haughty Senate of England without the help | Germanized invention of "Carlyle's Earnest of Mr. Macaulay's" model Titan "?

founds with novelty; vehement words he mistakes for fiery eloquence. His style is a convulsive protest against sense and grammar, and it makes us think that Edward Irving had been his tutor. We recollect such sentences of poor Irving as "abolishing pulses," "evacuating the uses of a law,' the quietus of torment,' erecting the platform of our being upon the new condition of probation"-sentences of as good Babel as if they were in the Carlylese language. We should like to see some parallel passages from Mr. Irving printed side by side with "beauties" from Mr. Carlyle.

99.66

Grotesque Inwardness Elixir," a spiritual We can speak with some degree of author- compound, warranted to cure all psychologiity on this point, for we took the trouble to cal maladies. He vilified all other practiattend a whole course of Mr. Carlyle's lec- tioners in philosophy, and was not sparing tures on "Hero-Worship." The impression of hard words. He got up a cant of calling left on our minds was that he was a counter- orators "parliamentary logic-mills," and feit genius, and that "he had the contortions another favorite phrase of his was "halfof the Sybil, with little of the inspiration." men." Against such he cried "no quarter,” He left upon us the impression that he was a though in some things he was not even a man of secondary power, struggling with the half-man himself. sublimities of a lofty theme. He stood on For there are two terrible charges which tiptoe, and tried to prophecy, but he could posterity with deadly effect will urge against not do so; and he revealed in the flesh his Mr. Carlyle - he has neither a system nor a gaspings to the audience. He tried to talk style. He upsets the English tongue into about the whole problem of life, its intuitions, chaotic sentences, and produces effects sinmysteries, and aspirations; and his words gular, not original; in running after the tumbled out like those of a half-educated great, he tumbles into the grotesque-for pupil in neology attempting to repeat back- there is always bathos in the Carlylian subwards a lecture from the late Mr. Coleridge. lime. Mr. Carlyle has no fine appreciation We often heard his admirers compare him of moral harmony. Strangeness he conto a rhetorical Rembrandt, but the compliment is too flattering; for Mr. Carlyle scouts all artistic analogies. He hates critics; he makes a wry face when we talk of "style." So did George Fox, and Whitfield, and Edward Irving; and what those preachers were to true devotion, the same is Mr. Carlyle to genuine thinking on genius, poetry, and that oversoul" under which he reels. Indeed, we cannot but think that Whitfield is a singularly close type of Mr. Carlyle. Crowds were astonished and much moved by his passionate language; his theme was sublime, his words intense, his manner rivetting, and he spoke to an age of formalists tranced in stupifying custom. At first he produced a sensation by his eccentricity and his enthusiasm, by his apostrophes to his audiences, and by his aspirations after an indefinite perfectibility. So also with Mr. Carlyle. În 1820 logic was enthroned with great pomp at Oxford by Dr. Whateley and his contemporaries. Political Economy, and charlatanic schemes of Parliamentary Reform, were believed in by "Whigs, and something more;" and Bentham and the Mills (senior and junior) were believed in by the Radicals at large. Those were what has been wittily called "the days of the Screw and Lever Magazine, edited by Young First Principles, the cleverest man of the age, all whose contributors were under two-and-twenty years of age; while Old First Principles was perpetually canvassing for places in the lobbies of the Lords and Commons."

In such times Mr. Carlyle had great opportunities. He saw, as hundreds of others did, that the Liberals had taken to a Holloway's ointment school of moral philosophy. He divined that they would get sick of it, and while they were suffering from their mental nausea he offered them his own new

A man's mind may be a quarry of materials for art, and yet he may never become an artist; he may have voice, appearance, words, and argument, and yet never be an orator. So with an author like Mr. Carlyle, he may have topic, knowledge, purpose, and popular effect, and yet he may never become a classic. We believe that Mr. Carlyle's vogue is destined to pass away. There is no calm catholic beauty in his writing, no soothing utterances of serenely wholesome philosophy. His language, like his thinking, is, as the actors say of illwritten dialogue, breaky"; its irregular fitful jets of thought flare up in the reader's face with the coarse flashy effects of gaslight on a windy night. His mannerism, in short, is just as fatally hard and artificial as that of the class of writers against whom he has railed.

