single hour make openings in the ice which all the saws in all Her Majesty's dockyards could not accomplish in the course of an Arctic summer. Sir E. Belcher has now an opportunity of awaiting the favourable moment, and fulfilling the desire so resolutely expressed by Lady Franklin. "By that passage" (Wellington Channel), writes her ladyship to a friend, "doubt not, the ships have gone; and by that, believe me, they must be followed."

August 26, 1852.

THE LIFE OF STERLING BY THOMAS
CARLYLE.*

WEAK minds will be sorely distressed by the last production of the redoubtable Thomas. That angry gentleman is more indignant than ever. His wrath has got to its height. There are but two things for it. We must either scramble out of his way as fast as we can, or submit to be belaboured within an inch of our lives. Every page is a knock on the head or a thrust in the eye. Nobody escapes! Like the congregation to whom Mawworm preaches his last sermon before retiring from the stage, we are "all going to the devil," and, like Mawworm himself, Mr. Thomas Carlyle derives infinite "consolation" from that melancholy and startling fact. Such is the gist of the Life of Sterling.

We doubt whether the life would have been written at all but for the matchless opportunity it affords for the pugilistic efforts of the author. Thomas Carlyle, it is true, puts on the gloves with the ostensible and single purpose of covering the fair fame of a friend; but his foot once in the ring, his arm once fairly raised, and he thinks of nothing but punishing the foe. And what a foe! We may doubt the prudence of the undertaking, but who shall question the valour of the man

* The Life of John Sterling. By Thomas Carlyle

THE NEW BIOGRAPHY.

85

who, single-handed, takes upon himself to thrash the whole world?

A memoir of John Sterling has already been written. The reading public, which did not call for that, hardly required another almost upon its heels. Mr. Carlyle himself feels the force of the remark, for he apologizes at starting for his apparent intrusion. The author of the first biography, he alleges, being a clergyman, could not allow himself that broad and comprehensive view of his subject which it behoved him to take. It was essential for him, above all things, to vindicate the Christian profession, and such first duty was altogether incompatible with that other duty of faithfully delineating the character of Sterling. Thomas Carlyle is vassal to no power but his own liberal and indulgent mind. He is free to speak of his hero as of a man, not as of "a pale, sickly shadow in torn surplice, weltering bewildered amid heaps of what you call Hebrew old clothes:" and on the first page of his book he announces his laudable intention of proving what his departed friend John Sterling was not, and of further showing clearly and truly for our edification and example-for a true delineation of the smallest man and his scene of pilgrimage through life is capable of interesting the greatest man"—all that in life he actually was. How far Mr. Carlyle has fulfilled his promise and satisfied raised expectation we shall not fail to inform the reader before we close. For the moment our business is less with the biography than with the biographer; with him on whose account, indeed, a volume will be eagerly read which otherwise could never have attracted a moment's attention.

The great object of the author of the Latter Day Pamphlets in this his last work seems to be-as far as we can gather it-to prove the utter impossibility of an honest man's making way in life, and the absolute rottenness of all existing things. The world, according to Mr. Carlyle, has never been so bad as it is. It is overhung with falsities and foul cobwebs as world never was before; overloaded, overclouded, to the zenith and nadir of it, by incredible, uncredited traditions, solemnly sordid hypocrisies, and beggarly deliriums old and new;" it is an "untrue, unblessed world;""a world all rocking and plunging, like that old Roman one when the measure of its iniquities was full;" as "mad a world as you could wish ·"`" a world of rotten straw; thrashed all into powder, filling the universe and blotting out the stars and worlds." The professions of the worldthe means whereby industrious men gain their daily bread-are just as corrupt. They are "built largely on speciosity instead of performance; so clogged, in this bad epoch, and defaced under such suspicions of fatal imposture, that they are hateful, not lovable to the young radical soul, scornful of gross profit, and intent on ideals and human nobleness." Of the three learned professions there is not one which does not "require you at the threshold to constitute yourself an impostor;" and of all the professions that is by far the most detestable and hopeless which finds a temporal home for "those legions of 'black dragoons,' of all varieties and purposes, who patrol with horse-meat and man'smeat this afflicted earth, so hugely to the detriment of it."

Before we venture to call in question the justice of

so sweeping and fearful a condemnation, we may be pardoned for inquiring of this shameless exposer of our enumerated wounds and sores whether he has any remedy himself for the recovery of the putrescent body politic. Mr. Carlyle is not a lunatic. He tells us loudly and often enough that the world itself is "mad;" but. he is surely more sane than to make unmeaning grimaces at the contortions of disease, and to gibe at the failings of infirm humanity. The world may be hopelessly gone in wretchedness and vice, the "professions" may be lying impostures, the teachers of religion may be locusts on the land; but since the world is doing its best; since many professional men flatter themselves into the conviction that they are honestly, creditably, and usefully pursuing their callings: since ministers of every creed do visit the abodes of their fellow-creatures with the humble hope and desire of not being detrimental to human happiness on earth, it is not enough for Mr. Carlyle-and most assuredly it shall not be allowed him—to stand afar off, mouthing at the workers from the convenient sanctuary of his well-warmed study, helping no man with his advice, irritating all men by his scoffs, and hindering practical and serviceable labour-as the world goes-by the intrusion of violent and all but unintelligible gibberish.

There is throughout this book no cessation of abuse; but we have searched through it in vain, though most carefully and anxiously, for a single line of wholesome counsel. Mr. Carlyle keeps a school in which scolding goes on from morning till night, but certainly no teaching. If his boys move, they are lashed; if they sit still, they are lashed. They can do nothing right;