ng the charities and amenities of life, loving and
beloved--a Teufelsdrockh still, but humanized by a Blumine worthy of him.
We have often wished that genius would incline itself more frequently to
the task of the biographer--that when some great or good personage dies,
instead of the dreary three or five volumed compilations of letter, and
diary, and detail, little to the purpose, which two thirds of the reading
public have not the chance, nor the other third the inclination, to read,
we could have a real "Life," setting forth briefly and vividly the man's
inward and outward struggles, aims, and achievements, so as to make clear
the meaning which his experience has for his fellows. A few such lives
(chiefly, indeed, autobiographies) the world possesses, and they have,
perhaps, been more influential on the formation of character than any
other kind of reading. But the conditions required for the perfection of
life writing--personal intimacy, a loving and poetic nature which sees
the beauty and the depth of familiar things, and the artistic power which
seizes characteristic points and renders them with lifelike effect--are
seldom found in combination. "The Life of Sterling" is an instance of
this rare conjunction. Its comparatively tame scenes and incidents
gather picturesqueness and interest under the rich lights of Carlyle's
mind. We are told neither too little nor too much; the facts noted, the
letters selected, are all such as serve to give the liveliest conception
of what Sterling was and what he did; and though the book speaks much of
other persons, this collateral matter is all a kind of scene-painting,
and is accessory to the main purpose. The portrait of Coleridge, for
example, is precisely adapted to bring before us the intellectual region
in which Sterling lived for some time before entering the Church. Almost
every review has extracted this admirable description, in which genial
veneration and compassion struggle with irresistible satire; but the
emphasis of quotation cannot be too often given to the following pregnant
paragraph:

"The truth is, I now see Coleridge's talk and speculation was the
emblem of himself. In it, as in him, a ray of heavenly inspiration
struggled, in a tragically ineffectual degree, with the weakness of
flesh and blood. He says once, he 'had skirted the howling deserts
of infidelity.' This was evident enough; but he had not had the
courage, in defiance