[Footnote 53: Home was expelled the ministry for this heinous offence, which raised a fearful turmoil at the time among Synods and Presbyteries. The Glasgow Presbytery published a declaration (Feb. 14, 1757) on the "melancholy but notorious fact, that one, who is a minister of the Church of Scotland, did himself write and compose a stage play intitled the Tragedy of Douglas;" and to this declaration various other presbyteries published their adhesion.]

[Footnote 54: This sentence might, with more justice, have been visited upon the work of the other bishop, Achilles Tatius, for his not infrequent transgressions against delicacy, a fault never chargeable on Heliodorus.]

The time of the story is laid in the middle ages of Grecian history, after the conclusion of the wars between Greece and Persia, and while Egypt was still governed by the satraps of the great king; and the first scene at once plunges the reader, in accordance with the Horatian precept, in medias res. A band of marauders, prowling on the coast of Egypt, are surprised by the sight of a ship moored to the shore without any one on board, while the beach around is strewed with the fragments of a costly banquet, and with a number of dead bodies of men, slain apparently in mutual conflict; the only survivors being a damsel of surpassing beauty, arrayed as a priestess of Diana, who is wailing over the inanimate form of a wounded youth. Before they have time however, either to unravel the mystery, or to avail themselves of the booty, thus unexpectedly spread before them, they are in turn put to flight by a more numerous party of robbers, or rather buccaneers, (bucoli or herdsmen,) who carry off the forlorn couple to their retreat, in the inner-most recesses of a vast lake or morass, near the Heracleotic mouth of the Nile.[55] The description of this robber-colony appears to have been drawn from an existing or well-remembered state of things, and bears considerable resemblance, except in the presence of women and children, to a setsha, or stronghold, of the Zaporog Cossacks in the islets of the Dniepr.

[Footnote 55: This is usually called the Canopia mouth; but Herodotus (who says that it was dug by artificial means) calls it the Bucolic, perhaps from the haunts above described in its neighbourhood.]

"This whole region is called by the Egyptians the Bucolia, or 'pasturages,' and is a tract of low land, which has been converted by the inundations of the Nile into a lake, of great depth in the middle, and gradually shoaling towards the margins into a marsh. Among this labyrinth of lakes and morasses, all the robber-community of Egypt hold their commonwealth; some building huts wherever there is enough of dry land for the purpose, and others living wholly on board their boats, which serve them for a home, as well as to transport them from place to place. In these narrow craft their children are born and brought up, tied by a cord round their foot, in their infancy, to keep them from falling overboard, and tasting for their first food, after being weaned, the fish of the lake dried in the sun. Thus, many of these buccaneers are natives of the lake itself, which they regard as their country and their fortress; and they also receive among them many recruits of the same sort as themselves. The waters serve them for a defence, and they are further fortified by the vast quantity of reeds overgrowing the borders of the lake, through which they have contrived certain narrow winding paths known only to themselves, to guard them against sudden incursions from without."

The chief, Thyamis, is forthwith desperately smitten by the charms of Chariclea, and announces, in a set speech to his followers, when assembled for the division of the booty, his intention of taking her to wife. The heroine, as usual with heroines in such trying circumstances, feigns compliance, stipulating only for the delay of the ceremony till she could deposit her sacred ornaments in a temple; a request which Thyamis—who, by the way, is no vulgar depredator, but an Egyptian of rank, who has been deprived of an hereditary[56] priesthood, and driven into hiding, by the baseness of a younger brother—is too well bred to refuse. The beautiful captive is accordingly, (with Theagenes, whom she calls her brother,) given in charge, for the time, to an Athenian prisoner named Cnemon, who had been driven into exile by the vindictive artifices of his step-mother and her confidante, and the recital of whose adventures (apparently borrowed from those of Hippolitus) occupies a considerable space at this juncture, without much advancing the story. On the following day, however, the settlement is attacked by an irresistible force, guided by the gang who had been driven from their prey on the beach. Thyamis, after performing prodigies of valour, is taken prisoner; and Theagenes and Chariclea, with Cnemon, escaping in the confusion, find themselves alone in an island of the lake. Cnemon, as being best acquainted with the language and the surrounding country, is sent the next day to the main land, to make discoveries, accompanied by Thermuthis, the buccanier lieutenant, who had returned when the fray was over, in hopes of recovering a fair captive of his own. The object of his search, however, who proves to be no other than Thisbe, the treacherous soubrette through whom Cnemon's misfortunes had arisen, had been slain by accident in the conflict; and Thermuthis, whose suspicions had been awakened by the joy expressed by Cnemon, is meditating the murder of his fellow-traveller, when he opportunely perishes by the bite of an asp. Cnemon, continuing on his way,[57] reaches the margin of the Nile opposite the town of Chemmis, and there encounters a venerable personage, who, wrapt in deep thought, is pensively pacing the banks of the river. This old Egyptian priest, (for such he proves to be,) Calasiris by name, not only takes the abrupt intrusion of Cnemon in perfect good part, but carries his complaisance so far as to invite him to the house of a friend of whom he is himself a guest, and the honours of whose mansion he is doing in the temporary absence of the owner. This obliging offer is, of course, accepted with great alacrity; and, in the course of after-dinner conversation, the incidental mention by Calasiris of the names of Theagenes and Chariclea, and the consequent enquiries of Cnemon, who recognises them as those of his late fellow captives, lead to a long episodical narration from the old gentleman, during which Cnemon, in return for the hospitality and confidence thus unexpectedly shown him, displays most enviable powers as a listener, and which, in a great measure, unfolds the plot to the reader.

