Thus with the publication of the present History of German Lit-
erature Carlyle becomes a more significant figure in the history
of nineteenth century medieval studies than he has commonly
been considered -- with respect to his factual knowledge, his in-
terpretations, and the influences upon him.
erature Carlyle becomes a more significant figure in the history
of nineteenth century medieval studies than he has commonly
been considered -- with respect to his factual knowledge, his in-
terpretations, and the influences upon him.
Thomas Carlyle
86).
So memorable was the phrase
that, within the next fifteen months, he used it twice more (Wot-
ton Reinfred, p. 31; Essays, I, 159; see also Two Note Books,
pp. 122-23). Obviously the old Greek was coming horne to the bosom
and business of the young romantic. In 1827 and 1828 he twice
ranked Homer with Shakespeare: first, for his deep knowledge
of the world -- a tolerant knowledge that could love it, even with
its hollowness and sin; and second, for his ability to see life
impartially, as a witness or spectator, rather than sentimentally
(Wotton Reinfred, p. 96; Essays, I, 245). And in "Burns" (1828),
in addition to saying that Homer surpassed all men in clearness
of sight, he suggested Homer's distinction as a portrayer of es-
sential human feelings universal in all times and places (Essays,
I, 271, 276-77). Thus in 1828 he had at last arrived at a view
in some respects diametrically opposite to the one he had held
in 1820. But Carlyle's most careful, enthusiastic, and reward-
ing study of Homer (in the Greek, with several commentaries)
was to come early in 1834, some years after his interest in the
present History had ended, and just as he was turning away
from the Germans (Glasgow Herald, p. 3; Froude, I, 20; II,
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? 102
EDITOR'S NOTES
326-28; Letters to Mill, pp. 99, 101; Letters of Carlyle, pp.
375, 391, 392; Conway, p. 207).
48. A peddler's image of cloudcapt towers from The Tempest
was the thing that first drew Carlyle to the poetry of William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), in 1806 (Allingham, p. 247). During
the first session at Edinburgh University (1809-1810) he borrow-
ed at least three volumes of Shakespeare from the University
library (Masson, p. 231). By 1814 the dramatist had become
a decided favorite, and Carlyle believed his work always excel-
lent (Wilson, I, 91; Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, I, 5, 10).
As the young man's understanding developed under the influence
of English and German romantic criticism, Shakespeare even-
tually became a touchstone of poetic greatness and wisdom.
The date at which Carlyle acquired the eight-volume Works of
Shakespeare (1761 edition) now at the House in Chelsea is not
certain (Carlyle's House Catalogue, 1896, p. 86). By 1830 his
allusions to Shakespeare are familiar, discriminating, and fre-
quent--in all, more than 80 allusions (9 of them in this History),
to 15 different plays. His love of Hamlet and The Tempest is
most notable, while interest in the sonnets and the romances is
negligible.
49. By October 19, 1827, Carlyle had used this same ques-
tion and assigned it to Father Dominique Bouhours, 1628-1702
(Essays, I, 28-29).
50. In July, 1818, in connection with his early interests in
mathematics and the physical sciences, Carlyle mentioned a
work of Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) on cosmography (Early
Letters of Thomas Carlyle, I, 164-65), and in November, he
referred to Kepler as a noble example for a young man to imi-
tate (ibid. , I, 186). In the fall of 1827 he mentioned together
Kepler and Leibnitz as important Germans (Essay s, I, 28). And
in the spring of 1829, he quoted Kepler's statement showing a
great man's humility about his own great work (Essays. I, 417).
51. Carlyle had in mind the German printer Johann Fust (d.
1466 ? ), an early associate of Gutenberg. Carlyle believed
Fust --whom he called Faust -- was the man who first brought
printing into full use. See Lecture VI of Lectures of 1838, p. 94.
52. The word Gualches, which I do not find in dictionaries,
may be an archaic spelling of a substantive related to the French
adjective Gallois, and to the German Walsch, meaning Italian,
southern, foreign, Welsh.
53. See Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. 55-after 115), Historiae,
Book II, Ch. XXXII. Since Carlyle's first period of history-
reading (early 1818), he had known Tacitus well (Early Letters
of Thomas Carlyle, I, 143; Froude, I, 20). The fact that Car-
lyle here accepted Tacitus's idealized account of the virtues of
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
103
the early Germans may not have blinded him to the fact that the
Roman historian was thinly veiling under the Germania (as also
under the Agricola) an attack upon the decadence of contemporary
Rome. Indeed, so far as that attack involved moral motivations,
it was much in line with Carlyle's -- and many another modern's
-- interest in primitivism.
^54. Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829), Vorlesungen
uber die neuere Geschichte, Wien, 1811. This etymology occurs
in the Second Lecture: see the Bonn edition of Friedrich Schlegels
Werke, XI (1877), 46.
55. Carlyle was using Johann Jacob Mascov (1689-1761), Ges-
chichte der Teutschen bis zu Anfang der franckischen Monarchic
(Leipzig, 1726) and Geschichte der Teutschen bis zu Abgang der
Merovingischen Konige (Leipzig, 1737), which had been trans-
lated into English by Thomas Lediard as History of the Ancient
Germans and other Northern Nations (London, 1737-1738, 2 vols. ).
Nennius's Nimed eure Sahes occurs on p. 203 of Mascov's 1726
volume, where in a note it is assigned to Leibnitz. Thus Lediard,
Mascov, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) together form-
ed the channel through which a tradition originating in Nennius (? 1,
796), Eulogium Britanniae, sive Historia Britonum (printed 1684),
passed to Carlyle. On January 27, 1830, Carlyle had mentioned
to Macvey Napier his need of Mascov's Geschichte (Napier Cor-
respondence, p. 78).
56. Gaius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius (c. 430 - probably after
479), probably Epistulae.
57. Carlyle's manuscript leaves blanks for the chapter number
and the book number; the Norton Typescript furnishes the exact
reference. Concerning Carlyle's long and deep interest in the
Lehrjahre, see Note 12.
58. Carlyle's comment here recalls the Erdgeist near the begin-
ning of Goethe's Faust, Part I.
59. The passage concerning Boniface and the Geismar Oak oc-
curs on p. 283 (Book XVI, Chapter 6) of Mascov's 1737 volume.
Since Boniface died in 755, Carlyle's date 850 is a century too
late.
