|
AT this point the
Autobiography stops, the pen having literally dropped from the dying
Author's hand. It would be vain and presumptuous to attempt to carry
out his purpose—the intended remainder must be counted among the
world's literary losses. But it may be considered proper that the
Editor should briefly notify, for the reader's instruction, the
subsequent events of Carlyle's life, uttering them, as far as
possible, in his own words, by enlivening the narrative with such
passages from his letters and other writings as make the nearest
approach to the characteristics of his Autobiography. The project he
had undertaken for the relief of his brethren from the window-tax
was a tedious and tortuous affair, and cost him much travelling,
talking, and writing before it was effected. If he had lived to tell
the story of his labours, we would have had vivid sketches of many a
little scene and character, so adorning as almost to conceal the
train of unimportant and uninteresting transactions. But no one
would be thanked in the present day for extracting the tenor of the
narrative out of the official despatches, committee minutes, and
other like documents in which it is imbedded.
It is not until the
year 1782 that this matter is wound up, in a letter to Dundas,
thanking him for the assistance, "without which," he says, "I could
not have so satisfactorily concluded my little affair in London;"
and as this letter, after some news about the General Assembly and
the new Moderator, breaks in upon some larger political
transactions, a passage from it may not be unacceptable. It refers
to a project for sending Dundas out as Governor-General of India.
"I don't know well
whether to be glad or sorry, to hear it repeated again and again
that you are going out supreme governor of the East Indies, with
full powers. I am sorry you should disappear at this time from our
hemisphere, as I have a chance of being set myself before your
return. I am much more sorry that Britain should lose the advantage
of your virtue and abilities at so critical a period. At the same
time, I must own that this is but a partial view of the subject ;
for when I consider how many millions of the human race look for a
guardian angel to raise and perfect them, I see a shining path in
the East that leads to a pinnacle of glory and virtue. Go, then, and
pursue the way that Providence points out. Your health may be in
danger, but, with a principality, who thinks of health? besides, a
sore throat or a collie is as dangerous in obscurity."
The window-tax
discussion does not, however, afford many extracts so good as this ;
and, indeed, the greater portion of Carlyle's existing
correspondence lies under a like disqualification to be the
companion of his animated Autobiography. The letters which the world
would pick out from the correspondence of a man of rare gifts are
those written to his familiar friends; but he himself is apt to
preserve as the more important the correspondence upon business
affairs affecting public or private interests at the moment. Hence,
among the stores placed at the Editor's disposal, by far the larger
portion refer to matters of local interest—literally parochial
affairs, which called for dutiful and laborious attention in their
day, but cannot be resuscitated with either profit or pleasure at
the present time. There are, for instance, the proceedings of a
presbytery or a synod to be watched and managed: Some leading man in
the Church court has got into bad hands, and must be rightly
advised, otherwise harm will come of it: The right man must be
thoroughly backed for this perferment—the wrong man will get that if
So-and-so be not spoken to, and so forth. Such affairs had their
little world of living interest, now no more.
It is sufficient to
say that Carlyle had a great voice in the selection of the men who
were either to be brought into the Church by ordination to charges,
or who were to be advanced as leaders from having proved themselves
worthy in the ranks. No one will expect an inquiry to he here
pursued into the manner in which he exercised in each case the
influence he possessed. If the lighter motives had some effect the
heavier would have a greater; and it would be wrong to suppose that
his patronage was exercised on no better ground than what is stated
in the following little characteristic passage, though he no doubt
thought the considerations stated in it should have their own
weight:-
"Lord Douglas is here
and well. A church of his in the Merse, called Preston, is vacant
just now. The incumbent was so very old that it is more than
probable that he may be engaged, otherwise perhaps your Grace might
take the opportunity of providing for Mr. Young, the handsome young
man and fine preacher, who is a native of Dalkeith. My presentiment
in his favour has been confirmed by inquiry. If Lord Douglas should
be engaged, suppose you should try for Bothwell, which can't be long
of being vacant ? I think it of great consequence to a noble family,
especially if they have many children, to have a sensible and
superior clergyman settled in their parish. Young is of that stamp,
and might be greatly improved in taste, and elegance of mind and
manners, by a free entree to Lady Douglas. The late Lord Hopetoun,
who was a man of superior sense, was very unfortunate in his first
lady's time. By some accident the highflying clergy were chiefly
admitted about them. Weak heads and warm imaginations lie open to
the zeal of fanaticism or the arts of hypocrites. He found his error
when it was too late, and was sorry he had not encouraged the
Wisharts and Blairs to come about him."
Carlyle's influence
in ecclesiastical promotion appears not to have been entirely
limited to Scotland. Occasionally his distinguished friends would
find a place for a student who could not get on with the
Presbyterian system, in the more manageable Church of England and
Ireland; as, for instance:-
"There is an old
assistant of mine, J-- W-- by name, who, having grown impatient at
not obtaining a church here, took orders in the Church of
England—sold a little patrimony he had, and bought a chaplaincy to a
regiment. Since that time he has been always unhappy. He was for
some years in Minorca, where he lost his health. He followed the
regiment to Ireland, where he lost his sight. He came to Bath and
recovered his health and sight, but lost his substance. He applied
to me for God's sake to get him a curacy anywhere, that he might be
able to pay for a deputy-chaplain. I recommended him to a friend of
mine in London, who procured the curacy of Hertford for him. Soon
after he wrote me from thence that he was so much despised in that
town that he was in danger of hanging himself."
He was to have got
this hopeful personage on the Chancellor's list, but there were
technical obstacles ; and now if the correspondent would obtain for
"my poor despised friend a small living of £100 a-year or so," it
would be "to serve a worthy creature, humble as he is."
There are more
pleasing associations connected with a scrap of writing—undated, but
of course belonging to a late period of life. Every one will
recognise him who is its object, though he is more aptly remembered
as the venerable pastor and philosopher than as the young Oxonian.
"Dr. Carlyle begs
leave to recommend Mr. Alison [Rev. Archibald Alison returned to
Edinburgh in 1800 to become senior clergyman of the Episcopal Chapel
in the Cowgate —at that time the most fashionable church in the
City. He removed to St. Paul's, York Place, when the congregation
built that church, where he ministered till 1831. An interesting
sketch of Mr. Alison is given in Lord Cockburn's Memorials.] to Mr.
Dundas's best offices, as a young divine bred in the Church of
England, of uncommon merit and accomplishments. After the usual
academical education at Edinburgh, Mr. Alison studied two years at
Glasgow, and from thence was sent as an exhibitioner to Baliol
College in Oxford, where he resided for nine or ten years, and where
he received ordination."
In another letter we
find him thanking Dundas for taking "Archy" by the hand, and
explaining that it will thus, in this instance, be unnecessary to
draw upon the patronage of Sir William Pulteney, with whom also
Carlyle had corresponded about his young friend. [It has been said,
however, on good authority, that it was to Pulteney that Alison owed
his promotion in England. See Memoir of Alison in the fragment of a
Biographical Dictionary by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful
Knowledge. In a letter by Pulteney, dated 22nd June 1784, there is
this pleasant account of Alison's marriage to the daughter of Dr.
John Gregory:—"Andrew Stewart and I accompanied Mr. Alison to
Thrapston, and the marriage took place on the 19th by a licence from
the Archbishop of Canterbury. I conducted them afterwards to their
residence, and we left them next morning after breakfast as happy as
it is possible for people to be. Mr. Alison was obliged to come
round by London in order to take an oath at granting the licence,
and I was glad of the opportunity which the journey afforded me of
making an acquaintance with him ; for though I had little doubt that
bliss G. had made a proper choice, yet I wished to be perfectly
satisfied; and the result is that I think neither you nor Mr. Nairne
have said a word too much in his favour."]
