Carlyle and Ruskin fall into the same category. They sin against the classic virtues of repose, proportion, serenity, but this makes their penetrating power all the greater. Carlyle cannot rank with the great impartial historians, yet as a painter of historical characters and scenes the vividness and reality of his pictures are almost unequaled. Carlyle lacked the disinterestedness of the true artist. He had great power of description and characterization, but he could not as an historian stand apart from his subject as the great Greek and Roman historians do. He is a portion of all that he sees and describes. He is bent upon persuasion quite as much as upon portrayal. He could not succeed as a novelist or a poet, because of his vehement, intolerant nature. He succeeds as an historian only in portraying men in whom he sees the lineaments of his own character, as in Cromwell. He did not or could not live in the whole, as did his master, Goethe. His mind was a steep incline. His opinions were like mountain torrents. Arnold, in one of his letters, complained that in his criticism of Goethe there was too much of _engouement_,--too much, I suppose, of the fondness of the gourmand for a particular dish, or of the toper for his favorite tipple. His enthusiasm was intemperate, and therefore unsound. Doubtless some such objection as this may be urged against most of Carlyle’s criticisms. He was ruled by his character more than by his intellect; his feeling guided his vision. If he is not always a light to the reason, he is certainly an electric excitant to the imagination and the moral sense. In his essays, pamphlets, histories, we hardly get judicial estimates of things; rather do we get overestimates or under estimates. Yet always is there something that kindles and brings the blood to the surface. Carlyle will beget a stronger race than Arnold, but it will not be so cool and clear-headed. Emerson will fertilize more minds with new thought than Lowell, but there will be many more cranks and fanatics and hobbyists among them.