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His hazel eye still retains the fire of youth, his manners their vivacity, and his youthfulness of spirit contrasts with the long gray hair parted on his forehead and hanging down his shoulders-for literary men, like Samson, seem to consider their strength resides in their unshorn locks. Leigh Hunt resembles one of the old noblesse dressed in black, his coat generally buttoned to his chin: his tall spare figure: his urbanity of manners-all make up the look of a noticeable man.

Earnestly talking with another, stands Browning, leaning on the mantle piece: his well made, neatly drest figure, of the small size, has a dapper appearance: his sallow complexion garnished with coal-black whiskers, which grow under his chin; his hair however is of a moderate length, and forms an exception to the rule before named. He is doubtless pointing out some curious passage from his favorite poet Donne, or quoting with extreme unction a few lines from Kit Smart, the mad poet: possibly he may be explaining some peculiar dramatic effect of Alfieri, and urging upon the author of the "Blind Wife" the admirable method the great Italian poet pursued in writing and correcting his plays fourteen times before he trusted them into the printer's hands.

Another has joined this little group :-It is Horne, with his bald shining head, and little figure" en bon point:" down his shoulders hang those graceful light auburn locks, so peculiar to himself. His light gray eye is twinkling at some remark Browning has made upon the simplicity of "Sordello." Seated on the sofa, with one leg crossed over the other, and with his hand buried in his bosom,` sits an old man, with a few straggling gray hairs on his forehead, dressed in tolerably well-worn black, his deep set eye, gray and abstracted, as though in some speculation lost! he rises, his figure is tall, broad and gaunt, his deep guttural voice seems to come from the depths of his heart, and the impressive tone he speaks in gives an emphasis even to the commonest of commonplace; he is reciting

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a passage from Milton; he has got the first edition in his hand, and is demonstrating to an attentive listener that the “blind old man intended an emphasis to be laid on every word beginning with a capital, excepting at the commencement of each line; he slightly stoops, but it is a trifle for so old a man, and his venerable face seems to light up at the sound of Milton's verse, and to bring back with them all the dreams of his youth, when wandering with Coleridge, Southey and Lamb, they held high converse with the mighty dead.

We have only seen one portrait of the fine old poet that at all gives any idea of him; a friend of his was so that he sent the artist a sonnet, which we must find

"We die, and pass away; our very name

pleased with it space to quote:

Goes into silence, as the eloquent air
Scatters our voices, while the wearied frame
Shrouded in darkness, pays the grave's stern claim,
With the blank eyes deep fixed in death's blind stare..
These sure were thoughts to plunge us in despair,
But that the artist and the sculptor came-

Then living music flows from buried lips,
And the dead form throws off the grave's eclipse!
Oh! blest magician that can fix for aye,

The fleeting image; here I seem to gaze

On Wordsworth's honored face, for in the cells

Of those gray eyes, Thought, like a prophet, dwells,

And round those drooping lips Song like a murmur strays."

But a loud guffaw from a corner of the room brings us back to the author of "Sartor Resartus."

In a nobler spirit he writes thus:

"Highest of all Symbols are those wherein the Artist or Poet has risen into Prophet, and all men can recognise a present God, and worship the same: I mean religious Symbols. Various enough have been such religious Symbols, what we call religions; as men stood in this stage of culture or the other, and could, worse or better, body forth the Godlike: some Symbols with a transient intrinsic worth; many with only an extrinsic. If thou ask to what height

man has carried it in this matter, look on our divinest Symbol: on Jesus of Nazareth, and his life and his biography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has the human thought not yet reached: this is Christianity and Christendom; a Symbol of quiet perennial, infinite character; whose significance will ever demand to be anew inquired into, and anew made manifest.

"But, on the whole, as time adds much to the sacredness of Symbols, so likewise in his progress he at length defaces, or even desecrates them; and Symbols, like all terrestrial garments, wax old. Homer's Epos has not ceased to be true; yet it is no longer our Epos, but shines in the distance, if clearer and clearer, yet also smaller and smaller, like a receding star. It needs a scientific telescope, it needs to be reinterpreted and artificially brought near us, before we can so much as know that it was a Sun. So likewise a day comes when the Runic Thor, with his Eddas, must withdraw into dimness; and many an African Mumbo-Jumbo, and Indian Wau-Wau be utterly abolished· For all things, even celestial luminaries, much more atmospheric meteors, have their rise, their calumniation, their decline.

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"Small is this which thou tellest me that the Royal Sceptre is but a piece of gilt-wood; that the Pyx has become a most foolish box, and truly, as Ancient Pistol thought, of little price.' A right conjuror might I name thee, couldst thou conjure back into these wooden tools the divine virtue they once held.