[Footnote 56: The hereditary succession of the Egyptian priesthood is stated both by Herodotus and Diodorus; but Sir J.G. Wilkinson (Manners of the Ancient Egyptians, i. 262,) believe that, "though a priest was son of a priest, the peculiar office held by a son may sometimes have been different in point of rank from that of his father."]

[Footnote 57: Before setting out on this expedition, he "reduces his hair to a more moderate quantity than that usually worn by robbers." Thus, the Italian bravoes of the middle ages, when they repented their evil ways, were wont to "shave the tuft," which was thrown over the face as a disguise; hence the phrase, radere il ciuffo, still used as synonymous with becoming an honest man. See Manzoni's well-known romance of "I Promessi Sposi."]

It appears that Persina, consort of Hydaspes, King of Ethiopia, had given birth, in consequence of one of those accidents which will sometimes happen in the best regulated families, to a white or fair-complexioned daughter;[58] and dreading lest the hue of her offspring, unusual in that country, might draw on herself suspicions which might expose her to certain pains and penalties, she secretly committed the infant to the care of Sisimithres, an officer of the court, placing at the same time in his hands, as tokens by which she might afterwards be recognised, various costly ornaments, especially a ring which had been given her by the king at their nuptials, bearing "the royal symbol engraven within a circle on the talismanic stone Pantarbe," and a fillet on which was embroidered, in the Ethiopic character,[59] the story of the child's birth. Under the guardianship of Sisimithres, she remained seven years; till, fearing for her safety if she continued in Ethiopia, he took the opportunity of his being sent to Thebes as ambassador from Hydaspes to the Satrap of Egypt, to transfer his charge, with the tokens attached to her, to a priest of the Delphian Apollo, named Charicles, who was travelling in search of consolation for domestic afflictions. Before Sisimithres, however, had time to explain the previous history of the foundling, he was compelled to leave Egypt in haste; and Charicles, carrying her with him on his return to his Grecian home, adopted her as his daughter, add gave her the name of Chariclea. She grew up at Delphi a miracle of grace and beauty, dedicating herself to the service of the temple, and obedient to the will of her supposed father in all points, except one, her determination to lead a single life. At this juncture, Calasiris (who, as it now incidentally transpires, is father of Thyamis and his rival-brother Petosiris) arrives at Delphi during the celebration of the Pythian games, having found it expedient to absent himself from Egypt for a time, for various family reasons, and more especially on account of the prediction of an oracle, that he should live to see his two sons engaged with each other in mortal conflict. A favourable response, vouchsafed to him by the Pythia from the tripod, at his entrance into the fane of Apollo, having pointed him out as a personage of consideration, he is treated with high distinction by Charicles, who confides to him the history of Chariclea, as far as he is himself acquainted with it, and entreats him to dispose her, by those occult sciences in which the Egyptian priests were supposed to be versed, to listen to the suit of his nephew Alcamenes, whom he had destined for her husband. Calasiris promises compliance; but the scene is now changed by the arrival of a magnificent deputation from the AEnianes, a noble tribe of Thessaly, headed by a princely youth named Theagenes, who, as a reputed descendant of Achilles, has come to sacrifice at the shrine of his ancestor Neoptolemus. The pomp and pageantry of the ceremonial is described in vivid language, and with considerable effect; and as a specimen of our author's manner, we shall quote the procession of the Thessalians to the temple.

