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THOMAS CARLYLE

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FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES


_The following Volumes are now ready_:--

THOMAS CARLYLE. By Hector C. Macpherson.
ALLAN RAMSAY. By Oliphant Smeaton.
HUGH MILLER. By W. Keith Leask.
JOHN KNOX. By A. Taylor Innes.
ROBERT BURNS. By Gabriel Setoun.
THE BALLADISTS. By John Geddie.
RICHARD CAMERON. By Professor Herkless.
SIR JAMES Y. SIMPSON. By Eve Blantyre Simpson.
THOMAS CHALMERS. By Professor W. Garden Blaikie.
JAMES BOSWELL. By W. Keith Leask.
TOBIAS SMOLLETT. By Oliphant Smeaton.
FLETCHER OF SALTOUN. By G. W. T. Omond.
THE BLACKWOOD GROUP. By Sir George Douglas.
NORMAN MACLEOD. By John Wellwood.
SIR WALTER SCOTT. By Professor Saintsbury.
KIRKCALDY OF GRANGE. By Louis A. Barbe.
ROBERT FERGUSSON. By A. B. Grosart.
JAMES THOMSON. By William Bayne.
MUNGO PARK. By T. Banks Maclachlan.
DAVID HUME. By Professor Calderwood.

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THOMAS CARLYLE

by

HECTOR C MACPHERSON

Famous Scots Series







Published by Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier
Edinburgh and London

The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr Joseph Brown, and the
printing from the press of Messrs Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh.

Second Edition completing Seventh Thousand.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION


Of the writing of books on Carlyle there is no end. Why, then, it may
pertinently be asked, add another stone to the Carlylean cairn? The
reply is obvious. In a series dealing with famous Scotsmen, Carlyle has
a rightful claim to a niche in the temple of Fame. While prominence has
been given in the book to the Scottish side of Carlyle's life, the fact
has not been lost sight of that Carlyle owed much to Germany; indeed, if
we could imagine the spirit of a German philosopher inhabiting the body
of a Covenanter of dyspeptic and sceptical tendencies, a good idea would
be had of Thomas Carlyle. Needless to say, I have been largely indebted
to the biography by Mr Froude, and to Carlyle's _Reminiscences_. After
all has been said, the fact remains that Froude's portrait, though
truthful in the main, is somewhat deficient in light and
shade--qualities which the student will find admirably supplied in
Professor Masson's charming little book, "Carlyle Personally, and in his
Writings." To the Professor I am under deep obligation for the interest
he has shown in the book. In the course of his perusal of the proofs,
Professor Masson made valuable corrections and suggestions, which
deserve more than a formal acknowledgment. To Mr Haldane, M.P., my
thanks are also due for his suggestive criticism of the chapter on
German thought, upon which he is an acknowledged authority.

I have also to express my deep obligations to Mr John Morley, who, in
the midst of pressing engagements, kindly found time to read the proof
sheets. In a private note Mr Morley has been good enough to express his
general sympathy and concurrence with my estimate of Carlyle.

_EDINBURGH, October 1897._




CONTENTS


                                                                    PAGE
CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE                                                             9


CHAPTER II

CRAIGENPUTTOCK--LITERARY EFFORTS                                      29


CHAPTER III

CARLYLE'S MENTAL DEVELOPMENT                                          42


CHAPTER IV

LIFE IN LONDON                                                        65


CHAPTER V

HOLIDAY JOURNEYINGS--LITERARY WORK                                    79


CHAPTER VI

RECTORIAL ADDRESS--DEATH OF MRS CARLYLE                              112


CHAPTER VII

LAST YEARS AND DEATH OF CARLYLE                                      129


CHAPTER VIII

CARLYLE AS A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL THINKER                            138


CHAPTER IX

CARLYLE AS AN INSPIRATIONAL FORCE                                    152





THOMAS CARLYLE




CHAPTER I

EARLY LIFE


'A great man,' says Hegel, 'condemns the world to the task of explaining
him.' Emphatically does the remark apply to Thomas Carlyle. When he
began to leave his impress in literature, he was treated as a confusing
and inexplicable element. Opinion oscillated between the view of James
Mill, that Carlyle was an insane rhapsodist, and that of Jeffrey, that
he was afflicted with a chronic craze for singularity. Jeffrey's verdict
sums up pretty effectively the attitude of the critics of the time to
the new writer:--'I suppose that you will treat me as something worse
than an ass, when I say that I am firmly persuaded the great source of
your extravagance, and all that makes your writings intolerable to many
and ridiculous to not a few, is not so much any real peculiarity of
opinion, as an unlucky ambition to appear more original than you are.'
The blunder made by Jeffrey in regard both to Carlyle and Wordsworth
emphasises the truth which critics seem reluctant to bear in mind, that,
before the great man can be explained, he must be appreciated.
Emphatically true of Carlyle it is that he creates the standard by which
he is judged. Carlyle resembles those products of the natural world
which biologists call'sports'--products which, springing up in a
spontaneous and apparently erratic way, for a time defy classification.
The time is appropriate for an attempt to classify the great thinker,
whose birth took place one hundred years ago.

Towards the close of the last century a stone-mason, named James
Carlyle, started business on his own account in the village of
Ecclefechan, Dumfriesshire. He was an excellent tradesman, and frugal
withal; and in the year 1791 he married a distant kinswoman of his own,
Janet Carlyle, who died after giving birth to a son. In the beginning of
1795 he married one Margaret Aitken, a worthy, intelligent woman; and on
the 4th of December following a son was born, whom they called Thomas,
after his paternal grandfather. This child was destined to be the most
original writer of his time.

