'V-V ^^$.:.V i ' ; fe$ $$&i ^^^i-^mXM ^m^mm ' 1 1 >-*^^> i ^^^^HHB^^^H ^'/v'" ',.!/""''",' ! ' ,,'"/: . ,! ; -''.v.': r '-^;'(lvl"C s^ffl <?5Z THOMAS CARLYLE. UK 17 BE SIT r THOMAS CARLYLE. 2Han anb \s Books, ILLUSTRATED BY PERSONAL REMINISCENCES, TABLE-TALK, AND ANECDOTES OF HIMSELF AND HIS FRIENDS. BY WM. HOWIE WYLIE. THIRD EDITION. sEsSsRSKai ^^pis^P gSIVBESITYT LONDON MARSHALL JAPP AND COMPANY i 8 8 i " A true Great Man ; great in intellect, in courage, aflY one of our most lovable and precious men. Great, not as a he w an Alpine mountain, nest, spontancou . : liable fisof it fou! :. iauliful valleys with flu.. PREFACE. THIS attempt to give an account of Thomas Carlyle and his Works that might be of some slight service as a guide to the study of his writings was printed before the appear- ance of the posthumous Reminiscences edited by Mr Froude. These throw much new light on the early life of their Author, some chapters of which had previously been obscure ; but this fresh information does not materially affect what appears in the following pages. For the first time, however, it is now possible to state with precision that Carlyle went to the Grammar School at Annan in 1806, and to Edinburgh University in 1809. In 1814 he was usher at Annan, in 1816 schoolmaster at Kirkcaldy, and in 1818 he took pupils at Edinburgh. In 1822 he became the private tutor of Charles Buller, and after his marriage he lived for eighteen months near Edinburgh before removing to Craigen- puttoch. Into one misapprehension respecting the burnt MS. of the French Revolution, I was beguiled by the report of Mr Milburn, of America, whose state- ment I accepted as a correction of my own previous VI PREI information; the latter now turns out to have ' accuse. It was the MS. of the lir.st, not of the second, volume that >yed by fire. It will be observed that I have had the good fortune to (. what I believe to be a hitherto unkn n by Carlyle ; and the : the him have now received an accession in the account which he gives in the posthumous / of 1 :<>n with the building of the Br; at Auldgarth. :;i, . \.R.A., the friend of Carlyle, my acknowledgments are due for his kind and cour: to allow the use of his Statue- rait of tl ' of this volume, and also of the by him to commemorate the Kightieth 'iday of the immortal Sartor. Tlu thought highly of by him \\ ' truthfulK ill be content and grateful ould :nend i' 'her un- worthy the genii: life. \v. n. u*. CONTENTS. Chap. Page I. THE CARLYLES AND THEIR COUNTRY, . i II. CARLYLE'S BIRTH AND PARENTAGE, . n III. His HOME TRAINING, .... 23 IV. His SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS, . 34 V. THE SECESSION KIRK, . . . . 41 VI. ENTERS THE UNIVERSITY : EDINBURGH LIFE, 49 VII. SCHOOLMASTER AT ANNAN AND KIRKCALDY, 62 VIII. PIONEER OF GERMAN LITERATURE, . 77 v IX. His MARRIAGE : His WIFE'S ANCESTORS, 90 X. His LIFE AT CRAIGENPUTTOCH, . . 103 XL THE GENESIS OF "SARTOR RESARTUS," . 134 XII. REMOVAL TO LONDON : His LECTURES, . 157 > XIII. His POLITICAL WRITINGS : MAZZINI, . 187 v XIV. His LIFE OF CROMWELL, . . .206 XV. FRIENDSHIP WITH LEIGH HUNT : AN UN- KNOWN POEM, 223 XVI. NEWSPAPER ARTICLES AND JOURNALIST FRIENDS, 244 Mil \\ II. Tin. ' 1.. \viil. LORD Ki- 1^ ' \\i iTH, i-.LEM OF THE NEGRO, iiiii.iii 1 KS, 3 6 \\1. I 1 322 M>, .uo \1H, I I'll, A 1' P 1 N D 1. i l 11. liil < 111. |)\viD Hni ' 39 s THOMAS CARLYLE. CHAPTER I. THE COUNTRY OF THE CARLYLES WHAT SCENERY OWES TO NOBLE LIVES THE ANCIENT HOUSE OF CARLYLE A CARLYLE BROTHER OF THE BRUCE THE LORDS OF TORTHORWALD LORD SCROPE AT ECCLEFECHAN DECLINE OF THE FAMILY THE FARMERS OF HODDAM. FIFTY years ago the words, " Thomas Carlyle, Nutholm," painted by a village artist on a rustic cart as homely as his letters, would not have been likely to attract any particular notice from the passing pilgrim who had just emerged from the pastoral valley of the Clyde into that comparatively level, well cultivated, and sylvan country from which you first descry the sparkling waters of the Solway. Yet it was with a positive thrill that, on a summer day a little more than twenty years ago, two young students from Edinburgh, making their first tour on foot into England, read the name on that old, battered cart, as it went jolting painfully past a clump of pines, in whose shade they had lain down to rest, away from the heat of the noonday sun. That name was the first strong reminder that we were now actually on the confines of a region which we had greatly desired to see. It told us A 2 Thomas Cat that we must be nearing the village ve years before the dawn of the present century, there was born to imble, but industrious, intelligent, and God fearing couple members of that peasant class which has fur- < 1 Scotland with a majority of her greatest names a son who was destined to grow up into an illustrious guide and b <f men. From these hedges of thorn guarding our j>ath, Thomas Corlyle, as a boy, had e sprigs of "may" in the early summer, and tin- not luscious, fruit in the autumn. In this very fir wood, who knows, he may > schoolmates, or rested, book in hand, on his 1< .bles. These very fields lanes n. - eager converse with his : MCIU! Edward Irving, when there was " nothing hojicfulncjis without end " in their Acre the reflections suggested b;. the old courr .ow glory difT the landscape; for \\ scenes in t! l i had been nun greatest of all ; sons of the Scottish soil ? in would be lessened t -\ the of our n :rh less potent w be the influence of that i of iOllt tlK- sical bca 1 count : .ira- the mo ;<! prospc> assert but a limited power mind until t' been linked to the story of noble or good for grow; ,\cd iv no memories ( Scenery and Noble Lives. 3 that are songless but for their own natural music? the mountains that are no more associated with human life than are the clouds which mantle round their summits ? Even the sky-cleaving peaks that rise from the Yosemite Valley, and the groves of that marvellous region, must, after all, be comparatively tame, since, with all their material magnitude, they have no story to tell about man. The figure of Columba, emerging from the mists of a venerable antiquity, glides with us as we sail among the Hebridean isles, and the grey old evangelist and his school of the prophets rise upon our view as we cast anchor under the Cyclopean walls of Elachnave, or set foot on the sacred soil of lona; the savage gloom of Glencoe is deepened by the song of Ossian, which comes moaning down every corrie, like the sighing of the night- wind among the hills ; a whole west country, from Eld- erslie to Lochryan, is transfigured by the memories of Wallace, and Bruce, and Burns ; and, go where you may in the land of Walter Scott, every hill, and valley, and stream has felt the touch of the magician's wand. Not merely for their natural loveliness do we visit those lakes on whose woody shores dwelt Southey and Coleridge, De Quincey and Arnold, Wilson and Wordsworth. Sheffield, with its clang of hammers, and thick smoke curtain, looks less grim when we think of Ebenezer Elliott and James Montgomery. Byron and Kirke White deepen the romance of Sherwood Forest, and send a pathos through Wilford Grove; the whole of woody Warwickshire becomes like fairyland at thought of Shake- speare; even the dull banks of the sleepy Ouse are glorified by the Farmer of St Ives and the Bedford Tinker the one the doer of the greatest deeds, the 4 THoma* Cat other the dreamer of the grandest dream, that fill so much meaning the name of England. Although the man who was to add a fresh charm to the lovely shire in which the Brace was born, and where Hums found his grave, did not appear in the world till the eighteenth century was nearly ended, the name he bore had long been one of the most illustrious in Annan- dale. The Carlylcs, indeed, were among the very oldest families in that richly-storied province of Scotland ; and before they came thither, they had been one of the most jiowcrful houses in Cumberland, where, at the time of man Conquest, they possessed large estates. 1 c Carlyle family is a subject in which its most distinguished member naturally felt a keen interest, and on which, as we have reason to know, he had be- stowed considerable attention so much, indeed, that a rumour was at on t to the effect, that he was collecting materials for a history of the House.* The i \Icdcscended from this grand stock, there can be no soft of doubt, but his genealogical tree was too imperfect to establish the connection. In a letter to a kinsman some yean ago, Mr ( ited how, when Nicholas Carlisle, the antiquarian, paid them a visit, while searching for materials for a family history, Miher and uncle gave the distinguished visitor audience in a field where they were bosiiy engaged in ploughing."-/*, Gl*t* AVtw/s;/v 1 he castle of Torthorwald, the chief seat of the Carlylcs, is supposed to have been built in the thirteenth century. It has been placed in the second class of Border castles, not because of its size, but on accoun : cngth and accessory defences, in which respect it was not exceeded by some of the first- class fonrcsacs. It is supposed to have been Ust repaired about 1630. " An ancient man now (1789) living at Lochmaben," writes Cap(. Grose, "remembers the roof of this building on it Mr M'Dowall, writing in 1872, says : "The appearance of the ruin at the prcsc: !c from the picture of it given by Grose, the A Brother-in-Law of the Bruce. 5 Annandale Carlyles trace their descent from Crinan, Abthane of Dunkeld, whose son, Maldred, married Beatrice, daughter of King Malcolm II. About 1124, Robert de Brus, who had come into Scotland with David I., received a grant of Annandale from his royal friend and patron; and his grandson, also named Robert, on entering upon his inheritance, was created Lord of Annandale, or, as it was then called, Estrahannent. Under this third of the Scottish Bruces, and about the year 1185, the Carlyles held lands in Annandale. They also owned property in Cumberland, deriving their sur- name, in all probability, from the ancient capital of that picturesque region. By the daughter of the king, Maldred had a son, named Uchtred ; and the eldest son of the latter was Robert of Kinmount. Uchtred's second son, Richard, received the lands of Newbie-on-the-Moor from his grandfather. Eudo de Carlyle, grandson of Richard, witnessed a charter to the monastery of Kelso, about 1207. The next head of the Carlyle family, Adam, had a charter of various lands in Annandale from William de Brus, second lord of the district, who died in 1215. Gilbert, son of Adam, who had joined in the disastrous Baliol revolt, swore fealty to Edward I. in 1296. Sir William de Carlyle, grandson of Gilbert, rose so high in the favour of his liege lord, Robert, Earl of Carrick, that the latter gave him his daughter Margaret in marriage ; thus the head of the house of Carlyle became brother-in-law to the greatest and best of the lapse of eighty-two years having made scarcely any impression upon it." The parish of Torthorwald, which contains the three villages of Torthorwald, Collin, and Rowcan, lies near the foot of Nithsdale, and is separated from Dumfries parish by Lochar Water. 6 Thomas Carlylt. Scottish mor famous Robert the Bruce. This upon them the lands of Crumanston, in which the of Sir William is designated "our dearest sister further confirmed by a charter in r William de Carlyle's son received a grant i the n and Roucan, near Dumfries; the red] is designated " William Karlo, the King's sister's son." im Carl) nhorwald was slain at the : battle of Ixx:hm; n Edward III. of England was I> the ])crfidious pupj>ct Edward Baliol on the Scottish throne ; and it is well worthy of note that, in the same engager 1C fell Sir Humj/ de Bois of Dryfesdale, supposed to be an ancestor of i), and S: the head of that ' le house whi< h in the pri nry produced Sir William Jardine, : rnt naturalist, lew battle fields can boast of an incident like ' ic battle of N Cross, Thomas Cnrlyle of Torthonvald fell while -.ill.m:! :ig the person of the n the latter was i ed a grateful re< October 18, >f "Coulyn and Rowcan to our beloved coi^ nah Cai inas de Tor; was killed <! our person at the nd to Robert Corrie, her spouse, belonging formerly to out de Carh When t of James I. crossed to France 6 to be married to Louis the Daunhin. William Lord Carlyle of Torthorwald. 7 Carlyle was one of the train of knights who attended the Princess Margaret. It was this Carlyle who gave a bell for the parish kirk of Dumfries, which is not only still extant, but which, according to the worthy historian of the burgh of Dumfries, Mr William M'Dowall, was employed till about twenty years ago in u the secular duty of warning the lieges when fires broke out in the burgh." It hangs on the bartizan of the Mid Steeple, and bears a Latin inscription, which, when Englished, runs thus : " William de Carlyle, Lord of Torthorwald, caused me to be made in honour of St Michael. The year of our Lord 1433." I n I 455? at the battle of Lang- holm, which sealed the doom of the rebellious house of Douglas, one of the leaders of the victorious royal army was Sir John Carlyle of Torthorwald, who, along with the head of the house of Johnstone, took Hugh, Earl of Ormond, prisoner, for which service he received from the King a grant of the forty-pound land of Pettinain in Clydesdale. Ennobled in 1470, he sat as Lord Carlyle of Torthorwald* in the parliament of 1475 ; an< 3 he was sub- sequently sent on an embassy to France, in recompence for the great expense attending which he received several grants of land from the Crown in 1477, though one of these grants was revoked by the succeeding monarch, James IV. After the battle of Pinkie and the engagement at Annan, among the landholders of Annandale who were driven to * If the Prime Minister who, when it was too late, offered a small titular distinction to Thomas Carlyle had been acquainted with the history of the country which for a time he was permitted to rule, perhaps it might have occurred to him that it would have been more seemly to suggest to Her Majesty the revival of this ancient title in favour of the greatest of all the Carlyles, instead of insulting him with the offer of a G.C.B. 8 Thomas CarlyU. swear allegiance to Edward VI. we find the Ix>rd Carlyle, with 101 follower <> whom on the record comes In ing of Coveshaw, with 102 followers, who may have been a progi I aught we know, of Thomas Car- lyle's bosom friend, Edward Irving. In 1570, whrn the tnends of Mary Stuart in Dumfries- shire were assailed by an English force under Lord Scrope, Lord Carlyle was one of the leaders who mustered tollowers and took part in the battle, in which he was taken prisoner. Lord Scrope's account of the engage-. it opens with the statement that on entering Scotland he encamped at '* Heclefeaghan," by whi h his lordship did his best to reproduce on paper the troublesome name of Ecclefechan the village destined to be made for ever norable as the birth-place of Thomas Carlyle. When we come to the momentous struggle of the seventeenth cerr h has tnrcn nowhere described with so much of insi-ht and graphic force as in Carlyle's Cromwell^ we find that the Irvings of Bonshaw and of Drum, as well as their relations in the luir-h of Dumfries, espoused the Royalist and an: ; but as to the part e<l ty the ( arlyles at that period the local records are silent. The family had apparently degenerated, or at least fallen into decay. In 1580, their peerage passed to a daughter of the house, Elizabeth, who carried the states over to a Douglas. lest son, James Douglas, was created I .< in 1609, and by his son the title was resigned in 1638 to Earl of Queensberry, who had acquired the es- A George Carlyl A ales, turned up as a clain of the estate, and got it, too, by a decree of the House i ;;o. It was thought that in him also lay The Farmers of Hoddam.. 9 the right to the peerage, but after dissipating his estate at Dumfries, which he accomplished in a few years, he vanished into Wales. A professor of Arabic at Cam- bridge, the Rev. Joseph D. Carlyle, who died in 1831, was said to be the next heir ; and it is worthy of note that a branch of the family, the Carlyles of Bridekirk, who also fell upon evil days, had for their male repre- sentative that minister of Inveresk whose Autobiography has sufficient vitality as a picture of manners to preserve the memory of the Rev. Alexander Carlyle as perhaps the crowning example of the Scottish " Moderate." No one who has read the family history of the Glad- stones, who declined from the position of territorial magnates of old renown in Lanarkshire to that of humble burgesses in Biggar, and who have again risen by the force of character and genius to a place second to that of no family in Britain, will regard our story of the Dum- friesshire Carlyles as an impertinence, though we are unable directly to connect the greatest man who has ever borne the name with the ancient lords of Torthorwald. He was of the same stock, beyond question ; and, if all the truth were known to us to-day, it might be found that he had as good a claim as any to such a preface as this to the story of his life. In the opening years of the seventeenth century we discover Carlyles among the merchant burgesses of Dumfries, one of them figuring as Bailie (Alderman) William Carlyle in the municipal records ; and we have only to enter such a burial-ground as that of Hoddam, on the roadside, a mile and a-half to the south of Ecclefechan, to find from the gravestones that Carlyles have for many generations been settled as farmers in the district. When we visited the place, the io Thomas Carlylc. first inscription that met our eye was in memory of a mas Carlyle who died at Eaglesficld in 1821 ; and near it was the memorial of a still earlier Thomas Cat of Sornsisyke, who died in the last century, two years before tlie i>hil"s,,ph c r was born. This quaint little < of the Dead, not more than 35 feet square, is shrouded by a thorn hedge on one hand and a strip of dark fir quite by accident that we lit uj*> and not without some diflirr. 1 -ve discovered an .ince. Once within the enclosure, nothing outside was to be seen hut a jat h of blue sky overhead There ..inil you of the living amid ubstones, tin nted, you are alone with the dead. No more skilful chisel than that of the ison has bee: <! . but when we read the onnected the peasants sleeping bem our feet with th< the spot be< in its jn' than thr : eater than the proud- -prang from the ranks ioddam. CHAPTER II. BIRTH OF CARLYLE AND DEATH OF BURNS BIRTH-PLACE AND PARENTAGE ANECDOTES OF HIS FATHER AND MOTHER. THE month of December 1795, which was darkened by national distress consequent on a failure of that year's harvest, and by political agitation of excessive violence resulting from the stringent Sedition Bill passed by the dominant party to restrict the expression of public senti- ment, is perhaps even more memorable as having wit- nessed the one meeting in the struggle of public life that took place between the two greatest Scotsmen of the period. While Robert Burns was upholding with his pen the cause of freedom as represented by the Liberal leader Henry Erskine, Walter Scott was voting in the Parliament House at Edinburgh for the reactionary Dundas. But what we now care most to remember was the sore trouble that had entered the humble home of the poet at Dum- fries. For four months the life of his youngest child, " a sweet little girl," as he described her in a letter written on one of those sad December days to Mrs Dunlop, had been trembling in the balance ; his own health was giving way ; poverty held him in its grip so tightly that he was obliged to write to a friend for the loan of a guinea ; and in the anxious, sleepless hours of the night he was incessantly asking himself, "What will become of my i 2 Thomas Car poor wife and bairns \\l \ seven months had come and gone after that bleak December, the "awkward squad M aptly symbolising a nation that knew not the value of the gift till it was gone had fired their farewell shots over the grave of Bi: It was while the great light of the Scottish nation was .j; to extinction at Dumfries that its successor in a still humbler domicile in an obscure ha: not more than sixteen miles distant from the burgh in which Uurns breathed his last Thomas Carlyle was born at Ecclefechan,* in the parish of Hoddam, on the 4th Deceml>er 1795.! -as the first child of James Carlyle and Margaret been married on the 5th March in the sanv Like Hugh Miller, his father v. -.ally the time of his son's birth he had hed the mature age of thirty-seven the very same age . : the poet who was then (!;, ! Dumfries. Tru D the sta: published (1 , Ixith as to the tion occi James < .hen he bee; 1 also as to his resid that . According to the account that might fairly em * It has been stated in some of the newspaper obituaries of < that ;c was also the Mrt! ; hut the biographr :^t saw the light rick- in the same con: : it her t The coir worth noting th.it the still surviving Leopold .ikin ., was bor: Thurin-i.i in the same tr o same year as his Scottish Tkt A **/ Hunt- *f Tktmmt C His Birth- Place. 13 be deemed the best accredited, since it came from the pen of a personal friend of Carlyle's, and was printed in a volume which he had himself authorised, he was born " in the parish of Middlebie, about half a mile from the village of Ecclefechan," and it is added that " his father was a small farmer in comfortable circumstances."* But there is every reason to believe that the father, presently to become a small farmer and by and by a pretty exten- sive one, was at the date of his marriage still following his original occupation as a stonemason, being also a bit of an architect, and that at the time of Thomas's birth his parents were resident in the village. James Carlyle had come into possession of two small one-storeyed cottages in Ecclefechan, between which a lane ran con- ducting to some houses at the back, and over this lane he thriftily threw an arch, thus connecting the cottages, besides adding a storey to their height. He let the ground floor to a baker, and, with his young wife, occu- pied one-half of the top floor, containing two rooms. It was in the smaller of these, the room immediately over the arch, a mere cupboard, nine feet by five, that Thomas Carlyle (according to this story) was born. To this day nothing is changed in the inner or outer aspect of the house, which is now inhabited by the gravedigger of the village and his family, f The father was the second of five brothers, sons of Thomas Carlyle, tenant of Brownknowe, a small farm * Biographical Memoir by Thomas Ballantyne, prefixed to Passages selected from the Writings of Thomas Carlyle. London : Chapman & Hall. 1855. P. i. t The Biographical Magazine. No. I, June 1877. London: Triibner & Co. Thomas Carlylc. in Annandale, all of whom, it is said, followed the same occupation of stonemason ; and who have left behind them, in the locality, a reputation for great strength, as well as eccentricity of chara< les were no other j>eople, M we have been told by more than one person who knew them. Strongly marked were their features, both of mind and body; and t :ual powers and moral force, much above the average, t would seem to have united a pugilist i a " fractiousncss," to borrow a i mi, that sometimes dcvelojxxl peculiar forms. " Pithy, r-speaking bodies, and awfu' i'< :em given by one neighbour; Dp in a few words the most of the opinion : i handed down I I to the present L ., and w! md floating to-da> ics appear >st notable, both in n kill ison, and his general sagacity, as well as in A other respects. The local tra him, > akin to that ot illustrious so: root of a bodie ! \vn him well t>cat this warld A l.odie; h coat tails, t could tell ! .too! Si< he would give to things and folk ! Sic wor- 1 as well as a great talker. " It was a murklc treat to IK he was ] old bodie, and could I no contradiction." Mr Dallantvnc de> His Father. 15 man possessing great force of character, of an earnest, religious nature, and much respected throughout the district, not less for his moral worth than for his native strength of intellect." He seems to have had many of the good qualities, the intelligence, earnestness, and moral purity, that shone conspicuous in the father of Burns ; and we have sometimes thought, that when de- lineating the peasant-saint in the third Book of Sartor Resartus* Carlyle had the figure of his own father vividly before his mind. But the elder Burns, we should say, though he could be stern on occasion and was of a sombre temperament, had a gentleness and a quiet dignity that did not pertain to the more active-minded, self-assertive, and even rather contentious Borderer. Annandale, we must bear in mind, had been for many centuries the arena of incessant warfare ; and the fighting quality, brought to a high pitch of perfection in all the old families of the " Debateable Land,"f descended with much of its mediaeval vigour to the eighteenth century Carlyles. Truth to tell, there seems to have been in Carlyle's father at least a touch of what his son found, and describes so well, in a second Ayrshire worthy, " Old * "Sublimer in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint. Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendour of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of the Earth, like a light shining in great darkness." Sartor Resartus, Book iii. Chap. 4. t The Debateable Land is the title of a Dumfriesshire local history, or historical pamphlet rather ; said to be a valuable little work in its way, manifesting considerable research. It was written by a Thomas Carlyle, described as "of Waterbeck." No student of the history of England and Scotland needs to be told the origin of the name which gave a title to his pamphlet. 1 6 Thomas CarlyU. Sulphur Brand," the irascible father of Boswell, known in the Parliament Hmiv: -urgh as Lord Auchinleck, and who, being a staunch Whig, proved more match even for Dr Johnson, when the two got on \yrshire. Of Carh iany anecdotes are still current Some of these, as we might expect, are apocryphal, especially a set of stories that represent him as noted pugilist however, there may be a grain of truth in the anecdote that, while working as a mason, he, in order to evince for a "pup" (that is, a dandy) who was passing, let fall ii|>on him, from the top of the ladd< huge mass of mortar. A venerable native of Ec< (alive and resident in Cilasgow the other day), who is old uemher him, tells of the unfailing regula and almost soldier lik ipline with w: 1C patriarch i. family into the front pew of the Kirk, where : hij>l>ed; and one little i- he relates is not without significance. The windows of the meeting-house ^ destitute of Mi; . of the congregation were inc< n the warm summer days by the bur: roposal was made to proem a subscription started The collectors called on rated their case, expressing a hope that he would give something. he c-vlaimed, "you want siller to shut C.od's blessed lirht out o' ain house? Na, na, 11 >u nothing for si had was. -Id have been a different mat: I mirht : subscrintiun." So the ,1! .d to co away as they Anecdote of his Father. 1 7 came. Another story, though homely and even gro- tesque, illustrates his hatred of all deceit. One of his children there were nine in all was about to be married, and the young folks concluded, in view of the festive occasion, that it would be seemly to have the doors and walls of the house adorned with a coating of paint. But the father refused to listen to this proposal, holding that it was better to let the old walls remain in their native integrity than to pollute them with what he regarded as the brush of falsehood. The rest of the household, however, remained resolute in their deter- mination, and gave the painters instructions to proceed with the work, meanwhile bringing all their batteries of persuasion to bear on their father, in which effort they were probably assisted by the gentle mother. The com- bined pleadings, however, were all urged in vain. On the appointed day came the painters, whereupon the old man, who had planted himself in the doorway of his domicile, demanded to know what had brought them thither. To pent the hoose," they replied. " To pent the hoose!" he exclaimed; "ye can just slent the bog (that is, retrace your steps) wi j yer ash-backet feet, for ye'll pit nane o' yer glaur (mud) on my door." As he advanced in life, he became more decidedly religious, and one proof of this was furnished by the gradual mellowing of hi<= dis n. Mr Carlyle once told a friend that his special fondness for reading theology, and \ en was his favourite author. "He could n\ '.ything fictitious in books," said his son, " a. a man in the full presence of Heaven, and Judgment." Mr Carlyle thought his father, \sidered, the best B 1 8 Thomas Carfylc. man whom he had ever known. On one occasion he said to a friend, " He was a far cleverer man than I or ever will be." her time he described hiu. one who, "like Kn<xh of old, walked with Go was much in the habit of using old fashioned words . >es, with which he had become familiar in his rea< of the purita: re was a rare pungency, to< speech; and ;s," according to one arp, ran through the cour Edwar-: while pa the y, was greatly impressed with the bright and \ iseology of the old man ; and, after conversing f while with the sire, he turned to the son, 1 Hi acquired t liar, original, and forcible manner of expressing your i(! I have dixovLTcd t': an inhcritani father." The old man died in 1832, at the agi 1 four sons Thomas, James, A ander, John Aitken, the last named well k 1 >r fnftrno one of t years of century, he < lull, in the parish of Hoddam, and at thr noved to Scotsbrig, in the parish of so or three him acre occupied by V :ily-surviving brother JamCfc If Irving was right, as he seems to have Iven, in the notion that the father had talc had be mit: tnr the laying <>n cf nicknames that would sti< k lx:ing on.* that cvidcntl;. that iiit* J\j ice/ .-*e*A u.>tt)i *>/ini1 if nrf rrrrit/r His Mother. 19 confidence, that Carlyle owed very much that was best, in his nature and even in his writings, to his mother. She was her husband's second wife; for James Carlyle, at the age of thirty-two, had married a distant cousin of his own, Jannet Carlyle, the daughter of a small farmer. But this first wife died in 1792, in her twenty-fifth year, leaving one son. About three years afterwards, the widower who had meanwhile built for himself the quaint little dwelling known as "The Arched House" married Margaret Aitken, a native of Whitestanes, in the parish of Kirkmahoe. Her parents, though belonging to the upper section of the working class, were not in such circum- stances as enabled them to keep their family at home; and so Margaret was sent out to domestic service. " She could read, but, like most of the members of her class at that time, and even down to a much later period, she was not able to write. It is a remarkable fact that, like Janet Hamilton the Coatbridge poetess, she taught her- self writing when she was well advanced in life, with the care of a large family resting upon her ; and she did so with the sole object of being able to correspond with her eldest son. All the accounts we have got of this woman go to prove that, though originally a domestic servant, she was, in the best sense of the word, a lady. In person she was a little woman, of a slender make, and endowed with the gift of beauty. As a housewife she was careful and hardworking, and an admirable manager; but in her the qualities of Martha were blended with those of the meditative Mary: for she was a great reader, deeply religious, and endowed with a very sweet temper, in which last-named respect she furnished a contrast to her fiery and, at times, tempestuous husband. The quality 20 Thomas Carlylc. mind, both as to its strength and independence, ifficiently attested by the fact the most remarkable we know concerning her that it was she who first sug- gested to her son that new theory as to the characu Cromwell which he was the fir before the world It was through her spiritual instincts, we are told, that she had discovered that the then prevailing cstim.v the Protector was incorrect ; and more than this we do not require to know, son was indeed justified in indulging that tone of personal ilation which may be detected in one of his aph- to the effect that no able man ever had a fool for a mother. To strength 01 he united a u ome tenderness of heart ; and there can be no doubt ht, and poetic sensibility, was fond of dwelling on -s, he would confess that tirely too peaceable and pious and he was \sont humorously to deplore some s. tl of her enjoining non-resibtam e upon him at school 1 love kind of worship, and tradi handed down many touching little anecdotes that about her learning to write being one of the number which go to prove that the affection of the son was 1 to the full. n we know that it was she who suggested that '.ication of Cromwell, which many regard as greatest, and nost satisfactory work, we are not si <> be told that, though the subjects uiK.>n which her son wrote were new to are, and particularly read nnd rr-ri .id // Resolution. One of his Anecdote of his Mother. 2 1 friends, like himself an Ecclefechan man, used often to call on Mrs Carlyle and get an early reading of her son's latest book, which, with filial attention, was always for- warded to her at the earliest possible moment. This gentleman would read the book aloud to the old lady, doing his best, no doubt, to help her over the difficulties ; for it was her frequent, if not invariable, salutation, " I hae gotten anither o' Tarn's buiks, but I can mak' naeth- ing o't" We suspect, however, that she generally con- trived to master them. It is said that she was at first somewhat disturbed by the new religious views she met with in the books, but when she found that her son was in earnest, and steadfast, she cared for no more. The first anecdote that we remember to have heard concerning Carlyle, was one relating to the visit he paid to his mother, for the purpose of spending a few days with her before he set off for Germany to procure materials for his Life of Frederick. On the morning when he had to take his departure, a little group of friends all of whom, we fear, must now be gone were gathered on the railway platform at Ecclefechan to see him off. On entering the booking office he happened to put his hand into his coat pocket, where he discovered something bulky, of whose presence he did not seem to have been aware. He at once took it out, and on unfolding the mysterious parcel, he discovered it to contain some nice home-made Dum- friesshire bannocks, which his mother just as when he was a little boy at school had stowed away in his pocket, that he might use them on his journey. The discovery was too much for him. The simple circumstance had transported him to the days of childhood ; and when his friends came forward to grasp his hand, his eyes were 22 Thomas Carlylc. suffused with tears, and his voice trembled One of the two saddest \ ever j.aid to Scotsbrig was in the last hours of 1853, when his venerable mother \\ the grave. She died on Christmas I ' her husband twenty-one years. CHAPTER III. ETCHINGS OF ECCLEFECHAN VILLAGE CULTURE AND GREAT MEN THE HOME TRAINING OF CARLYLE HIS MOTHER'S LESSON HOW HIS FATHER DIED ANEC- DOTES OF HIS CHILDHOOD. FEW writers of even a professed autobiography have given a fuller, and none a more vivid, history of their early life than Carlyle supplies in the second book of Sartor Resartus. The more narrowly we investigate the subject on the spot, the plainer does it appear that those wonder- ful opening selections from the paper bags of Diogenes Teufelsdrockh are not only a spiritual record of the childhood of Thomas Carlyle, but that they are also a scrupulously faithful picture of the actual scenes and society in the midst of which he was reared. Under the thinnest possible veil, woven by richly humorous fancy, we find portraits of his parents in Father Andreas and Gretchen ; and Entepfuhl is a picture of Ecclefechan as accurate as if it had been written for a guide book or a gazetteer. Mrs Oliphant, as the biographer of Edward Irving, visited the place not so many years ago ; and she gives a graphic view of the scene where " the low grey hills close in around the little hamlet of Ecclefechan, forgotten shrine of some immemorial Celtic saint ; a scene not grandly picturesque, but full of sweet pastoral freedom and solitude; the hills rising grey against the sky, with slopes of springy turf, where the sheep pastured, Thomas Carlylt. and she; an antique type pondered the ways of God to man." But more lovingly minute are the etchings of the village and the surrounding country that have been executed by vho spent there the ha years which were as ages, when the young spirit, ed out of Eu ot yet learned wh; ;e when *ai yet Time was no fast-hurr. stream, but a sportful sunlit ocean." in the opening < ccond book of Sartor is the fry it qf^the^iiugn those plastic >, when the whole soul : the invisible seed-grain will grow to be an all overshadowing tree." We are told how the village stood, as it still K mgement, among the woody slopes;" and "the little Kuhbarh gu^l kindly 1 ugh river after river, of t' \Vhen we SEW it upwards t | . years ago, on a :ner cemed ra 1 gp*h little stream ; and it was crossed in the village by a multitude of bridges. It was open at that time; but U greater ; to the sanitary ad. was effected, at his own sole c<> t, a native of the village, over whose giave, in the .south-caN'. .irish ch headstone \ing .irk- COOncll Hall; Lorn i 6lh July i Arnolt w.> many yean sut . . Egypt, Maidi, i, throughout the 1'eninsular War, a: na he was the n. esteem he won, and whose last moments he soothed. The remain - most useful and cxcn nt in the reiireuicnt nf hi n.itivr flr\rr_ hnnriirr<1 nml lmlnvr<! hv .ill who knrw him." Changes at Ecclefechan. 25 tage and the convenience of the inhabitants ; though the good work has involved a sacrifice of the picturesque charm which the burn had for Carlyle in his early days. The pilgrim to his shrine will be pleased to note that, in front of the tenement in which he was born, the streamlet still flows in an open channel ; and traces may be seen on its margin of the ash and beech trees with which it was formerly fringed. Though so many of the lines in Carlyle's picture of the place are as true to-day as they were eighty years ago, some others, like that of the gushing Kuhbach, have been either altered or wholly blotted out. The swineherd's horn, and the spectacle of the " hungry happy quadrupeds starting in hot haste " to answer its welcome morning call, to say nothing of their humorous but orderly return in the evening, when each, " topographically correct," trotted off " through its own lane to its own dwelling," are no longer to be heard or seen. The last swineherd of Eccle- fechan long since doffed for ever his " darned gabardine and leather breeches, more resembling slate or discoloured- tin breeches," and now sleeps peacefully in the same kirk- yard with the bright-eyed boy who was to send the memory of him down through the ages. The Postwagen that used to wend through the village northwards from London to Glasgow "in the dead of night, slow-rolling under its mountains of men and luggage," and which passed " south- wards visibly at eventide," has given place to the railway train. And the woodman's axe has been laid years ago to the root of the grand old tree, so long the pride of the villagers, which stretched "like a parasol of twenty ells in radius, overtopping all other rows and clumps ; " but there are many people yet alive who 26 Thomas Carlylc. remember the time when, under its shadow, " in the glorious summer twi ;e ciders of the hamlet sat talki: .is they had done when little The: was one of their most attentive auditors, "often greedily listening,'' as he himself : to their stories and debates, while " the wearied labourers i and the unu ;>orted, and the young men and \\ danced to flute-music." The annual cattle fair, however, " undoubtedly the grand summary (A tepfuhl's child-culture," though now shorn of much of its pristine glory, as is the case with all similar institu- tions in this age of railways, still gathers into a field close by "the elements of an unshakable hurly-burly;" and looking out and up from any point of 'vantage in the hollow where the village lies we see how faithful rein the uire of the " upland irregular wold, where valle\s in comflex branching . .ddenly or sl< . their descent towards every quarter of the Sucl scenic and social environments of Carlyle in his childhood. We may add that the village was then, what it has latterly ceased to be, a seat of the gingham ufacture ; so that eighty years ago tl :ion was composite, including a large proportion of n light at the loom. In-icci!. then is an old tombstone in the :nory of a Ro Peal, who lived in K< B, and wl. -i 1749 at the age of 57, coi whom the local tradition asserts that he was either the great ul-uncle of Sir Robert Peel ; and it is further st. by the sanu statesma: 1 to I .an- Ecclefechan and England. 27 cashire to engage in the cotton trade.* Now the popula- tion, which numbers about 900, is exclusively agricultural. The older one-storeyed cottages were for the most part built by Carlyle's father and uncle; and as they are regu- larly whitewashed once a year, on the approach of the annual fair, they have a much tidier appearance than one is accustomed to find in villages farther north. The winsome aspect of the hamlet is enhanced by the more modern tenements being faced with the red sandstone that abounds in the district. This outward neatness is not the only token which tells the stranger passing through from the north that he is leaving Scotland behind him. The country has become more level, the verdure richer ; if you ask your way at any roadside cottage, ten to one but you are answered in the dialect of Cumberland or of Lancashire by an English tongue, which wags cheerily to the music of pattens on the clean stone floor ; the very tavern signboards proclaim that England is near by inti- mating " ale and spirits " an inversion of the Scotch order or by leaving out altogether what in Scotland is the leading article. A man's parentage and early surroundings, according to Carlyle's view, are the grand factors in determining the nature of his life ; and we have his own authority for con- cluding that his early position was, in both respects, " favourable beyond the most." Certain sapient editors, with the spirit of provincial self-complacency that is * ' ' There is a short cross street in the village which used to be known as Peal's Wynd, where lived an old lady, Betty Peal, who is said to have been the recipient of Sir Robert Peel's bounty, on the ground that she was considered by him to be a relative." Scotsman Newspaper, Feb. II, 1881. 28 V/f. nowhere found to such j>erfe< turn as in a metropolis, have remarked that few educational advantages were to be found in the obscure hamlet where Carlyle was l> The mere mention <>! might have led thei pause before expressing such an opinion ; and forgot the case of Burns, whose opportunities, from : w, were smaller still The scholar whose un:. ony farm of Mount Oliphant, who had .u M i IK i 'uses of Kyle, did he not become the interpreter of Scotland to elf and to the world? The two great of 1 . and almost t' be said of Shakspeare himself. ^ een how for- tunate Carlyle was in his parentage ; and t! already made is deep- fl his personal history that are revealed in Sitr' ng of the :.o doubt owing to the the mot ng gentleness, : dls< more than the child could hear. liven M thingl uir, li.e ii:;. ::./:!!-, i::<; <-ol were pro-' arly per in ; of which misfortune how .rC8 yet abide '- 1 to realise the w! u of the misfortune. It is cxident that James Carlyle, who, as we have seen. rather la: ing over him, hovering round him, eager to slig! hand to avert his anger: "assidu- CO<>' '-hat have a good d .caning. .er was a pious i: His Home Training. 29 but before time had mellowed him his piety was of a some- what different sort from that of the mother. His attend- ance at church partook of the character of parade-duty, "for which he in the other world expected pay with arrears, as, I trust, he has received." But the mother, " with a true woman's heart, and fine though uncultivated sense, was in the strictest acceptation religious." She rendered an altogether invaluable service to her boy by teaching him, " less by word than by act and daily reverent look and habitude, her own simple version of the Christian Faith." For any defects in the parental training Carlyle was not the man to whimper. Instead of being disposed to quarrel with his upbringing, he was devoutly thankful as he looked back upon it, and saw that even out of its excessive austerity good had come. In an age that has witnessed a sad and often disastrous relaxation of parental control, the words in which Carlyle congratulates himself on his rigorous training cannot be too earnestly pondered. The bond of obedience imposed upon him was, he tells us, strait and inflexible. " I was forbid much : wishes in any measure bold I had to renounce." Often he shed bitter tears as the lessons were administered which taught him how Freewill comes in painful collision with Neces- sity. But, if his father erred, it was on the right side j for, in the habituation to obedience, " it was beyond mea- sure safer to err by excess than by defect." That habit laid for him "the basis of worldly discretion, nay of morality itself." It was "the root of deeper earnestness, of the stem from which all noble fruit must grow." Tender and true are the last loving touches in the picture of the domestic culture which left its mark indelibly on Thomas Carlyle. " Above all, how unskilful soever, it was 30 Thomas Carlyle. loving, it was well meant, honest; whereby every defi- :icy was helped" How faithfully the son returned that love! He was r weary of sounding the praises of the father who had been so sternly faithful ; and when he mentioned he was a grey old man of more :i fourscc tender emo; One day in London, when he was within n few months of le was walking in company with an Amer stranger who had that day called to see him. When half way o Carlyle suddenly stopped, and stooping down kicked something out of the mud, at the risk of being run over one of the many carriages that \\ ng past : ushed the mud off and placed the white sul^tanre in a clean sjxrt on tl me, said he, in a tone as sweet and in words as had ever heard, " is only a crust of bread. Yet I w.i> b my mother never to waste, : above all bread, more pn .in gold, Stan- the same to the tx>dy that the i the 1 the little si*.- dog will get nourishment G bear in his heart till 1 ays on earth the homeliest I learnt from the lips <: a fact worth noting that the la .rlyle ever saw his father was on his journey from CraigenputUx ' Ixmdon, when he went to the modem Bab\ MS. of Sartor for the purpose of p I "Thomas Carlylr a! ! ncc \YinthfOp Bowen, i Tht Independent ( Anecdotes of his Childhood. 31 came upon my fool's errand," said he once to Milburn, the blind Methodist preacher from America, " and I saw my father no more, for I had not been in town many days when tidings came that he was dead. He had gone to bed at night as well as usual, it seems ; but they found in the morning that he had passed from the realm of Sleep to that of Day. It was a fit end for such a life as his had been. He was a man at the four corners of whose house there had shined through the years of his pilgrimage, by day and by night, the light of the glory of God. Like Enoch of old, he had walked with God ; and at the last he was not, for God took him." And, after a pause, he added : " If I could only see such men as were my father and his minister, men of such fearless and simple faith, with such firmness in holding on to the things that they believed, and saying and doing only what they thought was right, in seeing and hating the thing that they felt to be wrong, I should have far more hope for this British nation, and indeed for the world at large." Some of the anecdotes of Carlyle's childhood are signi- ficant as well as amusing. It is evident that he was pre- cocious. " In some fifteen months," baby Thomas "could perform the miracle of Speech !" Even earlier than that he seems to have begun to realise the great truth that Silence is Golden. He was " noted as a still infant, that kept his mind much to himself; above all, that seldom or never cried. He already felt that time was precious ; that he had other work cut out for him than whimpering." A profound impression seems to have been made upon his mind by his investiture in his first short-clothes of yellow serge ; " or rather, I should say, my first short-cloth, for the vesture was one and indivisible, reaching from neck to 32 Thomas Car ank 1 :th four limbs," a fashion of child altirc that long < j. arts of Scot- land, though now probably qui '. Very prcf .-rs on the on-hard wall, whithc: the . he was wont to < brea Ik : having cither got up himself by climbing, or been assisted 1 any I, looking at the distant \s< un- tains, consumed, not without relish, my evening meal Those hues of gold hush of cctation as I). was still a Hebrew Speech 1 looking at the fair illumii. :or their gilding." He was on ;th all r and poultry, thereby uiring "a certain ith anin. nat use of humour was awakened within him , trustful " of the poor pigs obeying th ns of the swineherd ; the Mug-lodged in our cottage lobby," with the littl- l>lumb under the nest MI from the 1 so that t, nimble creatures taught him m.t was abo years old wh- im that the stagecoach "could be other than some terrestrial moon, rising . nature, like the heavenly one; t' me on i hig! es; weaving them like :ous shuttle into < ; hild of the same age would ]>rol)ably have ki that but to how few would ' come that arose in the mind of this littl- nan- d " and a hist< : The First Glimpse of His Work. 33 ndency given him," a fact specially worthy of note by le narrative habits of his paternal grandfather (though in artor he ascribes these to Father Andreas). The old ian had been of an adventurous turn, had travelled even ; far as London ; and eagerly the child " hung upon his les, when listening neighbours enlivened the hearth." ^ith amazement he began to discover that Ecclefechan stood in the middle of a Country, of a World; that tere was such a thing as History, as Biography ; to hich I also, one day, by hand and tongue, might con- ibute." Thus, at the tender age of eight, the Vindicator r Cromwell and the most brilliant historian of the French .evolution got the first glimpse of the work that had been ven him to do. CHAPTER IV. BOY BOOKWORM- <ST SCHOOLMASTER CLAS- SICAL I \r THE MANSE THE HI ILJM AT ANNAN AT BURNs's CRA BEFORE the first-born of James Carlyle had entered second year, the improving circumstances of the fa led him to move from the small house over the ':, Of " Ptend," U it i baOed in Scotland, to a n. commodious dwelling a two-storeyed cottage, a\ :<>ad, in a lane whjph used to be ca' k - Matthew Murray's Close," but \ now kr. Close." In this house all the oil children were born, and here Thomas was brought up. uiinber of changes, the tenet; become the village butcher)', or "slaughter house," as they phra.se it in the North. Almost from his :icy Carlyle was a great reader. In a cottage close by there lived until a year or two ago an aged won Million, \vh>, when a girl, :i nursed Thomas, and "given him many a ride upon her luck ;" and, accord to her testimony. iced with that of other con: por. was always a thoughtful and studious child, mixed little with tl idren, or even with The Boy Bookworm. 35 own brothers or sisters, having a greater relish for the society of his grandfather and other grown up people, and who was fond of roaming about the fields and hills, always with a book in his hand. In Sartor he himself tells us that he could not remember ever to have learned reading ; " so perhaps had it by nature." What printed thing soever he could meet with, he read; and all his pocket money, never more than copper, he laid out on stall literature, by which is signified, we presume, those penny chap-books that were then the sole literature for the people ; which, as they accumulated, he with his own hands sewed into volumes. "By this means was the young head furnished with a considerable miscellany of things and shadows of things : History in authentic fragments lay mingled with fabulous chimeras, wherein also was reality ; and the whole not as dead stuff, but as living pabulum, tolerably nutritive for a mind as yet so peptic." He was early noted for his extraordinary memory. At the age of five he could repeat the heads and particulars of any sermon he heard, a greater feat, in those days of "painful" preachers and long sermons, than it would be in our more superficial time. As a boy he exhibited considerable ability as an orator, and on one occasion, at some local public discussion, he astonished the audience, including even his own father, by an extraordinary burst of eloquence. Of his schoolmasters, using the word in its technical sense, he does not speak very respectfully. "Of the insignificant portion of my education which depended on schools, there need almost no notice be taken." He must have been little more than an infant when he was sent to the parish school, then taught by a poor dominie 36 Thomas CarlyU. of tl ^cnus, one William Gullcn bj \ name, whose ponrait makes a pathetic passage in and :. y of whose life might be worth tcl had it been preserved in an authentic form. According j to the local .he seems, like too many of kind, to have l>ccn harshly used by the parish i; and this is so far borne out by Carlyle's account of him down-be:/ -it man;. if he did lit- ;-il, had at least "the mer; discovering that he could do little;" and whom we bound to think of resj>ectfully, since he had the insigl dis< in the little Carlyle, whom he pronounced "a gen. itation, he declared that he w. School, and one day to the I" njggling don. 'ie i>crsecution of the minister, to i be tO America, il : him at 1 close to the Road a long cor building. l^ir, ^f|hurch of St I'echan, fmm v.: more commodious schoolhouse was erected, old one now serves the purpose of a poorhouse for the n. tion of "casi: le had j year when he was the Aca ar School, Ot her had once been a pupil, and up wa the ll name of M .tcrschlag Gymnasium." According to all accounts, it must ' His First Classical Tutor. 37 well deserved the unsavory title, for the master, even at that period of educational brutality, was distinguished for the unmerciful severity of his punishments. Adam Hope was his rather inappropriate name ; he knew syntax enough, " and of the human soul thus much that it had a faculty called memory, and could be acted on through the muscular integument by appliance of birch rods." Hope was also the teacher of Edward Irving, and it is only doing justice to his memory to say, that Irving used to ascribe to his tutor's severity the scholarship which his own disposition would not have led him to acquire. He often had his ears pinched by the master till they bled. Young as he was, it would seem that Carlyle had acquired the elements of Latin before going to Annan, having been assisted in the task by a student son of the Secession minister of Ecclefechan, who taught a class in his father's manse when he was at home during the University recess. There is a local tradition that it was the mother who insisted on her eldest boy having the advantage of this classical training. Old James wished little Thomas to " gang and work," which set the child book-worm a-crying bitterly. He told his mother that he wanted to keep to his " buiks ; " and her gentle influence prevailed, against the paternal decision, in securing for her first-born the greatest wish of his heart. It is a story that has been repeated in many a humble Scottish home. Young Johnston, the minister's son, was wont to tell in after years how he discovered that the boy (not yet eight years old) had been privately studying his Latin Rudiments with great industry, but that his grammar and construc- tion were in a chaotic state. After three months' drill, however, little Thomas had succeeded in grasping the 38 Thomas Carfylc. intricacies of both, and could translate Virgil and Horace with an case that astonished his tutor.* The precocity of the rhild is attested by the mar- vellous!;. : impression which he retained of that 41 red sunny \\ 1 morning," when, trotting the intervening miles, full of hope, by his father's sic! entered the clock (then striking eight) and jail, and the aproned or ned burghers moving in to breakfast" A little dog was rushing pa id terror, with a tin \. which some human imps had tied V) its tail ; this, and all the oilier details of the scene, fix then D his memory, and arc reproduced nearly thirty years after- wards with the quaint fidelity of a Dutch jointer. bullies of the school were cruel to the little boy intagc of u his small per ure, M and al>o of the unwillingness to fight v mother ::i planting in him as a funda- mental prin< action; and In often i. their tyranny ki that 1. mcd the Tearful, which epithet, til was not quite unmer: , however, i4 the young soul t on ' writes : "Carlylc continued :i a warm I ' ' ;cd a Pre> They frequently conrespondi copy of .e-i the tendencies of ( wv, sometimes with regret, and sometimes with pleasure, \\hen he f..rwan!cl his ' Letters and Speeches of mwell,' > nit on wrote, thanking him, aiul cn . him for his . .1; this grc.i 1 biograph) which ^ hopes conccniing the Id pupil's relit;. A Nephew of Burns. 39 Durst forth into fire-eyed rage, and, with a stormfulness mder which the boldest quailed," he asserted his rights, n defiance of his mother's law. Even in his purchasing of chap-books before he left lome, it is hardly possible that he could have observed rvith strictness the rigid rule laid down by his father igainst all works of fiction ; but, under the milder sway }f the cooper in whose house he lodged at Annan, the paternal injunctions were no doubt set aside with even greater freedom, for he tells how "he remembered : ew happier days than the one on which he ran off into the lelds to read Roderick Random, and how inconsolable he ras that he could not get the second volume." "To ;his day," he added, "I think few writers equal to Smollett " an estimate that may be ascribed, in part at east, to the sweet memory of that day in which he drank ;he stolen waters. So far as the school was concerned, bis time at Annan, according to his own report, was utterly wasted, the teaching being purely mechanical; but tie " went about, as was his wont, among the craftsmen's workshops, there learning many things," and he also got good from " some small store of curious reading " probably including that fragment of the forbidden Smollett which he found at the house where he lodged. It con- firms our faith in the strictly autobiographical character of Sartor when we learn that it was actually a cooper's house, the cooper being a relation of his father's. It is, perhaps, not unworthy of note that one of Car- lyle's school-fellows at Annan was Thomas Burns, a nephew of the poet, who subsequently became parish minister of Monkton, in Ayrshire, and died at Dunedin, where he was Free Church minister and Chancellor of 40 Thomas CarlyU. the University of Otago, in 1871. \\ i ;. at M -nkton he .:>like to any mention of his illustrious u: being made in his presence. The good man came to know the years went \>y ; and at the antipodes heenjo the lusta is reflected upon him from the chief of Scottish song. It was probably during the Annan days that Carlyle went to Dumfries to see the grave of Burns. npsc of his boyhood, a forth be treasured in the Scottish heart, he gave to an Anu itor a few years ago during a walk from < Isea to Piccadilly. He told of his early a. of Burns how he used to creep into the churchyard of Dm .1 little boy, and find the tomb of poet. the simple inscription by the hour. it was," said he, "in the midst of poor fellow- labourers and ait :;d the name Robert 1 At morn, at noon, and eventide, he loved to go and read that name. Thus were thoughts dimly suggested to the mind of the l>oy, that quickened and grew, till at length, in his manhood, they found expression in what was the first and seems likely to be the last worthy and all- sufficing u of the life and works of the Scu: bard. CHAPTER V. THE SECESSION KIRK CARLYLE'S PORTRAIT OF DR LAW- SON LETTER TO A PASTOR'S WIDOW ANOTHER LINK WITH BURNS. CARLYLE'S parents were Nonconformists; and it was in the Secession Church at Ecclefechan, of which his father and mother were members, that he received such nutri- ment as the Scottish pulpit was destined to bestow upon him in his early years. Those who know what that partic- ular branch of the Church was at the dawn of our century, and especially the character of its leading lights, will have no difficulty, as they read his works, in discerning the permanent mark which this part of his youthful culture left upon his mind and heart. It was a Church which had its origin in the attachment of the best part of the Scottish nation to two things without which a true Church is simply impossible purity of doctrine and life, and freedom of administration. Its chief founders were Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine, the former of whom, along with three other parish ministers, had been expelled from their ministerial charges by the General Assembly in 1733 for their faithful protest against the worldly policy which had degraded the doctrine and the life of the Established Church, besides annihilating the rights of the people by the infliction of the tyrannical Law of Patronage. In 1747 the new communion, which, however, represented 42 Thomas Carlyle. the old spirit of t: \vas unhappily broken into two sections l>y a difference of opinion with respect to the burgess oath, which imposed on all who swore it a pledge "to profess and allow the true religion presently professed within this realm, and authorised by the laws thereof." Some held that the swearing of this oath was virtual approval of the Establishment with all its corrup- - ; others maintained that the oath referred only to the true as professed, but did not involve any approval of the mode of its settlement by the State. The controversy led to a separation. The party which ob- d to the taking of the oath formed itself into the ral Associate Synod; the other section the original title of Associate Synod The former body were popular rghers, the latter the ,;hers names that remained in use long at had ceased to represent any living reality. The church at Fxxlefechan belonged to the Burgher branch of the Secession, Its pastor, the Rev. John Johnston, was a notable man, an excellent scholar, and in every other essential respect the model of what a Christian minister ought to be. He had studied theology under Professor Brown of Haddington ; and he was him- self the first classical tutor of a carpenter's son in Peebles- :e, who made his mark on the spiritual history of Scotland as Professor Lawson of Selkirk. The lim Sartvr that may be construed as bearing at least some rence to the church \\huh Carlyle attended with parents are few, but they are impressive. " The highest whom I knew on earth I here saw bowed down, with awe ;>eakable, before a Higher in Heaven: such things, especially in infancy, reach inwards to the very con The Burgher Minister. your being; mysteriously does a Holy of Holies buil itself into visibility in the mysterious deeps ; and Reve\ rence, the divinest in man, springs forth undying from its x mean envelopment of Fear." The United Presbyterian Church,* in which all sections of the Seceders are now happily included, is represented at Ecclefechan to-day by a handsome Gothic edifice, situated close by the churchyard, with a square clock tower the most conspicuous object in the village ; but it was in a rude little meeting-house, in no wise differing from the cottages of the peasantry, and which the pilgrim may still see standing by the roadside as he walks from the railway station to the village, that the young soul was impressed with the awe to which he has given such memorable utterance. More fully, both in conversation and in letters, did Carlyle, down to his closing years on the earth, testify to the depth and duration of that hallowed ^influence. Oftener than once he was heard to declare, " I have seen many capped and equipped bishops, and other episcopal dignitaries; but I have never seen one who more beautifully combined in himself the Christian and the Christian gentleman than did Mr Johnston." To the blind preacher Milburn, from America, he said (in 1860) that " it was very pleasant to see his father in his daily and weekly relations with the minister. They had been friends from youth. That minister (he must have said the * " We had the pleasure of visiting the locality in the month of August last, and found several relatives of Mr Carlyle, all in com- fortable circumstances, and mostly connected with the United Presbyterian Church." Thomas Carlyle: the Man and Teacher. By David Hodge, M. A. Ardrossan : Ar^u^^jhiie. 1873. 44 '"as Car. minister's son) w:i >t person that ever taught me I^itin, and I am not sure but that he laid a very ^ curse upon me in so doing. I think it is likely I should nly a godlicr one, if I had followed in my father's steps. cek and Latin to the fools that wanted r uner communions came round there often stood by the village pastor in the pulpit at E< , now the learned and pious Pro- fessor from the little Secession Academy at Selkirk ; that these occasions were not forgotten by at least one youthful hearer has been put beyond dispute by the t mony of Carlyle himself. ite Dr John V of Glasgow, latterly of Clapham, published nu-moir of Lawson, he sent a copy of the book to the aged philosopher at Chelsea, and -in 1870) an nowledgment which was probably the most fon I guerdon for what had been his labour of love. our Biography of Dr Lawum? wrote < interested me not a little, bringing present to me from much that it is good to be reminded of; strangely awakening many thoughts, ones and recollections of forty, of sixty yean ago all now grown very sad to me, but also very beautiful and solemn. It seems to me I gather ive and from his own letters a Thomas Car/ Bocks, kit Tkvrift. By Alfred II. ... -.scy. New uc<! the r lections of his conversations u icmsey, makes Carlyle s. was "an cMcr .f the Kirk," at pastor was "minister of (he parish." The reporter most have forgotten the exact words that were really used by Carlyle. The report throughout is evidently a very free one, though bearing the marks of general authentic His Portrait of Dr Lawson. 45 perfectly credible account of Dr Lawson's character, course of life, and labours in the world ; and the reflec- tion rises in me that perhaps there was not in the British Island a more completely genuine, pious- minded, diligent, and faithful man. Altogether original too, peculiar to Scotland, and, so far as I can guess, unique even there and then. England will never know him out of any book or, at least, it would take the genius of a Shakspere to make him known by that method ; but if England did, it might much and wholesomely astonish her. Seen in his intrinsic character, no simpler-minded, more perfect 4 lover of wisdom,' do I know of in that generation. Pro- fessor Lawson, you may believe, was a great man in my boy circle ; never spoken of but with reverence and thankfulness by those I loved best. In a dim but singularly conclusive way I can still remember seeing him, and even hearing him preach (though of that latter, except the fact of it, I retain nothing) ; but of the figure, face, tone, dress, I have a vivid impression (perhaps about my twelfth year, i.e., summer of 1807-8); it seems to me he had even a better face than in your frontispiece more strength, sagacity, shrewdness, simplicity, a broader jaw, more hair of his own (I don't much re- member any wig) ; altogether a most superlative steel- grey Scottish peasant (and Scottish Socrates of the period) ; really, as I now perceive, more like the twin brother of that Athenian Socrates who went about, supreme in Athens, in wooden shoes, than any man I have ever ocularly seen. Many other figures in your narrative were, by name or person, familiar to my eyes or mind, in that far-off period of my life." Not unworthy to be ranked with this is the letter 46 Thomas CarlyU. addressed in 1868 to the widow of a United Presbyterian minister, who had ed volume of her husba: .ions, and sent a copy to Carlylc. " Your gentle, sad, and modest gilt," he rcplit iournful and . to me. I i it with thanks, and it shall be among Well do I understand your deso feelings ; and what pious beauty was in the noble labours you undertook for the sake of him that is gone; the fruit iich is this book, which I doubt not will be a spirit- iKrncfit to many. May it be a blessing to many : to yourself, I cannot doubt, it ha been ! An iticult, and at possible perhaps to you alone of the living! I know well what ot and sacred a nt to a r sorrow must have Ixx-n in it, and much approve of lorn, and still augur well of \ uin sympathy, alas, cannot help; only time and >ut reflection and above all, strenuous employment in doing what remains to be done. Only or I see the rtner whom \ t ; but I marked ::i him the features of a faith: k-en taught to i re, and pious mother M of him I loss, I see how imme: and hov. it. I will <.n!v say, may \vn faithful, brave, and loving soul, inspired (we may well say) f: _;her sour. Dear a sermon preach cstminster >ey on t 1 ith, assc: that Carlyle " still dun-, amidst all the vi i^itiuies of * "the Church of Scotland. Another Link with Burns. 47 Dean is so intimately conversant with Scottish ecclesi- astical history, that he ought to have perceived the misleading tendency of such a phrase. It may not be out of place here to note that Dean Stanley, in his entertaining Lectures on the History of the Church of Scotland, describes Burns as "the prodigal son of the Church of Scotland," and alleges that "the kindly and genial spirit of the philosophic clergy and laity saved him from being driven, by the extravagant pretensions of the popular Scottish religion, into absolute unbelief." The lecturer does not seem to have known the fact, that what the poet really thought of " the philosophic clergy " of the Establishment was placed beyond all doubt by the selection he made at Dumfries, when he took seats for himself and his family in the Secession Kirk, of which the Rev. William Inglis was pastor. When Burns was asked by some one, in a taunting tone, why he conde- scended to listen to the preaching of a Seceder, he replied, " I go to hear Mr Inglis because he preaches what he believes, and practises what he preaches." We have been told by a grandson of Mr Inglis, of a circum- stance not noticed in any of the biographies of Burns. Mr Inglis was the Christian pastor who attended the poet on his death-bed; and to him Burns "expressed the deepest penitence for his immorality, and for his profane and licentious writings." This fact our informant had from his father, who, when a youth, frequently saw Burns. Mr Inglis, though he had been settled in his ministerial charge at Dumfries as early as 1765, performed all its duties till 1810, and was able to preach till the time of his death, in 1826. Though he was an Anti-Burgher, it is not improbable that he may have had amongst his 48 Thomas CarlyU. occasional h 1 in the neighbouring village, who was, so : fterwards, to r i an able port: .iwson ol the case, that old Dumfries Seceder is doubly worth; embrancc. is lot to preach the gospel needed by all men and that in lowly meeting-houses, upon which the world hardly bestowed a look, or, at the jost, only a glance of scorn to Robert Burns and Thomas Carlyle, CHAPTER VL MEETS EDWARD IRVING ENTERS THE UNIVERSITY THE LITERARY AND SOCIAL LIFE OF EDINBURGH HIS TEACHERS : BROWN, PLAYFAIR, LESLIE THE SPI- RITUAL CRISIS TURNS FROM THE PULPIT HIS FATHER'S GRIEF ORIGIN OF HIS DYSPEPSIA POVERTY AND LONELINESS. THOUGH the Ecclefechan boy must have spent two years, at least, in the native town of a contemporary who was to be his first friend, outside the domestic precinct, Carlyle had entered his thirteenth year before he met Edward Irving. That in so small a town he had got earlier glimpses of him, is extremely probable; but they did not come together till 1808. In the exquisitely tender obituary of his friend, a tribute that stands un- rivalled in the whole compass of our prose literature, written for the Fraser of January 1835, ne savs : "The first time I saw Irving was six-and-twenty years ago, in his native town, Annan. He was fresh from Edinburgh, with College prizes, high character and promise ; he had come to see our Schoolmaster, who had also been his. We heard of famed Professors, of high matters, classi- cal, mathematical, a whole Wonderland of Knowledge : nothing but joy, health, hopefulness without end, looked 50 Thomas CarlyU. out from the blooming young man."* That meeting was hied with momentous issues for Carlylc. *' for Irving, I had never known what the communion of man with man means." And it was through Irving that was to meet the future partner of his life, the : helpmate to whom, when his work was nearly done, ascribed all of worth that he had been able to achieve in the world. It was not long after that first meeting till Carlyle followed Irving to tlv ' lie was but a boy of fourteen when, in 1809, he matriculated at Edin- burgh. His extreme youth may account, in part at K for the scantiness of the information that we possess ".g his student life at the :y, and also for the compara 1 ness of the impression w! the :id social characteristics of the city seem to have nu.k- upon him. It was, perhaps, the most bril- liant epoch in the history of the Scotti who! of the place was richly .ocial life at that >d has been < orksasM her's Autobiography with even greater s of Lord Cockburn. The ^reat Tory rival of the E+ i accounts concur in representing him as perhaps the noblest-looking youth in At dale. Allan Cunningham said be could not enter a village but he caught the adn >th old and young, "o when a boy, "said a resident in Annan to 1 nring's earliest biogra; poor Washington \\Y I Kcclcfcchan my fath' ne was looking at a very tall young m.v pony. I asketl my father who it was, and he said, 'Irving, the tanner's s 4 to be a prcaci. Edinburgh Society in 1810. 51 burgh Review had been started in the year preceding that in which Carlyle entered the city of Sir Walter Scott and Jeffrey ; the Lady of the Lake was but newly issued from the press. Brougham had not long left for London ; but Harry Erskine, a purer patriot and a greater lawyer, as well as the most brilliant wit of his day, was still adorning the Scottish bar. Old Henry Mackenzie, author of The Man of Feeling, and of the first critical essay recognising the genius of Burns, remained as a relic of the generation which had Hume and Robertson among its central figures, and was still able to enliven the conversation with reminiscences of men and manners gone by. Old Sir Harry Moncreiff, the successor of Dr John Erskine as leader of the Evangelicals, was reminding visitors to the General Assembly of Jupiter among the lesser gods ; and the polished and persuasive Alison, father of the coming historian of Europe, was worthily representing the " church of deportment " in the city of John Knox. Mrs Grant of Laggan and Mrs Elizabeth Hamilton were each centres of most agreeable society, in which one was sure to find the ladies listening to the brilliant talk of the little dictator who was controlling the public taste and policy through the lately-invented medium of the great Whig Review. In the University, Dr Thomas Brown, most poetical of philosophers, was just stepping into the chair vacated by Dugald Stewart; Playfair, the tutor of Lord John Russell, was the professor of Natural Philosophy; and Leslie, who, the year before, had issued his Elements of Geometry, was teaching mathematics. But the seat of the most popular poetry and the most influential criticisms of the time does not seem to have 52 Thomas Car/yle. stirred the blood of the singular boy from EccU no doubt true that, when he addressed the stud< as their Lord Rector in 1866, he spoke kindly of "dear old Alma Mn: \ told ho bef<<: 'h feelings of wor and awe struck expe< ^s, howc he does not appear long to have retained ; and they had inly vanished when he was writing Sartor. he gives a description of hi than the account of his school c.\ native village and at Annan. "Out of England and h, " ours was the worst or hitherto discovered I V The professc tinned at the gates, to declare aloud that it w; Un and exact consideraM ion fees," he han the "hide-bound pedants" and < ders" of Dumfr ! already declared th. quent century, teachers will be iberg out of wood and leather." In the atx ess he did not name one of old teachers; and it was only too evident that he hur with the place as quickly as possible. It was the <>; : some of content V-rant eloqiu ijn-rior < : lecessor; but this was not fessor of that day he ritingsis I Higald Stewart- say to none more div han our- Of Br< hand, h ;>oke in t under the derisive title of * 4 His University Life. 53 Brown," or " the little man who spouted poetry." Even the most enthusiastic admirers of Stewart's successor acknowledged that his manner was strongly marked by affectation, and that while his poetry (as Dr Gregory observed) was too philosophical, his philosophy was too poetical. Carlyle turned away from his too liquid and musical diction with disgust. Against Playfair it is well known that he bore a grudge, and not without a cause ; for, after having worked hard in that professor's class, the certificate he got was exceedingly cold and reserved. As Lord Rector, Carlyle counselled the students to be dili- gent in their attention to what their teachers told them ; but, according to all accounts, he had not himself observed this rule very strictly in the case of some at least of his own professors. Though we hear of his having secured one honour, he was far too discursive a reader to be one of the model prize-taking class of students. Indeed, he is said to have been the most omnivorous reader who ever passed within the portals of the University. In Sartor the library is described as " small " and " ill-chosen ;" but he adds that from its chaos he " succeeded in fishing up more books, perhaps, than had been known to the very keepers thereof." These, indeed, did not suffice to satiate his craving for books ; and it is alleged that, after having exhausted the University library, he did the same by several circulating libraries in the city, including the one which had been founded by Allan Ramsay. Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that he was not a real student, though he failed " to concentrate his attention upon any one special subject or set of subjects, and left the University without a degree. Nay, it is likely that he profited more than most by the 54 Thomas Carl} It. < nit the place afforded " What vain jargon of metaphysics, etymology, and mechanical manipulation, falsely named science, was current there indeed, learned \ > haps, than the most Among eleven hundred youths, there will not be wanting some en eager to learn. By collision with such, a cer warmth, a certain j>olish, was communicated happy accident, I took less to rioting than to thinking and reading, which latter, also, I was free to do." In the same passage of Sartor he states that he learned, on own strength, to "read fluently in almost all cultiv uages, on almost all subjects and sciences," Almost in the same words, he told the students in 1866 that what he had found the University do for him was, that it it him to read " in various languages and sciences," so that he could go into the books that treated of these things, and try anything he wanted to make him- self master of gradually, as he found it suit him. In I of the vast extent of his reading, it was probably from the outset discrimin.i 1 as he began to discover the h he coul :ul work to most pur- pose, it no doubt became more so. His teachers, with one exception, do not seem to have very clearly perceived I slie, who possessed some qualities nkin to those of the cr 1 thoroughly in<! pupil, was the only one of rofessors who formed the that Carlyle was a youth of inary ca; that he possessed a genius for n :rs and natural philosophy, Leslie rted him to devote himself to the cultivation science. m counter, not indeed to his own grow- Turns from the Pulpit. 55 ing inclinations, but certainly to the purpose of his parents, whose fondly-cherished wish it had been to see their son a minister. To the students in 1866 he said, " Pursue your studies in the way your conscience calls honest. Count a thing known only when it is stamped on your mind, so that you may survey it on all sides." To this he added, " Gradually see what kind of work you can do ; for it is the first of all problems for a man to find out what kind of work he is to do in this universe. In fact, morality, as regards study, is, as in all other things, the primary consideration, and overrides all others. A dishonest man cannot do anything real ; and it would be greatly better if he were tied up from doing any such thing." Herein, doubtless, he was but repeating in words what he had himself wrought out in his own personal action half a century before \ and the inquiries which he pursued in the spirit of stern fidelity to conscience, led him to abandon the design that had been formed for him by his parents, and into which he had probably never personally entered with completeness of sympathy. Filial piety, we cannot doubt, prolonged the struggle in his own spirit. It is said that, at the close of his arts curriculum, extending over four years, he went through the greater part of the course of study prescribed for aspirants to the ministerial office ; nay, there is a dark tradition that he went farther in his theological course so far, indeed, that it had been arranged in what church he was to appear as a "probationer"; but this must be pure fiction. He had, perhaps, taken two or three "partial sessions," as they are locally termed, in the Theological Hall of the University ; but he had not so much as entered the Secession Academy. One thing is 5 6 Thomas CarlyU. certain. A day came, when he finally concluded thn- vocation, about which he had not yet succeeded in making up his mind, did not, at all events, lie in the direction of the pulpit What he might turn to, was, as far from being plain to him ; but one thing was < enough he could not be a Church of the Confession, or indeed in any other Church then existing. There were many then, and it is to be feared the number has gone on increasing ever since, who did not allow themselves to be troubled by scruples of conscience. But he was not content to undertake the task of pretending to throw light upon the .way of other ile he was still himself stum- bling on in the darkness. He realised the worse than absurdity of the blind presuming to become the lea- of the blind. He would not add another unit to the already too numerous host who, in hollow-sounding pulpits, were teaching 1 lessons which they not first mastered themselves, or, perhaps, teaching what they actually in their se< ret heart disbelieved. decision, when it was intimated to his parents, caused them no small amount of sorrow; his father, esjecially, seen ve taken it greatly to heart The watchful mother, with a keener inMjht, had prob.i ^cen what was coming, and her loving heart would there i be prepared t ome. But the father found it hard to accept the bitter disappointment A story is told, on what seems to be good authority, of a hbouring farmer one day finding old James sitting on a gravestone in the churchyard near his home in a veiy despondent frame of mind, and learning on inquiry the cause of his grief was, the receipt, that day, of the The Spiritual Conflict. 57 intelligence from his son in Edinburgh, that he had finally determined not to become a minister. The sorrowing father, though he knew it not at the time, had reason to be grateful that he had a son capable of arriving at such a decision. The severity of the struggle through which Carlyle had passed in reaching that resolve is, perhaps, at least partially indicated in the reply which he gave forty years afterwards to the question of the blind preacher from America, already named. Mil- burn, bolder than most people in the enjoyment of their sight, ventured to ask Carlyle whether his dyspepsia was hereditary or acquired. " I am sure I can hardly tell," was the reply. " I only know that for one or two or three-and-twenty years of my mortal existence I was not conscious of the ownership of that diabolical arrangement called a stomach. I had grown up the healthy and hardy son of a hardy and healthy Scottish dalesman ; and he was the descendant of a long line of such ; men that had tilled their paternal acres, and gained their threescore years and ten or even, mayhap, by reason of strength, their fourscore years, and had gone down to their graves, never a man of them the wiser for the posses- sion of this infernal apparatus. And the voice came to me, saying, * Arise, and settle the problem of thy life !' I had been destined by my father and my father's minister to be myself a minister. 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 I should now settle it. And so I entered into my chamber and closed the door, and around me there came a trooping throng of phantasms dire from the abysmal depths of nethermost perdition. Doubt, Fear, Unbelief, Mockery, 58 Thomas CarlyU. and Scorn wore there; and I arose and wrestled with them in travail and agony of spirit. Whether I :r know not; v i I <>w not; I only k: that when I came forth again it was with the direful per- son that I w owner of a diabolical arrange! <1 a stomach; and 1 . . from that knowledge from that hour to this, and I suppoec that I never shall he until I am \ in my gr. That tli is struggle, which so shook him to the very ./, had a : 1 effect on his bodily iost likely thing ; but only reasonable to suppose that the vast amount of reading this So " went through in his boyhood, and whi h at Edinburgh amazed all the librarians as a pheno- !el in tl.t !ed to unden naturally vigorous constitution. psia that was to accompany him hence- forth through life was, we i of one spiritual conflict confined to. riodof ti: been the gradual work of years. Had he not a more than ordinary share of the ity inherent i hardly possible tocono that a youth, almost constantly reading f: '..id probably read re books than all B Edinburgh put , would :rible str. sed at that }>eri(>d of life when the body, as well as the mind, is in a : told the Kdinburgh s: he was an old man. you are going to do a: oj>cration if you are going to write a book at least I never could do it without getting deck! had His Mode of Life in Edinburgh. 59 begun early to realise that fact, when he was crushing the reading of years into months. Nor is it at all unlikely that inattention to diet, perhaps partly the result of limited means, may have had something to do with the physical evil that was to dog his footsteps through all the remaining days of his earthly pilgrimage. Not without significance is the acknowledgment in Sartor, that his upbringing had been "too frugal;" and the impression made by these words is deepened when we find it delicately hinted that " even pecuniary distresses " were not wanting in the lowly home, and that it was in "an atmosphere of Poverty and manifold Chagrin " that the brave young soul struggled onwards. To an American visitor, in 1875, when speaking of his admiration of Goethe, he said that he was filled with an intense desire, when he was a young man, to visit him. " But," he added, " his parents were too poor to send him to Germany, and he received, instead, a few precious letters from the great poet." This view of the limitations imposed by poverty receives support from one little glimpse, apparently quite authentic, into Carlyle's mode of life while attending the University. It is furnished by a gentleman who, when he published the reminiscence, was one of the representatives of the city of Sydney in the Parliament of New South Wales. " When coming from the West Indies to England, I met on board a Dr Nicholson, who in course of conversation informed me that he was a student with Mr Carlyle at the Edinburgh University, and that they lived together in lodgings, along with another young student, and that the whole three slept in the same bedroom. Dr Nicholson added, that Mr Carlyle took the dux prize in the mathe- matical class, and that their other bedroom companion 60 Thomas CarlyU. took the second prize; but he observed, that while Mr Carlyle seemed to he subject without much effort or application, the other lad laboured at his probK witli e zeal, sometimes sitting up all night at the task. I happened to mention this (about 1869) to Mr Cftdjkj >ered Dr Nicholson well, and described him accurately. He also remembered their Edinburgh; but he said that Dr Nicholson was greatly deceived if he thought he mastered his ma matical difficulties with ease, or that it did not cost him much exertion. He said that he laboured most intensely at the study of mathematics, and that he has gained nothing in this world worth speaking about without the of labour."* The fact that a sharer of humble lodging could be so much in the dark as to modes of working, is an indication of the self-contar nature of young Carlyle ; and therefore we need not be surprised to find few reminiscences of his student lit personal acquaintances cither at Edinburgh or near father's home, \vl of the long summer vacations that cv the Scottish I'nr. April to November. There is but one anecdote of that period of his life which throws : > College k. To some con t likely classical tutor, Mr Johnston, he so far unbosomed bin. on returning to I \\ at the close of a sessior to intimate, with justii n, that the Pr were "all prostn: been irregular in his a; Olstnxtiions on thi Public Affair* ami PMie Mm of EmgUu*. By David Buchanan. Sytli His Loneliness in Youth. 61 classes, turning to it only at intervals, and then with desperate energy ; but this was a great thing for a youth to be able to say who left the University in his nineteenth year. It is hardly necessary to add, that Carlyle never entered into the social life of the University. None of its associ- ated societies, formed for the cultivation of oratory, is able to boast that his name stands on its list of members ; though the Dialectic, which had been founded in 1787, included at the time more than one fellow-student from his own district of country, and had among the rest Mac- diarmid, who became a journalist of note at Dumfries. If he was too young to become connected with these debating clubs, there was a social bar, as well as that of youth, to hinder his admission to the Speculative Society, which had, and probably still has, a standard of gentility to maintain. But even if the door had been open, Carlyle would not have chosen to enter ; for the testimony of each of the few contemporaries who had any knowledge of him, goes to show that he was lonely and contemplative in his habits. When his University career had come to a close, we see the solitary youth, already with a stamp of sadness on his countenance that was never to leave it in this life, turning to his native hills. There, free at last from the "neck halter" which had " nigh throttled him, till he broke it off," he will in solitude face the problem that yet remains to be solved CHAPTER VII BECOMES A SCHOOLMASTER Ai FRIENDSHIP WITH ED WAR! A SE\ Dl -INDIGNATION OF THE MOTHERS- CONTEMPLATES EMIGRATING SECOND A NEW plan of life had to be formed, and it was no easy task getting under way. It was, doubtless, only that he turned to the occupation of school- master. When he went home to Annandale from the University, or soon thereafter, the post of Mail in the Burgh School <>: . where he hin i a pupil, happened to become for i as a candid iving the appoint: : a comj>etitive trial, ! to Dumfries. The young man who mastered Ne t to be the superior of his teachers in t versity, must I the stirrings of a lofty ami-: within him. Yet we cannot doubt that he gratefully accepted rl that offered itM K .ough it was that of the j>edagogue in an obscure provincial town, yielding small honour in the eye of the world, and, best, bread and water wages," as is stated by Teufelsdn > , although it in ^/r/<>r that the work "was >rmed ill, at best unpleasantly," are ti\ 1 to Schoolmaster at Annan and Kirkcaldy. 63 accept this view of the result as other than fictitious; for the young man was in earnest, and, in spite of the transcendentalism that had already begun to dominate his being, he cherished a reverence the most profound for all learning, and especially for the branch he had been appointed to teach to his successors in the school at Annan. More than thirty years afterwards, conversing one autumn day in a little company in Yorkshire, at a time (1847) when the Education controversy was waxing furious, he went in strongly for education in any or all forms, " saying, among Other characteristic things," as we are told by one who was present, " that the man who had mastered the 47th proposition of Euclid, stood nearer to God than he had ever done before." So that this new mathematical master at Annan must have been cheered at his work by the reflection, that it was indeed of a sacred character. It must be confessed, however, that it is difficult to gather from such materials as are available, any definite notion of Carlyle as a schoolmaster. Even the dates are somewhat obscure. It would seem, from all we can learn, that he remained in his Annan situation only two years, if so long; and it is certain that, having been recommended by his friend Professor Leslie, he was, in 1816, appointed Rector of their Burgh School by the Town Council of Kirkcaldy. At this date Edward Irving had been four years the teacher of what was called "The Subscription School," a genteel private academy for the superior families in the same Fifeshire burgh a place noted for its great length, and as the birthplace of Adam Smith. Though Mrs Oliphant makes no allusion to the circumstance of Carlyle's advent and 64 Thomas CarlyU. residence in Kirkcaldy, beyond saying that he came to be the mast >chool "set up in opposition" to Irving's;* there can be no doubt that .ds were now brought more closely into contact, and that, in the little Fife-shire seaport, their intercourse igthened that attachment which has caused some writers to speak of them as David and Jonathan. T were frequently seen walking together on the beach. There is some significance in the local tradition that Carlyle, in spite of the contemptuous picture he has drawn of the Hinterschlag Gymnasium at Annan, was himself too much * the evil practice of acting on the memory through the "muscular integument." In respect he resembled his friend Irving; and st MI at Kirkcaldy respecting the severity of the :hey both administered. One of these i>y Mrs Oliphant. A joiner, the deacon of his tr m of great strength, aji>eared one day at the door of Irving's schoolroom, while shrieks were resounding from within, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up to his elbows and an axe on his shoulder, and with idful irony inquired, "Do Mr Irving ? " We are also told of i that wa ' the mothers of the pupils on more than one occasion by the exccssh This remark is calculated to convey a distinctly false impres- sion, for it was with the heartiest gooi .ing's part tint Carlyle had exchanged Annan for Kirkcaldy. An anonymous r says : " Kirkc.iidy seem* at this time to have 1 matters, cntir \nnan influences, since there were no less than six teach* ;ng from that place. Whether they were all as fin m the efficacy of the birch rod as Irving, tradition say A Severe Disciplinarian. 65 children. Alexander Smith, indeed, who had apparently devoted some little attention to the matter, asserted in the Argosy of May 1866 that Carlyle was actually chased out of the " Lang Toun " by the angry matrons, his severity having risen to a pitch which they could no longer endure. For the accuracy of these statements we cannot vouch; and, even if they had a substratum of truth, it is not unlikely that they came to be considerably exaggerated during their repetition as the years went by. We may safely conclude, however, that Carlyle in school was a rigid disciplinarian ; nor should we be disposed to question the justice of the remark, made by more than one critic, that this was the earliest exhibition of a quality which was destined in after days to exert a prejudicial influence on his practical teaching of men. He had set up an ideal standard of excellence to which the poor bairns of Kirkcaldy must attain ; and, in his impetuous insistance upon this, he betrayed a want of consideration for the weakness of the large number of pupils who could not possibly reach the master's ideal. A gentleman of Kirkcaldy informs us that Carlyle was little known to the public generally during his residence there, " being then, as afterwards, moody and retiring in his disposition." The school in which he taught was situated in the Kirk Wynd. It has been incorporated in a line of warehouses for the storage of flax, belonging to Mr Swan, Provost of the burgh, who is now the only surviving pupil of Mr Carlyle. Though using the schoolroom for storing purposes, he has kept it unaltered out of respect for the memory of his old teacher " an act of hero-worship," says Alexander Smith, " for which the present and other generations may be thankful." The school, we are told, is wonderfully 66 Thomas Cany It. roomy and commodious for the time in which it was built. In the September of 18; he had been a schoolmast x yean id it was with his old pupil, now th magistrate of the burgh, that he ma One , " he fell back on his reminiscences of St Andrews Un fesson in tlh he himse'.: r in Ki: memory iself in mined many names and i: with Ire - y, with now and again a touch of loitering wonder about what had of all these lives?"* It was in tL r of 1818 that Irving gave up his school at Kirkcaldy and TL. the i Carlyle also r nally from the schoL aving found that it he could devote 1 Not long aftei the two Iriends had l>cl.ikm t' . ity, we find Irving (in iSn;) writing thus out cloudy : unsucces^" in which they irlyle goesxi lorrow, and Ilrown t! I .iore or my own i swell the < r the soli this Carlyle is better fitted than i d, that IK should IK want of -untry ; of course, lik man of talent, he has gathered , Journal, by its cdito Mr \\ The Prospect of Exile. 67 around this Patmos many a splendid purpose to be ful- filled, and much improvement to be wrought out." The writer proceeds to represent Carlyle as saying, " I have the ends of my thoughts to bring together, which no one can do in this thoughtless scene. I have my views of life to reform, and the whole plan of my con- duct to new-model ; and withal I have my health to recover. And then once more I shall venture my bark upon the waters of this wide realm, and if she cannot weather it, I shall steer west and try the waters of another world." " So he reasons and resolves," says Irving ; " but surely a worthier destiny awaits him than exile." Irving himself, not long afterwards, was only prevented from seeking an outlet for his powers in a distant land, after he had made a farewell tour round the coast of Ayrshire, by the letter from Dr Chalmers which heralded an opening at home; and it is a further coincidence worthy of being remembered in this connection that a trivial incident, at the last moment, saved Robert Burns from becoming an exile, when "hungry ruin had him in the wind," and he had actually secured a steerage pas- sage in the first ship that was to sail for the West Indies from the Clyde. Had Carlyle gone to the United States, as appears to have been for at least a little while an incipient purpose in his mind, what would the issue have been to himself and to the world? How- ever idle, it is hardly possible to refrain from speculating on the problem. His was a home-loving nature, how- ever, that could not possibly regard with complacency the idea of leaving his native country ; we have seen a letter he wrote to a valued friend, a brother Scotsman of dis- tinguished merit in the field of philosophy, who had been 68 Thomas Carlyle. invited to a chair at !, and one of the first of several reasons urged by < gainst the acceptance of the invitation was th that it would in\ The patriotic t thus exprt recent date was probably not less strong in the heart be writer when he was a young man ; for had he his parents still in the Annandale home where he had been nurtured? And, m not feeling, with added emphasis as each d. lling lay direction that would make the literary resources of the old country more tha the perform - <>rk? During the four years he had schoolmaster at Annan and Kirk< had been applying himself assiduously not only to mathe- is at that period he translated the gn part of Legendre's Geometry * but also to the stud nifnts of Gfomftry and Trigonomttry, with Notts. ] Uted fm: Edited by I > Brew v rr. I. !..!>. With Nt< and an Introdu. Edinburgh : Oliver & Boyd. 1824. 1 be olwcrvcd that Brewster's name alone was i the title-page, though his conn \\ the book was t !, as he appears to have done nothing I beyond writing a preface of a page and a half. Carlyle reo 50 for his work. He was always proud of his essay on Proper us exposition in three theorems corollaric ;> a notion," says Professor De Morgan in his Para<i : abridge in 1825, that the translator of Legend re was t: raiih, then known at Edinburgh as a writer and t was quite a different person, and one destined to shine in quite a <!ii: walk. It was a young man named Thomas Carlyle. He prefixed ,;cnious essay on Proportion, as good a substitute h book of Euclid as could be given in speech, and quite enough to show have been a dUt teacher anil t!. !cs ; but he left the field irame- Candidate for a Chair of Astronomy. 69 the language and literature of Germany ; and in propor- tion as he began to feel the work of tuition irksome, and the school experiment hopeless, he must also have felt that a new country, requiring the manual worker rather than the man of letters, the farmer instead of the philo- sopher, was no fitting place for him. It had at length become clear to him that Literature was his true vocation. Able and accomplished as he had proved himself to be in the field of mathematics, his strong bent was not for science or scientific research. He did indeed become a candidate, we are told, for the chair of Astronomy in Glasgow University; and it has been suggested that the mutilated note with " huge blot " given in Sartor is a sardonic memorial of an actually existing document received by Carlyle in connection with this candidature. There is certainly such a stamp of reality upon it as forbids the notion that it is purely imaginary, and has no connection with the career of Teufelsdrockh's editor while he was getting under way. The Inkblot was, we can well believe, some self-important personage of established repute and influence, perhaps connected with the Western University; and, on the whole, we cannot regret that he was so " tied-down by previous promise " that he felt himself unable, " except by best wishes," to forward the views of the young man from Ecclefechan who aspired to teach astronomy in St Mungo's town. It was just as well that "the cruel necessity" was laid upon the Inkblot of " forbearing, for the present, what were otherwise his duty and joy, to assist in diately." Meritorious as it was, the larger part of the issue of this work is said to have remained in the publishers' hands as dead stock ; and the volume is now rarely to be seen. 70 Thomas Carlyle. opening the man of genius, on whom higher trium: .pliment was indeed triumph came, t : the >tri 'i meek accept much preliminary drudgery, without which no veritable triumph is ever i D this world. No Westmii. Confession lurred the entrance t Inn the to be kept from the do involved the nece of . as he could nUuin. He was poo; Sread. Nor was this the only : he was but an rentirc, and i trade. He had to find out the k: rk he was bt of the vast field that h iltivate with i , was a with liu- :sed Ifth numl>er 'Mied in of 1831; so that although it to be the ^ he wrote, it was not the ritin-s whiih procured the h .11.. ur of print* earliest essays in auti < rlyle that rea tlu vies on topographical Brewster's Edin- 1 ~idy Mai ! nt- son, iccount nf the story, with quoUtioos, was given in Fraxr forj he last n .m Allinj; y received the information from Mr Car- Articles in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. 71 Netherlands, Newfoundland, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Mungo Park, Lord Chatham, William Pitt. They are to be found in the fourteenth and two succeeding volumes of Brewster's work, the first of the three bearing the date 1820, and the last 1823. Most of the articles are distinguished by the initials "T. C," but they are all credited to Carlyle in the list of the authors of the principal articles prefixed to the encyclopaedia on its completion. None of these essays have ever been republished; and, although it has been said that "they give but faint, uncertain promise of the author's genius and of those gifts which made his later works as individual as a picture by Albert Diirer or Rembrandt," they are cer- tainly not altogether destitute of the characteristic traits of their author's subsequent work. Indeed, when we take into account the nature of the publication for which they were prepared, along with the youth and inexperi- ence of the writer, as well as the standard of taste at the time, they must be considered strikingly indicative of original power, as ' well as of the patient research, in- dustry, and minute attention to details which few authors have ever exhibited to the same degree as Carlyle. Though an encyclopaedia did not offer any scope for imaginative work, but rather imposed a strict exclusion of it, we find here and there in the articles a play of fancy that lights them up very pleasantly, and gives token that the compiler is no ordinary hack of the Grub Street species. The humour, and the peculiar style of expression that we now regard as Carlyle's own, are both exemplified, for example, even in the article on New- foundland, where we might least expect to find them. There is no mistaking the pen that describes one of the 72 Thomas Car/y/e. few Newfoundland authors, Mr. Anspnch, as "a clerical person, who lived in the island s< .irs, and since written and very confused book, \\hich he Cf This is by no means according rn for topograpl :ri a work of ftO today ; still less was it in the conventional mode of ars ago. Other germs of the that was ! , to been familiar to the world may be detected in some of the Other ai: '!y in that on M- :. The philosopher's theory as to the influence o; on race in a manner thoroughly nervous vigour and a confide: that are truly as: o young a writer ; and it teen justly remarked by an able critic that, in the vivid picture of Montesquieu as a cheerful and benign sage. with the peasants under the oak at Brc< .It to rc< ithor of . OfNt 'old that ! bined, " in a singular union, the fervour of the ice of the sa. : in some of the other biographical articles there are strokes of equal Those I said that these brief encyclo- pflBil gave small in -ure bri! with sutt the \- that distinguish them from the production*; of the rest of Brewster's con: nor have they made sufficient alU the limital: ^ed by the natui the work in \vh: eared. It i. r be regarded as creditable to Sir David Brewster that had the pi esc ieiice to discover the ability whi< h led him to invite the unt: one of tl His First Critical Articles. 73 for his Encyclopedia, and that he had sufficient confi- dence in the young man's judgment to allow its free exer- cise in criticisms that were thoroughly original and expressed in a tone of the utmost confidence.* To the same period belong a couple of critical articles contributed to the New Edinburgh Review in 1821-22, the one on Joanna Baillie's Metrical Legends, the other on Goethe's Faust, neither of which has been republished. In 1823 he began some slight experiments in verse ; and, although he seems to have felt that his strength did not lie in that direction, so that these trials were not pursued with any great earnestness of purpose, he succeeded in producing at least three pieces that are marked by genuine poetic power, two of these being also invested with an autobiographic interest. The Tragedy of the Night Moth bears the impress of one of the many dark hours through which he had to pass in the years of painful endeavour and of waiting for his proper work, when he was oppressed with gloomy apprehensions of failure : * When, after the lapse of more than forty years, Carlyle came to Edinburgh to address the students as Lord Rector, the Principal of the University was Sir David Brewster. " Seeing him sit beside the venerable Principal," wrote Alexander Smith, in the happi- est of all the sketches of that memorable day, " one could not help thinking of his earliest connection with literature. Time brings men into the most unexpected relationships. When the Principal was plain Mr Brewster, editor of the Edinburgh Cydop&dia, little dreaming that he should ever be Knight of Hanover, and head of the Northern Metropolitan University, Mr Carlyle just as little dreaming that he should be the foremost man of letters of his day, and Lord Rector of the same University was his contributor, writing for said Cyclopedia biographies of Voltaire, and other notables. And so it came about that, after years of separation and of honourable labour, the old editor and contributor were brought together again in new relations." 74 Thomas Carlylc. Poor moth ! thy fate my own resembles : 'oo a restless asking mind I lath sent on far and weary rambles, To seek the good I ne'er shall find. Li'. i humMc joys and vulgar fate, I might have lived and ne'er lamented, Moth of a larger size, a longer date ! The Adieu strengthens the impression that poor Teu- I Jlumine was no merely imaginary maiden. a reality, who did indeed announce the dawn of Dooms- nulous voice, to her unhappy m, ''They were to meet no more." So he turns his sorrow into song : Hard fate will not allow, allow, fate will not allow ; leased were as the angels are, Adieu forever now, My fa* ti forever now. Of the poetical fragments, however, the most spon- taneous is the little gem, Today ^ a genuine poetic birth ; though The S0u>er*s So*g also is a lyric- that deserves to The poems -.ted with C'.erman fee: and may have b vn while Carlylc was the poetry of Schiller, whose Life he was shortly about to publish. By this time he had thoroughly familiarised himself with < . the paj. t st being apparently hi n the field wherein he was to win his first laurels. His brother was studying in Germany, and the letters he received from Dr Cai nterest wl. It in the language and literature of : he of his being now a man, we know almost as Second Sojourn in Edinburgh. 75 little of his life in Edinburgh during this second sojourn there as we do of the first, when he was only a boy. Irving, after his return from Kirkcaldy, had resumed attendance at the University ; and it is thought that Car- lyle may have done the same, since we find him speaking of 1819-20 being "well onward in my student life at Edinburgh." It has also been suggested that the crown- ing feats in the voracious use of the University Library are connected with this period. Under the lead of Irving a Philosophical Society was set on foot, specially intended for the students who had completed their arts course ; and Carlyle was one of its members. But it was short-lived. Carlyle's lodgings were in Bristo Street; and one surviving contemporary, a college acquaintance in the habit of visiting him in the evenings, testifies that he "always found him a queer-spoken fellow." The dialogues between Irving and Carlyle are said to have left their mark in the memory of casual hearers, as they were likely to do ; but none of these hearers have given us the oppor- tunity of sharing their privilege. We are only told that Irving usually stood on the defensive in support of the orthodox views, and that Carlyle was " always eloquent," and always on the other side. Carlyle's principal resort was the Advocates' Library, of which he says, " Lasting thanks to //, alone of Scottish institutions." He read literature of every description, from romance to the most abstruse theology. As he seems to have maintained him- self by literary work, it is probable that he wrote some things for the press that have never been heard of; other- wise, his living must have been a poor one, and we need not wonder that he speaks in Sartor of "those obstructed, neglectful, and grimly-forbidding years," during which no 7 6 Thomas Carlylt. work in the right direction was to be had, " whereby he becan . natural i of manner, hut ill express the keen ardoi:: igs," was pro 1 time aggravated into a seeming hardness, made more oflVn <se who did not know hii panoply of sarcasm" he had elf for reasons pat' an anecdote that bears out this view. Or afternoon, some t ^22, Edward Irving introd house at of shy and gruff spoke little, and who was otherwise prepossessing. No name had been mentioned, and the mcmlxjrs of the household concluded that he was s stranger who had bcc up on the road by and brought with him to tea. They only learned wh< iff" stranger was when one c>: ily had cd out to her, years after, as Thomas Carlyle. CHAPTER VI I L THE PIONEER OF GERMAN LITERATURE IN BRITAIN HIS LIFE OF SCHILLER TRANSLATION OF GOETHE'S " WILHELM MEISTER " ATTACKS BY JEFFREY AND DE QUINCEY LETTER FROM GOETHE CLOSE OF JOURNEY-WORK CHARLES BULLER TRIBUTE TO HIS OLD PUPIL. ACCORDING to the dictum of Bulwer Lytton, it was Cole- ridge who first made England aware of the riches of German philosophy and German song, and to him, we are told, must be ascribed the merit of originating what- ever influences the higher spirit of German genius has exercised upon the English mind. This statement ought to have been qualified by mention of William Taylor of Norwich, who published his version of Burger's Lenore (the recitation of which led to the production of that of Sir Walter Scott) as early as the year following the one in which Carlyle was born, and who by his sub- sequent translations " did much in the beginning of the century to reveal to cultured Englishmen the mine of intellectual wealth that lay awaiting them in the regener- ated German literature."* While according the meed of * German Life and Literature. By Alexander Hay Japp, LL.D. A work that should not be overlooked by any student of Carlyle, respecting whom it contains some acute and admirably-sustained, as well as incisive, criticism. 78 Thomas Cat praise that is due to these pioneers (and also to De Quinccy) in the good work of opening up that i English n .'.<! -r*. it must still be asserted that the great larly efi' >neer was Thomas Carlyle. The review of Goethe's Faust in that New Edinburgjk did not live long enough to Mie its name, was the 6 nowledge greatly exceeding even e, and which was united to a perseverance ready power of working that were cons; their alienee in the So hgate. T le was followed in 1823 by the first part of tf Schiller^ the title of "Schiller's Life and Writings " in the London Magazine for October ne was attached to the contribute those who secret of its auth tl who personal acquaintance of CarlyK least kiu be a young man, were pressed with r i\\vr. great things f r o had con- .Iced in those times, ond part of t! ler appeared in the numl : January 1824, ;r third part in the numl nd Scptern- f the same year. The vivacious A :i who 1 the London, \\\ Scutt with Ix>ckhnr. had ;. m a staff of brilliant writers DC and Gary, s Carlyl aest Allan Cunning- ham ; .ipablc men the memoir of the German |>oct Attacks by De Quincey and Jeffrey. 79 quite unknown Scottish youth was received with special marks of favour, to such an extent indeed that the pub- lishers of the magazine felt encouraged to reprint it in the form of a book in 1825. Before this, however, Carlyle had made his debut as a " Maker of "Books " by the publication, in 1824, of a translation of Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship, which was issued from the press of Messrs Oliver & Boyd, of Edinburgh, and was his first book, if we except the translation of Legendre's Geometry, which Charles Lamb would probably have classified with those printed volumes he did not consider to be books at all. The name of the translator was not given on the title-page ; and this has suggested the reflection that he may have had some mis- givings as to how his countrymen would receive a work so repugnant in many ways to English notions of taste, and even of morality a work in which Goethe has violated his own axiom, that "there are some things which, though all know them, should yet be treated as secrets, because it favours modesty and good morals." Carlyle's translation was the first really effective introduc- tion of Goethe to the English people. Though its sale was at first very slow, its reception by the general body > of readers was more favourable than that accorded to it by the professional critics. Both De Quincey and Jeffrey, who well knew who the translator was, fell upon it with almost savage delight, the attack of the former appearing in the pages of the London Magazine, where just then Carlyle's sketch of Schiller was in course of publication. The editor of the Edinburgh Review, who was really as incapable at the time of forming a just conception of the work of Goethe as he had proved himself sixteen years 8o Thomas CarlyU. before to be of appreciating the poetry of Wordsworth, only succeed nstrating his own ignorai nost deliberate consideration/' he set out by pronouncing the work u eminently absurd, pueri! gruous, and affected/ 1 and "almost from begir end one flagrant offence against e\ tste ever)- rule of compo.v opened with this unqualified denun< >sed with an admission that proved the onslaught in tin ^ve been written before the book had been passages to v. v alluded arc executed with great talent, and very sensible are better worth extracting than those we have too late now to change our sdc( 1 less afford to add to them. On c close the book with son .ults and . -:on to a! if i ome part of the censure we were impelled to besto descended to :>.e was "a per 1 to be s preface;" and the ewer gra< pan of the work also ordinal ast of one <ii lie has to deal onl;, n loan unwo: access of m< o was igr the >ok was wTitten by its air DC Quir was about, though he spared in-itl >lator ; and those who : the Opi s adverse- of 1 f ill-humour" can hardly themselves 1 1 on the iscd a sufficient amount of The Verdict of the Critics. 81 attention to justify their expression of an opinion. The fact must not be passed over without notice that Carlyle's translation of Wilhelm Meister gives in a perfectly unmodi- fied form passages that do not appear in any other English translation, not even in Bonn's, where they are either given partially or wholly omitted. The alternative is forced upon us, which Dr Japp has suggested, " that Mr Carlyle was either all too faithful to the text of his author, or all too little concerned for that English domestic purity which others had found was not likely to profit by such sugges- tions from German literature." It is worth while noting that the Monthly Magazine, a periodical honourably distinguished for its careful attention to foreign literature, declared that the translation was " executed in a masterly way," and with '* much strength, originality, and raciness about it, which cannot fail to please the reader." The verdict of the critics caused the demand for the book to become lively; and it is probable that the attacks fur- thered this end even to a greater extent than the two favourable notices which the work received.* * The second appeared in Blackwood t whose critic, with greater discernment than the editor of the Whig review had exhibited, said : "The translator is, we understand, a young gentleman in this city who now for the first time appears before the public. We con- gratulate him on his very promising debitt, and would fain hope to receive a series of really good translations from his hand. He has evidently a perfect knowledge of German. He already writes English better than is at all common, even at this time ; and we know no exercise more likely to produce effects of permanent advantage upon a young mind of intellectual ambition." Dr Maginn, at a later date, complained that Goethe had been translated from "the Fatherlandish dialect of High Dutch to the Allgemeine Mid Lothianish of Auld Reekie," and that Carlyle was seeking to acclimatize "the roundabout, hubble-bubble, rumfustianish (hilbble-bubblen, rumfusteanischen\ roly-poly, gromerly of style, dear to the heart of a son of the Fatherland. " F 82 Thomas CarlyU. The Life of SchilUr, published in book form by Taylor and Hesscy, in London, in 1825, established itself at once as a public favourite, passing rapidly through se\ editions. But more grateful to the author than even success at home, the first that had come to lighten his struggling pathway, was the publication in the poet's own country of a German translation of the work, with a ly laudatory introduction by Goethe himself, young Scottish pupil of the sag iken the master's heart by storm. With unerring perceived that this man was to be his interpreter to the 1 nations of the world ; nor was it merely on his own account that he hailed his advent with grateful He saw that German literature would now have me it in England. He wrote to Carlylc, making occupations, etc, the commence >rrespon<: it ceased only with the death of Goethe ; an<; a bust of Carlyle exec : set up in his study, that he might have always before him the image of the living countenam i ;reat Scot The good fortune that Carlyle at this turning- point in d with a name that occupies a position of honour and mournful i ical ry of our century. Through the suggestion of faithful friend Edward Irving, who had now enterc<! that ministry in Ix)ndon, the brilliancy of whirh tl beginning was only equalled by the tragic gloom of its close, Carlyle in 1822 became the private tutor of Charles Bullcr. This took him away from Edinburgh to London, a twofold influence was now at work stimulating y. Though he did not fail to do justk His First Sojourn in London. 83 his pupil, he had a good deal of spare time on his hand ; and as there was no longer any pressing necessity to write for money, he was free to devote his leisure to the kind of work which had the greatest attraction for him, and in the performance of which he felt that he could do full justice to his powers. Thus he had secured at length a vantage-ground which some have sought for a lifetime to reach, but have never attained. Besides, residence in London brought him into contact with men who both stirred his literary impulse into greater activity and were able to provide or help him to the medium through which he might speak to the public. Now he gave up hack-work, and his life as a man of letters, in the true sense of the term, began. Brief as was his first sojourn in London, it was laden with blessing for him and had momentous issues that coloured the whole of his after life. His last piece of compulsory work had now been finished, though it did not appear till 1827, when it was issued by genial William Tait of Edinburgh, in four volumes, under the title of Specimens of German Romance. " This was a book of translations," said Carlyle himself thirty years afterwards in the preface to a republication of some of them, " not of my suggesting or desiring, but of my executing as honest journey work in defect of better. The pieces selected were the suitablest discoverable on such terms : not quite of less than no worth (I considered) any piece of them ; nor, alas, of a very high worth any, except one only. Four of these lots, or quotas to the adventure, Musaus's, Tieck's, Richter's, Goethe's, will be given in the final stage of this series: the rest we willingly leave, afloat or stranded, as waste driftwood, to those whom they may farther concern." The Specimens ', which 84 Thomas CarlyU. included Wilhelm J ///r^, the sc to t , were as well received by the publ the translate r works. Earnest wis! expressed from all sides that he would devote his whole attention to the cultivation of German literature, so that gradual cest flowers should be transplar the: into the English soil This, however, he declined. He was to be much more than a me planter of foreign flowers more than a conduit through ie literary waters of Germany should flow to hen the 1 it part of his service was r ; new and h: k was about to be begun. which he had been fulfilling during those I of jour: urgh was not one to be despised ; and the memor less thought of in his own country- than the greater ach: life, was fresh in Germany that day when th -lew all - crland that Thou "Not on 'iy also, i first thoroi: understood t rman literature and n nas Car- AYJI Courier, " w.. 1 herctofor tual treasures ot < jK^try. He made known to them Goethe ttn Master in an excellent tran 1 and that per the biography of a German JK was full of enthusiasm, in the ars during which these \\ the great \Veim.- : so familiar- ised hi: > the cnthusiasn His Influence on Charles Buller. 85 England brings to mind the account which Sir Walter Scott has given of the intoxication that was excited amongst his Edinburgh contemporaries by their first draught from the general literature of Germany ; but it was as nothing compared with the fuller and deeper enthusiasm that pervaded the succeeding generation when they had the privilege of reading those translations that first made the name of Carlyle known to his countrymen. With pardonable pride, the leading Edinburgh journal recalls the work which he began in that city sixty years ago. " His function as guide of his countrymen into the new world of German poetry and thought is by no means the least of his claims to remembrance. It is difficult to realise the magnitude of the revolution he effected. At a time when the flippant criticism of the Edinburgh Review marked the general ignorance, and when only Coleridge and De Quincey in their own mazy fashion had dropped a few hints of the undiscovered literary continent, the young Carlyle rose and measured German thought and literature, and especially Goethe, in their true significance for the modern world."* With his pupil Charles Buller, Carlyle formed a friend- ship that lasted until the lamented death of the younger of the two in 1848. Not only did Carlyle prepare him for Cambridge, where he achieved a success that he always attributed to his tutor, their intimate connection was continued after the pupil entered Parliament. This was evident from the strikingly original views on pauper- ism, emigration, and colonisation which the young states- man so effectively advocated in the House of Commons, * The Scotsman Newspaper, Feb. 7, 1881. 86 >nas CarlyU. and many of which have since his death been embodied in practical legislation. In everything to which Cha Duller put his hand, it was easy to trace the influence of his illustrious teacher ; and when he died at the early age of 42 none of the numerous tributes to his memory moved the heart of England like the one uttered by Carlyle : :tiful soul has suddenly been summoned from among us ; one of the clearest intellects and most aerial activities in England, has unexpectedly been (ailed away. Charles Duller died on Wednesday morn- ing last, without previous sickness, reckoned of import- ance, till a day or two before. An event of unmixed less, which has created a just sorrow, private and public. The light of many a social circle is dimmer henceforth, and will miss long a presence which ivs gladdening and beneficent ; in the coming storms of political trouble, which heap themselves more and more in ominous clouds on our horizon, one rad element is to be want in- now. * v Mr r,;;ller MM in his forty third year, and had sat in 'iament some twenty of those. A man long k under by the peculiarities of his endowment and posi- tion, but ri>ing rapidly into importance of late ye. beginning to reap the fruits of long j..r :ul to see an ever wider field open round him. He was what in party language is called a l K from hi h ; and never sv. :om that faith, nor could swerve. His luminous sincere intellect laid bare to him in all its abject incoherency the thing that was un: which thenceforth became for him a thing that was not tenable, that it v. >candalous to attempt His Tribute to Charles Buller. 87 maintaining. Twenty years in the dreary weltering lake of parliamentary confusion, with its disappointments and bewilderments, had not quenched this tendency, in which, as we say, he persevered as by a law of nature itself, for the essence of his mind was clearness, healthy purity, incompatibility with fraud in any of its forms. What he accomplished, therefore, whether great or little, was all to be added to the sum of good ; none of it to be deducted. There shone mildly in his whole conduct a beautiful veracity, as if it were unconscious of itself; a perfect spontaneous absence of all cant, hypocrisy, and hollow pretence, not in word and act only, but in thought and instinct. To a singular extent it can be said of him that he was a spontaneous clear man. Very gentle, too, though full of fire ; simple, brave, graceful. What he did, and what he said, came from him, as light from a luminous body, and had thus always in it a high and rare merit, which any of the more discerning could appreciate fully. " To many, for a long while, Mr Buller passed merely for a man of wit, and certainly his beautiful natural gaiety of character, which by no means meant levity ', was commonly thought to mean it, and did for many years hinder the recognition of his intrinsic higher qualities. Slowly it began to be discovered that, under all this many-coloured radiancy and coruscation, there burnt a most steady light ; a sound, penetrating intellect, full of adroit resources, and loyal by nature itself to all that was methodic, manful, true ; in brief, a mildly resolute, chivalrous, and gallant character, capable of doing much serious service. " A man of wit he indisputably was, whatever more, 88 Thomas Carlyle. amongst the wittiest speech, and mar of being, played everywhere like soft brilliancy of lambent fire round tl ->n objects of the hour, and \ nd all or <xuety could show, to the u was spontaneous, else in him, gem::- .; play of the man. To hear him, the most seriou D might think within hiniM ':. How beautiful human gau-ty too! 1 Alone of wits, Huller never is. wit ; he could be silent, or grave enough, where b< was going; often rather liked to l>e silent, if permits: and always was so where needful His wit, more* was ever the ally of wisdom, not of folly, or unkindness, or injusti. . ; no soul was ever hurt by it ; never, we Inrlieve, 'y any man, and n have we se<. relieve one re. to be offend light up a pausing < irrle all ; harmony again. In truth, it was beautiful to see i r, alino*: > of heart co-exist; the s, and long experiences, of a man oft H..n.n:r to human worth in v. we find it ! This man was r | friends, true to .ind true without effort, as the ma, north. He was ever found on the right v helpful to it, not obstructive of it, in all he attei formed y indeed brilliant, rle. not in dcj , or in any kind of active valour, but wanting the stern energy that could long endure to continue in the deep, in tin cd out for him hi whi >s with regrets enough, his natural ver. His Tribute to Charles Butter. 89 and practicality would lead him quietly to admit and stand by. He was not the man to grapple, in its dark and deadly dens, with the Lernaean coil of social Hydras ; perhaps not under any circumstances : but he did, un- assisted, what he could ; faithfully himself did something nay, something truly considerable ; and in his patience with the much that by him and his strength could not be done let us grant there was something of beautiful too ! " Properly, indeed, his career as a public man was but beginning. In the office he last held, much was silently ex- pected of him ; he himself, too, recognised well what a fear- ful and immense question this of Pauperism is; with what ominous rapidity the demand for solution of it is pressing on ; and how little the world generally is yet aware what methods and principles, new, strange, and altogether con- tradictory to the shallow maxims and idle philosophies current at present, would be needed for dealing with it ! This task he perhaps contemplated with apprehension; but he is not now to be tried with this, or with any task more. He has fallen, at this point of the march, an honourable soldier; and has left us here to fight along without him. Be his memory dear and honourable to us, as that of one so worthy ought. What in him was true and valiant endures for evermore beyond all memory or record. His light, airy brilliancy has suddenly become solemn, fixed in the earnest stillness of Eternity. There shall we also, and our little works, all shortly be."* * The Examiner Newspaper, Dec. 2, 1848. I AFTER IX. MARRIAGE JANE WELSH OF HADD1NGTON AXECDOTE OK MI'HOOD EDWARD IRV TORS WELSH CM D JOHN I < LAIR CHARLOTTE ICTUREOP MRS CARLYLE HER HUS1 1HEQUK1 RLD. I was in 1826 that Carlyle took the most momentous, it also proved the most fortunate, step of his life. It would be difficult to name another equally eminent man of lette: o was so per: Q his marriage. To his wife, in perhaps the most tout: inscription that has been placed by a husband over tomb of his departed helpmate, he ascribed all success; and there is every reason to believe that was no more than the simple truth. Jane \\YMi was, in every respect, a woman worthy to be the wife of all those qualities of rt that form the first essential, she was not less nguished for vigour of intellect, and for a richly d culture a: f nature that caused to be regarded, by those in the best position for judging, as one of the most remarkable women of her Born at Haddington in 1801, she was the only The Childhood of Jane Welsh. 91 child of Dr John Welsh, a medical practitioner in that town, and of Grace Welsh, of Caplegill, Dumfriesshire, his wife. In her girlhood she had Edward Irving for a tutor; and it was through Irving that Carlyle became acquainted with her. While yet a mere child, she had overheard domestic discussions with respect to her future training, in which her father expressed the resolution to have her educated like a boy, since she was his only child ; the mother, on the contrary, hoping " for nothing higher in her daughter than the sweet domestic com- panion most congenial to herself:" and who that has read can ever forget the charming story, that touches at once the spring of laughter and of tears, how the child, her ambition roused, secretly acquired a copy of the Latin Rudiments, and, after conning it for many days alone, suddenly from her place of concealment under the table, when the good doctor was sitting at leisure after dinner, burst forth in breathless steadiness with her first lesson, " Penna, penncz, pennam!" The wish of both the parents was realised. Recommended by Professor Leslie, of whom it is pleasant to remember that he made himself the early patron of both Carlyle and Irving, the latter, who had just gone to Haddington to be master of the Mathematical School in the birthplace of John Knox, was chosen by Dr Welsh to become the teacher of his little girl, then aged nine years. Tutor and pupil became fast friends the friendship existing " unbroken," as Mrs Oliphant informs us, " through all kinds of vicissitudes ; even through entire separation, disapproval, and outward estrangement, to the end of Irving's life." While in Edinburgh, after the Kirkcaldy teaching days were, over, Irving met once more his precocious little pupil at 92 Thomas CarlyU. Haddington, now a beautiful and vivacious young la and, though he had no right to be jealous, had formed an attachment elsewhere, we are not surprised to rn that he could not conceal the mortification with which he heard falling too warmly from the young la the praises of the friend whom he had himself ir duced to Dr Welsh's hospitable home. When his little ebullition was over the fair culprit turned to leave the room ; but had scarcely passed the door when Irving hurried after her, and called, entreating her to return for a moment When she came back, she found the simple- :ted giant standing penitent to make his confession. e truth is, I was piqued," said Irving; "I 1 always been accustomed to fancy that / stood highest in your good opinion, and I was jealous to hear you praise another man. I am sorry for what I said just now that he truth of it ;" and so, not pleased, but penitent and candid, he let her ga* ancestors, like those of her husband, had been settled for nfriesshire, and \\ persons of distinction, many of them having risen to positions of i in the Church. As early as 1488 we find a Nicholas Welsh the Abbot of Holywood ; I > William \\VMi was Virar t" Tynnm in 1530; soon a the latter date, Dean Robv r of the same and John \\ \ score, took office in the K in 1560. After the last arose the greatest .i'y, in the jxrrson of another John r, and son in- law of John man, of Th. ng % by Mrs Oliphant. John Welsh of Ayr. 93 the same name, was Laird of Collision, and owned other | estates in Dunscore and Holywood. Of a romantic and adventurous disposition, young Welsh, when a mere boy, ran away from his father's house, and joined a band of Border robbers ; but he did not stay long in their com- pany, and soon presented himself at the door of an aunt, Mrs Forsyth, in Dumfries, through whose good offices he was reconciled to his father. At the early age of twenty- two this stirring boy had settled down as a devoted Christian minister, in the parish of Kirkcudbright ; in his twenty-eighth year he had his famous controversy with the Commendator of Sweetheart Abbey, in which he main- tained the cause of Protestantism with such signal success, that the King bestowed upon him a glowing eulogium; and seven years thereafter, that is, in 1605, he was the leader of the famous Aberdeen Assembly, which met in defiance of the same monarch, when James was seeking to subvert the Presbyterian constitution of the Church of Scotland. Condemned to death, Welsh's sentence was commuted to transportation ; and after sixteen years of exile in France he was suffered, on his health failing, to return in 1622 to England. But the King would on no account allow him to cross the Border when he wished to get the benefit of his native air, His Majesty declaring that " it would be impossible to establish Prelacy in Scotland if Welsh were permitted to return." James even debarred him from preaching in London till in- formed that he could not long survive, and when the preacher at length obtained access to a pulpit he dis- coursed with his wonted fire and eloquence, but, on returning to his lodging, expired within two hours. This faithful witness was a lineal ancestor of Mrs Car- 94 Thomas CarlyU. lyle ; indeed, the estate of Craigenputtoch, which came to Carlyle though his wife, had been the property of the old minister of Ayr. We can hardly wonder, then, that Carlyle should at one time have thought of writing v, though he ultimately gave up the project; and the i".i t that his wife's most distinguished ancestor married Kli/abeth Knox* probably did not tend to lessen the interest with which Carlyle studied the charac- ter and career of her father, the great Reformer, the essay on The Portraits of John Knox being the work he gave to the world Welsh would have been iect not unworthy even of the pen that restored r Cromwell to the English people. When the s Young, of Edinburgh, informed ( he was engaged upon a memoir of Welsh, he received cordial encouragement to prosecute th >h's BioL wrote Carlyle (8th September 1862), " if he could be made conclusively intelligible, as Mic Church- History of his time could by This worthy daughter of a worthy tire, by moms of some of s relations at Court, obtained access to the Royal Solomon when her husband lay dying in London, and pc 1 . the King to grant him permission to return to Scotland. I! s" she ..ne,! the i made such a match as 0. > right like, sir," said Eliza!* AC never speered (asked) hit advice." Again she urged her requev would give her husband his nat i>lied the King; "give him the that to your hungry courtiers," said offended at his profanenesa. At last be told her, if she would persuade her husband to submit to the bishops, be would grant her prayer. M lifting her apron, and holding it monau i lease ycr Majesty, I'd rather kep (receive) -ATOiVj Uj -;jur. His Letter on Welsh of Ayr. 95 right pains, might be a very acceptable book ; the anti- Presbyterian procedure of King James, and scenes one has seen, of ' all the women gathered weeping on Leith Sands/ I think at two in the morning, c as Welsh and consorts lifted anchor for exile,' etc., etc., represent a vivid state of things in what has now fallen altogether blank to common Scotch readers. Mr David Laing printed some- where, not many years ago, certain letters from Welsh in his exile (' I dwine and dee ! ' was a phrase in one of them) which to me were considerably instructive as to his affairs, and him. Mr Laing, you are no doubt aware, is worth all living aids put together in regard to such a matter. I fear, however, there will be a great scarcity of real documents as to Welsh. At Ayr, I suppose, there will be nothing ; unless, perhaps his old kirk is still head uppermost, in an indisputable way? In Dumfriesshire, (in Glenesland, Upper Nithsdale), you will still find the name of Colleston sticking to a patch of the property which was his father's; but, except that, and perhaps some inferences (of small moment) deducible from that, I doubt nothing more whatever." In reply to this letter, Mr Young wrote : " Your fear that there will be a great scarcity of documents is, I am happy to inform you, with- out foundation. On the contrary, there is an exuberance of materials, and one great difficulty I have felt is how best to arrange and compress them." The phrase of Welsh's at the parting on Leith Sands which dwelt in Carlyle's memory is to be found, probably, in Row's His- tory or Melville's Diary ; but, in spite of the suggestive reminiscence of his correspondent, Mr Young had not the tact to quote it, but preferred to give his own feeble paraphrase of the story. 96 Thomas Carlylt. That Mrs Carlylc was worthy of the noble stock frono i she came, and that she possessed not a littl ready wit of brave Mrs Welsh of Ayr, has been attested by all who knew her. Among her other gifts was that oi ig a letter in no wise inferior to the choicest produc i the epistolary line. Of this wt v in a playful communication to Sir George ir, written in 1860, shortly aft. Miami had gone north on a visit to the baronet at Thurso Ca> " 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, Aagast " My dear Sir, Decidedly you are more thoughtful n the man who is bound by vow to Move and h' me; ave I received from him tc safe arrival in your dominions. hameful on his part, i appears bj your i good accounts to give of himself; and was ; :ig them. - \\ \ 11 : now that^* have relieved me from all anxict) about the effects of the journey on him, he may v, his own ' reasonably good leisure.' Onl I 1 should not write till I had heard of his .. \ him i am in the 1. .iy Wi.nl to the letter. thousand thanks for the primrose roots, wl ! it so soon as it (airs 1 To-day we have again i deluge, adding a deeper shade of horror to certain house- hold operations going on under my inspection (by way o! occasion ' of his absence) ! Otu bedroom has got all the - bed and pillows airing them selves out on the iloor 1 creating an atmosphere of down in the house, more choking than even * cotton-ftuz.' In A Letter from Mrs Carlyle. 97 another, upholsterers and painters are plashing away for their life ; and a couple of bricklayers are tearing up flags in the kitchen to seek 'the solution' of a non-acting drain ! All this on the one hand ; and on the other, visits from my doctor resulting in ever new 'composing draughts/ and strict charges to ' keep my mind perfectly tranquil.' You will admit that one could easily conceive situations more ideal. " Pray, do keep him as long as you like ! To hear of him 'in high spirits' and 'looking remarkably well' is more composing for me than any amount of ' composing draughts,' or of insistence on the benefits of 'keeping myself perfectly tranquil.' It is so very different a state of things with him from that in which I have seen him for a long time back ! " Oh ! I must not forget to give you the ' kind re- membrance ' of a very charming woman, whom any man may be pleased to be remembered by as kindly as she evidently remembered you! I speak of Lady William Russell.* She knew you in Germany, 'a young student,' she told me, when she was Bessy Rawdon. She ' had a great affection for you, and had often thought of you since.' You were 'very romantic in those days; oh, very romantic and sentimental] she could assure me ! Pray, send me back a pretty message for her; she will like so much to know that she has not remembered you ' with the reciprocity all on one side.' " I don't even send my regards to Mr C., but " Affectionately yours, " JANE W. CARLYLE." The mother of the present Duke of Bedford a lady of rare gifts G 98 Thomas CarlyU. Surely that is a very pretty letter, with a fine arch humour breathing through every line of it, under \v: you can see lurking .1 yearning affection for the absent husband, and as much of intellectual vigour and good common sense as of heart Edward Irving, we may rest assured, did not exaggerate when he used to speak of Jane \\ : as the most powerful he had ever seen in a woman. In the memoirs of Charlotte Cushman, an actres was descended from, and not unworthy of, one of the most distinguished of the Pilgrim i of New England, a vivid account of Mrs Carlyle, wl American first saw at the house of Miss Jewsbury, but afterwards often met in her own house in Chi Row. She is described as "that wonderful woman, who was able to live in the full light of Carlyle and celebrity without being overshadowed by it; who wa own way, as great as he, and yet, who lived on minister to 1 .::..." Thus Miss Cushman describes their w: "On Su: o should come invited to meet me b one o'clock and stayed until eight And 1 have not known ! Clever, witty, calm, cool, unsm ing, a raconteur unparalleled, a mam liable, a beh a power invincible a d strange exists in that plain, keen, unattrac- unescapable woman ! O, I must Ull you of that for I cannot write The picture of the domestic scene at Cheyne Row. and accomplishments who, until the time of her lamented 4f*thi at an advanced age, continued to be the centre of perhaps the most intellectually brilliant circle in the society of London. Portrait of Mrs Carlyle. 99 Then Carlyle would talk like no other mortal that ever was made. " Meanwhile his wife, quiet and silent, assiduously renewed his cup of tea, or by an occasional word, or judicious note, struck just at the right moment, kept him going, as if she wielded the mighty imagination at her pleasure, and evoked the thunder and the sunshine at her will. When she was alone, and herself the enter- tainer, one became aware of all the self-abnegation she practised, for she was herself a remarkably brilliant talker, and the stories of quaint wit and wisdom which she poured forth, the marvellous memory which she displayed, were, in the minds of many, quite as remarkable and even more entertaining than the majestic utterances of her gifted husband. It was said that those who came to sit at his feet remained at hers." Some good stories are told of the clever way in which she would prevent her husband, when absorbed in the labours he had assigned to himself, from being intruded upon by bores and lion-hunters. She had an excellent judgment in literary matters; Charles Dickens held her critical faculty in the highest esteem, and was in the habit of frequently asking her advice. She also possessed considerable artistic skill as well as taste; when her husband conceived the notion of sending to Goethe a birthday present as a token of gratitude and affection on the part of himself and a few other British disciples of the master at Weimar, it was Mrs Carlyle who designed the seal chosen for the memento. Occasionally she did a little writing on her own account; in her husband's Life of John Sterling^ there is a reference to a piece from her pen, entitled, "Watch and Canary Bird," and we learn, from one of Dickens's letters to John Forster, dated immediately after ioo Thomas Carlylt. death, that she was engaged upon a novel, of the >ophico-analytic sort, when that event happened* The gratitude felt by Carlyle : ift he a wife was expressed in many in- t and touching ways The thought of his mother ht have sufficed to make him, what he always was, full of a knightly courtesy to all women ; but this was no doubt deeper ;>py experience as a husband, in which he had seen realised that he with so much of tender grace and beauty in one of lett- n after his helpmate was gone. "I have 1 the true and noble function of a woman in world was, is, and forever will be, that of being Wife and Helpmate to a worthy man; and discharging well the iluti^ th.it devolve on her in consequence, as mo - of children and mistress of a Household, dudes 1 noble, silently imj>ortant as any that can fall to a human creature: duties which, if well discharged, constitute woi: soft, beautiful, and almost sacred way, the Queen of the by her natural faculties, graces, strengths, and weaknesses, are every way indicated as specifically hers, .man, there- fore, is to wed a man she can love and esteem ; and to lead noiseles , with all the wisdom, grace, and heroism that i the life prescribed in consequence." t The sentiment so charmingly expressed r school companions who still survive say, that she was the only girl in the Latin das* of (he burgh school, that she was very clever, and was generally at the head of it. One school compani' lives, renv he and his dais fellows v. them.*" Stanford Ntwspafitr. ^Ji. ,Mrr n,f !i?o nth l-'r'i lS-I i frr>m u-hirh fHi* i* r\r His Views on Female Physicians. 101 in this passage found utterance on some other occasions in forms that were quaintly humorous as, for example, was addressed to Mr Robert Lawson, a medical student at Edin- burgh, in answer to a request that Mr Carlyle would state his opinion on the subject of the admission of female medical students to the classes in the University and the clinical teaching in the Infirmary a question which had raised a furious controversy, then at its height. "It is with reluctance," replied Carlyle, " that I write anything to you on this subject of Female Emancipa- tion, which is now rising to such a height ; and I do it only on the strict condition that whatever I say shall be private, and nothing of it get into the Newspapers. The truth is, the topic for five-and -twenty years past, especially for the last three or four, has been a mere sorrow to me ; one of the most afflicting proofs of the miserable anarchy that prevails in human society ; and I have avoided thinking of it, except when fairly compelled ; what little has become clear to me on it I will now endeavour to tell you." After laying down the principle that woman's true function is that of wifehood, he continues : " It seems furthermore indubitable that if a woman miss this destiny, or have renounced it, she has every right, before God and man, to take up whatever honest em- ployment she can find open to her in the world ; probably there are several or many employments, now exclusively in the hands of men, for which women might be more or less fit ; printing, tailoring, weaving, clerking, etc., etc. That Medicine is intrinsic- ally not unfit for them is proved from the fact that in much more sound and earnest ages than ours, before the Medical Pro- fession rose into being, they were virtually the Physicians and Surgeons as well as Sick-nurses, all that the world had. Their form of intellect, their sympathy, their wonderful acuteness of observation, etc., seem to indicate in them peculiar qualities for dealing with disease ; and evidently in certain departments (that of female diseases) they have quite peculiar opportunities of being useful. My answer to your question, then, may be that two things are not doubtful to me in this matter. 1st, That Women, any Woman who deliberately so determines, have a right to study Medicine ; and that it might be profitable and serviceable to have facilities, or at least possibilities, offered them for so doing. But, 2d, That, for obvious reasons, Female Students of Medicine ought to have, if possible, Female Teachers, or else an extremely select kind of men ; and in particular that to have young women present among young men in Anatomical Classes, Clinical Lectures, or 102 Thomas CarlyU. in that chivalrous defence of what all other biographers had considered the crowning blunder of Dr Johnson's life. Carlylc could see no matter for ridicule in the i riage with the good Widow Porter, even though she was old enough to be the Doctor's mother. Rather in her love and Johnson, and in his love and gratitude, he saw something that was most pathetic and sacred: hnson's deathless affection for his Tetty was," he declares, " always venerable and noble." Well mi^ht the and of Jane Welsh regard as sacred that institute of marriage which had worked so well for \. generally udying Medicine in concert, U an incongruity of the magnitude, tod hocking to think of to every pure and modest mind. This U all I have to say, and I tend it to you, under the condition above mentioned, as a Friend for the me of Friends," CHAPTER X. IN HIS MOORLAND HOME THE LIFE AT CRAIGENPUTTOCH LETTERS TO GOETHE, DE QUINCEY, AND CHRISTO- PHER NORTH PROPOSED "BOG SCHOOL" OF PHILO- SOPHERS EARLY PILGRIMS WRITES THE " MISCEL- LANIES " HIS DEMOLITION OF JEFFREY THE ESSAY ON BURNS. THERE is a story of Carlyle's boy-days, told us by a friend who spent his youthful years in the same neighbourhood, which may be mythical, but ought to be true, since it certainly answers to all that we know of the character and circumstances of the persons concerned. According to this local tradition, little Thomas had built in a retired nook of his father's farm a kind of hut for himself to study in ; but as his father preferred that he should go to work instead of devoting himself exclusively to his "buiks," he sent the Laird (Mr Sharpe of Hoddam),* who happened to be calling, to order the boy to remove his hut off the ground. But the boy rose to the occasion, slammed the door on the Laird's face, and took himself to his literary studies, careless of the consequences. The * Of the same line to which Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, called by Scott "the Scottish Horace Walpole," belonged, and which is now extinct. Matthew Sharpe of Hoddam was the friend and corres- pondent of David Hume ; perhaps it was he who went to evict " oor Tarn " from the Hut. If not, it must have been his successor. 104 Thomas Carlylt. resolute character of James Carlylc's eldest son has t far carrit-d him on in the path whirh he had so early marked out for himself; I beset l>y rein there has hung over him moment the threat i: Now at length t cult: moved out of the way. The 1 boy of the hut threatened by Sharpe of Hoddam i length himself a Laird, free to fashion his own li: .cllt if not large, has delivered the struggling son of the pea -he nece cad . s of compulsory drudgery, with birch-rod among n the school and at hack-work for the pub- lishers, are happi' at last shape- course in a manner consistent with his sense of ; dignity and the .t use of the pow\ wh: l>een endowed had already tasted the sweets of London " Undei , and multi- farious as Sparta had in 1824 renewed rcourse with Edward Irving, and met tor the time some men of n he was to know better in the coming years. A ;d remembered so vividly street of Annan that met >us gaze that -ed it for the : c, as a child . so were mind that he had carried away with him i: sojourn in the bj and twenty-six years a! wart sat down to write the Life of John . one of these that came back with special force was the spectacle of ' ees, " the Troca- dero swarm, thrown off in 1823," who, to the number of Removal to Craigenputtoch. 