Carlyle seldom studied a political question thoroughly, and of public men with whom he was acquainted only through the newspapers he was no judge.
Personal contact produced estimates which, though they might be harsh, hasty, and unfair, were always interesting, and sometimes marvellously accurate.

Of Peel, for instance, though he saw him very seldom, he has left a finished portrait, not omitting the great Minister's humour, for any trace of which the Peel papers may be searched in vain.
-- * "Both he and she were noble and generous, but his was the soft heart and hers the stern one."-- -Carlyle's Life in London, vol.ii.p.

171.
-- The same can be said of Thirlwall, barring the groundless insinuation that he was dishonest in accepting a bishopric.

A very different sort of bishop, Samuel Wilberforce, Carlyle liked for his cleverness, though here too he could not help suggesting that on the foundation, or rather baselessness, of the Christian religion, "Sam" agreed with him.

The great historian of the age he did not appreciate at all.