Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/964

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by time—to the present, with its tumults, discord, and wrong, he addresses it in words of impatient anger. This mood has grown upon him. His accents come to us oftener in the thunder and the whirlwind, more rarely in the still small voice. We have had less in recent years of the sublime hopefulness that illumines "Sartor Resartus,"—that most beautiful of all his works, "written in star fire and immortal tears," so rich in tenderness and grace, full of all sights and sounds and modes of melody. Turning from this to the scorn and mockery of the "Latter Day Pamphlets," we are impressed with a somewhat saddening contrast. It is as if he who had led us so far on the way had himself lapsed backward into the Everlasting No. Loss of temper is not loss of faith; but the gloom which pervades some of Carlyle's later writings goes deeper than loss of temper. The "riddle of the painful earth" weighs too heavily upon him. The pressure of infinity itself threatens to overwhelm his liberty; the old doubts ever and anon recur, and the shadow of a dreary fatalism seems to pass over his mind. But the doubts are never quite victorious. There is a profound sense in the remark of one who loved him—He is never at rest in his fatalism, and while he resists it, it is not fatalism. It is a struggle, "yet a struggle never ended, ever with true unconquerable purpose begun anew." His fiery unrest is a sign of the presence and conflict of the spirit of freedom, and an unwearied will.

We have accorded a greater length to this than is generally due to contemporary notices, from a sense of the paramount influence Carlyle's works are exercising, and are long destined to exercise, on the whole speculation of the age. They have already made a deeper impression on the literature of England than the works of any writer who has lived for a century. They have done much to mould some of the best thinkers in America; and are extending their influence to the continent of Europe. Thomas Carlyle has been, by his advice and guidance, the Greatheart to many a pilgrim. Not a few could speak in the words of the friend whose memory he has so affectionately preserved:—"Towards me it is still more time than towards England, that no man has been and done like you." He is one of those regarding whom we are constrained to acknowledge, after all is said that can be said about their works, the man is mightier than them all.—J. N.

CARMAGNOLA, Francesco, a celebrated Italian general, was born in Piedmont about the year 1390. His original name was Busone, but after his elevation he assumed the designation of Carmagnola, from the place of his nativity. In his youth he was a swineherd, but enlisted as a private soldier in the service of Philip Maria Visconti, duke of Milan. His courage and abilities attracted the notice of that prince, who made him commander-in-chief of his army. His brilliant successes soon showed the wisdom of the choice. Carmagnola inflicted several severe defeats on the enemies of the duke, restored to him the whole of Lombardy, and afterwards added to his dominions Piacenza, Brescia, Bergamo, and other towns, and made him the most powerful prince in Italy. In return for these important services, Philip created him Count of Castelnuovo, gave him in marriage one of his natural daughters, and made him governor of Genoa. These honours, and the great wealth he had accumulated, raised up many enemies to the fortunate soldier, and excited the jealousy of the duke, who was of a dark and suspicious temper. In 1424 he deprived Carmagnola of his military command, and refused to listen to his defence, or even to grant him an audience. Indignant at this treatment, the count immediately quitted the territory of Milan, and ultimately repaired to Venice, and revealed to the senate the intrigues and ambitious designs of Philip, who meanwhile had confiscated the immense possessions of Carmagnola, and had sent an assassin to murder him. War was immediately resolved on against Visconti, and Carmagnola was appointed commander-in-chief of the united army of Venetians and Florentines. In the campaigns of 1426 and 1427 he was eminently successful, and the duke was compelled to purchase peace in 1428, by ceding to the Venetians Brescia, Bergamo, and one half of the province of Cremona. But in 1431, war having again broken out between Venice and Philip, Carmagnola was appointed to his former office, but met with various reverses, which excited the suspicion of the Venetian senate, and he was eventually invited to Venice, for the purpose, it was pretended, of assisting the government with his advice. On his arrival he was received with marked distinction, and conducted to the ducal palace, where he was suddenly arrested, charged with treason, put to the torture, and then beheaded on the 5th of May, 1432. Considerable diversity of opinion prevails as to the question of Carmagnola's guilt or innocence; but the base treachery of the Venetian senators cannot be too severely condemned.—J. T.

