immortality brought to light by the gospel," and by it conveyed to the hut of the poorest man, to awaken his crushed intelligence and lighten the load of his misery. Mr. Carlyle slights, after his contemptuous fashion, the poetry of his contemporaries: one of them has uttered in song some practical wisdom which he would do well to heed "O thou that after toil and storm May'st seem to have reached a purer air, Nor cares to fix itself to form, "Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, "Her faith through form is pure as thine, "See thou, that countest reason ripe And even for want of such a type." This life of Sterling will be useful to the class whose beliefs have given way before Mr. Carlyle's destroying energies; because it furnishes hints, not to be mistaken though not obtrusive, as to the extent to which they must be prepared to go if they would really be his disciples. If the path has in its very dangers an attraction for some, while others are shudderingly repelled, in either case the result is desirable, as it is the absence of certainty which causes the pain and paralyzes the power of action. At any rate, the doctrines of this teacher must be so much more intelligible to the mass when applied, as they are here, in commentary upon a life all whose details are familiar, because it is the life of a contemporary and a countryman, that all who read must inevitably be impressed with that great lesson of the philosophic poet— "The intellectual power through words and things Goes sounding on, a dim and perilous way." Though John Sterling is of course the principal figure in the composition, and Mr. Carlyle's treatment the great attraction of the book, yet the figures in the background will be those to make most impression on the general reader. Coleridge stands there in striking but caricatured likeness; and even his most devoted admirers will not be sorry to see a portrait of their master by such a hand: and all will curiously observe the contrast between the sarcastic bitterness which colours the drawing of the philosophic Christian, and the kindly allowance through which the character of John Sterling's father, the famous "Thunderer" of the Times, is delineated. We half suspect that Coleridge would have appeared to Mr. Carlyle a much greater man, if he had allowed him to declaim" Harpocrates-Stentor," as Sterling calls him-with trumpet voice and for time unlimited on the divine virtues of Silence. There are besides, as in all Mr. Carlyle's works, passages of wise thought expressed in most felicitous language: of which not the least important is this advice given to Sterling in reference to his poetic aspirations. "You can speak with supreme excellence; sing with considerable excellence you never can. And the Age itself, does it not, beyond most ages, demand and require clear speech; an Age incapable of being sung to, in any but a trivial manner, till these convulsive agonies and wild revolutionary overturnings readjust themselves? Intelligible word of command, not musical psalmody and fiddling, is possible in this fell storm of battle. Beyond all ages, our Age admonishes whatsoever thinking or writing man it has: Oh speak to me, some wise intelligible speech; your wise meaning, in the shortest and clearest way; behold, I am dying for want of wise meaning, and insight into the devouring fact: speak, if you have any wisdom! As to song so-called, and your fiddling talent,- -even if you have one, much more if you have none, we will talk of that a couple of centuries hence, when things are calmer again. Homer shall be thrice welcome; but only when Troy is taken: alas, while the siege lasts, and battle's fury rages everywhere, what can I do with the Homer? I want Achilleus and Odysseus, and am enraged to see them trying to be Homers!" These bricks from Babylon convey but scanty intimation of the varied interest of the book. However the readers of it may differ from its opinions, they cannot but find, even in Mr. Carlyle's mis judgments and prejudices, ample matter for serious reflection for if he misjudges, it is generally because he is looking too intently at a single truth, or a single side of a truth; and such misjudgments are more suggestive than the completest propositions of a less earnest, keen-sighted, and impassioned thinker. He is indeed more a prophet than a logician or a man of science. And one lesson we may all learn from this, as from everything he writes,—and it is a lesson that interferes with no creed, that honesty of purpose, and resoluteness to do and to say the thing we believe to be the true thing, will give heart to a man's life, when all ordinary motives to action and all ordinary supports of energy have failed like a rotten reed. S "ESMOND." Esmond is an autobiographical memoir of the first five-and-thirty years of the life of an English gentleman of family, written in his old age after his retirement to Virginia; and edited with an introduction by his daughter, for the instruction and amusement of her children and descendants, and to give them a lively portrait of the noble gentleman her father. It is historical, inasmuch as political events enter both as motives to the actors and as facts influencing their fortunes, and because historical personages are brought upon the scene: both are necessary elements in the career of a gentleman and a soldier, but neither forms the staple or the main object of the book, which concerns itself with the characters and fortunes of the noble family of Castlewood, of which Henry Esmond is a member. The period embraced is from the accession of James the Second |