taph in "Sartor," and the son in the descriptions of Toughgut. My cousin used to mention the journey detailed in the "Reminiscences" which she made to Paris in 1824 with Mr. Strachey and Carlyle. While in the French capital Carlyle had other human interests besides the old geometer Lagrange and Trismegistus Laplace. On one occasion he exacted from "Miss Kitty" the loan of a writing apparatus, which he was afterwards with difficulty persuaded to restore to the owner. The corpus delicti, an oblong rosewood box, with a still pre of "dear Kitty" she was "busied |ing, the words "Charles Buller, senior." amongst the roses and almost buried Other members of the family at once under them." According to "Sartor Re-recognized the father in the humorous sartus," the noble mansion of the Zäh- picture of the count in the Latin epidarms stood in "umbrageous lawns," in propinquity to a garden house hardly inferior to itself, which was "embowered amid rich foliage, rose-clusters, and the hues and odors of a thousand flowers." The characteristic flower is as plentiful as it was on the nascent Island of Rhodes. When Blumine appears on the scene we read: "now that Rose-goddess sits in the same circle with him." But this only brings us within the propylæa of our edifice of truth. As Teufelsdröckh's ecstatic condition develops, the Rose-goddess grows into a dawn myth. We read in "Sartor" of the silver-topped inkstand, is "many-tinted radiant Aurora" of "this served. This was probably the inkfairest of orient light bringers," of Blu- stand into which Carlyle dipped his pen mine as being in very deed" a Morning- when he favored Miss Welsh with the Star," which appellation is given her praises of her rival, which drew from more than once. "The sentence of her this sarcastic recommendation: – this Latin is," to quote the examiner's There is with 50,000l. and a princely favorite Chaucer, that Miss Kirkpat-lineage and "never was out of humor in rick's christian names were Catherine her life" - with such a "singularly pleasAurora ! ing creature" you could hardly fail to find That Blumine personified Miss Kirk-yourself admirably well off. patrick has always passed in the family Our Blumine further said that the chapfor a certainty, requiring no more dister in "Sartor," "Everlasting No," cussion than the belief that Nelson Carlyle's temper during the visit to exactly reproduced certain moods of Paris. Another relic of that period is a Petrarch given to my cousin by Edward Irving. On the title-page is the inscription: To my dear friend and benefaeter, Catherine Aurora Kirkpatrick. The erasing line was drawn by the lady's hand, and the date, "January 12, 1825," is her addition. A gift from her to Carlyle was a present which he ascribes to Mrs. Strachey, "the most superb writing-desk I have ever seen." stands on the column in Trafalgar Square. To myself, my cousin said that the love chapters of "Sartor Resartus were Dichtung und Wahrheit, a mixture of poetry and prose fact, and she once observed that she had taken Tummus to task on the subject of the final gush, remarking, "You know you were never made immortal' in that manner," whereupon they both laughed "without intervallums." Mrs. Phillipps, who survived till 1890, further said that the words in "Sartor Resartus," where Teufelsdröckh is “ushered into the garden house, where sat the Carlyle's retrospective opinion of the choicest party of dames and cavaliers," situation at Shooter's Hill, written forty exactly described the circumstances of years later, deserves notice: "It strikes Carlyle's visit to Shooter's Hill with me now more than it did then, that she Irving, when he saw "dear Kitty busied (Mrs. Strachey) would have liked to see among the roses." As regards the dear Kitty' and myself together, and identification of Graf Zähdarm, it should continue near her, both of us through be observed that in the lady's copy of life." This passage in the "Reminis"Sartor" there stand, in her handwrit- cences" drew forth a strong denial from Blumine. Its probability may be gauged by certain remarks in Margaret Gordon's above-quoted letter to her dismissed suitor, and is corrected by the hint in "Sartor Resartus" that the Blumine's was a name well known to him; far and wide was the fair one heard dissolution of Teufelsdröckh's "love-of, for her gifts, her graces, her caprices. mania" was ordained by the "DuennaHerself also he had seen in public Cousin." The actual occurrences called places; that light yet so stately form; those for no such intervention. But, looking dark tresses, shading a face where smiles. to the rigidity of the matrimonial laws and sunlight played over earnest deeps; but of the Medes and Persians of seventy all this he had seen only as a magic vision, years ago, there is no risk in asserting for him inaccessible, almost with reality. that if the adoration paid to Blumine Her sphere