Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), the son of parents almost illiterate, was born at Ecclefechan, in the southern part of Scotland. After about four years of schooling at Annan, near Ecclefechan, he entered the University of Edinburgh, in 1809, but left it without taking a degree. His parents earnestly desired him to enter the ministry, but he early decided against this plan. Having studied mathematics diligently, he won by competitive examination a position as teacher of that subject in the school which he had attended at Annan. He taught there and elsewhere for ten years. While still engaged in teaching, he began his literary career by writing (1820-1823) a series of articles for Sir David Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopædia. Much more important were his Life of Schiller (1823-1824) and his translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister (1824). The Life of Schiller appeared in the London Magazine, and Carlyle had already printed a few literary articles in the New Edinburgh Magazine. He had now definitely undertaken literature as a profession. A little later he met Jeffrey, and became a contributor to the Edinburgh Review, in which were published some of his best-known shorter works, including his essays on Jean Paul Richter, Robert Burns, and the State of German Literature. He wrote also a considerable number of articles for Fraser's Magazine and for the Foreign Quarterly Review. Though many of Carlyle's magazine

articles are important, his reputation is founded chiefly upon larger works. Among the most important of these are the French Revolution (1837), Heroes and Hero-Worship (1841), Oliver Cromwell (1845), and Frederick the Great (1858-1865). The French Revolution is generally considered his masterpiece.

Carlyle was one of the deepest thinkers of modern times. He possessed a mind of great vigor, clearness, and independence, which often led him into great harshness of judgment. What the rest of the world thought was of little consequence to him: he thought for himself; and what he thought he expressed with great emphasis. He spoke of himself and his work with the same unsparing severity with which he measured the work of others; he characterizes his own lectures as "a detestable mixture of prophecy and playactorism." His style is entirely without polish, rugged, and disjointed. He gave no attention to the balancing of phrases and clauses, nor to the musical flow of words; but few have ever equalled him in the suddenness and force with which he presents his thought. His sense of his own responsibility was very great. He felt it his mission to teach men to grow, mentally and morally. Professor Morley thus interprets the teaching of Carlyle's life-work: "The life within, which is alone worth cherishing, owes all its health to action, and for the advance of the

world by citizen-building the one thing needful is, that each should live his own life worthily." Again Carlyle's precept comes to us through Morley's words: "Do the duty which lies nearest thee, which thou knowest to be a duty. The second duty will already have become clearer."

LORD CLIVE

WE have always thought it strange, that while the history of the Spanish empire in America is familiarly known to all the nations of Europe, the great actions of our countrymen in the East should, even among ourselves, excite little interest. Every school- 5 boy knows who imprisoned Montezuma, and who strangled Atahualpa. But we doubt whether one in ten, even among English gentlemen of highly cultivated minds, can tell who won the battle of Buxar,° who perpetrated the massacre of Patna, whether 10 Surajah Dowlah ruled in Oude or in Travancore, or whether Holkar° was a Hindoo or a Mussulman. Yet the victories of Cortes were gained over savages who had no letters, who were ignorant of the use of metals, who had not broken in a single animal to labor, who 15 wielded no better weapons than those which could be made out of sticks, flints, and fish-bones, who regarded a horse-soldier as a monster half man and