OARLYLE, THOMAS. 



89 



The revenue for the year concluded was 2,- 

 800,000, and the expenditure 2,633,783. 



The Assembly resolved that an amendment 

 to the Constitution be adopted, to allow the 

 option of addressing Parliament in the Dutch 

 language. The further extension of railroads 

 was decided upon, including a line to West 

 Griqualand. Harbor improvement:! were also 

 authorized. The railroad construction author- 

 ized involves expenditures amounting to five 

 millions sterling. 



OARLYLE. THOMAS, an eloquent British 

 author and leader of contemporary thought, 

 died at his house in Chelsea, February 5th. 

 He was the eldest of a family of eight children. 

 His father, James Carlyle, the son of a small 

 Scotch tenant farmer, was a working stone- 

 mason at the time of the author's birth, and 

 afterward became a prosperous farmer ; he 

 was a man of rectitude and energy, possessing 

 mental traits and endowments similar to those 

 which, developed in literary form, gave his son 

 the mighty influence he has exercised over the 

 English mind. All his sons became men of 

 character and ability. Thomas Oarlyle was 

 born at Ecclefechan, a village near Dumfries, 

 December 4, 1795. He learned to read and 

 write in the parish school of Hoddam, and was 

 taught the elements of Latin by the minister. 

 In his ninth year he passed into the burgh 

 school at Annan. Before his fourteenth birth- 

 day he entered the University of Edinburgh. 

 He made few friends, and was little interested 

 in the professors and their teachings, although 

 they numbered among them men of European 

 reputation, who were able to inspire an unu 

 sual zest in the generality of students for the 

 literary and philosophical studies of the class- 

 room. Carlyle devoted himself to reading, 

 exploring with avidity the college library and 

 the various circulating libraries of the city. 

 These independent and desultory studies were 

 so confining as to impair his health. Under 

 Sir John Leslie, whom alone among the pro- 

 fessors he made his friend, he obtained a knowl- 

 edge of mathematics rare among youths of his 

 years. He was destined for the ministry by 

 his father, but after passing through the four 

 years' curriculum of arts he concluded that he 

 could not conscientiously follow that profes- 

 sion. " Now that I had gained man's estate," 

 he said, recounting the spiritual crisis he passed 

 through in deciding the question, " 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 my chamber and closed 

 the door, and around me there came a troop- 

 ing throng of phantasms dire from the abys- 

 mal depths of nethermost perdition ; doubt, 

 fear, unbelief, mockery, and scoffing were 

 there ; and I wrestled with them in agony of 

 spirit." He embraced the calling of a teacher, 

 and first taught mathematics in the school he 

 had lately attended in Annan; and after re- 

 maining there two years went to Kirkcaldy to 

 teach mathematics and the classics in the burgh 



school, wishing to be near his friend Edward 

 Irving, who had a private school in the same 

 town. After two more years spent in this un- 

 congenial pursuit, in which he acquired the 

 name of a stern pedagogue, Carlyle went up 

 to Edinburgh to embark in the profession of 

 literature. His first employment was in the 

 compilation of Brewster's "Edinburgh Encyclo- 

 paedia." At the instance of Sir David Brew- 

 ster he translated Legendre's " Geometry and 

 Trigonometry," prefacing it with an essay on 

 proportion. At this time he made the acquaint- 

 ance of the German language and its literature, 

 the treasures of which were first unlocked to 

 the English-reading public by his sympathetic 

 translations and criticisms. His brother, Dr. 

 John Carlyle, who afterward acquired a place 

 in literature by his translation of Dante, was 

 at that time studying in Germany. Carlyle 

 contributed to the " New Edinburgh Review " 

 an article on " Faust," the first product of his 

 German studies. He was for several years 

 tutor to the gifted Charles Buller. He joined 

 the staff of brilliant writers engaged upon the 

 "London Magazine," to which he contributed 

 in 1823 the first part of his " Life of Schiller," 

 and in the following year a translation of " Wil- 

 helm Meister's Lehrjahre." Goethe's novel 

 and the style of the translation were sharply 

 assailed by the critics, led by De Quincey, one 

 of the few Englishmen who at that time knew 

 anything about the master-poet of Germany. 

 Undeterred by the contempt with which that 

 masterpiece of German literature had been 

 received, Carlyle in 1827 published several 

 volumes of " German Romance," containing 

 translations of short pieces of fiction by the 

 principal writers of the romantic school. 



In 1827 Carlyle married Jane Welsh, daugh- 

 ter of Dr. Welsh, of Haddington, who was a de- 

 scendant of John Knox. Carlyle's wife owned 

 a farm among the Dumfriesshire hills, whither 

 he betook himself and lived for six years, 

 wrapped in his literary work, with his wife for 

 his only companion. Mrs. Carlyle was in char- 

 acter and intellect hardly inferior to her hus- 

 band. In the seclusion of Craigenputtock farm 

 Carlyle wrote the essays on Burns, Goethe, and 

 Johnson, Heyne, Novalis, Voltaire, and Dide- 

 rot. "Sartor Resartns" was written at this 

 period, but not published till years afterward. 

 The young author, by the independent and self- 

 prompted work which he was enabled to ac- 

 complish in his mountain retreat, gained a great 

 name, and was occasionally sought out by visit- 

 ors from afar who had drawn light from his phi- 

 losophy and hailed him as their teacher. Em- 

 erson visited him at Craigenputtock, and list- 

 ened with wonder to the brilliant and original 

 talk which streamed from the lips of his host. 

 Carlyle wrote for the "Edinburgh Review," 

 but was frequently offended at the ruthless lib- 

 erties that Jeffrey took with his manuscript, 

 which was pruned and patched by that pedan- 

 tic editor into conformity with his finical can- 

 ons of taste. With Napier us editor, Carlyle'a 



