Past and Present | Page 5

of Notable Persons and Events in the Reign of James I. and Charles I. (ed. A. Carlyle), 1898.
Sir Leslie Stephen's article on Carlyle in the Dictionary of National Biography gives a list of his occasional writings which have never been collected or reprinted.
Contents
Book I--Proem
I. Midas.?II. The Sphinx?III. Manchester Insurrection?IV. Morrison's Pill?V. Aristocracy of Talent?VI. Hero-Worship
Book II--The Ancient Monk
I. Jocelin of Brakelond?II. St. Edmundsbury?III. Landlord Edmund?IV. Abbot Hugo?V. Twelfth Century?VI. Monk Samson?VII. The Canvassing?VIII. The Election?IX. Abbot Samson?X. Government?XI. The Abbot's Ways?XII. The Abbot's Troubles?XIII. In Parliament?XIV. Henry of Essex?XV. Practical-Devotional?XVI St. Edmund?XVII The Beginnings
Book III--The Modern Worker
I. Phenomena,?II. Gospel of Mammonism?III. Gospel of Dilettantism?XV. Happy?V. The English?VI. Two Centuries?VII. Over-Production?VIII. Unworking Aristocracy?IX. Working Aristocracy?X. Plugson of Undershot?XI. Labour?XII Reward?XIII. Democracy?XIV Sir Jabesh Windbag?XV. Morrison Again
Book IV--Horoscope
I. Aristocracies?II. Bribery Committee?III. The One Institution?IV Captains of Industry?V. Permanence?VI. The Landed?VII. The Gifted?VIII The Didactic
Summary
Book I--Proem
Chapter I
Midas
The condition of England, on which many pamphlets are now in the course of publication, and many thoughts unpublished are going on in every reflective head, is justly regarded as one of the most ominous, and withal one of the strangest, ever seen in this world. England is full of wealth, of multifarious produce, supply for human want in every kind; yet England is dying of inanition. With unabated bounty the land of England blooms and grows; waving with yellow harvests; thick-studded with?workshops, industrial implements, with fifteen millions of?workers, understood to be the strongest, the cunningest and the willingest our Earth ever had; these men are here; the work they have done, the fruit they have realised is here, abundant, exuberant on every hand of us: and behold, some baleful fiat as of Enchantment has gone forth, saying, "Touch it not, ye workers, ye master-workers, ye master-idlers; none of you can touch it, no man of you shall be the better for it; this is enchanted fruit!" On the poor workers such fiat falls first, in its rudest shape; but on the rich masterworkers too it falls; neither can the rich master-idlers, nor any richest or highest man escape, but all are like to be brought low with it, and made 'poor' enough, in the money-sense or a far fataller one.
Of these successful skillful workers some two millions, it is now counted, sit in Workhouses, Poor-law Prisons; or have 'out-door relief' flung over the wall to them,--the workhouse Bastille being filled to bursting, and the strong Poor-law broken asunder by a stronger.* They sit there, these many months now; their hope of deliverance as yet small. In workhouses, pleasantly so named, because work cannot be done in them. Twelve hundred thousand workers in England alone; their cunning right-hand lamed, lying idle in their sorrowful bosom; their hopes,?outlooks, share of this fair world, shut in by narrow walls. They sit there, pent up, as in a kind of horrid enchantment; glad to be imprisoned and enchanted, that they may not perish starved. The picturesque Tourist, in a sunny autumn day,?through this bounteous realm of England, describes the Union Workhouse on his path. 'Passing by the Workhouse of St. Ives in Huntingdonshire, on a bright day last autumn,' says the?picturesque Tourist, 'I saw sitting on wooden benches, in front of their Bastille and within their ringwall and its railings, some half-hundred or more of these men. Tall robust figures, young mostly or of middle age; of honest countenance, many of them thoughtful and even intelligent-looking men. They sat there, near by one another; but in a kind of torpor, especially in a silence, which was very striking. In silence: for, alas, what word was to be said? An Earth all lying round, crying, Come and till me, come and reap me;--yet we here sit enchanted! In the eyes and brows of these men hung the gloomiest expression, not of anger, but of grief and shame and manifold inarticulate distress and weariness; they returned my glance with a glance that seemed to say, "Do not look at us. We sit enchanted here, we know not why. The Sun shines and the Earth calls; and, by the governing Powers and Impotences of this England, we are forbidden to obey. It is impossible, they tell us!" There was something that reminded me of Dante's Hell in the look of all this; and I rode swiftly away.

* The Return of Paupers for England and Wales, at Ladyday, 1842, is, "In-door 221,687, Out-door 1,207,402, Total 1,429,089."-- (Official Report)

So many hundred thousands sit in workhouses: and other hundred thousands have not yet got even workhouses; and in thrifty Scotland itself, in Glasgow or Edinburgh City, in their?dark lanes, hidden from all but the eye of God, and of rare Benevolence the minister of God, there are scenes of woe and destitution and desolation, such as, one may hope, the Sun never saw before in the