66

His tautology, also, is enormous. We do not think that any one of his contemporaries has so often repeated himself. An author appealing to wide sympathies ought to be various. Horatio - Dorax Falstaff-still was Quin, wrote Churchill in the " Rosciad;" and

Mr. Carlyle is unable to discuss any subject | simple dupes who beheld in him a profound without perpetually elbowing his reader, Christian sage, with some novel conceptions and bawling into his ears, "I am Thomas on Christianity. Mr. Carlyle is little more Carlyle." He ever hectors the reader, and than a perplexed Pantheist, half stunned rails at his tastes and habits, and intimates with his own whirlwind of cacophony. The that Thomas Carlyle thinks him "a respect-" Revelation" of Richter is all that he has able goose; " and in the Carlylese tongue to urge, and whoever follows his ignus "respectable" means something terrible. fatuus will soon be lost in a mirage of It always brings down the stereotyped story metaphorical phrasemaking, which persons of Thurtell's trial, and the man who was unskilled in words would mistake for sym"respectable, for he kept a gig; " and then bolism of an unapprehended inspiration Mr. Carlyle mounts upon "gigmanity," which the prophet of Chelsea has yet to ties the reader to his Pegasus, and soars into reveal. The worst effect of his example in "cloudland." scorning all rules of language is, that young We do not think, therefore, that Mr. persons imitate Mr. Carlyle with perfect Carlyle will last. Sciolists in philosophy, success, and without the least difficulty. strong-minded women who are not yet" up "There is a great brood of writers abroad in in German, and pretentious undisciplined the land, wildly defiant of grammar in their young men, are his chief admirers. We do slipshod sentences, and the parentage of all not believe that he has any genuine inspira- these sprawling authors is certainly to be tion, and he certainly has not attained to traced to Mr. Carlyle. any profound moral creed. Stripped of his To conclude, the cant of Benthamism, oddity, his Jean-Paulism, and his infinite with its jargon of a strange nomenclature, number of harsh, rough words, what is left? has past away. In the same way the cant We suspect that he is little better after all of Carlylism, and the spiritualized gibberish than a clever criticaster, disguised under of " Sartor Resartus" is destined to die out. travestied grammer and burlesqued rhetoric. His Life of Sterling" shows that his obscure esotericism completely deceived the

Wilkes boasted that he was no Wilkesite, and we are sure that Mr. Carlyle's "inwardness" is not that of a Carlylian.

THE following epitaph is reprinted in the Newcastle Journal of March 31, 1855, from a paper of similar title of March 12, 1748:

DETECTION OF POISON. Do certain poisons so easily escape the detection of the chemest, in the dead body, as we have been led to suppose? Mr. William Herapath, Professor of Toxicology at the Bristol Medical School, affirms that they" do not. After a lecture delivered by his son, Mr. Herapath referred to the poisoning cases, and their effect on the public mind.

Ye witty mortals, as you 're passing by,
Remark, that near this monument doth lie,
Center'd in dust,

Two husbands, two wives,
Two sisters, two brothers,
Two fathers, a son,

Two daughters, two mothers,

A grandfather, grandmother, and a granddaughter,

An uncle, an aunt, and their niece follow'd

after.

"Apprehensions," he said, "respecting the
security of life had been greatly increased by
the statements which had gone forth as to the
difficulty of detecting certain poisons after death.
He understood it had been stated that prussic
acid could not be detected after fourteen days;
that strychnine could only be dtected a few
hours after death; and that cocculus indicus
could not be discovered at all. Now, he had
himself, in a case which had been published, de-
tected prussic acid in a human body which had
been buried two months; he had discovered
cocculus indicus in beer, in dead fishes, and in a
human body exhumed after ten months; and
with regard to strychnine, his belief was that he
should be able to discover its presence as long
as any fluids remained in the body. The diffi-
culties in the way of detecting cases of poisoning
were therefore not so great as had been sup-
posed, and he hoped that the public mind might sion of the circumstance.
be reassured by that knowledge.". - Spectator.

This catalogue of persons mentioned here
Was only five, and all from incest clear."
-Notes and Queries.

THE Belfast News-Letter states that there are at the present moment in the South and West of Ireland agents from America, who are privately ascertaining the feeling of the people relative to lieve that the Government are fully in possesan American invasion of this country. We be- Spectator, 2 Feb.

