He read it so loud that Mr. Bang could not help gentleman inside that he might see a specimen of looking up for a moment from his own letter. what English cottages used to be in the beautiful old

times, and while we went inside Nanny must have gone by."

"Have you any letters addressed to the Vicarage?" inquired David.

"Yes, a power of 'em, sir. Here is one, the address is-"

"Never mind the address, my good woman. Here, give me all those letters, and let me take mine." Thus speaking, he seized on all the letters from Nanny's lap, passed them rapidly through his fingers like a hand of cards, gave a glance at each, put one by one into his pocket, till he had only three remaining, one of which was for Mr. Crypt, and the other two for Mr. Underwood. These he gave back to her immediately.

"Will you walk in and take breakfast ?" asked Martha.

"No, I thank you. I am waited for at the Vicarage. But I will just say how do you do.' Your father not down yet? Is he, perchance, indisposed?"

"Not seriously, I hope; but I own we are anxious about him. He sat up very late last night."

"If you will allow me, I will see him, Miss Underwood. I am a physician. I think I can administer something that will speedily restore him to health.” "Thank you, sir. He is asleep now," said Martha. "No, hark! that is his step over head. He is getting up. I may go and see how he gets on now," said Jack, eagerly, "may'nt I, Martha ?"

"Certainly! He will be glad to see you." "Now then, Nanny! look sharp!" cried Jack, "give me all father's letters."

66

abuse, more than the praise, has furthered the sale of the book, and in this way it has been a public benefit. For, much as we desire to get foolish and bad books out of the way, still more do we desire to see good books-books stamped with truc genius, lying in every one's way. The new Life of Sterling" is full of genius from beginning to end, though written in "a very swift and immediate" style, as its author says. In addition to that, it is one of the best biographies ever written-the very flower and model of biographical writing. Not giving you a catalogue raisonnée of the man's qualities and mental possessions, and a dry husky narrative of the events of his life,—which is all that most biographers do for their subject; but giving you the very spirit of the life itself, so that the real man lives before you, instead of being dissected. Comparisons may be odious, but they are elucidative also. If any candid competent reader will compare this swiftly-written compact and brief "Life of John Sterling," with other biographies sent forth during the last twenty years or so, they will find some light thrown on the question,

what a biography ought and ought not to be." Take up the voluminous lives of Byron, Southey, the Duke of Wellington, Dr. Chalmers, not to mention others lacking the merit which these have, and see how ineffectual they are as representations of the men,-how tedious, how devoid of what the intelligent reader most desires to know; how utterly unlike the brilliant, lifelike, artistic picture which Carlyle has | given us of his friend! The face and figure smile out from the canvas, making the hearts that knew and "And perhaps, young sir," said the Strange Gentle-loved him in life beat high with a sort of melancholy man, “you will give your father this little note from me, and say I'm waiting here in hopes of seeing him." After Jack had disappeared, all eyes turned on the Strange Gentleman. Even those persons who had letters in their hands looked from them to him as if they were viséeing a passport. He was looking intently at a portrait of the late Mrs. Underwood which hung over the mantel-piece. Somehow, no one seemed to have much appetite for breakfast; and yet, as our readers know, they had most of them been early risers. They seemed to be expecting something. If they expected Mr. Underwood to come down, they were doomed to disappointment.

(To be continued.)

CARLYLE'S LIFE OF STERLING.'

DURING the fall of the past year this beautiful tribute to the memory of his deceased friend was published by one of the greatest men in the country. Because he is one of the greatest men in the country, and because the book has been much abused as well as much praised, the general public are curious to know what mauner of man was this friend on whom he has bestowed a Biography, and thus the first edition is already exhausted. Probably the

(1) "The Life of John Sterling. By Thomas Carlyle." Chapman and Hall. Piccadilly.

delight as they contemplate the picture; while those who knew him only by hearsay, and even those who never heard of him till now, are struck by a certain vital power and truth which seems to temper and direct the artistic skill, and they think within themselves-Ah! that must be an admirable likeness, as well as a noble piece of painting! In short, this book is among biographies, what portraits by Titian, Velasques and Rembrandt are in painting. The "Life of Schiller" is, perhaps, as correct in drawing; but the flesh-tints are not so life-like, so fresh, blooming and encarnadine. They could not be; for Schiller was not to Carlyle the friend that is dearer than a brother, as Sterling was.

