atrical
rather than dramatic; they are to be declaimed rather than to be read or
sung.

In society, Macaulay was a great talker--he harangued his friends; and
there was more than wit in the saying of Sidney Smith, that his
conversation would have been improved by a few "brilliant flashes of
silence."

But in spite of his faults, if we consider the profoundness of his
learning, the industry of his studies, and the splendor of his style, we
must acknowledge him as the most distinguished of English historians. No
one has yet appeared who is worthy to complete the magnificent work which
he left unfinished.

THOMAS CARLYLE.--A literary brother of a very different type, but of a
more distinct individuality, is Carlyle, who was born in Dumfries-shire,
Scotland, in 1795. He was the eldest son of a farmer. After a partial
education at home, he entered the University of Edinburgh, where he was
noted for his attainments in mathematics, and for his omnivorous reading.
After leaving the university he became a teacher in a private family, and
began to study for the ministry, a plan which he soon gave up.

His first literary effort was a _Life of Schiller_, issued in numbers of
the _London Magazine_, in 1823-4. He turned his attention to German
literature, in the knowledge of which he has surpassed all other
Englishmen. He became as German as the Germans.

In 1826 he married, and removed to Craigen-Puttoch, on a farm, where, in
isolation and amid the wildness of nature, he studied, and wrote articles
for the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Foreign Quarterly_, and some of the
monthly magazines. His study of the German, acting upon an innate
peculiarity, began to affect his style very sensibly, as is clearly seen
in the singular, introverted, parenthetical mode of expression which
pervades all his later works. His earlier writings are in ordinary
English, but specimens of _Carlylese_ may be found in his _Sartor
Resartus_, which at first appalled the publishers and repelled the general
reader. Taking man's clothing as a nominal subject, he plunges into
philosophical speculations with which clothes have nothing to do, but
which informed the world that an original thinker and a novel and curious
writer had appeared.

In 1834 he removed to Chelsea, near London, where he has since resided. In
1837, he published his _French Revolution_, in three volumes,--_The
Bastile_, _The Constitution_, _The Guillotine_. It is a fiery, historical
drama