"In the van came the oxen destined for sacrifice, led by men of rustic guise and rude demeanour, each clad in a white tunic closely girt about him, with the right arm bare to the shoulder, and brandishing a double-headed axe. The oxen were all black without mixture, with massive necks low-hung dewlaps, and straight and even horns, which in some were gilt, in the others twined with garlands; and their number was neither more nor less than a hundred—a true hecatomb. Next followed the rest of the victims, each kind of animal kept separate and in order, and all marshalled to the sound of flutes and other wind instruments. Then appeared, in rich and flowing robes, and with their long locks floating loose on their shoulders, a band of the deep-zoned virgins of Thessaly, divided into two separate sets or choruses, the first of which bore baskets of flowers and ripe fruit, while those in the second carried salvers of sweetmeats and rich perfumes, which filled the air with the mingled fragrance breathing from them; but these light burdens were supported on their heads, thus leaving their hands free to be joined in the movements of the dance, to the slow and stately measure of which they advanced; while one chorus led the hymn, the strains of which were taken up by the other, in praise of Peleus and Thetis, their hero-son, and Neoptolemus and the other heroes of his race. The alternate rhythm of the chant keeping time with the fall of their footsteps, riveted the attention of the spectators, who seemed spell-bound by the sweet voices of the maidens, till the cavalcade which succeeded, flashing out from the crowd beyond, with their princely leader at their head, once more attracted all eyes to themselves. The troop consisted of fifty horsemen, who rode like guards in double file, twenty-five on each side of the chief, arrayed all alike in white cloaks with borders of azure embroidery, clasped across the breast with golden buckles, and with buskins laced above the ancle with scarlet thongs. Their steeds were all of that generous breed which the rich plains of Thessaly alone produce, and pawed the ground as if impatient of the bit by which their ardour was restrained by their riders; and the silver and gold which glittered on their frontlets and caparisons, showed the rivalry prevailing among these cavaliers in the splendour of the equipments, rather of their coursers than themselves. But it was on him who rode in the midst of this gallant party, eclipsing all his comrades as the glare of lightning seems to obscure all lesser luminaries, that the eyes of the gazing crowd were now fixed. He was completely armed at all points, except his head, and grasped in his hand an ashen lance; while a scarlet cloak, on which was depicted, in figures of gold tissue, the battle of the Centaurs with the Lapithae, flowed loose over his panoply, and was fastened in front with a clasp, representing Pallas sculptured in amber, and holding before her the Gorgon's head on her shield. The breeze, which blew back his locks from his forehead, gave his features more fully to view; and even the horse which bore him seemed to move with a statelier gait, arching his neck and proudly caracoling, as if conscious of the noble presence of his master; while the admiration of the surrounding multitude burst out into a spontaneous shout of applause, and some of the women of the lower class even threw fruit and flowers towards him, in the hope, I suppose, of drawing on themselves a glance of acknowledgement from his eye."

[Footnote 58: The incidents of the birth of Chariclea have been copied by Tasso in the story of Clorinda, as related to her by Arsete, in the 12th canto of "Gierusalemme Liberata." In the "Shah-Nameh," also, Zal, the father of the Persian hero Rustan, being born with white hair, is exposed by his father Sam on the mountain of Elborz, where he is preserved and brought up by the giant-bird Simorgh.]

[Footnote 59: "In the royal character"—"[Greek: grammasin Aithiopikois oy demotikois, alla basilikois]." This distinction between the royal and popular system of hieroglyphics, as well as the etiquette, before mentioned, of inscribing the title of the king within a circle or oval, is borrowed, as need hardly be mentioned, from the monuments of Egypt.]

