tain "confused papers printed and other," written by one Jocelin of Brakelond, giving some account of a certain convent of St. Edmundsbury, in which monks once lived, prayed, and quarreled, even as in other convents they have been known to do. These Jocelina Chronica go on to tell us that in those days their abbott Hugo was grown old, and aliquantulum caligarerunt oculi ejus, how, in fine, he at last died, how they proceeded to an election, and made choice of one Samson subsacrista for abbott. This abbott Samson and his election forms a conspicuous figure in the Past and Present. It is by this rather circuitous way,' that the Editor attempts to 'illustrate our own poor country' in such way as he best can.

What connection there can be between a secluded monastery six hundred years ago, and the present condition of the English people, or how the condition of the one can be correctly illustrated by the election of an abbott, or the government of the other, after a careful perusal of the whole subject, we are at a loss to perceive.

The unbounded admiration of Carlye for every thing bearing the impress of antiquity, unfits him for a candid comparison of the past with the present, and leads him to take altogether a prejudiced and one-sided view of the subject. The same fault we observe in his Heroes in History. The dolorous wail is ever on his lips, O Tempores! O Mores! One would suppose from the present work, that England was in a far worse situation in every respect, than in the time of the good old abbott Samson. We cannot by any means arrive at such a conclusion, at least not from any facts presented in this work. We doubt not but that the condition of England is pitiable enough, even at this present, with her "Game-preserving Aristocratic Dilettantism, Dead sea Apism,' oppressions, and two million shirtless or ill shirted workers, who sit enchanted in Workhouse Bastiles ;" still we believe no reasonable, unprejudiced man, would say she is in a worse condition, either physically, intellectually, or morally, than in the days of John Lackland. Our transcendental philosopher thinks those were 'comparatively blessed times, in which violence, war, disorder reigned,' to this perpetual cry of peace, peace, when there is no peace.' As an instance of their superior blessedness,' he mentions the fact, that a child might safely carry a bag of gold from one end of the kingdom to the other, in the reign of William the Conqueror, or ' Willelmus Conquestor,' as he must needs call him. We have read that the same might be done in the dominions of the Sultan, but never from that fact inferred the peculiar 'blessedness' of the people living under his government. There are many other points in the contrast which he has drawn between the Past and Present, we would fain notice, did our limits permit. Although we think he has by no means drawn a true parallel, yet we honor the feelings which have led him to err. Sympathy with his suffering, down-trodden brethren, natural unextinguishable hatred of the Idle, much-consuming Aristocracy, breathe through every page of this work, and bespeak a heart which does honor to humanity.

With regard to the much-boasted originality of Carlyle, we have a

word to say. We have heard it asserted by his admirers, that he is the only original thinker and writer, which the present century has produced. Verily a modest claim! and one which we think their hero would hardly thank his friends for making in his behalf. That we frequently meet with original and striking thoughts in Carlyle, is true. But that his originality consists more in style and expression, than of thought, we think every careful and candid reader of his works will admit. The present work, especially, we think more lacking in this respect than some of his preceding. Many of his propositions and utterances' are but truisms, which have been harped upon from the time of the Grecian and Roman philosophers to the present day. For instance, he devotes several chapters in illustrating and enforcing the propositions that the Just only are the good, that this only is the lasting and true; and that not by oceans of horse hair, continents of parchment and learned sergeant eloquence,' can the unjust be made just. In the dialogue of Socrates with the sophists, as related in the Gorgeas of Plato, we have some dim recollection of having seen the same ideas expressed in nearly the same language. A striking similarity of ideas may be observed in certain other parts of the same work, with those expressed by our modern philosopher, of a more exceptionable nature, than those referred to, as the argument of Callicles, where he says, “ ἡ δέ γε, οἶμαι, φύσις αὐτὴ ἀποφαίνει αὐτό, ὅτι δίκαιόν ἐστι τὸν ἀμείνω τοῦ χείρονος πλέον ἔχειν καὶ τὸν δυνατώτερον τοῦ áduvarwrégou," &c., et sequens, in which he endeavors to prove that the more powerful should have more than the less, and that might makes right.

