That Robespierre had at the first any appetite for blood, is not now asserted by his bitterest foe. That he ever even acquired such a monstrous thirst, seems to us very unlikely. His only thought would be, at the tidings of another death, "Another sacrifice to my _idea_; another obstacle lifted out of its way." Nero's wish that his enemies had but "one neck" was, we think, comparatively a humane wish. It showed that he had no delight in the disgusting details, but only in the secure result of their destruction. _He_ is the unnatural monster who protracts the fierce luxury--who sips his deep cup of blood lingeringly, that he may know the separate flavor of every separate drop, and who, like the Cyclops in the cave, leaves some select victim to the last, as a _bonne bouche_ to his sated appetite--"_Noman_ shall be the last to be devoured." Robespierre, no more than Nero, was _up_ to such delicately infernal cruelty. Carlyle frequently admits Robespierre's sincerity, and yet rates him as little other than a sham. We account for this as we did in the case of Marat. He is regarded as a SMALL sincerity; and the sincerity of a small man contracts, to Carlyle's eye, something of the ludicrous air in which a Lilliputian warrior, shouldering his straw-sized musket, and firing his lead-drop bullets, seemed to Gulliver. "Bravo, my little hero!" shouts the Titan, with a loud laugh, as he sees him, with "sky-blue breeches," patronizing the houseless idea of a divine being, "prop away at the tottering heavens, with that new nine-pin of thine; but why is there not rather a little nice doll of an image in those showy inexpressibles, to draw out, and complete the conversion of thy people? and why not say, 'These be thy gods, O toy and toad-worshiping France!'" To bring him to respect, while he admits, the sincerity, we would need to disprove the smallness, of our Arras advocate. Now, compared to truly great men, such as Cromwell--or to extraordinary men, such as Napoleon, Mirabeau, and Danton--Robespierre was small enough. But surely it was no pigmy, whose voice--calm, dispassioned, and articulate--ruled lunatic France; who preserved an icy coolness amid a land of lava; who mastered, though it was only for a moment, a steed like the Revolution; and who threw from his pedestal, though it was by assailing in an unguarded hour, a statue so colossal as Danton's. Rigid, Roman-like purpose--keen, if uninspired, vision--the thousand eyes of an Argus, if not the head of a Jove, or the fist of a Hercules--perseverance, honesty, and first-rate business qualities--we must allow to Robespierre, unless we account for his influence by Satanic possession, and say--either _no dunce aut Diabolus_. Carlyle attributes his defeat and downfall to his pertinacious pursuit of a shallow logic to its utmost consequences. Probably he thus expresses, in his own way, the view we have already sought to indicate. Robespierre was the sincere, consistent, unclean