lass it is firmly
believed there are individuals yet extant, we can safely recommend the
Work: nay, who knows but among the fashionable ranks too, if it be
true, as Teufelsdroeckh maintains, that 'within the most starched
cravat there passes a windpipe and weasand, and under the thickliest
embroidered waistcoat beats a heart,'--the force of that rapt
earnestness may be felt, and here and there an arrow of the soul
pierce through? In our wild Seer, shaggy, unkempt, like a Baptist
living on locusts and wild honey, there is an untutored energy, a
silent, as it were unconscious, strength, which, except in the higher
walks of Literature, must be rare. Many a deep glance, and often with
unspeakable precision, has he cast into mysterious Nature, and the
still more mysterious Life of Man. Wonderful it is with what cutting
words, now and then, he severs asunder the confusion; shears down,
were it furlongs deep, into the true centre of the matter; and there
not only hits the nail on the head, but with crushing force smites it
home, and buries it.--On the other hand, let us be free to admit, he
is the most unequal writer breathing. Often after some such feat, he
will play truant for long pages, and go dawdling and dreaming, and
mumbling and maundering the merest commonplaces, as if he were asleep
with eyes open, which indeed he is.

Of his boundless Learning, and how all reading and literature in most
known tongues, from _Sanchoniathon_ to _Dr Lingard_, from your
Oriental _Shasters_, and _Talmuds_, and _Korans_, with Cassini's
_Siamese Tables_, and Laplace's _Mecanique Celeste_, down to _Robinson
Crusoe_ and the _Belfast Town and Country Almanack_, are familiar to
him,--we shall say nothing: for unexampled as it is with us, to the
Germans such universality of study passes without wonder, as a thing
commendable, indeed, but natural, indispensable, and there of course.
A man that devotes his life to learning, shall he not be learned?

In respect of style our Author manifests the same genial capability,
marred too often by the same rudeness, inequality, and apparent want
of intercourse with the higher classes. Occasionally, as above hinted,
we find consummate vigour, a true inspiration; his burning thoughts
step forth in fit burning words, like so many full-formed Minervas,
issuing amid flame and splendour from Jove's head; a rich, idiomatic
diction, picturesque allusions, fiery poetic emphasis, or quaint
tricksy turns; all the gra