able period after the publication of the Life of Cromwell,
Carlyle was apparently idle. He wrote for several years nothing of note
except his "Latter Day Pamphlets" (1850), and a Life of his friend John
Sterling (1851), to whom he was tenderly attached. It would seem that he
was now in easy circumstances, although he retained to the end his
economical habits. He amused himself with travelling, and with frequent
visits to distinguished people in the country. If not a society man, he
was much sought; he dined often at the tables of the great, and
personally knew almost every man of note in London. He sturdily took his
place among distinguished men,--the intellectual peer of the greatest.
He often met Macaulay, but was not intimate with him. I doubt if they
even exchanged visits. The reason for this may have been that they were
not congenial to each other in anything, and that the social position of
Macaulay was immeasurably higher than Carlyle's. It would be hard to say
which was the greater man.

It was not until 1852 or 1853, when Carlyle was fifty-eight, that he
seriously set himself to write his Life of Frederic II., his last great
work, on which he perseveringly labored for thirteen years. It is an
exhaustive history of the Prussian hero, and is regarded in Germany as
the standard work on that great monarch and general. The first volume
came out in 1858, and the last in 1865. It is a marvel of industry and
accuracy,--the most elaborate of all his works, but probably the least
read because of its enormous length and scholastic pedantries. It might
be said to bear the same relation to his "French Revolution" that
"Romola" does to "Adam Bede." In this book Carlyle made no new
revelations, as he did in his Life of Cromwell. He did not change
essentially the opinion of mankind. Frederick the Great, in his hands,
still stands out as an unscrupulous public enemy,--a robber and a
tyrant. His crimes are only partially redeemed by his heroism,
especially when Europe was in arms against him. There is the same defect
in this great work that there is in the Life of Cromwell,--the
inculcation of the doctrine that might makes right; that we may do evil
that good may come,--thus putting expediency above eternal justice, and
palliating crimes because of their success. It is difficult to account
for Carlyle's decline in moral perceptions, when we consider that his
personal life was so far above reproach.

Although the Life of Frederi