It was not until 1852 or 1853, when Carlyle was fifty-eight, that he seriously set himself to write his Life of Frederic II., his last great work, on which he perseveringly labored for thirteen years.  It is an exhaustive history of the Prussian hero, and is regarded in Germany as the standard work on that great monarch and general.  The first volume came out in 1858, and the last in 1865.  It is a marvel of industry and accuracy,—­the most elaborate of all his works, but probably the least read because of its enormous length and scholastic pedantries.  It might be said to bear the same relation to his “French Revolution” that “Romola” does to “Adam Bede.”  In this book Carlyle made no new revelations, as he did in his Life of Cromwell.  He did not change essentially the opinion of mankind.  Frederick the Great, in his hands, still stands out as an unscrupulous public enemy,—­a robber and a tyrant.  His crimes are only partially redeemed by his heroism, especially when Europe was in arms against him.  There is the same defect in this great work that there is in the Life of Cromwell,—­the inculcation of the doctrine that might makes right; that we may do evil that good may come,—­thus putting expediency above eternal justice, and palliating crimes because of their success.  It is difficult to account for Carlyle’s decline in moral perceptions, when we consider that his personal life was so far above reproach.

Although the Life of Frederick is a work of transcendent industry, it did not add to Carlyle’s popularity, which had been undermined by his bitter attacks on society in his various pamphlets.  At this period he was still looked up to with reverence as a great intellectual giant; but that love for him which had been felt by those who were aroused to honest thinking by his earlier writings had passed away.  A new generation looked upon him as an embittered and surly old man.  His services were not forgotten, but he was no longer a favorite,—­no longer an inspiring guide.  His writings continued to stimulate thought, but were no longer regarded as sound.  Commonplace people never did like him, probably because they never understood him.  His admirers were among the young, the enthusiastic, the hopeful, the inquiring; and when their veneration passed away, there were few left to uphold his real greatness and noble character.  One might suppose that Carlyle would have been unhappy to alienate so many persons, especially old admirers.  In fact, I apprehend that he cared little for anybody’s admiration or flattery.  He lived in an atmosphere so infinitely above small and envious and detracting people that he was practically independent of human sympathies.  Had he been doomed to live with commonplace persons, he might have sought to conciliate them; but he really lived in another sphere,—­not perhaps higher than theirs, but eternally distinct,—­in the sphere of abstract truth.  To him most people were either babblers or bores.  What did he care for their envious shafts, or even for their honest disapprobation!