Mr. Black's Lecture.

Sever 11 was overcrowded last evening, and several persons were unable to get in. It was the occasion of Mr. Black's lecture, the subject being "Carlyle." Up to 1881, the date of his death, Thomas Carlyle was undoubtedly the head of English letters. His reputation is based on the contents of thirty-four volumes and scattered through them disconnectedly lie the ideas he had to express.

Insincerity is his especial abomination, and he devotes himself to condemning it. True valor is the fountain of true virtue, and it is only in his sincerity and veracity, that the hero differs from ordinary mortals. The secret of the graphic qualities of Carlyle's style lies in his noble, loving heart. The talent he showed was in turning the history of England into a kind of Iliad - almost a Bible. His histories are collections of biographies, and his idea of a biography was a very exalted one. He sought after the central moral principle of the man, then he showed that the intellectual power was commensurate.

That criticism which attempts to prove that Carlyle is not great as a thinker but only as a word-painter, is one-sided and false.

From childhood up, he held the first place in the circle which surrounded him. His faculties were large and splendid. His imagination was grand, sombre, sometimes appalling and his humor is as genuine as it is fantastic.

Carlyle was essentially a man of feeling and he was one of the greatest poets of the age. He was a poet in conception and an artist in expression. His literary style was a creation of his very own, rugged, disjointed, uncouth even, but bringing out excellently the thoughts which possessed him.

As a man Carlyle was tender-hearted and affectionate, but uncompromising and stern in his judgment of others. For 85 years he lived without a single moral spot - always pure, upright, blameless. But his life was not a happy one. The more his character is understood the more it will be seen to correspond to his moral teachings. Finally we must judge him a great poet, although he wrote no poetry and a great philosopher, although he was left no complete philosophy.