CARLYLE, TnomAs (1795-1381). A Scot tish man of letters. He was born at Ecclefeehan, Dumfriesshire, Scotland. December 4, 1795. Edu cated first at the village school, and after wards at Annan, he passed, in 1309, to Edin burgh University, with a view to entering the Scottish Church. Here he studied irregularly, but with amazing avidity. The stories which are related of his immense reading are almost fabulous. About the middle of his theological curriculum, Carlyle felt wholly disinclined to be come a clergyman, and, after a short period spent in teaching at Annan, and later at Kirkcaldy, where he formed a lifelong friendship with Ed ward Irving. he went to Edinburgh and embraced literature as a profession. His first efforts were contributions to Brewster's Ency•lopa.dia. In 132-1 lie published a translation of Legendre's Geometry, to which he prefixed an essay on pro portion, mathematics having, during his college years, been a favorite study with him. In 1823. 24 appeared in the London Magaz,ine his Life of Schiller; and in 1324 his translation of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. In 1325 the Life of Schiller was recast, and published in a separate form. It was very highly praised; indeed, one can dis cern in the criticisms of the book a dawning recog nition of the genius of Carlyle. The translation of ll'iniebn Meister met with a somewhat dif ferent fate. De Quincey, in one of his acrid and capricious moods, attacked both Goethe and his translator; while Jeffrey, in the Fdinrbnryte Iferien-, admitting Carlyle to be ''a person of tal ents," slashed in ea•alier fashion at the book. It is one of the most excellent translations of a foreign work in the English language. In 1s26 Carlyle .1:1 Ile hta I Ile Welsh. a lineal de. seendant of John Knox, and during the same year r appeared his ,xpef-inm ns of PO.
From 1828 to 1534 lie resided at Craigen puttoeh, a small estate in Dunifrie,shire. belong ing to his wife—the nook in Britain." as he says himself in a letter to Goethe. Ilere Carlyle n•volved in his mind the great questions in philosophy. literature, social life, and politics, to the elucidation of \VII 4/11—atter his own singu lar fashion—he earnestly dedicated his whole life. Dere also lie continued to write, for va rious magazine,, the splendid series of critical and biographical essays which he had begun two ea Is Lei/ For this work he was admirably equipped. Besides possessing an exact knowl edge of the German language, he was also in spired by the conviction that the literature of Germany, in depth, truthfulness, sincerity. and earnestness of purpose, was greatly superior to What was admired and relished at home. He had, moreover, a genius for writing literary por traits. Through him England discovered Ger many. One of his most beautiful, eloquent, and solid essays. written at Craigenputtoch, was that
on Burns lEdinburgh Ierlone, 1S2S). It has given the tone to all subsequent criticism of the Scottish poet. But his •hef-d'a-urre, written on the moorland farm, was .5artm. Wm! has ("The Tailor Done Over," the title of an old Scottish song). This work, which first appeared in •rascr's .11aga....ine (1533-34), is, like most of Car lyle's later productions, an indescribable mix tu•e of the sublime and the grotesque. It pro fesses to be a history or biography of a certain Ilerr Teufelsdriickh ("Devil's Dirt"), professor in the of Weissniebtwo ("Kenna quhair"). and contains the manifold opinions, speculations, inward agonies. and trials of that strange personap—or rather of Carlyle himself. The whole book quivers with tragic pathos, sol emn aspiration, or riotous humor. In 1834 Car lyle reimived to London. taking a house in Cheyne Row, Chelsea. In 1837 appeared The Er( n•h Nothing can be more gor geous than the style of this 'prose epie.' A fiery enthusiasm pervades it now softened with ten derness, and again darkened with grim mockery, making it throughout the most wonderful image of that wild epoch. Carlyle looks on the ex national wrath as a work of the di\ inn Nemesis, who "in the fullness of tims" destroys, with sacred fury, the accumulated falsehoods of centuries. To him, therefore. the revolution is a "truth clad in hell-fire." During the same year he delivered in London a series of lectures on German literature: in 1S3S another series on IIisto•g of Literature, or the ;:ue rissir, riods of European Culture: in 1539, another on The liuroIutions of Jimicra Europe. and a fourth in 1840, on Heroes, //cro-ll'orship, and the Heroic. in History: of these Carlyle pre pared only the last for pollination (1541). In the meantime he had published Chartism (1539). In 1543 followed PII st and Present, which, like its predecessor, showed the deep, anxious, sorrow ful interest Carlyle was taking in the actual condition of his countrymen. In 1545 he pub lished what is considered by many his nta,ter ph.ce. Olirer cromwell's Letters and Sp, eches, Elucidations and a Connecting Narratire. The II-sea Tell 11 in this hook is something but the author was nobly rewarded for his toil by the abundant admiration given to his work. In 1850 appeared the Latter-Day Pamphlets, the fiercest, nue.t sardonic, most furious of all his writings. These vehement papers were followed tin. 11//x I. year by the /Jilt' of .sterling, calm and tender ill tune. For many ?ears Carlyle had been at work on the History of Frederick the Great. The vast undertaking, re sulting in six volumes, was at length carried through (1555-65). In 1565 Carlyle was elected Lord Boehm of Edinburgh University.