e great
spiritual forces. He met it by making biography the essence of history,
or attributing all great events to the "heroes," who are the successive
embodiments of divine revelations. This belief was implied in his next
great work, the _Life and Letters of Oliver Cromwell_, published in
1845. The great Puritan hero was a man after his own heart, and the
portrait drawn by so sympathetic a writer is not only intensely vivid,
but a very effective rehabilitation of misrepresented character. The
"biographical" view of history, however, implies the weakness, not only
of unqualified approval of all Cromwell's actions, but of omitting any
attempt to estimate the Protector's real relation to the social and
political development of the time. The question, what was Cromwell's
real and permanent achievement, is not answered nor distinctly
considered. The effect may be partly due to the peculiar form of the
book as a detached series of documents and comments. The composition
introduced Carlyle to the "Dryasdust" rubbish heaps of which he here and
ever afterwards bitterly complained. A conscientious desire to unearth
the facts, and the effort of extracting from the dullest records the
materials for graphic pictures, made the process of production
excessively painful. For some years after _Cromwell_ Carlyle wrote
little. His growing acceptance by publishers, and the inheritance of her
property by Mrs Carlyle on her mother's death in 1842, finally removed
the stimulus of money pressure. He visited Ireland in 1846 and again in
1849, when he made a long tour in company with Sir C. Gavan Duffy, then
a young member of the Nationalist party (see Sir C.G. Duffy's
_Conversations with Carlyle_, 1892, for an interesting narrative).
Carlyle's strong convictions as to the misery and misgovernment of
Ireland recommended him to men who had taken part in the rising of 1848.
Although the remedies acceptable to a eulogist of Cromwell could not be
to their taste, they admired his moral teaching; and he received their
attentions, as Sir C.G. Duffy testifies, with conspicuous courtesy. His
aversion from the ordinary radicalism led to an article upon slavery in
1849, to which Mill replied, and which caused their final alienation. It
was followed in 1850 by the _Latterday Pamphlets_, containing
"sulphurous" denunciations of the do-nothing principle. They gave
general offence, and the disapproval, according to Froude, stopped the
sale for years. The _Life