IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 1.25 
 
 ^^ iiiin 
 
 ilHO II 2.0 
 
 1-4 llllli.6 
 
 V. 
 
 <^^ A- 
 
 ^§> 
 
 c*^ 
 
 '// 
 
 % 
 
 -4 
 
 
 /y 
 
 "■»*• ■>■ 
 
 y 
 
 /^ 
 
 w 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
^ 
 
 CIHM/ICMH 
 
 Microfiche 
 
 Series. 
 
 CIHIVI/ICMH 
 Collection de 
 microfiches. 
 
 Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions 
 
 Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 
 
 1980 
 
Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques 
 
 The Institute has attempted to obtain the best 
 original copy available for filming. Features of this 
 copy which may be bibliographically unique, 
 which may alter any of the images in the 
 reproduction, or which may significantly change 
 the usual method of filming, are checked below. 
 
 V 
 
 v 
 
 n 
 
 
 n 
 
 n 
 
 Coloured covers/ 
 Couverture de couleur 
 
 I I Covers damaged/ 
 
 Couverture endommagde 
 
 Covers restored and/or laminated/ 
 Couverture restaur6e et/ou pellicul6e 
 
 I I Cover title missing/ 
 
 Le titre de couverture manque 
 
 I I Coloured maps/ 
 
 Cartes gdographiques en couleur 
 
 Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ 
 Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) 
 
 I I Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ 
 
 Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur 
 
 Bound with other material/ 
 Reli6 avec d'autres documents 
 
 Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion 
 along interior margin/ 
 
 La reliure serr^e peut causer de I'ombre ou de la 
 distortion le long de la marge intdrieure 
 
 Blank leaves added during restoration may 
 appear within the text. Whenever possible, these 
 have been omitted from filming/ 
 11 se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes 
 lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, 
 mais, lorsque cela 6talt possible, ces pages n'ont 
 pas dtd filmdes. 
 
 Additional comments:/ 
 Commentaires suppl6mentaires: 
 
 Th( 
 to 1 
 
 L'Institut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire 
 qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de se procurer. Les details 
 de cet exemplaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du 
 point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier 
 une image reprodulte, ou qui peuvent exiger une 
 modification dans la mdthode normale de filmage 
 sont indlquds ci-dessous. 
 
 I I Coloured pages/ 
 
 Pages de couleur 
 
 Pages damaged/ 
 Pages endommagdes 
 
 □ Pages restored and/or laminated/ 
 Pages restaurdes et/ou pelliculdes 
 
 Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ 
 Pages ddcolor^es, tachetdes ou piqu6es 
 
 □ Pages detached/ 
 Pages d^tachdes 
 
 Showthrough/ 
 Transparence 
 
 Quality of prir 
 
 Qualitd indgale de I'impression 
 
 Includes supplementary materi£ 
 Comprend du materiel supplementaire 
 
 Only edition available/ 
 Seule Edition disponible 
 
 rri Showthrough/ 
 
 I I Quality of print varies/ 
 
 I I Includes supplementary material/ 
 
 I I Only edition available/ 
 
 D 
 
 Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata 
 slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to 
 ensure the best possible image/ 
 Les pages totalement ou partiellement 
 obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, 
 etc., ont 6t6 film^es d nouveau de fagon d 
 obtenir la meilleure image possible. 
 
 Thj 
 
 PO! 
 
 of 1 
 filn 
 
 Ori 
 be( 
 the 
 sioi 
 oth 
 firs 
 sioi 
 or i 
 
 Th« 
 she 
 Tl^ 
 wh 
 
 Ma 
 diff 
 ent 
 be£ 
 rigl 
 req 
 me 
 
 This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ 
 
 Ce document est filmd au taux de reduction indiqu6 ci-dessous. 
 
 10X 14X 18X 22X 
 
 26X 
 
 30X 
 
 i^— —^^ m^^^ ^^^_ ^^_^ ^^^_ ^^^_ ^^^_ ^^^_ ^^^_ ^^^_ ^^^^ ^^^m 
 
 7 
 
 12X 
 
 16X 
 
 20X 
 
 24X 
 
 28X 
 
 32X 
 
The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks 
 to the generosity of: 
 
 Library of the Public 
 Archives of Canada 
 
 L'exemplaire filmi fut reproduit grfice d la 
 g6n6rosit6 de: 
 
 La bibliothdque des Archives 
 publiques du Canada 
 
 The images appearing here are the best quality 
 possible considering the condition and legibility 
 of the original copy and in keeping with the 
 filming contract specifications. 
 
 Les images suivantes ont 6t6 reproduites avec le 
 plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et 
 de la nettetd de l'exemplaire film6. et en 
 conformity avec les conditions du contrat de 
 filmage. 
 
 Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed 
 beginning with the front cover and ending on 
 the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All 
 other original copies are filmed beginning on the 
 first page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, and ending on the last page with a printed 
 or illustrated impression. 
 
 Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en 
 papier est imprimie sont filmds en commenpant 
 par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la 
 dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second 
 plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires 
 originaux sont filmds en commengant par la 
 premidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration et en terminant par 
 la dernidre page qui comporte une telle 
 empreinte. 
 
 The last recorded frame on each microfiche 
 shall contain the symbol —^(meaning "CON- 
 TINUED"), or the symbol V (meaning "END"), 
 whichever applies. 
 
 Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la 
 dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le 
 cas: le symbole — ► signifie "A SUIVRE", le 
 symbole V signifie "FIN". 
 
 Maps, plates, charts, etc., may be filmed at 
 different reduction ratios. Those too large to be 
 entirely included in one exposure are filmed 
 beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to 
 right and top to bottom, as many frames as 
 required. The following diagrams illustrate the 
 method: 
 
 Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre 
 filmds d des taux de reduction diff6rents. 
 Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre 
 reproduit en un seul clich6, il est filmd d partir 
 de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche & droite, 
 et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre 
 d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants 
 illustrent la mithode. 
 
 1 2 3 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 • 
 
 6 
 
'I 
 
 
 THOMliS GARLYLE. 
 
 ■>' 
 
 ,*.«-^' 
 
 .<^' 
 
 /y 
 
 .a**** 
 
 I A Paper 
 
 liefc tie Liierary and Historical Socl 
 
 II 
 
 — BY 
 
 GEORGE STEWART, Jr. 
 
 [FIFTY COPIES.] 
 
 :« 
 
 Q U E B E (.' : 
 
 PKIJfTKP AT rilF. "moKMNO ( L'RONIiJI.k'' OFFICE. 
 
 1881. 
 
