Page:Works of Thomas Carlyle - Volume 26.djvu/18

Rh shining example of him, Carlyle believed himself to have found in the person of his Excellency, Citizen Dr. José Gaspar Rodriguez Francia.

No doubt it was a selection which took some defending, and Carlyle is often as hard put to it to keep his idol on his pedestal as he was afterwards to maintain, in an erect position, that savage and half-insane old grenadier, the father of Frederick the Great. But the paradox of the eulogy and the perversity of the eulogist only lend additional piquancy to the performance. The whole story of the unscrupulous and victorious struggle of the Dictator with his rivals and his subjects, and of the twenty years of absolute and, in the main, beneficent rule which followed upon his triumph, is related with extraordinary spirit and vigour, and leaves behind it in the mind of the reader a vivid and enduring picture of the man. Moreover, the scenic surroundings not only of Francia's own life, but of the turbulent drama of South American politics during the decline and down to the fall of the Transatlantic Empire of Spain, had fired Carlyle's imagination; and there are certain pages descriptive of San Martin's march over the Andes into Chili which will bear comparison with the author's finest efforts in this particular style. The whole account of the expedition, brief as it is, is a masterpiece of the Carlylean picturesque. But in truth there is no great writer, not even Macaulay, whose studies of character and sketches of historic figures are more worthy to stand side by side with his larger canvases than are those of Carlyle. The temperament and even the genius of Voltaire were hopelessly antipathetic to him, and his essay on the great French philosophe suffers in consequence, exciting the reader's protest as, for opposite reasons, does the brilliant monograph on Mirabeau; but no one, however little disposed to accept his view of Voltaire as complete or satisfactory, can fail to appreciate the surpassing dexterity of the portrait. The 'Diderot,' though less striking, is still a vigorous piece of work; 'Cagliostro' and 'The Diamond Necklace,' are as good as the best