the last layer, and then brick after brick would be deposited upon this, striking each with the butt of his trowel, as if to give it his benediction and farewell; and all the while singing or whistling as blithe as a lark. And in my spleen I said within myself, 'Poor fool! how canst thou be so merry under such a bile-spotted atmosphere as this, and everything rushing into the regions of the inane?'

"And then I bethought me, and I said to myself, 'Poor fool thou, rather, that sittest here by the window whining and complaining! What if thy house of cards falls? Is the Universe wrecked for that? The man yonder builds a house that shall be a home perhaps for generations. Men will be born in it, wedded in it, and buried from it; and the voice of weeping and of mirth shall be heard within its walls; and mayhap true Valor, Prudence, and Faith shall be nursed by its hearth stone. Man! symbol of Eternity imprisoned into Time! it is not thy works, which are all mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but only the spirit thou workest in which can have worth or continuance! Up then at thy work, and be cheerful!'

"So I arose and washed my face and felt that my head was anointed, and gave myself to relaxation-to what they call 'light literature.' I read nothing but novels for weeks. I was surrounded by heaps of rubbish and chaff. I read all the novels of that person who was once a Captain in the Royal Navy—and an extraordinary ornament he must have been to it: the man that wrote stories about Dogs that had their tails cut off, and about people in Search of their Fathers; and it seemed to me that of all the extraordinary dunces that had figured upon this planet he must certainly bear the palm

from every one save the readers of his books. And thus refreshed I took heart of grace again, applied me to my work, and in course of time 'The French Revolution' got finished; as all things must, sooner or later."

"The French Revolution" is not so much a connected history of the Revolution as a series of pictures from that history. They are painted with wonderful vigor. We may call Carlyle the Turner of the pen, or Turner the Carlyle of the pencil. The works of both are marvels, not only of genius, but of labor. We are told that Turner fairly dashed his colors upon the canvas, and we have no doubt that Carlyle dashed his sentences upon the paper. But to learn to dash the right colors in the right places required long and patient study of the forms of waves and clouds, and innumerable effects of light and shade. To be able to compose the word-pictures of history, Carlyle had to wade through morasses of dull books, and swamps of duller pamphlets and journals: to wade through them, not merely to walk dry-shod around them as Scott did in getting up his "Life of Napoleon."

It has been said that from Carlyle's history alone no man of fair intelligence can gain a clear and connected view of the French Revolution. This is partially true, just as it is partially true that from the pictorial "Gallery of the Rhine one cannot gain a view of that river as clear and connected as he might from a topographical map,

upon which every winding and reach should be laid down upon a mathematical scale: the altitude of every cliff, the height of every tower, and the population of every town, given in plain figures. Both classes of works have their value, and both are better than either.

From "The French Revolution" we must content ourselves with quoting a few of the brilliant word-pictures, which can be most easily detached from the context. As has been before said, Carlyle holds that there are long ages the history of which is "too confused for narrative," and may be best "presented in the way of epitome and distilled essence." Here is his epitome and distilled essence of long centuries of French history.

OBSCURE AGES IN FRENCH HISTORY.

"Sovereigns die and Sovereignties: how all dies and is for a time only; is a Time-phantasm, yet reckons itself real! The Merovingian Kings, slowly wending on their bullock-carts through the streets of Paris, with their long hair flowing, have all wended slowly on-into Eternity. Charlemagne sleeps at Salzburg, with truncheon grounded; only Fable expecting that he will awaken. Charles the Hammer, Pepin Row-legged, where is their voice of command? Rollo and his shaggy Northmen cover not the Seine with ships; but have sailed off on a longer voyage. The hair of Towhead (Tête d'étoupes) now needs no combing; Iron-cutter (Taillefer) cannot cut a cobweb; shrill Frédegonde, shrill Brunhilda, have had out their hot life-scold, and lie silent, their hot life、

frenzy cooled. Neither from the black Tower de Nesle descends now darkling the doomed gallant in his sack to the Seine waters; plunging into Night: for Dame de Nesle now cares not for this world's gallantry, heeds not for this world's scandal; Dame de Nesle is herself gone into Night. They are all gone; sunk,-down, down, with the tumult they made; and the rolling and the trampling of ever new generations passes over them; and they hear it not any more for ever."

Still those ages the history of which must be so condensed and epitomized did, after all, produce something. They were not altogether barren.

SOME RESULTS OF THE OBSCURE AGES.

"And yet withal has there not been something realized? Consider (to go no further) these strong Stoneedifices, and what they hold! Mud-Town of the Borderers (Lutetia Parisorum or Barisorum) has paved itself, has spread over all the Seine Islands, and far and wide on each bank, and become City of Paris, sometimes boasting to be 'Athens of Europe,' and 'Capital of the Universe.' Stone towers frown aloft; long-lasting, grim with a thousand years. Cathedrals are there, and a Creed (or memory of a Creed) in them; Palaces, and a State, and Law. Thou seest the Smoke-vapor; unextinguished Breath, as of a thing living. Labor's thousand hammers ring on her anvils: also a more miraculous Labor works noiselessly, not with the Hand but with the Thought. How have cunning workmen in all crafts, with their cunning head and right-hand, tamed the Four Elements to be their ministers; yoking the Winds to their Sea-chariot, making the very Stars their Nautical

Timepiece; and written and collected a Bibliothèque du Roi; among whose Books is the Hebrew Book! A wondrous race of Creatures: these have been realized, and what of Skill is in these: call not the Past Time, with all its confused wretchedness, a lost one."

SYMBOLS AND IDEALS.

66 Observe, however, that of man's whole Terrestrial possessions and attainments, unspeakably the noblest are his Symbols, divine or divine-seeming; under which he marches and fights, with victorious assurance, in the lifebattle: what we call his Realized Ideals. Of which Realized Ideals, omitting the rest, consider only these two: his Church, or spiritual Guidance, his Kingship, or temporal one."

A CHURCH AND A CREED

"The Church: what a word was there; richer than Golconda and the treasures of the world! In the heart of the remotest mountains rises the white little Kirk; the Dead all slumbering around it, under the white memorialstones, 'in hope of a happy resurrection':-dull wert thou, Reader, if never in any hour (say of moaning midnight, when such Kirk hung spectral in the sky, and Being was as if swallowed up in Darkness) it spoke to thee -things unspeakable, that went into thy soul's soul. Strong was he that had a Church, what we can call a Church he stood thereby, though in the centre of Immensities, in the conflict of Eternities,' yet manlike toward God and Man; the vague shoreless Universe had become for him a fine city and dwelling which he knew, such virtue was in Belief; in these words, well-spoken: I believe. Well might men prize their Credo; and raise