This seems to be fully endorsed by Carlyle, where he says, "The bravest men who it is ever to be repeated and remembered are also on the whole, the wisest, strongest, every way best, had here with a respectable degree of accuracy been got selected, &c. The fighting too was indispensable for ascertaining who had the might over whomthe right over whom. By much hard fighting, as we once said, 'the unrealities beaten into dust flew gradually off,' and left the plain reality and fact, thou stronger than I, thou wiser than I, thou king, and subject I,' in a somewhat clearer condition." Again, where he inveighs against the folly of Mammon-worship, and insists that the "pursuit of wealth is not the true object of our existence-that he who makes it so has lost his soul," he seems to be indulging in the same train of ideas as Horace in one of his satires, where he says

Speaking on the same subject in another place, to what a sage conclusion does our philosopher arrive in these words: "For in short, Mammon is not a god at all; but a devil, and even a very despicable

devil. Follow the Devil faithfully, you are sure enough to go to the Devil: whither else can you go?" True, O veritable Diogenes, where the devil can you go, but to the Devil? Strange that no one had ever discovered this important truth before! But seriously-we do not offer it as an argument against the power or genius of Carlyle as a writer, that he abounds in oft-repeated truisms. That he can bring these home to the heart, make men listen to them and feel them, may indeed be an evidence of the highest genius. It has been truly remarked by Coleridge, that "genius produces impressions of novelty, while it rescues the most admitted truths from the impotence caused by the very circumstance of their universal admission." We only refer to this subject here, to remark the difference between originality of thought and that of style, or the manner of expressing thought, as indicating minds of very different order, though by some they seem to be considered as synonymous. Although, perhaps, Mr. Carlyle excels every English writer of the present day in command of language and power of expression, yet in true originality of thought, we believe him inferior to many.

But the most important feature in the later writings of Carlyle, is their moral and religious influence.

His literary character, the calibre of his mind, his style, are now to a good degree settled in the public mind, and the attention of all is now turned with a painful anxiety, to mark the influence which he is now exerting, and shall still exert, on the public mind, in a religious point of view. Mr. Carlyle is essentially a religious writer-religious in the sense in which he uses the term. Believing as he does that a man's religion is the chief fact concerning him, and writing chiefly of men, it would be strange if he did not make this a conspicuous subject in his essays. Accordingly, by no writer not professedly treating on religious topics, do we find more frequent allusions to this subject, than in the later works of our author, and especially in the "Past and Present." And yet of no writer is it more difficult to state what is his religious creed, or whether he has any definite religious belief at all. Whatever his belief may be, we hesitate not to say, that the influence of his opinions on this subject, especially on the young, is anything but beneficial. That he believes in a God, appears evident from the numerous allusions to such a being in his writings. Whether it is such a God as is spoken of in the Scriptures, there is good reason to doubt. He speaks of him, like Pythagoras, as synonymous with the " great soul of the Universe, just and not unjust. Look thou, if thou have eyes or soul left, into this great shoreless, Incomprehensible; in the heart of its Tumultuous Appearances, Embroilments, and mad Time-vortexes, is there not, silent, eternal, an All-just, an All-beautiful sole Reality, an ultimate controlling Power of the whole!" Well spoken, O disciple of Grecian philosophy. And how dost thou then regard the Saviour of men ? "A Hero, greater perhaps than Odin, than Mahomet, than Dante even, the greatest of all Heroes is one whom we do not name here." In this character Carlyle sees something God-like, but no God-one who only deserves to be ranked among the noblest of men.

We can well believe Carlyle, when he says that " 'superstition is far from him; that Fanaticism, for any Fanum likely soon to arise on this earth, is far"! With a hearty good will, does he manfully assault any and every form of superstition-that which he considers such, whether it be Paganism, Catholicism, "The Thirty-nine Articles," or Methodism. Hear him on this latter:

"Methodism, with its eye turned forever on its own navel; asking itself with torturing anxiety of Hope and Fear, Am I right, am I wrong? Shall I be saved, shall I not be damned? What is this at bottom but a new phasis of Egoism stretched out into the Infinite; not always the heavenlier for its infinitude! Brother, so soon as possible endeavor to rise above all that. Thou art wrong, thou art like to be damned;' consider that as the fact, reconcile thyself even to that, if thou be a man;-then first is the devouring Universe subdued under thee, and from the black murk of midnight and noise of greedy Acheron, dawn, as of an everlasting morning, how far above all Hope, all Fear, springs for thee, enlightening thy steep path, awakening in thy heart celestial Memnon's music."