His reason for writing this life at all he gives at the commencement of the book, thus

"Near seven years ago, a short while before his death, in 1844, John Sterling committed the care of his lite rary character and printed writings to two friends, Archdeacon Hare and myself. His estimate of the bequest was far from overweening; to few men could the small sum-total of his activities in this world seem more inconsiderable, than in those last solemn days it did to him. He had burnt much; found much unworthy; looking stedfastly into the silent continents of death and eternity, a brave man's judgments about his own sorry work in the field of Time are not apt to be too lenient. But, in fine, here was some portion of his work which the world had already got hold of, and which he could not burn. This, too, since it was not to be abolished and annihilated, but must still for some

time live and act, he wished to be wisely settled, as the rest had been. And so it was left in charge to us, the survivors, to do for it what we judged fittest, if indeed doing nothing did not seem the fittest to us. This message, communicated after his decease, was naturally

a sacred one to Mr. Hare and me."

The doing nothing in the matter, it is clear, did seem fittest to Mr. Carlyle, but other considerations induced him to agree to the proposition that Archdeacon Hare should write a life of Sterling, and edit a collection of his published papers and remains. Ilis "Life and Remains" we read two years ago, and can testify that it is a careful, affectionate piece of work, saying what the author thought and wished to think of his sometime pupil and much loved friend; but that it is not what Carlyle or any one who knew the whole of Sterling's nature could accept as a true account of him.

for all accounts of him and his gentle ways and evils of our lot to have lived, though but as a glorious talk. We have reckoned it among the child, in his life-time, and never to have seen "the noticeable man with large grey eyes," or to have listened to the rhythmic ebb and flow of the multitudinous billows of his eloquent talk. We were not prepared to receive readily any disparagement of Coleridge; and on first reading the chapter by Carlyle, of which the following extracts will give some idea, we were disposed to think it must be all wrong, and that from the Carlylean point of view no right conception of Coleridge was to be obtained.

"He distinguished himself to all who ever heard him as at least the most surprising talker extant in this world-and to some small minority, by no means to all, the most excellent. The good man, he was now getting old, towards sixty perhaps ; and The two first chapters are occupied with the child-gave you the idea of a life that had been full of sufferhood and boyhood, and are singularly interesting as indications of the light, and warmth, and tenderness that there is in Carlyle himself.-How he talks of Captain Edward Sterling, "The Thunderer of the 'Times' Newspaper," John's father; of his loving, sensitive, and withal sensible mother; of their migrations and changes; of little John and his brother Anthony, the only ones left of a numerous young flock,-of the death of those little ones, and its effect on John. Some of the incidental touches here, and indeed throughout the book, awaken thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.

ings; a life heavy-laden, half-vanquished, still swimming derment. Brow and head were round and of massive painfully in seas of manifold physical and other bewilweight, but the face was flabby and irresolute. The deep eyes, of a light hazel, were as full of sorrow as of inspiration; confused pain looked mildly from them, as

Then comes the portion of the volume which, to literary persons, must appear the most remarkable and the most debateable: viz.-the Eighth Chapter, entitled "Coleridge." It has surprised many, and disappointed not a few; while every regular Coleridgian-whether a worshipper of the lake-poet and philosopher, or of the Highgate sage-is, of necessity, displeased. They will not accept this representation of their great man. It is a misrepresentation, a caricature-like, and yet the reverse of like. One discerning and judicious friend of ours, competent in all respects to give an opinion on the matter, warns us that we must not receive it "as anything but a delineation by a hostile hand," that with all its brilliancy this sketch of Coleridge can only be classed with Leigh Hunt's account of Dante in the stories from the Italian poets," or with Carlyle's own account of operatic music and the ballet just published in the Keepsake for next year. We feel the truth of this to a certain degree, but not to the degree which is the truth to a thorough Coleridgian.

In philosophy, we of the present generation, or generation now presenting itself, are deep debtors to Coleridge. "The Friend," the "Aids to Reflection," The Constitution of Church and State," "The Literary Remains," the "Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit," and the "Biographia Literaria," have had no small influence on us all, either directly or indirectly. He was the greatest thinker of the age, and was necessarily a lord of other minds. We have also sought eagerly for all descriptions of the outward man

in a kind of mild astonishment.