105 fifty or a hundred, perambulated, " mostly with closed lips, the broad pavements of Euston Square and the regions about St Pancras' new Church." Charles Buller's Scotch tutor must have marked them well ; and the fact that he saw them will preserve their memory. " Old steel-grey heads, many of them ; the shaggy, thick, blue- black hair of others struck you ; their brown complexion, dusky look of suppressed fire, in general their tragic condi- tion as of caged Numidian lions." That and many another strange sight had the young Caledonian seen in London streets, not without deep interest, as his life-like etchings attest ; men of intellect, also, he had met John Stuart Mill, we believe, amongst the number. But, in the mean time, he did not think of settling in London, great as its attractions were to the man fired by literary ambition. For a little while, after his marriage, he seems to have resided at Comely Bank, in the immediate vicinity of Edinburgh, within easy reach of the libraries and publishers, and enjoying the society (which even the leaders of London life might have envied him) of such neighbours as De Quincey and Sir William Hamilton. At this time he was completing those translations from the German which William Tait published in 1827. In 1828, the young couple resolved to fix their abode on their own property, and accordingly betook them- selves to Craigenputtoch, a farm lying in a wild solitude on the southern shore of Loch Urr, among the granite hills of Nithsdale. Out of the world in one sense ; yet, after all, not so many miles from Burns's Ellisland, on the silver Nith, only fifteen miles from the town of Dum- fries, and even within a comparatively manageable dis- tance (about a day's journey on foot) from Carlyle's native 106 Thomas CarlyU. village, where both father and mother were still alive to >inc their son. It was in tlttl :n"".n:ain home that Carlyle was to sjxmd the next six years of his life in dec on the great he had been so long wrestling, but w' remained unsolved Here he would enter at last on his course as an original wr and achieve much while he prej>ared for the doing of ire of the place, 1 life and the purposes he \V.IN <g, is given in a 1 25th September 1828) addressed to Goeth 1 in the preface to the nan translation of Carlyle's Life of SfhiL lied n 1830. " You inquire," writes Carlyle, "with ; warm interest respecting our present abode and occupations, that I am obliged to say a few words about both, while t : ;11 room left. Dumfries is a plea ., containing about fifteen thousand inhabit! to be considered the centre of the trade and jud: possesses some importance the ; Scottish activity. Our reside t in the : If, but fifteen miles to the north-west of it, c hills, and the black morasses, wl ch westward through Galloway, almost to the Irish Sea. In this wilderness of heath and rock, our estate stan a green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly 1 ground, where com ri] trees afford a shade, although surrounded by sea-mews : rough-woolled sheep. Here, with no small e; we built and furnished a neat, substantial <i her absence of a professional or tfice, we to culti\. according to our strength, His Letters to Goethe. 107 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 further 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 medicines 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. Here Rousseau would have been as happy as on his island of St Pierre. My town friends, indeed, ascribe my sojourn here to a similar disposition, and for- bode me no good result. But I came hither solely with the design to simplify my way of life, and to secure the in- dependence through which I could be enabled to remain true to myself. This bit of earth is our own : here we can live, write, and think, as best pleases ourselves, even though Zoilus himself were to be crowned the monarch of literature. Nor is the solitude of such great import- ance ; for a stage-coach takes us speedily to Edinburgh, which we look upon as our British Weimar. And have I not, too, at this moment, piled upon the table of my little library a whole cart-load of French, German, American, and English journals and periodicals whatever may be their worth ? Of antiquarian studies, too, there is no lack. From some of our heights I can descry, about a day's journey to the west, the hill where Agricola and his Romans left a camp behind them. At the foot of it I was born, and there both father and mother still live to love me. And so one must let time work. But whither am I wandering ? Let me confess to you I am uncertain about my future literary activity, and would gladly learn io8 Thomas CarlyU. your opinion concerning it ; at least, pray write to me again, and speedily, that I may feel myself united to you. The only piece of any importance that I have written since I came here is an Essay on Bums. Perhaps you never heard of him, and yet he is a man of the most decided genius ; but born in the lowest ranks of peasant life, and through the entanglements of his peculiar pod lion was at length mournfully wrecked, so that what he effected is comparatively unimportant He died in the middle of his career, in the year 1796. \NV Knglish, especially we Scotch, love Burns more than any poet that has lived for centuries. I have often been struck by the fact that he was born a few months before Schi the year 1759, and that neither of them ever heard the rti name. They shone like stars in opposite spheres, or, if you will, the thirk mist of earth intercepted! their reciprocal hy In the preface which Goethe wisely lit up with this memorable fragment of autobiography (and which wasj fin-tin lustrated with two engravings, representing sidence among the Scottish hilN), the great Ger- man poet remarks that Burns was not unknown to him ; and very warmly does he commend Carl has been at in realising the life and individuality, not only of Schiller, but of all the German authors whom he baa introduced to the English-speaking world 1 efforts of ( ad been immediately fruitful is prove* by the facts which he was able to c another letter to Goethe, in the December of 1829. "You will be pleased to hear," he writes, "that the I appreciation of for. i especiallj of German, literature spreads casing rapidity His Letters to Goethe. 109 wherever the English tongue rules ; so that now at the antipodes, in New Holland itself, the wise men of your country utter their wisdom. I have lately heard that even in Oxford and Cambridge, our two English Universities hitherto looked upon as the stopping-place of our peculiar insular conservatism, a movement in such things has begun. Your Niebuhr has found a clever translator at Cambridge, and at Oxford two or three Germans have already enough employment in teaching their language. The new light may be too strong for certain eyes ; yet no one can doubt the happy consequences that shall ulti- mately follow therefrom. Let nations, as individuals, only know each other, and mutual jealousy will change to mutual helpfulness, and instead of natural enemies, as neighbouring countries too often are, we shall all be natural friends." Amongst the various records of the intercourse that brought Craigenputtoch into such inti- mate relations with Weimar, not the least pleasant are several graceful messages in verse from Goethe to Mrs Carlyle, which have been included in the collected edi- tion of the poet's works. * In the December of the same year in which he sent to Goethe the graphic view of his life and surroundings at Craigenputtoch, he wrote a letter to De Quincey, wherein * It has often been asserted that Carlyle became personally inti- mate with Goethe in Germany prior to the writing of the above letters ; but the truth is, that Carlyle had not, as yet, visited Ger- many at all. The originator of the fiction, we suspect, must have been James Grant, of Random Recollections notoriety. While there was some excuse for the ignorance he betrayed in 1841, there is none for the recent repeaters of his idle story, since Carlyle himself, in the second appendix to his Life of Schiller, expressly informed his readers that he " never saw " Goethe. no Thomas CarlyU. some striking lines arc added to the picture. We cannot be too grateful for the fortunate preservation of : ' so readily have (alien aside >nd all chance of recover)* amid the frequent flittings id fro of the strangely-gifted being to whom it mil addressed We are told by De Quincey*s biograp! r Carlyle, "with that generous interest in whn original . llent which has so honourably di>tin- guishcd him throughout his long career, had, in com- hers, asked after the 'Opium i :ose contriht drawn so much attention to the London Magazine, and had met him, while he was on visits to I h, at the houses <f Mr John Gordon and that De Ouincey had come to Edinburgh at il tiinr him the following let 'eels, in :ny influences that wt rig on the hitherto storm-tossed Sartor in the \\:. hills : igenptittoch, iith iVccmbcr, 1828. " V the opjKirtunity of a frank. 1 ^end you a few lines, were ify that two ers of yours are still in these moors, and often thinking with the old IQgfc M ourages me in this inn.M . as learned lately that you were inquiring for me female I \en ere a fret of the most interesting sort to both of us. I am to say, therefor. presence at this fireside will diffuse no ordinary gladness all members oi" the warmest me, and such solaccmcnts as even the desert does Letter to De Quincey. in not refuse, are at any time and at all times in store for one we love so well. Neither is this expedition so im- practicable. We lie but a short way out of your direct route to Westmoreland ; communicate by gravelled roads with Dumfries and other places in the habitable globe. Were you to warn us of your approach, it might all be made easy enough. And then such a treat it would be to hear the sound of philosophy and literature in the hitherto quite savage wolds, where since the creation of the world no such music, scarcely even articulate speech, had been uttered or dreamed of ! Come, therefore, come and see us ; for we often long after you. Nay, I can promise, too, that we are almost a unique sight in the British Empire ; such a quantity of German periodicals and mystic speculation embosomed in plain Scottish Peat-moor being nowhere else that I know of to be met with. " In idle hours we sometimes project founding a sort of colony here, to be called the { Misanthropic Society ;' the settlers all to be men of a certain philosophic depth, and intensely sensible of the present state of literature ; each to have his own cottage, encircled with roses or thistles as he might prefer ; a library and pantry within, and huge stack of turf-fuel without , fenced off from his neighbours by fir woods, and, when he pleased, by cast- metal railing, so that each might feel himself strictly an individual, and free as a son of the wilderness ; but the whole settlement to meet weekly over coffee, and there unite in their Miserere, or what were better, hurl forth their defiance, pity, expostulation, over the whole universe, civil, literary, and religious. I reckon this place a much fitter site for such an establishment than your Lake H2 Thomas CarlyU. Country a region abounding in natural beauty, but blown on by coach-horns, betrodden by picturesque tourists, and otherwise exceedingly desecrated by too icnt resort ; whereas here, though still in communi- cation with the manufacturing world, we have a solitude Tuidical grim hills tenanted chiefly by the wild grouse, tarns and brooks tl soaked and slumbered unmolested since the Deluge of Noah, and nothing to disturb you with speech, except Arcturus and Orion, and the Spirit of Nature, in the heaven and in the earth, as it manifests itself in anger or love, and u ine\pli< ibk tidings, unheard by the mortal ear. But the the almost total want of colonists! Would you come hither and be king over us ; thtn indeed we had made a fair beginning, and the ' Bog School* might s n at the 'I -ike School* itself, and hope to be one day recognised of all men, " But enough of this fooling. Better were it to tell you in plain prose what lr >e said of my own v '. inquiry in the same dialect after yours. It will gratify you t that here, in the desert, as in the crowded . I im moder. ell; better in th, not worse; and though active only on the small scale, yet in my < .ion hone i to as nv It as has been usual with me at any tin have horses to ride on, gardens to cultivate, tight walls and strong fires to del against winter; books to read, paper to scribble on ; and no man or thing, at least in le earth, to make us a: - I reckon that so securely sequestered are we, not only would no Catholic rebellion, but even no : i;ist and Horsa invasion, in anywise disturb our tranquillity. we have no Studies at Craigenputtoch. 113 society ; but who has, in the strict sense of that word ? I have never had any worth speaking much about since I came into this world : in the next, it may be, they will order matters better. Meanwhile, if we have not the wheat in great quantity, we are nearly altogether free from the chaff^ which often in this matter is highly annoy- ing to weak nerves. My wife and I are busy learning Spanish ; far advanced in Don Quixote already. I pur- pose writing mystical Reviews for somewhat more than a twelvemonth to come; have Greek to read, and the whole universe to study (for I understand less and less of it) j so that here as well as elsewhere I find that a man may 'dree his wierd* (serve out his earthly apprentice- ship) with reasonable composure, and wait what the flight of years may bring him, little disappointed (unless he is a fool) if it bring him mere nothing save what he has already a body and a soul more cunning and costly treasures than all Golconda and Potosi could purchase for him. What would the vain worm, man, be at ? Has he not a head, to speak of nothing else a head (be it with a hat or without one) full of far richer things than Windsor Palace, or the Brighton Teapot added to it? What are all Dresden picture-galleries and magazines des arts et des metiers to the strange painting and thrice wonderful and thrice precious workmanship that goes on under the cranium of a beggar ? What can be added to him or taken from him by the hatred or love of all men ? The grey paper or the white silk paper in which the gold ingot is wrapped ; the gold is inalienable ; he is the gold. But truce also to this moralising. I had a thousand things to ask concerning you : your employments, pur- poses, sufferings, and pleasures. Will you not write to H 1 1 4 Thomas Car me? will you not come to me and tell? 1' you are well loved here, and none feels better tha a spirit is for the present eclipsed in clouds. I >r the sent it can only be; time and chance are for all i that troublous season will end; and one day with i. joyful, not deeper or truer regard, I shall see yo self again.' Meanwhile, jardon me t! n; and write, if you have a vacant hour which you would fill w: good action. Mr Jeffrey is still anxious to know y has he ever succeeded ? We are not to be in Edinburgh, I believe, till spring ; but I will send him a letter to (with your permission) by the first conveyance. i member me with best regards to Profess* \\ Hamilton, neither of whom must forget me; not omitting the honest Gordon, who I know will e bearer of oung gentleman of no ordinary talent and worth, in whom, as I IK tukt gar riil. Should he let thU I>e an introdu. reverences all spiritual worth, and you also will learn to love him. With all I am ever, my dear sir, most faith full> T. CARLYTJL" So there was no small grudge lurking in the s Goethe's translator and |>r account of that severe castigation of WiUulm Mcister whit h 1 >e Muinccy wrote a little more than three years ago ! v rest assured that no one j>er< . -re clearly than Carlylc himself the merit of thai 1, with the generosity of a large na ;:her time nor in> v quarrels, he would be ready to forgive probably did not bestow a second thought, except one of mirth, Letter to Christopher North. 115 upon the touch of spleen that might be perceptible in the vigorous onslaught of his critic. The only opponent who had power to make him angry for a little while was the man who, being really ignorant, yet pretended to know ; and such a character could not be justly ascribed at any time, to the marvellous scholar and man of genius who was playfully invited by the greatest of his con- temporaries to come and be king of the new school to be founded in the moors of Nithsdale. A third glimpse of the gladsome, though secluded, life in that mountain home with its stern yet tender beauties, congenial to the spirit and genius of the recluse is furnished by Carlyle himself in a letter, of date 1 9th December 1829, addressed to Professor Wil- son. The author of the Nodes had promised to spend some days at Craigenputtoch at the approaching Christ- mas season ; and Carlyle writes to remind him that the promise is " not forgotten here." He and Wilson had met only once in the house of John Gordon, a favour- ite pupil of the Professor's ; and, when we take the slightness of their acquaintance into consideration, it will be perceived that Carlyle was not merely genial, but positively exuberant, in his friendly hospitable overtures. " Come, then," he exclaims, " if you would do us a high favour ^ that warm hearts may welcome in the cold New Year, and the voice of poet and philo- sopher, numeris lege solutis^ may for once be heard in these deserts where, since Noah's Deluge, little but the whirring of heath-cocks and the lowing of oxen has broken the stillness. You shall have a warm fire and a warm welcome ; and we will talk in all dialects, con- cerning all things, climb to hill-tops, and see certain of the 1 1 6 Thomas Carfylt. kingdoms of this world,* and at nijjht gather round a clear hearth, and forget that winter and the devil ar our planet" The writer then proceeds to j: in detail, information as to the links that connect the e with the busy world of man from wh; escaped There is a mail-coach nightly to Dumfries passing dost 1 two stage-coaches every day to Thornhil! places they are miles distant, with a fair roa procurable in both towns. " Could we ! ng, we would send you down two horses wheel carriages (except carts and barrows) we are unhappily d< j>erhaps Christopher, noted as a great pedestrian he thought nothing of a walk from Oxt <lent days would be dis- posed to do without horses and carriages or stage- coa< " Nay, in any rase, tin- " that i Dumfries or Thorn: Imt a in walk, and this is the loveliest December weather ollect of seeing." added, that Post Office every Wednesday i could hardly have been i. English tourist would see "tax kingdoms." When got t" t! rare thi* extraordinary &tatcmc: c optical S <>ut in succession Cumber! Man, once a sovereignty in the famil: .ind ; and the ground on * . were standing, part of Scotland. " Yes, that makes f the KM- you have two more to show : st look npaboo: head, and that is by far the best of a* the kingdoms tha aboon is Ilceven. i the saxth kingdom is 1 I ho|>e yc'll never gang ; but that's a poi: The Scotsman- Mercury Duel. 117 complete in any part of the British Island south of the Grampians. " I have not seen one Blackwood, or even an Edinburgh newspaper, since I returned hither. Scarcely have tidings of the Scotsman- Mercury duel reached me, and how the worthies failed to shoot each other, and the one has lost his editorship, and the other still continues to edit." That ridiculous duel, fought between Charles Maclaren, the geologist, who was also the conductor of the Scotsman, and Dr James Broune,* editor of the Caledonian Mercury, had happened on the 1 2th November; but the news of it took close upon five weeks to travel to Craigenputtoch, so that the laughter of all Scotland over the incident must have been clean exhausted before Carlyle had his guffaw, with sardonic commentary on the fact which he, perhaps, regarded as slightly calamitous that neither of the combatants had succeeded in slaying the other. A delicate compliment * Broune, who was an LL.D., seems to have been a versatile creature. Originally a schoolmaster and then a preacher in his native county of Perth, he passed advocate in 1826 ; took to writing for Constable, edited the ancient Memiry, then started North Britain, and contributed to the seventh edition of the Encyclopedia Britan- nica. He is remembered as the author of a History of the Highlands and the Highland Clans, and in Edinburgh as the exposer of the West Port Murders, a feat accomplished a couple of years before he called out Maclaren, one of the least belligerent of men. The poor LL.D. wore himself out soon, dying at 48. He is all the more entitled to brief notice here, since we find him again alluded to by Carlyle in his reminiscences of Sir William Hamilton, contributed to Professor Veitch's Life of the great metaphysician. Broune was no doubt the newspaper editor, "the author of some book on the High- lands," who was known in Edinburgh society by the sobriquet of Captain Cloud, "from his occasionally fabulous turn." The poor "Captain," who turned up at literary parties frequented by Carlyle, about 1832-3, had evidently been an object of some slight interest to Sartor. u8 Thomas Carlyle. closed the epistle to Wilson. Mrs Carlyle, he was told, 1 hopes against hope that she will wear her Ct brooch this Christmas, a thing only done when there " But ( cr saw Craigenputtoch, and, indeed, Carlyle and t but OOCC after the fi: -}KT want of opportunity, or other < ire u instances," says ' Ion in the Lit father, 44 prevented '.ij>." When ' sSOT received that (harming letter, so brimming over with the humanities he had read a certain essay, now known to all the world, on Burns, \vlu< h had appeared that very year in the great Whig review; yet in the Nodes re is a colloquy on 1 Car' h as named, or even alluded while the S! owed to say, cr about Burns yourscl', sir, nor anybody cls< brcathin\ i hae I r and a' friends of the j>oet ought to be grateful to North." In ^30, there is a panegyric of the London Magazine, put into the : <:ey, in which tin orters" of that j>eriodical are spc >t ami- nbK- the Lay* >-. In August Of 1834, Nor inas Carlyle and Hay ward, and all i. a heathenish lingo worse than the unknown tongue." In \ to the i ics of the Nortts, we may note in coi name does not appear. The Work Achieved at Craigenputtoch. 119 Though neither De Quincey nor Wilson were able to visit Craigenputtoch, many friends, and also strangers desirous of seeing the new teacher who had so profoundly touched their spirits, found their way thither from time to time ; so that even in his mountain fastness Carlyle was not altogether cut off from the world. In the letter to Wilson, he makes incidental allusion to the circumstance that " an Oxonian gigman " was coming to visit him in an hour ; and such pilgrims from afar were no uncommon phenomena at the farm. Of course, there would be long stretches of time when the young couple had the place all to themselves, and the only variety given to the day would be supplied by the long walk taken together over the moors, or the ride on horseback to some more distant part of the vast domain beyond their little estate which they might no less call their own, so far as the enjoyment of its picturesque aspects was concerned. Sometimes there would be the unexpected arrival of an old friend or a new pilgrim, and one of the domestics, or Mrs Car- lyle herself, would be obliged hastily to mount a pony and go forth in search of provisions to meet the unlooked-for demand. But even when these calls upon their hospitality were least frequent, the time would not hang heavy upon their hands ; for much work was being done in that plain .apartment of the farm-house now shewn with so much pride to visitors in which, as the crowning effort of those quiet years, the immortal Sartor was written. It has been too much the habit to speak and even write of the time spent on the Dumfriesshire moors as if it were merely a period of preparation and waiting ; it was, in fact, a time of splendid achievement. From his settlement here dates the beginning of Carlyle's course as an original 120 Thomas Carlyle. writer. It was at Craigenputtoch that he wrote the essays which commute much of 1 k ; and here he began and finished the most creative effort 01 genius. From the letter to De Qui vould be per- d that its writer was then in friendly commi with the other leading assailant of Goethe; and inds us that Carlyle was now enrolled on the staff of the Edinburgh Review. The year following iage was the one that witnessed his admission to J ora- the apjx: the 9ist number of the " Blue and Yellow " of that article on Richter which now stands in the initial volume of his Critical and .\fiscfllaneOM$ Essays. The publication of this essay was the beginning of a connection wliii h Listed for about foi: crminat- A-ith the publication of the article entitled Chara in 1831, in the io8th number of the rgk. As hall sec presently, the six or seven years that were laigenputtoch also produced much good k of a kindred sort for other reviews as well as for <er*s Magazine; and, although it might be true when he wrote his letter to Goethe in the September of 1828 that "the only pi. \ importance the Essay on Bur that achievement of this ejKKh of his lii :tion of minor imjxmance when we recollect that the N; dale hermitage was the birthplace of Sar/ This, in the coming years, will be what Scotch divines are in the habit <>: ^rand " outstanding " in connection with Craigenputtoch. Ixmg after our cen- tury has ended, p. :nany a land will visit that moorland sh ey go to look at the bridge in Bed- ford town on win been thought, stood the prison Reply to Jeffrey on German Literature. 121 where John Bunyan wrote his Pilgrim; and they will regard it as much more than the seed-bed of future achievements, though it is doubtless true that, besides being rich in fruit, the years of retirement in that wilder- ness formed a preparation for the work that was yet to be performed in the mighty Babel on the banks of the Thames. " There he unravelled the tangled skein of his thoughts. There he laid up stores of knowledge, of health, of high resolutions for the work lying before him. There, in a solitude peopled only by books and thoughts and the companionship of his wife, and converse with some congenial stranger, he laid the sure foundations of a life which was destined to be so complete."* The article on Jean Paul was followed up in the next number of the Edinburgh by the essay on German Literature, of which it has been said that it "at once entitled the young reviewer to a place among the first critics of the age" a remark that might have been expressed in stronger terms without exaggeration of the truth. It entitled him to a place above them all. How these articles, especially the second, came to be accepted by the Editor, is a problem we cannot pretend to solve. Not only did they run counter to the views of Jeffrey and the other members of the Whig circle gathered around him ; the second of these articles, as Mr Ballantyne pointed out in his brief sketch of Carlyle, actually dared to attack " the prince of critics " for his abuse of Goethe, and, furthermore, asserted the claims of genius in a fashion that must have been deemed flat rebellion by the habitues of Holland House. In his article on Wilhelm * The Times Newspaper, Feb. 7, 1881. Thomas Cartyle. upon the German authors for their alleged bad taste, which he ascribed to the assumed fact thai 1 not enjoy the privile. in good socii heir works smell," he - 44 as it were, of groceries of brown pai>ers filled with greasy ices of bacon and fryings in I .urs. All the interesting recolK .f childhood turn on remembered tit-bits, and plundering . rooi The writers as well as the readers of that country belong almost entirely to the pU-beian .ir class. Tl <d men are almost all wofully poor and depend i !>lc burghers, who books by the thousand at the Fran- bably agree with their auth the value they set on those homely comforts to which t! .tually limited by their and enter into no jttrt of them so heart! set forth their paramount and continual importance." the Germans lunderers and tl : who was controlling the pul 'cd a vulgar sneer at p the h may have been co in the London drawing-rooms of the aristocratic U niga* i a theory as the < latcd against the German authors canir ' grace fr- -.\ho had pla: 'iat was then the most > had at the < .In- vatcd lit a little oatmeal, 1 ' and the furnishing of >e house I he recluv Poverty and Poetic Power. 123 puttoch, reared in the same hardy school as Burns, made short work of the snobbish theory that authors who live in mean houses, and are unfamiliar with " the polish of drawing-rooms," must therefore think and write in a mean style. He might have insinuated a contrast between Ger- man poets then living who were the familiar companions of princes, and the British poets who deemed themselves in Elysium if permitted once a brief accidental interview with the poorest creature who ever wore the name of king; but he took higher ground. " Is it, then, so certain," he asks, in one of the noblest passages he ever wrote, " that taste and riches are indissolubly connected ? That truth of feeling must ever be preceded by weight of purse, and the eyes be dim for universal and eternal Beauty, till they have long rested on gilt walls and costly furniture ? To the great body of mankind this were heavy news ; for, of the thousand, scarcely one is rich, or connected with the rich ; nine hundred and ninety- nine have always been poor, and must always be so. We take the liberty. of questioning the whole postulate. We think that, for acquiring true poetic taste, riches, or association with the rich, are distinctly among the minor requisites ; that, in fact, they have little or no concern with the matter. Taste, if it mean anything but a paltry connoisseurship, must mean a general susceptibility to truth and nobleness ; a sense to discern, and a heart to love and reverence, all beauty, order, goodness, where- soever or in whatsoever forms and accompaniments they are to be seen. This surely implies, as its chief condi- tion, not any given external rank or situation, but a finely-gifted mind, purified into harmony with itself, into keenness and justness of vision ; above all, kindled into 1 2 \ Thomas Car love and generous admiration. Is culture of this sort found e\ among the higher ranks ? We believe r oceeds less from without than within, in every rank. The charms of Nature, the majesty of Man, the int. loveliness of Truth and Virtue, are not hidden from the eye of the poor ; but from the eye of the vain, the cor- rupted and self-seeking, be he poor or rich. In old ages, humble Minstrel, a mendicant, and lord of nothing but his harp and his own free soul, had intimations of those glories, while to the proud Baron in his barbaric halls they were unknown. Nor is there still any aristo- mopoly of judgment more than of as to that Science of Negation, which is taught peculiarly :;un of professed elegance, we confess we hold it rather cheap. It is a necessary, but decidedly a sub- ordinate accomplishment ; nay, if it be rated as the highest, it becomes a ruinous vice. . Are the fineness and truth of sense manifested by the artist found, in most instances, to be proportionate to wealth and of acquaintance? Are they found to have any perceptible relation cither with the one or the oth not ^Vhose tast ance, is truer and fuu-r than Claude Lorraine's? was not he a poor colour-grinder ; outwardly the meanest of i \Vhere, again, we i k, lay Shak- speare's rent roll .it generous peer took him by the hand and unfolded to him the 'open secret ' <>f the Universe; teaching him that this was beautiful, and that not so? Was he not a peasai h, and by fortune something lower; and wa^ .ought much, even in the height of his reputation, that Southampton allowed i equal patronage with the zanies, juggK >ear- Poetic Culture and Social Rank. 125 wards of the time? Yet compare his taste, even as it respects the negative side of things ; for, in regard to the positive and far higher side, it admits no comparison with any other mortal's, compare it, for instance, with the taste of Beaumont and Fletcher, his contemporaries, men of rank and education, and of fine genius like himself. Tried even by the nice, fastidious and in great part false and artificial delicacy of modern times, how stands it with the two parties; with the gay triumphant men of fashion, and the poor vagrant linkboy ? Does the latter sin against, we shall not say taste, but etiquette, as the former do? For one line, for one word, which some Chesterfield might wish blotted from the first, are there not in the others whole pages and scenes which, with palpitating heart, he would hurry into deepest night? This too, observe, respects not their genius, but their culture; not their appropriation of beauties, but their rejection of deformities, by supposition the grand and peculiar result of high breeding ! Surely, in such in- stances, even that humble supposition is ill borne out. The truth of the matter seems to be, that with the culture of a genuine poet, thinker or other artist, the influence of rank has no exclusive or even special concern. For men of action, for senators, public speakers, political writers, the case may be different ; but of such we speak not at present. Neither do we speak of imitators, and the crowd of mediocre men, to whom fashionable life some- times gives an external inoffensiveness, often compensated by a frigid malignity of character. We speak of men who, from amid the perplexed and conflicting elements of their everyday existence, are to form themselves into harmony and wisdom, and show forth the same wisdom 126 Thomas CarlyU. to others that exist along with them. To such a man, high life, a.s it is called, \till be a province of human life, nothing more. He will study to deal with it as he deals with all forms of mortal being ; to do it justice, and to draw instruction from it : but his light will come from a loftier region, or he wanders forever in darkness ; dwindles into a man of vtn d* toditi, or attains at best to be a Walpole or a Caylus. Still less can we think that is to be viewed as me will be regulated by his pay. 'Sufficiently ; : r from within, he has need of little from without :' food and raiment, and an unviolated home, will he given him in the rudcM l.uul ; and with these, while the kind ear: round him, and the everlasting heaven b over him, the le more t \\ give. Is he poor? So also were Homer and Socrates ; so was Samuel Johnson ; so was I itort Shall we reproach him with poverty, and infer that, because he is poor, ! likewise be worthless? God forbid that the time should ever come when he too shall esteem riches the synor of good! The spirit of Mammon has a wide but it cannot, and must not, be worshipped in the Holy of Holies. Nay, does not the heart of every genuine disciple of 1; ever mean his sphere, ins: .is applicable either to himself or another? 1 : >t rather true, as IVAlcmbcrt has said, that for every man of letters, who deserves that name, the motto and the watchword will be FREEDOM, i H, and even this same POVERTY ; that if he fear the last, the two first can never be made sure ness of md the depth of their thought must have constituted the sole reason The Demolition of Jeffrey. 127 the acceptance of articles containing such unwelcome revolutionary sentiments as these. They came like fresh moorland breezes, laden with the fragrance of the heather, into the close, sickly atmosphere of the crowded city. But, though his editorial tact was sufficient to cause Jeffrey not to reject contributions so valuable, the accept- ance must have been made with a wry face ; and we have sufficient grounds for concluding that he failed to perceive, at least with the clearness that is possible to any reader to-day, how completely they annihilated very much that he himself had written. Could he have foreseen the terrible force of the contrast that would be visible in after days, between the shallow conventionalities that flowed from his own pen, and the strong original criticism of this new writer who was actually at the pains to ascertain, and who had the courage to speak, the truth, it is scarcely possible that his virtue would have sufficed to grant admission to the essays of Carlyle. If he had even half-realised their real nature and potentiality, in reference to his own reputa- tion, his acceptance of them would have been an act of self-denying heroism without a parallel in the history of "able editors." There is, however, abundant evidence to show that he did not apprehend their significance. It has been said, and not without some reason, that Jeffrey "had the courage to recant notions when he came to think them wrong, and the moral principle always to prefer truth to consistency ; " but, on the other hand, we have the mournful assurance from his own pen, that he did not comprehend Carlyle, and that, so far as he did perceive his drift, he did not like him. " I fear Carlyle will not do," he writes to Macvey Napier, his successor in the editorship in 1832, "that is, if you do not take the 128 Thomas Carlylc. liberties and pains with him that I did, by striking out freely, and writing in occasionally. The misfortune tha: obstinate, and, I am afraid, very < d" And then the ex-dictator adds, with a < passionate sigh, "It is a grea i man of genius and industry, and with the capacity of bang an elegant an * impressive writer." Four years had elapsed sin< ' >f the essay on German Literal.* and all that this " prince of critics" can see, even no^ shaggy recluse of Nithsdale is a " person of talents, 19 seems t< he capacity " of becoming by-and-by, if lie would only listen to the good advice of Jeffrey and Macvey Napier, "an elegant and impressive writer I" A worse turn for Jeffrey's memory was surely never done, than \v! unfortunate priva- was tcrrcd from the repositories of his successor; but we at least may forgive the indiscretion, since it makes the >le case of Carlyle's connection with Jeffrey so dear to us to-day. third contribution of " the very obstinate and very conceited 11 c best article on its parti- cular subject that has yet been written, and the noblest on h the Edinburgh Review has ever been honoured to convey to the world The Essay on Burns appeared in the 96th number, in 1828. The < trast between this and Jeffrey's own article on the same subject, published in 1809, is, if possible, cvi striking than that between the Goethe article of the editor and the essay in which one of its raai: was so effectively disposed of. The general scope tendency of Jeffrey's < ritifjuc is indicated by the passage in which he says "that the leading vice in the char. Jeffrey's Essay on Burns. 129 of Burns, and the cardinal deformity indeed of all his productions " including, we suppose, the Cottar's Satur- day Night, Tarn tf Shanter, the Vision, and all his lyrics " is his contempt for prudence, decency, and regularity, and his admiration of thoughtlessness, oddity and vehe- ment sensibility ; that he represents himself as a hair- brained sentimental soul, constantly carried away by fine fancies and visions of love and philanthropy, and born to confound and despise the cold-blooded sons of prudence and sobriety ; that he is perpetually making a parade of his thoughtlessness, inflammability, and imprudence, and talking with much complacency and exultation of the offence he has occasioned to the sober and correct part of mankind ; that this odious slang infects almost all his prose and a very great proportion of his poetry, and communicates to both a character of immorality at once contemptible and hateful ; and that his apology is to be found in the original lowness of his situation, and the slightness of his acquaintance with the world. "* Even Henry Mackenzie, writing in 1786, had formed a truer conception of the new-fledged poet than this, and had been enlightened enough to rebut the charge that Burns's works breathed a spirit of libertinism and irreli- * It is impossible not to recall the words of the poet describing how he "listened, and trembled, in blasting anticipation, at the idea of the degrading epithets that malice or misrepresentation might affix to his name," and how he foresaw the " future hackney scribblers, who, with the heavy malice of savage stupidity, " would exultingly assert " that Burns, notwithstanding the fanfaronade of independence to be found in his works, was quite destitute of resources within himself to support his borrowed dignity, dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and slunk out the rest of his insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and among the lowest of man kind." I ijo Thomas Car gior shall not look upon his 1L the Loun&r, " as the enemy of religion, of whiih in several places he eipreiscs the justest sentiments, though she has sometimes been a little unguarded in of hypocrisy." The tide of calumny, swollen by an eci whose motives were pure and kindly, but whose judgir was not strong enough to resist the prevail : lice and do justice to the Bard ; still timber increased by such articles as those of Walter Scon in the Quart and Jeffrey in the Edinburgh^ was at length turned back by Cariyle, who gave the interpretation of Burns th.. now accepted universally by all persons of good sense '. good feeling. The continued acceptance of that rpretation b placed beyond doubt, not because of charming style in which the essay is written, but because its force and beauty as a composition are, if possible, surpassed substance. It has been urged by some of Carlyle's censors that he seems to think that real knowledge of mankind b to be derived rather from the imagination than from the understanding, and some one has said that he seldom gives a complete view of man whom he attempts to pourtray that hb portraits, it j>owerful, are partial, and powerful just because t are partial We cannot imagine a mote groundless com- plaint ; and how very wide of the mark y be dis- covered by a critical s hb essay on Burns. Read all that has been written by and about the poet, spend years in gath s respecting hi- yet ling province, recall every fragment of you may have derived from that now nearly austed company of witnesses who personally knew man ; and after you have done all this, you will be The Conversion of Jeffrey. 131 constrained to say that no more complete and just, as well as striking, delineation of the Ploughman-Bard is possible than we find in Carlyle's Essay on nis great countryman. It has been the theme of universal praise, and of the thousands of essays, articles, and orations that have been written since 1828 on the same theme, it may perhaps be said without injustice to them or the truth, that not one of them has escaped reproducing, either consciously or unconsciously, the ideas and the feelings that were first uttered in his matchless Essay by Carlyle. Even Jeffrey himself was no exception to the rule. He felt, if he did not expressly own, the constraining power of the essay. Nearly ten years after it was pub- lished, we find him sitting down at Craigcrook to study anew the life and works of Burns. The result is such as might have been expected if he had never seen them before. He tells Empson that he has read them " not without many tears." " What touches me most," he continues, " is the pitiable poverty in which that gifted being (and his noble-minded father) passed his early days the painful frugality to which their innocence was doomed, and the thought, how small a share of the useless luxuries in which we (such comparatively poor creatures) indulge, would have sufficed to shed joy and cheerfulness in their dwellings, and perhaps to have saved that glorious spirit from the trials and tempta- tions under which he fell so prematurely. Oh my dear Empson, there must be something terribly wrong in the present arrangement of the universe, when those things can happen, and be thought natural. I could lie down in the dirt, and cry and grovel there, I think, for a 132 Thomas CarlyU. iry, to save such a soul as Burns from the ^, and the contamination, and the degradation w! these same arrangements imposed upon him ; and I fancy that if I could but have known him in my pro- state of wealth and influence, In saved, and <1 preserved him, even to the prest He would not have been so old as my brother judge, Lord Glenlee, or Lord Lynedoch, or a dozen others that one meets daily in society. And what a creature, not only in genius, but in nobleness of character, pot ost, if right models had been put gently before 1 think of his posit: > feeling for the ideal pen ths and Coleridgcs ; com- hie, flattered, very spoiled, capricious, idle beings, fan- tasti ued because they cannot make an t tour to I' buy casts and cameos ; and what poor, peddling, whining drivellers in comparison with hi. re is not a word here about that " very obstinate " and v from Craigenputtoch ; but of thing we may rest assured th son have been written if the lessons taught by :ito the heart of Jeff: Less worthy was the attempt of the old editor of the some of the credit due to writer of the einxh-making essay. In < written in 1838, but not published till after his di Charles Sumner says : ** I observed to I>ord Jeffrey, : I thought Carlyle had changed his style very mi: he \\rou rns. 'Not at all,' said I will tell you why that is difiV i his other articles / altered it.' n Soi * have professed to fin : : nation of what they had always thoi: How he Interpreted Burns. 133 but which none of them, so far as we are aware, had ever expressed till Simmer's letter was printed. A careful study of Carlyle's writings does not support the theory. Jeffrey may possibly have cut something out; we are certain he put nothing of his own in. There is not a sentence in the essay that does not bear, both as to its form and substance, the signet mark of Carlyle ; more- over, he was not the man ever to put his name to any bit of work, however microscopic, that was not his own. By no writer has the essay been more accurately described than by one of Burns's later and most com- petent editors, Alexander Smith, who declares that it " stands almost alone in our literature as a masterpiece of full and correct delineation." The same authority gives as the main reason why it occupies this position of pre-eminence, the fact that Carlyle has succeeded so admirably in detecting the unconscious personal reference in the literary productions of the Scottish Bard. He " makes this line or the other a transparent window of insight, through which he obtains the closest glimpses of his subject." One other reason is doubtless to be found in the fact that the essayist's own birth and upbringing were, in so many respects, akin to those of the poet ; so that personal experience quickened the sympathy, with- out which there can be no true comprehension of the life of our fellow-man, and thus provided windows of insight, even more transparent than the poet's verse. CHAPTER .ESIS OF "SARTOR RESARTUS" ITS REJECTION BY IMF. i'i ! WELCOME K1CA EV SON TO CRAIGENPUTTOCH HIS COLUXjt \M1H CARLYLE A SKETCH NEW PILGRIM'S PROGRESS DEPAK MOl-VI AIN HOME HI H A LET OF J K MRSCA letter to Professor Wilson, Carlyle had said, I have some thoughts of beginning to proph ear, if I pr<- the best style, could one strike into it rightly." The articles he was writing for the > represc: sehres an amount of literary activity that n/ c sufficed, without any further prophetic husincv engross the years in which they were produced ; but there is reason to believe that simultaneously he had been, from the very outset of his settlement at Craigen- puttoch, occupied also with Sartor Rtsartus. True, he- has himself told us that it was among the mourr 1831 ;" but we appre- hend this meant no more than that it was ! in that year. It is said to have beer. n more than once, which we can very well believe ; and several yean c, according to some authorities) were at least partially devoted to its composition. These stories about Sartor Standing at the Gate. 135 genesis are quite likely to have more than a grain of truth in them ; thus much is certain, that its mental production was not the work of one solitary year, even though that year had been crushed full of the most strenuous toil directed exclusively to the one end. It must ever be regarded as one of the most striking facts in the literary annals of this nation, that Sartor, completed in 1831, could not get itself published in book form, at least in its native country, till 1838 ! Its birth, therefore, as a printed book, was even a more protracted agony than its completion in a written form a circumstance that must appear all the more remarkable to any one who is at the trouble to look back and note what kind of literature was being poured from the English press during those seven years in which this new candidate was kept standing at the gate. Yet we need scarcely marvel that the publish- ers looked askance at a work that bore no resemblance to any printed book extant at that hour in the English tongue. It would probably be a hard task to get a publisher to-day for anything so completely novel in style and substance ; and the chances against the acceptance of such a violent departure from the conventional stand- ards were still greater fifty years ago. In that very year which saw Sartor ready for the press, the Edinburgh Review had felt itself compelled to give Carlyle notice to quit, the essay entitled Characteristics, richly laden with the loftiest thought expressed in the noblest language,* * "It is a grand article, fuller of high thought than anything or the like sort ever seen in the Edinburgh Review before or since, and more closely packed with Carlylese ideas, or the germs of them, than any of its author's pages elsewhere germs subsequently to be seen full-blown in Sartor Resartus and his later books, and expanded Thomas CarlyU. ng proved too m ble digestion. If an arti< !c in the Sarforvcin frightened Professor v > to do him justice, must be called a very good frien: Carlyle, how much greater was the ex. the pub- lishers who declined to undertake the ta.sk of Li anentiri ha the sain .inic '.an the v. nost daring i>oet were taken by an author who yet had cast work in the mould of prose; added to which flaj: departure from the standards of the still ? the sk-. in the o<: Ncemed vulgar in tlieir exceeding homeliness. It was a nev. .cnt i langua, the tnnn w.i . the pro' who had discernment enough to perceive that .uthor nv :nan of genius. There would be a B sanity f the writer haunt .ind oft! rity I-) doubt whatever that ! >e mad Not without told how the pul>! with that grammar wli of, 'declined the . -lid ultimately get upon the nodosities and angularities of the mature oaken Carlytoe itcd lamentation that (he 4 Godlike has v. hat a Byron finds occupa- tion in 'cursing m digging well.s gives > has roamed all day over a silenced battle-neld, fo- rcast of its dead mother "Tkt Stot$m<i* /<i/vr, Feb. 7, 1 88 1. "Tasters" and Publishers on Sartor. 137 it out in book form, in 1838, he appended a grimly- humorous set of " Testimonies of Authors," which many readers no doubt regarded as purely fictitious ; but when reprinting these, thirty years afterwards, he prefixed a note, wherein it was intimated, inter alia, that they actu- ally contained "some straggle of real documents." The first " taster " cited admits, as Jeffrey had done in the Edinburgh a few years before, that the editor of Sartor is " a person of talent," but complains of his " want of tact," and also of the heaviness of his wit, which "reminds one of the German Baron who took to leaping on tables, and answered that he was learning to be lively." He wants to know if the work is really a translation. The leading bookseller, echoing his taster, thinks that " only a little more tact is required " by the writer to produce "a popular as well as an able work." We cannot say whether the newspaper criticism is authentic; but the Sun points out a sentence in the work " which may be read either backwards or forwards, for it is equally intel- ligible either way ; indeed, by beginning at the tail, and so working up to the head, we think the reader will stand the fairest chance of getting at its meaning." The author had most likely sent the manuscript to Edinburgh, in the first instance ; and the gossips have always concluded that there must have been at least a couple of rejections there a notion sure to be inferred from the circumstance that two of his three previous books (we do not count Legendre) had been issued by two separate firms in the Scottish capital. Then the wider field of London was next tried, with no better result, till at length the disgusted author "gave up the notion of hawking his little manuscript book about any further." So he wrote in 1832,- adding i3 8 >"*s Carlylt. that for a long time it had lain quiet in a drawer waiting for a bet I he bookselling trade seems on the edge of diss he force of puffing can no fur go, yet bankruptcy clamours at every door ; sad fate ! to the Devil, and ^et no wages even from him! i poor Bookselling Guild, I often predict to myself, will ere long be found unfit for the strange pan it now play our Kuropean world; and will give place to new and ier arrangements, of whirh the coming shadows are already becoming viv It helps ate the rigo judgment against the rejectors of the volume to learn that such a man as John Stuart Mill, who was by time a personal friend of Carlyle's, at first shared their inrajKicity to appreciate the book. "Even at the time when en: c < ominenced," says Mr Mill, I was not sufficiently advanced in my new modes of thought to appreciate him fully ; a proof of that on his showing me the manuscript of Sartor Jttsartus, best and greatest work, which he had j hed, 1 made little of it ; though when it came out about two years afterwards in /''r.ixr'sMqmiu I read it with enthu- siast: the keenest <! ublication in that periodical during 1833-34 is said to have been effected through th help of Dr John Carl) K the I Hike of Buccleuch. 1 rea <orded to it by the readers of "Regina' :iot be described as favourable ; and the painful fact was frankly acknowledged in a paragraph tagged on at the do- re can the present editor, with an am- brosial joy as of over-weariness falling into sleep, by down pea Well docs he know, if human testimony be h aught, that to innumcVa! h readers likewise, Welcome by America. 139 this is a satisfying consummation ; that innumerable British readers consider him, during those current months, but as an uneasy interruption to their ways of thought and digestion; and indicate so much, not without a certain irritancy and even spoken invective. For which, as for other mercies, ought not he to thank the Upper Powers ? To one and all of you, O irritated readers, he, with outstretched arms and open heart, will wave a kind farewell." The publisher, it is said, had reported to the author that the magazine was getting into trouble because of the articles. The most of its readers seemed to be pretty much of the same mind as the indignant nobleman who inquired of Mr Fraser when " that stupid series of articles by the crazy tailor " were to end, as his patience was all but exhausted. Only two subscribers had written in a contrary sense, the one a Roman Catholic priest at Cork, the other "a Mr Emerson, in America;" about the latter of whom Carlyle was to learn more presently. The truth is that America was much quicker than his own country in recognising the genius of Carlyle. Youth is more open-minded and receptive than old age ; and not seldom the Republic of the West has been before the mother country in true perception of the merit of new authors as they have arisen in the Old Home. Beyond the sea the fugitive works of De Quincey and Charles Lamb were collected with pious care, from our own magazines and newspapers, years before they could be obtained in England; and other cases might easily be named in which the daughter's loving appreciation has rebuked the mother's cold neglect. Less under the sway of the conventional standards which he set at defiance, the students of the United States were not so apt as 140 those of Britain to resent the audacities of the e<: of Teufv . s in the Edinb;< and oth< the most co: .ise, on the c> of the sea. In the Xorth American Rwiew, so v as 1835, we find its pr .:nd edit< and' . that their air a large space in the lit- and in t: 1836, Sartor received at Bo- d it as yet in En .'.ded by the. :\e review of ; NiiperintL- ossage through th young man of kin< h \Vald< i, who wrote an intro- tion for it, the book commanded an immediate jx>pula and the name <>t ( as familiar all over the world before it had l>e(ome much known in England. " \\'e have lu-ard it insinuated," wrote Mr Everett in 1835, "that in ion: \enture to assure him : should he carry lie will meet with a Pressing invitations had been to him by I.: -ncl other lead :s to pay their countr; 1 he actually had a min accept was, indeed, on the ; the nt to a certain m :;.t volume of ' we shall ;, and the opjwrt or t iant mood rather never came back a^ , cc jually to his ama/e- . there tame ; of his first gi >rm of a book, ar it a kindly 1 First Money for the "French Revolution}' 141 sum in payment of the right to publish Sartor in America. Often, in conversation, would he revert to that incident ; and in the note appended in 1868 to the edition of Sartor in his collected works, after relating how the " questionable little book " could not for more than seven years appear as a volume in England, "and had at last to clip itself in pieces, and be content to struggle out, bit by bit, in some courageous magazine that offered," he adds that the first English edition, of 1838, had had " the way opened " for it by " an American or two American."* It ought to be added that the Mis- cellaneous Essays were also issued in book form in the United States before they had assumed that shape in England ; nor will it be out of place to insert here a note of the fact that the first money Carlyle ever received for his French Revolution also came from America. In 1838, conversing with Charles Sumner, he said, " the strangest thing in the history of literature was his recent receipt of fifty pounds from America, on account of his French Revolution, which never yielded him a farthing in Europe, and probably never would." In this expecta- tion Mr Carlyle was happily disappointed, for the work named must have been a source of large pecuniary profit during the more than forty years that intervened * When it at last came out as a book in England, it was stated on the title-page to have been "reprinted for friends." One of the most interesting letters in. the Correspondence of Macvey Napier is one written by Carlyle in 1831, where, speaking of Sartor , he says : " All manner of perplexities have occurred in the publication of my poor book, which perplexities I could only cut asunder, not un- loose ; so the MS., like an unhappy ghost, still lingers on the wrong side of Styx ; the Charon of Albemarle Street durst not risk it in his sutilis cymba, so it leaped ashore again." i4- Thomas CarlyU. between its publication an in oral st merits heard from his own lips at a later date than Simmer's visit, it would apjxrar that he received fur payments from America for the French R< had got as much as ^130 from that source when the k. had "brought him no pent It was always a source of regret to his American fri< tha: r carried out his early purpose to vi>it the icd States; a cw of some things written t>y him in later years, we are, perhaps, justified in the con- hat the loss was more his own than theirs. At time we heard it stated by \ 1 been cu: with him about their country, that he had hinted the existence of some plan in mind that would prove the reality of the gratitii' he <-her y recognition he had received .shen he was still struggling against tlu / of the old country.* On his seventy-second birthday, Mr Emerson was visited by a company of Mi . Carlylc having been spoken of ursc of conversation as no the great " Let me tell you, He is a \cry pod friend of the Americans, an<i h is not to be lie until he dies and his will appears. But some of oar hest women ha his acquaintance, lie is a man <>f the world. He docs not U-l-.n^ : '-..it country only. is broad gt : he throws alxmt him, \\% are as good as can U*. I think le really sympathises with us. I remember his scoMing lc in the war, afterwards. I have been in con* slant correspon : since 1833 or '54. I think. I a hundre ; i mning along that period, and his sympathies are with us. Mr Norton, of Cambridge, has Emerson's Pilgrimage to CraigenputtocJi. 143 The last, as it is also the fullest and most valuable, account of the life at Craigenputtoch is supplied by the American friend who wrote the introduction for the Boston edition of Sartor. Emerson's first visit to Britain was made forty-seven years ago, when he was in his thirtieth year, and he has himself put upon record two facts first, that he had then felt himself greatly indebted to the men of Edinburgh, Scott, Jeffrey, Playfair, and De Quincey ; and, secondly, that he came to Scotland chiefly that he might see the faces of three or four writers, of whom Carlyle and De Quincey were two. Landing in the Thames, he was soon on the Clyde, penetrated into the Highlands, and on his way back he took the coach from Glasgow to Dumfries, whence he proceeded to the farm of Craigenputtoch to deliver a letter to its Laird which he had brought with him all the way from Rome, and which was probably from the Laird's brother, Dr Aitken Carlyle. That first meeting of the two sages took place in the August of 1833. How the American visitor walked and talked with Carlyle the latter at one moment expatiating on the talent shown by his pig, and the next discoursing on the immortality of the soul Emerson has himself related in a pleasant chapter of one of his books, published many years afterwards : " No public coach passed near it, so I took a private carriage from the inn. I found the house amid desolate heathery hills, where the lonely scholar nourished his mighty heart. Carlyle was a man from his youth, an author who did not need to hide from his readers, and as absolute man of the world, Mr Carlyle, and I have insisted that he should write them down to be saved. There is great wit in his talk. He despises eveiy kind of meanness, every kind of selfishness and of petty sin." '44 Thomas CarlyU. unknown and exiled on thit hill-fir if hnldir gaunt, wi fflike brow, self-possessed, and hole . powers of corm m easy c mand ; clinging northern accent with anecdote, and with a streamin hun. ! <ated everything he looked upon. fully exalting the familiar objects, put the < c with his Urs an iurs, and it was very pleasant to learn what predestined to be a th objects and lonely the man, ' not a person to speak t within sixteen miles except the mil. ore;' S oks iru . es of his own for "He had na ^course. Win ' He ! all the matters familiar \\\v to possibility of life was the piece of road near by that ma: the t. ed Nei it how t .ill that, plttM a good deal al>< ' ountr On Books , Literature, and Pauperism. 145 that in it a man can have meat for his labour. He had read in Stewart's book, that when he inquired in a New York hotel for the Boots, he had been shown across the street, and had found Mungo in his own house dining on roast turkey. " We talked of books. Plato he does not read, and he disparaged Socrates ; and, when pressed, persisted in making Mirabeau a hero. Gibbon he called the splen- did bridge from the old world to the new. His own reading had been multifarious. Tristram Shandy was one of his first books after Robinson Crusoe, and Robert- son's America an early favourite. Rousseau's Confessions had discovered to him that he was not a dunce ; and it was now ten years since he had learned German by the advice of a man who told him he would find in that language what he wanted. " He took despairing or satirical views of literature at this moment ; recounted the incredible sums paid in one year by the great booksellers for puffing. Hence it comes that no newspaper is trusted now, no books are bought, and the booksellers are on the eve of bankruptcy. " He still returned to English pauperism, the crowded country, the selfish abdication by public men of all that public persons should perform. ' Government should direct poor men what to do. Poor Irish folk come wandering over these moors. My dame makes it a rule to give to every son of Adam bread to eat, and supplies his wants to the next house. But here are thousands of acres which might give them all meat, and nobody to bid these poor Irish go to the moor and till it. They burned the stacks, and so found a way to force the rich people to attend to them.' Thomas CarlyU. e went out to walk over long hills, and looV :cl, then without his cap, and down into Words- ountry. There we sat down, and talked of the immortality of the soul. It was not Carlylc's fault that we talked on that topic, for he had the natural di nimble spirit to bruise itself against walls, and did not like to place himself where no step can be taken. Hut he was honest a: .ind cogn the subtle links that bind ages togeth >aw how every event affects all the future. * Cl on the tree; that built Dunscore kirk* yond< brought that Kirk, in Burns'sday, there laboured a Mr i aCal rrgyman of the old school, whose j hing was in inverse ratio and dismal antithesis to his private benevolence. was a blameless and good man ; but .c made Burns, not unaccustomed to the 'blaspheme an octa\ and to cry out, 'From Mich conceptions of my Creator, good minister seems ws had got up a library in the pai ,n the ace c place u the Rev. Mr Knkj./r; ,. ,.. Sinclair's great . was y supprev hing Borns's N dale home, says : " A few miles from west, Ke> tching towards the 1 ullage of Dun- lold nigged range ; in th ..f a wood, stands the monument crectc<! he prototyi the property and once t- !c a gloomy place, we ar around and melancholy moon ig vUiiors, who are also readers, of the pine-shadowed and moated casUe where Ma 1 describes his dark ! ping his state, and convening at the portals with those doomed ones who came to con- sult l ..i!c all hell through his half-shut visor, as KolU the rkh thunder of hit awful **' in that The New Pilgrim's Progress. 147 you and me together. Time has only a relative exist- ence.' " He was already turning his eyes towards London with a scholar's appreciation. London is the heart of the world, he said, wonderful only from the mass of human beings. He liked the huge machine. Each keeps its own round. The baker's boy brings muffins to the window at a fixed hour every day, and that is all the Londoner knows or wishes to know on the subject. But it turned out good men. He named certain individuals, especially one man of letters, his friend, the best mind he knew, whom London had well served." Though it had been so long utterly rejected at the out- set by the publishers in the country where it was written, and for some years after its appearance failed to make an adequate impression save on the minds of a select few, the book that will henceforth be associated with Carlyle's sojourn among the grim hills of Nithsdale gradually grew in favour with the English public, and came at last to be regarded as the greatest work of its author, perhaps the greatest of our century. The estimation in which it was held by the man who wrote it was silently but impres- sively indicated when, placing it out of its chronological order, he made it the first volume of his collected works. "Written in star fire and immortal tears," it has been called by some the Pilgrim's Progress of the nineteenth century ; and as a picture ofrthe conflict of the human soul battling with the haggard spirits of Doubt and Fear, and who remained his vassals and victims for ever more." Pilgrims to this shrine of Sartor may, perhaps, be reminded of the saying of Carlyle, that the enthusiastic minister of Dundee "painted with a big brush. " 148 Thomas CarlyU. hese present themselves to so many under the changed conditions of modern society, it has certainly never been equalled To classify this book would be no easy t. As we have already seen, it is a real, though veiled, autobiography much more authentic, indeed, tha large number of the works that expressly call them- i name; but it is also a romance, still n an exposition of its author's mystic philosophy, and, most of all, a poem, though not written in verse. It gives expression to the ultimate thought of Carlyle on those great problems of Religion and Life that he endeavoi to work out for himself in the shadow of the mount.: whither he had turned in quest of a faith that should t the place of the one he had lost As he made that sear* h with the carnestnets of a nature that wa nsity, and recorded the results in a form that unites the tenderness and melody of a Scottish ballad with a cly grandeur of style that not one of the great masters of Kn-lish prose has ever surpassed, we can hardly wonder that the book should often lay hold of other spirits, especially such as are in a state of un- f<r<e that makes their opening of ; the beginning of a new epoch in their lives. How many on both sides of the sea will find a record of their own experience in the words of the blind Methodist In, Mill. um, when he f^la'm^ "Ah, Thomas Car swer for, in sending a upon the fog-banks such raw and inexperienced boys as I was w ^hty genius found me out M a day of miserable doubt and night of mm ness have you caused me. N 1 owe you more and love you better than any author of the t The Practical Uses of Sartor. 149 Sartor Resartus first fell in my way while I was living in Washington, and I much question if Christopher Columbus was more transported by the discovery of America, than I was in entering the new realm which this book opened to me. Everything was novel, huge, grotesque, or sublime : I must have read it twenty times over, until I had it all by heart. It became a sort of touch-stone with me. If a man had read Sartor, and enjoyed it, I was his friend; if not, we were strangers. I was as familiar with the everlasting f nay, J the centre of indifference, and the everlasting 'yea,' as with the side- walk in front of my house. From Herr Teufelsdrockh I took the Teutonic fever, which came nigh costing me so dear." And happily the number is not few of those who can add, in the words of the same writer, " Years have passed since he led me forth to the dance of ghosts, and I have learned to read him with a less feverish enthusiasm ; but, I believe, with a more genuine appreciation of his rare and extraordinary powers. He did me harm, but he has helped me to far more good. With all his defects, to me he stands first among the men of this generation."* Even those for whom the spiritual guidance of John Bunyan still suffices, gladly acknowledge the help they have received from Teufelsdrockh, as to the conduct of their lives the high practical value of the lessons he communicates on domestic and social duty, on culture and work, on fidelity to conscience, courage, and morality; and, if they lament the vagueness of his teaching in its reference to Christianity, they are yet consoled by the all-pervading purity of its tone as well as by the sublime * Ten Years oj Preacher- Life, by William Henry Milburn. 1859. 150 Thomas Cartylc. hopefulness that illumines the page when, emerging No" which threatened to engulph the iter he had lost the faith of his fathers, he attained at length to the " everlasting Yea" of heroic is able to say, "The universe is not dead and demoniacal, a charnel-house with spectres ; but God-like, and my Fatlu To all who ha without adverse prepossessions, and in the sympathetic spirit that is essential to the nderstanding of any author, Sartor seems im ably to have proved one of the most wholesomely stimulating of books. Both Maurice and 1 dged that it did them a greater service than any id ; and the latter sought to ounding its fundaim lessons in more than one of hi . more especially in / and Alton Locke. The saintly Thomas Krskine of I.inlathen, who was wont warmly to recommend us nutriment in i f iritual nature of \.. In the year of its publi< a book, we find him writing to I thought you would like Surf, r the chapter on natu: > a won- rd good "to be broi ntact with a mind like Tarlyle's, so un ional in all matters;" and 1 c <!o the OS a real belief in the invisible, which in is a great He sees and condemns tl. 1 baseness of living in r j>art of our nature instead of living in the higher." Similar u minent < teachers of our time mi-ht easily l>e multiplied. Sartor and the Working-Men. 151 these men have regarded its author with veneration as a prophet recalling the Church to a sense of forgotten truths, and awakening it from a false reliance on the merely mechanical use of dogma, there have been other classes of readers who have admired this wonderful book for its philosophy, or its humour, or its literary style ; and it is worthy of note that in many of the busy hives of manufacturing industry it has been long a favourite with the more thoughtful working-men. These have been attracted not merely by the keen sympathy which it exhibits with the " toil-worn craftsman," but by the realism which pervades it from the first page to the last, by its suggestions of radical reform in the organisation of society, and the fraternal spirit of pity for the weak and wayward which distinguishes it so pleasantly from some of the author's later works. That there has been, on the other hand, not a little adverse criticism of the work, both on account of its teaching and style, must be hereafter shewn ; but, mean- while, we hasten to close that portion of the record which relates to the epoch of Carlyle's life that is associated with the lonely farm house in which Sartor was born. How fruitful that period had been, the reader will per- ceive who duly weighs, besides numbering, the essays written at Craigenputtoch, not only for the periodicals already named, but also for the Westminster Review, to which Carlyle had begun contributing in 1831. Life had been varied, of course, during the performance of all this work by occasional visits to Edinburgh, and latterly to London in search of a publisher for Sartor. In 1832-33 the little household transferred itself to Edinburgh for the winter, and entered into the mild dissipations of the Thomas Carfyk. season, attending pleasant literary parties at Cap' Han and also, amongst others, at the houst 'Villiam, his brother. It was at the hospitable board of the metaphysical baronet that Carlylc, one evening, astonished both host and company by resolutely refusing to take more for his supper than one potato ; that being . epoch," as Carlyle himself explains, " when excellent potatoes yet were." He was present at the Royal Society on the evening w! Villiam read his famous paper on Phrenology, which so completely demolished George Combe, and, as we might expect, Carlyle was a cordially approving auditor. In the April of 1833, lnc Carlyles returned to their moorland home. But the time was reaching when, for the reasons stated to Emerson, they must hid that home farewell. Carlyle was now contemplating work that could not possibly be achieved >litude. He who would wi >ry of the Fn uist have the best libraries within easy reach. uc about that, on one of the opening days of July 1834, Carlyle was writing to Sir William Hami telling him that " the hope of ever seeing him at Craigen- puttoch had now vanished into the infinite limb le was dated from the writer's London home The two friends, the greatest Scottish thinkers of t generation, never met again, though mementoes occasion- ally passed between them oo the ever-silent whin stones of Nithsdalc to the mud rattling pavements of Piccadilly, there is but a step; 99 and now that step had been tak are on the threshold of a fresh epoch in the career of the patient toiler, who at length is recognised on all hands as one of the foremost of the rary leaders, if not the first, of his time. His Ministrations to his Kindred. 153 One point, however, remains to be noted before we close the record of the life in Nithsdale. To Carlyle, we cannot doubt, one of the sweetest features of that life had been the opportunity it furnished of enjoying, from time to time, the society of his venerated parents, and of ministering, personally, to their happiness as their years declined. When the time came for his departure to distant scenes, he could not repeat what he had said in his letter to Goethe six years before. The mother, indeed, still lived to love him ; but his good old father was gone. We have already seen how bitterly Carlyle lamented his absence from home at the time his father died, and how the occasion of that absence a visit to London in the futile hunt after a publisher for Sartor added a new sting to the mortifying early story of that book ; a sting which was still felt acutely by him, even after he had himself become an old man. There can be no doubt, however, that in the years immediately preced- ing the death of his father, the son's residence in the vicinity had often brought them together, to their great mutual comfort. With all his relatives, indeed, even in later years, and down to the time of his death, he preserved a close and most affectionate intimacy ; and of the way in which he entered into their affairs, sympathising keenly with them in all their trials, and doing his best to further their interests, we have one affecting and profoundly im- pressive token before us. The first visitation of our country by cholera has made 1832 one of the best re- membered dates in the domestic history of the nineteenth century; and nowhere did that year make a more indelible impression than in the town of Dumfries. So severely was it stricken, beyond any town in the kingdom in 154 Thomas Car proportion to its size, that many communities, in ! as well as Scotland, joined in a subscrij -1st it in iless foe. As many as forty-four deaths took ! he scenes witnessed in the burgh, according to the local historian, were such as it had sed before, thougl the olden times it been desolated by the fiends of \\ to the horror, when the disease was at the worst, for days a ick clouds hung over the town, like a funeral pall let down from he. -inmate that it was doomed to utter destruction ; and in an atmosphere so dense that they couUl hardly breathe, the people gave themselves iij> for lost. It was on the 4th of October that this gha lera cloud " was dispersed at last by a us thunderstorm. sounded M liV of judgment from th it though the atmosp! change sent a ray of hope into 1 at had been oath the grief and terror of the previous weeks, it was the middle of November before the fell destroyer stayed his hand. Upwards of a thous. persons had been attacked; and nearly seven hun hed in that l>ur/ uburb on the .* It w. dreadful -i that Carlyle wrote the follov. u in the devoted nd even those who may be most disposed to views of the author <: ' r a detailed ace - visitation, the sever arose n of the (<>wn f and its previous local ct of all sanitary law, see the History oftk* B*rgk *f D*; :lliam M'Dowall. 