! sometimes, that he had not been present in
many a scene which he described as an eye-witness.

Carlyle went some distance on the way toward London with Home, when he
carried his tragedy of "Douglas" for examination to the critics. Six
other clergymen, accompanied the precious manuscript on that expedition,
and the fun was prodigious. Garrick read the play and pronounced it
totally unfit for the stage! "Douglas" was afterwards brought out in
Edinburgh with unbounded success. David Hume ran about crying it up as
the first performance he world had seen for half a century.

Carlyle's visit to Shenstone is very graphically described in the
"Autobiography." The poet was then "a large, heavy, fat man, dressed in
white clothes and silver lace." One night in Edinburgh, Dr. Robertson
gave a small supper-party to "the celebrated Dr. Franklin," and Carlyle
met him that evening at table. They came together afterwards several
times.

But we must refer our readers to the book itself, our limits not
allowing more space for a glance at one of the most entertaining works
in modern biography.

_The Laws of Race, as connected with Slavery_. By the Author of "The Law
of the Territories," "Rustic Rhymes," etc. Philadelphia: W.P. Hazard.
1860. 8vo. pp. 70.

There is no lack of talk and writing among us on political topics; but
there is great lack of independent and able thought concerning them.
The disputes and the manoeuvres of parties interfere with the study and
recognition of the active principles which silently mould the national
character and history. The double-faced platforms of conventions, the
loose manifestoes of itinerant candidates for the Presidency, the
rhetorical misrepresentations of "campaign documents," form the staple
of our political literature.

The writer of the pamphlet before us is one of the few men who not only
think for themselves, nut whose thoughts deserve attention. His essay
on "The Law of the Territories" was distinguished not more by its sound
reasoning than by the candor of its statements and the calmness of its
tone and temper. If his later essay, on "The Laws of Race, as connected
with Slavery," be on the whole less satisfactory, this is to be
attributed, not to any want in it of the same qualities of thought
and style as were displayed in his earlier work, but to the greater
complexify and difficulty of the subject itself. The question of Race,
so far as it affects actual national conditions, i