60. Although Carlyle at first translated Tacitus's Latin " clausam
omne ferrum" into the English "every sword is sheathed, " he
immediately crossed out that conventional wording and gave in-
stead the literal "all iron is shut up. "
61. Tacitus, Germania, XL.
62. Carlyle may have owed this idea on the origin of chivalry
to Thomas Warton (1728-1790), The History of English Poetry,
from the Close of the Eleventh to the Commencement of the
Eighteenth Century, London, 1774-1781, 3 vols, and a frag-
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? 104 EDITOR'S NOTES
ment of a 4th vol. (Concerning Warton's thought, see Rene
Wellek, The Rise of English Literary History, p. 190). Car-
lyle had known Warton's book at least since the summer of
1827. At that time Carlyle himself may have had some thoughts
of writing a history of English literature from the time of Chau-
cer. Warton, though far from an adequate model, would (Car-
lyle then thought) give some help in such an undertaking (Two
Note Books, pp. 119-20). And as he started to write this His-
tory of German Literature, he again had a similar estimate of
Warton's work in mind, for he lamented that, among all the
Eichhorns and Wartons, there was still no proper historian of
poetry ("On History, " by April 12, 1830: Essays, II, 94).
The idea that the principle of chivalry was implicit in the
old German social system was easily accessible to Carlyle in
various German works. One striking example is F. Schlegel's
Vorlesungen uber die Geschichte der alten und neuen Litteratur
(Wien, 1815, 2 Thle. ), near the end of Lecture VII. Another is
F. H. Von der Hagen's Der Nibelungen Lied (Erster Band: Der
Nibelungen Noth. Breslau, 1820), Einleitung, p. xxii, where he
says that "das Christliche Ritterthum . . . eine Entwickelung
des heidnischen Heldenthums war. " Von der Hagen's book was
especially useful to Carlyle elsewhere in the present work (see
Note 185).
63. That is, in the account of Marius in Vitae parallelae by
Plutarch (c. 46-after 120). Latin versions of the Vitae were
printed as early as 1740.
64. Tacitus, Germania, VIII.
65. Actually Historiae, Book IV, Chapter LXV.
66. Possibly in Goethe's final edition of Wilhelm Meisters
Wanderjahre (Werke, A. I. H. , 1829).
67. Tacitus, Ger mania, XXIII.
68. German romanticism, which Carlyle is here following,
affected to trace many connections of Western culture with old-
er Oriental culture.
69. Germania, III. Instead of barditum, some editions read
baritum at this point.
70. The passage concerning "die beruhmte Irmenseul . . . zu
Ehresburg" occurs on pp. 102-103 (Bk. IV, Ch. 21) of Mascov's
1726 volume.
71. Concerning Jacob Grimm and Von der Hagen, see Notes
119 and 118 respectively.
72. Brockhaus, Friedrich Arnold (1772-1823), Allgemeine
deutsche Real-encyklopadie fur die gebildeten St'ande (Conver-
sations-Lexikon), Leipzig, 1796-1811, 6 Bde. (7th edition, se-
cond thorough printing, 1830, 12 Bde. ). In the 1830 edition the
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
105
short article on Irmensaule occurs in Vol. V (not Vol. VII), p. 577.
Carlyle had used an early edition by January 31, 1825, while
in London preparing the book version of his Life of Schiller
(Schiller, p. 301). And in the spring of 1826 he again used ma-
terials from it in his biographical sketches of authors included
in his German Romance (Revue Germanique, 1908, p. 302; Lon-
don Mercury, VI, 609). So useful did the work seem to him that
in June, 1828, he asked his brother John in Munich to procure
him a set, at almost any cost (Letters of Carlyle, p. 116). A
set of the 7th edition (Leipzig, 1827, 12 vols: possibly a re-
print? ) did eventually arrive from Munich, a gift from Baron
d'Eichthal; and, as Carlyle's inscription in it says, it proved
very useful at the time (Carlyle House Catalogue, 7th ed. , Item
212). But by a slip of memory Carlyle's inscription -- which
was not written until 1858 -- erroneously suggests that the work
arrived in 1827 (a year before he had authorized John Carlyle
to procure it). Actually at the end of 1829, the last three vol-
umes (from Schubart on) still had not reached Carlyle; and at
the beginning of 1830, as he prepared to write the History of
German Literature, he borrowed six volumes of a set from the
Rev. D. Aitken (Early Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle, pp. 156,
161). During the next nine months, either the three missing
volumes arrived, or Carlyle kept Aitken's volumes, for in Sep-
tember, 1830, Carlyle referred to the article on Franz von
Sickingen in it (Two Note Books, p. 167); also by February 26,
1831, he referred to the article on Worms (Essays, II, 255,
footnote) and by March 2 to the article on Welser (E ssays , II,
314-15, footnote).
73. Concerning the importance of the Northern immigrations
and the fusion of the Northern tradition with Christianity, a
long sentence in Von der Hagen's Per Nibelungen Lied (1820,
Einleitung, p. xxii, of which one clause has already been quoted)
is significant here: "Doch darf man nicht vergessen, das von
Deutschen, durch und seit der Volkerwanderung, auch in den
Walschen Landern, die Gestalt der neuen Welt ausging, und das
Christenthum, wegen ihrer urspriinglich nahern Verwandtschaft
damit, durch sie uberall erst eigentlich wiedergeboren wurde,
und nicht so feindlich gegen sie stand, als etwa gegen ihre antiken
Bekehrer selber, vielmehr so manches Neue in sich aufnahm, und
das somit das Christliche Ritterthum zugleich eine Entwickelung
des heidnischen Heldenthum war. "
Already in 1830, chiefly because of German influences , Car-
lyle was seeing, and attempting to proclaim, the medieval past
as one of the most important phases of mankind's organic his-
torical development. To him, the Northern immigrations, as
the origin of European culture, formed an epoch in world history
that was perhaps second in importance only to the appearance of
Christianity. This stress upon the cultural importance of the
Middle Ages is only one example of several in this history: for
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? 106
EDITOR'S NOTES
example, pp. 46, 68 72, 76 (see also Notes 142, 193, 194, 206).
Thus with the publication of the present History of German Lit-
erature Carlyle becomes a more significant figure in the history
of nineteenth century medieval studies than he has commonly
been considered -- with respect to his factual knowledge, his in-
terpretations, and the influences upon him. (Two recent books
-- Miss Margaret R. Grennan's William Morris: Medievalist
and Revolutionary, New York, King's Crown Press, 1945, pp.
1-23; and Miss Grace J. Calder's The Writing of Past and Pres-
ent, pp. 23-33 --give brief but illuminating accounts of the status
of medieval studies in England during the second quarter of the
nineteenth century. )
74. Concerning Herder's connection with this principle of sur-
vival of the worthiest, see Note 26.
75. In Sartor Resartus (begun shortly after this History was
laid aside, and finished by August 4, 1831), Carlyle was to sug-
gest that the definition of man as a "Cooking Animal" is of
French origin (Sartor, p. 41).
