Finally, it follows from these remarks, that we expect every year to hear less and less of the aberrations of genius. And that for various reasons. First, fewer and fewer will, under our present state of culture, claim to be considered as men of genius, and the public is less likely to be troubled with the affected oddities of pretenders, and the _niaiseries_ of monkeys run desperate. Then, again, the profession of letters is now less likely to be chosen by men of gifts, it is so completely overdone; and need we say, that as a profession, its exceeding precariousness and the indefinite position it gives to the literary man have been very pernicious to his morals and his peace. Then "The old world _is_ coming right," and as it rights, is learning more to respect the literary character, to understand its peculiar claims, and to allow for its SINLESS infirmities. Lastly--and chief of all, men of letters are _beginning_ to awaken--are feeling the strong inspiration of common sense--are using literature less as a cripple's crutch and more as a man's staff--are becoming more charitable to each other, and are sensible with a profounder conviction that literature, as well as life, is a serious thing, and that for all its "idle words" they must give an account at the day of judgment. May this process be perfected in due time. And may all, however humble, who write, feel that they have each his special part to play in this work of perfectionment! We are very far from being blind worshipers of Thomas Carlyle. We disapprove of much that he has written. We think, that unintentionally, he has done deep damage to the realities of faith, as well as to the "shams" of hypocrisy. He has gone out from the one ark and has not returned like the dove with the olive leaf--but rather, like the raven, strayed and croaked hopelessly over the carcasses of this weltering age. And our grief, at reading one or two of his recent pamphlets (which posterity will rank with such sins of power, as the wilder works of Swift and Byron), resembled that of a son whose father had disgraced his gray hairs by a crime or outrage. But even in the depth of this undiminished feeling of sorrow, we must acknowledge that no writer, save Milton and Wordsworth, has done so much in our country to restore the genuine respectability, and to proclaim the true mission of literature. In his hands and on his eloquent tongue it appears no idle toy for the amusement of the lovesick or the trifling--no mere excitement--but a profound, as well as beautiful reality--to be attested, if necessary, by a martyr's tears and blood, and at all events by the life and conversation of an honest and virtuous man. And he has himself so attested it. With Scott, literature was a great money-making machine. With Byron it was the trunk of a mad elephant, through which he squirted out his spite at man, his enmity at God, and his rage at even his own shadow.