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the memory of many events in the lives of her illustrious relatives which would otherwise have remained unknown or been forgotten. As a literary production, it is enough to say of the work, that it is worthy of her reputation and her name; and even those who differ from her in their religious views will thank her for a rich entertainment, and especially for the beautiful spirit of filial reverence which she has manifested towards the memory of her orthodox father.

ART. III.-WRITINGS AND OPINIONS OF THOMAS CARLYLE.

Past and Present, Charlism, and Sartor Resartus; by THOMAS CARLYLE. New edition, complete in one volume. New York: Harper and Brothers, publishers, 82 Cliff street. 1848.

THIS recent edition of some of the most characteristic works of this very remarkable author, induces us to offer at this time some views, which we have desired an opportunity to present, of his literary merits, and of his opinions on social and religious questions.

Since the death of Coleridge, no man in the British Islands has had so many followers this side of the Atlantic as Carlyle. Macaulay and Dickens have had more readers, but neither of them has raised up a school. The reason is obvious. Carlyle is more of an innovator upon established modes of thought. He has more peculiar and salient points to be the nucleus of a sect. He writes more on abstract and philosophical subjects. He has set afloat more original thoughts, and thus quickened more minds. He writes more in earnest, and thus draws after him the earnest spirits of the age.

The originality of this author is perhaps more apparent than real. Much that is new to us, may be merely German thought transferred into English. Carlyle does not conceal his admiration of German literature. He reveres Goethe as the wisest of the moderns, and in one place asks boldly, "What work nobler than transplanting foreign thought into the barren domestic soil; except indeed planting thought of your own, which the fewest are privileged to do ?"

But wherever the ideas came from, by which this writer is possessed, and to which he is laboring to give utterance; whether from his own capacious and fruitful brain, or from his vast range over the whole field of English and continental literature, the form at least, in which they appear, is original. And they are

presented with a variety of illustration, and a power of language, which are in themselves indisputable marks of genius.

But what chiefly distinguishes Carlyle from other popular writers of the age, is that he writes always in earnest; not as a mere artist or poet. He does not pass his life in creations of beauty, nor write for the amusement of mankind. Even in his reviews he is not a cold critic, like Jeffrey. He does not stand over his subject with a dissecting knife, and display his skill in anatomy at the expense of some miserable author that has fallen under his hands. Nor does he, like Macaulay-under the name of reviews, paint a long gallery of historical portraits, choosing those subjects which will permit him to display his richness of imagination, gorgeous style, and vast historical learning. It is curious to look over the subjects of Carlyle's reviews, and read "Burns," "Schiller," and such names-all characters to whom he is attracted by a strong sympathy, and in speaking of whom he can indulge his honest enthusiasm.

Still more widely does he differ from the novel-writers of the day. He evidently feels a contempt for any body who can undertake to write without a high moral object. His half-concealed sueer occasionally slips out in such expressions as these:-"Loving my own life and senses as I do, no power shall induce me, as a private individual, to open another fashionable novel" "Books which the unassisted human faculties are inadequate to read !”

Indeed, if Carlyle had the talent to be as successful a writer of fictions as Scott, this style of writing would not content him. He is too earnest a thinker. His mind is too much occupied with those social and religious questions, which are questions of life and death to us all. He feels his obligations to his fellow creatures, and he grapples boldly with the miseries of the race. He is conscious that the social and moral state of the world is bad, and in his descriptions of the miseries of the poor, and of the general corruption of society, he is serious even to melancholy. There is a strain of sadness in these portions of his writings which will long haunt the imagination of the reader.

We shall confine ourselves in this article to one of the works contained in this recent volume, Sartor Resartus, since, of all which Carlyle has written, this is the work that best represents the man. It is the book which first established the fame of Thomas Carlyle as a leading writer of the age. It is closely packed with thought, and contains the germ of much that its anthor has since expanded into volumes. It comprises in brief all the ideas to which he is laboring to give expression. It is strongly marked with the faults and beauties of his style. It may be taken therefore as a good expression of his peculiar genius.

Few books have appeared in this century which have exerted so wide an influence upon the thought of the age as Sartor Resartus. Miss Martineau is not the only person who has remarked the extraordinary attention it has received from thinking minds on this, as well as on the other side of the Atlantic. Few books are so often turned to again, or contain so many passages which we wish to keep in memory, for their power and suggestiveness. It may be well therefore, to devote a few pages to an analysis of this remarkable volume, as the best introduction to an acquaintance with its author.

The title of this book is a good one, inasmuch as it gives not the remotest idea of what the book contains-an object often of the first importance with writers who wish to attract attention. But if curiosity is piqued by the formidable title of "Sartor Resartus: the Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh," it is relieved by the announcement on the very first page, of the momentous subject of this volume as the "Philosophy of Clothes!" The wonder of the reader now probably subsides into a smile, as he looks for a humorous essay on the fashions. But again he is confounded as he marks how the subject magnifies. The clothes dilate till they encompass the world, and finally the whole material universe. The word "clothes," Carlyle uses to denote not merely the garments of the body, but whatever enwraps the soul, "all forms whereby spirit manifests itself to sense." The body itself is as much a garment as a cloak is. All visible things are but the vestures of an invisible world. "Matter exists only to

represent some idea, and body it forth." The creations of man are but shape and material substance given to his thought, "airy nothings" to which he gives "a local habitation and a name." Art is but the embodiment of ideal beauty; images of the brain turned into marble. All the institutions of man-customs, laws, forms of government, states, monarchies, priesthoods, are but the shapings of invisible souls. Different religions and rodes of worship are the embodiment of an universal religious idea or sentiment. Names and symbols conceal a spiritual significance. Even time and space are regarded but as modes in which finite intelligences conceive of things. And nature herself is but the garment of God!