THE LAST DAYS OF CHRISTOPHE.

THE account of the suicide and last days of Christophe the Second, King of Hayti, which we publish to-day, has never before been printed.

It will be read now with peculiar interest because of some strange analogies between the condition of Hayti and its ruler, then and now. The manuscript is furnished us by Mr. B. P. Hunt, a leading merchant at Port au Prince, and one of the most intelligent and cultivated of his calling in any country. He gives, in a note to us, the following account of the manuscript, and the circumstances under which it came into his possession:

"The manuscript narrative of the death of Christophe, which I placed in your hands a few days since, was copied by me from the original about twelve years ago, at Cape Haytien. I found it in the hands of a shipmaster. The only account which he could give of it was, that it had been presented to him by a Haytian merchant of Port au Prince, whose father, an American, had been in trade at Cape Haytien in the time of Christophe.

script to which we invite the attention of
our readers.-N. Y. Eve. Post.

From the MS. Journal of one of his Physicians.
THE LAST HOURS OF CHRISTOPHE.

A Narrative of the Events which occurred
during the Revolution which ended in the
Death of the King of Hayti, and the
Establishment of the Republic.

On the 15th of August, 1820, the King was struck with a fit of apoplexy, while he was standing in the parish church of Limonade, during the celebration of the mass. the château of Bellevue, happened to be Dr. Stewart, who had followed the King to near at the time; he had the King removed into the open air, and put into his carriage, where he bled him largely, which restored him somewhat. He was then taken to the château of Bellevue, where it was necessary to bleed him largely again, when his perception returned. Being sent for from the Cape, I arrived at Bellevue about 9 o'clock at night; the ante-chamber was full of officers, but all was quiet round about. The King could not raise his head from the "This narrative is anonymous, but the text pillow, and all the physicians of his houseshows that it was written by one of the king's hold were called about his person. In about physicians, and on making inquiries of a Mr. ten days he got much better, when I quitted Castel, an old officer of Christophe's household, I learned that the king had but two physicians, vue most of the principal officers came my attendance upon him. Whilst at Belleboth foreigners- namely, the Baron Stewart, a Scotchman, and the Chevalier Bird. The latter there, but there was no appearance of insurwas no doubt the author. According to his mon-rection; on the contrary, all was most orument in the cemetery of the Cape, Dr. Jabez derly and quiet. Sheen Bird was born in England, and died in Cape Haytien, in September, 1825, aged 36.

"He seemed to be remembered at the Cape as a man of superior professional talent, and was said to have had good connections in England, whom he had estranged by his marriage--the wife he had chosen not having met the approbation of his family. To this fact was attributed his settlement at the Cape. His wife after his death married a Dr. Desin, a colored pysi an, still in respectable practice at the Cape, in 1846, at which date she had been long since dead.

"I mention these particulars as evidence of the authenticity of the account, which, besides, has an air of truhfulness throughout, and it is further corroborated by Pamphile de la Croix and other authorities, having the additional advantage over them of being more circumstantial."

We have no doubt of the entire correctness of Mr. Hunt's conclusions, and esteem the narrative an important contribution to the history of Hayti.

Mr. Hunt spent several years at Cape Haytien, and has a more comprehensive acquaintance with Hayti and the Haytians than any other man now living. Hence our confidence in his judgment about the manu

In three or four days the King removed to Sans-Souci, where he had been anxious to go some time before. Here he continued getting gradually better till about the beginning of October, when the news of the insurrection of the troops of St. Marc's threw him into so violent à perturbation that he became attacked again by apoplexy, and was again relieved by bleeding, but not to so great a degree as before. walked about the apartments of his palace, However, he and sat up, chatting, in his chair. He despatched an army against the insurrectionary troops of St. Marc's, under the command of the Dukes of Artebonite and Ouanamynthe, and all seemed to promise well.