In the same letter in
which he thus holds out a hand to a young aspirant, he pleads at
greater length and with deeper earnestness the cause of his old
friend Adam Ferguson, whom he expected to die before he had been
paid the debt of fame and fortune which the world owed to him, or
even realised the means of securing his family from destitution. It
so happened that Ferguson, though attacked with hopeless-looking
symptoms in middle life, wore on to a good old age; and that,
through various chances, he became wealthy in his declining years.
That the world had done gross injustice to The History of the Roman
Republic, was a fixed opinion with Carlyle; and, in pleading for its
author's family, he says:-
"I do not know by
what fatality it is that the best and most manly history (with some
imperfections, no doubt) of modern times, has been so little sought
after. The time will come when it will be read and admired. That
time, I hope, is not at a great distance. Germany is the country
where it will receive its name; and when the report returns from the
learned there, the book will begin to be prized. But Ferguson may be
dead by that time, and an Irish edition may glut the market. I was
always in hopes that some of you would have quoted it in the House
of Commons, as Charles Fox did Principal Watson's Philip, for some
of his purposes in the time of the American War. I am sure
Ferguson's contains ten times more instruction for the statesman and
legislator than the other does; but I have been disappointed."
By far the greater
portion of Carlyle's letters which have been preserved relate, as
has been said, to matters of business—such as those dealt with in
the preceding quotations, or even affairs of still less interest.
Some bundles of epistles, addressed to him, show that he had a wide
correspondence of a lighter cast; and he is reported to have been
famous as a fashionable letter writer—a highly-prized accomplishment
in his day. Much of this correspondence was with the female
aristocracy, including members of the two great Scottish ducal
families, Argyle and Buccleuch. He was, indeed, as he said his
parishioners hinted against him when he became their clergyman,
partial to the company of his superiors. But if he liked the
aristocracy, the aristocracy liked him; the two met half-way, and he
was a man who could hold his own with them. Thus he occupied the
happy though often rather precarious position, of one who is alike
removed, on the one hand, from the tuft-hunter, possessing nothing
but sycophancy to give for the countenance he seeks; and on the
other hand, from the surly cynic, who cannot trust that his
independence will hold good beyond the circuit of his tub. No doubt,
whatever society one keeps, one must give a deference to its laws
and customs—which is a different thing from paying undue deference
to its individual members. There was, in that day, among the
enlightened women of rank who cultivated men of genius, a propensity
to get the most out of them, by drawing upon their talents, in
conversation and correspondences of a peculiarly allegorical, or, as
he terms it, "Parnassian" character, a little like the euphuism of
the seventeenth century, though not so absolutely hard and
unnatural. Moderate as it was, however, it is difficult to suppose a
person of Carlyle's acute and sarcastic character well adapted to
it; and we can suppose him as little at home in it, as his friend
David Hume, when he had to perform the Sultan between two rival
beauties in Madame de Tesse's salon. Such efforts of this kind as he
unbent himself to, appear, however, to have been very acceptable.
Here, for instance, follows a letter to his amiable friend, Lady
Frances Scott. In pursuance of some jocular fiction, of which the
point is not now very obvious, he had been addressing her as the
ghost of Mrs. M'Cormick—an elderly female, whose death has been
brought about by the neglect and cruelty of the
lady—characteristics, of course, entirely the reverse of her true
qualities. She writes back "from the Elysian fields," where "we have
never ceased gliding about the heavens with the happy spirits our
companions; for you must know that the chief source of happiness
here arises from the power which our wings give us of never being
two minutes in a place." There is a certain materiality, however, in
the elysium, for the angels or goddesses are looking after affluent
gods with broken constitutions; while impoverished deities of the
male sex worship where there is neither youth nor beauty, but plenty
of wealth, to attract. Olvmpian Jove is but a master of the
ceremonies, and "Juno is neither endowed with celestial loveliness
nor awe-inspiring dignity." This is the way of stating that the
family are at the Bath waters, then in their pride, with the
successor of Beau Nash playing the part of Olympian Jove. Carlyle's
answer, instead of aiding and developing the allegory, is apt rather
to scatter its filmy texture by outbreaks of practical sagacity and
homely wit.
"At my return from
the south, ten days ago, I found your ladyship's, dated from
Elysium, which transported me so, that I had to receive sundry
twinges in the region of the heart, by the daily decline of a child
and the grief of her mother, who is the greatest martyr to
sensibility that ever was born, and at last to get a great knock on
the pate by the sudden death of Dr. Gregory, who was our chief stay
and support, before I could recollect that I was still in the body.
were I to wait till I could answer yours from the abodes of the
happy in the manner it deserves, millions of more ghosts might have
time to pass the Stygian ferry. But why should I be mortified, that
as much as heaven is above hell, your ladyship's description should
surpass mine? Though I dare say by this time you imagine that I am
to behave to you as an old humourist, a friend of mine, did long ago
to me. We were in use of corresponding together, and many a
diverting letter I had from him. At last he took a panic about his
son, who was at school here, and wrote me a long letter, complaining
of what he was well informed—viz., that the schoolboys had got
gunpowder, and were in daily use of firing pistols and carabines,
and that they made squibs and crackers, to the infinite danger of
their own lives; and then he quoted me an hundred fatal accidents
that had happened by means of gunpowder, and prayed my interposition
to save the life of his son. As I knew it was impossible to prevent
the evil of which he complained, as three regiments of foot, with a
train of artillery, were encamped in the Links, I first read one of
the most extravagant chapters in all Rabelais, and then wrote him a
letter assuring him that he had not heard the hundred part of the
truth; for that the boys were arrived at the most dangerous and
incorrigible use of powder, and then gave him instances—such as that
they came to church every Sunday with swivel-guns screwed on their
left arms, with which they popped down everybody whom they disliked,
etc. The effect of this letter was that the old gentleman found
himself so far outdone, that it entirely broke up our
correspondence. And when I employed somebody to ask him the reason
of his silence, he said that the young folks nowadays (this was
fifteen years ago) went such lengths in fiction, that it was
impossible to answer them.
"But your ladyship
shall see that I am not in the least mortified by your letter, but
that, on the contrary, I am highly delighted with it, and value it
more than I would do a new volume of the Arabian Nights
Entertainments. Before I left the shades below, I had a peep into
Elysium myself ; and though I did not find things exactly in the
same state your ladyship did, as I happened not to be in the same
region of heaven, that can be no objection; for surely there can be
no Elysium without variety ; but that may possibly be the subject of
another letter. In the mean time, I may give your ladyship some
intelligence of what is going on here.
"By By the by, though
I have no great taste now for that part of bliss, which your
ladyship says consists in everlasting fleeting about by means of the
wings that make a part of the celestial body, yet I remember the
time when I should have thought such a power very material to
happiness. Bless me! how I envied the happy in some island in the
Pacific Ocean—not Atlantic—whom Peter Wilkins represented as having
most powerful and trusty pinions. But in those days I used to be in
love, and thought that wings would make me everywhere present with
my mistress.
I am very glad to
hear that Jupiter is henpecked, since he suffers the name of angel
to be prostituted for gold in his dominions. I suppose he draws a
good round sum by way of tax for liberty to go by that name. We have
known titles of honour sold upon earth, you know, and why not the
privilege of being angels? When they have once given their hands,
they'll not long boast of their angelic appellation.