CARMATH or CARMATHI, the founder of the sect of Carmathians among the Mahommedans of the tenth century. He belonged originally to the sect of the Ismaili, but openly avowing and carrying to excess their infamous secret doctrines, he at length separated from their chief, and founded the sect which bears his name, and which existed for some time after his death.—J. B.

CARMELI, Michel Angelo, a distinguished Greek and Hebrew scholar, born at Cittadella, near Vicenza, in 1686; died in 1766. He entered the Franciscan order, and became professor of theology and sacred history. Carmeli translated Euripides into Italian verse in a style which Piattoni has pronounced classic. On the subject of this translation the author had to maintain a long controversy with Reiske. He has also left a translation of Aristophanes' Pluto, and a version from the Hebrew of Ecclesiastes and the Canticles. A complete list of his works, which are exceedingly numerous, is given by Tipaldo.—A. C. M.

CARMICHAEL, Gerrhom, a Scottish minister at Monimail, Fifeshire, and afterwards professor of moral philosophy in Glasgow university, was born in 1682, and died in 1738. He wrote some learned notes on Puffendorf's De Officiis Hominis. His son Frederick—born in 1708; died in 1751—succeeded his father in Monimail, became afterwards one of the ministers of Edinburgh, and left a volume of elegant sermons.—J. B.

CARMICHAEL, James, a practical engineer, well known as the inventor of the fan-blowing machines, was born in Glasgow in 1776. In 1810 he became a partner with his brother Charles, who had commenced business as a millwright in Dundee some years before. The brothers soon became famous as ingenious workmen, and were reputed especially successful in the construction of stationary engines. In 1821 they constructed the first twin steamboat for the ferry across the Tay at Dundee. For this vessel James invented an apparatus commonly described as reversing gear, which entitles him to honourable mention among the improvers of steam navigation. In 1829 Mr. Carmichael succeeded, after numerous experiments, in constructing his fan-blast, and with a liberality of which there are few examples, declined to patent the invention. He died in 1853.—J. S., G.

CARMICHAEL, Richard, M.R.I.A., for many years a surgeon of the first eminence in Dublin, was the fourth son of Hugh Carmichael, solicitor in that city, and was born on the 6th of February, 1779. After graduating in the schools of the College of Surgeons in Ireland, he was appointed to the Wexford militia. In 1803 he settled as a practitioner in Dublin, and was in the same year elected surgeon to St. George's hospital and dispensary, where his attention was particularly directed to the nature and treatment of cancerous disease. This was the subject of his first publication, an essay which appeared in 1806, and was reprinted in 1809. In 1810 he published an essay on scrofula, and in the course of that year was nominated one of the surgeons to the Lock hospital. This appointment led to the appearance of the great work in which he put forward his ideas on the use and abuse of mercury—views which have undoubtedly ever since modified the practice of the profession, in the therapeutic employment of that mineral. In 1816 Mr. Carmichael was appointed one of the surgeons of the Richmond, Hardwicke, and Whitworth hospital, which, office he resigned in 1836. He continued, however, as consultant surgeon to the institution up to the period of his death, and in that capacity gave from time to time clinical lectures on his favourite subjects—scrofula, cancerous diseases, and syphilis. In 1826 Mr. Carmichael, in conjunction with Dr. Robert Adams and the late Mr. M'Dowell, founded the "Richmond," now known as the "Carmichael" school of medicine. To this school he gave annually during the last eight years of his life, the sum of £50 to be distributed in premiums to the students, and by his will he left £2000 as a premium fund. He also left £8000, under certain regulations, for the improvement of the school. In 1808 Mr. Carmichael was one of the censors, and a member of the court of examiners of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and in 1813, 1826, and 1846, he filled the office of president of the college. He was also a member of the Royal Irish Academy, and of the Royal Dublin Society; and in February, 1835, he