Text: Willis (?), Notice of Thomas Carlyle, A Humbug Fame, Weekly Mirror (New York), November 23, 1844, vol. 1, no. 7, p. 112, cols. 1-2

[page 112, column 1, continued:]

We have nowhere seen a juster view of this much-talked-of writer than is given in the October number of the Biblical Repository, a journal conducted with great ability by an association of divines. The writer (Prof. J. T. Smith, of Newton Theological Institute, Mass.) allows Carlyle to be a “most vigorous, unique, and original thinker and writer,” and that his “Past and Present” is “certainly worth reading.” He allows further, that that work contains many noble and truthful sentiments, uttered with commanding energy. This, however, is the extent of his commendation. “We must, on the whole,” says the writer, “characterize it as a book, in style, barbarous; in politics, incendiary: in philosophy, dubious; and in theology, execrable.” This opinion the reviewer supports by [column 3:] an analysis of the work, and by a specification of particulars. The barbarity of the style no one doubts, and no one, except a few very warm admirers, defends. This very barbarity seems to us only another manifestation of that arrogance which characterizes all Carlyle's attempts. A man who condemns everybody must needs be an inventor.

The work is said to “breathe an overweening, morbid admiration of the past.” Nothing of the present satisfies Mr. Carlyle; nothing of the past but elicits his commendation, and among other things, Scandinavian savagery, Mohammedanism, twelfth century catholicism, the fighting barons of feudal times, Popes Gregory and Hildebrand, and other personages of like stamp, each and all present to him some phase worthy of special notice and admiration. The religion and the systems of government of the present day, have very hard sare at his hands, since the former is all cant, hypocrisy, and quackery, and the [column 2:] latter nothing better, to say the least. We are, in truth, recommended to go back to the twelfth century for models of religion and government. The HERO must be found by some means — or he must find himself. A fighting aristocracy like that of the twelfth century is no longer possible; but a working aristocracy must take its place, and the system of villanage be restored. Indeed, American slavery seems essentially the system recommended by this practical preacher.

The sum and substance of our own view of the whole matter is, that while we sympathize to some extent with Mr. Carlyle in his dissatisfaction with the present state of things, the remedies he proposes in his deep-mouthed and most oracular tone, are absolutely naught — the mere dreams of a mind well-intentioned enough, but half-crazed with overweening selfestimation.

He insists much on the necessity of a “French revolution” in England. “There will be two, is needed; there will be twenty, is needed. . . — The laws of nature will have themselves fulfilled,” and much more to the same purpose. Yet this inevitable fulfilment of the laws of nature which is to work all good, seems, according to the seer's estimate, as yet to have wrought nothing but ill. His final hope is a hero-king: “Yes, friends: hero-kings and a whole world not unheroic — there lies the port and happy haven,” &c. In fine, is Carlyle's words mean anything (which, the more we read the more we doubt), the whole people are to be roused to violent revolt, and plunged into all sorts of horrors, as a preparation for a better state of things!

Carlyle speaks of the last two centuries as godless centuries — and that in contrast with the long ages that went before them. What is this but to shock the common sense of history! And his remedy is HERO-HOOD. What is this but inane twaddle Monstrous, unblushing egotism, is one of Carlyle's striking characteristics. Great and learned men, astronomers, philosophers, and others, are “poor scientific babblers;” he alone, it would seem, discerns the reality of things, and has the key to the mysteries of nature. “Insight” has been granted to no other.

One of the wonders of the age to us is, that such a monstrosity as Carlyle should have attained so high a place in its estimation. His merits are so overloaded by the most shocking and unbounded affectation and egotism, that we rise from the perusal of much that he has written with no other sensations than those of weariness and disgust.