1872. A Letter of the Cholera Year. 155 practical piety, of a faith capable of sustaining the soul under the severest of earthly trials, as may well excite their admiration, if not their envy also, and at least mitigate the rigour of their censure. The letter was addressed to "Mr John Aitken, mason, Friars' Vennel, Dumfries :" " Craigenputtoch, i6th October, 1832. " My Dear Uncle, Judge if I am anxious to hear from you ! Except the silence of the Newspapers I have no evidence that you are still spared. The Disease, I see, has been in your street : in Shaw's ; in James Aitken's ; it has killed your friend Thomson : who knows what farther was its appointed work ! You I strive to figure in the meanwhile, as looking at it, in the universal terror, with some calmness, as knowing and practically believ- ing that your days and the days of those dear to you, were now, as before and always, in the hand of God only \from whom it is vain to fly ; towards whom lies the only refuge of man. Death's thousand doors have ever stood open ; this indeed is a wide one, yet it leads no further than they all lead. " Our Boy was in the town a fortnight ago (for I believe, by experience, the infectious influence to be trifling, and quite inscrutable to man ; therefore go and send whithersoever I have business , in spite of cholera); but I had forgot that he would not naturally see Shaw or some of you, and gave him no letter; so got no tidings. He will call on you to-morrow, and in any case bring a verbal message. If you are too hurried to write in time for him, send a letter next day ' to the care of Mrs Welsh, Templand, Thornhill ; ' tell me only that you are all spared alive ! 1 5 ^ Thomas Carlylt. c arc for Annandale after Thornhill, and may possibly enough return by Dumfries. I do not parti- cipate in the pan jr. We were dose beside cholera fur many weeks in London : ' every ball has its b I hear the disease is fast abating. It is likely enough to come and go among us; to take uj dwelling with us among our other maladies. The sooner we grow to compose ourselves beside it the wiser us. Man who has reconciled himself to dit need not go distracted at the manner of his death. " God make us all ready ; and be His time ours ! No more to-night Ever your affectionate "T. CARIV: aiK-cl in this letter was the mother- yle, who had retired in her widowhood 1 cropland. Her huslwnd had died at Haddington in 1819, and was succeeded in his practice there by a younger brother, Dr Benjamin Welsh. Some of the older inhabitants of Thornhill ami ty preserve a Collection h, whom they describe as an old 1 .ngular I. 1 a charming mar. She -mpany of her daughter and sor would come over from Craigenputtoch to pass a few day-,, or even weeks, with immort. atxnind in the ii. surviving inhabitants, a professional gentleman, shewing with pride a copy of Count 1 > Orgy's portrait of Car CHAPTER XII. HIS LONDON HOME THE CHARM OF CHELSEA ITS jjj^Py^j^ MEMORIES SARTOR ON THE PLATFORM '^^TCTURES ON GERMAN HISTORY, THE HISTORY OF ^LITERATURE, REVOLUTIONS OF MODERN EUROPE, AND HERO-WORSHIP SKETCHES OF HIS ORATORY BY LEIGH HUNT, GOSSIP GRANT, CHARLES SUMNER, AND MARGARET FULLER HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOL- UTION HOW THE MS. OF THE SECOND VOLUME WAS BURNED AND RE-WRITTEN. WHEN Carlyle had got the length of speaking so freely, especially to a visitor whom he had never seen before, of his purpose to " flit " from Nithsdale, we may be sure that his mind was made up on the subject ; so in a few months from the date of that conversation with Emerson, the hermit of Craigenputtoch had struck his tent and moved away to pitch it in the great Babylon on the banks of the Thames. There he took up his abode in the house No. 5 (now re-numbered 24) Cheyne Row, Chelsea, where he continued to reside down to the day of his death that is, for the long space of forty-seven years. He was now verging on forty, and, in spite of the longevity of the race from which he sprang, it is scarcely possible he could have anticipated that the larger half of his earthly pilgrimage was yet to come, and that for well on to half a century he would be a dweller in this new Chelsea home. Nor is it easy to conceive of any spot 158 Thomas CarlyU. in all the vast and varied expanse of the mighty unless it be, perhaps, some of the pleasant hermitages on the Northern heights about Hampstead or Hornsey Rise, that would have better suited tlu London who was destined soon to become known to i h-speaking populations of the world a* "the Sage of Chelsea."* Of course, this may be in s< degree a fancy, springing from the fact that < heard of him, it \ oy the a! .'.iar sobriquet; yet, those who kn .n best, will probably concur in th< that the site he chose in that summer of 1834, and to which he ever afterwards clung with all th< of his home-loving nature, was, indeed, the mo>: ite on which he could have hit. nook near the river, Kim; between Chelsea pital and Cr. y associa- tions of all the suburbs of London. Here dwelt the author of Utopia, more than three hundred years ago, * This title, almost oftencr applied to O any years in newspapers than his proper name, routed the patriotic ire of lessor Blaci \ one of his characteristic addresses, n ing Cockney presumption, spoke of "that strong, deep-mouthed, shaggy-breasted Titan, Thomas Carlyle, who, though now among cms generally known as the 'Chclsc a sturdy Dumfries peasant, and has no more to do with Chelsea than I have to do with Cheltenham." If the sobriquet was incongruous Carlylc's own . from Mat: less habitually than .is. I (he English. They ha .ison, perhaps, to resent (he phrasing of the iril.uie to Carlyfe's memory which appeared the A as apostrophised as *l<r philosopher! old Chche* M,; An-1 yet Scot must own that the su! tkm raigcnjmttoch for Chelsea woi Difficulty. The Literary Associations of Chelsea. 159 and here he held frequent discourse with his friend Erasmus ; while from the days of Sir Thomas More, down to our own, it has continued to be a favourite home or haunt of eminent men of letters, in this respect sur- passing any other spot that can be named in the British islands. The great essayists of Queen Anne's time, Swift, Addison, and Steele, were familiar figures in this suburb when Carlyle's house was being built ; Boyle, Locke, and Arbuthnot knew the region well; so did Goldsmith and the Walpoles. Old Sir Hans Sloane has left his name linked with the oldest square and the finest street in the district, while his body lies within a stone's-throw of Carlyle's house, in the little, closely-packed parish churchyard. A noble plane tree and the remains of a fine Cedar of Lebanon on the other side of Carlyle's house indicate the site of the Botanic Gardens founded so long ago as 1674 by the Society of Apothecaries a little plot of ground shut in on the landward side by lofty walls, within which much good work has been, and still continues to be, done. The tomb of Bolingbroke is to be seen across the water in that ancient church of St Peter's from which Battersea, by familiar processes of the vulgar tongue, derives its name ; and close by the church, in the sleepy little High Street, that might be a bit of a country town, you see the schoolhouse that was founded by the great statesman's grandfather, Sir Walter St John, with his arms over the gateway and underneath them the inscrip- tion, "Rather Deathe than false of Faythe." Quiet, indeed we might almost say somnolent, picturesque in a high degree, with charming outlooks on park and river, Chelsea abounds in quaint, antique houses and dignified, heart-moving associations, and, with the help of the river 160 Thomas Carfyle. and the trees and gardens, preserves even to the prc hour a sort of fresh country air about it The 1 of the r< crraccs is cool and grateful to the an . eye. There ig new and showy, no air of " r ness and recency," to use a characteristic phrase of I >r Chalmers's, about this suburb ; and each old house has a i Lawrence Street, now peopled by very poor folk, you may find traces of the mansion in * Smollett found a retreat for himself, his wife, and his little daughter, when he settled down as a literary worker in London. This bore the name of Monmouth House in those days; a detached villa, with a garden extending behind it, of which Smollett has himself gi a description in Humphry Clinktt that it had been occupied in Queen Anne's time by that Due hess of Buccleuch who became Duchess outh l.y her alliance with the unfortunate son of Charles II. It is a singular coin< .it the great Scottish humourist of the eighteenth century should have wriv nand Count Fathom and his History of J / within a few yards of the very spot where the greater Scottish Master of Humour in the nineteenth cent all his greatest books except Sartor. No. , Chcyne v :ml>le two-storeyed brick house, was fence of the Shakespeare of English art in latter years, chosen by the great painter that he in give himself up to the enjoyment of the soft effects upon the still reaches of the Thames (effects which probably c part of the attraction that drew Carlyle thither too). Turner added to the house a balcony that is still ex: and it was in that house the forlorn old man mean raMe, in spite of his greatness as a painter passed His Notable Neighbours in Chelsea. 161 away from earth. At No. 4 Cheyne Walk, Maclise, the artist, lived and died. Leigh Hunt, who was attracted thither by Carlyle's influence, resided in Upper Cheyne Row, within a stone's-throw of Carlyle's house a con- venient distance when duns or tax-collectors were press- ing, and the generous Scot, after the manner of his " canny" countrymen, had to come to the rescue. In 1877 good Mrs Senior died in Cheyne Walk, cut off in the very midst of her devoted labours on behalf of the prisoners and the poor ; and Frances Power Cobbe still lives there, while for a little space towards the close of her life it was also the home of that greatest of all the female authors of England who was taken from us in the same year as Carlyle. William Bell Scott, the brother of David, true poet as well as artist, is an old resident in the Walk ; and for a short period it could boast of Whistler as a denizen, one memorial of his Chelsea days that is not without interest, whatever its real value, being a portrait by him of his most illustrious neighbour. Till within a year or two of Carlyle's decease there lived in the same King's Road region another octogenarian writer, not without merit in his lines of playwright and archaeologist, the vivacious Planche, who seemed as if he would never grow old ; and nearer still to Carlyle's house, though included in the Brompton district, is the residence of his friend Mr Froude. 'The erudite Mrs Somerville was once a resident in the same suburb ; and among the poets who have their abode in the region at present we may name Dante Rossetti, who resides at No. 16 Cheyne Walk, and the Hon. Leicester Warren, son of Lord de Tabley. That Carlyle was not insensible to the literary associations of the region is proved by the letter which Thomas Car - at the very outset of his London lit Wi milton, in v. c house pleases us mii< h . it is in the remnant of genuine old Dutch looking Chelsea; looks out mainly into trees* We ini^h: sec at half a mile's distan tersea; could shoot a gun into .use very time getting pulled down), where he wrote Count Fathom. Don use still looks as brisk as in Stcelc's time; N bearing her name, has become a git pro- in fine, Krasmus lodged with More in a spot not five hundred yards from this. We are encompassed a cloud of witnesses, good, bad, indiffer. Serious changes, no doubt, came over the district, more especially during the last decade ; but, if these detracted from the charm that drew him thither, Car ill residents had the slightest reason to c since to a great c ecn, however un- intentionally, their occasion. Hi- name imparted a f: re to the ancient suburb, and this unquestion led to increase the fa'. which it was vu by new settlers in the mctroj>olis, more especially si as belonged to the literary or the artistic class. AN AT S>t poems and romances retr lairds, was done by its sage ea. So sensible of this were the local vestrymen, that they spoke of him with as much re\ as if he -een an a a man of gei. actually, in re naming one of their finest squares, gav that of Carlyle. :s house, though ;h wall and having their entrance adjoining street, a huge blcn k veilings, No. 5, Cheyne Row. 163 almost as grim as Milbank Prison, had been reared ; but Cheyne Row, amid all the growth of the surrounding population, still retained the monastic seclusion of a cathedral close, and put one in mind of a sleepy back street in some country town. For many years no small proportion of the stray passengers who might be seen sauntering on its pavement were people who had come, often from distant parts of the country, or even from the other side of the sea, to look at the dwelling- place of Carlyle; and usually they had some difficulty in realising that the narrow, three-storeyed, old-fashioned little house marked No. 5 could indeed be the place they had come so far to see. Its exceeding homeliness was only relieved by the marks which proclaimed it to be a relic of the reign of Anne; and those who were privileged to pass within found that the interior was not without a simple, old-world dignity often absent in the more pretentious structures of the Victorian age, while at the rear there was a large garden, with a fine feeling of antiquity in its red brick walls. For many years that garden was carefully tended by Mrs Carlyle, who planted in it primroses from Scotland sent, as we have seen, by Sir George Sinclair all the way from Thurso which still bloom there as each spring comes round. With all its seclusion and rusticity, the abode of Carlyle was near the heart of the great city. You may walk from it to Piccadilly or the Houses of Parliament in half an hour, to South Kensington and Hyde Park in less ; and at the Pier close by at Old Battersea Bridge, beloved of Dore and Whistler, you find a brisk little steamer ready every fifteen minutes to take you to the Temple or to London Bridge. Carlyle knew what he was about when he chose 164 Thoma$ CarlyU. residence ; and we do not wonder that he remained there through all the years of his London 111 one time, indeed, he did think of removing, as we learn t Miss Martineau, who, in her Autobiography, has left us one of the roost pleasant glimpses of the Chelsea h< She described it as " the house which Carl) le was per- petually complaining of and threatening to leave, but where still to be found" She never believed that the Carlyles could flourish on that Chelsea clay, so close to the r and earnestly entreated them to settle on a gravelly soil. th Thomas did go, on a fine black horse, in scare' a rural hermitage, " with three maps of Great Britain and two of the World in his pocket, to explore the area within twenty miles of London ;" but he came as he went ; the lease, which had expired, was quietly renewed, and there, of Miss Martincau's fears, he was spared to < brate, within the old familiar walls, the eighty-fifth return of the anniversary of his birth. When he first came hither, the recluse of Craigen- puttoch, now a mature man of nearly : * hie fly formed among the mountains, felt it the strangest transition ; " but one uses him as he remarked in the letter written at the tim< .Villiam Hamilton. ' \\ have broken up our old settlement, and, al tumult enough, formed a new one here, under the most opposite conditions. Our upholsterers, with all t rubbish pings, are at length handsomely swept out of doors. I have got my little txxA press set up, table fixed firm in its place, and sit here awaiting v time and I, in our questionable wrestle, shall make seen us," One of the last things we should 1 looked for, from all that we have seen of the man, now Sartor on the Platform. 165 happened. No doubt, one of the traditions of his boy- hood, picked up at Ecclefechan, speaks of a gift of oratory he displayed on a certain occasion, much to the astonishment of his father and all the neighbours; but Sartor on the platform is an apparition for which we are hardly prepared. In the summer of 1837, however, he actually stood forth in that character by delivering a series of six lectures on " German Literature " at Willis's Rooms, the first being given on Tuesday, the 2nd of May. The hall was crowded, yet the audience was correctly described by the few newspapers that took notice of the event as " select." Though his writings were familiar to the leaders of thought, he was as yet hardly known even by name to the great bulk of his countrymen. At that date he would have secured a much more com- posite audience at Boston or in any other New England town. The daily newspapers of London were as much in the dark about him as the mass of the people ; and it is to the weekly Spectator, then edited by its founder Rintoul, who began life as a printer's boy at Dundee, and was therefore not ignorant of his great countryman, that we must turn for an account of the impression made by Carlyle as a lecturer. From the brief report given in the number of that journal for May 6, it appears that the opening lecture consisted of a history and character of the Germans, whom he described as the only genuine European people unmixed with strangers. The mere fact of the great, open, fertile country they inhabit never having been subdued, showed the masculine character of the race ; indeed, the grand characteristic of the Teutonic intellect was valour, by which he meant, not mere animal courage, common to all races of men, but that 1 66 CarlyU. cool, dogged, onward, in< i>crseverance, ur good and evil repute, un instances untowari propitious, i alone great things ar -dy icved A ual examples of this <ju.. i Kepler . .->, Milton and itional examples he gave t 1, the settlement of Aim the the colonisation of the new contiiu lie same pie. As to the manner >: i re r, we are t by the same journal that, wh; ,ent in t :^m of orator), this minor vas far more than tountcrhalaiuxil by Carlyle's "perfect master) the originality . jier- spicuit) anguage, his sim qui irge and difficult D was also expressed tha person < or judgment could hear him wit' feeling ' ,ian of -eniiis, deeply im! with his great argum :i the uncouth gossip- of the was impressed by the strength of this strange new ora //V Characters, u was well abl- nd ; and though they s,iw in :ig CXCCeii % ward, t! fail to discern in the impress of a mind of great originality . . is a fact without sigr . as illustrating the compara smallncss of tlu > Carlyle's fame was yet own country, t in the ^imincr and Spectator Leigh Hunfs Portrait of the Lecturer. 167 mention was made of the remaining lectures of the series. It is stated that he had prepared ample and careful notes of the first of his lectures, intending to do little more than read them ; but he very soon found himself stumbling among them, when, casting them aside, he proceeded extemporaneously, without trouble, and much to the delight of his audience. In the following year, encouraged by the success of the ex- perimental course, he gave a second series of lectures at the Literary Institute, 17 Edward Street, Portman Square ; his subject this time, " On the History of Literature, or the Successive Periods of European Cul- ture." The first was delivered on Monday, April 30, and they were continued on the Monday and Friday of each succeeding week. " He again extemporises," wrote Leigh Hunt in the Examiner \ " he does not read. We doubted, on hearing Monday's lecture, whether he would ever attain, in this way, the fluency as well as the depth for which he ranks among the celebrated talkers in private ; but Friday's discourse relieved us. He strode away like Ulysses himself, and had only to regret, in common with his audience, the limits to which the hour confined him. He touched, however, in his usual masterly way, what may be called the mountain- tops of his subject the principal men and themes. We had Troy, Persia, and Alexander; Philip, c a managing, diagrammatic man.' The Greeks in general, whose character he compared with that of the French the Greek religion, which he looks upon as originating in the worship of heroes, 'ultimately shaped by allegory/ with destiny at the back of it (a great dumb, black divinity that had no pity on them, and they knew not 1 68 Thomas CarlyU. \ it was, only that it pitied neither gods nor m Prometheus, 4 a ort of personage,' who 'does not knowingly howl over any trouble Homer, whose .ility was undone by Wolff, in the year 1780, but whose aggregate (the Homeric poets) are unequalled any subsequent poets in the world /Kschylus, 'a giga man,' not entirely civilised, whose poetry is 4 .u if the rocks ic sea had begun to speak to us, and tell us what they had been thinking of from eternity. 1 Sophocles, the harmoniser, perhaps weakener of the musical strength of A iripides, its degenerator into sec consciousness." In the third lecture '.escribed the earliest character of Rome as consisting steady agricultural thrift, a quality which he idered "the germ of all other virtues." Th faculty in tl ns became turned into the steady spirit of conquest, for which they soon grew famous, all "by method "and "the spirit of the practical ordinary objection to the early Romans, as thieves and robbers, was very shallow. They were only a trih a superior character, gradually, and of necessity, forcing the consequences of their better knowledge upon the people around them. The Carthaginians he considc in comparison with the Romans, as a mere set ot hur. hole character. In the concluding lecture, a large portion of u hich was autobiographical, he described the erTc "Wert 1 ujK>n his own mind, and the antidote he found to that morbid sentimentalism in the Other writings of Goethe. He four. Helm Mcittcr the Utters of several young persons who had wi about how to attain happiness, were tossed The Proper End and Aim of Life. 169 aside unanswered, and this struck him as very strange, seeing that a " recipe for happiness " was just the thing that he wanted, and had at that time been anxiously seeking. The seriousness of Goethe's character con- vinced him that there was some deep meaning in this which was worth inquiring after, and at last he began to perceive that happiness was not the right thing to seek ; that man has nothing to do with happiness, but with the discharge of the work given him to do. The spiritual perfection of his nature, a mystic and nameless aim, which no man could explain, and it were better left unexplained, though they were lonely, pitiable, who had not glimpses of it, which heroic martyr spirits of old times had called " the cross of Christ," and which Goethe himself had called "the worship of sorrow;" this, he began to apprehend, was the true object of search, and the proper end and aim of life. It must ever be a source of regret to the students of Carlyle's writings that, while the reporters of the London press were, in that summer of 1838, busy preserving every word of the orations of men who are already forgotten, this poor fragment is all that has come down to us of a series of lectures which would have thrown so much light on the story of Carlyle's spiritual life. " The Revolutions of Modern Europe " was the title of a third course, also given at the Edward Street lecture- hall, in 1839 ; and in a notice of the second lecture, which had for its subject " Protestantism, Faith in the Bible, Luther, Knox, and Gustavus Adolphus," Leigh Hunt gave a characteristically vivid picture, both of the lecturer and his audience ; the latter, as in the previous seasons, including ladies as well as gentlemen. Hunt's i TO Thomas Cat notice is specially worthy of mark, from th description of the orator's style given in the first two lines ; the epithets apply to everything Carlyle has written, is an acci; tcterisati we think it has never been surpassed, or even equalled " There is frequi ss," wrote Hunt, "a ptiMJon ate simpl speerh, in the language of Mr ('. h gives startling effect to his sincerity, evidently received by his audience, especially the fashionable part of it (as one may know t reased e), with a feeling that won 1 if it could, but is fairly dashed into a submission, grateful for the y and the ev he hard forte oft' blows of truth. I in clcsrribin^ the Mie' wl. Papal tyranny had be< dint of its own ol disbelief and worldliness, he said it had come to be 'one of the most melancholy spectacles which so august a sovereign representative of a faith possibly offer. None hut hy|>ocrites and formalist uch an anomaly. Good ;ct out of it. It ry kind r that gets at the head of it. It iuture a juggle, th nay be a truth, I. I -rd, a thing like / like these, ithful words, and with the i as if sotn to life again, liberalised nan philosophy, and his <>wn intense refle< nee) can be duly appreciated or } . , manly CMC \ the audience seems to km; : of a hether it would The Lectures on Hero- Worship. 171 the pretty church-and-state bonnets seem to thrill through all their ribbons." In 1840, came what was unfortunately to prove the last series of all the six lectures "On Heroes, Hero- Worship, and the Heroic in History," which, alone of the four courses, were published in a printed form, and became more immediately popular than any of his previous works. But they vexed the righteous soul of poor James Grant,* a bitter defender of a narrow ortho- doxy, who, for many years, united in his own person the functions of editor of the newspaper organ of the pub- licans and defender of the Christian Faith, on the principle, we suppose, that religion has the same ally which Burns claimed for freedom. This spiritual per- sonage wanted to know if " any living man could point to a single practical passage " in any of Carlyle's lectures, and proclaimed Carlyle himself " but a phantasm " and his teachings utterly valueless. Mr Grant was also shocked by Carlyle's delivery. "In so far as his mere manner is concerned, I can scarcely bestow on him a word of commendation. There is something in his manner which, if I may use a rather quaint term, must seem very uncouth to London audiences of the most respectable class, accustomed as they are to the polished deportment which is usually exhibited in Willis's or the Hanover Rooms. When he enters the room, and pro- * This singular character, while editing a daily paper devoted to the interests of the Pothouses of London, and which was, at the time we speak of, the organ also of the Prize Ring, assured a friend that he made it a point of conscience to write and publish one religious book per annum, to preserve his soul from the secularising influence of his professional life ! His favourite theme in these soul-saving exercises was the " Glories of Heaven." i ; j Thomas cccds to the sort of rostrum whence he delivers practice cases, generally received with applause ; hut he very rarely takes any more notice of the mark of approbation thus bestowed upon him, than if he were altogct onsctous of it. And the same seeming want of respect his audience, or, at any rate, the same disregard fur what I believe he considers the troublesome forms of !e at the commencem* ire. Having ascended his desk, he gives a hearty rub to hands, and plunges at once into his subject He reads h, indeed, must be expected, considering the topics which he undertakes to discuss. is not prodigal of gesture with his arms or body ; but there is something in his eye and countenance which indicates great earnestness of purpose, and the n intense inter subject You can almost fancy, in some of his more enthusiastic and energetic monu that you sec his inmost soul in his face. At times, ind , he so unnatural!) .res, as to give to his countenance a very unpleasant expres- sion. On such occasions you would imagine that he was ed with some violent paroxysms of \ is one of the most ungraceful speakers I have :d address a public assemblage of persons. In to the awkwardness of his general manner, kes moi: would of themselves be sufficient to mar the agreeableness of his delis > manner of speaking c ungrarefulne v aggravated by his strong Scotch accent. ie generality of So h in no ordinary degree. His Speeech at the Freemason? Tavern. 173 Need I say, then, what it must be to an English ear ?" The polished critic, though himself a Caledonian, could not away with that Scotch accent. " I was present some months ago, during the delivery of a speech by Mr Carlyle at a meeting held in the Freemasons' Tavern, for the purpose of forming a metropolitan library ; and though that speech did not occupy in its delivery more than five minutes, he made use of some of the most extraordinary phraseology I ever heard employed by a human being. He made use of the expression 'this London,' which he pronounced " this Loondun,' four or five times a phrase which grated grievously on the ears even of those of Mr Carlyle's own countrymen who were present, and which must have sounded doubly harsh in the ears of an Englishman, considering the singularly broad Scotch accent with which he spoke." What probably increased the sensitiveness of Mr Grant's ear was the circumstance, darkly hinted in the close of the sketch, that " a good deal of uncertainty " prevailed as to the lecturer's religious opinions in fact, it was whispered that he was a Deist. However, we have to thank this grotesque Scotch gossiper for being the instru- ment of letting us know that the series on " Hero- Worship " was the best-attended of all the four courses of lectures, the audience numbering, on the average, three hundred, these being, for the most part, persons of rank and wealth, " as the number of carriages testified." It would appear that Carlyle had only consented to lecture at the urgent solicitation of many friends and admirers ; and, though he stuck manfully to his bargain, when the last of the four courses he undertook to deliver was completed, be gave it to be clearly understood that never more Thomas CarlyU. new the experiment Not that it had l> urc, so far as cither he himself or concerned the very reverse was the case; his put speech more than realised the md Audiences went on increasing every season. In . years he was frequently !: ited to appear again on came fro as well as from provincial towns of Engk&r. land, hut he stedfastly adhered : never again to adopt that mode of utterance. As was indicated in the tou< at the c lose fma. he had found that there was " much i*ain iss," though a little pleasure a! :hc pain, no doubt, greatly prep< the <ler of ( Orthodov t>een sea! ing l>owing a and; r, there was assure the most delic.no courtesy may we not also modest and thankful spirit beautiful to contcm; in the last words Carlyle utti " \\ IK tier (with th I <ed to break .ml on it ; I k I have even managed to (i I uar it up in the rudest inai. : at all. ^ i these abrupt utterances ut, isolated, un- r.ince been put to the t: ranee, patient candou favour and k ness, .1 plis: , the txrautiful, the wise, soi thir, is best in Engbi. istened patiently His Power as an Orator. 175 to my rude words. With many feelings, I heartily thank you all ; and say, Good be with you all ! " As we listen to the echo of that grateful valedictory strain, that has come over the interval of forty years with its thrill as of sweetest music unspent, we conclude that the critic who pronounced the lecturer " uncouth " simply suc- ceeded as so many censors do in describing himself. No one who has heard Carlyle talk in private requires to be told that he was a born orator. Nor can any such have failed to wish at times that he had further prose- cuted the lecturing experiment; the one reflection that modifies this wish being that, if he had done so, we might have been deprived of some of the great historical works which he has left as a legacy to the ages. Habitu- ating himself to public speaking, we can imagine Carlyle swaying the multitude even as it was ruled by the voice of John Knox ; and it might have saved Carlyle from some mistakes if he had been brought face to face with his scholars. On the other hand, we remember the fate that overtook the friend of his youth, carried off his feet by the intoxication of triumphs as an orator ; and we are content with the decision that Sartor formed in 1840, and from which he never swerved. Once in conversation in Edinburgh with Alexander Scott, the Principal of Owens College, who happened at the time to be lecturing at the Philosophical Institution, he asked his old friend how he liked the work, adding, " When I had to give my lectures on Hero- Worship, I felt as if I were going to be hanged." Though that was his feeling, it by no means proves him to have been unfit for the business of orator; since many of the greatest orators in the world have shared this experience, and indeed have never sue- 176 Thomas CarlyU. ceeded in shaking off the wretched sensation, down to the very last It may be worth adding that amongst those who heard Carlyle le< ture in 1838 was a brilliant young lawyer from the United States, who subsequently rose to distinction as Senator Sumner. " I heard Car- lyle lecture the other day," writes he, in one of his letters; "he seemed like an inspired boy; truth and thoughts that made one move on the benches came from his apparently unconscious mind, couched in the most grotesque style, and yet condensed to a degree of I may so write," In confirmation of the \ we take of Carlyle as an orator, let us cite the evick of a second American witness, Margaret Fuller OssolL That remarkable woman did not hear him lecture, but lege of listening to his conversation. talk," she says, writing in 1846, " is an amazement and a splendour scarcely to be faced with steady eyes, does not converse, only harangues. It is the usual mis- h marked men that they cannot allow other minds room to breathe and show themselves in their atmosphere, and thus miss ttu .lent and tion greatest never cease to need from the experience of the humblest Carlyle allows no one a rice, but bears down all opposition, not only by \vit and onset of words, resistless in their sharpness as so many luyuiuts, !>i:t ly a< tual physical Superiority, raising his voice and rushing on his opponent with a torrcr sounds. This is not in the least from unwillingness to allow freedom to others. On the contrary, no man would more enjoy a manly resistance to his thought But . mind accustomed to follow out its own impulse as the ha\\k its prey, and whit h knows not how His Eminent Auditors. 177 to stop in the chase. Carlyle, indeed, is arrogant and overbearing ; but in his arrogance there is no littleness, no self-love. It is the heroic arrogance of some old Scandinavian conqueror ; it is his nature, and the un- tameable impulse that has given him power to crush the dragons. You do not love him, perhaps, nor revere; and perhaps, also, he would only laugh at you if you did ; but you like him heartily, and like to see him, the power- ful smith, the Siegfried, melting all the old iron in his furnace till it glows to a sunset red, and burns you if you senselessly go too near. He seems to me quite isolated, lonely as the desert ; yet never was a man more fitted to prize a man, could he find one to match his mood. He finds them, but only in the past. 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 sometimes stops a minute to laugh at himself, then begins anew with fresh vigour ; for all the spirits he is driving before him seem to him as Fata Morganas, ugly masks, in fact, if he can but make them turn about; but he laughs that they seem to others such dainty Ariels." Among the eminent auditors of Carlyle, besides those already named, who have left on record their impressions of the lectures, was Bunsen, who describes them as "very striking, rugged thoughts, not ready made up for any political or religious system; thrown at people's heads, by which most of his audience are sadly startled." Robert Browning was also a charmed listener; and so was Macready the actor at the lecture on " The Hero as M 1 78 Thomas Cat het," of which he says that it was delivered with M a eloquence that only complete convictio! truth could give." The great tragedian adds that was "charmed, carried away" by the lecturer. O Robinson, of course, was there ; and of one lc< particular we find him testifying that "it gave K satisfaction, for it had uncommon thoughts, and was livered with unusu.il anima' Lecturing was not the only new channel into talents of Carlyle were now directed under the stimu- lating influence, and by the literary conveniences, of the metropolis. Ix>ng tx Scotland, and in sequence of a suggestion he fir s of id been comv the i>ol: religious conflict of the si mury as a suitable for his |>cn ; but now the idea whii h had l>een hauntin. 'id took a soraew entered upon those wider studies afterwards bore good fruit in the work that final!;. egain the lost image of :ng, \\h: o foully defaced, beyond all recognr -cctarian bigtN .f tin- preceding times. '1 was a work that was }\ cost him years of sir .ml K-forc it saw the ligf other books of its author were Issi: press. In 1837 appeared The French Revolution^ a History notable, in : account, it was the first book u ge the name of Thomas Carlyle; wort cial mark, more* because of its being also that straightway that name sounding through every nook and corni Great Britain. We : curiously divided The Critics and the "French Revolution" 179 both as to its merits and the sort of impression it made at first upon the public mind. Some assert that it did not prove at once successful. " The incongruities," says one of these people, "monstrosities of style, and the author's disdain for what an admirer called the ' feudali- ties of literature ' struck all readers, and it was only some of them who thought much more of the intrinsic beauty of the jewel than of the strange setting." There is plenty of evidence, however, to shew that the immediate popu- larity of the book was great. One of the leading critics, no doubt, expressed the opinion that " it would be an interesting book were it well translated into English ; " but sneers like this could not hinder it from being both widely and keenly relished, not only on account of the intensity of its feeling and its depth of thought, but also for the graphic force and splendour of its style. It was certainly hailed by all who possessed critical discern- ment as the greatest historical poem in the language; nor did they fail to recognise the fact that, while it was a prose poem, it was at the same time characterised by marvellous accuracy in its statement of facts. Landor hailed it with enthusiasm as the best book published in his time, and recognised the coming of a new literary potentate. Sir William Hamilton got hold of the book about three o'clock in the afternoon, and was so captivated with it that he could not lay it aside until he had finished the three volumes at four o'clock next morning. Charles Dickens was in the habit of reading it through twice every year ; and when he published his Tale of Two Cities^ he said it had grown out of a hope to add some- thing to the popular and picturesque means of under- standing the terrible times of the French Revolution i8o Thomas Carfylc. " though," he added, " no one can hope to add any- thing to the philosophy of Mr i wonderful book." Thomas Krskine of I.inlathen hastened to send a copy to his friend Guuot ; and, il instigation, it was read by Dr Macleod Campbell, who deemed it valuable on account of its taking larger and dt views of the events which it records than has been generally taken, though he thought there was to get over as to s : manner" in the book, mark was delicious, coming from such a source, Campbell having been t: worst st> that ever wrote, even among Scottish theologians ; in . the worthy man could not be said to have a s: at all Miss Mil ford, of Our . uid been told by Carlyle's that this was his great work. " Per- haps it may lx-,'' said the little lady, " only I am quite convinced that nobody who did not know the story ould gain the slL .1 of it from Mr Carlyle's three volumes, and that is not my theory of a John Stuart Mill, like Landor and Sir Will. (1 not agree with Miss Mitford, for he de- at " no work of greater g< ad been produced in this country f< years ;" and in his Autobiography he points to the art in which he expressed this opinion as one of two < spicuous cast h good was done i>y his daring to take a prompt initiate I believe," he says, "that the early success and r of Carl nth n were considerably accelerated !> what I wrote about it in \\ I :on, , all whose rules and modes of judgment it set :KC, had time to ; The Burnt Manuscript. 181 occupy the public with their disapproval of it, I wrote and published a review of the book, hailing it as one of those productions of genius which are above all rules, and are a law to themselves." Mill did not ascribe the impression produced to any particular merit in his Westminster article, for he did not think its execution good; anybody, in a position to be read, who had expressed the same opinion at the same precise time, and had made any tolerable statement of the just grounds for it, would, he thought, have produced the same effect. How great that effect was may be judged by the fact that the Times declared its readiness, " after perusing the whole of this extraordinary work, to allow, almost to their fullest extent, the high qualities with which Mr Carlyle's idolaters endow him." Mr Mill certainly owed the book a good turn, for, though he makes no allusion to the circumstance, he had been the uninten- tional instrument of delaying its publication and of adding enormously to the toil involved in the production of the book. At one time he had himself a half-formed intention of writing a History of the French Revolution ; and, when he learned that Carlyle was engaged on the subject, he handed over his collections to him, which, he tells us, proved " very useful." This naturally led to Mr Mill obtaining the loan of the manuscript of the second volume of Carlyle's work soon after it had been com- pleted ; and he carried the treasure to Mrs Taylor, the lady who subsequently became his wife. On retiring for the night, with culpable heedlessness she left the manu- script open on her study table, from which it accidentally fell on to the floor ; and next morning an equally heed- less domestic, imagining it to be waste paper, kindled the 1 82 Thomas Cat fire with it !* M those who knew the man may fancy, was dreadfully mortified at this tragic mishap ; :m took the a-idcnt, when he first heard of it, with admirable composure, and actually succeeded by and by in ri memoiy so -,vas the form of the magnifi* narrative in the mind of its author. Mrs Carl;. ever, always >n that the r me was not equal to the original; and, taking all things into account, we can well 1 was right One version of the story, credited Carlyle, says it was Mr Mill's cook who the book. "She had occasion to bake some cakes, ling the precious manuscript lying a! con- iat she might turn it to good acco act< jartly as fuel, and jKirtly as lining for the cake tins, she used up the whol been M r's cook who . was not Mr Mi!l\. "Mr Carlyle never keeps nt gets all 1 rials ready, works till he has everything in his head, and t out like silk from a reel i at the on the great .er happened bef< Mr Mill. " Yes, though," answered Mr Carlyle, "NeNs and his dog Didmond." "True, but Newton went * A r> mishap befell De V "** D**f ZdttMOM, printed at the cloe of the C**ftui**s t U bat a fragr .; to the accidental destruction by fire of five or tix of .'.r, ':;.;:.! . -. \ . : : . I . .. : : : gration which arose from a spark of a candle falling unobserved amongst a large pile of pipers in a bedroom, when De Quincey was alone and reading. His Own Story of the Burnt Manuscript. 183 over it." "Well, well, we shall hardly be so bad as that," said Carlyle ; and he soon afterwards began again at the beginning, scarcely saying a word about his misfortune at the time, but afterwards, as the work progressed, grumbling about it often. Another, and a fuller, version of the story is given by our American friend, Milburn, as it was related to him by Carlyle himself; though the report seems to us to have a little of the blind preacher in it as well as the genuine article. "A sad story, enough, sir; and one that always makes me shudder to think of. I had finished the second volume, and, as it lay in manuscript, a friend desired that he might have the reading of it ; and it was committed to his care. He professed himself greatly delighted with the perusal, and confided it to a friend of his own, who had some curiosity to see it as well. This person sat up, as he said, perusing it far into the wee hours of the morning ; and at length recollecting himself [herself?], surprised at the flight of time, laid the manuscript carelessly upon the library table, and hied to bed. There it lay, a loose heap of rubbish, fit only for the waste-paper basket, or for the grate. So Betty, the housemaid, thought when she came to light the library fire in the morning. Looking round for something suitable for her purpose, and finding nothing better than it, she thrust it into the grate, and applying the match, up the chimney with a sparkle ind roar went The French Revolution; thus ending in smoke and soot, as the great transaction itself did more than half a century ago. At first they forbore to tell me the evil tidings ; but at length I heard the^dismal story, and I was as a man staggered by a heavy blow. I was as a man beside myself, for there was scarcely a page of 1 84 Thomas CarlyU. manuscript left I sat down at the table, and strove to collect my thoughts and to commence the work again. I filled page after page, but ran the pen over every line- as the page was finished. Thus was r weary day ; until at length, as I sat by the window, half- hearted and dejected, my eye wandered along over acres of roofs, I saw a man standing upon a scaffold engaged in building a wall the wall of a house. With his trowel : lay a great splash of mortar upon the last layer, and then t>ri< k after brick would be deposited upon t striking each with the butt of his trowel, as if to give it his benediction and farewell ; and all the while sin. ling as blithe as a lark. And in my spleen I said within myself, * Poor fool ! how canst thou be so merry under such a bile-spotted atmosphere as and everything rushing into the regions of the inn: And then I bethought me, and I said to myself; ' Poor fool thou, rather, that sitter here by the window whi: and What if thy house of cards falls ? the universe wrecked for that? The man yonder builds a house that shall be a home perhaps for generations. Men will be born in it, wedded in it, and buried from it ; and the voice of weeping and of mirth shall be ru within its walls ; and mayhap true faith shall be nursed by its hearthstone. Man ! symbol of eternity imprisoned into time! it is not thy wo: wliii h are all mortal, infinitely little, and the greatest no greater than the least, but only the spirit thou workt which can have worth or continuance ! Up, then, at thy work, and be cheerful !' So I arose and washed my face, and felt that my head was anointed, and gave myself to \ation to what they call 'light literature.' I read He Seeks to Comfort Mr Mill. 185 nothing but novels for weeks. I was surrounded by heaps of rubbish and chaff. I read all the novels of that person who was once a captain in the royal navy and an extraordinary ornament he must have been to it;* the man that wrote stories about dogs that had their tails cut off, and about people in search of their fathers, and it seemed to me that of all the extraordinary dunces that had figured upon this planet, he must certainly bear the palm from every one save the readers of his books. And thus refreshed I took heart of grace again, applied me to my work, and in course of time The French Revolution got finished, as all things must, sooner or later." Already this incident of the burnt manuscript has generated almost as many mythical contradictory tales as if it had happened centuries ago. Since Carlyle's death * This and other portions of Milburn's report are confirmed by another writer, who, referring to a statement in Chambers 's Journal, that Carlyle told Thomas Aird he considered the second effort better than the first, says : " This is just the contrary of Carlyle 's account made some four years since to the writer of this note. Sitting one evening in the drawing room of the house in Great Cheyne Row, myself and Carlyle were in conversation upon general subjects, when I remarked, ' I have heard that the manuscript of the French Revol- ution was destroyed before going to the printers. Was that so?' Carlyle 'Ay, ay, it was so.' Myself 'What did you do under the circumstances?' Carlyle 'For three days and nights I could neither eat nor sleep, but was like a daft man.' Myself ' But what did you do at last?' Carlyle 'Well, I just went away into the country ;' and here he burst into a fit of loud laughter, and then said, ' I did nothing for three months but read Marryat's novels ;' and after a serious pause he remarked, ' I set to and wrote it all over again ;' but in a melancholy tone concluded, ' I dinna think its the same ; no, I dinna think it's the same.' " Mr R. H. Home says : "Mr Mill was naturally in very great distress at the irreparable loss, and Mr Carlyle was seen doing his utmost to console and comfort him. Such nobility of heart and fortitude of mind deserve to be recorded in all histories of English literature, and elsewhere." 1 86 Thomas Carlylt. we have been told by leading journalists that it was the mar volume 1 he disaster bx that what became of it was never exactly known. " Mr- 1 ording to the Titnts, "left it for some her writing table; when wa >uld now: be f >st probable i dis- appearance was the suggestion that a servant had used j>t to light the fire. Carl} < e set to :n his notes the 1 swiftly finish-. -k, hut he always thought that the -ft was the best" Another journal, labouring under the same misconception as t :ne that was destroyed, says: passed the matter off with some soothing pleasantry, sat down and re wrote the whole piece, page by page, from memory. It was a terrible effort, but the struggle brought its reward, for of the tl mes it has < been no 1 none that can match with the of feeling, concentration of thought, di- nes- i compressed weal des< authority has a quite diflfc v to tell ; ;>erplexecl not without SOb' n he finds the ol :ig a goo refuses to yield. CHAPTER XIII. ENTERS THE FIELD OF CONTEMPORARY POLITICS HIS "CHARTISM" THE STUDENT'S VOCATION HIS "HERO- WORSHIP" GODWIN'S IDEA "PAST AND PRESENT" MAZZINI'S ESSAY CARLYLE's DEFENCE OF THE EXILE SWINBURNE AND MACLEOD CAMPBELL THE "LATTER-DAY PAMPHLETS." WITH the lectures and the collection of the multitudinous materials for a history of the French Revolution, to say nothing of the passing through the press of Sartor and the arranging of the first English edition of the Miscel- lanies a vigilant eye being meanwhile kept on Crom- well and the great Puritan struggle it might be sup- posed that these opening years at Chelsea were suf- ficiently crowded with work. But before the close of 1839 we find the diligent worker, now at the very height of his productive power, breaking ground in quite a new direction by the publication of his little volume on Chartism, which was issued from the press of James Eraser. True, it may be described as a pamphlet rather than a book ; and it partook of the character of journalistic work, discussing the political questions of the day. To very many of his warmest admirers, brought bitter disappointment such as afterwards came to his orthodox readers, in ecstacies over his Cromwell when that apparently Calvinistic biography was sue- i88 Thomas CarlyU. ceeded by the Life <//>//// Sterling a bombshell wi. suddenly turned their joy into mourning. Close dents of Sartor had fancied that the man who wrote it was a Radical Reformer; and so he was, doubtless! but not in their sense On none of the movenv in v, :., h they were then engaged with a view to heal the diseases of the body politic, did he bestow the slightest word of encouragement; on the contrary, he spoke of them all their demands for an extended frage, and other popular agitations with absolute tempt Its assault upon the governing classes was too strong to win for Chartism the approval of the Tory press ; and the maxims laid down in it, distinctly favouring a despotic rule as hard and mechanical as that of Pharaohs, were condemned with entire unanimity by the Liberal journals. Both parties were at one in regarding the somewhat sulphurous. little book as totally unpr. cal in its character. Now, however, while we detect in those fiery pages the germs of a theory of government that is antagonistic to our Constitutional system, even the staunchest Radical must admit that two, if not three, beneficial ideas of great practical importance were by that book first forced upon the attention of tru two at least of them taking root with ultimate production of good fruit that we are happily enjoying, or about to >y, today. The most prominent of these three ideas came at once to be formulated under the title of Condition of England Question, which doubtless had origin in the indignant appeals of that pamphK two fundamental remedies iost pressing national wants on which Carlyle insisted were Universal Educa- tion and General Emigration. 1 to see that his The Vocation of the Student. 189 advocacy of the former had not been in vain ; but his notions with respect to the latter have not yet been per- mitted to enter what is called, in the cant language of our day, the domain of practical politics. The Adminstra- tive Reform movement, unhappily abortive, and which still remains to be taken up in right earnest, may also be said to date its birth from Carlyle's first raid into the field of politics. The " strong government " theory which he then promulgated was afterwards illustrated and enforced in forms that gave pain to all friends of Constitutional freedom ; and a young poet of our time has attempted in one of his prose essays to account for the obvious degradation of Mr Carlyle's genius, as displayed in his later manifestoes, by laying down the principle that no student can enter the field of contemporary thought and action without incurring such a loss of sanity and power. It is the business of the student, this writer contends, to stand apart from the turmoil of his time to seek, not contemporary but eternal truth ; he is to regard the heavens, not to delve in the earth : and unless he pre- serves this attitude of isolation, we are told that he is doomed to sink to the level of the bawling throng. We may be allowed to question the validity of this theory of the student's vocation when we look back to the days of Milton, the deepest thinker of his time and one of our two greatest poets, yet the right-hand man of Cromwell ; when we see Dante not only going on embassies, but so mixing himself with the affairs of Florence as to secure banishment; when we call to mind the part played in politics by John Knox, who, far from being weakened by his active leadership in that stormy time, set a mark on his nation that cannot be effaced till that nation 1 90 Thomas CarlyU. has ceased to be. Emerson, whom this essayist admires for his power of self-isolation, has certainly shown want of sympathy with the public movements of his age and nation. Though it has been the fashion to call him "the Hermit of Concord," he has never been backv, in throwing himself into contemporary conflicts. Indeed, he has been more of a public man in Amcri* a than Car- lyle ever was in England. In the controversy which almost rent his country in twain he took a steady and consistent jxart, so that when the strife came to a close, and the \ictorv hud been won, his was the pen chosen to write the \ i< toft hymn of praise for i ition : ay ransom to the owi he cup to the 1 Who is the owner? The slave is owner, And always was. 1 With all deference to Mr Robert Buchanan, we are con- med, by the experience of the dl as by fundamental principles on which based, to de- eptance of his postulate. :ident, to do , must not withdraw 1 ::om that conflict of which "only (Jod and the angels can be the <>f our best men of thougl this in..: are robust men of action. The author of the Reign of / he not the : orator in the House of Lords a; administrator? Mr (, , like the tie of our .plished scholars. uirt Mill's too brief p: cna, and ;it of it, i :io injury on the powerful mind or on the calm temper of that p: :er. It : in the con- The Lectures on Hero- Worship. 191 flicts of his own generation that we shall find the clue to any weakness in the teachings of Carlyle ; and even those who most lamented the attitude in which he often stood in relation to the political questions of his day, cannot think less of him for taking his share in the endeavours to ameliorate the condition of his fellow-men. A more favourable reception awaited his next book, On Heroes, Hero- Worship, and the Heroic in History, also issued from Fraser's press, in 1841. It was simply a report, with a few emendations and additions, of his fourth course of lectures. Though Grant asserted that they were closely read, the truth is, they were purely extemporaneous delivered without a fragment of written notes. The immediate popularity of the volume was proved by its passing speedily through some half-dozen editions ; nor was its success confined to England, for, besides having a great run in the United States, it was soon translated both into French and German. We suspect it was the only one of his works, in addition to The French Revolution, so honoured in France. This was at once the fullest and clearest exposition that its author had yet pub- lished of his social, political, and philosophical creed. The ideas hastily indicated in the pamphlet on Chartism were wrought out more carefully; and the central principle illus- trated on every page was that hero-worship with which Carlyle's name came to be most of all associated in the minds of men. " Great men," he said, " are the fire pillars in this dark pilgrimage of mankind ; they stand as heavenly signs, ever-living witnesses of what has been, prophetic tokens of what may still be, the revealed embodied possi- bilities of human nature." Sentences like these had a fair look and a subtle seductive power \ but the theory 192 Thomas Carlyle. to which they gave such eloquent expression was one that could not bear the critical inspection to which the style might safely to subjected. It conducted to the conclusion that the millions are a mere brute mass, and that not in in a few select individuals of a gifted sort alone is to be found the Spirit of God and all hope of progress in the world. Tl at first I iy many readers on whom the book laid hold reason of its wealth of curious biographic lore, its vivid portraits of great men, its generous ardour, and the pass: 'ow of its rhetoric Of course, there is truth in very much that Carlyle said about heroes; but the exaggera :hat truth was sure to bring a heavy its train. It led to a scorn of Con 1 methods of government, and to a K only in the " Heaven-born chief," in whom we also f our instructor had only been good enough to tell us of any machinery whereby to secure him, apart from the ] !. in of counting heads, or " noses, " phrased it. It led of necessity to fs as tl the na: condition of that the DXX : the lessly weak are objects only of contempt and s* for whom let th tt, no pity; that r ng to be pin. and ennobled by the means of freedom ; and that social ordt mpatibK :inber of dis- .ividual wills. The leading position in Carl system, that intellect guarantees morality in other words, tha n and good man are synon rms, and re the only criminals is a the< Godwin. Mazzinfs Criticism. 193 In 1843, fr m the press of Chapman & Hall, who were henceforth his publishers to the end, there was issued Past and Present, in which was given a graphic picture of the manners and morals of the twelfth century, as represented by Abbot Samson of St Edmundsbury ; this picture being contrasted with the England of to-day, its condition "one of the most ominous ever seen in the world full of wealth in every kind, yet dying of inani- tion." The author foresees, however, a happy haven, "to which all revolutions are driving us that of hero- kings, and a world not unheroic." The present state of our own country is painted in the most sombre colours ; we have an aristocracy either unable or unwilling to govern, a parliament elected by bribery, which starts with a lie in its mouth, and prefers profitless talk to indis- pensable work, and Captains of Industry whose connec- tion with their workmen is that of buccaniers and Choctaw Indians. As a volume of historical etchings, executed with loving patience, at once accurate in their details and marvellously vivid, this work possesses imperishable interest and value ; while, in its scathing exposure of the rotten condition of modern society, there is only too much truth. The book produced a profound impression on many minds, nor is its force yet spent ; but one of the most significant incidents connected with its publication was the appearance of an essay "On the Genius and Tendency of the Writings of Thomas Carlyle," in the British and Foreign Review for October 1843. To an Italian exile in England, curiously enough, must be ascribed the merit of having been the first to detect what is perhaps the cardinal defect in the writings of Carlyle. Joseph Mazzini, the writer of the essay, pene- 194 Thomas Carlylc. trated to the heart of many subjects with such a keen discernment of what was unpcr y others that i. when we turn to his collected Essays, we are amazed at number of instances in which he anticipated the lag. judgment of his fellows. There is an almost i force in many of his speculations, and the accu of his insight was equal to its swiftness. More truly th.i; .it Chelsea, the apostle of I was a Seer. In that elatx i-juc on < written thirty-seven years ago, he hit the blot which no ether student had then discovered At that date, and even down to a much later period, the majority of readers were in the habit of regarding Carlyle as a foe to t nler of things which had so long dominated Europe, and a friend to the Democr movement that received its first grand impulse from the Fremh ; i c author of Sartor was vc. Small reverence had he old-established institutions. His fierce attacks on many of these gave immense satisfaction to thousa in whose hearts the revolutionary spirit was stirring. Herr TeiileNdroi kh they behekl a> they imagined, one of the most vigorous allies who had ever < on the good cause. And the Tories were of the same ng in this strange new writer, n :i enemy. The Stranger from Italy, how- ever, did not clearly saw v would have made the the two opposite political camps change their estimate of C.i could but have got a glimpse of the disc be all the greater when we recall circumstance that the two men were personal friends, Mrs Carlyle and Mazzim. 195 and that Carlyle, according to his wont, had been kind to the poor exile. Gratitude and liking for the man who was always glad to see and talk with him might have tended, one would suppose, to make Mazzini as blind to Carlyle's defect as all the English and American critics, still more readers, then seemed to be. But it was not so. Perhaps the vagaries of Carlyle's often inconsequent and self-contradictory talk in private may have assisted to put the Italian on his guard when studying his writings. Perhaps the fact that he was a foreigner made him more keenly watchful and dis- criminative because less carried away by admiration and wonder at the force and beauty of the rhetoric. Or, more likely still, the perception that Carlyle, though kind to him as a human being, had not the slight- est faith in his mission or his plans, but looked out with a sceptical, half-pitying, half-amused eye upon these, may have bred distrust in the bosom of the patriot.* * Not without significance is this paragraph in Margaret Fuller's account, most admirable, we doubt not, for its fidelity to truth as well as its vivacity, of her meetings with Carlyle. He and his wife came to pass an evening with the American stranger. " Unluckily Mazzini was with us, whose society, when he was there alone, I enjoyed more than any one. He is a beauteous and pure music ; also, he is a dear friend of Mrs Carlyle, but his being there gave the conversation a turn to * progress' and ideal subjects, and Carlyle was fluent in invectives on all our ' rose-water imbecilities. ' We all felt distant from him ; and Mazzini, after some vain efforts to remonstrate, became very sad. Mrs Carlyle said to me, ' These are but opinions to Carlyle ; but to Mazzini, who has given his all, and helped to bring his friends to the scaffold, in pursuit of such objects, it is a matter of life and death.' All Carlyle's talk that evening was a defence of mere force, success the test of right ; if people would not behave well, put collars round .their necks ; find a hero, and let them be his slaves, &c. It was very Titanic, and anti-celestial. I wish the last evening had been more melodious." One is almost 196 Thomas Cat Be these things as they may, this much is certain, that Mazzini did not (all into the snare which had can everybody else. * 4 Mr Carlyle," he wrote, " comprehends only tru il, the true sense of the unity of human race escapes him."* Here was a fundamental source of weakness a root from v, was sun spring; for the man who is destitute of faith in humanity as a whole, can never be an efficient helper in the cause of true progress. "He sympathises with all nu tinues Mazzini, 44 l>ut it is with the separate life of t. and not with their collective life. He readily look every man as the repress the incai i a manner, of an idea; he does not believe in 'a supreme idea' represented progressively by the development of mankind taken as a whole. He weaves and unweaves his web like Penelope; he preaches by turns life and nothingness; he wearies out the j>owers of readers by continually carrying them from heaven to ! from hell to heaven. Ardent, and almost menacing, upon the ground of ideas, he becomes timid and sceptical as soon as he is engaged on that of their applicat He desires to progress, but shews hostility to all to progress, dive him the past, something has triumphed, and he will sec in it all that see, more than others arc able to see. Bring the objc near to him, and as with Dante's souls in the In/cmo^ h tempted by fuch a i -.uke an application he did not coo- template of one of Carlyle's sayings, reported by Lord Folkestone, here is nothing to sad as to hear a man teU lies beaut and Writing* of J**ffk Maxu* London. 1867. There are two essays on ( hu votame^tbe one a general review of his writings and genisj^HMber a critique of the //ij/*rry of tkt Frtntk AYtW/w. Swinburne and Madeod Campbell. 197 vision, his faculty of penetration, is clouded." The essay must ever be regarded by English students as the most impressive monument of the rare insight of the man without whom we should not have witnessed the unifica- tion of Italy. Carlyle deemed him a visionary, cherishing " rose-water imbecilities ;" but this mighty restorer of the greatest nation of antiquity, saw more clearly into Carlyle. His diagnosis detected, with unerring precision, what was at this date a concealed disease. The exile's essay remains, down to the present hour, the most valuable criticism that has been written on the subject. Yet, after all, Carlyle appreciated, indeed loved Maz- zini a fact strangely overlooked by Mr Swinburne, the too ardent worshipper of the Italian patriot, in his recent letter to the Parisian democrats. The English poet, though Carlyle was " not one of his friends," reminds them of the service he " rendered to the English, if not to the French, in writing his unequalled and powerful book on the Revolution."* He invites them also to bear in mind * If Dr Macleod Campbell rightly interpreted the tendency and use of this book, it is hardly one for which Mr Swinburne should give thanks. That eminent Scottish divine, by his countrymen regarded as an advanced Liberal in theology, so much so that they expelled him from their synagogue, but who was severely Conserva- tive in politics, was delighted with Carlyle's French Revolution because it was so full of warning to the Radicals, both of England and the Continent. " Awful indeed," he exclaimed, " is the blind- ness of the movement party, with the example afforded to them of the impracticability of the theory of the people the sovereign, and of the hollowness of that seeming equality and brotherhood which is not the fellowship of a life in which all call God Father ; but which begins with shutting out the Father, and contrives a brotherhood in an outward and visible equality ; like that of sons who first killed their father, impatient of distributing to them of his goods severally as he willed, and then, in their jealousy of each other, and incapa- 198 Thomas Car/vie. the fact that he "always and even where branded with <<mtem|.' ;>ire of Napoleon the I-ast, while hmen, to their everlasting shame, 1 (1 themselves before Nero the Little Mr likewise, and not lied the tribute to Maz/ini spontaneously rendered in the hour of need by Carlylc, at the time when the dastardly as well as illegal opening of the exi the English Post Office was engaging the attention of m and of an outraged nation. The Times 1 (1 then to say that it knew and cared nothing about Maz/ini, but that even if he were " the most worthless and the most vi< ious creature in the world," that would not justify the tampering with his correspondence, Car- lyle at once wrote to the leading journal, to tc that M.i.vini was "very far indeed from being temptihle none farther, or v of living n. I have had," he continued, " the honour to know Mr Maz/ini for a series of years; and, whatever I may think of his practical insight and skill in worldly 1 can with great freedom testify to all men I r seen one such, is a man < : and virf M of sterling veracity, humanity, and r.< ness of mind; one of those rare men, numerable un- fortunati D this wci be called martyr-souls; who, r . the other had, made, as robbers, equal he spoil of their dead father's * ' . . . the ich brothfrkood Without a l-atkfr" llcr. Carlylc corresponded so c uhat 1 >r (*ampl>eU aniu-ipated as to the course of things . he was gladdened by the book, and in his letters of 1838 we find him earnestly commending it to others. The Latter- Day Pamphlets. 199 daily life, understand and practise what is meant by that. . . . Whether the extraneous Austrian Emperor and miserable old chimera of a Pope shall maintain them- selves in Italy, or be obliged to decamp from Italy, is not a question in the least vital to Englishmen. But it is a question vital to us that sealed letters in an English post- office be, as we all fancied they were, respected as things sacred ; that opening of men's letters, a practice near of kin to picking men's pockets, and to other still -viler and far fataler forms of scoundrelism, be not resorted to in England, except in cases of the very last extremity. When some new gunpowder plot may be in the wind, some doubledyed high treason, or imminent national wreck not avoidable otherwise, then let us open letters not till then. To all Austrian Kaisers and such like, in their time of trouble, let us answer, as our fathers from of old have answered : Not by such means is help here for you." It does not lessen the moral beauty of this letter to remember that it was written on the i8th of June 1844, on ly some nine months after the publication of Mazzini's essay. The political creed of Carlyle found its ultimate and most violent expression in the Latter-Day Pamphlets, published during 1850 in numbers, entitled respectively The Present Time, Downing Street, New Downing Street, Parliament, and Stump Oratory. The attacks made in these against the " immeasurable democracy," which was characterised as " monstrous, loud, blatant, and inarticu- late as the voice of chaos," at length opened the eyes of the English people to that defect in Carlyle's teaching which Mazzini had detected at the very outset. A few articles, published in the Examiner and Spectator in 200 Thomas Cat 1848, had given soni i what was coming, so the consternation among hi reactionary outburst was not so great as it must otherwise re been. preparation, howt were saddened by the tones of almost savage scorn mcx h pervaded the new book. The newspaper t>cen offensive enough; but in these pamphlets the writer was simply outrageou ice bad risen to an angry scream the harshest discords now grat c of the melodies diffused through all .inn ti as we feel in listening to the song of birds, who had sounded the praises of I nburgh) who was the aut; Burns, and, above all, who wrote the story of Sartor^ was now fumishi: rs of Anu and giving comfort to Kurop<. .c Boml ites of Reaction cou . h a sad spectacle as No t: 1 assuredly no gi pression was given to the feeling of th progress t the at all in anger nt and apprecia .11 the critical estimates of Carlylc had led us so far way had himself lapsed backward No." V 1 worse, than mere lots of was mar; <t expression, shadow of a , " seems to pass over his mii least one consola- Touseafi: was hut the .earning love. Men n>. The Honesty of His Testimony. 201 him the Apostle of Despair, and sneer at him as a fatalist; but " he is not at rest in his fatalism," as one re- marked who knew him well and loved him much, " and while he resists it, it is not fatalism." The book which closed the series of political studies begun more than ten years before was widely read, but found few sympathisers. Almost everywhere, indeed, it was condemned as the useless rhapsody of a tyro in politics. The public journals spoke of him as a recluse and a mere student, unacquainted with affairs, who could not, therefore, be expected to understand practical poli- tics. They complained that, while he was so good at pointing put defects, he seemed incapable of suggesting remedies ; and he was told that, though his motives might not tend in that direction, he was yet practically doing what in him lay to establish the savage doctrine, that Might is Right, which looks upon the world as a jungle, and men as beasts of prey. There was only too much truth in these censures ; but, while we lament that there should have been any, the extent and intensity of the popular disapproval suggests one consolatory reflection. The man who persisted during ten weary years in publishing political theories that hardly any fellow-mortal approved, and which many of his oldest and best friends severely condemned, or received with a sad silence that he probably felt more keenly than he would have done trenchant rebuke, proves at any rate that he was free from the slightest taint of popularity-hunting. He would not stoop to court applause ; nor would he swerve for an instant from what he believed to be the path of duty though the things he wrote only brought upon him the execrations 202 Thomas Carlyle. of the multitude and what was harder to bearthe mute protest of disappointed friends, accentuated by the occasional expression of approval in quarters frum * only condemnation could have given comfort to a friend of humanity. However mistaken, then, his views may \. been, they were those of an independent, fearless sj who was ready to sacrifice in behalf of what he Mi to be the truth even the esteem of his countrymen. <>uld not be overlooked that, though as a v the literary character of the Latter-Day Pamphlet* is not up to the mark of his other works, they contain amidst their wildest rhapsodies not a few passages of sin^ e and beauty. It has been said with justice that "even his stormiest and mo generally bear analysis, and be found to err in nothing hut redundancy of express: rror due to his int< desir whole meaning upon his readers,"* lily periodical whit h he was wont to designate and whit h would seem never to have regarded him with a favourable eye, probably per- was essentially a Democrat, was one of issail him for the alleged ' ticality in his writings. "Mr Carl vie," said Blackuvod^ .< ham i r -it, with show of justice, remark, assumes to be the reformer ar gat an. ' n:ing its mechanical method of \\ want of yWM, and threatening pol -bstinately deaf to the voice of wistl \vit >rrors of repeated revolutions ; and * TV A Mm***, 1 ^Si. Mr Leslie Stephens Defence of Carlyle. 203 yet neither in philosophy, in religion, nor in politics, has Mr Carlyle any distinct dogma, creed, or constitution to promulgate. He is anything but a man of practical ability. Setting aside his style for the present, let us see whether he has ever, in the course of his life, thrown out a single hint which could be useful to his own generation, or profitable to those who may come after. If he could originate any such hint, he does not possess the power of embodying it in distinct language. Can any living man point to a single practical passage in any of these volumes ? If not, what is the practical value of Mr Carlyle's writ- ings? What is Mr Carlyle himself but a Phantasm, of the species he is pleased to denounce?" This objection, often repeated then and since in many quarters, has been replied to since Carlyle's death by Mr Leslie Stephen. "Some writers complain," he says, "that Carlyle did not advance any new doctrine, or succeed in persuading the world of its truth. His life failed, it is suggested, in so far as he did not make any large body of converts with an accepted code of belief. But here, as it seems to me, the criticism becomes irrelevant. No one will dispute that Carlyle taught a strongly marked and highly characteristic creed, though not one easily packed into a definite set of logical formulae. If there was no particular novelty in his theories, that was his very contention. His aim was to utter the truths which had been the strength and the animating principle of great and good men in all ages. He was not to move us, like a scientific discoverer, by proclaiming novelties, but to utter his protest in behoof of the permanent truths, obscured in the struggle between conflicting dogmas, and drowned in the anarchical shrieks of contending parties. 204 Thomas CarlyU. edcd in so f n pressed the emotions and the imagination of his fellows, not in so far as he made known to them any new doctrine. *** Some would frame in a diflfi oin that adopted r it has been contended that Carl tical teachings were in the highest degree p 1 led almost imn. ><>rtant IK-IK-:'. results, with a promise of yet accomplishing more good for the community. Writing in 185 is Ballarr said: 4 ' icral recognition, during the la of the truth of what he was condemned i 1850, may in some degree console Mr Car for the abuse which was heaped upon him at the former >d w And there can be no question that, besides '.e Admin: : 'efnnn movement, , we presume, alluded to by Ballantync, it was he who he people" to become a subject of much wider and deeper interest \ \ all political parties than it had ever been before. T cased, nor is it likely that they will ever be obliterated; the appc..- re has Ixrcn a remark. IK-IU of the sentiment irl 'ids to 1>: togt of the most diverse con- th a view n <f the social and domes: no exaggeration to say ours to c\ of our toiling poor by M letter homes and letter hal .its received a mighty im- CornJM MagniiK for March 1881. Good Fruit from His Political Pamphlets. 