"No; really we are
very much imposed upon. Happiness does not consist in the place—it
resides in the disposition of the person, and the company. The
material difference in your abode and mine consisted in the long
stories that were such a torment to me, and that you were free of.
' But to return to
sublunary things. First, as to public diversions: I have neither had
time nor inclination to mix with the conversable world in the
capital, near which I reside; so that I can entertain your ladyship
with a very few pieces of news of any kind. You would hear, no
doubt, of the mock masquerade they had some time in January. That
piece of mummery was carried on so ill, that I daresay they won't
attempt another in haste. The two Turks met with rather hard usage,
considering the natural as well as assumed gravity of their
characters. The one was excluded his own house all night by the
custom-house porter, being mistaken for a vagrant Turk who had been
begging on the streets all winter; and the other got a sad
curtain-lecture from his wife for having embraced a religion, even
but in disguise, that allows no souls to women, and allows of four
wives and innumerable concubines.
''The playhouse has
been much frequented since Mrs. Yates arrived, who receives infinite
applause. For though she often appears on the stage more than
half-seas-over, she's not the less agreeable to all the male part of
her audience, who come there a little disguised themselves; and in
this land of obsequious wives, you know, there is no disputing the
taste of the men.
"With respect to the
fine arts, I have reason to believe that cookery is still the
favourite; and as we were a little behind in that article, it is
very right that it should continue to be progressive for some time.
The men of genius and taste who frequent that temple of pleasure
that goes by the name of Fortune's, have subscribed very handsomely
to enable the chief priest there to hire a French cook of the first
accomplishments. There are hundreds of people, indeed, on the point
of starving, but the eminent critics have observed that there is the
greatest race of genius, and that the fine arts thrive best, in the
time of public calamities—such as civil war, pestilence, or famine.
"General Scott, who
is here this winter looking out for another wife to make him uneasy,
gives the most superb, elegant, and refined entertainments that ever
were in this northern region. Poor Mr. Stuart Zoncrief, who had no
other department in the Temple of Fame but that which is allotted to
the makers of great feasts, after witnessing one of the General's
most magnificent repasts—for you're certain he could not be a
partaker—went home and wept for two hours over his vanquished
reputation, sickened, and went to bed, and died, for anything I
know, next day. Dead, he certainly is, to glory! M'Queen the lawyer,
who felt a very different passion from envy, after having devoured
of twenty-seven several dishes, attacked at last ancient pye with so
much vivacity, that he had nigh perished in the cause—at least he
was able to attend no other cause for a fortnight.
"We are to propose to
next General Assembly that a certain deadly sin, for which both men
and women used to do penance and be severely rebuked in the Church,
shall be blotted out of our Statute-Book, and the sin of Gluttony
put in its place.
"As to the state of
learning this winter, I am told there are many poorer students than
usual. But they say they are better boys, and mind the ladies less
than they used to do. The English of that is, I fancy, that as there
are but few men of fortune among them, the aunts and the mothers
don't mind them. The misses, dear angels, I hope, are above valuing
any man but for his personal merit. Lord Monboddo, one of the most
learned judges, is just about publishing a book, in which he
demonstrates that mankind walked originally on all-fours, like other
animals, and had tails like most of them ; that it was most likely
5000 years before they learned to walk in an erect posture, and 5000
more before they could learn the use of speech. The females, he
thinks, might speak two or three centuries sooner."
Here is a specimen of
what may be considered the same order of composition, although it is
varied to suit the taste of a male correspondent. It is taken from
the
"Scroll of a Letter
to Sir JOHN MACPHERSON, Bart. 1797.
"Although one's
correspondence with one's friend should be never so much interrupted
by business or idleness, there are certain occasions when they must
not be neglected, such as marriages and births, and even death
itself. As the last has lately befallen me, though I am happily
restored to life, I think it is proper to announce to you, my very
good friend, my return to this world, and to give you some account
of the slight peep I had into the other. About a month ago I was
suddenly seized, after a hearty dinner, with a dreadful collic,
which lasted for fifty hours, which threatened immediate
dissolution, and actually sent me out of the body for a few minutes.
During that short period (like Mahomet in his dream) I had a view of
Elysium, hanging, as I thought, on the brink of a cloud, and every
moment ready to descend. But, as I saw clearly before me, the first
group I perceived was David Hume, and Adam Smith, and James
Macpherson, lounging on a little hillock, with Col. James Edmonstone
standing before them, brandishing a cudgel, and William Robertson at
David's feet in a listening posture. Edmonstone was rallying David
and Smith, not without a mixture of anger, for having contributed
their share to the present state of the world; the one, by doing
everything in his power to undermine Christianity, and the other by
introducing that unrestrained and universal commerce, which
propagates opinions as well as commodities. The two philosophers,
conscious of their follies, were shrunk into a nutshell, when James
the bard, in the act of raising himself to insult them, perceiving
my grey hairs hanging over them in the cloud, exclaimed, 'Damn your
nonensical palaver; there is Carlyle just coming down, and John Home
and Ferguson cannot be far behind, when I shall have irresistible
evidence for the authenticity of Ossian. Blair, I daresay, is
likewise on the road, and I hope he'll bring his dissertation on my
works along with him, which is worth a thousand of his mawkish
sermons, which are only calculated to catch milk-sops and silly
women.' Upon this Robertson rose to his feet, and seemed to be in
act to speak one of his decisive sentences in favour of the winning
side, when Joseph Black, and Charley Congalton, and Sandy Wood, who
had hold of the skirts of my coat, fearing I should leap down at the
sight of so many of my friends, and carry them after me, made a
sudden and strong pull altogether, and jerked me back into life
again, not without regret at being disappointed in meeting with so
choice a company."
The social habits of
Carlyle were, doubtless, like other men's, much influenced by his
domestic position. It was his lot to taste of more than the average
amount of human sorrow, for he lost all his children at an early
period, and while there were yet above thirty years of his own
earthly pilgrimage to be performed. The last, his son William, born
in 1773, died in 1777. Had it been otherwise, perhaps his memoranda
might not have left traces of so continued a succession of visits
and receptions of guests. While they show him to have been much in
the world, however, they bear no trace of his being addicted in
later life to the social convivialities where males only can be
present; for his faithful partner, Mary, is his almost constant
companion, whether his visits be to a ducal mansion in London, or to
the quiet manse of some old companion. How it continued to fare with
him and with his chosen friends may best be told in one or two
extracts from the letters in which he communicates the passing news
to his correspondents. One of his early companions—a John Macpherson—had
been signally fortunate in life. Getting into the service of the
East India Company, he rose by stages, though not without
unpropitious casualties, until he became Sir John Macpherson, and
the successor of Warren Hastings as Governor of British India. To
him Carlyle thus reports, in 1796, about some of their common
friends:—
"Now for an account
of your old friends, which, if you saw Ferguson as he passed, which
I think you did, I might spare.
"To begin with
Robertson, whom you shall see no more. In one word, lie appeared
more respectable when he was dying than ever he did even when
living. He was calm and collected, and even placid, and even gay. My
poor wife had a desire to see him, and went on purpose, but when she
saw him, from a window, leaning on his daughter, with his tottering
frame, and directing the gardener how to dress some flower-beds, her
sensibility threw her into a paroxysm of grief; she fled upstairs to
Mrs. Russell and could not see him. His house, for three weeks
before be died, was really an anticipation of heaven.
"Dr. Blair is as well
as possible. Preaching every Sunday with increasing applause, and
frisking more with the whole world than ever he did in his youngest
days, no symptom of frailty about him ; and though he was huffed at
not having an offer of the Principality, he is happy in being
resorted to as the head of the university.