was too far from his. had emerged from the silent, platonic shape, Diogenes would actually have heard from his Rose-goddess that "they were to meet no more. The skit on Irving in the derived work is absurdly serious in the "Grundschrift, where the quality of humor, so conspicuous in "Sartor," is, to use Carlyle's phraseology, "fatally deficient." "Wotton Reinfred: " On some of these points fresh light has been lately thrown by the publication of a dolorous novel by Carlyle, entitled "Wotton Reinfred." It says little for the depth of Grub Street acA vain sophistical young man was afflictquaintance with Carlyle's writings that ing the party with much slender and, incriticism has not remarked that this deed, base speculation on the human mind; this he resumed after the pause and bustle story is the protoplasm from which of the new arrival. Wotton, by one or two "Sartor Resartus" was afterwards Socratic questions in his happiest style, evolved. The transmutation of the dull contrived to silence him for the night. The metal of Carlyle's "first manner" into discomfiture of this logical marauder was the pure gold of "Sartor Resartus" is a felt and even hailed as a benefit by every remarkable instance of the metamor- one; but sweeter than all applauses was the phosis of genius. Compared with the glad smile, threatening every moment to heavens-messenger Blumine, radiant as become a laugh, and the kind, thankful Sirius or Arcturus, the heroine of " Wot-look with which Jane Montagu repaid the ton Reinfred" is but a victor. He ventured to speak to her; she 66 pale reflex answered him with attention; nay, it from Cynthia's brow." Still, the two seemed as if there were a tremor in her ladies are one and the same. When voice; and perhaps she thanked the dusk Miss Montagu first appears, like Blu- that it half hid her. mine she figures as Aurora. "And she oh fair and golden as the dawn she rose upon my soul." Some crucial examples will show how the two stories run together on all-fours, and how striking is the identity of phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. "Wotton Reinfred : "" "Sartor Resartus : There talked one "Philistine," who was dominantly pouring forth Philistinism. . . We omit the series of Socratic, or rather Diogenic utterances, not unhappy in their way, whereby the monster, persuaded into silence, seems soon after to have withdrawn for the night. Of which dialectical Jane Montagu was a name well known marauder (writes our hero), the discomto him far and wide its fair owner was fiture was visibly felt as a benefit by most;| celebrated for her graces and gifts; herself but what were all applauses to the glad also he had seen and noted; her slim dain- smile threatening every moment to become' tiest form, her soft sylph-like movement, a laugh, wherewith Blumine herself repaid her black tresses shading a face so gentle the victor? He ventured to address her, yet so ardent; but all this he had noted she answered with attention; nay, what if only as a beautiful vision which he himself there were a slight tremor in that silver had scarcely right to look at, for her sphere voice; what if the red glow of evening were was far from his; as yet he had never heard | hiding a transient blush? As in "Sartor," so in "Wotton Rein- | as Wotton rated him, a debauchee, but fred," the knot of the intrigue is untied wealthy, well-allied, and influential in the by the descent of an unsympathizing county. female relative from the machine. "Sartor Resartus:" He even appears surprised at the "Dn enna cousin," whoever she may have been, in whose meagre hunger-bitten philosophy the religion of young hearts was from the first faintly approved of. These words are followed by the famous reflection that a Mrs. Teufelsdröckh would have been unable to afford to assert her respectability by keeping a gig- the author's first symbolical use of that vehicle, which he employs with such extraordinary effect in the finale of the "Diamond Necklace." This locus classicus has no equivalent in "Wotton Reinfred." After such specimens, a harmony of the respective parting scenes would be superfluous. The agreement is complete, except that, unlike Diogenes T., who was made immortal by a kiss,' "Wotton Reinfred only embraced vacuity. Toughgut's post in the finale of the older story is filled by an officer who, however, is only Miss Montagu's potential husband. The "Reminiscences" "Good God!" cried Wotton, starting from his seat, and pacing hurriedly over the floor, "can you not spare me? What have I to do with Edmund Walter? The tigerape!" cried he, stamping on the ground, "with his body and shoulder knots, his smirks and fleers! A gilt outside, and within a very lazar-house! Gay speeches, a most frolic sunny thing; and in its heart the poison of asps !" ... By and by came reports that his Jane was to be wedded wedded to Edmund Walter, a gay young