he had hitherto given to them.

Coleridge had already formed a school both of divinity and
philosophy. He had his disciples, as well as those far-off gazers who
looked upon him with amazement and trembling, not knowing what to make
of the phenomenon, or whether to regard him as friend or foe to the
old dispensation and the established order of things. He had written
books and poems, preached Unitarian sermons, recanted, and preached
philosophy and Church-of-Englandism. To the dazzled eyes of all
ordinary mortals, content to chew the cud of parish sermons, and
swallow, Sunday after Sunday, the articles of common belief, he seemed
an eccentric comet. But a better astronomy recognized him as a fixed
star, for he was unmistakable by that fitting Few whose verdict is
both history and immortality.

But a greater than Coleridge, destined to assume a more commanding
position, and exercise a still wider power over the minds of his age,
arose in Thomas Carlyle. The son of a Scotch farmer, he had in his
youth a hard student's life of it, and many severe struggles to win
the education which is the groundwork of his greatness. His father was
a man of keen penetration, who saw into the heart of things, and
possessed such strong intellect and sterling common sense that the
country people said "he always hit the nail on the head and clinched
it." His mother was a good, pious woman, who loved the Bible, and
Luther's "Table Talk," and Luther,--walking humbly and sincerely
before God, her Heavenly Father. Carlyle was brought up in the
religion of his fathers and his country; and it is easy to see in his
writings how deep a root this solemn and earnest belief had struck
down into his mind and character. He readily confesses how much he
owes to his mother's early teaching, to her beautiful and beneficent
example of goodness and holiness; and he ever speaks of her with
affection and reverence. We once saw him at a friend's house take up a
folio edition of the "Table Talk" alluded to, and turn over the pages
with a gentle and loving hand, reading here and there his mother's
favorite passages,--now speaking of the great historic value of the
book, and again of its more private value, as his mother's constant
companion and solace. It was touching to see this pitiless intellect,
which had bruised and broken the idols of so many faiths, to which
Luther himself was recommended only by his bravery and self-reliance
and the grandeur of his aims,--