Froude's
conception of biography was more correct than that of his critics. In
dealing with the reputation of a great man it is not enough to consider
the feelings of contemporaries; regard should be had to the rights of
posterity. In his usual forcible manner Johnson goes to the heart of
this question when he says in the _Rambler_:--'If the biographer writes
from personal knowledge, and makes haste to gratify the public
curiosity, there is danger lest his interest, his fear, his gratitude,
or his tenderness overpower his fidelity, and tempt him to conceal, if
not to invent. There are many who think it an act of piety to hide the
faults or failings of their friends, even when they can no longer suffer
by their detection; we therefore see whole ranks of characters adorned
with uniform panegyric and not to be known from one another, but by
extrinsic and casual circumstances. If we have regard to the memory of
the dead, there is yet more respect to be paid to knowledge, to virtue,
and to truth.' When Johnson's own biography came to be written, Boswell,
in spite of the expostulation of friends, resolved to be guided closely
by the literary ethics of his great hero. In reply to Hannah More who
begged that he would mitigate some of the asperities of Johnson, Boswell
said, 'he would not cut off his claws, nor make a tiger a cat, to please
anybody.'

Some critics have insinuated that Froude took a curious kind of pleasure
in smirching the idol. The insinuation is as unworthy as it is false.
Froude had resolved to paint Carlyle as he was, warts and all, and all
that can be said is that in his anxiety to avoid the charge of idealism
he has given the warts undue prominence.

FOOTNOTES:

[39] Froude's 'Life in London,' vol. ii. p. 346.

[40] Froude's 'Life in London,' vol. ii. pp. 408-9.

CHAPTER VIII

CARLYLE AS A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THINKER

In his essay on Carlyle, Mr John Morley utters a protest against the
habit of labelling great men with names. After making every allowance
for the waywardness of the men of intuitive and poetic insight, it
remains true that between the speculative and the practical sides of a
great thinker's mind there is a potent, though subtle, connection. For
those who take the trouble of searching, there is discoverable such a
connection between the speculative ideas of Carlyle and his practical
outlook upon civilisation. Given a thinker who lays stress upon the
emotional side of progre