Chapter XIII: Canto THE THIRD (2)

The loss of their old protector soon involves them in a fresh maze of troubles. Thyamis, indeed, whose elevation to the high priesthood seems to have driven his former love for Chariclea out of his head, still continues their friend; but Arsace, the haughty consort of the satrap, who is represented as a princess of the royal blood of Persia, and a prototype of Catharine of Russia in her amours, has already cast her eyes on Theagenes, whose personal attractions seem on all occasions to have been as irresistible by the ladies as those of the fair partner of his wanderings by the other sex.[63] Under pretence of removing them from the temple during the period of mourning for Calasiris, they are lodged in the palace of the satrapess, where the constancy of the hero is exposed to a variety of perilous temptations, but comes forth, of course, unscathed from the ordeal. The love of ladies thus rejected has been prone, in all ages and countries, particularly in Egypt since the days of Yusuf and Zuleikha,[64] to turn into hatred; and Arsace is no exception to this long-established usage. Theagenes is accordingly thrown into a dungeon, and regularly bastinadoed under the superintendence of a eunuch, in order to instill into him proper notions of gallantry; while an attempt on the life of Chariclea, whom Arsace has discovered not to be his sister, fails through the mistake of an attendant, who delivers the poisoned goblet intended for her to Cybele, the princess's nurse and confidante, and the contriver of the plot. Chariclea, however, is condemned on this pretext to be burned alive as a poisoner; but the flames recoil before the magical influence of the gem _Pantarbé_, which she wears in her mother's ring; and before Arsace has time to devise any fresh scheme for her destruction, the confidential eunuch of Oroondates, to whom the misdeeds of his spouse had become known, arrives from the camp of Syene with orders to bring the two captives to the presence of the satrap. Arsace commits suicide in despair; but the escort of the lovers, while travelling along the banks of the Nile, is surprised by a roving party of Ethiopians; and they are carried to the camp of Hydaspes, by whom they are destined, according to Ethiopian usage, to be hereafter sacrificed to the sun and moon--the national deities of the country, as first-fruits of the war. A long account is now introduced of the siege and capture of Syene by the Ethiopians, and the victory of Hydaspes over Oroondates, which occupies the whole of the ninth book; and though in itself not ill told, is misplaced, as interrupting the narrative at the most critical point of the story. Peace is at last concluded between the belligerents; and Hydaspes, returning in triumph to his capital of Meroë, holds a grand national festival of thanksgiving, at which the victims are to be sacrificed. The secret of her birth had, however, been revealed to Chariclea by Calasiris before the elopement from Delphi, and when on the point of being led to the altar, she suddenly throws herself at the feet of the Queen Persina, and, producing the well-remembered token of the fillet and the ring, claims the protection of her parents. The recognition of the mother is instantaneous, but Hydaspes, who had always believed that the child to which his queen gave birth had died in early infancy, remains incredulous, till his doubts are removed by the evidence of Sisimithres, who identifies Chariclea as the child which he had confided, ten years before, to the care of Charicles. At this juncture Charicles himself appears, having come to Egypt to reclaim his lost child from Calasiris, and thence having been sent on by Oroondates to the court of Ethiopia:--and the denouement, as far as the heroine is concerned, is now complete. Theagenes, however, still remains doomed, and Hydaspes seems unwilling to relinquish his victim; but, after an interval of suspense, during which he incidentally performs various exploits rather unusual in a man in momentary expectation of death,[65] he is spared, at the vehement intercession of Persina, to whom Chariclea has revealed her love for the young Thessalian. The voice of the people, raised in acclamation at this deed of clemency, is ratified by the approbation of Sisimithres and the Gymnosophists, and all difficulties are now at an end. The betrothal of Theagenes and Chariclea is publicly announced; and, at the termination of the festival, they return in state into the city, with Hydaspes and Persina, as the acknowledged heirs of the kingdom.

[Footnote 63: In all the Greek romances, it seems almost inevitable that all the male characters should fall in love with the heroine, and all the females with the hero; and, this is, in some of them, carried to a ludicrous degree of absurdity.]

[Footnote 64: The name of Potiphar's wife, according to the 12th chapter of the Koran. The story of Yusuf and Zuleikha forms the subject of one of the most beautiful poems in the Persian language, by Jami.]

[Footnote 65: One of these consists in pursuing a wild bull on horseback, and throwing himself from the horse on the neck of the bull, which he seizes by the horns, and then, by main force wrenching his neck round, hurls him powerless to the ground on his back! Such an achievement appears almost incredible; but it is represented, in all its particulars, in one of the Arundel marbles, (Marmor. Oxon. Selden, xxxviii,) under the name of [Greek: Tayrokathapsia], and is mentioned as a national sport of Thessaly, the native country of Theagenes, both by Pliny (Hist. Nat. viii. 45), and by Suetonius (Claud. cap. 21)--"He exhibited," (says the latter writer,) "Thessalian horsemen who drive wild bulls round and round the circus, and leaping on them when they are weary, bring them to the ground by the horns."]