205 petus from, if they were not indeed originated by, the Latter-Day Pamphlets, and the two kindred works by which these were preceded. "The essential truth that pervaded their teachings, even in their frenzy, is now recognised. Again has the testimony of the solitary thinker passed into a commonplace of universal thought ; while in Social Science Congresses, and a multitude 01 kindred agencies, individual or collective, we have in a very great measure, at least, the up-springing of seed sown long ago, amid wonder and scorn, by Thomas Carlyle."* * The Christian Spectator, 1859. CHAT 1 i. R X I V. OF CROMWELL i I ORS OF > TBCTOR- THE "MUSI. I M Ml MA* IER OF I \ K OF DK i KIIK l . Carl vie did not devote the whole of I. 1 that witnessed the publication of , to the con- rary affairs. On : greater part of th.r was bestowed on the production of book fuller scope for the i sedulous care during the yi . .is protm- :; out a .d idea which was doul of its ^: :<>r the cxpressif i the great spiriti: :ul, at the sai I fill- a purpose dictated by fili. llanted in 1 years before, : in the mo<l< md Spcuhts ; untk Eluddat. which appeared in the DcccmlKT of 1845. ^" ot ^ on 8 The Old Estimate of Cromwell. 207 before his death, John Sterling had said, in a letter to Carlyle, " It is, as you say, your destiny to write about Cromwell ; and you will make a book of him, at which the ears of our grandchildren will tingle." The work had this effect upon the generation by whom it was first read. Not only did it confirm the intuition of that simple- hearted and clear-sighted woman, but for whom the book might never have been written ; it brought well-nigh the whole of the English people round from the opposite opinion to the view which she had reached in her secluded home in Annandale. No such revolution of public senti- ment on a great historical question of primary magnitude was ever effected before by any single book; and the revolution was almost as instantaneous as it was conclus- ive. Is it needful to recall the evil work which sectarian malignity had combined with political malice to effect in blasting the reputation of Oliver Cromwell ? There is no baser deed recorded in the history of England than the desecration, not merely of his tomb, but of that body which had been the temple of so noble a spirit torn from its grave at Westminster by impious hands at the Restoration, and, after nameless indignities, thrown head- less into a trench under the gallows at Tyburn. The unhallowed temper which wrought that infamy had sur- vived through the succeeding century, and even entered our own. It was still actively existent when Carlyle sat down to write the biography of the Protector. Petty scribblers, incompetent, even had they been industrious, j contented themselves with indolently echoing the slanders invented by the sacrilegious desecrators of the grave ; nor was David Hume, though he professed to be a lover of ; truth, one whit better in respect to veracity on this subject 2o8 Thomas CarlyU. than the T.rub Street throng if possible he was worse. The extent to which the tnith had been, not rm obscured, but obliterated, may be estimated t>y the fact that even n l.ir^e proportion of the Nonconformists of 1 suffered themselves to be hoodwinked into acceptance of the view of the Protector which had its origin in the malice of their own, as well as his, enemies.* Not that efforts had been wanting on the part of se\ N to rend< to Cromwell's memory before Carlyle addressed himself to the task I never be forgotten, that Ix>rd John Russell (the nam< bore at the time he performed this work, and by * we best like to remember him) was the first writer of the ury who I ( 'it into print approaching an . er can we forget the shock it gave us when, nearly twenty yean after the publication of Carlyle's biography, we found c% Cromwell's own county of Huntingdon, certain benighted natives of that region "scene of a moral as well as a physical denudation," as one of the moat distinguished of its living sons once <1 -who had (ailed to get rid of the notion that the Protector was one of the most diabolical of human beings, and respor Iced* wrought by the earlier Cromwell who became Earl of Essex. Hard as it may be to believe the story, nevertheless a fact that, even at the recent date we speak of, the occupant of the old house at Huntingdon > Cromwell was . would, when rom America came to tec xin mean offices at the rear of building as the place most intimately associ. The only great man the town or shire has produced, his name y a section of the popub story of "the Farnv ." and what he did for England and ieemed the grandest of all their local associa- tions. Hut th- yet dared to raise a statue in hit honour he soil from which he sprang, and a proposal, made a few > ago, to erect some JUKB memorial in connection with the Nonconformist place of worship in the county town, has not been i .'. r i |M ' >it. Previous Vindicators of the Protector. 209 honest and impartial estimate of the merits of the Pro- tector. Before his view appeared, all the references to Cromwell, as we have already said, were but repetitions of the calumnies invented by the partisan writers of the Restoration period ; if any author ventured to say a word in praise of certain acts of the Protector, they were careful to water down their rare deviations into eulogy with qualifications that tended to make his character, as a whole, that of a deep-dyed villain. In 1840 a painstak- ing and conscientious Nonconformist divine, Dr Robert Vaughan, the founder and first editor of the British Quarterly Review, in a historical work written by him for the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, gave the world some true glimpses of the hero of the Common- wealth. He had been preceded, eight years earlier, by Lord Nugent in his Memorials of Hampden ; and earlier still, in 1828, Macaulay, in his essay on Hallants Constitu- tional History, had startled the readers of the Edinburgh Review with a panegyric on the ruler whom he described as the greatest soldier of his age and the most statesman- like of English princes. Two years before Macaulay dared this splendid act of high courage, William Godwin, in his original survey of the Protectorate period, had furnished materials for arriving at something like a fair conception of Cromwell's character. But it is a remark- able fact that twenty years earlier than Carlyle, nineteen years before Vaughan, eleven years before Lord Nugent, seven years before Macaulay, and five before Godwin, Lord John Russell, truly reflecting the noble spirit of the house of Bedford, had written thus manfully and discrim- inatingly of the Protector : " Cromwell did much for his country. He augmented her naval glory, and made her 210 Thomas Cartylt. name formidable to all the legitimate Sovereigns to whom rth wasa subject of derision. The smile on UK was checked by th . their hearts. He made use of this wholesome intimidation to s : -i Protestants, and before he died he perceiv dang< the growth of the i>ower, thenceforth determined to restrain. At home he held the balance, upon the whole, evenly n: he gave no sect the preponderance of State favour." testimony was printed in its author's Essay on tk* ry of thf English Governmtnt, published in and though in the subsequi :is of the work many jssions were made, not one word was ever withdrawn or modified of the passage eulogising the tor. while we bear these facts in mind, however, .iains tn he work of restoring Croi: in a really effective manner was yet to be accon icse pioneers had but barely broken ground on the subject ; and the impression ma their united work was inadequate to the thorough ^rcat ruler whose memory had lx foully !. When Carlylc's biogi. eared, work was done. It fr ever rescued <>: the noblest spirits ever given to > m all Hilated misrepresent.nions that had g.i Once for all, it placed a faithful por- the eyes of the wr- it has !>< observed \ any idea of the amount of labour that was involved in the per- .sk how many thousands of books, how many tens of thousands of pamphlets, of tr.i His Fidelity to Facts. 211 old newspapers, had to be perused, compared, ex- cerpted, before this could be accomplished. As in all his previous historical essays, and also in his biographical articles, including the fine miniature portrait of the Pro- tector given four years earlier than his great book in Heroes and Hero- Worship, Carlyle had not now based any of his conclusions respecting the character he pour- trayed on the intuitions vouchsafed to a vivid imagina- tion. Far from that, they were the result of the most patient investigation of the right materials, pursued with a diligence that was never exceeded by any German Dryasdust, and informed with the discrimination of the philosopher and that imaginative power of the true poet which penetrates to the essence of a man's character and shows what he really was. With what fidelity he touched even the very minutest accessories of his subject, the mere external drapery, so to speak, of his central theme, the student of his Cromwell may learn if he happens to be a resident for years in any of the localities connected with the Protector's life. He will find that the very smallest note on some old house, such as the Biggen Malten at Ramsey, one of the oldest seats of the Crom- well family, or on the discursive, sleepy river Ouse where it lazily creeps (we cannot say of this river that it ever runs) past the market-town of St Ives, or on some quite subordinate local person who turns up by accident in a letter of the Protector's, are all as strictly accurate as if the writer had dwelt for a lifetime in the places he describes. In many parts of the book, in as the descriptions of the Battle of Dunbar or of the Protector's Death-Bed, the biography becomes a poem, and one of the most thrilling sort; but it would be a prodigious mistake to suppose 212 Thomas Car not also trustworthy history, written by one of the most exact, patient, conscientious, and common sense of all our historians, who would spend laborious days and defy the " Museum headache " in order to verify a sig- me or date, and who would not deflect a hair's breadth from what he knew to be the truth to gain all the ical points in the world His mode of doing his- torical work was quite original He unites the f of characteristic detail pursued by Plutarch and Bos- i power of genera 1 ..n has never been cd; and it has certainly not been the least of his many services to the age, that besides vindicating Crom- memory, he has re ;/ed this branch of ig been the chief inspirer of that new order of workmen from whom we have received such vital addi- tions to our historical library a Mr Motley's Dut h Republic, such biographies as Mr Masson's Milton, Mr Spcdding's Bacon, Dean Stanley's Arnold, ai al Tulloch s Leaders of tht fafirmm Hon, works in some of which we find the conscu try combined with not a little of the imagi and literary power of the master. .v many hundreds of headaches at the I in that work on Cromwell must have cost Carlyle ! It was this " Museum headache," as he dolefully called it, an vas really a most serious afflu : .. -n, that led > take pan in referred to by Gossip Gra c establishment of a great library n that should contain all the best books of referi he subscribers might procure a plentiful own homes* It may be remembered that, on the death of the 1at< Founder of the London Library. 213 Clarendon, who had occupied the post for several years, Carlyle was elected president of the London Library. But comparatively few were aware how appropriate that appointment was. The institution was in reality a child of his own. At the British Museum he had, like many other literary workers, found the inconveniences interfer- ing so seriously with work that he went there as seldom as he could help, for we find him confessing that he was " rather a thin-skinned sort of student," and he was always afflicted when he did go with that wretched " Museum headache." Thus it came about that in 1840, desiring to see a good reference library founded where he might feel more at his ease, and get a bundle of books home with him when he desired to make a leisurely survey of any, he set some younger men of his acquaintance to work to start such an institution ; and the result was the London Library. The most of these young friends, we may note, passed away from earth before Carlyle : for they included John Forster, the editor of the Examiner and biographer of Goldsmith; William Dougal Christie, C.B.,* the biographer * It was to Mr Christie, an old friend of Charles Buller's, as well as of Mr Buller's illustrious tutor, that we owed the privilege of our introduction to Carlyle ; and we have before us a little note scribbled in pencil on one of the days of June, 1870, when Carlyle was very poorly in health, that we cannot resist giving here : " Dear Christie, My hand is very unwilling, mutinous even, but I compel it to act, in pencil. I have lately read a life of Dryden which seemed to me done with rigorous fidelity. Yours always, T. C." The Life of Dryden here referred to is the one prefixed to the Globe edition of that poet, edited by Mr Christie ; and it is indeed worthy of this characteristic commendation. Those who have read Mr Christie's sketch of " Glorious John " will recognise the exceeding felicity of the phrase applied to it by Carlyle. We may also add that when the Life of the First Earl of Shaftesbury appeared, Carlyle expressed to ourselves the opinion that it was the 214 Thoma* Car: of t: of Shaftcsbury and editor of Dryden ; and Mr Sjxrdding, the editor of Bacon. Still, though he transferred his allegiance from fcl \\ Museum to the Library in St James's Square, it must not be supposed that he did not < ontinue to make an extensive use of the form m his evidence before a Royal Commission estified to the exceeding value of its library. He was spec hati< when he spoke of the Thomasson n of Tracts, as furnishing splendid materials for hey are called the King's jamphlets," he said, -i value, I believe, t Id could not parallel them 1: i were to take all the collections of ks on the Civil War, of \ I ever heard not ire, I believe you would not get a set of works so uible as those." Mr Robert Cowtan, one of the assistant librarians at the to the old li! ution, sa\ <1, quite ally, from a lady who attended the Reading Room about 1850, that she used to receive the most gallant :n at the earn Then ns were not o: : of any personal arue, but \\c : lered to as a lady engaged in literary investigations. Mr Cowtan, in the same book, relates with honest pride how he had the honour of looking out from the Thomasson Collet referred to by Carlylc in h: ientary evidence ny of the Tracts that were used by the illustrious I his Cromwtli Carlyle, we may here most faithful and c w of the jxrriod to , late* u.rnt he embodied in a letter of some length, which, being got in loan by a certain noble lord, was unfor- tunately lost in iu re-transmission through (he post. Miss MitforcTs Criticism. 215 note, was one of several men of letters who about 1847 entered the lists against Mr Panizzi's management of the Museum, and whose complaints led to a Parliamentary investigation which issued in many decided reforms being effected. Amongst the complainants was another Scots- man, Mr George Lillie Craik, editor of the Pictorial History of England. Mr Payne Collier, the oldest literary man now alive in England for he was born in 1789 also joined in the assault upon the administration of the Museum. Though by some his Cromwell is regarded as Car- lyle's historical masterpiece, a view which may be de- fended on religious rather than on literary grounds, while comparatively few deny that it is one of the most satisfactory and valuable of all the contributions ever made to English history, it has not escaped adverse criticism. In the first of the published letters to her friend, Mr Boner, the little authoress of Our Village, writing in the same month in which the book was published, said : " The most important book has been Carlyle's Cromwell, in which the mutual jargon of the biographer and his subject is very curious. Never was such Eng- lish seen. The Lord Protector comes much nearer to speaking plain than his historian." In another letter to Boner, who was a warm admirer of Carlyle, Miss Mit- ford returns to the attack : " After you have read more of him, you will like him less. I am quite sure that your fine taste will be repelled by the horrible coarseness of some of his nicknames in the Cromwell book. He is constantly talking of flunkeyism, and trades upon half- a-dozen cant words of that order." There is a grain of truth in this complaint about the nicknames. We can- 216 Thomas CarlyU. not help thinking that poor Dryasdust fares rather hardly at 1. and there is a sharp point in the question we c seen put somewhere Would not Sir V 1 the name "Dryasdust" in his kindly hun .c been ashamed to play upon it so c and so long as Carlyle (who merely picked it up) has done? occasional introduction is exceedingly effective, cannot be denied ; but there are times when reappearance, instead of being humoroi. a ply tiresome. What other historian is so im: h in the habit of assailing his authorities in anything like the same trm ulent fashion? In reply to t!,k it may be urged, that comparatively lew pr lurians have worked v. the same, almost preternatural, minuteness of investiga- , so that their tempers were not likely to be tried to the same extent as his. Nor all that mu.^t be taken into a \\ ; tor is there any other instance of the union of the archaeological spirit, as we find it in him, with the poetic? and how was it possible for a high-strung nervous organisation like his to go through the terrible drudgery to which he was constrained acutely active conscience, and his pas truth, without a great deal oi had, of cssity, to find vent in a way characteristic of the man? He went through more serious hard work writing a page than little Miss Mitford would have in never applied an c he could not have justified by a hundred facts, hidden away, it might be, in dusty, cobwebbed comers, from the view of all other men. u mere like Miss Mitiord, or Scott, on the other hand, could pepper ti "copy" with epithets without a thought of anything but His Horror of Dryasdust. 217 how they would sound. We need not wonder, then, why the easy-writing people should have condemned Carlyle for his abuse of Dryasdust. They had not taken the trouble to be as much in Dryasdust's company ; else they also might have got into the habit of abusing him quite as much as Carlyle did. To a visitor from Australia, Mr David Buchanan, he once remarked that no one would credit the prodigious labour he had undergone before he even began to write Cromwell. He said he laboured to gain almost as intimate a knowledge of the man he was going to write about as he had of himself; and this was only to be attained by a minute examination and close study of every letter and document that had ever emanated from him, and an intimate knowledge of all the circumstances under which he acted, the events by which he was controlled or impelled to action, and the men who acted with him and against him, as also every detail respecting the circumstances and surroundings of the position or situation. All this knowledge, he said, was only to be got at by enormous labour, and was valu- able when attained only as it was made use of with in- telligence and insight. An incidental illustration of the profound sense he had of the value of all expedients for escaping the society of Dryasdust, is furnished in the letter he sent to the historian of Dumbartonshire, when that gentleman brought out the first edition of his useful compilation, The Annals of Our Time. Carlyle hastened to give Mr Irving's book a good word. "To fish up," said he, "and extract or extricate from the boundless overflowing { Mother of Dead Dogs,' with judicious clear- ness, the millionth part of something like historical which may be floating past (999,999 facts mere putrescence, 218 Thomas Cat unsavoury or even poisonous more or less), especially if you indicate, too, where the authentic account of that was to be had this I have often thought would be an culable service for serious readers of the present a: more of the future generations. I exhort you to continue at the work and bring it to more and more perfection." Some other censors have complained, that the av to convert the garments of men and their outward pecu- liarities into historical portraits has been exaggerated in this and the other historical writings of Carlyle. These speak of him contemptuously, as belonging to the school called by M. Rigault, Us Gobelins <U la Littcraturt, from their servile attempts to imitate painting. Hut it will generally be found, we believe, on careful inquiry, that the stress he laid on the garment, or the external peculiarity, was well considered, and had more reason in it than some people might imagine. " His shrewdness," we are told by a competent witness, "especially in juJiging ( : small indications, denounced, as a scoundrel, a man of business, who, at the time, was in the best repute, and who, shortly after- wards, turned out to deserve all that had been said against him. 'How/ he was asked, 'did you find him out, Mr Carlyle? 1 'Oh, 1 said he, 'I saw rogue in the twist of the fal him as he went out at the door.' He was once asked what he thought of a new a< ance whom he had seen for a few minutes. ' I should call him a willowy son of a man.' The unspeakable et could be shown only by an unwar- !>le breach of confidence."* Nor 1* for St. 7*mt*tG<uituNr$p*ptr, Feb. 5, i8Sf. Canon Mozlefs Criticism. 219 gotten, that his picturesque touches were never sham expedients for covering slightness of work. "No one denies," says Mr Leslie Stephen, " that, whatever the accuracy of the colouring in his historical studies, they at least imply the most thoroughgoing and conscientious labour. If Dryasdust does not invest Cromwell or Frederick with the same brilliant lights as Carlyle, he admits fully that Carlyle has not scamped the part of the work upon which Dryasdust most prides himself. At worst, he can only complain that the poetical creator is rather ungrateful in his way of speaking of the labours by which he has profited. It is, indeed, a subsidiary pleasure, in reading all Carlyle's writings, to feel that the artist is always backed up by the conscientious workman." When he was a young Fellow of Magdalen, just turned thirty, Dr J. B. Mozley contributed to the Christian Remembrancer for 1846 a criticism on Carlyle's Cromwell which, in spite of its High Church rancour and juvenile hardihood of assertion, is still worthy of being read. It has been included in the first of two volumes of Essays^ Historical and Theological^ published (in 1878) since Canon Mozley's lamented death. The writer who saw in Stafford " as noble a man as ever England produced," and who regarded Laud with unqualified admiration, of course pictures Cromwell as a monstrous crocodile "mighty, but unseemly; tremendous, but vile;" and no effort is spared to expose the weak points of the bio- grapher as well as those of his Puritan hero. Though the essay overshoots the mark by its blind sectarian passion, Mozley was too clever a man to fail in detecting some real blemishes which mar the Protector's biography ; and perhaps one of his most effective hits was that in 220 Thomas CarlyU. i he hurls his sarcasm at the vague and oraculoj he northern seer. eality, 1 says the < s a magnificent abstra< refuse to be caught and grasped, and will give no account o the satisfaction of sublunar)* and \- ity. It wages an eternal war with shadows ; disperser of phantoms; lies flee befor rmub shudder at its approach This is all we know of it nature and its characteristics. It carries on a great aeria battle nobody knows where; and teaches with * infallibility nobody knows what" Of all the advera isms of Cromwtll that we have seen, this is perhap the only one that succeeds in scoring a point against th< book. The immediate success of the work was greater thai whi<h had attended any of its author's j productions. A new edition was called for before man; weeks aft -st was puMished ; and a third edition ur volumes, appeared in 1849, containing larg in the shape of Cromwell, and othe matter throwing light on his biogrn; e book ha ed for others to do in the d* , and all subsequent writers who hav bad occasion to pourtray Cromwell have shown thei good sense by carefully absta comjHrtition with Carh friend Mr Massoi great work on the ///.- <;//./ Times of Milton, may hav ,ht into a clearer light certain elements of Cromwell 1 character whi. h Carlyle overlooked; but he does no claim tor his picture of the Protector alight els< subordinate position, and when he arrives in ' at si: i^ar, he content CromwelVs Service to Our Century. 221 himself with a brief statement of the main facts, referring the reader to " the one full, grand, and ever-memorable account " given by his illustrious predecessor. Even had the political writings of Carlyle been productive of in- finitely worse results in the direction .of strengthening despotic ideas than they really were, he might well have been forgiven by the friends of freedom on account of the service he rendered to the cause of religious and civil liberty when he restored the image of Cromwell, freed from dust and defilement, to the admiring gaze of the English people. That old name immediately became a new watchword with the party of reform ; and, whether he meant it or not, Carlyle was, through his biography of Oliver, henceforth enrolled among the most powerful of the progressive forces of his age. The spirit of the book was at once transfused into the veins of modern England, and became part of the very life blood of the nation. The words of Cromwell and of his biographer were repeated in thousands of pulpits and on every platform, and potent were they in promoting many a good cause. Nor has the force of the book been exhausted yet ; it still goes on working like leaven, making the great " uncrowned King of England " the promoter of right- eousness and freedom in our own century even as he was in that century which had him in the flesh to fight its battles at Naseby and Dunbar. It is pleasant to recall the fact that, on his visit to the field of Naseby for the purpose of being able to describe the site of the battle, Carlyle was accompanied thither by Dr Arnold. The meeting of the two distinguished his- torians was fated to be their last as well as their first; for Arnold died within six short weeks of the happy time 222 Thomas CarlyU. moured guest It was or 1842, that Carlylc went down to Rugb] by express invitation ; and rig day host am guest together explored the battlefield. Carlylc left th< schoolhouse expressing the hope that it might " long con tinuc to be what was to him one of the rarest sights ti the world a temple of industrious peace." This visit gav< great delight to Dr Arnold, who had long cherished ; high reverence for Carlylc, and was proud of received such a guest under his roof. During the fe? weeks that ir between that visit and Arnold': departure from earth, he continued full of t <>ut the ; age to Nascby with Carlylc. CHAPTER XV. HIS FRIENDSHIP WITH LEIGH HUNT THE APOSTLES OF DESPAIR AND CHEERFULNESS THE POEM OF " DRUM- WHINN BRIDGE " ITS PROBABLE AUTHORSHIP " ITS A SAIR SIGHT ! " LEIGH HUNT'S CHARACTER OF CARLYLE VALUE OF HUNT'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY THE ESTRANGEMENT FROM MR MILL THOMAS COOPER THE CHARTIST " OLD LANDOR'S " GIFT. MANY were ready to say with Macaulay, " We have a kindness for Mr Leigh Hunt." But it seems strange, on the first view of it, that the old companion of Shelley should have found one of his staunchest friends in Thomas Carlyle. He was an ex-newspaper editor who had been in prison for libel, though no doubt the Prince Regent deserved all that the Examiner said about him, and much more; his writings had a vivacity that gave many readers an impression of levity ; he was as ignorant of the ways of the business world as a child, as destitute of decision of character as Hamlet ; and he was always struggling with pecuniary difficulties, from which he had to be rescued periodically by the help of friends. Holding a religious creed that ignored all the stern facts of human experience, he was an Apostle of Cheerfulness whose gospel was calculated to make any serious spirit, with a sense of realities, somewhat sad ; and he was described in old age by one of his acquaintances as " the grey-headed 224 Thomas Car. Yet the man who by some people had been de- Apostle of Despair took Leigh Hunt to cart and cherished him there with a warmth that m.ide the words of Macaulay in praise of Hunt seem cold The strong-willed, prudent, thrifty, self- A ho was supposed to have no patience with the weak and wayward, regarded this light and with deep and tender affection. One cause of the s- ngruous connection, so far as Carlyle was l>c traced to a feature of his character whit h no one has described with so much hint him I believe," wrote the hat Mr Carlyle loves better than his fault- finding, with all its eloquei .my human creature that looks sufTi ve furth e were suffering only, and neither loving nor sincere, but had com pass Of agony in ti put him at the i r some 1. nd con- .it the risk of loss to r amoun n, that man, if the him in mess, would be '1 ready seen that it was Hunt who the best, of all the really 1 paragraph in his Autobiography proves that he understood s well as waste so happily deqgnatrd "i\iri\ie\ ptnmoam ' and denunciators out of numUr ; the glowing and gCOCfOUi dogma* ttm of Carlyle has called up a boat of imitator*, who, while quite The Pathos of Leigh Hunt's Life. 225 humanity must have been powerfully appealed to by the misfortunes of Hunt the cruel slanders that had been heaped upon his devoted head by hireling partisans both in Edinburgh and London, more especially in the Scottish capital, and the poverty that perpetually dogged his footsteps, causing his exquisite powers, both as poet and essayist, to be monopolised by hack-work, for which the pay was often wretched, and never liberal. There was something pathetic in the spectacle of the poet, who had written the Story of Rimini^ condemned to the drudgery of writing gossip for the newspapers, which, even in old age, he was often obliged to hawk about among the editors before he could get a customer ; and the pathos must have been deepened, rather than modi- fied, especially to such an onlooker as Carlyle, by the meek, sunny, hopeful, uncomplaining spirit with which the victim bore it all. Nor would the sympathy of the earnest worker be lessened as he noted that, with all his seeming levity, Hunt was a genuine solid man of letters, of vast and richly varied culture, with a literary taste and insight such as no other journalist of his generation possessed; as sober and industrious as he was accomplished ; and who might have accumulated riches if it had not been for his painstaking conscientious care in securing perfect accuracy of statement and the most exquisite form possible for even the most trivial bit of work that he undertook.* So that, after all, there was as positive as their master, possess neither his brain nor his heart : let us also accept and reverence the Apostle of Charity the man whose poems and essays were all written in the anticipation of a Future of love and wisdom, such as many have dreamt of, but few believed in and worked for with such constancy as he." * " The immense amount of labour," says his eldest son, speaking P 226 Thomas Carlyk. no mystery in the friciuUhij> whirh the grim hermit from sdale conceived at fust and cherished ever afterwards for this sunny-hearted creature, who, in some respects closely resembling himself, was yet in others as moved from him as one human being could be from another. In //:,>; Hunt's I^ndon Journal (1834-5) the dawn of Carlylc's genius had been hailed with intcnsest appreciat by an editor quick to perceive merit where\ it, and who, to his credit, did not allow the attacks u; himself which had appeared in the Edinburgh orgai Tories to cool the ardour of his enthusiasm wtu new star rose in the northern sky.* Turning to the two of his faihcr'1 London Journal, " which be bestowed, particularly in earthing out every point to elucidate and to ver 1 an out- lay of time and of money that could scarcely be returned even by a Urge and certainly not by a limited sale. The expenditure in ion, and health was thus constantly in excess of the returns. largest proportion of the labours, all that which simply . : ;....::: seen by the public, but was as conscientiously and arduously gone through as the similar portion which resulted in print." Though unpcrccived by the mass of general readers, it was clearly sec: may rest assured ; and hence, even had there lecn no other qualities to recommend the worker, Carlyle would '\ esteem. mnot glance over the file of Leigh Hunt's mifto icing greatly struck by the constant recur i of helpful, sympathetic words in favour of Scottish authors, some of the numU-r till then quite unknown to southern readers, ami emerging^ No sooner, for exau had Hugh Miller's first book, the Lqautt out St*mt tf At N Sc*l**4 made its appearance, than Hunt hastened to give long -.icts from the book, at the same time expressing the com opinion which the world has since seen amply verified- tru- st onemason of Cromarty was a " remarkable man, who will infallibly be well known." He earnestly exhorted the young author t about making a second volume without delay, and adds : " i Leigh Hunfs Recognition of Carlytts Genius. 227 volumes of Hunt's charming miscellany (would that we had such a magazine to-day !), we find the i9th number (Wednesday, August 6, 1834) giving the place of honour to an article on Goethe in which Carlyle is introduced to the notice of Hunt's readers. It opens with some objec- tions to the German poet's plan of life, in taking no notice of the politics and public events of his time, and in refusing to busy himself with the hopes of the world and the advancement of society. Goethe's enemies said that he thought in this matter for expedience' sake, and because he happened to be comfortably situated, and, therefore, had no personal interest in change. As we might expect, while of too kindly a nature to echo this serious charge, Hunt did not, by any means, approve the poet's theory. ' Old Mortality ' come to life again in a younger and nobler shape ; but his own pages will rescue the designation from its applicability. Mr Miller, it seems, is, or has been a common stonemason, and itinerant architect of tombs ; and from ' cogitations in those shades ' he has issued forth a writer of pretensions that would have been little expected from such a beginning, though (singularly enough unless it is an Irishism to say so) not without its special precedent in this remarkable age ; for Mr Allan Cunningham was of the same trade. But Mr Miller, besides a poetical imagination, though not yet exhibited in verse, has great depth of reflection ; and his style is so choice, pregnant, and exceedingly like an educated one, that if itself betrays it in any respect to be otherwise, it is by that very excess ; as Theophrastus was known not to have been born in Attica, by his too Attic nicety." It is significant to note the patient and loving care with which Leigh Hunt, not content with these liberal, but thoroughly just, words of praise, is at pains to italicise all the gems of thought and expression in the extracts given from the stonemason's book. As we read these characterisations of new authors, so independent and generous in their spirit, so unconven- tional and courageous, and always so just, we feel inclined to say that there was at that time but one other man of letters in London who could have written them ; and that was the friend of Leigh Hunt who had just the other day pitched his tent in Cheyne Row. 228 Thomas Carlyle. But he has hardly begun his argument against it, when he suddenly breaks off: "We h.ul written thus far, when, having become further acquainted with the Character- istic "- ( essay in the Edinburgh, the one that finally severed his connection with that Review "in the rvals of our writing, our feelings of respect and admir- ation for Goethe have been so increased, that we must onfess we cannot proceed in the same strain of objection to him." On another page of the same number, an extract is printed from Carlyle's Specimens of German Romances^ the editor praising the translator's "masterly criticism 19 of Richter's genius, "which we have read twice over for the mere pleasure received from the force and abundance of the thinking." In the ^rd number, \\\ reprints that magnificent passage, which we 1 already given, from Carlyle's art id ature," in which he demonstrated, to use Hunt's felicitous title, that " the perception of beauty and nobleness is not a matter of rank." In the 341)1 number tl <mg passage, \\ith similar complimentary allusion to Carlyle as the author, from the famous essay on Hums ; and in the 4 2nd, Hunt gives a portion of Carl) I Edward Irving, with a charai <te, in which he says : " It may be as well to add, considering the prevail- ing tone that the article from which the following passage is taken, is written in sober earnest we need not add, how well" Ever and ano: paragraj m the essays of Carlyle, always with their author's name appended, instead of tha the Review in which they had appeared; and to Carl;, !m Afeister, we find him gi. "our reason, our imagination, our tears." ] sant A Poem in Leigh Jfunfs London Journal. 229 miscellany had not a long life, for it expired in the last month of 1835. Fifteen years afterwards, on December 7, 1850, there appeared a new Leigh Hunts Journal \ also, alas ! short-lived, for it was discontinued on the 29th March 1851. It is fondly remembered, we doubt not, by some of our readers who have now reached or passed middle age ; and these do not need to be reminded that this delightful periodical contained three articles from the pen of Carlyle, entitled, "Two Hundred and Fifty Years Ago (from a Waste-Paper Bag of T. Carlyle)." The introductory paper had for its title, " Hollies of Haughton;" the second, " Croydon Races;" the third and last, "Sir Thomas Button and Sir John Hatton Cheek." These sketches have been reprinted in their author's Miscellanies. But in Leigh Hunt's old periodical, in which we find those frequent friendly allusions to Car- lyle, there is an anonymous poem which, although no one has ever called attention to it, seems to us as if it may possibly have been a contribution from the editor's friend in Cheyne Row. When it first met our eye, casually glancing over the time-stained yellow pages of the trea- sured volume, two verses at once stood out with amazing distinctness as bearing the impress of no common hand, and our first thought was, Can this be Carlyle? The more closely we have looked into the matter the stronger has the feeling of probability grown, until it is now begin- ning to assume with us the shape of a settled conviction ; at all events, be our guess right or wrong, we shall ven- ture to lay the poem before our readers, so that they may be in a position to judge for themselves. The piece is contained in the 3oth number of Leigh Hunts London Journal, issued on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 1834, by which 230 Thomas Carlylf. time, it will be observed, Carlyle was fixed in Ou Row, where he had Ixngh Hunt as a frequent visitor. The poem runs thus : DkfMWHINN BRIDC OVER THE RIVER ORR BUILT Meek autumn midnight glancing, The stan above hold sway, I bend, in muse advancing, To lonesome Orr my way. Its rush in drowsy even Can make the waste les< dead ; Short pause beneath void Heaven, Then back again to bed ! I 1 h ' 'mong deserts moory, Vain now, bleak Orr, thy fury, On whinstone arch I stand. Orr, thou moorland river By man's eye rarely seen, Thou gushest on for < And wen while earth has been. There o'er thy crags and gravel, Thou sing'st an unknown song, In tongue no clerks unm . Thou'st sung it long and long. From Being's Source it bounded. The morn when time began ; c thro* this moor has sounded, That day they crossed the Jordan, When I Icbrew trumpets rang, Thy wave no foot was fording. And I, while thon'st meandered, Was not, have come to be. Apart so long have wandered, This moment meet with thee. A Parallel Passage from Sartor. 231 Old Orr, thou mystic water ! No Ganges holier is ; That was Creation's daughter, What was it fashioned this ? The whinstone Bridge is builded, Will hang a hundred year ; When bridge to time has yielded, The brook will still be here. Farewell, poor moorland river : We parted and we met ; Thy journeyings are for ever, Mine art not ended yet. November, 1832. The two verses that stood out so vividly had recalled to us a familiar passage in that charming picture of Car- lyle's child-life at Ecclefechan which is to be found in the opening pages of the second book of Sartor. " Already in the youthful Gneschen, with all his outward stillness, there may have been manifest an inward vivacity that promised much; symptoms of a spirit singularly open, thoughtful, almost poetical. Thus, to say nothing of his Suppers on the Orchard-wall, and other phenomena of that earlier period, have many readers of these pages stumbled, in their twelfth year, on such reflections as the following? { It struck me much, as I sat by the Kuhbach, one silent noontide, and watched it flowing, gurgling, to think how this same streamlet had flowed and gurgled, through all changes of weather and of fortune, from beyond the earliest date of History. Yes, probably on the morning when Joshua forded Jordan ; even as at the mid-day when Caesar, doubtless with difficulty, swam the Nile, yet kept his Commentaries dry, this little Kuhbach, assiduous as Tiber, Eurotas or Siloa, was murmuring on across the wilderness, as yet unnamed 232 Thomas Cartyk unseen : Jisrt, foo, as in the Euphrates and the Ganges, is a vein or veinlet of the grand World-circulation ers, which, with its atmospheric arteries, has lasted and lasts sin Id. Thou fool! alone is antique, and the oldest art a mushroom; t idle crag thou sittest on is six thousand years of age. 9 In which little thought, as in a little fountain, may there lie the beginning of those well-nigh unutterable mcdi- ns on the grandeur and mystery of Time, and relation to Eternity, which play such a jxirt in this Philo- sophy of Clothes?" The book in which this passage occurs had been completed in 1831, but was lying in a ate drawer at Craigenputtoch (when not in the hands of the astonished publishers 1 "tasters") at the time the above poem was written not being able to get itself into Dt till Fraur opened a door for it in 1833. Then the Orr Water, be it noted, is a moorland stream that flows through at least one parish, if not more, marching with that of Dunscore, the parish in which Carlyle was resid- ing when the bridge of Drumwhinn was built. With this fact we must link the curious coincidence that, while the poem bears to have been written on one of the opening days of November 1832, it only made its appearance print in the October of 1834, not much more than three months after Carlyle had set up his " little book-press 19 in the house in Cheyne Row, and when Leigh Hunt, we know, was or him, no doubt speaking at times of new venture, his l^ndon Journal having been started \pnl, and probably suggesting the propriety of Carlyle giving him a contribution for its pages. That there was no good reason for refusing such a request will be all the more obvious when we mention that the periodical, Further Tokens of Carlyle's Hand. 233 besides having Leigh Hunt, his friend, for its con- ductor, numbered among its contributors writers of such eminence as Walter Savage Landor. Could there be anything more natural than that Carlyle, thus solicited, should give him the little poem? That such a manu- script was likely to be lying in his drawer at the time is a theory seen to be quite tenable when we mark the dates prefixed to the small collection of poetical " Fractions," as he calls them, included in the second appendix to the first volume of his Miscellaneous Essays. These dates show that the seven pieces of verse there published were written between 1823 and 1833, so that he had not given up trying his hand at rhyme when Drumwhinn Bridge was built. We have thus marshalled some of the points, both in the internal and the external evidence, conduct- ing us to the conclusion that this anonymous poem was probably the work of Carlyle ; nor have we yet exhausted all the features of the case that tend in the same direction. Apart from the fact that a notable portion of the poem is simply a paraphrase of the sentences we have cited from Sartor, reproducing the very same allusions to the Jordan and its passage by the Israelites, together with mention of the Ganges, is not the whole spirit of the piece Carlylean to the very core? What said the Laird of Craigenputtoch to Emerson on that August day in 1833 as they walked and talked among the hills, looking up at Criffel and down into Wordsworth's country? "Christ died on the tree ; that built Dunscore kirk yonder ; that brought you and me together. Time has only a relative existence." So in the poem, there is at least a kindred thought : -34 Thomas Carlylt. From Being's Source it bounded The morn when time begin; S - :.: . . " : ; : ', Unheard or beard of man. That day they crowed the Jordan, Wben Hebrew trumpets rang, Tky wave no foot was fording, Yet here in moor it aang. , I, while thou'st meandered, Wai not, have come to be, Apart ao long have wandered. This moment meet with thee. And who that stood on the whinstonc arch over t moorland river in that remote corner of Scotland in the November of 1832 could it have been if it was not the dweller at Craigenputtoch, the Mystic,* who was heard g on this wise : GUI Orr, thou mystic wa No Ganges holi Tkat was Creation's da< What was it fiuhiooed tius t The very italics are significant, as any one may see who marks Carlylc's corresponding use of them in his acknow- ledged poem, entitled, " The Beetle;" nor will the ca; * I attempted, in the beginning of 1831, to embody in a serin of articles, headed 'The Spirit of the Age/ some of my new opinions. and especially to point out in the character of the present age the anomalies and evil characteristic* of the transition from a system of opinions which had worn out to another only in process of being formed. The only effect which I know to have been produced by them was that Carlylc, then living in a secluded part of Scotland, read them in his solitude, and saying to himself (as be afterwards told me), Here is a new Mystic,' inquired on coming to London that autumn respecting their authorship ; an inquiry which was the immediate cause of our being personally acquainted i !c soon found oat that I was not another Mystic'" tyjtkm Stuart Leigh Hunt Invited to Craigenputtoch. 235 letters that are employed pass unobserved by any careful student of Carlyle's writings. In addition to all which considerations, we must likewise note the extreme sim- plicity of the title ; the homeliness yet dignity of the diction, conveying great thoughts in the very simplest language the characteristic allusion to " the craftsman's hand," and to the tongue " no clerks unravel ;" the " hundred year " in the penultimate verse ; and the humorously tender farewell in the last to the " poor moorland river." If this be not the workmanship of Carlyle, all we can say is, that no author ever came nearer it ; and, be it his or not, the reader will, perhaps, kindly excuse our intrusion of the certainly noteworthy little poem when we recall attention to the fact that, both by subject and date, it does at least have some reference to the memorable sojourn of Carlyle among the hills of Galloway. Both in Leigh Hunt's Autobiography ', 1850, and his Correspondence, 1862, tokens abound of the intimate friendship that subsisted between Hunt and Carlyle. Their acquaintance began in the February of 1832, when the elder of the two men sent a copy of his Christianism to the writer of " Characteristics." By the 2oth of the above-named month, Carlyle, then lodging in London, was inviting Hunt to tea, as the means of their first meeting ; and on the 2oth of November, the month in which " Drumwhinn Bridge " was composed, Carlyle was writing from Craigenputtoch urging Hunt to " come hither and see us when you want to rusticate a month," adding, "Is that for ever impossible?" as it really was with the hard-driven poet and journalist, whose circum- stances were always embarrassed, so much so that on more 236 Thomas Curly k. than one occasion he was literally without bread, and obliged to write to friends to get his books sold, that he might have something to eat The pressure was sorest upon him from 1834 to 1840; his difficulties had been asing in that very year when Carlylc pressed hi: hsdale, and bad as they were then they became infinitely worse after he had moved from the New R to Chelsea, which he seems to have done shortly before Carlyle's settlement in Cheyne Row. Hunt lived in the immediately adjoining street, and Carlyle had only too frequent occasion to know in detail the troubles that were almost daily perplexing his unfortunate neighbour. Yet as in the very midst of those miseries that si: dents would occur as the one of whirh Mr R. H. Home, the poet, gives such an amusing account in his New Spirit of tht Age, 1844. At a little gathering, shortly after the publication of Hero- Worship, the conversation turned on the heroism of man, Leigh Hunt, as was wont, taking the bright side, with most musical taU the inlands of the blest and the Millennium that was st: hastening, Carlylc dropping heavy tree-trunks of philo- sophical doubt across his friend's pleasant stream. the unmitigated Hunt never ceased his overflowing annexations, nor the saturnine Carlyle his infinite demurs to those finite flourishing*. The opponents were so well rhed that it was quite clear the contest would never come to an end But the night was far advanced, and the party broke up. Leaving the dose room, they sud- denly found themselves in presence of a brilliant star- light night 'There/ shouted Hunt, 'look up there, look at that glorious harmony, that sings with infinite voices an eternal song of Hope in the soul of man. 1 Carlytts Character of Leigh Hunt. 237 Carlyle looked up. They all remained silent to hear what he would say. Out of the silence came a few low-toned words, in a broad Scotch accent. c Eh ! it's a sair sicht!'" In 1840 Hunt left Chelsea, but the fraternal ministrations of Carlyle did not cease; and when at length in 1847 the poor old poet got a pension from the Queen of ^200 a year, at. the instance of Lord John Russell, one of the most active promoters of the move- ment that secured this provision was Carlyle, who drew up a paper in which the claims of Leigh Hunt were set forth in a manner which would have made refusal even by an unsympathetic Minister impossible. The first paragraph of the Memoranda ran thus : " That Mr Hunt is a man of the most indisputedly superior worth; a Man of Genius in a very strict sense of that word, and in all the senses which it bears or implies ; of brilliant varied gifts, of graceful fertility, of clearness, lovingness, truth- fulness; of childlike open character; also of most pure and even exemplary private deportment ; a man who can be other than loved only by those who have not seen him, or seen him from a distance through a false medium." The statement also contained the following notable pas- sages : " That his services in the cause of reform, as Founder and long as Editor of the Examiner newspaper ; as Poet, Essayist, Public Teacher in all ways open to him, are great and evident : few now living in this kingdom, perhaps, could boast of greater. That his sufferings in that same cause have also been great ; legal prosecution and penalty (not dishonourable to him ; nay, honourable, were the whole truth known, as it will one day be) : unlegal obloquy and calumny through the Tory Press ; perhaps a greater quantity of baseness, persevering, im- Thomas Carlylt. placable calumny, than any other living writer has ur goni : long course of hostility (nearly .lest conceivable, had it not been carried on in hall, or almost n) may be regarded as the beginning of r worst distresses! and a >wn to this day." Carlyle added, that Ix-igh Hunt, though t ing continua h passionate i! rdly beer r the day that was passing over him, and that none of his distresses had arisen from wasteful- ness, since he was a man of humble wishes, who could dignity on little, "bt: 1 call dux own, and a guileless trustfulness of na: the thing and things that have made him unsuccessful " making him, 4t in reality, more loveabU i dosed with a fine compliment to Lord John Russell, as a h minister, " in whom great pan of i recognises (\\ rise at s insight, fidelity, ami Wl llunt is Autobiography \ one of the first to con. ulat is faithful >w, who detl \t ellent good bo< the best of t : I remember to have read in language . iced, except it be Bosv. of J x)k l>ccn * 4 1 exercise of cK i assisted at any sermon, liturgy, or lit this Ion .is an effect u|>on hin . the closing para- gra] I am i, fellow too, as well as you." No- His Relationship with Mr Mill. 239 where do we see the great heart of Carlyle more beauti- fully displayed than in the story of his relations with that old Reformer, of whom it has been justly said that, long before Reform was popular, " he wielded one of the most vigorous lances in the forlorn hope of Liberals," and who yet was one of the gentlest of mankind, as he was also the sunniest, most graceful, and refined of all the essayists of the Victorian age. The magnanimity of Carlyle was, we have reason to believe, not less apparent in his relationship with another distinguished contemporary who has already been named as an intimate friend, though in some important respects there was even a greater difference, both as to tempera- ment and opinion, between the two than existed in the case we have just pictured. In his Autobiography we find John Stuart Mill declaring, in the sadly extravagant yet profoundly touching eulogy of his wife, that she was more a poet than Carlyle, and more a thinker than Mill himself that her mind and nature included Carlyle's, and " infinitely more." There is a generous recognition of Carlyle's literary power and of the influence exercised by his writings upon Mill;* but the latter says nothing * " The good his writings did me," says Mill, " was not as philo- sophy to instruct, but as poetry to animate. . . . We never approached much nearer to each other's modes of thought than we were in the first years of our acquaintance. I did not, however, deem myself a competent judge of Carlyle. I felt that he was a poet, and that I was not ; that he was a man of intuition, which I was not ; and that as such, he not only saw many things long before me, which I could, only when they were pointed out to me, hobble after and prove, but that it was highly probable he could see many things which were not visible to me even after they were pointed out. I knew that I could not see round him, and could never be certain that I saw over him ; and I never presumed to judge him 240 Thomas Carlylt. as to the cessation of their personal friendship. That took place suddenly at the time of Mill's marriage to Mr> T.ivl. r. in 1851. Mill, we believe, was chiefly if not wholly responsible for the breach, though this was pro- bably the result of the influence exercised over him by another. An innocent joke about the marriage of the philosopher had come to the can of Mill, carried to him by some "candid and immediately he ceased to be a visitor at the house in Cheyne Row, where for years he had been a constant and always welcome gues* e extreme pain to the warm-hearted < s well as to I: ho from that hour never heard any reason course of condu< Mill had deemed have been told by one who v both men intimately, and who most deeply regretted the estrangement, that Carl vie and h: -vised a kindly . invite Mr and Mrs Mill to dinner at R<\v, in order that the old amicable relationship >torcd Carlylc sallied forth one morning to n in person, but near the India House was passed by Mill on the pavement in such a cold, resolute, unmi.Nt;.' i that the " < .'. to odry iy humbler men of letters could bear witness to the truth of the tt- .m impre fon ^h Hunt, as to < \varmthof lu The ca> >mas Cooper, the old Ch.r !o of many more that 1 ; and : name, as well as 'cfmitcnevs mtil he *.i* ii. to me by one greatly the M.. hat is, by Mrs V His Kindness to Cooper the Chartist. 241 of those that have gone before, suggests the reflection that, if Carlyle's political sentiments frequently gave pain to the friends of Reform, he seems, somehow, all along to have had an exceedingly warm side to Reformers. The poem written by Cooper in jail, The Purgatory of Sui- cides^ he dedicated to Carlyle, from whom he received in return a kind letter, and subsequently many substantial tokens of friendly consideration. " I owe many benefits to Mr Carlyle," he says in the Autobiography published by him in 1872. "Not only richly directoral thoughts in conversation, but deeds of substantial kindness. Twice he put a five-pound note into my hand, when I was in difficulties ; and told me, with a look of grave humour, that if I could not pay him again, he would not hang me. Just after I sent him the copy of my Prison Rhyme, he put it into the hands of a young, vigorous, inquiring intelligence who had called to pay him a reverential visit at Chelsea. The new reader of my book sought me out and made me his friend. That is twenty-six years ago, and our friendship has continued and strengthened, and has never stiffened into patronage on the one side, or sunk into servility on the other although my friend has now become ' Right Honourable/ and is the Vice-Presi- dent of * Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council.' " It was at Carlyle's house that an incident occurred which Mr Cooper puts on record, because of the previous want of kindness which another Mr Forster had exhibited. " My novel of The Family Feud? he says, " drew a hand- some critique in the Examiner from Mr John Forster for a wonder ! I may as well tell how it came about. I went to 5 Cheyne Row, Chelsea, one evening, with the intent of spending a couple of hours with my illustrious Q 242 Thomas CarlyU. friend Thomas Carlyle. Hut I had not been with him i than half-an-hour when Mr John Forster was announced. 1 met him without any high degree of pleasure. And although there was no treat on earth I could have de> more than t the interchange of thought between such intellects as those of Carlyle and J ster, I felt inclined, with the remembrance of the pjust 'cut my stick ! ' And I c< \c decamped ily, had it not been for an incident worth mentioning. A loaded truck stopped at the street door there was a loud knock and the maid servant ran up stair- less, to say that a huge parcel had been brought. Carlyle seemed all wonder and muttered, 'A huge par what huge parcel? but Til come down and see.' And, somehow or other, we all went down to see for tl was a large wooden case, evidently containing a picture. A hammer and a chisel were soon brought, and I offered to take them, and oj>en the case but, no! my illustr! friend would open it himself. ' It's do;: :ure from that old 1 Candor,' said he ; and he worked away vigorously with his implements till there was revealed a very noble picture indeed, with its fine gilded frame. It was a portrait of David Hume, in full dress the dress he aid alwas worn when he sat down to wr so strangely were his polished style and his full dress associated. 'Only think of that old Landor sending me this ! ' broke out again, as we all stood gazing on the p< .miration. '1 lent served to 'break the ice' so far th l ed a littl the conversation that followed; and when Mr Carlyle quitted the room a book he wanted to show friend, Mr John Forster said t :i a marked tone, Anecdote of John fiorster. 243 ' You have just had a novel published by Routledge do you happen to know whether a copy has been sent to the Examiner V I replied that I did not know; but I would inquire. 'Take care that it is addressed to me, will you ? ' said Mr Forster ; c you understand what I mean ? Take care that it is addressed to me personally ' and he nodded and smiled. ' Thank you, sir,' said I ; ' I will address a copy to you, myself for I thought I did understand what he meant. I rose to go soon after, and my illustrious friend, with the perfect kindness he has always shown me, would go with me to the street door to say ' good night/ So I whispered to him, in the passage, and requested him to strengthen the good intent there seemed to lie in John Forster's mind towards me. Car- lyle give me one of his humorous smiles, and squeezed my hand, as an assurance that I might depend upon him. And so the favourable critique on my Family Feud appeared in the Examiner" CHAPTER X KWSPAPER ARTICLES INTEREST KMF MOVEMENT SUPPORTS THE PERMIS TEMPT FOR THE FOURTH ESTATE- LISTS THOMAS BALLANTYNE HIS AMERIC i KWERS BURLESQUES OF HIS STYLE. "OF all priesthoods, aristocracies, governing classes preset in the world, t no class < iportance to that priesthood of the writers of books.* When he penned this sentence, Carlyle included in modern priesthood the writers for the newspap indeed he gave them an honourable place on "The writers of newspapers, pamphlets, books, the real, porting .e Church of a country." But the young man who had arrived at on, was not destined to do mti i state except a < sale and vituj>crative style, as no other pul> of his gi ired to adopt lie been 1 a littk- the world, it is possible he might have escaped being drawn into the vortex of journalism j but ive power was not in Carlyle's youthful < t it has since become so the peril was one easfljl avoided Poor as the pecuniary reward of the ] goi: be in a country town on the Border < was perhaps as good as any the student could His Newspaper Articles. 245 have got by contributing even to a metropolitan journal ; as for the country papers in the opening quarter of the century, they were generally edited by the printer with a pastepot and a pair of scissors. That Carlyle had early formed a plan of life, with which the incessant distrac- tions of the journalist's career would not have harmonised, has, we trust, been made sufficiently clear at the outset of our narrative ; but it may be questioned if he would have rested content with hack-work for Dr Brewster, had the Edinburgh newspapers of that time been able to afford the scope for his talents, and the respectable pecuniary rewards which they are able to give to a brilliant young writer to-day. The lightest bits of press work executed by Carlyle at the beginning of his career as man of letters, were the couple of book notices he wrote for that New Edinburgh, which was not permitted to grow old; and we hear of nothing in the way of contributions to the newspapers till we arrive at the year of Charles Buller's death, and no more after that till the appearance of the series of articles which heralded the Latter-Day Pamphlets. The number of these contributions was six in all. The first appeared in the Examiner on March 4, 1848, and the last in the same journal of December 2 of the same year. "Louis Philippe" was the theme of the former article; the latter was the tribute to the writer's old pupil. On April 29, he printed in the Examiner an article on "Repeal of the Union;" and on May 13 there came three articles at a rush two in the Spectator and one in the Examiner. The titles of these ran thus : " Ireland and the British Chief Governor," " Irish Regi- ments (of the New Era)," and ' " Legislation for Ireland." None of the six articles has been reprinted in the Mis- 246 TTiomas Car ccllanin, and only the obituary notice of Buller is familiar to the reading public of to-day. Beyond a few letters, all \ :cm that we remember addressed to the 7V>/.Y-. Mr Carlylc has since 1848 contributed nothing to the m papers. More than once the temptation to write i has l>een put in his way; a case occurred some ve years ago, when a pr journal said to have offered him a thousand guineas if he would it a description of thr his >uld be appended. Of course he was n< ndeed, years before it was held he had given up contributing even to the maga/ines and reviews, for, about 1853, \v !>eing told by the :i secretary of the Scottish League Robert Rae, now of London), how he had ( Chelsea upon Carlyle, with a view to prevail upon him to write something for the Scottish Rwietv a shilling League was then publishing. This was the i on which we happened to h t that has now for some years been fan ugh to at least < n of the public how Mr vie was pmfnur. sled in th: nee question. He mt< red heartily into conversation with ibject, perceiving at a glance, we doubt ,s of his visitor. He was greedy of ir about the progress of the work the League ! md felt so much sympathy with it, that he would have S*vttisk in' Inn that he had alread> m old fr editors, in London. Besides, wer am !ded, there would be no end to the apj Supports the Permissive Bill. 247 tions that would flow in upon him from other quarters ; so, reluctantly, he had to say no. Here it may be noted that, in the early days of the temperance movement, when some of its old pioneers in the Chelsea region held large open-air meetings, Carlyle was a frequent and attentive listener. When a Permissive Bill Association was formed in the district, its promoters felt encouraged by this token of sympathy with their work to invite him to attend the first public meeting; and, though he was unable to accept the invitation, he sent a reply that gave them great encouragement and tended much to strengthen the force of their agitation. "My complete conviction," he said, writing on i8th April 1872, " goes, and for long years has gone, with yours in regard to that matter ; and it is one of my most earnest and urgent public wishes that such Bill do become law." They then asked him to accept the presidency of their society, and, in declining the honour in a courteous and kindly note, he said, " From the bottom of my heart I wish you success, complete and speedy." They had sent him a bundle of their literature; "the pamphlets," he told them, " shall be turned to account, though I myself require no argument or evidence farther on this disgrace- ful subject." It was indeed one that had long engaged his thoughts ; in his Chartism perhaps the fiercest of all his bursts of indignation occurred in his Dantean picture of a certain class of the Glasgow operatives. " Be it with reason or unreason," he there wrote, "too surely they do in verity find the time all out of joint; this world for them no home, but a dingy prison-house of reckless unthrift, rebellion, rancour, indignation against them- selves and against all men. Is it a green, flowery world, 248 Thomas CarlyU. with azure everlasting sky stretched over it, the work and government of a God; or a murky, simnu! of copperas-fumes, t< gin-riot, wrath and toil, created by a Demon, governed by a Demon? The sum of their wretchedness, merited or unmerited, welters, huge, dark, and baleful, like a Dantean Hell, visible there in the statiitks of ('.in ; ( iin, justly named ti authentic incarnation of the Infernal Principle in our times, too indisputably an incarnation; Gin, the black throat into which wretchedness of every sort, comm eating itself by calling on Delirium to help it, whirls down ; abdication of the power to think or resolve, as too painful now, on the part of men whose lot of all others would require thought and resolution ; liquid Mad- ness sold at ten])cncc the quartern, all the products of which are and \\\\\^\ be, like its origin, mad, miserable, ruinous, and that onl\ appeal to the working- men electors doubtles : of not a : of the long-deluded \ 'No man oppresses tl O free and independent franchiser; but does not : stupid pewter pot oppress thee? No son of Adani am bid thee come or go; but this absurd pot i wet, tliis can and does ! Thou art the thrall, not of Cedric the Saxon, but of thy own brutal appetites and this sec 1 of liquor ; and thou pratest of thy liberty f Years after the interview with the representative of the Scottish League he did indeed, in one or two instac depart from the ru'. laid down lor himself as we shall ! sec, by g: iasson a couple of articles for Macmillan, and by handing to another esteemed friend, Mr William Allin^ham, then the - His Contempt for the Newspapers. 249 of Fraser, the two last historical essays he was ever to publish. But for the newspapers he never did any work beyond the six articles of 1848. Indeed, he often pro- fessed a great contempt for them. To the Rev. Joseph Cook, the Boston Monday lecturer, he said, " We must destroy the faith of the public in the newspapers." The Fifeshire editor, Mr Hodgson, tells us that, when he was introduced to the aged philosopher by Provost Swan of Kirkcaldy, Carlyle burst out in invectives against the newspaper profession, declaring it to be " mean and de- moralising." To Charles Boner, long the German cor- respondent of a leading London daily, he spoke in the same truculent fashion. We have heard of his saying more than once that he never read the papers, as they contained only "gutter- water;" but it sometimes struck those who enjoyed the privilege of conversing with him that he had a singularly extensive acquaintance with the passing events of the day for a man who gave no heed to the morning paper, and who only glanced now and then into " a weekly print called Public Opinion, which somebody was good enough to send him regularly." Still, as in his relations to Reform and its advocates, so was it here : whatever he might be pleased to say or to write about the Fourth Estate, he was, from the com- mencement to the close of his career, on the very friendliest terms with gentlemen (and ladies, too Miss Martineau, for example) whose main work in the world consisted in writing for the papers. Quite a crowd of journalists, such as Leigh Hunt and Thomas Aird, John Forster and David Masson, were included in the inner- most circle of his friends ; and how kind, considerate, and helpful he was to a still larger number of less .250 Thomas Car ^uished members of the press, scores at least could personally testify. As we have already shewn, he was a good friend to Thomas Cooper, who was a newspaper : nothing could exceed his kindness to Thomas Ballantyne, the quondam Paisley weaver who rose editor of the Manchester Times, and who subsequently started a short-lived journal in London under fated title of The Statesman (to which, somehow, mis- :ie seems ever to cling). William V .it one time the conductor of the Critic, and, like Ballantyne, hailing originally from Carlyle's own south - w t of Scotland, was also honoured with his friend- ship. To Ballantyne he gave permission to make 'time of extracts from his writings, prefaced with a brief biographical memoir ; and he likewise cour him to Mi-rite an autobiography, on which Ballantyne was, we believe, engaged, when death cut short his labours in the August of 1871, at the age of 65. An earnest and sincere man, gifted with a fine taste in ture, he was also an ardent politician, and as such closely associated with Cobden and Bright in the Free struggle. In later years he enjoyed the personal acquaint- ance of Lord Palmcrston and the Earl of Clarendon ; but lembered as having for thirty years been on terms of affectionate intimacy with Thomas ( It was amusing, however, to note that even when he was speaking in his kin n of these journal; Carlyle would almost always contrive to i. stereo- typed sneer at the newspaper, i fjoh* he speaks slightingly even of the Athtnaum and the 7 ing of the former th;r passed out ding's hands into those of Mr t took root, His American Interviewers. 251 and "still bears fruit according to its kind." In 1861, when he sent a letter to the leading journal in favour of a subscription to help the family of Inspector Braidwood, who had perished while discharging his duty at a great fire, he almost apologised for being aware from the newspaper accounts of the tragic end of the brave fireman. He knew nothing of the matter, he explained, " but what everybody knew, and a great deal less than every reader of the newspapers knows." As if he personally never read the newspapers at all! In 1870, when poor Ballantyne pub- lished what proved to be his last book, Essays in Mosaic, Carlyle was asked to say a word in its favour which might be inserted in the preface. " I have long recognised in Mr Ballantyne," wrote Carlyle, " a real talent for excerpt- ing significant passages from books, magazines, news- papers (that contain any such), and for presenting them in lucid arrangement, and in their most interesting and readable form." The sneer is put in the parenthesis; but we ought, perhaps, to call it Carlyle's little joke, rather than a sneer. If such a remark were made in earnest it would be simply foolish. Even Dr Johnson confessed that he never picked up a newspaper in which he did not find something worth remembering ; and if that was true of the newspaper in its feeble infantine state, how much more justly applicable would the remark be to-day ! One of the reasons for a dislike that deepened with the advancing years may, perhaps, be found in the very questionable habit some of his American visitors had, of sending home, to newspapers in their own country, reports, often imperfect and misleading, of conversations they had been permitted to have with him in Cheyne Row, 252 Thomas Carlyle. These, of course, soon found their way back to the old country, and were generally reproduced in British jour- nals. Not seldom they caused him profound an: especially when the reported talk happened to relate, it frequently did, to the political and social conditio: the United States. In once reporting to a Cincinnatti paper a strong expression of Carlyle's resentment of the liberties thus taken by some of his American visitors, Mr Moncurc Conway said : " Carlyle feels, as do those who have been in the habit of listening to his conversation ugh many years, that no chance expressions during an hour or two ought to be held up as representing full opinions on the great subje< n the political and so. lencies of America. indeed, opposed to demo A he looks upon the two lead- ing Anglo-Saxon nations, America and England, as going, one close after the other, upon the wrong path. And that is about as much as ( casual American ors get from him. If, however, they should be able to hear all sides of the question within 1 hey would find that he regards both countries as destined to pass through the democratic or negative phase of develop. t, to a condition of social order which the most radical Republican or Democrat would probably regard as a nobler ideal than his own. At no time has Carl} deep interest in all that concerns America failed. As he respects the C.erman longing for unity, so, even while \vithholding his sympathy from the North in our late war, as to its purpose, I have often heard him pay a tribute to its love for the Union. rminatio the Americans to defend that Union did not fail to ex admiration, and in his address in Edinburgh he Burlesques of His Style. 253 named America as among 'the greatest nations/ His knowledge about America is also far beyond that even of the most educated Americans. I have often been amazed at the exceeding minuteness of his acquaintance with the whole history of America, from the date of its discovery its settlement, progress, the rise of its cities, its pioneers, soldiers, literary men. I have known him enter- tain a room full of educated Americans with facts and anecdotes about their own country, which one and all afterwards confessed had been utterly unknown to them. He speaks in touching terms of the way in which America first took him up, and of the fact that the first book of his own that he ever saw was sent him from America with a good sum of money for writing it. And he still speaks of Emerson as 'the clearest intellect now on the planet.'" A second irritant that sometimes added vehemence to his fulminations against the newspaper press was the dis- relish he had for the imitations of his style that occasion- ally found their way into the public journals. Even when these were good-natured as well as clever, he seemed unable to regard them with equanimity ; and when they could neither be called kindly nor clever, they made him very angry. Once, well on to twenty years ago, he was made excessively indignant by a smart defence of a notorious criminal, written in Carlylese, which appeared in a Glasgow print. The writer of this rather gruesome jeu & esprit had reproduced so happily some of the most striking characteristics of his style that even intelligent students of his writings were at first imposed upon.