chance, as I expected, my nature and its absolute reverence for this man, should touch him to the deepest depths of him, there was an enjoyment in store for me that few could dream of or realize, and certainly such as I had never yet been able to find. So I persisted in my desire and devotion, with what result, will be seen. On ringing the bell at No. 5, a tidy-looking servant-girl came to the door (the very servants indicate the tone of the house, and the ways of keeping it), who, in reply to my question, "Does Thomas Carlyle live here, and is he in?" answered, "Mr. Carlyle lives here, and is in." I had an exquisite appreciation of the respect on her part, and accepted the mild rebuke with a smile. On my part there was a reverence too deep for the commonplace" Mr. ;" and in this instance, if in no other in my life, I realized that the Quaker rule of discarding all "Sirs" and other supposed respectful prefixes was probably in accord with the truest respect and reverence of the soul. I gave my note to the servant, saying, "Please hand that to Mr. Carlyle; I will wait a moment for an answer." My letter was taken to the back parlor or library. I heard it opened, and waited what proved to be the most curiously repulsive and captivating meeting of my life. It was an anxious moment. I felt the live blood flying around my finger-tips. The nerves tingled and quivered. It was a veritable bit of the old-time actual heroworship done here, in a modest, plain three-story brick house of the nineteenth century, and so far only a bowing in spirit at the door of the altar. A few seconds, and Mr. Carlyle (I can say it or write it either way now, having seen both sides of the man and passed the Rubicon) came to the hall-way. The pictures of him, and his works, are pretty well known to all readers of good literature; but here was the actual old Scotchman himself, the living man, which in all cases is as different from the printed man as all life is from death; and some of my deepest dreams of twenty years' standing were at last realized; but it seemed, though only for a moment, to be ruthlessly kicked into contemptibility and shreds again. The old man-for Carlyle is now, I think, over eighty-wore an old, careless-looking dressinggown, of some dark-green material, as I recollect; and, with those intense, piercing, dark-grey eyes of his, and, I think, iron-grey hair, falling carelessly over one of the strongest foreheads ever yet shaped into being, and a nose actually breathing living thought and power, and mouth set to highest executed purposes for half a century, all helped to harmony by the full beard he has wor for many years, looked like some one of the grand old prophets of our dreams, or, better still, the resurrection of them all into the new lie and thought of these modern years. After all, he had read my letter as that of a curiosity-hunter, and had interpreted the words "May I see you?" as though they read, "May I look, or gape and stare at you for a little wa?" It was a cruel blunder of the fates. But every hero has his crotchets, and has probably had the toothache at times. In fact, they say there are spots on the face of the sun. I was about advancing toward Mr. Carlyle, when without noticing me particularly or any action on my part, but evidently carrying out the first impulse that struck him on reading my note, he gathered his old wrapper about him, straightened himself up to a more or less unnatural erectness and stiffcess, and in the most comico-tragic sort of tones and manner said, "And you want to see me, do ye? well, here I am, if that is all you want." A bucket of refuse and ice-water thrown over one could not have been more cooling to the and of devotion. I said to myself, "Are the gods blind, then; and do the heroes blunder?" But I knew that the old man did not mean me; that it was some imaginary person he was trying to repulse, and therefore treated his action as a mi take, and not as an insult. I now approached him, extending my hand, and said, "You are ev dently mistaken, Sir; mine is no visit of curiosity. I have studied your books for years, and have learned to honor their author, and felt a strong desire to see you and talk with you a little le if I found you so disposed, not else." I meant every word of it, and said it as a man speaks when he is in earnest, and is at least for the 13ment the more natural person of the two. The comico-tragic air vanished into nonentity in a second; a finer grace enshrouded the man, the Carlyle of all my dreams was there in all his true nature and dignity and power, as I had conceived him and them; and the next words had a finer tone. Extending his hand, he said, “Will you walk in and be seated, Sir?'' We walked in, though over sword's points, and were seated, as if on needles for a time. My vanity as well as my love had been stung pretty deeply, and the first few awkward moments were spent in getting that hurt out of the way. Finding that my visit meant affection and not nonsense, he seemed in a moment to pay me in the same coin, verifying the old law that we get what we give, and by his manner rather than by words expressed regret for the blunder in the hall. The old adage that actions speak louder than words will apply to manners if you know how to read the signs; and so in a few seconds the course was clear, and all the nettles out of the