guarded assurance that "the writer required only a little more tact to produce a popular as well as an able work"; and his Reader, "a gentleman in the highest class of men of letters," had nothing better to say than that "the work displays here and there some felicity of thought and expression, considerable fancy and knowledge." It was this work that the sapient newspaper critic called "a heap of clotted nonsense." The particular sentence which he thought rather more intelligible if read backward than forward is this: "The fire-baptized soul, long so scathed and thunder-riven, here feels its own freedom; which feeling is its Baphometic baptism; the citadel of its whole kingdom it has thus gained by assault, and will keep inexpugnable; outwards from which the remaining dominions, not indeed without hard battering, will doubtless by degrees be conquered and pacificated." This oracular critique was very appropriately given to the world on All-Fools Day, in the year of grace 1834. The critic was evidently one of that large class in whose behalf the day is celebrated, and it was quite in keeping that he should gravely ask, "Why can not the author lay aside his pedantry, and write so as to make himself generally intelligible?"

But "Sartor Resartus" is not merely a vehicle for the most profound transcendental speculation; it is quite as much, as Mr. Emerson phrases it, “. Criticism upon the Spirit of the Age-we had al

a

most said of the hour in which we live; exhibiting in the most just and novel light the present aspects of Religion, Politics, and Literature." A few extracts must be given in verification of this statement. As this, which is Teufelsdröckh's view, taken from his room high up in the attic of the highest house in Weissnichtwo, of

THE ASPECTS OF LIFE IN A GREAT CITY.

Ach, mein Lieber," said he once, at midnight, when he had returned from the Coffee-house in rather earnest talk. "It is a true sublimity to dwell here. The fringes of lamplight struggling through smoke and thousand-fold exhalations, some fathoms into the ancient reign of Night, what thinks Boötes of them, as he leads his Hunting Dogs over the Zenith, in their leash of sidereal fire? That stifled hum of Midnight, when Traffic has lain down to rest; and the chariot-wheels of Vanity, still rolling here and there through distant streets, are leading her to halls roofed in, and lighted to the due pitch for her; and only Vice and Misery, to prowl and moan like nightbirds, are abroad: that hum, I say, like the stertorous, unquiet slumber of Sick Life, is heard in Heaven! Oh, under that hideous coverlet of vapors and putrefactions and unimaginable gases, what a Fermenting-vat lies simmering and hid! The joyful and the sorrowful are there; men are dying there; men are being born; men are praying; on the other side of a brick partition, men are cursing; and all around them is the vast, void Night.

"The proud Grandee still lingers in his perfumed saloons, or reposes within damask curtains. Wretchedness cowers into truckle-beds, or shivers hunger-stricken

into its lair of straw. In obscure cellars Rouge-et-Noir languidly emits its voice-of-destiny to haggard hungry Villains; while Councillors of State sit plotting and playing their high chess-game, whereof the pawns are men. The Lover whispers his mistress that the coach is ready; and she, full of hope and fear, glides down, to fly with him over the Borders: the Thief, still more silently, sets to his picklocks and crowbars, or lurks in wait till the watchmen first snore in their boxes. Gay mansions, with supper-rooms and dancing-rooms, are full of light and music, and high-swelling hearts; but in the Condemned Cells the pulse of life beats tremulous and faint; and bloodshot eyes look out through the darkness, which is around and within, for the light of a stern last morning. Six men are to be hanged on the morrow: Comes no hammering from the Rabenstein? their gallows must even now be o'building.

"Upward of five hundred thousand two-legged animals without feathers lie around us, in horizontal position; their heads all in night-caps, and full of the foolishest dreams. Riot cries aloud, and staggers and swaggers in his rank dens of shame; and the Mother, with streaming hair, kneels over her pallid dying infant, whose cracked lips only her tears now moisten. All these, heaped and huddled together, with nothing but a little carpentry and masonry between them; crammed like an Egyptian pitcher of tamed Vipers, each struggling to get his head above the other. Such work goes on under that smoke-counterpane!-But I, mein Werther, sit above it all. I am alone with the stars."

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Bearing in mind that "Sartor Resartus ostensibly, in part, a review of Professor Teufels

drockh's imaginary book upon "Clothes, their Origin and Influence," the following, which purports to be an extract from that work, is not without significance. The reader is presumed to be able to "read between the lines; that is, to translate the symbol into the thing signified:

ON CLOTHES IN GENERAL.

"As Montesquieu wrote a Spirit of Laws, so could I write a Spirit of Clothes; thus with an Esprit des Loix, properly an Esprit de Coutumes, we should have an Esprit de Costumes. For neither in Tailoring nor in Legislating does man proceed by mere accident, but the Hand is ever guided on by mysterious operations of the Mind. In all his modes and habilatory endeavors, an Architectural Idea will be found lurking; his Body and the Cloth are the site and materials whereon and whereby his beautified edifice, of a Person, is to be built. Whether he flow gracefully out in folded mantles, based on light sandals; tower up in high headgear, from amid peaks, spangles and bell-girdles; swell out in starched ruffs, buckram stuffings and monstrous tuberosities; or girth himself into separate sections, and front the world an Agglomeration of four limbs,-will depend on the nature of such Architectural Idea: whether Grecian, Gothic, Later-Gothic, or altogether Modern, and Parisian or Anglo-Dandiacal.

"Again, what meaning lies in Color! From the soberest Drab to the high-flaming Scarlet, spiritual idiosyncrasies unfold themselves in the choice of color. If the Cut betoken Intellect and Talent, so does the Color betoken Temper and Heart. In all which, among nations

as among individuals, there is incessant, indubitable, though infinitely complex working of Cause and Effect. Every snip of the Scissors has been regulated and prescribed by ever-active Influences, which doubtless to Intelligences of a superior order are neither invisible nor illegible. For such superior Intelligences a Cause-andEffect Philosophy of Clothes, as of Laws, were probably a comfortable winter evening entertainment. Nevertheless, for inferior Intelligences, like men, such Philosophies have always seemed to me uninstructive enough. Nay, what is your Montesquieu himself but a clever infant spelling Letters from a hieroglyphical prophetic Book, the lexicon of which lies in Eternity, in Heaven? -Let any such Cause-and-Effect Philosopher explain not why I wear such and such a garment, obey such and such a Law; but even why I am here to wear and obey anything."

That is, translating the word "Clothes" into "Institutions," social, civil, and religious-none of our philosophers are able to tell us, for example, why Persians and Turks wear flowing robes, loose trousers, and turbans; hold to the Koran; are ruled by a Shah or Padishah, with authority theoretically unlimited, and have as many wives as each man wishes or can afford; while the English and Germans wear boots, tight trousers, and hats; hold to the Bible; are ruled by a King, Queen, or Emperor, with authority very much limited; and no man of them can have more than one wife at a time. Or, to come to closer particulars, what philosopher can tell us how it comes