The chaplain has often told me that upon a catechising day, when Sir Roger has been pleased with a boy that answers well, he has ordered a Bible to be given him next day for his encouragement; and sometimes accompanies it with a flitch of bacon to his mother. Sir Roger has likewise added five pounds a year to the clerk's place; and, that he may encourage the young fellows to make themselves perfect in the church service, has promised, upon the death of the present incumbent, who is very old, to bestow it according to merit.

The fair understanding between Sir Roger and his chaplain, and their mutual concurrence in doing good, is the more remarkable, because the very next village is famous for the differences and contentions that rise between the parson and the squire, who live in a perpetual state of war. The parson

is always preaching at the squire; and the squire, to be revenged on the parson, never comes to church. The squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithe-stealers; while the parson instructs them every Sunday in the dignity of his order, and insinuates to them almost in every sermon that he is a better man than his patron. In short, matters are come to such an extremity that the squire has not said his prayers either in public or private this half year, and that the parson threatens him, if he does not mend his manners, to pray for him in the face of the whole congregation.

Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the country, are very fatal to the ordinary people, who are so used to be dazzled with riches that they pay as much deference to the understanding of a man of an estate, as of a man of learning; and are very hardly brought to regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to them, when they know there are several men of five hundred a year who do not believe it.

SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY IN LOVE.

Her looks were deep imprinted in his heart.
-Virgil.

IT may be remembered that I mentioned a great affliction which my friend Sir Roger had met with in his youth, which was no less than a disappointment in love. It happened this

evening that we fell into a very pleasing walk at a distance from his house. As soon as we came into it, "It is," quoth the good old man, looking round him with a smile, “very hard that any part of my land should be settled upon one who has used me so ill as the perverse widow did; and yet I am sure I could not see a sprig of any bough of this whole walk of trees, but I should reflect upon her and her severity. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world. You are to know this was the place wherein I used to muse upon her; and by that custom I can never come into it, but the same tender sentiments revive in my mind as if I had actually walked with that beautiful creature under these shades. I have been fool enough to carve her name on the bark of several of these trees; so unhappy is the condition of men in love to attempt the removing of their passion by the methods which serve only to imprint it deeper. She has certainly the finest hand of any woman in the world."

Here followed a profound silence; and I was not displeased to observe my friend falling so naturally into a discourse, which I had ever before taken notice he industriously avoided. After a very long pause, he entered upon an account of this great circumstance in his life with an air which I thought raised my idea of him above what I had ever had before; and gave me the picture of that cheerful mind of his before it received that stroke which has ever since affected his words and actions. But he went on as follows:

"I came to my estate in my twenty-second year, and resolved to follow the steps of the most worthy of my ancestors who have inhabited this spot of earth before me, in all the methods of hospitality and good neighborhood, for the sake of my fame; and in country sports and recreations, for the sake of my health. In my twenty-third year, I was obliged to serve as sheriff of the county; and in my servants, officers, and whole equipage, indulged the pleasure of a young man, who did not think ill of his own person, in taking that public occasion of showing my figure and behavior to advantage. You may easily imagine to yourself what appearance I made, who am pretty tall, rode well and was very well dressed, at the head of a whole county, with music before me,