"Of this thing however be certain; wouldst thou plant for eternity, then plant into the deep infinite faculties of man, his fantasy and heart; wouldst thou plant for year and day, then plant into his shallow superficial faculties, his self-love and arithmetical understanding, what will grow there. A Hierarch, therefore, and Pontiff of the world will we call him, the poet and inspired maker; who, Prometheus-like, can shape new Symbols, and bring new fire from Heaven to fix it there. Such too will not always be wanting; neither perhaps now are. Meanwhile, as the average of matters goes, we account him legislator and wise who can so much as tell when a Symbol has grown old, and gently remove it.

"When, as the last English coronation, that of George IV. was preparing,' concludes this wonderful professor, 'I read in their newspapers that the "Champion of England," he who must offer battle to the universe for his new king, had brought it so far that he could now "mount his horse with little assistance," I said to myself: Here also we have a Symbol well nigh superannuated. Alas, move whithersoever you may, are not the tatters and rags of superannuated worn-out Symbols (in this rag-fair of a world) dropping off every where, to hoodwink, to halter, to tether you: nay, if you shake them not aside, threatening to accumulate, and perhaps produce suffocation."

But truly, were we to point out to our readers all the fine suggestive passages in this great author's writings, it would occupy all our volume:-Space therefore compels us to close this notice of one of the most original and gifted men of the age, by observing that the nearest approach to him either in mind or manner is the American author, Ralph Waldo Emerson, of whom, by the way, we shall relate a little anecdote.

During Fanny Essler's visit to the United States he accompanied Miss Fuller, the celebrated authoress, to the Opera: delighted at one of the dancer's most triumphant pirouettes, Miss Fuller turned to Emerson and said, "Waldo-that's poetry."The other replied, "Margaret, it is religion." This is one of the happiest "capping of a climax" we have heard for many a long day.

A reader might hunt a long while before he found any system of philosophy in Carlyle's writings. A few great principles lie at + the bottom of all he has done. There is a strong hatred of everything conventional-a deep desire that more earnestness should be displayed in all we say, and all we do. He is a witness to the usurpation of the intellect in every thing around us, to the neglect of the still small voice that dwells in the heart of man, which should temper and guide that almost irresistible power. This cunning faculty of the will is worshipped because it is powerful-because it commands the means of life with certainty-but in doing this it tramples on hearts and affections and human ties in a fearful manner. It is cleverness, tact, intelligence, knowledge, all in one mind; but these only, and without a heart. It was this same picture that caused that great master to exclaim, "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

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Carlyle's whole philosophy is a battle for the truth-a fight against shallowness, insincerity, dullness and lying, wherever they appear; and he is as firm an upholder of simple dealing and straightforwardness, if it have but earnestness in it. Sometimes, we

fancy he carries this admiration of mere earnestness to an extent not warranted even by his own philosophy. Witness his life of Cromwell, who is as much a hero in his eyes while singing a psalm after the slaughter of thousands of his countrymen, as he is when speaking a good bold speech in favor of his country's freedom.

Much of the merit of Carlyle's writings depends upon the fearless and unreserved manner in which the thought is spoken—what he says, he says as one man should say it to another; his language is not meant to conceal his thoughts, but to blazon them, as it were. His own earnestness, too, in what he does, is another reason of his weight with thinking minds—he is a follower of the philosophic teachers he is like Chaucer's "poor parson," who taught, "Criste's Love," "But first he folowed it himselve." It matters little where he appears, whether as advocate or whether as enemy, With this spirit he enters the field, and woęto him who is wanting in sincerity, humanity or ability; see what scorn there is in some of his epithets! some of his compound nicknames absolutely are crushing. Gigmanity for respectability, and gigmanity disgigged for the sunken respectable. His sincerity is so sincere, and the thought which a sincere look leads to, is so sad, at the same time so startling, that sometimes you feel quite appalled at the man's power in getting at and exhibiting to you the mysteries of life; this, too, by no greater stretch of reason than we all possess, if we did but use what we have. There is something of this in the following

“The highborn (highest-born, for he came out of heaven) lies drowning in the despicablest puddles; the priceless gift of life, which he can have but once, for he waited a whole eternity to be born, and now he has a whole eternity waiting to see what he will do when born-this priceless gift we see strangled slowly out of him by innumerable packthreads; and there remains of the glorious possibility, which we fondly named man, nothing but an inanimate mass of foul loss and disappointment, which we wrap in shrouds and bury under ground-surely with well-merited tears. To the thinker, here lies tragedy enough; the epitome and marrow of all tragedy whatsoever."

The Diamond Necklace.

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