"John Home is in very
good health and spirits, and has had the comfort, for two or three
winters, of having Major Home, his brother-in-law, a very sensible
man, in the house with him, which makes him less dependent on
stranger company, which, in advanced years, is not so easy to he
found, nor endured when it is found.
"With respect to
myself, I have had many warnings within these three years, but, on
the whole, as I have only fits of illness, and no disease, I am
sliding softly on to old age, without any remarkable infirmity or
failure, and can, upon occasions, preach like a son of thunder (I
wish I were the Bold Thunderer for a week or two against the vile
levelling Jacobins, whom I abhor). My wife, your old friend, has
been better than usual this winter, and is strong in metaphysics and
ethics, and (can) almost repeat all Ferguson's last book of
Lectures, which do him infinite honour. I say of that book, that if
Reid is the Aristotle, Ferguson is the Plato of Scotch philosophers;
and the Faculty of Arts of Edinburgh have adopted my phrase."
The following, from a
letter to Principal Hill, dated 25th September i8oi, gives an
account of a visit to Lord Melville when he had retired with Pitt on
the formation of the Addington Administration:—
"We had Jesse Bell
and her husband, Mr. Gregg, and their son from London, for ten days,
in the middle of August, which gratified and amused us: and about
the end of it John Home and I had a fine jaunt to Duneira. we set
out on the 25th of August, and returned on the 1st of September, and
were much pleased with our reception everywhere, as well as with the
country, which was then in the highest beauty, and where we had
never been before.
"Our great object, no
doubt, was the retired statesman, whom it delighted us to see so
well and so happy, and as easy and degage as he was in his boyish
days.
"I was afraid that,
like most of ex-ministers, his gaiety might be put on to save
appearances. However, as his was not a fall, but a voluntary and
long-projected retreat, and as he is conscious that his great
exertions have not only saved his own country, but put it in the
power of Europe to save themselves, while the applauses of his
country, universal and unreserved, at once resound his uncorrupted
integrity, as well as his unbounded capacity,—I believe him genuine
and sincere.
"I compared his place
to an eagle's nest, which pleased him. But I did not add, that he
was like the thunder-hearing bird of Jove, whom his master had
allowed to retire awhile, after his war with the giants, to recreate
himself from the toils of war, and sport with his own brood ; but
who, in the midst of carelessness and ease, still throws his eyes
around him, from his airy height, to descry if the regions of the
air are again disturbed, and to watch the first nod of the Imperial
King, to take wing and resume his place in the Chariot of War.
"We passed three days
and three nights with him, one at Ochtertyre and another at Ionzie,
and fain would I have gone down the country, as I had never been
farther up before than at Lord Kinnoul's. But my partner, in spite
of all his heroic tragedies, was too much afraid of the water to
take any other road than Stirling Bridge. The country was truly rich
and yellow with grain, and the harvest far advanced for the 1st of
September.
"Plenty, thank God,
has returned, but I am afraid peace is still at a distance.
"Buonaparte is
entirely governed by personal considerations, and he has still the
chance of an invasion in Ireland to establish his throne awhile. I
can hardly think he will venture to invade Britain. Yet, if Admiral
de Winter should fight an obstinate battle off our coast, and, in
the mean time, a few transports should land with 2000 men anywhere
between this and Newcastle, it might prove very troublesome, while
their main effort was made on Ireland. In the interval left us, we
are in high preparation here, and our camp, with the force in
Edinburgh, are put in condition to act together with effect on the
shortest warning.
"There was a fine
show on Tuesday, as you would see in the papers, and there is to be
a repetition of it on Braid Hills next week.
"Major Elliot, of the
Lanarkshire, said to me that their Tuesday's work was worth all they
had been taught before, and he is a soldier of name."
The reader will have
noticed the keen zest with which Carlyle always watched the politics
of the time, whether home or foreign. It is infinitely to be
regretted, therefore, that he did not bring down his Autobiography
through the French Revolution and the Great War. He would have
spoken, no doubt, entirely on one side, but with that breadth and
fixity of opinion which partakes more of devotion than of mere
partiality or prejudice, and is both respectable and interesting in
the eyes of those who think otherwise. His politics, indeed, were a
political faith that never swerved. While many of his friends were
frightened into their Conservative opinions by the terrors of the
French Revolution, he took and kept his position calmly in the very
front of his party, like a soldier at his post. The resoluteness of
the resistance offered by such men, not only to innovation, but to
the mere raising of the faintest question of the necessity of
matters being as they are, is a thing which it is difficult for men
of any party to realise in the year 1860.
By the Test Act, the
members of the Church of Scotland were in England placed legally in
the same position as other dissenters from the Church. Loving and
admiring his own Church as lie did, it might have been anticipated
that he would rather further than repress a remonstrance by the
General Assembly of 1791, in which they represented that the members
of the Church of Scotland were unequally dealt with, since they
could not hold any office in England without taking the communion
according to the Church of England; while, on the other hand, no
similar compliance was required of Episcopalians holding office in
Scotland. But he was not to be caught by this bait, nor was he to
remain silent while it was held out to the weak and inexperienced.
He came forth not merely in favour of the Test, but in strong
championship of it. It was to be supported upon grounds of
toleration towards the Established Church of England, which well
merited such protection. "In this enlightened and liberal age, when
toleration has softened the minds of men on religious opinions, it
would disgrace the General Assembly to do anything that might seem
to separate the two Established Churches farther from each other.
Their doctrines are nearly the same; and he must be but a very
narrow-minded Presbyterian who, in the various circumstances in
which he might be placed, could not join in the religious worship of
the Church." This doctrine must have been a little startling to
those brethren who inherited even but a small portion of the
doctrine prevalent in his youth—that the bare toleration of
Episcopacy in any shape, and in any portion of the empire, was one
of the great national sins for which Divine vengeance might be
anticipated. Nor is it easy to realise the feelings with which the
representatives of the Covenanters would receive this climax of a
speech delivered in 1791:-
"Nay, Moderator, had
I the talents of, etc., I think I could show that the Test Act,
instead of an evil, is a blessing. The Test Act has confirmed the
Union. The Test Act has cured Englishmen of their jealousy of
Scotsmen, not very ill-founded. The Test Act has quieted the fears
of the Church of England. The Test Act has enlarged and confirmed
the principles of toleration ; so far is it from being a remnant of
bigotry and fanaticism as the memorial would represent. The Act,
sir, has paved the road to office and preferment. The Test Act, sir,
for there is no end of its praises, is the key that opens all the
treasures of the south to every honest Scotchman."
But, in small
matters, the keenness of his antipathy to any innovation or
interference with established authorities might perhaps be even more
distinctly exemplified. For instance, in 1795, a Lady Maxwell
represented to him that certain Highland soldiers at Musselburgh
were in religious destitution from want of a clergyman speaking
Gaelic. She calls them "well-disposed officers, sergeants, and
privates," though it is difficult to suppose that there could then
be commissioned officers unacquainted with the general language of
the empire. She offers the services of an enthusiastic youthful
missionary for the occasion, and this suggested interference with
the established order of things in his Majesty's army and the parish
of Inveresk calls from its minister the following severe rebuke:—
"Dr. Carlyle presents
respectful compliments to Lady Maxwell. lie received her ladyship's
card, in answer to which he has to observe, that she proceeds on
misinformation. The officers who command the several regiments
encamped are too conscientious, and understand their duty too well,
to let their soldiers be without the ordinances of religion in a
tongue they understand. Two chaplains, men of respect and of
standing in the Church, have performed public worship in the Gaelic
language every Lord's day in camp since ever it was established.
