immortal satires for its imagination, wisdom, and insight. The
personages and the events of the French Revolution in fact succeeded
each other with such startling rapidity and such bewildering variety,
that it is difficult for any but the most patient student to keep the
men and the phases steadily before the eye without confusion and in
distinct form. This Carlyle has done far better than any other
historian of the period, perhaps even better than any historian
whatever. That so many Englishmen are more familiar with the scenes
and the men and women of the French Revolution than they are with the
scenes and the men and women of their own history, is very largely the
work of Carlyle. And as to the vices and weakness of the Old Regime,
the electric contagion of the people of Paris, the indomitable
elasticity of the French spirit, the magnetic power of the French
genius, the famous _furia francese_, and the terrible rage into which
it can be lashed--all this Carlyle has told with a truth and insight
that has not been surpassed by any modern historian.
It being then clearly understood that Carlyle did not leave us the
trustworthy history of the French Revolution, in the way in which
Thucydides gave us the authentic annals of the Peloponnesian war, or
Caesar the official despatches of the Conquest of Gaul, we must
willingly admit that Carlyle's history is one of the most fruitful
products of the nineteenth century. No one else certainly has written
the authentic story of the French Revolution at large, or of more than
certain aspects and incidents of it. In spite of misconceptions, and
such mistaken estimates as those of Mirabeau and Bonaparte, such
insolent mockery of good and able men, such ridiculous caricatures as
that of the "Feast of Pikes" and the trial of the King, such ribald
horse-play as "Grilled Herrings" and "Lion Sprawling," in spite of
blots and blunders in every chapter--the _French Revolution_ is
destined to live long and to stand forth to posterity as the typical
work of the master. It cannot be said to have done such work as the
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