phered; and vastly more still be accomplished than occurs to the mind, or lies within the means of any individual, before all the sufferings and triumphs of the Irish Church can be made known. Meanwhile, great beginnings have been made, broad and lightsome avenues have been opened, and distant views have been disclosed through the labours of Dr. Renehan and of the few who have wrought with him. We trust that, to the other fruits of those labours, may be added an encouragement to men of the same stamp as Renehan and Kelly, to take up the pious task from which those were called away, and to follow to a prosperous end the collection of materials for the history of the Irish Church.

ART. V.-History of Friederich II. of Prussia, called Frederick the Great. By Thomas Carlyle. In IV. vols. Vol. III. London: Chapman and Hall. 1862.

N a former number of this Review we shortly noticed

IN a volume off this, it the least strange of Mr. Carlyle's strange productions. Frederick II., called Frederick the Great, is for the present the Jove of the Carlyle Olympus, as Cromwell was in days gone by, and as some other equally damaged character will be, we may presume, in days to come. It is hardly necessary to say, that criticism finds itself as much at fault in dealing with this last of Mr. Carlyle's works as it did in dealing with the first and all the others. The biographer of Frederick II. cannot be measured, as regards his style, by any standard, and cannot be judged according to any canon known. What he calls a history or a biography, is perhaps the thing he calls it, but its shapes and proportions, have no more relation to the shapes and proportions of what we are familiar with as history, than the architecture of Bangkok or Pekin has to that of London. We believe it to be quite impossible to convey, by criticism, any idea whatever of Mr. Carlyle's strain of thought or manner of dealing with a subject. You must have his

style bodily before you in order to realize what it is. To a reader unacquainted with German, or, indeed, we should say, to a reader not perfectly well acquainted with it, a chapter from any of Mr. Carlyle's works, looks singularly like English gone mad, although undoubtedly with a good deal of method in its madness. It will be evident enough to a German scholar, that Mr. Carlyle thinks in German, but that will by no means altogether account for the strangeness of his style. There is about it a rakishness once perhaps affected, now grown natural, a tone of swagger and bravado, not to be met with elsewhere, and a contempt of the decencies of literature, rarely, if ever, to be met with in German authors. Many of the Germans are dreamy, unsubstantial, and unintelligible enough, but most of their extravagancies are bottomed in good nature, and strange as may be their theories, they are put forward in a regular and respectable dress. Very many of Mr. Carlyle's expressions sound just as strangely in German as in English, a circumstance which leads to the conclusion that the outlandishness of Carlyleism is even more in the conception than in the expression. The affectation of coarse forms of speech, is only another variety of that disease of taste which often induces persons of good means, position, and education, to assume the language and costume of the stable or of the cattle yard; which prompts noble lords to play at Aunt Sally, and gentlemen of fortune to mount guard upon a railway train. There is certainly some charm in Mr. Carlyle's manner, or we should not find it so often copied, unconsciously perhaps, by writers who must have been readers and admirers of our author. It is hardly possible to take up a number of "Household Words," "All the Year Round," or, "Once a Week," without seeing reproduced in the pretty stories which amuse us in those publications, several features of the Carlyle literature. But whatever be the attractions or the faults of his style, Mr. Carlyle is a man of thought and learning, one who has studied German literature and history more closely than any of his co-temporaries in this country, or perhaps in any other, and one whose thoughts upon those subjects ought to be worth knowing, even in the strange garb in which he chooses to dress them. The reader, however, will find wonderfully little originality of thought amid so much strangeness of expression. He will find it is true, as we have already mentioned, certain characters of thought,

such as coarseness, bluffness, or even independence, if you will, interpreting themselves by forms of expressions similarly marked, but he will find it difficult to point out in all Carlyle's volumes, a really new reading of any disputed passage in history, or a really new aspect of any historical character.

Frederick II. has commonly been regarded as great in the art of war, a subtle politician, and withal not as careless of the real interests of his subjects as were many of the kings of his time. While such were the political qualities of Frederick, the whole world is of one mind to regard his moral qualities as amongst the least creditable which could belong to king or subject; and much of what is commendable in his policy, may be traced, as is generally believed, to the defects of character in question. The career of Frederick everywhere gives evidence of coldheartedness, insincerity, and irreligion. If, upon the throne, he did not discourage religion amongst his subjects generally, it was because he knew that religion makes subjects more governable; if he did not scandalize the public by gross and continued immoralities after the manner of his cotemporary Louis XV., it was because his time was too fully occupied in overreaching and plundering his neighbours; and if he set an example, noble in itself, of toleration in religious matters, to all the princes of Europe, and to all future times, it was for the two reasons, that he was indifferent to all religion, and that toleration, whatever might be its morality, was cer tainly the best policy. Such, in a few words, is the esti mate which posterity has formed, with scarcely any dissent so far, of the character of Frederick II.; and to do Mr. Carlyle justice, he has not sought to vary this estimate iu the least, nor is it his habit to do so in his biographies. He leaves that department to other men. Mr. Froude is at liberty to reinstate our Henry VIII. in character, and to set him up as a model of kingly virtue and wise policy. Miss Strickland may take in hand the character of Mary Stuart, or of Queen Mary of England, and do the best she can with them to clear up doubts and to clear away misapprehension. Those who seek to re-establish character, follow a uniform plan. They set up in their own minds a standard of morality, not necessarily the ten commandments; they may take it from Plato or Confucius as well; but to this acknowledged standard they will endeavour to make it appear, by the best means at their disposal, that

