Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1880-10-15

Mr. Carlyle still i'll possession OF his
grand powers.
Though he has not written much ''poe-
trv." using the word in the narrowest
sense. Mr.. Carlyle is great poet. His
works abound with golden passages, such
as no one but true poet could have
written. Take the following paragraph,
from his Cromwell:
There are two or perhaps three SONS
of Cromwell's at Felsted School by this
time likely enough guess is that he
might have been taking Dick over to
Felsted on that occasion when he came
round by Otes, and gave such comfort by
his speech to the pious Mashams, and to
the young Cousin, now on summer visit
Mt Otes. What glimpses Of long gone
summers of long gone human beings in
fringed trowscr- -breeches, in starched ruff,
in hood and fardingale alive, they,
within their antiquarian costumes, living
men and women, instructive, very inter
esting to one another Mrs. st. John
came down to breakfast every morning III
that summer visit Of the year 1888, and
Sir William said grave grace, and they
spake polite devout things to one anoth-
er and they are vanished, they and
their things and speeches-all silent,
like the echoes of the old nightingales
that sang that season, like the blossoms
of the old roses. o Death, o Time -
A very different passage, but sgood Ill
its way, is formed by his observations on
the sentence and execution of Louis XVI.
We can find-or rather make-room for
but one paragraph;
"a king dying by such violence, ap-
peals impressively to the imagination as
the like must do, and ought to do. And
yet, at the bottom it is not the king dying,
but the man! Kingship is coat /; the
grand loss is of the skin. The man from
whom you take his life, to him can the
whole combined world do more ? Lally
went on his hurdle; his mouth filled with
a gag. Miserablest mortals, doomed for
picking pockets, have a whole five-act
tragedy III them, in that dumb pain, as
they go to the gallows, unregarded they
consume the cup of trembling down to
the lees. For kings, and for beggars, for
the Justly doomed, and the unjustly, it is
n hard thing to die. Pity them all thy
utmost pity, and all aids and appliances,
ami throne -and-scaff,old contrasts, how far
short is it of the thing pitied y
The man who wrote this must be a
benevolent poet Some of Mr.. Carlyle's
translations, and especially those made
from Jean Paul, are rich to profusion in
beautiful things and they show how
faithful translator he is, for Jean Paul
was poet, though, like Mr.. Carlyle, he
wrote prose. Here is one, from the Life
of Quintus Fixlein," perfect poem ::
'As thought to myself that would say,
Farewell ! TO them, all the coming
plaques, all the corpses, and all the mar
red wishes, of this good pair, arose be-
fore my heart A.; and l remembered that
little, save the falling asleep of joy-tlow
ers, would mark the current Of their Life
day, as it does of mine, and of every
one And yet, is it fairer, if they
measure their years not by the Water
clock of falling tears, but by the Flo,rej'-
ciock Of asleep going flowers, whose bells
in our short-lived garden are sinking to-
gethcr before MS from hour to hour"
This is in allusion to the fact that Lin
nnus formed i'll Upsal a flower clock. the
flowers Of which, by their different times
of falling asleep, indicated the hours of
the day. Could any thing be more
beautiful tlian this expression in perfect
language of perfect thought that had
occurred, and been made visible to all
Others by his action. and of who must
have been poet as well as Il scientist?