Such is the general outline of the story, which, as will have been perceived, is far from deficient either in incident or in strikingly imagined situations; but the merit of the conceptions is too often marred by the mismanagement of the details, and the unskilful arrangement of the different parts of the narrative. Thus all the circumstances of the early history of Chariclea, and the rise of the mutual affection between her and Theagenes, and of their adventurous flight, are made known through a long episode awkwardly put into the mouth of a third person, who himself knows great part of them only at second-hand, and voluntarily related by him to one with whom his acquaintance is scarcely of an hour's standing. This mode of narration, in which one of the characters is introduced (like the prologue in an old play) to recount the previous adventures of the others, is in itself at all times defective; since it injures the effect of the relation by depriving it of those accessory touches which the author, from his conventionally admitted insight into the feelings and motives of his characters, is privileged to supply: whereas a speaker in the first person must necessarily confine himself, unless when narrating his own adventures, to the points which have fallen under his personal observation. In the present instance it is, moreover, needless, as the whole episode might as well have been told in the ordinary manner. The endless captures and recaptures of the lovers, who are continually bandied about from one set of pirates, robbers, or plundering soldiers to another, become, at length, wearisome from repetition; and the dramatic force of the conclusion, which would otherwise be highly effective, is weakened by the knowledge which the reader possesses, that Chariclea is all along aware of the secret of her own parentage, and that she has only to produce the fillet and ring in order to ensure her deliverance from the dreadful doom which appears to threaten her. The improbability of some of the incidents, and the awkward manner in which others are brought about, have been much objected to by modern critics, and it must be admitted that some better way might be found to dispose of personages whose agency was no longer needed, than to cut them off by sudden death, like Calasiris, or by the bite of a venemous serpent, like Thermuthis. But the mechanical art (as it may almost be called) of constructing a story was then in its infancy; and the violations of probability which have been laid to the charge of Heliodorus, are, after all, much less flagrant than those of Achilles Tatius, and infinitely less so than those of any of the other Greek writers of romance; nor would many of our modern novelists, perhaps, gain much by the comparison.

The characters are of very different degrees of merit. Theagenes is as insipid and uninteresting as one of Walter Scott's well-behaved heroes; and his entreaties to Chariclea, in the final scene, no longer to delay making herself known to her parents, betray a most laudable instinct of self-preservation. The deeds of strength and valour which he is occasionally made to perform, seem rather to arise from the author's remembering that his hero must do something to support the character, than to result naturally from the situations in which he is placed, and his love of decorum is carried, on all occasions, to an absurd extent of prudery. "Le heros de la pièce est d'une sagesse qui a donné lieu à des railleries assez plaisantes," says Bayle; though the instance usually cited--a box on the ear, which he gives Chariclea, when she approaches him in her beggar's dress, under the walls of Memphis, and attempts to throw herself into his arms, is scarcely a fair one, as he does not at the time recognize his beloved under her unbecoming disguise. The character of Chariclea herself, however, makes ample amends for the defects of that of her lover; and this superiority of the heroine, it may be observed, is almost invariable in the early Greek romances. The masculine firmness and presence of mind which she evinces in situations of peril and difficulty, combined at all times with feminine delicacy, and the warmth and confiding simplicity of her love for Theagenes, attach to her a degree of interest which belongs to none of the other personages; and her spontaneous burst of grateful affection, on recognizing, at Meroë, the voice of her foster-father, Charicles, is expressed with exquisite tenderness. Of the subordinate characters little need be said. Charicles is a mere impersonation of benevolence and parental love; and Cnemon seems to have been introduced for little else than to tell his own long story, and listen to that of Calasiris in return. The old Egyptian priest, however, is a sketch of considerable merit. Like Scott's Peregrine Touchwood, though abundantly zealous at all times to serve his friends, he cannot find it in his heart to take any but the most round-about way of doing so; but he is never disconcerted by any of the untoward results of his schemes, and relates to Cnemon, with the most perfect self-complacency, the deceit which he had practiced on his confiding host, Charicles, in helping Theagenes to steal away his adopted daughter, and the various scrapes into which his protegés had fallen under his guidance. He has, moreover, pet theories of his own on the phenomena of the Nile, the cause of the roughness of the Ionian Sea, and various other matters, in which he indoctrinates Cnemon _par parenthèse_: he is an enthusiastic admirer and constant quoter of Homer, whose Egyptian birth (at Thebes the hundred-gated) he maintains with all the zeal of a Highlander defending the authenticity of Ossian; and, on the whole, we cannot but think the author has scarcely used him well, in not allowing him to live to see his efforts crowned with success, and to enjoy the honours which would doubtless have been heaped upon him at the court of Ethiopia.