 >*3^fiwG9 ' • ' "i ; '».M.»».M.««««'>«'<» ^>v'<t'»/»v>«'y»'>.'>.M;>T.vi,' ."M' >i'^» t,i»i .m;»imi'' .<j^ {9iAi|i^ c^^w^ 
 
 
 ^i- 
 
 ''# 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 A Paper reail tefere tbe Literary aid Historical Society, 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE STEWART, Jr. 
 
 [FIFTY COPIES.] 
 
 QUEBEC: 
 
 PRINTED AT THR "MORN'INO ("UROXU'Le" OFFlt.'E. 
 
 1881. 
 
'?"«'. 
 
TO 
 
 
 isa: 
 
 ^W^IIFE 
 
 Whose appreciation of the writings of Thomas Cablyle 
 is not less hearty than u,y own, and at whose suggestion 
 this lecture was prepared, these pages are affectionately 
 inscribed. 
 
THOMAS CARLYLE. 
 
 A PAPER READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY, 25th MARCH, 1881, 
 
 BY — 
 
 GEORGE STEWART. Jr. 
 
 In these generous words, Thomas Carlyle summed up 
 his splendid estimate of Burns : " In pitying admiration, 
 he lies enshrined in all our hearts, in a i'ar nobler mauso- 
 leum than that one of marble ; neither will his Works, even 
 as they are, pass away from the memory of men. "While 
 the Shakespeares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers 
 through the country of Thought, bearing floets of trallickers 
 and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves ; this little 
 Valclusa Fountain will also arrest our eye ; For this also 
 is of Nature's own and most cunning workmanship, bursts 
 from the depths of the earth with a full gushing current, 
 into the light of day ; and often will the traveller turn 
 aside to drink of its clear waters, and muse among its rocks 
 and pines." And now it is Thomas Carlyle himself who 
 has passed away, and to him and to his great career in the 
 mighty world of thought, tho^e burning words of his may 
 fittingly be applied. They do not expj-ess all that one 
 might say of him. They do not quite reveal the greatness 
 of his own character, the splendour of his mind, or the 
 magnificent grasp of his intellect, but they furnish an esti- 
 mate which we can all accept, even if they do not go to 
 
~S- 
 
 the length we would wish. After a lingeTing illness of 
 many weeks' duration, the grand old man breathed his 
 last on Saturday morning, the 5th of February, in the little 
 room in Cheyne Row, Chelsea, where so many years of his 
 life had been spent. Up to within a few days of his 
 dissolution he had been able to recognize his friends, and 
 in some instances he had conversed with them, but as the 
 fatal moment drew nigh, he became unconscious, and in a 
 sort of peaceful sleep his life went out, and the groat heart 
 of English literature ceased to beat forever. The groat heart 
 of English literature I may say, for in the death of Thomas 
 Carlyle, we lose one who upheld its brightest star for sixty 
 years, and whose name will forever be classed as the lead- 
 ing prose writer of his time. He is linked closely with the 
 splendid achievements in letters which have been made 
 by the authors who have enriched the intellectual activity 
 of the nineteenth century. In history he has surpassed 
 many of them, in criticism he has had no superior, and in 
 miscellaneous essay writing, he has distanced all his con- 
 temporaries. A century hence and Carlyle's master-work 
 will be even more highly appreciated than it is now, 
 influential and vigorous as it is considered to-day by 
 thinkers and critics. It is cast into a certain mould which 
 must ensure it long life, it has a tendency to grow into 
 men's minds, it is composed of that stern, unyielding stuff 
 which leads and controls thought, and never gives way. 
 "What would appear to be dogmatisms in some writers, are 
 only zeal and earnestness and enthusiasm in Carlyle. He 
 must remain, for many years to come, the typical writer of 
 his age, the robust thinker and strong mind of a day which 
 gave him as companion authors, such brilliant men and 
 women as George Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Herbert Spencer, 
 Emerson, Lewes, Clifford, Huxley, Darwin, Shairp and the 
 Dean of St. Paul's. One might compare him, almost, to 
 that pious Pagan Plato, of whom traces may be seen in 
 many chapters of his writings, though the German element 
 
— 8 
 
 re 
 
 [e 
 f 
 
 as represented by Oootht' airl Schillor and Fichte, has 
 exerted a still more prolbiinJ inlluiMK'e on his thought and 
 morality. Indeed, it is the strong meat of German meta- 
 physics that early entered into the blood of Carlyle, which 
 always prevented him from apprecialing the light touch 
 and spirituelle manner of thought possessed by the French 
 writers, and notably by Voltaire, whom our grim JScotch 
 hero heartily despised, and sneered at. He never could 
 bring his mind down to that light and airy touch which 
 we all admire so much in the better class of French letters, 
 and which is always charming and full of ^wo/z/and grace. 
 He thought that for the most part, French authors were 
 frivolous and careless, too gay indeed for solid work, and 
 he saw, or professed to see, nothing in their literature that 
 he could approve or praise. He was wont to deal with 
 the French character in literature, as if he thought it were 
 a sham, and not worthy of his time or attention. We know 
 how sadly astray Carlyle has been in his estimate of the 
 author of Candide, but M. Henri Taine, the other day made 
 as serious a mistake in the estimate which he formed of 
 Carlyle's work, and which he described in that best of his 
 books, the History of English Literature, as "magnificence 
 and mud." The " magnificence," we will grant, but never 
 the " mud." Taine does not understand the rugged phil- 
 osopher, whose intense G-ermanism no Frenchman, in any 
 case, would care to applaud, and without his Germanism 
 Carlyle's strongest force would lose its impressiveness and 
 power — tremendous adjuncts both of them to his vitality 
 and heartiness as a thinker and *' writer of books." Our 
 French critic, whose estimates of English letters, f»^e gener- 
 ally so apt and clear and skilful, and whose knowledge of 
 our literature is, after all, so thorough and wonderful, con- 
 fesses that he read Carlyle with very strange emotions, 
 and that he contradicted every morning, the opinion w^hich 
 he had formed of his work the night before. He calls this 
 nineteenth century prophet of ours, an " extraordinary 
 
