Abyss, that lies under our feet, had yawned open; the pale 'kingdoms of Death, with all their innumerable silent nations ' and generations stood before him; the inexorable word, NEVER! now first shewed its meaning. My Mother wept, and her sorrow got vent; but in my heart there lay a whole lake of tears, 'pent up in silent desolation. Nevertheless, the unworn Spirit ' is strong; Life is so healthful that it even finds nourishment in Death these stern experiences, planted down by Memory in 'my Imagination, rose there to a whole cypress-forest, sad but beautiful; waving, with not unmelodious sighs, in dark luxuriance, in the hottest sunshine, through long years of youth:-as in manhood also it does, and will do; for I have now pitched my tent under a Cypress-tree; the Tomb is now my inexpugna 'ble Fortress, ever close by the gate of which I look upon the 'hostile armaments, and pains and penalties, of tyrannous Life placidly enough, and listen to its loudest threatenings with a still smile. O ye loved ones, that already sleep in the noise'less Bed of Rest, whom in life I could only weep for and never help; and ye, who wide-scattered still toil lonely in the mon'ster-bearing Desert, dyeing the flinty ground with your blood, -yet a little while, and we shall all meet THERE, and our 'Mother's bosom will screen us all; and Oppression's harness, ' and Sorrow's fire-whip, and all the Gehenna Bailiffs that patrol ' and inhabit ever-vexed Time, cannot thenceforth harm us any ' more!'

Close by which rather beautiful apostrophe, lies a laboured Character of the deceased Andreas Futteral; of his natural ability, his deserts in life (as Prussian Sergeant); with long historical inquiries into the genealogy of the Futteral Family, here traced back as far as Henry the Fowler: the whole of which we pass over, not without astonishment. It only concerns us to add, that now was the time when Mother Gretchen revealed to her foster-son that he was not at all of this kindred; or indeed of any kindred, having come into historical existence in the way already known to us. Thus was I doubly orphaned,' says he; 'bereft not only of Possession, but even of Remembrance. Sor'row and Wonder, here suddenly united, could not but produce 'abandoned fruit. Such a disclosure, in such a season, struck its

'roots through my whole nature; ever till the years of mature 6 manhood, it mingled with my whole thoughts, was as the stem 'whereon all my day-dreams and night-dreams grew. A certain 'poetic elevation, yet also a corresponding civic depression, it na'turally imparted: I was like no other: in which fixed-ides, lead'ing sometimes to highest, and oftener to frightfulest results. 'may there not lie the first spring of Tendencies, which in my 'Life have become remarkable enough? As in birth, so in ac'tion, speculation, and social position, my fellows are perhaps not ' numerous.'

In the Bag Sagittarius, as we at length discover, Teufelsdröckh has become a University man; though how, when, or of what quality, will nowhere disclose itself with the smallest certainty. Few things, in the way of confusion and capricious indistinctness, can now surprise our readers; not even the total want of dates, almost without parallel in a Biographical work. So enigmatic, so chaotic we have always found, and must always look to find, these scattered Leaves. In Sagittarius, however, Teufelsdröckh begins to shew himself even more than usually Sibylline; fragments of all sorts; scraps of regular Memoir, College Exercises, Programs, Professional Testimonials, Milkscores, torn Billets, sometimes to appearance of an amatory cast; all blown together as if by merest chance, henceforth bewilder the sane Historian. To combine any picture of these University, and the subsequent, years; much more, to decipher therein any illustrative primordial elements of the Clothes-Philosophy, becomes such a problem as the reader may imagine.

So much we can see; darkly, as through the foliage of some wavering thicket: a youth of no common endowment, who has passed happily through Childhood, less happily yet still vigour ously through Boyhood, now at length perfect in 'dead vocables. and set down, as he hopes, by the living Fountain, there to super add Ideas and Capabilities. From such Fountain he draws, dili gently, thirstily, yet nowise with his whole heart, for the water nowise suits his palate; discouragements, entanglements, aberra tions are discoverable or supposable. Nor perhaps are even pecuniary distresses wanting; for the good Gretchen, who in spite

6

' of advices from not disinterested relatives has sent him hither, 'must after a time withdraw her willing but too feeble hand.' Nevertheless in an atmosphere of Poverty and manifold Chagrin, the Humour of that young Soul, what character is in him, first decisively reveals itself; and, like strong sunshine in weeping skies, gives out variety of colours, some of which are prismatic. Thus with the aid of Time, and of what Time brings, has the stripling Diogenes Teufelsdrockh waxed into manly stature; and into so questionable an aspect, that we ask with new eagerness How he specially came by it, and regret anew that there is no more explicit answer. Certain of the intelligible and partially significant fragments, which are few in number, shall be extracted from that Limbo of a Paper-bag, and presented with the usual preparation.