The author appears to take especial delight in accounts of costumes, processions, sacrifices, &c.; the details given of which are often valuable in an antiquarian point of view; and his information upon these subjects, as well as of the manners of the country in which the scene is laid, as far as our knowledge of the present day will enable us to decide, is extremely correct. One of the most curious morceaux of this sort, is a minute description of the complete armour for horse and man, worn by the élite of the cavalry in the army of Oroondates; and which, though probably taken from that used by the troops of the Sassanian monarchs cotemporary with Heliodorus, is equally applicable to the period at which the scene is laid; since numerous passages in ancient authors show, that from the earliest time up to the Mohammedan conquest, the Persian nobles and heavy cavalry used panoply as impenetrable as the European chivalry of the middle ages. Among the other scattered traits of manners, it will be remarked as singular, according to the ideas of the present day, that open piracy and robbery are neither spoken of as disreputable, nor as attaching any slur to those who exercised them; insomuch, that the notoriety of Thyamis, having been a chief of freebooters, is not regarded as any obstacle to his assumption of the high-priesthood. But this, it will be found, was strictly in accordance with the manners of the ancient Greeks, among whom piracy was so far from being looked upon in any other light than that of an honourable profession, that Nestor himself, in the third book of the Odyssey, asks his guests, Telemachus and Mentor, as an ordinary question, whether business or piracy was the object of their voyage. But the _Bucoli_ (herdsmen or buccaniers,) over whom Thyamis held command, should probably, notwithstanding their practice of rapine, be regarded not so much as robbers as in the light of outlaws, who had taken refuge in these impenetrable marshes from the yoke of the Persians; and their constant conflicts with the Persian troops, as well as the march of Thyamis upon Memphis, confirm the opinion that this was the intention of the author. That these vast marshes of the Delta were in fact, throughout the period of Persian rule in Egypt, the strongholds of Egyptian independence, admits of abundant demonstration from the Greek historians:--it was here, in the mysterious island of Elbo, that Amyrtæus, (called by Thucydides "the king of the marshes,") held out after the reconquest of Egypt by Megabysus, B.C. 454, "for they could not take him on account of the great extent of the marsh; besides which, the marshmen are the most warlike of all the Egyptians."[66] This view of the subject has, at least, the advantage of placing Thyamis in a more respectable light than that of a mere marauder; though his mode of life under either supposition, would be considered, according to modern notions, as a strange training for the sacerdotal office.

[Footnote 66: Thuc. i. cap. 110. The island of Elbo, according to Herodotus, who gives a curious account of the Egyptian marshes and their inhabitants, had been constructed of _cinders_, in long past times, by a king who lay concealed for fifty years from the Ethiopians; but no man knew its situation, till it was again brought to light, after having been lost for five hundred years, by Amyrtæus.]

Few if any works of fiction have enjoyed so long and widely diffused a celebrity, as the Ethiopics. Whatever credit may be attached to the story preserved by Nicephorus, of the deposition of Heliodorus from his see, it at least affords evidence of the high popularity of the work, even during the lifetime of the author; and we have the personal testimony of Nicephorus himself, that in his own time, five centuries later, it was still regarded with undiminished favour. Down to the fall of the Greek empire, its style and incidents continued to furnish a model to all the wretched scribblers who attempted the composition of romances--nor was its fame confined within the limits of the language in which it was written. It found a place in the famous library of Matthias Corvinus at Buda; and the dispersion of that celebrated collection on the capture of the city by the Ottomans after the battle of Mohácz, in 1526, first made it known to western Europe: the first edition by Obsopoeus,[67] (printed at Basle in 1534,) having been taken in MS. which fell into the possession of a soldier on this occasion. Among the literati of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, its popularity seems almost to have equalled that which it had enjoyed in its native country. Tasso, as has already been noticed, borrowed from it the episode of Clorinda--and Racine (one of whose early productions was also founded upon it) was, in his younger days, so enthusiastic an admirer of it, that when the volume was taken from him by his tutor at Port-Royal, he replied that it mattered little, as he knew the whole by heart! The numerous translations, however, which have appeared in various languages, particularly in French and English, are little calculated to add, by the merits of their execution, to the favour of the work; one English _poetical_ version in particular, by Lisle, published in 1527, is one of the most precious specimens of balderdash in existence--a perfect literary curiosity in its way! Of the others, we need mention only the French one of Amyot, (1558,) not for its merits, but from the author's having been rewarded by Henry II. of France with the nomination to an abbey--as if in tardy compensation to Heliodorus, in the person of his literary representative, for the see from which the authorship is said to have caused his expulsion.

[Footnote 67: Of the later editions of the Greek text, the best are those of Coray, Paris, 1804; and Mitscherlisch, Strasburg, 1797.]

* * * * *

PAST AND PRESENT, BY CARLYLE.

Mr Carlyle--an astute and trenchant critic might, with show of justice, remark--assumes to be the reformer and castigator of his age--a reformer in philosophy, in politics, in religion--denouncing its _mechanical_ method of thinking, deploring its utter want of _faith_, and threatening political society, obstinately deaf to the voice of wisdom, with the retributive horrors of repeated revolutions; and yet neither in philosophy, in religion, nor in politics, has Mr Carlyle any distinct dogma, creed, or constitution to promulgate. The age is irreligious, he exclaims, and the vague feeling of the impenetrable mystery which encompasses us, is all the theology we can gather from him; civil society, with its laws and government, is in a false and perilous position, and for all relief and reformation, he launches forth an indisputable morality--precepts of charity, and self-denial, and strenuous effort--precepts most excellent, and only _too_ applicable; applicable, unfortunately, after an _à priori_ fashion--for if men would but obey them, there had been need of few laws, and of no remedial measures.

This man of faith--our critic might continue--has but one everlasting note; and it is really the most sceptical and melancholy that has ever been heard, or heard with toleration, in our literature. He repeats it from his favourite apostle Goethe; "all doubt is to be cured only--by action." Certainly, if _forgetting_ the doubt, and the subject of doubt, be the sole cure for it. But that other advice which Mr Carlyle tells us was given, and in vain, to George Fox, the Quaker, at a time when he was agitated by doubts and perplexities, namely, "to drink beer and dance with the girls," was of the very same stamp, and would have operated in the very same manner, to the removing of the pious Quaker's doubts. Faith! ye lack faith! cries this prophet in our streets; and when reproved and distressed scepticism enquires where truth is to be found, he bids it back to the loom or the forge, to its tools and its workshop, of whatever kind these may be--there to forget the enquiry.

