Coleridge had already formed a school both of divinity and philosophy. He had his disciples, as well as those far-off gazers who looked upon him with amazement and trembling, not knowing what to make of the phenomenon, or whether to regard him as friend or foe to the old dispensation and the established order of things. He had written books and poems, preached Unitarian sermons, recanted, and preached philosophy and Church-of-Englandism. To the dazzled eyes of all ordinary mortals, content to chew the cud of parish sermons, and swallow, Sunday after Sunday, the articles of common belief, he seemed an eccentric comet. But a better astronomy recognized him as a fixed star, for he was unmistakable by that fitting Few whose verdict is both history and immortality.
But a greater than Coleridge, destined to assume a more commanding position, and exercise a still wider power over the minds of his age, arose in Thomas Carlyle. The son of a Scotch farmer, he had in his youth a hard student's life of it, and many severe struggles to win the education which is the groundwork of his greatness. His father was a man of keen penetration, who saw into the heart of things, and possessed such strong intellect and sterling common sense that the country people said "he always hit the nail on the head and clinched it." His mother was a good, pious woman, who loved the Bible, and Luther's "Table Talk," and Luther,--walking humbly and sincerely before God, her Heavenly Father. Carlyle was brought up in the religion of his fathers and his country; and it is easy to see in his writings how deep a root this solemn and earnest belief had struck down into his mind and character. He readily confesses how much he owes to his mother's early teaching, to her beautiful and beneficent example of goodness and holiness; and he ever speaks of her with affection and reverence. We once saw him at a friend's house take up a folio edition of the "Table Talk" alluded to, and turn over the pages with a gentle and loving hand, reading here and there his mother's favorite passages,--now speaking of the great historic value of the book, and again of its more private value, as his mother's constant companion and solace. It was touching to see this pitiless intellect, which had bruised and broken the idols of so many faiths, to which Luther himself was recommended only by his bravery and self-reliance and the grandeur of his aims,--it was touching, we say, and suggestive also of many things, to behold the strong, stern man paying homage to language whose spirit was dead to him, out of pure love for his dear mother, and veneration also for the great heart in which that spirit was once alive that fought so grand and terrible a battle. Carlyle likes to talk of Luther, and, as his "Hero-Worship" shows, loves his character. A great, fiery, angry gladiator, with something of the bully in him,--as what controversialist has not, from Luther to Erasmus, to Milton, to Carlyle himself?--a dread image-breaker, implacable as Cromwell, but higher and nobler than he, with the tenderness of a woman in his inmost heart, full of music, and glory, and spirituality, and power; his speech genuine and idiomatic, not battles only, but conquests; and all his highest, best, and gentlest thoughts robed in the divine garments of religion and poetry;--such was Luther, and as such Carlyle delights to behold him. Are they not akin? We assuredly think so. For the blood of this aristocracy refuses to mix with that of churls and bastards, and flows pure and uncontaminated from century to century, descending in all its richness and vigor from Piromis to Piromis. The ancient philosopher knew this secret well enough when he said a Parthian and a Libyan might be related, although they had no common parental blood; and that a man is not necessarily my brother because he is born of the same womb.