76. Here and at the end of this paragraph, Carlyle's portrayal
of this great vortex of confusion -- in which destruction and con-
struction were wildly mixed as the Northern immigrations swept
over Europe in the early Middle Ages -- is strikingly like his
slightly later portrayal of democracy as it was sweeping over
Europe in his own era (see "Historic Survey of German Poetry,"
finished by January 20, 1831, Essays, II, 369-70). Full aware-
ness of that similarity and of its implications -- for the future as
well as the past, and for the pattern of history-- seems not to
have come to Carlyle until after the entry of the Saint-Simonian
influence late in the summer of 1830. For a discussion, see
Shine, Carlyle and the Saint-Simonians.
77. The character and the writings of Ulrich von Hutten (1488-
1525) Carlyle had regarded favorably since the fall of 1827 (Es-
says, I, 29). In the spring of 1830, he quoted from Epistolae
Obscurorum Virorum (of which Part I is now attributed mainly
to Crotus Rubianus) and again from Opera (Two Note Books, pp.
152-53, 156). I know no way to date Carlyle's acquisition of a
set that he owned of Hutten's Sammtliche Werke, Berlin[and
Leipzig! , 1821-1825, 5 vols. in 4 (Carlyle's House Catalogue,
7th ed. , Item 287). And just what attention he would have given
to Hutten if this History had been completed cannot be deter-
mined either. But in "Historic Survey of German Poetry" he
called Luther and Hutten high Psalmists (Essays, II, 345) and
blamed Taylor for not discussing the latter (Essays, II, 349).
78. Carlyle's early interest in mathematics and the physical
sciences probably accounts for his alluding to Albertus Magnus
(1193? -1280) and Kepler and Leibnitz together.
79. In the fall of 1827 Carlyle mentioned together Gottfried
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
107
Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) and Kepler as important Germans
(Essays, I, 28). Though he mentioned Leibnitz as a historian
elsewhere in this History (see Note 55), he seems to have re-
garded Leibnitz chiefly as a mathematician (see his 1823 article
"Pascal, " Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, XVI, 333; Wotten Rein-
fred, 3-4[by February 3, 18271 and Essays, I, 28Cby October
19, 1827J). And the only work that he is known to have owned
by Leibnitz was included in the miscellaneous Recueil de di-
verses pieces par Leibnitz, Clarke, Newton, 2 vols. in 1, Am-
sterdam, 1728 (Sotheby Catalogue, Item 106). Though he also
knew something of Leibnitz the philosopher ("Schiller, " Lon-
don Magazine, X, 21 [finished by early February, 1824]; and
Two Note Books, p. 100 [January, 1827]), the suggestions of
monedology found in Carlyle's later writings may have reached
him through Herder. For a note on that last point, see Shine,
"Carlyle and Herder, " p. 23.
80. Though Carlyle's allusions to Goethe (see Note 12) had
been more numerous than to any other figure in literature, his
allusions to Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-
1805) were a close second in number (some 170 allusions, in-
volving some 50 different titles). In the summer of 1820, short-
ly after seriously beginning his German readings, Carlyle ap-
parently procured a 12-volume set of Schiller's Sammtliche
Werke, Stuttgart, 1818 (Sotheby Catalogue, Item 119; Scrib-
ner's Magazine, XIII, 417; Norton's Letters, I, 480-8IJ; tTn-
like some of Goethe's works, most of Schiller's writings were
immediately accessible to Carlyle at his then state of intellectual
development. And for some years thereafter, Schiller was a
great favorite -- Schiller's dramas, his lyrics, and even his es-
thetic essays. From spring, 1823, to early 1825, one of Car-
lyle's main literary activities was the preparation of a biography
of Schiller. And during those two years, the influence of Schil-
ler's esthetic essays led him on toward his brief interest in Ger-
man transcendental philosophy. But as the decade drew to a
close, Carlyle's deep early interest in Schiller gradually gave
way, to some extent, before such figures as Goethe, Richter,
and even Novalis, And by December, 1829, the greatness of
Schiller seemed to be of a simple kind ("Schiller" [not published
until March, 183lj, Essays, II, 171). As Carlyle's own interest
in social and historical thought had developed, Schiller had come
to seem idealistic and remote from life, holy in character rather
than great (II, 193), and partial rather than universal in his po-
etic gifts (II, 198). If Schiller was a devout priest of poetry,
Goethe was a bishop (II, 186). In comparison with Goethe's
genius -- intuitive, all-embracing, instinct with melody -- Schil-
ler's seemed scholastic, divisive, and only partly and artificial-
ly melodious (II, 214). But notwithstanding the heavily qualified
nature of Carlyle's praise , at the end of 1829 the writer of Wil-
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? 108
EDITOR'S NOTES
helm Tell still seemed one of the noblest products of his cen-
tury and of his nation (II, 215).
81. Carlyle's insistence here upon the importance of England's
old Teutonic heritage and upon England's racial and cultural kin-
ship with modern Germany is basically of a piece with his at-
titude in much of his published work both before and after the
writing of this History. And the growing cordiality between the
English-speaking world and Germany during most of the cen-
tury from Waterloo to the first World War owes much to Car-
lyle. But to suggest any cause-and- result relation between Car-
lyle's ardent Teutonism as revealed in 1830 and the brutalities
now sometimes associated with the term Master-race more than
a century later would be uncritical.
82. Carlyle, whose earliest cultural roots were in the eight-
eenth century, had long been aware of the primitivistic, nation-
alistic, and antiquarian tendencies increasingly current during
the preceding 75 years. Much evidence will emerge in the pres-
ent chapter. His interest in the Ideen of Herder, who was among
other things an important German folklorist and a writer on the
origins of language, has already been suggested (see Note 26).
Thomas Percy (1729-1811), Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
(London, 1765, 3 vols. ^), had been familiar to Carlyle for many
years (Two Note Books, p. 127, which page, written in 1828,
lists several other works that he proposed reading on the Mid-
dle Ages; and see Text p. 46). And undoubtedly he knew the
tradition in classical scholarship associated with the work of
Friedrich August Wolf (1759-1824), though his grateful use of
Wolf's Prolegomena ad Home rum (Halle, 1795) cannot be demon-
strated before February^ 1834 (Froude, I, 20; Letters of Car-
lyle, p. 375, note). Concerning the primitivism of Tacitus,
see Note 53.
83. The Miltonic form of this Lucretian thought may be an
echo of Paradise Lost, II, 911. 1
84. In this broad statement Carlyle pays no attention to the
long-established Lithuanian language (but see the end of his
footnote on pp. 28-29). Certain Lithuanian folk-traditions had in-
terested the curious mind of Herder half a century earlier.
And M. G. Lewis's Dying Bride is said to have been partly trans-
lated from Herder's version (in his Volkslieder) of a Lithuanian
ballad.