Good! In this non-committal, conservative, time-serving age, it is refreshing to find here and there a man who has the moral courage to come out and take a decided stand in the cause of truth and religion. This modern divine here lays down a short and comprehensive system of theology, original it is true-essentially different from any other extant, but yet clear and explicit. You have only, kind reader, firmly to convince yourself there is a real eternal hell, to imagine that you already hear the raging of the quenchless fires, and the wail of anguish from the lost, to which add the satisfactory assurance, that in these pastimes you will yourself soon be a participant, and it shall cause the blessed light of eternity to dawn on thy poor benighted mind, and melodies celestial shall thrill thy enraptured soul! What inconceivable bliss must now be the portion of devils and the damned, who have long been the blessed partakers in these enjoyments! Of Puseyism too :

"O Heavens! what shall we say of Puseyism in comparison with twelfth-century Catholicism? Little or nothing; for indeed it is a matter to strike one dumb. That certain human souls living on this practical earth, should think to save themselves and a ruined world by noisy, theoretic demonstrations and laudations of the Church, instead of some unnoisy, unconscious, but practical, total heart-and-soul demonstrations of a Church; this, in the circle of revolving ages, this also was a thing we were to see," &c.

But to take his own definition of religion:

"Hast thou ever reflected, O serious reader, Advanced liberal, or other, that the one end, essence, use, of all religion, past, present, and to come, was this only; to keep that same moral conscience or Inner Light of ours alive and shining; which certainly the Phantasms, and turbid media' were not essential for! All revelation was here to remind us, better or worse, of what we already know better or worse, of the quite infinite difference there is between a good man and a Bad, to bid us love infinitely the one, and abhor infinitely the other-strive infinitely to be the one and not to be the other! All religion is due Practical Hero-Worship. He that has a soul unasphyxied will never want a religion; he that has a soul asphyxied, reduced to a succedaneum for salt, will never find any religion, though one rose from the dead to preach him one.”

Now what do we find in this, more than would have been said by Hume, Voltaire, or Paine? No respectable infidel, 'who valued his

He

own character, would hesitate to advise us to be moral and Good, in the sense in which Carlyle uses the term, rather than vicious and Bad. We search the writings of Carlyle in vain for any admission of the inspiration of the Scriptures, or of their indispensable necessity as a rule of faith and action. "The Bible of Universal History is the Eternal Bible and God's Book, and to discredit this, is Infidelity like no other." Such is the only Bible whose authority Mr. Carlyle acknowledges. He does indeed speak in the highest terms of eulogy of certain parts, as the book of Job, and some of the Prophecies, as the most sublime specimens of human eloquence and power of the imagination which he has ever read. But other than as a mere intellectual performance, he seems never to have read or thought of the Bible. seems never to have dreamed of it as a revelation of the Divine will to man, through which alone we obtain a knowledge of our relation to God and each other, of our Duty and future Destiny. This Inner Light' or inner consciousness' which he speaks of so frequently, 'high as Heaven's splendor,' deep as Hell's darkness,' is the Great Law of Duty, all-sufficient for the guidance of man in this pilgrimage world. The doctrine, in plain language, is no other than this: Let a man follow implicitly the dictates of his own heart, and he is safe. We think Mr. Carlyle must be an advocate for the doctrine of 'irresponsibility of belief,' one of the most dangerous errors of the present day. This doctrine, that our Inner Consciousness is our sufficient Rule of Duty, is too much on the system of the Epicurean philosophy, which taught that man's supreme happiness consisted in pleasure.

Mr. Carlyle's Inner Consciousness' may, for aught we know, teach him at all times to do what is right; while another man's inner consciousness may lead him to do directly the opposite, yet which he may consider to be right. Lay aside the Bible as the standard of right and wrong, and we rush headlong, blindfold, into what awful Laissez-faireisms, Dillettantisms, Sansculotteisms, Mamnonisms'! The unbounded admiration of Carlyle for the Actual and Practical, entirely absorbs his sympathy for the Virtual.

The only religion which he recognizes, is that of Hero-Worship-paying homage to those the world calls Heroes. He who has played his part well in life, who has gained a fame world-wide and time-enduring, whether as Odin, in old Norse battles, as Mahomet propagating the faith of Islam by fire and sword, an Abbott Samson bravely laboring for Twelfth-Century Catholicism, a Luther, sternly opposing the same. Catholic faith, or a Napoleon, in awful Moscow conflagrations or Waterloo battle-fields, filling Europe with bloodshed and misery; such an one is the Hero of Carlyle-the religious man, the one worthy of our worship; for all religion issues in due Practical Hero-Worship.' Were that question of the old catechism, so often inflicted on our juvenile minds, proposed to our author, "What is the chief end of man?" he would have answered, Work-Labor-Toil. "The latest Gospel," says he, (and which he also considers the best,) "the latest Gospel preached on earth, is, that a man know his work and do it." We know many individuals upon whom the effect of the practical application of