The religion, or, if he pleases, the formula of religion, which helps to keep men sober and orderly, Mr Carlyle despises, ridicules; "old clothes!" he cries, empty and ragged. It is not till a man has risen into frenzy, or some hot fanaticism, that he deserves his respect. An Irving, when his noble spirit, kindled to fever heat, is seized with delirium, becomes worthy of some admiration. A Cromwell is pronounced emphatically to have believed in a God, and _therefore_ to have been "by far the remarkablest governor we have had here for the last five centuries or so." Meanwhile, is it the faith of an Irving, or the God of a Cromwell, that our subtle-minded author would have us adopt, or would adopt himself? If he scorn the easy, methodical citizen, who plods along the beaten tracks of life, looking occasionally, in his demure, self-satisfied manner, upwards to the heavens, but with no other result than to plod more perseveringly along his very earthy track, it follows not that there is any one order of fanatic spirits with whom he would associate, to whose theology he would yield assent. Verily, no. He demands faith--he gives no creed. What is it _you_ teach? a plain-speaking man would exclaim; where is your church? have you also your thirty-nine articles? have you nine? have you _one_ stout article of creed that will bear the rubs of fortune--bear the temptations of prosperity or a dietary system--stand both sunshine and the wind--which will keep virtue steady when disposed to reel, and drive back crime to her penal caverns of remorse? What would you answer, O philosopher! if a simple body should ask you, quite in confidence, where wicked people go to?

Were it not better for those to whom philosophy has brought the sad necessity of doubt, to endure this also patiently and silently, as one of the inevitable conditions of human existence? Were not this better than to rail incessantly against the world, for a want of that sentiment which _they_ have no means to excite or to authorize?

The same inconsequence in politics. We have _Chartism_ preached by one not a Chartist--by one who has no more his _five points_ of Radicalism than his five points of Calvinistic divinity--who has no trust in democracy, who swears by no theory of representative government--who will never believe that a multitude of men, foolish and selfish, will elect the disinterested and the wise. Your constitution, your laws, your "horse-haired justice" that sits in Westminster Hall, he likes them not; but he propounds himself no scheme of polity. Reform yourselves, one and all, ye individual men! and the nation will be reformed; practise justice, charity, self-denial, and then all mortals may work and eat. This is the most distinct advice he bestows. Alas! it is advice such as this that the Christian preacher, century after century, utters from his pulpit, which he makes the staple of his eloquence, and which he and his listeners are contented to applaud; and the more contented probably to applaud, as, on all hands, it is tacitly understood to be far _too good_ to be practised.

In fine, turn which way you will, to philosophy, to politics, to religion, you find Mr Carlyle objecting, denouncing, scoffing, rending all to pieces in his bold, reckless, ironical, manner--but _teaching_ nothing. The most docile pupil, when he opens his tablets to put down the precious sum of wisdom he has learned, pauses--finds his pencil motionless, and leaves his tablet still a blank.

Now all this, and more of the same kind, which our astute and trenchant critic might urge, may be true, or very like the truth, but it is not the whole truth.

"To speak a little pedantically," says our author himself, in a paper called _Signs of the Times_, "there is a science of _Dynamics_ in man's fortune and nature, as well as of _Mechanics_. There is a science which treats of, and practically addresses, the primary, unmodified, forces and energies of man, the mysterious springs of love, and fear, and wonder, of enthusiasm, poetry--religion, all which have a truly vital and _infinite_ character; as well as a science which practically addresses the finite, modified developments of these, when they take the shape of immediate 'motives,' as hope of reward, or as fear of punishment. Now it is certain, that in former times the wise men, the enlightened lovers of their kind, who appeared generally as moralists, poets, or priests, did, without neglecting the mechanical province, deal chiefly with the dynamical; applying, themselves chiefly to regulate, increase, and purify, the inward primary powers of man; and fancying that herein lay the main difficulty, and the best service they could undertake."--_Misc_. vol. ii. p. 277.

In such _Dynamics_ it is that Mr Carlyle deals. To speak in our own plain common-place diction, it is to the elements of all religious feeling, to the broad unalterable principles of morality, that he addresses himself; stirring up in the minds of his readers those sentiments of reverence to the Highest, and of justice to all, even to the lowest, which can never utterly die out in any man, but which slumber in the greater number of us. It is by no means necessary to teach any peculiar or positive doctrine in order to exert an influence on society. After all, there is a moral heart beating at the very centre of this world. Touch _it_, and there is a responsive movement through the whole system of the world. Undoubtedly external circumstances rule in their turn over this same central pulsation: alter, arrange, and modify, these external circumstances as best you can, but he who, by the _word_ he speaks or writes, can reach this central pulse immediately--is he idle, is he profitless?

Or put it thus: there is a justice between man and man--older, and more stable, and more lofty in its requisitions, than that which sits in ermine, or, if our author pleases, in "horse-hair," at Westminster Hall; there is a morality recognized by the intellect and the heart of all reflective men, higher and purer than what the present forms of society exact or render feasible--or rather say, a morality of more exalted character than that which has hitherto determined those forms of society. No man who believes that the teaching of Christ was authorized of heaven--no man who believes this only, that his doctrine has obtained and preserved its heavenly character from the successful, unanswerable, appeal which it makes to the human heart--can dispute this fact. Is he an idler, then, or a dreamer in the land, who comes forth, and on the high-road of our popular literature, insists on it that men should assume their full _moral strength_, and declares that herein lies the salvation of the world? But what can he do if the external circumstances of life are against him?--if they crush this moral energy?--if they discountenance this elevation of character? Alone--perhaps nothing. He with both hands is raising one end of the beam; go you with your tackle, with rope and pulley, and all mechanical appliances, to the other end, and who knows but something may be effected?