— 4 — 
 
 animal, a relic of a lost family, a sort of mastodon, lost in a 
 world not made for him." The History of the French 
 Revolution, which in perfect good faith he tries very hard 
 to understand, he calls a " delirium," — a meaningless and 
 Buperlicial criticism to say the least. But while Carlyle 
 has made some wrong conclusions in what he has said 
 about some French writers, he has made no mistakes in his 
 portraitures of the men who made the French Revolution 
 possible. His history of that wonderful and bloody epoch 
 in European civilization, stands to-day as one of the most 
 able contributions to historical literature ever written, and 
 beside which the work of Michelet, of Thiers, of Louis 
 Blanc, of Lamartine and even of Edmund Burke, occupies 
 scarcely a second place. The world will long continue to 
 take its impressions of that gory revolution from the pages 
 of Thomas Carlyle, and his fearful painting of the horrors 
 of the Bastile, which is full of intense dramatic power, and 
 rich warm coloring, his story of the struggles and triumphs 
 of the male and female actors, and his sketches of Robes- 
 pierre, of Marat, "whose bleared soul looks forth through 
 his bleared, dull-acrid, woe-strickeu face," ot Mirabeau, 
 whom he eulogizes, of Danton and the rest of them, are all 
 types of character which his pencil has made indelible for 
 all time to come. The book is a panorama of a great 
 national ev^ent in history, and it will always remain as an 
 enduring monument to his genius and skill as an historian 
 of the broad and philosophical school of historical writing. 
 Curtis called it " a vast and splendid phantasmagoria, — a 
 prodigious picture which burned into the memory of the 
 reader, and left a singularly clear and accurate conception 
 of the character, the movement, and the scope of that 
 great event." And Landor, who seldom gave way to im- 
 pulse, hailed it as the best book published in his time, and 
 prophesied a brilliant future for the author, — a prophecy 
 which the world has since seen fulfilled. 
 
6 — 
 
 His Frederic the Great is another masterpiece of the age, 
 and a work which exhibits Carlyle in one of his greater 
 moods, and in which his genius has fall scope and play. 
 The portrait of the great commander stands out in relief as 
 the grandest hero of his time, the most perfect type of the 
 king and the general and the conqueror of nations. In 
 Carlyle's hands the character grows in stature, and though 
 some have refused to take his estimate of Frederic, on ac- 
 count of the excessive warmth of the coloring, and because 
 the warrior is so universally bepraised and glorified, still 
 the portrait must stand as a finished work, and as the great- 
 ness of the man becomes better known, and the brutality 
 of his nature, and the littlenesses which now and then 
 clouded the general splendour of his character as a whole, 
 are considered on their merits, his biographer's portraiture 
 will be found not so untruthfully drawn as some may to- 
 day suppose. With all his faults Frederic must ever re- 
 main a prominent figure in history, and in describing him 
 and the wars in which he engaged, the age in which he 
 lived, should not be forgotten. Ho must be considered by 
 his lights, and the influence of his sarroundings must not 
 be misunderstood or unappreciated. Carlyle never forgot 
 time, in his descriptions of men and of events. Great events 
 and great men call for great historians, and in Carlyle, the 
 world found a great historian and teacher. His account 
 of the battle of Leuthen has never been surpassed in 
 the way of impassioned descriptive writing, and this is 
 gaying a great deal when we remember what Macaulay did 
 in his story of Marlborough's campaign, what Napier ac- 
 complished with his Peninsular war history, what Motley 
 did in his "Netherlands," what Kinglake did in his "Invasion 
 of the Crimea," and so on through the long list of worthy 
 books descriptive of military achievement and daring. The 
 wonderful skill of his grouping, the brilliancy of the pigments 
 employed, and the masterly management of the whole mar- 
 vellous scene, impress every reader of the Leuthen fight in 
 
6 
 
 a manner which cannot be forgotten. It must rank with 
 Carlyle's best work. 
 
 But splendid as these writing's are, the world will be 
 content to have his fame rest on the Miscellaneous Essays, 
 and the brilliant characterization of Oliver Cromwell — a 
 great work, and the first of the true portraits which have 
 been made of the Protector. Before Carlyle's time, Crom- 
 well was but imperfectly und(3rstood. None of the writers 
 of the day seemed capable of grasping the subject in its 
 entirety. The founder of the Commonwealth was a man 
 to be despised and belittled. The grandeur and nobility, 
 and greatness of the Conqueror were unknown, until 
 Thomas Carlyle wrote his book and revealed the man 
 Cromwell in the full light of his greatness. The historian's 
 mother early formed his impressions concerning her 
 stalwart hero, and years after, those lessons learned at 
 her knee, found expression in the masterpiece which 
 he gave to the world in 1845. The Cromwell, whom we 
 regard to-day as a great type of character, as a giant among 
 men, in morality, in generalship, and in statesmanship, is 
 the Cromwell as described by Thomas Carlyle, and he has 
 helped us to an estimate which none of us had fashioned 
 before his time. In biographical writing we can find little 
 to equal this great portrait of a manly man and leader of 
 men. 
 
 But while these things may, in all fairness, be said of 
 Cromwell, and of the grand stand which he made for the 
 enduring principles of freedom and of liberty, it would be 
 manifestly unfair, in the interests of truth and of justice, 
 for me not to record in this place, and at this time, my 
 utter horror and detestation of the fiend-like course which 
 the great soldier thought fit to pursue in Ireland. He 
 went through that country like a devastating demon, 
 slaughtering the people on every side, and parcelling out 
 the lands among his unpaid followers. The Cromwellian 
 settlement is one of the black and dire pages of Irish his- 
 
— 7 
 
 tory, and while we say generous things of CromweU's 
 greatness, we should not forget that he has done nothing to 
 earn the gratitude or esteem of Irishmen, and thathumankind 
 generally, must forever condemn unsparingly, his Irish 
 Conquest, when the grandeur of the man was for the time 
 submerged in the mere butcher and pillager. Carlyle 
 softens down some of the atrocities perpetrated, and doubt- 
 less many of the stories circulated at the time, and since 
 those bloody days, are to an extent exaggerated, but 
 enough was done by Cromwell's orders to justify the exe- 
 cration in which his name is held even in our time, by 
 many right-thinking per.sons. But let us speak now more 
 particularly of the man whose name has been sufficient to 
 induce you to assemble here to-night, and in whose life, I 
 believe many of you take a deep and warm interest. 
 
