APICES JURIS (temporary ruin) to large sections of the universal Swine's trough: wherefore let justice be observed, that so quarreling be avoided." "9. 'What is justice?' Your own share of the general Swine's trough, not any portion of my share." "10. 'But what is my share?' Ah! there, in fact lies the grand difficulty; upon which Pig science, meditating this long while, can settle absolutely nothing. My share — humph! — my share is, on the whole, what ever I can contrive to get without being hanged or sent to the hulks." What ineffable nonsense is this to come from " a person of talents " erstwhile inhabit ing the mountain-peaks of philosophy in Craigenputtoch! Are these wild words the oracles of the guide and philosopher of his times, or are they but the " gibbering in fal setto " of the quondam Teufelsdrockh, wal lowing the while in the " Devil's Dirt " of stark madness with all Bedlam let out? It must be remembered that Carlyle is here writing of England in the "fifties" of the last century, when the country was well entered upon that period of social and politi cal reform which has caused the publicists of Europe to laud her as the mother of liberty and justice —- despite their national prejudices. It was of the England that had placed upon her statute-book Lord John Russell's Reform Bill — one of the greatest achievements of modern democracy; the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835 — which may in all appositeness be termed the magna charta of local self-government; the Act 3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73 " for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies;" the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, and the subsidiary religious relief Acts of 1844 and 1846; Lord Campbell's Libel Act of 1843, ensuring the absolute liberty of the press with a just corollary of responsibility; the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, based on the principle that no one in England should perish for the want of care and the necessaries of life, and designed to prevent
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the poor rates from being exploited for the support of the malingerer and imposter; the Mining Act of 1842, which prohibited the employment of women, and children under ten years of age, in underground labor; as well as the cognate humanitarian legislation embodied in the Factory Act of 1844, and the Ten Hours Bill of 1847. A most amazing title, truly, do we find in "Pigdom " for a community wherein such a quality of " Law and Justice " as this abounded; and in " Pigs" do we. descry an epithet more than strange to be applied to such men as Lord John Russell and Lord Shaftesbury — for they were responsible for much of this legislation — whose splendid enthusiasm for right and righteousness has not yet ceased to energize the philanthropy of British civilization. It is the lack of all the restraints of fair ness and judgment, as manifest in such a diatribe as the above, that will exclude Carlyle from a place among the crowned heads of the leaders of men in the estima tion of posterity; just as surely as it marred the influence of his counsels to the men of his time. No man can teach others to be great who lacks the first element of great ness himself, namely, moderation. Leslie Stephen said of Swift that "he scorned fools too heartily to treat them tenderly and do justice to 'the pathetic side of even human folly." But Carlyle, sad to say, scorned openly many who were neither fools nor imposters, but were only unfortunate enough to be in the public eye at the same time with himself. Who can vindicate his character ization of Lord Houghton as "the President of the Heaven and Hell Amalgamation Com pany;" or his playful (!) description of Tennyson (excogitating his idylls of medie val chivalry) as one "sitting on a dungheap among innumerable dead dogs"? Surely, the literary firmament in which Carlyle described his perturbed orbit must have shuddered at such explosions of " play fulness." Taine was right when he employed such
