or.
xxxviii.

Sabeans. 308.
Sxmund, 297.
Saint Helena, Xapoleon in, 361,

■Sale, used i)y Carlyle, xx.xix.
Salisbury, Bishop of, at Carlyle's

lectures, xl.
Sand, George, referred to, 351.
Sansculottism, xxxii.

good lecture on, xxxiv.
Sartor Resartus, 295, 296, joo,
301, 303. 305, 3'0. 311, 3i,S,
332. 346, 347.
anticipated in part, Ixxi.
Anstey's interest in, xxv.
contains Heroes in embryo. Ixxi,

Ixxii.
features of style in, Ix.

INDEX TO INTKODUCTION AND NOTES

193

Saunders and Ottley, offer for //>-

fp^s, Iv.
savans, Hourrieiuie tells of, 361.
Saxo Grammaticus, 300, 31S.
Saxons, conversion of, 31^.
scene at lecture, xli.
Sceptical Century, 347.
Schiller, Cffirr Aiimnth uitd

IViinic, lited, 302.
Scholar, 7'/4,' Nattire of tlu; tiuoted.

3'S- 34;,. 3-}4-
Schoolmaster, crabbed old, 328.
Schweidnitz Fort, 331.
Scott, Ciirlyle's disparagement of.

hero as man of letters. Ixxiii.

Life of Xijfoleon cited, 363.
Scotticism, 'doubt,' xlviii, 332.
Scottish exiles in England, xi.
second course of lectures longest
and best paid, xxvi.

price two guineas, xx.

receipts, xxiv.

reported by Anstey, xxv.

subjects of, xxi, n.

twelve, XX.
Sensations if /tali,- (|wotfd. 363.
.sentence structure, careless, Ixvi.
Sergius, 309.
Serpent queller. ^ ;.:.
Sisamc iiiiti l.ilics cited, pi.
se\en pounds, Hurns's wages,

353-
'shaking of the spear,' 35:.
Sliikisf'care„Life of, J.ee's. 327.
Shakspere and the Indian Kmpire.
xliii.
Carlyle's lectures on, .\lii.
characters <;f, like watches, 3J;.
De Quincey on, 3^9.

Shakspere, Kmerson on, 329,
Goethe on, 327.
greatest of Intellects, 328.
intellect of, unconscious, 328.
Shekinah. Carlyle's error regard-
ing, 2<>s.
the true, 295.
Shelley (pioted, 301.
' shoes at ( )xford,' Jnhn.son's. 348.
shouiderlilades of mutton, 313.
Siflcidas, translation from, 327.
Siiliman, success as lecturer, xiv.
'sincerest of poems," 321.
Hucerity, Carlylean doctrine of,

Ixxv.
Smith, Adam, 301.
Smith, Sydney, as a lecturer, xiv.
Smollett in Chelsea, xii.
Snorro, 207.
society, London, few in number,

Ixxxvi.
soldier and hero, synonyms, Ixxii.
'sold (;ver counter.s," 295.
Solomon says, 357.
Sordello mistaken for Latini, 322.
Spanish voyagers, 2r>8.
Species, Progress of, 331.
Sf'cimen I/istorur Arahimi, 307,

30S.
Speddipg a.ssisis in collecting

audience, xv.
■.speech is crcat," -,;■).
SpeeJwtll, 339.

spelling, Carlyle's American, Iviii.
Spur/heim, success as lecturer,

xiv.
St. .Viulrew's, Kno.v at, 340.
St. Clement Panes, 348.
Stephen, I,., summary of Carlylean
doctrine, Ixxxiv.

394

LECTURES ON HEROES

Sterling, John, xvi.
and Caroline Fox, xxiv, xliv.
observes ladies taking notes,
xxiv.
Stevenson, R. i,., j^,
Stewart, I'rofessor. on Hums, 5 = .
'stifle him,' 296.
'still small voice," 510.
Storch, image-breaker, 53;.
'strain your neck,' 304.
Strength is mournfully denied, 553.
'strip your ixjuis Quatorze,' 349.''
stripping-off, 2i)i.
Sturlunga Sas^a cited, 305.
style, features of Carlyie's, Ix.
of Heroes, low-pitchud, Ix, ixii,
Ixiv.

subjunctive, Carlyie's fondness for,
Ixiii.

success of Heroes as lectures, xlix.
'succession of falls,' 30S.
summary and index, not in Heroea,
Iviii.

summary to Heroes not needed,

Ixix.
sun, done under, 331.
Swedenborg, Emerson on, Ixxxii,
Syed Ameer Ali, approval of Car-
lyle, Ixxx.
quoted, 310. 311, 312.
sympatheix ink, 300.

Table-Talk of Coleridge quoted,

34--
Tabdc, War of, 315.
'talent of silence,' 350.
tavern-vaiters and Voltaire, inu.
Taylor, Henry, xv.
Taylor's, Mrs., maid burns Car-
lyie's manuscript, xii.

Tempesi, CaHyle fond of quoting.

xlii.
Tennyson, xvi.
on social wants, Ixxxvi.
Pruuesi (juoted, 30.S.
Tenth of August, ^Uz.
terrestrial libd, 334.
Tetztl's Pardons, ij- >,«
ihailur.iy, adrawingof, 34,,.
at second course, xxii. xxiv.
lectures at Willjs'.s, xiv.
7y,eory 0/ Moral Sc„t,me,U<. :„,.