man of rank, a soldier, and, Tiger-ape" reads very like "exSepoy captain" writ large, and an officer of the 7th Hussars with his busby and aigrette and various crimson and gold splendors - worth 5001. as he stood might well have posed for Edmund Walter. That" Wotton Reinfred" was in hand in 1827 and 1828 we know from Carlyle's correspondence; like Mr. Froude, he thought it "went wholly to the fire.” The paragraph just quoted seems to indicate that it was not finally laid aside before 1829. On the identities above traced a final remark may be allowed. In 1892 to have sat to Carlyle for Blumine may seem a scarcely lower honor than having been the original of Lotte, or the Maid of Athens. While men of culture now rank "Sartor Resartus" with the great masterpieces of European prose, the taste of that day dismissed it as "damned stuff ! " In such circumstances, ambition for the digito monstrari could have spoken with no force to the first interpreters of the symbolism of the Rose-goddess and her attendant train. I now descend to a time within the horizon of my own distinct recollections — viz., to 1842, when Carlyle paid us a long-promised visit at Clifton. His arrival was preceded by a correspondence between Mrs. Strachey and his wife on the subject of his wants and habits. To the question, "How was he to be made comfortable?" Mrs. Carlyle replied, that "she had never been able to find out that, and could only say, as his own mother did, he's gey hard to deal with;'" he must smoke a long clay pipe after breakfast, and that not in the garden but in the house. And then a question-poultry were to him anathema maranatha-had we any cocks and hens ? No demon-fowls" existed, and the tobacco problem received a suitable solution. Amongst the propensities of my youth were conjuring, the use (or misuse) of model machines, and chemistry, the latter mainly di phraseology, she saw a mere apparatus of decorative language -a vesture, to speak with Teufelsdröckh, of words employed in their “non-natural" sense. To him heaven was a phase of human thought; prayer a silent aspiration of the mind; sin an infraction of the eternal verities of the universe. How did the faith of Socrates or Cicero differ from that? Carlyle was surpassed by his hostess in knowledge of the Bible and of the classics of theology. The same may be said of their common friend and her neighbor, John Sterling, with whom, on the terrace that joined their houses, she often debated the arcana of reprobation and grace. The intellectual disagreements of the hostess and the guest extended beyond celestial topics; but, thanks to the abnormal development in both the disputants of that useful corrective of heat in argument, the sense of the ridiculous which, according to Carlyle, is " very indispensable to man"-their discussions were never acrimonious. rected to the generation of the more | pard." Carlyle's beliefs or unbeliefs fetid and explosive elements and com- were far from her. In his religious pounds, on which account a room had been set apart for my pursuits. On the day succeeding Carlyle's arrival he was conducted after breakfast into this temple of science, where, after lighting his long clay, he attended with due reverence to an exposition of the character of the substances and apparatus before him. He was next required to undergo a lecture on the first principles of chemistry and physics, and a demonstration of the electrotype (then a novelty), which was followed by the production of chlorine, or some other equally deleterious gas or mixture. The capital display of the sitting was an exhibition of the Marquis of Worcester's rotatory glass steam-engine, conducted with such vigor as nearly to end the existence, or, at any rate, the eyesight of the sage of Chelsea. The presence of so great a man called for extra stoking; the result was that the Marquis of Worcester's engine, being unable to emit its steam in sufficient quantity, exploded with a fearful crash, the boiler bursting in Carlyle's face, which was Although Carlyle was devoid of the spurted over with the steam and boiling æsthetic sensibilities, he was taken to water, and bombarded with a shower of a party at the house of my married sisbroken glass. Happily, it was not my ter, where, despite his recorded condestiny to play the part of a modern tempt for the portion of mankind that dog Diamond by depriving mankind of listened to Paganini, he attended with "Past and Present," and the biogra- propriety to some solos executed by that phies of Cromwell, Sterling, and Fred- great violinist, H. C. Cooper. During erick the Great, so that no mischief the pause for supper, the hero of the was done. evening was buttonholed by a local clerIn his hostess Carlyle had a conver-ical magnate, whose attitude towards sationalist not unworthy of his steel, the new philosophy, if not that of a and a portion of the "solid day" was