The cavalier thus eulogized by Calasiris is of course Theagenes, who, after thrice encompassing in due form the tomb of Neoptolemus, at length reaches the Temple of Apollo; but, during the performance of the ceremonial, it falls to his lot to receive the torch with which the altar is to be kindled from the hand of Chariclea, and love at first sight, mutual and instantaneous, is the result. The aid of Calasiris is again invoked by both the lovers; and the good old gentleman, whose knowledge of the Ethiopian hieroglyphics, by enabling him to decipher the mysterious inscription on the fillet, has put him in possession of the true parentage of Chariclea, (which he does not, however, communicate to Charicles,) at once resolves to contrive their elopement, being further stimulated thereto by Apollo in a dream—the agency of dreams, it should be remarked, being introduced on almost every possible occasion throughout the narrative, and their dictates in all cases religiously acted upon by the parties interested. A passage is procured on board a Phoenician ship opportunely lying in the Crissaean Gulf, the nearest point of the coast to Delphi; and the abduction of Chariclea having been effected by apparent violence by the companions of Theagenes, the trio set sail for Sicily, the fugitives passing as the children of Calasiris. The voyage is at first prosperous; but the ship happening to touch at Zacynthus, the beauty of Chariclea attracts the eye of a noted pirate named Trachinus, who, when the vessel resumes her course, pursues and captures her after a long chase, and turning the crew adrift in the boat,[60] and carries his prize, with his three captives, to the coast of Egypt, where he prepares a feast on the beach, from the materials furnished by the rich cargo of the Phoenician ship, in honour of his intended nuptials. Calasiris, however, whose genius seems ever fertile in expedients, has contrived to possess the mind of Pelorus, the pirate lieutenant, with the belief that he is the object of the fair captive's preference; and his assertion at the banquet of his claims gives rise to a furious conflict among the intoxicated pirates, ending in the slaughter of the whole party except Pelorus himself, who in turn falls by the sword of Theagenes. Calasiris, who had prudently retired to a safe distance till the fighting was over, is now on the point of coming forward to aid Chariclea in the care of her wounded lover, when he is anticipated by the arrival of the robbers, by whom, as related at the commencement of the story, he sees his proteges carried off.

[Footnote 60: The capture of the vessel has furnished the subject of a painting by Raffaelle and Giulio Romano.]

Before this recital, however, had been brought to a close, Nausicles,[61] the master of the house, returns, and the cause of his absence is explained. An Athenian mistress whom he had brought from Greece had fallen into the hands of the freebooters; and Nausicles, having procured the aid of a body of Persian troops from the governor of the district, had proceeded against the buccanier settlement in order to recover her. On reaching the island, however, they find only Theagenes and Chariclea, Cnemon and Thermuthis having just started on their voyage of discovery; and Nausicles, disappointed of finding her whom he sought, (and who was no other than the faithless Thisbe, slain, as above related, in the battle,) conceived the idea of claiming Chariclea in her place by way of indemnity; while Theagenes was sent off to Memphis by the Persian officer, who deemed that his beauty and noble bearing would make him an acceptable addition to the household[62] of the Satrap Oroondates. The lovers are thus again separated, and Chariclea is in despair; but, on arriving at the house of Nausicles, she is of course immediately recognised and reclaimed by Calasiris. Cnemon, who seems to have as extraordinary a genius for sudden friendships as the two heroines in the "Rovers," marries the fair daughter of Nausicles after a few hours' courtship, and at once sets sail with his father-in-law for Greece, having ascertained from him that the detection of his enemies had now made his return safe:—And Calasiris and Chariclea, disguised as beggars, set out in search of the lost Theagenes. That luckless hero had, meanwhile, been re-captured on his road to Memphis, by his, old friend Thyamis, who, having escaped (it does not exactly appear how) from the emissaries of his treacherous brother, with whom the attack on the island proves to have originated, is now at the head of another and more powerful body of the buccanier fraternity, in the district of Bessa. He receives Theagenes with great cordiality, and, having beaten off an attack from the Persian troops, takes the bold resolution of leading his lawless followers against Memphis itself, in order to reclaim his right to the priesthood, while Oroondates is engaged on the southern frontier in withstanding an invasion of the Ethiopians. Arsace, the wife of the satrap, who is acting as vice-regent for her husband, unprovided with troops to repel this sudden incursion, proposes that the two brothers shall settle the ecclesiastical succession by single combat; and a duel accordingly takes place under the walls of Memphis, in which Petosiris is getting considerably the worst of it, when the combat is interrupted by the arrival of Chariclea and Calasiris, who thus witnesses the spectacle foretold by the oracle—(the dread of seeing which had driven him into voluntary exile)—his two sons aiming at each other's life. The situation is a well-conceived one, and described with spirit. Calasiris is recognised by his penitent sons, and himself resumes the priesthood, the contested vacancy in which had been occasioned only by his absence and supposed death. The lovers are received as his guests in the temple of Isis, and all seems on the point of ending happily, when Calasiris, as if the object of his existence had been accomplished in the fulfilment of the oracle, is found the same night dead in his bed.