 Carlyle himself has had a career, of which literary his- 
 tory contains few prototypes. He has earned the proud po- 
 sition in letters, and in the thoughtful activity of the day, 
 which he occupied at the time of his death, by his own 
 honest endeavours. He was born on the fourth of December, 
 1795, in the neighborhood of Ecclefechan, a charming little 
 village in Annandale, Dumfriesshire. His father James 
 Carhde was at first, a stone-mason and afterwards a well 
 to-do farmer, and his mother was a woman of high activity 
 and much originality of mind. Both his parents were ed- 
 ucated far beyond the common for persons in their station 
 of life. His mother particularly was a most extraordinary 
 woman, and Thomas inherited much of her ability and force 
 of character. In his youthhood he was accustomed to hear 
 frequent discussions on abstruse theological questions be- 
 tween his i)arents, and he early imbibed a taste for the 
 branchof thought which tiiese talks suggested. He describes 
 his father as "quite the remarkablest man whom he had ever 
 known." He had great energy, a strong will and good 
 natural abilities. His short, pithy and sharp sayings — often 
 pungent and keen — were known the country round, and 
 
8 — 
 
 many of his peculiarities of mind, afterwards found expres- 
 sion in the -writings of the philosopher, who seems to have 
 directly inherited them from his father. His favorite 
 books were the Bible and an old Puritan Divine which 
 he read often and with much affection, Mrs. Carlyle, as 
 has been remarked before, had peculiar ideas on Cromwell, 
 and young Thomas was not long in drawing her into con- 
 versation with him on the subject. Her wide reading and 
 extensive range of thought, influenced greatly his opinions 
 and completely formed the impressions, which in after years 
 found vent in his book on the Letters and Life of the Lord 
 Protector, The conversation at Carlyle's home was phil- 
 osophic and deep, and Thomas being the elder of the 
 somewhat large family, in commoi with a custom which 
 prevails in some parts of Scotland, it was decided that he, 
 as the elder son, should study for the ministry of the 
 Presbyterian Church, With this end in view he set about 
 his studies with great vigor. As a child he evinced extra- 
 ordinary aptitude, and in one night, it is said, he mastered 
 the alphabet while sitting at his mother's foet. Mrs. Car- 
 lyle was as good a talker in her day, as Margaret Fuller 
 became later on, and she attended to the elementary edu- 
 cation of her son herself. She as well as her husband, 
 was deeply religious, and both were exceedingly desirous 
 of having the first fruit of their marriage, become a minis- 
 ter of their chosen church. At the age of seven Thomas 
 Carlyle entered the parish ^ol at Ecclofechan, and after 
 some years had passed, he ,, ^at for a time to an advanced 
 public school at Annan. In his fifteenth year, he entered 
 the University of Edinl argh, where he met as a class-mate 
 the brilliant but erratis Edward Irving, who in after years 
 exerted considerable influence on his mind. An intimacy 
 at once sprang up between these two young men, and the 
 nervous force of Irving acted as a foil for the hard thought- 
 fulness of his friend. Both had much in common, and 
 both loved each other very dearly, even after Irving's 
 
— 9 
 
 career became blighted and old friends had forsaken him, 
 Carlylp never forgot the brave soul, the "best man 1 have 
 ever found in this world," as he called him in those lattor 
 days of his friend's decline. Ho has left us these notes of 
 his old schoolfellow, in a batch of reminiscences, which are 
 full of tenderness and kindly regard. " The memory of 
 Irving," he says, " is still clear and vivid with me in all 
 points : that of his first and only visit to us in this house, in this- 
 room, just before leaving for Glasgow (October, 1834), which 
 was the last we saw of him, is still fresh as if it had been 
 yesterday, and he has a solemn, massive, sad, even pitiable, 
 though not much blamable, or in heart even blaraable, and 
 to me alw^ays dear and most friendly aspect, in those vacant 
 kingdoms of the past. He was scornfully forgotten at the 
 time of his death, having, indeed, sunk a good while before 
 out of the notice of the more intelligent classes. There 
 has since been -^nd now is, in the new theological genera- 
 tion, a kind ivival of him, on rather weak and question- 
 able terms, sentimental mainly, and grounded on no really 
 correct knowledge or insight, which, however, seems to 
 bespeak some continuance of by-gone remembrances for 
 a good w^hile yet, by that class of people and the many 
 that hang by them." Thus, he speaks of the famous preach- 
 er, who loved to walk with his face tow^ards the sky, his big 
 broad hat in his hand, and "his fleece of copious coal black 
 hair flowing in the w^ind." But we must return to 
 Carlyle. At this time mathematics formed his principal 
 study though he by no means neglected the other branches. 
 and his reading took a wide and miscellaneous turn. He 
 used to take for exercise long walks and strolls over the 
 hills and moors, and it w^as while engaged in one of those 
 pedestrian tours, one day, that he reviewed mentally his 
 past and present life, and began to think of the yet unfold- 
 ed future. He doubted his fitness for the career which had 
 been proposed to him before he had entered upon college 
 life. His severe studies had injured his digestion, and the 
 
— 10 
 
 ! ,i 
 
 pains of dyspepsia did not add much in the way of assisting 
 him to decide as to his futare course. Of his mental and 
 physical condition at this i^eriod of his existence, he 
 "writes : — " I had been destined by my father and my 
 father's minister to be myself a minister of the Kirk of 
 Scotland. But now that I had gained man's estate, I was 
 not sure that I believed the doctrines of my father's Kirk, 
 and it was needful that I should now settle it. And so 
 1 entered my chamber and closed the door, and round 
 me there came a trooping throng of phantasms dire from the 
 abysmal depth of nethermost perdition. Doubt, fear, un- 
 belief, mockery and scoffing were there, and I wrestled 
 with them in agony of spirit. Thus it was for weeks. 
 Whether I ate I know not ; whether I drank I know not ; 
 whether I slept I know not. But I know that when I 
 came forth again it was with the direful persuasion that I 
 was the miserable owner of a diabolical arrangement 
 called a stomach." After this discovery he took a vacation, 
 and with Irving opened a small school at Kirkcaldy, his 
 department being mathematics. But teaching school was 
 too irksome an occupation for a soaring soul such as his, 
 and he soon resigned his position and returned to Edin- 
 burgh, where he busied himself in writing a series of six- 
 teen articles for the "Edinburgh Encyclopcedia," then being 
 edited by Sir David Brewster. His companion-writers on 
 this work were Thomas Campbell, the poet, John Gibson 
 Lockhart, the son-in-law and biographer of Scott, James 
 Grrahame, Dionysius Lardner, Dr. Thomas Chalmers, 
 Robert Stevenson and other men of good reputation. 
 Carlyle's papers were on Lady Mary Wortley Montague, 
 Montaigne, Montesquieu, Montfaucon, Dr. John Moore, Sir 
 John Moore, Necker, the father of Madame de Stael, and 
 the most brilliant financier who ever administered the 
 affairs of France, Nelson, Netherlands, New Foundland, 
 Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberlandshire, Mungo 
 park, Lord Chatham and William Pitt. This work con- 
 
— 11— 
 
 eluded, he went for a tour on the continent, and ultimately 
 found himself in Germany at an age when the mind is 
 most impressionable. He studied the German language 
 and literature with all the earnestness, of which he was 
 capable, and soon mastered the idioms and pronunciation 
 of the tongue. He went the whole round of Gorman liter- 
 ature and scholarship, and his meeting with Goethe, 
 which was mutually agreeable to both, gave him a supreme 
 idea of Germany's superiority in letters and in thought, 
 over any other country in the world, save perhaps, his 
 own. A. life-long intimacy grew up between theso two 
 great thinkers, and Carlylc's mind became thoroughly 
 imbued with the teachings of his friend. He returned 
 home, and published a translation which he had made of 
 Legendre's Geometry, with a chapter of his own on 
 " Proportion," of which he w^as very proud. The work 
 appeared under the editorship of Sir David Brewster. It 
 scarcely paid him, howev(;r, in a pecuniary way, though it 
 certainly added at the time to his reputation as a mathema- 
 tician and scholar. He is next heard of as private tutor to 
 Charles Buller, who was then seventeen years of age. Thi^ 
 was the Charles Buller who afterwards became famous as 
 a w^riter and member of Parliament, and -whose death in 
 18 18 drew from his old teacher a touching obituary in the 
 Examiner. Carlyle gave up his tutorship at the expiration 
 of the second year, and settled in Edinburgh as a man of 
 letters. 
 
