ocuments lying stored in libraries and record
offices. They were 'live shells' buried in the dust of a neglected
magazine; and in the hands of Carlyle they came to life again and worked
havoc among the traditional judgements of history. This book was also
the turning point in his career. Dickens, Thackeray, and others hailed
it with enthusiasm; gradually it made its way with the public at large;
and as in the following years Carlyle, prompted by some friends, gave
successful courses of lectures,[3] his position among men of letters
became assured, and he had no more need to worry over money. Living in
London he became known to a wider circle, and his marvellous powers of
conversation brought visitors and invitations in larger measure than he
desired. The new friends whom he valued most were Mr. and Lady Harriet
Baring,[4] and he was often their guest in London, in Surrey, in
Scotland, and later at The Grange in Hampshire. But he remained faithful
to his older and more humble friends, while he also made himself
accessible to young men of letters who seemed anxious to learn, and who
did not offend one or other of his many prejudices. Such were Sterling,
Ruskin, Tennyson, and James Anthony Froude.

[Note 3: The most famous course, on Hero-Worship, was delivered in
May, 1840.]

[Note 4: Afterwards Lord and Lady Ashburton.]

Despite these successes Carlyle's letters at this time are full of the
usual discontents. London life and society stimulated him for the time,
but he paid dearly for it. Late dinners and prolonged bouts of talk, in
which he put forth all his powers, were followed by dyspepsia and
lassitude next day; and the neighbours, who kept dogs or cocks which
were accused of disturbing his slumbers, were the mark for many plaints
and lamentations. He could not in any circumstances be entirely happy.
Work was so exciting with the imagination on fire, that it kept him
awake at night; idleness was still more fatal in its effects. And so,
after a few years of relative calm, in 1839 we find his active brain
struggling to create a true picture of Oliver Cromwell and to expound
the meaning of the Great Civil War.

It was to be no easy task. For nearly five years he was to wrestle with
the subject, trying in vain to give it adequate shape and form, and then
to scrap the labours of years and to start again on a new plan; but in
the end he was to win another signal victory. While the _French
Revolution_ may be the higher