"With respect to her
ladyship's design, of the purity of which Dr. Carlyle has not the
smallest doubt, it belongs to the commanding officers to approve of
it or not, and not to him; but perhaps. on being better informed,
Lady Maxwell may not think it necessary to employ her student in
theology, however well qualified she may hold him to be, to
interfere officiously with the duty of the two clergymen of mature
age and acknowledged ability. The young man, at least, seemed not to
abound in prudence, when he pressed so earnestly as he did to be
allowed to visit the condemned prisoners, whom two clergymen had
been anxiously and diligently preparing for their fate for the whole
preceding week.
"Those times of
sedition and mutiny seem to require that every person in office
should be left to do his own duty, and that strangers should be
cautious of intermeddling with the religious tenets or principles of
any set of people, especially those of the army.
"Mussb., July 17,
1795.
"To Lady Maxwell, Dowager of Pollock,
"at Rosemount, near Edinburgh."
If there be something
a little incongruous to the small occasion in the tone of this
rebuke, it will perhaps be admitted that there is something sublime
in the following brief testimony to his principles, delivered to the
General Assembly in 1804—two years after he had passed his eightieth
year, and one before his death:-
"Note of what I said
(Assembly 1804), when an address to his Majesty was read, in which
was an expression, the awful state, or the awful situation of this
country:-
"MODERATOR,—I was so
unlucky as not to be able to attend the committee who drew up this
address, and consequently have heard it now for the first time. In
general I am well pleased with the address. But there is one phrase
in it, which has just now been read, that I do not like. I do not
like to have it known to our enemies, by a public act of this
Assembly, that we think our country in an awful state, which implies
more terror and dismay than I am willing to own. When the Almighty
wields the elements, which are His instruments of vengeance on
guilty nations—when heaven's thunders roll and envelop the world in
fire—when the furious tempest rages, and whelms triumphant navies in
the deep—when the burning mountain disgorges its fiery entrails and
lays populous cities in ashes;—then, indeed, I am overawed: I
acknowledge the right arm of the Almighty: I am awed into reverence
and fear: I am still, and feel that He is God: I am dumb, and open
not my mouth. But when a puny mortal, of no better materials than
myself, struts and frets, and fumes and menaces, then am I roused,
but not overawed; I put myself in array against the vain boaster,
and am ready to say with the high-priest of the poet, I fear God,
and have no other fear'."
The year 1789 became
disagreeably memorable to Carlyle, from his having then been
defeated in an object of ambition, which was near his heart, and, as
he thought, fairly within his reach. This was the appointment to the
office of Clerk to the General Assembly, become vacant by the death
of Dr. Drysdale in whose appointment he had been largely
instrumental. The salary, £80 a-year, was an object to a clergyman
of the Church of Scotland, but the position and influence towards
which the office might be rendered available were of far higher
moment. To understand this, it is only necessary to keep in view,
that the constitution of that Church admits of no heirarchy or
gradation of offices. Every body of men, acting in a collective or
corporate capacity, must, however, have some person presiding over
them to regulate their proceedings, and represent them in their
communications with the rest of the world. For the preservation of
the Presbyterian polity from the encroachments of any such officer,
however, the "Moderator," who presides over the proceedings of each
Church Court, is elected periodically, or for the occasion.
Permanent appointments are given to subordinate officers only, and
each Church Court, from the General Assembly downwards, has thus its
clerk, who is the servant of the collective body. It will naturally
happen, however, under such arrangements, however skilfully devised,
that where one kind of man really is what he professes to be, a
servant, another kind of man becomes a master. Hence, it is often,
on the occasion of such appointments, a question of more
consequence, Who can be kept out? than, Who can be put in?
Carlyle not
unnaturally concluded that he had done services to the Church at
large, and to many of its ministers, which entitled him to expect
this small recompense at their hands.
On the other hand,
for reasons which the tenor of his Autobiography reveals with
sufficient distinctness, there was a large party among the clergy
determined to do all that their strength enabled them to do to
defeat him. The public eminence and extensive social influence on
which his claims rested were, in their eyes, the strongest motives
for resistance. He represented what to them were hostile interests.
These interests were as yet outside; by endowing him with an office
of place and trust among them, they would be bringing the enemy
within the gates. The taking of the vote was a great field-day for
which the forces had been long mustered and disciplined on both
sides—the friends of Government, with Dundas at their head, taking
the part of Carlyle; while the cause of his competitor, Dr. Dalzel,
was led by Harry Erskine, the great jester. It was, however, a
question, not merely of ecclesiastical politics, but of soundness in
opinion and teaching, and on this matter his enemies occupied the
strong position of professing to be sounder in faith and stricter in
conduct than his friend. When such an element as this affects a
contest, it is sure to disturb the original numerical strength of
the parties, by a sort of intimidation. The side professing greater
sanctity frightens its more timid opponents into a compromise. They
are afraid of bringing on themselves the suspicion of
heterodoxy;—they are often conscious of something about themselves
that would not easily endure a hostile scrutiny, and so they
purchase peace by compliance with their natural opponents, or by
keeping out of the way: so Carlyle found it.
The vote stood at
first 145 for Carlyle, and 142 against him, so that he was elected
by a majority of three. He took his place as clerk, and delivered an
address, in which he stated that it had ever been his object in
ecclesiastical courts to correct and abate the fanatical spirit of
his country,—an allusion by no means likely to mitigate the wrath of
his opponents. But the matter was by no means decided. It had been
arranged that there should be a scrutiny of the foundation of each
voter's right of membership, and that the decision of the Assembly
should be as the relative numbers stood after the bad votes were
struck out. It was as if a division of the House of Commons at the
beginning of a session, should stand subject to the deduction of the
votes of all the members who may be afterwards found by an election
committee to be unduly elected. It would be useless to describe the
technicalities of such a process ; but it is pretty clear that, like
the contemporary controverted elections in the House of Commons,
there was no rigid law to govern it, and much of it was decided
rather through casual victories than the application of fixed
general principles. The contest was long and keen, and apparently
not quite decorous, as we may infer from the following short account
of it, in a very moderately-toned work—Dr. Cook's Life of Principal
Hill:—
"In canvassing the
claims on the Commissions to which objections were made, there was
displayed ingenuity that would have clone credit to a more important
cause ; but with this there was mingled a degree of violence,
unworthy of the venerable court in which it was exhibited. The
debates were protracted to a most unusual length, and upon one
occasion, after all regard to order had been cast aside, the
Moderator, with unshaken firmness, exercised the power which he
conceived to be vested in him. He turned to the Commissioner, and
having received his consent that the Assembly should meet at a
certain hour next day, he adjourned the house. Amidst the loudness
of clamour, this step, which none but a man of courage and nerve
would have taken, was applauded; and it probably was useful in
putting some restraint on the angry passions which had before been
so indecently urged. Previous to the scrutiny, the Moderator, having
been asked to declare for whom, in the event of an equality, he
would vote, he replied that he now voted for Dr. Carlyle; thus
unequivocally showing whom he was eager to support, although he
might have avoided thus explicitly giving his voice against Mr.
Dalzel, [See Cockburn's Memorials for a pen portrait of Professor
Dalzel and of the leading churchmen of this period.] for whom he had
a high esteem, and with whom, as Professor of Greek, he had
maintained such kindly intercourse."