On Friday evening, October 6th, about 9 o'clock, my housekeeper came rushing into the room, where I was sitting at table, to tell me that the Generale was beating, and that the enemy was at hand-but what enemy, or where they came from, her fright would not permit her to stay to inquire. I went out, and found the drums of the infantry and horns of the cavalry parading_the streets, and blowing and beating the Generale. All the people fit to bear arms werc assembling on the place d'armes, and the

Governor (Duc de la Marmalade), was haranguing them.

suspense in the town. Several times the hue and cry was, that the King's troops were I understood something about liberty was coming into the town, and that the orders mentioned, but could not clearly understand were to spare none, not even children at the its drift. I returned, and, shutting my doors mother's breast. In the afternoon, I left and arming myself, went to bed. All night the people at my house, packing up my I heard parties of horse and foot parading goods, &c.; and mounting my horse, with the streets, and now and then groups of my pistols, &c., I determined to go to the people assembled, singing songs in honor of army, and see myself what to hope and fear. liberty. The next morning we found all the On the road, Colonel Jumeaux told me he people of the city arming, and, as they did feared the dragoons had taken my horses not find enough muskets in the arsenal, they from their pasturage, which was not far bought nearly five hundred stands of a Ger- from the encampment, and I went first man merchant. The chiefs at the head of (through the woods) to see if I could find the insurgents were: General Richmond them. I found at the country house the (Duc de la Marmalade); General Placide mate of a Swedish vessel in the harbor, who (Compte de Gros-Morne); General Monpoint was there collecting specimens of natural (Baron Monpoint); General Charles Pierre history for the University of "Zürich ;" and (Duc de Terrier-Rouge); Colonels Nord and taking him with me, to carry him to the Prophete, of the Chevaux Legers, both Cape, we arrived at the position of the inbarons; Colonels Jumeaux and Poux, both surgent army. They were all in square, and aides-de-camp of the King. The troops they they opened to let me pass. When I came had consisted of a part of the first and second into the square, I met General Monpoint and regiments of the line, in garrison at the Colonel Prophete, who were going the Cape, and one of the battalions of the Che-rounds. I offered the letter to the General, vaux Legers of the King's household troops, to send to Sans-Souci. He told me he could with about a thousand armed inhabitants not send it, as the enemy were in front of of the Cape. In the afternoon the army them, adding, “Shall I show you the eneremoved to Haut du Cap, where they en- my?" I replied, I replied, "Yes;" when, leading trenched themselves at the bridges and side of the river. This day passed away in great anxiety on the part of the people of the Cape. Contradictory reports were flying about, and no one knew what to believe. They hoped the King was dead, or so ill as not to be able to rise. I confess the latter was my opinion, when I saw night arrive and we were not attacked, knowing the fiery temper of the King, and how he would be struck with the news. In the course of the day the strangers had all met at my house, and had written to the Governor, to know if he had provided for our protection. At night we recieved an answer, dictated in the most polite and friendly terms, tending to compose our minds with respect to the danger of our persons and property. This night passed away more quietly than the last, though we still went to our chambers armed to the teeth. Next morning, Sunday, there came an order for all the young men of the Cape to join the insurrectionary army. General Monpoint called politely on me in the morning, and assured me that there was no danger; yet, Thus we happily ended an affair which at on my asking for my friend Dr. Stewart, first had a very bad aspect. For, though who was still with the King, he offered to our people were very full of zeal in the cause, forward a letter from me to him. I directly and perhaps would have fought hard, yet sent to Mrs. Stewart, who wrote to her hus- the King's troops were more numerous than band; but the General's duty called him ours, and much better disciplined. After away before she had sent it, and this was all was over, and I had used the whole of one of the means of my seeing the action my silk handkerchief in binding up wounds, which that day decided the fate of the King, I returned to the Cape, and quieted the fears The morning passed away in dreadful of my household and those of several of my

me close to the bridge, I saw a large body of the Haytien guards, together with the body guards, deploying on the savanna on the opposite side of the river, and forming a line against us. I turned to the General, and said: "As you are likely to have warm work here, and as you may have need of my services professionally, will you allow me to stay here with you?" He replied that he would not have asked me, but that, as I offered, he glady accepted my services. He then left me with a Captain Fresé, a Swedish officer of artillery, who came to be employed by the King, but who now was with the Governor. In about two or three minutes our men began firing, and the smoke hid the enemy (on whom I had my eyes steadily fixed) from my sight. Very shortly after, our cavalry charged through the river upon them, and I went to a wounded man. When I came out of the house, I found that the King's troops had declared for us, and I saw them coming over, and embracing their comrades of the Governor's party.