 The life of Schiller was his first strong book. It was 
 published serially in the London Maf^azine in 1820-4, and 
 occupied some half-a-dozeii numbers or so. A year later 
 it appeared in book-form considerably enlarged. About 
 this time Carlyle's translation of Goethe's "Wilhelm Meis- 
 ter's Apprenticeship" appeared, and it at once established 
 his fame as a translator and editor of the German language. 
 Though some of the great Reviews found fault with what 
 they regarded as its "inelegance," the public approved of it, 
 
> I' 
 
 — 12-- 
 
 and its readers wore soon numbered by hundreds. Car- 
 lyle cared little for public opinion, or even for the dicta of 
 the critics. 
 
 De Quincey attacked "Wilhelm Meister" very violently 
 in a famous review in Blackwood's Magazine, which attract- 
 ed considerable attention at the time. It did not discomfit 
 Carlyle much however, if we may judge from the account 
 which he gives us of the circumstance. "Jemmy Belcher," 
 he says, "was a smirking Jittle dumpy Unitarian bookseller, 
 in the Bull Ring, regarded as a kind of curiosity and favor- 
 ite among these people, and had seen me. One showery 
 day I took shelter in his shop ; picked up a new magazine, 
 found in it a cleverish and completely hostile criticism of 
 my "Wilhelm Meister," of my Goethe, and self, &c., read it 
 faithfully to the end, and have never set eye on it since. 
 On stepping out of my bad spirits did not feel much elevat- 
 ed by the dose just swallowed, but I thought with myself, 
 This man is perhaps right on some points ; if so, let him be 
 admonitory ! And he was so on a Scotticism, (or perhaps 
 two) ; and I did reasonably soon (in not above a couple of 
 hours) dismiss him to the devil, or to Jericho, as an illgiven, 
 unserviceable kind of entity in my course through this 
 world. It was DeQuincey as I often enough heard after- 
 wards from foolish-talking persons. What matter who, ye 
 foolish-talking persons, would have been my silent answer, 
 as it generally pretty much was. I recollect how, in Edin- 
 burgh, poor DeQuincey, whom I wished to know, was re- 
 ported to tremble at the thought of such a thing, and did 
 fly, pale as ashes, poor little soul, the first time we actually 
 met. He was a pretty little creature, full of wire-drawn 
 ingenuity, bankrupt enthusiasm, bankrupt pride with the 
 finest silver-toned low voice, and most elaborate gently 
 winding courtesies and ingenuities in conversation. What 
 wouldn't one give to have him in a box and take him out 
 to talk ? That was her criticism of him, and it was right 
 good. A bright, ready, and melodious talker, but iu the 
 
— 18 — 
 
 end inconclusive and long-winded. One of the smallest 
 man figures I ever saw ; shaped like a pair of tongs, and 
 hardly above five feet in all. "When he sate, you . would 
 have taken him by candle-light, for the beautitulest little 
 child, — blue-eyed, sparkling face, had there not been a 
 something too, which said, 'Eccovi — this child has been iu 
 hell.' 
 
 Carlyle allowed his book to take care of itself while he 
 looked about for a wife. He found her iu 1826, and she 
 proved to be the witty and clever daughter of Dr. Welsh, 
 of Haddington, and a lineal descendant of sturdy John 
 Knox. She was a lady of high intelligence and culture. 
 Dickens often spoke of her sweet and noble nature, and 
 John Forster, his biographer, once wrote these kindly words 
 about her : — " "With the highest gifts of intellect, and the 
 charm of a most varied knowledge of men and things, 
 there was something bevond. No one who knew Mrs. 
 Carlyle could replace her loss when she passed away." 
 She was the subject of a little poem w^hich some of you 
 may remember, for Guernsey has told the story of Leigh 
 Hunt and "Jenny Kissed me," to very many readers. One 
 day, this w^riter says, Hunt rushed into the home of the 
 Carlyles in his impatient and impetuous way, bearing glad 
 tidings of some rare good fortune which had just happened 
 to them, when Mrs. Carlyle — the " Jenny " of the screed, 
 sprang from her chair, threw her arms about the astonished 
 and bewildered poet's neck, and gave him a resounding 
 congratulatory smack. This was the result : 
 
 *• Jenny kissed me when we met, 
 Jumping fjom the chair she sat iu : 
 
 Time, you thief ! who love to get 
 Sweets into your list, put that in. 
 
 Say I'm weary, say I'm sad ; 
 Say that health and wealth have misjed me ; 
 
 Say I'm growing old, but add — 
 Jenny kissed me." 
 
 I ( 
 
Sf 
 
 — 14 — 
 
 Mary Jane Welsh became a most exemplary wife, and 
 having a small estate of her own at Craigenputtock, 
 she and her husband forsook Edinburgh for this cosy retreat 
 in the wilds of Dumfriesshire. They lived here very hap- 
 pily for six years, and it was at this place that Oarlyle 
 received Kalph "Waldo Emerson, after the famous Tvans- 
 cendentalist had resigned his charge in Boston. The 
 interview between these two masters in thought and 
 morals was very impressive. Emerson describes the phil- 
 osopher as a tall gaunt man with " clifF-like brow," and 
 self-possessed, and he found him " nourishing his mighty 
 heart," in this quiet home. 
 
