MR. ASQUITH ON CARLYLE.
[To THE EDTTOR or THE "SPECTATOR.") SLE,—As an admirer of the works of that mucsh maligned and misquoted man, Thomas Carlyle, I should like to point out the injustice done to him in a fairly recent publication which has just penetrated to this remote part of the world. I refer to a passage in Mr. Asquith's " Criticism" in his Occasional Addresses, 2893:1916. Here he lakes Carlyle's review of the Life of Scott as " a notable instance of blurred and distorted vision." After selecting a few scattered phrases referring to the question of Scott's greatness, completely stripped of the argument of their contests, and stringing them together so that they appear in the most damaging light, he ends by suggesting that Carlyle damned Scott's work as the opening of the floodgates to "a Noali's deluge of ditchwuter." I would suggest, in the find place, that a fair-minded person reading the review right through cannot but be impressed with the beauty and truth of it as a whole, although he may take excep- tion to individual passages. And secondly, he will agree that the last quotation, which concludes an animadversion on people who boast of the speed of their writing, was never intended to, and does not, refer to Scott or his works, "whose joyous picturesqueness and fellow feeling, freedom of eye and heart "—Carlyle says—" prove Scott to have been amongst the foremost writers."—I am, Sir, Ac., leppo. A. W. G. EITHAKE, Lieut. R.E.
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