way. anywhere, and probably ought not in Church or State; that I thought he fully believed, as I was inclined to suspect that the ballot-box in most cases was the quintessence of modern lies. The subject was shifted as I desired. A few moments' silence, and then such speech, from such depths as one had never listened to or dreamed of before. It was as though all the primal rocks were being blasted, and striking fire and new creations at every blow. "Yes, yes," he said, "there is infinite and endless talk of the blessings of enlarging the suf"And you are from Wilmington, Delaware; is frage, a perpetual jargon of progress and reform Delaware a Northern or Southern State ?" he said, by way of the ballot-box, as though the Saviour forgetting his geography for the moment, and on of men were to be found in it. Even so good my reminding him that it was a Southern State, and sensible a man as John Mill seemed carried the smallest of them, and near the Northern line, I away with this infatuation-one of the wildest and found that we had struck the first actual ground of maddest of our modern hallucinations; as though talk. "And the Yankees treated you pretty badly the millennium were here or could get here by down there during the war, did'nt they?" To crowding more sham and gullibility into the govwhich I replied, that during the war I was not in ernments of nations than are in them already! Delaware, but was a student in New York City; A ceaseless, stupid complacency of general prowas in fact a sort of Yankee myself, at all events gress, while in fact duplicity and suspicion and in full accord in those days with Northern senti- dishonesty were the conditions of society; while ments, though since the war I had perhaps more men did not really trust each other, but each soul or less adopted his "Peter and Paul" view of the was of necessity guarding his own throat, and matter. "Yes, yes, and that was a horrible busi-while-in fact, we could not even get a glass of ness they carried on in New York at that time, hanging niggers by the lamp-posts, and rioting like savages," he said. All of which had to be admitted in silence, or with the confession that it was bad enough in all conscience, but not worse than had been practiced by enraged men in all parts and ages of the world. In fact the war question would not be talked. There was nothing in it for him or me, and as yet no keynote for any special flow of soul. "And why did you resign your church?" he asked. "Well," I said, "nominally, on account of nervous prostration, but really because some of the pew-holders wanted a Gospel that they believed in and I did not, and hence could not or would not preach." "And was the majority against you?" he asked, with evident interest. I replied that quite a large majority of the congregation thought my way, and were in favor of my staying, but a few of those who had the most money and least religion, or clear ideas of any sort, made trouble (of course I thought I was right then, and think so still-all preachers do); and I supposed he knew well enough that actual majorities of votes rarely settled anything pure water to drink in this great City of London. Still the heroic work goes on, not helped or materially hindered by the endless noise. As my old father used to say, While the Temple was building, the crows swarmed about it and the sparrows chattered, but the shaping of the thought of it and the stones of it were done at a distance in silence, and on the spot the true workers kept quietly fitting the hewn blocks one to another; and so the God's house rose into truth and the sunlight, then and now and always.' It is an age of shams and falsehoods, rotting, sweltering and dying in its own mad extravagance and blindness, and will not be led except to its own proper destruction." Thus it went on, sometimes touching the sublime and then the ridiculous by turns, changing from unutterable sadness of words and expression to the wildest laughter, the most boisterous and bitterest sarcasm, perfect streams of soul-fire pouring from the fountains of the gods. There was absolutely no reserve, nothing held back. All books, Carlyle's or others, were as shreds before the flame of that high hour. It was the first real freeman I had found in all the world. The talk went on thus for about an hour, when, at a halting-point I rose to go. "And which way are you going?" he said; and, on my telling him I was lodging in Camberwell and intended to take the shortest route for it, the climax of my pleasure came. "If you will be seated a moment I will put my coat on and walk a piece with you," he said. I was seated, and in a few seconds he was ready, with coat, hat, and stick-black frockcoat, black slouch hat, and good stout cane, and we strolled along Cheyne Walk, by the Chelsea Hospital, towards Chelsea Bridge. On the way, the talk, after a few moments, took a religious turn. "And where are ye? What is your religion? What sect do you hold to, any or none, and what are your purposes for work in the future?" he asked, not listlessly. My reply was brief there, and shall be briefer here. "As to where," I said, "simply here, and on my feet; as to what religion, subjectively, simply the religion of an absolute consciousness of the indwelling and all-surrounding, unutterable, eternal spirit; objectively, a perpetual reverence for it or Him, and