CARLYLE AS A PROPHET [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Snt,—If the word be taken in its original meaning, there can be no doubt that Carlyle was, as your correspondent suggests, a "great prophet," but if any power, real or imaginary, of fore- telling the future be attached to it, I think it will be found that the vaticinations of his later life have, for the most part, for- tunately not been fulfilled. In September, 1870, he writes : " Germany, from of old, has been the peaceablest, most pious, and in the end most valiant and terriblest of nations. Germany ought to be President of Europe, and will again it seems, be tried with that office for another five centuries or so." Three years later he thus expresses in the pages of his Journal the view he took of European politics " More and more dreary, barren, base, and ugly seem to me all the aspects of this poor diminish- ing quack world—fallen openly anarchic—doomed to a death which one can only wish to be speedy " (1)—I am, Sir, &c., Eastbourne. WALTER CRICK.
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