Carlyle
a brougham. Few men have left on the whole so unimpeachable a record in
money matters.
In November 1854 there occurred an incident hitherto unrecorded in any
biography. The Lord Rectorship of the University of Glasgow having fallen
vacant, the "Conservative Club" of the year had put forward Mr. Disraeli
as successor to the honorary office. A small body of Mr. Carlyle's
admirers among the senior students on the other side nominated him,
partly as a tribute of respect and gratitude, partly in opposition to
a statesman whom they then distrusted. The nomination was, after much
debate, adopted by the so-called "Liberal Association" of that day;
and, with a curious irony, the author of the _Latter-Day Pamphlets_ and
_Friedrich II._ was pitted, as a Radical, against the future promoter of
the Franchise of 1867 as a Tory. It soon appeared that his supporters
had underestimated the extent to which Mr. Carlyle had offended Scotch
theological prejudice and outraged the current Philanthropy. His name
received some sixty adherents, and had ultimately to be withdrawn. The
nomination was received by the Press, and other exponents of popular
opinion, with denunciations that came loudest and longest from the
leaders of orthodox Dissent, then arrogating to themselves the profession
of Liberalism and the initiation of Reform. Among the current expressions
in reference to his social and religious creeds were the following:--
Carlyle's philanthropy is not that of Howard, his cure for
national distress is to bury our paupers in peat bogs, driving
wooden boards on the top of them.
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