a feather in my hat, and my horse well bitted. I can assure you I was not a little pleased with the kind looks and glances I had from all the balconies and windows as I rode to the hall where the assizes were held. But when I came there, a beautiful creature in a widow's habit sat in court to hear the event of a cause concerning her dower. This commanding creature, who was born for the destruction of all who beheld her, put on such a resignation in her countenance, and bore the whispers of all around the court with such a pretty uneasiness, I warrant you, and then recovered herself from one eye to another, till she was perfectly confused by meeting something so wistful in all she encountered, that at last, with a murrain to her, she cast her bewitching eye upon me. I no sooner met it but I bowed, like a great surprised booby; and, knowing her cause to be the first which came on, I cried, like a captivated calf, as I was, 'Make way for the defendant's witnesses.' This sudden partiality made all the county immediately see the sheriff also was become a slave to the fine widow. During the time her cause was upon trial, she behaved herself, I warrant you, with such a deep attention to her business, took opportunities to have little billets handed to her counsel, then would be in such a pretty confusion, occasioned, you must know, by acting before so much company, that not only I, but the whole court, was prejudiced in her favor; and all that the next heir to her husband had to urge was thought so groundless and frivolous that when it came to her counsel to reply, there was not half so much said as every one besides in the court thought he could have urged to her advantage. You must understand, sir, this perverse woman is one of those unaccountable creatures that secretly rejoice in the admiration of men, but indulge themselves in no further consequences. Hence it is that she has ever had a train of admirers, and she removes from her slaves in town to those in the country according to the seasons of the year. She is a reading lady, and far gone in the pleasures of friendship. She is always accompanied by a confidant who is witness to her daily protestations against our sex, and corsequently a bar to her first steps towards love, upon the strength of her own maxims and declarations.

DURING the first forty years of his long life, Carlyle was practically unknown. He was born in a little Scotch village in 1795, the son of poor peasants, with no visible likelihood of ever making himself heard of ten miles' beyond his native parish. But there were, it appeared, a brain and a heart in the child, and its parents were able to afford it a grammarschool education; and the boy afterwards attended Edinburgh University, and obviously did not misuse his time there. At the age of twenty he was teaching mathematics in Annan, and two years later was schoolmaster at Kirkcaldy, where began his friendship with young Edward Irving. It was a long journey from the Scotch pedagogue's desk to the primacy of English literature. He determined to become a barrister, and studied law for three or four years, maintaining himself the while by hammering algebra and geometry into hard Scotch heads, and contributing articles to encyclopædias. In 1822, being then twenty-seven years old, the Bullen boys hired him as tutor; and he visited the great world of London and Paris before he was thirty. At this time, all he had written was a Life of Schiller, a translation of Legendre's "Geometry," and a translation of Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister." The latter has held its place ever since, but, by itself could not be considered a hopeful basis for a reputation. But the German genius had a strong attraction for Carlyle, and influenced the central years of his life. Some specimens of the works of other German writers, and essays upon German authors, were printed by him about this time; as literature

and criticism they are in some respects among the most agreeable reading that has come from his pen. He did not at that time know the great destiny that awaited him; and he had not yet begun that whimsical, chronic quarrel with the world which grew upon him as his position in the world of letters became dominant. He had faith and enthusiasm, and the power of saying the thing he meant in such phrase as made his reader rejoice. The great new light which came into English literature with Carlyle was already shining in these early essays, with a softer and clearer lustre than in after years, when it was rendered lurid and portentous, sometimes, by the clouds and storms which assailed the giant mind which was its medium.

In 1826 Carlyle married Jane Welsh. Probably the inner life of a married couple has never been more widely published than was that of these two queer and gifted beings, who were greatly averse from publicity of that kind during their lifetime. And it is precisely because the annals of their domestic affairs is so full, that it is still difficult to arrive at any final conclusion upon it. It reads like a rugged and harrowing journey; and yet, for aught we can say, so might the story of any two other nervous and exacting persons, if described with equal minuteness by either of them. It is not improbable that they had quite as much average happiness as do most couples; their ideal was higher and their irritability greater than the ordinary, and their power of giving vivid expression to their thoughts and experiences was certainly far beyond the common. But after all allowances have been made, we cannot affirm that Jane and Thomas were an easy wife and husband to get on with. They kept each other on edge. On the other hand, it seems quite likely that his domestic jars, added to his dyspeptic tendency, may have stimulated Carlyle to write more and more poignantly, than he would otherwise have done. That the two loved and admired each other in the bottom of their hearts is unquestionable.

Seven years after his marriage Carlyle published "Sartor Resartus," and thereby conquered fame among those who know what original thought and literary faculty are. It was a great book to have been written at that time, and it still remains a high and unique example of genius and humor. It