e is at
least a great fact in the literature of his time; and has contributed
largely, in some respects too largely, towards forming its characteristic
habits of thought." So Mr. Gladstone wrote in 1876, in a highly
interesting parallel between Carlyle and Macaulay--both of them honest, he
said, both notwithstanding their honesty partisans; both of them, though
variously, poets using the vehicle of prose; both having the power of
painting portraits extraordinary for vividness and strength; each of them
vastly though diversely powerful in expression, each more powerful in
expression than in thought; neither of them to be resorted to for
comprehensive disquisition, nor for balanced and impartial judgments.(65)
Perhaps it was too early in 1876 to speak of Carlyle as forming the
characteristic habits of thought of his time, but undoubtedly now when he
died, his influence was beginning to tell heavily against the speculative
liberalism that had reigned in England for two generations, with enormous
advantage to the peace, prosperity and power of (M39) the country and the
two generations concerned. Half lights and half truths are, as Mr.
Gladstone implies, the utmost that Carlyle's works were found to yield in
philosophy and history, but his half lights pointed in the direction in
which men for more material reasons thought that they desired to go.

IV

A reconstruction of the ministry had become necessary by his own
abandonment of the exchequer. For one moment it was thought that Lord
Hartington might become chancellor, leaving room for Lord Derby at the
India office, but Lord Derby was not yet ready to join. In inviting Mr.
Childers to take his place as chancellor of the exchequer, Mr. Gladstone
told him (Dec. 1, 1882): "The basis of my action is not so much a desire
to be relieved from labour, as an anxiety to give the country a much
better finance minister than myself,--one whose eyes will be always ranging
freely and vigilantly over the whole area of the great establishments, the
public service and the laws connected with his office, for the purposes of
improvement and of good husbandry."

The claim of Sir Charles Dilke to a seat in the cabinet had become
irresistible alike by his good service as undersecretary at the foreign
office, and by his position out of doors; and as the admission of a
radical must be balanced by a whig--so at least it was judged--Mr. Gladstone
succeeded in inducing Lord Derby to join, thou