[Footnote 61: He is called "A merchant of Naucratis," though resident in Chemmis. But Naucratis, as we find from Herodotus, (ii. 179,) "was of old the only free port of Egypt; and, if any trader came to one of the other mouths of the Nile, he was put upon oath that his coming was involuntary, and was then made to sail to the Canopic mouth. But, if contrary winds prevented him from doing this, he was obliged to send his cargo in barges round the Delta to Naucratis, so strict was the regulation." Amasis was the first king who had permitted the trade of the Greeks at this port, [ib. 178,] and the restriction appears to have been continued under the Persian rule.]

[Footnote 62: The establishment of household slaves or Mamlukes seems to have been nearly on the same footing with the ancient as with the modern Persians.]

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 Pantarbe, 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 Meroe, 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 piece est d'une sagesse qui a donne lieu a 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 Meroe, 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 proteges 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 parenthese: 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 elite 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 Amyrtaeus, (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 Amyrtaeus.]

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 Mohacz, 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 a 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 Rosiere 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 generale: 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 unquestionable. 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 Dauphine: 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 Bonnemere (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!

"To describe this siege of the Bastile (thought to be one of the most important in history) perhaps transcends the talent of mortals. Could one but, after infinite leading, get to understand so much as the plan of the building! But there is open esplanade at the end of the Rue Saint-Antoine; there are such Fore-courts, Cour avance, Cour de l'Orme, arched gateway, (where Louis Tournay now fights,) then new drawbridges, dormant bridges rampart-bastions, and the grim Eight Towers: a labyrinthic mass, high-frowning there, of all ages, from twenty years to four hundred and twenty; beleaguered, in this its last hour, as we said, by mere chaos come again! Ordnance of all calibres; throats of all capacities; men of all plans, every man his own engineer; seldom, since the war of pigmies and cranes, was there seen so anomalous a thing. Half-pay Elie is home for a suit of regimentals; no one would heed him in coloured clothes: half-pay Hulin is haranguing Gardes Francaises in the Place de Greve. Frantic patriots pick up the grape-shots; bear them, still hot, (or seemingly so,) to the Hotel de Ville:—Paris, you perceive, is to be burnt!—Paris wholly has got to the acme of its frenzy; whirled, all ways, by panic madness.

"Let conflagration rage of whatsoever is combustible! Guard-rooms are burnt, Invalides' mess-rooms. A distracted 'peruke-maker with two fiery torches' is for burning 'the saltpetres of the arsenal;' had not a woman run screaming—had not a patriot, with some tincture of natural philosophy, instantly struck the wind out of him, (butt of musket on pit of stomach,) overturned barrels, and stayed the devouring element.

"Blood flows; the aliment of new madness. The wounded are carried into the houses of the Rue Cerisuie; the dying leave their last mandate not to yield till the accursed stronghold fall. And yet, alas, how fall? The walls are so thick! Deputations, three in number, arrive from the Hotel de Ville. These wave their town-flag in the gateway, and stand rolling their drum; but to no purpose. In such crack of doom De Launay cannot hear them, dare not believe them; they return with justified rage, the whew of lead still singing in their ears. What to do? The firemen are here, squirting with their fire-pumps on the Invalides' cannon, to wet the touch-holes; they unfortunately cannot squirt so high, but produce only clouds of spray. Individuals of classical knowledge propose catapults. Santerre, the sonorous brewer of the suburb Saint Antoine, advises rather that the place be fired, by a 'mixture of phosphorus and oil of turpentine, spouted up through forcing pumps.' O Spinola Santerre, hast thou the mixture ready? Every man his own engineer! And still the fire-deluge abates not: even women are firing, and Turks; at least one woman (with her sweetheart) and one Turk. Gardes Francaises have come; real cannon, real cannoniers. Usher Maillard is busy; half-pay Elie, half-pay Hulin rage in the midst of thousands.