proselyte of righteousness, was that of consumed by them in protracted talks. a proselyte of the gate. They got into Though not a Madame Dacier, herja warm controversy on matters of faith, scholarship enabled her to read the Old and New Testament in the Hebrew and Greek scripts; mistress of French and Italian, she was now becoming well acquainted with German. Her intellectual horizon was of large extension, and on closing her favorite Epistle to the Hebrews, a "Calvin's Institutes," or "Luther on the Galatians," she would soon be lost in Sismondi's "Italian Our guest was more impressed by Republics," or "The Excursion," or some performances of my own of the "Wilhelm Meister," or "Jack Shep-necromantic order. In allusion to Sir 66 66 and when Carlyle said, "If a man's Chelsea: 7 December, 1846. I receive with deep sorrow, as you may imagine, your melancholy news this morning. Your noble mother now gone was the first friend I acquired in this country, was the oldest and dearest friend I anywhere had in the world; a truer, more generous, Walter Scott, the Houdin or Maskelyne | mournful event was made by my sister's of the day had styled himself "the husband to Carlyle, from whom the Wizard of the North;" an appellation annexed letter of condolence was renow conferred on me by Carlyle, in sign ceived in return: of his approval of my skill as conjurer. Some time after this, my fulminating habits having subsided in favor of energies of a literary character, which were stimulated by the example of the family friend, a magazine was founded by me with the help of some schoolfellows, and I usurped the functions of editor. By a special vote of the proprietary, Carlyle's name was placed on the free list, and copies of the Totteridge Miscellany were duly forwarded to ChelIn due course the subjoined acknowledgment was received by me, as the Croker or Empson concerned : sea. Chelsea: 3 March, 1844. Dear Little Wizard, I have received two numbers of your ingenious periodical, the second of them this morning, and have to return you my thanks and congratulations. I find it a very handsome enterprise this of yours, and cannot but think you have a fair augury both of pleasure and profit from the same. It will be new satisfaction to my little Wizard of the North to burn off his fireworks in this literary form; may he prosper with them, our present little Wizard, as he used to do when they consisted of chemical gases and such like! We all know with what dexterity he used to go off, ever at the right moment, and with what brilliancy to blaze, in that latter department astonishing the minds of beholders. The like good speed attend him here. Need I wish him better? With many kind wishes to my little wizard friend, and his periodical literature, and other honest achievements and improvements, I remain (in good hopes of him), Most sincerely his, T. CARLYLE. Not long afterwards we were overtaken by a calamity which caused genuine grief to Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle. A brief excursion to Naples having stimulated my mother's love of the arts, literature, and natural beauties of Italy, she decided to make a protracted sojourn in the Peninsula, but was attacked at Perugia by an illness to which she succumbed. Communication of this or higher soul I have never known. And now, all on a sudden, she is snatched away, I am to see her face no more, to hear her kind voice, or commune with her noble heart no more. In such cases words are very vain; nor will I add any. I desire to offer an affectionate sympathy to Mrs. Hare, in this her great distress: let her live worthy of such a mother. There is no other consolation but what lies in that direction. With many thoughts which it would be profane to write; with remembrances which will not quit me while I live, I remain with true participation, Yours faithfully always, T. CARLYLE. Were other evidence wanting, this touching letter would be testimony enough to the depth of Carlyle's regard for his "oldest and dearest friend." The Mentone memoirs of 1867 thus summarize her character: To this day, long years after her death, I regard her as a singular pearl of a woman; pure as dew, yet full of love; incapable of inveracity to herself or others. In such terms he always spoke of her to the last, and it may be truly said that in the friendship which united her and the Chelsea household there was never "any variableness or shadow of turning." During an educational residence in London in 1848, I was frequently in Cheyne Row. In Mrs. Carlyle's lifetime, company was received in the room on the ground floor facing the street. A sofa stood in front of the windows, on which, when there was "æsthetic tea," or a single guest, the gnädige Frau sat behind her cups and saucers, while her husband occupied a chair between her and the fire, beyond which, and opposite the host's, was the visitor's |