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 on the annual register. In his own words: 'Old Dr Ritchie "not at home" when I called to enter myself. "Good!" answered I; "let the omen be fulfilled."' Carlyle's studies in Kirkcaldy made him eager to contribute to the fulfilment of the omen. Among the authors which he read out of the Edinburgh University library was Gibbon, who pushed Carlyle's sceptical questionings to a definite point. In a conversation with Professor Masson, Carlyle stated that to his reading of Gibbon he dated the extirpation from his mind of the last remnant that had been left in it of the orthodox belief in miracles.

In the space of two years, Carlyle and Irving 'got tired of schoolmastering and its mean contradictions and poor results.' They bade Kirkcaldy farewell and made for Edinburgh,—Irving to lodge in Bristo Street, 'more expensive rooms than mine,' naively remarks Carlyle, where he gave breakfasts to 'Intellectualities he fell in with, I often a guest with them. They were but stupid Intellectualities, etc.' As for their prospects, this is what Carlyle says: 'Irving's outlooks in Edinburgh were not of the best, considerably checkered with dubiety, opposition, or even flat disfavour in some quarters; but at least they were far superior to mine, and indeed, I was beginning my four or five most miserable, dark, sick, and heavy-laden years; Irving, after some staggerings aback, his seven or eight healthiest and brightest. He had, I should guess, as one item several good hundreds of money to wait upon. My peculium I don't recollect, but it could not have exceeded £100. I was without friends, experience, or connection in the sphere of human business, was of shy humour, proud enough and to spare, and had begun my long curriculum of dyspepsia which has never ended since!'[1] Carlyle's intention was to study for the Bar, if perchance he could eke out a livelihood by private teaching. He obtained one or two pupils, wrote a stray article or so for the 'Encyclopædias'; but as he barely managed to pay his way, he speedily gave up his law studies. He was at this time—the winter of 1819—'advancing,' as he phrases it, 'towards huge instalments of bodily and spiritual wretchedness in this my Edinburgh purgatory.' It was about a couple of years thereafter ere Carlyle went through what he has described as his 'spiritual new birth.'

When Carlyle was in diligent search for congenial employment, a certain Captain Basil Hall crossed his path, to whom Edward Irving had given lessons in mathematics. The 'small lion,' as he calls the captain, came to Carlyle, and wished the latter to go out with him 'to Dunglas,' and there do 'lunars' in his name, he looking on and learning of Carlyle 'what would come of its own will.' The said 'lunars' meanwhile were to go to the Admiralty, 'testifying there what a careful studious Captain he was, and help to get him promotion, so the little wretch smilingly told me.' Carlyle adds: 'I remember the figure of him in my dim lodging as a gay, crackling, sniggering spectre, one dusk, endeavouring to seduce me by affability in lieu of liberal wages into this adventure. Wages, I think, were to be smallish ("so poor are we"), but then the great Playfair is coming on visit. "You will see Professor Playfair." I had not the least notion of such an enterprise on these shining terms, and Captain Basil with his great Playfair in posse vanished for me into the shades of dusk for good.'[2] When private teaching would not come Carlyle's way, he timorously aimed towards 'literature.' He had taken to the study of German, and conscious of his own powers in that direction, he applied in vain to more than one London bookseller, proposing a complete translation of Schiller. Irving not only did his utmost to comfort Carlyle in his spiritual wrestlings, but he tried to find him employment. The two friends continued to make pleasant excursions, and in June 1821 Irving brought Carlyle to Haddington, an event which was destined to colour all his subsequent life; for it was then and there he first saw Jane Welsh, a sight, he acknowledged, for ever memorable to him.

'In the ancient County Town of Haddington, July 14, 1801, there was born,' wrote Thomas Carlyle in 1869, 'to a lately wedded pair, not natives of the place but already reckoned among the best class of people there, a little Daughter whom they named Jane Baillie Welsh, and whose subsequent and final name (her own common signature for many years) was Jane Welsh Carlyle, and now so stands, now that she is mine in death only, on her and her Father's Tombstone in the Abbey Kirk of that Town. July 14th, 1801; I was then in my sixth year, far away in every sense, now near and infinitely concerned, trying doubtfully after some three years' sad cunctation, if there is anything that I can profitably put on record of her altogether bright, beneficent and modest little Life, and Her, as my final task in this world.'[3] The picture was never completed by the master-hand; the 'effort was too distressing'; so all his notes and letters were handed over to a literary executor.

At the time of Carlyle's introduction to Miss Welsh, she was living with her widowed mother. Her father, Dr John Welsh, came of a good family, and was a popular country physician. Her mother was Grace Welsh of Capelgill, and was reckoned a beautiful, but haughty woman. Their marriage took place in 1800, and their only child, Jane, was born, as we have seen, the year following. Her most intimate friend, Miss Geraldine Jewsbury, tells us that Miss Welsh had 'a graceful and beautifully-formed figure, upright and supple, a delicate complexion of creamy white, with a pale rose tint in the cheeks, lovely eyes full of fire and softness, and with great depths of meaning.' She had a musical voice, was a good talker, extremely witty, and so fascinating in every way that a relative of hers told Miss Jewsbury that every man who spoke to her for five minutes felt impelled to make her an offer of marriage. Be that as it may, it is certain that Miss Jane Welsh had troops of suitors in and around the quiet country town. She always spoke of her mother with deep affection and great admiration. Her father she reverenced, and he was the only person during her girlhood who had any real influence over her. This, then, was the young lady of whom Thomas Carlyle carried back to Edinburgh a sweet and lasting impression. They corresponded at intervals, and Thomas was permitted to send her books occasionally.

Edward Irving used to live in Dr Welsh's house when he taught in the local school, and he led Jeannie—a winsome, wilful lass—to take an interest in the classics. She entertained a girlish passion for the handsome youth, and there can be little doubt that they would have ultimately been married, were it not that the eldest daughter of a Kirkcaldy parson, Miss