life, such as occur yet, only that we have no geniality to take them up, nothing but stupidity to take them up with.'

All sorrows are included in that, the fountain of degradation for the modern man, who is thereby reduced to baseness in every department of his existence, and remains hopelessly captive and caitiff till that nightmare be lifted off him. Oh, ye Colleges of Ancient Art, Modern Art, High Art! oh, ye Priest Sanhedrims! ye Modern Colleges, Royal Academies, ye Greek Nightmares, and still worse Hebrew Nightmares, that press out the soul of poor England and poor Europe, when will you take flight, and let us have a little breath, think you? Exodus from Houndsditch, I believe, is the first beginning of such deliverance.'

Almost forty years have passed since these words were written, and we still wait to be delivered. Nay, some think that we need no deliverance—άvш πоταμῶν ἱερῶν χωροῦσι παγαί. The water of life is again flowing in the old fountains. It may be so. The Ark of the Church has been repainted and gilded and decorated, and with architecture and coloured windows, and choral services, and incense, and candlesticks, and symbolic uniforms for mystic. officiators, the dying body has been electrified into a semblance of animation. Is it life or merely galvanism? There are other signs not favourable to the pretensions of the Church revivalists. The air has cleared. It is no longer a sin to say what one thinks, and power no longer weights the scale in favour of orthodoxy. Forty years ago the law said to a clergyman, 'You shall teach what the formulas prescribe, whether you believe it or not, and you shall stay at your post, even though you know

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that you disbelieve it; for you shall enter no other profession; you shall teach this, or you shall starve.' That is gone, and much else is gone. Men are allowed to think and speak as they will without being punished by social ostracism. Truth must stand henceforth by its own strength, and what is really incredible will cease to be believed. Very much of the change in this happy direction is due to Carlyle's influence; in this direction, and perhaps also in the other, for every serious man, of every shade of opinion, had to thank him for the loud trumpet notes which had awakened the age out of its sleep.

CHAPTER XVI.

A.D. 1848-9. ET. 53-54.

Revolutions of February in Paris-Thoughts on Democracy-London Society-Macaulay-Sir Robert Peel-Chartist petition, April 10— Articles in the Examiner'-Paris battles in the streets-Emerson -Visit to Stonehenge-The Reaction in Europe-Death of the first Lord Ashburton, and of Charles Buller-Mazzini at Rome-King Hudson-Arthur Clough-First introduction to Carlyle-His appearance.

ONE or other of the subjects for a new book on which we saw Carlyle to be meditating would probably have been now selected, when suddenly, like a bolt out of the sky, came the Revolution of February 24 at Paris. The other nations of Europe followed suit, the kings, as Carlyle expressed it, 'running about like a gang of coiners when the police had come among them.' Ireland blazed out. English Chartists talked of physical force.' The air seemed charged with lightning, threatening the foundations of modern society. So extraordinary a phenomenon surprised Carlyle less than it surprised most of his contemporaries. It confirmed what he had been saying for many years. The universal dungheap had caught fire again. Imposture was bankrupt once more, and Shams' this time, it was to be hoped, would be finished off in earnest. He did

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not look for an immediate convulsion in England; but he did believe that, unless England took warning and mended her ways, her turn would come.

Journal.

March 4, 1848.-Third French insurrection. Louis Philippe flung out; he and his entire pack, with a kind of exquisite ignominy, driving off in a street cab,' the fraternity arriving here in slow detail, dribbling in for a week past, all the young men without their wives. Philippe himself, the old scoundrel, is since Saturday night safe at Claremont; came to England in an old P-jacket, like King Crispin.

Louis

March 5.-Scheme of volume: Democracy. What one might have to say on it? (1) Inevitable now in all countries: regarded vulgarly as the solution. Reason why it cannot be so; something farther and ultimate. (2) Terrible disadvantage of the Talking Necessity; much to be said here What this comes from. Properly an insincere character of mind. (3) Follows deducible out of that! Howardism. Regard every Abolition Principle man as your enemy, ye reformers. Let them insist not that punishment be abolished, but that it fall on the right heads. (4) Fictions, under which head come Cants, Phantasms, alas! Law, Gospel, Royalty itself. (5) Labour question. Necessity of government. Notion of voting to all is delirium. Only the vote of the wise is called for, of advantage even to the voter himself. Rapid and inevitable progress of anarchy. Want of bearing rule in all private departments of life. Melancholy remedy: Change as often as you like.' (6) Though men insincere, not all equally so. A great choice. How to know a sincere man. Be sincere yourself. Career open to talent. This actually is the conclusion of the whole

matter.

Six things. It would make a volume. Shall I begin it? I am sick, lazy, and dispirited.

The state of Europe was too interesting and

too obscure to permit composure for writing. For the four months of that spring, the papers each morning announced some fresh convulsion, and the coolest thinkers could only look on and watch. When the Young Ireland deputation went to Paris to ask the Provisional Government to give a lift to the Irish Republic, war with France was at one moment on the cards. Ledru Rollin and the advanced sections, knowing that if peace continued they would have to reckon with the reaction, were inclined to follow the example of 1793, and go in for a republican propagandism. Carlyle's general thoughts are expressed in an interesting letter to Erskine.

To Thomas Erskine, Linlathen.

Chelsea: March 24, 1848.

To us as to you this immense explosion of democracy in France, and from end to end of Europe, is very remarkable and full of interest. Certainly never in our time was there seen such a spectacle of history as we are now to look at and assist in. I call it very joyful; yet also unutterably sad. Joyful, inasmuch as we are taught again that all mortals do long towards justice and veracity; that no strongest charlatan, no cunningest fox of a Louis Philippe, with his great Master to help him, can found a habitation upon lies, or establish a 'throne of iniquity'-nay, that he cannot even attempt such a problem in these times any more; which we may take to be blessed news indeed, in the pass we were come to. But, on the other hand, how sad that the news should be so new (for that is really the vital point of the mischief); that all the world, in its protest against False Government, should find no remedy but that of rushing into No Government or anarchy (kinglessness), which I take this republican universal suffragism to inevitably be. Happily they are not disposed to fight, at least not with swords, just