Carlyle found his
opponent gaining so surely, that he abandoned the contest. The
result irritated him at first, and his anger was naturally directed
less against his avowed enemies than those who, though ranked of his
own party, had, for the reasons already explained, voted against him
or stayed away. But
while the voice of his friends was still for war, to be carried on
in a new Assembly or in the Court of Session, he wrote to the
all-influential Dundas, recommending peace. "Although the court," he
says, "should sustain themselves judges—and I suppose they would—yet
the suit might prove so very tedious as to render it totally
unworthy of all the trouble, were we even certain of being
victorious in the end. Some people think that next Assembly may, on
the ground of the protest, take up the business and reverse what has
been done by the last; but, God knows, this is not worth while; for
it would oblige me to exert every species of power or interest we
have to bring up an Assembly stronger on our side than the last,
which it would be very difficult to do, as our opponents would exert
themselves to the utmost." In a letter to Dr. Blair, as the
representative of the more zealous of the party, Dundas, while
explaining with his usual practical sagacity the impolicy of
continuing the contest, says—"If Mr. C. were a young man, and the
office £500 a-year instead of £80, I would undertake the cause, and
would certainly carry it; but for such a paltry object it is scarce
worth while to renew such a disagreeable contest."
Two years later,
Carlyle engaged in a contest, in which the clergy as a body were on
his side, against the landed gentry of Scotland. It was inaugurated,
indeed, in 1788, by Sir Harry Moncrieff Wellwood, the most
distinguished member of the opposite party in the Church, in a
pamphlet called Sketch of a Plan for Augmenting the Livings of the
Ministers of the Established Church of Scotland. Since the first
deliberate disposal, after the Reformation, of the ecclesiastical
property of Scotland, there existed a certain amount of revenue or
rent charge, which was stamped with the legal character of being
available to the Church, while it remained in the hands of the
landowners, who were enabled to make their possession fully
nine-tenths of the law. Much of the ecclesiastical history of
Scotland, in fact, clusters round the efforts made on one side to
keep, and on the other to take, this fund. From the beginning, the
zealous protesting barons who had got possession of the property of
the old Church, when desired to give it up for the purposes of the
new, said that such an idea was a fond imagination; and in the same
spirit, modified to the condition of the times, their successors had
treated all efforts to enlarge the incomes of the clergy out of the
"unexhausted teinds," as the chief substance of the fund was
technically termed.
In the General
Assembly, Carlyle adopted the tone that the Church was entitled to
what it demanded ; and that by the help it had given—first, in
establishing the Hanover succession, and next, in supporting law and
order—it had well earned the frank assistance of the Government and
the aristocracy in securing its rights. The following passage is
taken from one of his speeches on this matter:-
"I must confess that
I do not love to hear this Church called a poor Church, or the
poorest Church in Christendom. I doubt very much that, if it were
minutely inquired into, this is really the fact. But, independent of
that, I dislike the language of whining and complaint. We are rich
in the best goods a Church can have —the learning, the manners, and
the character of its members. There are few branches of literature
in which the ministers of this Church have not excelled. There are
few subjects of fine writing in which they do not stand foremost in
the rank of authors, which is a prouder boast than all the pomp of
the Hierarchy.
"We have men who have
successfully enlightened the world in almost every branch, not to
mention treatises in defence of Christianity, or eloquent
illustrations of every branch of Christian doctrine and morals. Who
have wrote the best histories, ancient and modern?—It has been
clergymen of this Church. Who has wrote the clearest delineation of
the human understanding and all its powers?—A clergyman of this
Church. Who has written the best system of rhetoric, and exemplified
it by his own orations?—A clergyman of this Church. Who wrote a
tragedy that has been deemed perfect?—A clergyman of this Church.
Who was the most profound mathematician of the age he lived in?—A
clergyman of this Church. Who is his successor, in reputation as in
office? Who wrote the best treatise on agriculture? Let us not
complain of poverty, for it is a splendid poverty indeed! It is
paupertas fecunda virorum."
The Government
brought in a bill for "the Augmentation of Stipends," but they found
the country gentlemen of Scotland too strong for them, and it was
abandoned. In the General Assembly Carlyle took the opportunity of
dropping some sharp remarks on the ingratitude thus shown to the
Church, and did not spare his friend Dundas. A jocular country
clergyman remarked that nothing better could come of sycophancy to
the aristocracy; and told a story how a poor neighbour of his own,
after a course of servility, had got nothing but castigation in the
end, and found no better remonstrance to make than that which had
been addressed to Balaam—"Am not I thine ass, upon which thou hast
ridden ever since I was thine to this day?" The allusion took, and
was improved by Kay the caricaturist. The Government promised still
to do justice to the clergy, but they had to wait for it until the
year r8io, when the Act was passed for bringing all stipends up to a
minimum of £150 a-year.
On the establishment
of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1783, Carlyle made, through its
Transactions, a very acceptable gift to literature. Johnson, in his
Life of Collins, referred to the loss of an ode on the Superstitions
of the Highlands, which Dr. Warton and his brother had seen, and
"thought superior to his other works, but which no search has yet
found." A poem so wild and sweet—so far beyond the bounds of the
conventionalities of the day, and so full of imagery drawn direct
from nature in her highest and most wayward flights—was not likely
to be quite forgotten by any one who had seen it. Carlyle remembered
having read it in 1749 with Home, to whom it was addressed, and John
Barrow, who had been one of Home's fellow-prisoners in Doune Castle.
[Barrow was "the cordial youth" referred to in the concluding
stanza. One might suppose that he was the same "Barry" whom Carlyle
met in London in 1769, also one of the fugitives from Doune (page
547)But Barrow, according to Carlyle's letter in the "Transactions,"
died paymaster of the forces in the American War of 1756.] After a
search, Carlyle found the actual manuscript of the ode in an
imperfect state. He and Henry Mackenzie set themselves to filling up
the lacuna, and presented it in a complete shape to the Royal
Society. Soon afterwards the ode was published from what was said to
be an original and complete copy, which of course deviated from the
other on the points where Carlvle and Mackenzie had completed it.
This copy was, however, printed anonymously, and its accuracy has
not passed unsuspected. The editor of Pickering's edition of Collins
(1858) says: "The Wartons, however, had read and remembered the
poem, and the anonymous editor dedicated the ode to them, with an
address. As this called forth no protest from the Wartons, it is to
be presumed that they acknowledged the genuineness of the more
perfect copy; and it has for that reason, though not without some
hesitation, been adopted for the text of this edition."
The Royal Society
version has, however, its own interest on the present occasion, as
Carlyle's interpolations afford some little indication, if not of
his poetical capacity, at least of his taste. Here, for instance, is
the concluding stanza, with the, words supplied by Carlyle printed
between commas:-
"All hail, ye scenes
that o'er my soul prevail;
Ye 'spacious' friths and lakes which, far away,
Are by smooth Annan filled, or pastoral Tay,
Or Don's romantic springs, at distance hail !
The time shall come when I, perhaps, may tread
Your lowly glens, o'erhung with spreading broom,
Or o'er your stretching heaths by fancy led:
Then will I dress once more the faded bower,
Where Johnson sat in Drummond's 'social' shade,
Or crop from Teviot's dale each classic flower,'
And mourn on Yarrow's banks ' the widowed maid.'
Meantime, ye powers that on the plains which bore
The cordial youth on Lothian's plains, attend
Where'er he dwell, on hill or lonely muir, 'ro him
I love your kind protection lend,
And, touched with love like mine, preserve my absent friend."