every being or thing that helped to reveal Him, and an adherence to the duty of each hour as it made itself clear, and no debating with any man on either point. As to purposes and future work, simply an execution of these conditions and convictions at any cost. As to what it would be and where, I knew not; to make the theology plain, I said, "you know Mr. Conway, our American Radical that preaches over here." "Oh, yes," he said. "Well," I remarked, "I am pretty nearly as bad as he, having perhaps a good deal more reverence for the past in all directions than he has." Disregarding the last part of the sentence, he said, "I hope not, I hope not," with a keen humor. Then, after a moment's silence, reverting to the first part of my words, "Yes, yes, the soul the knows this is and always has been fixed on g everlasting foundations, and all the wild, wiltering chaos of this vexed life cannot move it. Eva the old Hebrew Prophets in their severest da tic moments would not, could not name Hithe nameless Eternal-that we map cut an chatter over in these days. But it is a senue, sacred thing to invade the received rei gas opinions of men. It must not be ruthlessly done." to "True," I said; "but really I know of o man, living or dead, that has invaded those beles more absolutely than yourself," adding that i believed he had never taken any thing or thought away, without supplying better in its place; and that I, for one, knew no higher work. There was 1 deep, quiet smile on his old face as he said, "Yes" when the truth and the real purpose are there, it is as it always has been the sublimest vocation of man, whether it brought life or death, honce or shame, and in fact had but one sure and blessed end." We had reached the corner of Queen's road and Bridge road, with Chelsea Bridge in sight, and 25 we stood on the pavement holding each other by the hand, I said, "Well, what outlook is there for a person with such purposes and views? Is there any light from the past ?" and, noticing his hea tation, I continued; "or must each new soul work out its own way, meeting the moments and the issues as they come ?" "There is nothing else for it," he said, holding me firmer by the hand, and continued, "It is a sort of transition period m your days, I see; keep right on; the ways all open to the brave; God bless you, and good-by." There was a mist about our eyes as we parted, and the intensity of the moment cannot be retold. NOTES AND QUERIES. Chief-Justice Benjamin Chew.-A Peculiarly Interesting Statement in the Handwriting of Miers Fisher, Esq. -I have read with interest Mr. Westcott's article in the MONTHLY for August, page 81, on the Chew House and Chew Family. I think it due to the character of Chief-Justice Benjamin Chew to send you a statement in my possession in the handwriting of Miers Fisher, Esq., who was an eminent member of the Philadelphia Bar before and after the Revolution. He testifies to what he saw and heard, writing from memory, in the early part of this century: that is between 1806 and 1810. ELI K. PRICE. "I was attending a Court of Oyer and Terminer at the State House, in Philadelphia, preceding April Term, 1776, when Benjamin Chew, Esq., Chief-Justice of the then Province of Pennsylvania, presided, and delivered, as customary, a charge to a very respectable Grand Jury, the names of some of whom I recollect. He, of course, defined the several offences cognizable in that Court, which they were sworn and affirmed to enquire into. He began with the highest offence known to the law-High Treason. After giving a definition of this offence, and before he had concluded his observations on the subject, several of the Grand Jury, looking seriously at each other, discovered strong emotions, and after a few moments of consultation of each others' countenance, Dr. John Cox, a gentleman of character, one of the Grand Jury, pressed forward through his brethren to the Bar, separating them from the counsel attending around the semi-circular Bar table then existing, and in a manly tone of an exalted voice demanded (I do not pretend to state his words exactly, but his general meaning): What then is to become of us who are now opposing the arbitrary power attempted to be exercised by the British Ministry?' Chief-Justice Chew, who had only paused for a moment, immediately resumed his discourse. I have stated that an opposition by force of arms to the lawful authority of the King or his Ministers (or some words to this effect), is High Treason; but in the moment when the King or his Ministers shall exceed the constitutional authority vested in them by the Constitution, submission to their mandate becomes Treason.' Mr. Cox and most of the Grand Jury immediately made a low bow to the Court; the Chief-Justice proceeded to a definition of the lesser offences cognizable before them, and all was quiet. The Grand Jury retired to their chambers, the business of the Court was conducted with the decorum which the character of the Court always commanded, and it was the last Court held under that dynasty." The "Old South Meeting-House," Boston.-It is more than gratifying to learn that this venerable edifice is safe, and is now in the hands of Trustees whose special duty VOL. VII.