To most men under fifty, in fact,
Carlyle is more known as a very truculent political philosopher
than as a moralist, and most of his later imitators--Mr. Froude for
one--have imitated him rather in preparing the way of the Strong
Man in government, and recommending the helpless and forlorn to
strip for a salutary dozen on the bare back, than in preaching
self-knowledge or the inner worship of the "veracities."
That the effect of this on English politics has been bad, and very
bad, during the past thirty years few will deny. It beyond question
has had an evil influence on English opinion both about Ireland and
about India, and about the civil war in the United States. It had
much to do with the production of that great scandal, the defence of
Governor Eyre, by nearly the whole of London society. Nay, we think
we are not far wrong in saying that it did much to prepare the way
for that remarkable episode in English history, the late
administration of Lord Beaconsfield, with its jingo fever; its
lavish waste of blood and treasure; its ferocious assertion of the
beauty of national selfishness; its contempt for all that portion of
the population of Turkey which was weak and subject and unhappy.
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