85. See Milton's "L'Allegro, " line 10.
86. This footnote, obscured by the curled bottom edge of the
sheet, is supplied from the Norton Typescript.
87. Because of the curled bottom edge of the sheet, the date
is not clear; it is supplied from the Norton Type script.
88. Hieronymus, Eusebius (Sofronius) (c. 340-420), Omnium
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
109
Ope rum Divi Eusebii Hieronymi (edited by Erasmus and others),
Basle, 1516-1520, 9 vols. The ultimate source of Carlyle's
quotation is St. Jerome's Epistola CVI, "Ad Sumniam et Fre-
telam" (see Patrologiae Cursus Completus, ed. by J. P. Migne,
Series latina, tomus XXII [Paris, 18 54J, 838, where initial cap-
ital letters are used in Veritatem, Spiritus, and Sancti).
89. Note that Carlyle's statement here does not imply his own
first-hand knowledge of these men's work on Ulfila: Franziskus
Junius (1589-1677), Thomas Marshall (1621-1685), George
Hickes (1642-1715), Johann Ihre (1707-1780), or in the next
paragraph, Isaac Voss (1618-1689).
90. The Codex Argenteus, still at Upsala, should not be de-
scribed as in "an almost useless condition. "
91. At least since the beginning of 1825, Carlyle had used
and valued Karl Heinrich Jordens (1757-1835), Lexikon deutscher
Dichter und Prosaisten, Leipzig, 1806-1811, 6 vols. (Schiller,
p. 171, footnote; Revue Germanique, 1908, p. 307; Essays, I,
2). In March, 1830, while busy with this History of German
Literature, he acquired a set, which, with his manuscript notes
in it, is at the Carlyle House in Chelsea (Letters of Carlyle, p.
157; Carlyle's House Catalogue, 7th ed. . Item 60). Four places
in the present History acknowledge his indebtedness to Jordens.
92. Panciroli, Guido (1523-1599), Rerum memorabilium jam
olim deperditarum, Ambergae, 1599.
93. Johann Joseph Dilschneider's Die Deutsche Sprache in Pro-
ben aus allen Jahrhunderten von Ulphilas bis Gothe, nebst einem
Worterbuche. Koln am Rhein, 1826. Carlyle owned a copy (Car-
lyle's House Catalogue, 7th ed. , Item 309), and he referred to
the work elsewhere in the present History. Carlyle's modern
German translation of the prayer is not quite the same in every
respect as his source: JBrdens, Lexikon, V, 120.
94. In this passage (Matthew, 6:9-13), Streitberg (Gotische
Bibel, Heidelberg, Winter, 1919) regularly uses small letters,
and he has the thorn where Carlyle has th. Also, in line 9,
Streitberg reads himma daga; in line 18, >iudangardi; in line 19,
vuLSus; and in line 19, he omits the punctuation.
95. Carlyle certainly meant banyan, an East Indian tree whose
branches send out aerial roots to form additional trunks. See
the Westminster Review. XV, 4, and Essays, II, 220, with Sar-
tor, p. 40.
96. See Pope's Dunciad, I, 54.
97. Charlemagne's "Thirty Years war with the Heathen-Sax-
ons" lasted 772-804. The missionaries whom Carlyle mentioned
belonged to the seventh and eight centuries. His allusion to the
early nineteenth century "'Missionary Societies' and loud trump-
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? 110
EDITOR'S NOTES
etings" recalls the then notable public interest in various as-
pects of religious foreign missions. For example, from 1809
to 1825 the Quarterly Review averaged an article a year on the
missionaries: the chief contributors of those articles were
Robert Southey, then Poet Laureate, and John Barrow, then
Second Secretary of the Admiralty.
98. In Carlyle's notice of Scottish dow, English doughty, and
German tuchtig and "some have supposed . . . Tugend (Virtue), "
one might possibly read an etymological shoring-up of the prin-
ciple that the worthiest survives in history, and that -- in the long
run -- right and might are thus one. See also Note 26.
99. New English Dictionary says that sept, possibly a variant
of sect, by transfer comes to mean a tribe or class.
100. One may be surprised at the paucity of Carlyle's refer-
ences to Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 ? -1400). Up to this time, his
only reference to a specific work had been to Astrolabe (com-
piled 1391). From it, in spring of 1818, the young mathemati-
cian and scientist quoted a short passage (Early Letters of Thom-
as Carlyle, I, 152).
101. Since the first session in Edinburgh University (1809-1810),
when Carlyle borrowed from the University Library a volume
of the Spectator, he had known something of the writings of Jo-
seph Addison~P"672-1719) (Masson, p. 231). In 1815-1816, in
addition to stating his high general regard for Addison's writ-
ings, he read some of the Freeholder and then a volume and a
half of the Spectator (Conway, pp. T52-63; Early Letters of
Thomas Carlyle, I, 69-70; see also Essays, I, 3j! And cer-
tainly by the spring of 1823 he knew Cato (London Magazine, VIII,
390; see also Essays, I, 213).
102. In June, 1827, Carlyle found in both Sir Thomas Browne
(1605-1682) and Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) that excellence of
the inmost nature which confers immortality upon their writings,
even though their ways of thought have long ceased to be the same
as ours (Essays, I, 24-25; see also Essays, II, 67, for similar
comment on Taylor alone). Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemic a
Carlyle knew to some extent as early as July, 1824 (Two Note
Books, p. 67). But the main reading of Browne came at the end
of 1826, when Carlyle read with care through Religio Medici,
Urne-Buriall, and The Garden of Cyrus. The first he found the
most readable; the second, especially at the end, seemed ab-
solutely beautiful; the third he liked least of the four works he then
knew; but he quoted passages from both the Buriall and The Gar-
den; and in the same month he took some biographical notes on
the author who had just impressed him so strongly (Two Note
Books, pp. 67-69, 90). The last two sentences of Carlyle's long
footnote on etymologies (p. 29 ) may be an echo of a famous pas-
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
111
sage in Urne-TBuriall.
103. If the present sentence seems an oversimplified state-
ment, the qualifications suggested in the two succeeding sen-
tences should be considered along with it. Carlyle of course
well knew that language, like all human institutions, is the pro-
duct of never-completed process rather than of fiat. Though
the study of German philology has greatly advanced since the
date of Carlyle's writing, scholars continue to recognize Lu-
ther's importance in helping to establish High German.
