improved by voting or debating." "Neither except in obedience to the Heaven-chosen is freedom so much as conceivable." This theory showed its own absurdity in prompting eulogies on Francia and other despots; but Carlyle's apologies for Cromwell were of some service to the cause of liberty fifty years ago, when England had forgotten to honour the champions of the Long Parliament. Dickens thought more about the asceticism than the independence of the Puritans. He and Carlyle have dispelled some of the prejudices against the heroes of the First Republic; but they perpetuated others. Carlyle's best work was in encouraging the readers of his first books to think for themselves. The power of Dickens to call out sympathy with the unfortunate will never cease to bless mankind. As much pity for the outcast has been shown by his great rival, Victor Hugo, and even more fellow-feeling with the oppressed. The spirit which has made France free animates all his writings, especially those grand poems which were called out by the usurpation of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. His early dramas dealt so vigorously with royal weakness and vice that _Marion de Lorme_ was suppressed by Charles X. and _Le Roi s'amuse_ by Louis Philippe. The work which has made him best known, and which appeared in 1862 in nine languages, is a plea for mercy to criminals, or in his own words, to "the miserable." The chief aim is to show "the oppression of laws," and the mistake of aiding the tyranny of the police by thinking too severely of the fallen. He finds an opportunity to introduce an enthusiastic panegyric on the victories of Napoleon, closing with the question: "What could be more grand?" "To be free," is the reply. Full justice to the French Revolution is done by that most dramatic of novels, _Ninety-Three_. Here he says: "The agony of the nations ended with the fall of the Bastile." "Perhaps the Convention is the culmination of history." "It declared poverty and disability sacred." "It branded the slave-trade, and freed the blacks." "It decreed gratuitous education." "The object of two-thirds of its decrees was philanthropic." Such facts are all the more worthy of mention, because they were omitted by Carlyle. SUPPLEMENT TO CHAPTER II I. Thomas Carlyle's prejudice against democracy was strengthened by the failure of the revolutions of 1848. Constitutional monarchy was as hostile to reform in France as it was friendly in England.