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Monograph also includes notice of Charles Buller, and is accompanied by engraved photographs of both Lady Baring and Buller. pp 225-255, with proof of p. 257 from another version of the Monograph.

10 letters. Item 2 includes a transcription of a letter from Oliver Cromwell to Thomas Hill 23 Dec. 1649 (Harleian MS 7053 ff. 153b)

Cautioning against excessive eulogies.

Critical comment on Carlyle's philosophy and followers.

St. Andrews. - Delighted to hear Sir Robert and Lady Peel will subscribe for the support of Mrs Begg [the sister of Robert Burns]. ‘I suspect that Carlyle and you have the merit between you of bringing about the business'.

Refuting suggestions of Carlyle's hostility towards science.

Thomas Carlyle quoted at p. 114.

Re memorial to Thomas Carlyle

Signed by T. C. Wilson of Drummonds Bank.

Pall Mall - WW 'should be informed of an event that agitates the literary world. Squires [William Squire] has arrived in town'. Squires is the descendant of Oliver Cromwell and did do the absurd things Carlyle [Thomas Carlyle] says he did.

Text of letter of 13 Mar. 1843, 'published years ago in a Scotch newspaper'.

On Economist assessment of Carlyle's literary work.

36 Wilton Crescent, S.W. (on Wallington headed paper). - Is pleased that Lady Trevelyan likes his book ["Atalanta in Calydon"]; it was finished just after Landor's death which he much regrets. Much enjoyed the composition of the poem, which 'was very rapid and pleasant'; thinks it is 'pure Greek, and the first poem of the sort in modern times': feels that Shelley's "Prometheus [Unbound]", though 'magnificent', is 'un-Hellenic', and gathers from Lewes's life of Goethe that his "Iphigenia in Tauris" is also 'impregnated with modern morals and feeling"; also dismisses [Matthew] Arnold's "Merope". Is 'raging in silence' about the delayed publication of [Thomas] Carlyle's volumes: the subject [Frederick the Great] 'was always a hero' of Swinburne's who is impressed by his 'clear cold purity of pluck', which is not inspired by faith. Frederick seems free of 'perverse Puritan Christianity' on the one hand, and 'the knaveries and cutpurse rascalities' of the Buonapartes on the other; Swinburne can almost forgive him his bad poetry. Is very glad to hear good news of Sir Walter and the building projects; wishes she were in London for [Ford] Madox Brown's exhibition, which is 'superb'. Is currently staying at the house his father has taken in London for the winter, and is looking for rooms for himself; his father has completed the purchase of Holm Wood [Holmwood] in Oxfordshire. Feels that Tennyson should have made a better choice of his "Selections": feels that "Boadicea" should have 'served as prelude to the book'; thought Tennyson's 'volume of last summer' ["Enoch Arden"] a 'new triumph'.

The Shiffolds, Holmbury St Mary, Dorking. - Hopes his father is 'comfortably settled' at Welcombe; he and Bessie were sorry to hear from his mother that she had a cold, and hopes she has by now recovered. Julian 'continues splendidly well and is getting on in every way except locomotively, for he does not even try to move from one place to another'.

Finished Clayhanger, a 'wonderfully good novel': hopes Bennett can 'keep the next two parts up to the level of the first'. Will now have to read the Old Wives Tale. They are still reading aloud Frederick the Great, and are now coming to the 'quarrel with Voltaire'; Bessie usually takes 'no interest in accounts of battles, but admits that Carlyle's battles are different', as are George's accounts of those of Garibaldi.

Hopes to see George in London next week, at least 'at the Cambridge dinner on the 16th': these dinners are 'a very good institution, as one meets Cambridge people of all ages, whom one has little chance of meeting otherwise'. Will write to his mother soon.