Here is another
specimen of the interpolated passages:-
"'Tis thine to sing
how, framing hideous spells,
In Skye's lone isle the gifted wizard ' sits,'
' Waiting in ' wintry cave 'his wayward fits,'
Or in the depths of Uist's dark forest dwells."
[In the other version
it stands-
'Tis thine to sing
how, framing hideous spells,
In Skye's lone isle the gifted wizard seer,
Lodged in the wintry cave with fatal spear.
Or in the depth of Uist's dark forest dwells."]
Scott said of
Carlyle, that "he was no more a poet than his precentor," a rather
hard saying, about which it is curious to consider that Scott must
certainly have had his mind under the influence of the passage just
cited when he drew his own seer Bryan in the Lady of the Lake
"'Midst groan of
wreck and roar of stream
The wizard waits prophetic dream."
It is observable that
Carlyle's interpolated version has considerably more resemblance to
this than the other has.
We find Carlyle's
contemporary, Smollett, giving him credit in his earlier days for
poetical efforts which cannot be traced home to him. Writing in
1747, Smollett says "I would have been more punctual had it not been
for Oswald the musician, who promised from time to time to set your
songs to music, that I might have it in my power to gratify the
author in you, by sending your productions so improved. Your gay
catches please me much, and the Lamentations of Fanny Gardner has a
good deal of nature in it, though, in my opinion, it might be
bettered. Oswald has set it to an excellent tune, in the Scotch
style; but as it is not yet published, I cannot regale you with it
at present."
Whether the "gay
catches" were of Carlyle's composition or not, there seems to be
little doubt that the ballad of "Fanny Gairdner" was written by his
friend Sir Gilbert Elliot. If Carlyle had been the author, it is
likely that some trace of such a fact would have been found in his
Autobiography, and so, perhaps, of the "gay catches." There is a
small heterogeneous bundle of manuscript verses among Carlyle's
papers—some of them in his own handwriting and some in others. They
are all, so far as the editor is aware, unknown to fame, and, on
consideration, he thought it the better policy not to meddle with
them, since attempts to settle the authorship of manuscript
literature of this kind are apt to be unsatisfactory,—the
conclusions adopted on the most subtle critical induction, being
often upset by some person who has been pottering among old
magazines and newspapers.
It would have been
extremely interesting if Carlyle had brought down his Autobiography,
to have had his remarks on the new literary dynasty of which he
lived to see the dawn. The letters written to him show that he
interested himself in the Lay of the Last Minstrel, and in Southey's
early poems, but we have not his own criticisms on them. The
following on Wordsworth, however, is surely interesting. It is in a
letter addressed by Carlyle to "Miss Mitchelson:"
"I must tell you, who
I know will sympathise with me, that I was very much delighted
indeed, on the first sight of a new species of poetry, in 'The
Brothers,' and 'The Idiot Boy,' which were pointed out to me by
Carlyle Bell, as chiefly worthy of admiration. I read them with
attention and was much struck. As I call every man a philosopher,
who has sense and observation enough to add one fact relating either
to mind or body, to the mass of human knowledge, so I call every man
a poet, whose composition pleases at once the imagination and
affects the heart. On reading 'The Brothers,' I was surprised at
first with its simplicity, or rather flatness. But when I got a
little on, I found it not only raised my curiosity, but moved me
into sympathy, and at last into a tender approbation of the
surviving brother, who had discovered such virtuous feelings, and
who, by his dignified and silent departure, approached the sublime.
After being so affected, could I deny that this was poetry, however
simply expressed? Nay, I go farther, and aver that, if the narration
had been dressed in a more artificial style, it would hardly have
moved me at all.
"When I first read
'The Idiot Boy,' I must confess I was alarmed at the term as well as
the subject, and suspected that it would not please, but disgust.
But when I read on, and found that the author had so finely selected
every circumstance that could set off the mother's feelings and
character, in the display of the various passions of joy and
anxiety, and suspense and despair, and revived hope and returning
joy, through all their changes, I lost sight of the term Idiot, and
offered my thanks to the God of Poets for having inspired one of his
sons with a new species of poetry, and for having pointed out a
subject on which the author has done more to move the human heart to
tenderness for the most unfortunate of our species, than has ever
been done before. He has not only made his Idiot Boy an object of
pity, but even of love. He has done more, for he has restored him to
his place among the household gods whom the ancients worshipped."
It may here be proper
to say a few words on a. matter not likely to have been directly
alluded to by Carlyle himself--his personal appearance and
deportment. They are of more than usually important elements in his
biography, since, according to the tenor of some traditions and
anecdotes, his remarkable personal advantages exercised a great
influence both on himself and others. The portrait after Martin,
engraved by W. Roffe, represents a countenance eminently endowed
with masculine beauty. His appearance has been hitherto chiefly
known to the present generation through the Edinburgh Portraits of
Kay. This limner had the peculiar faculty while preserving a
recognisable likeness, of entirely divesting it of every vestige of
grace or picturesqueness which nature may have bestowed on it. In
this instance he is not, however, quite successful; for even from
his flat etchings, the "preserver of the Church from fanaticism"
comes forth a comely man with a rather commanding presence.
Sir Walter Scott has
left a colloquial sketch of him, which, though of the briefest, is
broad and colossal as a scrap from the pencil of Michael Angelo. He
is discoursing of the countenances of poets; some that represented
the divinity of genius, and others that signally failed in that
respect. "Well," said he, the grandest demigod I ever saw was Dr.
Carlyle, minister of Musselburgh, commonly called Jupiter Carlyle,
from having sat more than once for the king of gods and men to Gavin
Hamilton ; and a shrewd clever old carle was lie, no doubt, but no
more a poet than his precentor." The sitting to Gavin Hamilton is
improbable. Had Carlyle been accustomed to meet this great painter,
something would certainly have been said about him in the
Autobiography. In what is probably a variation of the same
tradition, it is said that a sculptor accosted him on the streets of
London and requested him to sit for Olympian Jove. The late Chief
Commissioner Adam, in a few anecdotes, called The Gift of a
Grandfather, which he printed at a press of his own for private
distribution, says, "On some particular occasion, I don't exactly
recollect what, he was one of a mission upon Church affairs to
London, where they had to attend at St. James's in the costume of
their profession. His portly figure, his fine expressive
countenance, with an aquiline nose, his flowing silver locks, and
the freshness of the colour of his face, made a prodigious
impression upon the courtiers; but," adds the Coinmissioner, "it was
the soundness of his sense, his honourable principles, and his
social qualities, unmixed with anything that detracted from, or
unbecoming, the character of a clergyman, gave him his place among
the worthies."
Besides the picture
already referred to, Martin painted another portrait of him, far
more ambitious, but not so pleasing. In the Autobiography he
mentions his sitting for it, much as Sheridan spoke of his having
undergone two operations—the one sitting for his portrait, the other
getting his hair cut (p. 548). Of the completion of this work he
writes to his wife, on the 7th of April 1770: "My picture is now
finished for the exhibition. It looks like a cardinal, it is so
gorgeously dressed. It is in a pink damask night-gown, in a scarlet
chair. Martin thinks it will do him more good than all the pictures
he has done." Besides the likenesses by Kay and Martin, there was a
portrait by Skirving, of which an engraving—not of much merit—is in
the hands of some collectors. In an undated letter Lord Haddington
says: "I am much obliged to you for recollecting your promise of
sitting to Raeburn, and beg that it may be a head done on canvas of
the ordinary size. I mean it to hang as an ornament in my new
library, and that size will answer best." Accordingly, there are two
entries in the Diary: "1796, May 19.---Began to sit to Raeburn for
Lord Haddington." "9th June.—Sat with Raeburn for last time." A
letter from Lady Douglas (his old friend, Lady Frances Scott),
written in February 1805, a short time before his death, refers to a
likeness by an artist who was living within the past twelve years.
