3-011-975 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Thomas Carlyle, 1864. Engraving from a photograph by Mr. W. Jeffrey, '...the best likeness of Mr. Carlyle that has ever been published...Few writers have left a stronger impression of their own personality. His books are an emanation of his peculiar temperament and real idiosyncracy. They are, in this sense, among the most original of literary productions. By originality, we mean that they are the sincere and genuine expression of the author's whole mind: not that their matter is new. Most of Mr. Carlyle's doctrines are as old as the hills. They are coeval, as he might say, with "the Eternal Verities." They are, at least, as ancient as the Book of Job. Whether as an historian, biographer, or censor of contemporary affairs, Mr. Carlyle has the same arguments to set forth. These, divested of his modem applications, may be found in certain venerable maxims of essential morality and practical religion, of which the world perhaps needs to be reminded in his forcible and startling way. As a non-ecclesiastical preacher, he has formed to himself a pulpit from the study of modern history, German poetry, and the metaphysical theosophy of Fichte; but in the deeper soil of sacred antiquity are fixed the roots of his prophetic discourse'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.