manner, upwards to the heavens, but with no other result than to plod more perseveringly along his very earthy track, it follows not that there is any one order of fanatic spirits with whom he would associate, to whose theology he would yield assent.  Verily, no.  He demands faith—­he gives no creed.  What is it you teach? a plain-speaking man would exclaim; where is your church? have you also your thirty-nine articles? have you nine? have you one stout article of creed that will bear the rubs of fortune—­bear the temptations of prosperity or a dietary system—­stand both sunshine and the wind—­which will keep virtue steady when disposed to reel, and drive back crime to her penal caverns of remorse?  What would you answer, O philosopher! if a simple body should ask you, quite in confidence, where wicked people go to?

Were it not better for those to whom philosophy has brought the sad necessity of doubt, to endure this also patiently and silently, as one of the inevitable conditions of human existence?  Were not this better than to rail incessantly against the world, for a want of that sentiment which they have no means to excite or to authorize?

The same inconsequence in politics.  We have Chartism preached by one not a Chartist—­by one who has no more his five points of Radicalism than his five points of Calvinistic divinity—­who has no trust in democracy, who swears by no theory of representative government—­who will never believe that a multitude of men, foolish and selfish, will elect the disinterested and the wise.  Your constitution, your laws, your “horse-haired justice” that sits in Westminster Hall, he likes them not; but he propounds himself no scheme of polity.  Reform yourselves, one and all, ye individual men! and the nation will be reformed; practise justice, charity, self-denial, and then all mortals may work and eat.  This is the most distinct advice he bestows.  Alas! it is advice such as this that the Christian preacher, century after century, utters from his pulpit, which he makes the staple of his eloquence, and which he and his listeners are contented to applaud; and the more contented probably to applaud, as, on all hands, it is tacitly understood to be far too good to be practised.

In fine, turn which way you will, to philosophy, to politics, to religion, you find Mr Carlyle objecting, denouncing, scoffing, rending all to pieces in his bold, reckless, ironical, manner—­but teaching nothing.  The most docile pupil, when he opens his tablets to put down the precious sum of wisdom he has learned, pauses—­finds his pencil motionless, and leaves his tablet still a blank.

Now all this, and more of the same kind, which our astute and trenchant critic might urge, may be true, or very like the truth, but it is not the whole truth.