It is not by teaching this or that dogma, political, philosophical, or religious, that Mr Carlyle is doing his _work_, and exerting an influence, by no means despicable, on his generation. It is by producing a certain moral tone of thought, of a stern, manly, energetic, self-denying character, that his best influence consists. Accordingly we are accustomed to view his works, even when they especially regard communities of men, and take the name of histories, as, in effect, appeals to the individual heart, and to the moral will of the reader. His mind is not legislative; his mode of thinking is not systematic; a state economy he has not the skill, perhaps not the pretension, to devise. When he treats of nations, and governments, and revolutions of states, he views them all as a wondrous picture, which he, the observer, standing apart, watches and apostrophizes, still revealing _himself_ in his reflections upon them. The picture _to the eye_, he gives with marvellous vividness; and he puts forth, with equal power, that sort of world-wide reflection which a thinking being might be supposed to make on his first visit to our planet; but the space between--those intermediate generalizations which make the pride of the philosophical historian--he neglects, has no taste for. Such a writer as Montesquieu he holds in manifest antipathy. His _History of the French Revolution_, like his _Chartism_, like the work now before us, his _Past and Present_, is still an appeal to the consciousness of each man, and to the high and eternal laws of justice and of charity--lo, ye are brethren!

And although it be true, as our critic has suggested, that to enlarge upon the misery which lies low and wide over the whole ground-plot of civilized society, without at the same time devising an effectual remedy, is a most unsatisfactory business; nevertheless, this also must be added, that to forget the existence of this misery would not be to cure it--would, on the contrary, be a certain method of perpetuating and aggravating it; that to _try_ to forget it, is as little wise as it is humane, and that indeed such act of oblivion is altogether impossible. If crowds of artizans, coming forth from homes where there is neither food nor work, shall say, in the words that our author puts into their mouths, "Behold us here--we ask if you mean to lead us towards work; to try to lead us? Or if you declare that you cannot lead us? And expect that we are to remain quietly unled, and in a composed manner perish of starvation? What is it that you expect of us? What is it that you mean to do with us?"--if, we say, such a question is asked, we may not be able to answer, but we cannot stifle it. Surely it is well that every class in the community should know how indissolubly its interest is connected with the well-being of other classes. However remote the man of wealth may sit from scenes like this--however reluctant he may be to hear of them--nothing can be more true than that this distress is _his calamity_, and that _on him_ also lies the inevitable alternative to remedy or to suffer.

It accords with the view we have here taken of the writings of Mr Carlyle, that of all his works that which pleased us most was the one most completely _personal_ in its character, which most constantly kept the reader in a state of self-reflection. In spite of all its oddities and vagaries, and the chaotic shape into which its materials have been thrown, the _Sartor Resartus_ is a prime favourite of ours--a sort of volcanic work; and the reader stands by, with folded arms, resolved at all events to secure peace within his own bosom. But no sluggard's peace; his arms are folded, not for idleness, only to repress certain vain tremors and vainer sighs. He feels the calm of self-renunciation, but united with no monkish indolence. Here is a fragment of it. How it rebukes the spirit of strife and contention!

"To me, in this our life," says the Professor, "which is an
internecine warfare with the time-spirit, other warfare seems
questionable. Hast thou in any way a contention with thy
brother, I advise thee, think well what the meaning thereof is.
If thou gauge it to the bottom, it is simply this--'Fellow,
see! thou art taking more than thy share of happiness in the
world, something from _my_ share; which, by the heavens, thou
shalt not; nay, I will fight thee rather.' Alas! and the whole
lot to be divided is such a beggarly matter, truly a 'feast of
shells,' for the substance has been spilled out: not enough to
quench one appetite; and the collective human species clutching
at them! Can we not, in all such cases, rather say--'Take it,
thou too ravenous individual; take that pitiful additional
fraction of a share, which I reckoned mine, but which thou so
wanted; take it with a blessing: would to heaven I had enough
for thee!'"--P. 200.

Truisms! Preachments repeated from Solomon downwards! some quick, impatient reader, all animal irritability, will exclaim--Good, but it is the very prerogative of genius, in every age, to revive truisms such as these, and make them burn in our hearts. Many a man in his hour of depression, when resolution is sicklied over by the pale cast of thought, will find, in the writings of Carlyle, a freshening stimulant, better than the wine-cup, or even the laughter of a friend, can give. In some of his biographical sketches, with what force has he brought out the moral resolution which animated, or ought to have animated, the man of whom he is writing! We shall have occasion, by and by, to notice what, to our mind, appears a mere perversion of thought, and a mischievous exaggeration in our author, who, in his love of a certain _energy_ of character, has often made this energy (apart from a moral purpose) the test and rule of his admiration. But at present turn to his admirable estimation of Dr Samuel Johnson, and the noble regret which he throws over the memory of Burns. A portion of the first we cannot resist extracting. What a keen mountain air, bracing to the nerves, mortal to languor and complaint, blows over us from passages such as these:--

"The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die
decently, but to live manfully. Johnson, in the eighteenth
century, all as a man of letters, was, in good truth, 'the
bravest of the brave.' What mortal could have more to war with?
Yet, as we saw, he yielded not, faltered not; he fought, and
even, such was his blessedness, prevailed. Whoso will
understand what it is to have a man's heart, may find that,
since the time of John Milton, no braver heart had beat in any
English bosom than Samuel Johnson now bore. Observe, too, that
he never called himself brave, never felt himself to be so; the
more completely _was_ he so. No Giant Despair, no Golgotha
Death-Dance, or Sorcerer's Sabbath of 'Literary Life in
London,' appals this pilgrim; he works resolutely for
deliverance; in still defiance steps stoutly along. The thing
that is given him to do he can make himself do; what is to be
endured he can endure in silence.