-25 and privilege it is, and is to be, to keep watch and ward over it and see that no vandal hand shall mar its ancient proportions or threaten its dignity. During the brief period when OLD SOUTH MEETING-HOUSE, BOSTON. it was not certain but that it would be torn down in obedience to the demands of that insatiable iconoclast, business, there were many anxious hearts in all parts of our country, for, like our dear old Independence Hall, Old South Church is loved and venerated by true Americans without reference to their local habitation; the important part it played in the days of our nation's conception and birth, has forever en. deared the old structure to every American heart. In his paper on Faneuil Hall, in this MONTHLY, Dr. Lossing has necessarily related a number of interesting facts in the history of Old South Meeting-House. It was built in 1729-30, upon the site of one erected in 1669. During the occupation of Boston by the British, it was desecrated by converting it into an arena for drilling cavalry. It was repaired and restored in 1782, and we earnestly hope that it will now be most religiously guarded and preserved as a perpetual monument of the great events which made it sacred in a patriotic, as it had before been in a religious, sense. Chelsea Old Church.-Mr. Merlin's excellent narrative of "A Talk with Carlyle," calls to our mind the quaint old church which stands within little more than a stone's throw of Great Cheyne Row, on the corner of Cheyne Walk and Church street, Chelsea, about half way between Albert Bridge and Battersea Bridge. As our engraving shows, it faces Church street, presenting its southern side to the river, a fine wide boulevard, Cheyne Walk intervening. Chelsea Church has ever commanded interest chiefly as the supposed mausoleum of Sir Thomas More; we say "supposed" because it has been questioned whether his wish to be interred in the beautiful tomb erected by him herein, could be complied with in view of the inveterate enmity of his murderer, Henry VIII., which pursued him even after his unjustifiable execution, and imprisoned the victim's daughter Margaret, for dutifully procuring by purchase the head of her beloved father. Among the honored dead who lie in the churchyard of Chelsea, is Sir Hans Sloane, who may be said to have been, in a sense, the founder of the great British Museumin his will, he left a library of fifty thousand volumes, a cabinet of two hundred volumes of dried plants and a very large collection of objects in natural history, to be given to nation upon the payment of twenty thousand pounds; the sum was paid, and the treasures formed the nucleus of the Museum. Governor Tryon.-In the October number of POTTER'S AMERICAN MONTHLY, page 308, we gave a valuable NOTE contributed by Mr. Saffell, on "John Hancock and William Tryon," and, by way of apt supplement, we now give the following from the same esteemed contributor: From a London paper we clip the following notice, "Died on the 17th of May, 1771, Mrs. Tryon, mother of the Hon. William Tryon, Governor of North Carolina, and of Miss Tryon, one of the Maids of Honour to the Queen." From the British prints, dated Whitehall, August 3, 1771, we have the annexed account of a rebellion in North Carolina: "The peace of the province of North Carolina having been for some time past disturbed, and violences, of the most outrageous and savage nature, having been committed in the frontier counties, by a desperate body of settlers, styling themselves regulators, who appeared in arms, in open defiance of law and authority; and all endeavours to persuade these deluded persons of the error of their conduct, and to a proper submission to government, having failed of their effect; his majesty's governor thought fit, with the advice, concurrence, and assistance of the council and assembly, and with the support of the principal persons of rank and authority in the colony, to raise a body of the militia, to repel these insurgents; and having put himself at the head of a detachment of the militia, amounting to 1100 men, he, on the 16th of May, came up with the main body of the insur gents, amounting to 2000; and after an action, which continued about two hours, gained a complete victory over them, pursuing them a mile beyond their camp, and taking ma of their horses, and what provisions and ammiration they had left behind them. "This action was about five miles to the westward of fres Alamance river, on the road leading from Hilleregti Salisbury; and his majesty's governor speaks, in the strug terms, of the bravery and resolution of the troops der command, whose loss is stated to amount to abrat 60 p vate men killed, wounded, and missing, and are shor killed and one wounded; but there is no return made of the loss sustained by the insurgents, which is supposed to hare been considerable. "The day after the engagement, the governor, in palle orders, gave thanks to both officers and soliters of the armr for the vigorous and generous support they afforded him in the battle." We add, without comment, an obituary notice of GvETTHY Tryon, clipped from the London "Gentlemen's Magazine," dating his death on the 27th of January, 1788: "At his house in Upper Grosvenor str since) a mented, Lieut.-General Tryon, colonel of the 29th reg met of foot, late governor of the province of New York, and commander-in-chief of his Majesty's forces there. He mains were deposited in the family vault at Twickenham The importance of his character in the annals of this castry |