 Of his model wife and of this moorland retreat, Carlyle 
 himself says : — 
 
 "Perfection of housekeeping waa her clear and speedy attaininent in that 
 new scene. Strange how slie made the desert Ijlossoni for lierself and me 
 there ; what a fairy palace she had made of that wild moorland home of the 
 poor man ! In my life I have seen no human intelligence tliat so genuinely 
 pei'vaded every fibre of the human existence it belonged to. From the baking 
 of a loaf or the darning of a stocking up to comporting herself in the highest 
 scenes and most intricate emergencies, all was insight, veracitj', graceful suc- 
 cess (if you could judge it), fidelity to insight of the fact given 
 
 Beautiful queenlike woman, I did admire her complete perfection on this head 
 of the actual 'dowry' she had now (1842) brought, £200 yearly or so, which to 
 us was a highly considerable sum, and how she absolutely ignored it, and as it 
 were had not done it at all. Once or so I can dimly remember telling her a,a 
 much (thank God I did so), to which she answered scarcely by a look, jind cer- 
 tainly without word, except, perhaps, ' Tut !' " 
 
 And in his well-known and oft-quoted letter to Goethe 
 he says again of this little home which his well-beloved 
 wife, so beautified and glorified : — " Our residence is not 
 in the town itself, but fifteen miles to the North-West of it, 
 among the gaunt hills and black morasses which stretch 
 west-ward through Galloway to the Irish Sea. In this 
 wilderness of heath and bog, our estate stands forth as a 
 green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly enclosed and planted 
 ground, where corn ripens and trees afford a shade, al- 
 though surrounded by sea-mews and rough woolled sheep. 
 
— 16 — 
 
 as 
 
 a 
 
 id 
 
 Here, with no small effort, have we built and furnished a 
 neat, substantial dwelling. Here, in the absence of a pro- 
 fessional or other office, we live to cultivate literature 
 according to our strength, and in our own peculiar way. 
 "We wish a joyful growth to the roses and flowers of our 
 garden ; we hope for health and peaceful thoughts to fur- 
 ther our aims. The roses, indeed, are still in part to be 
 planted, but they blossom already in anticipation. Two 
 ponies, which carry us everywhere, and the mountain air 
 are the best medicine for weak nerves. This daily exercise, 
 to which I am much devoted, is my only recreation, for 
 this nook of ours is the loneliest in Britain — six miles 
 removed from any one likely to visit me." 
 
 In 1827 Carlyle appeared again in type, as the translator 
 of a number of bright stories from Tieck, Hoffman, Jean 
 Paul Richter and others. Besides magazine and review 
 writing, our author also finished while at Craigenputtock, 
 his f\\mous "Sartor Resartus" — the Patched Tailor — one of 
 the cheerfullest and most humorous of all his books. It 
 failed to find a publisher, however, and it went the rounds 
 of some half dozen or so of the book-makers, John Murray 
 oddly enough, among the rest. Fraser's Magazine accepted 
 it at last, and it was published serially. In America it had 
 a better fate. Alexander Everett, the editor of the North 
 American Revievj, was much impressed by its genius, as 
 he read it in the numbers of Fraser, which came over the 
 sea, and he put it into book-form on its completion. It be- 
 came a great success, and the speculations of Herr Teufels- 
 drockh remain to-day one of the cleverest bits of satire 
 known to readers of that class of literature. This book 
 gave Carlyle a fine reputation with the American people, 
 and he was soon flooded with invitations to visit the Uni- 
 ted States, which, however, his engagements at home never 
 permitted him to accept. His next great book was the 
 French Revolution. After he had completed the first vol- 
 ume, Mr. John Stuart Mill borrowed it, in maWuscript, to 
 
— 16 — 
 
 read. Through- unexampled carelessness on the part of the 
 eminent Political Economist, the precious sheets were left 
 in such an exposed situation, that Mr. Mill's cook, thinking 
 them of little use, turned the papers to account in baking 
 some cakes, partly as lining for the cake-tins and partly as 
 fuel. When this was discovered the unfortunate Mill be- 
 came wild with excitement and terror ; there was no help 
 for it, however, and he sought his friend and told hira the 
 story. Carlyle says of this interview : — 
 
 "How well do I still remember that night vvhea ho oaino to tell us, pale as 
 Hector's ghost, that my unfortunate first volunin was burnt. lb was like lialf 
 sentence of death to us both, and wc had to prctoud to take it lightly, ho dis- 
 mal and ghastly was his horror at it, and try to talk of other matters. He 
 stayed three mortal hours or so ; his departure quite a relief to us. Oh, the 
 burst of sympathy my poor darling then gave nie, flinging her arms around my 
 neck, and openly lamenting, condoling, and encouraging like a nobler 
 BOcond self ! Under heaven is nothing beautifulcr. Wc sat talking till late ; 
 'shall be written again,' my fixed word and resolution to her. Which proved 
 to be such a task iis 1 never tried before or .since. J wrote out 'Feast of Pikes" 
 (vol. II. ), and then went fairly at it. Found it fairly impossible for about a 
 fortnight ; pa.ssed three weeks (reading Manyatt's novels), tried, cautious-cau- 
 tiously, as on ice paper-thin, once more ; and, in short, had a job mor« like 
 breaking my heart than any other in my experie-ijce. Jenny, alone of beings, 
 burnt like a steady lamp beside me. I forget how much of money we still had. 
 [ think there was at first something like JtSOO, poihaps £280, to front London 
 with. Nor can I in the least I'cuiumber where we had gathered such a sum, 
 except that it was our own, no part of it borrowed or yivea us by anybody. 
 'Fit to last till " French llevolution" is ready !' and ahe had no misgivings at 
 all. Mill was penitently liberal; scut nie £"^00 (in a day or two), of which I 
 kept £100 (actual eost of house while I had written burnt volume) ; upon 
 which he bought me 'Biographic Universclle,' which I got boititd, and still have. 
 Wish I could find a way of getting the now much macerated, changed and fan- 
 atieized, 'John Stuart Mill' to take that £100 back ; but I fear there is no 
 way." 
 
 The work was published in three large volumes in 1837 
 complete, and Carlyle was never known to lend a manus- 
 cript again under any circumstances. In this same year he 
 appeared as a lecturer on German literature in "Willis' 
 rooms, London, and though his appearance on the platform 
 was ungainly and uncouth, the subject-matter of his paper 
 disarmed ^ personal criticism, and the audience were de- 
 
— 17 — 
 
 lighted and charmed with every word which fell from the 
 brilliant writer's lips. His eloquence was simple and 
 earnest. 
 
 " Heroes and Hero-Worship" followed in course, and was 
 succeeded in 1839 by a small book on " Chartism," which 
 attracted a good deal of attention. In 1843 "Past and 
 Present " came out. It is a book of admirable essays, show- 
 ing Carlyle's habits of thought to great advantage, and 
 dealing with a variety of subjects in a homely, practical 
 way. Oliver Cromwell's " Letters and Speeches" were 
 given to the world in 1845, and five years later the Latter 
 Day Pamphlets wero printed. These essays aroused a good 
 deal of indignation among the anti-slavery agitators, and 
 John Qt. "Whittier, the gentle Quaker poet of New lilngland, 
 wrote a very caustic article against Carlyle for the stand he 
 had taken on the slavery question. The little book deals 
 altogether with social topics, and does not always show 
 Carlyle at his best. The Life of John Sterling — a line piece 
 of biographical writing — was given to the public in 1851, 
 and in 1864 the concluding volume of The Ilistory of Fred- 
 eric the Great, w^hich was begun in 1858, was published. 
 