," said the soldier who gave me the account, "would certainly have killed you, for I saw you on your horse just in the direction it would have taken." When the cavalry arrived close to them, they cried out that they were brothers, and that they would not fight against them; and they immediately came over to the Governor's side.

friends. The Cape was illuminated gener-occurring, the artillery-man, who held the ally, and I believe with much greater sin-match of one of the cannon, was about to cerity than I had ever seen before. Thus apply it to the touch-hole; the soldier who passed Sunday, and at night we were tran- stood next him ordered him to desist; howquil, the troops being still kept in the en- ever, he still persisted, when the soldier, campment. drawing his sword, killed him on the spot. By this affair, the Governor's party gained" The grape-shot of that cannon,' an accession of about 1,500 choice troops, together with General Simon (Duc de St. Louis), and Baron Riché, afterwards President, the commander of the body guards. The Duke of Fort-Royal, who commanded for the King, escaped narrowly, being chased by Colonel Prophete, of the Chevaux Legers, and Baron Dessalines was killed by a captain of the same regiment, by a sabre cut. A few soldiers were also killed, and many dispersed in the woods. There were also three cannon taken. The soldiers being kept on the encampment was thought highly necessary, the King still having a large force at Sans-Souci.

On Monday morning I met Baron Ternier in the street, who was just arrived from Sans-Souci, who gave me the first information of the death of the King. He had shot himself the evening before at ten o'clock. About ten o'clock, the Prince Royal, Dukes of Fort-Royal and Limonade, and Baron Vastey, were brought in guarded. They had come from Sans-Souci, and delivered themselves up at Haut du Cap. The Prince and Duke of Fort-Royal were put into the former's house under a guard. The Duke of Limonade was allowed to go to his own house, and the Baron Vastey was put in prison. In the afternoon, Dr. Stewart arrived from Sans-Souci, and at night, Baron Dupuy.

Thus, God Almighty saved us, for the King had promised his troops the pillage of the Cape, and we should have died among the rest; at least, I should, who was with the revolutionary army. The soldiers of the other side say they could have beaten us if they had fought, and I should very much fear that they were not boasting too much.

On Tuesday we passed a tranquil day. In the evening I first saw Dr. Stewart, having been obliged to pass the whole day seeing patients in the country.

All on the plain was in a state of confusion. They had pillaged all the King's castles, and were driving his oxen off by droves to kill. There were many slaughtered by the roadside, and any one who passed took what he pleased; yet much was left to putrefy. Most people that I saw were still apprehensive of disturbance, and all were afraid of being pillaged.

On Wednesday we had a proclamation in town from the insurgent chiefs, "that all danger was passed, and that all might proceed to transact business as usual; but, as the embargo is not yet taken off the ships in the harbor, the stores are still continued shut.

To-day I received the following account of the affair of Haut du Cap bridge, from the brother of one of my servants, who was in the army of the King (a Haytien guard) on that occasion, when the troops of the On Thursday I went to Sans-Souci with Governor were discovered in ambuscade at Dr. Stewart. The road was free from brithe bridge, and on the banks of the river. gands, and we met with no interruption, The General halted for the troops to form a except in passing through the insurrectionary line. While this manoeuvre was taking army. However, we were quietly allowed to place, the Governor's party were heard to pass. The town of Sans-Souci was half decry out: "Vive la Liberté!" Immediately serted. We went up to the palace, and the Duke of Fort Royal, taking off his hat, walked through it. It was gutted entirely, waved it, and cried: "Vive le Roi!" He and the soldiers had broken what they could was joined by very few, the soldiers mostly not carry away. Many of the apartments crying out: Vive le Prince de Limbé!"I had never seen before, and found them very At this time the cannon were placed by the magnificent. The terraces were fine, and front route. The Duke gave command to commanded an extensive view. But I could open the rank, that the cannon might commence playing. He was not obeyed. He immediately galloped upon the men, sword in hand, to enforce his commands, when he saw the cavalry of the Governor's party close at hand, so that he was obliged to wheel his horse and fly. Whilst this was VOL. XII. 51

DCXVIII. LIVING AGE.

not but be struck by comparing the magnificence of the house on which I stood with the miserable appearance of the wigwams in which the people lived. The King's bloody shirt, in which he died, was hanging up over one of the doors, and I examined carefully the floor of his room, exactly on the spot