er his wife died. He survived her fifteen years, but did nothing more
of great importance; indeed, he was seventy-one when this loss happened.
Some short things on "John Knox," on "The Early Kings of Norway," and a
famous letter on "Shooting Niagara" (the Reform Bill of 1867), with a
few more, appeared; but he was chiefly occupied (as far as he was
occupied at all) in writing reminiscences, and arranging memorials of
Mrs. Carlyle. The publication of these books after his death by the late
Mr. Froude led to a violent conflict of opinion both as to the propriety
of the publication and as to the character of Carlyle himself.

This conflict fortunately concerns us but little here. It is certain
that Carlyle--springing from the lower ranks of society, educated
excellently as far as the intellect was concerned, but without attention
to such trifles as the habit (which his future wife early remarked in
him) of putting bread and butter in his tea, a martyr from very early
years to dyspepsia, fostering a retiring spirit and not too social
temper, thoroughly convinced that the times were out of joint and not at
all thoroughly convinced that he or any one could set them right,
finally possessed of an intensely religious nature which by accident or
waywardness had somehow thrown itself out of gear with religion--was not
a happy man himself or likely to make any one else happy who lived with
him. But it is certain also that both in respect to his wife and to
those men, famous or not famous, of whom he has left too often unkindly
record, his bark was much worse than his bite. And it is further certain
that Mrs. Carlyle was no down-trodden drudge, but a woman of brains
almost as alert as her husband's and a tongue almost as sharp as his,
who had deliberately made her election of the vocation of being "wife to
a man of genius," and who received what she had bargained for to the
uttermost farthing. There will always be those who will think that Mr.
Froude, doubtless with the best intentions, made a very great mistake;
that, at any rate for many years after Carlyle's death, only a strictly
genuine but judicious selection of the Reminiscences and Memorials
should have been published, or else that the whole should have been
worked into a real biography in which the frame and setting could have
given the relief that the text required. But already, after more than
the due voices, there is some peace on the subject; and a temporary wave
of neg