'his Shopboard, the world treats with contumely, as the ninth 'part of a man! Look up, thou much-injured one, look up with 'the kindling eye of hope, and prophetic bodings of a nobler bet'ter time. Too long hast thou sat there, on crossed legs, wearing 'thy ancle-joints to horn; like some sacred Anchorite, or Catholic 'Fakir, doing penance, drawing down Heaven's richest blessings, 'for a world that scoffed at thee. Be of hope! Be of hope! Already streaks 'of blue peer through our clouds; the thick gloom of Ignorance 'is rolling asunder, and it will be day. Mankind will repay with 'interest their long-accumulated debt: the Anchorite that was 'scoffed at will be worshipped; the Fraction will become not an Integer only, but a Square and Cube. With astonishment the 'world will recognise that the Tailor is its Hierophant, and Hier'arch, or even its God.

เ

'As I stood in the Mosque of St. Sophia, and looked upon these 'Four-and-Twenty Tailors, sewing and embroidering that rich Cloth, which the Sultan sends yearly for the Caaba of Mecca, I thought within myself: How many, other Unholies has your 'covering Art made holy, besides this Arabian Whinstone!

'Still more touching was it when, turning the corner of a lane, in the Scottish Town of Edinburgh, I came upon a Signpost, 1 whereon stood written that such and such a one was "Breeches'Maker to his Majesty ;" and stood painted the Effigies of a Pair 'of Leather Breeches, and between the knees these memorable 'words, SIC ITUR AD ASTRA. Was not this the martyr prison'speech of a Tailor sighing indeed in bonds, yet sighing towards ' deliverance; and prophetically appealing to a better day? A day of justice, when the worth of Breeches would be revealed to 'man, and the Scissors become for ever venerable.

Neither, perhaps, may I now say, has his appeal been altoge'ther in vain. It was in this high moment, when the soul, rent 'as it were, and shed asunder, is open to inspiring influence, that 'I first conceived this Work on Clothes: the greatest I can ever hope to do; which has already, after long retardations, occupied, 'and will yet occupy, so large a section of my Life; and of which 'the Primary and simpler Portion may here find its conclusion.'

CHAPTER XII.

FAREWELL.

So have we endeavoured, from the enormous, amorphous Plumpudding, more like a Scottish Haggis, which Herr Teufelsdröckh had kneaded for his fellow mortals, to pick out the choicest Plums, and present them separately on a cover of our own. A laborious, perhaps a thankless enterprise; in which, however, something of hope has occasionally cheered us, and of which we can now wash our hands not altogether without satisfaction. If hereby, though in barbaric wise, some morsel of spiritual nourishment have been added to the scanty ration of our beloved British world, what nobler recompense could the Editor desire? If it prove otherwise, why should he murmur? Was not this a Task which Destiny, in any case, had appointed him; which having now done with, he sees his general Day's-work so much the lighter, so much the shorter ?

Of Professor Teufelsdröckh it seems impossible to take leave without a mingled feeling of astonishment, gratitude and disapproval. Who will not regret that talents, which might have profited in the higher walks of Philosophy, or in Art itself, have been so much devoted to a rummaging among lumber-rooms; nay, too often to a scraping in kennels, where lost rings and diamond-necklaces are nowise the sole conquests? Regret is unavoidable; yet censure were loss of time. To cure him of his mad humours British Criticism would essay in vain enough for her if she can, by vigilance, prevent the spreading of such among ourselves. What a result, should this piebald, entangled, hyper-metaphorical style of writing, not to say of thinking, become general among our Literary men! As it might so easily do. Thus has not the Editor himself, working over Teufelsdröckh's German,

lost much of his own English purity? Even as the smaller whirlpool is sucked into the larger, and made to whirl along with it, so has the lesser mind, in this instance, been forced to become portion of the greater, and, like it, see all things figuratively: which habit time and assiduous effort will be needed to eradicate.

Nevertheless, wayward as our Professor shews himself, is there any reader that can part with him in declared enmity? Let us confess, there is that in the wild, much-suffering, much-inflicting man, which almost attaches us. His attitude, we will hope and believe, is that of a man who had said to Cant, Begone; and to Dilettantism, Here thou canst not be: and to Truth, Be thou in place of all to me: a man who had manfully defied the 'TimePrince,' or Devil, to his face; nay, perhaps, Hannibal-like, was mysteriously consecrated from birth to that warfare, and now stood minded to wage the same, by all weapons, in all places, at all times. In such a cause, any soldier, were he but a Polack Scytheman, shall be welcome.

Still the question returns on us: How could a man occasionally of keen insight, not without keen sense of propriety, who had real Thoughts to communicate, resolve to emit them in a shape bordering so closely on the absurd? Which question he were wiser than the present Editor who should satisfactorily answer. Our conjecture has sometimes been, that perhaps Necessity as well as Choice was concerned in it. Seems it not conceivable that, in a Life like our Professor's, where so much bountifully given by Nature had in Practice failed and misgone, Literature also would never rightly prosper: that striving with his characteristic vehemence to paint this and the other Picture, and ever without success, he at last desperately dashes his sponge, full of all colours, against the canvass, to try whether it will paint Foam? With all his stillness, there were perhaps in Teufelsdröckh desperation enough for this.

