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[144] of our ‘peculiar institution’ to the laboring poor man, irrespective of color, recognizing as his only inalienable right ‘the right of being set to labor’ for his ‘born lords,’ will, we imagine, go far to neutralize the mischief of his Discourse upon Negro Slavery. It is a sad thing to find so much intellectual power as Carlyle really possesses so little under the control of the moral sentiments. In some of his earlier writings—as, for instance, his beautiful tribute to the Corn Law Rhymer—we thought we saw evidence of a warm and generous sympathy with the poor and the wronged, a desire to ameliorate human suffering, which would have done credit to the ‘philanthropisms of Exeter Hall’ and the ‘Abolition of Pain Society.’ Latterly, however, like Moliere's quack, he has ‘changed all that;’ his heart has got upon the wrong side; or rather, he seems to us very much in the condition of the coal-burner in the German tale, who had swapped his heart of flesh for a cobble-stone.
Boston and New York, Houghton, Mifflin and company, 1888-89.
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