"How the great Bastile clock ticks (inaudible) in its inner court there, at its ease, hour after hour, as if nothing special, for it or the world, were passing! It tolled one when the firing began; and is now pointing towards five, and still the firing slakes not. Far down in their vaults the seven prisoners hear muffled din as of earthquakes; their turnkeys answer vaguely....

"For four long hours now has the world-bedlam roared: call it the world-chimera, blowing fire! The poor Invalides have sunk under their battlements, or rise only with reversed muskets; they have made a white flag of napkins; go beating the chamade, or seeming to beat, for one can hear nothing. The very Swiss at the portcullis look weary of firing; disheartened in the fire-deluge, a port-hole at the drawbridge is opened, as by one that would speak. See Huissier Maillard, the shifty man! On his plank, swinging over the abyss of that stone ditch—plank resting on parapet, balanced by weight of patriots—he hovers perilous. Such a dove towards such an ark! Deftly thou shifty usher; one man already fell, and lies smashed, far down there, against the masonry. Usher Maillard falls not; deftly, unerring he walks, with outspread palm. The Swiss holds a paper through his port-hole; the shifty usher snatches it, and returns. Terms of surrender—pardon, immunity to all. Are they accepted? "Foi d'officier—on the word of an officer," answers half-pay Hulin, or half-pay Elie, for men do not agree on it, "they are!" Sinks the drawbridge, Usher Maillard bolting it when down—rushes in the living deluge—the Bastile is fallen! 'Victoire! La Bastile est prise!'"—Vol. i. p. 233.

Such descriptions, we need hardly say, are not the sport of fancy, nor constructed by the agglomeration of eloquent phrases; they are formed by collecting together (and this constitutes their value) facts and intimations scattered through a number of authorities. It would be a great mistake, however, to suppose that there is no imagination, or little artistic talent, displayed in collecting the materials for such a description. There may be genius in reading well quite as certainly as in writing well; nor is it any common or inferior ability that detects at a glance, amongst a multitude of facts, the one which has real significance, and which gives its character to the scene to be reviewed. If any one wishes to convince himself how much a man of genius may see in the page which can hardly obtain the attention of an ordinary reader, the last work of Mr Carlyle, Past and Present, will afford him an opportunity of making the experiment. He has but to turn, after reading in that work the account of Abbot Samson, to the Chronicle of Jocelin, from which it has been all faithfully extracted, and he will be surprised that our author could find so much life and truth in the antiquarian record. Or the experiment would be still more perfect if he should read the chronicle first, and then turn to the extracted account in Past and Present.

It is time, indeed, that we ourselves turned to this work, the perusal of which has led us to these remarks upon Mr Carlyle. We were desirous, however, of forming something like a general estimate of his merits and demerits before we entered upon any account of his last production. What space we have remaining shall be devoted to this work.

Past and Present, if it does not enhance, ought not, we think, to diminish from the reputation of its author; but as a mannerism becomes increasingly disagreeable by repetition, we suspect that, without having less merit, this work will have less popularity than its predecessors. The style is the same "motley wear," and has the same jerking movement—seems at times a thing of shreds and patches hung on wires—and is so full of brief allusions to his own previous writings, that to a reader unacquainted with these it would be scarce intelligible. With all this it has the same vigour, and produces the same vivid impression that always attends upon his writings. Here, as elsewhere, he pursues his author-craft with a right noble and independent spirit, striking manifestly for truth, and for no other cause; and here also, as elsewhere, he leaves his side unguarded, open to unavoidable attack, so that the most blundering critic cannot fail to hit right, and the most friendly cannot spare.

The past is represented by a certain Abbot Samson, and his abbey of St Edmunds, whose life and conversation are drawn from the chronicle already alluded to, and which has been lately published by the Camden Society.[68] Our author will look, he tells us, face to face on this remote period, "in hope of perhaps illustrating our own poor century thereby." Very good. To get a station in the past, and therefrom view the present, is no ill-devised scheme. But Abbot Samson and his monks form a very limited, almost a domestic picture, which supplies but few points of contrast or similitude with our "own poor century," which, at all events, is very rich in point of view. When, therefore, he proceeds to discuss the world-wide topics of our own times, we soon lose all memory of the Abbot and his monastery, who seems indeed to have as little connexion with the difficulties of our position, as the statues of Gog and Magog in Guildhall with the decision of some election contest which is made to take place in their venerable presence. On one point only can any palpable contrast be exhibited, namely, between the religious spirit of his times and our own.

