Various
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843
The basis of a history is surely, after all, the narrative, and whatever may be the estimate of others, the historian proceeds on the supposition that the facts he has to relate are, for their own sake, deserving to be had in remembrance. If not, why is he there recording and verifying them? But Mr Carlyle proceeds throughout on quite the contrary supposition, that the fact for itself is worth nothing—that it is valuable only as it presents some peculiar picture to the imagination, or kindles some noteworthy reflection. He maintains throughout the attitude of one who stands apart, looking at the history; rarely does he assume the patient office of that scribe whom we remember to have seen in the frontispiece of our school histories, recording faithfully what the bald headed Time, sitting between his scythe and his hour-glass, was dictating.
Never, indeed, was history written in so mad a vein—and that not only as regards style, but the prevailing mood of mind in which the facts and characters are scanned. That mood is for the most part ironical. There is philanthropy, doubtless, at the bottom of it all; but a mocking spirit, a profound and pungent irony, are the manifest and prevailing characteristics. It is a philanthropy which has borrowed the manner of Mephistopheles. It is a modern Diogenes—in fact it is Diogenes Teufelsdrockh himself, surveying the Revolution from his solitary watch-tower, where he sits so near the eternal skies, that a whole generation of men, whirling off in wild Sahara waltz into infinite space, is but a spectacle, and a very brief and confused one. This lofty irony, pungent as it is, grows wearisome. By throwing a littleness on all things, it even destroys the very aliment it feeds on; nothing, at last, is worth the mocking. But the weariness it occasions is not its greatest fault. It leads to a most unjust and capricious estimate of the characters and actions of men. Capricious it must, of necessity, become. To be ironical always were insufferable; even for the sake of artistical effect, some personages; and some events, must be treated with a natural feeling of respect or abhorrence; yet if one murder is to be recorded with levity, why not another;—if one criminal is to be dismissed with a jest, levelled perhaps at some personal oddity, why is an earnest indignation to be bestowed on the next criminal that comes under notice? The distinctions that will be made will be not fair judgments, but mere favouritism. Situated thus—plain moral distinctions having been disparaged—Mr Carlyle has given way to his admiration of a certain energy of character, and makes the possession of this sole excellence the condition of his favour, the title to his respect, or perhaps, we should say, to an immunity from his contempt. The man who has an eye—that is, who glares on you like a tiger—he who, in an age of revolution, is most thoroughly revolutionary, and swallows all formulas—he is made a hero, and honourable mention is decreed to him; whilst all who acted with an ill-starred moderation, who strove, with ineffectual but conscientious effort, to stay the wild movement of the revolution, are treated with derision, are dismissed with contempt, or at best with pity for their weakness.
His first hero is Mirabeau, a man of energy enough doubtless, and who had, in a most remarkable degree, that force of character which gives not only influence over, but a sort of possession of, other men's minds, though they may claim far higher intellectual endowments. For this one quality he is forgiven every thing. The selfish ambition of which he must be more than suspected, is not glanced at. Even the ridicule due to his inordinate vanity, is spared him. "Yes support that head," says this dying gladiator to his friend; "would I could bequeath it to thee!" And our caustic Diogenes withholds the lash. As the history proceeds, Danton is elevated to the place of hero. He is put in strong contrast with Robespierre. The one is raised into simple admiration, the other sunk into mere contempt; both are spared the just execration which their crimes have merited. The one good quality of Danton is, that, like Mirabeau, he had an eye—did not see through logic spectacles—had swallowed all formulas. So that, when question is made of certain massacres in which he was implicated, we are calmly told "that some men have tasks frightfuller than ours." The one great vice of Robespierre is, that he lacked courage; for the rest, he is "sea-green and incorruptible"—"thin and acrid." His incorruptibility is always mentioned contemptuously, and generally in connexion with his bilious temperament, as if they related as cause and effect, or were both alike matters of pathology. Mr Carlyle has a habit of stringing together certain moral with certain physical peculiarities, till the two present themselves as of quite equal importance, and things of the same category.
Yet this Robespierre, had our author been in want of another hero, possessed one quality, which, in his estimate, would have entitled him to occupy the pedestal. He had faith. "Of incorruptible Robespierre, it was long ago predicted that he might go far—mean, meagre mortal though he was—for doubt dwelt not in him." And this prediction was uttered by no less a man than Mirabeau. "Men of insight discern that the sea-green may by chance go far: 'this man,' observes Mirabeau, 'will do somewhat; he believes every word he says.'" The audacity of Danton the 'sea-green' certainly did not possess, but of that sort of courage which can use the extremest means for the desired end, he surely had sufficient. He shrunk from no crime, however exorbitant. His faith carried him through all, and nearer to the goal than any of his compeers. He walked as firm as others round the crater of this volcano, and walked there the longest. It is impossible not to feel that here, by the side of Dauton, a great injustice has been done to the incorruptible and faithful Robespierre.
