On the other hand, if these masterpieces of sixty years ago are not quite amongst the great books of the world, it would be preposterous to regard them as obsolete, or such as now interest only the historian of literature.  They are read to-day practically as much as ever, and are certain to be read for a generation or two to come.  But they are not read to-day with the passionate delight in the wonderful originality, nor have they the commanding authority they seemed to possess for the faithful disciples of the forties and the fifties.  Nor can any one suppose that the next century will continue to read them, except with an open and unbiassed mind, and a willingness to admit that even here there is much dead wood, gross error, and pitiable exaggeration.  When we begin to read in that spirit, however splendid be the imagination, and however keen the logic, we are no longer under the spell of a master:  we are reading a memorable book, with a primary desire to learn how former generations looked upon things.

Thomas Carlyle, like all other voluminous writers, wrote very much that cannot be called equal to his best:  and it cannot be denied that the inferior pieces hold a rather large proportion of the whole.  Nothing is less fatal to true criticism than the popular habit of blindly overvaluing the inferior work of men of genius, unless it be the habit of undervaluing them by looking at their worst instead of at their best.  Great men are to be judged by their highest; and it is not of very great consequence if this highest forms a moderate part of the total product.  Now, what are the masterpieces of Thomas Carlyle?  In the order of their production they are Sartor Resartus, 1831; French Revolution, 1837; Hero-Worship, 1840; Past and Present, 1843; Cromwell, 1845.  We need not be alarmed if this list forms but a third of the thirty volumes (not including translations); and if it omits such potent outbursts as Chartism, 1839; and Latter-Day Pamphlets, 1850; or such a wonderful piece of history as Friedrich the Second, 1858-1865. Chartism and the Latter-Day Pamphlets are full of eloquence, insight, indignation, and pity, and they exerted a great and wholesome effect on the generation whom they smote as with the rebuke and warning of a prophet.  But, as we look back on them after forty or fifty years of experience, we find in them too much of passionate exaggeration, at times a ferocious wrong-headedness, and everywhere so little practical guidance or fruitful suggestion, that we cannot reckon these magnificent Jeremiads as permanent masterpieces.