[Footnote 68: Chronica JOCELINI DE BRAKELONDA, de rebus gestis Samsonis Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Edmundi: nunc primum typis mandata, curante JOHANNE GOGE ROKEWOOD. (Camden Society, London, 1840.)]

Now, here, as on every topic where a comparison is attempted, what must strike every one is, the manifest partiality Mr Carlyle shows to the past, and the unfair preference he gives it over the present. Nothing but respect and indulgence when he revisits the monastery of St Edmunds; nothing but censure and suspicion when he enters, say, for instance, the precincts of Exeter Hall. Well do we know, that if Mr Carlyle could meet such a monk alive, as he here treats with so much deference, encounter him face to face, talk to him, and hear him talk; he and the monk would be intolerable to each other. Fortunately for him, the monks are dead and buried whom he lauds so much when contrasted with our modern pietists. Could these tenants of the stately monastery preach to him about their purgatory and their prayers—lecture him, as assuredly they would, with that same earnest, uncomfortable, too anxious exhortation, which all saints must address to sinners—he would close his ears hermetically—he would fly for it—he would escape with as desperate haste as from the saddest whine that ever issued from some lath-and-plaster conventicle.

Mr Carlyle censures our poor century for its lack of faith; yet the kind of faith it possesses, which has grown up in it, which is here at this present, he has no respect for, treats with no manner of tenderness. What other would he have? He deals out to it no measure of philosophical justice. He accepts the faith of every age but his own. He will accept, as the best thing possible, the trustful and hopeful spirit of dark and superstitious periods; but if the more enlightened piety of his own age be at variance even with the most subtle and difficult tenets of his own philosophy, he will make no compromise with it, he casts it away for contemptuous infidelity to trample on as it pleases. When visiting the past, how indulgent, kind, and considerate he is! When Abbot Samson (as the greatest event of his life) resolves to see and to touch the remains of St Edmund, and "taking the head between his hands, speaks groaning," and prays to the "Glorious Martyr that it may not be turned to his perdition that he, miserable and sinful, has dared to touch his sacred person," and thereupon proceeds to touch the eyes and the nose, and the breast and the toes, which last he religiously counts; our complacent author sees here, "a noble awe surrounding the memory of the dead saint, symbol, and promoter of many other right noble things." And when he has occasion to call to mind the preaching of Peter the Hermit, who threw the fanaticism of the west on the fanaticism of the east, and in order that there should be no disparity between them in the sanguinary conflict, assimilated the faith of Christ to that of Mahommed, and taught that the baptized believer who fell by the Saracen would die in the arms of angels, and at the very gates of heaven; here, too, he bestows a hearty respect on the enthusiastic missionary, and all his fellow crusaders: it seems that he also would willingly have gone with such an army of the faithful. But when he turns from the past to the present, all this charity and indulgence are at an end. He finds in his own mechanico-philosophical age a faith in accordance with its prevailing modes of thought—faith lying at the foundation of whatever else of doctrinal theology it possesses—a faith diffused over all society, and taught not only in churches and chapels to pious auditories, but in every lecture-room, and by scientific as well as theological instructors—a faith in God, as creator of the universe, as the demonstrated author, architect, originator, of this wondrous world; and lo! this same philosopher who looked with encouraging complacency on Abbot Samson bending in adoration over the exhumed remains of a fellow mortal, and who listens without a protest to the cries of sanguinary enthusiasm, rising from a throng of embattled Christians, steps disdainfully aside from this faith of a peaceful and scientific age; he has some subtle, metaphysical speculations that will not countenance it; he demands that a faith in God should he put on some other foundation, which foundation, unhappily, his countrymen, as yet unskilled in transcendental metaphysics; cannot apprehend; he withdraws his sympathy from the so trite and sober-minded belief of an industrious, experimental, ratiocinating generation, and cares not if they have a God at all, if they can only make his existence evident to themselves from some commonplace notion of design and prearrangement visible in the world. Accordingly, we have passages like the following, which it is not our fault if the reader finds to be not very intelligible, or written in, what our author occasionally perpetrates, a sad jargon.