"I have received your bust from Henning, and think it very
strikingly like; but I do not think that he has quite done justice
to the picturesque appearance of your silver locks, which, in wanton
ringlets, wave as the vine casts her tendrils.' If I have time, I
will go and see his drawing while I am at Dalkeith."
His Autobiography was
the great occupation, and apparently also the great enjoyment, of
the concluding years of his life. He began it, as the opening
announces, in the year 1800, when he was entering on his
seventy-ninth year; and he appears to have added to it from time to
time, until within a few weeks of his death. The last words written
in his own handwriting, which became very tremulous, are about "Lord
North's having become Premier in the beginning of the year 1770" (p.
559). The few remaining paragraphs have been written to dictation.
It will naturally
have surprised the reader that, at so advanced an age, a man who had
not done much in early life to give him the facilities of a
practised composer, should have written with so much vigour,
eloquence, and point. At the same time, the sort of
contemporary-like freshness with which he realises scenes over which
long years, crowded with other recollections, had passed, looks like
a phenomenon unexampled in literature. But there are reasons for
these characteristics. The editor has convinced himself that the
favourite scenes and events which Carlyle describes had been from
the first forming themselves in his mind, and even resolving
themselves into sentences, which would become mellowed in their
structure and antithesis, by the more than obedience to the nonumque
/ rematur in annum. The habit acquired by a clergyman of the Church
of Scotland, who had to preach sermons committed to memory, would
form the practice of retaining finished pieces of composition in the
mind. This view of the literary growth of the work, though
originating in a general impression from its whole tenor, can be
supported by a few distinct incidents of evidence. The chief of
these is the repetition at considerable intervals of the same scene
or anecdote, in almost the same words, and with the more
characteristic and emphatic expressions identical. Farther; there is
a separate manuscript of his Autobiography, down to the year 1735,
cited in the notes as Recollections. These were written at different
times, and partly, it would seem, before he began the present work.
They were prepared for the amusement of his friend Lady Frances
Douglas; and, expanding into rhetorical decorations and jocular
allusions—probably intended to enhance their interest in the special
eyes for which they were destined—they are far inferior, except in a
few passages, to the corresponding portion of the Autobiography. It
is evident, however, that they are substantially the same material
inflated for the occasion.
In fact, the amount
of repetition in the Autobiography, and the absence of general order
throughout, show that the author did not retain the full faculty of
arranging the collection of finished compositions stored up in his
mind. When there is virtually verbatim repetition, the duplicate of
the passage has been omitted in the printing. But it was impossible,
without depriving the work of its racy charms, to obliterate every
second going over of the same ground, or even to group together the
dispersed passages which bear upon the same matter, and which might,
had the author written at an earlier and more active time of life,
have been fused by him into each other. For the precision with which
he notified dates and places he seems to have been indebted to a
series of accurate diaries. There exists at least a succession of
diaries, from the sojourn in London in the midst of which the
Autobiography stops, down to the time when he could no longer write.
It is likely enough that these had predecessors; they may have been
lost sight of from his having taken them out of their repository for
the purpose of consulting them in the composition of his
Autobiography. The diaries which exist are of the very briefest
kind, intended evidently for no other eye but his own, and
containing no more words or even letters than might be sufficient to
recall to memory the dates and sequence of the events of his life.
The existence of this
Autobiography has been well known, and there have been many
expressions of surprise by authors, from Sir Walter Scott downwards,
why it had not been made public. Perhaps it is better that it should
have waited. It is easy to sympathise with a reluctance to have
published some portions of it half a century ago. When a man leaves
behind him his experience and opinions as to his contemporaries in
an outspoken book—as this certainly is—the manuscript is apt to be
dismantled of one ornament after another, to spare the feelings of
the surviving kindred. In this way records of individual conduct,
which it might be cruel to publish immediately, are lost to the
world; while, if they were preserved until the generation liable to
be distressed by their publication have departed, they might be
given forth without offence. What at one time is personal,
irritating, and even cruel, becomes, after a generation or two has
departed, only a valuable record of the social and moral condition
of a past period. Though the popular expectation about such records
is, that they only exist to remind the later generation of pristine
times and departed virtues, yet the account of personal follies and
vices which they may contain have their own weight and value as part
of the history of the period.
While he was
struggling through increasing years and infirmities with his too
long postponed task, the last and greatest of his domestic
calamities overtook him in the death of his wife, on the 31st day of
January 1804. For once the hard brevity of the diary is softened by
a touch of nature. "She composed her features into the most placid
appearance, gave me her last kiss, and then gently going out, like a
taper in the socket, at 7 breathed her last. No finer spirit ever
took flight from a clay tabernacle to be united with the Father of
all and the spirits of the just."
All was done to
brighten his few remaining days that the affectionate solicitude of
relations and dear friends could do. His nephew, Mr. Carlyle Bell,
was all to him that a son could be, and held that place in his
affection. Besides the scanty remnant of his old contemporary
friends, there rose around him a cluster of attached followers among
the younger clergy, foremost and best beloved of whom was John Lee,
the late learned and accomplished head of the University of
Edinburgh, who has himself just passed from among us, well stricken
in years. Addressing his good friend Lady Frances at this time, he
thus alludes to his nephew and Lee: "I, who have now acquired a kind
of personal greatness, by means of the infirmities of age, which
make me dependent, have by that very means acquired all the
trappings of greatness. For, besides my nephew, [Carlyle Bell, W.S.,
for twenty-five years joint city-clerk of Edinburgh (see page 433).]
who is my governor, nurse, and treasurer, I have got likewise a
trusty friend and an able physician, an uncommonly good divine and
an eminent preacher—all in the person of one young man, whom I have
taken to live with me." He then touches on a matter which still
afforded him an interest in the world—the completion of the new
church for his parish. Its slender spire is a conspicuous object for
many miles around. "By the first Sunday of August I intend, God
willing, to gratify my people by opening my new church, if it were
only with a short prayer (for Othello's occupation's gone), when I
shall have been 57 years coinplete minister of this parish." But it
was not to be. Among the last entries in his brief diary in 1805,
are, "25th July—John Home and Mrs. Home; 27th—George Hill called
going east." Next day, the entry is "very ill;" for some days
afterwards, "no change;" and the last entry, as distinct as any, is
"August 12th and 13th, the same." He died on the 25th. So departed
one who, if men are to be esteemed, not by the rank which external
fortune has given them or the happy chances they have seized, but by
the influence they have imparted from mere personal character and
ability, is certainly one of the most remarkable on record. Born in
a simple manse, he remained all his days that type of humble
respectability—a village pastor; nor does he seem ever to have
desired a higher sphere. His lot was not even cast on any of those
wild revolutionary periods which give men in his position a place in
history; nor did he attempt any of those great ventures for literary
distinction in which many of his comrades were so successful. It
seems to have been his one and peculiar ambition that lie should
dignify his calling by bringing it forth into the world, and making
for it a place along with rank, and wealth, and distinction of every
kind. This object he carried through with a high hand; and scarcely
a primate of the proud Church of England could overtop in social
position and influence the Presbyterian minister of Inveresk.
He was laid beside
his long-departed children and the faithful partner of his days, in
his own churchyard, which he had always loved for the beauty of the
prospect it overlooks. The following inscription, composed by his
friend Adam Ferguson, was engraved upon his tomb:—
|