* * In one of the earliest of the Glasgow University Albums, pub- lished a quarter of a century ago, appeared the first of a series of extremely clever imitations of Carlyle by the same hand. The per- 254 Thomas Carlyle. attention was called t gentleman in the neighbourhood of ithcr wanted if the article was genuine, or wished to make Carlyle acquainted with the : y people in Scotland were accepting the production as his own. From the gruff reply, it was evident that the Mast< * appre- v, and that he was very angry indeed with the too apt pupil Even in ire >r conversed with him at Provuv. had not forgotten that old 1 isgow Carlylese. iie name of one (St Andrews) Profe.v the primary ol, iat of t: sor*s son. The Pro- fessor's name he had no: hut that of the son was somewhere embedded in his memory. It was con- a Glasgow newsp. ^ forming journal, about i 1 The gentleman pcti ly right to add, has since done much sound literary work, tath in prose and verse, including a graceful men has also written an essay and Carlyle, " containing what he entitles "An Occasional Discourse on S MS," prefaced with the remark, M In the little claim an offense n to Mr Carlylc, a man whom I entirely honour, and, though with only a n. as a prophet, conv . oar greatest man of letters now living." The happiest of all the imi- tations of ' umcll Lowell in the , duction to the Bigtno Fafxrs ; an >ld that one, almost equally felicitous appeared in an early number of Mr Miall's rmijf, "which caused great joy to some who to. irlyle hini>clf, and a proof that he had ..mM-lfun-' en appearc tic banner of a true religious : Much more unendurable to Carlyle than these professed burlesques most have been the mountain of 1** is who had no humorous intention to 1>; His Contempt for Sentimental Juries 255 I refer to warmly espoused the cause of Jessie M'Lachlan, the person convicted, and a master of Mr Carlyle's style wrote a letter as if from Mr Carlyle himself in which the woman's case was zealously vindicated. ' Yes,' said Mr Carlyle to me, ' I remember now ; some rawboned blockhead mixed my name up with that parcel of lies and crime; but didn't he do some honest work after?'" That Carlyle was not so indifferent to the contents of the news- papers as one might have supposed, is indicated by what follows in Mr Hodgson's narrative : " It was an easy transition from this to the Crieff murder, and to the jurors who recommended the convict to mercy. His gleaming satire blighted the whole proceedings as a sham and a lie, in which the jurors and the murderer had shares alike. He has such a contempt for the flash senti- mentality which is at the bottom of what jurors usually do in name of mercy, that the intimation to him that fifteen of the ' Palladium ' with one of their favourites had just figured on the gallows would evoke merely a fleeting smile of contemptuous gratification." Let us hope that this somewhat sanguinary editor's interpreta- tion of the great man's talk was, in this instance, a shade stronger than it ought to have been. " It is absolutely necessary to Carlyle's conception of social order and stable government," adds his Fife interpreter, " that the gallows in these days should be in constant operation, and I, for one, am an ardent believer in that doctrine." Of course, the people who talk in this fashion never contemplate the inclusion of themselves among the in- dividuals requiring to be " worked off" by the benefi- cent Calcraft. CHAPTER XVIL K or STERLING" SECRET OF ITS POPULARITY- ITS I >EFECT MACLEOD CAM i-SSAY ON c \k! VI I. i : K OF ANECDOTES OF ITS MERITS AND DEFECTS CAKI VI I S SOJOURN IN GER- MANY VISIT FROM THE EMPRESS OF GERMANY 1 1 was in the same epoch of his life during which he published the political pamphlets and his Cromwdl, that Carl prepared a small biography, which, though it gave pain to not a few readers on account of the manner in which it treated the highest of all themes, was universally regarded, in respect to its form, as the moot work of its class produced in this generation. That fir instead off, has been deep- <1 with each succeeding year; and there are m whose judgn cd to respect, ready at this moment, with unqualified con; u> pronounce Tk* of John Sterling unrivalled among all the 1 biographies extant in our language an opinion on be- half of which there is much to be said. The subjec the book, though he tried his hand at several things, was, according to Car v of him, appointed by nature for and he had barely passed the age of Burns he was summoned from earth, not only eased from his toils before the hottest of the ci. His Reason for Writing Sterlings Life. 257 but before his proper work had really begun. It was in 1844 that he died, at the age of thirty-eight. The memoir by Carlyle appeared in 1851. Sterling had committed the care of his literary character and printed writings to Archdeacon Hare and Carlyle, to do for both what they judged fittest ; and, after consultation between the joint-executors, it was agreed that the Archdeacon should edit the writings and write the Life. To this Carlyle consented all the more gladly, no doubt, on account of the conclusion to which he had come, that no biography at all was needed in this case, not even according to the world's usages. Sterling's "character was not supremely original, neither was his fate in the world wonderful. Why had not No Biography, and the privilege of all the weary, been his lot?" Yet he who asked this question decided eventually that poor Sterling, having already been made the subject of one biography, should have a second too. The worthy Archdeacon had treated Sterling as a clergyman merely, whereas the whole of Sterling's clerical life had been confined to exactly eight months. " But he was a man, and had relation to the Universe, for eight-and-thirty years." Respect for the truth demanded a second biography ; and, without the slightest disrespect to Mr Hare, readers have reason to be glad that he fell into the professional blunder which secured for the world a new Life of his old curate by Carlyle. Of course, fault was found with the latter by some for the more than implied reflection on the good Archdeacon ; but Carlyle believed that he had " a com- mission " for doing this bit of work " higher than the world's, the dictate of Nature herself," and he would there- fore have been to blame had he failed to obey the behest. 258 Thomas Cat Yet we do not believe that it is the main purpose the author had in view which gives to C ale book rest and popularity, nor even its highest and permanent value. Describing that literary Cons \ caused Lord Macaulay to neglect writings of his greatest contemporary,* Mr Tr * It was certainly not because of entire ignorance of hi thai Macaulay abstained from leading Carlyle's work*, of coune, read mil the articles contributed by htm to the EdM; Rarifw, including the one on Burns. The judgment he had for of them b indicated in one ot his letters to Macvcy Napier, of February 1832, in which he says : " As to Carlyle, he might as write in Irving'* unknown tongue at once. The Sun newsp. with del icioos absurdity, attributes his article to Lord Brough Alas, it was not the poor Sun alone that was in darkness. In a letter to Leigh Hunt, Macaulay described Carlyle as "a m*.n of S though absurdly overpraised by tome of his admirers" a phrase that let* in a little light on the writer's frame perhaps he felt the praise to be not quite so absurd as he aflccu consi adds Macaul.iy, " though I do not kr he ceased to write (for the Edi*ktrgk Xfview), became the ties of his diction, and his new words, compounded 4 U 7<- tip*, drew such strong remonstrances from Napier." This from counsellor ot Napier, ami the man who had written t worthy editor that Carlyle "might as well write in Imng' un- known tongue at once ! " Macaulay 's unfavourable estimate le was not likely to be modified by the advice the latter ^ to a friend who was in feeble health, and which somehow 11 the papers, to confine his reading to "the latest volum Mac >r any other new novel." They met once at the same dim. ulyle was astonished by the fluent oi* t; : orator, and wondered who he was ; he renuvi : wards that beseemed " a decent sort who looked as if he had been reared on oatmeal. y, comparing Carlyle's estimate of Leigh whom he had personally ministered for years* with that forme Macaulay, as giv< : he " Cynic* of Chelsea contrasts favourably in this matter with the v torian, who, though of the same political colour as the strug^ . seems to have been content to get his knowledge ot L The Problem of Sterling's Life. 259 expresses regret " that one who so keenly relished the exquisite trifling of Plato should never have tasted the description of Coleridge's talk in the Life of John Sterling, a passage which jdelds to nothing of its own class in the Protagoras or the Symposium /" and were the passage here so justly lauded, along with the vivid portrait of Sterling's father, the " Thunderer " of the Times, and a few other pieces of its drapery withdrawn from the book, it is to be feared that the volume would instantly be deposed from the high position in the esteem of the reading public which it now occupies. For one who goes to it that he may study the main subject of the work, a score, probably, are attracted by what we may term its sub- ordinate features, and especially by the masterly delinea- tions of Coleridge and that astonishing unsuccessful ex-farmer of Bute who found his niche at last, after many wanderings, in Printing House Square. When we turn to the problem of Sterling's life, as it is unfolded by the biographer, the impression made is much less satisfactory. If the Archdeacon's biography was imperfect in one direction, Carlyle's is no less imperfect in another. In the former, as an able and by no means narrow-minded critic pointed out some years ago in the Christian Spectator, there are a host of Sterling's letters concerning such topics as the Divine Nature, Revelation, Moral Evil, the Evidences of Christianity, Miracles, and other matters on which it is generally thought important to have settled views. "But in one sentence Carlyle contemptuously dismisses all these discussions ! They were ' immeasurable dust whirlwinds,' which while they lasted only blinded poor Sterling's eyes and made him miserable. It was not until he ceased to inquire into 260 Thomas CarlyU. these matters, got out of their range, acted as though the question had no interest for him, and dedicated hi: to a * life's work ' of quite another description, that he could cheerfully hoj>e and live. That life's work appears to have been the composition of divers elegant t < IKS, feebler poetry already forgotten, and fierce " criticism, which, however, will scarcely be rememb Surely Sterling was living more nobly, when, in the very atmosphere of the questions scouted by Carlyle, he was devoting himself, under the guidance of his other friend, Mr Hare, to the bodies and spirits of men, as curate in a country parish." A reply to this may no doubt be sug- gested, to the effect that Sterling was out of his proper sphere altogether as a clergyman, and that the religiou cussions referred to were shallow insincerities, from which nothing real could possibly come. Carlyle, it may be urged, saw in Sterling a reflection of himself, with this difference only, that Sterling being weaker, had gor. to the pulpit, for which he had no vocation at all, since not saint, was the real bent of his being : the scorn that is poured, like lava, on the utterly unten- able position which Sterling had endeavoured to oo This in; n would lead to a more favourable i r of the biography; but one other blot seems to 1 been hit by Dr Macleod Campbell, who confessed that, while there was certainly much in the book which had struck him as very beautiful, he had closed it with much more regret than admiration. To his friend Erskine of I.inlathen he wrote : " It is very IxMUtiful most an; It has also the higher interest of making the man Carlyle more known to me, and as a brother man. Vet for all I have scarcely <. ad a book that has cost me The First Review of Carlyle' s Writings. 261 so much pain." This, because it seemed as if Carlyle, by his superior mental force, had deliberately led Sterling astray and then rejoiced in his triumph. " I cannot but feel," said this critic, " that there is an unmistakable self- magnifying tone in the book, and that his joy over Ster- ling is a most painful, and, I would add, most instructive contrast to Paul's joy over Timothy." The volume throws many side-lights on Carlyle's own life the external as well as the inner. We have a description, for example, of his first meeting with Sterling, an accidental one, in Mr Mill's room at the India House ; we are told how Sterling's mother, " essentially and even professedly Scotch," took to Mrs Carlyle " with a most kind maternal relation ;" and we learn how Carlyle was moved by the first review article on himself and his writings. It was Sterling who wrote the essay, and it appeared in the Westminster in 1839. I* ^ as ^ een reprinted in Hare's edition of Sterling's works. " What its effect on the public was I knew not, and know not ; but remember well, and may here be permitted to acknowledge, the deep silent joy, not of a weak or ignoble nature, which it gave to myself in my then mood and situation ; as it well might. The first generous human recognition, expressed with heroic emphasis, and clear conviction visible amid its fiery exaggeration, that one's poor battle in this world is not quite a mad and futile, that it is perhaps a worthy and manful one, which will come to something yet : this fact is a memorable one in every history ; and for me Sterling, often enough the stiff gainsayer in our private communings, was the doer of this. The thought burnt in me like a lamp, for several days." There is also printed in the biography a long 262 Thomas Carlylt. letter from Sterling to Carlylc, in which he reviews Sartor, classifying it with the " Rhapsodico-Rc order of books, and placing it ur of feeling, and in power of ?> xjuence," far above the master- pieces of Rabelais, MontaL -, and S Carlyle had now reached his 56th year; and it was at age that he addressed himself to the task of writing what was destined, so Ik at least is concerned, to be his greatest book. ./< r/, / tht Great % complet volumes, fon third j>art of all that he has written, represented the lat>our of upwards of fourteen years. T . es were p in 1858, the :th in 1862, and the last insUd- ;t of the gi- k early in 1865. As a monu- :it of patient industry, it 1. rallel among the ^lish press by contt authors; hut it may l>e qi: nee and such ind ht not have been better 1. One iot help hoping it is true, as we have been told, that Carlyle once remarked to a friend, " I never was mir I confidence, and I never cared Soul him." We only feeling had found a more defin; sion in the book r not a little i understanding of Carlyle\ real attitude towards author of that Devil's l.r '.ears' \ ay man who stole Silesia Hy many, and more especially : Scotsmen, it must ever be regarded as a calam :<> ( '.ulyle's reputation and to his own country, that, instead of cr reared b . a book that His Unfulfilled Purpose. 263 seems to deify one of the vilest characters in the whole range of history, he did not rather devote the third and closing period of his active life to the fulfilment of another task which he had contemplated at the outset of his career. We are still destitute of such a History as would have made for ever legible to all mankind the " heaven- inspired seer and heroic leader of men," John Knox, even as Carlyle has succeeded in picturing the great Puritan statesman and soldier of England. The struggle led by Knox was in itself a great one, apart altogether from its hero " nearly unique in that section of European his- tory," is Carlyle's own deliberate verdict on the battle that was fought in his native North for the highest cause. " Scottish Puritanism seems to me distinctly the noblest and completest form that the grand Sixteenth Century Reformation anywhere assumed. We may say also that it has been by far the most widely fruitful form." Such was Carlyle's solemn declaration towards the very close of his life ; and, in giving it, he had to lament the fact that the chief historian of the struggle is a writer " cold as ice to all that is highest in the meaning of this pheno- menon." Surely it must have been with a pang of self- reproach that Carlyle chronicled this mournful fact. The half, or even a third, of the time which he had devoted to Frederick of Prussia might have sufficed to furnish the world with a history of Knox and the Scottish Reforma- tion that would have been by far the greatest and most precious book in the literature of Scotland. Feeling this strongly while the book on Frederick was being written, our regret is deepened now that the hope of getting a worthy and all-sufficing work on Knox and Scotland is for ever gone, since the man who alone could have pro- 264 Thomas Carlylt. du< .ing in his grave; and the regret necessarily intensifies the sentiment of hostility with wh: rt from the unworthiness of its central figure, we should l>e compiled to approach the Life of Fr<d<ruk. it would be unfair to allow this to blind us to unquestioned merits as a history, or to the marvellous patience and conscientious labour of wh: c monu- ment. For the sake of describing his last hero-long, as Dean Stanley truly said, Carlyle " almost made himself a soldier* and a statesman \v c are told that as the work in its earlier phases foreshadowed the dimensions to which it must extend, he had a spc y prepared at the top of his house, whose walls and shelves were exclu- The eulogy of | Napier, the hero of Scindc, which Carlyle addressed to Sir W. Napier, in a letter of <l.r i $56, gave a description of that hero's battle pieces that is applicable to those he was himself writing at the time. n had sent Car- Administration o/Scimdt, and, I reading the book, Carlyle sap: "The narrative moves on strong, we . like a marching phalanx, with a gleam of clear steel in it shears down the opponent objects and tramples them out of sight in a very potent manner. The writ' lent, had in him ^ image, complete in all it< parts, of the transaction to be told ; an<l that is his grand sec; .^ the reader so 1. a conception of it. I was surprised to find how much I had carried away even of the Hill campaign and of Tnikkee it though without a map the attempt to understand such a thing mmed to me desperate >lume, C.i: further says : " It is a book * b .; Englishman * !>c the better for reading for studying diligently till he saw in: till he recognised and believed the high and tragic phenomenon set the re ! A book which may be called * profitable ' in the old :ure sense; pro' : reproof, for correction and admoni- for great - ghteousness' too in heroic, manful endeavour to do well, and not ill, in one s time and place. One fee : <>f {icmesiloii to know that one has had such a fellow -citizen and contemporary in these evil days." His Visit to Germany. 265 sively devoted to the subject. " There must have been near two thousand books in this room, every one of which was in some way connected with that subject, and the walls not occupied by books were covered with pictures representing Frederick or his battles. He seemed for years indeed to be possessed by the man about whom he was writing. There was no labour he would not undergo to find the exact fact on, each point, however trivial it might seem to others." His search after accurate in- formation involved an amount of- toil which, if it were fully described, would appear incredible. Even in Ger- many, whither he went to hunt up materials and visit certain localities, we have heard him say that the obstacles which barred his path were almost insurmountable ; it was with the utmost difficulty he could secure any authentic information, for example, as to the uniform worn by a German infantry soldier in Frederick's time. He only got this bit of information at last, after wasting many days in futile inquiries, and no end of toil in digging among the records at Berlin. No public man in Germany to whom he applied could either give him the desired in- formation or tell him where it was to be got* It was in 1858 that Carlyle went to Germany, and, in addition to many other places famous in the wars of Frederick, he visited Zorndorf, Leuthen, Liegnitz, Sorr Mollwitz, * Once, in conversation with a visitor on this subject, he also re- marked on the general ignorance of historical matters that existed even among the class in London who pass for sages and oracles. He said he scarcely ever put a question to these people that they could answer, and as he had always some questions to put, if they saw him coming along the street, they turned off (this accompanied with a genuine Annandale guffaw) in another direction to avoid a fresh exposure of their ignorance. 266 Thomas CarlyU. and Prague. The vivid desrriptions of the battles of CholuMt/ and 1 k-ttingen owe very much to this jour: he did not go back to Germany. On an April day in 1862 when Charles Boner looked in at Cheyne Row he found Carlyle " sitting in dressing gown and slippers looking over the proofs of Frederick, Mrs Carlyle sitting on the sofa by the fire ;" and ( Id him he should not pay another visit to Germany. " As long as he was there he could get nothing fit for a Christian man to e no bed big enough to sleep in. The bedsteads ah* too short, and like a trough. Once, to ihe mattress was too long for the bed, and so he lay all night with it arched like a saddle in the middle. There were no curtains, and in the hotels j>eople stamped overhead, and tramped past his door all night. He had not slept all the seven weeks he was in Germany, and felt the worse for it, he verily believed, up to the present day.* It was during this visit to the Fatherland that Carlyle utt haracteristic sarcasm against some of Goer hat George Lewes has reported, with so much gusto, in his Life of the ^German poet mer party in Berlin some were complaining of Goethe's * of religion. " For SOUK tune Carlyle sat quiet, but not pati D pietists were throwing up their eyes, and regretting that so great a genius! so godlike a genius! should not have moi devoted himself to the v < Christian truth, and should have had so little, etc, c vie sat grim, ominously silent, hands impatiently twi napkin, until at last he broke silence, and in his slow, emphatic way, said, 4 M ren, did you ar the story of that man who vi t>ecause it would not light his Defects of his "Frederick" 267 cigar ? ' This bombshell completely silenced the enemy's fire." The fact that The Life of Frederick has got packed into it what we may truly designate a complete political his- tory of the eighteenth century, the overflowing richness of its humour, the hundreds of biographical vignettes executed as only Carlyle could do such work, are features that give it a permanent interest and value, whatever we may think of its philosophy ; and he who is at pains to study the volumes will probably be inclined to agree with the verdict that in none of Carlyle's works is more genius discernible, and that it gives an insight into modern history such as is to be found in no other book. But the reader must also have perceived that it is marred by many serious defects. It is the most crotchetty of all Carlyle's works. It abounds in fresh nicknames, refrains, and other peculiarities of diction, in addition to all the old ones, that become tiresome when so often repeated. " Whole pages," as an acute critic has remarked, " are written in a species of crabbed shorthand ; the speech of ordinary mortals is abandoned ; and sometimes we can detect in the writer a sense of weariness and a desire to tumble out in any fashion the multitude of somewhat dreary facts which he had collected." The truth is that Carlyle, as he frequently told his friends, entered on the , task of writing this book reluctantly, simply from a feeling that he had a call to do it ; and he used to add that, if he had foreseen the difficulties, he would never have begun it. Even so early as 1858 he had got very sick of the business ; for when he was the guest of Varnhagen von Ense in Germany, he told his host that this " Fried- rich " was " the poorest, most troublesome, and arduous 268 Thomas Car/yU. piece of work he had ever undertaken." There was no satisfaction in it at all, he said ; only labour and sorrow. 4i What the devil had I to do with your Frederick?" As to which Von Ense, who records the conversation in his Tagcbuthtr, cynically observes, "It must have cost him unheard of labour to understand Frederick if he docs understand him." To friends at home he was wont to say that " he had tried to put some humanity into Frederick, but found it hard work." He has himself, in a letter to Sir George Sinclair, described the winding up of the performance as almost more than he could accomplish ; and from Mrs Car cr to Sir George, given on a previous page, it would appear that had hardly one day's good health or one night of sound sleep during the whole of the years in which he was engaged upon the gigantic work. He refreshed him- self for the completion of his arduous task by a visit to Thurso Castle, where he was for some weeks the guest of Sir George Sinclair, and derived much benefit from the and change of scene. Before making that visit he wrote, under date 3ist July, 1860, *' You need not reckon me quite an invalid after all My sleeping faculty has returned, or is evidently returning, to the old impcr degree ; but my work, but my head ! In short, I was seldom in my life more worn out to utter weariness; or had more need of lying down for a little rest, under hope- ful conditions." to Sir George on isth A 1863, we find him s.i I am still kept overwhelm- ingly busy here ; my strength slowly diminishing, my work progressing still more slowly, my heart really almost broken. In some six or eight months, si. not Ion .:, I hope to have at last done His Eulogy of Frederick. 269 will be the gladdest day I have seen for ten years back, pretty much the one glad day ! I have still half a volume to do ; still a furious struggle, and tour-de-force, as there have been many, to wind matters up reasonably in half a volume. But this is the last, if I can but do it ; and if health hold out in any fair measure, I always hope I can." The first effect of the book in England was to weaken its author's moral influence, for the Christian conscience of the country revolted against its teaching, and was shocked by the pictures of Frederick and his father. It was only as the book receded from view, and its author's previous writings were reverted to, that the painful im- pression wore off. That feeling was only too well founded. Though he did not magnify Frederick, in whom Force without Righteousness was incarnate, as he had magnified Cromwell, it cannot be denied that he treats this unspeakable monster with a deference to which he was in no way entitled ; and at times it would almost appear as if he loved him for his unendurable brutality, while he has actually the hardihood to charge other historians with injustice in not recognising the candour with which Frederick owned that his seizure of Silesia was one of the greatest crimes ever perpetrated.* That * Dr Peter Bayne, who has published more than one essay on Carlyle's writings, says : " It took nine acres to furnish a grave for the dead of one battle out of those which Frederick fought with a view to robbing his neighbour and making people talk about him. Many years before the appearance of Mr Carlyle's Life rf Frederick, Lord Macaulay wrote an essay on that hero. After careful study of Mr Carlyle's volumes, we are prepared to affirm that Macaulay is right in his estimate of the man, and that Mr Carlyle's ingenious and elaborate eulogy does not render it necessary to qualify in any essential particular his Lordship's verdict." 27 Thomas Carlytc. such a cynical confession of wickedness should modify the feeling ol righteous indignation against .rial, still more that it should be a bar against the sternest reprobation, is a monstrous theory, which, were it applied practical 1\ in judicial proceedings, would enable thou- sands of the worst criminals to escape. In the most explicit terms, Carlyle reproduces the abominable doctrine of Hobbes, when, justifying his hero's seizure of Silesia, he exclaims, "Just rights ) What are rights never so which you cannot make valid ? The world is full of such. If you have rights, and can assert them into facts, do it ; that is worth doing. " It may be said that here he means by Mights simply that which is Possible; or, in c>: words, that he wants his readers to be content with \\ can get good advice, doubtless, when it is put in a proper form, but, as here enunciated, certainly liable to misconst that may produce results of deadliest evil An author is bound to consider the meaning wl xcly to be attached to his words ; and ambiguity, of which the slaveholder and the despot can avail them- ystems, with all their accompam hon< .sninal in any writer. The typical sentc we have cited is < my Satan might quote, to suit own ends; and, so far as we can see their men need not trouble himself to put a forced cor -i on words, < nning these unfortunate sen- cs, seems to have forgotten that where there are no Rights there can be no Duties ; and that was a pert:: question and earnest author of Henry Iressed to him: "Do you, I ask, refuse to acknowledge the idea of Rights ? Then you shan't have the other word to sport with. > lack directly, and German and English Honours. 271 take your place in the Infernal Cohort, under the old Black Flag that we know" The book is a great favourite in Germany, and it made Carlyle doubly dear to the people of that country. Well might they be grateful to this illustrious Scotsman, who had devoted two of the three epochs of his working life to the exposition of their national literature and history. When the Empress of Germany was in England in the May of 1872 she personally communicated to Carlyle a flattering message from the Emperor thanking him for his Life of Frederick ; and in 1873, on tne death of Manzoni, he was presented with the Prussian " Order for Merit" Some people were foolish enough to feel, and even to express, surprise when Carlyle declined the Grand Cross of the Bath, offered in 1875 through Mr Disraeli, the more especially as he had not long before accepted the Ordre pour le Merite. They overlooked several important facts, which led others to rejoice that the English honour had been rejected. In the first place, it was ludicrously inadequate Carlyle ought to have had long before a seat in the House of Lords ; secondly, it came too late. Goethe was only 27 years of age when Karl August made him a member of the Privy Council. To offer Carlyle a G.C.B. at 80 was almost worse than to leave him in the evening of his life, as he had been left during his working days, without recognition from the State to which he had rendered such splendid service. He consulted the dignity of letters as well as his own personal honour when he declined to accept the tardy and insignificant decoration. There were in his native Scotland country gentlemen under forty who had for years been called " Right Honourables " by grace of the Thomas CarlyU. monarch who had suffered her greatest Scottish subject to spend all his years of arduous toil without one token of tr. As respects the honour that came from Germ well might Carlyle accept that ; not only had it come more timcously, it was of far higher significance and value. The Ordrc pour U MMU is not given by the Sovereign or the Minister, but by the Knights of the Order themselves, the King only confirming their choice, The number of the Knights is strirtly limited (there are no more than 30 German and 30 Foreign so that every Knight knows who will be his peers. Not even Bismarck is a Knight of this Order. Moltke was elec simply as the representative of military science; does he rank higher in this Order than did Bunsen, the representative of physical science, or Ranke the histor. CHAPTER XVIII. ELECTED LORD RECTOR AT EDINBURGH HIS INAUGURAL ADDRESS AT THOMAS ERSKINE'S DEATH OF MRS CARLYLE HER FUNERAL THE MINISTRY OF SORROW OLD BETTY BRAID : " A PERPETUAL GOSPEL " THE LORD'S PRAYER THE VOICE OF MAN'S SOUL KNOX MEMORIAL AND SCOTTISH MONUMENTS AT HIS WIFE'S GRAVE. ALMOST immediately after the completion of what was destined to be Carlyle's last literary work of importance, came an honour that, of all things the world had to offer, was perhaps the one most likely to be grateful to his heart. In the previous decade an attempt had been made by some of his admirers among the students at Edinburgh University to secure his nomination for the office of Lord Rector ; but the few adventurous spirits of 1856 discovered that they were before their time. They were obliged to yield to objections which few who made them would care to see recalled to-day. Ten years later the tide had turned ; and a second endeavour, made in the November of 1865, was crowned with triumphant success. By a majority the largest on record of 657 against 310, he was elected Lord Rector in preference to Mr Disraeli.* There have been few such days even in * Twice before his election by his own University he had been invited to allow himself to be nominated for the office of Lord Rector, once by students in the University of Glasgow, and once by those of Aberdeen ; but both of these invitations he had declined. S Thomas Carlyle. nburgh as th; the 2cl of April 1866, rerea his Inaugural I fall he!- 1 luded, not only hi constituents, hut many people from distant parts of tf country, and even from foreign shores, ! thither 'he prospect of witnessing Carlyle's reception in the capital of his native land. It was h a public speaker since he, gave his lectures on F -ship twent) six years before. I e lectures his address was a purely extemporaneous utterance, deliv conversationally and without a single note; and, as must been expected by those who really knew the i there was in it a singular mellowness of thought and lerted in the ho: which it was couched, and the fine flashes of hum sarcasm by which it v. ted. Tl. his discourse ! he Choice of Bool id to enforce were to avoid cram, to be pa tak .t in the acquisition of k: ledge. With remarkable emphasis he on the vital distinction between knowledge hypothetic*] and the known a: confounded \\ out loss to man, loss of strength, loss of truth, f truth the soul's stre: He prote ted against the not where a > be d for the SJH he contended, is to prepare a man for mastering any u hing him the method of all. There were hut ' one was the iuot. velli of the s: with which he evidently agreed himself, though he :y of His Inaugural Address. 275 Rome shows that a democracy could not permanently exist without the occasional intervention of a Dictator. The other was a declaration of the necessity for recognis- ing the hereditary principle in government, if there is to be " any fixity in things." Proclaiming anew his old doctrine no the virtue of Silence, he lamented that "the first nations in the world the English and the American are going all away into wind and tongue." One hearer from London declared that it was worth coming all the way in the rain in the Sunday night train were it only to have heard Car- lyle utter the final sentence of his penultimate paragraph, " There is a nobler ambition than the gaining of all California, or the getting of all the suffrages that are on the planet just now !" One of his last words counselled the students to take care of their health ; the old word for " holy " in the German language, heiUg^ also means "healthy." He also exhorted them to read Knox's History of the Reformation , " a glorious book," full of humour and of "the sunniest glimpses of things;" and there was hearty laughter when he advised them to "keep out of literature, as a general rule." He had talked for an hour and a half. At times his eye kindled, and the eloquent blood flamed up the speaker's cheek ; the occasional drolleries came out with an inexpressible voice and look ; as for the fiery bursts, they took shape in grand tones, the impression made deeper, not by raising, but by lowering the voice. Alexander Smith, the poet, who was secretary to the University, wrote the most vivid sketch of the proceedings ; it is included in his Last Leaves. He describes Carlyle's voice as " a soft, downy voice," with " not a tone in it of the shrill, fierce kind that one would expect it to be in rea 276 Thomas CarlyU. 1 lets" Time and labour seemed to c dealt U ' .irlyle ; " his face had not lost the country bronze which he brought up with him from Drumfriesshire as a student fifty-six years ago." hair was yet almost dark ; his moustache and short beard were iron grey; his eyes, wide, melancholy, rowful; altogether in his aspect there was something aboriginal, as of a piece of unhewn granite. M I am not ashamed to confess," wrote the author of Drcamti tk that I felt moved towards him, as I do not think I could have felt moved towards any other living in Before the address several gentlemen, includi lessors Huxley and Tyndall, received the honorary degree of LL.D. The Senatus had offered to ". the new Lord Rector; but he laughed it off, saying that he had a brother who was already a Doctor, and that if two Dr Carlyles should appear at the gate of Parac takes might arise. His old friend, Krskinc of I.in- lathen, was one of the recipients of the degree; but this good man wrote soon after to a friend, "Of course nobody calls me Dr, except for fun." Carlyle was Mr Erskine's guest during this visit to Kdinburgh ; ami wl the address was well achieved (says Dr H noir of Erskine), and it was found that the Io>rd Rector was none the worse, but rather the tatter for deliverance, the host invited two or three intimate friends to meet him at dim. William Stirling Maxv. "with nice tact, gave such turn to the conversation as allowed fullest scope to the sage who has praised sik so well, but fortunately does n< Released . his burden, Carlyle was in e\c ellei .mil dis- coursed in his most genial mood of his old Dumfriesshire His Greatest Sorrow. 277 remembrances, of the fate of James IV., and other matters of Scottish history, and of the Emperor Napoleon, of whom he was no admirer. In one of his little songs, thrown off nearly forty years before, he had pictured life as " a thawing iceboard on a sea with sunny shore." There had come to him a gleam of sunshine, lighting up what on the whole had been a sombre pathway through the world ; and it was at this very hour, while the echo yet lingered in his ears of those joyous greetings that assured him how warm was the place he had in the heart of young Scotland, that the ground, in a moment, seemed to melt away from beneath his feet. He had just received what, in one sense, might be called the crowning honour of his life ; it was followed, with tragic swiftness, by his greatest grief. He had gone from Edinburgh to Dumfriesshire to visit his relations on his way home to London ; and on the i7th of April we find him writing from Scotsbrig, his brother's (as it had been before his father's) farm at Ecclefechan, to Mr Erskine. " This is almost the first day I have had any composure," he said ; " and I cannot but write you a little word of gratitude, to Mrs Stirling (Erskine's sister) and you, for your cordial reception of me in my late ship- wrecked state, and your unwearied patience with me, during the whole of the late adventure. Now that it is all comfortably over, and a thing to look thankfully back upon, there is no feature of it prettier to me than that your kind chamber in the wall should have been my safe lodging-place, and that there, with the very clock silenced for me, I should have been so affectionately sheltered. Thanks for this, as for the crown of a long series of kind- nesses, precious to remember for the rest of my days." 278 Thomas Car/yk. He adds how he sprained his ankle a week ago, but that it is mending ; and how he has written a little word to Lady Ruthvcn, and was still busy j^enning notes when he ought rather to be " in the woods of Springkell" on his " solitary rides of mei! purpose to be at home on *' from Dumfries, ray ill and one remaining shift."* Before next Monday came, that home had been forever darkened On Saturday, April 21, Mrs Tarlyle was taking her usual drive in Hyde Park, about four o'clock, when her little favourite dog, trotting by the side of m, was run over by a carriage. She was greatly ;ned, though the dog had not been seriously hurt. She lifted it into the carriage, and the coachman drove ig any cal -inn from his mistress, he stopped the carriage and discovered her, as he thoi: in a fit. nee drove to St George was near at h.md. Here it was discovered that ad for some little time. '! .ing : that had walked by the side of our Pilgrim, sus 1 ing his sad heart at every ste journey for i years, was gone. >kine of I.inlathen, a still older For this and other extracts in the present chapter, including they have ever seen, we are indr' .'<^rj of Tkemat ' Unna, D.I'. id Douglas. 1877. This UN,; >ntains ot) yle ought to overloo'' lose acquaintance with the character of Carlyle's moat .r. . u ^h life the man to whom he opened least reserve the secret workings and the deepest thoughts and . . j ; r .1 ! : : | Of . '. : ^ ^ | : 1 1 1 . Sorrow and Real Kingship. 279 man, was also left alone in the world by the death of his last surviving sister. Carlyle was one of the first to hasten with words of sympathy. "Alas ! what can writing do in such a case ? The inexorable stroke has fallen ; the sore heart has to carry on its own unfathom- able dialogue with the Eternities and their gloomy Fact ; all speech in it, from the friendliest sympathiser, is apt to be vain, or worse. Under your quiet words in that little note there is legible to me a depth of violent grief and bereavement, which seems to enjoin silence rather. We knew the beautiful soul that has departed, the love that had united you and Her from the beginnings of existence, and how desolate and sad the scene now is for him who is left solitary. Ah me ! ah me ! Yesterday gone a twelvemonth (3ist March 1866, Saturday by the day of the week) was the day I arrived at your door in Edin- burgh, and was met by that friendliest of Hostesses and you ; three days before I had left at the door of this room one dearer and kinder than all the earth to me, whom I was not to behold again : what a change for you since then, what a change for me ! Change after change following upon both' of us upon you especially ! It is the saddest feature of old age that the old man has to see himself daily grow more lonely ; reduced to commune with the inarticulate Eternities and the Loved Ones now unresponsive who have preceded him thither. Well, well ; there is a blessedness in this too, if we take it well. There is a grandeur in it, if also an extent of sombre sadness, which is new to one ; nor is hope quite wanting nor the clear conviction that those whom we would most screen from sore pain and misery are now safe and at rest. It lifts one to real kingship withal, real for the first 280 Thomas CarlyU. time in this scene of things. Courage, my friend ; le- endure jaiicntly and act piously to the c On the Wednesday following her death, the body was .eyed from I^ondoi lington for interment, and the ABM : >ok place on Thursday afternoon. Carlyle, who had hastened to London immediately on receipt of the solemn message, was accompanied to Haddingtoi 1m ! ; >r I'arlyle, Mr John Forster, and the H M r Twtstleton. i ral cortege was followed on foot by a large numU r of local gentlemen who had known Carlyle ami her father. The grave lies in the cc :. of the ruined roofless choir of the old Abbey Churc! Haddingtoru In accordance with the Scottish < ustom, there was no service read. Carlyle threw a handful of earth on the coffin after it had been lowered into the grave. On the tombston already recorded the names of her parents, this additional inscription was placed by Carlyle : " Here likewise now rests Jane Welsh Carlyle, spouse of Thomas Carlyle, Chelsea, London- was born at Haddin^ton, i4th July 1801 ; only child of the above John \\VKh and of Grace I)u: ;> wife. In h she had more sorrows than are common, but also a soft bility, a clearness of discernment, and a noble loyalty of heart whirh are rare. 1-or 40 years she was the true and :i^ helpmate of her husband, and by act and word unweari irded him as none else could in all of worthy that he dl died at London ;1 1 366, suddenly snatched away from him, and the li^ht of his life as if gone 01 Surely 01 rest and most heart -moving, as it was also, we be -.he truest. ever What he Owed to his Wife. 281 placed by a husband over the grave of a departed wife. It would not be saying too much has not the most com- petent witness said it himself in these words ? that but for this woman the greater part of the work that has made her husband's name tower above all others in his century might never have been done. It was no small matter that her little fortune made him independent of the drudgery that had hitherto repressed the ardour of his spirit, and circumscribed the bounds of his literary efforts ; it was in the years immediately succeeding his marriage that he produced the essay on Burns, his Characteristics, and, above all, Sartor. That dowry enabled him to face London life and the biography of Cromwell an experiment no poor man, nailed to hack-work for daily bread, could possibly have dared. Thus he was set on the road to fortune. Nor was it the small but sufficient material provision she brought that constituted the whole, or even the best part, of the help. Many a poor man, especially of the literary and professional class, has had cause to rue the day that tied him to a rich wife. Selfish, purse-proud, exigeant, ever remembering the ori- ginal disparity of their worldly fortunes all the more, perhaps, if her own has been trivial she has been an instrument to drag him down. But Jane Welsh was a woman of good sense, of culture, of heart, capable of appreciating her husband's powers, and who gave him the reverential devotion of her entire being and life. Thrice- happy Sartor to secure such a prize ! Every kind of needed help came to him with her cheerfulness to sustain his spirit in its darkest hours ; self-abnegation without limit, to endure the tempest of his anger and even his days of distempered gloom ; the thrifty diligence 282 Thomas CarlyU* that made her perfect mistress of the humblest work in the he ta*te that made each ajar the dwelling fit for any peer of the realm to enter ; an inu that seemed to many who knew them both scared to his own/ with powers as a conversationalist that s< Margaret Fuller fur example, no mean judge, superior ; never, surely, was man happier in 1. But woman, the world, perhaps, might never greatest works of Thomas Carls had always cherished the memory of her native towr. cath, and her mot; val omhill, she icle Benjamin, who succeeded to her father continued to take a deep interest in : the old people of the place, helping the i>oor whom she had i days. 1 -mnection with or these humble H.uldington friends of her youth, one brought specially close to her by the most inti: domestic association, that there emerges int :ttle y of great beauty and ire. Many years have cned one day to hi rgh, ugh a fr had qu: ntally made the discovery, that there was a poor old woman in t! bourhood of that < ity, who was visited by Carlylet Before Afatut was printed," tays a l, "Tennyson used to come and read it al and ask ' he though 1 think it is perfect stuff! 9 Slightly discouraged by t Laureate read it once more; upon which 'ylc rcmar. tig read to her the third she was obliged to confer that she 1 h. This littlr hew* how Tennyson must have valued her dear ncnt and excellent taste." Old Betty Braid. 283 summer when he came to Scotland, and to whose comfort he ministered with the greatest generosity, and at the same time, with almost reverential delicacy. It did not surprise us to hear the story, or rather the little fragment of a story, that thus reached our ears; but the curiosity naturally excited was not satisfied until the publication of the second volume of the Letters of Thomas Erskine of Linlathen, in 1877. On opening that delightful book, almost the first thing that met our eye was the interpre- tation of the story. The old woman's name was Mrs Braid, and she had been a nurse of Mrs Carlyle. She was often visited by the Laird of Linlathen. Referring to the hero on whom Carlyle was then at work, " this weary Fritz," Erskine says, "I would much rather be honest Mrs Braid selling flour and bacon, and lovingly bearing the burden of her bed-rid son." In the January of 1868, Carlyle writes to Erskine, " I owe you many thanks for that pious little visit you have made to Greenend and poor Betty. Often had I thought of asking you to do such a thing for me by some opportunity, but, in the new sad circumstances, never had the face. Now that the ice is broken, let me hope you will from time to time continue, and on the whole, keep yourself and me in some kind of mutual visibility with poor Betty, so long as we are all spared to continue here. The world has not many shrines to a devout man at present, and perhaps in our own section of it there are few objects holding more authentically of Heaven and an unseen c better world,' than the pious, loving soul, and patient heavy-laden life of this poor old venerable woman. The love of human creatures, one to another, where it is true and unchange- able, often strikes me as a strange fact in their poor 284 Thomas Carlyk. history, a kind of perpetual Gospel, revealing itself in them; sad, solemn, U-autiful, the heart and mother of all that ran, in any way, ennoble their otherwise mean and contemptible exi world." In the following year, 1869, he writes : " I am very thankful that you v. to see poor Betty ; she is one of the most venerable human figures now known to me in the world I called fir>t thing after my bit of surgery, in the neigh- bourhood, end of July last ; I seemed to have only one // to make in all Scotland, and I made only onf. The sight of po mournful as it is, and full mrnftillest memories to me, always does me good. So far as I could any way learn, she is well enough in her huinMe thrifty economics, etc : if otherwise at any tin 1 eve you understand that help from this quarter would be a soared duty to me." They were weary days in Cheyne Row that followed the great loss. " I am very idle here/ 1 he writes in the January of 1868, "very solitary, which I find to be nest less miserable to mo than the common so tli.it offers. Except Froude almost alone, whom I see once a week, there is .nybody whose talk, always jM.l: 1 good." It was a to him, he added, that he had no work, at least none worth calling by the name. am too weak, too languid, too sad of heart, too unfit an> to care v .my obje< * in t)u v 'link of grappling round it and coercing it i >y v. >rk. A most sorry dog oftenest all seems ie, and wise words, if < thrown away on it Basta-basta, I for most part say of it, and look with longings towards the still country where at The Lord's Prayer. 285 last we and our loved ones shall be together again." At the time he wrote this letter his sister, Mrs Aitken of Dum- fries, had been with him for two months, " to help us," he says, " through the dark hollow of the year." Lady Ashburton, who had been a great friend of Mrs Carlyle's, was never weary of ministering to the disconsolate widowed one. It is to this period of his life that we owe one of the most solemn and pathetic, and also one of the most comforting of all his letters that we have yet been privileged to see. Writing on the i2th February, 1869, to Erskine, he says : " I was most agreeably surprised by the sight of your handwriting again, so kind, so welcome ! The letters are as firm and honestly distinct as ever ; the mind too, in spite of its frail environments , as clear, plumb-up, calmly expectant, as in the best days : right so ; so be it with us all, till we quit this dim sojourn, now grown so lonely to us, and our change come ! * Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name, Thy will be done ; ' what else can we say ? The other night, in my sleepless tossings about, which were growing more and more miserable, these words, that brief and grand Prayer, came strangely into my mind, with an altogether new emphasis ; as if written^ and shining for me in mild pure splendour, on the black bosom of the Night there ; when I, as it were, read them word by word, with a sudden check to my imperfect wanderings, with a sudden softness of composure which was much unexpected. Not for perhaps thirty or forty years had I once formally repeated that Prayer; nay, I never felt before how intensely the voice of Man's soul it is ; the inmost aspiration of all that is high and pious in poor Human nature ; right worthy to be recommended with an 'After this manner pray 286 Thomas Carlylt. Then he adds : " I am still able to walk, thou r ' I do it on compulsion merely, and without pleasure except i n work dune. 1 1 is a great sorrow that you now get fatigued so soon, and have nut your old privilege in this respect ; I only hope you perhaps do not quite so indis- IH: usably need it as I ; with me it is the key to 3/<v/, and in fact the one medicine (often ineffectual, and now gradually oftener) that I ever could discover for tlu\ jxx>r day taberna me. I still keep working, after a k sort; but can now ii almost nothing; all my little * \\< >rth private (as I calcula a setting of my poor house in hich I would : . and occasionally fear I sh. It was in one of these sombre closing years that a movement was begun, in his wife's nati. to erect to her ancestor John Knox, who also was born tht though Carlyle had been disaj not long before with the failure of a similar scheme Edinburgh in which he had taken part, he gave his hearty support to this new endeavour, while by no means sanguine as to its success. At the outset he sub- scribed ^25, with the promise of more if the details were successfully carried out ; on the score of failing health declined to join the i ommittee, but furnished practical suggestions as to e thing, that Mi I i< : IK : 1 to act on it a hint that wa ved, and to which the di^ guished historian gave his cordial consent The morial was t >rm of a school, and this led Carlyle to re: > the days when Edward ng was a tear lu: hoped the school, when established on the new basis, would be The Memorial of Knox. 287 worthy of its ancient fame. "It the site of the new school," he said, in a letter dictated by him on the 1 5th February 1875, " was on tne ground on which Knox is known to have actually walked, it would beyond all things give the building a memorial character. In regard to ' ornamentation,' of which there was some mention in an article in the Scotsman^ the best architect to be found anywhere ought to be employed ; a man who would keep before his eyes the fact that Knox never in his life said or did anything untrue or insincere ; and that the Parish School, or f National Monument ' (or whatever name it may be called), sacred to his memory, should be scrupulously preserved from every species of meaningless and unveracious ornamentation." In a postscript he suggested that " the people of Haddington would do a really good work by marking, by a simple obelisk and a good oak tree, the site of the house in which Knox's Father lived, which Mr Laing, in his Preface to Knox's Work, says is discoverable." After the building was begun, and on learning that arrangements had been made for giving the institution the character of a grammar school, he showed his entire approval by doubling his subscription, and sent a cheque for ^50. In the last interview which one of his Haddington acquaintances, Colonel Davidson, had with Carlyle, only a few months before his death, he inquired after the welfare of the school, and expressed pleasure on hearing of its success. It is satisfactory to know that the suggestion for marking the house of Knox's birth with an oak tree has been acted on ; some day soon the obelisk should be placed there too, with the words of Carlyle inscribed upon it. We may add that, although he had in one of his Latter-Day 288 Thomas CarljU. denounced the " brazen images ! to unworthy men, the whole of which he would have melted nee and turned into warming-pa- any ins object to the erection of worthily-executed statues of veritable heroes. In 1856 he became an honorary ha ( omm he erection of the Wallace n the Abbey Craig. In 1870 he expressed igness to subscribe his "bit <-f contribution" to a T. 't Stirling; and in a letter to the secretary he said : " Dr Gregory' very good, but besides he year of Bannockburn it surely would be an obvious in \\\ to give the day of the month (and even of the week, if that latu : indubitably known)/' The author of both these patri schemes was the Rev. Charles Roger . the S genealogist and antiquary, who had been visited with severe < -count of his management of the iment affair ; and the fart that Carl yie always arp eye on what was appearing in the Scottish journaK .aed in the 1- !>r Rogers, of date 25th June 1870, with respect to the proposed Bruce Monument ; the closing senu resses "sincere wishes" for the success of the ; bled in this instance." It remains to be n< that rarlvle was also a supporter, both by pen and purse, of the !' 'us lately U-en erected at Lo< He took a SJKM ially warm interest inth.it me no doubt on account, to some extent, of ing of local attachment as a Dumfriesshire man, also as a member ot .: had first settled in (1 years ago under the wing of the progenitors of the Bruce. At his WifJs Grave. 289 After the death no summer passed, as long as health allowed, in which Carlyle did not go to Haddington to visit the grave, and also the house in which his wife had spent her early years, and under whose roof they had first met. It was with a feeling of sympathetic awe that the inhabitants of the ancient town who were familiar with his aspect would see the venerable pilgrim revisiting "these shrines of his heart. "He liked to go alone," we are. told, "and if unobserved he used to walk up the passage which led from the street to the house in which his wife had lived before their marriage, and to look into the little garden, which was perhaps the centre of many sweet and sad memories." On an autumn day of 1880 a stranger from America made a pilgrimage to the graveyard at Hadding- ton to see the burial-place of Mrs Carlyle. " Mr Car- lyle," said the sexton, as he pointed to the stone, "comes here from London now and then to see the grave. He is a gaunt, shaggy, weird kind of an old man, looking very old the last time he was here. He is to be brought here to be buried with his wife. He comes here lone- some and alone. When he visits the wife's grave, his niece keeps him company to the gate ; but he leaves her there, and she stays there for him. The last time he was here, I got sight of him, and he was bowed down under his white hairs, and took his way up by that ruined wall of the old cathedral, and around there and in here by the gateway, and he tottered up here to this spot." Softly spake the gravedigger and paused. Softer still, in the dialect of the Lothians, he proceeded : " And he stood here awhile in the grass, and then kneeled down and stayed on his knees at the grave ; then he bent over and I saw him kiss the ground ; ay, he kissed it again and 290 Thomas Carlylt. again; and he kept kneeling, and it was a long tin* before he arose arid tottered out of the cathedral an< wandered through the graveyard to the gate where hi niece stood wa. ..im." CHAPTER XIX. HIS VIEWS OF THE NEGRO QUESTION "THE AMERICAN ILIAD IN A NUTSHELL" THE JAMAICA MASSACRE HIS DEFENCE OF GOVERNOR EYRE ITS FAILURE TOM BROWN ON THE CAPTIVE RUSKIN MILL AND CARLYLE: A CONTRAST "SHOOTING NIAGARA" CHANGE OF VIEW ON THE AMERICAN WAR THE TWO REFORM BILLS. AT his first meeting with John Sterling, in the February of 1835, the conversation turned, amongst other things, on the Negroes, and Carlyle noticed that Sterling's views had not " advanced " into the stage of his own on that subject. A happy thing for Sterling, we should say, since Carlyle had already arrived at the conclusion that an " engagement for life," his euphemism for slavery, was really better than " one from day to day." Sterling, the infatuated creature, thought " the Negroes themselves should be consulted as to that ! " the manifest absurdity of which Carlyle marks in his account of the colloquy with a contemptuous point of exclamation. It was in John Stuart Mill's private room at the India House that the meeting took place, and he perhaps recalled that conversation about the Nigger in after days. Carlyle expounded his anti-Negro views, with brutal frankness, in the Latter-Day Pamphlets, where he declared, " I never thought the rights of negroes worth much discussing in 29* Ttema* CarlyU. any form;" and he adhcr the last In the September of 1874, when Mr Hodgson, the Cupar ed mentioned the news in the day's papers of the lawless Southern whites having driven Governor Kellogg from seat at New Orleans and illegally possessed themselves of the government, Carlyle said he was in no way surprised, save that the conflict had been so long of coming, adding that " the man who is seventy-nine years of age (his own age at the time) has not seventeen minutes to spare for the entire negro race perfect harmony scornful words he had, with unhappy consistency, employed on this subject from the i >rd John Russell is able to comfort us with the fact that the negroes are doing very well" "Our beautiful black darlings arc at least happy, with little labour except .rely in those e\< client horse jaws of theirs will not fail' 1 "Quashee will get himself made a slave again, and with beneficent whip will be compelled to work."* We care not to quote the worst of the words wrote, of some of which we hesitate not to say i -grace to the writer's manhood. It was this theory as to the Negro that caused Carlyle, An honoured friend of ours, whose ntw b known and flsteesftti in all the Protestant churches of England and America, once, oo a to Jamaica, got into conversation with an old negro, a man of long-established character and piety, oo the attacks which Ca had made upon his race. He knew of them, but had not seen them. le they were being repeated in detail, the negro, who was of a noble and venerable aspect, drew himself up with dignity, and some other tokens of natural resentment ; but when the tale wa his countenance relaxed into its usual benignity, as he replied, ' Massa Carlyle, sir, and mt f*rgh* torn!* as sublime a v ment in its way, we take it, as ever fell from the lips even of a American Iliad in a Nutshell. 293 at the time of the Civil War in America, to espouse the side of the South ; and his fierce invectives no doubt led many of his countrymen to take the same side. The American Iliad in a Nutshell, of date May 3, 1863, pub- lished in Macmillarts Magazine, represented the conflict as simply a dreadful fight between Peter of the North and Paul of the South as to whether they should " hire " their servants for life a singular meaning to put into the word hire or by the month or year ; and the little squib, a really silly as well as sad document, closed with a jeering reference to the want of success that had attended the Northern armies. Within a few weeks the course of events took the sting out of this cruel sneer. At that very moment thousands in England were protesting that Peter of the North cared nothing for the slave another opinion that was falsified by the issue; but it betrayed a singular ignorance on the part of Carlyle, in spite of what Mr Conway has told us about his marvellous mastery of American history and topography, that he failed to perceive the primary purpose of the War, which resulted not only in Emancipation, but also in the pre servation of the threatened Union. He was not afflicted with the same blindness during the struggle that took place, at a later date, between Germany and France clearly he saw and approved the effort of the former to regain her lost provinces ; but in this instance there was no Nigger to obscure his vision. Something even worse than the abortive little nutshell iliad was to come. Fidelity to the truth, and the duty of pointing out a fundamental error in his political writings, alone could constrain us to record the fact, that the year of his great private grief also witnessed, what we conceive 294 Thomas Carlylt. to be, the greatest mistake of CarKlc's life. That year had not ended when the sorrowful regrets of many of his sincerest friends and admirers, he hastened to welcome and justify Governor Eyre on the return of the ded, from such outrage and slaughter in a Hritish Colony, as almost rivalled the worst deeds of the Spaniards in Jamaica, and which even a Roman pro-consul would have blushed to own. In giving com- fort to the enemy of the murdered Gordon, and the author of a massacre in which more lives were taken than in Jefieries 1 Bloody Assize, he was not the only distin- guished man of letters in England who went astray ; for committee of Kyre's defenders, on which he early lied his name, and to whose funds he subscribed ^5, could also boast of h on, Ruskin, and Kingsley. The Romans, though they were Pagans, 1 >ral stand i forbade a triumph to >r in a civil war; but Kingsley, the Christian minister, sat at the festive board at Southampton, at which Kyre was entertained wl ! ngland, spattered with the blood of his fellow-subjects.* Ruskin led the Defence i h a subscription of ^100, explaining that, in doing so, he had sacrificed a summer * Mr Kingsley was personally connected with the West Indian planter interest, through i nship, which no doubt ac- counted, in part, at least . c friend of the English poor having so little regard for the Incs <>f the negroes of Jamaica. Speaking of the Jamaica Massacre, which his grace condemned, at a meeting in Glasgow, on the a;th January, 1868, the Duke of Argyll said : "Several .f myr.ui.rst .*.:, i taftfll Ir.cr.U ucic COOOeCted wi:h West India property, and through West India property, with the slave trade ; and I have observed that, even to this very day ay, to the second and i generation of those who held slaves- there is a comparative coolness on the subject of slave i His Defence of Eyre. 295 journey to Switzerland, where he had much wanted to go, " not only for health's sake, but to examine the junctions of the Molasse sandstones and nagelfluh with the Alpine limestone, in order to complete some notes he meant to publish next spring on the geology of the Great Northern Swiss Valley." Carlyle acted as one of the two vice-presidents of "The Eyre Defence and Aid Fund," his colleague being Sir Roderick Murchison, and the president the Earl of Shrewsbury. Next to these names the most distinguished on the committee were Earl Manvers, Sir Thomas Gladstone, Professor Tyndall, John William Kaye, Viscount Melville, Lord Gordon Lennox, and Henry Kingsley.* Carlyle went out of his usual course by presiding at the first two meetings of the com- mittee, which were held at No. 9 Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, the first on the 29th August, 1866, the second on the 5th September. On the first occasion, he said, he * It may be worth while to note some of the names of "The Jamaica Committee," which undertook the duty, after it had been finally declined by the Government, of prosecuting Mr Eyre and his subordinates for acts committed by them in the so-called rebellion in Jamaica, and especially for the illegal execution of Mr Gordon. Mr John Stuart Mill, M.P., was chairman, and the committee included John Bright, Thomas Hughes, M.P., W. E. Baxter, M.P., Charles Gilpin, M.P., Professor Fawcett, M.P., Joseph Cowen, M.P., Duncan M'Laren, M.P., Professors Cairnes, Goldwin Smith, Francis W. Newman, Thorold Rogers, J. J. Tayler, and Beesly, Herbert Spencer, Edward Miall, Sir Wilfrid Lawson, Frederick Harrison, Humphrey Sandwith, and Titus Salt. In the circulars of the com- mittee presided over by Carlyle the proceedings of the above-named gentlemen were denounced as *' un-English and disgraceful." Car- lyle himself verbally described them as a "noisy" clique, and Ruskin said he was glad to make any sacrifice to shew his " much more than disrespect for the Jamaica Committee." So foolish may even the greatest intellects become, when blinded by the passion of the distempered partisan. 296 Thomas Cat " considered that the committee should be presided over by some nobleman of power and influence. As he, how ever, considered it to be a solemn publi< duty on the part of every man who believed that Governor Eyre had quelled tin m Jamaica, and saved that island, to come forward and boldly proclaim such to be IK would gladly consent to take the chair at the present moling." Aiu; |p :.< | !> a \\Ot India nu: ha:;' .iiid * C Hall, the editor of the Art Journal, the latt. whom expressed the belief that the prosecution of Eyre would never be attempted, Carlylc said he " considered that it would be advisable to meet the wishes of all well affected parties, and he therefore proposed that the of the Fund be altered from * The Eyre Testimonial and Defence Fund ' to 4 The Eyre Defence and Aid Fund' In 1 :i the amount of money subscribed, though an important, was by no means the most important point main object of the committee ought to be to attack resolutely, by all fair methods, the fallacy such he could not but believe it to be) that these y denum iations of Mr I.) re, were the deliberate voice of the peopK r did at all press England ion aboir .re." The v*tc of thanks to Carlylc for presiding was proposed a captain of the loth Hussars, and seconded by a captain of the Kn\.i! Na\\. .\i the second meeting, at :\ denounced the threat to prose* as 4t the cry of .1 linded by its avarice to all true .rtue," Carlylc said he was "glad to find that no less than twenty-five new names had been added" to the committee during the week, and that " subscriptions c flowing in from all quarters." At the third meeting. The Jamaica Massacre. 297 though he did not preside, Carlyle was again present, and, with "very great pleasure," accepted the post of vice-chairman. The reports of what he was doing brought upon him a flood of correspondence, much of it by no means complimentary, which he " could not afford to read, much less to answer ; " and, as " his one answer to all such correspondence from without," he caused a letter to be published, in which he eulogised Eyre as "a just, humane, and valiant man, faithful to his trusts every- where, and with no ordinary faculty of executing them," and declared that " penalty and clamour are not the things this Governor merits from any of us, but honour and thanks, and wise imitation (I will further say), should similar emergencies rise, on the great scale or on the small, in whatever we are governing." The nature of the work thus commended for universal imitation can only be appreciated by recalling a few of its salient features. Four Hundred and Fifty innocent negro peasants of Jamaica, many of whom would have shed the last drop of their blood in defence of the British Crown, had been slain in cold blood, in batches of ten and twenty per diem ; Six Hundred other inhabitants of the island, from the aged matron of seventy to the young boy of twelve, and including some pregnant women, had been stripped naked and flogged with a new instrument of torture made of piano-wire ; and One Thousand Homes had been robbed and burned by the soldiery ! As if this were not enough, Eyre sanctioned an Act, the effect of which was to confiscate the provision grounds belonging to the widows and orphans of those who had been executed. Nothing like it had occurred in British history since " the bloody Claverhouse " and the Highland Host desolated 298 Thomas CarlyU. the south-western shires of Scotland in the Covenanting days. The Massacre of Glencoe was the merest trifle to the Jamaica Massacre of 1865. Very many of the Jamaica victims were, like Gordon, members of Christian churches; one of them was a white girl, the daughter a missionary she was stripped and flogged with the piano-wire cat. 9 Carlyle's too famous letter, most admirable as to its form each sentence gleaming flashes as of cold steel- had no words too contemptuous to apply to the men who were denouncing the Massacre. "The clamour/' he said, was "disgraceful to the good sense of England; and if it rested on any depth of conviction, and were not rather (as I always flatter myself it is) a thing of rumour and hearsay, of repetition and reverberation, mostly from the teeth outward, I should consider it of evil omen to the country, and to its highest interests, in these times.* England, he continued, had never been wont to spend its sympathy on "miserable mad seditions, esrx inhuman and half-brutish type;" and he " flattered" For detailed and air proof of all he Royal CommistioQ; Charge by Lord Chief Justice Cock burn in the case of Nelson and Brand ; and what Mr (now Lord) Cardwell so truly designated "those ghastly volumes,* 1 the Jamaica Blue Books of the period. These documents may be con* mended to the attention of the Rev. Gavin Carlylc, who, in some pleasant reminiscences of his great namesake, refers to his own father, " now a venerable missionary in Jamaica, a year younger than Carlylc himself.*' It appears from the son's statement, that her, " though the greatest friend of the negroes," took 1 part .1 sent Carlyle one of his letters on the subject, and he sent it back with great delight, saying, it was just what he would have expected from the good sense of his old friend. Pcaise from the greatest enemy of the Negro could hardly be pleasant to " the great- eat friend of the negroes *' in Jamaica. The Charge of the Chief Justice. 299 himself that it had not changed, " not yet quite ; but that certain loose superficial portions of it have become a great deal louder, and not any wiser, than they formerly used to be." In conclusion, he hoped that, by the "wise effort and persistence " of the committee he had joined, " a blind and disgraceful act of public injustice might be prevented, and an egregious folly as well." Betaking himself to an obscure nook of England, where he received the shelter of justices who refused to commit him for trial, the ex-Governor contrived to elude what an honour- able man, accused of a great crime yet conscious of his innocence, is always anxious to obtain. Market-Drayton, the birthplace of Clive, was the hiding-place of this modern hero, this "just, humane, and valiant" man, extolled by Carlyle. If the panegyric had been well- founded, the Governor would have hastened to secure a fair trial by a jury of his countrymen; but, instead of justifying the praises bestowed upon him by his friends, he resorted to every possible artifice in order to escape the necessity of submitting his conduct to a judicial tribunal. One of the guiltiest of his subordinates, Colonel Hobbs, had committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea on the homeward voyage ; but two others also deeply implicated, Lieutenant Brand and Colonel Nelson, committed for trial by a London magistrate, were set free by a grand jury whose mem- bers went in the teeth of what has been regarded as the noblest charge delivered by the greatest Chief Justice of our century. But that charge remains ; and as long as it continues to be read men will see how grievously Carlyle had gone astray. According to the doctrines laid down by Cockburn, the hanging of Gordon 300 Thomas Carlyle. was murder, and martial law, as ir ' in Jam a thing utterly foreign to our institutions and without the faintest sanction in the \ of En^' ru- dence. The Charge was hailed by the great bulk of the >n with profound sati^ 1 ,.; went on deep' n the country re< report of the Royal Commission sent out to 1 and subsequently heard that the new Governor of the island, Sir 1 it, was swiftly carrying out ' for Bating which Gordon had be- iout A few faint at* -..ore made by a few friends of the degraded Governor to have him restored to the ed on the pen>i>n list ; but the moral sense of the country revolted from these propc* and there is now no danger of their being a^: ed Both from individuals and organs of public opinion entitled to respectful attention there came expostulation and reproof. By the leading journal of his n.r countr)', 'im nor at any other of its history obnoxious to the charge of being weakly humanitarian, Carlyle was reminded that no man . should ! , and less admiration for G m he. " .idling about and nobleness of energy is to IK :n doing harm and not good," said >nan, " it must be fenced 1 strenuous ; .ill be guided and tempered l> 1 hat he failed to see this did not, howev e those who were best acquainted with his the author of Tom Brew*?* Sfhoo! : how the test of the treat m ferior races divided men in our : kecnl !> than any other. I never now can A Literary Lust of Carnage. 301 depend upon an Englishman's political faith until I know how he felt about your rebellion, or how he is feeling about this outbreak of ours in Jamaica. The foremost men on the wrong side with us are Carlyle, Ruskin, and Kingsley. Our people are calling them renegades, but this is not fair. The only one to whom the name can with even prima fade fairness be given, is Kingsley. Carlyle has been a power-worshipper and a despiser of freedom any time this twenty-five years. Reverence him as one does, and must, there is no denying this. Ruskin has been the captive of Carlyle's bow and spear for the last ten years, or nearly that. He is intensely clear, keen, and narrow; can never see more than one side, and is as bigoted a hero-worshipper, both in the good and evil sense, as his great master. He is fond now of saying, 1 1 am a King's man, not a mob's man, 5 includ- ing tyrant in his term King, and people in his term mob."* The Daily News accurately interpreted the feeling of thousands, when it lamented the deterioration A of moral sentiment in Carlyle. " The generous enthusi- asm, the poetic insight, the pure, if austere, morals, the blended hope and sadness of an earnest temperament which glowed in his earlier pages, live in his later writings only as half-extinguished fires under the smouldering ashes. Personally one of the kindest of men, Mr Carlyle has cultivated an intellectual taste for bloodshed a literary lust of carnage. He has become, by sedulous self-indulgence, voluptuous in cruelty. Like old Lear, in * In 1880, when a candidate for the Lord Rectorship of Glasgow University, in opposition to Mr Bright, Mr Ruskin wrote that Carlyle and he were now the only two King's men left in the king- dom ! 302 TTiomas CarlyU. his madness, he threatens to quit the stage, muttering 'Kill kill kill."' The question arose in many minds, they read Carlyle's diatribes, if John Stuart "superficial," who, then, in England is profound? and they pointed to the calm and lucid explanation of the pan he was taking in the controversy whi< h Mr Mill had given in Parliament, with all the quiet dignity and force of argument becoming a philosopher. The idea of ju was involved; but in his pamphlet on Model Carlyle, when asked for a definition of justice, had < declaimed in eloquent language. Not so Mr Mill, who had been at pains in his writings to define it with cision, and whose action was the outcome of his serious thought of fundamental principles reached by the exercise of reason. Carlyle did not reason; ruled rhetoric and his emotions, he set reason at defiance. One remark of an able writer who mixed in the seems worthy of preservation for permanent use : " While the men whose eloquent writings, wherein are often found episodes of tender, touching pathos, and noble, generous sentiment, are yet disfigured with a passionateness and one-sidedness truly startling, have ranked themselves with the supporters of Mr Eyre; the men of calmnes- patient thought, and of industrious investigation 1 decidedly pronounced against him. On his side we have hot and interne-rate feeling; against him cool, calm, collected thougl That these remonstrances were of no avail in modify- ing the aversion to the negro which Carlyle had so long cherished was made apparent in the following year, 1867, by the publication in Maanillan of what might be called the last of the Latter-Day PamphUt*. Its title was He Advocates Slavery. 