As if, in the Bag Scorpio, Teufelsdröckh had not already expectorated his antipedagogic spleen; as if, from the name Sagittarius, he had thought himself called upon to shoot arrows, we here again fall in with such matter as this: The University 'where I was educated still stands vivid enough in my remem'brance, and I know its name well; which name, however, I, 'from tenderness to existing interests and persons, shall in no wise divulge. It is my painful duty to say that, out of England and Spain, ours was the worst of all hitherto discovered Univer'sities. This is indeed a time when right Education is, as nearly as may be, impossible: however, in degrees of wrongness there 6 is no limit: nay, I can conceive a worse system than that of the Nameless itself; as poisoned victual may be worse than absolute 'hunger.

It is written, When the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch; wherefore, in such circumstances, may it not 'sometimes be safer, if both leader and led simply-sit still? Had you, anywhere in Crim Tartary, walled-in a square enclo'sure; furnished it with a small, ill-chosen Library; and then turned loose into it eleven hundred Christian striplings, to tumble about as they listed, from three to seven years: certain per'sons, under the title of Professors, being stationed at the gates, 'to declare aloud that it was a University, and exact considerable 'admission-fees, you had, not indeed in mechanical structure,

'yet in spirit and result, some imperfect resemblance of our High Seminary. I say, imperfect; for if our mechanical structure 'was quite other, so neither was our result altogether the same: ' unhappily, we were not in Crim Tartary, but in a corrupt Euro'pean city, full of smoke and sin; moreover, in the middle of a 'Public, which, without far costlier apparatus, than that of the Square Enclosure, and Declaration aloud, you could not be sure of gulling.

6

6

'Gullible, however, by fit apparatus, all Publics are; and 'gulled, with the most surprising profit. Towards any thing 'like a Statistics of Imposture, indeed, little as yet has been done: 'with a strange indifference, our Economists, nigh buried under Tables for minor Branches of Industry, have altogether over'looked the grand all-overtopping Hypocrisy Branch; as if our 'whole arts of Puffery, of Quackery, Priestcraft, Kingcraft, and 'the innumerable other crafts and mysteries of that genus, bad 'not ranked in Productive Industry at all! Can any one, for ' example, so much as say, What moneys, in Literature and Shoe'blacking, are realized by actual Instruction and actual jet Pol'ish; what by fictitious-persuasive Proclamation of such; speci'fying, in distinct items, the distributions, circulations, disburse'ments, incomings of said moneys, with the smallest approach to ' accuracy? But to ask, How far, in all the several infinitely 'complected departments of social business, in government, educa'tion, in manual, commercial, intellectual fabrication of every 'sort, man's Want is supplied by true Ware; how far by the mere Appearance of true Ware :-in other words, To what ex'tent, by what methods, with what effects, in various times and 'countries, Deception takes the place and wages of Performance; 'here truly is an Inquiry big with results for the future time, but 'to which hitherto only the vaguest answer can be given. If for 'the present, in our Europe, we estimate the ratio of Ware to 'Appearance of Ware so high even as at One to a Hundred '(which, considering the Wages of a Pope, Russian Autocrat, or English Game-Preserver, is probably not far from the mark),'what almost prodigious saving may there not be anticipated, as 'the Statistics of Imposture advances, and so the manufacturing ' of Shams (that of Realities rising into clearer and clearer dis

6

'tinction therefrom) gradually declines, and at length becomes all 'but wholly unnecessary!

This for the coming golden ages. What I had to remark, for the present brazen one, is, that in several provinces, as in Education, Polity, Religion, where so much is wanted and indispen'sable, and so little can as yet be furnished, probably Imposture is of sanative, anodyne nature, and man's Gullibility not his 'worst blessing. Suppose your sinews of war quite broken; I I mean your military chest insolvent, forage all but exhausted; ' and that the whole army is about to mutiny, disband, and cut 'your and each other's throat, then were it not well could you, 'as if by miracle, pay them in any sort of fairy-money, feed them 'on coagulated water, or mere imagination of meat; whereby, till 'the real supply came up, they might be kept together, and quiet? Such perhaps was the aim of Nature, who does nothing without 'aim, in furnishing her favourite, Man, with this his so omnipo'tent or rather omnipatient Talent of being Gulled.

How beautifully it works, with a little mechanism; nay, al'most makes mechanism for itself! These Professors in the "Nameless lived with ease, with safety, by a mere Reputation, 'constructed in past times, and then too with no great effort, by quite another class of persons. Which Reputation, like a 'strong brisk-going undershot-wheel, sunk into the general cur ́rent, bade fair, with only a little annual repainting on their 'part, to hold long together, and of its own accord assiduously 'grind for them. Happy that it was so, for the Millers! They 'themselves needed not to work; their attempts at working, at 'what they called Educating, now when I look back on it, fill me with a certain mute admiration.

'Besides all this, we boasted ourselves a Rational University ; in the highest degree, hostile to Mysticism; thus was the young vacant mind furnished with much talk about Progress of the Species, Dark Ages, Prejudice, and the like; so that all were quickly enough blown out into a state of windy argumentativeness; whereby the better sort had soon to end in sick, impotent Scepticism; the worser sort explode (crepiren) in finished Self'conceit, and to all spiritual intents become dead.-But this too 'is portion of mankind's lot. If our era is the Era of Unbelief,