obliged to reprove him for
his vulgar selfishness." This is dreadful! No wonder that petty cynics
snarl and rejoice; they say, "Look at your great men, and see what mean
backbiters they are!" Alas!

Thomas Carlyle's memoirs are a kind of graveyard of reputations; and we
can well understand the rage and horror with which many individuals
protested against the fierce Scotchman's strictures. In the hearts of
thousands of noble young people Carlyle's memory was cherished like that
of some dear saint; and it was terrible to find that the strong prophet
had been penetrated by such a virus of malice. Carlyle met all the best
men and women in England; but the only ones whom he did not disparage
were Tennyson, the Duke of Wellington, Mr. Froude, and Emerson. He
could not talk even of Charles Darwin without calling him an imbecile;
and his all-round hitting at his closest intimates is simply merciless.
The same perversity which made him talk of Keats's "maudlin weak-eyed
sensibility" caused him to describe his loyal, generous, high-bred
friend Lord Houghton as a "nice little robin-redbreast of a man;" while
Mrs. Basil Montagu, who cheered him and spared no pains to aid him in
the darkest times, is now immortalized by one masterly venomous
paragraph. Carlyle was great--very great--but really the cultivation of
loyal friendships seems hardly to have been in his line. Men who know
his works by heart, and who derived their noblest inspiration from him,
cannot bear to read his memoirs twice over, for it sadly appears as
though the Titan had defiled the very altar of friendship.

What shall we say of the cunning cat-like Charles Greville, who crept
on tiptoe through the world, observing and recording the littleness of
men? His stealthy eye missed nothing; and the men whom he flattered and
used little thought that the wizened dandy who pleased them with his
old-world courtesy was chronicling their weakness and baseness for all
time. A nobly patriotic Ministry came before the world with a flourish
of trumpets, and declared that England must fight Russia in defence of
public law, freedom, and other holy things. But the wicked diarist had
watched the secret proceedings of his dear friends; and he informs us
that those beloved intimates were all sound asleep when a single
Minister decided on the movement which cost us forty thousand men and
one hundred millions of treasure. That close sly being used--to worm out
the secrets of men's inner