gravitate a thousand lesser particles of illustration and image; incessant and furious movement, without progress; his mind "turning on hinges, not wheels," but then the hinges are golden; a trick of confronting opposite ideas so pertinaciously, that they seem ashamed of looking so long in each other's faces; an emphasis, given frequently, as by the intonations of madness, to common truths; "argument wrought out always, not in frost but in fire;" a lavish supply of loose and dissonant diction; a perpetual and systematic appeal to the "artful aid of alliteration;" a melody in the general result of the style, strangely coexisting with barbarous discord in its particular parts; sentences of breathless movement, and portentous length, rolling and revolving systematically, as if their motion were balanced between the centripetal and centrifugal forces; a riveting interest, which drags you after him, go wherever he will; and an air of frank, fearless earnestness, which secures to all his writings the charm and expression of "a bright-eyed face that laughs out openly."

Among his separate single sermons, we prefer that "On Cruelty to Animals," as the purest in style, and the most elevated in sentiment. One sentence from it, of perfect beauty, has lingered in our memory-"The lioness, robbed of her whelps, makes the wilderness to ring aloud with the proclamation of her wrongs; and the bird whose little household has been stolen, fills and saddens all the grove with melodies of deepest pathos." Such sentences, so simple and so memorable, are, it must be confessed, rare in his writings.

From the questions connected with his political and Church career, we must abstain. His great fault has ever been, that his brain has been a caravansera of crotchets. Indeed, considering the ready welcome he has always given to each new, intellectual guest, our wonder is, that his course

has not been much more erratic, capricious, and inconsist

ent.

It can hardly be necessary to do more than allude to the events of his life, or to the manner of his public speaking. He was born in Anstruther, Fife, and educated at St. Andrews, where he distinguished himself much in the mathematical and chemical classes. When licensed to preach the gospel, he was settled in the parish of Kilmeny, the kirk of which stands so picturesquely among its embosoming woods, and by its still, rural burying-place. There, for many years, he is said to have paid more attention to his philosophical studies than to his flock. A story is yet current in Fife, that he was one Sabbath, during the interval of service, botanizing in the woods, when the bells rung for church. Huddling on his hat, full of specimens, earth, &c., he ran to the pulpit; but, as he went up the stair, imprudently took it off, and the grasses and flowers, tumbling about his ears, betrayed the secret of his unclerical pursuits to his gaping congregation. Some time ere leaving Kilmeny, a remarkable change took place in his character and deportment. Partly through the circumstance of being requested to write on the "Evidences of Christianity," for the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, his mind was deeply and permanently impressed with a sense of religion. He felt that his preachWith characteristic de

66

ing had hitherto been a "sham." termination, he altered it from its foundation. Ceasing to be an 'Ape of Epictetus," he became, for the first time, a preacher of Christ crucified. The consequence was, that his popularity not only increased in the district, but far cities began to hear of his fame. After preaching some overwhelming public sermons in Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, &c., he was translated to the Tron Church in the last-named city. Here he was attended by great crowds; and, by all

accounts, his preaching deserved its popularity. Those who heard him, have told us, that we have no idea of what he was then from his more recent exhibitions. He "laid about him like a man inspired." He spoke with the freshness and fervour of one to whom all things had become new. His eye seemed to see the invisible. His body trembled and panted under the burden of the present God. He proclaimed openly and aloud the nuptials of science and faith. He took up the peculiarities of Calvinism, and bound them as a crown unto him. He assailed the money-loving and the skeptical spirit which then prevailed in our western metropolis. He set in motion, at the same time, a thousand schemes of benevolence. Glasgow was planet-struck: its gayest and most dissipated young men were arrested, and hung upon his lips like "bees on mountain flowers." It became suddenly a religious, or at least, an ecclesiastical city, and with all its mills and machineries, seemed to revolve for a season round the one pulpit of Chalmers. Not the least striking tribute to the power of his eloquence were the tears which he drew from Professor Young's old eyes! It was fine, they say, to see the stern Grecian's face, first radiant with rapture, and then dissolved and bedewed, under the power of an eloquence still higher than his own. His subsequent translation to St. John's, his removal to the Professorship of Moral Philosophy in St. Andrews, the impulse he gave to that stagnant and grass-grown city, his transference to the Divinity Chair of Edinburgh, &c., are well known.

As a divine, his reputation is not of the highest order. He has cast no new light upon any topic within the range of the science. He is not a master of Exegesis: his critical knowledge of the Scriptures is limited. A plain and practical logician upon theological topics, his temperament forbids him ever to be. A profound metaphysician he is not called

by his warmest admirers. What is he to Jonathan Edwards, that master of metaphysical theology; or to Paley, so profoundly versed in the "Christian Evidences;" or to Andrew Thomson, in all that constitutes a proficient in Christian dialectics; or to Barrow, in quantity and compass of thought; or to Horsley, in ease and vigour of style; or to Jeremy Taylor, in the richness and splendour of illustration; or to Leighton, in the sweetness and savour of practical bearing? And yet, as a divinity professor, we grant him much merit. Called by circumstances, rather than choice, to the theological chair, unprepared by previous training and habits of study, for its peculiar duties, he yet resolutely set himself and the resources of his mind to "do what he could." He read, and he made his students read. He taught himself while instructing them. He relieved the occasional sameness of his own style and imagery, by large and grateful excerpts from leading theological writers. He threw the glow of his genius into all that was done. He shook from the professorial chair the dust of ages. He evoked the spirit of great departed worthies. His enthusiasm became infectious: the most commonplace of his students caught it. The more ambitious "out-Heroded Herod" in imitations of his style, and manner, and voice.

Many who strove to imitate his flight,

With weaker wing, unearthly fluttering made.

Still much good was done, and an impression produced which has formed an era in the history of the Scottish Church, and of the entire religious world.

His appearance and mode of speaking have been often described. His eye, especially when excited, has a gray glare of insanity about it; his brow is broad rather than lofty; his step quick and eager; his accents fast and hurry

ing; his pronunciation barbarous; his gesture awkward; his delivery monotonous; but, need we say? all these defects are forgotten and drowned in the fierce and rapid stream of his eloquence. We have seen his face flushing up, like crystal goblet when filled with wine, as he warmed with his theme: his eye the while almost starting out of its socket, as if determined, in spite of itself, to become eloquent. No one quotes poetry with more effect, and we have heard him give to a doggrel hymn an effect almost sublime. In private he is the most benign and cordial of men: a generous critic, and a warm sympathizer with every species of genuine excellence. Altogether, though with many of his peculiar views we do not coincide; though with the flatteries of his parasites we do not agree; though we do not think him a Jeremy Taylor, nor a Barrow, nor a Chrysostom, nor a Burke; we are free to confess, that he is a good, a wise, an honest, and a great man.

THOMAS CARLYLE.

THOMAS CARLYLE is the truest Diogenes of these times. Pushed aside by the strong hand of a peculiar genius into a corner, he has thence marked and remarked strangely, angularly, yet truly, upon man and the universe; and to that corner men are now beginning to flock, and the tub is towering into an oracle, and those rugged flame-words are fast becoming law! In the course of his career, his mind has gone through two different phases. In the first he was little more than the chief interpreter between the German and the English mind; in the second, he has "shot upwards like a pyramid of fire," into a gigantic original. In the first, he was only a distinguished member of the corps literaire; in the