'me in Heaven. Neither except in such Obedience to 'the Heaven-chosen is Freedom so much as con'ceivable.'

The Editor will here admit that, among all the wondrous provinces of Teufelsdröckh's spiritual world, there is none he walks in with such astonishment, hesitation, and even pain, as in the Political. How, with our English love of Ministry and Opposition, and that generous conflict of Parties, mind warming itself against mind in their mutual wrestle for the Public Good, by which wrestle, indeed, is our invaluable Constitution kept warm and alive; how shall we domesticate ourselves in this spectral Necropolis, or rather City both of the Dead and of the Unborn, where the Present seems little other than an inconsiderable Film dividing the Past and the Future? In those dim longdrawn expanses, all is so immeasurable; much so disastrous, ghastly; your very radiances, and straggling light-beams, have a supernatural character. And then with such an indifference, such a prophetic peacefulness (accounting the inevitablycoming as already here, to him all one whether it be distant by centuries or only by days), does he sit;—and live, you would say, rather in any other age than in his own! It is our painful duty to announce, or repeat, that, looking into this man, we discern a deep, silent, slow-burning, inextinguishable Radicalism, such as fills us with shuddering admiration.

Thus, for example, he appears to make little even of the Elective Franchise; at least so we interpret the following: Satisfy yourselves,' he says, by universal, ' indubitable experiment, even as ye are now doing or

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will do, whether FREEDOM, heavenborn and leading heavenward, and so vitally essential for us all, cannot 'peradventure be mechanically hatched and brought to light in that same Ballot-Box of yours; or at worst, in some other discoverable or devisable Box, Edifice, or Steam-mechanism. It were a mighty convenience; ' and beyond all feats of manufacture witnessed hitherto.' Is Teufelsdröckh acquainted with the British Constitution, even slightly?-He says, under another figure: But after all, were the problem, as indeed it now everywhere is, To rebuild your old House from the top 'downwards (since you must live in it the while), what 'better, what other, than the Representative Machine I will serve your turn? Meanwhile, however, mock me ' not with the name of Free," when you have but knit up my chains into ornamental festoons."-Or what will any member of the Peace Society make of such an assertion as this: The lower people everywhere desire "War. Not so unwisely; there is then a demand for lower people-to be shot!'

Gladly, therefore, do we emerge from those soul-confusing labyrinths of speculative Radicalism, into somewhat clearer regions. Here, looking round, as was our hest, for 'organic filaments,' we ask, may not this, touching Hero-worship,' be of the number? It seems of a cheerful character; yet so quaint, so mystical, one knows not what, or how little, may lie under it. Our readers shall look with their own eyes :

'True is it that, in these days, man can do almost all things, only not obey. True likewise that whoso cannot obey cannot be free, still less bear rule; he that is 'the inferior of nothing, can be the superior of nothing,

'the equal of nothing. Nevertheless, believe not that 'man has lost his faculty of Reverence; that if it slumber ' in him, it has gone dead. Painful for man is that same rebellious Independence, when it has become inevitable; only in loving companionship with his fellows does he 'feel safe; only in reverently bowing down before the Higher does he feel himself exalted.

'Or what if the character of our so troublous Era lay even in this that man had for ever cast away Fear, ' which is the lower: but not yet risen into perennial 'Reverence, which is the higher and highest ?

'Meanwhile, observe with joy, so cunningly has 'Nature ordered it, that whatsoever man ought to obey ' he cannot but obey. Before no faintest revelation of 'the Godlike did he ever stand irreverent; least of all, ' when the Godlike shewed itself revealed in his fellowC man. Thus is there a true religious Loyalty for ever 'rooted in his heart; nay, in all ages, even in ours, it ' manifests itself as a more or less orthodox Hero-worship. In which fact, that Hero-worship exists, has existed, and will for ever exist, universally among Man'kind, mayest thou discern the corner-stone of livingrock, whereon all Polities for the remotest time may 6 stand secure.'

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Do our readers discern any such corner-stone, or even so much as what Teufelsdröckh is looking at? He exclaims, Or hast thou forgotten Paris and Voltaire? • How the aged, withered man, though but a Sceptic, "Mocker, and millinery Court-poet, yet because even he 'seemed the Wisest, Best, could drag mankind at his 'chariot-wheels, so that princes coveted a smile from him, and the loveliest of France would have laid their

'hair beneath his feet! All Paris was one vast Temple

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of Hero-Worship; though their Divinity, moreover, was of feature too apish.

'But if such things,' continues he,' were done in the dry tree, what will be done in the green? If, in the most parched season of Man's History, in the most parched spot of Europe, when Parisian life was at best but a scientific Hortus Siccus, bedizened with some Italian Gumflowers, such virtue could come out of it; 'what is it to be looked for when Life again waves leafy ' and bloomy, and your Hero-Divinity shall have nothing apelike, but be wholly human? Know that there is in man a quite indestructible Reverence for whatsoever ' holds of Heaven, or even plausibly counterfeits such holding. Shew the dullest clodpole, shew the haugh'tiest featherhead, that a soul Higher than himself is ' actually here; were his knees stiffened into brass, he ⚫ must down and worship.'

Organic filaments, of a more authentic sort, mysteriously spinning themselves, some will perhaps discover in the following passage :

'There is no Church, sayest thou? The voice of 'Prophecy has gone dumb? This is even what I dis'pute: but, in any case, hast thou not still Preaching 'enough? A Preaching Friar settles himself in every

village; and builds a pulpit, which he calls News

paper. Therefrom he preaches what most momentous 'doctrine is in him, for man's salvation; and dost not 'thou listen, and believe? Look well, thou seest every 'where a new Clergy of the Mendicant Orders, some 'bare-footed, some almost bare-backed, fashion itself ' into shape, and teach and preach, zealously enough, for

copper alms and the love of God. These break in 'pieces the ancient idols; and, though themselves too ' often reprobate, as idol-breakers are wont to be, mark out the sites of new Churches, where the true Godordained, that are to follow, may find audience, and 'minister. Said I not, Before the old skin was shed, the new had formed itself beneath it ?'

Perhaps, also, in the following; wherewith we now hasten to knit up this ravelled sleeve :

'But there is no Religion?' reiterates the Professor. "Fool! I tell thee, there is. Hast thou well considered 'all that lies in this immeasurable froth-ocean we name · LITERATURE? Fragments of a genuine Church-Homi"letic lie scattered there, which Time will assort: nay, 'fractions even of a Liturgy could I point out. And 'knowest thou no Prophet, even in the vesture, environ'ment, and dialect of this age? None to whom the 'Godlike had revealed itself, through all meanest and 'highest forms of the Common; and by him been again ' prophetically revealed: in whose inspired melody, even ' in these rag-gathering and rag-burning days, Man's 'Life again begins, were it but afar off, to be divine? 'Knowest thou none such? I know him, and name 'him-Goethe,

Be of comfort!

But thou as yet standest in no Temple; joinest in ' no Psalm-worship; feelest well that, where there is no ministering Priest, the people perish? 'Thou art not alone, if thou have Faith. Spake we not ' of a Communion of Saints, unseen, yet not unreal, ac'companying and brother-like embracing thee, so thou 'be worthy? Their heroic Sufferings rise up melo'diously together to Heaven, out of all lands, and out of