"Sterling, who assiduously attended him, with profound reverence, and was often with him by himself for a good many months, gives a record of their first colloquy. Their colloquies were numerous, and he had except this first, which Mr. Hare has printed, unluckily taken note of many; but they are all gone to the fire, without date. It contains a number of ingenious, true, and half-true observations, and is, of course, a faithful

epitome of the things said; but it gives a small idea of
the most recognisable,Our interview lasted for three
Coleridge's way of talking. This one feature is, perhaps,
hours, during which he talked two hours and three-
quarters. To sit as a passive bucket and be pumped
into, whether you consent or not, can, in the long-run,
the flood of utterance that is descending. But if it be
be exhilarating to no creature, how eloquent soever
withal a confused, unintelligible flood of utterance,
threatening to submerge all known landmarks of
thought, and drown the world and you! I have heard
hours, his face radiant and moist, and communicate no
Coleridge talk, with eager musical energy, two stricken
meaning whatsoever to any individual of his hearers-
certain of whom, I for one, still kept eagerly listening
in hope; the most had long before given up, and formed
(if the room were large enough) secondary humming
groups of their own.

"He had knowledge about many things and topicsmuch curious reading; but, generally, all topics led him, after a pass or two, into the high seas of theosophic philosophy, the hazy infinitude of Kantean transcendentalism, with its 'sum-m-jects' and 'om-m-jects.' Sad enough, for with such indolent impatience of the claims and ignorances of others, he had not the least ta ent for explaining this or anything unknown to them; and you swam and fluttered in the mistiest, wide, unintelligible deluge of things, for the most part in a rather profitless, uncomfortable manner. Glorious islets, too, I have seen rise out of the haze; but they were few, and soon swallowed in the general element again. Balmy, sunny islets, islets of the blest and the intelligible; on which occasions those secondary humming groups would all cease humming, and hang breathless upon the eloquent words, till once your islet got wrapt in the mist again, and they could recommence humming."

After several times reading and reconsidering the

before him."

The following scraps extracted from letters are

:

chapter upon Coleridge, this is what we venture to ried. It seems as if. in some strange way, London were offer as our opinion. Carlyle did not like the man, a part of me, or I of London. I think of it often, not had little or no sympathy with that class of mind. silent, grand and everlasting. When I fancy how you as full of noise and dust and confusion, but as something With all his care to be just and to guard against his are walking in the same streets, and moving along the conscious predisposition to judge him severely, he has same river that I used to watch so intently, as if in a not altogether succeeded in giving a true account, into tears, not of grief, but with a feeling that there is dream, when younger than you are, I could gladly burst even in direct statement. He has almost passed over no name for. Everything is so wonderful, great, and as insignificant what Coleridge has done-actually holy, so sad and yet not bitter, so full of death and so left the world in printed form. In poetry, he was bordering on heaven. Can you understand anything of unrivalled. In a rare union of all the highest qua- this? If you can, you will begin to know what a serious lities of poetry,-creative imagination-spiritual in-matter our life is; how unworthy and stupid it is to trifle it away without heed; what a wretched, insignifituition-subtlety, force and maturity of thought-cant, worthless creature any one comes to be, who does exquisite tenderness and depth of feeling, and the not, as soon as possible, bend his whole strength, as in perfection of musical form, no one in his own day stringing a stiff bow, to doing whatever task lies first could be compared with him. Campbell, Rogers, More, Southey, Scott, and Byron, were far, far below him. Wordsworth not on a par-no, nor Shelley-doubtless read with melancholy interest by the though he might have been. In our own day, Ten-persons mentioned :nyson possesses all, or nearly all, that Coleridge had. He was emphatically a poet-a great poet, though not a copious writer of poetry. In philosophy, too, justice is not done him here. The logician, metaphysician, bard, dwindles away into a vague disjointed talker of unintelligible transcendentalisnis-a mere writer of fair verses in his youth. Intellectually and in matters of faith and opinion, Carlyle is not just to Coleridge, could not be, perhaps, from the very constitution of his mind. Morally, however, we cannot help thinking (in despite of all reverent loving Coleridgians) that our author is right, emphatically right. With all humility, as of a small creature looking up to a giant and noting a disproportion, we would say, that Coleridge was morally defectivewanted steadiness and strength of will-did not trouble himself sufficiently about his duties as a man -and that he suffered from neglecting his own axiom, that "the duties which we owe to our own moral being are the grounds and condition of all other duties." The strong, upright, brave, and just Carlyle, with no personal tenderness towards the man to soften his judgment, speaks out honestly, and, as we said before, justly, to our thinking on the subject. Therefore is it that this chapter has caused us so much pain-we could not avoid thinking that there is much truth in it.