the character of their favourite conforms. Mr. Carlyle adopts a more honest course; he assumes his hero, whoever that may be, to be the standard of perfection, and that being so, it were a hard case if the standard should not be made to conform to itself. Perhaps we are wrong in saying that Mr. Carlyle has no standard of abstract perfection apart from the character of any one of his heroes. It must be admitted that all the objects of his worship have one feature in common, which may, therefore, be assumed as the abstract of perfection, and that is the attainment of power over their fellows by whatever means. That mastery once attained, Mr. Carlyle adopts all the acts of his hero, concerning himself not in the least about what men are usually agreed to consider the morality of those acts. We never find an express apology rendered by Mr. Carlyle for anything done, permitted, or omitted, by his hero. Nor, on the other hand, does the historian of Frederick indulge in any of that laboured and lavish praise with which party writers, Lord Macaulay, for instance, and Lord Russell, venerate their demigods. Mr. Carlyle identifies himself too completely and too rejoicingly with Frederick to spend vulgar praise upon him. His admiration betrays itself in every line by the unreserved adoption of all his idol's doings, and by a total absence of censure, or even of what might be called criticism. In short, he allows it to be seen throughout, that Frederick, or whatever powerful and cunning man is for the time being the object of his affections, has exclusive possession of his heart and understanding. In reading Mr. Carlyle's work, however, you feel that you learn a great deal, and that a great many facts, strangely coloured, it is true, and sometimes distorted, are brought under observation. Let what will come of it, you have in his volumes, the result of curious learning, active industry, and rich, though wayward fancy. If not very enthusiastic and shallow yourself, you can correct the false colouring, reduce the facts to something like their natural size, and read with very considerable information and profit.

But, as has been already said, Mr. Carlyle's appreciation of Frederick and his times, can only be learned from himself. After a characteristic description, half sneering, half admiring, of the coronation ceremonies, he takes us on to the first meeting of Frederick with Voltaire; of the free-thinking king, with the king of free-thinkers; of the

amiable Frederick, who loves nothing German, with the equally amiable Voltaire, who describes his own countrymen as moitié singe, moitié tigre.'

66

"Friedrich's First Meeting with Voltaire! These other high things were once loud in the Gazetteer and Diplomatic circles, and had no doubt they were the World's History; and now they are sunk wholly to the Nightmares, and all mortals have forgotten them, -and it is such a task as seldom was to resuscitate the least memory of them, on just cause of a Friedrich or the like, so impatient are men of what is putrid and extinct :-and a quite unnoticed thing, Voltaire's First Interview, all readers are on the alert for it, and ready to demand of me impossibilities about it! Patience, readers. You shall see it, without and within, in such light as there was, and form some actual notion of it, if you will cooperate. From the circumambient inanity of Old Newspapers, Historical shot-rubbish, and unintelligible Correspondences, we sift out the following particulars, of this First Meeting, or actual Oscul ation of the Stars.

"The Newspapers, though their eyes were not yet of the Argus. quality now familiar to us, have been intent on Friedrich, during this Baireuth-Cleve Journey, especially since that sudden eclipse of him at Strasburg lately; forming now one scheme of route for him, now another; Newspapers and even private friends, being a good deal uncertain about his movements. Rumour now ran, since his reappearance in the Cleve Countries, that Friedrich meant to have a look at Holland before going home. And that had, in fact, been a notion or intention of Friedrich's. Holland? We could pass through Brussels on the way, and see Voltaire !' thought

he.

"In Brussels this was, of course, the rumour of rumours. As Voltaire's Letters, visibly in a twitter, still testify to us. King of Prussia coming! Madame du Châtelet, the Princess Tour' (that is, Tour-and-Taxis), all manner of high Dames, are on the tiptoe. Princess Tour hopes she shall lodge this unparalleled Prince in her Palace You, Madame?' answers the Du Châtelet, privately, with a toss of her head: His Majesty, I hope, belongs more to M. de Voltaire and me: he shall lodge here, please Heaven!' Voltaire, I can observe, has sublime hostelry arrangements chalked out for his Majesty, in case he go to Paris; which he doesn't, as we know. Voltaire is all on the alert, awake to the great contingencies far and near; the Châtelet-Voltaire breakfast-table,fancy it on those interesting mornings, while the post comes round!

"Alas, in the first days of September,-Friedrich's Letter is dated Wesel, 2d' (and has the Strasburg Doggerel enclosed in it), -the Brussels Postman delivers far other intelligence at one's door very mortifying to Madame: That his Majesty is fallen ill at