"For out of this that we call Atheism, come so many other isms and falsities, each falsity with its misery at its heels!—A SOUL is not, like wind, (spiritus or breath,) contained within a capsule; the ALMIGHTY MAKER is not like a clockmaker that once, in old immemorial ages, having made his horologe of a universe, sits ever since and sees it go! Not at all. Hence comes Atheism; come, as we say, many other isms; and as the sum of all comes vatetism, the reverse of heroism—sad root of all woes whatsoever. For indeed, as no man ever saw the above said wind element inclosed within its capsule, and finds it at bottom more deniable than conceivable; so too, he finds, in spite of Bridgewater bequests, your clockmaker Almighty an entirely questionable affair, a deniable affair; and accordingly denies it, and along with it so much else."—(P. 199.)

Do we ask Mr Carlyle to falsify his own transendental philosophy for the sake of his weaker brethren? By no means. Let him proceed on the "high a priori road," if he finds it—as not many do—practicable. Let men, at all times, when they write as philosophers, speak out simply what they hold to be truth. It is his partiality only that we here take notice of, and the different measure that he deals out to the past and the present. Out of compliment to a bygone century he can sink philosophy, and common sense too; when it might be something more than a compliment to the existing age to appear in harmony with its creed, he will not bate a jot from the subtlest of his metaphysical convictions.

Mr Carlyle not being en rapport with the religious spirit of his age, finds therein no religious spirit whatever; on the other hand, he has a great deal of religion of his own, not very clear to any but himself; and thus, between these two, we have pages, very many, of such raving as the following:—

"It is even so. To speak in the ancient dialect, we 'have forgotten God;'—in the most modern dialect, and very truth of the matter, we have taken up the fact of the universe as it is not. We have quietly closed our eyes to the eternal substance of things, and opened them only to the shows and shams of things. We quietly believe this universe to be intrinsically a great unintelligible PERHAPS; extrinsically, clear enough, it is a great, most extensive cattle-fold and workhouse, with most extensive kitchen-ranges, dining-tables—whereat he is wise who can find a place! All the truth of this universe is uncertain; only the profit and the loss of it, the pudding and praise of it, are and remain very visible to the practical man.

"There is no longer any God for us! God's laws are become a greatest-happiness principle, a parliamentary expediency; the heavens overarch us only as an astronomical timekeeper: a butt for Herschel telescopes to shoot science at, to shoot sentimentalities at:—in our and old Jonson's dialect, man has lost the soul out of him; and now, after the due period, begins to find the want of it! This is verily the plague-spot—centre of the universal social gangrene, threatening all modern things with frightful death. To him that will consider it, here is the stem, with its roots and top-root, with its world-wide upas boughs and accursed poison exudations, under which the world lies writhing in atrophy and agony. You touch the focal centre of all our disease, of our frightful nosology of diseases, when you lay your hand on this. There is no religion; there is no God; man has lost his soul, and vainly seeks antiseptic salt. Vainly: in killing Kings, in passing Reform Bills, in French Revolutions, Manchester Insurrections, is found no remedy. The foul elephantine leprosy, alleviated for an hour, re-appears in new force and desperateness next hour.

"For actually this is not the real fact of the world; the world is not made so, but otherwise! Truly, any society setting out from this no-God hypothesis will arrive at a result or two. The unveracities, escorted each unveracity of them by its corresponding misery and penalty; the phantasms and fatuities, and ten-years' corn-law debatings, that shall walk the earth at noonday, must needs be numerous! The universe being intrinsically a perhaps, being too probably an 'infinite humbug,' why should any minor humbug astonish us? It is all according to the order of nature; and phantasms riding with huge clatter along the streets, from end to end of our existence, astonish nobody. Enchanted St Ives' workhouses and Joe Manton aristocracies; giant-working mammonism near strangled in the partridge nets of giant-looking Idle Dilettantism—this, in all its branches, in its thousand thousand modes and figures, is a sight familiar to us."—P. 185.

What is to be said of writing such as this! For ourselves, we hurry on with a sort of incredulity, scarce believing that it is set down there for our steady perusal; we tread lightly over these "Phantasms" and "Unveracities," and "Double-barrelled Dilettantism," (another favourite phrase of his—pity it is not more euphonious—but none of his coinage rings well,) we step on, we say, briskly, in the confident hope of soon meeting something—if only a stroke of humour—which shall be worth pausing for. Accordingly in the very page where our extract stopped, in the very next paragraph, comes a description of a certain pope most delectable to read. As it is but fair that our readers should enjoy the same compensation as ourselves, we insert it in a note.[69]