303 Shooting Niagara ; and After. While the primary pur- pose of the essay was to assail the Reform Bill of Mr Disraeli, a statesman he had always viewed with distrust, it included a reproduction of the little American Iliad. The great conflict in the United States was over, but even yet he failed to apprehend its purport. In the previous year, while the case of the Jamaica Massacre was pending, Emerson had been astonished and dis- tressed, telling his friends that " Carlyle was losing him- self;" and this assault upon the American form of government, with its violent expressions of contempt, both for the liberated negro and the Republic, deepened the regret felt by his oldest friends on the other side of the sea. " The Almighty Maker," said Carlyle, in this latest manifesto, with a confidence in his own knowledge of the Divine purpose which he would have called fanatical in another man, "has appointed the nigger to be a servant," and the American War, having been under- taken to set him free from servitude, was a war against Heaven's decree. Moreover, it was a war against an eternal law of human society, which demands that ser- vantship shall not be on the nomadic principle at the rate of so many shillings a day, but upon the principle of a contract for life. In other words, slavery is the natural condition of labour ; and that for the white man as well as the black. Mr Moncure Conway, the sincerity of whose anti-slavery feeling was attested by the liberation of his own slaves long before the War, assures us that Carlyle took the wrong side, not because his sympathies were with the oppressors, but because he was misled as to the facts of the case by the stories told him by slave- owners concerning their patriarchal arcadia in the South. 304 Thomas CarlyU. icrican lady whose noble son had died amid great renown in the Northern ranks, sent to Carlyle the une of the Harvard students who had fallen in the war, c their letters, their biographies, an account of their thoughts and deeds during that great struggle : old man read that book r last, and some i wards, when that :i lady came to see him in j>< grasped hand, and, even with tears, said, * I have been It is a pity Carlyle I change of view k the world. He certainly owed this re para: had done so .id.* As respects our own country, he declared that it had been ::i hy|xx:risy, lying to steep in the DC indred years;" and what with .1 of "traitorous politicians," the rge of Chief Justice Cockburn on mar- ine thr Governor -.not of nigger-philanthropists," he n was at hand. He had < one hope, and tl \ "our ; D he body of brave men and of beautifully >uroals penuitcn ngiai meant to be serious. H< had made men ihosc wh< > extension of the suffrage, declaring that . ! of betetofae were can. '(1 one of his amuse I.-;.MM the -; Chelsea." Another ' 'arlyle that we are all going to I Because he clothe^ the gloomy intimation in uch fantastk garr. makes our future state so picturesque, that it ceaaet to be terrible. " His View of the Lords in 1831. 305 polite women," " noble souls," " of high stoicism," and all manner of virtues. A somewhat different picture this from the one he drew of the aristocracy in Past and Present ; indicating also a change since that day in the October of 1831 when he wrote from London to Macvey Napier, " This is the day when the Lords are to reject the Reform Bill. The poor Lords can only accelerate (by perhaps a century) their own otherwise inevitable enough abolition ; that is the worst they can do ; the people and their purposes are no longer dependent on them." As a politician, he had changed during the interval of fifty years ; and to some people it will seem that the change was not one for the better. CHAPTER XX. LETTERS ON FRANCO-GERMAN WAR JOY AT THE GERMAN MPH EPISODE OF HERR WALDMULLER-DUBOC LETTER ON THE E\ SPEAKABLE TURK "OUR MIRACULOUS PREMIER* HIS LAST POLITICAL ACT MR SWINBUF HIS VIEW OF SCOTT HIS EIGHTIETH I LAST FRUIT FROM THE OLD TREE. THERE remained now only two other occasions on which Carlyle was to fci aid upon him to acqi: the puMic \\ith his \iewson the question of In the autumn of 1870 his friends had observed a great improvement in his health and sj : h seemed to be rising in consequence of the Prussian victori< war with France. He was almost !uh, the Athenaeum, freely and joyously conversing with habitues on the j. opean topic of the hour; and UK strain of his talk was, perhaps, not mode- rated by the fact that a large proportion of the men he- met retained a keen sympathy with France, even though many of them rejoiced to see ird Naj)oleon rushing to doom. Carly! exuberant feeling was expressed in a let the Weimar Gazttte in OctoK epistle had been His Views of France and Germany. 307 handed to that journal by the private friend in Germany to whom it was addressed. Of course, it gave profound satisfaction to the victorious nation, and made the name of Goethe's British expositor dearer than ever to the German people. This letter was succeeded in November by a long manifesto, addressed to his own countrymen through the Times > which proved that the writer's power in the minatory line had not by any means abated on account of advancing years. It was imperatively neces- sary, said this new proclamation, that France, which had proved herself not only unfit to guide others, but which "is swallowed up in oceans of vanity and all sorts of mendacity, not only of the conscious, but, what is far worse, also of the unconscious sort, should be dethroned from her seeming primacy in Europe." This work Ger- many, under the guidance of Bismarck, was about to achieve. In doing it she was not only vindicating for herself the position to which she was entitled, but she was also paying off France for all the miseries and mis- chiefs wrought upon her by the latter country during the last four hundred years. She must recover the territory stolen from her by France, and restore Alsace and Lor- raine to a reconstituted Germany, or as much of the latter at least as would serve for a secure boundary-fence between the two countries. In the efforts of the French to defend themselves, he saw nothing admirable. They are a vile race, altogether given over to lies, and the father of lies all their patriotism vanity, vapouring, and idle gesticulating. In contrast with them, the English public were summoned to look admiringly at " that noble, patient, deep, pious, and solid Germany." It was to Carlyle " the hopefullest public fact " that had occurred 308 Thomas Cat in his time that such a people "should be at length welded into a nation and become Queen of the Conti- nent, instead of vapouring, vain-glorious, gesticulating, letter was manifestly one-sided, and lacking in the quality of solid, comprehensive judgment Carlyle's historical cw of the quarrels between France and Germany for four hundred years introduced a principle, u' universally acted on, would plunge the whole world into war, and, as one of the most incisive <>: ;cs, who was also a warm per- nd, told him, "wipe civil- sation from the face of Europe with a sponge of blood" Did not his own book on the French Revolution show that, it Germany had suffered at the hands of France four centuries ago, France had been plunged into twenty years of war at a time much nearer our own by the jiritous assaults of Germany? Besides, to speak Germany as equivalent to Prussia, involved a false assumption. The wrongs (if wrongs they were) inflicted by France on Germany really fell upon Austria, for t! was then no kingdom of Prus- >tence The rise of Prussia dates from the sei/ure of Silesia by Freder her claim to represent the rights and avenge the wrongs 01 Austria and the old German Emj burglar.* As to Carlyle's furious contempt for the By no writer was the historical argument against C manifesto more effectively presented than by Dr Peter Bayne, who, the son-in-law of a Prussian general, spoke from an intimate personal acquaintance with Prussia and her history. In the latest edition of irtt book, Tkf Ckrittia* Lt/e, Dr Bayne gives a prefatory essay, analysing the general teaching of Carlyle, and pointing out what he conceives to be its fundamental errors. Herr Waldmiiller-Duboc. 309 French Government of Defence, it was suggested that " if, instead of acting with signal moderation, they had shown the maniacal energy of the Government of the Reign of Terror, and set fifty guillotines spouting blood, he might have spoken of them with more respect." Objectionable as Carlyle's letter seemed to be in so many respects, even at the time of its publication, when the general joy at the fall of the author of the coup d'etat led multitudes to rank themselves on the side of Germany, it is now, after the lapse of a decade, seen even more plainly to be untenable. The argu- ment was unjust to France ; and its sympathy for Germany, based on sentimental rather than equitable grounds, was also distasteful to lovers of freedom, since it rested in no slight degree on Carlyle's satis- faction with the absence among the Germans of those political virtues which the English people justly value in themselves. An amusing episode in connection with Carlyle's enthu- siastic devotion to the cause of Germany was the imposi- tion successfully practised on him by an astute son of the Fatherland, Robert Waldmiiller-Duboc by name, who, in the December of 1870, sent to Carlyle a little book of verse, called "The Thousand Years' Oak of Alsace," with an inscription indicating that the author of the volume was in the German army, then engaged in the siege of Paris. Carlyle hastened to send an acknowledg- ment of the " beautiful little blue book," the contents of which he praised lavishly as " betokening in the writer a delicate, affectionate, poetic, and gifted human brother, well skilled in literary composition not to speak of still higher things." As a matter of fact, we are assured by 3io Thomas CarfyU. competent judges, who have read Hen Waldmuller's verses, that they are thin and feeble, with a thread of nipted satire running through them that does not tend to hilarity in the reader's mind Hut < rnagined they were written by a German soldier, which led him to see in the book merits nobody else could discover. " That a soul capable of such work should now date to me from * Le Vert Galant,' and the heart of a great and M event, supremely beneficent and yet su- premely terrible, upon which all Europe is waiting v, abated breath, is another circumstance which adds im- mensely to the interest of the kind gift for me ; and I may well keep the little book ir preservation a memorial to me of what will be memorable to all the Id for another 'thousand years. I i to convey some hint of my feeling to you, as at once a writer of such a piece, and the worker and fighter in such a world ; and I try to contrive some way of doing so. Alas ! my wishes can do little for you or for your valiant comrades, nobly fronting the storms of war and of wir but if this ever reach you, let it be an assurance that I do in my heart praise you (and miglr -\ a sort, if I were a German and still young, envy you), and that no man, in Germany or out of it, more deeply applauds the heroic, invincible bearing of your comrades and more entirely wishes and augurs a glorious n <.t at the appointed hour. hat a good genius does guide you, that Heaven itself approves what you are doin^', that in tl v is sure to you, an old man's blessing; continue to quit yourselves like men, and in that case expect that a good issue >nd the reach 01 Fortune and her inconstancies. "Our Miraculous Premier" 311 God be with you, dear sir, with you and your brave brethren in arms." Alas ! this valiant and heroic, as well as delicate and gifted young warrior turned out to be no warrior at all, but a mere newspaper correspondent ! a fact which must have considerably disgusted Carlyle, if it ever came to his knowledge. But Herr Waldmiiller-Duboc, who at once handed the epistle to Mr Archibald Forbes as a serviceable " sensation " for his next morning's letter, had the satisfaction of seeing it duly telegraphed to London, where it appeared next morning (January n, 1871) in the very largest type the characteristically smart preface of Mr Forbes, who of course did not "peach" upon the provider of the copy, opening with the startling words, " Thomas Carlyle on the foreposts ! The Sage of Chelsea among the besiegers of Paris ! " It was .a good stroke of business for Herr Waldmiiller-Duboc. It also threw what he himself would have called " a straggle" of illumination on the emotional nature of Herr Waldmiiller-Duboc's victim. We must add that the strong enthusiasm for Germany which beat in the heart of Carlyle did not exclude a tender sym- pathy for the sufferings entailed upon the French; and to a lady actively employed in London further- ing the French Relief Fund he sent " a little ear of corn to join with the charitable harvest you are reap- ing, which I trust will be abundant for the sake of those poor Frenchwomen whom with all my heart I pity as you do." In the November of 1876, when he was within a few days of his eighty -first birthday, a warlike speech delivered .at the Guild-hall by Lord Beaconsfield provoked a brief 312 Thomas CarlyU. letter to the Times from Carlyle, assailing the policy on the Eastern Question of " our miraculous Premier," and denouncing "the unspeakable Ti; Never in the poll ry of t>ur time did two little phrases perform such effective sen ice ; and, a.s r was to be the last f should address to his fellow-countrymen, it is pleasant to think that it was the one, of all his polr manifestoes, that gave the u ulest and most intense satis- faction. That it contributed in a degree quite dispropor- tioned to the in hastening the d< fall of Lord Beaconsfic! ration, has been admitted on every hand That political leader had at no time been a favourite of his. In 1867, in a conversai with a visitor from Australia on the public men of England, "he seized hold of I nd ridiculed him with a bitterness of sarcasm, and a force and vigour of expression, \v de me feel," says the narrator, I was to an intellectual giant. He then assailed, the lords and gentlemen who have so long .s to be led by such a man, mention the circumstance to a large Edinburgh audience, as he informed it of the process of * education' to which he had subjected the aforesaid lords and gentlemen in the matter of Reform. He was full of fun and satiric humour while 1. Disraeli, and to be utterly unable to get over the monstrous anomaly of all the great lords and gentle: suffering tlu: > be led notorious polk, jug rally dissected poor Mr Disraeli wit 1 an amazing knowledge of the anatomy of his subje* -vas striking and enter: ing in the highest degree." S 1874,10 "The Unspeakable Turk." 313 its Tory editor, when they got on politics, " Mr Disraeli was the first politician who fell in his way, and him he executed in a noose you could almost see him dangling from the ceiling. Mr Disraeli was c a clever trickster,' who ' could not look facts in the face.'" The phrase, " He whom men call Dizzy," was originated by Carlyle ; and he could hardly contain himself in private conversa- tion when the name was mentioned. This life-long feeling of antagonism found its culminating public expres- sion in the scornful declaration which he threw in the teeth of the Guildhall orator, when he declared that it was " impossible for any Minister or Prime Minister that exists among us " to undertake a war against Russia on behalf of the Turk. "It is evident to me that this would be nothing short of insanity," he continued. He would give the Turk " something very different from war on his behalf." The Turk " must quam primam turn his face to the eastward; forever quit the side of the Hellespont, and give up his arrogant ideas of governing anybody but himself." In the main, this last letter of Carlyle was on the side of truth, justice, and humanity it was a wise as well as a potent word of advice to the British people ; yet it evinced an undue sympathy with the despotic drill imposed by their government on the Russian people, and the general result of the argument did not seem to harmonise altogether with certain memorable words about Mahomet and Islamism which Carlyle had uttered on a London platform thirty-six years before. If the word spoken by Mahomet was really invested, as Carlyle then argued, with Heavenly power, how had it come about that the followers of Mahomet had sunk to depths that were " unspeakable," and were, of all the governing powers 3 M Thomas Carlyle. in Europe, alone beyond reclamation ? During the year that followed the publication ot raculous Premier " epistle, one would here and there come across bills posted dead walls, and even in railway trains and cabins of steamers, entitled " Thomas Carlyle's Query," which asked, " I wonder how long John Bull is going to allow a crable Jew to dance on his belly ?" It has been urged by some that, notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary, Carlyle's sympathies were essentially democratic; and those who hold this nion might point to the last political act of his life as a symbol of the alleged fact Dean Stanley was though the Dean was the auth< the scheme, and sought to carry it into effect with almost passionate ardour, Carlyle at once authorised the attaching of his signature to the memorial aga the de.se( ration ot" \\'e>ti; \lbey by the intni into it of a monument in honour of the unh. ; ice Imperial. The moral influence of this act was iore emphatic by a hasty declaration on the part of Dean Stanley, that the signature must be a forgery. The Dean was apparently unacquainted with the handwriting of Carlyle's niece, and also un- aware of the fact, familiar enough to his intimate friends, Carlyle had not for a long while been able to use hi.s |>en. Amongst the replies to Carlyle's last letter, perhaps the least pleasant was one issued in pamphlet form by Mr Swinburne. It professed to have the Eastern Ques; for its theme, but that was manifestly no more than a peg on which the writer contrived to hang a attack on Carlyle. This pamphlet recalled an incident, Mr Swinburne* s Attack. 315 which was probably its motive, of 1874, when Carlyle's opinion of the author of Chastelard^ given in conversation to Emerson, on the last visit of the Concord sage to England, found its way into the American journals. The truth of the estimate was much in excess of the refinement of the language in which it was expressed; and Mr Swinburne wrote a passionate reply, in which he described the words of Carlyle as " the sewerage of Sodom," adding that "a foul mouth is ill matched with a white beard." Emerson he pictured as "a gap-toothed and hoary-headed ape, carried first into notice on the shoulder of Carlyle, and who now, in his dotage, spits and chatters from a dirtier perch of his own finding and fouling." It was no doubt true that Carlyle, in 1841, had edited the first English edition of his American friend's essays, to which he prefixed a characteristic eulogy of their author; but Emerson hardly needed this to make him known to the world, as the English poet's irate and unedifying assault seemed to imply. The figure used by Carlyle to describe Mr Swinburne was not a nice one ; but it expressed the loathing excited within him by a school of versifiers who have imported into England the worst vices of effeminate sensualists who in France degrade the name of poet. The exclusion of drinking songs, and worse, from Miss Mary Carlyle Aitken's selection of Scottish Song, published in 1874 in the Golden Treasury Series, may be ascribed with some confidence to the influence of her uncle. It was, perhaps, the same guidance that caused only three of Sir Walter Scott's compositions to be given. To the last Carlyle clung to the depreciatory estimate of the author of Waverley 316 Thomas Carlylt. which he had expressed, with almost an excess of frank- ness, in that early essay wherein he asserted that S had never been in>pircd with one idea, purpose, inst or tendency that was worthy of the name of great, ha\ nothing to recommend him, indeed, but a u healthy, ly nature" that made him the equal of Will. Cobbett The essay on Scott contains some of author's noblest teaching; but for what he said against Walter there are many, in his native land and elsewhere, who have never been able to forgive Carlyle. It was an essay, however, which Erskine of Linlathen never wearied in j.r .ising; Madame Vinet thought it admiral and so did Sir George Cornewall Lewis, to whom also Scott's aims appeared " low and vulgar," and his views of literature "sordid. By no writer h; vourable :nate of Scott been more earnestly or nx ely enforced than by Mr Gladstone. The curious fact deserves to be put upon record that the great Free Church leader, Dr Candlish, was prepared to nomir Carlyle as the man of all others who, in ! ion, ought to preside at the Scott Centenary Celebration in Edinburgh in 1871. Much to his own relief, howc . Carlyle was not called to this ceremony, and, indeed, he could not well have presided ;val after the candid judgment of S -id his work which he published in t minster Rcsicw in 1838, and \\ which he never afterwards swerved But the attitude in whi< h Candlish stood to Carlyle on this occasion was a pleasing and hopeful sign of the times. Even theolo- gians noted for their " soundness" in t! ere now regarding the Sage of Chelsea with less s\ .md more respect We ought not to forget, however, that His Eightieth Birthday. 317 Dr Chalmers had long before this date declared that Carlyle, by his firm grasp of the religious sentiment, had done more than any other man of his time to " vindicate and bring to light the Augustan age of Christianity in England." Carlyle has told how, on the eightieth, which was also the last, birthday of Goethe, it was celebrated by an outward ceremony of a peculiar kind, "wherein, too, it is to be hoped, might be some inward meaning and sincerity." It fell on the 28th of August 1831, and on that day the sage of Weimar received a graceful com- pliment from fifteen Englishmen. As a token of their veneration, they presented the poet with a highly- wrought seal, on which, amidst tasteful carving and emblematic embossing, stood these words, engraven on a gold belt, along with the date "To the German Master : From Friends in England." This seal was designed, as before noted, by Mrs Carlyle ; and a letter accompanied the gift, written by her husband, which expressed in touching language the reverence felt by the donors " as the spiritually taught towards their spiritual teacher." It is Saturday, the 4th of December 1875 ; an ^ now it is Carlyle, the disciple and first British expositor of Goethe, who has completed the eightieth year of his earthly pilgrimage. It was not inappropriate that the first tribute should arrive at Cheyne Row in the morning, in the shape of a telegram from Berlin, subscribed by ten of the most distinguished professors and politicians of Germany, the list headed by the historian Leopold von Ranke, who himself was within a few days of completing his eightieth year. These Germans thanked Carlyle, 318 Thomas Carlylt. "the champion of Germanic freedom of thought and moral integrity," for having done so much to promote cordial relations between the English and German nations. The second tribute came at a later hour of the day from Briti^i friends. Along with a gold medal, of exqui ^n, the workmanship of his friend J. E. Boehm, bearing on one side a portrait of the pa was a quiet and kindly letter of congratulation ; both v. simply handed in at the door of his dwelling, the mode of presentation deemed most congenial to Carls rigs, besides being in accord with the wholesome British aversion to all theatrical display in connect the solemn realities of life. " Not a few," said the r, "of the voices which would have been dearest to you to hear to-day are silent in death. Thi perhaps be some compensation in the assurance of revc v and affectionate gratitude of many thousands of living men and women throughout the Brit: ; .-Is and cl who have derived dc an<! ion from the noble series of your writings, and who have noted also how powerfully the world has been influenced by your great personal example. A whole generation has elapsed since you described for us the hero as a Man of Letters. We congratulate you and ourselves on the spacious fulness of years which has enabled you to sustain this rare dignity among mankind in all its possible splendour and < 1 is a matter for general rejoicing that a teacher whose gc: and achievements have lent radiance to his time still dwells amidst us ; and our hope is ; long continue in fair > feel how much you are loved and honoured, and to rest in the retrospect of a brave The Commemorative Medal. and illustrious life."* Of the medal, an engraved represen- tation of which we are privileged to lay before our readers (see page 321), silver and bronze copies were struck for the use of the subscribers, with a few for presentation to public institutions ; the copy sent for Carlyle's acceptance was in gold. In the opening months of the same year which brought this beautiful and solemn tribute at its close, the wonder- ful old man had published what was to be his penultimate work. Without the slightest preliminary notice, the January number of his first friend in time of need, Fraser's Magazine, gave the initial instalment of the Early Kings of Norway ; and the brilliant little series * This document was subscribed by the following friends : Thomas Aird, William Allingham, Alex. Bain, Thos. S. Baynes, John S. Blackie, J. E. Boehm, W. Boxall, Wm. Brodie, R.S.A. ; John Brown, M.D. ; Robert Browning, John Caird, Edward Caird, H. Calderwood, Lewis Campbell, Robert Carruthers, Edwin Chad- wick, Fred. Chapman, Henry Cole, Thomas Constable, Archibald Constable, Henry Cowper, George Lillie Craik, D. M. Craik, Francis Cunningham, Charles Darwin, Erasmus Darwin, J. Llewelyn Davies, James Donaldson, David Douglas, Edward Dowden, George Eliot, Edward Fitzgerald, Percy Fitzgerald, Robert Flint, John Forster, W. E. Forster, Robert Were Fox, A. C. Eraser, Richard Garnett, Ad. Gifford, John Gordon, A. Grant, John Richard Green, Alex. B. Grosart, George Grove, William Hanna, R. Palmer Harding, T. Duffus Hardy, Frederick Harrison, Robert Herdman, R.S.A. ; W. B. Hodgson, Jos. D. Hooker, Robert Horn, Thomas Hughes, Thos. H. Huxley, Alexander Ireland, William Jack, R. C. Jebb, David Laing, Samuel Lawrence, Arthur Laurenson, W. E. H. Lecky, G. H. Lewes, J. Norman Lockyer, John Lubbock, E. L. Lushington, Godfrey Lushington, Vernon Lushington, Lyttelton, ^E. J. J. Mackay, Alexander Macmillan, Henry S. Maine, Theodore Martin, Helena Faucit Martin, Harriet Martineau, David Masson, William Stirling Maxwell, Henry Morley, John Morley, Chas. Edward Mudie, F. Max Muller, Charles Neaves, M. O. W. Oliphant, 320 Thomas CarlyU. nonymous sketches were carried on and completed in the February and March numbers. Three years after : appearance, the editor of the magazine i ridden tally rred to the curious circumstance that, when these papers appeared, only one of the critics detected the authorship ; and we may be permitted to claim whatever of credit belongs to that exception, though to us it was indeed a marvel, not merely that we stood alone in this matter, but that every person whom we were able to consult had grave doubts on the subject, even the most warding the sketches as no more than a good imitation of the master's style. To us it seemed that but one hand in England could have penned even the brief business-like, preliminary statement as to the original sources from which the substance of the notes had been Some of the critics ascribed the work to Mr Froude ; and \vhen the belief we hazarded was at length confirmed, the same guides hastened to express the opinion that the work exhibited signs of senility. Un- fortunately for them it soon transpired that, instead of being a product of the author's old age, it had in reality been written many years before he handed the manuscript for publication to his friend Mr Allinghum, at that :. i Andrews Ormc, Richard Owen, Noel P Pollock, ard Quain, M.D. ; ecve, Mary Rich, Alexander Ruv \V. Y. Sellar, Henry Sidgwick, Samuel Spalding, James Spedding, W. Spottiswoode, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, J : Hutchison Stirling. Susan Stirling, Patrick D. Swan, Tom TV .wjxrr-Tci A. Tennyson, Anne Isabella Thackeray, W. II. Thompson, George Otto Trcvclyan, Anthony Trollopc, John Tyndall, 1 Vdich, G. S. Venables, A. W. Ward, Hcnslcigh Wedgwood, Icigh Wedgwood, W. Aldis Wright. The Last Fruit off the Old Tree. 321 the able editor of Fraser. In the same year he published in the same magazine a paper which, unlike the Norse sketches, had been newly written. The Portraits of John Knox was the last fruit off the old tree ; and the vivid sketch of the great Reformer from the pen of the vener- able octogenarian proved that his hand had lost none of its cunning, while it deepened the sorrow that this vignette was all we were ever to get from that hand on the same subject. By permission^ from the Medal by J. E. Boehm, Esq., A.R.A. CHAPTER XXI. PERSONAL REMINISCENCES OF CARI.VI E HIS ASPECl EAI S OLD ACE- sCES SPii OK DIRT" HIS PORTRAIT Oi IJ> LAMB- I HI. H.. \MLS OF LOCHGOIN Till. UN KARV: MR CLADSTON OVE OK THE ( was in one of the opening years of the last decade of life that we enjoyed the j privilege of first meet Carlyle. Or. ; that presence >om upstairs whcr newly-issued number of the Qu< cling, we ,, was one of :d to realise that this was so much mo: .il aspect than we had expected to find him, with one shoulder so much raised it to a deformity ; hut because that aspect was likewise so very homely, the air so rustic and peasant like, not to say mcouth. When, some time rwards, we 0|>cncd the newly published Memoir George we could understand how it came to pass that the dandiacal person from Boston who i Carlyle upwards of forty years ago, when he was known rilnitor to the magazines and reviews! described hi: journal as 4t a vulgar looking little His Rustic Appearance. 323 man." That was, beyond question, the impression any person, taking a merely superficial look, would have carried away. What we saw was simply such a face and form as we had come across hundreds of times in the glens and on the moorlands of Western Scotland mend- ing a feal dyke, seeing to the sheep, or hoeing potatoes in a cottage kailyard by the roadside. Met with in any one of these positions, he would have seemed in his natural place; only a keen inspection could have suggested the suspicion to any passer-by that there was something out of or beyond the ordinary run of peasants in this man. Surely no other cultured Scotsman ever went through the world with so little change of the external appearance and air that he had before leaving the cottage of his birth. xVt no period of his life, from all that we have been able to make out from conversations with his sister and others who had known him well, was Robert Burns so much of the rustic in appearance, deportment, or speech ; and yet Carlyle was a student from his earliest days, mixed for years in the best society of Edinburgh before he was thirty, got a highly cultivated lady for his wife, and an estate along with her, while for upwards of forty years he had been the intellectual leader in the Great Metropolis latterly such a potentate in the literary world of the nineteenth as Johnson was in that of the eighteenth century, and even a little more. There is something profoundly significant in the tenacity with which Carlyle must have resisted those social influences that usually rub off the provincial angularities and impart at least an external polish. That tenacity was in keeping with one of the root principles of his teaching, and reflected, perhaps to an exaggerated extent, his abhor 3 24 Thomas Carfylt. rencc of mere seeminghis detestation of shams. To the last his mother always spoke of him as " Oor Tai so also spoke at least one of his sisters, a farmer's and any Scotsman meeting him, even in his latter days, could have no difficulty in understanding why that was the habit of those who knew him best In manner he had preserved the strongly-marked characteristics of youth and his family ; we question if he deflected a hair's breadth from one of these even when he was tx ministered to in her castle by the kindly Countess who watched over his health after the death of his wife ; or even when he was received, in 1869, by Queen Victoria at the Deanery of Westminster ; or when he was receiving the Kmpress of Germany in his own house in Che -v. A bit of native granite, verily, must this man who, after some forty years of London life, mingling in the best and most polished circles, courted by the loftiest in station, with the wife of an earl to send him his daily loaf of bread from her own kitchen, because it had been found to answer best with his weak digestion, and carrying him off to her castle on the breezy clif t whenever he seemed in need of a breath of sea air, \\ith e\ npress calling at his abode in < v, should still bear about with him, in his gen aspect, air, and a- , cry modes of speech, the unmistakable marks of the obscure Annandale village in which he was born. 'I .11 in all Inryond anything we ever saw or have read of in books. Old age had bowed him down and shrivelled up full and vigorous form ; but he never could re answered to those descriptions which represent him as tall ai . Old folks at Thornhill, who remem- In the Templand Days. 325 her well the days when he and Mrs Carlyle used to visit Mrs Welsh on their way to and from Craigenputtoch and Edinburgh, had told us that he was not a tall man about five feet seven or eight is the figure they give ; and their recollections, in some instances exceedingly vivid, must be in accordance, we suspect, with the fact. Our friend Mr Thomas Lawrie, the well-known picture-dealer in Glasgow, famous as an angler and a walking encyclo- paedia of good stories about Burns and Carlyle, and many other Dumfriesshire worthies, is one of the surviving natives of Thornhill who came into close contact with the Laird of Craigenputtoch when he was visiting at his mother-in-law's. Carlyle in those days struck the homely people of the little upland town as "a bit of a dandy." He was always dressed in a nice shooting-jacket, the cloth a fashionable " mixture " not familiar to the rustic populations, and the jacket well made by a city tailor ; the " philosophy of clothes " evidently studied practically by young Sartor in those early years of his married life, if Mr Lawrie's recollection may be trusted, as we think it may. The young folks would stay with Mrs Welsh for a few days each time they passed, either going to or coming back from Edinburgh ; and, " to put aff his time," Carlyle would enter into familiar chat with Lawrie, who was then a house-painter in his native parish, while the young man was at work on Mrs Welsh's premises at Templand. It was that lady who gave any importance he then had (in the estimation of the Thornhill people) to Carlyle. She was a true lady, in every way ; very fine-looking, with an impressive air and carriage, yet kind and motherly to all who dwelt under her roof, or came about the farm. When a young man of the village, Mr Lawrie's brother, 326 Thomas Carlyle. came home, as it was thought, in a <L Iff! Welsh took kind motherly notice of him, inviting him to walk up to the farm every morning a drink of warm milk frac the same COO "the mile he had to travel the milk would do him good ; he did get better, and j>erhaps justly. lylc hadna' tx cd to Mrs Welsh's dochter, he wadna' been inurklc thocht o' at Thornhill. five years ago an old on physiognomy came to that region, and astonished the good folks of the countryside by what he said concerning the changes that came the countenance of ea dual in the course of life. Mr I<awrie can never look at one of the current photographs of Carlyle without thinking of that old lecturer; for he never saw so striking an illustration of the truth of his saying. " No doubt, the beard has made a great difference in him, as in so many other people; but the change is indeed astonishing, and the shaggy eyebrows espet pear an altogether what he looked at Thornhill."* The weight <>: on seventy years is resting upon him on this day that finds us sitting by his side in the .wing-room of the old house in Chcyne Row; though his body has become < still re we may no M, Uwrie's testimony that Gilfillan's picture of Craigenputtoch. citctl on a pccvioos page, is, as we suspected, wholly a' tcad of being wild and * "a bonny pla "a wee bit burn" making it lively, and much good arable land about, smiling in the snmmmef and autumn with excel* lent croj : port, at all events, of Mr I cmp- Itn vh*s residence, we may add, it what the Scotch call "a gent' c parish of doaebuni, about a mile nftflL Mi- \v,: h\ f.;:hcr (armed Morton Mains, in the parish of Morton, which lies in the same portion of Nilhsdalc. A Portrait of Carlyle. 327 bright and powerful, and the touch of country bronze in his complexion, the rosy tint on his cheek, the red vel- vetty winter-apple hue, together with the fire that yet flashes from his bright blue eye, proclaim that there is still a fount of vigorous life left in the aged pilgrim. It is the eye that makes the chief charm of this strange, rugged countenance ; its glance at once so keen, as quick to mark external objects as it was that morning he entered Annan town by his father's side a child of ten, as pierc- ing as when he spake with Coleridge at Highgate, and yet so sad, wistful, and tender, with a far-away look, as if the object on which he gazed was in another world. There is a wonderful contrast between the other features of the countenance and that eye of Carlyle's ; together, they reflect the contrast in his character and his writings. Apart from the eye the face has a hard, stern, cold, even forbidding aspect, such as we might associate with the Scot who has found a not uncongenial sphere on a West Indian plantation, carving his way to success by the use of the " beneficent whip ;" but in the eye there is a depth of tenderness that wells up like the light in a clear, deep pool among the mountains. This face reads the strange riddle of its owner's books ; we see in it the author of Frederick and of Sartor, of the harsh, discor- dant, denunciations of the poor negro in the Latter-Day Pamphlets, and of those Letters to Erskine that might have been written in the Isle of Patmos by St John. That new number of the Quarterly which we found him reading, paper-knife in hand, was the one that con- tained an article, not yet forgotten, by Dr Carpenter on the subject of Spiritualism ; and a reference to the essay set him off in a fashion that soon decided his identity, if 328 uis Ciirtylt. -he first few minutes a doubt existed on that hi There was no other man in the world competent to pour forth such a withering blast of scorn but Thomas < wondered what the world was coming to wh educated people and the leaders of society were beconi believer this abominable new n of the Kvil one. And then he recounted some of the facts Stated in the article, warmly praising Dr Car- penter for th - way in which he had treated the subject It was in the course of the conversation on re phenomenon of Spiritualism that we first heard from his own lips a kindred assault on the Dar- winian philosophy, i om erning which he spoke in such a way as led us to accept as authentic a report we first met with in a tr.i: -v years afterward r had had with him, and win. 1 that the faith in which he was nurtured at 1 nee in the old Dumfriesshire home had not lost its hold upon Carlyle. To the American he had said: "A good sort 01 this Mr I urwin, and well meaning, but with very little intellect. Ah, it's a sad, a terrible thing to see ni r le generation of men and -.g to be cultivated, looking around I purblind fashion, and finding no God in this uni- e. I suppose it is a reaction from the reign of. and hollow pretence, fact they do not believe. And this is what we have got to. All things from frog-spawn ; the gospel of dirt the o: row and I now stand on the e comes back to me the tence in the Catechism which 1 learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper it becomes. 4 What is the " The Gospel of Dirt." 329 chief end of man ? To glorify God, and enjoy him for- ever.' No gospel of dirt, teaching that men have descended from frogs, through monkeys, can ever set that aside." These words were in harmony with what Carlyle had, at the same period, said to a friend of our own, to whom he confessed, in most touching language, that he was seeking his way back to the simple faith of his childhood, convinced that there was more in that than in all the wisdom of the illuminati. On one of the opening days of 1877 we published the report by the American visitor in a Scottish journal, from which it found its way into the London newspapers, where it was erroneously given as an extract from a letter written by Carlyle, this statement being the invention of some blun- dering sub-editor. Immediately, the erroneous assertion that Carlyle had written such an epistle was denied, " on the best authority," by a correspondent of the Times^ under- stood to be Mr Lecky, the historian ;" but the controversy that ensued placed it beyond a doubt that the words were an authentic report of an actual conversation. One and another witness stepped into the arena to testify that they also had heard Carlyle use almost precisely the same language. One witness related, on the authority of Lady Ashburton, how at her house the conversation, on one occasion, turned on the theory of Evolution. Carlyle took no part in it, but at length, a pause occurring, he exclaimed, "Gentlemen, you are well pleased to trace your descent from a tadpole and an ape, but I would exclaim with David, ' Lord, Thou hast made me but a little lower than the angels.' " Mr Andrew James Symington, the poet and essayist, wrote : " I can vouch for having heard the same or similar sentiments from the 330 Thomas Carlylt. Sage of Chelsea, whose reverence for the God of the Bible is so deep and true that, to his thinking, it too sacred to be much spoken about On one creation, in particular, I heard him remark that the short, simple, but sublime account of Creation, given in the first chap- ter of Genesis, was in advance of all theories, for it was God's truth, and, as such, the only key to the mystery; that it ought to satisfy the savans, who in any case would never find out any other, although they might dream about it. Then, alluding to the Development hypothesis, waxing warm, and, at the same time, bringing his hand down on the table with a thump like the sledgehammer of Thor, he emphatically added 'I have no patience whatever with these gorilla damnifications of humanity f ** A friend of ours, also an old friend of Carlyle's, and, we may add, one of the most intimate English friends of :ig lately printed, for privat tion, a most com; iography of Leigh Hunt, Ha/litt, and Vs I-imb, this book was spoken of, Carlylc saving he had got a copy, and praising it as a " most piously- executed piece of work," worthy of all commendation, though it struck us, from an incidental remark, that it was the portion of the book relating to Ixrigh Hunt that had possessed the greatest interest and charm for Carlylc. This was proved almost immediately. As we had noted that he nowhere speaks of the gentle " Elia," though he We do not wish it to be supposed that we sympathise with these expressions against the Darwinian theory and its supporters ; for, whatcv ire and tendencies of that theory may be, it ost not be forgotten as Cariyle seemed to forget that many who accept the doctrine of Evolution, concerning which we here say nothing, are Christian believers, and that, too, of a much more tc type than Cariyle himself could be said to be. His Portrait of Charles Lamb. 331 has written so kindly of Leigh Hunt and other contem- poraries of Lamb, we ventured to ask him if he had much personal acquaintance with the latter. The quality of Mr Carlyle's own humour made us suspect that we should probably hear little to Lamb's advantage ; and this sus- picion was all the stronger when we reflected that the personal habits of " Elia" must have made him a distaste- ful object to the sober and correct-living Scot, who, as Wordsworth has so finely indicated, preserved in his life at least the severe purity of Calvinism, however far he might have departed from the Calvinistic creed in his speculative system. "What makes you ask what interest have you in Lamb?" " I like his humour." "Humour he had no humour." We mildly submitted our belief that he had. "You are mistaken it was only a thin streak of Cockney wit ;" this phrase uttered with a shrill shout expressive of ineffable contempt; and then the speaker added, " I dare say you must have known some I have known scores of Scotch moorland farmers, who for humour could have blown Lamb into the zenith !" The pictorial effect of this figure, delivered in a high Annandale key, especially when the speaker came to the last clause of the sentence, it is impossible for print to convey the listener saw poor Lamb spinning off into space, propelled thither by the contemptuous kick of a lusty Dandie Dinmont, in hodden grey, from the moors of Galloway or Ayrshire. "The only thing really humorous about Lamb," he continued, " was his personal appearance. His suit of rusty black, his spindle-shanks, his knee-breeches, the bit ribbons fleein' at the knees o' him : indeed he was humour personified!" this last clause again in the high 332 -nas Carlylt. , making the figure effective and mirth-compelling to a degree. And then he told us how the first occasion on which he met u the puir drucken body" was at Enfield, in 1829, at the house of a most respectable lady. It was the forenoon mb, who had been " tasting " before he came, immediately demanded gin, and because he could not get it, "kicked up a terrible row." Moral disgust at poor * 1 nsconduct was evidently at the root of the feeling of antipathy evinced by Carlyle in speaking of his humour. Lamb was not a humo because he got drunk, and because he demanded gin in the forenoon at a lady's house. :i we were told, as an example of Lamb's Co< wit, how at Enfield, on the same occasion, he had ex- pressed his regret that the Royalists had not taken Milton's head off at the 1 >rx That was one of the bright remarks which he invariably fired off whenever anybody for the first time; Carlyle had often afterwards heard him repeat it At Enfield he ga\ !>cnefit, to astonish the stranger from Scot- land. " But Lamb was a Liberal/* we remarked ; " he could not have wished such a fate for I Ah, you don't see his jK)int ; id the Royalists had taken Milton's head off in order that ;ht have damned themselves to all eternity:" Then, sotto **, Carlyle added, " Puir silly .il disgust, however, with a strong dash of the Scottish Philistine in it, was perhaps not the only cause oftl :-cct the ethereal quality of Lamb's humour was distasteful to the old Viking, who relished something of a more robust, not to say a coarser, or Bulwcr Lytton speaks of Lamb as one of those rare "Ella" as Personified Humour. 333 favourites of the Graces on whom the gift of charm is bestowed ; but the charm was assuredly not felt by Car- lyle, whatever the cause may have been. In the same essay, Bulwer Lytton says : " As Scott's humour is that of a novelist, and therefore objective, so Lamb's is that of an essayist, and eminently subjective. All that he knows or observes in the world of books or men becomes absorbed in the single life of his own mind, and is repro- duced as part and parcel of Charles Lamb. If thus he does not create imaginary characters, Caleb Balder- stones and Major Dalgettys, he calls up, completes, and leaves to the admiration of all time a character which, as a personification of humour, is a higher being than even Scott has imagined, viz., that of Charles Lamb himself. Nor is there in the whole world of humorous creation an image more beautiful in its combinations of mirth and pathos. In the embodiment of humour, as it actually lived amongst us in this man, there is a dignity equal to that with which Cervantes elevates our delight in his ideal creation. Quixote is not more essentially a gentleman than Lamb." In spite of the stain of gin, we must confess that we prefer to look upon poor "Elia " as personified humour in Lytton's sense, rather than in Carlyle's ; and when we recall the story of Lamb's devotion to his sister Mary, in which there is a pathetic grandeur that rises to the sublime, we can only marvel that it failed to correct what we believe to be a singularly false estimate of that bright and charming creature concerning whom the most classi- cal of modern poets exclaimed : " Few are the spirits of the glorified I'd spring to earlier at the gate of Heaven. ' 334 Thomas Car That same day the talk turned to one of whom Carlylc was re sympathetically ; and, in spite of emotion (not of a pleasant sort) excited within us by what we conceived to be the almost abominable injustice done to Lamb, it was with hushed heart that we listened ! of Edward Irving, as he spoke of that old companion of his youth. How often we had read the Sute to Irving! We felt it was no small ilcgc to hear him now speaking on the same theme. It has been stated by Mrs Oliphant, in her Life of Irving^ that f that work claimed kindred with the Howies of Lochgoin, and was proud of the connection with that old Covenanting : which belonged John Howie, author of the Scot* * We asked Carlylc if he knew whether there was any truth in the statement u-d that this claim of kinship with the Howies was one whirh he well remembered Irving to have cher- ishc tion, if not with pride. Then he pro- ceeded an anecdote which he had been told mor rty years before by an old Glasgow friend of Ir\; own, the l.r am, most worthy man," wl. only went to confirm * The old Martyrologist was a moorland farmer in Ayrshire, and irm of Lochgoin, which is held to-day by a grandson, has been OCCM r six hundred years. The Howies are, 1 to have been Waldensian refugees, who fled from their country to Scotland in the great Papal persecution of the :th century, and who settled at Ijochgoin. Through all the ubtequc! maincd, in the land of adoption, nerable traditions of their house ; and in the Covenanting struggle they came t among the suffering i, their moorland dwelling having been t * times " h >ilcr, and on several occidom burned to Edward Irving at Lochgoin. 335 the fact that Irving believed he was a kinsman of the martyrologist, but which also threw a quaint light both on [rving and the family of Lochgoin. When Irving was settled at Glasgow as the assistant of Dr Chalmers, he resolved to make a pilgrimage to Lochgoin, not only that tie might look upon the scene of so many stirring events in the Covenanting history, but in order to make the acquaintance of those whom he believed to be his kindred. Accordingly, he first of all took a public :oach, which carried him on his journey to the village 3f Eagelsham in the Mearns the district where Professor Wilson spent most of his boyhood, and which he has described in the early chapters of the Recreations of Christopher North. From the village Irving was obliged to make the rest of his pilgrimage on foot. Not only was there no conveyance, but the greater part of the way was over a wild moor, abounding in black tracts of marshy soil, across which no vehicle had ever ventured to pass. It was dark when the great preacher arrived at the door of the little farmhouse then, as for many a year after, a poor thatched hut of one storey, such as the English tourist views to-day with amazement when he has penetrated into the glens of the Western Highlands. Irving could hear that the family were engaged at evening worship, "the Books," Carlyle called it, as he told the story, before retiring for the night. Gently he lifted the latch, and entered on tiptoe the homely kitchen, lighted only by a turf fire. The members of the household were on their knees, and in the dim light the stranger sought the nearest vacant space, and " we may be sure, with much pious emotion," said Carlyle knelt with his kindred. With dosed eyes he bent his head over what seemed at first to 33 6 Thomas CaHyU. be a chair or stool ; but in a little while a genial warmth began to be diffused from tl which he could not understand ; by and by it became hotter still, and in a little while the heat was so strong he could endure it no longer. Opening his eyes, and steadily surveying the object, he discerned, through the gloom, that he had been '.ing over a huge pot, I tly withdrawn from the fire, a: .rung the r the pigs! At this point, Carlylo br< and then, resuming, he told how, when the service was ended, \ received a hearty welcome from the good man of the house, who was a son of the martyrologist,* and spent a happy night under the humble roof where so -o(ll) men and women had practised that thinking" which has contributed iiake Scotland what it is. This was a story liking; and it is impossible to reproduce on paper the graphic touches of t! as it iell i. om his lips, especially the account of r the black bogs surrounding Tx> and t itial manner in which he described 1 n fmdin ;|>osed kindred so well their house in the "gloam- ig really connected with the Howies? juired Carlylc knew nothing about tl it not be t' >ther that he was related ? " HJ-. Many yean . ,it we found Irvtttg't Oratim, 9/7*4* mtnt to Co9r. t.iry at Lochgoin, and rca nc with wonder and awe, on the moor dote by oar first meeting with On the flyleaf was an inscription by the author, shewing that be had sent the book as a present to hti -t, the too of the martyrotogfart. The Fen Farmers. 337 mother !" exclaimed Carlyle, " no, no : his mother was a Lowther; she was a Cumberland woman."* He added that when Irving wanted a thing to be true, he was almost sure to find some reason for believing it. Of the author of the Scots Worthies and the book by which he is best known, Carlyle spoke with profound respect. "A simple, earnest, fine old man," he said, " who had written, in his own homely way, one of the best books on the religious history of Scotland." Since he came to London he had given away many copies of it to English friends who wished to understand that history a subject on which many of them were wofully in the dark. He had given Mr Froude a copy, to let him see what kind of men there had been in the kingdom of Scotland. From the Covenanters and the moors of Ayrshire our talk on this occasion passed, by association of ideas, to an old seat of the Cromwell family in Huntingdonshire with which we happened to have somewhat intimate personal relations. " What sort of folk are the Fen farmers ?" inquired Carlyle. Many of them, we replied, were very much of the same stamp as their forefathers who fought with Cromwell, and with whom he had some acquaintance, we replied ; and then, we fear not without * The Rev. Gavin Carlyle, a nephew of Edward Irving, and editor of his collected works, informs us that Irving's mother once wrote to him of Carlyle as "uncouth." He wrote back that if Carlyle lived, he would be one of the greatest men in England. With this we may bracket an inedited anecdote, which proves the constant loyalty of Irving to his friend. The late Dr Kirkwood, a well-known Secession minister, was in London on a visit at the time of Carlyle's settlement in Cheyne Row, and, in conversation with Irving, the talk turned on the new-comer. " Carlyle," exclaimed Irving, " will revolutionise the literature of England !" v 33** Thomas Carlylt. a touch of malice, we told a story of one, a good friend of our own, who had sacrificed a farm vote at the previous Parliamentary election against his con- science. "More fool he!" cried Carlylc, in 1 loudest key. " And was it to put Glad did that ?" We replied in the affirn. he exclaimed, with a snort of ( "and t Heaven-born Minister of War, Mr Cardwell ! Froudc me they have, perhaps, a dozen guns and six howitzers that could fire in the event of a war!" We suggested that there might be as much cor in a man going to the poll for Gladstone, in the teeth of land- lord intimidation, as there was in his ancestor fighting at Naseby or I > We even ventured to go a little farther, and to question the soundness of the theory which seemed to confine the service of God by Engl men to the seventeenth century, i. He had not q as much to do with the nineteenth ; but the response to this was the reverse of satisfactory. The biographer of Cromwell refused to be drawn out on this delicate i>oinL But there was no end to his glorifying of the Germans, who were at that time completing t! >ver France. His estimate of the 1 the war was exceedingly contemptuous; even Macmahon ca: in for a satin .; of the utmost s< who was present at this conversation, ami \\\ ' .>ng official experience, wa object above t he- mark of most men, afterwards assured us that Car whom he had known intimately for upwards years, was talking on these war topics very much at dom, and without exact information about the men whom he held up to scorn. Bismarck was the god of his The Peaceful German 339 idolatry; all the other politicians in Europe were the merest " windbags," he the only genuine article in that line. Against the friend above-mentioned, he maintained that the influence of a great united Germany would be peaceful, though an observation with which he backed up this opinion scarcely seemed to support it. The very name German, he said, indicated that he had always been distinguished for his warlike character and success in arms. He is the guerre-m&n, that is, the w^r-man. " It's just the same word we have in Scotland, { I'll gar ye doV"* And so he went on pointing out how guarantee, and probably the word war itself, came from the same root. Yet the German, he would have it, was radically one of the most peaceful of human beings the very last to pick a quarrel ; but when driven to it, he will also be the last to yield. * This might serve as Carlyle's motto. His theory put Erskine of Linlathen in mind of old Sir Harry Moncreiff s saying, that we need men who will "mak' us for to know it," and who will also " mak' us for to do it." CHAPTER XX I I ! TACHMEKT TO SCOTLAND ASSISTS THE FUND FOR NIECES OF BURNS SOME CLERICAL FRIENDS HIS SCOTTISH VERSICLES GEORGE < VISITS TO SCOTLAND AT RUTHERFORD'S GRAVE AN VETERATE SMOKER " TAK* A GUDB LOOK AT HIM!" AT HI> MICE'S WEDI CARLYLE was a thorough Scot He clung, with I and almost passionate tenacity, to more than the dialect and accent of his " own stern Motherland" Never was there a ma cserved everywhere, and to the la mint-mark of the place of his nativity as he did Not even honest Allan Cunningham may be named as approach- ing him in this respect It was not only the but musical speech of Annandalc that he carried about with him d of his earthly pilgrimage; in mind and heart in all the essential qualities of his he bore the stamp of that south-western region of Scot- land that will be known to coming generations as pre- eminently the Land of Carlylc. London he selected as lace of residence simply for its convenience as a In the forty seven yean that followed his sc tie Row hardly a summer passed in which he or was gone, he never (ailed to look in A West Country Humourist. 341 upon his brothers and sisters at their respective homes, taking an interest in their domestic welfare and preserv- ing fresh and vigorous the recollections of his childhood. One nephew he took away to push his fortune in the metropolis, in the house of his own publishers ; and when his wife was suddenly snatched from his side it was a sister's child that he asked to come and keep house for him in the distant wilderness where he dwelt. One other sister, married to a farmer in a bleak upland part of their native district, he tried to make more com- fortable by endeavours, often renewed, to get a belt of trees to grow round her mountain home; but all the efforts of " oor Tarn" proved futile the young trees he brought, or sent, never came to anything, the place was so exposed and the soil so uncongenial. To Dumfriesshire he would have latterly returned altogether, he told his friend Thomas Aird, but for the fear that he might become intellectually torpid away from the society to which he had become accustomed, and which can only be pro- cured in the great city. Those who enjoyed the privi- lege of visiting Carlyle, especially if they were fellow- countrymen, can testify how vivid were his reminis- cences of his early days at Ecclefechan and Annan, and how he liked nothing better than to hear of the old companions of his boyhood. That the talk was good, though occasionally a little bitter and stinging in its characterisations, when he got on the subject of the worthies he had known in his youth, need not be told to those who have read his graphic picture of the "steel-grey" peasant-prophet, Dr Lawson of Selkirk. When a West Country humourist like the late John Kelso Hunter published his autobiography, no 342 Thomas CarlyU. reader enjoyed it more than Carlyle, and he praised that book of genuine homespun, in no stinted measure, for its "good humour and canny shrewdness," and es- isant way in which it had reminded him of what IK knew so well long ago." He lik< ibdued vein of just satire," too, which ran through it, he said, "like a suspicion of good cogna- ome tumbler of new milk." He was greatly i we told him that his letter t< had been the chief means of sending a large edition of the qua Aspect over the world, and that ;ter had pocketed the largest sum ever got by the author of an of Scotland. He deserves it," said Carlyle; "there was truth, and humour too, in that book of the Cobbler's I mir In 1859, when the Scottish people were < brating the (Yntenury of Burns'.s birth, he gave hearty I>ort, both by pen ar. to the fund for the ses Begg, the nieces of the poet "Could all the eloquen- uit will be uttered over the world on the 2$\\\ next, or even all the that will be i but convert then <> solid cash for those two int. hat a sum were there of benefi to all the ju:- con< I think, at least, the question ought to be everywhere put, pointedly, yet with due politeness^ r in Scotland, or eKewher is an assem- blage of to expre^ . tragic iount of money they will to save from in<: hesctwo nieces of i virtual answer, which this got in 1842, threw i .il light to me on such assem- Toddy-Drinking Patriots. 343 blages; but they ought to be tried again, with more direct emphasis ; and very shame will perhaps force them to do something towards saving indigent merit on the one hand, and saving on the other what is too truly a frightful (though eloquent) expenditure of pave- ment to a certain locality we have all heard of!" This letter contributed in no slight degree to secure the suc- cess with which the effort was crowned. With the London Scots, however, of the toddy drinking and rhetorical species, who prove their patriotism chiefly at taverns, he would have nothing to do. They tried, more than once, to catch him for the presidential chair, but they never succeeded. In 1870, one of their number pub- lished a letter, wherein he gave an account, not meant to be amusing, of how he and three other compatriots got up the London dinner in celebration of the Burns Centenary, at which James Hannay presided. Two of the originators of the scheme (thought to be so great a scheme that years afterwards there was actually a printed controversy as to who started it) were deputed to wait, most likely appointed themselves to wait, upon Carlyle at his Chelsea home, to see if he would take the chair ! " We might as well have stayed at home, however," was their lugubrious report. His attachment to the land of his birth was too deep and tender to admit of such a degradation for, to a man of his nature, it would have been nothing short of that a speech about Scotland and Burns, at a convivial gathering in a tavern, by Thomas Carlyle, being a phenomenon simply inconceivable. Though he did not patronise their "kirks" to any appre- ciable extent, having, indeed, usually a small congregation of his own to minister to at his own house on the Sundays, 344 Thomas CarlyU. he was on friendly terras with a few of the 1're.v n Alexander J. Scott, afterwards the Prin- 1 of Owens College at Manchester, wa.s the Presbyterian Church at h, he was in const rcourse with Carlylc. In the July of 1838 we find Erskine of Linlathen closing a letter to Scott with the sentence : " Remember me lovingly to the Carlylcs and Ma \Vhen Scott, in 1848, became a candi<: for the Chair of I ire in Univc: ge, Carlylc commended him as a man " long and intiina known to him," and " of great, solid, and original powers and; of a \> earnest chara *e he whole world, if at length the fit arena were conceded to 1 well come to reco^ For some twenty years the Chelsea Presbyterians had for their pastor a severely orthodox, but personally genial, sailor like Scotsman, Thomas Alexander, whose .logical standpoint may be guessed from the fact that it \vas he who wrote an attack on Good Words in the Record v. ide some little stir at the time the "religious world," and is referred to in Norman leod's biography. Though Mr Alexander was a Presbyterian of the most antique type, advocating st adherence to the well-trod pat! h the Covenant- ing fathers travelled, he was on excellent terms hbour in Cheyne Row; and when he died very suddenly, and under most distressing circumstances, b 1872, Carlyle sent a touching letter of condolence to Dr Hogg, one of the elders of the congregation, which was read at the funeral. Next Sunday Carlyle attended the church, and listened to the funeral sermon, which was preached by Dr Oswald Dykes, a native of his own Scottish Versides. 345 county of Dumfries. At the sale of poor Alexander's library, the article that excited the most interest and the keenest bidding was a scrap of notepaper, mounted in an ebony frame, on which was written in its author's " ken- speckle " caligraphy a versicle by Carlyle. The minister had applied for a subscription towards building schools in connection with the church, and this was the reply he got: "Rev. T. Alexander, with many regards. " There was a Piper had a Cow, And he had nocht to give her ; He took his pipes and play'd a spring, And bade the Cow consider. The Cow consider'd wi' hersel' That mirth wad never fill her : ' Gie me a pickle ait strae, And sell your wind for siller.' " Chelsea, 3d Feb. 1870. T. CARLYLE." The minister did not get the expected subscription at the time; but, by playfully threatening to have the verse lithographed for sale, he succeeded in his object. A second kindred versicle, escaped from the custody of some lady's album, runs thus : " Simon Brodie had a cow ; He lost his cow, and he could na find her, When he had done what man could do, The cow cam' hame, and her tail behind her. " Chelsea, 23 Jan. 1849. T CARLYLE." Both of these trifles remind one of the old rhymes that used to be current at the firesides of the Scottish Low- land peasantry before the newspaper had come, to banish, not only the chap-books, but also a vernacular literature, mostly in verse, that never found its way into print until the few lingering fragments were gathered by the anti- quary in our own day. A third Presbyterian minister 346 Thoma* Carfyle. of London who had ready access to Carlyle was his ake, the Rev. Gavin Carlylc, the nephew of his old nd Edward Irving. To him Carlylc once spoke of old kinsman, Dr Carlyle, of Inveresk, as a "pot- walloping Sadducee ;" and, talking liege days at nburgh, he described one of the professors in the ological Hall, as having " a (ace red like the setting a misty day such a man speaking of the ethereal and the heavenly!" Of the Presbyterian ministers in Scotland who h records of tl ;^s with Carlylc, the most prominent were Dr Chalmers and George Gilfillan. The latter writes in 1845 : " Car!;. excellent mother still lives, and we had the pleasure of . in the company of her illustrious son, ! beautiful it was to see his profound and tender regard, motherly and yearning reverence, to hear her fine old Covenanting accents concerting i transcendental tones." Gilfillan adds that "it was worth a thousand homilies to , as we were privileged to do, talking for four miles of moonlit road, with his earnest, sagacious voice, of religion, baring ever and cad as if in worship amid the w.. il>crous August a: first Gallery of Literary / in \vh: was an article on Carlylc's />,/;,// A'^vlufum, pitched on a key tpturous admiration, the r< se wrote in whose paper at Dumfries the ar: first appeared: "It is a noble panegyric; a picture painted by a p<> means with me a man insight and of heart, decisive, sharp of outline, in hues borrowed from the sun. It is rare to find one's self so mirrored in I At Rutherford's Grave. 347 One of the longest of Mr Carlyle's later visits to Scotland was made in the autumn of 1871. It extended over several months ; and towards the close of October he returned to Cheyne Row much invigorated in health, having greatly enjoyed the sojourn in his native country. In the autumn of 1874 he made another protracted stay in the North, residing for a time at Portobello for the sea-bathing and on account of its proximity to Edinburgh, and afterwards, accompanied by his brother the Doctor, and his niece, passing over to Fife, where he was the guest for several weeks of his old pupil, Provost Swan of Kirkcaldy. He drove about a great deal in the pleasant little " Kingdom," as the Fife people love to designate their county ; and one day, Thursday, September 1 7, was devoted to St Andrews. While sauntering among the tombs that surround the ruins of the ancient Cathedral, a lady observed that he was about to pass one noteworthy grave without perceiving it. She therefore ventured to say to him, " This is Samuel Rutherford's grave." He bowed and thanked her, and, having read the inscription on the tombstone, said, " Ah ! he was a deep thinker." On another day he visited a school on the Links at Kirkcaldy, and the master, anxious to show the children at their best before their distinguished visitor, set them to sing. Carlyle asked that they should sing something by Burns ; but the master not having practised the children in Burns, had to excuse himself and them as well as he could. Carlyle left exclaiming, " Scotch children singing, and not taught Burns's songs ! Oh, dear me !" Every morning he walked before breakfast to Seafield Tower, a distance of a mile and a half, to enjoy a bathe in the sea ; and after breakfast he sallied forth 348 Thomas Carlylc. armed with a long clay pij>e into the grounds surrounding the mansion of his host " A m< smoker ," said the local chronicler, " and has been he was here sixty years ago statemen confirmed by a story current at Cannes, whither he v. one season to be under the care of I " Ir.-.ks, " 111 do , Doctor, ye tell me," was his first remark ; " but :uaunna stop my pipe!" In the garden behind his house in Cheyne Row, in the summer tin* an awnin . there was a table with a canister of tobacco and a supply of pipes, whither he always betook himself, with six o'clock tea; and to any stranger he was almost si. the smoke with a denunciation of the Government for laying " a tax of some hundreds per cent upon the poor man's pipe, while the rich man's glass of wine pays scarcely one-tenth of this impost" ! I felt somewhat comforted by the thought that amount of tobacco smuggled into England is about as great as the quantity that pays the duty, which some 1 told him was actually the case; "the Smugg! said the Lord A'. : the Chancellor of the Excheq D to hin f.ir shall thou go, and no i all thy proud waves be sta> It was during one of these visits to his native country that he spent a few village of Balfron. During his stay his hostess had occasion to send her butler to the l>ank to get a cheque cashed The banker, a gentleman ry tastes, he would himself call presently with the ra*h, and shortly afterwards proceeded to fulfil his self-imposed miy On the road he i out taking a walk with her venerable guest Carlylc turned a w the set " TaK a Gude Look at Him /" 349 while the banker addressed the lady, explaining how, as she had so distinguished a visitor, he could not resist taking the liberty of coming up, in the hope that he might have the great honour of seeing her guest. There- upon Carlyle, who had heard all that was passing, turned round, and, addressing the hero-worshipper in his most sarcastic tone, said, "Weel, noo that you are here, be sure and tak' a gude look at him ! Be sure that you'll ken him the next time you see him !" The poor banker was glad to get out of the great man's presence as quickly as possible.* The coachman who daily drove Carlyle out in Stirlingshire that year, kept a careful record of all the places and distances. He was suffered to pass no man- sion or scene of a striking character, without giving a complete account of it to the lively octogenarian; and when he happened to be in ignorance as to its name, etc., he was obliged to pull up and receive an elaborate rebuke for his unpardonable ignorance. One evening, in another part of the country, Carlyle was present at a social party, where the old homely custom of calling on each member of the company for a song, or, failing that, a story, was observed. A learned minister of the Kirk, who, under a veil of the most perfect pastoral gravity, carries a rich fund of quaint humour, sang the old ballad, " Oor gude- * A kindred story is current in Chelsea. While Carlyle was one morning taking his customary walk, a well dressed man approached him, with the question, "Are you really the great Thomas Carlyle, author of the French Revolution?" "I am Thomas Carlyle," was the reply, "and I have written a history of the French Revolution." " Indeed ! Pray pardon a stranger for speaking to you ; but I was .W anxious to have a look at you." "Look on, man !" quoth the philosopher, as he resumed his walk; "look on! it will do me no harm, and you no good." 350 Thomas CarlyU. man cam* hamc md hamc cam' he,* and gave the piece wi :ttt which charmed the sage, who asked to have it over again. Many a year hfcd passed since he last heard the song, and it touched the spring of old memories. A few days afterwards he met the reverend vocalist on a country road, and gave his hearty greeting as they neared each other by merrily chanting line of his song. It seems to have been the ;y of the Kstablishment he came most into contact during these visits to Scotland; he thought the Secession Kirk was not now what it had been in his young days, and as for the other great Presbyterian de- .ination, his favourite formula when desrr \vas* :m of all righteousness, the Fret :ifer that he had no excessive liking : He was in his 84th year when he paid his last visit to , alive country ; and on this occasion he went thither for the purpose of being present at the marriage of the niece who had acted as his amanuensis and housekeeper during the whole of his widow The bridegroom was one of her Canadian cousins, M : B.A., of Bie! :eld, Ontario. 1 !K marriage cere- mony, whii h took ; '.are on August 21, 1879, according to the Sco was performed in the house of .iher, Mr James Aitk Dumfries, always one of !.:< h..i,u-- .d Scotia after tin c, who was in excellent h and spirits, <. isation with the officiating > man, the Rev. James A. Campbell, parish minist Troquccr, remarking, with tears, tl ing snared him so many years. At his Nieces Wedding. 351 also spoke of the work of John Knox, and of his being mon- umentally commemorated. Mr Campbell was deeply im- pressed with the Christian earnestness of the illustrious veteran. The newly-married pair took up their residence at Chelsea under the same roof with their venerated rela- tive. He had become so habituated to the gentle minis- trations of his niece that her departure from the home which her presence had brightened for upwards of twelve years was a simple impossibility. Before his death there was, to the great delight of the old man, another Thomas Carlyle in the Chelsea home. CHAPTER XX I II. ' LSEA ANECDOTES " JENNY KISSED ME "NOISE I NOCTURNAL WALKING A RUSKIN EPISODE PEOPLE'S EDITION OF HIS WORKS LITERARY ANA THE BOOT- \NNER SHARP SAYINGS- UGHTS ON II A. KATH Oi : H I M HONOURS A SCOTTISH SCHOOLBOY'S VISIT HIS LAST YEAR DEATH OF CARLYLE. MANY are the stories, humorous and pathetic, that c\\ round No. 5 Cheyne Row. One of the prettiest is that to Leigh Hunt's graceful little poem, "Jenny Poor Hunt had come one day in hot to the Carl vies, to tell them of some rare bit of good fortune that had just happened cither to himself or the! uj'on Mrs Curlyle sprang from re- threw her arms about the old poet's neck, and gave him 1 kiss; .e poem. That < was to noise has been already atte by t -:ri;h the Krskines were obliged to stop the clock IK.T while he was thinking out his Rectorial address. In the graphic sketch of in his London home in the Englischc Charak- I-.erlin, 1860, by Dr ! haus, one of the (Jennan translators of Carlyle's Frfdcruk^ an account is gi workshop a large noise-proof the top storey of the house, which he built specially for the purpose of securing quiet and Nocturnal Walking. 353 freedom from interruption. A lady residing close by kept Cochin China fowls, whose crowing was such a nuisance that Carlyle sent in a complaint. But the message of the philosopher only moved her to indigna- tion. " Why," she exclaimed, " the fowls only crow four times a day, and how can Mr Carlyle be seriously annoyed at that ?" " The lady forgets," was his re- joinder, "the pain I suffer in waiting for those four crows." Like Dean Swift, Christopher North, Charles Dickens, and some other eminent men of letters, Carlyle was a great nocturnal pedestrian before the infirmities of old age crept upon him. His favourite beat was the riverside district in which he dwelt ; he carried an enor- mous stick on these occasions, and walked with his eyes fixed on the ground. He kept to this habit all through the time of the garotting panic, though friends warned him that the History of Frederick^ on which he was then engaged, might be suddenly cut short some night if he did not give up his midnight rambles. This walking was his specific for procuring sleep. Mr Ruskin once sent a letter to the papers on the subject of the alleged bad manners of the English people, as compared with those of the continental nations; and he stated, as an illustration of this, that Carlyle could not walk out in the streets of Chelsea without being subjected to insult by the " roughs " of that region. Carlyle at once wrote to say that there was no truth in the allegation ; in fact, he penned no fewer than three notes contradicting the report, an exhibition of candour that did not pass without comment, especially among those who could recall the time when Carlyle was wont to sally forth on horseback every Wednesday 354 T/iomas CarJvle. to enjoy a ride on Denmark Hill with his friend and hipi>er. Not a little slanderous tattle used to ap in the papers about him. In 1870 he was pictured by some one as absolutely alone in his house at Che deserted by everybody on account of his wret< temper; the truth being that he was not in town at all, hut in the country, the guest of his good friend I^idy Ashburton. Mr Ruskin, the slanderers said, was the longest suffering, but he also had been compelled to give up his visits to Cheyne Row. Ruskin had been there every other day till Carlyle left town for a change of rendered necessary by the weak h during the severe winter of 1869-70. All cd Carl}'. the time when these reports were current in\ und him in his most amiable mood. I i.i> was especially the case in the spring of 1871, when the first volume of "people's edition" of his collected writings made appearance. It was to have been published on the i5th of March; but t n poured in to such an u: pected extent, that the publishers could not supply t all at the date originally fixed ; he:. had to d the issue. The demand for the book, especially in Scotland, was beyond all their calculations, and in< something quite unprccedcnh and :tude for this widespread inter*. ings amon- the working classes were, we had reason to know, most profound. Of tin- m. >re purely literary anecdotes! one of the best used to be told with inimitable point \ is. The self-confident editor of a certain weekly paper was pre- sent at a dinner ; i enunciated some wei on the subject under discussio: it up Literary Anecdotes. 