Well may energy or will stand in the place of goodness with Mr Carlyle, since we find him making in another place this strange paradoxical statement: "Bad is by its nature negative, and can do nothing; whatsoever enables us to do any thing is by its very nature good." So that such a thing as a bad deed cannot exist, and such an expression is without meaning. Accordingly, not only is energy applauded, but that energy applauded most that does most. Those who exercised their power, and the utmost resolution of mind, in the attempt to restrain the Revolution, are not to be put in comparison with those who did something—who carried forward the revolutionary movement. With what contempt he always mentions Lafayette—a man of limited views, it is true; and whose views at the time were wide enough? or to whom would the widest views have afforded a practical guidance?—but a man of honour and of patriotic intentions! It is "Lafayette—thin, constitutional pedant; clear, thin, inflexible, as water turned to thin ice." And how are the whole party of the Gironde treated with slight and derision, because, at a period of what proved to be irremediable confusion—when nothing but the whirlwind was to be reaped—they were incessantly striving to realize for their country some definite and permanent institutions! But though their attempt we see was futile, could they do other than make the attempt? Mr Carlyle describes the position of affairs very ably in the following passage:—
"This huge insurrectionary movement, which we liken to a breaking out of Tophet and the abyss, has swept away royalty, aristocracy, and a king's life. The question is, what will it next do? how will it henceforth shape itself? Settle down into a reign of law and liberty, according as the habits, persuasions, and endeavours of the educated, monied, respectable class prescribe? That is to say, the volcanic lava-flood, bursting up in the manner described, will explode, and flow according to Girondine formula and pre-established rule of philosophy? If so, for our Girondine friends it will be well.
"Meanwhile, were not the prophecy rather, that as no external force, royal or other, now remains which could control this movement, the movement will follow a course of its own—probably a very original one. Further, that whatsoever man or men can best interpret the inward tendencies it has, and give them voice and activity, will obtain the lead of it. For the rest, that, as a thing without order—a thing proceeding from beyond and beneath the region of order—it must work and wither, not as a regularity, but as a chaos—destructive and self-destructive always; till something that has order arise, strong enough to bind it into subjection again; which something, we may further conjecture, will not be a formula, with philosophical propositions and forensic eloquence, but a reality, probably with a sword in its hand!"
But, true as all this may be, Mr Carlyle would be the last man to commend the Girondists had they allowed themselves to be borne along passively by this violent movement: is it fair dealing, then, that their efforts—the only efforts they could make—efforts which cost them life, should be treated as little better than idle pedantries?
But what criticism has to say in praise of this extraordinary work, let it not be said with stint or timidity. The bold glance at the Revolution, taken from his Diogenes' station, and the vivid descriptions of its chief scenes, are unrivalled.
That many a page sorely tries the reader's patience is acknowledged, and we might easily fill column after column with extracts, to show that the style of Mr Carlyle, especially when it is necessary for him to descend to the common track of history, can degenerate into a mannerism scarce tolerable, for which no term of literary censure, would be too severe. We have, however, no disposition to make any such extracts; and our readers, we are sure, would have little delight in perusing them. On the other hand, when he does succeed, great is the glory thereof; and we cannot forego the pleasure of making one quotation, however well known the remarkable passages of this work may be, to illustrate the triumphant power which he not unfrequently displays. Here is a portion of his account of the Taking of the Bastile. It will be borne in mind, that there is throughout a mixture of the ironical and mock-heroic:
"All morning since nine there has been a cry every where: To the Bastile! Repeated 'deputations of citizens' have been here, passionate for arms; whom De Launay has got dismissed by soft speeches through port-holes. Towards noon elector Thuriot de la Rosière gains admittance; finds De Launay indisposed for surrender; nay, disposed for blowing up the place rather. Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements: heaps of paving stones, old iron, and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly levelled; in every embrasure a cannon—only drawn back a little! But outwards, behold how the multitude flows on, swelling through every street: tocsin furiously pealing, all drums beating the générale: the suburb Saint Antoine rolling hitherward wholly as one man!
"Woe to thee De Launay, in such an hour, if thou canst not, taking some one firm decision, rule circumstances! Soft speeches will not serve, hard grape-shot is questionable; but hovering between the two is 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 Dauphiné: smite at that outer drawbridge chain, though the fiery hail whistles round thee! Never, over nave or felloe, did thy axe (q. hammer?) strike such a stroke. Down with it, man: down with it to Orcus: let the whole accursed edifice sink thither, and tyranny be swallowed up for ever! Mounted, some say, on the roof of the guard-room, some 'on bayonets stuck into the joints of the wall,' Louis Tournay smites brave Aubin Bonnemère (also an old soldier) seconding him: the chain yields, breaks; the huge drawbridge slams down thundering, (avec fracas.) Glorious: and yet, alas, it is still but the outworks! The eight grim towers, with their Invalides' musketry, their paving stones and cannon-mouths, still roar aloft intact; ditch yawning impassable, stone-faced; the inner drawbridge with its back towards us; the Bastile is still to take!
"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 avancé, 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 Françaises in the Place de Grève. Frantic patriots pick up the grape-shots; bear them, still hot, (or seemingly so,) to the Hôtel 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 Hôtel 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 Françaises 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.
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 à 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