"How the great soul of old Samuel, consuming daily his own
bitter, unalleviable allotment of misery and toil, shows beside
the poor, flimsy, little soul of young Boswell; one day
flaunting in the ring of vanity, tarrying by the wine-cup, and
crying, Aha, the wine is red; the next day deploring his
down-pressed, night-shaded, quite poor estate; and thinking it
unkind that the whole movement of the universe should go on,
while _his_ digestive apparatus had stopped! We reckon
Johnson's 'talent of silence' to be among his great and rare
gifts. Where there is nothing further to be done, there shall
nothing further be said; like his own poor, blind Welshwoman,
he accomplished somewhat, and also 'endured fifty years of
wretchedness with unshaken fortitude.' How grim was life to
him; a sick prison-house and doubting-castle! 'His great
business,' he would profess, 'was to escape from himself.' Yet
towards all this he has taken his position and resolution; can
dismiss it all 'with frigid indifference, having little to hope
or to fear.' Friends are stupid, and pusillanimous, and
parsimonious; 'wearied of his stay, yet offended at his
departure;' it is the manner of the world. 'By popular
delusion,' remarks he, with a gigantic calmness, 'illiterate
writers will rise into renown:' it is a portion of the history
of English literature; a perennial thing, this same popular
delusion; and will--alter the character of the language....

"The life of this man has been, as it were, turned inside out,
and examined with microscopes by friend and foe; yet was there
no lie found in him. His doings and writings are not _shows_,
but _performances_: you may weigh them in the balance, and they
will stand weight. Not a line, not a sentence is dishonestly
done, is other than it pretends to be. Alas! and he wrote not
out of inward inspiration, but to earn his wages; and with that
grand perennial tide flowing by, in whose waters he
nevertheless refused to fish, to whose rich oyster-beds the
dive was too muddy for him. Observe, again, with what innate
hatred of cant he takes to himself, and offers to others, the
lowest possible view of his business, which he followed with
such nobleness. Motive for writing he had none, as he often
said, but money; and yet he wrote _so_. Into the region of
poetic art he indeed never rose; there was no _ideal_ without
him, avowing itself in his work; the nobler was that unavowed
_ideal_ which lay within him, and commanded, saying, Work out
thy artisanship in the spirit of an artist! They who talk
loudest about the dignity of art, and fancy that they too are
artistic guild-brethren, and of the celestials, let them
consider well what manner of man this was, who felt himself to
be only a hired day-labourer."--_Misc_. vol. iv. p. 19.

The _History of the French Revolution_ deserves, no doubt, notwithstanding the sort of partiality we have intimated for its wild predecessor, to be considered as the greatest work of Mr Carlyle; but it is the work of which criticism, if she ventures to speak at all, must speak with the loudest and most frequent protests. There are certain grave objections which cannot be got over. As to the _style_, indeed, Mr Carlyle is, on this head, (except, occasionally, when writing for some _Review_ in which a very violent departure from the English language would not be advisable,) far above all criticism. The attempt to censure the oddities with which it abounds--the frequent repetition--the metaphor and allusion used again and again till the page is covered with a sort of slang--would only subject the critic himself to the same kind of ridicule that would fall upon the hapless wight who should bethink him of taking some Shandean work gravely to task for its scandalous irregularities, and utter want of methodical arrangement. Such is _Carlylism_; and this is all that can be said upon the matter. But the style which seemed not altogether unnatural, and far from intolerable, in Herr Teufelsdrockh, becomes a strangely inconvenient medium of communication where a whole history is to be told in it. The mischief is, that it admits of no safe middle path: it must arrest attention for its novelty, its graphic power, its bold originality; or it must offend by its newfangled phrase, its jerking movement, and its metaphor and allusion reduced into a slang. Meanwhile, there is so much in a history which needs only to be told--so much, which even this author, _skip_ how he may, must relate, for the sake merely of preserving a continuous narrative--and where the perfection of style would be, as all the world knows, that it should draw no attention whatever to itself. A style like this of our author's, once assumed, cannot be laid down for a moment; and the least important incident is related with the same curiosity of diction, and the same startling manner, that delighted us in the _Siege of the Bastile_. To convey mere _information_, it seems quite unserviceable. "How inferior," says our author somewhere himself,--"how inferior for _seeing by_ is the brightest train of fireworks to the humblest farthing candle!"

The basis of a history is surely, after all, the narrative, and whatever may be the estimate of others, the _historian_ proceeds on the supposition that the facts he has to relate are, for their own sake, deserving to be had in remembrance. If not, why is he there recording and verifying them? But Mr Carlyle proceeds throughout on quite the contrary supposition, that the fact for itself is worth nothing--that it is valuable only as it presents some peculiar picture to the imagination, or kindles some noteworthy reflection. He maintains throughout the attitude of one who stands apart, looking _at_ the history; rarely does he assume the patient office of that scribe whom we remember to have seen in the frontispiece of our school histories, recording faithfully what the bald headed Time, sitting between his scythe and his hour-glass, was dictating.

