Towards the close of this period he acknowledged that London was "among improper places" the best for "writing books," after all the one use of living "for him;" its inhabitants "greatly the best" he "had ever walked with," and its aristocracy--the Marshalls, Stanleys, Hollands, Russells, Ashburtons, Lansdownes, who held by him through life--its "choicest specimens." Other friendships equally valued he made among the leading authors of the age. Tennyson sought his company, and Connop Thirlwall. Arnold of Rugby wrote in commendation of the _French Revolution_ and hailed _Chartism._ Thackeray admired him and reviewed him well. In Macaulay, condemned to limbo under the suspicion of having reviewed him ill, he found, when the suspicion was proved unjust, a promise of better things. As early as 1839 Sterling had written an article in the _Westminster,_ which gave him intense pleasure; for while contemning praise in almost the same words as Byron did, he loved it equally well. In 1840 he had crossed the Rubicon that lies between aspiration and attainment. The populace might be blind or dumb, the "rattlesnakes"--the "irresponsible indolent reviewers," who from behind a hedge pelt every wrestler till they found societies for the victor--might still obscurely hiss; but Carlyle was at length safe by the verdict of the "Conscript Fathers." [Footnote: The italics are Mr. Froude's.] CHAPTER V CHEYNE ROW [1842-1853] The bold venture of coming to London with a lean purse, few friends, and little fame had succeeded: but it had been a terrible risk, and the struggle had left scars behind it. To this period of his life we may apply Carlyle's words,--made use of by himself at a later date,--"The battle was over and we were sore wounded." It is as a maimed knight of modern chivalry, who sounded the _reveil_ for an onslaught on the citadels of sham, rather than as a prophet of the future that his name is likely to endure in the history of English thought. He has also a place with Scott amongst the recreators of bygone ages, but he regarded their annals less as pictures than as lesson-books. His aim was that expressed by Tennyson to "steal fire from fountains of the past," but his design was to admonish rather than "to glorify the present." This is the avowed object of the second of his distinctly political works, which following on the track of the first, _Charlism_, and written in a similar spirit, takes higher artistic rank. _Past and Present_, suggested by a visit to the poorhouse of St. Ives and by reading the chronicle of _Jocelin de Brakelond_, was undertaken as a duty, while he was mainly engaged on a greater work,--the duty he felt laid upon him to say some thing that should bear directly on the welfare of the people, especially of the poor around him. It was an impulse similar to that which inspired _Oliver Twist_, but Carlyle's remedies were widely different from those of Dickens. Not merely more kindness and sympathy, but paternal government,