104. Carlyle made a number of early allusions to Immanuel
Kant (1724-1804) and Kantism, from March, 1821, until Sep-
tember, 1826 (Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, I, 332-33;
Two Note Books, pp. 41-42, 45; London Magazine, X, 21-22;
Schiller, pp. 113-14; German Romance, T, 261-62). But they
should not be taken as proof that at that time he had actually
read anything by the German philosopher. During those five
years, and to a great extent thereafter, he seems to have relied
upon intermediaries.
that, within the next fifteen months, he used it twice more (Wot-
ton Reinfred, p. 31; Essays, I, 159; see also Two Note Books,
pp. 122-23). Obviously the old Greek was coming horne to the bosom
and business of the young romantic. In 1827 and 1828 he twice
ranked Homer with Shakespeare: first, for his deep knowledge
of the world -- a tolerant knowledge that could love it, even with
its hollowness and sin; and second, for his ability to see life
impartially, as a witness or spectator, rather than sentimentally
(Wotton Reinfred, p. 96; Essays, I, 245). And in "Burns" (1828),
in addition to saying that Homer surpassed all men in clearness
of sight, he suggested Homer's distinction as a portrayer of es-
sential human feelings universal in all times and places (Essays,
I, 271, 276-77). Thus in 1828 he had at last arrived at a view
in some respects diametrically opposite to the one he had held
in 1820. But Carlyle's most careful, enthusiastic, and reward-
ing study of Homer (in the Greek, with several commentaries)
was to come early in 1834, some years after his interest in the
present History had ended, and just as he was turning away
from the Germans (Glasgow Herald, p. 3; Froude, I, 20; II,
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? 102
EDITOR'S NOTES
326-28; Letters to Mill, pp. 99, 101; Letters of Carlyle, pp.
375, 391, 392; Conway, p. 207).
48. A peddler's image of cloudcapt towers from The Tempest
was the thing that first drew Carlyle to the poetry of William
Shakespeare (1564-1616), in 1806 (Allingham, p. 247). During
the first session at Edinburgh University (1809-1810) he borrow-
ed at least three volumes of Shakespeare from the University
library (Masson, p. 231). By 1814 the dramatist had become
a decided favorite, and Carlyle believed his work always excel-
lent (Wilson, I, 91; Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, I, 5, 10).
As the young man's understanding developed under the influence
of English and German romantic criticism, Shakespeare even-
tually became a touchstone of poetic greatness and wisdom.
The date at which Carlyle acquired the eight-volume Works of
Shakespeare (1761 edition) now at the House in Chelsea is not
certain (Carlyle's House Catalogue, 1896, p. 86). By 1830 his
allusions to Shakespeare are familiar, discriminating, and fre-
quent--in all, more than 80 allusions (9 of them in this History),
to 15 different plays. His love of Hamlet and The Tempest is
most notable, while interest in the sonnets and the romances is
negligible.
49. By October 19, 1827, Carlyle had used this same ques-
tion and assigned it to Father Dominique Bouhours, 1628-1702
(Essays, I, 28-29).
50. In July, 1818, in connection with his early interests in
mathematics and the physical sciences, Carlyle mentioned a
work of Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) on cosmography (Early
Letters of Thomas Carlyle, I, 164-65), and in November, he
referred to Kepler as a noble example for a young man to imi-
tate (ibid. , I, 186). In the fall of 1827 he mentioned together
Kepler and Leibnitz as important Germans (Essay s, I, 28). And
in the spring of 1829, he quoted Kepler's statement showing a
great man's humility about his own great work (Essays. I, 417).
51. Carlyle had in mind the German printer Johann Fust (d.
1466 ? ), an early associate of Gutenberg. Carlyle believed
Fust --whom he called Faust -- was the man who first brought
printing into full use. See Lecture VI of Lectures of 1838, p. 94.
52. The word Gualches, which I do not find in dictionaries,
may be an archaic spelling of a substantive related to the French
adjective Gallois, and to the German Walsch, meaning Italian,
southern, foreign, Welsh.
53. See Publius Cornelius Tacitus (c. 55-after 115), Historiae,
Book II, Ch. XXXII. Since Carlyle's first period of history-
reading (early 1818), he had known Tacitus well (Early Letters
of Thomas Carlyle, I, 143; Froude, I, 20). The fact that Car-
lyle here accepted Tacitus's idealized account of the virtues of
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
103
the early Germans may not have blinded him to the fact that the
Roman historian was thinly veiling under the Germania (as also
under the Agricola) an attack upon the decadence of contemporary
Rome. Indeed, so far as that attack involved moral motivations,
it was much in line with Carlyle's -- and many another modern's
-- interest in primitivism.
^54. Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829), Vorlesungen
uber die neuere Geschichte, Wien, 1811. This etymology occurs
in the Second Lecture: see the Bonn edition of Friedrich Schlegels
Werke, XI (1877), 46.
55. Carlyle was using Johann Jacob Mascov (1689-1761), Ges-
chichte der Teutschen bis zu Anfang der franckischen Monarchic
(Leipzig, 1726) and Geschichte der Teutschen bis zu Abgang der
Merovingischen Konige (Leipzig, 1737), which had been trans-
lated into English by Thomas Lediard as History of the Ancient
Germans and other Northern Nations (London, 1737-1738, 2 vols. ).
Nennius's Nimed eure Sahes occurs on p. 203 of Mascov's 1726
volume, where in a note it is assigned to Leibnitz. Thus Lediard,
Mascov, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) together form-
ed the channel through which a tradition originating in Nennius (? 1,
796), Eulogium Britanniae, sive Historia Britonum (printed 1684),
passed to Carlyle. On January 27, 1830, Carlyle had mentioned
to Macvey Napier his need of Mascov's Geschichte (Napier Cor-
respondence, p. 78).
56. Gaius Sollius Apollinaris Sidonius (c. 430 - probably after
479), probably Epistulae.
57. Carlyle's manuscript leaves blanks for the chapter number
and the book number; the Norton Typescript furnishes the exact
reference. Concerning Carlyle's long and deep interest in the
Lehrjahre, see Note 12.
58. Carlyle's comment here recalls the Erdgeist near the begin-
ning of Goethe's Faust, Part I.
59. The passage concerning Boniface and the Geismar Oak oc-
curs on p. 283 (Book XVI, Chapter 6) of Mascov's 1737 volume.
Since Boniface died in 755, Carlyle's date 850 is a century too
late.
60. Although Carlyle at first translated Tacitus's Latin " clausam
omne ferrum" into the English "every sword is sheathed, " he
immediately crossed out that conventional wording and gave in-
stead the literal "all iron is shut up. "
61. Tacitus, Germania, XL.
62. Carlyle may have owed this idea on the origin of chivalry
to Thomas Warton (1728-1790), The History of English Poetry,
from the Close of the Eleventh to the Commencement of the
Eighteenth Century, London, 1774-1781, 3 vols, and a frag-
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? 104 EDITOR'S NOTES
ment of a 4th vol. (Concerning Warton's thought, see Rene
Wellek, The Rise of English Literary History, p. 190). Car-
lyle had known Warton's book at least since the summer of
1827. At that time Carlyle himself may have had some thoughts
of writing a history of English literature from the time of Chau-
cer. Warton, though far from an adequate model, would (Car-
lyle then thought) give some help in such an undertaking (Two
Note Books, pp. 119-20). And as he started to write this His-
tory of German Literature, he again had a similar estimate of
Warton's work in mind, for he lamented that, among all the
Eichhorns and Wartons, there was still no proper historian of
poetry ("On History, " by April 12, 1830: Essays, II, 94).
