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AN AMERICAN MOUSE.

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and a Christmas gift to his mother, which he sent with a most pretty letter.

To Margaret Carlyle, Scotsbrig.

Chelsea: December 29, 1838.

I have realised my American draft of dollars into pounds sterling. I send my dear Mother five off the fore end of it. The kitlin ought to bring the auld cat a mouse in such a case as that-an American mouse. It is very curious that cash should come in that way to good Annandale industry across 3,000 miles of salt water from kind hands that we never saw. 'French Revolution' is going off briskly, and a new edition required. Both from the Miscellanies' and it I hope to make a little cash. I understand the method of bargaining better now, and the books do sell-no thanks to booksellers, or even in spite of them. It does not seem at all likely that I shall ever have much money in this world; but I am not now so terribly hard held as I used to be. Such bitter thrift may perhaps be less imperative by-and-by.

Out of the suggestions made by editors for articles one especially had attracted Carlyle. Mill had asked him to write on Cromwell for the London and Westminster.' There is nothing in his journals or letters to show that Cromwell had been hitherto an interesting figure to him. An allusion in one of his Craigenputtock papers shows that he then shared the popular prevailing opinions on the subject. He agreed, however, to Mill's proposal, and was preparing to begin with it when the negotiation was broken off in a manner specially affronting. Mill had gone abroad, leaving Mr. Robertson to manage the Review. Robertson, whom Carlyle had hitherto liked, wrote to him coolly to say that he need not go on, for he meant to do Cromwell himself.' Carlyle was very angry. It was

this incident which determined him to throw himself seriously into the history of the Commonwealth, and to expose himself no more to cavalier treatment from 'able editors.' His connection with the London and Westminster' at once ended.

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Have nothing to do with fools (he said). They are the fatal species. Nay, Robertson, withal, is fifteen years younger than I. To be edited' by him and by Mill and the Benthamic formula! Oh heavens! It is worse than Algiers and Negro Guiana. Nothing short of death should drive a white man to it.

From this moment he began to think seriously of a life of Oliver Cromwell as his next important undertaking, whatever he might have to do meanwhile in the way of lectures or shorter papers.

To Margaret Carlyle, Scotsbrig.

Chelsea: January 13, 1839.

I dare say I mentioned that I was not intending to work any further at present in the Westminster Review,' but to write by-and-by something more to my mind. I have my face turned partly towards Oliver Cromwell and the Covenant time in England and Scotland, and am reading books and meaning to read more for the matter, for it is large and full of meaning. But what I shall make of it, or whether I shall make anything at all, it would be premature to say as yet. The only thing clear is that I have again some notion of writing, which I had not at all last year or the year before—a sign doubtless that I am getting into heart again, and not so utterly bewildered and beaten down as I was at the conclusion of the 'Revolution' struggle. Anything that I write now would tell better than former things, and I think indeed would be pretty sure to bring me in a trifle of money in the long run. . . . You may picture us sitting snug here most evenings in stuffed chairs,' in this warm little parlour, reading, or reading and sewing, or talking with some rational visitor that has perhaps

BOOKS ON CROMWELL.

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dropped in. Some people say I ought to get a horse with my American money before lecture-time, and ride, that I might be in better bodily condition for that enterprise. I should like it right well if it were not so dear. We shall see.

Want of books was his great difficulty, with such a subject on hand as the Commonwealth. His Cambridge friends had come to his help by giving him the use of the books in the University Library, and sending them up for him to read. Very kind on their part, as he felt, 'considering what a sulky fellow he was.' But he needed resources of which he could avail himself more freely. The British Museum was, of course, open to him; but he required to have his authorities at hand, where his own writing-tackle lay round him, where he could refer to them at any moment, and for this purpose the circulating libraries were useless. New novels, travels, biographies, the annual growth of literature which to-day is and tomorrow is cast into the oven-these he could get; but the records of genuine knowledge, where the permanent thoughts and doings of mankind lay embalmed, were to be found for the most part only on the shelves of great institutions, could be read only there, and could not be taken out. Long before, when at Craigenputtock, it had occurred to him that a county town like Dumfries, which maintained a gaol, might equally maintain a public library. He was once at Oxford in the library of All Souls' College, one of the best in England, and one (in my day at least) so little used that, if a book was missed from its place, the whole college was in consternation.1 Carlyle,

1 The Fellows might take books to their rooms, but so seldom did take them there that any other explanation seemed more likely.

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looking wistfully at the ranged folios, exclaimed: Ah books, books! you will have a poor account to give. of yourselves at the day of judgment. Here have you been kept warm and dry, with good coats on your backs, and a good roof over your heads; and whom have ye made any better or any wiser than he was before?' Cambridge, more liberal than Oxford, did lend out volumes with fit securities for their safety, and from this source Carlyle obtained his Clarendon and Rushworth; but he determined to try whether a public lending library of authentic worth could not be instituted in London. He has been talked of vaguely as 'unpractical.' No one living had a more practical business talent when he had an object in view for which such a faculty was required. He set on foot an agitation.1 The end was recognised as good. Influential men took up the question, and it was carried through, and the result was the infinitely valuable institution known as the London Library' in St. James's Square. Let the tens of thousands who, it is to be hoped, are made better and wiser' by the books collected there remember that they owe the privilege entirely to Carlyle. The germ of it lay in that original reflection of his on the presence of a gaol and the absence of a library in Dumfries. His successful effort to realise it in London began in this winter of 1839.

Meanwhile a third remittance from America on the Revolution' brought the whole sum which he had received from his Boston friends to 150l. He

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1 Among the persons whom he tried to interest was Babbage, whom he did not take to. Did you ever see him ?' he writes to his brother; ‘a mixture of craven terror and venomous-looking vehemence; with no chin too-cross between a frog and a viper, as somebody called him.'

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felt it deeply, for as yet not a penny had been realised in England.' In acknowledging the receipt, he said. that he had never received money of which he was more proud. 'It had been sent almost by miracle.' He showed the draft to Fraser, his English publisher, and told him he ought to blush.

The poor creature did blush, but what could that serve? He has done with his edition too, all but seventy-five copies. Above a thousand pounds has been gathered from England from that book, but none seems to belong to the writer; it all belongs to other people--the sharks. They charge above 40 per cent., I find, for the mere function of selling a book, the mere fash of handing it over the counter.

A strange reflection, to which, however, the publishers have an answer; for, if some books sell, others fail, and the successful must pay for the unsuccessful. Without publishers and without booksellers, books could not be brought out at all; and they, too, must 'earn their living.'

Few men cared less about such things than Carlyle did as long as penury was kept from his door. Apart from his business with the London Library, he was wholly occupied with the records of the Commonwealth, and here are the first impressions which he formed.

To John Carlyle.

Chelsea February 15, 1839.

I have read a good many volumes about Cromwell and his times; I have a good many more to read. Whether a book will come of it or not-still more, when such will come -are questions as yet. The pabulum this subject yields me is not very great. I find it far inferior in interest to my French subject. But, on the whole, I want to get acquainted

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