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REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

History of Friedrich the Second, called Frederick the Great. By THOMAS CARLYLE.  In Four Volumes.  Vol.  III.  New York:  Harper & Brothers. 1862.

Although History flows in a channel never quite literally dry, and for certain purposes a continuous chronicle of its current is desirable, it is only in rare reaches, wherein it meets formidable obstacles to progress, that it becomes grand and impressive; and even in such cases the interest deepens immeasurably, when some master-spirit arises to direct its energies.  The period of Frederick the Great was not one of these remarkable passages.  It was marked, however, with the signs that precede such.  Europe lay weltering and tossing in seemingly aimless agitation, yet in real birth-throes; and the issue was momentous and memorable, namely:  The People.  From the hour in which they emerged from the darkness of the French Revolution, they have so absorbed attention that men have had little opportunity to look into the causes which forced them to the front, and made wiser leadership thenceforth indispensable to peaceful rule.  The field, too, was repulsive with the appearance of nearly a waste place, save only that Frederick the Second won the surname of “Great” by his action thereon.  And it may be justly averred that only to reveal his life, and perhaps that of one other, was it worthy of resuscitation.  To do this was an appalling labor, for the skeleton thereof was scattered through the crypts of many kingdoms; yet, by the commanding genius of Mr. Carlyle, bone hath not only come to his bone, but they have been clothed with flesh and blood, so that the captains of the age, and, moreover, the masses, as they appeared in their blind tusslings, are restored to sight with the freshness and fulness of Nature.  Although this historical review is strictly illustrative, it is altogether incomparable for vividness and originality of presentation.  The treatment of official personages is startlingly new.  All ceremony toward them gives place to a fearful familiarity, as of one who not only sees through and through them, but oversees.  Grave Emptiness and strutting Vanity, found in high places, are mocked with immortal mimicry.  Indeed, those of the “wind-bag” species generally, wherever they appear in important affairs, are so admirably exposed, that we see how they inevitably lead States to disaster and leave them ruins, while their pompous and feeble methods of doing it are so put as to call forth the contemptuous smiles, yea, the derisive laughter, of all coming generations.  In fine, the alternate light and shade, which so change the aspect and make the mood of human nature, were never so touched in before; and therefore it is the saddest and the merriest story ever told.