The idea that the principle of chivalry was implicit in the
old German social system was easily accessible to Carlyle in
various German works. One striking example is F. Schlegel's
Vorlesungen uber die Geschichte der alten und neuen Litteratur
(Wien, 1815, 2 Thle. ), near the end of Lecture VII. Another is
F. H. Von der Hagen's Der Nibelungen Lied (Erster Band: Der
Nibelungen Noth. Breslau, 1820), Einleitung, p. xxii, where he
says that "das Christliche Ritterthum . . . eine Entwickelung
des heidnischen Heldenthums war. " Von der Hagen's book was
especially useful to Carlyle elsewhere in the present work (see
Note 185).
63. That is, in the account of Marius in Vitae parallelae by
Plutarch (c. 46-after 120). Latin versions of the Vitae were
printed as early as 1740.
64. Tacitus, Germania, VIII.
65. Actually Historiae, Book IV, Chapter LXV.
66. Possibly in Goethe's final edition of Wilhelm Meisters
Wanderjahre (Werke, A. I. H. , 1829).
67. Tacitus, Ger mania, XXIII.
68. German romanticism, which Carlyle is here following,
affected to trace many connections of Western culture with old-
er Oriental culture.
69. Germania, III. Instead of barditum, some editions read
baritum at this point.
70. The passage concerning "die beruhmte Irmenseul . . . zu
Ehresburg" occurs on pp. 102-103 (Bk. IV, Ch. 21) of Mascov's
1726 volume.
71. Concerning Jacob Grimm and Von der Hagen, see Notes
119 and 118 respectively.
72. Brockhaus, Friedrich Arnold (1772-1823), Allgemeine
deutsche Real-encyklopadie fur die gebildeten St'ande (Conver-
sations-Lexikon), Leipzig, 1796-1811, 6 Bde. (7th edition, se-
cond thorough printing, 1830, 12 Bde. ). In the 1830 edition the
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
105
short article on Irmensaule occurs in Vol. V (not Vol. VII), p. 577.
Carlyle had used an early edition by January 31, 1825, while
in London preparing the book version of his Life of Schiller
(Schiller, p. 301). And in the spring of 1826 he again used ma-
terials from it in his biographical sketches of authors included
in his German Romance (Revue Germanique, 1908, p. 302; Lon-
don Mercury, VI, 609). So useful did the work seem to him that
in June, 1828, he asked his brother John in Munich to procure
him a set, at almost any cost (Letters of Carlyle, p. 116). A
set of the 7th edition (Leipzig, 1827, 12 vols: possibly a re-
print? ) did eventually arrive from Munich, a gift from Baron
d'Eichthal; and, as Carlyle's inscription in it says, it proved
very useful at the time (Carlyle House Catalogue, 7th ed. , Item
212). But by a slip of memory Carlyle's inscription -- which
was not written until 1858 -- erroneously suggests that the work
arrived in 1827 (a year before he had authorized John Carlyle
to procure it). Actually at the end of 1829, the last three vol-
umes (from Schubart on) still had not reached Carlyle; and at
the beginning of 1830, as he prepared to write the History of
German Literature, he borrowed six volumes of a set from the
Rev. D. Aitken (Early Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle, pp. 156,
161). During the next nine months, either the three missing
volumes arrived, or Carlyle kept Aitken's volumes, for in Sep-
tember, 1830, Carlyle referred to the article on Franz von
Sickingen in it (Two Note Books, p. 167); also by February 26,
1831, he referred to the article on Worms (Essays, II, 255,
footnote) and by March 2 to the article on Welser (E ssays , II,
314-15, footnote).
73. Concerning the importance of the Northern immigrations
and the fusion of the Northern tradition with Christianity, a
long sentence in Von der Hagen's Per Nibelungen Lied (1820,
Einleitung, p. xxii, of which one clause has already been quoted)
is significant here: "Doch darf man nicht vergessen, das von
Deutschen, durch und seit der Volkerwanderung, auch in den
Walschen Landern, die Gestalt der neuen Welt ausging, und das
Christenthum, wegen ihrer urspriinglich nahern Verwandtschaft
damit, durch sie uberall erst eigentlich wiedergeboren wurde,
und nicht so feindlich gegen sie stand, als etwa gegen ihre antiken
Bekehrer selber, vielmehr so manches Neue in sich aufnahm, und
das somit das Christliche Ritterthum zugleich eine Entwickelung
des heidnischen Heldenthum war. "
Already in 1830, chiefly because of German influences , Car-
lyle was seeing, and attempting to proclaim, the medieval past
as one of the most important phases of mankind's organic his-
torical development. To him, the Northern immigrations, as
the origin of European culture, formed an epoch in world history
that was perhaps second in importance only to the appearance of
Christianity. This stress upon the cultural importance of the
Middle Ages is only one example of several in this history: for
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? 106
EDITOR'S NOTES
example, pp. 46, 68 72, 76 (see also Notes 142, 193, 194, 206).
Thus with the publication of the present History of German Lit-
erature Carlyle becomes a more significant figure in the history
of nineteenth century medieval studies than he has commonly
been considered -- with respect to his factual knowledge, his in-
terpretations, and the influences upon him. (Two recent books
-- Miss Margaret R. Grennan's William Morris: Medievalist
and Revolutionary, New York, King's Crown Press, 1945, pp.
1-23; and Miss Grace J. Calder's The Writing of Past and Pres-
ent, pp. 23-33 --give brief but illuminating accounts of the status
of medieval studies in England during the second quarter of the
nineteenth century. )
74. Concerning Herder's connection with this principle of sur-
vival of the worthiest, see Note 26.
75. In Sartor Resartus (begun shortly after this History was
laid aside, and finished by August 4, 1831), Carlyle was to sug-
gest that the definition of man as a "Cooking Animal" is of
French origin (Sartor, p. 41).
76. Here and at the end of this paragraph, Carlyle's portrayal
of this great vortex of confusion -- in which destruction and con-
struction were wildly mixed as the Northern immigrations swept
over Europe in the early Middle Ages -- is strikingly like his
slightly later portrayal of democracy as it was sweeping over
Europe in his own era (see "Historic Survey of German Poetry,"
finished by January 20, 1831, Essays, II, 369-70). Full aware-
ness of that similarity and of its implications -- for the future as
well as the past, and for the pattern of history-- seems not to
have come to Carlyle until after the entry of the Saint-Simonian
influence late in the summer of 1830. For a discussion, see
Shine, Carlyle and the Saint-Simonians.