[This is possibly the second half of JCH to WW, 20 Dec. 1847, Item 148]. JCH has been unable to finish his pamphlet [A Letter to the Dean of Chichester, on the Agitation Excited by the Appointment of Dr. Hampden to the See of Hereford, 1848], due to the immediate need to produce a memoir for his old friend John Sterling: 'The difficulty has been, not to speak the truth with love, but to speak the truth in spite of the love which wd have led one to conceal it. I don't think I shd have attempted it, but for the knowledge that, if I did not, Carlyle wd [Thomas Carlyle, The Life of John Sterling]: & then all that, which to me is so painful, wd of course have been brought out more prominently, while those parts of his life & character which to me are so precious, wd have been thrown entirely into the shade. I think it must be of deep interest to many, a picture of a class not ran among the genial minds of the age, & one of the noblest specimens of it. There is much that is excellent in his letters; & the lesson of his whole life ought also to be most profitable, if I can but bring it out rightly' [Essays and Tales of John Sterling, collected and edited, with a Memoir by JCH, 2 vols, 1848]. Ma-man's visit has been a great delight - 'there was the additional interest of the revival of Hyde Hall recollections'.

Refers to a conversation they had some years previously [see 95/157] in relation to a review by John Sterling of Tennyson, which he had believed was to be found in the London Review, but on looking there, found that the article on Tennyson had been written by Mill. He did not find Sterling's article until the previous day, in Hare's collection of Sterling's pamphlets and other papers, where he had looked for and found his article on Carlyle. Reports that it purports to be taken from 'the Quarterly [Review] (of all organs of opinion) of 1842'. Remarks that the paper on Carlyle strikes him as poor, and that on Tennyson as 'Philistinish'. Comments that Starling 'had but a limited appreciation of poetry, and did not clearly know good from bad.' Congratulates Sidgwick 'on having passed through a 3rd edition.'

Welcombe, Stratford on Avon. - Hopes that Robert and Elizabeth are 'getting on with their preparations for going abroad', as it will do them good to be away from home for a while [after the death of their son Paul]. She and Sir George are 'better for the quiet' at Welcombe; they talk often about Paul, and Sir George says he often dreams of him, and of Robert as a small child. Thinks this has brought them 'all nearer together': perhaps the worst thing is knowing how unhappy Robert and Elizabeth are. Thinks she has never expressed to Robert all she feels for him, bur is sure he knows she understands his trouble, and how thankful she would be if she could comfort him. Took a long drive yesterday, and discovered Preston on Stour, a 'curious old village'. Buxton's book about Turkey ["Turkey in Revolution"?] is 'certainly amusing'; she also has the new Carlyle letters to read, though Sir George is 'rather averse to them', thinking 'the controversy should be allowed to die out'. He is reading Fererro to her, and translating parts of Suetonius 'which are most amusing'. Hopes Robert found some good books to take abroad at the London Library. Sends love to Elizabeth, and asks him to let her know how she is.

Chelsea. - Cannot come tomorrow but his wife and Miss Jewsbury will: 'that will be far better both for your Jewess [Fanny Lewald] and you, won't it?'

Herstmonceux, Hailsham - Thanks WW for his course of sermons [On the Foundations of Morals: Four Sermons, 1837]. JCH is deeply honoured that the volume is dedicated to him: 'a strange wonder will come over me now and then, that to me in my littleness such honours should have befallen as to have books dedicated to me by Niebuhr and you'. JCH is often reminded of 'Coleridge's saying, that we have to earn the joys of earth, before we can think of earning the joys of heaven'. JCH is with WW 'heart and mind' regarding the main object of WW's sermons but differs on one or two secondary or tertiary points: 'I can [not] think that St Paul is speaking of God's moral being in your first text...I am not sure whether you do not strain the passages from St Paul, in which the word conscience occurs, too far at the beginning of your second sermon. Sedgwick, I thought, certainly did. Your[s] rest less on them. In several of them at least conscience is nothing more than consciousness, and compatible with any view as to the origin and nature of our notions of right and wrong. The comparison between our scientific and moral knowledge is locally appropriate and very satisfactory'. Is p.44 of WW's volume directed at Thomas Carlyle: 'I have not read his book: but from some extracts in the Examiner it seemed to me almost as monstrous in doctrine as in style...What you say in p.vii about the pernicious influence of our teaching Paley on the morals of the country, I have long thought. May you prosper in substituting something better for him. There are many of the points you speak of in p.x admirably expounded in some of Chalmers's Essays in the 1st 2nd and 5th vols of his new edition. If any one wd leave out 3 sentences in 4 and turn the 4th into English, he wd be a great benefactor to philosophy: and it wd be a great thing to substitute his evidences for Paley's[.] a Christian life breathes from his, and wd pass into the hearts of many'.