' the third man,' 341,.

•They? what are they?' 343.

Thialfi, 304.

nibet. Ham, /to,,-, Tra-'eh ,„, 295.

Thibet methods, 2i<4.

Thibet, Titrncr's Trav.is ,„, 293.
thimble, Nanna's, 30;.
third course, subject of, xxvi.
'This month,' 35;.
Tlior, 2()S.

andOlaf Trygvas.son, 305.
'brows.' 305.

description of. 304.
expeditions, 30 j.
meaning of, ^''^^i-
three-times-til lee. 340.
TAroug/, the Lookwg.Giass cited,

?A0.
thunder-hammer, ;^-;.
Ticknor, his opinion oi Carlyle,
xxiii.
H,st,„y of Sra,„sh Literature
quoted, 301.
Time, mystery of, .'95.
rimes report of third lecture, xlii.
Times reporter corrects Carlyle,

• Tolerance has to tolerate, 342.

IXDEX TO INTKODLXnox AXD XOTES

J9S

Tombs in In/crno, 322.
Torf.vu^, 500.
Tract AC, 336.

Traill, II. 1),, admission legardinK
Uitofs, Ixxix.
disparaging, Ixx.
failure to explain, xxxvi.
misunderstands hero-worship,
Ixxvii.

objections to Heroes, Ixix.
objections anticipated, 507.

transitory ).;arinent, jio.

Trebizond, Carlyle's error regard-
ing. JOG.

Tree, Machine, -,47.

'treniolar dell' onde,' },2y

Tren( h, .\rLlil)ishop. xvi.

hears report of lecturr, xx\ix.
to Wilherforce, xxxviii.

triads, use of, Ixii,

Tristiiim ShaiiJy, J95.

Troilus </;/,/ CressUa, 352.

truth in all systems, Ixxvii.
on watch seal, 348.

WOrils of, T^T^^,

Tugend, etymology of, 5 !;6.
tumult in the High Church. ^40.
turl)an, Arab, for ' tulwar '(?), 331.
Turner's Account, 293.
Twentieth of June, 36;.
' two Prelates,' \^z.

UhlanH. Mvt/uis rou fhoy, quoted

29S.
Uhland's essay, 304.
Ulfila, 299.

'ultimus Romanorum.' ^:;o.
' under the ribs of dfath,' 340.
Universal Ifistory. 2i)\.
Universal three-timesihree, 340.

Universitiis, < arlyle's error regard-

'"«. 345-
I'uiversitifs vj / iirofc, 333, 345.
• unreadable masse.s," y.'.
unreality, ( arlyle's sense of, Ixxvi.
L'shers de Hie/e, 352,
Utilitarian ethics, larlyle's view,
.)4r-

' Va bon train,' ^9^1,
' vaccine du la religion,' 3(1;.
N'alkyr^, ;o2.
Vatts. 317.

Nenaliles of S,tturJ,iy Kniew, xvi.
Victoria, Queen, ( arlyle on. 394.
reign began with /•;■,•;/,// A\ro/u-
fit'", xiii.
\igfusson, approval of ( "arlyle,
Ixxx
citetl. 29S, 505.
•virtual I'resitkm y,' 542.

/'//,/ XllOTil, \\t).

voice, impression of, in //eroes,

l.xi, Ixii.
Voltaire, and Holingbroke. xii.

lecture on, xxix, \x\

Persiflage of, ^96.
V.llundr, Wayland Smith, ;o4.

^ValpoIe. Horace, not a dunce

32S.
li;,i„/crt„^ ir,//,cs Talc iited,

■wanting nothing,' jb;.

want of money, motive foi writing,

111-
W'ednesbury, \oz.
' wcighed-oiit to yoii,' ^|c.
■ well with them,' 29;.
Welsh, Mrs., death of. hii.

396

LECTURES ON HEROES

'We require, to rest; ct,' ji6.
H'tstH des Celthrten, 343.
• What built St. Paul' ' ' 345.
When I'ococlce intjui .., 307.
IVhert Three l-.mpirts Meet, 294.
Whewell at Carlyle's lectuies. xlv.
' Who are you ? ' 342.
' Whosoever denieth,' 335.
Willwrforce, at Carlyle's IcLturcs,
xlv.
at second lecture, xl.
request from Trench, xxxviii.
Wiley & Putnam publish Heroes,

Iviii.
Wilhelm Meister, 306, 317, 329,
354-
reviewed by Jeffrey, 312.
William IV, farlyle on, 294.
Wilson, D., on Froude, Ixix, n.
Wilson, Miss, xv.
Wilson, Thomas, xv.
• window through which,' 295.

' without tlod,' 355,
' without prior purpose,' 347.
Wittenberg, Luther in, 334.
WoNeley on Puritan suldiers,

356-
Words are good, 329,
IVords, Facts ami Phrases, 346.
work, not think, 353.
World- Poets, 318.
' world was not his friend, ' 352.
' world, where much is to be done,'

349-
Worms, devils in, 335.

Diet of, 2,^^.
Wiinsch, the god, 298.
Wuotan, erroneous etymology of,
300.

Yesterday, to-day, 326.
You do not Ijelieve, 332.

Zeinab, Mahomet's daughter, 315

Index lenrnini; turns no student fale,
Yet holds the eel of science by the tail.