 In 1865, the students of the University of Edinburgh 
 elected Mr. Carlyle Lord Rector over Mr. Disraeli. After 
 being installed in his office, he remained in the Scot- 
 tish capital for more than a fortnight. In the midst of the 
 enjoyment of his honors, he received a blow, which had a 
 . distressing influence on his life ever afterwards. News of 
 his wife's death reached him, and crazed almost to distrac- 
 tion, he hastened home to find the partner of his life for 
 forty years, beyond hope of recall. Her death had occurred 
 tinder most painful and shocking circumstances, on the 
 afternoon of the 21st of April. 
 
 She had been out driving, as was her custom, on fine 
 days, in Hyde Park. A little spaniel, for which she had 
 much affection and to which she was greatly attached, was 
 running by the side of the carriage, when suddenly the 
 
 8 
 
fr 
 
 — 18 — 
 
 wheel passed over it. The dog uttered a shrill, piercing 
 cry, but, curiously enough, was not at all hurt. The 
 brougham was stopped, and the spaniel placed on the seat 
 by the side of its mistress. The driver drove about for an 
 hour or so, and receiving, at the expiration of that time, no 
 directions from his mistress, he turned to her for instructions 
 as to what course he should take next. To his horror he 
 found her pale and speechless. He drove at once to St. 
 Q-eorge's Hospital, which was near at hand. She was 
 quite dead, however, before she reached it, deLth having 
 been, probably, instantaneous, and the result of heart 
 disease, accelerated by the excitemenL caused by the 
 accident to the spaniel. "Word was sent at once to her 
 husband, and the message broke his heart. "Ah," said 
 the old man in the very midst of his Edinburgh triumphs 
 " the light of my life has clean gone out." In his diary, 
 he wrote down these words : — 
 
 "She lived nineteen days after that Edinburgh Monday; on the nineteenth 
 (April 21, 1866, between 3 and 4 p. m., an near as I can gather and sift), 
 suddenly, as by a thunderbolt from skies all blue, she was snatched from me ; 
 a 'death from the gods,' the old Romans would have called it, — the kind of 
 death she many a time expressed a wish for ; and in all my life (and as I feel 
 ever since) there fell on me no misfortune like it ; which has smitten my whole 
 world into universal wreck (unless I can repair it in some small measure), and 
 extinguish whatever light of cheerfulness and loving hopefulness life still had in 
 it to me. 
 
 "0 my dear one, sad is my soul for the loss of thee, and will to the end be as 
 I compute. Lonelier creature there is not henceforth in this world ; neither 
 person, work, nor thing going on in it that is of any value in comparison, or even 
 at all. Death I feel almost daily in express fact, death is the one haven ; and 
 have occasionally a kind of kingship, sorrowful, but sublime, almost god-like, in 
 the feeling that that is nigh. Sometimes the image of her, gone in her car of 
 victory fin that beautiful death), and as if nodding to me, with a smile, ' I am 
 gone, loved one ; work a little longer, if thou still carest ; if not, follow. There 
 is no baseness, and no misery here. Courage, courage to the last ! ' that some- 
 times, as in this moment, is inexpressibly beautiful to me, and comes nearer to 
 bringing tears than it once did Not all the Sands and Eliots and bab- 
 bling cohue of 'celebrated scribbling women' that have strutted over the world 
 in my time could, it seems to me, if all boiled down and distilled to essence, 
 make one saoh woman." 
 
 
— 19 — 
 
 She was buried on the 25th of April, in the choir of the 
 Cathedral of Haddington, her native town, and her hus- 
 band caused this epitaph to be placed upon her tomb- 
 stone : — 
 
 Here likewiae now rests Jane Welsh Carlylo, spouse of Thomas Uarlyle, 
 Chelsea, London. She was boni at Haddington, 14th July 1801 ; only 
 child of the above John Welsh and Grace Welsh, CaplegfU, Duiiifiicsshire> 
 his wife. In her bright existence, she had more sorrows than aro common . 
 but also a soft invincibility, a capacity of discernment, and a noble loyalty 
 of heart, which are rare. For 40 years she was the true and loving help- 
 mate of her husband, and by act and word unweariedly forwarded him, as 
 none else could, in all of worthy that he did or attempted. She died in 
 London, 2l3t April, 18GG, suddenly snatched away from him, and the light 
 of his life as if gone out. 
 
 Carlyle accepted, jn 1873, on the death of Manzoni, 
 the civil class of the Prussian Royal Order " for merit." 
 He refused, however, all honors which had been tendered 
 him by his own country. The Queen offered him the 
 Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, but he declined it, 
 and when it w^as proposed to knight him and Mr. 
 Tennyson he again refused the distinction. He was 
 offered even higher honors, but he declined these also. In 
 1867, he published " Shooting Niagara ; and After ?'' and a 
 few years later he printed " The Early Kings of Norway,'* 
 and "John Knox." On the 4th of December, 1875, on iue 
 occasion of his 80th birthday, he was the recipient of 
 numerous congratulations from people in all parts of the 
 world, and was at the same time presented with an address 
 and a gold medal, which had been struck off in honor of 
 the day. 
 
 Carlyle was a wonderful reader, rapid, nervous and ex- 
 haustive. He seemed to read by whole pages instead of 
 by mere words, and for fifty years of his life, and more, he 
 devoured books, on almost every conceivable subject, read- 
 ing fully six or eight hours a day, and often sitting up for 
 the purpose until two or three o'clock in the morning. It 
 is said he went through Gibbon at the rate of one volume 
 
I'f 
 
 ';;i 
 
 — 20 — 
 
 per diem, delighted at the " winged sarcasms, so quiet and 
 yet 60 conclusively transpiercing and killing dead," and 
 finding the " colors " *' strong but coarse, and set oflf by 
 lights from the side scenes." A story is told of him which 
 exhibits very clearly his marvellous grasp on the inside of 
 books. Once, having gone to spend an afternoon and to 
 dine with a new acquaintance, and arriving several hours 
 before his host, he entered the library, upon which the 
 gentleman prided himself, as it contained very many 
 volumes of great variety and literary value. The host came 
 at last, and dinner eaten, the author was asked if he would 
 not like to go into the library and see the books. *' I've 
 read 'em," was the laconic reply ; and it proved that Car- 
 lyle had actually absorbed in the time before dinner all 
 that was of use to him in that well-selected collection. 
 