Thus under this strange title of philosophy of clothes, we have a compendium of universal knowledge. The author takes a point of view from which he can talk ad libitum of things celestial and terrestrial. Accordingly there is hardly a subject in heaven and earth which he does not touch upon. At one moment he propounds the gravest philosophical and religious questions. The next, in a vein of sly wit, he ridicules modern fashionable society. Then in a few keen observations, half jesting and half sad, he throws out his ideas of duelling, of war, of the use of gunpowder, and of the art of printing.

The signal merit of the book is its insight-its discernment of the deep meaning of human life; its penetration through the veils and vestures of nature and society, and its discernment of the infinite spiritual realities of the universe and of man. Hence the writer talks much of "seeing into the mystery of the universe."

But though he ventures on such high subjects, Sartor Resartus has not at all the character of a philosophical treatise. A most fantastic dress heightens the effect of these multitudinous and strangely arranged thoughts. Carlyle adopts the convenient, though not very novel, figment of an unknown author, whose writings he edits. The book therefore appears as a history of the life and opinions of Herr Teufelsdröckh. This is a strange, incomprehensible being, rough as a Highlander, and mystical as a German; and as indifferent to the common notions of the world he lives in, as his prototype and namesake, Diogenes. This German philosopher is usually taciturn, content to sit under the linden tree, or in the beer-room, and smoke his pipe; but at times breaks forth in a succession of utterances, apparently incoherent; which yet are found on a closer inspection to possess a remarkable unity and insight. His biographer follows him through many sad experiences of life, to receive wisdom from his oracular lips.

As the philosophy of Teufelsdröckh was won by a course of hard experience, it is necessary to take brief note of the events of his outward life. His childhood was happy. He had indeed no acknowledged parents. But of this he was ignorant, as he had lived from his earliest recollection in the cottage of an old German soldier, whom he revered as his father. The soldier's wife was a kind mother to him, and the youthful Diogenes was happy in their love, and in his ignorance of all the evil that is in the world. His joyous nature diffused its own warm coloring over life. "His existence was a bright, soft element of joy, out of which, as in Prospero's island, wonder after wonder bodied itself forth."

Sad was the day when Teufelsdrockh left this happy valley, and the cottage of Father Andreas, for the gymnasium. "With my first view of the Hinterschlag gymnasium," he writes, "my evil days began." He was thrown among rude school fellows. "The young heart felt, for the first time, quite orphaned and alone." "My teachers were hide-bound pedants, without knowledge of man's nature or of boy's." From the gymnasium he passes to the university, where his mind fares not much better. He leaves an affecting tribute to his Alma Mater, in saying, that "out of England and Spain, theirs was the worst of all hitherto discovered universities." He leaves also on record his impression of modern philosophy and modes of education in this further

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reminiscence: "We boasted ourselves a rational university; in the highest degree hostile to mysticism. Thus was the young vacant mind furnished with much talk about progress of the species, dark ages, prejudice, and the like; so that all were quickly blown out into a state of windy argumentativeness; whereby the better sort had soon to end in sick, impotent skepti cism; the worser sort exploded in finished self-conceit, and to all spiritual intents become dead." In his law studies he meets with not much better companions or teachers. "Small speculation in those eyes, that they did glare withal! Sense neither for the high, nor for the deep, nor for aught human or divine, save only for the faintest scent of coming preferment."

Despite these adverse circumstances, our student makes some intellectual progress. Like a wise man he turns evil into good, and draws useful reflections out of the very stupidity of those around him. Thus he is slowly "getting under way," when a dangerous, almost fatal, accident befalls him-he gets in love! Alas for his philosophy; the passion is desperate. He had heard of the fame of Blumine, and imagined her "a blooming, warm earth-angel," but far above his humble sphere. But now he stands in her enchanting presence; and to his unspeakable rapture, lo! the angel smiles upon him! "Was the attraction, the agitation mutual then, pole and pole trembling towards contact, when once brought into neighborhood? Say rather, heart swelling in presence of the queen of hearts; like the sea swelling when once near its moon!"

For a time the illusion of love completely transports the poor Teufelsdröckh. "Soft melodies flowed through his heart; tones of an infinite gratitude; sweetest intimations that he also was a man, that for him also unutterable joys had been provided."

But the comedy or tragedy soon reaches its catastrophe. "One morning he found his morning star all dimmed and dusky-red; the fair creature was silent, absent; she seemed to have been weeping. She said in a tremulous voice, they were to meet no more!" She is soon after married to another.

The manner in which Teufelsdröckh takes this sudden and terrible blow, is the most encouraging sign that he will one day be a philosopher. Though honestly in love, and sorely disappointed, he does not commit suicide. "No sooner has that heartrending occurrence fairly taken place, than he affects to regard it as a thing natural, of which there is nothing more to be said." Instantly he tacks ship, and floats away from his 'Calypso's island,' with the coolness of a Spanish voyager, reckless of fortune, and bent on new adventures.

Teufelsdröckh now throws up his legal profession, and begins his travels. As he has long lived isolated from the world, merely "a looker on in Venice," he has nothing to detain him.

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