But though the _French Revolution_ is not to be accepted as historical authority, it is profoundly stimulating and instructive, when we look on it as a lyrical apologue. It is an historical phantasmagoria--which, though hardly more literally true than Aristophanes' _Knights_ or _Clouds_, may almost be placed beside these immortal satires for its imagination, wisdom, and insight. The personages and the events of the French Revolution in fact succeeded each other with such startling rapidity and such bewildering variety, that it is difficult for any but the most patient student to keep the men and the phases steadily before the eye without confusion and in distinct form. This Carlyle has done far better than any other historian of the period, perhaps even better than any historian whatever. That so many Englishmen are more familiar with the scenes and the men and women of the French Revolution than they are with the scenes and the men and women of their own history, is very largely the work of Carlyle. And as to the vices and weakness of the Old Regime, the electric contagion of the people of Paris, the indomitable elasticity of the French spirit, the magnetic power of the French genius, the famous _furia francese_, and the terrible rage into which it can be lashed--all this Carlyle has told with a truth and insight that has not been surpassed by any modern historian. It being then clearly understood that Carlyle did not leave us the trustworthy history of the French Revolution, in the way in which Thucydides gave us the authentic annals of the Peloponnesian war, or Caesar the official despatches of the Conquest of Gaul, we must willingly admit that Carlyle's history is one of the most fruitful products of the nineteenth century. No one else certainly has written the authentic story of the French Revolution at large, or of more than certain aspects and incidents of it. In spite of misconceptions, and such mistaken estimates as those of Mirabeau and Bonaparte, such insolent mockery of good and able men, such ridiculous caricatures as that of the "Feast of Pikes" and the trial of the King, such ribald horse-play as "Grilled Herrings" and "Lion Sprawling," in spite of blots and blunders in every chapter--the _French Revolution_ is destined to live long and to stand forth to posterity as the typical work of the master. It cannot be said to have done such work as the _Cromwell_; for it is far less true and sound as history, and it is only one out of scores of interpreters of the Revolution, whereas in the Cromwell Carlyle worked single-handed. But being far more organic, far more imaginative, indeed more powerful than the _Cromwell_ in literary art, the _French Revolution_--produced, we may remember, exactly in the middle of the author's life--will remain the enduring monument of Carlyle's great spirit and splendid brain.