A second conjecture we hazard with even less warranty. It is that Teufelsdröckh is not without some touch of the universal feeling, a wish to proselytise. How often already have we paused, uncertain whether the basis of this so enigmatic nature were really Stoicism and Despair, or Love and Hope only seared into the figure of these! Remarkable, moreover, is this saying of his:

'How were Friendship possible? In mutual devotedness to the 'Good and True: otherwise impossible; except as Armed Neu'trality, or hollow Commercial League. A man, be the Heavens 'ever praised, is sufficient for himself; yet were ten men, united ' in Love, capable of being and of doing what ten thousand sin'gly would fail in. Infinite is the help man can yield to man.' And now in conjunction therewith consider this other: 'It is the 'Night of the World, and still long till it be Day: we wander 'amid the glimmer of smoking ruins, and the Sun and the Stars 'of Heaven are as if blotted out for a season; and two immeas'urable Fantoms, HYPOCRISY and ATHEISM, with the Gowle, 'SENSUALITY, stalk abroad over the Earth, and call it theirs: 'well at ease are the Sleepers for whom Existence is a shallow 'Dream.'

But what of the awestruck Wakeful who find it a Reality? Should not these unite; since even an authentic Spectre is not visible to Two ?-In which case were this enormous Clothes-Volume properly an enormous Pitchpan, which our Teufelsdröckh in his lone watchtower had kindled, that it might flame far and wide through the Night, and many a disconsolately wandering spirit be guided thither to a Brother's bosom !-We say as before, with all his malign Indifference, who knows what mad Hopes this man may harbour?

Meanwhile there is one fact to be stated here, which harmonises ill with such conjecture; and, indeed, were Teufelsdröckh made like other men, might as good as altogether subvert it. Namely, that while the Beacon-fire blazed its brightest, the Watchman had quitted it; that no pilgrim could now ask him : Watchman, what of the Night? Professor Teufelsdröckh, be it known, is no longer visibly present at Weissnichtwo, but again to all appearance lost in Space! Some time ago, the Hofrath Heuschrecke was pleased to favour us with another copious Epistle; wherein much is said about the Population-Institute;' much repeated in praise of the Paperbag Documents, the hieroglyphic nature of which our Hofrath still seems not to have surmised; and, lastly, the strangest occurrence communicated, to us for the first time, in the following paragraph:

6

'Ew. Wohlgebohren will have seen, from the public Prints, with

'what affectionate and hitherto fruitless solicitude Weissnichtwo 'regards the disappearance of her Sage. Might but the united ' voice of Germany prevail on him to return; nay, could we but 'so much as elucidate for ourselves by what mystery he went 'away! But, alas, old Leischen experiences or affects the pro'foundest deafness, the profoundest ignorance: in the Wahn'gasse all lies swept, silent, sealed up; the Privy Council itself 'can hitherto elicit no answer.

'It had been remarked that while the agitating news of those 'Parisian Three Days flew from mouth to mouth, and dinned 'every ear in Weissnichtwo, Herr Teufelsdröckh was not known, 'at the Ganse or elsewhere, to have spoken, for a whole week, 'any syllable except once these three: Es geht an (It is begin'ning). Shortly after, as Ew. Wohlgebohren knows, was the pub'lic tranquillity here, as in Berlin, threatened by a Sedition of 'the Tailors. For did there want Evil-wishers, or perhaps mere 'desperate Alarmist, who asserted that the closing Chapter of 'the Clothes-Volume was to blame. In this appalling crisis, the 'serenity of our Philosopher was indescribable: nay, perhaps, 'through one humble individual, something thereof might pass 'into the Rath (Council) itself, and so contribute to the country's 'deliverance. The Tailors are now entirely pacificated. To nei'ther of these two incidents can I attribute our loss: yet still 'comes there the shadow of a suspicion out of Paris and its Pol'itics. For example, when the Saint-Simonian Society transmit'ted its Propositions hither, and the whole Ganse was one vast 'cackle of laughter, lamentation, and astonishment, our Sage sat 'mute; and at the end of the third evening, said merely: "Here 'also are men who have discovered, not without amazement, that 'Man is still Man; of which high, long-forgotten Truth you al'ready see them make a false application." Since then, as has 'been ascertained by examination of the Post-Director, there 'passed at least one Letter with its Answer between the Mes'sieurs Bazard-Enfantin and our Professor himself; of what 'tenor can now only be conjectured. On the fifth night follow'ing, he was seen for the last time !

'Has this invaluable man, so obnoxious to most of the hostile 'Sects that convulse our Era, been spirited away by certain of