Never, indeed, was history written in so mad a vein--and that not only as regards style, but the prevailing mood of mind in which the facts and characters are scanned. That mood is for the most part ironical. There is philanthropy, doubtless, at the bottom of it all; but a mocking spirit, a profound and pungent irony, are the manifest and prevailing characteristics. It is a philanthropy which has borrowed the manner of Mephistopheles. It is a modern Diogenes--in fact it is Diogenes Teufelsdrockh himself, surveying the Revolution from his solitary watch-tower, where he sits so near the eternal skies, that a whole generation of men, _whirling off in wild Sahara waltz into infinite space_, is but a spectacle, and a very brief and confused one. This lofty irony, pungent as it is, grows wearisome. By throwing a littleness on all things, it even destroys the very aliment it feeds on; nothing, at last, is worth the mocking. But the weariness it occasions is not its greatest fault. It leads to a most unjust and capricious estimate of the characters and actions of men. Capricious it must, of necessity, become. To be ironical always were insufferable; even for the sake of artistical effect, some personages; and some events, must be treated with a natural feeling of respect or abhorrence; yet if one murder is to be recorded with levity, why not another;--if one criminal is to be dismissed with a jest, levelled perhaps at some personal oddity, why is an earnest indignation to be bestowed on the next criminal that comes under notice? The distinctions that will be made will be not fair judgments, but mere favouritism. Situated thus--plain moral distinctions having been disparaged--Mr Carlyle has given way to his admiration of a certain _energy_ of character, and makes the possession of this sole excellence the condition of his favour, the title to his respect, or perhaps, we should say, to an immunity from his contempt. The man who has an _eye_--that is, who glares on you like a tiger--he who, in an age of revolution, is most thoroughly revolutionary, and _swallows all formulas_--he is made a hero, and honourable mention is decreed to him; whilst all who acted with an ill-starred moderation, who strove, with ineffectual but conscientious effort, to stay the wild movement of the revolution, are treated with derision, are dismissed with contempt, or at best with pity for their _weakness_.

His first hero is Mirabeau, a man of energy enough doubtless, and who had, in a most remarkable degree, that force of character which gives not only influence over, but a sort of _possession_ of, other men's minds, though they may claim far higher intellectual endowments. For this one quality he is forgiven every thing. The selfish ambition of which he must be more than suspected, is not glanced at. Even the ridicule due to his inordinate vanity, is spared him. "Yes support that head," says this dying gladiator to his friend; "would I could bequeath it to thee!" And our caustic Diogenes withholds the lash. As the history proceeds, Danton is elevated to the place of hero. He is put in strong contrast with Robespierre. The one is raised into simple admiration, the other sunk into mere contempt; both are spared the just execration which their crimes have merited. The one good quality of Danton is, that, like Mirabeau, he had an _eye_--did not see through _logic spectacles_--had _swallowed all formulas_. So that, when question is made of certain massacres in which he was implicated, we are calmly told "that some men have tasks frightfuller than ours." The one great vice of Robespierre is, that he lacked courage; for the rest, he is "sea-green and incorruptible"--"thin and acrid." His incorruptibility is always mentioned contemptuously, and generally in connexion with his bilious temperament, as if they related as cause and effect, or were both alike matters of pathology. Mr Carlyle has a habit of stringing together certain moral with certain physical peculiarities, till the two present themselves as of quite equal importance, and things of the same category.

Yet this Robespierre, had our author been in want of another hero, possessed one quality, which, in his estimate, would have entitled him to occupy the pedestal. He had _faith_. "Of incorruptible Robespierre, it was long ago predicted that he might go far--mean, meagre mortal though he was--for _doubt_ dwelt not in him." And this prediction was uttered by no less a man than Mirabeau. "Men of insight discern that the sea-green may by chance go far: 'this man,' observes Mirabeau, 'will do somewhat; _he believes every word he says_.'" The audacity of Danton the 'sea-green' certainly did not possess, but of that sort of courage which can use the extremest means for the desired end, he surely had sufficient. He shrunk from no crime, however exorbitant. His _faith_ carried him through all, and nearer to the goal than any of his compeers. He walked as firm as others round the crater of this volcano, and walked there the longest. It is impossible not to feel that _here_, by the side of Dauton, a great injustice has been done to the incorruptible and _faithful_ Robespierre.

Well may _energy_ or _will_ stand in the place of goodness with Mr Carlyle, since we find him making in another place this strange paradoxical statement: "_Bad_ is by its nature negative, and can do _nothing_; whatsoever enables us to _do_ any thing is by its very nature _good_." So that such a thing as a _bad deed_ cannot exist, and such an expression is without meaning. Accordingly, not only is energy applauded, but that energy applauded most that _does most_. Those who exercised their power, and the utmost resolution of mind, in the attempt to restrain the Revolution, are not to be put in comparison with those who _did something_--who carried forward the revolutionary movement. With what contempt he always mentions Lafayette--a man of limited views, it is true; and whose views at the time were wide enough? or to whom would the widest views have afforded a practical guidance?--but a man of honour and of patriotic intentions! It is "Lafayette--thin, constitutional pedant; clear, thin, inflexible, as water turned to thin ice." And how are the whole party of the Gironde treated with slight and derision, because, at a period of what proved to be irremediable confusion--when nothing but the whirlwind was to be reaped--they were incessantly striving to realize for their country some definite and permanent institutions! But though their attempt we see was futile, could they do other than make the attempt? Mr Carlyle describes the position of affairs very ably in the following passage:--

