William Allingham’s diary, 1875

Walk with Carlyle to Piccadilly. He said, ' Froude's History of England is too long, ought to be melted down to a third part. Fr. is hardly just to Elizabeth, has…

Helen and I call at Cheyne Row about half past ten in the evening — show him proof of Early Kings of Norway^ second article. (He is particular to the minutest…

Carlyle calls at my house about 4. I go with him in omnibus to Oxford Circus, and we walk to Wells Street for Samuel Laurence's Studio. The painter is gone for the…

C. spoke of Sydney Smith, to whom he was able to give no praise at all. ' The nature of true Wit is very much misunderstood. Sydney said nothing worth remembering.…

With Carlyle and Dr. John Carlyle to Hyde Park Corner. Ruskin's pamphlet on the Royal Academy — ' more coherent and reasonable than some he has written. ' I never…

To Cheyne Row about 10.15 ^^ the evening. Carlyle, Dr. C, Mary. My sketch of Campbell to Bell's new edition. C. praised it on the whole, but thought me ' rather…

C, the Dr. and I walk. C. : ' Michelet — very wise and truthful — a curious kind of historian — puts in a good deal of strulduddery.' Bradlaugh and Kenealy —…

Back from Eastbourne — at C.'s 3.20. Carlyle and Mary back from Keston Lodge. C. and I go out, rain, shelter in public-house, allowed with scant civility, and then…

C.'s. Walk with him to Piccadilly. Goethe's Spriiche very hard to translate. * I found, when I was translating from the German writers that each man has a tune :…

Helen went to Carlyle's to-day at 2, to go on with his portrait. Browning came in. Lately returned from Normandy. Had read in the news- papers of C.'s being ill —…

On my way to Cheyne Row saw Carlyle and Lecky in King's Road walking along, C. looking small beside L., who overtopped and bent over C. in speaking and listening.…

C. returned to Shelley again to-day, a subject I would fain avoid with him. ' Shelley had not the least poetic faculty. I never could read anything he wrote. It was…