Our readers will be glad to see the following letter from Sterling to his son, a boy of fourteen, then studying in London in the house of his uncle, the now celebrated Frederick Maurice. It has a grave tone in it, as if a presentiment of his own speedy death oppressed the writer. It must be very precious

to the receiver now.

"You may suppose that my thoughts often move towards you, and that I fancy what you may be doing in the great city-the greatest on earth-where I spent so many years of my life. I first saw London when I was eight or nine years old, and then lived in or near it for the whole of the next ten, and more there than anywhere else for seven years longer. Since then I have hardly ever been a year without seeing the place, and have often lived in it for a considerable time. There I grew from childhood to be a man. My little brothers and sisters, and, since, my mother, died and are buried there. There I first saw your mamma, and there mar

several that would much interest you though I missed
"Of other persons whom I saw in London, there are
Tennyson by a mere chance. John Mill has completely
finished and sent to the bookseller his great work on
Logic; the labour of many years of a singularly subtle,
patient and comprehensive mind. It will be our chief
speculative monument of this age. Mill and I could
not meet above two or three times; but it was with the
openness and freshness of schoolboy friends, though our
friendship only dates from the manhood of both.
garty Diamond, and read them with extreme delight.

"I got hold of the two first numbers of the 'HogWhit is there better in Fielding or Goldsmith? The man is a true genius, and with quiet and comfort might produce masterpieces that would last as long as any we have, and delight millions of unborn readers. There is more truth and nature in one of these papers than in all 's Novels put together."

Carlyle adds

house, will observe that this is dated 1841, not 1851, Thackeray, always a close friend of the Sterling and have his own reflections on the matter!"

"Owen is a first-rate comparative anatomist, they say the greatest since Cuvier; lives in London and than any of them, by an apparent force and downrightlectures there. On the whole, he interested me more ness of mind, combined with simplicity and frankness.

"Milnes spent last Sunday with me at Clifton; and was very amusing and cordial. It is impossible for those

who know him well not to like him."

Carlyle adds

"The Milnes is our excellent Richard, whom all out even doing as Sterling says." men know, and truly whom none can know well with

Sterling was a good letter-writer. We would Life" the small penny pamphlet containing twelve recommend to the notice of the readers of Carlyle's of Sterling's letters to his cousin William Coningham.1 They contain the free expression of his opinions on several important subjects.

Perhaps, the letter in this book which will touch the reader most deeply by its revelation of the strong and tender friendship between Sterling and Carlyle is the following, the last he wrote to him.

"My dear Carlyle,-For the first time for many months, it seems possible to send you a few words; merely, however, for remembrance and farewell. On higher matters there is nothing to say. I tread the common road into the great darkness, without any (1) Published by Ollivier, Pall Mall.

thought of fear and with very much of hope. Certainty,
indeed, I have none. With regard to you and me I
cannot begin to write; having nothing for it but to keep
shut the lid of those secrets with all the iron weights
that are in my power. Towards me it is still more true
than towards England, that no man has been and done
like you. Heaven bless you! If I can lend a hand
when THERE, that will not be wanting. It is all very
strange, but not one hundredth part so sad as it seems
to the standers by. Your wife knows my mind towards
her, and will believe it without asseverations.
"Yours to the last,

Mr. Carlyle remarks on this

"JOHN STERLING."

"It was a bright Sunday morning when this letter came to me; if in the great cathedral of immensity I did no worship that day, the fault surely was my own. Sterling affectionately refused to see me; which also was kind and wise. And four days before his death there are some stanzas of verse for me, written as if in star-fire and immortal tears; which are among my sacred possessions, to be kept for myself alone.”