355 in a small parcel and laying it by on a shelf as if done with for ever and a dead silence ensued. This silence, to the astonishment of all, was broken by Carlyle look- ing across the table at the editor, in a dreamy way, and saying as though to himself, but in perfectly audible tones, " Eh, but you're a puir cratur, a puir, wratched, meeserable cratur !" Then, with a sigh, he relapsed into silence. To a popular young novelist, the writer of some Scottish stories, who had called upon him, he said, "When are you going to begin some honest, genuine work?" To another popular author, of the flippant Cockney sort, a wit, he said, " And when, sir, do you bring out the Comic Bible ? " It has been said that at first Carlyle sent his manuscript to the printer without making any corrections on the first words that came, but that, happening to see the interlineated "copy" of a distinguished contemporary, he changed his plan and also took to making emendations, almost on the scale of a Balzac. We have the authority of Miss Martineau, how- ever, for a statement that does not harmonise with this story. She tells how almost every other word was altered in Carlyle's proofs. One day he went to the office to urge on the printer. " Why, sir," said the latter, " you really are so very hard upon us with your corrections. They take so much time, you see !" Carlyle replied that he had been accustomed to this sort of thing he had got works printed in Scotland, and ." "Yes, indeed, sir," interrupted the printer, " we are aware of that. We have a man here from Edinburgh, and when he took up a bit of your copy he dropped it as if it had burnt his fingers, and cried out, ' Lord have mercy ! have you got that man to print for ? Lord knows when 356 Tfiomas CarlyU. all get done with all his corrections! 1 " On the ion of Copyright he thought much and wrote not a little. \> early as 1839, indeed, he presented a p< to Parliament on the subject of the Copyright Hill then engaging the attention of the Legislature ; it was in this docun described himself, wit:. ference for simple, homely phrase, as a 44 \Vr. Books." I rising to read the answers which he- gave to Joseph Hume, in the Commission upon the h Museum, on the subject of the selection of books. " r.ut what you might think a bad book I might think a good one," was th- nice of Mr 1 ions to the sage, who was for stark naked despotism] in this matter. Carlyle would allow a book of wl personally disapproved " a run for its life," but he shoot it down if he could Mr Hume was quite unable to produce any impression upon him, and the v dropped little annoyed at nd booti: who lithographed a note of commendation which he had received from the author of Sartor, and as an advertisement ; the sage was troubled with corns, and been induced to csman a trial. such relief in usim; his hoots that he felt constrained to send him a compliment along with tl . never] dreaming urpose to whit h it would be t He was vexed at first, hut afurwards laughed, disdain- fully, when the subject came up, though he would i: add s M of the man's skill from an e\i>crience ofl ues repeated He was better sa :h the paragraph which appeared in the papers telling about a tanner whose D ire was remarkah excel-: His Intolerance of Verse. 357 lence, and who explained the matter by saying, " If I had not read Carlyle, I should never have made my leather so good." This story pleased him very much- more so, perhaps, than the most glowing panegyric on his works that had ever appeared in print. Perhaps the last public meeting Carlyle attended was one in St James's Hall, when Mr Ralston, who has done so much to familiarize English readers with the literature of Russia, lectured on " Stories for Children of All Ages." The sage came and went leaning on the arm of Mr William Allingham. He was always very fond of chil- dren, and used to carry a supply of sweets in his pocket to give to the bairns about his own door at Chelsea. To the last he continued to sneer at novel-writing, expressing contempt even for the masterpieces of George Eliot, whose Adam Bede he pronounced " simply dull ;" and at no time did he ever lose an opportunity of condemning verse, of which he had been intolerant for at leasty forty years. He had advised even Mrs Browning " to say rather than to sing," when she sent him one of her earliest books ; and there was more than a grain of truth in Miss Mitford's sneer, that he kept a set form of a letter to send to all the poets, great and small. The pub- lication of one of these letters a few years ago provoked a great controversy, and Mr Russell Lowell expressed his belief that Carlyle has no artistic sense of form or rhythm, scarcely of proportion, and that therefore he looks on verse with contempt as something barbarous as a savage ornament which a higher refinement will abolish as it has abolished tatooing and nose-rings. Mr Lowell admits that he has a conceptive imagination vigorous beyond any in his generation, with a mastery of language equalled only by 358 Thomas dir/yle. the greatest poets, but holds that he is altogether d^ tute of the plastic imagination, the shaping faculty. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that he has no soul for genuine i>oetry. Who has shown a more pro- found appreciation of lyrical compositions than he ? No writer has more completely exhibited what goes to form the essence of a song. That aphorism of Fletcher of Saltoun's, " Let me make the songs of a people, and you shall make its laws," has been so very frequently cited that it has grown stale ; but the first man to quote it was yle. When poor Ernest Jones, the Chartist leader, was denouncing the established authorities in the presence of Carlyle, the latter shook his head and told him that, "had the Chartist leaders been living in the days of Christ, He would have sent the unclean spirits into them, instead of into the swine of the (iergesenes, and so we should have happily got rid of them." One day, in the company of some clerical friends, he said ' would build a wood and h m to reason as wcl most country parsons." One ei it a small literary gathering, a lady, famous for her " muslin theology," was bewailing the wickedness of the Jews in not receiving our Saviour, and ended her diatribe by expressing regret that He had not appeared in our own time. *' How delighted," said she, " we should all be to throw our doors open to Him, and listen to His divine precepts! Don't you think so, Mr Carlyle?" Thus appealed to, he repl "No, madam, I don't I think that, had He come \ fashionably dressed, with plenty of money, and preaching doctrines palatable to the higher orders, I might 1 had the honour of receiving from you a card of in\ The Book of Job. 359 tion, on the back of which would be written, ' To meet our Saviour;' but if he had come uttering His sublime precepts, and denouncing the Pharisees, and associating with the Publicans and lower orders, as He did, you would have treated Him much as the Jews did, and have cried out, * Take Him to Newgate and hang Him !" He admitted, however, that Lord Houghton would pro- bably invite Him to breakfast. Once, while staying at a country house, Carlyle was requested to conduct family worship ; he readily complied, and, as soon as the house- hold had assembled, began reading the Book of Job, which he read right through to the end. "I call the Book of Job," he writes, " apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with a pen." One evening, during his visit to Provost Swan at Kirk- caldy, on returning from his afternoon siesta to the family sitting room, he sat down with a Bible in his hand, and, as the cloth for tea was being laid, audibly repeated the last hymn in the Scottish collection of hymns, the one beginning "The hour of my departure's come, I hear the voice that calls me home ; At last, O Lord, let trouble cease, And let thy servant die in peace." There were surprised listeners to all this; but having re-read, audibly too, one or two of the verses, he, still heeding no one, turned the pages of the book, and silently perused some passages in the stately chapters of Job. On the day he heard of Mazzini's death, he said to Mr Moncure Conway, who is, in our opinion, the most successful of all who have tried their hand at reporting 360 Thomas CarlyU. Carlyle's talk, " I remember *i lie sat for the first time on the scat there, thirty-six yean ago. A more beautiful person I never beheld, with his soft flashing eyes and face full of intelligence. He had great talent certainly the only acquaintance of mine of anything like equal intellect who ever became entangled in what seemed to me hopeless visions. He was rather silent, spoke hi 'Ugh he spoke good English even then, notwithstanding a strong accent It was plain might have taken a high rank in literature. He wrote well, as it was sometimes for the love of it, at others when he wanted a little money ; but he never wrote * ne might have done had he devoted himself to that kind of work. He had fine tastes, particularly in I hit he gave himself up as a martyr and sacrifice to his aims for Italy. He lived almost in squalor. His health was poor from the first ; but he took no care o. it. He used to smoke a great deal, and drink coffee with bread crumbled in it ; but hardly gave any attention to his food His mother used to send him n. '.< ; , but he gave it awa\ died, she left him as i two hundred pounds a year all she had ; but it went to 1 ian beggars. His mother was the only member of his family who stuck to him. His father soon turned back on his son. His only sister married a strict Roman Catholic, and she herself became too st thing to do with him. lie did see her once or twice; but the interviews were too painful to be repeated. He desired, I d t to sec her again when he was dying; but she declined Poor Mazzini i I could not have any sympathy whatev many of his views and hopes. He used to come here and talk about the 'solu His Recollections of Mazzini. 361 peoples ' ; and when he found that I was less and less interested in such things, he had yet another attraction than myself which brought him to us. But he found that she also by no means entered into his opinions, and his visits became fewer. But we always esteemed him. He was a very religious soul. When I first knew him he reverenced Dante chiefly, if not exclusively. When his letters were opened at the post-office here, Mazzini became, for the first time, known to the English people. There was great indignation at an English government taking the side of the Austrian against Italian patriots ; and Mazzini was much sought for, invited to dinners, and all that. But he did not want the dinners. He went to but few places. He formed an intimacy with the Ashursts, which did him great good gave him a kind of home-circle for the rest of his life in England. At last it has come to an end. I went to see him just before he left London for the last time, passed an hour, and came away feeling that I should never see him again. And so it is. The papers and people have gone blubbering away over him the very papers and people that denounced him during life, seeing nothing of the excellence that was in him. They now praise him without any perception of his defects. Poor Mazzini ! After all, he succeeded. He died receiving the homage of the people, and seeing Italy united, with Rome for its capital. Well, one may be glad he has succeeded. We wait to see whether Italy will make anything great out of what she has got. We wait." The Athenczum has told us, since Carlyle's death, of an extant document connected with the renting, by Mazzini, of a house in York Buildings, Chelsea, before the letter-opening year. Mrs Carlyle had negotiated the 362 Thomas Carlyle. matter, and Carlyle signed the agreement as poor Ma/zini's \vitness. In 1857 Carlyle was appointed a trustee of the National Portrait (Jallery, on the death of the Earl of Ellesmere. m Harvard University he received and accepted the degree of LL. D. a few years ago. In 1 868 he was elected president of the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution, in succession to Lord Brougham, who had succeeded .nd this office he held till his death. Though unable to appear publicly before the members, he hardly ever was in Edinburgh without visiting their rooms, and r failed to express cordial approbation of the v. that was being done by the society. He was also a patron of the Chelsc , Institute, which had head quarters in the Vestry Hall in King's Road, dote l>y his own residence; and he was on the Commission of the Peace for Dumfr We may add that copies of a letter exist in which he describes his interview with sty at the Deanery of Westminster in 1869. From the sometimes authentic reports of American erviewers," a >n< ej'tion may be formed of the life that was led by the wonderful old man in those years when 1 longing for the day of his release. Dr Cuyler, the American preacher, who visited Carlyle in 1873, stated that not a eemed to have been changed in the house since his j-r Carlyle was attired in a long blue woollen gown, rcat hing down to 1. D an uncombed mop on eye was still s' a bright tinge of red was on his thin check. 1 (led this visitor of an old alchymist He was still able to talk with his wonted vigour, and commenced at once, after a A Scottish Schoolboy's Visit. 363 few inquiries about Longfellow, Bryant, and other Ameri- can friends, a most characteristic discourse on the degen- eracy of this age of delusions and impostures. With great vehemence he declared that " England has gone clean down into an abominable and damnable cesspool of lies, and shoddies, and shams !" The first of these which he specified were the swindling joint-stock companies, and new schemes for turning everything into gold. " Abom- inable contrivances for turning commerce and trade into a villainous rouge et noir" So he continued to talk, on occasion, through most of the years of his last decade ; it was not till the dawn of 1880 that he was bereft of his extraordinary powers as a conversationalist. The last picture we have of him is from the pen of a Scottish schoolboy, one of the sens of the late Alexander Munro, the sculptor, who died young in 1871. The boys, being at school at Charterhouse, went to see their father's old friend in the May of 1880, and one of them wrote home an account of their visit. They were led up the stair with the heavy wooden balustrade into the " well-lighted, cheerful-looking room," with the little old picture of Cromwell on the wall and the sketch by Mrs Carlyle of her Haddington home on the mantelpiece the room in which Carlyle had passed the most of his time since he gave up working fourteen years before. Nothing could be more touching than the picture drawn by the boy, a grandson, we may note, of the late Dr Robert Car- ruthers, the accomplished journalist, of Inverness. " The maid went forward and said something to Carlyle, and left the room. He was sitting before a fire in an arm- chair, propped up with pillows, with his feet on a stool, and looked much, older than I had expected. The 364 Thomas Cat cr part of his face was covered with a rather shaggy beard, almost quite white. His eyes were bright blue, but looked filmy from age. He had on a sort of coloured d a long gown reaching to his ankles, and slippers on his feet A rest attached to the arm of ed a book before him. I could not quite see the name, but I think it was Channing's works. Leaning against the fireplace was a long cl and e was a slight smell of tobacco in the room. 1 and shook hands, and he invited us to sit down, and began, I think, by asking where we were living. He talked of our fat! innately, speaking in a low tone as if to himself, and stopping now and then for a moment and sighing. He mentioned the last time 1 one took a long walk to see the o: ould not catch which), 'and then he went away to Cannes and died/ and he paused and sighed 'And your grandfather, lu is dead too.' He said he had done much good work, and written several books of u mentioning particularly his 1 v, ho the people iiK-r/.ioned in Boswell's Life of Johnson were. All this was in a low tone, and rather confused and broV so I cannot put it dearly down. He said he liked my grandfather very much. I aid 1 th<u did He agreed, and spoke very highly of him as a 'mott amiable man. 1 He asked what I was going to be. I said I was not sure, but I thought of going to college the present He asked something I only caught words * good scholars. 1 I said I hoped we should turn out so. He said there could be no doubt about it, if we only kept fast to what is right and true, and we certainly ought to, as the sons ot such a respectable man. He His Last Year. 365 strongly exhorted us to be always perfectly true and open, not deceiving ourselves or others, adding something about the common habits of deceit. He went on, ' I am near the end of my course, and the sooner the better is my own feeling.' He said he still reads a little, but has not many books he cares to read now, and is * continually dis- turbed by foolish interruptions from people who do not know the value of an old man's leisure.' His hands were very thin and wasted ; he showed us how they shook and trembled unless he rested them on something, and said they were failing him from weakness. He asked, ' Where did you say you were staying, and what are you doing there ?' I told him we were at Bromley for our holidays, which ended on Thursday, when we returned to school. He asked if we were at school at Bromley. I told him we were at Charterhouse. ' Well, I'll just bid you good- bye.' We shook hands. He asked our names. He could not quite hear Henry's at first. ' I am a little deaf, but I can hear well enough talking,' or words to that effect. * I wish you God's blessing, good-bye.' We shook hands once more and went away. I was not at all shy. He seemed such a venerable old man, and so worn and old looking that I was very much affected. Our visit was on Tuesday, May 18, 1880, at about 2 P.M." That summer of 1880 was the longest and loveliest that had visited our island within the memory of living men; but it was the first that found Carlyle unable to leave town for his accustomed holiday. He had seen his native north for the last time. For more than a year, indeed, he had been visibly failing fast. The Chelsea people missed him from their streets ; his morning walk by the riverside had become infrequent, and each time 366 Thomas CarlyU. he did appear, his form was more bowed, his step feel Instead of going out every day, he was compelled to make it each alternate day; then twice a week was as much as he could bear; at last, not at all For months Airing had been taken in a bath chair. The breaking up, spread over more than ten years, of a most active and vigorous constitution, had been almost imperceptible in successive, certain stages ; but it was now evident that the end was drawing nigh. ( time it was thought he would die, and for several days ;fe hung in the balance; and when the winter came, an Arctic rigour as i the length and beauty of the preceding summer, the thoughts of n turned to the old man in Cheyne Row. They wondered how he was faring as they saw so many of the aged dropping down at their own doors ; and when his 85th birthday arr; mghts were cone, more on the venenbi He was now obliged to remain in his room, unable even to go down stairs; and at length, on one of the days of January, we learned that the severity of the season was proving too much for diminished vital jxnvers, and that he was d \\ in the midst of the keen pol; over that weary Irish problem, which he .If a ury before, thousands turned each morning, as t opened the newspaper, first of all to the bull l>h) >r Maclagan ; the nation wa t the i>easuiu's son had been a king, which, in truth, he was. Even on t of the sea, in that : iblic of the West, which had hailed the dawn of his genius before it was recognised in his own country, eacl \ >ort was looked for not less cage "God's Will be Done!" 367 while Germany waited for the tidings as if he had been one of her own sons. Generally the news was, that he had passed a quiet night, and that his general condition remained the same. Thus was it for many days. On Thursday morning, the 3d of February, the doctor found him in a drowsy state, moaning now and then in his sleep. He was almost pulseless, and in such an ex- tremely exhausted condition that it was feared the heart's action might cease at any moment. So he continued till five o'clock on Friday evening, when he became uncon- scious, his respiration being extremely feeble, and the heart's action barely perceptible. Thus he lingered through the night; and on the morning of Saturday, the 5th, about half-past eight o'clock, he breathed his last. During the previous thirty-six hours he had suffered no pain. Dr Maclagan was in attendance when the end was drawing nigh, but medical skill was of no avail. His niece, the constant companion of all his widowed years, and who had been to him as the most loving of daughters, was with him to the last. He had suffered from no organic disease ; his life had gradually burnt itself out, and he died from a general failure of vital power. Next day, in Westminster Abbey, Dean Stanley told his congregation of "one tender expression one plain- tive yet manful thought written but three or four years ago," that had not yet reached the public eye ; and which it was grateful, most of all in such an hour, to hear though it took by surprise no one who really knew Carlyle. "Three nights ago, stepping out after mid- night and looking up at the stars, which were clear and numerous, it struck me with a strange new kind of 368 Thomas Car/yU. ing. 'In a little while I shall have seen you also for the last time. God ' own Theatre of Imi; made palpable and visible to me. That also will be closed, flung to in my face, and I shall never behold it any more.' The thought of this eternal de- pn. en of this, though this is such a nothing in comparison, was sad and painful to me. And then a second feeling rose in me : What if Omnipotence, that has developed in me those those reverences, and infinite affections, should actually have said, 'Yes, poor mortals, such of you as have gone so far shall be per- mitted to go further. Hope; despair not God's will, God's will, not ours, be done.' ' CHAPTER XXIV. THE "PAUSE OF SORROWFUL STILLNESS" TRIBUTES OF THE PRESS AND THE PULPIT THE FUNERAL HIS BEQUEST OF CRAIGENPUTTOCH : THE JOHN WELSH BURSARIES PERVERSION OF TRUSTS HIS INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE AND ON LIFE HIS RELATION TO CHRISTIANITY THE SELF-DISCIPLINE OF HIS LIFE HIS LETTERS. THE world, it was truly said by the chief reflector of the feeling of England, seemed duller and colder, that one grey old man at Chelsea had faded away from among us. As another powerful journal remarked, it was a striking testimony to the greatness of Carlyle's position, that men were almost as much impressed by the tidings of his death as if he had been taken in the midst of his career. His work had been finished nearly fifteen years before no more was expected from him ; yet every educated Briton, and even many of the manual toilers in our nation, felt that they had lost something by the disappear- ance of a writer to whom they owed so much. He had passed away in a season of almost fierce political conflict, but for the moment even the leaders in the strife became oblivious of its heats and distractions there had come, as one of these leaders finely remarked, "a pause of sorrowful stillness " in the minds of all men. At the recollection of the brave old worker who had gone to his <-> A 370 Thomas Carlylc. rest, of his noble character, of his magnificent work, "the battles of the hour seemed but pale skirmishes did the fact pass unnoted, that while the parli. rnment of whit h he had said so many hard things was in the very crisis of one of its most trying struggles, he was gently sinking away from it all, setting out on the ige to the still country, " where, beyond these voices, there is peace." T was the press of Or n more unanimous than in the testimony which it bore respecting Thomas Carlyle. On all hands, by the organs of every polit party and of every chun h, it was conceded that he had been the greatest and most heroic man of letters of our time, and that he had left his traces more han any single Englishman on the moral - of the nineteenth century. The organ of the fashionable world ot London pointed to the humble station in whit h he was bon u to am 1 1'he son of a sma he had died regretted and mourned by an entii lost advanced Literalism conu . cr been an idol. brute, sc , for he placed Vapoleon ved in the divinity of Strength, but only in th is strong in in lalxnir. 1 noli age cbraism scorned the modern Hellenists, and it was impo- could be the prophet of modern aristocracies. The Scottish journals mourned the departu: eatcst Scotsman of his gen be ranked with John Knox and \ some respects to be placed above c The Tributes of the Press. 371 them ; and pointed with pardonable pride to his personal character, fruit of the wholesome training in that peasant- home of Annandale, as constituting perhaps the truest element of his greatness. The people of the little land that lies north the Tweed might be excused if they felt their hearts swell as they read in the most influential organ of British public opinion, that their newly-departed compatriot was a man who had educated himself in the art of plain living and high thinking, before he presumed to educate others, and who, when he had become famous, as while he was obscure, never taught the world lessons which he had not first made part of his own being. As was to be expected, the press of Germany vied with that of Britain in doing honour to the memory of Car- lyle, as also did the press of England's daughter, the Great Republic across the sea, generously forgiving the many hard words he had used in speaking of her. The press of Italy did not fail to render justice to the old friend of Mazzini, praising him both as a writer and as a man; from France alone came the one discordant note. There the Republican journalists reciprocated the feeling of dislike with which he had viewed their country; their verdict was distinctly unfavourable, and obviously coloured by political resentment. They de- fined him as " a Scotchman of an age anterior to Burns, a Scot of the Covenant and Old Testament," who judged Diderot and Danton according to the Covenanters 7 standard ; and declared that nothing could be looked for from a man who took his standpoint on the Cromwellian dictatorship in criticising parliamentarism, industrialism, and all that is great and small in modern civilization. Hero-worship and hatred of French sensualism blinded 372 Thomas Carlylt. Carlylc. He was original and vigorous, but too fantastic and archaic to merit the name of a great think The most favourable estimate was pronounced by the chief organ of the Clericals, which, while deploring the contempt felt for the Ixitin races by this " Cromwellian Roundhead of the nineteenth century," praised him for 41 his implacable antagonism to that modern state of society in which falsehood, hypocrisy, scepticism, and stu; ties are more and more taking the place of the chain of sentiments and ideas which links earth to The marvels of industry did not awe him, the progress of humanity he did not place in the triumphs of matter ; in his eyes a man was a man only on condition of being a Ubernacle of the living God In hundreds of pulpits, on both sides of the Bordc ;ed Churches and of nearly all the Nonconformist communions as well, the life writings of Carlyle were made the subject of discourse; and the conclusion almost unanimously reached was, that had been the greatest moral teacher of this generation. in 1840, Professor Sewell said to his K Pantheism : bk country in a great variet modes, and in a man named t who writes in a grotesque and striking manm reduced it in a most objectionable form." Not even in the most orthodox pi: ountry was such language as this uttered when he passed away. Even the : representatives of the least advanced section of the "Compendium < ^hteousness " had good to say of him. " No greater preacher of righteous- ness ever lived in modern times," said the minister of iiburgh ; and in the same The Tributes of the Pulpit. 373 one of the most thoughtful representatives of Noncon- formity spoke of him as not the least of the many great men God had given to "the small and manly Scottish nation," and stated, as a fact of his own spiritual experi- ence, that in some of his most troubled hours he had derived more aid from Sartor than from any other book save the Bible. " It is said he did not attend church or chapel, which, if true, as it is only partially, need not be marvelled at, when it is considered what both church and chapel have done to drive such men away from their doors." One preacher at Dundee took it to be a hopeful sign that the orthodox were not without hope that Carlyle may have found his way into Heaven. Those who cher- ished the hope were not trespassing far into the realm of Christian faith and hope. " Pity the heaven," he said, " that has no room for men like Carlyle. Pity the hell that got him, so far, at least, as its own peace and stability were concerned. Iniquity would not find much rest there with Carlyle's eyes upon it." Another preacher on the banks of the Tay described him as a man of blameless life, clearly gifted with the spirit and gifts of Isaiah and Ezekiel ; and yet there was no Church that would have admitted him to its ministry, or even to its membership. He had turned away from all ecclesiastical bodies, that, like Paul, he might go unto the Gentiles and preach to God's wider Church scattered throughout the world. The best men in the ecclesiastical bodies, how- ever, did not turn away from him. The Dean of Durham publicly suggested, within a day or two of his death, that a Carlyle Scholarship should be established at New- castle in honour of the man whose works were familiar, he knew, to so many of the sons of toil on the busy banks 374 Thomas Carlyle. of the Tyne ; and the Rector of Chelsea came forward with a proposal to have Mr Boehm's statue of their sage erected on the Thames Embankment at the end of the quiet little street that will henceforth be a shrine visited om every quarter of the world igh Dean Stanley offered a grave in the Abbey, it was the universal expectation that Carlyle would be laid beside his wife at Haddington. But on the eve of the funeral it transpired, as the inner circle of his friends had known for years, that he was, l> ft wish, to find his grave with his kindred in that province of Scotland where he had been born and nurtured This harmonised with all that we knew of his character. It was the last impres- sive illustration of the fact, urged by the Parisian journals as a complaint, that Carlyle was a Scot of the Old Testa- ment. Though he declared to John Sterling that the old Jew stars have now gone out, he was himself a nding proof that they are by no means extinguished This was exemplified in many ways, even in the very writings that seemed to superficial readers destructive of the religious cult and the sacred traditions that had so long dominated the life of the Scottish nation ; and now we saw it confirmed by the Hebrew-like desire that he should be laid, after life's fitful fever, in the "auld kirkyard " in the village of his birth, where his fathers sleep. On the evening of Wednesday, February 9, the body was removed from Chelsea to Euston Square, and left for the North by the 9 o'clock train, accompa: by Mr Alexander Carlyle, B.A., and his wife. The arrangements, in accordance with the express desire of deceased to > obsequies conducted in the most private and simple manner, had been kept so secret His Funeral 375 that the body passed unobserved through the streets of London from Cheyne Row to Euston; and even next day at Ecclefechan, only the villagers and a few news- paper men who had travelled thither almost on a perad- venture, were present to witness the touchingly simple funeral procession as it moved slowly along the snow- covered country road from the railway station to the graveyard. The mourners were Mr James Carlyle, late of Scotsbrig, brother of Carlyle; Mr James Carlyle, jun., Newlands ; Mr John Carlyle, Pingle, Middlebie ; Mr Alexander Carlyle, B.A., London ; Mr J. C. Austin, The Gill, Annan, nephews ; Mr James Aitken, The Hill, Dum- fries, a brother-in-law ; Mr John Aitken, The Hill, Dum- fries ; Mr Alex. Welsh, merchant, Liverpool, a cousin of the late Mrs Carlyle; Captain Henry F. Wall, Liverpool ; as also Professor Tyndall, Mr J. A. Froude, and Mr W. E. H. Lecky, who had travelled from London to attend the funeral of their deceased friend. Mr Russell Lowell, the American Ambassador, had been invited, but was unavoidably absent. A few gentlemen connected with the district were also in the churchyard; the villagers, who had shut their shops and left off work, gathered, in their ordinary attire, in clusters by the roadside, while the younger portion of the inhabitants watched the interment from the churchyard wall, a score or so of women, with little coloured shawls thrown round their shoulders to protect themselves from the cold, standing at the side of the gate. The muffled bell in the schoolhouse tower was rung slowly ; when the hearse drew up at the churchyard gate, about twenty-five minutes to one o'clock, the specta- tors reverently took off their hats and remained uncovered until the coffin was carried to the grave. At this moment 376 Thomas CarlyU. a sharp shower of sleet fell, but before the coffin had been laid upon the trestles the sun shone through the clouds and sent a gleam into the open grave. According to the Scottish custom, there was no religious ceremonial. It was with difficulty the relatives could restrain t' emo 1 Mr Froude, Professor Tyndall, and Mr Lecky all seemed deeply moved Mrs A. Carlyle, the niece, was in the churchyard, though her presence was unknown to the sj>ectators. Several beautiful wrc.< were laid upon the coffin, and choice flowers thrown into the tomb; the transient gleam of sunlight that had suddenly pierced the dull leaden skies sparkled on the flowers and on the polished oak of the coffin wet with the rain. Never before had so great a man so simple a funeral An old woman in the crowd at the gate told how Carlyle himself had pointed out to her, two summers before, the pl.ire in \\\> family " 1. where he intended he should be la: > yle^gra-. in the centre, his kindred lying on each side of him. ier ; on the other side his brother John, the translator of Dante, who d in 1879. The lair K in the west comer of the h under the shadow of some bourtree bushes growing of the wall. It is surrounded by a stout railing, wit: ornamentation. 1 n stones bear the names of the Carlyles who lie beneath ; the record of Car 11 the pen of her illustrious first-born, tells how ' brought" her husband " nine children, whereof four sons and three daught lly reverent of such a father and such a m The kirkyard, enclosed on one .1 stone wall, on the other three sides with a thorn hedge, is not above a dozen yards square ; Bequest of Craigenputtoch. 377 hillocky surface is crowded with old tombstones, some falling forward and others backward among the long rank grass ; it is one of the least lovely of the rustic burial- grounds in a land where sentiment does not much run in the direction of ornamenting the " cities of the dead." There is very little of an outlook on the surrounding country, just a glimpse to be got of a fir-covered hill on one hand, and of the Roman camp on Burnswork Hill, on the other ; but from Carlyle's grave you can see the house in which he was born, only a stone-throw distant. That Border land has long been rich in memorials of the distinguished dead; but henceforth it must attract even a greater throng of pilgrims to its soil, for now in addition to the tombs of Robert Burns, the Ettrick Shepherd, and Thomas Aird, it has the grave of its greatest son, Thomas Carlyle. Before the month in which he died was ended, it be- came known that Carlyle, while he yet occupied the office of Lord Rector, in 1867, had executed a deed bequeath- ing to the University of Edinburgh the estate of Craigen- puttoch which his wife had brought him, for the endow- ment of ten bursaries in the Faculty of Arts, to be called the " John Welsh Bursaries," in honour of his wife's father and forefathers. The "deed of mortification," read at a meeting of the Senatus on the last Saturday of February, is perhaps the most remarkable document of the kind that was ever written a revelation of the mind and heart of the testator singularly impressive and touch- ing ; the terms in which it is expressed rising to a solemn and lofty pitch of genuine eloquence that must secure for it an enduring place among the most precious of its author's literary remains. It opens with a tribute to his 378 Thomas Car "late dear, magnanimous, much-loving, and to me in- It was for her sake, and in memory of "her constant nobleness and piety towards him father) and towards me," that Carlylc, "with whatever piety is in me/ 1 bequeathed to Edinburgh University "this Craigenputtoch, which was theirs and hers." S was the main motive of the bequest ; but Carlyle also had a wish to he! *ung heroic soul struggling for what is highest," and very is the provision that the bursaries should "always be given, on solemnly a! faithful trial, to the worthiest; or if (what in practice can never hapi>en, though it illustrates my ii. i ) the claims of two were absolutely equal, and could not be settled by further trial, preference is to fall in ur of the more unrccommended and unfriended" To this Carlyle adds the solemn monition : " Under penalties graver than I, or any higru end to impose, but which I can never doubt as the law of eternal justice, inexorably valid, whether noticed or unnoticed, pervades all corners of space and of time are \ to be punctually exacted if incurred, th to be the perpetual rule for the S :ig. w We are here reminded of an incident that occurred when he accompanied Emerson on their pilgrimage to Stone- hen^e during his American friend's second visit to England Just before entering Winche stopped at the Church of Saint Cross, and, after looking quaint antiquity, demanded the piece of bread and the draught of beer, which the founder, Henry de l;!i^ in , commanded should be given to every one who should ask it at the gate. They got both from the old couple who take care " this hospitality On the Abuse of Trusts. 379 of seven hundred years' standing did not hinder Carlyle from pronouncing a malediction on the priest who receives ^2,000 a year, that were meant for the poor, and spends a pittance on this small beer and crumbs." Such mal- administration of sacred trusts always roused his deepest indignation ; and never more than when the endowments so perverted by unscrupulous trustees had been left for educational purposes. When Mr W. C. Bennett pub- lished a pamphlet in 1853 exposing such a case in con- nection with Roan's School at Greenwich, Carlyle wrote thanking him : " I hope you will completely achieve the reform of that scandalous mismanagement, to the benefit of this and future generations ; and cannot but wish there were such a preacher in every locality where such an abuse insults mankind ; a rather frequent case, I believe, in poor England just now." And, as Mr Bennett happened to be a song- writer, he added : " Such work (as the writing of the pamphlet) I continue to think, is much more melodiously ' Poetical ' for a human soul than the best written verses are." Of the ten John Welsh Bursaries, five are to be given absolutely and irrevocably for proficiency in Mathe- matics, Carlyle holding that proficiency therein is peren- nially the symptom, not only of steady application, but of a clear, methodic intellect," and that it offers, " in all epochs, good promise for all manner of arts and pursuits." The other five are to be given for proficiency in " classical learning," which also " gives good promise of a mind," though he is not quite so sure that it will continue to retain its present position as an instrument of culture; hence he leaves power to the Senatus of the University to change the destination of this part of the . 380 Thomas Carlyle. endowment, " in case of a change of its opinion on this point hereafter in the course of generations." The \alue of Craigenputtoch is at present ^250 a year, likely to become ^300. Each bursary will be tenable during the whole undergraduate course. Very beautiful are the closing words of the testator. "So may a little tr of help, to the young heroic soul struggling for wha -pring from this poor arrangement and bequ it run, forever if it can, as a thread of pure w.- i the Scottish rocks, tinkling into its little basin by the thirsty wayside, for those whom it veritably belongs to. Am passed since the greatest thinker of America asserted that the influence of Carlyle might be traced in every new book ; and one of the most powerful of our own essayists, far enough from being an unquali- .irer, acknowledges that the intellectual career of Carlyle "has exercised on many sides the profound sort of influence upon English feeling;" that ' influent :lating moral energy, in kindling cnthu- ;n for virtues worthy of enthusiasm, and in stirring a sense of the reality on the one hand, and the unreality on the other, of all that men can do or suffer, has not been surpassed by any teacher now 1 nd that "whatever later tea< lit T - m.r, '<>ne in definitely :ing opinion, in giving specific form to sentin. and in subjecting impulse to rational ili was :riendly fire-bearer :nethean spark, here the prophet who first smote the rock."* 1. *l MiKtlianiis. By John Mor ley. Pp. 195-6. London. His Influence on Literature. 381 where a protest has to be lodged by the judgment against Carlyle's doctrines, our feelings are almost always enlisted in his favour by our faith in the sincerity of his purpose, the singular purity and earnestness of his life, and the depth of his genius, to say nothing of the force and beauty of that utterance which are almost always so great as to overbear disapproval of the thought he utters. When we trace his influence on contemporary litera- ture, we find that although Wordsworth denounced him as " a pest to the English tongue," he has done more than any other writer to exalt and bring to perfection prose composition. His style, by some objected to as German, was in reality his own, much more derived, as to its peculiarities, from Ecclefechan and the old Secession pulpit (whose cadence may often be detected in his loftiest flights) than from the authors of Germany, greatly as he was beholden to these, especially to Jean Paul. It is unrivalled for its simplicity, richness, clearness and strength, infinitely preferable to that conventional style which has so often served to conceal or give inadequate expression to thought. For this he substituted the plain- speaking of colloquial intercourse, not afraid of it even when it verged towards vulgarity. Despising the artificial and frigid phraseology of the schools, he has freely employed "the fresh and beautiful idioms of daily speech;" and if an author should wish his words to be as hooks, this merit at least cannot be denied to the words of Carlyle. The notion, that his style was affected and unintelligible (Dr Robert Chambers said it was " painfully studied "), arose from the fact that " every fresh experiment in language is ridiculed and disliked, unless it be a retro- grade experiment " also from the strangeness of a strong, 382 Thomas CarlyU. ind , learned, humorous, and altogether human being daring to speak to the public in his own natural voice. If there is a pronounced mannerism in Carl) Ings, it is only becau iruc to his own pro- nounced individuality; there : it the slightest taint of affectation. His word is ever in harmony with the thought or feeling to be expressed Indeed, you see \: as they rise in the author's mind. One of the first things you marked in com is, that he spoke exactly as he wrote. Though sternly patriotic in his temper, his style is cosmo- politan ; he enriches his discourse with all that he has ered in the field of the world's literature. In the same it, he uses many of the frcedou, ; -osed to be permissible only to the composers of verse, flashing out sudden bursts of homely laughter, or almost savag or tenderest pathos in quick succession, according to the theme and the varying mood of his mind ; tea hing great truth by a familiar phrase of the market, or sharp n: cither borrowed or in the talk of the street ; taking, in .short, the - phrase that will best serve his turn, no matter wlu it comes from Annandale or from I lindostan. Edv. lias fulfil ^ing two dep. As i be classed with the great ma who display a universal and the leading of the period with wl are dealing. And this he combines with the character: excellencies of the lesser > gain in vivid power '.uniting the scope of their effort to of that clement with wh: j-crsonally sympathise His Influence on Life. 383, He unites the power of detachment, which is fair to all the actors in the story he has to tell, with the warm and enthusiastic personal interest and sympathy of conviction. He is too great a humourist to be a narrow and bitter partisan; too earnest in spirit to pourtray a struggle without taking a side. He sees something to love and pity in the hearts of all men ; but he never allows this to blind him to the cause of righteousness and truth. He has powers of severe compression equal to those of the coldest of philosophical historians, being indeed altogether matchless in his use of what has been happily called the stenographic method ; and yet he has carried the power of local painting to the very highest pitch. It is this union of the two styles of historical writing that explains the form which his work has assumed, and accounts for its so-called mannerisms. As to his influence on religion and life, that is a more perplexing problem, and one that will probably continue to provoke as much controversy in the future as it has done in the past. That he has communicated a mighty impulse to the moral activity of his generation, is almost universally conceded. He has penetrated ingenuous souls with a reverence for the true and the just thing. He has also taught more impressively than any other writer in our language the sacredness of work. But we are far from accepting the evangel that is founded on Hero- Worship, concerning which it has been too truly said that it begins by placing certain select men on a superhuman pinnacle, and ends with wholesale shooting of the weak. With respect to his religious teaching, some have thought him a truer representative of Scottish Puritanism than even Hugh Miller ; and there is not a 384 Thomas CarlyU. little truth in the shrewd remark that, " in the same way nd powerful pro- moter of free thought in matters of religion, so has Car- hands of religious bodies to whose been ev< . opposed" His position iinly not been a consistent one. To a friend of ours who happened once to say that he held the same vs as himself, Carl vie with some heat re- 1 who told you what my rrli^iniis views are? This Question was as just in one point of view as it was touching in another ; for no one could p what he meant by his mysterious allusions to God and \\'e are not disposed to rlirvj; in that great heart wl. now ceased to beat ; but it is to be feared that Car- was neai uh in the dark as to his meaning with the . who has suggest* n the sul> of ( 'e ought either to have saidmor or less. One lesson of Carlyle's life has been in< identally TK Earl of Shaftcs- bury uowledgment in Lord Beaconsfield's n are Gassttt says : ' ' The reason why C.i r >t st.-itc his views plain!) and simply are us enough. In the first place, if he had done to sixty yean ago, be would not only have lost all influence, but he would have starved. In the next place, he would have taken up the pov icrs was roost un U> him n.v -fa it would become of .on h < .u 1> Ic was always insisting, were m of his vt a true one ! The Self-Discipline of his Life. 385 alluded to by his friend Professor Masson. The latter is pointing out the sad fact that most literary men do not see or scheme much farther than into the middle of next week, any more in what pertains to the conduct of their intellect than in their material concerns, so that life for them is but a series of disconnected efforts, having no real strategic unity. But there have been men, he says, who, at an early period of their lives, or at some period less early, have formed a resolution as to the direction of their activity for the rest of their lives, and have kept true in the main to their plans. Mr Masson cites the examples of Bacon, Gibbon, Milton, Hallam, and Words- worth, and then adds : " If among our still living British writers we would seek for one in whose life, reviewed as a whole hitherto, the same character of what may be called strategy, the same noble self-discipline on a large scale, is obvious with all the clearness of a historic fact of our time, whom should we name but Carlyle?" This lesson is emphasized when we contrast the outcome of his well-planned life with the comparatively wasted lives of two of his most brilliant contemporaries. De Quincey did achieve marvellous things in spite of the absence of this strategy; but what might he not have done had he combined with his lofty genius a corresponding mea- sure of self-discipline ? As for John Wilson, Scott and others declared he had a capacity that might make him, in literature, the very first man of his generation ; but, alas ! he did not do justice to his wonderful gifts, and was distanced in the race by inferior men who observed that stringent self-regulation which he failed to apply to his splendid powers. How pleasant it is to recall the blameless nature of 2 B 386 Thomas Car Carlyle's private life, and the beautiful spirit which he exemplified not only within the domestic precinct, but also in all the social relationships, where he was ever the idliest and most helpful of men. To the \ particular he was a loving and faithful monitor, read all times to bestow patient, earnest thought on the case of the very humblest youth who applied to him for advice as to the conduct of his lite. When his muhi letters to young men and women who thus sought counsel have been brought together, tl a volume not only full of UK but also jxjrvaded throughout by a tenderly sympatl ing such as was never equalled by any other of the world's philosophers. Had a Boswell been at his side to chron less talk, the >uld ine\ 1 the Johnson which thus far sta without a ri\.il in our literature ; and we are firmly* vinced that the collection of Carlyle's Lett happily sure to appear some day, will make a book greater, both as to its lit moral value, th :. romance of or the greatest of i APPENDIX. I. THE PORTRAITS OF CARLYLE. No one has more eloquently vindicated the utility of trust- worthy portraits of great men than Carlyle. His last essay was on The Portraits of John Knox. Old Beza, in the dedi- cation of his Icones, after avowing the delight he had in contemplating the face of any " heroic friend of Letters and of true Religion," proceeded to defend himself against any imputation of idolatry or image-worship ; but Carlyle de- clares the defence to be " superfluous." Any frequent visitor to the little house in Cheyne Row knew that its tenant had what most people would call a craze for portraits of great men. i. DANIEL MACLISE was hardly the artist we should have selected to execute a portrait of Carlyle ; but to his pencil we are indebted for the earliest we have seen. Maclise was for many years a neighbour of Carlyle's, living but a few doors off, round the corner, at 4 Cheyne Walk one of the houses facing the water. The portrait, a full-length, appeared in Eraser's Magazine for June 1833. So far as we are aware, this was the first portrait of Carlyle that had been taken. He was at that date in his thirty-eighth year. In the sketch he is leaning against a column, one hand supporting his head, the other holding his hat. The letterpress accompanying the 388 Thomas CarlyU. portrait was a bit of not very brilliant Carlylese by Maginn. "Here hast thou, O Reader!" he says, "the from-stone- printed effigies of Thomas Carlyle, the thunderwordovers< of Herr Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. These fingers now in listless occupation supporting his head, or clutching outward integument with which the head holds so singular a relation that those who philosophically examine, and with a fire-glance penetrate into the contents of the great mai of the orb-shaped knobs which form the upper extremi* , know not with assured critic-craft to decide whether the hat was made to cover the head or the head erected as a peg to hang that upon yea, these finger^ tnsfcrrcd some of the most harmonious and mystic passages to the initiated, mild-shining, inaudible-light instinct and to the uninitiated, dark and un transparent as the shadows o; of those forty tttkft] \\ixlom \vhich arc com- monly known by the title ot 'Goethe's Werke,' from the i dialect oi High- Dutch to the Allgemeino Mid- Lothianish of Auld Reekie." And so on. In 1835 Ma executed a large cartoon etching of the writers in see the author of Sartor in the compar. Maginn (who presides at the symposium), Southey, Pro Macnish, Coleridge, Hogg, Croker, Lockhart, D'O. Thackeray, A , Hook, Brewster, and others. He does not seem very much at home in the company ; and his face is peepy and obscure. Carlyle was the last survivor of these Frascrians. Speaking of Maclise's portrait, Mr K. H. Hutton says: "You see ha thing char it the bright eye and arched eyebrow, which seem to indie. of marvel; you certainly sec nothing of that strong contempt for average life and eager craving after traces of force and grandeur ive made < countenance in later life the very type of a cynical of the face of one yc.i M fires, and other earth-shaking powers, of which he could but seldom detect in The Portraits of Carlyk. 389 the actual world even the trace. Maclise has not thrown any touch of ridicule into his sketch of Carlyle, unless he has made it just a little conceited and moony, though very like the later countenance, of course, in feature. Had he drawn him in later lile, what a powerful picture he must have given." 2. COUNT D'ORSAY's sketch was published in 1839 by Mitchell the printseller. It is much more characteristic of the artist than of the subject. " If Carlyle should ever relax his opinions upon society," says one critic, " and desire to go down to posterity as a fashionable personage, rather than as a stern moralist, this will be his favourite portrait. It was taken when no man of position was considered a dutiful sub- ject who did not wear a black satin stock and a Petersham coat." Even so lately as 1862 Carlyle continued to wear a stock and a very stiff one, too and could see no reason why everybody else should not be compelled to do the same. Charles Boner, who visited him in the above year, found Carlyle laughing at what the press and the public were saying about the soldiers' dress. They abused the stock. " Why, a stock was most comfortable ; the best neck-cover- ing a soldier could wear. He always wore a stock." There- fore, he did not see why soldiers were not to wear stocks, and resented indignantly the interference of the press in such matters. But not long after this colloquy with Mr Boner he departed widely from that old and certainly absurd fashion commemorated in the sketch of D'Orsay, who, by the way, was even a less appropriate artist to treat such a subject than Maclise. 3. LAWRENCE executed a portrait in crayons about 1843, of which it has been said that it is " perhaps the most intellec- tual-looking of all the published likenesses ; the beetle- browed, stern figure presents to one's mind the very ideal of 39 Thomas dirlylt. a giant in thought." Mr L:\urrnce, many years afterw executed a copy of the Somerville p f John Knox, which he agreed with Carlyle in accepting as the true repre- ition of the Scottish Reformer. A reference to Mr Lawrence will be found in Carlyle's Essay on the Knox Por- traits. 4. In 1844 a good portrait appeared in the New Spirit of the Age (edited by R. H. Home ; 2 vols.) It is subscribed wkh the familiar "most faithfully yourv was engr \RMYTACF. from Lawrence's port : It still bears the younger look of Maclise's 1833 sketch, but uch more of the ripeness of years, yet with a look of hectic contemplativencss. RIDGE LITHOGRAPH. An esteemed friend possesses a striking portrait of which we have seen only the one cop .\vn on stone" and "lithographed." The publisher is Roe of Cambridge. It is said to be a after a daguerrotype." It bears no date ; but the copy we have seen was bou irs ago. The ,;c. Thcr no moustache or 1 or. The is rather closely cut, and is brushed somewhat loosely down on the !<> le, The i: stril. .re the eye and the lips ; the eye is ht 1 compressed. In the room in \ lit there id Tennyson. It presents a striking contrast to the face of Maurice, with its firm sen ;:h, and ! >;>cful look. Tennyson, on the is a perplexed. :id half-timid look. Our friend who owns the portraits thinks that one under Tennyson, "The problem pondered;" und The problem faced as insoluble ; M under Tiie Portraits tf Carlyle. 391 Maurice, " The problem solved." Or, to put it in another way "Before the Storm;" "In the Storm;" "After the Storm." But Maurice's face in the flesh bore traces that an inward conflict was still going on for the maintenance of his faith and hope. The portrait, however, is somewhat idealised, and gives rather the impression of calm and settled assurance. Another friend, now deceased, informed us that many .years ago he was shown by a near relative of Carlyle a rather faded talbotype of the philosopher, and was then informed that it was taken by John Sterling, who in failing health amused himself by taking some pictures of his friends. Our friend's recollection of the picture corresponds with the description of the lithograph published by Roe of Cam- bridge. John Sterling's talbotype and the daguerrotype must have been about the same date. If the talbotype which our friend saw is still in existence, it must be altogether unique. 6. In 1857 there was a picture in the Royal Academy Exhibition of " Mr and Mrs Carlyle at Home," by Mr ROBERT TAIT, the same "friendly Scottish artist" who is twice referred to in exceedingly complimentary terms in Carlyle's essay on The Portraits of Knox. It was Mr Tait who reported to Carlyle on the portrait of Knox in Glasgow University, and also on the bronze figure on the monument in Glasgow Necropolis. Mr Tait furthermore reported on the famous Somerville Portrait of the Reformer. 7. AN ANONYMOUS SKETCH. In J. Camden Hotten's little volume, containing Carlyle's Rectorial Address, there is a portrait, engraved from a sketch taken, it is not said by whom, in 1859. It is not without a measure of fidelity, but must have been taken when the subject of the sketch was in one of his dullest moods. 392 Thomas CarlyU. 8. BUST BY BEHNES. A bust of Carlylc was modelled by Behncs for the Crystal Palace Portrait Gallery. The short biographical and < ntical notices in the catalogue very' able they were, but in Carlyle's case rather disparaging were :en by Samuel Phillips, author of Caleb Stukdy> and for many years literary tutu to the 7 9. Mr HKRDMAN painted a per \\ was exhibited in the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1876. Good, both as a painting and a likeness. 10. There is a medallion by WOOLNER, of which it is quite ary to say that it is in the hi-hest degree art Iced by grace and delicacy; but it is not a speaking likeness. Mr CRITTENDEN has executed a bust ; and so has Mrs D. O. HILL, to whom Carlyle gave sittings in the week of his address to the students at Edinb i J K 1 .1 ifM, A.R.A., the sculptor of the statue of John Bunyan erected at Bedford, completed a fine statue of Carlyle in 1876, from which the po n title-page is engraved. The venerable author is seated in an a chair, ami the likene^ perfect The statue, wi. gave great satisfaction to its subject (and he was by no means easy t> as exhibited in the Royal Acadc: it has been proposed by the 1 Gerald Blunt, rector of Chelsea, that the people of that pa: shall acquire the 1 set it up on the Thames 1 .mcnt at the end of Chcyne Row. Mr Boehm is war: eulogised by Carlyle in the essay on Th* Portraits of leclared that his judgment of painting and knowledge of the , and epochs of it seemed to the essayist far beyond that of any other man he had com- muned with. The Portraits of Carlyle. . 393 13. Mr MILLAIS executed a portrait in 1879. It is a seated figure, the hands on the lap, one leg crossed on the other, with strongly-contrasted light and shade on the powerful, deeply-indented features, the ashy brownness of the com- plexion, and the whitish iron-grey of the stubbly beard and thick moustaches. This is thought by some to be the noblest of all the portraits. 14. Mr HOWARD, M.P., who lately succeeded his father in the representation of East Cumberland, and who is heir- presumptive to the Earldom of Carlisle, executed more than one striking sketch of the sage, who was his intimate friend. It was Mr Howard who acted with so much energy and enthu- siasm as the secretary of the Eastern Question Association. 15. G. F. WATTS, R.A., has painted a portrait, which has been etched by M. RAJON. The artist's proofs, numbering 125 only, were sold at three prices with remarques, at fifteen guineas ; on Japanese paper, at six guineas ; on Whatman paper, at five. 1 6. J. M. WHISTLER'S portrait, exhibited at the first Ex- hibition of the Grosvenor Gallery, but not a new work then, has been variously estimated. Some conceive it to be " one of the most acceptable achievements " of Mr Whistler ; and it was said that Carlyle, at the time of its production, con- sidered it the finest portrait of himself that had till then been painted. Others declared that it was " no more Carlyle than a lump of black anthracite is a glowing fire ; " for our own part, we sympathise with the latter opinion. Carlyle is re- presented seated on a wicker-bottomed chair, dressed in black, with a brown cloak or shawl thrown over his knees, on the top of which rests his black wide-awake hat, his right hand leaning on a staff. This likeness was engraved on steel by Mr JOSEY in 1878. 394 Tfiomas Carlyle. 17. A bust by Mr Win. BRODIE, R.S.A., in the Exhibition of the Royal Scot- !emy in 1881, was bought by John Lcng, Kinbrae, Newport, the price being/ 150. 1 8. The latest portraits are nine or ten water-colour sketches from life by , done about two years ago. The artist, having the privilege - fre- quently in his room, sketched him reading, smoking, sleep- ' \itlylc pronounced the likenesses to be highly successful They will probably be exhibited in the course of the season ( 1 88 1 ). -.A series of etchings ome time been in process of execution by Mr Howard Helmiclc They are oductions of authentic and unpublished portraits and sketches in the possession of the family ; and, covering a >d of about fifty years -v Carlyle in the more intimate aspects of his home life at ease in his garden ly. These etchings, six in number, will be issued by the Etchers* Society. IOGRAPHS. For many years we have been so familiar with the photographs of Carlyle of whirh there has been a grea : the case of any other : of our time, not excepting eve >>ne or Lord Beacons! uM th. ; to be told that a consider- able period elapsed before he could be indu to a photographer. At professed .:ive contempt '1 by saw reason to change his mind. When the Critic published a bil>lm-raphi< al memoir of C 1859, he declined to assist them to the use of a good portrait ; whereupon they published a ll described it as a characteristic like- ness .tudc in I stands being one which his friends will recognise as that in which he will sometimes The Portraits of Carlyle. 395 remain for hours, when earnestly engaged in the discussion of some absorbing question " a statement as far from the truth as the portrait. Many of the photographs have been striking and powerful some, indeed, painfully so. One of the most faithful likenesses is that taken by Mr Charles Watkins, of 34 Parliament Street, London, in which Carlyle is repre- sented with his broad-brimmed felt hat on his head, casting the upper part of the face into shadow. It was one of the portraits taken by Messrs Elliot & Fry, of Baker Street, that had the honour of being engraved for the initial volume of the people's edition of Carlyle's writings. In the October of 1862 an admirable photograph was taken by Mr Vernon Heath, an engraving from which appeared in the Illustrated London News, February 19, 1881. An additional interest attaches to this portrait on account of its having been taken at the Grange, Lord Ashburton's place. Mr Heath writes : "Carlyle was then in the height of his vigour and power, and both he and his wife impressed me deeply. Towards the close of the week Bishop Wilberforce joined the party. Just think what it was to hear Carlyle and the Bishop in argument ! and that was my good fortune. There was one wet morning we amused ourselves with my camera, and it was then this portrait was taken." In 1874, on his visit to Kirkcaldy, in Fifeshire, Carlyle sat to Mr Patrick, of that town, who succeeded in producing a set of four (different positions) that were thought by Carlyle himself to be very successful. There is a strikingly faithful photograph taken in 1876 by F. Bruckmann, of u King Street, Covent Garden. A capital engraving from one of the photographs of Elliott & Fry appeared in the Graphic of April 30, 1870. It is a profile, and reproduces with admirable effect the keen -searching, sceptical, half-contemptuous and yet most pathetic weary look, which was probably the most habitual with its subject. A good portrait was published upwards of a dozen years ago in the Illustrated London News. 396 Thomas Carlylc. II.-- T11K CAKLYLK KAMI! Of the father of Carlylc we have received an anecdote that helps to confirm the view of the old man given in our second cha; '-r the death, in his eighty-second year, ol the Rev. John Johnston, the Burgher minister 01 Ecclefechan, 28, 1812, there was considerable diffi- culty in procuring a successor. The congregation first called Mi John M'Kerrow, but the Synod appointed him to Bridge of Teith. Then they called Mr Robert Balmer, but he sent to Berwick. Next, Mr Andrew Hay, who declined the never got another. The fourth preacher called was a Mr B , who was appointed by the Synod to 1 pbell Street, Glasgow. During the negotiations with the i <1 person, he had spoken a good deal about the stipend to be given, and o :he pccun >ion offered by E< n -not to t of the vill ;h wh.it he could get in Glasgow. When this came out cting of the Session, or ol the Congregation, old Carlyle rose up, and, with a dc< p of his arm, "Let th hireling go!" Hi- id low members at once acted on the advice. Our informant H .is a good proof of old ( lit into hum. in character, as the minister he so summarily dismissed had a wide repute lor being richly endowed with "saving ki 1 worldly wis gene r All Carlyle's brothers and sisters were distinguishes decisive, strong character ; and of brother Jame>. we have heard m one ot 1 rcm cen her of the same. ! seem to have double po in hi^ mouth, and were always " clcn .ught was im<!< tan. It was h. logy from the old \ Kcclcfechan. " Been a long tune in ->ked an Amc: -Her The Carlyle Family. 397 on the outlook for a sight of the sage. " Been here a' ma days, sir." " Then you'll know the Carlyles ? " " Weel that ; a ken the whole o' them. There was, let me see," he said, leaning on his shovel and pondering, "there was Jock, he was a kind o' throughither sort o' chap, a doctor, but no a bad fellow Jock he's deid, man." "And there was Thomas?" said the inquirer eagerly. "Oh ay, of course, there's Tarn a useless munestruck chap that writes books and talks havers. Tarn stays maistly up in London. There's naething in Tarn. But man, there's Jamie owre in the New- lands there's a chap for ye. He's the man o' that family ! Jamie tak's mair swine into Ecclefechan markets than ony ither farmer in the parish ! " Carlyle is survived by many near relatives, the most of whom are still resident in their native country, though others have emigrated to Canada, where more than one nephew has risen to a position of professional distinction. A nephew now farms Craigenputtoch, though he does not occupy the house where Sartor was written, being obliged to reside else- where, to be near schools for his children. In the mean time, the house is given up to a shepherd. Of all the members of his family, perhaps the one who most closely resembled Carlyle is his sister, Mrs Aitken, of Dumfries, the mother of the young lady who for so many years acted as the house- keeper of her uncle. We have heard Mrs Aitken described by those who are privileged with her acquaintance as a lady of remarkable intellectual power and a most brilliant con- versationalist, with quaint, bright forms of expression akin to those that lighten up the books of her illustrious brother. In addition to translating Dante's Inferno, Dr John Carlyle wrote several articles for the Edinburgh Review and other periodicals. The name Carlyle is pronounced " Keryl " in Annandale. We have stated in the first chapter that Carlyle took a warm interest in the genealogy of his House. A reference to his 398 Thomas CarJyU. genealogical inqu: where we are told that Tcufelsdrockh had written "long historical inquiries into the genealogy of the Futteral Family, hen is far as Henry the Fowler : the whole of which we pass over, not without silent astonishment." He was unquestionably proud oi '- and an For indeed," he s.i \ alter Shandy often insisted, thei much, nay almost all, in Names. The Name is the earliest Garment you wrap round the earth-visiting ME : to which it thenceforth cleaves, more tenaciously (for there arc Names that have lasted nigh thirty centuries) than the very r III. DAVID HOPE OF GLASG< The laic Mr David Hope, men' ;.nv, who died i fine collection of letters written to him by Carlylc when they were young men. Mr Hope was a n< ny" n, and he and young Ten :c great Hope's house in Windsor Place his home when he v. isgow. A friend, who once saw some of the '-ers that one had been .is sojoun with a i urgent cr .d the Tobacco, or there will be a famine in t be obliged to use t t leaves if you don't sec to ! the old com; you sec. '\\iiv should a living man CD: use hSs a fool? INDEX. Aird, Thomas, 185, 249, 341. Aitken, Mary Carlyle, 315. Aitken, Mrs, ot Dumfries, 285. Alexander, Rev. Thos., 344. Allingham, Win., 70, 248, 321, 357- America, 139, 144, 174, 252, 293, SOS- Argyll, Duke of, 190, 294. Aristocracy, Carlyle's eulogy of the British, 304. Arnold, Dr, 221. Arnott, Dr, of Ecclefechan, 24. Ashburton, Lady, 285, 329. Athen&um, The, 202, 250, 361. Ballantyne, Thomas, 204, 250, 251. Bayne, Dr P., 269, 308. Beaconsfield, Lord, 7, 271, 273, 3" 312. Blackie, Prof., 158. Blackwodd's Magazine, 81, 118, 144, 202. Boehm, J. E., 317, 374, 392. Boner, Charles, 215, 249, 266. Braid, Betty, 283. Brewster, Sir David, 68, 72, 73. Broune, Dr Jas., 117. Browning, Robt., 177. , Browning, Mrs, 357. Bruce, Robert the, 5. Buchanan, David, of Sydney, 59, 217. Buchanan, Robt., 189. Buller, Charles, 82, 85, 228. Bunsen, Baron, 177. Burlesques of Carlyle's style, 253- Burns, Robt., n, 40, 47, 105, 108, 118, 128, 146, 342, 347. Burns, Rev. Dr Thomas, 39. Campbell, Dr Macleod, 180, 197, 260. Candlish, Dr, 316. Carlyle, Thomas, his genealogy, 4, 397 ; birth of, 1 1 ; his father, 13 ; his mother, 19 ; anecdotes of childhood, 31 ; of his boyhood, 103 ; his schoolmasters, 35 ; goes to University, 50 ; turns from pulpit, 55 ; his dyspepsia, 57 ; his poverty in youth, 59 ; be- comes schoolmaster, 62 ; ap- plies for chair of astronomy, 69 ; first literary productions, 70 ; his poems, 73 ; Life of Schiller, 78, 82 ; translates Legendre's Geometry and Wilhelm Meister, 79; Speci- mens of German Romance, 83 ; marriage, 90 ; first so- journ in London, 104 ; settle- ment at Craigenputtoch, 105 ; letter to Goethe, 106 ; Essays in Edinburgh J\evieiv, 120 ; his essay on Burns, 128 ; ASartor Resartus, 134; first /.meeting with Emerson, 143 ; his relatives, 153; a letter of the cholera year, 155; settles 400 TJwmas Carfyle. in Chelsea, 157 ; lectures, 165; : political well, 206; 1. :im Ki 256; Sterling's evuy n, 261 ; Frederick the Great, 262 ; Lord Rector of i '>'. 273 ; a 1 grave, 289 ; 1 ingS 291 : .ings of Norway, 320 . >2i ; persona] reminiscences of. at his niece's wedding, 350; a S xilboy's vi 363 ; his death, 367 ; funeral, 374 ; influence on literature, 381 K ciplinc, 384 ; his letters, 386 ; rtraits of, 387. anecdote of her corge of, Charlotte .98; verses f> to, 109; 163, 195, 261 Vath, 277 280. .:se of, 4 ; Alexander . 346; Thomas, Seek, 15 B A., 74, 347. 37'' -98, 337, 346; the 396. ;i6. 52. 213. Coltr .'59. ', Carlyle as a, Con way, Moncurc D., 252, 293, Cooper, Thot., 240. Cow; 214. Craij: i 'Ian, 227. Cuylcr's, Dr, sketch of Carlyle, 362. Darwinism, Carlyle on, 328. ens, Chas., 99, 179,304. Drumwhinn Bridge, the Poem 229. ties, receives bell \V. dc Carlyle, 7; the cholera 153. Ecclcfcchan, country a: Lord Scrope at, 8 ; 23, . % 50, 152. George, 357. n, Ralph Waldo, 139, 140, 142, 143, 190, 253, 303, - 3*4 'iomas, 150, 1 80, 276, 283, 25, 316, 339, 344. Everett, Alex. H., 140. Exttmimr Newspaper, 166, 199, 237, 243, 24$. Eyre, Governor, Carlylc's eu- logy of, 297. Forbes, Archibald, 311. For- 213, 241, 249. :' . Carlyle .>o6. ' / Maganns, 70, 1 20, 1 34, 138, 144, 320, 387. Free Kirk, Carlylc's definition of, 350. Froude, J. A., 161, 284, 286, >75- Fuller, Margaret, 176, 195, 282. Gallows, Carlylc's l*licf in the, 255- Germany, 84, 165, 266, ?o6. 317. 339- in, George, 146, 346. Gladstone, ' 190, 316, (i.'.luir 209. Goethe, 82, 99, 106, 227, 316. Grant, James, 109, 166, 191, Index. 401 Haddington, Knox Memorial at, 286 ; Carlyle's visit to in old age, 289. Hamilton, Sir Wm., 105, 114, 152, 162, 164, 179. Ha're, Archdeacon, 257. I Hero-Worship, 191. History, Carlyle as a writer of, 212, 218. Hoddam, burial-ground in, 9. Hodgson, Wm., of Cupar-Fife, 66, 249, 254, 255, 292. Holbeach, Henry, 270. Home, R. H., 185, 236. Houghton, Lord, 359. Howies of Lochgoin, The, 334. Hughes, Thomas, 300. Hunt, Leigh, 161, 167, 169, 223, 258. Hunter, John Kelso, 341. Huntingdon, 208, 337. Inglis, Henry, 114. Inglis, Rev. Wm., of Dumfries, 47- Ireland, Carlyle's newspaper ar- ticles on, 245. Irving, Edward, 8, 334, 18, 49, 64, 66, 82, 91, 98, 104, 286, 334, 337- Irving, Joseph, 217. Jamaica Massacre, 294. Japp, LL.D., A., Hay, 77, 8l, no. Jeffrey, Lord, 79, 114, 121. Johnson, Dr, 102. Johnston, Rev. John, of Eccle- fechan, 42, 43. Johnston, Rev. John, Carlyle's tutor, 37, 38. Jones, Ernest, 358. Kingsley, Charles, 150,294,301. Kirkcaldy, Carlyle's visit to in 1874, 347. Knox, John, 263, 275, 286 ; his daughter Elizabeth, 94. Laing, David, 95. Lamb, Charles, 139, 330. Landor, W. S., 179, 242. Latter-Day Pamphlets, 199. ^awrie's, Thomas, recollections of Carlyle, 325. Lawson of Selkirk, Prof., por- trait of by Carlyle, 44. Lecky, W. E. H., 329, 375. Leslie, Prof., 63. Lewes, Geo. H., 266. London Library, 173, 212. Lord's Prayer, Carlyle on, 285. Lowell, J. Russell, 254, 357, 375. Lytton, Bulwer, 77, 333. Macaulay, Lord, 209, 223, 258, 269. Maccall, Wm., 250. Mackenzie, Henry, 129. Maclaren, Charles, 117. Macready, W. C., 177. Maginn, Dr, 81. Martineau, Harriet, 164, 249, 355- Masson, David, 212, 220, 248, 249. Maurice, F. D., 150. Maxwell, Sir W. Stirling, 276. Mazzini, Joseph, 193, 359. Milburn, Rev. W. H., 148, 183. Mill, John Stuart, 105, 138, 180, 190, 234, 239, 261, 291, 302. Miller, Hugh, 226, 383. Mitford, Mary Russell, 180,215, 216, 357- Monuments, Carlyle's support of Wallace and Bruce, 288. Morgan, Prof. De, 68. Morley, John, 380. Mozley, Canon, 219. Museum, British, 212. Napier, Sir Charles, hero of Scinde, 264. Napier, Macvey, 136. Napoleon III., 198, 277. Negro Question, Carlyle on, 291. Newspapers, Carlyle on, 244. Paisley, Carlyle at, 76. Peals of Ecclefechan, The, 26. Permissive Bill, Carlyle a sup- porter of, 247. Popery, Carlyle on, 170. 2 C 402 Thomas ( ey, Thos - >, 80, 105, 109, i Kac, Robt., 246. ", Leopold von, 12. Robinson. Crabb, 178. m, John, 294. 296, joi, Rusiell, Lady\Vm.,97 238, 292. Scotland, scenery o attachment to, 34 Sa>fsman, The, 8 287, 300. 3 ; Carlylc's 0. , 1 1 6, 136, , 8$, 216, ion Kirk, Carlyle's ne< 103. ca, 268. 275. Newspaper, 165, 199, 384. ran, 46, 264, 3 '4, 3 6 7, 203, 219. ^07, 256, 291. 176. Swan, Provost, of Kirkcaldy, 65. 359- Swinburne, Algernon Symington, A. J. f 329. Taylor, \Y Tennyion, A t to, 268. I Newspa; 181, 186, 198, 250, 259. Carlylc of, 7. Turk, Carlylr . n the. Two Hundred and 1- .::> Years Ago, 229. Vaughan, Dr Robert, on ( 209. Queen, 324, 362. 93- 'l mother- in ' -' % 151, l8o, M., 161, 393. he functions of, lylc on, ico. i : PKIVTKD v HOME ft MACOOMALO. UNIVI.KMIV oi CA1 MOKMA UBRARS BERKELI Return m <!<-sk book is IM 1 on rhc last date stamped b< 22 DEC 15-66 U Jan'62BP LOAN DEPT UI"S--.lli tlB, RNL#3iB UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY rtflPilPro