77. The character and the writings of Ulrich von Hutten (1488-
1525) Carlyle had regarded favorably since the fall of 1827 (Es-
says, I, 29). In the spring of 1830, he quoted from Epistolae
Obscurorum Virorum (of which Part I is now attributed mainly
to Crotus Rubianus) and again from Opera (Two Note Books, pp.
152-53, 156). I know no way to date Carlyle's acquisition of a
set that he owned of Hutten's Sammtliche Werke, Berlin[and
Leipzig! , 1821-1825, 5 vols. in 4 (Carlyle's House Catalogue,
7th ed. , Item 287). And just what attention he would have given
to Hutten if this History had been completed cannot be deter-
mined either. But in "Historic Survey of German Poetry" he
called Luther and Hutten high Psalmists (Essays, II, 345) and
blamed Taylor for not discussing the latter (Essays, II, 349).
78. Carlyle's early interest in mathematics and the physical
sciences probably accounts for his alluding to Albertus Magnus
(1193? -1280) and Kepler and Leibnitz together.
79. In the fall of 1827 Carlyle mentioned together Gottfried
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
107
Wilhelm Leibnitz (1646-1716) and Kepler as important Germans
(Essays, I, 28). Though he mentioned Leibnitz as a historian
elsewhere in this History (see Note 55), he seems to have re-
garded Leibnitz chiefly as a mathematician (see his 1823 article
"Pascal, " Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, XVI, 333; Wotten Rein-
fred, 3-4[by February 3, 18271 and Essays, I, 28Cby October
19, 1827J). And the only work that he is known to have owned
by Leibnitz was included in the miscellaneous Recueil de di-
verses pieces par Leibnitz, Clarke, Newton, 2 vols. in 1, Am-
sterdam, 1728 (Sotheby Catalogue, Item 106). Though he also
knew something of Leibnitz the philosopher ("Schiller, " Lon-
don Magazine, X, 21 [finished by early February, 1824]; and
Two Note Books, p. 100 [January, 1827]), the suggestions of
monedology found in Carlyle's later writings may have reached
him through Herder. For a note on that last point, see Shine,
"Carlyle and Herder, " p. 23.
80. Though Carlyle's allusions to Goethe (see Note 12) had
been more numerous than to any other figure in literature, his
allusions to Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (1759-
1805) were a close second in number (some 170 allusions, in-
volving some 50 different titles). In the summer of 1820, short-
ly after seriously beginning his German readings, Carlyle ap-
parently procured a 12-volume set of Schiller's Sammtliche
Werke, Stuttgart, 1818 (Sotheby Catalogue, Item 119; Scrib-
ner's Magazine, XIII, 417; Norton's Letters, I, 480-8IJ; tTn-
like some of Goethe's works, most of Schiller's writings were
immediately accessible to Carlyle at his then state of intellectual
development. And for some years thereafter, Schiller was a
great favorite -- Schiller's dramas, his lyrics, and even his es-
thetic essays. From spring, 1823, to early 1825, one of Car-
lyle's main literary activities was the preparation of a biography
of Schiller. And during those two years, the influence of Schil-
ler's esthetic essays led him on toward his brief interest in Ger-
man transcendental philosophy. But as the decade drew to a
close, Carlyle's deep early interest in Schiller gradually gave
way, to some extent, before such figures as Goethe, Richter,
and even Novalis, And by December, 1829, the greatness of
Schiller seemed to be of a simple kind ("Schiller" [not published
until March, 183lj, Essays, II, 171). As Carlyle's own interest
in social and historical thought had developed, Schiller had come
to seem idealistic and remote from life, holy in character rather
than great (II, 193), and partial rather than universal in his po-
etic gifts (II, 198). If Schiller was a devout priest of poetry,
Goethe was a bishop (II, 186). In comparison with Goethe's
genius -- intuitive, all-embracing, instinct with melody -- Schil-
ler's seemed scholastic, divisive, and only partly and artificial-
ly melodious (II, 214). But notwithstanding the heavily qualified
nature of Carlyle's praise , at the end of 1829 the writer of Wil-
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? 108
EDITOR'S NOTES
helm Tell still seemed one of the noblest products of his cen-
tury and of his nation (II, 215).
81. Carlyle's insistence here upon the importance of England's
old Teutonic heritage and upon England's racial and cultural kin-
ship with modern Germany is basically of a piece with his at-
titude in much of his published work both before and after the
writing of this History. And the growing cordiality between the
English-speaking world and Germany during most of the cen-
tury from Waterloo to the first World War owes much to Car-
lyle. But to suggest any cause-and- result relation between Car-
lyle's ardent Teutonism as revealed in 1830 and the brutalities
now sometimes associated with the term Master-race more than
a century later would be uncritical.
82. Carlyle, whose earliest cultural roots were in the eight-
eenth century, had long been aware of the primitivistic, nation-
alistic, and antiquarian tendencies increasingly current during
the preceding 75 years. Much evidence will emerge in the pres-
ent chapter. His interest in the Ideen of Herder, who was among
other things an important German folklorist and a writer on the
origins of language, has already been suggested (see Note 26).
Thomas Percy (1729-1811), Reliques of Ancient English Poetry
(London, 1765, 3 vols. ^), had been familiar to Carlyle for many
years (Two Note Books, p. 127, which page, written in 1828,
lists several other works that he proposed reading on the Mid-
dle Ages; and see Text p. 46). And undoubtedly he knew the
tradition in classical scholarship associated with the work of
Friedrich August Wolf (1759-1824), though his grateful use of
Wolf's Prolegomena ad Home rum (Halle, 1795) cannot be demon-
strated before February^ 1834 (Froude, I, 20; Letters of Car-
lyle, p. 375, note). Concerning the primitivism of Tacitus,
see Note 53.
83. The Miltonic form of this Lucretian thought may be an
echo of Paradise Lost, II, 911. 1
84. In this broad statement Carlyle pays no attention to the
long-established Lithuanian language (but see the end of his
footnote on pp. 28-29). Certain Lithuanian folk-traditions had in-
terested the curious mind of Herder half a century earlier.
And M. G. Lewis's Dying Bride is said to have been partly trans-
lated from Herder's version (in his Volkslieder) of a Lithuanian
ballad.
85. See Milton's "L'Allegro, " line 10.
86. This footnote, obscured by the curled bottom edge of the
sheet, is supplied from the Norton Typescript.
87. Because of the curled bottom edge of the sheet, the date
is not clear; it is supplied from the Norton Type script.
