What  in  a  writer  of  less  breadth  would  have  been  the
proposition  which  would  have  bounded  his  discourse,  his
column  of  victory,  his  Pillar  of  Hercules,  and  ne  plus  ul
tra,  is  in  Carlyle  frequently  the  same  thought  unfolded ;
no  Pillar  of  Hercules,  but  a  considerable  prospect,  north
and  south,  along  the  Atlantic  coast.  There  are  other  pil
lars  of  Hercules,  like  beacons  and  light-houses,  still  further
in  the  horizon,  toward  Atlantis,  set  up  by  a  few  ancient
and  modern  travellers ;  but,  so  far  as  this  traveller  goes,
he  clears  and  colonizes,  and  all  the  surplus  population  of
London  is  bound  thither  at  once.  What  we  would  quote
is,  in  fact,  his  vivacity,  and  not  any  particular  wisdom  or
sense,  which  last  is  ever  synonymous  with  sentence  \_sen-
tentia] ,  as  in  his  contemporaries  Coleridge,  Landor,  and
Wordsworth.  We  have  not  attempted  to  discriminate
between  his  works,  but  have  rather  regarded  them  all  as
one  work,  as  is  the  man  himself.  We  have  not  examined
so  much  as  remembered  them.  To  do  otherwise  would


THOMAS  CARLYLE  AND  HIS  WOEKS.  243

have  required  a  more  indifferent,  and  perhaps  even  less
just  review,  than  the  present.
All  his  works  might  well  enough  be  embraced  under
the  title  of  one  of  them,  a  good  specimen  brick,  "  On
Heroes,  Hero- Worship,  and  the  Heroic  in  History."
Of  this  department  he  is  the  Chief  Professor  in  the
"World's  University,  and  even  leaves  Plutarch  behind.