"This huge insurrectionary movement, which we liken to a
breaking out of Tophet and the abyss, has swept away royalty,
aristocracy, and a king's life. The question is, what will it
next do? how will it henceforth shape itself? Settle down into
a reign of law and liberty, according as the habits,
persuasions, and endeavours of the educated, monied,
respectable class prescribe? That is to say, the volcanic
lava-flood, bursting up in the manner described, will explode,
and flow according to Girondine formula and pre-established
rule of philosophy? If so, for our Girondine friends it will be
well.

"Meanwhile, were not the prophecy rather, that as no external
force, royal or other, now remains which could control this
movement, the movement will follow a course of its
own--probably a very original one. Further, that whatsoever man
or men can best interpret the inward tendencies it has, and
give them voice and activity, will obtain the lead of it. For
the rest, that, as a thing _without_ order--a thing proceeding
from beyond and beneath the region of order--it must work and
wither, not as a regularity, but as a chaos--destructive and
self-destructive always; till something that _has_ order arise,
strong enough to bind it into subjection again; which
something, we may further conjecture, will not be a formula,
with philosophical propositions and forensic eloquence, but a
reality, probably with a sword in its hand!"

But, true as all this may be, Mr Carlyle would be the last man to commend the Girondists had they allowed themselves to be borne along _passively_ by this violent movement: is it fair dealing, then, that their efforts--the only efforts they _could_ make--efforts which cost them life, should be treated as little better than idle pedantries?

But what criticism has to say in _praise_ of this extraordinary work, let it not be said with stint or timidity. The bold glance _at_ the Revolution, taken from his Diogenes' station, and the vivid descriptions of its chief scenes, are unrivalled.

That many a page sorely tries the reader's patience is acknowledged, and we might easily fill column after column with extracts, to show that the style of Mr Carlyle, especially when it is necessary for him to descend to the common track of history, can degenerate into a mannerism scarce tolerable, for which no term of literary censure, would be too severe. We have, however, no disposition to make any such extracts; and our readers, we are sure, would have little delight in perusing them. On the other hand, when he does succeed, great is the glory thereof; and we cannot forego the pleasure of making one quotation, however well known the remarkable passages of this work may be, to illustrate the triumphant power which he not unfrequently displays. Here is a portion of his account of the _Taking of the Bastile_. It will be borne in mind, that there is throughout a mixture of the ironical and mock-heroic:

"All morning since nine there has been a cry every where: To
the Bastile! Repeated 'deputations of citizens' have been here,
passionate for arms; whom De Launay has got dismissed by soft
speeches through port-holes. Towards noon elector Thuriot de la
Rosière gains admittance; finds De Launay indisposed for
surrender; nay, disposed for blowing up the place rather.
Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements: heaps of paving
stones, old iron, and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly
levelled; in every embrasure a cannon--only drawn back a
little! But _outwards_, behold how the multitude flows on,
swelling through every street: tocsin furiously pealing, all
drums beating the _générale_: the suburb Saint Antoine rolling
hitherward wholly as one man!

"Woe to thee De Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not,
taking some one firm decision, _rule_ circumstances! Soft
speeches will not serve, hard grape-shot is questionable; but
hovering between the two is _un_questionable. Ever wilder
swells the tide of men; their infinite hum waxing even louder
into imprecations, perhaps into crackle of stray
musketry--which latter, on walls nine feet thick, cannot do
execution. The outer drawbridge has been lowered for Thuriot;
new _deputation of citizens_ (it is the third and noisiest of
all) penetrates that way into the outer court: soft speeches
producing no clearance of these, De Launay gives fire; pulls up
his drawbridge; a slight sputter--which has _kindled_ the too
combustible chaos; made it a roaring fire-chaos. Bursts forth
insurrection at sight of its own blood, (for there were deaths
by that sputter of fire,) into endless rolling explosion of
musketry, distraction, execration. The Bastile is besieged!

"On, then, all Frenchmen that have hearts in their bodies! Roar
with all your throats, of cartilage and metal, ye sons of
liberty; stir spasmodically whatsoever of utmost faculty is in
you, soul, body, or spirit; for it is the hour! Smite thou,
Louis Tournay, cart-wright of the Marais, old soldier of the
regiment Dauphiné: smite at that outer drawbridge chain, though
the fiery hail whistles round thee! Never, over nave or felloe,
did thy axe (_q._ hammer?) strike such a stroke. Down with it,
man: down with it to Orcus: let the whole accursed edifice sink
thither, and tyranny be swallowed up for ever! Mounted, some
say, on the roof of the guard-room, some 'on bayonets stuck
into the joints of the wall,' Louis Tournay smites brave Aubin
Bonnemère (also an old soldier) seconding him: the chain
yields, breaks; the huge drawbridge slams down thundering,
(_avec fracas_.) Glorious: and yet, alas, it is still but the
outworks! The eight grim towers, with their Invalides'
musketry, their paving stones and cannon-mouths, still roar
aloft intact; ditch yawning impassable, stone-faced; the inner
drawbridge with its _back_ towards us; the Bastile is still to
take!