88. Hieronymus, Eusebius (Sofronius) (c. 340-420), Omnium
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? EDITOR'S NOTES
109
Ope rum Divi Eusebii Hieronymi (edited by Erasmus and others),
Basle, 1516-1520, 9 vols. The ultimate source of Carlyle's
quotation is St. Jerome's Epistola CVI, "Ad Sumniam et Fre-
telam" (see Patrologiae Cursus Completus, ed. by J. P. Migne,
Series latina, tomus XXII [Paris, 18 54J, 838, where initial cap-
ital letters are used in Veritatem, Spiritus, and Sancti).
89. Note that Carlyle's statement here does not imply his own
first-hand knowledge of these men's work on Ulfila: Franziskus
Junius (1589-1677), Thomas Marshall (1621-1685), George
Hickes (1642-1715), Johann Ihre (1707-1780), or in the next
paragraph, Isaac Voss (1618-1689).
90. The Codex Argenteus, still at Upsala, should not be de-
scribed as in "an almost useless condition. "
91. At least since the beginning of 1825, Carlyle had used
and valued Karl Heinrich Jordens (1757-1835), Lexikon deutscher
Dichter und Prosaisten, Leipzig, 1806-1811, 6 vols. (Schiller,
p. 171, footnote; Revue Germanique, 1908, p. 307; Essays, I,
2). In March, 1830, while busy with this History of German
Literature, he acquired a set, which, with his manuscript notes
in it, is at the Carlyle House in Chelsea (Letters of Carlyle, p.
157; Carlyle's House Catalogue, 7th ed. . Item 60). Four places
in the present History acknowledge his indebtedness to Jordens.
92. Panciroli, Guido (1523-1599), Rerum memorabilium jam
olim deperditarum, Ambergae, 1599.
93. Johann Joseph Dilschneider's Die Deutsche Sprache in Pro-
ben aus allen Jahrhunderten von Ulphilas bis Gothe, nebst einem
Worterbuche. Koln am Rhein, 1826. Carlyle owned a copy (Car-
lyle's House Catalogue, 7th ed. , Item 309), and he referred to
the work elsewhere in the present History. Carlyle's modern
German translation of the prayer is not quite the same in every
respect as his source: JBrdens, Lexikon, V, 120.
94. In this passage (Matthew, 6:9-13), Streitberg (Gotische
Bibel, Heidelberg, Winter, 1919) regularly uses small letters,
and he has the thorn where Carlyle has th. Also, in line 9,
Streitberg reads himma daga; in line 18, >iudangardi; in line 19,
vuLSus; and in line 19, he omits the punctuation.
95. Carlyle certainly meant banyan, an East Indian tree whose
branches send out aerial roots to form additional trunks. See
the Westminster Review. XV, 4, and Essays, II, 220, with Sar-
tor, p. 40.
96. See Pope's Dunciad, I, 54.
97. Charlemagne's "Thirty Years war with the Heathen-Sax-
ons" lasted 772-804. The missionaries whom Carlyle mentioned
belonged to the seventh and eight centuries. His allusion to the
early nineteenth century "'Missionary Societies' and loud trump-
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? 110
EDITOR'S NOTES
etings" recalls the then notable public interest in various as-
pects of religious foreign missions. For example, from 1809
to 1825 the Quarterly Review averaged an article a year on the
missionaries: the chief contributors of those articles were
Robert Southey, then Poet Laureate, and John Barrow, then
Second Secretary of the Admiralty.
98. In Carlyle's notice of Scottish dow, English doughty, and
German tuchtig and "some have supposed . . . Tugend (Virtue), "
one might possibly read an etymological shoring-up of the prin-
ciple that the worthiest survives in history, and that -- in the long
run -- right and might are thus one. See also Note 26.
99. New English Dictionary says that sept, possibly a variant
of sect, by transfer comes to mean a tribe or class.
100. One may be surprised at the paucity of Carlyle's refer-
ences to Geoffrey Chaucer (1340 ? -1400). Up to this time, his
only reference to a specific work had been to Astrolabe (com-
piled 1391). From it, in spring of 1818, the young mathemati-
cian and scientist quoted a short passage (Early Letters of Thom-
as Carlyle, I, 152).
101. Since the first session in Edinburgh University (1809-1810),
when Carlyle borrowed from the University Library a volume
of the Spectator, he had known something of the writings of Jo-
seph Addison~P"672-1719) (Masson, p. 231). In 1815-1816, in
addition to stating his high general regard for Addison's writ-
ings, he read some of the Freeholder and then a volume and a
half of the Spectator (Conway, pp. T52-63; Early Letters of
Thomas Carlyle, I, 69-70; see also Essays, I, 3j! And cer-
tainly by the spring of 1823 he knew Cato (London Magazine, VIII,
390; see also Essays, I, 213).
102. In June, 1827, Carlyle found in both Sir Thomas Browne
(1605-1682) and Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) that excellence of
the inmost nature which confers immortality upon their writings,
even though their ways of thought have long ceased to be the same
as ours (Essays, I, 24-25; see also Essays, II, 67, for similar
comment on Taylor alone). Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemic a
Carlyle knew to some extent as early as July, 1824 (Two Note
Books, p. 67). But the main reading of Browne came at the end
of 1826, when Carlyle read with care through Religio Medici,
Urne-Buriall, and The Garden of Cyrus. The first he found the
most readable; the second, especially at the end, seemed ab-
solutely beautiful; the third he liked least of the four works he then
knew; but he quoted passages from both the Buriall and The Gar-
den; and in the same month he took some biographical notes on
the author who had just impressed him so strongly (Two Note
Books, pp. 67-69, 90). The last two sentences of Carlyle's long
footnote on etymologies (p. 29 ) may be an echo of a famous pas-
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-11-14 09:12 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/uc1. $b781466 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? EDITOR'S NOTES
111
sage in Urne-TBuriall.
103. If the present sentence seems an oversimplified state-
ment, the qualifications suggested in the two succeeding sen-
tences should be considered along with it. Carlyle of course
well knew that language, like all human institutions, is the pro-
duct of never-completed process rather than of fiat. Though
the study of German philology has greatly advanced since the
date of Carlyle's writing, scholars continue to recognize Lu-
ther's importance in helping to establish High German.
104. Carlyle made a number of early allusions to Immanuel
Kant (1724-1804) and Kantism, from March, 1821, until Sep-
tember, 1826 (Early Letters of Thomas Carlyle, I, 332-33;
Two Note Books, pp. 41-42, 45; London Magazine, X, 21-22;
Schiller, pp. 113-14; German Romance, T, 261-62). But they
should not be taken as proof that at that time he had actually
read anything by the German philosopher. During those five
years, and to a great extent thereafter, he seems to have relied
upon intermediaries.
