Carlyle still remained in straitened circumstances, although his reputation was now established.  In order to assist him in his great necessities his friends got up lectures for him, which were attended by the elite of London.  He gave several courses in successive years during the London season, which brought him more money than his writings at that time, gave him personal eclat, and added largely to his circle of admirers.  His second course of twelve lectures brought him L300,—­a year’s harvest, and a large sum for lectures in England, where the literary institutions rarely paid over L5 for a single lecture.  Even in later times the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, which commanded the finest talent, paid only L10 to such men as Froude and the archbishop of York.

But lecturing, to many men an agreeable excitement, seems to have been very unpleasant to Carlyle,—­even repulsive.  Though the lectures brought both money and fame, he abominated the delivery of them.  They broke his rest, destroyed his peace of mind, and depressed his spirits.  Nothing but direst necessity reconciled him to the disagreeable task.  He never took any satisfaction or pride in his success in this field; nor was his success probably legitimate.  People went to see him as a new literary lion,—­to hear him roar, not to be edified.  He had no peculiar qualification for public speaking, and he affected to despise it.  Very few English men of letters have had this gift.  Indeed, popular eloquence is at a discount among the cultivated classes in England.  They prefer to read at their leisure.  Popular eloquence best thrives in democracies, as in that of ancient Athens; aristocrats disdain it, and fear it.  In their contempt for it they even affect hesitation and stammering, not only when called upon to speak in public, but also in social converse, until the halting style has come to be known among Americans as “very English.”  In absolute monarchies eloquence is rare except in the pulpit or at the bar.  Cicero would have had no field, and would not probably have been endured, in the reign of Nero; yet Bossuet and Bourdaloue were the delight of Louis XIV.  What would that monarch have said to the speeches of Mirabeau?

After the publication in 1837 of the “French Revolution,”—­that “roaring conflagration of anarchies,” that series of graphic pictures rather than a history or even a criticism,—­it was some time before Carlyle could settle down upon another great work.  He delivered lectures, wrote tracts and essays, gave vent to his humors, and nursed his ailments.  He was now famous,—­a man whom everybody wished to see and know, especially Americans when they came to London, but whom he generally snubbed (as he did me) and pronounced them bores.  It was at this time that he made the acquaintance of Monckton Milnes, afterward Lord Houghton, who invited him to breakfast, where he met other notabilities,—­among them Bunsen the Prussian Ambassador at London; Lord Mahon the historian; and Mr. Baring, afterward Lord Ashburton, the warmest and the truest of his friends, who extended to him the most generous hospitalities.