 It is, as a talker, however, that the grand old man, 
 appeared to the better advantage. Less polished than 
 Alcott or Emerson, he was, if anything, more earnest. 
 Margaret Fuller, herself one of the best talkers who ever 
 lived, wrote of him in 1846 : — 
 
 "Hia talk is still an amazement and splendour, scarcely to be faced with 
 steady eyes. He does not converse, only harangues. Carlyle alows no 
 one a chance, but bears down all opposition, not only by his wit and onf .c 
 of words, resistless in thoir sharpness as so many bayonets, but by actual 
 physical superiority raising his voice and rushing on his opponent with a 
 ton-ent of sound. This is not, in the least, from unwillingness to allow 
 freedom to others ; no man would more enjoy a manly resistance to his 
 thought. B'.it it is the impulse of a mind accustomed to follow out its own 
 impvdsos as the hawk its prey, and which knows not how to stop in the 
 
 chase He sings rather than talks. He pours upon you a kind 
 
 of satirical, heroical, critical poem, with regular cadences, and generally 
 catching up near the beginning some singular epithet, which serves as a 
 
 refrain when his song is full He puts out his chin till it looks 
 
 like tho beak of a bird of prey, anil his eyes flash bright instinctive mean- 
 ings like Jove's bird." 
 
 Carlyle's appearance at that time has been carefully 
 noted by Dr. Cuyler, who visited him in his garret after 
 he had seen Dickens and Montgomery and "Wordsworth. 
 
— Sl- 
 
 id 
 
 y 
 
 y 
 
 >r 
 
 Cuyler was a raw college lad then, and impressionable. 
 He had read " Sartor Resartus," and " Heroes and Hero 
 "Worship," and he felt that he ought to thank their author, 
 in person, for the pleasure he had experienced in perusing 
 them. He found the object of his search, and was received 
 cordially in that famous front room on the second floor of 
 that modest house in Cheyne Row. A renowned 
 locality for literary men, this quaint suburb of Chelsea 
 which can boast of such residents, at different times, as 
 Sir Thomas More, Erasmus, Swift, Addison and Dick Steele 
 of classic memory, of Boyle, Locke, the logician, Arbuth- 
 not, Noll Goldsmith, Smollett and the Walpoles, besides 
 such worthies of a later day as Coleridge, Lamb, Hazlitt, 
 Leigh Hunt and Maclise, the great painter. In this red" 
 brick unpretending house, Cuyler feasted his eyes on 
 Thomas Carlyle, who was then in his prime. " He was 
 hale and athletic," says this observant youth of thirty and 
 odd years ago, " with a clear blue eye, strong lower jaw, 
 stiff iron-gray hair brushed up from a capacious forehead, 
 and with the look of a sturdy country deacon, dressed up 
 for church." In 1872. Theodore Cuyler, then a D.D. and 
 with a reputation which penetrated even as far as England, 
 visited the Scottish sage again. ""We found," he says, 
 " the same old brick dwelling. No. 5 Cheyne Row, Chel- 
 sea, without the slightest change, outside or in. But 
 during those 30 years, the kind, good wife, whom I had 
 met in 1842, had departed, and a sad change had come 
 over the once hale, stalwart man. After we had waited 
 some time, a feeble and stooping figure, attired in a blue 
 flannel gown, moved slowly into the room. His gray hair 
 was unkempt, his blue eye was still keen and piercing, and 
 a bright hectic spot of red appeared in each of his hollow 
 cheeks. His hands were tremulous and his voice was deep 
 
 and husky Much of his extraordinary harangue was 
 
 like the eruption of Vesuvius ; but the sly laugh he occa- 
 sionally gave showed that he was 'mandating' about as 
 
 , 
 

 :;Jf 
 
 — 22 — 
 
 much for his own amusement as for ours. He was terribly 
 severe on Parliament, which he described as an ' endless 
 babblement o' windy talk, and a grinding o' hurd5'^-gurdies, 
 grinding out lies and inanities.' And in this strain the 
 thin and weird-looking old iconoclast went on for an hour, 
 until he wound up by declaring that ' lilngland has joost 
 gane clean down into an abominable cesspool of lies and 
 shoddies and shams — down to an utter and bottomless 
 domnation. Ye may gie whatever meaning to that word 
 that ye like.' " 
 
 This was Carlyle in old age. With his infirmities fast 
 coming upon him, we prefer not to linger. With his life- 
 work we will deal now, that work by which the world 
 will long continue to know him, that work which he has 
 left behind, and which speaks to his fellow-men in trumpet- 
 tones. The future will understand him better than have 
 those of his own generation understood him. He was a 
 many-sided man, a true type of the noble-hearted ihinker 
 and philosopher, whose life was dedicated to his fellows, 
 whose broad humanity, high morality, observation and 
 insight were never expended in an unworthy cause. He 
 was a good man, and his teachings have made the world 
 better for his coming. We know that he did not believe 
 in a structural creed, and that the thirty-nine articles, or 
 the confession of faith, had no charms or terrors, it may be, 
 for him, but he did believe in God and honest labour. He 
 hated shams of all sorts, he loathed from his inmost soul, 
 hypocrisy and cant, and double dealing. He worshipped 
 force and might and honesty of purpose. He was an 
 iconoclast and a pessimist of the most uncompromising 
 type. Even the bright, glorious starlight, which Leigh 
 Hunt, in his delicious way, used to think was all joy and 
 gladness, and contained voices which sang an eternal song 
 of hope in the soul of man, Carlyle considered a sad sight. 
 The brilliant stars would yet become gaunt graves, for all 
 living things must die and have an end. But, despite all 
 
— 23 — 
 
 this, despite the gloomy view of things which the philo- 
 sopher persisted in stamping on his life-work, may we not 
 learn enduring lessons, to aid us in our journey through 
 life, from these same teachings from the master mind of 
 this masterful century of ours, so prolific in thought, in 
 poetry and in scientific advancement? The impress of 
 Carlyle's mind may be found in all the thought which is 
 worth having in our day. Unconsciously, as well as 
 consciously, he has influenced public opinion, and from 
 the pulpit and the platform, from the press and from the 
 schoolmaster, from the very heart of the thinking people, 
 the mind of that Scottish stone-mason's son speaks with 
 terrific force and volume, and the prescience of the seer, 
 and tells us how we may live lives of usefulness and purity 
 and of honorable purpose. The Carlyle idea is marching 
 on with irresistible strength and vigor. He has left us a 
 vast store-house of treasures, a heritage of priceless pearls. 
 Ought we not to gather these riches up, and ponder well, 
 the lessons which they reveal to us ?