Little Thomas was early taught to read by his mother, and at the age of
five he learnt to 'count' from his father. He was then sent to the
village school; and in his seventh year he was reported to be 'complete'
in English. As the schoolmaster was weak in the classics, Tom was
taught the rudiments of Latin by the burgher minister, of which strict
sect James Carlyle was a zealous member. One summer morning, in 1806,
his father took him to Annan Academy. 'It was a bright morning,' he
wrote long years thereafter, 'and to me full of moment, of fluttering
boundless Hopes, saddened by parting with Mother, with Home, and which
afterwards were cruelly disappointed.' At that 'doleful and hateful
Academy,' to use his own words, Thomas Carlyle spent three years,
learning to read French and Latin, and the Greek alphabet, as well as
acquiring a smattering of geometry and algebra.

It was in the Academy that he got his first glimpse of Edward
Irving--probably in April or May 1808--who had called to pay his
respects to his old teacher, Mr Hope. Thomas's impression of him was
that of a 'flourishing slip of a youth, with coal-black hair, swarthy
clear complexion, very straight on his feet, and except for the glaring
squint alone, decidedly handsome.' Years passed before young Carlyle saw
Irving's face again.

James Carlyle, although an austere man, and the reverse of
demonstrative, was bound up in his son, sparing no expense upon the
youth's education. On one occasion he exclaimed, with an unwonted
outburst of glee, 'Tom, I do not grudge thy schooling, now when thy
Uncle Frank owns thee to be a better Arithmetician than himself.' Early
recognising the natural talent and aptitude of his son, he determined
to send him to the nearest university, with a view to Thomas studying
for the ministry. One crisp winter's morning, in 1809, found Thomas
Carlyle on his way to Edinburgh, trudging the entire distance--one
hundred miles or so.

He went through the usual university course, attended the divinity
classes, and delivered the customary discourses in English and Latin.
But Tom was not destined to 'wag his head in a pulpit,' for he had
conscientious objections which parental control in no way interfered
with. Referring to this vital period of his life, Carlyle wrote: 'His
[father's] tolerance for me, his trust in me, was great. When I declined
going forward into the Church (though his heart was set upon it), he
respected my scruples, my volition, and patiently let me have my way.'
Carlyle never looked back to his university life with satisfaction. In
his interesting recollections Mr Moncure Conway represents Carlyle,
describing his experiences as follows:--'Very little help did I get from
anybody in those years, and, as I may say, no sympathy at all in all
this old town. And if there was any difference, it was found least where
I might most have hoped for it. There was Professor ----. For years I
attended his lectures, in all weathers and all hours. Many and many a
time, when the class was called together, it was found to consist of one
individual--to wit, of him now speaking; and still oftener, when others
were present, the only person who had at all looked into the lesson
assigned was the same humble individual. I remember no instance in which
these facts elicited any note or comment from that instructor. He once
requested me to translate a mathematical paper, and I worked through it
the whole of one Sunday, and it was laid before him, and it was received
without remark or thanks. After such long years, I came to part with
him, and to get my certificate. Without a word, he wrote on a bit of
paper: "I certify that Mr Thomas Carlyle has been in my class during his
college course, and has made good progress in his studies." Then he rang
a bell, and ordered a servant to open the front door for me. Not the
slightest sign that I was a person whom he could have distinguished in
any crowd. And so I parted from old ----.'

Professor Masson, who in loving, painstaking style has ferreted all the
facts about Carlyle's university life, sums up in these words: 'Without
assuming that he meant the university described in _Sartor Resartus_ to
stand literally for Edinburgh University, of his own experience, we have
seen enough to show that any specific training of much value he
considered himself to owe to his four years in the Arts classes in
Edinburgh University, was the culture of his mathematical faculty under
Leslie, and that for the rest he acknowledged merely a certain benefit
from being in so many class-rooms where matters intellectual were
professedly in the atmosphere, and where he learned to take advantage
of books.' As Carlyle put it in his Rectorial Address of 1866, 'What I
have found the university did for me is that it taught me to read in
various languages, in various sciences, so that I go into the books
which treated of these things, and gradually penetrate into any
department I wanted to make myself master of, as I found it suit me.'

In 1814, Carlyle obtained the mathematical tutorship at Annan. Out of
his slender salary of L60 or L70 he was able to save something, so that
he was practically independent. By and by James Carlyle gave up his
trade, and settled on a small farm at Mainhill, about two miles from
Ecclefechan. Thither Thomas hied with unfeigned delight at holiday time,
for he led the life of a recluse at Annan, his books being his sole
companions.

Edward Irving, to whom Carlyle was introduced in college days, was now
settled as a dominie in Kirkcaldy. His teaching was not favourably
viewed by some of the parents, who started a rival school, and resolved
to import a second master, with the result that Carlyle was selected.
Irving, with great magnanimity, gave him a cordial welcome to the 'Lang
Toon,' and the two Annandale natives became fast friends. The elder
placed his well-selected library at the disposal of the younger, and
together they explored the whole countryside. Short visits to Edinburgh
had a special attraction for both, where they met with a few kindred
spirits. On one of those visits, Carlyle, who had not cut off his
connection with the university, called at the Divinity Hall to put down
his name formally