All those persons who are in the habit of regarding Carlyle as a strong, violent man, without gentle impulses and soft warm sympathies, should read this Life of Sterling. He makes no moan for the loss of his friend; but this book is a sort of "In Memoriam" in accordance with his nature, as that of Tennyson is with his. The grief is felt here, not heard. Steadily he proceeds with the account of his bright, eloquent, eager-souled, graceful Sterling, the loved of all hearts, through his stages of consumption, the spirit wearing out the frail body and living till the last moment in thought and action.

Sterling's personal appearance must have been wonderfully emblematic of his character. It is thus described:"Sterling was of rather slim but of well-boned wiry figure, perhaps an inch or two from six feet in height, of blonde complexion without colour, yet not pale or sickly, dark blonde hair, copious enough, which he usually wore short. The general aspect of him indicated freedom, perfect spontaneity, with a certain careless, natural grace. In his apparel, you could notice he affected dim colours, easy shapes, cleanly always, yet even in this not fastidious or conspicuous; he sat or stood, oftenest in loose sloping postures, walked with long strides, body carelessly bent, head flung eagerly forward, right-hand perhaps grasping a eane, and rather by the middle to swing it, than by the end to use it otherwise. An attitude of frank, cheerful impetuosity, of hopeful speed and alacrity, which indeed his physiognomy, on all sides of it, offered as the chief expression. Alacrity, velocity, joyous ardour dwelt in the eyes too, which were of brownish grey, full of bright, kindly life, rapid and frank rather than deep or strong. A smile, half of kindly impatience, half of real mirth, often sat on his face. The head was long, high over the vertex, in the brow of fair breadth, but not high for such a man.

to, tell a much truer story so far as they go. Of these his brother has engravings; but these also I must suppress, as inadequate for strangers."

If the world did not need a Life of Sterling,—if it could well do without knowing exactly what he was, it could not do so well without knowing what Carlyle is. Nothing that he has yet published shows the gentle side of his nature so well-not even "The Sartor." His relations with the Sterling family appeal to all parts of our nature. Think of little Charlotte Sterling running to Carlyle to put on her doll's shoes for her and getting the feat successfully performed;-and then reflect on the perfect way in which the whole biography is done-never overdone-or slurred. The image of John Sterling as he appeared in life to his friend, appears to us. With all his errors, and short-comings, and impediments to the attainment of greatness-he is still a true brave man with a noble lofty nature :

"Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

PARIS IN 1851.1

"ALL my Eye," the title under which this book was first announced, and which excited in the minds of the reading public considerable interest, appears in publication to have given place to another more characteristic and less slangy title. It is well called a Faggot of French Sticks, as it consists of nothing more than sketches of what every visitor to Paris can see if he will, and yet even the half of which few ordinary travellers or excursionists think worth visiting. The general impressions we carry away from Paris are full of life and gaiety, theatres and amusements of all kinds being mostly the sources whence they are derived; and few are aware of the existence of the various charitable establishments and other institutions which are here described. As our author informs us, it was his first visit to the French capital for nearly forty years, and it is to the vivid impressions produced upon his mind, of the comparison of Paris in 1851, with Paris as he knew it when an officer on duty in the British army, in the eventful year 1815, that we are indebted for these entertaining volumes. The last revolution of December 2, which took place while the book must have been passing through its final stages, can have effected few alterations in the originals of the slight but masterly series of sketches Sir Francis Head has chosen for his subject: although amusing, and interesting enough, little is said about the objects of interest and places of amusement usually first visited by strangers, and which our author's bodily infirmities and ill health prevented him from enjoying. Charities, public institutions of all kinds, and private establishments of various sorts, together with a few short notices of some places which have been already "done" to death by enthusiastic tourists of every age and condition, make up a couple

"There is no portrait of him which tolerably resembles. The miniature medallion, of which Mr. Hare has given an engraving, offers us, with no great truth in physical details, one, and not the best, superficial expression of his face, as if that, with vacuity, had been what the face contained; and even that Mr. Hare's engraver has disfigured into the nearly or the utterly irrecognisable. Two pencil sketches, which no artist could approve of,-hasty sketches done in some social hour-one by his friend Spedding, one by Banim the (1) "A Faggot of French Sticks. By the Author of 'Bubbles novelist, whom he slightly knew and had been kind from the Brunnen of Nassau.'" 2 vols. Murray.